Captain Jim Part 35

After that first terrible evening, during which no one had looked upon their agony, David Linton and his child took up their life again and tried to splice the broken ends as best they might. Their guests, who came down to breakfast nervously, preparing to go away at once, found them in the dining-room, haggard and worn, but pleasantly courteous; they talked of the morning's news, of the frost that seemed commencing, of the bulbs that were sending delicate spear-heads up through the gra.s.s or the bare flower-beds. There were arrangements for the day to be made for those who cared to ride or drive: the trains to be planned for a gunner subaltern whose leave was expiring next day. Everything was quite as usual, outwardly.

"Pretty ghastly meal, what?" remarked the young gunner to a chum, as they went out on the terrace. "Rather like dancing at a funeral."

Philip Hardress came into the morning-room, where Mr. Linton and Norah were talking.

"I don't need to tell you how horribly sorry I am," he faltered.

"No--thanks, Phil."

"You--you haven't any details?"

"No."

"Wally will write as soon as he can," Norah added.

"Yes, of course. The others want me to say, sir, of course they will go away. They all understand. I can go too, just to the hotel. I can supervise Hawkins from there."

"I hope none of you will think of doing any such thing," David Linton said. "Our work here is just the same. Jim would never have wished us not to carry on."

"But----" Hardress began.

"There isn't any 'but.' Norah and I are not going to sit mourning, with our hands in front of us. We mean to work a bit harder, that's all. You see"--the ghost of a smile flickered across the face that had aged ten years in a night--"more than ever now, whatever we do for a soldier is done for Jim."

Hardress made a curious little gesture of protest.

"And I'm left--half of me!"

"You have got to help us, Phil," Norah said. "We need you badly."

"I can't do much," he said. "But as long as you want me, I'm here.

Then I'm to tell the others, sir----"

"Tell them we hope they will help us to carry on as usual," said David Linton. "I'll come across with you presently, Phil, to look at the new cultivator: I hear it arrived last night."

He looked at Norah as the door closed.

"You're sure it isn't too much for you, my girl? I will send them away if you would rather we were by ourselves for a while."

"I promised Jim that whatever happened we'd keep smiling," Norah said.

"He wouldn't want us to make a fuss. Jim always did so hate fusses, didn't he, Dad?"

She was quite calm. Even when Mrs. Hunt came hurrying over, and put her kind arms about her, Norah had no tears.

"I suppose we haven't realized it," she said. "Perhaps we're trying not to. I don't want to think of Jim as dead--he was so splendidly alive, ever since he was a tiny chap."

"Try to think of him as near you," Mrs. Hunt whispered.

"Oh, he is. I know Jim never would go far from us, if he could help it. I know he's watching, somewhere, and he will be glad if we keep our heads up and go straight on. He would trust us to do that." Her face changed. "Oh, Mrs. Hunt,--but it's hard on Dad!"

"He has you still."

"I'm only a girl," said Norah. "No girl could make up for a son: and such a son as Jim. But I'll try."

There came racing little feet in the hall, and Geoffrey burst in.

"It isn't true!" he shouted. "Say it isn't true, Norah! Allenby says the Germans have killed Jim--I know they couldn't." He tugged at her woollen coat. "Say it's a lie, Norah--Jim couldn't be dead!"

"Geoff--Geoff, dear!" Mrs. Hunt tried to draw him away.

"Don't!" Norah said. She put her arms round the little boy--and suddenly her head went down on his shoulder. The tears came at last.

Mrs. Hunt went softly from the room.

There were plenty of tears in the household: The servants had all loved the big cheery lad, with the pleasant word for each one. They went about their work red-eyed, and Allenby chafed openly at the age that kept him at home, doing a woman's work, while boys went out to give their lives, laughing, for Empire.

"It ain't fair," he said to Miss de Lisle, who sobbed into the m.u.f.fler she was knitting. "It ain't fair. Kids, they are--no more. They ain't meant to die. Oh, if I could only get at that there Kayser!"

Then, after a week of waiting, came Wally's letter.

"Norah, Dear,--

"I don't know how to write to you. I can't bear to think about you and your father. It seems it must be only a bad dream--and all the time I know it isn't, even though I keep thinking I hear his whistle--the one he used for me.

"I had better tell you about it.

"We had orders to attack early one morning. Jim was awfully keen; he had everything ready, and he had been talking to the men until they were all as bucked up as they could be. You know, he was often pretty grave about his work, but I don't think I ever saw him look so happy as he did that morning. He looked just like a kid. He told me he felt as if he were going out on a good horse at Billabong. We were looking over our revolvers, and he said, 'That's the only thing that feels wrong; it ought to be a stock whip!'

"We hadn't much artillery support. Our guns were short of sh.e.l.ls, as usual. But we took the first trench, and the next. Jim was just everywhere. He was always first; the men would have followed him down a precipice. He was laughing all the time.

"We didn't get much time before they counter-attacked. They came on in waves--as if there were millions of them, and we had a pretty stiff fight in the trench. It was fairly well smashed about. I was pretty busy about fifty yards away, but I saw Jim up on a broken traverse, using his revolver just as calmly as if he were practising in camp, and cheering on the men. He gave me a 'Coo-ee!'

"And then--oh, I don't know how to tell you. Just as I was looking at him a sh.e.l.l burst near him: and when the smoke blew over there was nothing--traverse and trench and all, it was just wiped out. I couldn't get near him--the Boches were pouring over in fresh ma.s.ses, and we got the signal to retire--and I was the only one left to get the men back.

"He couldn't have felt anything; that's the only thing.

"I wish it had been me. I'm n.o.body's dog, and he was just everything to you two--and the best friend a fellow ever had. It would have been so much more reasonable if it had been me. I just feel that I hate myself for being alive. I would have saved him for you if I could, Norah, "Wally."

There were letters, too, from Jim's Colonel, and from Major Hunt, and Garrett, and every other brother-officer whom Jim had sent to Homewood; and others that Norah and her father valued almost more highly--from men who had served under him. Letters that made him glow with pride--almost forgetting grief as they read them. It seemed so impossible to think that Jim would never come again.

"I can't feel as though he were dead," Norah said, looking up at her father. "I know I've got to get used to knowing he has gone away from us for always. But I like to think of him as having only changed work. Jim never could be idle in Heaven; he always used to say it seemed such a queer idea to sit all day in a white robe and play a harp. Jim's Heaven would have to be a very busy one, and I know he's gone there, Dad."

David Linton got up and went to the bookcase. He came back with _Westward Ho!_ in his hand.

"I was reading Kingsley's idea of it last night," he said. "I think it helps, Norah. Listen. 'The best reward for having wrought well already, is to have more to do; and he that has been faithful over a few things, must find his account in being made ruler over many things. That is the true and heroical rest, which only is worthy of gentlemen and sons of G.o.d.' Jim was only a boy, but he went straight and did his best all his life. I think he has just been promoted to some bigger job."