Robin

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"I don't know how he died," one of them said to the Duchess. "I don't know how long it took him to die. I don't want to be told. I am glad he is dead. Yes, I am glad. I wish the other two were dead too. I'm not splendid and heroic. I thought I was at first, but I couldn't keep it up—after I heard about Mrs. Foster's boy. If I believed there was anything to thank, I should say 'Thank God I have no more sons.'"

That night Robin lay in the dark thinking of the dream. Had there been a dream—or had it only been like the other things one dreamed about? Sometimes an eerie fearfulness beset her vaguely. If there were letters each day! But letters belonged to a time when rivers of blood did not run through the world. She sat up in bed and clasped her hands round her knees gazing into the blackness which seemed to enclose and shut her in. It had been true! She could see the wood and the foxglove spires piercing the ferns. She could hear the ferns rustle and the little bird sounds and stirrings. And oh! she could hear Donal whispering. "Can you hear my heart beat?"

He had said it over and over again. His heart seemed to be so big and to beat so strongly. She had thought it was because he was so big and marvellous himself. It had been rapture to lay her cheek and ear against his breast and listen. Everything had been so still. They had been so still—so still themselves for pure joy in their close, close nearness. Yes, the dream had been true. But here she sat in the dark and Donal—where was Donal? Where millions of men were marching, marching—only to kill each other—thinking of nothing but killing. Donal too. He must kill. If he were a brave soldier he must only think of killing and not be afraid because at any moment he might be killed too. She clutched her knees and shuddered, feeling her forehead grow damp. Donal killing a man—perhaps a boy like himself—a boy who might have a dream of his own! How would his blue eyes look while he was killing a man? Oh! No! No! No! Not Donal!

With her forehead still damp and her hands damp also she found herself getting out of bed and walking up and down in the dark. She was wringing her hands and sobbing. She must not think of things like these. She must shut them out of her mind and think only of the dream. It had been true—it had! And then the strange thought came to her that out of all the world only he and she had known of their dreaming. And if he never came back—! (Oh! please, God, let him come back!) no one need ever know. It was their own, own dream and how could she bear to speak of it to any one and why should she? He had said he wanted to have this one thing of his very own before his life ended—if it was going to end. If it ended it would be his sacred secret and hers forever. She might live to be an old woman with white hair and no one would ever guess that since the morning stars sang together they two had belonged to each other.

Night after night she lay awake with thoughts like these. Through the waiting days she began to find an anguished comfort in the feeling that she was keeping their secret for him and that no one need ever know. More than once she went on quietly with her writing when people stood near her and spoke of him and his regiment, which every one was interested in because he was so handsome and so young and new to the leading of men. There were rumours that he must have been plunged into fierce fighting though definite news did not come through without delay.

"Boys like that," she heard. "They ought to be kept at home. All the greatest names will be extinct. And they are the splendid, silly ones who expose themselves most. Young Lord Elphinstowe a week ago—the last of his line! Scarcely a fragment of him to put together." There were women who had a hysterical desire to talk about such things and make gruesome pictures even of slightly founded stories. But when she heard them she did not even lift her eyes from her work.

One marked feature of their meetings—though they themselves had not marked it—had been that they had never talked of the future. It had been as though there were no future. To live perfectly through the few hours—even for the one hour or half hour they could snatch—was all that they could plan and hope for. Could they meet to-morrow in this place or that? When they met were they quite safe and blissfully alone? The spectre had always been waiting and they had always been trying to forget it. Each meeting had seemed so brief and crowded and breathlessly sweet.

Only a boy and a girl could have so lost sight of all but their hour and perhaps also only this boy and girl, because their hour had struck at a time when all futures seemed to hold only chances that at any moment might come to an end.

"Do you hear my heart beat? There is no time—no time!" these two things had been the beginning, the middle and the end.

Sometimes Robin went and sat in the Gardens and one day in coming out she met her mother whom she had not seen for months. Feather had been exultingly gay and fashionably patriotic and she was walking round the corner to a meeting to be held at her club. The khaki colouring of her coat and brief skirt and cap added to their military air with pipings and cords and a small upright feather of scarlet. She wore a badge and a jewelled pin or so. She was about to pass Robin unrecognised but took a second glance at her and stopped.