Chapter II

"Even the wise man's feet are turned astray
by tumult of the soul."
PINDAR.

On a certain afternoon of March, Lady Forsyth sat in a third-class carriage of a certain casual train that loafed along the line, these disorganised days, between Waterloo and Westover. She religiously travelled third now, and as religiously put the difference into her war-purse for prisoners. Mark was not told, lest he prove unmanageable: and Keith's objections had been overruled with a high hand.

This particular train was the slowest in the day. Helen never patronised it except from force of circumstances; and she irreverently christened it "the British Government"--not altogether without provocation. For, as the War dragged inconclusively on, and Germans continued to flourish in forbidden areas, in the City, and even in harbours of the first importance, she found herself growing more critical, more intolerant towards that sacrosanct institution. If she could be said to dislike, whole-heartedly, anything in the nature of a human being, it was certain supple, self-regarding phrase-mongers who had been overlong predominant in the Mother of Parliaments.

Hers was not the only heart, in those anxious times, that cried out for a Triumvirate: a sailor, a soldier, and a genuine statesman to organise all the resources of a great and willing Empire for the salvation of the world. But the cry went up in vain. And still politicians talked and soldiers prayed for the Great Offensive, and the war of trenches and sectors went lumbering on. Constantinople had not fallen within the given month. A feeling hovered in the air that something had gone wrong with this very great adventure; that arrangements had been sketchy; action premature. And there were uncomfortable rumours about the King of Greece----

Then, suddenly, the West had leaped to life. "Victory at last!" sang the posters and the headlines. And the journalists, given a freer hand this time, vied with each other in chronicling Homeric feats and "enormous enemy losses." ...

That was a week ago. And now it appeared there had been some mistake about this "great and glorious victory." One indisputable fact stood out--the casualty lists. It began to look as if, after all, they were likely to prove the biggest thing about it. Helen Forsyth had heard talk in London that she tried to dismiss as mere pessimism; but her instinct told her it was probably true.

The train groaned and jolted to a standstill:--Little Franton. It was far too courteous to overlook even the smallest thing in stations. Another hour to Westover. Lady Forsyth leaned back and closed her eyes. She had had two strenuous days in town. She was very tired and longing to get home--to Mark. It was still a strange and wonderful fact that home should also mean Mark. He was her private reason for courting the present infliction. She had failed to catch an earlier express and refused to wait for a later one. It was sufficiently distracting being called away for a night so soon after his return. How they would laugh at her when she got back! And how good it was to be laughed at again: even if, in between, there were still moods of gloomy silence or of irritability, that kept her anxiety at stretch.

The first few days of their frank joy in each other had been flawless. And for her, there was the secret satisfaction of having him all to herself again, with no superfluous Bel to claim the lion's share of his thoughts and heart: a forgivable form of selfishness that perhaps only a mother can condone. But the necessary intrusion of the world at large marked the beginning of trouble. It was plain that he would not easily overcome a certain sensitive shrinking from outside people; though, in his more normal moods, he spurned this weakness and overrode it ruthlessly.

For this reason, visitors--with the exception of Dr. Warburton and the Sinclairs--were not very welcome. Warburton was on the "sick list" combating a severe bout of rheumatism and Sir Nevil, like Mark, was knocked out of the actual fighting, with a frost-bitten foot and his left forearm gone to save the spread of blood poisoning from a septic wound. Wynchmere tenants and workers, eager to come and do him homage, would not be denied; and Mark himself, touched to the heart, was yet consumed with shyness at the prospect of facing the music. A few days ago, with Keith's diplomatic help, Lady Forsyth had persuaded him to summon an informal afternoon gathering--the gamekeeper, the manager of their handicrafts colony, his better class tenants and their wives. And he had been at his best: friendly, sympathetic, full of humorous talk. She had only discovered the effort it cost him by the reaction that followed: and had reproached herself not a little for having pressed the point.

Keith, however, insisted rightly that the sooner Mark did violence to his natural shrinking the sooner he would conquer it: and conquer it he must. But his recurrent headaches troubled her. She had made a point of seeing Dr. Norton while in town. Her faith in him was implicit and his encouraging view of things had comforted her considerably.

