The Setons Part 41

Jessie Thomson is a V.A.D. now and a very efficient worker, as befits the daughter of Mrs. Thomson. She has not time to worry about her mother's homely ways, nor is she so hag-ridden by the Simpsons.

Gertrude Simpson, by the way, is, according to her mother, "marrying into the Navy--a Lieutenant-Commander, no less," and, according to Mrs.

Thomson, is "neither to haud nor bind" in consequence.

Stewart Stevenson went on with his work for three months after war began, but he was thinking deeply all the time, and one day in November he put all his painting things away--very tidily--locked up the studio and went home to tell his parents he had decided to go. His was no martial spirit, he hated the very name of war and loathed the thought of the training, but he went because he felt it would be a pitiful thing if anyone had to take his place.

His mother sits among the time-pieces in Lochnagar and knits socks, and packs parcels, and cries a good deal. Both she and her husband have grown much greyer, and they somehow appear smaller. Stewart, you see, is their only son.

It is useless to tell over the days of August 1914. They are branded on the memory. The stupefaction, the reading of newspapers until we were dazed and half-blind, the endless talking, the frenzy of knitting into which the women threw themselves, thankful to find something that would at least occupy their hands. We talked so glibly about what we did not understand. We repeated parrot-like to each other, "It will take all our men and all our treasure," and had no notion how truly we spoke or how hard a saying we were to find it. And all the time the sun shone.

It was particularly hard to believe in the war at Etterick. No khaki-clad men disturbed the peace of the glen, no trains rushed past crowded with troops, no aeroplanes circled in the heavens. The hills and the burn and the peeweets remained the same, the high hollyhocks flaunted themselves against the grey garden wall; nothing was changed--and yet everything was different.

Buff and Thomas and Billy, as pleased and excited as if it were some gigantic show got up for their benefit, equipped themselves with weapons and spent laborious days tracking spies in the heather and charging down the hillside; performing many deeds of valour for which, in the evening, they solemnly presented each other with suitable decorations.

Towards the end of August, when they were at breakfast one morning, Arthur Townshend suddenly appeared, having come up by the night train and motored from the junction.

His arrival created great excitement, Buff throwing himself upon him and demanding to know why he had come.

"Well, you know, you did invite me in August," Arthur reminded him.

"And when are you going away?" (This was Buff's favourite formula with guests, and he could never be made to see that it would be prettier if he said, "How long can you stay?")

Arthur shook hands with Elizabeth and her father, and replied:

"I'm going away this evening as ever was. It sounds absurd," in answer to Elizabeth's exclamation, "but I must be back in London to-morrow morning. I had no notion when I might have a chance of seeing you all again, so I just came off when I had a free day."

"Dear me!" said Mr. Seton. "You young people are like Ariel or Puck, the way you fly about."

"Oh! _is_ it to be the Flying Corps?" asked Elizabeth.

"No--worse luck! Pilled for my eyesight. But I'm pa.s.sed for the infantry, and to-morrow I enter the Artists' Rifles. I may get a commission and go to France quite soon."

Ellen came in with a fresh supply of food, and breakfast was a prolonged meal; for the Setons had many questions to ask and Arthur had much to tell them.

"You're a G.o.dsend to us," Elizabeth told him, "for you remain normal.

People here are all unstrung. The neighbours arrive in excited motorfuls, children and dogs and all, and we sit and knit, and drink tea and tell each other the most absurd tales. And rumours leap from end to end of the county, and we imagine we hear guns on the Forth--which isn't humanly possible--and people who have boys in the Navy are tortured with silly lies about sea-battles and the sinking of wars.h.i.+ps."

Before luncheon, Arthur was dragged out by the boys to admire their pets; but though they looked at such peaceful objects as rabbits, a jackdaw with a wooden leg, and the giant trout that lived in Prince Charlie's Well, all their talk was of battles. They wore sacking round their legs to look like putties, their belts were stuck full of weapons, and they yearned to shed blood. No one would have thought, to hear their bloodthirsty talk, that only that morning they had, all three, wept bitter tears because the sandy cat from the stables had killed a swallow.

Billy, who had got mixed in his small mind between friend and foe, announced that he had, a few minutes ago, killed seven Russians whom he had found lurking among the gooseberry bushes in the kitchen garden, and was instantly suppressed by Thomas, who hissed at him, "You don't kill _allies_, silly. You inter them."

In the afternoon, while Mr. Seton took his reluctant daily rest, and the boys were busy with some plot of their own in the stockyard, Elizabeth and Arthur wandered out together.

