CHAPTER X
THE LETTER
AS soon as Jack saw Frank's face she realized that something tragic had occurred.
She had come down to the train alone to meet him, but said nothing until they had walked away from the little crowd at the station into the gloom of the midwinter afternoon.
"It is Bryan," Frank then exclaimed without waiting to be asked. "I had word from the War Office today that he had been mortally wounded."
He put his arm about Jack to support her if she should turn faint, but this was not the way Jack received bad news.
She stopped for a moment, standing straight, however, with her head up and her shoulders braced.
"Are you sure, Frank, there can be no mistake?" she asked slowly.
Lord Kent shook his head.
"I am afraid not, dear. Bryan was leading a charge out of his trench when a shell hit him. His own men carried him back to a field hospital."
Jack and Frank then walked slowly on between the winter fields. The grass was still green as it remains almost all the year round in England, but the trees were stripped and bare, and there were no birds in sight, except a few melancholy crows, which in England are called rooks.
Jack was recalling the day when she and Captain MacDonnell had taken their last ride together; also the smell of the blossoming hedges and her baby's blue ribbon on his sleeve.
Since coming to England as a bride, she and Frank and Bryan had enjoyed a charming friendship. It was to Bryan, Frank had first introduced her, asking that he help to make her less homesick for the ranch and her own people.
In those days Frank's sisters were still unmarried and Bryan had been in the habit of spending much of his time at Kent House when he was on leave.
Yet Frank and Bryan were so utterly unlike in temperament. To say that Frank was an Englishman and Bryan an Irishman explains a great deal. Frank was quieter and more reserved and determined; but Bryan was ardent and emotional, quick to feel an emotion and quick to change. Jack had always felt that he loved the outdoors as she did, while Frank was studious, more devoted to books and to political questions than to swift action.
At the same time Frank and his wife were thinking along similar lines, although his recollection of his friend went further back than hers. He remembered the small boy, whose mother had just died, coming to live with his old bachelor guardian in the queer little house which had since belonged to him. He also remembered how shy he had been and yet how often he had gotten into fights with other boys. But, more than anything, he recalled how Bryan had always seemed to long for the companionship of women and how happy he had been to come to Kent House and spend hours and days with his mother and sisters. This was one of the reasons why it had always seemed strange to Frank that his friend had never married.
"But the news only said that Bryan was fatally hurt – not that things were over?" Jack asked after their long pause.
"Yes; but I'm afraid he may be by now," Frank answered. "I have sent half a dozen cables for more news."
Jack's grey eyes cleared a little.
"Then I won't believe the worst until it really happens."
On their arrival at home Olive and Frieda were sympathetic, but naturally could not care as much as Jack and Frank, since Captain MacDonnell was to them only a comparatively new acquaintance.
But all evening Frieda watched her sister closely, whenever she had the opportunity without being observed. Only a few times before had she seen her with the same expression.
Half a dozen or more of the neighbors came in after dinner to ask for further information concerning Captain MacDonnell, having heard the news only indirectly.
But among them all Jack was the only one who appeared hopeful. She outwardly showed the effect of the anxiety and grief over their friend far less than Frank. But Frieda at least realized that courage was her sister's strongest characteristic.
There had always been something gallant about Jack from the time she was a little girl – the carriage of her head; the look in her eyes – everything about her revealed this.
And tonight Frieda appreciated the fact more clearly than any one else. There was no friend in the world so loyal as Jack; and no one more anxious to help those for whom she cared. Frieda knew that whatever else she might say during the evening, she was in reality thinking only of her husband's friend and her own, alone and dying, perhaps with no one near him for whom he cared.
As early as possible Jack and Frank went upstairs together, since Frank showed the effect of the strain by being uncommonly tired.
They had gone into their own rooms and Jack was slowly beginning to undress when an idea came to her; and she went at once into her husband's room.
Frank, she found sitting on the side of his bed.
"Bryan's letter, Frank," Jack remarked quickly. "Don't you think you ought to open it? He said that if anything happened to him you were to read it first, and afterwards I was to see the letter if you thought best. I remember he seemed much in earnest when he gave it to me."
Frank frowned, and then shook his head.
"Do you know I had forgotten, Jack? But I don't think Bryan meant us to disturb the letter until we know that the worst has happened to him and we don't know this yet; we only fear it."
