It is Christmas morning, 1916, the third Christmas of the war. The
tragedy of Boyce's death happened six months ago. Since then I
have been very ill. The shock, too great for my silly heart,
nearly killed me. By all the rules of the game I ought to have
died. But I suppose, like a brother officer long since defunct,
also a Major, one Joe Bagstock, I am devilish tough. Cliffe told
me this morning that, apart from a direct hit by a 42-centimetre
shell, he saw no reason, after what I had gone through, why I
should not live for another hundred years. "I wash my hands of
you," said he. Which indeed is pleasant hearing.
I don't mind dying a bit, if it is my Maker's pleasure; if it
would serve any useful purpose; if it would help my country a
myriadth part of a millimetre on towards victory. But if it would
not matter to the world any more than the demise of a daddy-long-
legs, I prefer to live. In fact, I want to live. I have never
wanted to live more in all my life. I want to see this fight out.
I want to see the Light that is coming after the Darkness. For, by
God! it will come.
And I want to live, too, for personal and private reasons. If I
could regard myself merely as a helpless incumbrance, a useless
jellyfish, absorbing for my maintenance human effort that should
be beneficially exerted elsewhere, I think I should be the first
to bid them take me out and bury me. But it is my wonderful
privilege to look around and see great and beautiful human souls
coming to me for guidance and consolation. Why this should be I do
not rightly know. Perhaps my very infirmity has taught me many
lessons. ...
You see, in the years past, my life was not without its
lonelinesses. It was so natural for the lusty and joyous to
disregard, through mere thoughtlessness, the little weather-beaten
cripple in his wheelchair. But when one of these sacrificed an
hour's glad life in order to sit by the dull chair in a corner,
the cripple did not forget it. He learned in its terrible
intensity the meaning of human kindness. And, in his course
through the years, or as the years coursed by him, he realised
that a pair of gollywog legs was not the worst disability which a
human being might suffer. There were gollywog hearts, brains,
nerves, temperaments, destinies.
Perhaps, in this way, he came to the knowledge that in every human
being lies the spark of immortal beauty, to be fanned into flame
by one little rightly directed breath. At any rate, he learned to
love his kind.
It is Christmas day. I am as happy as a man has a right to be in
these fierce times in England. Love is all around me. I must tell
you little by little. Various things have happened during the last
six months.
At the inquest on the body of Leonard Boyce, the jury gave a
verdict of death by misadventure. The story of the chauffeur, an
old soldier servant devoted to Boyce, received implicit belief. He
had faithfully carried out his master's orders: to conduct him
from the road, across the field, and seat him on the boom of the
lock gates, where he wanted to remain alone in order to enjoy the
quiet of the night and listen to the lap of the water; to return
and fetch him in a quarter of an hour. This he did, dreaming of no
danger. When he came back he realised what had happened. His
master had got up and fallen into the canal. What had really
happened only a few of us knew.
Well, I have told you the man's story. I am not his judge. Whether
his act was the supreme amende, the supreme act of courage or the
supreme act of cowardice, it is not for me to say. I heard nothing
of the matter for many weeks, for they took me off to a nursing
home and kept me in the deathly stillness of a sepulchre. When I
resumed my life in Wellingsford I found smiling faces to welcome
me. My first public action was to give away Phyllis Gedge in
marriage to Randall Holmes--Randall Holmes in the decent kit of
an officer and a gentleman. He made this proposition to me on the
first evening of my return. "The bride's father," said I, somewhat
ironically, "is surely the proper person."
"The bride's father," said he, "is miles away, and, like a wise
and hoary villain, is likely to remain there."
This was news. "Gedge has left Wellingsford?" I cried. "How did
that come about?"
He stuck his hands on his hips and looked down on me pityingly.
"I'm afraid, sir," said he, "you'll never do adequate justice to
my intelligence and my capacity for affairs."
Then he laughed and I guessed what had occurred. My young friend
must have paid a stiff price; but Phyllis and peace were worth it;
and I have said that Randall is a young man of fortune.
