CHAPTER X

THE BEGINNING OF WAR

PEGGY knows all about our Great-aunt Grisel. She always comes into our rooms and brushes out our hair for us in the evening. Aunt Isobel told her to do it after Miss Garton came. At first we didn't like it, for we've always done everything for ourselves, and we like to talk over the day together, and we don't always like her hearing what we say, but we're getting accustomed to her, and she does not stay very long.

"Was Aunt Grisel wild when she was young?" Lynette asked, for I had told her all that had been said.

"Aye, she were wild, indeed!" said Peggy, shaking her head. "She and Mr. Dick were always galloping about the country on half-broken horses. No, no, Mr. Dick is not your grandfather. He died of fever in India when he were quite a young man. Your grandfather were the eldest of all, and much more circumspect. Nobody could keep Miss Grisel in order. Her father spoiled her, and her mother were too delicate to struggle with her high sperrits. There wasn't a prank played but Miss Grisel was in it, and even to her wedding-day, she were like a heedless child."

"Tell us more, Peggy," I said. "Did you live with them all then?"

"No, but I was a bit of a lassie in the village when your grandfeyther brought his bride home to this house. And Miss Grisel was not married then. I come to live here afore your sweet mother were born, and Miss Grisel married the year after. I can see her dancing across the lawn with her hair down her back the very day before she was wed, and young Mr. Bannock, he stood and called to her.

"'My last day of liberty,' she cried, 'and 'tis your place to come to "me."'

"With that she ran clean away into the woods, and he never saw her till the next morning when she sailed up the church as haughty as a queen!"

"What a pity girls like that get old!" I said. "It must be so trying for them to have to sober down."

"Marriage sobers most," said Peggy.

"Yes," said Lynette quickly, "I shall take good care not to marry till I'm quite old."

"Then you won't be wanted," I said, laughing.

I longed to see Aunt Grisel again, but to-day came at last, and Lynette and I have spent a lovely day with her. And she told us a lot of funny stories, and wasn't a bit like Aunt Isobel, though she is much older. We just told her everything, and she was never shocked. Lynette asked her why she wasn't, and she said:

"I just remember what I was myself. And nobody ought to be shocked at young people's spirits and heedlessness. It is only lies and deceit that shock me. I can't do with 'them'."

She took us into a very big aviary she had; there were all kinds of birds in it, such dear little love-birds, and canaries and finches, and beautiful coloured paraquets. They all seemed to know her, and she knew every one of them, and had a name for each. The aviary had beautiful sand at the bottom, and a little fountain and round stone trough, and there were trees and ferns growing in it. Lynette said she would like to live in a cage like that. But I said the bars all round would be awful.

We told her about the boys and Pat, and she knows Pat and likes him.

Just before we left her, she called me into her private room, a little sitting-room next her bedroom.

"I want to give you this, Grisel," she said. "I have never sent you a present, have I? And I know you will love this. I had it taken for myself. And your mother was only a year older than you when she had it painted. Don't you see the likeness to yourself?"

She put into my hands a beautiful little miniature of darling mother, made up into a pendant. I felt the tears crowding into my eyes as I looked at it. I could not see that it was a bit like me. Mother had a band of blue velvet through her hair, and it was clustering in curls round her face. A string of pearls was round her neck, and her eyes looked straight at me, in a sweet, steadfast way. She seemed to be looking into my soul, but was pleased at what she saw there, for she was smiling so contentedly and happily! At least that was what she looked like to me.

"Oh, Aunt Grisel," I said, "I can't thank you! I can't tell you what I feel! To have this for my very own! Do you really mean it?"

"I really do."

Aunt Grisel was smiling, and then she bent down and gave me one of her quick, sudden kisses.

"I am sure you are good, are you not?" she said. "I shan't have to talk in a godmother's style to you, shall I? You don't need that."

"Oh, I'm not a bit good," I cried, "but I want to be!"

"That's all right, then," said Aunt Grisel, with a funny little laugh. "If the want is there, the rest will follow!"

Then she turned to her dressing-case, and took out a slender gold chain.

"Take this with it, child," she said, "then you can wear it always round your neck under your frocks and it will be safe!"

So then I thanked her again, and she fastened it round my neck herself, and I came away feeling as happy as if I were in heaven with father and mother.

To-night we have been talking about it—Lynette and I.

"Doesn't she look as if she were speaking to us, Lynette?" I said. "What is it she is saying?"

"Yes, she's saying something good to us," said Lynette, staring at the miniature, which I had put down on our dressing-table.

And then I seemed to understand all at once. It was an inspiration.

"She is saying 'Hold fast!' Look, Lynette, isn't she?"

Lynette stared in silence for a minute, then she nodded gravely.

"Yes, mother," she said in a half whisper; "I'm doing it. It's on my foot, you know. I can't forget!"

