From One Generation to Another Part 12

At his elbow lay a telegram--that flimsy pink paper which, with all our progress, all our knowledge, the bravest of us fear still.

"Jem killed in India; come home at once.--AGAR."

Honour to whom honour. Arthur Agar's only thought had been one of sudden horror. He had read the telegram over twice before going out to close his outer door. Then he came back and sat weakly down at the table where he had written more scented notes than noted themes, deliberately, womanlike, to cry.

To his credit be it noted that he never thought of Stagholme, which was now his. He only thought of Jem--his no longer--Jem the open-handed, elder brother who tolerated much and said little. Having had everything that he wanted since childhood, Arthur Agar had never been in the habit of thinking about money matters. His florist's bills (and Cambridge horticulturists seem to water their flowers with Chateau Lafitte), his confectioner's account, and his tailor's little note had always been paid without a murmur. Thus, want of money--the chief incentive to crime and criminal thought--had never come within measurable distance of this gentle undergraduate.

Truth to tell, he had never devoted much thought to the future. He had always vaguely concluded that his mother and Jem would "do something"; and in the meantime there were important matters requiring his attention.

There was the _menu_ to prepare for an approaching little dinner. There was always an approaching dinner, and always a _menu_ in execrable French on a satin-faced card with the college arms in a coat of many colours.

There was the florist to be interviewed and the arrangement of the table to be superintended; the finis.h.i.+ng touch to be given to the floral decoration thereof by the master-hand.

Jem's death seemed to knock away one of the supports of the future, and Arthur Agar even in his grief was conscious of the impending necessity of having to act for himself some day.

At length he lifted his head, and through the intricate pattern of the very newest design in art muslins the daylight fell on his face. It was a face which in France is called _chiffonne_; but the term is never applied to the visage masculine. A diminutive and slightly _retrousse_ nose, gentle grey eyes of the drowning-fly description, and a sensitive mouth scarcely hidden by a fair moustache of downward tendency.

Here was a man made to be ruled all his life--probably by a woman. With a little more strength it might have been a melancholy face; as it stood, it was suggestive of nothing stronger than fretfulness. There was a vague distress in the eyes and in the whole countenance which mistaken and practical souls would probably put down to a defective digestion or a feeble vitality. More than one enthusiastic disciple of Aesculapius studying at Caius professed to have discovered the evidence of some internal disease in Arthur Agar's distressed eyes; but his complaint was not of the body at all.

Presently the necessity for action forced itself upon his understanding, and he rose with a jerk. It is worth noting that his first thought was connected with dress. He pa.s.sed into the inner room and there exchanged his elegant morning suit for a black one, replacing a delicate heliotrope necktie by another of sombre hue. He mentally reviewed his mourning wardrobe while doing so, and gathered much spiritual repose from the diversion.

In the meantime the Rector of Stagholme, having breakfasted, proceeded to light a cigarette and open the _Times_ with the leisurely sense of enjoyment of one who takes an interest in all things without being keenly concerned in any.

"G.o.d help us!" he exclaimed suddenly; and Mrs. Glynde, who alone happened to be present, dropped a handful of housekeeping money on the floor.

"What is it, dear?" she gasped.

"There," was the answer; "read that. 'Disaster in Northern India.' Not there--higher up!"

In her eagerness Mrs. Glynde had plunged headlong into the consumption of Wesleyan missionaries in the Sandwich Islands. Then she had to find her gla.s.ses, and considerable delay was incurred by putting them on upside down. All this while the Rector sat glaring at her as if in some occult way she were responsible for the disaster in Northern India.

At last she read the short article, and was about to give a sigh of relief when her eyes travelled to a diminutive list of names appended.

"What!" she exclaimed. "What! Jem! Oh, Tom, dear, this can't be true!"

"I have no reason," answered the Rector grimly, "to suppose that it is untrue."

Mrs. Glynde was one of those unfortunate persons who seem only to have the power of aggravating at a crisis. In their way they are useful as serving to divert the mind; but they usually come in for more than their need of abuse.

The poor little woman laid the newspaper gently down by her husband's elbow, and looked at him with a certain air of grandeur and strength. The instinct that arouses the mother wren to peck at the schoolboy's hand at her nest was strong in this subdued little old lady.

"Something," she said, "must be done. How are we going to tell Dora?"

The Rector was a man who never went straight at the fence, before him. He invariably pulled up and rode alongside the obstacle before leaping, and when going for it he braced himself mentally with the reflection that he was an English gentleman, and as such had obligations. But these obligations, like those of many English gentlemen, ceased at his own fireside. He, like many of us, was apt to forget that wife, sister, and daughter are nevertheless ladies to whom deference is due.

"Oh--Dora," he answered; "she will have to bear it like the rest of us.

But here am I with fresh legal complications laid upon me. I foresee endless trouble with the lawyers and that woman. Why the Squire made me his executor I can't tell. Parsons know nothing of these matters."

