Chapter 14

"THE PLIGHTED RING"

Jimmie came home from school on Friday evening bounding in full of news.

"Say, who do you s'pose's gone and enlisted from Orchard Glen now?" he demanded indignantly of Christina, who was preparing supper in the bright, warm kitchen.

"Mrs. Johnnie Dunn," suggested his sister. But Jimmie was in no mood for a joke. Each new enlistment from the community was to him a personal injury.

"More unlikely than that!" he growled, throwing his heavy bag of books in the corner, and his wet mittens behind the stove, "it's Gavin Grant, that's who it is."

Christina stopped in the operation of taking a pan of hot biscuits from the oven. "Gavin Grant! Why! Are you sure, Jimmie?"

"Course I'm sure. I saw him in town to-day. He's joined the Blue Bonnets, and they're going to Camp Borden, and I tell you it just makes a fellow sick, that's what it does!"

Jimmie did not explain just why Gavin's joining the army should have such an effect upon his health and Christina paid no heed to his complaint. She was completely taken by surprise. If there was a young man in Orchard Glen who had a good excuse for staying at home surely that young man was Gavin. And yet he was going, when it would be so easy to remain. She was not long left to wonder over him. Her mother brought home the whole story of Gavin's struggle from his proud and grief-stricken Aunts the very next day. Elspie Grant had come over to offer sympathy when her sons left her for the battle-field and Mary Lindsay could not rest until she had done the same for her old friend. So as next day was Saturday, Jimmie took her over to Craig-Ellachie in the cutter.

She came home filled with the story of the long time Gavin had been yearning to go, but had remained silent for his Aunts' sake, how he was making every preparation for their comfort in his absence, how brave he was, and how proud they were of him, even though it was breaking their three old hearts to see him go.

Christina listened to the recital in ever-deepening humiliation. She remembered how she had been disgusted with Gavin when he fled from before Piper Lauchie's wrath, and how full of admiration she had been for Wallace Sutherland's courage. She had played the part of a silly girl who could not see the character under the thin covering of appearances. Her humiliation was not made lighter by the remembrance that Wallace had given no smallest hint of a desire to enlist.

There was nothing else talked of at the Red Cross rooms the next day. Mrs. Sutherland was quite severe in her condemnation of Gavin for going and leaving a farm and three helpless women who had brought him up and given him his chance in the world.

"It is his plain duty to stay at home," she said distinctly. "It is nothing but a desire for adventure that is taking many of our young men away, when they are needed here to work the land. No young man with a farm should be allowed to enlist."

This was too much for Mrs. Johnnie Dunn, of course, and she proceeded to rid herself of the burden of it.

"Well, my stars!" she declared loudly, her needle flying in and out in time to her words, "I would rather get down on my marrow bones and scrub for my living if I was the Grant Girls than keep a young man at home. Gavin Grant's duty ain't at home any more than Trooper's is. The Grant Girls'll never want. Hughie Reid is just a brother to them, and he's to work the farm. And the Grant Girls are as well fixed as any folks in this Hall. And let me ask yous folks what good our farms'll be to us when the Germans gets here. Just tell me that, now?"

As usual, the Prime Minister had silenced the Monarch, and the latter took refuge in a royal and dignified silence that ignored the noisy usurper.

"Christina, my dear," Mrs. Sutherland said, "will you be so good as to fetch me another skein of this sweater-coat yarn from the storeroom?" Christina went obediently, inwardly hot and raging. She wanted to rush in by The Woman's side and stand up for Gavin and tell how chivalrous and brave he really was. But how ridiculous she would look speaking up to Wallace's mother in that fashion. And yet, it seemed as if some one had cast a reflection upon Sandy so much did it annoy her.

She was unpacking the desired article from a bale, hidden by a pile of supplies which The Woman had brought out the evening before, when voices from the other side of the barrier reached her.

"She won't stay President long, I bet." It was Tilly's voice and Tilly's giggle accompanied it. "She's started now to talk like the war was wrong and young men shouldn't go."

