A Safety Match
by Ian Hay · English · Gutenberg #39172 · 410,209 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: A Safety Match
Author: Ian Hay
Release date: March 17, 2012 [eBook #39172]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39172
Credits: E-text prepared by Quentin Johnson, Suzanne Shell, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/toronto)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SAFETY MATCH ***
E-text prepared by Quentin Johnson, Suzanne Shell, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
generously made available by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries
(http://www.archive.org/details/toronto)
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A SAFETY MATCH
* * * * *
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
Crown 8vo, 6s.
A MAN'S MAN.
Fourth Impression.
Crown 8vo, 6s.
THE RIGHT STUFF.
_Fifth Impression._
Popular Edition, Cloth, 1s. net.
Crown 8vo, 6s.
PIP.
_Fourth Impression._
Popular Edition, Cloth, 1s. net.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS.
Edinburgh and London.
* * * * *
A SAFETY MATCH
by
IAN HAY
Author of 'The Right Stuff,' 'A Man's Man,' 'Pip,' etc.
Third Impression
William Blackwood and Sons
Edinburgh and London
1911
All Rights Reserved
_TO
H. M. S._
CONTENTS.
BOOK ONE.
THE STRIKING OF THE MATCH.
CHAP. PAGE
I. HAPPY FAMILIES 3
II. WANTED, A MAN 23
III. THE WHEELS OF JUGGERNAUT 36
IV. THE DEVIL A MONK WOULD BE 55
V. A SABBATH DAY'S JOURNEY 76
VI. DAPHNE AS MATCHMAKER 94
VII. THE MATCH IS STRUCK 105
VIII. _MORITURA TE SALUTAT_ 115
BOOK TWO.
FLICKERINGS.
IX. A HORSE TO THE WATER 129
X. A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A SOCIAL SUCCESS 145
XI. _DIES IRAE_ 165
XII. CILLY; OR THE WORLD WELL LOST 184
XIII. THE COUNTERSTROKES 197
XIV. INTERVENTION 219
XV. JIM CARTHEW 232
BOOK THREE.
THE LIGHTING OF THE CANDLE.
XVI. SOME ONE TO CONFIDE IN 243
XVII. THE CANDLE LIT 250
XVIII. _ATHANASIUS CONTRA MUNDUM_ 263
XIX. _LABORARE EST ORARE_ 276
XX. BLACK SUNDAY 284
XXI. _VEILLESSE SAIT_ 289
XXII. HOLD THE FORT! 296
XXIII. THE LAST TO LEAVE 308
XXIV. ANOTHER ALIAS 317
BOOK ONE.
THE STRIKING OF THE MATCH.
CHAPTER ONE.
HAPPY FAMILIES.
"Nicky, please, have you got Mr Pots the Painter?"
"No, Stiffy, but I'll trouble you for Mrs Bones the Butcher's Wife.
_Thank_ you. And Daph, have you got Master Bones the Butcher's Son?
_Thank_ you. Family! One to me!"
And Nicky, triumphantly plucking from her hand four pink-backed cards,
slaps them down upon the table face upwards. They are apparently
family portraits. The first--that of Bones _pere_--depicts a smug
gentleman, with appropriate mutton-chop whiskers, mutilating a
fearsome joint upon a block; the second, Mrs Bones, an ample matron in
apple-green, proffering to an unseen customer a haunch of what looks
like anaemic cab-horse; the third, Miss Bones, engaged in extracting
nourishment from a colossal bone shaped like a dumb-bell; the fourth,
Master Bones (bearing a strong family likeness to his papa), creeping
unwillingly upon an errand, clad in canary trousers and a blue
jacket, with a sirloin of beef nestling against his right ear.
It was Saturday night at the Rectory, and the Vereker family--"those
absurdly handsome Rectory children," as old Lady Curlew, of Hainings,
invariably called them--sat round the dining-room table playing "Happy
Families." The rules which govern this absorbing pastime are simple.
The families are indeed happy. They contain no widows and no orphans,
and each pair of parents possesses one son and one daughter--perhaps
the perfect number, for the sides of the house are equally balanced
both for purposes of companionship and in the event of sex-warfare. As
for procedure, cards are dealt round, and each player endeavours, by
requests based upon observation and deduction, to reunite within his
own hand the members of an entire family,--an enterprise which, while
it fosters in those who undertake it a reverence for the unities of
home life, offers a more material and immediate reward in the shape of
one point for each family collected. We will look over the shoulders
of the players as they sit, and a brief consideration of each hand and
of the tactics of its owner will possibly give us the key to the
respective dispositions of the Vereker family, as well as a useful
lesson in the art of acquiring that priceless possession, a Happy
Family.
Before starting on our tour of the table we may note that one member
of the company is otherwise engaged. This is Master Anthony Cuthbert
Vereker, aged ten years--usually known as Tony. He is the youngest
member of the family, and is one of those fortunate people who are
never bored, and who rarely require either company or assistance in
their amusements. He lives in a world of his own, peopled by folk of
his own creation; and with the help of this unseen host, which he can
multiply to an indefinite extent and transform into anything he
pleases, he organises and carries out schemes of recreation beside
which all the Happy Families in the world become humdrum and suburban
in tone. He has just taken his seat upon a chair opposite to another
chair, across the arms of which he has laid the lid of his big box of
bricks, and is feeling in his pocket for an imaginary key, for he is
about to give an organ recital in the Albert Hall (which he has never
seen) in a style modelled upon that of the village organist, whom he
studies through a chink in a curtain every Sunday.
Presently the lid is turned back, and the keyboard--a three-manual
affair, ingeniously composed of tiers of wooden bricks--is exposed to
view. The organist arranges unseen music and pulls out invisible
stops. Then, having risen to set up on the mantelpiece hard by a
square of cardboard bearing the figure 1, he resumes his seat, and
embarks upon a rendering of Handel's "Largo in G," which its composer,
to be just, would have experienced no difficulty in recognising,
though he might have expressed some surprise that so large an
instrument as the Albert Hall organ should produce so small a volume
of sound. But then Handel never played his own Largo in a room full of
elder brothers and sisters, immersed in the acquisition of Happy
Families and impatient of distracting noises.
The Largo completed, its executant rises to his feet and bows again
and again in the direction of the sideboard; and then (the applause
apparently having subsided) solemnly turns round the cardboard square
on the mantelpiece so as to display the figure 2, and sets to work
upon "The Lost Chord."
Meanwhile the Happy Families are being rapidly united. The houses of
Pots the Painter, Bun the Baker, and Dose the Doctor lie neatly piled
at Nicky's right hand; and that Machiavellian damosel is now engaged
in a businesslike quest for the only outstanding member of the family
of Grits the Grocer.
Nicky--or Veronica Elizabeth Vereker--was in many respects the most
remarkable of the Rectory children. She was thirteen years old, was
the only dark-haired member of the family, and (as she was fond of
explaining) was possessed of a devil. This remarkable attribute
was sometimes adduced as a distinction and sometimes as an
excuse,--the former when impressionable and nervous children came
to tea, the latter when all other palliatives of crime had failed.
Certainly she could lay claim to the brooding spirit, the entire
absence of fear, the unlimited low cunning, and the love of sin for
its own sake which go to make the master-criminal. At present she
was enjoying herself in characteristic fashion. Her brother
Stephen--known as "Stiffy"--Nicky's senior by one year, a
transparently honest but somewhat limited youth, had for the
greater part of the game been applying a slow-moving intellect to
the acquisition of one complete Family. Higher he did not look.
Nicky's habit was to allow Stiffy, with infinite labour, to collect
the majority of the members of a Family in which she herself was
interested, and then, at the eleventh hour, to swoop down and strip
her unconscious collaborator of his hardly-earned collection.
Stiffy, sighing patiently, had just surrendered Mr, Mrs, and Miss
Block (Hairdressers and Dealers in Toilet Requisites) to the
depredatory hands of Nicky, and was debating in his mind whether he
should endeavour when his next chance came to complete the
genealogical tree of Mr Soot the Sweep or corner the clan of Bung the
Brewer. Possessing two Bungs to one Soot, he decided on the latter
alternative.
