CHAPTER III
May I come in?'
Nelly Sarratt, who was standing beside the table in the sitting-room, packing a small luncheon-basket with sandwiches and cake, looked up in astonishment. Then she went to the door which was slightly ajar, and opened it.
She beheld a very tall man standing smiling on the threshold.
'I hope I'm not disturbing you, Mrs. Sarratt—but I was on my way for a day's sketching, and as my car passed your house, I thought I would like to bring you, myself, the permission which I spoke of on Saturday. I wrote yesterday, my friend was away from home but I got a telegram this morning.'
The visitor held out a telegram, which Nelly took in some bewilderment. It fluttered her to be so much thought for by a stranger—and a stranger moreover who seemed but to wave his wand and things were done. But she thanked him heartily.
'Won't you come in, Sir William?' she asked him, shyly. 'My husband will be here directly.'
It pleased him that she had found out who he was. He protested that he mustn't stay a moment, but all the same he came in, and stood with his hands in his pockets looking at the view. He seemed to Nelly to fill the little sitting-room. Not that he was stout. There was not an ounce of superfluous flesh on him anywhere. But he stood at least six foot four in his boots; his shoulders were broad in proportion; and his head, with its strong curly hair of a light golden brown, which was repeated in his short beard, carried itself with the unconscious ease of one who has never known anything but the upper seats of life. His features were handsome, except for a broad irregular mouth, and his blue eyes were kind and lazily humorous.
'There's nothing better than that lake,' he said, motioning towards it, with his hand, as though he followed the outlines of the hills. 'But I never try to draw it. I leave that to the fellows who think they can! I'm afraid your permit's only for a week, Mrs. Sarratt. The boat, I find, will be wanted after that.'
'Oh, but my husband will be gone in a week—less than a week. I couldn't row myself!' said Nelly, smiling.
But Sir William thought the smile trembled a little, and he felt very sorry for the small, pretty creature.
'You will be staying on here after your husband goes?'
'Oh yes. My sister will be with me. We know the Lakes very well.'
'Staying through the summer, I suppose?' 'I shan't want to move—if the war goes on. We haven't any home of our own—yet.'
She had seated herself, and spoke with the self-possession which belongs to those who know themselves fair to look upon. But there seemed to be no coquetry about her—no consciousness of a male to be attracted. All her ways were very gentle and childish, and in her white dress she made the same impression on Farrell as she had on Bridget, of extreme—absurd—youthfulness. He guessed her age about nineteen, perhaps younger.
'I'm afraid the war will go on,' he said, kindly. 'We are only now just finding out our deficiencies.'
Nelly sighed.
'I know—it's awful how we want guns and shells! My husband says it makes him savage to see how we lose men for want of them. Why are we so short? Whose fault is it?'
A spot of angry colour had risen in her cheek. It was the dove defending her mate. The change was lovely, and Farrell, with his artist's eye, watched it eagerly. But he shook his head.
'It's nobody's fault. It's all on such a scale—unheard of! Nobody could have guessed before-hand—unless like Germany, we had been preparing for years to rob and murder our neighbours. Well, Mrs. Sarratt, I must be going on. But I wanted to say, that if we could do anything for you—please command us. We live about twenty miles from here. My sister hopes she may come and see you. And we have a big library at Carton. If there are any books you want—'
'Oh, how very kind of you!' said Nelly gratefully. She had risen and was standing beside him, looking at him with her dark, frank eyes. 'But indeed I shall get on very well. There's a war workroom in Manchester, which will send me work. And I shall try and help with the sphagnum moss. There's a notice up near here, asking people to help. 'And perhaps'—she laughed and colored—'I shall try to sketch a little. I can't do it a bit—but it amuses me.'
'Oh, you draw?' said Farrell, with a smile. Then, looking round him, he noticed a portfolio on the table, with a paint box beside it. 'May I look?'
With rather red cheeks, Nelly showed her performances. She knew very well, being accustomed to follow such things in the newspapers, that Sir William Farrell had exhibited both in London and Manchester, and was much admired by some of the critics.
Farrell twisted his mouth over them a good deal, considering them carefully.
'Yes, I see—I see exactly where you are. Not bad at all, some of them. I could lend you some things which would help you I think. Ah, here is your husband.'
George Sarratt entered, looking in some surprise at their very prompt visitor, and a little inclined to stand on his guard against a patronage that might be troublesome. But Farrell explained himself so apologetically that the young man could only add his very hearty thanks to his wife's.
