As he sat there, he heard and saw nothing of his surroundings, for Margaret"s eyes and beauty had given him a delicious new world of his own. They had told him that she had always trusted him. They had obliterated the war, and the fact that he was journeying towards it.
They had made his pulses throb again with the wine of pa.s.sion and gay romance. He was an individual once more, enjoying the sweetness of the woman whose love had been so devoutly his.
It seemed so odd that the fresh, clean, proud-looking girl, with the dark hair and the crimson cross on her breast, behind the food counter, was actually the woman who had trembled in his arms under the desert stars, for her very fear of her love for him. She had once been very, very near to him; she had seemed an indispensable part of his life.
To-night, standing behind the buffet, although she was materially quite close, she was hopelessly far away. His only privilege had been to take a cup of tea from her hands. A world of fresh experience and emotion had separated them.
For a long time he sat motionless on his kit, dreaming only of Margaret. Now it was of the wonderful things which her eyes had told him; now it was of the distance and circ.u.mstances which separated them.
Later on he roused himself out of his reverie, for the men in the carriage at whose open door he was sitting were singing, "It"s a long, long way to Tipperary"--the song had not yet been depopularized by "Keep the home-fires burning"; it was still sung by soldiers and civilians and gramophones. The l.u.s.ty, cheery voices brought Michael"s mind back to the stern reality of war. He peeped out into the night, lifting up the blind from the window-pane and putting his head under it.
The cold, bleak day had given place to a starlit night, with a high-sailing moon. The snowcapped mountains and distant forests of solemn pine-trees looked serenely indifferent to the material affairs of mankind. Their purity and indifference wounded Michael. How could Nature remain so callously superior, so selfishly peaceful, while he was hurrying to France, to witness cruelties which it had taken the world all its great age to invent and put into action? These cold mountains, rushing streams and hidden glens would just go on smiling in the sunshine by day and sleeping peacefully under the moonlight, while golden youth was sacrificing itself on the altar of Liberty.
As the train rushed on through the darkness, emitting sparks which showed her pace, Michael"s thoughts drifted to the old African in el-Azhar and all that he had visualized. As his eyes peered out from the jealously-covered windows and rested on the long line of mountains, high in their snowy whiteness, he repeated the old man"s words:
"Why do the heathen so furiously rage together and the people imagine vain things in their hearts? I tell you, my son, it is because they have not the love of G.o.d in their hearts."
Yes, why, oh why, did they do it? The world he looked out upon was surely meant for grander and better things? It had nothing to do with bloodshed. And yet, even as he said it, words and voice answered back:
"Pray for fort.i.tude, my son, that moral condition which enables us to meet danger and endure pain with calmness. I tell you to pray for fort.i.tude, for without it you cannot face the future."
As his thoughts were lost in this prayer, he got back his a.s.surance that this war of wars had to be fought in the cause of freedom. He knew that it had to be won by the Allies, to ensure the triumph of right over might. This was the war which was to terminate all wars; the victory of the Allies was to bring about the disarmament of all powerful nations. It was the forerunner of a higher civilization.
He put his head between his hands and rested it on his knees. He knew that his words were true. And yet, had not his old friend in el-Azhar been as sincerely convinced that this war which he had visualized was to be fought for the triumph of Islam? Was he not certain that Allah had ordained it to prove to all countries upon the earth that the Christian nations had shown that their religion was hideous in Allah"s sight, that it was a failure, that it had not redeemed mankind?
And Germany! What of Germany? Michael saw, with his vivid imagination and unprejudiced mind, German mothers and fathers praying for their sons who were fighting for the cause of the beloved Fatherland, the cause which they believed was the cause of righteousness. Did they also not pray earnestly and sincerely? Did they, too, not believe that G.o.d would be on the side of righteousness?
Why were these agonized parents and brave soldiers to be made to suffer if it was all to be in vain, if their cause was not the just cause?