Presently he was asked by his elder sister, Cilly (Monica Cecilia),
for a card which he did not possess, and this gave him the desired
opening.
"I say, Nicky," he began deferentially, "have you got Master Bung?"
Nicky surveyed her hand for a moment, and then raised a pair of
liquid-blue eyes and smiled seraphically.
"No, Stiffy, dear," she replied; "but I'll have Mr Bung and Mrs Bung."
Stiffy, resigned as ever, handed over the cards. Suddenly Sebastian
Aloysius Vereker, the eldest son of the family (usually addressed as
"Ally"), put down his cards and remarked, slowly and without heat--
"Cheating again! My word, Nicky, you are the absolute _edge_!"
"_Who_ is cheating?" inquired Veronica in a shocked voice.
"You. Either you _must_ have Master Bung, or else you are asking for
Stiffy's cards without having any Bungs at all; because I've got Miss
myself."
He laid the corybantic young lady in question upon the table to
substantiate his statement.
Nicky remained entirely unruffled.
"Oh--_Bung_!" she exclaimed. "Sorry! I thought you said 'Bun,' Stiffy.
You should spit out your G's a bit more, my lad. _Bung-gah_--like
that! I really must speak to dad about your articulation."
In polite card-playing circles a lady's word is usually accepted as
sufficient; but the ordinary courtesies of everyday life do not
prevail in a family of six.
"Rot!" said Ally.
"Cheat!" said Cilly.
"Never mind!" said loyal and peaceable Stiffy. "I don't care, really.
Let's go on."
"It's not fair," cried Cilly. "Poor Stiffy hasn't got a single Family
yet. Give it to him, Nicky, you little beast! Daph, make her!"
Daphne was the eldest of the flock, and for want of a mother dispensed
justice and equity to the rest of the family from the heights of
nineteen. For the moment she was assisting the organist, who had
inadvertently capsized a portion of his keyboard. Now she returned to
the table.
"What is it, rabble?" she inquired maternally.
A full-throated chorus informed her, and the arbitress detached the
threads of the dispute with effortless dexterity.
"You said you thought he was asking for Miss Bun and not Bung?" she
remarked to the accused.
"Yes--that was all," began Nicky. "You see," she continued
pathetically, "they're all so beastly unjust to me, and----"
Daphne picked up her small sister's pile of completed Families and
turned them over.
"You couldn't have thought Stiffy wanted _Buns_," she said in measured
tones, "because they're here. You collected them yourself. You've
cheated again. Upstairs, and no jam till Wednesday!"
It is a tribute to Miss Vereker's disciplinary methods that the
turbulent Nicky rose at once to her feet and, with a half-tearful,
half-defiant reference to her Satanic inhabitant, left the room and
departed upstairs, there to meditate on a Bun-strewn past and a
jamless future.
Daphne Vereker was perhaps the most beautiful of an extraordinarily
attractive family. Her full name was Daphne Margaret. Her parents,
whether from inherent piety or on the _lucus a non lucendo_ principle,
had endowed their offspring with the names of early saints and
martyrs. The pagan derivative Daphne was an exception. It had been the
name of Brian Vereker's young bride, and had been bestowed,
uncanonically linked with that of a saint of blameless antecedents,
upon the first baby which had arrived at the Rectory. Mrs Vereker had
died eleven years later, two hours after the birth of that fertile
genius Anthony Cuthbert, and Brian Vereker, left to wrestle with the
upbringing of six children on an insufficient stipend in a remote
country parish, had come to lean more and more, in the instinctive but
exacting fashion of lonely man, upon the slim shoulders of his eldest
daughter.
There are certain attributes of woman before which the male sex, whose
sole knowledge of the ways of life is derived from that stern
instructor Experience, can only stand and gape in reverent awe. When
her mother died Daphne Vereker was a tow-headed, long-legged,
irresponsible marauder of eleven. In six months she looked like a
rather prim little nursery-governess: in two years she could have
taken the chair at a Mother's meeting. Circumstance is a great
forcing-house, especially where women are concerned. Her dreamy,
unpractical, affectionate father, oblivious of the expectant presence
in the offing of numerous female relatives-in-law, had remarked in
sober earnest to his little daughter, walking erect by his side in her
short black frock on the way home from the funeral:--"You and I will
have to bring up the children between us now, Daphne;" and the child,
with an odd thrill of pride at being thus promoted to woman's highest
office at the age of eleven, had responded with the utmost gravity--
"You had better stick to the parish, dad, and I'll manage the kids."
And she had done it. As she presides at the table this Saturday
evening, with her round chin resting on her hands, surveying the
picturesque crew of ragamuffins before her, we cannot but congratulate
her on the success of her methods, whatever those may be. On her right
lolls the apple of her eye, the eldest son, Ally. He is a handsome
boy, with a ready smile and a rather weak mouth. He is being
educated--God knows by what anxious economies in other directions--at
a great public school. When he leaves, which will be shortly, the
money will go to educate Stiffy, who is rising fourteen.
Next to Ally sprawls Cilly, an amorphous schoolgirl with long rippling
hair and great grey eyes that are alternately full of shy inquiry and
hoydenish exuberance. Then comes the chair recently vacated by the
Madonna-like Nicky; then the ruddy countenance and cheerful presence
of the sunny-tempered Stiffy, completing the circle. In the corner
Master Anthony Cuthbert, cherubic and rapturous, is engaged, with
every finger and toe in action, upon the final frenzy of the
"Hallelujah Chorus." The number 6 stands upon the mantelpiece, for the
recital is drawing to a close.
To describe Daphne herself is not easy. One fact is obvious, and that
is that she possesses an instinct for dress not as yet acquired by any
of her brothers and sisters. Her hair is of a peculiarly radiant
gold, reflecting high lights at every turn of her head. Her eyes are
brown, of the hue of a Highland burn on a sunny afternoon, and her
eyebrows are very level and serene. Her colouring is perfect, and when
she smiles we understand why it is that her unregenerate brothers and
sisters occasionally address her as "Odol." When her face is in
repose--which, to be frank, is not often--there is a pathetic droop at
the corners of her mouth, which is perhaps accounted for by the cares
of premature responsibility. She is dressed in brown velvet, with a
lace collar--evening dress does not prevail in a household which
affects high tea, but Daphne always puts on her Sunday frock on
Saturday evenings--and, having discovered that certain colours suit
her better than others, she has threaded a pale blue ribbon through
her hair.
Altogether she is a rather astonishing young person to find sitting
contentedly resting her elbows upon a dingy tablecloth in an untidy
dining-room which smells of American leather and fried eggs. It is as
if one had discovered the Venus de Milo presiding at a Dorcas Society
or Helen of Troy serving crumpets in an A.B.C. shop.
The "Hallelujah Chorus" has just stopped dead at that paralysing
hiatus of two bars which immediately precedes the final crash, when
the door opens and the Reverend Brian Vereker appears. A glance at
his clear-cut aristocratic features goes a long way towards deciding
the question of the origin of the good looks of "those Rectory
children."
He is a tall man--six feet two,--and although he is barely fifty his
hair is specklessly white. He looks more like a great prelate or
statesman than a country parson. Perhaps he might have been one or the
other, had he been born the eldest son of the eldest son of a peer,
instead of the youngest son of the youngest. And again, perhaps not.
The lines of his face indicate brain rather than character, and after
all it is character that brings us out top in this world. There are
furrows about his forehead that tell of much study; but about the
corners of his mouth, where promptitude and decision usually set their
seal, there is nothing--nothing but a smile of rare sweetness. His
gentle blue eyes have the dreamy gaze that marks the saints and poets
of this world: the steely glitter of the man of action is lacking.
Altogether you would say that Brian Vereker would make a noble
figurehead to any high enterprise; but you would add that if that
enterprise was to succeed, the figurehead would require a good deal of
imported driving-power behind it. And you would be right.
The Rector paused in the doorway and surveyed the lamp-lit room.
... "_Halle-lu-u-ja-ah!_" vociferated the Albert Hall organ with an
air of triumphant finality. Brian Vereker turned to his youngest son
with the ready sympathy of one child for another child's games.
