Second String
by Anthony Hope · English · Gutenberg #38796 · 698,596 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Second String
Author: Anthony Hope
Release date: February 9, 2012 [eBook #38796]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38796
Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND STRING ***
Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
Transcriber's Notes:
The frontispiece illustration has been removed from text version.
Italics in original are marked with _underscores_.
Small caps have been changed to ALL CAPS.
Punctuation has been regularized.
The following typographical corrections were made:
p. 517, "dumurely" changed to "demurely." (the Nun admitted demurely)
p. 536, "that's he" changed to "that he's." (that he's terribly)
p. 539, "thing" changed to "think," (think you're perfectly)
SECOND STRING
BY ANTHONY HOPE
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS
LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN,
LEEDS, AND NEW YORK
LEIPZIG: 35-37 Koenigstrasse. PARIS: 61 Rue des Saints Peres.
First Published 1910.
CONTENTS.
I. HOME AGAIN 5
II. A VERY LITTLE HUNTING 27
III. THE POTENT VOICE 45
IV. SETTLED PROGRAMMES 66
V. BROADENING LIFE 87
VI. THE WORLDS OF MERITON 106
VII. ENTERING FOR THE RACE 128
VIII. WONDERFUL WORDS 148
IX. "INTERJECTION" 169
X. FRIENDS IN NEED 190
XI. THE SHAWL BY THE WINDOW 212
XII. CONCERNING A STOLEN KISS 235
XIII. A LOVER LOOKS PALE 256
XIV. SAVING THE NATION 278
XV. LOVE AND FEAR 300
XVI. A CHOICE OF EVILS 321
XVII. REFORMATION 342
XVIII. PENITENCE AND PROBLEMS 362
XIX. MARKED MONEY 384
XX. NO GOOD? 404
XXI. THE EMPTY PLACE 424
XXII. GRUBBING AWAY 446
XXIII. A STOP-GAP 468
XXIV. PRETTY MUCH THE SAME! 490
XXV. THE LAST FIGHT 512
XXVI. TALES OUT OF SCHOOL FOR ONCE 533
XXVII. NOT OF HIS SEEKING 555
SECOND STRING.
Chapter I.
HOME AGAIN.
Jack Rock stood in his shop in High Street. He was not very often to be
seen there nowadays; he bred and bought, but he no longer killed, and
rarely sold, in person. These latter and lesser functions he left to his
deputy, Simpson, for he had gradually developed a bye-trade which took
up much of his time, and was no less profitable than his ostensible
business. He bought horses, "made" them into hunters, and sold them
again. He was a rare judge and a fine rider, and his heart was in this
line of work.
However to-day he was in his shop because the Christmas beef was on
show. Here were splendid carcasses decked with blue rosettes, red
rosettes, or cards of "Honourable Mention;" poor bodies sadly
unconscious (as one may suppose all bodies are) of their posthumous
glories. Jack Rock, a spruce spare little man with a thin red face and a
get-up of the most "horsy" order, stood before them, expatiating to
Simpson on their beauties. Simpson, who was as fat as his master was
thin, and even redder in the face, chimed in; they were for all the
world like a couple of critics hymning the praise of poets who have paid
the debt of nature, but are decorated with the insignia of fame. Verily
Jack Rock's shop in the days before Christmas might well seem an Abbey
or a Pantheon of beasts.
"Beef for me on Christmas Day," said Jack. "None of your turkeys or
geese, or such-like truck. Beef!" He pointed to a blue-rosetted carcass.
"Look at him; just look at him! I've known him since he was calved. Cuts
up well, doesn't he? I'll have a joint off him for my own table,
Simpson."
"You couldn't do better, sir," said Simpson, just touching, careful not
to bruise, the object of eulogy with his professional knife. A train of
thought started suddenly in his brain. "Them vegetarians, sir!" he
exclaimed. Was it wonder, or contempt, or such sheer horror as the
devotee has for atheism? Or the depths of the first and the depths of
the second poured into the depths of the third to make immeasurable
profundity?
A loud burst of laughter came from the door of the shop. Nothing
startled Jack Rock. He possessed in perfection a certain cheerful
seriousness which often marks the amateurs of the horse. These men are
accustomed to take chances, to encounter the unforeseen, to endure
disappointment, to withstand the temptations of high success. _Mens
Aequa!_ Life, though a pleasant thing, is not a laughing matter. So Jack
turned slowly and gravely round to see whence the irreverent
interruption proceeded. But when he saw the intruder his face lit up,
and he darted across the shop with outstretched hand. Simpson followed,
hastily rubbing his right hand on the under side of his blue apron.
"Welcome, my lad, welcome home!" cried Jack, as he greeted with a hard
squeeze a young man who stood in the doorway. "First-rate you look too.
He's filled out, eh, Simpson?" He tapped the young man's chest
appreciatively, and surveyed his broad and massive shoulders with almost
professional admiration. "Canada's agreed with you, Andy. Have you just
got here?"
"No; I got here two hours ago. You were out, so I left my bag and went
for a walk round the old place. It seems funny to be in Meriton again."
"Come into the office. We must drink your health. You too, Simpson. Come
along."
He led the way to a back room, where, amid more severe furniture and
appliances, there stood a cask of beer. From this he filled three pint
mugs, and Andy Hayes' health and safe return were duly honoured. Andy
winked his eye.
"Them teetotallers!" he ejaculated, with a very fair imitation of
Simpson, who acknowledged the effort with an answering wink as he
drained his mug and then left the other two to themselves.
"Yes, I've been poking about everywhere--first up to have a look at the
old house. Not much changed there--well, except that everything's
changed by the dear old governor's not being there any more."
"Ah, it was a black Christmas that year--four years ago now. First, the
old gentleman; then poor Nancy, a month later. She caught the fever
nursin' him; she would do it, and I couldn't stop her. Did you go to the
churchyard, Andy?"
"Yes, I went there." After a moment's grave pause his face brightened
again. "And I went to the old school. Nobody there--it's holidays, of
course--but how everything came back to me! There was my old seat,
between Chinks and the Bird--you know? Wat Money, I mean, and young Tom
Dove."
"Oh, they're both in the place still. Tom Dove's helpin' his father at
the Lion, and Wat Money's articled to old Mr. Foulkes the lawyer."
"I sat down at my old desk, and, by Jove, I absolutely seemed to hear
the old governor talking--talking about the Pentathlon. You've heard him
talk about the Pentathlon? He was awfully keen on the Pentathlon; wanted
to have it at the sports. I believe he thought I should win it."
"I don't exactly remember what it was, but you'd have had a good go for
it, Andy."
"Leaping, running, wrestling, throwing the discus, hurling the spear--I
think that's right. He was talking about it the very last day I sat at
that desk--eight years ago! Yes, it's eight years since I went out to
the war, and nearly five since I went to Canada. And I've never been
back! Well, except for not seeing him and Nancy again, I'm glad of it.
I've done better out there. There wasn't any opening here. I wasn't
clever, and if I had been, there was no money to send me to Oxford,
though the governor was always dreaming of that."
"Naturally, seein' he was B.A. Oxon, and a gentleman himself," said
Jack.
He spoke in a tone of awe and admiration. Andy looked at him with a
smile. Among the townsfolk of Meriton Andy's father had always been
looked up to by reason of the letters after his name on the prospectus
of the old grammar school, of which he had been for thirty years the
hard-worked and very ill-paid headmaster. In Meriton eyes the letters
carried an academical distinction great if obscure, a social distinction
equally great and far more definite. They ranked Mr. Hayes with the
gentry, and their existence had made his second marriage--with Jack Rock
the butcher's sister--a _mesalliance_ of a pronounced order. Jack
himself was quite of this mind. He had always treated his brother-in-law
with profound respect; even his great affection for his sister had never
quite persuaded him that she had not been guilty of gross presumption in
winning Mr. Hayes' heart. He could not, even as the second Mrs. Hayes'
brother, forget the first--Andy's mother; for she, though the gentlest
of women, had always called Jack "Butcher." True, that was in days
before Jack had won his sporting celebrity and set up his private gig;
but none the less it would have seemed impossible to conceive of a
family alliance--even a posthumous one--with a lady whose recognition of
him was so exclusively commercial.
"Well, I'm not a B.A.--Oxon. or otherwise," laughed Andy. "I don't know
whether I'm a gentleman. If I am, so are you. Meriton Grammar School is
responsible for us both. And if you're in trade, so am I. What's the
difference between timber and meat?"
"I expect there's a difference between Meriton and Canada, though," Jack
Rock opined shrewdly. "Are you goin' to stay at home, or goin' back?"
"I shall stay here if I can develop the thing enough to make it pay to
have a man on this side. If not, pack up! But I shall be here for the
next six months anyway, I expect."
"What's it worth to you?" asked Jack.
"Oh, nothing much just now. Two hundred a year guaranteed, and a
commission--if it's earned. But it looks like improving. Only the orders
must come in before the commission does! However it's not so bad; I'm
lucky to have found a berth at all."
"Yes, lucky thing you got pals with that Canadian fellow down in South
Africa."
"A real stroke of luck. It was a bit hard to make up my mind not to come
home with the boys, but I'm sure I did the right thing. Only I'm sorry
about the old governor and Nancy."
"The old gentleman himself told me he thought you'd done right."
"It was an opening; and it had to be taken or left, then and there. So
here I am, and I'm going to start an office in London."
Jack Rock nodded thoughtfully; he seemed to be revolving something in
his mind. Andy's eyes rested affectionately on him. The two had been
great friends all through Andy's boyhood. Jack had been "Jack" to him
long before he became a family connection, and "Jack" he had continued
to be. As for the _mesalliance_--well, looking back, Andy could not with
candour deny that it had been a surprise, perhaps even a shock. It had
to some degree robbed him of the exceptional position he held in the
grammar school, where, among the sons of tradesmen, he alone, or almost
alone, enjoyed a vague yet real social prestige. The son shared the
father's fall. The feeling of caste is very persistent, even though it
may be shamed into silence by modern doctrines, or by an environment in
which it is an alien plant. But he had got over his boyish feeling now,
and was delighted to come back to Meriton as Jack Rock's visitor, and to
stay with him at the comfortable little red-brick house adjoining the
shop in High Street. In fact he flattered himself that his service in
the ranks and his Canadian experiences had taken the last of "that sort
of nonsense" out of him. It was, perhaps, a little too soon to pronounce
so confident a judgment.
Andy was smitten with a sudden compunction. "Why, I've never asked after
Harry Belfield!" he cried.
He was astonished at his own disloyalty. Harry Belfield had been the
hero of his youth, his ideal, his touchstone of excellence in all
things, the standard by which he humbly measured his own sore
deficiencies, and contemptuously assessed the demerits of his
schoolfellows. Of these Harry had not been one. No grammar school for
him! He was the son of Mr. Belfield of Halton Park--Harrow and Oxford
were the programme for him. The same favourable conditions gave him the
opportunity--which, of course, he took--of excelling in all the
accomplishments that Andy lacked and envied--riding, shooting, games of
skill that cost money. The difference of position set a gulf between the
two boys. Meetings had been rare events--to Andy always notable events,
occasions of pleasure and of excitement, landmarks in memory. The
acquaintance between the houses had been of the slightest. In Andy's
earliest days Mr. and the first Mrs. Hayes had dined once a year with
Mr. and Mrs. Belfield; they were not expected to return the hospitality.
After Andy's mother died and Nancy came on the scene, the annual dinner
had gone on, but it had become a men's dinner; and Mrs. Belfield, though
she bowed in the street, had not called on the second Mrs. Hayes--Nancy
Rock that had been. It was not to be expected. Yet Mr. Belfield had
recognized an equal in Andy's father; he also, perhaps, yielded some
homage to the B.A. Oxon. And Harry, though he undoubtedly drew a line
between himself and Andy, drew another between Andy and Andy's
schoolfellows, Chinks, the Bird, and the rest. He was rewarded--and to
his worship-loving nature it was a reward--by an adoration due as much,
perhaps, to the first line as to the second. The more definite a line,
the more graciousness lies in stepping over it.
These boyish devotions are common, and commonly are short-lived. But
Andy's habit of mind was stable and his affections tenacious. He still
felt that a meeting with Harry Belfield would be an event.
"He's all right," Jack Rock answered, his tone hardly responding to
Andy's eagerness. "He's a barrister now, you know; but I don't fancy he
does much at it. Better at spendin' money than makin' it! If you want to
see him, you can do it to-night."
"Can I? How?"
"There's talk of him bein' candidate for the Division next election, and
he's goin' to speak at a meeting in the Town Hall to-night, him and a
chap in Parliament."
"Good! Which side is he?"
"You've been a good while away to ask that!"
"I suppose I have. I say, Jack, let's go."
"You can go; I shan't," said Jack Rock. "You'll get back in time for
supper--and need it too, I should say. I never listen to speeches except
when they put me on a jury at assizes. Then I do like to hear a chap
fight for his man. That's racin', that is; and I like specially, Andy,
to see him bring it off when the odds are against him. But this
politics--in my opinion, if you put their names in a hat and drew 'em
blindfolded, you'd get just as good a Gover'ment as you do now, or just
as bad."
"Oh, I'm not going for the politics. I'm going to hear Harry Belfield."
"The only question as particularly interests me," said Jack, with one of
his occasional lapses into doubtful grammar, "is the matter of chilled
meat. But which of 'em does anything for me there? One says 'Free
Trade--let it all come!' The other says, 'No chilled meat, certainly
not, unless it comes from British possessions'--which is where it does
come from mostly. And it's ruin to the meat, Andy, in my opinion. I hate
to see it. Not that I lose much by it, havin' a high-class connection.
Would you like to have another look in the shop?"
"Suppose we say to-morrow morning?" laughed Andy.
Jack shook his head; he seemed disappointed at this lack of enthusiasm.
"I've got some beauties this Christmas," he said. "All the same I shan't
be lookin' at 'em much to-morrow mornin'! I've got a young horse, and I
want just to show him what a foxhound's like. The meet's at Fyfold
to-morrow, Andy. I wish I could mount you. I expect you ride fourteen,
eh?"
"Hard on it, I fancy--and I'm a fool on a horse anyhow. But I shall
go--on shanks' mare."
"Will you now? Well, if you're as good on your legs as you used to be,
it's odds you'll see a bit of the run. I recollect you in the old days,
Andy; you were hard to shake off unless the goin' was uncommon good.
Knew the country, you did, and where the fox was likely to make for. And
I don't think you'll get the scent too good for you to-morrow. Come
along and have tea. Oh, but you're a late-dinner man, eh?"
"Dinner when, where, and how it comes! Tea sounds capital--with supper
after my meeting. I say, Jack, it's good to see you again!"
"Wish you'd stay here, lad. I'm much alone these days--with the old
gentleman gone, and poor Nancy gone!"
"Perhaps I shall. Anyhow I might stay here for the summer, and go up to
town to the office."
"Aye, you might do that, anyhow." Again Jack Rock seemed meditative, as
though he had an idea and were half-minded to disclose it. But he was a
man of caution; he bided his time.
Andy--nobody had ever called him Andrew since the parson who christened
him--seemed to himself to have got home again, very thoroughly home
again. Montreal with its swelling hill, its mighty river, its winter
snow, its Frenchness, its opposing self-defensive, therefore
self-assertive, Britishness, was very remote. A talk with Jack Rock, a
Conservative meeting with a squire in the chair (that was safely to be
assumed), a meet of the hounds next morning--these and a tide of
intimate personal memories stamped him as at home again. The long years
in the little house at the extreme end of Highcroft--Highcroft led out
of High Street, tending to the west, Fyfold way--in the old grammar
school, in the peace of the sleepy town--had been a poignant memory in
South Africa, a fading dream in the city by the great river. They sprang
again into actuality. If he felt a certain contraction in his horizon he
felt also a peace in his mind. Meriton might or might not admire
"hustlers;" it did not hustle itself. It was a parasitic little town; it
had no manufactures, no special industry. It lived on the country
surrounding it--on the peasants, the farmers, the landowners. So it did
not grow; neither did it die. It remained much as it had been for
hundreds of years, save that it was seriously considering the
introduction of electric light.
The meeting was rather of an impromptu order; Christmas holidays are
generally held sacred from such functions. But Mr. Foot, M.P., a rising
young member and a friend of Harry Belfield's, happened to be staying at
Halton Park for shooting. Why waste him? He liked to speak, and he spoke
very well. The more Harry showed himself and got himself heard, the
better. The young men would enjoy it. A real good dinner beforehand
would send them down in rare spirits. A bit of supper, with a
whisky-and-soda or two, and recollections of their own "scores," would
end the evening pleasantly. Meriton would not be excited--it was not
election time--but it would be amused, benevolent, and present in
sufficiently large numbers to make the thing go with _eclat_.
There was, indeed, one topic which, from a platform at all events, one
could describe as "burning." A Bill dealing with the sale of
intoxicating liquor had, the session before, been introduced as the
minimum a self-respecting nation could do, abused as the maximum
fanatics could clamour for, carried through a second reading
considerably amended, and squeezed out by other matters. It was to be
re-introduced. The nation was recommended to consider the question in
the interval. Now the nation, though professing its entire desire to be
sober--it could not well do anything else--was not sure that it desired
to be made sober, was not quite clear as to the precise point at which
it could or could not be held to be sober, and felt that the argument
that it would, by the gradual progress of general culture, become sober
in the next generation or so--without feeling the change, so to say, and
with no violent break in the habits of this generation (certainly
everybody must wish the next generation to be sober)--that this
argument, which men of indisputable wisdom adduced, had great
attractions. Also the nation was much afraid of the teetotallers,
especially of the subtle ones who said that true freedom lay in freedom
from temptation. The nation thought that sort of freedom not much worth
having, whether in the matter of drink or of any other pleasure. So
there were materials for a lively and congenial discussion, and Mr.
Foot, M.P., was already in the thick of it when Andy Hayes, rather late
by reason of having been lured into the stables to see the hunters after
tea, reached the Town Hall and sidled his way to a place against the
wall in good view of the platform and of the front benches where the
big-wigs sat. The Town Hall was quite two-thirds full--very good indeed
for the Christmas season!
Andy Hayes was not much of a politician. Up to now he had been content
with the politics of his _metier_, the politics of a man trying to build
up a business. But it was impossible not to enjoy Mr. Foot. He riddled
the enemy with epigram till he fell to the earth, then he jumped on to
his prostrate form and chopped it to pieces with logic. He set his
audience wondering--this always happens at political meetings, whichever
party may be in power--by what odd freak of fate, by what inexplicable
blunder, the twenty men chosen to rule the country should be not only
the twenty most unprincipled but also the twenty stupidest in it. Mr.
Foot demonstrated the indisputable truth of this strange fact so
cogently before he had been on his legs twenty minutes that gradually
Andy felt absolved from listening any longer to so plain a matter; his
attention began to wander to the company. It was a well-to-do
audience--there were not many poor in Meriton. A few old folk might have
to go to "the house," but there were no distress or "unemployment"
troubles. The tradesfolk, their families, and employees formed the bulk.
They were presided over by Mr. Wellgood of Nutley, who might be
considered to hold the place of second local magnate, after Mr. Belfield
of Halton. He was a spare, strongly built man of two or three and forty;
his hair was clipped very close to his head; he wore a bristly moustache
just touched with gray, but it too was kept so short that the lines of
his mouth, with its firm broad lips, were plain to see; his eyes were
light-blue, hard, and wary; they seemed to keep a constant watch over
the meeting, and once, when a scuffle arose among some children at the
back of the hall, they gave out a fierce and formidable glance of
rebuke. He had the reputation of being a strict master and a stern
magistrate; but he was a good sportsman, and Jack Rock's nearest rival
after the hounds.
Beside him, waiting his turn to speak and seeming rather nervous--he was
not such an old hand at the game as Mr. Foot--sat Andy's hero, Harry
Belfield. He was the pet of the town for his gay manner, good looks, and
cheery accessibility to every man--and even more to every woman. His
youthful record was eminently promising, his career the subject of high
hopes to his family and his fellow-citizens. Tall and slight, wearing
his clothes with an elegance free from affectation, he suggested "class"
and "blood" in every inch of him. He was rather pale, with thick, soft,
dark hair; his blue eyes were vivacious and full of humour, his mouth a
little small, but delicate and sensitive, the fingers of his hands long
and tapering. "A thoroughbred" was the only possible verdict--evidently
also a man full of sensibility, awake to the charms of life as well as
to its labours; that was in keeping with all Andy's memories.
The moment he rose it was obvious with what favour he was regarded; the
audience was predisposed towards all he said. He was not so epigrammatic
nor so cruelly logical as Mr. Foot; he was easier, more colloquial, more
confidential; he had some chaff for his hearers as well as denunciation
for his enemies; his speech was seasoned now by a local allusion, now by
a sporting simile. A veteran might have found its strongest point of
promise in its power of adaptation to the listeners, its gift of
creating sympathy between them and the speaker by the grace of a very
attractive personality. It was a success, perhaps, more of charm than of
strength; but it may be doubted whether in the end the one does not
carry as far as the other.
On good terms as he was with them all, it soon became evident to so
interested an onlooker as Andy Hayes that he was on specially good
terms, or at any rate anxious to be, in one particular quarter. After he
had made a point and was waiting for the applause to die down, not once
but three or four times he smiled directly towards the front row, and
towards that part of it where two young women sat side by side. They
were among his most enthusiastic auditors, and Andy presently found
himself, by a natural leaning towards any one who admired Harry
Belfield, according to them a share of the attention which had hitherto
been given exclusively to the hero himself.
