CHAPTER VI
THE CLOUD
THE next weeks in July were extraordinarily beautiful ones in England. The summer was warmer than usual and the sun shone with greater radiance. The English country was hauntingly lovely and serene.
In spite of Frieda's trouble, the three Ranch girls enjoyed one another, as they had had no opportunity of doing since Jack's marriage and coming abroad to live.
There were long walks and rides and exchanges of visits with their country neighbors. Now and then Lady Kent and Olive went up to London for a few days of the theatre and the last part of the social season. They were Lord Kent's guests in the Ladies' Gallery in the House of Parliament and drank tea on the wonderful old balcony that overlooks the Thames river. But Frieda preferred not to accompany them.
London was never more filled with tourists, the greater number Americans intending to leave later for the continent.
But so far as Professor Russell was concerned, no word had been heard from him since his unceremonious meeting with his wife. However, he had sent his banker's address to Lord Kent, saying that all mail would be forwarded to him from there. Then he appeared to have dropped completely out of sight for, in spite of his brother-in-law's effort toward friendliness, he had not called upon him a second time.
In discussing the matter between themselves, Jack and Frank decided that this was possibly the best arrangement for the present. Frieda had never mentioned her unexpected discovery of her husband; nor did she ever voluntarily refer to her married life. Therefore, whatever was going on inside her mind, no one had any knowledge of it. As is often the case with women and girls of Frieda's temperament, she was better able to keep her own counsel than the women who are supposed to be strong minded and who are more apt to be frank.
So far as Jack was concerned she had never reopened with Frank the question of her rides with Captain MacDonnell, because the latter had been away and he had not asked her to ride since his return.
However, neither of these facts were so important as the feeling Jack had, that no propitious moment had arrived for a second discussion of the subject with her husband. She did not intend to defy him, but to make him see that he had no right to be so arbitrary and – more than that – so domineering. This had been Jack's usual method in any difference of opinion between herself and Frank, or in any unlikeness between the American and English point of view concerning marriage. As a matter of fact, more than half the time Jack had been successful.
But, during the past few weeks she had seen that Frank was worried and unlike himself – that his attention was engaged on matters which were not personal. For if the weather and the climate appeared serene in these particular July weeks in England the state of English politics was not. For the country was being harassed by the questions of Home Rule for Ireland and by the Militant Suffrage movement.
The Suffrage question was one which Lord and Lady Kent had agreed not to discuss with each other. To Jack, who had been brought up in Wyoming – the first of the Suffrage states in the United States – and who had seen the success of it there, the fact that the English nation held the idea of women voting in such abhorrence and with such narrow mindedness, was more a matter of surprise than anything else. The fact that her husband, who had also lived for a short time in Wyoming, should also oppose woman's suffrage was beyond her comprehension, except that Frank had the Englishman's love for the established order and disliked any change. Jack would not confess to herself that he also had the Englishman's idea that a woman should be subservient to her husband and that he should be master of his own house. To give women the freedom, which the ballot would bring, might be to allow them an independence in which the larger majority of the men of the British Isles did not then believe. Neither did they realize – nor did the suffragists themselves – how near their women were to being able to prove their fitness.
One Saturday afternoon at the close of July, Captain MacDonnell invited Jack and Olive and Frieda and a number of his other neighbors and friends to tea at his place. He had no near relatives, and when he was in Kent county lived alone, except for his housekeeper and servants, in an odd little house, perhaps a century old, which had been left him by his guardian.
The girls drove over together in a pony carriage, usually devoted to Jack's children. But at the gate they gave it into the charge of a boy in order that they might walk up to the house, which was of a kind found only in England.
The house was built of rough plaster which the years had toned to a soft grey. Captain MacDonnell had the good taste to allow the roof with its deep overhanging eaves to remain thatched as it had been in early days. The building was small and one walked up to the front door through two long rows of hollyhocks. On either side of the hollyhock sentinels the earth was a thick carpet of flowers, and the little house seemed to rise out of its own flower beds.