"That's right, Tony! That's the stuff! Good old George Frederick! _He_
knew the meaning of the word music--eh?"
"Yes--George Fwederick!" echoed the organist. "_And_ Arthur Seymour,
daddy! You've just missed 'The Lost Chord.'"
"Ah," said the Rector in a tone of genuine regret, "that's a pity. But
we had the Seventy-Eighth Psalm to-night, and I'm later than usual."
"Quadruple chant?" inquired Tony professionally.
"Rather! But is your recital quite over, boyo?"
"Yes--bedtime!" replied the organist, with a reproachful glance in the
direction of his eldest sister.
"Run along, dear!" was all the comfort he received from that
inflexible despot.
"All right! I must lock up, though."
Master Tony removed the last number from the mantelpiece,
disintegrated his keyboard and packed it up with the other bricks, and
drawing aside the window-curtain remarked solemnly into the dark
recess behind it--
"That will be all to-night, organ-blower. You can go home now."
To which a husky and ventriloquial voice replied--
"Thank you kindly, Mr Handel, sir. Good-night."
"Now," concluded Mr Handel, turning to his elders with the air of a
martyr addressing a group of arena lions, "I'm ready!"
"Take him up, Cilly dear," said Daphne. "I must look after dad's
supper."
"Come on, Tony," said Cilly, uncoiling her long legs from under her
and rising from the hearthrug.
"Righto!" said Tony. "You be a cart-horse and I'll be a broken-down
motor."
Monica Cecilia Vereker meekly complied, and departed upstairs, towing
the inanimate mechanism of the inventive Anthony behind her bump by
bump, utilising her sash, which she had removed for the purpose, as a
tow-rope.
"Ally and Stiffy," commanded Daphne, turning to the two remaining
members of the family, "you'd better go and pump the cistern full.
Saturday night, you know, and the kids' baths have just been filled;
so look sharp before the boiler bursts."
Stiffy, obliging as ever, rose at once; Ally, cumbered by that majesty
which doth hedge a sixth-form boy and a member of the school Fifteen
(especially when ordered about by a female), was more deliberate in
his acquiescence. However, presently both the boys were gone, and
five minutes later Daphne, with the assistance of the one little maid
whom the establishment supported, had laid the Rector's supper. She
installed her father in his seat on one side of the table, and took
her own on the other, assisting the progress of the meal from time to
time, but for the most part sitting with her chin resting upon her two
fists, and contemplating the tired man before her with serious brown
eyes. Twice she had to leave her seat, once to remove the butter from
the vicinity of her parent's elbow, and once to frustrate an attempt
on the part of that excellent but absent-minded man to sprinkle sugar
over a lettuce.
"Well, my daughter," remarked the Rector presently, "what of the
weekly report?"
Saturday night at the Rectory was reserved for a sort of domestic
budget.
"Here are the books," said Daphne. "They're much as usual, except that
I had to pay two bob on Wednesday for a bottle of embrocation for
Ally. He is in training for the mile in the sports at the beginning of
next term, and it does his muscles so much good."
"When I won the mile at Fenner's, Daphne," began the Reverend Brian,
with a sudden glow of reminiscence in his dreamy eyes, "I did it
without embrocation, or any other new-fashioned----"
"Yes, dear, but they have to run so much _faster_ now than they did,"
explained Daphne soothingly. "Then, about the kitchen chimney----"
"But I only took four minutes, twenty-eight----"
"Yes, old man, and I'm _proud_ of you!" said Daphne swiftly. "Well,
the sweep is coming in on Wednesday, when you'll be away at Wilford,
so _that's_ all right." She was anxious to get away from the question
of the embrocation. It had been a rank extravagance, and she knew it;
but Ally was ever her weak spot. "Then, I've got three-and-nine in
hand out of current expenses just now, and if I take two half-crowns
out of the emergency bag and we go without a second joint this week, I
can get Nicky a new pair of boots, if you don't mind. (Don't cut the
cheese with a spoon, dear; take this knife.) Of course, we ought not
to have to go to the emergency bag for boots at all. It's rather
upsetting. To-day I find that a perfectly ducky pair of Sunday shoes,
which I outgrew just before I stopped growing, and was keeping
specially for that child, are too small for her by yards. (I had tried
them on Cilly a year ago, but she simply couldn't get her toe in.) And
now they'll be wasted, because there are no more of us girls. My feet
are _most_ exasperating."
"Your mother had tiny feet," said the Rector, half to himself.
He pushed away his plate, and gazed absently before him into that
land where his son Tony still spent so much of his time, and whither
Tony's young and pretty mother had been borne away eleven years
before. Daphne permitted him a reverie of five minutes, while she
puckered her brow over the account-books. Then she rose and took down
a pipe from a rack on the mantelpiece. This she filled from a cracked
jar thirty years old, adorned with the coat-of-arms of one of the
three royal colleges of Cambridge, and laid it by her father's left
hand.
"Then there's another thing," she continued, lighting a spill at the
fire. "Isn't it time to enter Stiffy for school? Mr Allnutt asked us
to say definitely by April whether he was coming to fill Ally's place
after summer or not, otherwise he would be obliged to give the vacancy
to some one else. It's the end of March now."
The Rector lit his pipe--his one luxury--in a meditative fashion, and
then leaned back to contemplate his daughter, with her glinting hair
and troubled little frown.
"Mr Allnutt? To be sure! Of course! A ripe scholar, Daphne, and a
long-standing personal friend of my own. He took the Porson and Craven
in successive years. His Iambics----"
All this was highly irrelevant, and exceedingly characteristic. Daphne
waited patiently through a _resume_ of Mr Allnutt's achievements as a
scholar and a divine, and continued:--
"Will you enter Stiffy at once, then? It would be a pity not to get
him into Ally's old house."
Brian Vereker, suddenly recalled to business, laid down his pipe and
sighed.
"Boys are terribly expensive things, little daughter," he said. "And
we are so very very poor. I wonder if they are worth it."
"Of _course_ they are, the dears!" said Daphne, up in arms at once.
"Of course, of course," agreed the Rector apologetically. "You are
right, child; you are always right. It is ungrateful and un-Christian
of me to give expression to such thoughts when God has granted me
three good sons. Still, I admit it _was_ a disappointment to me when
Ally failed to gain a scholarship at Cambridge. He may have been right
in his assertion that there were an exceptionally strong set of
candidates up on that occasion, but it was unfortunate that he should
have overslept himself on the morning of the Greek Prose Paper, even
though, as he pointed out, Greek Prose is his weak subject. What a
pity! Strange lodgings, probably! Still, his disappointment must be
far greater than ours, so it would be ungenerous to dwell further on
the matter. But I fail to see at present how he can be started in life
now. If only one had a little money to spare! I have never felt the
need of such a thing before."
"Yes, we could do with a touch of it," assented Miss Vereker
elegantly. She began to tick off the family requirements on her
fingers. "There's Ally to be started in life; and Cilly ought to be
sent somewhere and finished--she's tragically gawky, and she'd be
perfectly lovely if she was given half a chance; and Stiffy has to be
sent to school; and the two kiddies are growing up, and this house is
simply tumbling down for want of repairs; and it's really time you had
a curate for long-distance visiting."
"Never!" said Brian Vereker firmly.
"All right. Never, if you like, but he'll have to come some day," said
Daphne serenely. (The question of the curate cropped up almost as
regularly as that of the second joint on Wednesdays.) "And all we've
got to run the whole show on," she concluded, with a pathetic little
frown which many a man would gladly have given his whole estate to
smooth away, "is--two pounds seventeen and ninepence in the emergency
bag! It's a bit thick, isn't it?"
Brian Vereker surveyed his daughter's troubled countenance with
characteristic placidity. Simple faith--some called it unpractical
optimism--was the main article of his creed.
"The Lord will provide, my daughter," he said.
At this moment the door opened with a flourish, and, the crimson and
enraged countenance of Master Anthony Cuthbert Vereker having been
thrust into the room, its owner inquired, in a voice rendered husky
by indignation, how any one could be expected to impersonate a
Dreadnought going into action in the bath, when the said bath was
encumbered with the flotsam and jetsam of a previous occupant. In
other words, was he to be bathed in the same water as Nicky?