The pair made a strong contrast. There was a difference of six or seven
years only in their ages, but while the one seemed scarcely more than a
child, it was hard to think of the other as even a girl--there was about
her such an air of self-possession, of conscious strength, of a maturity
of faculties. Even in applauding she seemed also to judge and assess.
Her favour was discriminating; she let the more easy hits go by with a
slight, rather tolerant smile, while her neighbour greeted them with
outright merry laughter. She was not much beyond medium height, but of
full build, laid on ample lines; her features were rather large, and her
face wore, in repose, a thoughtful tranquillity. The other, small,
frail, and delicate, with large eyes that seemed to wonder even as she
laughed, would turn to her friend with each laugh and appear to ask her
sympathy--or even her permission to be pleased.
Andy's scrutiny--somewhat prolonged since it yielded him all the above
particulars--was ended by his becoming aware that he in his turn was the
object of an attention not less thoroughgoing. Turning back to the
platform, he found the chairman's hard and alert eyes fixed on him in a
gaze that plainly asked who he was and why he was so much interested in
the two girls. Andy blushed in confusion at being caught, but Mr.
Wellgood made no haste to relieve him from his rebuking glance. He held
him under it for full half a minute, turning away, indeed, only when
Harry sat down among the cheers of the meeting. What business was it of
Wellgood's if Andy did forget his manners and stare too hard at the
girls? The next moment Andy laughed at himself for the question. In a
sudden flash he remembered the younger girl. She was Wellgood's daughter
Vivien. He recalled her now as a little child; he remembered the
wondering eyes and the timidly mirthful curl of her lips. Was it really
as long ago as that since he had been in Meriton? However childlike she
might look, now she was grown-up!
His thoughts, which carried him through the few sentences with which the
chairman dismissed the meeting, were scattered by the sudden grasp of
Harry Belfield's hand. The moment he saw Andy he ran down from the
platform to him. His greeting was all his worshipper could ask.
"Well now, I am glad to see you back!" he cried. "Oh, we all heard how
well you'd done out at the front, and we thought it too bad of you not
to come back and be lionized. But here you are at last, and it's all
right. I must take Billy Foot home now--he's got to go to town at heaven
knows what hour in the morning--but we must have a good jaw soon. Are
you at the Lion?"
"No," said Andy, "I'm staying a day or two with Jack Rock."
"With Jack Rock?" Harry's voice sounded surprised. "Oh yes, of course, I
remember! He's a capital chap, old Jack! But if you're going to
stay--and I hope you are, old fellow--you'll want some sort of a place
of your own, won't you? Well, good-night. I'll hunt you up some time in
the next day or two, for certain. Did you like my speech?"
"Yes, and I expected you to make a good one."
"You shall hear me make better ones than that. Well, I really must--All
right, Billy, I'm coming." With another clasp of the hand he rushed
after Mr. Foot, who was undisguisedly in a hurry, shouting as he went,
"Good-night, Wellgood! Good-night, Vivien! Good-night, Miss Vintry!"
Miss Vintry--that was the other girl, the one with Vivien Wellgood. Andy
was glad to know her name and docket her by it in her place among the
impressions of the evening.
So home to a splendid round of cold beef and another pint of that
excellent beer at Jack Rock's. What days life sometimes gives--or used
to!
Chapter II.
A VERY LITTLE HUNTING.
If more were needed to make a man feel at home--more than old Meriton
itself, Jack Rock with his beef, and the clasp of Harry Belfield's
hand--the meet of the hounds supplied it. There were hunts in other
lands; Andy could not persuade himself that there were meets like this,
so entirely English it seemed in the manner of it. Everybody was there,
high and low, rich and poor, young and old. An incredible coincidence of
unplausible accidents had caused an extraordinary number of people to
have occasion to pass by Fyfold Green that morning at that hour, let
alone all the folk who chanced to have a "morning off" and proposed to
see some of the run, on horseback or on foot. The tradesmen's carts were
there in a cluster, among them two of Jack Rock's: his boys knew that a
blind eye would be turned to half an hour's lateness in the delivery of
the customers' joints. For centre of the scene were the waving tails,
the glossy impatient horses, the red coats, the Master himself, Lord
Meriton, in his glory and, it may be added, in the peremptory mood which
is traditionally associated with his office.
Andy Hayes moved about, meeting many old friends--more, indeed, than he
recognized, till a reminiscence of old days established for them again a
place in his memory. He saw Tom Dove--the Bird--mounted on a showy
screw. Wat Money--Chinks--was one of those who "happened to be passing"
on his way to a client's who lived in the opposite direction. He gave
Andy a friendly greeting, and told him that if he thought of taking a
house in Meriton, he should be careful about his lease: Foulkes,
Foulkes, and Askew would look after it. Jack Rock was there, of course,
keeping himself to himself, on the outskirts of the throng: the young
horse was nervous. Harry Belfield, in perfect array, talked to Vivien
Wellgood, her father on a raking hunter close beside them. A great swell
of home-feeling assailed Andy; suddenly he had a passionate hope that
the timber business would develop; he did not want to go back to Canada.
It was a good hunting morning, cloudy and cool, with the wind veering to
the north-east and dropping as it veered. No frost yet, but the
weather-wise predicted one before long. The scent should be good--a bit
too good, Andy reflected, for riders on shanks' mare. Their turn is best
served by a scent somewhat variable and elusive. A check here and there,
a fresh cast, the hounds feeling for the scent--these things, added to a
cunning use of short cuts and a knowledge of the country shared by the
fox, aid them to keep on terms and see something of the run--just as
they aid the heavy old gentlemen on big horses and the small boys on fat
ponies to get their humble share of the sport.
But in truth Andy cared little so that he could run--run hard, fast, and
long. His powerful body craved work, work, and work yet more abundantly.
His way of indulging it was to call on it for all its energies; he
exulted in feeling its brave response. Fatigue he never knew--at least
not till he had changed and bathed; and then it was not real fatigue: it
was no more than satiety. Now when they had found--and they had the luck
to find directly--he revelled in the heavy going of a big ploughed
field. He was at the game he loved.
Yes, but the pace was good--distinctly good. The spirit was willing, but
human legs are but human, and only two in number. Craft was required.
The fox ran straight now--but had he never a thought in his mind? The
field streamed off to the right, lengthening out as it went. Andy bore
to his left: he remembered Croxton's Dip. Did the fox? That was the
question. If he did, the hunt would describe the two sides of a
triangle, while Andy cut across the base.
He was out of sight of the field now, but he could hear the hounds
giving tongue from time to time and the thud of the hoofs. The sounds
grew nearer! A thrill of triumph ran through him; his old-time knowledge
had not failed him. The fox had doubled back, making for Croxton's Dip.
Over the edge of yonder hill it lay, half a mile off--a deep depression
in the ground, covered with thick undergrowth. In the hope of catching
up, Andy Hayes felt that he could run all day and grudge the falling of
an over-hasty night.
"Blown," indeed, but no more than a rest of a minute would put right, he
reached the ledge whence the ground sloped down sharply to the Dip. He
was in time to see the hunt race past him along the bottom--leaders, the
ruck, stragglers. Jack Rock and Wellgood were with the Master in the
van; he could not make out Harry Belfield; a forlorn figure looking like
the Bird laboured far in the rear.
They swept into the Dip as Andy started to race down the slope. But to
his chagrin they swept out of it again, straight up a long slope which
rose on his left, the fox running game, a near kill promising, a fast
point-to-point secured. The going was too good for shanks' mare to-day.
Before he got to the bottom even the Bird had galloped by, walloping his
showy screw.
To the left, then, and up that long slope! There was nothing else for
it, if he were so much as to see the kill from afar. This was exercise,
if you like! His heart throbbed like the engines of a great ship; the
sweat broke out on him. Oh, it was fine! That slope must be won--then
Heaven should send the issue!
Suddenly--even as he braced himself to face the long ascent, as the last
sounds from the hunt died away over its summit--he saw a derelict, and,
amazed, came to a full stop.
The girl was not on her pony; she was standing beside it. The pony
appeared distressed, and the girl looked no whit more cheerful. With a
pang to the very heart, Andy Hayes recognized a duty, and acknowledged
it by a snatch at his cap.
"I beg your pardon; anything wrong?" he asked.
He had been interested in Vivien Wellgood the evening before, but he was
much more than interested in the hunt. Still, she looked forlorn and
desolate.
"Would you mind looking at my pony's right front leg?" she asked. "I
think he's gone lame."
"I know nothing about horses, but he does seem to stand rather gingerly
on his--er--right front leg. And he's certainly badly blown--worse than
I am!"
"We shall never catch them, shall we? It's not the least use going on,
is it?"
"Oh, I don't know. I know the country; if you'd let me pilot you--"
"Harry Belfield was going to pilot me, but--well, I told him not to wait
for me, and he didn't. You were at the meeting last night, weren't you?
You're Mr. Hayes, aren't you? What did you think of the speeches?"
"Really, you know, if we're to have a chance of seeing any more of
the--" It was not the moment to discuss political speeches, however
excellent.
"I don't want to see any more of it. I'll go home; I'll risk it."
"Risk what?" he asked. There seemed no risk in going home; and there
was, by now, small profit in going on.
She did not answer his question. "I think hunting's the most wretched
amusement I've ever tried!" she broke out. "The pony's lame--yes, he is;
I've torn my habit" (she exhibited a sore rent); "I've scratched my
face" (her finger indicated the wound); "and here I am! All I hope is
that they won't catch that poor fox. How far do you think it is to
Nutley?"
"Oh, about three miles, I should think. You could strike the road half a
mile from here."
"I'm sure the pony's lame. I shall go back."
"Would you like me to come with you?"
During their talk her eyes had wavered between indignation and
piteousness--the one at the so-called sport of hunting, the other for
her own woes. At Andy's question a gleam of welcome flashed into them,
followed in an instant by a curious sort of veiling of all expression.
She made a pathetic little figure, with her habit sorely rent and a
nasty red scratch across her forehead. The pony lame too--if he were
lame! Andy hit on the idea that it was a question whether he were lame
enough to swear by: that was what she was going to risk--in a case to be
tried before some tribunal to which she was amenable.
"But don't you want to go on?" she asked. "You're enjoying it, aren't
you?" The question carried no rebuke; it recognized as legitimate the
widest differences of taste.
"I haven't the least chance of catching up with them. I may as well come
back with you."
The curious expression--or rather eclipse of expression--was still in
her eyes, a purely negative defensiveness that seemed as though it could
spring only from an instinctive resolve to show nothing of her feelings.
The eyes were a dark blue; but with Vivien's eyes colour never counted
for much, nor their shape, nor what one would roughly call their beauty,
were it more or less. Their meaning--that was what they set a man asking
after.
"It really would be very kind of you," she said.
Andy mounted her on the suppositiously lame pony--her weight wouldn't
hurt him much, anyhow--and they set out at a walk towards the highroad
which led to Nutley and thence, half a mile farther on, to Meriton.
She was silent till they reached the road. Then she asked abruptly, "Are
you ever afraid?"
"Well, you see," said Andy, with a laugh, "I never know whether I'm
afraid or only excited--in fighting, I mean. Otherwise I don't fancy I'm
either often."
"Well, you're big," she observed. "I'm afraid of pretty nearly
everything--horses, dogs, motor-cars--and I'm passionately afraid of
hunting."
"You're not big, you see," said Andy consolingly. Indeed her hand on the
reins looked almost ridiculously small.
"I've got to learn not to be afraid of things. My father's teaching me.
You know who I am, don't you?"
"Oh yes; why, I remember you years ago! Is that why you're out hunting?"
"Yes."
"And why you think that the pony--?"
"Is lame enough to let me risk going home? Yes." There was a hint of
defiance in her voice. "You must think what you like," she seemed to
say.
Andy considered the matter in his impartial, solid, rather slowly moving
mind. It was foolish to be frightened at such things; it must be
wholesome to be taught not to be. Still, hunting wasn't exactly a moral
duty, and the girl looked very fragile. He had not arrived at any final
decision on the case--on the issue whether the girl were silly or the
father cruel (the alternatives might not be true alternatives, not
strictly exclusive of one another)--before she spoke again.
"And then I'm fastidious. Are you?"
"I hope not!" said Andy, with an amused chuckle. A great lump of a
fellow like him fastidious!
"Father doesn't like that either, and I've got to get over it."
"How does it--er--take you?" Andy made bold to inquire.
"Oh, lots of ways. I hate dirt, and dust, and getting very hot, and
going into butchers' shops, and--"
"Butchers' shops!" exclaimed Andy, rather hit on the raw. "You eat meat,
don't you?"
"Things don't look half as dead when they're cooked. I couldn't touch a
butcher!" Horror rang in her tones.
"Oh, but I say, Jack Rock's a butcher, and he's about the best fellow in
Meriton. You know him?"
"I've seen him," she admitted reluctantly, the subject being evidently
distasteful.
For the second time Andy Hayes was conscious of a duty: he must not
be--or seem--ashamed of Jack Rock, just because this girl was
fastidious.
"I'm related to him, you know. My stepmother was his sister. And I'm
staying in his house."
She glanced at him, a slight flush rising to her cheeks; he saw that her
lips trembled a little.
"It's no use trying to unsay things, is it?" she asked.
"Not a bit," laughed Andy. "Don't think I'm hurt; but I should be a
low-down fellow if I didn't stand up for old Jack."
"I should rather like to have you to stand up for me sometimes," she
said, and broke into a smile as she added, "You're so splendidly solid,
you see, Mr. Hayes. Here we are at home--you may as well make a complete
thing of it and see me as far as the stables."
"I'd like to come in--I'm not exactly a stranger here. I've often been a
trespasser. Don't tell Mr. Wellgood unless you think he'll forgive me,
but as a boy I used to come and bathe in the lake early in the
morning--before anybody was up. I used to undress in the bushes and slip
in for my swim pretty nearly every morning in the summer. It's fine
bathing, but you want to be able to swim; there's a strong undercurrent,
where the stream runs through. Are you fond of bathing?"
Andy was hardly surprised when she gave a little shudder. "No, I'm
rather afraid of water." She added quickly, "Don't tell my father, or I
expect I should have to try to learn to swim. He hasn't thought of that
yet. No more has Isobel--Miss Vintry, my companion. You know? You saw
her at the meeting. I have a companion now, instead of a governess.
Isobel isn't afraid of anything, and she's here to teach me not to be."
"You don't mind my asking your father to let me come and swim, if I'm
here in the summer?"
"I don't suppose I ought to mind that," she said doubtfully.
The house stood with its side turned to the drive by which they
approached it from the Meriton road. Its long, low, irregular front--it
was a jumble of styles and periods--faced the lake, a stone terrace
running between the facade and the water; it was backed by a thick wood;
across the lake the bushes grew close down to the water's edge. The
drive too ran close by the water, deep water as Andy was well aware, and
was fenced from it by a wooden paling, green from damp. The place had a
certain picturesqueness, but a sadness too. Water and trees--trees and
water--and between them the long squat house. To Andy it seemed to brood
there like a toad. But his healthy mind reverted to the fact that for a
strong swimmer the bathing was really splendid.
"Here comes Isobel! Now nothing about swimming, and say the pony's
lame!"
The injunction recalled Andy from his meditations and also served to
direct his attention to Miss Vintry, who stood, apparently waiting for
them, at the end of the drive, with the house on her right and the
stables on her left. She was dressed in a business-like country frock,
rather noticeably short, and carried a stick with a spike at the end of
it. She looked very efficient and also very handsome.
Vivien told her story: Andy, not claiming expert knowledge, yet stoutly
maintained that the pony was--or anyhow had been--lame.
"He seems to be getting over it," said Miss Vintry, with a smile that
was not malicious but was, perhaps, rather annoyingly amused. "I'm
afraid your having had to turn back will vex your father, but I suppose
there was no help for it, and I'm sure he'll be much obliged to--"
"Mr. Hayes." Vivien supplied the name, and Andy made his bow.
"Oh yes, I've heard Mr. Harry Belfield speak of you." Her tone was
gracious, and she smiled at Andy good-humouredly. If she confirmed his
impression of capability, and perhaps added a new one of masterfulness,
there was at least nothing to hint that her power would not be well used
or that her sway would be other than benevolent.
Vivien had dismounted, and a stable-boy was leading the pony away, after
receiving instructions to submit the suspected off fore-leg to his
chief's inspection. There seemed nothing to keep Andy, and he was about
to take his leave when Miss Vintry called to the retreating stable-boy,
"Oh, and let Curly out, will you? He hasn't had his run this afternoon."
Vivien turned her head towards the stables with a quick apprehensive
jerk. A big black retriever, released in obedience to Isobel Vintry's
order, ran out, bounding joyously. He leapt up at Isobel, pawing her and
barking in an ecstasy of delight. In passing Andy, the stranger, he gave
him another bark of greeting and a hasty pawing; then he clumsily
gambolled on to where Vivien stood.
"He won't hurt you, Vivien. You know he won't hurt you, don't you?" The
dog certainly seemed to warrant Isobel's assertion; he appeared a most
good-natured animal, though his play was rough.
"Yes, I know he won't hurt me," said Vivien.
The dog leapt up at her, barking, frisking, pawing her, trying to reach
her face to lick it. She made no effort to repel him; she had a little
riding-whip in her hand, but she did not use it; her arms hung at her
side; she was rather pale.
"There! It's not so terrible after all, is it?" asked Isobel. "Down,
Curly, down! Come here!"
The dog obeyed her at her second bidding, and sat down at her feet. Andy
was glad to see that the ordeal--for that was what it looked like--was
over, and had been endured with tolerable fortitude; he had not enjoyed
the scene. Somewhat to his surprise Vivien's lips curved in a smile.
"Somehow I wasn't nearly so frightened to-day," she said. Apparently the
ordeal was a daily one--perhaps one of several daily ones, for she had
already been out hunting. "I didn't run away as I did yesterday, when
Harry Belfield was here."
"You are getting used to it," Isobel affirmed. "Mr. Wellgood's quite
right. We shall have you as brave as a lion in a few months." Her tone
was not unkind or hard, neither was it sympathetic. It was just
extremely matter-of-fact. "It's all nerves," she added to Andy. "She
overworked herself at school--she's very clever, aren't you,
Vivien?--and now she's got to lead an open-air life. She must get used
to things, mustn't she?"
Andy had a shamefaced feeling that the ordeals or lessons, if they were
necessary at all, had better be conducted in privacy. That had not
apparently occurred to Mr. Wellgood or to Isobel Vintry. Indeed that
aspect of the case did not seem to trouble Vivien herself either; she
showed no signs of shame; she was smiling still, looking rather puzzled.
"I wonder why I was so much less frightened." She turned her eyes
suddenly to Andy. "I know. It was because you were there!"
"You ran away, in spite of Mr. Harry's being here yesterday," Isobel
reminded her.
"Mr. Hayes is so splendidly big--so splendidly big and solid," said
Vivien, thoughtfully regarding Andy's proportions. "When he's here, I
don't think I shall be half so much afraid."
"Oh, then Mr. Wellgood must ask him to come again," laughed Isobel. "You
see how useful you'll be, Mr. Hayes!"
"I shall be delighted to come again, anyhow, if I'm asked--whether I'm
useful or not. And I think it was jolly plucky of you to stand still as
you did, Miss Wellgood. If I were in a funk, I should cut and run for
it, I know."
"I thought you'd been a soldier," said Isobel.
"Oh, well, it's different when there are a lot of you together.
Besides--" He chuckled. "You're not going to get me to let on that I was
in a funk then. Those are our secrets, Miss Vintry. Well now, I must go,
unless--"
"No, there are no more tests of courage to-day, Mr. Hayes," laughed
Isobel.
Vivien's eyes had relapsed into inexpressiveness; they told Andy nothing
of her view of the trials, or of Miss Vintry, who had conducted the
latest one; they told him no more of her view of himself as she gave him
her hand in farewell. He left her still standing on the spot where she
had endured Curly's violent though well-meant attentions--again rather a
pathetic figure, in her torn habit, with the long red scratch (by-the-by
Miss Vintry had made no inquiry about it--that was part of the system
perhaps) on her forehead, and with the background, as it were, of
ordeals, or tests, or whatever they were to be called. Andy wondered
what they would try her with to-morrow, and found himself sorry that he
would not be there--to help her with his bigness and solidity.
It was difficult to say that Mr. Wellgood's system was wrong. It was
absurd for a grown girl--a girl living in the country--to be frightened
at horses, dogs, and motor-cars, to be disgusted by dirt and dust, by
getting very hot--and by butchers' shops. All these were things which
she would have to meet on her way through the world, as the world is at
present constituted. Still he was sorry for her; she was so slight and
frail. Andy would have liked to take on his broad shoulders all her
worldly share of dogs and horses, of dust, of getting very hot (a thing
he positively liked), and of butchers; these things would not have
troubled him in the least; he would have borne them as easily as he
could have carried Vivien herself in his arms. As he walked home he had
a vision of her shuddering figure, with its pale face and reticent eyes,
being led by Isobel Vintry's firm hand into Jack Rock's shop in High
Street, and there being compelled to inspect, to touch, to smell, the
blue-rosetted, red-rosetted, and honourably mentioned carcasses which
adorned that Valhalla of beasts--nay, being forced, in spite of all
horror, to touch Jack Rock the butcher himself! Isobel Vintry would, he
thought, be capable of shutting her up alone with all those dead things,
and with the man who, as she supposed, had butchered them.