There were no steps leading to the front door except a single one, so the visitor entered directly into the hall which divided the downstairs. On the left side was a long room with a raftered ceiling and high narrow windows, and on the right Captain MacDonnell's den – a small room littered with a young soldier's belongings. Beyond were the dining room and kitchen and upstairs four bedrooms. As the house was so small Captain MacDonnell had turned his great, old-fashioned barn into extra quarters for guests. Between the house and the flower beds and the barn was an open space of green lawn with an occasional tree, and beyond was a tennis court. The place was tiny and simple compared to Kent House and yet had great charm.
Jack and Olive and Frieda arrived before the other guests. They soon discovered that Mrs. Naxie – Captain MacDonnell's housekeeper – had arranged to serve tea in his living room.
It was through Jack's suggestion that the arrangement was altered.
"Please don't tell Mrs. Naxie, Bryan, that I spoke of it," she volunteered as soon as she beheld the preparations, "but don't you think the summer in England too short for people to spend an hour indoors when they can avoid it?"
And Captain MacDonnell good naturedly agreed.
As a matter of fact, Jack always poured tea for him when he had guests and she was able to be present, so she felt sufficiently at home to make her request.
Captain MacDonnell's mother was an Irishwoman and his father a Scotchman. But they had both died when he was a little boy and he had spent the greater part of his boyhood with an old bachelor friend of his father's, who was his own guardian and had lived in the very house of which he was now the master.
As neighbors he and Frank Kent had played together when they were small boys and had later gone to the same public school. Then Frank's illness sent him to the United States, where he was introduced into the lives of the Ranch girls, at about the same time his friend Bryan MacDonnell entered Cambridge and afterwards the army. But whenever he and Frank were together the old intimacy had continued, and Jack's coming had only seemed to turn their friendship into a three-cornered one.
"Frank told me to tell you that he was sorry not to be able to come over with us this afternoon, Bryan," Jack announced a few moments later, when the four of them had gone out to select a place where tea could be served, "But for some reason or other he telephoned that he could not come down from London today. I don't know what is wrong with Frank lately. He has never been so absorbed in political matters. I am afraid Frieda and Olive will think he neglects his family disgracefully. Please tell them, Bryan, that he is sometimes an attentive husband."
But as Captain MacDonnell did not answer at once, Olive remarked in a more serious tone than Lady Kent had used:
"I think I am rather glad Frank takes his work as a member of Parliament as the most important thing he has to do. After all, helping to make the laws of one's country is a pretty serious occupation. Which do you think more serious – Captain MacDonnell, being a soldier and fighting when it is necessary to defend the laws, or making them in the beginning?"
Captain MacDonnell smiled, but rather seriously. It occurred to Jack, who knew him so much better than the others, that Bryan did seem uncommonly grave this afternoon, in spite of his efforts to be an agreeable host.
Then she took hold of Frieda's arm and they wandered off a short distance, leaving Olive and Captain MacDonnell to continue their conversation alone.
"Do you know, Frieda," Jack whispered when they were safe from being overheard, "I would give a great deal if Bryan and Olive would learn to care for each other. Ordinarily I think it is horrid to be a matchmaker, but Bryan and Olive are both so lovely and you don't know what it would mean to me to have Olive live near me. It is heavenly these days, having you both here. You can't realize how lonely I get for you and my own country sometimes."
Frieda looked critically over at Captain MacDonnell and Olive, who were standing close beside each other talking earnestly. In spite of Captain MacDonnell's ancestry his coloring was almost as dark as Olive's.
Then Frieda turned her blue eyes on her sister.
"Captain MacDonnell and Olive look too much alike," she argued. "I prefer marriages where the man and woman are contrasts."
Then, although Lady Kent made no answer, she smiled to herself. If Frieda believed in contrasts in marriage, surely she did not mean merely in complexion and general appearance. Important contrasts in human beings went much deeper than appearances. Surely Frieda's own marriage had offered a sufficient contrast in years, taste, disposition and a dozen other things. However, instead of securing happiness, it seemed to have had the opposite result.
During the remainder of the afternoon Jack thought nothing more about their early conversation, as she devoted herself entirely to Captain MacDonnell's other guests.
It was just a little after six o'clock, when they were beginning to think of returning home, that Lady Kent observed one of her servants coming toward her across the lawn carrying a telegram.
Never so long as she lived was Jack ever to forget that moment and the scene about her. There were about a dozen, beautifully costumed persons present – the women in silks and muslins, and the men in tennis flannels and other sport costumes. They were all talking in a light hearted fashion about small matters.
