it was the morning of november 11, 1920, the anniversary of the armistice, the day of the burial of the unknown warrior.
millie, who was to watch the procession with henry, was having breakfast with victoria in her bedroom. last night victoria had given a dinner-party to celebrate her engagement, and she had insisted that millie should sleep there—"the party would be late, a little dancing afterwards, and no one is so important for the success of the whole affair as you are, my millie."
victoria, sitting up in her four-poster in a lace cap and purple kimono, was very fine indeed. she felt fine; she held an imaginary reception, feeling, she told millie, exactly like teresia tallien, whose life she had just been reading, so she said to millie.
"not at all the person to feel like," said millie, "just before you're married."
"if you're virtuous," said victoria, "and are never likely to be anything else to the end of your days it is rather a luxury to imagine yourself grand, beautiful and wicked."
"you have got on rather badly with tallien," said millie, "and you wouldn't have liked barras any better."
"well, i needn't worry about it," said victoria, "because i've got mereward, who is quite another sort of man." she drank her tea, and then reflectively added: "do you realize, millie, darling, that you've stuck to me a whole eight months, and that we're more 'stuck' so to speak than we were at the beginning?"
"is that very marvellous?" asked millie.
"marvellous! why, of course it is! you don't realize how[pg 329] many i had before you came. the longest any one stayed was a fortnight."
"i've very nearly departed on one or two occasions," said millie.
"yes, i know you have." victoria settled herself luxuriously. "just give me that paper, darling, before you go and some of the letters. pick out the nicest ones. you've seen me dear, at a most turbulent point of my existence, but i'm safe in harbour now, and even if it seems a little dull i daresay i shall be able to scrape up a quarrel or two with mereward before long." millie gave her the papers; she caught her hand. "you've been happier these last few weeks, dear, haven't you? i'd hate to think that you're still worrying. . . . that—that man. . . ." she paused.
"oh, you needn't be afraid to speak of him." millie sat down on the edge of the bed. "i don't know whether i'm happier exactly, but i'm quiet again—and that seems to be almost all i care about now. it's curious though how life arranges things for you. i don't think that i should ever have come out of that miserable loneliness if i hadn't met some one—a woman—whose case was far worse than mine. there's always some one deeper down, i expect, however deep one gets. she took me out of myself. i seem somehow suddenly to have grown up. do you know, victoria, when i look back to that first day that i came here i see myself as such a child that i wonder i went out alone."
victoria nodded her head.
"yes, you are older. you've grown into a woman in these months; we've all noticed it."
millie got up. she stretched out her arms, laughing. "oh! life's wonderful! how any one can be bored i can't think. the things that go on and the people and these wonderful times! bunny hasn't killed any of that for me. he's increased it, i think. i see now what things other people have to stand. that woman, victoria, that i spoke of just now, her life! why, i'm only at the beginning—at the beginning of myself, at the beginning of the world, at the beginning of everything! what a time to be alive in!"
victoria sighed. "when you talk like that, dear, and look[pg 330] like that it makes me wish i wasn't going to marry mereward. it's like closing a door. but the enchantment is over for me. money can't bring it back nor love—not when the youth's gone. hold on to it, millie—your youth, my dear. some people keep it for ever. i think you will."
millie came and flung her arms round victoria.
"you've been a dear to me, you have. don't think i didn't notice how good and quiet you were when all that trouble with bunny was going on. . . . i love you and wish you the happiest married life any woman could ever have."
a tear trickled down victoria's fat cheek. "stay with me, millie, until you're married. don't leave us. we shall need your youth and loveliness to lighten us all up. promise."
and millie promised.
in the hall she met ellen.
"ellen, come with my brother and me to see the procession."
ellen regarded her darkly.
"no, thank you," she said.
then as she was turning away, "have you forgiven me?"
"forgiven you?"
"yes, for what i did. finding out about mr. baxter."
"there was nothing to forgive," said millie. "you did what you thought was right."
"right!" answered ellen. "always people like you are thinking of what is right. i did what i wanted to because i wanted to." she came close to millie. "i'm glad though i saved you. you've been kind to me after your own lights. it isn't your fault that you don't understand me. i only want you to promise me one thing. if you're ever grateful to me for what i did be kind to the next misshapen creature you come across. be tolerant. there's more in the world than your healthy mind will ever realize." she went slowly up the stairs and out of the girl's sight.
millie soon forgot her; meeting henry at panton street, pointing out to him that he must wear to-day a black tie, discussing the best place for the procession, all these things were more important than ellen.
just before they left the room she looked at him. "henry," she said, "what's happened to you?"
[pg 331]
"happened?" he asked.
"yes. you're looking as though you'd just received a thousand pounds from a noble publisher for your first book—both solemn and sanctified."
"i'll tell you all about it one day," he said. he told her something then, of the rescue, the staying of christina in his room, the arrival of the uncle.
he spoke of it all lightly. "he was a nice fellow," he said, "like a pirate. he said the mother wouldn't trouble us again and she hasn't. he carried christina off to his hotel. he asked me to dinner then, but i didn't go . . . yes, and they left for denmark two days later. . . . no, i didn't see them off. i didn't see them again."
millie looked in her brother's eyes and asked no more questions. but henry had grown in stature; he was hobbledehoy no longer. more than ever they needed one another now, and more than ever they were independent of all the world.
they found a place in the crowd just inside the admiralty arch. it was a lovely autumn day, the sunlight soft and mellow, the grey patterns of the arch rising gently into the blue, the people stretched like long black shadows beneath the walls.
when the procession came there was reverence and true pathos. for a moment the complexities, turmoils, selfishnesses, struggles that the war had brought in its train were drawn into one simple issue, one straightforward emotion. men might say that that emotion was sentimental, but nothing so sincerely felt by so many millions of simple people could be called by that name. the coffin passed with the admirals and the generals; there was a pause and then the crowd broke into the released space, voices were raised, there was laughter and shouting, every one pushing here and there, multitudes trying to escape from the uneasy emotion that had for a moment caught them, multitudes too remembering some one lost for a moment but loved for ever, typified by that coffin, that tin hat, that little wailing tune.
millie's hand was through henry's arm. "wait a moment," she said. "there'll be the pause at eleven o'clock. let's stay here and listen for it."
they stood on the curb while the crowd, noisy, cheerful,[pg 332] exaggerated, swirled back and forwards around them. suddenly eleven o'clock boomed from big ben. before the strokes were completed there was utter silence; as though a sign had flashed from the sky, the waters of the world were frozen into ice. the omnibuses in trafalgar square stayed where they were; every man stood his hat in his hand. the women held their children with a warning clasp. the pigeons around the arch rose fluttering and crying into the air, the only sound in all the world. the two minutes seemed eternal. tears came into millie's eyes, hesitated, then rolled down her cheeks. for that instant it seemed that the solution of the earth's trouble must be so simple. all men drawn together like this by some common impulse that they all could understand, that they would all obey, that would force them to forget their individual selfishnesses, but would leave them, in their love for one another, individuals as they had never been before. "oh! it can come! it must come!" millie's heart whispered. "god grant that i may live until that day."
the moment was over; the world went on again, but there were many there who would remember.