'Well, I really must be off,' said Farrell again, looking for his hat. 'And I see you are going out for the day.' He glanced at the lunch preparations. 'Do you know Loughrigg Tarn?' He turned to Nelly.
'Oh, yes!' Her face glowed. 'Isn't it beautiful? But I don't think
George knows it.' She looked up at him. He smiled and shook his head.
'I have a cottage there,' said Farrell, addressing Sarratt. 'Wordsworth said it was like Nemi. It isn't:—but it's beautiful all the same. I wish you would bring your wife there to tea with me one day before you go? There is an old woman who looks after me. This view is fine'—he pointed to the window—'but I think mine is finer.'
'Thank you,' said Sarratt, rather formally—'but I am afraid our days are getting pretty full.'
'Of course, of course!' said Sir William, smiling. 'I only meant, if you happened to be walking in that direction and want a rest. I have a number of drawings there—my own and other people's, which Mrs. Sarratt might care to see—sometime. You go on Saturday?'
'Yes. I'm due to rejoin by Monday.'
Farrell's expression darkened.
'You see what keeps me?' he said, sharply, striking his left knee with the flat of his hand. 'I had a bad fall, shooting in Scotland, years ago—when I was quite a lad. Something went wrong in the knee-cap. The doctors muffed it, and I have had a stiff knee ever since. I daresay they'd give me work at the War Office—or the Admiralty. Lots of fellows I know who can't serve are doing war-work of that kind. But I can't stand office work—never could. It makes me ill, and in a week of it I am fit to hang myself. I live out of doors. I've done some recruiting—speaking for the Lord Lieutenant. But I can't speak worth a cent—and I do no good. No fellow ever joined up because of my eloquence!—couldn't if he tried. No—I've given up my house—it was the best thing I could do. It's a jolly house, and I've got lots of jolly things in it. But the War Office and I between us have turned it into a capital hospital. We take men from the Border regiments mostly. I wonder if I shall ever be able to live in it again! My sister and I are now in the agent's house. I work at the hospital three or four days a week—and then I come here and sketch. I don't see why I shouldn't.'
He straightened his shoulder as though defying somebody. Yet there was something appealing, and, as it were, boyish, in the defiance. The man's patriotic conscience could be felt struggling with his dilettantism. Sarratt suddenly liked him.
'No, indeed,' he said heartily. 'Why shouldn't you?' 'It's when one thinks of your job, one feels a brute to be doing anything one likes.'
'Well, you'd be doing the same job if you could. That's all right!' said
Sarratt smiling.
It was curious how in a few minutes the young officer had come to seem the older and more responsible of the two men. Yet Farrell was clearly his senior by some ten or fifteen years. Instinctively Nelly moved nearer to George. She liked to feel how easily he could hold his own with great people, who made her feel nervous. For she understood from Mrs. Weston that the Farrells were very great people indeed, as to money and county position, and that kind of thing.
Sarratt took his visitor downstairs, and returned, laughing to himself.
'Well, darling, I've promised we'll go to his cottage one day this week. You've to let him know. He's an odd fellow! Reminds me of that story of the young Don at Cambridge who spent all the time he could spare from neglecting his duties in adorning his person. And yet that doesn't hit it quite either. For I don't suppose he does spend much time in adorning his person. He doesn't want it. He's such a splendid looking chap to begin with. But I'm sure his duties have a poor time! Why, he told me—me, an utter stranger!—as we went downstairs—that being a landowner was the most boring trade in the world. He hated his tenants, and turned all the bother of them over to his agents. "But they don't hate me"—he said—"because I don't put the screw on. I'm rich enough without." By Jove, he's a queer specimen!'
And Sarratt laughed out, remembering some further items of the conversation on the stairs.
'Whom are you discussing?' said a cold voice in the background.
It was Bridget Cookson's voice, and the husband and wife turned to greet her. The day was balmy—June at its best. But Bridget as she came in had the look of someone rasped with east wind. Nelly noticed too that since her marriage, Bridget had developed an odd habit of not looking her—or George—straight in the face. She looked sideways, as though determined to avoid the mere sight of their youth and happiness. 'Is she going to make a quarrel of it all our lives?' thought Nelly impatiently. 'And when George is so nice to her! How can she be so silly!'
'We were talking about our visitor who has just left,' said Sarratt, clearing a chair for his sister-in-law. 'Ah, you came from the other direction, you just missed him.'
'The man'—said Nelly—'who was so awfully polite to me on Saturday—Sir
William Farrell.'
Bridget's countenance lost its stiffness at once—became eager and alert.
'What did he come for?'
