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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Red Planet
+by William J. Locke
+(#2 in our series by William J. Locke)
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+Title: The Red Planet
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+Author: William J. Locke
+
+Release Date: July, 2003  [Etext #4287]
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+[This file was first posted on December 30, 2001]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Red Planet
+by William J. Locke
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+
+THE RED PLANET
+
+BY WILLIAM J. LOCKE
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE WONDERFUL YEAH," "JAFFERY,"
+"THE BELOVED VAGABOND," ETC.
+
+   Not only over death strewn plains,
+      Fierce mid the cold white stars,
+   But over sheltered vales of home,
+      Hides the Red Planet Mars.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RED PLANET
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+"Lady Fenimore's compliments, sir, and will you be so kind as to
+step round to Sir Anthony at once?"
+
+Heaven knows that never another step shall I take in this world
+again; but Sergeant Marigold has always ignored the fact. That is
+one of the many things I admire about Marigold. He does not throw
+my poor paralysed legs, so to speak, in my face. He accepts them
+as the normal equipment of an employer. I don't know what I should
+do without Marigold. ... You see we were old comrades in the South
+African War, where we both got badly knocked to pieces. He was
+Sergeant in my battery, and the same Boer shell did for both of
+us. At times we join in cursing that shell heartily, but I am not
+sure that we do not hold it in sneaking affection. It initiated us
+into the brotherhood of death. Shortly afterwards when we had
+crossed the border-line back into life, we exchanged, as tokens,
+bits of the shrapnel which they had extracted from our respective
+carcases. I have not enquired what he did with his bit; but I keep
+mine in a certain locked drawer. ... There were only the two of us
+left on the gun when we were knocked out. ... I should like to
+tell you the whole story, but you wouldn't listen to me. And no
+wonder. In comparison with the present world convulsion in which
+the slaughtered are reckoned by millions, the Boer War seems a
+trumpery affair of bows and arrows. I am a back-number. Still,
+back-numbers have their feelings--and their memories.
+
+I sometimes wonder, as I sit in this wheel-chair, with my
+abominable legs dangling down helplessly, what Sergeant Marigold
+thinks of me. I know what I think of Marigold. I think him the
+ugliest devil that God ever created and further marred after
+creating him. He is a long, bony creature like a knobbly ram-rod,
+and his face is about the colour and shape of a damp, mildewed
+walnut. To hide a bald head into which a silver plate has been
+fixed, he wears a luxuriant curly brown wig, like those that used
+to adorn waxen gentlemen in hair-dressing windows. His is one of
+those unhappy moustaches that stick out straight and scanty like a
+cat's. He has the slit of a letter-box mouth of the Irishman in
+caricature, and only half a dozen teeth spaced like a skeleton
+company. Nothing will induce him to procure false ones. It is a
+matter of principle. Between the wearing of false hair and the
+wearing of false teeth he makes a distinction of unfathomable
+subtlety. He is an obstinate beast. If he wasn't he would not,
+with four fingers of his right hand shot away, have remained with
+me on that gun. In the same way, neither tears nor entreaties nor
+abuse have induced him to wear a glass eye. On high days and
+holidays, whenever he desires to look smart and dashing, he covers
+the unpleasing orifice with a black shade. In ordinary workaday
+life he cares not how much he offends the aesthetic sense. But the
+other eye, the sound left eye, is a wonder--the precious jewel set
+in the head of the ugly toad. It is large, of ultra-marine blue,
+steady, fearless, humorous, tender--everything heroic and
+beautiful and romantic you can imagine about eyes. Let him clap a
+hand over that eye and you will hold him the most dreadful ogre
+that ever escaped out of a fairy tale. Let him clap a hand over
+the other eye and look full at you out of the good one and you
+will think him the Knightliest man that ever was--and in my poor
+opinion, you would not be far wrong.
+
+So, out of this nightmare of a face, the one beautiful eye of
+Sergeant Marigold was bent on me, as he delivered his message.
+
+I thrust back my chair from the writing-table.
+
+"Is Sir Anthony ill?"
+
+"He rode by the gate an hour ago looking as well as either you or
+me, sir."
+
+"That's not very reassuring," said I.
+
+Marigold did not take up the argument. "They've sent the car for
+you, sir."
+
+"In that case," said I, "I'll start immediately."
+
+Marigold wheeled my chair out of the room and down the passage to
+the hall, where he fitted me with greatcoat and hat. Then, having
+trundled me to the front gate, he picked me up--luckily I have
+always been a small spare man--and deposited me in the car. I am
+always nervous of anyone but Marigold trying to carry me. They
+seem to stagger and fumble and bungle. Marigold's arms close round
+me like an iron clamp and they lift me with the mechanical
+certainty of a crane.
+
+He jumped up beside the chauffeur and we drove off.
+
+Perhaps when I get on a little further I may acquire the trick of
+telling a story. At present I am baffled by the many things that
+clamour for prior record. Before bringing Sir Anthony on the
+scene, I feel I ought to say something more about myself, to
+explain why Lady Fenimore should have sent for me in so peremptory
+a fashion. Following the model of my favourite author Balzac--you
+need the awful leisure that has been mine to appreciate him--I
+ought to describe the house in which I live, my establishment--
+well, I have begun with Sergeant Marigold--and the little country
+town which is practically the scene of the drama in which were
+involved so many bound to me by close ties of friendship and
+affection.
+
+I ought to explain how I come to be writing this at all.
+
+Well, to fill in my time, I first started by a diary--a sort of
+War Diary of Wellingsford, the little country town in question.
+Then things happened with which my diary was inadequate to cope.
+Everyone came and told me his or her side of the story. All
+through, I found thrust upon me the parts of father-confessor,
+intermediary, judge, advocate, and conspirator.... For look you,
+what kind of a life can a man lead situated as I am? The crowning
+glory of my days, my wife, is dead. I have neither chick nor
+child. No brothers or sisters, dead or alive. The Bon Dieu and
+Sergeant Marigold (the latter assisted by his wife and a maid or
+two) look after my creature comforts. What have I in the world to
+do that is worth doing save concern myself with my country and my
+friends?
+
+With regard to my country, in these days of war, I do what I can.
+Until finally flattened out by the War Office, I pestered them for
+such employment as a cripple might undertake. As an instance of
+what a paralytic was capable I quoted Couthon, member of the
+National Convention and the Committee of Public Safety. You can
+see his chair, not very unlike mine, in the Musee Carnavalet in
+Paris. Perhaps that is where I blundered. The idea of a shrieking
+revolutionary in Whitehall must have sent a cold shiver down their
+spines. In the meanwhile, I serve on as many War Committees in
+Wellingsford as is physically possible for Sergeant Marigold to
+get me into. I address recruiting meetings. I have taken earnest
+young Territorial artillery officers in courses of gunnery. You
+know they work with my own beloved old fifteen pounders, brought
+up to date with new breeches, recoils, shields, and limbers. For
+months there was a brigade in Wellings Park, and I used to watch
+their drill. I was like an old actor coming once again before the
+footlights.... Of course it was only in the mathematics of the
+business that I could be of any help, and doubtless if the War
+Office had heard of the goings on in my study, they would have
+dropped severely on all of us. Still, I taught them lots of things
+about parabolas that they did not know and did not know were to be
+known--things that, considering the shells they fired went in
+parabolas, ought certainly to be known by artillery officers; so I
+think, in this way, I have done a little bit for my country.
+
+With regard to my friends, God has given me many in this quiet
+market town--once a Sleepy Hollow awakened only on Thursdays by
+bleating sheep and lowing cattle and red-faced men in gaiters and
+hard felt hats; its life flowing on drowsily as the gaudily
+painted barges that are towed on the canal towards which, in
+scattered buildings, it drifts aimlessly; a Sleepy Hollow with one
+broad High Street, melting gradually at each end through shops,
+villas, cottages, into the King's Highway, yet boasting in its
+central heart a hundred yards or so of splendour, where the
+truculent new red brick Post Office sneers across the flagged
+market square at the new Portland-stone Town Hall, while the old
+thatched corn-market sleeps in the middle and the Early English
+spire of the Norman church dreams calmly above them. Once, I say,
+a Sleepy Hollow, but now alive with the tramp of soldiers and the
+rumble of artillery and transport; for Wellingsford is the centre
+of a district occupied by a division, which means twenty thousand
+men of all arms, and the streets and roads swarm with men in
+khaki, and troops are billeted in all the houses. The War has
+changed many aspects, but not my old friendships. I had made a
+home here during my soldiering days, long before the South African
+War, my wife being a kinswoman of Sir Anthony, and so I have grown
+into the intimacy of many folks around. And, as they have been
+more than good to me, surely I must give them of my best in the
+way of sympathy and counsel. So it is in no spirit of curiosity
+that I have pried into my friends' affairs. They have become my
+own, very vitally my own; and this book is a record of things as I
+know them to have happened.
+
+My name is Meredyth, with a "Y," as my poor mother used proudly to
+say, though what advantage a "Y" has over an "I," save that of a
+swaggering tail, I have always been at a loss to determine; Major
+Duncan Meredyth, late R.F.A., aged forty-seven; and I live in a
+comfortable little house at the extreme north end of the High
+Street, standing some way back from the road; so that in fine
+weather I can sit in my front garden and watch everybody going
+into the town. And whenever any of my friends pass by, it is their
+kindly habit to cast an eye towards my gate, and, if I am visible,
+to pass the time of day with me for such time as they can spare.
+
+Years ago, when first I realised what would be my fate for the
+rest of my life, I nearly broke my heart. But afterwards, whether
+owing to the power of human adaptability or to the theory of
+compensation, I grew to disregard my infirmity. By building a
+series of two or three rooms on to the ground floor of the house,
+so that I could live in it without the need of being carried up
+and down stairs, and by acquiring skill in the manipulation of my
+tricycle chair, I can get about the place pretty much as I choose.
+And Marigold is my second self. So, in spite of the sorrow and
+grief incident to humanity of which God has given me my share, I
+feel that my lot is cast in pleasant places and I am thankful.
+
+The High Street, towards its southern extremity, takes a sudden
+bend, forming what the French stage directions call a pan coupe.
+On the inner angle are the gates of Wellings Park, the residence
+of Sir Anthony Fenimore, third baronet, and the most considerable
+man in our little community. Through these gates the car took me
+and down the long avenue of chestnut trees, the pride of a
+district braggart of its chestnuts and its beeches, but now
+leafless and dreary, spreading out an infinite tracery of branch
+and twig against a grey February sky. Thence we emerged into the
+open of rolling pasture and meadow on the highest ground of which
+the white Georgian house was situated. As we neared the house I
+shivered, not only with the cold, but with a premonition of
+disaster. For why should Lady Fenimore have sent for me to see Sir
+Anthony, when he, strong and hearty, could have sent for me
+himself, or, for the matter of that, could have visited me at my
+own home? The house looked stark and desolate. And when we drew up
+at the front door and Pardoe, the elderly butler, appeared, his
+face too looked stark and desolate.
+
+Marigold lifted me out and carried me up the steps and put me into
+a chair like my own which the Fenimores have the goodness to keep
+in a hall cupboard for my use.
+
+"What's the matter, Pardoe?" I asked.
+
+"Sir Anthony and her ladyship will tell you, sir. They're in the
+morning room."
+
+So I was shewn into the morning room--a noble square room with
+French windows, looking on to the wintry garden, and with a log
+fire roaring up a great chimney. On one side of the fire sat Sir
+Anthony, and on the other, Lady Fenimore. And both were crying. He
+rose as he saw me--a short, crop-haired, clean-shaven, ruddy,
+jockey-faced man of fifty-five, the corners of his thin lips,
+usually curled up in a cheery smile, now piteously drawn down, and
+his bright little eyes now dim like those of a dead bird. She,
+buxom, dark, without a grey hair in her head, a fine woman defying
+her years, buried her face in her hands and sobbed afresh.
+
+"It's good of you to come, old man," said Sir Anthony, "but you're
+in it with us."
+
+He handed me a telegram. I knew, before reading it, what message
+it contained. I had known, all along, but dared not confess it to
+myself.
+
+"I deeply regret to inform you that your son, Lieutenant Oswald
+Fenimore, was killed in action yesterday while leading his men
+with the utmost gallantry."
+
+I had known him since he was a child. By reason of my wife's
+kinship, I was "Uncle Duncan." He was just one and twenty, but a
+couple of years out of Sandhurst. Only a week before I had
+received an exuberant letter from him extolling his men as "super-
+devil-angels," and imploring me if I loved him and desired to
+establish the supremacy of British arms, to send him some of Mrs.
+Marigold's potted shrimp.
+
+And now, there he was dead; and, if lucky, buried with a little
+wooden cross with his name rudely inscribed, marking his grave.
+
+I reached out my hand.
+
+"My poor old Anthony!"
+
+He jerked his head and glance towards his wife and wheeled me to
+her side, so that I could put my hand on her shoulder.
+
+"It's bitter hard, Edith, but--"
+
+"I know, I know. But all the same--"
+
+"Well, damn it all!" cried Sir Anthony, in a quavering voice, "he
+died like a man and there's nothing more to be said."
+
+Presently he looked at his watch.
+
+"By George," said he, "I've only just time to get to my
+Committee."
+
+"What Committee?" I asked.
+
+"The Lord Lieutenant's. I promised to take the chair."
+
+For the first time Lady Fenimore lifted her stricken face.
+
+"Are you going, Anthony?"
+
+"The boy didn't shirk his duty. Why should I?"
+
+She looked at him squarely and the most poignant simulacrum of a
+smile I have ever seen flitted over her lips.
+
+"Why not, darling? Duncan will keep me company till you come
+back."
+
+He kissed his wife, a trifle more demonstratively than he had ever
+done in alien presence, and with a nod at me, went out of the
+room.
+
+And suddenly she burst into sobbing again.
+
+"I know it's wrong and wicked and foolish," she said brokenly.
+"But I can't help it. Oh, God! I can't help it."
+
+Then, like an ass, I began to cry, too; for I loved the boy, and
+that perhaps helped her on a bit.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. The tag has been all but
+outworn during these unending days of death; it has become almost
+a cant phrase which the judicious shrink from using. Yet to
+hundreds of thousands of mourning men and women there has been
+nothing but its truth to bring consolation. They are conscious of
+the supreme sacrifice and thereby are ennobled. The cause in which
+they made it becomes more sacred. The community of grief raises
+human dignity. In England, at any rate, there are no widows of
+Ashur. All are silent in their lamentations. You see little black
+worn in the public ways. The Fenimores mourned for their only son,
+the idol of their hearts; but the manifestation of their grief was
+stoical compared with their unconcealed desolation on the occasion
+of a tragedy that occurred the year before.
+
+Towards the end of the preceding June their only daughter, Althea,
+had been drowned in the canal. Here was a tragedy unrelieved,
+stupid, useless. Here was no consoling knowledge of glorious
+sacrifice; no dying for one's country. There was no dismissing it
+with a heroic word that caught in the throat.
+
+I have not started out to write this little chronicle of
+Wellingsford in order to weep over the pain of the world. God
+knows there is in it an infinity of beauty, fresh revelations of
+which are being every day unfolded before my eyes.
+
+If I did not believe with all my soul that out of Darkness cometh
+Light, I would take my old service revolver from its holster and
+blow out my brains this very minute. The eternal laughter of the
+earth has ever since its creation pierced through the mist of
+tears in which at times it has been shrouded. What has been will
+be. Nay, more, what has been shall be. It is the Law of what I
+believe to be God.... As a concrete instance, where do you find a
+fuller expression of the divine gaiety of the human spirit than in
+the Houses of Pain, strewn the length and breadth of the land,
+filled with maimed and shattered men who have looked into the jaws
+of Hell? If it comes to that, I have looked into them myself, and
+have heard the heroic jests of men who looked with me.
+
+For some years up to the outbreak of the war which has knocked all
+so-called modern values silly, my young friends, with a certain
+respectful superciliousness, regarded me as an amiable person
+hopelessly out of date. Now that we are at grip with elementals, I
+find myself, if anything, in advance of the fashion. This,
+however, by the way. What I am clumsily trying to explain is that
+if I am to make this story intelligible I must start from the
+darkness where its roots lie hidden. And that darkness is the
+black depths of the canal by the lock gates where Althea
+Fenimore's body was found.
+
+It was high June, in leafy England, in a world at peace. Can one
+picture it? With such a wrench of memory does one recall scenes of
+tender childhood. In the shelter of a stately house lived Althea
+Fenimore. She was twenty-one; pretty, buxom, like her mother,
+modern, with (to me) a pathetic touch of mid-Victorian softness
+and sentimentality; independent in outward action, what we call
+"open-air"; yet an anomaly, fond at once of games and babies. I
+have seen her in the morning tearing away across country by the
+side of her father, the most passionate and reckless rider to
+hounds in the county, and in the evening I have come across her, a
+pretty mass of pink flesh and muslin--no, it can't be muslin--say
+chiffon--anyhow, something white and filmy and girlish--curled up
+on a sofa and absorbed in a novel of Mrs. Henry Wood, borrowed, if
+one could judge by the state of its greasy brown paper cover, from
+the servants' hall. I confess that, though to her as to her
+brother I was "Uncle Duncan," and loved her as a dear, sweet
+English girl, I found her lacking in spirituality, in intellectual
+grasp, in emotional distinction. I should have said that she was
+sealed by God to be the chaste, healthy, placid mother of men. She
+was forever laughing--just the spontaneous laughter of the
+gladness of life.
+
+On the last afternoon of her existence she came to see me,
+bringing me a basket of giant strawberries from her own particular
+bed. We had tea in the garden, and with her young appetite she
+consumed half the fruit she had brought. At the time I did not
+notice an unusual touch of depression. I remember her holding by
+its stalk a great half-eaten strawberry and asking me whether
+sometimes I didn't find life rather rotten. I said idly:
+
+"You can't expect the world to be a peach without a speck on it.
+Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. The wise person avoids the
+specks."
+
+"But suppose you've bitten a specky bit by accident?"
+
+"Spit it out," said I.
+
+She laughed. "You think you're like the wise Uncle in the Sunday
+School books, don't you?"
+
+"I know I am," I said.
+
+Whereupon she laughed again, finished the strawberry, and changed
+the conversation.
+
+There seemed to be no foreshadowing of tragedy in that. I had
+known her (like many of her kind) to proclaim the rottenness of
+the Universe when she was off her stroke at golf, or when a
+favourite young man did not appear at a dance. I attributed no
+importance to it. But the next day I remembered. What was she
+doing after half-past ten o'clock, when she had bidden her father
+and mother goodnight, on the steep and lonely bank of the canal,
+about a mile and a half away? No one had seen her leave the house.
+No one, apparently, had seen her walking through the town. Nothing
+was known of her until dawn when they found her body by the lock
+gate. She had been dead some hours. It was a mysterious affair,
+upon which no light was thrown at the inquest. No one save myself
+had observed any sign of depression, and her half-bantering talk
+with me was trivial enough. No one could adduce a reason for her
+midnight walk on the tow-path. The obvious question arose. Whom
+had she gone forth to meet? What man? There was not a man in the
+neighbourhood with whom her name could be particularly associated.
+Generally, it could be associated with a score or so. The modern
+young girl of her position and upbringing has a drove of young
+male intimates. With one she rides, with another she golfs, with
+another she dances a two-step, with another she Bostons; she will
+let Tom read poetry to her, although, as she expresses it, "he
+bores her stiff," because her sex responds to the tribute; she
+plays lady patroness to Dick, and tries to intrigue him into a
+soft job; and as for Harry she goes on telling him month after
+month that unless he forswears sack and lives cleanly she will
+visit him with her high displeasure. Meanwhile, most of these
+satellites have affaires de coeur of their own, some respectable,
+others not; they regard the young lady with engaging frankness as
+a woman and a sister, they have the run of her father's house, and
+would feel insulted if anybody questioned the perfect correctness
+of their behaviour. Each man has, say, half a dozen houses where
+he is welcomed on the same understanding. Of course, when one
+particular young man and one particular young woman read lunatic
+things in each other's eyes, then the rest of the respective
+quasi-sisters and quasi-brothers have to go hang. (In parenthesis,
+I may state that the sisters are more ruthlessly sacrificed than
+the brothers.) At any rate, frankness is the saving quality of the
+modern note.
+
+In the case of Althea, there had been no sign of such
+specialisation. She could not have gone forth, poor child, to meet
+the twenty with whom she was known to be on terms of careless
+comradeship. She had gone from her home, driven by God knows what
+impulse, to walk in the starlight--there was no moon--along the
+banks of the canal. In the darkness, had she missed her footing
+and stepped into nothingness and the black water? The Coroner's
+Jury decided the question in the affirmative. They brought in a
+verdict of death by misadventure. And up to the date on which I
+begin this little Chronicle of Wellingsford, namely that of the
+summons to Wellings Park, when I heard of the death of young
+Oswald Fenimore, that is all I knew of the matter.
+
+Throughout July my friends were like dead people. There was
+nothing that could be said to them by way of consolation. The sun
+had gone out of their heaven. There was no light in the world.
+Having known Death as a familiar foe, and having fought against
+its terrors; having only by the grace of God been able to lift up
+a man's voice in my hour of awful bereavement, and cry, "O Death,
+where is thy sting, O Grave, thy Victory?" I could suffer with
+them and fear for their reason. They lived in a state of coma,
+unaware of life, performing, like automata, their daily tasks.
+
+Then, in the early days of August, came the Trumpet of War, and
+they awakened. In my life have I seen nothing so marvellous. No
+broken spell of enchantment in an Arabian tale when dead warriors
+spring into life was ever more instant and complete. They arose in
+their full vigour; the colour came back to their cheeks and the
+purpose into their eyes. They laughed once more. Their days were
+filled with work and cheerfulness. In November Sir Anthony was
+elected Mayor. Being a practical, hard-headed little man, loved
+and respected by everybody, he drove a hitherto contentious Town
+Council into paths of high patriotism like a flock of sheep. And
+no less energy did Lady Fenimore exhibit in the sphere of her own
+activities.
+
+A few days after the tidings came of Oswald's death, Sir Anthony
+was riding through the town and pulled up before Perkins' the
+fishmonger's. Perkins emerged from his shop and crossed the
+pavement.
+
+"I hear you've had bad news."
+
+"Yes, indeed, Sir Anthony."
+
+"I'm sorry. He was a fine fellow. So was my boy. We're in the same
+boat, Perkins."
+
+Perkins assented. "It sort of knocks one's life to bits, doesn't
+it?" said he. "We've nothing left."
+
+"We have our country."
+
+"Our country isn't our only son," said the other dully.
+
+"No. She's our mother," said Sir Anthony.
+
+"Isn't that a kind of abstraction?"
+
+"Abstraction!" cried Sir Anthony, indignantly. "You must be
+imbibing the notions of that poisonous beast Gedge."
+
+Gedge was a smug, socialistic, pacifist builder who did not hold
+with war--and with this one least of all, which he maintained was
+being waged for the exclusive benefit of the capitalist classes.
+In the eyes of the stalwarts of Wellingsford, he was a horrible
+fellow, capable of any stratagem or treason.
+
+Perkins flushed. "I've always voted conservative, like my father
+before me, Sir Anthony, and like yourself I've given my boy to my
+country. I've no dealings with unpatriotic people like Gedge, as
+you know very well."
+
+"Of course I do," cried Sir Anthony. "And that's why I ask you
+what the devil you mean by calling England an abstraction. For us,
+she's the only thing in the world. We're elderly chaps, you and I,
+Perkins, and the only thing we can do to help her is to keep our
+heads high. If people like you and me crumple up, the British
+Empire will crumple up."
+
+"That's quite true," said Perkins.
+
+Sir Anthony bent down and held out his hand.
+
+"It's damned hard lines for us, and for the women. But we must
+keep our end up. It's doing our bit."
+
+Perkins wrung his hand. "I wish to God," said he, "I was young
+enough--"
+
+"By God! so do I!" said Sir Anthony.
+
+This little conversation (which I afterwards verified) was
+reported to me by my arch-gossip, Sergeant Marigold.
+
+"And I tell you what, sir," said he after the conclusion, "I'm of
+the same way of thinking and feeling."
+
+"So am I."
+
+"Besides, I'm not so old, sir. I'm only forty-two."
+
+"The prime of life," said I.
+
+"Then why won't they take me, sir?"
+
+If there had been no age limit and no medical examination Marigold
+would have re-enlisted as John Smith, on the outbreak of war,
+without a moment's consideration of the position of his wife and
+myself. And Mrs. Marigold, a soldier's wife of twenty years'
+standing, would have taken it, just like myself, as a matter of
+course. But as he could not re-enlist, he pestered the War Office
+(just as I did) and I pestered for him to give him military
+employment. And all in vain.
+
+"Why don't they take me, sir? When I see these fellows with three
+stripes on their arms, and looking at them and wondering at them
+as if they were struck three stripes by lightning, and calling
+themselves Sergeants and swanking about and letting their men
+waddle up to their gun like cows--and when I see them, as I've
+done with your eyes--watch one of their men pass by an officer in
+the street without saluting, and don't kick the blighter to--to--
+to barracks--it fairly makes me sick. And I ask myself, sir, what
+I've done that I should be loafing here instead of serving my
+country."
+
+"You've somehow mislaid an eye and a hand and gone and got a tin
+head. That's what you've done," said I. "And the War Office has a
+mark against you as a damned careless fellow."
+
+"Tin head or no tin head," he grumbled, "I could teach those
+mother's darlings up there the difference between a battery of
+artillery and a skittle-ally."
+
+"I believe you've mentioned the matter to them already," I
+observed softly.
+
+Marigold met my eye for a second and then looked rather sheepish.
+I had heard of a certain wordy battle between him and a
+Territorial Sergeant whom he had set out to teach. Marigold
+encountered a cannonade of blasphemous profanity, new, up-to-date,
+scientific, against which the time-worn expletives in use during
+his service days were ineffectual. He was routed with heavy loss.
+
+"This is a war of the young," I continued. "New men, new guns, new
+notions. Even a new language," I insinuated.
+
+"I wish 'em joy of their language," said Marigold. Then seeing
+that I was mildly amusing myself at his expense, he asked me
+stiffly if there was anything more that he could do for me, and on
+my saying no, he replied "Thank you, sir," most correctly and left
+the room.
+
+On the 3d of March Betty Fairfax came to tea.
+
+Of all the young women of Wellingsford she was my particular
+favourite. She was so tall and straight, with a certain Rosalind
+boyishness about her that made for charm. I am not yet, thank
+goodness, one of the fossils who hold up horror-stricken hands at
+the independent ways of the modern young woman. If it were not for
+those same independent ways the mighty work that English women are
+doing in this war would be left undone. Betty Fairfax was breezily
+independent. She had a little money of her own and lived, when it
+suited her, with a well-to-do and comfortable aunt. She was two
+and twenty. I shall try to tell you more about her, as I go on.
+
+As I have said, and as my diary tells me, she came to tea on the
+3d of March. She was looking particularly attractive that
+afternoon. Shaded lamps and the firelight of a cosy room, with all
+their soft shadows, give a touch of mysterious charm to a pretty
+girl. Her jacket had a high sort of Medici collar edged with fur,
+which set off her shapely throat. The hair below her hat was soft
+and brown. Her brows were wide, her eyes brown and steady, nose
+and lips sensitive. She had a way of throwing back her head and
+pointing her chin fearlessly, as though in perpetual declaration
+that she cared not a hang either for black-beetles or Germans. And
+she was straight as a dart, with the figure of a young Diana--
+Diana before she began to worry her head about beauty
+competitions. A kind of dark hat stuck at a considerable angle on
+her head gave her the prettiest little swaggering air in the
+world. ... Well, there was I, a small, brown, withered, grizzled,
+elderly, mustachioed monkey, chained to my wheel-chair; there were
+the brave logs blazing up the wide chimney; there was the tea
+table on my right with its array of silver and old china; and
+there, on the other side of it, attending to my wants, sat as
+brave and sweet a type of young English womanhood as you could
+find throughout the length and breadth of the land. Had I not been
+happy, I should have been an ungrateful dog.
+
+We talked of the war, of local news, of the wounded at the
+hospital.
+
+And here I must say that we are very proud of our Wellingsford
+Hospital. It is the largest and the wealthiest in the county. We
+owe it to the uneasy conscience of a Wellingsford man, a railway
+speculator in the forties, who, having robbed widows and orphans
+and, after trial at the Old Bailey, having escaped penal servitude
+by the skin of his teeth, died in the odour of sanctity, and the
+possessor of a colossal fortune in the year eighteen sixty-three.
+This worthy gentleman built the hospital and endowed it so
+generously that a wing of it has been turned into a military
+hospital with forty beds. I have the honour to serve on the
+Committee. Betty Fairfax entered as a Probationer early in
+September, and has worked there night and day ever since. That is
+why we chatted about the wounded. Having a day off, she had
+indulged in the luxury of pretty clothes. Of these I had duly
+expressed my admiration.
+
+Tea over, she lit a cigarette for me and one for herself and drew
+her chair a trifle nearer the fire. After a little knitting of the
+brow, she said:--
+
+"You haven't asked me why I invited myself to tea."
+
+"I thought," said I, "it was for my beaux yeux."
+
+"Not this time. I rather wanted you to be the first to receive a
+certain piece of information."
+
+I glanced at her sharply. "You don't mean to say you're going to
+be married at last?"
+
+In some astonishment she retorted:--
+
+"How did you guess?"
+
+"Holy simplicity!" said I. "You told me so yourself."
+
+She laughed. Suddenly, on reflection, her face changed.
+
+"Why did you say 'at last'?"
+
+"Well--" said I, with a significant gesture.
+
+She made a defiant announcement:--
+
+"I am going to marry Willie Connor."
+
+"It was my turn to be astonished. "Captain Connor?" I echoed.
+
+"Yes. What have you to say against him?"
+
+"Nothing, my dear, nothing."
+
+And I hadn't. He was an exemplary young fellow, a Captain in a
+Territorial regiment that had been in hard training in the
+neighbourhood since August. He was of decent family and
+upbringing, a barrister by profession, and a comely pink-faced boy
+with a fair moustache. He brought a letter or two of introduction,
+was billeted on Mrs. Fairfax, together with one of his subs, and
+was made welcome at various houses. Living under the same roof as
+Betty, it was natural that he should fall in love with her. But it
+was not at all natural that she should fall in love with him. She
+was not one of the kind that suffer fools gladly. ... No; I had
+nothing against Willie Connor. He was merely a common-place,
+negative young man; patriotic, keen in his work, an excellent
+soldier, and, as far as I knew, of blameless life; but having met
+him two or three times in general company, I had found him a dull
+dog, a terribly dull dog,--the last man in the world for Betty
+Fairfax.
+
+And then there was Leonard Boyce. I naturally had him in my head,
+when I used the words "at last."
+
+"You don't seem very enthusiastic," said Betty.
+
+"You've taken me by surprise," said I. "I'm not young enough to be
+familiar with these sudden jerks."
+
+"You thought it was Major Boyce."
+
+"I did, Betty. True, you've said nothing about it to me for ever
+so long, and when I have asked you for news of him your answers
+have shewed me that all was not well. But you've never told me, or
+anyone, that the engagement was broken off."
+
+Her young face was set sternly as she looked into the fire.
+
+"It's not broken off--in the formal sense. Leonard thought fit to
+let it dwindle, and it has dwindled until it has perished of
+inanition." She flashed round. "I'm not the sort to ask any man
+for explanations."
+
+"Boyce went out with the first lot in August," I said. "He has had
+seven awful months. Mons and all the rest of it. You must excuse a
+man in the circumstances for not being aux petits soins des dames.
+And he seems to be doing magnificently--twice mentioned in
+dispatches."
+
+"I know all that," she said. "I'm not a fool. But the war has
+nothing to do with it. It started a month before the war broke
+out. Don't let us talk of it."
+
+She threw the end of her cigarette into the fire and lit a fresh
+one. I accepted the action as symbolical. I dismissed Boyce, and
+said:--
+
+"And so you're engaged to Captain Connor?"
+
+"More than that," she laughed. "I'm going to marry him. He's going
+out next week. It's idiotic to have an engagement. So I'm going to
+marry him the day after to-morrow."
+
+Now here was a piece of news, all flung at my head in a couple of
+minutes. The day after to-morrow! I asked for the reason of this
+disconcerting suddenness.
+
+"He's going out next week."
+
+"My dear," said I, "I have known you for a very long time--and I
+suppose it's because I'm such a very old friend that you've come
+to tell me all about it. So I can talk to you frankly. Have you
+considered the terrible chances of this war? Heaven knows what may
+happen. He may be killed."
+
+"That's why I'm marrying him," she said.
+
+There was a little pause. For the moment I had nothing to say, as
+I was busily searching for her point of view. Then, with pauses
+between each sentence, she went on:--
+
+"He asked me two months ago, and again a month ago. I told him to
+put such ideas out of his head. Yesterday he told me they were off
+to the front and said what a wonderful help it would be to him if
+he could carry away some hope of my love. So I gave it to him."--
+She threw back her head and looked at me, with flushed cheeks.
+"The love, not the hope."
+
+"I don't think it was right of him to press for an immediate
+marriage," said I, in a grandfatherly way--though God knows if I
+had been mad for a girl I should have done the same myself when I
+was young.
+
+"He didn't" said Betty, coolly. "It was all my doing. I fixed it
+up there and then. Looked up Whitaker's Almanack for the necessary
+information, and sent him off to get a special license."
+
+I nodded a non-committal head. It all seemed rather mad. Betty
+rose and from her graceful height gazed down on me.
+
+"If you don't look more cheerful, Major, I shall cry. I've never
+done so yet, but I'm sure I've got it in me."
+
+I stretched out my hand. She took it, and, still holding it,
+seated herself on a footstool close to my chair.
+
+"There are such a lot of things that occur to me," I said. "Things
+that your poor mother, if she were alive, would be more fitted to
+touch on than myself."
+
+"Such as--"
+
+She knelt by me and gave me both her hands. It was a pretty way
+she had. She had begun it soon after her head overtopped mine in
+my eternal wheelbarrow. There was a little mockery in her eyes.
+
+"Well--" said I. "You know what marriage means. There is the
+question of children."
+
+She broke into frank laughter.
+
+"My darling Majy--" That is the penalty one pays for admitting
+irresponsible modern young people into one's intimacy. They
+miscall one abominably. I thought she had outgrown this childish,
+though affectionate appellation of disrespect. "My darling Majy!"
+she said. "Children! How many do you think I'm going to have?"
+
+I was taken aback. There was this pure, proud, laughing young face
+a foot away from me. I said in desperation:--
+
+"You know very well what I mean, young woman. I want to put things
+clearly before you--" It is the most difficult thing in the world
+for a man--even without legs--to talk straight about the facts of
+life to a young girl. He has no idea how much she knows about them
+and how much she doesn't. To tear away veils and reveal
+frightening starkness is an act from which he shrinks with all the
+modesty of a (perhaps) deluded sex. I took courage. "I want," I
+repeated, "to put things clearly before you. You are marrying this
+young man. You will have a week's married life. He goes away like
+a gallant fellow to fight for his country. He may be killed in the
+course of the next few weeks. Like a brave girl you've got to face
+it. In the course of time a child may be born--without a father
+to look after him. It's a terrific responsibility."
+
+She knelt upright and put both her hands on my shoulders, almost
+embracing me, and the laughter died away from her eyes, giving
+place to something which awakened memories of what I had seen once
+or twice in the eyes of the dearest of all women. She put her face
+very close to mine and whispered:
+
+"Don't you see, dear, it's in some sort of way because of that?
+Don't you think it would be awful for a strong, clean, brave
+English life like his to go out without leaving behind him someone
+to--well, you know what I mean--to carry on the same traditions--
+to be the same clean brave Englishman in the future?"
+
+I smiled and nodded. Quite a different kind of nod from the
+previous one.
+
+"Thousands of girls are doing it, you dear old Early Victorian,
+and aren't ashamed to say so to those who really love and can
+understand them. And you do love and understand, don't you?"
+
+She set me off at arm's length, and held me with her bright
+unflinching eyes.
+
+"I do, my dear," said I. "But there's only one thing that troubles
+me. Marriage is a lifelong business. Captain Connor may win
+through to a green old age. I hope to God the gallant fellow will.
+Your present motives are beautiful and heroic. But do you care for
+him sufficiently to pass a lifetime with him--after the war--an
+ordinary, commonplace lifetime?"
+
+With the same clear gaze full on me she said:--
+
+"Didn't I tell you that I had given him my love?"
+
+"You did."
+
+"Then," she retorted with a smile, "my dear Major Didymus, what
+more do you want?"
+
+"Nothing, my dear Betty."
+
+I kissed her. She threw her arms round my neck and kissed me
+again. Sergeant Marigold entered on the sentimental scene and
+preserved a face of wood. Betty rose to her feet slowly and
+serenely and smiled at Marigold.
+
+"Miss Fairfax's car," he announced.
+
+"Marigold," said I, "Miss Fairfax is going to be married the day
+after to-morrow to Captain Connor of the--"
+
+"I know, sir," interrupted my one-eyed ramrod. "I'm very glad, if
+I may be permitted to say so, Miss. I've made it my duty to
+inspect all the troops that have been quartered hereabouts during
+the last eight months. And Captain Connor is one of the few that
+really know their business. I shouldn't at all mind to serve under
+him. I can't say more, Miss. I wish you happiness."
+
+She flushed and laughed and looked adorable, and held out her
+hand, which he enclosed in his great left fist.
+
+"And you'll come to my wedding, Sergeant?"
+
+"I will, Miss," said he. "With considerable pleasure."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+When I want to shew how independent I am of everybody, I drive
+abroad in my donkey carriage. I am rather proud of my donkey, a
+lithe-limbed pathetically eager little beast, deep bay with white
+tips to his ears. Marigold bought him for me last spring, from
+some gipsies, when his predecessor, Dan, who had served me
+faithfully for some years, struck work and insisted on an old-age
+pension. He is called Hosea, a name bestowed on him, by way of
+clerical joke, and I am sure with a profane reminiscence of
+Jorrocks, by the Vicar, because he "came after Daniel." At first I
+thought it rather silly; but when I tried to pull him up I found
+that "Whoa-Ho-sea!" came in rather pat; so Hosea he has remained.
+He has quite a fast, stylish little trot, and I can square my
+elbows and cock my head on one side as I did in the days of my
+youth when the brief ownership of a tandem and a couple of
+thoroughbreds would have landed me in the bankruptcy court, had it
+not mercifully first landed me in the hospital.
+
+The afternoon after Betty's visit, I took Hosea to Wellings Park.
+The Fenimores shewed me a letter they had received from Oswald's
+Colonel, full of praise of the gallant boy, and after discussing
+it, which they did with brave eyes and voices, Sir Anthony said:--
+
+"I want your advice, Duncan, on a matter that has been worrying us
+both. Briefly it is this. When Oswald came of age I promised to
+allow him a thousand a year till I should be wiped out and he
+should come in. Now I'm only fifty-five and as strong as a horse.
+I can reasonably expect to live, say, another twenty years. If
+Oswald were alive I should owe him, in prospectu, twenty thousand
+pounds. He has given his life for his country. His country,
+therefore, is his heir, comes in for his assets, his twenty years'
+allowance--"
+
+"And the whole of your estate at your death?" I interposed.
+
+"No. Not at all," said he. "At my death, it would have been his to
+dispose of as he pleased. Up to my death, he would have had no
+more claim to deal with it than you have. Look at things from my
+point of view, and don't be idiotic. I am considering my debt to
+Oswald, and therefore, logically, my debt to the country. It is
+twenty thousand pounds. I'm going to pay it. The only question is
+--and the question has kept Edith and myself awake the last two
+nights--is what's the best thing to do with it? Of course I could
+give it to some fund,--or several funds,--but it's a lot of money
+and I should like it to be used to the best advantage. Now what do
+you say?"
+
+"I say," said I, "that you Croesuses make a half-pay Major of
+Artillery's head reel. If I were like you, I should go into a shop
+and buy a super-dreadnought, and stick a card on it with a
+drawing pin, and send it to the Admiralty with my compliments."
+
+"Duncan," said Lady Fenimore, severely, "don't be flippant."
+
+Heaven knows I was in no flippant mood; but it was worth a foolish
+jest to bring a smile to Sir Anthony's face. Also this grave,
+conscientious proposition had its humorous side. It was so
+British. It reminded me of the story of Swift, who, when Gay and
+Pope visited him and refused to sup, totted up the cost of the
+meal and insisted on their accepting half-a-crown apiece. It
+reminded me too of the rugged old Lancashire commercial blood that
+was in him--blood that only shewed itself on the rarest and
+greatest of occasions--the blood of his grandfather, the
+Manchester cotton-spinner, who founded the fortunes of his house.
+Sir Anthony knew less about cotton than he did about ballistics
+and had never sat at a desk in a business office for an hour in
+his life; but now and again the inherited instinct to put high
+impulses on a scrupulously honest commercial basis asserted itself
+in the quaintest of fashions.
+
+"There's some sense in what he says, Edith," remarked Sir Anthony.
+"It's only vanity that prompted us to ear-mark this sum for
+something special."
+
+"Vanity!" cried Lady Fenimore. "You weren't by any chance thinking
+of advertising our gift or contribution or whatever you like to
+call it in the Daily Mail?"
+
+"Heaven forbid, my dear," Sir Anthony replied warmly; and he
+stood, his hands under his coat-tails and his gaitered legs
+apart, regarding her with the air of a cock-sparrow accused of
+murdering his young, or a sensitive jockey repudiating a
+suggestion of crooked riding. "Heaven forbid!" he repeated. "Such
+an idea never entered my head."
+
+"Then where does the vanity come in?" asked Lady Fenimore.
+
+They had their little argument. I lit a cigarette and let them
+argue. In such cases, every married couple has its own queer and
+private and particular and idiosyncratic way of coming to an
+agreement. The third party who tries to foist on it his own
+suggestion of a way is an imbecile. The dispute on the point of
+vanity, charmingly conducted, ended by Sir Anthony saying
+triumphantly:--
+
+"Well, my dear, don't you see I'm right?" and by his wife replying
+with a smile:--
+
+"No, darling, I don't see at all. But since you feel like that,
+there's nothing more to be said."
+
+I was mildly enjoying myself. Perhaps I'm a bit of a cynic. I
+broke in.
+
+"I don't think it's vanity to see that you get your money's worth.
+There's lots of legitimate fun in spending twenty thousand pounds
+properly. It's too big to let other people manage or mis-manage.
+Suppose you decided on motor-ambulances or hospital trains, for
+instance, it would be your duty to see that you got the best and
+most up-to-date ambulances or trains, with the least possible
+profits, to contractors and middle-men."
+
+"As far as that goes, I think I know my way about," said Sir
+Anthony.
+
+"Of course. And as for publicity--or the reverse, hiding your
+light under a bushel--any fool can remain anonymous."
+
+Sir Anthony nodded at me, rubbed his hands, and turned to his
+wife.
+
+"That's just what I was saying, Edith."
+
+"My dear, that is just what I was trying to make you understand."
+
+Neither of the two dear things had said, or given the other to
+understand, anything of the kind. But you see they had come in
+their own quaint married way to an agreement and were now
+receptive of commonsense.
+
+"The motor ambulance is a sound idea," said Sir Anthony, rubbing
+his chin between thumb and forefinger.
+
+"So is the hospital train," said Lady Fenimore.
+
+What an idiot I was to suggest these alternatives! I looked at my
+watch. It was getting late. Hosea, like a silly child, is afraid
+of the dark. He just stands still and shivers at the night, and
+the more he is belaboured the more he shivers, standing stock-
+still with ears thrown back and front legs thrown forward. As I
+can't get out and pull, I'm at the mercy of Hosea. And he knows
+it. Since the mount of Balaam, there was never such an intelligent
+idiot of an ass.
+
+"What do you say?" asked Sir Anthony. "Ambulance or train?"
+
+"Donkey carriage," said I. "This very moment minute."
+
+I left them and trotted away homewards.
+
+Just as I had turned a bend of the chestnut avenue near the Park
+gates, I came upon a couple of familiar figures--familiar, that is
+to say, individually, but startlingly unfamiliar in conjunction.
+They were a young man and girl, Randall Holmes and Phyllis Gedge.
+Randall had concluded a distinguished undergraduate career at
+Oxford last summer. He was a man of birth, position, and, to a
+certain extent, of fortune. Phyllis Gedge was the daughter, the
+pretty and attractive daughter, of Daniel Gedge, the socialistic
+builder who did not hold with war. What did young Randall mean by
+walking in the dark with his arm round Phyllis's waist? Of course
+as soon as he heard the click-clack of Hosea's hoofs he whipped
+his arm away; but I had already caught him. They tried to look
+mighty unconcerned as I pulled up. I took off my hat politely to
+the lady and held out my hand to the young man.
+
+"Good evening, Randall," said I. "I haven't seen you for ages."
+
+He was a tall, clean-limbed, clear-featured boy, with black hair,
+which though not long, yet lacked the military trimness befitting
+the heads of young men at the present moment. He murmured
+something about being busy.
+
+"It will do you good to take a night off," I said; "drop in after
+dinner and smoke a pipe with an old friend."
+
+I smiled, bowed again politely, whipped up Hosea and trotted off.
+I wondered whether he would come. He had said: "Delighted, I'm
+sure," but he had not looked delighted. Very possibly he regarded
+me as a meddlesome, gossiping old tom-cat. Perhaps for that reason
+he would deem it wise to adopt a propitiatory attitude. Perhaps
+also he retained a certain affectionate respect for me, seeing
+that I had known him as a tiny boy in a sailor suit, and had fed
+him at Harrow (as I did poor Oswald Fenimore at Wellington) with
+Mrs. Marigold's famous potted shrimp and other comestibles, and
+had put him up, during here and there holidays and later a
+vacation, when his mother and aunts, with whom he lived, had gone
+abroad to take inefficacious cures for the tedium of a futile
+life. Oxford, however, had set him a bit off my plane.
+
+As an ordinary soldierman, trained in the elementary virtues of
+plain-speaking and direct dealing, love of country and the
+sacredness of duty, I have had no use for the metaphysician. I
+haven't the remotest notion what his jargon means. From Aristotle
+to William James, I have dipped into quite a lot of them--
+Descartes, Berkeley, Kant, Schopenhauer (the thrice besotted
+Teutonic ass who said that women weren't beautiful), for I hate to
+be thought an ignorant duffer--and I have never come across in
+them anything worth knowing, thinking, or doing that I was not
+taught at my mother's knee. And as for her, dear, simple soul, if
+you had asked her what was the Categorical Imperative (having
+explained beforehand the meaning of the words), she would have
+said, "The Sermon on the Mount."
+
+Of course, please regard this as a criticism not of the
+metaphysicians and the philosophers, but of myself. All these
+great thinkers have their niches in the Temple of Fame, and I'm
+quite aware that the consensus of human judgment does not
+immortalise even such an ass as Schopenhauer, without sufficient
+reason. All I want to convey to you is that I am only a plain,
+ordinary God-fearing, law-abiding Englishman, and that when young
+Randall Holmes brought down from Oxford all sorts of highfalutin
+theories about everything, not only in God's Universe, but in the
+super-Universe that wasn't God's, and of every one of which he was
+cocksure, I found my homely self very considerably out of it.
+
+Then--young Randall was a poet. He had won the Newdigate. The
+subject was Andrea del Sarto, one of my favourite painters--il
+pittore senza errore--and his prize poem--it had, of course, to be
+academic in form--was excellent. It said just the things about him
+which Browning somehow missed, and which I had always been
+impotently wanting to say. And a year or so afterwards--when I
+praised his poem--he would shrink in a more than deprecating
+attitude: I might just as well have extolled him for seducing the
+wife of his dearest friend. His later poems, of which he was
+immodestly proud--"Sensations Captured on the Wing," he defined
+them--left me cold and unsympathetic. So, for these reasons, the
+boy and I had drifted apart. Until I had caught him in flagrante
+delicto of walking with his arm round the waist of pretty Phyllis
+Gedge, I had not seen him to speak to for a couple of months.
+
+He came, however, after dinner, looking very sleek and handsome
+and intellectual, and wearing a velvet dinner jacket which I did
+not like. After we had gossiped awhile:--
+
+"You said you were very busy?" I remarked.
+
+He flicked off his cigarette ash and nodded.
+
+"What at?"
+
+"War poetry," he replied. "I am trying to supply the real note. It
+is badly wanted. There are all kinds of stuff being written, but
+all indifferent and valueless. If it has a swing, it's merely
+vulgar, and what isn't vulgar is academic, commonplace. There's a
+crying need for the high level poetry that shall interpret with
+dignity and nobility the meaning of the war."
+
+"Have you written much?"
+
+"I have an ode every week in the Albemarle Review. I also write
+the political article. Didn't you know? Haven't you seen them?"
+
+"I don't take in that periodical," said I. "The omniscience of the
+last copy I saw dismayed me. I couldn't understand why the
+Government were such insensate fools as not to move from Downing
+Street to their Editorial offices."
+
+Randall, with a humouring smile, defended the Albemarle Review.
+
+"It is run," said he, "by a little set of intellectuals--some men
+up with me at Oxford--who must naturally have a clearer vision
+than men who have been living for years in the yellow fog of party
+politics."
+
+He expounded the godlike wisdom of young Oxford at some length,
+replying vividly to here and there a Socratic interpolation on my
+part. After a while I began to grow irritated. His talk, like his
+verse, seemed to deal with unrealities. It was a negation of
+everything, save the intellectual. If he and his friends had been
+in power, there would never have been a war; there never would
+have been a German menace; the lamb would have lain down in peace,
+outside the lion. He had an airy way of dismissing the ruder and
+more human aspects of the war. Said I:--
+
+"Anyone can talk of what might have been. But that's all over and
+done with. We're up against the tough proposition of the present.
+What are you doing for it?"
+
+He waved a hand. "That's just the point. The present doesn't
+matter--not in the wide conception of things. It is the past and
+the future that count. The present is mere fluidity."
+
+"The poor devils up to their waists in water in the trenches would
+agree with you," said I.
+
+"They would also agree with me," he retorted, "if they had time to
+go into the reconstruction of the future that we are
+contemplating."
+
+At this juncture Marigold came in with the decanters and syphons.
+I noticed his one eye harden on the velvet dinner-jacket. He
+fidgeted about the room, threw a log on the fire, drew the
+curtains closer, always with an occasional malevolent glance at
+the jacket. Then Randall, like a silly young ass, said, from the
+depths of his easy chair, a very silly thing.
+
+"I see you've not managed to get into khaki yet, Sergeant."
+
+Marigold took a tactical pace or two to the door.
+
+"Neither have you, sir," he said in a respectful tone, and went
+out.
+
+Randall laughed, though I saw his dark cheek flush. "If Marigold
+had his way he would have us all in a barrack square."
+
+"Preferably in those fluid trenches of the present," said I. "And
+he wouldn't be far wrong."
+
+My eyes rested on him somewhat stonily. People have complained
+sometimes--defaulters, say, in the old days--that there can be a
+beastly, nasty look in them.
+
+"What do you mean, Major?" he asked.
+
+"Sergeant Marigold," said I, "is a brave, patriotic Englishman who
+has given his country all he can spare from the necessary physical
+equipment to carry on existence; and it's making him hang-dog
+miserable that he's not allowed to give the rest to-morrow. You
+must forgive his plain speaking," I continued, gathering warmth as
+I went on, "but he can't understand healthy young fellows like you
+not wanting to do the same. And, for the matter of that, my dear
+Randall, neither do I. Why aren't you serving your country?"
+
+He started forward in his chair and threw out his arms, and his
+dark eyes flashed and a smile of conscious rectitude overspread
+his clear-cut features.
+
+"My dear Major--serving my country? Why, I'm working night and day
+for it. You don't understand."
+
+"I've already told you I don't."
+
+The boy was my guest. I had not intended to hold a pistol to his
+head in one hand and dangle a suit of khaki before his eyes in the
+other. I had been ill at ease concerning him for months, but I had
+proposed to regain his confidence in a tactful, fatherly way.
+Instead of which I found myself regarding him with my beastly
+defaulter glare. The blood sometimes flies to one's head.
+
+He condescended to explain.
+
+"There are millions of what the Germans call 'cannon fodder'
+about. But there are few intellects--few men, shall I say?--of
+genius, scarcely a poet. And men like myself who can express--
+that's the whole vital point--who can EXPRESS the higher
+philosophy of the Empire, and can point the way to its realisation
+are surely more valuable than the yokel or factory hand, who, as
+the sum-total of his capabilities, can be trained merely into a
+sort of shooting machine. Just look at it, my dear Major, from a
+commonsense point of view--" He forgot, the amazing young idiot,
+that he was talking not to a maiden aunt, but to a hard-bitten old
+soldier. "What good would it serve to stick the comparatively rare
+man--I say it in all modesty--the comparatively rare man like
+myself in the trenches? It would be foolish waste. I assure you
+I'm putting all my talents at the disposal of the country."
+Seeing, I suppose, in my eyes, the maintained stoniness of non-
+conviction, he went on, "But, pay dear sir, be reasonable." ...
+Reasonable! I nearly choked. If I could have stood once more on my
+useless legs, I should have swung my left arm round and clouted
+him on the side of the head. Reasonable indeed! This well-fed,
+able-bodied, young Oxford prig to tell me, an honourable English
+officer and gentleman, to be reasonable, when the British Empire,
+in peril of its existence, was calling on all its manhood to
+defend it in arms! I glared at him. He continued:--
+
+"Yes, be reasonable. Everyone has his place in this World
+conflict. We can't all be practical fighters. You wouldn't set
+Kitchener or Grey or Lord Crewe to bayonet Germans--"
+
+"By God, sir," I cried, smiting one palm with the fist of the
+other hand. "By God, sir, I would, if they were three and twenty."
+I had completely lost my temper. "And if I saw them doing nothing,
+while the country was asking for MEN, but writing rotten doggerel
+and messing about with girls far beneath them in station, I should
+call them the damnedest skunks unskinned!"
+
+He had the decency to rise. "Major Meredyth," said he, "you're
+under a terrible misapprehension. You're a military man and must
+look at everything from a military point of view. It would be
+useless to discuss the philosophy of the situation with you. We're
+on different planes."
+
+Just what I said.
+
+"You," said I, "seem to be hovering near Tophet and the Abyss."
+
+"No, no," he answered with an indulgent smile. "You are quoting
+Carlyle. You must give him up."
+
+"Damned pro-German, I should think I do," I cried. I had forgotten
+where my phrase came from.
+
+"I'm glad to hear it. He's a back-number. I'm a modern. I
+represent equilibrium--" He made a little rocking gesture with his
+graceful hand. "I am out for Eternal Truth, which I think I
+perceive."
+
+"In poor little Phyllis Gedge, I suppose?"
+
+"Why not? Look. I am the son, grandson, great-grandson, of English
+Tories. She is the daughter of socialism, syndicalism, pacifism,
+internationalism--everything that is most apart from my
+traditions. But she brings to me beauty, innocence, the feminine
+solution of all intellectual concepts. She, the woman, is the soul
+of conflicting England. She is torn both ways. But as she has to
+breed men, some day, she is instinctively on our side. She is
+invaluable to me. She inspires my poems. You may not believe it,
+but she is at the back of my political articles. You must really
+be a little more broad-minded, Major, and look at these things
+from the right point of view. From the point of view of my work,
+she is merely a symbol."
+
+"And you?" said I, wrathfully. "What are you to her? Do you
+suppose she takes you for a symbol? I wish to Heaven she did. A
+round cipher of naught, the symbol of inanity. She takes you for
+an honourable gentleman. I've known the child since she was born.
+As good a little girl as you could wish to meet."
+
+He drew himself up. "That's the opinion of her I am endeavouring
+to express."
+
+"Quite so. You win a good decent girl's affection,--if you
+hadn't, she would never have let you walk about with her at
+nightfall, with your arm round her waist,--and you have the
+cynical audacity to say that she's only a symbol."
+
+"When you asked me to come in this evening," said he, "I naturally
+concluded you would broach this subject. I came prepared to give
+you a complete explanation of what I am ready to admit was a
+compromising situation."
+
+"There is only one explanation," said I angrily. "What are your
+intentions regarding the girl?"
+
+He smiled. "Quite honourable."
+
+"You mean marriage?"
+
+"Oh, no," said he, emphatically.
+
+"Then the other thing? That's not honourable."
+
+"Of course not. Certainly not the other thing. I'm not a
+blackguard."
+
+"Then what on earth are you playing at?"
+
+He sighed. "I'm afraid you will never understand."
+
+"I'm afraid I won't," said I. "By your own confession you are
+neither a lusty blackguard nor an honourable gentleman. You're a
+sort of philanderer, somewhere in between. You neither mean to
+fight like a man nor love like a man. I'm sorry to say it, but
+I've no use for you. As I can't do it myself, will you kindly ring
+the bell?"
+
+"Certainly," said he, white with anger, which I was glad to see,
+and pressed the electric button beside the mantelpiece. He turned
+on me, his head high. There was still some breeding left in him.
+
+"I'm sorry we're at such cross-purposes, Major. All my life long
+I've owed you kindnesses I can't ever repay. But at present we're
+hopelessly out of sympathy!"
+
+"It seems so," said I. "I had hoped your father's son would be a
+better man!"
+
+"My father," said he, "was a successful stockbroker, without any
+ideas in his head save the making of money. I don't see what he
+has got to do with my well-considered attitude towards life."
+
+"Your callow attitude towards life, my poor boy," said I, "is a
+matter of profound indifference to me. But I shall give orders
+that you are no longer admitted to this house except in uniform."
+
+"That's absurd," said he.
+
+"Not at all," said I.
+
+In obedience to the summons of the bell Sergeant Marigold appeared
+and stood in his ramrod fashion by the door.
+
+Randall came forward to my wheel-chair, with hand outstretched.
+
+"I'm desperately sorry, Major, for this disastrous
+misunderstanding."
+
+I thrust my hands beneath the light shawl that covered my legs.
+
+"Don't be such a self-sufficient fool, Randall," I said, "as to
+think I don't understand. In the present position there are no
+subtleties and no complications. Good-night."
+
+Marigold, with a wooden face, opened wide the door, and Randall,
+with a shrug of the shoulders, went out.
+
+I stayed awake the whole of that livelong night.
+
+When I learned the death of young Oswald Fenimore, whom I loved
+far more dearly than Randall Holmes, I went to bed and slept
+peacefully. A gallant lad died in battle; there is nothing more to
+be said, nothing more to be thought. The finality, heroically
+sublime, overwhelms the poor workings of the brain. But in the
+case of a fellow like Randall Holmes--well, as I have said, I did
+not get a wink of sleep the whole night long.
+
+Someone, a few months ago, told me of a young university man--
+Oxford or Cambridge, I forget--who, when asked why he was not
+fighting, replied; "What has the war to do with me? I disapprove
+of this brawling."
+
+Was that the attitude of Randall, whom I had known all his life
+long? I shivered, like a fool, all night. The only consolation I
+had was to bring commonsense to my aid and to meditate on the
+statistical fact that the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge
+were practically empty.
+
+But my soul was sick for young Randall Holmes.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+On the wedding eve Betty brought the happy young man to dine with
+me. He was in that state of unaccustomed and somewhat embarrassed
+bliss in which a man would have dined happily with Beelzebub. A
+fresh-coloured boy, with fair crisply set hair and a little
+moustache a shade or two fairer, he kept on blushing radiantly, as
+if apologising in a gallant sort of fashion for his existence in
+the sphere of Betty's affection. As I had known him but casually
+and desired to make his closer acquaintance, I had asked no one to
+meet them, save Betty's aunt, whom a providential cold had
+prevented from facing the night air. So, in the comfortable little
+oak-panelled dining-room, hung round with my beloved collection of
+Delft, I had the pair all to myself, one on each side; and in this
+way I was able to read exchanges of glances whence I might form
+sage conclusions. Bella, spruce parlour-maid, waited deftly.
+Sergeant Marigold, when not occupied in the mild labour of filling
+glasses, stood like a guardian ramrod behind my chair--a self-
+assigned post to which he stuck grimly like a sentinel. As I
+always sat with my back to the fire there must have been times
+when, the blaze roaring more fiercely than usual up the chimney,
+he must have suffered martyrdom in his hinder parts.
+
+As I talked--for the first time on such intimate footing--with
+young Connor, I revised my opinion of him and mentally took back
+much that I had said in his disparagement. He was by no means the
+dull dog that I had labelled him. By diligent and sympathetic
+enquiry I learned that he had been a Natural Science scholar at
+Trinity College, Cambridge, where he had taken a first-class
+degree--specialising in geology; that by profession (his
+father's) he was a mining-engineer, and, in pursuit of his
+vocation, had travelled in Galicia, Mexico and Japan; furthermore,
+that he had been one of the ardent little band who of recent years
+had made the Cambridge Officers Training Corps an effective
+school. Hitherto, when I had met him he had sat so agreeably
+smiling and modestly mumchance that I had accepted him at his face
+value.
+
+I was amused to see how Betty, in order to bring confusion on me,
+led him to proclaim himself. And I loved the manner in which he
+did so. To hear him, one would have thought that he owed
+everything in the world to Betty--from his entrance scholarship at
+the University to the word of special commendation which his
+company had received from the General of his Division at last
+week's inspection. Yes, he was the modest, clean-bred, simple
+English gentleman who, without self-consciousness or self-seeking,
+does his daily task as well as it can be done, just because it is
+the thing that is set before him to do. And he was over head and
+ears in love with Betty.
+
+I took it upon myself to dismiss her with a nod after she had
+smoked a cigarette over her coffee. Mrs. Marigold, as a soldier's
+wife, I announced, had a world of invaluable advice to give her.
+Willie Connor opened the door. On the threshold she said very
+prettily:
+
+"Don't drink too much of Major Meredyth's old port. It has been
+known before now to separate husbands and wives for years and
+years."
+
+He looked after her for a few seconds before he closed the door.
+
+Oh, my God! I've looked like that, in my time, after one dear
+woman.... Humanity is very simple, after all. Every generation
+does exactly the same beautiful, foolish things as its forerunner.
+As he approached the table, I said with a smile:--
+
+"You're only copying your great-great-grandfather."
+
+"In what way, sir?" he asked, resuming his place.
+
+I pushed the decanter of port. "He watched the disappearing skirt
+of your great-great-grandmother."
+
+"She was doubtless a very venerable old lady," said he, flushing
+and helping himself to wine. "I never knew her, but she wasn't a
+patch on Betty!"
+
+"But," said I, "when your great-great-grandfather opened the door
+for her to pass out, she wasn't venerable at all, but gloriously
+young."
+
+"I suppose he was satisfied, poor old chap." He took a sip. "But
+those days did not produce Betty Fairfaxes." He laughed. "I'm
+jolly sorry for my ancestors."
+
+Well--that is the way I like to hear a young man talk. It was the
+modern expression of the perfect gentle knight. In so far as went
+his heart's intention and his soul's strength to assure it, I had
+no fear for Betty's happiness. He gave it to her fully into her
+own hands; whether she would throw it away or otherwise misuse it
+was another matter.
