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

was with a woman much older than himself--gifted--more or less famous--a kind of modern Corinne whom he had met for a month in Rome in his first youth. Corinne had laid siege to him, and he had eagerly, whole-heartedly succumbed. He saw himself, looking back, as the typically befooled and bamboozled mortal; for Corinne, in the end, had thrown him over for a German professor, who admired her books and had a villa on the Janiculum. During the eighteen years which had elapsed since their adventure, he had quite made it up with her, and had often called at the Janiculan villa, with its antiques, its window to the view, and the great Judas tree between it and Rome. His sense of escape--which grew upon him--was always tempered by a keen respect for the lady's disinterestedness, and those high ideals which must have led her--for what else could?--to prefer the German professor, who had so soon become decrepit, to himself. But the result of it all had been that the period of highest susceptibility and effervescence had passed by, leaving him still unmarried. Since then he had had many women-friends, following harmlessly a score of 'chance desires'! But he had never wanted to marry anybody; and the idea of surrendering the solitude and independence of his pleasant existence had now become distasteful to him. Renan in some late book speaks of his life as 'cette charmante promenade a travers la realite.' Farrell could have adopted much the same words about his own--until the war. The war had made him think a good deal, like Sarratt; though the thoughts of a much travelled, epicurean man of the world were naturally very different from those of the young soldier. At least 'the surge and thunder' of the struggle had developed in Farrell a new sensitiveness, a new unrest, as though youth had returned upon him. The easy, drifting days of life before the catastrophe were gone. The 'promenade' was no longer charming. But the jagged and broken landscape through which it was now taking him, held him often--like so many others--breathless with strange awes, strange questionings. And all the more, because, owing to his physical infirmity, he must be perforce a watcher, a discontented watcher, rather than an actor, in the great scene.

* * * * *

That night Nelly, sitting at her open window, with starlight on the lake, and the cluster rose sending its heavy scent into the room--wrote to her husband.

'My darling--it is just a little more than eight hours since I got your telegram. Sometimes it seems like nothing--and then like _days_--days of happiness. I was _very_ anxious. But I know I oughtn't to write about that. You say it helps you if I keep cheerful, and always expect the best and not the worst. Indeed, George, I do keep cheerful. Ask Miss Martin--ask Bridget--'

At this point two splashes fell, luckily not on the letter, but on the blotting paper beside it, and Nelly hastily lifted her handkerchief to dry a pair of swimming eyes.

'But he can't see--he won't know!' she thought, apologising to herself; yet wrestling at the same time with the sharp temptation to tell him exactly how she had suffered, that he might comfort her. But she repelled it. Her moral sense told her that she ought to be sustaining and strengthening him--rather than be hanging upon him the burden of her own fears and agonies.

She went on bravely--

'Of course, after the news in the paper this morning,--and yesterday--I was worried till I heard. I knew--at any rate I guessed--you must have been in it all. And now you are safe, my own own!--for three whole blessed weeks. Oh, how well I shall sleep all that time--and how much work I shall do! But it won't be all war-work. Sir William Farrell came over to-day, and showed me how to begin a drawing of the lake. I shall finish it for your birthday, darling. Of course you won't want to be bothered with it out there. I shall keep it till you come. The lake is so beautiful to-night, George. It is warmer again, and the stars are all out. The mountains are so blue and quiet--the water so still. But for the owls, everything seems asleep. But they call and call--and the echo goes round the lake. I can just see the island, and the rocks round which the boat drifted--that last night. How good you were to me--how I loved to sit and look at you, with the light on your dear face--and the oars hanging--and the shining water--

'And then I think of where you are--and what you have been seeing in that awful fighting. But not for long. I try to put it away.

'George, darling!--you know what you said when you went away--what you hoped might come--to make us both happy--and take my thoughts off the war? But, dear, it isn't so--you mustn't hope it. I shall be dreadfully sorry if you are disappointed. But you'll only find _me_--your own Nelly--not changed a bit--when you come back.

'I want to hear everything when you write--how your men did--whether you took any prisoners, whether there was ammunition enough, or whether you were short again? I feel every day that I ought to go and make munitions--but somehow--I can't. We are going to Carton on Saturday. Bridget is extremely pleased. I rather dread it. But I shall be able to write you a long letter about it on Sunday morning, instead of going to church. There is Rydal chapel striking twelve! My darling--my darling!--good-night.'


CHAPTER VI

The following Saturday afternoon, at three o'clock, the Carton motor duly arrived at the Rydal cottage door. It was a hot summer day, the mountains colourless and small under their haze of heat, the woods darkening already towards the August monotony, the streams low and shrunken. Lakeland was at the moment when the artists who haunt her would rather not paint her, remembering the subtleties of spring, and looking forward to the pageantry of autumn. But for the eye that loves her she has beauties enough at any time, and no blanching heat and dust can spoil the lovely or delicate things that lie waiting in the shade of her climbing oak-woods or on her bare fells, or beside her still lakes.