They went first to see the walled garden, now ablaze with autumn flowers; but beautiful though it was it did not keep them long, for something in the day and something in themselves seemed to demand the uplands, and they turned their steps to the hills.

It was an easy climb, and they walked quickly, and soon stood at the cairn of stones that marked the top of the hill behind the house, stood breathless and glad of a rest, looking at the countryside spread out beneath them.

In most of the fields the corn stood in "stooks"; the last field was being cut this golden afternoon, and the hum of the reaping-machine was loud in the still air.

Far away a wisp of white smoke told that the little branch-line train was making its leisurely journey from one small flower-scented station to another. Soon the workers would gather up their things and go home, the day's work finished.

All was peace.

And there was no peace.

The tears came into Elizabeth's eyes as she looked, and Arthur answered the thought that brought the tears. "It's worth dying for," he said.

Elizabeth nodded, not trusting her voice.

They turned away and talked on trivial matters, and laughed, and presently fell silent again.

"Elizabeth," said Arthur suddenly, "I wish you didn't scare me so."

"_Do_ I? I'm very much gratified to hear it. I had no idea I inspired awe in any mortal."

"Well--that isn't at all a suitable reply to my remark. I wanted you to a.s.sure me that there was no need to be scared."

"There isn't. What can I do for you? Ask and I shall grant it, even to the half of my kingdom."

"When we get this job over may I come straight to you?"

Elizabeth had no coyness in her nature, and she now turned her grey eyes--not mocking now but soft and s.h.i.+ning--on the anxious face of her companion and said:

"Indeed, my dear, you may. Just as straight as you can come, and I shall be waiting for you on the doorstep. It has taken a European war to make me realize it, but you are the only man in the world so far as I am concerned."

Some time later Arthur said, "I'm going away extraordinarily happy. By Jove, I ought to be some use at fighting now"; and he laughed boyishly.

"Oh, don't," said Elizabeth. "You've reminded me, and I was trying to make believe you weren't going away. I'm afraid--oh! Arthur, I'm horribly afraid, that you won't be allowed to come back, that you will be s.n.a.t.c.hed from me----"

"I may not come back," said Arthur soberly, "but I won't be s.n.a.t.c.hed.

You give me, and I give myself, willingly. But, Lizbeth, beloved, it isn't like you to be afraid."

"Yes, it is. I've always been scared of something. When I was tiny it was the Last Day. I hardly dared go the afternoon walk with Leezie in case it came like a thief in the night and found me far from my home and parents. I walked with my eyes shut, and b.u.mped into people and lamp-posts, because I was sure if I opened them I should see the Angel Gabriel standing on the top of a house with a trumpet in his hand, and the heavens rolling up like a scroll, and I didn't know about parchment scrolls and thought it was a _brandy-scroll_, which made it so much worse."

"Oh! my funny Elizabeth!" Arthur said tenderly. "I wish I could have been there to see you; I grudge all the years I didn't know you."

"Oh," said Elizabeth, "it wouldn't have been much good knowing each other in those days. I was about five, I suppose, and you would be nine. You would merely have seen a tiresome little girl, and I would have seen a superior sort of boy, and I should probably have put out my tongue at you. I wasn't a nice child; mine is a faulty and tattered past."

"When did you begin to reform?" Arthur asked, "for it was a very sedate lady I found in Glasgow. Tell me, Lizbeth, why were you so discouraging to me then? You must have known I cared."

"Well, you see, I'm a queer creature--affectionate but not very _loving_. I never think that 'love' is a word to use much if people are all well and things in their ordinary. And you were frightfully English, you can't deny it, and a monocle, and everything very much against you. And then Aunt Alice's intention of being a sort of fairy G.o.dmother was so obvious--it seemed feeble to tumble so easily in with her plans. But I suppose I cared all the time, and I can see now that it was very petty of me to pretend indifference."

"Petty?" said Arthur in fine scorn. "_You_ couldn't be petty. But I'm afraid I'm still 'frightfully' English, and I've still got astigmatism in one eye--are you sure you can overlook these blemishes? ... But seriously, Lizbeth--if I never come back to you, if I am one of the 'costs,' if all you and I are to have together, O my beloved, is just this one perfect afternoon, it will still be all right. Won't it? You will laugh and be your own gallant self, and know that I am loving you and waiting for you--farther on. It will be all right, Lizbeth?"

She nodded, smiling at him bravely.

"Then kiss me, my very own."