Mrs. Humphry Ward

“ Nelly lifted her head from his shoulder, and looked at him rather gravely.
'I'm afraid you don't know much about Bridget, George. She's,—well, she's—one of the—oddest women you ever met.'
'So it seems! But why is she bored with the war?'
'Well—you see—it doesn't matter to her in any way—and she doesn't want it to matter to her. There's nobody in it she cares about.'
'Thanks!' laughed Sarratt. But Nelly still grave, shook her head. 'Oh, she's not the least like other people. She won't care about you, George, just because you've married me. ”

“ How often through these nights Nelly Sarratt lay awake, in her new white room in Mountain Ash Farm!—the broad low window beside her open to the night, to that 'Venus's Looking Glass' of Loughrigg Tarn below her, and to the great heights beyond, now dissolving under the moon-magic, now rosy with dawn, and now wreathed in the floating cloud which crept in light and silver along the purple of the crags. To have been lifted to this height above valley and stream, had raised and strengthened her, soul and body, as Farrell and Hester had hoped. Her soul, perhaps, rather than her body ”

“ When Hester turned her eyes she saw his handsome profile, his Nibelung's head and beard against the stony side of the fell. A man with unfair advantages, it seemed to her, if he chose to put out his strength;—the looks of a king, a warm heart, a sympathetic charm, felt quite as much by men as by women, and ability which would have distinguished him in any career, if his wealth had not put the drag on industry. But at the moment he was not idle. He was more creditably and fully employed then she had ever known him. His hospital and his pride in it were in fact Nelly Sarratt's best safeguard. ”

“ George says it's wicked to squander money, and live as if everything were just the same as it used to be. And I agree with him!'
'Of course you do!' laughed Bridget. 'You don't squander money, my dear!'
'Only because I haven't got it to spend, you mean?' said Nelly, flushing.
'No—but you should look at things sensibly. The people who are making money are spending it—oceans of it! And the people who have money, like the Farrells, are spending it too. Wait till you see how they live!'
'But there's the hospital!' cried Nelly. ”

“ Nelly could not rouse herself to write the letter to Miss Martin. She lay prone in a corner of the sofa, dreaming, as she had done all her life; save that the faculty—of setting in motion at will a stream of vivid and connected images—which had always been one of her chief pleasures, was now an obsession and a torment. How often, in her wakeful nights at Rydal, had she lived over again every moment in the walk to Blea Tarn, till at last, gathered once more on George's knees, and nestling to his breast, she had fallen asleep—comforted. ”

“ Bridget was unpacking, and Hester was just departing to her own house. Nelly could hardly let her go. For a month now, Hester had been with her at Torquay, while Bridget was pursuing some fresh 'work' in London. And Nelly's desolate heart had found both calm and bracing in Hester's tenderness. For the plain shapeless spinster was one of those rare beings who in the Lampadephoria of life, hand on the Lamp of Love, pure and undefiled, as they received it from men and women, like themselves, now dead. ”

“ Nelly, wrapped in a white shawl, was still strolling about the garden, and Bridget watched their meeting—Nelly's soft and smiling welcome, and Farrell's eagerness, his evident joy in finding her alone.
'And she just wilfully blinds herself!' thought Bridget contemptuously—'talks about his being a brother to her, and that sort of nonsense. He's in love with her!—of course he's in love with her. And as for Nelly—she's not in love with him. But she's getting used to him; she depends on him. When he's not there she misses him. She's awfully glad to see him when he comes. ”

“ A cleverer, a more experienced, a more practical woman, in such a case, would have found a hundred excuses and justifications for herself that never occurred to Nelly Sarratt, to this young immature creature, in whom the passionate love of her marriage had roused feelings and emotions, which, when the man on whom they were spent was taken from her, were still the master-light of all her seeing—still so strong and absorbing, that, in her widowed state, they were like blind forces searching unconsciously for some new support, some new thing to love. ”

“ And in this austerer world, Nelly's delicate personality, as though braced by the touch of winter, seemed to move more lightly and buoyantly. She was more vividly interested in things and persons—in her drawing, her books, her endless knitting and sewing for the wounded. She was puzzled that Bridget stayed so long in town, but alack! she could do very well without Bridget. Some portion of the savour of life, of that infinity of small pleasures which each day may bring for the simple and the pure in heart, was again hers. ”