"I should have to break in the door!" thought Andy, his vanity flattered
by remembering that she had seen in him a stand-by, and a security which
apparently even Harry Belfield had been unable to afford. True it was
that in order to win the rather humble compliment of being held a
protection against an absolutely harmless retriever dog he had lost his
day's hunting. Andy's heart was lowly; he did not repine.
Chapter III.
THE POTENT VOICE.
After anxious consultation at Halton it had been decided that Harry
Belfield was justified in adopting a political career and treating the
profession of the Bar, to which he had been called, as nominal. The
prospects of an opening--and an opening in his native Division--were
rosy. His personal qualifications admitted of no dispute, his social
standing was all that could be desired. The money was the only
difficulty. Mr. Belfield's income, though still large, was not quite
what it had been; he was barely rich enough to support his son in what
is still, in spite of all that has been done in the cause of electoral
purity, a costly career. However the old folk exercised economies, Harry
promised them, and it was agreed that the thing could be managed. It
was, perhaps, at the back of the father's mind that for a young man of
his son's attractions there was one obvious way of increasing his
income--quite obvious and quite proper for the future owner of Halton
Park.
For the moment political affairs were fairly quiet--next year it would
be different--and Harry, ostensibly engaged on a course of historical
and sociological reading, spent his time pleasantly between Meriton and
his rooms in Jermyn Street. He had access to much society of one kind
and another, and was universally popular; his frank delight in pleasing
people made him pleasant to them. With women especially he was a great
favourite, not for his looks only, though they were a passport to open
the door of any drawing-room, but more because they felt that he was a
man who appreciated them, valued them, needed them, to whom they were a
very big and precious part of life. He had not a shred of that
indifference--that independence of them--which is the worst offence in
women's eyes. Knowing that they counted for so much to him, it was as
fair as it was natural that they should let him count for a good deal
with them.
But even universal favourites have their particular ties. For the last
few months Harry had been especially attached to Mrs. Freere, the wife
of a member of Parliament of his own party who lived in Grosvenor
Street. Mr. Freere was an exceedingly laborious person; he sat on more
committees than any man in London, and had little leisure for the joys
of home life. Mrs. Freere could take very good care of herself, and, all
question of principles apart, had no idea of risking the position and
the comforts she enjoyed. Subject to the limits thus clearly imposed on
her, she had no objection at all to her friendship with Harry Belfield
being as sentimental as Harry had been disposed to make it; indeed she
had a taste for that kind of thing herself. Once or twice he had tried
to overstep the limits, elastic as they were--he was impulsive, Mrs.
Freere was handsome--but he had accepted her rebuke with frank
penitence, and the friendship had been switched back on to its appointed
lines without an accident. The situation was pleasant to her; she was
convinced that it was good for Harry. Certainly he met at her house many
people whom it was proper and useful for him to meet; and her partiality
offered him every opportunity of making favourable impressions. If her
conscience needed any other salve--it probably did not feel the need
acutely--she could truthfully aver that she was in the constant habit of
urging him to lose no time in looking out for a suitable wife.
"A wife is such a help to a man in the House," she would say. "She can
keep half the bores away from him. I don't do it because Wilson
positively loves bores--being bored gives him a sense of serving his
country--but I could if he'd let me."
Harry had been accustomed to meet such prudent counsels with protests of
a romantic order; but Mrs. Freere, a shrewd woman, had for some weeks
past noticed that the protests were becoming rather less vehement, and
decidedly more easy for her to control. When she repeated her advice one
day, in the spring after Andy Hayes came back from Canada, Harry looked
at her for a moment and said,
"Would you drop me altogether if I did, Lily?" He called her Lily when
they were alone.
"I'm married; you haven't dropped me," said Mrs. Freere with a smile.
"Oh, that's different. I shouldn't marry a woman unless I was awfully in
love with her."
"I don't think I ought to make that a reason for finally dropping you,
because you'll probably be awfully in love with several. Put that
difficulty--if it is one--out of your mind. We shall be friends."
"And you wouldn't mind? You--you wouldn't think it--?" He wanted to ask
her whether she would think it what, on previous occasions, he had said
that he would think it.
Mrs. Freere laughed. "Oh, of course your wife would be rather a
bore--just at first, anyhow. But, you know, I can even contemplate my
life without you altogether, Harry." She was really fond of him, but she
was not a woman given to illusions either about her friends or about
herself.
Harry did not protest that he could not contemplate his life without
Mrs. Freere, though he had protested that on more than one of those
previous occasions. Mrs. Freere leant against the mantelpiece, smiling
down at him in the armchair.
"Seen somebody?" she asked.
Harry blushed hotly. "You're an awfully good sort, Lily," he said.
She laughed a little, then sighed a little. Well, it had been very
agreeable to have this handsome boy at her beck and call, gracefully
adoring, flattering her vanity, amusing her leisure, giving her the
luxury of reflecting that she was behaving well in the face of
considerable temptation--she really felt entitled to plume herself on
this exploit. But such things could not last--Mrs. Freere knew that. The
balance was too delicate; a topple over on one side or the other was
bound to come; she had always meant that the toppling over, when it
came, should be on the safe side--on to the level ground, not over the
precipice. A bump is a bump, there's no denying it, but it's better than
a broken neck. Mrs. Freere took her bump smiling, though it certainly
hurt a little.
"Is she very pretty?"
He jumped up from the armchair. He was highly serious about the matter,
and that, perhaps, may be counted a grace in him.
"I suppose I shall do it--if I can. But I'm hanged if I can talk to you
about it!"
"That's rather nice of you. Thank you, Harry."
He bowed his comely head, with its waving hair, over her hand and kissed
it.
"Good-bye, Harry," she said.
He straightened himself and looked her in the face for an instant. He
shrugged his shoulders; she understood and nodded. There was, in fact,
no saying what one's emotions would be up to next--what would be the new
commands of the Restless and Savage Master. Poor Harry! She knew his
case. She herself had "taken him" from her dear friend Rosa Hinde.
He was gone. She stood still by the mantelpiece a moment longer,
shrugged shoulders in her turn--really that Savage Master!--crossed the
room to a looking-glass--not much wrong there happily--and turned on the
opening of the door. Mr. Freere came in--between committees. He had just
time for a cup of tea.
"Just time, Wilson?"
"I've a committee at five, my dear."
She rang the bell. "Talk of road-hogs! You're a committee-hog, you
know."
He rubbed his bald head perplexedly. "They accumulate," he pleaded in a
puzzled voice. "I'm sorry to leave you so much alone, my dear." He came
up to her and kissed her. "I always want to be with you, Lily."
"I know," she said. She did know--and the knowledge was one of the odd
things in life.
"Goodness, I forgot to telephone!" He hurried out of the room again.
"Serves me right, I suppose!" said Mrs. Freere; to which of recent
incidents she referred must remain uncertain.
Mr. Freere came back for his hasty cup of tea.
The Park was gay in its spring bravery--a fine setting for the play of
elegance and luxury which took place there on this as on every
afternoon. Harry Belfield sought to occupy and to distract his mind by
the spectacle, familiar though it was. He did not want to congratulate
himself on the thing that had just happened, yet this was what he found
himself doing if he allowed his thoughts to possess him. "That's over
anyhow!" was the spontaneous utterance of his feelings. Yet he felt very
mean. He did not see why, having done the right thing, he should feel so
mean. It seemed somehow unfair--as though there were no pleasing
conscience, whatever one did. Conscience might have retorted that in
some situations there is no "right thing;" there is a bold but fatal
thing, and there is a prudent but shabby thing; the right thing has
vanished earlier in the proceedings. Still he had done the best thing
open to him, and, reflecting on that, he began to pluck up his spirits.
His sensuous nature turned to the pleasant side; his volatile emotions
forsook the past for the future. As he walked along he began to hear
more plainly and to listen with less self-reproach to the voice which
had been calling him now for many days--ever since he had addressed that
meeting in the Town Hall at Meriton. Meriton was calling him back with
the voice of Vivien Wellgood, and with her eyes begging him to hearken.
He had "seen somebody," in Mrs. Freere's sufficient phrase. Great and
gay was London, full of lures and charms; many were they who were ready
to pet, to spoil, and to idolize; many there were to play, to laugh, and
to revel with. Potent must be the voice which could draw him from all
this! Yet he was listening to it as he walked along. He was free to
listen to it now--free since he had left Mrs. Freere's house in
Grosvenor Street.
Suddenly he found himself face to face with Andy Hayes--not a man he
expected to meet in Hyde Park at four o'clock in the afternoon. But Andy
explained that he had "knocked off early at the shop" and come west, to
have a last look at the idle end of the town--everybody there seemed
idle, even if all were not.
"Because it's my last day in London. I'm going down to Meriton to-morrow
for the summer. I've taken lodgings there--going to be an
up-and-downer," Andy explained. "And I think I shall generally be able
to get Friday to Monday down there."
To Meriton to-morrow! Harry suffered a sharp and totally unmistakable
pang of envy.
"Upon my soul, I believe you're right!" he said. "I'm half sick of the
racket of town. What's the good of it all? And one gets through the
devil of a lot of money. And no time to do anything worth doing! I don't
believe I've opened a book for a week."
"Well, why don't you come down too? It would be awfully jolly if you
did."
"Oh, it's not altogether easy to chuck everything and everybody," Harry
reminded his friend, who did not seem to have reflected what a gap would
be caused by Mr. Harry Belfield's departure from the metropolis. "Still
I shall think about it. I could get through a lot of work at home." The
historical and sociological reading obligingly supplied an excellent
motive for a flight from the too-engrossing gaieties of town. "And, of
course, there's no harm in keeping an eye on the Division." The potent
voice was gathering allies apace! Winning causes have that way. "I might
do much worse," Harry concluded thoughtfully.
Andy was delighted. Harry's presence would make Meriton a different
place to him. He too, for what he was worth (it is not possible to say
that he was worth very much in this matter), became another ally of the
potent voice, urging the joys of country life and declaring that Harry
already looked "fagged out" by the arduous pleasures of London life.
"I shall think about it seriously," said Harry, knowing in himself that
the voice had won. "Are you doing anything to-night? I happen for once
to have an off evening."
"No; only I'd thought of dropping into the pit somewhere. I haven't seen
'Hamlet' at the--"
"Oh lord!" interrupted Harry. "Let's do something a bit more cheerful
than that! Have you seen the girl at the Empire--the Nun? Not seen her?
Oh, you must! We'll dine at the club and go; and I'll get her and
another girl to come on to supper. I'll give you a little fling for your
last night in town. Will you come?"
"Will I come? I should rather think I would!" cried Andy.
"All right; dinner at eight. We shall have lots of time--she doesn't
come on till nearly ten. Meet me at the Artemis at eight. Till then, old
chap!" Harry darted after a lady who had favoured him with a gracious
bow as she passed by, a moment before.
Here was an evening-out for Andy Hayes, whose conscience had suggested
"Hamlet" and whose finances had dictated the pit. He went home to his
lodgings off Russell Square all smiles, and spent a laborious hour
trying to get the creases out of his dress coat. "Well, I shall enjoy an
evening like that just for once," he said out loud as he laboured.
"I've got her and another girl," Harry announced when Andy turned up at
the Artemis. "The nuisance is that Billy Foot here insists on coming
too, so we shall be a man over. I've told him I don't want him, but the
fellow will come."
"I'm certainly coming," said the tall long-faced young man--for Billy
Foot was still several years short of forty--to whom Andy had listened
with such admiration at Meriton. In private life he was not oppressively
epigrammatic or logical, and not at all ruthless; and everybody called
him "Billy," which in itself did much to deprive him of his terrors.
The Artemis was a small and luxurious club in King Street. Why it was
called the "Artemis" nobody knew. Billy Foot said that the name had been
chosen just because nobody would know why it had been chosen--it was a
bad thing, he maintained, to label a club. Harry, however, conjectured
that the name indicated that the club was half-way between the Athenaeum
and the Turf--which you might take in the geographical sense or in any
other you pleased.
Andy ate of several foods that he had never tasted before and drank
better wine than he had ever drunk before. His physique and his steady
brain made any moderate quantity of wine no more than water to him.
Harry Belfield, on the contrary, responded felicitously to even his
first glass of champagne; his eyes grew bright and his spirit gay. Any
shadow cast over him by his interview with Mrs. Freere was not long in
vanishing.
They enjoyed themselves so well that a cab had only just time to land
them at their place of entertainment before the Nun, whose name was Miss
Doris Flower, came on the stage. She was having a prodigious success
because she did look like a nun and sang songs that a nun might really
be supposed to sing--and these things, being quite different from what
the public expected, delighted the public immensely. When Miss Flower,
whose performance was of high artistic merit, sang about the baby which
she might have had if she had not been a nun, and in the second song
(she was on her death-bed in the second song, but this did not at all
impair her vocal powers) about the angel whom she saw hovering over her
bed, and the angel's likeness to her baby sister who had died in
infancy, the public cried like a baby itself.
"Jolly good!" said Billy Foot, taking his cigar out of his mouth and
wiping away a furtive tear. "But there, she is a ripper, bless her!" His
tone was distinctly affectionate.
But supper was the great event to Andy: that was all new to him, and he
took it in eagerly while they waited for the Nun and her friend. Such a
din, such a chatter, such a lot of diamonds, such a lot of smoke--and
the white walls, the gilding, the pink lampshades, the band ever and
anon crashing into a new tune, and the people shouting to make
themselves heard through it--Andy would have sat on happily watching,
even though he had got no supper at all. Indeed he was no more hungry
than most of the other people there. One does not go to supper there
because one is hungry--that is a vulgar reason for eating.
However supper he had, sitting between Billy Foot and the Nun's friend,
a young woman named Miss Dutton, who had a critical, or even sardonic,
manner, but was extremely pretty. The Nun herself contrived to be rather
like a nun even off the stage; she did not talk much herself, but
listened with an innocent smile to the sallies of Billy Foot and Harry
Belfield.
"Been to hear her?" Miss Dutton asked Andy.
Andy said that they had, and uttered words of admiration.
"Sort of thing they like, isn't it?" said Miss Dutton. "You can't put in
too much rot for them."
"But she sings it so--" Andy began to plead.
"Yes, she can sing. It's a wonder she's succeeded. How sick one gets of
this place!"
"Do you come often?"
"Every night--with her generally."
"I've never been here before in my life."
"Well, I hope you like the look of us!"
Harry Belfield looked towards him. "Don't mind what she says, Andy. We
call her Sulky Sally--don't we, Sally?--But she looks so nice that we
have to put up with her ways."
Miss Dutton smiled reluctantly, but evidently could not help smiling at
Harry. "I know the value of your compliments," she remarked. "There are
plenty of them going about the place to judge by!"
"Mercy, Sally, mercy! Don't show me up before my friends!"
Miss Dutton busied herself with her supper. The Nun ate little; most of
the time she sat with her pretty hands clasped on the table in front of
her. Suddenly she began to tell what proved to be a rather long story
about a man named Tommy--everybody except Andy knew whom she meant. She
told this story in a low, pleasant, but somewhat monotonous voice. In
truth the Nun was a trifle prolix and prosy, but she also looked so nice
that they were quite content to listen and to look. It appeared that
Tommy had done what no man should do; he had made love to two girls at
once. For a long time all went well; but one day Tommy, being away from
the sources of supply of cash (as a rule he transacted all his business
in notes), wrote two cheques--the Nun specified the amounts, one being
considerably larger than the other--placed them in two envelopes, and
proceeded to address them wrongly. Each lady got the other lady's
cheque, and--"Well, they wanted to know about it," said the Nun, with a
pensive smile. So, being acquaintances, they laid their heads together,
and the next time Tommy (who had never discovered his mistake) asked
lady number one to dinner, she asked lady number two, "and when Tommy
arrived," said the Nun, "they told him he'd find it cheaper that way,
because there'd only be one tip for the waiter!" The Nun, having reached
her point, gave a curiously pretty little gurgle of laughter.
"Rather neat!" said Billy Foot. "And did they chuck him?"
"They'd agreed to, but Maud weakened on it. Nellie did."
"Poor old Tommy!" mused Harry Belfield.
It was not a story of surpassing merit whether it were regarded from the
moral or from the artistic point of view; but the Nun had grown
delighted with herself as she told it, and her delight made her look
even more pretty. Andy could not keep his eyes off her; she perceived
his honest admiration and smiled serenely at him across the table.
"I suppose it was Nellie who was to have the small cheque?" Billy Foot
suggested.
"No; it was Maud."
"Then I drink to Maud as a true woman and a forgiving creature!"
Andy broke into a hearty enjoying laugh. Nothing had passed which would
stand a critical examination in humour, much less in wit; but Andy was
very happy. He had never had such a good time, never seen so many gay
and pretty women, never been so in touch with the holiday side of life.
The Nun delighted him; Miss Dutton was a pleasantly acid pickle to
stimulate the palate for all this rich food. Billy Foot and Harry looked
at him, looked at one another, and laughed.
"They're laughing at you," said Miss Dutton in her most sardonic tone.
"I don't mind. Of course they are! I'm such an outsider."
"Worth a dozen of either of them," she remarked, with a calmly
impersonal air that reduced her compliment to a mere statement of fact.
"Oh, I heard!" cried Harry. "You don't think much of us, do you, Sally?"
"I come here every night," said Miss Dutton. "Consequently I know."
The pronouncement was so confident, so conclusive, that there was
nothing to do but laugh at it. They all laughed. If you came there every
night, "consequently" you would know many things!
"We must eat somewhere," observed the Nun with placid resignation.
"We must be as good as we can and hope for mercy," said Billy Foot.
"You'll need it," commented Miss Dutton.
"Let's hope the law of supply and demand will hold good!" laughed Harry.
"How awfully jolly all this is!" said Andy.
He had just time to observe Miss Dutton's witheringly patient smile
before the lights went out. "Hullo!" cried Andy; and the rest laughed.
Up again the lights went, but the Nun rose from her chair.
"Had enough of it?" asked Harry.
"Yes," said the Nun with her simple, candid, yet almost scornful
directness. "Oh, it's been all right. I like your friend, Harry--not
Billy, of course--the new one, I mean."
When they had got their cloaks and coats and were waiting for the Nun's
electric brougham, Harry made an announcement that filled Andy with joy
and the rest of the company with amazement.
"This is good-bye for a bit, Doris," he said. "I'm off to the country
the day after to-morrow."
"What have we done to you?" the Nun inquired with sedate anxiety.
"I've got to work, and I can't do it in London. I've got a career to
look after."
The Nun gurgled again--for the second time only in the course of the
evening. "Oh yes," she murmured with obvious scepticism. "Well, come and
see me when you get back." She turned her eyes to Andy, and, to his
great astonishment, asked, "Would you like to come too?"
Andy could hardly believe that he was himself, but he had no doubt about
his answer. The Nun interested him very much, and was so very pretty. "I
should like to awfully," he replied.
"Come alone--not with these men, or we shall only talk nonsense," said
the Nun, as she got into her brougham. "Get in, Sally."
"Where's the hurry?" asked Miss Dutton, getting in nevertheless. The Nun
slapped her arm smartly; the two girls burst into a giggle, and so went
off.
"Where to now?" asked Harry.
Andy wondered what other place there was.
"Bed for me," said Billy Foot. "I've a consultation at half-past nine,
and I haven't opened the papers yet."
"Bed is best," Harry agreed, though rather reluctantly. "Going to take a
cab, Billy?"
"What else is there to take?"
"Thought you might be walking."
"Oh, walking be ----!" He climbed into a hansom.
"I'll walk with you, Harry. I haven't had exercise enough."
Harry suggested that they should go home by the Embankment. When they
had cut down a narrow street to it, he put his arm in Andy's and led him
across the road. They leant on the parapet, looking at the river. The
night was fine, but hazy and still--a typical London night.
"You've given me a splendid evening," said Andy. "And what a good sort
those girls were!"
"Yes," said Harry, rather absently, "not a bad sort. Doris has got her
head on her shoulders, and she's quite straight. Poor Sally's come one
awful cropper. She won't come another; she's had more than enough of it.
So one doesn't mind her being a bit snarly."
Poor Sally! Andy had had no idea of anything of the sort, but he had an
instinct that people who come one cropper--and one only--feel that one
badly.
"I'm feeling happy to-night, old fellow," said Harry suddenly. "You may
not happen to know it, but I've gone it a bit for the last two or three
years, made rather a fool of myself, and--well, one gets led on. Now
I've made up my mind to chuck all that. Some of it's all right--at any
rate it seems to happen; but I've had enough. I really do want to work
at the politics, you know."
"It's all before you, if you do," said Andy in unquestioning loyalty.
"I'm going to work, and to pull up a bit all round, and--" Harry broke
off, but a smile was on his lips. There on the bank of the Thames, fresh
from his party in the gay restaurant, he heard the potent voice calling.
It seemed to him that the voice was potent enough not only to loose him
from Mrs. Freere, to lure him from London delights, to carry him down to
Meriton and peaceful country life; but potent enough, too, to transform
him, to make him other than he was, to change the nature that had till
now been his very self. He appealed from passion to passion; from the
soiled to the clean, from the turgid to the clear. A new desire of his
eyes was to make a new thing of his life.
Chapter IV.
SETTLED PROGRAMMES.
Mark Wellgood of Nutley had a bugbear, an evil thing to which he gave
the name of sentimentality. Wherever he saw it he hated it--and he saw
it everywhere. No matter what was the sphere of life, there was the
enemy ready to raise its head, and Mark Wellgood ready to hit that head.
