Echoes of the War Part 24

MR. DON, forlornly, 'As to that--as to that----'

MRS. DON. 'I will ask him if you wish me to, Robert.'

MR. DON. 'No, don't.'

ROGERS. 'It can't worry you as you are a disbeliever.'

MR. DON. 'No, but--I shouldn't like you to think that he sent me away.'

ROGERS. 'He won't. Will he, Mrs. Don?'

MR. DON, knowing what her silence implies, 'You see, d.i.c.k and I were not very--no quarrel or anything of that sort--but I, I didn't much matter to d.i.c.k. I'm too old, perhaps.'

MRS. DON, gently, 'I won't ask him, Robert, if you would prefer me not to.'

MR. DON. 'I'll go.'

MRS. DON. 'I'm afraid it is too late now.' She turns away from earthly things. 'Do you want me to break off?'

The table moves.

'Yes. Do you send me your love, d.i.c.k? Yes. And to Laura? Yes.' She raises her eyes to Don, and hesitates. 'Shall I ask him----?'

MR. DON. 'No, no, don't.'

ROGERS. 'It would be all right, Don.'

MR. DON. 'I don't know.'

They leave the table.

LAURA, a little agitated, 'May I go to my room, Mrs. Don? I feel I--should like to be alone.'

MRS. DON. 'Yes, yes, Laura dear. I shall come in and see you.'

Laura bids them good-night and goes. She likes Mr. Don, she strokes his hand when he holds it out to her, but she can't help saying, 'Oh, Mr.

Don, how could you?'

ROGERS. 'I think we must all want to be alone after such an evening.

I shall say good-night, Mrs. Don.'

MAJOR. 'Same here. I go your way, Rogers, but you will find me a silent companion. One doesn't want to talk ordinary things to-night. Rather not. Thanks, awfully.'

ROGERS. 'Good-night, Don. It's a pity, you know; a bit hard on your wife.'

MR. DON. 'Good-night, Rogers. Good-night, Major.'

The husband and wife, left together, have not much to say to each other.

He is depressed because he has spoilt things for her. She is not angry.

She knows that he can't help being as he is, and that there are fine s.p.a.ces in her mind where his thoughts can never walk with her. But she would forgive him seventy times seven because he is her husband. She is standing looking at a case of fis.h.i.+ng-rods against the wall. There is a Jock Scott still sticking in one of them. Mr. Don says, as if somehow they were evidence against him:

'd.i.c.k's fis.h.i.+ng-rods.'

She says forgivingly, 'I hope you don't mind my keeping them in the studio, Robert. They are sacred things to _me_.'

'That's all right, Grace.'

'I think I shall go to Laura now.'

'Yes,' in his inexpressive way.

'Poor child!'

'I'm afraid I hurt her.'

'd.i.c.k wouldn't have liked it--but d.i.c.k's gone.' She looks a little wonderingly at him. After all these years, she can sometimes wonder a little still. 'I suppose you will resume your evening paper!'

He answers quietly, but with the n.o.ble doggedness which is the reason why we write this chapter in his life. 'Why not, Grace?'

She considers, for she is so sure that she must know the answer better than he. 'I suppose it is just that a son is so much more to a mother than to a father.'

'I daresay.'

A little gust of pa.s.sion shakes her. 'How you can read about the war nowadays!'

He says firmly to her--he has had to say it a good many times to himself, 'I'm not going to give in.' But he adds, 'I am so sorry I was in the way, Grace. I wasn't scouting you, or anything of that sort. It's just that I can't believe in it.'

'Ah, Robert, you would believe if d.i.c.k had been to you what he was to me.'

'I don't know.'

'In a sense you may be glad that you don't miss him in the way I do.'

'Yes, perhaps.'

'Good-night, Robert.'

'Good-night, dear.'

He is alone now. He stands fingering the fis.h.i.+ng-rods tenderly, then wanders back into the ingle-nook. In the room we could scarcely see him, for it has gone slowly dark there, a grey darkness, as if the lamp, though still burning, was becoming unable to shed light. Through the greyness we see him very well beyond it in the glow of the fire. He sits on the settle and tries to read his paper. He breaks down. He is a pitiful lonely man.

In the silence something happens. A well-remembered voice says, 'Father.' Mr. Don looks into the greyness from which this voice comes, and he sees his son. We see no one, but we are to understand that, to Mr. Don, d.i.c.k is standing there in his habit as he lived. He goes to his boy.

'd.i.c.k!'

'I have come to sit with you for a bit, father.'

It is the gay, young, careless voice.