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

are you going also to maintain,' laughed the general, 'that no one can be beautiful who looks it?'

'One _could_ maintain it--easily. The best kind of beauty has always to be discovered. What do you think, Captain Marsworth?'

She turned--provokingly--to the soldier on her left hand.

'About beauty?' He looked up listlessly. 'I've no idea. The day's too hot.'

Cicely eyed him.

'You're tired!' she said peremptorily. 'You've been doing too much. You ought to go and rest.'

He smiled, and standing back he let them pass him. Turning into a side path he disappeared towards the hospital.

'Poor old fellow!--he still looks very delicate,' said the General. 'How is he really getting on?'

'The arm's improving. He's having massage and electricity. Sometimes he seems perfectly well,' said Cicely. An oddly defiant note had crept into the last sentence.

'He looks down--out of spirits. Didn't he lose nearly all his friends at Neuve Chapelle?'

'Yes, some of his best friends.'

'And half the battalion! He always cared enormously about his men. He and I, you know, fought in South Africa together. Of course then he was just a young subaltern. He's a splendid chap! I'm afraid he won't get to the front again. But of course they'll find him something at home. He ought to marry--get a wife to look after him. By the way, somebody told me there was some talk about him and the daughter of the rector here. A nice little girl. Do you know her?'

'Miss Stewart? Yes.'

'What do you think of her?'

'A little nincompoop. Quite harmless!'

The handsome hero smiled--unseen by his companion.

Meanwhile Farrell was walking with Nelly through the stately series of walled gardens, which his grandfather had planned and carried out, mainly it seemed for the boredom of the grandson.

'What do we want with all these things now?' he said, waving an impatient hand, as he and Nelly stood at the top flight of steps looking down upon the three gardens sloping to the south, with their fragments of statuary, and old leaden statuettes, ranged along the central walks. 'They're all out of date. They were before the war; and the war has given them the _coup de grace_. No more big estates--no more huge country houses! My grandfather built and built, for the sake of building, and I pay for his folly. After the war!--what sort of a world shall we tumble into!'

'I don't want these gardens destroyed!' said Nelly, looking up at him. 'No one ought to spoil them. They're far too beautiful!'

She was beginning to speak with more freedom, to be less afraid of him. The gap between her small provincial experience and modes of thought, and his, was narrowing. Each was beginning to discover the inner personality of the other. And the more Farrell explored her the more charmed he was. She was curiously ignorant, whether of books or life. Even the busy commercial life amid which she had been brought up, as it seemed to him, she had observed but little. When he asked her questions about Manchester, she was generally vague or puzzled. He saw that she was naturally romantic; and her passion for the absent Sarratt, together with her gnawing anxiety about him which could not be concealed, made her, again, very touching in the eyes of a man of imagination whose feelings were quick and soft. He walked about with her for more than an hour, discoursing ironically on the Grecian temples, the rustic bridges and pools and fountains, now in imitation of the older Versailles and now of the Trianon, with which his grandfather had burdened his descendants; so that the glorious evening, as it descended, presently became a merry duel between him and her, she defending and admiring his own possessions, and he attacking them. Her eyes sparkled, and a bright red--a natural red--came back into her pale cheeks. She spoke and moved with an evident exhilaration, as though she realised her own developing powers, and was astonished by her own readiness of speech, and the sheer pleasure of talk. And something, no doubt, entered in of the new scene; its scale and magnificence, so different from anything she had yet known; its suggestion of a tradition reaching back through many generations, and of a series of lives relieved from all vulgar necessities, playing as they pleased with art and money, with water and wood.

At the same time she was never merely dazzled; and never, for one moment, covetous or envious. He was struck with her simple dignity and independence; and he perfectly understood that a being so profoundly in love, and so overshadowed by a great fear, could only lend, so to speak, her outer mind to Carton or the persons in it. He gathered roses for her, and did his utmost to please her. But she seemed to him all the time like a little hovering elf--smiling and gay--but quite intangible.