+
+Though I have ever loved women, en tout bien et tout honneur,
+their ways have never ceased from causing me mystification. I
+think I can size up a man, especially given such an opportunity as
+I had in the case of Willie Connor--I have been more or less
+trained in the business all my man's life; but Betty Fairfax, whom
+I had known intimately for as many years as she could remember,
+puzzled me exceedingly. I defy anyone to have picked a single
+fault in her demeanour towards her husband of to-morrow. She lit a
+cigarette for him in the most charming way in the world, and when
+he guided the hand that held the match, she touched his crisp hair
+lightly with the fingers of the other. She was all smiles. When we
+met in the drawing-room, she retailed with a spice of mischief
+much of Mrs. Marigold's advice. She had seated herself on the
+music stool. Swinging round, she quoted:
+
+"'Even the best husband,' she said, 'will go on swelling himself
+up with vanity just because he's a man. A sensible woman, Miss,
+lets him go on priding of himself, poor creature. It sort of helps
+his dignity when the time comes for him to eat out of your hand,
+and makes him think he's doing you a favour.'"
+
+"When are you going to eat out of my hand, Willie?" she asked.
+
+"Haven't I been doing it for the past week?"
+
+"Oh, they always do that before they're married--so Mrs. Marigold
+informed me. I mean afterwards."
+
+"Don't you think, my dear," I interposed, "it depends on what your
+hands hold out for him to eat?"
+
+Her eyes wavered a bit under mine.
+
+"If he's good," she answered, "they'll be always full of nice
+things."
+
+She sat, flushed, happy, triumphant, her arms straight down, her
+knuckles resting on the leathern seat, her silver-brocaded,
+slender feet, clear of the floor, peeping close together beneath
+her white frock.
+
+"And if he isn't good?"
+
+"They'll be full of nasty medicine."
+
+She laughed and pivoted round and, after running over the keys of
+the piano for a second or two, began to play Gounod's "Death March
+of a Marionette." She played it remarkably well. When she had
+ended, Connor walked from the hearth, where he had been standing,
+to her side. I noticed a little puzzled look in his eyes.
+
+"Delightful," said he. "But, Betty, what put that thing suddenly
+into your head?"
+
+"We had been talking nonsense," she replied, picking out a chord
+or two, without looking al him. "And I thought we ought to give
+all past vanities and frivolities and lunacies a decent burial."
+
+He put both hands very tenderly on her shoulders.
+
+"Requiescat," said he.
+
+She spread out her fingers and struck the two resonant chords of
+an "Amen," and then glanced up at him, laughing.
+
+After a while, Marigold announced her car, or, rather, her aunt's
+car. They took their leave. I gave them my benediction. Presently,
+Betty, fur-coated, came running in alone. She flung herself down,
+in her impetuous way, beside my wheel-chair. No visit of Betty's
+would have been complete without this performance.
+
+"I haven't had a word with you all the evening, Majy, dear. I've
+told Willie to discuss strategy with Sergeant Marigold in the
+hall, till I come. Well--you thought I was a damn little fool the
+other day, didn't you? What do you think now?"
+
+"I think, my dear," said I, with a hand on her forehead, "that you
+are marrying a very gallant English gentleman of whose love any
+woman in the land might be proud."
+
+She clutched me round the neck and brought her young face near
+mine--and looked at me--I hesitate to say it,--but so it seemed,--
+somewhat haggardly.
+
+"I love to hear you say that, it means so much to me. Don't think
+I haven't a sense of proportion. I have. In all this universal
+slaughter and massacre, a woman's life counts as much as that of a
+mosquito." She freed an arm and snapped her fingers. "But to the
+woman herself, her own life can't help being of some value. Such
+as it is, I want to give it all, every bit of it, to Willie. He
+shall have everything, everything, everything that I can give
+him."
+
+I looked into the young, drawn, pleading face long and earnestly.
+No longer was I mystified. I remembered her talk with me a couple
+of days before, and I read her riddle.
+
+She had struck gold. She knew it. Gold of a man's love. Gold of a
+man's strength. Gold of a man's honour. Gold of a man's stainless
+past. Gold of a man's radiant future. And though she wore the
+mocking face and talked the mocking words of the woman who
+expected such a man to "eat out of her hand," she knew that never
+out of her hand would he eat save that which she should give him
+in honourable and wifely service. She knew that. She was
+exquisitely anxious that I should know it too. Floodgates of
+relief were expressed when she saw that I knew it. Not that I,
+personally, counted a scrap. What she craved was a decent human
+soul's justification of her doings. She craved recognition of her
+action in casting away base metal forever and taking the pure gold
+to her heart.
+
+"Tell me that I am doing the right thing, dear," she said, "and
+to-morrow I'll be the happiest woman in the world."
+
+And I told her, in the most fervent manner in my power.
+
+"You quite understand?" she said, standing up, looking very young
+and princess-like, her white throat gleaming between her furs and
+up-turned chin.
+
+"You will find, my dear," said I, "that the significance of your
+Dead March of a Marionette will increase every day of your married
+life."
+
+She stiffened in a sudden stroke of passion, looking, for the
+instant, electrically beautiful.
+
+"I wish," she cried, "someone had written the Dead March of a
+Devil."
+
+She bent down, kissed me, and went out in a whirr of furs and
+draperies.
+
+Of course, all I could do was to scratch my thin iron-grey hair
+and light a cigar and meditate in front of the fire. I knew all
+about it--or at any rate I thought I did, which, as far as my
+meditation in front of the fire is concerned, comes to the same
+thing.
+
+Betty had cast out the base metal of her love for Loenard Boyce in
+order to accept the pure gold of the love of Willie Connor. So she
+thought, poor girl. She had been in love with Boyce. She had been
+engaged to Boyce. Boyce, for some reason or the other, had turned
+her down. Spretae injuria formae--she had cast Boyce aside. But
+for all her splendid surrender of her womanhood to Willie Connor,
+for the sake of her country, she still loved Leonard Boyce. Or, if
+she wasn't in love with him, she couldn't get him out of her head
+or her senses. Something like that, anyhow. I don't pretend to
+know exactly what goes on in the soul or nature, or whatever it
+is, of a young girl, who has given her heart to a man. I can only
+use the crude old phrase: she was still in love (in some sort of
+fashion) with Leonard Boyce, and she was going to marry, for the
+highest motives, somebody else.
+
+"Confound the fellow," said I, with an irritable gesture and
+covered myself with cigar ash.
+
+She had called Boyce a devil and implied a wish that he were dead.
+For myself I did not know what to make of him, for reasons which I
+will state. I never approved of the engagement. As a matter of
+fact, I knew--and was one of the very few who knew--of a black
+mark against him--the very blackest mark that could be put against
+a soldier's name. It was a puzzling business. And when I say I
+knew of the mark, I must be candid and confess that its awful
+justification lies in the conscience of one man living in the
+world to-day--if indeed he be still alive.
+
+Boyce was a great bronzed, bull-necked man, with an overpowering
+personality. People called him the very model of a soldier. He was
+always admired and feared by his men. His fierce eye and deep,
+resonant voice, and a suggestion of hidden strength, even of
+brutality, commanded implicit obedience. But both glance and voice
+would soften caressingly and his manner convey a charm which made
+him popular with men--brother officers and private soldiers alike
+--and with women. With regard to the latter--to put things crudely
+--they saw in him the essential, elemental male. Of that I am
+convinced. It was the open secret of his many successes. And he
+had a buoyant, boyish, disarming, chivalrous way with him. If he
+desired a woman's lips he would always begin by kissing the hem of
+her skirt.
+
+Had I not known what I did, I, an easy-going sort of Christian
+temperamentally inclined to see the best in my fellow-creatures,
+and, as I boastingly said a little while ago, a trained judge of
+men, should doubtless have fallen, like most other people, under
+the spell of his fascination. But whenever I met him, I used to
+look at him and say to myself: "What's at the back of you anyway?
+What about that business at Vilboek's Farm?"
+
+Now this is what I knew--with the reservation I have made above--
+and to this day he is not aware of my knowledge.
+
+It was towards the end of the Boer War. Boyce had come out rather
+late; for which, of course, he was not responsible. A soldier has
+to go when he is told. After a period of humdrum service he was
+sent off with a section of mounted infantry to round up a certain
+farm-house suspected of harbouring Boer combatants. The excursion
+was a mere matter of routine--of humdrum commonplace. As usual it
+was made at night, but this was a night of full dazzling moon. The
+farm lay in a hollow of the veldt, first seen from the crest of a
+kopje. There it lay below, ramshackle and desolate, a rough wall
+around; flanked by outbuildings--barn and cowsheds. The section
+rode down. The stoep led to a shuttered front. There was no sign
+of life. The moonlight blazed full on it. They dismounted,
+tethered their horses behind the wall, and entered the yard. The
+place was deserted, derelict--not even a cat.
+
+Suddenly a shot rang out from somewhere in the main building, and
+the Sergeant, the next man to Boyce, fell dead, shot through the
+brain. The men looked at Boyce for command and saw a hulking idiot
+paralysed by fear.
+
+"His mouth hung open and his eyes were like a silly servant girl's
+looking at a ghost." So said my informant.
+
+Two more shots and two men fell. Boyce still stood white and
+gasping, unable to move a muscle or utter a sound. His face looked
+ghastly in the moonlight. A shot pierced his helmet, and the shock
+caused him to stagger and lose his legs. A corporal rushed up,
+thinking he was hit, and, finding him whole, rose, in order to
+leave him there, and, in rising, got a bullet through the neck.
+Thus there were four men killed, and the Commanding Officer, of
+his own accord, put out of action. It all happened in a few
+confused moments. Then the remaining men did what Boyce should
+have commanded as soon as the first shot was fired--they rushed
+the house.
+
+It contained one solitary inmate, an old man with a couple of
+Mauser rifles, whom they had to shoot in self-defence.
+
+Meanwhile Boyce, white and haggard-eyed, had picked himself up;
+revolver in hand he stood on the stoep. His men came out, cursed
+him to his face while giving him their contemptuous reports
+brought the dead bodies of their comrades into the house and laid
+them out decently, together with the body of the white-bearded
+Boer. After that they mounted their horses without a word to him
+and rode off. And he let them ride; for his authority was gone;
+and he knew that they justly laid the deaths of their comrades at
+the door of his cowardice.
+
+What he did during the next few awful hours is known only to God
+and to Boyce himself. The four dead men, his companions, have told
+no tales. But at last, one of his men--Somers was his name--came
+riding back at break-neck speed. When he had left the moon rode
+high in the heavens; when he returned it was dawn--and he had a
+bloody tunic and the face of a man who had escaped from hell. He
+threw himself from his horse and found Boyce, sitting on the stoep
+with his head in his hands. He shook him by the shoulder. Boyce
+started to his feet. At first he did not recognise Somers. Then he
+did and read black tidings in the man's eyes.
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"They're all wiped out, sir. The whole blooming lot."
+
+He told a tale of heroic disaster. The remnant of the section had
+ridden off in hot indignation and had missed their way. They had
+gone in a direction opposite to safety, and after a couple of
+hours had fallen in with a straggling portion of a Boer Commando.
+Refusing to surrender, they had all been killed save Somers, who,
+with a bullet through his shoulder, had prudently turned bridle
+and fled hell for leather.
+
+Boyce put his hands up to his head and walked about the yard for a
+few moments. Then he turned abruptly and stood toweringly over the
+scared survivor--a tough, wizened little Cockney of five foot six.
+
+"Well, what's going to happen now?" he asked, in his soft,
+dangerous voice.
+
+Somers replied, "I must leave that to you, sir."
+
+Boyce regarded him glitteringly for a long time. A scheme of
+salvation was taking vivid shape in his mind....
+
+"My report of this occurrence will be that as soon as, say, three
+men dropped here, the rest of the troop got into a panic and made
+a bolt of it. Say the Sergeant and myself remained. We broke into
+the house and did for the old Boer, who, however, unfortunately
+did for the Sergeant. Then I alone went out in search of my men
+and following their track found they had gone in a wrong
+direction, and eventually scented danger, which was confirmed by
+my meeting you, with your bloody tunic and your bloody tale."
+
+"But good God! sir," cried the man, "You'd be having me shot for
+running away. I could tell a damned different story, Captain
+Boyce."
+
+"Who would believe you?"
+
+The Cockney intelligence immediately appreciated the situation. It
+also was ready for the alternative it guessed at the back of
+Boyce's mind.
+
+"I know it's a mess, sir," he replied, with a straight look at
+Boyce. "A mess for both of us, and, as I have said, I'll leave it
+to you, sir."
+
+"Very well," said Boyce. "It's the simplest thing in the world.
+There were four killed at once, including Sergeant Oldham. You
+remained faithful when the others bolted. You and I tackled the
+old Boer and you got wounded. You and I went on trek for the rest
+of the troop. We got within breathing distance of the Commando--
+how many strong?"
+
+"About a couple of hundred, sir."
+
+"And of course we bolted back without knowing anything about the
+troop, except that we are sure that, dead or alive, the Boers have
+accounted for them. If you'll agree to this report, we can ride
+back to Headquarters and I think I can promise you sergeant's
+stripes in a very short time!"
+
+"I agree to the report, sir," said Somers, "because I don't see
+that I can do anything else. But to hell with the stripes under
+false pretences and don't you try playing that sort of thing off
+on me."
+
+"As you like," replied Boyce, unruffled. "Provided we understand
+each other on the main point."
+
+So they left the farm and rode to Headquarters and Boyce made his
+report, and as all save one of his troop were dead, there were
+none, save that one, to gainsay him. On his story no doubt was
+cast; but an officer who loses his whole troop in the military
+operation of storming a farm-house garrisoned by one old man does
+not find peculiar favour in the eyes of his Colonel. Boyce took a
+speedy opportunity of transference, and got into the thick of some
+fighting. Then he served with distinction and actually got
+mentioned in dispatches for pluckily rescuing a wounded man under
+fire.
+
+For a long time Somers kept his mouth shut; but at last he began
+to talk. The ugly rumour spread. It even reached my battery which
+was a hundred miles away; for Johnny Dacre, one of my subs, had a
+brother in Boyce's old regiment. For my own part I scouted the
+story as soon as I heard it, and I withered up young Dacre for
+daring to bring such abominable slander within my Rhadamanthine
+sphere. I dismissed the calumny from my mind. Providentially, (as
+I heard later), the news came of Boyce's "mention," and Somers was
+set down as a liar. The poor devil was had up before the Colonel
+and being an imaginative and nervous man denied the truth of the
+rumour and by dexterous wriggling managed to exculpate himself
+from the charge of being its originator.
+
+I must, parenthetically, crave indulgence for these apparently
+irrelevant details. But as, in this chronicle, I am mainly
+concerned with the career of Leonard Boyce, I have no option but
+to give them. They are necessary for a conception of the character
+of a remarkable man to whom I have every reason and every
+honourable desire to render justice. It is necessary, too, that I
+should state clearly the manner in which I happened to learn the
+facts of the affair at Vilboek's Farm, for I should not like you
+to think that I have given a credulous ear to idle slander.
+
+It was in Cape Town, whither I had been despatched, on a false
+alarm of enteric. I was walking with Johnny Dacre up Adderley
+Street, dun with kahki, when he met his brother Reginald, who was
+promptly introduced to Johnny's second in command. Reggie was off
+to hospital to see one of his men who had been badly hurt.
+
+"It's the chap," he said to his brother, "who was with Boyce
+through that shady affair at Vilboek's Farm."
+
+"I don't know why you call it a shady affair," said I, somewhat
+acidly. "I know Captain Boyce--he is a near neighbour of mine at
+home--and he has proved himself to be a gallant officer and a
+brave man."
+
+The young fellow reddened. "I'm awfully sorry, sir. I withdraw the
+word 'shady.' But this poor chap has something on his mind, and
+everyone has a down on him. He led a dog's life till he was
+knocked out, and he has been leading a worse one since. I don't
+call it fair." He looked at me squarely out of his young blue
+eyes--the lucky devil, he is commanding his regiment now in
+Flanders, with the D.S.O. ribbon on his tunic. "Will you come with
+me and see him, sir?"
+
+"Certainly," said I, for I had nothing to do, and the boy's
+earnestness impressed me.
+
+On our way he told me of such mixture of rumour and fact as he was
+acquainted with. It was then that I heard the man Somers's name
+for the first time. We entered the hospital, sat by the side of
+the man's bed, and he told us the story of Vilboek's Farm which I
+have, in bald terms, just related. Shortly afterwards I returned
+to the front, where the famous shell knocked me out of the Army
+forever.
+
+What has happened to Somers I don't know. He was, I learned, soon
+afterwards discharged from the Army. He either died or disappeared
+in the full current of English life. Perhaps he is with our armies
+now. It does not matter. What matters is my memory of his nervous,
+sallow, Cockney face, its earnestness, its imprint of veracity,
+and the damning lucidity of his narrative.
+
+I exacted from my young friends a promise to keep the unsavoury
+tale to themselves. No good would arise from a publicity which
+would stain the honour of the army. Besides, Boyce had made good.
+They have kept their promise like honest gentlemen. I have never,
+personally, heard further reference to the affair, and of course I
+have never mentioned it to anyone.
+
+Now, it is right for me to mention that, for many years, I lived
+in a horrible state of dubiety with regard to Boyce. There is no
+doubt that, after the Vilboek business, he acted in an exemplary
+manner; there is no doubt that he performed the gallant deed for
+which he got his mention. But what about Somers's story? I tried
+to disbelieve it as incredible. That an English officer--not a
+nervous wisp of a man like Somers, but a great, hulking, bull-
+necked gladiator--should have been paralysed with fear by one shot
+coming out of a Boer farm, and thereby demoralised and
+incapacitated from taking command of a handful of men; that,
+instead of blowing his brains out, he should have imposed his
+Mephistophelian compact upon the unhappy Somers and carried off
+the knavish business successfully--I could not believe it. On the
+other hand, there was the British private. I have known him all my
+life, God bless him! Thank God, it is my privilege to know him
+now, as he lies knocked to bits, cheerily, in our hospital. It was
+inconceivable that out of sheer funk he could abandon a popular
+officer. And his was not even a scratch crowd, but a hard-bitten
+regiment with all sorts of glorious names embroidered on its
+colours....
+
+I hope you see my difficulty in regard to my Betty's love affairs.
+I had nothing against Boyce, save this ghastly story, which might
+or might not be true. Officially, he had made an unholy mess of
+such a simple military operation as rounding up a Boer farm, and
+the prize of one dead old Boer had covered him with ridicule; but
+officially, also, he had retrieved his position by distinguished
+service. After all, it was not his fault that his men had run
+away. On the other hand...well, you cannot but appreciate the
+vicious circle of my thoughts, when Betty, in her frank way, came
+and told me of her engagement to him. What could I say? It would
+have been damnable of me to hint at scandal of years gone by. I
+received them both and gave them my paralytic blessing, and
+Leonard Boyce accepted it with the air of a man who might have
+been blessed, without a qualm of conscience, by the Third Person
+of the Trinity in Person.
+
+This was in April, 1914. He had retired from the Army some years
+before with the rank of Major, and lived with his mother--he was a
+man of means--in Wellingsford. In the June of that year he went
+off salmon fishing in Norway. On the outbreak of war he returned
+to England and luckily got his job at once. He did not come back
+to Wellingsford. His mother went to London and stayed there until
+he was ordered out to the front. I had not seen him since that
+June. And, as far as I am aware, my dear Betty had not seen him
+either.
+
+Marigold entered.
+
+"Well?" said I.
+
+"I thought you rang, sir."
+
+"You didn't," I said. "You thought I ought to have rung, But you
+were mistaken."
+
+I have on my mantelpiece a tiny, corroded, wooden Egyptian bust,
+of so little value that Mr. Hatoun of Cairo (and every visitor to
+Cairo knows Hatoun) gave it me as Baksheesh; it is, however, a
+genuine bit from a poor humble devil's tomb of about five thousand
+years ago. And it has only one positive eye and no expression.
+
+Marigold was the living replica of it--with his absurd wig.
+
+"In a quarter of an hour," said I, "I shall have rung."
+
+"Very good, sir," said Marigold.
+
+But he had disturbed the harmonical progression of my reflections.
+They all went anyhow. When he returned, all I could say was:
+
+"It's Miss Betty's wedding to-morrow. I suppose I've got a morning
+coat and a top hat."
+
+"You have a morning coat, sir," said Marigold. "But your last silk
+hat you gave to Miss Althea, sir, to make a work-bag out of the
+outside."
+
+"So I did," said I.
+
+It was an unpleasant reminiscence. A hat is about as symbolical a
+garment as you may be pleased to imagine. I wanted to wear at the
+live Betty's wedding the ceremonious thing which I had given, for
+purposes of vanity, to the dead Althea. I was cross with Marigold.
+
+"Why did you let me do such a silly thing? You might have known
+that I should want it some day or other. Why didn't you foresee
+such a contingency?"
+
+"Why," asked Marigold woodenly, "didn't you or I, sir, or many
+wiser than us, foresee the war?"
+
+"Because we were all damned fools," said I.
+
+Marigold approached my chair with his great inexorable tentacles
+of arms. It was bed time.
+
+"I'm sorry about the hat, sir," said he.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+In due course Captain Connor's regiment went off to France; not
+with drums beating and colours flying--I wish to Heaven it had; if
+there had been more pomp and circumstance in England, the popular
+imagination would not have remained untouched for so long a time--
+but in the cold silent hours of the night, like a gang of
+marauders. Betty did not go to bed after he had left, but sat by
+the fire till morning. Then she dressed in uniform and resumed her
+duties at the hospital. Many a soldier's bride was doing much the
+same. And her days went on just as they did before her marriage.
+She presented a smiling face to the world; she said:
+
+"If I'm as happy as can be expected in the circumstances, I think
+it my duty to look happier."
+
+It was a valiant philosophy.
+
+The falling of a chimney-stack brought me up against Daniel Gedge,
+who before the war did all my little repairs. The chimney I put
+into the hands of Day & Higgins, another firm of builders.
+
+A day or two afterwards Hosea shied at something and I discovered
+it was Gedge, who had advanced into the roadway expressing a
+desire to have a word with me. I quieted the patriotic Hosea and
+drew up by the kerb. Gedge was a lean foxy-faced man with a long,
+reddish nose and a long blunt chin from which a grizzled beard
+sprouted aggressively forwards. He had hard, stupid grey eyes.
+
+"I hope you 'll excuse the liberty I take in stopping you, sir,"
+he said, civilly.
+
+"That's all right," said I. "What's the matter?"
+
+"I thought I had given you satisfaction these last twenty years."
+
+I assented. "Quite correct," said I.
+
+"Then, may I ask, sir, without offence, why you've called in Day &
+Higgins?"
+
+"You may," said I, "and, with or without offence, I'll answer your
+question. I've called them in because they're good loyal people.
+Higgins has joined the army, and so has Day's eldest boy, while
+you have been going on like a confounded pro-German."
+
+"You've no right to say that, Major Meredyth."
+
+"Not when you go over to Godbury"--the surging metropolis of the
+County some fifteen miles off--"and tell a pack of fools to strike
+because this is a capitalists' war? Not when you go round the
+mills here, and do your best to stop young fellows from fighting
+for their country? God bless my soul, in whose interests are you
+acting, if not Germany's?"
+
+He put on his best platform manner. "I'm acting in the best
+interests of the people of this country. The war is wrong and
+incredibly foolish and can bring no advantage to the working man.
+Why should he go and be killed or maimed for life? Will it put an
+extra penny in his pocket or his widow's? No. Oh!"--he checked my
+retort--"I know everything you would say. I see the arguments
+every day in all your great newspapers. But the fact remains that
+I don't see eye to eye with you, or those you represent. You think
+one way, I think another. We agree to differ."
+
+"We don't," said I. "I don't agree at all."
+
+"At any rate," he said, "I can't see how a difference of political
+opinion can affect my ability now to put a new chimney-stack in
+your house, any more than it has done in the past."
+
+"In the past," said I, "political differences were parochial
+squabbles in comparison with things nowadays. You're either for
+England, or against her."
+
+He smiled wryly. "I'm for England. We both are. You think her
+salvation lies one way. I think another. This is a free country in
+which every man has a right to his own opinion."
+
+"Exactly so," said I. "Therefore you'll admit that I've a right to
+the opinion that you ought to be locked up either in a gaol or a
+lunatic asylum as a danger to the state, and that, having that
+rightful opinion, I'm justified in not entrusting the safety of my
+house to one who, in my aforesaid opinion, is either a criminal or
+a lunatic."
+
+Dialectically, I had him there. It afforded me keen enjoyment.
+Besides being a John Bull Englishman, I am a cripple and therefore
+ever so little malicious.
+
+"It's all very well for you to talk, Major Meredyth," said he,
+"but your opinions cost you nothing--mine are costing me my
+livelihood. It isn't fair."
+
+"You might as well say," I replied, "that I, who have never dared
+to steal anything in my life, live in ease and comfort, whereas
+poor Bill Sykes, who has devoted all his days to burglary, has
+seven years' penal servitude. No, Gedge," said I, gathering up the
+reins, "it can't be done. You can't have it both ways."
+
+He put a detaining hand on Hosea's bridle and an evil flash came
+into his hard grey eyes.
+
+"I'll have it some other way, then," he said. "A way you've no
+idea of. A way that'll knock all you great people of Wellingsford
+off your high horses. If you drive me to it, you'll see. I'll bide
+my time and I don't care whether it breaks me."
+
+He stamped his foot and tugged at the bridle. Two or three
+passers-by halted wonderingly and Prettilove, the hairdresser,
+moved across the pavement from his shop door where he had been
+taking the air.
+
+"My good fellow," said I, "you have lost your temper and are
+talking drivel. Kindly unhand my donkey."
+
+Prettilove, who has a sycophantic sense of humour, burst into a
+loud guffaw. Gedge swung angrily away, and Hosea and I continued
+our interrupted progress down the High Street. Although I had
+called his dark menaces drivel, I could not help wondering what it
+meant. Was he going to guide a German Army to Wellingsford? Was
+he, a modern Guy Fawkes, plotting to blow up the Town Hall while
+Mayor and Corporation sat in council? He was not the man to utter
+purely idle threats. What the dickens was he going to do?
+Something mean and dirty and underhand. I knew his ways, He was
+always getting the better of somebody. The wise never let him put
+in a pane of glass without a specification and estimate, and if he
+had not been by far the most competent builder in the town--
+perhaps the only one who thoroughly knew his business in all its
+branches--no one would have employed him.
+
+When I next saw Betty, it was in one of the corridors of the
+hospital, after a committee meeting; she stopped by my chair to
+pass the time of day. Through the open doorway of a ward I
+perceived a well-known figure in nurse's uniform.
+
+"Why," said I, "there's Phyllis Gedge."
+
+Betty nodded. "She has just come in as a probationer."
+
+"I thought her father wouldn't let her. I've heard--Heaven knows
+whether it's true, but it sounds likely--that he said if men were
+such fools as to get shot he didn't see why his daughter should
+help to mend them."
+
+"He has consented now," said Betty, "and Phyllis is delighted."
+
+"No doubt it's a bid for popular favour," said I. And I told her
+of his dwindling business and of my encounter with him. When I
+came to his threat Betty's brows darkened.
+
+"I don't like that at all," she said.
+
+"Why? What do you think he means?"
+
+"Mischief." She lowered her voice, for, it being visiting day at
+the hospital, people were passing up and down the corridor.
+"Suppose he has some of the people here in his power?"
+
+"Blackmail--?" I glanced up at her sharply. "What do you know
+about it?"
+
+"Nothing," she replied abruptly. Then she looked down and fingered
+her wedding-ring. "I only said 'suppose.'"
+
+A Sister appeared at the door of the ward and seeing us together
+paused hoveringly.
+
+"I rather think you're wanted," said I.
+
+I left the hospital somewhat disturbed in mind. Summons to duty
+had cut our conversation short; but I knew that no matter how long
+I had cross-questioned Betty I should have got nothing further
+out of her. She was a remarkably outspoken young woman. What she
+said she meant, and what she didn't want to say all the cripples
+in the British Army could not have dragged out of her.
+
+I tried her again a few days later. A slight cold, aided and
+abetted by a dear exaggerating idiot of a tyrannical doctor,
+confined me to the house and she came flying in, expecting to find
+me in extremis. When she saw me clothed and in my right mind and
+smoking a big cigar, she called me a fraud.
+
+"Look here," said I, after a while. "About Gedge--" again her brow
+darkened and her lips set stiffly--"do you think he has his knife
+into young Randall Holmes?"
+
+I had worried about the boy. Naturally, if Gedge found the
+relations between his daughter and Randall unsatisfactory, no one
+could blame him for any outbreak of parental indignation. But he
+ought to break out openly, while there was yet time--before any
+harm was done--not nurse some diabolical scheme of subterraneous
+vengeance. Betty's brow cleared, and she laughed. I saw at once
+that I was on a wrong track.
+
+"Why should he have his knife into Randall? I suppose you've got
+Phyllis in your mind."
+
+"I have. How did you guess?"
+
+She laughed again.
+
+"What other reason could he have? But how did you come to hear of
+Randall and Phyllis?"
+
+"Never mind," said I, "I did. And if Gedge is angry, I can to some
+extent sympathize with him."
+
+"But he's not. Not the least little bit in the world," she
+declared, lighting a cigarette. "Gedge and Randall are as thick as
+thieves, and Phyllis won't have anything to do with either of
+them."
+
+"Now, my dear," said I. "Now that you're married, become a real
+womanly woman and fill my empty soul with gossip."
+
+"There's no gossip at all about it," she replied serenely. "It's
+all sordid and romantic fact. The two men hold long discussions
+together at Gedge's house, Gedge talking anti-patriotism and
+Randall talking rot which he calls philosophy. You can hear them,
+can't you? Their meeting-ground is the absurdity of Randall
+joining the army."
+
+"And Phyllis?"
+
+"She is a loyal little soul and as miserable as can be. She's
+deplorably in love with Randall. She has told me so. And because
+she's in love with a man whom she knows to be a slacker she's
+eaten up with shame. Now she won't speak to him To avoid meeting
+him she lives entirely at the hospital--a paying probationer."
+
+"That must be since the last Committee Meeting," I said.
+
+'Yes."
+
+"And Daniel Gedge pays a guinea a week?"
+
+"He doesn't," said Betty. "I do."
+
+I accepted the information with a motion of the head. She went on
+after a minute or so. "I have always been fond of the child"--
+there were only three or four years difference between them!--
+"and so I want to protect her. The time may come when she'll need
+protection. She has told me things--not now--but long ago--which
+frightened her. She came to me for advice. Since then I've kept an
+eye on her--as far as I could. Her coming into the hospital helps
+me considerably."
+
+"When you say 'things which frightened her,' do you mean in
+connection with her father?"
+
+Again the dark look in Betty's eyes.
+
+"Yes," she said. "He's an evil, dangerous man."
+
+That was all I could get out of her. If she had meant me to know
+the character of Gedge's turpitude, she would have told me of her
+own accord. But in our talk at the hospital she had hinted at
+blackmail--and blackmailers are evil, dangerous men.
+
+I went to see Sir Anthony about it. Beyond calling him a damned
+scoundrel, a term which he applied to all pro-Germans, pacifists
+and half the Cabinet, he did not concern himself about Gedge.
+Young Randall Holmes's intimacy with the scoundrel seemed to him a
+matter of far greater importance. He strode up and down his
+library, choleric and gesticulating.
+
+"A gentleman and a scholar to hob-nob with a traitorous beast like
+that! I know that he writes for a filthy weekly paper. Somebody
+sent me a copy a few days ago. It's rot--but not actually
+poisonous like that he must hear from Gedge. That's the reason, I
+suppose, he's not in the King's uniform. I've had my eye on him
+for some time. That's why I've not asked him to the house."
+
+I told Sir Anthony of my interview with the young man. He waxed
+wroth. In a country with a backbone every Randall Holmes in the
+land would have been chucked willy-nilly into the army. But the
+country had spinal disorders. It had locomotor ataxy. The result
+of sloth and self-indulgence. We had the Government we deserved
+... I need not quote further. You can imagine a fine old fox-
+hunting Tory gentleman, with England filling all the spaces of his
+soul, blowing off the steam of his indignation.
+
+When he had ended, "What," said I, "is to be done?"
+
+"I'll lay my horsewhip across the young beggar's shoulders the
+next time I meet him."
+
+"Capital," said I. "If I were you I should never ride abroad
+except in my mayor's gown and chain, so that you can give an
+official character to the thrashing."
+
+He glanced swiftly at me in his bird-like fashion, his brow
+creased into a thousand tiny horizontal lines--it always took him
+a fraction of a second to get clear of the literal significance of
+words--and then he laughed. Personal violence was out of the
+question. Why, the young beggar might summon him for assault. No;
+he had a better idea. He would put in a word at the proper
+quarter, so that every recruiting sergeant in the district should
+have orders to stop him at every opportunity.
+
+"I shouldn't do that," said I.
+
+"Then, I don't know what the deuce I can do," said Sir Anthony.
+
+As I didn't know, either, our colloquy was fruitless. Eventually
+Sir Anthony said:
+
+"Perhaps it's likely, after all, that Gedge may offend young
+Oxford's fastidiousness. It can't be long before he discovers
+Gedge to be nothing but a vulgar, blatant wind-bag; and then he
+may undergo some reaction."
+
+I agreed. It seemed to be the most sensible thing he had said.
+Give Gedge enough rope and he would hang himself. So we parted.
+
+I have said before that when I want to shew how independent I am
+of everybody I drive abroad in my donkey carriage. But there are
+times when I have to be dependent on Marigold for carrying me into
+the houses I enter; on these helpless occasions I am driven about
+by Marigold in a little two-seater car. That is how I visited
+Wellings Park and that is how I set off a day or two later to call
+on Mrs. Boyce.
+
+As she took little interest in anything foreign to her own inside,
+she was not to most people an exhilarating companion. She even
+discussed the war in terms of her digestion. But we were old
+friends. Being a bit of a practical philosopher I could always
+derive some entertainment from her serial romance of a Gastric
+Juice, and besides, she was the only person in Wellingsford whom I
+did not shrink from boring with the song of my own ailments.
+Rather than worry the Fenimores or Betty or Mrs. Holmes with my
+aches and pains I would have hung on, like the idiot boy of Sparta
+with the fox, until my vitals were gnawed out--parenthetically, it
+has always worried me to conjecture why a boy should steal a fox,
+why it should have been so valuable to the owner, and to what use
+he put it. In the case of all my other friends I regarded myself
+as too much of an obvious nuisance, as it was, for me to work on
+their sympathy for infirmities that I could hide; but with Mrs.
+Boyce it was different. The more I chanted antistrophe to her
+strophe of lamentation the more was I welcome in her drawing-room.
+I had not seen her for some weeks. Perhaps I had been feeling
+remarkably well with nothing in the world to complain about, and
+therefore unequipped with a topic of conversation. However, hearty
+or not, it was time for me to pay her a visit. So I ordered the
+car.
+
+Mrs. Boyce lived in a comfortable old house half a mile or so
+beyond the other end of the town, standing in half a dozen well-
+wooded acres. It was a fair April afternoon, all pale sunshine and
+tenderness. A dream of fairy green and delicate pink and shy blue
+sky melting into pearl. The air smelt sweet. It was good to be in
+it, among the trees and the flowers and the birds.
+
+Others must have also felt the calls of the spring, for as we were
+driving up to the house, I caught a glimpse of the lawn and of two
+figures strolling in affectionate attitude. One was that of Mrs.
+Boyce; the other, khaki-clad and towering above her, had his arm
+round her waist. The car pulled up at the front door. Before we
+had time to ring, a trim parlour-maid appeared.
+
+"Mrs. Boyce is not at home, sir."
+
+Marigold, who, when my convenience was in question, swept away
+social conventions like cobwebs, fixed her with his one eye, and
+before I could interfere, said:
+
+"I'm afraid you're mistaken. I've just seen Major Boyce and Madam
+on the lawn."
+
+The maid reddened and looked at me appealingly.
+
+"My orders were to say not at home, sir."
+
+"I quite understand, Mary," said I. "Major Boyce is home on short
+leave, and they don't want to be disturbed. Isn't that it?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Marigold," said I. "Right about turn."
+
+Marigold, who had stopped the car, got out unwillingly and went to
+the starting-handle. That I should be refused admittance to a
+house which I had deigned to honour with my presence he regarded
+as an intolerable insult. He also loved to have tea, as a pampered
+guest, in other folks' houses. When he got home Mrs. Marigold, as
+like as not, would give him plain slabs of bread buttered by her
+economical self. I knew my Marigold. He gave a vicious and
+ineffectual turn or two and then stuck his head in the bonnet.
+
+The situation was saved by the appearance from the garden of Mrs.
+Boyce herself, a handsome, erect, elegantly dressed old lady in
+the late sixties, pink and white like a Dresden figure and in her
+usual condition of resplendent health. She held out her hand.
+
+"I couldn't let you go without telling you that Leonard is back. I
+don't want the whole town to know. If it did, I should see nothing
+of him, his leave is so short. That's why I told Mary to say 'not
+at home.' But an old friend like you--Would you like to see him?"
+
+Marigold closed the bonnet and stood up with a grimace which
+passed for a happy smile.
+
+"I should, of course," said I, politely. "But I quite understand.
+You have everything to say to each other. No. I won't stay"
+--Marigold's smile faded into woodenness--"I only turned in idly to
+see how you were getting on. But just tell me. How is Leonard?
+Fit, I hope?"
+
+"He's wonderful," she said.
+
+I motioned Marigold to start the car.
+
+"Give him my kind regards," said I. "No, indeed. He doesn't want
+to see an old crock like me." The engine rattled. "I hope he's
+pleased at finding his mother looking so bonny."
+
+"It's only excitement at having Leonard," she explained earnestly.
+"In reality I'm far from well. But I wouldn't tell him for
+worlds."
+
+"What's that you wouldn't tell, mother?" cried a soft, cheery
+voice, and Leonard, the fine flower of English soldiery, turned
+the corner of the house.
+
+There he stood, tall, deep-chested, clear-eyed, bronzed, his heavy
+chin in the air, his bull-neck not detracting from his physical
+handsomeness, but giving it a seal of enormous strength.
+
+"My dear fellow," he cried, grasping my hand heartily, "how glad I
+am to see you. Come along in and let mother give you some tea.
+Nonsense!" he waved away my protest. "Marigold, stop that engine
+and bring in the Major. I've got lots of things to tell you.
+That's right."
+
+He strode boyishly to the front door, which he threw open wide to
+admit Marigold and myself and followed us with Mrs. Boyce into the
+drawing-room, talking all the while. I must confess that I was
+just a little puzzled by his exuberant welcome. And, to judge by
+the blank expression that flitted momentarily over her face, so
+was his mother. If he were so delighted by my visit, why had he
+not crossed the lawn at once as soon as he saw the car? Why had he
+sent his mother on ahead? I was haunted by an exchange of words
+overheard in imagination:
+
+"Confound the fellow! What has he come here for?"
+
+"Mary will say 'not at home.'"
+
+"But he has spotted us. Do go and get rid of him."
+
+"Such an old friend, dear."
+
+"We haven't time for old fossils. Tell him to go and bury
+himself."
+
+And (in my sensitive fancy) she had delivered the import of the
+message. I had gathered that my visit was ill-timed. I was
+preparing to cut it short, when Leonard himself came up and
+whisked me against my will to the tea-table. If my hypothesis were
+correct he had evidently changed his mind as to the desirability
+of getting rid, in so summary a fashion, of what he may have
+considered to be an impertinent and malicious little factor in
+Wellingsford gossip.
+
+At any rate, if he was playing a part, he played it very well. It
+was not in the power of man to be more cordial and gracious. He
+gave me a vivid account of the campaign. He had been through
+everything, the retreat from Mons, the Battle of the Aisne, the
+great rush north, and the Battle of Neuve Chapelle on the 17th of
+March. I listened, fascinated, to his tale, which he told with a
+true soldier's impersonal modesty.
+
+"I was glad," said I, after a while, "to see you twice mentioned
+in dispatches."
+
+Mrs. Boyce turned on me triumphantly. "He is going to get his D.
+S. O."
+
+"By Jove!" said I.
+
+Leonard laughed, threw one gaitered leg over the other and held up
+his hands at her.
+
+"Oh, you feminine person!" He smiled at me. "I told my dear old
+mother as a dead and solemn secret."
+
+"But it will be gazetted in a few days, dear."
+
+"One can never be absolutely sure of these things until they're in
+black and white. A pretty ass I'd look if there was a hitch--say
+through some fool of a copying clerk--and I didn't get it after
+all. It's only dear, silly understanding things like mothers that
+would understand. Other people wouldn't. Don't you think I'm
+right, Meredyth?"
+
+Of course he was. I have known, in my time, of many
+disappointments. It is not every recommendation for honours that
+becomes effective. I congratulated him, however, and swore to
+secrecy.
+
+"It's all luck," said he. "Just because a man happens to be
+spotted. If my regiment got its deserts, every Jack man would walk
+about in a suit of armour made of Victoria Crosses. Give me some
+more tea, mother."
+
+"The thing I shall never understand, dear," she said, artlessly,
+looking up at him, while she handed him his cup, "is when you see
+a lot of murderous Germans rushing at you with guns and shells and
+bayonets, how you are not afraid."
+
+He threw back his head and laughed in his debonair fashion; but I
+watched him narrowly and I saw the corners of his mouth twitch for
+the infinitesimal fraction of a second.
+
+"Oh, sometimes we're in an awful funk, I assure you," he replied
+gaily. "Ask Meredyth."
+
+"We may be," said I, "but we daren't shew it--I'm speaking of
+officers. If an officer funks he's generally responsible for the
+death of goodness knows how many men. And if the men funk they're
+liable to be shot for cowardice in the face of the enemy."
+
+"And what happens to officers who are afraid?"
+
+"If it's known, they get broke," said I.
+
+Boyce swallowed his tea at a gulp, set down the cup, and strode to
+the window. There was a short pause. Presently he turned.
+
+"Physical fear is a very curious thing," he said in a voice
+unnecessarily loud. "I've seen it take hold of men of proved
+courage and paralyse them. It's just like an epileptic fit--beyond
+a man's control. I've known a fellow--the most reckless, hare-
+brained daredevil you can imagine--to stand petrified with fear on
+the bank of a river, and let a wounded comrade drown before his
+eyes. And he was a good swimmer too."
+
+"What happened to him?" I asked.
+
+He met my gaze for a moment, looked away, and then met it again--
+it seemed defiantly.
+
+"What happened to him? Well--" there was the tiniest possible
+pause--a pause that only an uneasy, suspicious repository of the
+abominable story of Vilboek's Farm could have noticed--"Well, as
+he stood there he got plugged--and that was the end of him. But
+what I--"
+
+"Was he an officer, dear?"
+
+"No, no, mother, a sergeant," he answered abruptly, and in the
+same breath continued. "What I was going to say is this. No one as
+far as I know has ever bothered to work out the psychology of
+fear. Especially the sudden thing that hits a man's heart and
+makes him stand stock-still like a living corpse--unable to move a
+muscle--all his willpower out of gear--just as a motor is out of
+gear. I've seen a lot of it. Those men oughtn't to be called
+cowards. It's as much a fit, say, as epilepsy. Allowances ought to
+made for them."
+
+It was a warm day, the windows were closed, my valetudinarian
+hostess having a horror of draughts, and a cheery fire was blazing
+up the chimney. Boyce took out a handkerchief and mopped his
+forehead.
+
+"Dear old mother," said he, "you keep this room like an oven."
+
+"It is you who have got so excited talking, dear," said Mrs.
+Boyce. "I'm sure it can't be good for your heart. It is just the
+same with me. I remember I had to speak quite severely to Mary a
+week--no, to-day's Tuesday--ten days ago, and I had dreadful
+palpitations afterwards and broke out into a profuse perspiration
+and had to send for Doctor Miles."
+
+"Now, that's funny," said I. "When I'm excited about anything I
+grow quite cold."
+
+Boyce lit a cigarette and laughed. "I don't see where the
+excitement in the present case comes in. Mother started an
+interesting hare, and I followed it up. Anyhow--"he threw himself
+on the sofa, blew a kiss to his mother in the most charming way in
+the world, and smiled on me--"anyhow, to see you two in this
+dearest bit of dear old England is like a dream. And I'm not going
+to think of the waking up. I want all the cushions and the
+lavender and the neat maid's caps and aprons--I said to Mary this
+morning when she drew my curtains: 'Stay just there and let me
+look at you so that I can realise I'm at home and not in my little
+grey trench in West Flanders'--she got red and no doubt thought me
+a lunatic and felt inclined to squawk--but she stayed and looked
+jolly pretty and refreshing--only for a minute or two, after which
+I dismissed her--yes, my dears, I want everything that the old
+life means, the white table linen, the spring flowers, the scent
+of the air which has never known the taint of death, and all that
+this beautiful mother of England, with her knitting needles,
+stands for. I want to have a debauch of sweet and beautiful
+things."
+
+"As far as I can give them you shall have them. My dear--" she
+dropped her knitting in her lap and looked over at him tragically
+--"I quite forgot to ask. Did Mary put bath-salts, as I ordered,
+into your bath this morning?"
+
+Leonard threw away his cigarette and slapped his leg.
+
+"By George!" he cried. "That explains it. I was wondering where
+the Dickens that smell of ammonia came from."
+
+"If you use it every day it makes your skin so nice and soft,"
+remarked Mrs. Boyce.
+
+He laughed, and made the obvious jest on the use of bath-salts in
+the trenches.
+
+"I wonder, mother, whether you have any idea of what trenches and
+dug-outs look like."
+
+He told her, very picturesquely, and went on to a general sketch
+of life at the front. He entertained me with interesting talk for
+the rest of my visit. I have already said that he was a man of
+great personal charm.
+
+He accompanied me to the car and saw me comfortably tucked in.
+
+"You won't give me away, will you?" he said, shaking hands.
+
+"How?" I asked.
+
+"By telling any one I'm here."
+
+I promised and drove off. Marigold, full of the tea that is given
+to a guest, strove cheerfully to engage me in conversation. I hate
+to snub Marigold, excellent and devoted fellow, so I let him talk;
+but my mind was occupied with worrying problems.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Leonard Boyce had received me on sufferance. I had come upon him
+while he was imprudently exposing himself to view. There had been
+no way out of it. But he made it clear that he desired no other
+Wellingsfordian to invade his privacy. Secretly he had come to see
+his mother and secretly he intended to go. I remembered that
+before he went to the front he had not come home, but his mother
+had met him in London. He had asked me for no local news. He had
+inquired after the welfare of none of his old friends. Never an
+allusion to poor Oswald Fenimore's gallant death--he used to run
+in and out of Wellings Park as if it were his own house. What had
+he against the place which for so many years had been his home?
+
+With regard to Betty Fairfax, he had loved and ridden away, it is
+true, leaving her disconsolate. But though everyone knew of the
+engagement, no one had suspected the defection. Betty was a young
+woman who could keep her own counsel and baffle any curiosity-
+monger or purveyor of gossip in the country. So when she married
+Captain Connor, a little gasp went round the neighbourhood, which
+for the first time remembered Leonard Boyce. There were some who
+blamed her for callous treatment of Boyce, away and forgotten at
+the front. The majority, however, took the matter calmly, as we
+have had to take far more amazing social convulsions. The fact
+remained that Betty was married, and there was no reason whatever,
+on the score of the old engagement, for Boyce to manifest such
+exaggerated shyness with regard to Wellingsford society.
+
+If it had been any other man than Boyce, I should not have worried
+about the matter at all. Save that I was deeply attached to Betty,
+what had her discarded lover's attitude to do with me? But Boyce
+was Boyce, the man of the damnable story of Vilboek's Farm. And
+he, of his own accord, had revived in my mind that story in all
+its intensity. A chance foolish question, such as thousands of
+gentle, sheltered women have put to their suddenly,
+uncomprehended, suddenly deified sons and husbands, had obviously
+disturbed his nervous equilibrium. That little reflex twitch at
+the corner of his lips--I have seen it often in the old times. I
+should like to have had him stripped to the waist so that I could
+have seen his heart--the infallible test. At moments of mighty
+moral strain men can keep steady eyes and nostrils and mouth and
+speech; but they cannot control that tell-tale diaphragm of flesh
+over the heart. I have known it to cause the death of many a
+Kaffir spy. ... But, at any rate, there was the twitch of the lips
+... I deliberately threw weight into the scale of Mrs. Boyce's
+foolish question. If he had not lost his balance, why should he
+have launched into an almost passionate defence of the physical
+coward?
+
+My memory went back to the narrative of the poor devil in the Cape
+Town hospital. Boyce's description of the general phenomenon was a
+deadly corroboration of Somers's account of the individual case.
+They had used the same word--"paralysed." Boyce had made a fierce
+and definite apologia for the very act of which Somers had accused
+him. He put it down to the sudden epilepsy of fear for which a man
+was irresponsible. Somers's story had never seemed so convincing--
+the first part of it, at least--the part relating to the paralysis
+of terror. But the second part--the account of the diabolical
+ingenuity by means of which Boyce rehabilitated himself--instead
+of blowing his brains out like a gentleman--still hammered at the
+gates of my credulity.
+
+Well--granted the whole thing was true--why revive it after
+fifteen years' dead silence, and all of a sudden, just on account
+of an idle question? Even in South Africa, his "mention" had
+proved his courage. Now, with the D. S. O. a mere matter of
+gazetting, it was established beyond dispute.
+
+On the other hand, if the Vilboek story, more especially the
+second part, was true, what reparation could he make in the eyes
+of honourable men?--in his own eyes, if he himself had succeeded
+to the status of an honourable man? Would not any decent soldier
+smite him across the face instead of grasping him by the hand? I
+was profoundly worried.
+
+Moreover Betty, level-headed Betty, had called him a devil. Why?
+
+If the second part of Somers's story were true, he had acted like
+a devil. There is no other word for it. Now, what concrete
+diabolical facts did Betty know? Or had her instinctive feminine
+insight pierced through the man's outer charm and merely perceived
+horns, tail, and cloven hoof cast like a shadow over his soul?
+
+How was I to know?
+
+She came to dine with me the next evening: a dear way she had of
+coming uninvited, and God knows how a lonely cripple valued it.
+She was in uniform, being too busy to change, and looked
+remarkably pretty. She brought with her a cheery letter from her
+husband, received that morning, and read me such bits as the
+profane might hear, her eyes brightening as she glanced over the
+sections that she skipped. Beyond doubt her marriage had brought
+her pleasure and pride. The pride she would have felt to some
+extent, I think, if she had married a grampus; for when a woman
+has a husband at the front she feels that she is taking her part
+in the campaign and exposing herself vicariously to hardship and
+shrapnel; and in the eyes of the world she gains thereby a little
+in stature, a thing dear to every right-minded woman. But Betty's
+husband was not a grampus, but a very fine fellow, a mate to be
+wholly proud of: and he loved her devotedly and expressed his love
+beautifully loverwise, as her tell-tale face informed me.
+Gratefully and sturdily she had set herself out to be happy. She
+was succeeding. ... Lord bless you! Millions of women who have
+married, not the wretch they loved, but the other man, have lived
+happy ever after. No: I had no fear for Betty now. I could not see
+that she had any fear for herself.
+
+After dinner she sat on the floor by my side and smoked cigarettes
+in great content. She had done a hard day's work at the hospital;
+her husband had done a hard day's work--probably was still doing
+it--in Flanders. Both deserved well of their country and their
+consciences. She was giving a poor lonely paralytic, who had given
+his legs years ago to the aforesaid country, a delightful evening.
+... No, I'm quite sure such a patronising thought never entered my
+Betty's head. After all, my upper half is sound, and I can talk
+sense or nonsense with anybody. What have one's legs to do with a
+pleasant after-dinner conversation? Years ago I swore a great oath
+that I would see them damned before they got in the way of my
+intelligence.
+
+We were getting on famously. We had put both war and Wellingsford
+behind us, and talked of books. I found to my dismay that this
+fair and fearless high product of modernity had far less
+acquaintance with Matthew Arnold than with the Evangelist of the
+same praenomen. She had never heard of "The Forsaken Merman," one
+of the most haunting romantic poems in the English language. I
+pointed to a bookcase and bade her fetch the volume. She brought
+it and settled down again by my chair, and, as a punishment of
+ignorance, and for the good of her soul, I began to read aloud.
+She is an impressionable young person and yet one of remarkable
+candour. If she had not been held by the sea-music of the poem,
+she would not have kept her deep, steady brown eyes fixed on me. I
+have no hesitation in repeating that we were getting on famously
+and enjoying ourselves immensely. I got nearly to the end:
+
+"... Here came a mortal, But faithless was she, And alone dwell
+forever The Kings of the sea. But, children at midnight--"
+
+The door opened wide. Topping his long stiff body, Marigold's ugly
+one-eyed head appeared, and, as if he was tremendously proud of
+himself, he announced:
+
+"Major Boyce."
+
+Boyce strode quickly past him and, suddenly aware of Betty by my
+side, stopped short, like a private suddenly summoned to
+attention. Marigold, unconscious of the blackest curses that had
+ever fallen upon him during his long and blundering life, made a
+perfect and self-satisfied exit. Betty sprang to her feet, held
+her tall figure very erect, and faced the untimely visitor, her
+cheeks flushing deep red. For an appreciable time, say, thirty
+seconds, Boyce stood stock still, looking at her from under heavy
+contracted brows. Then he recovered himself, smiled, and advanced
+to her with outstretched hand, But, on his movement, she had been
+quick to turn and bend down in order to pick up the book that had
+fallen from my fingers on the further side of my chair. So,
+swiftly he wheeled to me with his handshake. It was very deft
+manoeuvring on both sides.
+
+"The faithful Marigold didn't tell me that you weren't alone,
+Meredyth," he said in his cordial, charming way. "Otherwise I
+shouldn't have intruded. But my dear old mother had an attack of
+something and went to bed immediately after dinner, and I thought
+I'd come round and have a smoke and a drink in your company."
+
+Betty, who had occupied herself by replacing Matthew Arnold's
+poems in the bookcase, caught up the box of cigars that lay on the
+brass tray table by my side, and offered it to him.
+
+"Here is the smoke," she said.
+
+And when, after a swift, covert glance at her, he had selected a
+cigar, she went to the bell-push by the mantelpiece.
+
+"The drinks will be here in a minute."
+
+In order to do something to save this absurd situation, I drew
+from my waistcoat pocket a little cigar-cutter attached to my
+watch-chain, and clipped the end of his cigar. I also lit a match
+from my box and handed it up to him. When he had finished with the
+match he threw it into the fireplace and turned to Betty.
+
+"My congratulations are a bit late, but I hope I may offer them."
+
+She said, "Thank you." Waved a hand. "Won't you sit down?"
+
+"Wasn't it rather sudden?" he asked.
+
+"Everything in war time is sudden--except the action of the
+British Government. Your own appearance to-night is sudden."
+
+He laughed at her jest and explained, much as he had done to me,
+his reasons for wishing to keep his visit to Wellingsford a
+secret. Meanwhile Marigold had brought in decanters and syphons.
+Betty attended to Boyce's needs with a provoking air of
+nonchalance. If a notorious German imbrued in the blood of babes
+had chanced to be in her hospital, she would have given him his
+medicine with just the same air. Although no one could have
+specified a lack of courtesy towards a guest--for in my house she
+played hostess--there was an indefinable touch of cold contumely
+in her attitude. Whether he felt the hostility as acutely as I
+did, I cannot say; but he carried it off with a swaggering grace.
+He bowed to her over his glass.
+
+"Here's to the fortunate and gallant fellow over there."
+
+I saw her knuckles whiten as, with an inclination of the head, she
+acknowledged the toast.
+
+"By the way," said he, "what's his regiment? My good mother told
+me his name. Captain Connor, isn't it? But for the rest she is
+vague. She's the vaguest old dear in the world. I found out to-day
+that she thought there was a long row of cannons, hundreds of
+them, all in a line, in front of the English Army, and a long row
+in front of the German Army, and, when there was a battle, that
+they all blazed away. So when I asked her whether your husband was
+in the Life Guards or the Army Service Corps, she said cheerfully
+that it was either one or the other but she wasn't quite sure. So
+do give me some reliable information."
+
+"My husband is in the 10th Wessex Fusiliers, a Territorial
+battalion," she replied coldly.
+
+"I hope some day to have the pleasure of making his acquaintance."
+
+"Stranger things have happened," said Betty. She glanced at the
+clock and rose abruptly. "It's time I was getting back to the
+hospital."
+
+Boyce rose too. "How are you going?" he asked.
+
+"I'm walking."
+
+He advanced a step towards her. "Won't you let me run you round in
+the car?"
+
+"I prefer to walk."
+
+Her tone was final. She took affectionate leave of me and went to
+the door, which Boyce held open.
+
+"Good-night," she said, without proffering her hand.
+
+He followed her out into the hall.
+
+"Betty," he said in a low voice, "won't you ever forgive me?"
+
+"I have no feelings towards you either of forgiveness or
+resentment," she replied.
+
+They did not mean to be overheard, but my hearing is unusually
+acute, and I could not help catching their conversation.
+
+"I know I seem to have behaved badly to you."
+
+"You have behaved worse to others," said Betty. "I don't wonder at
+your shrinking from showing your face here." Then, louder, for my
+benefit. "Good-night, Major Boyce. I really can walk up to the
+hospital by myself."
+
+Evidently she walked away and Boyce after her, for I heard him
+say:
+
+"You shan't go till you've told me what you mean."
+
+What she replied I don't know. To judge by the slam of the front
+door it must have been something defiant. Presently he entered
+debonair, with a smile on his lips.
+
+"I'm afraid I've left you in a draught," he said, shutting the
+door. "I couldn't resist having a word with her and wishing her
+happiness and the rest of it. We were engaged once upon a time."
+
+"I know," said I.
+
+"I hope you don't think I did wrong in releasing her from the
+engagement. I don't consider a man has a right to go on active
+service--especially on such service as the present war--and keep a
+girl bound at home. Still less has he a right to marry her. What
+happens in so many cases? A fortnight's married life. The man goes
+to the front. Then ping! or whizz-bang! and that's the end of him,
+and so the girl is left."
+
+"On the other hand," said I, "you must remember that the girl may
+hold very strong opinions and take pings and whizz-bangs very
+deliberately into account."
+
+Boyce helped himself to another whisky and soda. "It's a matter
+for the individual conscience. I decided one way. Connor obviously
+decided another, and, like a lucky fellow, found Betty of his way
+of thinking. Perhaps I have old-fashioned notions." He took a long
+pull at his drink. "Well, it can't be helped," he said with a
+smile. "The other fellow has won, and I must take it gracefully.
+... By George! wasn't she looking stunning to-night--in that kit?
+... I hope you didn't mind my bursting in on you--"
+
+"Of course not," said I, politely.
+
+He drained his glass. "The fact is," said he, "this war is a
+nerve-racking business. I never dreamed I was so jumpy until I
+came home. I hate being by myself. I've kept my poor devoted
+mother up till one o'clock in the morning. To-night she struck,
+small blame to her; but, after five minutes on my lones, I felt as
+if I should go off my head. So I routed out the car and came
+along. But of course I didn't expect to see Betty. The sight of
+Betty in the flesh as a married woman nearly bowled me over. May I
+help myself again?" He poured out a very much stiffer drink than
+before, and poured half of it down his throat. "It's not a joyous
+thing to see the woman one has been crazy over the wife of another
+fellow."
+
+"I suppose it isn't," said I.
+
+Of course I might have made some subtle and cunning remark,
+suavely put a leading question which would have led him on, in his
+unbalanced mood, to confidential revelations. But the man was a
+distinguished soldier and my guest. To what he chose to tell me
+voluntarily I could listen. I could do no more. He did not reply
+to my last unimportant remark, but lay back in his armchair
+watching the blue spirals of smoke from the end of his cigar.
+There was a fairly long silence.
+
+I was worried by the talk I had overheard through the open door.
+"You have behaved worse to others. I don't wonder at your
+shrinking from showing your face here." Betty had, weeks ago,
+called him a devil. She had treated him to-night in a manner
+which, if not justified, was abominable. I was forced to the
+conclusion that Betty was fully aware of some discreditable
+chapter in the man's life which had nothing to do with the affair
+at Vilboek's Farm, which, indeed, had to do with another woman and
+this humdrum little town of Wellingsford. Otherwise why did she
+taunt him with hiding from the light of Wellingsfordian day?
+
+Now, please don't think me little-minded. Or, if you do think so,
+please remember the conditions under which I have lived for so
+many years and grant me your kind indulgence for a confession I
+have to make. Besides being worried, I felt annoyed. Wellingsford
+was my little world. I knew everybody in it. I had grown to regard
+myself as the repository of all its gossip. The fraction of it
+that I retailed was a matter of calculated discretion. I made a
+little hobby--it was a foible, a vanity, what you will--of my
+omniscience. I knew months ahead the dates of the arrivals of
+young Wellingsfordians in this world of pain and plenitude. I knew
+of maidens who were wronged and youths who were jilted; of wives
+who led their husbands a deuce of a dance, and of wives who kept
+their husbands out of the bankruptcy court. When young Trexham,
+the son of the Lord Lieutenant of the county, married a minor
+light of musical comedy at a registrar's office, I was the first
+person in the place to be told; and I flatter myself that I was
+instrumental in inducing a pig-headed old idiot to receive an
+exceedingly charming daughter-in-law. I loved to look upon
+Wellingsford as an open book. Can you blame me for my resentment
+at coming across, so to speak, a couple of pages glued together?
+The only logical inference from Betty's remark was that Boyce had
+behaved abominably and even notoriously to a woman in
+Wellingsford. To do him justice, I declare I had never heard his
+name associated with any woman or girl in the place save Betty
+herself. I felt that, in some crooked fashion, or the other, I had
+been done out of my rights.
+
+And there, placidly smoking his cigar and watching the wreaths of
+blue smoke with the air of an idle seraph contemplating a wisp of
+cirrus in Heaven's firmament, sat the man who could have given me
+the word of the enigma.
+
+He broke the silence by saying:
+
+"Have you ever seriously considered the real problems of the
+Balkans?"
+
+Now what on earth had the Balkans to do with the thoughts that
+must have been rolling at the back of the man's mind? I was both
+disappointed and relieved. I expected him to resume the personal
+talk, and I dreaded lest he should entrust me with embarrassing
+confidences. After three strong whiskies and sodas a man is apt to
+relax hold of his discretion. ... Anyhow, he jerked me back to my
+position of host. I made some sort of polite reply. He smiled.
+
+"You, my dear Meredyth, like the rest of the country, are half
+asleep. In a few months' time you'll get the awakening of your
+life."
+
+He began to discourse on the diplomatic situation. Months
+afterwards I remembered what he had said that night and how
+accurate had been his forecast. He talked brilliantly for over an
+hour, during which, keenly interested in his arguments, I lost the
+puzzle of the man in admiration of the fine soldier and clear and
+daring thinker. It was only when he had gone that I began to worry
+again.
+
+And before I went to sleep I had fresh cause for anxious
+speculation.
+
+"Marigold," said I, when he came in as usual to carry me to bed,
+"didn't I tell you that Major Boyce particularly wanted no one to
+know that he was in the town?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Marigold. "I've told nobody."
