And the memory had rankled. But now it was buried.
Next day we saw the mother and the wife set out down the lane for the
village post-office, and thereafter daily they went to await the arrival of
letters, returning each day silent and hopeless. At last, in reply to
inquiries which had been made at the War Office, there came the official
statement that David had been reported "wounded and missing." We learned
that this usually meant that the man was dead, but the women did not know
this.
And, curiously enough, David's mother, who had been the most despairing of
women, and seemed to regard David as dead even before he started, now
discovered a genius for hopefulness. She had heard of a case from a
neighbouring village of a man who had been reported dead, and who
afterwards wrote from a prison camp in Germany, and she clung to this
precedent with a confident tenacity that we did not try to weaken. It was
foolish, of course, we said. She was pinning her faith to a case in a
thousand; but the hope gave the women something to live for, and the wound
would heal the better for the illusion.
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