Justin—Captain Cloud, I mean—is coming home.
The theme was Mrs. Cloud’s, rang in her head in Mrs. Cloud’s voice, but the intricacies of its variations were Laura’s own. She was utterly unable to force her mind from the subject. Her brain was a like a keyboard at which her soul sat fingering out the Harmonious Justin, till she was ready to scream. Her share of what the village called war-work had not been light, and she was besides so wearied out by the strain and the pain and the unlifting terror of the past months, that her thoughts were often able to escape her control, to weaken her still further by their irresponsibility. There were times when she could not think consecutively at all: and yet she could never stop thinking, and at a furious rate, till her mind seemed a cosmos bereft of gravity.
Into that chaos, which even Mrs. Cloud could never have connected with Laura of the trim blue serges, and the Refugee Committee, and the restful, smiling ways—into that chaos of dead hopes and living fears, Mrs. Cloud’s news flashed like a comet, brilliant, portentous. Justin was coming home.
She tried to be blind to this new light in her sky. She told herself that it had nothing to do with her, that she must not, in pride, in decency, let her thoughts be concerned with him.... But Justin was coming home!... She had no right, she reminded herself fiercely, to be sorry or glad any more for Justin.... But at least he would be safe.... For a whole week he would be safe.... She might sleep sound, if she could, for a whole week.... She need not even pray.... All she might do—all she could do—for a Justin safely home again, was to keep out of his way.... He would not want to see her.... She would not afford him, or herself, the embarrassment of a meeting.... She would not spoil his holiday by appearing to exist....
She thought that she ought to go away altogether—pay some invented visit to imaginary relatives.... But that she could not do.... That—probing her soul—she could not do.... She found she had not, literally, the strength to leave Brackenhurst when Justin was coming home. But she would keep out of his way....
Not that it would upset Justin if he did run into her.... He would pass her—she could see him—as carelessly as he might pass some futile cur that had once snapped at him.... He would have put her out of his mind by now, definitely and completely.... She knew his indifferent, inexorable way.... She had bruised herself often enough against his unimagination, his sturdy mind that was like a house with one window. Oh, he saw life clearly through it—but how little he saw! But there was no use in going over that.... All she had to remember was to keep out of his way.... But she would not leave Brackenhurst.... For if Justin—suppose that Justin—suppose that by some miracle Justin had changed—had learned to forgive—to forget—to want her again! Miracles did happen....
You are right—she cannot, at the time of his leave, have been quite sane. For, all the long week, she lived, fiercely as she denied it to herself, in mad, fantastic expectation of that miracle. Every passer-by on the long road, every click of the gate, every bell rung in the kitchen, every footstep on the gravel, from the paper-boy before the maids came down to the gardener going home at night, was Justin—was Justin! Fifty times in the weary day the impossible happened, the miracle was vouchsafed, and Justin came to her—Justin, who never came. In the window-seat, above the white high-road, where, so many years ago, she had watched for the coming of another love, she crouched again and peered out at the passers-by, and starved and starved for him.
Yet life ran on as usual in Brackenhurst, though Belgium smoked to heaven and Justin were home on leave: and Laura had her duties. Two days’ grace, or three, might be allowed her for her imaginary headache—but on the fourth Brackenhurst clamoured for its indispensable Miss Valentine, and she must set out through by-ways to her Belgians and her babies, to lunch at the other end of the village, with an afternoon’s sewing to follow, and must keep her eyes bright and her tongue wagging to amuse her world the while.
The sun was near the edge of the earth before the Depôt gates closed on her and she was her own mistress again.
She hesitated. She was very tired, and Aunt Adela would be fretful if she were late for tea.... She felt that a scolding from Aunt Adela, the rasp of her plaintive voice, must at all costs be avoided.... She felt that she might turn Tartar if Aunt Adela scratched her just then—which wouldn’t be fair to poor old Aunt Adela.... Besides, she had no business to keep Aunt Adela waiting.... She must take the short cut....