<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER IX</h2>
<p class="pch">LIKE TO LIKE</p>
<p class="drop-cap04">IT was in May, 1916, that Waldo got a severe
wound in the right shoulder, which put him
out of action for the rest of the war and sent
him, after two or three months in a hospital, back
to Cragsfoot. He had done very well, indeed distinguished
himself rather notably; had fortune been
kinder, he might have expected to rise to high rank.
The letters which I received—I was far away, and
was not at the time able to get leave, even had
I felt justified in asking for it—reflected the mingled
disappointment, anxiety, and relief, which the end
of his military career, the severity of his wound,
and his return home—alive, at all events!—naturally
produced at Cragsfoot.</p>
<p>Sir Paget wrote seldom and briefly, but with a
quiet humor and an incisive touch. Aunt Bertha’s
letters—especially now that she had only me to
write to, and no longer spent the larger part of her
epistolary energy on Waldo—were frequent, full,
vivid, and chatty. But she was also very discursive;
she would sandwich in the Kaiser between the cook
and the cabbages, Waldo’s wound between Bethmann-Hollweg<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</SPAN></span>
and Mr. Winston Churchill. It was,
however, possible to gather from her, aided by Sir
Paget, a pretty complete picture of what was going
on both at Cragsfoot and at Briarmount.</p>
<p>For at Briarmount too anxiety reigned, and the
times were critical. As might be expected of him,
Mr. Jonathan Frost had wrought marvels during
the war. The whole of his vast establishments had
been placed at the disposal of the Ministry of Munitions;
he had effected wonders of rapid adaptation
and transformation, wonders of organization
and output; he “speeded up” a dozen Boards and
infused his own restless energy into somnolent offices.
But two years of these exertions, on the top
of a life of gigantic labor, proved too much even
for him. He won a peerage, but he gave his life.
In the September of that same year he came back
to Briarmount, the victim of a stroke, a dying man.
His mind was still clear and active, but he had considerable
difficulty in speaking, and was unable to
move without assistance. His daughter, who had
sedulously nursed him through his labors, was now
nursing him through the last stage of his earthly
course.</p>
<p>But there was also a newcomer at Briarmount, a
frequent visitor there during the last months of its
master’s life, one in whom both Aunt Bertha and
Sir Paget took considerable interest. This was Captain
Godfrey Frost. Lord Dundrannan (he took
his title from a place he had in Scotland) was old-fashioned<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</SPAN></span>
enough not to approve of confiding to
women the exclusive command of great interests;
they lacked the broad view and the balance of mind,
however penetrating their intuitions might on occasion
be! And too much power was not good for
them; he even seemed to have hinted to Sir Paget
that they were quite masterful enough already!
That he meant to leave his daughter handsomely,
indeed splendidly, endowed, was certain; but he was
minded to provide himself with an heir male in the
person of this young man. It would have been natural,
perhaps, to suspect him of planning a match
between the cousins, but this did not seem to be
in his head—perhaps because such personal matters
as marriages held a small place in his mind;
perhaps because he suspected that his daughter’s
ideas on that subject were already settled; perhaps
because his nephew was somewhat too young and—from
a social point of view—unformed to be a good
mate for his accomplished daughter.</p>
<p>Captain Frost was, in fact, inexperienced and
backward, shy and rather silent, in society; but unquestionably
he had a full share of the family business
ability—so much so that, when Lord Dundrannan
“cracked up,” he was brought back from the
front (against his protests, it is only fair to add),
and put in charge, actual if not always nominal, of a
great part of the important activities on which his
uncle had been engaged. His disposition appeared
to be simple, amiable, and unassuming. He was<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</SPAN></span>
pleasantly deferential to Sir Paget, rather afraid
of Aunt Bertha’s acute eyes, cordial and attentive
to Waldo. Towards Nina he was content to accept
the position of pupil and <i>protégé</i>; he let her put him
through his social paces; he regarded her with evident
respect and admiration, and thought her worthy
to be her father’s daughter—more than that
he could not do! There was no trace of any sentiment
beyond this, or different in kind from it.