Mother's eyes looked right into mine. She was so sweet, so earnest! I felt positively certain she knew all about us; she seemed to say, "It is your charge, Grisel. Hold fast! Hold fast! Darling, I see it in your heart, but act it out every day!"

And I bent and kissed her smiling mouth.

"Oh, mother, I will!" I said, and I prayed then and there that God would help me to do it.

Now I'm writing this and I'm just going to bed, and I mean to sleep with mother's sweet face under my pillow. But Lynette is sitting upon the outside of her bed in her nightdress, and her hands are clasped round her knees.

"Grisel, it's all nonsense. We weren't born when mother was painted and looked like that; it's only our make-up!"

"Oh, bother!" I said. "You're always so matter-of-fact—as bad as Aylwin."

"You're so silly and romantic," scoffed Lynette.

"I mean to be," I said firmly, "and can't mother's spirit come into her picture for a moment, and bring us a message from God?"

Lynette stared at me with her big blue eyes. Then she scrambled into bed, and I am going to follow her. I do sometimes have the last word!

* * * * *

Such a long time has gone by since I wrote in this book. We have been busy with our lessons, and everything has gone on as usual, but now the whole world seems topsy-turvy, and I'm wondering if it is not some awful dream. The summer holidays have come, and Miss Garton has left us, and we are all a merry party again alone in our schoolroom. The boys seem to be grown, and Denys looks very tall, and talks as if he is almost a man. He is over sixteen, so I suppose he is growing up. Pat has been over to us just as wild as ever. He will never grow up, I am sure, and yet—and yet, after what has happened, I am not so sure, but I must make haste to write it down.

Two days ago Pat came over, and he could talk of nothing but Ulster and the Home Rule Bill. He declared he would go over and take part in the fighting when it once began.

"Do you think this cold old cautious porridge country will keep me, when Ould Oireland is callin' to her boys to come and save her?"

"But you're at school!" I said.

"School be blown to the four winds!" ejaculated Pat. "Do you think anything short of bolts and bars would hold me when there's fightin' about?"

"Oh," I said, little dreaming of what was coming upon us, "I hope there'll be no fighting, Pat. Even now something may stop it. I don't see how civil war could ever come again. We're too civilised for it. How could you shoot a man passing along the street in cold blood, Pat?"

"Sure my blood would be boiling hot," said Pat.

And then to-day, like a thunder-bolt, came the news. We don't read the newspapers; sometimes Miss Garton reads bits out to us, but we've been much too busy down by the sea to think of papers since the holidays began. We have bathed and paddled and boated and shrimped, and had a splendid time.

This afternoon we were dragging ourselves home to tea, tired and dirty and very untidy, when to our astonishment grandfather, standing at the front door, waved his newspaper at us.

"England has declared war against Germany!" he said.

We rushed up the steps. He often sits outside waiting for the papers in the afternoon. We get our papers very late here. Aunt Isobel was standing by him, and she was looking quite white and frightened. And then Denys and Aylwin threw their caps up in the air and shouted:

"God save the King! Hurrah for Old England!"

Grandfather didn't scold them for the noise they made. He was awfully excited. He told us what had been happening, how the last week things had been moving awfully fast, and how Germany had rushed into Belgium, and was fighting horribly there now.

"And, oh," he said with a groan, "to think that I shall have to sit like an old hulk here, and be too old to do anything!"

Then Denys threw up his head.

"But our chance has come, grandfather. We shall want all our men. And in war time, they take boys. You'll let me go, won't you? I shall have the time of my life!"

I gasped, and so did Lynette.

Grandfather put his hand on Denys's shoulder.

"You're at least a year too young," he said, "but that's the spirit, my boy. You wouldn't be a grandson of mine if you weren't keen to serve your King!"

We all talked hard then, and we actually found ourselves telling grandfather about our Empire League which we had founded in Lincolnshire, and how we had all made up our minds to fight for king and country when the opportunity came.

Then our tea-bell rang out, and we had to go, but I could hardly get the boys to wash their hands for tea—they were so excited. It seemed as if it could not be true. We had talked of the Germans fighting us so often, and we had heard all that Captain Rogers said about our country being so unprepared, and had somehow felt that war would never really come, and now it had, and I was almost stunned by it.

We were all talking when Puff broke in with a solemn face:

"And will the Germans get here to-morrow, do you think? And how will we begin? And where will be the battlefield?"

"You little stupid!" said Lynette. "They won't get here at all. We're going to fight them in Belgium."

"Then we shan't see nothing at all!" said Puff in a disappointed tone.

"Oh, if only we had been born a couple of years earlier," groaned Aylwin. "It does seem too awful to be out of it as we are!"

"We won't be out of it," I said, jumping up from the tea-table and walking up and down the room in my excitement. "There'll be a lot to do for us girls, I know! We're bound to help the war. Our day has come!"

"Hurrah!" cried Aylwin.

