Elizabeth's Campaign Part 18

'Is it your opinion that Universities are any good?--that after the war there are going to be any Universities?'

'Only those that please the Labour Party!' put in Mannering.

'Oh, I'm not afraid of the Labour Party--awfully good fellows, many of them. The sooner they make a Government the better. They've got to learn their lessons like the rest of us. But I do want to know whether Miss Bremerton thinks Oxford was any _use_--before the war--and is going to be any use after the war? It's all right now, of course, for the moment, with the Colleges full of cadets and wounded men. But would you put the old Oxford back if you could?'

He lay on his elbows looking up at her. Elizabeth's eyes sparkled a little. She realized that an able man was experimenting on her, putting her through her paces. She asked what he meant by 'the old Oxford,' and an amusing dialogue sprang up between them as to their respective recollections of the great University--the dons, the lectures, the games, the Eights, 'Commem.' and the like. The Captain presently declared that Elizabeth had had a much nicer Oxford than he, and he wished he had been a female student.

'Didn't you--didn't you,' he said, his keen eyes observing her, 'get a prize once that somebody had given to the Women's Colleges for some Greek iambics?'

'Oh,' cried Elizabeth, 'how did you hear of that?'

'I was rather a dab at them myself,' he said lazily, drawing his hat over his eyes as he lay in the sun, 'and I perfectly remember hearing of a young lady--yes, I believe it was you!--whose translation of Browning's "Lost Leader" into Greek iambics was better than mine. They set it in the Ireland. You admit it? Capital!

As to the superiority of yours, I was, of course, entirely sceptical, though polite. Remind me, how did you translate "Just for a ribbon to put on his coat"?'

With a laughing mouth, Elizabeth at once quoted the Greek.

The Captain made a wry face.

'It sounds plausible, I agree,' he said slowly, 'but I don't believe a Greek would have understood a word of it. You remember that in the dim Victorian ages, when one great Latin scholar gave, as he thought, the neatest possible translation of "The path of glory leads but to the grave," another great Latin scholar declared that all a Roman could have understood by it would have been "The path of a public office leads to the jaws of the hillock"?'

The old Oxford joke was new in the ears of this Georgian generation, and when the laugh subsided, Elizabeth said mildly:

'Now, please, may I have yours?'

'What--my translation? Oh--horribly unfair!' said the Captain, chewing a piece of gra.s.s. 'However, here it is!'

He gave it out--with unction.

Elizabeth fell upon it in a flash, dissected and quarrelled with every word of it, turned it inside out in fact, while the Captain, still chewing, followed her with eyes of growing enjoyment.

'Well, I'll take a vote when I get back to the front,' he said, when she came to an end. 'Several firsts in Mods on our staff. I'll send you the result.'

The talk dropped. The mention of the front reminded every one of the war, and its bearing on their own personal lot. Desmond was going into camp that evening. In a few months he would be a full-blown gunner at the front. Beryl, watching Aubrey's thin face and nervous frown, proved inwardly that the Aldershot appointment might go on.

And Elizabeth's thoughts had flown to her brother in Mesopotamia.

Pamela, sitting apart, and deeply shaded by a great beech with drooping branches that rose behind the group, was sharply unhappy, and filled with a burning jealousy of Elizabeth, who queened it there in the middle of them--so self-possessed, agreeable, and competent. How well Arthur had been getting on with her! What a tiresome, tactless idiot she, Pamela, must seem in comparison! The memory of her talk with him made her cheeks hot. So few chances of seeing him!--and when they came, she threw them away. She felt for the moment as though she hated Elizabeth. Why had her father saddled her upon them? Life was difficult enough before. Pa.s.sionately she began to think of her threat to Arthur. It had been the merest 'idle word.' But why shouldn't she realize it--why not 'run away'? There was work to be done, and money to be earned, by any able-bodied girl. And perhaps then, when she was on her own, and had proved that she was not a child any longer, Arthur would respect her more, take more interest in her.

'What do you prophesy?' said Elizabeth suddenly, addressing Arthur Chicksands, who seemed to be asleep in the gra.s.s. 'Will it end--by next summer?'

'What, the war?' he said, waking up. 'Oh dear, no. Next year will be the worst of any--the test of us all--especially of you civilians at home. If we stick it, we shall save ourselves and the world. If we don't--'

He shrugged his shoulders. His voice was full and deep. It thrilled the girl sitting in the shade--partly with fear. In three weeks or so, the speaker would be back in the full inferno of the front, and because of her father's behaviour she would probably not be able to see him in the interval. Perhaps she might never see him again.

Perhaps this was the last time. And he would go away without giving her a thought. Whereas, if she had played her cards differently, this one last day, he might at least have asked her to write to him.

Many men did--even with girls they hardly knew at all.

Just then she noticed a movement of Beryl's, and saw her friend's small bare hand creep out and slip itself into Aubrey Mannering's, as he sat beside her on the gra.s.s. The man's hand enfolded the girl's--he turned round to smile at her in silence. A pang of pa.s.sionate envy swept through Pamela. It was just so she wished to be enfolded--to be loved.

