Chapter III

"Through such souls alone
God stooping shows sufficient of his light
For us i' the dark to rise by."
BROWNING.

So Sheila came again to Wynchcombe Friars--the real Wynchcombe Friars; no longer an empty shrine lit by twin lamps of memory and hope. How gladly, how thankfully she answered that summons no one guessed, Mark least of all: and that fact alone made it possible to come. Neither did she herself guess that Keith knew. Her secret was as safe with him as in a tomb: and he it was who, three days later, drove out to fetch her in Mark's two-seater car, in which he was just beginning to reconnoitre his property and look up his tenants as of old.

"If there was a third seat, for the inevitable attendant, I could have fetched her myself," he remarked casually.

"We'll contrive a third seat--for these little emergencies," Keith promised him. "Till then, the privilege must be mine."

Mark and his mother were in the studio when sounds of arrival whisked Helen to her feet. Her natural instinct was to run downstairs and greet them: but she was learning to restrain many such impulses that Mark might not too acutely feel his minor disabilities.

Presently the door opened and Sheila appeared, glowing from her drive, violet-gowned as on the day he had seen her last: a bunch of violets in her squirrel cap, and distinctly dewy violets in her eyes. The long low room with its restful blue tones and dark oak panelling was flooded with March sunlight, fragrant with the scent of hyacinths that stood about in bowls: and to Mark, the small gallant figure of his first and last allegiance seemed in tune with it all, visibly and vitally, as Bel had never been.

Sheila, for her part, would have summed up her own mixed emotions in the one word "home": the home of her spirit and her heart.

After a swift survey of the room, her eyes rested smiling on Mark in his wheeled chair by the window.

"The quartette complete again, at last, under one roof!" she said, a thrill of gladness in her low voice. Then the underlying tragedy caught at her heart and she took refuge in her Viking. "_He_ must be glad to have you back again. Hasn't he told you so?"

"Yes--lately he has," Mark answered, looking at her, not at the Viking, whom it pleased them to regard as a member of the family. "He was a bit reticent at first. But the gladdest of all was Bobs, here. No blooming reticence about him!"

"The darling!" And crouching down Sheila stroked the chestnut head.

The devoted creature lay close pressed against his master's legs, using Mark's feet for a chin-rest; an endearing form of caress. But Mark could not feel it any more. He sometimes wondered--did the others realise? He hoped they did not.

"I thought the poor little chap would go crazy, the first day," he said. "Kept flinging himself against me with his little shivering squeals, tearing up and down the room, sending the rugs to blazes; asking me, plain as speech, to get up and play the fool with him. Now--he understands and he's just glued to my chair. Won't even go for a walk with Keith. Yes, old man, I'm telling tales of you." This last to Bobs, who glanced upward without shifting his position.

Sheila's eyes were so dewy by this time that she had to make the most of Bobs, who wanted to go to sleep again and found her attentions rather superfluous. He was a man's dog, first and last.

They lunched at the far end of the long room. It was a convenient arrangement for Mark and it economised coal. Every penny that could be saved at Wynchcombe Friars went to help Mark's poorest cottagers and war-increasing colony of refugees, through that first hard winter of war;--a prelude, merely, to the gigantic struggle ahead. Yet there was still a certain amount of loose, comforting talk about the worst being over by the autumn. A good deal of it emanated from those who were resolved to avert conscription at any price--to others. "Traitors' talk," Mark called it bluntly: and in essence it was no less.

Lunch was a brief and cheerful meal: Keith for a wonder being the principal talker. He had gleaned some inside information, from a wounded officer at Winchester, of the dispositions at Neuve Chapelle, and he proceeded to demonstrate them, for Mark's benefit, with the toast rack, the muffineers, the cake, and several apples, blandly ignoring murmurs from Helen about "the geography of the table."

The meal ended, he retired to the library and his treatise; and Helen went down to interview a refugee dressmaker; a forlorn and pathetic creature in whom she took a very special interest.

"I'll be back soon, my lambs," she said as she went.

There was a perceptible moment of embarrassment; but Sheila swiftly conquered her shyness.

"I don't see anything new here yet," she remarked, glancing round his sanctuary. "And you know I'm expecting--great things!"