Without any thought that it might be of particular importance Jack opened her telegram and before reading it apologized to the persons nearest her. It happened that Captain MacDonnell was not far away.
Yet she read her telegram – not once, but several times – before it dawned upon her what her husband's words meant. Even then she did not really understand any more than the millions of other women in the world, who heard the same news and more within the next few days. The sky overhead was still blue; the earth was green and peaceful, and her companions were unconscious of tragedy.
Nevertheless Frank's telegram had stated that the beginning of the war cloud had appeared over Europe – the cloud which was later to spread over so large a part of the world.
CHAPTER VII
SO AS BY FIRE
"BUT Henry cannot go; it is absurd! He never shot a gun in his life and besides I – " Frieda hesitated; her face flushing; yet she was trying to speak calmly.
She and Olive and Jack and Frank Kent were in the library at Kent House with Captain MacDonnell talking one morning, several weeks since the afternoon tea and during, perhaps, the most momentous week in all history.
"I think you must be mistaken about your husband's being unable to shoot, Frieda," Lord Kent answered dryly. "As a matter of fact I believe he is an expert; he told me himself that he had taken prizes for marksmanship when he was a boy, but had never cared to use his skill for hunting. As for your saying he can't go; well, the truth is, Frieda, Professor Russell has already gone. He came in to see me a few days ago to say that he had volunteered and was about to be sent somewhere in France."
Frank had not intended to be unkind. So many things had happened and were happening every crowded second of the time that he was simply forgetting to think of the individual. However, under the circumstances, he did not suppose that Frieda would care very much what became of her husband.
"You mean that Henry has joined the army – that he has crossed over to France without asking me how I would feel – without even coming to say good-bye," Frieda returned slowly. And suddenly even her brother-in-law observed the change in her expression. It was strange to see Frieda with her face paling; her full, red lips closed tight and her blue eyes dark and strained.
"But, my dear child, how could your husband come to say good-bye to you when you have been steadfastly refusing to see him for weeks?" Frank continued, still a little impatient over feminine unreasonableness. "He told me to tell you his plans and that he had made all arrangements in case – "
But, that instant, catching a warning glance from his wife, Lord Kent changed color over his own tactlessness and desisted. This was a time when everybody's nerves were overstrained; when hearts were torn to pieces and imaginations were picturing only horrors.
"Won't you motor down to the station with me, please, Jack?" Lord Kent added, hastily, anxious to get away as soon as possible from the situation he had created.
Jack slipped on a long tan coat and soft hat and went with her husband, leaving Olive to look after Frieda.
"Bryan is expecting to be here again this afternoon for a farewell visit, dear. He has been delayed for some reason or other but hopes to leave with his regiment tomorrow," Frank announced on the way to his train. "Do you know I think Bryan is a lucky fellow these days, not to have anyone very close to him – anyone who cares very much what becomes of him. Oh, of course, I should care, more than I like to think; but I mean no mother or father – no family."
"I should also care a great deal, Frank," Jack interrupted quietly.
But Lord Kent went on, scarcely hearing her.
"It is a funny thing that Bryan has never married. He is an uncommonly fascinating fellow. Of course, he hasn't much money; but that ought not to stand in his way. He has his profession. Queer, when he was a boy he used to talk about being an artist; but there is a lot of difference between an artist and a soldier. He must be glad now of his choice. Sometimes I think Bryan has never married because he has never seen any woman as attractive as you are. He has almost said as much to me."
Jack shook her head almost angrily. "That is nonsense, Frank. After all, you know Bryan is pretty young; there is no use talking as if he were a confirmed old bachelor."
After lunch that same afternoon Captain MacDonnell rode over to Kent House. He was wearing his service uniform of khaki – the short military coat, the full trousers drawn close at the knees and the high boots. He also wore the British officer's cap with the small visor and the other marks of his rank.
Hearing the sound of his horse approaching, Jack went out on the veranda to greet him. Frieda was upstairs in her room and Olive was writing letters to Ruth Colter and Jean at the Rainbow Ranch.
In her arms Jack carried her baby, with whom she had been playing. Indeed, ever since the news of war, some member of the family had seemed to wish to hold Vive, for her baby softness and sweetness was in some way a consolation.
