An Englishwoman's Home

by Annie S. Swan

If I can have any communication with my son, I don't want to have it through some strange, odd freak of a person, who has to go into a trance for the purpose. If God means me to hear from the other side, He will send the Boy to me direct. That I most firmly believe, and am content to wait that day. If it never comes, why then I can go on waiting for the day which can't be so very far distant, when I shall cross the narrow sea between that happy land and ours. I wrote as strongly and convincingly as I could to Mrs. Leighton, but I don't think it availed much. There is a little group of the intellectuals just now all heading in the same direction, names familiar all the world over.

To me it is all intensely pathetic. It is the cry of lost youth, the admission that they have no real city or abiding place, and no sort of surety about what is going to come.

I remember Himself coming in one day and sending me out to a dying woman with the words: "I'm through with my job. It's yours now." When I got to her she looked at me so wistfully, saying: "Doctor says you are so sure."

You have no idea how these words thrilled me. Thank God I am sure. We are all sure, who know in Whom we have believed.

Since I wrote to you last I have had disquieting news about Effie. She was knocked down, while standing beside her car, by a big French military motor. The officers riding in it did not even stop to pick her up. Possibly they were not even aware that anything had happened. One must be charitable enough to suppose so. Some one came along and took her to a hospital, from which she is now able to send a few pencilled lines. She escaped with a few good bruises and it was quite a few days before I could discover whether there was any facial injury. Nobody seemed to reflect that I might be worrying about that. I applied for permission to go over to see her, but was refused. Nobody is permitted to cross the Channel to visit wounded or sick relatives unless the case is hopeless.

Her temperature kept up obstinately for longer than they liked, but I am thankful to say she is now convalescent.

I have had shoals of letters from all kinds of people over there, from the Brigadier to the orderly, expatiating on her absolute indispensability at the Base. They seem terrified in case we order her to come home.

It is very sweet to hear that she is so greatly beloved, and doing efficiently and cheerfully so much useful service. What experience she must have locked in her too uncommunicative bosom! She has had three years of it now, and has really told us very little. If she never tries to express it in writing, well, it surely will inform and colour all her after life. I should not dare to bid her home on my own responsibility, though there are days when I not only want, but need her desperately.

Talking of the modernity of these inaccessible, mysterious young creatures, I don't think I told you of a friend of mine, mother of four, who soon after the outbreak of war, received from her family a letter signed by each member, thanking her for permitting them to be born at the psychological moment of history.

Another friend of mine who had the misfortune to marry a full-blooded and very German German, who, however, conveniently departed this life the year before the war, told me her sons passionately reproached her for giving them a German father.