In business and in public affairs he warred against it unceasingly; in
other people's religion--he had very little of his own--he was keen to
denounce it; even from the most intimate family and personal
relationships he had always been resolved to banish it, or, failing
that, to suppress its manifestations. Himself a man of uncompromising
temper and strong passions, he saw in this hated thing the root of all
the vices with which he had least sympathy. It made people cowards who
shrank from manfully taking their own parts; it made them hypocrites who
would not face the facts of human nature and human society, but sought
to cover up truths that they would have called "ugly" by specious names,
by veils, screens, and fine paraphrases. It made men soft, women
childish, and politicians flabby; it meant sheer ruin to a nation.
Sentimentality was, of course, at the bottom of what was the matter with
his daughter, of those things of which, with the aid of Isobel Vintry's
example, he hoped to cure her--her timidity and her fastidiousness. But
it was at the bottom of much more serious things than these--since to
make too much fuss about a girl's nonsensical fancies would be
sentimental in himself. Notably it was at the bottom of all shades of
opinion from Liberalism to Socialism, both included. Harry Belfield,
lunching at Nutley a week or so after his return to Meriton, had the
benefit of these views, with which, as a prospective Conservative
candidate, he was confidently expected to sympathise.
"I've only one answer to make to a Socialist," said Wellgood. "I say to
him, 'You can have my property when you're strong enough to take it.
Until then, you can't.' Under democracy we count heads instead of
breaking them. It's a bad system, but it's tolerable as long as the
matter isn't worth fighting about. When you come to vital issues, it'll
break down--it always has. We, the governing classes, shall keep our
position and our property just as long as we're able and willing to
defend them. If the Socialists mean business, they'd better stop talking
and learn to shoot."
"That might be awkward for us," said Harry, with a smile at Vivien
opposite.
"But if they think we're going to sit still and be voted out of
everything, they're much mistaken. That's what I hope, at all events,
though it needs a big effort not to despair of the country sometimes.
People won't look at the facts of nature. All nature's a fight from
beginning to end. All through, the strong hold down the weak; and the
strong grow stronger by doing it--never mind whether they're men or
beasts."
"There's a lot of truth in that; but I don't know that it would be very
popular on a platform--even on one of ours!"
"You political fellows have to wrap it up, I suppose, but the cleverer
heads among the working men know all about it--trust them! They're on
the make themselves; they want to get where we are; gammoning the common
run helps towards that. Oh, they're not sentimental! I do them the
justice to believe that."
"But isn't there a terrible lot of misery, father?" asked Vivien.
"You can't cure misery by quackery, my dear," he answered concisely.
"Half of it's their own fault, and for the rest--hasn't there always
been? So long as some people are weaker than others, they'll fare worse.
I don't see any particular attraction in the idea of making weaklings or
cowards as comfortable as the strong and the brave." His glance at his
daughter was stern. Vivien flushed a little; the particular ordeal of
that morning, a cross-country ride with her father, had not been a
brilliant success.
"To him that hath shall be given, eh?" Harry suggested.
"Matter of Scripture, Harry, and you can't get away from it!" said
Wellgood with a laugh.
Psychology is not the strong point of a mind like Wellgood's. To study
his fellow-creatures curiously seems to such a man rather unnecessary
and rather twaddling work; in its own sphere it corresponds to the hated
thing itself, to an over-scrupulous worrying about other people's
feelings or even about your own. It had not occurred to Wellgood to
study Harry Belfield. He liked him, as everybody did, and he had no idea
how vastly Harry's temperament differed from his own. Harry had many
material guarantees against folly--his birth, the property that was to
be his, the career opening before him. If Wellgood saw any signs of what
he condemned, he set them down to youth and took up the task of a mentor
with alacrity. Moreover he was glad to have Harry coming to the house;
matters were still at an early stage, but if there were a purpose in his
coming, there was nothing to be said against the project. He would
welcome an alliance with Halton, and it would be an alliance on even
terms; for Vivien had some money of her own, apart from what he could
leave her. Whether she would have Nutley or not--well, that was
uncertain. Wellgood was only forty-three and young for his years; he
might yet marry and have a son. A second marriage was more than an idea
in his head; it was an intention fully formed. The woman he meant to ask
to be his wife at the suitable moment lived in his house and sat at his
table with him--his daughter's companion, Isobel Vintry.
Isobel had sat silent through Wellgood's talk, not keenly interested in
the directly political aspect of it, but appreciating the view of human
nature and of the way of the world which underlay it. She also was on
the side of the efficient--of the people who knew what they wanted and
at any rate made a good fight to get it. Yet while she listened to
Wellgood, her eyes had often been on Harry; she too was beginning to ask
why Harry came so much to Nutley; the obvious answer filled her with a
vague stirring of discontent. An ambitious self-confident nature does
not like to be "counted out," to be reckoned out of the running before
the race is fairly begun. Why was the answer obvious? There was more
than one marriageable young woman at Nutley. Her feeling of protest was
still vague; but it was there, and when she looked at Harry's comely
face, her eyes were thoughtful.
Though Wellgood had business after lunch, Harry stayed on awhile,
sitting out on the terrace by the lake, for the day was warm and fine.
The coming of spring had mitigated the grimness of Nutley; the water
that had looked dreary and dismal in the winter now sparkled in the sun.
Harry was excellently well content with himself and his position. He
told the two girls that things were shaping very well. Old Sir George
Millington had decided to retire. He was to be the candidate; he would
start his campaign through the villages of the Division in the late
summer, when harvest was over; he could hardly be beaten; and he was
"working like a horse" at his subjects.
"The horse gets out of harness now and then!" said Isobel.
"You don't want him to kill himself with work, Isobel?" asked Vivien
reproachfully.
"Visits to Nutley help the work; they inspire me," Harry declared,
looking first at Vivien, then at Isobel. They were both, in their
different ways, pleasant to look at. Their interest in him--in all he
said and did, and in all he was going to do--was very pleasant also.
"Oh yes, I'm working all right!" he laughed. "Really I have to, because
of old Andy Hayes. He's getting quite keen on politics--reads all the
evening after he gets back from town. Well, he's good enough to think
I've read everything and know everything, and whenever we meet he pounds
me with questions. I don't want Andy to catch me out, so I have to mug
away."
"That's your friend, Vivien," said Isobel, with a smile and a nod.
"Yes, the solid man."
"Oh, I know that story. Andy told me himself. He thought you behaved
like a brick."
"He did, anyhow. Why don't you bring him here, Harry?"
"He's in town all day; I'll try and get him here some Saturday."
"Does he still stay with the--with Mr. Rock?" asked Vivien.
"No; he's taken lodgings. He's very thick with old Jack still, though.
Of course it wouldn't do to tell him so, but it's rather a bore that he
should be connected with Jack in that way. It doesn't make my mother any
keener to have him at Halton, and it's a little difficult for me to
press it."
"It does make his position seem--just rather betwixt and between,
doesn't it?" asked Isobel.
"If only it wasn't a butcher!" protested Vivien.
"O Vivien, the rules, the rules!" "Nothing against butchers," was one of
the rules.
"I know, but I would so much rather it had been a draper, or a
stationer, or something--something clean of that sort."
"I'm glad your father's not here. Be good, Vivien!"
"However it's not so bad if he doesn't stay there any more," Harry
charitably concluded. "Just going in for a drink with old
Jack--everybody does that; and after all he's no blood relation." He
laughed. "Though I dare say that's exactly what you'd call him, Vivien."
Just as he made his little joke Vivien had risen. It was her time for
"doing the flowers," one of the few congenial tasks allowed her. She
smiled and blushed at Harry's hit at her, looking very charming. Harry
indulged himself in a glance of bold admiration. It made her cheeks
redder still as she turned away, Harry looking after her till she
rounded the corner of the house. In answering the call of the voice he
had found no disappointment. Closer and more intimate acquaintance
revealed her as no less charming than she had promised to be. Harry was
sure now of what he wanted, and remained quite sure of all the wonderful
things that it was going to do for him and for his life.
Suddenly on the top of all this legitimate and proper feeling--to which
not even Mark Wellgood himself could object, since it was straight in
the way of nature--there came on Harry Belfield a sensation rare, yet
not unknown, in his career--a career still so short, yet already so
emotionally eventful.
Isobel Vintry was not looking at him--she was gazing over the lake--nor
he at her; he was engaged in the process of lighting a cigarette. Yet he
became intensely aware of her, not merely as one in his company, but as
a being who influenced him, affected him, in some sense stretched out a
hand to him. He gave a quick glance at her; she was motionless, her eyes
still aloof from him. He stirred restlessly in his chair; the air seemed
very close and heavy. He wanted to make some ordinary, some light
remark; for the moment it did not come. A remembrance of the first time
that Mrs. Freere and he had passed the bounds of ordinary friendship
struck across his mind, unpleasantly, and surely without relevance!
Isobel had said nothing, had done nothing, nor had he. Yet it was as
though some mystic sign had passed from her to him--he could not tell
whether from him to her also--a sign telling that, whatever
circumstances might do, there was in essence a link between them, a
reminder from her that she too was a woman, that she too had her power.
He did not doubt that she was utterly unconscious, but neither did he
believe that he was solely responsible, that he had merely imagined.
There was an atmosphere suddenly formed--an atmosphere still and heavy
as the afternoon air that brooded over the unruffled lake.
Harry had no desire to abide in it. His mind was made up; his heart was
single. He picked up a stone which had been swept from somewhere on to
the terrace and pitched it into the lake. A plop, and many ripples. The
heavy stillness was broken.
Isobel turned to him with a start.
"I thought you were going to sleep, Miss Vintry. I couldn't think of
anything to say, so I threw a stone into the water. I'm afraid you were
finding me awfully dull!"
"You dull! You're a change from what sometimes does seem a little
dull--life at Nutley. But perhaps you can't conceive life at Nutley
being dull?" Her eyes mocked him with the hint that she had discovered
his secret.
"Well, I think I should be rather hard to please if I found Nutley
dull," he said gaily. "But if you do, why do you stay?"
"Perpetual amusement isn't in a companion's contract, Mr. Harry.
Besides, I'm fond of Vivien. I should be sorry to leave her before the
natural end of my stay comes."
"The natural end?"
"Oh, I think you understand that." She smiled with a good-humoured scorn
at his homage to pretence.
"Well, of course, girls do marry. It's been known to happen," said
Harry, neither "cornered" nor embarrassed. "But perhaps"--he glanced at
her, wondering whether to risk a snub. His charm, his gift of gay
impudence, had so often stood him in stead and won him a liberty that a
heavy-handed man could not hope to be allowed; he was not much
afraid--"Perhaps you'd be asked to stay on--in another capacity, Miss
Vintry."
"It looks as if your thoughts were running on such things." She did not
affect not to understand, but she was not easy to corner either.
"I'm afraid they always have been," Harry confessed, a confession
without much trace of penitence.
"Mine don't often; and they're never supposed to--in my position."
"Oh, nonsense! Really that doesn't go down, Miss Vintry. Why, a girl
like you, with such--"
"Don't attempt a catalogue, please, Mr. Harry."
"You're right, quite right. I'm conscious how limited my powers are."
Harry Belfield could no more help this sort of thing than a bird can
help flying. In childhood he had probably lisped in compliments, as the
poet in numbers. In itself it was harmless, even graceful, and quite
devoid of serious meaning. Yet it was something new in his relations
with Isobel Vintry; though it had arisen out of a desire to dispel that
mysterious atmosphere, yet it was a sequel to it. Hitherto she had been
Vivien's companion. In that brief session of theirs--alone together by
the lake--she had assumed an independent existence for him, a vivid,
distinctive, rather compelling one. The impressionable mind received a
new impression, the plastic feelings suffered the moulding of a fresh
hand. Harry, who was alert to watch himself and always knew when he was
interested, was telling himself that she was such a notable foil to
Vivien; that was why he was interested. Vivien was still the centre of
gravity. The explanation vindicated his interest, preserved his loyalty,
and left his resolve unshaken. These satisfactory effects were all on
himself; the idea of effects on Isobel Vintry did not occur to him. He
was not vain, he was hardly a conscious or intentional "lady-killer." He
really suffered love affairs rather than sought them; he was driven into
them by an overpowering instinct to prove his powers. He could not help
"playing the game"--the rather hazardous game--to the full extent of his
natural ability. That extent was very considerable.
He said good-bye to her, laughingly declaring that after all he would
prepare a catalogue, and send it to her by post. Then he went into the
house, to find Vivien and pay another farewell. Left alone, Isobel rose
from her chair with an abrupt and impatient movement. She was a woman of
feelings not only more mature but far stronger than Vivien's; she had
ambitious yearnings which never crossed Vivien's simple soul. But she
was stern with herself. Perhaps she had caught and unconsciously copied
some of Wellgood's anti-sentimental attitude. She often told herself
that the feelings were merely dangerous and the yearnings silly. Yet
when others seemed tacitly to accept that view, made no account of her,
and assumed to regard her place in life as settled, she glowed with a
deep resentment against them, crying that she would make herself felt.
To-day she knew that somehow, to some degree however small, she had made
herself felt by Harry Belfield. The discovery could not be said to bring
pleasure, but it brought triumph--triumph and an oppressive
restlessness.
Wellgood strolled out of the house and joined her. "Where's Harry?" he
asked.
"He went into the house to say good-bye to Vivien; or perhaps he's gone
altogether by now."
Wellgood stood in thought, his hands in his pockets.
"He's a bit inclined to be soft, but I think we shall make a man of him.
He's got a great chance, anyhow. Vivien seems to like him, doesn't she?"
"Oh, everybody must!" She smiled at him. "Are you thinking of
match-making, like a good father?"
"She might do worse, and I'd like her to marry a man we know all about.
The poor child hasn't backbone to stand up for herself if she happened
on a rascal."
Isobel had a notion that Wellgood was over-confident if he assumed that
he, or they, knew all about Harry Belfield. His parentage, his position,
his prospects--yes. Did these exhaust the subject? But Wellgood's
downright mind would have seen only "fancies" in such a suggestion.
"If that's the programme, I must begin to think of packing up my
trunks," she said with a laugh.
He did not join in her laugh, but his stern lips relaxed into a smile.
"Lots of time to think about that," he told her, his eyes seeming to
make a careful inspection of her. "Nutley would hardly be itself without
you, Isobel."
She showed no sign of embarrassment under his scrutiny; she stood
handsome and apparently serene in her composure.
"Oh, poor Nutley would soon recover from the blow," she said. "But I
shall be sorry to go. You've been very kind to me."
"You've done your work very well. People who work well are well treated
at Nutley; people who work badly--"
"Aren't exactly petted? No, they're not, Mr. Wellgood, I know."
"You'd always do your work, whatever it might be, well, so you'd always
be well treated."
"At any rate you'll give me a good character?" she asked mockingly.
"Oh, I'll see that you get a good place," he answered her in the same
tone, but with a hint of serious meaning in his eyes.
His plan was quite definite, his confidence in the issue of it absolute.
But "one thing at a time" was among his maxims. He would like to see
Vivien's affair settled before his own was undertaken. His idea was that
his declaration and acceptance should follow on his daughter's
engagement.
Isobel was not afraid of Mark Wellgood, as his daughter was, and as so
many women would have been. She had a self-confidence equal to his own;
she added to it a subtlety which would secure her a larger share of
independence than it would be politic to claim openly. She had not
feared him as a master, and would not fear him as a husband. Moreover
she understood him far better than he read her. Understanding gives
power. And she liked him; there was much that was congenial to her in
his mind and modes of thought. He was a man, a strong man. But the
prospect at which his words hinted--she was not blind to their meaning,
and for some time back had felt little doubt of his design--did not
enrapture her. At first sight it seemed that it ought. She had no money,
her family were poor, marriage was her only chance of independence.
Nutley meant both a comfort and a status beyond her reasonable hopes.
But it meant also an end to the ambitious dreams. It was finality. Just
this life she led now for all her life--or at least all Wellgood's! He
was engrossed in the occupations of a country gentleman of moderate
means, in his estate work and his public work. He hardly ever went to
London; he never travelled farther afield; he visited little even among
his neighbours. Some of these habits a wife might modify; the essentials
of the life she would hardly be able to change. Yet, if she got the
chance, there was no question but that she ought to take it. Common
sense told her that, just as it told Wellgood that it would be absurd to
doubt of her acceptance.
Common sense might say what it liked. Her feelings were in revolt, and
their insurrection gathered fresh strength to-day. It was not so much
that Wellgood was nearly twenty years her senior. That counted, but not
as heavily as perhaps might be expected, since his youthful vigour was
still all his. It was the certainty with which his thoughts disposed of
her, his assumption that his suit would be free from difficulty and from
rivalry, his matter-of-course conclusion that Harry could come to Nutley
only for Vivien's sake. If these things wounded her woman's pride, the
softer side of her nature lamented the absence of romance, of the thrill
of love, of being wooed and won in some poetic fashion, of
everything--she found her thoughts insensibly taking this
direction--that it would be for Harry Belfield's chosen mistress to
enjoy. Nobody--least of all the man who was content to take her to wife
himself--seemed to think of her as a choice even possible to Harry. He
was, of course, for Vivien. All the joys of love, all the life of
pleasure, the participation in his career, the moving many-coloured
existence to be led by his side--all these were for Vivien. Her heart
cried out in protest at the injustice; she might not even have her
chance! It would be counted treachery if she strove for it, if she
sought to attract Harry or allowed herself to be attracted by him. She
had to stand aside; she was to be otherwise disposed of, her assent to
the arrangement being asked so confidently that it could hardly be said
to be asked at all. Suppose she did not assent? Suppose she fought for
herself, treachery or no treachery? Suppose she followed the way of her
feelings, if so be that they led her towards Harry Belfield? Suppose she
put forth what strength she had to upset Wellgood's plan, to fight for
herself?
She played with these questions as she walked up and down the terrace by
the lake. She declared to herself that she was only playing with them,
but they would not leave her.
Certainly the questions found no warrant in Harry Belfield's present
mood. He had made up his mind, his eager blood was running apace. That
very evening, as his father and he sat alone together after dinner, in
the long room graced by the two Vandykes which were the boast of Halton,
he broached the matter in confidence. Mr. Belfield was a frail man of
sixty. He had always been delicate in health, a sufferer from asthma and
prone to chills; but he was no acknowledged invalid, and would not
submit to the _role_. He did his share of county work; his judgment was
highly esteemed, his sense of honour strict and scrupulous. He had a
dryly humorous strain in him, which found food for amusement in his
son's exuberant feelings and dashing impulses, without blinding him to
their dangers.
"Well, it's not a great match, but it's quite satisfactory, Harry.
You'll find no opposition here. I like her very much, and your mother
does too, I know. But"--he smiled and lifted his brows--"it's a trifle
sudden, isn't it?"
"Sudden?" cried Harry. "Why, I've known her all my life!"
"Yes, but you haven't been in love with her all your life. And, if
report speaks true, you have been in love with some other women." Mr.
Belfield was a man of the world; his tone was patient and not unduly
severe as he referred to Harry's adventures of the heart, which had
reached his ears from friends in London.
"Yes, I know," said Harry; "but those were only--well, passing sort of
things, you know."
"And this isn't a passing sort of thing?"
"Not a bit of it; I'm dead sure of it. Well, a fellow can't tell
another--not even his father--what he feels."
"No, no, don't try; keep all that for the lady. But if I were you I'd go
a bit slow, and I wouldn't tell your mother yet. There's no particular
hurry, is there?"
Harry laughed. "Well, I suppose that depends on how one feels. I happen
to feel rather in a hurry."
"Go as slow as you can. Passing things pass: a wife's a more permanent
affair. And undoing a mistake is neither a very easy nor a very savoury
business."
"I'm absolutely sure. Still I'll try to wait and see if I can manage to
get a little bit surer still, just to please you, pater."
"Thank you, old boy; I don't think you'll repent it. And, after all, it
may be as well to give the lady time to get quite sure too--eh?" His
eyes twinkled. He was fully aware that Harry would not think a great
deal of time necessary for that. "Oh, by-the-bye," he went on, "I've a
little bit of good news for you. I've interceded with your mother on
Andy Hayes' behalf, and her heart is softened. She says she'll be very
glad to see him here--"
"Hurrah! That's very good of the mater."
"--when we're alone, or have friends who we know won't object." He
laughed a little, and Harry joined in the laugh. "A prudent woman's
prudent provisoes, Harry! I wish both you and I were as wise as your
mother is."
"Dear old Andy--he's getting quite the fashion! I'm to take him to
Nutley too."
"Excellent! Because it looks as if Nutley would be coming here to a
certain extent in the immediate future, and he'll be able to come when
Nutley does." He rose from his chair. "My throat's bothersome to-night;
I'll leave you alone with your cigarette."
Harry smoked a cigarette that seemed to emit clouds of rosy smoke. All
that lay in the past was forgotten; the future beckoned him to
glittering joys.
"Marriage is his best chance, but even that's a considerable chance with
Master Harry!" thought his father as he sat down to his book.
The one man who had serious fears--or at least doubts--about Harry
Belfield's future was his own father.
"I probably shan't live to see the trouble, if any comes," he thought.
"And if his mother does--she won't believe it's his fault."
Chapter V.
BROADENING LIFE.
"Five all, and deuce!" cried Wellgood, who had taken on himself the
function of umpire. He turned to Isobel and Vivien, who sat by in wicker
armchairs, watching the game. "I never thought it would be so close.
Hayes has pulled up wonderfully!"
