If Winter Comes Part 39

She said in simple wonderment, as one asked what had the sun to do with light, or whether water was wet, "Why, G.o.d _is_ love."

He stared at her.

VII

The second Christmas of the war came. The evening before the last day of the Old Year was to have given Sabre a rare pleasure to which he had been immensely looking forward. He was to have spent it with Mr. Fargus.

The old chess and acrostic evenings hardly ever happened now. Mr.

Fargus, most manifestly unfitted for the exposures of such a life, had become a special constable. He did night duty in the Garden Home. He chose night duty, he told Sabre, because he had no work to do by day and could therefore then take his rest. Younger men who were in offices and shops hadn't the like advantage. It was only fair he should help in the hours help was most wanted. Sabre said it would kill him in time, but Mrs. Fargus and the three Miss Farguses still at home replied, when Sabre ventured this opinion to them, that Papa was much stronger than any one imagined, also that they agreed with Papa that one ought to do in the war, not what one wanted to do, but what was most required to be done; finally that, being at home by day, Papa could help, and liked helping, in the many duties about the house now interfered with by the enlistment of the entire battalion of female Farguses in work for the war. One detachment of female Farguses had leapt into blue or khaki uniforms and disappeared into the voracious belly of the war machine; the remainder of the battalion thrust their long legs into breeches and boots and worked at home as land girls. Little old Mr. Fargus in his grey suit, and the startled child Kate with one hand still up her back in search of the errant ap.r.o.n string "did" what the battalion used to do and were nightly, on the return of the giant land girls, shown how shockingly they had done it.

Rare, therefore, the old chess and acrostic evenings and most keenly antic.i.p.ated, accordingly, this--the first for a fortnight--on the eve of New Year's Eve. It was to have been a real long evening; but it proved not very long. It was to have been one in which the war should be shut out and forgotten in the delights of mental twistings and slowly puffed pipes; it proved to be one in which "this frightful war!" was groaned out of Sabre's spirit in emotion most terrible to him.

At ten o'clock profound gymnastics of the mind in search of a hidden word beginning with e and ending with l were interrupted by the entry of the startled Kate. One hand writhed between her shoulders for the ap.r.o.n string, the other held a note. "Please, Mr. Sabre, I think it's for you, Mr. Sabre. A young boy took it to your house and said you was to have it most particular, and please, your Rebecca sent him on here, please."

"For me? Who on earth--?"

He opened it. He did not recognise the writing on the envelope. He had not the remotest idea--It was a jolly evening.... could Enamel be that word in e and l? He unfolded it. Ah!

"_Freddie's killed. Please do come at once. I think she's dying.--E.B._"

CHAPTER VIII

I

He was alone in the room where Mrs. Perch lay,--not even Effie. One o'clock. This war! He had thought to shut it away for a night, and here was the inconceivable occupation to which it had brought him: alone in here--

The doctor had been and was coming again in the morning. There was nothing to be done, he had said; just watch her.

Watch her? How long had he been standing at the foot of the huge bed--the biggest bed he had ever seen--and what was there to watch? She gave no sign. She scarcely seemed to breathe. He would not have recognised her face. It had the appearance of a mask. "Sinking," the doctor had said. In process here before his eyes, but not to be seen by them, awful and mysterious things. Death with practised fingers about his awful and mysterious surgery of separating the spirit from the flesh, the soul from the body, the incorruptible from the corruptible.

It could not be! There was not a sign; there was not a sound; and what should he be doing to be alone here, blind watcher of such a finality?

It was not real. It was an hallucination. He was not really here. The morning--and days and weeks and years--would come, and he would know that this never had really happened.

But Young Perch was dead. Young Perch was killed. It was real. He was here. This war!

II

He had gone downstairs with the doctor and had remained there some little time after his departure. Effie had been left kneeling by the bed. When he came back she was sound asleep where she knelt, worn out.

The news had come on the previous evening. This was Effie's second night without sleep. Now she was overcome; collapsed; suffocated and bound and gagged in the opiates and bonds she had for thirty hours resisted. He touched her. She did not stir. He shook her gently; still no response.

He lifted her up and carried her along the pa.s.sage to the room he knew to be hers; laid her on her bed and covered her with a quilt.

Inconceivable occupation. Was all this really happening?

Two o'clock. He went to look at Effie, still in profound slumber. Why awaken her? Nothing could be done; only watch. He returned to his vigil.

Yes, Mrs. Perch was sinking. More p.r.o.nounced now that masklike aspect of her face. Yes, dying. He spoke the word to himself. "Dying." As of a fire in the grate gone to one dull spark among the greying ashes.--It is out; it cannot burn again. So life here too far retired, too deeply sunk to struggle back and vitalise again that hue, those lips, that masklike effigy.

Profound and awful mystery. Within that form was in process a most dreadful activity. The spirit was preparing to vacate the habitation it had so long occupied. It gave no sign. The better to hide its preparations it had drawn that mask about the face. Seventy years it had sojourned here; now it was bound away. Seventy years it had been known to pa.s.sers-by through the door and windows of this its habitation; now, deeply retired within the inner chambers, it set its house in order to be gone. Profound and awful mystery. Dreadful and momentous activity.

