Missing, Mrs. Humphry Ward [free e books to read online .TXT] 📗

upon his face, and trying the while to stamp on memory the little white house where Nelly lay, the trees overhanging it, the mountain tops beyond the garden wall.


CHAPTER V

'Is Mrs. Sarratt in?' asked Miss Martin of Mrs. Weston's little maid, Milly.

Milly wore a look of animation, as of one who has been finding the world interesting.

'She's gone a walk--over the bridge, Miss.'

'Has she had news of Mr. Sarratt?'

'Yes, Miss,' said the girl eagerly. 'He's all right. Mrs. Sarratt got a telegram just a couple of hours ago.'

'And you think I shall find her by the lake?'

Milly thought so. Then advancing a step, she said confidentially--

'She's been dreadfully upset this two days, Miss. Not that she'd say anything. But she's looked------'

'I know. I saw her yesterday.'

'And it's been a job to get her to eat anything. Mrs. Weston's been after her with lots of things--tasty you know, Miss--to try and tempt her. But she wouldn't hardly look at them.'

'Thank you, Milly'--said Miss Martin, after a pause. 'Well, I'll find her. Is Miss Cookson here?'

Milly's candid countenance changed at once. She frowned--it might have been said she scowled.

'She came the day Mr. Sarratt went away, Miss. Well of course it's not my place to speak, Miss--but _she_ don't do Mrs. Sarratt no good!' Miss Martin couldn't help a smile--but she shook her head reprovingly all the same, as she hastened away. Milly had been in her Sunday-school class, and they were excellent friends.

Across the Rotha, she pursued a little footpath leading to the lakeside. It was a cold day, with flying clouds and gleams on hill and water. The bosom of Silver How held depths of purple shadow, but there were lights like elves at play, chasing each other along the Easedale fells, and the stony side of Nab Scar.

Beside the water, on a rock, sat Nelly Sarratt. An open telegram and a bundle of letters lay on her lap, her hands loosely folded over them. She was staring at the water and the hills, with absent eyes, and her small face wore an expression--relaxed and sweet--like that of a comforted child, which touched Miss Martin profoundly.

'So you've heard?--you poor thing!' said the elder woman smiling, as she laid a friendly hand on the girl's shoulder.

Nelly looked up--and drew a long deep breath.

'He's all right, and the battalion's going to have three weeks' rest--behind the lines.'

Her dark eyes shone. Hester Martin sat down on the turf beside her.

'Capital! When did you hear last?'

'Just the day before the "push." Of course he couldn't tell me anything--but somehow I knew. And then the papers since--they're pretty ghastly,' said Nelly, with a faint laugh and a shiver. 'The farm under the hill there'--she pointed--'you know about them?'

'Yes. I saw them after the telegram,' said Miss Martin, sadly. 'Of course it was the only son. These small families are too awful. Every married woman ought to have six sons!'

Nelly dropped her face out of sight, shading it with her hands. Presently she said, in a dreamy voice of content--

'I shall get a letter to-morrow.'

'How do you know?'

Nelly held out the telegram, which said--

'All safe. Posted letter last night. Love.'

'It _can't_ take more than forty-eight hours to come--can it?' Then she lifted her eyes again to the distant farm, with its white front and its dark patch of yews.

'I keep thinking of _their_ telegram--' she said, slowly--'and then of mine. Oh, this war is too _horrible!'_ She threw up her hands with a sudden wild gesture, and then let one of them drop into Hester Martin's grasp. 'In George's last letter he told me he had to go with a message across a bit of ground that was being shelled. He went with a telephonist. He crossed first. The other man was to wait and follow him after an interval. George got across, then the man with the telephone wire started, and was shot--just as he reached George. He fell into George's arms--and died. And it might have been George--it might have been George just as well! It might be George any day!'

Miss Martin looked at her in perplexity. She had no ready-made consolations--she never had. Perhaps it was that which made her kind wrinkled face such a welcome sight to those in trouble. But at last she said--'It is all we women can do--to be patient--and hope--not to let our courage go down.'

Nelly shook her head.

'I am always saying that to myself--but! when the news comes--_if_ it comes--what good will that be to me! Oh, I haven't been idle--indeed I haven't,' she added piteously--'I've worked myself tired every day--just not to think!'

'I know you have,' Miss Martin pressed the hand in hers. 'Well, now, he'll be all safe for a fortnight------'

'Perhaps three weeks,' Nelly corrected her, eagerly. Then she looked round at her new friend, a shy smile lighting up her face, and bringing back its bloom.

'You know he writes to me nearly every day?'

'It's the way people have--war or no war--when they're in love,' said Hester Martin drily. 'And you--how often?'

'_Every_ day. I haven't missed once. How could I?--when he wants me to write--when I hear so often!' And her free hand closed possessively, greedily, over the letters in her lap.

Hester Martin surveyed her thoughtfully.

'I wouldn't do war-work all day, if I were you,' she said at last. 'Why don't you go on with your sketching?'

