The Long Trick Part 25

"Only the s.h.i.+ps that have gone down. Our husbands' s.h.i.+ps aren't mentioned."

"Wait while I get a paper," said Betty. "I shan't be a second. What are you going to do?"

The other considered a moment. "I shall go and see Mrs. Gascoigne,"

she replied. "Will you come too? She may have heard something."

Betty bought her paper and rejoined Eileen Cavendish in the street.

"Poor Mrs. Thatcher..." she said. "Did you see? Her husband's Destroyer----"

"I know. And there are others, too. There must be five or six wives up here whose s.h.i.+ps have gone---- Oh, it's too dreadful ..." She was silent a moment while her merciless imagination ran riot. "I couldn't bear it!" she said piteously. "I couldn't bear it! I didn't whine when Barbara was taken. I thought I might have another baby.... But I couldn't have another Bill."

"Hush," said Betty, as if soothing a child. "We don't know yet. We mustn't take the worst for granted till we know. I expect we should have heard by now if--if----" She couldn't finish the sentence.

They reached the door of Mrs. Gascoigne's lodgings and the landlady opened the door. Her round, good-natured face wore an air of concern.

"She's just awa' to Mrs. Thatcher, west yonder. Will ye no' step inside and bide a wee? She'll no' be long, a'm thinkin'."

She preceded them into the low-ceilinged parlour, with the horsehair-covered sofa and the Family Bible on the little table in the window, that had been a haven to so many faint-hearted ones during the past two years.

"Ye'll have heard the news?" she asked. "There's been an action. Mrs.

Thatcher's man's gone down, and Mrs. Gascoigne, she's awa' to bring her a bit comfort like." She surveyed the visitors sympathetically. "A've nae doot there's mair than Mrs. Thatcher'll be needin' comfort the morn, puir lambs."

"Oh," cried Mrs. Cavendish, "don't--don't! Please don't----" She regained her self-control with an effort and turned to the window with her lip between her teeth.

"Will I bring ye a cup of tea?" queried the landlady. "I have the kettle boilin'."

"No thank you," said Betty. "It's very kind of you, but I think we'll just sit down and wait quietly, if we may, till Mrs. Gascoigne comes in. I don't expect she'll be long."

The landlady departed a little reluctantly, and Eileen Cavendish turned from the window.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm a coward to go to pieces like this.

You're a dear.... And it's every bit as bad for you as it is for me, I know. But I'm not a coward really. Bill would just hate me to be a coward. It's only because--because..." She met Betty's eyes, and for the first time the shadow of a smile hovered about her mouth.

Betty stepped forward impulsively and kissed her. "Then you're all right--whatever happens. You won't be quite alone," she said. They sat down side by side on the horsehair-covered sofa and Eileen Cavendish half-shyly rested her hand on Betty's as it lay in her lap.

"I'm a poor creature," said the elder girl. "I wish I had something--something in me that other women have. You have it, Mrs.

Gascoigne has it, and Etta Clavering. It's a sort of--strength.

Something inside you all that nothing can shake or make waver." Tears welled up in her eyes and trickled slowly down her cheeks. "It's Faith," she said, and her voice trembled. "It's just believing that G.o.d can't hurt you..." She fumbled blindly for her tiny handkerchief.

Betty's eyes were wet too. "Ah!" she said gently. "But you believe that too--really: deep down inside. Everybody does. It's in everything--G.o.d's mercy...." Her voice was scarcely raised above a whisper.

"I know--I know," said the other. "But I've never thought about it.

I'm hard, in some ways. Things seemed to happen much the same whether I held my thumbs or whether I prayed. And now that I'm terrified--now that everything in life just seems to tremble on a thread--how _can_ I start crying out that I believe, I believe...!" Her voice broke at last, and she turned sideways and buried her face in her hands.

"But you _do_," said Betty with gentle insistence.

The door opened and Mrs. Gascoigne entered. There was moisture in her fine grey eyes. "I'm so glad you two have come to keep me company,"

she said. She walked to the mirror over the fireplace and turned her back on her visitors for a moment while she appeared to adjust her hat.

"I've been helping poor little Mrs. Thatcher to pack. She has had a telegram, poor child, and she's off South by the afternoon train."