'To bring us permission to use the boat for a week,' said Nelly.
'Wasn't it decent of him?—and to do it so quick!'
'Oh, that's the Farrell way—always was,' said Bridget complacently, as though she had the family in her pocket. 'When they think of a thing it's done. It's hit or miss. They never stop to think.'
Sarratt looked at his sister-in-law with a covert amusement. It was a left-handed remark. But she went on—while Nelly finished the packing of the luncheon-basket—pouring out a flood of gossip about the Farrells's place near Cockermouth, their great relations, their wealth, their pictures, and their china, while Sarratt walked up and down, fidgeting with his mouth, and inwardly thanking his stars that his Nelly was not the least like her sister, that she was as refined and well-bred, as Bridget was beginning to seem to him vulgar and tiresome. But he realised that there was a personality in the tall harsh woman; that she might be formidable; and once or twice he found himself watching the curious side-long action of her head and neck, and the play of her eyes and mouth, with a mingling of close attention and strong dislike. He kept his own counsel however; and presently he heard Bridget, who had so far refused all their invitations to join their walks or excursions, rather eagerly accepting Nelly's invitation to go with them to Sir William's Loughrigg cottage. She knew all about it apparently, and said it was 'a gem of a place!' Sir William kept an old butler and his wife there—pensioned off—who looked after him when he came. 'Everything's tiny,' said Bridget with emphasis—'but perfect! Sir William has the most exquisite taste. But he never asks anybody to go there. None of the neighbours know him. So of course they say its "side," and he gives himself airs. Anyway, Nelly, you may think yourselves highly honoured—'
'Darling, isn't that basket ready?' said Sarratt, coming to his wife's aid. 'We're losing the best of the day—and if Bridget really won't go with us—'
Bridget frowned and rose.
'How are the proofs getting on?' said Sarratt, smiling, as she bade him a careless good-bye.
Bridget drew herself up.
'I never talk about my work.'
'I suppose that's a good rule,' he said doubtfully, 'especially now that there's so much else to talk about. The Russian news to-day is pretty bad!'
A dark look of anxiety crossed the young man's face. For it was the days of the great Russian retreat in Galicia and Poland, and every soldier looking on, knew with gnashing of teeth that the happenings in the East meant a long postponement of our own advance.
'Oh, I never trouble about the war!' said Bridget, with a half-contemptuous note in her voice that fairly set George Sarratt on fire. He flushed violently, and Nelly looked at him in alarm. But he said nothing. Nelly however with a merry side-glance at him, unseen by Bridget, interposed to prevent him from escorting Bridget downstairs. She went herself. Most sisters would have dispensed with or omitted this small attention; but Nelly always treated Bridget with a certain ceremony. When she returned, she threw her arms round George's neck, half laughing, and half inclined to cry.
'Oh, George, I do wish I had a nicer sister to give you!' But George had entirely recovered himself.
'We shall get on perfectly!' he declared, kissing the soft head that leant against him. 'Give me a little time, darling. She's new to me!—I'm new to her.'
Nelly sighed, and went to put on her hat. In her opinion it was no more easy to like Bridget after three years than three hours. It was certain that she and George would never suit each other. At the same time Nelly was quite conscious that she owed Bridget a good deal. But for the fact that Bridget did the housekeeping, that Bridget saw to the investment of their small moneys, and had generally managed the business of their joint life, Nelly would not have been able to dream, and sketch, and read, as it was her delight to do. It might be, as she had said to Sarratt, that Bridget managed because she liked managing. All the same Nelly knew, not without some prickings of conscience as to her own dependence, that when George was gone, she would never be able to get on without Bridget.
