Chapter IX

"Thy trumpet lies in the dust...
Help me to don my armour!
Let hard blows of trouble strike fire into my life.
Let my heart beat in pain--beating the drum of thy victory.
My hands shall be utterly emptied to take up thy trumpet."
RABINDRANATH TAGORE.

"War declared--_at last_!" Keith announced, in his quiet impressive voice; and Lady Forsyth heard the words with an odd mingling of relief and dread.

The next moment she was startled by a stab of almost physical pain near her heart. That it was not physical she knew very well. Instinctively she glanced at Mark, whose eyes were already on her face; and there passed between them a swift, unspoken message that eased the hearts of both.

Breakfast, usually a cheerful meal, was rather a silent affair; and the minute it was over Lady Forsyth slipped away to her turret-room. Sheila was helping Ralph pack, that he might hurry down south and report himself at the India Office. Mark had gone off to the study with Keith; and Lady Forsyth had been sitting in her chair by the window for nearly half an hour before she heard his step outside the door.

She turned, with his name on her lips; but her throat felt constricted, and no sound came.

In response to that mute appeal, he dropped on one knee beside her and laid his hands in her lap. It was his old boyish trick when he came to confess a delinquency and knew himself forgiven in advance.

"Mother," he said, "we've got to put everything into this, you and I--to the uttermost farthing. All our men must go. And I must give 'em the lead myself."

His voice was steady, and there was a light in his eyes that she had never seen there yet. For all her courage, her own smile was a rather misty affair.

"You're my uttermost farthing," was all she could say.

"Yes. It's bitter hard luck on you. But--you don't grudge my going?"

She shook her head. "The greater my treasures the greater my gift. This widow's mite is a very large mite!" she added, smiling bravely now, and passing her hands slowly over his broad shoulders down to his elbows where they rested.

For answer he looked steadily into her eyes. The faint, yet perceptible barrier raised by his engagement was levelled utterly; the old blessed sense of comradeship restored. Friction between them was purely a surface affair. The moment they touched fundamentals, they were one. And Mark, for his part, was aware of a restfulness in this deeper understanding; a restfulness that he had missed of late without knowing it.

He knew now, very well; and she saw that he knew: but he only said, "I was sure I could count on you. Keith, approves, of course. I rather thought of going down at once with Ralph. You know--it's enlisting I'm after. The quickest way----"

"Oh Mark--not that!" Her hands went up in protest; and, for the first time, there was sharp pain in her voice.

"Now be a good Mums and listen without interrupting," he commanded, imprisoning her hands. "We're simply going to have the biggest rush to the colours that the world's ever seen. I'm sure of it. And it's up to us 'aristocratic noodles' to give the sacred working-men, of our sacred democracy, a thumping good lead. That's what I meant about my own fellows. Thought you understood----"

"But, my dear--" she checked herself, half laughing. "Have you done? May I interrupt now?"

"You have interrupted! Always do. Go ahead!"

"Well, this is how _I_ feel about it. Scores and scores of our blessed noodles will enlist, for the very reason you've given. The thing will be overdone, and if there's a shortage anywhere, it'll be among the officers. Then the wrong sort of men will get commissions and numbers of the right sort will remain stuck in the ranks: one way of democratising the Army! Horrible idea! I believe, as you very well know, in the true aristocracy of breeding and character, in its duties even more than its privileges; and above all in its innate spirit of leadership, that can be trained but not made. That's why--especially in a war that will exceed all others in horror and intensity--I strongly object to wholesale squandering of officer material, our most precious possession."

"But, mother, I'm not an officer," Mark protested, adding with a twinkle: "You're having a jolly long innings, you know!"

"Well, I must speak now. It's my only chance. And you're officer material, Mark. You'd make a fine one, with a minimum of training. You've got it in you. Will you--for once admit I may be in the right?"

He regarded her quizzically. "I was determined not to, when you started."

"Well, at least consult Keith and Uncle John and Uncle Everard before you do anything drastic! You wouldn't have to wait long for a commission. We've heaps of interest--Frank Gordon and Jim Stuart, not to mention others, would do anything for you in that line. I don't want to be selfish or unpatriotic, but you've admitted it comes hard on me. Why make it needlessly harder?"

To her entire amazement he flung his arms round her and leaned his head against her shoulder.

"You blessed little mother," he said under his breath. "You're as plucky as they're made. Our share in this war shall begin with a private victory for you! And let's hope it may be a good omen!"

Taking her head between his hands he kissed her fervently, and she clung to him without a word.

At last he sighed and stood up, very erect, looking out across the sunlit water to the shadowy hills. Her eyes took the same direction; but the familiar scene was no more than a bright quivering blue of colour. For a moment they both felt oddly shy of each other.

Presently it passed, and Helen looked up at her son. "I can't say what I'm feeling, Mark. But I don't think you'll regret my victory. Besides, there's Bel."

