Robin

Chapter 4

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There was one facet of the great stone of War upon which many strange

things were written. They were not the things most discussed or

considered. They were results--not causes. But for the stress of mental,

spiritual and physical tempest-of-being the colossal background of storm

created, many of them might never have happened; but the consequences of

their occurrence were to touch close, search deep, and reach far into

the unknown picture of the World the great War might leave in fragments

which could only be readjusted by centuries of time.

The interested habit of observation of, and reflection on, her kind

which knew no indifferences, in the mind of the Duchess of Darte,

awakened by stages to the existence of this facet and to the moment of

the writings thereupon.

"It would seem almost as if Nature--Fate--had meant to give a new

impulse to the race--to rouse human creatures to new moods, to thrust

them into places where they see new things. Men and women are being

dragged out of their self-absorbed corners and stirred up and shaken.

Emotions are being roused in people who haven't known what a real

emotion was. Middle-aged husbands and wives who had sunk into

comfortable acceptance of each other and their boys and girls are being

dragged out of bed, as it were, and wakened up and made to stand on

their feet and face unbelievable possibilities. If you have boys old

enough to be soldiers and girls old enough to be victims--your life

makes a sort of _volte face_ and everyday, worldly comforts and

successes or little failures drop out of your line of sight, and change

their values. Mothers are beginning to clutch at their sons; and even

self-centred fathers and selfish pretty sisters look at their male

relatives with questioning, with a hint of respect or even awe in it.

Perhaps the women feel it more than the men. Good-looking, light-minded,

love-making George has assumed a new aspect to his mother and to

Kathryn. They're secretly yearning over him. He has assumed a new aspect

to me. I yearn over him myself. He has changed--he has suddenly grown

up. Boys are doing it on every hand."

"The youngest youngster vibrates with the shock of cannon firing, even

though the sound may not be near enough to be heard," answered Coombe.

"We're all vibrating unconsciously. We are shuddering consciously at the

things we hear and are mad to put a stop to, before they go further."

"Innocent little villages full of homes torn and trampled under foot and

burned!" the Duchess almost cried out. "And worse things than

that--worse things! And the whole monstrosity growing more huge and

throwing out new and more awful tentacles every day."

"That is why the poor human things are clutching at each other, and

finding values and attractions where they did not see them before.

Colonel Marion and his wife were here yesterday. He is a stout man over

fifty and has a red face and prominent eyes. His wife has been so

occupied with herself and her children that she had almost forgotten he

existed. She looked at and listened to him as if she were a bride."

"I have seen changes of that sort myself," said Coombe. "He is more

alive himself. He has begun to be of importance. And men like him have

been killed already--though the young ones go first."

"The young ones know that, and they clutch the most frantically. That is

what I am seeing in young eyes everywhere. Mere instinct makes it

so--mere uncontrollable instinct which takes the form of a sort of

desperateness at facing the thousand chances of death before they have

lived. They don't know it isn't actual fear of bullets and shrapnel.

Sometimes they're afraid it's fear and it makes them sick at themselves

and determined to grin and hide it. But it isn't fear--it's furious

Nature protesting."

"God help the young things--those of them who never meet again--and

perhaps, also, some of those who do. The nation ought to take care of

the children. If there is a nation left, God knows they will be needed,"

the Duchess said. "One of my footmen who 'joined up' has revealed an

unsuspected passion for a housemaid he used to quarrel with, and who

seemed to detest him. I have three women in my household who have

soldier lovers in haste to marry them. I shall give them my blessing and

take care of the wives when they are left behind. One can be served by

old men and married women--and one can turn cottages into small

orphanages if the worst happens."

"There is a reason now why I am the Dowager Duchess of Darte," she went

on, "and why I have money and houses and lands. There is a reason why I

have lived when it sometimes seemed as if my usefulness was over. There

are uses for my money--for my places--for myself. Lately I have found

myself saying, as Mordecai said to Esther, 'Who knowest whether thou art

not come to the kingdom for such a time as this.' A change is taking

place in me too. I can do more because there is so much more to do. I

can even use my hands better. Look at them."

She held them out that he might see them--her beautiful old-ivory

fingers, so long stiffened by rheumatism. She slowly opened and shut

them.

"I can move them more--I have been exercising them and having them

rubbed. I want to be able to knit and sew and wait on myself and perhaps

on other people. Because I have been a rich, luxurious old woman it has

not occurred to me that there were rheumatic old women who were forced

to do things because they were poor--the things I never tried to do. I

have begun to try."

"Do you know what I have been doing?" she said. "I have been praying to

God--for a sort of miracle. In their terror people are beginning to ask

their Deity for things as they have never done it before. We are most of

us like children waking in horror of the black night and shrieking for

some one to come--some one--any one! Each creature cries out to his own

Deity--the God his own need has made. Most of us are doing it in

secret--half ashamed to let it be known. We are abject things. Mothers

and fathers are doing it--young lovers and husbands and wives."