Mark shook his head. "I've not touched a bit of clay or plasticine since I got back. But in that folio, there's a big rough crayon of a charging Highlander on a bit of brown board, if you'd care to make his acquaintance."

No need to answer that. She had him out instantly and propped him on an antique table against the wall. Rough he certainly was, but of a vigour and vitality that went far to justify her expectation of great things. No artist by temperament, like Bel, Sheila could neither appraise nor criticise technically: but she had an unerring eye for motive, for the underlying spirit of art in all its manifestations. Certain sketches she had seen at Mavins and this barbaric figure that sprang yelling from the parapet--bayonet fixed, head back, kilt flying--told her that Mark's idealism had gained rather than lost by contact with the uglier, more staggering aspects of life and death. And there can be no sharper test of its quality. Cruel things, tragic things, seen and suffered, had drawn his Muse closer to earth; had imparted a certain ruthlessness both to his manner and matter: but exultingly she knew that he belonged, and would unfailingly belong, to the great company for whom there is always a window that looks to the sky.

"I saw him--just like that." Mark explained to her silence. "Five minutes afterwards a shell came our way--" an expressive gesture filled the hiatus. "And somehow he stuck in my brain."

"Yes--he would," she said, still dwelling upon him. "Why not make a small statue of him? He is simply--Scotland for ever!"

Mark's eyes were on her face and her low tone thrilled through him.

"He shall be yours--if I ever get him into clay. At present ... that side of things seems dead."

"Not dead--but sleeping," she said in her softest voice. "It will all come back--bigger and more splendidly alive--when you've struck root again in this dear deserted place."

He sighed. "Hope you're right. I'll need it more than ever I did, once I'm ... renewed mentally. It isn't an altogether painless process. And I'm no stoic----"

"I expect Mums would tell a different tale," she put in gently.

"Mums would glorify me--from sheer habit! Yet it's she who gets the full benefit of my lapses from stoicism--bless her. It'll be a real service to her if you succeed in exorcising the devil!"

The light in her eyes was enough to banish all the devils in creation--for the moment, "_I_ don't believe in him," she said softly. "I'm going to concentrate on waking up the other thing----"

At this point Lady Forsyth reappeared with her knitting and her _National Review_. She knitted for her war orphans now that spring had smiled upon the sodden trenches "out there."

"Very fine, isn't it?" she said indicating the Highlander, and Sheila nodded.

"He's going to be my first own statue: a bronze."

Then they arranged Mark's invalid table and set a cushion on it. "There," said his mother shaking it up.--"Bow your head upon your arms and try not to feel heart-broken!"

"Try not to feel a fool would be more like it," he grumbled ungratefully. As a matter of fact he found no difficulty in obeying her last injunction. But Bobs, who had been taking stock of these mysterious doings, had his own private opinion on the subject.

Springing up, paws on the table, he anxiously investigated Mark's bowed head and tried to thrust a moist loving nose under his forehead.

"Down, old boy, lie down," Mark muttered; and for the minute he obeyed. But no self-respecting dog could submit to see his master so humiliated. The call for championship was obvious. With little snarling sounds, he sprang up again, snapped at Sheila's hands and nibbled at her ankles half playful, half vicious, and wholly determined to rescue his helpless owner, till Mark flung up his head and laughed. "Officious little beggar! Turn him out, please, Mums." He glanced at Sheila. "I won't have you bullied. He tried to eat Macgregor and Keith first time he saw them handle me."

"Macgregor--your sergeant----?"

"Yes. He's knocked out too, poor chap! Lost his foot, after all. But he's a sturdy fellow, so I secured him for my bodyguard and he was no end pleased."

It was a very chastened and reproachful Bobs who at last suffered himself to be forcibly removed from the scene. Mark patted his head by way of explanation: but the rank injustice of the whole proceeding must have galled his faithful soul.

"Now," said Mark the ungrateful, as the door closed on his defender. "Go ahead. It's not half bad!"

