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diff --git a/14145-0.txt b/14145-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c3350db --- /dev/null +++ b/14145-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13200 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14145 *** + +BY A.S.M. HUTCHINSON + + THE HAPPY WARRIOR + + ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER-- + + THE CLEAN HEART + + IF WINTER COMES + + + + +IF WINTER COMES +BY +A.S.M. HUTCHINSON + + +BOSTON +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY +1921 + + +Published, August, 1921 +Reprinted, August, 1921 (twice) +Reprinted, September, 1921 (four times) +Reprinted, October, 1921 + + +PRINTED BY C.H. SIMONDS COMPANY +BOSTON, MASS., U.S.A. + + + + + "...O Wind, + If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" + + --SHELLEY + + + + +CONTENTS + +PART ONE + PAGE +MABEL 1 + + +PART TWO + +NONA 77 + + +PART THREE + +EFFIE 187 + + +PART FOUR + +MABEL--EFFIE--NONA 317 + + + + +PART ONE + +MABEL + + + + + +IF WINTER COMES + + + +CHAPTER I + + +I + +To take Mark Sabre at the age of thirty-four, and in the year 1912, and +at the place Penny Green is to necessitate looking back a little towards +the time of his marriage in 1904, but happens to find him in good light +for observation. Encountering him hereabouts, one who had shared school +days with him at his preparatory school so much as twenty-four years +back would have found matter for recognition. + +A usefully garrulous person, one Hapgood, a solicitor, found much. + +"Whom do you think I met yesterday? Old Sabre! You remember old Sabre at +old Wickamote's?... Yes, that's the chap. Used to call him Puzzlehead, +remember? Because he used to screw up his forehead over things old +Wickamote or any of the other masters said and sort of drawl out, 'Well, +I don't see that, sir.'... Yes, rather!... And then that other +expression of his. Just the opposite. When old Wickamote or some one had +landed him, or all of us, with some dashed punishment, and we were +gassing about it, used to screw up his nut in the same way and say, +'Yes, but I see what he _means_.' And some one would say, 'Well, what +does he mean, you ass?' and he'd start gassing some rot till some one +said, 'Good lord, fancy sticking up for a master!' And old Puzzlehead +would say, 'You sickening fool, I'm not sticking _up_ for him. I'm only +saying he's right from how he looks at it and it's no good saying he's +wrong.'... Ha! Funny days.... Jolly nice chap, though, old Puzzlehead +was.... Yes, I met him.... Fact, I run into him occasionally. We do a +mild amount of business with his firm. I buzz down there about once a +year. Tidborough. He's changed, of course. So have you, you know. That +Vandyke beard, what? Ha! Old Sabre's not done anything outrageous like +that. Real thing I seemed to notice about him when I bumped into him +yesterday was that he didn't look very cheery. Looked to me rather as +though he'd lost something and was wondering where it was. Ha! +But--dashed funny--I mentioned something about that appalling speech +that chap made in that blasphemy case yesterday.... Eh? yes, absolutely +frightful, wasn't it?--well, I'm dashed if old Sabre didn't puzzle up +his nut in exactly the same old way and say, 'Yes, but I see what he +_means_.' I reminded him and ragged him about it no end. Absolutely the +same words and expression. Funny chap ... nice chap.... + +"What did he say the blasphemy man meant? Oh, I don't know; some bilge, +just as he used to about the masters. You know the man talked some +rubbish about how the State couldn't have it both ways--couldn't +blaspheme against God by flatly denying that all men were equal and +basing all its legislation on keeping one class up and the other class +down; couldn't do that and at the same time prosecute him because he +said that religion was--well, you know what he said; I'm dashed if I +like to repeat it. Joke of it was that I found myself using exactly the +same expression to old Sabre as we used to use at school. I said, 'Good +lord, man, fancy sticking up for a chap like that!' And old Sabre--by +Jove, I tell you there we all were in a flash back in the playground at +old Wickamote's, down in that corner by the workshop, all kids again and +old Puzzlehead flicking his hand out of his pocket--remember how he used +to?--like _that_--and saying, 'You sickening fool, I'm not sticking _up_ +for him, I'm only saying he's right from how he looks at it and it's no +good saying he's wrong!' Rum, eh, after all those years.... No, he +didn't say, 'You sickening fool' this time. I reminded him how he used +to, and he laughed and said, 'Yes; did I? Well, I still get riled, you +know, when chaps can't see--' And then he said 'Yes, "sickening fool"; +so I did; odd!' and he looked out of the window as though he was looking +a thousand miles away--this was in his office, you know--and chucked +talking absolutely.... + +"Yes, in his office I saw him.... He's in a good business down there at +Tidborough. Dashed good. 'Fortune, East and Sabre'... Never heard of +them? Ah, well, that shows you're not a pillar of the Church, old son. +If you took the faintest interest in your particular place of worship, +or in any Anglican place of worship, you'd know that whenever you want +anything for the Church from a hymn book or a hassock or a pew to a +pulpit or a screen or a spire you go to Fortune, East and Sabre, +Tidborough. Similarly in the scholastic line, anything from a birch rod +to a desk--Fortune, East and Sabre, by return and the best. No, they're +_the_ great, _the_ great, church and school-furnishing people. +'Ecclesiastical and Scholastic Furnishers and Designers' they call +themselves. And they're IT. No really decent church or really +gentlemanly school thinks of going anywhere else. They keep at +Tidborough because they were there when they furnished the first church +in the year One or thereabouts. I expect they did the sun-ray fittings +at Stonehenge. Ha! Anyway, they're one of the stately firms of old +England, and old Sabre is the Sabre part of the firm. And his father +before him and so on. Fortune and East are both bishops, I believe. No, +not really. But I tell you the show's run on mighty pious lines. One of +them's a 'Rev.', I know. I mean, the tradition of the place is to be in +keeping with the great and good works it carries out and for which, +incidentally, it is dashed well paid. Rather. Oh, old Sabre has butter +with his bread all right.... + +"Married? Oh, yes, he's married. Has been some time, I believe, though +they've no kids. I had lunch at his place one time I was down Tidborough +way. Now there's a place you ought to go to paint one of your +pictures--where he lives--Penny Green. Picturesque, quaint if ever a +place was. It's about seven miles from Tidborough; seven miles by road +and about seven centuries in manners and customs and appearance and all +that. Proper old village green, you know, with a duck pond and cricket +pitch and houses all round it. No two alike. Just like one of Kate +Greenaway's pictures, I always think. It just sits and sleeps. You +wouldn't think there was a town within a hundred miles of it, let alone +a bustling great place like Tidborough. Go down. You really ought to. +Yes, and by Jove you'll have to hurry up if you want to catch the +old-world look of the place. It's 'developing' ... 'being developed.'... +Eh?... Yes; God help it; I agree. After all these centuries sleeping +there it's suddenly been 'discovered.' People are coming out from +Tidborough and Alton and Chovensbury to get away from their work and +live there. Making a sort of garden suburb business of it. They've got a +new church already. Stupendous affair, considering the size of the +place--but that's looking forward to this development movement, the new +vicar chap says. He's doing the developing like blazes. Regular tiger +he is for shoving things, particularly himself. Chap called +Bagshaw--Boom Bagshaw. Character if ever there was one. But they're all +characters down there from what I've seen of it.... + +"Yes, you go down there and have a look, with your sketch-book. Old +Sabre'll love to see you.... His wife?... Oh, very nice, distinctly +nice. Pretty woman, very. Somehow I didn't think quite the sort of woman +for old Puzzlehead. Didn't appear to have the remotest interest in any +of the things he was keen about; and he seemed a bit fed with her sort +of talk. Hers was all gossip--all about the people there and what a rum +crowd they were. Devilish funny, I thought, some of her stories. But old +Sabre--well, I suppose he'd heard 'em before. Still, there was +something--something about the two of them. You know that sort of--sort +of--what the devil is it?--sort of stiffish feeling you sometimes feel +in the air with two people who don't quite click. Well, that was it. +Probably only my fancy. As to that, you can pretty well cut the welkin +with a knife at my place sometimes when me and my missus get our tails +up; and we're fearful pals. Daresay I just took 'em on an off day. But +that was my impression though--that she wasn't just the sort of woman +for old Sabre. But after all, what the dickens sort of woman would be? +Fiddling chap for a husband, old Puzzlehead. Can imagine him riling any +wife with wrinkling up his nut over some plain as a pikestaff thing and +saying, 'Well, I don't quite see that.' Ha! Rum chap. Nice chap. Have a +drink?" + + + +CHAPTER II + + +I + +Thus, by easy means of the garrulous Hapgood, appear persons, places, +institutions; lives, homes, activities; the web and the tangle and the +amenities of a minute fragment of human existence. Life. An odd +business. Into life we come, mysteriously arrived, are set on our feet +and on we go: functioning more or less ineffectively, passing through +permutations and combinations; meeting the successive events, shocks, +surprises of hours, days, years; becoming engulfed, submerged, foundered +by them; all of us on the same adventure yet retaining nevertheless each +his own individuality, as swimmers carrying each his undetachable burden +through dark, enormous and cavernous seas. Mysterious journey! +Uncharted, unknown and finally--but there is no finality! Mysterious and +stunning sequel--not end--to the mysterious and tremendous adventure! +Finally, of this portion, death, disappearance,--gone! Astounding +development! Mysterious and hapless arrival, tremendous and mysterious +passage, mysterious and alarming departure. No escaping it; no volition +to enter it or to avoid it; no prospect of defeating it or solving it. +Odd affair! Mysterious and baffling conundrum to be mixed up in!... +Life! + +Come to this pair, Mark Sabre and his wife Mabel, at Penny Green, and +have a look at them mixed up in this odd and mysterious business of +life. Some apprehension of the odd affair that it was was characteristic +of Mark Sabre's habit of mind, increasingly with the years,--with +Mabel. + + +II + +Penny Green--"picturesque, quaint if ever a place was", in garrulous Mr. +Hapgood's words--lies in a shallow depression, in shape like a narrow +meat dish. It runs east and west, and slightly tilted from north to +south. To the north the land slopes pleasantly upward in pasture and +orchards, and here was the site of the Penny Green Garden Home +Development Scheme. Beyond the site, a considerable area, stands +Northrepps, the seat of Lord Tybar. Lord Tybar sold the Development site +to the developers, and, as he signed the deed of conveyance, remarked in +his airy way, "Ah, nothing like exercise, gentlemen. That's made every +one of my ancestors turn in his grave." The developers tittered +respectfully as befits men who have landed a good thing. + +Westward of Penny Green is Chovensbury; behind Tidborough the sun rises. + +Viewed from the high eminence of Northrepps, Penny Green gave rather the +impression of having slipped, like a sliding dish, down the slope and +come to rest, slightly tilted, where its impetus had ceased. It was +certainly at rest: it had a restful air; and it had certainly slipped +out of the busier trafficking of its surrounding world, the main road +from Chovensbury to Tidborough, coming from greater cities even than +these and proceeding to greater, ran far above it, beyond Northrepps. +The main road rather slighted than acknowledged Penny Green by the +nerveless and shrunken feeler which, a mile beyond Chovensbury, it +extended in Penny Green's direction. + +This splendid main road in the course of its immense journey across +Southern England, extended feelers to many settlements of man, +providing them as it were with a talent which, according to the energy +of the settlement, might be increased a hundredfold--drained, metalled, +tarred, and adorned with splendid telegraph poles and wires--or might be +wrapped up in a napkin of neglect, monstrous overgrown hedges and +decayed ditches, and allowed to wither: the splendid main road, having +regard to its ancient Roman lineage, disdainfully did not care tuppence +either way; and for that matter Penny Green, which had ages ago put its +feeler in a napkin, did not care tuppence either. + +It was now, however, to have a railway. + +And meanwhile there was this to be said for it: that whereas some of the +dependents of the splendid main road constituted themselves abominably +ugly carbuncles on the end of shapely and well-manicured fingers of the +main road, Penny Green, at the end of a withered and entirely neglected +finger, adorned it as with a jewel. + + +III + +A Kate Greenaway picture, the garrulous Hapgood had said of Penny Green; +and it was well said. At its eastern extremity the withered talent from +the splendid main road divided into two talents and encircled the Green +which had, as Hapgood had said, a cricket pitch (in summer) and a duck +pond (more prominent in winter); also, in all seasons, and the survivors +of many ages, a clump of elm trees surrounded by a decayed bench; a well +surrounded by a decayed paling, so decayed that it had long ago thrown +itself flat on the ground into which it continued venerably to decay; +and at the southeastern extremity a village pound surrounded by a +decayed grey wall and now used by the youth of the village for the +purpose of impounding one another in parties or sides in a game well +called "Pound I." + +At the southwestern extremity of the Green, and immediately opposite the +Tybar Arms, was a blacksmith's forge perpetually inhabited and directed +by a race named Wirk. The forge was the only human habitation or +personal and individual workshop actually on the Green, and it was said, +and freely admitted by the successive members of the tribe of Wirk, that +it had "no right" to be there. There it nevertheless was, had been for +centuries, so far as anybody knew to the contrary, and administered +always by a Wirk. In some mysterious way which nobody ever seemed to +recognize till it actually happened there was always a son Wirk to +continue the forge when the father Wirk died and was carried off to be +deposited by his fathers who had continued it before him. It was also +said in the village, as touching this matter of "no right", that nobody +could understand how the forge ever came to be there and that it +certainly would be turned off one day; and with this also the current +members of the tribe of Wirk cordially agreed. They understood less than +anybody how they ever came to be there, and they knew perfectly well +they would be turned off one day; saying which--and it was a common +subject of debate among village sires of a summer evening, seated +outside the Tybar Arms--saying which, the Wirk of the day would gaze +earnestly up the road and look at his watch as if the power which would +turn him off was then on its way and was getting a bit overdue. + +The present representatives of the tribe of Wirk were known as Old Wirk +and Young Wirk. Young Wirk was sixty-seven. No one knew where a still +younger Wirk would come from when Old Wirk died and when Young Wirk +died. But no one troubled to know. No one knows, precisely, where the +next Pope is coming from, but he always comes, and successive Wirks +appeared as surely. Old Wirk was past duty at the forge now. He sat on a +Windsor chair all day and watched Young Wirk. When the day was finished +Old Wirk and Young Wirk would walk across the Green to the pound, not +together, but Old Wirk in front and Young Wirk immediately behind him; +both with the same gait, bent and with a stick. On reaching the pound +they would gaze profoundly into it over the decayed, grey wall, rather +as if they were looking to see if the power that was going to turn out +the forge was there, and then, the power apparently not being there, +they would return, trailing back in the same single file, and take up +their reserved positions on the bench before the Tybar Arms. + + +IV + +Mark Sabre, intensely fond of Penny Green, had reflected upon it +sometimes as a curious thing that there was scarcely one of the +village's inhabitants or institutions but had evidenced little +differences of attitude between himself and Mabel, who was not intensely +fond of Penny Green. The aged Wirks had served their turn. Mabel had +once considered the Wirks extremely picturesque and, quite early in +their married life, had invited them to her house that she might +photograph them for her album. + +They arrived, in single file, but she did not photograph them for her +album. The photograph was not taken because Mark, when they presented +themselves, expressed surprise that the aged pair were led off by the +parlour maid to have tea in the kitchen. Why on earth didn't they have +tea with them, with himself and Mabel, in the garden? + +Mabel did what Sabre called "flew up"; and at the summit of her flight +up inquired, "Suppose some one called?" + +"Well, suppose they did?" Sabre inquired. + +Mabel in a markedly calm voice then gave certain orders to the maid, who +had brought out the tea and remained while the fate of the aged Wirks +was in suspense. + +The maid departed with the orders and Sabre commented, "Sending them +off? Well, I'm dashed!" + +Half an hour later the aged pair, having been led into the kitchen and +having had tea there, were led out again and released by the maid on to +the village Green rather as if they were two old ducks turned out to +grass. + +Sabre, watching them from the lawn beside the teacups, laughed and said, +"What a dashed stupid business. They might have had tea on the roof for +all I care." + +Mabel tinkled a little silver bell for the maid. _Ting-a-ling-ting!_ + + +V + +The houses of Penny Green carried out the Kate Greenaway effect that the +Green itself established. Along the upper road of the tilted dish were +the larger houses, and upon the lower road mostly the cottages of the +villagers; also upon the lower road the five shops of Penny Green: the +butcher's shop which was opened on Tuesdays and Fridays by a butcher who +came in from Tidborough with a spanking horse in front of him and half a +week's supply of meat behind and beneath him; the grocer's shop and the +draper's shop which, like enormous affairs in London, were also a large +number of other shops but, unlike the London affairs, dispensed them all +within the one shop and over the one counter. In the grocer's shop you +could be handed into one hand a pound of tea and into the other a pair +of boots, a convenience which, after all, is not to be had in all Oxford +Street. The draper's shop, carrying the principle further, would not +only dress you; post-office you; linoleum, rug and wall paper you; ink, +pencil and note paper you; but would also bury you and tombstone you, a +solemnity which it was only called upon to perform for anybody about +once in five years--Penny Green being long-lived--but was always ready +and anxious to carry out. Indeed in the back room of his shop, the +draper, Mr. Pinnock, had a coffin which he had been trying (as he said) +"to work off" for twenty-two years. It represented Mr. Pinnock's single +and disastrous essay in sharp business. Two and twenty years earlier Old +Wirk had been not only dying but "as good as dead." Mr. Pinnock on a +stock-replenishing excursion in Tidborough, had bought a coffin, at the +undertaker's, of a size to fit Old Wirk, and for the reason that, buying +it then, he could convey it back on the wagon he had hired for the day +and thus save carriage. He had brought it back, and the first person he +had set eyes on in Penny Green was no other than Old Wirk himself, +miraculously recovered and stubbornly downstairs and sunning at his +door. The shock had nearly caused Mr. Pinnock to qualify for the coffin +himself; but he had not, nor had any other inhabitant of suitable size +since demised. Longer persons than Old Wirk had died, and much shorter +and much stouter persons than Old Wirk had died. But the coffin had +remained. Up-ended and neatly fitted with shelves, it served as a store +cupboard, without a door, pending its proper use. But it was a terribly +expensive store cupboard and it stood in Mr. Pinnock's parlour as a +gloomy monument to the folly of rash and hazardous speculation. + + +VI + +Penny Green, like Rome, had not been built in a day. The houses of the +Penny Green Garden Home, on the other hand, were being run up in as near +to a day as enthusiastic developers, feverish contractors (vying one +with another) and impatient tenants could encompass. Nor was Penny Green +built for a day. The houses and cottages of Penny Green had been built +under the influence of many and different styles of architecture; and +they had been built not only by people who intended to live in them, and +proposed to be roomy and well cup boarded and stoutly beamed and floored +in them, but who, not foreseeing restless and railwayed generations, +built them to endure for the children of their children's children and +for children yet beyond. Sabre's house was of grey stone and it +presented over the doorway the date 1667. + +"Nearly two hundred and fifty years," Mabel had once said. + +"And I bet," Sabre had replied, "it's never been better kept or run than +you run it now, Mabel." + +The tribute was well deserved. Mabel, who was in many ways a model +woman, was preëminently a model housewife. "Crawshaws" was spotlessly +kept and perfectly administered. Four living rooms, apart from the +domestic offices, were on the ground floor. One was the morning room, in +which they principally lived; one the dining room and one the +drawing-room. They were entered by enormously heavy doors of oak, fitted +with latches, the drawing-room up two steps, the dining room down one +step and the morning room and the fourth room on the level. All were +low-beamed and many-windowed with lattice windows; all were stepped into +as stepping into a very quiet place, and somehow into a room which one +had not expected to be there, or not quite that shape if a room were +there. Sabre never quite lost that feeling of pleasant surprise on +entering them. They had moreover, whether due to the skill of the +architect or the sagacity of Mabel, the admirable, but rare attribute of +being cool in summer and warm in winter. + +The only room in the house which Sabre did not like was the fourth +sitting room on the ground floor; and it was his own room, furnished and +decorated by Mabel for his own particular use and comfort. But she +called it his "den", and Sabre loathed and detested the word den as +applied to a room a man specially inhabits. It implied to him a +masculine untidiness, and he was intensely orderly and hated untidiness. +It implied customs and manners of what he called "boarding-house +ideas",--the idea that a man must have an untidily comfortable apartment +into which he can retire and envelop himself in tobacco smoke, and where +he "can have his own things around him", and "have his pipes and his +pictures about him", and where he can wear "an old shooting jacket and +slippers",--and he loathed and detested all these phrases and the ideas +they connoted. He had no "old shooting jacket" and he would have given +it to the gardener if he had; and he detested wearing slippers and never +did wear slippers; it was his habit to put on his boots after his bath +and to keep them on till he put on shoes when changing for dinner. Above +all, he loathed and detested the vision which the word "den" always +conjured up to him. This was a vision of the door of a typical den being +opened by a wife, and of the wife saying in a mincing voice, "This is +George in his den," and of boarding-house females peering over the +wife's shoulder and smiling fatuously at the denizen who, in an old +shooting jacket and slippers, grinned vacuously back at them. To Mark +this was a horrible and unspeakable vision. + +Mabel could not in the least understand it, and common sense and common +custom were entirely on her side; Mark admitted that. The ridiculous and +trivial affair only took on a deeper significance--not apparent to Mark +at the time, but apparent later in the fact that he could not make Mabel +understand his attitude. + +The matter of the den and another matter, touching the servants, came up +between them in the very earliest days of their married life. From +London, on their return from their honeymoon, Mark had been urgently +summoned to the sick-bed of his father, in Chovensbury. Mabel proceeded +to Crawshaws. He joined her a week later, his father happily recovered. +Mabel had been busy "settling things", and she took him round the house +with delicious pride and happiness. Mark, sharing both, had his arm +linked in hers. When they came to the fourth sitting room Mabel +announced gaily, "And this is your den!" + +Mark gave a mock groan. "Oh, lord, not den!" + +"Yes, of course, den. Why ever not?" + +"I absolutely can't stick den." He glanced about "Who on earth's left +those fearful old slippers there?" + +"They're a pair of father's. I took them specially for you for this +room. You haven't got any slippers like that." + +He gazed upon the heels downtrodden by her heavy father. He did not much +like her heavy father. "No, I haven't," he said, and thought grimly, +"Thank God!" + +"But, Mark, what do you mean, you can't stick 'den'?" + +He explained laughingly. He ended, "It's just like lounge hall. Lounge +hall makes me feel perfectly sick. You're not going to call the hall a +lounge hall, are you?" + +She was quite serious and the least little bit put out. "No--I'm not. +But I can't see why. I've never heard such funny ideas." + +He was vaguely, transiently surprised at her attitude towards his funny +ideas. "Well, come on, let's see upstairs." + +"Yes, let's, dear." + +He stepped out, and she closed the door after them. "Well, that's your +den." + +As if he had never spoken! A vague and transient discomfort shot through +him. + + +VII + +It was when they came down again, completely happy and pleased, that the +servant incident occurred. Mabel was down the stairs slightly before him +and turned a smiling face up to him as he descended. "By Jove, it's +jolly," he said. "We'll be happy here," and he kissed her. + +"You'd better see the kitchen. It's awfully nice;" and they went along. + +At the kitchen door she paused and began in a mysterious whisper a long +account of the servants. "I think they'll turn out quite nice girls. +They're sisters, you know, and they're glad to be in a place together. +They've both got young men in the village. Fancy, the cook told me that +at Mrs. Wellington's where she was, at Chovensbury, she wasn't allowed +to use soda for washing up because Mrs. Wellington fussed so frightfully +about the pattern on her china! Fancy, in their family they've got +eleven brothers and sisters. Isn't it awful how those kind of people--" + +Her voice got lower and lower. She seemed to Mark to be quivering with +some sort of repressed excitement, as though the two maids were some +rare exhibit which she had captured with a net and placed in the +kitchen, and whom it was rather thrilling to open the door upon and peep +at. He could hardly hear her voice and had to bend his head. It was dim +in the lobby outside the kitchen door. The dimness, her intense whispers +and her excitement made him feel that he was in some mysterious +conspiracy with her. The whole atmosphere of the house and of this tour +of inspection, which had been deliciously absorbing, became mysteriously +conspiratorial, unpleasing. + +"...She's been to a school of cookery at Tidborough. She attended the +whole course!" + +"Good. That's the stuff!" + +"Hush!" + +Why hush? What a funny business this was! + + +VIII + +Mabel opened the kitchen door. "The master's come to see how nice the +kitchen looks." + +Two maids in black dresses and an extraordinary amount of stiffly +starched aprons and caps and streamers rose awkwardly and bobbed awkward +little bows. One was very tall, the other rather short. The tall one +looked extraordinarily severe and the short one extraordinarily glum, +Mark thought, to have young men. Mabel looked from the girls to Mark and +from Mark to the girls, precisely as if she were exhibiting rare +specimens to her husband and her husband to her rare specimens. And in +the tone of one exhibiting pinned, dried, and completely impersonal +specimens, she announced, "They're sisters. Their name is Jinks." + +Mark, examining the exhibits, had been feeling like a fool. Their name +humanized them and relieved his awkward feeling. "Ha! Jinks, eh? High +Jinks and Low Jinks, what?" He laughed. It struck him as rather comic; +and High Jinks and Low Jinks tittered broadly, losing in the most +astonishing way the one her severity and the other her glumness. + +Mabel seemed suddenly to have lost her interest in her exhibits and +their cage. She rather hurried Mark through the kitchen premises and, +moving into the garden, replied rather abstractedly to his plans for the +garden's development. + +Suddenly she said, "Mark, I do wish you hadn't said that in the +kitchen." + +He was mentally examining the possibilities of a makeshift racket court +against a corner of the stable and barn. "Eh, what in the kitchen, +dear?" + +"That about High Jinks and Low Jinks." + +"Mabel, I swear we could fix up a topping sort of squash rackets in that +corner. Those cobbles are worn absolutely smooth--" + +"I wish you'd listen to me, Mark." + +He caught his arm around her and gave her a playful squeeze. "Sorry, old +girl, what was it? About High Jinks and Low Jinks? Ha! Dashed funny +that, don't you think?" + +"No, I don't. I don't think it's a bit funny." + +Her tone was such that, relaxing his arm, he turned and gazed at her. +"_Don't_ you? Don't you really?" + +"No, I don't. Far from funny." + +Some instinct told him he ought not to laugh, but he could not help it. +The idea appealed to him as distinctly and clearly comic. "Well, but it +_is_ funny. Don't you see? High Jinks alone is such a funny +expression--sort of--well, you know what I mean. Apart altogether from +Low Jinks," and he laughed again. + +Mabel compressed her lips. "I simply don't. Rebecca is not a bit like +High Jinks." + +He burst out laughing. "No, I'm dashed if she is. That's just it!" + +"I really do not see it." + +"Oh, go on, Mabel! Of course you do. You make it funnier. High Jinks and +Low Jinks! I shall call them that." + +"Mark." She spoke the word severely and paused severely. "Mark. I do +most earnestly hope you'll do nothing of the kind." + +He stared, puzzled. He had tried to explain the absurd thing, and she +simply could not see it. "I simply don't." + +And again that vague and transient discomfort shot through him. + + +IX + +Sabre awoke in the course of that night and lay awake. The absurd +incident came immediately into his mind and remained in his mind. High +Jinks and Low Jinks _was_ comic. No getting over it. Incontestably +comic. Stupid, of course, but just the kind of stupid thing that tickled +him irresistibly. And she couldn't see it. Absolutely could not see it. +But if she were never going to see any of these stupid little things +that appealed to him--? And then he wrinkled his brows. "You remember +how he used to wrinkle up his old nut," as the garrulous Hapgood had +said. + +A night-light, her wish, dimly illumined the room. He raised himself and +looked at her fondly, sleeping beside him. He thought, "Dash it, the +thing's been just the same from her point of view. That den business. +She likes den, and I can't stick den. Just the same for her as for me +that High Jinks and Low Jinks tickles me and doesn't tickle her." + +He very gently moved with his finger a tress of her hair that had fallen +upon her face.... Mabel!... His wife!... How gently beneath her filmy +bedgown her bosom rose and fell!... How utterly calm her face was. How +at peace, how secure, she lay there. He thought, "Three weeks ago she +was sleeping in the terrific privacy of her own room, and here she is +come to me in mine. Cut off from everything and everybody and come here +to me." + +An inexpressible tenderness filled him. He had a sudden sense of the +poignant and tremendous adventure on which they were embarked together. +They had been two lives, and now they were one life, altering completely +the lives they would have led singly: a new sea, a new ship on a new, +strange sea. What lay before them? + +She stirred. + +His thoughts continued: One life! One life out of two lives; one nature +out of two natures! Mysterious and extraordinary metamorphosis. She had +brought her nature to his, and he his nature to hers, and they were to +mingle and become one nature.... Absurdly and inappropriately his mind +picked up and presented to him the grotesque words, "High Jinks and Low +Jinks." A note of laughter was irresistibly tickled out of him. + +She said very sleepily, "Mark, are you laughing? What are you laughing +at?" + +He patted her shoulder. "Oh, nothing." + +One nature? + + + +CHAPTER III + + +I + +One nature? In the fifth year of their married life thoughts of her and +of the poignant and tremendous adventure on which they were embarked +together were no longer possible while she lay in bed beside him. They +had come to occupy separate rooms. + +In the fifth year of their married life measles visited Penny Green. +Mabel caught it. Their bedroom was naturally the sick room. Sabre went +to sleep in another room,--and the arrangement prevailed. Nothing was +said between them on the matter, one way or the other. They naturally +occupied different rooms during her illness. She recovered. They +continued to occupy different rooms. It was the most natural business in +the world. + +The sole reference to recognition of permanency in this development of +the relations between them was made when Sabre, on the first Saturday +afternoon after Mabel's recovery--he did not go to his office at +Tidborough on Saturdays--carried out his idea, conceived during her +sickness, of making the bedroom into which he had moved serve as his +study also. He had never got rid of his distaste for his "den." He had +never felt quite comfortable there. + +At lunch on this Saturday, "I tell you what I'm going to do this +afternoon," he said. "I'm going to move my books up into my room." + +He had been a little afraid the den business would be reopened by this +intention, but Mabel's only reply was, "You'd better have the maids help +you." + +"Yes, I'll get them." + +"No, I'll give the order, if you don't mind." + +"Right!" + +And in the afternoon the books were moved, the den raped of them, his +bedroom awarded them. High Jinks and Low Jinks rather enjoyed it, +passing up and down the stairs with continuous smirks at this new +manifestation of the master's ways. The bookshelves proved rather a +business. There were four of them, narrow and high. "We'll carry these +longways," Sabre directed, when the first one was tackled. "I'll shove +it over. You two take the top, and I'll carry the foot." + +In this order they struggled up the stairs, High Jinks and Low Jinks +backwards, and the smirks enlarged into panting giggles. Halfway up came +a loud crack. + +"What the devil's that?" said Sabre, sweating and gasping. + +"I think it's the back of my dress, sir," said High Jinks. + +"Good lord!" (Convulsive giggles.) "You know, Low, you're practically +sitting on the dashed thing. You've twisted yourself round in some +extraordinary way--" + +Agonising giggles. + +Mabel appeared in the hail beneath. "Raise it up, Rebecca. Raise it, +Sarah. How can you expect to move, stooping like that?" + +They raised it to the level of their waists, and progression became +seemly. + +"There you are!" said Sabre. + +There was somehow a feeling at both ends of the bookcase of having been +caught. + + +II + +Sabre liked this room. Three latticed windows, in the same wall, looked +on to the garden. In the spaces between them, and in the two spaces +between the end windows and the end walls, he placed his bookshelves, a +set of shelves in each space. + +Mabel displayed no interest in the move nor made any reference to it at +teatime. In the evening, hearing her pass the door on her way to dress +for dinner, he called her in. + +He was in his shirt sleeves, arranging the books. "There you are! Not +bad?" + +She regarded them and the room. "They look all right. All the same, I +must say it seems rather funny using your bedroom for your things when +you've got a room downstairs." + +"Oh, well, I never liked that room, you know. I hardly ever go into it." + +"I know you don't." + +And she went off. + + +III + +But the significance of the removal rested not in the definite +relinquishment of the den, but in her words "using your bedroom": the +definite recognition of separate rooms. + +And neither commented upon it. + +After all, landmarks, in the course of a journey, are more frequently +observed and noted as landmarks, when looking back along the journey, +than when actually passing them. They belong generically to the past +tense; one rarely says, "This is a landmark"; usually "That was a +landmark." + + +IV + +The bookcases were of Sabre's own design. He was extraordinarily fond of +his books and he had ideas about their arrangement. The lowest shelf was +in each case three feet from the ground; he hated books being "down +where you can't see them." Also the cases were open, without glass +doors; he hated "having to fiddle to get out a book." He liked them to +be just at the right height and straight to his hand. In a way he could +not quite describe (he was a bad talker, framing his ideas with +difficulty) he was attached to his books, not only for what was in them, +but as entities. He had written once in a manuscript book in which he +sometimes wrote things, "I like the feel of them and I know the feel of +them in the same way as one likes and knows the feel of a friend's hand. +And I can look at them and read them without opening them in the same +way as, without his speaking, one looks at and can enjoy the face of a +friend. I feel towards them when I look at them in the shelves,--well, +as if they were feeling towards me just as I am feeling towards them." +And he had added this touch, which is perhaps more illuminating. "The +other day some one had had out one of my books and returned it upside +down. I swear it was as grotesque and painful to me to see it upside +down as if I had come into the room and found my brother standing on his +head against the wall, fastened there. At least I couldn't have sprung +to him to release him quicker than I did to the book to upright it." + +The first book he had ever bought "specially"--that is to say not as one +buys a bun but as one buys a dog--was at the age of seventeen when he +had bought a Byron, the Complete Works in a popular edition of very +great bulk and very small print. He bought it partly because of what he +had heard during his last term at school of Don Juan, partly because he +had picked up the idea that it was rather a fine thing to read poetry; +and he kept it and read it in great secrecy because his mother (to whom +he mentioned his intention) told him that Byron ought not to be read and +that her father, in her girlhood, had picked up Byron with the tongs and +burnt him in the garden. This finally determined him to buy Byron. + +He began to read it precisely as he was accustomed to read books,--that +is to say at the beginning and thence steadily onwards. "On the Death of +a Young Lady" (Admiral Parker's daughter, explained a footnote); "To +E----"; "To D----" and so on. There were seven hundred and eight pages +of this kind of thing and Don Juan was at the end, in the five hundreds. + +When he had laboriously read thirty-six pages he decided that it was not +a fine thing to read poetry, and he moved on to Don Juan, page five +hundred and thirty-three. The rhymes surprised him. He had no idea that +poetry--_poetry_--rhymed "annuities" with "true it is" and "Jew it is." +He turned on and numbered the cantos,--sixteen; and then the number of +verses in each canto and the total,--two thousand one hundred and +eighty.... _Who-o-o!..._ It was as endless as the seven hundred and +eight pages had appeared when he had staggered as far as page +thirty-six. He began to hunt for the particular verses which had caused +Don Juan to be recommended to him and presumably had caused his +grandfather to carry out Byron with the tongs and burn him in the +garden. He could not find them. He chucked the rotten thing. + +But as he was putting the rotten thing away, his eye happened upon two +lines that struck into him--it was like a physical blow--the most +extraordinary sensation: + + The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece + Where burning Sappho loved and sung. + +He caught his breath. It was extraordinary. What the dickens was it? A +vision of exquisite and unearthly and brilliantly coloured beauty seemed +to be before his eyes. Islands, all white and green and in a sea of +terrific blue.... And music, the thin note of distant trumpets.... +Amazing! He read on. "Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung! Eternal +Summer gilds them yet." Terrific, but not quite so terrific. And then +again the terrific, the stunning, the heart-clutching thing. On a +different note, with a different picture, coloured in grays. + + The mountains look on Marathon-- + And Marathon looks on the sea. + +Music! The trumpets thinned away, exquisitely thin, tiny, gone! And high +above the mountains and far upon the sea an organ shook. + +He said, "Well, I'm dashed!" and put the book away. + + +V + +It was years after the Byron episode--after he had come down from +Cambridge, after he had travelled fairly widely, and luckily, as tutor +to a delicate boy, and after he had settled down, from his father's +house at Chovensbury, to learn the Fortune, East and Sabre business that +he began to collect the books which now formed his collection. His +intense fondness for books had come to him late in life, as love of +literature goes. He was reading at twenty-eight and thirty literature +which, when it is read at all, is as a rule read ten years younger +because the taste is there and is voracious for satisfaction,--as a +young and vigorous animal for its meals. But at twenty-eight and thirty, +reading for the first time, he read sometimes with a sense of +revelation, always with an enormous satisfaction. Especially the poets. +And constantly in the poets he was coming across passages the sheer +beauty of which shook him precisely as the Byron lines had first shaken +him. + +His books appeared to indicate a fair number and a fair diversity of +interests; but their diversity presented to him a common quality or +group of qualities. Some history, some sociology, some Spencer, some +Huxley, some Haeckel, a small textbook of geology, a considerable +proportion of pure literature, Morley's edition of lives of literary +men, the English essayists in a nice set, Shakespeare in many forms and +so much poetry that at a glance his library was all poetry. All the +books were picked up at second-hand dealers' in Tidborough, none had +cost more than a few shillings. The common quality that bound them was +that they stirred in him imaginative thought: they presented images, +they suggested causes, they revealed processes; the common group of +qualities to which they ministered were beauty and mystery, sensibility +and wonder. They made him think about things, and he liked thinking +about things; the poets filled his mind with beauty, and he was +strangely stirred by beauty. + + +VI + +Here, in the effect upon him of beauty and of ideas communicated to his +mind by his reading--first manifested to him by the Byron +revelation--was the mark and label of his individuality: here was the +linking up of the boy who as Puzzlehead Sabre would wrinkle up his nut +and say, "Well, I can't quite see that, sir," with the man in whom the +same habit persisted; he saw much more clearly and infinitely more +intensely with his mind than with his eye. Beauty of place imagined was +to him infinitely more vivid than beauty seen. And so in all affairs: +it was not what the eye saw or the ear heard that interested him; it was +what his mind saw, questing behind the scene and behind the speech, that +interested him, and often, by the intensity of its perception, shook +him. And precisely as beauty touched in him the most exquisite and +poignant depths, so evil surroundings, evil faces dismayed him to the +point of mysterious fear, almost terror-- + +On a Sunday of his honeymoon in London he had conceived with Mabel the +idea of a bus ride through the streets,--"anywhere, the first bus that +comes." The first bus that came took them through South London, dodged +between main roads and took them through miles of mean and sordid +dwelling houses. At open windows high up sat solitary women, at others +solitary, shirt-sleeved men; behind closed windows were the faces of +children. All staring,--women and men and children, impassively +prisoned, impassively staring. Each house door presented, one above the +other, five or six iron bell-knobs, some hanging out and downwards, as +if their necks were broken. On the pavements hardly a soul. Just street +upon street of these awful houses with their imprisoned occupants and +the doors with their string of crazy bells. + +An appalling and abysmal depression settled upon Sabre. He imagined +himself pulling the dislocated neck of one of those bells and stepping +into what festered behind those sinister doors: the dark and malodorous +stairways, the dark and malodorous rooms, their prisoned occupants +opening their prisons and staring at him,--those women, those men, those +children. He imagined himself in one of those rooms, saw it, felt it, +smelt it. He imagined himself cutting his throat in one of those rooms. + +At tea in their hotel on their return Mabel chattered animatedly on all +they had seen. "I'm awfully glad we went. I think it's a very good thing +to know for oneself just how that side of life lives. Those awful people +at the windows!"--and she laughed. He noticed for the first time what a +sudden laugh she had, rather loud. + +Sabre agreed. "Yes, I think it's a good thing to have an idea of their +lives. I can't say I'm glad I went, though. You've no idea how awfully +depressed that kind of thing makes me feel." + +She laughed again. "Depressed! How ever can it? How funny you must be!" + +Then she said, "Yes, I'm glad I've seen for myself. You know, when those +sort of people come into your service--the airs they give themselves and +the way they demand the best of everything--and then when you see the +kind of homes they come from--!" + +"Yes, it makes you think, doesn't it?" + +"It _does_!" + +But what it made Sabre think was entirely different from what it made +Mabel think. + + +VII + +"Puzzlehead" they had called him at his preparatory school,--Old +Puzzlehead Sabre, the chap who always wrinkled up his nut over things +and came out with the most extraordinary ideas. He had remained, and +increasingly become, the puzzler. And precisely as he ceased to share a +room with Mabel and carried himself with satisfaction to his own +apartment, so, by this fifth year of his married life, he had come to +know well that he shared no thoughts with her: he carried them, with +increasing absorption in their interest, to the processes of his own +mind. + +An incident of those early school days had always remained with him, in +its exact words. The exact words of a selectly famous professor of +philosophy who, living the few years of his retirement in the +neighbourhood of the preparatory school, had given--for pure love of +seeing young things and feeling the freshness of young minds--a weekly +"talk on things" to the small schoolboys. And whatever the subject of +his talk, he almost invariably would work off his familiar counsel: + +"And a very good thing (he used to say), an excellent thing, the very +best of practices, is to write a little every day. Just a little scrap, +but cultivate the habit of doing it every day. I don't mean what is +called keeping a diary, you know. Don't write what you do. There's no +benefit in that. We do things for all kinds of reasons and it's the +reasons, not the things, that matter. Let your little daily scrap be +something you've thought. What you've done belongs partly to some one +else; often you're made to do it. But what you think is you yourself: +you write it down and there it is, a tiny little bit of you that you can +look at and say, 'Well, really!' You see, a little bit like that, +written every day, is a mirror in which you can see your real self and +correct your real self. A looking-glass shows you your face is dirty or +your hair rumpled, and you go and polish up. But it's ever so much more +important to have a mirror that shows you how your real self, your mind, +your spirit, is looking. Just see if you can't do it. A little scrap. +It's very steadying; very steadying...." + +And his small hearers, desiring, like young colts in a field, nothing so +little as anything steadying, paid as much attention to this "jaw" as to +any precept not supported by cane or imposition. They made of it, +indeed, a popular school joke, "Oh, go and write a little every day and +boil yourself, you ass!" But it appealed, dimly, to the reflective +quality in the child Sabre's mind. He contracted the habit of writing, +in a "bagged" exercise book, sentences beginning laboriously with "I +thought to-day--." It remained with him, as he grew up, in the practice +of writing sometimes ideas that occurred to him, as in the case of his +feelings about his books and--much more strongly--in deliberately +thinking out ideas. + +"You yourself. The real you." + +In the increasing solitariness of his married life, it came to be +something into which he could retire, as into a private chamber; which +he could put on, as a garment: and in the privacy of the chamber, or +within the sleeves of the garment, he received a sense of detachment +from normal life in which, vaguely, he pondered things. + + +VIII + +Vaguely,--without solution of most of the problems that puzzled him, and +without even definite knowledge of the line along which solution might +lie. Here, in these cloisters of another world--his own world--he paced +among his ideas as a man might pace around the dismantled and scattered +intricacies of an intricate machine, knowing the parts could be put +together and the thing worked usefully, not knowing how on earth it +could be done.... "This goes in there, and that goes in there, but how +on earth--?" Here, into these cloisters, he dragged the parts of all the +puzzles that perplexed him; his relations with Mabel; his sense, in a +hundred ways as they came up, of the odd business that life was; his +strong interest in the social and industrial problems, and in the +political questions from time to time before the public attention. + +He could be imagined assembling the parts, dragging them in, checking +them over, slamming the door, and--"How on earth? What on earth?" There +was a key to all these problems. There was a definite way of +coördinating the parts of each. But what? + +He began to have the feeling that in all the puzzles, not only, though +particularly, of his own life as he had come to live it, but of life in +general as it is lived, some mysterious part was missing. + +That was as far as he could get. He was like a man groping with his hand +through a hole in a great door for a key lying on the other side. +Nothing was to be seen through the hole, and only the arm to the elbow +could get through it. Not the shape of the key nor its position was +known. + +But he was absolutely certain it was there. + +One day he might put his hand on it. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +I + +Mabel was two years younger than Sabre, twenty-five at the time of her +marriage and just past her thirtieth birthday when the separate rooms +were first occupied. Her habit of sudden laughter, rather loud, which +Sabre first noticed in connection with their differing views on the mean +streets visit, was rather characteristic of her. Her laugh came +suddenly, and very heartily, at anything that amused her and without her +first smiling or suggesting by any other sign that she was amused. And +it came thus abruptly out of a face whose expression was normally rather +severe. Probably of the same mentality was her habit of what Sabre +called "flying up." She "flew up" without her speech first warming up; +but of her flying up, unlike her sudden burst of laughter, Sabre came to +know certain premonitory symptoms in her face. Her face what he called +"tightened." In particular he used to notice a curious little +constriction of the sides of her nose, rather as though invisible +tweezers were pressing it. + +She had rather a long nose and this pleased her, for she once read +somewhere that long noses were aristocratic. She stroked her nose as she +read. + +Her complexion was pale, though this was perhaps exaggerated by her +colouring, which was dark. Her features were noticeably regular and +noticeably refined, though her eyes were the least little bit inclined +to be prominent: when Sabre married the Dean of Tidborough's only +daughter, it was said that he had married "a good-looking girl"; also +that he had married "a very nice girl"; those were the expressions used. +She liked the company of men and she was much liked by men (the opinion +of the garrulous Hapgood may be recalled in this connection). She very +much liked the society of women of her own age or older than herself, +and she was very popular with such. She did not like girls, married or +unmarried. + + +II + +Mabel belonged to that considerable class of persons who, in +conversation, begin half their sentences with "And just imagine--"; or +"And only fancy--"; or "And do you know--." These exclamations, +delivered with much excitement, are introductory to matters considered +extraordinary. Their users might therefore be imagined somewhat easily +astonished. But they have a compensatory steadiness of mind in regard to +much that mystifies other people. To Mabel there was nothing mysterious +in birth, or in living, or in death. She simply would not have +understood had she been told there was any mystery in these things. One +was born, one lived, one died. What was there odd about it? Nor did she +see anything mysterious in the intense preoccupation of an insect, or +the astounding placidity of a primrose growing at the foot of a tree. An +insect--you killed it. A flower--you plucked it. What's the mystery? + +Her life was living among people of her own class. Her measure of a man +or of a woman was, Were they of her class? If they were, she gladly +accepted them and appeared to find considerable pleasure in their +society. Whether they had attractive qualities or unattractive qualities +or no qualities at all did not affect her. The only quality that +mattered was the quality of being well-bred. She called the classes +beneath her own standard of breeding "the lower classes", and so long as +they left her alone she was perfectly content to leave them alone. In +certain aspects the liked them. She liked "a civil tradesman" immensely; +she liked a civil charwoman immensely; and she liked a civil workman +immensely. It gave her as much pleasure, real pleasure that she felt in +all her emotions, to receive civility from the classes that ministered +to her class--servants, tradespeople, gardeners, carpenters, plumbers, +postmen, policemen--as to meet any one in her own class. It never +occurred to her to reckon up how enormously varied was the class whose +happy fortune it was to minister to her class and she would not have +been in the remotest degree interested if any one had told her how +numerous the class was. It never occurred to her that any of these +people had homes and it never occurred to her that the whole of the +lower classes lived without any margin at all beyond keeping their homes +together, or that if they stopped working they lost their homes, or that +they looked forward to nothing beyond their working years because there +was nothing beyond their working years for them to look forward to. Nor +would it have interested her in the remotest degree to hear this. The +only fact she knew about the lower classes was that they were +disgustingly extravagant and spent every penny they earned. The woman +across the Green who did her washing had six children and a husband who +was an agricultural labourer and earned eighteen and sixpence a week. +These eight lived in three rooms and "if you please" they actually +bought a gramophone! Mabel instanced it for years after she first heard +it. The idea of that class of person spending money on anything to make +their three rooms lively of an evening was scandalous to Mabel. She +heard of the gramophone outrage in 1908 and she was still instancing it +in 1912. "And those are the people, mind you," she said in 1912, "that +we have to buy these National Insurance stamps for!" + + +III + +Mabel was not demonstrative. She had no enthusiasms and no sympathies. +Enthusiasms and sympathies in other people made her laugh with her +characteristic burst of sudden laughter. It was not, as with some +persons, that matters calling for sympathy made her impatient,--as very +robust people are often intensely impatient with sickness and infirmity. +She never would say, "I have no patience with such and such or so and +so." She had plenty of patience. It was simply that she had no +imagination whatsoever. Whatever she saw or heard or read, she saw or +heard or read exactly as the thing presented itself. If she saw a door +she saw merely a piece of wood with a handle and a keyhole. It may be +argued that a door is merely a piece of wood with a handle and a +keyhole, and that is what Mabel would have argued. But a door is in fact +the most intriguing mystery in the world because of what may be the +other side of it and of what goes on behind it. To Mabel nothing was on +the other side of anything she saw and nothing went on behind it. + +A person or a creature in pain was to Mabel a person or a creature "laid +up." Laid up--out of action--not working properly: like a pencil without +a point. A picture was a decoration in paint and was either a pretty +decoration in paint or a not pretty decoration in paint. Music was a +tune, and was either a tune or merely music. A book was a story, and if +it was not a story it was simply a book. A flower was a decoration. +Poetry, such as + + "While the still morn went out with sandals grey," + +was simply writing which, obviously, had no real meaning whatsoever, and +obviously--well, read the thing--was not intended to have any meaning. A +fine deed was fine precisely in proportion to the social position of the +person who performed it. Scott's death at the South Pole, when that was +announced in 1913, was fine because he was a gentleman. The disaster of +the colliers entombed in the Welsh Senghenydd mine which happened in the +same year was sad. "How sad!" She read the account, on the first day, +with the paper held up wide open and said "How sad!" and turned on to +something for which the paper might be folded back at the place and read +comfortably. Scott's death she read with the paper folded back at the +account. She liked seeing the pictures of Lady Scott and of Scott's +little boy. She read the caption under one of the pictures of the wives +and families of the four hundred and twenty-nine colliers killed in the +Senghenydd mine, but not under any of the others. The point she noted +was that all the women "of that class" wore "those awful cloth +caps",--the colliers' women just the same as the women in the mean +streets of Tidborough Old Town. + +She was never particularly grateful for anything given to her or done +for her; not because she was not pleased and glad but because she could +invest a gift with no imagination of the feelings of the giver. The +thing was a present just as a pound of bacon was a pound of bacon. You +said thank you for the present just as you ate the bacon. What more was +to be said? + +She revelled in gossip, that is to say in discussion with her own class +of the manners and doings of other people. She thought charity meant +giving jelly and red flannel to the poor; she thought generosity meant +giving money to some one; she thought selfishness meant not giving money +to some one. She had no idea that the only real charity is charity of +mind, and the only real generosity generosity of mind, and the only real +selfishness selfishness of mind. And she simply would not have +understood it if it had been explained to her. As people are judged, she +was entirely nice, entirely worthy, entirely estimable. And with that, +for it does not enter into such estimates, she had neither feelings of +the mind nor of the heart but only of the senses. All that her senses +set before her she either overvalued or undervalued: she was the +complete and perfect snob in the most refined and purest meaning of the +word. + +She was much liked, and she liked many. + + + +CHAPTER V + + +I + +The Penny Green Garden House Development Scheme was begun in 1910. In +1908, the year of the measles and the separated bedrooms, no shadow of +it had yet been thrown. It never occurred to any one that a railway +would one day link Penny Green with Tidborough and all the rest of the +surrounding world, or that a railway to Tidborough was desirable. Sabre +bicycled in daily to Fortune, East and Sabre's, and the daily ride to +and fro had become a curious pleasure to him. + +There had once occurred to him as he rode, and thereafter had persisted +and accumulated, the feeling that, on the daily, solitary passage +between Tidborough and Penny Green, he was mysteriously detached from, +mysteriously suspended between, the two centres that were his two +worlds,--his business world and his home world. + +With its daily recurrence the thought developed: it enlarged to the +whimsical notion that here, on his bicycle on the road, he was magically +escaped out of his two worlds, not belonging to or responsible to either +of his two worlds, which amounted to delicious detachment from all the +universe. A mysteriously aloof, free, irresponsible attitude of mind was +thus obtained: it was a condition in which--as one looking down from a +high tower on scurrying, antlike human beings--their oddness, their +futility, the apparent aimlessness of their excited scurrying became +apparent; hence frequent thought, on these rides, on the rather odd +thing that life was. + +He was not in the least aware that so simple, so practical and so +obviously essential a thing as his daily ride--as simple, practical and +obviously essential as getting out of bed in the morning and returning +to bed at night--was moulding a mind always prone to develop meditative +grooves. But it did develop his mind in the extraordinary way in which +minds are moulded by the most simple habits. In this mere matter of +conveyance a philosopher might trace back a singularly brutal and +callous murder to the moulding into callous and brutal regard of other +people's sufferings rendered into a perfectly gentle mind by the habit +of daily travelling to business in London on the top of a motor omnibus. +It would only need to be shown that the gentle mind secured his seat +with dignity and comfort at the bus's starting point and daily for years +watched with amusement, and then with callousness and so with brutality +the struggles of the unhappy fellow creatures who fought to assail it at +its stopping places on the way to the City. + +Mark Sabre was not in the least aware of any steadily permeating +influence from his sense of detachment on this daily habit of years. But +he was influenced. On entering his Penny Green world on the return home, +or on entering his Tidborough office world, on the way out, he had +sometimes a curious feeling of descending into this odd affair of life +to which he did not really belong. And for the few moments while the +feeling persisted he sometimes, more or less unconsciously, took towards +affairs a rather whimsical attitude, as though they did not really +matter: an irritating attitude, unpractical, it was sometimes hinted by +his partners; an irritating attitude--"You really are very difficult to +understand sometimes"--it was often told him by Mabel. + + +II + +This very matter of the bicycle ride, indeed, apart altogether from its +effect upon his mood, supplied an instance of the kind of thing Mabel +found it so difficult to understand in her husband. + +He made what she called a childish game of it. Every day on the ride +home, Sabre ceased pedalling at precisely the same point on the slope +down into Penny Green and coasted until the machine came to a standstill +within a few yards of his own gate. This point of cessation was never +twice in a week at the same spot; and Sabre found great interest in +seeing every day exactly where it would be, and by intense wriggling of +his front wheel and prodigious feats of balancing, squeezing out of the +machine's momentum the last possible fraction of an inch. There was a +magnificent distance record when, on one single occasion only, he had +been deposited plumb in line with his own gate; and there was a +divertingly lamentable shortage record, touched on more than one +occasion, when he had come to ground plumb in line with the gate of Mr. +Fargus, his neighbour on that side. + +Each of these records, though marked by the gates, was also and more +exactly marked by a peg hammered into the edge of the Green. + +This was childish; and Mabel said it was childish when her attention was +drawn to the diversion. On the day the great distance record was created +he came rather animatedly into the kitchen where she happened to be. "I +say, what's happened to that small wood axe? Is it in here?" + +Mabel followed the direction of the convulsive start made by Low Jinks +and produced the small wood axe from under the dresser, also directing +at Low Jinks a glance which told Low Jinks what she perfectly well +knew: namely that under the dresser was not the place for the small +wood axe. "Whatever do you want it for all of a sudden?" Mabel asked. + +He felt the edge with his thumb. "Low"--Mabel's face twitched. He had +persisted in the idiotic and indecorous names, and her face always +twitched when he used them--"Low, do you keep my axe for chopping coal +or what?" And he addressed Mabel. "I'm getting fat, I think. I don't +want the axe to cut lumps off myself, though. I'm going to chop a +marking peg. I've done a heavyweight world's record on that run in on my +bike--" + +"Oh, _that_!" said Mabel. + +And when he had gone out into the wood yard, Low Jinks staring after him +with the uplifted eyebrows with which both sisters, the glum and the +grim, commonly received the master's "ways", Mabel said in the gently +pained way which was her admirable method of administering rebukes in +the kitchen: "The woodshed is the place for the small wood axe, +Rebecca." + +Rebecca promptly unsmirked her smirk. "Yes, m'm." + +A little later the sound of loud hammering took Mabel to the gate. +Across the road, at the edge of the Green, Sabre was energetically +driving in the peg with the back of the axe. He was squatting and he +looked up highly pleased with himself and, his words implied, with her. +"Come to see it? Good! How's that for an effort, eh? Look here now. +Yesterday I only got as far as here," and he walked some paces towards +Mr. Fargus's gate and struck his heel in the ground and looked at her, +smiling. "Absolutely the same conditions, mind you. No wind. And I +always start from the top practically at rest; and yet always finish up +different. Jolly funny, eh?" + +She opened the gate for him. "What you can see in it!" she murmured. + +He said, "Oh, well!" + + +III + +But on the following day he was surprised and intensely pleased to see +his champion peg gleaming white in the sunshine. Mabel was in the +morning room, sewing. + +"Hullo, sewing? I say, did you paint my peg? How jolly nice of you!" + +She looked up. "Your peg? Whatever do you mean?" + +"That record distance peg of mine. Painted it white, haven't you?" + +"No, I didn't paint it!" + +"Who the dickens--? Well, I'll just wash my hands. Not had tea, have +you? Good." + +When Low Jinks came to his room with hot water--a detail of the perfect +appointment of the house under Mabel's management was her rule that +Rebecca always came to the door for the master's bicycle, handed him the +brush for his shoes and trousers, and then took hot water to his +room--he asked her, "I say, Low Jinks, did you paint that peg of mine?" + +Low Jinks coloured and spoke apologetically: "Well, I thought it would +show up better, sir. There was a drop of whitewash in--" + +"By Jove, it does. It looks like a regular winning-post. Jolly nice of +you, Low." + +Two months afterwards the bicycle did the worst on record. This was a +surprising affair; the runs had recently been excitingly good; and when +Low Jinks came out to take the bicycle he greeted her: "I say, Low +Jinks, I only got just up to Mr. Fargus's gate just now. Worst I've +ever done." + +Low Jinks was enormously concerned. "Well! I never did!" exclaimed Low +Jinks. "If those bicycles aren't just things! You'll want a peg for +that, sir. Like you had one for the best." + +"That's an idea, Low. What about painting it?" + +"Oh, I _will_, sir!" + +But he did not mention the new record to Mabel. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +I + +The other end of the daily bicycle ride, the Tidborough end, provided no +feats of cycling interest. The extremely narrow, cobbled thoroughfare in +which the offices of Fortune, East and Sabre were situated usually +caused Sabre's approach to them to be made on foot, wheeling his +machine. + +Fortune, East and Sabre, Ecclesiastical and Scholastic Furnishers and +Designers, had in Tidborough what is called, in business and +professional circles, a good address. A good address for a metropolitan +money lender is the West End in the neighbourhood of Bond Street; a good +address for a solicitor is Bloomsbury in the neighbourhood of Bedford +Square: for an architect Westminster in the neighbourhood of Victoria +Street, for commerce the City in the neighbourhood of the Bank. The idea +is that, though clothes do not make the man, a good address makes, or +rather bestows the reputation, and conveys the impression that the owner +of the good address, being in that neighbourhood, is not within many +thousands of miles (or pounds) of the neighbourhood of Bankruptcy. + +The address of Fortune, East and Sabre was emphatically a good address +because its business was with the Church and for the Church; with +colleges, universities and schools and for colleges, universities and +schools; with bishops, priests and clergy, churchwardens, headmasters, +headmistresses, governors and bursars, and for bishops, priests and +clergy, churchwardens, headmasters, headmistresses, governors and +bursars. + +Its address was The Precincts,--Fortune, East and Sabre, The Precincts, +Tidborough. + +The Precincts has a discreet and beautiful sound, a discreet and +beautiful suggestiveness. High Street, Tidborough, or Cheapside, +Tidborough, or Commercial Street, Tidborough, have only to be compared +with The Precincts, Tidborough, to establish the discretion and beauty +of the situation of the firm. And the names of the firm were equally +euphonious and equally suggestive of high decorum and cultured +efficiency. Fortune, East and Sabre had a discreet and beautiful sound. +Finally Tidborough, the last line of the poem, though not in itself +either discreet or beautiful, being intensely busy, suggested to all the +cultured persons from bishops to bursars, with whom business was done, +the discreet and beautiful lines of Tidborough Cathedral and of +Tidborough School, together with all that these venerable and famous +institutions connoted. Not Winchester itself conveys to the cultured +mind thoughts more discreet and beautiful than are conveyed by +Tidborough. The care of the cathedral, for many years in a highly +delicate state of health, and the care of the school, yearly ravaged by +successive generations of the sons of those who could afford to educate +their sons there were, it may be mentioned, established sources of +income to the firm. + +Thus the whole style and title of the firm had a discreet and beautiful +sound, in admirable keeping with its business. Fortune, East and Sabre, +The Precincts, Tidborough. Was any one so utterly removed from affairs +as not to know them as ecclesiastical furnishers? "They're at +Tidborough. They _do_ Tidborough" (meaning the world-famous cathedral). +Or as scholastic providers? "They're at Tidborough. They _do_ +Tidborough" (meaning the empire-famous school). + +The frontage of Fortune, East and Sabre on The Precincts consisted of a +range of three double-fronted shops. The central shop gave one window to +a superb lectern in the style of a brass eagle whose outstretched wings +supported a magnificent Bible; to a richly embroidered altar cloth on +which stood a strikingly handsome set of communion plate; to a font +chastely carried out in marble; to an altar chair in oak and velvet that +few less than a suffragan bishop would have dared take seat in; and to +an example or two of highest art in needlework and embroidery in the +form of offertory bags and testament markers. The other window of the +central shop was a lesson to the profane in the beauty, the dignity and +the variety of vestments. It also informed rural choirboys, haply in +Tidborough on a treat, what surplices can be like if the funds and the +faith are sufficiently high to support them. + +The windows of the shop to the left (as you faced the lectern and the +vestments) displayed school furniture and school fittings bearing the +characteristic "F.E. & S." stamp. Here were adjustable desks for boys at +which no boy could possibly sit round-shouldered, which could be +adjusted upwards for tall boys and downwards for short boys, and the +seats of which could be advanced for boys afflicted with short legs and +retired for boys in the possession of long legs. It was believed by +those who had seen the full range of "F.E. & S." desk models that, if a +headmaster or bursar had telegraphed to Fortune, East and Sabre the +arrival of a Siamese twin boy at his school, a desk specially contrived +for the nice accommodation of a Siamese twin boy would have been put on +the railway before the telegraph messenger had loitered his way out of +the shadow of The Precincts. + +By an ingenious contrivance ink could not be spilt from the inkwells of +the "F.E. & S." models; rubber beading most properly nullified the +boyish idea that desk lids were made for the purpose of slamming to +blazes the nerves of masters and the calm in which alone high education +can be served. + +Equal skill, science, art, and the experience of generations had +produced the model of a master's desk which partnered the desks of the +pupil. Maps of as many countries as might be desired showed in frames up +and down which they followed one another by the silent turning of a +handle. A blackboard on an easel looked across the desks at a wall into +which was let a solid slab of blackboard. The window adjoining this +display exhibited a miniature classroom in which the "F.E. & S." system +of classroom ventilation maintained air so pure and fresh that the most +comatose pupil could not but keep alert and receptive in it. + +The shop front to the right paid testimony to the standing of Fortune, +East and Sabre in their capacity as educational and ecclesiastical book +publishers and binders. One window gave chastely, on purple velvet, not +more than two or at most three exquisitely wrought Bibles and prayer +books for lectern and altar; the other showed severely, on green baize, +school textbooks of every subject and degree grouped about superbly +handsome prize volumes in blue calf displaying the classic arms of +Tidborough School. + +Public entrance to these premises was gained by doors of the central +shop only. It was considered proper and in keeping with the times to +have window displays, but it was considered improper and out of keeping +with the traditions of Fortune, East and Sabre to present more than the +extreme minimum of shoppish appearance. You entered therefore by but one +door, which was, moreover, not a shop door but a church door and one of +the several models which Fortune, East and Sabre had designed and +executed; you entered, between the vestments and the lecterns, not a +shop but a vestry; and you passed, on the left, not into a shop but into +a classroom, and on the right not into a shop but into a book-lined +study. + +It is said that if you loitered long enough in Fortune, East and Sabre's +you would meet every dignitary of the Church and of education in the +United Kingdom; and it was added that you would not have to wait long. + +Fortune, East and Sabre, The Precincts, Tidborough. + + +II + +Maintaining the unshoplike character of the ground-floor rooms upon +which the plate-glass windows looked, virtually no business, in the +vulgar form of buying and selling, was carried on in the vestry, in the +classroom or in the book-lined study. Many modern and entirely worthy +businesses are conducted under the strident banner of "Cash Only." +Fortune, East and Sabre's did not know the word cash. One would as soon +look for or expect a till, to say nothing of one of those terrific +machines known as cash registers, in the vestry, the classroom or the +study as one would look for a lectern or an adjustable school desk in a +beer-house. "Credit only" was here the principle, and accounts were +rendered, never on delivery, but quarterly. One does not, after all, pay +for a font out of one's trouser pocket and carry it off under one's arm; +nor for a school desk out of a purse and bear it away on one's head. +Only in the book-lined study were trifling transactions occasionally +carried out and these very rarely, constituting something of an event +(and an event greatly deprecated by the Reverend Sebastian Fortune), the +tactless misadventure of some pedagogue or student on excursion to the +sights of Tidborough. + +No one, in any case, committed twice the indiscretion of purchasing a +single volume for cash. The book-lined study was in the care of a Mr. +Tombs, a gentleman who combined the appearance of a mute at a funeral +with the aloof and mysterious manner of a man waiting for his wife in a +ladies' underwear department, and the peculiar faculty of making the +haphazard visitor feel that he had strayed into a ladies' underwear shop +also. "Have you an account with us, sir?" Mr. Tombs would inquire; and +on being told "No" would look guiltily all around (as it were at +partially undressed ladies) and whisper, "Except to the masters at the +School, sir, who all have accounts, we are not supposed to sell single +volumes. It is against our rule, sir." + +And no one, once escaped, made Mr. Tombs break the rule on a second +occasion. + + +III + +Business--on credit only--was conducted on the first floor whereon were +apartmented the three principals--the Reverend Sebastian Fortune, Mr. +Twyning and Sabre. There was no longer an East in the firm. From the +central, vestry-like showroom a broad and shallow stairway led to a +half-landing, containing the clerks' office, and thence to the spacious +apartment of Mr. Fortune with which, by doors at either end, +communicated the offices of Sabre and of Mr. Twyning. Many stately and +eminent persons--and no ill-to-do or doubtful persons--passed up and +down this stairway on visits to the principals. It was not used by the +clerks, the half-landing communicating with the outer world by the +clerks' stairs leading to the clerks' entrance at the back of the +building, and with the showrooms by the clerks' stairs leading at one +end to the book-lined study and at the other to the model classroom. The +clerks' office, by the taking down of original walls, ran the whole +length of the building, and accommodated not only the clerks, but the +designing room, the checking room and the dispatch room. This +arrangement was highly inconvenient to the performers of the various +duties thus carried on, but was essential to the more rapid execution of +Mr. Fortune's habit of "keeping an eye" on everything. This habit of the +Reverend Sebastian Fortune was roundly detested by all on whom his eye +fell. He was called Jonah by his employees; and he was called Jonah +partly because his visits to the places of their industry invariably +presaged disaster, but principally for the gross-minded and +wrongly-adduced reason that he had (in their opinion) a whale's belly. + + +IV + +He bore a certain resemblance to a stunted whale. He was chiefly +abdominal. His legs appeared to begin, without thighs, at his knees, and +his face, without neck, at his chest. His face was large, both wide and +long, and covered as to its lower part with a tough scrub of grey beard. +The line of his mouth showed through the scrub and turned extravagantly +downwards at the corners. He had a commanding, heavily knobbed brow, and +small grey eyes of intense severity. His voice was cold, and his manner, +though intensely polished and suave, singularly stern and decisive. He +had an expression of "I have decided" and Sabre said that he kept this +expression on ice. It had an icy sound and it certainly had the rigidity +and imperviousness of an iceberg. Hearing it, one might believe that it +could have a cruel sound. + +The Reverend Sebastian Fortune had come into the business at the age of +twenty-eight. He was now sixty-two. He had come in to find the +controlling interest almost entirely in the hands of the Fortune branch +of the firm, and in his thirty-four years of association, indeed in the +first twenty, he had, by fortuitous circumstances, and by force of his +decisive personality, achieved what amounted to sole and single control. +Coming in as a young man of force and character, he had added to these +qualities, by marriage, a useful sum of money (to which was attached a +widow) and proceeded to deal decisively with the East and the Sabre +(Mark Sabre's grandfather) of that day. Both were old men. The East, +young Mr. Fortune bought out neck and crop. The Sabre, who owned then a +fifth instead of a third interest in the business, and had developed, as +an obsession, an unreasonable fear of bankruptcy, he relieved of all +liability for the firm at the negligible cost of giving himself a free +hand in the conduct of the business. The deed of partnership was altered +accordingly. It was to this fifth share, without control, that Sabre's +father and, in his turn, Sabre succeeded. + + +V + +Sabre had been promised full partnership by Mr. Fortune. He desired it +very greatly. The apportionment of duties in the establishment was that +Sabre managed the publishing department. Twyning supervised the factory +and workshops wherein the ecclesiastical and scholastic furniture was +produced, and Fortune supervised his two principals and every least +employee and smallest detail of all the business. Particularly orders. +He very strongly objected to clients dealing directly with either Sabre +or Twyning. His view was that it was the business of Sabre and of +Twyning to produce the firm's commodities. It was his place to sell +them. It was his place, to deal with clients who came to buy them, and +it was his place to sign all letters that went out concerning them. + +Sabre, in so far as his publications were concerned, resented this. + +"If I bring out a new textbook," he had said on the occasion of a formal +protest, "it stands to reason that I am the person to interest clients +in it; to discuss it with them if they call and to correspond with those +who take up our notices of it." + +Mr. Fortune wheeled about his revolving chair by a familiar trick of his +right leg against his desk. It presented his whale-like front to +impressive advantage. "You do correspond with them." + +"But you sign the letters. You frequently make alterations." + +"That is what I am here for. They are my letters. It will be time to +bring up this matter again when you are admitted to partnership." + +Sabre gave the short laugh of one who has heard a good thing before. +"When will that be?" + +"Not to-day." + +"Well, all I can say is--" + +Mr. Fortune raised a whale-like but elegantly white fin. "Enough, I have +decided." + +With the same clever motion of his feet he spun his chair and his +whale-like front to the table. A worn patch on the carpet and an +abraised patch on the side of the desk marked the frequent daily use of +these thrusting points. + +Sabre kicked out of the room, using a foot to open the door, which stood +ajar, and hooking back a foot to shut it, because he knew that this +slovenly method of dealing with a door much annoyed Mr. Fortune. + +He was not in the least in awe of Mr. Fortune, though Mr. Fortune had +power to sever him from the firm. Mr. Fortune was aware that he struck +no awe into Sabre, and this caused him on the one hand to dislike Sabre, +and on the other (subconsciously, for he would emphatically have denied +it) to respect him. + +Twyning, Sabre's fellow sub-principal, did stand in awe of Mr. Fortune +and did not resent having his letters signed for him and his callers +interviewed for him. Indeed he frequently took opportunity to thank Mr. +Fortune for alterations made in his letters and for dealings carried out +with his clients, also for direct interference in his workshops. Mr. +Fortune liked Twyning, but he did not respect Twyning, consciously or +subconsciously. + + +VI + +Sabre greatly desired the promised admission to partnership. He desired +it largely for what he knew he would make it bring in the form of +greater freedom from Mr. Fortune's surveillance, but much more for the +solid personal satisfaction its winning would give him. It would be a +tribute to his work, of all the greater value because he knew it would +be bestowed grudgingly and unwillingly, and he was keenly interested in +and proud of his work. The publishing of educational textbooks "for the +use of schools" had been no part of the firm's business until he came +into it. The idea had been his own, and Mr. Fortune, because the idea +was not _his_ own, had very half-heartedly assented to it and very +disencouragingly looked upon it in the fiddlingly small way in which he +permitted it to be begun. + +From the outset it had been a very considerable success. Sabre was +interested in books and interested in education. He had many friends +among the large staff of Tidborough School masters and had developed +many acquaintances among the large body of members of the teaching +profession with whom the firm was in touch. He was fond of discussing +methods and difficulties of encouraging stubborn youth in the arid paths +of assimilating knowledge, and he had a peculiarly fresh and sympathetic +recollection of his own boyish flounderings in those paths. To these +tastes and qualities, and perhaps because of them, he found he was able +to bring what was incontestably a flair for discovering the sort of book +that needed to be compiled and, what was equally important, the sort of +man to compile it. Also, in his capacity of general editor of the +volumes, to give much stimulating suggestion and advice to the authors. + +He had never been so pleased as on the day when the _Spectator_, in an +extended notice of four new textbooks, had written, "It is always a +pleasure to open one of the school textbooks bearing the imprint of +Fortune, East and Sabre and issued in the pleasing format which this +firm have made their own. Their publications give the impression of a +directing mind inspired with the happy thought of presenting textbooks, +not for the master, but for the pupil, and of carrying out this design +with singular freshness and originality." + +On the day when that notice appeared, Mr. Fortune, who considered that +his mind was--or would be supposed to be--the directing mind referred +to, had repeated his promise of partnership, first made when the +enterprise began to show unexpected signs of responding to Sabre's +enthusiasm. "Very good, Sabre, very good indeed. I am bound to say +capital. I may tell you, as your father probably told you, that it was +always understood between him and me that you should be taken into +partnership if you showed signs of promise. Unquestionably you do. When +you have brought the publishing into line with our established +departments we will go into the matter and--" he made one of his nearest +approaches to pleasantry--"take steps to restore the house of Sabre in +some part to its ancient glories in the firm--in some part." + +And when Sabre expressed his gratification, "Enough, I have decided." + +In 1912 Sabre felt that he had now brought the publishing into line with +the established departments. He had emphasized the firm's reputation in +this activity by the considerable success that attended two textbooks +bearing (one in collaboration) his own name. "Sabre and Owen's +Elementary Mathematics" had been notably taken up by the schools. +"Sabre's Modern History", shunned by the public schools in accordance +with their principle of ignoring all history mellowed by fewer than +three thousand years, had been received enthusiastically by the lesser +schools wherein was then dawning the daring idea of presenting to the +rising generation some glimmering conception of the constitutional and +sociological facts into which it was arising. + +The tributes with which this slim primer of one hundred and fifty pages +for eighteen pence had been greeted inspired Sabre towards a much bolder +work, on which the early summer of 1912 saw him beginning and into which +he found himself able to pour in surprising volume thoughts and feelings +which he had scarcely known to be his until the pen and the paper began +to attract them. The title he had conceived alone stirred them in his +mind and drew them from it as a magnet stirs and draws iron filings. +"England." Just "England." He could see it printed and published and +renowned as "Sabre's England." Kings were to enter this history but +incidentally, as kings have in fact ever been but incidental to +England's history. It was to be just "England"; the England of the +English people and how and why. And the first sentence said so. + +"This England" (it said) "is _yours_. It belongs to _you_. Many enemies +have desired to take it because it is the most glorious and splendid +country in the world. But they have never taken it, because it is +_yours_ and has been kept for you. This book is to tell you how it has +come to be yours and how it has been kept for you,--not by kings or by +statesmen, or by great men alone, but by the English people. Down the +long years they have handed it on to you, as a torch is sent from hand +to hand, and you in your turn will hand it on down the long years before +you. They made the flame of England bright and ever brighter for you; +and you, stepping into all that they have made for you, will make it +bright and brighter yet. They passed and are gone; and you will pass and +go. But England will continue. Your England. _Yours._" + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +I + +Mabel called Sabre's school textbooks "those lesson books." After she +had thus referred to them two or three times he gave up trying to +interest her in them. The expression hurt him, but when he thought upon +it he reasoned with himself that he had no cause to be hurt. He thought, +"Dash it, that's what they are, lesson books. What on earth have I got +to grouse about?" But they meant to him a good deal more than what was +implied in the tone and the expression "those lesson books." + +However, "England" was going to be something very different. No one +would call "England" a lesson book. Even Mabel would see that; and in +his enthusiasm he spoke of it to her a good deal, until the day when it +came up--of all unlikely connections in the world--in a discussion with +her on the National Insurance Act, then first outraging the country. + +One day when English society was first shaken to its depths by the +disgusting indignity of what Mabel, in common with all nice people, +called "licking stamps for that Lloyd George", she mentioned to Sabre +that, "Well, thank goodness some of us know better than to steal the +money out of the poor creatures' wages." + +She knew that this would please her husband because he was always doing +what she called "sticking up for the servants and all that class." + +That it did not please him was precisely an example of his "absolutely +un-understandable" ways of looking at things that so desperately annoyed +her. + +Sabre asked, "How do you mean--knowing better than to steal the money +out of their wages?" + +"Why, making them pay their thruppence for those wretched stamps. I +believe Mrs. Castor does. How she's got the face to I can't imagine." + +"Why, aren't you going to make them pay, Mabel?" + +Mabel was quite indignant. "Is it likely? I should hope not!" + +"Really? Haven't you been making High and Low pay their share of the +stamps all this time?" + +"Of course I've not." + +"You've been paying their contribution?" + +"Of course I have." + +"Well, but Mabel, that's wrong, awfully wrong." + +She simply stared at him. "You really are beyond me, Mark. What do you +mean 'wrong'?" + +"Well, it's not fair--not fair on the girls--" + +"Not fair to pay them more than their wages!" + +"No, of course it's not. Don't you see half the idea of the Act is to +help these people to learn thrift and forethought--to learn the wisdom +of putting by for a rainy day. And to encourage their independence. When +you go and pay what they ought to pay, you're simply taking away their +independence." + +She gave her sudden burst of laughter. "You're the first person I've +ever heard say that the lower classes want their independence +encouraged. It's just what's wrong with them--independence." + +He began to talk with animation. This was one of the things that much +interested him. He seemed to have quite forgotten the origin of the +conversation. "No, it isn't, Mabel--it isn't. That's jolly interesting, +that point. It's their _dependence_ that's wrong with them. They're +nearly all of them absolutely dependent on an employer, and that's bad, +fatal, for anybody. It's the root of the whole trouble with the +less-educated classes, if people would only see it. What they want is +pride in themselves. They just slop along taking what they can get, and +getting so much for nothing--votes and free this, that and the +other--that they don't value it in the least. They're dependent all the +time. What you want to help them to is independence, pride in themselves +and confidence in themselves--that sort of independence. You know, all +this talk that they put up, or that's put up for them, about their right +to this and their right to that--of course you can't have a right to +anything without earning it. That's what they want to be shown, see? And +that's what they want to be given--the chance to earn the right to +things, see? Well, this Insurance Act business--" + +She laughed again. "I was beginning to wonder if you were ever coming +back to that." + +He noticed nothing deprecatory in her remark. "Yes, rather. Well, this +Insurance Act business--that's really a jolly good example of the way to +do things. You see, it's not giving them the right to free treatment +when they're ill; it's giving them the chance to earn the right. That's +what you want to explain to High and Low. See--you want to say to them, +'This is your show. Your very own. Fine. You're building this up, I'm +helping. You're helping all sorts of poor devils and you're helping +yourself at the same time. You're stacking up a great chunk of the State +and it belongs to you. England's yours and you want to pile it up all +you know'--" + +He was quite flushed. + +"That's the sort of thing I'm putting into that book of mine. 'England's +yours', you know. Precious beyond price; and therefore grand to be +making more precious and more your own. I wish you'd like to see how the +book's getting on; would you?" + +"What book?" + +"Why 'England.' I told you, you know. That history." + +"Oh, that lesson book! I wish you'd write a novel." + +He looked at her. "Oh, well!" he said. + + +II + +After that he never mentioned "England" again to her. But he most +desperately wanted to talk about it to some one. There was no one in +Penny Green from whom he could expect helpful suggestions; but it was +not helpful suggestions he wanted. He wanted merely to talk about it to +a sympathetic listener. And not only about the book,--about all sorts of +things that interested him. And indirectly they all helped the book. To +talk with one who responded sympathetically was in some curious way a +source of enormous inspiration to him. Not always precisely +inspiration,--comfort. All sorts of warming feelings stirred pleasurably +within him when he could, in some sympathetic company, open out his +mind. + +He was not actively aware of it, but what, in those years, he came to +crave for as a starved child craves for food was sympathy of mind. + +He found it, in Penny Green, with what Mabel called "the most +extraordinary people." "What you can find in that Mr. Fargus and that +young Perch and his everlasting mother," she used to say, "I simply +cannot imagine." + +He found a great deal. + + +III + +Mr. Fargus, who lived next door down the Green, and outside whose gate +the bicycle had made its celebrated shortage record, was a grey little +man with grey whiskers and always in a grey suit. He had a large and +very red wife and six thin and rather yellowish daughters. Once a day, +at four in summer and at two in winter, the complete regiment of +Farguses moved out in an immense mass and proceeded in a dense crowd for +a walk. The female Farguses, having very long legs, walked very fast, +and the solitary male Fargus, having very short legs, walked very +slowly, and was usually, therefore, trotting to keep up with the pack. +He had, moreover, not only to keep pace but also to keep place. He was +forever getting squeezed out from between two tall Farguses and trotting +agitatedly around the heels of the battalion to recover a position in +it. He always reminded Sabre of a grey old Scotch terrier toddling along +behind and around the flanks of a company of gaunt, striding mastiffs. +He returned from those walks panting slightly and a little perspiring, +and at the door gave the appearance of being dismissed, and trotted away +rather like a little grey old Scotch terrier toddling off to the +stables. The lady Farguses called this daily walk "exercise"; and it +certainly was exercise for Mr. Fargus. + +The eldest Miss Fargus was a grim thirty-nine and the youngest Miss +Fargus a determined twenty-eight. They called their father "Papa" and +used the name a good deal. When Sabre occasionally had tea at the +Farguses' on a Sunday afternoon Mr. Fargus always appeared to be sitting +at the end of an immense line of female Farguses. Mrs. Fargus would pour +out a cup and hand it to the Miss Fargus at her end of the line +with the loud word "Papa!" and it would whiz down the chain from +daughter to daughter to the clamorous direction, each to each, +"Papa!--Papa!--Papa!--Papa!" The cup would reach Mr. Fargus at the speed +of a thunderbolt; and Mr. Fargus, waiting for it with agitated hands as +a nervous fielder awaits a rushing cricket ball, would stop it +convulsively and usually drop and catch at and miss the spoon, whereupon +the entire chain of Farguses would give together a very loud "_Tchk_!" +and immediately shoot at their parent a plate of buns with +"Buns--Buns--Buns--Buns" all down the line. Similarly when Mr. Fargus's +grey little face would sometimes appear above the dividing wall to Sabre +in the garden there would come a loud cry of "Papa, the plums!" and from +several quarters of the garden this would he echoed "Papa, the plums!" +"Papa, the plums!" and the grey little head, in the middle of a +sentence, would disappear with great swiftness. + +The Farguses kept but one servant, a diminutive and startled child with +one hand permanently up her back in search of an apron shoulder string, +and permanently occupied in frantically pursuing loud cracks, like +pistol shots, of "Kate!--Kate!--Kate!" Each Miss Fargus "did" something +in the house. One "did" the lamps, another "did" the silver, another +"did" the fowls. And whatever it was they "did" they were always doing +it. Each Miss Fargus, in addition, "did" her own room, and unitedly they +all "did" the garden. Every doing was done by the clock; and at any hour +of the day any one Miss Fargus could tell a visitor precisely what, and +at what point of what, every other Miss Fargus was doing. + +In this well-ordered scheme of things what Mr. Fargus principally "did" +was to keep out of the way of his wife and daughters, and this duty took +him all his time and ingenuity. From the back windows of Sabre's house +the grey little figure was frequently to be seen fleeting up and down +the garden paths in wary evasion of daughters "doing" the garden, and +there was every reason to suppose that, within the house, the grey +figure similarly fleeted up and down the stairs and passages. "Where +_is_ Papa?" was a constant cry from mouth to mouth of the female +Farguses; and fatigue parties were constantly being detached from their +duties to skirmish in pursuit of him. + +In his leisure from these flights Mr. Fargus was intensely absorbed in +chess, in the game of Patience, and in the solution of acrostics. Sabre +was also fond of chess and attracted by acrostics; and regular evenings +of every week were spent by the two in unriddling the problems set in +the chess and acrostic columns of journals taken in for the purpose. +They would sit for hours solemnly staring at one another, puffing at +pipes, in quest of a hidden word beginning with one letter and ending +with another, or in search of the two master moves that alone would +produce Mate. (It was a point of honour not to work out chess problems +on a board but to do them in your head.) Likewise for hours the two in +games of chess and in competitive Patience, one against the other, to +see who would come out first. And to all these mental exercises--chess, +acrostics and Patience--an added interest was given by Mr. Fargus's +presentation of them as illustrative of his theory of life. + +Mr. Fargus's theory of life was that everybody was placed in life to +fulfil a divine purpose and invested with the power to fulfil it. "No, +no, it's not fatalism," Mr. Fargus used to say. "Not predestination. +It's just exactly like a chess problem or an acrostic. The Creator sets +it. He knows the solution, the answer. You've got to work it out. It's +all keyed for you just as the final move in chess or the final discovery +in an acrostic is keyed up to right from the start." And on this +argument Mr. Fargus introduced Sabre to the great entertainment in +"working back" when a game of Patience failed to come out or after a +defeat in chess. You worked back to the immense satisfaction of finding +the precise point at which you went wrong. Up to that point you had +followed the keyed path; precisely there you missed it. + +"Tremendous, eh?" Mr. Fargus used to say. "Terrific. If you hadn't done +that you'd have got it. That one move, all that way back, was calamity. +Calamity! What a word!" + +And they would stare bemused eyes upon one another. + +"You put that into life," Mr. Fargus used to say. "Imagine if every +life, at death, was worked back, and where it went wrong, where it made +its calamity, and the date, put on the tombstone. Eh? What a record! +Who'd dare walk through a churchyard?" + +Sabre's objection was, "Of course no one would ever know. Suppose your +idea's correct, who's to say what a man's purpose in life was, let alone +whether he'd fulfilled it? How can you work towards a purpose if you +don't know what it is?" + +Then little old Mr. Fargus would grow intense. "Why, Sabre, that's just +where you are with an acrostic or in chess. How can you work out the +solution when you don't know what the solution is?" + +"Yes, but you know there is a solution." + +Mr. Fargus's eyes would shine. "Well, there you are! And you know that +in life there is a purpose." + +And what attracted and interested Sabre was that the little man, living +here his hunted life among the terrific "doings" of the seven female +Farguses, firmly believed that he was working out and working towards +his designed purpose. He had "worked back" his every event in life, he +said, and it had brought him so inevitably to Penny Green and to +skipping about among the seven that he was assured it was the keyed path +to his purpose. He amazed Sabre by telling him, without trace of +self-consciousness and equally without trace of religious mania, that he +was waiting, daily, for God to call upon him to fulfil the purpose for +which he was placed there. He expected it as one expects a letter by the +post. When he talked about it to Sabre he positively trembled and shone +with eagerness as a child trembling and shining with excitement before +an unopened parcel. + +One day Sabre protested. "But look here, Fargus. Look here, how are you +going to know when it comes? It might be anything. You don't know what +it is and--well, you won't know, will you?" + +The little man said, "I believe I shall, Sabre. I've 'worked back' for +years, as far as ever my memory will carry, and everything has been so +exactly keyed that I'm convinced I'm in the way of my purpose. I believe +you can feel it if you've waited for it like that. I believe you're +asked 'Ready?' and I want to say, whatever it is, 'Aye, Ready!'" + +Mysterious and awful suggestion, Sabre thought. To believe yourself at +any moment to be touched as by a finger and asked "Ready?" "Aye, Ready!" + +Mysterious and awful intimacy with God! + + +IV + +And then there were the Perches--"Young Perch and that everlasting old +mother of his", as Mabel called them. + +Sabre always spoke of them as "Young Rod, Pole or Perch" and "Old Mrs. +Rod, Pole or Perth." This was out of what Mabel called his childish and +incomprehensible habit of giving nicknames,--High Jinks and Low Jinks +the outstanding and never-forgiven example of it. "Whatever's the joke +of it?" she demanded, when one day she found Sabre speaking of Major +Millet, another neighbour and a great friend of hers, as "Old Hopscotch +Millet." + +"Whatever's the joke of it? He doesn't play hopscotch." + +"No, but he bounds about," Sabre explained. "You know the way he bounds +about, Mabel. He's about ninety--" + +"I'm sure he isn't, nor fifty." + +"Well, anyway, he's past his first youth, but he's always bounding about +to show how agile he is. He's always calling out 'Ri--te _O_!' and +jumping to do a thing when there's no need to jump. Hopscotch. What can +you call him but Hopscotch?" + +"But why call him _anything_?" Mabel said. "His name's Millet." + +Her annoyance caused her voice to squeak. "Why call him _anything_?" + +Sabre laughed. "Well, you know how a ridiculous thing like that comes +into your head and you can't get rid of it. You know the way." + +Mabel declared she was sure she did not know the way. "They don't come +into _my_ head. Look at the Perches--not that I care what name you call +them. Rod, Pole or Perch! What's the sense of it? What does it _mean_?" + +Sabre said it didn't mean anything. "You just get some one called Perch +and then you can't help thinking of that absurd thing rod, pole or +perch. It just comes." + +"I call it childish and rude," Mabel said. + + +V + +Mrs. Perch was a fragile little body whose life should have been and +could have been divided between her bed and a bath chair. She was, +however, as she said, "always on her legs." And she was always on her +legs and always doing what she had not the strength to do, because, as +she said, she "had always done it." She conducted her existence in the +narrow space between the adamant wall of the things she had always done, +always eaten, and always worn, and the adamant wall of the things she +had never done, never eaten, and never worn. There was not much room +between the two. + +She was intensely weak-sighted, but she never could find her glasses; +and she kept locked everything that would lock, but she never could find +her keys. She held off all acquaintances by the rigid handle of "that" +before their names, but she was very fond of "that Mr. Sabre", and Sabre +returned a great affection for her. With his trick of seeing things with +his mental vision he always saw old Mrs. Perch toddling with moving lips +and fumbling fingers between the iron walls of her prejudices, and this +was a pathetic picture to him, for ease or pleasure were not discernible +between the walls. Nevertheless Mrs. Perch found pleasures therein, and +the way in which her face then lit up added, to Sabre, an indescribable +poignancy to the pathos of the picture. She never could pass a baby +without stopping to adore it, and an astounding tide of rejuvenation +would then flood up from mysterious mains, welling upon her silvered +cheeks and through her dim eyes, stilling the movement of her lips and +the fumbling motions of her fingers. + +Also amazing tides of glory when she was watching for her son, and saw +him. + +Young Perch was a tall and slight young man with a happy laugh and an +air which suggested to Sabre, after puzzlement, that his spirit was only +alighted in his body as a bird alights and swings upon a twig, not +engrossed in his body. He did not look very strong. His mother said he +had a weak heart. He said he had a particularly strong heart and used to +protest, "Oh, Mother, I do wish you wouldn't talk that bosh about me." +To which Mrs. Perch would say, "It's no good saying you _haven't_ got a +weak heart because you _have_ got a weak heart and you've always _had_ a +weak heart. Surely I ought to know." + +Young Perch would reply, "You ought to know, but you don't know. You get +an idea in your head and nothing will ever get it out. Some day you'll +probably get the idea that I've got two hearts and if Sir Frederick +Treves swore before the Lord Chief Justice that I only had one heart +you'd just say, 'The man's a perfect fool.' You're awful, you know, +Mother." + +He used to reprove his mother like that. + +Mrs. Perch would give a grim little laugh, relishing her strength, and +then Young Perch would give an involuntary little laugh, accepting his +weakness. + +That was how they lived. + +Young Perch always carried about in one pocket a private pair of +spectacles for his mother and in another a private set of keys for her +most used receptacles. When the search for her spectacles had exhausted +even her own energy, Young Perch would say, "Well, you'd better use +these, Mother." It was of no use to offer them till she was weakening in +the search, and she would take them grudgingly with, "They don't suit +me." Similarly with the keys, accepted only after prolonged and +maddening search. "Well, you'd better try these, Mother."--"They injure +the lock." + +Sabre often witnessed and took part in these devastating searches. +Young Perch would always say, "Now just sit down, Mother, instead of +rushing about, and try to think quite calmly when you last used them." + +Mrs. Perch, intensely fatigued, intensely worried: + +"How very silly you are, Freddie! I don't know when I last used them. If +I knew when I used them, I should know where they are now." + +"Well, you'd better use these now, Mother." + +"They don't suit me. They ruin my eyes." + +Yet Mrs. Rod, Pole or Perch, who confided much in Sabre, and who had no +confidences of any kind apart from her son, would often say to Sabre: +"Freddie always finds my keys for me, you know. He finds everything for +me, Mr. Sabre." + +And the tide of glory would flood amazingly upon her face, transfiguring +it, and Sabre would feel an immensely poignant clutch at the heart. + + +VI + +The Perchs' house was called Puncher's--Puncher's Farm, a few hundred +yards along the lane leading to the great highroad--and it was the +largest and by far the most untidy house in Penny Green. Successive +Punchers of old time, when it had been the most considerable farm in all +the country between Chovensbury and Tidborough, had added to it in +stubborn defiance of all laws of comfort and principles of domestic +architecture, and now, shorn alike of its Punchers and of its pastures, +the homestead that might easily have housed twenty, was mysteriously +filled to overflowing by two. Mrs. Perch was fond of saying she had +lived in nineteen houses "in her time", and Sabre had the belief that +the previous eighteen had all been separately furnished and the entire +accumulation, together with every newspaper taken in during their +occupation, brought to Puncher's. Half the rooms of Puncher's were so +filled with furniture that no more furniture, and scarcely a living +person, could be got in; and half the rooms were so filled with boxes, +packages, bundles, trunks, crates, and stacks of newspapers that no +furniture at all could be got in. Every room was known to Mrs. Perch and +to Young Perch by the name of some article it contained and Mrs. Perch +was forever "going to sort the room with your Uncle Henry's couch in +it", or "the room with the big blue box with the funny top in it", or +some other room similarly described. + +Mrs. Perch was always "going to", but as the task was always contingent +upon either "when I have got a servant into the house", or "when I have +turned the servant out of the house"--these two states representing Mrs. +Perch's occupation with the servant problem--the couch of Uncle Henry, +the big blue box with the funny top, and all the other denizens of the +choked rooms remained, like threatened men, precariously but securely. + +But not unvisited! + +Sabre once spent a week in the house, terminating a summer holiday a +little earlier than Mabel, and he had formed the opinion that mother and +son never went to bed at night and never got up in the morning. In +remote hours and in remote quarters of the house mysterious sounds +disturbed his sleep. Eerily peering over the banisters, he discerned the +pair moving, like lost souls, about the passages, Mrs. Perch with the +skirts of a red dressing-gown in one hand and a candle in the other, +Young Perch disconsolately in her wake, yawning, with another candle. +Young Perch called this "Prowling about the infernal house all night"; +and one office of the prowl appeared to Sabre to be the attendance of +pans of milk warming in a row on oil stoves and suggesting, with the +glimmer of the stoves and the steam of the pans, mysterious oblations to +midnight gods. + + +VII + +Mrs. Perch believed her son could do anything and, in the matter of his +capabilities, had the strange conviction that he had only to write and +ask anybody, from Mr. Asquith downwards, for employment in the highest +offices in order to obtain it. Young Perch--who used to protest, "Well, +but I've _got_ my work, Mother"--was in fact a horticulturist of very +fair reputation. He specialised in sweet peas and roses; and Sabre, in +the early days of his intimacy with the Rod, Pole or Perch household, +was surprised at the livelihood that could apparently be made by the +disposal of seeds, blooms and cuttings. + +"Fred's getting quite famous with his sweet peas," Sabre once said to +Mrs. Perch. "I've been reading an illustrated interview with him in _The +Country House_." + +Tides of glory into Mrs. Perch's face. "Ah, if only he hadn't worn that +dreadful floppy hat of his, Mr. Sabre. It couldn't have happened on a +more unfortunate day. I fully intended to see how he looked before the +photographs were taken and of course it so happened I was turning a +servant out of the house and couldn't attend to it. That dreadful floppy +hat doesn't suit him. It never did suit him. But he will wear it. It's +no good my saying anything to him." + +This was an opinion that old Mrs. Perch was constantly reiterating. +Young Perch was equally given to declaring, "I can't do anything with my +Mother, you know." And yet it was Sabre's observation that each life was +entirely guided and administered by the other. Young Perch once told +Sabre he had never slept a night away from his mother since he was +seventeen, and he was never absent from her half a day but she was at +the window watching for his return. + +Sabre was extraordinarily attracted by the devotion between the pair. +Their interests, their habits, their thoughts were as widely sundered as +their years, yet each was wholly and completely bound up in the other. +When Sabre sat and talked with Young Perch of an evening, old Mrs. Perch +would sit with them, next her son, in an armchair asleep. At intervals +she would start awake and say querulously, "Now I suppose I must be +driven off to bed." + +Young Perch, not pausing in what he might be saying, would stretch a +hand and lay it on his mother's. Mrs. Perch, as though Freddie's hand +touched away enormous weariness and care, would sigh restfully and sleep +again. It gave Sabre extraordinary sensations. + + * * * * * + +If he had been asked to name his particular friends these were the +friends he would have named. He saw them constantly. Infrequently he saw +another. Quite suddenly she came back into his life. + +Nona returned into his life. + + + + +PART TWO + +NONA + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +I + +Sabre, ambling his bicycle along the pleasant lanes towards Tidborough +one fine morning in the early summer of 1912, was met in his thoughts by +observation, as he topped a rise, of the galloping progress of the light +railway that was to link up the Penny Green Garden Home with Tidborough +and Chovensbury. In the two years since Lord Tybar had, as he had said, +beneficially exercised his ancestors in their graves by selling the land +on which the Garden Home Development was to develop, Penny Green Garden +Home had sprung into being at an astonishing pace. + +The great thing now was the railway. + +And the railway's unsightly indications strewn across the +countryside--ballast heaps, excavations, noisy stationary engines, +hand-propelled barrows bumping along toy lines, gangs of men at labour +with pick and shovel--met Sabre's thoughts on this June morning because +he was thinking of the Penny Green Garden Home and of Mabel, and of +Mabel and of himself in connection with the Penny Green Garden Home. +Puzzling thoughts. + +Here was a subject, this ambitiously projected and astonishingly popular +Garden Home springing up at their very doors, that interested him and +that intensely interested Mabel, and yet it could never be mentioned +between them without.... Only that very morning at breakfast.... And +June--he always remembered it--was the anniversary month of their +wedding.... Eight years ago.... Eight years.... + + +II + +What interested Sabre in the Garden Home was not the settlement +itself--he rather hated the idea of Penny Green being neighboured and +overrun by crowds of all sorts of people--but the causes that gave rise +to the modern movement of which it was a shining example. The causes had +their place in one of the sections he had planned for "England" and it +encouraged his ideas for that section to see the results here at his +doors. Overcrowding in the towns; the desire of men to get away from +their place of business; the increasing pressure of business and the +increasing recreational variety of life that, deepening and widening +through the years, actuated the desire; the extension of traffic +facilities that permitted the desire; all the modern tendencies that +made work less of a pleasure and more of a toil,--and out of that the +whole absorbing question of the decay of joy in craftsmanship, and +why.--Jolly interesting! + +These were the pictures and the stories that Sabre saw in the roads and +avenues and residences and public buildings leaping from mud and chaos +into order and activity in the Garden Home; these were the reasons the +thing interested him and why he rather enjoyed seeing it springing up +about him. But these, he thought as he rode along, were not the reasons +the thing interested Mabel. And when he mentioned them to her.... And +when she, for her part, spoke of it to him--and she was always speaking +of it--the reasons for her enthusiasm retired him at once into a shell. +Funny state of affairs! + +Mabel was convinced he loathed and detested the Penny Green Garden Home +Development; and actually he rather liked the Penny Green Garden Home +Development; and yet he couldn't tell her so; and she did not understand +in the least when he tried to tell her so. Funny--eight years ago this +month.... + +His thoughts went on. And, come to think of it, the relations between +them were precisely similar in regard to nearly everything they ever +discussed. And yet they would be called, and were, a perfectly happy +couple. Perfectly? Was every happy married couple just what they were? +Was married happiness, then, merely the negation of violent unhappiness? +Merely not beating your wife, and your wife not drinking or running up +debts? He thought: "No, no, there's something more in it than that." And +then his forehead wrinkled up in his characteristic habit and he +thought: "Of course, it's my fault. It isn't only this dashed Garden +Home. It's everything. It isn't only once. It's always. It can't +possibly be her fault always. It's mine. I can see that. + +"Take this morning at breakfast. Perfectly good temper both of us. Then +she said, 'Those houses in King's Close are going to be eighty pounds a +year; and, what do you think, Mrs. Toller is going to take one!' +Immediately I was riled. Why should I get riled because she says that +Mrs. Toller is going to take a house for eighty pounds a year? I just +rustled the newspaper. Why on earth couldn't I say, 'Good lord, is she?' +or something like that? Why on earth couldn't I even not rustle the +newspaper? She knows what it means when I rustle the paper. I meant her +to know. Why should I? It's the easiest thing on earth for me to respond +to what she says. I know perfectly well what she's getting at. I could +easily have said that Mrs. Toller would have old Toller in the workhouse +one of these days if he didn't watch it. I could have said, 'She'll be +keeping three servants next, and she can't keep one as it is.' Mabel +would have loved that. She'd have laughed." + +He thought, "Why should she love that sort of tripe--gossip?" + +He thought, "Damn it, why shouldn't she? Why should I mind? Why should I +rustle the newspaper? She can't enter into things that interest me; but +I can, I could enter into things that interest her. Why don't I? Of +course I can see perfectly clearly how she looks at things. It's just as +rotten for her that I can't talk with her about her ideas as it is +rotten for me that she doesn't see my ideas. And it isn't rotten for me. +I don't mind it. I don't expect it. I don't expect it...." + +And at that precise moment of his thoughts, the garrulous Hapgood, +seeing his face, could have said to another, as he said before, "There! +See what I mean? Looks as though he'd lost something and was wondering +where it was. Ha!" + + +III + +A genial shouting and the clatter of agitated hoofs jerked Sabre from +his thoughts. + +"Hullo! Hi! Help! Out collision-mats! Stop the cab! Look out, Sabre! +_Sabre!_" + +He suddenly became aware--and he jammed on his brakes and dismounted by +straddling a leg to the ground--that in the narrow lane he was between +two plunging horses. Their riders had divided to make way for his +bemused approach. They had violently sundered, expecting him to stop, +until he was almost on top of them, and one of the pair was now engaged +in placating his horse, which resented this sudden snatching at bit and +prick of spur, and persuading it to return to the level road. + +On one side the lane was banked steeply up in a cutting. The horse of +the rider on this side stood on its hind legs and appeared to be +performing a series of postman's double knocks on the bank with its +forelegs. Lord Tybar, who bestrode it, and who did not seem to be at all +concerned by his horse copying a postman, looked over his shoulder at +Sabre, showing an amused grin, and said, "Thanks, Sabre. This is jolly. +I like this. Come on, old girl. This way down. Keep passing on, please." + +The old girl, an extraordinarily big and handsome chestnut mare, dropped +her forelegs to the level of the road, where she exchanged the postman's +knocking for a complicated and exceedingly nimble dance, largely on two +legs. + +Lord Tybar, against her evident intentions, skilfully directed the steps +of this dance into a turning movement so that she and her rider now +faced Sabre; and while she bounded through the concluding movements of +the _pas seul_ he continued in the same whimsical tone and with the same +engaging smile, "Thanks still more, Sabre. This is extraordinarily good +for the liver. Devilish graceful, aren't I? See, I'm only holding on +with one hand! Marvellous. No charge for this." And as the mare came to +rest and quivered at Sabre with her beautiful nostrils, "Ah, the music's +stopped. Delicious. How well your step suits mine!" + +"Ass!" laughed a voice above them; and Sabre, who had almost forgotten +there was another horse when he had abruptly wakened and dismounted, +looked up at it. + +The other horse was standing with complete and entirely unconcerned +statuesqueness on the low bank which bounded the lane on his other side. +Lady Tybar had taken it--or it had taken Lady Tybar--out of danger in a +sideways bound, and horse and rider remained precisely where the +sideways bound had taken them as if it were exactly where they had +intended to go all that morning, and as if they were now settled there +for all time as a living equestrian statue,--a singularly striking and +beautiful statue. + +"We are up here," said Lady Tybar. Her voice had a very clear, fine +note. "We are rather beautiful up here, don't you think? Rather +darlings? No one takes the faintest notice of us; we might be off the +earth. But we don't mind a bit. Hullo, Derry and Toms, Marko is actually +taking off his hat to us. Bow, Derry." + +Her horse, as if he perfectly understood, tossed his head, and she drew +attention to it with a deprecatory little gesture of her hand and then +said, "Shall we come down now? Is your dance quite finished, Tony? Are +you content, Marko? All right. We'll descend. This is us descending. +Lady Tybar, who is a superb horsewoman, descending a precipice on her +beautiful half-bred Derry and Toms, a winner at several shows." + +Derry and Toms stepped down off the bank with complete assurance and +superb dignity. With equal precision, moving his feet as though there +were marked for them certain exact spots which he covered with infinite +lightness and exactitude, he turned about and stood beside his partner +in exquisite and immobile pose. + + +IV + +Thus the two riders faced Sabre, smiling upon him. He stood holding his +bicycle immediately in front of them. The mare continued to quiver her +beautiful nostrils at him; every now and then she blew a little agitated +puff through them, causing them to expand and reveal yet more +exquisitely their glorious softness and delicacy. + +Sabre thought that the riders, with their horses, made the most +striking, and somehow affecting picture of virile and graceful beauty he +could ever have imagined. + +Lord Tybar, who was thirty-two, was debonair and attractive of +countenance to a degree. His eyes, which were grey, were extraordinarily +mirthful, mischievous. A supremely airy and careless and bold spirit +looked through those eyes and shone through their flashes and glints and +sparkles of diamond light. His face was thin and of tanned olive. +His face seemed to say to the world, challengingly, "I am here! +I have arrived! Bring out your best and watch me!" There were +people--women--who said he had a cruel mouth. They said this, not with +censure or regret, but with a deliciously fearful rapture as though the +cruel mouth (if it were cruel) were not the least part of his +attraction. + +Lord Tybar's lady, who was twenty-eight, carried in her countenance and +in her hair the pleasing complement of her lord's tan and olive hue and +of his cropped black poll. She was extraordinarily fair. Her skin was of +the hue and of the sheen of creamy silk, and glowed beneath its hue. It +presented amazing delicacy and yet an exquisite firmness. Children, +playing with her, and she delighted in playing with children (but she +was childless), often asked to stroke her face. They would stare at her +face in that immensely absorbed way in which children stare, and then +ask to touch her face and just stroke it; their baby fingers were not +more softly silken. Of her hair Lady Tybar had said frequently, from her +girlhood upwards, that it was "a most sickening nuisance." She bound it +tightly as if to punish and be firm with the sickening nuisance that it +was to her. And these close, gleaming plaits and coils children also +liked to touch with their soft fingers. + +Her name was Nona. + +Out of a hundred people who passed her by quite a considerable number +would have denied that she was beautiful. Her face was round and saucy +rather than oval and classical. Incontestable the striking attraction of +her complexion and of her hair; but not beautiful,--quite a number would +have said, and did say. Oh, no; pretty, perhaps, in a way, but that's +all. + +But her face was much more than beautiful to Sabre. + + +V + +Until this moment, standing there with his bicycle, she on her beautiful +horse, he had not seen her, nor Lord Tybar, for two years. They had been +travelling. Now seeing her, thus unexpectedly and thus gallantly +environed, his mind, with that astonishing precision of detail and +capriciousness of selection with which the mind retains pictures, +reproduced certain masculine discussion of her looks at a time when, as +Nona Holiday of Chovensbury Court, daughter of Sir Hadden Holiday, M.P. +for Tidborough, she had contributed to local gossip by becoming engaged +to Lord Tybar. + +"Pretty girl, you know," masculine discussion had said; and Sabre had +thought, "Fools!" + +"Oh, hardly pretty," others had maintained; and again "Fools!" he had +thought. "Pretty--_pretty_! Hardly pretty--hardly--!" Furious, he had +flung away from them. + +The time and the place of the discussion had been when the news of her +engagement had just been brought into the clubhouse of the Penny Green +Golf Club. He had flung out into the rain which had caused the pavilion +to be crowded. Fools! Was she pretty! Did they mean to say they couldn't +see in her face what he saw in her face? And then he thought, "But of +course they haven't loved her. It's nothing to them what they've only +just heard, but what she told me herself this morning.... And she knew +what it meant to me when she told me.... Although we said nothing. Of +course I see her differently." + +He saw her "differently" now after two years of not seeing her, and ten +years since that day of gossip at the golf club. Pretty!... Strange how +he could always remember that smell of the rain as he had come out of +the clubhouse ... and a strange fragrance in the air as now he looked +upon her. + +Upon the warm and trembling air, as he stood with his bicycle before the +horses, were borne to him savour of hay newly turned in the fields +about, and of high spring-tide blowing in the hedgerows; and with them +delicious essence from the warm, gleaming bodies of the horses, and +pungent flavour of the saddlery, and the mare's sweet breath puffed +close to his face in little gusty agitations. + +The shining, tingling picture of strength and beauty superbly modelled +that the riders and their horses made, seemed, as it were, to arise out +of and be suspended shimmering in the heart of the warm incense that he +savoured. So when a sorcerer casts spiced herbs upon the flame, and +scented vapour uprises, and in the vapour images appear. + +Exquisite picture of strength and beauty superbly modelled: the horses' +glossy coats glinting all a polished chestnut's hues; the perfect +artistry and symmetry of slender limbs, and glorious, arching necks, and +noble heads, and velvet muzzles; the dazzling bits and chains and +buckles; the glinting bridles, reins and saddles; Lord Tybar's +exquisitely poised figure, so perfectly maintaining and carrying up the +symmetry of his horse as to suggest the horse would be disfigured, +truncated, were he to dismount; his taking swagger, his gay, fine face; +and she.... + +An incantation: jingle of bits mouthed in those velvet muzzles; a hoof +pawed sharply on the road; swish of long, restless tails; creaking of +saddlery; and sudden bursts of all the instruments in unison when heads +were tossed and shaken. Remotely the whirr of a reaping machine. And +somewhere birds.... + +Pretty! + + +VI + +Greetings had been exchanged; his apologies for his blundering descent +upon them laughed at. Lord Tybar was saying, "Well, it's a tiger of a +place, this Garden Home of yours, Sabre--" + +"It's not mine," said Sabre. "God forbid." + +"Ah, you've not got the same beautiful local patriotism that I have. +It's one of my most elegant qualities, my passionate devotion to my +countryside. That was what that corker of a vicar of yours, Boom +Bagshaw, told me I was when I wept with joy while he was showing me +round. Yes, and now I'm a patron of the Garden Home Trust or a governor +or a vice-priest or something. I am really. What is it I am, Nona?" + +"You're a bloated aristocrat and a bloodsucker," Nona told him in her +clear, fine voice. "And you're living on estates which your brutal +ancestors ravaged from the people. That's what you are, Tony. I showed +it you in the _Searchlight_ yesterday. And, I say, don't use 'elegant'; +that's mine." + +"Oh, by gad, yes, so I am," said Lord Tybar. "Bloodsucker! Good lord, +fancy being a bloodsucker!" + +He looked so genuinely rueful and abashed that Sabre laughed; and then +said to Nona, "Why is elegant 'yours', Lady Tybar?" + +She made a little pouting motion at him with her lips. "Marko, I wish to +goodness you wouldn't call me Lady Tybar. Dash it, we've called one +another Nona and Marko for about a thousand years, long before I ever +knew Tony. And just because I'm married--" + +"And to a mere loathsome bloodsucker, too," Lord Tybar interposed. + +"Yes, especially to a bloodsucker. Just remember to say Nona, will you, +otherwise there'll be a cruel scene between us. I told you about it +before I went away. You don't suppose Tony minds, do you?" + +"And Sabre," said Lord Tybar, "what the devil does it matter what a +bloated robber minds, anyway? That's the way to look at me, Sabre. +Trample me underfoot, my boy. I'm a pestilent survivor of the feudal +system, aren't I, Nona?" + +"Absolutely. So, Marko, don't be a completer noodle than you already +are." + +"Ah, you're getting it now." Lord Tybar murmured. "I'm a noodle, too, +the _Searchlight_ says." + +He somehow gave Sabre the impression of taking an even deeper enjoyment +in the incident between his wife and Sabre than the enjoyment he clearly +had in his own facetiousness. He was slightly turned in his saddle so as +to look directly at Nona, and he listened and interposed, and turned his +eyes from her face to Sabre's, and from Sabre's back to hers, with his +handsome head slightly cocked to one side and with much gleaming in his +eyes; rather as if he had on some private mock. + +Fantastical notion! What mock could he have? + +"Well, about my word 'elegant'," Nona was going on, "and why it is +mine--weren't you asking?" + +Sabre said he had. "Yes, why yours?" + +"Why, you see, Derry and Toms is a case of it." She tickled her horse's +ears with her riding switch, and he stamped a hoof on the ground and +arched his neck as though he knew he was a case of it and was proud of +being a case of it. "I wanted an elegant name for him and I always think +two names are so elegant for a firm--" + +"Bloodsucker and Noodle are mine," said Lord Tybar in a very gloomy +voice; and they laughed. + +"--So I called him Derry and Toms." + +Sabre pointed out that this still left her own possession of the word +unexplained. + +"Oh, Marko, you're dreadfully matter-of-fact. You always were. Why, Tony +and I get fond of a word and then we have it for our own, whichever of +us it is, and use it for everything. And elegant's mine just now. I'm +dreadfully fond of it. It's so--well, elegant: there you are, you see!" + +Lord Tybar announced that he had just become attached to a new word and +desired to possess it. He was going to have blood. "You see, if I live +by sucking blood--" + +"Tony, you're disgusting!" + +"I know. I'm the most frightful things. I'm just beginning to realise +it. Yes, blood's mine, Nona. Copyright. All rights reserved. Blood." + +"Well, so long as you stick to the noun and don't use the adjective," +she said; and they all laughed again. + +Lord Tybar gathered up his reins and stroked his left hand along them. +"Well, kindness to animals!" he said. "That's another of my beautiful +qualities. The perfect understanding between me and my horses tells me +the mare has seen enough of you, Sabre. She tells me all her thoughts in +her flanks and they Marconi up my nervous and receptive legs. I must +write and tell the _Searchlight_ that. Perhaps they'll think better of +me."--The mare, feeling his hand, began to dance coquettishly. "You'll +come up and see us often, now you know we're back, won't you? Nona likes +seeing you, don't you, Nona?" And again he looked from Nona to Sabre and +back at Nona again with that look of mocking drollery. + +"Oh, you're all right, Marko," Nona agreed, "when you're not too +matter-of-fact. Yes, do come up. There's always a harsh word and a blow +for you at Northrepps." + +The mare steadied again. She stretched out her neck towards Sabre and +quivered her nostrils at him, sensing him. He put up a hand to stroke +her beautiful muzzle and she threw up her head violently and swerved +sharply around. + +Not in the least discomposed, Lord Tybar, his body in perfect rhythm +with her curvettings, laughed at Sabre over his shoulder. "She thinks +you're up to something, Sabre. She thinks you've got designs on us. +Marvellous how I know! Whisper and I shall hear, loved one. You'll hurt +yourself in a minute." + +The light in his smiling eyes was surely a mocking light. "Thinks you're +up to something! Thinks you've got designs on us!" + +The mare was wheedled round again to her former position; against her +will, but somehow as the natural result of her dancing. Marvellous how +he directed her caprices into his own intentions and against her own. +But Lord Tybar was now looking away behind him to where the adjoining +meadow sloped far away and steeply to a copse. In the hollow only the +tops of the trees could be seen. His eyes were screwed up in distant +vision. He said, "Dash it, there's that old blighter Sooper. He's been +avoiding me. Now I've got him. Nona, you won't mind getting back alone? +I must speak to Sooper. I'm going to have his blood over that fodder +business. Blood! My word! Good!" + +He twisted the mare in a wonderfully quick and dexterous movement. +"Good-by, Sabre. You don't mind, Nona?" And he flashed back a glance. He +lifted the mare over the low bank with a superbly easy motion. He turned +to wave his hand as she landed nimbly in the meadow, and he cantered +away, image of grace, poetry of movement. Fortune's favourite! + +The two left watched him. At the brow of the meadow he turned again in +his saddle and waved again jauntily. They waved reply. He was over the +brow. Out of sight. + + +VII + +The features of the level valley beyond the brow where only he could +have seen the individual he sought, were, at that distance, of Noah's +Ark dimensions. "How he could have recognised any one!" said Nona, her +gaze towards the valley. "I can't even see any one. He's got eyes like +about four hawks!" + +Sabre said, "And rides like a--what do they call those things?--like a +centaur." + +She turned her head towards him. "He does everything better than any one +else," she said. "That's Tony's characteristic. Everything. He's +perfectly wonderful." + +These were enthusiastic words; but she spoke them without enthusiasm; +she merely pronounced them. "Well, I'm off too," she said. "And what +about you, Marko? You're going to work, aren't you? I don't think you +ought to be able to stop and gossip like this. You're not getting an +idler, are you? You used to be such a devoted hard-worker. My word!" and +she laughed as though at some amused memory of his devotion to work. + +He laughed too. They certainly had many recollections in common, though +not all laughable. "I don't think I'm quite so--so earnest as I used to +be," he smiled. + +"Ah, but I like you earnest, Marko." + +There was the tiniest silence between them. Yet it seemed to Sabre a +very long silence. + +She was again the one to speak, and her tone was rather abrupt and +high-pitched as if she, too, were conscious of a long silence and broke +it deliberately, as one breaks, with an effort, constraint. + +"And how's Mabel?" + +"She's all right. She's ever so keen on this Garden Home business." + +"She would be," said Nona. + +"And so am I!" said Sabre. Something in her tone made him say it +defiantly. + +She laughed. "I'm sure you are, Marko. Well, good-by"; and as Derry and +Toms began to turn with his customary sedateness of motion she made the +remark, "I'm so glad you don't wear trouser clips, Marko. I do loathe +trouser clips." + +He told her that he rode "one of those chainless bikes." + +He said it rather mumblingly. Exactly in that tone she used to say +things like, "I do like you in that brown suit, Marko." + + +VIII + +He resumed his ride. A mile farther on he overtook, on a slight rise, an +immense tree trunk slung between three pairs of wheels and dragged by +two tremendous horses, harnessed tandemwise. As he passed them came the +smell of warm horseflesh and his thought was "Pretty!" + +He shot ahead and a line came into his mind: + + "_Was this the face that launched a thousand ships_?" + +Well, he had had certain aspirations, dreams, visions.... + +He was upon the crest whence the road ran down into Tidborough. Beneath +him the spires of the Cathedral lifted exquisitely above the surrounding +city. + +"Those houses in King's Close are going to be eighty pounds a year, and +what do you think, Mrs. Toller is going to take one!"... + + + +CHAPTER II + + +I + +Sabre found but little business awaiting him when he got to his office. +When he had disposed of it he sat some little time staring +absent-mindedly at the cases whereon were ranged the books of his +publication. Then he took out the manuscript of "England" and turned +over the pages. He wondered what Nona would think of it. He would like +to tell her about it. + +Twyning came in. + +Twyning rarely entered Sabre's room. Sabre did not enter Twyning's twice +in a year. Their work ran on separate lines and there was something, +unexpressed, the reverse of much sympathy between them. Twyning was an +older man than Sabre. He was only two years older in computation by age +but he was very much more in appearance, in manner and in business +experience. He had been in the firm as a boy checker when Sabre was +entering Tidborough School. He had attracted Mr. Fortune's special +attention by disclosing a serious scamping of finish in a set of desks +and he had risen to head clerk when Sabre was at Oxford. On the day that +Sabre entered the firm he had been put "on probation" in the position he +now held, and on the day that Sabre's father retired he had been +confirmed in the position. He regarded Sabre as an amateur and he was +privately disturbed by the fact that a man who "did not know the ropes" +and had not "been through the mill" should come to a position equal in +standing to his own. Nevertheless he accepted the fact, showing not the +smallest animosity. He was always very ready to be cordial towards +Sabre; but his cordiality took a form in which Sabre had never seen eye +to eye with him. The attitude he extended to Sabre was that he and Sabre +were two young fellows under a rather pig-headed old employer and that +they could have many jokes and grievances and go-ahead schemes in +companionship together. Sabre did not accept this view. He gave Twyning, +from the first, the impression of considering himself as working +alongside Mr. Fortune instead of beneath him; and he was cold to and +refused to participate in the truant schoolboy air which Twyning adopted +when they were together. Twyning called this "sidey." He was anxious to +show Sabre, when Sabre first came to the firm, the best places to lunch +in Tidborough, but Sabre was frequently lunching with one of the School +housemasters or at the Masters' common room. Twyning thought this +stand-offish. + + +II + +Twyning was of middle height, very thin, black-haired. His clean-shaven +face was deeply furrowed in rigid-looking furrows which looked as though +shaving would be an intricate operation. He held himself very stiffly +and spoke stiffly as though the cords of his larynx were also rigidly +inclined. When not speaking he had a habit of breathing rather noisily +through his nose as if he were doing deep breathing exercises. He was +married and had a son of whom he was immensely proud, aged eighteen and +doing well in a lawyer's office. + +He came in and closed the door. He had a sheet of paper in his hand. + +Sabre, engrossed, glanced up. "Hullo, Twyning." He wrote a word and then +put down his pen. "Anything you want me about?" He lay back in his chair +and stared, frowning, at the manuscript before him. + +"Nothing particular, if you're busy," Twyning said. "I just looked in." +He advanced the paper in his hand and looked at it as if about to add +something else. But he said nothing and stood by Sabre's chair, also +looking at the manuscript. "That that book?" + +"M'm." Sabre was trying to retain his thoughts. He felt them slipping +away before Twyning's presence. He could hear Twyning breathing through +his nose and felt incensed that Twyning should come and breathe through +his nose by his chair when he wanted to write. + +But Twyning continued to stand by the chair and to breathe through his +nose. He was reading over Sabre's shoulder. + +The few pages of "England" already written lay in front of Sabre's pad, +the first page uppermost. Twyning read and interjected a snort into his +nasal rhythm. + +"Well, that book's not written for me, anyway," he remarked. + +Sabre agreed shortly. "It isn't. But why not?" + +Twyning read aloud the first words. "'This England you live in is +yours.' Well, I take my oath it isn't mine. Not a blooming inch of it. +D'you know what's happening to me? I'm being turned out of my house. +The lease is out and the whole damned house and everything I've put on +to it goes to one of these lordlings--this Lord Tybar--just because one +of his ancestors, who'd never even dreamt of the house, pinched the land +it stands on from the public common and started to pocket ground rent. +Now I'm being pitched into the street to let Lord Tybar have a house +that's no more his than the man in the moon's. D'you call that right?" + +"No, I don't," said Sabre, but with a tinge of impatience. "I call it +rotten." + +Twyning seemed surprised. "Do you, though? Well, how about that book? I +mean to say--" + +"I shall say so in the book. Or as good as say so." + +Twyning pondered. "Shall you, by Jove? Well, but I say, that's +liberalism, radicalism, you know. That's not the sort of pap for kids." + +"Well, the book isn't going to be pap for kids." + +Twyning snorted a note of laughter through his nose. "Sorry, old man. +Don't get shirty. But I say though, seriously, we can't put out that +sort of stuff, you know. Radicalism. Not with our connection. I mean to +say--" + +Sabre gathered up the papers and dropped them into a drawer. "Look here, +Twyning, suppose you wait till the book's written before you criticise +it. How about that for an idea?" + +"All right, all right, old man. I'm not criticising. What's it going to +be called?" + +"England." + +Silence. + +Sabre, appreciating, with the author's intense suspicion for his child, +something in the silence, looked up at Twyning. "Anything wrong about +that? 'England.' You read the first sentence?" + +Twyning said slowly, "Yes, I know I did. I thought of it then." + +"Thought of what?" + +"Well--'England'--'this England.' I mean to say--What about Scotland?" + +"Well, what about Scotland?" + +Twyning seemed really concerned. The puckers on his face had visibly +deepened. He used a stubborn tone. "Well, you know what people are. You +know how damned touchy those Scotchmen are. I mean to say, if we put +out a book like that, the Scotch--" + +Sabre smote the desk. This kind of thing from Twyning made him furious, +and he particularly was not in the mood for it this morning. He struck +his hand down on the desk: "Well, damn the Scotch. What's it got to do +with the Scotch? This book isn't about Scotland. It's about England. +England. I'll tell you another thing. You say if 'we' put out a book +like that. It isn't 'we.' Excuse me saying so, but it certainly isn't +you. It's I." He stopped, and then laughed. "Sorry, Twyning." + + +III + +Twyning's face had gone very dark. His jaw had set. "Oh, all right." He +turned away, but immediately returned again, his face relaxed. "That's +all right. Only my chipping, you know. I say though," and he laughed +nervously. "That 'not we.' You've said it! I'd come in to tell you. It's +going to be 'we.'" He advanced the paper he had been holding in his +hand, his thumb indicating the top left-hand corner. "What do you think +of me above the line, my boy?" + +The paper was a sheet of the firm's notepaper. In the upper left-hand +corner was printed in small type, "The Rev. Sebastian Fortune." Beneath +the name was a short line and beneath the line, "Mr. Shearman Twyning. +Mr. Mark Sabre": + +The Rev. Sebastian Fortune. + ---------- +Mr. Shearman Twyning. +Mr. Mark Sabre. + +Sabre said slowly, "What do you mean--you 'above the line'?" + +Twyning indicated the short line with a forefinger. "That line, my boy. +Jonah's going to take me into partnership. Just told me." + +He had released the paper into Sabre's hand. Sabre handed it back with a +single word, "Good." + +Twyning's face darkened again and darkened worse. He crumpled the paper +violently in his hand and spoke also but a single word, "Thanks!" He +turned sharply on his heel and went to the door. + +"I say, Twyning!" Sabre jumped to his feet and went to Twyning with +outstretched hand. "I didn't mean to take it like that. Don't think I'm +not--I congratulate you. Jolly good. Splendid. I tell you what--I don't +mind telling you--it was a bit of a smack in the eye for me for a +moment. You know, I've rather sweated over this business,"--his glance +indicated the stacked bookshelves, the firm's publications, _his_ +publications.... "See what I mean?" + +A certain movement in his throat and about his mouth indicated, more +than his words, what he meant. A slight. + +Twyning took the hand and gripped it with a firmness characteristic of +his handshake. + +"Thanks, old man. Thanks awfully. Of course I know what you mean. But +after all, look at the thing, eh? I mean to say, you've been +here--what--ten or twelve years. Well, I've been over twenty-five. +Natural, eh? And you're doing splendidly. Every one knows that. It's +only a question of time. Thanks awfully." He reached for Sabre's hand +again and again gripped it hard. + +Sabre went back and sat against his desk. "What rather got me, you know, +coming all of a sudden like that, was that Fortune promised me +partnership, twice, quite a bit ago." + +Twyning, who had been speaking with an emotion in consonance with the +grip of his hand, said a little blankly, "Did he? That so?" + +"Yes, twice. And this looked like, when you told me--well, like +dissatisfaction since, see? Eh?" + +Twyning did not take up the point. "I say, you never told me." + +"I'm telling you now," Sabre said. And he laughed ruefully. "It comes to +much the same thing--as it turns out." + +"Yes, but still.... I wish we worked in a bit more together, Sabre. I'm +always ready to, you know. Let's, shall we?" + +Sabre made no reply. Twyning repeated "Let's" and nodded and left the +room. Immediately he opened the door again and reappeared. "I say, you +won't say anything to Jonah, of course?" + +Sabre smiled grimly. "I'm going to." + +Again the darkening. "Dash it, that's not quite playing the game, is +it?" + +"Rot, Twyning. Fortune's made me a promise, and I'm going to ask if he +has any reason for withdrawing it, that's all. It's nothing to do with +your show." + +"You're bound to tell him I've told you." + +"Well, man alive, I'm bound to know, aren't I?" + +"Yes--in a way. Oh, well, all right. Remember about working in more +together." He withdrew and closed the door. + +Outside the door he clenched his hands. He thought, "Smack in the eye +for you, was it? You'll get a damn sight worse smack in the eye one of +these days. Dirty dog!" + + +IV + +Immediately the door was closed Sabre went what he would have called +"plug in" to Mr. Fortune; that is to say, without hesitation and without +reflection. He went in by the communicating door, first giving a single +tap but without waiting for a reply to the tap. Mr. Fortune, presenting +a whale-like flank, was at his table going through invoices and making +notes in a small black book which he carried always in a tail pocket of +his jacket. + +"Can I speak to you a minute, Mr. Fortune?" + +Mr. Fortune entered a note in the small black book: "Twenty-eight, +sixteen, four." He placed a broad elastic band round the book and with +the dexterity of practice passed the book round his bulk and into the +tail pocket. He flicked his hands away and extended them for an instant, +palms upward, much as a conjurer might to show there was nothing in +them. "Certainly you may speak to me, Sabre." He performed his neat +revolving trick. "As a matter of fact, I rather wanted to speak to you." +He pointed across the whale-like front to the massive leathern armchair +beside his desk. + +The seat of the armchair marked in a vast hollow the cumulative +ponderosity of the pillars of Church and School who were wont to sit in +it. Sabre seated himself on the arm. "Was it about this partnership +business?" + +Mr. Fortune had already frowned to see Sabre upon the arm of the chair, +a position for which the arm was not intended. His frown deepened. "What +partnership business?" + +"Well, you recollect promising me--being good enough to promise +me--_twice_--that I was going to come into partnership--" + +Mr. Fortune folded his hands upon the whale-like front. "I certainly do +not recollect that, Sabre." He raised a hand responsive to a gesture. +"Allow me. I recollect no _promise_. Either twice or any other number of +times, greater or fewer. I _do_ recollect mentioning to you the +_possibility_ of my making you such a proposal in my good time. Is that +what you refer to as 'this partnership business'?" + +"Yes--partly. Well, look here, sir, it's _been_ a pretty good time, +hasn't it? I mean since you spoke of it." + +Mr. Fortune tugged strongly at his watch by its gold chain and looked at +the watch rather as though he expected to see the extent of the good +time there recorded. He forced it back with both hands rather as though +it had failed of this duty and was being crammed away in disgrace. "I am +expecting Canon Toomuch." He hit the watch, cowering (as one might +suppose) in his pocket. "You know, my dear Sabre, I do think this is a +little odd. A little unusual. You cannot _bounce_ into a partnership, +Sabre. I know your manner. I know your manner well. Oblige me by not +fiddling with that paper knife. Thank you. And I make allowances for +your manner. But believe me a partnership is not to be _bounced_ into. +You give me the impression--I do not say you mean it, I say you _give_ +it--of suddenly and without due cause or just im--just opportunity, +trying to _bounce_ me into taking you into partnership. I most +emphatically am not to be _bounced_, Sabre. I never have been bounced +and you may quite safely take it from me that I never propose or intend +to be _bounced_." + +Sabre thought, "Well, it would take a steam crane to bounce you, +anyway." He said. "I hadn't the faintest intention of doing any such +thing. If I made you think so, I'm sorry. I simply wanted to ask if you +have changed your mind, and if so why. I mean, whether I have given you +any cause for dissatisfaction since you prom--since you first mentioned +it to me." + +Mr. Fortune's whale-like front had laboured with some agitation during +his repudiation of liability to being bounced. It now resumed its normal +dignity. "You certainly have not, Sabre. No cause for dissatisfaction. +On the contrary. You know quite well that there are certain +characteristics of yours of which, constituted as I am, I do not +approve. I really must beg of you not to fiddle with those scissors. +Thank you. But they are, happily, quite apart from your work. I do not +permit them to influence my opinion of you by one jot or tittle. You may +entirely reassure yourself. May I inquire why you should have supposed I +had changed my mind?" + +"Because I've just heard that you've told Twyning you're going to take +_him_ into partnership." + +The whale-like front gave a sudden leap and quiver precisely as if it +had been struck by a cricket ball. Mr. Fortune's voice hardened very +remarkably. "As to that, I will permit myself two remarks. In the first +place, I consider it highly reprehensible of Twyning to have +communicated this to you--" + +Sabre broke in. "Well, he didn't. I'd like you to be quite clear on that +point, if you don't mind. Twyning didn't tell me. It came out quite +indirectly in the course of something I was saying to him. I doubt if he +knows that I know even. I inferred it. It seems I inferred correctly." + +There flashed through Mr. Fortune's mind a poignant regret that, this +being the case, he had not denied it. He said, "I am exceedingly glad to +hear it. I might have known Twyning would not be capable of such a +breach of discretion. Resuming what I had to say--and, Sabre, I shall +indeed be most intensely obliged if you will refrain from fiddling with +the things on my table--resuming what I had to say, I will observe in +the second and last place that I entirely deprecate, I will go further, +I most strongly resent any questioning by any one member of my staff +based on any intentions of mine relative to another member of my staff. +This business is my business. I think you are sometimes a little prone +to forget that. If it seems good to me to strengthen your hand in your +department that has nothing whatever to do with Twyning. And if it seems +good to me to strengthen Twyning's hand in Twyning's department that has +nothing whatever to do with you." + +Sabre, despite his private feelings in the matter, characteristically +followed this reasoning completely, and said so. "Yes, that's your way +of looking at it, sir, and I don't say it isn't perfectly sound--from +your point of view--" + +Mr. Fortune inclined his head solemnly: "I am obliged to you." + +"--Only other people look at things on the face of them, just as they +appear. You know--it's difficult to express it--I've put my heart into +those books." He made a gesture towards his room. "I can't quite explain +it, but I felt that the slight, or what looks like a slight, is on them, +not on me." He put his hand to the back of his head, a habit +characteristic when he was embarrassed or perplexed. "I'm afraid I can't +quite express it, but it's the books. Not myself. I'm--fond of them. +They're not just paper and print to me. I feel that they feel it. You +won't quite understand, I'm afraid--" + +"No, I confess that is a little beyond me," said Mr. Fortune, smoothing +his front; and they remained looking at one another. + +A sudden and unearthly moan sounded through the room. Mr. Fortune spun +himself with relief to his desk and applied his lips to a flexible +speaking tube. "Yes?" He dodged the tube to his ear, then to his lips +again. + +"Beg Canon Toomuch to step up to my room." He laid down the tube. + +Sabre roused himself and stood up abruptly. "Ah, well! All right, sir." +He moved towards his door. + +"Sabre," inquired Mr. Fortune, "you get on well with Twyning, I trust?" + +"Get on? Oh yes. We don't have much to do with each other." + +"Do you dislike Twyning?" + +"I don't dislike him. I'm indifferent to him." + +"I regret to hear that," said Mr. Fortune. + +From the door Sabre put a question in his turn: "When are you going to +make this change with Twyning?" + +"Not to-day." + +"Am I still to remember that you held out partnership to me?" + +"Certainly you may." + +"When is it likely to be?" + +"Not to-day." + +Maddening expression! + +Sabre, in his room, went towards his chair. He was about to drop into it +when he recollected something. He went out into the corridor and along +the corridor, past Mr. Fortune's door (Canon Toomuch coming heavily up +the stairs) to Twyning's room. He put in his head. "Oh, I say, Twyning, +if Fortune should ever ask you if you told me about that business, you +can tell him you didn't." + +"Oh--oh, right-o," said Twyning; and to himself when the door closed, +"Funked speaking to him!" + + +V + +Arrived again in his room, Sabre dropped into his chair. In his eyes was +the look that had been in them when he had tried to explain to Mr. +Fortune about the books, what Mr. Fortune had confessed he found a +little beyond him. He thought: "The books.... Of course Fortune hasn't +imagined them ... seen them grow helped them to grow.... But it hurts. +Like hell it hurts.... And I can't explain to him how I feel about +them.... I can't explain to any one." + +His thoughts moved on: "I've been twelve years with him. Twelve years +we've been daily together, and when I said that about the books I sat +there and he sat there--and just looked. Stared at each other like +masks. Masks! Nothing but a mask to be seen for either of us. I sit +behind my mask and he sits behind his and that's all we see. Twelve +mortal years! And there're thousands of people in thousands of +offices ... thousands of homes ... just the same. All behind masks. +Mysterious business. Extraordinary. How do we keep behind? Why do we +keep behind? We're all going through the same life. Come the same way. +Go the same way. You look at insects, ants, scurrying about, and not +two of them seem to have a thing in common, not two of them seem to +know one another; and you think it's odd, you think it's because they +don't know they're all in the same boat. But we're just the same. They +might think it of us. And we _do_ know. And yet you get two lives and +put them together twelve years in an office ... in a house.... Mabel +and I ... practically we just sit and look at each other. Her mask. My +mask...." + +He thought: "One knows what it is, what it looks like, with ants. +They're all plugging about like mad like that, not knowing one another, +nor caring, because they all seem to be looking for something. I +wonder.... I wonder--are we? Is that the trouble? All looking for +something.... You can see it in half the faces you see. Some wanting, +and knowing they are wanting something. Others wanting something but +just putting up with it, just content to be discontented. You can see +it. Yes, you can. Looking for what? Love? But lots have love. Happiness? +But aren't lots happy? But are they?" + +He knitted his brows: "It goes deeper than that. It's some universal +thing that's wanting. Is it something that religion ought to give, but +doesn't? Light? Some new light to give every one certainty in religion, +in belief. Light?" + +His thoughts went to Mabel. "Those houses in King's Close are going to +be eighty pounds a year, and what do you think, Mrs. Toller is going to +take one." And he had not answered her but had rustled the newspaper and +had intended her to know why he had rustled the paper: to show he +couldn't stick it! Unkind. His heart smote him for Mabel. Such a +pathetically simple thing for Mabel to find enjoyment in! Why, he might +just as reasonably rustle the newspaper at a baby because it had +enjoyment in a rattle. A rattle would not amuse him, and Mrs. Toller +taking a house beyond her means did not amuse him; but why on earth +should he--? + +He put the thing to himself in his reasoning way, his brow wrinkled up: +She was his wife. She had left her home for his home. She had a right to +his interest in her ideas. He had a duty towards her ideas. Unkind. +Rotten. + +Upon a sudden impulse he looked at his watch. Only just after twelve. He +could get back in time for lunch. Lonely for her, day after day, and +left as he had left her that morning. They could have a jolly afternoon +together. He could make it a jolly afternoon. Nona kept coming into his +thoughts--and more so after this Twyning business. He would have Mabel +in his thoughts. + +He went in and told Mr. Fortune he rather thought of taking the +afternoon off if he was not wanted. He mounted his bicycle and rode +purposefully back to Mabel. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +I + +The free-wheel run down into Perry Green landed him a little short of +his gate,--not bad! Pirrip, the postman, whom he had passed in the +bicycle's penultimate struggles, overtook him in its death throes and +watched with interest the miracles of balancing with which, despite his +preoccupation of mind, habit made him prolong them to the uttermost +inch. + +He dismounted. "Anything for me, Pirrip?" + +"One for you, Mr. Sabre." + +Sabre took the letter and glanced at the handwriting. + +It was from Nona. + +Her small, neat, masculine script had once been as familiar to him as +his own. It was curiously like his own. She had the same trick of not +linking all the letters in a word. Her longer words, like his own, +looked as if they were two or three short words close together. To this +day, when he did not get a letter from her once in a year--or in five +years--his address on an envelope in her handwriting was a thing he +could bring, and sometimes did bring with perfect clearness before his +mental vision. + +He glanced at it, regarded it for slightly longer than a glance, and +with a little pucker of brows and lips, then made the action of putting +it, unopened, in his pocket. Then he rested the bicycle against his hip +and opened her letter. + +"Northrepps. Tuesday." She never dated her letters. He used to be +always telling her about that. Tuesday was yesterday. + + Dear Marko--We're back. We've been from China to Peru--almost. Come + up one day and be bored about it. How are you? + + Nona. + +He thought: "Funny she didn't mention she'd written just now. Perhaps +she thought it was funny I didn't say I'd had it. I must tell her." + +He returned her letter to its envelope and put the envelope in his +pocket. Then wheeled his bicycle into his gate. He smiled. "Mabel will +be surprised at me back like this." + +Mabel was descending the stairs as he entered the hall. In the white +dress she wore she made a pleasant picture against the broad, shallow +stairway and the dark panelling. But she did not appear particularly +pleased to see him. But he thought, "Why should she be? That's just it. +That's why I've come back." + +"Hullo?" she greeted him. "Have you forgotten something?" + +He smiled invitingly. "No, I've just come back. I suddenly thought we'd +have a holiday." + +She showed puzzlement. "A holiday? What, the office? All of you?" + +She had paused three steps from the foot of the stairs, her right hand +on the banisters. + +His wife!... + +He slid his hand up the rail and rested it on hers. "Good lord, no. Not +the office. No, I suddenly thought we'd have a holiday. You and I." + +He half hoped she would respond to the touch of his hand by turning the +palm of her own to it. But he thought, "Why should she?" and she did +not. She said, "But how extraordinary! Whatever for?" + +"Well, why not?" + +"But what did you say at the office? What reason did you give?" + +"Didn't give any. I just said I thought I wouldn't be back." + +"But whatever will Mr. Fortune think?" + +"Oh, what does it matter what he thinks? He won't think anything about +it." + +"But he'll think it's funny." + +He thought, "Dash these buts!" This was what he called "niggling." It +was on the tip of his tongue to say, "Why niggle about the thing?" but +he recollected his purpose; that was him all over and that was just it! +He said brightly, "Let him. Do him good. The idea suddenly came to me as +a bit of a lark to have an unexpected holiday with you, and I just +cleared off and came!" + +She had descended and he moved along the hall with her towards the +morning room. + +"It's rather extraordinary," she said. + +She certainly was not enthusiastic over it. She asked, "Well, what are +you going to do?" + +He wished he had thought of some plan as he came along. "What time's +lunch? Half-past one? What about getting your bike and going for a bit +of a run first?" + +She was at a drawer of her table where she kept, with beautiful +neatness, implements for various household duties. A pair of long +scissors came out. "I can't possibly. I've things to do. Besides some +one's coming to lunch." + +He began to feel he had been a fool. The feeling nettled him and he +thought, "Why 'some one'? Dash it, I might be a stranger in the house. +Why doesn't she say who?" And then he thought, "Why should she? This is +just _it_. I'd have heard all about it at breakfast if I'd been decently +communicative." + +He said, "Good. Who?" + +She took a shallow basket from the shelf. He knew this and the long +scissors for her flower-cutting implements. "Mr. Bagshaw." + +And before he could stop himself he had groaned, "Oh, lord!" + +She "flew up" and he rushed in tumultuously to make amends for his +blunder and prevent her flying up. + +"Mark, I do wish--" + +"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I really am most awfully sorry, Mabel. 'Oh, +lord''s not really profanity. You know it's not. It's just my way--" + +"I know that." + +But he persevered. "As a matter of fact, it's clear connection of +thought in this case. Bagshaw's a clergyman, and my mind flew instantly +to celestial things." + +She did not respond to this. "In any case, I really cannot see why you +should object to Mr. Boom Bagshaw." + +"I don't. I don't in the least." + +"I've heard you say--often--that he's far and away the best preacher +you've ever heard." + +"He is. Absolutely." + +"Well, then?" + +"It's just his coming to lunch. He's such a terrific talker and you know +I can't stick talkers." + +"Yes, that's just why I invite them when you're not here." + +He laughed and came across the room towards her impulsively. He was +going to carry this through. "You've got me there. Properly." He took +the basket from her hand. "Come on, we'll cut the flowers. I'll be +absolutely chatty with old Bagshaw." + +She smiled and her smile encouraged him tremendously. This was the way +to do it! They went through the glass doors into the garden and he +continued, "Really chatty. I'm going to turn over a new leaf. As a +matter of fact, that's why I came back. I got out of bed the wrong side +this morning, didn't I?" + +He felt as he always remembered once feeling as a boy when, after going +to bed, he had come downstairs in his nightshirt and said to his father, +"I say, father, I didn't tell the truth this morning. I had been +smoking." He had never forgotten the enormous relief of that confession, +nor the bliss of his father's, "That's all right, old man. That's fine. +Don't cry, old chap." And he felt precisely that same enormous relief +now. + +She said, "Was that the reason? How awfully funny of you!" and she gave +one of her sudden bursts of laughter. + +He had a swift feeling that this was not quite the same as the reception +of his confession by his father in that long-ago; but he thought +immediately, "The thing's quite different." Anyway, he had confessed. +She knew why he had come back so suddenly. He felt immensely happy. And +when she said, "I think we'll have some of the roses," he gaily replied, +"Yes, rather. These roses!" + +Fine! How easy to be on jolly terms! + +And immediately it proved not so easy. He had got over the rocks of +"niggling"; he found himself in the shoals of exasperation. + + +II + +She cut the first rose and held it to her lips, smelling it. "Lovely. +Who was your letter from, Mark?" + +He thought, "How on earth did she know?" He had forgotten it himself. +"How ever did you know? From Lady Tybar. They're back." + +"I saw you from the window with the postman. Lady Tybar! Whatever was +she writing to you about?" + +He somehow did not like this. Why "_whatever_"? And being watched was +rather beastly; he remembered he had fiddled about with the +letter,--half put it in his pocket and then taken it out again. And why +not? What did it matter? But he had a prevision that it was going to +matter. Mabel did not particularly like Nona. He said, "Just to say +they're back. She wants us to go up there." + +"An invitation? Whyever didn't she write to me?" + +"Whyever" again!--"May I see it?" + +He took the letter from his pocket and handed it to her. "It's not +exactly an invitation--not formal." + +She did what he called "flicked" the letter out of its envelope. He +watched her reading it and in his mind he could see as perfectly as she +with her eyes, the odd, neat script; in his mind he read it with her, +word by word. + + Dear Marko--We're back. We've been from China to Peru almost. Come + up one day and be bored about it. How are you? + + Nona. + +His thought was, "Damn the letter!" + +Mabel handed it back, without returning it to its envelope. She said, +"No, it's not formal." + +She snipped three roses with astonishing swiftness,--_snip, snip, snip_! + +Sabre sought about in his mind for something to say. There was nothing +in his mind to say. He had an absurd vision of his two hands feeling +about in the polished interior of a skull, as one might fumble for +something in a large jar. + +At the end of an enormous cavity of time he found some slight remark +about blight on the rose trees--the absence of it this year--and +ventured it. He had again an absurd vision of dropping it into an +enormous cavern, as a pea into an immense bowl, and it seemed to tinkle +feebly and forlornly, as a pea would. "No blight this year, eh?" + +"No; is there?" agreed Mabel,--_snip_! + +Nevertheless conversation arose from the forlorn pea and was maintained. +They moved about the garden from flower bed to flower bed. In half an +hour the shallow basket was beautified with fragrant blooms and Mabel +thought she had enough. + +"Well, that's that," said Sabre as they reëntered the morning room. + + +III + +Low Jinks, her matchless training at the level of mysteriously performed +duties pat to the moment and without command, appeared with a tray of +vases. Each vase was filled to precisely half its capacity with water. +There were also a folded newspaper, a pair of small gilt scissors and a +saucer. Low Jinks spread the newspaper at one end of the table, arranged +the vases in a semicircle upon it, and placed the gilt scissors +precisely in alignment with the right-hand vase of the semicircle, and +the saucer (for the stalk ends) precisely in alignment with the +left-hand vase. She then withdrew, closing the door with exquisite +softness. Sabre had never seen this rite before. The perfection of its +performance was impressive. He thought, "Mabel is marvellous." He said, +"Shall I take them out of the basket?" + +"No, leave them. I take them up just as I want them." + +She took up a creamy rose and snipped off a fragment of stalk over the +saucer. "Why does she call you 'Marko'?" + +He was utterly taken aback. If the question had come from any one but +Mabel, he would have quite failed to connect it with the letter. But +there had distinctly been an "incident" over the letter, though so far +closed, as he had imagined, that he was completely surprised. + +He said "Who? Nona?" + +"Yes, Nona, if you like. Lady Tybar." + +"Why, she always has. You know that." + +Mabel put the rose into a specimen vase with immense care and touched a +speck off its petals with her fingers. "I really didn't." + +"Mabel, you know you do. You must have heard her." + +"Well, I may have. But long ago. I certainly didn't know she used it in +letters." + +He felt he was growing angry. + +"What on earth's the difference?" + +"It seems to me there's a great deal of difference. I didn't know she +wrote you letters." + +He was angry. "Damn it, she doesn't write me letters." + +She shrugged her shoulders. "You seem to get them anyway." + +Maddening! + +And then he thought, "I'm not going to let it be maddening. This is just +what happens." He said, "Well, this is silly. I've known her--we've +known one another--for years, since we were children, pretty well. She's +called me by my Christian name since I can remember. You must have heard +her. We don't see much of her--perhaps you haven't. I thought you had. +Anyway, dash the thing. What does it matter?" + +"It doesn't _matter_"--she launched a flower into a vase--"a bit. I only +think it's funny, that's all." + +"Well, it's just her way." + +Mabel gave a little sniff. He thought it was over. But it wasn't over. +"If you ask me, I call it a funny letter. You say your Christian name, +but it isn't your Christian name--_Marko_! And then saying, 'How are +you?' like that--" + +"Like what? She just said it, didn't she?" + +"Yes I know. And then 'Nona.' Don't you call that funny?" + +"Well, I always used to call her 'Nona.' She'd have thought it funny, as +you call it, to put anything else. I tell you it's just her way." + +"Well, I think it's a very funny way and I think anybody else would +think so. I don't like her. I never did like her." + +There seemed no more to say. + + +IV + +He walked up to his room. He closed the door behind him and sat on a +straight-backed chair, his legs outthrust. Failure? He had come back +home thus suddenly with immensely good intentions. Failure? On the +whole, no. There was a great deal more he could have said downstairs, +and a great deal more he had felt uncommonly inclined to say. But he had +left the morning room without saying it, and that was good; that +redeemed his sudden return from absolute failure. + +Why had he returned? He "worked back" through the morning on the Fargus +principle. Not because of his thoughts after the Twyning business; not +because of the disturbance of the Twyning business. No. He had returned +because he had seen Nona. Thoughts--feelings--had been stirred within +him by meeting her. And it had suddenly been rather hateful to have +those thoughts and to feel that--that Mabel had no place in them. + +Well, why had he come up here? What was he doing up here? Well, it +hadn't been altogether successful. Mabel hadn't been particularly +excited to see him. No, but that didn't count. Why should she be? He had +gone off after breakfast, glum as a bear. Well, then there was that +niggling business over why he had returned. Always like that. Never +plump out over a thing he put up. Niggling. And then this infernal +business about the letter. That word "funny." She must have used it a +hundred times. Still.... The niggling had been carried off, they had +gone into the garden together; and this infernal letter business--at +least he had come away without boiling over about it. Much better to +have come away as he did.... Still.... + + +V + +A gong boomed enormously through the house. It had been one of her +father's wedding presents to Mabel and it always reminded Sabre of the +Dean's, her father's voice. The Dean's voice boomed, swelling into a +loud boom when he was in mid-speech and reverberating into a distant +boom as his periods terminated. This was the warning gong for lunch. In +ten minutes, in this perfectly ordered house, a different gong, a set of +chimes, would announce that lunch was ready. The reverberations had +scarcely ceased when Low Jinks, although she had caused the +reverberations, appeared in his room with a brass can of hot water. + +"Mr. Boom Bagshaw has not arrived yet, sir," said Low Jinks; "but the +mistress thought we wouldn't wait any longer." + +She displaced the ewer from the basin and substituted the brass can. She +covered the can with a white towel, uncovered the soap dish, and +disappeared, closing the door as softly as if it and the doorpost were +padded with velvet. Perfect establishment! + +Sabre washed his hands and went down. Mabel was in the morning room, +seated at the centre table where the flowers had been and where now was +her embroidery basket. She was embroidering, an art which, in common +with all the domestic arts, she performed to perfection. "Bagshaw's +late?" said Sabre. + +Mabel glanced at the clock. Her gesture above her busy needle was +pretty. + +"Well, he wasn't absolutely sure about coming. I thought we wouldn't +wait. Ah, there he is." + +Sabre thought, "Good. That business is over. Nothing in it. Only Mabel's +way." + +Sounds in the hall. "In the morning room," came Low Jinks's voice. +"Lunch ... wash your hands, sir?" + +There was only one person in all England who, arriving at Crawshaws, +would not have been gently but firmly enfolded by the machine-like order +of its perfect administration and been led in and introduced with rites +proper to the occasion. But that one person was the Reverend Cyril Boom +Bagshaw, and he now strolled across the threshold and into the room. + + +VI + +He strolled in. He wore a well-made suit of dark grey flannel, brown +brogue shoes and a soft collar with a black tie tied in a sailor's knot. +He disliked clerical dress and he rarely wore it. He was dark. His +good-looking face bore habitually a rather sulky expression as though he +were a little bored or dissatisfied. You would never have thought, to +look at him, that he was a clergyman, or, as he would have said, a +priest, and in not thinking that you would have paid him the compliment +that pleased him most. This was not because Mr. Boom Bagshaw lacked +earnestness in his calling, for he was enormously in earnest, but +because he disliked and despised the conventional habits and manners and +appearance of the clergy and, in any case, intensely disliked being one +of a class. For the same reasons he wore a monocle; not because the +vision of his right eye was defective but because no clergyman wears a +monocle. It is not done by the priesthood and that is why the Reverend +Cyril Boom Bagshaw did it. + +He strolled negligently into the morning room, his hands in his trouser +pockets, the skirt of his jacket rumpled on his wrists. He gave the +impression of having been strolling about the house all day and of now +strolling in here for want of a better room to stroll into. He nodded +negligently to Sabre, "Hullo, Sabre." He smiled negligently at Mabel and +seated himself negligently on the edge of the table, still with his +hands in his pockets. He swung one leg negligently and negligently +remarked, "Good morning, Mrs. Sabre. Embroidery?" + +Sabre had the immediate and convinced feeling that the negligent and +reverend gentleman was not in his house but that he was permitted to be +in the house of the negligent and reverend gentleman. And this was the +feeling that the negligent and reverend gentleman invariably gave to his +hosts, whoever they might be; likewise to his congregations. Indeed it +was said by a profane person (who fortunately does not enter this +history) that the Deity entered Mr. Boom Bagshaw's church on the same +terms, and accepted them. + +As he sat negligently swinging his leg he frequently strained his chin +upwards and outwards, rather as if his collar were tight (but it was +neatly loose), or as if he were performing an exercise for stretching +the muscles of his neck. This was a habit of his. + + +VII + +A silver entrée dish was placed before Mabel, another before Sabre. Low +Jinks removed her mistress's cover and Mr. Boom Bagshaw pushed aside a +flower vase to obtain a view. + +"I don't eat salmon," he remarked. The vase was now between himself and +Sabre. He again moved it, "Or cutlets." + +Mabel exclaimed, "Oh, dear! Now I got this salmon in specially from +Tidborough." + +"I'll have some of that ham," said Mr. Boom Bagshaw; and he arose +sulkily and strolled to the sideboard where he rather sulkily cut from a +ham in thick wedges. The house was clearly his house. + +He addressed himself to Mabel. "Now in a very few weeks you'll no longer +have to get things from Tidborough, Mrs. Sabre--salmon or anything else. +The shops in Market Square are going the minute they're complete. I got +a couple of fishmongers only yesterday." + +He spoke as if he had shot a brace of fishmongers and slung them over +his shoulder and flung them into Market Square. Market Square was that +portion of the Garden Home designed for the shopping centre. + +"Two!" said Mabel. + +"Two. I encourage competition. No one is going to sleep in the Garden +Home." + +"What will all the bedrooms be used for then?" Sabre inquired. + +Mr. Boom Bagshaw, who was eating his ham with a fork only, holding it at +its extremity in the tips of his fingers and occasionally flipping a +piece of ham into his mouth and swallowing it without visible +mastication, flipped in another morsel and with his right hand moved +three more vases which stood between himself and Sabre. He moved each +deliberately and set it down with a slight thump, rather as if it were a +chessman. + +He directed the fork at Sabre and after an impressive moment spoke: + +"You know, Sabre, I don't think you're quite alive to what it is that is +growing up about you. Flippancy is out of place. I abominate flippancy." +("Well, dash it, it's my house!" Sabre thought.) "This Garden Home is +not a speculation. It's not a fad. It's not a joke. What is it? You're +thinking it's a damned nuisance. You're right. It _is_ a damned +nuisance--" + +Sabre began, "Well--" + +"Now, listen, Sabre. It _is_ a damned nuisance; and I put it to you +that, when a toad is discovered embedded in a solid mass of coal or +stone, that coal or stone, when it was slowly forming about that toad, +was a damned nuisance to the toad." + +Sabre asked, "Well, am I going to be discovered embedded--" + +"Now, listen, Sabre. Another man in my place would say he did not intend +to be personal. I do intend to be personal. I always am personal. I say +that this Garden Home is springing up about you and that you are not +realising what is happening. This Garden Home is going to enshrine life +as it should be lived. More. It is going to make life be lived as it +should he lived. Some one said to me the other day--the Duchess of +Wearmouth; I was staying at Wearmouth Castle--that the Garden Home is +going to be a sanctuary. I said 'Bah!' like that--'Bah!' I said, 'Every +town, every city, every village is a sanctuary; and asleep in its +sanctuary; and dead to life in its sanctuary; and dead to Christ in its +sanctuary.' I said, 'The Garden Home is not going to be a sanctuary, nor +yet a sepulchre, nor yet a tomb. It is going to be a symbol, a signal, a +shout.' More ham." + +He paused, pushed his plate to one side more as if it had bitten him +than as if he desired more ham to be placed upon it, and looked around +the room before him, sulkily, and exercising his chin. + +Sabre had a vision of dense crowds of bishops in lawn sleeves, duchesses +in Gainsborough hats, and herds of intensely fashionable rank and file +applauding vigorously. He could almost hear the applause. But how to +deal with this man he never knew. He always felt he was about fourteen +when Mr. Boom Bagshaw thus addressed him. He therefore said, "Great!" +and Mabel murmured, "How splendid!" + + +VIII + +But Sabre's thought was--and it remained with him throughout the meal, +acutely illustrated by the impressive monologues which Mr. Boom Bagshaw +addressed to Mabel, and by her radiant responses--his thought was, "I +simply can't get on with this chap--or with any of Mabel's crowd. They +all make me feel like a kid. I can't answer them when they talk. They +say things I've got ideas about but I never can explain my ideas to +them. I never can argue my ideas with them. They've all got convictions +and I believe I haven't any convictions. I've only got instincts and +these convictions come down on instincts like a hammer on an egg." + +Mr. Boom Bagshaw was saying, "And we shall have no poor in the Garden +Home. No ugly streets. No mean surroundings. Uplift. Everywhere uplift." + +There slipped out of Sabre aloud, "There you are. That's the kind of +thing." + +Mr. Boom Bagshaw, as if to disclose without fear precisely where he was, +dismantled from between them the hedge of flowers which he had replaced +and looked sulkily across. "What kind of thing?" + +Sabre had a vision of himself advancing an egg for Mr. Bagshaw's hammer. +"About having no poor in the Garden Home. Isn't there something about +the poor being always with us?" + +"Certainly there is." + +"In the Bible?" + +"In the Bible. Do you know to whom it was addressed?" + +Sabre admitted that he didn't. + +"To Judas Iscariot." (Smash went the egg!) + +Sabre said feebly--he _could_ not handle his arguments--"Well, anyway, +'always with us'--there you are. If you're going to create a place where +life is going to be lived as it should be lived, I don't see how you're +going to shut the poor out of it. Aren't they a part of life? They've +got as much right to get away from mean streets and ugly surroundings as +we have--and a jolly sight more need. Always with us. It doesn't matter +tuppence whom it was said to." + +"It happens," pronounced Mr. Boom Bagshaw, "to matter a great deal more +than tuppence. It happens to knock the bottom clean out of your +argument. It was addressed to the Iscariot because the Iscariot was +trying to do just what you are trying to do. He was trying to make duty +to the poor an excuse for grudging service to Christ. Now, listen, +Sabre. If people thought a little less about their duty towards the poor +and a little more about their duty towards themselves, they would be in +a great deal fitter state to help their fellow creatures, poor or rich. +That is what the Garden Home is to do for those who live in it, and that +is what the Garden Home is _going_ to do." + +He stabbed sharply with the butt of a dessert knife on the dessert +plate which had just been placed before him. The plate split neatly into +two exact halves. He gazed at them sulkily, put them aside, drew another +plate before him, and remarked to Mabel: + +"You know we are moving into the vicarage to-morrow? We are giving an At +Home to-morrow week. You will come." + +The plural pronoun included his mother. He was intensely celibate. + + +IX + +The day ended in a blazing row. + +In the afternoon Mr. Boom Bagshaw carried off Mabel to view the progress +of the Garden Home. While they dallied over coffee at the luncheon +table, Sabre was fidgeting for Bagshaw to be gone. Mabel, operating +dexterously behind the blue flame of a spirit lamp, Low Jinks hovering +around in well-trained acolyte performances, said, "Now I rather pride +myself on my Turkish coffee, Mr. Boom Bagshaw." + +Mr. Bagshaw, who appeared to pride himself at least as much on his +characteristics, replied by sulkily looking at his watch; and a moment +later by sulkily taking a cup, rather as if he were a schoolboy bidden +to take lemonade when mannishly desirous of shandygaff, and sulkily +remarking, "I must go." + +Sabre fidgeted to see the words put into action. He wanted Bagshaw to be +off. He wanted to resume his sudden intention of remedying his normal +relations with Mabel and the afternoon promised better than the +intention had thus far seen. That niggling over the unexpectedness of +his return,--well, of course it was unexpected and upsetting of her +household routine; but the unexpectedness was over and the letter +incident over, and Mabel, thanks to her guest, delightfully mooded. +Good, therefore, for the afternoon. When the dickens was this chap +going? + +Then Bagshaw, rising sulkily, "Well, you'd better come up and have a +look round." + +And Mabel, animatedly, "I'd like to"; and to Sabre, "You won't care to +come, Mark." + +Sabre said, "No, I won't." + + +X + +Throughout dinner--Mabel returned only just in time to get ready for +dinner--Sabre examined with dispassionate interest the exercise of +trying to say certain words and being unable to say them. They conversed +desultorily; in their usual habit. He told himself that he was speaking +several hundred "other" words; but the intractable words that he desired +to utter would not be framed. He counted them on his fingers under the +table. Only seven: "Well, how was the Garden Home looking?" Only seven. +He could not say them. The incident they brought up rankled. He had come +home to take a day off with her. She knew he was there at the luncheon +table to take a day off with her. It had interested her so little, she +had been so entirely indifferent to it, that she had not even expressed +a wish he should so much as attend her on the inspection with Bagshaw. +The more he thought of it the worse it rankled. She knew he was at home +to be with her and she had deliberately walked off and left him.... +"Well, how was the Garden Home looking?" No. Not much. He couldn't. He +visualised the impossible seven written on the tablecloth. He saw them +in script; he saw them in print; he imagined them written by a finger on +the wall. Say them--no. + +Mabel left him sitting at the table with a cigarette. There came +suddenly to his assistance in the fight with the stubborn seven, abreast +of the thoughts in the office that had brought him home, a realisation +of her situation such as he had had that first night together in the +house, eight years before; there she was in the morning room, alone. She +had given up her father's home for his home--and there she was: a happy +afternoon behind her and no one to discuss it with. Just because he +could not say, "Well, how was the Garden Home looking?" + +He thought, "I'm hateful." He got up vigorously and strode into the +morning room: "Well, how was the Garden Home looking?" His voice was +bright and interested. + +She was reading a magazine. She did not raise her eyes front the page. +"Eh? Oh, very nice. Delightful." + +"Tell us about it." + +"What? Oh ... yes." Her mind was in the magazine. She read on a moment. +Then she laid the magazine on her lap and looked up. "The Garden Home? +Yes--oh, yes. It was charming. It's simply springing up. You ought to +have come." + +He stretched himself in a big chair opposite her. He laughed. "Well, +dash it, I like that. You didn't exactly implore me to." + +She yawned. "Oh, well. I knew you wouldn't care about it." She yawned +again, "Oh dear. I'm tired. We must have walked miles, to and fro." She +put down her hands to take up her magazine again. She clearly was not +interested by his interest. But he thought, "Well, of course she's not. +For her it's like eating something after it's got cold. Dinner was the +time." + +He said, "I expect you did--walk miles. Bagshaw all over it, I bet." + +She did what he called "tighten herself." "Well, naturally, he's +pleased--enthusiastic. He's done more than any one else to keep the idea +going." + +Sabre laughed. "I should say so! Marvellous person! What's he going to +do about not wearing clerical dress when he has to wear gaiters?" + +"What do you mean--gaiters?" + +Signs of flying up. What on earth for? "Why, when he's a bishop. Don't +you--" + +She flew up. "I suppose that's some sneer!" + +"Sneer! Rot. I mean it. A chap like Bagshaw's not going to be a parish +priest all his life. He's out to be a bishop and he'll be a bishop. If +he changed his mind and wanted to be a Judge or a Cabinet Minister, he'd +be a Judge or a Cabinet Minister. He's that sort." + +"I knew you were sneering." + +"Mabel, don't be silly. I'm not sneering. Bagshaw's a clever--" + +"You say he's 'that sort.' That's a sneer." She put her hands on the +arms of her chair and raised herself to sit upright. She spoke with +extraordinary intensity. "Nearly everything you say to me or to my +friends is a sneer. There's always something behind what you say. Other +people notice it--" + +"Other people." + +"Yes. Other people. They say you're sarcastic. That's just a polite +way--" + +He said, "Oh, come now, Mabel. Not sarcastic. I swear no one thinks I'm +sarcastic. I promise you Bagshaw doesn't. Bagshaw thinks I'm a fool. A +complete fool. Look at lunch!" + +She caught him up. She was really angry. "Yes. Look at lunch. That's +just what I mean. Any one that comes to the house, any of my friends, +anything they say you must always take differently, always argue about. +That's what I call sneering--" + +He, flatly, "Well, that isn't sneering. Let's drop it." + +She had no intention of dropping it. "It is sneering. They don't know it +is. But I know it is." + + +XI + +He had the feeling that his anger would arise responsive to hers, as one +beast calling defiance to another, if this continued. And he did not +want it to arise. He had sometimes thought of anger as a savage beast +chained within a man. It had helped him to control rising ill-temper. He +thought of it now: of her anger. He had a vision of it prowling, as a +dark beast among caves, challenging into the night. He wished to retain +the vision. His own anger, prowling also, would not respond while he +retained the picture. It was prowling. It was suspicious. It would be +mute while he watched it. While he watched it.... + +He pulled himself sharply to his feet. + +"Well, well,", he said. "It's not meant to be sneering. Let's call it my +unfortunate manner." + +He stood before her, half-smiling, his hands in his pockets, looking +down at her. + +She said, "Perhaps you're different with your friends. I hope you are. +With your friends." + +He caught a glint in her eye as she repeated the words. Its meaning did +not occur to him. + +He bantered, "Oh, I'm not as bad as all that. And anyway, the friends +are all the same friends. This place isn't so big." + +Then that quick glint of her eye was explained--the flash before the +discharge. + +"Perhaps your friends are just coming back," she said. "Lady Tybar." + +The vision of his dark anger broke away. Mute while he watched it, +immediately it lifted its head and answered her own. "Look here--" he +began; and stopped. "Look here," he said more quietly, "don't begin that +absurd business again." + +"I don't think it is absurd." + +"No, you called it 'funny.'" + +She drew in her feet as if to arise. "Yes, and I think it's funny. All +of it. I think you've been funny all day to-day. Coming back like that!" + +"I told you why I came back. To have a day off with you. Funny day off +it's been! You're right there!" + +"Yes, it _has_ been a funny day off." + +He thought, "My God, this bickering! Why don't I get out of the room?" + +"Come back for a day off with me! It's a funny thing you came back just +in time to get that letter! Before it was delivered! There! Now you +know!" + +He was purely amazed. He thought, and his amazement was such that, +characteristically, his anger left him; he thought, "Well, of all +the--!" + +But she otherwise interpreted his astonishment. She thought she had made +an advantage and she pressed it. "Perhaps you knew it was coming?" + +"How on earth could I have known it was coming?" + +She seemed to pause, to be considering. "She might have told you. You +might have seen her." + +He said, "As it happens, I did see her. Not three hours before I came +back." + +She seemed disappointed. She said, "I know you did. We met Lord Tybar." + +And he thought, "Good lord! She was trying to catch me." + +She went on, "You never told me you'd met them. Wasn't that funny?" + +"If you'd just think a little you'd see there was nothing funny about +it. You found the letter so amazingly funny that, to tell you the truth, +I'd had about enough of the Tybars. And I've had about enough of them." + +"I daresay you have--with me. Perhaps you'll tell me this--would you +have told me about the letter if I hadn't seen you get it?" + +He thought before he answered and he answered out of his thoughts. He +said slowly, "I--don't--believe--I--would. I wouldn't. I wouldn't +because I'd have known perfectly well that you'd have thought +it--funny." + + +XII + +No answer he could have made could have more exasperated her. +"I--don't--believe--I--would." Deliberation! Something incomprehensible +to her going on in his mind, and as a result of it a statement that no +one on earth (she felt) but he would have made. Any one else would have +said boldly, blusteringly, "Of course I would have told you about the +letter." She would have liked that. She would have disbelieved it and +she could have said, and enjoyed saying, she disbelieved it. Or any one +else would have said furiously, "No, I'm damned if I'd have shown you +the letter." She would have liked that. It would have affirmed her +suspicions that there was "something in it"; and she wished her +suspicions to be affirmed. It would have been something definite. +Something justifiably incentive of anger, of resentment, of jealousy. +Something she could understand. + +For she did not understand her husband. That was her grievance against +him. She never had understood him. That den incident in the very +earliest days of their marriage had been an intimation of a way of +looking at things that to her was entirely and exasperatingly +inexplicable; and since then, increasingly year by year, her +understanding had failed to follow him. He had retired farther and +farther into himself. He lived in his mind, and she could by no means +penetrate into his mind. His ideas about things, his attitude towards +things, were wholly and exasperatingly incomprehensible to her. + +"It's like," she had once complained to her father, "it's like having a +foreigner in the house." + +Things, in her expression, "went on" in his mind, and she could not +understand what went on in his mind, and it exasperated her to know they +were going on and that she could not understand them. + +"I--don't--believe--I--would." Characteristic, typical expression of +those processes of his mind that she could not understand! And then the +reason: "I wouldn't because I'd have known perfectly well that you'd +have thought it--funny." + +And, exasperation on exasperation's head, he was right. She did think it +funny; and by his very reply--for she knew him well enough, so +exasperatingly well, to know that this was complete sincerity, complete +truth--he proved to her that it was not really funny but merely +something she could not understand. Robbery of her fancy, her hope that +it was something definite against him, something justifiably incentive +of resentment, of jealousy! + +It was as if he had said, "You can't understand a letter like this. +There's nothing in it to understand. And that's just what you can't +understand. Look here, you see my head. I'm in there. You can't come in. +You don't know how to. I can't tell you how to. Nobody could tell you. +And you wouldn't know what to make of it if you did get in." + +Exasperating. Insufferable. Insupportable! + +She could not express her feelings in words. She expressed them in +action. She arose violently and left the room. The whole of her emotions +she put into the slam of the door behind her. The ornaments shivered. A +cup sprang off a bracket and dashed itself to pieces on the floor. + + +XIII + +Sabre regarded the broken cup much as Sir Isaac Newton presumably +regarded the fallen apple. He "worked back" from the cup through the +events of the day, and through the events of the day returned to the +cup. It interested him to find that the fragments on the floor were as +logical a result of the movements of the day as they would have been of +getting the small hand axe out of the woodshed, aiming a blow at the +cup, and hitting the cup. + +He thought, "I started to break that cup when I rustled the newspaper at +breakfast. I went on when I suddenly came back and got into that +niggling business over why I had come back. Went on when I walked off to +my room after that letter business. Practically took up the axe when I +couldn't say, 'Well, how's the Garden Home going on?' at dinner. And +smashed it when I chaffed about Bagshaw an hour ago. Rum business! +Rotten business." + +That was the day's epitaph. But for the murder of the cup he found--gone +to bed and lying awake--a culprit other than himself. He thought, "It +was meeting Nona made me come home like that. But if that had been the +first time I'd ever met Nona I shouldn't have returned. So it goes back +further than that. Nine--ten years. The day she married Tybar. If she +hadn't married Tybar she'd have married me. The cup wouldn't have been +broken. Nona broke that cup." + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +I + +These events were on a Monday. On the following Thursday Nona came to +see him at his office. + +She was announced through the speaking-tube on his desk: + +"Lady Tybar to see you, sir." + +Nona! But he was not really surprised. He had taken no notice of her +letter. He had wanted to go up to Northrepps to see her, but he had not +been. When two days passed and still he prevented himself from going, he +began to have the feeling--somehow--that she would come to see him. It +was the third day and she was here, downstairs. + +"Ask her to come up," he said. + +She came in. She wore (as Sabre saw it) "a pale-blue sort of thing" and +"a sort of black hat." He had considered it as an odd thing, in his +thoughts of her since their meeting, that, though he could always have +some kind of notion what other women were wearing, he never could +remember any detail of Nona's dress. + +But it was her face he always looked at. + +She stood still immediately she was across the threshold and the door +closed behind her. She was smiling as though she felt herself to be up +to some lark. "Hullo, Marko. Don't you hate me for coming in here like +this?" + +"It's jolly surprising." + +"That's another way of saying it. Now if you'd said it was surprisingly +jolly! Well, shake hands, Marko, and pretend you're glad." + +He laughed and put out his hand. But she delayed response; she first +slipped off the gauntlets she was wearing and then gave him her hand. +"There!" she said. + +"There!" It was as though she had now done something she much wanted to +do; as one says "There!" on at last sitting down after much fatigue. + +She tossed her gauntlets on to a chair. She walked past him towards the +window. "You got my letter?" + +"Yes." + +Her face was averted. Her voice had not the bantering note with which +she had spoken at her entry. + +"You never answered it." + +"Well, I'd just seen you--just before I got it." + +She was looking out of the window. "Why haven't you been up?" + +"Oh--I don't know. I was coming." + +"Well, I had to come," she said. + +He made no reply. He could think of none to make. + + +II + +She turned sharply away from the window and came towards him, radiant +again, as at her entry. And in her first bantering tone, "I know you +hate it," she smiled, resuming her first suggestion, "me coming here, +like this. It makes you feel uncomfortable. You always feel +uncomfortable when you see me, Marko. I'd like to know what you thought +when they told you I was here--" + +He started to speak. + +She went on, "No, I wouldn't. I'd like to know just what you were doing +before they told you. Tell me that, Marko." + +"I believe I wasn't doing anything. Just thinking." + +"Well, I like you best when you're thinking. You puzzle, don't you, +Marko? You've got a funny old head. I believe you live in your old +head, you know. Puzzling things. Clever beast! I wish I could live in +mine." And she gave a note of laughter. + +"Where do you live, Nona?" + +"I don't live. I just go on"--she paused--"flotsam." + +Strange word to use, strangely spoken! + +It seemed to Sabre to drop with a strange, detached effect into the +conversation between them. His habit of visualising inanimate things +caused him to see as it were a pool between them at their feet, and from +the word dropped into it ripples that came to his feet upon his margin +of the pool and to her feet upon hers. + + +III + +He took the word away from its personal application. "I believe that's +rather what I was thinking about when you came, Nona. About how we just +go on--flotsam. Don't you know on a river where it's tidal, or on the +seashore at the turn, the mass of stuff you see there, driftwood and +spent foam and stuff, just floating there, uneasily, brought in and left +there--from somewhere; and then presently the tide begins to take it and +it's drawn off and moves away and goes--somewhere. Arrives and floats +and goes. That's mysterious, Nona?" + +She said swiftly, as though she were stirred, "Oh, Marko, yes, that's +mysterious. Do you know sometimes I've seen drift like that, and I've +felt--oh, I don't know. But I've put out a stick and drawn in a piece of +wood just as the stuff was moving off, just to save it being carried +away into--well, into that, you know." + +"Have you, Nona?" + +She answered, "Do you think that's what life is, Marko?" + +"It's not unlike," he said. And he added, "Except about some one coming +along with a stick and drawing a bit into safety. I'm not so sure about +that. Perhaps that's what we're all looking for--" + +He suddenly realised that he was back precisely at the thoughts his mind +had taken up on the morning he had met her. But with a degree more of +illumination. Two feelings came into his mind, the second hard upon the +other and overriding it, as a fierce horseman might catch and override +one pursued. He said, "It's rather jolly to have some one that can see +ideas like that." And then the overriding, and he said with astonishing +roughness, "But you--you aren't flotsam! How can you be flotsam--the +life you've--taken?" + +And, lo, if he had struck her, and she been bound, defenceless, and with +her eyes entreating not to be struck again, she could not deeper have +entreated him than in the glance she fleeted from her eyes, the quiver +of her lids that first released, then veiled it. + +It stopped his words. It caught his throat. + + +IV + +He got up quickly. "I say, Nona, never mind about thinking. I'll tell +you what's been doing. Rotten. Happened just after I met you the other +day." + +"The dust on these roads!" she said. She touched her eyes with her +handkerchief. "What, Marko?" + +"Well, old Fortune promised to take me into partnership about an age +ago." + +"Marko, he ought to have done it an age ago. What's there rotten about +that?" Her voice and her air were as gay as when she had entered. + +"The rotten thing is that he's turned it down. At least practically has. +He--" He told her of the Twyning and Fortune incident. "Pretty rotten +of old Fortune, don't you think?" + +"Old fiend!" said Nona. "Old trout!" + +Sabre laughed. "Good word, trout. The men here all say he's like a +whale. They call him Jonah," and he told her why. + +She laughed gaily. "Marko! How disgusting you are! But I'm sorry. I am. +Poor old Marko.... Of course it doesn't matter a horse-radish what an +old trout like that thinks about your work, but it does matter, doesn't +it? I know how you feel. They had an author man at a place we were +staying at the other day--Maurice Ash--and he told me that although he +says it doesn't matter, and knows it doesn't matter, when an absolutely +trivial person says something riling about any of his stuff, still it +does matter. He said a thing you've produced out of yourself you can't +bear to have slighted--not by the butcher. Gladys Occleve made us laugh. +Maurice Ash said to her, 'It's like a mother's child. Look here, you're +a countess,' he said to her. 'You oughtn't to mind what a butcher thinks +of your children; but supposing the butcher said your infant Henry was a +stupid little brat; what would you do?' Gladys said she'd dash a best +end of the neck straight into his face." + +Sabre laughed. "Yes, that's the feeling. But of course, all these +books"--he indicated the shelves--"aren't mine, not my children, more +like my adopted children." + +She declared it was the same thing. "More so, in a way. You've invented +them, haven't you, called them out of the vasty deep sort of thing and +brought them up in the way they should go. I do think it's rather fine, +Marko." + +She was at the shelves, scanning the books. Her fond, her almost tender +sympathy made him, too, feel that it was rather fine. Her light words +in her high, clear tone voiced exactly his feelings towards the books. +Talking with her was, in the reception and return of his thoughts, +nearer to reading a book that delighted him than to anything else with +which he could compare it. There was the same interchange of ideas, not +necessarily expressed; the same creation and play of fancy, imagined, +not stated. + +Her hands were moving about the volumes, pulling out a book here and +there; she mused the titles. "'Greek Unseens--Prose'; 'Greek +Unseens--Verse'; 'Latin Unseens--Verse.' Marvellous person, Marko! 'The +Shell Algebra'; 'The Shell Latin Grammar'; 'The Shell English +Literature': 'The Shell Modern Geography.' That's a series 'The Shell,' +eh? I _do_ call that a good idea. 'The Six Terms Chemistry'; 'The Six +Terms Geology.'" + +"Yes, that's another series," he said. He was standing beside her. +Delightful this! His pride in his work thrilled anew. "You see the idea +of the thing. Gives the boy the feeling of something definite to get +through in a definite time." + +She was reading one of the prefaces, signed with his initials. "Yes, +that's ever so good. I see what you've written here, '...avoiding the +formidable and unattractive wilderness that a new textbook commonly +presents to the pupil's mind.' I call that jolly good, Marko. I call it +all awfully good. Fancy you sitting in here and thinking out all those +ideas. Or do you think them out at home? Do you talk them out with +Mabel?" + +He thought of Mabel's expression. "Those lesson books." He lied. "Oh, +yes. Pretty often." + +"Show me which was the first one of all--the one you began with." + +He showed her. "Fancy!" She handled it. "How fearfully proud of it you +must have been, Marko. And Mabel; wasn't she proud? The very first!" She +called it "Dear thing" and returned it to its place with a little pat, +as of affection. + +He turned away. "Oh, well, that's enough," he said. + + +V + +She moved about the room, touching things, looking at things. + +"Show me something else. Is that where the old trout basks? Can he hear +us? I'm glad I've seen your room, Marko. I shall imagine you puzzling in +here." + +Touching things, looking at things.... He thought the room would always +look different--after this. He felt strangely disturbed. He could with +difficulty reply to her. His mind threw back, in its habit, to some dim +occasion when he had felt in some degree as he was feeling now. When? +Certainly he had felt it before. When? + +He remembered. It was a Saturday in the first month of his first term at +Tidborough School when his father had come over to see him. The +loneliness of newness was still upon him. He had been affected almost to +tears by being with some one whose mind was open, as it were, for him to +jump into: some one to whom he could open his mind, unseal the home +thoughts, unlock the timid tongue. He had talked how he had talked! He +had felt bursting to talk; and only talking could ease the feeling; and +how it had eased! Yes, this was the same again. He did not want her to +go. He wanted to talk--how he wanted to talk!--to tell, unseal, unlock, +expose. + +He said, "I tell you what, Nona. I'll tell you something. I've an idea +sometimes of cutting out from all this place and starting an +educational publishing business on my own." + +She was enormously interested. "Oh, Marko, if only you would!" + +"Well, I think about it. I do. I can see a biggish thing in it. The +Tidborough Press, I'd call it. Like the University Press, you know, +Oxford and Cambridge. By Jove, it might go any distance, you know!" + +"Oh, you must! You must!" + +He began to pour out the tremendous and daring scheme. + + +VI + +He talked animatedly,--these long pent up enthusiasms. She attended, +rapt and gleaming-eyed, following him with most delicious "Yes--yes" and +with little nods; and he suddenly became aware of how poignant to him +was the sympathy of her interest,--and stopped. Thus to pour out, thus +to be heard, was to experience the exquisite pain that comes with sudden +relief of intolerable pain, as when an anodyne steals through the veins +of torture. He stopped. He could not bear it. + +"Well, that's all," he said. + +She declared, "It's splendid. How well you're doing, Marko. I knew you +would." She paused. "Not that that matters," she said. + +He asked her, "What do you mean--'not that that matters'?" + +She made a little face at him. "Marko, you're not to snap me up like +that. I've noticed it two or three times. I mean it doesn't matter what +a man does. It's what he is that matters." + +He laughed. "Well, that lets me down pretty badly if that's the +estimate. I'm awful, you know." + +She shook her head. "Oh, you're not so bad." + +"You don't know me. I've been growing awful these years." + +"Tell me how awful you are. Does Mabel think you're awful?" + +"You ask her! I'm the most unsatisfactory sort of person it's possible +to meet. Really." + +"Go on; tell me, Marko. I like this." + +"What, like hearing how unsatisfactory I am?" + +"I like hearing you talk. You've got rather a nice voice--I used to tell +you that, didn't I?--and I like hearing you stumbling about trying to +explain your ideas. You've got ideas. You're rather an ideary person. Go +on. Why are you unsatisfactory?" + +How familiar her voice was on that note,--caressing, drawing him on. + +He said, "I'll tell you, Nona. I'm unsatisfactory because I've got the +most infernal habit of seeing things from about twenty points of view +instead of one. For other people, that's the most irritating thing you +can possibly imagine. I've no convictions; that's the trouble. I swing +about from side to side. I always can see the other side of a case, and +you know, that's absolutely fatal--" + +She said gently, "Fatal to what, Marko?" + +He was going to say, "To happiness"; but he looked at her and then +looked away. "Well, to everything; to success. You can't possibly be +successful if you haven't got convictions--what I call bald-headed +convictions. That's what success is, Nona, the success of politicians +and big men whose names are always in the papers. It's that: seeing a +thing from only one point of view and going all out for it from that +point of view. Convictions. Not mucking about all round a thing and +seeing it from about twenty different sides like I do. You know, you +can't possibly pull out this big, booming sort of stuff they call +success if you're going to see anybody's point of view but your own. You +must have convictions. Yes, and narrower than that, not convictions but +conviction. Only one conviction--that you're right and that every one +who thinks differently from you is wrong to blazes." He laughed. "And +I'm dashed if I ever _think_ I'm right, let alone conviction of it. I +can always see the bits of right on the other side of the argument. +That's me. Dash me!" + +She said, "Go on, Marko. I like this." + +"Well, that's all there is to it, Nona. These conviction chaps, these +booming politicians and honours-list chaps, these Bagshaw chaps--you +know Bagshaw?--they go like a cannon ball. They go like hell and smash +through and stick when they get there. My sort's like the footballs you +see down at the school punt-about. Wherever there's a punt I feel it and +respond to it. My sort's out to be kicked--" He laughed again. "But I +couldn't be any other sort." + +She said, "I'm glad you couldn't be, Marko. You're just the same as you +used to be. I'm glad you're the same." + +He did not reply. + + +VII + +She sat briskly forward in the big armchair in which she faced him, +making of the motion a movement as though throwing aside a turn the +conversation had taken. "Well, go on, Marko. Go on talking. I'm not +going to let you stop talking yet. I love that about how people get +success nowadays. It's jolly true. I never thought of it before. Yes, +you're still a terribly thinky person, Marko. Go on. Think some more. +Out loud." + +Caressing--drawing him on--just as of old. + +He said thoughtfully, "I tell you a thing I often think a lot about, +Nona. You being here like this puts it in my mind. Conventions." + +She smiled teasingly. "Ah, poor Marko. I knew you'd simply hate it, my +coming in like this. Does it seem terribly unconventional, improper, to +you, shut up with me in your office?" + +He shook his head. "It seems very nice. That's all it seems. But it does +bring into my mind that you're the sort of person that doesn't think +tuppence about what's usually done or what's not usually done; and that +reminded me of things I've thought about conventions. Look here, Nona, +this really is rather interesting--" + +"Yes," she said. "Yes." + +Just so he used to bring ideas to her; just so, with "Yes--yes," she +used to receive them. + +But he went on. "Why, convention, you know, it's the most mysterious, +extraordinary thing. It's a code society has built up to protect itself +and to govern itself, and when you go into it it's the most marvellous +code that ever was invented. All sorts of things that the law doesn't +give, and couldn't give, our conventions shove in on us in the most +amazing way. And all probably originated by a lot of Mother Grundy-ish +old women, that's what's so extraordinary. You know, if all the greatest +legal minds of all the ages had laid themselves out to make a social +code they could never have got anywhere near the rules the people have +built up for themselves. And that's what I like, Nona--that's what I +think so interesting and the best thing in life: the things the people +do for themselves without any State interference. That's what I'd +encourage all I knew how if I were a politician--" + +He broke off. "I say, aren't I the limit, gassing away like this? I +hardly ever get off nowadays and when I do!--Why don't you stop me?" + +She made a little gesture deprecatory of his suggestion. "Because I like +to hear you. I like to watch your funny old face when you're on one of +your ideas. It gets red underneath, Marko, and the red slowly comes up. +Funny old face! Go on. I want to hear this because I'm going to disagree +with you, I think. I think conventions, most of them, are odious, +hateful, Marko. I hate them." + + +VIII + +He had been strangely affected by the words of her interruptions: a +contraction in the throat,--a twitching about the eyes.... But he was +able, and glad that he was able to catch eagerly at her opinion. +"Yes, yes, I know, odious, hateful, and much more than that, +cruel--conventions can be as cruel, as cruel as hell. I was just coming +to that. But they're all absolutely rightly based, Nona. That's the +baffling and the maddening part of them. That's what interests me in +them. In their application they're often unutterably wrong, cruel, +hideously cruel and unjust, but when you examine them, even at their +cruellest, you can't help seeing that fundamentally they're absolutely +right and reasonable and necessary. Look, take quite a silly example. +There's a convention against going to church in any but your best +clothes. It's easy to conceive wrongness in the application of it. It's +easy to conceive a person wanting to go to church and likely to benefit +by going to church, but staying away because of feeling too shabby. But +you can't help seeing the rightness at the bottom of it--the idea of +presenting yourself decently at worship, as before princes. That makes +you laugh--" + +"It doesn't, Marko. I can see much worse things just on the same +principle." + +He said pleasedly, "Of course you can, can't you? Look at all this stuff +there's been in the papers lately about what they call the problem of +the unmarried mother. Now there's a brute of a case for you: a girl gets +into trouble and while she sticks to her baby she's made an outcast; +every door is shut to her; her own people will have nothing to do with +her; no one will take her in--so long as she's got the baby with her. +That's convention and you can imagine cases where it's cruel beyond +words. But it's no good cursing society about it. You can't help seeing +that the convention is fundamentally right and essential. Where on earth +would you be if girls with babies could find homes as easily as girls +without babies?" He smiled. "You'd have babies pouring out all over the +place. See it?" + +She nodded. "I _do_ think that's interesting, Marko. I think that's most +awfully interesting. Yes, cruel and hateful and preposterous, many of +them, but all fundamentally right. I think that's _absorbing_. I shall +look out for conventions now, and when they annoy me most I'll think out +what they're based on. I will!" + +"Well, it's not a bad idea," he said. "It helps in all sorts of ways to +think things out as they happen to you. You don't realise what a +mysterious business life is till you begin to do that; and once you +begin to feel the mysteriousness of it there's not much can upset you. +You get the feeling that you're part of an enormous, mysterious game, +and you just wonder what the last move means. Eh?" + +She did not answer. + +Presently she said, "Yes, you do still think things, Marko. You haven't +changed a bit, you know. You're just the same." + +He smiled. "Oh, well, it's only two years, you know--less than two years +since you went away." + +"I wasn't thinking of two years." + +"How many years were you thinking of?" + +"Ten." + +They just sat there. + + +IX + +The insistent shrieking of a motor siren in the street below began to +penetrate their silence. When it came to Sabre's consciousness he had +somehow the feeling that it had been going on a very long time. He +jumped to his feet. The siren had the obscene and terrific note of a +gigantic hen in delirium. "What the devil's that?" + +She received his question with the blank look of one whose mind had no +idea of the question's reason. The strangled gurgle and shriek from +without informed her in paroxysms of hideous sound. With a motion of her +body, as of one shaking off dreams, she threw away the be-musement in +which she had sat. She screwed up her face in torture. "Oh, _wow!_ Isn't +it too awful! That's Tony. In the car. I told him I'd look in here." She +glanced at the clock. "Marko; it's one o'clock. I've been here two +mortal hours!" + +The gigantic hen screamed in delirious death agony. + +"Oh, good heavens, that noise!" She stepped to the window and opened the +casement. "Tony! That noise! Tony, for goodness' sake!" + +An extravagantly long motor car was drawn against the curb. Lord Tybar, +in a dust coat and a sleek bowler hat of silver grey, sat in the +driver's seat. He was industriously and without cessation winding the +handle of the siren. An uncommonly pretty woman sat beside him. She was +massed in furs. In her ears she held the index finger of each hand, her +elbows sticking out on each side of her head. Thus severally occupied, +she and Lord Tybar made an unusual picture, and a not inconsiderable +proportion of the youth and citizens of Tidborough stood round the front +of the car and enjoyed the unusual picture that they made. + +The spectators looked up at Nona's call; Lord Tybar ceased the handle +and looked up with his engaging smile; the uncommonly pretty woman +removed her fingers from her ears and also turned upwards her uncommonly +pretty face. + +"Hullo!" called Lord Tybar. "Did you happen to hear my sighs?" + +"That appalling noise!" said Nona. "You ought to be prosecuted!" + +"If you'd had it next to you!" piped the uncommonly pretty lady in an +uncommonly pretty voice. "It's like a whole ship being seasick +together." + +"It's nothing of the kind," protested Lord Tybar. "It's the plaintive +lament of a husband entreating his wife." He directed his eyes further +backward. "Good morning, Mr. Fortune. Did you recognize my voice calling +my wife? There were tears in it. Perhaps you didn't." + +"Good lord," said Sabre, "there's old Fortune at his window. I'll come +down with you, Nona." + +As they went down he asked her, "Who's that with him in the car?" + +"One of his friends. Staying with us." + +Something in her voice made it--afterwards--occur to him as odd that she +spoke of one of "his", not one of "our" friends, and did not mention her +name. + +"Well, the whole of Tidborough knows where you've been, Nona," Lord +Tybar greeted them. "And a good place too." He addressed the lady by his +side. "Puggo, look at those pulpits and things in the window. You never +go to church. It'll do you good. That's a pulpit, that tall thing. They +preach from that." + +The lady remarked, "Thanks. I can remember it. At least I was married in +a church, you know." + +"And, of course," said Nona, "you always remember you're married, don't +you?" + +Sabre glanced quickly at her. Her tone cut across the frivolous +exchanges with an acid note. So utterly unlike Nona! + +And the thing was real, not imagined; and went further. The uncommonly +pretty woman addressed as Puggo replied, "Oh, always. And so do you, +don't you, dear?" and her uncommonly pretty eyes went in a quick glance +from Nona's face to Sabre's, where they hovered the fraction of a +moment, and thence to Lord Tybar's where also they hovered, and smiled. + +And Lord Tybar, his small, handsome head slightly on one side, looked +from one to another with precisely that mock in his glance that Sabre +had noticed, and transiently wondered at, on the day he had met them +riding. + +Funny! + +"But, Puggo, you don't know Sabre, do you?" Lord Tybar said. "Sabre, +this is Mrs. Winfred. A woman of mystery. One mystery is how she ever +won Fred and the other why she is called Puggo. There must be something +pretty dark in her past to have got her a name like Puggo." + +The woman of mystery shrugged her shoulders. "Of course Tony's simply a +fool," she observed. "You know that, don't you, Mr. Sabre?" + +"It's not her face," Lord Tybar continued. "You might think it's her +figure the way she hides it up under all those furs on a day like this. +But a pug's figure--" + +Nona broke in. "I suppose we're going to start some time?" + +"Will you come and sit here?" Puggo inquired, but without making any +movement. + +"No, I'll sit behind." + +She got in. "Good-by, Marko." Her voice sounded tired. She gave Sabre +her hand. "Jolly, the books," she said. "And our talk." + +"Now throw yourself in front, any boy who wants to be killed," Lord +Tybar called to the idlers. "No corpses to-day?" He let in the clutch. +"Good-by, Sabre. Good-by, good-by." He waved his hand airily. The big +car slid importantly up the street. + +Sabre watched them pass out of sight. As the car turned out of The +Precincts into High Street--a nasty corner--Lord Tybar, alone of the +three, one hand on the steering wheel, half turned in his seat and +twirled the silver-grey bowler in gay farewell. + +Or mockery? + + +X + +Through the day Sabre's thoughts, as a man sorting through many +documents and coming upon and retaining one, fined down towards a +picture of himself alone with Nona--alone with her, watching her +beautiful face--and saying to her: "Look here, there were three things +you said, three expressions you used. Explain them, Nona." + +Fined down towards this picture, sifting the documents. + +He thought, "Tybar--Tybar.--They're just alike in their way of saying +things, Nona and Tybar. That bantering way they talk when they're +together--when they're together. Tybar does, whoever he's with. Not +Nona. Not with me. But with Tybar. She plays up to him when they're +together. And he plays up to her. Everybody says how amusing they are. +They're perfectly suited. They look so dashed handsome, the pair of +them. And always that bantering talk. Nona chose deliberately between +Tybar and me. I know she did. She loved me, till he came along. It's +old. Ten years old. I can look at it. She chose deliberately. I can see +her choosing: 'Tybar or Marko?--oh, dash it, Tybar.' And she chose +right. She's just his mate. He's just her mate. They're a pair. That +bantering, airy way of theirs together. That's just characteristic of +the oneness of their characters. I couldn't put up that bantering sort +of stuff. I never could. I'm a jolly sight too serious. And Nona knew +it. She used to laugh at me about it. She still does. 'You puzzle, don't +you, Marko?' she said this very morning." + +He thought, "No, that wasn't laughing at me. Not that. No, it wasn't. +Not that--nor any of it. What did she mean when she said 'There!' like +that when she gave me her hand when she first came in? And took off her +glove first. What did she mean when she said she had to come? 'Well, I +had to come,' she said.--What did she mean when she said she was +flotsam?--_Flotsam_! Why? Made me angry in my voice when I asked her. I +said, 'How can you be flotsam?' And how the devil can she?--Nona, with +Tybar, flotsam? But she said it. I said, 'How can you be flotsam, the +life you've--taken?' I didn't mean to say 'taken' like that. I meant to +have said 'the life you've got, you live.' But I meant taken, chosen. +She did take it, deliberately. She chose between us. I might almost have +heard her choose 'Marko or Tybar? Oh, dash it--Tybar.' I never +reproached her, not by a look. I saw her point of view. My infernal +failing, even then. Not by a look I ever reproached her. I thought I'd +forgotten it, absolutely. But I haven't. It came out in that moment that +I haven't. 'The life you've--taken!' I meant it to sting. Damn me, it +did sting. That look she gave! As if I had struck her.--What rot! How +could it sting her? How could she mind? Only if she regretted.--Is it +_likely_?" + +He thought, "But _is_ she happy? Is it all what it appears between them? +That remark she made to that woman and the extraordinary way she said +it. 'You never forget you're married, do you?' Amazing thing to say, the +way she said it. What did she mean? And that woman. She said something +like, 'Nor you, do you?' and looked at me and then at Tybar. And Tybar +looked--at Nona, at me, as if he'd got some joke, some mock...." + +He thought, "What rot! She chose. She knew he was her sort. She knew I +wasn't. She chose deliberately...." + +Clearly, as it were yesterday, he remembered the day she had declared to +him her choice. In the Cathedral cloisters. Walking together. And +suddenly, in the midst of indifferent things, she told him, "I say, +Marko, I'm going to marry Lord Tybar." + +And his reply, the model of indifference. "Are you, Nona?" + +Nothing else said of it between them. There would certainly have been +more discussion if she had said she was going to buy a packet of +hairpins. And his thought had immediately been, not this nor that nor +the other of a hundred thoughts proper to a blow so stunning, but merely +and immediately and precisely that he would tell his father Yes to what +that very morning he had told him No,--that he would go into the +Fortune, East and Sabre business. Extraordinary effect from such a +cause! Grotesque. Paradoxical. Going into Fortune, East and Sabre meant +"settling down"; marriage conventionally involved settling down; yet, +while he had visioned marriage with Nona, settling down had been the +last thing in the world to think of,--because he projected marriage with +Nona, he had that very morning rejected settling down. He was not to +marry her; therefore, yes, he would settle down. Amazing. He had not +realised how amazing till now. + +And catastrophic. Not till now had he realised to what catastrophe he +then had plunged. He thought, "The fact was Nona touched things in me +that helped me. Without her I just shut down--I just go about--longing, +longing, and all shut up, day after day, year after year--all shut up. +And now there's this--she's come back like this--" + +He came upon the picture of himself alone with Nona--alone with her +watching her beautiful face--and saying to her, "Look here, there were +three things you said, three expressions you used. Explain them, Nona. +Explain 'There!' with your glove off. Explain 'Flotsam.' Explain 'Well, +I had to come.' Explain them, Nona--for God's sake." + + + +CHAPTER V + + +I + +But it was October before he asked her to explain them. The Tybars, as +he learnt when next he met her, a week after her visit to the office, +were only at Northrepps for a breathing space after their foreign tour. +Through the summer they were going the usual social round, ending in +Scotland. Back in October for the shooting, and wintering there through +the hunting season. + +So she told him; and he thought while she was speaking, "All right. I'll +accept that. That helps to stop me asking her. If an opportunity occurs +before she goes I'll ask her. I must. But if it doesn't occur I'll +accept that. I won't make an opportunity." + +It did not occur, and he abode by his resolution. He met her once or +twice, always in other company. And she was always then particularly +gay, particularly airy, particularly bantering. But answering her banter +he once caught an expression behind her airiness. He thought, "It is a +shield"; and he turned away abruptly from her. He could not bear it. + +This was on the occasion of a little dinner party at Northrepps to which +he had come with Mabel; Major Hopscotch Millet and one or two others +were among the guests. Major Millet, who had been in particularly +hopscotch, Ri--te _O_! form throughout the evening, was walking back, +but Mabel invited him to accompany them in the ancient village fly. +"Ri--te _O_!" said Major Millet with enormous enthusiasm. + +Nona came with them to the door on their departure. Sabre was last down +the steps. "Well, I shan't see you again till October," she said. + +"No, till October." He no more than touched her hand and turned away. He +had kept his resolution. + +She was close behind him. He heard her give the tiniest little catch at +her breath. She said, "Shall I write to you, Marko?" + +He turned towards her. She was smiling as though it was a chaffing +remark she had made. Her shield! + +And he answered her from behind his own shield, "Oh, well, I'm bad at +letters, you know." + +But their eyes met with no shields before them; and she was wounded, for +he just caught her voice as he went down the steps, "Oh, Marko, do write +to me!" + +The Ri--te O voice of the Hopscotch. "Come on, Sabre, my boy! Come on! +Come on!" + +He got into the cab. Major Millet had taken the seat next Mabel. "Ri--te +_O_, Cabby!" the Hopscotch hailed. + +As the horse turned with the staggering motions proper to its burden of +years and infirmity, Mabel inquired, "What was Lady Tybar talking to you +about all that time?" + +He said, "Oh, just saying good-by." + +But he was thinking, "That's a fourth question: Why did you say, 'Oh, +Marko, do write to me'? Or was that the answer to the other questions, +although I never asked them?" + + +II + +He did not write to her. But in October a ridiculous incident impelled +afresh the urgent desire to ask her the questions: an incident no less +absurd than the fact that in October Low Jinks knocked her knee. + +Mabel spent two months of the summer on visits to friends. In August +she was with her own people on their annual holiday at Buxton. There +Sabre, who had a fortnight, joined her. It happened to be the fortnight +of the croquet tournament, and it happened that Major Millet was also in +Buxton. Curiously enough he had also been at Bournemouth, whence Mabel +had just come from cousins, and they had played much croquet there +together. It was projected as great fun to enter the Buxton tournament +in partnership, and Sabre did not see a great deal of Mabel. + +It was late September when they resumed life together at Penny Green. In +their absence the light railway linking up the Garden Home with +Tidborough and Chovensbury had been opened with enormous excitement and +celebration; and Mabel became at once immersed in paying calls and +joining the activities of the new and intensely active community. + +Then Low Jinks knocked her knee. + +The knee swelled and for two days Low Jinks had to keep her leg on a +chair. It greatly annoyed Mabel to see Low Jinks sitting in the kitchen +with her leg "stuck out on a chair." She told Sabre it was extraordinary +how "that class of person" always got in such a horrible state from the +most ridiculous trifles. "I suppose I knock my knee a dozen times a +week, but my knee doesn't swell up and get disgusting. You're always +reading in the paper about common people getting stung by wasps, or +getting a scratch from a nail, and dying the next day. They must be in a +horrible state. It always makes me feel quite sick." + +Sabre laughed. "Well, I expect poor old Low Jinks feels pretty sick +too." + +"She enjoys it." + +"What, sitting there with a knee like a muffin? I had a look at her just +now. Don't you think she might have one of those magazines to read? She +looks pretty sorry for herself." + +Signs of "flying up." "You haven't given her a magazine, have you?" + +"No--I haven't. But I told her I would after dinner." + +"If you don't mind you won't. Rebecca has plenty to occupy her time. She +can perfectly well clean the silver and things like that, and she has +her sewing. She has upset the house quite enough with her leg stuck out +on a chair all day without reading magazines." + +And then in the extraordinary way in which discussions between them were +suddenly lifted by Mabel on to unsuspected grievances against him, Sabre +suddenly found himself confronted with, "You know how she hurt her knee, +I suppose?" + +He knew the tone. "No. My fault, was it?" + +"Yes. As it happens, it was your fault--to do with you." + +"Good lord! However did I manage to hurt Low Jinks's knee?" + +"She did it bringing in your bicycle." + +He thought, "Now what on earth is this leading up to?" During the weeks +of his separation from Mabel, thinking often of Nona, he had caused +himself to think from her to Mabel. His reasoning and reasonable habit +of mind had made him, finding extraordinary rest in thought of Nona, +accuse himself for finding none in thought of Mabel. She was his wife; +he never could get away from the poignancy of that phrase. His wife--his +responsibility towards her--the old thought, eight years old, of all she +had given up in exchanging her own life for his life--and what was she +getting? He set himself, on their reunion, always to remember the +advantage he had over her: that he _could_ reason out her attitude +towards things; that she could not,--neither his attitude nor, what was +more, her own. + +Now. What was this leading up to? "She did it bringing in your bicycle." +Puzzling sometimes over passages with Mabel that with mysterious and +surprising suddenness had plunged into scenes, he had whimsically +envisaged how he had been, as it were, led blindfolded to the edge of a +precipice, and then, _whizz!