There was, in fact, to be detected in Aunt Bertha’s
letters an underlying note of satisfaction; it might
be described in the words, “He’s quite nice, but
there’s nothing to fear!”</p>
<p>But if such a note as that were really to be heard
in Aunt Bertha’s letters, it could mean only one
thing; and it marked a great change in her attitude
towards Nina. It meant that she was looking forward
with contentment, apparently with actual
pleasure, to a match between Nina and Waldo.
Other signs pointed in the same direction—her mention
of Nina’s frequent calls at Cragsfoot, of her
kindness to Waldo, of her devotion to her father,
of her praiseworthy calm and level-headedness during
this trying time. The change had perhaps
started from a reaction against Lucinda; after the
first impulse of sympathy with the distracted fugitive
(a very real one at the time) had died down,
Lucinda’s waywardness, her “unaccountability,” presented
themselves in a less excusable light. But the
main cause lay, no doubt, in Waldo himself. Aunt<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</SPAN></span>
Bertha was—passing impulses apart—for Waldo
and on his side. Any shifting of her views and
feelings in a matter like this would be certain to reflect
a similar alteration in his attitude.</p>
<p>In November a letter from Sir Paget told me of
Lord Dundrannan’s death, at which, by chance, he
was himself present; evidently moved by the scene,
he recounted it with more detail than he was wont
to indulge in. Hearing that his neighbor was worse,
he went to inquire; as he stood at the door, Nina
drove up in her car—she had been out for an airing—and
took him into the library where her father
was, sitting in a chair by the fire. It was very rarely
that he would consent to keep his bed, and he had
insisted on getting up that day. “Godfrey Frost
was there” (my uncle wrote) “and Dr. Napier,
standing and whispering together in the window.
By the sick man sat an old white-haired Wesleyan
minister, whom he had sent for all the way from
Bradford, where he himself was born: he had ‘sat
under’ this old gentleman as a boy, and a few days
before had expressed a great longing to see him.
The minister was reading the Bible to him now.
It looked as though he had foreseen that the end
was coming. He had had a sort of valedictory talk
with Nina and young Frost a week before—about
the money and the businesses, what they were to do,
what rules they were to be guided by, and so on.
That done, he appeared to dismiss worldly affairs,
this world itself, from his thoughts, and ‘took up<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</SPAN></span>’
the next. I am not mocking; yet I can hardly help
smiling. He seemed to have ‘taken it up’ in the
same way that he would have inquired into a new,
important and interesting speculation; and he got
his expert—the old minister from Bradford—to advise
him. He was not afraid, or agitated, or remorseful;
his feelings seemed, so far as his impaired
speech enabled him to describe them to his family,
those of a curious and earnest interest in his prospects
of survival—he eagerly desired to survive—and
in what awaited him if he did survive. The
fact that he had neglected religion for a great many
years back did not trouble him; nor did ‘How hardly
shall a rich man——’ He seemed confident that,
if immortality were a fact, some place and some
work would be found for Jonathan Frost. Whether
it was a fact was what he wanted to know; he hated
the idea of nothingness, of inactivity, of stopping!</p>
<p>“The old minister shut his book when I came in.
Nina led me up to her father. He recognized me
and smiled. I said a few words, but I doubt if he
listened. He pointed towards the book on the minister’s
knee—he could move his left hand—and
tried to say something: I think that he was trying
to pursue the subject that engrossed him, perhaps
to get my opinion on it. But the next moment he
gave a smothered sort of cry—not loud at all—and
moved his hand towards his heart. Napier darted
across the room to him; Nina put her arm round
his neck and kissed him. He gave a sigh, and his<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</SPAN></span>
head fell back on her arm. He was gone—all in
a minute—gone to get the answer to his question.
Then there was a ringing of bells, of course, and
they came in and took him way. Nina put her
hands in mine for a second before she followed them
out of the room: ‘My dear father!’ she said. Then
she put her arm in young Frost’s, and he led her
out of the room, very gently, in a very gentleman-like
way, I must say. I was left alone with the old
minister. ‘The end of a remarkable life!’ I said,
or something of that sort. ‘I’m glad it came so
easily at the end.’ He bowed his white head. ‘He
did great things for his country,’ he answered.
