The answer is quite decisive. 'No, certainly not. I'll show it you some day.'
He makes gleeful signs to granny. 'But there is a nice meadow just beyond the shrubbery. Barbara knows the way; she often went there with--' He checks himself. Granny signs to them to go, and Barbara, kisses both the Colonel's hands. 'The Captain will be jealous, you know,' he says, twinkling.
'Let me, dear,' says Barbara, arranging his cushions professionally.
Granny nods. 'She is much better at it than I am now, John.'
The Colonel has one last piece of advice to give. 'I wouldn't go down by the stream, Barbara--not to the pool where the alder is. There's--there's not a good view there, sir; and a boy--a boy I knew, he often--nobody in particular--just a boy who used to come about the house--he is not here now--he is on duty. I don't think you should go to the alder pool, Barbara.'
'We won't go there, dear.' She and her husband go out, and the Colonel scarcely misses them, he is so eager to hear what his wife thinks of him.
'Did I do all right, Ellen?'
'Splendidly. I was proud of you.'
He exults. 'I put them completely off the scent! They haven't a notion! I can be very sly, you know, at times. Ellen, I think I should like to have that alder tree cut down. There is no boy now, you see.'
'I would leave it alone, John. There will be boys again. Shall I read to you; you like that, don't you?'
'Yes, read to me--something funny, if you please. About Sam Weller! No, I expect Sam has gone to the wars. Read about Mr. Pickwick. He is very amusing. I feel sure that if he had tried to catch the bull-trout he would have fallen in. Just as Barbara did this morning.'
'Barbara?'
'She is down at the alder pool. Billy is there with that nice German boy. The noise they make, shouting and laughing!'
She gets from its shelf the best book for war-time. 'Which bit shall I read?'
'About Mr. Pickwick going into the lady's bedroom by mistake.'
'Yes, dear, though you almost know it by heart. You see, you have begun to laugh already.'
'You are laughing too, Ellen. I can't help it!'
She begins to read; they are both chuckling.
A WELL-REMEMBERED VOICE
Out of the darkness comes the voice of a woman speaking to her dead son.
'But that was against your wish, was it not? Was that against your wish? Would you prefer me not to ask that question?'
The room is so dark that we cannot see her. All we kno w is that she is one of four shapes gathered round a small table. Beyond the darkness is a great ingle-nook, in which is seated on a settle a man of fifty. Him we can discern fitfully by the light of the fire. It is not sufficiently bright to enable him to read, but an evening paper lies on his knee. He seems wistful and meek. He is paying no attention to the party round the table. When he hears their voices it is only as empty sounds.
The mother continues. 'Perhaps I am putting the question in the wrong way. Are you not able to tell us any more?'
A man's voice breaks in. 'There was a distinct movement that time, but it is so irregular.'
'I thought so, but please don't talk. Do you want to tell us more? Is it that you can't hear me distinctly? He seems to want to tell us more, but something prevents him.'
'In any case, Mrs. Don, it is extraordinary. This is the first seance I have ever taken part in, but I must believe now.'
'Of course, Major, these are the simplest manifestations. They are only the first step. But if we are to go on, the less we talk the better. Shall we go on? It is not agitating you too much, Laura?'
A girl answers, 'There was a moment when I--but I wish I was braver. I think it is partly the darkness. I suppose we can't have a little light?'
'Certainly we can, dear. Darkness is quite unnecessary, but I think it helps one to concentrate.'
The Major lights a lamp, and though it casts shadows we see now that the room is an artist's studio. The silent figure in the ingle-nook is the artist. Mrs. Don is his wife, the two men are Major Armitage and an older friend, Mr. Rogers. The girl is Laura Bell. These four are sitting round the table, their hands touching: they are endeavouring to commune with one who has 'crossed the gulf.'
The Major and Mr. Rogers are but passing shadows in the play, and even nice Laura is only to flit across its few pages for a moment on her way to happier things. We scarcely notice them in the presence of Mrs. Don, the gracious, the beautiful, the sympathetic, whose magnetic force and charm are such that we wish to sit at her feet at once. She is intellectual, but with a disarming smile, religious, but so charitable, masterful, and yet loved of all. None is perfect, and there must be a flaw in her somewhere, but to find it would necessitate such a rummage among her many adornments as there is now no time for. Perhaps we may come upon it accidentally in the course of the play.