_ sent flying over on to the angry crags +below. + +Bantering protest sometimes averted the disaster. "Well, come now, +Mabel, that's not my fault. That was your idea, making Low Jinks come +out and meet me every evening as if the old bike was a foam-flecked +steed. Wasn't it now?" + +"Yes, but not in the dark." + +Mysterious manoeuvring! But he felt he was approaching the edge. "In the +dark?" + +"Yes, not in the dark. What I mean is, I really cannot imagine why you +must keep up your riding all through the winter. It was different when +there was no other way. Now the railway is running I simply cannot +imagine why you don't use it." + +"Well, that's easy--because I like the ride." + +"You can't possibly like riding back on these pitch dark nights, cold +and often wet. That's absurd." + +"Well, I like it a jolly sight better than fugging up in those carriages +with all that gassing crowd of Garden Home fussers." + +And immediately, _whizz!_ he went over the edge. + +"That's just it!" Mabel said. And he thought, "Ah!" + +"That's just it. And of course you laugh. Why you can't be friendly with +people like other men, I never can imagine. There're heaps of the nicest +people up at the Garden Home, but from the first you've set yourself +against them. Why you never like to make friends like other people!" + +He did not answer. + +They were at dinner. She made an elaborate business of reaching for the +salt. "If you ask me, it's because you don't think they're good enough +for you." + +He thought, "That's to rouse me. I'm dashed if I'm going to be roused." +He thought, "It's getting the devil, this. There's never a subject we +start but we work up to something like this. We work on one another like +acid on acid. In a minute she'll have another go at it, and then I shall +fly off, and then there we'll be. It's my fault. She doesn't think out +these things like I do. She just says what comes into her head, whereas +I know perfectly well where we're driving to, so I'm really responsible. +I rile her. I either rile her by saying something in trying not to fly +off, or else I let myself go, and off I fly, and we're at it. Acid on +acid. It's getting the devil, this. But I'm dashed if I'll fly off. It's +up to me." + +He tried in his mind for some matter that would change the subject. +Extraordinary how hard it was to find a new topic when some other +infernal thing hung in the air. It was like, in a nightmare, trying with +leaden limbs to crawl away from danger. + +And then she began: + +She resumed precisely at the point where she had left off. While his +mind had journeyed in review all around and about the relations between +them, her mind had remained cumbrously at the thought of her last words. +There, he told himself, was the whole difference between them. He was +intellectually infinitely more agile (he did not put it higher than +that) than she. She could not get away from things as he could. They +remained in her mind and rankled there. To get impatient with her, to +proceed from impatience to loss of temper, was flatly as cruel as to +permit impatience and anger with one bedridden and therefore unable to +join in robust exercises. He thought, "I'll not do it." + +She said, actually repeating her last words, "Yes, if you ask me, it's +because you don't think they're good enough for you. As it happens, +there're all sorts of particularly nice men up there, only you never +take the trouble to know them. And clever--the only thing you pretend to +judge by; though what you can find clever in Mr. Fargus or those Perches +goodness only knows. There're all sorts of Societies and Circles and +Meetings up there that I should have thought were just what would have +attracted you. But, no. You prefer that pottering Mr. Fargus with his +childish riddles and even that young Perch without spirit enough to go +half a yard without that everlasting old mother of his--" + +It was longer and fiercer than he had expected. He intercepted. "I say, +Mabel, what's the point of all this, exactly?" + +"The point is that it makes it rather hard for me, the way you go on. +I've made many, many friends up at the Garden Home. Do you suppose it +doesn't seem funny to them that my husband is never to be seen, never +comes near the place, never meets their husbands? Of course they must +think it funny. I know I feel it very awkward." + +He thought, "Girding! Sneering! Can't I get out of this?" Then he +thought, "Dash it, man, it's only just her way. What is there in it?" He +said, "Yes, but look here, Mabel, we started at my riding home in the +dark--or rather at old Low Jinks's muffin knee. Let's work out the +trouble about that." + +"That's what I'm talking about. I think it's extraordinary of you to go +riding by yourself all through the winter just to avoid people I'd like +you to be friendly with. I ask you not to and you call it 'fugging up in +railway carriages with them.' That was the elegant expression you used." + +"Elegant." That was the word Nona had said she was going to have for her +own. + +He sat up in his chair. He was glad he had kept his mind detached all +through this business. He was going to make an effort. + +He said, "Well, listen, Mabel. I'll explain. This is me explaining. +Behind this fork. I see what you mean. Perfectly well. I'm sorry. I'm +absolutely rotten at meeting new people. I always have been. I never +seem to have any conversation. They always think I'm just a fool--which, +as a matter of fact, I always feel in a crowd. But apart from that. +You've no idea how much I enjoy the bike ride. I wouldn't give it up for +anything. I've tried to explain to you sometimes. It gets me away from +things, and I like getting away from things. I feel--it's hard to +explain a stupid thing like this--I feel as if I were lifted out of +things and able to look at things from a sort of other-world point of +view. It's jolly. Don't you remember I suggested to you, oh, years ago, +when we were first--when we first came here, suggested you might ride in +part of the way with me of a morning, and told you the idea of the +thing? You didn't quite understand it--" + +She pushed back her chair. "I don't understand it now," she said. + +His eyes had been shining as they shone when he was interested or eager. +He threw himself back in his seat. "Oh, well!" + +She got up. She said in a very loud, very thin and edged voice, the +little constrictions on either side of her nose extraordinarily deep: + +"I never can understand any of your ideas, except that no one else ever +seems to have them. Except your Fargus friends perhaps. I should keep +them for them if I were you. Anyway, all I wanted to say I've said. All +I wanted to say was that, if you persist in riding home in the dark, I +really cannot allow Rebecca to go out and bring in your bicycle. After +this leg of hers is over, if it ever is over, I really cannot allow it +any more. That's all I wanted to say." + +She left the room. + +He began to fumble with extraordinary intensity in the pocket of his +dinner jacket for his cigarette case. He could feel it, but his fingers +seemed all thumbs. He got it out and it slipped through his fingers on +to the table. His hands were shaking. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +I + +A draper occupied the premises opposite Fortune, East and Sabre's. On +the following afternoon, just before five o'clock, Sabre saw Nona alight +from her car and go into the draper's. He put on his hat and coat and +descended into the street. As he crossed the road she came out. + +"Hullo, Marko!" + +"Hullo. Well, there's evidently one woman in the world who can get out +of a draper's in under an hour. You haven't been in a minute." + +"Did you see me go in? As a matter of fact I didn't want anything. As a +matter of fact, I was making up my mind--" + +"Whether to come in and see me?" + +She nodded. + +"What about having some tea somewhere?" + +"I think that's a good idea." + +He suggested the Cloister Tea Rooms. She spoke to the chauffeur and +accompanied him. + + +II + +The Cloister Tea Rooms were above a pastry cook's on the first floor of +one of the old houses in The Precincts. The irregularly shaped room +provided several secluded: tables, and they took one in a remote corner. +But their conversation would have suffered nothing in a more central +and neighboured situation. Nona began some account of her summer +visitations. Sabre spoke a little of local businesses: had she seen the +new railway? Had he been round the Garden Home since her return? But the +subjects were but skirmishers thrown out before dense armies of thoughts +that massed behind; met, and trifled, and rode away. When pretence of +dragging out the meal could no longer be maintained, Nona looked at her +watch. "Well, I must be getting back. We haven't had a particularly +enormous tea, but the chauffeur's had none." + +Sabre said, "Yes, let's get out of this." It was as though the thing had +been a strain. + +He put her into the car. She was so very, very quiet. He said, "I've +half a mind to drive up with you. I'd like a ride, and a walk back." + +She said the car could run him back, or take him straight over to Penny +Green. "Yes, come along up, Marko. They have rather fun in the billiard +room after tea." + +He got in and she shared with him the heavy fur rug. "Not that I want +fun in the billiard room," he said. + +She asked him lightly, "Pray what can we provide for you, then?" + +"I just want to drive up with you." + + +III + +It was only three miles to Northrepps. It seemed to Sabre an incredibly +short time before a turn in the road fronted them with the park gates. +And they had not spoken a word! He said, "By Jove, this car travels! +I'll get down at the gates, Nona. I'm not coming in. I want the walk +back." + +She made no attempt to dissuade him. She leaned forward and called to +the chauffeur; but as the car began to slow down, she gave a little +catch of emotion and said, "Well, we have had a chatty drive. You'd +better change your mind and come along up, Marko." + +He disengaged the rug from about him. "No, I think I'll get out here." +He turned towards her. "Look here, Nona. Get out here and walk up." He +echoed the little sound of feeling she had given, pretended laughter. +"It will do you good after that enormous tea." + +She said something about the tea being too enormous for exertion. + +The car drew up. He got out and turned to her. "Look here. Please do." + +He saw the colour fade away upon her face. "What for?" + +"To talk." It was all he could say. + +She put away the rug and gave him her hand. Warm, and she said, "How +dreadfully cold your hand is! Go on and get your tea, Jeffries. I'm +going to walk up." + +The man touched his cap. The car slid away and left them. + + +IV + +They were within the gates. It had been a dull day. Evening stood +mistily far up the long avenue of the drive and in the distances about +the park on either hand. Among October's massing leaves, a small +disquiet stirred. The leaves banked orderly between their parent trunks. +Sabre noticed as a curious thing how, when they stirred, they only +trembled in their massed formations, not broke their ranks, as if some +live thing ran beneath them. + +He said, "Do you know what this seems to me? It seems as though it was +only yesterday, or this morning, that you came to see me at the office +and we talked. Well, I want it to be only yesterday. I want to go on +from there." + +She said, "Yes." + +He hardly could hear the word. He looked at her. She was as tall as he. +Not least of the contributions to her beauty in his eyes was the slim +grace of her stature. But her face was averted; and he wanted most +terribly to see her face. "Stand a minute and look at me, Nona." He +touched her arm. "I want to see your face." + +She turned towards him and raised her eyes to his eyes. "Oh, what is it +you want to say, Marko?" + +There was that which glistened upon her lower lids; and about her mouth +were trembling movements; and in her throat a pulse beating. + +He said, "It's you I want to say something. I want you to explain some +things. Some things you said. Nona, when you came into my room that day +and shook hands you said, 'There!' when you gave me your hand. You took +off your glove and said, 'There!' I want to know why you said 'There!' +And you said, 'Well, I had to come.' And you said you were flotsam. And +that night--when we'd been up to you--you said, 'Oh, Marko, do write to +me.' I want you to explain what you meant." + +She said, "Oh, how can you remember?" + +He answered, "Because I remember, you must explain." + +"Please let me sit down, Marko." She faltered a little laugh. "I can +explain better sitting down." + +A felled trunk had been placed against the trees facing towards the +parkland. They went to it and he sat beside her. She sat upright but +bending forward a little over her crossed knees, her hands clasped on +them, looking before her across the park. + +"No, you must look at me," he said. + +She very slowly turned her body towards him. He thought her most +beautiful and the expression of her beautiful face was most terrible to +him in all his emotions. + + +V + +She spoke very slowly; almost with a perceptible pause between each +word. She said, "Well, I'll tell you. I said 'flotsam', didn't I? If I +explain that--you know what flotsam is, Marko. Have you ever looked it +up in the dictionary? The dictionary says it terribly. 'Goods +shipwrecked and found floating on the sea.' I'm twenty-eight, Marko. I +suppose that's not really very old. It seems a terrible age to me. You +see, you judge age by what you are in contrast with what you were. If +you're very happy I think it can't matter how old you are. If you look +back to when you were happy and then come to the now when you're not, it +seems a most terrible and tremendous gulf--and you see yourself just +floating--drifting farther and farther away from the happy years and +just being taken along, taken along, to God knows where, God knows to +what." She put out the palms of her hands towards where misty evening +banked sombrely across the park. "That's very frightening, Marko." + +The live thing ran beneath the leaves banked at their feet. A stronger +gust came in the air. A scattering of leaves clustered together and +moved with sudden agitation across the sward before them; paused and +seemed to be trying to flutter a hold into the ground; rushed aimlessly +at a tangent to their former direction; paused again; and again seemed +to be holding on. Before a sudden gust they were spun helplessly upward, +sported aloft in mazy arabesques, scattered upon the breeze. + +"Those leaves!" she said. And as if she had not made the interjection +she went on, "Most awfully frightening. Well, all the time there was +you, Marko. You were always different from anybody I ever knew. Long ago +I used to chaff you because you were so different. In those two years +when we were away it got awful. In those two years I knew I was flotsam. +One day--in India--I went and looked at it in the little dictionary in +my writing case, and I knew I was. Do you know what I did? I crossed out +flotsam in the dictionary and wrote Nona. There it was, and it was the +most exact thing--'Nona: goods shipwrecked and found floating in the +sea.' I meant to have torn out the page. I forgot. I left it there and +Tony saw it." + +Sabre said, "What did he say?" In all she had told him there was +something omitted. He knew that his question approached the missing +quantity. But she did not answer it. + +She went on, "Well, there was you. And I began to want you most awfully. +You were always such a dear, slow person; and I wanted that most +awfully. You were so steady and good and you had such quiet old ideas +about duty and rightness and things, and you thought about things so, +and I wanted that most frightfully. You see, I'd known you all my +life--well, that's how it was, Marko. That explains all the things you +asked. I said 'There'; and I said I had to come; because I'd wanted it +so much, so long. And I wanted you to write to me because I did want to +go on having the help I had from you--" + +He had desired her to look at him, but it was he who had turned away. He +sat with his head between his hands, his elbows on his knees. + +She repeated, with rather a plaintive note, as though in his pose she +saw some pain she had caused him, "You see, I had known you all my life, +Marko--" + +He said, still looking upon the ground between his feet, "But you +haven't explained anything. You've only told me. You haven't explained +why." + +She said with astounding simplicity, "Well, you see, Marko, I made a +mistake. I made a most frightful mistake. I chose. I chose wrong. I +ought to have married you, Marko." + +And his words were a groan. "Nona--Nona--" + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +I + +He was presently walking back, returning to Tidborough. + +He was trying very hard, all his life's training against sudden +unbridling of his bridled passions, to grapple his mind back from its +wild and passionate desires and from its amazed coursings upon the +immense prairies, teeming with hazards, fears, enchantments, hopes, +dismays, that broke before this hour as breaks upon the hunter's gaze, +amazingly awarded from the hill, savannas boundless, new, +unpathed,--from these to grapple back his mind to its schooled thought +and ordered habit, to its well-trodden ways of duty, obligation, +rectitude. He had not left them. But for that cry of her name wrung from +him by sudden application of pain against whose shock he was not +steeled, he had answered nothing to her lamentable disclosure. This +which he now knew, these violent passions which now he felt, but lit for +him more whitely the road his feet must take. If he had ever tried +consciously to see his life and Mabel's from Mabel's point of view, now, +when his mind threatened disloyalty to her, he must try. And would! The +old habit, the old trick of seeing the other side, acted never so +strongly upon him as when unkindness appeared to lie in his own +attitude. Unkindness was unfairness and unfairness was above all +qualities the quality he could not tolerate. And here was unfairness, +open, monstrous, dishonourable. + +Mabel should not feel it. + +But he was aware, he was informed as by a voice in his ears, "You have +struck your tents. You are upon the march." + + +II + +He approached the town. The school lay in this quarter and his way ran +through its playing fields and its buildings. Nature in her moods much +fashioned his thoughts when he walked the countryside or rode his daily +journey on his bicycle. He now carried his thoughts into her mood that +stood about him. + +Nature was to him in October, and not in spring, poignantly suggestive, +deeply mysterious, in her intense and visible occupation. She was +enormously busy; but she was serenely busy. She was stripping her house +of its deckings, dismantling her habitation to the last and uttermost +leaf; but she stripped, dismantled, extinguished, broke away, not in +despair, defeat, but in ordered preparation and with exquisite certitude +of glory anew. That, in October, was her voice to him, stirring +tremendously that faculty of his of seeing more clearly, visioning life +more poignantly, with his mind than with his eye. She spoke to him of +preparation for winter, and beyond winter with ineffable assurance for +spring, bring winter what it might. He saw her dismantling all her house +solely to build her house again. She packed down. She did not pack up, +which is confusion, flight, abandonment. She packed down, which is +resolve, resistance, husbandry of power to build and burst again; and +burst again,--in stout affairs of outposts in sheltered banks and secret +nooks; in swift, amazing sallies of violet and daffodil and primrose; in +multitudinous clamour of all her buds in May; and last in her resistless +tide and flood and avalanche of beauty to triumph and possession. + +That was October's voice to him; that he apprehended and tingled to it, +as the essence of its strange, heavy odours; secret of its veiling +mists; whisper of its moisture-laden airs; song of its swollen ditches, +brooks and runnels. It was not "Take down. It is done." It was "Take +down. It is beginning." + +Mankind, frail parasite of doubt, seeks ever for a sign, conceives no +certainty but the enormous certitude of uncertainty. A sign! In death: +"Take down, then; but leave me this--and this--for memory. Perhaps--who +knows?--it may be true.... But leave me this for memory." In promise: +"So be it, then--but give me some pledge, some proof, some sign." Not +thus October. October spoke to Sabre of Nature's sublime imperviousness +to doubt; of her enormous certainty, old as creation, based in the sure +foundations of the world. "Take down. It is beginning." + +Sabre used to think, "It gets you--terrifically. It's stupendous. It's +too big to bear." He had this thought out of October: "You can't, +_can't_ walk along lanes or in woods in October and see all this +mysterious business going on without knowing perfectly well that this +astounding certainty must apply equally to human life. I'd wish the +death of any one I loved to be in early autumn. No one can possibly +_doubt_ in early autumn. In winter, perhaps; and in spring and in summer +you can know, cynically, it will pass. But in October--no. Impossible +then. And not only death, Life. Life as one lives it. You can't, _can't_ +feel in autumn that in the lowest depths there is lower yet. You only +can feel, _know_, that the thing will break, that there's an uplift at +the bottom of it all. There _must_ be." + + +III + +Take down: it is beginning. The spirit and the message of the season (as +they communicated themselves to him) began, as opiate among enfevered +senses, to steal about his thoughts. Had anything happened? His feeling +was rather that he was at the beginning of something; or at the end of +something, which was the same thing. The place whereon he stood entered +into his thoughts. He had left the main road and was skirting through +the school precincts. He was crossing The Strip, historic sward whereon +were played the First XV football matches. Impossible to be upon The +Strip without peopling it again with the tremendous battles that had +been here, the giants of football who here had made their fame and the +school's fame; the crowded, tumultuous touch lines; the silent, +tremendous combat in between. Memories came to him of his own two +seasons in the XV; his own name from a thousand throats upon the wintry +air. His muscles tautened as again he fought some certain of those +enormous moments when the whole of life was bound up solely in the +unspeakable necessity to win. Astounding trick of thought from what +beset him! He was alone upon The Strip, in an overcoat, on the way to +forty, not a sound, not a soul, and with that brooding sense of being +upon the edge and threshold of something vast, dark, threatening, +unfathomable. + + +IV + +Down the steep hill flanked by masters' houses. Twilight merging now +into darkness. Boys passing in and out of the gateways. Past Telfer's +which had been his own house. All this youth was preparing for life; all +these houses eternally, generation after generation, pouring boys out +into life as at Shotley iron foundry he had seen molten metal poured out +of a cauldron. And every boy, poured out, imagined he was going to live +his own life. O hapless delusion! Lo, as the same moulds awaited and +confined the metal, so the same moulds awaited and confined the living +stuff. Mysterious conventions, laws, labours; imperceptibly receiving; +implacably binding and shaping. The last day he had come down the steps +of Telfer's--jumped down--how distinctly he remembered it! It was his +own life he was coming down, eagerly jumping down, into.--Well, here he +was, passing those very steps, and whose life was he living? Mabel's? +Old Fortune's? And to what end? + + +V + +Whose life was Nona living? + +He had asked her, "Tell me about you and Tybar." + +With pitiable gentleness of voice she had approached that quantity which +had been missing from her first statement of her position. And she had +done tribute to her husband's parts with generosity, nay with pride. +"Tony does everything better than any one else." She had said it on that +occasion of their first reëncounter; its burthen had been the opening of +her recital of what else she had for him. + +"Marko, I think Tony's the most wonderful person that ever was. He does +everything that men do and he does everything best. And everybody +admires him and everybody likes him. You've no idea. You've no idea how +he wins everybody he meets. People will do anything for him. They love +him. Well, you've only got to look at him, haven't you? Or hear him +talk? I think there's never been any one so utterly captivating as Tony +is to look at and to hear." + +Most engagingly, with such words, she had presented him: one that passed +through life airily, exquisitely; much fairy-gifted at his cradle with +gifts of beauty, charm, preëminence in all he touched; knowing no care, +knowing no difficulty, knowing no obstacle, or danger, or fear, or +illness, or fatigue, or anything in life but gay and singing things, +which touching, he made more bright, more tuneful yet; meeting no one, +of whatever age or degree, but his charm was to that age or degree +exactly touched; captivating all, leading all, by all desired in +leadership. Fortune's darling! + +"And, Marko," she at last had come to. "And Marko--this is the +word--graceless. Utterly, utterly graceless. Without heart, Marko, +without conscience, without morals, without the smallest scrap of an +approach to any moral principle. Marko, that's an awful, a wicked, an +abominable thing for a wife to say of her husband. But he wouldn't mind +a bit my telling you. Not a bit. He'd love it. He'd laugh. He'd utterly +love to know he had stung me so much. And he'd utterly love to know he'd +driven me to tell you. He'd think--he'd love like anything to drive me +to do awful things. He's tried--especially these two years. He'd love to +be able to point a finger at me and laugh and say, 'Ah! Ha-ha! Ah!' You +know, he hasn't got any feelings at all--love or hate or anything else; +and it simply amuses him beyond anything to arouse feeling in anybody +else. There have been women all the time we've been married and he +simply amuses himself with them until he's tired of them, and until the +next one takes his fancy, and he does it quite openly before me, in my +house, and tells me what I can't see before my own eyes just for the +love of seeing the suffering it gives me. You saw that Mrs. Winfred. +He's done with her now. And he's as shameless about me with them as he +is about them with me. And what he loves above all is the way I take it; +and I can take it in no other way. You see I won't, I simply will not, +Marko, let these women of his see--or let any one in the world +suspect--that I--that I suffer. So when we are together before people I +keep up the gay way we always show together. He loves it; it's +delicious to him, because it's a game played over the torture +underneath. And I won't do any other way, Marko. I will keep my face to +the world--I won't have any one pity me." + +"I pity you," he had said. + +"Ah, you...." + + +VI + +And he was suddenly shot into an encounter of extraordinary incongruity +with his thoughts and of extraordinary intensity. A voice accosted him. +He was astounded, as if suddenly awakened out of heavy sleep, to see to +where he had come. He was in the narrow old ways of Tidborough Old Town, +approaching The Precincts, by the ancient Corn Exchange. A keen-looking +young man, particularly well set up and wearing nice tweeds, was +accosting him. Sabre recognised Otway, captain and adjutant of the +depot, up at the barracks, of the county regiment, one of the crack +regiments, famous as "The Pinks." + +Otway said, "Hullo, Sabre. How goes it? Are you going to this show +to-morrow?" + +He was pointing with his stick to a poster displayed against the Corn +Exchange. Sabre read it. It announced that Field Marshal Lord Roberts +was speaking there, under the auspices of the National Service League, +on Home Defence--a Citizen Army. + +"I hadn't thought about going," Sabre said. He wanted to get away. + +Otway was staring at the poster as though he had never seen it before; +but he had been staring at it when Sabre came along the street. "You +ought to," Otway said. "You ought to hear old Bobs. Of course the little +chap's all wrong." + +He seemed to be talking to himself, staring at the poster, more than to +Sabre. Sabre, despite his preoccupation, was surprised. "All wrong? Good +lord, I should have thought you of all people--" And immediately a +torrent of Otway was let loose upon him, bursting into his thoughts like +a stone chucked through a study window. + +Otway spun around in his keen, quick way to face him. "All wrong in the +way he's putting his case, I mean. All these National Service chaps are. +Home defence they talk about, nothing but Home Defence. It's like +chucking sawdust into a fire--the fire being all the bloody fools who +are opposed to military training. Any fool can knock the bottom out of +this Home Defence business. The Blue Water fools are champions at it. +They say the only defence against invasion is the Navy and that half a +million spent on the Navy is worth untold millions chucked away on this +'Nation in Arms' shout. And they're damn right." + +"Well, then?" said Sabre. "What's the argument? What's the harm in +knocking the bottom out of--this?" he nodded towards the poster. + +Otway spoke with astonishing intensity. "Why, good God alive, man, don't +you see, we do want a nation in arms; we want it like hell. But we don't +want it for here, at home; we want it to fight on the Continent. That's +where we've got to fight,--out there. And that's where we're _going_ to +fight before we're many years older." + +In his intensity he had extended his left hand and was beating his +points into it with the handle of his stick. "See that?" + +Sabre was not in the mood to see anything. He only wanted to be away. + +"No, I'm dashed if I do. What are we going to fight on the Continent +for--supposing we ever do have to fight anywhere?" + +The stick hammered away again. "Because we've got _obligations_ there. +We've got to defend Belgium, for one. And if we hadn't--if we hadn't any +obligations we'd pretty soon, we'd damn soon find them as soon as ever +Germany breaks loose. That's what these National Service Johnnies ought +to tell the people, that's what Bobs ought to tell them, that's what +these blasted politicians ought to tell them: you don't want National +Service to defend your perishing homes. The Navy's going to do that. You +want it like hell because you've got to defend your _lives_--out there." +He waved his stick towards "out there." "My God!" he said. He was +consumed with the intensity of his own emotions. "My God!" + +Despite himself, Sabre was impressed. The man would have impressed +anybody. His eyes were extraordinarily penetrating. There actually were +tiny little points of perspiration about his nose. + +"I never thought about that," Sabre said doubtfully. "I never thought +there were any obligations. I doubt any member of the Government would +admit there were any." + +"I know damn well they wouldn't," Otway declared. "And they'd be helped +to deny it, or to evade it, by the howl of laughter there'd be in the +Commons if any one had the guts to get up and ask if we had any +obligations. There's no joke goes down like that sort of joke. Well--" +His manner changed. He tucked his stick under his arm and took out a +silver cigarette case. "Cigarette? Well--they'll laugh the other side of +their chuckle heads one of these days." + +Sabre took a cigarette. "You're pretty sure there's going to be a war, +aren't you?" + +The extraordinary man, who had become smiling and airy, immediately +became extraordinary again. He had struck a match, held it to Sabre's +cigarette, and was applying it to his own. He extinguished it with +violent jerks of his arm and dashed it on to the pavement. "Sure? My +God, sure? I tell you, Sabre, you won't be five years, I don't believe +you'll be two years, one year, older before you'll not only be +sure--you'll know! I've just finished a course at the Staff College, you +know. We finished up with a push over to Belgium to do the battlefields. +We went into Germany, some of us. They fed us in some of their messes. +Do you know, those chaps in those messes there talked about fighting us +as naturally and as certainly as you talk with your opponents about a +coming footer match. They talked about 'When we fight you'--not '_if_ we +fight you'--'when', as if it was as fixed as Christmas. And they didn't +talk any of this bilge about fighting us in England; they knew, as I +know, and every soldier knows--every soldier who's keen--that it's going +to be out there. In Europe." He had not taken two puffs at his cigarette +before he wrenched it from his mouth and dashed it after the match. +"Sabre, why the hell aren't people here told that? Why are they stuck up +with this rot about defending their shores when they can see for +themselves that only the Navy can defend their shores? What are they +going to do when the war comes? Are they going to lynch these bloody +politicians who haven't told them they've got to fight for their lives? +Are they going to turn around and say they never knew it so they'll be +damned if they'll fight for their lives? Are they going to follow any of +these politicians who will have betrayed them? Do you suppose any man +who's been party to this betrayal is going to be found big enough to run +a war? I tell you that's another thing. Do you suppose a chap who's +been a miserable vote-snatcher all his life is going to turn round +suddenly and be a heaven-sent administrator in a war? You can take your +oath Heaven doesn't send out geniuses on that ticket. What you've lived +and done in fat times--that's what you're going to live and do in lean. +Heaven's chucked stocking divine fire." + +"I'm with you there," Sabre said. He did not believe half this intense +man said, but he conceived a sudden and great admiration for his +intensity. And he had had no idea that a soldier ever thought so far +away from his own subject--which was sport and one chance in a million +of fighting--as to produce aphorisms on habit and development. "But you +know, Otway," he said, "it's jolly hard to believe all this +inevitableness of war stuff that chaps like you put up. Do you read the +articles in the reviews and the quarterlies? They all pretty well prove +that, apart from anything else, a big European war is impossible by +the--well, by the sheer bigness of the thing. They say these modern +gigantic armies couldn't operate, couldn't provision themselves. And +there's the finance. They prove you can't fight without money and that +credit would go and the thing would stop before it had begun, pretty +well. I don't know anything about that sort of thing, but the arguments +strike me as absolutely sound." + +Otway was waiting with fidgety impatience. "I've heard all that. I don't +give a damn for it. Of course you don't know anything about it. No one +does. Least of all those writing chaps. It's all theory. Every one +thought that with modern this, that and the other you were as safe on +the last word in liners as in your own bedroom. Then comes along that +_Titanic_ business in April, and where the hell are you with your modern +conditions? Fifteen hundred people done in. I tell you it isn't that +things that used to happen can't happen now; it's simply that they'll +happen a million times worse. What's the good of theories when you've +got facts? Look at the things there've been with Germany just this year +alone. Old Haldane over in Germany in February for 'unofficial +discussions', Churchill threatening two keels to one if the German Navy +law is exceeded. That was March. In April the Germans whack up their +Navy Law Amendment, twelve more big ships. That chap Bertrand Stewart +getting three and a half years for espionage in Germany; and two German +spies caught by us here,--that chap Grosse over at Winchester Assizes, +three years, and friend Armgaard Graves up at Glasgow, eighteen months. +An American cove at Leipzig taking four years' penal for messing around +after plans of the Heligoland fortifications. Those five yachting chaps +in July arrested for espionage at Eckernforde. War, too, skits of it. +Turkey and Italy hardly done when all these Balkan chaps set to and +slosh Turkey. Have you seen to-day's papers? I'll bet you they'll send +Turkey to hell at Kirk Kilisse or thereabouts before the week's out." + +He had been ticking these points off on his fingers, much astonishing +Sabre by his marshalling of scattered incidents that had been merely +rather pleasing newspaper sensations of a couple of days. He presented +the ticked-off fingers bunched up together. "There, there's concrete +facts for you, Sabre. Can you say things aren't tightening up? Why, if +war--_when_ war comes people will look back on this year, 1912, and +wonder where in hell their eyes were that they didn't see it. What are +they seeing?--" He threw his fingers apart. "None of these things. Not +one. All this doctors and the Insurance Bill tripe, Marconi Inquiry, +_Titanic_, Suffragettes smashing up the West End, burning down Lulu +Harcourt's place, trying to roast old Asquith in the Dublin Theatre, +Seddon murder, this triangular cricket show. Hell's own excitement +because there's so much rain in August and people in Norwich have to go +about in boats, and then hell's own hullaballoo because there's no rain +for twenty-two days in September and people get so dry they can't spit +or something." His keen face wrinkled up into laughter. "Eh, didn't you +read that?" He laughed but was immediately intense again. "That's all +that really interests the people. By God, they'll sit up and take notice +of the real stuff one of these days. Pretty soon. Tightening up, I tell +you. Well, I'm off, Sabre. When are you coming up to the Mess again? +Friday? Well, guest night the week after. I'll drop you a line. So +long." He was off, carrying his straight back alertly up the street. + + +VII + +His going was somehow as sudden and startling as his appearance had been +sudden and tumultuous. He had carried away Sabre's thoughts as a jet +from a hosepipe will spin a man out of a crowd; smashed into his +preoccupation as a stone smashing through a window upon one deep in +study; galloped across his mind as a cavalcade thundering through a +village street,--and the effect of it, and the incongruity of it as, +getting his bicycle from the office, he rode homewards, kept returning +to Sabre's mind, as an arresting dream will constantly break across +daylight thoughts. + +Nona had said that Tybar knew she thought often of him. "He knows I +think of you." That was the way she had put it. It explained that mock +in his eyes when they met that day on the road, and Mrs. Winfred's +remark and her look, and Tybar's, that day outside the office. +Extraordinary, Otway bursting in like that with all those ridiculous +scares. Here he was riding along with all this reality pressing +enormously about him, and with this strange and terrible feeling of +being at the beginning of something or at the end of something, with +this voice in his ears of, "You have struck your tents and are upon the +march"; and there was Otway, up at the barracks, miles away from +realities, but as obsessed with his impossible stuff as he himself with +these most real and pressing dismays. What would he, with his +apprehension of what might lie ahead, be saying to a chap like Otway in +two or three years and what would Otway with his obsessions be saying to +him? Ah, two or three years...! + +But Nona loved him.... But his duty was here.... And he could have taken +her beautiful body into his arms and held her beloved face to his.... +But he had said not a word of love to her, only his cry of +"Nona--Nona...." His duty was here.... But what would the years +bring...? But what might have been! What might have been! + + +VIII + +He finished his ride in darkness. The Green, as he passed along it on +the free-wheel run, merged away through gloom into obscurity. Points of +light from the houses showed here and there. The windows of his home had +lamplight through their lattices. The drive was soft with leaves beneath +his feet. + +Lamplight, and the yielding undertread and all around walled about with +obscurity. It was new. It had shown thus now for some nights on his +return. But it was the first time he had apprehended it. New. Different. +A commencement. An ending. + +He left his bicycle in the roomy porch. He missed Low Jinks with her +customary friendly greeting. It was very lonely, this. He opened the +hall door and entered. Absolute silence. He had grown uncommonly +accustomed to Low Jinks being here.... Absolute silence. It was like +coming into an empty house. And he had got to go on coming into it, and +living in it, and tremendously doing his duty in it. + +Like an empty house. He stood perfectly still in the perfect stillness. +Take down: it is beginning. You have struck your tents and are upon the +march. + + + + +PART THREE + +EFFIE + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +I + +But life goes on without the smallest regard for individual +preoccupations. You may take up what attitude you like towards it or, +with the majority, you may take up no attitude towards it but immerse +yourself in the stupendous importance of your own affairs and disclaim +any connection with life. It doesn't matter tuppence to life. The +ostrich, on much the same principle, buries its head in the sand; and +just as forces outside the sand ultimately get the ostrich, so life, all +the time, is massively getting you. + +You have to go along with it. + +And in October of the following year, October, 1913, life was going +along at a most delirious and thrilling and entirely fascinating speed. +There never was such a delicious and exciting and progressive year as +between October, 1912, and October, 1913. + +And it certainly took not the remotest notice of Sabre. + +In February, Lord Roberts, at Bristol, opened a provincial campaign for +National Service. The best people--that is to say those who did not +openly laugh at it or, being scaremongers, rabidly approve +it--considered it a great shame and a great pity that the poor old man +should thus victimise those closing years of his life which should have +been spent in that honourable retirement which is the right place for +fussy old people of both sexes and all walks of life. + +Sabre, reading the reports of the campaign--two or three lines--could +not but reflect how events were falsifying, and continued to falsify the +predictions of the intense Otway in this regard. Deliciously pleasant +relations with Germany were variously evidenced throughout 1913. The +King and Queen attended in Berlin the wedding of the Kaiser's daughter, +and the popular Press, in picture and paragraph, told the genial British +public what a thoroughly delightful girl the Kaiser's daughter was. The +Kaiser let off loud "Hochs!" of friendly pride, and the Press of the +world responded with warm "Hochs" of admiration and tribute; and the +Kaiser, glowing with generous warmth, celebrated the occasion by +releasing and handsomely pardoning three of those very British "spies" +to whose incarceration in German fortresses (Sabre recalled) the intense +Otway had attached such deep significance. This was a signal for more +mutual "Hochs." Later the Prince of Wales visited Germany and made there +an extended stay of nine weeks; and in June the twenty-fifth anniversary +of the Emperor William's accession was "Hoch'd" throughout the German +Empire and admiringly "Hoch'd" back again from all quarters of the +civilised globe. + +It was all splendid and gratifying and deeply comforting. So many +"Hochs!" and such fervent and sincere "Hochs!" never boomed across the +seas of the world, and particularly the North Sea or (nice and friendly +to think) German Ocean, in any year as in the year 1913. + + +II + +Not that relations with Germany counted for anything in the whirl of +intensely agreeable sensations of these excellent days. Their entirely +pleasing trend prevented the scaremongers from interfering with full +enjoyment of the intensely agreeable sensations; otherwise they were, +by comparison with more serious excitements, completely negligible. The +excitements were endless and of every nature. At one moment the British +Public was stirred to its depths in depths not often touched (in 1913) +by reading of Scott's glorious death in the Antarctic; at another it was +unspeakably moved by the disqualification of the Derby winner for +bumping and boring. In one week it was being thrilled with sympathy by +the superb heroism and the appalling death-roll, four hundred +twenty-nine, in the Welsh colliery disaster at Senghenydd; in another +thrilled with horror and indignation at the baseness of a sympathetic +strike. In one month was immense excitement because the strike of eleven +thousand insufferable London taxi-drivers drove everybody into the +splendid busses; and in another month immense excitement because the +strike of all the insufferable London bus-drivers drove everybody into +the splendid taxis. M. Pegond accomplished the astounding feat of flying +upside down at Juvisy without being killed and then came and flew upside +down without being killed at Brooklands. One man flew over the Simplon +Pass and another over the Alps. Colonel Cody flew to his death in one +waterplane, and Mr. Hawker made a superb failure to fly around Great +Britain in another waterplane. The suffragists threw noisome and +inflammable matter into the letter boxes, bombs into Mr. Lloyd George's +house at Walton and into other almost equally sacred shrines of the +great, stones into windows, axes into pictures, chained their misguided +bodies to railings and gates, jammed their miserable bodies into +prisons, hunger-struck their abominable bodies out again, and hurled +their outrageous bodies in front of the sacred race for the Derby at +Epsom, and the only less sacred race for the Gold Cup at Ascot. + +It was terrific! + +At one moment the loyal public were thrilled by the magnificent +enrolment of the Ulster Volunteers, and at another moment outraged by +the seditious and mutinous enrolment of the Nationalist Volunteers; in +one month the devoted Commons read a third time the Home Rule Bill, the +Welsh Church Disestablishment Bill and the Plural Voting Bill, and in +the very same month the stiff-necked and abominable Lords for the third +time threw out the Home Rule Bill, the Welsh Church Disestablishment +Bill and the Plural Voting Bill. It was terrific. The newspapers could +scarcely print it--or anything--terrifically enough. Adjectives and +epithets became exhausted with overwork and burst. The word crisis lost +all meaning. There was such a welter of crises that the explosions of +those that came to a head were unnoticed and pushed away into the +obscurest corners of the newspapers, before the alarming swelling of +those freshly rushing to a head. It was magnificent. It was a +deliciously thrilling and emotional year. A terrific and stupendous +year. Many well-known people died. + + +III + +It was naturally a year of strong partisanship. A year of violent +feelings violently expressed; and amidst them, and because of them, +Sabre found with new certainty that he had no violent feelings. +Increasingly he came to know that he had well expressed his +constitutional habit, the outstanding trait in his character, when, on +the day of that talk in the office with Nona, he had spoken of his +disastrous inability--disastrous from the point of view of being +satisfactory to single-minded persons, or of pulling out that big +booming stuff called success--to see a thing, whatever it might be, from +a single point of view and go all out for it from that point of view. +"Convictions," he had said, and often in the welter of antagonistic +convictions of 1913 thought again, "Convictions. If you're going to pull +out this big booming stuff they call success, if you're going to be +_satisfactory_ to anybody or to anything, you must shut down on +everybody's point of view but your own. You must have convictions. And +narrower than that--not only convictions but conviction. Conviction that +your side is the right side and that the other side is wrong, wrong to +hell." + +And he had no such convictions. Above all, and most emphatically, he had +never the conviction that his side, whichever side it might be in any of +the issues daily tabled for men's discussion, was the right side and the +other side the wrong and wicked and disastrous side. + +He used to think, "I can't stand shouting and I can't stand smashing. +And that's all there is. These newspapers and these arguments you +hear--it's all shouting and smashing. It's never thinking and building. +It's all destructive; never constructive. All blind hatred of the other +views, never fair examination of them. You get some of these Unionists +together, my class, my friends. They say absolutely nothing else but +damning and blasting and foaming at Lloyd George and Asquith and the +trade-unionists. Absolutely nothing else at all. And you get some of +these other chaps together, or their newspapers, and it's exactly the +same thing the other way about. And yet we're all in the same boat. +There's only one _life_--only one _living_--and we're all in it. Come +into it the same way and go out of it the same way; and all up against +the same real facts as we are against the same weather. That fire the +other night in High Street. All sorts of people, every sort of person, +lent a hand in putting it out. And that frightful railway disaster at +Aisgill; all sorts of people worked together in rescuing. No one stopped +to ask whether the passengers were first class or third. Well, that's +the sort of thing that gets me. Fire and disaster--those are facts and +everybody gets to and deals with them. And if there was a big war +everybody would get to and fight it. And yet all these political and +social things are just as much facts that affect everybody, and all +anybody can do is to shout and smash up the other man's rights in them. +They all do it--in everything. Religion's as bad as any--worse. Here's +one of these bishops saying he can't countenance Churchmen preaching in +chapels or dissenters being invited to preach in churches because the +Church must stand by the rock principles of its creed, and to preach in +a chapel would mean politely not touching on those principles. You'd +think heaven didn't come into the business at all. And you'd think that +life doesn't come into the business of living at all. All smashing.... +Well, I can't stick shouting and I can't stick smashing." + + +IV + +Something of these views he one day expressed to Pike, the Editor of the +_Tidborough County Times_. He was taken into the _County Times_ office +by business connected with an error in the firm's standing account for +advertisement notices and, encountering Pike outside his room, entered +with him and talked. + +Pike was a man of nearly sixty with furiously black and luxuriant hair. +He had been every sort of journalist in America and in London, and some +years previously had been brought into the editorship of the _County +Times_. The Press, broad-based on the liberty of the English people and +superbly impervious to whatever temptation to jump in the direction the +cat jumps, is, on the other hand, singularly sensitive to apparently +inconsequent trifles in the lives of its proprietary. Pike, with his +reputation, was brought into the editorship of the _County Times_ solely +because the proprietor late in life suddenly married. The wife of the +proprietor desiring to share a knighthood with her husband, the +proprietor, anxious to please but unwilling to pay, incontinently sacked +the tame editor who was beguiling an amiable dotage with the _County +Times_ and looked about for a wild editor, whom unquestionably he found +in Mr. Pike. + +The breath of the _County Times_ became as the breath of life to the +Tory tradition and burst from its columns as the breath of a fiery +furnace upon all that was opposed to the Tory tradition. The proprietor +felt that his knighthood was assured as soon as the tide of liberalism +turned; and the _County Times_, which could not notice even a Baptist +harvest festival without snorting fire and brimstone upon it, said that +the tide of radicalism--it did not print the words Liberal or +Liberalism--was turning every day. About once a week the _County Times_ +said that the tide of radicalism "definitely turned last night." + +Pike was a man of extraordinarily violent language. Consequent, no +doubt, on the restraint of having to write always in printable language, +his vocal discussion of the subjects on which he wrote was mainly in +unprintable. He spoke of trade-unionists always as "those swine and +dogs" and of the members of the Government as "those dogs and +swine",--swine and dogs being refined and temperate euphuisms for the +epithets Mr. Pike actually employed. + +However he heard Sabre's stumbling periods tolerantly out and tolerantly +dealt with him. + +"Excuse me, Sabre, but that sort of stuff's absolutely fatal--fatal. +It's simply compromise. Compromise. The most fatal defect in the English +character." + +Sabre happened to be stout enough on this particular point. "That's +just what it isn't. Precisely what it isn't. I loathe compromise. More +than anything. Compromise is accepting a little of what you know to be +wrong in order to get a little of what you imagine to be right." + +Pike made a swift note in shorthand on his blotting pad. "Exactly. +Well?" + +"Well, that's just the opposite to what I mean. I mean accepting, +admitting, what you know to be _right_." + +Pike smote his hand upon the blotting pad. "But, damn it, those dogs and +swine never _are_ right." + +"There you are!" said Sabre. + +And there they were, shouting, smashing; and Sabre could not do either +and retired dismayed from the arenas of both. + + + +CHAPTER II + + +I + +It much affected his relations with those nearest to him,--with Mabel, +with Mr. Fortune, and with Twyning. In those months, and in the months +following, the year changing and advancing in equal excitements and +strong opinions through winter into spring, he found himself +increasingly out of favour at The Precincts and increasingly estranged +in his home. And it was his own fault. Detached and reflective in the +fond detachment of the daily bicycle ride, awake at night mentally +pacing about the assembled parts of his puzzles, he told himself with +complete impartiality that the cause of these effects was entirely of +his own making. "I can't stick shouting and smashing"--"I can't help +seeing the bits of right in the other point of view": those were the +causes. He was so difficult to get on with: that was the effect of the +complaint. + +"Really, Sabre, I find it most difficult to get on with you nowadays," +Mr. Fortune used to say. "We seem never to agree. We are perpetually at +loggerheads. Loggerheads. I do most strongly resent being perpetually +bumped and bruised by unwilling participation in a grinding congestion +of loggerheads." + +And Twyning, "Well, I simply can't hit it off with you. That's all there +is to it. I try to be friendly; but if you can't hear Lloyd George's +name without taking up that kind of attitude, well, all I can say is +you're trying to put up social barriers in a place where there's no room +for social barriers, and that's in business." + +And Mabel: "Well, if you want to know what I think, I think you're +getting simply impossible to get on with. You simply never think the +same as other people think. I should have thought it was only common +decency at a time like this to stand up for your own class; but, no. +It's always your own class that's in the wrong and the common people who +are in the right." + +"Always." He began to hate the word "always." But it was true. In those +exciting and intensely opinionated days it seemed there was never a +subject that came up, whether at The Precincts or at home, but he found +himself on the other side of the argument and giving intense displeasure +because he was on the other side. In Mabel's case--he did not +particularly trouble himself about what Twyning and Fortune thought--but +in Mabel's case, much set on his duty to give her happiness, he came to +prepare with care for the dangerous places of their intercourse. But +never with success. Places whose aggravations drove her to her angriest +protestations of how utterly impossible he was to get on with never +looked dangerous as they were approached: he would ride in to them with +her amicably or with a slack rein,--and suddenly, mysteriously, +unexpectedly, he would be floundering, the relations between them yet a +little more deeply foundered. + +Such utterly harmless looking places: + +"And those are the people, mind you," said Mabel--not for the first time +"those are the people that we have to lick stamps for Lloyd George for!" + +This was because High Jinks had been seen going out for her afternoon +with what Mabel described to Sabre as a trumpery, gee-gaw parasol. + +The expression amused him. "Well, why in heaven's name shouldn't High +Jinks buy a trumpery, gee-gaw parasol?" + +"I do wish you wouldn't call her High Jinks. Because she can't afford a +trumpery, gee-gaw parasol." + +He spoke bemusedly. No need for caution that he could see. "Well, I +don't know--I rather like to see them going out in a bit of finery." + +Mabel sniffed. "Well, your taste! Servants look really nice in their +caps and aprons and their black, if they only knew it. In their bit of +finery, as you call it, they look too awful for words." + +Signs of flying up. He roused himself to avert it. "Oh, rather. I agree. +What I meant was I think it's rather nice to see them decking themselves +out when they get away from their work. Rather pathetic." + +"Pathetic!" + +She had flown up! + +He said quickly, "No, but look here, Mabel, wait a bit. I ought to have +explained. What I mean is they have a pretty rotten time, all that +class. When High Jinks puts up a trumpery, gee-gaw parasol, she's human. +That's pathetic, only being human once a week and alternate Sundays. And +when you get a life that finds pleasure in a trumpery, gee-gaw parasol, +well that's more pathetic still. See?" + +Real anxiety in his "See?" But the thing was done. "No. I absolutely +don't. Pathetic! You really are quite impossible to get on with. I've +given up even trying to understand your ideas. Pathetic!" She gave her +sudden laugh. + +"Oh, well," said Sabre. + +Deeper foundered! + + +II + +And precisely the same word--pathetic--came up between them in the +matter of Miss Bypass. Miss Bypass was companion to Mrs. Boom Bagshaw, +the mother of Mr. Boom Bagshaw. Mabel hated Miss Bypass because Miss +Bypass was, she said, the rudest creature she ever met. And "of course" +Sabre took the opposite view--the ridiculous and maddening view--that +her abominably rude manner was not rude but pathetic. + +The occasion was an afternoon call paid at the vicarage. Of all houses +in the Garden Home Sabre most dreaded and feared the vicarage. He paid +this call, with shuddering, in pursuance of his endeavour to +do with Mabel things that gave her pleasure. (And in the most +uncongenial of them, as this call at the vicarage, he used to think, +characteristically, "After all, I haven't got the decency to do what +she's specially asked--give up the bike ride.") + +The Vicarage drawing-room was huge, handsomely furnished, much adorned +with signed portraits of royal and otherwise celebrated persons, and +densely crowded with devoted parishioners. Among them the Reverend Boom +Bagshaw moved sulkily to and fro; amidst them, on a species of raised +throne, Mrs. Boom Bagshaw gave impressive audience. The mother of the +Reverend Boom Bagshaw was a massive and formidable woman who seemed to +be swaddled in several hundred garments of heavy crêpe and stiff satin. +She bore a distinct resemblance to Queen Victoria; but there was stuff +in her and upon her to make several Queen Victorias. About the room, but +chiefly, as Sabre thought, under his feet, fussed her six very small +dogs. There were called Fee, Fo and Fum, which were brown toy Poms; and +Tee, To, Tum, which were black toy Poms, and the six were the especial +care and duty of Miss Bypass. Every day Miss Bypass, who was tall and +pale and ugly, was to be seen striding about Penny Green and the Garden +Home in process of exercising the dogs; the dogs, for their part, +shrilling their importance and decorating the pavements in accordance +with the engaging habits of their lovable characteristics. In the +drawing-room Miss Bypass occupied herself in stooping about after the +six, extracting bread and butter from their mouths--they were not +allowed to eat bread and butter--and raising them for the adoring +inspection of visitors unable at the moment either to adore Mr. Boom +Bagshaw or to prostrate themselves before the throne of Queen Victoria +Boom Bagshaw. + +Few spoke to Miss Bypass. Those who did were answered in the curiously +defiant manner which was her habit and which was called by Mabel +abominably rude, and by Sabre pathetic. As he and Mabel were taking +their leave, he had Miss Bypass in momentary conversation, Mabel +standing by. + +"Hullo, Miss Bypass. Haven't managed to see you in all this crowd. +How're things with you?" + +"I'm perfectly well, thank you." + +"Been reading anything lately? I saw you coming out of the library the +other day with a stack of books." + +Miss Bypass gave the impression of bracing herself, as though against +suspected attack. "Yes, and they were for my own reading, thank you. I +suppose you thought they were for Mrs. Boom Bagshaw." + +Certainly her manner was extraordinarily hostile. Sabre took no notice. + +"No, I bet they were your own. You're a great reader, I know." + +Her tone was almost bitter. "I suppose you think I read nothing but +Dickens and that sort of thing." + +"Well, you might do a good deal worse, you know. There's no one like +Dickens, taking everything together." + +She flushed. You could almost see she was going to say something rude. +"That's a very kind thing to say to uneducated people, Mr. Sabre. It +makes them think it isn't education that prevents them enjoying more +advanced writers. But I don't suffer from that, as it so happens. I +daresay some of my reading would be pretty hard even for you." + +Sabre felt Mabel pluck at his sleeve. He glanced at her. Her face was +very angry. Miss Bypass, delivered of her sharp words, was deeper +flushed, her head drawn back. He smiled at her. "Why, I'm sure it would, +Miss Bypass. I tell you what, we must have a talk about reading one day, +shall we? I think it would be rather jolly to exchange ideas." + +An extraordinary and rather alarming change came over Miss Bypass's hard +face. Sabre thought she was going to cry. She said in a thick voice, +"Oh, I don't really read anything particularly good. It's only--Mr. +Sabre, thank you." She turned abruptly away. + +When they were outside, Mabel said, "How extraordinary you are!" + +"Eh? What about?" + +"Making up to that girl like that! I never heard such rudeness as the +way she spoke to you." Sabre said, "Oh, I don't know." + +"Don't know! When you spoke to her so politely and the way she answered +you! And then you reply quite pleasantly--" + +He laughed. "You didn't expect me to give her a hard punch in the eye, +did you?" + +"No, of course I didn't expect you to give her a hard punch in the eye. +But I should have thought you'd have had more sense of your own dignity +than to take no notice and invite her to have a talk one day." + +He thought, "Here we are again!" He said, "Well, but look, Mabel. I +don't think she means it for rudeness. She is rude of course, beastly +rude; but, you know, that manner of hers always makes me feel +frightfully sorry for her." + +"Sorry!" + +"Yes, haven't you noticed many people like her with that defiant sort of +way of speaking--people not very well educated, or very badly off, or in +rather a dependent position, and most frightfully conscious of it. They +think every one is looking down on them, or patronising them, and the +result is they're on the defensive all the time. Well, that's awfully +pathetic, you know, all your life being on the defensive; back against +the wall; can't get away; always making feeble little rushes at the mob. +By Jove, that's pathetic, Mabel." + +She said, "I'm not listening, you know." + +He was startled. "Eh?" + +"I say I'm not listening. I always know that whenever I say anything +about any one I dislike, you immediately start making excuses for them, +so I simply don't listen." + +He mastered a sudden feeling within him. "Well, it wasn't very +interesting," he said. + +"No, it certainly wasn't. Pathetic!" She gave her sudden burst of +laughter. "You think such extraordinary things pathetic; I wonder you +don't start an orphanage!" + +He halted and faced her. "Look here, I think I'll leave you here. I +think I'll go for a bit of a walk." + +Pretty hard, sometimes, not to-- + + +III + +At The Precincts the increasing habit of seeing the other side of things +was confined, in its increasing exemplifications of how impossible he +was to get on with, to the furiously exciting incidents of public +affairs; but the result was the same; the result was that, just as, on +opening his door on return home at night, he had that chill and rather +eerie feeling of stepping into an empty house, so, on entering the +office of a morning, he came to have again that sensation that it was a +deserted habitation into which he was stepping; no welcome here; no +welcome there. He began to look forward with a new desire for the escape +and detachment of the bicycle ride; he began to approach its termination +at either end with a sense of apprehension, gradually of dismay. + +They were as unexpected, the conflicts of opinion, in the office as they +were at home. The subject would come up, he would enter it according to +his ideas and without foreseeing trouble, and suddenly he would find +himself in acute opposition and giving acute offence because he was in +acute opposition. + +The Suffragettes! The day when Mr. Fortune received through the post +letters upon which militancy had squirted its oppression and its +determination in black and viscid form through the aperture of the +letter box. "And you're sticking up for them!" declared Mr. Fortune in a +very great passion. "You're deliberately sticking up for them. +You--pah!--pouff!--paff! I have got the abominable stuff all over my +fingers." + +Sabre displayed the "wrinkled-up nut" of his Puzzlehead boyhood. "I'm +not sticking up for them. I detest their methods as much as you do. I +think they're monstrous and indefensible. All I said was that, things +being as they are, you can't help seeing that their horrible ways are +bringing the vote a jolly sight nearer than it's ever been before. +Millions of people who never would have thought about woman suffrage are +thinking about it now. These women are advertising it as it never could +be advertised by calmly talking about it, and you can't get anything +nowadays except by shouting and smashing and abusing and advertising. I +only wish you could. No one listens to reason. It's got to be what they +call a whirlwind campaign or go without. That's not sticking up for +them. It's simply recognising a rotten state of affairs." + +"And I say to you," returned Mr. Fortune, scrubbing furiously at his +fingers with a duster, "and I say to you what I seem to be perpetually +forced to say to you, that your ideas are becoming more and more +_repugnant_ to me. There's not a solitary subject comes up between us +but you adopt in it what I desire to call a stubborn and contumacious +attitude towards me. Whoof!" He blew a cyclonic blast down the speaking +tube. "Send Parker up here. Parker! Send _Parker_ up here! Parker! +_Parker! Parker!_ Pah! Pouff! Paff! Now it's all over the speaking tube! +I am by no means recovered yet, Sabre, I am very far from being yet +recovered, from your remarks yesterday on the Welsh Church +Disestablishment Bill. Let me remind you again that your attitude was +not only very painful to me in my capacity of one in Holy Orders, it was +also outrageously opposed to the traditions and standing of this firm. +We are out of sympathy, Sabre. We are seriously out of sympathy; and let +me tell you that you would do well to reflect whether we are not +dangerously out of sympathy. Let me--" + +The door porter entered in the venerable presence of the summoned +Parker, much agitated. + +Sabre began, "If you can't see what I said about the Disestablishment +Bill--" + +"I did not see; I do not see; I cannot see and I shall not see. I--" + +Sabre moved towards his door. "Well, I'd better be attending to my work. +If anything I've said annoyed you, it certainly was not intended to." + +And there followed him into his room, "Pumice stone! Pumice stone! +Pumice stone! Go to the chemist's and get some pumice stone.... Very +well then, sir, don't stand there staring at me, sir!" + + +IV + +Like living in two empty houses: empty this end; empty that end. More +frequently, for these estrangements, appealed to him the places of his +refuge: the room of his mind, that private chamber wherein, retired, he +assembled the parts of his puzzles; that familiar garment in which, +invested, he sat among the fraternity of his thoughts; the evenings with +Young Perch and old Mrs. Perch; the evenings with Mr. Fargus. + +Most strongly of all called another refuge; and this, because it called +so strongly, he kept locked. Nona. + +They met no more frequently than, prior to her two years' absence, they +had been wont to meet in the ordinary course of neighbourly life; and +their lives, by their situations, were much detached. Northrepps was +only visited, never resided at for many months together. + +His resolution was not to force encounters. Once, very shortly after +that day of her disclosure, he had said to her, "Look here, we're not +going to have any arranged meetings, Nona. I'm not strong enough--not +strong enough to resist. I couldn't bear it." + +She answered, "You're too strong, Marko. You're too strong to do what +you think you ought not to do; it isn't not being strong enough." + +He told her she was very wrong. "That's giving me strength of character. +I haven't any strength of character at all. That's been my failing all +my life. I tell you what I've got instead. I've got the most +frightfully, the most infernally vivid sense of what's right in my own +personal conduct. Lots of people haven't. I envy them. They can do what +they like. But I know what I ought to do. I know it so absolutely that +there's no excuse for me when I don't do it, certainly no credit if I +do. I go in with my eyes open or I stay out merely because my eyes are +open. There's nothing in that. If it's anything it's contemptible." + +She said, "Teach me to be contemptible." + + +V + +In those words he had expressed his composition. What he had not +revealed--that very vividness of sense of what was right (and what was +wrong) in his conduct forbidding it--was the corroding struggle to +preserve the path of his duty. Because of that struggle he kept locked +the refuge that Nona was to him in his dismays. He would have no +meetings with her save only such as thrice happy chance and most kind +circumstance might apportion. That was within the capacity of his +strength. He could "at least" (he used to think) prevent his limbs from +taking him to her. But his mind--his mind turned to her; automatically, +when he was off his guard, as a swing door ever to its frame; +frantically, when he would abate it, as a prisoned animal against its +bars. By day, by night, in Fortune's company, in Mabel's company, in +solitude, his mind turned to her. This was the refuge he kept locked, +using the expression and envisaging it. + +He used to think, "Of course I fail. Of course she's always in my mind. +But while I make the effort to prevent it, while I do sometimes manage +to wrench my mind away, I'm keeping fit; I'm able to go on putting up +some sort of a fight. I'm able to help her." + +To help her! But helping her, unfolding before her in his own measured +words, as one pronouncing sentence, rectitude's austere asylum for +their pains, watching her while she listened, hearing her gentle +acquiescence,--these were most terrible to his governance upon himself. + + +VI + +He said one day, "You see, there's this, Nona. Life's got one. We're in +the thing. All the time you've got to go on. You can't go back one +single second. What you've done, you've done. It may take only a minute +in the doing, or in the saying, but it's done, or said, for all your +life, perhaps for the whole of some one else's life as well. That's +terrific, Nona. + +"Nona, that's how life gets us; there's just one way we can get life and +that's by thinking forward before we do a thing. By remembering that +it's going to be there for always. What's in our hearts for one another, +Nona, is no hurt to to-morrow or to next year or to twenty years hence, +either to our own lives or to any one else's--no hurt while it's only +there and not expressed, or acted on. I've never told you what's in my +heart for you, nor you told me what's in your heart for me. It must +remain like that. Once that goes, everything goes. It's only a question +of time after that. And after that, again, only a question of time +before one of us looks back and wishes for the years over again." + +She made the smallest motion of dissent. + +He said, "Yes. There's right and wrong, Nona. Nothing else in between. +No compromise. No way of getting round them or over them. You must be +either one thing or the other. Once we took a step towards wrong, there +it is for ever, and all its horrible things with it--deceit, +concealment, falsehood, subterfuge, pretence: vile and beastly things +like that. I couldn't endure them; and I much less could endure thinking +I had caused you to suffer them. And then on through that mire to +dishonour.--It's easy, it sounds rather fine, to say the world well lost +for love; but honour, honour's not well lost for anything. You can't +replace it. I couldn't--" + +The austere asylum of their pains. He looked back upon it as he had +unfolded it. He looked forward across it as, most stern and bleak, it +awaited them. He cried with a sudden loudness, as though he protested, +not before her, but before arbitrament in the high court of destiny, +"But I cannot help you upward; I can only lead you downward." + +She said, "Upward, Marko. You help me upward." + +Her gentle acquiescence! + +There swept upon him, as one reckless in sudden surge of intoxication, +most passionate desire to take her in his arms; and on her lips to crush +to fragments the barriers of conduct he had in damnable sophistries +erected; and in her ears to breathe, "You are beloved to me! Honour, +honesty, virtue, rectitude--words, darling, words, words, words! +Beloved, let the foundations of the world go spinning, so we have love." + +He called most terribly upon himself, and his self answered him; but +shaken by that most fierce onset he said thickly, "I'll have this. If +ever it grows too hard for you, tell me--tell me." + + +VII + +It must be kept locked. In grievous doubt of his own strength, in +loneliness more lonely for his doubt, more deeply, as advancing summer +lengthened out his waking solitude, he explored among his inmost +thoughts; more eagerly, in relief from their perplexities, turned to the +companionship of Fargus and the Perches. How very, very glad they +always were to see him! It was the strong happiness they manifested in +greeting him that most deeply gave the pleasure he had in their company. +He often pondered the fact. It was, in their manifestation of it, as +though he brought them something,--something very pleasurable to them +and that they much wanted. Certainly he, for his own part, received such +from them: a sense of warmth, a kindling of the spirit, a glowing of all +his affections and perceptions. + +His mind would explore curiously along this train of thought. He came to +determine that infinitely the most beautiful thing in life was a face +lighting up with the pleasure of friendship: in its apotheosis +irradiating with the wonder of love. That frequent idea of his of the +"wanting something" look in the faces of half the people one saw: he +thought that the greeting of some one loved might well be a touching of +the quality that was to seek. The weariest and the most wistful faces +were sheerly transfigured by it. But he felt it was not entirely the +secret. The greeting passed; the light faded; the wanting returned. But +he determined the key to the solution lay within that ambit. The +happiness was there. It was here in life, found, realised in loving +meeting, as warmth is found on stepping from shadow into the sun. The +thing lacking was something that would fix it, render it permanent, +establish it in the being as the heart is rooted in the +body.--Something? What? + +He thought, "Well, why is it that children's faces are always happy? +There's something they must lose as they grow out of childhood. It's not +that cares and troubles come; the absurd troubles of childhood are just +as terrific troubles to them as grown-ups' cares are to grown-ups. No, +it is that something is lost. Well, what had I as a child that I have +not as a man? Would it be hope? Would it be faith? Would it be belief?" + +He thought, "I wonder if they're all the same, those three--belief, +faith, hope? Belief in hope. Faith in hope. It may be. Is it that a +child knows no limitation to hope? It can hope impossible things. But a +man hopes no further than he can see--I wonder--" + +And suddenly, in one week, life from its armoury discharged two events +upon him. In the next week one upon the world. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +I + +Towards the end of July there was some particularly splendid excitement +for the newspaper-reading public. Ireland provided it; and the +newspapers, as the events enlarged one upon the other, could scarcely +find type big enough to keep pace with them. On the twenty-first, the +King caused a conference of British and Irish leaders to assemble at +Buckingham Palace. On the twenty-fourth, the British and Irish leaders +departed from Buckingham Palace in patriotic halos of national champions +who had failed to agree "in principle or detail." Deadlock and Crisis +flew about the streets in stupendous type; and though they had been +doing so almost daily for the past eighteen months, everybody could see, +with the most delicious thrills, that these were more firmly locked +deadlocks and more critical crises than had ever before come whooping +out of the inexhaustible store where they were kept for the public +entertainment. Austria, and then Germany, made a not bad attempt on +public attention by raking up some forgotten sensation over a stale +excitement at a place called Sarajevo; but on the twenty-sixth, Ireland +magnificently filled the bill again by the far more serious affair of +Nationalist Volunteers landing three thousand rifles and marching with +them into Dublin. Troops fired on the mob, and the House of Commons gave +itself over to a most exciting debate on the business; the Irish Party +demanded a large number of brutal heads to be delivered on chargers; and +Unionist politicians, Press, and public declared that the heads were +not brutal heads but loyal and devoted heads and should not be +delivered; on the contrary they should be wreathed. It was delicious. + + +II + +It was delicious and it was, moreover, reassuring. In these same days +between the summoning of the Buckingham Palace Conference and the +landing of the Nationalist guns, Continental events arising out of the +stale Sarajevo affair reared their heads and looked towards Great +Britain in a presumptuous and sinister way to which the British public +was not accustomed, and which it resented. The British public had never +taken any interest in international affairs and it did not wish to take +any interest in international affairs. It certainly did not wish to be +disturbed by them, and at this moment of the exciting Irish deadlock the +Wilhelmstrasse, the Ball Platz, the Quai d'Orsay and similar stupid, +meaningless and unpronounceable places intruded themselves disturbingly +in British homes, much as the writing on the wall vexatiously disturbed +Belshazzar's feast, and were similarly resented. Belshazzar probably +ordered in a fresh troupe of dancers to remove the chilly effect of the +stupid, meaningless and unpronounceable writing, and in the same way the +British public turned with relief and with thrills to the gun-running +and the shooting. + +It was characteristically intriguing in the nature of its excitement. It +was characteristically intriguing because, like all the domestic +sensations to which the British Public had become accustomed, it in no +way interfered with the lives of those not directly implicated in it. +Like them all, it entertained without inconveniencing. They knew their +place, the deadlocks, the crises and the other sensations of those +glowing days. They caused no member of their audience to go without his +meals. They interfered neither with pleasure nor with business. + + +III + +Sometimes this was a little surprising. Fresh from newspaper instruction +of the deadness of the deadlock, the poignancy of the crisis, or the +stupendity of the achievement, one rather expected one's own personal +world to stand still and watch it. But one's own personal world never +did stand still and watch it. + +Sabre, coming into his office on the day reporting the affray in Dublin, +was made to experience this. + +In the town, on his arrival, he purchased several of the London +newspapers to read other accounts and other views of the gun-running and +its sensational sequel. His intention was to read them the moment he got +to his room. He put them on a chair while he hung up his straw hat and +filled a pipe. + +They remained there unopened till the charwoman removed them in the +evening. On his desk, as he glanced towards it, was a letter from Nona. + +He turned it over in his hands--the small neat script. She never before +had written to him at the office. It bore the London postmark. She would +be writing from their town house. It would be to say she was coming +back.... But she never wrote on the occasions of her return; they just +met.... And she had never before written to the office. + +Mr. Fortune appeared at the communicating door. Sabre put the letter +into his pocket and turned towards him. + +Mr. Fortune came into the room. With him was a young man, a youth, whose +face was vaguely familiar to Sabre; Twyning behind. + +"Ah, Sabre," said Mr. Fortune. "Good morning, Sabre. This is rather a +larger number of visitors than you would commonly expect, but we are a +larger staff this morning than we have heretofore been. I am bringing in +to you a new member of our staff." He indicated the young man beside +him. "A new member but bearing an old name. A chip of the old block--the +old Twyning block." He smiled, stroking his whale-like front rather as +though this pleasantry had proceeded from its depths and he was +congratulating it. The young man smiled. Twyning, edging forward from +the background, also smiled. All the smiles were rather nervous. This +was natural in the new member of the staff but in Twyning and Mr. +Fortune gave Sabre the feeling that for some reason they were not +entirely at ease. His immediate thought had been that it was an odd +thing to have taken on young Twyning without mentioning it even casually +to him. It was significant of his estrangement in the office; but their +self-conscious manner was even more significant: it suggested that he +had been kept out of the plan deliberately. + +He gave the young man his hand. "Why, that's very nice," he said. "I +thought I knew your face. I think I've seen you with your father. You've +been in Blade and Parson's place, haven't you?" + +Young Twyning replied that he had. He had his father's rather quick and +stiff manner of speaking. He was fair-haired and complexioned, +good-looking in a sharp-featured way, a juvenile edition of his father +in a different colouring. + +Mr. Fortune, still stroking the whale-like front, produced further +pleasantry from it. "Yes, with Blade and Parson. Twyning here has +snatched him from the long arm of the law before he has had time to +develop the long jaw of the legal shark. In point of fact, Sabre"--Mr. +Fortune ceased to stroke the whale-like front. He moved a step or two +out of the line of Sabre's regard, and standing before the bookshelves, +addressed his remarks to them as though what else he had to say were not +of particular consequence--"In point of fact, Sabre, this very natural +and pleasing desire of Twyning to have his son in the office, a desire +which I am most gratified to support, is his first--what shall I +say?--feeling of his feet--establishing of his position--in his +new--er--in his new responsibility, duty--er--function. I like this +deeper tone in the 'Six Terms' binding, Sabre. I distinctly approve it. +Yes. What was I saying? Ah, yes, Twyning is now in partnership, Sabre. +Yes. Good." + +He came abruptly away from the shelves and directed the whale-like front +towards his door in process of departure. "A little reorganisation. +Nothing more. Just a little reorganisation. I think you'll find we shall +all work very much the more comfortably for it." He paused before young +Twyning. "Well, young man, now you've made your bow before our literary +adviser. I think we decided to call him Harold, eh, Twyning? Avoid +confusion, don't you agree, Sabre?" + +"If that's his name," Sabre said. He had remained standing looking +towards father and son precisely as he had stood and looked at the +party's entry. + +Mr. Fortune glanced sharply at him and compressed his lips. "It is," he +said shortly. He left the room. + + +IV + +Twyning spoke his first words since his entry. "Well, there we are, old +man." He smiled and breathed strongly through his nose, as if tensing +himself against some emergency that might arise. + +Sabre said, "Yes, well done, Twyning. Of course he promised you this +long ago." + +"Yes, didn't he? Glad you remember my telling you. Of course it won't +make the least difference to you, old man. What I mean is, if anything I +hope I shall be able to give you a leg up in all sorts of ways. I've +been telling Harold what a frightfully smart man you are, haven't I, +Harold?" + +Harold smiled assent to this tribute, and Sabre said, "I suppose we +shall go on much as before?" + +"Oh, rather, old man." + +"Harold be working in your room, eh?" + +"Yes, that's the idea, for a start, anyway. They're just shoving up a +desk for him. Come along in and see how we're fixing it, old man." + +"I'll look in presently." + +"Righto, old man. Come along, Harold." At the door he turned and said, +"Oh, by the way. I want you to show Harold through the work of this side +of the business a bit later on." + +Sabre looked quickly at him. "You _want_ me to?" + +Twyning flushed darkly. "Well, he may as well get the hang of the whole +business, mayn't he? That's what I mean." + +"Oh, certainly he should. I quite agree. Send him along any time you +like." + +"Thanks awfully, old man." + +But outside the door Twyning added to himself: "You thought that was an +order, my lord; and you didn't like it. Pretty soon you won't think. +You'll know." + + +V + +Sabre remained standing at his desk. He had a tiny ball of paper in his +hand and he rolled it round between his finger and thumb, round and +round and round and round.... In his mind was a recollection: "You have +struck your tents and are upon the march." + +He thought, "This has been coming a long time.... It's my way of looking +at things has done this. I'm getting so I've got nowhere to turn. It's +no good pretending I don't feel this. I feel it most frightfully.... +I've let down the books. They'll take a back place in the business now. +Twyning's always been jealous of them. Fortune's never really liked my +success with them. They'll begin interfering with the books now.... My +books.... It was rottenly done. Behind my back. Plotted against me, or +they wouldn't have sprung it on me like that. That shows what it's going +to be like.... It's all through my way of looking at things.... I've no +one here I can take things to. This frightful feeling of being alone in +the place. And it's going to be worse. And nowhere to get out of it. +More empty at home.... And now there's this. And I've got to go back to +that.... 'You have struck your tents and are upon the march' ... Yes. +Yes...." + +He suddenly recollected Nona's letter. He took it from his pocket and +opened it; and the second event was discharged upon him. + +She wrote from their town house: + +"_Marko, take me away--Nona._" + +His emotions leapt to her with most terrible violence. He felt his heart +leap against his breast as though, engine of his tumult, it would burst +its bonds and to her. He struck his hand upon the desk. He said aloud, +"Yes! Yes!" He remembered his words, "If ever you feel you can't bear +it, tell me.--Tell me." + + +VI + +He began to write plans to her. He would come to London to-morrow.... +She should come to the station if she could; if not, he would be at the +Great Western Hotel. She would telephone to him there and they could +arrange to meet and discuss what they should do.... He would like to go +away with her directly they met, but there were certain things to see +to. He wrote, "But I can only take you--" + +His pen stopped. Familiar words! He repeated them to himself, and their +conclusion and their circumstance appeared and stood, as with a sword, +across the passage of his thoughts. "But I can only lead you downwards. +I cannot lead you upwards ..." + +As with a sword-- + +He sat back in his chair and gazed upon this armed intruder to give it +battle. + + +VII + +The morning passed and the afternoon while still he sat, no more moving +than to sink lower in his seat as the battle joined and as he most +dreadfully suffered in its most dreadful onsets. Towards five o'clock he +put out his hand without moving his position and drew towards him the +letter he had begun. The action was as that of one utterly undone. He +very slowly tore it across, and then across again, and so into tiniest +fragments till his fingers could no more fasten upon them. He dropped +his arm away and opened his hand, and the white pieces fluttered in a +little cloud to the floor. + +Presently he drew himself up to the table and began to write, writing +very slowly because his hand trembled so. In half an hour he blotted the +few lines on the last sheet: + +"...So, simply what I want to do is to let our step--if we take it--be +mine, not yours. We shall forget absolutely that you ever wrote. It's as +though it had never been written. On Tuesday I will write and ask you, +'Shall I come up to you?' So if you say 'Yes' the action will have been +entirely mine. It will start from there. This hasn't happened. And +during these days in between, just think like anything over what I've +said. Honour can't have any degree, Nona, any more than truth can have +any degree: whatever else the world can quibble to bits it can't +partition those: truth is just truth and honour is just honour. And a +marriage vow is a pledge of honour like any other pledge of honour, and +if one breaks it one breaks one's honour, never mind what the excuse is. +There's no conceivable way of arguing out of that. That's what I shall +ask you to do on Tuesday and I'm just warning you so you shall have time +to think beforehand." + +He took his pen, and steadied his hand, and wrote: + +"And your reply, when I ask you, whichever it is, shall bring me light +into darkness, unutterable darkness.--M." + +He could hear the homeward movements about the office. It was time to +go. He wheeled his bicycle to the letter box at the corner of The +Precincts. As he dropped in his letter, the evening edition of Pike's +paper came bawling around the corner. + +AUSTRIA +DECLARES WAR +ON SERVIA + +He shook his head at the paper the boy held out to him and rode away. +What had that kind of thing to do with him? + + +VIII + +Unutterable darkness! He lived within it during the days that followed +while he awaited the day appointed to write to Nona again. He had put +away that for which, with a longing that was almost physical in its +pain, his spirit craved; and craved the more terribly for his denial of +it. Whatever she said when he asked, whichever way she answered him, he +would be brought relief from his intolerable stress. If she maintained +honour above love, his weakness, he knew, would be welded into strength, +as the presence of another brings enormous support to timidity; if she +declared for love,--his mind surged within him at the imagination of +bursting away once and for ever the squeamish principles which for +years, hedging about his conduct on this side and on that, had profited +nothing those on whose behalf they had been erected and his own life had +desolated into barrenness. + +He was little disposed, in these dismays and in this darkness, to divert +attention to the international disturbances which now were rumbling +across the newspapers in portentous and enormous headlines. Ireland was +pressed away. It was all Europe now--thrones, chancelleries, councils, +armies. He tried to say, "What of it?" Many in Great Britain tried to +say, "What of it?" Crises and deadlocks again! Meaningless and empty +words, for months and years past worked to death and rendered hollow as +empty vessels. Some one would climb down. Some one always climbed down. + +Nobody climbed down. + +The cauldron whose seething and bubbling had entertained some, fidgeted +some, some nothing at all concerned, suddenly boiled over, and poured in +boiling fat upon the flames, and poured in flames upon the hearth of +every man's concerns. + +On Friday the Stock Exchange closed. On Saturday Germany declared war on +Russia. In Sunday's papers Sabre read of the panic run on the banks, +people fighting to convert their notes into gold. One London bank had +suspended payment. Many had shut out failure only by minutes when midday +permitted them to close their doors. People were besieging the provision +shops to lay in stores of food. + +And poured in flames upon the hearth of every man's concerns.... + +All his concerns, the crisis with Nona, with his honour and his love, +that awaited determination, were disputed their place in his mind by the +incredible and enormous events that each new hour discharged upon the +world. He watched them as one might be watching a burning building and +feeling at every moment that the roof will crash in, yet somehow feeling +that it cannot and will not fall in. The thing was gone beyond +possibility of recovery, there terribly arose now the urgency for Great +Britain to declare for honour, yet somehow he felt that it could not and +would not fail to be averted. It could not happen. + +It did happen. On Tuesday the mounting amazements burst amain. On +Tuesday the roof that could not fall in fell in. On Tuesday, the day +appointed for his letter to Nona, he uttered in realisation that which, +uttered in speculation, had been meaningless as an unknown word spoken +in a foreign tongue: "War!" + + +IX + +The news of Tuesday morning caused him at six o'clock in the evening to +have been standing two hours in the great throng that filled Market +Square gazing towards the offices of the _County Times_. Our +mobilisation, our resolve to stand by France if the German Fleet came +into the Channel, lastly, most awfully pregnant of all, our obligations +to Belgium,--that had been the morning's news, conveyed in the report of +Sir Edward Grey's statement in the House of Commons. That afternoon the +Prime Minister was to make a statement. + +A great murmur swelled up from the waiting crowd, a great movement +pressed it forward towards the _County Times_ offices. On the +first-floor balcony men appeared dragging a great board faced with +paper, on the paper enormous lettering. The board was pulled out +endways. The man last through the window took a step forward and swung +the letters into view. + +PREMIER'S STATEMENT + ------- +ULTIMATUM TO GERMANY +EXPIRES MIDNIGHT + +Sabre said aloud, "My God! War!" + +As a retreating wave harshly withdrawing upon the reluctant pebbles, +there sounded from the crowd an enormous intaking of the breath. An +instant's stupendous silence, the wave poised for return. Down! A +shattering roar, tremendous, wordless. The figure of Pike appeared upon +the balcony, in his shirt sleeves, his long hair wild about his face, in +his hands that which caught the roar as it were by the throat, stopped +it and broke it out anew on a burst of exultant clamour. A Union Jack. +He shook it madly with both hands above his head. The roar broke into a +tremendous chant. "God Save the King!" + +Sabre pressed his way out of the Square. He kept saying to himself, +"War.... War...." He found himself running to the office; no one was in +the office; then getting out his bicycle with frantic haste, then +riding home,--hard. + +And he kept saying, "War!" + +He thought, "Otway!" and before his eyes appeared a vision of Otway with +those little beads of perspiration on his nose. + +War--he couldn't get any further than that. Like the systole and +diastole of a slowly beating pulse, the word kept on forming in his mind +and welling away in a tide of confused and amorphous scenes; and forming +again; and again oozing in presentments of speculations, scenes, +surmises, and in profound disturbances of strange emotions. War.... And +there kept appearing the face of Otway with the little points of +perspiration about his nose. Otway had predicted this months ago.--And +he was right. It had come. + +War.... + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +I + +He approached Penny Green and realised for the first time the hard pace +at which he had been riding. And realised also the emotions which +subconsciously had been driving him along. All the way he had been +saying "War!" What he wanted, most terribly, was to say it aloud to some +one. He wanted to say it to Mabel. He had a sudden great desire to see +Mabel and tell her about it and talk to her about it. He felt a +curiously protective feeling towards her. For the first time in his life +he pedalled instead of free-wheeling the conclusion of the ride. He ran +into the house and into the morning room. Mabel was not there. It was +almost dinner time. She would be in her room. He ran upstairs. She was +standing before her dressing table and turned to him in surprise. + +"Whatever--" + +"I say, it's war!" + +She echoed the word. "War?" + +"Yes, war. We've declared war!" + +"Declared war?" + +"Yes, declared war. We've sent Germany an ultimatum. It ends to-night. +It's the same thing. It means war." + +He was breathless, panting. She said, "Good gracious! Whatever will +happen? Have you brought an evening paper? Do you know the papers didn't +come this morning till--" + +He could not hear her out. "No, I didn't wait. I simply rushed away." +He was close to her. He took her hands. "I say, Mabel, it's war." His +emotions were tumultuous and extraordinary. He wanted to draw her to him +and kiss her. They had not kissed for longer than he could have +remembered; but now he held her hands hard and desired to kiss her. "I +say, it's war." + +She gave her sudden burst of laughter. "You are excited. I've never seen +you so excited. Your collar's undone." + +He dropped her hands. He said rather stupidly, "Well, it's war, you +know," and stood there. + +She turned to her dressing table. "Well, I do wish you'd stayed for a +paper. Now we've got to wait till to-morrow and goodness only knows--" +She was fastening something about her throat and held her breath in the +operation. She released it and said, "Just fancy, war! I never thought +it would be. What will happen first? Will they--" She held her breath +again. She said, "It's too annoying about those papers coming so late. +If they haven't arrived when you go off to-morrow you can tell Jones he +needn't send them any more. He's one of those independent sort of +tradesmen who think they can do just what they like. Just fancy actually +having war with Germany. I can't believe it." She turned towards him and +gave her sudden laugh again. "I say, aren't you ever going to move?" + +He went out of the room and along the passage. As he reached his own +room he realised it again. "War--" He went quickly back to Mabel. "I +say--" He stopped. His feelings most frightfully desired some vent. None +here. "Look here. Don't wait dinner for me. You start. I'm going round +to Fargus to tell him." + +At the hall door he turned back and went hurriedly into the kitchen. "I +say, it's war!" + +"Well, there now!" cried High Jinks. + +"Yes, war. We've sent an ultimatum to Germany. It ends to-night." + +Low Jinks threw up her hands. "Well, if that isn't a short war!" + +"Girl alive, the ultimatum ends, not the war. Don't you know what an +ultimatum is?" + +Outside he ran down the drive and ran to Fargus's door. It stood open. +In the hall the eldest Miss Fargus appeared to be maintaining the last +moment before dinner by "doing" a silver card salver. + +"Hullo, Miss Fargus. I say, is your father about? I say, it's war. We've +declared war!" + +The eldest Miss Fargus lifted her head to another Miss Fargus also +"doing" something on the stairs above her, and in a very high voice +called, "Papa! War!" + +The staircase Miss Fargus took it up immediately. "Papa! War!" and Sabre +heard it go echoing through the house, "Papa! War! Papa! War! Papa! +War!" + +"How terrible, how dreadful, how frightful, how awful," said the eldest +Miss Fargus. "You must excuse me shaking hands, but as you see I am over +pink plate powder. I'm not surprised. We were discussing it only at +breakfast; and for my part, though Julie, Rosie, Poppy and Bunchy were +against me, I--" She broke off to turn and take her portion in a new +chorus now filling the house. Sounds of some one descending the stairs +at break-neck speed were heard, and the chorus shrilled, "Papa, take +care! Papa, take care! Papa, take care!" + +Mr. Fargus's grey little figure came terrifically down the last flight +and up the hall, a cloud of female Farguses in his wake. He ran to Sabre +with hands outstretched and grasped Sabre's hands and wrung them. +"Sabre! Sabre! What's this? Really? Truly? War? We've declared war? +Well, I say, thank God! Thank God! I was afraid. I was terribly afraid +we'd stand out. But thank God, England is England still.... And will be, +Sabre; and will be!" He released Sabre's hands and took out a +handkerchief and wiped his eyes. "I prayed for this," he said. "I prayed +for God to be in Downing Street last night." + +The chorus, unpleasantly shocked at the idea of God being asked to go to +Downing Street, said in a low but stern tone, "Papa, hush. Papa, hush. +Papa, hush"; but Sabre had come for this excited wringing of his hands +and for this emotion. It was what he had been seeking ever since Pike's +notice board had swung the news before his eyes. When presently he left +he carried with him that which, when his mind would turn to it, caused +his heart to swell enormously within him. Through the evening, and gone +to bed and lying awake long into the night, he was at intervals caught +up from the dark and oppressive pictures of his mind by surging onset of +the emotions that came with Mr. Fargus's emotion. War.... His spirit +answered, "England!" + + +II + +Lying awake, he thought of Nona. He had not written the letter to her. +The appointed day was past and he had not written. He would have said, +during that unutterable darkness in which he had awaited it, that not +the turning of the world upside down would have prevented him writing; +but the world _had_ turned upside down. It was not a board Pike's men +had swung around in that appalling moment when he had watched them +appear on the balcony. It was the accustomed and imponderable world, +awfully unbalanced. Nona would understand. Nona always understood +everything. He wondered how she had maintained this terrific day. He was +assured that he knew. She would have felt just as he had felt. He +thought, with a most passionate longing for her, that he would have +given anything to have been able to turn to her when he had exclaimed, +"My God, war", and to have caught her hands and looked into her +beautiful face. To-morrow he would send the letter. To-morrow? Why, yes, +to-day, like all to-days in the removed and placid light of all +to-morrows, would be shown needlessly hectic. Ten to one something would +have happened in the night to make to-day look foolish. If nothing had +happened, if it still was war, it could only be a swiftly over business, +a rapid and general recognition of the impossibility of war in modern +conditions. + +Disturbingly upon these thoughts appeared the face of Otway, the little +beads of perspiration about his nose. + +His consciousness stumbled away into the mazy woods of sleep, and +turned, and all night sought to return, and stumbled sometimes to its +knees among the drowsy snares, and saw strange mirages of the round +world horrifically tilted with "War" upon its face, of Nona held away +and not approachable, of intense light and of suffocating darkness; and +rousing and struggling away from these, and stumbling yet, rarely +succumbing. + + +III + +When he went down into Tidborough in the morning it was to know at once +that this to-morrow gave no lie to its precedent day. It intensified it. +The previous day foreshadowed war. The new day presented it. + +The papers, as it happened, did not arrive before he left, and Mabel had +more to say of her annoyance with the insufferable Jones than of what +his withheld wares might contain. Her attitude towards the international +position was--up to this point of its development--precisely this: she +had been following the crisis day by day with appreciation of its +sensational headlines while these were in the paper before her, but +without further interest when the paper was read. She folded up the +thrones, the chancelleries, the councils, the armies and the peoples and +put them away in the brass newspaper rack in the morning room and +proceeded about her duties and her engagements. But she liked unfolding +them and she was thoroughly annoyed with the insufferable Jones for +preventing her from unfolding them. She said she would come down into +Tidborough and speak to Jones herself. + +"Yes, do," said Sabre. "There'll be things to see." + +There were things to see. As he rode into the town people were standing +about in little groups, excitedly talking; every one seemed to have a +newspaper. In a row, as he approached the news agent's, were hugely +printed contents bills, all with the news, in one form or another, "War +Declared." + +It _was_ war. Yesterday no dream. He could not stop to rest his bicycle +against the curb. He leant it over and dropped it on the pavement with a +crash and hurried into the shop and bought and read. + +War.... He looked out into the street through the open doorway. All +those knots of people standing talking. War.... A mounted orderly passed +down the street at a brisk trot, his dispatch bag swaying and bumping +across his back. Every one turned and stared after him, stepped out into +the roadway and stared after him. War.... He bought all the morning +papers and went on to the office. Outside a bank a small crowd of people +waited about the doors. They were waiting to draw out their money. Lloyd +George had announced the closing of the banks for three days; but they +didn't believe it was real. Was it real? He passed Hanbury's, the big +grocer's. It seemed to be crammed. People outside waiting to get in. +They were buying up food. A woman struggled her way out with three tins +of fruit, a pot of jam and a bag of flour. She seemed thoroughly well +pleased with herself. He heard her say to some one, "Well, I've got +mine, anyway." He actually had a sense of reassurance from her grotesque +provisioning. He thought, "You see, every one knows it can't last long." + + +IV + +No one in the office was pretending to do any work. As in the street, +all were in groups eagerly talking. The clerks' room resounded with +excited discussion. Everybody wanted to talk to somebody. He went into +Mr. Fortune's room. Mr. Fortune and Twyning and Harold were gathered +round a map cut from a newspaper, all talking; even young Harold giving +views and being attentively listened to. They looked up and greeted him +cordially. Everybody was cordial and communicative to everybody. "Come +along in, Sabre." He joined them and he found their conversation +extraordinarily reassuring, like the woman who had sufficiently +provisioned with three tins of fruit, a pot of jam and a bag of flour. +They knew a tremendous lot about it and had evidently been reading +military articles for days past. They all showed what was going to be +done, illustrating it on the map. And the map itself was extraordinarily +reassuring: as Twyning showed--his fingers covering the whole of the +belligerent countries--while the Germans were delivering all their power +down _here_, in Belgium, the Russians simply nipped in _here_ and would +be threatening Berlin before those fools knew where they were! + +He thought, "By Jove, yes." + +"And granted," said Mr. Fortune--Mr. Fortune was granting propositions +right and left with an amiability out of all keeping with his normal +stubbornness--"and granted that Germany can put into the field the +enormous numbers you mention, Twyning, what use are they to her? None. +No use whatever. I was talking last night to Sir James Boulder. His son +has been foreign correspondent to one of the London papers for years. +He's attended the army manoeuvres in Germany, France, Austria +everywhere. He knows modern military conditions through and through, as +you may say. Well, he says--and it's obvious when you think of it--that +Germany can't possibly use her enormous masses. No room for them. Only +the merest fraction can ever get into action. Where they're coming in is +like crowding into the neck of a bottle. Two thirds of them uselessly +jammed up behind. A mere handful can hold them up--" + +Harold put in, "Yes, and those terrific fortresses, sir." + +"Precisely. Precisely. Liége, Namur, Antwerp--absolutely impregnable, +all the military correspondents say so. Impregnable. Well, then. There +you are. It's like sending a thousand men to fight in a street. Look +here--" He went vigorously to the window. They all went to the window; +Sabre with them, profoundly impressed. Mr. Fortune pointed into the +street. "There. That's what it is. Here comes your German army down this +way from the cathedral. Choked. Blocked. Immovable mob. How many do you +suppose could hold them up? Thirty, twenty, a dozen. Hold them up and +throw them into hopeless and utter disorder. Pah! Simple, isn't it? I +don't suppose the thing will last a month. What do you say, Sabre?" + +Sabre was feeling considerably more at ease. He felt that the first +shock of the thing had made him take an exaggerated view. "I don't see +how it can," he said, "now I'm hearing a bit more about it. I was +thinking just now what a dramatic thing it would be if it lasted--of +course it can't--but if it lasted till next June and the decisive +battle was fought in June, 1915, just a hundred years after Waterloo. +That would be dramatic, eh?" + +They all laughed, and Sabre, realising the preposterousness of such a +notion, laughed with them. Twyning said, "Next June! Imagine it! At the +very outside it will be well over by Christmas." + +And they all agreed, "Oh, rather!" + + +V + +It was all immensely reassuring, and Sabre gathered up his bundle of +papers and went into his room, feeling on the whole rather pleasurably +excited than otherwise. But as he read, column after column and paper +after paper, measures that had been taken by the Government, orders to +Army and Naval reservists, the impending call for men, the scenes in the +streets of London, and with these the deeply grave tone of the leading +articles, the tremendous statistics and the huge foreshadowing of +certain of the military correspondents, the breathless news already from +the seats of war,--as his mind thus received there returned to it its +earlier sense of enormous oppression and tremendous conjecture. War.... +England.... The first sentence of his history, now greatly advanced, +came tremendously into his mind: "This England you live in is +_yours_...." And now at war--challenged--threatened-- + +It surged enormously within him. He got up. He must go out into the +streets and see what was happening. + +The day wore on. He felt extraordinarily shy and self-conscious about +the performance of a matter that had entered his mind with that surging +uplift of his feelings. It was four o'clock in the afternoon before he +took himself to it and then, leaving its place, he unexpectedly +encountered Mabel. She was just going into the station. She had come in, +as she had proposed, and she told him what she had said to Jones and +what Jones had said to her. "Abominably rude man." + +Then she asked him, "Was that Doctor Anderson's gate you came out of +just now?" + +"Yes." + +"Whatever had you been to see him about?" + +He flushed. He never could invent an excuse when he wanted one. "I'd +been asking him to have a look at me." + +"Whatever for?" + +"Oh, nothing particular." + +"You couldn't have been to see him for nothing." + +"Well, practically nothing. You remember when I increased my life +insurance some time ago they said my heart was a bit groggy and made a +bit of a fuss? Well, I thought I'd just see again so as to get out of +paying that higher premium." + +"Oh, that. What nonsense it was. What did he say?" + +"Said I had a murmur or some rot. I say, if you're going back now, don't +wait dinner for me to-night. I'll get something here. The _Evening +Times_ is bringing out a special edition at nine o'clock. I'd like to +wait for it." + +She assented, "Yes, bring home the paper." + +He went into the office. The afternoon post had brought letters to his +desk. He turned them over without interest, then caught up one,--from +Nona. + + Marko, this frightful war! I have thanked God on my knees for you + that last week you prevented me. If I had done it with this! Tony + has rejoined the Guards, he was in the Reserve of Officers. And you + see that whatever has been, and is, dear, he's my man to stand by + in this. Marko, it would have been too awful if I couldn't, and I + thank God for you, again and again and again. Nona. + +Twyning appeared. "Hullo, old man, heard the latest? I say, you look as +if you're ready to take on the whole world." + + + +CHAPTER V + + +I + +The enormous and imponderable world awfully unbalanced. Upside down. +Extraordinarily unreal. Furiously real. + +Life, which had been a thing of the clock and of the calendar, became a +thing of events in which there was no time,--only events. + +Things began one day very shortly after the declaration of war when, +passing the barracks on his way home, Sabre was accosted and taken into +the Mess by Cottar, a subaltern of the Pinks. + +"You must come along in and have a cup of tea," young Cottar urged. +"We've got a hell of a jamborino on. At least we shall have to-night. +We're just working up for it. I can't tell you why. You can guess." + +Sabre felt a sudden catch at his emotions. "Is the regiment going?" + +They were at the door of the anteroom. Cottar swung it open. The room +was full of men and tobacco smoke and noise. A very tall youth, one +Sikes, was standing on the table, a glass in his hand. "Hullo, Sabre! +Messman, one of those very stiff whiskies for Mr. Sabre--go on, Sabre, +you must. Because--" He had not Cottar's reticence. He burst into song, +waving his glass--"Because-- + + "We shan't be here in the morning--" + +They all took it up, bawling uproariously: + + We shan't be here in the morning, + We shan't be here in the morning, + We shan't be here in the mor-or-ning, + Before the break of day! + +Otway came in. "Shut up, you noisy young fools. What the--" + +Sikes from the table. "Ah, Papa Otway! Three cheers for Papa Otway in +very discreet whispers. Messman, one of those very stiff whiskies for +Captain Otway." + +Otway laughed pleasantly. "No, chuck it, I'm not drinking. Hood, I want +you; and you, Carmichael, and you, Bullen." He saw Sabre and came to +him. "Hullo, Sabre. You've heard now. We've managed to keep it pretty +close, but it's all over the place now. Yes, we entrain at daybreak." + +Sabre felt frightfully affected. He could hardly speak. "Good Lord. I +can't realise it. I say, Otway, do you remember predicting this nearly +two years ago? You said this would find us all unawares. You were one of +the people every one laughed at." + +Precisely the same Otway who had spoken with such extraordinary +intensity outside the Corn Exchange eighteen months before began to +speak with extraordinary intensity now. "That? Oh, I don't give a damn +for any of that now. This is our show now, Sabre. The Army's show. I +don't give a damn for what happens at home now. This is our show. Sabre, +you don't know what this is for me. I've lived for this, dreamt about +it, thought about it, eaten it, drunk it ever since I was a kid at +Sandhurst. Now it's come. By God, it's come at last!" + +The same Otway! Positively the little beads of perspiration were shining +about his nose. His eyes scintillated an extraordinary light. He said, +"By God, Sabre, you ought to have seen the battalion on parade this +morning! By God, they were magnificent. They're the finest thing that +ever happened. There's nothing in the Army List to touch us. When I +think I'll be in action with them perhaps inside a week--I--" + +An orderly approached and spoke to him. "Right. Right. I'll come along +at once." He was swiftly away. "Patterson, I want you too. There's a man +in your company says his wife--" + +And, stilled during his presence, babel broke out anew with his +departure. Some one, standing on a sofa, caught up Otway's last word +into a bawling song-- + + I've got a wife and sixteen kids, + I've got a wife and sixteen kids, + I've got a wife and-- + +A cushion whizzed across the room into his face. A tag began. Sikes on +the table was laying down laws of equipment at the top of his voice. +"Well, I'm going to take nothing but socks. I'm going to stuff my pack +absolutely bung full of socks. Man alive, I tell you nothing matters +except socks. If you can keep on getting clean socks every--I'm going to +stuff in socks enough to last me--"[1] + +[Footnote 1: A very short time afterwards, while the incident was fresh +in his memory, Sabre heard that Sikes took out eleven pairs of socks and +was killed, at Mons, in the pair he landed in.] + + +II + +The blessed gift in the war was to be without imagination. The supreme +trial, whether in endurance on the part of those who stayed at home, or +in courage on the part of those who took the field, was upon those whose +mentality invested every sight and every happening with the poignancy of +attributes not present but imagined. For Sabre the war definitely began +with that visit to the Mess on the eve of the Pinks' departure. The high +excitement of the young men, their eager planning, the almost religious +ecstasy of Otway at the consummation of his life's dream, moved Sabre, +visioning what might await it all, in depths profound and painful in +their intensity. His mind would not abandon them. He sat up that night +after Mabel had gone to her room. How on earth could he go to bed, be +hoggishly sleeping, while those chaps were marching out? + +He could not. At two in the morning he went quietly from the house and +got out his bicycle and rode down into Tidborough. + +He was just in time. The news had been well kept, or in those early days +had not the meaning it came to have. Nevertheless a few people stood +about the High Street in the thin light of the young morning, and when, +almost immediately, the battalion came swinging out of the Market Place, +many appeared flanking it, mostly women. + +"Here they come!" + +Frightful words! Sabre caught them from a young woman spoken to a very +old woman whose arm she held a few paces from where he stood. Frightful +words! He caught his breath, and, more dreadfully upon his emotions, as +the head of the column came into sight, the band, taking them to the +station, burst into the Pinks' familiar quickstep. + + The Camp Town races are five miles long, + Doo-da! Doo-da! + The Camp Town races are five miles long, + Doo-da! Doo-da! Day! + Gwine to run all night. Gwine to run all day. + I bet my money on the bob-tail nag, + Somebody bet on the bay! + +He never in his life had experienced anything so utterly frightful or +imagined that anything could be so utterly frightful. His throat felt +bursting. His eyes were filled. They were swinging past him, file by +file. _Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!_ He scarcely could see them. They were +marching at ease, their rifles slung. They seemed to be appallingly +laden with stupendous packs and multitudinous equipment. A tin mug and +God knows what else beside swung and rattled about their thighs. The +women with them were running to keep up, and dragging children, and +stretching hands into the ranks, and crying--all crying. + + ...Doo-da! Doo-da! + The Camp Town races are five miles long, + Doo-da! Doo-da! Day! + +He thought, "Damn that infernal music." He wiped his eyes. This was +impossible to bear ... _Doo-da! Doo-da!_ A most frightful thing +happened. A boy broke out of the ranks and came running, all rattling +and jingling with swinging accoutrements, to the old woman beside Sabre, +put his arms around her and cried in a most frightful voice, "Mother! +Mother!" And a sergeant, also rattling and clanking, dashed up and +bawled with astounding ferocity, "Get back into the bloody ranks!" And +the boy ran on, rattling. And the old woman collapsed prone upon the +pavement. And the sergeant, as though his amazing ferocity had been the +buttress of some other emotions, bent over the old woman and patted her, +rattling, and said, "That's all right, Mother. That's all right. I'll +look after him. I'll bring him back. That's all right, Mother." And ran +on, jingling. _Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!_ + + +III + +He turned away. He absolutely could not bear it. He walked a few paces +and equally could not forbear to stop and look again. The men were +nearly all laughing and whistling and singing.... This bursting +sensation in all his emotions! It was beyond anything he had ever +experienced before. But he had experienced something like it before. His +mind threw back across the years and presented the occasion to him. It +was when he was a very small boy in his first term at Tidborough. The +Christmas term and he was on the Strip, trying frantically behind a +crowd of boys to get a glimpse of the match in progress,--one of the +great matches of the season, vs. Tidborough Town. One of the boys +against whose waist his frantic head was butting turned and said in a +lordly way, "Let that kid through," and he was roughly bundled to a +front position. The boy who had commanded his presence jolted him in the +back with his knee and said, using the school argot for to cheer or +shout, "Swipe up, you ghastly young ass! Swipe up! Can't you see they're +pressing us?" + +Couldn't he see! He felt that the end of the world was coming at what he +saw. The enormous, full-grown town men were almost on the school +goal-line; the school team clinging to them and battling with them like +tiger-cats. He had only been at Tidborough a month, but he felt he would +die if the line was crossed. He swiped till he thought his throat must +crack. When his cracking throat incontinently took intervals of rest, he +prayed to God for the school, visioning God on his throne on the school +goalposts and mentioning to Him the players whose names he knew: + +"Oh, let Barnwell get in his kick! Oh, do let Harris see they're heeling +the ball! Oh, help Tufnell to get that man! Help him! Help him! +Schoo-o-ool! Schoo-oo-ool! Schoo-oo-ool!" + +_Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!_ + +His bursting heart was now saying, "England! England!" + + +IV + +The column passed and was gone. He was left with his most frightful +feelings. He could do nothing now. Four o'clock in the morning. But he +must do something now. He could not go home till he had. He must. He +followed to the station. The men were entraining in the goods yard. He +waited about, not trusting himself to speak to Otway or any of the +others who were going. Presently his opportunity came in a sight of +Colonel Rattray, who commanded the depot and was not going, standing for +a minute alone. Sabre went quickly to him and they exchanged greetings +and said the obvious things proper to the occasion. Then Sabre said, +feeling extraordinarily embarrassed, "I say, Colonel, I want to get into +this. I absolutely must get into this." + +"Eh? Into what?" + +"The war." It was easier after the plunge, and he went on quickly, "I +see in the papers that civilians are being given commissions, getting +them by recommendation. Can you get me a commission? _Can_ you?" + +Colonel Rattray showed surprise. He turned squarely about and faced +Sabre and looked him up and down, but not in the way in which soldiers +looked civilians up and down rather later on. "Well, I don't know. I +might. I've no doubt I could, if you're eligible. How old are you, +Sabre?" + +"Thirty-six." + +Colonel Rattray said doubtfully, "It's a bit on the steep side for a +commission." + +"Well, I'd go in the ranks. I must get in. I absolutely must." + +The soldier smiled pleasantly. "Oh, I wouldn't get thinking about the +ranks, Sabre. There're heaps before you, you know. Still, I wouldn't +stop any man getting into the Army if I could help him. I'll see what I +can do. Certainly I will. Mind you, I'm doubtful. Are you fit?" + +"I think I am. I'm supposed to have a bit of a heart. But it's absolute +rot. It never affects me in the slightest degree. I can do anything." + +"Well, that's the first thing, you know. Look here, I'm wanted. Come up +to the Mess in the morning and I'll get our doctor to have a look at +you. Then we'll see what can be done. All right, eh?" + + +V + +He rode home much relieved from the stresses he had suffered in that +awful business of watching the regiment march out. He felt that if only +he could be "in it" he could equably endure any of these things that +were happening and that would get worse; if he had just to stand by and +watch them his portion would be insupportable. England! Other people +whom he knew could not possibly feel it in the way he felt it. His +history with its opening sentence, "This England you live in is +_yours_", had arisen out of his passionate love for all that England +meant to him. In all Shakespeare there was no passage that moved him in +quite the same way whenever he recalled it as Richard the Second's + + Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand.... + Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords, + This earth shall have a feeling.... + +Stooping and touching the soil of England as one might bend and touch a +beloved face. That was what England for years had meant to him. And +now.... It was upon these emotions, vaguely, "in case", that he had gone +to Doctor Anderson on the morning of the frightful news. Anderson had +told him he couldn't possibly be passed for the Army, but at the moment +the idea of ever wanting to go into the Army had only been an almost +ridiculously remote contingency, and what did Anderson know about the +Army standard, anyway? + + +VI + +He said nothing to Mabel of his intention. It was just precisely the +sort of thing he could not possibly discuss with Mabel. Mabel would say, +"Whyever should you?" and of all imaginable ordeals the idea of exposing +before Mabel his feeling about England ... he would tell her when it was +done, if it came off. He could say then, in what he knew to be the +clumsy way in which he had learnt to hide his ideas from her, he could +say, "Well, I _had_ to." + +And his thought was, when a few hours later he was walking slowly away +from his interview with Major Earnshaw, the doctor at the barracks, +"Thank God, I never said anything to Mabel about it." + +The very few officers left behind at the depot were at breakfast when he +arrived to keep Colonel Rattray to his word. Major Earnshaw had very +pleasantly got up from the table to "put him out of his misery" there +and then without formality and had "had a go at this heart of yours" in +the billiard room. Withdrawn his stethoscope and shaken his head. It was +"no go; absolutely none, Sabre." + +"Well, but that's for a commission. I'll go into the ranks. Isn't that +any different?" + +No different. "You can't possibly go in as you are--now. In time, if +this thing goes on, the standards will probably be reduced. But they'll +have to be reduced a goodish long way before you'll get in, I don't mind +telling you." + +Sabre wheeled his bicycle slowly away across the barrack square. "Thank +goodness, I never said anything to Mabel about it." A cluster of young +men of various degrees of life were waiting outside the door of the +recruiting office. The rush of the first few days was thinning down but +recruits were still pouring in. They were all laughing and talking +noisily. He had the wish that he could take the thing in that spirit. +Why couldn't he? After all, what did it really matter that he was not +able to get "in it"? Even if he had been accepted it would only have +been pretending. He never would have got really "in it"; none of those +chaps would; every one knew the war couldn't last long; it would be over +long before any of these recruits could be trained. + + +VII + +This "common sense" argument carried him through following days; then +came another of the frightful undoings of his emotions; and just as the +war definitely began for him with the glimpse of the beginnings of that +"jamborino" in the Mess, so from this new occasion began, unceasingly +and increasingly, and with shocking effect upon his sensitiveness, a +dreadful oppression by the war and, adding to its darkness, a gnawing +and unreasonable self-accusation that he was not "in it." + +The occasion was that of his meeting with Harkness outside the _County +Times_ office. Harkness was a captain of the battalion that had gone out +who had been left behind owing to some illness. The British +Expeditionary Force had been in action. There had been scraps of news of +some heavy fighting. Harkness said dully, "Hullo, Sabre. I've just been +in to see that chap Pike to see if he'd got anything. We've had some +news, you know." He stopped. His face was twitching. + +Sabre said, "News? Anything about the Pinks?" + +Harkness nodded. He seemed to be swallowing. Then he said, "Yes, the +regiment. Pretty bad." + +Sabre said, "Any one--?" and also stopped. + +Harkness looked, not at Sabre, but straight across the top of his head +and began an appalling, and as it seemed to Sabre, an endless +recitative. "The Colonel's killed. Bruce is killed. Otway's killed--" + +"Otway...." + +"Cottar's killed. Bullen's killed--" + +Endless! The names struck Sabre like successive blows. Were they never +going to end? + +"Carmichael's killed. My young brother's--" his voice cracked--"killed. +Sikes is killed." + +"Sikes killed.... And your brother...." + +Harkness said in a very thin, squeaking voice, "Yes, the regiment's +pretty well--The regiment's--" He looked full at Sabre and said in a +very loud, defiant voice, "I bet they were magnificent. By God, I bet +you they were magnificent. Oh, my God, why the hell wasn't I there?" He +turned abruptly and went away, walking rather funnily. + +This was the moment at which there descended upon Sabre, never to leave +him while he remained not "in it", the appalling sense of oppression +that the war exercised upon him. On his brain like a weight; on his +heart like a pressing hand. He thought of Otway's intense, gleaming +face. "My God, Sabre, you ought to have seen the battalion on parade +this morning." He saw Otway's face cold and stricken. He thought of +Sikes, on the table. "Well, I'm going to take nothing but socks. I'm +going to stuff my pack absolutely bung full of socks." He saw Sikes +flung like a disused thing in some field.... + + +VIII + +And still events; still, and always, now, disturbing things. + +While he stood there he was suddenly aware of Young Rod, Pole or Perch, +rather breathlessly come up. + +"I say, Sabre, have you heard this frightful news about the Pinks?--I +say, Sabre, I want your help most frightfully. I want you to talk to my +mother. She likes you. She'll listen to you. I'm going to enlist. I've +been putting it off day after day, trying to fix up things for my mother +and trying to persuade her; but I haven't done much and I absolutely +can't wait any longer." + +Sabre said, "Good Lord, are you, Perch? Must you? Your mother, why, what +on earth will she do without you? She'll--" + +Young Perch winced painfully. "I know. I know. It pretty well kills me +to think of it and I'm having the most frightful scenes with her. But +I've thought it all out, Sabre, and I know I'm doing the right thing. +I've looked after my mother all my life, and a month ago the idea of +leaving her even for a couple of nights would have been unthinkable. But +this is different. This is--" He flushed awkwardly--"you can't talk that +sort of patriotic stuff, you know, but this is, well this is a chap's +country, and I've figured it out it's got to come before my mother. It's +got to. She says it will kill her if I go. I believe it will, Sabre. And +my God, if it does--but I can't help it. I know what's the right thing. +I'll tell you something else." His face, which had been red and cloudy +as with tears, became dark and passionate. "I'll tell you something +else. People are saying things about me and to me because I'm young and +unmarried and haven't got a wife to support. Curse them, Sabre--what do +they know about it? Aren't their wives young, strong, able to take care +of themselves? My mother can't come downstairs without me and can't let +any one else--" + +He rubbed a hand across his eyes and broke off. "Never mind about that; +I know what I've got to do. Look here, Sabre, I tell you where I want +your help, like anything. You know lots of people. I don't. Well, I want +to get hold of some nice girl to live with my mother and take care of +her in my place while I'm away. A sort of companion, aren't they called? +Like that Bypass person up at old Boom Bagshaw's, only much nicer and +younger and friendlier than she is. You see, I know my mother. If it was +any one of any age, she wouldn't have her in the house at any price, and +she'd send her flying out of the window in about two days if she did +have her. She swears no power on earth will induce her to have any one +at all as it is. But I'm going to manage it if I can get the right +person. I want some one who my mother will indignantly call a chit of a +child"--he gave rather a broken little laugh--"can't I hear her saying +it! But she'll instantly begin to mother her because she is a chit of a +child, and to fuss over her and tell her what she ought to eat and what +she ought to wear, and does she wear a flannel binder, and all that, +just as she does to me. And in about a week she'll be as right as rain +and writing me letters all day and arguing with the girl how to spell +'being' and 'been'--you know what my mother is. I say, Sabre, do for +God's sake help me, if you can. _Do_ you know any one?" + +Sabre, during this greatly troubled outpouring, had the feeling that +this was all of a part with the calamitous news he had just had from +Harkness,--a direct continuation of it. This frightful war! Was it going +to attack even that pathetic little old woman at Puncher's Farm with her +fumbling hands and her frail existence centred solely in her son? He +said, "I'm awfully sorry, Perch. Frightfully sorry for your mother and +for you. You know best what you ought to do. I won't say anything either +way. I think a man's only judge in this ghastly business is himself. Of +course, I'll help you. I'll help you all I can. It's a funny coincidence +but I believe I do know just the very girl that would be what you +want--" + +Young Perch grasped his hand in delighted relief. "Oh, Sabre, if you do! +I felt you would help. You've always been a chap to turn to!" + +"I've turned to you, Perch, you and your mother, a good deal more than +you might imagine. I'm glad to help if I can. The chance I'm thinking +about I was hearing of only a few days ago. The works' foreman in my +office, an old chap called Bright. He's got a daughter about eighteen or +thereabouts, and I was hearing he wanted to get her into some kind of +post like yours. I've spoken to her once or twice when she's been about +the place for her father and I took a tremendous fancy to her. She's as +pretty as a picture. Effie, she's called. I believe your mother would +take to her no end. And she'd just love your mother." + +Young Perch said rather thickly, "Any one would who takes her the right +way." + +Sabre touched him encouragingly on the shoulder. "This girl Effie will +if only we can get her. She's that sort, I know. I'll see about it at +once. Buck up, old man." + +"Thanks most frightfully, Sabre. Thanks most awfully." + + +IX + +It was from Twyning that Sabre had heard that a post of some sort was +being considered for Effie Bright. Her father, as he had told young +Perch, was works' foreman at Fortune, East and Sabre's. "Mr. Bright." A +massive old man with a massive, rather striking face hewn beneath a bald +dome and thickly grown all about and down the throat with stiff white +hair. He had been in the firm as long as Mr. Fortune himself and +appeared to Sabre, who had little to do with him, to take orders from +nobody. He was intensely religious and he had the deep-set and +extraordinarily penetrating eyes that frequently denote the religious +zealot. He was not liked by the hands. They called him Moses, disliked +his intense religiosity and feared the cold and heavy manner that he +had. He trod heavily about the workshops, looking into the eyes of the +young men as if far more concerned to search their souls than their +benches; and Sabre, when speaking to him, always had the feeling that +Mr. Bright was penetrating him with the same intention. + +Extraordinary that such a stern and hard old man should have for +daughter such a fresh and lovable slip of a young thing as his Effie! +Bright Effie, Sabre always called her, inverting her names. Mr. Bright +had a little cupboard called his office at the foot of the main stairway +and Bright Effie came often to see her father there. Sabre had spoken to +her in the little cupboard or just outside it. He had delight in +watching the most extraordinary shining that she had in her eyes. It was +like reading an entertaining book, he used to think, and he had the idea +that humor of that rarest kind which is unbounded love mingled with +unbounded sense of the oddities of life was packed to bursting within +her. All that she saw or heard seemed to be taken into that exhaustless +fount, metamorphosed into the most delicious sensations, and shone forth +in extraordinarily humorous delight through her eyes. Somewhere in the +dullest day light is found and thrown back by a bright surface. It was +just so, Sabre used to think, with Effie. All things were fresh to her +and she found freshness in all things. + +Some such apprehension of her Sabre had expressed to Twyning on the +occasion that came to his mind during young Perch's entreaty for some +one to live with his mother. Sabre had been standing with Twyning at Mr. +Fortune's window, Mr. Bright and Effie leaving the office and crossing +the street together beneath them. Twyning, who was on intimate terms +with Mr. Bright, had given a short laugh and said, "Hullo, you seem to +have been thinking a lot about the fair Effie!" + +The kind of laugh and the kind of remark that Sabre hated and he gave a +slight gesture which Twyning well knew meant that he hated it. This was +what Twyning called "stuck-uppishness" and equally hated, and he chose +words expressive of his resentment,--the class insistence. + +"Well, she's got to earn her living, however jolly she is. She's not one +of your fine ladies, you know." + +Sabre recognised the implication but ignored it. "What's old Bright +going to do with her?" + +"He doesn't quite know. He was talking to my missus about it the other +day. He's as good as we are, you know. He's an idea of getting her out +as a sort of lady's companion somewhere." + +This was what Sabre had remembered; and he went straight from young +Perch to Twyning and recalled the conversation. + +Twyning said, "Hullo, still interested in the fair Effie?" + +"It's for young Perch over at Penny Green I'm asking. For his mother. +He's a young man"--Sabre permitted his eyes to rest for a moment on +Harold, seated at his desk--"and he feels he ought to join the army. He +wants the girl to be with his mother while he's away." + +Twyning, noting the glance, changed his tone to one of much +friendliness. "Oh, I see, old man. No, Effie's got nothing yet. She was +over to our place to tea last Sunday." + +"Good. I'll go and talk to old Bright. I'm keen about this." + +"Yes, you seem to be, old man." + + +X + +Mr. Bright received the suggestion with a manner that irritated Sabre. +While he was being told of the Perches he stared at Sabre with that +penetrating gaze of his as though in the proposal he searched for some +motive other than common friendliness. His first comment was, "They'll +want references, I suppose, sir?" + +Sabre smiled. "Oh, scarcely, Mr. Bright. Not when they know who you +are." + +The old man was standing before Sabre in the little cupboard bending his +head close towards him as though he would sense out, if he could not +see, some hidden motive behind all this. He contracted his great brows +as if to squeeze more penetration into his gaze. "Yes, but I'll want +references, Mr. Sabre. My girl's been well brought up. She's not going +here, there, nor anywhere." + +Extraordinary the intensity of his searching, suspicious stare! Hard, +stupid old man, Sabre thought. "Dash it, does he suppose I've got +designs on the girl?" He would have returned an impatient answer had he +not been so anxious on the Perches' behalf. Instead he said pleasantly, +"Of course she's not, Mr. Bright. You may be sure I wouldn't suggest +this if I didn't know it was in every way desirable. Mrs. Perch is a +very old friend of mine and a very simple and kind old lady. There'll be +only herself for Effie to meet. And she'll make a daughter of her." + +Nothing, of the penetration abated from the deep-set eyes, nor came any +expression of thanks from the stern, pursed mouth. "I'll take my girl +over and see for myself, Mr. Sabre." + +Surly, stupid old man! However, poor young Perch! Poor old Mrs. Perch! +The very thing, if only it would come off. + + +XI + +It came off. Sabre went up to Puncher's Farm on the evening of the day +Mr. Bright, "to see for himself", had called with Effie. Young Perch +greeted him delightedly in the doorway and clasped his hand in +gratitude. "It's all right. It's fixed. She's coming. I've had the most +frightful struggle with my mother. But it's only her way, you know." He +stopped and Sabre heard him gulp. "Only her way. I could see she took to +the girl from the start. My mother's started knitting me a pair of socks +and old man Bright--I say, he's rather an alarming sort of person, +Sabre--had hardly opened his mouth when they arrived when the girl, in +the most extraordinary, making-a-fuss-of-her kind of way, told her she +was using the wrong size needles or something. And my mother, as if she +had known her all her life, said, 'There you are, I knew I was. It's +simply useless asking Freddie to do any shopping for me. He simply lets +them give him anything they like.' And she told the girl she thought she +had some other needles in one of those gigantic old boxes of ours. And +they went off together to look, and heaven only knows what they got up +to; they were away about half an hour and came back with about three +hundredweight of old wools and nine pounds of needles, and talking about +how they were going through all the other boxes, 'now I've got some one +to help me', as my mother said. By Jove, the girl's wonderful. D'you +know, she actually kissed my mother when she was leaving and said, 'Now +be sure to try that little pillow just under your side to-night. Just +press it in as you're falling asleep.' By Jove, you can't think how +grateful I am to you, Sabre." + +"I am glad," Sabre told him. "I felt she'd be just like that. But why +have you been having a frightful struggle over it with your mother if +she's taken to her so?" + +Young Perch gave the fond little laugh with which Sabre had so often +heard him conclude his enormous arguments with his mother. "Oh, you know +what my mother is. She's now made up her mind that the girl is coming +here to do what she calls 'catch me.' She'll forget that soon. Anyway, +the girl's coming. She's coming the day after to-morrow, the day I'm +going. Come along in and see my mother and keep her to it." + +The subject did not require bringing up. "I suppose Freddie's told you +what he's forcing me into now, Mr. Sabre," old Mrs. Perch greeted him. +"It's a funny thing that I should be forced to do things at my time of +life. Of course she's after Freddie. Do you suppose I can't see that?" + +"Well, but she won't see Freddie, Mrs. Perch. He won't be here." + +"She'll catch him," declared Mrs. Perch doggedly. "Any girl could catch +Freddie. He's a positive fool with one of these girls after him. Now +she's got to have his uncle Henry's armchair in her room, if you please. +That's a nice thing, isn't it?" + +"Now look here, Mother, you know perfectly well that was your own idea. +You said you felt sure she had a weak back and that--" + +"I never supposed she was going to have your uncle Henry's chair for her +weak back or for any other back. Ask Mr. Sabre what he thinks. There he +is. Ask him." + +Sabre said, "But you do like the girl, don't you, Mrs. Perch?" + +Mrs. Perch pursed her lips. + +"I don't say I don't like her. I merely ask what I'm going to do with +her in the house. When Freddie said he wanted to bring some one in to be +with me, I never supposed he was going to bring a chit of a child into +the house. I assure you I never supposed that was going to be done to +me." + +And then quite suddenly Mrs. Perch dropped into a chair and said in a +horribly weak voice, "I don't mind who comes into the house, now. I +can't contend like I used to contend." Immense tears gathered in her +eyes and began to run swiftly down her cheeks. "I'm not fit for anything +now. I can't live without Freddie. I like the girl; but all this house +where we've been so happy ... without Freddie ... I shall see his dear, +bright face everywhere. Why must he go, Mr. Sabre? Why must he go? I +don't understand this war at all." Her voice trailed off. Her hands +fumbled on her lap. A tear fell on them. She brushed at it with a +fumbling motion but it remained there. + +Young Perch took her hand and fondled it. Sabre saw the wrinkled, +fumbling old hand between the strong brown fingers. "That's all right, +Mother. Of course, you don't understand it. That's just it. You think +I'm going out to fighting and all that. And I'm just going into a +training camp here in England for a bit. And before Christmas it will +all be over and I shall come flying back and we'll send Miss Bright +toddling off home and--Don't cry, Mother. Don't cry, Mother. Isn't that +so, Sabre? Just training in England. Isn't that so? Now wherever's your +old handkerchief got to? Look here; here's mine. Look, this is the one +I chose that day with you in Tidborough. Do you remember what a jolly +tea we had that day? Remember what a laugh we had over that funny +teapot. There, let me wipe them, Mother...." + +Sabre turned away. This frightful war.... + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +I + +This frightful war! On his brain like a weight. On his heart like a +pressing hand. + +Came Christmas by which, at the outset, everybody knew it would be over, +and it was not over. Came June, 1915, concerning which, at the outset, +he had joined with Mr. Fortune, Twyning and Harold in laughter at his +own grotesque idea of the war lasting to the dramatic effect of a +culminating battle on the centenary of Waterloo, and the war had lasted, +and was still lasting. + +"This frightful war!" The words were constantly upon his lips, +ejaculated to himself in reception of new manifestations of its +eruptions; forever in his mind, like a live thing gnawing there. Other +people seemed to suffer the war in spasms, isolated amidst the round of +their customary routines, of dejection or of optimistic reassurance. The +splendid sentiment of "Business as usual" was in many valiant mouths. +The land, in so far as provisions and prices were concerned, continued +to flow in milk and honey as the British Isles had always flowed in milk +and honey. In July a rival multiple grocer's shop opened premises +opposite the multiple grocer's shop already established in the shopping +centre of the Garden Home and Mabel told Sabre how very exciting it was. +The rivals piled their windows, one against the other, with stupendous +stacks of margarine and cheese at sevenpence the pound each; and then +one day, "Whatever do you think?" the new man interspersed his mountains +of margarine and cheese with wooden bowls running over with bright new +pennies, and flamed his windows with announcements that this was "The +Money-back Shop." You bought a pound of margarine for sevenpence and +were handed a penny with your purchase! And the next day, "Only fancy!" +the other man also had bright new pennies (in bursting bags from the +bank) and also bellowed that he too was a Money-back Shop. + +"The fact is the war really hasn't mattered a bit," Mabel said. "I think +it's wonderful. And when you remember at the beginning how people rushed +to buy up food and what awful ideas of starvation went about; you were +one of the worst." + +And Sabre agreed that it really was wonderful: and agreed too with +Mabel's further opinion that he really ought not to get so fearfully +depressed. + +But he remained fearfully depressed. The abundance of food, and such +manifestations of plenty as the bowls and bags of bright new pennies +meant nothing to him. He knew nothing about war. Very possibly the +prophecies of shortage and restrictions and starvation were, in the +proof, to be refuted as a thousand other prophecies of the early days, +optimistic and pessimistic, were being refuted. What had that to do with +it? Remained the frightful facts that were going on out there in Belgium +and in Gallipoli and in Russia. Remained the increasing revelation of +Germany's enormous might in war and the revelation of what war was as +she conducted it. Remained the sinister revelation that we were not +winning as in the past we had "always won." Remained his envisagement of +England--England!--standing four-square to her enemies, but standing as +some huge and splendid animal something bewildered by the fury of the +onset upon it. Shaking her head whereon had fallen stunning and +unexpected blows, as it might be a lion enormously smashed across the +face; roaring her defiance; baring her fangs; tearing up the ground +before her; dreadful and undaunted and tremendous; but stricken; in sore +agony; in heavy amazement; her pride thrust through with swords; her +glory answered by another's glory; her dominion challenged; shaken, +bleeding. + +England.... This frightful war! + + +II + +Remained also, blowing about the streets, in the newspapers and at +meetings, in the mouths of many, and in the eyes of most, the new +popular question, "Why aren't you in khaki?" The subject of age, always +shrouded in a seemly and decorous modesty in England, and especially +since, a few years previously, an eminent professor of medicine had +unloosed the alarming theory of "Too old at forty", was suddenly ripped +out of its prudish coverings. One generation of men began to talk with +thoroughly engaging frankness and largeness about their age. They would +even announce it in a loud voice in crowded public conveyances. It was +nothing, in those days, to hear a man suddenly declare in an omnibus or +tramway car, "Well, I'm thirty-eight and I only wish to heaven I was a +few years younger." Other men would heartfully chime in, "Ah, same thing +with me. It's hard." And all these men, thus cruelly burdened with a few +more years than the age limit, would look with great intensity at other +men, apparently not thus burdened, who for their part would assume +attitudes of physical unfitness or gaze very sternly out of the window. + +Several of the younger employees of Fortune, East and Sabre's joined up +(as the current phrase had it) in the first weeks of the war. In the +third month Mr. Fortune assembled the hands and from across the +whale-like front indicated the path of duty and announced that the +places of all those who followed it would be kept open for them. "Hear, +hear!" said Twyning. "Hear, hear!" and as the men were filing out he +took Sabre affectionately by the arm and explained to him that young +Harold was dying to go. "But I feel a certain duty is due to the firm, +old man. What I mean is, that the boy's only just come here and I feel +that in my position as a partner it wouldn't look well for me +practically with my own hand to be paying out unearned salary to a chap +who'd not been four months in the place. Don't you agree, old man?" + +Sabre said, "But we wouldn't be paying him, would we? Fortune said +salaries of married men." + +"Ah, yes, old man, but between you and me he's going to do it for +unmarried men as well, as the cases come up." + +"Why didn't he tell them so?" + +Twyning's genial expression hardened under these questions, but he said, +still on his first note of confidential affection, "Ah, because he +thinks they ought to do their duty without being bribed. Quite right, +too. No, it's a difficult position for me. My idea is not to give way to +the boy's wishes for a few months while he establishes his position +here, and then, if men are still wanted, why of course he'll go. Sound, +don't you think, old man?" + +Sabre disengaged his arm and turned into his own room. "Well, I think +this is a business in which you can't judge any one. I think every man +is his own judge." + +An astonishing rasp came into Twyning's voice. "How old are you?" + +"Thirty-six. Why?" + +Twyning laughed away the rasp. "Ah, I'm older. I daresay you'll have a +chance later on, if the _Times_ and the _Morning Post_ and those class +papers have their way. And you've got no family, have you, old man?" + + +III + +That was in the third month of the war. But by June, 1915, the position +on these little points had hardened. In June, "Why aren't you in khaki?" +was blowing about the streets. Questions looked out of eyes. Certain men +avoided one another. And in June young Harold joined up. Sabre greeted +the news with very great warmth. Towards Harold he had none of the +antipathy that was often aroused in him by Harold's father. He shook the +good-looking young man very heartily by the hand. "By Jove, I'm glad. +Well done, Harold. That's splendid. Jolly good luck to you." + +Later in the morning Twyning came in. He entered abruptly. His air, and +when he spoke, his manner, struck Sabre as being deliberately +aggressive. "Well, Harold's gone," he said. + +"Yes, I'm jolly glad for the boy's sake. I was just congratulating him. +I think it's splendid of him." + +Twyning breathed heavily through his nose. "Splendid? Hur! He wanted to +go long ago. Well, he's gone now and I hope you're satisfied." + +Sabre turned in his chair and questioned Twyning with puckered brows. +"Satisfied? What on earth do you mean--satisfied?" + +"You always thought he ought to go. You're one of those who've sent him +off. My boy saw it." + +"You're talking nonsense. I've never so much as mentioned the subject to +Harold. I told you long ago that I think every man's his own judge, and +sole judge, in this business." + +Twyning always retracted when Sabre showed signs of becoming roused. +"Ah, well, what does it matter? He's gone now. He'll be in this precious +khaki to-night. No one can point at him now." He drew out a handkerchief +and wiped his eyes slowly. He stared inimically at Sabre. "I'll tell you +one thing, Sabre. You wait till you've got a son, then you'll think +differently, perhaps. You don't know what my boy means to me. He's +everything in the world to me. I got him in here so as to have him with +me and now this cursed war's taken him. You don't know what he is, my +boy Harold. He's a better man than his father, I'll tell you that. He's +a good Christian boy. He's never had a bad thought or said a bad word." + +He broke off. He rammed his handkerchief into his trouser pocket. As +though the sight of Sabre sitting before him suddenly infuriated him he +broke out, "It's all right for you sitting there. You're not going. +Never mind. My boy Harold's gone. You're satisfied. All right." + +Sabre got up. "Look here, Twyning, I'm sorry for you about Harold. I +make allowances for you. But--" + +When Twyning was angry his speech sometimes betrayed that on which he +was most sensitive. "I don't want you to make no allowances for me. I +don't--" + +"You've repeated the stupid implication you made when you first came +in." + +Twyning changed to a hearty laugh. "Oh, I say, steady, old man. Don't +let's have a row. Nothing to have a row about, old man. I made no +implication. Whatever for should I? No, no, I simply said '_All_ right.' +I say people have sent my boy Harold off, and I'm merely saying '_All_ +right. He's gone. Now perhaps you're satisfied.' Not you, old man. Other +people." He paused. His tone hardened. "_All_ right. That's all, old +man. _All_ right." + + +IV + +Not very long after this incident occurred another incident. In its +obvious aspect it was also related to the "Why aren't you in khaki?" +question; Sabre apprehended in it a different bearing. + +One morning he stepped suddenly from his own room into Mr. Fortune's in +quest of a reference. Twyning and Mr. Fortune were seated together in +deep conversation. They were very often thus seated, Sabre had noticed. +At his entry their conversation abruptly ceased; and this also was not +new. + +Sabre went across to the filing cabinet without speaking. + +Mr. Fortune cleared his throat. "Ah, Sabre. Ah, Sabre, we were just +saying, we were just saying--" His hesitation, and the pause before he +had begun quite clearly informed Sabre that what he was now about to say +was not going to be--precisely--what he had just been saying. "We were +just saying what a very unfortunate thing, what a very deeply +unfortunate thing it is that none of us principals are of an age to do +the right thing by the Firm by joining the Army. I'm afraid we've got +one or two shirkers downstairs, and we were just saying what a splendid, +what an entirely splendid thing it would be if one of us were able to +set them an example." + +Sabre faced about from the cabinet towards them. Twyning in the big +chair had his elbow on the arm and was biting his nails. Mr. Fortune, +revolved to face the room, was exercising his watch chain on his +whale-like front. + +"Yes, it's a pity," Sabre said. + +"I'm glad you agree. I knew you would. Indeed, yes, a pity; a very great +pity. For myself, of course, I'm out of the question. Twyning here is +getting on for forty and of course he's given his son to the war; +moreover, there's the business to be thought of. I'm afraid I'm not +quite able to do all I used to do. You--of course, you're married too, +and there we are! It does, as you say, seem a great pity." The watch +chain, having been generously exercised, was put to the duty of heavy +tugs at its reluctant partner. Mr. Fortune gazed at his watch and +remarked absently, "I hear young Phillips of Brown and Phillips has +persuaded his wife to let him go. You were at the school with him, +Sabre, weren't you? Isn't he about your age?" + +Sabre spoke very slowly. Most furious anger had been rising within him. +It was about to burst when there had suddenly come to its control the +thought, "These two aren't getting at you for any love of England, for +any patriotic reason. That's not it. Don't bother about that. Man alive, +don't mix them up in what you feel about these things. Don't go +cheapening what you think about England. Theirs is another reason." He +said very slowly, "I never told you, perhaps I ought to have told you at +the time, that I was refused for the Army some while ago." + +Mr. Fortune's watch slipped through his fingers to the full length of +his chain. Twyning got up and went over to a bookcase and stared at it. + +Mr. Fortune heaved in the line with an agitated hand over hand motion. +"I'd no idea! My dear fellow, I'd no idea! How very admirable of you! +When was this? After that big meeting in the Corn exchange the other +day?" + +"Don't tell them when it was," said Sabre's mind. He said, "No, rather +before that. I was rejected on medical grounds." + +"Well, well!" said Mr. Fortune. "Well, well!" He gave the suggestion of +being unable to array his thoughts against this surprising turn of the +day. "Most creditable. Twyning, do you hear that?" + +Twyning spun around from the bookcase and came forward. "Eh? Sorry, I'm +afraid I wasn't listening." + +"Our excellent Sabre has offered himself for enlistment and been +rejected." + +Twyning said, "Have you, by Jove! Jolly good. What bad luck being turned +down. What was it?" + +Sabre moved across to his room. "Heart." + +"Was it, really? By Jove, and you look fit enough, too, old man. Fancy, +heart! Fancy--Jolly sporting of you. Fancy--Oh, I say, old man, do let's +have a look at your paper if you've got it on you. I want to see one of +those things." + +Sabre was at his door. "What paper?" + +"Your rejection paper, old man. I've never seen one. Only if you've got +it on you." + +"I haven't got one." + +"Not got one! You must have, old man." + +"Well, I haven't. I was seen privately. I'm rather friendly with them up +at the barracks." + +"Oh, yes, of course. Wonder they didn't give you a paper, though." + +"Well, they didn't." + +"Quite so, old man. Quite so. Funny, that's all." + +Sabre paused on the threshold. He perfectly well understood the +villainous implication. Vile, intolerable! But of what service to take +it up?