"I think Mr. Hayes'll win now," said Vivien.
An "exhibition single" was being played, by request, before the audience
above indicated. Andy Hayes had protested that, though of course he
would play if they wished, he could not give Harry a game--he had not
played for more than a year. At first it looked as if he were right:
Harry romped away with the first four games, so securely superior that
he fired friendly chaff at Andy's futile rushes across the court in
pursuit of a ball skilfully placed where he least expected it. But in
the fifth game the rallies became very long; Andy was playing for
safety--playing deadly safe. He did not try to kill; Harry did, but
often committed suicide. The fifth, the sixth, the seventh game went to
Andy. A flash of brilliancy gave Harry the eighth--five, three! The
ninth was his service--he should have had it, and the set. Andy's
returns were steady, low, all good length, possible to return, almost
impossible to kill. But Harry tried to kill. Four, five. Andy served,
and found a "spot"--at least Harry's malevolent glances at a particular
piece of turf implied a theory that he had. Five all! And now "Deuce"!
"He's going to lick me, see if he isn't!" cried Harry Belfield,
perfectly good-natured, but not hiding his opinion that such a result
would be paradoxical.
Andy felt terribly ashamed of himself--he wanted to win so much. To play
Harry Belfield on equal terms and beat him, just for once! This spirit
of emulation was new to his soul; it seemed rather alarming when it
threatened his old-time homage in all things to Harry. Where was
ambition going to stop? None the less, eye and hand had no idea of not
doing their best. A slashing return down the side line and a clever lob
gave him the game--six, five!
Harry Belfield was the least bit vexed--amusedly vexed. He remembered
Andy's clumsy elephantine sprawlings (no other word for them) about the
court when in their boyhood he had first undertaken to teach him the
game. Andy must have played a lot in Canada.
"Now I'll take three off you, Andy," he cried, and served a double
fault. The "gallery" laughed. "Oh, damn it!" exclaimed Harry,
indecorously loud, and served another. Andy could not help laughing--the
first time he had ever laughed at Harry Belfield. Given a handicap of
thirty, the game was, barring extraordinary accidents, his. So it
proved. He won it at forty-fifteen, with a stroke that a child ought to
have returned; Harry put it into the net.
"Lost your nerve, Harry?" said the umpire.
"The beggar's such a sticker!" grumbled Harry, laughing. "You think
you've got him licked--and you haven't!"
"I'm glad Mr. Hayes won." This from Vivien.
"Not only defeated, but forsaken!" Harry cried. "Andy, I'll have your
blood!"
Andy Hayes laughed joyously. This victory came as an unlooked-for
adornment to a day already notable. A Saturday half-holiday, down from
town in time to lunch at Nutley, tennis and tea, and the prospect (not
free from piquant alarm) of dinner at Halton--this was a day for Andy
Hayes! With an honest vanity--a vanity based on true affection--he
thought how the account of it would tickle Jack Rock. His life seemed
broadening out before him, and he would like to tell dear old Jack all
about it. Playing lawn-tennis at Nutley, dining at Halton--here were
things just as delightful, just as enlightening, as supping at the great
restaurant in the company of the Nun and pretty sardonic Miss Dutton. He
owed them all to Harry--he almost wished he had lost the set. At any
rate he felt that he ought to wish it.
"It was an awful fluke!" he protested apologetically.
"You'd beat him three times out of five," Wellgood asserted in that
confident tone of his.
Harry looked a little vexed. He bore an occasional defeat with admirable
good-nature: to be judged consistently inferior was harder schooling to
his temper. Triumphing in whatever the contest might be had grown into
something of a custom with him. It brooked occasional breaches:
abrogation was another matter. But "Oh no!" cried both the girls
together.
Harry was on his feet again in a moment. Women's praise was always sweet
to him, and not the less sweet for being open to a suspicion of
partiality--which is, after all, a testimony to achievement in other
fields.
Such a partiality accounted for the conviction of Harry's superiority in
Vivien's case at least. She had grown up in the midst of the universal
Meriton adoration of him as the most accomplished, the kindest, the
merriest son of that soil, the child of promise, the present pride and
the future glory of his native town. Any facts or reports not to the
credit of the idol or reflecting on his divinity had not reached her
cloistered ears. Wellgood, like Harry's own father, had heard some, but
Wellgood held common-sense views even more fully than Mr. Belfield;
facts were facts, and all men had to be young for a time. Now, if signs
were to be trusted, if the idol's own words, eyes, and actions meant
what she could not but deem they meant (or where stood the idol's
honesty?), he proposed to ask her to share his throne; he, the adored,
offered adoration--an adoration on a basis of reciprocity, be it
understood. She did not grumble at that. To give was so easy, so
inevitable; to receive--to be asked to accept--so wonderful. It could
not enter her head or her heart to question the value of the gift or to
doubt the whole-heartedness with which it was bestowed. It was to her so
great a thing that she held it must be as great to Harry. Really at the
present moment it was as great to Harry. His courtship of her seemed a
very great thing, his absolute exclusive devotion a rare flower of
romance.
But she had been glad to see Andy win. Oh yes, she was compassionate.
She knew so well what it was not to do things as cleverly as other
people, and how oppressive it felt to be always inferior. Besides Andy
had a stock of gratitude to draw on; somehow he had, by his solidity,
caused Curly to appear far less terrible. With a genuine gladness she
saw him pluck one leaf from Harry's wreath. It must mean so much to Mr.
Hayes; it mattered nothing to Harry. Nay, rather, it was an added chance
for his graces of manner to shine forth.
They did shine forth. "Very good of you, ladies, but I think he holds me
safe," said Harry.
"I shouldn't if you'd only play steady," Andy observed in his reflective
way. "Taking chances--that's your fault, Harry."
"Taking chances--why, it's life!" cried Harry, any shadow of vexation
utterly gone and leaving not the smallest memory.
"Well, ordinary people can't look at it like that," Andy said, with no
touch of sarcasm, amply acknowledging that Harry and the ordinary were
things remote from one another.
Was life taking chances? To one only of the party did that seem really
true. Harry had said it, but he was not the one. He was possessed by a
new triumphant certainty; Wellgood by the thought of a mastery he deemed
already established, and waiting only for his word to be declared;
Vivien by a dream that glowed and glittered, refusing too close a touch
with earth; Andy by a stout conviction that he must not think about
chances, but work away at his timber (he still called it lumber in his
inner mind) and his books, pausing only to thank heaven for a wonderful
Saturday holiday.
But life was taking chances! Supine in her chair, silent since her one
exclamation in championship of Harry Belfield, Isobel Vintry echoed the
cry. Life was taking chances? Yes, any life worth having perhaps was.
But what if the chances did not come one's way? Who can take what fate
never offers?
All the present party was to meet again at Halton in the evening. It
seemed hardly a separation when Harry and Andy started off together
towards Meriton, Harry, as usual, chattering briskly, Andy listening,
considering, absorbing. At a turn of the road they passed two old
friends of his, Wat Money, the lawyer's clerk, and Tom Dove, the budding
publican--"Chinks" and "The Bird" of days of yore.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Harry! Hullo, Andy!" said Chinks and the Bird. When
they were past, the Bird nudged Chinks with his elbow and winked his
eye.
"Yes, he's getting no end of a swell, isn't he?" said Chinks.
"Hand-and-glove with Harry Belfield!"
"I suppose you don't see much of those chaps now?" Harry was asking Andy
at the same moment. There was just a shadow of admonition in the
question.
"I'm afraid I don't. Well, we're all at work. And when I do get a day
off--"
"You don't need to spend it at the Lion!" laughed Harry. "As good drink
and better company in other places!"
There were certainly good things to drink and eat at Halton, and Andy
could not be blamed if he found the company at least as well to his
liking. He had not been there since he was quite a small boy--in the
days before Nancy Rock migrated from the house next the butcher's shop
in High Street to preside over his home--but he had never forgotten the
handsome dining-room with its two Vandykes, nor the glass of sherry
which Mr. Belfield had once given him there. Mrs. Belfield received him
with graciousness, Mr. Belfield with cordiality. Of course he was the
first to arrive, being very fearful of unpunctuality. Even Harry was not
down yet. Not being able, for obvious reasons, to ask after her guest's
relations--her invariable way, when it was possible, of opening a
conversation--Mrs. Belfield expressed her pleasure at seeing him back in
Meriton.
"My husband thinks you're such a good companion for Harry," she added,
showing that her pleasure was genuine, even if somewhat interested.
"Yes, Hayes," said Mr. Belfield. "See all you can of him; we shall be
grateful. He wants just what a steady-going sensible fellow, as
everybody says you are, can give him--a bit of ballast, eh?"
"Everybody" had been, in fact, Jack Rock, but--again for obvious
reasons--the authority was not cited by name.
"You may be sure I shall give him as much of my company as he'll take,
sir," said Andy, infinitely pleased, enormously complimented.
Placidity was Mrs. Belfield's dominant note--a soothing placidity. She
was rather short and rather plump--by no means an imposing figure; but
this quality gave her a certain dignity, and even a certain power in her
little world. People let her have her own way because she was so
placidly sure that they would, and it seemed almost profane to disturb
the placidity. Even her husband's humour was careful to stop short of
that. Her physical movements were in harmony with her temper--leisurely,
smooth, noiseless; her voice was gentle, low, and even. She seemed to
Andy to fit in well with the life she lived and always had lived, to be
a good expression or embodiment of its sheltered luxury and sequestered
tranquillity. Storms and stress and struggles--these things had nothing
to do with Mrs. Belfield, and really ought to have none; they would be
quite out of keeping with her. She seemed to have a right to ask that
things about her should go straight and go quietly. There was perhaps a
flavour of selfishness about this disposition; certainly an
inaccessibility to strong feeling. For instance, while placidly assuming
Harry's success and Harry's career, she was not excited nor what would
be called enthusiastic about them--not half so excited and enthusiastic
as Andy Hayes.
The dinner in the fine old room, under the Vandykes, with Mrs. Belfield
in her lavender silk and precious lace, the girls in their white frocks,
the old silver, the wealth of flowers, seemed rather wonderful to Andy
Hayes. His life in boyhood had been poor and meagre, in manhood hard and
rough. Here was a side of existence he had not seen; as luxurious as the
life of which he had caught a glimpse at the great restaurant, but far
more serene, more dignified. His opening mind received another new
impression and a rarely attractive one.
But the centre of the scene for him was Vivien Wellgood. From his first
sight of her in the drawing-room he could not deny that. He had never
seen her in the evening before, and it was in the evening that her frail
beauty showed forth. She was like a thing of gossamer that a touch would
spoil. She was so white in her low-cut frock; all so white save for a
little glow on the cheeks that excitement and pleasure brought, save for
the brightness of her hair in the soft candle light, save for the dark
blue eyes which seemed to keep watch and ward over her hidden thoughts.
Yes, she was--why, she was good enough for Harry--good enough for Harry
Belfield himself! And he, Andy, Harry's faithful follower and
worshipper, would worship her too, if she would let him (Harry, he knew,
would), if she would not be afraid of him, not dislike him or shrink
from him. That was all he asked, having in his mind not only a bashful
consciousness of his rude strength and massive frame--they seemed almost
threatening beside her delicacy--but also a haunting recollection that
she could not endure such a number of things, including butchers' shops.
No thought for himself, no thought of trying to rival Harry, so much as
crossed his mind. If it had, it would have been banished as rank
treachery; but it could not, for the simple reason that his attitude
towards Harry made such an idea utterly foreign to his thoughts. He was
not asking, as Isobel Vintry had asked that afternoon, why he might not
have his chance. It was not the way of his nature to put forward claims
for himself--and, above all, claims that conflicted with Harry's claims.
The bare notion was to him impossible.
He sat by her, but for some time she gave herself wholly to listening to
Harry, who had found, on getting home, a letter from Billy Foot, full of
the latest political gossip from town. But presently, the conversation
drifting into depths of politics where she could not follow, she turned
to Andy and said, "I'm getting on much better with Curly. I pat him
now!"
"That's right. It's only his fun."
"People's fun is sometimes the worst thing about them."
"Well now, that's true," Andy acknowledged, rather surprised to hear the
remark from her.
"But I am getting on much better. And--well, rather better at riding."
She smiled at him in confidence. "And nobody's said anything about
swimming. Do you know, when I feel myself inclined to get frightened, I
think about you!"
"Do you find it helps?" asked Andy, much amused and rather pleased.
"Yes, it's like thinking of a policeman in the middle of the night."
"I suppose I do look rather like a policeman," said Andy reflectively.
"Yes, you do! That's it, I think." The vague "it" seemed to signify the
explanation of the confidence Andy inspired.
"And how about dust and dirt, and getting very hot?" he inquired.
"Isobel says I'm a bit better about courage, but not the least about
fastidiousness."
"Fastidiousness suits some people, Miss Wellgood."
"It doesn't suit father, not in me," she murmured with a woeful smile.
"Doesn't thinking about me help you there? On the same principle it
ought to."
"It doesn't," she murmured, with a trace of confusion, and suddenly her
eyes went blank. Something was in her thoughts that she did not want
Andy to see. Was it the butcher's shop? Andy's wits were not quick
enough to ask the question; but he saw that her confidential mood had
suffered a check.
Her confidence had been very pleasant, but there were other things to
listen to at the table. Andy was heart-whole and intellectually
voracious.
They, the rest of the company, had begun on politics--imperial
politics--and had discussed them not without some friction. No Radical
was present--_Procul, O procul este, profani!_--but Wellgood had the
perversities of his anti-sentimental attitude. A Tory at home, why was
he to be a democrat--or a Socialist--at the Antipodes? Competition and
self-interest were the golden rule in England; was there to be another
between England and her colonies? The tie of blood--one flag, one crown,
one destiny--Wellgood suspected his bugbear in every one of these cries.
Nothing for nothing--and for sixpence no more than the coin was
worth--with a preference for five penn'orth if you could get out of it
at that! He stood steady on his firmly-rooted narrow foundation.
All of Harry was on fire against him. Was blood nothing--race,
colour, memories, associations, the Flag, the Crown, and the Destiny?
A destiny to rule, or at least to manage, the planet! Mother and
Daughters--nothing in that?
Things were getting hot, and the ladies, who always like to look on at
the men fighting, much interested. Mr. Belfield, himself no politician,
rather a student of human nature and addicted to the Socratic attitude
(so justly vexatious to practical men who have to do something, good,
bad, or if not better, at least more plausible, than nothing) interposed
a suggestion.
"Mother and daughters? Hasn't husband and wives become a more
appropriate parallel?" He smiled across the table at his own wife. "No
personal reference, my dear! But an attitude of independence, without
any particular desire to pay the bills? Oh, I'm only asking questions!"
Andy was listening hard now. So was Vivien, for she saw Harry's eyes
alight and his mouth eager to utter truths that should save the nation.
"If we could reach," said Harry, marvellously handsome, somewhat
rhetorical for a small party, "if only we could once reach a true
understanding between ourselves and the self-governing--"
"Oh, but that's going beyond my parallel, my dear boy," his father
interrupted. "If marriage demanded mutual understanding, what man or
woman could risk it with eyes open?"
"Doesn't it?" Isobel Vintry was the questioner.
"Heavens, no, my dear Miss Vintry! Something much less, something much
less fundamentally impossible. A good temper and a bad memory, that's
all!"
"Well done, pater!" cried Harry, readily switched off from his heated
enthusiasm. "Which for the husband, which for the wife?"
"Both for both, Harry. Toleration to-day, and an unlimited power of
oblivion to-morrow."
"What nonsense you're talking, dear," placidly smiled Mrs. Belfield.
"I'm exactly defining your own characteristics," he replied. "If you do
that to a woman, she always says you're talking nonsense."
"An unlimited supply of the water of Lethe, pater? That does it?"
"That's about it, Harry. If you mix it with a little sound Scotch whisky
before you go to bed--"
Andy burst into a good guffaw; the kindly mocking humour pleased him.
Vivien was alert too; there was nothing to frighten, much to enjoy; the
glow deepened on her cheeks.
But Wellgood was not content; he was baulked of his argument, of his
fight.
"We've wandered from the point," he said dourly. ("As if wanderings were
not the best things in the world!" thought more than one of the party,
more or less explicitly.) "We give, they take." He was back to the
United Kingdom and the Colonies.
"Could anything be more nicely exact to my parallel?" asked Belfield,
socratically smiling. "Did you ever know a marriage where each partner
didn't say, 'I give, you take'? Some add that they're content with the
arrangement, others don't."
"Pater, you always mix up different things," Harry protested, laughing.
"I'm always trying to find out whether there are any different things,
Harry." He smiled at his son. "Wives, that's what they are! And several
of them! Harry, we're in for all the difficulties of polygamy! A
preference to one--oh no, I'm not spelling it with a big P! But--well,
the ladies ought to be able to help us here. Could you share a heart,
Miss Vintry?"
Isobel's white was relieved with gold trimmings; she looked sumptuous.
"I shouldn't like it," she answered.
"What has all this got to do with the practical problem?" Wellgood
demanded. "Our trade with the Colonies is no more than thirty per
cent--"
"I agree with you, Mr. Wellgood. The gentlemen had much better have kept
to their politics," Mrs. Belfield interposed with suave placidity. "They
understand them. When they begin to talk about women--"
"Need of Lethe--whisky and Lethe-water!" chuckled Harry. "In a large
glass, eh, Andy?"
Wellgood turned suddenly on Andy. "You've lived in Canada. What do you
say?"
Andy had been far too much occupied in listening. Besides, he was no
politician. He thought deeply for a moment.
"A lot depends on whether you want to buy or to sell." He delivered
himself of this truth quite solemnly.
"A very far-reaching observation," said Mr. Belfield. "Goes to the root
of human traffic, and, quite possibly, to that of both the institutions
which we have been discussing. I wonder whether either will be
permanent!"
"Look here, pater, we're at dessert! Aren't you starting rather big
subjects?"
"Your father likes to amuse himself with curious ideas," Mrs. Belfield
remarked. "So did my father; he once asked me what I thought would
happen if I didn't say my prayers. Men like to ask questions like that,
but I never pay much attention to them. Shall we go into the
drawing-room, Vivien? It may be warm enough for a turn in the garden,
perhaps." She addressed the men. "Bring your cigars and try."
The men were left alone. "The garden would be jolly," said Harry.
Mr. Belfield coughed, and suddenly wheezed. "Intimations of mortality!"
he said apologetically. "We've talked of a variety of subjects--to
little purpose, I suppose. But it's entertaining to survey the field of
humanity. Your views were briefly expressed, Hayes."
"Everybody else was talking such a lot, sir," said Andy.
Belfield's humorous laugh was entangled in a cough. "You'll never get
that obstacle out of the way of your oratory," he managed to stutter
out. "They always are! Talk rules the world--eh, Wellgood?" He was
maliciously provocative.
"We wait till they've finished talking. Then we do what we want," said
Wellgood. "Force rules in the end--the readiness to kill and be killed.
That's the _ultima ratio_, the final argument."
"The women say that's out of date."
"The women!" exclaimed Wellgood contemptuously.
"They'll be in the garden," Harry opined. "Shall we move, pater?"
"We might as well," said Belfield. "Are you ready, Wellgood?"
Wellgood was ready--in spite of his contempt.
Chapter VI.
THE WORLDS OF MERITON.
The garden at Halton was a pleasant place on a fine evening, with a moon
waxing, yet not obtrusively full, with billowing shrubberies, clear-cut
walks, lawns spreading in a gentle drabness that would be bright green
in to-morrow's sun--a place pleasant in its calm, its spaciousness and
isolation. They all sat together in a ring for a while; smoke curled up;
a servant brought glasses that clinked as they were set down with a
cheery, yet not urgent, suggestion.
"I suppose you're right to go in for it," said Wellgood to Harry. "It's
your obvious line." (He was referring to a public career.) "But, after
all, it's casting pearls before swine."
"Swine!" The note of exclamation was large. "Our masters, Mr. Wellgood!"
"A decent allowance of bran, and a ring through their noses--that's the
thing for them!"
"Has anybody got a copy--well, another copy of 'Coriolanus'?" Harry
inquired in an affectation of eagerness.
"Casting pearls before swine is bad business, of course," said Belfield
in his husky voice--he was really unwise to be out of doors at all; "but
there are degrees of badness. If your pearls are indifferent as pearls,
and your swine admirable as swine? And that's often the truth of it."
"My husband is sometimes perverse in his talk, my dear," said Mrs.
Belfield, aside to Vivien, to whom she was being very kind. "You needn't
notice what he says."
"He's rather amusing," Vivien ventured, not quite sure whether the
adjective were respectful enough.
"Andy, pronounce!" cried Harry Belfield; for his friend sat in his usual
meditative absorbing silence.
"If I had to, I'd like to say a word from the point of view of
the--swine." Had the moon been stronger, he might have been seen to
blush. "I don't want to be--oh, well, serious. That's rot, I know--after
dinner. But--well, you're all in it--insiders--I'm an outsider. And I
say that what the swine want is--pearls!"
"If we've got them?" The question, or insinuation, was Belfield's. He
was looking at Andy with a real, if an only half-serious, interest.
"Swine are swine," remarked Wellgood. "They mustn't forget it. Neither
must we."
"But pearls by no means always pearls?" Belfield suggested. "Though they
may look the real thing if a pretty woman hangs them round her neck."
Their talk went only for an embellishment of their general state--so
comfortable, so serene, so exceptionally fortunate. Were not they
pearls? Andy had seen something of the swine, had perhaps even been one
of them. A vague protest stirred in him; were they not too serene, too
comfortable, too fortunate? Yet he loved it all; it was beautiful. How
many uglies go to make one beautiful? It is a bit of social arithmetic.