"Everybody knows it's all because Wallace won't go," answered Bell Brown. "Pa says Dr. McGarry won't speak at any more recruitin' meetings nor anything because he's so ashamed."

"I don't see how Christine Lindsay..." But Christina had tiptoed out of her ambush and escaped into the main room with the yarn, her cheeks burning, her eyes unnaturally bright.

Gavin went to camp at Niagara but was allowed to come back to work his farm for a month in the Summer. The Grant Girls were as happy to have him again as if he had returned from the war, and with youth's happy disregard of the future, they set themselves to have the gayest Summer that had ever shone down upon Craig-Ellachie, and folks who went there said there never was such fun as they had round the supper table with Gavin giving his Aunts' military orders and they obeying them with military precision.

Christina would have given much to be one of those guests. She wanted to show Gavin before he went that she admired his spirit, and was glad he wanted to go. But she felt diffident about going to Craig-Ellachie, and she shrewdly guessed that Gavin would never ask her.

She saw him only at church, and how proudly the Aunties walked down the aisle with Gavin in his Highland Uniform to show them to their seat and sit at the end of the pew. And indeed they could scarcely keep their eyes off him during the service, and a fine sight he was to be sure, in his trim khaki coat and his gay kilt. And the worry had all gone from his face and he was his old smiling kindly self. He was too busy to come to any of the village festivities and Christina had no opportunity to speak to him except as he came down the church aisle. And though the other girls crowded around him she stood aloof, so strangely shy she had become of Gavin.

Joanna and the other girls decided the young people must give Gavin a send-off such as had been given to all the boys and so they planned for a gathering on an evening when he came home for the last leave, and Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists once more joined amicably in a common cause. But Gavin was not to have the privilege of receiving a public farewell, a circumstance that suited him well, for he had dreaded anything that would drag him into public notice.

For one dark Autumn day, when the last blossom of the Grant Girls' garden had drooped before the frost, the Blue Bonnets were suddenly called to go overseas. Gavin had come home just the night before for a week-end leave, and a telegram summoned him to rejoin his Battalion at once. There was a great stir at Craig-Ellachie. Hughie Reid hurried over as soon as the news reached him, and he sent one of his boys to fetch Mrs. Johnnie Dunn to help the Aunties through their trial, and Hughie himself got out his Ford car to take Gavin to Algonquin to catch the midnight train for Toronto.

The weather seemed to be in accord with the hearts of the three bereaved old women, a cold rain came sweeping across the hills just as night fell and Gavin drove away from his old home and the loving arms that would have held him, into the storm and darkness, and the light of Craig-Ellachie went out with him.

Christina had not heard of Gavin's sudden call, and while he was driving away in the wind and rain, she was sitting by the fire winding a skein of yarn which Wallace Sutherland was holding.

The sitting room was warm and bright, and had many pretty feminine touches, and there were plenty of easy chairs and cushions that Mary had contributed from time to time. The soft-shaded lamp-light fell on Christina's bright hair as she bent over her yarn. Her mother had gone to bed early, they were alone and Wallace was watching Christina from his luxurious seat on the big deep sofa, in perfect content. The wind howled around the corners of the old house, and the rain lashed the window panes, but the comfort of the bright sitting-room and Christina's presence were only made more delightful by the contrast.

Wallace sank down deeper into the sofa. He was in his happiest mood. He had worked quite steadily all Summer and had been so successful in the process of "Showing Uncle William" that that unreasonable old person had written quite a reasonable letter to his brother, saying that, maybe there was something in the young cub after all, and that if he really succeeded in demonstrating that he was good for something, even if it was only feeding the pigs, he, Uncle William, might be inclined to pay him a visit, etc., etc. It was that etc. that so raised Wallace's spirits. He knew Uncle William, oh, right down to the ground, he declared, and had no hesitation in assuring Christina that if everything went all right with his stock this Winter, Uncle William was his to do as he pleased with. He was very happy, and expected Christina to rejoice with him. She was naturally gay and ready to follow a merry lead, and Wallace enjoyed her companionship more than any one he had known for that very reason. But he could not deny that for some time she had not been such a good comrade. She had to make an effort to-night to help him be gay over Uncle William's complete undoing. She tried to be interested as he told all his good fortune, but was just a little relieved when John came in for a few minutes and began talking politics.