"My dear boy," said I, "if you have exorcised this devil of a
father-in-law of yours out of Wellingsford, I'll do any mortal
thing you ask."
I was almost ecstatic. For think what it meant to those whom I
held dear. The man's evil menace was removed from the midst of us.
The man's evil voice was silenced. The tragic secrets of the canal
would be kept. I looked up at my young friend. There was a grim
humour around the corners of his mouth and in his eyes the quiet
masterfulness of those who have looked scornfully at death. I
realised that he had reached a splendid manhood. I realised that
Gedge had realised it too; woe be to him if he played Randall
false. I stuck out my hand.
"Any mortal thing," I repeated.
He regarded me steadily. "Anything? Do you really mean it?"
"You dashed young idiot," I cried, "do you think I'm in the habit
of talking through my hat?"
"Well," said he, "will you look after Phyllis when I'm gone?"
"Gone? Gone where? Eternity?"
"No, no! I've only a fortnight's leave. Then I'm off. Wherever
they send me. Secret Service. You know. It's no use planking
Phyllis in a dug-out of her own"--shades of Oxford and the
Albemarle Review!--"she'd die of loneliness. And she'd die of
culture in the mater's highbrow establishment. Whereas, if you
would take her in--give her a shake-down here--she wouldn't give
much trouble--"
He stammered as even the most audacious young warrior must do when
making so astounding a proposal. But I bade him not be an ass, but
send her along when he had to finish with her; with the result
that for some months my pretty little Phyllis has been an inmate
of my house. Marigold keeps a sort of non-commissioned parent's
eye on her. To him she seems to be still the child whom he fed
solicitously but unemotionally with Mrs. Marigold's cakes at tea
parties years ago. She gives me a daughter's dainty affection.
Thank God for it!
There have been other little changes in Wellingsford. Mrs. Boyce
left the town soon after Leonard's death, and lives with her
sister in London. I had a letter from her this morning--a brave
woman's letter. She has no suspicion of the truth. God still
tempereth the wind. ... Out of the innocent generosity of her
heart she sent me also, as a keepsake, "a little heavy cane, of
which Leonard was extraordinarily fond." She will never know that
I put it into the fire, and with what strange and solemn thoughts
I watched it burn.
It is Christmas Day. Dr. Cliffe, although he has washed his hands
of me, tyrannically keeps me indoors of winter nights, so that I
cannot, as usual, dine at Wellings Park. To counter the fellow's
machinations, however, I have prepared a modest feast to which I
have bidden Sir Anthony and Lady Fenimore and my dearest Betty.
As to Betty--
Phyllis comes in radiant, her pretty face pink above an absurd
panoply of furs. She has had a long letter from Randall from the
Lord knows where. He will be home on leave in the middle of
January. In her excitement she drops prayer-books and hymn-books
all over me. Then, picking them up, reminds me it is time to go to
church. I am an old-fashioned fogey and I go to church on
Christmas Day. I hope our admirable and conscientious Vicar won't
feel it his duty to tell us to love Germans. I simply can't do it.
New Year's Day, 1917.
I must finish off this jumble of a chronicle.
Before us lies the most eventful year in all the old world's
history. Thank God my beloved England is strong, and Great Britain
and our great Empire and immortal France. There is exhilaration in
the air; a consciousness of high ideals; an unwavering resolution
to attain them; a thrilling faith in their ultimate attainment. No
one has died or lost sight or limbs in vain. I look around my own
little circle. Oswald Fenimore, Willie Connor, Reggie Dacre,
Leonard Boyce--how many more could I not add to the list? All
those little burial grounds in France--which France, with her
exquisite sense of beauty, has assigned as British soil for all
time--all those burial grounds, each bearing its modest leaden
inscription--some, indeed, heart-rendingly inscribed "Sacred to
the memory of six unknown British soldiers killed in action"--are
monuments not to be bedewed with tears of lamentation. From the
young lives that have gone there springs imperishable love and
strength and wisdom--and the vast determination to use that love
and strength and wisdom for the great good of mankind. If there is
a God of Battles, guiding, in His inscrutable omniscience, the
hosts that fight for the eternal verities--for all that man in his
straining towards the Godhead has striven for since the world
began--the men who have died will come into their glory, and those
who have mourned will share exultant in the victory. From before
the beginning of Time Mithra has ever been triumphant and his foot
on the throat of Ahriman.