Jack had her baby's little yellow head pressed close against her bronze colored hair and made the baby wave its hand to the young officer as he drew nearer.
When he came up to them on the veranda he kissed Vive's tiny hand.
"May I have one of Vive's blue ribbons to tie in my buttonhole, please, Lady Jacqueline?" he asked. "Lady Jacqueline" being a title which Captain MacDonnell had originated for Jack, but which many other people also used. "Every knight, when he went off to the wars in the old days, wore his lady's colors. I should like to have Vive for my lady."
Jack felt her fingers trembling a little as she unfastened the ribbon from her baby's sleeve and gave it to her friend.
"Won't you take a farewell ride with me this afternoon, Jack?" Captain MacDonnell asked the next instant. "It will be the best way to manage our good-bye."
For just the fraction of a second Jack hesitated. Yet, in that time, she had a sufficient opportunity to think over the entire situation. Captain MacDonnell had not asked her to ride with him since the afternoon, when her recklessness had displeased Frank. Since then she had never attempted to persuade Frank that his demand, that she never ride with Captain MacDonnell again, was unreasonable. Nevertheless, she felt fairly sure that under the present circumstance he could not object. Surely, Frank could not be so ungracious as to be vexed with her for disobeying his wish at such a time. She would, of course, ride carefully and take no foolish risks.
Jack gave Vive into Captain MacDonnell's keeping.
"Yes, I'll go if you'll come back to dinner with Frank and the rest of us," she agreed. "I'll be ready in five minutes."
Jack sent the nurse to look after the baby and in ten minutes was ready for the ride.
It was a sultry August afternoon, very still, and yet with a strange throbbing in the air of many tiny insects. The hawthorn was no longer in bloom, but the two friends rode along the English lanes sweet with blossoming elderberry and blackberry bushes.
Curious how, when one comes to say farewell, there is so little that seems worth saying!
During the first part of the ride Jack and Captain MacDonnell were frequently silent, except that Jack, of course, made the conventional inquiries one might ask of a soldier. Was he in good condition? Did he have everything he needed? Was there anything she could do for him – such as looking after his house while he was gone?
In response to each question Captain MacDonnell shook his head. He had turned over his house to be used for the Belgian refugees.
They were actually on their way home before he began to talk.
Then he took a letter from his pocket.
"I wish you would give this to Frank for me, Lady Jack, and if anything happens to me ask him to read it, and to let you read it afterwards if he thinks best. Sorry to be mysterious, but this is a kind of cranky wish of mine."
Jack slipped the letter inside the coat she was wearing.
"All right, Bryan. You know I have always felt rather like a big sister to you; I am nearly a year older. But, today I think I feel like your mother," she continued, trying to smile, but with her voice breaking a little. "So you must promise me, if there is anything I can ever do for you later on you will let me know. In a way I believe I am almost envious of you, Bryan. I think I have wanted to be a boy ever since I could sit on the back of a horse and ride over our ranch with my father. That is why people have always called me 'Jack,' I suppose. Anyhow, just now, I think I would like to go out to meet a great adventure. I wonder what a woman's great adventure is. I presume it is marriage for most of us. At any rate Frank is terribly envious of you, Bryan. He has said so to me half a dozen times. He does not seem to know whether he ought to go to the front, which is what he wants to do, or to stay on here doing his work in Parliament. Of course, he ought to stay," Jack argued, repeating what she had been saying a good many times to her husband recently. "There never was a time when a member of Parliament had such great work to do, and that is Frank's real duty."
When Jack gave Captain MacDonnell's letter to her husband that night she spoke of their having had a ride together. Although he made no comment, she could see that he was not altogether pleased. It occurred to Jack then, though only vaguely, that if Frank objected to her disobeying him in small matters, their life might be pretty difficult if ever they had a difference of opinion and she disobeyed him in a large one.
"Strange for Bryan to have confided this letter to us," Frank remarked, as he put it carefully away in a strong box where he kept his important papers. "I wonder what old Bryan has written? I never dreamed he had a secret in his life which he has never told to me. But, perhaps he wants us to do some favor or other for him. Truly I hope we may never have to open the letter."