She turned round, still manipulating hat-pins with raised hands, and in answer to the unspoken question in her guests' faces, nodded sadly.

"Yes," she said. "But they've got his body. She's going to Newcastle."

"Have you had any news yourself?" asked Betty. "We have heard nothing."

"No," replied their hostess. "Nothing, except that the hospital s.h.i.+ps went out last night. I expect the Destroyers got back some time before the big s.h.i.+ps, and we shall hear later in the day. Rob will telegraph to me directly he gets into harbour, I know."

She spoke with calm conviction, as if wars and rumours of wars held no terrors for her. "And now," she said, smiling to them both, "let's be charwomen and drink tea in the middle of the forenoon!" She moved to the door and opened it, and as she did so a knock sounded along the tiny pa.s.sage from the door that opened into the street.

Eileen Cavendish was busy in front of the gla.s.s, and half turned, holding a diminutive powder-box in one hand and a sc.r.a.p of swans-down in the other.

"Yes," they heard the voice of Mrs. Gascoigne saying in the pa.s.sage, "I'm here--is that for me?" There was the sound of paper tearing and a little silence. Then they heard her voice again. "Have you any others in your wallet--is there one for Mrs. Standish or Mrs. Cavendish?

They're both here."

"I hae ane for Mistress Cavendish," replied a boy's clear treble. "An'

there was ane for Mistress Standish a while syne; it's biding at her hoose."

Betty jumped to her feet. "What's that?" she cried. "A telegram?"

Mrs. Gascoigne entered the room holding an orange-coloured envelope and handed it to Eileen Cavendish. "Yours is at your lodging," she said to Betty. Her face was very pale.

With trembling fingers Mrs. Cavendish tore open the envelope. She gave a quick glance at the contents and sat down abruptly. Then, with her hands at her side, burst into peals of hysterical laughter.

"Oh," she cried, "it's all right, it's all right! Bill's safe----" and her laughter turned to tears. "And I knew it all along..." she sobbed.

"Oh," said Betty, "I _am_ glad." She slipped her arm round Mrs.

Cavendish's neck and kissed her. "And now I'm just going to rush up to my rooms to get my message." She paused on her way to the door. "Mrs.

Gascoigne," she said, "did you get any news--is your husband all right?"

Mrs. Gascoigne was opening the window with her back to the room and its occupants. "He's very happy," she replied gently.

Betty ran out into the sunlit street and overtook the red-headed urchin who was returning to the post office with the demeanour of a man suddenly thrust into unaccustomed prominence in the world.

Furthermore, he had found the stump of a cigarette in the gutter, and was smoking it with an air.

He grinned rea.s.suringly at Betty as she hurried breathlessly past him.

"Dinna fash yersel', Mistress," he called. "Yeer man's bonny an' weel."

Betty halted irresolutely. "How do you know?" she gasped.

"A juist keeked inside the bit envelope," came the unblus.h.i.+ng reply.

The first rays of the rising sun were painting the barren hills with the purple of grape-bloom, and laying a pathway of molten gold across the waters when the Battle Squadrons returned to their bases. A few s.h.i.+ps bore traces in blackened paintwork, sh.e.l.l-torn funnels and splintered upperworks, of the ordeal by battle through which they had pa.s.sed; but their numbers, as they filed in past the s.h.a.g-haunted cliffs and frowning headlands, were the same as when they swept out in an earlier gloaming to the making of History.

Colliers, oilers, ammunition lighters and hospital s.h.i.+ps were waiting in readiness to replenish bunkers and sh.e.l.l-rooms and to evacuate the wounded. All through the day, weary, grimy men, hollow-eyed from lack of sleep, laboured with a cheerful elation that not even weariness could extinguish. Shrill whistles, the creaking of purchases, the rattle of winches and the clatter of shovels and barrows combined to fill the air with an indescribable air of bustle and the breath of victory. Even the blanched wounded exchanged jests between clenched teeth as they were hoisted over the side in cots.

Before the sun had set the Battle-Fleet, complete with coal, ammunition and torpedoes, was ready for action once more. Throughout the night it rested, licking its wounds in the darkness, with vigilance still unrelaxed and its might unimpaired. For the time being its task had been accomplished; but only the enemy, counting the stricken s.h.i.+ps that laboured into the shelter of the German mine-fields, knew how thoroughly.