‘Yes, I would. She’d like it.’

When Nurse Blaber came back after the parting at Templecombe her nose and her eyelids were red, but, for all that, her face reflected a great light even while she sniffed over The Cloister and the Hearth.

Miss Henschil, deep in a house furnisher’s catalogue, did not speak for twenty minutes. Then she said, between adding totals of best, guest, and servants’ sheets, ‘But why should our times have been the same, Nursey?’

‘Because a child is born somewhere every second of the clock,’ Nurse Blaber answered. ‘And besides that, you probably set each other off by talking and thinking about it. You shouldn’t, you know.’

‘Ay, but you’ve never been in Hell,’ said Miss Henschil.

The telegram handed in at Hereford at 12.46 and delivered to Miss Henschil on the beach of a certain village at 2.7 ran thus:

‘“Absolutely confirmed. She says she remembers hearing noise of accident in engine-room returning from India eighty-five.”’

‘He means the year, not the thermometer,’ said Nurse Blaber, throwing pebbles at the cold sea.

‘“And two men scalded thus explaining my hoots.” (The idea of telling me that!) “Subsequently silly clergyman passenger ran up behind her calling for joke, ‘Friend, all is lost,’ thus accounting very words.”’

Nurse Blaber purred audibly.

‘“She says only remembers being upset minute or two. Unspeakable relief. Best love Nursey, who is jewel. Get out of her what she would like best.” Oh, I oughtn’t to have read that,’ said Miss Henschil.

‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t want anything,’ said Nurse Blaber, ‘and if I did I shouldn’t get it.’

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Last updated on Thu Mar 26 20:58:52 2009 for eBooks@Adelaide.

Rudyard Kipling

A Diversity of Creatures

‘Helen all Alone’

There was darkness under Heaven
  For an hour’s space—
Darkness that we knew was given
  Us for special grace.
Sun and moon and stars were hid,
  God had left His Throne,
When Helen came to me, she did,
  Helen all alone!

Side by side (because our fate
  Damned us ere our birth)
We stole out of Limbo Gate
  Looking for the Earth.
Hand in pulling hand amid
  Fear no dreams have known,
Helen ran with me, she did,
  Helen all alone!

When the Horror passing speech
  Hunted us along,
Each laid hold on each, and each
  Found the other strong.
In the teeth of things forbid
  And Reason overthrown,
Helen stood by me, she did,
  Helen all alone!

When, at last, we heard the Fires
  Dull and die away,
When, at last, our linked desires
  Dragged us up to day,
When, at last, our souls were rid
  Of what that Night had shown,
Helen passed from me, she did,
  Helen all alone!

Let her go and find a mate,
  As I will find a bride,
Knowing naught of Limbo Gate
  Or Who are penned inside.
There is knowledge God forbid
  More than one should own.
So Helen went from me, she did,
Oh my soul, be glad she did!
  Helen all alone!

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Last updated on Thu Mar 26 20:58:52 2009 for eBooks@Adelaide.

Rudyard Kipling

A Diversity of Creatures

The Honours of War

(1911)

A hooded motor had followed mine from the Guildford Road up the drive to The Infant’s ancestral hall, and had turned off to the stables.

‘We’re having a quiet evening together. Stalky’s upstairs changing. Dinner’s at 7.15 sharp, because we’re hungry. His room’s next to yours,’ said The Infant, nursing a cobwebbed bottle of Burgundy.

Then I found Lieutenant–Colonel A.L. Corkran, I.A., who borrowed a collar-stud and told me about the East and his Sikh regiment.

‘And are your subalterns as good as ever?’ I asked.

‘Amazin’—simply amazin’! All I’ve got to do is to find ’em jobs. They keep touchin’ their caps to me and askin’ for more work. ‘Come at me with their tongues hangin’ out. I used to run the other way at their age.’

‘And when they err?’ said I. ‘I suppose they do sometimes?’

‘Then they run to me again to weep with remorse over their virgin peccadilloes. I never cuddled my Colonel when I was in trouble. Lambs—positive lambs!’

‘And what do you say to ’em?’

‘Talk to ’em like a papa. Tell ’em how I can’t understand it, an’ how shocked I am, and how grieved their parents’ll be; and throw in a little about the Army Regulations and the Ten Commandments. ‘Makes one feel rather a sweep when one thinks of what one used to do at their age. D’you remember—’

We remembered together till close on seven o’clock. As we went out into the gallery that runs round the big hall, we saw The Infant, below, talking to two deferential well-set-up lads whom I had known, on and off, in the holidays, any time for the last ten years. One of them had a bruised cheek, and the other a weeping left eye.

‘Yes, that’s the style,’ said Stalky below his breath. ‘They’re brought up on lemon-squash and mobilisation text-books. I say, the girls we knew must have been much better than they pretended they were; for I’ll swear it isn’t the fathers.’

‘But why on earth did you do it?’ The Infant was shouting. ‘You know what it means nowadays.’

‘Well, sir,’ said Bobby Trivett, the taller of the two, ‘Wontner talks too much, for one thing. He didn’t join till he was twenty-three, and, besides that, he used to lecture on tactics in the ante-room. He said Clausewitz was the only tactician, and he illustrated his theories with cigar-ends. He was that sort of chap, sir.’

‘And he didn’t much care whose cigar-ends they were,’ said Eames, who was shorter and pinker.

‘And then he would talk about the ‘Varsity,’ said Bobby. ‘He got a degree there.