"For power to do things I have not done for years. I want to walk--to

stand--to work. If under the stress of necessity I begin to do all

three, my doctors will say that mental exaltation and will power have

caused the change. It may be true, but mental exaltation and will power

are things of the soul not of the body. Anguish is actually forcing me

into a sort of practical belief. I am trying to 'have faith even as a

grain of mustard seed' so that I may say unto my mountain, 'Remove hence

to yonder place and it shall be removed.'"

"'The things which I do, ye shall do also and even greater things than

these shall ye do.'" Coombe repeated the words deliberately. "I heard an

earnest middle-aged dissenter preach a sermon on that text a few days

ago."

"I am one of the children, I suppose. Though I do not shriek aloud,

probably something shrieks within me. I was passing a small chapel and

heard a singular voice. I don't know exactly why I went into the place,

but when I sat down inside I felt the tension of the atmosphere at once.

Every one looked anxious or terrified. There were pale faces and stony

or wild eyes. It did not seem to be an ordinary service and voices kept

breaking out with spasmodic appeals, 'Almighty God, look down on us!'

'Oh, Christ, have mercy!' 'Oh, God, save us!' One woman in black was

rocking backwards and forwards and sobbing over and over again, 'Oh,

Jesus! Jesus! Oh, Lord Jesus!'"

"Part of her body and soul was lying done to death in some field--or by

some roadside," said the Duchess. "She could not pray--she could only

cry out. I can hear her, 'Oh, Lord Jesus!'"

Later came the morning when the changed George came to say good-bye. He

was wonderfully good-looking in his khaki and seemed taller and more

square of jaw. He made a few of the usual young jokes which were

intended to make things cheerful and to treat affectionate fears

lightly, but his good-natured blue eye held a certain deadly quiet in

its depths.

His mother and Kathryn were with him, and it was while they were

absorbed in anxious talk with the Duchess that he walked over to where

Robin sat and stood before her.

"Will you come into the library and let me say something to you? I don't

want to go away without saying it," he put it to her.

The library was the adjoining room and Robin rose and went with him

without any comment or question. Already the time had come when

formalities had dropped away and people did not ask for trivial

explanations. The pace of events had become too rapid.

"There are a lot of chances when a man goes out--that he won't come

back," he said, still standing after she had taken a place in the

window-seat he guided her to. "There are not as many as one's friends

can't help thinking--but there are enough to make him feel he'd like to

leave things straight when he goes. What I want you to let me say is,

that the minute I had made a fool of myself the night of the dance, I

knew what an ass I had been and I was ready to grovel."

"I flew into a temper and would not let you," she answered him. "It

_was_ temper--but there were things you didn't know. It was not your

fault that you didn't." The square, good-natured face flushed with

relief, and George's voice became even slightly unsteady.

"That's kind of you," he said, "it's _kind_ and I'm jolly grateful.

Things mean a lot just now--with all one's people in such a state and

trying so pluckily to hide it. I just wanted to make sure that you knew

that _I_ knew that the thing only happened because I was a silly idiot

and for no other reason. You will believe me, won't you, and won't

remember it if you ever remember me?"

"You have made it awfully easy for me. Thank you, Miss Lawless." He

hesitated a second and then dropped his voice. "I wonder if I dare--I

wonder if it would be cheek--and impudence if I said something else?"

"Scarcely anything seems cheek or impudence now," Robin answered with

simple sadness. "Nothing ordinary seems to matter because _everything_

is of so much importance."

"I feel as if what I wanted to say was one of the things that _are_

important. I don't know what--older people--or safe ones--would think

about it, but--" He broke off and began again. "To _us_ young ones who

are facing-- It's the only big thing that's left us--in our bit of the

present. We can only be sure of to-day--"

"Yes--yes," Robin cried out low. "Only to-day--just to-day." She even

panted a little and George, looking into her eyes, knew that he might

say anything, because for a reason she was one of the girls who in this

hour could understand.

"Perhaps you don't know where our house is," he said quite quickly. "It

is one of those in the Square--facing the Gardens. I might have played

with you there when I was a little chap--but I don't think I did."

"I gave him the key to the Gardens that day," he hurried on. "I was at

the window with him when he saw you. I understood in a minute when I saw

his face and he'd said half a dozen words to me. I gave him my key. He

has got it now." He actually snatched at both her hands and gripped

them. It was a _grip_ and his eyes burned through a sort of sudden

moisture. "We can't stay here and talk. But I couldn't _not_ say it! Oh,

I say, be _good_ to him! You would, if he had only a day to live because

some damned German bullet had struck him. You're life--you're

youngness--you're _to-day_! Don't say 'No' to _anything_ he asks of

you--for God's sake, don't."

"God take care of the pair of you--and be good to the rest of us,"

whispered George, wringing her hands hard and dropping them.

A few weeks later he was lying, a mangled object, in a field in

Flanders. One of thousands--living, laughing, good as honest bread is

good; the possible passer-on of life and force and new thinking for new

generations--one of hundreds of thousands--one of millions before the

end came--nice, healthy, normal-minded George, son and heir of a house

of decent nobles.

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.