George Sarratt's battalion returned to the fighting line somewhere about the middle of August. 'But we are only marking time,' he wrote to his wife. 'Nothing doing here, though the casualties go on every day. However we all know in our bones there will be plenty to do soon. As for me I am—more or less—all right again.'
Indeed, as September wore on, expectation quickened on both sides of the Channel. Nelly went in fear of she knew not what. The newspapers said little, but through Carton and the Farrells, she heard a great deal of military gossip. The shell supply was improving—the new Ministry of Munitions beginning to tell—a great blow was impending.
Weeks of rain and storm died down into an autumnal gentleness. The bracken was turning on the hills, the woods beginning to dress for the pageant of October. The sketching lessons which the usual August deluge had interrupted were to begin again, as soon as Farrell came home. He had been in France for a fortnight, at Etaples, and in Paris, studying new methods and appliances for the benefit of the hospital. But whether he was at home or no, the benefactions of Carton never ceased. Almost every other day a motor from the Hall drove up laden with fruit and flowers, with books and magazines.
The fourth week of September opened. The rumours of coming events crept more heavily and insistently than ever through a sudden spell of heat that hung over the Lakes. Nelly Sarratt slept little, and wrote every day to her George, letters of which long sections were often destroyed when written, condemned for lack of cheerfulness.
She was much touched by Farrell's constant kindness, and grateful for it; especially because it seemed to keep Bridget in a good temper. She was grateful too for the visitors whom a hint from him would send on fine afternoons to call on the ladies at Rydal—convalescent officers, to whom the drive from Carton, and tea with 'the pretty Mrs. Sarratt' were an attraction, while Nelly would hang breathless on their gossip of the war, until suddenly, perhaps, she would turn white and silent, lying back in her garden chair with the look which the men talking to her—brave, kind-hearted fellows—soon learnt to understand. Marsworth came occasionally, and Nelly grew to like him sincerely, and to be vaguely sorry for him, she hardly knew why. Cicely Farrell apparently forgot them entirely. And in August and the first part of September she too, according to Captain Marsworth's information, had been away, paying visits.
On the morning of September 26th, the Manchester papers which reached the cottage with the post contained columns of telegrams describing the British attack at Loos, and the French 'push' in Champagne. Among the letters was a short word from Sarratt, dated the 24th. 'We shall probably be in action to-morrow, dearest. I will wire as soon as I can, but you must not be anxious if there is delay. As far as I can judge it will be a big thing. You may be sure I shall take all the precautions possible. God bless you, darling. Your letters are everything.'
Nelly read the letter and the newspaper, her hands trembling as she held it. At breakfast, Bridget eyed her uncomfortably.
'He'll be all right!' she said with harsh decision. 'Don't fret.'
The day passed, with heavy heat mists over the Lake, the fells and the woods blotted out. On pretence of sketching, Nelly spent the hours on the side of Loughrigg, trying sometimes to draw or sew, but for the most part, lying with shut eyes, hidden among the bracken. Her faculty for dreaming awake—for a kind of visualisation sharper than most people possess—had been much developed since George's departure. It partly tormented, partly soothed her.
Night came without news. 'I can't hear till to-morrow night,' she thought, and lay still all night patient and sleepless, her little hands crossed on her breast. The window was wide open and she could see the stars peering over Loughrigg.