Robin

Chapter 16

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The Wood was gradually growing darker. It had been almost brilliant

during a part of the afternoon because the bareness of the branches let

in the wintry sun. There were no leaves to keep it out and there had

been a rare, chill blue sky. All seemed cold blue sky where it was not

brown or sodden yellow fern and moss. The trunks of the trees looked

stark and the tall, slender white stems of the birches stood out here

and there among the darker growth like ghosts who were sentinels. It was

always a silent place and now its stillness seemed even added to by the

one sound which broke it--the sound of sobbing--sobbing--sobbing.

It had been going on for some time. There had stolen through the narrow

trodden pathway a dark slight figure and this had dropped upon the

ground under a large tree which was one of a group whose branches had

made a few months ago a canopy of green where birds had built nests and

where one nightingale had sung night after night to the moon.

Later--Robin had said to herself--she would go to the cottage, and she

would sit upon the hearth and lay her head on Mrs. Bennett's knee and

they would cling together and sob and talk of the battlefields and the

boys lying dead there. But she had no thought of saying any other thing

to her, because there was nothing left to say. She had said nothing to

Dr. Redcliff; she had only sat listening to him and feeling her eyes

widening as she tried to follow and understand what he was saying in

such a grave, low-toned cautious way--as if he himself were almost

afraid as he went on. What he said would once have been strange and

wonderful, but now it was not, because wonder had gone out of the

world. She only seemed to sit stunned before the feeling that now the

dream was not a sacred secret any longer and there grew within her, as

she heard, a wild longing to fly to the Wood as if it were a living

human thing who would hear her and understand--as if it would be like

arms enclosing her. Something would be there listening and she could

talk to it and ask it what to do.

She had spoken to it as she staggered down the path--she had cried out

to it with wild broken words, and then when she heard nothing she had

fallen down upon the earth and the sobbing--sobbing--had begun.

"Donal!" she said. "Donal!" And again, "Donal!" over and over. But

nothing answered, for even that which had been Donal--with the heavenly

laugh and the blue in his gay eyes and the fine, long smooth hands--had

been blown to fragments in a field somewhere--and there was nothing

anywhere.

That it should be this voice--Lord Coombe's! And that amazing as it was

to hear it, she was not amazed and did not care! Her sobbing ceased so

far as sobbing can cease on full flow. She lay still but for low

shuddering breaths.

"I have come because it is Donal," he said. "You told me once that you

had always hated me. Hatred is useless now. Don't feel it."

The Head of the House of Coombe showed no muscular facial sign of

emotion and stood stiffly still. But what was this which leaped scalding

to his glazed eyes and felt hot?

"Yes," he answered huskily. "I saw--even as he marched past--that his

eyes were heavy and had circles round them. There were other eyes like

his--some were boys' eyes and some were the eyes of men. They held their

heads up--but they had all said 'Good-bye'--as he had."

She who would have borne torment rather than betray the secret of the

dream, now that it could no longer be a secret lay reft of all but

memories and the wild longing to hold to her breast some shred which was

her own. He let her wail, but when her wailing ceased helplessly he bent

over her.

"Listen to me," he said. "If Donal were here he would tell you to

listen. You are a child. You are too young to know what has come upon

you--both."

"You were both too young--and you were driven by fate. If he had been

more than a boy--and if he had not been in a frenzy--he would have

remembered. He would have thought--"

Yes--yes! She knew how young! But oh, what mattered youth--or

thought--or remembering! Her small hand beat in soft impatience on the

ground.

He was--strangely--on one knee beside her, his head bent close, and in

his voice there was a new strong insistence--as if he would not let her

alone-- Oh! Donal! Donal!

His voice was almost hard. She did not know that in his mind was a

memory which now in secret broke him--a memory of a belief which was a

thing he had held as a gift--a certain faith in a clear young highness

and strength of body and soul in this one scion of his house, which even

in youth's madness would have _remembered_. If the lad had been his own

son he might have felt something of the same pang.

His words brought back what she had heard Redcliff say to her earlier in

the day--the thing which had only struck her again to the earth.

Stupefied and lost to all things as she was, she heard something in his

harshness she could not understand and was startled by. Her small

starved face stared at him piteously. There was no one but herself left

in the world.

"But he should have remembered," the harsh voice revealed more than he

knew. "He could have given his child all that life holds that men call

happiness. How could even a lad forget! He loved you--you loved him. If

he had married you--"

He stopped in the midst of the words. The little starved face stared at

him with a kind of awfulness of woe. She spoke as if she scarcely knew

the words she uttered, and not, he saw, in the least as if she were

defending herself--or as if she cared whether he believed her or not--or

as if it mattered.

Something turned over in his side. He had heard it said that hearts did

such things. It turned--because she did not care. She knew what love and

death were--what they _were_--not merely what they were called--and life

and shame and loss meant nothing.

"Do you know what you are saying?" he heard the harshness of his voice

break. "For God's sake, child, let me hear the truth."

"There was--no time," she said. "Every day he said it. He knew--he

_knew_. Before he was killed he wanted _something_ that was his own. It

was our secret. I wanted to keep it his secret till I died."

"I do not know. It was a little house in a poor crowded street. Donal

took me. Suddenly we were frightened because we thought he was to go

away in three days. A young chaplain who was going away too was his

friend. He had just been married himself. He did it because he was sorry

for us. There was no time. His wife lent me a ring. They were young too

and they were sorry."

He was a man who had lived through tragedy but that had been long ago.

