Christmas Roses and Other Stories Part 7

She had felt at once that they were like her; more like than the little boy's instinct could grasp. He had thought of the darkness and whiteness; her widow's weeds and pale face had suggested that; but he could not know the sorrow, the longing, the earthly sense of irreparable loss, the heavenly sense of a possession unalterably hers, that the dark, melancholy leaves and celestial whiteness of the flowers expressed to her. Tears had risen to her eyes and she had stooped and kissed her child,--how like her husband's that little face!--and had said, after a moment, "We must never leave them, Jack."

They had never left them. Dorrington had been their home for fifteen years, and the hepaticas the heart of it. It had always seemed to them both the loveliest ritual of the year, that early spring one when, in the hazel copse, they would find the white hepaticas again in flower.

And of all the garden labours none were sweeter than those that cherished and divided and protected the beloved flowers.

Mrs. Bradley, to-day, worked in her long border, weeding, forking, placing belated labels. She was dressed in black, her straw hat bound beneath her chin by a ribbon and her soft gardening gloves rolling back from her firm, white wrists. Her gestures expressed a calm energy, an accurate grace. She was tall, and when she raised herself to look over the meadows at the hills, she showed small, decisive features, all marked, in the pallor of her face, as if with the delicate, neutral emphasis of an etching: the grey, scrutinizing eyes, the charming yet ugly nose, the tranquil mouth that had, at the corners, a little fall, half sweet, half bitter, as if with tears repressed or a summoned smile.

Squared at brow and chin, it would, but for the mildness of the gaze, have been an imperious face; and her head, its whitened hair drawn back and looped in wide braids behind, had an air at once majestic and unworldly.

She had worked for over an hour and the last label was set beside a precious clump of iris. The hazel copse lay near by; and gathering up her tools, drawing off her wet gloves, she followed the path under the leafless branches and among the hepatica leaves to the stone bench, where, sinking down, she knew that she was very tired. She could see, below the bank, the dark, quick stream; a pale, diffused light in the sky showed where the sun was dropping toward the hills.

Where was Jack at this moment, this quiet moment of a monotonous English winter day?--so like the days of all the other years that it was impossible to think of what was happening a few hours' journey away across the Channel. Impossible to think of it; yet the thick throb of her heart spoke to the full of its significance. She had told herself from the beginning--pa.s.sionate, rebellious creature as, at bottom, she knew herself to be, always in need of discipline and only in these later years schooled to a control and submission that, in her youth, she would have believed impossible to her--she had told herself, when he had gone from her, that, as a soldier's widow, she must see her soldier son go to death. She must give him to that; be ready for it; and if he came back to her it would be as if he were born again, a gift, a grace, unexpected and unclaimed. She must feel, for herself as well as for her country, that these days of dread were also days of a splendour and beauty unmatched by any in England's history, and that a soldier's widow must ask for no more glorious fate for her son than death in such a cause. She had told herself all this many times; yet, as she sat there, her hands folded on her lap, her eyes on the stream below, she felt that she was now merely motherhood, tense, huddled, throbbing and longing, longing for its child.

Then, suddenly, she heard Jack's footsteps. They came, quick and light, along the garden path; they entered the wood; they were near, but softened by the fallen leaves. And, half rising, afraid of her own joy, she hardly knew that she saw him before she was in his arms; and it was better to meet thus, in the blindness and darkness of their embrace, her cheek pressed against his hair, his head buried close between her neck and shoulder.

"Jack!--Jack!" she heard herself say.

He said nothing, holding her tightly to him, with quick breaths; and even after she had opened her eyes and could look down at him,--her own, her dear, beautiful Jack,--could see the nut-brown head, the smooth brown cheek, the firm brown hand which grasped her, he did not for a long time raise his head and look at her. When, at last, he did look up, she could not tell, through her tears, whether, like herself, he was trying to smile.

They sat down together on the bench. She did not ask him why he had not wired. That question pressed too sharply on her heart; to ask might seem to reproach.

"Darling--you are so thin,--so much older,--but you look--strong and well."

"We're all of us extraordinarily fit, mummy. It's wholesome, living in mud."

"And wholesome living among bursting sh.e.l.ls? I had your last letter telling of that miraculous escape."

"There have been a lot more since then. Every day seems a miracle--that one's alive at the end of it."

"But you get used to it?"

"All except the noise. That always seems to daze me still. Some of our fellows are deaf from it.--You heard of Toppie, mother?" Jack asked.

Toppie was Alan Graham, Jack's nearest friend. He had been killed ten days before.

"I heard it, Jack. Were you with him?"

"Yes. It was in a bayonet charge. He didn't suffer. A bullet went right through him. He just gave a little cry and fell." Jack's voice had the mildness of a sorrow that has pa.s.sed beyond the capacity for emotion.

"We found him afterwards. He is buried out there."

"You must tell Frances about it, Jack. I went to her at once." Frances was Toppie's sister. "She is bearing it so bravely."

"I must write to her. She would be sure to be plucky."

He answered all her questions, sitting closely against her, his arm around her; looking down, while he spoke, and twisting, as had always been his boyish way, a b.u.t.ton on her coat. He was at that enchanting moment of young manhood when the child is still apparent in the man.

