If Winter Comes Part 31

IX

The news of Tuesday morning caused him at six o'clock in the evening to have been standing two hours in the great throng that filled Market Square gazing towards the offices of the _County Times_. Our mobilisation, our resolve to stand by France if the German Fleet came into the Channel, lastly, most awfully pregnant of all, our obligations to Belgium,--that had been the morning's news, conveyed in the report of Sir Edward Grey's statement in the House of Commons. That afternoon the Prime Minister was to make a statement.

A great murmur swelled up from the waiting crowd, a great movement pressed it forward towards the _County Times_ offices. On the first-floor balcony men appeared dragging a great board faced with paper, on the paper enormous lettering. The board was pulled out endways. The man last through the window took a step forward and swung the letters into view.

PREMIER'S STATEMENT ------- ULTIMATUM TO GERMANY EXPIRES MIDNIGHT

Sabre said aloud, "My G.o.d! War!"

As a retreating wave harshly withdrawing upon the reluctant pebbles, there sounded from the crowd an enormous intaking of the breath. An instant's stupendous silence, the wave poised for return. Down! A shattering roar, tremendous, wordless. The figure of Pike appeared upon the balcony, in his shirt sleeves, his long hair wild about his face, in his hands that which caught the roar as it were by the throat, stopped it and broke it out anew on a burst of exultant clamour. A Union Jack.

He shook it madly with both hands above his head. The roar broke into a tremendous chant. "G.o.d Save the King!"

Sabre pressed his way out of the Square. He kept saying to himself, "War.... War...." He found himself running to the office; no one was in the office; then getting out his bicycle with frantic haste, then riding home,--hard.

And he kept saying, "War!"

He thought, "Otway!" and before his eyes appeared a vision of Otway with those little beads of perspiration on his nose.

War--he couldn't get any further than that. Like the systole and diastole of a slowly beating pulse, the word kept on forming in his mind and welling away in a tide of confused and amorphous scenes; and forming again; and again oozing in presentments of speculations, scenes, surmises, and in profound disturbances of strange emotions. War.... And there kept appearing the face of Otway with the little points of perspiration about his nose. Otway had predicted this months ago.--And he was right. It had come.

War....

CHAPTER IV

I

He approached Penny Green and realised for the first time the hard pace at which he had been riding. And realised also the emotions which subconsciously had been driving him along. All the way he had been saying "War!" What he wanted, most terribly, was to say it aloud to some one. He wanted to say it to Mabel. He had a sudden great desire to see Mabel and tell her about it and talk to her about it. He felt a curiously protective feeling towards her. For the first time in his life he pedalled instead of free-wheeling the conclusion of the ride. He ran into the house and into the morning room. Mabel was not there. It was almost dinner time. She would be in her room. He ran upstairs. She was standing before her dressing table and turned to him in surprise.

"Whatever--"

"I say, it's war!"

She echoed the word. "War?"

"Yes, war. We've declared war!"

"Declared war?"

"Yes, declared war. We've sent Germany an ultimatum. It ends to-night.

It's the same thing. It means war."

He was breathless, panting. She said, "Good gracious! Whatever will happen? Have you brought an evening paper? Do you know the papers didn't come this morning till--"

He could not hear her out. "No, I didn't wait. I simply rushed away."

He was close to her. He took her hands. "I say, Mabel, it's war." His emotions were tumultuous and extraordinary. He wanted to draw her to him and kiss her. They had not kissed for longer than he could have remembered; but now he held her hands hard and desired to kiss her. "I say, it's war."

She gave her sudden burst of laughter. "You are excited. I've never seen you so excited. Your collar's undone."

He dropped her hands. He said rather stupidly, "Well, it's war, you know," and stood there.

She turned to her dressing table. "Well, I do wish you'd stayed for a paper. Now we've got to wait till to-morrow and goodness only knows--"

She was fastening something about her throat and held her breath in the operation. She released it and said, "Just fancy, war! I never thought it would be. What will happen first? Will they--" She held her breath again. She said, "It's too annoying about those papers coming so late.

If they haven't arrived when you go off to-morrow you can tell Jones he needn't send them any more. He's one of those independent sort of tradesmen who think they can do just what they like. Just fancy actually having war with Germany. I can't believe it." She turned towards him and gave her sudden laugh again. "I say, aren't you ever going to move?"

