Part 18

Of course the chief object of these diabolical visitations is just that, so to weaken the moral stamina that we people will cry for peace at any price. That cry will never be heard in this country, Cornelia, not if he sends his aerial torpedoes hurtling through the sky, world without end.

There is no grumbling, surprisingly little protest anywhere. Our people accept these things as part of the horrible business in which we are presently engaged. They don't even know how to hate properly. We have a German prison camp nearby, the men being employed in the woods, cutting and preparing the timber of which so many of our finest properties are now being denuded. These men are scared to death in the raids, but though you may hear an occasional hope expressed that a bomb might fall on the prison camp, I question whether, if you drove it home, you would find they really desired such a thing to happen. We are not successful haters; we are only clean fighters, and desperate lovers of peace.

Can you accept that paradoxical presentment which is an actual description of our mental attitude?

The children in the war zone here are beginning to exercise us; some of them are really subnormal now, like their poor little brothers and sisters in the other countries. Those who can, remove them to safer places, sending them often to relations in remote parts of the country. Children quickly droop when their sleeping hours are shortened or much disturbed.

The school teachers find them either restless or extremely languid after an air raid; and cannot urge them to concentrate on their lessons. One wee chap in our cellar, in his pajamas the other night, said pathetically to his mother, with eyes heavy with sleep: "Mummy, you won't get me up next night, will you, till they are really here?"

No, I am not hearing regularly from Himself. There has been no letter for weeks and weeks. Whether they are being torpedoed when written, or not written at all, I don't know. There is only the blank wall of silence. How much can the human heart stand, I wonder? We are amazing creatures, bound by "cords which come from out eternity."

*XVI*

Yes, I have read Sir Oliver Lodge's book and had some correspondence with him about it. Somehow he got it into his head that I had written a rather brutal, unsigned article on it in the Daily Mail. Writing to refute this, I set forth my views on spiritualism and the intervention of mediums between us and those who have passed on. We say "gone away" in Scotland, and I think I like it better. He sent me a long letter in reply. I will enclose you a copy.

I don't think there is any road that way. The only key to the grave was left on the stone of the sepulchre on the Resurrection morning.

Do you remember the Leightons--Robert and Marie? They lost their beautiful son, not the only, but the favourite one, in France, and she has written a beautiful book about him, called "Boy of My Heart." It is the best thing by far she has ever written, and immensely worth reading. She is now side-tracking with the rest along these doubtful and bewildering paths. Oh, I wish people wouldn't. To me it seems a kind of desecration.

If I can have any communication with my son, I don't want to have it through some strange, odd freak of a person, who has to go into a trance for the purpose. If God means me to hear from the other side, He will send the Boy to me direct. That I most firmly believe, and am content to wait that day. If it never comes, why then I can go on waiting for the day which can't be so very far distant, when I shall cross the narrow sea between that happy land and ours. I wrote as strongly and convincingly as I could to Mrs. Leighton, but I don't think it availed much. There is a little group of the intellectuals just now all heading in the same direction, names familiar all the world over.

To me it is all intensely pathetic. It is the cry of lost youth, the admission that they have no real city or abiding place, and no sort of surety about what is going to come.

I remember Himself coming in one day and sending me out to a dying woman with the words: "I'm through with my job. It's yours now." When I got to her she looked at me so wistfully, saying: "Doctor says you are so sure."

You have no idea how these words thrilled me. Thank God I am sure. We are all sure, who know in Whom we have believed.

Since I wrote to you last I have had disquieting news about Effie. She was knocked down, while standing beside her car, by a big French military motor. The officers riding in it did not even stop to pick her up. Possibly they were not even aware that anything had happened. One must be charitable enough to suppose so. Some one came along and took her to a hospital, from which she is now able to send a few pencilled lines. She escaped with a few good bruises and it was quite a few days before I could discover whether there was any facial injury. Nobody seemed to reflect that I might be worrying about that. I applied for permission to go over to see her, but was refused. Nobody is permitted to cross the Channel to visit wounded or sick relatives unless the case is hopeless.

Her temperature kept up obstinately for longer than they liked, but I am thankful to say she is now convalescent.

I have had shoals of letters from all kinds of people over there, from the Brigadier to the orderly, expatiating on her absolute indispensability at the Base. They seem terrified in case we order her to come home.

It is very sweet to hear that she is so greatly beloved, and doing efficiently and cheerfully so much useful service. What experience she must have locked in her too uncommunicative bosom! She has had three years of it now, and has really told us very little. If she never tries to express it in writing, well, it surely will inform and colour all her after life. I should not dare to bid her home on my own responsibility, though there are days when I not only want, but need her desperately.

Talking of the modernity of these inaccessible, mysterious young creatures, I don't think I told you of a friend of mine, mother of four, who soon after the outbreak of war, received from her family a letter signed by each member, thanking her for permitting them to be born at the psychological moment of history.

Another friend of mine who had the misfortune to marry a full-blooded and very German German, who, however, conveniently departed this life the year before the war, told me her sons passionately reproached her for giving them a German father.

One gets bewildered in this strange hurly-burly where every mask seems to be torn off and the decencies of life hardly respected any more.

I am so glad you are easier in your mind about Anne. Effie was tremendously interested. All she said was "Anne will never marry that one; he's only experimental." Perhaps that may comfort you a little. Presumably, these birds of a feather understand one another!

Sometimes I have the awful feeling that Effie has passed out of the region of my love and care. Yet how dare I intrude these little personal fears upon a world's sorrow?

Every day I am writing letters to fathers and mothers whose darlings have gone forever "where, beyond these voices, there is peace."

One grows heart weary of the task, and even the balm of Gilead seems to have lost its power to soothe or heal.

Yet often and often I am thrilled by the courage and calmness and faith of those who have given the most. They are upheld and illumined by some white and lovely flame which surely emanates from the secret place of the Most High.

Never has there been such glory of sacrifice ennobled by that passion for the right which lifts those whom it inspires very high, above ignoble things.

My country was never greater than now, Cornelia. Shorn and blood-stained, she is worthy to be numbered with those who are arrayed in white robes and have come out of great tribulation.