For a moment Jack was silent, but when she spoke again her voice and manner expressed a quiet firmness.
"I think you are mistaken, Frank. There must be something in Bryan's letter that he wants us to do for him. It may be something that would come afterwards, but it also may be something that we could do for him now. Of course you must judge, but this is the way I feel about it."
Jack, who had put on a deep violet toned velvet dressing gown over her underclothes, now sat down in an arm chair, leaning thoughtfully forward and resting her chin in the palm of her hand.
She did not intend to influence her husband; but having expressed her own thought, she quietly awaited his decision.
Frank, however, was worried and undecided. In order to think more clearly, he got up and began walking nervously up and down his room.
"I don't know what to do, Jack," he argued. "If Bryan still lives he may, of course, recover and I would not then like to feel that I have pryed into his secret. On the other hand, you may be right and Bryan may have made some simple request of us which we could carry out for him at once. Bryan is a sentimental chap always. I wish, this time, he had been more explicit."
Nevertheless, Frank must have finally decided to accept his wife's point of view for, after another few moments, he walked over to a small safe which occupied a corner in his room and opened it. Then he took out the box in which he had placed Captain MacDonnell's letter and the next instant had broken the seal and was reading its contents.
Jack sat watching her husband's face, but offered no interruption.
She saw Frank first look surprised and then saw him flush and at last his expression hardened curiously. He then presented her with the letter.
"Read this, Jack. It is just as well that you should know what is in it. Bryan must have been considerably upset over his farewells and the thought of what might lie ahead of him, or he would never have made such a request of us. He must have realized afterwards that the thing is impossible."
Jack read the letter, but there was nothing in it which seemed strange; certainly nothing impossible to her point of view. Bryan had simply requested that Frank allow her to come to him in case he was seriously injured. Bryan explained simply and boyishly that he had no women in his own family and that she was his closest woman friend. He had an absurd horror of dying with no woman near for whom he cared, or who cared for him.
"I don't see what you find impossible, Frank," Jack answered, placing the letter inside the envelope and quickly returning it. "I was only waiting until we heard more news to ask you to let me go to Bryan, even if he had not made this request of us."
Frank appeared distressed, but shook his head resolutely.
"I don't want to seem unkind, dear. In a way it is pretty hard to refuse what Bryan asks. Only he could not have appreciated just how much he was asking."
Jack brushed her hair back from her forehead with a puzzled gesture.
"I don't understand what you mean, Frank. Certainly neither of us can dream of not agreeing. I know you will worry over the discomfort, perhaps even the danger of the trip to France for me. But hundreds of women have gone and are going every day to care for the soldiers who are entire strangers to them. Many times I have wanted to go myself before this, except for leaving you and my babies behind. But now I may only need to stay a little time."
"We won't discuss the matter any further please, Jack," Frank protested, speaking gently, but with a decision which Jack recognized as having a serious intention back of it.
Instantly she went to him and put her hands on his shoulders, looking directly into his blue eyes with her clear, wide grey ones.
"Tell me your reason please, Frank. This isn't like you. You can't mean to be so selfish – even so cruel."
Frank's eyes held his wife's, but he showed no sign, either of flinching or yielding.
"I am sorry to have to say this to you, dear. I wish you could have been willing to do what I asked, without demanding my reason. But I can't let my wife go to Bryan; I can't let people think you and he care this much for each other. People would talk – there would be gossip. I am your husband and it is my place to safeguard you. You and Bryan never think of consequences – you are only impetuous children."
"So you mean – " Jack let her hands drop slowly from her husband's shoulders to her own sides, "you mean, that because of a little idle chatter – foolish, unkind gossip – oh, I know some of the neighbors have already talked of Bryan and me before this – you would keep me from the friend we both care so much for, at a time like this? I can't believe it of you, Frank."
"Then I am sorry to disappoint you, because I do mean it, Jack, dear. I suppose it does seem narrow and worldly to you, with your wider ideas of freedom and loyalty. But hard as this may be for us both, you must abide by my decision."
For another moment Jack remained silent, her face flooding first with color and then the color receding until she was curiously pale, so that the darkness of her lashes showed shadows on her white cheeks.
"I am sorry, Frank," she answered quietly, "but in this matter I can not accept your decision. I am a woman – not a child – and this is a matter for my conscience as well as yours. Even if I am wrong, whatever consequences I must suffer from your failing ever to see this as I do, I must go to Bryan if he is still alive."
