CHAPTER XV

AN OLD FRIEND

I HAVE had a great surprise.

Last Saturday I went over to Aunt Grisel's. And when I got there, she asked me to arrange some flowers for her wounded soldiers.

I had seen none of them, for they had been kept very quiet. Miss Fawcett was generally with them.

I love arranging flowers, especially when one is allowed to pick what one chooses from the greenhouses. And when I had filled all the vases, Aunt Grisel asked me to come with her and place them in the rooms.

I felt a little bit shy. And as we were going upstairs, she told me about them. One had been wounded in the head, and, though it wasn't a very dangerous wound, it had left him partly paralysed all down one side; another was deaf and dumb from shock, one was suffering from gas poisoning, and the two others were suffering from nerves. It all seemed dreadfully sad. The first one we saw was the one who had been poisoned by gas. He was lying in bed breathing rather heavily. Aunt Grisel spoke very brightly to him.

"I have brought you some flowers which my little goddaughter here has arranged. Put them on that table, Grisel!"

In an instant, a smooth dark head raised itself from the pillow. And, to my amazement and delight, I saw that it was actually Gervas Carrington!

He smiled all over his face when he saw me.

"I thought there weren't many Grisels in the world," he said, in a weak husky voice.

"Oh, Gervas," I said, going over to his bed, "how delightful to see you! And yet I'm sorry too! Are you very ill! Too ill for me to talk to you? Aunt Grisel, Gervas is a very old friend of ours. He lives in Lincolnshire."

"Or did," put in Gervas. "My mother is with my father in India now, so I have no home. Otherwise, I might not be here."

"Don't make him talk too much, child, or Miss Fawcett may forbid our visits altogether. But you can sit down and talk to him a little if you like, whilst I take the flowers to the other rooms."

She left us. I took the chair by the bedside, and Gervas put out a very thin brown hand and took hold of mine.

"Little Grisel!" he said in a low voice. "I would rather see you than any one else in the world—next to my mother."

And then my eyes suddenly filled with tears. When last I had seen him he was so strong and well, and now he seemed so frail and feeble!

"It's my lungs," he said, "but I'm better, and longing to be out in your fresh pure Scotch air. I haven't been out in France a month. It's hard luck!"

"Isn't it strange your being sent up here?" I said.

"How do you come here? Do you know it was your Empire League that took me to Sandhurst? I was filled up with enthusiasm to serve. I haven't done much serving, but I did my best."

He seemed to speak with difficulty.

"Don't talk, Gervas," I said. "Let me tell you what has been happening to all of us. Our lives have been altered altogether since father's death."

Then I told him everything. All about father's Charge to me, and how we are trying to keep it, and about Pat, and grandfather and Aunt Isobel. And then by the time I had finished about the oil in the caves, Miss Fawcett came in. Everybody calls her "Sister" now. And she is dressed in a nurse's cap and apron.

"You're not tiring my patient, Grisel?" she said.

"She's doing me pounds of good," said Gervas.

Miss Fawcett smiled. She brought him a cup of beef-tea on a tray, and he sat up and took it, but his cough was dreadful, and he moved like a weary old man. I sat silent till he had taken his beef-tea, and then I was going to follow Miss Fawcett out of the room, when Gervas asked me to stay a little longer.

"You're a bit of home," he said. "I won't talk."

So Miss Fawcett left us. I didn't want to go and see any of the other invalids.

I told Gervas about Denys being at Woolwich.

"He may get leave at Christmas," I said, "but they're working very hard. He's longing to get out to the front. Somehow or other, the glory of war is fading away. I used to long that it might come and give us something to do and dare for our country, but women can dare nothing. They only read the papers and hear about the awful, things going on."

Gervas looked at me thoughtfully with his great dark eyes.

"You're growing up," he said.

"I suppose I am. I think this war makes one grow. I mean I can't tear about so wildly as I used to do. I wonder sometimes that we can ever laugh."

"You must look on to the end," he said.

"I suppose," I said slowly, "it's very awful out at the front, Gervas?"

"It isn't play. But it's time we English woke up. We were taking it too easy all round."

"Oh, I do hope you will soon be well again," I cried.

"I'd like to do a bit more," said Gervas, "but you and I know that everything that happens to us is all right, so I shan't worry!"

I remembered how good Gervas used to be, and I felt my heart warm right up.

"Yes, we do know that, Gervas," I said. "I wish we were all as good as you. I'm trying to remember that God wants to hold us all fast if we will let Him. But I often wonder what they must think in heaven about the war. I should think the angels must weep."