--To hear Twyning's laugh and his "My dear old chap, as if I +should think such a thing!" He passed into his room. The thought he had +had which had arrested his anger at Mr. Fortune's hints, revealing this +incident in another light, was, "They want to get rid of me." + + +V + +In August, the anniversary month of the war, he again offered himself +for enlistment and was again rejected, but this time after a longer +scrutiny: the standard was not at its first height of perfection. +Earnshaw, Colonel Rattray, all the remnant of his former friends, were +gone to the front: Sabre submitted himself through the ordinary channels +and this time received what Twyning had called his "paper." He did not +show it to Twyning, nor mention either to him or to Mr. Fortune that he +had tried again. "Again! most creditable of you, my dear Sabre." "Again, +have you, though? By Jove, that's sporting of you. Did they give you a +paper this time, old man?" No. Not much. Feeling as he felt about the +war, acutely aware as he was of the partners' interest in the matter, +that, he felt, could not be borne. + +But on this occasion he told Mabel. + +The war had not altered his relations with Mabel. He had had the feeling +that it ought to bring them closer together, to make her more +susceptible to his attempts to do the right thing by her. But it did not +bring them closer together: the accumulating months, the imperceptibly +increasing strangeness and tension and high pitch of the war atmosphere +increased, rather, her susceptibility to those characteristics of his +which were most impossible to her. He felt things with draught too deep +and with burthen too capacious for the navigability of her mind; and +here was an ever-present thing, this (in her phrase) most unsettling +war, which must be taken (in her view) on a high, brisk note that was as +impossible to him as was his own attitude towards the war to her. The +effect of the war, in this result, was but to sunder them on a new +dimension: whereas formerly he had learned not to join with her on +subjects his feelings about which he had been taught to shrink from +exposing before her, now the world contained but one subject; there was +no choice and there was no upshot but clash of incompatibility. His +feelings were daily forced to the ordeal; his ideas daily exasperated +her. The path he had set himself was not to mind her abuse of his +feelings, and he tried with some success not to mind; but (in his own +expression, brooding in his mind's solitude) they riled her and he had +nothing else to offer her; they riled her and he had set himself not to +rile her. It was like desiring to ease a querulous invalid and having in +the dispensary but a single--and a detested--palliative. + +Things were not better; they were worse.--But he made his efforts. The +matter of telling her (when he tried in August) that he thought he ought +to join the Army was one, and it came nearest to establishing pleasant +relations. That it revealed a profound difference of sensibility was +nothing. He blamed himself for causing that side to appear. + +Her comment when, on the eve of his attempt, he rather diffidently +acquainted her with his intention, was, "Do you really think you ought +to?" This was not enthusiastic; but he went ahead with it and made a +joke, which amused her, about how funny it would be if she had to start +making "comforts" for him at the War Knitting League which she was +attending with great energy at the Garden Home. He found, as they +talked, that it never occurred to her but that it was as an officer that +he would be going, and something warned him not to correct her +assumption. He found with pleased surprise quite a friendly chat afoot +between them. She only began to fall away in interest when he, made +forgetful by this new quality in their contact, allowed his deeper +feelings to find voice. Once started, he was away before he had realised +it, in how one couldn't help feeling about England and how utterly +glorious would be his own sensations if he could actually get into +uniform and feel that England had admitted him to be a part of her. + +She looked at the clock. + +His face was reddening in its customary signal of his enthusiasm. He +noticed her glance, but was not altogether checked. He went on quickly, +"Well, look here. I must tell you this. I'll tell you what I'll say to +myself first thing if I really do get in. A thing out of the Psalms. By +Jove, an absolutely terrific thing, Mabel. In the Forty-fifth. Has old +Bag--has Boom Bagshaw told you people up at the church what absolutely +magnificent reading the Psalms are just now, in this war?" + +She shook her head. "We sing them every Sunday, of course. But I don't +see how the Psalms--you mean the Bible Psalms, don't you?--can have +anything to do with war." + +"Oh, but they have. They're absolutely hung full of it. Half of them are +the finest battle chants ever written. You ought to read them, Mabel; +every one ought to be reading them these days. Well, this verse I'm +telling you about. I say, do listen, I won't keep you a minute. It's in +that one where there comes in a magnificent chant to some princess who +was being brought to marriage to some foreign king--" + +Mabel's dispersing attention took arms. "To a princess! However can it +be? It's the Psalms. You do mean the Bible Psalms, don't you?" + +He said quickly, "Oh, well, never mind that. Look here, this is it. I +shall say it to myself directly I get in, and then often and often +again. It ought to be printed on a card and given to every recruit. Just +listen: + + "Good luck have thou with thine honour; ride on, because of the + word of truth, of meekness and of righteousness: and thy right hand + shall show thee terrible things. + +"Isn't that terrific? Isn't it tremendous? By Jove, it--" + +For the first time in her married life she looked at him, in this +humour, not distastefully but curiously. His flushed face and shining +eyes! Whatever about? He was perfectly incomprehensible to her. She got +up. She said, "Yes--but 'Ride on'--of course you're not going in the +cavalry, are you?" + +He said, "Oh, well. Sorry. It's just a thing, you know. Yes, it's your +bedtime, I'm afraid. I've kept you up, gassing. Well, dream good luck +for me to-morrow." + +His thoughts, when she had gone from the room, went, "A better evening! +That's the way! I can do it, you see, if I try. That other thing doesn't +matter. I was a fool to drag that in. She doesn't understand. Yes, +that's the way!" + +He sat late, happily. If only he could get past the doctor to-morrow! + + +VI + +That's the way! But on the following evening the way was not to be +recaptured. The old way was restored. He was enormously cast down by his +rejection. When he got back that night he went straight in to her. "I +say, they've rejected me. They won't have me." His face was working. +"It's that cursed heart." + +She slightly puckered her brows. "Oh--d'you know, for the minute I +couldn't think what on earth you were talking about. Were you rejected? +Well, I must say I'm glad. Up at the Knitting League Mrs. Turner was +saying her son saw you at the recruiting office after you were rejected +and that it was into the ranks you were going. You never told me that. I +must say I don't think you ought to have thought about the ranks +without telling me. And I wouldn't have liked it. I wouldn't have liked +it at all. I think you ought to be very thankful you were rejected. I'm +sure I am." + +He said flatly, "_Why_ are you? Thankful--good lord--you don't +know--what do you mean, I ought to be thankful?" + +"Because you ought to be an officer, if you go at all. It's not the +place for you in your position. And apart from anything else--" She gave +her sudden burst of laughter. + +He felt arise within him violent and horrible feelings about her. "What +are you laughing at?" + +"Well, do just imagine what you'd look like in private soldier's +clothing!" She laughed very heartily again. + +He turned away. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +I + +Up in his room he began a long letter to Nona, pouring out to her all +his feelings about this second rejection. He was writing to her--and +hearing from her--regularly and frequently now. It was his only vent in +the oppression of these frightful days. She said that it was hers, too. + +After that letter of hers, at the outbreak of the war, in which she had +said that she thanked God for him that he had delayed her decision to +unchain their chains and to join their lives, no further reference had +been made by either to that near touch of desire's wand. It was, as he +had said it should be, as though her letter had never been written. And +in her letters she always mentioned Tony. She wrote to Tony every day, +she told him; and there were few of her letters but mentioned a parcel +of some kind sent to her husband. Tony never wrote. Sometimes, she said, +there came a scrap from him relative to some business matter she must +see to; but never any response to her daily budget of gossip--"the kind +of news I know he likes to hear"--or any news of himself and his doings. + +She once or twice said, without any comment, "But he is writing often to +Mrs. Stanley and Lady Grace Heddon and Sophie Basildon and I hear bits +of him from them and know he is keeping well. Of course, I pretend to +them that their news is stale to me." Another time, "I've just finished +my budget to Tony," she wrote, "and have sent him two sets of those +patent rubber soles for his boots. Do you think he can get them put on? +Every day I try to think of some new trifle he'd like; and you'd be +shocked, and think I care nothing about the war, at the number of +theatres I make time to go to. You see, it makes something bright and +amusing to tell him, describing the plays. I feel most frightfully that, +although of course my canteen work is useful, the real best thing every +woman can do in this frightful time is to do all she can for her man out +there; and Tony's mine. When this is all over--oh, Marko, is it ever +going to be over?--things will hurt again; but while he's out there the +old things are dead and Tony's mine and England's--my man for England: +that is my thought; that is my pride; that is my prayer." + +And a few lines farther on, "And he's so splendid. Of course you can +imagine how utterly splendid he is. Lady King-Warner, his colonel's +wife, told me yesterday her husband says he's brave beyond anything she +could imagine. He said--she's given me his letter--'the men have picked +up from home this story about angels at Mons and are beginning to +believe they saw them. Tybar says he hopes the angels were near him, +because he thought he was in hell, the particular bit he got into, and +he thinks it must be good for angels, enlarging for their minds, to know +what hell is like! As a matter of fact, Tybar himself is nearer to the +superhuman than anything I saw knocking about at Mons. His daring and +his coolness and his example are a byword in a battalion composed, my +dear, with the solitary exception of the writer, entirely of heroes. In +sticky places Tybar is the most wonderful thing that ever happened. I +like to be near him because his immediate vicinity is unquestionably a +charmed circle; and I shudder to be near him because his is always the +worst spot.' + +"Can't you imagine him, Marko?" + + +II + +And always her letters breathed to Sabre his own passionate love of +England, his own poignant sense of possession in her and by her, his own +intolerable aching at the heart at his envisagement of her enormously +beset. They reflected his own frightful oppression and they assuaged it, +as his letters, she told him, assuaged hers, as burdens are assuaged by +mingling of distress. "There is no good news," he told her, "and for me +who can do nothing--and sometimes things are a little difficult with me +here and I suppose that makes it worse--there seems to be no way out. +But your letters are more than good news and more than rescue; they are +courage. Courage is like love, Nona: it touches the spirit; and the +spirit, amazing essence, is like a spring: it is never touched but +it--springs!" + +She was working daily at a canteen at Victoria station. She had been on +the night shift "but I can't sleep, I simply cannot sleep nowadays"; and +so, shortly before he wrote to her of his second rejection, she had +changed on to the day shift and at night took out the car to run +arriving men from one terminus to another. "And about twice a week I get +dog-tired and feel sleepy and send the chauffeur with the car and stay +at home and do sleep. It's splendid!" + +Northrepps had been handed over to the Red Cross as a military hospital. +Her answer to his letter telling of his second rejection at the +recruiting office--most tender words from her heart to his heart, +comforting his spirit as transfusion of blood from health to sickness +maintains the exhausted body--her reply told him that on that day +fortnight she was coming down to say of his disappointment what she +could so inadequately express in writing. She was going out to war work +in France--in Tony's name she had presented a fleet of ambulance cars to +a Red Cross unit and she was going out to drive one--and she was coming +down to look at things at Northrepps before she left. + + * * * * * + +On the following day Tidborough, opening its newspapers, shook hands +with itself in all its houses, shops and offices on its own special and +most glorious V.C.,--Lord Tybar. + + +III + +Tybar's V.C. was the first thing Sabre spoke of to Nona when, a +fortnight later, she came down and he went up to her at Northrepps in +the afternoon. Its brilliant gallantry, rendered so vivid to him by the +intimacy with which he could see that thrice attractive figure engaged +in its performance, stirred him most deeply. He had by heart every line +of its official record in the restrained language of the _Gazette_. + + ...The left flank of the position was insecure, and the post, when + taken over, was ill prepared for defence.... When the battalion was + suffering very heavy casualties from a 77mm. field gun at very + close range, Captain Lord Tybar rushed forward under intense + machine gun fire and succeeded in capturing the gun single-handed + after killing the entire crew.... Later, when repeated attacks + developed, he controlled the defence at the point threatened, + giving personal assistance with revolver and bombs.... + Single-handed he repulsed one bombing assault.... It was entirely + owing to the gallant conduct of this officer that the situation was + relieved.... + +Oh, rare and splendid spirit! Fortune's darling thrice worthy of her +dowry! + +Nona had written of it in ringing words. She flushed in beautiful ardour +of the enthusiasm she joined with Sabre's at his opening words of their +meeting; but she ended with a sad little laugh. "And then!" she said. + +"What do you mean, Nona, 'And then'?" + +She took a letter from her bag. "I only got this this morning just as I +was coming away. It's in reply to the one I wrote him about his V.C. Oh, +Marko, so splendid, so utterly splendid as he is, and then to be like +this. Look, he says he's just got leave and he's going to spend it in +Paris! One of his women is there. That Mrs. Winfred. He's taken up with +her again. He says, 'Poor thing. She's all alone in Paris. I know how +sorry you will feel for her, and I feel I ought to go and look after +her. I know you will agree with me. I'll tell her you sent me. That will +amuse and please her so.'" + +She touched her eyes with her handkerchief. "It rather hurts, Marko. +It's not that I mind his going. It's just what he would do. But it's the +way he tells me. He just says it like that deliberately to be cruel +because he knows it will hurt. So utterly splendid, Marko, and so +utterly graceless." She gave her little note of sadness again. "Utterly +splendid! Look, this is all he says about his V.C. Isn't this fine and +isn't it like him? He says, 'P.S. Yes, that V.C. business. You know why +I got it, don't you? It stands for Very Cautious, you know.'" + +They laughed together. Yes, like him! Tybar exactly! Sabre could see him +writing the letter. Delighting in saying words that would hurt; +delighting in his own whimsicality that would amuse. Splendid; airy, +untouched by fear; untouched by thought; fearless, faithless, heedless, +graceless. Fortune's darling; invested in her robe of mockery. + +Nona's laughter ended in a little catch at her breath. He touched her +arm. "Let's walk, Nona." + + +IV + +He thought she was looking thin and done up. Her face had rather a drawn +look, its soft roundness gone. He thought she never had looked so +beautiful to him. She spoke to him of what she had tried to say in her +letters of his disappointments in offering himself for service. Never +had her sweet voice sounded so exquisitely tender to him. They spoke of +the war. Never, but in their letters, had he been able thus to give his +feelings and receive them, touched with the same perceptions, kindled +and enlarged, back into his sympathies again. With others the war was +all discussion of chances and circumstances, of this that had happened +and that that might happen, of this that should be done and that that +ought not to have been done. Laboratory examination of means and +remedies. The epidemic everything and the patient upstairs nothing. The +wood not seen for the trees. With Nona he talked of how he felt of +England: + +_Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand_. + +He told her that. + +She nodded. "I know. I know. Say it all through, Marko." + +He stumbled through it. At the end, a little abashed, he smiled at her +and said, "Of course, no one else would think it applies. Richard was +saying it in Wales where he'd just landed, and it's about civil war, not +foreign; but where it comes to me is the loving of the soil itself, as +if it were a living thing that knew it was being loved and loved back in +return. Our England, Nona. You remember Gaunt's thing in the same play: + + "This royal throne of kings, this sceptre'd isle, + This other Eden, demi-paradise.... + This happy breed of men, this little world, + This precious stone set in the silver sea.... + This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England...." + +She nodded again. He saw that her dear eyes were brimming. She said, +"Yes--yes.--Our England. Rupert Brooke said it just perfectly, Marko: + + "And think, this heart, all evil shed, away.... + Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; + Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; + And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, + In hearts at peace, under an English heaven." + +She touched his hand. "Dear Marko--" She made approach to that which lay +between them. "'This heart, all evil shed away.' Marko, in this +frightful time we couldn't have given back the thoughts by England given +if we had.--And that was you, Marko." + +He shook his head, not trusting himself to look at her. He said, "You. +Not I. Any one can know the right thing. But strength to do it--Strength +flows out of you to me. It always has. I want it more and more. I shall +want it. Things are difficult. Sometimes I've a frightful feeling that +things are closing in on me. There's Shelley's 'Ode to the West Wind.' +It makes me--I don't know--wrought up. And sometimes I've the feeling +that I'm being carried along like that and towards that frightful cry at +the end, 'O Wind, if winter comes-'" + +He stopped. He said, "Give me your handkerchief to keep, Nona. Something +of your own to keep. There will be strength in it for me--to help me +hold on to the rest--to believe it--'If Winter comes--Can Spring be far +behind?'" + +She touched her handkerchief to her lips and gave it to him. + + +V + +After October, especially, he spent never less than two evenings a week +with old Mrs. Perch. In October Young Perch went to France and on his +draft-leave took from Sabre the easy promise to "keep an eye on my +mother." Military training, which to most gave robustness, gave to Young +Perch, Sabre thought, a striking enhancement of the fine-drawn +expression that always had been his. About his eyes and forehead Sabre +apprehended something suggestive of the mystic, spiritually-occupied +look that paintings of the Huguenots and the old Crusaders had; and +looking at him when he came to say good-by, and while he spoke solely +and only of his mother, Sabre remembered that long-ago thought of Young +Perch's aspect,--of his spirit being alighted in his body as a bird on a +twig, not engrossed in his body; a thing death would need no more than +to pluck off between finger and thumb. + +But unthinkable, that. Not Young Perch.... + +Old Mrs. Perch was very broken and very querulous. She blamed Sabre and +she blamed Effie that Freddie had gone to the war. She said they had +leagued with him to send him off. "Freddie I could have managed," she +used to say; "but you I cannot manage, Mr. Sabre; and as for Effie, you +might think I was a child and she was mistress the way she treats me." + +Bright Effie used to laugh and say, "Now, you know, Mrs. Perch, you will +insist on coming and tucking me up at night. Now does that look as if +she's the child, Mr. Sabre?" + +Mrs. Perch in her dogged way, "If Mr. Sabre doesn't know that you only +permit me to tuck you up one night because I permit you to tuck me up +the next night, the sooner he does know how I'm treated in my own +establishment the better for me." + +Thus the initial cause of querulousness would bump off into something +else; and in an astonishing short number of moves Bright Effie would +lead Mrs. Perch to some happy subject and the querulousness would give +place to little rays of animation; and presently Mrs. Perch would doze +comfortably in her chair while Sabre talked to Effie in whispers; and +when she woke Sabre would be ready with some reminiscence of Freddie +carefully chosen and carefully carried along to keep it hedged with +smiles. But all the roads where Freddie was to be found were sunken +roads, the smiling hedges very low about them, the ditches overcharged +with water, and tears soon would come. + +She used to doze and murmur to herself, "My boy's gone to fight for his +country. I'm very proud of my boy gone to fight for his country." + +Effie said Young Perch had taught her that before he went away. + +While they were talking she used to doze and say, "Good morning, Mrs. +So-and-So. My boy's gone to fight for his country. I'm very proud of my +boy gone to fight for his country. Good morning, Mr. So-and-So. My boy's +gone to--He didn't want to go, but I said he must go to fight for his +country.... But that's not true, Freddie.... Oh, very well, dear. Good +morning, Mrs. So-and-So.--" + +She used to wake up with a start and say, "Eh, Freddie? Oh, I thought +Freddie was in the room." Tears. + +She said she always looked forward to the evenings when Sabre came. She +liked him to sit and talk to Effie and to smoke all the time and knock +out his pipe on the fender. She said it made her think Freddie was +there. Effie said that every night she went into Young Perch's room and +tucked up the bed and set the alarm clock and put the candle and the +matches and one cigarette and the ash-tray by the bed; and every night +in this performance said, "He said he's certain to come in quite +unexpectedly one night, and he will smoke his one cigarette before he +goes to sleep. It's no good my telling him he'll set the house on fire +one night. He never listens to anything I tell him." And every morning, +when Effie took her in a cup of tea very early (as Freddie used to), she +always said, "Has Freddie come home in the night, Effie, dear? Now just +go and knock on his door very quietly and then just peep your head in." + + +VI + +Sabre had always thought Bright Effie would be wonderful with old Mrs. +Perch. He wrote long letters to Young Perch, telling him how much more +than wonderful Bright Effie was. Effie mothered Mrs. Perch and managed +her and humoured her in a way that not even Young Perch himself could +have bettered. In that astounding fund of humour of hers, reflected in +those sparkling eyes, even Mrs. Perch's most querulously violent attacks +were transformed into matter for whimsical appreciation, delightfully +and most lovingly dealt with. When the full, irritable, inconsequent +flood of one of Mrs. Perch's moods would be launched upon her in Sabre's +presence, she would turn a dancing eye towards him and immediately she +could step into the torrent and would begin, "Now, look here, Mrs. +Perch, you know perfectly well--"; and in two minutes the old lady would +be mollified and happy. + +Marvellous Effie! Sabre used to think; and of course it was because her +astounding fund of humour was based upon her all-embracing capacity for +love. That was why it was so astounding in its depth and breadth and +compass. Sabre liked immensely the half-whispered talks with her while +Mrs. Perch dozed in her chair. Effie was always happy. Nothing of that +wanting something look was ever to be seen in Effie's shining eyes. She +had the secret of life. Watching her face while they talked, he came to +believe that the secret, the thing missing in half the faces one saw, +was love. But--the old difficulty--many had love; himself and Nona; and +yet were troubled. + +One evening he asked her a most extraordinary question, shot out of him +without intending it, discharged out of his questing thoughts as by a +hidden spring suddenly touched by groping fingers. + +"Effie, do you love God?" + +Her surprise seemed to him to be more at the thing he had asked than at +its amazing unexpectedness and amazing irrelevancy. "Why, of course I +do, Mr. Sabre." + +"Why do you?" + +She was utterly at a loss. "Well, of course I do." + +He said rather sharply, "Yes, but _why_? Have you ever asked yourself +why? Respecting, fearing, trusting, that's understandable. But love, +_love_, you know what love is, don't you? What's love got to do with +God?" + +She said in simple wonderment, as one asked what had the sun to do with +light, or whether water was wet, "Why, God _is_ love." + +He stared at her. + + +VII + +The second Christmas of the war came. The evening before the last day of +the Old Year was to have given Sabre a rare pleasure to which he had +been immensely looking forward. He was to have spent it with Mr. Fargus. +The old chess and acrostic evenings hardly ever happened now. Mr. +Fargus, most manifestly unfitted for the exposures of such a life, had +become a special constable. He did night duty in the Garden Home. He +chose night duty, he told Sabre, because he had no work to do by day and +could therefore then take his rest. Younger men who were in offices and +shops hadn't the like advantage. It was only fair he should help in the +hours help was most wanted. Sabre said it would kill him in time, but +Mrs. Fargus and the three Miss Farguses still at home replied, when +Sabre ventured this opinion to them, that Papa was much stronger than +any one imagined, also that they agreed with Papa that one ought to do +in the war, not what one wanted to do, but what was most required to be +done; finally that, being at home by day, Papa could help, and liked +helping, in the many duties about the house now interfered with by the +enlistment of the entire battalion of female Farguses in work for the +war. One detachment of female Farguses had leapt into blue or khaki +uniforms and disappeared into the voracious belly of the war machine; +the remainder of the battalion thrust their long legs into breeches and +boots and worked at home as land girls. Little old Mr. Fargus in his +grey suit, and the startled child Kate with one hand still up her back +in search of the errant apron string "did" what the battalion used to do +and were nightly, on the return of the giant land girls, shown how +shockingly they had done it. + +Rare, therefore, the old chess and acrostic evenings and most keenly +anticipated, accordingly, this--the first for a fortnight--on the eve of +New Year's Eve. It was to have been a real long evening; but it proved +not very long. It was to have been one in which the war should be shut +out and forgotten in the delights of mental twistings and slowly puffed +pipes; it proved to be one in which "this frightful war!" was groaned +out of Sabre's spirit in emotion most terrible to him. + +At ten o'clock profound gymnastics of the mind in search of a hidden +word beginning with e and ending with l were interrupted by the entry of +the startled Kate. One hand writhed between her shoulders for the apron +string, the other held a note. "Please, Mr. Sabre, I think it's for you, +Mr. Sabre. A young boy took it to your house and said you was to have it +most particular, and please, your Rebecca sent him on here, please." + +"For me? Who on earth--?" + +He opened it. He did not recognise the writing on the envelope. He had +not the remotest idea--It was a jolly evening.... could Enamel be that +word in e and l? He unfolded it. Ah! + +"_Freddie's killed. Please do come at once. I think she's +dying.--E.B._" + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +I + +He was alone in the room where Mrs. Perch lay,--not even Effie. One +o'clock. This war! He had thought to shut it away for a night, and here +was the inconceivable occupation to which it had brought him: alone in +here-- + +The doctor had been and was coming again in the morning. There was +nothing to be done, he had said; just watch her. + +Watch her? How long had he been standing at the foot of the huge +bed--the biggest bed he had ever seen--and what was there to watch? She +gave no sign. She scarcely seemed to breathe. He would not have +recognised her face. It had the appearance of a mask. "Sinking," the +doctor had said. In process here before his eyes, but not to be seen by +them, awful and mysterious things. Death with practised fingers about +his awful and mysterious surgery of separating the spirit from the +flesh, the soul from the body, the incorruptible from the corruptible. + +It could not be! There was not a sign; there was not a sound; and what +should he be doing to be alone here, blind watcher of such a finality? +It was not real. It was an hallucination. He was not really here. The +morning--and days and weeks and years--would come, and he would know +that this never had really happened. + +But Young Perch was dead. Young Perch was killed. It was real. He was +here. This war! + + +II + +He had gone downstairs with the doctor and had remained there some +little time after his departure. Effie had been left kneeling by the +bed. When he came back she was sound asleep where she knelt, worn out. +The news had come on the previous evening. This was Effie's second night +without sleep. Now she was overcome; collapsed; suffocated and bound and +gagged in the opiates and bonds she had for thirty hours resisted. He +touched her. She did not stir. He shook her gently; still no response. +He lifted her up and carried her along the passage to the room he knew +to be hers; laid her on her bed and covered her with a quilt. +Inconceivable occupation. Was all this really happening? + +Two o'clock. He went to look at Effie, still in profound slumber. Why +awaken her? Nothing could be done; only watch. He returned to his vigil. + +Yes, Mrs. Perch was sinking. More pronounced now that masklike aspect of +her face. Yes, dying. He spoke the word to himself. "Dying." As of a +fire in the grate gone to one dull spark among the greying ashes.--It is +out; it cannot burn again. So life here too far retired, too deeply sunk +to struggle back and vitalise again that hue, those lips, that masklike +effigy. + +Profound and awful mystery. Within that form was in process a most +dreadful activity. The spirit was preparing to vacate the habitation it +had so long occupied. It gave no sign. The better to hide its +preparations it had drawn that mask about the face. Seventy years it had +sojourned here; now it was bound away. Seventy years it had been known +to passers-by through the door and windows of this its habitation; now, +deeply retired within the inner chambers, it set its house in order to +be gone. Profound and awful mystery. Dreadful and momentous activity. +From the windows of her eyes turning off the lights; from the engines of +her powers cutting off its forces; drawing the furnaces; dissevering the +contacts. A lifetime within this home; now passenger into an eternity. A +lifetime settled; now preparing to be away on a journey inconceivably +tremendous, unimaginably awful. Did it shrink? Did it pause in its +preparations to peer and peep and shudder? + + +III + +He felt very cold. He moved from the bed and replenished the fire and +crouched beside it. + +This war! He said beneath his breath, "Young Perch! Young Perch!" Young +Perch was killed. Realise the thing! He was never going to see Young +Perch again. He was never going to see old Mrs. Perch again. He was +never to come into Puncher's again. Another place of his life was to be +walled up. His home like an empty house; the office like an empty house; +now no refuge here. Things were crowding in about him, things were +closing in upon him. And he was just to live on here, out of the war, +yet insupportably beset by the war. Beset by the war yet useless in the +war. Young Perch! How in pity was he to go on living out of the war, now +that the war had taken Young Perch and killed old Mrs. Perch and shut +this refuge from its oppression? He must get in. He could not endure it. +He could not, could not.... + +Ten minutes past three. There was perceptible to him no change in that +face upon the pillow. He brought a lamp from the dressing table and +looked at her, shading the light with his hand. Impenetrable mask! +Profound and awful mystery. Much more than a house that dreadfully +engrossed spirit was preparing to leave. This meagre form, scarcely +discernible beneath the coverlet, had been its fortress, once new, once +strong, once beautiful, once by its garrison proudly fought, splendidly +defended, added to, enlarged, adorned. Then past its glory, past +attention. Then crumbling, then decaying. Now to be abandoned. It had +known great stresses and abated them; sieges and withstood them; +assaults and defeated them. O vanity! It had but temporised with +conquest. Time's hosts had camped these many years about its walls, in +ceaseless investment, with desultory attacks, but with each attack +investing closer. Now a most terrible assault had breached the citadel. +The garrison was stricken amain. The fortress no longer could be +defended. Its garrison was withdrawing from that place and handing it +over to destruction. + + +IV + +There was some strange sound in the room. He had dozed in a chair. Some +strange sound, or had he imagined it? He sat up tensely and listened. It +was her breathing, a harsh and laboured sound. He stepped quickly to the +bed and looked and then ran into the passage and called loudly, "Effie! +Effie!" + +Frightening, terrible, agonising. He was kneeling on one side of the +bed, Effie at the other. The extreme moment was come to her that lay +between them. She was moaning. He bowed his face into his hands. The +sound of her moaning was terrible to him. That inhabitant of this her +body had done its preparations and now stood at the door in the +darkness, very frightened. It wanted to go back. It had been very +accustomed to being here. It could not go back. It did not want to shut +the door. The door was shutting. It stood and shrank and whimpered +there. + +Oh, terrible! Beyond endurance, agonising. It was old Mrs. Perch that +stood there whimpering, shrinking, upon the threshold of that huge +abyss, wide as space, dark as night. It was no spirit. It was just that +very feeble Mrs. Perch with her fumbling hands and her moving lips. Look +here, Young Perch would never allow her even to cross a road without +him! How in pity was she to take this frightful step? He twisted up all +his emotions into an appeal of tremendous intensity. "Young Perch! Come +_here_! Your mother! Young Perch, come _here_!" + +Telling it, once, to Nona, he said, "I don't know what happened. They +talk about self-hypnotism. Perhaps it was that. I know I made a most +frightful effort saying 'Young Perch.' I had to. I could see her--that +poor terrified thing. Something had to be done. Some one had to go to +her. I said it like in a nightmare, bursting to get out of it, 'Young +Perch. Come _here_.' Anyway, there it is, Nona. I heard them. It was +imagination, of course. But I heard them." + +He heard, "Now then, Mother! Don't be frightened. Here I am, Mother. +Come on, Mother. One step, Mother. Only one. I can't reach you. You must +take just one step. Look, Mother, here's my hand. Can't you _see_ my +hand?" + +"It's so dark, Freddie." + +"It's not, Mother. It's only dark where you are. It's light here. Don't +cry, Mother. Don't be frightened. It's all right. It's quite all right." + +That tall and pale young man, with his face like one of the old +Huguenots! That very frail old woman with her fumbling hands and moving +lips! + +"It's so cold." + +"Now, Mother, I tell you it isn't. Do just trust me. Do just come." + +"I daren't, Freddie. I can't, Freddie. I can't. I can't." + +"You must. Mother, you must. Look, look, here I am. It's I, Freddie. +Don't cry, Mother. Just trust yourself entirely to me. You know how you +always can trust me. Look, here's my hand. Just one tiny step and you +will touch it. I know you feel ill, darling Mother. You won't any, any +more, once you touch my hand. But I can't come any nearer, dearest. You +must. You--. Ah, brave, beloved Mother--now!" + + +He heard Effie's voice, "Oh, she's dead! She's dead!" + +Dead? He stared upon her dead face. Where was gone that mask? Whence had +come this glory? That inhabitant of this her body, in act of going had +looked back, and its look had done this thing. It had closed the door +upon a ruined house, and looked, and left a temple. It had departed from +beneath a mask, and looked, and that which had been masked now was +beatified. + +Young Perch! + + +V + +In the morning a mysterious man with a large white face, crooked +spectacles and a crooked tie, and a suggestion of thinking all the time +of something else, or of nothing at all, mysteriously drifted into the +house, drifted about it with apparent complete aimlessness of purpose, +and presently showed himself to Sabre as about to drift out of it again. +This was the doctor, a stranger, one of those new faces which the war, +removing the old, was everywhere introducing, and possessed of a +mysterious and astounding faculty of absorbing, resolving, and +subjugating all matters without visibly attending to any matter. "Leave +everything to me," it was all he seemed to say. He did nothing yet +everything seemed to come to his hand with the nicety and exactness of a +drawing-room conjurer. He bewildered Sabre. + +His car left and returned during his brief visit. Sabre, who had thought +him upstairs, and who had a hundred perplexities to inquire of him, +found him in the hall absorbed in adjusting the weights of a +grandfather's clock. + +He remarked to Sabre, "I thought you'd gone. You'd better get off and +get a bath and some breakfast. Nothing you can do here. Leave everything +to me." + +"But, look here, I can't leave--" + +"That's all right. Just leave everything to me. I'm taking Miss Bright +back to my wife for breakfast and a rest. After lunch I'll run her to +her home. She can't stay here. Have you any idea how this thing hooks +on?" + +"But what about--" + +The extraordinary man seemed to know everything before it was said. +"That's all right. I've sent for a woman and her daughter. Leave +everything to me. Here's the car. Here they are." + +Two women appeared. + +"But about--" + +"Yes, that's all right. The poor old lady's brother is coming down. +He'll take charge. I found his name in her papers last night. +Telegraphed." He was looking through the door. "Here's the answer." + +A telegraph messenger appeared. + +Astounding man! + +He read the telegram. "Yes, that's all right. He'll be here by the +eleven train at Tidborough. I'll take Miss Bright now." + +Effie appeared. + +Sabre had the feeling that if he opened the next thought in his mind, an +undertaker would rise out of the ground with a coffin. This astonishing +man, coming upon his overwrought state, made him feel hysterical. He +turned to Effie and gave her both his hands. "The doctor's taking you, +Effie. It's been dreadful for you. It's all over now. Try to leave it +out of your mind for a bit." + +She smiled sadly. "Good-by, Mr. Sabre. Thank you so much, so very much, +for coming and staying. What I should have done without you I daren't +think. I've never known any one so good as you've been to me." + +"I've done nothing, Effie, except feel sorry for you." + +He saw her into the car. No, he would not take a lift. + +"Well, leave everything to me," said the doctor. The chauffeur spoke to +him about some engine trouble. "Yes, I'll see to that. Leave everything +to me, Jenkins." + +Even his car! + + +VI + +Sabre, passed on from the ordeal of the night to the ordeal of the day +by this interlude of the astonishing doctor, did not know how +overwrought he was until he was at home again and come to Mabel seated +at breakfast. The thought in his mind as he walked had been the thought +in his mind as he had sat on after the death, waiting for morning. After +this, after the war had done this, how was he to go on enduring the war +and refused part in it? He dreaded meeting Mabel. He dreaded going on to +the office and meeting Fortune and Twyning. To none of these people, to +no one he could meet, could he explain how he felt about Young Perch and +what he had gone through with Mrs. Perch, nor why, because of what he +felt, more poignant than ever was his need to get into the war. And yet +with these feelings he must go on facing these people and go on meeting +the war in every printed page, in every sight, in every conversation. +Unbearable! He could not. + +Mabel looked up from her breakfast. "Well, I do think--" + +This was the beginning of it. He felt himself digging his nails into the +palms of his hands. "I've been up with old Mrs. Perch--" + +"I know you have. I sent around to the Farguses. I must say I do +think--" + +He felt he could not bear it. "Mabel, look here. For goodness' sake +don't say you do think I ought to have let you know. I know I ought but +I couldn't. And I'm not in a state to go on niggling about it. Young +Perch is killed and his mother's dead. Now for goodness' sake, for +pity's sake, let it alone. I couldn't send and there's the end of it." + +He went out of the room. He thought, "There you are! Now I've done it!" +He went back. "I say, I'm sorry for bursting out like that; but I've had +rather a night of it. It's terrible, isn't it, both of them like that? +Aren't you awfully sorry about it, Mabel?" + +She said, "I'm very sorry. Very sorry indeed. But you can't expect me to +say much when you speak in that extraordinary manner." + +"I was with her when she died. It's upset me a bit." + +"I don't wonder. If you ask me, I think it was very extraordinary your +being there. If you ask me, I think it was very funny of that Miss +Bright sending for you at that hour of the night. Whyever should she +send for you of all people?" + +"I was their greatest friend." + +"Yes, I know you always liked them. But you couldn't be of any use. I +must say I do think people are very funny sometimes. If Miss Bright had +done the right thing, as we are their nearest neighbors, she would have +sent and asked me if I could let one of the maids go over and be with +her. Then you could have gone up too if you'd wished and could have +come back again. I don't think she had any right to send for you." + +He had sat down and was about to pour himself out some tea. He put down +the teapot and got up. "Look here, do me a favour. They're dead, both of +them. Don't say anything more about them. Don't mention the subject +again. For God's sake." + +He went out of the house and got his bicycle and set out for the office. +At the top of the Green he passed young Pinnock, the son of Pinnock's +Stores. Some patch of colour about young Pinnock caught his eye. He +looked again. The colour was a vivid red crown on a khaki brassard on +the young man's arm. The badge of the recruits enrolled under the Derby +enlistment scheme. He dismounted. "Hullo, Pinnock. How on earth did you +get that armlet?" + +"I've joined up." + +"But I thought you'd been rejected about forty times. Haven't you got +one foot in the grave or something?" + +Young Pinnock grinned hugely. "Don't matter if you've got both feet in, +or head and shoulders neither, over at Chovensbury to-day, Mr. Sabre. +It's the last day of this yer Derby scheme, an' there's such a rush of +chaps to get in before they make conscripts of 'em they're fair letting +anybody through." + +Sabre's heart--that very heart!--bounded with an immense hope. "D'you +think it's the same at Tidborough?" + +"They're saying it's the same everywhere. They say they're passing you +through if you can breathe. I reckon that's so at Chovensbury anyway. +Why, they didn't hardly look at me." + +Sabre turned his front wheel to the Chovensbury road. "I'll go there." + + +VII + +At Chovensbury the recruiting station was in the elementary schools. +Sabre entered a large room filled with men in various stages of +dressing, odorous of humanity, very noisy. It was a roughish collection: +the men mostly of the labouring or artisan classes. At a table in the +centre two soldiers with lance corporal's stripes were filling up blue +forms with the answers to questions barked out at the file of men who +shuffled before them. As each form was completed, it was pushed at the +man interrogated with "Get undressed." + +Sabre took his place in the chain. In one corner of the room a doctor in +uniform was testing eyesight. Passed on from there each recruit joined a +group wearing only greatcoat or shirt and standing about a stove near +the door. At intervals the door opened and three nude men, coat or shirt +in hand, entered, and a sergeant bawled, "Next three!" + +Sabre was presently one of the three. Of the two who companioned him one +was an undersized little individual wearing a truss, the other appeared +to be wearing a suit of deep brown tights out of which his red neck and +red hands thrust conspicuously. Sabre realised with a slight shock that +the brown suit was the grime of the unbathed. Across the passage another +room was entered. The recruits dropped their final covering and were +directed, one to two sergeants who operated weights, a height gauge and +a measuring tape; another to an officer who said, "Stand on one leg. +Bend your toes. Now on the other. Toes. Stretch out your arms. Work your +fingers. Squat on your heels." The third recruit went to an officer who +dabbed chests with a stethoscope and said, "Had any illnesses?" When the +recruit had passed through each performance he walked to two officers +seated with enrolment forms at a table, was spoken to, and then +recovered his discarded garment and walked out. The whole business took +about three minutes. They were certainly whizzing them through. + +Sabre came last to the officer with the stethoscope. He was just +polishing off the undersized little man with the truss. "Take that thing +off. Cough. How long have you had this? Go along." He turned to Sabre, +dabbed perfunctorily at his lungs, then at his heart. "Wait a minute." +He applied his ear to the stethoscope again. Then he looked up at +Sabre's face. "Had any illnesses?" "Not one in my life." "Shortness of +breath?" "Not the least. I was in the XV at school." Sabre's voice was +tremulous with eagerness. The doctor's eyes appeared to exchange a +message with him. They gave the slightest twinkle. "Go along." + +He went to the table where sat the two officers with the paper forms. +"Name?" "Sabre." The officer nearer him drew a form towards him and +poised a fountain pen over it. Sabre felt it extraordinarily odd to be +standing stark naked before two men fully dressed. In his rejection at +Tidborough the time before this had not happened. + +"Any complaints?" + +Sabre was surprised at such consideration. He thought the reference was +to his treatment during examination. "No." + +The officer, who appeared to be short-tempered, glanced again at the +form and then looked quickly at him. "Absolutely nothing wrong with +you?" + +"Oh, I thought you meant--" + +The officer _was_ short-tempered. "Never mind what you _thought_. You +hear what I'm asking you, don't you?" + +It was Sabre's first experience of a manner with which he was to become +more familiar. "Sorry. No, nothing whatever." + +The fountain pen made a note. "Get off." + +He could have shouted aloud. He thought, "By God!" + +In the dressing room a sergeant bawled, "All recruits!"--paused and +glared about the room and drew breath for further discharge. This +mannerism Sabre was also to become accustomed to: in the Army, always +"the cautionary word" first when an order was given. The sergeant then +discharged: "All recruits past the doctor proceed to the room under this +for swearing in. When sworn, to office adjoining for pay, card and +armlet. And get a move on with it!" + + +VIII + +The most stupendously elated man in all England was presently riding to +Penny Green on Sabre's bicycle. On his arm blazed the khaki brassard, in +the breast pocket of his waistcoat, specially cleared to give private +accommodation to so glorious a prize, were a half-crown and two pennies, +the most thrillingly magnificent sum he had ever earned,--his army pay. +His singing thought was, "I'm in the Army! I'm in the Army! I don't care +for anything now. By gad, I can't believe it. I'm in the war at last!" +His terrific thought was, "Good luck have thee with thine honour; ride +on ... and thy right hand shall show thee terrible things." + +He burst into the house and discharged the torrent of his elation on to +Mabel. "I say, I'm in the Army. They've passed me. Look here! Look at my +Derby armlet! And look at this. That's my pay! Just look, Mabel--two and +eightpence." + +He extended the coins to her in his hand. "Look!" + +She gave her sudden burst of laughter. "How perfectly ridiculous! Two +and eightpence! Whyever did you take it?" + +"Take it? Why, it's my pay. My army pay. I've never been so proud of +anything in my life. I'll keep these coins forever. Where shall I put +them?" He looked around for a shrine worthy enough. "No, I can't put +them anywhere yet. I want to keep looking at them. I say, you're glad +I'm in, aren't you? Do say something." + +She gave her laugh. "But you're not in. You do get so fearfully excited. +After all, it's only this Lord Derby thing where they call the men up in +age classes, the papers say. Yours can't come for months. You may not go +at all." + +He dropped the coins slowly into his pocket,--chink, chink, chink. "Oh, +well, if that's all you've got to say about it." + +"Well, what do you expect? You just come rushing in and telling me +without ever having said a word that you were going. And for that matter +you seem to forget the extraordinary way in which you went off this +morning. I haven't." + +"I had forgotten. I was upset. I went off, I know; but I don't +remember--" + +"No, you only swore at me; that's all." + +"Mabel, I'm sure I didn't." + +"You bawled out, 'For God's sake.' I call that swearing. I don't mind. +It's not particularly nice for the servants to hear, but I'm not saying +anything about that." + +His brows were puckered up. "What is it you are saying?" + +"I'm simply saying that, behaving like that, it's not quite fair to +pretend that I'm not enthusiastic enough for you about this Lord Derby +thing. It isn't as if you were really in the Army--" + +He wished not to speak, but he could not let this go. "But I _am_ in." + +"Yes, but not properly in--yet. And perhaps you won't ever be. It +doesn't seem like being in to me. That's all I'm saying. Surely there's +no harm in that?" + +He was at the window staring out into the garden. "No, there's no _harm_ +in it." + +"Well, then. What are we arguing about it for?" + +He turned towards her. "Well, but do understand, Mabel. If you think I +was a fool rushing in like that, as you call it. Do understand. It's a +Government scheme. It's binding. It isn't a joke." + +"No, but I think they make it a joke, and I can't think why you can't +see the funny side of it. I think giving you two and eightpence like +that--a man in your position--is too lovely for words." + +He took the coins from his pocket, and jerked them on the table before +her. "Here, pay the butcher with it." + + +IX + +But as he reached the door, his face working, the tremendous and +magnificent thought struck into his realisation again. "I'm in the Army! +By gad, I'm in the Army. I don't care what happens now." He strode back, +smiling, and took up the money. "No, I'm dashed if I can let it go!" He +went out jingling it and turned into the kitchen. "I say, High, Low, I'm +in the Army! I've got in. I'll be off soon. Look at my badge!" + +They chorused, "Well, there now!" + +He said delightedly, "Pretty good, eh? Isn't it fine! Look at +this--that's my pay. Two and eightpence!" + +The chorus, "Oh, if ever!" + +High Jinks said, "That armlet, sir, that's too loose. It don't half show +down on your elbow, sir. You want it up here." + +"Yes, that's the place. Won't it stay?" + +"I'll put a safety pin in, sir; and then to-night shift the buttons. +That's what it wants." + +"Yes, do, High. That's fine." + +He held out his arm and the two girls pinned to advantage the splendid +sign of his splendid triumph. + +"There, sir. Now it shows. And won't we be proud of you, just, in khaki +and all!" + +He laughed delightedly. "I'm jolly proud of myself, I tell you! Now, +then, Thumbs, I don't want bayonets in me yet!" + +Glorious! Glorious! And what would not Nona say! + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +I + +Life, when it takes so giant a hand in its puppet show as to upturn a +cauldron of world war upon the puppets, may be imagined biting its +fingers in some chagrin at the little result in particular instances. As +vegetation beneath snow, so individual development beneath universal +calamity. Nature persists; individual life persists. The snow melts, the +calamity passes; the green things spring again, the individual lives are +but approached more nearly to their several destinations. + +Sabre was called up in his Derby Class within eight weeks of his +enrolment,--at the end of February, 1916. He was nearly two years in the +war; but his ultimate encounter with life awaited him, and was met, at +Penny Green. It might have been reached precisely as it was reached +without agency of the war, certainly without participation in it. Of the +interval only those few events ultimately mattered which had connection +with his life at home. They seemed in the night of the war transient as +falling stars; they proved themselves lodestars of his destiny. They +seemed nothing, yet even as they flashed and passed he occupied himself +with them as the falling star catches the attention from all the fixed +and constant. They were of his own life: the war life was life in exile. + +And, caught up at last in the enormous machinery of the war, his +feelings towards the war underwent a great change. First in the training +camp in Dorsetshire, afterwards, and much more so, in the trenches in +Flanders, it was only by a deliberate effort that he would recapture, +now and then, the old tremendous emotions in the thought of England +challenged and beset. He turned to it as stimulant in moments of +depression and of dismay, in hours of intense and miserable loathing of +some conditions of his early life in the ranks, and later in hours when +fatigue and bodily discomfort reached degrees he had not believed it +possible to endure--and go on with. He turned to it as stimulant and it +never failed of its stimulation. "I'm in it. What _does_ this matter? +This is the war. It's the war. Those infernal devils.... If these +frightful things were being done in England! Imagine if this was in +England! Thank God I'm in it. There you are! I'm absolutely all right +when I remember why I'm here." And enormous exaltation of spirit would +lift away the loneliness, remove the loathing, banish the exhaustion, +dissipate the fear. The fear--"And thy right hand shall show thee +terrible things"--He was more often than once in situations in which he +knew he was afraid and held fear away only because, with his old habit +of introspection, he knew it for fear,--a horrible thing that sought +mastery of him and by sheer force of mental detachment must be held away +where it could be looked at and known for the vile thing it was. In such +ordeals, in Flanders, he got the habit of saying to himself between his +teeth, "Six minutes, six hours, six days, six months, six years. Where +the hell will I be?" It somehow helped. The six minutes would go, and +one could believe that all the periods would go,--and wonder where they +would find one. + +But more than that: now, caught up in the enormous machinery of the war, +he never could accept it, as other men seemed to accept it, as normal +and natural occupation that might be expected to go on for ever and +outside of which was nothing at all. His life was not here; it was at +home. He got the feeling that this business in which he was caught up +was a business apart altogether from his own individual life,--a kind of +trance in which his own life was held temporarily in abeyance, a kind of +transmigration in which he occupied another and a very strange identity: +from whose most strange personality, often so amazingly occupied, he +looked wonderingly upon the identity that was his own, waiting his +return. + +And it was when, in thought or fleeting action, he came in touch with +that old, waiting identity, that there happened the things that seemed +transient as falling stars but moved into his horoscope as planets,--and +remained. + + +II + +He first went to France, in one of the long string of Service battalions +that had sprung out of the Pinks, in the June following his enlistment. +Mabel had not wished to make any change in her manner of life while he +was still in England in training and she did not wish to when, at home +three days on his draft leave, he discussed it with her. She much +preferred, she said, to go on living in her own home. She was altogether +against any idea of going to be with her father at Tidborough, and there +was no cousin "or anybody like that" (her two sisters were married and +had homes of their own) that she would care to have in the house with +her. Relations were all very well in their right place but sharing the +house with you was not their right place. She had plenty to do with her +war work and one thing and another; if, in the matter of obviating +loneliness, she did make any change at all, it might be to get some sort +of paid companion: if you had any one permanently in the house it was +much better to have some one in a dependent position, not as your equal, +upsetting things. + +The whole of these considerations were advanced again in a letter which +Sabre received in July and which gave him great pleasure. Mabel had +decided to get a paid companion--it was rather lonely in some ways--and +she had arranged to have "that girl, Miss Bright." Sabre, reading, +exclaimed aloud, "By Jove, that's good. I am glad." And he thought, +"Jolly little Effie! That's splendid." He somehow liked immensely the +idea of imagining Bright Effie about the house. He thought, "I wish she +could have been in long ago, when I was there. It would have made a +difference. Some one between us. We used to work on one another's +nerves. That was our trouble. Pretty little Effie! How jolly it would +have been! Like a jolly little sister." + +He puckered his brows a little as he read on to Mabel's further +reflections on the new enterprise: "Of course she's not our class but +she's quite ladylike and on the whole I think it just as well not to +have a lady. It might be very difficult sometimes to give orders to any +one of one's own standing." + +He didn't quite like that; but after all it was only just Mabel's way of +looking at things. It was the jolliest possible idea. He wrote back +enthusiastically about it and always after Effie was installed inquired +after her in his letters. + +But Mabel did not reply to these inquiries. + + +III + +He was writing regularly to Nona and regularly hearing from her. He +never could quite make out where she was, addressing her only to her +symbol in the Field post-office. She was car driving and working very +long hours. There was one letter that he never posted but of the +existence of which he permitted himself to tell her. "I carry it about +with me always in my Pay-book. It is addressed to you. If ever I get +outed it will go to you. In it I have said everything that I have never +said to you but that you know without my saying it. There'll be no harm +in your hearing it from my own hand if I'm dead. I keep on adding to it. +Every time we come back into rest, I add a little more. It all could be +said in the three words we have never said to one another. But all the +words that I could ever write would never say them to you as I feel +them. There! I must say no more of it. I ought not to have said so +much." + +And she wrote, "Marko, I can read your letter, every line of it. I lie +awake, Marko, and imagine it to myself--word by word, line by line; and +word by word, line by line, in the same words and in the same lines, I +answer it. So when you read it to yourself for me, read it for yourself +from me. Oh, Marko-- + +"That I ever shall have cause to read it in actual fact I pray God never +to permit. But so many women are praying for so many men, and daily--. +So I am praying beyond that: for myself; for strength, if anything +should happen to you, to turn my heart to God. You see, then I can say, +'God keep you--in any amazement.'" + + +IV + +Early in December he wrote to Mabel: + +"A most extraordinary thing has happened. I'm coming home! I shall be +with you almost on top of this. It's too astonishing. I've suddenly been +told that I'm one of five men in the battalion who have been selected to +go home to an Officer Cadet battalion for a commission. Don't jump to +the conclusion that I'm the Pride of the Regiment or anything like +that. It's simply due to two things: one that this is not the kind of +battalion with many men who would think of taking commissions; the other +that both my platoon officer and the captain of my company happen to be +Old Tidburians and, as I've told you, have often been rather decent to +me. So when this chance came along the rest was easy. I know you'll be +glad. You've never liked the idea of my being in the ranks. But it's +rather wonderful, isn't it? I hope to be home on the third and I go to +the Cadet battalion, at Cambridge, on the fifth." + +Two days later he started, very high of spirit, for England. As he was +leaving the village where the battalion was resting--his immediate +programme the adventure of "lorry-jumping" to the railhead--the mail +came in and brought him a letter from Mabel. It had crossed his own and +a paragraph in it somehow damped the tide of his spirits. + +"I was very much annoyed with Miss Bright yesterday. I had been kept +rather late at our Red Cross Supply Depot owing to an urgent call for +accessories and when I came home I found that Miss Bright had actually +taken what I consider the great liberty of ordering up tea without +waiting for me. I considered it great presumption on her part and told +her so. I find her taking liberties in many ways. It's always the way +with that class,--once you treat them kindly they turn on you. However, +I have, I think, made it quite clear to her that she is not here for the +purpose of giving her own orders and being treated like a princess." + +It clouded his excitement. His thought was, "Damn it, I hope she isn't +bullying Effie." + +He had the luck almost at once to jump a lorry that would lift him a +long bit on his road, and the driver felicitated him with envious +cheerfulness on being off for "leaf." He would have responded with +immense heartiness before reading that letter. With Mabel's tart +sentences in his mind a certain gloom, a rather vexed gloom, bestrode +him. Her words presented her aspect and her attitude and her atmosphere +with a reminiscent flavour that took the edge off his eagerness for +home. On the road when the lorry had dropped him, on the interminable +journey in the train, on the boat, the feeling remained with him. +England--England!--merged into view across the water, and he was +astonished, as his heart bounded for joy at Folkestone coming into +sight, to realise from what depression of mind it bounded away. He was +ashamed of himself and perturbed with himself that he had not more +relished the journey: the journey that was the most glorious thing in +the dreams of every man in France. He thought, "Well, what am I coming +home to?" + +The train went speeding through the English fields,--dear, familiar, +English lands, sodden and bare and unspeakably exquisite to him in their +December mood. He gazed upon them, flooding all his heart out to them. +He thought, "Why should there be anything to make me feel depressed? Why +should things be the same as they used to be? But dash that letter.... +Dash it, I hope she's not been bullying that girl." + + +V + +He made rather a boisterous entry into the house on his arrival, +arriving in the morning before breakfast. He entered the hall just after +eight o'clock and announced himself with a loud, "Hullo, everybody!" and +thumped the butt of his rifle on the floor. An enormous crash in the +kitchen and a shriek of "It's the master!" heralded the tumultuous +discharge upon him of High Jinks and Low Jinks. Effie appeared from the +dining room. He was surrounded and enthusiastically shaking hands. +"Hullo, you Jinkses! Isn't this ripping? By Jove, High--and Low--it's +famous to see you again. Hullo, Effie! Just fancy you being here! How +jolly fine, eh? High Jinks, I want the most enormous breakfast you've +ever cooked. Got any kippers? Good girl. That's the stuff to give the +troops. Where's the Mistress? Not down yet? I'll go up. Low Jinks--Low +Jinks, I'm dashed if you aren't crying! Well, it is jolly nice to see +you again, Low. How's the old bike? Look here, Low, I want the most +boiling bath--" + +He broke off. "Hullo, Mabel! Hullo! Did you get my letter? I'm coming +up." + +Mabel was in a wrapper at the head of the stairs. He ran up. "I'm simply +filthy. Do you mind?" He took her hand. + +She said, "I never dreamt you'd be here at this hour. How are you, Mark? +Yes, I got your letter. But I never expected you till this evening. It's +very annoying that nothing is ready for you. Sarah, something is burning +in the kitchen. I shouldn't stand there, Rebecca, with so much to be +done; and I think you've forgotten your cap. Miss Bright,--oh, she's +gone." + +Just the same Mabel! But he wasn't going to let her be the same! He had +made up his mind to that as he had come along with eager strides from +the station. She turned to him and they exchanged their greetings and he +went on, pursuing his resolution, "Look here, I've got a tremendous +idea. When I get through this cadet business I shall have quite a bit of +leave _and_ my Sam Browne belt. I thought we'd go up to town and stick +up at an hotel--the Savoy or somewhere--and have no end of a bust. +Theatres and all the rest of it. Shall we?" + +That chilly, vexed manner of hers, caused as he well knew by the uproar +of his arrival, disappeared. "Oh, I'd love to. Yes, do let's. Now you +want a bath, don't you? I'm annoyed there was all that disturbance just +when I was meeting you. I've been having a little trouble lately--" + +"Oh, well, never mind that now, Mabel. Come and watch me struggle out of +this pack. Yes, look here, as soon as ever I know for certain when the +course ends we'll write for rooms at the Savoy. I hear you have to do it +weeks ahead. We'll spend pots of money and have no end of a time." + +She reflected his good spirits. Ripping! He splashed and wallowed in the +bath, singing lustily one of the songs out there: + +"Ho, ho, ho, it's a lovely war!" + + +VI + +But the three days at home were not to go on this singing note. They +were marred by the discovery that his suspicion was well founded; she +_was_ bullying Effie. He began to notice it at once. Effie, with whom he +had anticipated a lot of fun, was different: not nearly so bright; +subdued; her eyes, not always, but only by occasional flashes, sparkling +that intense appreciation of the oddities of life that had so much +attracted him in her. Yes, dash it, Mabel was treating her in a rotten +way. Bullying. No, it was not exactly bullying, it was snubbing, a +certain acid quality always present in Mabel's voice when she addressed +her,--that and a manner of always being what he thought of as "at her." +The girl seemed to have an astonishing number of quite trivial duties to +perform--trivial; there certainly was no suggestion of her being imposed +upon as he had always felt Miss Bypass up at the vicarage was imposed +upon, but Mabel was perpetually and acidly "at her" over one trivial +thing or another. It was forever, "Miss Bright, I think you ought to be +in the morning room, oughtn't you?" "Miss Bright, I really must ask you +not to leave your door open every time you come out of your room. You +know how I dislike the doors standing open." "Miss Bright, if you've +finished your tea, there's really no need for you to remain." + +He hated it. He said nothing, but it was often on the tip of his tongue +to say something, and he showed that he intensely disliked it, and he +knew that Mabel knew he disliked it. On the whole it was rather a relief +when the three days were up and he went down to the Cadet battalion at +Cambridge. + +In March he came back, a second lieutenant; and immediately, when in +time to come he looked back, things set in train for that ultimate +encounter with life which was awaiting him. + +The projected visit to town did not come off. While he was at Cambridge +Mabel wrote to say that the Garden Home Amateur Dramatic Society was +going to do "His Excellency The Governor" in aid of the Red Cross funds +at the end of March. She was taking part, she was fearfully excited +about it, and as rehearsals began early in the month she naturally could +not be away. She was sure he would understand and would not mind. + +He did not mind in the least. They were years past the stage when it +would have so much as crossed his mind that she might give up this +engagement for the sake of spending his leave on a bit of gaiety in +town; he had only suggested the idea on her account; personally he much +preferred the prospect of doing long walks about his beloved countryside +now passing into spring. + + +VII + +Arriving, he began at once to do so. He went over for one visit to the +office at Tidborough. Not so much enthusiasm greeted him as to encourage +a second. Twyning and Mr. Fortune were immersed in adapting the +workshops to war work for the Government. Normal business was coming to +a standstill. Now Twyning had conceived the immense, patriotic, and +profitable idea of making aeroplane parts, and it was made sufficiently +clear to Sabre that, so long away and immediately to be off again, there +could be no interest for him in the enterprise. + +"You won't want to go into all we are doing, my dear fellow," said Mr. +Fortune. "Your hard-earned leave, eh? We mustn't expect you to give it +up to business, eh, Twyning?" + +And Twyning responded, "No, no, old man. Not likely, old man. Well, it's +jolly to see you in the office again"; and he looked at his watch and +said a word to Mr. Fortune about "Meeting that man" with an air which +quite clearly informed Sabre that it would be jollier still to see him +put on his cap and walk out of the office again. + +Well, it was only what he had expected; a trifle pronounced, perhaps, +but the obvious sequel to their latter-day manner towards him: they had +wanted to get him out; he was out and they desired to keep him out. + +He rose to go. "Oh, that's all right. I'm not going to keep you. I only +called in to show off my officer's uniform." + +Twyning said, "Yes, congratulations again, old man." He laughed. "You +mustn't think you're going to have Harold saluting you though, if you +ever meet. He's getting a commission too." His manner, directly he +began to speak of Harold, changed to that enormous affection and +admiration for his son which Sabre well remembered on the occasion of +Harold joining up. His face shone, his mouth trembled with loving pride +at what Harold had been through and what he had done. And he was such a +good boy,--wrote twice a week to his mother and once when he was sick in +hospital the Padre of his battalion had written to say what a good and +sterling boy he was. Yes, he had been recommended for a commission and +was coming home that month to a Cadet battalion at Bournemouth. + +When Sabre made his congratulations Twyning accompanied him downstairs +to the street and warmly shook his hand. "Thanks, old man; thanks most +awfully. Yes, he's everything to me, my Harold. And of course it's a +strain never knowing.... Well, well, he's in God's hands; and he's such +a good, earnest boy." + +Extraordinarily different Twyning the father of Harold, and Twyning in +daily relations. + + +VIII + +His leave drew on. He might get his orders any day now. Mabel was much +occupied with her rehearsals. He spent his time in long walks alone and, +whenever they were possible, in the old evenings with Mr. Fargus. In +Mabel's absence he and Effie were much thrown together. Mabel frequently +came upon them thus together, and when she did she had a mannerism that +somehow seemed to suggest "catching" them together. And sometimes she +used that expression. It would have been uncommonly jolly to have had +Bright Effie as companion on the walks, and once or twice he did. But +Mabel showed very clearly that this was very far from having her +approval and on the second occasion said so. There was the slightest +possible little tiff about it; and thenceforward--the subject having +been opened--there were frequent little passages over Effie, arising +always out of his doing what Mabel called "forever sticking up for her." +How frequent they were, and how much they annoyed Mabel, he did not +realise until, in the last week of his leave, and in the midst of a +sticking up for her scene, Mabel surprisingly announced, "Well, anyway +I'm sick and tired of the girl, and I'm sick and tired of having you +always sticking up for her, and I'm going to get rid of her--to-morrow." + +He said, "To-morrow? How can you? I don't say it's not the best thing to +do. She's pretty miserable, I should imagine, the way you're always +picking at her, but you can't rush her off like that, Mabel." + +"Well, I'm going to. I'm going to pay her up and let her go." + +"But, Mabel--what will her people think?" + +"I'm sure I don't care what they think. If you're so concerned about the +precious girl, I'll tell her mother that I was going to make other +arrangements in any case and that as this was your last week we thought +we'd like to be alone together. Will that satisfy you?" + +"I hope it will satisfy them. And I hope very much indeed that you won't +do it." + + +IX + +But she did do it. On the following day Effie left. Sabre, pretending to +know nothing about it, went for a long walk all day. When he returned +Effie had gone. He said nothing. Her name was not again mentioned +between him and Mabel. It happened that the only reference to her sudden +departure in which he was concerned was with Twyning. + +Setting out on his return to France--his orders were to join a Fusilier +battalion, reporting to 34th Division--he found Twyning on the platform +at Tidborough station buying a paper. + +"Hullo, old man," said Twyning. "Just off? I say, old man, old Bright's +very upset about Effie getting the sack from your place like that. How +was it?" + +He felt himself flush. Beastly, having to defend Mabel's unfairness like +this. "Oh, I fancy my wife had the idea of getting some relation to live +with her, that's all." + +Twyning was looking keenly at him. "Oh, I see. But a bit sudden, wasn't +it? I mean to say, I thought you were on such friendly terms with the +girl. Why, only a couple of days before she left I saw you with her +having tea in the Cloister tea rooms. I don't think you saw me, did you, +old man?" + +"No, I didn't. Yes, I remember; we were waiting for my wife. There'd +been a dress rehearsal of this play down at the Corn Exchange." + +"Oh, yes, waiting for your wife, were you?" Twyning appeared to be +thinking. "Well, that's what I mean, old man. So friendly with the +girl--both of you--and then sending her off so suddenly like that." + +Sabre essayed to laugh it off. "My wife's rather a sudden person, you +know." + +Twyning joined very heartily in the laugh. "Is she?" He looked around. +"She's seeing you off, I suppose?" + +"No, she's not. She's not too well. Got a rotten cold." + +Twyning stared again in what struck Sabre as rather an odd way. "Oh, I'm +sorry, old man. Nothing much, I hope. Well, you'll want to be getting +in. I'll tell old Bright what you say about Effie. Nothing in it. I +quite understand. Seemed a bit funny at first, that's all. Good-by, old +man. Jolly good luck. Take care of yourself. Jolly good luck." + +He put out his hand and squeezed Sabre's in his intensely friendly grip; +and destiny put out its hand and added another and a vital hour to +Sabre's ultimate encounter with life. + + +X + +His leave ended with the one thing utterly unexpected and flagrantly +impossible. One of those meetings so astounding in the fact that the +deviation of a single minute, of half a minute, of what one has been +doing previously would have prevented it; and out of it one of those +frightful things that ought to come with premonition, by hints, by +stages, but that come careering headlong as though malignity, bitter and +wanton, had loosed a savage bolt. + +He arranged to spend the night at the Officers' Rest House near Victoria +station. Arriving about nine and disinclined for food, he strolled up to +St. James's Park and walked about a little, then back to the station and +into the yard to buy a paper. He stood on a street refuge to let by a +cab coming out of the station. As it passed he saw its occupants--two +women; and one saw him--Nona! Of all incredible things, Nona! + +She stopped the cab and he hurried after it. + +"Nona!" + +"Marko!" + +She said, "I'm hurrying to Euston to catch a train. Tony's mother is +with me." + +He could not see her well in the dim light, but he thought she looked +terribly pale and fatigued. And her manner odd. He said, "I'm just going +back. But you, Nona? I thought you were in France?" + +"I was--this morning. I only came over to-day." + +How funny her voice was. "Nona, you look ill. You sound ill. What's up? +Is anything wrong?" + +She said, "Oh, Marko, Tony's killed." + +"Nona!" + +... That came careering headlong, as though malignity, bitter and wanton, +had loosed a savage bolt. + +Tybar killed! The cab was away and he was standing there. Tybar killed. +She had said they were hurrying to Scotland, to Tony's home. Tybar +killed! He was getting in people's way. He went rather uncertainly to +the railings bounding the pavement where he stood, and leaned against +them and stared across into the dim cavern of the station yard. Tybar +dead....