The Trumpeter Swan Part 4

"I shall talk as I please, Randy. Major Prime, isn't he as handsome as a--rose?"

"_Mother_----"

"Well, you are-----"

"Mother, if you talk like this to the boarders, I'll go back and get shot up----"

She clung to him. "Randy, don't say such a thing. He mustn't talk like that, must he, Major?"

"He doesn't mean it. Paine, this looks to me like the Promised Land----"

"I'm glad you like it," said Mrs. Paine, "and now if you don't mind, I'll run along and kill the fatted calf----"

She kissed her son, and under a huge umbrella made her way through the poppies that starred the gra.s.s----

"_On Flanders field--where poppies blow_"--the Major drew a sudden quick breath---- He wished there were no poppies at King's Crest.

"I hate this hero stuff," Randy was saying, "don't you?"

"I am not so sure that I do. Down deep we'd resent it if we were not applauded, shouldn't we?"

Randy laughed. "I believe we should."

"I fancy that when we've been home for a time, we may feel somewhat bitter if we find that our pedestals are knocked from under us. Our people don't wors.h.i.+p long. They have too much to think of. They'll put up some arches, and a few statues and build tribute houses in a lot of towns, and then they'll go on about their business, and we who have fought will feel a bit blank."

Randy laughed, "you haven't any illusions about it, have you?"

"No, but you and I know that it's all right however it goes."

Randy, standing very straight, looked out over the valley where the river showed through the rain like a silver thread. "Well, we didn't do it for praise, did we?"

"No, thank G.o.d."

Their eyes were seeing other things than these quiet hills. Things they wanted to forget. But they did not want to forget the high exaltation which had sent them over, or the quiet conviction of right which had helped them to carry on. What the people at home might do or think did not matter. What mattered was their own adjustment to the things which were to follow.

Randy went up-stairs, took off his uniform, bathed and came down in the garments of peace.

"Glad to get out of your uniform?" the Major asked.

"I believe I am. Perhaps if I'd been an officer, I shouldn't."

"Everybody couldn't be. I've no doubt you deserved it."

"I could have pulled wires, of course, before I went over, but I wouldn't."

From somewhere within the big house came the reverberation of a j.a.panese gong.

Randy rose. "I'm going over to lunch. I'd rather face guns, but Mother will like it. You can have yours here."

"Not if I know it," the Major rose, "I'm going to share the fatted calf."

VI

It was late that night when the Major went to bed. The feast in Randy's honor had lasted until ten. There had been the s.h.i.+ne of candles, and the laughter of the women, the old Judge's genial humor.

Through the windows had come the fragrance of honeysuckle and of late roses. Becky had sung for them, standing between two straight white candles.

"In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, With the glory in his bosom which transfigures you and me.

As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free While G.o.d is marching on----"

The last time the Major had heard a woman sing that song had been in a little French town just after the United States had gone into the war.

She was of his own country, red-haired and in uniform. She had stood on the steps of a stone house and weary men had cl.u.s.tered about her--French, English, Scotch, a few Americans. Tired and spent, they had gazed up at her as if they drank her in. To them she was more than a singing woman. She was the daughter of a nation of dreamers, _the daughter of a nation which made its dreams come true_! Behind her stood a steadfast people, and--G.o.d was marching on----!

He had had his leg then, and after that there had been dreadful fighting, and sometimes in the midst of it the voice of the singing woman had come back to him, stiffening him to his task.

And here, miles away from that war-swept land, another woman sang. And there was honeysuckle outside, and late roses--and poppies, and there was Peace. And the world which had not fought would forget. But the men who had fought would remember.

He heard Randy's voice, sharp with nerves. "Sing something else, Becky. We've had enough of war----"

The Major leaned across the table. "When did you last hear that song, Paine?"

"On the other side, a red-haired woman--whose lover had been killed. I never want to hear it again----"

"Nor I----"

It was as if they were alone at the table, seeing the things which they had left behind. What did these people know who had stayed at home?

The words were sacred--not to be sung; to be whispered--over the graves of--France.

CHAPTER II

STUFFED BIRDS

I

The Country Club was, as Judge Bannister had been the first to declare, "an excrescence."

Under the old regime, there had been no need for country clubs. The houses on the great estates had been thrown open for the county families and their friends. There had been meat and drink for man and beast.

The servant problem had, however, in these latter days, put a curb on generous impulse. There were no more n.i.g.g.e.rs underfoot, and hospitality was necessarily curtailed. The people who at the time of the August Horse Show had once packed great hampers with delicious foods, and who had feasted under the trees amid all the loveliness of mellow-tinted hills, now ordered by telephone a luncheon of cut-and-dried courses, and motored down to eat it. After that, they looked at the horses, and with the feeling upon them of the futility of such shows yawned a bit. In due season, they held, the horse would be as extinct as the Dodo, and as mythical as the Centaur.

The Judge argued hotly for the things which had been. Love of the horse was bred in the bone of Old Dominion men. He swore by all the G.o.ds that when he had to part with his bays and ride behind gasoline, he would be ready to die.

Becky agreed with her grandfather. She adored the old traditions, and she adored the Judge. She spent two months of every year with him in his square brick house in Albemarle surrounded by unprofitable acres.