It was Elizabeth--as the person who had business to do and hours to keep--who gave the signal for the break-up of the party. She sprang to her feet, with a light, decided movement, and all the others fell into line. Arthur and Beryl still accompanied the Mannering contingent a short distance, the Captain walking beside Elizabeth in animated conversation. At last Beryl peremptorily recalled him to the pony-carriage, and the group halted for good-byes.

Pamela stood rather stiffly apart. The Captain went up to her.

'Good-bye, Pamela. Do write to me sometimes! I shall be awfully interested about the farms!'

With vexation she felt the colour rush to her cheeks.

'I shan't have much to say about them,' she said stiffly.

'I'm sure you will! You'll get keen! But write about anything. It's awfully jolly to get letters at the front!'

His friendly, interrogating eyes were on her, as though she puzzled him in this new phase, and he wanted to understand her. She said hurriedly, 'If you like,' hating herself for the coolness in her voice, and shook hands, only to hear him say, as he turned finally to Elizabeth, 'Mind, you have promised me "The Battle of the Plough"! I'm afraid you'll hardly have time to put it into iambics!'

So he had asked Miss Bremerton to write to him too! Pamela vowed inwardly that in that case she would not write him a line. And it seemed to her unseemly that her father's secretary should be making mock of her father's proceedings with a man who was a complete stranger to her. She walked impetuously ahead of Aubrey and Elizabeth. Towards the west the beautiful day was dying, and the light streamed on the girl's lithe young figure and caught her golden-brown hair. Clouds of gnats rose in the mild air; and a light seemed to come back from the bronzed and purple hedgerows, making a gorgeous atmosphere, in which the quiet hill-top and the thinning trees swam transfigured. A green woodp.e.c.k.e.r was pecking industriously among some hedgerow oaks, and Pamela, who loved birds and watched them, caught every now and then the glitter of his flight. The world was dropping towards sleep. But she was burningly awake and alive. Had she ever been really alive before?

Then--suddenly she remembered Desmond. He was to be home from some farewell visits between five and six. She would be late; he might want her for a hundred things. His last evening! Her heart smote her. They had reached the park gates. Waving her hand to the two behind, with the one word 'Desmond!' she began to run, and was soon out of their sight.

Elizabeth and Aubrey were not long behind her. They found the house indeed pervaded with Desmond, and Desmond's going. Aubrey also was going up to town, but of him n.o.body took any notice. Pamela and Forest were in attendance on the young warrior, who was himself in the wildest spirits, shouting and whistling up and downstairs, singing the newest and most shocking of camp songs, chaffing Forest, and looking with mischievous eyes at the various knitted 'comforts'

to which his married sisters were hastily putting the last st.i.tches.

'I say, Pam--do you see me in mittens?' he said to her in the hall, thrusting out his two splendid hands with a grin. 'And as for that jersey of Alice's--why, I should stew to death in it. Oh, I know--I can give it to my batman. The fellows tell me you can always get rid of things to your batman. It's like sending your wedding-presents to the p.a.w.n-shop. But where is father?' The boy looked discontentedly at his watch. 'He vowed he'd be here by five. I must be off by a few minutes after eight.'

'The train's late. He'll be here directly,' said Pamela confidently; 'and I say--don't you hurt Alice's feelings, old man.'

'Don't you preach, Pam!' said the boy, laughing. And a few minutes afterwards Pamela, pa.s.sing the open door of the drawing-room, heard him handsomely thanking his elder sisters. He ran into her as he emerged with his arms full of scarves, mittens, and the famous jersey which had taken Alice Gaddesden a year to knit.

'Stuff 'em in somewhere, Pam!' he said in her ear. 'They can go up to London anyway.' And having shovelled them all off on to her, he raced along the pa.s.sage to the library in search of Elizabeth.

'I say, Miss Bremerton, I want a book or two.'

Elizabeth looked up smiling from her table. She was already of the same mind as everybody outside and inside Mannering--that Desmond did you a kindness when he asked you to do him one.

'What kind of a book?'

'Oh, I've got some novels, and some Nat Goulds, and Pamela's given me some war-books. Don't know if I shall read 'em!--Well, I'd like a small Horace, if you can find one. "My tutor" was an awfully good hand at Horace. He really did make me like the old chap! And have you got such a thing as a Greek Anthology that wouldn't take up much room?'

Elizabeth went to the shelves to look. Desmond as the possessor of literary tastes was a novelty to her. But, after all, she understood that he had been a half in the Sixth at Eton, before his cadet training began. She found him two small pocket editions, and the boy thanked her gratefully. He began to turn over the Anthology, as though searching for something.

'Can I help you to find anything?' she asked him.

'No--it's something I remember,' he said absently, and presently hit upon it, with a look of pleasure.

'They did know a thing or two, didn't they? That's fine anyway?' He handed her the book. 'But I forget some of the words. Do you mind giving me a construe?' he said humbly.

Elizabeth translated, feeling rather choky.

'"On the Spartans at Thermopylae.

'"Him--"'