She is younger than Mr. Don, who, despite her efforts for many years to cover his deficiencies, is a man of no great account in a household where the bigger personality of his wife swallows him like an Aaron's rod. Mr. Don's deficiencies! She used to try very hard, or fairly hard, to conceal them from Dick; but Dick knew. His mother was his chum. All the lovely things which happened in that house in the days when Dick was alive were between him and her; those two shut the door softly on old Don, always anxious not to hurt his feelings, and then ran into each other's arms.
In the better light Mr. Don is now able to read his paper if he chooses. If he has forgotten the party at the table, they have equally forgotten him.
MRS. DON. 'You have not gone away, have you? We must be patient. Are you still there?'
ROGERS. 'I think I felt a movement.'
MRS. DON. 'Don't talk, please. Are you still there?'
The table moves.
'Yes! It is your mother who is speaking; do you understand that?'
The table moves.
'Yes. What shall I ask him now?'
ROGERS. 'We leave it to you, Mrs. Don.'
MRS. DON. 'Have you any message you want to send us? Yes. Is it important? Yes. Are we to spell it out in the usual way? Yes. Is the first letter of the first word A? Is it B?'
She continues through the alphabet to L, when the table responds. Similarly she finds that the second letter is O.
'Is the word _Love_? Yes. But I don't understand that movement. You are not displeased with us, are you? No. Does the second word begin with A?--with B? Yes.'
The second word is spelt out _Bade_ and the third _Me_.
'Love Bade Me----If it is a quotation, I believe I know it! Is the fourth word _Welcome_? Yes.'
LAURA. 'Love Bade Me Welcome.'
MRS. DON. 'That movement again! Don't you want me to go on?'
LAURA. 'Let us stop.'
MRS. DON. 'Not unless he wishes it. Why are those words so important? Does the message end there? Is any one working against you? Some one antagonistic? Yes. Not one of ourselves surely? No. Is it any one we know? Yes. Can I get the name in the usual way? Yes. Is the first letter of this person's name A?--B?----'
It proves to be F. One begins to notice a quaint peculiarity of Mrs. Don's. She is so accustomed to homage that she expects a prompt response even from the shades.
'Is the second letter A?'
The table moves.
'FA. Fa----?'
She is suddenly enlightened.
'Is the word Father? Yes.'
They all turn and look for the first time at Mr. Don. He has heard, and rises apologetically.
MR. DON, distressed, 'I had no intention--Should I go away, Grace?'
She answers sweetly without a trace of the annoyance she must surely feel.
MRS. DON. 'Perhaps you had better, Robert.'
ROGERS. 'I suppose it is because he is an unbeliever? He is not openly antagonistic, is he?'
MRS. DON, sadly enough, 'I am afraid he is.' They tend to discuss the criminal as if he was not present.
MAJOR. 'But he must admit that we do get messages.'
MRS. DON, reluctan
tly, 'He says we think we do. He says they would not want to communicate with us if they had such trivial things to say.'
ROGERS. 'But we are only on the threshold, Don. This is just a beginning.'
LAURA. 'Didn't you hear, Mr. Don--"Love Bade Me Welcome"?'
MR. DON. 'Does that strike you as important, Laura?'
LAURA. 'He said it was.'
MRS. DON. 'It might be very important to him, though we don't understand why.'
She speaks gently, but there is an obstinacy in him, despite his meekness.
MR. DON. 'I didn't mean to be antagonistic, Grace. I thought. I wasn't thinking of it at all.'
MRS. DON. 'Not thinking of Dick, Robert? And it was only five months ago!'
MR. DON, who is somehow, without meaning it, always in the wrong, 'I'll go.'
ROGERS. 'A boy wouldn't turn his father out. Ask him.'
MR. DON, forlornly, 'As to that--as to that----'
MRS. DON. 'I will ask him if you wish me to, Robert.'
MR. DON. 'No, don't.'
ROGERS. 'It can't worry you as you are a disbeliever.'