It was an old grievance, arising from the insufficient nature of the
Rectory water-supply (which had to be pumped up by hand from the
garden) and the smallness of the kitchen boiler; and Daphne had
perforce to go upstairs to adjust it. Consequently the sitting of the
Committee of Ways and Means, with all its immediate necessities and
problems for the future, was incontinently suspended.
CHAPTER TWO.
WANTED, A MAN.
Five gentlemen sat side by side along a baize-covered table in a dingy
room in a dingier building not far from the principal pit-head of
Mirkley Colliery. They were the representatives of the local Colliery
Owners' Association, and they were assembled and met together for the
purpose of receiving a deputation representing the united interests
and collective wisdom of their _employes_.
It should be noted that although there were five gentlemen present,
six chairs were set along the table.
Now a deputation may be defined as an instrument designed to extract
from you something which you have not the slightest desire to give up.
Consequently the reception of such, whether you be a damsel listening
for the rat-a-tat of an undesired suitor who has written asking for an
interview, or a dethroned Royal Family sitting in its deserted abode
awaiting the irruption of a Committee of Public Safety composed of
the greater part of its late loyal subjects armed with billhooks and
asking for blood, is always an uncomfortable business at the best. Our
five gentlemen do not appear to be enjoying their present position any
more than the two examples cited above. In fact, they look so
exceedingly averse to interviews or arguments of any description, that
we will leave them for a moment and divert our attention to the
deputation itself, which is delicately skirting puddles of coal-black
water and heaps of pit refuse on its way from the boiler-house, where
its members have assembled, to the office-buildings of the colliery.
They are six in number, and we will describe them _seriatim_.
Mr Tom Winch is a professional agitator, though he calls himself
something else. He is loud-voiced, and ceaseless in argument of a
sort. His notion of a typical member of the upper classes is a
debilitated imbecile suffering from chronic alcoholism and various
maladies incident on over-indulgence, who divides his time between
gloating over money-bags and grinding the faces of the poor. He
privately regards Trades Unions as an antiquated drag upon the wheels
of that chariot at the tail of which he hopes one day to see Capital
led captive, gentlemen like Mr Tom Winch handling the reins and plying
the whip.
Mr Amos Entwistle is a working collier, and is rightly regarded by
both parties as a safe man. He is habitually sober, scrupulously
honest, and has worked at Belton Pit for nearly forty years. He looks
upon Trades Unions as his father and mother.
Mr Jacob Entwistle is the Nestor of the party. (Amos is his son.) He
is a patriarchal old gentleman, with a long white beard, the manner of
an ambassador, the deafness of an adder, and the obstinacy of a mule.
Altogether he is just the sort of man to prove a valuable asset to any
properly constituted deputation. He is the senior member of the local
branch of the _Employes'_ Association. He regards himself as the
father and mother of Trades Unions.
Mr Albert Brash is an expert in the art of what may be called
Righteous Indignation. Never was there such an exploiter of
grievances. Is short time declared? Mr Brash calls for an Act of
Parliament. Is there an explosion of fire-damp? Mr Brash mutters
darkly that one of these days a director must swing. Does a careless
worker remove a pit-prop and bring down an avalanche of coal on
himself? Mr Brash raises clenched hands to heaven and clamours for a
revolution. So persistently and so methodically does Mr Brash lay upon
the shoulders of Capital the responsibility for all the ills to which
flesh is liable, from a hard winter to triplets, that he has
ultimately (as is the way in this short-sighted world of ours)
achieved the position of Sir Oracle. His deportment is that of a
stage conspirator, and he rarely speaks above a hoarse and arresting
whisper. He calls himself an Anarchist, but he quails at the passing
of the most benevolent policeman. He regards Trades Unions as
well-meaning institutions, with but little discrimination as to their
choice of leaders.
Mr James Killick is a thoroughly honest, thoroughly muddle-headed
Socialist of a rather common type. Like many a wiser and more
observant man before him, he has realised something of the grinding
misery and suffering of this world, and a great and vague desire to
better things is surging inarticulately within him. He has come to
the conclusion, as most half-educated philosophers usually do, that
the simplest remedy would be to take from those who have and give
the proceeds to those who have not. The fact that the world is
divided into men to whose hands money sticks like glue and men
through whose fingers it slips like water, and that consequently a
Utopian re-distribution of property would have to be repeated at
inconveniently frequent intervals in order to preserve the social
balance, has not yet been borne in on him. He regards Trades Unionism
as a broken reed.
Mr Adam Wilkie is a Scot of the dourest and most sepulchral
appearance. Native reticence and an extremely cautious manner of
expressing himself have invested him with that halo of business acumen
which appears to be inevitable to the Scot as viewed by the Sassenach,
and his very silence is regarded with respectful admiration by his
more verbose colleagues. In reality, he is an intensely stupid,
entirely placid individual. Still, he has kept himself by native
thrift in tolerable comfort all his life without extraneous
assistance, and he consequently regards Trades Unionism as an
institution specially and mercifully introduced by Providence for the
purpose of keeping the weak-kneed English out of the poorhouse.
"Who's to be there?" inquired Mr Brash of Mr Entwistle senior.
That patriarch, who was negotiating a mountainous waste-heap, made no
reply.
"Who are we going to meet?" repeated Mr Brash in a louder tone.
"Eh?" inquires Mr Entwistle, giving his invariable answer to any
sudden question.
"Who are we going to _meet_?" bawled Mr Winch.
Mr Entwistle, who was never at a loss a second time, smiled
benignantly and replied--
"Ay, that's so. But maybe we can manage to dry 'em at the fire in the
office."
"I expect there will be five of them, Mr Winch," interpolated Amos,
coming to the rescue. "Kirkley, Thompson, Crisp, Aymer, Montague----"
There was a grunt of disapproval from Mr Wilkie as the last name was
mentioned.
"Yon felly!" he observed darkly. "Aha! Mphm!"
Then he relapsed into silence. It was upon such safe utterances as
these that Mr Wilkie's reputation for profound wisdom was based.
"Is that all?" said Winch. "Because if it is, I'll undertake to learn
that lot right enough! Kirkley, of course, is just an empty-headed
aristocrat: he don't count. Then that Crisp--he's too cautious to do
anything. We can talk Thompson round all right: done it half a dozen
times meself. Aymer never knows his own mind two minutes together, and
Moses is a coward. But _is_ that all? Ain't the big man going to be
there? He's the lad that counts in that crowd."
"He was away in London yesterday," said Entwistle junior. "But you
never know----"
"Wallowing in the vice and luxury of the metropolis!" chanted Mr Brash
suddenly, as if from some internal missal. "The master absent,
squandering his tainted millions, while we stay here and starve! If I
was a Member o' Parliament----"
"Talk sense," said Amos Entwistle curtly. "He may be back for all we
know. Anyway, they're certain to bring him up if they can, because
they know they can't do without him. Mind that tank-engine, father."
He impelled his aged parent, who, oblivious to delirious whistling,
was resolutely obstructing the progress of a diminutive locomotive
hauling a string of trucks, on to safer ground.
"Well, we'll hope for the best," said Mr Winch piously. "It would be
something if he was to come late, even. Give me twenty minutes with
the rest before he can get his oar in, and I'll undertake to make them
outvote him."
By this time the deputation had arrived at the managerial offices, and
five minutes later they were admitted to the presence of the Board.
They did not know that they had been immediately preceded by an
orange-coloured envelope, which was eagerly torn open by Lord Kirkley,
the deputy-chairman.
"Good egg!" observed his lordship, with a sigh of heartfelt relief.
"Juggernaut's coming."
A gentle murmur of satisfaction was audible. Evidently the Board felt
the need of a little stiffening. We may as well describe them.
The Marquis of Kirkley was more accustomed to exercising a kindly
despotism over rustics who lived contentedly on fourteen shillings
a-week than to splitting hairs with unbending mechanics earning four
pounds, whose views on the relations between master and man were
dictated by a cast-iron bureaucracy, and who regarded not the elastic
laws of Give and Take. He was a handsome, breezy, kind-hearted
patrician of thirty-four, and considered Trades Unions a damned
interfering nuisance.