From the windows of her eyes turning off the lights; from the engines of her powers cutting off its forces; drawing the furnaces; dissevering the contacts. A lifetime within this home; now pa.s.senger into an eternity. A lifetime settled; now preparing to be away on a journey inconceivably tremendous, unimaginably awful. Did it shrink? Did it pause in its preparations to peer and peep and shudder?

III

He felt very cold. He moved from the bed and replenished the fire and crouched beside it.

This war! He said beneath his breath, "Young Perch! Young Perch!" Young Perch was killed. Realise the thing! He was never going to see Young Perch again. He was never going to see old Mrs. Perch again. He was never to come into Puncher's again. Another place of his life was to be walled up. His home like an empty house; the office like an empty house; now no refuge here. Things were crowding in about him, things were closing in upon him. And he was just to live on here, out of the war, yet insupportably beset by the war. Beset by the war yet useless in the war. Young Perch! How in pity was he to go on living out of the war, now that the war had taken Young Perch and killed old Mrs. Perch and shut this refuge from its oppression? He must get in. He could not endure it.

He could not, could not....

Ten minutes past three. There was perceptible to him no change in that face upon the pillow. He brought a lamp from the dressing table and looked at her, shading the light with his hand. Impenetrable mask!

Profound and awful mystery. Much more than a house that dreadfully engrossed spirit was preparing to leave. This meagre form, scarcely discernible beneath the coverlet, had been its fortress, once new, once strong, once beautiful, once by its garrison proudly fought, splendidly defended, added to, enlarged, adorned. Then past its glory, past attention. Then crumbling, then decaying. Now to be abandoned. It had known great stresses and abated them; sieges and withstood them; a.s.saults and defeated them. O vanity! It had but temporised with conquest. Time's hosts had camped these many years about its walls, in ceaseless investment, with desultory attacks, but with each attack investing closer. Now a most terrible a.s.sault had breached the citadel.

The garrison was stricken amain. The fortress no longer could be defended. Its garrison was withdrawing from that place and handing it over to destruction.

IV

There was some strange sound in the room. He had dozed in a chair. Some strange sound, or had he imagined it? He sat up tensely and listened. It was her breathing, a harsh and laboured sound. He stepped quickly to the bed and looked and then ran into the pa.s.sage and called loudly, "Effie!

Effie!"

Frightening, terrible, agonising. He was kneeling on one side of the bed, Effie at the other. The extreme moment was come to her that lay between them. She was moaning. He bowed his face into his hands. The sound of her moaning was terrible to him. That inhabitant of this her body had done its preparations and now stood at the door in the darkness, very frightened. It wanted to go back. It had been very accustomed to being here. It could not go back. It did not want to shut the door. The door was shutting. It stood and shrank and whimpered there.

Oh, terrible! Beyond endurance, agonising. It was old Mrs. Perch that stood there whimpering, shrinking, upon the threshold of that huge abyss, wide as s.p.a.ce, dark as night. It was no spirit. It was just that very feeble Mrs. Perch with her fumbling hands and her moving lips. Look here, Young Perch would never allow her even to cross a road without him! How in pity was she to take this frightful step? He twisted up all his emotions into an appeal of tremendous intensity. "Young Perch! Come _here_! Your mother! Young Perch, come _here_!"

Telling it, once, to Nona, he said, "I don't know what happened. They talk about self-hypnotism. Perhaps it was that. I know I made a most frightful effort saying 'Young Perch.' I had to. I could see her--that poor terrified thing. Something had to be done. Some one had to go to her. I said it like in a nightmare, bursting to get out of it, 'Young Perch. Come _here_.' Anyway, there it is, Nona. I heard them. It was imagination, of course. But I heard them."

He heard, "Now then, Mother! Don't be frightened. Here I am, Mother.

Come on, Mother. One step, Mother. Only one. I can't reach you. You must take just one step. Look, Mother, here's my hand. Can't you _see_ my hand?"

"It's so dark, Freddie."

"It's not, Mother. It's only dark where you are. It's light here. Don't cry, Mother. Don't be frightened. It's all right. It's quite all right."

That tall and pale young man, with his face like one of the old Huguenots! That very frail old woman with her fumbling hands and moving lips!

"It's so cold."

"Now, Mother, I tell you it isn't. Do just trust me. Do just come."

"I daren't, Freddie. I can't, Freddie. I can't. I can't."

"You must. Mother, you must. Look, look, here I am. It's I, Freddie.

Don't cry, Mother. Just trust yourself entirely to me. You know how you always can trust me. Look, here's my hand. Just one tiny step and you will touch it. I know you feel ill, darling Mother. You won't any, any more, once you touch my hand. But I can't come any nearer, dearest. You must. You--. Ah, brave, beloved Mother--now!"

He heard Effie's voice, "Oh, she's dead! She's dead!"

Dead? He stared upon her dead face. Where was gone that mask? Whence had come this glory? That inhabitant of this her body, in act of going had looked back, and its look had done this thing. It had closed the door upon a ruined house, and looked, and left a temple. It had departed from beneath a mask, and looked, and that which had been masked now was beatified.