Since then he had only known the things of the world. He had seen

struggles and tricks and paltry craftiness. He had known of women caught

in traps of folly and passion and weakness and had learned how terror

taught them to lie and shift and even show abnormal cleverness. Above

all he knew exactly what the world would say if a poor wretch of a girl

told a story like this of a youngster like Donal--when he was no longer

on earth to refute it.

And yet if these wild things were true, here in a wintry wood she sat a

desolate and undefended thing--with but one thought. And in that which

was most remote in his being he was conscious that he was for the moment

relieved because even worldly wisdom was not strong enough to overcome

his desire to believe in a certain thing which was--that the boy would

have played fair even when his brain whirled and all his fierce youth

beset him.

As he regarded her he saw that it would be difficult to reach her mind

which was so torn and stunned. But by some method he must reach it.

He began to ask such questions as a sane man would know must be answered

clearly and as he heard her reply to each he gradually reached the

realisation of what her empty-handed, naked helplessness confronted.

That he himself comprehended what no outsider would, was due to his

memories of heart-wrung hours, of days and nights when he too had been

unable to think quite sanely or to reason with a normal brain. Youth is

a remorseless master. He could see the tempest of it all--the hours of

heaven--and the glimpses of hell's self--on whose brink the two had

stood clinging breast to breast. With subtle carefulness he slowly

gleaned it all. He followed the rising of the tide which at first had

borne them along unquestioning. They had not even asked where they were

going because the way led through young paradise. Then terror had

awakened them. There had come to them the news of death day after

day--lads they knew and had seen laughing a few weeks before--Halwyn,

Meredith, Jack or Harry or Phil. A false rumour of a sudden order to the

Front and they had stood and gazed into each other's eyes in a fateful

hour. Robin did not know of the picture her disjointed, sobbed-forth

sentences and words made clear. Coombe could see the lad as he stood

before her in this very Wood and then went slowly down upon his knees

and kissed her small feet in the moss as he made his prayer. There had

been something rarely beautiful in the ecstasy of his tenderness--and

she had given herself as a flower gives itself to be gathered. She

seemed to have seen nothing, noted nothing, on the morning of the mad

marriage, but Donal, who held her trembling in his arms as they drove

through the crowded streets in the shabby neighbourhood she had never

seen before, to the house crowded between others all like itself. She

had actually not heard the young chaplain's name in her shyness and

tremor. He would scarcely have been an entity but for the one moving

fact that he himself had just hastily married a girl he adored and must

leave, and so sympathised and understood the stress of their hour. On

their way home they had been afraid of chance recognition and had tried

to shield themselves by sitting as far back as possible in the cab.

She had not dreamed of asking questions. Donal had taken care of her and

tried to help her to be less afraid of seeing people who might recognise

her. She had tilted her hat over her face and worn a veil. She had gone

home to Eaton Square--and then in the afternoon to the cottage at

Mersham Wood.

They had not written letters to each other. Robin had been afraid and

they had met almost every day. Once Lord Coombe thought himself on the

track of some clue when she touched vaguely on some paper Donal had

meant to send her and had perhaps forgotten in the haste and pressure of

the last few hours because his orders had been so sudden. But there was

no trace. There had been something he wished her to have. But if this

had meant that his brain had by chance cleared to sane reasoning and he

had, for a few moments touched earth and intended to send her some proof

which would be protection if she needed it--the moment had been too late

and, at the last, action had proved impossible. And Death had come so

soon. It was as though a tornado had swept him out of her arms and

dashed him broken to earth. And she was left with nothing because she

asked nothing--wanted nothing.

"There never _was_ any one but Donal, you know," she said. To all the

rest of the world she was as a creature utterly unawake and to a man who

was of the world and who had lived a long life in it the contemplation

of her was a strange and baffling thing.

"Because of this tragic thing you must believe me. It will be necessary

that you should. What you have thought of me with regard to your mother

is not true. You believed it because the world did. Denial on my part

would merely have called forth laughter. Why not? When a man who has

money and power takes charge of a pretty, penniless woman and pays her

bills, the pose of Joseph or Galahad is not a good one for him. My

statement would no more have been believed than yours will be believed

if you can produce no proof. What you say is what any girl might say in

your dilemma, what I should have said would have been what any man might

have said. But--I believe you. Do you believe _me_?"

She did not understand why suddenly--though languidly--she knew that he

was telling her a thing which was true. It was no longer of consequence

but she knew it. And if it was true all she had hated him for so long

had been founded on nothing. He had not been bad--he had only _looked_

bad and that he could not help. But what did that matter, either? She

could not feel even sorry.

"The Wood is growing very dark," he said. "We must go. I will take you

to Mrs. Bennett's and you can spend the night with her."

The Wood was growing dark indeed. He was obliged to guide her through

the closeness of the undergrowth. They threaded their way along the

narrow path and the shadows seemed to close in behind them. Before they

reached the end which would have led them out into the open he put his

hand on her shoulder and held her back.

"In this Wood--even now--there is Something which must be saved from

suffering. It is helpless--it is blameless. It is not you--it is not

Donal. God help it."

He spoke steadily but strangely and his voice was so low that it was

almost a whisper--though it was not one. For the first time she felt

something stir in her stunned mind--as if thought were wakening--fear--a

vague quaking. Her wan small face began to wonder and in the dark

roundness of her eyes a question was to be seen like a drowned thing

slowly rising from the deeps of a pool. But she asked no question. She

only waited a few moments and let him look at her until she said at last

in a voice as near a whisper as his own.

In the 1600s, Balthasar Gracian, a jesuit priest wrote 300 aphorisms on living life called "The Art of Worldly Wisdom." Join our newsletter below and read them all, one at a time.