MR. DON. 'No, but--I shouldn't like you to think that he sent me away.'
ROGERS. 'He won't. Will he, Mrs. Don?'
MR. DON, knowing what her silence implies, 'You see, Dick and I were not very--no quarrel or anything of that sort--but I, I didn't much matter to Dick. I'm too old, perhaps.'
MRS. DON, gently, 'I won't ask him, Robert, if you would prefer me not to.'
MR. DON. 'I'll go.'
MRS. DON. 'I'm afraid it is too late now.' She turns away from earthly things. 'Do you want me to break off?'
The table moves.
'Yes. Do you send me your love, Dick? Yes. And to Laura? Yes.' She raises her eyes to Don, and hesitates. 'Shall I ask him----?'
MR. DON. 'No, no, don't.'
ROGERS. 'It would be all right, Don.'
MR. DON. 'I don't know.'
They leave the table.
LAURA, a little agitated, 'May I go to my room, Mrs. Don? I feel I--should like to be alone.'
MRS. DON. 'Yes, yes, Laura dear. I shall come in and see you.'
Laura bids them good-night and goes. She likes Mr. Don, she strokes his hand when he holds it out to her, but she can't help saying, 'Oh, Mr. Don, how could you?'
ROGERS. 'I think we must all want to be alone after such an evening. I shall say good-night, Mrs. Don.'
MAJOR. 'Same here. I go your way, Rogers, but you will find me a silent companion. One doesn't want to talk ordinary things to-night. Rather not. Thanks, awfully.'
ROGERS. 'Good-night, Don. It's a pity, you know; a bit hard on your wife.'
MR. DON. 'Good-night, Rogers. Good-night, Major.'
The husband and wife, left together, have not much to say to each other. He is depressed because he has spoilt things for her. She is not angry. She knows that he can't help being as he is, and that there are fine spaces in her mind where his thoughts can never walk with her. But she would forgive him seventy times seven because he is her husband. She is standing looking at a case of fishing-rods against the wall. There is a Jock Scott still sticking in one of them. Mr. Don says, as if somehow they were evidence against him:
'Dick's fishing-rods.'
She says forgivingly, 'I hope you don't mind my keeping them in the studio, Robert. They are sacred things to _me_.'
'That's all right, Grace.'
'I think I shall go to Laura now.'
'Yes,' in his inexpressive way.
'Poor child!'
'I'm afraid I hurt her.'
'Dick wouldn't have liked it--but Dick's gone.' She looks a little wonderingly at him. After all these years, she can sometimes wonder a little still. 'I suppose you will resume your evening paper!'
He answers quietly, but with the noble doggedness which is the reason why we write this chapter in his life. 'Why not, Grace?'
She considers, for she is so sure that she must know the answer better than he. 'I suppose it is just that a son is so much more to a mother than to a father.'
'I daresay.'
A little gust of passion shakes her. 'How you can read about the war nowadays!'
He says firmly to her--he has had to say it a good many times to himself, 'I'm not going to give in.' But he adds, 'I am so sorry I was in the way, Grace. I wasn't scouting you, or anything of that sort. It's just that I can't believe in it.'
'Ah, Robert, you would believe if Dick had been to you what he was to me.'
'I don't know.'
'In a sense you may be glad that you don't miss him in the way I do.'
'Yes, perh aps.'
'Good-night, Robert.'
'Good-night, dear.'
He is alone now. He stands fingering the fishing-rods tenderly, then wanders back into the ingle-nook. In the room we could scarcely see him, for it has gone slowly dark there, a grey darkness, as if the lamp, though still burning, was becoming unable to shed light. Through the greyness we see him very well beyond it in the glow of the fire. He sits on the settle and tries to read his paper. He breaks down. He is a pitiful lonely man.
In the silence something happens. A well-remembered voice says, 'Father.' Mr. Don looks into the greyness from which this voice comes, and he sees his son. We see no one, but we are to understand that, to Mr. Don, Dick is standing there in his habit as he lived. He goes to his boy.
'Dick!'
'I have come to sit with you for a bit, father.'
It is the gay, young, careless voice.
'It's you, Dick; it's you!'