In his heart he found in her unerring discovery and manipulation of each sensitive nerve little short of magic. But that sort of thing could not be said. Since his mother's concern was entirely for himself, his own concern must be entirely for Sheila. His will, too long in abeyance, must stand between him and the temptation to discover, by imperceptible means, whether his defection had killed outright the shy response he was just beginning to discern when Bel appeared on the scene. By some means he must contrive to keep the lover's note out of their intercourse. He was glad at least that a deeper expression of brotherly tenderness had crept into his letters from France. It would make things a trifle easier now.

This renewal of intimacy would, he perceived, be no light ordeal; so closely interwoven were the strands of joy and pain. But it was the price of her sweet companionship; and he would pay it willingly, just so long as it involved no risk for her.

To-day, while her fingers made magical passes across his forehead, or fluttered over his head like soft, strong wings, he had need to reaffirm his resolve: and his best chance of keeping it, though he guessed it not, lay less in the strength of his own will than in Sheila's simplicity and singleness of heart.

For nearly an hour he surrendered himself to the healing influence of her spirit and her touch, till definite thought was stilled and peace flowed through him, as in the days when Sœur Colette had kneeled and prayed beside his bed....

Then it was over; and he was bidden to be quiet till tea-time, while his mother and Sheila strolled on the terrace in the sun. Helen tilted back his adjustable chair, rearranged his cushion and lightly kissed his forehead.

"Didn't I do well to insist?" she asked smiling; and he smiled back at her without a word.

Keith came in for tea; and before it was over, Dr. Warburton appeared. The illusion of old times was strong upon them all. Except for war-talk and Mark's wheeled chair, it was almost as if their summer and winter of tragic memory had never been. But the fact that Sheila must leave them broke the spell.

"Till Wednesday," Mark said at parting. "And one of these days I swear I'll kick over the traces and come for you myself."

To that announcement she had no ready-made answer at command.

"It's lovely to be home again--and spoilt again," she remarked irrelevantly to whom it might concern. "And remember,--_I_ expect to find something begun if it's only a terra-cotta trifle."

On Wednesday she returned to find the terra-cotta trifle awaiting her on his modelling table that had stood empty since the outbreak of war. It was a rugged and very vital study of Bobs in a gamesome mood; hindquarters in the air, shoulders down, head laid sideways between outflung paws and an upward glance of appeal from his only visible eye.

Beneath him, on the pedestal, Mark had scratched the words: "St. Roberts the Blest. An invitation to play the fool!"

"Yours," he said as she stood before it, entranced.

"Mark! You don't mean it!" But she knew very well that he did, and her heart sang for joy.

"Done to order," he explained gravely. "The first fruits of your magic."

At that she took it up between her hands and held it for a moment against her cheek.

"It's a lovesome thing.--And there'll be bigger fruits still in a few weeks' time."

"I'm ... not so sure," he said slowly. "It was mostly my long tramps that brought the big inspirations."

He was forcing himself, these days, to speak naturally and casually of his tragic disability; but he had not yet been so frank with Sheila and she winced in spite of herself. Too well she remembered his boyish delight when he persuaded his father to lengthen the studio by throwing two rooms into one, and how he had declared that merely from the extra space for prowling there would spring a masterpiece. And he had always worked standing. In absence she instinctively pictured him on his feet. Even now----

Yet, if he could face things and speak of it all like this, she must face them too....

"I believe when ... genius really comes alive again, it will override everything," she said in a voice of subdued conviction. "I'm not just prophesying smooth things. I'm confessing ... the faith that is in me."

Mark was silent. He dared not speak. He dared hardly look at her, lest she read the worship in his eyes.

Lady Forsyth, being in no wise hampered, impulsively held out her hands.

"Darling, you and I are of one faith," she said: and Sheila swept to her and kneeled beside her, glad to hide her face a moment against the shoulder of Mark's mother.

After that, she came again and again, and the effect on Mark's temper and spirits was obvious to all. She was not merely a healing influence, but a source of inspiration; an incentive to renewed effort, to a more purposeful grip on the far from futile activities that still remained to him.