"Give him plenty of fresh air. A little gentle massage. And avoid friction over trifles." That had been the great man's final injunction, heartily endorsed by Helen.

Privately she had feared that the massage part of it might produce friction straightaway: and at lunch, in Mrs. Laurence's war-work flat (Colonel Laurence was serving in France) that fear had been confirmed. Honor Lenox and Sheila, who had struck up a friendship, were lunching there too; and Honor bore witness that, when massage was prescribed at Mavins, Mark had proved intractable.

"I believe if I could have done it myself," she added, "I might have persuaded him. But nothing would induce him to let 'a strange woman maul his head.' And they thought it unadvisable to press the point. But now--why not Sheila? The very person."

Naturally that had been Helen's first thought, and Sheila's also. But the older woman--because of her secret hope--had felt a scrupulous hesitancy about volunteering the suggestion; and the girl had her own private qualms to overcome. Both were proportionately grateful for Honor's blunt directness, and common-sense, professional point of view. She saw only a man in need of healing and the one acceptable healer happily on the spot: and on the whole, Lady Forsyth felt justified in taking the same view. It had finally been decided that she should sound Mark on the subject and let Sheila know the result.

After all, his complete recovery was a matter of the first importance. She had no sure knowledge of Sheila's heart; and, as regards her own son, she was altogether in the dark. Since that day at the Nursing Home, he had never mentioned Bel: and she devoutly hoped he never gave a thought to that devastating young woman.

Only to-day, she had heard from Lyndsay Laurence that, in January, Bel had deserted Harry O'Neill and gone upon a protracted visit to friends in the west of England where Zeppelins were not. She wasn't afraid of them, Mrs. Laurence had explained with a gleam in her serious blue eyes, she merely objected to living in a Zeppelin area when there were other areas available. Further, it appeared that some casual word let fall by Harry had given Mr. Maitland an inkling of Mark's generosity. Certainly he had spent his holidays in the west of England; had duly proposed to a Bel no longer penniless--and been rejected. Helen was exceedingly glad to hear it. She wondered if Mark would appreciate the humour of it, but dared not risk telling him--yet.

His uncertain moods put a severer strain upon her than she would admit even to herself. Even her longing to get back to him was secretly tinged with dread lest something should upset him and spoil the whole evening. Lately, she had persuaded him to sing again; and sometimes, with that or her own music, she could exorcise the fiends that tormented him. But if any one could spirit them away permanently it would be Sheila: and ... supposing things went farther still--well, why not? The question had a touch of defiance, as though some unseen mentor had ventured a rebuke. Mentor or no, she could not, or would not see any cause or just impediment. For once in a way, she--who set such store by truth in the inward parts, was not altogether honest with herself: a pardonable lapse, in the circumstances.

Could Mark once be made to realise that a woman loved him enough to marry him, disabled as he was, all his uncertain moods and irritations would vanish into air. In time, she felt convinced, this cruel paralysis would loosen its hold on him; and if Sheila cared sufficiently to take all risks, whose business was it to come between them?

But as usual she was racing ahead miles too fast. Possibly neither of them cared--in that way. Probably Mark would snub the massage idea. More than probably he would now refuse to marry Sheila even if he loved her to distraction. So she swung round again to those jarring uncertainties that threatened, almost, to spoil the joy of getting him back....

At this point her attention was distracted from personal worries by women's voices opposite. One of them she recognised: Mrs. Beck, proprietor of the Post Office and sweet shop at Wynchmere. It was the War, of course. People of all grades and classes could still talk of little else: and Helen, keeping her eyes shut, dismissed her own anxieties and listened.

It was a compensation for the occasional discomforts of travelling third that one caught glimpses of the War through the eyes of working men and women who neither painted it all red nor garnished it with false sentimentalities; but accepted it--cheerfully, sullenly or doggedly--as one more item among the many bewildering puzzles of life.

Said the voice that was not Mrs. Beck's: "Your son 'as 'e gone back yet to them trenches?"

"No. 'E's not near fit: never was," came Mrs. Beck's emphatic tones. "But 'e'll be goin' sure 'nough before long."