She went to the kitchen for a plate of apples, leaving them discussing the Minister of Militia, and was taking down a plate from the high old cupboard in the kitchen, when she heard a sound as if some one were fumbling at the door. The big kitchen was empty, the damp day had been bad for Uncle Neil's rheumatism, and he had gone to bed early, it was almost too late for a visitor, and thinking it might be only the wind, Christina put down her plate and went to look if the outside porch door were slamming.

She threw open the door and the rain and wind whirled in her face, and out of the wet and the darkness emerged a tall figure in a long khaki overcoat and a Highland bonnet. The bonnet came off immediately, and the soldier said in a soft Highland accent, "Good evening, Christine."

"Oh, Gavin," she cried in surprise, and a sudden unreasonable joy. "Is it really you? Come away in. Are you wet?"

But Gavin still stood in the doorway. "No, I cannot come in," he said hurriedly; "Hughie is waiting for me at the gate. He is taking me into Algonquin."

Christina looked past him into the darkness. "To Algonquin! Oh, Gavin, you're not called away are you?"

"Yes, the Battalion is ordered to Halifax, we will likely be sailing at once. I did not know till this morning; and I--" his voice dropped to a whisper, "I just couldn't go away without saying good-bye to you, Christine."

A gust of wind swayed Christina's skirts, and Gavin stepped inside and closed the door, but stood holding the latch.

"And your poor Aunties!" cried Christina. She was angry with herself the moment she said it, for a look of anguish passed quickly over Gavin's face.

"They are very brave," he said simply. He paused, there was silence in the big warm kitchen.

"Won't you come in, just a minute, and say good-bye to John?" asked Christina. "Mother and Uncle Neil are gone to bed, but--"

"No, I have no time to-night, but I could not go without seeing you, just once, and saying good-bye," he whispered.

Christina's eyes suddenly stung with tears. "Oh, Gavin," she faltered, "I--I don't deserve it."

He shook his head to indicate that she was wrong, and again silence fell. Gavin glanced at his wrist watch. She noticed that his awkwardness had disappeared under his military training, he held himself with a new dignified bearing. "I must not be keeping you," he said, but it seemed as if he could not go. He stood looking down at her and she could not mistake the look in Gavin's eyes. Her own fell before them.

"Oh," she managed to whisper, "I have always wanted to tell you that I think it is so brave and so grand of you to go, and, ... oh, I hope you'll come back safe," she ended, faltering, and Gavin still stood unable to speak and looked at her as if he could never take his eyes away.

The loud, slow tick of the old clock marked off the minutes.

Suddenly Gavin put his fingers under the collar of his coat. "Could you--would you mind taking this as a little keepsake?" he whispered, handing her the regimental pin of the Blue Bonnets. She took it with grateful thanks.

And then a sudden impulse came to her.

"But, I ought to give you something in return."

She looked up and down her dress. She wore no ornament but an old-fashioned brooch of her mother's fastening the throat of her soft blue dress. "I haven't anything," she said helplessly. She followed Gavin's eyes that were fastened on her left hand.

"Could you spare me that?" he whispered. It was a little old ring, one that Allister had sent her before he came home for his first visit, just plain gold with her initials carved on it. Christina slipped it off her finger eagerly.

"Oh, it's just a poor little, old thing, Gavin, but I'd be so proud to have it go to the war," she cried. He took it, his face radiant.

"Oh," he cried, "I ought not to have asked you. I was too bold, perhaps, I shouldn't--perhaps--he,--wouldn't like it?"

