Echoes of the War | Page 5

Blighty." I make a point of calling it Blighty. "I wonder," I said, "if there is anything I can do for you?" He shook his head. "What regiment?" I asked.' Here Mr. Willings very properly lowers his voice to a whisper. '"Black Watch, 5th Battalion," he said. "Name?" I asked. "Dowey," he said.'
MRS. MICKLEHAM. 'I declare. I do declare.'
MR. WILLINGS, showing how the thing was done, with the help of a chair, 'I put nay hand on his shoulder as it might be thus. "Kenneth Dowey," I said, "I know your mother."'
MRS. DOWEY, wetting her lips, 'What did he say to that?'
MR. WILLINGS. 'He was incredulous. Indeed, he seemed to think I was balmy. But I offered to bring him straight to you. I told him how much you had talked to me about him.'
MRS. DOWEY. 'Bring him here!'
MRS. MICKLEHAM. 'I wonder he needed to be brought.'
MR. WILLINGS. 'He had just arrived, and was bewildered by the great city. He listened to me in the taciturn Scotch way, and then he gave a curious laugh.'
MRS. TWYMLEY. 'Laugh?'
MR. WILLINGS, whose wild life has brought him into contact with the strangest people, 'The Scotch, Mrs, Twymley, express their emotions differently from us. With them tears signify a rollicking mood, while merriment denotes that they are plunged in gloom. When I had finished he said at once, "Let us go and see the old lady."'
MRS. DOWEY, backing, which is the first movement she has made since he began his tale, 'Is he--coming?'
MR. WILLINGS, gloriously, 'He has come. He is up there. I told him I thought I had better break the joyful news to you.'
Three women rush to the window. Mrs. Dowey looks at her pantry door, but perhaps she remembers that it does not lock on the inside. She stands rigid, though her face has gone very grey.
MRS. DOWEY. 'Kindly get them to go away.'
MR. WILLINGS. 'Ladies, I think this happy occasion scarcely requires you.' He is not the man to ask of woman a sacrifice that he is not prepared to make himself. 'I also am going instantly.' They all survey Mrs. Dowey, and understand--or think they understand.
MRS. TWYMLEY, pail and mop in hand, 'I would thank none for their company if my Alfred was at the door.'
MRS. MICKLEHAM, similarly burdened, 'The same from me. Shall I send him down, Mrs. Dowey?' The old lady does not hear her. She is listening, terrified, for a step on the stairs. 'Look at the poor, joyous thing, sir. She has his letters in her hand.'
The three women go. Mr. Willings puts a kind hand on Mrs. Dowey's shoulder. He thinks he so thoroughly understands the situation.
MR. WILLINGS. 'A good son, Mrs. Dowey, to have written to you so often.'
Our old criminal quakes, but she grips the letters more tightly. Private Dowey descends.
'Dowey, my friend, there she is, waiting for you, with your letters in her hand.'
DOWEY, grimly, 'That's great.'
Mr. Willings ascends the stair without one backward glance, like the good gentleman he is; and the Doweys are left together, with nearly the whole room between them. He is a great rough chunk of Scotland, howked out of her not so much neatly as liberally; and in his Black Watch uniform, all caked with mud, his kit and nearly all his worldly possessions on his back, he is an apparition scarcely less fearsome (but so much less ragged) than those ancestors of his who trotted with Prince Charlie to Derby. He stands silent, scowling at the old lady, daring her to raise her head; and she would like very much to do it, for she longs to have a first glimpse of her son. When he does speak, it is to jeer at her.
'Do you recognise your loving son, missis?' ('Oh, the fine Scotch tang of him,' she thinks.) 'I'm pleased I wrote so often.' ('Oh, but he's raized,' she thinks.) He strides towards her, and seizes the letters roughly, 'Let's see them.'
There is a string round the package, and he unties it, and examines the letters at his leisure with much curiosity. The envelopes are in order, all addressed in pencil to Mrs. Dowey, with the proud words 'Opened by Censor' on them. But the letter paper inside contains not a word of writing.
'Nothing but blank paper! Is this your writing in pencil on the envelope?' She nods, and he gives the matter further consideration.
'The covey told me you were a charwoman; so I suppose you picked the envelopes out of waste-paper baskets, or such like, and then changed the addresses?' She nods again; still she dare not look up, but she is admiring his legs. When, however, he would cast the letters into the fire, she flames up with sudden spirit. She clutches them.
'Don't you burn them letters, mister.'
'They're not real letters.'
'They're