'I was going to try this very afternoon. Sir William said he would give me a lesson,' was the listless reply.

'He's coming here?'

'He said he would be walking this way, if it was fine,' said Nelly, indifferently.

Both relapsed into silence. Then Miss Martin enquired after Bridget. The face beside her darkened a little.

'She's very well. She knows about the telegram. She thought I was a great goose to be so anxious. She's making an index now--for the book!'

'The psychology book?'

'Yes!' A pause--then Nelly looked round, flushing.

'I can't talk to Bridget you see--about George--or the war. She just thinks the world's mad--that it's six to one and half a dozen to the other--that it doesn't matter at all who wins--so long of course as the Germans don't come here. And as for me, if I was so foolish as to marry a soldier in the middle of the war, why I must just take the consequences--grin and bear it!'

Her tone and look showed that in her clinging way she had begun to claim the woman beside her as a special friend, while Hester Martin's manner towards her bore witness that the claim excited a warm response--that intimacy and affection had advanced rapidly since George Sarratt's departure.

'Why do you put up with it?' said Miss Martin, sharply. 'Couldn't you get some cousin--some friend to stay with you?'

Nelly shook her head. 'George wanted me to. But I told him I couldn't. It would mean a quarrel. I could never quarrel with Bridget.'

Miss Martin laughed indignantly. 'Why not--if she makes you miserable?'

'I don't know. I suppose I'm afraid of her. And besides'--the words came reluctantly--: 'she does a lot for me. I _ought_ to be very grateful!'

Yes, Hester Martin did know that, in a sense, Bridget did 'a lot' for her younger sisters. It was not many weeks since she had made their acquaintance, but there had been time for her to see how curiously dependent young Mrs. Sarratt was on Miss Cookson. There was no real sympathy between them; nor could Miss Martin believe that there was ever much sense of kinship. But whenever there was anything to be done involving any friction with the outside world, Bridget was ready to do it, while Nelly invariably shrank from it.

For instance, some rather troublesome legal business connected with Nelly's marriage, and the reinvestment of a small sum of money, had descended on the young wife almost immediately after George's departure. She could hardly bring herself to look at the letter. What did it matter? Let their trustee settle it. To be worrying about it seemed to be somehow taking her mind from George--to be breaking in on that imaginative vision of him, and his life in the trenches, which while it tortured her, yet filled the blank of his absence. So Bridget did it all--corresponded peremptorily with their rather old and incompetent trustee, got all the signatures necessary out of Nelly, and carried the thing through. Again, on another and smaller occasion, Miss Martin had seen the two sisters confronted with a scandalous overcharge for the carriage of some heavy luggage from Manchester. Nelly was aghast; but she would have paid the sum demanded like a lamb, if Bridget had not stepped in--grappled with carter and railway company, while Nelly looked on, helpless but relieved.

It was clear that Nelly's inborn wish to be liked, her quivering responsiveness, together with a strong dose of natural indolence, made her hate disagreement or friction of any kind. She was always yielding--always ready to give in. But when Bridget in her harsh aggravating way fought things out and won, Nelly was indeed often made miserable, by the _ricochet_ of the wrath roused by Bridget's methods upon herself; but she generally ended, all the same, by realising that Bridget had done her a service which she could not have done for herself.

Hester Martin frankly thought the sister odious, and pitied the bride for having to live with her. All the same she often found herself wondering how Nelly would ever manage the practical business of life alone, supposing loneliness fell to her at any time. But why should it fall to her?--unless indeed Sarratt were killed in action. If he survived the war he would make her the best of guides and husbands; she would have children; and her sweetness, her sensitiveness would stiffen under the impact of life to a serviceable toughness. But meanwhile what could she do--poor little Ariadne!--but 'live and be lovely'--sew and knit, and gather sphagnum moss--dreaming half her time, and no doubt crying half the night. What dark circles already round the beautiful eyes! And how transparent were the girl's delicate hands! Miss Martin felt that she was watching a creature on whom love had been acting with a concentrated and stimulating energy, bringing the whole being suddenly and rapidly into flower. And now, what had been only stimulus and warmth had become strain, and, sometimes, anguish, or fear. The poor drooping plant could with difficulty maintain itself.

For the moment however, Nelly, in her vast relief, was ready to talk and think of quite ordinary matters.

'Bridget is in a good temper with me to-day!' she said presently, looking with a smile at her companion--'because--since the telegram came--I told her I would accept Miss Farrell's invitation to go and spend a Sunday with them.'

'Well, it might distract you. But you needn't expect to get much out of Cicely!'

The old face lit up with its tolerant, half-sarcastic smile.

'I shall be dreadfully afraid of her!' said Nelly.

'No need to be. William will keep her in order. She is a foolish woman, Cicely, and her own worst enemy, but--somehow'--The speaker paused. She was about to say--'somehow I am fond of her'--when she suddenly wondered whether the remark would be true, and stopped herself.

'I think she's very--very good-looking'--said Nelly, heartily. 'Only, why'--she hesitated, but her half-laughing look