When you have got the result, the deduction may well seem difficult.
"It doesn't much matter whether they're real or not, if a really pretty
woman hangs them round her neck," Harry laughed. "The neck carries the
pearls!"
"But we'd all rather they were real," said Isobel Vintry suddenly, the
first of the women to intervene. "Other women guess, you see."
"Does it hurt so much if they do?" Belfield asked.
"The only thing that really does hurt," Isobel assured him, smiling.
"Oh, my dear, how disproportionate!" sighed Mrs. Belfield.
"I'd never have anything false about me--pearls, or lace, or hair,
or--or anything about me," exclaimed Vivien. "I should hate it!" Feeling
carried her into sudden unexpected speech.
Very gradually, very tentatively, Andy was finding himself able to speak
in this sort of company, to speak as an equal to equals, not socially
only, but in an intellectual regard.
"Riches seem to me all wrong, but what they produce, leaving out the
wasters, all right." He let it out, apprehensive of a censuring silence.
Belfield relieved him in a minute.
"I'm with you. I always admire most the things to which I'm on principle
opposed--a melancholy state of one's mental interior! Kings, lords, and
bishops--crowns, coronets, and aprons--all very attractive and
picturesque!"
"We all know that the governor's a crypto-Radical," said Harry.
"I thought Carlyle, among others, had taught that we were all Radicals
when in our pyjamas--or less," said Belfield. "But that's not the point.
The excellence of things that are wrong, the narrowness of the moral
view!"
"My dear! Oh, well, my dear!" murmured Mrs. Belfield.
"I've got a touch of asthma--I must say what I like." Belfield
humorously traded on his infirmity. "A dishonest fellow who won't pay
his tradesmen, a flirtatious minx who will make mischief, a spoilt
urchin who insists on doing what he shouldn't--all rather attractive,
aren't they? If everybody behaved properly we should have no
'situations.' What would become of literature and the drama?"
"And if nobody had any spare cash, what would become of them, either?"
asked Harry.
"Well, we could do with a good deal less of them. I'll go so far as to
admit that," said Wellgood.
Belfield laughed. "Even from Wellgood we've extracted one plea for the
redistribution of wealth. A dialectical triumph! Let's leave it at
that."
Mrs. Belfield carried her husband off indoors; Wellgood went with them,
challenging his host to a game of bezique; Harry invited Vivien to a
stroll; Isobel Vintry and Andy were left together. She asked him a
sudden question:
"Do you think Harry Belfield a selfish man?"
"Selfish! Harry? Heavens, no! He'd do anything for his friends."
"I don't mean quite in that way. I daresay he would--and, of course,
he's too well-mannered to be selfish about trifles. But I suppose even
to ask questions about him is treason to you?"
"Oh, well, a little bit," laughed Andy. "I'm an old follower, you see!"
"Yes, and he thinks it natural you should be," she suggested quickly.
"Well, if it is natural, why shouldn't he think so?"
"It seems natural to him that he should always come first, and--and have
the pick of things."
"You mean he's spoilt? According to his father, that makes him more
attractive."
"Yes, I'm not saying it doesn't do that. Only--do you never mind it?
Never mind playing second fiddle?"
"Second fiddle seems rather a high position. I hardly reckon myself in
the orchestra at all," he laughed. "You remember--I'm accustomed to
following the hunt on foot."
"While Harry Belfield rides! Yes! Vivien rides too--and doesn't like
it!"
She was bending forward in her chair, handsome, sumptuous in her white
and gold (Wellgood had made her a present the quarter-day before), with
her smile very bitter. The smile told that she spoke with a meaning more
than literal. Andy surveyed, at his leisure, possible metaphorical
bearings.
"Oh yes, I think I see," he announced, after an interval fully
perceptible. "You mean she doesn't really appreciate her advantages? By
riding you mean--?"
"Oh, really, Mr. Hayes!" She broke into vexed amused laughter. "I
mustn't try it any more with you," she declared.
"But I shall understand if you give me time to think it over," Andy
protested. "Don't rush me, that's all, Miss Vintry."
"As if I could rush any one or anything!" she said, handsome still, now
handsomely despairing.
To Andy she was a problem, needing time to think over; to Wellgood she
was a postulate, assumed not proved, yet assumed to be proved; to Harry
she was--save for that subtle momentary feeling on the terrace by the
lake--Vivien's companion. She wanted to be something other than any of
these. Follow the hounds on foot? She would know what it was to ride!
Know and not like--in Vivien's fashion? Andy, slowly digesting, saw her
lips curve in that bitter smile again.
From a path near by, yet secluded behind a thick trim hedge of yew,
there sounded a girl's nervous flutter of a laugh, a young man's
exultant merriment. Harry and Vivien, not far away, seemed the space of
a world apart--to Isobel; Andy was normally conscious that they were not
more than twenty yards off, and almost within hearing if they spoke. But
he had been getting at Isobel's meaning--slowly and surely.
"Being able to ride--having the opportunity--and not caring--that's
pearls before--?"
"I congratulate you, Mr. Hayes. I can imagine you making a very good
speech--after the election is over!"
Andy laughed heartily, leaning back in his chair.
"That's jolly good, Miss Vintry!" he said.
"Ten minutes after the poll closed you'd begin to persuade the
electors!" She spoke rather lower. "Ten minutes after a girl had taken
another man, you'd--"
"Give me time! I've never thought about myself like that," cried Andy.
No more sounds from the path behind the yew hedge. She was impatient
with Andy--would Harry never come back from that path?
He came back the next moment--he and Vivien. Vivien's face was a
confession, Harry's air a self-congratulation.
"I hope you've been making yourself amusing, Andy?" asked Harry. His
tone conveyed a touch of amusement at the idea of Andy being amusing.
"Miss Vintry's been pitching into me like anything," said Andy, smiling
broadly. "She says I'm always a day after the fair. I'm going to think
it over--and try to get a move on."
His good-nature, his simplicity, his serious intention to attempt
self-improvement, tickled Harry intensely. Why, probably Isobel had
wanted to flirt, and Andy had failed to play up to her! He burst into a
laugh; Vivien's laugh followed as an applauding echo.
"A lecture, was it, Miss Vintry?" Harry asked in banter.
"I could give you one too," said Isobel, colouring a little.
"She gives me plenty!" Vivien remarked, with a solemnly comic shake of
her head.
"It's my business in life," said Isobel.
Just for a second Harry looked at her; an impish smile was on his lips.
Did she think that, was she honest about it? Or was she provocative? It
crossed Harry's mind--past experiences facilitating the transit of the
idea--that she might be saying to him, "Is that all a young woman of my
looks is good for? To give lectures?"
"You shall give me one at the earliest opportunity, if you'll be so
kind," he laughed, his eyes boldly conveying that he would enjoy the
lesson. Vivien laughed again; it was great fun to see Harry chaffing
Isobel! She liked Isobel, but was in awe of her. Had not Isobel all the
difficult virtues which it was her own woeful task to learn? But Harry
could chaff her--Harry could do anything.
"If I do, I'll teach you something you don't know, Mr. Harry," Isobel
said, letting her eyes meet his with a boldness equal to his own. Again
that subtle feeling touched him, as it had on the terrace by the lake.
"I'm ready to learn my lesson," he assured her, with a challenging gleam
in his eye.
She nodded rather scornfully, but accepting his challenge. There was a
last bit of by-play between their eyes.
"It's really time to go, if Mr. Wellgood has finished his game," said
Isobel, rising.
The insinuation of the words, the by-play of the eyes, had passed over
Vivien's head and outside the limits of Andy's perspicacity. To both of
them the bandying of words was but chaff; by both the exchange of
glances went unmarked. Well, the whole thing was no more than chaff to
Harry himself; such chaff as he was very good at, a practised hand--and
not ignorant of why the chaff was pleasant. And Isobel? Oh yes, she
knew! Harry was amused to find this knowledge in Vivien's
companion--this provocation, this freemasonry of flirtation. Poor old
Andy had, of course, seen none of it! Well, perhaps it needed a bit of
experience--besides the temperament.
Indoors, farewell was soon said--hours ruled early at Meriton. Soon
said, yet not without some significance in the saying. Mrs. Belfield was
openly affectionate to Vivien, and Belfield paternal in a courtly way;
Harry very devoted to the same young lady, yet with a challenging
"aside" of his eyes for Isobel; Andy brimming over with a vain effort to
express adequately but without gush his thanks for the evening.
Belfield, being two pounds the better of Wellgood over their bezique,
was in more than his usual good-temper--it was spiced with malice, for
the defeat of Wellgood (a bad loser) counted for more than the forty
shillings--and gave Andy his hand and a pat on the back.
"It's not often one has to tell a man not to undervalue himself," he
remarked. "But I fancy I might say that to you. Well, I'm no prophet;
but at any rate be sure you're always welcome at this house for your own
sake, as well as for Harry's."
Getting into the carriage with Isobel and her father, Vivien felt like
going back to school. But in all likelihood she would see Harry's eyes
again to-morrow. She did not forget to give a kindly glance to solid
Andy Hayes--not exciting, nor bewildering, nor inflaming (as another
was!), but somehow comforting and reassuring to think of. She sat down
on the narrow seat, fronting her father and Isobel. Yes--but school
wouldn't last much longer! And after school? Ineffable heaven! Being
with Harry, loving Harry, being loved by--? That vaulting imagination
seemed still almost--nay, it seemed quite--impossible. Yet if your own
eyes assure you of things impossible--well, there's a good case for
believing your eyes, and the belief is pleasant. Wellgood sore over his
two pounds, Isobel dissatisfied with fate but challenging it, sat
silent. The young girl's lips curved in sweet memories and triumphant
anticipations. The best thing in the world--was it actually to be hers?
Almost she knew it, though she would not own to the knowledge yet.
Happy was she in the handkerchief flung by her hero! Happy was Harry
Belfield in the ready devotion, the innocent happy surrender, of one
girl, and the vexed challenge of another whom he had--whom he had at
least meant to ignore; he could never answer for it that he would quite
ignore a woman who displayed such a challenge in the lists of sex. But
there was a happier being still among those who left Halton that night.
It was Andy Hayes, before whom life had opened so, who had enjoyed such
a wonderful day-off, who had been told not to undervalue himself, had
been reproached with being a day after the fair, had undergone (as it
seemed) an initiation into a life of which he had hardly dreamt, yet of
which he appeared, in that one summer's day, to have been accepted as a
part.
Yes, Andy was on the whole the happiest--happier even than Harry, to
whom content, triumph, and challenge were all too habitual; happier even
than Vivien, who had still some schooling to endure, still some of
love's finicking doubts, some of hope's artificially prudent
incredulity, to overcome; beyond doubt happier than Wellgood, who had
lost two pounds, or Isobel Vintry, who had challenged and had been told
that her challenge should be taken up--some day! Mrs. Belfield was
intent on sleeping well, as she always did; Mr. Belfield on not coughing
too much--as he generally did. They were not competitors in happiness.
Andy walked home. Halton lay half a mile outside the town; his lodgings
were at the far end of High Street. All through the long, broad,
familiar street--in old days he had known who lived in well-nigh every
house--his road lay. He walked home under the stars. The day had been
wonderful; they who had figured in it peopled his brain--delicate dainty
Vivien first; with her, brilliant Harry; that puzzling Miss Vintry; Mr.
Belfield, who talked so whimsically and had told him not to undervalue
himself; Wellgood, grim, hard, merciless, yet somehow with the stamp of
a man about him; Mrs. Belfield serenely matching with her house, her
Vandykes, her garden, and the situation to which it had pleased Heaven
to call her. Soberly now--soberly now--had he ever expected to be a part
of all this?
High Street lay dark and quiet. It was eleven o'clock. He passed the old
grammar school with a thought of the dear old father--B.A. Oxon, which
had something to do with his wonderful day. He passed the Lion, where
"the Bird" officiated, and Mr. Foulkes' office, where "Chinks" aspired
to become "gentleman, one etc."--so runs the formula that gives a
solicitor his status. All dark! Now if by chance Jack Rock were up, and
willing to listen to a little honest triumphing! It had been a day to
talk about.
Yes, Jack was up; his parlour lights glowed cosily behind red blinds.
Yet Andy was not to have a clear field for the recital of his
adventures; it was no moment for an exhibition of his honest pride,
based on an unimpaired humility. Jack Rock had a party. The table was
furnished with beer, whisky, gin, tobacco, and clay pipes. Round it sat
old friends--Chinks and the Bird; the Bird's father, Mr. Dove, landlord
of the Lion; and Cox, the veterinary surgeon. After the labours of the
week they were having a little "fling" on Saturday night--convivially,
yet in all reasonable temperance. The elder men--Jack, Mr. Dove, and
Cox--greeted Andy with intimate and affectionate cordiality; a certain
constraint marked the manner of Chinks and the Bird--they could not
forget the afternoon's encounter. His evening coat too, and his
shirt-front! Everybody marked them; but they had a notion that he might
have caught that habit in London.
Andy's welcome over, Mr. Dove of the Lion took up his tale at the point
at which he had left it. Mr. Dove had not Jack Rock's education--he had
never been at the grammar school but he was a shrewd sensible old
fellow, who prided himself on the respectability of his "house" and felt
his responsibilities as a publican without being too fond of the folk
who were always dinning them into his ears.
"I says to the girl, 'We don't want no carryings-on at the Lion.' That's
what I says, Jack. She says, 'That wasn't nothing, Mr. Dove--only a give
and take o' nonsense. The bar between us too! W'ere's the 'arm?' 'I
don't like it, Miss Miles,' I says, 'I don't like it, that's all.' 'Oh,
very good, Mr. Dove! You're master 'ere, o' course; only, if you won't
'ave that, you won't keep up your takings, that's all!' That's the way
she put it, Jack."
"Bit of truth in it, perhaps," Jack opined.
"There's a lot of truth in it," said the Bird solemnly. "Fellers like to
show off before a good-looking girl--whether she's behind a bar or
whether she ain't."
"If there never 'adn't been barmaids, I wouldn't be the one to begin
it," said Mr. Dove. "I knows its difficulties. But there they are--all
them nice girls bred to it! What are ye to do with 'em, Jack?"
"A drink doesn't taste any worse for being 'anded--handed--to you by a
pretty girl," said Chinks with a knowing chuckle.
"Then you give 'er one--then you stand me one--then you 'ave another
yourself--just to say 'Blow the expense!' Oh, the girl knew the way of
it--I ain't saying she didn't!" Mr. Dove smoked fast, evidently puzzled
in his mind. "And she's a good girl 'erself too, ain't she, Tom?"
Tom blushed--blushed very visibly. Miss Miles was not a subject of
indifference to the Bird.
"She's very civil-spoken," he mumbled shamefacedly.
"That she is--and a fine figure of a girl too," added Jack Rock. "Know
her, Andy?"
Well, no! Andy did not know her; he felt profoundly apologetic. Miss
Miles was evidently a person whom one ought to know, if one would be in
the world of Meriton. The world of Meriton? It came home to him that
there was more than one.
Mr. Cox was a man who listened--in that respect rather like Andy
himself; but, when he did speak, he was in the habit of giving a
verdict, therein deviating from Andy's humble way.
"Barmaids oughtn't to a' come into existence," he said. "Being there,
they're best left--under supervision." He nodded at old Dove, as though
to say, "You won't get any further than that if you talk all night," and
put his pipe back into his mouth.
"The doctor's right, I daresay," said old Dove in a tone of relief. It
is always something of a comfort to be told that one's problems are
insoluble; the obligation of trying to solve them is thereby removed.
Jack accepted this ending to the discussion.
"And what have you been doing with yourself, Andy?" he asked.
Andy found a curious difficulty in answering. Tea and tennis at Nutley,
dinner at Halton--it seemed impossible to speak the words without
self-consciousness. He felt that Chinks and the Bird had their eyes on
him.
"Been at work all the week, Jack. Had a day-off to-day."
Luckily Jack fastened on the first part of his answer. He turned a keen
glance on Andy. "Business doin' well?"
"Not particularly," Andy confessed. "It's a bit hard for a new-comer to
establish a connection."
"You're right there, Andy," commented old Mr. Dove, serenely happy in
the knowledge of an ancient and good connection attaching to the Lion.
"Oh, not particularly well?" Jack nodded with an air of what looked like
satisfaction, though it would not be kind to Andy to be satisfied.
"Playing lawn-tennis at Nutley, weren't you?" asked Chinks suddenly.
All faces turned to Andy.
"Yes, I was, Chinks," he said.
"Half expected you to supper, Andy," said Jack Rock.
"Sorry, Jack. I would have come if I'd been free. But--"
"Well, where were you?"
There was no help for it.
"I was dining out, Jack."
Andy's tone became as airy as he could make it, as careless, as natural.
His effort in this kind was not a great success.
"Harry Belfield asked me to Halton."
A short silence followed. They were good fellows, one and all of them;
nobody had a jibe for him; the envy, if envy there were, was even as his
own for Harry Belfield. Cox looked round and raised his glass.
"'Ere's to you, Andy! You went to the war, you went to foreign parts. If
you've learned a bit and got on a bit, nobody in Meriton's goin' to
grudge it you--least of all them as knew your good father, who was a
gentleman if ever there was one--and I've known some of the best,
consequent on my business layin' mainly with 'orses."
"Dined at Halton, did you?" Old Jack Rock beamed, then suddenly grew
thoughtful.
"Well, of course, I've always known Harry Belfield, and--" He was
apologizing.
"The old gentleman used to dine there--once a year reg'lar," Jack
reminded him. "Quite right of 'em to keep it up with you." But still
Jack looked thoughtful.
Eleven-thirty sounded from the squat tower of the long low church which
presided over the west end--the Fyfold end--of High Street. Old Cox
knocked out his pipe decisively. "Bedtime!" he pronounced.
Nobody contested the verdict. Only across Andy's mind flitted an
outlandish memory that it was the hour at which one sat down to supper
at the great restaurant--with Harry, the Nun, sardonic Miss Dutton,
Billy Foot, and London at large--and at liberty.
"You stop a bit, my lad," said Jack with affection, also with a touch of
old-time authority. "I've something to say to you, Andy."
Andy stayed willingly enough; he liked Jack, and he was loth to end that
day.
Jack filled and pressed, lit, pressed, and lit again, a fresh clay pipe.
"You like all that sort of thing, Andy?" he asked. "Oh, you know what I
mean--what you've been doin' to-day."
"Yes, I like it, Jack." Andy saw that his dear old friend--dear Nancy's
brother--had something of moment on his mind.
"But it don't count in the end. It's not business, Andy." Jack's tone
had become, suddenly and strangely, persuasive, reasonably
persuasive--almost what one might call coaxing.
"I've never considered it in the light of business, Jack."
"Don't let it turn you from business, Andy. You said the timber was
worth about two hundred a year to you?"
"About that; it'll be more--or less--before I'm six months older. It's
sink or swim, you know."
"You've no call to sink," said Jack Rock with emphasis. "Your father's
son ain't goin' to sink while Jack Rock can throw a lifebelt to him."
"I know, Jack. I'd ask you for half your last crust, and you'd soak it
in milk for me as you used to--if you had to steal the milk! But--well,
what's up?"
"I'm gettin' on in life, boy. I've enough to do with the horses. I do
uncommon well with the horses. I've a mind to give myself to that. Not
but what I like the meat. Still I've a mind to give myself to the
horses. The meat's worth--Oh, I'll surprise you, Andy, and don't let it
go outside o' this room--the meat's worth nigh on five hundred a year!
Aye, nigh on that! The chilled meat don't touch me much, nor the London
stores neither. Year in, year out, nigh on five hundred! Nancy loved
you; the old gentleman never said a word as showed he knew a difference
between me and him. Though he must have known it. I'm all alone, Andy.
While I can I'll keep the horses--Lord, I love the horses! You drop your
timber. Take over the meat, Andy. You're a learnin' chap; you'll soon
pick it up from me and Simpson. Take over the meat, Andy. It's a safe
five hundred a year!"
So he pleaded to have his great benefaction accepted. He had meant to
give in a manner perhaps somewhat magnificent; what he gave was to him
great. The news of tea and tennis at Nutley, of dinner at Halton,
induced a new note. Proud still, yet he pleaded. It was a fine
business--the meat! Nor chilled meat, nor stores mattered seriously; his
connection was so high-class. Five hundred a year! It was luxury,
position, importance; it was all these in Meriton. His eyes waited
anxiously for Andy's answer.
Andy caught his hand across the table. "Dear old Jack, how splendid of
you!"
"Well, lad?"
For the life of him Andy could say nothing more adequate, nothing less
disappointing, less ungrateful, than "I'd like to think it over. And
thanks, Jack!"
Chapter VII.
ENTERING FOR THE RACE.
Andy Hayes had never supposed that he would be the victim of a problem,
or exposed to the necessity of a momentous choice. Life had hitherto
been very simple to him--doing his work, taking his pay, spending the
money frugally and to the best advantage, sparing a small percentage for
the Savings Bank, and reconciling with this programme the keen enjoyment
of such leisure hours as fell to his lot. A reasonable, wholesome,
manageable scheme of life! Or, rather, not a scheme at all--Andy was no
schemer. That was the way life came--the way an average man saw it and
accepted it. From first to last he never lost the conception of himself
as an average man, having his capabilities, yet strictly conditioned by
the limits of the practicable; free in his soul, by no means perfectly
free in his activities. Andy never thought in terms of "environment" or
such big words, but he always had a strong sense of what a fellow like
himself could expect; the two phrases may, perhaps, come to much the
same thing.