Christina's face flamed. "There is no one who has any right to say what I should do," she said with sudden boldness.

Gavin's face lit up. He slipped the ring on his little finger. It would hardly go on, but he managed it. A line of the old song he had sung flashed through Christina's mind as he did it, something about the plighted ring the warrior wore, being crushed and wet with gore.

"Oh, Gavin," she whispered, the tears welling up into her eyes, "God bless you, and bring you home safe again."

A sharp whistle sounded from the gate where Hughie Reid was waiting impatiently in the rain. Gavin started as if from a dream. He held out his hand. "Good-bye, Christine," he whispered, "you won't forget me, will you?"

Christina put her hand into his. She shook her head; she could not answer. He was going away, perhaps to his death, and she had not a word for him, and yet he was leaving her deliberately to another at the call of duty. Her heart was in a tumult of grief and self-abasement. She could only stand and look up at him, her eyes filled with tears, her lips trembling, and the next moment, Gavin had stooped, with the sudden boldness of a shy man, and kissed her.

And then the door was flung open and shut again, and he was gone into the storm and darkness, and Christina was left standing motionless, gazing at the closed door.

It was a long time before she found courage to return to the sitting-room. Her heart was throbbing with grief and at the same time a wild exultation that she could not understand and had no time to analyze. She did not even attempt to answer Wallace's raillery as to the length of time she had been away, or John's as to why she had stayed in the cellar long enough to eat all the apples which she found she had forgotten to bring. The event had been too stupendous for her to come down to the commonplace. And at last Wallace grew just a little piqued over her absent-minded air and went home early very much to Christina's relief.

It was the week after Gavin had gone out into the storm and Christina was still going about in a sort of daze, with feelings still unanalyzed, when she remembered that Friday would be Jimmie's eighteenth birthday. Jimmie should have been through school, but he had done that disgraceful thing that, so far, no Lindsay had ever done; he had failed in his examinations the Summer before. Had it not been for the boys' going to war, the great event that absorbed the mind of the family, Jimmie might have fared badly. As it was he received a solemn warning from John, and went back to school in the Fall very unwillingly.

"Life is so queer," Christina was constrained to say. "I was always dying to go to school and couldn't, and Jimmie is dying to stay out of it and can't."

"It's Allister's money that's spoiled the silly kid," grumbled John. "That and the war. I tell you, Christina, we always thought it was a dreadful misfortune to be poor, and wished we had money, but I am beginning to think that we ought to thank the Lord that we have had to do without. Jimmie has never done very well at school just because it has been made easy for him to there."

"I'm afraid Allister's money is not likely to do any of us much more harm, anyway," Christina said to herself, remembering another rather despondent letter from him. She could not quite agree with John that money was not a very good thing to have. It would have opened for her the road to the college halls, but it had been denied. And yet she was not unhappy. Something sang in her heart these days, the memory of a certain farewell at the back door in the wind and the rain and darkness, a memory that was all light and glory.

But Jimmie was still unsettled and dissatisfied with school, and Christina said that she would please him by making him a birthday cake. She would ice it with plenty of thick almond paste, his favourite, and put his initials on it and the date. It was a very handsome and tempting confection indeed, when she put it on the pantry shelf in a secluded spot where he would not see it until the right moment arrived.

The kitchen was still filled with its spicy fragrance when there came a quick footfall in the porch and a knock at the door. Christina opened it to meet a slim young soldier who strode into the room and saluted smartly. She stood looking at him in stupefied silence for a moment, and then she dropped upon a chair and put her head down on the kitchen table.

"Oh, Jimmie! Oh, Jimmie!" she sobbed. "How could you?"

But the new recruit caught her round the waist and waltzed her across the room, and then, snatching the butcher-knife from the table, he presented arms and saluted and posed all in such an absurd fashion that in spite of her grief she smiled.

"Go right back into the shed till I tell mother," she exclaimed, "she mustn't see you till she has had warning."