Into what a world of delight the two plunged when they set forth! The more it rains in the Westmorland country, the more heavenly are the days when the clouds forget to rain! There were white flocks of them in the June sky as the new-married pair crossed the wooden bridge beyond the garden, leading to the further side of the lake, but they were sailing serene and sunlit in the blue, as though their whole business were to dapple the hills with blue and violet shadows, or sometimes to throw a dazzling reflection down into the quiet water. There had been rain, torrential rain, just before the Sarratts arrived, so that the river was full and noisy, and all the little becks clattering down the fell, in their haste to reach the lake, were boasting to the summer air, as though in forty-eight hours of rainlessness they would not be as dry and dumb as ever again. The air was fresh, in spite of the Midsummer sun, and youth and health danced in the veins of the lovers. And yet not without a touch of something feverish, something abnormal, because of that day—that shrouded day—standing sentinel at the end of the week. They never spoke of it, but they never forgot it. It entered into each clinging grasp he gave her hand as he helped her up or down some steep or rugged bit of path—into the lingering look of her brown eyes, which thanked him, smiling—into the moments of silence, when they rested amid the springing bracken, and the whole scene of mountain, cloud and water spoke with that sudden tragic note of all supreme beauty, in a world of 'brittleness.' But they were not often silent. There was so much to say. They were still exploring each other, after the hurry of their marriage, and short engagement. For a time she chattered to him about her own early life—their old red-brick house in a Manchester suburb, with its good-sized rooms, its mahogany doors, its garden, in which her father used to work—his only pleasure, after his wife's death, besides 'the concerts'—'You know we've awfully good music in Manchester!' As for her own scattered and scanty education, she had begun to speak of it almost with bitterness. George's talk and recollections betrayed quite unconsciously the standards of the academic or highly-trained professional class to which all his father's kindred belonged; and his only sister, a remarkably gifted girl, who had died of pneumonia at eighteen, just as she was going to Girton, seemed to Nelly, when he occasionally described or referred to her, a miracle—a terrifying miracle—of learning and accomplishment.
Once indeed, she broke out in distress:—'Oh, George, I don't know anything! Why wasn't I sent to school! We had a wretched little governess who taught us nothing. And then I'm lazy—I never was ambitious—like Bridget. Do you mind that I'm so stupid—do you mind?'
And she laid her hands on his knee, as they sat together among the fern, while her eyes searched his face in a real anxiety.
What joy it was to laugh at her—to tease her!
'How stupid are you, darling? Tell me, exactly. It is of course a terrible business. If I'd only known—'
But she would be serious.
'I don't know any languages, George! Just a little French—but you'd be ashamed if you heard me talking it. As to history—don't ask!' She shrugged her shoulders despairingly. Then her face brightened. 'But there's something! I do love poetry—I've read a lot of poetry.'
'That's all right—so have I,' he said, promptly.
'Isn't it strange—' her tone was thoughtful—'how people care for poetry nowadays! A few years ago, one never heard of people—ordinary people—buying poetry, new poetry—or reading it. But I know a shop in Manchester that's just full of poetry—new books and old books—and the shop-man told me that people buy it almost more than anything. Isn't it funny? What makes them do it? Is it the war?'
Sarratt considered it, while making a smooth path for a gorgeous green beetle through the bit of turf beside him.
'I suppose it's the war,' he said at last. 'It does change fellows. It's easy enough to go along bluffing and fooling in ordinary times. Most men don't know what they think—or what they feel—or whether they feel anything. But somehow—out there—when you see the things other fellows are doing—when you know the things you may have to do yourself—well——'
'Yes, yes—go on!' she said eagerly, and he went on, but reluctantly, for he had seen her shiver, and the white lids fall a moment over her eyes.
'—It doesn't seem unnatural—or hypocritical—or canting—to talk and feel—sometimes—as you couldn't talk or feel at home, with life going on just as usual. I've had to censor letters, you see, darling—and the letters some of the roughest and stupidest fellows write, you'd never believe. And there's no pretence in it either. What would be the good of pretending out there? No—it's just the pace life goes—and the fire—and the strain of it. It's awful—and horrible—and yet you wouldn't not be there for the world.'
His voice dropped a little; he looked out with veiled eyes upon the lake chequered with the blue and white of its inverted sky. Nelly guessed—trembling—at the procession of images that was passing through them; and felt for a moment strangely separated from him—separated and desolate.
'George, it's dreadful now—to be a woman!'
She spoke in a low appealing voice, pressing up against him, as though she begged the soul in him that had been momentarily unconscious of her, to come back to her.
He laughed, and the vision before his eyes broke up.
'Darling, it's adorable now—to be a woman! How I shall think of you, when I'm out there!—away from all the grime and the horror—sitting by this lake, and looking—as you do now.'
He drew a little further away from her, and lying on his elbows on the grass, he began to read her, as it were, from top to toe, that he might fix every detail in his mind.
'I like that little hat so much, Nelly!—and that blue cloak is just ripping! And what's that you've got at your waist—a silver buckle?—yes! I gave it you. Mind you wear it, when I'm away, and tell me you're wearing it—then I can fancy it.'
'Will you ever have time—to think of me—George?'
She bent towards him.
He laughed.