"Yes. Poor Bel," he said in a changed voice. "She hates the whole business. And she'll hate it worse than ever now. But if she plays up as you have, she'll do!" He glanced at his watch. "She'll be here in a minute. I must go and meet her. Don't stay and brood alone, Mums. Go down and talk to Keith. He wants to rush into Ardmuir this morning and fix up a recruiting show for Friday. Sir Mark Forsyth in the chair! On Saturday I vote we go south. There'll be a thundering lot to do. This food panic's disgraceful. Famine, indeed! As if we hadn't a ship afloat."

She put her hands to her temples. "It makes one's head spin. I'll go soon, dear, but I must have a few minutes alone--to take it all in."

So he left her, and went slowly down-stairs with a preoccupied look in his eyes. It was scarcely the look of a lover eager to meet the beloved after two days' absence; and in truth his natural eagerness was dimmed by a lurking doubt as to how Bel would receive his announcement. The contrast between the utter confidence he had felt in his mother's acquiescence and his curious lack of confidence in the girl he meant to make his wife hurt him horribly. He blamed himself for it, as a matter of course; but deep down, he knew that doubt did not come readily to his nature; that never yet had he doubted where he loved.

From the front door he caught sight of her at the far end of the drive, moving in her graceful, leisurely fashion, head bent, eyes on the ground. She was wearing the yellow silk golf coat and the amber beads, and the distractingly becoming hat; and, of a sudden, Mark realised with a pang, how, in the last few days, the great issues at stake had dwarfed everything--even Bel.

But now that the tension was over, the die cast, her spell reasserted itself; and a great wave of tenderness flowed through him. It would be hateful having to leave her: but he was so made that the question of choice simply did not enter his head.

Now he hurried forward, convinced that so great an occasion must lift her above herself. It was always the same: at sight of her, doubt grew shamefaced--and fled.

Before he reached her, she looked up and waved with her parasol, and Bobs, suddenly recognising her, bounded forward with eloquent tongue and tail. While she was patting him, Mark came up and quietly slipped a hand through her arm.

"That's good," he said, with a sigh of satisfaction. "Come to our summer-house on the heather and have a talk."

As he led her towards the copse she gave him one of her soft side-long glances, whether of scrutiny or affection it were hard to say.

"Bobs is more demonstrative than his master."

The answering flash of his eye and tongue were direct as his whole nature. "You won't induce me to kiss you in the open drive by your base insinuations!"

And it was not till they reached the depth of the little wood that he came to a standstill; a strange light of exaltation on his face. Then he drew her to him and kissed her with a still intensity of passion, as if he would make her understand the measure of his love before telling her that which, perversely taken, might seem to throw a doubt on it.

When he released her, she stood back a little and smiled on him, rosy from his kiss, hands laid lightly on his breast.

"Are you as glad--as all that, to get her back?" she asked.

"More than all that--heaps more. I agree with Robert Louis. Separation has its good points! But we'll soon be suffering from too sharp a taste of it--scores of us. I suppose you deigned to glance at the head-lines this morning?"

"Yes, of course." She frowned. "It's horrible--beyond belief. Rex says it simply means that, in spite of all our science and progress, the world's not civilised yet."

"More fool he, to imagine it was. Patches of it are half-civilised, that's about all. And enough too. Over-civilisation, goodness knows why, has a queer tendency to rot men's souls. Makes the body too comfortable, perhaps."

"Rubbish! That's one of your fads just because you're against progress."

"Not I, in the right direction. I'm only against the modern craze for rushing wildly round a fixed point and getting nowhere. This war may set the clock back, but I bet it'll get us somewhere before it's done with us."

He was back at the unavoidable subject again; and this time he resolved to have done with shilly-shallying.

They had reached the summer-house fronting moor and loch; and as he stood aside to let her pass in, she said, smiling: "I like the way you barbarians justify your own point of view! Anyway, I suppose you're all satisfied now, and things will be a little more normal?"

"Normal?" His shock of surprise sounded in his tone. "How can they be normal when we've got to fight for our lives against a Power like Germany? Who'd wish them to be? I'm afraid you haven't read much _more_ than the head-lines, Bel. There's no end to think of: no end to do. As soon as I've rounded up my fellows here, we must go back home and round 'em up there. I wanted to enlist myself, but mother's persuaded me to apply for a commission. She's splendid about it, and I'm counting on you to be the same."

"Mark!" Her surprise was no less than his own. She sank upon a wooden seat near the window and looked up at him, with eyes that had gone suddenly chill and hard, like bits of blue glass. "Have you quite gone off your head?"

Words and tone produced a horrid revulsion of feeling. But he answered her with studied quietness. "I was never saner in my life."

She received that statement with a faint lift of her brows.

"You can stand there and tell me--me--you're going to fight in the most awful war there's ever been, as calmly as if you were talking about ordering a new suit, in spite of all I said about Ulster?"

"Ulster! Good Lord, you're not building on _that_?" he cried, enlightened at last. "My darling girl, can't you see for yourself that there's no shadow of comparison? That was a matter of personal choice. Something I could give up for your sake--and I did."