+
+"And yet you showed him in without informing him that Mrs. Connor
+was here. Really you ought to have had more tact."
+
+Marigold received his reprimand with the stolidity of the old
+soldier. I have known men who have been informed that they would
+be court-martialled and most certainly shot, make the same reply.
+
+"Very good, sir," said he.
+
+I softened. I was not Marigold's commanding officer, but his very
+grateful friend. "You see," said I, "they were engaged before Mrs.
+Connor married--I needn't tell you that; it was common knowledge--
+and so their sudden meeting was awkward."
+
+"Mrs. Marigold has already explained, sir," said he.
+
+I chuckled inwardly all the way to my bedroom.
+
+"All the same, sir," said he, aiding me in my toilet, which he did
+with stiff military precision, "I don't think the Major is as
+incognighto" (the spelling is phonetic) "as he would like.
+Prettilove was shaving me this morning and told me the Major was
+here. As I considered it my duty, I told him he was a liar, and he
+was so upset that he nicked my Adam's apple and I was that covered
+with blood that I accused him of trying to cut my throat, and I
+went out and finished shaving myself at home, which is
+unsatisfactory when you only have a thumb on your right hand to
+work the razor."
+
+I laughed, picturing the scene. Prettilove is an inoffensive
+little rabbit of a man. Marigold might sit for the model of a war-
+scarred mercenary of the middle ages, and when he called a man a
+liar he did it with accentuaton and vehemence. No wonder
+Prettilove jumped.
+
+"And then again this evening, sir," continued Marigold, slipping
+me into my pyjama jacket, "as I was starting the Major's car, who
+should be waiting there for him but Mr. Gedge."
+
+"Gedge?" I cried.
+
+"Yes, sir. Waiting by the side of the car. 'Can I have a word with
+you, Major Boyce?' says he. 'No, you can't,' says the Major. 'I
+think it's advisable,' says he. 'Those repairs are very pressing.'
+'All right,' says the Major, 'jump in.' Then he says: 'That'll do,
+Marigold. Good-night.' And he drives off with Mr. Gedge. Well, if
+Mr. Gedge and Prettilove know he's here, then everyone knows it."
+
+"Was Gedge inside the drive?" I asked. The drive was a small
+semicircular sort of affair, between gate and gate.
+
+"He was standing by the car waiting," said Marigold. "Now, sir."
+He lifted me with his usual cast-iron tenderness into bed and
+pulled the coverings over me. "It's a funny time to talk about
+house repairs at eleven o'clock, at night," he remarked.
+
+"Nothing is funny in war-time," said I.
+
+"Either nothing or everything," said Marigold. He fussed
+methodically about the room, picked up an armful of clothes, and
+paused by the door, his hand on the switch.
+
+"Anything more, sir?"
+
+"Nothing, thank you, Marigold."
+
+"Good-night, sir."
+
+The room was in darkness. Marigold shut the door. I was alone.
+
+What the deuce was the meaning of this waylaying of Boyce by
+Daniel Gedge?
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Major Boyce has gone, sir," said Marigold, the next morning, as I
+was tapping my breakfast egg.
+
+"Gone?" I echoed. Boyce had made no reference the night before to
+so speedy a departure.
+
+"By the 8.30 train, sir."
+
+Every train known by a scheduled time at Wellingsford goes to
+London. There may be other trains proceeding from the station in
+the opposite direction but nobody heeds them. Boyce had taken
+train to London. I asked my omniscient sergeant:
+
+"How did you find that out?"
+
+It appeared it was the driver of the Railway Delivery Van. I
+smiled at Boyce's ostrich-like faith in the invisibility of his
+hinder bulk. What could occur in Wellingsford without it being
+known at once to vanmen and postmen and barbers and servants and
+masters and mistresses? How could a man hope to conceal his goings
+and comings and secret actions? He might just as well expect to
+take a secluded noontide bath in the fountain in Piccadilly
+Circus.
+
+"Perhaps that's why the matter of those repairs was so pressing,
+sir," said Marigold.
+
+"No doubt of it," said I.
+
+Marigold hung about, his finger-tips pushing towards me mustard
+and apples and tulips and everything that one does not eat with
+egg. But it was no use. I had no desire to pursue the
+conversation. I continued my breakfast stolidly and read the
+newspaper propped up against the coffee-pot. So many circumstances
+connected with Boyce's visit were of a nature that precluded
+confidential discussion with Marigold,--that precluded, indeed,
+confidential discussion with anyone else. The suddenness of his
+departure I learned that afternoon from Mrs. Boyce, who sent me by
+hand a miserable letter characteristically rambling. From it I
+gathered certain facts. Leonard had come into her bedroom at seven
+o'clock, awakening her from the first half-hour's sleep she had
+enjoyed all night, with the news that he had been unexpectedly
+summoned back. When she came to think of it, she couldn't imagine
+how he got the news, for the post did not arrive till eight
+o'clock, and Mary said no telegram had been delivered and there
+had been no call on the telephone. But she supposed the War Office
+had secret ways of communicating with officers which it would not
+be well to make known. The whole of this war, with its killing off
+of the sons of the best families in the land, and the sleeping in
+the mud with one's boots on, to say nothing of not being able to
+change for dinner, and the way in which they knew when to shoot
+and when not to shoot, was all so mysterious that she had long ago
+given up hope of understanding any of its details. All she could
+do was to pray God that her dear boy should be spared. At any
+rate, she knew the duty of an English mother when the country was
+in danger; so she had sent him away with a brave face and her
+blessing, as she had done before. But, although English mothers
+could show themselves Spartans--(she spelt it "Spartians," dear
+lady, but no matter)--yet they were women and had to sit at home
+and weep. In the meanwhile, her palpitations had come on
+dreadfully bad, and so had her neuritis, and she had suffered
+dreadfully after eating some fish at dinner which she was sure
+Pennideath, the fishmonger--she always felt that man was an
+anarchist in disguise--had bought out of the condemned stock at
+Billingsgate, and none of the doctor's medicines were of the
+slightest good to her, and she was heartbroken at having to part
+so suddenly from Leonard, and would I spare half an hour to
+comfort an old woman who had sent her only son to die for his
+country and was ready, when it pleased God, if not sooner, to die
+in the same sacred cause?
+
+So of course I went. The old lady, propped on pillows in an
+overheated room, gave me tea and poured into my ear all the
+anguish of her simple heart. In an abstracted, anxious way, she
+ate a couple of crumpets and a wedge of cake with almond icing,
+and was comforted.
+
+We continued our discussion of the war--or rather Leonard, for
+with her Leonard seemed to be the war. She made some remark
+deliciously inept--I wish I could remember it. I made a sly
+rejoinder. She sat bolt upright and a flush came into her Dresden-
+china cheek and her old eyes flashed.
+
+"You may think I'm a silly old woman, Duncan. I dare say I am. I
+can't take in things as I used to do when I was young. But if
+Leonard should be killed in the war--I think of it night and day--
+what I should like to do would be to drive to the Market Square of
+Wellingsford and wave a Union Jack round and round and fall down
+dead."
+
+I made some sort of sympathetic gesture.
+
+"And I certainly should," she added.
+
+"My dear friend," said I, "if I could move from this confounded
+chair, I would kiss your brave hands."
+
+And how many brave hands of English mothers, white and delicate,
+coarse and toil-worn, do not demand the wondering, heart-full
+homage of us all?
+
+And hundreds of thousands of them don't know why we are fighting.
+Hundreds of thousands of them have never read a newspaper in their
+lives. I doubt whether they would understand one if they tried, I
+doubt whether all could read one in the literal sense of the word.
+We have had--we have still--the most expensive and rottenest
+system of primary education in the world, the worst that
+squabbling sectarians can devise. Arab children squatting round
+the courtyard of a Mosque and swaying backwards and forwards as
+they get by heart meaningless bits of the Koran, are not sent out
+into life more inadequately armed with elementary educational
+weapons than are English children. Our state of education has
+nominally been systematised for forty-five years, and yet now in
+our hospitals we have splendid young fellows in their early
+twenties who can neither read nor write. I have talked with them.
+I have read to them. I have written letters for them. Clean-cut,
+decent, brave, honourable Englishmen--not gutter-bred Hooligans
+dragged from the abyss by the recruiting sergeant, but men who
+have thrown up good employment because something noble inside them
+responded to the Great Call. And to the eternal disgrace of
+governments in this disastrously politician-ridden land such men
+have not been taught to read and write. It is of no use anyone
+saying to me that it is not so. I know of my own certain intimate
+knowledge that it is so.
+
+Even among those who technically have "the Three R's," I have met
+scores of men in our Wellingsford Hospital who, bedridden for
+months, would give all they possess to be able to enjoy a novel--
+say a volume of W. W. Jacobs, the writer who above all others has
+conferred the precious boon of laughter on our wounded--but to
+whom the intellectual strain of following the significance of
+consecutive words is far too great. Thousands and thousands of men
+have lain in our hospitals deprived, by the criminal insanity of
+party politicians, of the infinite consolation of books.
+
+Christ, whom all these politicians sanctimoniously pretend to make
+such a fuss of, once said that a house divided against itself
+cannot stand. And yet we regard this internecine conflict between
+our precious political parties as a sacred institution. By Allah,
+we are a funny people!
+
+Of course your officials at the Board of Education--that
+beautiful timber-headed, timber-hearted, timber-souled structure--
+could come down on me with an avalanche of statistics. "Look at
+our results," they cry. I look. There are certain brains that even
+our educational system cannot benumb. A few clever ones, at the
+cost of enormously expensive machinery, are sent to the
+universities, where they learn how to teach others the important
+things whereby they achieved their own unimportant success. The
+shining lights are those whom we turn out as syndicalist leaders
+and other kinds of anti-patriotic demagogues. We systematically
+deny them the wine of thought, but give them the dregs. But in the
+past we did not care; they were vastly clever people, a credit to
+our national system. It gave them chances which they took. We were
+devilish proud of them.
+
+On the other hand, the vast mass are sent away with the
+intellectual equipment of a public school-boy of twelve, and, as
+I have declared, a large remnant have not been taught even how to
+read and write. The storm of political controversy on educational
+matters has centred round such questions as whether the story of
+Joseph and his Brethren and the Parable of the Prodigal Son should
+be taught to little Baptists by a Church of England teacher, and
+what proportion of rates paid by Church of England ratepayers
+should go to giving little Baptists a Baptistical training. If
+there was a Christ who could come down among us, with what
+scorching sarcasm would he not shrivel up the Scribes and
+Pharisees, hypocrites, who in His Name have prevented the People
+from learning how to read and write.
+
+Look through Hansard. There never has been a Debate in the House
+of Commons devoted to the question of Education itself. If the War
+can teach us any lessons, as a nation--and sometimes I doubt
+whether it will--it ought at least to teach us the essential
+vicious rottenness of our present educational system.
+
+This tirade may seem a far cry from Mrs. Boyce and her sister
+mothers. It is not. I started by saying that there are hundreds of
+thousands of British mothers, with sons in the Army, who have
+never read a line of print dealing with the war, who have the
+haziest notion of what it is all about. All they know is that we
+are fighting Germans, who for some incomprehensible reason have
+declared themselves to be our enemies; that the Germans, by
+hearsay accounts, are dreadful people who stick babies on bayonets
+and drop bombs on women and children. They really know little
+more. But that is enough. They know that it is the part of a man
+to fight for his country. They would not have their sons be called
+cowards. They themselves have the blind, instinctive, and
+therefore sacred love of country, which is named patriotism--and
+they send forth their sons to fight.
+
+I stand up to kiss the white and delicate hand of the gentlewoman
+who sends her boy to the war, for its owner knows as well as I do
+(or ought to) all that is involved in this colossal struggle. But
+to the toil-worn, coarse-handed mother I go on bended knees;
+nothing intellectual comes within the range of her ideas. Her boy
+is fighting for England. She would be ashamed if he were not. Were
+she a man she would fight too. He has gone "with a good 'eart"--
+the stereotyped phrase with which every English private soldier,
+tongue-tied, hides the expression of his unconquerable soul. How
+many times have I not heard it from wounded men healed of their
+wounds? I have never heard anything else. "The man who says he
+WANTS to go back is a liar. But if they send me, I'll go WITH A
+GOOD 'EART"--The phrase which ought to be immortalized on every
+grave in Flanders and France and Gallipoli and Mesopotamia.
+
+17735 P'V'TE THOMAS ATKINS 1ST GOD'S OWN REG'T HE DIED WITH A GOOD
+'EART
+
+So, you see, I looked at this rather silly malade imaginaire of an
+old lady with whom I was taking tea, and suddenly conceived for
+her a vast respect--even veneration. I say "rather silly." I had
+many a time qualified the adjective much more forcibly. I took her
+to have the intellectual endowment of a hen. But then she flashed
+out suddenly before me an elderly Jeanne d'Arc. That to me Leonard
+Boyce was suspect did not enter at all into the question. To her--
+and that was all that mattered--he was Sir Galahad, Lancelot, King
+Arthur, Bayard, St. George, Hector, Lysander, Miltiades, all
+rolled into one. The passion of her life was spent on him. To do
+him justice, he had never failed to display to her the most tender
+affection. In her eyes he was perfection. His death would mean the
+wiping out of everything between Earth and Heaven. And yet,
+paramount in her envisagement of such a tragedy was the idea of a
+public proclamation of the cause of England in which he died.
+
+In this war the women of England--the women of Great Britain and
+Ireland--the women of the far-flung regions of the British Empire,
+have their part.
+
+Now and then mild business matters call me up to London. On these
+occasions Marigold gets himself up in a kind of yachting kit which
+he imagines will differentiate him from the ordinary chauffeur and
+at the same time proclaim the dignity of the Meredyth-Marigold
+establishment. He loves to swagger up the steps of my Service Club
+and announce my arrival to the Hall Porter, who already, warned by
+telephone of my advent, has my little wicker-work tricycle chair
+in readiness. I think he feels, dear fellow, that he and I are
+keeping our end up; that, although there are only bits of us left,
+we are there by inalienable right as part and parcel of the
+British Army--none of your Territorials or Kitcheners, but the old
+original British Army whose prestige and honour were those of his
+own straight soul. The Hall Porter is an ex-Sergeant-Major, and he
+and Marigold are old acquaintances, and the meeting of the two
+warriors is acknowledged by a wink and a military jerk of the
+head. I think it is Marigold that impresses Bunworthy with a
+respect for me, for that august functionary never fails to descend
+the steps and cross the pavement to my modest little two-seater;
+an act of graciousness which (so I am given to understand by my
+friends) he will only perform in the case of Royalty Itself. A
+mere Field-marshal has to mount the steps unattended like any
+subaltern.
+
+These red-letter days when I drive through the familiar (and now
+exciting) hubbub of London, I love (strange taste!) every motor
+omnibus, every pretty woman, every sandwich-man, every fine young
+fellow in khaki, every car-load of men in blue hospital uniform. I
+love the smell of London, the cinematographic picture of London,
+the thrill of London. To understand what I mean you have only got
+to get rid of your legs and keep your heart and nerves and
+memories, and live in a little country town.
+
+Yes, my visits to London are red-letter days. To get there with
+any enjoyment to myself involves such a fussification, and such an
+unauthorised claim on the services of other people, that my visits
+are few and far between.
+
+A couple of hours in a club smoking-room--to the normal man a mere
+putting in of time, a vain surcease from boredom, a vacuous habit
+--is to me, a strange wonder and delight. After Wellingsford the
+place is resonant with actualities. I hear all sorts of things;
+mostly lies, I know; but what matter? When a man tells me that his
+cousin knows a man attached as liaison officer to the staff of
+General Joffre, who has given out confidentially that such and
+such a thing is going to happen I am all ears. I feel that I am
+sucked into the great whirlpool of Vast Events. I don't care a bit
+about being disillusioned afterwards. The experience has done me
+good, made a man of me and sent me back to Wellingsford as an
+oracle. And if you bring me a man who declares that he does not
+like being an oracle, I will say to his face that he is an
+unblushing liar.
+
+All this is by way of preface to the statement that on the third
+of May (vide diary) I went to the club. It was just after lunch
+and the great smoking-room was full of men in khaki and men in
+blue and gold, with a sprinkling of men, mostly elderly, in mufti;
+and from their gilt frames the full-length portraits of departed
+men of war in gorgeous uniforms looked down superciliously on
+their more sadly attired descendants. I got into a corner by the
+door, so as to be out of the way, for I knew by experience that
+should there be in the room a choleric general, he would
+inevitably trip over the casually extended front wheel of my
+chair, greatly to the scandal of modest ears and to my own
+physical discomfiture.
+
+Various seniors came up and passed the time of the day with me--
+one or two were bald-headed retired colonels of sixty, dressed in
+khaki, with belts like equators on a terrestrial globe and with a
+captain's three stars on their sleeves. Gallant old boys, full of
+gout and softness, they had sunk their rank and taken whatever
+dull jobs, such as guarding internment camps or railway bridges,
+the War Office condescendingly thought fit to give them. They
+listened sympathetically to my grievances, for they had grievances
+of their own. When soldiers have no grievances the Army will
+perish of smug content.
+
+"Why can't they give me a billet in the Army Pay and let me
+release a man sounder of wind and limb?" I asked. "What's the good
+of legs to a man who sits on his hunkers all day in an office and
+fills up Army forms? I hate seeing you lucky fellows in uniform."
+
+"We're not a pretty sight," said the most rotund, who was a wag in
+his way.
+
+Then we discussed what we knew and what we didn't know of the
+Battle of Ypres, and the withdrawal of our Second Army, and shook
+our heads dolorously over the casualty lists, every one of which
+in those days contained the names of old comrades and of old
+comrades' boys. And when they had finished their coffee and mild
+cigars they went off well contented to their dull jobs and the
+room began to thin. Other acquaintances on their way out paused
+for a handshake and a word, and I gathered scraps of information
+that had come "straight from Kitchener," and felt wonderfully wise
+and cheerful.
+
+I had been sitting alone for a few minutes when a man rose from a
+far corner, a tall soldierly figure, his arm in a sling, and came
+straight towards me with that supple, easy stride that only years
+of confident command can give. He had keen blue eyes and a
+pleasant bronzed face which I knew that I had seem somewhere
+before. I noticed on his sleeve the crown and star of a
+lieutenant-colonel. He said pleasantly:
+
+"You're Major Meredyth, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes," said I.
+
+"You don't remember me. No reason why you should. But my name's
+Dacre--Reggie Dacre, brother of Johnnie Dacre in your battery. We
+met in Cape Town."
+
+I held out my hand.
+
+"Of course," said I. "You took me to a hospital. Do sit down for a
+bit. You a member here?"
+
+"No. I belong to the Naval and Military. Lunching with old General
+Donovan, a sort of god-father of mine. He told me who you were. I
+haven't seen you since that day in South Africa."
+
+I asked for news of Johnnie, who had been lost to my ken for
+years. Johnnie had been in India, and was now doing splendidly
+with his battery somewhere near La Bassee. I pointed to the sling.
+Badly hurt? No, a bit of flesh torn by shrapnel. Bone, thank God,
+not touched. It was only horny-headed idiots like the British R.
+A. M. C. that would send a man home for such a trifle. It was
+devilish hard lines to be hoofed away from the regiment
+practically just after he had got his command. However, he would
+be back in a week or two. He laughed.
+
+"Lucky to be alive at all."
+
+"Or not done in for ever like myself," said I.
+
+"I didn't like to ask--" he said. Men would rather die than commit
+the indelicacy of appearing to notice my infirmity.
+
+"You haven't been out there?"
+
+"No such luck," said I. "I got this little lot about a fortnight
+after I saw you. Johnnie was still on sick leave and so was out of
+that scrap."
+
+He commiserated with me on my ill-fortune, and handed me his
+cigarette case. We smoked.
+
+"You've been on my mind for months," he said abruptly.
+
+"I?"
+
+He nodded. "I thought I recognised you. I asked the General who
+you were. He said 'Meredyth of the Gunners.' So I knew I was right
+and made a bee line for you. Do you remember the story of that man
+in the hospital?"
+
+"Perfectly," said I.
+
+"About Boyce of the King's Watch?"
+
+"Yes," said I. "I saw Boyce, home on leave, about a fortnight ago.
+I suppose you saw his D.S.O. gazetted?"
+
+"I did. And he deserves a jolly sight more," he exclaimed
+heartily. "I've come to the conclusion that that fellow in the
+hospital--I forget the brute's name--"
+
+"Somers," said I.
+
+"Yes, Somers. I've come to the conclusion that he was the
+damn'dest, filthiest, lyingest hound that ever was pupped."
+
+"I'm glad to hear it," said I. "It was a horrible story. I
+remember making your brother and yourself vow eternal secrecy."
+
+"You can take it from me that we haven't breathed a word to
+anybody. As a matter of fact, the whole damn thing had gone out of
+my head for years. Then I begin to hear of a fellow called Boyce
+of the Rifles doing the most crazy magnificent things. I make
+enquiries and find it's the same Leonard Boyce of the Vilboek Farm
+story. We're in the same Brigade.
+
+"You don't often hear of individual men out there--your mind's too
+jolly well concentrated on your own tiny show. But Boyce has sort
+of burst out beyond his own regiment and, with just one or two
+others, is beginning to be legendary. He has done the maddest
+things and won the V.C. twenty times over. So that blighter
+Somers, accusing him of cowardice, was a ghastly liar. And then I
+remembered taking you up to hear that damnable slander, and I felt
+that I had a share in it, as far as you were concerned, and I
+longed to get at you somehow and tell you about it. I wanted to
+get it off my chest. And now," said he with a breath of relief,
+"thank God, I've been able to do so."
+
+"I wish you would tell me of an incident or two," said I.
+
+"He has got a life-preserver that looks like an ordinary cane--had
+it specially made. It's quite famous. Men tell me that the knob is
+a rich, deep, polished vermilion. He'll take on any number of
+Boches with it single-handed. If there's any sign of wire-cutting,
+he'll not let the men fire, but will take it on himself, and creep
+like a Gurkha and do the devils in. One night he got a whole
+listening post like that. He does a lot of things a second in
+command hasn't any business to do, but his men would follow him
+anywhere. He bears a charmed life. I could tell you lots of
+things--but I see my old General's getting restive." He rose,
+stretched out his hand. "At any rate, take my word for it--if
+there's a man in the British Army who doesn't know what fear is,
+that man is Leonard Boyce."
+
+He nodded in his frank way and rejoined his old General. As I had
+had enough exciting information for one visit to town, I motored
+back to Wellingsford.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+My house, as I have already mentioned, is situated at the extreme
+end of the town on the main road, already called the Rowdon Road,
+which is an extension of the High Street. It stands a little way
+back to allow room for a semicircular drive, at each end of which
+is a broad gate. The semicircle encloses a smooth-shaven lawn of
+which I am vastly proud. In the spandrels by the side of the house
+are laburnums and lilacs and laurels. From gate to gate stretch
+iron railings, planted in a low stone parapet and unencumbered
+with vegetation, so that the view from road to lawn and from lawn
+to road is unrestricted. Thus I can take up my position on my lawn
+near the railings and greet all passers-by.
+
+It was a lovely May morning. My laburnums and lilacs were in
+flower. On the other side of the way the hedge of white-thorn
+screening the grounds of a large preparatory school was in flower
+also, and deliciously scented the air. I sat in my accustomed
+spot, a table with writing materials, tobacco, and books by my
+side, and a mass of newspapers at my feet. There was going to be a
+coalition Government. Great statesmen were going to forget that
+there was such a thing as party politics, except in the
+distribution of minor offices, when the claims of good and
+faithful jackals on either side would have to be considered. And
+my heart grew sick within me, and I longed for a Man to arise who,
+with a snap of his strong fingers, would snuff out the Little
+Parish-Pump Folk who have misruled England this many a year with
+their limited vision and sordid aspirations, and would take the
+great, unshakable, triumphant command of a mighty Empire
+passionately yearning to do his bidding... I could read no more
+newspapers. They disgusted me. One faction seemed doggedly opposed
+to any proposition for the amelioration of the present disastrous
+state of affairs. The salvation of wrecked political theories
+loomed far more important in their darkened minds than the
+salvation, by hook or crook, of the British Empire. The other
+faction, more patriotic in theory, cried aloud stinking fish, and
+by scurrilous over-statement defeated their own ends. In the
+general ignoble screech the pronouncements of the one or two
+dignified and thoughtful London newspapers passed unheeded....
+
+I drew what comfort I could from the sight of the continually
+passing troops; a platoon off to musketry training; a battalion,
+brown and dusty, on a route march with full equipment, whistling
+"Tipperary"; sections of an Army Service train cursing good-
+humouredly at their mules; a battery of artillery thundering along
+at a clean, rhythmical trot which, considering what they were like
+in their slovenly jogging and bumping three months ago, afforded
+me prodigious pleasure. On the passing of these last-mentioned I
+felt inclined to clap my hands and generally proclaim my
+appreciation. Indeed, I did arrest a fresh-faced subaltern
+bringing up the rear of the battery who, having acquaintance with
+me, saluted, and I shouted:
+
+"They're magnificent!"
+
+He reared up his horse and flushed with pleasure.
+
+"We've done our best, sir," said he. "We had news last week that
+we should be sent out quite soon, and that has bucked them up
+enormously."
+
+He saluted again and rode off, and my heart went with him. What a
+joy it would be to clatter down a road once again with the guns!
+
+And other people passed. Townsfolk who gave me a kindly "Morning,
+Major!" and went on, and others who paused awhile and gave me the
+gossip of the day. And presently young Randall Holmes went by on a
+motor bicycle. He caught sight of me, disappeared, and then
+suddenly reappeared, wheeling his machine. He rested it by the
+kerb of the sidewalk and approached the railings. He was within a
+yard of me.
+
+"Would you let me speak to you for half a minute, Major?"
+
+"Certainly," said I. "Come in."
+
+He swung through the gate and crossed the lawn.
+
+"You said very hard things to me some time ago."
+
+"I did," said I, "and I don't think they were undeserved."
+
+"Up to a certain point I agree with you," he replied.
+
+He looked extraordinarily robust and athletic in his canvas kit.
+Why should he be tearing about aimlessly on a motor bicycle this
+May morning when he ought to be in France?
+
+"I wish you agreed with me all along the line," said I.
+
+He found a little iron garden seat and sat down by my side.
+
+"I don't want to enter into controversial questions," he said.
+
+Confound him! He might have been fifty instead of four-and-twenty.
+Controversial questions! His assured young Oxford voice irritated
+me.
+
+"What do you want to enter into?" I asked.
+
+"A question of honour," he answered calmly. "I have been wanting
+to speak to you, but I didn't like to. Passing you by, just now, I
+made a sudden resolution. You have thought badly of me on account
+of my attitude towards Phyllis Gedge. I want to tell you that you
+were quite right. My attitude was illogical and absurd."
+
+"You have discovered," said I, "that she is not the inspiration
+you thought she was, and like an honest man have decided to let
+her alone."
+
+"On the contrary," said he. "I'd give the eyes out of my head to
+marry her."
+
+"Why?"
+
+He met my gaze very frankly. "For the simple reason, Major
+Meredyth, that I love her."
+
+All this natural, matter-of-fact simplicity coming from so
+artificial a product of Balliol as Randall Holmes, was a bit
+upsetting. After a pause, I said:
+
+"If that is so, why don't you marry her?"
+
+"She'll have nothing to do with me."
+
+"Have you asked her?"
+
+"I have, in writing. There's no mistake about it. I'm in earnest."
+
+"I'm exceedingly glad to hear it," said I.
+
+And I was. An honest lover I can understand, and a Don Juan I can
+understand. But the tepid philanderer has always made my toes
+tingle. And I was glad, too, to hear that little Phyllis Gedge had
+so much dignity and commonsense. Not many small builders'
+daughters would have sent packing a brilliant young gentleman like
+Randall Holmes, especially if they happened to be in love with
+him. As I did not particularly wish to be the confidant of this
+love-lorn shepherd, I said nothing more. Randall lit a cigarette.
+
+"I hope I'm not boring you," he said.
+
+"Not a bit."
+
+"Well--what complicates the matter is that her father's the most
+infernal swine unhung." I started, remembering what Betty had told
+me.
+
+"I thought," said I, "that you were fast friends."
+
+"Who told you so?" he asked.
+
+"All the birds of Wellingsford."
+
+"I did go to see him now and then," he admitted. "I thought he was
+much maligned. A man with sincere opinions, even though they're
+wrong, is deserving of some respect, especially when the
+expression of them involves considerable courage and sacrifice. I
+wanted to get to the bottom of his point of view."
+
+"If you used such a metaphor in the Albemarle," I interrupted,
+"I'm afraid you would be sacrificed by your friends."
+
+He had the grace to laugh. "You know what I mean."
+
+"And did you get to the bottom of it?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"And what did you find?"
+
+"Crass ignorance and malevolent hatred of everyone better born,
+better educated, better off, better dressed, better spoken than
+himself."
+
+"Still," said I, "a human being can have those disabilities and
+yet not deserve to be qualified as the most infernal swine
+unhung."
+
+"That's a different matter," said he, unbuttoning his canvas
+jacket, for the morning was warm. "I can talk patiently to a fool
+--to be able to do so is an elementary equipment for a life among
+men and women--" Why the deuce, thought I, wasn't he expending
+this precious acquirement on a platoon of agricultural recruits?
+The officer who suffers such gladly has his name inscribed on the
+Golden Legend (unfortunately unpublished) of the British Army--
+"but when it comes," he went on, "to low-down lying knavery, then
+I'm done. I don't know how to tackle it. All I can do is to get
+out of the knave's way. I've found Gedge to be a beast, and I'm
+very honourably in love with Gedge's daughter, and I've asked her
+to marry me. I attach some value, Major, to your opinion of me,
+and I want you, to know these two facts."
+
+I again expressed my gratification at learning his honourable
+intentions towards Phyllis, and I commended his discovery of
+Gedge's fundamental turpitude. I cannot say that I was cordial. At
+this period, the unmilitary youth of England were not
+affectionately coddled by their friends. Still, I was curious to
+see whether Gedge's depravity extended beyond a purely political
+scope. I questioned my young visitor.
+
+"Oh, it's nothing to do with abstract opinions," said he, thinning
+away the butt-end of his cigarette. "And nothing to do with
+treason, or anything of that kind. He has got hold of a horrible
+story--told me all about it when he was foully drunk--that in
+itself would have made me break with him, for I loathe drunken
+men--and gloats over the fact that he is holding it over
+somebody's head. Oh, a ghastly story!"
+
+I bent my brows on him. "Anything to do with South Africa?"
+
+"South Africa--? No. Why?"
+
+The puzzled look on his face showed that I was entirely on the
+wrong track. I was disappointed at the faultiness of my acumen.
+You see, I argued thus: Gedge goes off on a mysterious jaunt with
+Boyce. Boyce retreats precipitately to London. Gedge in his cups
+tells a horrible scandal with a suggestion of blackmail to Randall
+Holmes. What else could he have divulged save the Vilboek Farm
+affair? My nimble wit had led me a Jack o' Lantern dance to
+nowhere.
+
+"Why South Africa?" he repeated.
+
+I replied with Macchiavellian astuteness, so as to put him on a
+false scent: "A stupid slander about illicit diamond buying in
+connection with a man, now dead, who used to live here some years
+ago."
+
+"Oh, no," said Randall, with a superior smile "Nothing of that
+sort."
+
+"Well, what is it?" I asked.
+
+He helped himself to another cigarette. "That," said he, "I can't
+tell you. In the first place I gave my word of honour as to
+secrecy before he told me, and, in the next, even if I hadn't
+given my word, I would not be a party to such a slander by
+repeating it to any living man." He bent forward and looked me
+straight in the eyes. "Even to you, Major, who have been a second
+father to me."
+
+"A man," said I, "has a priceless possession that he should always
+keep--his own counsel."
+
+"I've only told you as much as I have done," said Randall,
+"because I want to make clear to you my position with regard both
+to Phyllis and her father."
+
+"May I ask," said I, "what is Phyllis's attitude towards her
+father?" I knew well enough from Betty; but I wanted to see how
+much Randall knew about it.
+
+"She is so much out of sympathy with his opinions that she has
+gone to live at the hospital."
+
+"Perhaps she thinks you share those opinions, and for that reason
+won't marry you?"
+
+"That may have something to do with it, although I have done my
+best to convince her that I hold diametrically opposite views, But
+you can't expect a woman to reason."
+
+"The unexpected sometimes happens," I remarked. "And then comes
+catastrophe; in this case not to the woman." I cannot say that my
+tone was sympathetic. I had cause for interest in his artless
+tale, but it was cold and dispassionate. "Tell me," I continued,
+"when did you discover the diabolical nature of the man Gedge?"
+
+"Last night."
+
+"And when did you ask Phyllis to marry you?"
+
+"A week ago."
+
+"What's going to happen now?" I asked.
+
+"I'm hanged if I know," said he, gloomily.
+
+I was in no mood to offer the young man any advice. The poor
+little wretch at the hospital--so Betty had told me--was crying
+her eyes out for him; but it was not for his soul's good that he
+should know it.
+
+"In heroic days," said I, "a hopeless lover always found a
+sovereign remedy against an obdurate mistress."
+
+He rose and buttoned up his canvas jacket.
+
+"I know what you mean," he said. "And I didn't come to discuss it
+--if you'll excuse my apparent rudeness in saying so."
+
+"Then things are as they were between us."
+
+"Not quite, I hope," he replied in a dignified way. "When last you
+spoke to me about Phyllis Gedge, I really didn't know my own mind.
+I am not a cad and the thought of--of anything wrong never entered
+my head. On the other hand, marriage seemed out of the question."
+
+"I remember," said I, "you talked some blithering rot about her
+being a symbol."
+
+"I am quite willing to confess I was a fool," he admitted
+gracefully. "And I merited your strictures."
+
+His reversion to artificiality annoyed me. I'm far from being of
+an angelic disposition.
+
+"My dear boy," I cried. "Do, for God's sake, talk human English,
+and not the New Oxford Dictionary."
+
+He flushed angrily, snapped an impatient finger and thumb, and
+marched away to the gravel path. I sang out sharply:
+
+"Randall!"
+
+He turned. I cried:
+
+"Come here at once."
+
+He came with sullen reluctance. Afterwards I was rather tickled at
+realizing that the lame old war-dog had so much authority left. If
+he had gone defiantly off, I should have felt rather a fool.
+
+"My dear boy," I said, "I didn't mean to insult you. But can't a
+clever fellow like you understand that all the pretty frills and
+preciousness of a year ago are as dead as last year's Brussels
+sprouts? We're up against elemental things and can only get at
+them with elemental ideas expressed in elemental language."
+
+"I'd have you to know," said Randall, "that I spoke classical
+English."
+
+"Quite so," said I. "But the men of to-day speak Saxon English,
+Cockney English, slang English, any damned sort of English that is
+virile and spontaneous. As I say, you're a clever fellow. Can't
+you see my point? Speech is an index of mental attitude. I bet you
+what you like Phyllis Gedge would see it at once. Just imagine a
+subaltern at the front after a bad quarter of an hour with his
+Colonel--'I've merited your strictures, sir!' If there was a bomb
+handy, the Colonel would catch it up and slay him on the spot."
+
+"But I don't happen to be at the front, Major," said Randall.
+
+"Then you damned well ought to be," said I, in sudden wrath.
+
+I couldn't help it. He asked for it. He got it.
+
+He went away, mounted his motor bicycle, and rode off.
+
+I was sorry. The boy evidently was in a chastened mood. If I had
+handled him gently and diplomatically, I might have done something
+with him. I suppose I'm an irritable, nasty-tempered beast. It is
+easy to lay the blame on my helpless legs. It isn't my legs. I've
+conquered my damned legs. It isn't my legs. Its ME.
+
+I was ashamed of myself. And when, later, Marigold enquired
+whether the doors were still shut against Mr. Holmes, I asked him
+what the blazes he meant by not minding his own business. And
+Marigold said: "Very good, sir."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+For a week or two the sluggish stream of Wellingsfordian life
+flowed on undisturbed. The chief incident was a recruiting meeting
+held on the Common. Sir Anthony Fenimore in his civic capacity, a
+staff-officer with red tabs, a wounded soldier, an elderly,
+eloquent gentleman from recruiting headquarters in London, and one
+or two nondescripts, including myself, were on the platform. A
+company of a County Territorial Battalion and the O.T.C. of the
+Godbury Grammar School gave a semblance of military display. The
+Town Band, in a sort of Hungarian uniform, discoursed martial
+music. Old men and maidens, mothers and children, and contented
+young fellows in khaki belonging to all kinds of arms, formed a
+most respectable crowd. The flower of Wellingsfordian youth was
+noticeably absent. They were having too excellent a time to be
+drawn into the temptation of a recruiting meeting, in spite of the
+band and the fine afternoon and the promiscuity of attractive
+damsels. They were making unheard-of money at the circumjacent
+factories; their mothers were waxing fat on billeting-money. They
+never had so much money to spend on moving-picture-palaces and
+cheap jewellery for their inamoratas in their lives. As our
+beautiful Educational system had most scrupulously excluded from
+their school curriculum any reference to patriotism, any
+rudimentary conception of England as their sacred heritage, and as
+they had been afforded no opportunity since they left school of
+thinking of anything save their material welfare and grosser
+material appetites, the vague talk of peril to the British Empire
+left them unmoved. They were quite content to let others go and
+fight. They had their own comfortable theories about it. Some
+fellows liked that sort of thing. They themselves didn't. In
+ordinary times, it amused that kind of fellow to belong to a
+Harriers Club, and clad in shorts and zephyrs, go on Sundays for
+twenty-mile runs. It didn't amuse them. A cigarette, a girl, and a
+stile formed their ideal of Sunday enjoyment. They had no quarrel
+with the harrier fellow or the soldier fellow for following his
+bent. They were most broad-minded. But they flattered themselves
+that they were fellows of a superior and more intelligent breed.
+They were making money and living warm, the only ideal of
+existence of which they had ever heard, and what did anything else
+matter?
+
+If a man has never been taught that he has a country, how the
+deuce do you expect him to love her--still less to defend her with
+his blood? Our more than damnable governments for the last thirty
+years have done everything in their power to crush in English
+hearts the national spirit of England. God knows I have no quarrel
+with Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. I speak in no disparagement of
+them. Quite the reverse. In this war they have given freely of
+their blood. I only speak as an Englishman of England, the great
+Mother of the Empire. Scot, Irishman, Welshman, Canadian,
+Australian are filled with the pride of their nationality. It is
+part of their being. Wisely they have been trained to it from
+infancy. England, who is far bigger, far more powerful than the
+whole lot of them put together--it's a statistical fact--has
+deliberately sunk herself in her own esteem, in her own pride.
+Only one great man has stood for England, as England, the great
+Mother, for the last thirty years. And that man is Rudyard
+Kipling. And the Little Folk in authority in England have spent
+their souls in rendering nugatory his inspired message.
+
+This criminal self-effacement of England is at the root of the
+peril of the British Empire during this war.
+
+I told you at the beginning that I did not know how to write a
+story. You must forgive me for being led away into divagations
+which seem to be irrelevant to the dramatic sequence. But when I
+remember that the result of all the pomp and circumstance of that
+meeting was seven recruits, of whom three were rejected as being
+physically unfit, my pen runs away with my discretion, and my
+conjecturing as to artistic fitness.
+
+Yes, the Major spoke. Sir Anthony is a peppery little person and
+the audience enjoyed the cayenne piquancy of his remarks. The red-
+tabbed Lieutenant-Colonel spoke. He was a bit dull. The elderly
+orator from London roused enthusiastic cheers. The wounded
+sergeant, on crutches, displaying a foot like a bandaged mop,
+brought tears into the eyes of many women and evoked hoarse cheers
+from the old men. I spoke from my infernal chair, and I think I
+was quite a success with the good fellows in khaki. But the only
+men we wanted to appeal to had studiously refrained from being
+present. The whole affair was a fiasco.
+
+When we got home, Marigold, who had stood behind my chair during
+the proceedings, said to me:
+
+"I think I know personally about thirty slackers in this town,
+sir, and I'm more than a match for any three of them put together.
+Suppose I was to go the rounds, so to speak, and say to each of
+them, 'You young blighter, if you don't come with me and enlist, I
+'ll knock hell out of you!'--and, if he didn't come, I did knock
+hell out of him--what exactly would happen, sir?"
+
+"You would be summoned," said I, "for thirty separate cases of
+assault and battery. Reckoning the penalty at six months each, you
+would have to go to prison for fifteen years."
+
+Marigold's one eye grew pensive and sad.
+
+"And they call this," said he, "a free country!"
+
+I began this chapter by remarking that for a week or two after my
+second interview with Randall Holmes, nothing particular happened.
+Then one afternoon came Sir Anthony Fenimore to see me, and with a
+view to obtaining either my advice or my sympathy, reopened the
+story of his daughter Althea found drowned in the canal eleven
+months before.
+
+What he considered a most disconcerting light had just been cast
+on the tragedy by Maria Beccles. This lady was Lady Fenimore's
+sister. A deadly feud, entirely of Miss Beccles' initiating and
+nourishing, had existed between them for years. They had been
+neither on speaking nor on writing terms. Miss Beccles, ten years
+Lady Fenimore's senior, was, from all I had heard, a most
+disagreeable and ill-conditioned person, as different from my
+charming friend Edith Fenimore as the ugly old sisters were from
+Cinderella. Although she belonged to a good old South of England
+family, she had joined, for reasons known only to herself, the old
+Free Kirk of Scotland, found a congenial Calvinistic centre in
+Galloway, and after insulting her English relations and friends in
+the most unconscionable way, cut herself adrift from them for
+ever. "Mad as a hatter," Sir Anthony used to say, and, never
+having met the lady, I agreed with him. She loathed her sister,
+she detested Anthony, and she appeared to be coldly indifferent to
+the fact of the existence of her nephew Oswald. But for Althea,
+and for Althea alone, she entertained a curious, indulgent
+affection, and every now and then Althea went to spend a week or
+so in Galloway, where she contrived to obtain considerable
+amusement. Aunt Maria did both herself and her visitors very well,
+said Althea, who had an appreciative eye for the material
+blessings of life. Althea walked over the moors and fished and
+took Aunt Maria's cars out for exercise and, except whistle on the
+Sabbath, seemed to do exactly what she liked.
+
+Now, in January 1914, Althea announced to her parents that Aunt
+Maria had summoned her for a week to Galloway. Sir Anthony stuffed
+her handbag with five-pound notes, and at an early hour of the
+morning sent her up in the car to London in charge of the
+chauffeur. The chauffeur returned saying that he had bought Miss
+Althea's ticket at Euston and seen her start off comfortably on
+her journey. A letter or two had been received by the Fenimores
+from Galloway, and letters they had written to Galloway had been
+acknowledged by Althea. She returned to Wellingsford in due
+course, with bonny cheeks and wind-swept eyes, and told us all
+funny little stories about Aunt Maria. No one thought anything
+more about it until one fine afternoon in May, 1915, when Maria
+Beccles walked unexpectedly into the drawing-room of Wellings
+Park, while Sir Anthony and Lady Fenimore were at tea.
+
+"My dear Edith," she said to her astounded hostess, who had not
+seen her for fifteen years. "In this orgy of hatred and strife
+that is going on in the world, it seems ridiculous to go on hating
+and fighting one's own family. We must combine against the Germans
+and hate them. Let us be friends."
+
+"Mad as Crazy Jane," said Sir Anthony, telling me the story. But
+I, who had never heard Aunt Maria's side of the dispute, thought
+it very high-spirited of the old lady to come and hold out the
+olive-branch in so uncompromising a fashion.
+
+Lady Fenimore then said that she had never wished to quarrel with
+Maria, and Sir Anthony declared that her patriotic sentiments did
+her credit, and that he was proud to receive her under his roof,
+and in a few minutes Maria was drinking tea and discussing the war
+in the most contented way in the world.
+
+"I didn't write to you on the occasion of the death of your two
+children because you knew I didn't like you," said this outspoken
+lady. "I hate hypocrisy. Also I thought that tribulation might
+chasten you in the eyes of the Lord. I've discussed it with our
+Minister, a poor body, but a courageous man. He told me I was
+unchristian. Now, what with all this universal massacre going on
+and my unregenerate longing, old woman as I am, to wade knee-deep
+in German blood, I don't know what the devil I am."
+
+The more Anthony told me of Aunt Maria, the more I liked her.
+
+"Can't I come round and make her acquaintance?" I cried. "She's
+the sort of knotty, solid human thing that I should love. No
+wonder Althea was fond of her."
+
+"This happened a week ago. She only stayed a night," replied Sir
+Anthony. "I wish to God we had never seen her or heard of her."
+
+And then the good, heart-wrung little man, who had been beating
+about the bush for half an hour, came straight to the point.
+
+"You remember Althea's visit to Scotland in January last year?"
+
+"Perfectly," said I.
+
+He rose from his chair and looked at me in wrinkled anguish.
+
+"She never went there," he said.
+
+That was what he had come to tell me. A natural reference to the
+last visit of Althea to her aunt had established the stupefying
+fact.
+
+"Althea's last visit was in October, 1913," said Miss Beccles.
+
+"But we have letters from your house to prove she was with you in
+January," said Sir Anthony.
+
+Most methodical and correspondence-docketing of men, he went to
+his library and returned with a couple of letters.
+
+The old lady looked them through grimly.
+
+"Pretty vague. No details. Read 'em again, Anthony."
+
+When he had done so, she said: "Well?"
+
+Lady Fenimore objected: "But Althea did stay with you. She must
+have stayed with you."
+
+"All right, Edith," said Maria, sitting bolt upright. "Call me a
+liar, and have done with it. I've come here at considerable
+dislocation of myself and my principles, to bury the hatchet for
+the sake of unity against the enemy, and this is how I'm treated.
+I can only go back to Scotland at once."
+
+Sir Anthony succeeded in pacifying her. The letters were evidence
+that Edith and himself believed that Althea was in Galloway at the
+time. Maria's denial had come upon them like a thunderclap,
+bewildering, stunning. If Althea was not in Galloway, where was
+she?
+
+Maria Beccles did not reply for some time to the question. Then
+she took the pins out of her hat and threw it on a chair, thus
+symbolising the renunciation of her intention of returning
+forthwith to Scotland.
+
+"Yes, Maria," said Lady Fenimore, with fear in her dark eyes, "we
+don't doubt your word--but, as Anthony has said, if she wasn't
+with you, where was she?"
+
+"How do I know?"
+
+Maria Beccles pointed a lean finger--she was a dark and
+shrivelled, gipsy-like creature. "You might as well ask the canal
+in which she drowned herself."
+
+"But, my God, Anthony!" I cried, when he had got thus far, "What
+did you think? What did you say?"
+
+I realised that the old lady had her social disqualifications.
+Plain-dealing is undoubtedly a virtue. But there are several
+virtues which the better class of angel keeps chained up in a dog-
+kennel. Of course she was acute. A mind trained in the acrobatics
+of Calvinistic Theology is, within a narrow compass, surprisingly
+agile. It jumped at one bound from the missing week in Althea's
+life into the black water of the canal. It was incapable, however,
+of appreciating the awful horror in the minds of the beholders.
+
+"I don't know what I said," replied Sir Anthony, walking
+restlessly about my library. "We were struck all of a heap. As you
+know, we never had reason to think that the poor dear child's
+death was anything but an accident. We were not narrow-minded old
+idiots. She was a dear good girl. In a modern way she claimed her
+little independence. We let her have it. We trusted her. We took
+it for granted--you know it, Duncan, as well as I do--that, a hot
+night in June--not able to sleep--she had stuck on a hat and
+wandered about the grounds, as she had often done before, and a
+spirit of childish adventure had tempted her, that night, to walk
+round the back of the town and--and--well, until in the dark, she
+stepped off the tow-path by the lock gates, into nothing--and
+found the canal. It was an accident," he continued, with a hand on
+my shoulder, looking down on me in my chair. "The inquest proved
+that. I accepted it, as you know, as a visitation of God. Edith
+and I sorrowed for her like cowards. It took the war to bring us
+to our senses. But, now, this damned old woman comes and upsets
+the whole thing."
+
+"But," said I, "after all, it was only a bow at a venture on the
+part of the old lady."
+
+"I wish it were," said he, and he handed me a letter which Maria
+had written to him the day after her return to Scotland.
+
+The letter contained a pretty piece of information. She had
+summarily discharged Elspeth Macrae, her confidential maid of
+five-and-twenty years' standing. Elspeth Macrae, on her own
+confession, had, out of love for Althea, performed the time-
+honoured jugglery with correspondence. She had posted in Galloway
+letters which she had received, under cover, from Althea, and had
+forwarded letters that had arrived addressed to Althea to an
+accommodation address in Carlisle. So have sentimental serving-
+maids done since the world began.
+
+"What do you make of it?" asked Sir Anthony.
+
+What else could I make of it but the one sorry theory? What woman
+employs all this subterfuge in order to obtain a weeks liberty for
+any other purpose than the one elementary purpose of young
+humanity?
+
+We read the inevitable conclusion in each other's eyes.
+
+"Who is the man, Duncan?"
+
+"I suppose you have searched her desk and things?"
+
+"Last year. Everything most carefully. It was awful--but we had
+to. Not a scrap of paper that wasn't innocence itself."
+
+"It can't be anyone here," said I. "You know what the place is.
+The slightest spark sends gossip aflame like the fumes of petrol."
+
+He sat down by my side and rubbed his close-cropped grey head.
+
+"It couldn't have been young Holmes?"
+
+The little man had a brave directness that sometimes disconcerted
+me. I knew the ghastly stab that every word cost him.
+
+"She used to make mock of Randall," said I. "Don't you remember
+she used to call him 'the gilded poet'? Once she said he was the
+most lady-like young man of her acquaintance. I don't admire our
+young friend, but I think you're on the wrong track, Anthony."
+
+"I don't see it," said he. "That sort of flippancy goes for
+nothing. Women use it as a sort of quickset hedge of protection."
+He bent forward and tapped me on my senseless knee. "Young Holmes
+always used to be in and out of the house. They had known each
+other from childhood. He had a distinguished Oxford career. When
+he won the Newdigate, she came running to me with the news, as
+pleased as Punch. I gave him a dinner in honour of it, if you
+remember."
+
+"I remember," said I.
+
+I did not remind him that he had made a speech which sent cold
+shivers down the spine of our young Apollo; that, in a fine
+rhetorical flourish--dear old fox-hunting ignoramus--he declared
+that the winner of the Newdigate carried the bays of the Laureate
+in his knapsack; that Randall, white-lipped with horror, murmured
+to Betty Fairfax, his neighbour at the table: "My God! The Poet-
+Laureate's unhallowed grave! I must burn the knapsack and take to
+a hod!" It was too tragical a conversation for light allusion.
+
+"The poor dear child--Edith and I have sized it up--was all over
+him that evening."
+
+"What more youthfully natural," said I, "than that she should
+carry off the hero of the occasion--her childhood's playfellow?"
+
+"All sorts of apparently insignificant details, Duncan, taken
+together--especially if they fit in--very often make up a whole
+case for prosecution."
+
+"You're a Chairman of Quarter Sessions," I admitted, "and so you
+ought to know."
+
+"I know this," said he, "that Holmes only spent part of that
+Christmas vacation with his mother, and went off somewhere or the
+other early in January." I cudgelled back my memory into
+confirmation of his statement. To remember trivial incidents
+before the war takes a lot of cudgelling. Yes. I distinctly
+recollected the young man's telling me that Oxford being an
+intellectual hothouse and Wellingsford an intellectual Arabia
+Petrea, he was compelled, for the sake of his mental health, to
+find a period of repose in the intellectual Nature of London. I
+mentioned this to Sir Anthony.
+
+"Yet," I said, "I don't think he had anything to do with it."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It would have been far too much moral exertion--"
+
+"You call it moral?" Sir Anthony burst out angrily.
+
+I pacified him with an analysis, from my point of view, of
+Randall's character. Centripetal forces were too strong for the
+young man. I dissertated on his amours with Phyllis Gedge.
+
+"No, my dear old friend," said I, in conclusion, "I don't think it
+was Randall Holmes."
+
+Sir Anthony rose and shook his fist in my face. As I knew he meant
+me no bodily harm, I did not blench.
+
+"Who was it, then?"
+
+"Althea," said I, "often used to stay in town with your sister.
+Lady Greatorex has a wide circle of acquaintances. Do you know
+anything of the men Althea used to meet at her house?"
+
+"Of course I don't," replied Sir Anthony. Then he sat down again
+with a gesture of despair. "After all, what does it matter?
+Perhaps it's as well I don't know who the man was, for if I did,
+I'd kill him!"
+
+He set his teeth and glowered at nothing and smote his left palm
+with his right fist, and there was a long silence. Presently he
+repeated:
+
+"I'd kill him!"
+
+We fell to discussing the whole matter over again. Why, I asked,
+should we assume that the poor child was led astray by a villain?
+Might there not have been a romantic marriage which, for some
+reason we could not guess, she desired to keep secret for a tune?
+Had she not been bright and happy from January to June? And that
+night of tragedy... What more likely than that she had gone forth
+to keep tryst with her husband and accidentally met her death? "He
+arrives," said I, "waits for her. She never comes. He goes away.
+The next day he learns from local gossip or from newspapers what
+has happened. He thinks it best to keep silent and let her fair
+name be untouched...What have you to say against that theory?"
+
+"Possible," he replied. "Anything conceivable within the limits of
+physical possibility is possible. But it isn't probable. I have an
+intuitive feeling that there was villainy about--and if ever I get
+hold of that man--God help him!"
+
+So there was nothing more to be said.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+I haven't that universal sympathy which is the most irritating
+attribute of saints and other pacifists. When, for instance,
+anyone of the fraternity arguing from the Sermon on the Mount
+tells me that I ought to love Germans, either I admit the
+obligation and declare that, as I am a miserable sinner, I have no
+compunction in breaking it, or, if he is a very sanctimonious
+saint, I remind him that, such creatures as modern Germans not
+having been invented on or about the year A.D. 30, the rule about
+loving your enemies could not possibly apply. At least I imagine I
+do one of these two things (sometimes, indeed, I dream gloatfully
+over acts of physical violence) when I read the pronouncements of
+such a person; for I have to my great good fortune never met him
+in the flesh. If there are any saintly pacifists in Wellingsford,
+they keep sedulously out of my way, and they certainly do not
+haunt my Service Club. And these are the only two places in which
+I have my being. Even Gedge doesn't talk of loving Germans. He
+just lumps all the belligerents together in one conglomerate
+hatred, for upsetting his comfortable social scheme.
+
+As I say, I lack the universal sympathy of the saint. I can't like
+people I don't like. Some people I love very deeply; others, being
+of a kindly disposition, I tolerate; others again I simply detest.
+Now Wellingsford, like every little country town in England, is
+drab with elderly gentlewomen. As I am a funny old tabby myself, I
+have to mix with them. If I refuse invitations to take tea with
+them, they invite themselves to tea with me. "The poor Major,"
+they say, "is so lonely." And they bait their little hooks and
+angle for gossip of which I am supposed--Heaven knows why--to be a
+sort of stocked pond. They don't carry home much of a catch, I
+assure you.... Well, of some of them I am quite fond. Mrs. Boyce,
+for all her shortcomings, is an old crony for whom I entertain a
+sincere affection. Towards Betty's aunt, Miss Fairfax, a harmless
+lady with a passion for ecclesiastical embroidery, I maintain an
+attitude of benevolent neutrality. But Mrs. Holmes, Randall's
+mother, and her sisters, the daughters of an eminent publicist who
+seems to have reared his eminence on bones of talk flung at him by
+Carlisle, George Eliot, Lewes, Monckton Milnes, and is now,
+doubtless, recording their toe-prints on the banks of Acheron, I
+never could and never can abide. My angel of a wife saw good in
+them, and she loved the tiny Randall, of whom I too was fond; so,
+for her sake, I always treated them with courtesy and kindness.
+Also for Randall's father's sake. He was a bluff, honest, stock-
+broking Briton who fancied pigeons and bred greyhounds for
+coursing, and cared less for literature and art than does the
+equally honest Mrs. Marigold in my kitchen. But his wife and her
+sisters led what they called the intellectual life. They regarded
+it as a heritage from their pompous ass of a father. Of course
+they were not eighteen-sixty, or even eighteen-eighty. They prided
+themselves on developing the hereditary tradition of culture to
+its extreme modern expression. They were of the semi-intellectual
+type of idiot--and, if it destroys it, the great war will have
+some justification--which professes to find in the dull analysis
+of the drab adultery and suicide of a German or Scandinavian
+rabbit-picker a supreme expression of human existence. All their
+talk was of Hauptmann and Sudermann (they dropped them
+patriotically, I must say, as outrageous fellows, on the outbreak
+of war), Strindberg, Dostoievsky--though I found they had never
+read either "Crime and Punishment" or "The Brothers Karamazaroff"
+--Tolstoi, whom they didn't understand; and in art--God save the
+mark!--the Cubist school. That is how my poor young friend,
+Randall, was trained to get the worst of the frothy scum of
+intelligent Oxford. But even he sometimes winced at the
+pretentiousness of his mother and his aunts. He was a clever
+fellow and his knowledge was based on sound foundations. I need
+not say that the ladies were rather feared than loved in
+Wellingsford.
+
+All this to explain why it was that when Marigold woke me from an
+afternoon nap with the information that Mrs. Holmes desired to see
+me, I scowled on him.
+
+"Why didn't you say I was dead?"
+
+"I told Mrs. Holmes you were asleep, sir, and she said: 'Will you
+be so kind as to wake him?' So what could I do, sir?"
+
+I have never met with an idiot so helpless in the presence of a
+woman. He would have defended my slumbers before a charge of
+cavalry; but one elderly lady shoo'd him aside like a chicken.
+
+Mrs. Holmes was shewn in, a tall, dark, thin, nervous woman
+wearing pince-nez and an austere sad-coloured garment.
+
+She apologised for disturbing me.
+
+"But," she said, sitting down on the couch, "I am in such great
+trouble and I could think of no one but you to advise me." "What's
+the matter?" I asked.
+
+"It's Randall. He left the house the day before yesterday, without
+telling any of us good-bye, and he hasn't written, and I don't
+know what on earth has become of him."
+
+"Did he take any luggage?"
+
+"Just a small suit-case. He even packed it himself, a thing he has
+never done at home in his life before."
+
+This was news. The proceedings were unlike Randall, who in his
+goings and comings loved the domestic brass-band. To leave his
+home without valedictory music and vanish into the unknown,
+betokened some unusual perturbation of mind.
+
+I asked whether she knew of any reason for such perturbation.
+
+"He was greatly upset," she replied, "by the stoppage of The
+Albemarle Review for which he did such fine work."
+
+I strove politely to hide my inability to condole and wagged my
+head sadly:
+
+"I'm afraid there was no room for it in a be-bombed and be-
+shrapnelled world."
+
+"I suppose the still small voice of reason would not be heard amid
+the din," she sighed. "And no other papers--except the impossible
+ones--would print Randall's poems and articles."
+
+More news. This time excellent news. A publicist denied publicity
+is as useful as a German Field Marshal on a desert island. I asked
+what The Albemarle died of.
+
+"Practically all the staff deserted what Randall called the Cause
+and dribbled away into the army," she replied mournfully.
+
+As to what this precious Cause meant I did not enquire, having no
+wish to enter into an argument with the good lady which might have
+become exacerbated. Besides, she would only have parroted Randall.
+I had never yet detected her in the expression of an original
+idea.
+
+"Perhaps he has dribbled away too?" I suggested grimly. She was
+silent. I bent forward. "Wouldn't you like him to dribble into the
+great flood?"
+
+She lifted her lean shoulders despairingly.
+
+"He's the only son of a widow. Even in France and Germany they're
+not expected to fight. But if he were different I would let him go
+gladly--I'm not selfish and unpatriotic, Major," she said with an
+unaccustomed little catch in her throat--and for the very first
+time I found in her something sympathetic--"but," she continued,
+"it seems so foolish to sacrifice all his intellectual brilliance
+to such crudities as fighting, when it might be employed so much
+more advantageously elsewhere."
+
+"But, good God, my dear lady!" I cried. "Where are your wits?
+Where's your education? Where's your intelligent understanding of
+the daily papers? Where's your commonsense?"--I'm afraid I was
+brutally rude. "Can't you give a minute's thought to the
+situation? If there's one institution on earth that's shrieking
+aloud for intellectual brilliance, it's the British Army! Do you
+think it's a refuge for fools? Do you think any born imbecile is
+good enough to outwit the German Headquarters Staff? Do you think
+the lives of hundreds of his men--and perhaps the fate of
+thousands--can be entrusted to any brainless ass? An officer can't
+have too much brains. We're clamouring for brains. It's the
+healthy, brilliant-brained men like Randall that the Army's
+yelling for--simply yelling for," I repeated, bringing my hand
+down on the arm of my chair.
+
+Two little red spots showed on each side of her thin face.
+
+"I've never looked at it in that light before," she admitted.
+
+"Of course I agree with you," I said diplomatically, "that Randall
+would be more or less wasted as a private soldier. The heroic
+stuff of which Thomas Atkins is made is, thank God, illimitable.
+But intellect is rare--especially in the ranks of God's own
+chosen, the British officer. And Randall is of the kind we want as
+officers. As for a commission, he could get one any day. I could
+get one for him myself. I still have a few friends. He's a good-
+looking chap and would carry off a uniform. Wouldn't you be proud
+to see him?"
+
+A tear rolled down her cheek. I patted myself on the back for an
+artful fellow. But I had underrated her wit. To my chagrin she did
+not fall into my trap.
+
+"It's the uncertainty that's killing me," she said. And then she
+burst out disconcertingly: "Do you think he has gone off with that
+dreadful little Gedge girl?"
+
+Phyllis! I was a myriad miles from Phyllis. I was talking about
+real things. The mother, however, from her point of view, was
+talking of real things also. But how did she come to know about
+her son's amours? I thought it useless to enquire. Randall must
+have advertised his passion pretty widely. I replied:
+
+"It's extremely improbable. In the first place Phyllis Gedge isn't
+dreadful, but a remarkably sweet and modest young woman, and in
+the second place she won't have anything to do with him."
+
+"That's nonsense," she said, bridling.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because--"
+
+A gesture and a smile completed the sentence. That a common young
+person should decline to have dealings with her paragon was
+incredible.
+
+"I can find out in a minute," I smiled, "whether she is still in
+Wellingsford."
+
+I wheeled myself to the telephone on my writing-table and rang up
+Betty at the hospital.
+
+"Do you know where Phyllis Gedge is?"
+
+Betty's voice came. "Yes. She's here. I've just left her to come
+to speak to you. Why do you want to know?"
+
+"Never mind so long as she is safe and sound. There's no
+likelihood of her running away or eloping?"
+
+Betty's laughter rang over the wires. "What lunacy are you
+talking? You might as well ask me whether I'm going to elope with
+you."
+
+"I don't think you're respectful, Betty," I replied. "Good-bye."
+
+I rang off and reported Betty's side of the conversation to my
+visitor.
+
+"On that score," said I, "you can make your mind quite easy."
+
+"But where can the boy have gone?" she cried.