In South Africa he had achieved his sergeant's stripes--not a
commission, nor the Victoria Cross, nor anything brilliant. In Canada he
had not become a millionaire, nor even a prosperous man or a dashing
speculator; he had been thought a capable young fellow, who would,
perhaps, be equal to developing the English side of the business. Andy
might be justified in holding himself no fool: he had no ground for
higher claims, no warrant for anything like ambition.
Thus unaccustomed to problems, he had expected to toss uneasily (he had
read of many heroes who "tossed uneasily") on his bed all night through.
Lawn-tennis and a good dinner saved him from that romantic but
uncomfortable ordeal; he slept profoundly till eight-thirty. Just before
he was called--probably between his landlady's knock and her remark that
it was eight-fifteen (she was late herself)--he had a brief vivid dream
of selling a very red joint of beef to a very pallid Vivien Wellgood--a
fantastic freak of the imagination which could have nothing to do with
the grave matter in hand.
Yet, on the top of this, as he lay abed awhile in the leisure of Sunday
morning, with no train to catch, he remembered his father's B.A. Oxon;
he recalled his mother's unvarying designation of old Jack as "the
butcher;" he recollected Nancy's pride in marrying "out of her
class"--it had been her own phrase, sometimes in boast, sometimes in
apology. Though Nancy had a dowry of a hundred pounds a year--charged on
the business, and now returned to Jack Rock since Nancy left no
children--she never forgot that she had married out of her class. And
into his father's? And into his own? "I'm a snob!" groaned Andy.
He grew a little drowsy again, and in his drowsiness again played tennis
at Nutley, again dined at Halton, again saw Vivien in the butcher's
shop, and again was told by Mr. Belfield not to undervalue himself. But
is to take nigh on five hundred pounds a year to undervalue
yourself--you who are making a precarious two? And where lies the
difference between selling wood and selling meat--wood from Canada and
meat in Meriton? Andy's broad conception of the world told him that
there was none; his narrow observation of the same sphere convinced him
that the difference was, in its practical bearings, considerable. Nay,
confine yourself to meat alone: was there no difference between
importing cargoes of that questionable "chilled" article and disposing
of joints of unquestionable "home-bred" over the counter? All the
argument was for the home-bred. But to sell the home-bred joints one
wore a blue apron and carried a knife and a steel--or, at all events,
smacked of doing these things; whereas the wholesale cargoes of
"chilled" involved no such implements or associations. Once again,
Canada was Canada, New Zealand New Zealand, Meriton Meriton. With these
considerations mingled two pictures--dinner at Halton, and Jack Rock's
convivial party.
"I'll get up," said Andy, too sore beset by his problem to lie abed any
more.
Church! The bells rang almost as soon as Andy--he had dawdled and
lounged over dressing and breakfast in Sunday's beneficent leisure--was
equipped for the day. In Meriton everybody went to Church, except an
insignificant, tolerated, almost derided minority who frequented a very
small, very ugly Methodist chapel in a by-street--for towns like Meriton
are among the best preserves of the Establishment. Andy always went to
church on a Sunday morning, answering the roll-call, attending parade,
accepting the fruits of his fathers' wisdom, as his custom was. "Church,
and a slice of that cold beef, and then a jolly long walk!" he said to
himself. He had a notion that this typical English Sunday--the relative
value of whose constituents he did not, and we need not, exactly
assess--might help him to settle his problem. The cold beef and the long
walk made part of the day's character--the "Church" completed it. This
was Andy's feeling; it is not, of course, put forward as what he ought
to have felt.
So Andy went to church--in a cut-away coat and a tall hat, though it
drizzled, and he would sooner have been in a felt hat, impervious to the
rain. He sat just half-way down the nave, and it must be confessed that
his attention wandered. He had such a very important thing to settle in
this world; it would not go out of his mind, though he strove to address
himself to the issues which the service suggested. He laboured under the
disadvantage of not being conscious of flagrant iniquity, though he duly
confessed himself a miserable offender. He looked round on the
neighbours he knew so well; they were all confessing that they were
miserable offenders. Andy believed it--it was in the book--but he
considered most of them to be good and honest people, and he was almost
glad to see that they did not look hopelessly distressed over their
situation.
The First Lesson caught and chained his wandering attention. It was
about David and Jonathan; it contained the beautiful lament of friend
for friend, the dirge of a brotherly love. The Rector's voice was rather
sing-song, but it would have needed a worse delivery to spoil the words:
"How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, thou
wast slain in thine high places! I am distressed for thee, my brother
Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love for me was
wonderful, passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen and the
weapons of war perished!" Thus ended the song, so rich in splendour, so
charged with sorrow.
"Clinking!" was Andy's inward comment. Then in a flash came the thought,
"Why, of course, I must ask Harry Belfield; he'll tell me what to do all
right."
The reference of his problem to Harry ought to have disposed of it for
good, and left Andy free to perform his devotions with a single mind.
But it only set him wondering what Harry would decide, wondering hard
and--there was no escaping from it--jealously. His service in the ranks,
his residence in communities at least professedly democratic, had not
made him a thorough democrat, it seemed. He might have acquired the side
of democracy the easier of the two to acquire; he might be ready to call
any man his equal, whatever his station or his work. He stumbled at the
harder task of seeing himself, whatever his work or station, as any
man's equal--at claiming or assuming, not at according, equality. And in
Meriton! To claim or assume equality with any and every man in Meriton
would, if he accepted Jack Rock's offer, be to court ridicule from
equals and unequals all alike, and most of all from his admitted
inferiors. Surely Harry would never send him to the butcher's shop? That
would mean that Harry thought of him (for all his kindness) as of Chinks
or of the Bird. Could he risk discovering that, after all, Harry--and
Harry's friends--thought of him like that? A sore pang struck him. Had
he been at Nutley--at Halton--only on sufferance? He had an idea that
Harry would send him to the butcher's shop--would do the thing ever so
kindly, ever so considerately, but all the same would do it. "Well, it's
the safe thing, isn't it, old chap?" he fancied Harry saying; and then
returning to his own high ambitions, and being thereafter very
friendly--whenever he chanced to pass the shop. Andy never deceived
himself as to the quality of Harry's friendship: it lay, at the most, in
appreciative acceptance of unbounded affection. It was not like
Jonathan's for David. Andy was content. And must not acceptance, after
all, breed some return? For whatever return came he was grateful. In
this sphere there was no room even for theories of equality, let alone
for its practice.
For some little time back Andy had been surprised to observe a certain
attribute of his own--that of pretty often turning out right. He
accounted for it by saying that an average man, judging of average men
and things, would fairly often be right--on an average; men would do
what he expected, things would go as he expected--on an average. Such
discernment as was implied in this Andy felt as no endowment, no
clairvoyance; rather it was that his limitations qualified him to
appreciate other people's. He would have liked to feel able to except
Harry Belfield who should have no limitations--only he felt terribly
sure of what Harry Belfield would say: Safety, and the shop!
By this time the church service was ended, the cold beef eaten, most of
the long walk achieved. For while these things went straight on to an
end, Andy's thoughts rolled round and round, like a squirrel in a cage.
"A man's only got one life," Andy was thinking to himself for the
hundredth time as, having done his fifteen miles, he came opposite the
entry to Nutley on his way home after his walk. What a lot of thoughts
and memories there had been on that walk! Walking alone, a man is the
victim--or the beneficiary--of any number of stray recollections, ideas,
or fancies. He had even thought of--and smiled over--sardonic Miss
Dutton's sardonic remark that he was worth ten of either Billy Foot
or--Harry Belfield! Well, the poor girl had come one cropper; allowances
must be made.
Cool, serene, with what might appear to the eyes of less happy people an
almost insolently secure possession of fortune's favour, Harry Belfield
stood at Nutley gate. Andy, hot and dusty, winced at being seen by him;
Harry was so remote from any disarray. Andy's heart leapt at the sight
of his friend--and seemed to stand still in the presence of his judge.
Because the thing--the problem--must come out directly. There was no
more possibility of shirking it.
Vivien was flitting--her touch of the ground seemed so light--down the
drive, past the deep dark water, to join Harry for a stroll. His
invitation to a stroll on that fine still Sunday afternoon had not been
given without significance nor received without a thousand tremblings.
So it would appear that it was Andy's ill-fortune to interrupt.
Harry was smoking. He took his cigar out of his mouth to greet Andy.
"Treadmill again, old boy? Getting the fat off?"
"You're the one man I wanted to see." Then Andy's face fell; it was an
awful moment. "I want to ask your advice."
"Look sharp!" said Harry, smiling. "I've an appointment. She'll be here
any minute."
"Jack Rock's offered to turn the shop over to me, as soon as I learn the
business. I say, I--I suppose I ought to accept? He says it's worth hard
on five hundred a year. I say, keep that dark; he told me not to tell
anybody."
"Gad, is it?" said Harry, and whistled softly.
Vivien came in sight of him, and walked more slowly, dallying with
anticipation.
"Splendid of him, isn't it? I say, I suppose I ought to--to think it
over?" He had been doing nothing else for what seemed eternity.
Harry laughed--that merry irresponsible laugh of his. "Blue suits your
complexion, Andy. It seems damned funny--but five hundred a year! Worth
that, is it now, really? And he'd probably leave you anything else he
has."
Silently-flitting Vivien was just behind Harry now. Andy saw her, Harry
was unaware of her presence. She laid her finger on her lips, making a
confidant of Andy, in her joy at a trick on her lover.
"Of course it--well, it sort of defines matters--ties you down, eh?"
Harry's laugh broke out again. "Andy, old boy, you'll look infernally
funny, pricing joints to old Dove or Miss Pink! Oh, I say, I don't think
you can do it, Andy!"
"Don't you, Harry?" Andy's tone was eager, beseeching, full of hope.
"But I suppose you ought." Harry tried to be grave, and chuckled again.
"You'd look it uncommon well, you know. You'd soon develop the figure.
Old Jack never has--doesn't look as if his own steaks did him any good.
But you--we'd send you to Smithfield in no time!"
"What are you two talking about?" asked Vivien suddenly.
"Oh, there you are at last! Why, the funniest thing! Old Andy here wants
to be a butcher."
"I don't want--" Andy began.
"A butcher! What nonsense you do talk sometimes, Harry!" She stood by
Harry's side, so happy in him, so friendly to Andy.
"Fact!" said Harry, and acquainted her with the situation.
Vivien blushed red. "I--I'm very sorry I said what--what I did to you.
You remember?"
"Oh yes, I remember," said Andy.
"Of course I--I never knew--I never thought--Of course, somebody
must--Oh, do forgive me, Mr. Hayes!"
Harry raised his brows in humorous astonishment. "All this is a secret
to me."
"I--I told Mr. Hayes I didn't like--well--places where they sold
meat--raw meat, Harry."
"What do you think really, Harry?" Andy asked.
Harry shrugged his shoulders. "Your choice, old man," he said. "You've
looked at all sides of it, of course. It's getting latish, Vivien."
Andy would almost rather have had the verdict which he feared. "Your
choice, old man"--and a shrug of the shoulders. Yet his loyalty
intervened to tell him that Harry was right. It was his choice, and must
be. He found Vivien's eyes on him--those distant, considering eyes.
"I suppose you couldn't give me an opinion, Miss Wellgood?" he asked,
mustering a smile with some difficulty.
Vivien's lips drooped; her eyes grew rather sad and distinctly remote.
She gave no judgment; she merely uttered a regret--a regret in which
social and personal prejudice (it could not be acquitted of that)
struggled with kindliness for Andy.
"Oh, I thought you were going to be a friend of ours," she murmured
sadly. She gave Andy a mournful little nod of farewell--of final
farewell, as it seemed to his agitated mind--and walked off with Harry,
who was still looking decidedly amused.
That our great crises can have an amusing side even in the eyes of those
who wish us well is one of life's painful discoveries. Andy had expected
to be told that he must accept Jack Rock's offer, but he had not thought
that Harry would chaff him about it. He tried, in justice to Harry and
in anxiety not to feel sore with his hero, to see the humorous side for
himself. He admitted that he could not. A butcher was no more ridiculous
than any other tradesman. Well, the comic papers were rather fond of
putting in butchers, for some inscrutable reason. Perhaps Harry happened
to think of some funny picture. Could that idea give Andy a rag of
comfort to wrap about his wound? The comfort was of indifferent quality;
the dressing made the wound smart.
He was alone in the road again, gay Harry and dainty Vivien gone,
thinking little of him by now, no doubt. Yes, the choice must be his
own. On one side lay safety for him and joy for old Jack; on the other a
sore blow to Jack, and for himself the risk of looking a sad fool if he
came to grief in London. So far the choice appeared easy.
But that statement of the case left out everything that really tugged at
Andy's heart. For the first time in his existence he was, vaguely and
dimly, trying to conceive and to consider his life as a whole, and
asking what he meant to do with it. Acutest self-reproach assailed him;
he accused himself inwardly of many faults and follies--of ingratitude,
of snobbishness, of a ridiculous self-conceit. Wasn't it enough for a
chap like him to earn a good living honestly? Oughtn't he to be thankful
for the chance? What did he expect anyhow? He was very scornful with
himself, fiercely reproving all the new stirrings in him, yet at the
same time trying to see what they came to; trying to make out what they,
in their turn, asked, what they meant, what would content them. He could
not satisfy himself what the stirrings meant nor whence they came. When
he asked what would content them he could get only a negative answer;
keeping the shop in Meriton would not. In regard neither to what it
entailed nor to what it abandoned could the stirrings find contentment
in that.
He had been walking along slowly and moodily. Suddenly he quickened his
pace; his steps became purposeful. He was going to Jack Rock's. Jack
would be just having his tea, or smoking the pipe that always followed
it.
Jack sat in his armchair. Tea was finished, and his pipe already alight.
When he saw Andy's face he chuckled.
"Ah, that's how I like to see you look, lad!" he exclaimed joyfully.
"Not as you did when you went away last night."
"Why, how do I look?" asked Andy, amazed at this greeting.
"As if you'd just picked up a thousand pound; and so you have, and
better than that."
All unknown to himself, Andy's face had answered to his feelings--to the
sense of escape from bondage, of liberty restored, of possibilities once
more within his reach. The renewed lightness of his heart had made his
face happy and triumphant. But it fell with a vengeance now.
"Well?" asked Jack, to whom the change of expression was bewildering.
"I'm sorry--I've never been so sorry in my life--but I--I can't do it,
Jack."
Jack sat smoking silently for a while. "That was what you were lookin'
so happy about, was it?" he asked at last, with a wry smile. "I've never
afore seen a man so happy over chuckin' away five hundred a year. Where
does the fun come in, Andy?"
"O lord, Jack, I can't--I can't tell you about it. I--"
"But if it does do you all that good, I suppose you've got to do it."
Andy came up to him, holding out his hand. Jack took it and gave it a
squeeze.
"I reckon I know more about it than you think. I've been goin' over
things since last night--and goin' back to old things too--about the old
gentleman and Nancy."
"It seems so awfully--Lord, it seems everything that's bad and rotten,
Jack."
"No, it don't," said old Jack quietly. "It's a bit of a facer for me--I
tell you that straight--but it don't seem unnatural in you. Only I'm
sorry like."
"If there was anything in the world I could do, Jack! But there it
is--there isn't."
"I'm not so sure about that." He was smoking very slowly, and seemed to
be thinking hard. Andy lit a cigarette. His joy was quenched in sympathy
with Jack.
"You've given me a disappointment, Andy. I'm not denyin' it. But there,
I can't expect you to feel about the business as I do. Comin' to me from
my father, and havin' been the work o' the best years of my life! And no
better business in any town of the size o' Meriton all the country
through--I'll wager that! No, you can't feel as I do. And you've a right
to choose your own life. There's one thing you might do for me, Andy,
though."
"Well, if there's anything else in the world--"
"I loved Nancy better than anybody, and the old gentleman--well, as I've
told you, he never let me see a difference. I've got no kin--unless I
can call you kin, Andy. If you want to make up for givin' me this bit
of--of a facer, as I say, I'll tell you what you can do. There's times
in a young chap's life when bein' able to put up a bit o' the ready
makes all the difference, eh? If so be as you should find yourself
placed like that, I want you to promise to ask me for it. Will you,
lad?" Jack's voice faltered for a moment. "No call for you to go back
across half the world for it. It's here, waitin' for you in Martin's
bank in High Street. If you ever want to enter for an event, let me put
up the stakes for you, Andy. Promise me that, and we'll say no more
about the shop."
Andy was touched to the heart. "I promise. There's my hand on it, Jack."
"You'll come to me first--you won't go to any one before me?" old Jack
insisted jealously.
"I'll come to you first--and last," said Andy.
"Aye, lad." The old fellow's eyes gleamed again. "Then it'll be our
race. We'll both be in it, won't we, Andy? And if you pass the post
first, I shall have a right to throw up my hat. And why shouldn't you?
The favourite don't always win."
"I'm not expecting to do anything remarkable, Jack. I'm not such a fool
as that."
"You're no fool, or you'd never have been put to the trouble of refusin'
my shop," observed Jack with emphasis. "And in the end I'm not sure but
what you're right. I've never tried to rise above where I was born; but
I don't know as there's any call for you to step down. I don't know as I
did my duty by the old gentleman in temptin' you. I'm not sure he'd have
liked it, though he'd have said nothing; he'd never have let me see--not
him!" He sighed and smiled over his reverential memories of the old
gentleman, yet his eyes twinkled rather maliciously as he said to Andy,
"Dinin' at Halton again to-night?"
"No," laughed Andy, "I'm not. I'm coming to supper with you if you'll
have me. What have you got?"
"Cold boiled aitch-bone, and apple-pie, and a Cheshire in good
condition."
"Oh, that's prime! But I must go and change first. I've walked fifteen
or sixteen miles, and I must get into a clean shirt."
"We don't dress for supper--not o' Sundays," Jack informed him gravely.
"Oh, get out, Jack!" called Andy from the door.
"Supper at nine precise, carriages at eleven," Jack called after him,
pursuing his joke to the end with keen relish.
Andy walked back to his lodgings, in the old phrase "happy as a king,"
and infinitely the happier because old Jack had taken it so well, had
understood, and, though disappointed, had not been hurt or wounded.
There was no breach in their affection or in their mutual confidence.
And now, he felt, he had to justify himself in Jack's eyes, to justify
his refusal of a safe five hundred pounds a year. The refusal became, as
he thought over it, a spur to effort, to action. "I must put my back
into it," said Andy to himself, and made up his mind to most strenuous
exertions to develop that rather shy and coy timber business of his in
London.
Yet, after he had changed, as he sat listening to the church bells
ringing for evening service, a softer strain of meditation mingled with
these stern resolves. Memories of his "Saturday-off" glided across his
mind, echoes of this evening's encounter with Harry and Vivien sounded
in his ears. There was, as old Jack Rock himself had ended by
suggesting, no call for him to step down. He could take the place for
which he was naturally fit. He need not renounce that side of life of
which he had been allowed a glimpse so attractive and so full of
interest. The shop in Meriton would have opened the door to one very
comfortable little apartment. How many doors would it not have shut? All
doors were open now.
"I thought you were going to be a friend of ours." Andy, sitting in the
twilight, listening to the bells, smiled at the echo of those regretful
words. He cherished their kindliness, and smiled at their prejudice. The
shop and Vivien were always connected in his mind since the first day he
had met her. Her words came back to him now, summing up all that he
would have lost by acceptance, hinting pregnantly at all that his
refusal might save or bring.
He stretched his arms and yawned; mind and body both enjoyed a happy
relaxation after effort.
"What a week-end it's been!" he thought. Indeed it had--a week-end that
was the beginning of many things.
Chapter VIII.
WONDERFUL WORDS.
Fully aware of his son's disposition and partly acquainted with his
experiences, Mr. Belfield had urged Harry to "go slow" in his courting
of Vivien Wellgood. An opinion that marriage was Harry's best chance was
not inconsistent with advising that any particular marriage should be
approached with caution and due consideration, that a solid basis of
affection should be raised, calculated to stand even though the winds of
time carried away the lighter and more fairy-like erections of Harry's
romantic fancy. To do Harry justice, he did his best to obey the
paternal counsel; but ideas of speed in such matters, and of cautious
consideration, differ. What to Harry was sage delay would have seemed to
many others lighthearted impetuosity. He waited a full fortnight after
he was absolutely sure of--well, of the wonderful thing he was so sure
of--a fortnight after he was absolutely sure that Vivien was absolutely
sure also. (The fortnights ran concurrently.) Then he began to feel
rather foolish. What on earth was he waiting for? A man could not be
more than absolutely sure. Yet perhaps, in pure deference to his father,
he would have waited a week longer, and so achieved, or sunk to, an
almost cold-blooded deliberation. (He had known Mrs. Freere only a week
before he declared--and abjured--a passion!) He was probably right; it
was no good waiting. No greater security could be achieved by that.
Whether the pursuit were deliberate or impetuous, an end must come to
it. It was afterwards--when the chase was over and the quarry won--that
the danger came for Harry and men like him. Sage delay and a solid basis
of affection could not obviate that peril; the born hunter would still
listen to the horn that sounded a new chase. Somewhere in the world--so
the theory ran--there must live the woman who could deafen Harry's ears
to a fresh blast of the horn. On that theory monogamy depends for its
personal--as distinguished from its social--justification. So Mr.