"Well, if you really--care, you ought to give up this too. It's not fair on me, or your mother. Fighting is the soldiers' business. Leave it to them."

"A few hundred thousand against millions--eh?"

"That's the Government's fault. Besides, we've plenty of Territorials and things."

His short laugh sounded more impatient than amused.

"A lot you know about Territorials and things! They're thousands below strength. And anyway, Bel, it's not a question of Territorials--or of caring. It's a plain matter of duty."

"Well, you've money and brains. You could do quite good work in lots of other ways."

"And round up better chaps than myself to go out and fight for me? No, thank you! There'll be too many ready to take shelter behind that plausible excuse. If they feel they can do so honestly, let them. Anything I could do at home could be equally well done by mother and Keith. Did you happen to notice the 'Call to Arms'? Do words like that leave you unmoved?"

"N-no. But it means common men, not men with big responsibilities like you."

"Bel, that's pure quibbling. It says 'All,' and it means 'All.' Could any man, I ask you, with a shred of conscience or love for his country, read that and remain at home rotting round with recruits and committees? I couldn't, that's flat. This war is either a crusade or a meaningless horror. And for me--it's a crusade. I'm not talking hot air. There's too much of that in the papers already. I'm only trying to make you see that I've no choice. I can't stand outside--even for you."

"That simply means you won't," she said very low. He sighed and stood silent, baffled, yet unshaken, looking out over the sun-splashed heather. Then it occurred to him that, being a woman, persuasion might move her though argument failed.

He sank on one knee and put his arm round her. "Darling," he urged, "I can't bear hurting you like this. War is cruelly hard on the women: but you only make things worse for us both if you let it come between us."

He felt her stiffen under his hand. "It has come between us utterly," she said. "All this week it's been getting worse. If you talk till all's blue, I shall never see this--with your eyes. So it just amounts to this. You must either give up your quixotic notion of patriotism, or ... you must give up ... me."

She spoke with more than her usual deliberation. The words seemed to drop out clear and hard as pebbles.

"Bel! You don't mean that!" he cried, hurt to the quick. "It would simply break my heart."

His sincerity was so plain, that her own heart thrilled in response. She slipped a hand round his head. Her fingers drifted with a slow caressing movement over his hair; and her voice took its most seductive tone.

"Mark, darling, if that's true, keep me--keep me. I'm yours, if only ... you'll stay out of the fighting!"

Instantly he released her and sprang to his feet--angry, miserable, desperate. Yet still, in his very desperation, he argued, pleaded, and exhorted her afresh: without result. He had struck the layer of adamant beneath her skin-deep tenderness. She could not, or would not, see things in their true proportion; and, finally, her hardness stung his pride into life.

"It's Maitland, I suppose, who's been perverting you," he flung out angrily. "Better marry him, if you're so keen on a husband who prefers to let others do his fighting for him."

At that she swept to her feet, the incarnation of dignity, and looked him full in the eyes. "Rex has nothing whatever to do with it. And your other suggestion doesn't deserve an answer." She stood silent a moment; but he neither spoke nor moved. Then: "I--I'm going now," she said. "We shall be leaving here very soon."

"No hurry. We're going ourselves on Saturday." He was watching her fingers. She had drawn off his ring, and she tendered it him without a word.

Still he made no move.

"Take it," she whispered, "it's yours--now!"

"_I've_ no use for the beastly thing," he answered between his teeth, and lifting it from her palm he flung it out into the heather.

Her dignity and coldness went to pieces in a flash. "Oh Mark--what a sin!" she cried sharply; and hurrying out, she knelt down and began feeling, with fingers that shook a little, for her vanished treasure.

Mark, watching her from the threshold of the summer-house, did not so much as notice that faint tremor. The red mist of anger clouded his brain.

"So much for a woman's sense of proportion!" he said bitterly. "It's not a sin for you to smash me up because I refuse to play the shirker. But it's a sin to chuck away fifty pounds' worth of diamonds. Money's sacred--if nothing else is. Keep it if you find it, or it'll go straight into the loch."

As she rose to answer him, her eye lighted on the gleaming thing, and with a sigh of relief she picked it up. "Sooner than that, I will keep it, though I can't wear it," she said. "Besides, you may think better of this."

"Not until the Germans do," he answered, and she knew he meant it. "Don't return any other trifles, or they'll go the same way as the ring."

"Then I suppose--it's good-bye."

He heard the faint tremor in her voice. But at that moment her very tears would scarce have moved him.

"Oh, good-bye," he said casually, his face hard as a rock. "Whatever happens, let's preserve the decencies."

She caught her breath as if he had struck her; then turning she walked away through the heather, gracefully, deliberately, with the familiar swing of her parasol at each step; even as he had seen her walking towards him half an hour ago.

He had blamed himself for doubting her, and she had justified his doubts up to the hilt. In spite of the dull pain and anger within him, his eyes followed her, clung to her, till the last gleam of her yellow coat disappeared among the trees.

Then, with the look of a man stunned, he sat down near the window-ledge and bowed his head upon his arms.