Читать книгу All for a Scrap of Paper - Hocking Joseph - Страница 6

These were the staring headlines which riveted the gaze of both, and for the moment made them silent.

"Good heavens, how terrible!" cried Nancy presently.

"Ghastly beyond words," was Bob's reply. "It has come like a thunderbolt. As I told you, I did not look at my paper this morning, and, as I have not been to St. Ia to-day, I saw no announcements."

"And our papers were late this morning. I have not seen them," rejoined Nancy. "Fancy the grief of the poor old Emperor! Who did it?—and why was it done?"

"Evidently it was done by two young men, both anarchists, and both said to be Servians."

"Aren't these anarchists terrible? No king or queen in Europe seems to be safe."

"This doesn't appear to have been done by anarchists in the usual sense of the term after all," said Bob, who hastily scanned the paper. "It seems there are suspicions of political causes. This paper suggests that these fellows were agents of the Servian Government, who have a special grudge against the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, who was heir-presumptive to the Austrian Throne. Are you interested in European politics, Nancy?"

"Not a bit. I always skip foreign news."

"If it is as this paper suggests, it might lead to serious complications. You see, it was hoped by the Servians that at the close of the Balkan War they would be able to obtain a naval port on the Adriatic, and it is said they would have got it but for the Archduke. It is also commonly believed that a School of Servian Patriots have for years been struggling to make Bosnia and Herzegovina part of Greater Servia, owing to the preponderance of Serb population. These two provinces, in spite of Russia, belong to Austria."

"I suppose the Servians are awful people. Always quarrelling and fighting, and that kind of thing," and Nancy crept closer to Bob as she spoke.

"It's a wonderfully interesting part of Europe, although it was so little known before the war of the Balkan States with the Turks. I say, Nancy, wouldn't it be fun to go there for our honeymoon?"

"It would be like going into a savage country."

"Oh, no, not so bad as that. I was talking a few weeks ago with a man who was a war correspondent during their squabble, and he told me a lot about Montenegro and Servia and Roumania. He fairly fired my imagination, and made me long to go. It would be great fun."

Nancy shook her head. "No, Bob," she said, with a blush, "when that time comes, we'll go to some lovely spot somewhere on the Rhine, where we shall be among civilised people, and where there will be no possibility of meeting these half-civilised races. But what do you think the Austrians will do?"

"Oh, of course, if this murder is simply a revolt of the anarchists, the murderers will be executed, and I suppose that will be the end of it; but if there is evidence which goes to show that they were emissaries of the Servian Government, it will lead to all sorts of complications."

"What complications?"

"Well, of course, Austria will want an explanation from Servia, and if Servia doesn't give a satisfactory reply, there will be trouble. It's common knowledge that Austria doesn't like Slav influence, and she'll use this as an excuse for crushing all Slav ideals. It might end in Austria practically administering Servian affairs."

"That would be the best way, wouldn't it? Austria is a civilised country, while the Servians are savages. One of the girls I went to school with, spent a winter in Vienna, and she had a lovely time. She says that Vienna is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and the Austrians are such charming people."

"That would be easier said than done," replied Bob, smiling at her school-girl fashion of settling European difficulties. "You see, directly Austria tried to do this, Russia would step in. Russia is practically under a contract to protect the Servians, and to help them in need. Russia, which is a great Slav Empire, wouldn't stand by and see Austria swallow up Slav Servia."

"And then there might be a war between Russia and Austria? And Russia, with her countless hordes of men, would crush Austria?"

"That wouldn't suit Germany's book," was Bob's reply. "You see, there is a close alliance between Austria and Germany, and Germany wouldn't allow Austria to be put under."

"Oh, it would be horrible!" gasped the girl. "But there, we won't talk about it any more. It can't affect us, can it? England has nothing to do with Servians murdering an Austrian Archduke. I'm awfully sorry for the poor old Austrian Emperor, but—but——"

"It can't affect us, or our happiness," cried Bob, taking her outstretched hand. "No, thank God! but I say, Nancy, this is an awful commentary on what we were saying just now, isn't it? It makes me more than ever determined to throw myself into a movement that shall make war impossible. But oh, my dear girl, I do wish you'd let me speak to your father to-night! I want my happiness assured. I want everybody to know that I've won you—that you've promised to be my wife."

A thoughtful look came into her eyes. It might seem as though she were fighting a battle between inclination and judgment.

"No, Bob," she said at length, "it won't do. I'm sure dad wouldn't consent. The truth is——" she hesitated.

"What?" asked Bob eagerly.

"Dad's awfully fond of Captain Trevanion. I—I believe he's set his mind on it."

"On what? On your marrying him!"

"Now, don't be jealous."

"I'm not jealous. How could I be when"—he held her to him, and kissed her passionately—"when you've told me you love me."