And Lynette joined him. "Our day has come."

And then they marched round the room, singing at the top of their voices:

Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee Our love and toil in the years to be! When we are grown and take our place As men and women with our race.

* * * * *

Land of our Birth, our Faith, our Pride, For whose dear sake our fathers died; Oh, Motherland! we pledge to thee Head, heart, and hand through the years to be.

The last two lines were our battle-cry in the Empire League.

Denys and I echoed them with a shout! And Puff joined us:

Oh, Motherland! we pledge to thee Head, heart, and hand through the years to be!

"Why, old Grizzy is weeping!" cried Aylwin.

"I can't help it!" I said, wiping my eyes. "It takes me back to when we were so happy with the aunts and with father! And I'm thinking of the war beginning. It has come. It is really here! The thing we dreamt about, and talked about, and sang about!"

"And trained for!" Denys said.

"And worked for," said Lynette.

"And enlisted for!" shouted Aylwin.

We were by this time all very hot and red in the face, and our tea was unfinished on the table.

Peggy, hearing our shouting, put her head in at the door.

"I misses your governess!" she said drily.

The boys seized hold of her.

"Peggy, have you heard the news?"

"That the dratted Kaiser be shootin' down women and children! Even though they be foreigners, it is shockin'!"

"Has he begun that?" I said, quite horrified. "Why, Peggy, you know more than we do!"

"'Tis in the paper to-day. The kitching be quite full of all the news!"

"Go and fetch us a paper, Peggy!"

"Indeed, I couldn't lay hands on one, Master Denys."

"I'll go and ask Gruffy for his!"

Puff was off in a minute, and we did not stop him. He always loves an excuse for getting to grandfather.

"Well," said Denys, flinging himself down upon his chair again, and cutting himself a huge slice out of a currant loaf, "we must eat to keep up our strength for our Empire. Grizzy, another cup of tea; and now let us seriously consider the situation."

"I am considering it!" I exclaimed. "And, Lynette, do you remember Captain Rogers's charge to us girls? 'Inspire men, help men to do right'!"

"Grizzy's eyes are starting out of her head!" said Denys, laughing. "Trust her for keeping us up to the mark!"

"You aren't men yet!" said Lynette scoffingly. "And there are other men in the world beside you."

"Yes," I said, trying to speak quietly, though my heart was almost trying to come out of my body, "and that's what I mean, Lynette. Every citizen in the Empire ought to enlist as a soldier, every man in the place here, and if they don't understand it, or don't want to go, you and I will have to go round, and make them!"

Lynette clapped her hands delightedly. "So we will, Grisel! It will be ripping! We'll begin to-morrow."

The boys said nothing for a few moments. They both seemed to be thinking hard, and then Denys pushed back his chair and stood up. He had finished his tea.

"Ahem!" said Lynette mischievously.

Denys ignored her.

"It seems to me," he said, in his very grand and business-like tone, "that we shall have to be looking up the fellows who joined our League. They're bound to hold to their pledge, and there were a good few older than me. They're quite old enough now to join."

"I should think they would do it without any looking up," I said; "and you can't go back to Lincolnshire, Denys."

"No, you old duffer," said Aylwin, "but the post goes there, doesn't it?"

Denys nodded.

"Yes, that's what I mean. And we'd better not lose a post. I should like our old members to be the very first to enlist."

So Aylwin rushed off for pen and ink, but I besought the boys to wait till the tea-table was cleared, as I know how they flourish the ink about when they're composing. And I rang the bell, and then Puff came up, actually with the paper!

We were all so interested and horrified to read the awful things that were going on that we forgot all about the letters for quite a long time. And then we remembered, and Denys began to compose, and we helped him. This is what he wrote, after he had torn up quite half a dozen first attempts:

TO OUR MEMBERS OF THE EMPIRE LEAGUE

"One King, one Flag, one Fleet, one Empire!"

The Day has come. The hour is here. The King calls! The Empire needs you. Have you enlisted? If not, do it to-day. Thank God for your opportunity.

HOLD FAST

TO YOUR PLEDGE

Oh, Motherland, we pledge to thee Head, heart, and hand through the years to be.

DEAR MEMBER AND COMRADE,—

Write to me at once and tell me if you have enlisted. The enemy is cruel and strong. I know you won't be a coward or a rotter. I'm going if I can before I'm seventeen.

Yours in the King's Service. DENYS MARJORIBANKS.

GOD SAVE THE KING!

We copied quite a dozen of these, and then Denys hunted up an old roll-call of his, and we got the names of all the big boys who used to join us, and addressed envelopes to them. It took a shilling of our money for the stamps, but we divided it between us, and then Denys slipped down into the hall and got the letters in the postbag, just before it was taken to the post.

Then we had to go to bed, for it was late, and we were all rather tired with the awfulness and the excitement and the glory of a big war in front of us.