‘God’s ways are not our ways, Sir Paget.’ I said
good-by, and left him with his book.”</p>
<p>A month after Lord Dundrannan’s death I got
Christmas leave, came to England, and went down
to Cragsfoot on the Friday before Christmas Day;
it fell on a Monday that year. It was jolly to be
there again, and to find old Waldo out of danger
and getting on really famously.</p>
<p>But how he was changed! I will not go into
the physical changes—they proved, thank God, in
the main temporary, though it was a long time before
he got back nearly all his old vigor—but I
can’t help speculating on how much they, and the
suffering they brought, had to do with the change in
the nature of the man. Perhaps nothing; it is, I
suppose, rather an obscure subject, a medical question;
but I cannot help thinking that they worked<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</SPAN></span>
together with his other experiences. At least, they
must have made him in a way older in body, just
as the other experiences made him older in mind. I
never realized till then—though I ought to have—how
very little I had really been through, in what
had seemed two tolerably exciting and exhausting
years, compared to him who had “stuck it through”
all the time at the front. I said something of this
sort to him as we gossiped together, and it set him
talking.</p>
<p>“Well, old chap,” he said, laughing, “I don’t
know how you found it—you were, of course, a
grown man, a man of the world, before it all began—but
I just had to change. It’s no credit to me—I
had to! I was a cub, a puppy—I had to become a
trained animal. As it was, that infernal temper of
mine nearly cost me my commission in the first three
months. It would have, by Jove, if Tom Winter—my
Company Commander—hadn’t been the best
fellow in the world; he was killed six months later,
poor chap, but he’d got a muzzle on me before that.
You will find me a bit better there; I haven’t had
a real old break-out ever since.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I daresay you will, when you get fit!” said
I consolingly.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” he laughed again. “But I don’t
want to, you know. They were a bit upsetting to
everybody concerned.” He smiled as though in a
gentle amusement at his old self. “Only father
could manage me—and he couldn’t always. Lord,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</SPAN></span>
I was impossible! I might have committed a
murder one fine day!”</p>
<p>I recollected a certain fine day on which murder,
or something very like it, was certainly his purpose.
Oh, with a good deal of excuse, no doubt!</p>
<p>Perhaps his thoughts had moved in the same direction;
seeing me again might well have that effect
on him.</p>
<p>“I don’t want to exaggerate things. I daresay
I’ve a bit of the devil left in me. And I don’t
know whether men in general have been affected
much by the business. Some have, some haven’t, I
expect. Perhaps I’m a special case. The war
came at what was for me a very critical moment.
For me personally it was a lucky thing, in spite of
this old shoulder; and it was lucky that my father
was so clear about its coming. I was saved from
myself, by Jove, I was!”</p>
<p>The “self” of whom he spoke came back to my
memory as strangely different and apart from the
languid, tranquil man who was talking to me on the
long invalid’s chair. He reclined there, smiling
thoughtfully.</p>
<p>“I bear no malice against the girl,” he went on.
“It was my mistake. She went to her own in the
end; it was inevitable that she should; and better
before marriage—even just before!—than after.
Like to like—she and Monkey Valdez!”</p>
<p>Though I had my own views as to that, I held my
tongue. If once I let out that I had seen Lucinda,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</SPAN></span>
one question—if not from Waldo, at any rate from
Aunt Bertha—would lead to another, and I should
be in danger of betraying the needlewoman’s secret.
I had made up my mind to lie if need be, but if I
kept silence, it was a hundred to one that it would
not occur to any one at Cragsfoot to ask whether I
had seen Lucinda. Why should I have seen her?
It never did occur to any of the three of them; I was
asked no questions.</p>
<p>“The best thing to be hoped is that we never run
up against one another again. I might still be
tempted to give the Monkey a thrashing! Oh, I
forgot—I don’t suppose I shall ever be able to give
anybody a thrashing! Sad thought, Julius! Well,
there it is—let’s forget ‘em!” A gesture of his
sound arm waved Lucinda and her Monkey into
oblivion.</p>
<p>So be it. I changed the subject. “Very sad
about poor old Frost. Dundrannan, I mean.”</p>
<p>“Yes, poor old boy! For a week or two it was
about even betting between him and me—which of
us would win out, I mean. Well, I have; and he’s
gone. We didn’t half do him justice in the old days.