+
+"Into the world somewhere to learn wisdom," I said, and in order
+to show that I did not speak ironically, I wheeled myself to her
+side and touched her hand. "I think his swift brain has realised
+at last that all his smart knowledge hasn't brought him a little
+bit of wisdom worth a cent. I shouldn't worry. He's working out
+his salvation somehow, although he may not know it."
+
+"Do you really think so?"
+
+"I do," said I. "And if he finds that the path of wisdom leads to
+the German trenches--will you be glad or sorry?"
+
+She grappled with the question in silence for a moment or two.
+Then she broke down and, to my dismay, began to cry.
+
+"Do you suppose there's a woman in England that, in her heart of
+hearts, doesn't want her men folk to fight?"
+
+I only allow the earlier part of this chapter to stand in order to
+show how a man quite well-meaning, although a trifle irascible,
+may be wanting in Christian charity and ordinary understanding;
+and of how many tangled knots of human motive, impulse, and
+emotion this war is a solvent. You see, she defended her son to
+the last, adopting his own specious line of argument; but at the
+last came the breaking-point. ...
+
+The rest of our interview was of no great matter. I did my best to
+reassure and comfort her; and when I next saw Marigold, I said
+affably:
+
+"You did quite well to wake me."
+
+"I thought I was acting rightly, sir. Mr. Randall having bolted,
+so to speak, it seemed only natural that Mrs. Holmes should come
+to see you."
+
+"You knew that Mr. Randall had bolted and you never told me?"
+
+I glared indignantly. Marigold stiffened himself--the degree of
+stiffness beyond his ordinary inflexibility of attitude could only
+have been ascertained by a vernier, but that degree imparted an
+appreciable dignity to his demeanour.
+
+"I beg pardon, sir, but lately I've noticed that my little bits of
+local news haven't seemed to be welcome."
+
+"Marigold," said I, "don't be an ass."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+"My mind," said I, "is in an awful muddle about all sorts of
+things that are going on in this town. So I should esteem it a
+favour if you would tell me at once any odds and ends of gossip
+you may pick up. They may possibly be important."
+
+"And if I have any inferences to draw from what I hear," said he
+gravely, fixing me with his clear eye, "may I take the liberty of
+acquainting you with them?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Very good, sir," said Marigold.
+
+Now what was Marigold going to draw inferences about? That was
+another puzzle. I felt myself being drawn into a fog-filled
+labyrinth of intrigue in which already groping were most of the
+people I knew. What with the mysterious relations between Betty
+and Boyce and Gedge, what with young Dacre's full exoneration of
+Boyce, what with young Randall's split with Gedge and his
+impeccable attitude towards Phyllis, things were complicated
+enough; Sir Anthony's revelations regarding poor Althea and his
+dark surmises concerning Randall complicated them still more; and
+now comes Mrs. Holmes to tell me of Randall's mysterious
+disappearance.
+
+"A plague on the whole lot!" I exclaimed wrathfully.
+
+I dined that evening with the Fenimores. My dear Betty was there
+too, the only other guest, looking very proud and radiant. A
+letter that morning from Willie Connor informed her that the
+regiment, by holding a trench against an overwhelming German
+attack, had achieved glorious renown. The Brigadier-General had
+specially congratulated the Colonel, and the Colonel had specially
+complimented Willie on the magnificent work of his company. Of
+course there was a heavy price in casualties--poor young
+Etherington, whom we all knew, for instance, blown to atoms--but
+Willie, thank God! was safe.
+
+"I wonder what would happen to me, if Willie were to get the V.C.
+I think I should go mad with pride!" she exclaimed with flushed
+cheeks, forgetful of poor young Etherington, a laughter-loving boy
+of twenty, who had been blown to atoms. It is strange how
+apparently callous this universal carnage has made the noblest and
+the tenderest of men and women. We cling passionately to the lives
+of those near and dear to us. But as to those near and dear to
+others, who are killed--well--we pay them the passing tribute not
+even of a tear, but only of a sign. They died gloriously for their
+country. What can we say more? If we--we survivors, not only
+invalids and women and other stay-at-homes, but also comrades on
+the field--were riven to our souls by the piteous tragedy of
+splendid youth destroyed in its flower, we could not stand the
+strain, we should weep hysterically, we should be broken folk. But
+a merciful Providence steps in and steels our hearts. The loyal
+hearts are there beating truly; and in order that they should beat
+truly and stoutly, they are given this God-sent armour.
+
+So, when we raised our glasses and drank gladly to the success of
+Willie Connor the living, and put from our thoughts Frank
+Etherington the dead, you must not account it to us as lack of
+human pity. You must be lenient in your judgment of those who are
+thrown into the furnace of a great war.
+
+Lady Fenimore smiled on Betty. "We should all be proud, my dear,
+if Captain Connor won the Victoria Cross. But you mustn't set your
+heart on it. That would be foolish. Hundreds of thousands of men
+deserve the V.C. ten times a day, and they can't all be rewarded."
+
+Betty laughed gaily at good Lady Fenimore's somewhat didactic
+reproof. "You know I'm not an absolute idiot. Fancy the poor dear
+coming home all over bandages and sticking-plaster. 'Where's your
+V. C?' 'I haven't got it.' 'Then go back at once and get it or I
+shan't love you.' Poor darling!" Suddenly the laughter in her eyes
+quickened into something very bright and beautiful. "There's not a
+woman in England prouder of her husband than I am. No V.C. could
+possibly reward him for what he has done. But I want it for
+myself. I'd like my babies to cut their teeth on it.
+
+When I went out to the Boer War, the most wonderful woman on earth
+said to me on parting:
+
+"Wherever you are, dear, remember that I am always with you in
+spirit and soul and heart and almost in body."
+
+And God knows she was. And when I returned a helpless cripple she
+gathered me in her brave arms on the open quay at Southampton, and
+after a moment or two of foolishness, she said:
+
+"Do you know, when I die, what you'll find engraven on my heart?"
+
+"No," said I.
+
+"Your D.S.O. ribbon."
+
+So when Betty talked about her babies and the little bronze cross,
+my eyes grew moist and I felt ridiculously sentimental.
+
+Not a word, of course, was spoken before Betty of the new light,
+or the new darkness, whichsoever you will, that had been cast on
+the tragedy of Althea. I could not do otherwise than agree with
+the direct-spoken old lady who had at once correlated the
+adventure in Carlisle with the plunge into the Wellingsford Canal.
+And so did Sir Anthony. They were very brave, however, the little
+man and Edith, in their dinner-talk with Betty. But I saw that the
+past fortnight had aged them both by a year or more. They had been
+stabbed in their honour, their trust, and their faith. It was a
+secret terror that stalked at their side by day and lay stark at
+their side by night. It was only when the ladies had left us that
+Sir Anthony referred to the subject.
+
+"I suppose you know that young Randall Holmes has bolted."
+
+"So his mother informed me to-day."
+
+He pricked his ears. "Does she know where he has gone to?"
+
+"No," said I.
+
+"What did I tell you?" said Sir Anthony.
+
+I held up my glass of port to the light and looked through it.
+
+"A lot of damfoolishness, my dear old friend," said I.
+
+He grew angry. A man doesn't like to be coldly called a damfool at
+his own table. He rose on his spurs, in his little red bantam way.
+Was I too much of an idiot to see the connection? As soon as the
+Carlisle business became known, this young scoundrel flies the
+country. Couldn't I see an inch before my blind nose? Forbearing
+to question this remarkable figure of speech, I asked him how so
+confidential a matter could have become known.
+
+"Everything gets known in this infernal little town," he retorted.
+
+"That's where you're mistaken," said I. "Half everything gets
+known--the unimportant half. The rest is supplied by malicious or
+prejudiced invention."
+
+We discussed the question after the futile way of men until we
+went into the drawing-room, where Betty played and sang to us
+until it was time to go home.
+
+Marigold was about to lift me into the two-seater when Betty, who
+had been lurking in her car a little way off, ran forward.
+
+"Would it bore you if I came in for a quarter of an hour?"
+
+"Bore me, my dear?" said I. "Of course not."
+
+So a short while afterwards we were comfortably established in my
+library.
+
+"You rang me up to-day about Phyllis Gedge."
+
+"I did," said I.
+
+She lit a cigarette and seated herself on the fender-stool. She
+has an unconscious knack of getting into easy, loose-limbed
+attitudes. I said admiringly:
+
+"Do you know you're a remarkably well-favoured young person?"
+
+And as soon as I said it, I realised what a tremendous factor
+Betty was in my circumscribed life. What could I do without her
+sweet intimacy? If Willie Connor's Territorial regiment, like so
+many others, had been ordered out to India, and she had gone with
+him, how blank would be the days and weeks and months! I thanked
+God for granting me her graciousness.
+
+She smiled and blew me a kiss. "That's very gratifying to know,"
+she said. "But it has nothing to do with Phyllis."
+
+"Well, what about Phyllis?"
+
+"I'll tell you," she replied.
+
+And she told me. Her story was not of world-shaking moment, but it
+interested me. I have since learned its substantial correctness
+and am able to add some supplementary details.
+
+You see, things were like this.... In order to start I must go
+back some years.... I have always had a warm corner in my heart
+for little Phyllis Gedge, ever since she was a blue-eyed child. My
+wife had a great deal to do with it. She was a woman of dauntless
+courage and clear vision into the heart of things. I find many a
+reflection of her in Betty. Perhaps that is why I love Betty so
+dearly.
+
+Some strange, sweet fool feminine of gentle birth and deplorable
+upbringing fell in love with a vehemently socialistic young
+artisan by the name of Gedge and married him. Her casual but
+proud-minded family wiped her off the proud family slate. She
+brought Phyllis into the world and five years afterwards found
+herself be-Gedged out of existence. They were struggling people in
+those days, and before her death my wife used to employ her, when
+she could, for household sewing and whatnot. And tiny Phyllis, in
+a childless home, became a petted darling. When my great
+loneliness came upon me, it was a solace to have the little dainty
+prattling thing to spend an occasional hour in my company. Gedge,
+an excellent workman, set up as a contractor. He took my modest
+home under his charge. A leaky tap, a broken pane, a new set of
+bookshelves, a faulty drainpipe--all were matters for Gedge. I
+abhorred his politics but I admired his work, and I continued,
+with Mrs. Marigold's motherly aid, to make much of Phyllis.
+
+Gedge, for queer motives of his own, sent her to as good a school
+as he could afford, as a matter of fact an excellent school, one
+where she met girls of a superior social class and learned
+educated speech and graceful manners. Her holidays, poor child,
+were somewhat dreary, for her father, an anti-social creature, had
+scarce a friend in the town. Save for here and there an invitation
+to tea from Betty or myself, she did not cross the threshold of a
+house in Wellingsford. But to my house, all through her schooldays
+and afterwards, Phyllis came, and on such occasions Mrs. Marigold
+prepared teas of the organic lusciousness dear to the heart of a
+healthy girl.
+
+Now, here comes the point of all this palaver. Young Master
+Randall used also to come to my house. Now and then by chance they
+met there. They were good boy and girl friends.
+
+I want to make it absolutely clear that her acquaintance with
+Randall was not any vulgar picking-up-in-the-street affair.
+
+When she left school, her father made her his book-keeper,
+secretary, confidential clerk. Anybody turning into the office to
+summon Gedge to repair a roof or a burst boiler had a preliminary
+interview with Phyllis. Young Randall, taking over the business of
+the upkeep of his mother's house, gradually acquired the habit of
+such preliminary interviews. The whole imbroglio was very simple,
+very natural. They had first met at my own rich cake and jam-puff
+bespread tea-table. When Randall went into the office to speak,
+presumably, about a defective draught in the kitchen range, and
+really about things quite different, the ethics of the matter
+depended entirely on Randall's point of view. Their meetings had
+been contrived by no unmaidenly subterfuge on the part of Phyllis.
+She knew him to be above her in social station. She kept him off
+as long as she could. But que voulez-vous? Randall was a very
+good-looking, brilliant, and fascinating fellow; Phyllis was a
+dear little human girl. And it is the human way of such girls to
+fall in love with such fascinating, brilliant fellows. I not only
+hold a brief for Phyllis, but I am the judge, too, and having
+heard all the evidence, I deliver a verdict overwhelmingly in her
+favour. Given the circumstances as I have stated them, she was
+bound to fall in love with Randall, and in doing so committed not
+the little tiniest speck of a peccadillo.
+
+My first intimation of tender relations between them came from my
+sight of them in February in Wellings Park. Since then, of course,
+I have much which I will tell you as best I may.
+
+So now for Betty's story, confirmed and supplemented by what I
+have learned later. But before plunging into the matter, I must
+say that when Betty had ended I took up my little parable and told
+her of all that Randall had told me concerning his repudiation of
+Gedge. And Betty listened with a curiously stony face and said
+nothing.
+
+When Betty puts on that face of granite I am quite unhappy. That
+is why I have always hated the statues of Egypt. There is
+something beneath their cold faces that you can't get at.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Gedge bitterly upbraided his daughter, both for her desertion of
+his business and her criminal folly in abandoning it so as to help
+mend the shattered bodies of fools and knaves who, by joining the
+forces of militarism, had betrayed the Sacred Cause of the
+International Solidarity of Labour. His first ground for complaint
+was scarcely tenable; with his dwindling business the post of
+clerk had dwindled into a sinecure. To sit all day at the receipt
+of imaginary custom is not a part fitted for a sane and healthy
+young human being. Still, from Gedge's point of view her defection
+was a grievance; but that she could throw in her lot openly with
+the powers of darkness was nothing less than an outrage.
+
+I suppose, in a kind of crabbed way, the crabbed fellow was fond
+of Phyllis. She was pretty. She had dainty tricks of dress. She
+flitted, an agreeable vision, about his house. He liked to hear
+her play the piano, not because he had any ear for music, but
+because it tickled his vanity to reflect that he, the agricultural
+labourer's son and apprentice to a village carpenter, was the
+possessor both of a Broadway Grand and of a daughter who, entirely
+through his efforts, had learned to play on it. Like most of his
+political type, he wallowed in his own peculiar snobbery. But of
+anything like companionship between father and daughter there had
+existed very little. While railing, wherever he found ears into
+which to rail, against the vicious luxury and sordid shallowness
+of the upper middle classes, his instinctive desire to shine above
+his poorer associates had sent Phyllis to an upper middle class
+school. Now Gedge had a certain amount of bookish and political
+intelligence. Phyllis inheriting the intellectual equipment of her
+sentimental fool of a mother, had none, Oh! she had a vast fund of
+ordinary commonsense. Of that I can assure you. A bit of hard
+brain fibre from her father had counteracted any over-sentimental
+folly in the maternal heritage. And she came back from school a
+very ladylike little person. If pressed, she could reel off all
+kinds of artificial scraps of knowledge, like a dear little
+parrot. But she had never heard of Karl Marx and didn't want to
+hear. She had a vague notion that International Socialism was a
+movement in favour of throwing bombs at monarchs and of seizing
+the wealth of the rich in order to divide it among the poor--and
+she regarded it as abominable. When her father gave her Fabian
+Society tracts to read, he might just as well, for all her
+understanding of the argument, set her down to a Treatise on the
+Infinitesimal Calculus. Her brain stood blank before such abstract
+disquisitions. She loved easily comprehended poetry and novels
+that made her laugh or cry and set her mind dancing round the
+glowing possibilities of life; all disastrous stuff abhorred by
+the International Socialist, to whom the essential problems of
+existence are of no interest whatever. So, after a few futile
+attempts to darken her mind, Gedge put her down as a mere fool
+woman, and ceased to bother his head about her intellectual
+development. That came to him quite naturally. There is no Turk
+more contemptuous of his womankind's political ideas than the
+Gedges of our enlightened England. But on other counts she was a
+distinct asset. He regarded her with immense pride, as a more
+ornamental adjunct to his house than any other county builder and
+contractor could display, and, recognising that she was possessed
+of some low feminine cunning in the way of adding up figures and
+writing letters, made use of her in his office as general clerical
+factotum.
+
+When the war broke out, he discovered, to his horror, that Phyllis
+actually had political ideas--unshakable, obstinate ideas opposed
+to his own--and that he had been nourishing in his bosom a
+viperous patriot. Phyllis, for her part, realised with equal
+horror the practical significance of her father's windy theories.
+When Randall, who had stolen her heart, took to visiting the
+house, in order, as far as she could make out, to talk treason
+with her father, the strain of the situation grew more than she
+could bear. She fled to Betty for advice. Betty promptly stepped
+in and whisked her off to the hospital.
+
+It was on the morning on which Randall interviewed me in the
+garden, the morning after he had broken with Gedge that Phyllis,
+having a little off-time, went home. She found her father in the
+office making out a few bills. He thrust forward his long chin and
+aggressive beard and scowled at her.
+
+"Oh, it's you, is it? Come at last where your duty calls you, eh?"
+
+"I always come when I can, father," she replied.
+
+She bent down and kissed his cheek. He caught her roughly round
+the waist and, leaning back in his chair, looked up at her sourly.
+
+"How long are you going on defying me like this?"
+
+She tried to disengage herself, but his arm was too strong. "Oh,
+father," she said, rather wearily, "don't let us go over this old
+argument again."
+
+"But suppose I find some new argument? Suppose I send you packing
+altogether, refuse to contribute further to your support. What
+then?"
+
+She started at the threat but replied valiantly: "I should have to
+earn my own living."
+
+"How are you going to do it?"
+
+"There are heaps of ways."
+
+He laughed. "There ain't; as you'd soon find out. They don't even
+pay you for being scullery-maid to a lot of common soldiers."
+
+She protested against that view of her avocation. In the perfectly
+appointed Wellingsford Hospital she had no scullery work. She was
+a probationer, in training as a nurse. He still gripped her.
+
+"The particular kind of tomfoolery you are up to doesn't matter.
+We needn't quarrel. I've another proposition to put before you--
+much more to your fancy, I think. You like this Mr. Randall
+Holmes, don't you?"
+
+She shivered a little and flushed deep red. Her father had never
+touched on the matter before. She said, straining away:
+
+"I don't want to talk about Mr. Holmes."
+
+"But I do. Come, my dear. In this life there must be always a
+certain amount of give and take. I'm not the man to drive a one-
+sided bargain. I'll make you a fair offer--as between father and
+daughter. I'll wipe out all that's past. In leaving me like this,
+when misfortune has come upon me, you've been guilty of unfilial
+conduct--no one can deny it But I'll overlook everything, forgive
+you fully and take you to my heart again and leave you free to do
+whatever you like without interfering with your opinions, if
+you'll promise me one thing--"
+
+"I know what you're going to say." She twisted round on him
+swiftly. "I 'll promise at once. I'll never marry Mr. Holmes. I've
+already told him I won't marry him."
+
+Surprise relaxed his grip. She took swift advantage and sheered
+away to the other side of the table. He rose and brought down his
+hand with a thump.
+
+"You refused him? Why, you silly little baggage, my condition is
+that you should marry him. You're sweet on him aren't you?"
+
+"I detest him," cried Phyllis. "Why should I marry him?"
+
+Her eyes, young and pure, divined some sordid horror behind eyes
+crafty and ignoble. Once before she had had such a fleeting,
+uncomprehended vision into the murky depths of the man's soul.
+This was some time ago. In the routine of her secretarial duties
+she had, one morning, opened and read a letter, not marked
+"Private" or "Personal," whose tenor she could scarcely
+understand. When she handed it to her father, he smiled,
+vouchsafed a specious explanation, and looked at her in just the
+same crafty and ignoble fashion, and she shrank away frightened.
+The matter kept her awake for a couple of nights. Then, for sheer
+easing of her heart, she went to her adored Betty Fairfax, her
+Lady Patroness and Mother Confessor, who, being wise and strong,
+and possessing the power of making her kind eyes unfathomable,
+laughed, bade her believe her father's explanation, and sent her
+away comforted. The incident passed out of her mind. But now
+memory smote her, as she shrank from her father's gaze and the
+insincere smile on his thin lips.
+
+"For one thing," he replied after a pause, pulling his straggly
+beard, "your poor dear mother was a lady, and if she had lived she
+would have wanted you to marry a gentleman. It's for her sake I've
+given you an education that fits you to consort with gentlefolk--
+just for her sake--don't make any mistake about it, for I've
+always hated the breed. If I've violated my principles in order to
+meet her wishes, I think you ought to meet them too. You wouldn't
+like to marry a small tradesman or a working man, would you?"
+
+"I'm not going to marry anybody," cried Phyllis. She was only a
+pink and white, very ordinary little girl. I have no idealisations
+or illusions concerning Phyllis. But she had a little fine steel
+of character running through her. It flashed on Gedge.
+
+"I don't want to marry anybody," she declared. "But I'd sooner
+marry a bricklayer who was fighting for his country than a fine
+gentleman like Mr. Holmes who wasn't. I'd sooner die," she cried
+passionately.
+
+"Then go and die and be damned to you!" snarled Gedge, planting
+himself noisily in his chair. "I've no use for khaki-struck
+drivelling idiots. I've no use for patriots. Bah! Damn patriots!
+The upper classes are out for all they can get, and they befool
+the poor imbecile working man with all their highfalutin phrases
+to get it for them at the cost of his blood. I've no use for them,
+I tell you. And I've no use either for undutiful daughters. I've
+no use for young women who blow hot and cold. Haven't I seen you
+with the fellow? Do you think I'm a blind dodderer? Do you think I
+haven't kept an eye on you? Haven't I seen you blowing as hot as
+you please? And now because he refuses to be a blinking idiot and
+have his guts blown out in this war of fools and knaves and
+capitalists, you blast him like a three-farthing iceberg."
+
+Everything in her that was tender, maidenly, English, shrank
+lacerated. But the steel held her. She put both her hands on the
+table and bent over towards him.
+
+"But, father, except that he's a gentleman, you haven't told me
+why you want me to marry Mr. Holmes."
+
+He fidgeted with his fingers. "Haven't you a spark of affection
+for me left?"
+
+She said dutifully, "Yes, father."
+
+"I want you to marry him. I've set my heart on it. It has been the
+one bright hope in my life for months. Can't you marry him because
+you love me?"
+
+"One generally marries because one loves the man one's going to
+marry," said Phyllis.
+
+"But you do love him," cried Gedge. "Either you're just a wanton
+little hussy or you must care for the fellow."
+
+"I don't. I hate him. And I don't want to have anything more to do
+with him." The tears came. "He's a pro-German and I won't have
+anything to do with pro-Germans."
+
+She fled precipitately from the office into the street and made a
+blind course to the hospital; feeling, in dumb misery, that she
+had committed the unforgivable sin of casting off her father and,
+at the same time, that she had made stalwart proclamation of her
+faith. If ever a good, loyal little heart was torn into piteous
+shreds, that little heart was Phyllis's.
+
+In the bare X-ray room of the hospital, which happened to be
+vacant, Betty sat on the one straight-backed wooden chair, while
+a weeping damsel on the uncarpeted floor sobbed in her lap and
+confessed her sins and sought absolution.
+
+Of course Gedge was a fool. If I, or any wise, diplomatic, tactful
+person like myself, had found it necessary to tackle a young woman
+on the subject of a matrimonial alliance, we should have gone
+about the business in quite a different way. But what could you
+expect from an anarchical Turk like Gedge?
+
+Phyllis, not knowing whether she were outcast and disinherited or
+not, found, of course, a champion in Betty, who, in her spacious
+manner, guaranteed her freedom from pecuniary worries for the rest
+of her life. But Phyllis was none the less profoundly unhappy, and
+it took a whole convoy of wounded to restore her to cheerfulness.
+You can't attend to a poor brave devil grinning with pain, while a
+surgeon pokes a six-inch probe down a sinus in search of bits of
+bone or shrapnel, and be acutely conscious of your own two-penny-
+half-penny little miseries. Many a heartache, in this wise, has
+been cured in the Houses of Pain.
+
+Now, nothing much would have happened, I suppose, if Phyllis,
+driven from the hospital by superior decree that she should take
+fresh air and exercise, had not been walking some days afterwards
+across the common by the canal. Bordering the latter, Wellingsford
+has an avenue of secular chestnuts of which it is inordinately
+proud. Dispersed here and there are wooden benches sanctified by
+generations of lovers. Carven thereon are the presentments, often
+interlaced, of hearts that have long since ceased to beat; lonely
+hearts transfixed by arrows, which in all probability survived the
+wound and inspired the owner to the parentage of a dozen children;
+initials once, individually, the record of many a romance, but
+now, collectively, merely an alphabet run mad.
+
+Phyllis entered the avenue, practically deserted at midday, and
+rested, a pathetically lonely little grey-uniformed figure on one
+of the benches. On the common, some distance behind her, stretched
+the lines of an Army Service train, with mules and waggons, and
+here and there a tent. In front of her, beyond the row of trees,
+was the towing-path; an old horse in charge of a boy jogged by,
+pulling something of which only a moving stove pipe like a
+periscope was visible above the bank. Overhead the chestnuts
+rioted in broad leaf and pink and white blossom, showing starry
+bits of blue sky and admitting arrow shafts of spring sunshine. A
+dirty white mongrel dog belonging to the barge came up to her,
+sniffed, and made friends; then, at last obeying a series of
+whistles from the boy, looked at her apologetically and trotted
+off. Her gaze followed him wistfully, for he was a very human dear
+dog, and with a sympathetic understanding of all her difficulties
+in his deep topaz eyes. After that she had as companions a couple
+of butterflies and a bumble-bee and a perky, portly robin who
+hopped within an inch of her feet and looked up at her sideways
+out of his hard little eye (so different from the dog's) with the
+expression of one who would say: "The most beauteous and
+delectable worm I have ever encountered. If I were a bit bigger,
+say the size of the roc of the Arabian Nights, what a dainty
+morsel you would make! In the meantime can't you shed something of
+yourself for my entertainment like others, though grosser, of your
+species?" She laughed at the cold impudence of the creature, just
+as she had smiled at the butterflies and the bumble-bee. She
+surrendered herself to the light happiness of the moment. It was
+good to escape for an hour from the rigid lines of beds and the
+pale suffering faces and the eternal faint odour of disinfectants,
+into all this greenery and the fellowship of birds and beasts
+unconscious of war. She remembered that once, in the pocket of her
+cloak, there had been a biscuit or two. Very slowly and carefully,
+her mind fixed on the robin, she fished for crumbs and very
+carefully and gently she fed the impudent, stomach-centred fellow.
+She had attracted him to the end of the seat, when, whizz and
+clatter, came a motor cycle down the avenue, and off in a terrible
+scare flew the robin; the idyll of tree and beast and birds
+suffered instant disruption and Randall Holmes, in his canvas
+suit, stood before her.
+
+He said:
+
+"Good morning, Phyllis."
+
+She said, with cold politeness: "Good morning." But she asked the
+spring morning in dumb piteousness, "Oh, why has he come? Why has
+he come to spoil it all?"
+
+He sat down by her side. "This is the luckiest chance I've ever
+had--finding you here," he said. "You've had all my letters,
+haven't you?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, "and I've torn them all up."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I didn't want them," she flashed on him: "I've destroyed
+them without reading them."
+
+He flushed angrily. Apart from the personal affront, the fact that
+the literary products of a poet, precious and, in this case,
+sincere, should have been destroyed, unread, was an anti-social
+outrage.
+
+"If it didn't please a woman to believe in God," he said, "and God
+came in Person and stood in front of her, she would run out of the
+room and call upon somebody to come and shoot Him for a burglar,
+just to prove she was right."
+
+Phyllis was shocked. Her feminine mind pounced on the gross
+literalness of his rhetorical figure.
+
+"I've never heard anything more blasphemous and horrible," she
+exclaimed, moving to her end of the bench. "Putting yourself in
+the position of the Almighty! Oh!" she flung out her hand. "Don't
+speak to me."
+
+In spite of the atheistical Gedge, Phyllis believed in God and
+Jesus Christ and the Ten Commandments. She also believed in a host
+of other simple things, such as Goodness and Truth, Virtue and
+Patriotism. The arguments and theories and glosses that her father
+and Randall wove about them appeared to her candid mind as
+meaningless arabesques. She could not see how all the
+complications concerning the elementary canons of faith and
+conduct could arise. She appreciated Randall's intellectual gifts;
+his power of weaving magical words into rhyme fascinated her; she
+was childlike in her wonder at his command of the printed page;
+when he revealed to her the beauty of things, as the rogue had a
+pretty knack of doing, her nature thrilled responsive. He gave her
+a thousand glimpses into a new world, and she loved him for it.
+But when he talked lightly of sacred matters, such as God and
+Duty, he ran daggers into her heart. She almost hated him.
+
+He had to expend much eloquence and persuasion to induce her to
+listen to him. He had no wish to break any of the Commandments,
+especially the Third. He professed penitence. But didn't she see
+that her treatment of him was driving him into a desperate
+unbelief in God and man? When a woman accepted a man's love she
+accepted many responsibilities.
+
+Phyllis stonily denied acceptance.
+
+"I've refused it. You've asked me to marry you and I told you I
+wouldn't. And I won't."
+
+"You're mixing up two things," he said, with a smile. "Love and
+marriage. Many people love and don't marry, just as many marry and
+don't love. Now once you did tell me that you loved me, and so you
+accepted my love. There's no getting out of it. I've given you
+everything I've got, and you can't throw it away. The question is
+--what are you going to do with it? What are you going to do with
+me?"
+
+His sophistries frightened her; but she cut through them.
+
+"Isn't it rather a question of what you're going to do with
+yourself?"
+
+"If you give me up I don't care a hang what becomes of me." He
+came very near and his voice was dangerously soft. "Phyllis dear,
+I do love you with all my heart. Why won't you marry me?"
+
+But a hateful scene rushed to her memory. She drew herself up.
+
+"Why are my father and you persecuting me to marry you?"
+
+"Your father?" he interrupted, in astonishment. "When?"
+
+She named the day, Wednesday of last week. In desperation she told
+him what had happened. The poor child was fighting for her soul
+against great odds.
+
+"It's a conspiracy to get me round to your way of thinking. You
+want me to be a pro-German like yourselves, and I won't be a pro-
+German, and I think it wicked even to talk to pro-Germans!"
+
+She rose, all sobs, fluster, and heroism, and walked away. He
+strode a step or two and stood in front of her with his hands on
+her shoulders.
+
+"I've never spoken to your father in that way about you. Never.
+Not a word has passed my lips about my caring for you. On my word
+of honour. On Tuesday night I left your father's house never to go
+there again. I told him so."
+
+She writhed out of his grasp and spread the palms of her hands
+against him. "Please don't," she said, and seeing that she stood
+her ground, he made no further attempt to touch her. The austerity
+of her grey nurse's uniform gave a touch of pathos to her
+childish, blue-eyed comeliness and her pretty attitude of
+defiance.
+
+"I suppose," she said, "he was too pro-German even for you."
+
+He looked at her for a long time disconcertingly: so
+disconcertingly and with so much pain and mysterious hesitation in
+his eyes as to set even Phyllis's simple mind a-wondering and to
+make her emphasize it, in her report of the matter to Betty, as
+extraordinary and frightening. It seemed, so she explained, in her
+innocent way, that he had discovered something horrible about her
+father which he shrank from telling her. But if they had
+quarrelled so bitterly, why had her father the very next day urged
+her to marry him? The answer came in a ghastly flash. She recoiled
+as though in the presence of defilement. If she married Randall,
+his lips would be closed against her father. That is what her
+father had meant. The vague, disquieting suspicions of years that
+he might not have the same standards of uprightness as other men,
+attained an awful certainty. She remembered the incident of the
+private letter and the look in her father's eyes. ... Finally she
+revolted. Her soul grew sick. She took no heed of Randall's
+protest. She only saw that she was to be the cloak to cover up
+something unclean between them. At a moment like this no woman
+pretends to have a sense of justice. Randall had equal share with
+her father in an unknown baseness. She hated him as he stood there
+so strong and handsome. And she hated herself for having loved
+him.
+
+At last he said with a smile:
+
+"Yes, That's just it."
+
+"What?"
+
+She had forgotten the purport of her last remark.
+
+"He was a bit too--well, not too pro-German--but too anti-English
+for me. You have got hold of the wrong end of the stick all the
+time, Phyllis dear. I'm no more pro-German than you are. Perhaps I
+see things more clearly than you do. I've been trained to an
+intellectual view of human phenomena."
+
+Her little pink and white face hardened until it looked almost
+ugly. The unpercipient young man continued:
+
+"And so I take my stand on a position that you must accept on
+trust. I am English to the backbone. You can't possibly dream that
+I'm not. Come, dear, let me try to explain."
+
+His arm curved as if to encircle her waist. She sprang away.
+
+"Don't touch me. I couldn't bear it. There's something about you I
+can't understand."
+
+In her attitude, too, he found a touch of the incomprehensible. He
+said, however, with a sneer:
+
+"If I were swaggering about in a cheap uniform, you'd find me
+simplicity itself."
+
+She caught at his opening, desperately.
+
+"Yes. At any rate I'd find a man. A man who wasn't afraid to fight
+for his country."
+
+"Afraid!"
+
+"Yes," she cried, and her blue eyes blazed. "Afraid. That's why I
+can't marry you. I'd rather die than marry you. I've never told
+you. I thought you'd guess. I'm an English girl and I can't marry
+a coward--a coward--a coward--a coward."
+
+Her voice ended on a foolish high note, for Randall, very white,
+had seized her by the wrist.
+
+"You little fool," he cried. "You'll live to repent what you've
+said."
+
+He released her, mounted his motor bicycle, and rode away. Phyllis
+watched him disappear up the avenue; then she walked rather
+blindly back to the bench and sat down among the ruins of a black
+and abominable world. After a while the friendly robin, seeing her
+so still, perched first on the back of the bench and then hopped
+on the seat by her side, and cocking his head, looked at her
+enquiringly out of his little hard eye, as though he would say:
+
+"My dear child, what are you making all this fuss about? Isn't it
+early June? Isn't the sun shining? Aren't the chestnuts in flower?
+Don't you see that bank of dark blue cloud over there which means
+a nice softening rain in the night and a jolly good breakfast of
+worms in the morning? What's wrong with this exquisitely perfect
+universe?"
+
+And Phyllis--on her own confession--with an angry gesture sent him
+scattering up among the cool broad leaves and cried:
+
+"Get away, you hateful little beast!"
+
+And having no use for robins and trees and spring and sunshine and
+such like intolerable ironies, a white little wisp of a nurse left
+them all to their complacent riot and went back to the hospital.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+A few days after this, Mrs. Holmes sent me under cover a telegram
+which she had received from her son. It was dispatched from
+Aberdeen and ran: "Perfectly well. Don't worry about me. Love.
+Randall." And that was all I heard of him for some considerable
+time. What he was doing in Aberdeen, a city remote from his sphere
+of intellectual, political, and social activities, Heaven and
+himself alone knew. I must confess that I cared very little. He
+was alive, he was well, and his mother had no cause for anxiety.
+Phyllis had definitely sent him packing. There was no reason for
+me to allow speculation concerning him to keep me awake of nights.
+
+I had plenty to think about besides Randall. They made me Honorary
+Treasurer of the local Volunteer Training Corps which had just
+been formed. The members not in uniform wore a red brassard with
+"G.R." in black. The facetious all over the country called them
+"Gorgeous Wrecks." I must confess that on their first few parades
+they did not look very military. Their composite paunchiness,
+beardedness, scragginess, spectacledness, impressed me
+unfavourably when, from my Hosea-carriage, I first beheld them.
+Marigold, who was one of the first to join and to leap into the
+grey uniform, tried to swagger about as an instructor. But as the
+little infantry drill he had ever learned had all been changed
+since the Boer War, I gathered an unholy joy from seeing him hang
+like a little child on the lips of the official Sergeant
+Instructor of the corps. In the evenings he and I mugged up the
+text-books together; and with the aid of the books I put him
+through all the new physical exercises. I was a privileged person.
+I could take my own malicious pleasure out of Marigold's enforced
+humility, but I would be hanged if anybody else should. Sergeant
+Marigold should instruct those volunteers as he once instructed
+the recruits of his own battery. So I worked with him like a
+nigger until there was nothing in the various drills of a modern
+platoon that he didn't know, and nothing that he could not do with
+the mathematical precision of his splendid old training.
+
+One night during the thick of it Betty came in. I waved her into a
+corner of the library out of the way, and she smoked cigarettes
+and looked on at the performance. Now I come to think of it, we
+must have afforded an interesting spectacle. There was the gaunt,
+one-eyed, preposterously wigged image clad in undervest and
+shrunken yellow flannel trousers which must have dated from his
+gym-instructor days in the nineties, violently darting down on
+his heels, springing up, kicking out his legs, shooting out his
+arms, like an inspired marionette, all at the words of command
+shouted in fervent earnest by a shrivelled up little cripple in a
+wheel-chair.
+
+When it was over--the weather was warm--he passed a curved
+forefinger over his dripping forehead, cut himself short in an
+instinctive action and politely dried his hand on the seat of his
+trousers. Then his one eye gleamed homage at Betty and he drew
+himself up to attention.
+
+"Do you mind, sir, if I send in Ellen with the drinks?"
+
+I nodded. "You'll do very well with a drink yourself, Marigold."
+
+"It's thirsty work and weather, sir."
+
+He made a queer movement of his hand--it would have been idiotic
+of him to salute--but he had just been dismissed from military
+drill, so his hand went up to the level of his breast and--right
+about turn--he marched out of the room. Betty rose from her corner
+and threw herself in her usual impetuous way on the ground by my
+chair.
+
+"Do you know," she cried, "you two dear old things were too funny
+for words."
+
+But as I saw that her eyes were foolishly moist, I was not as
+offended as I might have been by her perception of the ludicrous.
+
+When I said that I had plenty to think about besides Randall, I
+meant to string off a list. My prolixity over the Volunteer
+Training Corps came upon me unawares. I wanted to show you that my
+time was fairly well occupied. I was Chairman of our town Belgian
+Relief Committee. I was a member of our County Territorial
+Association and took over a good deal of special work connected
+with one of our battalions that was covering itself with glory and
+little mounds topped with white crosses at the front. If you think
+I lived a Tom-tabby, tea-party sort of life, you are quite
+mistaken, if the War Office could have its way, it would have
+lashed me in red tape, gagged me with Regulations, and sealing-
+waxed me up in my bed-room. And there are thousands of us who have
+shaken our fists under the nose of the War Office and shouted,
+"All your blighting, Man-with-the-Mudrake officialdom shan't
+prevent us from serving our country." And it hasn't! The very
+Government itself, in spite of its monumental efforts, has not
+been able to shackle us into inertia or drug us into apathy. Such
+non-combatant francs-tireurs in England have done a power of good
+work.
+
+And then, of course, there was the hospital which, in one way or
+another, took up a good deal of my time.
+
+I was reposing in the front garden one late afternoon in mid-June,
+after a well-filled day, when a car pulled up at the gate, in
+which were Betty (at the wheel) and a wounded soldier, in khaki,
+his cap perched on top of a bandaged head. I don't know whether it
+is usual for young women in nurse's uniform to career about the
+country driving wounded men in motor cars, but Betty did it. She
+cared very little for the usual. She came in, leaving the man in
+the car, and crossed the lawn, flushed and bright-eyed, a
+refreshing picture for a tired man.
+
+"We're in a fix up at the hospital," she announced as soon as she
+was in reasonable speaking distance, "and I want you to get us out
+of it."
+
+Sitting on the grass, she told me the difficulty. A wounded
+soldier, discharged from some distant hospital, and home now on
+sick furlough before rejoining his depot, had been brought into
+the hospital with a broken head. The modern improvements on
+vinegar and brown paper having been applied, the man was now ready
+to leave. I interrupted with the obvious question. Why couldn't he
+go to his own home? It appeared that the prospect terrified him.
+On his arrival, at midday, after eight months' absence in France,
+he found that his wife had sold or pawned practically everything
+in the place, and that the lady herself was in the violent phase
+of intoxication. His natural remonstrances not being received with
+due meekness, a quarrel arose from which the lady emerged
+victorious. She laid her poor husband out with a poker. They could
+not keep him in hospital. He shied at an immediate renewal of
+conjugal life. He had no relations or intimate friends in
+Wellingsford. Where was the poor devil to go?
+
+"I thought I might bring him along here and let the Marigolds look
+after him for a week or two."
+
+"Indeed," said I. "I admire your airy ways."
+
+"I know you do," she replied, "and that's why I've brought him."
+
+"Is that the fellow?"
+
+She laughed. "You're right first time. How did you guess?" She
+scrambled to her feet. "I'll fetch him in."
+
+She fetched him in, a haggard, broad-shouldered man with a back
+like a sloping plank of wood. He wore corporal's stripes. He
+saluted and stood at rigid attention.
+
+"This is Tufton," said Betty.
+
+I despatched her in search of Marigold. To Tufton I said,
+regarding him with what, without vanity, I may term an expert eye:
+
+"You're an old soldier."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Guards?"
+
+His eyes brightened. "Yes, sir. Seven years in the Grenadiers.
+Then two years out. Rejoined on outbreak of war, sir."
+
+I rubbed my hands together in satisfaction. "I'm an old soldier
+too," said I
+
+"So Sister told me, sir."
+
+A delicate shade in the man's tone and manner caught at my heart.
+Perhaps it was the remotest fraction of a glance at my rug-covered
+legs, the pleased recognition of my recognition, ... perhaps some
+queer freemasonry of the old Army.
+
+"You seem to be in trouble, boy," said I. "Tell me all about it
+and I'll do what I can to help you."
+
+So he told his story. After his discharge from the Army he had
+looked about for a job and found one at the mills in Wellingsford,
+where he had met the woman, a mill-hand, older than himself, whom
+he had married. She had been a bit extravagant and fond of her
+glass, but when he left her to rejoin the regiment, he had had no
+anxieties. She did not write often, not being very well educated
+and finding difficult the composition of letters. A machine gun
+bullet had gone through his chest, just missing his lung. He had
+been two months in hospital. He had written to her announcing his
+arrival. She had not met him at the station. He had tramped home
+with his kit-bag on his back--and the cracked head was his
+reception. He supposed she had had a lot of easy money and had
+given way to temptation--and
+
+"And what's a man to do, sir?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, Corporal," said I. "It's damned hard lines
+on you. But, at any rate, you can look upon this as your home for
+as long as you like to stay."
+
+"Thank you kindly, sir," said he.
+
+I turned and beckoned to Betty and Marigold, who had been hovering
+out of earshot by the house door. They approached.
+
+"I want to have a word with Marigold," I said.
+
+Tufton saluted and went off with Betty. Sergeant Marigold stood
+stiff as a ramrod on the spot which Tufton had occupied.
+
+"I suppose Mrs. Connor," said I, "has told you all about this poor
+chap?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Marigold.
+
+"We must put him up comfortably. That's quite simple. The only
+thing that worries me is this--supposing his wife comes around
+here raising Cain--?"
+
+Marigold held me with his one glittering eye--an eye glittering
+with the pride of the gunner and the pride (more chastened) of the
+husband.
+
+"You can leave all that, sir, to Mrs. Marigold. If she isn't more
+than a match for any Grenadier Guardsman's wife, then I haven't
+been married to her for the last twenty years."
+
+Nothing more was to be said. Marigold marched the man off, leaving
+me alone with Betty.
+
+"I'm going to get in before Mrs. Marigold," she remarked, with a
+smile. "I'm off now to interview Madam Tufton and bring back her
+husband's kit."
+
+In some ways it is a pity Betty isn't a man. She would make a
+splendid soldier. I don't think such a thing as fear, physical,
+moral, or spiritual, lurks in any recess of Betty's nature. Not
+every young woman would brave, without trepidation, a virago who
+had cracked a hard-bitten warrior's head with a poker.
+
+"Marigold and I will come with you," I said.
+
+She protested. It was nonsense. Suppose Mrs. Tufton went for
+Marigold and spoiled his beauty? No. It was too dangerous. No
+place for men. We argued. At last I blew the police-whistle which
+I wear on the end of my watch-chain. Marigold came hurrying out of
+the house.
+
+"Mrs. Connor is going to take us for a run," said I.
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+"Your blood be on your own heads," said Betty.
+
+We talked a while of what had happened. Vague stories of the
+demoralization of wives left alone with a far greater weekly
+income than they had ever handled before had reached our ears. We
+had read them in the newspapers. But till now we had never come
+across an example. The woman in question belonged to a bad type.
+Various dregs from large cities drift into the mills around little
+country towns and are the despair of Mayors, curates, and other
+local authorities. We genteel folk regarded them as a plague-spot
+in the midst of us.
+
+I remember the scandal when the troops first came in August, 1914,
+to Wellingsford--a scandal put a summary end to, after a
+fortnight's grinning amazement at our country morals, by the
+troops themselves. Tufton had married into an undesirable
+community.
+
+"We're wasting time," said Betty.
+
+So Marigold put me into the back of the car and mounted into the
+front seat by Betty, and we started.
+
+Flowery End was the poetic name of the mean little row of red-
+brick houses inhabited exclusively by Mrs. Tufton and her
+colleagues at the mills. To get to it you turn off the High Street
+by the Post Office, turn to the right down Avonmore Avenue, and
+then to the left. There you find Flowery End, and, fifty yards
+further on, the main road to Godbury crosses it at right angles.
+Betty, who lived on the Godbury Road, was quite familiar with
+Flowery End. Mid-June did its best to justify the name. Here and
+there, in the tiny patches of front garden, a tenant tried to help
+mid-June by cultivating wall-flowers and geraniums and snapdragon
+and a rose or two; but the majority cared as much for the beauty
+of mid-June as for the cleanliness of their children,--an
+unsightly brood, with any slovenly rags about their bodies, and
+the circular crust of last week's treacle on their cheeks. In his
+abominable speeches before the war Gedge used to point out these
+children to unsympathetic Wellingsfordians as the Infant Martyrs
+of an Accursed Capitalism.
+
+Betty pulled up the car at Number Seven. Marigold sprang out,
+helped her down, and would have walked up the narrow flagged path
+to knock at the door. But she declined his aid, and he stood
+sentry by the gap where the wicket gate of the garden should have
+been. I saw the door open on Betty's summons, and a brawny,
+tousled, red-faced woman appear--a most horrible and forbidding
+female, although bearing traces of a once blowsy beauty. As in
+most cottages hereabouts, you entered straight from garden-plot
+into the principal livingroom. On each side of the two figures I
+obtained a glimpse of stark emptiness.
+
+Betty said: "Are you Mrs. Tufton? I've come to talk to you about
+your husband. Let me come in."
+
+The attack was so debonair, so unquestioning, that the woman
+withdrew a pace or two and Betty, following up her advantage,
+entered and shut the door behind her. I could not have done what
+Betty did if I had had as many legs as a centipede. Marigold
+turned to me anxiously.
+
+"You do think she's safe, sir?"
+
+I nodded. "Anyway, stand by."
+
+The neighbours came out of adjoining houses; slatternly women with
+babies, more unwashed children, an elderly, vacant male or two--
+the young men and maidens had not yet been released from the
+mills. As far as I could gather, there was amused discussion among
+the gossips concerning the salient features of Sergeant Marigold's
+physical appearance. I heard one lady bid another to look at his
+wicked old eye, and receive the humorous rejoinder: "Which one?" I
+should have liked to burn them as witches; but Marigold stood his
+ground, imperturbable.
+
+Presently the door opened, and Betty came sailing down the path
+with a red spot on each cheek, followed by Mrs. Tufton,
+vociferous.
+
+"Sergeant Marigold," cried Betty. "Will you kindly go into that
+house and fetch out Corporal Tufton's kit-bag?"
+
+"Very good, madam," said Marigold.
+
+"Sergeant or no sergeant," cried Mrs. Tufton, squaring her elbows
+and barring his way, "nobody's coming into my house to touch any
+of my husband's property...." Really what she said I cannot
+record. The British Tommy I know upside-down, inside-out. I could
+talk to you about him for the week together. The ordinary
+soldier's wife, good, straight, heroic soul, I know as well and
+and profoundly admire as I do the ordinary wife of a brother-
+officer, and I could tell you what she thinks and feels in her own
+language. But the class whence Mrs. Tufton proceeded is out of my
+social ken. She was stale-drunk; she had, doubtless, a vile
+headache; probably she felt twinges of remorse and apprehension of
+possible police interference. As a counter-irritant to this, she
+had worked herself into an astounding temper. She would give up
+none of her husband's belongings. She would have the law on them
+if they tried. Bad enough it was for her husband to come home
+after a year's desertion, leaving her penniless, and the moment he
+set eyes on her begin to knock her about; but for sergeants
+suffering under a blight and characterless females masquerading as
+hospital nurses to come and ride rough-shod over an honest working
+woman was past endurance. Thus I paraphrase my memory of the
+lady's torrential speech. "Lay your hand on me," she cried, "and
+I'll summons you for assault."
+
+As Marigold could not pass her without laying hands on her, and as
+the laying of hands on her, no matter how lightly, would
+indubitably have constituted an assault in the eyes of the law,
+Marigold stiffly confronted her and tried to argue.
+
+The neighbours listened in sardonic amusement. Betty stood by,
+with the spots burning on her cheek, clenching her slender capable
+fingers, furious at defeat. I was condemned to sit in the car a
+few yards off, an anxious spectator. In a moment's lull of the
+argument, Betty interposed:
+
+"Every woman here knows what you have done. You ought to be
+ashamed of yourself."
+
+"And you ought to be ashamed of yourself," Mrs. Tufton retorted--
+"taking an honest woman's husband away from her."
+
+It was time to interfere. I called out:
+
+"Betty, let us get back. I'll fix the man up with everything he
+wants."
+
+At the moment of her turning to me a telegraph boy hopped from his
+bicycle on the off-side of the ear and touched his cap.
+
+"I've a telegram for Mrs. Connor, sir. I recognised the car and I
+think that's the lady. So instead of going on to the house--"
+
+I cut him short. Yes. That was Mrs. Connor of Telford Lodge. He
+dodged round the car and, entering the garden path, handed the
+orange-coloured envelope to Betty. She took it from him absent-
+mindedly, her heart and soul engaged in the battle with Mrs.
+Tufton. The boy stood patient for a second or two.
+
+"Any answer, ma'am?"
+
+She turned so that I could see her face in profile, and
+impatiently opened the envelope and glanced at the message. Then
+she stiffened, seeming in a curious way to become many inches
+taller, and grew deadly white. The paper dropped from her hand.
+Marigold picked it up.
+
+The diversion of the telegraph boy had checked Mrs. Tufton's
+eloquence and compelled the idle interest of the neighbours. I
+cried out from the car:
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+But I don't think Betty heard me. She recovered herself, took the
+telegram from Marigold, and showed it to the woman.
+
+"Read it," said Betty, in a strange, hard voice. "This is to tell
+me that my husband was killed yesterday in France. Go on your
+knees and thank God that you have a brave husband still alive and
+pray that you may be worthy of him."
+
+She went into the house and in a moment reappeared like a ghost of
+steel, carrying the disputed canvas kit-bag over her shoulder. The
+woman stared open-mouthed and said nothing. Marigold came forward
+to relieve Betty of her burden, but she waved him imperiously
+away, passed him and, opening the car-door, threw the bag at my
+feet. Not one of the rough crowd moved a foot or uttered a sound,
+save a baby in arms two doors off, who cut the silence with a
+sickly wail and was immediately hushed by its mother. Betty turned
+to the attendant Marigold.
+
+"You can drive me home."
+
+She sat by my side. Marigold took the wheel in front and drove on.
+She sought for my hand, held it in an iron grip, and said not a
+word. It was but a five minutes' run at the pace to which
+Marigold, time-worn master of crises of life and death, put the
+car. Betty held herself rigid, staring straight in front of her,
+and striving in vain to stifle horrible little sounds that would
+break through her tightly closed lips.
+
+When we pulled up at her door she said queerly: "Forgive me. I'm a
+damned little coward."
+
+And she bolted from the car into the house.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Thus over the sequestered vale of Wellingsford, far away from the
+sound of shells, even off the track of marauding Zeppelins, rode
+the fiery planet. Mars. There is not a homestead in Great Britain
+that in one form or another has not caught a reflection of its
+blood-red ray. No matter how we may seek distraction in work or
+amusement, the angry glow is ever before our eyes, colouring our
+vision, colouring our thoughts, colouring our emotions for good or
+for ill. We cannot escape it. Our personal destinies are
+inextricably interwoven with the fate directing the death grapple
+of the thousand miles or so of battle line, and arbitrating on the
+doom of colossal battleships.
+
+Our local newspaper prints week by week its ever-lengthening Roll
+of Honour. The shells that burst and slew these brave fellows
+spread their devastation into our little sheltered town; in a
+thundering crash tearing off from the very trunk of life here a
+friend, there a son, there a father, there a husband. And I
+repeat, at the risk of wearisome insistence, that our sheltered
+homeland shares the calm, awful fatalism of the battlefield; we
+have to share it because every rood of our country is,
+spiritually, as much a battlefield as the narrow, blood-sodden
+wastes of Flanders and France.
+
+Willie Connor, fine brave gentleman, was dead. My beloved Betty
+was a widow. No Victoria Cross for Betty. Even if there had been
+one, no children to be bred from birth on its glorious legend. The
+German shell left Betty stripped and maimed. With her passionate
+generosity she had given her all; even as his all had been nobly
+given by her husband. And then all of both had been swept
+ruthlessly away down the gory draught of sacrifice.
+
+Poor Betty! "I'm a damned little coward," she said, as she bolted
+into the house. The brave, foolish words rang in my ears all that
+night. In the early morning I wondered what I should do. A
+commonplace message, written or telephoned, would be inept. I
+shrank from touching her, although I knew she would feel my touch
+to be gentle. You have seen, I hope, that Betty was dearer to me
+than anyone else in the world, and I knew that, apart from the
+stirring emotions in her own young life, Betty held me in the
+closest affection. When she needed me, she would fly the signal.
+Of that I felt assured. Still...
+
+While I was in this state of perplexity, Marigold came in to rouse
+me and get me ready for the day.
+
+"I've taken the liberty, sir," said he, "to telephone to Telford
+Lodge to enquire after Mrs. Connor. The maid said she had Mrs.
+Connor's instructions to reply that she was quite well."
+
+The good, admirable fellow! I thanked him. While I was shaving, he
+said in his usual wooden way:
+
+"Begging your pardon, sir, I thought you might like to send Mrs.
+Connor a few flowers, so I took upon myself to cut some roses,
+first thing this morning, with the dew on them."
+
+Of course I cut myself and the blood flowed profusely.
+
+"Why the dickens do you spring things like that on people while
+they're shaving?" I cried.
+
+"Very sorry, sir," said he, solicitous with sponge and towel.
+
+"All the same, Marigold," said I, "you've solved a puzzle that has
+kept me awake since early dawn. We'll go out as soon as I'm
+dressed and we'll send her every rose in the garden."
+
+I have an acre or so of garden behind the house of which I have
+not yet spoken, save incidentally--for it was there that just a
+year ago poor Althea Fenimore ate her giant strawberries on the
+last afternoon of her young life; and a cross-grained old
+misanthropist, called Timbs, attends to it and lavishes on the
+flowers the love which, owing, I suspect, to blighted early
+affection, he denies to mankind. I am very fond of my garden and
+am especially interested in my roses. Do you know an exquisitely
+pink rose--the only true pink--named Mrs. George Norwood? ... I
+bring myself up with a jerk. I am not writing a book on roses.
+When the war is over perhaps I shall devote my old age to telling
+you what I feel and know and think about them....
+
+I had a battle with Timbs. Timbs was about sixty. He had shaggy,
+bushy eyebrows over hard little eyes, a shaggy grey beard, and a
+long, clean-shaven, obstinate upper lip. Stick him in an ill-
+fitting frock coat and an antiquated silk hat, and he would be the
+stage model of a Scottish Elder. As a matter of fact he was
+Hampshire born and a devout Roman Catholic. But he was as crabbed
+an old wretch as you can please. He flatly refused to execute my
+order. I dismissed him on the spot. He countered with the
+statement that he was an old man who had served me faithfully for
+many years. I bade him go on serving me faithfully and not be a
+damned fool. The roses were to be cut. If he didn't cut them,
+Marigold would.
+
+"He's been a-cutting them already," he growled. "Before I came."
+
+Timbs loathed Marigold--why, I could never discover--and Marigold
+had the lowest opinion of Timbs. It was an offence for Marigold to
+desecrate the garden by his mere footsteps; to touch a plant or a
+flower constituted a damnable outrage. On the other side, Timbs
+could not approach my person for the purpose of rendering me any
+necessary physical assistance, without incurring Marigold's
+violent resentment.
+
+"He'll go on cutting them," said I, "unless you start in at once."
+
+He began. I sent off Marigold in search of a wheelbarrow. Then,
+having Timbs to myself, I summoned him to my side.
+
+"Do you hold with a man sacrificing his life for his country?"
+
+He looked at me for a moment or two, in his dour, crabbed way.
+
+"I've got a couple of sons in France, trying their best to do it,"
+he replied.
+
+That was the first I had ever heard of it. I had always regarded
+him as a gnarled old bachelor without human ties. Where he had
+kept the sons and the necessary mother I had not the remotest
+notion.
+
+"You're proud of them?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"And if one was killed, would you grudge his grave a few roses?
+For the sake of him wouldn't you sacrifice a world of roses?"
+
+His manner changed. "I don't understand, sir. Is anybody killed?"
+
+"Didn't I say that all these roses were for Mrs. Connor?"
+
+He dropped his secateur. "Good God, sir! Is it Captain Connor?"
+
+The block-headed idiot of a Marigold had not told him! Marigold is
+a very fine fellow, but occasionally he manifests human frailties
+that are truly abominable.
+
+"We are going to sacrifice all our roses, Timbs," said I, "for the
+sake of a very gallant Englishman. It's about all we can do."
+
+Of course I ought to have entered upon all this explanation when I
+first came on the scene; but I took it for granted that Timbs knew
+of the tragedy.
+
+"Need we cut those blooms of the Rayon d'Or?" asked Timbs,
+alluding to certain roses under conical paper shades which he had
+been breathlessly tending for our local flower show. "We'll cut
+them first," said I.
+
+Looking back through the correcting prism of time, I fancy this
+slaughter of the innocents may have been foolishly sentimental.
+But I had a great desire to lay all that I could by way of tribute
+of consolation at Betty's feet, and this little sacrifice of all
+my roses seemed as symbolical an expression of my feelings as
+anything that my unimaginative brain could devise.
+
+During the forenoon I superintended the packing of the baskets of
+roses in Pawling the florist's cart, which I was successful in
+engaging for the occasion,--neither wheelbarrow nor donkey
+carriage nor two-seater, the only vehicles at my disposal, being
+adequate; and when I saw it start for its destination, I wheeled
+myself, by way of discipline, through my bereaved garden. It
+looked mighty desolate. But though all the blooms had gone, there
+were a myriad buds which next week would burst into happy flower.
+And the sacrifice seemed trivial, almost ironical; for in Betty's
+heart there were no buds left.
+
+After lunch I went to the hospital for the weekly committee
+meeting. To my amazement the first person I met in the corridor
+was Betty--Betty, white as wax, with black rings round unnaturally
+shining eyes. She waited for me to wheel myself up to her. I said
+severely:
+
+"What on earth are you doing here? Go home to bed at once."
+
+She put her hand on the back of my chair and bent down.
+
+"I'm better here. And so are the dear roses. Come and see them."
+
+I followed her into one of the military wards on the ground floor,
+and the place was a feast of roses. I had no idea so many could
+have come from my little garden. And the ward upstairs, she told
+me, was similarly beflowered. By the side of each man's bed stood
+bowl or vase, and the tables and the window sills were bright with
+blooms. It was the ward for serious cases--men with faces livid
+from gas-poisoning, men with the accursed trench nephritis, men
+with faces swathed in bandages hiding God knows what distortions,
+men with cradles over them betokening mangled limbs, men
+recovering from operations, chiefly the picking of bits of
+shrapnel and splinters of bone from shattered arms and legs; men
+with pale faces, patient eyes, and with cheery smiles round their
+lips when we passed by. A gramophone at the end of the room was
+grinding out a sentimental tune to which all were listening with
+rapt enjoyment. I asked one man, among others, how he was faring.
+He was getting on fine. With the death-rattle in his throat the
+wounded British soldier invariably tells you that he is getting on
+fine.
+
+"And ain't these roses lovely? Makes the place look like a garden.
+And that music--seems appropriate, don't it, sir?"
+
+I asked what the gramophone was playing. He looked respectfully
+shocked.
+
+"Why, it's 'The Rosary,' sir."
+
+After we had left him, Betty said:
+
+"That's the third time they've asked for it to-day. They've got
+mixed up with the name, you see. They're beautiful children,
+aren't they?"
+
+I should have called them sentimental idiots, but Betty saw much
+clearer than I did. She accompanied me back to the corridor and to
+the Committee Room door. I was a quarter of an hour late.
+
+"I've kept the precious Rayon d'Ors for myself," she said. "How
+could you have the heart to cut them?"
+
+"I would have cut out my heart itself, for the matter of that,"
+said I, "if it would have done any good."
+
+She smiled in a forlorn kind of way.
+
+"Don't do that, for I shall want it inside you more than ever now.
+Tell me, how is Tufton?"
+
+"Tufton--?"
+
+"Yes--Tufton."
+
+I must confess that my mind being so full of Betty, I had clean
+forgotten Tufton. But Betty remembered.
+
+I smiled. "He's getting on fine," said I. I reached out my hand
+and held her cold, slim fingers. "Promise me one thing, my dear."
+
+"All right," she said.
+
+"Don't overdo things. There's a limit to the power of bearing
+strain. As soon as you feel you're likely to go FUT, throw it all
+up and come and see me and let us lay our heads together."
+
+"I despise people who go FUT," said Betty.
+
+"I don't," said I.
+
+We nodded a mutual farewell. She opened the Committee Room door
+for me and walked down the corridor with a swinging step, as
+though she would show me how fully she had made herself mistress
+of circumstance.
+
+Some evenings later she came in, as usual, unheralded, and
+established herself by my chair.
+
+The scents of midsummer came in through the open windows, and
+there was a great full moon staring in at us from a cloudless sky.
+Letters from the War Office, from brother-officers, from the
+Colonel, from the Brigadier General himself, had broken her down.
+She gave me the letters to read. Everyone loved him, admired him,
+trusted him. "As brave as a lion," wrote one. "Perhaps the most
+brilliant company officer in my brigade," wrote the General. And
+his death--the tragic common story. A trench; a high-explosive
+shell; the fate of young Etherington; and no possible little
+wooden cross to mark his grave.
+
+And Betty, on the floor by my side, gave way.
+
+The proud will bent. She surrendered herself to a paroxysm of
+sorrow.
+
+She was not in a fit state to return to the hospital, where, I
+learned, she shared a bedroom with Phyllis Gedge. I shrank from
+sending her home to the tactless comforting of her aunts. They
+were excellent, God-fearing ladies, but they had never understood
+Betty. All her life they had worried her with genteel admonitions.
+They had regarded her marriage with disfavour, as an act of
+foolhardiness--I even think they looked on her attitude as
+unmaidenly; and now in her frozen widowhood they fretted her past
+endurance. On the night when the news came they sent for the vicar
+of their parish--not my good friend who christened Hosea--a very
+worthy, very serious, very evangelistically religious fellow, to
+administer spiritual consolation. If Betty had sat devoutly under
+him on Sundays, there might have been some reason in the summons.