Had they not obeyed the cult of their land and the teachings of their spiritual pastors and masters? He remembered the African"s words: "The time draws near when each man will return to the land that gave him birth."
In this war which was raging, all the soldiers who suffered, and the parents who gave up their only-begotten sons to save their countries from extermination--all of them were the victims of circ.u.mstance. They were all heroes answering to the call which demanded of them life"s highest sacrifice. They were victims of militarism, which must be wiped out of civilization.
Michael became agonized with the hopelessness of answering the questions which stormed his brain. Over and over again he said to himself the words, "Why do the heathen so furiously rage together and the people imagine vain things in their hearts?" And over and over again the answer came, "I tell you, my son, it is because they have not the love of G.o.d in their hearts."
He repeated the words almost mechanically until they indefinitely became a sort of refrain which kept time to the thud, thud of the engine, and the rushing noise of the train.
At last, tired out both mentally and physically, he fell asleep. In his dreams Margaret was very near to him. It was the old Margaret, radiant with the new wonder of love, fragrant with the night-air of the Sahara which surrounded them.
The war and its demands were wiped out; the world was back again to the fair free days which knew neither hate nor fear.
CHAPTER II
Nearly four months had pa.s.sed and Margaret was still a pantry-maid in the same private hospital. The V.A.D. who was to have gone to France had suffered as great a disappointment as Margaret, for at the very last moment word had been sent to her--it had been unavoidably delayed--that her services in France would not yet be required.
Margaret, with her bigness of nature, had insisted upon the girl retaining the post in the wards and letting things go on as they were.
Her "bit" was very, very dull, but it was her "bit," and nothing she did, she knew, could in any way compare in dullness to the lives of the boys in the trenches. So she worked and endured, and found the necessary change of scene in the mixed company of her garden-square society.
The days fled past. It was a dull life for a young girl, but since the war began all girls worthy of their country had said good-bye to the pleasures of youth. Youth had no time to be young; old age had forgotten that it was old. The renaissance of patriotism had transformed England. The war recognized neither old age nor youth; it opened its hungry jaws and took everyone in.
Margaret had neither seen nor heard anything of Michael since the eventful winter night when she had handed him a cup of coffee in the free-refreshment-room at the large northern station. She did not even know what regiment he was in. That, of course, was owing to her own stupidity; it was a matter of constant regret to her that she had not at the time had the forethought to ask the weeping woman on the platform what regiment her husband was in. Knowing nothing more than that Michael was at the Front, all she could do was to keep an eye on each day"s casualty list in _The Times_ newspaper. But even as her eyes hastily scanned the long columns of small print, she said to herself, "I need not look--his name will not be there. I have had my a.s.surance of his safety."
She was certain now that the mystic message, which lay locked away in the dispatch-box which held her most important papers, had been sent to her to help her. It had been given to her to lessen her loneliness and to ease her anxiety.
Of course, this state of certainty had its feebler moments, and many, many times as she did her day"s work she became affected by the waves of pessimism which spread at intervals over the British Isles. At these times she went about the pantry chalk-faced and tragic-eyed; but generally, when her suffering was becoming more than she could endure, from visualizing Michael blind, or limbless, or, still worse, an imbecile through sh.e.l.l-shock, a clear voice would speak to her, her super-self would repeat the contents of her treasured message.
The fact that her hand had written the message before and not after Michael"s going to the Front established her confidence in it. If it had been after, her sound judgment told her that suggestion might have had something to do with the automatic writing.
It was early spring, and Margaret"s country-loving nature cried out for the smell of damp fields, for the scents and the sounds of untrodden paths. The long twilight evenings seemed the loneliest hours to her in London. Their beauty was wasted. But the real country was denied her, for what distance could her two-hours-off take her from London?
Scarcely beyond soot-blackened trees and the prim avenues of suburban respectability. But she had one great pleasure to look forward to--the Iretons were to be in London for the season, or, rather, what used to be termed the season in London.
