Chapter V

"And the land shall leave me or take, and the Woman shall
take me or leave me....
But Life shall hold me alive, and Death shall never deceive me,
As long as I walk in England, in the lanes that let me pass."
CHESTERTON.

It was accomplished. The faith and courage of Helen Forsyth had reaped their due reward; and they three were together at last. But not yet under one roof. The instant Mark emerged from supposed extinction, Authority claimed him; and Helen rebelled a little, inevitably against cast-iron regulations that withheld her from taking immediate possession of her own.

Meanwhile she was thankful, on reaching the hospital, to find him in a small room with two other empty beds. Ignoring the chair that had been set for her, she knelt beside him, her face radiating a silent benediction.

Prostrate, paralysed, his reddish hair almost hidden by the cap-like bandage, he lay there smiling his queer, crooked smile and his lashes were wet with tears. When one or two of them escaped and ran down his cheek, she wiped them away with her handkerchief and leaning over him kissed his eyelids.

He frowned as if vexed at his own weakness, but she shook her head.

"We needn't think shame of them," she said, for her own were falling. "It's natural. Just the blessed reaction. Don't you remember your favourite bit of Blake? '"Damn" braces, "bless" relaxes.'"

He smiled and pressed the hand he was clinging to in a fashion that recalled nursery days when some nightmare had so shaken him that he must hold her to make sure she was really there. And to-day in this first, incredible hour of reunion, both felt unashamedly the childish need of that same reassurance.

As his hand clung to hers, so her eyes clung to his face; and she saw now that he was making a desperate effort to speak.

"No, no. Bad for you, beloved," she said. "I understand."

But he would not be baulked of achievement; so strong was the current of new life in his veins. And the words came at last; though, till they were out, he could not be sure whether sense or nonsense would emerge.

"M-Mother--Mums--Home!"

He brought them out, one by one; the last with triumphant emphasis and a stronger grip on her hand.

"Yes--home the first possible minute," she assured him. "A Nursing Home first, I'm afraid, for some time. We've been wondering if we could put off the operation till we get across, as it's been delayed so long already. The doctor here will see your head to-night and decide. Of course half our best men are on the spot. But it might keep us here weeks; and it's England you want, isn't it, darling,--and Bel?"

He nodded, then suddenly releasing her hand, he put his left arm round her drawing her down to him....

He was still holding her thus when the inexorable knock sounded on the door.

That night it was decided that no harm would arise from a few days' delay: and Authority made arrangements accordingly; thrusting its ruthless arm once again between Helen and her son.

For Mark, the mere exigencies of travelling emphasised his own vexatious helplessness, so that he understood, for the first time, something of the monkish attitude towards the body as a despised and hampering burden, rather than the beautiful disciplined servant of the spirit: but he was cheered beyond measure, by the sight and smell of the sea and the faint salt of it on his lips. For the sea spelt England: and England--Bel; haloed and idealised, by this time, beyond the height of mortal woman. While he lay on deck, delighting in wind-driven clouds and wind-tossed waters, memories crowded thick upon him....

He hated losing sight of Keith and his mother even for a few hours: but his spirits rose steadily as the steamer, mysteriously safe-guarded, nosed her way toward the cliffs of Home. It was still something of a wonder simply to be back again in the world of men; to see papers, as a matter of course, and to know more or less what was happening in that complex maze of trenches that now cleft France from the Vosges to the sea and changed the whole character of the War. Wounded officers, who had heard his story, came up to congratulate him and stayed to tell their own experiences. It was good to hear them, though conversation was a distractingly one-sided affair: good to see, at last, the white cliffs of Kent, lit by a frail ray of winter sunshine; to glide up alongside the familiar quay with its cheering crowd, and to hear the rough speech of his own people. It was better still to watch Keith pushing his way through them all, with a new uprightness and a squarer set of his shoulders, though the weeks of anxious search had left their mark on his rugged face. And there, at his elbow, was "Mums" looking out eagerly for her "boy."

His glimpse of them was brief but reassuring. Then it was: "See you again in London": and for all he longed to speed straight to Wynchcombe Friars, the spell of the great grey city, throned upon its grey river, under a shifting pall of fog, penetrated, as never before, to the deep places of his imagination and his heart.

The squalor of her back alleys was shrouded in darkness. Her great thoroughfares were dimmed and emptier than of old. As they drove away from the station, ragged flakes of snow and sleet were falling, and sharp against a blurred background loomed the stately splendour of the Abbey, the Houses, and Big Ben. For him that shadowy mass of architecture possessed something of the sublimity and the aloofness of a great mountain range: and to-night, above all, it was a vision to lift the heart of one mere Englishman in thankfulness and praise....

