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

them--and that's all there is in it. With money you can have everything you want and a jolly life--and without money you can have nothing,--and are just nobody. When that rich old horror wanted to marry me last year in Manchester, Bridget thought me perfectly mad to refuse him. She didn't speak to me for a week. Of course he would have provided for her too.'

Sarratt had flushed hotly; but he spoke good-naturedly.

'Well, that was a miss for her--I quite see that. But after all we can help her a bit. We shall always feel that we must look after her. And why shouldn't she herself marry?'

Nelly laughed.

'Never! She hates men.'

There was a silence a moment. And then Sarratt said, rather gravely--'I say, darling, if she's going to make you miserable while I am away, hadn't we better make some other arrangement? I thought of course she would be good to you, and look after you! Naturally any sister would, that was worth her salt!'

And he looked down indignantly on the little figure beside him. But it roused Nelly's mirth that he should put it in that way.

'George,--you _are_ such a darling!--and--and, such a goose!' She rubbed her cheek against his arm as though to take the edge off the epithet. 'The idea of Bridget's wanting to "look after" me! She'll want to _manage_ me of course--and I'd much better let her do it. I don't mind!' And the speaker gave a long, sudden sigh.

'But I won't have you troubled and worried, when I'm not there to protect you!' cried Sarratt, fiercely. 'You could easily find a friend.'

But Nelly shook her head.

'Oh, no. That wouldn't do. Bridget and I always get on, George. We never quarrelled--except when I stuck to marrying you. Generally--I always give in. It doesn't matter. It answers perfectly.'

She spoke with a kind of languid softness which puzzled him.

'But now you can't always give in, dearest! You belong to me!' And his grasp tightened on the hand he held.

'I can give in enough--to keep the peace,' said Nelly slowly. 'And if you weren't here, it wouldn't be natural that I shouldn't live with Bridget. I'm used to her. Only I want to make you understand her, darling. She's not a bit like--well, like the people you admire, and its no good expecting her to be.'

'I shall talk to her before I go!' he said, half laughing, half resolved.

Nelly looked alarmed.

'No--please don't! She always gets the better of people who scold her. Or if you were to get the better, then she'd visit it on me. And now don't let's talk of her any more! What were we saying? Oh, I know--what I was to do. Let's sit down again,--there's a rock, made for us.'

And on a natural seat under a sheltering rock canopied and hung with fern, the two rested once more, wrapped in one cloak, close beside the water, which was quiet again, and crossed by the magical lights and splendid shadows of the dying sunset. Nelly had been full of plans when they sat down, but the nearness of the man she loved, his arm round her, his life beating as it were in one pulse with hers, intoxicated, and for a time silenced her. She had taken off her hat, and she lay quietly against him in the warm shelter of the cloak. He thought presently she was asleep. How small and dear she was! He bent over her, watching as closely as the now dim light allowed, the dark eyelashes lying on her cheek, her closed mouth, and soft breathing. His very own!--the thought was ecstasy--he forgot the war, and the few days left him.

But this very intensity of brooding love in which he held her, made her restless after a little. She sat up, and smiled at him--

'We must go home!--Yes, we must. But look!--there is a boat!'

And only a few yards from them, emerging from the shadows, they saw a boat rocking gently at anchor beside a tiny landing-stage. Nelly sprang to her feet.

'George!--suppose you were just to row us out--there--into the light!'

But when they came to the boat they found it pad-locked to a post in the little pier.

'Ah, well, never mind,' said Nelly--'I'm sure that man won't forget?'

'That man who spoke to us? Who was he?'

'Oh, I found out from Bridget, and Mrs. Weston. He's Sir William Farrell, a great swell, tremendously rich. He has a big place somewhere, out beyond Keswick, beyond Bassenthwaite. You saw he had a stiff knee?'

'Yes. Can't fight, I suppose--poor beggar! He was very much struck by _you_, Mrs. George Sarratt!--that was plain.'

Nelly laughed--a happy childish laugh.

'Well, if he does get us leave to boat, you needn't mind, need you? What else, I wonder, could he do for us?'

'Nothing!' The tone was decided. 'I don't like being beholden to great folk. But that, I suppose, is the kind of man whom Bridget would have liked you to marry, darling?'

'As if he would ever have looked at me!' said Nelly tranquilly. 'A man like that may be as rich as rich, but he would never marry a poor wife.'

