CHAPTER XIV
John was allowed by the hospital authorities to come to Greenwich for the ceremony, and his return to Gloucester Place—which we had often decided, in conversation, was to be a great incident, with flags out at the balcony, and, indoors, food and much rejoicing—found itself tempered by the circumstances. We reckoned to find him changed; it never occurred to us that his wounds and his hard experiences would have aged and altered him so much. But for his voice—and that, too, was not quite the same that one remembered—it might have been difficult for those who knew him but casually to identify him. We came back from the cemetery at Lewisham, leaving there the two simple wreaths (one from her Ever loving Husband and Children, and the other from Mary Weston, with Respectful Sympathy) to find Colonel Edgington waiting outside the house in Gloucester Place, and swelling with annoyance because he had been unable to obtain an answer to his summons with the knocker, or his appeal with the bell. The Wintertons, desirous of not intruding upon us, were out for the day, and their maid had gone to see the boys performing their exercises on the corvette that rests on a calm sea of asphalt near the Royal Hospital School; she was doubtless giving a special interest to a scholar in Boreman's Foundation, who chanced to be her brother. Although the blinds were down, and we, with the exception of John Hillier, wore black, the Colonel did not make a guess at the loss which had taken place; he explained that he had written out a telegram to Mr. Hillier on the previous evening announcing that he intended to call and provide an afternoon's enjoyment but, by oversight, had given no orders for this to be taken to the Post Office. He seemed to reckon this a trifling omission on his part, and was sketching out the programme when I took him aside.
"Bless my soul!" he ejaculated. "Good gracious me! Heart failure, you say, Weston? I never heard the poor lady suffered in that way. Why wasn't I told? People," he fumed, "seem to take a positive delight in keeping me ignorant."
"Perhaps because it's so difficult to make you understand."
"Not at all," he declared, heatedly. "Always most willing to listen. Exceedingly eager to gain information! I ought not to be treated in this fashion. Dam shame, Weston, dam shame. And I can't help thinking that you are responsible."
"We'll say that it's my fault, sir."
"No, no," he protested. "Not so much your fault as your misfortune. You ought to get married." He pulled at his uniform and, having delivered the reprimand, went across to Mr. Hillier. "My dear old friend," he said, with genuine sympathy. "What can I say to you excepting that I'm awfully sorry. Command me, please, if you want help. I'm not much use in that way, but all that I can do—" To my surprise, he broke down. At the grave-side Muriel had been the only one to give way.
Colonel Edgington, always at his best in the presence of disaster, recovered, and followed us upstairs, sat with us at the meal, and contrived to induce John to talk of his experiences. A war map had been pinned on the wall, as in most households, and John, once started, gave an animated description of the fighting at La Bassée, described the journey, taken whilst he was in a seriously wounded condition, to Lille, furnished an account of his various transfers from lager to lager, the treatment he received, the folk he encountered. We listened attentively, rather glad to have our thoughts switched away from immediate trouble, and John sent off all of his detached manner, becoming really eloquent towards the end. At the finish his young brother started the applause, and the rest of us joined in.
"But I say," cried Edward enthusiastically, "all that, you know, is absolutely ripping."
"You'll write some articles in one of the magazines, John," suggested his father.