3
Jeremy’s muscles jerked and quivered at the Speaker’s announcement, but he said nothing. His mouth set more firmly, a frown came on his forehead, and his hands, thrust under his folded arms, were so tightly clenched that he had a sensation of pain in the knuckles. Behind this appearance of resolution his thoughts were plaintive and resentful. He repeated over and over again in his mind, “I will not give way. I must not give way. Why will they be such fools?” The more he considered it the more certain he became that he was not competent to command an army. He could not do it, he told himself, and at the same time look properly after his guns. Besides, he was modest in a hard-headed way; and he refused to believe that he had the qualities which are necessary in great military commanders. The fact that he most passionately desired that they should win the coming battle only made him more determined to refuse this absurd proposal. As he sat silent in the ring of silent men he felt injured and aggrieved, and his temper grew with every moment more obstinate.
The conversation did not revive after the Speaker’s interruption, for a sense of expectation filled the room and kept it in abeyance. Presently the old man rose statelily from his chair and, moving to the window, thrust out his head and leant his arms on the sill. By doing so he broke the tension a little; and Jeremy got up and went to the table to look for a cigar, walking self-consciously and feeling that all these people regarded him with dislike. When he had found a cigar and lit it, he shrank from going back to his seat and facing them again. He lingered at the table, where he had discovered some papers of his own relating to the guns; and these made an excuse with which he could pretend to busy himself. He was vaguely conscious somewhere just within the blurred edge of his vision that John Hammond had gone over to Thomas Wells and was talking to him in a subdued voice. The Canadian answered seldom and briefly, and their words floated past his ears in a faint confusion of sound. Then John Hammond grew louder and more urgent and the Canadian exclaimed morosely:
“I have no patience....”
John Hammond insisted; and, in spite of himself, Jeremy turned his head sideways to listen.
“It would be better to be beaten,” he heard Thomas Wells say, almost under his breath but with a vicious intensity, “than be led by a vampire risen God knows how from the grave!” A disagreeable thrill passed through him; but before he could stir the door by his side opened softly and the Lady Eva stood motionless on the threshold. She was wearing a furred robe, like Thomas Wells’s; but it was less ample and hung on her more gracefully. Her fair hair fell in two long plaits, loose at the ends, down her back, and her eyes, though they shone with excitement, yet showed that she had just risen from sleep. As Jeremy silently regarded her, she glanced down and pulled the hem of the robe across to hide her bare ankles.
When she looked beyond him and saw how many others there were in the room, she seemed to recoil a little. “Father,” she said, speaking quietly but steadily, “you sent for me!”
The Speaker slowly drew his great shoulders in through the window and turned around. “Come in, Eva,” he ordered in an equable voice, “come in and sit down. These are all friends here, and you need not be ashamed before them.” She advanced with short steps, sat in Jeremy’s chair, which stood empty, and arranged the hem of her gown about her feet and the collar about her throat. Then, before fixing her eyes on the old man, she cast a candid and ardent regard of affection at Jeremy. He was discomposed by it, and only with an effort could he compel his eyes to meet hers and answer them. She seemed for a moment to be troubled; but her face cleared to an expression of eager intentness as her father began to address her.
“This is the first time I have ever asked you to help me, Eva,” he said with kindly and matter-of-fact briskness. “Perhaps I should have done so before; but now at least I think you can do something for us that no one else can do. There is another war in front of us: I need not tell you now how or why it has arisen. It will be nothing at all if we face it properly; and therefore I have designed that your promised husband here shall command the army. He refuses; I do not know why—perhaps modesty ... perhaps....” He shrugged his shoulders, pursed his lips and spread out his hands, palms uppermost. “I sent for you because I thought that to-night you might be able to sway him, as I cannot.”
During this speech Jeremy’s anger had been rising fast, and now he interrupted. “This is most unfair, sir,” he cried, coming forward from the shadows in which he had been hiding.
“Be quiet, Jeremy,” said the Speaker, without raising his voice, but with a note of sternness. Then he went on smoothly: “My girl, I ask you to remember that the safety of all of us, of you and of your mother and of myself, no less than of the country, depends on our leaving nothing undone to protect ourselves. I am persuaded that Jeremy Tuft should be our leader, but I cannot convince him. I put our case in your hands.”
The girl leant forward a little towards him, breathing quickly, her eyes wide open and her lips parted. A shade as of thought passed over her face; but Jeremy broke in again, still looking at the old man.