+But Betty, holding her own religious views, had only once been
+inside the church--on the occasion of her wedding--and had but the
+most formal acquaintance with the good man.... No, I could not
+send Betty home, unexpectedly, to have her wounds mauled about by
+unskilful fingers. Nothing remained but to telephone to the
+hospital and put her in Mrs. Marigold's charge for the night. So
+broken was my dear Betty, that she allowed herself to be carried
+off without a word. ... Once before, years ago, she had behaved
+with the same piteous docility; and that was when, a short-frocked
+hoiden, she had fallen from an apple tree and badly hurt herself,
+and Marigold had carried her into the house and Mrs. Marigold had
+put her to bed. ...
+
+In the morning I found her calm and sedate at the breakfast table.
+
+"You've been and gone and done for both of us, Majy dear," she
+remarked, pouring out tea.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Our reputations. What a scandal in Wellingsford!"
+
+She looked me clearly in the eyes and smiled, and her hand did not
+shake as she held my cup. And by these signs I knew that she had
+taken herself again in grip and forbade reference to the agony
+through which she had passed.
+
+Quickly she turned the conversation to the Tuftons. What had
+happened? I told her meagrely. She insisted on fuller details. So,
+flogged by her, I related what I had gleaned from Marigold's
+wooden reports. He always conveyed personal information as though
+he were giving evidence against a defaulter. I had to start all
+over again. Apparently this had happened: Mrs. Tufton had arrayed
+herself, not in sackcloth and ashes, for that was apparently her
+normal attire, but in an equivalent, as far as a symbol of
+humility was concerned; namely, in decent raiment, and had sought
+her husband's forgiveness. There had been a touching scene in the
+scullery which Mrs. Marigold had given up to them for the sake of
+privacy, in which the lady had made tearful promises of reform and
+the corporal had magnanimously passed the sponge over the terrible
+reckoning on her slate. Would he then go home to his penitent
+wife? But the gallant fellow, with the sturdy common-sense for
+which the British soldier is renowned, contrasted the clover in
+which he was living here with the aridness of Flowery End, and
+declined to budge. High sentiment was one thing, snug lying was
+another. Next time he came back, if she had re-established the
+home in its former comfort, he didn't say as how he wouldn't--
+
+"But," she cried--and this bit I didn't tell Betty--"the next time
+you may come home dead!"
+
+"Then," replied Tufton, "let me see what a nice respectable
+coffin, with brass handles and lots of slap-up brass nails and a
+brass plate, you can get ready for me."
+
+Since the first interview, I informed Betty, there had been others
+daily--most decorous. They were excellent friends. Neither seemed
+to perceive anything absurd in the situation. Even Marigold looked
+on it as a matter of course.
+
+"I have an idea," said Betty. "You know we want some help in the
+servant staff of the hospital?"
+
+I did. The matron had informed the Committee, who had empowered
+her to act.
+
+"Why not let me tackle Mrs. Tufton while she is in this
+beautifully chastened and devotional mood? In this way we can get
+her out of the mills, out of Flowery End, fill her up with noble
+and patriotic emotions instead of whisky, and when Tufton returns,
+present her to him as a model wife, sanctified by suffering and
+ennobled by the consciousness of duty done. It would be splendid!"
+
+For the first time since the black day there came a gleam of fun
+into Betty's eyes and a touch of colour into her cheeks.
+
+"It would indeed," said I. "The only question is whether Tufton
+would really like this Red Cross Saint you'll have provided for
+him."
+
+"In case he does not," said Betty, "you can provide him with a
+refuge as you are doing now."
+
+She rose from the table, announcing her intention of going
+straight to the hospital. I realised with a pang that breakfast
+was over; that I had enjoyed a delectable meal; that, by some sort
+of dainty miracle, she had bemused me into eating and drinking
+twice my ordinary ration; that she had inveigled me into talking--
+a thing I have never done during breakfast for years--it is as
+much as Marigold's ugly head is worth to address a remark to me
+during the unsympathetic duty--why, if my poached egg regards me
+with too aggressive a pinkiness, I want to slap it--and into
+talking about those confounded Tuftons with a gusto only provoked
+by a glass or two of impeccable port after a good dinner. One
+would have thought, considering the anguished scene of the night
+before, that it would have been one of the most miserably
+impossible tete-a-tete breakfasts in the whole range of such
+notoriously ghastly meals. But here was Betty, serene and smiling,
+as though she had been accustomed to breakfast with me every
+morning of her life, off to the hospital, with a hard little idea
+in her humorous head concerning Mrs. Tufton's conversion.
+
+The only sign she gave of last night's storm was when, by way of
+good-bye, she bent down and kissed my cheek.
+
+"You know," she said, "I love you too much to thank you."
+
+And she went off with her brave little head in the air.
+
+In the afternoon I went to Wellings Park. Sir Anthony was away,
+but Lady Fenimore was in. She showed me a letter she had received
+from Betty in reply to her letter of condolence:
+
+"My dears,
+
+"It is good to realise one has such rocks to lean on. You long to
+help and comfort me. Well, I'll tell you how to do it. You just
+forget. Leave it to me to do all the remembering.
+
+"Yours, Betty."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+On the first of July there was forwarded to me from the club a
+letter in an unknown handwriting. I had to turn to the signature
+to discover the identity of my correspondent. It was Reggie Dacre,
+Colonel Dacre, whom I had met in London a couple of months before.
+As it tells its own little story, I transcribe it.
+
+"Dear Major Meredyth:
+
+"I should like to confirm by the following anecdote, which is
+going the round of the Brigade, what I recently told you about our
+friend Boyce. I shouldn't worry you, but I feel that if one has
+cast an unjustifiable slur on a brother-officer's honour--and I
+can't tell you how the thing has lain on my conscience--one
+shouldn't leave a stone unturned to rehabilitate him, even in the
+eyes of one person.
+
+"There has been a good deal of scrapping around Ypres lately--that
+given away by the communiques; but for reasons which both the
+Censor and yourself will appreciate, I can't be more explicit as
+to locality. Enough to say that somewhere in this region--or
+sector, as we call it nowadays--there was a certain bit of ground
+that had been taken and retaken over and over again. B.'s Regiment
+was in this fighting, and at one particular time we were holding a
+German front trench section. A short distance further on the enemy
+held a little farm building, forming a sort of redoubt. They
+sniped all day long. They also had a machine gun. I can't give you
+accurate details, for I can only tell you what I've heard; but the
+essentials are true. Well, we got that farmhouse. We got it
+single-handed. Boyce put up the most amazing bluff that has ever
+happened in this war. He crawls out by himself, without anybody
+knowing--it was a pitch-black night--gets through the barbed
+wire, heaven knows how, up to the house; lays a sentry out with
+his life-preserver; gives a few commands to an imaginary company;
+and summons the occupants--two officers and fifteen men--to
+surrender. Thinking they are surrounded, they obey like lambs,
+come out unarmed, with their hands up, officers and all, and are
+comfortably marched off in the dark, as prisoners into our
+trenches. They say that when the German officers discovered how
+they had been done, they foamed so hard that we had to use empty
+sandbags as strait waistcoats.
+
+"Now, it's picturesque, of course, and being picturesque, it has
+flown from mouth to mouth. But it's true. Verb. sap.
+
+"Hoping some time or other to see you again,
+"Yours sincerely,
+"R. DACRE,
+"Lt. Col."
+
+I quote this letter here for the sake of chronological sequence.
+It gave me a curious bit of news. No man could have performed such
+a feat without a cold brain, soundly beating heart, and nerves of
+steel. It was not an act of red-hot heroism. It was done in cold
+blood, a deliberate gamble with death on a thousand to one chance.
+It was staggeringly brave.
+
+I told the story to Mrs. Boyce. Her comment was characteristic:
+
+"But surely they would have to surrender if called upon by a
+British Officer."
+
+To the Day of Judgment I don't think she will understand what
+Leonard did. Leonard himself, coming home slightly wounded two or
+three weeks afterwards, pooh-poohed the story as one of no account
+and only further confused the dear lady's ill-conceived notions.
+
+In the meanwhile life at Wellingsford flowed uneventfully. Now and
+again a regiment or a brigade, having finished its training,
+disappeared in a night, and the next day fresh troops arrived to
+fill its place. And this great, silent movement of men went on all
+over the country. Sometimes our hearts sank. A reserve Howitzer
+Territorial Brigade turned up in Wellings Park with dummy wooden
+guns. The officers told us that they had been expecting proper
+guns daily for the past two months. Marigold shook a sad head. But
+all things, even six-inch howitzers, come to him who waits.
+
+Little more was heard of Randall Holmes. He corresponded with his
+mother through a firm of London solicitors, and his address and
+his doings remained a mystery. He was alive, he professed robust
+health, and in reply to Mrs. Holmes's frantically expressed hope
+that he was adopting no course that might discredit his father's
+name, he twitted her with intellectual volte-face to the views of
+Philistia, but at the same time assured her that he was doing
+nothing which the most self-righteous bourgeois would consider
+discreditable.
+
+"But it IS discreditable for him to go away like this and not let
+his own mother know where he is," cried the poor woman.
+
+And of course I agreed with her. I find it best always to agree
+with mothers; also with wives.
+
+After her own lapse from what Mrs. Boyce would have called
+"Spartianism," Betty kept up her brave face. When Willie Connor's
+kit came home she told me tearlessly about the heartrending
+consignment. Now and then she spoke of him--with a proud look in
+her eyes. She was one of the women of England who had the
+privilege of being the wife of a hero. In this world one must pay
+for everything worth having. Her widowhood was the price. All the
+tears of a lifetime could not bring him back. All the storms of
+fate could not destroy the glory of those few wonderful months. He
+was laughing, so she heard, when he met his death. So would she,
+in honour of him, go on laughing till she met hers.
+
+"And that silly little fool, Phyllis, is still crying her eyes out
+over Randall," she said. "Don't I think she was wrong in sending
+him away? If she had married him she might have influenced him,
+made him get a commission in the army. I've threatened to beat her
+if she talks such nonsense. Why can't people take a line and stick
+to it?"
+
+"This isn't a world of Bettys, my dear," said I.
+
+"Rubbish! The outrageous Mrs. Tufton's doing it."
+
+Apparently she was. She followed Betty about as the lamb followed
+Mary. Tufton, after a week or two at Wellington Barracks, had been
+given sergeant's stripes and sent off with a draft to the front.
+Betty's dramatic announcement of her widowhood seemed to have put
+the fear of death into the woman's soul. As soon as her husband
+landed in France she went scrupulously through the closely printed
+casualty lists of non-commissioned officers and men in The Daily
+Mail, in awful dread lest she should see her husband's name. Betty
+vainly assured her that, in the first place, she would hear from
+the War Office weeks before anything could appear in the papers,
+and that, in the second, his name would occur under the heading
+"Grenadier Guards," and not under "Royal Field Artillery," "Royal
+Engineers," "Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry," "R.A.M.C.," or
+Australian and Canadian contingents. Mrs. Tufton went through the
+lot from start to finish. Once, indeed, she came across the name,
+in big print, and made a bee-line through the wards for Betty--an
+offence for which the Matron nearly threw her, there and then,
+into the street. It was that of the gallant Colonel of a New
+Zealand Regiment at Gallipoli. Betty had to point to the brief
+biographical note to prove to the distracted woman that the late
+Colonel Tufton of New Zealand could not be identical with Sergeant
+Tufton of the Grenadiers. She regarded Mrs. Tufton as a brand she
+had plucked from the burning and took a great deal of trouble with
+her. On the other hand, I imagine Mrs. Tufton looked upon herself
+as a very important person, a sergeant's wife, and the
+confidential intimate of a leading sister at the Wellingsford
+Hospital. In fact, Marigold mentioned her notorious vanity.
+
+"What does it matter," cried Betty, when I put this view before
+her, "how swelled her head may be, so long as it isn't swollen
+with drink?"
+
+And I could find no adequate reply.
+
+Towards the end of the month comes Boyce to Wellingsford, this
+time not secretly; for the day after his arrival he drove his
+mother through the town and incidentally called on me. A neglected
+bullet graze on the neck had turned septic. An ugly temperature
+had sent him to hospital. The authorities, as soon as the fever
+had abated and left him on the high road to recovery, had sent him
+home. A khaki bandage around his bull-throat alone betokened
+anything amiss. He would be back, he said, as soon as the Medical
+Board at the War Office would let him.
+
+On this occasion, for the first time since South African days, I
+met him without any mistrust. What had passed between Betty and
+himself, I did not know. Relations between man and woman are so
+subtle and complicated, that unless you have the full pleadings on
+both sides in front of you, you cannot arbitrate; and, as often as
+not, if you deliver the most soul-satisfying of judgments, you are
+hopelessly wrong, because there are all important, elusive factors
+of personality, temperament, sex, and what not which all the legal
+acumen in the world could not set down in black and white. So half
+unconsciously I ruled out Betty from my contemplation of the man.
+I had been obsessed by the Vilboek Farm story, and by that alone.
+Reggie Dacre--to say nothing of personages in high command--had
+proved it to be a horrible lie. He had Marshal Ney's deserved
+reputation--le brave des braves--and there is no more coldly
+critical conferrer of such repute than the British Army in the
+field. To win it a man not only has to do something heroic once or
+twice--that is what he is there for--but he has to be doing it all
+the time. Boyce had piled up for himself an amazing record, one
+that overwhelmed the possibility of truth in old slanders. When I
+gripped him by the hand, I felt immeasurable relief at being able
+to do so without the old haunting suspicion and reservation.
+
+He spoke, like thousands of others of his type--the type of the
+fine professional English soldier--with diffident modesty of such
+personal experiences as he deigned to recount. The anecdotes
+mostly had a humorous side, and were evoked by allusion. Like all
+of us stay-at-homes, I cursed the censorship for leaving us so
+much in the dark. He laughed and cursed the censorship for the
+opposite reason.
+
+"The damned fools--I beg your pardon, Mother, but when a fool is
+too big a fool even for this world, he must be damned--the damned
+fools allow all sorts of things to be given away. They were nearly
+the death of me and were the death of half a dozen of my men."
+
+And he told the story. In a deserted brewery behind the lines the
+vats were fitted up as baths for men from the trenches, and the
+furnaces heated ovens in which horrible clothing was baked. This
+brewery had been immune from attack until an officially sanctioned
+newspaper article specified its exact position. A few days after
+the article appeared, in fact, as soon as a copy of the paper
+reached Germany, a thunderstorm of shells broke on the brewery.
+Out of it poured a helter-skelter stream of stark-naked men, who
+ran wherever they could for cover. From one point of view it was
+vastly comic. In the meanwhile the building containing all their
+clothes, and all the spare clothing for a brigade, was being
+scientifically destroyed. That was more comic still. The bather
+cut off from his garments is a world-wide joke. The German
+battery, having got the exact range, were having a systematic,
+Teutonic afternoon's enjoyment. But from another point of view the
+situation was desperate. There were these poor fellows, hordes of
+them, in nature's inadequate protection against the weather,
+shivering in the cold, with the nearest spare rag of clothing some
+miles away. Boyce got them together, paraded them instantly under
+the shell fire, and led them at a rush into the blazing building
+to salve stores. Six never came out alive. Many were burned and
+wounded. But it had to be done, or the whole crowd would have
+perished from exposure. Tommy is fairly tough; but he cannot live
+mother-naked through a March night of driving sleet.
+
+"No," said Boyce, "if you suffered daily from the low cunning of
+Brother Bosch, you wouldn't cry for things to be published in the
+newspapers."
+
+At the end of their visit I accompanied my guests to the hall.
+Marigold escorted Mrs. Boyce to the car. Leonard picked up his cap
+and cane and turned to shake hands. I noticed that the knob of the
+cane was neatly cased in wash-leather. Idly I enquired the reason.
+He smiled grimly as he slipped off the cover and exposed the
+polished deep vermilion butt of the life-preserver which Reggie
+Dacre had described.
+
+"It's a sort of fetish I feel I must carry around with me," he
+explained. "When I've got it in my hand, I don't seem to care a
+damn what I do. When I haven't, I miss it. Remember the story of
+Sir Walter Scott's boy with the butter? Something like that, you
+know. But in its bare state it's not a pretty sight for the
+mother."
+
+"It ought to have a name," said I. "The poilu calls his bayonet
+Rosalie."
+
+He looked at it darkly for a moment, before refitting the wash-
+leather.
+
+"I might call it The Reminder," said he. "Good-bye." And he
+turned quickly and strode out of the door.
+
+The Reminder of what? He puzzled me. Why, in spite of all my open-
+heartedness, did he still contrive to leave me with a sense of the
+enigmatic?
+
+Although he showed himself openly about the town, he held himself
+aloof from social intercourse with the inhabitants. He called, I
+know, on Mrs. Holmes, and on one or two others who have no place
+in this chronicle. But he refused all proposals of entertainment,
+notably an invitation to dinner from the Fenimores. Sir Anthony
+met him in the street, upbraided him in his genial manner for
+neglect of his old friends, and pressingly asked him to dine at
+Wellings Park. Just a few old friends. The duties of a
+distinguished soldier, said he, did not begin and end on the
+field. He must uplift the hearts of those who had to stay at home.
+Sir Anthony had a nervous trick of rattling off many sentences
+before his interlocutor could get in a word. When he had finished,
+Boyce politely declined the invitation.
+
+"And with a damned chilly, stand-offish politeness," cried Sir
+Anthony furiously, when telling me about it. "Just as if I had
+been Perkins, the fish-monger, asking him to meet the Prettiloves
+at high tea. It's swelled head, my dear chap; that's what it is.
+Just swelled head. None of us are good enough for him and his
+laurels. He's going to remain the modest mossy violet of a hero
+blushing unseen. Oh, damn the fellow!"
+
+I did my best to soothe my touchy and choleric friend. No soldier,
+said I, likes to be made a show of. Why had he suggested a dinner
+party? A few friends. Anyone in Boyce's position knew what that
+meant. It meant about thirty gawking, gaping people for whom he
+didn't care a hang. Why hadn't Anthony asked the Boyces to dine
+quietly with Edith and himself--with me thrown in, for instance,
+if they wanted exotic assistance? Let me try, I said, to fix
+matters up.
+
+So the next day I called on Boyce and told him, with such tact as
+I have at command, of Sir Anthony's wounded feelings.
+
+"My dear Meredyth," said he. "I can only say to you what I tried
+to explain to the irascible little man. If I accepted one
+invitation, I should have to accept all invitations or give
+terrible offence all over the place. I'm here a sick man and my
+mother's an invalid. And I merely want to be saved from my friends
+and have a quiet time with the old lady. Of course if Sir Anthony
+is offended, I'm only too sorry, and I beg you to assure him that
+I never intended the slightest discourtesy. The mere idea of it
+distresses me."
+
+The explanation was reasonable, the apology frank. Sir Anthony
+received them both grumpily. He had his foibles. He set his
+invitations to dinner in a separate category from those of the
+rag-tag and bobtail of Wellingsford society. So for the sake of
+principle he continued to damn the fellow.
+
+On the other hand, for the sake of principle, reparation for
+injustice, I continued to like the fellow and found pleasure in
+his company. For one thing, I hankered after the smoke and smell
+and din of the front, and Boyce succeeded more than anyone else in
+satisfying my appetite. While he talked, as he did freely with me
+alone, I got near to the grim essence of things. Also, with the
+aid of rough military maps, he made actions and strategical
+movements of which newspaper accounts had given me but a confused
+notion, as clear as if I had been a chief of staff. Often he went
+to considerable trouble in obtaining special information. He
+appeared to set himself out to win my esteem. Now a cripple is
+very sensitive to kindness. I could not reject his overtures. What
+interested motive could he have in seeking out a useless hulk like
+me? On the first opportunity I told Betty of the new friendship,
+having a twinge or two of conscience lest it might appear to her
+disloyal.
+
+"But why in the world shouldn't you see him, dear?" she said,
+open-eyed. "He brings the breath of battle to you and gives you
+fresh life. You're looking ever so much better the last few days.
+The only thing is," she added, turning her head away, "that I
+don't want to run the risk of meeting him again."
+
+Naturally I took precautions against such an occurrence. The
+circumstances of their last meeting at my house lingered
+unpleasantly in my mind. Perhaps, for Betty's sake, I ought to
+have turned a cold shoulder on Boyce. But when you have done a man
+a foul injustice for years, you must make him some kind of secret
+reparation. So, by making him welcome, I did what I could.
+
+Now I don't know whether I ought to set down a trivial incident
+mentioned in my diary under the date of the 15th August, the day
+before Boyce left Wellingsford to join his regiment in France. In
+writing an account of other people's lives it is difficult to know
+what to put in and what to leave out. If you bring in your own
+predilections or prejudices or speculations concerning them, you
+must convey a distorted impression. You lie about them
+unconsciously. A fact is a fact, and, if it is important, ought to
+be recorded. But when you are not sure whether it is a fact or
+not, what are you to do?
+
+Perhaps I had better narrate what happened and tell you afterwards
+why I hesitate.
+
+Marigold had driven me over to Godbury, where I had business
+connected with a County Territorial Association, and we were
+returning home. It was a moist, horrible, depressing August day. A
+slimy, sticky day. Clouds hung low over the reeking earth. The
+honest rain had ceased, but wet drops dribbled from the leaves of
+the trees and the branches and trunks exuded moisture. The
+thatched roofs of cottages were dank. In front gardens roses and
+hollyhocks drooped sodden. The very droves of steers coming from
+market sweated in the muggy air. The good slush of the once dusty
+road, broken to bits by military traffic, had stiffened into black
+grease. Round a bend of the road we skidded alarmingly. Marigold
+has a theory that in summer time a shirt next the skin is the only
+wear for humans and square-tread tyres the only wear for motor-
+cars. With some acerbity I pointed out the futility of his
+proposition. With the blandness of superior wisdom he assured me
+that we were perfectly safe. You can't knock into the head of an
+artilleryman who has been trained to hang on to a limber by the
+friction of his trousers, that there can be any danger in the
+luxurious seat of a motor-car.
+
+There is a good straight half mile of the Godbury Road which is
+known in the locality as "The Gut." It is sunken and very narrow,
+being flanked on one side by the railway embankment, and on the
+other by the grounds of Godbury Chase. A most desolate bit of
+road, half overhung by trees and oozing with all the moisture of
+the country-side. On this day it was the wettest, slimiest bit of
+road in England. We had almost reached the end of it, when it
+entered the head of a stray puppy dog to pause in the act of
+crossing and sit down in the middle and hunt for fleas. To spare
+the abominable mongrel, Marigold made a sudden swerve. Of course
+the car skidded. It skidded all over the place, as if it were
+drunk, and, aided by Marigold, described a series of ghastly half-
+circles. At last he performed various convulsive feats of
+jugglery, with the result that the car, which was nosing steadily
+for the ditch, came to a stand-still. Then Marigold informed me
+in unemotional tones that the steering gear had gone.
+
+"It's all the fault of that there dog," said he, twisting his head
+so as to glare at the little beast, who, after a yelp and a bound,
+had calmly recaptured his position and resumed his interrupted
+occupation.
+
+"It's all the fault of that there Marigold," I retorted, "who
+can't see the sense of using studded tyres on a greasy surface.
+What's to be done now?"
+
+Marigold thrust his hand beneath his wig and scratched his head.
+He didn't exactly know. He got out and stared intently at the car.
+If mind could have triumphed over matter, the steering gear would
+have become disfractured. But the good Marigold's mind was not
+powerful enough. He gave up the contest and looked at me and the
+situation. There we were, broadside on to the narrow road, and
+only manhandling could bring us round to a position of safety by
+the side. He was for trying it there and then; but I objected,
+having no desire to be slithered into the ditch.
+
+"I would just as soon," said I, "ride a giraffe shod with roller
+skates."
+
+He didn't even smile. He turned his one reproachful eye on me.
+What was to be done? I told him. We must wait for assistance. When
+I had been transferred into the vehicle of a passing Samaritan, it
+was time enough for the manhandling.
+
+Fate brought the Samaritan very quickly. A car coming from Godbury
+tooted violently, then slowed down, stopped, and from it jumped
+Leonard Boyce. As he was to rescue me from a position of peculiar
+helplessness, I regarded his great khaki-clad figure as that of a
+ministering angel. I beamed on him.
+
+"Hallo! What's the matter?" he asked cheerily.
+
+I explained. Being merciful, I spared Marigold and threw the blame
+on the dog and on the County Council for allowing the roads to get
+into such a filthy condition.
+
+"That's all right," said Boyce. "We'll soon fix you up. First
+we'll get you into my car. Then Marigold and I will slue this one
+round, and then we'll send him a tow."
+
+Marigold nodded and approached to lift me out.
+
+Then, what happened next, happened in the flash of a few
+breathless seconds. There was the dull thud of hoofs. A scared bay
+thoroughbred, coming from Godbury, galloping hell for leather,
+with a dishevelled boy in khaki on his back. The boy had lost his
+stirrups; he had lost his reins; he had lost his head. He hung
+half over the saddle and had a death grip on the horse's mane. And
+the uncontrolled brute was thundering down on us. There was my
+infernal car barring the narrow road. I remember bracing myself to
+meet the shock. An end, thought I, of Duncan Meredyth. I saw Boyce
+leap aside like a flash and appear to stand stock-still. The next
+second I saw Marigold semaphore a few yards in front of the car
+and then swing sickeningly at the horse's bit; and then the whole
+lot of them, Marigold, horse and rider, come down in a convulsive
+heap on the greasy road. To my intense relief I saw Marigold pick
+himself up and go to the head of the plunging, prostrate horse. In
+a moment or two he had got the beast on his feet, where he stood
+quivering. It was a fine, smart piece of work on the part of the
+old artilleryman. I was so intent on his danger that I forgot all
+about Boyce: but as soon as the three crashed down, I saw him run
+to assist the young subaltern who had rolled himself clear.
+
+"By Jove, that was a narrow shave!" he cried cordially, giving him
+a hand.
+
+"It was indeed, sir," said the young man, scraping the mud off his
+face. "That's the second time the brute has done it. He shies and
+bucks and kicks like a regular devil. This time he shied at a
+steam lorry and bucked my feet out of the stirrups. Everybody in
+the squadron has turned him down, and I'm the junior, I've had to
+take him." He eyed the animal resentfully. "I'd just like to get
+him on some grass and knock hell out of him!"
+
+"I'm glad to see you're not hurt," said Boyce with a smile.
+
+"Oh, not a bit, sir," said the boy. He turned to Marigold. "I
+don't know how to thank you. It was a jolly plucky thing to do.
+You've saved my life and that of the gentleman in the car. If we
+had busted into it, there would have been pie." He came to the
+side of the car. "I think you're Major Meredyth, sir. I must have
+given you an awful fright. I'm so sorry. My name is Brown. I'm in
+the South Scottish Horse."
+
+He had a courteous charm of manner in spite of his boyish desire
+to appear unshaken by the accident. A little bravado is an
+excellent thing. I laughed and held out my hand.
+
+"I'm glad to meet you--although our meeting might have been
+contrived less precipitously. This is Sergeant Marigold, late
+R.F.A., who does me the honour of looking after me. And this is
+Major Boyce."
+
+Observe the little devil of malice that made me put Marigold
+first.
+
+"Of the Rifles?"
+
+A quick gleam of admiration showed in the boy's eyes as he
+saluted. No soldier could be stationed at Wellingsford without
+hearing of the hero of the neighbourhood. A great hay waggon came
+lumbering down the road and pulled up, there being no room for it
+to pass. This put an end to social amenities. Brown mounted his
+detested charger and trotted off. Marigold transferred me to
+Boyce's car. Several pairs of brawny arms righted the two-seater
+and Boyce and I drove off, leaving Marigold waiting with his usual
+stony patience for the promised tow. On the way Boyce talked gaily
+of Marigold's gallantry, of the boy's spirit, of the idiotic way
+in which impossible horses were being foisted on newly formed
+cavalry units. When we drew up at my front door, it occurred to me
+that there was no Marigold in attendance.
+
+"How the deuce," said I, "am I going to get out?"
+
+Boyce laughed. "I don't think I'll drop you."
+
+His great arms picked me up with ease. But while he was carrying
+me I experienced a singular physical revolt. I loathed his grip. I
+loathed the enforced personal contact. Even after he had deposited
+me--very skilfully and gently--in my wheel-chair in the hall, I
+hated the lingering sense of his touch. He owed his whisky and
+soda to the most elementary instinct of hospitality. Besides, he
+was off the next day, back to the trenches and the hell of battle,
+and I had to bid him good-bye and God-speed. But when he went, I
+felt glad, very glad, as though relieved of some dreadful
+presence. My old distrust and dislike returned increased a
+thousandfold.
+
+It was only when he got my frail body in his arms, which I
+realized were twice as strong as my good Marigold's, that I felt
+the ghastly and irrational revulsion. The only thing to which I
+can liken it, although it seems ludicrous, is what I imagine to be
+the instinctive recoil of a woman who feels on her body the touch
+of antipathetic hands. I know that my malady has made me a bit
+supersensitive. But my vanity has prided itself on keeping up a
+rugged spirit in a fool of a body, so I hated myself for giving
+way to morbid sensations. All the same, I felt that if I were
+alone in a burning house, and there were no one but Leonard Boyce
+to save me, I should prefer incineration to rescue.
+
+And now I will tell you why I have hesitated to give a place in
+this chronicle to the incident of the broken-down car and the
+runaway horse.
+
+It all happened so quickly, my mind was so taken up with the
+sudden peril, that for the life of me I cannot swear to the part
+played by Leonard Boyce. I saw him leap aside, and had the
+fragment of an impression of him standing motionless between the
+radiator of his car and the tail of mine which was at right
+angles. The next time he thrust himself on my consciouness was
+when he was lugging young Brown out of reach of the convulsive
+hoofs. In the meanwhile Marigold, single-handed, had rushed into
+the jaws of death and stopped the horse. But as it was a matter of
+seconds, I had no reason for believing that, but for adventitious
+relative positions on the road, Boyce would not have done the
+same. ... And yet out of the corner of my eye I got an
+instantaneous photograph of him standing bolt upright between the
+two cars, while the abominable bay brute, with distended red
+nostrils and wild eyes, was thundering down on us.
+
+On the other hand, the swift pleasure in the boy's eyes when he
+realised that he was in the presence of the popular hero, proved
+him free of doubts such as mine. And when Marigold, having put the
+car in hospital, came to make his report, and lingered in order to
+discuss the whole affair, he said, in wooden deprecation of my
+eulogy:
+
+"If Major Boyce hadn't jumped in, sir, young Mr. Brown's head
+would have been kicked into pumpkin-squash."
+
+Well, I have known from long experience that there are no more
+untrustworthy witnesses than a man's own eyes; especially in the
+lightning dramas of life.
+
+I was kept awake all night, and towards the dawn I came into
+thorough agreement with Sir Anthony and I heartily damned the
+fellow.
+
+What had I to do with him that he should rob me of my sleep?
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+The next morning he strode in while I was at breakfast, handsome,
+erect, deep-chested, the incarnation of physical strength, with a
+glad light in his eyes.
+
+"Congratulate me, old man," he cried, gripping my frail shoulder.
+"I've three days' extra leave. And more than that, I go out in
+command of the regiment. No temporary business but permanent rank.
+Gazetted in due course. Bannatyne--that's our colonel--damned good
+soldier!--has got a staff appointment. I take his place. I promise
+you the Fourth King's Rifles are going to make history. Either
+history or manure. History for choice. As I say, Bannatyne's a
+damned good soldier, and personally as brave as a lion, but when
+it comes to the regiment, he's too much on the cautious side. The
+regiment's only longing to make things hum, and I'm going to let
+'em do it."
+
+I congratulated him in politely appropriate terms and went on with
+my bacon and eggs. He sat on the window-seat and tapped his
+gaiters with his cane life-preserver. He wore his cap.
+
+"I thought you'd like to know," said he. "You've been so good to
+the old mother while I've been away and been so charitable,
+listening to my yarns, while I've been here, that I couldn't
+resist coming round and telling you."
+
+"I suppose your mother's delighted," said I.
+
+He threw back his head and laughed, as though he had never a black
+thought or memory in the world.
+
+"Dear old mater! She has the impression that I'm going out to take
+charge of the blessed campaign. So if she talks about 'my dear
+son's army,' don't let her down, like a good chap--for she'll
+think either me a fraud or you a liar."
+
+He rose suddenly, with a change of expression.
+
+"You're the only man in the world I could talk to like this about
+my mother. You know the sterling goodness and loyalty that lies
+beneath her funny little ways."
+
+He strode to the window which looks out on to the garden, his back
+turned on me. And there he stood silent for a considerable time. I
+helped myself to marmalade and poured out a second cup of tea.
+There was no call for me to speak. I had long realized that,
+whatever may have been the man's sins and weaknesses, he had a
+very deep and tender love for the Dresden china old lady that was
+his mother. There was London of the clubs and the theatres and the
+restaurants and the night-clubs, a war London full and alive, not
+dead as in Augusts of far-off tradition, all ready to give him
+talk and gaiety and the things that matter to the man who escapes
+for a brief season from the never-ending hell of the battlefield;
+ready, too, to pour flattery into his ear, to touch his scars with
+the softest of its lingers. Yet he chose to stay, a recluse, in
+our dull little town, avoiding even the kindly folk round about,
+in order to devote himself to one dear but entirely uninteresting
+old woman. It is not that he despised London, preferring the life
+of the country gentleman. On the contrary, before the war Leonard
+Boyce was very much the man about town. He loved the glitter and
+the chatter of it. From chance words during this spell of leave, I
+had divined hankering after its various fleshpots. For the sake of
+one old woman he made reckless and gallant sacrifice. When he was
+bored to misery he came round to me. I learned later that in
+visiting Wellingsford he faced more than boredom. All of this you
+must put to the credit side of his ledger.
+
+There he stood, his great broad shoulders and bull-neck
+silhouetted against the window. That broad expanse, a bit fleshy,
+below the base of the skull indicates brutality. Never before, to
+my eyes, had the sign asserted itself with so much aggression. I
+had often wondered why, apart from the Vilboek Farm legend, I had
+always disliked and distrusted him. Now I seemed to know. It was
+the neck not of a man, but of a brute. The curious repulsion of
+the previous evening, when he had carried me into the house, came
+over me again. From junction of arm and body protruded six inches
+of the steel-covered life-preserver, the washleather that hid its
+ghastly knob staring at me blankly. I hated the thing. The gallant
+English officer--and in my time I have known and loved a many of
+the most gallant--does not go about in private life fondling a
+trophy reeking with the blood of his enemies. It is the trait of a
+savage. That truculent knob and that truculent bull-neck
+correlated themselves most horribly in my mind. And again, with a
+shiver, I had the haunting flash of a vision of him, out of the
+tail of my eye, standing rigid and gaping between the two cars,
+while my rugged old Marigold, in a businesslike, old-soldier sort
+of way, without thought of danger or death, was swaying at the
+head of the runaway horse.
+
+Presently he turned, and his brows were set above unfathomable
+hard eyes. The short-cropped moustache could not hide the curious
+twitch of the lips which I had seen once before. It was obvious
+that these few minutes of silence had been spent in deep thought
+and had resulted in a decision. A different being from the gay,
+successful soldier who had come in to announce his honours
+confronted me. He threw down cap and stick and passed his hand
+over his crisp brown hair.
+
+"I don't know whether you're a friend of mine or not," he said,
+hands on hips and gaitered legs slightly apart. "I've never been
+able to make out. All through our intercourse, in spite of your
+courtesy and hospitality, there has been some sort of reservation
+on your part."
+
+"If that is so," said I, diplomatically, "it is because of the
+defects of my national quality."
+
+"That's possibly what I've felt," said he. "But it doesn't matter
+a damn with regard to what I want to say. It's a question not of
+your feelings towards me, but my feelings towards you. I don't
+want to make polite speeches--but you're a man whom I have every
+reason to honour and trust. And unlike all my other brother-
+officers, you have no reason to be jealous--"
+
+"My dear fellow," I interrupted, "what's all this about? Why
+jealousy?"
+
+"You know what a pot-hunter is in athletics? A chap that is simply
+out for prizes? Well, that's what a lot of them think of me. That
+I'm just out to get orders and medals and distinctions and so
+forth."
+
+"That's nonsense," said I. "I happen to know. Your reputation in
+the brigade is unassailable."
+
+"In the way of my having done what I'm credited with, it is," he
+answered. "But all the same, they're right."
+
+"What do you mean?" I asked.
+
+"What I say. They're right. I'm out for everything I can get. Now
+I'm out for a V.C. I see you think it abominable. That's because
+you don't understand. No one but I myself could understand. I feel
+I owe it to myself." He looked at me for a second or two and then
+broke into a sardonic sort of laugh. "I suppose you think me a
+conceited ass," he continued. "Why should Leonard Boyce be such a
+vastly important person? It isn't that, I assure you."
+
+I lit a cigarette, having waved an invitation to join me, which
+with a nod he refused.
+
+"What is it, then?"
+
+"Has it ever struck you that often a man's most merciless creditor
+is himself?"
+
+Here was a casuistical proposition thrown at my head by the last
+person I should have suspected of doing so. It was immensely
+interesting, in view of my long puzzledom. I spoke warily.
+
+"That depends on the man--on the nice balance of his dual nature.
+On the one side is the power to demand mercilessly; on the other,
+the instinct to respond. Of course, the criminal--"
+
+"What are you dragging in criminals for?" he said sharply. "I'm
+talking about honourable men with consciences. Criminals haven't
+consciences. The devil who has just been hung for murdering three
+women in their baths hadn't any dual nature, as you call it. Those
+murders didn't represent to him a mountain of debt to God which
+his soul was summoned to discharge. He went to his death thinking
+himself a most unlucky and hardly used fellow."
+
+His fingers went instinctively into the cigarette-box. I passed
+him the matches.
+
+"Precisely," said I. "That was the point I was about to make."
+
+He puffed at his cigarette and looked rather foolish, as though
+regretting his outburst.
+
+"We've got away," he said, after a pause, "from what I was meaning
+to tell you. And I want to tell you because I mayn't have another
+chance." He turned to the window-seat and picked up his life-
+preserver. "I'm out for two things. One is to kill Germans--" He
+patted the covered knob--and there flashed across my mind a
+boyhood's memory of Martin--wasn't it Martin?--in "Hereward the
+Wake," who had a deliciously blood-curdling habit of patting his
+revengeful axe.--"I've done in eighty-five with this and my
+revolver. That, I consider, is my duty to my country. The other is
+to get the V.C. That's for payment to my creditor self."
+
+"In full, or on account?" said I.
+
+"There's only one payment in full," he answered grimly, "and that
+I've been offering for the past twelve months. And it's a thousand
+chances to one it will be accepted before the end of this year.
+And that, after all this palaver, is what I've just made up my
+mind to talk to you about."
+
+"You mean your death?"
+
+"Just that," said he. "A man pot-hunting for Victoria Crosses
+takes a thousand to one chance." He paused abruptly and shot an
+eager and curiously wavering glance at me. "Am I boring you with
+all this?"
+
+"Good Heavens, no." And then as the insistence of his great figure
+towering over me had begun to fret my nerves--"Sit down, man,"
+said I, with an impatient gesture, "and put that sickening toy
+away and come to the point."
+
+He tossed the cane on the window-seat and sat near me on a
+straight-backed chair.
+
+"All right," he said. "I'll come to the point. I shan't see you
+again. I'm going out in command. Thank God we're in the thick of
+it. Round about Loos. It's a thousand to one I'll be killed. Life
+doesn't matter much to me, in spite of what you may think. There
+are only two people on God's earth I care for. One, of course, is
+my old mother. The other is Betty Fairfax--I mean Betty Connor. I
+spoke to you once about her--after I had met her here--and I gave
+you to understand that I had broken off our engagement from
+conscientious motives. It was an awkward position and I had to say
+something. As a matter of fact I acted abominably. But I couldn't
+help it." The corners of his lips suddenly worked in the odd
+little twitch. "Sometimes circumstances, especially if a man's own
+damn foolishness has contrived them, tie him hand and foot.
+Sometimes physical instincts that he can't control." He narrowed
+his eyes and bent forward, looking at me intently, and he repeated
+the phrase slowly--"Physical instincts that he can't control-"
+
+Was he referring to the incident of yesterday? I thought so. I
+also believed it was the motive power of this strangely intimate
+conversation.
+
+He rose again as though restless, and once more went to the window
+and seemed to seek inspiration or decision from the sight of my
+roses. After a short while he turned and dragged up from his neck
+a slim chain at the end of which hung a round object in a talc
+case. This he unfastened and threw on the table in front of me.
+
+"Do you know what that is?"
+
+"Yes," said I. "Your identification disc."
+
+"Look on the other side."
+
+I took it up and found that the reverse contained the head cut out
+from some photograph of Betty. After I had handed back the locket,
+he slipped it on the chain and dropped it beneath his collar.
+
+"I'm not a damned fool," said he.
+
+I nodded understandingly. No one would have accused him of mawkish
+sentiment. The woman whose portrait he wore night and day next his
+skin was the woman he loved. He had no other way of proving his
+sincerity than by exhibiting the token.
+
+"I see," said I. "What do you propose to do?"
+
+"I've told you. The V.C. or--" He snapped his fingers.
+
+"But if it's the V.C. and a Brigade, and perhaps a Division--if
+it's everything else imaginable except--"I snapped my fingers in
+imitation--"What then?"
+
+Again the hateful twitch of the lips, which he quickly
+dissimulated in a smile.
+
+"I'll begin to try to be a brave man." He lit another cigarette.
+"But all that, my dear Meredyth," he continued, "is away from the
+point. If I live, I'll ask you to forget this rotten palaver. But
+I have a feeling that I shan't come back. Something tells me that
+my particular form of extermination will be a head knocked into
+slush. I'm absolutely certain that I shall never see you again.
+Oh, I'm not morbid," he said, as I raised a protesting hand.
+"You're an old soldier and know what these premonitions are. When
+I came in--before I had finally made up my mind to pan out to you
+like this--I felt like a boy who has been made captain of the
+school. But all the same, I know I shan't see you again. So I want
+you to promise me two things--quite honourable and easy."
+
+"Of course, my dear fellow," said I rather tartly, for I did not
+like the wind-up of his sentence. It was unthinkable that an
+officer and a gentleman should inveigle a brother-officer into a
+solemn promise to do anything dishonourable. "Of course. Anything
+you like."
+
+"One is to look after the old mother--"
+
+"That goes without promising," said I.
+
+"The other is to--what shall I say?--to rehabilitate my memory in
+the eyes of Betty Connor. She may hear all kinds of things about
+me--some true, others false--I have my enemies. She has heard
+things already. I didn't know it till our last meeting here.
+There's no one else on God's earth can do what I want but you. Do
+you think I'm putting you into an impossible position?"
+
+"I don't think so," said I. "Go on."
+
+"Well--there's not much more to be said. Try to make her realise
+that, whatever may be my faults--my crimes, if it comes to that--
+I've done my damndest out there to make reparation. By God! I
+have," he cried, in a sudden flash of passion. "See that she
+realises it. And--" he thumped the hidden identification disc,
+"tell her that she is the only woman that has ever really mattered
+in the whole of my blasted life."
+
+He threw his half-smoked cigarette into the fire-place and walked
+over to the sideboard, where stood decanters and syphon.
+
+"May I help myself to a drink?"
+
+"Certainly," said I.
+
+He gulped down half a whisky and soda and turned on me.
+
+"You promise?"
+
+"Of course," said I.
+
+"She may have reasons to think the worst of me. But whatever I am
+there is some good in me. I'm not altogether a worthless hound. If
+you promise to make her think the best of me, I'll go away happy.
+I don't care a damn whether I die or live. That's the truth. As
+long as I'm alive I can take care of myself. I'm not dreaming of
+asking you to say a word to win her favour. That would be
+outrageous impudence. You clearly understand. I don't want you
+ever to mention my name unless I'm dead. If I feel that I've an
+advocate in you--advocatus diaboli, if you like--I'll go away
+happy. You've got your brief. You know my life at home. You know
+my record."
+
+"My dear fellow," said I, "I promise to do everything in my power
+to carry out your wishes. But as to your record--are you quite
+certain that I know it?"
+
+You must realise that there was a curious tension in the
+situation, at any rate as far as it affected myself. Here was a
+man with whom, for reasons you know, I had studiously cultivated
+the most formal social relations, claiming my active participation
+in the secret motives of his heart. Since his first return from
+the front a bluff friendliness had been the keynote of our
+intercourse. Nothing more. Now he came and without warning
+enmeshed me in this intimate net of love and death. I promised to
+do his bidding--I could not do otherwise. I was in the position of
+an executor according to the terms of a last will and testament.
+Our comradeship in arms--those of our old Army who survive will
+understand--forbade refusal. Besides, his intensity of purpose won
+my sympathy and admiration. But I loved him none the more. To my
+cripple's detested sensitiveness, as he stood over me, he loomed
+more than ever the hulking brute. His semi-confessions and
+innuendoes exacerbated my feelings of distrust and repulsion. And
+yet, at the same tune, I could not--nor did I try to--repress an
+immense pity for the man; perhaps less for the man than for the
+soul in pain. At the back of his words some torment burned at red
+heat, remorselessly. He sought relief. Perhaps he sought it from
+me because I was as apart as a woman from his physical splendour,
+a kind of bodiless creature with just a brain and a human heart,
+the ghost of an old soldier, far away from the sphere of poor
+passions and little jealousies.
+
+I felt the tentacles of the man's nature blindly and convulsively
+groping after something within me that eluded them. That is the
+best way in which I can describe the psychology of these strange
+moments. The morning sun streamed into my little oak-panelled
+dining-room and caught the silver and fruit on the breakfast table
+and made my frieze of old Delft glow blue like the responsive
+western sky. With his back to the vivid window, Leonard Boyce
+stood cut out black like a silhouette. That he, too, felt the
+tension, I know; for a wasp crawled over his face, from cheek-
+bone, across his temples, to his hair, and he did not notice it.
+
+Instinctively I said the words: "Your record. Are you quite
+certain that I know it?"
+
+With what intensity, with what significance in my eyes, I may have
+said them, I know not. I repeat that I had a subconsciousness,
+almost uncanny, that we were souls rather than men, talking to
+each other. He sat down once more, drawing the chair to the table
+and resting his elbow on it.
+
+"My record," said he. "What about it?"
+
+Again please understand that I felt I had the man's soul naked
+before me. An imponderable hand plucked away my garments of
+convention.
+
+"Some time ago," said I, "you spoke of my attitude towards you
+being marked by a certain reserve. That is quite true. It dates
+back many years. It dates back from the South African War. From an
+affair at Vilboek's Farm."
+
+Again his lips twitched; but otherwise he did not move.
+
+"I remember," he answered. "My men saw me run away. I came out of
+it quite clean."
+
+I said: "I saw the man afterwards in hospital at Cape Town. His
+name was Somers. He told me quite a different story."
+
+His face grew grey. He glanced at me for a fraction of a second.
+"What did he tell you?" he asked quietly.
+
+In the fewest possible words I repeated what I have set down
+already in this book. When I had ended, he said in the same
+toneless way:
+
+"You have believed that all these years?"
+
+"I have done my best not to believe it. The last twelve months
+have disproved it."
+
+He shook his head. "They haven't. Nothing I can do in this world
+can disprove it. What that man said was true."
+
+"True?"
+
+I drew a deep breath and stared at him hard. His eyes met mine.
+They were very sad and behind them lay great pain. Although I
+expressed astonishment, it proceeded rather from some reflex
+action than from any realised shock to my consciousness. I say the
+whole thing was uncanny. I knew, as soon as he sat down by the
+table, that he would confess to the Vilboek story. And yet, at
+last, when he did confess and there were no doubts lingering in my
+mind, I gasped and stared at him.
+
+"I was a bloody coward," he said. "That's frank enough. When they
+rode away and left me, I tried to shoot myself--and I couldn't. If
+the man Somers hadn't returned, I think I should have waited until
+they sent to arrest me. But he did come back and the instinct of
+self-preservation was too strong. I know my story about the men's
+desertion and my forcing him to back me up was vile and
+despicable. But I clung to life and it was my only chance.
+Afterwards, with the horror of the thing hanging over me, I didn't
+care so much about life. In the little fighting that was left for
+me I deliberately tried to throw it away. I ask you to believe
+that."
+
+"I do," I said. "You were mentioned in dispatches for gallantry in
+action."
+
+He passed his hand over his eyes. Looking up, he said:
+
+"It is strange that you of all men, my neighbour here, should have
+heard of this. Not a whisper of its being known has ever reached
+me. How many people do you think have any idea of it?"
+
+I told him all that I knew and concluded by showing him Reggie
+Dacre's letter, which I had kept in the letter-case in my pocket.
+He returned it to me without a word. Presently he broke a spell of
+silence. All this time he had sat fixed in the one attitude--only
+shifted once, when Marigold entered to clear away the breakfast
+things and was dismissed by me with a glance and a gesture.
+
+"Do you remember," he said, "a talk we had about fear, in April,
+the first time I was over? I described what I knew. The paralysis
+of fear. Since we are talking as I never thought to talk with a
+human being, I may as well make my confession. I'm a man of strong
+animal passions. When I see red, I daresay I'm just a brute beast.
+But I'm a physical coward. Owing to this paralysis of fear, this
+ghastly inhibition of muscular or nervous action, I have gone
+through things even worse than that South-African business. I go
+about like a man under a curse. Even out there, when I don't care
+a damn whether I live or die, the blasted thing gets hold of me."
+He swung himself away from the table and shook his great clenched
+firsts. "By the grace of God, no one yet has seemed to notice it.
+I suppose I have a swift brain and as soon as the thing is over I
+can cover it up. It's my awful terror that one day I shall be
+found out and everything I've gained shall be stripped away from
+me."
+
+"But what about a thing like this?" said I, tapping Colonel
+Dacre's letter.
+
+"That's all right," he answered grimly. "That's when I know what
+I'm facing. That's deliberate pot-hunting. It's saving face as the
+Chinese say. It's doing any damned thing that will put me right
+with myself."
+
+He got up and swung about the room. I envied him, I would have
+given a thousand pounds to do the same just for a few moments. But
+I was stuck in my confounded chair, deprived of physical outlet.
+Suddenly he came to a halt and stood once more over me.
+
+"Now you know what kind of a fellow I am, what do you think of
+me?"
+
+It was a brutal question to fling at my head. It gave me no time
+to co-ordinate my ideas. What was one to make of a man avowedly
+subject to fits of the most despicable cowardice from the
+consequences of which he used any unscrupulous craftiness to
+extricate himself, and yet was notorious in his achievement of
+deeds of the most reckless courage? It is a problem to which I
+have devoted all the months occupied in waiting this book. How the
+dickens could I solve it at a minute's notice? The situation was
+too blatant, too raw, too near bedrock, too naked and unashamed,
+for me to take refuge in platitudinous generalities of excuse. The
+bravest of men know Fear. They know him pretty intimately. But
+they manage to kick him to Hades by the very reason of their being
+brave men. I had to take Leonard Boyce as I found him. And I must
+admit that I found him a tragically miserable man. That is how I
+answered his question--in so many words.
+
+"You're not far wrong," said he.
+
+He picked up cap and stick.
+
+"When I get up to town I shall make my will. I've never worried
+about it before. Can I appoint you my executor?"
+
+"Certainly," said I.
+
+"I'm very grateful. I'll assure you a fireworks sort of finish, so
+that you shan't be ashamed. And--I don't ask impossibilities--I
+can't hold you to your previous promise--but what about Betty
+Connor?"
+
+"You may count," said I, "on my acting like an officer and a
+gentleman, and, if I may say so, like a Christian."
+
+He said: "Thank you, Meredyth. Good-bye." Then he stuck on his
+cap, brought his fingers to the peak in salute and marched to the
+door.
+
+"Boyce!" I cried sharply.
+
+He turned. "Yes?"
+
+"Aren't you going to shake hands with me?"
+
+He retraced the few steps to my chair.
+
+"I didn't know whether it would be--" he paused, seeking for a
+word--"whether it would be agreeable."
+
+Then I broke down. The strain had been too great for my sick man's
+nerves. I forgot all about the brutality of his bull-neck, for he
+faced me in all his gallant manhood and there was a damnable
+expression in his eyes like that of a rated dog. I stretched out
+my hand.
+
+"My dear good fellow," I cried, "what the hell are you talking
+about?"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Boyce left Wellingsford that afternoon, and for many months I
+heard little about him. His astonishing avowal had once more
+turned topsy-turvy my conception of his real nature. I had to
+reconstruct the man, a very complicated task. I had to reconcile
+in him all kinds of opposites--the lusty brute and the sentimental
+lover; the physical coward and the baresark hero; the man with
+hell in his soul and the debonair gentleman. After a vast deal of
+pondering, I arrived not very much nearer a solution of the
+problem. The fact remained, however, that I found myself in far
+closer sympathy with him than ever before. After all that he had
+said, I should have had a heart of stone if it had not been
+stirred to profound pity. I had seen an instance both of his
+spell-bound cowardice and of his almost degrading craft in
+extrication. That in itself repelled me. But it lost its value in
+the light that he had cast on the never-ceasing torment that
+consumed him. At any rate he was at death-grips with himself,
+strangling the devils of fear and dishonour with a hand
+relentlessly certain. He appeared to me a tragic figure warring
+against a doom.
+
+At first I expected every day to receive an agonised message from
+Mrs. Boyce announcing his death. Then, as is the way of humans,
+the keenness of my apprehension grew blunted, until, at last, I
+took his continued existence as a matter of course. I wrote him a
+few friendly letters, to which he replied in the same strain. And
+so the months went on.
+
+Looking over my diary I find that these months were singularly
+uneventful as far as the lives of those dealt with in this
+chronicle were concerned. In the depths of our souls we felt the
+long-drawn-out agony of the war, with its bitter humiliations, its
+heartrending disappointments. In our daily meetings one with
+another we cried aloud for a great voice to awaken the little folk
+in Great Britain from their selfish lethargy--the little folk in
+high office, in smug burgessdom, in seditious factory and
+shipyard. They were months of sordid bargaining between all
+sections of our national life, in the murk of which the glow of
+patriotism seemed to be eclipsed. And in the meantime, the heroic
+millions from all corners of our far-flung Empire were giving
+their lives on land and sea, gaily and gallantly, too often in
+tragic futility, for the ideals to which the damnable little folk
+at home were blind. The little traitorous folk who gambled for
+their own hands in politics, the little traitorous folk who put
+the outworn shibboleths of a party before the war-cry of an
+Empire, the little traitorous folk who strove with all their power
+to starve our navy of ships, our ships of coal, our men in the
+trenches of munitions, our armies of men, our country of honour--
+all these will one day be mercilessly arraigned at the bar of
+history. The plains of France, the steeps of Gallipoli, the swamps
+of Mesopotamia, the Seven Seas will give up their dead as
+witnesses.
+
+We spoke bitterly of all these things and thought of them with
+raging impotence; but the even tenor of our life went on. We
+continued to do our obscure and undistinguished work for the
+country. It became a habit, part of the day's routine. We almost
+forgot why we were doing it. The war seemed to make little real
+difference in our social life. The small town was pitch black at
+night. Prices rose. Small economies were practised. Labour was
+scarce. Fewer young men out of uniform were seen in the streets
+and neighbouring roads and lanes. Groups of wounded from the
+hospital in their uniform of deep blue jean with red ties and
+khaki caps gave a note of actuality to the streets. Otherwise,
+there were few signs of war. Even the troops who hitherto swarmed
+about the town had gradually been removed from billets to a vast
+camp of huts some miles away, and appeared only sporadically about
+the place. I missed them and the stimulus of their presence. They
+brought me into closer touch with things. Marigold, too, pined for
+more occupation for his one critical eye than was afforded by the
+local volunteers. He grew morose, sick of a surfeit of newspapers.
+If he could have gone to France and got through to the firing-
+line, I am sure he would have dug a little trench all to himself
+and defied the Germans on his own account.
+
+In November Colonel Dacre was brought home gravely wounded, to a
+hospital for officers in London. A nurse gave me the news in a
+letter in which she said that he had asked to see me before an
+impending hazardous operation. I went up to town and found him
+wrecked almost beyond recognition. As we were the merest of
+acquaintances with nothing between us save our common link with
+Boyce, I feared lest he should desire to tell me of some shameful
+discovery. But his gay greeting and the brave smile, pathetically
+grotesque through the bandages in which his head was wrapped,
+reassured me. Only his eyes and mouth were visible.
+
+"It's worth while being done in," said he. "It makes one feel like
+a Sultan. You have just to clap your hands and say 'I want this,'
+and you've got it. I've a good mind to say to this dear lady,
+'Fetch their gracious Majesties from Buckingham Palace,' and I'm
+sure they'd be here in a tick. It's awfully good of you to come,
+Meredyth."
+
+I signed to Marigold, who had carried me into the ward and set me
+down on a chair, and to the Sister, the "dear lady" of Dacre's
+reference, to withdraw, and after a few sympathetic words I asked
+him why he had sent for me.
+
+"I'm broken to bits all over," he replied. "The doctors here say
+they never saw such a blooming mess-up of flesh pretending to be
+alive. And as for talking, they'd just as soon expect speech from
+a jellyfish squashed by a steam-roller. If I do get through, I'll
+be a helpless crock all my days. I funked it till I thought of
+you. I thought the sight of another fellow who has gone through it
+and stuck it out might give me courage. I've had my wife here.
+We're rather fond of one another, you know ... My God! what brave
+things women are! If she had broken down all over me I could have
+risen to the occasion. But she didn't, and I felt a cowardly
+worm."
+
+"I had a brave wife, too," said I, and for a few moments we talked
+shyly about the women who had played sacred parts in our lives.
+Whether he was comforted by what I said I don't know. Probably he
+only listened politely. But I think he found comfort in a
+sympathetic ear.
+
+Presently he turned on to Boyce, the real motive of his summons.
+He repented much that he had told and written to me. His long
+defamation of the character of a brother-officer had lain on his
+conscience. And lately he had, at last, met Boyce personally, and
+his generous heart had gone out to the man's soldierly charm.
+
+"I never felt such a slanderous brute in my life as when I shook
+him by the hand. You know the feeling--how one wants to get behind
+a hedge and kick oneself. Kick oneself," he repeated faintly. Then
+he closed his eyes and his lips contracted in pain.
+
+The Sister, who had been watching him from a distance, came up. He
+had talked enough. It was time to go. But at the announcement he
+opened his eyes again and with an effort recovered his gaiety.
+
+"The whole gist of the matter lies in the postscript. Like a
+woman's letter. I must have my postscript."
+
+"Very well. Two more minutes."
+
+"Merciless dragon," said he.
+
+She smiled and left us.
+
+"The dearest angel, bar one, in the world." said he. "What were we
+talking about?"
+
+"Colonel Boyce."
+
+"Oh, yes. Forgive me. My head goes FUT now and then. It's idiotic
+not to be able to control one's brain.... The point is this. I may
+peg out. I know this operation they're going to perform is just
+touch and go. I want to face things with a clear conscience. I've
+convinced you, haven't I, that there wasn't a word of truth in
+that South-African story? If ever it crops up you'll scotch it
+like a venomous snake?"
+
+The ethics of my answer I leave to the casuist. I am an old-
+fashioned Church of England person. As I am so mentally
+constituted that I am unable to believe cheerfully in nothing. I
+believe in God and Jesus Christ, and accept the details of
+doctrine as laid down in the Thirty-nine Articles. For liars I
+have the Apocryphal condemnation. Yet I lied without the faintest
+rippling qualm of conscience.
+
+"My dear fellow," said I, stoutly, "there's not the remotest speck
+of truth in it. You haven't a second's occasion to worry."
+
+"That's all right," he said.
+
+The Sister approached again. Instinctively I stretched out my
+hand. He laughed.
+
+"No good. You must take it as gripped. Goodbye, old chap."
+
+I bade him good-bye and Marigold wheeled me away.
+
+A few days afterwards they told me that this gay, gallant,
+honourable, sensitive gentleman was dead. Although I had known him
+so little, it seemed that I knew him very intimately, and I deeply
+mourned his loss.
+
+I think this episode was the most striking of what I may term
+personal events during those autumn months.
+
+Of Randall Holmes we continued to hear in the same mysterious
+manner. His mother visited the firm of solicitors in London
+through whom his correspondence passed. They pleaded ignorance of
+his doings and professional secrecy as to the disclosure of his
+whereabouts. In December he ceased writing altogether, and twice a
+week Mrs. Holmes received a formal communication from the lawyers
+to the effect that they had been instructed by her son to inform
+her that he was in perfect health and sent her his affectionate
+greetings. Such news of this kind as I received I gave to Betty,
+who passed it on to Phyllis Gedge.
+
+Of course my intimacy with my dear Betty continued unbroken. If
+the unmarried Betty had a fault, it was a certain sweet
+truculence, a pretty self-assertiveness which sometimes betrayed
+intolerance of human foibles. Her widowhood had, in a subtle way,
+softened these little angularities of her spiritual contour. And
+bodily, the curves of her slim figure had become more rounded. She
+was no longer the young Diana of a year ago. The change into the
+gracious woman who had passed through the joy and the sorrow of
+life was obvious even to me, to whom it had been all but
+imperceptibly gradual. After a while she rarely spoke of her
+husband. The name of Leonard Boyce was never mentioned between us.
+With her as with me, the weeks ate up the uneventful days and the
+months the uneventful weeks. In her humdrum life the falling away
+of Mrs. Tufton loomed catastrophic.
+
+For four months Mrs. Tufton shone splendid as the wife of the
+British warrior. The Wellingsford Hospital rang with her praises
+and glistened with her scrubbing brush. She was the Admirable
+Crichton of the institution. What with men going off to the war
+and women going off to make munitions, there were never-ending
+temporary gaps in the staff. And there was never a gap that Mrs.
+Tufton did not triumphantly fill. The pride of Betty, who had
+wrought this reformation, was simply monstrous. If she had created
+a real live angel, wings and all, out of the dust-bin, she could
+not have boasted more arrogantly. Being a member of the Hospital
+Committee, I must confess to a bemused share in the popular
+enthusiasm. And was I not one of the original discoverers of Mrs.
+Tufton? When Marigold, inspired doubtless by his wife, from time
+to time suggested disparagement of the incomparable woman, I
+rebuked him for an arrant scandal-monger. There had been a case or
+two of drunkenness at the hospital. Wounded soldiers had returned
+the worse for liquor, an almost unforgivable offence.... Not that
+the poor fellows desired to get drunk. A couple of pints of ale or
+a couple of glasses of whisky will set swimming the head of any
+man who has not tasted alcohol for months. But to a man with a
+septic wound or trench nephritis or smashed up skull, alcohol is
+poison and poison is death, and so it is sternly forbidden to our
+wounded soldiers. They cannot be served in public houses. Where,
+then, did the hospital defaulters get their drink?
+
+"If I was you, sir," said Marigold, "I'd keep an eye on that there
+Mrs. Tufton."