James Crisp was a solicitor, and represented the Dean and Chapter of
Kilchester, beneath the very foundation of whose mighty cathedral ran
a very profitable little seam of coal, which was chiefly responsible
for making the bishopric of the diocese one of the richest
ecclesiastical plums in England. He was a shrewd man of business,
probably the best qualified of those present to take the lead in the
present instance. Consequently he remained studiously in the
background. He regarded Trades Unions as inevitable, but by no means
invulnerable.
Sir Nigel Thompson had inherited great possessions, including a
colliery, from his father. There was no vice in him, but he loved coal
about as much as a schoolboy loves irregular verbs, and his only
passions in life were old furniture and chemical research. He attended
under compulsion, having torn himself from his comfortable house in
London at the bidding of his manager, in whose hands he was reported
(not altogether unjustly) to be as wax. He was full of theoretical
enthusiasm for Trades Unions, which he identified in some mysterious
way with the liberty of the individual; but wished mildly that people
could contrive to settle their affairs without dragging him north.
Altogether a pleasant but entirely useless member of the Board.
Mr Alfred Aymer was the owner of Cherry Hill Colliery. He was
middle-aged, timorous, and precipitate. Left to himself, he would
probably have been a kind and fair-dealing employer. But it was his
misfortune to be so constituted that his opinions on any subject were
invariably those of the last man with whom he had discussed it.
Consequently his line of action in the affairs of life was something
in the nature of an alternating electric current. After an interview
with his manager he would issue a decree of unparalleled ferocity:
after five minutes with a deputation of _employes_ he would rescind
all previous resolutions and promise a perfectly fabulous bonus next
pay-day. In his present company he was an adamantine Capitalist, and
regarded Trades Unions as the most pernicious of institutions.
Last of all came Mr Montague, whose surname at an earlier and less
distinguished period in his history had probably rhymed with "noses."
He came from London, where he earned a livelihood by acquiring the
controlling interest in various commercial ventures, and making these
pay cent per cent. He had recently become proprietor of Marbledown
Colliery, and it was said that he was making a better thing out of it
than his _employes_. He regarded Trade Unions as an impertinent
infringement of the right of the upper classes to keep the lower
classes in their proper place. From which the intelligent reader will
have no difficulty in deciding to which class Mr Montague considered
that he himself belonged.
The deputation was introduced with the usual formalities. Its object
was to effect the reinstatement of two _employes_ at Marbledown
Colliery, an engineman and a hewer, who had been summarily dismissed
from their positions for endeavouring, in a society whose relations
had never been of the most cordial, to heighten dissension between
master and man.
Mr Tom Winch's version of the case, delivered with great wealth of
detail and a good deal of unnecessary shouting, was different. The
men, it appeared, were models of what enginemen and hewers should be.
Their sole offence consisted in having incurred the dislike of the
mine-manager, Mr Dodd--whether through their own sturdy independence
as true-born Englishmen (_applause from Mr Brash_), or the natural
jealousy of an incompetent official towards two able and increasingly
prominent subordinates, it was not for Mr Winch to say. Proceeding,
the orator warmed to his work, and mentioned that one man was as good
as another. Indeed, but for the merest accident of fortune, Lord
Kirkley himself might be delving for coal in the bowels of the earth,
what time Messrs Conlin and Murton, the dismissed _employes_, sate in
the House of Lords smoking cigars and drinking champagne.
After this singularly convincing peroration Mr Winch fell back into
line with his companions, amid the _sotto voce_ commendations of
Messrs Brash and Killick. Mr Aymer, who had been taking notes on a
sheet of paper, tore it up with a resigned air of finality. The case
was clear: these poor fellows must be reinstated.
The chairman conferred briefly with Mr Crisp.
"Would any other of you gentlemen like to say anything?" he inquired.
The question was communicated to Mr Entwistle senior, who stepped
forward and delivered himself of a courtly but rambling discourse,
consisting chiefly of reminiscences of something portentous but
unintelligible which had happened forty years ago, and even to the
most irrelevant mind presented no sort of bearing upon the case
whatsoever.
After this Lord Kirkley replied. His remarks were not convincing, for
he was hampered in dealing with the question by complete inability to
understand where the men's grievance came in, and said so. The owners,
he explained, tried to do the fair thing, and most of them did
considerably more. Sick funds, pensions, benevolent schemes, and all
that sort of thing, didn't they know? He quite admitted that an
employer of labour had grave responsibilities and duties laid upon
him, and he for one had always tried to live up to them. But hang it!
surely an employer had the right to get rid of a couple of fellows who
went about preaching anarchy and red revolution in all the
public-houses in the district--what? He did not mind ordinary
grousing. It did everybody good to blow off steam periodically: he did
it himself. But there was grousing and grousing: and when it came to
the sort of game that Messrs Conlin and Murton were playing, it was
his lordship's opinion that a _ne plus ultra_ of thickness had been
attained.
The chairman concluded a somewhat colloquial address amid a deathly
silence, and the deputation and the board glared uncomfortably at one
another. An _impasse_ had been reached, it was clear.
"It's all very well, gentlemen," broke in Killick suddenly, "for you
aristocrats----"
Lord Kirkley, who was not without a certain sense of proportion,
glanced involuntarily at Mr Montague and then at Mr Killick. Did this
omniscient and self-opinionated son of toil really see no moral
difference between a Peer of the realm, with centuries of clean-bred
ancestry behind him, and a man who wore diamond rings and
elastic-sided boots? Mr Montague looked up, and regarded Mr Killick
with something akin to affection.
There was a sudden rumble underneath the windows, accompanied by the
hoot of a motor-horn.
The drama having run itself to a deadlock, the _deus_ had duly
arrived--in his _machina_.
CHAPTER THREE.
THE WHEELS OF JUGGERNAUT.
There was a dead silence, unbroken until Juggernaut entered the room.
"Good-morning, gentlemen," he said briskly. "I am glad to see that the
deputation has only just arrived."
He turned to the clerk who had shown him in.
"Andrews," he said, "bring chairs for these gentlemen, and then we can
get to business."
Chairs were brought, and the deputation, which had been balancing
itself on alternate legs for nearly half an hour, sat down with an
enhanced sense of comfort and importance to what they realised at once
was to be the interview proper.
Juggernaut took the seat at the middle of the table vacated by Lord
Kirkley, and inquired--
"Has any one spoken yet?"
Progress was reported by Mr Crisp.
"I wonder if I might trouble the deputation again," said the chairman.
"Not you, Mr Winch, thank you!" as that Demosthenes cleared his
throat in a threatening manner. "In the first place, you don't
represent the men in any sense. In fact, considering that you are
engaged in no employment in this district, I think it would have been
much wiser on the part of those responsible for this deputation to
have left you out altogether. You are not even a properly accredited
Trades Union official."
"Gentlemen of the Board," began Mr Winch portentously, "I appeal----"
"Don't trouble, really, Mr Winch," broke in Juggernaut with inflexible
cheerfulness. "You see, I know exactly what you are going to say. I
have heard it so often in other places where you have been kind enough
to come forward and champion the cause--of--of--the oppressed millions
of this country. That's right, isn't it?"
A muffled sound proceeded from the interior of Mr Wilkie--his first
contribution to the debate--and the chairman proceeded.
"I wonder if Mr Entwistle junior would kindly give us the facts."
Amos Entwistle, rising from his seat, re-stated the case of the two
men. They were competent and industrious workmen, he maintained, and
so long as they gave satisfaction in their situations their private
lives and leisure occupations were entirely their own concern.
Possibly their views on the relations of Labour and Capital were
extreme, but the speaker begged respectfully to point out that there
were extremists on both sides; and since many employers might and did
regard the men they paid as dirt beneath their feet, it seemed only
natural that a section of the men should regard their employers as
bullies and tyrants. Mr Entwistle followed up this undoubted
home-thrust with a request for a categorical list of the offences
alleged against the two men, and solemnly but respectfully warned the
Board against risking a serious upheaval by endeavouring to stifle
legitimate criticism of its actions. With apologies for plain-speaking
he resumed his seat, and Mr Aymer tore up a sheet of paper upon which
he had commenced operations on the arrival of the chairman.