"He'll be terribly mad when he knows at first. You see, he's always looked on you as a—well, to put it mildly, a useless bookworm. And he likes Hector Trevanion because, although he's a fool in many things, he's a good soldier. He says he's very young for a captain, and with his name and prospects—he'll be sure to be a major and afterwards a colonel in a very short time, especially if a war breaks out. And—and he's very ambitious for me. That's why I shall have to break it to him by degrees. I shall begin by talking about your successes at Oxford, and then I shall tell him that you are going to study for the Bar, as a preliminary to going into Parliament. You are so clever, that you won't be long before you are called to the Bar, will you?"

"I'll do it in record time," cried Bob. "There are a number of dinners to eat, and certain examinations to pass; but I can manage them all right. Don't think I'm conceited, Nancy; lots of the Professors told me that the Bar exams. would be comparatively easy to me."

"Of course they will be," said Nancy confidently, "and meanwhile you could be on the look out for a constituency, couldn't you?"

"Ye-es," replied Bob doubtfully. "Of course, I'd rather get called first, but it could be managed. As it happens, I'm comfortably off, and so I need not be dependent on my profession."

"Anyhow, we must say nothing about our—our——"

"Engagement," suggested Bob, as Nancy hesitated.

"Call it what you like, but we must keep it quiet for the present, and be very circumspect and all that. So, as we've been here for quite a long while, we had better be getting home."

Bob crumpled up the newspaper and threw it over the cliff.

"It's horrible, isn't it?" she said, as they watched it falling from rock to rock until it fell into the sea; "but it can't affect us, can it, Bob?"

"No," replied Bob, "it can't affect us. Nothing shall affect us, Nancy, and nothing shall come between us. I feel as though I could do anything now, and there's nothing I won't do to win a position worthy of you. I'll work like a slave. I'll map out my programme to the minutest detail, and I'll win all along the line. Edward VII was called a peacemaker, and everybody admired him for it. But I'll do more than he ever did. Just think of it! To be known throughout the country, and throughout the world, as the man who made war on war, and made it impossible. I'll give my life to it, Nancy—my whole life!"

"And where do I come in?" she asked, with mock sorrow.

"You! You come in everywhere. You are everything. You are my love, my inspiration; but for you everything would be impossible. One more kiss, Nancy, while no one can see us."

When Bob Nancarrow returned home that night he was the happiest man in Cornwall. More than he had ever hoped for had come to pass. Nancy had promised to wait for him because she loved him. She had preferred him to all others, and sacrificed brilliant prospects because of her love for him. The sky of his life seemed cloudless. Nothing, as far as he could see, stood in the way of his attaining his highest hopes. The plan which had so suddenly been born in his mind and heart grew in attractiveness. He had the most glorious objective in the world. He saw an outlet for his energies, while the cause for which he would stand appealed to all that was noblest within him.

War against war!

The thing had become a passion with him. Here was the great work which, unknown to himself, he had all along wanted. Even when he had dreamed of becoming an Oxford Don, and of spending his life in a kind of cultured seclusion, there had always been something wanting. He had fighting blood in his veins; the old fire for which the Trelawneys had been famous had constantly made its appeal. And now Nancy had shown him how his life could be a positive one. Now he could be true to the principles which he had inherited from his father, and to which he held with strong tenacity, and at the same time satisfy his desires to participate in the struggles and battles of the great world.

"A noble cause demands your zeal!"

He found himself humming the words as he turned on the lights. And he had a noble cause, the noblest, the most Christlike on earth. Warfare! Yes, in spite of his peace principles he loved warfare. Man was a fighting animal, and he was a man, every inch of him. And he was called on to fight—to fight the War-god which had lifted its head so arrogantly and brutally. But his warfare was to be for peace—the peace of the world. It was to be for man's salvation, and not for his destruction. Not for pillage, carnage, cruelty, mad hatred, overwhelming ambition, lust for blood; but brotherhood, kindliness, love, mercy. This was the battle of the Lord; this was the cause of Christ.

In this way he could be true to his father's teaching, true to the Christianity in which he believed; but more, he could by this means make himself worthy of Nancy, and make a place in the world, in which even her father would rejoice.

His heart beat with wild joy. Even now Nancy's kisses were warm on his lips, her words of love rang in his ears.

Yes, his plan of life was plain, his work arose before him, alluring, ennobling, inspiring. And Nancy loved him! What more could he desire?

He looked around the room with a long tremulous sigh of contentment. Life was indeed beautiful, glorious. Around him were thousands of books. His father had been an omnivorous reader, and had amassed a large library. Nearly every inch of wall-space was covered with book-shelves. Only one space, above the mantelpiece, was uncovered, and there hung what was even dearer than the books. It was an oil painting of his father.

Robert Nancarrow looked at it long and steadily, and as he did so his eyes became moist.

"Dear old father!" he murmured; "the noblest man that ever breathed."

