A Son at the Front by Edith Wharton

Author:Edith Wharton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Library of America
Published: 2015-08-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XXI

THE next time Campton saw Mrs. Brant was in his own studio.

He was preparing, one morning, to leave the melancholy place, when the bell rang and his bonne let her in. Her dress was less frivolous than at Mrs. Talkett’s, and she wore a densely patterned veil, like the ladies in cinema plays when they visit their seducers or their accomplices.

Through the veil she looked at him agitatedly, and said: “George is not at Sainte Menehould.”

He stared.

“No. Anderson was there the day before yesterday.”

“Brant? At Sainte Menehould?” Campton felt the blood rush to his temples. What! He, the boy’s father, had not so much as dared to ask for the almost unattainable permission to go into the war-zone; and this other man, who was nothing to George, absolutely nothing, who had no right whatever to ask for leave to visit him, had somehow obtained the priceless favour, and instead of passing it on, instead of offering at least to share it with the boy’s father, had sneaked off secretly to feast on the other’s lawful privilege!

“How the devil——?” Campton burst out.

“Oh, he got a Red Cross mission; it was arranged very suddenly—through a friend . . .”

“Yes—well?” Campton stammered, sitting down lest his legs should fail him, and signing to her to take a chair.

“Well—he was not there!” she repeated excitedly. “It’s what we might have known—since he’s changed his address.”

“Then he didn’t see him?” Campton interrupted, the ferocious joy of the discovery crowding out his wrath and wonder.

“Anderson didn’t? No. He wasn’t there, I tell you!”

“The H. Q. has been moved?”

“No, it hasn’t. Anderson saw one of the officers. He said George had been sent on a mission.”

“To another H. Q.?”

“That’s what they said. I don’t believe it.”

“What do you believe?”

“I don’t know. Anderson’s sure they told him the truth. The officer he saw is a friend of George’s, and he said George was expected back that very evening.”

Campton sat looking at her uncertainly. Did she dread, or did she rather wish, to disbelieve the officer’s statement? Where did she hope or fear that George had gone? And what were Campton’s own emotions? As confused, no doubt, as hers—as undefinable. The insecurity of his feelings moved him to a momentary compassion for hers, which were surely pitiable, whatever else they were. Then a savage impulse swept away every other, and he said: “Wherever George was, Brant’s visit will have done him no good.”

She grew pale. “What do you mean?”

“I wonder it never occurred to you—or to your husband, since he’s so solicitous,” Campton went on, prolonging her distress.

“Please tell me what you mean,” she pleaded with frightened eyes.

“Why, in God’s name, couldn’t you both let well enough alone? Didn’t you guess why George never asked for leave—why I’ve always advised him not to? Don’t you know that nothing is as likely to get a young fellow into trouble as having his family force their way through to see him, use influence, seem to ask favours? I dare say that’s how that fool of a Dolmetsch woman got Isador killed.

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