"Would any other gentleman like to say anything?" inquired Juggernaut.
"Mr Brash? Mr Wilkie?"
No, the gentlemen addressed had nothing to say. Their _forte_ was
plainly that of chorus.
"Very well," said Juggernaut. "In the first place, I am going to
accede to Mr Entwistle's perfectly just request that a definite reason
should be given for the dismissal of these men. I agree with him that
it is a foolish thing to stifle legitimate criticism. Unfortunately, I
don't agree with him that the criticisms of Messrs Conlin and Murton
_are_ legitimate. I have been making inquiries into the antecedents of
these two. Murton is a paid agitator. He is not a local man. He came
here less than a year ago, and has been making deliberate mischief
ever since. He has money to spend: he backs his arguments with beer. I
shouldn't be surprised if he drew his salary from the organisation
which retains your services, Mr Winch."
Mr Winch's small eyes began to protrude. He did not relish this line
of argument. In dealing with Boards and other representatives of
bloated Capital he preferred to keep to the high moral and sentimental
plane--the sufferings of the downtrodden sons of Labour, the equality
of all men in the sight of God, and so on. Mundane personalities,
coupled with the suggestion that he, a high priest of altruism, was
making a good thing out of his exertions on behalf of his
fellow-toilers, took him below the belt, he considered.
"Conlin," continued Juggernaut, disregarding the fermenting Mr Winch,
"seems to be a comparatively sincere and honest grumbler. He has
realised that this is an unjust world, and he wants to put it right by
Act of Parliament. Consequently he goes about advocating certain
special and particular forms of legislation which, if they came into
being, would benefit about one member of the community in a hundred
and be grossly unfair to the other ninety-nine. He has not yet
discovered for himself that the aim of all legislation must be to
benefit the type and not the individual. That is the rock upon which
all your friends split, Mr Winch. You are always trying to legislate
for special cases, and it can't be _done_. I quite agree with you that
the conditions of labour in parts of this country are deplorable. We
all want to put them right. But there are two things we cannot do. We
can't cure them in a hurry, and we can't cure them by swallowing quack
medicines. What we have to do is to set to work on systematic lines,
and go on working, with patience and a sense of proportion, until our
whole social fabric develops into a sounder and more healthy
condition. That requires time, and time requires patience, and
patience requires common-sense, and common-sense is a thing which is
lamentably scarce in this world, Mr Winch. We are marching on to a
better state of things every year; but every bit of unsound,
panic-stricken, vote-catching legislation--Right-to-Work Bills,
Unemployment Acts, and so on--throws us back a step, because its
tendency is to remove the symptom instead of curing the disease. Now,
symptoms are very valuable assets. They give us reliable and necessary
information, which is more than can be said of most intelligence
departments. If ever you have such a vulgar thing as a pain in your
stomach, Mr Winch, that is a kindly hint from Nature that there is
something wrong with the works. If you drink two of whisky hot the
pain may cease, but it does not follow that the real cause of the
trouble has been removed. In effect you have merely put back the
danger-signal to safety without removing the danger. That is just what
all this despicable, hand-to-mouth, time-serving legislation that you
and your friends are trying to force upon a popularity-hunting
Government is doing for the country to-day."
The speaker paused. The deputation wore a distinctly chastened
appearance. Mr Aymer was engaged upon a third sheet of notes. Sir
Nigel Thompson was working out a chemical formula on the back of an
envelope.
"Let us get back to the point, sir," said Amos Entwistle doggedly. "I
agree with a great deal of what you say----"
"Shame!" interpolated Mr Killick suddenly.
"But we came here to ask for the reinstatement of these two men, and
not to discuss social problems."
"Granted all the time," said Juggernaut cheerfully. "I admit that I
have not made Messrs Conlin and Murton my Alpha and Omega in these
remarks of mine; but that is because I deliberately went back to first
principles instead of cutting into the middle of things. Now for your
request! You want an answer? Here it is. The two men cannot be
reinstated under any circumstances whatsoever. I confess I am rather
sorry for Conlin: he is in a different class from Murton. But he is
tarred with the same brush, and he must go."
"Take care, Sir John," broke in Mr Winch, in the declamatory bray
which he reserved for extreme crises. "Don't push us too hard! What if
a strike was to be proclaimed at Marbledown Colliery? You wouldn't
like that, Mr Montague! You have a bad enough name in the district as
it is. You grind your 'eel----"
"Mr Winch," said Juggernaut in a voice of thunder, "I must ask you to
address yourself to me. This matter has been taken out of Mr
Montague's hands by the combined action of the Owners' Association; so
if you have any strictures to offer they must be laid upon me as
representing the Association collectively. As for striking--well, you
struck before, you know. I don't think any of us have forgotten that
winter--masters or men!"
"We nearly beat you then," said Killick hotly.
"That," retorted Mr Montague, suddenly breaking into the debate, "was
because some sentimental fool sent food and necessaries to your
wives."
"It's the women and children who pay for strikes, you know, Mr Winch,"
said Mr Crisp, speaking for the first time--"not you men. You can do
without beer and baccy at a pinch, but your families must have
groceries and fire. If they had not been kept going by that unknown
benefactor the strike would have collapsed as soon as the Union funds
gave out."
"Perhaps they will be kept going again," said Amos Entwistle quietly.
"They won't," said Juggernaut emphatically. "You can take my word for
that, Mr Entwistle. I have seen to it. And I may add that if you
consider it advisable to proclaim a sectional strike, the owners on
their part might find it necessary to declare a lock-out at all the
collieries in the district. If men can combine, so can masters."
There was a staggered silence. Even the Board were hardly prepared for
this. Juggernaut had so dominated the situation since his arrival that
one or two--Mr Montague in particular--were beginning to wonder rather
peevishly why they had been admitted to the meeting. But Mr Crisp
leaned back and took snuff contentedly. He appreciated strong
measures, though he was averse to initiating them.
Still, the temper of the meeting was rising. Killick broke out
furiously. It was a burning shame, a monstrous iniquity, he declared,
that men who had never done an honest day's work in their lives should
be enabled, simply because they had money in their pockets, to force
humiliating conditions on a majority who had no alternative but to
submit or starve. He spoke with all the conviction that absolute
sincerity carries; but the effect of his philippic was not enhanced by
the marginal comments of his colleague, Mr Brash, who kept up a
running fire of _sotto voce_ references to bloody-minded tyrants,
champagne, ballet-girls, and other equally relevant topics with a
persistence and enthusiasm which would have proved embarrassing to a
more self-conscious and less frenzied rhetorician than Mr Killick.
When both solo and _obligato_ had subsided, Juggernaut spoke again.
"It is one of the most common delusions of men of your way of
thinking, Mr Killick, to imagine that the only kind of work worthy of
the name is manual labour. Personally, I have tried both. For two
years after I came down from the University I worked for experience's
sake in a pit not far from here. I went down with my shift daily and
worked full time; but I assure you that those two years were far from
being the most laborious of my life."
"Your case was different, sir," said Amos Entwistle, with a practical
man's quick perception of his opponent's weak points. "You were doing
it for pleasure, to acquire experience--not to earn your bread. You
could look forward to something better later on."
"And so can every man!" replied Juggernaut. "Each one of us is able
if he likes to work his way up, and up, and up; and the lower he
starts, the greater is his range of opportunity. The man at the bottom
has the whole ladder to climb, instead of a few paltry rungs, as is
the case of a man born near the top. Let him think of that, and be
thankful!"
The chairman's sombre eyes glowed. His tone of raillery was gone: he
was in sober earnest now. To him poverty and riches were nothing; he
could have lived happily on a pound a-week: the salt of life lay in
the overcoming of its difficulties.
But Amos Entwistle was a man of tough fibre--by far the strongest man,
next to the chairman, in that assemblage.
"You can't deny, sir," he persisted doggedly, "that it is very
difficult for a poor man to rise. His employers don't help him much.
They are best satisfied with a man who keeps his proper station, as
they call it."
