The beginning of the sixth year of her married life, when Prudence, at the age of twenty-five, outwardly very little altered since the day she married, had become resigned, if not reconciled, to a life in which she foresaw no possibility of change, witnessed the outbreak of war—the war which sprung so suddenly upon the world, and which was destined to change so many lives. Lives which were fitted into grooves so deeply that it seemed they had rusted there and could never be dislodged, were flung out of their ruts like lava spit from the mouth of a volcano by this greatest upheaval which the world had known. To Morgan Bros, as to Mr Graynor, the great disaster brought added prosperity. The works were engaged in the manufacture of khaki, which Bobby, afire with enthusiasm, and eager for release from a life that was irksome and uninspiring, donned speedily, to William’s manifest satisfaction, and his grandfather’s pride and grief.
That was the beginning of the changes in Prudence’s life. Apart from her anxiety on Bobby’s account, and the natural gravity which the appalling immensity of the disaster occasioned, Prudence in the early days witnessed only the lighter side of war. Mrs Henry, destined before those tragic five years ran their terrible course to lose both her young sons, worked hard in the early days—indeed, she worked unflaggingly to the end, and bravely strove to hide her sorrow from the world—to give the men she knew, and many who were strangers to her until the wearing of the uniform made them participators in her hospitality, the best of times while they remained in England. Dances and entertainments of every description were organised on a princely scale for the benefit of the men who were out to defend the honour of the Empire.
Old Mrs Morgan looked upon all this festivity disapprovingly, and remonstrated with her, urging the unseemliness of fêting in such frivolous fashion men who were about to face death, and many of whom would be called inevitably before long to meet their God. But Mrs Henry treated these remonstrances with smiling indifference.
“The heroes of Waterloo left a ball-room to defeat their enemies,” she argued. “I expect the poor dears fought better and died happier by reason of those few bright hours. The boys like being amused, and they love flirting with the girls. Whatever does it matter? If one has to die one might as well have a good time first. It is the moment, after all, which counts. We have only the present to think for; there may be no to-morrow.”
Which view of things did not tend to soothe her mother-in-law, who had arrived at an age which avoids reflecting on the uncertainty of the future.
“Rose has no spiritual outlook,” she observed one evening, over the nightly glass of hot water which she sipped with an enjoyment a toper might evince while imbibing his grog. “Her attitude towards the Hereafter is frankly pagan. She will perhaps be brought some day through suffering to recognise the vanity of this world, and the importance of the Future Life. No one can escape responsibility for his acts.”
“Quite possibly Rose’s record will be finer than the records of many people who lead seemingly exemplary lives,” returned Prudence, to whom her mother-in-law’s narrow views were particularly irritating. “‘How strange it will be,’ as Lewis Hind says, ‘if, when we awake from the dream of death, we find that we are judged only by the good we have done.’ That would cause a considerable readjustment of the balance.”
“People who lead good lives do good by example,” Mrs Morgan insisted; “those who spend their days in a feverish round of pleasure exert an evil influence.”
“The warm impulses which make for kindly human acts and brighten life for others have for me greater virtue than any prayer,” came the quick retort, which scandalised Edward Morgan as well as his mother, and provoked him into joining in the discussion.
“I don’t like to hear any disparagement of prayer,” he said quietly. “Your training in a pious home should have taught you at least respect for such things. I say nothing against pleasure, except where it clashes with duty. In the lives of upright people duty ranks above everything.”