His glance was shy yet candid; his small, firm lips had a child's gravity. With his splendid shoulders, long legs, and n.o.ble little head, he was yet as endearing as he was impressive. His mother's heart ached with love and pride and fear as she gazed at him.

And a question came, near the sharp one, yet hoping to evade it:--

"Jack, dearest, how long will you be with me? How long is the leave?"

He raised his eyes then and looked at her; a curious look. Something in it blurred her mind with a sense of some other sort of fear.

"Only till to-night," he said.

It seemed confusion rather than pain that she felt. "Only till to-night, Jack? But Richard Crawley has been back for three days already. I thought they gave you longer?"

"I know, mummy." His eyes were dropped again and his hand at the b.u.t.ton--did it tremble?--twisted and untwisted. "I've been back for three days already.--I've been in London."

"In London?" Her breath failed her. The sense of alien fear became a fog, horrible, suffocating. "But--Jack--why?"

"I didn't wire, mummy, because I knew I'd have to be there for most of my time. I felt I couldn't wire and tell you. I felt I had to see you when I told you. Mother--I'm married.--I came back to get married.--I was married this morning.--Oh, mother, can you ever forgive me?"

His shaking hands held her and his eyes could not meet hers.

She felt the blood rush, as if her heart had been divided with a sword, to her throat, to her eyes, choking her, burning her; and as if from far away she heard her own voice saying, after a little time had pa.s.sed, "There's nothing I couldn't forgive you, Jack. Tell me. Don't be afraid of hurting me."

He held her tightly, still looking down as he said, "She is a dancer, mother, a little dancer. It was in London, last summer. A lot of us came up from Aldershot together. She was in the chorus of one of those musical comedies. Mother, you can never understand. But it wasn't just low and vulgar. She was so lovely,--so very young,--with the most wonderful golden hair and the sweetest eyes.--I don't know.--I simply went off my head when I saw her. We all had supper together afterwards.

Toppie knew one of the other girls, and Dollie was there. That's her name--Dollie Vaughan--her stage name. Her real name was Watson. Her people, I think, were little tradespeople, and she'd lost her father and mother, and an aunt had been very unkind. She told me all about it that night. Mother, please believe just this: it wasn't only the obvious thing.--I know I can't explain. But you remember, when we read _War and Peace_"--his broken voice groped for the a.n.a.logy--"You remember Natacha, when she falls in love with Anatole, and nothing that was real before seems real, and she is ready for anything.--It was like that. It was all fairyland, like that. No one thought it wrong. It didn't seem wrong.

Everything went together."

She had gathered his hand closely in hers and she sat there, quiet, looking at her hopes lying slain before her. Her Jack. The wife who was, perhaps, to have been his. The children that she, perhaps, should have seen. All dead. The future blotted out. Only this wraith-like present; only this moment of decision; Jack and his desperate need the only real things left.

And after a moment, for his labouring breath had failed, she said, "Yes, dear?" and smiled at him.

He covered his face with his hands. "Mother, I've ruined your life."

He had, of course, in ruining his own; yet even at that moment of wreckage she was able to remember, if not to feel, that life could mend from terrible wounds, could marvellously grow from compromises and defeats. "No, dearest, no," she said. "While I have you, nothing is ruined. We shall see what can be done. Go on. Tell me the rest."

He put out his hand to hers again and sat now a little turned away from her, speaking on in his deadened, bitter voice.

"There wasn't any glamour after that first time. I only saw her once or twice again. I was awfully sorry and ashamed over the whole thing. Her company left London, on tour, and then the war came, and I simply forgot all about her. And the other day, over there, I had a letter from her.

She was in terrible trouble. She was ill and had no money, and no work.

And she was going to have a child--my child; and she begged me to send her a little money to help her through, or she didn't know what would become of her."

The fog, the horrible confusion, even the despair, had pa.s.sed now. The sense of ruin, of wreckage almost irreparable, was there; yet with it, too, was the strangest sense of gladness. He was her own Jack, completely hers, for she saw now why he had done it; she could be glad that he had done it. "Go on, dear," she said. "I understand; I understand perfectly."

"O mother, bless you!" He put her hand to his lips, bowing his head upon it for a moment. "I was afraid you couldn't. I was afraid you couldn't forgive me. But I had to do it. I thought it all over--out there.

Everything had become so different after what one had been through. One saw everything differently. Some things didn't matter at all, and other things mattered tremendously. This was one of them. I knew I couldn't just send her money. I knew I couldn't bear to have the poor child born without a name and with only that foolish little mother to take care of it. And when I found I could get this leave, I knew I must marry her.

That was why I didn't wire. I thought I might not have time to come to you at all."

"Where is she, Jack?" Her voice, her eyes, her smile at him, showed him that, indeed, she understood perfectly.

"In lodgings that I found for her; nice and quiet, with a kind landlady.

She was in such an awful place in Ealing. She is so changed, poor little thing. I should hardly have known her. Mother, darling, I wonder, could you just go and see her once or twice? She's frightfully lonely; and so very young.--If you could.--If you would just help things along a little till the baby comes, I should be so grateful. And, then, if I don't come back, will you, for my sake, see that they are safe?"

"But, Jack," she said, smiling at him, "she is coming here, of course. I shall go and get her to-morrow."

He stared at her and his colour rose. "Get her? Bring her here, to stay?"

"Of course, darling. And if you don't come back, I will take care of them, always."