It was in February, 1915, that I began to expand my diary into
this narrative,--nearly two years ago. We have passed through the
darkness. The Dawn is breaking. Sursum corda.
I was going to tell you about Betty when Phyllis, with her furs
and happiness and hymn-books, interrupted me. I should like to
tell you now. But who am I to speak of the mysteries in the soul
of a great woman? But I must try. And I can tell you more now than
I could on Christmas Day.
Last night she insisted on seeing the New Year in with me. If I
had told Marigold that I proposed to sit up after midnight, he
would have come in at ten o'clock, picked me up with finger and
thumb as any Brobdingnagian might have picked up Gulliver, and put
me straightway to bed. But Betty made the announcement in her
airily imperious way, and Marigold, craven before Betty and Mrs.
Marigold, said "Very good, madam," as if Dr. Cliffe and his orders
had never existed. At half past ten she packed off the happy and,
I must confess, the somewhat sleepy Phyllis, and sat down, in her
old attitude by the side of my chair, in front of the fire, and
opened her dear heart to me.
I had guessed what her proud soul had suffered during the last six
months. One who loved her as I did could see it in her face, in
her eyes, in the little hardening of her voice, in odd little
betrayals of feverishness in her manner. But the outside world saw
nothing. The steel in her nature carried her through. She left no
duty unaccomplished. She gave her confidence to no human being. I,
to whom she might have come, was carried off to the sepulchre
above mentioned. Letters were forbidden. But every day, for all
her bleak despair, Betty sent me a box of fresh flowers. They
would not tell me it was Betty who sent them; but I knew. My
wonderful Betty.
When they took off my cerecloths and sent me back to Wellingsford,
Betty was the first to smile her dear welcome. We resumed our old
relations. But Betty, treating me as an invalid, forbore to speak
of Leonard Boyce. Any approach on my part came up against that
iron wall of reserve of which I spoke to you long ago.
But last night she told me all. What she said I cannot repeat. But
she had divined the essential secret of the double tragedy of the
canal. It had become obvious to her that he had made the final
reparation for a wrong far deeper than she had imagined. She was
very clear-eyed and clear-souled. During her long companionship
with pain and sorrow and death, she had learned many things. She
had been purged by the fire of the war of all resentments,
jealousies, harsh judgments, and came forth pure gold. ... Leonard
had been the great love of her life. If you cannot see now why she
married Willie Connor, gave him all that her generous heart could
give, and after his death was irresistibly drawn back to Boyce, I
have written these pages in vain.
A few minutes before midnight Marigold entered with a tray bearing
a cake or two, a pint of champagne and a couple of glasses. While
he was preparing to uncork the bottle Betty slipped from the room
and returned with another glass.
"For Sergeant Marigold," she said.
She opened the French window behind the drawn curtains and
listened. It was a still clear night. Presently the clock of the
Parish Church struck twelve. She came down to the little table by
my side and filled the glasses, and the three of us drank the New
Year in. Then Betty kissed me and we both shook hands with
Marigold, who stood very stiff and determined and cleared his
throat and swallowed something as though he were expected to make
a speech. But Betty anticipated him. She put both her hands on his
gaunt shoulders and looked up into his ugly face.
"You've just wished me a Happy New Year, Sergeant."
"I have," said he, "and I mean it."
"Then will you let me have great happiness in staying here and
helping you to look after the Major?"
He gasped for a moment (as did I) and clutched her arms for an
instant in an iron grip.
"Indeed I will, my dear," said he.
Then he stepped back a pace and stood rigid, his one eye staring,
his weather-beaten face the colour of beetroot. He was blushing.
The beads of perspiration appeared below his awful wig. He
stammered out something about "Ma'am" and "Madam." He had never so
far forgotten himself in his life.
But Betty sprang forward and gripped his hand.
