|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 64
He slued about with the menacing, shrapnel look, and it seemed that
there might be an explosion of sharp-pointed small bullets over the
dinner-table.
"Don't!" I begged. The sun came out; the artillery attack was over; he
looked at me with boyish shyness.
"D'you know, when people say things like that I feel as if I were
stealing," he told me confidentially. "Anybody else could have done all
I did. In fact, it wasn't I at all," he finished.
"Not you? Who then? Weren't you the boy Donald Cochrane?"
"Yes," he said, and stopped as if he were considering it. "Yes," he said
quietly in the clean-cut, terse English manner of speaking, "I suppose I
was the boy Donald Cochrane." He gazed across the white lilacs and pink
roses on the table as if dreaming a bit. Then he turned with a long
breath. "My child," he said, "there is something about you which gives
me back my youth, and--the freshness of a great experience. I thank
you."
I gazed into those compelling eyes, gasping like a fish with too much
oxygen, I felt myself, Virginia Fox, meshed in the fringes of historic
days, stirred by the rushing mighty wind of that Great Experience. I was
awestruck into silence. Just then Milly got up, and eight women flocked
into the library.
I was good for nothing there, simply good for nothing at all. I tried to
talk to the nice, sensible English women, and I could not. I knew Milly
was displeased with me for not keeping up my end, but I was sodden with
thrills. I had sat through a dinner next to General Cochrane, the Donald
Cochrane who was the most dramatic figure of the world war of sixty
years ago. It has always moved me to meet persons who even existed at
that time. I look at them and think what intense living it must have
meant to pick up a paper and read--as the news of the day, mind
you--that Germany had entered Belgium, that King Albert was fighting in
the trenches, that Von Kluck was within seventeen miles of Paris, that
Von Kluck was retreating--think of the rapture of that--Paris
saved!--that the Germans had taken Antwerp; that the _Lusitania_ was
sunk; that Kitchener was drowned at sea! I wonder if the people who
lived and went about their business in America in those days realized
that they were having a stage-box for the greatest drama of history? I
wonder. Terror and heroism and cruelty find self-sacrifice on a scale
which had never been dreamed, which will never, God grant, need to be
dreamed on this poor little racked planet again. Of course, there are
plenty of those people alive yet, and I've talked to many and they
remember it, all of them remember well, even those who were quite small.
And it has stirred me simply to look into the eyes of such an one and
consider that those eyes read such things as morning news. The great war
has had a hold on me since I first heard of it, and I distinctly
remember the day, from my father, at the age of seven.
"Can you remember when it happened, father?" I asked him. And then: "Can
you remember when they drove old people out of their houses--and killed
them?"
"Yes," said my father. And I burst into tears. And when I was not much
older he told me about Donald Cochrane, the boy who saved England.
It was not strange to my own mind that I could not talk commonplaces
now, when I had just spent an hour tailing to the man who had been that
historic boy--the very Donald Cochrane. I could not talk commonplaces.
Milly's leisurely voice broke my meditation. "I'm sorry that my cousin,
Virginia Fox, should have such bad manners, Lady Andover," she was
drawling. "She was brought up to speak when spoken to, but I think it's
the General who has hypnotized her. Virginia, did you know that Lady
Andover asked you--" And I came to life.
"It was Miss Fox who hypnotized the General, I fancy," said Lady Andover
most graciously, considering I had overlooked her existence a second
before. "He had a word for no one else during dinner." I felt myself go
scarlet; it had pleased the Marvelous Person, then, to like me a
little, perhaps for the youth and enthusiasm in me.
With that the men straggled into the room and the tall grizzled head of
my hero, his lined face conspicuous for the jagged, glorious scar,
towered over the rest. I saw the vivid eyes flash about, and they met
mine; I was staring at him, as I must, and my heart all but jumped out
of me when he came straight to where I stood, my back against the
bookcase.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|