Everyman's Land. C. N. Williamson
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so, before you stop to think. I've learned enough about death to learn that. And I can tell by both your voices you'll be friends worth having."
"Oh, you are a dear boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Beckett. "God is good to give you and your sister to us in our dark hour. I feel as if Jimmy were here with us. I do believe he is! I know he'd like me to tell you what he did with your picture, and what we've done with it since, his father and I."
Brian must have felt that it would be good for us all to talk of the pictures, just then, not of this "Jimmy" who was still a mystery to him. He caught up the subject and said that he didn't understand. What picture was it of which they spoke? He generally signed his initials, but they'd mentioned that this was unsigned——
"Don't you remember," I explained, "the sketch I sold for you to Mr. Wyndham when we were tramping through France? You told me when you came back from Paris that it wasn't quite finished. You'd meant to put on a few more touches—and your signature. Well, 'Wyndham' was only the middle name. I never told you much about that day. I was half ashamed, because it was the day when my romance began and—broke. I hoped it might begin again sometime, but—but—you shall hear the whole story soon. Only—not now."
Even as I promised him, I promised myself to tell him nothing. I might have to lie in deeds to Brian. I wouldn't lie in words. Mrs. Beckett might give him her version of her son's romance—some day. Just at the moment she was relating, almost happily, the story of the picture: and it was for me, too.
Jim had had a beautiful frame made for Brian's cathedral sketch, and it had been hung in the best place—over his desk—in the special sanctum where the things he loved most were put. In starting for Europe his father and mother had planned to stop only a short time in a Paris hotel. They had meant to take a house, where Jim could join them whenever he got a few days' leave: and as a surprise for him they had brought over his favourite treasures from the "den." Among these was the unsigned picture painted by the brother of The Girl. They had even chosen the house, a small but charming old château to which Jim had taken a fancy. It was rather close to the war zone in these days, but that had not struck them as an obstacle. They were not afraid. They had wired, before sailing, to a Paris agent, telling him to engage the château if it was still to let furnished. On arriving the answer awaited them: the place was theirs.
"We thought it would be such a joy to Jim," Mrs. Beckett said. "He fell in love with that château before he came down with typhoid. I'll show you a snapshot he took of it. He used to say he'd give anything to live there. And crossing on the ship we talked every day of how we'd make a 'den' for him, full of his own things, and never breathe a word till he opened the door of the room. We're in honour bound to take the house now, whether or not we use it—without Jim. I don't know what we shall do, I'm sure! All I know is, I feel as if it would kill me to turn round and go home with our broken hearts."
"We've got new obligations right here, Jenny. You mustn't forget that," said Mr. Beckett. "Remember we've just adopted a daughter—and a son, too. We must consult them about our movements."
"Oh, I hadn't forgotten!" the old lady cried. "They—they'll help us to decide, of course. But just now I can't make myself feel as if one thing was any better than another. If only we could think of something Jim would have liked us to do! Something—patriotic—for France."
"Mary has seen Jim since we saw him, dear. Perhaps from talk they had she'll have a suggestion to make."
"Oh no!" I cried. "I've no suggestion."
"And you, Brian?" the old man persisted.
Quickly I answered for my brother. "They never met! Brian couldn't know what—Jim would have liked you to do."
"It's true, I can't know," said Brian. "But a thought has come into my head. Shall I tell it to you?"
"Yes!" the Becketts answered in a breath. They gazed at him as if they fancied him inspired by their son's spirit. No wonder, perhaps! Brian has an inspired look.
"Are you very rich?" he asked bluntly, as a child puts questions which grown-ups veil.
"We're rich in money," answered the old man. "But I guess I never quite realized till now, when we lost Jimmy, how poor you can be, when you're only rich in what the world can give."
"I suppose you'll want to put up the finest monument for your son that money can buy," Brian went on, as though he had wandered from his subject. But I—knowing him, and his slow, dreamy way of getting to his goal—knew that he was not astray. He was following some star which we hadn't yet seen.
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