'Thank God, I don't believe money will matter nearly as much to people, after the war!' said Sarratt, with energy. 'It's astonishing how now, in the army--of course it wasn't the same before the war--you forget it entirely. Who cares whether a man's rich, or who's son he is? In my batch when I went up to Aldershot there were men of all sorts, stock-brokers, landowners, city men, manufacturers, solicitors, some of them awfully rich, and then clerks, and schoolmasters, and lots of poor devils, like myself. We didn't care a rap, except whether a man took to his drill, or didn't; whether he was going to keep the Company back or help it on. And it's just the same in the field. Nothing counts but what you _are_--it doesn't matter a brass hap'orth what you have. And as the new armies come along that'll be so more and more. It's "Duke's son and Cook's son," everywhere, and all the time. If it was that in the South African war, it's twenty times that now. This war is bringing the nation together as nothing ever has done, or could do. War is hellish!--but there's a deal to be said for it!'

He spoke with ardour, as they strolled homeward, along the darkening shore, she hanging on his arm. Nelly said nothing. Her little face showed very white in the gathering shadows. He went on.

'There was a Second Lieutenant in our battalion, an awfully handsome boy--heir to a peerage I think. But he couldn't get a commission quick enough to please him when the war broke out, so he just enlisted--oh! of course they've given him a commission long ago. But his great friend was a young miner, who spoke broad Northumberland, a jolly chap. And these two stuck together--we used to call them the Heavenly Twins. And in the fighting round Hill 60, the miner got wounded, and lay out between the lines, with the Boche shells making hell round him. And the other fellow never rested till he'd crawled out to him, and taken him water, and tied him up, and made a kind of shelter for him. The miner was a big fellow, and the other was just a slip of a boy. So he couldn't drag in his friend, but he got another man to go out with him, and between them they did it right enough. And when I was in the clearing station next day, I saw the two--the miner in bed, awfully smashed up, and the other sitting by him. It made one feel choky. The boy could have put down a cool hundred thousand, I suppose, if it could have done any good. But it wouldn't. I can tell you, darling, this war knocks the nonsense out of a man!'

'But Bridget is a woman!' said a dreamy voice beside him.

Sarratt laughed; but he was launched on recollections and could not stop himself. Apparently everybody in his company was a hero, and had deserved the Military Cross ten times over, except himself. He described some incidents he had personally seen, and through the repressed fire with which he spoke, the personality and ideals of the man revealed themselves--normal, strong, self-forgetting. Had he even forgotten the little creature beside him? Hardly, for instinctively he softened away some of the terrible details of blood and pain. But he had forgotten Nelly's prohibition. And when again they had entered the dark wood which lay between them and the cottage on the river-bank, suddenly he heard a trembling breath, and a sob.

He caught her in his arms.

'Nelly, darling! Oh, I was a brute to talk to you like this.'

'No,' she said, struggling with herself--'No! Wait a moment.' She lay against him trembling through every limb, while he kissed and comforted her.

'I'm--I'm not a coward, George!' she said at last, gasping,--'I'm not indeed. Only--well, this morning I had about a hundred and seventy hours left--I counted them. And now there are fifteen less. And all the time, while we talk, they are slipping away, so quick--so quick--'

But she was regaining self-control, and soon released herself.

'I won't do it again!' she said piteously, in the tone of a penitent child. 'I won't indeed. Let's go home. I'm all right.'

And home they sped, hand in hand, silently. The little room when they re-entered it was bright with firelight, because kind Mrs. Weston had thought the flight chilly, and the white table laid out for them--its pretty china and simple fare--tempted and cheered them with its look of home. But Nelly lay on the sofa afterwards very pale, though smiling and talking as usual. And through the night she was haunted, sleeping and waking, by the image of the solitary boat rocking gently on the moonlit lake, the water lapping its sides. She saw herself and George adrift in it--sailing into--disappearing in--that radiance of silver light. Sleepily she hoped that Sir William Farrell would not forget his promise.


CHAPTER III

May I come in?'

Nelly Sarratt, who was standing beside the table in the sitting-room, packing a small luncheon-basket with sandwiches and cake, looked up in astonishment. Then she went to the door which was slightly ajar, and opened it.

She beheld a very tall man standing smiling on the threshold.

'I hope I'm not disturbing you, Mrs. Sarratt--but I was on my way for a day's sketching, and as my car passed your house, I thought I would like to bring you, myself, the permission which I spoke of on Saturday. I wrote yesterday, my friend was away from home but I got a telegram this morning.'

The visitor held out a telegram, which Nelly took in some bewilderment. It fluttered her to be so much thought for by a stranger--and a stranger moreover who seemed but to wave his wand and things were done. But she thanked him heartily.

'Won't you come in, Sir William?' she asked him, shyly. 'My husband will be here directly.'

It pleased him that she had found out who he was. He protested that he mustn't stay a moment, but all the same he came in, and stood with his hands in his pockets looking at the view. He seemed to Nelly to fill the little sitting-room. Not that he was stout. There was not an ounce of