"Frettin' to get back, is he? My word, it's no pantomime. I got a brother been out since Christmas. Up to his blessed middle in water. Matches an' fags too damp for strikin'. You do 'ear some tell they want to go back. An' it makes yer wonder----"

"Want to go back? O' _course_ they don't: not my boy, nor any of 'em.' Mrs. Beck's voice was angry now as well as emphatic. "'Oo could? Them that talks that way says it to hearten their woman folks. But 'tis on'y fools as believes 'em. And most on 'em says nothing. They knows it's _djuty_. So they shuts their teeth an' goes, wonderin' if they'll ever see 'ome again. But they _says nothing_--not they. It's 'ow they're made. There was jest one o' mine did--once. Pore Alf! 'E come clean through Monsse, and all them 'orrors without a scratch. An' when 'e was leavin' 'ome again, I says to 'im, I says: '_You'll_ come back for sure. You've a charmed life.' But 'e shook 'is 'ead. 'Their turn last time. Mine next,' 'e said jokin'-like. 'E knew 'e'd be took--and 'e woz.'

Followed a sympathetic silence from the mere sister, and Helen--who remembered Alf and all the circumstances--thought shame of herself for allowing Mark's moods to blur the supreme fact that she had him safe--permanently safe--from jagged bayonets, explosive bullets, and all the scientific barbarities that still hurt her soul.

Her one remaining treasure had not been "took." It was enough.

The leisurely train was nearing home now. She sat up and greeted Mrs. Beck; and they talked Neuve Chapelle till the name-board said "Westover" at last.

And there was Keith on the platform and Mark awaiting her in the car, brown and vigorous looking; quite himself again in motor-coat and cap. And she felt more than ever ashamed of fitful repinings.

Mark evinced his joy at her return by keeping a hand on her knee under the fur rug and ragging her mercilessly all the way home. At dinner he was quieter, with the brooding look in his eyes that Helen had learnt to dread. Afterwards Keith settled them in the drawing-room and went off to the library leaving them together.

He had now definitely given up his ambulance work on the other side and divided his time between local recruiting, a committee for the welfare of prisoners, and a deeply thought-out treatise on the psychological effects of war. Underlying all these obvious activities, was the cherished conviction that Helen had need of him; more especially in these first difficult days ... when Mark must learn, slowly and painfully, the art of adapting himself to his limited conditions of life. He had never said another word about her to Mark; nor had he found the opportune moment for speaking to her himself. He was hyper-fastidious in respect of that critical moment. Life had, so far, given him no lovelier gift than her frank confidence and comradeship; and he was in no hurry to risk putting them out of gear, even for the sake of that greater gift for which Mark had encouraged him to hope. Moreover, when a lover--and that lover, a Scot--has kept silence for fifteen years, it is almost easier to go on keeping silence than to speak: and Keith Macnair was essentially of those who know how to wait.

The two he had left in the drawing-room fell silent after a little desultory talk. Helen could think of nothing but Sheila. Mark's reviving soul was shadowed by ominous signs of failure at Neuve Chapelle. Names of officers in his own battalion had been painfully prominent in the Roll of Honour: men he had lived with, fought with, and loved. He was girding at his own inability to go out and replace one of them: picturing the welcome they would give him:--Mackail, Fordyce, the Colonel. _His_ name was not in the list, thank God. Quite recently the battalion had been made up to strength and given a well-earned rest--only to be decimated afresh. And no victory to show for it: nothing but a costly failure. A bad omen for the Great Offensive that was to sweep the Germans back to the Rhine.

It all hurt him so acutely that he could not manage to talk of it even to his mother: so he fell back on silence.

His quietness was deceptive: his frown might merely mean headache. Helen could not know that the devil within was making peculiarly malignant remarks to him just then: and her very anxiety to choose the right moment made her almost certain to stumble on the wrong one.

"Mums, will you play a little," he said at last, "if you're not too tired?"

She was too tired and she wanted to talk about Sheila: but she did not say so. If he was "brooding," music might be a wise prelude to speech.

For a quarter of an hour or so, she played without her notes; slow soft music. Preludes and Largoes. Then she came back to the fire determined to hesitate no longer. She still remained standing, one foot on the fender-stool.