+
+I instantly annihilated him--or should have done so had his
+expressionless face not been made of non-inflammable timber. He
+said: "Very good, sir." But there was a damnably ironical and
+insubordinate look in his one eye.
+
+Gradually the lady lapsed from grace. She got up late and
+complained of spasms. She left dustpan and brush on a patient's
+bed. She wrongfully interfered with the cook, insisting, until she
+was forcibly ejected from the kitchen, on throwing lettuces into
+the Irish stew. Finally, one Sunday afternoon, a policeman
+wandering through some waste ground, a deserted brickfield behind
+Flowery End, came upon an unedifying spectacle. There were madam
+and an elderly Irish soldier sprawling blissfully comatose with an
+empty flask of gin and an empty bottle of whisky lying between
+them. They were taken to the hospital and put to bed. The next
+morning, the lady, being sober, was skummarily dismissed by the
+matron. Late at night she rang and battered at the door,
+clamouring for admittance, which was refused. Then she went away,
+apparently composed herself to slumber in the roadway of the
+pitch-black High Street, and was killed by a motor-car. And that,
+bar the funeral, was the end of Mrs. Tufton.
+
+From her bereaved husband, with whom I at once communicated, I
+received the following reply:
+
+"Dear Sir,
+
+"Yours to hand announcing the accidental death of my wife, which I
+need not say I deeply regret. You will be interested to hear that
+I have been offered a commission in the Royal Fusiliers, which I
+am now able to accept. In view of the same, any expense to which
+you may be put to give my late wife honourable burial, I shall be
+most ready to defray.
+
+"With many thanks for your kindness in informing me of this
+unfortunate circumstance,
+
+"I am,
+
+"Yours faithfully,
+
+"JOHN P. TUFTON."
+
+"I think he's a horrid, callous, cold-blooded fellow!" cried Betty
+when I showed her this epistle.
+
+"After all," said I, "she wasn't a model wife. If the fatal motor-
+car hadn't come along, the probability is that she would have
+received poor Tufton on his next leave with something even more
+deadly than a poker. Now and again the Fates have brilliant
+inspirations. This was one of them. Now, you see the virago-
+clogged Tufton is a free man, able to accept a commission and
+start a new life as an officer and a gentleman."
+
+"I think you're perfectly odious. Odious and cynical," she
+exclaimed wrathfully.
+
+"I think," said I, "that a living warrior is better than a dead--
+Disappointment."
+
+"You don't understand," she stormed. "If I didn't love you, I
+could rend you to pieces."
+
+"It is because I do understand, my dear," said I, enjoying the
+flashing beauty of her return to Artemisian attitudes, "that I
+particularly characterised the dear lady as a disappointment."
+
+"I think," she said, in dejected generalisation, "the working out
+of the whole scheme of the universe is a disappointment."
+
+"The High Originators of the scheme seem to bear it pretty
+philosophically," I rejoined; "so why shouldn't we?"
+
+"They're gods and we're human," said Betty.
+
+"Precisely," said I. "And oughtn't it to be our ideal to
+approximate to the divine attitude?"
+
+Again Betty declared that I was odious. From her point of view--
+No. That is an abuse of language. There are mental states in which
+a woman has no point of view at all. She wanders over an ill-
+defined circular area of vision. That is why, in such conditions,
+you can never pin a woman down with a shaft of logic and compel
+her surrender, as you can compel that of a mere man. We went on
+arguing, and after a time I really did not know what I was arguing
+about. I advanced and tried to support the theory that on the
+whole the progress of humanity as represented by the British
+Empire in general and the about-to-be Lieutenant Tufton in
+particular, was advanced by the opportune demise of an
+unfortunately balanced lady. From her point--or rather her
+circular area of vision--perhaps my dear Betty was right in
+declaring me odious. She hated to be reminded of the intolerable
+goosiness of her swan. She longed for comforting, corroborative
+evidence of essential swaniness for her own justification. In a
+word, the poor dear girl was sore all over with mortification, and
+wherever one touched her, no matter with how gentle a finger, one
+hurt.
+
+"I would have trusted that woman," she cried tragically, "with a
+gold-mine or a distillery."
+
+"We trusted her with something more valuable, my dear," said I.
+"Our guileless faith in human nature. Anyhow we'll keep the faith
+undamaged."
+
+She smiled. "That's considerably less odious."
+
+Nothing more could be said. We let the unfortunate subject rest in
+peace for ever after.
+
+These two episodes, the death of poor Reggie Dacre and the Tufton
+catastrophe, are the only incidents in my diary that are worth
+recording here. Christmas came and went and we entered on the new
+year of 1916. It was only at a date in the middle of February, a
+year since I had driven to Wellings Park to hear the tragic news
+of Oswald Fenimore's death, that I find an important entry in my
+diary.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Mrs. Boyce was shown into my study, her comely Dresden china face
+very white and her hands shaking. She held a telegram. I had seen
+faces like that before. Every day in England there are hundreds
+thus stricken. I feared the worst. It was a relief to read the
+telegram and find that Boyce was only wounded. The message said
+seriously wounded, but gave consolation by adding that his life
+was not in immediate danger. Mrs. Boyce was for setting out for
+France forthwith. I dissuaded her from a project so embarrassing
+to the hospital authorities and so fatiguing to herself. In spite
+of the chivalry and humanity of our medical staff, old ladies of
+seventy are not welcome at a busy base hospital. As soon as he was
+fit to be moved, I assured her, he would be sent home, before she
+could even obtain her permits and passes and passport and make
+other general arrangements for her journey. There was nothing for
+it but her Englishwoman's courage. She held up her hand at that,
+and went away to live, like many another, patiently through the
+long hours of suspense.
+
+For two or three days no news came. I spent as much time as I
+could with my old friend, seeking to comfort her.
+
+On the third morning it was announced in the papers that the King
+had been graciously pleased to confer the Victoria Cross on Lt.
+Colonel Leonard Boyce for conspicuous gallantry in action. It did
+not occur in a list of honours. It had a special paragraph all to
+itself. Such isolated announcements generally indicate immediate
+recognition of some splendid feat. I was thrilled by the news. It
+was a grand achievement to win through death to the greatest of
+all military rewards deliberately coveted. Here, as I had strange
+reason for knowing, was no sudden act of sublime valour. The final
+achievement was the result of months of heroic, almost suicidal
+daring. And it was repayment of a terrible debt, the whole extent
+of which I knew not, owed by the man to his tormented soul.
+
+I rang up Mrs. Boyce, who replied tremulously to my
+congratulations. Would I come over and lunch?
+
+I found a very proud and tearful old lady. She may not have known
+the difference between a platoon and a howitzer, and have
+conceived the woolliest notions of the nature of her son's
+command, but the Victoria Cross was a matter on which her ideas
+were both definite and correct. She had spent the morning at the
+telephone receiving calls of congratulation. A great sheaf of
+telegrams had arrived. Two or three of them were from the High and
+Mighty of the Military Hierarchy. She was in such a twitter of joy
+that she almost forgot her anxiety as to his wounds.
+
+"Do you think he knows? I telegraphed to him at once."
+
+"So did I."
+
+She glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece.
+
+"How long would it take for a telegram to reach him?"
+
+"You may be sure he has it by now," said I, "and it has given him
+a prodigious appetite for lunch."
+
+Her face clouded over. "That horrid tinned stuff. It's so
+dangerous. I remember once Mary's aunt--or was it Cook's aunt--
+one of them any way--nearly died of eating tinned lobster--
+ptomaine poisoning. I've always told Leonard not to touch it.
+
+"They don't give Colonels and V.C.s tinned lobster at Boulogne," I
+answered cheerfully. "He's living now on the fat of the land."
+
+"Let us hope so," she sighed dubiously. "It's no use my sending
+out things for him, as they always go wrong. Some time ago I sent
+him three brace of grouse and three brace of partridges. He didn't
+acknowledge them for weeks, and then he said they were most handy
+things to kill Germans with, but were an expensive form of
+ammunition. I don't quite know what he meant--but at any rate they
+were not eatable when they arrived. Poor fellow!" She sighed
+again. "If only I knew what was the matter with him."
+
+"It can't be much," I reassured her, "or you would have heard
+again. And this news will act like a sovereign remedy."
+
+She patted the back of my hand with her plump palm. "You're always
+so sympathetic and comforting."
+
+"I'm an old soldier, like Leonard," said I, "and never meet
+trouble halfway."
+
+At lunch, the old lady insisted on opening a bottle of champagne,
+a Veuve Clicquot which Leonard loved, in honour of the glorious
+occasion. We could not drink to the hero's health in any meaner
+vintage, although she swore that a teaspoonful meant death to her,
+and I protested that a confession of champagne to my medical
+adviser meant a dog's rating. We each, conscience-bound, put up
+the tips of our fingers to the glasses as soon as Mary had filled
+them with froth, and solemnly drank the toast in the eighth of an
+inch residuum. But by some freakish chance or the other, there was
+nothing left in that quart bottle by the time Mary cleared the
+table for dessert. And to tell the honest truth, I don't think the
+health of either my hostess or myself was a penny the worse. Let
+no man despise generous wine. Treated with due reverence it is a
+great loosener of human sympathy.
+
+Generous ale similarly treated produces the same effect. Marigold,
+driving me home, cocked a luminous eye on me and said:
+
+"Begging your pardon, sir, would you mind very much if I broke the
+neck of that there Gedge?"
+
+"You would be aiding the good cause," said I, "but I should
+deplore the hanging of an old friend. What has Gedge been doing?"
+
+Marigold sounded his horn and slowed down round a bend, and, as
+soon as he got into a straight road, he replied.
+
+"I m not going to say, sir, if I may take the liberty, that I was
+ever sweet on Colonel Boyce. People affect you in different ways.
+You either like 'em or you don't like 'em. You can't tell why. And
+a Sergeant, being, as you may say, a human being, has as much
+right to his private feelings regarding a Colonel as any officer."
+
+"Undoubtedly," said I.
+
+"Well, sir, I never thought Colonel Boyce was true metal. But I
+take it all back--every bit of it."
+
+"For God's sake," I cried, stretching out a foolish but
+instinctive hand to the wheel, "for God's sake, control your
+emotions, or you'll be landing us in the ditch."
+
+"That's all right, sir," he replied, steering a straight course.
+"She's a bit skittish at times. I was saying as how I did the
+Colonel an injustice. I'm very sorry. No man who wasn't steel all
+through ever got the V.C. They don't chuck it around on
+blighters."
+
+"That's all very interesting and commendable," said I, "but what
+has it to do with Gedge?"
+
+"He has been slandering the Colonel something dreadful the last
+few months, sneering at him, saying nothing definite, but
+insinuatingly taking away his character."
+
+"In what way?" I asked.
+
+"Well, he tells one man that the Colonel's a drunkard, another
+that it's women, another that he gambles and doesn't pay, another
+that he pays the newspapers to put in all these things about him,
+while all the time in France he's in a blue funk hiding in his
+dugout."
+
+"That's moonshine," said I. And as regards the drinking, drabbing,
+and gaming of course it was. But the suggestion of cowardice gave
+me a sharp stab of surprise and dismay.
+
+"I know it is," said Marigold. "But the people hereabouts are so
+ignorant, you can make them believe anything." Marigold was a man
+of Kent and had a poor opinion of those born and bred in other
+counties. "I met Gedge this morning," he continued, and thereupon
+gave me the substance of the conversation. I hardly think the
+adjectives of the report were those that were really used.
+
+"So your precious Colonel has got the V.C.," sneered Gedge.
+
+"He has," said Marigold. "And it's too great an honour for your
+inconsiderable town."
+
+"If this inconsiderable town knew as much about him as I do, it
+would give him the order of the precious boot."
+
+"And what do you know?" asked Marigold.
+
+"That's what all you downtrodden slaves of militarism would like
+to find out," replied Gedge. "The time will come when I, and such
+as I, will tear the veils away and expose them, and say 'These be
+thy gods, O Israel.'"
+
+"The time will come," retorted Marigold, "when if you don't hold
+your precious jaw, I and such as I will smash it into a thousand
+pieces. For twopence I'd knock your ugly head off this present
+minute."
+
+Whereupon Gedge apparently wilted before the indignant eye of
+Sergeant Marigold and faded away down the High Street.
+
+All this in itself seemed very trivial, but for the past year the
+attitude of Gedge had been mysterious. Could it be possible that
+Gedge thought himself the sole repository of the secret which
+Boyce had so desperately confided to me? But when had the life of
+Gedge and the military life of Leonard Boyce crossed? It was
+puzzling.
+
+Well, to tell the truth, I thought no more about the matter. The
+glow of Mrs. Boyce's happiness remained with me all the evening.
+Rarely had I seen her so animated, so forgetful of her own
+ailments. She had taken the rosiest view of Leonard's physical
+condition and sunned herself in the honour conferred on him by the
+King. I had never spent a pleasanter afternoon at her house. We
+had comfortably criticised our neighbours, and, laudatores
+temporis acti, had extolled the days of our youth. I went to bed
+as well pleased with life as a man can be in this convulsion of
+the world.
+
+The next morning she sent me a letter to read. It was written at
+Boyce's dictation. It ran:
+
+"Dear Mother:
+
+"I'm sorry to say I am knocked out pro tem. I was fooling about
+where a C.O. didn't ought to, and a Bosch bullet got me so that I
+can't write. But don't worry at all about me. I'm too tough for
+anything the Bosches can do. To show how little serious it is,
+they tell me that I'll be conveyed to England in a day or two. So
+get hot-water bottles and bath salts ready.
+
+"Your ever loving Leonard."
+
+This was good news. Over the telephone wire we agreed that the
+letter was a justification of our yesterday's little merrymaking.
+Obviously, I told her, he would live to fight another day. She was
+of opinion that he had done enough fighting already. If he went on
+much longer, the poor boy would get quite tired out, to say
+nothing of the danger of being wounded again. The King ought to
+let him rest on his laurels and make others who hadn't worked a
+quarter as hard do the remainder of the war.
+
+"Perhaps," I said light-heartedly, "Leonard will drop the hint
+when he writes to thank the King for the nice cross."
+
+She said that I was laughing at her, and rang off in the best of
+spirits.
+
+In the evening came Betty, inviting herself to dinner. She had
+been on night duty at the hospital, and I had not seen her for
+some days. The sight of her, bright-eyed and brave, fresh and
+young, always filled me with happiness. I felt her presence like
+wine and the sea wind and the sunshine. So greatly did her
+vitality enrich me, that sometimes I called myself a horrid old
+vampire.
+
+As soon as she had greeted me, she said in her downright way:
+
+"So Leonard Boyce has got his V.C."
+
+"Yes," said I. "What do you think of it?"
+
+A spot of colour rose to her cheek. "I'm very glad. It's no use,
+Majy, pretending that I ignore his existence. I don't and I can't.
+Because I loved and married someone else doesn't alter the fact
+that I once cared for him, does it?"
+
+"Many people," said I, judicially, "find out that they have been
+mistaken as to the extent and nature of their own sentiments."
+
+"I wasn't mistaken," she replied, sitting down on the piano stool,
+her hands on the leathern seat, her neatly shod feet stretched out
+in front of her, just as she had sat on her wedding eve talking
+nonsense to Willie Connor. "I wasn't mistaken. I was never
+addicted to silly school-girl fancies. I know my own mind. I cared
+a lot for Leonard Boyce."
+
+"Eh bien?" said I.
+
+"Well, don't you see what I'm driving at?"
+
+"I don't a bit."
+
+She sighed. "Oh, dear! How dull some people are! Don't you see
+that, when an affair like that is over, a woman likes to get some
+evidence of the man's fine qualities, in order to justify her for
+having once cared for him?"
+
+"Quite so. Yet--" I felt argumentative. The breach, as you know,
+between Betty and Boyce was wrapped in exasperating obscurity.
+"Yet, on the other hand," said I, "she might welcome evidence of
+his worthlessness, so as to justify her for having thrown him
+over."
+
+"If a woman isn't a dam-fool already," said Betty, "and I don't
+think I'm one, she doesn't like to feel that she ever made a dam-
+fool of herself. She is proud of her instincts and her judgments
+and the sensitive, emotional intelligence that is hers. When all
+these seem to have gone wrong, it's pleasing to realise that
+originally they went right. It soothes one's self-respect, one's
+pride. I know now that all these blind perceptions in me went
+straight to certain magnificent essentials--those that make the
+great, strong, fearless fighting man. That's attractive to a
+woman, you know. At any rate, to an independent barbarian like
+myself--"
+
+"My dear Betty," I interrupted with a laugh. "You a barbarian? You
+whom I regard as the last word, the last charming and delightful
+word, in modern womanhood?"
+
+"Of course I'm the child of my century," she cried, flushing. "I
+want votes, freedom, opportunity for expansion, power--everything
+that can develop Betty Connor into a human product worthy of the
+God who made her. But how she could fulfil herself without the
+collaboration of a man, has baffled her ever since she was a girl
+of sixteen, when she began to awake to the modern movement. On one
+side I saw women perfectly happy in the mere savage state of
+wifehood and motherhood, and not caring a hang for anything else,
+and on the other side women who threw babies back into limbo and
+preached of nothing but intellectual and political and economic
+independence. Oh, I worried terribly about it, Majy, when I was a
+girl. Each side seemed to have such a lot to say for itself. Then
+it dawned upon me that the only way out of the dilemma was to
+combine both ideals--that of the savage woman in skins and the
+lady professor in spectacles. That is what, allowing for the
+difference of sex, a man does. Why shouldn't a woman? The woman,
+of course, has to droop a bit more to the savage, because she has
+to produce the babies and suckle them, and so forth, and a man
+hasn't. That was my philosophy of life when I entered the world as
+a young woman. Love came into it, of course. It was a
+sanctification of the savagery. I've gone on like this," she
+laughed, "because I don't want you to protest in your dear old-
+fashioned way against my calling myself an independent barbarian.
+I am, and I glory in it. That's why, as I was saying, I'm deeply
+glad that Leonard Boyce has made good. His honour means a good
+deal to me--to my self-esteem. I hope," she added, rising and
+coming to me with a caressing touch. "I hope you've got the hang
+of the thing now."
+
+Within myself I sincerely hoped I had. If her sentiments were just
+as she analysed them, all was well. If, on the other hand, the
+little demon of love for Boyce still lurked in her heart, in spite
+of the marriage and widowhood, there might be trouble ahead. I
+remembered how once she had called him a devil. I remembered, too,
+uncomfortably, the scrap of conversation I had overheard between
+Boyce and herself in the hall. She had lashed him with her scorn,
+and he had taken his whipping without much show of fight. Still, a
+woman's love, especially that of a lady barbarian, was a curiously
+complex affair, and had been known to impel her to trample on a
+man one minute and the next to fall at his feet. Now the worm she
+had trampled on had turned; stood erect as a properly
+authenticated hero. I felt dubious as to the ensuing situation.
+
+"I wrote to old Mrs. Boyce," she added after a while. "I thought
+it only decent. I wrote yesterday, but only posted the letter to-
+day, so as to be sure I wasn't acting on impulse."
+
+The latter part of the remark was by way of apology. The breach of
+the engagement had occasioned a cessation of social relations
+between Betty and Mrs. Boyce. Betty's aunts had ceased calling on
+Mrs. Boyce and Mrs. Boyce had ceased calling on Betty's aunts.
+Whenever the estranged parties met, which now and then was
+inevitable in a little town, they bowed with distant politeness,
+but exchanged no words. Everything was conducted with complete
+propriety. The old lady, knowing how beloved an intimate of mine
+was Betty, alluded but once to the broken engagement. That was
+when Betty got married.
+
+"It has been a great unhappiness to me, Major," she said. "In
+spite of her daring ways, which an old woman like myself can't
+quite understand, I was very fond of her. She was just the girl
+for Leonard. They made such a handsome couple. I have never known
+why it was broken off. Leonard won't tell me. It's out of the
+question that it could be his fault, and I can't believe it is all
+Betty Fairfax's. She's a girl of too much character to be a mere
+jilt."
+
+I remember that I couldn't help smiling at the application of the
+old-fashioned word to my Betty.
+
+"You may be quite certain she isn't that," said I.
+
+"Then what was the reason? Do you know?"
+
+I didn't. I was as mystified as herself. I told her so. I didn't
+mention that a few days before she had implied that Leonard was a
+devil and she wished that he was dead, thereby proving to me, who
+knew Betty's uprightness, that Boyce and Boyce only was to blame
+in the matter. It would have been a breach of confidence, and it
+would not have made my old friend any the happier. It would have
+fired her with flaming indignation against Betty.
+
+"Young people," said I, "must arrange their own lives." And we
+left it at that. Now and then, afterwards, she enquired politely
+after Betty's health, and when Willie Connor was killed, she spoke
+to me very feelingly and begged me to convey to Betty the
+expression of her deep sympathy. In the unhappy circumstances, she
+explained, she was naturally precluded from writing.
+
+So Betty's letter was the first direct communication that had
+passed between them for nearly two years. That is why to my
+meddlesome-minded self it appeared to have some significance.
+
+"You did, did you?" said I. Then I looked at her quickly, with an
+idea in my head. "What did Mrs. Boyce say in reply?"
+
+"She has had no time to answer. Didn't I tell you I only posted
+the letter to-day?"
+
+"Then you've heard nothing more about Leonard Boyce except that he
+has got the V.C.?"
+
+"No. What more is there to hear?"
+
+Even Bettys are sly folk. It behooved me to counter with equal
+slyness. I wondered whether she had known all along of Boyce's
+mishap, or had been informed of it by his mother. Knowledge might
+explain her unwonted outburst. I looked at her fixedly.
+
+"What's the matter?" she asked, bending slightly down to me.
+
+"You haven't heard that he is wounded?"
+
+She straightened herself. "No. When?"
+
+"Five days ago."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"I haven't seen you."
+
+"I mean--this evening."
+
+I reached for her hand. "Will you forgive me, my dear Betty, for
+remarking that for the last twenty minutes you have done all the
+talking?"
+
+"Is he badly hurt?"
+
+She ignored my playful rejoinder. I noted the fact. Usually she
+was quick to play Beatrice to my Benedick. Had I caught her off
+her guard?
+
+I told her all that I knew. She seated herself again on the piano-
+stool.
+
+"I hope Mrs. Boyce did not think me unfeeling for not referring to
+it," she said calmly. "You will explain, won't you?"
+
+Marigold entered, announcing dinner. We went into the dining-room.
+All through the meal Bella, my parlour-maid, flitted about with
+dishes and plates, and Marigold, when he was not solemnly pouring
+claret, stood grim behind my chair, roasting, as usual, his
+posterior before a blazing fire, with soldierly devotion to duty.
+Conversation fell a little flat. The arrival of the evening
+newspapers, half an hour belated, created a diversion. The war is
+sometimes subversive of nice table decorum. I read out the cream
+of the news. Discussion thereon lasted us until coffee and
+cigarettes were brought in and the servants left us to ourselves.
+
+One of the curious little phenomena of human intercourse is the
+fact that now and again the outer personality of one with whom you
+are daily familiar suddenly strikes you afresh, thus printing, as
+it were, a new portrait on your mind. At varying intervals I had
+received such portrait impressions of Betty, and I had stored them
+in my memory. Another I received at this moment, and it is among
+the most delectable. She was sitting with both elbows on the
+table, her palms clasped and her cheek resting on the back of the
+left hand. Her face was turned towards me. She wore a low-cut
+black chiffon evening dress--the thing had mere straps over the
+shoulders--an all but discarded vanity of pre-war days. I had
+never before noticed what beautiful arms she had. Perhaps in her
+girlhood, when I had often seen her in such exiguous finery, they
+had not been so shapely. I have told you already of the softening
+touch of her womanhood. An exquisite curve from arm to neck faded
+into the shadow of her hair. She had a single string of pearls
+round her neck. The fatigue of last week's night duty had cast an
+added spirituality over her frank, sensitive face.
+
+We had not spoken for a while. She smiled at me.
+
+"What are you thinking of?"
+
+"I wasn't thinking at all," said I. "I was only gratefully
+admiring you."
+
+"Why gratefully?"
+
+"Oughtn't one to be grateful to God for the beautiful things He
+gives us?"
+
+She flushed and averted her eyes. "You are very good to me, Majy."
+
+"What made you attire yourself in all this splendour?" I asked,
+laughing. The wise man does not carry sentiment too far. He keeps
+it like a little precious nugget of pure gold; the less wise beats
+it out into a flabby film.
+
+"I don't know," she said, shifting her position and casting a
+critical glance at her bodice. "All kinds of funny little feminine
+vanities. Perhaps I wanted to see whether I hadn't gone off.
+Perhaps I wanted to try to feel good-looking even if I wasn't.
+Perhaps I thought my dear old Majy was sick to death of the
+hospital uniform perfumed with disinfectant. Perhaps it was just a
+catlike longing for comfort. Anyhow, I'm glad you like me."
+
+"My dear Betty," said I, "I adore you."
+
+"And I you," she laughed. "So there's a pair of us."
+
+She lit a cigarette and sipped her coffee. Then, breaking a short
+silence:
+
+"I hope you quite understand, dear, what I said about Leonard
+Boyce. I shouldn't like to leave you with the smallest little bit
+of a wrong impression."
+
+"What wrong impression could I possibly have?" I asked
+disingenuously.
+
+"You might think that I was still in love with him."
+
+"That would be absurd," said I.
+
+"Utterly absurd. I should feel it to be almost an insult if you
+thought anything of the kind. Long before my marriage things that
+had happened had killed all such feelings outright." She paused
+for a few seconds and her brow darkened, just as it had done when
+she had spoken of him in the days immediately preceding her
+marriage with Willie Connor. Presently it cleared. "The whole
+beginning and end of my present feelings," she continued, "is that
+I'm glad the man I once cared for has won such high distinction,
+and I'm sorry that such a brave soldier should be wounded."
+
+I could do nothing else than assure her of my perfect
+understanding. I upbraided myself as a monster of indelicacy for
+my touch of doubt before dinner; also for a devilish and malicious
+suspicion that flitted through my brain while she was cataloguing
+her possible reasons for putting on the old evening dress. The
+thought of Betty's beautiful arm and the man's bull-neck was a
+shivering offence. I craved purification.
+
+"If you've finished your coffee," I said, "let us go into the
+drawing-room and have some music."
+
+She rose with the impulsiveness of a child told that it can be
+excused, and responded startlingly to my thought.
+
+"I think we need it," she said.
+
+In the drawing-room I swung my chair so that I could watch her
+hands on the keys. She was a good musician and had the well-taught
+executant's certainty and grace of movement. It may be the fancy
+of an outer Philistine, but I love to forget the existence of the
+instrument and to feel the music coming from the human finger-
+tips. She found a volume of Chopin's Nocturnes on the rest. In
+fact she had left it there a fortnight before, the last time she
+had played for me. I am very fond of Chopin. I am an uneducated
+fellow and the lyrical mostly appeals to me both in poetry and in
+music. Besides, I have understood him better since I have been a
+crock. And I loved Betty's sympathetic interpretation. So I sat
+there, listening and watching, and I knew that she was playing for
+the ease of both our souls. Once more I thanked God for the great
+gift of Betty to my crippled life. Peace gathered round my heart
+as Betty played.
+
+The raucous buzz of the telephone in the corner of the room
+knocked the music to shatters. I cried out impatiently. It was the
+fault of that giant of ineptitude Marigold and his incompetent
+satellites, whose duty it was to keep all upstairs extensions
+turned off and receive calls below. Only two months before I had
+been the victim of their culpable neglect, when I was forced to
+have an altercation with a man at Harrod's Stores, who seemed
+pained because I declined to take an interest in some idiotic
+remark he was making about fish.
+
+"I'll strangle Marigold with my own hands," I cried.
+
+Betty, unmoved by my ferocity, laughed and rose from the piano.
+
+"Shall I take the call?"
+
+To Betty I was all urbanity. "If you'll be so kind, dear," said I.
+
+She crossed the room and stopped the abominable buzzing.
+
+"Yes. Hold on for a minute. It's the post-office"--she turned to
+me--"telephoning a telegram that has just come in. Shall I take it
+down for you?"
+
+More urbanity on my part. She found pencil and paper on an
+escritoire near by, and went back to the instrument. For a while
+she listened and wrote. At last she said:
+
+"Are you sure there's no signature?"
+
+She got the reply, waited until the message had been read over,
+and hung up the receiver. When she came round to me--my back had
+been half turned to her all the time--I was astonished to see her
+looking rather shaken. She handed me the paper without a word.
+
+The message ran:
+
+"Thanks yesterday's telegram. Just got home. Queen Victoria
+Hospital, Belton Square. Must have talk with you before I
+communicate with my mother. Rely absolutely on your discretion.
+Come to-morrow. Forgive inconvenience caused, but most urgent."
+
+"It's from Boyce," I said, looking up at her.
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"I suppose he omitted the signature to avoid any possible leakage
+through the post-office here."
+
+She nodded. "What do you think is the matter?"
+
+"God knows," said I. "Evidently something very serious."
+
+She went back to the piano seat. "It's odd that I should have
+taken down that message," she said, after a while.
+
+"I'll sack Marigold for putting you in that abominable position,"
+I exclaimed wrathfully.
+
+"No, you won't, dear. What does it signify? I'm not a silly child.
+I suppose you're going to-morrow?"
+
+"Of course--for Mrs. Boyce's sake alone I should have no
+alternative."
+
+She turned round and began to take up the thread of the Nocturne
+from the point where she had left off; but she only played half a
+page and quitted the piano abruptly.
+
+"The pretty little spell is broken, Majy. No matter how we try to
+escape from the war, it is always shrieking in upon us. We're up
+against naked facts all the time. If we can't face them we go
+under either physically or spiritually. Anyhow--" she smiled with
+just a little touch of weariness,--"we may as well face them in
+comfort."
+
+She pushed my chair gently nearer to the fire and sat down by my
+side. And there we remained in intimate silence until Marigold
+announced the arrival of her car.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+I shrink morbidly from visiting strange houses. I shrink from the
+unknown discomforts and trivial humiliations they may hold for me.
+I hate, for instance, not to know what kind of a chair may be
+provided for me to sit on. I hate to be carried up many stairs
+even by my steel-crane of a Marigold. Just try doing without your
+legs for a couple of days, and you will see what I mean. Of course
+I despise myself for such nervous apprehensions, and do not allow
+them to influence my actions--just as one, under heavy fire, does
+not satisfy one's simple yearning to run away. I would have given
+a year's income to be able to refuse Boyce's request with a clear
+conscience; but I could not. I shrank all the more because my
+visit in the autumn to Reggie Dacre had shaken me more than I
+cared to confess. It had been the only occasion for years when I
+had entered a London building other than my club. To the club,
+where I was as much at home as in my own house, all those in town
+with whom I now and then had to transact business were good enough
+to come. This penetration of strange hospitals was an agitating
+adventure. Apart, however, from the mere physical nervousness
+against which, as I say, I fought, there was another element in my
+feelings with regard to Boyce's summons. If I talk about the Iron
+Hand of Fate you may think I am using a cliche of melodrama.
+Perhaps I am. But it expresses what I mean. Something unregenerate
+in me, some lingering atavistic savage instinct towards freedom,
+rebelled against this same Iron Hand of Fate that, first clapping
+me on the shoulder long ago in Cape Town, was now dragging me,
+against my will, into ever thickening entanglement with the dark
+and crooked destiny of Leonard Boyce.
+
+I tell you all this because I don't want to pose as a kind of
+apodal angel of mercy.
+
+I was also deadly anxious as to the nature of the communication
+Boyce would make to me, before his mother should be informed of
+his arrival in London. In spite of his frank confession, there was
+still such a cloud of mystery over the man's soul as to render any
+revelation possible. Had his hurt declared itself to be a mortal
+one? Had he summoned me to unburden his conscience while yet there
+was time? Was it going to be a repetition, with a difference, of
+my last interview with Reggie Dacre? I worried myself with
+unnecessary conjecture.
+
+After a miserable drive through February rain and slush, I reached
+my destination in Belton Square, a large mansion, presumably
+equipped by its owner as a hospital for officers, and given over
+to the nation. A telephone message had prepared the authorities
+for my arrival. Marigold, preceded by the Sister in charge,
+carried me across a tesselated hall and began to ascend the broad
+staircase.
+
+I uttered a little gasp and looked around me, for in a flash I
+realised where I was. Twenty years ago I had danced in this house.
+I had danced here with my wife before we were married. On the half
+landing we had sat out together. It was the town house of the late
+Lord Madelow, with whose wife I shared the acquaintance of a
+couple of hundred young dancing men inscribed on her party list.
+Both were dead long since. To whom the house belonged now I did
+not know. But I recognised pictures and statuary and a
+conservatory with palms. And the place shimmered with brilliant
+ghosts and was haunted by hot perfumes and by the echo of human
+voices and by elfin music. And the cripple forgot that he was
+being carried up the stairs in the grip of the old soldier. He was
+mounting them with heart beating high and the presence of a
+beloved hand on his arm. ... You see, it was all so sudden. It
+took my breath away and sent my mind whirling back over twenty
+years.
+
+It was like awaking from a dream to find a door flung open in
+front of me and to hear the Sister announce my name. I was on the
+threshold not of a ward, but of a well-appointed private room
+fairly high up and facing the square, for the first thing I saw
+was the tops of the leafless trees through the windows. Then I was
+conscious of a cheery fire. The last thing I took in was the bed
+running at right angles to door and window, and Leonard Boyce
+lying in it with bandages about his face. For the dazed second or
+two he seemed to be Reggie Dacre over again. But he had thrown
+back the bedclothes and his broad chest and great arms were free.
+His pleasant voice rang out at once.
+
+"Hallo! Hallo! You are a good Samaritan. Is that you, Marigold?
+There's a comfortable chair by the bedside for Major Meredyth."
+
+He seemed remarkably strong and hearty; far from any danger of
+death. Stubs of cigarettes were lying in an ash-tray on the bed.
+In a moment or two they settled me down and left me alone with
+him.
+
+As soon as he heard the click of the door he said:
+
+"I've done more than I set out to do. You remember our
+conversation. I said I should either get the V.C. or never see you
+again. I've managed both."
+
+"What do you mean?" I asked.
+
+"I shall never see you or anybody else again, or a dog or a cat,
+or a tree or a flower."
+
+Then, for the first time the dreadful truth broke upon me.
+
+"Good Heavens!" I cried. "Your eyes--?"
+
+"Done in. Blind. It's a bit ironical, isn't it?" He laughed
+bitterly.
+
+What I said by way of sympathy and consolation is neither here nor
+there. I spoke sincerely from my heart, for I felt overwhelmed by
+the tragedy of it all. He stretched out his hand and grasped mine.
+
+"I knew you wouldn't fail me. Your sort never does. You understand
+now why I wanted you to come?--To prepare the old mother for the
+shock. You've seen for yourself that I'm sound of wind and limb--
+as fit as a fiddle. You can make it quite clear to her that I'm
+not going to die yet awhile. And you can let her down easy on the
+real matter. Tell her I'm as merry as possible and looking forward
+to going about Wellingsford with a dog and string."
+
+"You're a brave chap, Boyce," I said.
+
+He laughed again. "You're anticipating. Do you remember what I
+said when you asked me what I should do if I won all the pots I
+set my heart on and came through alive? I said I should begin to
+try to be a brave man. God! It's a tough proposition. But it's
+something to live for, anyway."
+
+I asked him how it happened.
+
+"I got sick," he replied, "of bearing a charmed life and nothing
+happening. The Bosch shell or bullet that could hit me wasn't
+made. I could stroll about freely where it was death for anyone
+else to show the top of his head. I didn't care. Then suddenly one
+day things went wrong. You know what I mean. I nearly let my
+regiment down. It was touch and go. And it was touch and go with
+my career. I just pulled through, however. I'll tell you all about
+it one of these days--if you'll put up with me."
+
+Again the familiar twitch of the lips which looked ghastly below
+the bandaged eyes. "No one ever dreamed of the hell I went
+through. Then I found I was losing the nerve I had built up all
+these months. I nearly went off my head. At last I thought I would
+put an end to it. It was a small attack of ours that had failed.
+The men poured back over the parapet into the trench, leaving
+heaven knows how many dead and wounded outside. I'm not
+superstitious and I don't believe in premonitions and warnings,
+and so forth; but in cases of waiting like mine a man suddenly
+gets to know that his hour has come. ... I got in six wounded. Two
+men were shot while I was carrying them. How I lived God knows. It
+was cold hell. My clothes were torn to rags. As I was going for
+the seventh, the knob of my life-preserver was shot away and my
+wrist nearly broken. I wore it with a strap, you know. The
+infernal thing had been a kind of mascot. When I realised it was
+gone I just stood still and shivered in a sudden, helpless funk.
+The seventh man was crawling up to me. He had a bloody face and
+one dragging leg. That's my last picture of God's earth. Before I
+could do anything--I must have been standing sideways on--a
+bullet got me across the bridge of the nose and night came down
+like a black curtain. Then I ran like a hare. Sometimes I tripped
+over a man, dead or wounded, and fell on my head. I don't remember
+much about this part of it. They told me afterwards. At last I
+stumbled on to the parapet and some plucky fellow got me into the
+trench. It was the regulation V.C. business," he added, "and so
+they gave it to me."
+
+"Specially," said I.
+
+"Consolation prize, I suppose, for losing my sight. They had just
+time to get me away behind when the Germans counter attacked. If I
+hadn't brought the six men in, they wouldn't have had a dog's
+chance. I did save their lives. That's something to the credit
+side of the infernal balance."
+
+"There can be no balance now, my dear chap," said I. "God knows
+you've paid in full."
+
+He lifted his hand and dropped it with a despairing gesture.
+
+"There's only one payment in full. That was denied me. God, or
+whoever was responsible, had my eyes knocked out, and made it
+impossible for ever. He or somebody must be enjoying the farce."
+
+"That's all very well," said I. "A man can do no more than his
+utmost--as you've done. He must be content to leave the rest in
+the hands of the Almighty."
+
+"The Almighty has got a down on me," he replied. "And I don't
+blame Him. Of course, from your point of view, you're right.
+You're a normal, honourable soldier and gentleman. Anything you've
+got to reproach yourself with is of very little importance. But
+I'm an accursed freak. I told you all about it when you held me up
+over the South African affair. There were other affairs after
+that. Others again in this war. Haven't I just told you I let my
+regiment down?"
+
+"Don't, my dear man, don't!" I cried, in great pain, for it was
+horrible to hear a man talk like this. "Can't you see you've wiped
+out everything?"
+
+"There's one thing at any rate I can't ever wipe out," he said in
+a low voice. Then he laughed. "I've got to stick it. It may be
+amusing to see how it all pans out. I suppose the very last
+passion left us is curiosity."
+
+"There's also the unconquerable soul," said I.
+
+"You're very comforting," said he. "If I were in your place, I'd
+leave a chap like me to the worms." He drew a long breath. "I
+suppose I'll pull through all right."
+
+"Of course you will," said I.
+
+"I feel tons better, thanks to you, already."
+
+"That's right," said I.
+
+He fumbled for the box of cigarettes on the bed. Instinctively I
+tried to help him, but I was tied to my fixed chair. It was a
+trivial occasion; but I have never been so terrified by the sense
+of helplessness. Just think of it. Two men of clear brain and, to
+all intents and purposes, of sound bodily health, unable to reach
+an object a few feet away. Boyce uttered an impatient exclamation.
+
+"Get hold of that box for me, like a good chap," he said, his
+fingers groping wide of the mark.
+
+"I can't move," said I.
+
+"Good Lord! I forgot."
+
+He began to laugh. I laughed, too. We laughed like fools and the
+tears ran down my cheeks. I suppose we were on the verge of
+hysterics.
+
+I pulled myself together and gave him a cigarette from my case.
+And then, stretch as I would, I could not reach far enough to
+apply the match to the end of the cigarette between his lips. He
+was unable to lift his head. I lit another match and, like an
+idiot, put it between his fingers. He nearly burned his moustache
+and his bandage, and would have burned his fingers had not the
+match--a wooden one--providentially gone out. Then I lit a
+cigarette myself and handed it to him.
+
+The incident, as I say, was trivial, but it had deep symbolic
+significance. All symbols in their literal objectivity are
+trivial. What more trivial than the eating of a bit of bread and
+the sipping from a cup of wine? This trumpery business with the
+cigarette revolutionised my whole feelings towards Boyce. It
+initiated us into a sacred brotherhood. Hitherto, it had been his
+nature which had reached out towards me tentacles of despair. My
+inner self, as I have tried to show you, had never responded. It
+was restrained by all kinds of doubts, suspicions, and repulsions.
+Now, suddenly, it broke through all those barriers and rushed
+forth to meet him. My death in life against which I had fought, I
+hope like a brave man (it takes a bit of fighting) for many years,
+would henceforth be his death in life, at whose terrors he too
+would have to snap a disdainful finger. I had felt deep pity for
+him; but if pity is indeed akin to love, it is a very poor
+relation. Now I had cast pity and such like superior sentiment
+aside and accepted him as a sworn brother. The sins, whatever they
+were, that lay on the man's conscience mattered nothing. He had
+paid in splendid penance and in terrible penalty.
+
+I should have liked to express to him something of this surge of
+emotion. But I could find no words. As a race, our emotions are
+not facile, and therefore we lack the necessary practice in
+expressing them. When they do come, they come all of a heap and
+scare us out of our wits and leave us speechless. So the immediate
+outcome of all this psychological upheaval was that we went on
+smoking and said nothing more about it. As far as I remember we
+started talking about the recruiting muddle, as to which our views
+most vigorously coincided.
+
+We parted cheerily. It was only when I got outside the room that
+the ghastly irony of the situation again made my heart as lead. We
+passed by the conservatory and the statuary and down the great
+staircase, but the ghosts had gone. Yet I cast a wistful glance at
+the spot--it was just under that Cuyp with the flashing white
+horse--where we had sat twenty years ago. But the new tragedy had
+rendered the memory less poignant.
+
+"It's a dreadful thing about the Colonel, sir," said Marigold as
+we drove off.
+
+"More dreadful than anyone can imagine," said I.
+
+"What he's going to do with himself is what I'm wondering," said
+Marigold.
+
+What indeed? The question went infinitely deeper than the
+practical dreams of Marigold's philosophy. My honest fellow saw
+but the outside--the full-blooded man of action cabined in his
+lifelong darkness. I, to whom chance had revealed more, trembled
+at the contemplation of his future. The man, goaded by the Furies,
+had rushed into the jaws of death. Those jaws, by some divine
+ordinance, had ruthlessly closed against him. The Furies meanwhile
+attended him unrelenting. Whither now would they goad him? Into
+madness? I doubted it. In spite of his contradictory nature, he
+did not seem to be the sort of man who would go mad. He could
+exercise over himself too reasoned a control. Yet here were
+passions and despairs seething without an outlet. What would be
+the end? It is true that he had achieved glory. To the end of his
+life, wherever he went, he would command the honour and admiration
+of men. Greater achievement is granted to few mortals. In our
+little town he would be the Great Hero. But would all that human
+sympathy and veneration could contrive keep the Furies at bay and
+soothe the tormented spirit?
+
+I tried to eat a meal at the club, but the food choked me. I got
+into the car as soon as possible and reached Wellingsford with
+head and heart racked with pain. But before I could go home I had
+to execute Boyce's mission.
+
+If I accomplished it successfully, my heart and not my wearied
+mind deserves the credit. At first Mrs. Boyce broke down under the
+shock of the news, for all the preparation in the world can do
+little to soften a deadly blow; but breed and pride soon asserted
+themselves, and she faced things bravely. With charming dignity
+she received Marigold's few respectful words of condolence. And
+she thanked me for what I had done, beyond my deserts. To show how
+brave she was, she insisted on accompanying us downstairs and on
+standing in the bleak evening air while Marigold put me in the
+car.
+
+"After all, I have my son alive and in good strong health. I must
+realise how merciful God has been to me." She put her hand into
+mine. "I shan't see you again till I bring him home with me. I
+shall go up to London early to-morrow morning and stay with my old
+friend Lady Fanshawe--I think you have met her here--the widow of
+the late Admiral Fanshawe. She has a house in Eccleston Street,
+which is, I think, in the neighbourhood of Belton Square. If I
+haven't thanked you enough, dear Major Meredyth, it is that, when
+one's heart is full, one can't do everything all at once."
+
+She waved to me very graciously as the car drove off--a true
+"Spartian" mother, dear lady, of our modern England.
+
+Oh! the humiliation of possessing a frail body and a lot of
+disorganized nerves! When I got home Marigold, seeing that I was
+overtired, was all for putting me to bed then and there. I spurned
+the insulting proposal in language plain enough even to his wooden
+understanding. Sometimes his imperturbability exasperated me. I
+might just as well try to taunt a poker or sting a fire-shovel
+into resentment of personal abuse.
+
+"I'll see you hanged, drawn, and quartered before I'll go to bed,"
+I declared.
+
+"Very good, sir." The gaunt wretch was carrying me. "But I think
+you might lie down for half an hour before dinner."
+
+He deposited me ignominiously on the bed and left the room. In
+about ten minutes Dr. Cliffe, my inveterate adversary who has kept
+life in me for many a year, came in with his confounded pink
+smiling face.
+
+"What's this I hear? Been overdoing it?"
+
+"What the deuce are you doing here?" I cried. "Go away. How dare
+you come when you're not wanted?"
+
+He grinned. "I'm wanted right enough, old man. The good Marigold's
+never at fault. He rang me up and I slipped round at once."
+
+"One of these days," said I, "I'll murder that fellow."
+
+He replied by gagging me with his beastly thermometer. Then he
+felt my pulse and listened to my heart and stuck his fingers into
+the corners of my eyes, so as to look at the whites; and when he
+was quite satisfied with himself--there is only one animal more
+self-complacent than your medical man in such circumstances, and
+that is a dog who has gorged himself with surreptitious meat--he
+ordained that I should forthwith go properly to bed and stay there
+and be perfectly quiet until he came again, and in the meanwhile
+swallow some filthy medicine which he would send round.
+
+"One of these days," said he, rebukingly, "instead of murdering
+your devoted Sergeant, you'll be murdering yourself, if you go on
+such lunatic excursions. Of course I'm shocked at hearing about
+Colonel Boyce, and I'm sorry for the poor lady, but why you should
+have been made to half kill yourself over the matter is more than
+I can understand."
+
+"I happen," said I, "to be his only intimate friend in the place."
+
+"You happen," he retorted, "to be a chronic invalid and the most
+infernal worry of my life."
+
+"You're nothing but an overbearing bully," said I.
+
+He grinned again. That is what I have to put up with. If I curse
+Marigold, he takes no notice. If I curse Cliffe, he grins. Yet
+what I should do without them, Heaven only knows.
+
+"God bless 'em both," said I, when my aching body was between the
+cool sheets.
+
+Although it was none of his duties, Marigold brought me in a light
+supper, fish and a glass of champagne. Never a parlour-maid would
+he allow to approach me when I was unwell. I often wondered what
+would happen if I were really ill and required the attendance of a
+nurse. I swear no nurse's touch could be so gentle as when he
+raised me on the pillows. He bent over the tray on the table by
+the bed and began to dissect out the back-bone of the sole.
+
+"I can do that," said I, fretfully.
+
+He cocked a solitary reproachful eye on me. I burst out laughing.
+He looked so dear and ridiculous with his preposterous curly wig
+and his battered face. He went on with his task.
+
+"I wonder, Marigold," said I, "how you put up with me."
+
+He did not reply until he had placed the neatly arranged tray
+across my body.
+
+"I've never heard, sir," said he, "as how a man couldn't put up
+with his blessings."
+
+A bit of sole was on my fork and I was about to convey it to my
+mouth, but there came a sudden lump in my throat and I put the
+fork down.
+
+"But what about the curses?"
+
+A horrible contortion of the face and a guttural rumble indicated
+amusement on the part of Marigold. I stared, very serious, having
+been profoundly touched.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" I asked.
+
+The idiot's merriment increased in vehemence. He said: "You're too
+funny, sir," and just bolted, in a manner unbecoming not only to a
+sergeant, but even to a butler.
+
+As I mused on this unprecedented occurrence, I made a discovery,--
+that of Sergeant Marigold's sense of humour. To that sense of
+humour my upbraidings, often, I must confess, couched in
+picturesque and figurative terms so as not too greatly to hurt his
+feelings, had made constant appeal for the past fifteen years.
+Hitherto he had hidden all signs of humorous titillation behind
+his impassive mask. To-night, a spark of sentiment had been the
+match to explode the mine of his mirth. It was a serious position.
+Here had I been wasting on him half a lifetime's choicest
+objurgations. What was I to do in the future to consolidate my
+authority?
+
+I never enjoyed a fried sole and a glass of champagne more in my
+life.
+
+He came in later to remove the tray, as wooden as ever.
+
+"Mrs. Connor called a little while ago, sir."
+
+"Why didn't you ask her to come in to see me?"
+
+"Doctor's orders, sir."
+
+After the sole and champagne, I felt much better. I should have
+welcomed my dear Betty with delight. That, at any rate, was my
+first impulsive thought.
+
+"Confound the doctor!" I cried. And I was going to confound
+Marigold, too, but I caught his steady luminous eye. What was the
+use of any anathema when he would only take it away, as a dog does
+a bone, and enjoy it in a solitary corner? I recovered myself.
+
+"Well?" said I, with dignity. "Did Mrs. Connor leave any message?"
+
+"I was to give you her compliments, sir, and say she was sorry you
+were so unwell and she was shocked to hear of Colonel Boyce's sad
+affliction."
+
+This was sheer orderly room. Such an expression as "sad
+affliction" never passed Betty's lips. I, however, had nothing to
+say. Marigold settled me for the night and left me.
+
+When I was alone and able to consider the point, I felt a cowardly
+gratitude towards the doctor who had put me to bed like a sick man
+and forbidden access to my room. I had been spared breaking the
+news to Betty. How she received it, I did not know. It had been
+impossible to question Marigold. After all, it was a matter of no
+essential moment. I consoled myself with the reflection and tried
+to go to sleep. But I passed a wretched night, my head whirling
+with the day's happenings.
+
+The morning papers showed me that Boyce, wishing to spare his
+mother, had been wise to summon me at once. They all published an
+official paragraph describing the act for which he had received
+his distinction, and announcing the fact of his blindness. They
+also gave a brief and flattering sketch of his career. One paper
+devoted to him a short leading article. The illustrated papers
+published his photograph. Boyce was on the road to becoming a
+popular hero.
+
+Cliffe kept me in bed all that day, to my great irritation. I had
+no converse with the outside world, save vicariously with Betty,
+who rang up to enquire after my health. On the following morning,
+when I drove abroad with Hosea, I found the whole town ringing
+with Boyce. It was a Friday, the day of publication of the local
+newspaper. It had run to extravagant bills all over the place:
+
+"Wellingsford Hero honoured by the King. Tragic End to Glorious
+Deeds."
+
+The word--Marigold's, I suppose--had gone round that I had visited
+the hero in London. I was stopped half a dozen times on my way up
+the High Street by folks eager for personal details. Outside
+Prettilove the hairdresser's I held quite a little reception, and
+instead of moving me on for blocking the traffic, as any of his
+London colleagues would have done, the local police sergeant sank
+his authority and by the side of a butcher's boy formed part of
+the assembly.
+
+When I got to the Market Square, I saw Sir Anthony Fenimore's car
+standing outside the Town Hall. The chauffeur stopped me.
+
+"Sir Anthony was going to call on you, sir, as soon as he had
+finished his business inside."
+
+"I'll wait for him," said I. It was one of the few mild days of a
+wretched month and I enjoyed the air. Springfield, the house
+agent, passed and engaged me in conversation on the absorbing
+topic, and then the manager of the gasworks joined us. Everyone
+listened so reverently to my utterances that I began to feel as if
+I had won the Victoria Cross myself.
+
+Presently Sir Anthony bustled out of the Town Hall, pink, brisk,
+full of business. At the august appearance of the Mayor my less
+civically distinguished friends departed. His eyes brightened as
+they fell on me and he shook hands vigorously.
+
+"My dear Duncan, I was just on my way to you. Only heard this
+morning that you've been seedy. Knocked up, I suppose, by your
+journey to town. Just heard of that, too. Must have thought me a
+brute not to enquire. But Edith and I didn't know. I was away all
+yesterday. These infernal tribunals. With the example of men like
+Leonard Boyce before their eyes, it makes one sick to look at
+able-bodied young Englishmen trying to wriggle out of their duty
+to the country. Well, dear old chap, how are you?"
+
+I assured him that I had recovered from Cliffe and was in my usual
+state of health. He rubbed his hands.
+
+"That's good. Now give me all the news. What is Boyce's condition?
+When will he be able to be moved? When do you think he'll come
+back to Wellingsford?"
+
+At this series of questions I pricked a curious ear.
+
+"Am I speaking to the man or the Mayor?"
+
+"The Mayor," said he. "I wish to goodness I could get you inside,
+so that you and I and Winterbotham could talk things over."
+
+Winterbotham was the Town Clerk. Sir Anthony cast an instinctive
+glance at his chauffeur, a little withered elderly man. I laughed
+and made a sign of dissent. When you have to be carried about, you
+shy at the prospect of little withered, elderly men as carriers.
+Besides--
+
+"Unless it would lower Winterbotham's dignity or give him a cold
+in the head," said I, "why shouldn't he come out here?"
+
+Sir Anthony crossed the pavement briskly, gave a message to the
+doorkeeper of the Town Hall, and returned to Hosea and myself.
+
+"It's a dreadful thing. Dreadful. I never realised till yesterday,
+when I read his record, what a distinguished soldier he was. A
+modern Bayard. For the last year or so he seemed to put my back
+up. Behaved in rather a curious way, never came near the house
+where once he was always welcome, and when I asked him to dinner
+he turned me down flat. But that's all over. Sometimes one has
+these pettifogging personal vanities. The best thing is to be
+heartily ashamed of 'em like an honest man, and throw 'em out in
+the dung-heap where they belong. That's what I told Edith last
+night, and she agreed with me. Don't you?"
+
+I smiled. Here was another typical English gentleman ridding his
+conscience of an injustice done to Leonard Boyce.
+
+"Of course I do," said I. "Boyce is a queer fellow. A man with his
+exceptional qualities has to be judged in an exceptional way."
+
+"And then," said Sir Anthony, "it's that poor dear old lady that
+I've been thinking of. Edith went to see her yesterday afternoon,
+but found she had gone up to London. In her frail health it's
+enough to kill her."
+
+"It won't," said I. "A woman doesn't give birth to a lion without
+having something of the lion in her nature."
+
+"I've never thought of that," said Sir Anthony.
+
+"Haven't you?"
+
+His face turned grave and he looked far away over the red-brick
+post-office on the opposite side of the square. Then he sighed,
+looked at me with a smile, and nodded.
+
+"You're right, Duncan."
+
+"I know I am," said I. "I broke the news to Mrs. Boyce. That's why
+he asked me to go up and see him."
+
+Winterbotham appeared--a tall, cadaverous man in a fur coat and a
+soft felt hat. He shook hands with me in a melancholy way. In a
+humbler walk of life, I am sure he would have been an undertaker.
+
+"Now," said Sir Anthony, "tell us all about your interview with
+Boyce."
+
+"Before I commit myself," said I, "with the Civic Authorities,
+will you kindly inform me what this conference coram publico is
+all about?"
+
+"Why, my dear chap, haven't I told you?" cried Sir Anthony. "We're
+going to give Colonel Boyce a Civic Reception."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Thenceforward nothing was talked of but the home-coming of Colonel
+Boyce. He touched the public imagination. All kinds of stories,
+some apocryphal, some having a basis of truth, some authentic,
+went the round of the little place. It simmered with martial
+fervour. Elderly laggards enrolled themselves in the Volunteer
+Training Corps. Young married men who had not attested under the
+Derby Scheme rushed out to enlist. The Tribunal languished in
+idleness for lack of claimants for exemption. Exempted men, with
+the enthusiastic backing of employers, lost the sense of their
+indispensability and joined the colours. An energetic lady who had
+met the Serbian Minister in London conceived the happy idea of
+organising a Serbian Flag Day in Wellingsford, and reaped a
+prodigious harvest. We were all tremendously patriotic, living
+under Boyce's reflected glory.
+
+At first I had deprecated the proposal, fearing lest Boyce might
+not find it acceptable. The reputation he had sought at the
+cannon's mouth was a bubble of a different kind from that which
+the good townsfolk were eager to celebrate. Vanity had no part in
+it. For what the outer world thought of his exploits he did not
+care a penny. He was past caring. His soul alone, for its own sore
+needs, had driven him to the search. Before his own soul and not
+before his fellow countrymen, had he craved to parade as a
+recipient of the Victoria Cross. His own soul, as I knew, not
+being satisfied, he would shrink from obtaining popular applause
+under false pretences. No unhappy man ever took sterner measure of
+himself. Of all this no one but myself had the faintest idea. In
+explaining my opinion I had to leave out all essentials. I could
+only hint that a sensitive man like Colonel Boyce might be averse
+from exhibiting in public his physical disabilities; that he had
+always shown himself a modest soldier with a dislike of self-
+advertisement; that he would prefer to seek immediate refuge in
+the quietude of his home. But they would not listen to me. Colonel
+Boyce, they said, would be too patriotic to refuse the town's
+recognition. It was part of the game which he, as a brave soldier,
+no matter how modest, could not fail to play. He would recognise
+that such public honourings of valour had widespread effect among
+the population. In face of such arguments I had to withdraw my
+opposition; otherwise it might have appeared that I was actuated
+by petty personal motives. God knows I only desired to save Boyce
+from undergoing a difficult ordeal. For the same reasons I could
+not refuse to serve on the Reception Committee which was
+immediately formed under the chairmanship of the Mayor.
+
+Preliminaries having been discussed, the Mayor and the Town Clerk
+waited on Boyce in Belton Square, and returned with the triumphant
+tidings that they had succeeded in their mission.
+
+"I can't make out what you were running your head against,
+Duncan," said Sir Anthony. "Of course, as you say, he's a modest
+chap and dislikes publicity. So do we all. But I quickly talked
+him out of that objection. I talked him out of all sorts of
+objections before he could raise them. At last what do you think
+he said?"
+
+"I should have told you to go to blazes and not worry me."
+
+"He didn't. He said--now I like the chap for it, it was so simple
+and honest--he said: 'If I were alone in the world I wouldn't have
+it, for I don't like it. But I'll accept on one condition. My poor
+old mother has had rather a thin time and she's going to have a
+thinner. She never gets a look in. Make it as far as possible her
+show, and I'll do what you like.' What do you think of that?"
+
+"I think it's very characteristic," said I.
+
+And it was. In my mental survey of the situation from Boyce's
+point of view I had not taken into account the best and finest in
+the man. His reason rang true against my exceptional knowledge of
+him. I had worked myself into so sympathetic a comprehension that
+I KNEW he would be facing something unknown and terrible in the
+proposed ceremony; I KNEW that for his own sake he would have
+unequivocably declined. But, ad najorem matris gloriam, he
+assented.
+
+The main question, at any rate, was settled. The hero would accept
+the honour. It was for the Committee to make the necessary
+arrangements. We corresponded far and wide in order to obtain
+municipal precedents. We had interviews with the military and
+railway authorities. We were in constant communication with the
+local Volunteer Training Corps; with the Godbury Volunteers and
+the Godbury School O.T.C., who both desired to take a part in the
+great event. In compliance with the conditions imposed, we gave as
+much publicity as we could to Mrs. Boyce. Lieutenant Colonel
+Boyce, V.C., and Mrs. Boyce were officially associated in the
+programme of the reception. How to disentangle them afterwards,
+when the presentation of the address, engrossed on velluni and
+enclosed in a casket, should be made to the Colonel, was the
+subject of heated and confused discussion. Then the feminine
+elements in town and county desired to rally to the side of Mrs.
+Boyce. The Red Cross and Volunteer Aid Detachment Nurses claimed
+representation. So did the munitions workers of Godbury. The
+Countess of Laleham, the wife of the Lord Lieutenant of the
+County, a most imposing and masterful woman, signified (in genteel
+though incisive language) her intention to take a leading part in
+the proceedings and to bring along her husband, apparently as an
+unofficial ornament. This, of course, upset our plans, which had
+all to be reconsidered from the beginning.
+
+"Who is giving the reception?" cried Lady Fenimore, who could
+stand upon her dignity as well as anybody. "The County or
+Wellingsford? I presume it's Wellingsford, and, so long as I am
+Mayoress, that dreadful Laleham woman will have to take a back
+seat."
+
+So, you see, we had our hands full.
+
+All this time I found Betty curiously elusive. Now and then I met
+her for a few fugitive moments at the hospital. Twice she ran in
+for dinner, in uniform, desperately busy, arriving on the stroke
+of the dinner hour and rushing away five minutes after her coffee
+and cigarette, alleging as excuse the epidemic of influenza,
+consequent on the vile weather, which had woefully reduced the
+hospital staff. She seemed to be feverish and ill at ease, and
+tried to cover the symptoms by a reversion to her old offhand
+manner. As I was so seldom alone with her I could find scant
+opportunity for intimate conversation. I thought that she might
+have regretted the frank exposition of her feelings regarding
+Leonard Boyce. But she showed no sign of it. She spoke in the most
+detached way of his blindness and the coming ceremony. Never once,
+even on the first occasion when I met her--in the hospital
+corridor--after my return from London, did her attitude vary from
+that of any kind-hearted Englishwoman who deplores the mutilation
+of a gallant social acquaintance. Sometimes I wanted to shake her,
+though I could scarcely tell why. I certainly would not have had
+her weep on my shoulder over Boyce's misfortune; nor would I have
+cared for her to exhibit a vindictive callousness. She behaved
+with perfect propriety. Perhaps that is what disturbed me. I was
+not accustomed to associate perfect propriety with my dear Betty.
+
+The days went on. The reception arrangements were perfected. We
+only waited for the date of Boyce's arrival to be fixed. That
+depended on the date of the particular Investiture by the King
+which Boyce's convalescence should allow him to attend. At last
+the date was fixed.
+
+A few days before the Investiture I went to London and called at
+Lady Fanshawe's in Eccleston Street, whither he had been removed
+after leaving the hospital. I was received in the dining-room on
+the ground floor by Boyce and his mother. He wore black glasses to
+hide terrible disfigurement--he lifted them to show me. One eye
+had been extracted. The other was seared and sightless. He greeted
+me as heartily as ever, made little jests over his infirmity,
+treating it lightly for his mother's sake. She, on her side,
+deemed it her duty to exhibit equal cheerfulness. She boasted of
+his progress in self-reliance and in the accomplishment of various
+little blind man's tricks. At her bidding he lit a cigarette for
+my benefit, by means of a patent fuse. He said, when he had
+succeeded:
+
+"Better than the last time you saw me, eh, Meredyth?"
+
+"What was that?" asked Mrs. Boyce.
+
+"He nearly burned his fingers," said I, shortly. I had no desire
+to relate the incident.
+
+We talked of the coming ceremony and I gave them the details of
+the programme. Boyce had been right in accepting on the score of
+his mother. Only once had she been the central figure in any
+public ceremony--on her wedding day, in the years long ago. Here
+was a new kind of wedding day in her old age. The prospect filled
+her with a tremulous joy which was to both of them a compensation.