"Tyrants!" interpolated Mr Winch hastily.
"Star Chamber!" added Mr Brash, _a propos de bottes_.
"Tyrants? Star Chamber?" Juggernaut surveyed the interrupter
quizzically. "Here is a question for you, Mr Brash. Which is the
worse--the tyranny of the harsh employer who gathers where he has not
strawed, or the tyranny of a Trades Union which a man is forced to
join, and which compels the best worker to slow down his pace to that
of the worst, and frequently compels him to come out on strike over
some question upon which he is perfectly satisfied? I won't attempt to
place them in order of merit, but I should feel inclined to
bracket----"
"Trades Unions," interrupted Mr Winch, who was beginning to feel
himself unduly excluded from the present symposium, "are the first
steps towards the complete emancipation of Labour"--he smacked his
lips as over a savoury bakemeat--"from the degrading shackles of
Capital. Every man his own master!"
Juggernaut nodded his head slowly.
"Ye-es," he said. "That sounds admirable. But what does it _mean_
exactly? As far as I can see, it means that every one who is at
present a labourer is ultimately going to become a capitalist. In that
case it rather looks as if there would be a shortage of hands if there
was work to be done. Your Utopia, Mr Winch, appears to me to resemble
the Grand Army of Hayti, which consists of five hundred privates and
eleven hundred Generals. No, no; you must bear in mind this fact, that
ever since the world began mankind has been divided up into masters
and men, and will continue to be so divided until the end of time.
What we--you and I--have to do is to adjust the relations between the
two in such a fashion as to make the conditions fair for both. I
don't say that employers aren't frequently most high-handed and
tyrannical, but I also say that _employes_ are extraordinarily touchy
and thin-skinned. I think it chiefly arises from a sort of distorted
notion that there is something degrading and undignified in obeying an
order. Why, man, obedience and discipline are the very life-blood of
every institution worthy of the name. They are no class affair either.
I have seen the captain of a company stand at attention without
winking for ten minutes, and receive a damning from his colonel that
no non-commissioned officer in the service would have dreamed of
administering to a private of the line. Master and man each hold
equally honourable positions; and what you must drum into the minds of
your associates, gentlemen--I'm speaking to the Board as much as to
the deputation--is the fact that the interests of both are
_identical_, instead of being as far apart as the poles, which appears
to be your present impression. Neither can exist without the other. So
far you have imbibed only half of that truth. You reiterate with
distressing frequency, Mr Winch, the fact that Capital cannot exist
without Labour. Perfectly true. Now try to absorb into your system the
fact--equally important to a hair's-breadth--that Labour cannot exist
without Capital. Each depends upon the other for existence, and what
we have to do is to balance and balance and balance, employing a
sense of proportion, proportion, _proportion_!"
Juggernaut's fist descended with a crash upon the table, and for a
minute he was silent--free-wheeling, so to speak, over the pulverised
remains of Mr Winch. Presently he continued, with one of his rare
smiles--
"A Frenchman once said that an Englishman begins by making a speech
and ends by preaching a sermon. I am afraid I have justified the gibe,
but it's a good thing to thrash these matters out. I don't deny that
the average employer is in the habit of giving his _employes_ their
bare pound of flesh in the way of wages and no more. But I think the
_employe_ has himself to blame for that. If you invoke the assistance
of the law against your neighbour, that neighbour will give you
precisely as much as the law compels him to give. Well, that is what
organised Labour has done. It has its Trades Union, its Workmen's
Compensation and Employers' Liability, and so on; and lately it has
gouged out of a myopic Government a scheme of Old Age Pensions, to be
eligible for which a man must on no account have exercised any kind of
thrift throughout his working life. If he has, he is disqualified. All
this legislation enables you to get the half-nelson on your employer.
Under the circumstances you can hardly expect him to throw in
benevolence as well. You can't have your cake and eat it. The old
personal relations between master and man are dead--dead as Queen
Anne--and with them has died the master's sense of moral
responsibility for the welfare of those dependent on him."
"Time, too! Degradation! Feudal system!" observed the ever-ready Mr
Killick.
"Well, perhaps; but the Feudal System had its points, Mr Killick. It
fostered one or two homely and healthy virtues like benevolence and
loyalty and pride of race; and I don't think a man-at-arms ever lost
his self-respect or felt degraded because he lived in time of peace
under the protection of the Lord of the Manor whom he followed in time
of war. Yes, I for one rather regret the passing of the old order.
Listen, and I will tell you a story. Forty years ago Cherry Hill Pit
was flooded--flooded for nearly three months during a bitter hard
winter. Sir Nigel Thompson's father, the late baronet----"
Sir Nigel, who was puzzling out some specially complicated formula,
suddenly looked up. He had an idea that his name had been mentioned;
but as every one present appeared to be listening most intently to the
chairman, he resumed his engrossing occupation with a sigh of relief.
"--paid full wages during the whole of that time; and as coal was
naturally unobtainable in the village, he imported sufficient to
supply the needs of the whole community. Not a house in the village
lacked its kitchen fire or its Sunday dinner during all those weeks.
That was before the days of the Employers' Liability, gentlemen! If a
similar disaster were to occur to-day, I doubt if Sir Nigel here would
feel morally bound to do anything for such an independent and
self-sufficient community. The present state of things may safeguard
you against the ungenerous employer, but it eliminates the milk of
human kindness from our mutual transactions, and that is always a
matter for regret. That is all, gentlemen. You have our last word in
this matter. These two men must go. If you would like to withdraw to
the next room for a few minutes and consider whether you have anything
further to say, we shall be glad to wait your convenience here."
The deputation rose and filed solemnly from the room, and the Board
were left alone.
Presently Mr Aymer observed timidly--
"Mr Chairman, don't you think we might let Conlin stay, and content
ourselves with dismissing Murton?"
"Afraid not," said Juggernaut. "It's a bit hard on Conlin, but we have
to consider the greatest good of the greatest number. He's a
plague-spot, and if we don't eradicate him he'll spread. Do you agree,
Kirkley?"
"Bad luck on the poor devil, but I think you are right," assented his
lordship.
"Crisp?"
Mr Crisp nodded.
"Nigel?"
Sir Nigel Thompson looked up from his seventh envelope with a
contented sigh.
"I have it at last," he said. "It's a perfectly simple solution,
really, but the obvious often escapes one's notice owing to its very
proximity. The eye is looking further afield. Eh--what? My decision? I
agree implicitly with you, Jack--that is, gentlemen, I support the
chairman in his view of the case."
And this vigilant counsellor collected his envelopes and stuffed them
into his pocket. The chairman continued--
"Montague?"
"Before I answer that question," began Mr Montague, "I should like to
protetht--protest, I mean--against the arbitrary manner in which you
have conducted this meeting, Mr Chairman. You have taken the case out
of our hands in a manner which I consider most unwarrantable; and,
speaking as the actual employer of the two men----"
Juggernaut swung rather deliberately round in his chair.
"Mr Montague," he said, "you got yourself into a hole, and you
called--no, _howled_--for a meeting of directors to come and pull you
out. These agitators settled down in your district because they knew
that it was the most fertile district to work in. You are considered,
rightly, the worst employer of labour here. You are greedy,
unscrupulous, and tyrannical. It is men like you who discredit Capital
in the eyes of Labour, and make conciliatory dealing between master
and man almost an impossibility. We have bolstered you up through a
very difficult crisis, sitting here and putting those poor fellows,
five of whom are infinitely more honest than you are, quite
undeservedly in the wrong, and imperilling our immortal souls by
whitewashing such employers as you. Accept the situation and be
thankful!"
It is said that hard words break no bones. Still, if you happen to be
a member of a race which has endured hard words (to say nothing of
broken bones) for twenty centuries, and when the hard words on this
particular occasion are delivered by a large man with angry blue eyes
and a tongue like a whip-lash, you may be forgiven for losing your
nerve a little. Mr Montague lost his. He flapped his ringed hands
feebly, mumbled incoherently, and was understood to withdraw his
objections unconditionally.
"Mr Amos Entwistle," announced a clerk at the door.
Entwistle junior re-entered the room.