"I think," said Gervas slowly, "that they're very busy out in the trenches, guarding and guiding and comforting and carrying souls over the river."

Then he coughed, and I begged him not to talk. It was difficult to keep to Miss Fawcett's orders.

Very soon Aunt Grisel came back and took me away. Gervas gripped hold of my hand when he said good-bye.

"I shall see you again?" he asked.

"She comes over every Saturday," said Aunt Grisel. "I hope you'll be up next week. We're going to make a cure of you here. I must tell you that you would not be here except for Grisel. She persuaded her self-indulgent old aunt to turn her house into a hospital."

Gervas looked at me.

"She always inspires!" he said.

I hardly like to write this down. I don't think it is quite true, but it made me very happy. We always felt that same thing with Gervas when we knew him in Lincolnshire. He gave us a spurt on—the boys used to say.

But I came away from his room feeling very sad, and downstairs I told Aunt Grisel all about him.

"He will get well, won't he?" I said.

"We'll hope so, but he won't be fit to go back and fight for a long long time. We'll do our best for him here. You may be sure of that."

When I got home and told Lynette, she was awfully excited.

"I must go and see him next Saturday. Do ask Aunt Grisel to have me. I want to ask him about Beatrice and Clarice. If it's only his chest that is the matter, he'll soon get well. It isn't like having bullets in you, or smashing your arms and legs. Poor Gervas! What a shame he has no home! Perhaps, when he gets better, Aunt Isobel would ask him here. It's a pity he's come back from the war before he had a chance to be a hero and get a V.C. If Pat doesn't get a V.C. pretty soon, I shall be disgusted with him. Did you ask Gervas if he had done anything?"

"If you saw him lying there, gasping his life out," I said severely, "you would think he had done enough!"

Lynette wasn't much impressed. She rattled on:

"Did you tell him what you and I had been doing? I am sure we deserve a V.C. for finding that oil and braving death when we met that man!"

"I told him about it," I said, "but I hope I didn't brag about it as you are so fond of doing. We really were too frightened to do much. If we had caught the man and tied him up, and got nearly killed by him for doing it, that would have been something to be proud of! You're as bad as Puff sometimes!"

We always snub Puff, because he is so cocky.

Lynette laughed.

"You're such a prig, Grizzy!"

And then I went out of the room and banged the door behind me, for I hate being called a prig, and Lynette knows it.

This morning I actually had a letter from Pat. It came from France, and had the censor's ticket on it. I do love Pat's letters. He writes just like he talks, only he has never written to me before, but I have seen his letters to the boys.

"DEAR LITTLE MOTHER GRISEL,

"Here's the top of the morning to you, me darling! And what a morning for us! Sure 'tis the cart before the horse in this war! We are buried in our graves first, then we get out to fight. Send along all the grave-diggers you can find to help us with the pick and shovel, for them is the boys for us! 'Tis cruel work standing in ice and water up to your middle, and only lifting your nose and eyes up to the daylight once in a blue moon to get a squint at your foes. But we've had a dash on occasions, and then Huroosh for the Oirish boys! We've driven 'em back no end o' times! Our major is real grand at shouting. He's the very mischief when there's a real scrimmage, but his language—ahem—'tis hot enough and no mistake.

"The other morning a starched, stiff British general came by, and our major was in his best form tackling recruits, and rating them fast and furiously. The old general asked his name. 'McAndrew,' he was told. 'Make a note that in Major McAndrew's trenches there is no scarcity of fire or fuel,' he said, and passed on. And our poor major heard it, and was dumb for a whole day after.

"Well, and how is yourself? I've had two letters only, and letters out here, I can tell you, are as nectar! I'm trying hard to H.F. you'll like to know, and my little mascot is taken out and looked at every blessed day. Say a prayer for your poor Pat! Sure and he knows he wants it. For the shaves he has had from shot and shell would fill a book! And we're up against death every minute of the day, and it makes a fellow think of the world we're blown into, at such short summons. How is the Puffer! My love to the Scaramouche.

"Your worthless

"PAT."

The Scaramouche is Lynette. I shall write to Pat every week. Miss Garton says I may. I am so glad he reads his Testament. Oh, I do hope God will keep him safely!

