Mrs. Hammond was right.
The ultimatum expired. Great Britain and Germany assumed a state of war; and the Marshall Gurneys, miraculously unmurdered, returned to Marshington in triumph. The news of their escape through Switzerland outrivalled, at hurried and informal tea-parties, the problem of food shortage, the departure of the Territorials to join the camp near Scarborough, and the possibility of a German invasion. It was even rumoured that Phyllis had received a letter from Godfrey Neale congratulating her upon their escape, and that she, with the glamour of adventure like a bloom upon her youth, might yet warm up the tepid interest that her charms had once inspired.
After a spring and summer of reviving hope, Mrs. Hammond found herself facing the autumn of 1914 from much the same position as she had faced it in 1913.
Oh, when one was young and success was one's own to make or lose, then life was easy! But for a wife and mother whose success depended upon other people, then came the heart-breaking years. Of course the War must be over soon, and things would settle down to their normal condition, but meanwhile it was hard to see Mrs. Marshall Gurney becoming President of the Belgian Refugee Committee, while Phyllis, who had nothing like Muriel's ability for handling figures, was made treasurer of the Junior Red Cross Association, and went daily into Kingsport in her becoming uniform.
At the end of November they stood in the gloom of the unlit station, watching the 5th Yorkshire Guards entrain for Aldershot—well, if it was not Aldershot, it was somewhere in the South and so much nearer to the German guns. There was no particular reason why the Hammonds should have gone to see them. They knew no one besides Dickie Weathergay, Daisy's husband, and the station was cold and draughty. Mr. Hammond had stayed in late at the Kingsport Club as usual, but Mrs. Hammond was determinedly patriotic. In spite of discomfort she stood now with her girls among a crowd of curious, laden figures, distorted by their burdens out of all semblance to the human form. It was the world of a dream, when even the corporeal presence of such everyday people as Dr. and Mrs. Parker and Colonel Cartwright became part of a dim and dreamlike darkness. The crowd shuffled and jolted, appearing unexpectedly from the dense shadows into a circle of faint lamplight that flickered intermittently on bayonets and badges.
Mrs. Hammond was suffering from indigestion, the result of fragmentary and scrambled meals. The meals at Miller's Rise had not been hurried because nobody had time to eat them slowly, but because it hardly seemed to be patriotic in those days to sit down comfortably to enjoy them. Mrs. Hammond, dreading the secret murmurings about her husband, dreading the pity which could destroy more effectively than enmity the position which she had won, determined to kill pity by admiration for her patriotism. She stood in the darkness, while passing soldiers lurched into her, and knocked sideways her fur-trimmed toque. This must all be endured as part of the campaign. She felt her courage, born from her supreme passion, riding triumphantly above fatigue and pain.
"It would be nice if there were somewhere to sit down," she murmured, but without complaint. "Is that Daisy over there?"
Muriel, who had been standing all day in the newly instituted Red Cross Depot, shifted her weight from one aching foot to the other, and remarked:
"I'm so sorry. There are no seats," as though it were her fault. She added, "Yes, that's Daisy, in the blue cloak."
Daisy Weathergay stood just within the circle of lamplight. She was not travelling South with her husband because her baby was expected in December, but she had come to the station to say good-bye to him, and stood beside the 1st class carriage. Her small, flower-like face was upturned. Her close-fitting hat shaded her eyes, but the light fell on her soft little nose, and the sensitive outline of the mouth and chin.