Next morning they arrived—the two of them—Mark rather defiantly cheerful, Bel more than a little subdued. Lady Forsyth had never liked the girl better than in those two days.
To the women it seemed hard that so many of his precious hours at home must be squandered on business. But Mark had to face the fact that he might never return, and to make his dispositions accordingly. It had always been his wish to emulate his father and be practically his own land agent. But four years of minority and the long absence in Europe had obliged him to employ a trustworthy man of experience; and he was thankful for it now. George Russell, happily well over forty, had proved as capable as he was devoted, which is saying a good deal for his capacity. He possessed, moreover, a shrewder business head than either mother or son; and on occasion, to Mark’s huge delight, he would assume a tenderly protective attitude, as of one whose mission in life was to save them from themselves.
In the matter of Belgian refugees, he regretted to report that Lady Forsyth was not sufficiently discriminating. They were proving, as was natural, ‘a very mixed lot,’ and Russell had a positive flair for the wrong sort. It was not fair on Sir Mark to crowd up his cottages with ‘foreign riff-raff’: the deserving would make a quite sufficient drain on his limited resources. The good fellow learnt with unconcealed relief that Lady Forsyth would soon be going to Boulogne with Miss Melrose and that he would be left practically in charge of everything.
Mark himself was thankful for business details that relieved the underlying strain. But he refused on this occasion to bid any official ‘good-byes.’ He had taken leave of his people when he joined the army. This final wrench was his own most private and personal affair, as they would doubtless understand.
Tea on the terrace was a creditably cheerful meal; and it was not till near dinner-time that Mark managed to slip away by himself for an hour of quiet communing with the land he loved—the woods, the river and the lordly ruins that, for him, were written all over with the inner history of his own brief twenty-seven years. Bel had asked him more than once how he could bear to leave it all; and to-night, as he saw the red sun tangled among his pine-tops, that question so shook his fortitude that he challenged it with another. Could he bear to think of German troops defiling the fair and stately face of it, terrorising with torture and outrage the men and women whose welfare was his main concern in life? Confronted with that challenge, the coward question fled ashamed.
After dinner he had half an hour’s talk with Sheila, into whose hands he solemnly commended his more mercurial mother. ‘She’s a jewel of price,’ he added frankly, ‘but in certain moods she takes some managing. And on the whole you’re better at it than old Keith. Don’t let her crock up from the strain of it all. And write to me. Promise.’
She promised—and his mind felt more at rest.
Later on he took Bel out on to the terrace, where they paced up and down in the starlight, talking fitfully. Time was too short for all they had to say; and for that very reason they could not say one half of it. Interludes of silence increased. At last came one so prolonged that, by a mutual impulse, they came to a standstill, near a low stone bench, confronting each other and the inexorable fact.