* * * * *

Dinner in the 'cottage' was short, but in Bridget's eyes perfect. Personally, she was not enjoying herself very much, for she had made up her mind that she did not get on with military men, and that it was their fault, not hers; so that she sat often silent, a fact however unnoticed in the general clatter of the table. She took it quite calmly, and was more than compensated for the lack of conversation by the whole spectacle of the Farrell wealth; the flowers, the silver, the costly accessories of all kinds, which even in war-time, and in a 'cottage,' seemed to be indispensable. It would have been more amusing, no doubt, if it had been the big house and not the cottage. Sometimes through the open windows and the trees, she caught sight of the great lighted pile a little way off, and found herself dreaming of what it would be to live there, and to command all that these people commanded. She saw herself sweeping through the magnificent rooms, giving orders, inviting guests, entertaining royalty, driving about the country in splendid motors. It was a waking dream, and though she never uttered a word, the animation of her thoughts infused a similar animation into her aspect, and made her almost unconscious of her neighbours. Captain Marsworth made several attempts to win her attention before she heard him.

'Yes.'

She turned at last an absent glance upon him.

'Miss Farrell talks of our all going over to the hospital after dinner. She and Sir William often spend the evening there,' said Captain Marsworth, quite aware from Miss Farrell's frequent glances in his direction that he was not in her opinion doing his duty with Miss Cookson.

'Will it take us long?' said Bridget, the vivacity of her look dying out.

'As long as you please to stay!' laughed the Captain, drily.

* * * * *

That passage after dinner through the convalescent wards of the finely equipped hospital was to Nelly Sarratt an almost intolerable experience. She went bravely through it, leaving, wherever she talked to a convalescent, an impression of shy sweetness behind her, which made a good many eyes follow her as Farrell led her through the rooms. But she was thankful when it was over; and when, at last, she was alone in her room for the night, she flew--for consolation--to the drawer in which she had locked her writing-desk, and the letters she had received that morning. The post had just arrived as they were leaving Rydal, and she had hastily torn open a letter from George, and thrust the others into a large empty envelope. And now she discovered among them to her delight a second letter from George, unopened. What unexpected joy!

It too was dated--'Somewhere in France'--and had been written two days after the letter she had opened in the morning.

'My darling--we're having a real jolly time here--in an old village, far behind the line, and it is said we shall be here for three whole weeks. Well, some of us really wanted it, for the battalion has been in some very hot fighting lately, and has had a nasty bit of the line to look after for a long time--with nothing very much to show for it. My platoon has lost some of its best men, and I've been pretty badly hit, as some of them were real chums of mine--the bravest and dearest fellows. And I don't know why, but for the first time, I've been feeling rather jumpy and run down. So I went to a doctor, and he told me I'd better go off duty for a fortnight. But just then, luckily, the whole battalion was ordered, as I told you a week ago, into what's called "divisional rest," so here we are--for three weeks! Quite good billets--an old French farm--with two good barns and lots of straw for the men, and an actual bedroom for me--and a real bed--_with sheets!_ Think of that! I am as comfortable as possible. Just at first I'm going to stay in bed for a couple of days to please the doctor--but then I shall be all right, and shall probably take a course of gymnastics they're starting here--odd, isn't it?--like putting us to school again!--so that I may be quite fit before going back to the front.

'One might almost forget the war here, if it weren't for the rumble of the guns which hardly ever ceases. They are about thirty-five miles away. The whole country is quite peaceful, and the crops coming on splendidly. The farm produces delicious brown eggs--and you should see--and _taste_--the omelets the farmer's wife makes! Coffee too--first-rate! How these French women work! Our men are always helping them, and the children hang round our Tommies like flies.

'These two days in bed are a godsend, for I can read all your letters through again. There they are--spread out on my sheet! By Jove, little woman, you've treated me jolly well! And now I can pay you back a little. But perhaps you won't mind, dearest, if I don't write anything very long, for I expect I ought to take it easy--for a bit--I can't think why I should have felt so slack. I never knew anything about nerves before. But the doctor has been very nice and understanding--a real, decent fellow. He declares I shall be as fit as a fiddle, long before the three weeks are done.

'My bedroom door is open, and some jolly yellow chickens are wandering in and out. And sometimes the farmer's youngest--a nice little chap of eight--comes to look at me. I teach him English--or I try--but when I say the English words, he just doubles up with laughing and runs away. Nelly, my precious--if I shut my eyes--I can fancy your little head there--just inside the door--and your eyes looking at me!...May the Lord give us good luck--and may we all be home by Christmas!--Mind you finish that sketch!'

She put the letter down with a rather tremulous hand. It had depressed her, and made her anxious. She read in it that George had been through horrible things--and had suffered.

Then all that she had seen in the hospital came back upon her, and rising restlessly she threw herself, without undressing, face downwards on her bed. That officer, blanched to the colour of white wax, who