"It"s begun!" he said eagerly--"begun! What have they done?"
"The bombardment opened at dawn--about five--the German infantry attacked about eight. It"s been going on the whole morning--and down the whole front from Arras to the Scarpe."
"And we"ve held?--we"ve _held_?"
"So far magnificently. Our outpost troops have been withdrawn to the battle-zone--that"s all. The line has held everywhere. The Germans have lost heavily."
"Outpost troops!" whispered the boy--"why, that"s nothing! We always expected--to lose the first line. Good old Army!"
A pause, and then--so faintly breathed as to be scarcely audible, and yet in ecstasy--"England!--England!"
His joy was wonderful--heart-breaking--while all those around him wept.
He lay murmuring to himself a little while, his hand in Pamela"s.
Then for a last time he looked at his father, but was now too weak to speak. His eyes, intently fixed on the Squire, kept their marvellous brightness--no one knew how long. Then gently, as though an unseen hand put out a light, the brilliance died away--the lids fell--and with a few breaths Desmond"s young life was past.
CHAPTER XVII
It was three weeks after Desmond"s death. Pamela was sitting in the "den" writing a letter to Arthur Chicksands at Versailles. The first onslaught on Amiens was over. The struggle between Bethune and Ypres was in full swing.
"DEAREST--This house is so strange--the world is so strange!
Oh, if I hadn"t my work to do!--how could one bear it? It seems wrong and hateful even, to let one"s mind dwell on the wonderful, wonderful thing, that you love me! The British Army retreating--_retreating_--after these glorious years--that is what burns into me hour after hour! Thank G.o.d Desmond didn"t know! And if I feel like this, who am just an ignorant, inexperienced girl, what must it be for you who are working there, at the very centre, the news streaming in on you all the time?--you who know how much there is to fear--but also how much there is to be certain of--to be confident of--that we can"t know. Our splendid, _splendid_ men! Every day I watch for the names I know in the death list--and some of them seem to be always there. The boy--the other sub-lieutenant--who was with Desmond when he was wounded, was in the list yesterday.
Forest"s boy is badly wounded. The old gardener has lost another son. Perley"s boy is "missing," and so is the poor Pennington boy. They are heroic--the Penningtons--but whenever I see them I want to cry.... Oh, I can"t write this any more.
I have been writing letters of sympathy all day.
"Dearest, you would be astonished if you could see me at this moment. I am to-day a full blown group leader. Do you know what that means? I have had a long round among some of our farms to-day--bargaining with the farmers for the land-girls in my group, and looking after their billets. Yesterday I spent half the day in "docking" with six or eight village women to give them a "send off." I don"t believe you know what docking means.
It is pretty hard work, and at night I have a nightmare--of roots that never come to an end, and won"t pull out!
"You were quite right--it _is_ my work. I was born in the country. I know and love it. The farmers are very nice to me. They see I don"t try to boss them as the Squire"s daughter--that I"m just working as they are. And I can say a good deal to them about the war, because of Desmond. They all knew him and loved him. Some of them tell me stories about his pluck out hunting as a little chap, and though he had been such a short time out in France he had written to two or three of them about their sons in the Brookshires. He had a heavenly disposition--oh, I wish I had!
"At the present moment I am in knee-breeches, gaiters, and tunic, and I have just come in. Six o"clock to five, please sir, with half-an-hour for breakfast and an hour for dinner (I eat it out of a red handkerchief under a hedge). It was wet and nasty, and I am pretty tired. But one does not want to stop--because when one stops one begins to think. And my thoughts, except for that shining centre where you are, are so dark and full of sorrow. I miss Desmond every hour, and some great monstrous demon seems to be clutching at me--at you--at England--everything one loves and would die for--all day long.
But don"t imagine that I ever _doubt_ for one moment. Not I--
For right is right, since G.o.d is G.o.d, And right the day must win; To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin.
I know that"s not good poetry. But I just love it--because it"s plain and commonplace, and expresses just what ordinary people feel and think.
"Oh, why was I such a fool about Elizabeth! Now that you are at a safe distance--and of course on the understanding that you never, never say a word to me about it--I positively will and must confess that I was jealous of her about you--yes, about you, Arthur--because you talked to her about Greek--and about ash for aeroplanes--and I couldn"t talk about them. There"s a nice nature for you! Hadn"t you better get rid of me while you can? But the thing that torments me is that I can never have it quite out with Desmond. I told him lies, simply. I didn"t know they were lies, I suppose; but I was too angry and too unjust to care whether they were or not. On the journey from France I said a few little words to him--just enough, thank Heaven! He was so sweet to her in those last days--and she to him. You know one side of her _is_ the managing woman--and the other (I"ve only found it out since Desmond"s death)--well, she seems to be just asking you to creep under her wings and be mothered!
She mothered him, and she has mothered me since he shut his dear eyes for ever. Oh, why won"t she mother us all--for good and all!--father first and foremost.
"I told you something about him last time I wrote, but there is a great deal more to tell. The horrible thing is that he seems not to care any more for any of his old hobbies. He sits there in the library day after day, or walks about it for hours and hours, without ever opening a book or looking at a thing. Or else he walks about the woods--sometimes quite late at night.
Forest believes he sleeps very little. I told you he never came to Desmond"s funeral. All business he hands over to Elizabeth, and what she asks him he generally does. But we all have vague, black fears about him. I know Elizabeth has. Yet she is quite clear she can"t stay here much longer. Dear Arthur, I don"t know exactly what happened, but I _think_ father asked her to marry him, and she said no. And I am tolerably sure that I counted for a good deal in it--horrid wretch that I am!--that she thought it would make me unhappy.