Really a grand man, don’t you think?”</p>
<p>I agreed. Lord Dundrannan—Jonathan Frost—had
always filled me with the sort of admiration
that a non-stop express inspires; and Sir Paget’s
letter had added a pathetic touch to the recollection
of him—made him more of a human being, brought
him into relation with Something that he did not<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</SPAN></span>
create; that, in fact, I suppose, created him. Really
quite a new aspect of Lord Dundrannan!</p>
<p>“She’s come through it splendidly,” said Waldo.</p>
<p>“What, Miss Nina?”</p>
<p>Waldo laughed. “Look here, old chap, you
don’t seem to be up to date. Been in Paraguay or
Patagonia, or somewhere, have you? She’s not
‘Miss Nina’—she’s my Lady Dundrannan.”</p>
<p>“Nobody told me that there was a special remainder
to her!”</p>
<p>“Well, he’d done wonders. He was old and ill.
No son! They could hardly refuse it him, could
they? The peerage would have been an empty gift
without it.”</p>
<p>“Lady Dundrannan! Lady Dundrannan!”</p>
<p>“You’ve got it right now, Julius. Of Dundrannan
in the county of Perth, and of Briarmount in
the county of Devon—to give it its full dignity.”</p>
<p>“I expect she’s pleased with it?”</p>
<p>“We’re all human. I think she is. Besides, she
was very fond and proud of her father, and likes to
have her share in carrying on his fame.”</p>
<p>“And she has wherewithal to gild the title!”</p>
<p>“Gilt and to spare! But only about a third of
what he had. A third to her, a third to public objects,
a third to Godfrey Frost. That’s about it—roughly.
But business control to Godfrey, I understand.”</p>
<p>“Does she like that?” I asked.</p>
<p>He laughed again—just a little reluctantly, I<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</SPAN></span>
thought. “Not altogether, perhaps. But she accepts
it gracefully, and takes it out of the young man
by ordering him about! He’s a surprisingly decent
young chap; she’ll lick him into shape in no time.”</p>
<p>“From what Aunt Bertha said, you and she have
made great friends?”</p>
<p>“Yes, we have now.” He paused a moment.
“She was a bit difficult at first. You see, there were
things in the past——Oh, well, never mind that—it’s
all over.”</p>
<p>There were things in the past; there were: that
group of three on the top of the cliffs; the girl sobbing
wildly, furiously, shamefully; the man holding
the other girl’s arm in his as in a vise of iron.
Meeting Nina again may well have been a bit difficult
at first! It was also a bit difficult to adjust
one’s vision to Baroness Dundrannan and Madame
Chose’s needlewoman, to re-focus them. How
would they feel about one another now? Lucinda
had found some pity for the sobbing girl; would
Lady Dundrannan find the like for the needlewoman?</p>
<p>Or would Waldo himself? In spite of the new
gentleness that there was in his manner, taken as a
whole, there had been an acidity, a certain sharpness
of contempt, in his reference to Lucinda. “That
girl”—“like to like”—“she and Monkey Valdez.”
It was natural, perhaps, but—the question would
not be suppressed—was it quite the tone of that
“great gentleman” whom Lucinda herself still held
in her memory?</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>I was content to drop the subject. “Your father’s
looking splendid,” I remarked, “but Aunt Bertha
seems to me rather fagged.”</p>
<p>“Aunt Bertha’s been fretting a dashed sight too
much over me—that’s the fact.” He smiled as he
went on. “Well, I’m out of it for good and all,
they tell me—if I need telling—and I suppose I
ought to be sorry for it. But really I’m so deuced
tired, that——! Well, I just want to lie here and
be looked after.”</p>
<p>“Oh, you’ll get that!” I assured him confidently.
There was Aunt Bertha to do it; Aunt Bertha, at all
events. Possibly there was somebody else who
would do it even more efficiently.</p>
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