Then Jack went quickly into her own room again.
CHAPTER XI
A SURPRISE
DURING the night Frank decided that he would not argue with Jack again the question which was troubling them both, since it was too painful for discussion.
However, he did not sleep much, although not once did his conviction that he was doing the right thing waver. Frank had the belief in his own judgment which comes to certain people with authority. Also, he disliked to suggest to his wife any of the little, ugly, suspicious things of life, which he knew her fine, clean nature would not consider. But all the more for this reason did he believe that he should protect her, even against herself.
Therefore, at breakfast the next morning, Frank made no reference to Jack's final defiance the night before. Not for an instant did he think that she had meant anything, except to have him appreciate how utterly her point of view and her inclination differed from his. This he accepted, realizing that he really could not, under the circumstances, expect anything else. But that Jack would ignore his wish – even his expressed command – was beyond his comprehension. She had always been perfectly reasonable and amenable, and there was nothing to serve him as a warning.
"I'll let you know as soon as I hear from the war office," Frank remarked, as he left for London.
Jack simply nodded quietly in response without replying. As a matter of fact she, too, had made up her mind in the night not to reopen the subject upon which she and Frank were so completely at variance.
Perhaps Jack was wrong in this and in the whole proceeding which followed. Except to say that she had the right to use her own judgment – she never attempted to justify herself.
As soon as she had arranged her household matters and had seen her children, she went into her private sitting room and, by using her telephone for an hour or more, secured the information which she desired.
She was able to locate Captain MacDonnell and also to learn that he was still alive. Moreover, Frank telegraphed this same fact while she was still at the telephone.
Then Jack sent word for Olive and Frieda to come to her bedroom, and when they arrived she carefully closed the door.
They found her packing a small bag.
"What is it, Jack? Are you going up to London to join Frank?" Frieda inquired, she and Olive having been told nothing of the contents of Captain MacDonnell's letter, nor that there was such a letter in existence.
Jack had taken off her morning dress and put on a light flannel wrapper of pale grey with a white collar, as she wished to proceed with her packing more readily.
At Frieda's question she shook her head quietly and sat down in a big chair for a moment, asking Olive and Frieda also to be seated.
"No; I am not going to Frank," she explained, "indeed, although I am forced to go up to London, I don't want him to know I am there, nor where he can find me for the next day or so. Afterwards I will, of course, write to him."
Seeing that Olive and Frieda were becoming more mystified than enlightened by her explanation, and that she was in reality talking more to herself than to them, Jack hesitated for a moment.
"Perhaps you won't approve what I am planning to do any more than Frank does," Jack continued, "but Captain MacDonnell has written to ask that I come to him in France where he may be dying, and I am going. Frank has said I must not, but I am going anyway. I told him so last night, but I don't believe he understood I really meant what I said."
Jack spoke without any nervousness or sentimental excitement. She looked unhappy, but she also looked perfectly determined.
A little too surprised to answer at once, Frieda again studied her sister's face closely.
It was Olive who protested.
"I hope you won't be angry with me, Jack, and of course I cannot hope to influence you if Frank cannot; but I don't think you ought to do so serious a thing without Frank's consent. In any case, please don't go away without his knowing. You must know that this is not right and that Frank will probably be very hurt and angry."
Jack bit her lip for an instant without replying; then she said slowly, as if she fully weighed each word she uttered:
"Of course I realize you are right, Olive, and I am afraid Frank will be both the things you say, and more than you may realize. I know, also, that I ought to see him again and tell him definitely just what I intend to do and why I intend doing it. But candidly, if I do, I fear that Frank will not permit it. He is not an American husband, and in any event there would be a scene between us. Frank would not understand at first that this time I intend to keep to my determination. We might quarrel and I don't wish that. It would make me even more unhappy and not save me in any way from Frank's displeasure."
"But, Jack, why do you think it is more important to do what Captain MacDonnell desires of you than what Frank wishes?" Frieda inquired, in the cool, matter of fact voice with which she usually, to other people's surprise, asked the leading question.
Jack did not change color. She returned her sister's look with her old clear, straightforward gaze.