'Well, not when I'm going over the parapet to attack the Boches. Honestly, one thinks of nothing then but how one can get one's men across. But you won't come off badly, my little Nell—for thoughts—night or day. And you mustn't think of us too sentimentally. It's quite true that men write wonderful letters—and wonderful verse too—men of all ranks—things you'd never dream they could write. I've got a little pocket-book full that I've collected. I've left it in London, but I'll show you some day. But bless you, nobody talks about their feelings at the front. We're a pretty slangy lot in the trenches, and when we're in billets, we read novels and rag each other—and sleep—my word, we do sleep!'
He rolled on his back, and drew his hat over his eyes a moment, for even in the fresh mountain air the June sun was fierce. Nelly sat still, watching him, as he had watched her—all the young strength and comeliness of the man to whom she had given herself.
And as she did so there came swooping down upon her, like the blinding wings of a Fury, the remembrance of a battle picture she had seen that morning: a bursting shell—limp figures on the ground. Oh not George—not George—never! The agony ran through her, and her fingers gripped the turf beside her. Then it passed, and she was silently proud that she had been able to hide it. But it had left her pale and restless. She sprang up, and they went along the high path leading to Grasmere and Langdale.
Presently at the top of the little neck which separates Rydal from Grasmere they came upon an odd cavalcade. In front walked an elderly lady, with a huge open bag slung round her, in which she carried an amazing load of the sphagnum moss that English and Scotch women were gathering at that moment all over the English and Scotch mountains for the surgical purposes of the war. Behind her came a pony, with a boy. The pony was laden with the same moss, so was the boy. The lady's face was purple with exertion, and in her best days she could never have been other than plain; her figure was shapeless. She stopped the pony as she neared the Sarratts, and addressed them—panting.
'I beg your pardon!—but have you by chance seen another lady carrying a bag like mine? I brought a friend with me to help gather this stuff—but we seem to have missed each other on the top of Silver How—and I can't imagine what's happened to her.'
The voice was exceedingly musical and refined—but there was a touch of power in it—a curious note of authority. She stood, recovering breath and looking at the young people with clear and penetrating eyes, suddenly observant.
The Sarratts could only say that they had not come across any other moss-gatherer on the road.
The strange lady sighed—but with a half humorous, half philosophical lifting of the eyebrows.
'It was very stupid of me to miss her—but you really can't come to grief on these fells in broad daylight. However, if you do meet her—a lady with a sailor hat, and a blue jersey—will you tell her that I've gone on to Ambleside?'
Sarratt politely assured her that they would look out for her companion. He had never yet seen a grey-haired Englishwoman, of that age, carry so heavy a load, and he liked both her pluck and her voice. She reminded him of the French peasant women in whose farms he often lodged behind the lines. She meanwhile was scrutinising him—the badge on his cap, and the two buttons on his khaki sleeve.
'I think I know who you are,' she said, with a sudden smile. 'Aren't you Mr. and Mrs. Sarratt? Sir William Farrell told me about you.' Then she turned to the boy—'Go on, Jim. I'll come soon.'
A conversation followed on the mountain path, in which their new acquaintance gave her name as Miss Hester Martin, living in a cottage on the outskirts of Ambleside, a cousin and old friend of Sir William Farrell; an old friend indeed, it seemed, of all the local residents; absorbed in war-work of different kinds, and somewhere near sixty years of age; but evidently neither too old nor too busy to have lost the natural interest of a kindly spinster in a bride and bridegroom, especially when the bridegroom was in khaki, and under orders for the front. She promised, at once, to come and see Mrs. Sarratt, and George, beholding in her a possible motherly friend for Nelly when he should be far away, insisted that she should fix a day for her call before his departure. Nelly added her smiles to his. Then, with a pleasant nod, Miss Martin left them, refusing all their offers to help her with her load. '"My strength is as the strength of ten,"' she said with a flash of fun in her eyes—'But I won't go on with the quotation. Good-bye.'
George and Nelly went on towards a spot above a wood in front of them to which she had directed them, as a good point to rest and lunch. She, meanwhile, pursued her way towards Ambleside, her thoughts much more occupied with the young couple than with her lost companion. The little thing was a beauty, certainly. Easy to see what had attracted William Farrell! An uncommon type—and a very artistic type; none of your milk-maids. She supposed before long William would be proposing to draw her—hm!—with the husband away? It was to be hoped some watch-dog would be left. William was a good fellow—no real malice in him—had never meant to injure anybody, that she knew of—but—
Miss Martin's cogitations however went no farther in exploring that 'but.' She was really very fond of her cousin William, who bore an amount of discipline from her that no one else dared to apply to the owner of Carton. Tragic, that he couldn't fight! That would have brought out all there was in him.