* * * * *

Our Christmas holidays have come and Aylwin is home, and Denys is coming for a week next Tuesday. Scotch people don't make anything of Christmas. It seems so strange; only New Year's Day. That is the most important season to them. Gervas is much better. He walks about, but he has still got an awful cough, and says he is as weak as a chicken. He was awfully pleased to see Aylwin, and Lynette has been over several Saturdays with me. Aunt Isobel is going to ask Gervas over to dine and sleep with us on New Year's Day, for Denys will be with us then.

We had great excitement yesterday. An aeroplane came over the house, and alighted in one of grandfather's fields.

A Captain Hugh Gordon was in it. Aunt Isobel knew him, and, as there was something the matter with his machine, she asked him to come into the house. He stayed to lunch, and after lunch we were allowed to go out to the field and see him start again. His man had been repairing it, and it was all right again. He told us he was going to patrol the East Coast of England, where the Zeppelins are coming over. Aylwin begged him to take him up for a ride, and Lynette and I were wild to go too. I think it must be too lovely for words to go sailing through the sky, with the world at your feet. Captain Gordon said he would take Aylwin up for a few minutes, but not us girls.

"You are too precious!" he said, laughing.

"But," I cried, "that is just what we are not. It is boys and men who are precious now, because they can fight, and girls cannot. Our country might be the worse for want of Aylwin in a year or two, but not for us. Lynette and I could easily be spared!"

He only laughed at us.

"Our soldiers will want you to nurse them or marry them," he said. "No, you can't be spared."

And then Aylwin got into the car, and we watched them start the engine and run right along the field like a motor, and then suddenly rise, and rise, till they looked like some big bird. We caught our breath as we watched them.

Puff was with us.

"Why," he said, with big awed eyes, "they might be able to find their way into heaven if they flew high enough. What would happen then?"

We laughed at him, and I said:

"Nobody can find heaven, Puff."

"But we find it quick when we die," he said; "and it would be very nice to find it when we're alive."

We said no more to him, we were so busy watching the aeroplane, and then swiftly it came down and down and got bigger and bigger, until we saw the car and two little heads peeping out, and then in another minute it had come to the ground again.

Aylwin got out. He looked rather pale, and we thought it was with excitement, and we felt he was almost a hero.

Puff dashed forward to Captain Gordon. "Can you fly up out of sight," he asked, "through the clouds?"

"Yes, and very wet and cold they are."

Then Puff said in an eager whisper, for he did not want us to hear:

"Do try and find out heaven when you're up there. Even if you don't want to go inside just yet. Do you know if any flying man has found the way there yet?"

Captain Gordon did not smile; he looked at him long and seriously.

"Yes, little chap, some find their way there, we'll hope!"

"When they're flying?"

"When they have a tumble."

And then Captain Gordon waved his hand to us, and got into his car again, and his man got in with him, and away they went, and we watched them with craning necks and strained eyes till they were out of sight.

Then we asked Aylwin to describe his feelings. But he's stupid at that kind of thing.

"It was A1," he said. "At first you feel rather as you do when you try to smoke. I've quite made up my mind that when I leave school, I'll go into the Flying Corps."

"That will be ripping!" said Lynette. "And then you can bring your machine home and take us flying trips. I don't see why we shouldn't learn to fly."

"You!" said Aylwin contemptuously. "You're only good for nursing or marrying!"

And he laughed.

I felt angry.

"That's just like men," I said; "they're so small-minded."

"Well, what do you think you will do when you grow up?" Aylwin demanded.

"I shan't be a nurse," cried Lynette; "nothing so tame! I couldn't walk round beds and shake pillows and give medicine all day long. And I shan't marry any man if he wants me to stay at home all day, and keep the house, and order his dinners, and mend his socks for him. I shall earn some money first, and then I shall travel all over the world with a faithful native servant who is ready to die for me. And when I've seen every corner of the world, I shall come home, and choose the very handsomest man I can find for a husband. He must be a V.C. at the tip-top of the Army, and must have a coat covered with bars and medals and glory! That's going to be my life!"

"I should be willing to marry," I said, "if my husband was a soldier and would let me share his camp life and all his hardships. I should love to make him comfortable, and cheer him up when he was downhearted."

"You've no ambition at all!" said Lynette scornfully.

And sometimes I wonder if I have. I know I have, great ambition for the boys, and for Gervas and for Pat. I want them to do noble great things before they die, and I believe they will. Both Denys and Pat have a splendid chance of doing something. But as to myself—lately I'm beginning to see that women are at great disadvantage.

I don't like the noisy women in the world. When I look at mother's picture, I feel all I want is to live and die as she did. And I ask God that I may, and that He will hold my hand fast to the very end.