He went out of the room and along the pa.s.sage. As he reached his own room he realised it again. "War--" He went quickly back to Mabel. "I say--" He stopped. His feelings most frightfully desired some vent. None here. "Look here. Don't wait dinner for me. You start. I'm going round to Fargus to tell him."

At the hall door he turned back and went hurriedly into the kitchen. "I say, it's war!"

"Well, there now!" cried High Jinks.

"Yes, war. We've sent an ultimatum to Germany. It ends to-night."

Low Jinks threw up her hands. "Well, if that isn't a short war!"

"Girl alive, the ultimatum ends, not the war. Don't you know what an ultimatum is?"

Outside he ran down the drive and ran to Fargus's door. It stood open.

In the hall the eldest Miss Fargus appeared to be maintaining the last moment before dinner by "doing" a silver card salver.

"Hullo, Miss Fargus. I say, is your father about? I say, it's war. We've declared war!"

The eldest Miss Fargus lifted her head to another Miss Fargus also "doing" something on the stairs above her, and in a very high voice called, "Papa! War!"

The staircase Miss Fargus took it up immediately. "Papa! War!" and Sabre heard it go echoing through the house, "Papa! War! Papa! War! Papa!

War!"

"How terrible, how dreadful, how frightful, how awful," said the eldest Miss Fargus. "You must excuse me shaking hands, but as you see I am over pink plate powder. I'm not surprised. We were discussing it only at breakfast; and for my part, though Julie, Rosie, Poppy and Bunchy were against me, I--" She broke off to turn and take her portion in a new chorus now filling the house. Sounds of some one descending the stairs at break-neck speed were heard, and the chorus shrilled, "Papa, take care! Papa, take care! Papa, take care!"

Mr. Fargus's grey little figure came terrifically down the last flight and up the hall, a cloud of female Farguses in his wake. He ran to Sabre with hands outstretched and grasped Sabre's hands and wrung them.

"Sabre! Sabre! What's this? Really? Truly? War? We've declared war?

Well, I say, thank G.o.d! Thank G.o.d! I was afraid. I was terribly afraid we'd stand out. But thank G.o.d, England is England still.... And will be, Sabre; and will be!" He released Sabre's hands and took out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. "I prayed for this," he said. "I prayed for G.o.d to be in Downing Street last night."

The chorus, unpleasantly shocked at the idea of G.o.d being asked to go to Downing Street, said in a low but stern tone, "Papa, hush. Papa, hush.

Papa, hush"; but Sabre had come for this excited wringing of his hands and for this emotion. It was what he had been seeking ever since Pike's notice board had swung the news before his eyes. When presently he left he carried with him that which, when his mind would turn to it, caused his heart to swell enormously within him. Through the evening, and gone to bed and lying awake long into the night, he was at intervals caught up from the dark and oppressive pictures of his mind by surging onset of the emotions that came with Mr. Fargus's emotion. War.... His spirit answered, "England!"

II

Lying awake, he thought of Nona. He had not written the letter to her.

The appointed day was past and he had not written. He would have said, during that unutterable darkness in which he had awaited it, that not the turning of the world upside down would have prevented him writing; but the world _had_ turned upside down. It was not a board Pike's men had swung around in that appalling moment when he had watched them appear on the balcony. It was the accustomed and imponderable world, awfully unbalanced. Nona would understand. Nona always understood everything. He wondered how she had maintained this terrific day. He was a.s.sured that he knew. She would have felt just as he had felt. He thought, with a most pa.s.sionate longing for her, that he would have given anything to have been able to turn to her when he had exclaimed, "My G.o.d, war", and to have caught her hands and looked into her beautiful face. To-morrow he would send the letter. To-morrow? Why, yes, to-day, like all to-days in the removed and placid light of all to-morrows, would be shown needlessly hectic. Ten to one something would have happened in the night to make to-day look foolish. If nothing had happened, if it still was war, it could only be a swiftly over business, a rapid and general recognition of the impossibility of war in modern conditions.

Disturbingly upon these thoughts appeared the face of Otway, the little beads of perspiration about his nose.

His consciousness stumbled away into the mazy woods of sleep, and turned, and all night sought to return, and stumbled sometimes to its knees among the drowsy snares, and saw strange mirages of the round world horrifically tilted with "War" upon its face, of Nona held away and not approachable, of intense light and of suffocating darkness; and rousing and struggling away from these, and stumbling yet, rarely succ.u.mbing.