They were to arrive in Clarges Street that very night. They were coming to England to help in the arrangements for the better equipping of native military hospitals in Egypt. Hada.s.sah"s knowledge of the native"s likes and dislikes was considerable.
Margaret was now on her way to a tube railway-station. The afternoon was so glorious that she was going to make an excursion to Kew. She would just have time to look at the maythorns and hurry back. The one brave laburnum which gave brightness and fragrance to her garden-square told her that in the larger open s.p.a.ces the flowering shrubs would be at their best.
As she ran down the steps of the tube station, she saw that a train which would take her to Hammersmith, where she would have to change for Kew Gardens, was drawn up at the platform; the pa.s.sengers who were leaving it were trying to ascend the stairs. With youthful tightness she leapt down the last two or three steps and sprang across the platform. She only just had time to step into the train before the iron gates closed behind her.
A little breathless with excitement and greatly pleased that she had succeeded in catching the train, she obeyed the order of the officious guard to "Step along--don"t block the gangway!"
The carriage was not full, but there were not many empty seats in it, so Margaret hastily sank into the one which was nearest to her and close to the door. It happened to be near to one on which a soldier was seated. His kit was lying at his feet in front of him. As she sat down, a voice said quietly:
"I"d advise you to sit a little further on--I"m not very nice."
Margaret never grasped the meaning of the words; the voice was all she heard. It made her heart bound, and her senses reel; her bewilderment was overwhelming.
Some instinct made the soldier swing right round; he had been sitting with his broad back turned to the vacant seat, which Margaret still occupied. They faced each other; the soldier was Michael.
Under his ardent gaze Margaret paled pitifully and made a valiant effort to speak, to collect her thoughts. All that came from her trembling lips were the prosaic words, rather timidly spoken:
"Is it you, Michael?"
They seemed to content Michael and tell him a thousand things which dazed and intoxicated him. His surprise was even greater than Margaret"s.
"Yes, it is me, Meg," he said. "Thank G.o.d we"ve met!"
For Margaret, in one moment all the long months of doubt and pride were wiped out. Michael"s eyes had banished them. Her characteristic courage and her self-possession returned. She put her hand on the top of Michael"s, the one which held his rifle. Her touch thrilled the soldier home from the Front; it travelled through his veins like an electric current. Margaret"s eyes had dropped; now they met her lover"s again.
The train in its narrow channel under the city was making such a noise that it was impossible to hear even a loud voice above its hideous rattle. There are few noises more devastating to conversation than the awful roar of a London tube-railway. But Love speaks with an eloquence which no noise can drown; its sympathy and pa.s.sion carry it far above the din and noise of battle. Margaret and Michael knew it well. If Love depended upon words, what a poor cold thing it would be! No quarrels would ever be settled, no journeys end in lovers" meetings.
Michael moved the hand which Margaret clasped. It was hard to do it, but he felt compelled to.
"I"m horribly verminous," he said, apologetically. "I"m just back from the trenches--you ought to keep further off."
Margaret"s eyes dropped; a flame of love"s shyness spread over her glowing face. It heightened her beauty and bewildered Michael. He longed to take her in his arms and kiss her--even before the whole carriage-full of people. Perhaps in the early days of the war the scene would only have brought tears and tender smiles to worldly eyes.
Margaret tried to say something, she scarcely knew what--just anything to break the pa.s.sion of their silence, but the roaring of the train drowned her trembling question. How she hated the swaying and groaning and the rattling of the tube train as it dashed through its confined way! Never before had it seemed so awful, so maddening.
Michael, too, was tongue-tied. How could he offer Margaret any explanation, or ask if she had understood, while the train drowned the loudest voices? What a hideous place for a lovers" meeting, after months of weary longing!
When the train drew up at Knightsbridge Margaret rose from her seat.
Her desire to see Kew had fled. It mattered little now where she went; she was only conscious of the fact that she must put an end to the present strain. If Michael was as anxious to speak to her as she was to speak to him, he would follow her. He was obviously home on leave.