Four Days | Page 2

be in England for his first leave. It was now May: they were to be married at last.
"Marjie."
"Len."
"I have just four days, you know, darling. That's all I could get. We've been transferred to the Dardanelles; else I wouldn't have got off at all."
"Four days," murmured Marjorie. She looked up, and met his eyes, and stared, and could not look away. "It's a long, long time, four days," she said, without knowing what she was saying. All at once she put her hands over her eyes, and, pressing her head fiercely against Leonard's arm, she began to cry and to laugh, continuing to repeat, senselessly, "It's a long, long time."
And Leonard, trembling all over, kissed her on the back of her head, which was all he could reach.
They drew near to Richmond, the familiar avenues and the cool, trim lawn, and the great trees. Marjorie's tongue all at once loosened; she chattered whimsically, like an excited child.
"It's home, home, home, and they're all waiting for us--mater and your father and all the family. He's been in a perfect state all day, poor old dear, though he hasn't an idea any one's noticed it. Little Herbert's the only one that's behaved a bit natural--and old Nannie. I've been rushing about your room, sitting in all the chairs, and saying, 'To-night he'll be sitting in this chair; to-night he may be standing in this very spot before the fire; to-night he may be looking out of this window.' O, Len, we're to be married at half-past eight, and we're going in motors so as not to waste any time. I haven't even read over the marriage service. I haven't the vaguest idea what to do or say. But what difference does that make! Do you see, Len? Do you see?" She stopped and squeezed Leonard's hand, for she saw that he was suddenly speechless. "There they are," lifting the blind, "mother and little Herbert; and see the servants peeking from the wing."
They swept grandly around the bend in the avenue. The windows of the great house blazed a welcome. All the sky was mother-of-pearl and tender. In the air was the tang of spring. In the white light Marjorie saw Leonard's lips quiver and he frowned. She had a sudden twinge of jealousy, swallowed up by an immense tenderness.
"There's mother," he said.
"Hello, Len, old boy."
His father was on the steps. Leonard greeted him with the restraint and the jocose matter-of-factness that exist between men who love each other. He kissed his mother a little hungrily, just as he had when he was a small boy back from his first homesick term at Eton, and fluttered the heart of that frail, austere lady, who had borne this big, strapping boy--a feat of which she was sedately but passionately proud.
Little Herbert, all clumsiness and fat legs and arms, did a good deal of hugging and squealing, and Miss Shake, Leonard's old governess, wept discreetly and worshipfully in the background.
"Look at 'im! Ain't he grand? Glory be to God--bless 'im, my baby!" cried Irish Nannie, who had suckled this soldier of England; and loudly she wept, her pride and her joy unrebuked and unashamed.
At the risk of annoying Leonard, they must follow him about, waiting upon him at tea-time, touching him wistfully, wonderingly, for was it not himself, their own Leonard, who had come back to them for a few days? And instead of himself, it might have been just a name,--Leonard Leeds,--one among a list of hundreds of others; and written opposite each name one of the three words, Wounded, Missing, Dead.
Jealously his own family drew aside and let Marjorie go upstairs with him alone. She had the first right; she was his bride. Mr. Leeds plucked little Herbert back by his sailor collar and put his arm through his wife's. Together they watched the two slender figures ascending the broad stair-case. Each parent was thinking, "He's hers now, and they're young. We mustn't be selfish, they have such a short time to be happy in, poor dears."
"Looks fit, doesn't he?" said the father, cheerfully, patting his wife's arm. Inwardly he was thinking, "How fortunate no woman can appreciate all that boy has been through!"
"Do you think so? I thought he looked terribly thin," she answered, absently. To herself she was saying, "No one--not even his father--will ever know what that boy has seen and suffered."
Little Herbert, watching with big eyes, suddenly wriggled his hand from his father's grasp.
"Wait, Leonard, wait for me! I am coming!"
Upstairs old Nannie was officiating. She was struggling with Leonard's kit, which resembled, she thought, more the rummage box of a gypsy pedler than the luggage of a gentleman.
The young officer had taken off his great-coat and was standing with his back to the hearth. He loomed up very