+She bubbled over with pride and excitement at her inclusion in the
+homage that was to be paid to the valour of her only son.
+
+"After all," she said, "I did bring him into the world. So I can
+claim some credit. I only hope I shan't cry and make a fool of
+myself. They won't expect me to keep on bowing, will they? I once
+saw Queen Victoria driving through the streets, and I thought how
+dreadfully her poor old neck must have ached."
+
+On the latter point I reassured her. On the drive from the station
+Boyce would take the salute of the troops on the line of route. If
+she smiled charmingly on them, their hearts would be satisfied,
+and if she just nodded at them occasionally in a motherly sort of
+way, they would be enchanted. She informed me that she was having
+a new dress made for the occasion. She had also bought a new hat,
+which I must see. A servant was summoned and dispatched for it.
+She tried it on girlishly before the mirror over the mantelpiece,
+and received my compliments.
+
+"Tell me what it looks like," said Boyce.
+
+You might as well ask a savage in Central Africa to describe the
+interior of a submarine as the ordinary man to describe a woman's
+hat. My artless endeavours caused considerable merriment. To hear
+Boyce's gay laughter one would have thought he had never a care in
+the world ...
+
+When I took my leave, Mrs. Boyce accompanied Marigold and myself
+to the front door.
+
+"Did you ever hear of anything so dreadful?" she whispered, and I
+saw her lips quivering and the tears rolling down her cheeks. "If
+he weren't so brave and wonderful, I should break my heart."
+
+"What do you suppose you are yourself, my dear old friend," said I
+over Marigold's shoulder.
+
+I went away greatly comforted. Both of them were as brave as could
+be. For the first time I took a more cheerful view of Boyce's
+future.
+
+On the evening before the Reception Betty was shown into the
+library. It was late, getting on towards my bedtime, and I was
+nodding in front of the fire.
+
+"I'm just in and out, Majy dear," she said. "I had to come. I
+didn't want to give you too many shocks." At my expression of
+alarm, she laughed. "I've only run in to tell you that I've made
+up my mind to come to the Town Hall tomorrow."
+
+I looked at her, and I suppose my hands moved in a slight gesture.
+
+"By that," she said, "I suppose you mean you can never tell what
+I'm going to do next."
+
+"You've guessed it, my dear," said I.
+
+"Do you disapprove?"
+
+"I couldn't be so presumptuous."
+
+She bent over me and caught the lapels of my jacket.
+
+"Oh, don't be so dreadfully dignified. I want you to understand.
+Everybody is going to pay honour to-morrow to a man who has given
+everything he could to his country. Don't you think it would be
+petty of me if I stood out? What have the dead things that have
+passed between us to do with my tribute as an Englishwoman?"
+
+What indeed? I asked her whether she was attending in her private
+capacity or as one of the representatives of the V.A.D. nurses. I
+learned for the thousandth time that Betty Connor did not deal in
+half measures. If she went at all, it was as Betty Connor that she
+would go. Her aunts would accompany her. It was part of the
+municipal ordering of things that the Town Clerk should have sent
+them the special cards of invitation.
+
+"I think it my duty to go," said Betty.
+
+"If you think so, my dear," said I, "then it is your duty. So
+there's nothing more to be said about it."
+
+Betty kissed the top of my head and went off.
+
+We come now to the morning of the great day. Everything had been
+finally settled. The Mayor and Aldermen, Lady Fenimore and the
+Aldermen's wives, the Lord Lieutenant (in unofficial mufti) and
+Lady Laleham (great though officially obscure lady), the General
+of the Division quartered in the neighbourhood and officers of his
+staff, and a few other magnates to meet the three o'clock train by
+which the Boyces were due to arrive. The station hung with flags
+and inscriptions. A guard of honour and a band in the station-
+yard, with a fleet of motor cars in waiting. Troops lining the
+route from station to Town Hall. More troops in the decorated
+Market Square, including the Godbury School O.T.C. and the
+Wellingsford and Godbury Volunteers. I heard that the latter were
+very anxious to fire off a feu de joie, but were restrained owing
+to lack of precedent. The local fire-brigade in freshly burnished
+helmets were to follow the procession of motor cars, and behind
+them motor omnibuses with the nurses.
+
+Marigold, although his attendance on me precluded him from taking
+part in the parade of Volunteers, appeared in full grey uniform
+with all his medals and the black patch of ceremony over his
+eyeless socket. I must confess to regarding him with some
+jealousy. I too should have liked to wear my decorations. If a man
+swears to you that he is free from such little vanities, he is
+more often than not a mere liar. But a broken-down old soldier,
+although still drawing pay from the Government, is not allowed to
+wear uniform (which I think is outrageous), and he can't go and
+plaster himself with medals when he is wearing on his head a hard
+felt hat. My envy of the martial looking Marigold is a proof that
+my mind was not busied with sterner preoccupations. I ate my
+breakfast with the serene conscience not only of a man who knows
+he has done his duty, but of an organiser confident in the success
+of his schemes. The abominable weather of snows and tempests from
+which we had suffered for weeks had undergone a change. It was a
+mild morning brightened by a pale convalescent sort of sun, and
+there was just a little hope of spring in the air. I felt content
+with everything and everybody.
+
+About eleven o'clock the buzz of the library telephone disturbed
+my comfortable perusal of the newspaper. I wheeled towards the
+instrument. Sir Anthony was speaking.
+
+"Can you come round at once? Very urgent. The car is on its way to
+you."
+
+"What's the matter?" I asked.
+
+He could not tell me over the wires. I was to take it that my
+presence was urgently needed.
+
+"I'll come along at once," said I.
+
+Some hitch doubtless had occurred. Perhaps the War Office (whose
+ways were ever weird and unaccountable) had forbidden the General
+to take part in such a village-pump demonstration. Perhaps Lady
+Laleham had insisted on her husband coming down like a uniformed
+Lord Lieutenant on the fold. Perhaps the hero himself was laid up
+with measles.
+
+With the lightest heart I drove to Wellings Park. Marigold,
+straight as a ramrod, sitting in front by the chauffeur. As soon
+as Pardoe, the butler, had brought out my chair and Marigold had
+settled me in it, Sir Anthony, very red and flustered, appeared
+and, shaking me nervously by the hand, said without preliminary
+greeting:
+
+"Come into the library."
+
+He, I think, had come from the morning room on the right of the
+hall. The library was on the left. He flung open the door. I
+steered myself into the room; and there, standing on the white
+bearskin hearthrug, his back to the fire, his hands in his
+pockets, his six inches of stiff white beard stuck aggressively
+outward, I saw Daniel Gedge.
+
+While I gaped in astonishment, Sir Anthony shut the door behind
+him, drew a straight-backed chair from the wall, planted it
+roughly some distance away from the fire, and, pointing to it,
+bade Gedge sit down. Gedge obeyed. Sir Anthony took the hearthrug
+position, his hands behind his back, his legs apart.
+
+"This man," said he, "has come to me with a ridiculous, beastly
+story. At first I was undecided whether I should listen to him or
+kick him out. I thought it wiser to listen to him in the presence
+of a reputable witness. That's why I've sent for you, Duncan. Now
+you just begin all over again, my man," said he, turning to Gedge,
+"and remember that anything you say here will be used against you
+at your trial."
+
+Gedge laughed--I must admit, with some justification.
+
+"You forget, Sir Anthony, I'm not a criminal and you're not a
+policeman."
+
+"I'm the Mayor to this town, sir," cried Sir Anthony. "I'm also a
+Justice of the Peace."
+
+"And I'm a law-abiding citizen," retorted Gedge.
+
+"You're an infernal socialistic pro-German," exclaimed Sir
+Anthony.
+
+"Prove it. I only ask you to prove it. No matter what my private
+opinions may be, you just try to bring me up under the Defence of
+the Realm Act, and you'll find you can't touch me."
+
+I held out a hand. "Forgive me for interrupting," said I, "but
+what is all this discussion about?"
+
+Gedge crossed one leg over the other and drew his beard through
+his fingers. Sir Anthony was about to burst into speech, but I
+checked him with a gesture and turned to Gedge.
+
+"It has nothing to do with political opinions," said he. "It has
+to do with the death, nearly two years ago, of Miss Althea
+Fenimore, Sir Anthony's only daughter."
+
+Sir Anthony, his face congested, glared at him malevolently. I
+started, with a gasp of surprise, and stared at the man who,
+caressing his beard, looked from one to the other of us with an
+air of satisfaction.
+
+"Get on," said Sir Anthony.
+
+"You are going to give a civic reception to-day to Colonel Boyce,
+V.C., aren't you?"
+
+"Yes, I am," snapped Sir Anthony.
+
+"Do you think you ought to do it when I tell you that Colonel
+Boyce, V.C., murdered Miss Althea Fenimore on the night of the
+25th June, two years ago?"
+
+"Yes," said Sir Anthony. "And do you know why? Because I know you
+to be a liar and a scoundrel."
+
+I can never describe the awful horror that numbed me to the heart.
+For a few moments my body seemed as lifeless as my legs. The
+charge, astounding almost to grotesqueness in the eyes of Sir
+Anthony, and rousing him to mere wrath, deprived me of the power
+of speech. For I knew, in that dreadful instant, that the man's
+words contained some elements of truth.
+
+All the pieces of the puzzle that had worried me at odd times for
+months fitted themselves together in a vivid flash. Boyce and
+Althea! I had never dreamed of associating their names. That
+association was the key of the puzzle. Out of the darkness
+disturbing things shone clear. Boyce's abrupt retirement from
+Wellingsford before the war; his cancellation by default of his
+engagement; his morbid desire, a year ago, to keep secret his
+presence in his own house; Gedge's veiled threat to me in the
+street to use a way "that'll knock all you great people of
+Wellingsford off your high horses;" his extraordinary interview
+with Boyce; his generally expressed hatred of Boyce. Was this too
+the secret which he let out in his cups to Randall Holmes and
+which drove the young man from his society? And Betty? Boyce was a
+devil. She wished he were dead. And her words: "You have behaved
+worse to others. I don't wonder at your shrinking from showing
+your face here." How much did Betty know? There was the lost week
+--in Carlisle?--in poor Althea's life. And then there were Boyce's
+half confessions, the glimpses he had afforded me into the
+tormented soul. To me he had condemned himself out of his own
+mouth.
+
+I repeat that, sitting there paralysed by the sudden shock of it,
+I knew--not that the man was speaking the literal truth--God
+forbid!--but that Boyce was, in some degree, responsible for
+Althea's death.
+
+ "Calling me names won't alter the facts, Sir Anthony," said
+Gedge, with a touch of insolence. "I was there at the time. I saw
+it."
+
+"If that's true," Sir Anthony retorted, "you're an accessory after
+the fact, and in greater danger of being hanged than ever." He
+turned to me in his abrupt way. "Now that we've heard this
+blackguard, shall we hand him over to the police?"
+
+Being directly addressed, I recovered my nerve.
+
+"Before doing that," said I, "perhaps it would be best for us to
+hear what kind of a story he has to tell us. We should also like
+to know his motives in not denouncing the supposed murderer at
+once, and in keeping his knowledge hidden all this time."
+
+"With regard to the last part of your remarks, I dare say you
+would," said Gedge. "Only I don't know whether I'll go so far as
+to oblige you. Anyhow you may have discovered that I don't
+particularly care about your class. I've been preaching against
+your idleness and vanity and vices, and the strangling grip you
+have on the throats of the people, ever since I was a young man.
+If one of your lot chose to do in another of your lot--a common
+story of seduction and crime--"
+
+At this slur in his daughter's honour Sir Anthony broke out
+fiercely, and, for a moment, I feared lest he would throw himself
+on Gedge and wring his neck. I managed to check his outburst and
+bring him to reason. He resumed his attitude on the hearthrug.
+
+"As I was saying," Gedge continued, rather frightened, "from my
+sociological point of view I considered the affair no business of
+mine. I speak of it now, because ever since war broke out your
+class and the parasitical bourgeoisie have done your best to
+reduce me to starvation. I thought it would be pleasant to get a
+bit of my own back. Just a little bit," he added, rubbing his
+hands.
+
+"If you think you've done it, you'll find yourself mistaken."
+
+Gedge shrugged his shoulders and pulled his beard. I hated the
+light in his little crafty eyes. I feel sure he had been looking
+forward for months to this moment of pure happiness.
+
+"Having given us an insight into your motives, which seem
+consistent with what we know of your character," said I,
+judicially, "will you now make your statement of facts?"
+
+"What's the good of listening further to his lies?" interrupted
+Sir Anthony. "I'm a magistrate. I can give the police at once a
+warrant for his arrest."
+
+Again I pacified him. "Let us hear what the man has to say."
+
+Gedge began. He spoke by the book, like one who repeats a
+statement carefully prepared.
+
+"It was past ten o'clock on the night of the 25th June, 1914. I
+had just finished supper when I was rung up by the landlord of The
+Three Feathers on the Farfield road--it's the inn about a quarter
+of a mile from the lock gates. He said that the District Secretary
+of the Red Democratic Federation was staying there--his brother-
+in-law, if you want to know--and he hadn't received my report. I
+must explain that I am the local secretary, and as there was to be
+an important conference of the Federation at Derby the next day,
+the District Secretary ought to have been in possession of my
+report on local affairs. I had drawn up the report. My daughter
+Phyllis had typed it, and she ought to have posted it. On
+questioning her, I found she had neglected to do so. I explained
+this over the wires and said I would bring the report at once to
+The Three Feathers. I only tell you all this, in which you can't
+be interested, so that you can't say: 'What were you doing on a
+lonely road at that time of night?' My daughter and the landlord
+of The Three Feathers can corroborate this part of my story. I set
+out on my bicycle. It was bright moonlight. You know that for
+about two hundred yards before the lock gate, and for about twenty
+after, the towing-path is raised above the level of the main road
+which runs parallel with it a few yards away. There are strips of
+market garden between. When I got to this open bit I saw two
+persons up on the towing-path. One was a girl with a loose kind of
+cloak and a hat. The other was a man wearing a soft felt hat and a
+light overcoat. The overcoat was open and I saw that he was
+wearing it over evening dress. That caught my attention. What was
+this swell in evening dress doing there with a girl? I slowed down
+and dismounted. They didn't see me. I got into the shadow of a
+whitethorn. They turned their faces so that the moon beat full on
+them. I saw them as plain as I see you. They were Colonel Boyce,
+V.C.,--Major then--and your daughter, Mr. Mayor, Miss Althea
+Fenimore."
+
+He paused as though to point the dramatic effect, and twisted
+round, sticking out his horrible beard at Sir Anthony. Sir
+Anthony, his hands thrust deep in his trouser-pockets and his
+bullet head bent forward, glared at him balefully out of his old
+blue eyes. But he said never a word. Gedge continued.
+
+"They didn't speak very loud, so I could only hear a scrap or two
+of their conversation. They seemed to be quarrelling--she wanted
+him to do something which he wouldn't do. I heard the words
+'marriage' and 'disgrace.' They stood still for a moment. Then
+they turned back. I had overtaken them, you know. I remounted my
+bicycle and rode to The Three Feathers. I was there about a
+quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. Then I rode back for home.
+When I came in sight of the lock, there I saw a man standing
+alone, sharp in the moonlight. As I came nearer I recognised the
+same man, Major Boyce. There were no lights in the lock-keeper's
+cottage. He and his wife had gone to bed long before. I was so
+interested that I forgot what I was doing and ran into the hedge
+so that I nearly came down. There was the noise of the scrape and
+drag of the machine which must have sounded very loud in the
+stillness. It startled him, for he looked all round, but he didn't
+see me, for I was under the hedge. Then suddenly he started
+running. He ran as if the devil was after him. I saw him squash
+down his Trilby hat so that it was shapeless. Then he disappeared
+along the path. I thought this a queer proceeding. Why should he
+have taken to his heels? I thought I should like to see him again.
+If he kept to the towing-path, his shortest way home, he was bound
+to go along the Chestnut Avenue, where, as you know, the road and
+the path again come together. On a bicycle it was easy to get
+there before him. I sat down on a bench and waited. Presently he
+comes, walking fast, his hat still squashed in all over his ears.
+I walked my bicycle slap in front of him.
+
+"'Good-night, Major,' I said.
+
+"He stared at me as if he didn't know me. Then he seemed to pull
+himself together and said: 'Good-night, Gedge. What are you doing
+out at this time of night?'
+
+"'If it comes to that, sir,' said I, 'what are you?'
+
+"Then he says, very haughty, as if I was the dirt under his feet--
+I suppose, Sir Anthony Fenimore and Major Meredyth, you think that
+me and my class are by divine prescription the dirt beneath your
+feet, but you're damn well mistaken--then he says: 'What the devil
+do you mean?' and catches hold of the front wheel of the bicycle
+and swings it and me out of his way so that I had a nasty fall,
+with the machine on top of me, and he marches off. I picked myself
+up furious with anger. I am an elderly man and not accustomed to
+that sort of treatment. I yelled out: 'What have you been doing
+with the Squire's daughter on the towing-path?' It pulled him up
+short. He made a step or two towards me, and again he asked me
+what I meant. And this time I told him. He called me a liar, swore
+he had never been on any tow-path or had seen any squire's
+daughter, and threatened to murder me. As soon as I could mount my
+bicycle I left him and made for home. The next afternoon, if you
+remember, the unfortunate young lady's body was found at the
+bottom of three fathoms of water by the lock gates."
+
+He had spoken so clearly, so unfalteringly, that Sir Anthony had
+been surprised into listening without interruption. The bull-dog
+expression on his face never changed. When Gedge had come to the
+end, he said:
+
+"Will you again tell me your object in coming to me with this
+disgusting story?"
+
+Gedge lifted his bushy eyebrows. "Don't you believe it even now?"
+
+"Not a word of it," replied Sir Anthony.
+
+"I ought to remind you of another point." said Gedge. "Was Major
+Boyce ever seen in Wellingsford after that night? No. He went off
+by the first train the next morning. Went abroad and stayed there
+till the outbreak of war."
+
+"I happen to know he had made arrangements to start for Norway
+that morning," said Sir Anthony. "He had called here a day or two
+before to say good-bye."
+
+"Did he write you any letter of condolence?" Gedge asked
+sneeringly.
+
+I saw a sudden spasm pass over Sir Anthony's features. But he said
+in the same tone as before:
+
+"I am not going to answer insolent questions."
+
+Gedge turned to me with the air of a man giving up argument with a
+child.
+
+"What do you think of it, Major Meredyth?"
+
+What could I say? I had kept a grim iron face all through the
+proceedings. I could only reply:
+
+"I agree entirely with Sir Anthony."
+
+Gedge rose and thrust his hand into his jacket pocket. "You
+gentlemen are hard to convince. If you want proof positive, just
+read that." And he held a letter out to Sir Anthony.
+
+Sir Anthony glared at him and abruptly plucked the letter out of
+his hand; for the fraction of a second he stood irresolute; then
+he threw it behind him into the blazing fire.
+
+"Do you think I'm going to soil my mind with your dirty
+forgeries?"
+
+Gedge laughed. "You think you've queered my pitch, I suppose. You
+haven't. I've heaps more incriminating letters. That was only a
+sample."
+
+"Publish one of them at your peril," said I.
+
+"Pray, Mister Major Meredyth," said he, "what is to prevent me?"
+
+"Penal servitude for malicious slander."
+
+"I should win my case."
+
+"In that event they would get you, on your own showing, for being
+an accessory after the fact of murder, and for blackmail."
+
+"Suppose I risk it?"
+
+"You won't," said I.
+
+Sir Anthony turned to the bell-push by the side of the
+mantelpiece.
+
+"What's the good of talking to this double-dyed scoundrel?" He
+pointed to the door. "You infamous liar, get out. And if I ever
+catch you prowling round this house, I'll set the dogs on you."
+
+Gedge marched to the door and turned on the threshold and shook
+his fist.
+
+"You'll repent your folly till your dying day!"
+
+"To Hell with you," cried Sir Anthony.
+
+The door slammed. We were left alone. An avalanche of silence
+overwhelmed us. Heaven knows how long we remained speechless and
+motionless--I in my wheel-chair, he standing on the hearthrug
+staring awfully in front of him. At last he drew a deep breath and
+threw up his arms and flung himself down on a leather-covered
+couch, where he sat, elbows on knees and his head in his hands.
+After a while he lifted a drawn face.
+
+"It's true, Duncan," said he, "and you know it."
+
+"I don't know it," I replied stoutly, "any more than you do."
+
+He rose in his nervous way and came swiftly to me and clapped both
+his hands on my frail shoulders and bent over me--he was a little
+man, as I have told you--and put his face so close to mine that I
+could feel his breath on my cheek.
+
+"Upon your soul as a Christian you know that man wasn't lying."
+
+I looked into his eyes--about six inches from mine.
+
+"Boyce never murdered Althea," I said.
+
+"But he is the man--the man I've been looking for."
+
+I pushed him away with both hands, using all my strength. It was
+too horrible.
+
+"Suppose he is. What then?"
+
+He fell back a pace or two. "Once I remember saying: 'If ever I
+get hold of that man--God help him!'"
+
+He clenched his fists and started to pace up and down the library,
+passing and repassing my chair. At last my nerves could stand it
+no longer and I called on him to halt.
+
+"Gedge's story is curiously incomplete," said I. "We ought to have
+crossexamined him more closely. Is it likely that Boyce should
+have gone off leaving behind him a witness of his crime whom he
+had threatened to murder, and who he must have known would have
+given information as soon as the death was discovered? And don't
+you think Gedge's reason for holding his tongue very unconvincing?
+His fool hatred of our class, instead of keeping him cynically
+indifferent, would have made him lodge information at once and
+gloat over our discomfiture."
+
+I could not choose but come to the defence of the unhappy man whom
+I had learned to call my friend, although, for all my trying, I
+could conjure up no doubt as to his intimate relation with the
+tragedy. As Sir Anthony did not speak, I went on.
+
+"You can't judge a man with Leonard Boyce's record on the EX PARTE
+statement of a malevolent beast like Gedge. Look back. If there
+had been any affair between Althea and Boyce, the merest foolish
+flirtation, even, do you think it would have passed unnoticed?
+You, Edith, Betty--I myself--would have cast an uneasy eye. When
+we were looking about, some months ago, at the time of your
+sister-in-law's visit, for a possible man, the thought of Leonard
+Boyce never entered our heads. The only man you could rush at was
+young Randall Holmes, and I laughed you out of the idea. Just
+throw your mind back, Anthony, and try to recall any suspicious
+incident. You can't."
+
+I paused rhetorically, expecting a reply. None came. He just sat
+looking at me in a dead way. I continued my special pleading; and
+the more I said, the more was I baffled by his dead stare and the
+more unconvincing platitudes did I find myself uttering. Some
+people may be able to speak vividly to a deaf and dumb creature.
+On this occasion I tried hard to do so, and failed. After a while
+my words dribbled out with difficulty and eventually ceased. At
+last he spoke, in the dull, toneless way of a dead man--presuming
+that the dead could speak:
+
+"You may talk till you're black in the face, but you know as well
+as I do that the man told the truth--or practically the truth.
+What he said he saw, he saw. What motives have been at the back of
+his miserable mind, I don't know. You say I can't recall
+suspicious incidents. I can. I'll tell you one. I came across them
+once--about a month before the thing happened--among the
+greenhouses. I think we were having one of our tennis parties. I
+heard her using angry words, and when I appeared her face was
+flushed and there were tears in her eyes. She was taken aback for
+a second and then she rushed up to me. 'I think he's perfectly
+horrid. He says that Jingo--' pointing to the dog; you remember
+Jingo the Sealingham--she was devoted to him--he died last year--
+'He says that Jingo is a mongrel--a throw back.' Boyce said he
+was only teasing her and made pretty apologies. I left it at that.
+Hit a dog or a horse belonging to Althea, and you hit Althea. That
+was her way. The incident went out of my mind till this morning.
+Other incidents, too. One thinks pretty quick at times. Again,
+this scoundrel hit me on the raw. Boyce never wrote to us. Sent us
+through his mother a conventional word of condolence. Edith and I
+were hurt. That was one of the things that made me speak so
+angrily of him when he wouldn't come and dine with us."
+
+Once more I pleaded. "Your Sealingham incident doesn't impress me.
+Why not take it at its face value? As for the letter of
+condolence, that may have twenty explanations."
+
+He passed his hand over his cropped iron-grey head. "What are you
+driving at, Duncan? You know as well as I do--you know more than I
+do. I saw it in your face ever since that man opened his mouth."
+
+"If you're so sure of everything," said I foolishly, relaxing grip
+on my self-control, "why did you hound him out of the place for a
+liar?"
+
+He leaped to his feet and spread himself into a fighting attitude,
+for all the world like a half-dead bantam cock springing into a
+new lease of combative life.
+
+"Do you think I'd let a dunghill beast like that crow over me? Do
+you think I'd let him imagine for a minute that anything he said
+could influence me in my public duty? By God, sir, what kind of a
+worm do you think I am?"
+
+His sudden fury disconcerted me. All this time I had been
+wondering what kind of catastrophe was going to happen during the
+next few hours. I am afraid I haven't made clear to you the
+ghastly racket in my brain. There was the town all beflagged,
+everyone making holiday, all the pomp and circumstance at our
+disposal awaiting the signal to be displayed. There was the blind
+conquering hero almost on his way to local apotheosis. And here
+were Sir Anthony and I with the revelation of the man Gedge. It
+was a fantastic, baffling situation. I had been haunted by the
+dread of discussing it. So in reply to his outburst I simply said:
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+He drew himself up, with his obstinate chin in the air, and looked
+at me straight.
+
+"If God gives me strength, I am going to do what lies before me."
+
+At this moment Lady Fenimore came in.
+
+"Mr. Winterbotham would like to speak to you a minute, Anthony.
+It's something about the school children."
+
+"All right, my dear. I'll go to him at once," said Sir Anthony.
+"You'll stay and lunch with us, Duncan?"
+
+I declined on the plea that I should have to nurse myself for a
+strenuous day. Sir Anthony might play the Roman father, but it was
+beyond my power to play the Roman father's guest.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+How he passed through the ordeal I don't know. If ever a man stood
+captain of his soul, it was Anthony Fenimore that day. And his
+soul was steel-armoured. Perhaps, if proof had come to him from an
+untainted source, it might have modified his attitude. I cannot
+tell. Without doubt the knavery of Gedge set aflame his
+indignation--or rather the fierce pride of the great old Tory
+gentleman. He would have walked through hell-fire sooner than
+yielded an inch to Gedge. So much would scornful defiance have
+done. But behind all this--and I am as certain of it as I am
+certain that one day I shall die--burned even fiercer, steadier,
+and clearer the unquenchable fire of patriotic duty. He was
+dealing not with a man who had sinned terribly towards him, but
+with a man who had offered his life over and over again to his
+country, a man who had given to his country the sight of his eyes,
+a man on whose breast the King himself had pinned the supreme
+badge of honour in his gift. He was dealing, not with a private
+individual, but with a national hero. In his small official
+capacity as Mayor of Wellingsford, he was but the mouthpiece of a
+national sentiment. And more than that. This ceremony was an
+appeal to the unimaginative, the sluggish, the faint-hearted. In
+its little way--and please remember that all tremendous
+enthusiasms are fit by these little fires--it was a proclamation
+of the undying glory of England. It was impersonal, it was
+national, it was Imperial. In its little way it was of vast, far-
+reaching importance.
+
+I want you to remember these things in order that you should
+understand the mental processes, or soul processes, or whatever
+you like, of Sir Anthony Fenimore. Picture him. The most unheroic
+little man you can imagine. Clean-shaven, bullet-headed, close-
+cropped, his face ruddy and wrinkled like a withered apple, his
+eyes a misty blue, his big nose marked like a network of veins,
+his hands glazed and reddened, like his face, by wind and weather;
+standing, even under his mayoral robes, like a jockey. Of course
+he had the undefinable air of breeding; no one could have mistaken
+his class. But he was an undistinguished, very ordinary looking
+little man; and indeed he had done nothing for the past half
+century to distinguish himself above his fellows. There are
+thousands of his type, masters of English country houses. And of
+all the thousands, every one brought up against the stern issues
+of life would have acted like Anthony Fenimore. I say "would have
+acted," but anyone who has lived in England during the war knows
+that they have so acted. These incarnations of the commonplace,
+the object of the disdain, before the war, of the self-styled
+"intellectuals"--if the war sweeps the insufferable term into
+oblivion it will have done some good--these honest unassuming
+gentlemen have responded heroically to the great appeal; and when
+the intellectuals have thought of their intellects or their skins,
+they have thought only of their duty. And it was only the heroical
+sense of duty that sustained Sir Anthony Fenimore that day.
+
+I did not see the reception at the Railway Station or join the
+triumphal procession; but went early to the Town Hall and took my
+seat on the platform. I glibly say "took my seat." A wheel-chair,
+sent there previously, was hoisted, with me inside, on to the
+platform by Marigold and a porter. After all these years, I still
+hate to be publicly paraded, like a grizzled baby, in Marigold's
+arms. For convenience' sake I was posted at the front left-hand
+corner. The hall soon filled. The first three rows of seats were
+reserved for the recipients of the municipality's special
+invitation; the remainder were occupied by the successful
+applicants for tickets. From my almost solitary perch I watched
+the fluttering and excited crowd. The town band in the organ
+gallery at the further end discoursed martial music. From the main
+door beneath them ran the central gangway to the platform. I
+recognised many friends. In the front row with her two aunts sat
+Betty, very demure in her widow's hat relieved by its little white
+band of frilly stuff beneath the brim. She looked unusually pale.
+I could not help watching her intently and trying to divine how
+much she knew of the story of Boyce and Althea. She caught my eye,
+nodded, and smiled wanly.
+
+My situation was uncanny. In this crowded assemblage in front of
+me, whispering, talking, laughing beneath the blare of the band,
+not one, save Betty, had a suspicion of the tragedy. At times they
+seemed to melt into a shadow-mass of dreamland .... Time crawled
+on very slowly. Anxious forebodings oppressed me. Had Sir
+Anthony's valiancy stood the test? Had he been able to shake hands
+with his daughter's betrayer? Had he broken down during the drive
+side by side with him, amid the hooraying of the townsfolk? And
+Gedge? Had he found some madman's means of proclaiming the scandal
+aloud? Every nerve in my body was strained. Marigold, in his
+uniform and medals and patch and grey service cap plugged over his
+black wig, stood sentry by the side of the platform next my chair.
+All of a sudden he pulled out of his side pocket a phial of red
+liqueur in a medicine glass. He poured out the dose and handed it
+to me. turned on him wrathfully.
+
+"What the dickens is that?"
+
+"Dr. Cliffe's orders, sir."
+
+"When did he order it?"
+
+"When I told him what you looked like after interviewing Mister
+Daniel Gedge. And he said, if you was to look like that again I
+was to give you this. So I'm giving it to you, sir."
+
+There was no arguing with Marigold in front of a thousand people.
+I swallowed the stuff quickly. He put the phial and glass back in
+his pocket and resumed his wooden sentry attitude by my chair. I
+must own to feeling better for the draught. But, thought I, if the
+strain of the situation is so great for me, what must it be for
+Sir Anthony?
+
+Presently the muffled sounds of outside cheering penetrated the
+hall. The band stopped abruptly, to begin again with "See the
+Conquering Hero Comes" when the civic procession appeared through
+the great doors. There was little Sir Anthony in his robes, grave
+and imposing, and beside him Mrs. Boyce, flushed, bright-eyed, and
+tearful. Then came Lady Fenimore with Boyce, black-spectacled,
+soldierly, bull-necked, his little bronze cross conspicuous among
+the medals on his breast, his elbow gripped by a weatherbeaten
+young soldier, one of his captains, as I learned afterwards, home
+on leave, who had claimed the privilege of guiding his blind
+footsteps. And behind came the Aldermen and the Councillors, and
+the General and his staff, and the Lord Lieutenant and Lady
+Laleham and the other members of the Reception Committee. The
+cheering drowned the strains of the "Conquering Hero." Places were
+taken on the platform. To the right of the Mayor sat Boyce, to the
+left his mother. On the table in front were set scrolls and
+caskets. You see, we had arranged that Mrs. Boyce should have an
+address and a casket all to herself. The gallery soon was
+picturesquely filled with the nurses, and the fire-brigade,
+bright-helmeted, was massed in the doorway.
+
+God gave the steel-hearted little man strength to go through the
+ordeal. He delivered his carefully prepared oration in a voice
+that never faltered. The passages referring to Boyce's blindness
+he spoke with an accent of amazing sincerity. When he had ended
+the responsive audience applauded tumultuously. From my seat by
+the edge of the platform I watched Betty. Two red spots burned in
+her cheeks. The addresses were read, the caskets presented. Boyce
+remained standing, about to respond. He still held the casket in
+both hands. His FIDUS ACHATES, guessing his difficulty, sprang up,
+took it from him, and laid it on the table. Boyce turned to him
+with his charming smile and said: "Thanks, old man." Again the
+tumult broke out. Men cheered and women wept and waved wet
+handkerchiefs. And he stood smiling at his unseen audience. When
+he spoke, his deep, beautifully modulated voice held everyone
+under its spell, and he spoke modestly and gaily like a brave
+gentleman. I bent forward, as far as I was able, and scanned his
+face. Never once, during the whole ceremony, did the tell-tale
+twitch appear at the corners of his lips. He stood there the
+incarnation of the modern knights sans fear and sans reproach.
+
+I cannot tell which of the two, he or Sir Anthony, the more moved
+my wondering admiration. Each exhibited a glorious defiance.
+
+You may say that Boyce, receiving in his debonair fashion the
+encomiums of the man whom he had wronged, was merely exhibiting
+the familiar callousness of the criminal. If you do, I throw up my
+brief. I shall have failed utterly to accomplish my object in
+writing this book. I want no tears of sensibility shed over Boyce.
+I want you to judge him by the evidence that I am trying to put
+before you. If you judge him as a criminal, it is my poor
+presentation of the evidence that is at fault. I claim for Boyce a
+certain splendour of character, for all his grievous sins, a
+splendour which no criminal in the world's history has ever
+achieved. I beg you therefore to suspend your judgment, until I
+have finished, as far as my poor powers allow, my unravelling of
+his tangled skein. And pray remember too that I have sought all
+through to present you with the facts PARI PASSU with my knowledge
+of them. I have tried to tell the story through myself. I could
+think of no other way of creating an essential verisimilitude.
+Yet, even now, writing in the light of full knowledge, I cannot
+admit that, when Boyce in that Town Hall faced the world--for, in
+the deep tragic sense Wellingsford was his world--anyone knowing
+as much as I did would have been justified in calling his
+demeanour criminal callousness.
+
+I say that he exhibited a glorious defiance. He defied the
+concrete Gedge. He defied the more abstract, but none the less
+real, tormenting Furies. He defied remorse. In accepting Sir
+Anthony's praise he defied the craven in his own soul.
+
+After a speech or two more, to which I did not listen, the
+proceedings in the Town Hall ended. I drew a breath of relief. No
+breakdown by Sir Anthony, no scandalous interruption by Gedge, had
+marred the impressive ceremony. The band in the gallery played
+"God Save the King." The crowd in the body of the hall, who had
+stood for the anthem, sat down again, evidently waiting for Boyce
+and the notables to pass out. The assemblage on the platform broke
+up. Several members, among them the General, who paused to shake
+hands with Boyce and his mother, left the hall by the private side
+door. The Lord Lieutenant and Lady Laleham followed him soon
+afterwards. Then the less magnificent crowded round Boyce, each
+eager for a personal exchange of words with the hero. Sir Anthony
+remained at his post, keeping on the outskirts of the throng,
+bidding formal adieux to those who went away. Presently I saw that
+Boyce was asking for me, for someone pointed me out to his officer
+attendant, who led him down the steps of the platform and round
+the edge to my seat.
+
+"Well, it has gone off all right," said he. "Let me introduce
+Captain Winslow, more than ever my right-hand man--Major
+Meredyth."
+
+We exchanged bows.
+
+"The old mother's as pleased as Punch. She didn't know she was
+going to get a little box of her own. I should like to have seen
+her face. I did hear her give one of her little squeals. Did you?"
+
+"No," said I, "but I saw her face. It was that of a saint in an
+unexpected beatitude."
+
+He laughed. "Dear old mother," said he. "She has deserved a show."
+He turned away unconsciously, and, thinking to address me,
+addressed the first row of spectators. "I suppose there's a lot of
+folks here that I know."
+
+By chance he seemed to be looking through his black glasses
+straight at Betty a few feet away. She rose impulsively and,
+before all Wellingsford, went up to him with hand outstretched.
+
+"There's one at any rate, Colonel Boyce. I'm Betty Connor--"
+
+"No need to tell me that," said he, bowing.
+
+Winslow, at his elbow, most scrupulous of prompters, whispered:
+
+"She wants to shake hands with you."
+
+So their hands met. He kept hers an appreciable second or two in
+his grasp.
+
+"I hope you will accept my congratulations," said Betty.
+
+"I have already accepted them, very gratefully. My mother conveyed
+them to me. She was deeply touched by your letter. And may I, too,
+say how deeply touched I am by your coming here?"
+
+Betty looked swiftly round and her cheeks flushed, for there were
+many of us within earshot. She laughed off her embarrassment.
+
+"You have developed from a man into a Wellingsford Institution,
+and I had to come and see you inaugurated. My aunts, too, are
+here." She beckoned to them. "They are shyer than I am."
+
+The elderly ladies came forward and spoke their pleasant words of
+congratulation. Mrs. Holmes and others, encouraged, followed their
+example. Mrs. Boyce suddenly swooped from the platform into the
+middle of the group and kissed Betty, who emerged from the excited
+lady's embrace blushing furiously. She shook hands with Betty's
+aunts and thanked them for their presence; and in the old lady's
+mind the reconciliation of the two houses was complete. Then, with
+cheeks of a more delicate natural pink than any living
+valetudinarian of her age could boast of, and with glistening
+eyes, she made her way to me, and reaching up and drawing me down,
+kissed me, too.
+
+While all this was going on, the body of the hall began to empty.
+The programme had arranged for nothing more by way of ceremonial
+to take place. But a public gathering always hopes for something
+unexpected, and, when it does not happen, takes its disappointment
+philosophically. I think Betty's action must have shown them that
+the rest of the proceedings were to be purely private and
+informal.
+
+The platform also gradually thinned, until at last, looking round,
+I saw that only Sir Anthony and Lady Fenimore and Winterbotham,
+the Town Clerk, remained. Then Lady Fenimore joined us. We were
+about a score, myself perched on the edge and corner of the
+platform, the rest standing on the floor of the hall in a sector
+round me, Marigold, of course, in the middle of them by my side,
+like an ill-graven image. As soon as she could Lady Fenimore came
+up to me.
+
+"Don't you think it splendid of Betty Connor to bury the hatchet
+so publicly?" she whispered.
+
+"The war," said I, "is a solvent of many human complications."
+
+"It is indeed." Then she added: "I am going to have a little
+dinner party some time soon for the Boyces. I sounded him to-day
+and he practically promised. I'll ask the Lalehams. Of course
+you'll come. Now that things have shown themselves so topsy-turvy
+I've been wondering whether I should ask Betty."
+
+"Does Anthony know of this dinner party?" I enquired.
+
+"What does it matter whether he does or not?" she laughed. "Dinner
+parties come within my province and I'm mistress of it."
+
+Of course Boyce had half promised. What else could he do without
+discourtesy? But the banquet which, in her unsuspecting innocence
+she proposed, seemed to me a horrible meal. Doubtless it would
+seem so to Sir Anthony. At the moment I did not know whether he
+intended to tell Gedge's story to his wife. At any rate, hitherto,
+he had not done so.
+
+"All the same, my dear Edith," I replied, "Anthony may have a word
+to say. I happen to know he has no particular personal friendship
+for Boyce, who, if you'll forgive my saying so, has treated you
+rather cavalierly for the past two years. Anthony's welcome to-day
+was purely public and official. It had nothing to do with his
+private feelings."
+
+"But they have changed. He was referring to the matter only this
+morning at breakfast and suggesting things we could do to lighten
+the poor man's affliction."
+
+"I don't think a dinner party would lighten it," I said. "And if I
+were you, I wouldn't suggest it to Anthony."
+
+"That's rather mysterious." She looked at me shrewdly. "And
+there's another mysterious thing. Anthony's like a yapping sphinx
+over it. What were you two talking to Gedge about this morning?"
+"Nothing particular."
+
+"That's nonsense, Duncan. Gedge was making himself unpleasant. He
+never does anything else."
+
+"If you want to know," said I, with a convulsive effort of
+invention, "we heard that he was preparing some sort of
+demonstration, going to bring down some of his precious anti-war-
+league people."
+
+"He wouldn't have the pluck," she exclaimed.
+
+"Anyhow," said I, "we thought we had better have him in and read
+him the Riot--or rather the Defence of the Realm--Act. That's
+all."
+
+"Then why on earth couldn't Anthony tell me?"
+
+"You ought to know the mixture of sugar and pepper in your
+husband's nature better than I do, my dear Edith," I replied.
+
+Her laugh reassured me. I had turned a difficult corner. No doubt
+she would go to Sir Anthony with my explanation and either receive
+his acquiescence or learn the real truth.
+
+She was bidding me farewell when Sir Anthony came along the
+platform to the chair. I glanced up, but I saw that he did not
+wish to speak to me. He was looking grim and tired. He called down
+to his wife:
+
+"It's time to move, dear. The troops are still standing outside."
+
+She bustled about giving the signal for departure, first running
+to Boyce and taking him by the sleeve. I had not noticed that he
+had withdrawn with Betty a few feet away from the little group.
+They were interrupted in an animated conversation. At the sight I
+felt a keen pang of repulsion. Those two ought not to talk
+together as old friends. It outraged decencies. It was all very
+well for Betty to play the magnanimous and patriotic Englishwoman.
+By her first word of welcome she had fulfilled the part. But this
+flushed, eager talk lay far beyond the scope of patriotic duty.
+How could they thus converse over the body of the dead Althea?
+With both of them was I indignant.
+
+In my inmost heart I felt horribly and vulgarly jealous. I may as
+well confess it. Deeply as I had sworn blood-brotherhood with
+Boyce, regardless of the crimes he might or might not have
+committed, I could not admit him into that inner brotherhood of
+which Betty and I alone were members. And this is just a
+roundabout, shame-faced way of saying that, at that moment, I
+discovered that I was hopelessly, insanely in love with Betty. The
+knowledge came to me in a great wave of dismay.
+
+"You'll let me see you again, won't you?" he asked.
+
+"If you like."
+
+I don't think I heard the words, but I traced them on their lips.
+They parted. Sir Anthony descended from the platform and gave his
+arm to Mrs. Boyce. Lady Fenimore still clung to Boyce.
+Winterbotham came next, bearing the two caskets, which had been
+lying neglected on the table. The sparse company followed down the
+empty hall. Marigold signalled to the porter and they hoisted down
+my chair. Betty, who had lingered during the operation, walked by
+my side. Being able now to propel myself, I dismissed Marigold to
+a discreet position in the rear. Betty, her face still slightly
+flushed, said:
+
+"I'm waiting for congratulations which seem to be about as
+overwhelming as snow in August. Don't you think I've been
+extraordinarily good?"
+
+"Do you feel good?"
+
+"More than good," she laughed. "Christianlike. Aren't we told in
+the New Testament to forgive our enemies?"
+
+"'And love those that despitefully use us?'" I misquoted
+maliciously. A sudden gust of anger often causes us to do worse
+things than trifle with the text of the Sermon on the Mount.
+
+She turned on me quickly, as though stung. "Why not? Isn't the
+sight of him maimed like that enough to melt the heart of a
+stone?"
+
+I replied soberly enough. "It is indeed."
+
+I had already betrayed my foolish jealousy. Further altercation
+could only result in my betraying Boyce. I did not feel very
+happy. Conscious of having spoken to me with unwonted sharpness,
+she sought to make amends by laying her hand on my shoulder.
+
+"I think, dear," she said, "we're all on rather an emotional edge
+to-day."
+
+We reached the front door of the hall. At the top of the shallow
+flight of broad stairs the little group that had preceded us stood
+behind Boyce, who was receiving the cheers of the troops--soldiers
+and volunteers and the Godbury School Officers' Training Corps--
+drawn up in the Market Square. When the cheers died away the crowd
+raised cries for a speech.
+
+Again Boyce spoke.
+
+"The reception you have given my mother and myself," he said, "we
+refuse to take personally. It is a reception given to the
+soldiers, and the mothers and wives of soldiers, of the Empire, of
+whom we just happen to be the lucky representatives. Whole
+regiments, to say nothing of whole armies, can't all, every jack
+man, receive Victoria Crosses. But every regiment very jealously
+counts up its honours. You'll hear men say: 'Our regiment has two
+V.C.s, five D.S.O.s, and twenty Distinguished Conduct Medals.' and
+the feeling is that all the honours are lumped together and shared
+by everybody, from the Colonel to the drummer-boys. And each
+individual is proud of his share because he knows that he deserves
+it. And so it happens that those whom chance has set aside for
+distinction, like the lucky winners in a sweepstake, are the most
+embarrassed people you can imagine, because everybody is doing
+everything that they did every day in the week. For instance, if I
+began to tell you a thousandth part of the dare-devil deeds of my
+friend here, Captain Winslow of my regiment, he would bolt like a
+rabbit into the Town Hall and fall on his knees and pray for an
+earthquake. And whether the earthquake came off or not, I'm sure
+he would never speak to me again. And they're all like that. But
+in honouring me you are honouring him, and you're honouring our
+regiment, and you're honouring the army. And in honouring Mrs.
+Boyce, you are honouring that wonderful womanhood of the Empire
+that is standing heroically behind their men in the hell upon
+God's good earth which is known as the front."
+
+It was a soldierlike little speech, delivered with the man's
+gallant charm. Young Winslow gripped his arm affectionately and I
+heard him say--"You are a brute, sir, dragging me into it." The
+little party descended the steps of the Town Hall. The words of
+command rang out. The Parade stood at the salute, which Boyce
+acknowledged, guided by Winslow and his mother he reached his car,
+to which he was attended by the Mayor and Mayoress. After formal
+leave-taking the Boyces and Winslow drove off amid the plaudits of
+the crowd. Then Sir Anthony and Lady Fenimore. Then Betty and her
+aunts. Last of all, while the troops were preparing to march away
+and the crowd was dispersing and all the excitement was over,
+Marigold picked me out of my chair and carried me down to my
+little grey two-seater.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Of course, after this (in the words of my young friends) I crocked
+up. The confounded shell that had played the fool with my legs had
+also done something silly to my heart. Hence these collapses after
+physical and emotional strain. I had to stay in bed for some days.
+Cliffe told me that as soon as I was fit to travel I must go to
+Bournemouth, where it would be warm. I told Cliffe to go to a
+place where it would be warmer. As neither of us would obey the
+other, we remained where we were.
+
+Cliffe informed me that Lady Fenimore had called him in to see Sir
+Anthony, whom she described as being on the obstinate edge of a
+nervous breakdown. I was sorry to hear it.
+
+"I suppose you've tried to send him, too, to Bournemouth?"
+
+"I haven't," Cliffe replied gravely. "He has got something on his
+mind. I'm sure of it. So is his wife. What's the good of sending
+him away?"
+
+"What do you think is on his mind?" I asked.
+
+"How do I know? His wife thinks it must be something to do with
+Boyce's reception. He went home dead-beat, is very irritable, off
+his food, can't sleep, and swears cantankerously that there's
+nothing the matter with him,--the usual symptoms. Can you throw
+any light on it?"
+
+"Certainly not," I replied rather sharply.
+
+Cliffe said "Umph!" in his exasperating professional way and
+proceeded to feel my pulse.
+
+"I don't quite see how Friday's mild exertion could account for
+YOUR breakdown, my friend," he remarked.
+
+"I'm so glad you confess, at last, not to seeing everything," said
+I.
+
+I was fearing this physical reaction in Sir Anthony. It was only
+the self-assertion of Nature. He had gone splendidly through his
+ordeal, having braced himself up for it. He had not braced himself
+up, however, sufficiently to go through the other and far longer
+ordeal of hiding his secret from his wife. So of course he went to
+pieces.
+
+After Cliffe had left me, with his desire for information
+unsatisfied, I rang up Wellings Park. It was the Sunday morning
+after the reception. To my surprise, Sir Anthony answered me; for
+he was an old-fashioned country churchgoer and plague, pestilence,
+famine, battle, murder and sudden death had never been known to
+keep him out of his accustomed pew on Sunday morning. Edith, he
+informed me, had gone to church; he himself, being as nervous as a
+cat, had funked it; he was afraid lest he might get up in the
+middle of the sermon and curse the Vicar.
+
+"If that's so," said I, "come round here and talk sense. I've
+something important to say to you."
+
+He agreed and shortly afterwards he arrived. I was shocked to see
+him. His ruddy face had yellowed and the firm flesh had loosened
+and sagged. I had never noticed that his stubbly hair was so grey.
+He could scarcely sit still on the chair by my bedside.
+
+I told him of Cliffe's suspicions. We were a pair of conspirators
+with unavowable things on our minds which were driving us to
+nervous catastrophe. Edith, said I, was more suspicious even than
+Cliffe. I also told him of our talk about the projected dinner
+party.
+
+"That," he declared, "would drive me stark, staring mad."
+
+"So will continuing to hide the truth from Edith," said I. "How do
+you suppose you can carry on like this?"
+
+He grew angry. How could he tell Edith? How could he make her
+understand his reason for welcoming Boyce? How could he prevent
+her from blazing the truth abroad and crying aloud for vengeance?
+What kind of a fool's counsel was I giving him?
+
+I let him talk, until, tired with reiteration, he had nothing more
+to say. Then I made him listen to me while I expounded that which
+was familiar to his obstinate mind--namely, the heroic qualities
+of his own wife.
+
+"It comes to this," said I, by way of peroration, "that you're
+afraid of Edith letting you down, and you ought to be ashamed of
+yourself."
+
+At that he flared out again. How dared I, he asked, eating his
+words, suggest that he did not trust the most splendid woman God
+had ever made? Didn't I see that he was only trying to shield her
+from knowledge that might kill her? I retorted by pointing out
+that worry over his insane behaviour--please remember that above
+our deep unchangeable mutual affection, a violent surface quarrel
+was raging--would more surely and swiftly kill her than unhappy
+knowledge. Her quick brain--had already connected Gedge, Boyce,
+and his present condition as the main factors of some strange
+problem. "Her quick brain!" I cried. "A half idiot child would
+have put things together."
+
+Presently he collapsed, sitting hopelessly, nervelessly in his
+chair. At last he lifted a piteously humble face.
+
+"What would you suggest my doing, Duncan?"
+
+There seemed to me to be only one thing he could do in order to
+preserve, if not his reason, at any rate his moral equilibrium in
+the position which he had contrived for himself. To tell him this
+had been my object in seeking the interview, and the blessed
+opportunity only came after an hour's hard wrangle--in current
+metaphor after an hour's artillery preparation for attack. He
+looked so battered, poor old Anthony, that I felt almost ashamed
+of the success of my bombardment.
+
+"It's not a question of suggesting," said I. "It's a question of
+things that have to be done. You need a holiday. You've been
+working here at high pressure for nearly a couple of years. Go
+away. Put yourself in the hands of Cliffe, and go to Bournemouth,
+or Biarritz, or Bahia, or any beastly place you can fix up with
+him to go to. Go frankly For three or four months. Go to-morrow.
+As soon as you're well out of the place, tell Edith the whole
+story. Then you can take counsel and comfort together."
+
+He was in the state of mind to be impressed by my argument. I
+followed up my advantage. I undertook to send a ruthless flaming
+angel of a Cliffe to pronounce the inexorable decree of exile.
+After a few faint-hearted objections he acquiesced in the scheme.
+I fancy he revolted against even this apparent surrender to Gedge,
+although he was too proud to confess it. No man likes running
+away. Sir Anthony also regarded as pusillanimous the proposal to
+leave his wife in ignorance until he had led her into the trap of
+holiday. Why not put her into his confidence before they started?
+
+"That," said I, "is a delicate question which only you yourself
+can decide. By following my plan you get away at once, which is
+the most important thing. Once comfortably away, you can choose
+the opportune moment."
+
+"There's something in that," he replied; and, after thanking me
+for my advice, he left me.
+
+I do not defend my plan. I admit it was Machiavellian. My one
+desire was to remove these two dear people from Wellingsford for a
+season. Just think of the horrible impossibility of their
+maintaining social relations with the Boyces ....
+
+By publicly honouring Boyce, Sir Anthony had tied his own hands.
+It was a pledge to Boyce, although the latter did not know it, of
+condonation. Whatever stories Gedge might spread abroad, whatever
+proofs he might display, Sir Anthony could take no action. But to
+carry on a semblance of friendship with the man responsible for
+his daughter's death--for the two of them, mind you, since Lady
+Fenimore would sooner or later learn everything--was, as I say,
+horribly impossible.
+
+Let them go, then, on their nominal holiday, during which the air
+might clear. Boyce might take his mother away from Wellingsford.
+She would do far more than uproot herself from her home in order
+to gratify a wish of her adored and blinded son. He would employ
+his time of darkness in learning to be brave, he had told me. It
+took some courage to face the associations of dreadful memories
+unflinchingly, for his mother's sake. Should he learn, however,
+that the Fenimores had an inkling of the truth, he would recognise
+his presence in the place to be an outrage. And such inkling--who
+would give it him? Perhaps I, myself. The Boyces would go--the
+Fenimores could return. Anything, anything rather than that the
+Fenimores and the Boyces should continue to dwell in the same
+little town.
+
+And there was Betty--with all the inexplicable feminine whirring
+inside her--socially reconciled with Boyce. Where the deuce was
+this reconciliation going to lead? I have told you how my lunatic
+love for Betty had stood revealed to me. Had she chosen to love
+and marry any ordinary gallant gentleman, God knows I should not
+have had a word to say. The love that such as I can give a woman
+can find its only true expression in desiring and contriving her
+happiness. But that she should sway back to Leonard Boyce--no, no.
+I could not bear it. All the shuddering pictures of him rose up
+before me, the last, that of him standing by the lock gates and
+suddenly running like a frightened rabbit, with his jaunty soft
+felt hat squashed shapelessly over his ears.
+
+Gedge could not have invented that abominable touch of the
+squashed hat.
+
+I have said that possibly I myself might give Boyce an inkling of
+the truth. Thinking over the matter in my restless bed, I shrank
+from doing so. Should I not be disingenuously serving my own ends?
+Betty stepped in, whom I wanted for myself. Neither could I go to
+Boyce and challenge him for a villain and summon him to quit the
+town and leave those dear to me at peace. I could not condemn him.
+I had unshaken faith in the man's noble qualities. That he drowned
+Althea Fenimore I did not, could not, believe. After all that had
+passed between us, I felt my loyalty to him irrevocably pledged.
+More than ever was I enmeshed in the net of the man's destiny.
+
+As yet, however, I could not bear to see him. I could not bear to
+see Betty, who called now and then. For the first time in my life
+I took refuge in my invalidity, whereby I earned the commendation
+of Cliffe. Betty sent me flowers. Mrs. Boyce sent me grapes and an
+infallible prescription for heart attacks which, owing to the
+hopeless mess she had made in trying to copy the wriggles
+indicating the quantities of the various drugs, was of no
+practical use. Phyllis Gedge sent me a few bunches of violets with
+a shy little note. Lady Fenimore wrote me an affectionate letter
+bidding me farewell. They were going to Bude in Cornwall, Anthony
+having put himself under Dr. Cliffe's orders like a wonderful
+lamb. When she came back, she hoped that her two sick men would be
+restored to health and able to look more favourably upon her
+projected dinner party. Marigold also brought into my bedroom a
+precious old Waterford claret jug which I had loved and secretly
+coveted for twenty years, with a card attached bearing the
+inscription "With love from Anthony." That was his dumb, British
+way of informing me that he was taking my advice.
+
+When my self-respect would allow me no longer to remain in bed, I
+got up; but I still shrank from publishing the news of my
+recovery, in which reluctance I met with the hearty encouragement
+both of Cliffe and Marigold. The doctor then informed me that my
+attack of illness had been very much more serious than I realised,
+and that unless I made up my mind to lead the most unruffled of
+cabbage-like existences, he would not answer for what might
+befall me. If he could have his way, he would carry me off and put
+me into solitary confinement for a couple of months on a sunny
+island, where I should hold no communication with the outside
+world. Marigold heard this announcement with smug satisfaction.
+Nothing would please him more than to play gaoler over me.
+
+At last, one morning, I said to him: "I'm not going to submit to
+tyranny any longer. I resume my normal life. I'm at home to
+anybody who calls. I'm at home to the devil himself."
+
+"Very good, sir," said Marigold.
+
+An hour or two afterwards the door was thrown open and there stood
+on the threshold the most amazing apparition that ever sought
+admittance into a gentleman's library; an apparition, however,
+very familiar during these days to English eyes. From the
+shapeless Tam-o'-Shanter to the huge boots it was caked in mud.
+Over a filthy sheepskin were slung all kinds of paraphernalia,
+covered with dirty canvas which made it look a thing of mighty
+bulges among which a rifle was poked away. It wore a kilt covered
+by a khaki apron. It also had a dirty and unshaven face. A muddy
+warrior fresh from the trenches, of course. But what was he doing
+here?
+
+"I see, sir, you don't recognise me," he said with a smile.
+
+"Good Lord!" I cried, with a start, "it's Randall."
+
+"Yes, sir. May I come in?"
+
+"Come in? What infernal nonsense are you talking?" I held out my
+hand, and, after greeting him, made him sit down.
+
+"Now," said I, "what the deuce are you doing in that kit?"
+
+"That's what I've been asking myself for the last ten months.
+Anyhow I shan't wear it much longer."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Commission, sir," he answered.
+
+"Oh!" said I.
+
+His entrance had been so abrupt and unexpected that I hardly knew
+as yet what to make of him. Speculation as to his doings had led
+me to imagine him engaged in some elegant fancy occupation on the
+fringe of the army, if indeed he were serving his country so
+creditably. I found it hard to reconcile my conception of Master
+Randall Holmes with this businesslike Tommy who called me "Sir"
+every minute.
+
+"I'll tell you about it, sir, if you're interested. But first--how
+is my mother?"
+
+"Your mother? You haven't seen her yet?"
+
+Here, at least, was a bit of the old casual Randall. He shook his
+head.
+
+"I've only just this minute arrived. Left the trenches yesterday.
+Walked from the station. Not a soul recognised me. I thought I had
+better come here first and report, just as I was, and not wait
+until I had washed and shaved and put on Christian clothes again.
+"He looked at me and grinned. "Seeing is believing."
+
+"Your mother is quite well," said I. "Haven't you given her any
+warning of your arrival?"
+
+"Oh, no!" he answered. "I didn't want any brass bands. Besides, as
+I say, I wanted to see you first. Then to look in at the hospital.
+I suppose Phyllis Gedge is still at the hospital?"
+
+"She is. But I think, my dear chap, your mother has the first call
+on you."
+
+"She wouldn't enjoy my present abominable appearance as much as
+Phyllis," he replied, coolly. "You see, Phyllis is responsible for
+it. I told you she refused to marry me, didn't I, sir? After that,
+she called me a coward. I had to show her that I wasn't one. It
+was an awful nuisance, I admit, for I had intended to do something
+quite different. Oh! not Gedging or anything of that sort--but--"
+he dived beneath his sheepskin and brought out a tattered letter
+case and from a mass of greasy documents (shades of superior
+Oxford!) selected a dirty, ragged bit of newspaper--"but," said
+he, handing me the fragment, "I think I've succeeded. I don't
+suppose this caught your eye, but if you look closely into it,
+you'll see that 11003 Private R. Holmes, 1st Gordon Highlanders, a
+couple of months ago was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
+I may be any kind of a fool or knave she likes to call me, but she
+can't call me a coward."
+
+I congratulated him with all my heart, which, after the first
+shock, was warming towards him rapidly.
+
+"But why," I asked, still somewhat bewildered, "didn't you apply
+for a commission? A year ago you could have got one easily. Why
+enlist? And the 1st Gordons--that's the regular army."
+
+He laughed and asked permission to help himself to a cigarette.
+"By George, that's good," he exclaimed after a few puffs. "That's
+good after months of Woodbines. I found I could stand everything
+except Tommy's cigarettes. Everything about me has got as hard as
+nails, except my palate for tobacco .... Why didn't I apply for a
+commission? Any fool could get a commission. It's different now.
+Men are picked and must have seen active service, and then they're
+sent off to cadet training corps. But last year I could have got
+one easily. And I might have been kicking my heels about England
+now."
+
+"Yet, at the sight of a Sam Browne belt, Phyllis would have surely
+recanted," said I.
+
+"I didn't want the girl I intended to marry and pass my life with
+to have her head turned by such trappings as a Sam Browne belt.
+She has had to be taught that she is going to marry a man. I'm not
+such a fool as you may have thought me, Major," he said, forgetful
+of his humble rank. "Suppose I had got a commission and married
+her. Suppose I had been kept at home and never gone out and never
+seen a shot fired, like heaps of other fellows, or suppose I had
+taken the line I had marked out--do you think we should have been
+assured a happy life? Not a bit of it. We might have been happy
+for twenty years. And then--women are women and can't help
+themselves--the old word--by George, sir, she spat it at me from
+a festering sore in her very soul--the old word would have rankled
+all the time, and some stupid quarrel having arisen, she would
+have spat it at me again. I wasn't taking any chances of that
+kind."
+
+"My dear boy," said I, subridently, "you seem to be very wise."
+And he did. So far as I knew anything about humans, male and
+female, his proposition was incontrovertible. "But where did you
+gather your wisdom?"
+
+"I suppose," he replied seriously, "that my mind is not entirely
+unaffected by a very expensive education."
+
+I looked at the extraordinary figure in sheepskin, bundles and
+mud, and laughed out loud. The hands of Esau and the voice of
+Jacob. The garb of Thomas Atkins and the voice of Balliol. Still,
+as I say, the fellow was perfectly right. His highly trained
+intelligence had led him to an exact conclusion. The festering
+sore demanded drastic treatment,--the surgeon's knife. As we
+talked I saw how coldly his brain had worked. And side by side
+with that working I saw, to my amusement, the insistent claims of
+his vanity. The quickest way to the front, where alone he could
+re-establish his impugned honour was by enlistment in the regular
+army. For the first time in his life he took a grip on essentials.
+He knew that by going straight into the heart of the old army his
+brains, provided they remained in his head, would enable him to
+accomplish his purpose. As for his choice of regiment, there his
+vanity guided. You may remember that after his disappearance we
+first heard of him at Aberdeen. Now Aberdeen is the depot of the
+Gordon Highlanders.
+
+"What on earth made you go there?" I asked.
+
+"I wanted to get among a crowd where I wasn't known, and wasn't
+ever likely to be known," he replied. "And my instinct was right.
