The Hermit of Far End Part 53

Sara received the news the next morning, and though naturally, by contrast, it seemed to add a keener edge to her own grief, she was still able to rejoice whole-heartedly over this little harvesting of joy which her two friends had s.n.a.t.c.hed from amid the world's dreadful harvesting of pain and sorrow.

By the same post as the radiant letters from Miles and Audrey came one from Elisabeth Durward. She wrote distractedly.

"Tim is determined to volunteer," ran her letter. "I can't let him go, Sara. He is my only son, and I don't see why he should be claimed from me by this horrible war. I have persuaded him to wait until he has seen you. That is all he will consent to. So will you come and do what you can to dissuade him? There is a cord by which you could hold him if you would."

A transient smile crossed Sara's face as she pictured Tim gravely consenting to await her opinion on the matter. He knew--none better!--what it would be, and, without doubt, he had merely agreed to the suggestion in the hope that her presence might ease the strain and serve to comfort his mother a little.

Sara telegraphed that she would come to Barrow Court the following day, and, on her arrival, found Tim waiting for her at the station in his two-seater.

"Well," he said with a grin, as the little car slid away along the familiar road. "Have you come to persuade me to be a good boy and stay at home, Sara?"

"You know I've not," she replied, smiling. "I'm gong to talk sense to Elisabeth. Oh! Tim boy, how I envy you! It's splendid to be a man these days."

He nodded silently, but she could read in his expression the tranquil satisfaction that his decision had brought. She had seen the same look on other men's faces, when, after a long struggle with the woman-love that could not help but long to hold them back, the final decision had been taken.

Arrived at the lodge gates, Tim handed over the car to the chauffeur who met them there, evidently by arrangement.

"I thought we'd walk across the park," he suggested.

Sara acquiesced delightedly. There was a tender, reminiscent pleasure in strolling along the winding paths that had once been so happily familiar, and, hardly conscious of the sudden silence which had fallen upon her companion, her thoughts slipped back to the old days at Barrow when she had wandered, with Patrick beside her in his wheeled chair, along these selfsame paths.

With a little thrill, half pain, half pleasure, she noted each well-remembered landmark. There was the arbour where they used to shelter from a shower, built with sloped boards at its entrance so that Patrick's chair could easily be wheeled into it; now they were pa.s.sing the horse-chestnut tree which she herself had planted years ago--with the head gardener's a.s.sistance!--in place of one that had been struck by lightning. It had grown into a st.u.r.dy young sapling by this time. Here was the Queen's Bench--an old stone seat where Queen Elisabeth was supposed to have once sat and rested for a few minutes when paying a visit to Barrow Court. Sara reflected, with a smile, that if history speaks truly, the Virgin Queen must have spent quite a considerable portion of her time in visiting the houses of her subjects! And here--

"Sara!" Tim's voice broke suddenly across the recollections that were thronging into her mind. There was a curious intent quality in his tone that arrested her attention, filling her with a nervous foreboding of what he had to say.

"Sara, you know, of course, as well as I do, that I am going to volunteer. I let mother send for you, because--well, because I thought you would make it a little easier for her, for one thing. But I had another reason."

"Had you?" Sara spoke mechanically. They had paused beside the Queen's Bench, and half-unconsciously she laid her ungloved hand caressingly on the seat's high back. The stone struck cold against the warmth of her flesh.

"Yes." Tim was speaking again, still in that oddly direct manner. "I want to ask you--now, before I go to France--whether there will ever be any chance for me?"

Sara turned her eyes to his face.

"You mean----"

"I mean that I'm asking you once again if you will marry me? If you will--if I can go away leaving _my wife_ in England, I shall have so much the more to fight for. But if you can't give me the answer I wish--well"--with a curious little smile--"it will make death easier, should it come--that's all."

The quiet, grave directness of the speech was very unlike the old, impetuous Tim of former days. It brought with it to Sara's mind a definite recognition of the fact that the man had replaced the boy.