“ But that, I suppose, is the kind of man whom Bridget would have liked you to marry, darling?'
'As if he would ever have looked at me!' said Nelly tranquilly. 'A man like that may be as rich as rich, but he would never marry a poor wife.'
'Thank God, I don't believe money will matter nearly as much to people, after the war!' said Sarratt, with energy. 'It's astonishing how now, in the army—of course it wasn't the same before the war—you forget it entirely. Who cares whether a man's rich, or who's son he is? ”

“ Helplessly, she wished that Hester would come!—someone wise and strong who would tell her what was right. The thought of supplanting George, of learning to forget him, of letting somebody else take his place in her heart, was horrible—even monstrous—to her. Yet she did not know how she would ever find the strength to make Farrell suffer. His devotion appealed—not to any answering passion in her—there was none—but to an innate lovingness, that made it a torment to her to refuse to love and be loved. Her power of dream, of visualisation, shewed him to her alone and unhappy ”

“ Her life was now made up of such moments and dreams. On the whole, what held her most was the fierce refusal to think of him as dead. That morning, in dressing, among the clothes they had hurriedly brought with them from Westmorland, she saw a thin black dress—a useful stand-by in the grime of London—and lifted her hands to take it from the peg on which it hung. Only to recoil from it with horror. That—never! And she had dressed herself with care in a coat and skirt of rough blue tweed that George had always liked; scrupulously putting on her little ornaments, and taking pains with her hair. ”

“ Hester Martin frankly thought the sister odious, and pitied the bride for having to live with her. All the same she often found herself wondering how Nelly would ever manage the practical business of life alone, supposing loneliness fell to her at any time. But why should it fall to her?—unless indeed Sarratt were killed in action. If he survived the war he would make her the best of guides and husbands; she would have children; and her sweetness, her sensitiveness would stiffen under the impact of life to a serviceable toughness. ”

“ She was sitting perched on the high end of a sofa smoking a cigarette and dangling her feet, which were encased, as before, in high-heeled shoes and immaculate gaiters. She was dressed in white serge with a cap and jersey of the brightest possible green. Her very open bodice showed a string of fine pearls and she wore pearl ear-rings. Seen in the same room with Nelly Sarratt she could hardly be guessed at less than twenty-eight. She was the mature woman in full possession of every feminine weapon, experienced, subtle, conscious, a little hard, a little malicious. ”

“ Nelly laughed out.
'As if I'd ever let you do anything for me any more! No, that's done with. You've been so accustomed to manage me all these years. You thought you could manage me now—you thought you could let George die—and I should never know—and you'd make me marry—William Farrell. Bridget—I hate you!'
She broke off, shivering, but resumed almost at once—'I see it all—I think I see it all. And now it's all done for between you and me. If George dies, I shall never come back to live with you again. You'd better make plans, Bridget. ”

“ Bridget turned an almost triumphant look on her sister, as though the coup described had been her own.
'Well, it isn't right!' said Nelly, passionately. 'It isn't—it isn't—Bridget! When the war's costing so much—and people are suffering and dying—'
'Oh, I know!' said Bridget hastily. 'You needn't preach to me my dear child. I only wanted you to look at facts. You're always so incurably sentimental!'
'I'm not!' Nelly protested, helplessly. 'We make the facts. If nobody bought the furs, the facts would be different. ”

“ At the same time her half-sarcastic sense perceived that he was far better provided than Nelly, with the means of self-protection against his trouble. 'Men always are,' thought Cicely—'they have so much more interesting things to do.' And she compared the now famous hospital, with its constant scientific developments, the ever-changing and absorbing spectacle of the life within it, and Farrell's remarkable position amid its strenuous world—with poor Nelly's 'housemaiding.'
But Nelly was choosing the path that suited her own need, and in the spiritual world, the humblest means may be the best. ”

“ The beautiful winter twilight had just begun, when Nelly heard the step she waited for outside.
She did not run to the window to greet him as she generally did. She sat still, by the fire, her knitting on her knee. Her black dress was very black, with the plainest white ruffle at her throat. She looked very small and pitiful. Perhaps she meant to look it! The weak in dealing with the strong have always that instinctive resource.
'How jolly to find you alone!' said Farrell joyously, as he entered the room. ”

“ During the rest of the afternoon, her brother and Nelly watched Cicely's proceedings with stupefaction; only equalled by the bewilderment of Miss Daisy Stewart. For that young lady was promoted to the good graces of Sir William's formidable sister with a rapidity and completeness which only natural good manners and good sense could have enabled her to deal with; considering the icy exclusion to which she had been so long condemned. But as she possessed both, she took it very simply; always with the same serene light in her grey eyes. ”