It was a fine face he saw. Rather serious on the whole, but still with a smile lurking around the lips and shining in the eyes. The face of a good—almost a great man. No one could associate it with meanness or impurity. An intellectual face too, with a broad forehead and large, speaking eyes. A face which suggested conscientiousness, which proclaimed the fact that its owner must do whatever conscience told him to do, no matter what it might cost.

It seemed to Bob as he looked that his father smiled on him.

"Yes, it is what he would most desire," reflected the young fellow.

"It was the passion of his life, and it shall be mine."

He went to a bookcase, and took therefrom a small volume. It was entitled Thoughts on the Boer War, by Robert Nancarrow, M.D.

The young man opened it, and began to read; but his mind was too full of his plans to concentrate his attention.

"Father would love Nancy," he reflected, and then he arose from his chair and went close to the picture. "He does love her," he reflected. "He is alive, he knows, and he is pleased. I feel as though he were here now, and giving me his blessing on my love, and on my work."

The house was very silent. Every one had long since gone to bed, and not a sound was to be heard. The night was almost windless too, and not even the murmur of the waves in the Bay of St. Ia, which could be faintly heard outside, reached him. He felt himself alone with his father.

"Good night, father," he said aloud, still looking the picture. "I love her as my life, and I am very happy. I have your blessing, haven't I?"

Again it seemed to him that his father smiled on him. He was sure he saw the quiet humour in his eyes which he remembered so well.

Bob was in a strange humour that night. The day had been eventful beyond all the days of his life. He had entered into a happiness of which he had never dreamed before; he had seen visions of the future of which hitherto he had been blind. He had been carried away by his love and his enthusiasm; his nature had been moved to its depths. Now the memory of it all, the quietness of the house, caused thoughts to come to his mind, and moved him to feelings to which he had been a stranger.

"It's what you would wish me to do, father, isn't it?" he still continued aloud. "To go into Parliament, and then work and fight for the peace of the world? To destroy the ghastly nightmare of war, to fight against the War-god, to put an end to this eternal making of implements of death. I have your consent, and your blessing, haven't I?"

Yes, he was sure his father was smiling on him, and giving him his blessing. There was something sacred, holy, in the thought.

He turned out the lights, but the beams of the moon streamed through the window, and rested on the picture.

"Good night, father," he said. "I'll try to be a true man," and then he left the room, feeling as if indeed he had been talking to his father.

"Is that you, Bob?"

He was passing his mother's bedroom door, as the words reached his ears.

"Yes, mother. I thought you would have been asleep hours ago."

"No, I couldn't sleep till I heard you come in. Come in, and kiss me good night."

Bob entered his mother's room, and went towards the bed. Mrs. Nancarrow was still a young woman, and looked almost like a girl as she lay on the snowy pillows.

"Whom was that you were talking to?"

"I—I was thinking, mother."

"Thinking? Thinking aloud?"

"I suppose so."

"What about?"

"About father."

There was a silence for a few seconds. Both felt they were on sacred ground.

"Mother," said Bob, remembering what Nancy had said to him, "I want to tell you something. But you won't breathe a word, will you? It's a profound secret. I mean that you must not mention it to any one, must not speak about it to any one, under any circumstances."

"Of course I won't, if you don't wish it. What is it?"

"I'm engaged to Nancy Tresize."

"What!"

Bob repeated the news.

"Aren't you pleased, mother?"

She lifted herself up in the bed and threw her arms around his neck.

"You don't mean it really, Bob? Why, I never dreamed that such a thing was possible."

"Neither did I until to-day. I—I—mother, what are you crying about?

Aren't you pleased?"

"Of course I am; but oh, my dear boy! Oh, if only your father had lived!"

"He knows. I've been telling him," said Bob, who had a strain of the mystic in his nature. "I'm sure I have his blessing."

"Nancy is the finest, sweetest girl in Cornwall," she cried; "I couldn't have wished for anything better. I've always loved her. But I never thought that——"

"Neither did I," interrupted Bob. "It seems too good to be true, but it is true. I motored Nancy over to Gurnard's Head this afternoon, and—and it is all settled. She's the dearest girl in the world, mother."

"Of course she is," sobbed Mrs. Nancarrow. "There, wait a minute until I dry my eyes. I never expected such a thing, and—and oh, Bob, my dear, dear boy!"

"You mustn't imagine that you aren't still dear to me, mother, or that I love you one whit the less. I don't, you know, and Nancy loves you too."

"Yes, yes, I know that. It isn't that, my boy! But—but—you'll never know what a woman feels when she first learns that her only boy loves another woman better than he loves his mother. It isn't sorrow. Bob, oh no! I'm as glad as glad, and I couldn't wish for anything better. But what about the Admiral? Will he consent? I know he wants Nancy to marry Captain Trevanion."