"No, Tim," she responded quietly. "I made one mistake--in promising to marry you when I loved another man. I won't repeat it."

"But"--Tim's face expressed sheer wonder and amazement--"you don't still care for Garth Trent--for that blackguard? Oh!" remorsefully, as he saw her wince--"forgive me, Sara, but this war makes one feel even more bitterly about such a thing than one would in normal times."

"I know--I understand," she replied quietly. "I'm--ashamed of loving him." She turned her head restlessly aside. "But, don't you see, love can't be made and unmade to order. It just _happens_. And it's happened to me. In the circ.u.mstances, I can't say I like it. But there it is. I do love Garth--and I can't _unlove_ him. At least, not yet."

"But some day, Sara, some day?" he urged.

She shook her head.

"I shall never marry anybody now, Tim. If--if ever I 'get over' this fool feeling for Garth, I know how it would leave me. I shall be quite cold and hard inside--like that stone"--pointing to the Queen's Bench.

"I wish--I wish I had reached that stage now."

Silently Tim held out his hand, and she laid hers within it, meeting his grave eyes.

"I won't ever bother you again," he said, at last, quietly. "I think I understand, Sara, and--and, old girl, I'm awfully sorry. I wish I could have saved you--that."

He stooped his head and kissed her--frankly, as a big brother might, and Sara, recognizing that henceforth she would find in him only the good comrade of earlier days, kissed him back.

"Thank you, Tim," she said. "I knew you would understand. And, please, we won't ever speak of it again."

"No, we won't speak of it again," he answered.

He tucked his arm under hers, and they walked on together in the direction of the house.

"And now," she said, "let's go to Elisabeth and break it to her that we are--both--going out to France as soon as we can get there."

He turned to look at her.

"You?" he exclaimed. "You going out? What do you mean?"

"I'm going with Lady Arronby. I want to go--badly. I want to be in the heart of things. You don't suppose"--with a rather shaky little laugh--"that I can stay quietly at home in England--and knit, do you?"

"No, I suppose _you_ couldn't. But I don't half like it. The women who go--out there--have got to face things. I shan't like to think of you running risks--"

She laughed outright.

"Tim, if you talk nonsense of that kind, I'll revenge myself by urging Elisabeth to keep you at home," she declared. "Oh! Tim boy, can't you see that just now I must have something to do--something that will fill up every moment--and keep me from thinking!"

Tim heard the cry that underlay the words. There was no misunderstanding it. He squeezed her arm and nodded.

"All right, old thing, I won't try to dissuade you. I can guess a little of how you're feeling."

Sara's interview with Elisabeth was very different from anything she had expected. She had antic.i.p.ated pa.s.sionate reproaches, tears even, for an attractive women who has been consistently spoiled by her menkind is, of all her s.e.x, the least prepared to bow to the force of circ.u.mstances.

But there was none of these things. It almost seemed as though in that first searching glance of hers, which flashed from Sara's face to the well-beloved one of her son, Elisabeth had recognized and accepted that, in the short s.p.a.ce of time since these two had met, the decision concerning Tim's future had been taken out of her hands.

It was only when, in the course of their long, intimate talk together, she had drawn from Sara the acknowledgment that she had once again refused to be Tim's wife, that her control wavered.

"But, Sara, surely--surely you can't still have any thought of marrying Garth Trent?" There was a hint of something like terror in her voice.

"No," Sara responded wearily. "No, I shall never marry--Garth Trent."

"Then why won't you--why can't you--"

"Marry Tim?"--quietly. "Because, although I shall never marry Garth now, I haven't stopped loving him."

"Do you mean that you can still care for him--now that you know what kind of man he is?"

"Oh! Good Heavens, Elisabeth!"--the irritation born of frayed nerves hardened Sara's voice so that it was almost unrecognizable--"you can't turn love on and off as you would a tap! I shall never marry _anybody_ now. Tim understands that, and--you must understand it, too."