"Well, I am properly punished. For if or when she goes away--and you and I are married--if there is to be any marrying any more in this awful world!--what will become of my father?
He has been a terrifying mystery to me all my life. Now it is not that any longer. I know at least that he worshipped Desmond. But I know also that I mean nothing to him. I don"t honestly think it was much my fault--and it can"t be helped.
And n.o.body else in the family matters. The only person who does matter is Elizabeth. And I quite see that she can"t stay here indefinitely. She told me she promised Desmond she would stay as long as she could. Just at present, of course, she is the mainspring of everything on the estate. And they have actually made her this last week Vice-Chairman of the County War Agricultural Committee. She refused, but they _made_ her. Think of that--a woman--with all those wise men! She asked father"s leave. He just looked at her, and I saw the tears come into her eyes.
"As to Beryl and Aubrey, he was here last Sunday, and she spent the day with us. He seems to lean upon her in a new way--and she looks different somehow--happier, I think. He told me, the day after Desmond died, that Dezzy had said something to him that had given him courage--"courage to go on," I think he said. I didn"t ask him what he meant, and he didn"t tell me.
But I am sure he has told Beryl, and either that--or something else--has made her more confident in herself--and about him.
They are to be married quite soon. Last week father sent him, without a word, a copy of his will. Aubrey says it is very fair. Mannering goes to him, of course. You know that Elizabeth refused to witness the codicil father wrote last October disinheriting Aubrey, when he was so mad with Sir Henry? It was the first thing that made father take real notice of her. She had only been six weeks here!
"Good-night, my dearest, dearest Arthur! Don"t be too much disappointed in me. I shall grow up some day."
A few days later the Squire came back from Fallerton to find n.o.body in the house, apparently, but himself. He went through the empty hall and the library, and shut himself up there. He carried an evening paper crumpled in his hand. It contained a detailed report of the breaking of the Portuguese centre near Richebourg St. Vaast on April 10, and the consequent retreat, over some seven miles, since that day of the British line, together with the more recent news of the capture of Armentieres and Merville. Sitting down at his own table he read the telegrams again, and then in the stop-press Sir Douglas Haig"s Order of the Day--
"_There is no other course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement.
With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind depend alike upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment._"
The Squire read and re-read the words. He was sitting close to the tall French window where through some fine spring days Desmond had lain, his half-veiled eyes wandering over the woods and green s.p.a.ces which had been his childhood"s companions. There--submissive for himself, but, for England"s sake, and so that his mind might receive as long as possible the impress of her fate, an ardent wrestler with Death through each disputed hour--he had waited; and there, with the word _England_ on his lips, he had died. The Squire could still see the marks made on the polished floor by the rolling backward of the bed at night. And on the wall near there was a brown mark on the wall-paper. He remembered that it had been made by a splash from a bowl of disinfectant, and that he had stared at it one morning in a dumb torment which seemed endless, because Desmond had woke in pain and the morphia was slow to act.
_England_! His boy was dead--and his country had its back to the wall. And he--what had he done for England, all these years of her struggle? His carelessness, his indifference returned upon him--his mad and selfish refusal, day by day, to give his mind, or his body, or his goods, to the motherland that bore him.
"_Is it nothing to you, all ye that pa.s.s by?_"
No--it had been nothing to him. But Desmond, his boy, had given everything. And the death-struggle was still going on. "_Each one of us must fight on to the end._" Before his eyes there pa.s.sed the spectacle of the Army, as he had actually seen it--a division, for instance, on the march near the Salient, rank after rank of young faces, the brown cheeks and smiling eyes, the swing of the lithe bodies. And while he sat there in the quiet of the April evening, thousands of boys like Desmond were offering those same lithe bodies to the Kaiser"s guns without murmur or revolt because England asked it. Now he knew what it meant--_now he knew_!
There was a knock at the door, and the sound of something heavy descending. The Squire gave a dull "Come in." Forest entered, dragging a large bale behind him. He looked nervously at his master.
"These things have just come from France, sir."
The Squire started. He walked over in silence to look while Forest opened the case. Desmond"s kit, his clothes, his few books, a stained uniform, a writing-case, with a number of other miscellaneous things.
Forest spread them out on the floor, his lips trembling. On several nights before the end Desmond had asked for him, and he had shared the Squire"s watch.
"That"ll do," said the Squire presently; "I"ll look over them myself!"
Forest went away. After shutting the door he saw Elizabeth coming along the library pa.s.sage, and stopped to speak to her.
"The things have just come from France, Miss," he said in a low voice.
Elizabeth hesitated, and was turning back, when the library door opened and the Squire called her.
"Yes, Mr. Mannering."
"Will you come here, please, a moment?"
She entered the room, and the Squire closed the door behind her, pointing mutely to the things on the floor.
The tears sprang to her eyes. She knelt down to look at them.
"Do you remember anything about this?" he said, holding out a little book. It was the pocket Anthology she had found for Desmond on the day of his going into camp. As she looked through it she saw a turned-down leaf, and seemed still to hear the boy"s voice, as he hung over her shoulder translating the epigram--
"_Shame on you, mountains and seas!_"
With a swelling throat she told the story. The Squire listened, and when afterwards she offered the book to him again, he put it back into her hand, with some muttered words which she interpreted as bidding her keep it.