"Into the world somewhere to learn wisdom," I said, and in order to show that I did not speak ironically, I wheeled myself to her side and touched her hand. "I think his swift brain has realised at last that all his smart knowledge hasn't brought him a little bit of wisdom worth a cent. I shouldn't worry. He's working out his salvation somehow, although he may not know it."
"Do you really think so?"
"I do," said I. "And if he finds that the path of wisdom leads to the German trenches--will you be glad or sorry?"
She grappled with the question in silence for a moment or two. Then she broke down and, to my dismay, began to cry.
"Do you suppose there's a woman in England that, in her heart of hearts, doesn't want her men folk to fight?"
I only allow the earlier part of this chapter to stand in order to show how a man quite well-meaning, although a trifle irascible, may be wanting in Christian charity and ordinary understanding; and of how many tangled knots of human motive, impulse, and emotion this war is a solvent. You see, she defended her son to the last, adopting his own specious line of argument; but at the last came the breaking-point....
The rest of our interview was of no great matter. I did my best to reassure and comfort her; and when I next saw Marigold, I said affably:
"You did quite well to wake me."
"I thought I was acting rightly, sir. Mr. Randall having bolted, so to speak, it seemed only natural that Mrs. Holmes should come to see you."
"You knew that Mr. Randall had bolted and you never told me?"
I glared indignantly. Marigold stiffened himself--the degree of stiffness beyond his ordinary inflexibility of attitude could only have been ascertained by a vernier, but that degree imparted an appreciable dignity to his demeanour.
"I beg pardon, sir, but lately I've noticed that my little bits of local news haven't seemed to be welcome."
"Marigold," said I, "don't be an ass."
"Very good, sir."
"My mind," said I, "is in an awful muddle about all sorts of things that are going on in this town. So I should esteem it a favour if you would tell me at once any odds and ends of gossip you may pick up. They may possibly be important."
"And if I have any inferences to draw from what I hear," said he gravely, fixing me with his clear eye, "may I take the liberty of acquainting you with them?"
"Certainly."
"Very good, sir," said Marigold.
Now what was Marigold going to draw inferences about? That was another puzzle. I felt myself being drawn into a fog-filled labyrinth of intrigue in which already groping were most of the people I knew. What with the mysterious relations between Betty and Boyce and Gedge, what with young Dacre's full exoneration of Boyce, what with young Randall's split with Gedge and his impeccable attitude towards Phyllis, things were complicated enough; Sir Anthony's revelations regarding poor Althea and his dark surmises concerning Randall complicated them still more; and now comes Mrs. Holmes to tell me of Randall's mysterious disappearance.
"A plague on the whole lot!" I exclaimed wrathfully.
I dined that evening with the Fenimores. My dear Betty was there too, the only other guest, looking very proud and radiant. A letter that morning from Willie Connor informed her that the regiment, by holding a trench against an overwhelming German attack, had achieved glorious renown. The Brigadier-General had specially congratulated the Colonel, and the Colonel had specially complimented Willie on the magnificent work of his company. Of course there was a heavy price in casualties--poor young Etherington, whom we all knew, for instance, blown to atoms--but Willie, thank God! was safe.
"I wonder what would happen to me, if Willie were to get the V.C. I think I should go mad with pride!" she exclaimed with flushed cheeks, forgetful of poor young Etherington, a laughter-loving boy of twenty, who had been blown to atoms. It is strange how apparently callous this universal carnage has made the noblest and the tenderest of men and women. We cling passionately to the lives of those near and dear to us.
But as to those near and dear to others, who are killed--well--we pay them the passing tribute not even of a tear, but only of a sign. They died gloriously for their country. What can we say more? If we--we survivors, not only invalids and women and other stay-at-homes, but also comrades on the field--were riven to our souls by the piteous tragedy of splendid youth destroyed in its flower, we could not stand the strain, we should weep hysterically, we should be broken folk. But a merciful Providence steps in and steels our hearts. The loyal hearts are there beating truly; and in order that they should beat truly and stoutly, they are given this God-sent armour.
So, when we raised our glasses and drank gladly to the success of Willie Connor the living, and put from our thoughts Frank Etherington the dead, you must not account it to us as lack of human pity. You must be lenient in your judgment of those who are thrown into the furnace of a great war.
Lady Fenimore smiled on Betty. "We should all be proud, my dear, if Captain Connor won the Victoria Cross. But you mustn't set your heart on it. That would be foolish. Hundreds of thousands of men deserve the V.C. ten times a day, and they can't all be rewarded."
Betty laughed gaily at good Lady Fenimore's somewhat didactic reproof.
"You know I'm not an absolute idiot. Fancy the poor dear coming home all over bandages and sticking-plaster. 'Where's your V. C?' 'I haven't got it.' 'Then go back at once and get it or I shan't love you.' Poor darling!" Suddenly the laughter in her eyes quickened into something very bright and beautiful. "There's not a woman in England prouder of her husband than I am. No V.C. could possibly reward him for what he has done. But I want it for myself. I'd like my babies to cut their teeth on it."
When I went out to the Boer War, the most wonderful woman on earth said to me on parting:
"Wherever you are, dear, remember that I am always with you in spirit and soul and heart and almost in body."
And God knows she was. And when I returned a helpless cripple she gathered me in her brave arms on the open quay at Southampton, and after a moment or two of foolishness, she said:
"Do you know, when I die, what you'll find engraven on my heart?"
"No," said I.
"Your D.S.O. ribbon."
So when Betty talked about her babies and the little bronze cross, my eyes grew moist and I felt ridiculously sentimental.
Not a word, of course, was spoken before Betty of the new light, or the new darkness, whichsoever you will, that had been cast on the tragedy of Althea. I could not do otherwise than agree with the direct-spoken old lady who had at once correlated the adventure in Carlisle with the plunge into the Wellingsford Canal. And so did Sir Anthony. They were very brave, however, the little man and Edith, in their dinner-talk with Betty. But I saw that the past fortnight had aged them both by a year or more. They had been stabbed in their honour, their trust, and their faith. It was a secret terror that stalked at their side by day and lay stark at their side by night. It was only when the ladies had left us that Sir Anthony referred to the subject.
"I suppose you know that young Randall Holmes has bolted."
"So his mother informed me to-day."
He pricked his ears. "Does she know where he has gone to?"
"No," said I.
"What did I tell you?" said Sir Anthony.
I held up my glass of port to the light and looked through it.
"A lot of damfoolishness, my dear old friend," said I.
He grew angry. A man doesn't like to be coldly called a damfool at his own table. He rose on his spurs, in his little red bantam way. Was I too much of an idiot to see the connection? As soon as the Carlisle business became known, this young scoundrel flies the country. Couldn't I see an inch before my blind nose? Forbearing to question this remarkable figure of speech, I asked him how so confidential a matter could have become known.
"Everything gets known in this infernal little town," he retorted.
"That's where you're mistaken," said I. "Half everything gets known--the unimportant half. The rest is supplied by malicious or prejudiced invention."
We discussed the question after the futile way of men until we went into the drawing-room, where Betty played and sang to us until it was time to go home.
Marigold was about to lift me into the two-seater when Betty, who had been lurking in her car a little way off, ran forward.
"Would it bore you if I came in for a quarter of an hour?"
"Bore me, my dear?" said I. "Of course not."
So a short while afterwards we were comfortably established in my library.
"You rang me up to-day about Phyllis Gedge."