Volume II Part 38 (2/2)
The last scene took place at Waterloo Station. Sir Arthur Walsh came representing the King, while Mr. Balfour, Lord Robert Cecil, and other ministers represented the cabinet. The Government had provided a special railway carriage, and this was stationed at a convenient place as Page's motor drew up. So weak was the Amba.s.sador that it was with difficulty that his companions, the ever devoted Mr. Laughlin, on one side, and Page's secretary, Mr. Shoecraft, on the other, succeeded in supporting him to his chair. Mr. Balfour, Lord Robert Cecil and the others then entered the carriage, and, with all that sympathetic dignity in which Englishmen of this type excel, said a few gracious and affectionate words of good-bye. They all stood, with uncovered heads, as the train slowly pulled out of the station, and caught their final glimpse of Page as he smiled at them and faintly waved his hand.
Perhaps the man most affected by this leave-taking was Mr. Balfour. He knew, as did the others, that that frail and emaciated figure had been one of the greatest friends that Britain had had at the most dreadful crisis in her history. He has many times told of this parting scene at Waterloo Station and always with emotion.
”I loved that man,” he once said to an American friend, recalling this event. ”I almost wept when he left England.”
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 75: Of Aberdeen, N.C., the Amba.s.sador's sister.]
[Footnote 76: ”Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy,” by Ralph W.
Page, 1918.]
[Footnote 77: The reference is to a letter written in 1823 by Thomas Jefferson to President Monroe at the time when the Holy Alliance was threatening the independence of South America. ”With Great Britain,”
Jefferson wrote, ”we should most sedulously cherish a cordial friends.h.i.+p and nothing would tend more to knit our affections than to be fighting once more, side by side, in the same cause.”]
[Footnote 78: See Vol. II, page 307.]
CHAPTER XXVII
THE END
Page came home only to die. In fact, at one time it seemed improbable that he would live to reach the United States. The voyage of the _Olympic_, on which he sailed, was literally a race with death. The great-hearted Captain, Sir Bertram Hayes, hearing of the Amba.s.sador's yearning to reach his North Carolina home, put the highest pressure upon his s.h.i.+p, which almost leaped through the waves. But for a considerable part of the trip Page was too ill to have much consciousness of his surroundings. At times he was delirious; once more he lived over the long period of ”neutrality”; again he was discussing intercepted cargoes and ”notes” with Sir Edward Grey; from this his mind would revert to his English literary friends, and then again he was a boy in North Carolina.
The _Olympic_ reached New York more than a day ahead of schedule; Page was carried down the gangplank on a stretcher, propped up with pillows; and since he was too weak then to be taken to his Southern home, he was placed temporarily in St. Luke's Hospital. Page arrived on a beautiful suns.h.i.+ny October day; Fifth Avenue had changed its name in honour of the new Liberty Loan and had become the ”Avenue of the Allies”; each block, from Forty-second Street north, was decorated with the colours of one of the nations engaged in the battle against Germany; the street was full of Red Cross workers and other picturesquely clad enthusiasts selling Liberty Bonds; in its animated beauty and in its inspiring significance it formed an appropriate setting for Page's homecoming.
The American air seemed to act like a tonic on Page; in a short time he showed such improvement that his recovery seemed not impossible. So far as his spirits and his mind were concerned, he became his old familiar self. He was able to see several of his old friends, he read the newspapers and discussed the international situation with his customary liveliness. With the a.s.sistance of his daughter, Mrs. Loring, he even kept track of his correspondence. Evidently the serious nature of his illness was not understood, for invitations to speak poured in from all quarters. Most of these letters Mrs. Loring answered, but there was one that Page insisted on attending to himself. The City of Cleveland was organizing some kind of a meeting dedicated to closer relations with Great Britain, and the Mayor wrote Page asking him to speak. The last thing which Page wrote with his own hand was his reply to this invitation; and it is an impressive fact that his final written word should have dealt with the subject that had been so close to his heart for the preceding five years.
_To Harry L. Davis, Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio_
I deeply regret my health will not permit me to attend any public function for some time to come; for I deeply appreciate your invitation on behalf of the City of Cleveland for the meeting on December 7th, and have a profound sympathy with its purpose to bring the two great English-speaking worlds as close together as possible, so that each shall thoroughly understand the courage and sacrifice and ideals of the other. This is the greatest political task of the future. For such a complete and lasting understanding is the only basis for the continued, progress of civilization. I am proud to be a.s.sociated in your thought, Mr. Mayor, with so fitting and happy an occasion, and only physical inability could cause absence.
Sincerely, WALTER H. PAGE.
Page's improvement was only temporary; a day or two after this letter was written he began to sink rapidly; it was therefore decided to grant his strongest wish and take him to North Carolina. He arrived in Pinehurst on December 12th, so weak that his son Frank had to carry him in his arms from the train.
”Well, Frank,” said Page, with a slightly triumphant smile, ”I did get here after all, didn't I?”
He lingered for a few days and died, at eight o'clock in the evening, on December 21st, in his sixty-fourth year. He suffered no pain. He was buried in the Page family plot in the Bethesda Cemetery near Aberdeen.
He was as much of a war casualty as was his nephew Allison Page, who lost his life with his face to the German machine guns in Belleau Wood.
THE END
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