+I was among farmers from Skye and butchers from Inverness and
+drunken scallywags from the slums of Aberdeen, and a leaven of old
+soldiers from all over Scotland. I had no idea that such people
+existed. At first I thought I shouldn't be able to stick it. They
+gave me a bad time for being an Englishman. But soon, I think,
+they rather liked me. I set my brains to work and made 'em like
+me. I knew there was everything to learn about these fellows and I
+went scientifically to work to learn it. And, by Heaven, sir, when
+once they accepted me, I found I had never been in such splendid
+company in my life."
+
+"My dear boy," I cried in a burst of enthusiasm, "have you had
+breakfast?"
+
+"Of course I have. At the Union Jack Club--the Tommies' place the
+other side of the river--bacon and eggs and sausages. I thought
+I'd never stop eating."
+
+"Have some more?"
+
+He laughed. "Couldn't think of it."
+
+"Then," said I, "get yourself a cigar." I pointed to a stack of
+boxes. "You'll find the Corona--Coronas the best."
+
+As I am not a millionaire I don't offer these Coronas to
+everybody. I myself can only afford to smoke one or two a week.
+
+When he had lit it he said: "I was led away from what I wanted to
+tell you,--my going to Aberdeen and plunging into the obscurity of
+a Scottish regiment. I was absolutely determined that none of my
+friends, none of you good people, should know what an ass I had
+made of myself. That's why I kept it from my mother. She would
+have blabbed it all over the place."
+
+"But, my good fellow," said I, "why the dickens shouldn't we have
+known?"
+
+"That I was making an ass of myself?"
+
+"No, you young idiot!" I cried. "That you were making a man of
+yourself."
+
+"I preferred to wait," said he, coolly, "until I had a reasonable
+certainty that I had achieved that consummation--or, rather,
+something that might stand for it in the prejudiced eyes of my
+dear friends. I knew that you all, ultimately, you and mother and
+Phyllis, would judge by results. Well, here they are. I've lived
+the life of a Tommy for ten months. I've been five in the thick of
+it over there. I've refused stripes over and over again. I've got
+my D.C.M. I've got my commission through the ranks, practically on
+the field. And of the draft of two hundred who went out with me
+only one other and myself remain."
+
+"It's a splendid record, my boy," said I.
+
+He rose. "Don't misunderstand me, Major. I'm not bragging. God
+forbid. I'm only wanting to explain why I kept dark all the time,
+and why I'm springing smugly and complacently on you now."
+
+"I quite understand," said I.
+
+"In that case," he laughed, "I can proceed on my rounds." But he
+did not proceed. He lingered. "There's another matter I should
+like to mention," he said. "In her last letter my mother told me
+that the Mayor and Town Council were on the point of giving a
+civic reception to Colonel Boyce. Has it taken place yet?"
+
+"Yes," said I. "And did it go off all right?"
+
+In spite of wisdom learned at Balliol and shell craters, he was
+still an ingenuous youth.
+
+"Gedge was perfectly quiet," I answered.
+
+He started, as he had for months learned not to start, and into
+his eyes sprang an alarm that was usually foreign to them.
+
+"Gedge? How do you know anything about Gedge and Colonel Boyce?
+Good Lord! He hasn't been spreading that poisonous stuff over the
+town?"
+
+"That's what you were afraid of when you asked about the
+reception?"
+
+"Of course," said he.
+
+"And you wanted to have your mind clear on the point before
+interviewing Phyllis."
+
+"You're quite right, sir," he replied, a bit shamefacedly. "But if
+he hasn't been spreading it, how do you know? And," he looked at
+me sharply, "what do you know?"
+
+"You gave your word of honour not to repeat what Gedge told you. I
+think you may be absolved of your promise. Gedge came to Sir
+Anthony and myself with a lying story about the death of Althea
+Fenimore."
+
+"Yes," said he. "That was it."
+
+"Sit down for another minute or two," said I, "and let us compare
+notes."
+
+He obeyed. We compared notes. I found that in most essentials the
+two stories were identical, although Gedge had been maudlin drunk
+when he admitted Randall into his confidence.
+
+"But in pitching you his yarn," cried Randall, "he left out the
+blackmail. He bragged in his beastly way that Colonel Boyce was
+worth a thousand a year to him. All he had to live upon now that
+the blood-suckers had ruined his business. Then he began to weep
+and slobber--he was a disgusting sight--and he said he would give
+it all up and beg with his daughter in the streets as soon as he
+had an opportunity of unmasking 'that shocking wicked fellow.'"
+
+"What did you say then?" I asked.
+
+"I told him if ever I heard of him spreading such infernal lies
+abroad, I'd wring his neck."
+
+"Very good, my boy," said I. "That's practically what Sir Anthony
+told him."
+
+"Sir Anthony doesn't believe there's any truth in it?"
+
+"Sir Anthony," said I, boldly, "knows there's not a particle of
+truth in it. The man's malignancy has taken the form of a fixed
+idea. He's crack-brained. Between us we put the fear of God into
+him, and I don't think he'll give any more trouble."
+
+Randall got to his feet again. "I'm very much relieved to hear you
+say so. I must confess I've been horribly uneasy about the whole
+thing." He drew a deep breath. "Thank goodness I can go to
+Phyllis, as you say, with a clear mind. The last time I saw her I
+was half crazy."
+
+He held out his hand, a dirty, knubbly, ragged-nailed hand--the
+hand that was once so irritatingly manicured.
+
+"Good-bye, Major. You won't shut the door on me now, will you?"
+
+I wrung his hand hard and bade him not be silly, and, looking up
+at him, said:
+
+"What was the other thing quite different you were intending to do
+before you, let us say, quarreled with Phyllis?"
+
+He hesitated, his forehead knit in a little web of perplexity.
+
+"Whatever it was," I continued, "let us have it. I'm your oldest
+friend, a sort of father. Be frank with me and you won't regret
+it. The splendid work you've done has wiped out everything."
+
+"I'm afraid it has," said he ruefully. "Wiped it out clean." With
+a hitch of the shoulders he settled his pack more comfortably.
+"Well, I'll tell you, Major. I thought I had brains. I still think
+I have. I was on the point of getting a job in the Secret Service
+--Intelligence Department. I had the whole thing cut and dried--to
+get at the ramifications of German espionage in socialistic and
+so-called intellectual circles in neutral and other countries. It
+would have been ticklish work, for I should have been carrying my
+life in my hands. I could have done it well. I started out by
+being a sort of 'intellectual' myself. All along I wanted to put
+my brains at the service of my country. I took some time to hit
+upon the real way. I hit upon it. I learned lots of things from
+Gedge. If he weren't an arrant coward, he might be dangerous. He
+would be taking German money long ago, but that he's frightened to
+death of it." He laughed. "It never occurred to you, I suppose, a
+year ago," he continued, "that I spent most of my days in London
+working like a horse."
+
+"But," I cried--I felt myself flushing purple--and, when I flush
+purple, the unregenerate old soldier in me uses language of a
+corresponding hue--"But," I cried--and in this language I asked
+him why he had told me nothing about it.
+
+"The essence of the Secret Service, sir," replied this maddening
+young man, "is--well--secrecy."
+
+"You had a billet offered to you, of the kind you describe?"
+
+"The offer reached me, very much belated, one day when I was half
+dead, after having performed some humiliating fatigue duty. I
+think I had persisted in trying to scratch an itching back on
+parade. Military discipline, I need not tell you, Major, doesn't
+take into account the sensitiveness of a recruit's back. It flatly
+denies such a phenomenon. Now I think I can defy anything in God's
+quaint universe to make me itch. But that's by the way. I tore the
+letter up and never answered it. You do these things, sir, when
+the whole universe seems to be a stumbling-block and an offence.
+Phyllis was the stumbling-block and the rest of the cosmos was the
+other thing. That's why I have reason on my side when I say that,
+all through Phyllis Gedge, I made an ass of myself."
+
+He clutched his rude coat with both hands. "An ass in sheep's
+clothing."
+
+He drew himself up, saluted, and marched out.
+
+He marched out, the young scoundrel, with all the honours of war.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+So, in drawing a bow at a venture, I had hit the mark. You may
+remember that I had rapped out the word "blackmail" at Gedge; now
+Randall justified the charge. Boyce was worth a thousand a year to
+him. The more I speculated on the danger that might arise from
+Gedge, the easier I grew in my mind. Your blackmailer is a
+notorious saver of his skin. Gedge had no desire to bring Boyce to
+justice and thereby incriminate himself. His visit to Sir Anthony
+was actuated by sheer malignity. Without doubt, he counted on his
+story being believed. But he knew enough of the hated and envied
+aristocracy to feel assured that Sir Anthony would not subject his
+beloved dead to such ghastly disinterment as a public denunciation
+of Boyce would necessitate. He desired to throw an asphyxiating
+bomb into the midst of our private circle. He reckoned on the
+Mayor taking some action that would stop the reception and thereby
+put a public affront on Boyce. Sir Anthony's violent indignation
+and perhaps my appearance of cold incredulity upset his
+calculations. He went out of the room a defeated man, with the
+secret load (as I knew now) of blackmail on his shoulders.
+
+I snapped my fingers at Gedge. Randall seemed to do the same,
+undesirable father-in-law IN PROSPECTU as he was. But that was
+entirely Randall's affair. The stomach that he had for fighting
+with Germans would stand him in good stead against Gedge,
+especially as he had formed so contemptuous an estimate of the
+latter's valour.
+
+I emerged again into my little world. I saw most of my friends.
+Phyllis lay in wait for me at the hospital, radiant and blushing,
+ostensibly to congratulate me on recovery from my illness, really
+(little baggage!) to hear from my lips a word or two in praise of
+Randall. Apparently he had come, in his warrior garb, seen, and
+conquered on the spot. I saw Mrs. Holmes, who, gladdened by the
+Distinguished Conduct Medallist's return, had wiped from her
+memory his abominably unfilial behaviour. I saw Betty and I saw
+Boyce.
+
+Now here I come to a point in this chronicle where I am faced by
+an appalling difficulty. Hitherto I have striven to tell you no
+more about myself and my motives and feelings than was demanded by
+my purpose of unfolding to you the lives of others. Primarily I
+wanted to explain Leonard Boyce. I could only do it by showing you
+how he reacted on myself--myself being an unimportant and
+uninteresting person. It was all very well when I could stand
+aside and dispassionately analyse such reactions. The same with
+regard to my dear Betty. But now if I adopted the same method of
+telling you the story of Betty and the story of Boyce--the method
+of reaction, so to speak--I should be merely whining into your
+ears the dolorous tale of Duncan Meredyth, paralytic and idiot.
+
+The deuce of it is that, for a long time, nothing particular or
+definite happened. So how can I describe to you a very important
+period in the lives of Betty and Boyce and me?
+
+I had to resume my intimacy with Boyce. The blind and lonely man
+craved it and claimed it. It would be an unmeaning pretence of
+modesty to under-estimate the value to him of my friendship. He
+was a man of intense feelings. Torture had closed his heart to the
+troops of friends that so distinguished a soldier might have had.
+He granted admittance but to three, his mother, Betty and--for
+some unaccountable reason--myself. On us he concentrated all the
+strength of his affection. Mind you, it was not a case of a maimed
+creature clinging for support to those who cared for him. In his
+intercourse with me, he never for a moment suggested that he was
+seeking help or solace in his affliction. On the contrary, he
+ruled it out of the conditions of social life. He was as brave as
+you please. In his laughing scorn of blindness he was the bravest
+man I have ever known. He learned the confidence of the blind with
+marvellous facility. His path through darkness was a triumphant
+march.
+
+Sometimes, when he re-fought old battles and planned new ones,
+forecast the strategy of the Great Advance, word-painted scenes
+and places, drew character sketches of great leaders and quaint
+men, I forgot the tragedy of Althea Fenimore. And when the memory
+came swiftly back, I wondered whether, after all, Gedge's story
+from first to last had not been a malevolent invention. The man
+seemed so happy. Of course you will say it was my duty to give a
+hint of Gedge's revelation. It was. To my shame, I shirked it. I
+could not find it in my heart suddenly to dash into his happiness.
+I awaited an opportunity, a change of mood in him, an allusion to
+confidences of which I alone of human beings had been the
+recipient.
+
+Betty visited me as usual. We talked war and hospital and local
+gossip for a while and then she seemed to take refuge at the
+piano. We had one red-letter day, when a sailor cousin of hers,
+fresh from the North Sea, came to luncheon and told us wonders of
+the Navy which we had barely imagined and did not dare to hope
+for. His tidings gave subject for many a talk.
+
+I knew that she was seeing Boyce constantly. The former
+acquaintance of the elders of the two houses flamed into sudden
+friendship. From a remark artlessly let fall by Mrs. Boyce, I
+gathered that the old ladies were deliberately contriving such
+meetings. Boyce and Betty referred to each other rarely and
+casually, but enough to show me that the old feud was at an end.
+And of what save one thing could the end of a feud between lovers
+be the beginning? What did she know? Knowing all, how could she be
+drawn back under the man's fascination? The question maddened me.
+I suffered terribly.
+
+At last, one evening, I could bear it no longer. She was playing
+Chopin. The music grated on me. I called out to her:
+
+"Betty!"
+
+She broke off and turned round, with a smile of surprise. Again
+she was wearing the old black evening dress, in which I have told
+you she looked so beautiful.
+
+"No more music, dear. Come and talk to me."
+
+She crossed the room with her free step and sat near my chair.
+
+"What shall I talk about?" she laughed.
+
+"Leonard Boyce."
+
+The laughter left her face and she gave me a swift glance.
+
+"Majy dear, I'd rather not," she said with a little air of
+finality.
+
+"I know that," said I. "I also know that in your eyes I am
+committing an unwarrantable impertinence."
+
+"Not at all," she replied politely. "You have the right to talk to
+me for my good. It's impertinence in me not to wish to hear it."
+
+"Betty dear," said I, "will you tell me what was the cause of your
+estrangement?"
+
+She stiffened. "No one has the right to ask me that."
+
+"A man who loves you very, very dearly," said I, "will claim it.
+Was the cause Althea Fenimore?"
+
+She looked at me almost in frightened amazement.
+
+"Is that mere guesswork?"
+
+"No, dear," said I quietly.
+
+"I thought no one knew--except one person. I was not even sure
+that Leonard Boyce was aware that I knew."
+
+Another bow at a venture. "That one person is Gedge."
+
+"You're right. I suppose he has been talking," she said, greatly
+agitated. "He has been putting it about all over the place. I've
+been dreading it." Then she sprang to her feet and drew herself up
+and snapped her fingers in an heroical way. "And if he has said
+that Althea Fenimore drowned herself for love of Leonard Boyce,
+what is there in it? After all, what has Leonard Boyce done that
+he can't be forgiven? Men are men and women are women. We've tried
+for tens of thousands of years to lay down hard and fast lines for
+the sexes to walk upon, and we've failed miserably. Suppose
+Leonard Boyce did make love to Althea Fenimore--trifle with her
+affections, in the old-fashioned phrase. What then? I'm greatly to
+blame. It has only lately been brought home to me. Instead of
+staying here while we were engaged, I would have my last fling as
+an emancipated young woman in London. He consoled himself with
+Althea. When she found he meant nothing, she threw herself into
+the canal. It was dreadful. It was tragic. He went away and broke
+with me. I didn't discover the reason till months afterwards. She
+drowned herself for love of him, it's true. But what was his share
+in it that he can't be forgiven for? Millions of men have been
+forgiven by women for passing loves. Why not he? Why not a
+tremendous man like him? A man who has paid every penalty for
+wrong, if wrong there was? Blind!"
+
+She walked about and threw up her hands and halted in front of my
+chair. "I'll own that until lately I accused him of unforgivable
+sin--deceiving me and making love to another girl and driving her
+to suicide. I tore him out of my heart and married Willie. We
+won't speak of that .... But since he has come back, things seem
+different. His mother has told me that one day when he was asleep
+she found he was still wearing his identification disc ... there
+was an old faded photograph of me on the other side ... it had
+been there all through the war .... You see," she added, after a
+pause during which her heaving bosom and quivering lip made her
+maddeningly lovely, "I don't care a brass button for anything that
+Gedge may say."
+
+And that was all my clean-souled Betty knew about it! She had no
+idea of deeper faithlessness; no suspicion of Boyce's presence
+with Althea on the bank of the canal. She stood pathetic in her
+half knowledge. My heart ached.
+
+From her pure woman's point of view she had been justified in her
+denunciation of Boyce. He had left her without a word. A wall of
+silence came between them. Then she learned the reason. He had
+trifled with a young girl's affections and out of despair she had
+drowned herself .... But how had she learned? I had to question
+her. And it was then that she told me the story of Phyllis and her
+father to which I have made previous allusion: how Phyllis, as her
+father's secretary, had opened a letter which had frightened her;
+how her father's crafty face had frightened her still more; how
+she had run to Betty for the easing of her heart. And this letter
+was from Leonard Boyce. "I cannot afford one penny more," so the
+letter ran, according to Betty's recollection of Phyllis's
+recollection, "but if you remain loyal to our agreement, you will
+not regret it. If ever I hear of your coupling my name with that
+of Miss Fenimore, I'll kill you. I am a man of my word." I think
+Betty crystallised Phyllis's looser statement. But the exact
+wording was immaterial. Here was Boyce branding himself with
+complicity in the tragedy of Althea, and paying Gedge to keep it
+dark. Like Sir Anthony, Betty remembered trivial things that
+assumed grave significance. There was no room for doubt.
+Catastrophe following on his villainy had kept Boyce away from
+Wellingsford, had terrified him out of his engagement. And so her
+heart had grown bitter against him. You may ask why her knowledge
+of the world had not led her to suspect blacker wrong; for a man
+does not pay blackmail because he has led a romantic girl into a
+wrong notion of the extent of his affection. My only answer is
+that Betty was Betty, clean-hearted and clean-souled like the
+young Artemis she resembled.
+
+And now she proclaimed that he had expiated his offence. She
+proclaimed her renewed and passionate interest in the man. I saw
+that deep down in her heart she had always loved him.
+
+After telling me about Phyllis, she returned to the point where
+she had broken off. She supposed that Gedge had been talking all
+over the place.
+
+"I don't think so, dear," said I. "So far as I know he has only
+spoken, first to Randall Holmes--that was what made him break
+away from Gedge, whose society he had been cultivating for other
+reasons than those I imagined (you remember telling me Phyllis's
+sorrowful little tale last year?)." She nodded. "And secondly to
+Sir Anthony and myself, a few hours before the Reception."
+
+She clenched her fists and broke out again. "The devil! The
+incarnate devil! And Sir Anthony?"
+
+"Pretended to treat Gedge's story as a lie, threw into the fire
+without reading it an incriminating letter--possibly the letter
+that Phyllis saw, ordered Gedge out of the house and, like a great
+gentleman, went through the ceremony."
+
+"Does Leonard know?"
+
+"Not that I'm aware of," said I.
+
+"He must be told. It's terrible to have an enemy waiting to stab
+you in the dark--and you blind to boot. Why haven't you told him?"
+
+Why? Why? Why?
+
+It was so hard to keep to the lower key of her conception of
+things. I made a little gesture signifying I know not what: that
+it was not my business, that I was not on sufficient terms of
+intimacy with Boyce, that it didn't seem important enough .... My
+helpless shrug suggested, I suppose, all of these excuses. Why
+hadn't I warned him? Cowardice, I suppose.
+
+"Either you or I must do it," she went on. "You're his friend. He
+thinks more of you than of any other man in the world. And he's
+right, dear--" she flashed me a proud glance, sweet and stabbing--
+"Don't I know it?"
+
+Then suddenly a new idea seemed to pass through her brain. She
+bent forward and touched the light shawl covering my knees.
+
+"For the last month or two you've known what he has done. It
+hasn't made any difference in your friendship. You must think with
+me that the past is past, that he has purged his sins, or whatever
+you like to call them; that he is a man greatly to be forgiven."
+
+"Yes, dear," said I, with a show of bravery, though I dreaded lest
+my voice should break, "I think he is a man to be forgiven."
+
+Her logic was remorseless.
+
+With her frank grace she threw herself, in her old attitude, by
+the side of my chair.
+
+"I'm so glad we have had this talk, Majy darling. It has made
+everything between us so clear and beautiful. It is always such a
+grief to me to think you may not understand. I shall always be the
+little girl that looked upon you as a wonderful hero and divine
+dispenser of chocolates. Only now the chocolates stand for love
+and forbearance and sympathy, and all kinds of spiritual goodies."
+
+I passed my hand over her hair. "Silly child!"
+
+"I got it into my head," she continued, "that you were blaming me
+for--for my reconciliation with Leonard. But, my dear, my dear,
+what woman's heart wouldn't be turned to water at the sight of
+him? It makes me so happy that you understand. I can't tell you
+how happy."
+
+"Are you going to marry him?" I think my voice was steady and kind
+enough.
+
+"Possibly. Some day. If he asks me."
+
+I still stroked her hair. "I wouldn't let it be too soon," said I.
+
+Her eyes were downcast. "On account of Willie?" she murmured.
+
+"No, dear. I don't dare touch on that side of things."
+
+Again a whisper. "Why, then?"
+
+How could I tell her why without betrayal of Boyce? I had to turn
+the question playfully. I said, "What should I do without my
+Betty?"
+
+"Do you really care about me so much?"
+
+I laughed. There are times when one has to laugh--or overwhelm
+oneself in dishonour.
+
+"Now you see my nature in all its vile egotism," said I, and the
+statement led to a pretty quarrel.
+
+But after it was over to our joint satisfaction, she had to return
+to the distressful main theme of our talk. She harked back to Sir
+Anthony, touched on his splendid behaviour, recalled, with a
+little dismay, the hitherto unnoted fact that, after the ceremony
+he had held himself aloof from those that thronged round Boyce.
+Then, without hint from me, she perceived the significance of the
+Fenimores' retirement from Wellingsford.
+
+"Leonard's ignorance," she said, "leaves him in. a frightful
+position. More than ever he ought to know."
+
+"He ought, indeed, my dear," said I. "And I will tell him. I ought
+to have done so before."
+
+I gave my undertaking. I went to bed upbraiding myself for
+cowardice and resolved to go to Boyce the next day. Not only Fate,
+but honour and decency forced me to the detested task.
+
+Alas! Next morning I was nailed to my bed by my abominable malady.
+The attacks had become more frequent of late. Cliffe administered
+restoratives and for the first time he lost his smile and looked
+worried. You see until quite lately I had had a very tranquil
+life, deeply interested in other folks' joys and sorrows, but
+moved by very few of my own. And now there had swooped down on me
+this ravening pack of emotions which were tearing me to pieces. I
+lay for a couple of days tortured by physical pain, humiliation
+and mental anguish.
+
+On the evening of the second day, Marigold came into the bedroom
+with a puzzled look on his face.
+
+"Colonel Boyce is here, sir. I told him you were in bed and seeing
+nobody, but he says he wants to see you on something important. I
+asked him whether it couldn't wait till to-morrow, and he said
+that if I would give you a password, Vilboek's Farm, you'd be sure
+to see him."
+
+"Quite right, Marigold," said I. "Show him in."
+
+Vilboek's Farm! Fate had driven him to me, instead of me to him. I
+would see him though it killed me, and get the horrible business
+over for ever.
+
+Marigold led him in and drew up a chair for him by the bedside.
+After pulling on the lights and drawing the curtains, for the warm
+May evening was drawing to a close,
+
+"Anything more, sir, for the present?" he asked.
+
+"Could I have materials for a whisky and soda to hand?" said
+Boyce.
+
+"Of course," said I.
+
+Marigold departed. Boyce said:
+
+"If you're too ill to stand me, send me away. But if you can stand
+me, for God's sake let me talk to you."
+
+"Talk as much as you like," said I. "This is only one of my stupid
+attacks which a man without legs has to put up with."
+
+"But Marigold--"
+
+"Marigold's an old hen," said I.
+
+"Are you sure you're well enough? That's the curse of not being
+able to see. Tell me frankly."
+
+"I'm quite sure," said I.
+
+I have never been able to get over the curious embarrassment of
+talking to a man whose eyes I cannot see. The black spectacles
+seemed to be like a wall behind which the man hid his thoughts. I
+watched his lips. Once or twice the odd little twitch had appeared
+at the corners.
+
+Even with his baffling black spectacles he looked a gallant figure
+of a man. He was precisely dressed in perfectly fitting dinner
+jacket and neat black tie; well-groomed from the points of his
+patent leather shoes to his trim crisp brown hair. And beneath
+this scrupulousness of attire lay the suggestion of great
+strength.
+
+Marigold brought in the tray with decanter, siphon and glasses,
+and put them on a table, together with cigars and cigarettes, by
+his side. After a few deft touches, so as to identify the objects,
+Boyce smiled and nodded at Marigold.
+
+"Thanks very much, Sergeant," he said.
+
+If there is one thing Marigold loves, it is to be addressed as
+"Sergeant." "Marigold" might--indicate a butler, but "Sergeant"
+means a sergeant.
+
+"Perhaps I might fetch the Colonel a more comfortable chair, sir,"
+said he.
+
+But Boyce laughed, "No, no!" and Marigold left us.
+
+Boyce's ear listened for the click of the door. Then he turned to
+me.
+
+"I was rather mean in sending you in that password. But I felt as
+if I should go mad if I didn't see you. You're the only man living
+who really knows about me. You're the only human being who can
+give me a helping hand. It's strange, old man--the halt leading
+the blind. But so it is. And Vilboek's Farm is the damned essence
+of the matter. I've come to you to ask you, for the love of God,
+to tell me what I am to do."
+
+I guessed what had happened. "Betty Connor has told you something
+that I was to tell you."
+
+"Yes," said he. "This afternoon. And in her splendid way she
+offered to marry me."
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"I said that I would give her my answer to-morrow."
+
+"And what will that answer be?"
+
+"It is for you to tell me," said Boyce.
+
+"In order to undertake such a terrible responsibility," said I, "I
+must know the whole truth concerning Althea Fenimore."
+
+"I've come here to tell it to you," said he.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+It was to a priest rather than to a man that he made full
+confession of his grievous sin. He did not attempt to mitigate it
+or to throw upon another a share of the blame. From that attitude
+he did not vary a hair's breadth. Meea culpa; mea maxima culpa.
+That was the burthen of his avowal.
+
+I, knowing the strange mingling in his nature of brutality and
+sensitiveness, of animal and spiritual, and knowing something of
+the unstable character of Althea Fenimore, may more justly, I
+think, than he, sketch out the miserable prologue of the drama.
+That she was madly, recklessly in love with him there can be no
+doubt. Nor can there be doubt that unconsciously she fired the
+passion in him. The deliberate, cold-blooded seducer of his
+friend's daughter, such as Boyce, in his confession, made himself
+out to be, is a rare phenomenon. Almost invariably it is the woman
+who tempts--tempts innocently and unknowingly, without intent to
+allure, still less with thought of wrong--but tempts all the same
+by the attraction which she cannot conceal, by the soft promise
+which she cannot keep out of her eyes.
+
+That was the beginning of it. Betty, whom he loved, and to whom he
+was engaged, was away from Wellingsford. In those days she was
+very much the young Diana, walking in search of chaste adventures,
+quite contented with the love that lay serenely warm in her heart
+and thinking little of a passionate man's needs--perhaps starting
+away from too violent an expression of them--perhaps prohibiting
+them altogether. The psychology of the pre-war young girl
+absorbed, even though intellectually and for curiosity's sake, in
+the feminist movement, is yet to be studied. Betty, then, was
+away. Althea, beata possidens, made her artless, innocent appeal
+for victory. Unconsciously she tempted. The man yielded. A touch
+of the lips in a moment of folly, the man blazed, the woman
+helpless was consumed. This happened in January, just before
+Althea's supposed visit to Scotland. Boyce was due at a Country
+House party near Carlisle. In the first flush of their madness
+they agreed upon the wretched plan. She took rooms in the town and
+he visited her there. Whether he or she conceived it, I do not
+know. If I could judge coldly I should say that it was of feminine
+inspiration. A man, particularly one of Boyce's temperament, who
+was eager for the possession of a passionately loved woman, would
+have carried her off to a little Eden of their own. A calm
+consideration of the facts leads to the suggestion of a half-
+hearted acquiescence on the part of an entangled man in the
+romantic scheme of an inexperienced girl to whom he had suddenly
+become all in all.
+
+Such is my plea in extenuation of Boyce's conduct (if plea there
+can be), seeing that he raised not a shadow of one of his own. You
+may say that my plea is no excuse for his betrayal; that no man,
+even if he is tempted, can be pardoned for non-control of his
+passions. But I am asking for no pardon; I am trying to obtain
+your understanding. Remember what I have told you about Boyce, his
+great bull-neck, his blood-sodden life-preserver, the physical
+repulsion I felt when he carried me in his arms. In such men the
+animal instinct is stronger at times than the trained will.
+Whether you give him a measure of your sympathy or not, at any
+rate do not believe that his short-lived liaison with Althea was a
+matter of deliberate and dastardly seduction. Nor must you think
+that I am setting down anything in disparagement of a child whom I
+once loved. Long ago I touched lightly on the anomaly of Althea's
+character--her mid-Victorian sentimentality and softness, combined
+with her modern spirit of independence. A fatal anomaly; a
+perilous balance of qualities. Once the soft sentimentality was
+warmed into romantic passion, the modern spirit led it recklessly
+to a modern conclusion.
+
+The liaison was short-lived. The man was remorseful. He loved
+another woman. Very quickly did the poor girl awaken from her
+dream.
+
+"I was cruel," said Boyce, fixing me with those awful black
+spectacles, "I know it. I ought to have married her. But if I had
+married her, I should have been more cruel. I should have hated
+her. It would have been an impossible life for both of us. One day
+I had to tell her so. Not brutally. In a normal state I think I am
+as kind-hearted and gentle as most men. And I couldn't be brutal,
+feeling an unutterable cur and craving her forgiveness. But I
+wanted Betty and I swore that only one thing should keep me from
+her."
+
+"One thing?" I asked.
+
+"The thing that didn't happen," said he.
+
+And so it seemed that Althea accepted the inevitable. The placid,
+fatalistic side of her nature asserted itself. Pride, too, helped
+her instinctive feminine secretiveness. She lived for months in
+her father's house without giving those that were dear to her any
+occasion for suspicion. In order to preserve the secrecy Boyce was
+bound to continue his visits to Wellings Park. Now and then, when
+they met alone, she upbraided him bitterly. On the whole, however,
+he concluded that they had agreed to bury an ugly chapter in their
+lives.
+
+Yes, it was an ugly chapter. From such you cannot get away, bury
+it, as you will, never so deep.
+
+"And all the time remember," he said, "that I was mad for Betty.
+The more shy she was, the madder I grew. I could not rest in
+Wellingsford without her. When she came here, I came. When she
+went to town, I went to town. She was as elusive as a dream.
+Finally I pinned her down to a date for our marriage in August. It
+was the last time I saw her. She went away to stay with friends.
+That was the beginning of June. She was to be away two months. I
+knew, if I had clamoured, she would have made it three. It was the
+shyness of the exquisite bird in her that fascinated me. I could
+never touch Betty in those days without dreading lest I might soil
+her feathers. You may laugh at a hulking brute like me saying such
+things, but that's the way I saw Betty, that's the way I felt
+towards her. I could no more have taken her into my bear's hug and
+kissed her roughly than I could have smashed a child down with my
+fist. And yet--My God, man! how I ached for her!"
+
+Long as I had loved Betty in a fatherly way, deeply as I loved her
+now, the man's unexpected picture of her was a revelation. You see
+it was only after her marriage, when she had softened and grown a
+woman and come so near me that I felt the great comfort of her
+presence when she was by, the need of it when she was away. How
+could I have known anything of the elusiveness in her maidenhood
+before which he knelt so reverently?
+
+That he so knelt is the keynote of the man's soul untainted by the
+flesh.
+
+It made clear to me the tenderness that lay beneath that which was
+brutal; the reason of that personal charm which had captivated me
+against my will; his defencelessness against the Furies.
+
+So far the narrative has reached the latter part of June. He had
+spent the month with his mother. As Betty had ordained that July
+should be blank, a month during which the moon should know no
+changes but only the crescent of Diana should shine supreme in the
+heavens, he had made his mundane arrangements for his fishing
+excursion to Norway. On the afternoon of the 23rd he paid a
+farewell call at Wellings Park. Althea, in the final settlement of
+their relations, had laid it down as a definite condition that he
+should maintain his usual social intercourse with the family. A
+few young people were playing tennis. Tea was served on the lawn
+near by the court. Althea gave no sign of agitation. She played
+her game, laughed with her young men, and took casual leave of
+Boyce, wishing him good sport. He drew her a pace aside and
+murmured: "God bless you for forgiving me."
+
+She laughed a reply out loud: "Oh, that's all right."
+
+When he told me that, I recalled vividly the picture of her, in my
+garden, on the last afternoon of her life, eating the strawberries
+which she had brought me for tea. I remembered the little slangy
+tone in her voice when she had asked me whether I didn't think
+life was rather rotten. That was the tone in which she had said to
+him, "Oh, that's all right."
+
+During the early afternoon on the 25th, she rang him up on the
+telephone. Chance willed that he should receive the call at first
+hand. She must see him before he left Wellingsford. She had
+something of the utmost importance to tell him. A matter of life
+and death. With one awful thought in his mind, he placed his time
+at her disposal. For what romantic, desperate or tragic reason she
+appointed the night meeting at the end of the chestnut avenue
+where the towing-path turns into regions of desolate quietude, he
+could not tell. He agreed without argument, dreading the possible
+lack of privacy in their talk over the wires.
+
+On that afternoon she came to me, as I have told you, with her
+strawberries and her declaration of the rottenness of life.
+
+They met and walked along the towing-path. It was bright
+moonlight, but she could not have chosen a lonelier spot, more
+free from curious eyes or ears. And then took place a scene which
+it is beyond my power to describe. I can only picture it to myself
+from Boyce's broken, self-accusing talk. He was going away. She
+would never see him again until he returned to marry another
+woman. She was making her last frantic bid for happiness. She wept
+and sobbed and cajoled and upbraided--You know what women at the
+end of their tether can do. He strove to pacify her by the old
+arguments which hitherto she had accepted. Suddenly she cried: "If
+you don't marry me I am disgraced for ever." And this brought them
+to a dead halt.
+
+When he came to this point I remembered the diabolical accuracy of
+Gedge's story.
+
+Boyce said: "There is one usual reason why a man should marry a
+woman to save her from disgrace. Is that the reason?"
+
+She said "Yes."
+
+The light went out of the man's life.
+
+"In that case," said he, "there can be no question about it. I
+will marry you. But why didn't you tell me before?"
+
+She said she did not know. She made the faltering excuses of the
+driven girl. They walked on together and sat on the great bar of
+the lock gates.
+
+"Till then," said he, "I had never known what it was to have death
+in my heart. But I swear to God, Meredyth, I played my part like a
+man. I had done a dastardly thing. There was nothing left for me
+but to make reparation. In a few moments I tore my life asunder.
+The girl I had wronged was to be the mother of my child. I
+accepted the situation. I was as kind to her as I could be. She
+laid her head on my shoulder and cried, and I put my arm around
+her. I felt my heart going out to her in remorse and pity and
+tenderness. A man must be a devil who could feel otherwise. ...
+Our lives were bound up together. ... I kissed her and she clung
+to me. Then we talked for a while--ways and means. ... It was time
+to go back. We rose. And then--Meredyth--this is what she said:
+
+"'You swear to marry me?'
+
+"'I swear it,' said I.
+
+"'In spite of anything?'
+
+"I gave my promise. She put her arms round my neck.
+
+"'What I've told you is not wholly true. But the moral disgrace is
+there all the time.'
+
+"I took her wrists and disengaged myself and held her and looked
+at her.
+
+"'What do you mean--not wholly true?' I asked.
+
+"My God! I shall never forget it." He stuck both his elbows on the
+bed and clutched his hair and turned his black glasses wide of me.
+"The child crumpled up. She seemed to shrivel like a leaf in the
+fire. She said:
+
+"'I've tried to lie to you, but I can't. I can't. Pity me and
+forgive me.'
+
+"I started back from her in a sudden fury. I could not forgive
+her. Think of the awful revulsion of feeling. Foolishly tricked! I
+was mad with anger. I walked away and left her. I must have walked
+ten or fifteen yards. Then I heard a splash in the water. I
+turned. She was no longer on the bank. I ran up. I heard a cry. I
+just saw her sinking. AND I COULDN'T MOVE. As God hears me, it is
+true. I knew I must dive in and rescue her--I had run up with
+every impulse to do so; BUT I COULD NOT MOVE. I stood shivering
+with the paralysis of fear. Fear of the deep black water, the
+steep brick sides of the canal that seemed to stretch away for
+ever--fear of death, I suppose that was it. I don't know. Fear
+irresistible, unconquerable, gripped me as it had gripped me
+before, as it has gripped me since. And she drowned before my eyes
+while I stood like a stone."
+
+There was an awful pause. He had told me the end of the tragedy so
+swiftly and in a voice so keyed to the terror of the scene, that I
+lay horror-stricken, unable to speak. He buried his face in his
+hands, and between the fleshy part of the palms I saw the muscles
+of his lips twitch horribly. I remembered, with a shiver, how I
+had first seen them twitch, in his mother's house, when he had
+made his strange, almost passionate apology for fear. And he had
+all but described this very incident: the reckless, hare-brained
+devil standing on the bank of a river and letting a wounded
+comrade drown. I remember how he had defined it: "the sudden thing
+that hits a man's heart and makes him stand stock-still like a
+living corpse--unable to move a muscle--all his will-power out of
+gear--just as a motor is out of gear. ... It is as much of a fit
+as epilepsy."
+
+The span of stillness was unbearable. The watch on the little
+table by my bedside ticked maddeningly. Marigold put his head in
+at the door, apparently to warn me that it was getting late. I
+waved him imperiously away. Boyce did not notice his entrance.
+Presently he raised his head.
+
+"I don't know how long I stood there. But I know that when I moved
+she was long since past help. Suddenly there was a sharp crashing
+noise on the road below. I looked round and saw no one. But it
+gave me a shock--and I ran. I ran like a madman. And I thought as
+I ran that, if I were discovered, I should be hanged for murder.
+For who would believe my story? Who would believe it now?"
+
+"I believe it, Boyce," I said.
+
+"Yes. You. You know something of the hell my life has been. But
+who else? He had every motive for the crime, the lawyers would
+say. They could prove it. But, my God! what motive had I for
+sending all my gallant fellows to their deaths at Vilboek's Farm?
+... The two things are on all fours--and many other things with
+them. ... My one sane thought through the horror of it all was to
+get home and into the house unobserved. Then I came upon the man
+Gedge, who had spied on me."
+
+"I know about that," said I, wishing to spare him from saying more
+than was necessary. "He told Fenimore and me about it."
+
+"What was his version?" he asked in a low tone. "I had better hear
+it."
+
+When I had told him, he shook his head. "He lied. He was saving
+his skin. I was not such a fool, mad as I was, as to leave him
+like that. He had seen us together. He had seen me alone. To-
+morrow there would be discovery. I offered him a thousand pounds
+to say nothing. He haggled. Oh! the ghastly business! Eventually I
+suggested that he should come up to London with me by the first
+train in the morning and discuss the money. I was dreading lest
+someone should come along the avenue and see me. He agreed. I
+think I drank a bottle of whisky that night. It kept me alive. We
+met in my chambers in London. I had sent my man up the day before
+to do some odds and ends for me. I made a clear breast of it to
+Gedge. He believed the worst. I don't blame him. I bought his
+silence for a thousand a year. I made arrangements for payment
+through my bankers. I went to Norway. But I went alone. I didn't
+fish. I put off the two men I was to join. I spent over a month
+all by myself. I don't think I could tell you a thing about the
+place. I walked and walked all day until I was exhausted, and got
+sleep that way. I'm sure I was going mad. I should have gone mad
+if it hadn't been for the war. I suppose I'm the only Englishman
+living or dead who whooped and danced with exultation when he
+heard of it. I think my brain must have been a bit touched, for I
+laughed and cried and jumped about in a pine-wood with a week old
+newspaper in my hands. I came home. You know the rest."
+
+Yes, I knew the rest. The woman he had left to drown had been ever
+before his eyes; the avenging Furies in pursuit. This was the
+torture in his soul that had led him to many a mad challenge of
+Death, who always scorned his defiance. Yes, I knew all that he
+could tell me.
+
+But we went on talking. There were a few points I wanted cleared
+up. Why should he have kept up a correspondence with Gedge?
+
+"I only wrote one foolish angry letter," he replied.
+
+And I told him how Sir Anthony had thrown it unread into the fire.
+Gedge's nocturnal waylaying of him in my front garden was another
+unsuccessful attempt to tighten the screw. Like Randall and
+myself, he had no fear of Gedge.
+
+Of Sir Anthony he could not speak. He seemed to be crushed by the
+heroic achievement. It was the only phase of our interview during
+which, by voice and manner and attitude, he appeared to me like a
+beaten man. His own bravery at the reception had gone for naught.
+He was overwhelmed by the hideous insolence of it.
+
+"I shall never get that man's voice out of my ears as long as I
+live," he said hoarsely.
+
+After a while he added: "I wonder whether there is any rest or
+purification for me this side of the grave."
+
+I said tentatively, for we had never discussed matters of
+religion: "If you believe in Christ, you must believe in the
+promise regarding the sins that be as scarlet."
+
+But he turned it aside. "In the olden days, men like me turned
+monk and found salvation in fasting and penance. The times in
+which we live have changed and we with them, my friend. Nos
+mulamur in illis, as the tag goes."
+
+We went on talking--or rather he talked and I listened. Now and
+again he would help himself to a drink or a cigarette, and I
+marvelled at the clear assurance with which he performed the
+various little operations. I, lying in bed, lost all sense of
+pain, almost of personality. My little ailments, my little selfish
+love of Betty, my little humdrum life itself dwindled
+insignificant before the tragic intensity of this strange, curse-
+ridden being.
+
+And all the tune we had not spoken of Betty--except the Betty of
+long ago. It was I, finally, who gave him the lead.
+
+"And Betty?" said I.
+
+He held out his hand in a gesture that was almost piteous.
+
+"I could tear her from my life. I had no alternative. In the
+tearing I hurt her cruelly. To know it was not the least of the
+burning hell I lit for myself. But I couldn't tear her from my
+heart. When a brute beast like me does love a woman purely and
+ideally, it's a desperate business. It means God's Heaven to him,
+while it means only an earthly paradise to the ordinary man. It
+clutches hold of the one bit of immortal soul he has left, and
+nothing in this world can make it let go. That's why I say it's a
+desperate business."
+
+"Yes, I can understand," said I.
+
+"I schooled myself to the loss of her. It was part of my
+punishment. But now she has come back into my life. Fate has
+willed it so. Does it mean that I am forgiven?"
+
+"By whom?" I asked. "By God?"
+
+"By whom else?"
+
+"How dare man," said I, "speak for the Almighty?"
+
+"How is man to know?"
+
+"That's a hard question," said I. "I can only think of answering
+it by saying that a man knows of God's forgiveness by the measure
+of the Peace of God in his soul."
+
+"There's none of it in mine, my dear chap, and never will be,"
+said Boyce.
+
+I strove to help him. For what other purpose had he come to me?
+
+"You think then that the sending of Betty is a sign and a promise?
+Yes. Perhaps it is. What then?"
+
+"I must accept it as such," said he. "If there is a God, He would
+not give me back the woman I love, only to take her away again.
+What shall I do?"
+
+"In what way?" I asked.
+
+"She offered to marry me. I am to give her my answer to-morrow. If
+I were the callous, murdering brute that everyone would have the
+right to believe I am, I shouldn't have hesitated. If I hadn't
+been a tortured, damned soul," he cried, bringing his great fist
+down on the bed, "I shouldn't have come here to ask you what my
+answer can be. My whole being is infected with horror." He rose
+and stood over the bed and, with clenched hands, gesticulated to
+the wall in front of him. "I'm incapable of judging. I only know
+that I crave her with everything in me. I've got it in my brain
+that she's my soul's salvation. Is my brain right? I don't know. I
+come to you--a clean, sweet man who knows everything--I don't
+think there's a crime on my conscience or a foulness in my nature
+which I haven't confessed to you. You can judge straight as I
+can't. What answer shall I give to-morrow?"
+
+Did ever man, in a case of conscience, have a greater
+responsibility? God forgive me if I solved it wrongly. At any
+rate, He knows that I was uninfluenced by mean personal
+considerations. All my life I have tried to have an honourable
+gentleman and a Christian man. According to my lights I saw only
+one clear course.
+
+"Sit down, old man," said I. "You're a bit too big for me like
+that." He felt for his chair, sat down and leaned back. "You've
+done almost everything," I continued, "that a man can do in
+expiation of offences. But there is one thing more that you must
+do in order to find peace. You couldn't find peace if you married
+Betty and left her in ignorance. You must tell Betty everything--
+everything that you have told me. Otherwise you would still be
+hag-ridden. If she learned the horror of the thing afterwards,
+what would be your position? Acquit your conscience now before God
+and a splendid woman, and I stake my faith in each that neither
+will fail you."
+
+After a few minutes, during which the man's face was like a mask,
+he said:
+
+"That's what I wanted to know. That's what I wanted to be sure of.
+Do you mind ringing your bell for Marigold to take me away? I've
+kept you up abominably." He rose and held out his hand and I had
+to direct him how it could reach mine. When it did, he gripped it
+firmly.
+
+"It's impossible," said he, "for you to realise what you've done
+for me to-night. You've made my way absolutely clear to me--for
+the first time for two years. You're the truest comrade I've ever
+had, Meredyth. God bless you."
+
+Marigold appeared, answering my summons, and led Boyce away.
+Presently he returned.
+
+"Do you know what time it is, sir?" he asked serenely.
+
+"No," said I.
+
+"It's half-past one."
+
+He busied himself with my arrangements for the night, and
+administered what I learned afterwards was a double dose of a
+sleeping draught which Cliffe had prescribed for special
+occasions. I just remember surprise at feeling so drowsy after the
+intense excitement of the evening, and then I fell asleep.
+
+When I awoke in the morning I gathered my wits together and
+recalled what had taken place. Marigold entered on tiptoe and
+found me already aroused.
+
+"I'm sorry to tell you, sir," said he, "that an accident happened
+to Colonel Boyce after he left last night."
+
+"An accident?"
+
+"I suppose so, sir," said Marigold. "That's what his chauffeur
+says. He got out of the car in order to sit by the side of the
+canal--by the lock gates. He fell in, sir. He's drowned."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+It is Christmas morning, 1916, the third Christmas of the war. The
+tragedy of Boyce's death happened six months ago. Since then I
+have been very ill. The shock, too great for my silly heart,
+nearly killed me. By all the rules of the game I ought to have
+died. But I suppose, like a brother officer long since defunct,
+also a Major, one Joe Bagstock, I am devilish tough. Cliffe told
+me this morning that, apart from a direct hit by a 42-centimetre
+shell, he saw no reason, after what I had gone through, why I
+should not live for another hundred years. "I wash my hands of
+you," said he. Which indeed is pleasant hearing.
+
+I don't mind dying a bit, if it is my Maker's pleasure; if it
+would serve any useful purpose; if it would help my country a
+myriadth part of a millimetre on towards victory. But if it would
+not matter to the world any more than the demise of a daddy-long-
+legs, I prefer to live. In fact, I want to live. I have never
+wanted to live more in all my life. I want to see this fight out.
+I want to see the Light that is coming after the Darkness. For, by
+God! it will come.
+
+And I want to live, too, for personal and private reasons. If I
+could regard myself merely as a helpless incumbrance, a useless
+jellyfish, absorbing for my maintenance human effort that should
+be beneficially exerted elsewhere, I think I should be the first
+to bid them take me out and bury me. But it is my wonderful
+privilege to look around and see great and beautiful human souls
+coming to me for guidance and consolation. Why this should be I do
+not rightly know. Perhaps my very infirmity has taught me many
+lessons. ...
+
+You see, in the years past, my life was not without its
+lonelinesses. It was so natural for the lusty and joyous to
+disregard, through mere thoughtlessness, the little weather-beaten
+cripple in his wheelchair. But when one of these sacrificed an
+hour's glad life in order to sit by the dull chair in a corner,
+the cripple did not forget it. He learned in its terrible
+intensity the meaning of human kindness. And, in his course
+through the years, or as the years coursed by him, he realised
+that a pair of gollywog legs was not the worst disability which a
+human being might suffer. There were gollywog hearts, brains,
+nerves, temperaments, destinies.
+
+Perhaps, in this way, he came to the knowledge that in every human
+being lies the spark of immortal beauty, to be fanned into flame
+by one little rightly directed breath. At any rate, he learned to
+love his kind.
+
+It is Christmas day. I am as happy as a man has a right to be in
+these fierce times in England. Love is all around me. I must tell
+you little by little. Various things have happened during the last
+six months.
+
+At the inquest on the body of Leonard Boyce, the jury gave a
+verdict of death by misadventure. The story of the chauffeur, an
+old soldier servant devoted to Boyce, received implicit belief. He
+had faithfully carried out his master's orders: to conduct him
+from the road, across the field, and seat him on the boom of the
+lock gates, where he wanted to remain alone in order to enjoy the
+quiet of the night and listen to the lap of the water; to return
+and fetch him in a quarter of an hour. This he did, dreaming of no
+danger. When he came back he realised what had happened. His
+master had got up and fallen into the canal. What had really
+happened only a few of us knew.
+
+Well, I have told you the man's story. I am not his judge. Whether
+his act was the supreme amende, the supreme act of courage or the
+supreme act of cowardice, it is not for me to say. I heard nothing
+of the matter for many weeks, for they took me off to a nursing
+home and kept me in the deathly stillness of a sepulchre. When I
+resumed my life in Wellingsford I found smiling faces to welcome
+me. My first public action was to give away Phyllis Gedge in
+marriage to Randall Holmes--Randall Holmes in the decent kit of
+an officer and a gentleman. He made this proposition to me on the
+first evening of my return. "The bride's father," said I, somewhat
+ironically, "is surely the proper person."
+
+"The bride's father," said he, "is miles away, and, like a wise
+and hoary villain, is likely to remain there."
+
+This was news. "Gedge has left Wellingsford?" I cried. "How did
+that come about?"
+
+He stuck his hands on his hips and looked down on me pityingly.
+
+"I'm afraid, sir," said he, "you'll never do adequate justice to
+my intelligence and my capacity for affairs."
+
+Then he laughed and I guessed what had occurred. My young friend
+must have paid a stiff price; but Phyllis and peace were worth it;
+and I have said that Randall is a young man of fortune.
+
+"My dear boy," said I, "if you have exorcised this devil of a
+father-in-law of yours out of Wellingsford, I'll do any mortal
+thing you ask."
+
+I was almost ecstatic. For think what it meant to those whom I
+held dear. The man's evil menace was removed from the midst of us.
+The man's evil voice was silenced. The tragic secrets of the canal
+would be kept. I looked up at my young friend. There was a grim
+humour around the corners of his mouth and in his eyes the quiet
+masterfulness of those who have looked scornfully at death. I
+realised that he had reached a splendid manhood. I realised that
+Gedge had realised it too; woe be to him if he played Randall
+false. I stuck out my hand.
+
+"Any mortal thing," I repeated.
+
+He regarded me steadily. "Anything? Do you really mean it?"
+
+"You dashed young idiot," I cried, "do you think I'm in the habit
+of talking through my hat?"
+
+"Well," said he, "will you look after Phyllis when I'm gone?"
+
+"Gone? Gone where? Eternity?"
+
+"No, no! I've only a fortnight's leave. Then I'm off. Wherever
+they send me. Secret Service. You know. It's no use planking
+Phyllis in a dug-out of her own"--shades of Oxford and the
+Albemarle Review!--"she'd die of loneliness. And she'd die of
+culture in the mater's highbrow establishment. Whereas, if you
+would take her in--give her a shake-down here--she wouldn't give
+much trouble--"
+
+He stammered as even the most audacious young warrior must do when
+making so astounding a proposal. But I bade him not be an ass, but
+send her along when he had to finish with her; with the result
+that for some months my pretty little Phyllis has been an inmate
+of my house. Marigold keeps a sort of non-commissioned parent's
+eye on her. To him she seems to be still the child whom he fed
+solicitously but unemotionally with Mrs. Marigold's cakes at tea
+parties years ago. She gives me a daughter's dainty affection.
+Thank God for it!
+
+There have been other little changes in Wellingsford. Mrs. Boyce
+left the town soon after Leonard's death, and lives with her
+sister in London. I had a letter from her this morning--a brave
+woman's letter. She has no suspicion of the truth. God still
+tempereth the wind. ... Out of the innocent generosity of her
+heart she sent me also, as a keepsake, "a little heavy cane, of
+which Leonard was extraordinarily fond." She will never know that
+I put it into the fire, and with what strange and solemn thoughts
+I watched it burn.
+
+It is Christmas Day. Dr. Cliffe, although he has washed his hands
+of me, tyrannically keeps me indoors of winter nights, so that I
+cannot, as usual, dine at Wellings Park. To counter the fellow's
+machinations, however, I have prepared a modest feast to which I
+have bidden Sir Anthony and Lady Fenimore and my dearest Betty.
+
+As to Betty--
+
+Phyllis comes in radiant, her pretty face pink above an absurd
+panoply of furs. She has had a long letter from Randall from the
+Lord knows where. He will be home on leave in the middle of
+January. In her excitement she drops prayer-books and hymn-books
+all over me. Then, picking them up, reminds me it is time to go to
+church. I am an old-fashioned fogey and I go to church on
+Christmas Day. I hope our admirable and conscientious Vicar won't
+feel it his duty to tell us to love Germans. I simply can't do it.
+
+New Year's Day, 1917.
+
+I must finish off this jumble of a chronicle.
+
+Before us lies the most eventful year in all the old world's
+history. Thank God my beloved England is strong, and Great Britain
+and our great Empire and immortal France. There is exhilaration in
+the air; a consciousness of high ideals; an unwavering resolution
+to attain them; a thrilling faith in their ultimate attainment. No
+one has died or lost sight or limbs in vain. I look around my own
+little circle. Oswald Fenimore, Willie Connor, Reggie Dacre,
+Leonard Boyce--how many more could I not add to the list? All
+those little burial grounds in France--which France, with her
+exquisite sense of beauty, has assigned as British soil for all
+time--all those burial grounds, each bearing its modest leaden
+inscription--some, indeed, heart-rendingly inscribed "Sacred to
+the memory of six unknown British soldiers killed in action"--are
+monuments not to be bedewed with tears of lamentation. From the
+young lives that have gone there springs imperishable love and
+strength and wisdom--and the vast determination to use that love
+and strength and wisdom for the great good of mankind. If there is
+a God of Battles, guiding, in His inscrutable omniscience, the
+hosts that fight for the eternal verities--for all that man in his
+straining towards the Godhead has striven for since the world
+began--the men who have died will come into their glory, and those
+who have mourned will share exultant in the victory. From before
+the beginning of Time Mithra has ever been triumphant and his foot
+on the throat of Ahriman.
+
+It was in February, 1915, that I began to expand my diary into
+this narrative,--nearly two years ago. We have passed through the
+darkness. The Dawn is breaking. Sursum corda.
+
+I was going to tell you about Betty when Phyllis, with her furs
+and happiness and hymn-books, interrupted me. I should like to
+tell you now. But who am I to speak of the mysteries in the soul
+of a great woman? But I must try. And I can tell you more now than
+I could on Christmas Day.
+
+Last night she insisted on seeing the New Year in with me. If I
+had told Marigold that I proposed to sit up after midnight, he
+would have come in at ten o'clock, picked me up with finger and
+thumb as any Brobdingnagian might have picked up Gulliver, and put
+me straightway to bed. But Betty made the announcement in her
+airily imperious way, and Marigold, craven before Betty and Mrs.
+Marigold, said "Very good, madam," as if Dr. Cliffe and his orders
+had never existed. At half past ten she packed off the happy and,
+I must confess, the somewhat sleepy Phyllis, and sat down, in her
+old attitude by the side of my chair, in front of the fire, and
+opened her dear heart to me.
+
+I had guessed what her proud soul had suffered during the last six
+months. One who loved her as I did could see it in her face, in
+her eyes, in the little hardening of her voice, in odd little
+betrayals of feverishness in her manner. But the outside world saw
+nothing. The steel in her nature carried her through. She left no
+duty unaccomplished. She gave her confidence to no human being. I,
+to whom she might have come, was carried off to the sepulchre
+above mentioned. Letters were forbidden. But every day, for all
+her bleak despair, Betty sent me a box of fresh flowers. They
+would not tell me it was Betty who sent them; but I knew. My
+wonderful Betty.
+
+When they took off my cerecloths and sent me back to Wellingsford,
+Betty was the first to smile her dear welcome. We resumed our old
+relations. But Betty, treating me as an invalid, forbore to speak
+of Leonard Boyce. Any approach on my part came up against that
+iron wall of reserve of which I spoke to you long ago.
+
+But last night she told me all. What she said I cannot repeat. But
+she had divined the essential secret of the double tragedy of the
+canal. It had become obvious to her that he had made the final
+reparation for a wrong far deeper than she had imagined. She was
+very clear-eyed and clear-souled. During her long companionship
+with pain and sorrow and death, she had learned many things. She
+had been purged by the fire of the war of all resentments,
+jealousies, harsh judgments, and came forth pure gold. ... Leonard
+had been the great love of her life. If you cannot see now why she
+married Willie Connor, gave him all that her generous heart could
+give, and after his death was irresistibly drawn back to Boyce, I
+have written these pages in vain.
+
+A few minutes before midnight Marigold entered with a tray bearing
+a cake or two, a pint of champagne and a couple of glasses. While
+he was preparing to uncork the bottle Betty slipped from the room
+and returned with another glass.
+
+"For Sergeant Marigold," she said.
+
+She opened the French window behind the drawn curtains and
+listened. It was a still clear night. Presently the clock of the
+Parish Church struck twelve. She came down to the little table by
+my side and filled the glasses, and the three of us drank the New
+Year in. Then Betty kissed me and we both shook hands with
+Marigold, who stood very stiff and determined and cleared his
+throat and swallowed something as though he were expected to make
+a speech. But Betty anticipated him. She put both her hands on his
+gaunt shoulders and looked up into his ugly face.
+
+"You've just wished me a Happy New Year, Sergeant."
+
+"I have," said he, "and I mean it."
+
+"Then will you let me have great happiness in staying here and
+helping you to look after the Major?"
+
+He gasped for a moment (as did I) and clutched her arms for an
+instant in an iron grip.
+
+"Indeed I will, my dear," said he.
+
+Then he stepped back a pace and stood rigid, his one eye staring,
+his weather-beaten face the colour of beetroot. He was blushing.
+The beads of perspiration appeared below his awful wig. He
+stammered out something about "Ma'am" and "Madam." He had never so
+far forgotten himself in his life.
+
+But Betty sprang forward and gripped his hand.
+
+"It is you who are the dear," she said. "You, the greatest and
+loyalest friend a man has ever known. And I'll be loyal to you,
+never fear."
+
+By what process of enchantment she got an emotion-filled Marigold
+to the door and shut it behind him, I shall never discover. On its
+slam she laughed--a queer high note. In one swift movement she was
+by my knees. And she broke into a passion of tears. For me, I was
+the most mystified man under heaven.
+
+Soon she began to speak, her head bowed.
+
+"I've come to the end of the tether, Majy dear. They've driven me
+from the hospital--I didn't know how to tell you before--I've been
+doing all sorts of idiotic things. The doctors say it's a nervous
+breakdown--I've had rather a bad time--but I thought it
+contemptible to let one's own wretched little miseries interfere
+with one's work for the country--so I fought as hard as I could.
+Indeed I did, Majy dear. But it seems I've been playing the fool
+without knowing it,--I haven't slept properly for months--and
+they've sent me away. Oh, they've been all that's kind, of course
+--I must have at least six months' rest, they say--they talk
+about nursing homes--I've thought and thought and thought about it
+until I'm certain. There's only one rest for me, Majy dear." She
+raised a tear-stained, tense and beautiful face and drew herself
+up so that one arm leaned on my chair, and the other on my
+shoulder. "And that is to be with the one human being that is left
+for me to love--oh, really love--you know what I mean--in the
+world."
+
+I could only put my hand on her fair young head and say:
+
+"My dear, my dear, you know I love you."
+
+"That is why I'm not afraid to speak. Perfect love casteth out
+fear--"
+
+I pushed back her hair. "What is it that you want me to do,
+Betty?" I asked. "My life, such as it is, is at your command."
+
+She looked me full, unflinchingly in the eyes.
+
+"If you would give me the privilege of bearing your name, I should
+be a proud and happy woman."
+
+We remained there, I don't know how long--she with her hand on my
+shoulder, I caressing her dear hair. It was a tremendous
+temptation. To have my beloved Betty in all her exquisite warm
+loyalty bound to me for the rest of my crippled life. But I found
+the courage to say:
+
+"My dear, you are young still, with the wonderful future that no
+one alive can foretell before you, and I am old--"
+
+"You're not fifty."
+
+"Still I am old, I belong to the past--to a sort of affray behind
+an ant-hill which they called a war. I'm dead, my dear, you are
+gloriously alive. I'm of the past, as I say. You're of the future.
+You, my dearest, are the embodiment of the woman of the Great War--"
+I smiled--"The Woman of the Great War in capital letters. What
+your destiny is, God knows. But it isn't to be tied to a
+Prehistoric Man like me."
+
+She rose and stood, with her beautiful bare arms behind her,
+sweet, magnificent.
+
+"I am a Woman of the Great War. You are quite right. But in a year
+or so I shall be like other women of the war who have suffered and
+spent their lives, a woman of the past--not of the future. All
+sorts of things have been burned up in it." In a quick gesture she
+stretched out her hands to me. "Oh, can't you understand?"
+
+I cannot set down the rest of the tender argument. If she had
+loved me less, she could have lived in my house, like Phyllis,
+without a thought of the conventions. But loving me dearly, she
+had got it into her feminine head that the sacredness of the
+marriage tie would crown with dignity and beauty the part she had
+resolved to play for my happiness.
+
+Well, if I have yielded I pray it may not be set down to me for
+selfish exploitation of a woman's exhausted hour. When I said
+something of the sort, she laughed and cried:
+
+"Why, I'm bullying you into it!"
+
+The First of January, 1917--the dawn to me, a broken derelict, of
+the annus mirabilis. Somehow, foolishly, illogically, I feel that
+it will be the annus mirabilis for my beloved country.
+
+And come--after all--I am, in spite of my legs, a Man too of the
+Great War. I have lived in it, and worked in it, and suffered in
+it--and in it have I won a Great Thing.
+
+So long as one's soul is sound--that is the Great Matter.
+
+Just before we parted last night, I said to Betty:
+
+"The beginning and end of all this business is that you're afraid
+of Marigold."
+
+She started back indignantly.
+
+"I'm not! I'm not!"
+
+I laughed. "The Lady protests too much," said I.
+
+The clock struck two. Marigold appeared at the door. He approached
+Betty.
+
+"I think, Madam, we ought to let the Major go to bed."
+
+"I think, Marigold," said Betty serenely, "we ought to be ashamed
+of ourselves for keeping him up so late."
+
+THE END
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Red Planet
+by William J. Locke
+
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