Jimmie went out and hid himself, just a little subdued. Evidently his gallant act, the thing that everybody had admired in Trooper, had taken on a different colour when performed by him.

He had little opportunity to reflect upon his act. There was hardly time for sorrow before Jimmie was gone; he had been put in a draft for a Battalion already in England and to his huge delight he was sent overseas almost immediately. It seemed as if this, her baby's going, was almost more than Mrs. Lindsay could bear, and Christina was more and more called upon to be a comforter and a bearer of burdens.

It was not the fear of gas nor bomb nor German bullet that kept Jimmie's mother wakeful at night, but the pestilence that walked in darkness, waylaying the souls of young men. Terrible tales of brave boys falling before an enemy more to be dreaded than all the frightfulness of the Hun came back to Canada. It was this living Death that stalked through the camps of England, and behind the lines in France and Flanders, that made the mother's heart sick with fear.

As she watched her mother's silent suffering, Christina's soul began, again, to ask questions. What was the meaning of that psalm that Grandpa had read when Sandy and Neil went way, and, later, when Jimmie left? Did it mean anything? And if it did, why could it not bring comfort to her mother's sorely-tried heart?

Through all the days of Christina's loneliness and anxiety there was no one so kind to her as Wallace's mother. Mrs. Sutherland made a point of selecting Christina for her special helper at Red Cross meetings, and Christina could not but notice the significance of her attentions.

"You are such a comfort, Christine," she declared one day when the girl handed her back a sock with a dropped stitch deftly picked up. "Your mother is a fortunate woman. I wish I had a daughter like you!"

Christina's cheeks grew scarlet, and she was thankful that the clatter of sewing machines and the noise of Mrs. Johnnie Dunn's orders secured them from being overheard.

But indeed, she could not shut her eyes to the fact that all events pointed in the direction so prettily indicated, again and again, by Wallace's mother. Wallace was succeeding beyond his own expectations, and Uncle William was growing more lamb-like every day. The road to success had surely opened out for Christina. Her Dream Knight had ridden up to her very door. He was possessed of a fine house, and broad acres, and had prospects of great wealth. He was handsome and gay and debonair, and what more could any human girl ask?

And in the face of all this grand good fortune that unreasonable Christina Lindsay was more dissatisfied and restless than she had ever been in all her life. She reasoned with herself and scolded herself all to no avail. That foolish heart of hers, that had always got in the way of her worldly prospects, was standing stubbornly right in the very highway of success.

Here was the great opportunity of her life, such prospects as might dazzle any Orchard Glen girl, and its glory was all blotted out by the memory of a tall figure in a khaki coat, coming suddenly out of the wind and rain of a dark night. Wallace had sat by Christina's side that night in the warmth and shelter of the fireside, but though Christina did not quite realise it yet, her heart had gone out into the storm after Gavin, and could never come back. It was still following him over the perils of the high seas and into the blood and carnage of the battlefield, and it valued farms and stock and fine houses less than the dust.

And so Christina was more dissatisfied than she had ever been in her life, and she lay awake nights wondering what she should do, and how she could possibly extricate herself from the impossible position in which she found herself.

And to make matters worse or better, she did not know which, Gavin wrote to her, and she wrote him long letters in reply. And she grew into the habit of running over the hills to Craig-Ellachie to cheer the Grant Girls, and, of course, they talked of their soldier-hero all the time, and of nothing else.

The Aunties literally lived by his letters. Everything was dated by them.

"We started yon crock o' butter jist the day Gavie's first letter came from France," Auntie Janet would say. "It's time it was finished."

"Gavie's letter was a bit late this week," they announced at another time, "so we didn't start the ironin' till it came. It jist seemed as if we couldn't settle down."