"It is you who are the dear," she said. "You, the greatest and
loyalest friend a man has ever known. And I'll be loyal to you,
never fear."
By what process of enchantment she got an emotion-filled Marigold
to the door and shut it behind him, I shall never discover. On its
slam she laughed--a queer high note. In one swift movement she was
by my knees. And she broke into a passion of tears. For me, I was
the most mystified man under heaven.
Soon she began to speak, her head bowed.
"I've come to the end of the tether, Majy dear. They've driven me
from the hospital--I didn't know how to tell you before--I've been
doing all sorts of idiotic things. The doctors say it's a nervous
breakdown--I've had rather a bad time--but I thought it
contemptible to let one's own wretched little miseries interfere
with one's work for the country--so I fought as hard as I could.
Indeed I did, Majy dear. But it seems I've been playing the fool
without knowing it,--I haven't slept properly for months--and
they've sent me away. Oh, they've been all that's kind, of course
--I must have at least six months' rest, they say--they talk
about nursing homes--I've thought and thought and thought about it
until I'm certain. There's only one rest for me, Majy dear." She
raised a tear-stained, tense and beautiful face and drew herself
up so that one arm leaned on my chair, and the other on my
shoulder. "And that is to be with the one human being that is left
for me to love--oh, really love--you know what I mean--in the
world."
I could only put my hand on her fair young head and say:
"My dear, my dear, you know I love you."
"That is why I'm not afraid to speak. Perfect love casteth out
fear--"
I pushed back her hair. "What is it that you want me to do,
Betty?" I asked. "My life, such as it is, is at your command."
She looked me full, unflinchingly in the eyes.
"If you would give me the privilege of bearing your name, I should
be a proud and happy woman."
We remained there, I don't know how long--she with her hand on my
shoulder, I caressing her dear hair. It was a tremendous
temptation. To have my beloved Betty in all her exquisite warm
loyalty bound to me for the rest of my crippled life. But I found
the courage to say:
"My dear, you are young still, with the wonderful future that no
one alive can foretell before you, and I am old--"
"You're not fifty."
"Still I am old, I belong to the past--to a sort of affray behind
an ant-hill which they called a war. I'm dead, my dear, you are
gloriously alive. I'm of the past, as I say. You're of the future.
You, my dearest, are the embodiment of the woman of the Great War--"
I smiled--"The Woman of the Great War in capital letters. What
your destiny is, God knows. But it isn't to be tied to a
Prehistoric Man like me."
She rose and stood, with her beautiful bare arms behind her,
sweet, magnificent.
"I am a Woman of the Great War. You are quite right. But in a year
or so I shall be like other women of the war who have suffered and
spent their lives, a woman of the past--not of the future. All
sorts of things have been burned up in it." In a quick gesture she
stretched out her hands to me. "Oh, can't you understand?"
I cannot set down the rest of the tender argument. If she had
loved me less, she could have lived in my house, like Phyllis,
without a thought of the conventions. But loving me dearly, she
had got it into her feminine head that the sacredness of the
marriage tie would crown with dignity and beauty the part she had
resolved to play for my happiness.
Well, if I have yielded I pray it may not be set down to me for
selfish exploitation of a woman's exhausted hour. When I said
something of the sort, she laughed and cried:
"Why, I'm bullying you into it!"
The First of January, 1917--the dawn to me, a broken derelict, of
the annus mirabilis. Somehow, foolishly, illogically, I feel that
it will be the annus mirabilis for my beloved country.
And come--after all--I am, in spite of my legs, a Man too of the
Great War. I have lived in it, and worked in it, and suffered in
it--and in it have I won a Great Thing.
So long as one's soul is sound--that is the Great Matter.
Just before we parted last night, I said to Betty:
"The beginning and end of all this business is that you're afraid
of Marigold."
She started back indignantly.
"I'm not! I'm not!"
I laughed. "The Lady protests too much," said I.
The clock struck two. Marigold appeared at the door. He approached
Betty.
"I think, Madam, we ought to let the Major go to bed."
"I think, Marigold," said Betty serenely, "we ought to be ashamed
of ourselves for keeping him up so late."
THE END