“You won’t understand me, sir,” he protested anxiously. “God knows I would do what you ask if I thought it for the best. But I know what I can’t do and you don’t. You exaggerated what I did this morning. You don’t know anything about it, sir, indeed you don’t. There’s only one man here who ought to do it, and that is Thomas Wells. You ought to appoint him. I will serve under him and ... and....” He stopped, a little frightened by what in his eagerness he had been about to say. While he had been talking desperately, seeing no signs of help on the faces around him, he had discovered suddenly his deepest objection to the proposal. The Canadian, damn him! was the man for the job. He had the gusto for war, for bloodshed and death, which commanders need: he was the only true soldier among them. And he hated Jeremy. Jeremy continued his pause, shying at this last, this fatal argument. Then on an impulse he chanced it, concluding suddenly with a gulp, “And he won’t serve under me.” The ghost of a chuckle came from the Canadian bunched up in his chair.
The Lady Eva swung around to him impetuously. “Thomas Wells,” she murmured, her voice thrilling with an intense desire to persuade, “you won’t mind, will you? Help me to get him to accept.”
“I won’t make any difficulties, Lady Eva,” pronounced the Canadian levelly, straightening himself and pulling the edge of his robe down from his mouth. “Any one who commands the army is at liberty to—to make what use of me he can—while I’m your guest here. I’m not stuck on commanding. I guess these little troubles of yours aren’t any business of mine. Anyway, I ought to be going back home soon, since I can’t go and stay with the Chairman of Bradford, as I promised him once. My word, sir, but it’s getting on towards morning! I’m beginning to feel cold,” he finished inconsequently, turning to the Speaker.
“It isn’t fair,” Jeremy begun again. He was very tired. His body ached all over, and his eyelids were beginning to droop. His determination was not weakened, but he dreaded the effort of keeping up a firm front much longer. He felt too weak now to force his own view on the stubborn old man.
But the Speaker ignored him. He stood up and, including the three other men in one confidential glance, said: “Thomas Wells is right, gentlemen, it grows very late. Let us leave them alone for a few minutes. We will meet again in the morning. Jeremy, do you hear? I will not accept your final answer until the morning.” He moved with ponderous slowness towards his daughter and put out a firm hand to hold her down in her chair. “Goodnight, my child!” he murmured, as he stooped and kissed her on the forehead. “Do what you can for us.” His accent in these words was pathetic; but his air as he led the way to the door was one of infinite cunning.
As soon as he was left alone with the Lady Eva, Jeremy, who had been staring out into the invisible garden, turned reluctantly around and faced her, in an attitude of defense. She came to him at once, and, kneeling on the great chair beside him, threw her arms around his neck.
“My dear,” she said brokenly and passionately, “don’t—don’t look at me like that!”
His obstinacy and resentment melted suddenly away as he responded to the caress. “Eva!” he muttered, “I thought ... I was afraid you were ... you wanted....”
“You looked at me as though you hated me,” she said.
He comforted her in silence for some time and she clung to him. Then he thought he heard her whispering something. “What is it?” he asked gently.
“I am so afraid, Jeremy,” she repeated, in a voice that was still almost inaudible; and as he did not answer she went on a little more loudly, “You know, I dreaded something ... this afternoon ... and this must be it.” Still he said nothing; and after a pause she resumed: “Nobody but you can save us, Jeremy. I am certain of it—you are so wonderful, you know so much of what happened in the old times. Weren’t you sent here by the Blessed Virgin to save us? I know why you don’t want to—but it will be all right. Oh, Jeremy, it will!”
A great wave of hopelessness came over him and, when he tried to speak, choked his utterance. He could only shake his head miserably. Suddenly the Lady Eva let fall her arms from his neck and sank down in a heap on the chair. He realized with an unbearable pang that she was sobbing wildly.
“Eva! Eva!” he cried hopelessly, trying to gather her to him again. But she drew herself away and continued to sob, breathing shortly and spasmodically. He felt afraid of her. Then she rose and with a last jerky sigh gave herself into his arms. He felt her body, slight and yielding, yet strong and supple, in his embrace, and he began to grow dizzy. Her face was wet and her mouth was loose and hot beneath his.
“Eva!” he murmured, torn and wretched, with a sense of ineluctable doom stealing upon them. He looked up over her head and saw that in the garden the lawns and flowers were now growing distinct in a hard, clear, cold light. A chilly breath came in at the window, and all at once the birds began drowsily to wake and chatter. Inside the room all the candles were out but one, that still burnt on, though sickly and near its end. The light seemed to Jeremy to be coming as fast and as inevitably as the surrender which he could no longer escape. “Don’t, dear,” he uttered hoarsely. “Don’t, don’t! I’ll do what they want me to do. I’ll go and tell your father now.”
She hid her face on his breast and for a little while her shoulders still heaved irregularly like a stormy sea after the wind has fallen.