Gavin's letters were certainly worth waiting for, Christina had to confess. He wrote much easier than he spoke, and his happiness in being permitted to write to her at all filled them with a quiet humour. Christina's eyes searched them just a little wistfully for any hint of the feeling he had displayed in his farewell. But there was none. Gavin was too much the true gentleman to presume on that parting. He told her he had the little ring safe, and that it was his most precious possession, but beyond that he did not refer to that last evening. There was never a hint of hardship, even after he reached the Front, and was in many a desperate encounter. It was only all joy that he was able to be in the struggle for right. He had just one anxiety and that was lest his Aunts be lonely, and he wondered if she would be so good as to comfort them just a little when she could.

And Christina wrote him long letters in return and felt like a criminal in her double dealing. She knew she was wrong but she could not make a decision. On the one hand was all that she could hope this world could offer, and on the other nothing but a true and gallant heart. She was angry and ashamed of herself and very restless, and withal, in spite of herself, quite unreasonably happy.

Mary had been writing all Winter urging her to come for a little visit, and see Hughie Junior, who was a marvellous baby, with wonderful feats to his credit that no human baby had ever yet performed. But Christina put the tempting invitations aside, feeling she must not leave her mother in her deep anxiety.

And then there came letters from overseas that brought a wonderful relief from her mother's worry, and lightened greatly the burdens of the night.

For many and many a night her mother sat sleepless by her window, looking up at the stars that hung above her home and that also watched above her soldier sons. She had no fears for Neil, a thousand might fall at his side and ten thousand at his right hand, but it would not come nigh him. And Sandy,--Sandy was honest, and true, and as fine a lad as marched in the Canadian Army, but he was young and careless and gay, and how did she know what temptations might assail him? And there was Jimmie! Night after night she lay awake, thinking of Jimmie, praying and agonising for him. He was so young, such a big overgrown baby, how could he come through unscathed?

And then there came from France this great relief from her dread. Jimmie's draft had reached England and Neil had managed to get himself transferred to Jimmie's Battalion. It was going to France immediately, and France was safer than England, Neil wrote, from certain kinds of dangers. And his mother was not to worry, for he had Jimmie right beside him and he would look after the boy and see that no harm could come to him. And Sandy wrote that Neil had refused a chance to take the officer's course and a Commission, because he would not leave Jimmie.

Full of joy and gratitude, Christina watched her mother's eyes grow bright again, and so she left Mitty in charge of her many affairs and took the train for a week's visit to Port Stewart.

Mary's house was as pretty as ever, but had lost much of its immaculate tidiness. For Hughie Lindsay MacGillivray's wardrobe and appointments overflowed into every room. But Hughie himself was all he had been reported and more, and Christina fell down and worshipped his apple blossom face and his dimples at the first sight.

"And tell me all about Wallace Sutherland," demanded Mary, between raptures. "Isn't it grand that he's doing such fine things with the Ford place. Why, Christine, you'll be a wealthy woman some day!"

"Oh, hush!" cried Christina in distress. "Why, Mary, I haven't even been asked to live at the Ford place yet, and it's positively shameless to talk about, about anything, yet!"

"Nonsense!" laughed the practical Mary. "You know perfectly well that Wallace is in love with you, and that you are as good as engaged."

"He is not! I am not!" denied Christina excitedly. "Don't you talk like that, Mary, I--I can't bear it--"

"Why, Christine, why, mercy! I didn't mean anything!" cried Mary, alarmed and amazed at the sight of tears in Christina's eyes. "Why, what's the matter, dear? You haven't quarrelled with Wallace, have you?"

"Oh, no, of course not," said Christina dolefully, regaining her composure.

"And his mother's just lovely to you now, isn't she?"

"Yes."

"And, well, what's wrong? Why, any girl I know, even here in town, would give anything for your prospects!"

But Christina could not explain her sudden outburst. It had astonished herself as much as Mary. She knew that now was the great opportunity to confess to Mary that Wallace had fallen far below her high standard, but the memory of the Ford place and all it meant closed her lips. It seemed too much to give up, and she went home with the battle between her heart and her head still raging.