Inevitably he found himself contrasting the high felicity of this girl's companionship with that other who had led him hopelessly astray from the path of true happiness. On the one hand a spell, a desire, a troubled unsatisfying charm: on the other, a real woman's heart,--gracious, consoling, understanding, that rang true to every testing touch, and would, he felt convinced, could he test her to the uttermost. If, at times, Sheila seemed narrow where Bel was diffused, she had the higher merit of being deep where Bel was shallow. While there was scarcely a surface in life or art that Bel had not skimmed, she had penetrated nowhere. Sheila--ignorant of much that the modern girl deems essential to her equipment for life--was yet profoundly versed in the eternal lore of the heart. Bel could never let a man forget he was primarily a man and she primarily a woman: whereas, some finer quality in Sheila enabled Mark to rest content--almost--with the enchantment of her voice, her eyes and the fellowship of her spirit. For all that, there were moments when he wondered how much longer he could keep it up----

And again Sheila, though he did not guess it, was his best safeguard. She had come, simply and gladly, without after-thought, convinced that she could heal his hurt spirit, though his body was beyond her help.

For the moment, it sufficed that she was privileged through her own gift of healing, to revive his greater gift of creation: and to that end she marshalled all the forces of her still, strong nature. Self-dedicated to his service, the unspoken prayer of her spirit was the prayer of Theodolind, the mystic: "Give me wings of great desire, lest I look within and fail." And gradually, unconsciously, she imparted something of her exalted mood to Mark. A growing conviction that this blessed state of things involved no danger to her, gave him fresh courage to control his own emotion lest he lose the best he had any right to ask of her now.

So, for awhile, things went well at Wynchcombe Friars: and for Lady Forsyth those last two weeks of March were the happiest, the most hopeful, she had known since Mark's return from France.

He had reverted, by now, to his old keen interest in the management of his property; and began to enjoy driving with Russell through his woods and farmlands, and supervising his handicrafts colony, chiefly given over to French and Flemish refugees. Since no son of his would ever reign at Wynchcombe Friars, he was the more zealous to do his utmost--while time and opportunity were given him--for the people and the land he loved. In this way he grew to be aware that his tenants and workers regarded him with a new and peculiar devotion, often touchingly exhibited, inexpressive creatures though they were by heritage and habit. He was even persuaded to put in an appearance at a big recruiting demonstration at Winchester, where he called upon Jevons, the bootmaker, to the old man's huge delight. He read voraciously and played chess with his mother; though in their case, it was apt to become a prolonged argument rather than a game. He also started a bust of Keith, who quarrelled with his undiscerning choice of a subject and in secret was mightily pleased at the compliment.

Mark did not fail to note his mother's eager interest in this new venture: or the pains she was at not to let it be suspected. It set him wondering what on earth the dear good fellow was up to--he that was free to go in and win the woman of his heart.

March departed lamblike; and April came in with primroses and violets and dappled skies; with coral buds on the wild almond at the end of the terrace, and the gleam of young leaves on black boughs.

April was Mark's own month and for him there was none like it in all the year. He too felt the leap of new life and hope within him: and Sheila began to talk of getting leave for her promised visit.

But, before her dream came true, that stir of new life, within and without, precipitated a crisis--almost inevitable between unavowed lovers, using the language of friendship and thinking the thoughts of love. It came precisely when and precisely because increasing confidence and intimacy had thrown them a little off their guard.

Upon the afternoon of Sheila's seventh visit they were left practically alone. Keith had driven Lady Forsyth over to Bramleigh Beeches to meet a distinguished Indian poetess, who had expressed admiration of Helen's small volume of French and Belgian War poems. These she had translated during the winter to keep her mind from brooding on Mark and to raise extra money for their refugees. Helen was eager to meet the little lady who had written so charmingly about her work; and they left early that Keith might be back in time to drive Sheila home.

Mark's elation should have warned him that there was peculiar need for caution and control. But the wine of spring sparkled in his veins. The air was full of love-songs and Te Deums. Daffodil buds were breaking and the first butterflies were out. All the morning he had been scouring the country with Keith in the little car that was now the joy of his life: and an afternoon alone with Sheila fittingly crowned his content.

When massage was over, he voted for tea at the south-west corner of the terrace where they would secure the last of the sun.

"A Japanese tea-party," said Sheila, "to worship the almond blossom!"