“ Only the instinct of the child that is forsaken and wants comforting, that feels love close to it, and cannot refuse it.
'There, you see!' she said, desperately—'You see—I must go!'
'No! It's I who must go. Unless '—his voice sank almost to a whisper—'Nelly!—couldn't you—marry me? You should never, never regret it.'
She shook her head, and as she dropped her face again in her hands he saw a shudder run through her. At the sight his natural impulse was to let passion have its way, to raise her in his arms again, and whisper to her there in the dark, as love inspired him, his cheek on hers. ”

“ All the more reason now that she should turn to the dear friendships that life still held, should live in and for them, and follow where they led, through the years before her. Farrell, Cicely, Hester—they stood between her weakness—oh how conscious, how scornfully conscious, she was of it!—and sheer desolation. Cicely, 'Willy,'—for somehow she and he had slipped almost without knowing it into Christian names—had become to her as brother and sister. And Hester too—so strong!—so kind!—was part of her life; severe sometimes, but bracing. ”

“ It might be, as she had said to Sarratt, that Bridget managed because she liked managing. All the same Nelly knew, not without some prickings of conscience as to her own dependence, that when George was gone, she would never be able to get on without Bridget.
Into what a world of delight the two plunged when they set forth! The more it rains in the Westmorland country, the more heavenly are the days when the clouds forget to rain! ”

“ For, with that long and intimate observation of the war which his hospital experience had brought him, Farrell was keenly aware of the merciful fact that the mere distance which, generally speaking, the war imposes between the man dying on the battle-field and those who love him at home, inevitably breaks the blow. The nerves of the woman who loses her husband or her son are, at least, not tortured by the actual sight of his wounds and death. ”

“ But Hester went at last, and Nelly was alone. The lake lay steeped in a rich twilight, into which the stars were rising. The purple breast of Silver How across the water breathed of shelter, of rest, of things ineffable. Nelly's eyes were full of tears, and her hands clasped on her breast scarcely kept down the sobbing. There, under the hands, was the letter which George had written to her, the night before he left her. ”

“ Nelly sighed.
'I know—it's awful how we want guns and shells! My husband says it makes him savage to see how we lose men for want of them. Why are we so short? Whose fault is it?'
A spot of angry colour had risen in her cheek. It was the dove defending her mate. The change was lovely, and Farrell, with his artist's eye, watched it eagerly. But he shook his head.
'It's nobody's fault. It's all on such a scale—unheard of! Nobody could have guessed before-hand—unless like Germany, we had been preparing for years to rob and murder our neighbours. Well, Mrs. Sarratt, I must be going on. ”

“ No, there was nothing in the way of Nelly's great future, and the free development of her—Bridget's—own life, but this sudden and most unwelcome stroke of fate. If she had to send for Nelly—supposing it really were Sarratt—and then if he died—Nelly might never get over it.
It might simply kill her—why not? All the world knew that she was a weakling. And if it didn't kill her, it would make it infinitely less likely that she would marry Farrell—in any reasonable time. Nelly was not like other people. ”

“ Her father was dead. Her mother had no influence with her; and Willy was too lazy. So I tried my hand. And I find myself doing the same thing now. But of course it's fatal—it's fatal!'
Nelly tried to cheer him up, but she was not herself very hopeful. She, perceived too clearly the martinet in him and the rebel in Cicely. If something were suddenly to throw them together, some common interest or emotion, each might find the other's heart in a way past undoing. On the other hand the jarring habit, once set up, has a way of growing worse, and reducing everything else to dust and ashes. ”

“ He had always in his mind the agonies of the war, the sights of the trenches, the holocaust of young life, the drain on the national resources, the burden on the national future. So that the Farrell motor-cars and men servants, the costly simplicity of the 'cottage,' Cicely's extravagance in dress, her absurd and expensive uniform, her make-up and her jewels, were so many daily provocations to a man thus sombrely possessed. ”

“ But she seemed glad to see Nelly Sarratt, whom she kissed, to the astonishment of her Cousin Hester, who was not as yet aware of the new relations between the two. And then, flinging herself into a chair beside Nelly, she declared that she was dead-beat, that the train had been intolerably full of khaki, and that soldiers ought to have trains to themselves.
'Thank your stars, Cicely, that you are allowed to travel at all,' said
Farrell. 'No civilian nowadays matters a hap'orth.'
'And then we talk about Prussian Militarism!' cried Cicely. ”