Belfield reasoned, with a smile, and counselled delay. But there were no
means of ransacking the world, and even the theory itself was doubtful.
Harry was an eager advocate of the theory, but thought that there was no
need to search beyond little Meriton for the woman. At any rate, if
Meriton did not hold her, she did not exist--the theory stood condemned.
Still he would wait one week more--to please his father.
A thing happened, a word was spoken, the like of which he had never
anticipated. To defend himself laughingly against comparisons with the
proverbial Lothario, to protest with burlesque earnestness against
charges of susceptibility, fickleness, and extreme boldness of
assault--Harry played that part well, and was well-accustomed to play
it. But to suffer a challenge, to endure a taunt, to be subjected to a
sneer, as a slow-coach, a faint-heart, a boy afraid to tell a girl he
loved her, afraid to snatch what he desired! This was a new experience
for Harry Belfield, new and unbearable. And when he had only been trying
to please his father! Hang this pleasing of one's father, if it leads to
things like that!
He dashed up to Nutley one fine afternoon on his bicycle; he was
teaching Vivien the exercise, and she was finding that even peril had
its charms. But he was late for his appointment. Isobel Vintry sat alone
on the terrace by the water.
"How are you, Miss Vintry? I say, I'm afraid I'm late. Where's Vivien?"
"You're nearly half an hour late."
"Well, I know. I couldn't help it. Where is she?"
"She got tired of waiting for you, and went for a walk in the wood."
"She might have waited."
"Well, yes. One would think she'd be accustomed to it by now," said
Isobel. Her tone was lazily indolent, but her eyes were set on him in
mockery.
Harry looked at her with a sudden alertness. He looked at her hard.
"Accustomed to waiting for me?"
"Yes." She was exasperating in her malicious tranquillity, meaning more
than she said, saying nothing that he could lay hold of, quite grave,
and laughing at him.
"Any hidden meanings, Miss Vintry?" For, as a fact, Harry had generally
been punctual, and knew it.
"Nothing but what's quite obvious," she retorted, dexterously fencing.
"Or ought to be, to a man not so slow as I am?"
"You slow, Mr. Harry! You're Meriton's ideal of reckless dash!"
"Meriton's?"
"That's the name of the town, isn't it? Or did you think I said
London's?"
Harry laughed, but he was stung; she put him on his mettle. "Oh no, I
understood your emphasis."
"You needn't keep her waiting any longer--while you talk about nothing
to me. You'll find her in the west wood--if you want to. She left you
that message."
Harry had no doubt of what she meant, yet she had not spoken a word of
it. The saying goes that words are given us to conceal our thoughts; has
anybody ever ventured to say that lips and eyes are? Her meaning carried
without speech; understanding it, Harry took fire.
"I won't be late again, Miss Vintry," he said. "It would be a pity to
disappoint Meriton in its ideal!"
He would have liked to speak to her for a moment sincerely, to ask her
if she really thought--But no, it could not be risked. She would make
him feel and look ridiculous. Asking her opinion about the right moment
to--to--to come up to the scratch (he could find no more dignified
phrase)! Her eyes would never let him hear the end of that.
"Still lingering?" she said, stifling a yawn. "While poor Vivien waits!"
There are unregenerate atavistic impulses; Harry would dearly have liked
to box her ears. "Meriton's ideal" rankled horribly. What business was
it of hers? It could not concern her in the least--a conclusion which
made matters worse, since disinterested criticism is much the more
formidable.
"I can find her in a few minutes."
"Oh yes, if you look! Shall you be back to tea?"
"Yes, we'll be back to tea, Miss Vintry. Both of us--together!"
Isobel smiled lazily again. "Come, you are going to make an effort.
Nothing of the laggard now!"
"Oh, that's the word you've been thinking suits me?"
"It really will if you don't get to the west wood soon."
"I'll get there--and be back--in half an hour."
The one thing he could not endure was that any woman--above all, an
attractive woman--should find in him, Harry Belfield, anything that was
ridiculous. She might chide, she might admire; laugh she must not, or
her laugh should straightway be confounded. Isobel's hint that he had
been a laggard in love banished, in a moment, the uncongenial prudence
which he had been enforcing on himself.
She watched him with a contemptuous smile as he strode off on his quest.
Why had she mocked, why had she hinted? In part for pure mockery's sake.
She found a malicious pleasure in giving his complacency a dig, in
shaking up his settled good opinion of himself. In part from sheer
impatience of the simple obvious love affair, to which she was called by
her situation to play witness, chaperon, and practically accomplice. It
was quite clear how it was going to end--better have the end at once!
Her smile of contempt had been not so much for Harry as for the business
on which he was engaged; yet Harry had his share of it, since her veiled
banter had such power to move him. But that same thing in him had its
fascination; there was a great temptation to exercise her power when the
man succumbed to it so easily. In this case she had used it only to send
him a little faster whither he was going already; but did that touch the
limits of it?
So she speculated within herself, yet not quite candidly. Her feeling
for Harry was far from being all contempt. She mocked him with her
"Meriton ideal," but she was not independent of the Meriton standard
herself. To her as to the rest of his neighbours he was a bright star;
to her as to them his looks, his charm, his accomplishments appealed. In
her more than in most of them his emotions, so ready and quick to take
fire, found a counterpart. To her more than to most of them indifference
from him seemed in some sort a slight, a slur, a mark of failure.
Unconsciously she had fallen into the Meriton way of thinking that
notice from Harry Belfield was a distinction, his favour a thing marking
off the recipient from less happy mortals. She had received little
notice and little favour--a crumb or two of flirtation, flung from
Vivien's rich table!
To Vivien, after all the person most intimately concerned, Harry had
seemed no laggard; she would have liked him none the worse if he had
shown more of that quality. Nothing that he did could be wrong, but some
things could be--and were--alarming. Her fastidiousness was not hurt,
but her timidity was aroused. She feared crises, important moments, the
crossing of Rubicons, even when the prospect looked fair and delightful
on the other side of the stream.
To-day, in the west wood, the crossing had to be made. It by no means
follows that the man who falls in love lightly makes love lightly; he is
as much possessed by the feeling he has come by so easily as though it
were the one passion of a lifetime. In his short walk from Isobel
Vintry's side to Vivien's, Harry's feelings had found full time to rise
to boiling-point. Isobel was far out of his mind; already it seemed to
him inconceivable that he should not, all along, have meant to make his
proposal--to declare his love--to-day. How could he have thought to hold
it in for an hour longer?
"I know I was late, Vivien," he said. "I'm so sorry. But--well, I half
believe I was on purpose." He was hardly saying what was untrue; he was
coming to half-believe it--or very nearly.
"On purpose! O Harry! Didn't you want to give me my lesson to-day?"
"Not in bicycling," he answered, his eyes set ardently on her face.
She was sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, which had been stripped
of its bark and shaped into a primitive bench. He sat down by her and
took her hand.
"Your hand shakes! What's the matter? You're not afraid of me?"
"Not of you--no, not of you, Harry."
"Of something then? Is it of something I might do--or say?" He raised
her hand to his lips and kissed it.
It was no use trying to get answers out of her; she was past that; but
she did not turn away from him, she let her eyes meet his in a silent
appeal.
"Vivien, I love you more than all my life!"
"You--you can't," he could just hear her murmur, her lips scarcely
parted.
"More than everything in the world besides!"
What wonderful words they were. "More than everything in the world
besides!" "More than all my life!" Could there be such words? Could she
have heard--and Harry uttered them? Her hands trembled violently in his;
she was sore afraid amidst bewildering joy. Anything she had
foreshadowed in her dreams seemed now so faint, so poor, against
marvellous reality. Surely the echo of the wonderful words would be in
her ears for all her life!
She had none wherewith to answer them; her hands were his already; for
the tears in her eyes she could hardly see his face, but she turned her
lips up to his in mute consent.
"That makes you mine," said Harry, "and me yours--yours only--for ever."
She released her hands from his, and put her arm under his arm. Still
she said nothing, but now she smiled beneath her dim eyes, and pressed
his arm.
"Not frightened now?" he asked softly. "You need never be frightened
again."
She spoke at last just to say "No" very softly, yet with a wealth of
confident happiness.
"The things we'll do, the things we'll see, the times we'll have!" cried
Harry gaily. "And to think that it's only a month or two ago that the
idea occurred to me!" He teased her. "Occurred to us, Vivien?"
"Oh no, Harry. Well, then, yes." She laughed lightly, pressing his arm
again. "But never that it could be like this."
"Is this--nice?" he asked in banter.
"Is it--real?" she whispered.
"Yes, it's real and it's nice--real nice, in fact,"
laughed Harry.
"Don't talk just for a little while," she begged, and he humoured her,
watching her delicate face during the silence she entreated. "You must
tell them," she said suddenly, with a return of her alarm.
"Oh yes, I'll do all the hard work," he promised her, smiling.
She fell into silence again, the wonderful words re-echoing in her
ears--"More than everything in the world besides!" "More than all my
life!"
"I promised Miss Vintry we'd be back to tea. Do you think you can face
her?" asked Harry.
"Yes, with you. But you've got to tell. You promised."
"You'll have somebody to help you over all the stiles--now and
hereafter."
The suggestion brought a radiant smile of happiness to her lips; it
expressed to her the transformation of her life. So many things had been
stiles to her, and her father's gospel was that people must get over
their own stiles for themselves; that was the lesson he inculcated, with
Isobel Vintry to help him. But now--well, if stiles were still possible
things at all, with Harry to help her over they lost all their terrors.
"We'll remember this old tree-trunk. In fact I think that the proper
thing is to carve our initials on it--two hearts and our initials.
That's real keeping company!"
"Oh no," she protested with a merry little laugh. "Keeping company!
Harry!"
"Well, I'll let you off the hearts, but I must have the initials--very,
very small. Do let me have the initials!"
"Somewhere where nobody will look, nobody be likely to see them!"
"Oh yes; I'll find a very secret place! And once a year--on the
anniversary, if we're here--we'll come and freshen them up with a
penknife."
He had his out now, and set about his pleasant silly task, choosing one
end of the tree-trunk, near to the ground, where, in fact, nobody who
was not in the secret would find the record.
"There you are--a beautiful monogram; 'H' and 'V' intertwined. I'm proud
of that!"
"So am I--very proud, Harry!" she said softly, taking his arm as they
moved away. Was she not blessed among the daughters of women? To say
nothing of being the envy of all Meriton!
And for Harry the past was all over, the dead had buried its dead. The
new life--and the life of the new man--had begun.
Wellgood was back from a ride round his farms--a weekly observance with
him. He had been grimly encouraging the good husbandmen, badly scaring
the inefficient, advising them all to keep their labourers in order, and
their womankind as near to reason as could be hoped for. Now he had his
hour of relaxation over tea. He was a great tea-drinker--four or five
cups made his allowance. Tea is often the libertinism of people
otherwise severe. He leant back in his garden-chair, his gaitered legs
outstretched, and drank his tea, Isobel Vintry replenishing the
swiftly-emptied cup. She performed the office absent-mindedly--with an
air of detachment which hinted that she would fulfil her duties, routine
though they might be, but must not be expected to think about them.
"Where's Vivien?" he asked abruptly.
"In the west wood--with Mr. Harry. He said they'd be back for tea."
"Oh!" He finished his third cup and handed the vessel over to her to be
refilled. "Things getting on?"
"Yes, I think so. Here's your tea."
"Why do you think so? Give me another lump of sugar."
"Sugar at that rate'll make you put on too much weight. Well, I gave him
a hint that the pear was ripe."
"You did? Well, I'm hanged!"
"You think I'm very impudent?"
"What did you say? But I daresay you said nothing. You've a trick with
those eyes of yours, Isobel."
"I've devoted them solely to supervising your daughter's education, Mr.
Wellgood."
"Oh yes!" he chuckled. He liked impudence from a woman; to primitive
man--Wellgood had a good leaven of the primitive--it is an agreeable
provocation.
"I'll bet you," she said--with her challenging indolence that seemed to
say "Disturb me if you can!"--"I'll bet you we hear of the engagement in
ten minutes."
"You know a lot about it! What'll you bet me?"
"Anything you like--from a quarter's salary downwards!" said Isobel. She
sat facing the path from the west wood. On it she saw two figures, arm
in arm. Wellgood had his back turned that way. The situation was
favourable for Isobel's bet.
A light hand in flirtation could not be expected from a man to whom the
heavy hand--the strong decisive grip--was gospel in matters public and
private. Besides, he had grown impatient; his affair waited on Harry's.
"From a quarter's salary downwards? Will you bet me a kiss?"
"Yes," she smiled, "if losing means the kiss. Because I know I shall
win, Mr. Wellgood."
Harry and Vivien came near, still exalted in dreams, the new man and the
girl transformed. Wellgood had not noticed them, perhaps would have
forgotten them anyhow.
"If winning meant the kiss?" he said.
"I don't bet as high as that, except on a certainty,"
smiled Isobel. "Another cup?"
"No, but I tell you, Isobel--" He leant over the table towards her.
"Don't tell me, and don't touch me! They're just behind you, Mr.
Wellgood."
He swore under his breath. A plaguy mean trick this of women's--defying
just when they are safe! He had to play the father--and the
father-in-law to be; to seem calm, wise, benevolent, paternally
affectionate, patronizing to young love from the sage eminence of years
that he was just, a second ago, forgetting.
Since she had come into his house, to be Vivien's companion and
exemplar, a year ago, they had had many of these rough defiant
flirtations. He was not easily snubbed, she not readily frightened. They
had worked together over Vivien's rather severe training in a
matter-of-fact way; but there had been this diversion for hours of
leisure. Why not? Flirtation of this order was not the conventional
thing between the girl's father and the girl's companion. No matter!
They were both vigorously self-confident people; the flirtation suited
the taste of at least one of them, and served the ends of both.
The near approach of the lovers--the imminence of a declared
engagement--made a change. Wellgood advanced more openly; Isobel
challenged and repelled more impudently. The moment for which he had
waited seemed near at hand; she suffered under an instinctive impulse to
prove that she too had her woman's power and could use it. But, deep
down in her mind, the proof was more for Harry's enlightenment than for
Wellgood's subjugation. She had an overwhelming desire not to appear, in
Harry's conquering eyes, a negligible neglected woman. She mocked the
Meriton standard--but shared it.
"Look round!"
He obeyed her.
"Arm in arm!"
He started, and glowered at the approaching couple. Vivien hastily
dropped Harry's arm.
"Oh, that's nothing--she's just afraid! It's settled all the same. And
within my ten minutes!"
"Aye, you're a--!" He smiled in grim fierce admiration.
"Shall I take three months' notice, Mr. Wellgood?" She was lying back in
her chair again, insolent and serenely defiant. "I might have betted
after all, and been quite safe," she said.
Harry victorious in conquest, Vivien with her more precious conquest in
surrender, were at Wellgood's elbow. He had to wrench himself away from
his own devices.
"Well, what have you got to say, Vivien?" he asked his daughter rather
sharply. She was looking more than usually timid. What was there to be
frightened at?
"She hasn't got anything to say," Harry interposed gaily. "I'm going to
do the talking. Are you feeling romantic to-day, Mr. Wellgood?"
Wellgood smiled sourly. "You know better than to try that on me, Master
Harry."
"Yes! Well, I'll cut that, but I just want to mention--as a matter of
business, which may affect your arrangements--that Vivien has promised
to marry me."
Vivien had stolen up to her father and now laid her hand lightly on his
shoulder. He looked at her with a kindly sneer, then patted her hand.
"You like the fellow, do you, Vivien?"
"Yes, father."
"Then I daresay we can fix matters up. Shake hands, Harry."
Vivien kissed his forehead; the two men shook hands.
"I daresay you're not exactly taken by surprise," said Harry, laughing.
"I've been calling rather often!"
"It had struck me that something was up."
Wellgood was almost genial; he was really highly pleased. The match was
an excellent one for his daughter; he liked Harry, despite a lurking
suspicion that he was "soft;" and the way now lay open for his own plan.
"You haven't asked me for my congratulations, Vivien," said Isobel.
Vivien went over to her and kissed her, then sat down by the table, her
eyes fixed on Harry. She was very quiet in her happiness; she felt so
peaceful, so secure. Such was the efficacy of those wonderful words!
"And I wish you all happiness too, Mr. Harry," Isobel went on with a
smile. "Perhaps you'll forgive me if I say that I'm not altogether taken
by surprise either?"
Harry did not quite like her smile; there seemed to be a touch of
ridicule about it. It covertly reminded him of their talk before tea,
before he went to the west wood.
"I never had much hope of blinding your eyes, so I didn't even try, Miss
Vintry."
"I was thinking it must come to a head soon," she remarked.
Harry flushed ever so slightly. She was hinting at the laggard in love
again; it almost seemed as if she were hinting that she had brought the
affair to a head. In the west wood he had forgotten her subtle taunt; he
had thought of nothing but his passion, and how impatient it was. Now he
remembered, and knew that he was being derided, even in his hour of
triumph. He felt another impulse of anger against her. This time it took
the form of a desire to show her that he was no fool, not a man a woman
could play with as she chose. He would like to show her what a dangerous
game that was. He was glad when, having shot her tiny sharp-pointed
dart, she rose and went into the house. "You'll want to talk it all over
with Mr. Wellgood!" He did not want to think of her; only of Vivien.
"Poor Isobel!" said Vivien. "She's very nice about it, isn't she?
Because she can't really be pleased."
Both men looked rather surprised; each was roused from his train of
thought. Both had been thinking about Isobel, but the thoughts of
neither consorted well with Vivien's "Poor Isobel!"
"Why not?" asked Harry.
"It means the loss of her situation, Harry."
"Of course! I never thought of that."
"Don't you young people be in too great a hurry," said Wellgood, with
the satisfied smile of a man with a secret. "You're not going to be
married the day after to-morrow! There's lots of time for something to
turn up for Isobel. She needn't be pitied. Perhaps she may be tired of
you and your ways, young woman, and glad to be rid of her job!"
"Lucky there's somebody ready to take her place, then, isn't it?"
laughed Harry.
Wellgood laughed too as he rose. "It seems very lucky all round," he
said, smiling again as he left them. He was quite secure that they would
spend no time in thinking about good luck other than their own.
The lovers sat on beside the water till twilight fell, talking of a
thousand things, yet always of one thing--of one thing through which
they saw all the thousand other things, and saw them transfigured with
the radiance of the one. Even the bright hues of Harry's future grew a
hundredfold brighter when beheld through this enchanted medium, while
Vivien's simple ideal of life seemed heaven realized. Visions were their
only facts, and dreams alone their truth. Neither from without nor from
within could aught harm the airy fabric that they built--Vivien out of
ignorance, Harry by help of that fine oblivion of his.
For a long while Isobel Vintry--fled to her room lest Wellgood should
seek her--watched them from her window with envious eyes. For them the
dreams; for her, most uninspiring reality! At last she turned away with
a weary impatient shrug.
"Well, it's a good thing to have it over and done with, anyhow!" she
exclaimed, and smiled once more to think how she had stung Harry
Belfield with her insinuations and her "Meriton ideal." If we cannot be
happy ourselves, it is a temptation to make happy people a little
uncomfortable. In that lies an evidence of power consolatory to the
otherwise unfortunate.
Chapter IX.
"INTERJECTION."
Settling the question of the butcher's shop had seemed to Andy Hayes
like a final solution of life's problems. Therein he showed the quality
of his mind. One thing at a time, settle that. As he had learnt to say
'on the other side,' "Don't look for trouble!" He had yet to realize
what the man of imagination knows instinctively--that the problems of
life end only with life itself.
An eight-ten train to town is not, however, favourable to such a large
and leisurely survey as a consideration of life in its totality. It
involved a half-hour's race for the station. And this morning the
Bird--standing at the door of his father's hostelry--delayed a
hard-pressed man who had absolutely no time to stop.
"Heard the news about Mr. Harry?" cried the Bird across the street.
Andy slowed down. "About Harry?"
"Engaged to Miss Wellgood!" shouted the Bird.
"No, is he?" yelled Andy in reply. "Hurrah!"
It was but two days after the great event had happened. Recently Andy
had seen nothing of his Meriton friends. He had been working early and
late in town; down at seven-thirty, up to work again at eight-ten. He
had been a very draught-horse, straining at a load which would not
move--straining at it on a slippery slope. Business was so "quiet."
Could not work command success? At present he had to be content with the
meagre consolation proffered to Sempronius. He must be at the office not
a second later than nine. If the American letters came in, replies could
get off by the same day's mail.
Yet the news of the engagement--he wished he could have had it from
Harry's own lips--cut clean across his personal preoccupations. How
right! How splendid! Dear old Harry! And how he would like to
congratulate Miss Vivien! All that on Saturday afternoon or Sunday. Andy
was one of the world's toilers; for them works of charity, friendship,
and love have for the most part to wait for Saturday afternoon or
Sunday; the other five days and a half--it's the struggle for life,
grimly individual.
He loved Harry Belfield, and stored up untold enthusiasm for Saturday
afternoon or Sunday--those altruistic hours when we have time to
consider our own souls and other people's fortunes. But to-day was only
Thursday; Thursday is well in the zone of the struggle. Andy's timber
business was--just turning the corner! So many businesses always are.
Shops expensively installed, hotels over-built, newspapers--above all,
newspapers--started with a mighty flourish of heavy dividends combined
with national regeneration--they are all so often just turning the
corner. The phrase signifies that you hope you are going to lose next
year r
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