Mark privately added another object of worship, no less emblematic of spring. For Sheila, happy in her devotion and in her power of healing, was emerging from the shadow of her double loss; shyly watching, at last, the dawning of her secret hope. Her eyes and skin were clearer, her cheeks less pale, her beauty and her spirit seemed visibly to blossom with the blossoming year. Her delight in the day and the occasion was no less than Mark's, but it was of a stiller quality.

They carried him down to the terrace, chair and all; and there, established in the sunny corner, watched over by the almond tree, she made tea for him and told stories of her other patients, whom she was neglecting a little these days.

More by instinct than design, they kept their talk in a lighter vein than usual; and Bobs, as gay as either of them, proved very serviceable in this respect.

Suddenly there flashed on Mark a memory of that other picnic on the shore of Loch Etive: the love-making, the conscious coquetry; the first intimation of underlying rocks that would have wrecked their ship of marriage. Summarily he dismissed the intrusive reminder, that made him angry with himself, angrier still with Bel and her shallow witchery. Yet the indelible shadow of what had been lay right across his path. Painfully he was learning that "the whole life is mixed; the mocking Past will stay."

But this afternoon he would have none of it----

Hester had come out to remove the tea-things and she brought a letter for Mark from Colonel Munro. When he looked up from reading it, Sheila sat lost in thought, one elbow on the empty tea-table, looking away across the valley, where a gap in the pine woods revealed a glimpse of blue distance clear against the evening sky.

For a space he watched her, till he dared watch no longer. Then: "Mouse," he said very quietly, "what are you brooding on so deeply?"

And she answered him, as quietly, in one word. "Ralph."

Her tone in speaking of that very ordinary, very brave and beloved brother gave Mark always a sense of standing on sacred ground. He said nothing; and after a pause she sighed and sat upright in her low straightbacked chair resting her arms on the table, her hands loosely clasped.

On the middle finger of her left hand she wore a curious, antique ring; a Christmas present from her absentee father.

"A day like this is double-edged, isn't it? It seems to stir all the deeps--joy and pain. He was such a dear simple thing. So close to earth, loving it all so. And yet--the other was what he wished. Just when you spoke I was thinking of that wonderful Roumanian ballad, the dead soldier who was content: the last lines--you know, when he asks the passers-by are they remembering him?

'"Not so, my hero," the lovers said,
"We are those who remember not.
For the Spring has come and the Earth has smiled
And the dead must be forgot."
And the soldier spake from the deep dark grave--
"I am content!"'"

At the last, her voice shook so that there was a moment of silence before she added: "I believe that's what most of them would say--our 'noble army of martyrs'--if only we could hear----"

"Yes: most of them," Mark answered slowly, with quiet conviction. "And on the whole, I'm not sure ... they haven't the best of it."

She turned quickly and met his direct gaze. "You mustn't say that."

"I don't--to the others. But I feel it--pretty acutely ... sometimes."

"Not so often--now."

It was a statement rather than a question.

"Not nearly so often. That's your doing."

Her deep blush so startled him that he promptly took refuge in generalities:--the effect of the war on character, national and individual: which tendency would prevail on the whole, the spiritual exaltation of a high purpose and tragedy nobly borne; or demoralisation from sheer horror and strain? Maurice Lenox, for instance, how would he and his type eventually emerge from the war? And even where there had been a genuine uplift, would it last? Or, would the pendulum swing back farther than ever, if the struggle dragged endlessly, sullenly on?

Sheila admitted reluctantly that the pendulum had to be reckoned with. She was thinking of Seldon and of Bel: and some hidden channel of communion conveyed her thought to Mark. He had heard of Seldon from Ralph at Inveraig and again, lately, from his mother. But he had no idea how far things had ever gone between them and he very much wanted to know. He had no business whatever to be jealous of the man; but he was fiercely jealous, none the less.

"How about that particular friend of yours, Seldon?" he asked casually. "Mums told me you had him here. Quite regenerate. All your achievement--what d'you think? Will it last?"'

She started and looked up. "How odd you should speak of him. He was in my mind."

"_Why_ was he in your mind?"

Jealousy flashed out in spite of him: and she smiled.

"Isn't he allowed to be?"

"I'm not sure. Depends how he's going to behave himself!" The chaffing tone was deliberately assumed. "As a patient----"

"Oh, he's not my patient any more," she put in quickly. "But I'm bothered about him all the same."