'It's me all right, father. I say, don't be startled, or anything of that kind. We don't like that.'
'My boy!'
Evidently Dick is the taller, for Mr. Don has to look up to him. He puts his hands on the boy's shoulders.
'How am I looking, father?'
'You haven't altered, Dick.'
'Rather not. It's jolly to see the old studio again!' In a cajoling voice, 'I say, father, don't fuss. Let us be our ordinary selves, won't you?'
'I'll try, I'll try. You didn't say you had come to sit with _me_, Dick? Not with _me_!'
'Rather!'
'But your mother----'
'It's you I want.'
'Me?'
'We can only come to one, you see.'
'Then why me?'
'That's the reason.' He is evidently moving about, looking curiously at old acquaintances. 'Hello, here's your old jacket, greasier than ever!'
'Me? But, Dick, it is as if you had forgotten. It was your mother who was everything to you. It can't be you if you have forgotten that. I used to feel so out of it; but, of course, you didn't know.'
'I didn't know it till lately, father; but heaps of things that I didn't know once are clear to me now. I didn't know that you were the one who would miss me most; but I know now.'
Though the voice is as boyish as ever, there is a new note in it of which his father is aware. Dick may not have grown much wiser, but whatever he does know now he seems to know for certain.
'_Me_ miss you most? Dick, I try to paint just as before. I go to the club. Dick, I have been to a dinner-party. I said I wouldn't give in.'
'We like that.'
'But, my boy----'
Mr. Don's arms have gone out to him again. Dick evidently wriggles away from them. He speaks coaxingly.
'I say, father, let's get away from that sort of thing.'
'That is so like you, Dick! I'll do anything you ask.'
'Then keep a bright face.'
'I've tried to.'
'Good man! I say, put on your old greasy; you are looking so beastly clean.'
The old greasy is the jacket, and Mr. Don obediently gets into it.
'Anything you like. No, that's the wrong sleeve. Thanks, Dick.'
They are in the ingle-nook now, and the mischievous boy catches his father by the shoulders.
'Here, let me shove you into your old seat.'
Mr. Don is propelled on to the settle.
'How's that, umpire!'
'Dick,' smiling, 'that's just how you used to butt me into it long ago!'
Dick is probably standing with his back to the fire, chuckling.
'When I was a kid.'
'With the palette in my hand.'
'Or sticking to your trousers.'
'The mess we made of ourselves, Dick.'
'I sneaked behind the settle and climbed up it.'
'Till you fell off.'
'On top of you and the palette.'
It is good fun for a father and son; and the crafty boy has succeeded in making the father laugh. But soon,
'Ah, Dick.'
The son frowns. He is not going to stand any nonsense.
'Now then, behave! What did I say about that face?'
Mr. Don smiles at once, obediently.
'That's better. I'll sit here.'
We see from his father's face which is smiling with difficulty that Dick has plopped into the big chair on the other side of the ingle-nook. His legs are probably dangling over one of its arms.
Rather sharply, 'Got your pipe?'
'I don't--I don't seem to care to smoke nowadays, Dick.'
'Rot! Just because I am dead! You that pretend to be plucky! I won't have it, you know. You get your pipe, and look slippy about it.'
'Yes, Dick,' the old man says obediently. He fills his pipe from a jar on the mantelshelf. We may be sure that Dick is watching closely to see that he lights it properly.
'Now, then, burn your thumb with the match--you always did, you know. That's the style. You've forgotten to cock your head to the side. Not so bad. That's you. Like it?'
'It's rather nice, Dick. Dick, you and me by the fire!'
'Yes, but sit still. How often we might have been like this, father, and weren't.'
'Ah!'
'Face. How is Fido?'
'Never a dog missed her master more.'
'Oh,' frowning. 'She doesn't want to go and sit on my grave, or any of that tosh, does she? As if I were there!'
'No, no,' hastily; 'she goes ratting, Dick.'
'Good old Fido!'
'Dick, here's a good one. We oughtn't to keep a dog at all because we are on rations now; but what do you think Fido ate yesterday?'
'Let me guess. The joint?'
'Almost worse than that. She ate all the cook's meat tickets.'
Barrie, J M - Echoes Of The War Page 7
