Part 39 (1/2)

She said in simple wonderment, as one asked what had the sun to do with light, or whether water was wet, ”Why, G.o.d _is_ love.”

He stared at her.

VII

The second Christmas of the war came. The evening before the last day of the Old Year was to have given Sabre a rare pleasure to which he had been immensely looking forward. He was to have spent it with Mr. Fargus.

The old chess and acrostic evenings hardly ever happened now. Mr.

Fargus, most manifestly unfitted for the exposures of such a life, had become a special constable. He did night duty in the Garden Home. He chose night duty, he told Sabre, because he had no work to do by day and could therefore then take his rest. Younger men who were in offices and shops hadn't the like advantage. It was only fair he should help in the hours help was most wanted. Sabre said it would kill him in time, but Mrs. Fargus and the three Miss Farguses still at home replied, when Sabre ventured this opinion to them, that Papa was much stronger than any one imagined, also that they agreed with Papa that one ought to do in the war, not what one wanted to do, but what was most required to be done; finally that, being at home by day, Papa could help, and liked helping, in the many duties about the house now interfered with by the enlistment of the entire battalion of female Farguses in work for the war. One detachment of female Farguses had leapt into blue or khaki uniforms and disappeared into the voracious belly of the war machine; the remainder of the battalion thrust their long legs into breeches and boots and worked at home as land girls. Little old Mr. Fargus in his grey suit, and the startled child Kate with one hand still up her back in search of the errant ap.r.o.n string ”did” what the battalion used to do and were nightly, on the return of the giant land girls, shown how shockingly they had done it.

Rare, therefore, the old chess and acrostic evenings and most keenly antic.i.p.ated, accordingly, this--the first for a fortnight--on the eve of New Year's Eve. It was to have been a real long evening; but it proved not very long. It was to have been one in which the war should be shut out and forgotten in the delights of mental twistings and slowly puffed pipes; it proved to be one in which ”this frightful war!” was groaned out of Sabre's spirit in emotion most terrible to him.

At ten o'clock profound gymnastics of the mind in search of a hidden word beginning with e and ending with l were interrupted by the entry of the startled Kate. One hand writhed between her shoulders for the ap.r.o.n string, the other held a note. ”Please, Mr. Sabre, I think it's for you, Mr. Sabre. A young boy took it to your house and said you was to have it most particular, and please, your Rebecca sent him on here, please.”

”For me? Who on earth--?”

He opened it. He did not recognise the writing on the envelope. He had not the remotest idea--It was a jolly evening.... could Enamel be that word in e and l? He unfolded it. Ah!

”_Freddie's killed. Please do come at once. I think she's dying.--E.B._”

CHAPTER VIII

I

He was alone in the room where Mrs. Perch lay,--not even Effie. One o'clock. This war! He had thought to shut it away for a night, and here was the inconceivable occupation to which it had brought him: alone in here--

The doctor had been and was coming again in the morning. There was nothing to be done, he had said; just watch her.

Watch her? How long had he been standing at the foot of the huge bed--the biggest bed he had ever seen--and what was there to watch? She gave no sign. She scarcely seemed to breathe. He would not have recognised her face. It had the appearance of a mask. ”Sinking,” the doctor had said. In process here before his eyes, but not to be seen by them, awful and mysterious things. Death with practised fingers about his awful and mysterious surgery of separating the spirit from the flesh, the soul from the body, the incorruptible from the corruptible.

It could not be! There was not a sign; there was not a sound; and what should he be doing to be alone here, blind watcher of such a finality?

It was not real. It was an hallucination. He was not really here. The morning--and days and weeks and years--would come, and he would know that this never had really happened.

But Young Perch was dead. Young Perch was killed. It was real. He was here. This war!

II

He had gone downstairs with the doctor and had remained there some little time after his departure. Effie had been left kneeling by the bed. When he came back she was sound asleep where she knelt, worn out.

The news had come on the previous evening. This was Effie's second night without sleep. Now she was overcome; collapsed; suffocated and bound and gagged in the opiates and bonds she had for thirty hours resisted. He touched her. She did not stir. He shook her gently; still no response.

He lifted her up and carried her along the pa.s.sage to the room he knew to be hers; laid her on her bed and covered her with a quilt.

Inconceivable occupation. Was all this really happening?

Two o'clock. He went to look at Effie, still in profound slumber. Why awaken her? Nothing could be done; only watch. He returned to his vigil.

Yes, Mrs. Perch was sinking. More p.r.o.nounced now that masklike aspect of her face. Yes, dying. He spoke the word to himself. ”Dying.” As of a fire in the grate gone to one dull spark among the greying ashes.--It is out; it cannot burn again. So life here too far retired, too deeply sunk to struggle back and vitalise again that hue, those lips, that masklike effigy.

Profound and awful mystery. Within that form was in process a most dreadful activity. The spirit was preparing to vacate the habitation it had so long occupied. It gave no sign. The better to hide its preparations it had drawn that mask about the face. Seventy years it had sojourned here; now it was bound away. Seventy years it had been known to pa.s.sers-by through the door and windows of this its habitation; now, deeply retired within the inner chambers, it set its house in order to be gone. Profound and awful mystery. Dreadful and momentous activity.