Nelly took her seat in the landaulette, with Bridget beside her. Milly and Mrs. Weston admiringly watched their departure from the doorway of the lodgings, and they were soon speeding towards Grasmere and Dunmail Raise. Nelly's fresh white dress, aided by the blue coat and shady hat which George had thought so ravishing, became her well; and she was girlishly and happily aware of it. Her spirits were high, for there in the little handbag on her wrist lay George's last letter, received that morning, short and hurried, written just to catch the post, on his arrival at the rest camp, thirty miles behind the line. Heart-ache and fear, if every now and then their black wings brushed her, and far within, a nerve quivered, were mostly quite forgotten. Youth, the joy of being loved, the joy of mere living, reclaimed her.

Bridget beside her, in a dark blue cotton, with a very fashionable hat, looked more than her thirty years, and might almost have been taken for Nelly's mother. She sat erect, her thin straight shoulders carrying her powerful head and determined face; and she noticed many things that quite escaped her sister: the luxury of the motor for instance; the details of the Farrell livery worn by the two discharged soldiers who sat in front as chauffeur and footman; and the evident fact that while small folk must go without servants, the rich seemed to have no difficulty in getting as many as they wanted.

'I wonder what this motor cost?' she said presently in a speculative tone, as they sped past the turn to Grasmere church and began to ascend the pass leading to Keswick.

'Well, we know--about--don't we?' said Nelly vaguely. And she guessed a sum, at which Bridget looked contemptuous.

'More than _that_, my dear! However of course it doesn't matter to them.'

'Don't you think people look at us sometimes, as though we were doing something wrong?' said Nelly uneasily. They had just passed two old labourers--fine patriarchal fellows who had paused a moment to gaze at the motor and the two ladies. 'I suppose it's because--because we look so smart.'

'Well, why shouldn't we?'

'Because it's war-time I suppose,' said Nelly slowly--'and perhaps their sons are fighting--'

'We're not fighting!'

'No--but--.' With a slight frown, Nelly tried to express herself. 'It looks as if we were just living as usual, while--Oh, you know, Bridget, what people think!--how _everybody's_ trying not to spend money on themselves.'

'Are they?' Bridget laughed aloud. 'Look at all the dress advertisements in the papers. Why, yesterday, when I was having tea with those people at Windermere, there was a man there telling lots of interesting things. He said he knew some great merchants in the city, who had spent thousands and thousands on furs--expensive furs--the summer before the war. And they thought they'd all have been left on their hands, that they'd have lost heavily. And instead of that they sold them all, and made a real big profit!'

Bridget turned an almost triumphant look on her sister, as though the _coup_ described had been her own.

'Well, it isn't right!' said Nelly, passionately. 'It isn't--it _isn't_--Bridget! When the war's costing so much--and people are suffering and dying--'

'Oh, I know!' said Bridget hastily. 'You needn't preach to me my dear child. I only wanted you to look at _facts_. You're always so incurably sentimental!'

'I'm not!' Nelly protested, helplessly. 'We _make_ the facts. If nobody bought the furs, the facts would be different. George says it's wicked to squander money, and live as if everything were just the same as it used to be. And I agree with him!'

'Of course you do!' laughed Bridget. '_You_ don't squander money, my dear!'

'Only because I haven't got it to spend, you mean?' said Nelly, flushing.

'No--but you should look at things sensibly. The people who are making money are spending it--oceans of it! And the people who have money, like the Farrells, are spending it too. Wait till you see how they live!'

'But there's the hospital!' cried Nelly.

Bridget shrugged her shoulders.

'That's because they can afford to give the hospital, and have the motor-cars too. If they had to choose between hospitals and motor-cars!'

'Lots of people do!'

'You think Sir William Farrell looks like doing without things?' said Bridget, provokingly. Then she checked herself. 'Of course I like Sir William very much. But then _I_ don't see why he shouldn't have motor-cars or any other nice thing he wants.'

'That's because--you don't think enough--you never think enough--about the war!' said Nelly, insistently.

Bridget's look darkened.

'I would stop the war to-morrow--I would make peace to-morrow--if I could--you know I would. It will destroy us all--ruin us all. It's sheer, stark lunacy. There, you know what I think!'

'I don't see what it's ever cost you, Bridget!' said Nelly, breathing fast.

'Oh, well, it's very easy to say that--but it isn't argument.'

Bridget's deep-set penetrating eyes glittered as she turned them on her sister. 'However, for goodness' sake, don't let's quarrel about it. It's a lovely day, and we don't often have a motor like this to drive in!'