Pastorals of Dorset

by M. E. Francis

Susan was slowly recovering strength when one day a letter arrived containing news so consoling and yet so tragic that her heart very nearly broke.

Jim—her Jim—her husband, for as such, in spite of her mother’s protests, she continued to regard him, had written to her on the eve of battle—a manly letter, full of remorseful tenderness. Solemn thoughts had come to him out there on the lonely veldt, face to face with death. The remembrance of the innocent creature who had trusted him, and whom he had loved and wronged, haunted him perpetually. The conduct which had once seemed to him excusable now appeared to him in its true light. Moreover, his actual rough life, the hardships, the horrors of war, threw into stronger relief the happy hours which he had passed by her side; his brief glimpses of home—home of which pretty, guileless Susie had been the presiding goddess.

So, when the great fight was imminent, he had bethought him of writing to her, telling her a little of what was in his mind, announcing that he loved her still, and if God spared him to return he would do the right thing by her and make her his wife in earnest.

There, on the narrow stairs, stood the girl herself

But alas! and alas! the letter was enclosed in one written by another hand, and the poor soldier’s own unfinished missive bore a postscript of a sinister kind—a deep red-brown stain.

The writer of the enclosure—an ambulance-nurse, no doubt—related how poor Jim had been so anxious for the letter to be sent that she had despatched it as it was. At his request the envelope bore Mrs. Frizzell’s name, and for her the enclosure was intended. Would she, the writer asked, break to her daughter that Gunner Barton’s wounds were of so serious a nature that it was impossible he could recover? He had been struck and fearfully shattered by some fragments of a shell—in fact, by the time his letter reached its destination he must be dead.

Martha was standing supporting herself by the table, and vainly trying to muster up courage to face Susan, when a cry from behind her made her start and look furtively round. There, on the narrow stairs, stood the girl herself, her figure unnaturally tall in its clinging white nightdress, her eyes dilated, her pale lips apart.

Not a word could the mother say. She stood clutching the papers which fluttered in her hand.

But Susie had already seen that terrible smear, and again a cry rang through the house.