"Why? _Isn't_ it going to last?"

"He'll go out again. At least, I believe he will," she answered evasively. "Motor transport, he says. He can't do despatch riding any more."

"Still writes to you, does he?"

"Not very often--now." She paused; longing to tell him everything; yet doubtful, still, whether any shred of feeling remained for Bel.

"And ... he doesn't want to marry you?" Mark asked irrelevantly. He simply had to know.

"He did. That was the beginning of it."

"Of what?--The drink? Because you wouldn't have him?"

"Mark--that's an insult!" But it was useless pretending to be angry. The discovery that he could be jealous, even half in joke, sent her spirits up with a run. "Someone else was responsible for that, thank goodness. And unluckily, he's come across her again. I'm not at all happy about it; and I don't think he is either."

"Wrong sort, is she?"

"M-yes. I don't believe she wants him. Yet--she's holding him in spite of himself."

"Poor devil!" Mark was quite ready now to extend the hand of sympathy. "_I_ know--all about that." He spoke slowly and with emphasis. He had decided, on the spur of the moment, to break through his misleading silence about Bel; to explain frankly the process and the completeness of his disenchantment. She must know. She had the right to know: she, whom he had so cavalierly deserted, after their names had been coupled by relatives and friends. Though power to make reparation was denied him, he felt imperatively that she must know.

So, after a pause, he went on, with the same slow emphasis: "You see--perhaps you did see--Miss Alison was that sort."

The formal name, so casually spoken, sounded very strange on his lips; and her heart, that was now in a troublesome state of commotion, rejoiced to hear it. "Yes: I did see--afterwards," she said in her quietest voice. "Not at first."

"Nor did I--at first. In fact, not clearly, till I got out to France. Machine-guns and high explosives play havoc with more than the landscape and the human envelope. They smash up unrealities and readjust all the values. Oh yes, out there one saw things clear--horrid clear. Her letters too..." he paused. "And all those weeks, when ... I was dead, when I seemed to have no real link with anything, any one but that devoted little nun. Her saintliness, her simplicity ... made things clearer than ever. I saw--" he paused, looking down into the heart of the wood; tempted beyond measure to defy Fate and iron decrees and tell her all he had seen in those strange days, when his lips were closed and his eyes were dazzlingly opened to the truth. The one thing he did not see at that moment, fortunately perhaps, was Sheila's face, bright with the dawn of realisation, of an almost incredible hope. "I saw," he repeated in a low, impersonal tone, as if talking to himself, "how rootless our whole relation was and always had been. She never reached the depths. Didn't want to. She had no earthly use for them. Her effect on me was an artificial stimulus all along. Mind, I'm not excusing myself. It's no credit to me that she could and did take such a hold. And I came very near marrying her before I went out. Makes me shiver now to think of it: for her sake as much as my own. Dangerous things, these war marriages. I've heard of some painful cases.--Then, when I came back, there she was--irresistible as ever. But the something in me that couldn't resist her had been burnt away--out there. Then they told me I was a permanent crock.... No choice--after that. Marrying days were over." A pause. "Perhaps, after all, it's worth being smashed up, like this, to save one's soul alive. There--now you know. I've been wanting to tell you ... all that this long while."

"And I've been badly ... wanting to know," she admitted very softly; but his quick ear caught a new vibration in her voice. Startled out of his passing relief, he turned swiftly and was confronted by a transfigured Sheila, gifts in her eyes, the colour rising in her cheeks. For her there was no iron decree. Heart and soul she was ready. And Mark, for one measureless moment, sat there tongue-tied, realising what he had done, realising still more acutely what he dared not do.... With a supreme effort he forced himself to look away from her.

"I was _right_ when I said ... just now ... the dead have the best of it," he muttered in a tone of concentrated bitterness.

Sheila sat silent, motionless. It was as if with one hand he had lifted her to heaven and with the other had flung her back into the dust--Her eyes were blinded so that she could not see the pain in his face: and suddenly her ears caught the purr of the motor coming down the drive.

"Ah--there they are!" It was Mark who spoke.

Sheila heard the note of relief in his voice and it cut her to the heart.

Without a word she rose and went to meet them----