[2] + +[Footnote 2: At a much later date Nona told Sabre of Tony's death: + +"It was in that advance of ours. Just before Vimy Ridge. At Arras. +Marko, he was shot down leading his men. He wouldn't let them take him +away. Re was cheering them on. And then he was hit again. He was +terribly wounded. Oh, terribly. They got him down to the clearing +station. They didn't think he could possibly live. But you know how +wonderful he always was. Even in death that extraordinary spirit of +his.... They got him to Boulogne. I was there and I heard quite by +chance." + +"You saw him, Nona?" + +She nodded. "Just before he died. He couldn't speak. But he'd been +speaking just before I came. He left a message with the nurse." + +She drew a long breath. "Marko, the nurse gave me the message. She +thought it was for me--and it wasn't." + +She wiped her eyes. "He was watching us. I know he knew she was telling +me, and his eyes--you know that mocking kind of look they used to have? +Poor Tony! It was there. He died like that.... Marko, you know I'm very +glad he just had his old mocking way while he died. Now it's over I'm +glad. I wouldn't have had him sorry and unhappy just when he was dying. +He was just utterly untouched by anything all his life, not to be judged +as ordinary people are judged, and I know perfectly well he'd have +wished to go out just his mocking, careless self to the last. He was +utterly splendid. All that was between us, that was nothing once the war +came. Always think kindly of him, Marko." + +Sabre said, "I do. I've never been able but to admire him." She said, +"Every one did Poor Tony. Brave Tony!"] + + +XI + +On the following morning he crossed to France, there to take up again +that strange identity in whose occupancy his own self was held in +abeyance, waiting his return. Seven months passed before he returned to +that waiting identity and he resumed it then permanently,--done with the +war. The tremendous fighting of 1917--his participation in the war--his +tenancy of the strange personality caught up in the enormous machinery +of it all--ended for him in the great break through of the Hindenburg +Line in November. On top of a recollection of sudden shock, then of +whirling giddiness in which he was conscious of some enormous violence +going on but could not feel it--like (as he afterwards thought) +beginning to come to in the middle of a tooth extraction under gas--on +the top of these and of extraordinary things and scenes and people he +could not at all understand came some one saying: + +"Well, it's good-by to the war for you, old man." + +He knew that he was aware--and somehow for some time had been +aware--that he was in a cot in a ship. He said, "I got knocked out, +didn't I?" + +... Some one was telling him some interminable story about some one being +wounded in the shoulder and in the knee. He said, and his voice appeared +to him to be all jumbled up and thick, "Well, I don't care a damn." + +... Some one laughed. + +Years--or minutes--after this he was talking to a nurse. He said, "What +did some one say to me about it being good-by to the war for me?" + +The nurse smiled. "Well, poor thing, you've got it rather badly in the +knee, you know." + +He puzzled over this. Presently he said, "Where are we?" + +The nurse bent across the cot and peered through the port; then beamed +down on him: + +"England!" + +She said, "Aren't you glad? _What's_ the matter?" + +His face was contracted in intensity of thought, extraordinary thought: +he felt the most extraordinary premonition of something disastrous +awaiting him: there was in his mind, meaninglessly, menacingly, over and +over again, "Good luck have thee with thine honour ... and thy right +hand shall show thee terrible things...." + +"Terrible things!" + + + + +PART FOUR + +MABEL--EFFIE--NONA + + + +CHAPTER I + + +I + +Said Hapgood--that garrulous Hapgood, solicitor, who first in this book +spoke of Sabre to a mutual friend--said Hapgood, seated in the +comfortable study of his fiat, to that same friend, staying the night: + +"Well, now, old man, about Sabre. Well, I tell you it's a funny +business--a dashed funny business, the position old Puzzlehead Sabre has +got himself into. Of course you, with your coarse and sordid instincts, +will say it's just what it appears to be and a very old story at that. +Whereas to me, with my exquisitely delicate susceptibilities.... No, +don't throw that, old man. Sorry. I'll be serious. What I want just to +kick off with is that you know as well as I do that I've never been the +sort of chap who wept he knows not why; I've never nursed a tame gazelle +or any of that sort of stuff. In fact I've got about as much sentiment +in me as there is in a pound of lard. But when I see this poor beggar +Sabre as he is now, and when I hear him talk as he talked to me about +his position last week, and when I see how grey and ill he looks, +hobbling about on his old stick, well, I tell you, old man, I get--well, +look here, here it is from the Let Go. + +"Look here, this is April, April, 1918, by all that's Hunnish--dashed +nearly four years of this infernal war. Well, old Sabre got knocked out +in France just about five months ago, back in November. He copped it +twice--shoulder and knee. Shoulder nothing much; knee pretty bad. +Thought they'd have to take his leg off, one time. Thought better of it, +thanks be; patched him up; discharged him from the Army; and sent him +home--very groggy, only just able to put the bad leg to the ground, +crutches, and going to be a stick and a bit of a limp all his life. Poor +old Puzzlehead. Think yourself lucky you were a Conscientious Objector, +old man.... Oh, damn you, that hurt. + +"Very well. That's as he was when I first saw him again. Just making +first attempts in the stick and limp stage, poor beggar. That was back +in February. Early in February. Mark the date, as they say in the +detective stories. I can't remember what the date was, but never you +mind. You just mark it. Early in February, two months ago. There was +good old me down in Tidborough on business--good old me doing the heavy +London solicitor in a provincial town--they always put down a red carpet +for me at the station, you know; rather decent, don't you think?--and +remembering about old Sabre having been wounded and discharged, blew +into Fortune, East and Sabre's (business wasn't with them this time) for +news of him. + +"Of course he wasn't there. Saw old Fortune and the man Twyning and +found them in regard to Sabre about as genial and communicative as a +maiden aunt over a married sister's new dress. Old Fortune looking like +a walking pulpit in a thundercloud--I should say he'd make about four of +me round the equator; and mind you, a chap stopped me in the street the +other day and offered me a job as Beefeater outside a moving-picture +show: yes, fact, I was wretchedly annoyed about it--and the man Twyning +with a lean and hungry look like Cassius, or was it Judas Iscariot? +Well, like Cassius out of a job or Judas Iscariot in the middle of one, +anyway. That's Twyning's sort. Chap I never cottoned on to a bit. +They'd precious little to say about Sabre. Sort of handed out the +impression that he'd been out of the business so long that really they +weren't much in touch with his doings. Rather rotten, I thought it, +seeing that the poor beggar had done his bit in the war and done it +pretty thoroughly too. They said that really they hardly knew when he'd +be fit to get back to work again; not just yet awhile, anyway. And, yes, +he was at home over at Penny Green, so far as they knew,--in the kind of +tone that they didn't know much and cared less: at least, that was the +impression they gave me; only my fancy, I daresay, as the girl said when +she thought the soldier sat a bit too close to her in the tram. + +"Well, I'd nothing to do till my train pulled out in the afternoon, so I +hopped it over to Penny Green Garden Home on the railway and walked down +to old Sabre's to scoop a free lunch off him. Found him a bit down the +road from his house trying out this game leg of his. By Jove, he was no +end bucked to see me. Came bounding along, dot and carry one, beaming +all over his old phiz, and wrung my honest hand as if he was Robinson +Crusoe discovering Man Friday on a desert island. I know I'm called +Popular Percy by thousands who can only admire me from afar, but I tell +you old Sabre fairly overwhelmed me. And talk! He simply jabbered. I +said, 'By Jove, Sabre, one would think you hadn't met any one for a +month the way you're unbelting the sacred rites of welcome.' He laughed +and said, 'Well, you see, I'm a bit tied to a post with this leg of +mine.' + +"'How's the wife?' said I. + +"'She's fine,' said he. 'You'll stay to lunch? I say, Hapgood, you will +stay to lunch, won't you?' + +"I told him that's what I'd come for; and he seemed no end relieved,--so +relieved that I think I must have cocked my eye at him or something, +because he said in an apologetic sort of way, 'I mean, because my wife +will be delighted. It's a bit dull for her nowadays, only me and always +me, crawling about more or less helpless.' + +"It struck me afterwards--oh, well, never mind that now. I said, 'I +suppose she's making no end of a fuss over you now, hero of the war, and +all that sort of thing?' + +"'Oh, rather!' says old Sabre, and a minute or two later, as if he +hadn't said it heartily enough, 'Oh, rather. Rather, I should think +so.'" + + +II + +"Well, we staggered along into the house, old Sabre talking away like a +soda-water bottle just uncorked, and he took me into a room on the +ground floor where they'd put up a bed for him, him not being able to do +the stairs, of course. 'This is my--my den,' he introduced it, 'where I +sit about and read and try to do a bit of work.' + +"There didn't look to be much signs of either that I could see, and I +said so. And old Sabre, who'd been hobbling about the room in a rather +uncomfortable sort of way, exclaimed suddenly, 'I say, Hapgood, it's +absolutely ripping having you here talking like this. I never can settle +down properly in this room, and I've got a jolly place upstairs where +all my books and things are.' + +"'Let's go up then,' I said. + +"'I can't get up.' + +"'Well, man alive, I can get you up. Come on. Let's go.' + +"He seemed to hesitate for some reason I couldn't understand. 'It's got +to be in a chair,' he said. 'It's a business. I wonder--' That kind of +thing, as though it was something he oughtn't to do. 'But it would be +fine,' he said. 'I've not been up for days. I could show you some of my +history I'm going to take up again one of these days--one of these +days,' said he, with his nut rather wrinkled up. And then suddenly, +'Come on, let's go!' + +"At the door he called out, 'I say, you Jinkses!' and two servant girls +came tumbling out rather as if they were falling out of a trap and each +trying to fall out first. 'I say,' old Sabre says, 'Mistress not back +yet, is she?' and when they told him No, 'Well', d'you think you'd like +to get me upstairs on that infernal chair?' he says. + +"'Oh, we _will_, sir,' and they got out one of those invalid chairs and +started to lift him up. Course I wanted to take one end, but they +wouldn't hear of it. 'If you please, we like carrying the master, sir,' +and all that kind of thing; and they fussed him in and fiddled with his +legs, snapping at one another for being rough as if they were the two +women taking their disputed baby up to old Solomon. + +"They'd scarcely got on to the stairs when the front door opened and in +walks his wife. My word, I thought they were going to drop him. She says +in a voice as though she was biting a chip off an ice block, 'Mark, is +it _really_ necessary--' Then she saw me and took her teeth out of the +ice. 'Oh, it's Mr. Hapgood, isn't it? How very nice! Staying to lunch, +of course? Do let's come into the drawing-room.' Very nice and affable. +I always rather liked her. And we went along, I being rather captured +and doing the polite in my well-known matinée idol manner, you +understand; and I heard old Sabre saying, 'Well, let me out of the +damned thing, can't you? Help me out of the damn thing'; and presently +hobbled in and joined us, and soon after that lunch, exquisitely cooked +and served and all very nice, too. + +"Well, as I say, old man, I always rather liked his wife. +I--always--rather--liked--her. But somehow, as we went on through lunch, +and then on after that, I didn't like her quite so much. +Not--quite--so--much. I don't know. Have you ever seen a woman unpicking +a bit of sewing? Always looks rather angry with it, I suppose because +it's got to be unpicked. They sort of flip the threads out, as much as +to say, '_Come_ out of it, drat you. _That's_ you, drat you.' Well, that +was the way she spoke to old Sabre. Sort of snipped off the end of what +he was saying and left it hanging, if you follow me. That was the way +she spoke to him when she did speak to him. But for the most part they +hardly spoke to one another at all. I talked to her, or I talked to him, +but the conversation never got triangular. Whenever it threatened to, +_snip!_ she'd have his corner off and leave him floating. Tell you what +it was, old man, I jolly soon saw that the reason old Sabre was so jolly +anxious for me to stay to lunch was because meals without dear old me or +some other chatty intellectual were about as much like a feast of reason +and a flow of soul as a vinegar bottle and a lukewarm potato on a cold +plate. Similarly with the exuberance of his greeting of me. I hate to +confess it, but it wasn't so much splendid old me he had been so +delighted to see as any old body to whom he could unloose his tongue +without having the end of his nose snipped off. + +"Mind you, I don't mean that he was cowed and afraid to open his mouth +in his wife's presence. Nothing a bit like that. What I got out of it +was that he was starved, intellectually starved, mentally starved, +starved of the good old milk of human kindness--_that's_ what I mean. +Everything he put up he threw down, not because she wanted to snub him, +but because she either couldn't or wouldn't take the faintest interest +in anything that interested him. Course, she may have had jolly good +reason. I daresay she had. Still, there it was, and it seemed rather +rotten to me. I didn't like it. Damn it, the chap only had one decent +leg under the table and an uncommonly tired-looking face above it, and I +felt rather sorry for him." + + +III + +"After lunch I said, 'Well, now, old man, what about going up to this +room of yours and having a look at this monumental history?' Saw him +shoot a glance in his wife's direction, and he said, 'Oh, no, not now, +Hapgood. Never mind now.' And his wife said, 'Mark, what _can_ there be +for Mr. Hapgood to see up there? It's too ridiculous. I'm sure he +doesn't want to be looking at lesson books.' + +"I said, 'Oh, but I'd like to. In fact, I insist. None of your backing +out at the last minute, Sabre. I know your little games.' + +"Sort of carried it off like that, d'you see; knowing perfectly well +the old chap was keen on going up, and seeing perfectly clearly that for +some extraordinary reason his wife stopped him going up. + +"By Jove, he was pleased, I could see he was. We got in the maids and +upped him, to a room he used to sleep in, I gathered, and up there he +hobbled about, taking out this book and dusting up that book, and +fiddling over his table, and looking out of the window, for all the +world like an evicted emigrant restored to the home of his fathers. + +"He said, 'Forgive me, old man, just a few minutes; you know I haven't +been up here for over three weeks.' + +"I said, 'Why the devil haven't you, then?' + +"'Oh, well,' says he. 'Oh, well, it makes a business in the house, you +know, heaving me up.' + +"Well, that didn't cut any ice, you know, seeing that I'd seen the +servants rush to the job as if they were going to a school treat. It was +perfectly clear to me that the reason he was kept out of the room was +because his wife didn't want him being lugged up there; and for all I +knew never had liked him being there and now was able to stop it. + +"However, his wife was his funeral, not mine, and I said nothing and +presently he settled himself down and we began talking. At least he did. +He's got some ideas, old Sabre has. He didn't talk about the war. He +talked a lot about the effect of the war, on people and on institutions, +and that sort of guff. Devilish deep, devilishly interesting. I won't +push it on to you. You're one of those soulless, earth-clogged natures. + +"Tell you one thing, though, just to give you an idea of the way he's +been developing all these years. He talked about how sickened he was +with all this stuff in the papers and in the pulpits about how the +nation, in this war, is passing through the purging fires of salvation +and is going to emerge with higher, nobler, purer ideals, and all that. +He said not so. He quoted a thing at me out of one of his books. +Something about (as well as I can remember it) something about how +'Those waves of enthusiasm on whose crumbling crests we sometimes see +nations lifted for a gleaming moment are wont to have a gloomy trough +before and behind.' And he said: + +"'That's what it is with us, Hapgood. We've been high on those crests in +this war and already they're crumbling. When the peace comes, you look +out for the glide down into the trough. They talk about the nation, +under this calamity, turning back to the old faiths, to the old simple +beliefs, to the old earnest ways, to the old God of their fathers. Man,' +he said, 'what can you see already? Temples everywhere to a new +God--Greed--Profit--Extortion. All out for it. All out for it,' I +remember him saying, 'all out to get the most and do the least.' + +"He got up and hobbled about, excited, flushed, and talked like a man +who uses his headpiece for thinking. 'Where's that making to, Hapgood?' +he asked. 'I'll tell you,' he said. 'You'll get the people finding +there's a limit to the high prices they can demand for their labour: +apparently none to those the employers can go on piling up for their +profits. You'll get growing hatred by the middle classes with fixed +incomes of the labouring classes whose prices for their labour they'll +see--and feel--going up and up; and you'll get the same growing hatred +by the labouring classes for the capitalists. We've been nearly four +years on the crest, Hapgood,--on the crest of the war--and it's been all +classes as one class for the common good. I tell you, Hapgood, the +trough's ahead; we're steering for it; and it's rapid and perilous +sundering of the classes. + +"'The new God,' old Sabre said. 'High prices, high prices: the highest +that can be squeezed. Temples to it everywhere. Ay, and sacrifices, +Hapgood. Immolations. Offering up of victims. No thought of those who +cannot pay the prices. Pay the prices, or get them, or go under. That's +the new God's creed.' + +"I said to him, 'What's the remedy, Sabre?' + +"He said to me, 'Hapgood, the remedy's the old remedy. The old God. But +it's more than that. It's Light: more light. The old revelation was good +for the old world, and suited to the old world, and told in terms of the +old world's understanding. Mystical for ages steeped in the mystical; +poetic for minds receptive of nothing beyond story and allegory and +parable. We want a new revelation in terms of the new world's +understanding. We want light, light! Do you suppose a man who lives on +meat is going to find sustenance in bread and milk? Do you suppose an +age that knows wireless and can fly is going to find spiritual +sustenance in the food of an age that thought thunder was God speaking? +Man's done with it. It means nothing to him; it gives nothing to him. He +turns all that's in him to get all he wants out of this world and let +the next go rip. Man cannot live by bread alone, the churches tell him; +but he says, "I _am_ living on bread alone, and doing well on it." But I +tell you, Hapgood, that plumb down in the crypt and abyss of every man's +soul is a hunger, a craving for other food than this earthy stuff. And +the churches know it; and instead of reaching down to him what he +wants--light, light--instead of that, they invite him to dancing and +picture shows, and you're a jolly good fellow, and religion's a jolly +fine thing and no spoilsport, and all that sort of latter-day tendency. +Damn it, he can get all that outside the churches and get it better. +Light, light! He wants light, Hapgood. And the padres come down and +drink beer with him, and watch boxing matches with him, and sing +music-hall songs with him, and dance Jazz with him, and call it making +religion a Living Thing in the Lives of the People. Lift the hearts of +the people to God, they say, by showing them that religion is not +incompatible with having a jolly fine time. _And there's no God there +that a man can understand for him to be lifted up to._ Hapgood, a man +wouldn't care _what_ he had to give up if he knew he was making for +something inestimably precious. But he doesn't know. Light, +light--that's what he wants; and the longer it's withheld the lower +he'll sink. Light! Light!'" + + +IV + +"Well, I make no extra charge for that (said Hapgood, and helped himself +to a drink). That's not me. That's Sabre. And if you'd seen him as I saw +him, and if you'd heard him as I heard him, you'd have been as impressed +as I was impressed instead of lolling there like a surfeited python. I +tell you, old Sabre was all pink under his skin, and his eyes shining, +and his voice tingling. I tell you, if you were a real painter instead +of a base flatterer of bloated and wealthy sitters, and if you'd seen +him then, you'd have painted the masterpiece of your age and called it +The Visionary. I tell you, old Sabre was fine. He said he'd been +thinking all round that sort of stuff for years, and that now, for one +reason and another, it was beginning to crystallize in him and take form +and substance. + +"I asked him, 'What reasons, Sabre?' and he said, 'Oh, I don't know. The +war; and being out there; and thinking about the death of an old woman I +attended once; and things I picked up from a slip of a girl; and things +from a woman I know--oh, all sorts of things, Hapgood; and I tell you +what chiefly--loneliness, my God, loneliness....' + +"I didn't say anything. What could I say? When a chap suddenly rips a +cry out of his heart like that, what the devil can you say if you weigh +fourteen stone of solid contentment and look it? You can only feel you +weren't meant to hear and try to look as if you hadn't. + +"Well, anyway, time came for me to go and I went. Sabre stayed where he +was. Would I mind leaving him up there? It was so seldom he got up; and +talking with me had brought back old feelings he thought he'd never +recapture again, and he was going to see if he couldn't start in and do +a bit of writing again. So I pulled out and left him; and that was old +Sabre as I saw him two months ago; and one way and another I thought a +good deal coming back in the train of what I had seen. Those sort of +ideas in his head and that sort of life with his wife. D'you remember +my telling you years--oh, years ago--that he looked like a chap who'd +lost something and was wondering where he'd put it? Well, the Sabre I +left down there two months ago had not only lost it, but knew it was +gone for good and all. That was Sabre--except when the pink got under +his skin when he got talking. + +"All right. All right. Now that's just the prologue. That's just what +you're supposed to know before the Curtain goes up. Now, am I going on +to the drama or are we going to bed.... The drama? Right. You're a lewd +fellow of the baser sort, but you occasionally have wise instincts. +Right. The drama." + + + +CHAPTER II + + +I + +Continued Hapgood: + +"All right. That was two months ago. Last week I was down at Tidborough +again. Felt I'd got rather friendly with old Sabre on my last visit so +as soon as I could toddled off to the office to look him up. Felt quite +sure he'd be back there again by now. But he wasn't. He wasn't, and when +I began inquiring for him found there seemed to be some rummy mystery +about his absence. Like this. Some sort of a clerk was in the shop as I +went in. 'Mr. Sabre upstairs, eh?' I asked. 'No. No, Mr. Sabre's +not--not here,' says my gentleman, with rather an odd look at me. + +"'What, not still laid up, is he?' + +"The chap gave me a decidedly odd look. 'Mr. Sabre's not attending the +office at present, sir.' + +"'Not attending the office? Not ill, is he?' + +"'No, not ill, I think, sir. Not attending the office. Perhaps you'd +like to see one of the partners?' + +"I looked at him. He looked at me. What the devil did he mean? Just then +I caught sight of an old bird I knew slightly coming down the stairs +with a book under his arm. Old chap called Bright. Sort of foreman or +something. Looked rather like Moses coming down the mountain with the +Tables of Stone in his fist. I said in my cheery way, 'Hullo, Mr. +Bright. Good morning. I was just inquiring for Mr. Sabre.' + +"By Jove, I thought for a minute the old patriarch was going to heave +the tables of stone at my head. He caught up the book in both his hands +and gave a sort of choke and blazed at me out of his eyes--by gad, I +might have been poor old Aaron caught jazzing round the golden calf. + +"'Let me tell you, sir, this is no place to inquire after Mr. Sabre,' +said he. 'Let me tell you--' + +"Well, I'd ha' let him tell me any old thing. That was what I was there +for. But he shut himself up with a kind of gasp and cannoned himself +into his tabernacle under the stairs and left me there, wondering if I +was where I thought I was, or had got into a moving-picture show by +mistake. The clerk had fallen through the floor or something. I was +alone. Friendless. Nobody wanted me. I thought to myself, 'Percival, old +man, you're on the unpopular side of the argument. You're nonsuited, old +man.' And I thought I wouldn't take any more chances in this Biblical +film, not with old father Abraham Fortune or Friend Judas Iscariot +Twyning; I thought I'd push out to Penny Green and see old Sabre for +myself. + +"So I did. I certainly did.... + +"You can imagine me, old man, in my natty little blue suit, tripping up +the path of Sabre's house and guessing to myself that the mystery wasn't +a mystery at all, but only the office perhaps rather fed up with Sabre +for staying away nursing his game leg so long. By Jove, it wasn't that. +House had rather a neglected appearance, I thought. Door knob not +polished, or blinds still down somewhere or something. I don't know. +Something. And what made me conscious of it was that I was kept a long +time waiting after I'd rung the bell. In fact, I had to ring twice. Then +I heard some one coming, and you know how your mind unconsciously +expects things and so gives you quite a start when the thing isn't +there; well, I suppose I'd been expecting to see one of Sabre's two +servants, 'my couple of Jinkses' as he calls them, and 'pon my soul I +was quite startled when the door opened and it wasn't one of them at +all, but a very different pair of shoes. + +"It was a young woman; ladylike, dressed just in some ordinary sort of +clothes; I don't know; uncommonly pretty, or might have been if she +hadn't looked so uncommonly sad; and--this was what knocked me carrying +a baby. 'Pon my soul, I couldn't have been more astonished if the door +had been opened by the Kaiser carrying the Crown Prince. + +"I don't know why I should have imagined she was the kid's mother, but I +did. I don't know why I should have looked at her hands, but I did. I +don't know why I should have expected to see a wedding ring, but I did. +And there wasn't one. + +"Well, she was saying 'Yes?' in an inquiring, timid sort of way, me +standing there like a fool, you understand, and I suddenly recovered +from my flabbergasteration and guessed the obvious thing--that the +Sabres had let their house to strangers and gone away. Still more +obvious, you might say, that Mrs. Sabre had produced a baby, and that +the girl was her sister or some one, but that never occurred to me. No, +I guessed they'd gone away, and I said, 'I was calling to see Mr. Sabre. +Has he gone away?' + +"I'd thought her looking timid. She was looking at me now decidedly as +if she were frightened of me. 'No, no, Mr. Sabre's not gone away. He's +here. Are you a friend of his?' + +"I smiled at her. 'Well, I used to be,' I said. She didn't smile. What +the dickens was up? 'I used to be. I always thought I was. My name's +Hapgood.' + +"'Perhaps you'd better come in.' + +"You know, it was perfectly extraordinary. Her voice was as sad as her +face. I stepped in. What on earth was I going to hear? Sabre dying? Wife +dying? Air-raid bomb fallen on the house and everybody dead? 'Pon my +soul, I began to feel creepy. Scalp began to prick. Then suddenly there +was old Sabre at the head of the stairs. 'What is it, Effie?' Then he +saw me. 'Hullo, Hapgood!' His voice was devilish pleased. Then he said +again, rather in a thoughtful voice, 'Hullo, Hapgood,' and he began to +come down, slowly, with his stick. + +"Well, _he_ wasn't dead, anyway; that was something to go on with. I +took his hand and said, 'Hullo, Sabre. How goes it, old man? Able to do +the stairs now, I see. I was down to Tidborough and thought I'd come and +look you up again.' + +"'Fine,' he said, shaking my hand. 'Jolly nice of you.' Then he said, +'Did you go to the office for me, Hapgood?' + +"'Just looked in,' I said offhandedly. 'Saw a clerk who said you weren't +down to-day, so I came along up.' + +"He was doing some thinking, I could see that. He said, 'Jolly good of +you. I _am_ glad. You'll stay a bit, of course.' The girl had faded +away. He went a bit along the passage and called out, 'Effie, you can +scratch up a bit of lunch for Mr. Hapgood?' + +"I suppose she said Yes. 'Lunch'll be on in about two minutes,' he came +back to me with. 'You're later than when you came up last time. Come +along in here.' + +"Led me into the morning room and we sat down and pretended to talk. +Very poor pretence, I give you my word. Both of us manifestly straining +to do the brisk and hearty, and the two of us producing about as much +semblance of chatty interchange as a couple of victims waiting their +turn in a dentist's parlour. The door was open and I could hear some one +moving about laying the lunch. That was all I could hear (bar Sabre's +spasmodic jerks of speech) and I don't mind telling you I was a deal +more interested in what I could hear going on outside than in anything +we could put up between us. Or rather in what I couldn't hear going on +outside. No voices, none of those sounds, none of that sort of feeling +that tells you people are about the place. No, there was some mystery +knocking about the place somewhere, and it was on the other side of the +door, and that was where my attention was. + +"Presently I heard the girl's voice outside, 'Lunch is ready.' + +"We jumped up like two schoolboys released from detention and went along +in. More mystery. Lunch at Sabre's place was always a beautifully +conducted rite, as I was accustomed to it. Announced by two gongs, +warning and ready, to begin with, and here we'd been shuffled in by a +girl's casual remark in the passage; and beautifully appointed and +served when you got there and here was--Well, there were places laid for +two only and a ramshackle kind of cold picnic scattered about the cloth. +Everything there, help yourself kind of show. Bit of cold meat, half a +cold tart, lump of cheese, loaf of bread, assortment of plates, and so +on. + +"Sabre said, 'Oh, by the way, my wife's not here. She's away.' + +"I murmured the polite thing. He was staring at the two places, frowning +a bit. 'Half a minute,' he said and hopped off on his old stick. Then I +heard him talking to this mysterious girl. At least I heard her voice +first. 'Oh, I can't! I can't!' + +"Then Sabre: 'Nonsense, Effie. You must. You must. I insist. Don't be +silly.' + +"Then a door slammed. + +"Well, I ask you! If I didn't say to myself, 'The plot thickens,' if I +didn't say it, I can promise you I thought it. I did. And it proceeded +to curdle. The door that had slammed opened and presently in comes Sabre +with the girl. And the girl with the baby in her arms. Sabre said in his +ordinary, easy voice--he's got a particularly nice voice, has old +Sabre--'This is a very retiring young person, Hapgood. Had to be dragged +in. Miss Bright. Her father's in the office. Perhaps you've met him, +have you?' + +"Well, I don't know what I said, old man. I know what I thought. I +thought just precisely what you're thinking. Yes, I had a furiously +vivid shot of a recollection of old Bright as I'd seen him a couple of +hours before, of his blazing look, of his gesture of wanting to hurl the +Tables of Stone at me, and of his extraordinary remark about Sabre,--I +had that and I did what you're doing: I put two and two together and +found the obvious answer (same as you) and I jolly near fell down dead, +I did. Jolly near. + +"But Sabre was going on, pleasant and natural as you please. 'Miss +Bright was here as companion to my wife while I was in France. Now she's +staying here a bit. Put the baby on the sofa, Effie, and let's get to +work. I'd like you two to be friends. Hapgood and I were at school +together, you know, about a thousand years ago. They used to call him +Porker because he was so thin.' + +"The girl smiled faintly, I put up an hysterical sort of squeak, and we +sat down. The meal wasn't precisely a banquet. We helped ourselves and +stacked up the soiled plates as we used them. No servants, d'you see? +That was pretty clear by now. No wife, no servants, no wedding ring; +nothing but old Bright's daughter and old Bright's daughter's +baby--and--and--Sabre. + +"I suppose I talked. I heard my voice sometimes. The easy flow Sabre had +started with didn't last long. The girl hardly spoke. I watched her a +lot. I liked the look of her. She must have been uncommonly pretty in a +vivacious sort of way before she ran up against her trouble, whatever it +was. I say Whatever it was. I'd no real reason to suppose I knew; though +mind you, I was guessing pretty shrewdly it was lying there on the sofa +wrapped up in what d'you call 'ems--swaddling clothes. Yes, uncommonly +pretty, but now sad--sad as a young widow at the funeral, that sort of +look. It was her eyes that especially showed it. Extraordinary eyes. +Like two great pools in a shadow. If I may quote poetry, at you, + + Her eyes were deeper than the depth + Of waters stilled at even. + +And all the sorrow in them of all the women since Mary Magdalen. All the +time but once. Once the baby whimpered, and she got up and went to it +and stooped over it the other side of the sofa from me, so I could see +her face. By gad, if you could have seen her eyes then! Motherhood! +Lucky you weren't there, because if you've any idea of ever painting a +picture called Motherhood, you'd ha' gone straight out and cut your +throat on the mat in despair. You certainly would. + +"Well, anyway, the banquet got more and more awkward to endure as it +dragged on, and mighty glad I was when at last the girl got up--without +a word--and picked up the baby and left us. Left us. We were no more +chatty for being alone, I can promise you. I absolutely could not think +of a word to say, and any infernal thing that old Sabre managed to rake +up seemed complete and done to death the minute he'd said it. + +"Then all of a sudden he began. He fished out some cigarettes and +chucked me one and we smoked like a couple of exhaust valves for about +two minutes and then he said, 'Hapgood, why on earth should I have to +explain all this to you? Why _should_ I?' + +"I said, a tiny bit sharply--I was getting a bit on edge, you know--I +said, 'Well, who's asked you to? I haven't asked any questions, have I?' + +"Sabre said, 'No, I know you haven't asked any, and I'm infernally +grateful to you. You're the first person across this threshold in months +that hasn't. But I know you're thinking them--hard. And I know I've got +to answer them. And I want to. I want to most frightfully. But what +beats me is this infernal feeling that I _must_ explain to you, to you +and to everybody, whether I want to or not. Why should I? It's my own +house. I can do what I like in it. I'm not, anyway, doing anything +wrong. I'm doing something more right than I've ever done in my life, +and yet everybody's got the right to question me and everybody's got the +right to be answered and--Hapgood, it's the most bewildering state of +affairs that can possibly be imagined. I'm up against a code of social +conventions, and by Jove I'm absolutely down and out. I'm absolutely +tied up hand and foot and chucked away. Do you know what I am, +Hapgood--?' + +"He gave a laugh. He wasn't talking a bit savagely, and he never +did talk like that all through what he told me. He was just +talking in a tone of sheer, hopeless, extremely interested +puzzlement--bafflement--amazement; just as a man might talk to you of +some absolutely baffling conjuring trick he'd seen. In fact, he used +that very expression. 'Do you know what I am, Hapgood?' and he gave a +laugh, as I've said. 'I'm what they call a social outcast. A social +outcast. Beyond the pale. Unspeakable. Ostracized. Blackballed. +Excommunicated.' He got up and began to stump about the room, hands in +his pockets, chin on his collar, wrestling with it,--and wrestling, +mind you, just in profoundly interested bafflement. + +"'Unspeakable,' he said. 'Excommunicated. By Jove, it's astounding. It's +amazing. It's like a stupendous conjuring trick. I've done something +that isn't done--not something that's wrong, something that's +incontestably right. But it isn't done. People don't do it, and I've +done it and therefore hey, presto, I'm turned into a leper, a pariah, an +outlaw. Amazing, astounding!' + +"Then he settled down and told me. And this is what he told me." + + +II + +"When he was out in France this girl I'd seen--this Effie, as he called +her, Effie Bright--had come to live as companion to his wife. It appears +he more or less got her the job. He'd seen her at the office with her +father and he'd taken a tremendous fancy to her. 'A jolly kid,' that was +the expression he used, and he said he was awfully fond of her just as +he might be of a jolly little sister. He got her some other job +previously with some friends or other, and then the old lady there died +and the girl came to his place while he was away. Something like that. +Anyway, she came. She came somewhere about October, '15, and she left +early in March following, just over a year ago. His wife got fed up with +her and got rid of her--that's what Sabre says--got fed up with her and +got rid of her. And Sabre was at home at the time. Mark that, old man, +because it's important. _Sabre was at home at the time_--about three +weeks--on leave. + +"Very well. The girl got the sack and he went back to France. She got +another job somewhere as companion again. He doesn't quite know where. +He thinks at Bournemouth. Anyway, that's nothing to do with it. Well, +he got wounded and discharged from the Army, as you know, and in +February he was living at home again with his wife in the conditions I +described to you when I began. He said nothing to me about the +conditions--about the terms they were on; but I've told you what I saw. +It's important because it was exactly into the situation as I then saw +it that came to pass the thing that came to pass. This: + +"The very week after I'd been down there, his wife, reading a letter at +breakfast one morning, gave a kind of a snort (as I can imagine it) and +chucked the letter over to him and said, 'Ha! There's your wonderful +Miss Bright for you! What did I tell you? What do you think of that? +Ha!' + +"Those were her very words and her very snorts and what they meant--what +'Your wonderful Miss Bright for you' meant--was, as he explained to me, +that when he was home on leave, with the girl in the house, they were +frequently having words about her, because he thought his wife was a bit +sharp with her, and his wife, for her part, said he was forever sticking +up for her. + +"'What do you think of that? Ha!' and she chucked the letter over to +him, and from what I know of her you can imagine her sitting bolt +upright, bridling with virtuous prescience confirmed, watching him, +while he read it. + +"While he read it.... Sabre said the letter was the most frightfully +pathetic document he could ever have imagined. Smudged, he said, and +stained and badly expressed as if the writer--this girl--this Effie +Bright--was crying and incoherent with distress when she wrote it. And +she no doubt was. She said she'd got into terrible trouble. She'd got a +little baby. Sabre said it was awful to him the way she kept on in every +sentence calling it 'a little baby'--never a child, or just a baby, but +always 'a little baby,' 'my little baby.' He said it was awful. She +said it was born in December--you remember, old man, it was the previous +March she'd got the sack from them--and that she'd been living in +lodgings with it, and that now she was well enough to move, and had come +to the absolute end of her money, she was being turned out and was at +her wits' end with despair and nearly out of her mind to know what to do +and all that kind of thing. She said her father wouldn't have anything +to do with her, and no one would have anything to do with her--so long +as she kept her little baby. That was her plight: no one would have +anything to do with her while she had the baby. Her father was willing +to take her home, and some kind people had offered to take her into +service, and the clergyman where she was had said there were other +places he could get her, but only, all of them, if she would give up the +baby and put it out to nurse somewhere: and she said, and underlined it +about fourteen times, Sabre said, and cried over it so you could hardly +read it, she said: 'And, oh, Mrs. Sabre, I can't, I can't, I simply can +not give up my little baby.... He's mine,' she said. 'He looks at me, +and knows me, and stretches out his tiny little hands to me, and I can't +give him up. I can't let my little baby go. Whatever I've done, I'm his +mother and he's my little baby and I can't let him go.' + +"Sabre said it was awful. I can believe it was. I'd seen the girl, and +I'd seen her stooping over her baby (like I told you) and I can well +believe awful was the word for it. Poor soul. + +"And then she said--I can remember this bit--then she said, 'And so, in +my terrible distress, dear Mrs. Sabre, I am throwing myself on your +mercy, and begging you, imploring you, for the love of God to take in me +and my little baby and let me work for you and do anything for you and +bless you and ask God's blessing for ever upon you and teach my little +baby to pray for you as--' something or other, I forget. And then she +said a lot of hysterical things about working her fingers to the bone +for Mrs. Sabre, and knowing she was a wicked girl and not fit to be +spoken to by any one, and was willing, to sleep in a shed in the garden +and never to open her mouth, and all that sort of thing; and all the way +through 'my little baby,' 'my little baby.' Sabre said it was awful. +Also she said,--I'm telling you just what Sabre told me, and he told me +this bit deliberately, as you might say--also she said that she didn't +want to pretend she was more sinned against than sinning, but that if +Mrs. Sabre knew the truth she might judge her less harshly and be more +willing to help her. Yes, Sabre told me that.... + +"All right. Well, there was the appeal, 'there was this piteous appeal', +as Sabre said, and there was Sabre profoundly touched by it, and there +was his wife bridling over it--one up against her husband who'd always +stuck up for the girl, d'you see, and about two million up in +justification of her own opinion of her. There they were; and then Sabre +said, turning the letter over in his hands, 'Well, what are you going to +do about it?' + +"You can imagine his wife's tone. '_Do_ about it! Do about it! What on +earth do you think I'm going to do about it?' + +"And Sabre said, 'Well, I think we ought certainly to take the poor +creature in.' + +"That's what he said; and I can perfectly imagine his face as he said +it--all twisted up with the intensity of the struggle he foresaw and +with the intensity of his feelings on the subject; and I can perfectly +well imagine his wife's face as she heard him, by Jove, I can. She was +furious. Absolutely white and speechless with fury; but not speechless +long, Sabre said, and I dare bet she wasn't. Sabre said she worked +herself up in the most awful way and used language about the girl that +cut him like a knife--language like speaking of the baby as 'that brat.' +It made him wince. It would--the sort of chap he is. And he said that +the more she railed, the more frightfully he realised the girl's +position, up against that sort of thing everywhere she turned. + +"He described all that to me and then, so to speak, he stated his case. +He said to me, his face all twisted up with the strain of trying to make +some one else see what was so perfectly clear to himself, he said, +'Well, what I say to you, Hapgood, is just precisely what I said to my +wife. I felt that the girl had a claim on us. In the first place, she'd +turned to us in her abject misery for help and that alone established a +claim, even if it had come from an utter stranger. It established a +claim because here was a human creature absolutely down and out come to +_us_, picking _us_ out from everybody, for succour. Damn it, you've got +to respond. You're picked out. You! One human creature by another human +creature. Breathing the same air. Sharing the same mortality. +Responsible to the same God. You've got to! You can't help yourself. +You're caught. If you hear some one appealing to any one else you can +scuttle out of it. Get away. Pass by on the other side. Square it with +your conscience any old how. But when that some one comes to you, you're +done, you're fixed. You may hate it. You may loathe and detest the +position that's been forced on you. But it's there. You can't get out of +it. The same earth as your earth is there at your feet imploring you; +and if you've got a grain, a jot of humanity, you must, you must, out of +the very flesh and bones of you, respond to that cry of this your +brother or your sister made as you yourself are made. + +"'Well, Hapgood,' he went on, 'that's one claim the girl had on us, and +to my way of thinking it was enough. But she had another, a personal +claim. She'd been in our house, in our service; she was our friend; sat +with us; eaten with us; talked with us; shared with us; and now, now, +turned to us. Good God, man, was that to be refused? Was that to be +denied? Were we going to repudiate that? Were we going to say, "Yes, +it's true you were here. You were all very well when you were of use to +us; that's all true and admitted; but now you're in trouble and you're +no use to us; you're in trouble and no use, and you can get to hell out +of it." Good God, were we to say that?' + +"You should have seen his face; you should have heard his voice; you +should have seen him squirming and twisting in his chair as though this +was the very roots of him coming up out of him and hurting him. And I +tell you, old man, it was the very roots of him. It was his creed, it +was his religion, it was his composition; it was the whole nature and +basis and foundation of the man as it had been storing up within him all +his life, ever since he was the rummy, thoughtful sort of beggar he used +to be as a kid at old Wickamote's thirty years ago. It got me, I can +tell you. It made me feel funny. Yes, and the next thing he went on to +was equally the blood and bones of him. In a way even more +characteristic. He said, 'Mind you, Hapgood, I don't blame my wife that +all this had no effect on her. I don't blame her in the least, and I +never lost my temper or got angry over the business. I see her point of +view absolutely. And I see absolutely the point of view of the girl's +father and of every one else who's willing to take in the girl but +insists she must give up the baby. I see their point of view and +understand it as plain as I see and understand that calendar hanging on +the wall. I see it perfectly,' and he laughed in a whimsical sort of +way and said, 'That's the devil of it.' + +"Characteristic, eh? Wasn't that just exactly old Sabre at school +puzzling up his old nut and saying, 'Yes, but I see what he means'? + +"Well, wait a bit. He came to that again afterwards. It seems that, if +you please, the very next day the girl herself follows up her letter by +walking into the house. Eh? Yes, you can well say 'By Jove.' In she +walked, baby and all. She'd walked all the way from Tidborough, and God +knows how far earlier in the day. Sabre said she was half dead. She'd +been to her father's house, and her father, that terrific-looking old +Moses coming down the mountain that I've described to you, had turned +her out. He'd take her--he had cried over her, the poor crying creature +said--if she'd send away her baby, also if she'd say who the father was, +but she wouldn't. 'I can't let my little baby go,' she said. Sabre said +it was awful, hearing her. And so he drove her out, the old Moses man +did, and the poor soul tried around for a bit--no money--and then +trailed out to them. + +"Sabre wouldn't tell me all that happened between his wife and himself. +I gather that, in his quiet way, perfectly seeing his wife's point of +view and genuinely deeply distressed at the frightful pitch things were +coming to, in that sort of way he nevertheless got his back up against +his sense of what he ought to do and said the girl was not to be sent +away, that she was to stop. + +"His wife said, 'You're determined?' + +"He said, 'Mabel' (that's her name) 'Mabel, I'm desperately, poignantly +sorry, but I'm absolutely determined.' + +"She said, 'Very well. If she's going to be in the house, I'm going out +of it. I'm going to my father's. Now. You'll not expect the servants to +stay in the house while you've got this--this woman living with you--' +(Yes, she said that.) 'So I shall pay them up and send them off, _now_, +before I go. Are you still determined?' + +"The poor devil, standing there with his stick and his game leg, and his +face working, said, 'Mabel, Mabel, believe me, it kills me to say it, +but I am, absolutely. The girl's got no home. She only wants to keep her +baby. She must stop.' + +"His wife went off to the kitchen. + +"Pretty fierce, eh? + +"Sabre said he sat where she'd left him, in the morning room in a +straight-backed chair, with his legs stuck out in front of him, +wrestling with it--like hell. The girl was in the dining room. His wife +and the servants were plunging about overhead. + +"In about two hours his wife came back dressed to go. She said, 'I've +packed my boxes. I shall send for them. The maids have packed theirs and +they will send. I've sent them on to the station in front of me. There's +only one more thing I want to say to you. You say this woman--' ('This +woman, you know!' old Sabre said when he was telling me.) 'You say this +woman has a claim on us?' + +"He began, 'Mabel, I do. I--' + +"She said, 'Do you want my answer to that? My answer is that perhaps she +has a claim on _you!_' + +"And she went." + + +III + +"Well, there you are, old man. There it is. That's the story. That's the +end. That's the end of my story, but what the end of the story as +Sabre's living it is going to be, takes--well, it lets in some pretty +wide guessing. There he is, and there's the girl, and there's the baby; +and he's what he says he is--what I told you: a social outcast, beyond +the pale, ostracized, excommunicated. No one will have anything to do +with him. They've cleared him out of the office, or as good as done so. +He says the man Twyning worked that. The man Twyning--that Judas +Iscariot chap, you remember--is very thick with old Bright, the girl's +father. Old Bright pretty naturally thinks his daughter has gone back to +the man who is responsible for her ruin, and this Twyning person--who's +a partner, by the way--wrote to Sabre and told him that, although he +personally didn't believe it--'not for a moment, old man,' he +wrote--still Sabre would appreciate the horrible scandal that had +arisen, and would appreciate the fact that such a scandal could not be +permitted in a firm like theirs with its high and holy Church +connections. And so on. He said that he and Fortune had given the +position their most earnest and sympathetic thought and prayers--and +prayers, mark you--and that they'd come to the conclusion that the best +thing to be done was for Sabre to resign. + +"Sabre says he was knocked pretty well silly by this step. He says it +was his first realisation of the attitude that everybody was going to +take up against him. He went off down and saw them, and you can imagine +there was a bit of a scene. He said he was dashed if he'd resign. Why on +earth should he resign? Was he to resign because he was doing in common +humanity what no one else had the common humanity to do? That sort of +thing. You can imagine it didn't cut much ice with that crowd. The +upshot of it was that Twyning, speaking for the firm, and calling him +about a thousand old mans and that sort of slush, told him that the +position would be reconsidered when he ceased to have the girl in his +house and that, in the interests of the firm, until he did that he must +cease to attend the office. + +"And then old Sabre said he began to find himself in exactly the same +position with every one. Every door closed to him. No one having +anything to do with him. Even an old chap next door, a particular friend +of his called Fungus or Fargus or some such name--even this old bird's +house and his society is forbidden him. Sabre says old Fungus, or +whatever his name is, is all right, but it appears he's ruled by about +two dozen ramping great daughters, and they won't let their father have +anything to do with Sabre. No, he's shut right out, everywhere. + +"And Sabre, mind you--this is Sabre's extraordinary point of view: he's +not a bit furious with all these people. He's feeling his position most +frightfully; it's eating the very heart out of him, but he's working up +not the least trace of bitterness over it. He says they're all +supporting an absolutely right and just convention, and that it's not +their fault if the convention is so hideously cruel in its application. +He says the absolute justice and the frightful cruelty of conventions +has always interested him, and that he remembers once putting up to a +great friend of his as an example this very instance of society's +attitude towards an unmarried girl who gets into trouble,--never +dreaming that one day he was going to find himself up against the full +force of it. He said, 'If this poor girl, if any girl, didn't find the +world against her and every door closed to her, just look where you'd +be, Hapgood. You'd have morality absolutely gone by the hoard. No, all +these people are right, absolutely right--and all conventions are +absolutely right--in their principle; it's their practice that's +sometimes so terrible. And when it is, how can you turn round and rage? +I can't.' + +"Well, I said to him what I say to you, old man. I said, 'Yes, that's +all right, Sabre. That's true, though there're precious few would take +it as moderately as you; but look here, where's this going to end? +Where's it going to land you? It's landed you pretty fiercely as it is. +Have you thought what it may develop into? What are you doing about it?' + +"He said he was writing round, writing to advertisers and to societies +and places, to find a place where the girl would be taken in to work and +allowed to have her baby with her. He said there must be hundreds of +kind-hearted people about the place who would do it; it was only a +question of finding them. Well, as to that, kind hearts are more than +coronets and all that kind of thing, but it strikes me they're a jolly +side harder than coronets to find when it comes to a question of an +unmarried mother _and_ her baby, _and_ when the kind hearts, being +found, come to make inquiries and find that the person making +application on the girl's behalf is the man she's apparently living +with, _and_ the man with Sabre's extraordinary record in regard to the +girl. I didn't say that to poor old Sabre. I hadn't the face to. But I +say it to you. You're no doubt thinking it for yourself. All that chain +of circumstances, eh? Went out of his way to get her her first job. Got +her into his house. In a way responsible for her getting the sack. Child +born just about when it must have been born after she'd been sacked. +Girl coming to him for help. Writing to his wife, 'If only you knew the +truth.' Wife leaving him. Eh? It's pretty fierce, isn't it? And I don't +believe he's got an idea of it. I don't believe he realises for a moment +what an extraordinary coil it all is. God help him if he ever does.... +He'll want it. + +"No, I didn't say a word like that to him. I couldn't. The nearest I got +to it was I said, 'Well, but time's getting on, you know, old man. It's +a--a funny position on the face of it. What do you suppose your wife's +thinking all this time?' + +"He said his wife would be absolutely all right once he'd found a home +for the girl and sent her away. He said his wife was always a bit sharp +in her views of things, but that she'd be all right when it was all +over. + +"I said, 'H'm. Heard from her?' + +"He had--once. He showed me the letter. Well, you know, old man, every +fox knows what foxes smell like; and I smelt a dear brother solicitor's +smell in that letter. Smelt it strong. Asking him to make a home +possible for her to return to so they might resume their life together. +I recognised it. I've dictated dozens. + +"I handed it back. I said, 'H'm' again. I said, 'H'm, you remember, old +man, there was that remark of hers just as she was leaving you--that +remark that perhaps the girl might have a claim on you. Remember that, +don't you?' + +"By Jove, I thought for a minute he was going to flare up and let me +have it. But he laughed instead. Laughed as if I was a fool and said, +'Oh, good Lord, man, that's utterly ridiculous. That was only just my +wife's way. My wife's got plenty of faults to find with me--but that +kind of thing! Man alive, with all my faults, my wife knows me.' + +"Perhaps--I say, my holy aunt, it's nearly two o'clock! Come on, I'm for +bed. Perhaps his wife does know him. What I'm thinking is, does he know +his wife? I'm a solicitor. I know what I'd say if she came to me." + + + +CHAPTER III + + +I + +On a day a month later--in May--Hapgood said: + +"Now, I'll tell you. Old Sabre--by Jove, it's frightful. He's crashed. +The roof's fallen in on him. He's nearly out of his mind. I don't like +it. I don't like it a bit. I've only just left him. Here, in London. A +couple of hours ago. I oughtn't to have left him. The chap's not fit to +be left. But I had to. He cleared me off. I had to go. He wasn't in a +state to be argued with. I was frightened of irritating him. To tell you +the truth, I'm frightened now about him. Dead frightened. + +"Look here, it's in two parts, this sudden development. Two parts as I +saw it. Begins all right and then works up. Two parts--morning and +afternoon yesterday and a bit to-day. And of all extraordinary places to +happen at--Brighton. + +"Yes, Brighton. I was down there for a Saturday to Monday with my +Missus. This absolutely topping weather, you know. We were coming back +Monday evening. Yesterday. Very well. Monday morning we were sunning on +the pier, she and I. I was reading the paper, she was watching the +people and making remarks about them. If Paradise is doing in the next +world what you best liked doing in this, my wife will ask Peter if she +can sit at the gate and watch the demobilised souls arriving and pass +remarks about them. She certainly will. + +"Well, all of a sudden she began, 'Oh, what a frightfully _in_teresting +face that man's got!' That's the way she talks. 'What a most +_in_teresting face. Do look, Percy.' + +"I said, 'Well, so have I got an interesting face. Look at mine.' + +"'Oh, but _do_, Percy. You _must_. On that seat by himself just +opposite. He's just staring at nothing and thinking and thinking. And +his face looks so worn and tired and yet so _very_ kind and such a +_wist_ful look as though he was thinking of--' + +"I growled, still reading: 'He's probably thinking what he's going to +have for lunch. Oh, dash it, do stop jogging me. Where is he?' + +"And then I looked across. Old Sabre! By Jove, you might have pushed me +over with one finger. Old Sabre in a tweed suit and a soft hat, and his +game leg stuck out straight, and his old stick, and his hands about a +thousand miles deep in his pockets, and looking--yes, my wife said the +true thing when she said how he was looking. Any one would have taken a +second squint at old Sabre's face as I saw it then--taken a second +squint and wondered what he'd been through and what on earth his mind +could be on now. They certainly would. + +"I knew. I knew; but I tell you this, I could see he'd been through a +tough lot more, and thought a considerable number of fathoms deeper, in +the month since I'd seen him last. Yes, by Jove, I could see that +without spectacles. + +"I went over to him. You could have pushed _him_ off the seat with one +finger when he saw me. Except that you wouldn't have had any fingers +worth using as fingers, after he'd squeezed your hands as he squeezed +mine. Both of them. And his face like a shout on a sunny morning. Yes, +he was pleased. I like to think how jolly pleased the old chap was. + +"I took him over to my wife, and my wife climbed all over him, and we +chatted round for a bit, and then I worked off my wife on a bunch of +people we knew and I got old Sabre on to a secluded bench and started in +on him. What on earth was he doing down at Brighton, and how were +things? + +"He said 'Things...? Things are happening with me, Hapgood. Not to +me--with me. Happening pretty fierce and pretty quick. I'm right in the +middle of the most extraordinary, the most astounding, the most amazing +things. I had to get away from them for a bit. I simply had to. I came +down here for a week-end to get away from them and go on wrestling them +out when they weren't right under my eyes. I'm going back to-morrow. +Effie was all right--with her baby. She was glad I should go--glad for +me, I mean. Poor kid, poor kid. Top of her own misery, Hapgood, she's +miserable to death at what she says she's let me in for. She's always +crying about it. Crying. She's torn between knowing my house is the only +place where she can have her baby, between that and seeing what her +coming into the place has caused. She spends her time trying to do any +little thing she can to make me comfortable, hunts about for any little +thing she can do for me. It's pathetic, you know. At least, it's +pathetic to me. Jumped at this sudden idea of mine of getting away for a +couple of days. Said it would please her more than anything in the world +to know I was right away from it all for a bit. Fussed over me packing +up and all that, you know. Pathetic. Frightfully. Look, just to show you +how she hunts about for anything to do for me--said my old straw hat was +much too shabby for Brighton and would I get her some stuff, oxalic +acid, and let her clean it up for me. That sort of little trifle. As a +matter of fact she made such a shocking mess of the hat that I hardly +liked to wear it. Couldn't hurt her feelings, though. Chucked it into +the sea when I got here and bought this one. Make a funny story for her +when I get back about how it blew off. That's the sort of life we lead +together, Hapgood. She always trying to do little things for me and I +trying to think out little jokes for her to try and cheer her up. Give +you another example. Just when I had brought her the stuff for my hat. +Met me with, Had I lost anything? Made a mystery of it. Said I was to +guess. Guessed at last that it must be my cigarette case. It was. She'd +found it lying about and took me to show where she'd put it for +safety--in the back of the clock in my room. Said I was always to look +there for any little valuables I might miss, and wanted me to know how +she liked to be careful of my things like that. Fussing over me, d'you +see? Trying to make it seem we were living normal, ordinary lives. + +"'That's the sort of life we lead together, Hapgood--together; but the +life I'm caught up in, the things that are happening with me, that I'm +right in the middle of, that I felt I had to get away from for a +bit--astounding, Hapgood, astounding, amazing....' + +"I'm trying to give you exactly his own words, old man. I want you to +get this business just exactly as I got it. Old Sabre turned to me with +that--with that 'astounding, amazing'--turned and faced me and said: + +"'Hapgood, I'm finding out the most extraordinary things about this life +as we've made it and as we live it. Hapgood, if I kept forty women in +different parts of London and made no secret of it, nothing would be +said. People would know I was rather a shameless lot, my little ways +would be an open secret, but nothing would be said. I should be received +everywhere. But I'm thought to have brought one woman into my house and +I'm banned. I'm unspeakable. Forty, flagrantly, outside, and I'm still +a received member of society. People are sorry for my wife, or pretend +to be, but I'm still all right, a bit of a rake, you know, but a decent +enough chap. But I take pity on one poor girl because she clings to her +motherhood although she's unmarried, and I'm beyond the pale. I'm +unspeakable. Amazing. Do you say it's not absolutely astounding? + +"'Hapgood, look here. It's this. This is what I've found. You can do the +shocking things, and it can be known you do the shocking things. But you +mustn't be seen doing them. You can beat your wife, and it can be known +among your friends that you beat your wife. But you mustn't be seen +beating her. You mustn't beat her in the street or in your neighbour's +garden. You can drink, and it can be known you drink; but you mustn't be +seen drunk. + +"'Do you see, Hapgood? Do you see? The conventions are all right, moral, +sound, excellent, admirable, but to save their own face there's a blind +side to them, a shut-eye side. Keep that side of them and you're all +right. They'll let you alone. They'll pretend they don't see you. But +come out and stand in front of them and they'll devour you. They'll +smash and grind and devour you, Hapgood. They're devouring me. + +"'That's where they've got me in their jaws, Hapgood; and where they've +got Effie in their jaws is just precisely again on a blind, shut-eye +side.... They're rightly based, they're absolutely just, you can't +gainsay them, but to save their face, again, they're indomitably blind +and deaf to the hideous cruelties in their application. They mean well. +They cause the most frightful suffering, the most frightful tragedies, +but they won't look at them, they won't think of them, they won't speak +of them: they mean well.... + +"Old Sabre put his head in his hands. He might have been praying. He +looked to me sort of physically wrestling with what he called the jaws +that had got him and had got her. He looked up at me and he said, +'Hapgood, this is where I've got to. This is where I am. Hapgood, life's +all wrong, stupid, cruel, blundering, but it means well. We've shaped it +to fit us as we think we ought to live and it means well. Means well! My +God, Hapgood, the most terrible, the most lamentable self-confession +that ears can hear--"I meant well." Some frightful blunder committed, +some irreparable harm inflicted, and that piteous, heart-broken, +heart-breaking, maddening, infuriating excuse, "I meant well. I meant +well. Why didn't some one tell me?" Life means well, Hapgood. It does +mean well. It only wants some one to tell it where it's going wrong, +where it's blundering, where it's just missing, and why it's just +missing, all it means to do.' + +"With that he went back to all that stuff I told you he told me when I +was down with him last month--that stuff about the need for a new +revelation suited to men's minds to-day, the need for new light. I can't +tell you all that--it's not in my line, that sort of talk. But he said, +his face all pink under his skin, he said, 'Hapgood, I'll tell you a +thing. I've got the secret. I've got the key to the riddle that's been +puzzling me all my life. I've got the new revelation in terms good +enough for me to understand. Light, more light. Here it is: God +is--_love_. Not this, that, nor the other that the intelligence revolts +at, and puts aside, and goes away, and goes on hungering, hungering and +unsatisfied; nothing like that; but just this: plain for a child, clear +as daylight for grown intelligence: God is--_love_. Listen to this, +Hapgood: "He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him; for +God _is_ love." Ecstasy, Hapgood, ecstasy! It explains everything to me. +I can reduce all the mysteries to terms of that. One of these days, +perhaps one of these days, I'll be able to write it and tell people.' + +"I tell you, old man, you can think what you like about it, but old +Sabre, when he was telling me that, was a pretty first-class +advertisement for his own revelation. He'd found it all right. The look +on him was nearer the divine than anything I've ever come near seeing. +It certainly was. + +"So you see that was the morning part of this that I'm telling you, what +I called the first part, and it was not too bad. He'd been through, he +was going through some pretty fierce things, but he was holding up under +them. Oh, some pretty fierce things. I haven't told you half. One thing +that hit him hard as he could bear was that that old pal of his, Fungus +or Fargus, Fargus as a matter of fact, that old chap fell dying and did +die--knocked out by pneumonia special constabling--and those dashed +ramping great daughters of his wouldn't let poor old Sabre into the +house to see him. Fact. He said it hurt him worse, made him realise +worse what a ban he was up against, than anything that's happened to +him. It would. That chap dying and him too shocking to be admitted. + +"They did grant him one squint of his old friend, about five minutes, +and stood over him like dragons all the time, five of them. Came to him +one morning and said, as though they were speaking to a leper through +bars, said, sort of holding their noses, 'We have to ask you to come to +see Papa. The doctor thinks there is something Papa wishes to say to +you.' + +"What it was, apparently, was that the old gentleman had some sort of +funny old notion that he was put into life for a definite purpose and +when Sabre saw him he could just whisper to Sabre that he was agonised +because he was dying before he'd done anything that could possibly be +it. Poor old Sabre said it was too terrible for him, because what could +he say with that pack of grim daughters standing over him to see he +didn't contaminate their papa on his death bed? He said he could only +hold his old pal's hand, and had the tears running down his face, and +couldn't say a word, and they hustled him out, sort of holding their +noses again, and sort of disinfecting the place as they went along. He +said to me, brokenly, 'Hapgood, I felt I'd touched bottom. My old +friend, you know.' He said he went again next morning, like a tradesman, +just to beg for news. They told him, 'Papa has passed away.' He asked +them, 'Did he say anything at the last? Do please tell me just that.' +They said he suddenly almost sat up and called out something they +couldn't understand about, 'Ay, ready!' Sabre said he understood and +thanked God for it. He didn't tell me what it meant; it broke him right +up even talking about it. There was another thing he mentioned but +wouldn't go into. Some other great friend, a woman, whom he said he'd +cut right off out of his acquaintance--wouldn't answer her letters: +realised how the world was regarding him and felt he couldn't impose +himself on any one. He seemed to suffer over that, too." + + +II + +"Well, that was the morning, old man. That was the first part, and you +see how it went. He was pretty badly in the depths but he was holding +on. He'd got this great discovery of his, and the idea of writing about +it after his History, he said. 'If I'm ever able to take up my History +again,' he said. Badly down as he was, at least he'd got that and he'd +also got to help him the extraordinary, reasonable, reasoning view he +took of the whole business: no bitterness against any one, just +understanding their point of view as he always has understood the other +point of view, just that and puzzling over it all. On the whole, and +considering all things, not too bad. Not too bad. Bad, desperately +pathetic, I thought, but not too bad. That was the morning. He wouldn't +come to lunch with us. He hadn't liked meeting my wife as it was. And of +course I could understand how he felt, poor chap. So I left him. + +"I left him. When I saw him again was about three o'clock, and I walked +right into the middle of the development that, as I told you, has pretty +well let the roof down on him. + +"I strolled round to his hotel, a one-horse sort of place off the front. +He was in the lobby. No one else there. Only a man who'd just been +speaking to him and who left him and went out as I came in. + +"Sabre had two papers in his hands. He was staring at them and you'd ha' +thought from his face he was staring at a ghost. What d'you think they +were? Guess. Man alive, the chap I'd seen going out had just served them +on him. They were divorce papers. The citation and petition papers that +have to be served personally. Divorce papers. His wife had instituted +divorce proceedings against him. Naming the girl, Effie. + +"Yes, you can whistle.... + +"You can whistle. I couldn't. I had too much to do. He was knocked out. +Right out. I got him up to his room. Tried to stuff a drink into him. +Couldn't. Stuffed it into myself. Two. Wanted them pretty badly. + +"Well--I tell you. It was pretty awful. He sat on the bed with the +papers in his hand, gibbering. Just gibbering. No other word for it. Was +his wife mad? Was she crazy? Had she gone out of her mind? He to be +guilty of a thing like that? He capable of a beastly thing like that? +She to believe, _she_ to believe he was that? His wife? Mabel? Was it +possible? A vile, hideous, sordid intrigue with a girl employed in his +own house? Effie! His wife to believe that? An unspeakable, beastly +thing like that? He tried to show me with his finger the words on the +paper. His finger shaking all over the thing. 