With a patient sigh Mrs. Glynde turned away and went to the window, where she stood with her back to him. Even to the duller masculine mind the wonder sometimes presents itself that our women-folk take us so patiently as we are. If Mrs. Glynde had turned upon her husband (who was not so selfish as he would appear), presenting him forthwith in the plainest language at her command with a piece of her mind, the treatment would have been surprising at first, and infinitely beneficial afterwards.

The Reverend Thomas sat staring into the fire--a luxury which he allowed himself all through the year--with troubled eyes. There was a fence in front of him, but he could not bring himself up to it. In his mistaken contempt for women he had never taken his wife fully into his confidence in those things--great or small, according to the capacity of the producing machine--which are essentially a personal property--namely his thoughts.

All else he told her openly and at once, as behoved an English gentleman.

Should he tell all that he had hoped and thought and rethought respecting Jem Agar and Dora? Should he; should he not? And the loving little woman stood there almost daring to break the great silence herself; but not quite. Strong as was her mother's heart, the habit of submission was stronger. She longed, she yearned to hear the deeper, graver tone of voice which had been used once or twice towards her--once or twice in moments of unusual confidence. The Reverend Thomas Glynde was silent, and the voice that they both heard was Dora's, singing as she came downstairs towards them. It was only a matter of moments, and when we have no more than that wherein to act we usually take the wrong turning.

Mrs. Glynde turned and gave one imploring look towards her husband.

At the same instant the door opened and Dora entered, singing as she came.

"What is the matter?" she exclaimed. "You both look depressed. Stocks down, or something else has gone up? I know! Papa has been made a bishop!"

With a cheery laugh she went to the table and took up the newspaper.

CHAPTER XII

BAD NEWS

Sa maniere de souffrir est le temoignage qu'une ame porte sur elle-meme.

There was a horrid throbbing silence while Dora read, and her parents calculated the seconds which would necessarily elapse before she reached the bottom line. Such moments as these are scored up as years in the span of life.

Mrs. Glynde did not know what she was doing. It happened that she was trying to rub away a flaw in the window-gla.s.s with her pocket hand-kerchief--a flaw which must have been an old friend, as such things are in quiet lives. At this occupation she found herself when her heart began to beat again.

"I suppose," said Dora in a terribly calm voice, "that the _Times_ never makes a mistake--I mean they never publish anything unless they are quite sure?"

Then the English gentleman of parts who ever and anon peeped out through the veneer of the parson a.s.serted himself--the English gentleman whose sense of fair play and honour told him that it is better to strike at once a blow that must be struck than to keep the victim waiting.

"Such is their reputation," answered Dora's father.

Mrs. Glynde turned with that pathetic yearning movement of a punished dog which waits to be called. But Dora had some of her father's sternness, her father's good British reserve, and she never called.

Turning, she walked quietly out of the room. And all the light had gone out of her life. So we write, and so ye read; but do we realise it? It is not many of us who have suddenly to look at life without so much as a glimmer in its dark recesses to make it worth the living. It is not many of us who come to be told by the doctor: "For the rest of your existence you must give up eyesight," or, "For the remainder of life you must go halt." But these are trifles. Everything is a trifle, if we would only believe it. Riches and poverty, peace and war, fame and obscurity, town and country, England and the backwoods--all these are trifles compared with that other life which makes our own a living completeness.

Silently she went, and left silence behind her. The Rector was abashed.

For once a woman had acted in a manner unexpected by him; for he was ignorant enough of the world to keep up the old fallacy of treating women as a cla.s.s. True, it was Dora, whom he held apart from the rest of her s.e.x; but still he was left wondering. He felt as if he had been found walking in a holy place with shoes upon his feet--those gross shoes of Self with which most of us tramp through the world, not heeding where we tread or what we crush.

One of the hardest things we have to bear is the helpless standing by while one dear to us must suffer. When Mrs. Glynde turned round and came towards her husband she had become an old woman. Her face had suddenly aged while her frame was yet in its full strength, and such a change is not pleasant to look on.

"Tom," she said, in a dry, commanding voice, "you must go up to the Holme at once and hear what news they have. There may be some chance--it may please G.o.d to spare us yet."

"Yes," answered the Rector meekly; "I will go."

While he was lacing his boots with all speed Mrs. Glynde took up the newspaper again, and reread the brief account of the disaster. They were spared comment; that blow came later, when the warriors of Fleet Street set about explaining why the defeat was sustained and why it should never have happened. In due course these carpet tacticians proved to their own satisfaction that Colonel Stevenor was incompetent for the service on which he had been dispatched. But the reek of printing-ink never was good for the better feelings.

In due course the Rector set off across the park; very grave, and distinctly aware of the importance of his mission. He had somewhere in his composition a strong sense of the dramatic, to which the situation appealed. He felt that had he been a younger man he would have stored up many details during the morning's work worthy of reproduction in the narrative form during years to come.