"I am glad you asked me that, Frieda, dear," she responded, "because I don't want you or anybody else to think that is true. Nothing is so important to me as what Frank wishes, only this time I think he is making a great mistake, and is not being fair. Of course he does not intend this, and is thinking of me more than of any one else, but at the same time this is not a matter which I think Frank can decide for me. His judgment may be right from his point of view, but it isn't from mine. I have to do what I think is the fair thing, with the hope that I may be able to persuade Frank to see it the same way later on."
Olive made no response, but it was self evident that Jack had not convinced her.
Frieda, however, got up in her fluffy morning house gown and making a soft little rush forward, threw her arms about her sister's neck.
"Go ahead, Jack, then, and no matter what happens I'll stand by you and swear you've done the right thing to the bitter end. You have been more right than other people as long as I've known you. I would not pay any attention to Olive. I told you that Olive was getting to be an old maid and that old maids always take the men's side. Only you are not being rash, Jack, are you, so you won't have to suffer uncomfortable consequences afterwards?" Frieda concluded with a slightly plaintive and mysterious manner.
"You'll look after my babies for me, won't you, Olive? And Frieda, won't you try and get Frank into a good humor with me before I come back? I shall be gone only a few days; perhaps Bryan won't need me at all when I arrive. I am going up to London within two hours, but I'll get away from there as soon as I can and take the first channel boat possible. I must finish packing, but I'll see you again before I start."
As Jack's words and manner were both final, Olive and Frieda then left her. However, they did not separate but went together into Frieda's sitting-room.
There Frieda's expression grew as grave as Olive's.
"Somehow I wish Jack wouldn't. Maybe at the last moment she'll see Frank and change her mind," Frieda suggested, staring out at the winter landscape with her small nose pressed mournfully against the window pane like a discontented child. "I don't understand Frank's disposition very well. He is so different from Henry. Then he has changed a great deal. We never thought of his being autocratic when Jack married him, but he seems rather that way to me lately, though he is terribly nice and I am fond of him. I wouldn't be, though, if he was ever the least bit disagreeable to Jack. She is much too good for him or any other man. Isn't it like her to go rushing off in this quixotic fashion, knowing that lots of people will misunderstand her, just because Captain MacDonnell would like to feel her presence beside him, if anything has to happen to him? Well, I suppose that is exactly what I felt when I rushed to her the moment I left Henry? Only if Frank decides to be horrid it would be unfortunate for us both to be having trouble with our husbands at the same time. I suppose people would say it was because we did not have the proper bringing up when we were children."
"Don't be absurd, Frieda," Olive answered irritably. "Of course, Frank and Jack are not going to have any serious difficulty. She and Frank are quite different – "
Frieda swung her pretty self around.
"Don't you ever get tired of saying that to me, Olive Van Mater? Of course Jack is different, but I don't see that Frank is entirely unlike other men. Oh, I know you'll be shocked and angry at this and so would Frank and Jack, if they ever heard; but just the same I think Frank Kent is a little bit jealous of Jack's friendship for Captain MacDonnell. He would rather die than confess it to himself. I at least give him the credit for not knowing it, but it's true just the same."
"I think that is very horrid of you, Frieda."
Frieda shrugged her shoulders.
"Yes, I thought you would think so. Still, I do wish it was a whole week from today and Jack was safely home again. I am frightened about her taking such a trip alone; and as for my attempting to get my brother-in-law into a good humor after he learns that his august Highness has been disobeyed – well, the task is beyond my humble powers. In any case, Olive, you can break the news of Jack's departure to him."
But Jack spared both her sister and friend this ordeal. Instead, she wrote a very sweet letter to her husband, asking his pardon for what she was doing and confessing that she had no right not to have spoken of her intention to him again. But would he see that she must do what she believed to be right, and that Bryan might not be able to wait while they continued to argue the question?
She left the letter on Frank's bureau.
Not finding Jack in the library that evening, where she usually awaited his return home, Frank had gone directly upstairs, and when she was also not in her room, he entered his apartment. The letter caught his attention at once, but even then Lord Kent had no faintest idea of what Jack's letter contained. He supposed she had gone out on some errand and had written to explain that she might be late.
When he had finished reading, he quietly tore her letter into small bits and flung the pieces upon the fire.
Afterwards, going downstairs to dinner, he said to Olive and Frieda.
"Jack has written me a note telling me that she has gone to France. You both probably know I did not wish her to go. Please let us not speak of this matter again."
And though there was really nothing in what Frank said, neither Olive nor Frieda liked his expression or manner.