'Hapgood, Hapgood, do you +see this vile, obscene word here? I guilty of that? My wife, Mabel, +think me capable of that? Do you see what they call me, Hapgood? What +they call me by implication, what my wife, Mabel, thinks I am, what I am +to be pointed at and called? Adulterer! Adulterer! My God, my God, +adulterer! The word makes me sick. The very word is like poison in my +mouth. And I am to swallow it. It is to be me, me, my name, my title, my +brand. Adulterer! Adulterer!' + +"I tell you, old man ... I tell you.... + +"I managed to get him talking about the practical side of it. That is I +managed to make him listen while I talked. I told him the shop of the +business. Told him that these papers had to be served on him personally, +as they had been, and on the girl, too. I said I guessed that the +solicitor's clerk I'd seen going out had been down to Penny Green the +previous day or the day before and served them on Effie and got his +address from her. I told him the first step was that within eight days +he had to put in an appearance at the Probate and Divorce Registry and +enter a defence--just intimate that he intended to defend the action, +d'you see? And that the girl would have to too. After that no doubt he'd +instruct solicitors, and that of course I'd be glad to take on the job +for him. + +"Well, of all this jargon--me being mighty glad to have anything to keep +talking about, you understand--of all this jargon there were only two +bits he froze on to, and froze on hard, I can tell you. I thought he +was going mad the way he went on. I still think he may. That's why I'm +frightened about him. He just sat there on the bed while I talked and +kept saying to himself, 'Adulterer! Adulterer! Me. Adulterer!' It was +awful. + +"What he caught on to was what I told him about appearing at the Divorce +Registry within eight days and about instructing a solicitor afterwards. +He said he'd go to the Registry at once--at once, at once, at once! and +he said, very impolitely, poor chap, that he'd instruct no infernal +solicitors; he'd do the whole thing himself. He had the feeling, I could +see, that he must be spurning this horrible thing, and spurning it at +once, and spurning it himself. He was like a chap with his clothes on +fire, crazy only to rush into water and get rid of it. The stigma of the +thing was so intolerable to him that his feeling was that he couldn't +sit by and let other people defend him and do the business for him; he +must do it himself, hurl it back with his own hands, shout it back with +his own throat. He'll calm down and get more reasonable in time, no +doubt, and then I'll have another go at him about running the case for +him; but anyway, there was the one thing he could do pretty well there +and then, and that was enter his defence at the registry. So I took +charge of him to help him ease his mind that much. + +"I took charge of him. He wasn't capable of thinking of anything for +himself. I packed his bag and paid his bill and took him round to our +hotel and it wasn't far off then to the train my wife and I had fixed to +get back on. I told my wife what had happened and she played the brick. +You see, the chap was like as if he was dazed. Like as if he was walking +in a trance. Just did what he was told and said nothing. So we played it +up on that, my missus and I; we just sort of took him along without +consulting him or seeming to take any notice of him. It was too late to +do anything that night when we got up to town. He made a bit of a fuss, +lost his temper and swore I was trying to hinder him; but my wife +managed him a treat; by Jove, she was marvellous with him, and we got +him round to our flat and put him up for the night. I pushed him off to +bed early, but I heard him walking up and down his room hours after and +talking to himself--talking in tones of horror--'Me! Me! Adulterer!' + +"It was rather dreadful, hearing the poor chap. You see, what was the +matter with him was, being the frightfully clean, intensely refined sort +of chap he is, appalling horror at being thought, by his wife who knew +him so well, capable of what was so repulsive to his mind. He loathed +the very sound of the word that was used against him. Obscene, he kept +on calling it. He was like a man fallen in a mire and plucking at the +filthy stuff all over him and reeking of it and not able to eat or sleep +or think or do anything but go mad with it. That was how it got him. +Like that. + +"Next morning--that's this morning, you understand--he was a little more +normal, able to realise things a bit, I mean: thanked my wife for +putting him up and hoped he hadn't been horribly rude or anything last +night. More normal, you see: still in a panic fever to be off and state +at the Registrar's that he was going to defend the action; but normal +enough for me to see it was all right for him to go straight on home +immediately after and tell the girl what she had to do and all that. I +told him, by the way, that it would pretty well have to come out now, +ultimately, who the child's father was: the girl would practically have +to give that up in the end to clear him. You know, I told him that in +the cab going along down. He ground his teeth over it. It was horrible +to hear him. He said he'd kill the chap if he could ever discover him; +ground his teeth and said he'd kill him, now--after this. + +"Well, he got through his business about twelve--just a formality, you +know, declaring his intention to defend. Then a thing happened. Can't +think now what it meant. We were waiting for a cab near the Law Courts. +I had his bag. He was going straight on to the station. A cab was just +pulling in when a man came up, an ordinary enough looking cove, tall +chap, and touched Sabre and said, 'Mr. Sabre?' Sabre said, 'Yes' and the +chap said very civilly, 'Might I speak to you a minute, sir?' + +"They went aside. I wasn't looking at them. I was watching a chap on a +bike tumble off in front of a motor bus, near as a toucher run over. +Suddenly some one shoved past me and there was old Sabre getting into +the cab with this chap who had come up to him. I said, 'Hullo! Hullo, +are you off?' + +"We'd arranged, d'you see, to part there. I had to get back to my +chambers. He turned round on me a face grey as ashes, absolutely dead +grey. I'd never seen such a colour in a man's face. He said, 'Yes, I'm +off,' and sort of fell over his stick into the cab. The man, who was +already in, righted him on to the seat and said, 'Paddington' to the +driver who was at the door, shutting it. I said, through the window, +'Sabre! Old man, are you ill? What's up? Shall I come with you?' + +"He put his head towards me and said in the most extraordinary voice, +speaking between his clenched teeth as though he was keeping himself +from yelling out, he said, 'If you love me, Hapgood, get right away out +of it from me and let me alone. This man happens to live at Tidborough. +I know him. We're going down together.' + +"I said, 'Sabre--' + +"He clenched his teeth so they were all bare with his lips contracting. +He said, 'Let me alone. Let me alone. Let me alone.' + +"And they pushed off. + +"I tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going down there to-morrow. I'm +frightened about him." + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +I + +Hapgood had said to his friend of the effect on Sabre of Mabel's action +against him: "He's crashed. The roof's fallen in on him." And that had +been Sabre's own belief. But it was not so. There are degrees of +calamity. Dumfounded, stunned, aghast, Sabre would not have believed +that conspiracy against him of all the powers of darkness could +conceivably worsen his plight. They had shot their bolt. He was stricken +amain. He was in the crucible of disaster and in its heart where the +furnace is white. + +But they had not shot their bolt. The roof had not yet fallen on him. +They had discharged but a petard, but a mine to effect a breach. The +timbers of the superstructure had but bent and cracked and groaned. + +Their bolt was shot, the roof crashed in, the four sides of his world +tottered and collapsed upon him, with the words spoken to Sabre by that +man who approached and took him aside while he stood to take leave of +Hapgood. + +The man said, "I daresay you know me by sight, Mr. Sabre. I've seen you +about the town. I'm the coroner's officer at Tidborough. You're rather +wanted down there. I've been to Brighton after you and followed here and +just took a lucky chance on finding you about this part. You're rather +wanted down there. The fact is that young woman that's been living with +you's been found dead." + +Sabre's face took then the strange and awful hue that Hapgood had marked +upon it. + +"Found dead? Found dead? Where?" + +"In your house, Mr. Sabre. And her baby, dead with her." + +"Found dead? Found dead? Effie? And her baby? Found dead? Oh, dear +God.... Catch hold of my arm a minute. All right, let me go. Let me go, +I say. _Can't_ you? Found dead? What d'you mean, found dead?" + +"Well, sir, that's rather for the coroner to say, sir. There's to be an +inquest to-morrow. That's what you're wanted for." + +"Inquest? Inquest?" Sabre's speech was thick. He knew it was thick. His +tongue felt enormously too big for his mouth. He could not control it +properly. He felt that all his limbs and members were swollen and +ponderous and out of his control. "Inquest? Found dead? Inquest? Found +dead? Goo' God, can't you _tell_ me something? You come up to me in the +street, and all the place going round and round, and you say to me, +'Found dead.' Can't you say anything except 'Found dead'? Can't you tell +me what you mean, found dead? Eh? _Can't_ you?" + +The man said, "Now look here, sir. I say that's for the coroner. Least +said best. And least you say best, sir, if you understand me. Looks as +if the young woman took poison. That's all I can say. Looks as if she +took poison. Oxalic acid." + +"Oxalic acid!" + +"Now, see here, sir. You've no call to say anything to me and I've no +call to say more to you than I've told you. Is that your cab, sir? +Because if so--" + +They went to the cab. + + +II + +One of two questions is commonly the first words articulated by one +knocked senseless in a disaster. Recovering consciousness, or recovering +his scattered wits, "What's happened?" he asks; or "Where am I?" In the +first shock he has not known he was hurt. He recovers his senses. He +then is aware of himself mangled, maimed, delivered to the torturers. + +In that day and through the night Sabre was numb to coherent thought, +numb to any realisation of the meaning to himself of this that had +befallen him. The roof had crashed in upon him; but he lay stunned. As +one pinned beneath scaffolding knows not his agony till the beams are +being lifted from him, so stupefaction inhibited his senses until, on +the morrow, he was dug down to in the coroner's court and there +awakened. + +He could not think. Through the day and through the night his mind +groped with outstretched arms as one groping in a dark room, or as a +blind man tapping with a stick. He could not think. He could attend to +things; he could notice things; he could perform necessary actions; but +"Effie is dead." "Effie has killed herself." "Effie has killed herself +and her child--now what?" In pursuit of these his mind could only grope +with outstretched hands; these, in the dark room of his calamity, eluded +his mind. He groped and stumbled after them. They stole and slipped +away. + +In the train going down to Tidborough the man who had accosted him +permitted himself to be more communicative. A policeman, observing +lights burning in the house at midday on Sunday, had knocked, and +getting no answer had gone in. He had found the young woman dead on her +bed, the baby dead beside her. A tumbler was on a small table and a +bottle of oxalic acid, "salts of lemon, as they call it," said the man. + +Sabre stared out of the window. "Effie has killed herself. Effie has +killed herself and her baby." No, he could not fasten upon it. "Effie +has killed herself." That was what this man was telling him. It circled +and spun away from him as from the rushing train the fields circled and +spun before his vision. + +He was able to attend to things and to do things. At Tidborough he took +a cab and drove home, and dismissing it at the gate was able to give +normal attention to the requirements of the morrow and instruct the man +to come out for him at half-past eleven; the inquest was at twelve. + +He was able to notice things. For years turning the handle and entering +this house had been like entering an empty habitation. It struck cold +now. It was like entering a tomb. He went into the morning room. No one +was there. He went into the kitchen. No one was there. He stood still +and tried to think. Of course no one was here. Effie had killed herself. +He climbed to his room, still awkward on stairs with his leg and stick, +and went in and stood before his books and stared at them. He was still +staring when it occurred to him that it had grown dusk since he first +entered and stared. Effie had killed herself.... He went out and along +the passage to her room and entered and stared upon the bed. Effie had +been found dead. This was where they had found her--dead. No, it was +gone; he could not get hold of it. He turned and stared about the room. +Things seemed to have been taken out of the room. The man had said +something about a glass and a bottle. But there was no glass or bottle +here. They had taken things out of the room. And they had taken Effie +out of the room--picked up Effie and carried her out like a--an orgasm +of terrible emotion surged enormously within him; a bursting thing was +in his throat--No, it was gone. What phenomenon had suddenly possessed +him? What was the matter? Effie had killed herself. No, he could not get +hold of it. He turned away and began to wander from room to room. In +some he lit lights because you naturally lit lights when it was dark. +All night he wandered from room to room, rarely sitting down. All night +his mind groped with outstretched hands for that which all night eluded +it. + + +III + +In the morning, in the mortuary adjoining the coroner's court, his mind +suddenly and with shock most terrible made contact with the calamity it +had pursued. + +In the mortuary.... + +When he arrived and alighted from his cab he found a small crowd of +persons assembled about the yard of the court. Some one said, "There he +is!" Some one said, "That's him!" A kind of threatening murmur went up +from the people. A general movement was made towards him. What was the +matter? What were they looking at? They stood in his way. He seemed to +be wedged among a mass of dark and rather beastly faces breathing close +to his own. He could not get on. He was being pushed. He was caused to +stagger. He said, "Look out, I've got a game leg." That threatening sort +of murmur arose more loudly in answer to his words. Some one somewhere +threw a piece of orange peel at some one. It almost hit his face. What +was up? What were they all doing? + +A policeman and the coroner's officer came shouldering through the press +and helped him towards the court. He thought it was rather decent of +them. + +The policeman said, "You'd better get inside. They're a bit rough." + +At the door of the court Sabre looked across to where on the other side +of the yard some men were shuffling out of a detached building. The +coroner's officer said, "Jury. They've been viewing the corpse." + +"Corpse!" The rough word stabbed through his numbness. He thought, +"Corpse! Viewing the corpse! Obscene and horrible phrase! Corpse! +Effie!" He made a movement in that direction. + +The man said, "Yes, perhaps you'd better." + +They took him across and into the detached building. + +He was against a glass screen, misty with breaths of those who had +stared and peered through it. The policeman wiped his sleeve across the +glass. "There you are." + +Ah, ...! Now, suddenly and with shock most terrible, his mind made +contact with that which it had pursued. It had groped as in a dark room +with outstretched hands. Now, suddenly and with shock most terrible, it +was as if those groping hands had touched in the darkness a face. + +Ah, insupportable! This was Effie. This was Bright Effie. This was that +jolly little Effie of the old, million-year-old days. This! This! + +She lay on a slab inclined towards the glass. She was swathed about in +cerements. Only her face was visible. Within the hollow of her arm +reposed a little shape, all swathed. She had brought it into the world. +She had removed it from the world that would have nothing of it. She had +brought a thousand smiles into the world, but she had given offence to +the world and the offended world had thrown back her smiles and she now +had expressed her contrition to the world. This was her contrition that +she lay here for men to breathe upon the glass, and stare, and rub away +the dimness with their sleeves, and breathe, and stare again. + +Oh, insupportable calamity! Oh, tragedy beyond support! He thought of +her as oft and again he had seen her,--those laughing lips, those +shining eyes. He thought of her alone when he had left her, planning and +preparing this frightful dissolution of her body and her soul. He +thought of her in the stupendous moment while the glass paused at her +lips. He thought of her in torment of inward fire by that which had +blistered her poor lips. + +A very terrible groan was broken out of him. + +They took him along. + + +IV + +The court was crammed. In two thirds of its space were crowded benches. +At the upper end of the room was a dais, a schoolmaster's desk. Flanking +it on one hand were forms occupied by the men Sabre had seen shuffling +out of the mortuary. On the other hand a second dais stood. Facing the +central dais was a long table at which men were seated on the side +looking towards the dais. Two men sat also at the head of this table, +facing the jury. As Sabre entered they were in deep conversation with a +stunted, hunchbacked man who sat next them at the corner. + +Every face in the room turned towards the door as Sabre entered. They +might have belonged to a single body and they appeared to have a single +expression and a single thought: a dark and forbidding expression and a +thought dark and hostile. There was again that murmur that had greeted +him when he stepped from the cab. At the sight of him one of the two men +at the head of the table started to his feet. A very big man, and with a +very big and massive face and terrific eyes who started up and raised +clenched fists and had his jaws working. Old Bright. His companion at +the head of the table restrained him and drew him down again. A tall, +spare, dark man with a thin mouth in a deeply lined face,--Twyning. The +hunchbacked man beside them twisted about in his chair and stared long +and narrowly at Sabre, a very faint smile playing about his mouth; a +rather hungry sort of smile, as though he anticipated a bit of a game +out of Sabre. + +They led Sabre to a seat on the front of the benches. + + +V + +From a door behind the central dais a large, stout man entered and took +his seat. Whispers about the court said, "Coroner." Some one bawled +"Silence." + +The coroner fiddled with some papers, put pince-nez on his nose and +stared about the court. He had a big, flat face. He stared about. "Is +the witness Sabre in attendance?" + +The coroner's officer said, "Yes, sir." + +Some one jogged Sabre. He stood up. + +The coroner looked at him. "Are you legally represented?" + +Sabre's mind played him the trick of an astoundingly clear recollection +of the officer at the recruiting station who had asked him, and at whom +he had wondered, "Any complaints?" He wondered now. He said, +"Represented? No. Why should I be represented?" + +The coroner turned to examine some papers. "That you may perhaps +discover," he remarked drily. + +The court tittered. The hunchbacked man, little more than whose huge +head appeared above the table, laughed out loud and rubbed his hands +between his knees and made a remark to Twyning. He seemed pleased that +Sabre was not legally represented. + +A man seated not far from the hunchback rose and bowed and said, "I am +watching the interests of Mrs. Sabre." + +Sabre started. Mrs. Sabre! Mabel! + +The hunchback sprang to his feet and jerked a bow. "I represent Mr. +Bright, the father of the deceased." + +The coroner bowed to each. The hunchback and the solicitor representing +the interests of Mrs. Sabre leaned back in their chairs and exchanged +whispers behind the men seated between them. + +The jury shuffled up from their seats and were sworn in and shuffled +back again.... The coroner was speaking. "... and you will hear the +evidence of the witnesses who will be brought before you ... and I +propose to take first the case of the deceased child ... two deaths ... +and it will be found more convenient to dispose first of the case of the +child.... First witness!" + + + +CHAPTER V + + +I + +Hapgood said: + +"Did I say to you last time, after that Brighton business, that the man +had crashed, that the roof had fallen in on him? Did I say that? May I +never again use superlatives till I've turned over the page to make sure +they weren't comparatives. Eh, man, sitting on his bed there at Brighton +and gibbering at me, Sabre was a whole man, a sane man; he was a +fortunate and happy man, compared with this that I saw come at him down +at Tidborough yesterday. + +"I've told you that chap that came up to him outside the Law Courts +evidently told him the girl had killed herself and that he was wanted +for the inquest. Next day I went down, knowing nothing about it, of +course. I hit up Tidborough about twelve. No train out to Penny Green +for an hour, so I went to take a fly. Old chap I went to charter, when +he heard it was Sabre's place I was looking for, told me Sabre was at +this inquest; said he'd driven him in to it. And told me what inquest. +Inquest! You can guess how I felt. It was the first I'd heard about it. +Hopped into the cab and drove down to it. + +"By Jove, old man.... By Jove, old man, how I'm ever going to tell you. +That poor chap in there baited by those fiends.... By Jove.... By +Jove.... You know, old man, I've told you before, I'm not the sort of +chap that weeps, he knows not why; I never nursed a tame gazelle and +all that sort of thing. I can sit through a play thinking about my +supper while my wife ruins her dress and my trousers crying over +them--but this business, old Sabre up in that witness box with his face +in a knot and stammering out 'Look here--. Look here--'; that was +absolutely all he ever said; he never could get any farther--old Sabre +going through that, and the solicitor tearing the inside out of him and +throwing it in his face, and that treble-dyed Iscariot Twyning prompting +the solicitor and egging him on, with his beastly spittle running like +venom out of the corners of his mouth--I tell you my eyes felt like two +boiled gooseberries in my head: boiled red hot; and a red-hot potato +stuck in my throat, stuck tight. I tell you.... + +"When I crept into that infernal court, that infernal torture chamber, +they were just finishing the case of the child. This solicitor +chap--chap with a humped back and a head as big as a house--was just +finishing fawning round a doctor man in the box, putting it up to him +that there was nothing to suggest deliberate suffocation of the baby. +Oxalic acid poisoning--was it not the case that the girl would have died +in great agony? Writhed on the bed? Might easily have overlaid the +child? The doctor had seen the position in which she was found lying in +regard to the child--would he not tell the jury that she almost +certainly rolled on to the child while it slept--that sort of rather +painful stuff. Doctor chap rather jibbed a bit at being rushed, but +humpback kept him to it devilish cleverly and the verdict was as good as +given. The doc. was just going out of the box when Humpo called him +back. 'One moment more, Doctor, if you please. Can you tell me, if you +please, approximately the age of the child--approximately, but as near +as you possibly can, Doctor?' + +"The doctor said about five months--four to five months. + +"'Five months,' says Humpo, mouthing it. 'Five months.' He turned +deliberately round and looked directly at Sabre, sitting sort of huddled +up on the front bench. 'Five months. We may take it, then, the child was +born in December last. In December last.' Still with his back to the +witness and staring at Sabre, you understand, and the jury all staring +with him and people standing up in the court to see what the devil he +was looking at. 'We may take that, may we, Doctor?' He was watching +Sabre with a sort of half smile. The doctor said he might take it. The +chap snapped up his face with a jerk and turned round. 'Thank you, +Doctor. That will do.' And he sat down. If ever I saw a chap playing a +fish and suddenly strike and hook it, I saw it then, when he smiled +towards Sabre and then snapped up his face and plumped down. And the +jury saw it. He'd got 'em fixed from that moment. Fixed. Oh, he was +clever--clever, my word! + +"That ended that. The coroner rumbled out a bit of a summary, +practically told the jury what to say, reminded them, if they had any +lingering doubts, that the quality of mercy was not strained--him +showing before the morning was out that he knew about as much about +mercy as I know about Arabic--and the jury without leaving the box +brought in that the child had died of suffocation due to misadventure. + +"The court drew a long breath; you could hear it. Everybody settled +himself down nice and comfortably. The curtain-raiser was over, and very +nice too; now for the drama. + +"They got it." + + +II + +"Look here, get the hang of the thing. Get a bearing on some of these +people. There was the coroner getting off his preamble--flavouring it +with plenty of 'distressings' and 'painfuls' and 'father of the deceased +well known to and respected by many of us-es.' Great big pudding of a +chap, the coroner. Sat there impassive like a flabby old Buddha. Face +like a three-parts deflated football. Looked as if he'd been poured on +to his seat out of a jug and jellified there. There was old Bright, the +girl's father, smouldering like inside the door of a banked-up furnace; +smouldering like if you touched him he'd burst out into roaring flame +and sparks. There was Mr. Iscariot Twyning with his face like a stab--in +the back--and his mouth on his face like a scar. There was this +solicitor chap next him, with his hump, with his hair like a mane, and a +head like a house, and a mouth like a cave. He'd a great big red tongue, +about a yard long, like a retriever's, and a great long forefinger with +about five joints in it that he waggled when he was cross-examining and +shot out when he was incriminating like the front nine inches of a +snake. + +"That chap! When he was in the full cry and ecstasy of his hunt after +Sabre, the perspiration streamed down his face like running oil, and +he'd flap his great red tongue around his jaws and mop his streaming +face and chuck away his streaming mane; and all the time he'd be +stooping down to Twyning, and while he was stooping and Twyning +prompting him with the venom pricking and bursting in the corners of his +mouth, all the time he was stooping this chap would leave that great +forefinger waggling away at Sabre, and Sabre clutching the box, and his +face in a knot, and his throat in a lump and choking out, 'Look here--. +Look here--' + +"I tell you, old man ... I tell you.... + +"Sabre, when they started to get at it, was sitting on the front bench +braced up forwards and staring towards what he was hearing like a man +watching his brother balancing across a narrow plank stretched over a +crater. He had his hands on the crook of his old stick and he was +working at the crook as if he was trying to tear it off. I wonder he +didn't, the way he was straining at it. And every now and then while +Humpo was leading on the witnesses, and when Sabre saw what they were +putting up against him, he'd half start to his feet and open his mouth +and once or twice let fly that frightful 'Look here--' of his; and old +Buddha would give him, 'Be silent, sir!' and he'd drop back like a man +with a hit in the face and sit there swallowing and press his throat. + +"I tell you.... + +"I was standing right across the court at right angles to him. I was +wedged tight. Scarcely breathe, let alone move. I wrote on a bit of +paper to Sabre that I was here and let him get up and ask for me; and I +wrapped it round half-a-crown and pushed it across the heads of the mob +to a police sergeant. He gave it to Sabre. Sabre snatched the thing as +if he was mad at it, and read it, and buzzed it on the floor and ground +his heel on it. Just to show me, I suppose. Nice! Poor devil, my +gooseberry eyes went up about ten degrees. Bit later I had another shot. +I--well, I'll come to that in a minute." + + +III + +"They pushed off the case with the obvious witnesses--police, doctor, +and so on. Then the thing hardened down. Then Sabre saw what was coming +at him--saw it at a clap and never had remotely dreamt of it; saw it +like a tiger coming down the street to devour him; saw it like the lid +of hell slowly slipping away before his eyes. Saw it! I was watching +him. He saw it; and things--age, greyness, lasting and immovable +calamity--I don't know what--frightful things--came down on his face +like the dust of ashes settling on a polished surface. + +"You see, what this Humpo fiend was laying out for was, first that Sabre +was the father of the girl's child, second that he'd deliberately put +the poison in her way, and brutally told her he was done with her, and +gone off and left her so that she should do what she had done and he be +rid of her. Yes. Yes, old man. And he'd got a case! By the living Jingo, +he'd got such a case as a Crown prosecutor only dreams about after a +good dinner and three parts of a bottle of port. There wasn't a thing, +there wasn't an action or a deed or a thought that Sabre had done for +months and months past but bricked him in like bricking a man into a +wall, but tied him down like tying a man in a chair with four fathoms of +rope. By the living Jingo, there wasn't a thing. + +"Listen. Just listen and see for yourself. Worked off the police +evidence and the doctor, d'you see? Then--'Mr. Bright!' Old man comes +up into the box. Stands there massive, bowed with grief, chest heaving, +voice coming out of it like an organ in the Dead March. Stands there +like Lear over the body of Cordelia. Stands there like the father of +Virginia thinking of Appius Claudius. + +"Like this, his evidence went: Was father of the deceased woman (as they +called her). Was employed as foreman at Fortune, East and Sabre's. Had +seen the body and identified it. So on, so on. + +"Then Humpo gets on to him. Was his daughter the sort of girl to +meditate taking her life?--'Never! Never!' Great rending cry that went +down to your marrow. + +"Touching the trouble that befell her, the birth of her child--had she +ever betrayed signs of loose character while living beneath his +roof?--'Never! Never!' + +"How came she first to leave his house? Was any particular individual +instrumental in obtaining for her work which first took her from beneath +his roof?--'There! There!' Clenched fist and half his body over the box +towards Sabre. + +"'Look here!' bursts out old Sabre. 'Look here--!' + +"They shut him up. + +"'Answer the question, please, Mr. Bright.'--'Mr. Sabre led to her first +going from me. Mr. Sabre!' + +"Had this Mr. Sabre first approached him in the matter or had he +solicited Mr. Sabre's help?--'He came to me! He came to me! Without +rhyme, or reason, or cause, or need, or hint, or suggestion he came to +me!' + +"Was the situation thus obtained for the girl nearer her father's house +or nearer Mr. Sabre's?--'Not a quarter of an hour, not ten minutes, from +Mr. Sabre's house.' + +"Had the witness any knowledge as to whether this man Sabre was a +frequent visitor at the place of the girl's situation?--'Constantly, +constantly, night after night he was there!' + +"'Was he, indeed?' says Humpo, mightily interested. 'Was he, indeed? +There were perhaps great friends of his own standing there, one or two +men chums, no doubt?'--'No one! No one!' cries the old man. 'No one but +an old invalid lady, nigh bedridden, past seventy, and my daughter, my +daughter, my Effie.' + +"That was all very well, all very well, says Humpo. Mr. Bright's word +was of course accepted, but had the witness any outside proof of the +frequency of these visits to this bedridden old lady old enough to be +the man Sabre's grandmother? Had the witness recently been shown a +diary kept by Mr. Twyning at that period?--'Yes! Yes!' + +"And it contained frequent reference to Sabre's mention in the office of +these visits?--'Yes! Yes!' + +"Did one entry reveal the fact that on one occasion this Sabre spent an +entire night there? + +"'Look here--' bursts out old Sabre. 'Look here--' + +"Can't get any farther. Buddha on the throne shuts him up if he could +have got any farther. 'Yes,' groans old Bright out of his heaving chest. +'Yes. A night there.' + +"And on the very next day, the very next day, did this man Sabre rush +off and enlist?--'Yes. Yes.' + +"Viewed in light of the subsequent events, did that sudden burst of +patriotism bear any particular interpretation?--'Running away from it,' +heaves the old man. 'Running away from it.' + +"'Look here--' from Sabre again. 'Look here--' Same result. + +"So this Humpo chap went on, piling it up from old Bright like that, old +man; and all the time getting deeper and getting worse, of course. Sabre +getting the girl into his own house after the old lady's death removes +the girl from the neighbourhood; curious suddenness of the girl's +dismissal during Sabre's leave; girl going straight to Sabre immediately +able to walk after birth of child, and so on. Blacker and blacker, worse +and worse. + +"And then Humpo ends, 'A final question, Mr. Bright, and I can release +you from the painful, the pitiable ordeal it has been my sad duty to +inflict upon you. A final question: 'Have you in your own mind +suspicions of the identity of this unhappy woman's betrayer?' Old man +cannot speak for emotion. Only nods, hands at his breast like a prophet +about to tear his raiment. Only nods. + +"'Do you see him in this court?' + +"Old man hurls out his arms towards Sabre. Shouts, 'There! There!' + +"Warm-hearted and excellent Iscariot leaps up and leads him tottering +from the box; court seethes and groans with emotion; Humpo wipes his +streaming face, Sabre stammers out, 'Look here--Look here--' Case goes +on." + + +IV + +"Next witness. Chemist. Funny little chap with two pairs of spectacles, +one on his forehead and one on his nose. From Alton. Remembers +distinctly sale of oxalic acid (produced) on Friday before the Saturday +of the girl's death. Remembers distinctly the purchaser, could identify +him. Does he see him in court? Yes, there he is. Points at Sabre. +Anything odd about purchaser's manner? Couldn't say exactly odd. +Remembered he sat down while making the purchase. Ah, sat down, did he? +Was it usual for customers to sit down when making a trifling purchase? +No, not in his shop it wasn't usual. Ah, it struck him then as peculiar, +this sitting down? As if perhaps the purchaser was under a strain? No, +not for that reason--customers didn't as a rule sit in his shop, because +he didn't as a rule have a chair in front of the counter for them to sit +on. Court howls with laughter in relief from tension. Humpo says +sternly, 'This is no laughing matter, sir. Stand down, sir.' Glares +after him as he goes to his seat. Jury glares. Buddha glares. General +impression that little chemist has been trying to shield Sabre. + +"Next witness. Chap I'd seen serve the divorce papers on Sabre at +Brighton. Solicitor's clerk. Humpo handles him very impressively--also +very carefully. Informs him no need to tell the court on what business +he went down to Sabre's house on the fatal Saturday. 'Sufficient,' says +Humpo, 'that it was legal business of a deeply grave nature implicating +the deceased and the man Sabre?' Witness agrees. Court nearly chokes +itself whispering conjectures. 'And you saw the deceased but not the man +Sabre?' Witness agrees again. Goes on, led by Humpo, to state that he +served certain papers on the deceased. That she looked noticeably +unhappy, frightened, lonely, deserted, when she opened the door to him. +Had great difficulty in obtaining from her the whereabouts of the man +Sabre. At first refused to tell. No, didn't actually say she had been +told not to tell; but, yes, certainly gave that impression. Extracted +from her at last that he was probably at Brighton. Couldn't get anything +more definite out of her. + +"'Look here--', cries Sabre. 'Look here--look here, she didn't know!' + +"'I am not surprised,' says Humpo, 'I am not at all surprised.' Court +laughs cynically. 'You have interrupted us a great deal,' says Humpo. +'It is time we saw if you will be equally informative in the witness +box.' + +"Some one bawls, 'Next witness. Mark Sabre.' + +"Court draws an enormous breath and gets itself ready for butchery to +make a Tidborough holiday." + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +I + +Hapgood went on: + +"I'm telling you, old man, that after the coroner had done with him, and +after this Humpo, with his viprous forefinger, and his retriever tongue, +and his perspiration streaming down his face, and Twyning tugging him +down by the coat and putting him on the trail afresh--after the coroner, +and after this Humpo like that, had been on to him for a bit, Sabre +absolutely couldn't speak. He was like he had a constriction in his +throat. There was nothing he could say but begin all his sentences with, +'Look here--Look here--'; and nine times out of ten incapable of +anything to follow it up with. + +"He was distraught. He was speechless. He was clean crazed. + +"At the very beginning, with the coroner, he wouldn't use the word 'the +deceased.' Insisted on keeping calling her Effie. Coroner kept pulling +him up over it, and about the twentieth time pulled him up hard. + +"Poor chap threw out his arms like he was throwing the word away and +then hammered on the ledge. 'I _won't_ say deceased. I _won't_ call her +the deceased. Vile word. Horrible word. Obscene, beastly, hateful word. +I won't call her it. Why should I call her the deceased?' + +"'Control yourself,' says Buddha. 'Control yourself.' + +"He only waved and thumped again. 'I won't. I _won't_. Why should I call +her the deceased? I knew the girl. I was fond of the girl. She was my +friend. She was fond of me. I did more for her than any one in this +court--her father or any one. When she was in trouble she came to me and +I succoured her. She lived in my house. She cooked my meals for me. We +went through it together. I've known her for years. I've liked her for +years. And now she's dead and you turn around and tell me to call her +the deceased. Effie. Effie! Do you hear?--_Effie_!' + +"They couldn't stop him. He was like a sick wolf then, cornered, and +Buddha like a big, wary boarhound going in at him and jumping up on the +wall out of the way when he made his dashes and then coming down and +going in at him again. But they stopped him when Humpo got at him! They +wore him down then! He was like that wolf then with a rope round his +neck, tied to a post, and every time he'd fly out with, 'Look here--Look +here--' the rope would catch him and throttle him and over he'd go and +Humpo in worrying him again. + +"Like this. Link on link of the chain against him and brick by brick of +the wall around him. Like this. + +"'What date did the deceased leave your wife's employment?' + +"'In March. In March last year. Look here--' + +"'Did she leave of her own wish or was she dismissed?' + +"'Look here--' + +"'Was she dismissed because your wife suspected you of relations with +her?' + +"'Look here--' + +"'Answer the question.' + +"'Well, but look _here_--' + +"'Answer the question, sir.' + +"'Look _here_--' + +"'Very well, sir. Very well. Answer me this question then. Is it the +fact that your wife has instituted divorce proceedings against you?' + +"'Look _here_--' + +"Court surging with sensation at this dramatic disclosure. Humpo mopping +his face, keeping the great forefinger going. Sabre clutching the desk +like a man in asthma, Twyning tugging at Humpo's coat. 'Yes, yes,' says +Humpo, bending down, then launches at Sabre again. + +"'Is it the fact that in these proceedings the deceased woman is named +as corespondent?' + +"'Look here--' + +"'You keep asking me to look here, sir, but you tell me nothing. I ask +you plain questions. Have you nothing better than, "Look here"? Is it +the fact that these papers were served on you at Brighton on the +occasion of your flight?' + +"'Flight--flight--Look here--' + +"'Is it the fact?' + +"'Yes. Brighton, yes. But, look here--flight! flight! Holiday, I tell +you. Holiday.' + +"'Holiday!' cries Humpo. 'Do you tell me holiday, sir? Holiday! I thank +you for that word. We will examine it in a moment. This was at Brighton, +then. The business of the witness whom we have recently seen in the box +was to serve the papers on you and on the deceased. Now come back a +little. Let me ask you to carry back your mind to the summer of 1915--, +and with his wagging forefinger, and his sloshing tongue, and his +mopping at his face, and his throwing back of his mane as though it were +a cloak from under which he kept rushing in to stab home another knife, +he takes the unhappy man through all the stuff he had got out of old +Bright--Sabre's apparently uncalled-for interest in the girl, first +getting her from her father's house to the neighbourhood of his own, +then under his own roof, and all the rest of the unholy chain of it. +Then he has a chat with Twyning, then mops himself dry, and then hurls +in again. + +"'Now, sir, this holiday. This pleasant holiday by the sea! Did you make +any preparations for it, any little purchases?' + +"'No. Purchases? No. Look here--' + +"'Never mind about "Look here," sir. No purchases? Did you hear the +evidence of the witness--the Alton chemist who declared on oath that you +made a purchase in his shop on the very day before you started, a +purchase you have admitted? Remembering that, do you still say you made +no purchases for your--holiday?' + +"'Nothing to do with it. Nothing--' + +"'Nothing to do with it? Well, sir, we will accept that for a moment. Do +you often go shopping in Alton?' + +"The poor beggar shook his head. No voice in his throat. + +"'Do you shop there once in a month, once in six months?' + +"Shook again. + +"'Are there chemists in the Garden House, in Tidborough, in +Chovensbury?' + +"Nods. + +"'Are you known in all these places I have mentioned?' + +"Nods. + +"'Are you known in Alton?' + +"Shakes. + +"'Are all these places nearer to you than Alton?' + +"Nods. + +"Humpo's finger shoots out about two yards long; dashes back his mane +with his other hand; rushes in from under it. 'Then, sir, will you tell +the jury why, to make this purchase of oxalic acid on the day before you +leave home, why you go to a place in which you are unknown and to a +place farther away from you than three other centres, one at your very +door?' + +"Sabre sees like a hit in the face this new thing that's coming to him. +Gasps. Puts up his hand to that choked throat of his. Strangles out, +'Look here--' + +"'Answer the question, sir.' + +"Stammers out like a chap croaking. 'Walk. Walk. Wanted a walk. Wanted +to get out. Wanted to get away from it.' + +"Back goes the mane and in again like a flash: 'Ah, you wanted to get +out of it? The house with its inmates was becoming insupportable to +you?' + +"'Look here--' + +"'I am giving you your own words, sir. Do you tell us that, although you +were leaving--for a holiday--on the very next day still, even on the +afternoon before, you felt you must get out of it? Is that right, sir?' + +"'Look here-' + +"'Very well. Let us leave that, sir. We seem to be compelled to leave a +great deal, but the jury will acquit me of fault in the matter. Let us +come to the purpose of this oxalic acid purchase. Nothing to do with +your holiday, you say. With what then? For what purpose?' + +"Long pause. Frightful pause. Hours. Whole court holding its breath. +Pause like a chunk of eternity. Silent as that. Empty as that. What the +devil was he thinking of? Had he forgotten? Was he awake now to the +frightful places he kept getting into and wondering if this was another +and where exactly it lay? Appalling pause. Dashed woman somewhere in the +court goes off into hysterics and dragged out. He didn't hear a scream +of it, that poor baited chap in the box. Just stood there. Grey as a +raked-out fire. Face twitching. Awful. I tell you, awful. Nearly went +into hysterics myself. Humpo slopping his tongue round his jaws, +watching him like a dog watching its dinner being cut up. After about +two years, slaps in his tongue and demands, 'Come, sir, for what purpose +did you buy this oxalic acid?' + +"Sabre gives his first clear, calculated words since he had got up +there. I guess he _had_ been pulling himself together to look for a +trap. He said very slowly, trying each word, like a chap feeling along +on thin ice; he said, 'Effie--asked--me--to--get--it--to--clean--my +--straw--hat--for--me--for--Brighton.' + +"That Humpo! Very gently, very quietly, like a rescuer pushing out a +ladder to the man on the ice, 'The deceased asked you to get it to clean +your straw hat for you for Brighton.' And then like a trap being sprung +he snapped and threw Sabre clean off the balance he was getting. 'Then +it _was_ obtained for the purpose of your holiday?' + +"'Look _here_--' All at sea again, d'you see? And the end was quicker +than nothing. Twyning pulls Humpo's coat and points at Sabre's hat, soft +hat, on the ledge before him. Humpo nods, delighted. + +"'And did she carry out her intention, sir? Did she clean your straw hat +for you?' + +"Nods. + +"'You don't appear to be wearing it?' + +"Shakes. + +"'Pray, where, then, is this straw hat to clean which you obtained the +oxalic acid? Is it at your house?' + +"Shakes. + +"'Not at your house! Odd. Where, then?' + +"'Look here--' + +"'Where then?' + +"'Look here--' + +"'Answer the question, sir. Where is this straw hat?' + +"'Look here--' Gulps. 'Look here--' Gulps again. 'Look here. I lost it +in the sea at Brighton.' + +"Humpo draws in his breath. Stares at him for two solid minutes without +speaking. Then say, like one speaking to a ghost, 'You lost it in the +sea at Brighton! You lost it in the sea at Brighton!' Has an +inspiration. Inspired in hell. Turns like a flash to the coroner. 'I +have done with this witness, sir.' Sits down. Plump. Court lets go its +breath like the four winds round a chimney. Sabre staggers out of the +box. Falls across into his seat. + +"Too much for me, old man. I bawled out, people in front of me nearly +jumping out of their skins with the start, I bawled out, 'Mr. Coroner, I +saw the witness at Brighton, and he told me he'd lost his hat in the +sea.' + +"Buddha, like a talking idol discovering an infidel in his temple, 'Who +are you, sir?' + +"'I'm a solicitor. I'm Mr. Sabre's solicitor.' + +"Buddha to Sabre: 'Have you a solicitor in the court, Sabre?' + +"'No! No! Get away! Get out of it! Get away from me!' + +"'You have no standing in this court, sir,' says Buddha. + +"Awful. Nothing to be done. Sorry I'd spoken. After all, telling me +about his hat, what did it prove? Nothing. If anything, easily could be +twisted into cunning preparation of his plan beforehand. Useless. +Futile. + +"Case went on. Presently Twyning in the box. Last witness--put up to +screw down the lid on Sabre's coffin, to polish up the argument before +it went to the jury. Stood there with the venom frothing at the corners +of his mouth, stood there a man straight out of the loins of Judas +Iscariot, stood there making his testimony more damning a thousand +times by pretending it was being dragged out of him, reluctant to give +away his business companion. Told a positively damning story about +meeting Sabre at the station on his departure from leave a day after the +girl was sacked. Noticed how strange his manner was; noticed he didn't +like being asked about circumstances of her dismissal; noticed his wife +hadn't come to see him off. Yes, thought it odd. Sabre had explained +wife had a cold, but saw Mrs. Sabre in Tidborough very next day. Yes, +thought the whole thing funny because had frequently seen Sabre and the +girl together during Sabre's leave. Any particular occasion? Well, did +it really matter? Must he really answer? Yes, notably in the Cloister +tea rooms late one evening. Well, yes, had thought their behavior odd, +secretive. Sabre's position in the office? Well, was it really necessary +to go into that? Well, had to admit Sabre was no longer a member of the +firm. Had been suspended during intimacy with the deceased, now +dismissed consequent upon this grave development. Had he ever had +occasion in the past, in earlier days, to remonstrate with Sabre +concerning attitude towards girl? Well, scarcely liked to say so, hated +to say so, but certainly there had been such occasions. Yes, had spoken +seriously to Sabre about it. + +"There ripped across the court as he said that, old man, a woman's voice +from the back. 'It's a lie. It's an abominable lie. And you know it's a +lie!' + +"By Jove, I tell you! I nearly swallowed my back teeth with the effect +of the thing. Give you my word I thought for a minute it was the girl +come to life and walked in out of her coffin. That voice! High and clear +and fine and true as an Angelus bell across a harvest field. 'It's a +lie. It's an abominable lie; and you know it's a lie!' + +"Eh? Terrific? I tell you terrific isn't the word. It was the Fairfax +business at the trial of King Charles over again. It absolutely was. +Buddha nearly had a fit: 'Silence! How dare you, madam! Turn out that +woman! Who is that?' + +"Commotion. A woman pressed out from the mob behind and walked up the +court like a goddess, like Portia, by Jove, like Euphrosyne. 'Let no one +dare to touch me,' she said. 'I am Lady Tybar. Every one knows me here. +I've just come in. Just heard. This shameful business. All of you +killing him between you.' She pointed a hand at Twyning. 'And you. I +tell you before all this court, and you may take what steps you like, I +tell you that you are a liar, an experienced and calculating liar.' And +she went with that to old Sabre and stooped over him and touched him +with both her hands and said, 'Marko, Marko.' + +"You know she'd got that blooming court stiff and cold. The suddenness +and the decision and the--the arrogance of the thing took 'em all ends +up and had 'em speechless. She was there by Sabre and stooping over him, +mothering him, before Buddha or any of 'em could have found the wits to +say what his own name was. Let alone the Iscariot. + +"Matter of fact Sabre was the first one to speak. He threw up his arm +from where he'd been covering his face, just as he'd thrown it up when I +called out, and swung her hands aside and called out, 'Don't touch me. +Let me alone. Leave me alone.' + +"She motioned to the man beside him, and the chap got up as if her +motion had been Circe's and disappeared. Through the roof or somewhere. +I don't know. Anyway, he vanished. And she took his place and sat down +beside Sabre and poor old Sabre crouched away from her as if he was +stung, and old Buddha, reaching out for his dignity, said, 'You may +remain there, madam, if you do not interrupt the court.' + +"There wasn't much more to interrupt. Twyning had had about as much as +he wanted; he'd done what he was out to do, anyway. The case finished. +The coroner had a go at the jury. They went out. I suppose they were +gone ten minutes. Shuffled in again. Gave their verdict. I was watching +Sabre. He took down his hands from his face and stared with all the +world's agony in his face, straining himself forward to hear. Verdict. +They found suicide while temporarily insane and added their most severe +censure of the conduct of the witness Sabre. He jumped up and flung out +his hands. 'Look here--Look here--Censure! Censure! Cens--!' + +"Dropped back on his seat like he was shot. Twisted himself up. Sat +rocking. + +"Court cleared in less than no time. Me left in my corner. This Lady +Tybar. Sabre, twisted up. Bobby or two. I began to come forward. Sabre +looks up. Looks round. Gets his hat. Collects his old stick. Starts to +hobble out. + +"This Lady Tybar gets in front of him, me alongside of her by then. +'Marko, Marko.' (That was what she called him.) He sort of pushes at her +and at me: 'Let me alone. Let me alone. Get right away from me.' Hobbles +away down the room. + +"A bobby stops him. 'Better go this way, sir. Rough lot of people out +there.' Leads him to a side door. + +"We followed him up, she and I. Door gave on to a lane running up into +the Penny Green road. She tried at him again, gently, very tenderly, +'Marko, Marko, dear.' Would have made your heart squirm. I tried at him: +'Now then, old man.' Swung round on us. 'Let me alone. Get away. Get +right away from me!' + +"Followed him, the pair of us, up to the main road. She tried again. I +tried. He swung round and faced us. 'Let me alone. Won't any one let me +alone? Get right away from me. Look here--Look here. If you want to do +anything for me, get right away from me and leave me alone. Leave me +alone. Do you hear? Leave me alone.' + +"Hobbled away out towards Penny Green, bobbing along on his stick fast +as he could go. + +"She said to me, 'Oh, Oh--' and began to cry. I said I thought the best +thing was to leave him for a bit and that I'd go over, or she could, or +both of us, a bit later. Clear we were only driving him mad by following +him now. There was a cab came prowling by. I gave the chap a pound note +and told him to follow Sabre.--'Get up just alongside and keep there,' I +said. 'He'll likely get in. Get him in and take him up to Crawshaws, +Penny Green, and come back to me at the Royal Hotel and there's another +quid for you.' + +"Old man, I went along to the Royal with this Lady Tybar. Told her who I +was and what I knew. Ordered some tea there (which we didn't touch) and +she began to talk to me. Talk to me ... I tell you what I thought about +that woman while she talked. I thought, leaving out limelight beauty, +and classic beauty and all the beauty you can see in a frame presented +as such; leaving out that, because it wasn't there, I thought she was +the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Yes, and I told my wife so. +That shows you! You couldn't say where it was or how it was. You could +only say that beauty abode in her face as the scent in the rose. It's +there and it's exquisite: that's all you can say. If she'd been talking +to me in the dark I could have _felt_ that she was beautiful. + +"What did she tell me? She talked about herself and Sabre. What did she +say? No, you'll have to let that go, old man. It was more what I read +into what she said. I'll keep it--for a bit, anyway. + +"There's else to tell than that. That cabman I'd got hold of sent in +awhile after to see me. Said he'd picked up Sabre a mile along and taken +him home. Stopped a bit to patch up some harness or something and 'All +of a heap' (as he expressed it) Sabre had come flying out of the house +again into the cab and told him to drive like hell and all to the +office--to Fortune, East and Sabre's. Said Sabre behaved all the way +like as if he was mad--shouting to him to hurry and carrying on inside +the cab so the old man was terrified. + +"I said, 'To the office! What the devil now?' I ran in to Lady Tybar and +we hurried round. We were scared for him, I tell you. And we'd reason to +be--when we got there and found him." + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +I + +When that cab which Hapgood had despatched after Sabre from the +coroner's court overtook its quest, the driver put himself abreast of +the distracted figure furiously hobbling along the road and, his second +pound note in view, began, in a fat and comfortable voice, a beguiling +monologue of "Keb, sir? Keb? Keb? Keb, sir?" + +Sabre at first gave no attention. Farther along he once angrily waved +his stick in signal of dismissal. About a mile along his disabled knee, +and all his much overwrought body refused longer to be the flogged slave +of his tumultuous mind. He stopped in physical exhaustion and rested +upon his stick. The cabman also stopped and tuned afresh his enticing +and restful rhythm: "Keb, sir? Keb? Keb? Keb, sir?" + +He got in. + +He did not think to give a direction, but the driver had his directions; +nor, when he was set down at his house, to make payment; but payment had +been made. The driver assisted him from the cab and into his door--and +he needed assistance--and being off his box set himself to the +adjustment of a buckle, repair of which he had deferred through the day +until (being a man economical of effort) some other circumstance should +necessitate his coming to earth. + +Sabre stumbled into his house and pushed the door behind him with a +resolution expressive of his desire to shut away from himself all +creatures of the world and be alone,--be left entirely alone. By habit +he climbed the stairs to his room. He collapsed into a chair. + +His head was not aching; but there throbbed within his head, ceaselessly +and enormously, a pulse that seemed to shake him at its every beat. It +was going knock, knock, knock! He began to have the feeling that if this +frightful knocking continued it would beat its way out. Something would +give way. Amidst the purposeful reverberations, his mind, like one +squeezed back in the dark corner of a lair of beasts, crouched shaking +and appalled. He was the father of Effie's child; he was the murderer of +Effie and of her child! He was neither; but the crimes were fastened +upon him as ineradicable pigment upon his skin. His skin was white but +it was annealed black; there was not a glass of the mirrors of his past +actions but showed it black and reflected upon it hue that was blacker +yet. He was a betrayer and a murderer, and every refutation that he +could produce turned to a brand in his hands and branded him yet more +deeply. He writhed in torment. For ever, in every hour of every day and +night, he would carry the memory of that fierce and sweating face +pressing towards him across the table in that court. No! It was another +face that passed before that passionate countenance and stood like flame +before his eyes. Twyning! Twyning, Twyning, Twyning! The prompter, the +goader of that passionate man's passion, the instigater and instrument +of this his utter and appalling destruction. Twyning, Twyning, Twyning! +He ground his teeth upon the name. He twisted in his chair upon the +thought. Twyning, Twyning, Twyning! Knock, knock, knock! Ah, that +knocking, that knocking! Something was going to give way in a minute. It +must be abated. It must. Something would give way else. A feverish +desire to smoke came upon him. He felt in his pockets for his cigarette +case. He had not got it. He thought after it. He remembered that he had +started for Brighton without it, discovered there that he had left it +behind. He started to hunt for it. It must be in this room. It was not +to be seen in the room. Where? He remembered a previous occasion of +searching for it like this. When? Ah, when Effie had told him she had +found it lying about and had put it--of all absurd places for a +cigarette case--in the back of the clock. Ten to one she had put it +there again now. The very last thing she had done for him! Effie! He +went quickly to the clock and opened it. Good! It was there. He snatched +it up. Something else there. A folded paper. His name pencilled on it: +Mr. Sabre. + +She had left a message for him! + +She had left a message for him! That cigarette case business had been +deliberately done! + +He fumbled the paper open. He could not control his fingers. He fumbled +it open. He began to read. Tears stood in his eyes. Pitiful, oh, +pitiful. He turned the page,--knock, knock, knock! The knocking suddenly +ceased. He threw up his hand. He gave a very loud cry. A single note. A +note of extraordinary exultation: "Ha!" + +He crushed the paper between his hands. He cried aloud: "Into my hands! +Into my hands thou hast delivered him!" + +He opened the paper and read again, his hand shaking, and now a most +terrible trembling upon him. + + Dear Mr. Sabre, + + I wanted you to go to Brighton so I could be alone to do what I am + just going to do. I see now it is all impossible, and I ought to + have seen it before, but I was so very fond of my little baby and + I never dreamt it would be like this. But you see they won't let me + keep my little baby and now I have made things too terrible for + you. So I see the only thing to do is to take myself out of it all + and take my little baby with me. Soon I shall explain things to God + and then I think it will be quite all right. Dear Mr. Sabre, when I + explain things to God, I shall tell him how wonderful you have been + to me. My heart is filled with gratitude to you. I cannot express + it; but I shall tell God when I explain everything to him; and my + one hope is that after I have been punished I shall be allowed to + meet you again, and thank you--there, where everything will be + understood. + +He turned over. + + I feel I ought to tell you now, before I leave this world, what I + never was able to tell you or any one. The father of my little baby + was Harold Twyning who used to be in your office. We had been + secretly engaged a very, very long time and then he was in an + officers' training camp at Bournemouth where I was, and I don't + think I quite understood. We were going to be married and then he + had to go suddenly, and then he was afraid to tell his father and + then this happened and he was more afraid. So that was how it all + was. I do want you, please, to tell Harold that I quite I forgive + him, only I can't quite write to him. And dear Mr. Sabre, I do + trust you to be with Harold what you have always been with me and + with everybody--gentle, and understanding things. And I shall tell + the Perches, too, about you, and Mr. Fargus. Good-by and may God + bless and reward you for ever and ever, + + Effie. + + +II + +He shouted again, "Ha!" He cried again, "Into my hands! Into my hands!" + +He abandoned himself to a rather horrible ecstasy of hate and passion. +His face became rather horrible to see. His face became purple and +black and knotted, and the veins on his forehead black. He cried aloud, +"Harold! Harold! Twyning! Twyning!" He rather horribly mimicked Twyning. +"Harold's such a good boy! Harold's such a good, Christian, model boy! +Harold's never said a bad word or had a bad thought. Harold's such a +good boy." He cried out: "Harold's such a blackguard! Harold's such a +blackguard! A blackguard and the son of a vile, infamous, lying, +perjured blackguard." + +His passion and his hate surmounted his voice. He choked. He picked up +his stick and went with frantic striding hops to the door. He cried +aloud, gritting his teeth upon it, "I'll cram the letter down his +throat. I'll cram the letter down his throat. I'll take him by the neck. +I'll _bash_ him across the face. And I'll cram the letter down his +throat." + +The cab driver, his labour upon the buckle finished, was resting on his +box with the purposeful and luxurious rest of a man who has borne the +heat and burden of the day. Sabre waved his stick at him, and shouted to +him, "Fortune's office in Tidborough. Hard as you can. Hard as you can." +He wrenched open the door and got in. In a moment, the startled horse +scarcely put into motion by its startled driver, he put his head and arm +from the window and was out on the step. "Stop! Stop! Let me out. I've +something to get." + +He ran again into the house and bundled himself up the stairs and into +his room. At his bureau he took a drawer and wrenched it open so that it +came out in his hand, swung on the sockets of its handle, and scattered +its contents upon the floor. One article fell heavily. His service +revolver. He grabbed it up and dropped on his hands and knees, padding +eagerly about after scattered cartridges. As he searched his voice went +harshly, "He's hounded me to hell. At the very gates of hell I've got +him, _got_ him, and I'll have him by the throat and _hurl_ him in!" He +broke open the breech and jammed the cartridges in, counting them, "One, +two, three, four, five, six!" He sapped up the breech and jammed the +revolver in his jacket pocket. He went scrambling again down the stairs, +and as he scrambled down he cried, "I'll cram the letter down his +throat. I'll take him by the neck. I'll _bash_ him across the face. And +I'll cram the letter down his throat. When he's sprawling, when he's +looking, perhaps I'll out with my gun and drill him, drill him for the +dog, the dog that he is." + +All the way down as the cab proceeded, he alternated between shouted +behests to the driver to hurry and repetition of his ferocious +intention. Over and over again; gritting his teeth upon it; picturing +it; in vision acting it so that the perspiration streamed upon his body. +"I'll cram the letter down his throat. I'll take him by the neck. I'll +_bash_ him across the face, and I'll cram the letter down his throat." +Over and over again; visioning it; in his mind, and with all his muscles +working, ferociously performing it. He felt immensely well. He felt +enormously fit. The knocking was done in his brain. His mind was +tingling clear. "I'll cram ... I'll take ... I'll _bash_ ... I'll cram +the letter down his throat." + +He was arrived! He was here! "Into my hands! Into my hands." He passed +into the office and swiftly as he could go up the stairs. He encountered +no one. He came to Twyning's door and put his hand upon the latch. +Immediately, and enormously, so that for a moment he was forced to +pause, the pulse broke out anew in his head. Knock, knock, knock. Knock, +knock, knock. Curse the thing! Never mind. In! In! At him! At him! + +He went in. + + +III + +On his right, as he entered, a fire was burning in the grate and it +struck him, with the inconsequent insistence of trifles in enormous +issues, how chilly for the time of year the day had been and how icily +cold his own house. On the left, at the far end of the room, Twyning sat +at his desk. He was crouched at his desk. His head was buried in his +hands. At his elbows, vivid upon the black expanse of the table, lay a +torn envelope, dull red. + +Sabre shut the door and leant his stick against the wall by the fire. He +took the letter from his pocket and walked across and stood over +Twyning. Twyning had not heard him. He stood over him and looked down +upon him. Knock, knock, knock. Curse the thing. There was Twyning's +neck, that brown strip between his collar and his head, that in a minute +he would catch him by.... No, seated thus he would catch his hair and +wrench him back and cram his meal upon him. Knock, knock, knock. Curse +the thing! + +He said heavily, "Twyning. Twyning, I've come to speak to you about your +son." + +Twyning slightly twisted his face in his hands so as to glance up at +Sabre. His face was red. He said in an odd, thick voice, "Oh, Sabre, +Sabre, have you heard?" + +Sabre said, "Heard?" + +"He's killed. My Harold. My boy. My boy, Harold. Oh, Sabre, Sabre, my +boy, my boy, my Harold!" + +He began to sob; his shoulders heaving. + +Sabre gave a sound that was just a whimper. Oh, irony of fate! Oh, +cynicism incredible in its malignancy! Oh, cumulative touch! To deliver +him this his enemy to strike, and to present him for the knife thus +already stricken! + +No sound in all the range of sounds whereby man can express emotion was +possible to express this emotion that now surcharged him. This was no +pain of man's devising. This was a special and a private agony of the +gods reserved for victims approved for very nice and exquisite +experiment. He felt himself squeezed right down beneath a pressure +squeezing to his vitals; and there was squeezed out of him just a +whimper. + +He walked across to the fireplace; and on the high mantle-shelf laid his +arms and bowed his forehead to the marble. + +Twyning was brokenly saying, "It's good of you to come, Sabre. I feel +it. After that business. I'm sorry about it, Sabre. I feel your goodness +coming to me like this. But you know, you always knew, what my boy was +to me. My Harold. My Harold. Such a good boy, Sabre. Such a good, +Christian boy. And now he's gone, he's gone. Never to see him again. My +boy. My son. My son!" + +Oh, dreadful! + +And he went on, distraught and pitiable. "My boy. My Harold. Such a good +boy, Sabre. Such a perfect boy. My Harold!" + +The letter was crumpled in Sabre's right hand. He was constricting it in +his hand and knocking his clenched knuckles on the marble. + +"My boy. My dear, good boy. Oh, Sabre, Sabre!" + +He dropped his right arm and swung it by his side; to and fro; over the +fender--over the fire; over the hearth--over the flames. + +"My Harold. Never to see his face again! My Harold." + +He stopped his swinging arm, holding his hand above the flames. "He that +dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him; for God is love." He +opened his fingers, and the crumpled letter fell and was consumed. He +pushed himself up from the mantlepiece and turned and went over to +Twyning and stood over him again. He patted Twyning's heaving shoulders. +"There, there, Twyning. Bad luck. Bad luck. Hard. Hard. Bear up, +Twyning. Soldier's death.... Finest death.... Died for his country.... +Fine boy.... Soldier's death.... Bad luck. Bad luck, Twyning...." + +Twyning, inarticulate, pushed up his hand and felt for Sabre's hand and +clutched it and squeezed it convulsively. + +Sabre said again, "There, there, Twyning. Hard. Hard. Fine death.... +Brave boy...." He disengaged his hand and turned and walked very slowly +from the room. + +He went along the passage, past Mr. Fortune's door towards that which +had been his own, still walking very slowly and with his hand against +the wall to steady himself. He felt deathly ill.... + +He went into his own room, unentered by him for many months, now his own +room no more, and dropped heavily into the familiar chair at the +familiar desk. He put his arms out along the desk and laid his head upon +them. Oh, cumulative touch! He began to be shaken with onsets of +emotion, as with sobs. Oh, cumulative touch! + +The communicating door opened and Mr. Fortune appeared. He stared at +Sabre in astounded indignation. "Sabre! You here! I must say--I must +admit--" + +Sabre clutched up his dry and terrible sobbing. He turned swiftly to Mr. +Fortune and put his hands on the arms of the chair to rise. + +A curious look came upon his face. He said, "I say, I'm sorry. I'm +sorry. I--I can't get up." + +Mr. Fortune boomed, "Can't get up!" + +"I say--No. I say, I think something's happened to me. I can't get up." + +The door opened. Hapgood came in, and Nona. + +Sabre said, "I say, Hapgood--Nona--Nona! I say, Nona, I think +something's happened to me. I can't get up." + +A change came over his face. He collapsed back in the chair. + +"Marko! Marko!" + +She who thus cried ran forward and threw herself on her knees beside +him, her hands stretched up to him. Hapgood turned furiously on Mr. +Fortune. "Go for a doctor! Go like hell! Sabre! Sabre, old man!" + + * * * * * + +"Hemorrhage on the brain," said the doctor. "...Well, if there's no more +effusion of blood. You quite understand me. I say _if_ there isn't.... +Has he been through any trouble, any kind of strain? + +"Trouble," said Hapgood. "Strain. He's been in hell--right in." + + * * * * * + +When he was removed and they had left him, Nona said to Hapgood as they +came down the steps of the County Hospital, "There was a thing he was so +fond of, Mr. Hapgood: + + "...O Wind, + If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? + +"It comes to me now. There must be a turning now. If he dies ... still, +a turning." + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +I + +Hapgood across the coffee cups, the liqueur glasses and the cigarettes, +wagged a solemn head at that friend of his, newly returned from a long +visit to America. He wagged a solemn head: + +"She's got her divorce, that wife of his.... + +"Eh?... Well, man alive, where do you expect me to begin? You insinuate +yourself into a Government commission to go to America to lecture with +your 'Sketchbook on the Western Front', and I write you about six +letters to every one I get out of you, and you come back and expect me +to give you a complete social and political and military record of +everything that's happened in your absence. Can't you _read_?... + +"Well, have it your own way. I've told you in my letters how he went on +after that collapse, that brain hemorrhage. I told you we got Ormond +Clive on to him. I told you we got him up here eventually to Clive's own +nursing home in Welbeck Place. Clive was a friend of that Lady Tybar. +She was with Sabre all the time he was in Queer Street--and it _was_ +queer, I give you my word. Pretty well every day I'd look in. Every day +she'd be there. Every day Ormond Clive would come. Time and again we'd +stand around the bed, we three,--watching. Impenetrable and +extraordinary business! There was his body, alive, breathing. His mind, +his consciousness, his ego, his self, his whatever you like to call +it--not there. Away. Absent. Not in that place. Departed into, and +occupied in that mysterious valley where those cases go. What was he +doing there? What was he seeing there? What was he thinking there? Was +he in touch with this that belonged to him here? Was he sitting in some +fastness, dark and infinitely remote, and trying to rid himself of this +that belonged to him here? Was he trying to get back to it, to resume +habitation and possession and command? It was rummy. It was eerie. It +was creepy. It was like staring down into a dark pit and hearing little +tinkling sounds of some one moving there, and wondering what the devil +he was up to. Yes, it was creepy.... + +"Process of time he began to come back. He'd struck a light down there, +as you might say, and you could see the dim, mysterious glimmer of it, +moving about, imperceptibly coming up the side. Now brighter, now +fainter; now here, now there. Rummy, I can tell you. But he was _coming +up_. He was climbing up out of that place where he had been. What would +he remember? Yes, and what was he coming up to? + +"What was he coming up to? That was what began to worry me. This divorce +suit of his wife's was climbing up its place in the list. He was +climbing up out of the place where he had been and this case was +climbing up towards hearing. Do you get me? Do you get my trouble? Soon +as his head emerged up out of the pit, was he going to be bludgeoned +down into it again by going through in the Divorce Court precisely that +which had bludgeoned him down at the inquest? Was I going to get the +case held up so as to keep him for that? Or what was I going to do? I +hadn't been instructed to prepare his defence. At Brighton, when I'd +suggested it, he'd told me, politely, to go to hell. I hadn't been +instructed; no one had been instructed. And there was no defence to +prepare. There was only his bare word, only his flat denial--denial +flat, unprofitable, and totally unsupported. The only person who could +support it was the girl, and she was dead: she was much worse than dead: +she had died in atrocious circumstances, his part in which had earned +him the severe censure of the coroner's jury. His defence couldn't have +been worse. He'd tied himself in damning knots ever since he'd first set +eyes on the girl, and all he could bring to untie them was simply to +say, 'It wasn't so.' His defence was as bad as if he were to stand up +before the Divorce Court and say, 'Before she died the girl wrote and +signed a statement exonerating me and fixing the paternity on so-and-so. +He's dead, too, that so-and-so, and as for her signed statement, I'm +sorry to say I destroyed it, forgetting I should need it in this suit. I +was worried about something else at the time, and I quite forgot this +and I destroyed it.' + +"I don't say his defence would be quite so crudely insulting to the +intelligence of the court as that; but I say the whole unsupported +twisting and turning and writhing and wriggling of it was not far short +of it. + +"Well, that was how I figured it out to myself in those days, as the +case came along for hearing; and I said to myself: Was I going to put in +affidavits for a stay of hearing for the pleasure of seeing him nursed +back to life to go through that agony and ordeal of the inquest again +and come out with the same result as if he hadn't been there at all? And +I decided--no; no, thanks; not me. It was too much like patching up a +dying man in a civilised country for the pleasure of hanging him, or +like fatting up a starving man in a cannibal country for the +satisfaction of eating him. + +"And I had this. In further support of my position I had this. My +friend, the Divorce Court is a cynical institution. If a respondent and +a corespondent have been in places and in circumstances where they might +have incriminated themselves, the Divorce Court cynically assumes that, +being human, they would have incriminated themselves. 'But,' it says to +the petitioner, 'I want proof, definite and satisfactory proof of those +places and of those circumstances. That's what I want. That's what +you've got to give me.' + +"Very well. Listen to me attentively. Lend me your ears. The onus of +that proof rests on the petitioner. Because a case is undefended, it +doesn't for one single shadow of a chance follow that the petitioner's +plea is therefore going to be granted. No. The Divorce Court may be +cynical, but it's a stickler for proof. The Divorce Court says to the +petitioner, 'It's up to you. Prove it. Never mind what the other side +isn't here to deny. What you've got to do is to satisfy me, to prove to +me that these places and these circumstances were so. Go ahead. Satisfy +me if you can.' + +"So I said to myself: now the places and the circumstances of this +petition unquestionably were so. All the Sabres in the world couldn't +deny that. Let his wife go ahead and prove them to the satisfaction of +the Court, if she can. If she can't; good; no harm done that he wasn't +there to be bludgeoned anew. If she can satisfy the court, well, I say +to you, my friend, as I said then to myself, and I say it deliberately: +'If she _can_ satisfy the court--good again, better, excellent. He's +free: he's free from a bond intolerable to both of them.' + +"Right. The hearing came on and his wife did satisfy the Court. She got +her decree. He's free.... That's that.... + +"Yesterday I took my courage in both hands and told him. Yesterday +Ormond Clive said Sabre might be cautiously approached about things. For +three weeks past Clive's not let us--me or that Lady Tybar--see him. +Yesterday we were permitted again; and I took steps to be there first. I +told him. There was one thing I'd rather prayed for to help me in the +telling, and it came off--he didn't remember! He'd come out of that +place where he had been with only a confused recollection of all that +had happened to him before he went in. Like a fearful nightmare that in +the morning one remembers only vaguely and in bits. Vaguely and in bits +he remembered the inquest horror, and vaguely and in bits he remembered +the divorce matter--and he thought the one was as much over as the +other. He thought he had been divorced. I said to him, taking it as the +easiest way of breaking my news, I said to him, 'You know your wife's +divorced you, old man?' He said painfully, 'Yes, I know. I remember +that.' + +"I could have stood on my head and waved my heels with relief and joy. +Of course it will come back to him in time that the business hadn't +happened before his illness. In time he'll begin to grope after detailed +recollection, and he'll begin to realise that he never did go through it +and that it must have happened while he was ill. Well, I don't funk +that. That won't happen yet awhile; and when it does happen I'm +confident enough that something else will have happened meanwhile and +that he'll see, and thank God for it, that what is is best. There'll be +another thing too. He'll find his wife has married again. Yes, fact! I +heard in a roundabout way that she's going to marry an old neighbour of +theirs, chap called Major Millett, Hopscotch Millett, old Sabre used to +call him. However, that's not the thing--though it would be a +complication--that I mean will have happened and will make him see, and +thank God for, that what is is best. What do I mean? What will have +happened meanwhile? Well, that's telling; and I don't feel it's quite +mine to tell. Tell you what, you come around and have a look at the old +chap to-morrow. I dare bet he'll be on the road towards it by then and +perhaps tell us himself. As I was coming away yesterday I passed that +Lady Tybar going in, and I told her what I'd been saying to him and what +he remembered and what he didn't remember.... What's that got to do with +it? Well, you wait and see, my boy. You wait and see. I'll tell you +this--come on, let's be getting off to this play or we'll be late--I +tell you this, it's my belief of old Sabre that, after all he's been +through, + + "Home is the sailor, home from the sea + And the hunter home from the hill. + +Or jolly soon will be. And good luck to him. He's won out." + + +II + +Sabre, after Hapgood on the visit on which he had begun "to tell him +things", had left him, was sitting propped up in bed awaiting who next +might come. The nurse had told him he was to have visitors that morning. +He sat as a man might sit at daybreak, brooding down upon a valley +whence slowly the veiling mists dissolved. These many days they had been +lifting; there were becoming apparent to him familiar features about the +landscape. He was as one returned after long absence to his native +village and wondering to find forgotten things again, paths he had +walked, scenes he had viewed, places and people left long ago and still +enduring here. More than that: he was to go down among them. + +The door opened and one came in. Nona. + +She said to him, "Marko!" + +He had no reply that he could make. + +She slipped off a fur that she was wearing and came and sat down beside +him. She wore what he would have thought of as a kind of waistcoat +thing, cut like his own waistcoats but short; and opened above like a +waistcoat but turned back in a white rolled edging, revealing all her +throat. She had a little closefitting hat banded with flowers and a +loose veil depended from it. She put back the veil. Beauty abode in her +face as the scent within the rose, Hapgood had said; and, as perfume +deeply inhaled, her serene and tender beauty penetrated Sabre's senses, +propped up, watching her. He had something to say to her. + +"How long is it since I have seen you, Nona?" + +"It's a month since I was here, Marko." + +"I don't remember it." + +"You've been very ill; oh, so ill." + +He said slowly, "Yes, I think I've been down in a pretty deep place." + +"You're going to be splendid now, Marko." + +He did not respond to her tone. He said, "I've come on a lot in the last +few weeks. I'd an idea you'd been about me before that. I'd an idea +you'd be coming again. There's a thing I've been thinking out to tell +you." + +She breathed, "Yes, tell me, Marko." + +But he did not answer. + +She said, "Have you been thinking, in these weeks, while you've been +coming on, what you are going to do?" + +His hands, that had been crumpling up the sheet, were now laid flat +before him. His eyes, that had been regarding her, were now averted from +her, fixed ahead. "There is nothing I can do, in the way you mean." + +She was silent a little time. + +"Marko, we've not talked at all about the greatest thing--of course +they've told you?--the Armistice, the war won. England, your England +that you loved so, at peace, victorious; those dark years done. England +her own again. Your dear England, Marko." + +He said, "It's no more to do with me. Frightful things have happened to +me. Frightful things." + +She stretched a hand to his. He moved his hands away. "Marko, they're +done. I would not have spoken of them. But shall I.... Your dear England +in those years suffered frightful things. She suffered lies, calumnies, +hateful and terrible things--not in one little place but across the +world. Those who loved her trusted her and she has come through those +dark years; and those who know you have trusted you _always_, and you +are coming through those days to show to all. Time, Marko; time heals +all things, forgets all things, and proves all things. There's that for +you." + +He shook his head with a quick, decisive motion. + +She went on. "There's your book--your 'England.' You have that to go to +now. And all your plans--do you remember telling me all your plans? Such +splendid plans. And first of all your 'England' that you loved writing +so." + +He said, "It can't be. It can't be." + +She began again to speak. He said, "I don't want to hear those things. +They're done. I don't want to be told those things. They have nothing to +do with me." + +She tried to present to him indifferent subjects for his entertainment. +She could not get him to talk any more. Presently she said, with a +movement, "I am not to stay with you very long." + +He then aroused himself and spoke and had a firmness in his voice. "And +I'll tell you this," he said. "This was what I said I had to tell you. +When you go, you are not to return. I don't want to see you again." + +She drew a breath, steadying herself, "Why not, Marko?" + +"Because what's been has been. Done. I've been through frightful things. +They're on me still. They always will be on me. But from everything that +belongs to them I want to get right away. And I'm going to." + +"What are you going to do?" + +"I don't know. Only get right away." + +She got up. "Very well. I understand." She turned away. "It grieves me, +Marko. But I understand. I've always understood you." She turned again +and came close to him. "That's what you're going to do. Do you know what +I'm going to do?" + +He shook his head. He was breathing deeply. + +"I'm going to do what I ought to have done the minute I came into the +room. I hadn't quite the courage. This." + +She suddenly stooped over him. She encircled him with her arms and +slightly raised him to her. She put her lips to his and kissed him and +held him so. + +"You are never going to leave me, Marko. Never, never, never, till +death." + +He cried, "Beloved, Beloved," and clung to her. "Beloved, Beloved!" and +clung to her.... + + * * * * * + +_Postscript...._ This went through the mail bearing postmark, September, +1919: + + "And seeing in the picture newspaper photograph with printing + called 'Lady Tybar, widow of the late Lord Tybar, V.C., who is + marrying Mr. Mark Sabre (inset)' and never having been in + comfortable situation since leaving Penny Green, have expected you + might be wishing for cook and house parlourmaid as before and would + be most pleased and obliged to come to you, which if you did not + remember us at first were always called by you hi! Jinks and lo! + Jinks, and no offence ever taken, as knowing it was only your way + and friendly. And so will end now and hoping you may take us and + oblige, your obedient servants + + "Sarah Jinks (hi!) + "Rebecca Jinks (lo!)" + + + + +The End + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of If Winter Comes, by A.S.M. Hutchinson + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14145 *** |