"I saw Dr. Norton to-day," she remarked casually. "He wanted to hear about you--and the headaches. Swears by two simple remedies; plenty of fresh air--and massage:--the nerves of the head and neck. And afterwards, at the flat, Honor suggested Sheila----"

Mark's frown deepened unpromisingly.

"My dear Mother, _I'm_ all right. For God's sake, don't fuss!"

"Darling, I'm not fussing. Dr. Norton prescribed it. And Sheila did wonders for me--after Boulogne."

"I can well believe it. But I won't have her bothered on my account. She's overworked as it is."

"But, Mark, she delights in it," Helen persisted fatally. "And for you, of all people----"

"Yes--for _me_ of all people!" Mark flung out with a sudden uncontrollable bitterness that effectually silenced her. Startled by his vehemence, she could only stand gazing at him, pain and bewilderment in her eyes. But his own pain blinded him to hers and he sharply turned away his head.

"Oh--_don't_ look at me like that," he muttered. "You make too much of things. All those poor chaps killed and wounded out there and you're worrying over my twopenny headaches. Let Sheila come--if she's willing and if it'll make you happy."

His mother compressed her lips. "Nothing will make me happy, Mark," she said quietly, "till I see you more nearly your old self again."

"Well, I'll _never_ be my old self again--if I live to be eighty: which God forbid!"

The moment the words were out he realised their cruelty. He felt as if he had struck her; and impulsively he put out his hand.

But she had turned from him swiftly to hide her tears--and she was gone.

Helpless to follow her he sat there alone with his bitterness and his shame and his desperate longing for Sheila, that had instinctively prompted him to veto his mother's tempting plan....

Presently the door opened and Keith came in. He looked grave, almost stern.

"What have you been saying to upset Helen?" he asked bluntly. "Couldn't you see she was tired out?"

Beneath the reproof Mark detected the unconscious, possessive note of the lover and responded to it straightway, incurable lover that he was. His faint annoyance at being taken to task evaporated. If any one had hurt Sheila as he had just hurt Mums he would have wanted to commit murder.

"Where is she? What's she doing?" he asked, patently contrite yet vouchsafing no explanation.

"In the library. She _thinks_ she's writing letters."

"Did she say anything?"

"Is it likely? What did _you_ say? That's the point."

Mark frowned. "Nothing would induce me to repeat it. It was only--she got worrying over my confounded head. Massage and that sort of rot. She's keen for Sheila to come and try her hand on me."

"Well--what's wrong with Sheila?"

"There's nothing wrong with Sheila," Mark answered; and this time the lover's note was in his own voice. "But--at the moment, everything was wrong with me. And, like a coward, I let fly at Mums."

Keith's eyes lightened strangely. "Well, no matter how bad things are with you--and I don't belittle them--I can't have you hurting _her_ like that. She's suffered more this winter than you, or any of us, will ever know. Sheila's been no less than an angel of consolation; and if Helen wants her here, let her come. She would probably do you a deal of good. And anyway she'd be a healing influence in the house, which is precisely what you're both needing just now. Mark, old chap, I'm not down on you. But--_you_ understand?"

"Yes. I understand."

A pause. Mark felt suddenly tempted, by Keith's change of tone, to break through his own reserve. It would be a vast relief to tell Keith about Sheila and discover his unbiased view of things. But Bel, though no longer loved, still left her trail over his life. Three months ago she was presumably all the world to him: and now--to make parade of his love for Sheila would seem but a poor compliment: an insult, almost. Hard to make another understand that the two emotions had as little in common as the girls themselves. Still harder to explain that strange, spiritual awakening in France. Obviously, the Fates had decreed that she should come. Let her come then,--and chance the result. They could have devised no finer test for his power of self-mastery.

Keith, who shrewdly suspected the truth, adjusted a blazing log with his foot and said nothing.

"I say, go and tell Mums I want her," Mark said suddenly; and Keith, with a nod of approval, went back to the library.

Mark had time to grow impatient before she reappeared. And, when she did come, he was tongue-tied. He could only hold out his arms----