His destination was a Nursing Home for Officers in Park Lane--a paradise of ordered comfort and spotlessness and peace, where the hum of London's unresting voice sounded scarcely louder than the breaking of waves upon a stony shore. Here his mother reappeared to bid him welcome and good night. She had found rooms, she told him, in a hotel close by: and--yes, Bel was downstairs waiting for permission to come up.

A quarter of an hour--no longer, the Nurse decreed. And presently she came--a vision supremely satisfying to the eye. Her simple, costly-looking coat and skirt were only a few shades darker than her hair. On the brim of her beaver hat rested one yellow velvet flower; and she wore her amber beads over a yellow blouse. Every detail had been carefully thought out; and the result, as she swiftly perceived, was very much to his taste.

But this new Mark, who in a few short months had plumbed the heights and depths of human experience, craved more from the woman he had been sedulously glorifying than perfect finish of colour and form. And he could neither utter that craving nor appraise her with the sugar-plum compliments she loved. He could only hold out his left hand and smile his crooked smile.

An attempt to speak her name produced only such a strange, unnatural sound that she winced, ever so slightly, and the blood mounted to his face.

Pricked with genuine pity and remorse she swept to him and caught his hand in both her own.

"Darling--darling, don't try," she said in her cooing voice of tenderness. "All in good time. You're a wonder and a miracle to be here at all."

Then--conquering his sudden painful shyness--he pulled her nearer; and, as she stooped to kiss him, captured her with his arm. For the moment he asked nothing on earth but the sense of her living presence, the soft surrender of her lips. Ecstasy flowed through him: short-lived, but fiery sweet----

Loosening his hold, he pulled at her hat. She sat back on the low chair facing him, removed the hat, and considered it with critical approval.

"Bought for the occasion!" she explained. "Rather a gem, isn't it?"

He nodded, smiling, and fingering her beads; and she, suddenly slipping on to her knees, hid her face against him.

Comforted exceedingly, he caressed her hair, and found courage for a fresh effort to speak. This time he succeeded.

"Beautiful--my Bel," he said slowly.

She lifted her face and smiled at him: flushed but dry-eyed. "Yes--your Bel. And you're going to shake off this horror as soon as possible; so that we can stick to our original date in spite of the war and its abominations. There--I _must_ go. I hear Nurse coming."

She picked up the precious hat and stood before the over-mantel pinning it on. Then she sighed.

"Oh, _won't_ I be thankful when to-morrow's well over. Sleep sound, darling, and I'll hope to see you in the morning."

She kissed him again and vanished with a parting wave of the hand. And he lay a long while brooding on the day's events: his body too tired and his brain too full of impressions for coherent thought....

Next morning, before the operation, he had a brief glimpse of her. Then his mother came, with Sheila--graver, paler, and, in some indefinable fashion, lovelier than he seemed to remember her. But of late her image had been kept well in the background of his brain: and it smote him now the more poignantly as if in revenge.

His hand closed firmly on hers and kept it imprisoned, while she stood there smiling at him through tears. Yesterday's failure made him shy of attempting her name. His gaze travelled from her face to his mother's and back again: and at last he spoke.

"All my thanks--for Mums," he said and with an abrupt movement pressed her fingers to his lips.

Then he released them and her pale face glowed.

"Mark, don't thank me," she murmured. "It was simply ... we were everything to each other, and it helped us to pull through. Some day when she's not there, I'll tell you just how splendid she was. And I want to hear about the Nun who wrote that letter. She must be a jewel. When all this is well over, we'll have a real long talk!"

And Mark, more than ever enamoured of her musical voice, felt ridiculously elated at the prospect.

Even this unsatisfactory lop-sided talk was over too soon: the eminent surgeon had arrived; and they must surrender him to the saving mercy of chloroform and the knife. Is the whole enlightened race of man ever anything but ungrateful to these grim agents of salvation--at least until the beloved is safe out of the toils?

Lady Forsyth's heart failed her badly as she stooped to kiss her son. But seeing the tense set of his lips, she spoke more bravely than she felt.

"We've no reason at all to feel nervous, darling," she said low in his ear. "I have Dr. Norton's word for it. He says your condition's excellent and it ought to be quite plain sailing. Keith is downstairs; and we won't leave till everything is well over. God keep you safe--till I see you again."