that Ishall rejoin again if they call up the Reserves."
"And they will?"
"Yes, I should think that is inevitable. And you know there's somethingbig about it. I'm not warlike, you know, but I could not fail to be asoldier under these new conditions, any more than I could continue beinga soldier when all it meant was to be ornamental. Hermann in bursts ofpride and patriotism used to call us toy-soldiers. But he's wrong now;we're not going to be toy-soldiers any more."
She did not answer him, but he felt her hand press close in the palm ofhis.
"I can't tell you how I dreaded we shouldn't go to war," he said. "Thathas been a nightmare, if you like. It would have been the end of us ifwe had stood aside and seen Germany violate a solemn treaty."
Even with Michael close to her, the call of her blood made itselfaudible to Sylvia. Instinctively she withdrew her hand from his.
"Ah, you don't understand Germany at all," she said. "Hermann alwaysfelt that too. He told me he felt he was talking gibberish to you whenhe spoke of it. It is clearly life and death to Germany to move againstFrance as quickly as possible."
"But there's a direct frontier between the two," said he.
"No doubt, but an impossible one."
Michael frowned, drawing his big eyebrows together.
"But nothing can justify the violation of a national oath," he said."That's the basis of civilisation, a thing like that."
"But if it's a necessity? If a nation's existence depends on it?" sheasked. "Oh, Michael, I don't know! I don't know! For a little I amentirely English, and then something calls to me from beyond the Rhine!There's the hopelessness of it for me and such as me. You are English;there's no question about it for you. But for us! I love England: Ineedn't tell you that. But can one ever forget the land of one's birth?Can I help feeling the necessity Germany is under? I can't believe thatshe has wantonly provoked war with you."
"But consider--" said he.
She got up suddenly.
"I can't argue about it," she said. "I am English and I am German. Youmust make the best of me as I am. But do be sorry for me, and never,never forget that I love you entirely. That's the root fact between us.I can't go deeper than that, because that reaches to the very bottom ofmy soul. Shall we leave it so, Michael, and not ever talk of it again?Wouldn't that be best?"
There was no question of choice for Michael in accepting that appeal.He knew with the inmost fibre of his being that, Sylvia being Sylvia,nothing that she could say or do or feel could possibly part him fromher. When he looked at it directly and simply like that, there wasnothing that could blur the verity of it. But the truth of what shesaid, the reality of that call of the blood, seemed to cast a shadowover it. He knew beyond all other knowledge that it was there: only itlooked out at him with a shadow, faint, but unmistakable, fallenacross it. But the sense of that made him the more eagerly accept hersuggestion.
"Yes, darling, we'll never speak of it again," he said. "That would bemuch wisest."
Lady Ashbridge's funeral took place three days afterwards, down inSuffolk, and those hours detached themselves in Michael's mind from allthat had gone before, and all that might follow, like a little pieceof blue sky in the midst of storm clouds. The limitations of man'sconsciousness, which forbid him to think poignantly about two things atonce, hedged that day in with an impenetrable barrier, so that while itlasted, and afterwards for ever in memory, it was unflecked by troubleor anxiety, and hung between heaven and earth in a serenity of its own.
The coffin lay that night in his mother's bedroom, which was next toMichael's, and when he went up to bed he found himself listening forany sound that came from there. It seemed but yesterday when he had gonerather early upstairs, and after sitting a minute or two in front ofhis fire, had heard that timid knock on the door, which had meant theopening of a mother's heart to him. He felt it would scarcely be strangeif that knock came again, and if she entered once more to be with him.From the moment he came upstairs, the rest of the world was shut downto him; he entered his bedroom as if he entered a sanctuary that wasscented with the incense of her love. He knew exactly how her knock hadsounded when she came in here that night when first it burned for him:his ears were alert for it to come again. Once his blind tapped againstthe frame of his open window, and, though knowing it was that, he heardhimself whisper--for she could hear his whisper--"Come in, mother," andsat up in his deep chair, looking towards the door. But only the blindtapped again, and outside in the moonlit dusk an owl hooted.
He remembered she liked owls. Once, when they lived alone in CurzonStreet, some noise outside reminded her of the owls that hooted atAshbridge--she had imitated their note, saying it sounded like sleep.. . . She had sat in a chintz-covered chair close to him when atChristmas she paid him that visit, and now he again drew it close to hisown, and laid his hand on its arm. Petsy II. had come in with her, andshe had hoped that he would not annoy Michael.
There were steps in the passage outside his room, and he heard a littleshrill bark. He opened his door and found his mother's maid there,trying to entice Petsy away from the room next to his. The little dogwas curled up against it, and now and then he turned round scratching atit, asking to enter. "He won't come away, my lord," said the maid; "he'sgone back a dozen times to the door."
Michael bent down.
"Come, Petsy," he said, "come to bed in my room."
The dog looked at him for a moment as if weighing his trustworthiness.Then he got up and, with grotesque Chinese high-stepping walk, came tohim.
"He'll be all right with me," he said to the maid.
He took Petsy into his room next door, and laid him on the chair inwhich his mother had sat. The dog moved round in a circle once or twice,and then settled himself down to sleep. Michael went to bed also, andlay awake about a couple of minutes, not thinking, but only being, whilethe owls hooted outside.
He awoke into complete consciousness, knowing that something had arousedhim, even as three days ago when the telephone rang to summon him to hismother's deathbed. Then he did not know what had awakened him, but nowhe was sure that there had been a tapping on his door. And after he hadsat up in bed completely awake, he heard Petsy give a little welcomingbark. Then came the noise of his small, soft tail beating against thecushion in the chair.
Michael had no feeling of fright at all, only of longing for somethingthat physically could not be. And longing, only longing, once more hesaid:
"Come in, mother."
He believed he heard the door whisper on the carpet, but he saw nothing.Only, the room was full of his mother's presence. It seemed to him that,in obedience to her, he lay down completely satisfied. . . . He felt nocuriosity to see or hear more. She was there, and that was enough.
He woke again a little after dawn. Petsy between the window and the doorhad jumped on to his bed to get out of the draught of the morning wind.For the door was opened.
That morning the coffin was carried down the long winding path above thedeep-water reach, where Michael and Francis at Christmas had heard thesound of stealthy rowing, and on to the boat that awaited it to ferry itacross to the church. There was high tide, and, as they passed over theestuary, the stillness of supreme noon bore to them the tolling of thebell. The mourners from the house followed, just three of them, LordAshbridge, Michael, and Aunt Barbara, for the rest were to assemble atthe church. But of all that, one moment stood out for Michael above allothers, when, as they entered the graveyard, someone whom he could notsee said: "I am the Resurrection and the Life," and he heard that hisfather, by whom he walked, suddenly caught his breath in a sob.
All that day there persisted that sense of complete detachment from allbut her whose body they had laid to rest on the windy hill overlookingthe broad water. His father, Aunt Barbara, the cousins and relations whothronged the church were no more than inanimate shadows compared withher whose presence had come last night into his room, and had not lefthim since. The affairs of the world, drums and the torch of war, hadpassed for those hours fr
om his knowledge, as at the centre of a cyclonethere was a windless calm. To-morrow he knew he would pass out intothe tumult again, and the minutes slipped like pearls from a string,dropping into the dim gulf where the tempest raged. . . .
He went back to town next morning, after a short interview with hisfather, who was coming up later in the day, when he told him that heintended to go back to his regiment as soon as possible. But, knowingthat he meant to go by the slow midday train, his father proposed tostop the express for him that went through a few minutes before. Michaelcould hardly believe his ears. . . .
CHAPTER XV
It was but a day or two after the outbreak of the war that it wasbelieved that an