"I am commissioned to inform you, Mr Chairman," he said, "that we
acquiesce in your decision; but under protest. I should like to add,
gentlemen," he continued, less formally but none the less earnestly,
"that the Committee are very much dissatisfied with the result of the
interview. I am afraid you haven't heard the last of this trouble.
Good-day, and thank you, gentlemen!"
"What does it all mean? Strike--eh?" inquired Lord Kirkley, as he and
Juggernaut descended the stairs together five minutes later.
"Perhaps. If so, we'll fight."
"Righto--I'm on! I say, it was pretty smart of you finding out where
those private supplies of theirs came from last time. We shall be able
to put the lid on that sort of think in future--what?"
Juggernaut nodded, but said no more.
Mr Crisp, Sir Nigel Thompson, and Mr Aymer walked across to the
latter's offices for luncheon. Mr Montague had gone home to lunch by
himself. He usually did so.
"The chairman arrived at the meeting in the nick of time," said the
lawyer. "Kirkley would have been no match for Winch."
"The chairman was very inflexible," sighed Mr Aymer, with all a weak
man's passion for compromise. "He has a way of brushing aside
obstacles which can only be described as Napoleonic. Is he always
within his rights from a legal point of view?"
"From a legal point of view, practically never," said the lawyer
simply. "From a common-sense point of view, practically always."
"He is a hard man--as hard as flint," mused Mr Aymer. "I wonder if he
has a soft side to him _anywhere_. I wonder, for instance, how he
would treat a woman."
"I wonder," said Mr Crisp.
CHAPTER FOUR.
THE DEVIL A MONK WOULD BE.
The first member of the Rectory household whose eyes opened on Sunday
morning was the Rector himself, who promptly arose and repaired to the
church, there to conduct the early morning service. The second was a
certain Mr Dawks, who has not previously been mentioned in this
narrative. He was a dog. The term may include almost anything, which
is perhaps fortunate for Mr Dawks; otherwise it might have been
necessary to class him under some more elastic heading. Of his
ancestry nothing was known, though many conjectures could have been
made, and most of them would have been correct. He had been found
lying half-dead in a country lane by Daphne six years ago, and though
mistaken at the time for a derelict monkey jettisoned from some
migratory hurdy-gurdy, had subsequently proved to be a mongrel puppy
of a few months old. Regular meals and ripening years had developed
him into a sort of general epitome of all the dogs that ever existed.
He possessed points which, exhibited individually, would have gained
many marks at Cruft's Dog-Show. His tail would have increased the
market value of a Chow fourfold; his shoulders and forelegs would have
done credit to a prize bull-terrier; his ears would have inflated the
self-esteem of the silkiest spaniel in existence; and his lower jaw
would have been regarded as an asset by an alligator. His manners were
without reproach, but were derived rather from mental vacuity than
nobility of character; for with the deportment of an hidalgo he
combined the intelligence of a permanent official.
His name, as already mentioned, was Mr Dawks, but he responded with
equal amiability to "Angel Child" or "Beautiful One" (Daphne);
"Flea-Club" (Ally); "Puss, puss!" (Nicky); and "Tank-Engine" (Stiffy),
to whose mechanical mind bandy legs and laboured breathing suggested a
short wheel-base and leaky outside-cylinders.
Mr Dawks, having arisen from his nightly resting-place outside Daphne
Vereker's bedroom door, strolled downstairs to the study. The Rector
was frequently to be found there early in the morning, and were he not
too deeply absorbed in some dusty volume, there might be biscuits. But
the room was empty. Mr Dawks laboriously remounted the staircase and
scratched delicately at his mistress's bedroom door.
He was admitted, and found Daphne, in dressing-gown and slippers,
preparing for her Sunday morning round, in which she doubled the parts
of what is known in the North of England as a "knocker-up" and
mistress of the wardrobe; for the week's clean garments were always
distributed on these occasions. The pair set forth together.
After a tap at her father's door, answered by a melodious
"Good-morning, daughter!" which showed that the Rector had returned
from his ministrations, Daphne proceeded to the regions above. Here
upon the landing she encountered her youngest sister, who ought
properly to have been dressing in the bedroom which she shared with
Cilly. Instead, she was sitting resignedly outside the door upon a
bundle composed of her Sabbath garments. As she was obviously posing
for the excitation of sympathy, Daphne ignored her and passed into the
bedroom, where the window-blind was flapping in the breeze and Cilly
lay in a condition of almost total eclipse (if we except a long tawny
pig-tail) under the bed-clothes.
"Cilly," inquired Daphne, "what's Nicky doing outside?"
"I kicked her out," replied a muffled voice.
"Why?"
"Well"--Cilly poked her head, tortoise-fashion, from under
its covering--"she cheeked me--about"--the head retired
again--"something."
"Bobby Gill, I suppose," remarked Daphne calmly.
Cilly's countenance reappeared, rosily flushed with healthy sleep and
maiden modesty.
"Yes."
"Well, you must take her in again," said Daphne. "She's only playing
up for a cold, sitting out there, and it will be a score for her if
she can sniff the house down to-morrow."
"All right," said Cilly resignedly. "I suppose I can pay her out some
other way."
"I wouldn't, if I were you," advised the elder sister. "She'll only
wait till she gets you and Bobby together, and then say something
_awful_. It's your own fault, dear. You do ask for it, you know."
Cilly, whose flirtations were more numerous than discreet, sighed
deeply, and rolled a pair of large and dreamy eyes upon her sister.
"Daph, don't you _ever_ fall in love with men? Well--boys, if you
like!" she continued, parrying an unspoken comment. "I know I do
overdo it a bit; but you--well, you never do it at all. Don't you love
to feel them edging up to you, and getting pink in the face, and
trying to think of things to say to you, and offering to take
you----"
"No," said Daphne decidedly; "they bore me. Barring Dad and Mr Dawks
and the boys, I have no use for males. Besides, I'm always too busy to
bother with them: they waste so much of your time. Now, my child, if
you want any breakfast you had better get up. I must go and see the
boys."
She departed, and with a passing admonition to Nicky to abandon her
eleemosynary vigil and be sure to wash her neck, continued on her way,
still accompanied by the faithful Dawks, to the chamber occupied by
her two youngest brothers.
Here peace reigned. Stiffy, one of whose chief joys in life was the
study of the British Railway System, from Automatic Couplings to
Newspaper Specials, was sitting up in bed with an old _Bradshaw_,
laboriously ascertaining by how many routes and with how few changes
the ordinary railway maniac might travel from Merthyr-Tydvil to
Stockton-on-Tees. At the other end of the room the ever-occupied
Anthony, with his night-shirt for a surplice and a stocking for a
stole, was standing by an open grave (the hearthrug) rehearsing the
opening passages of the Service for the Burial of the Dead,--an
exercise to which, in common with various other ecclesiastical
offices, he was much addicted.
Daphne, having kissed Stiffy and gravely given her verdict upon a
knotty point which was exercising that scrupulous youth's mind,
namely, whether it was permissible by the rules of the game to include
in his schedule of connections a train which ran on Thursdays Only,
handed him his weekly dole of clean linen and turned to the youngest
member of the family.
"Good-morning, Tony dear," she said cheerfully.
The celebrant, who, true artist that he was, disliked unnecessary
abruptness in his transitions, stopped short in the Ninetieth Psalm.
"Dearly Beloved Brethren," he gabbled in an apologetic undertone, "I
am called for a moment from the side of this the last resting-place of
our lamented sister"--apparently it was a lady friend he was
interring--"by other business; but I shall be back in a minute." Then,
unwinding the stocking from about his neck--
"Daphne, those new vests are beastly scratchy. Must I wear them?"
"I know, old man," responded his sister sympathetically. "But they've
been bought and paid for--horribly dear, too!--so you must lump it.
Try wearing them inside out for a time. That takes the edge off a
bit."
And thus, with sage counsel and practical suggestion (together with a
brief whistle to Mr Dawks, who was moistening his internal clay at the
water-jug), our young Minerva passed on to the sleeping-place of her
beloved Ally.
Rather to her surprise, Mr Aloysius Vereker was awake and out of
bed. The reason was plain. Before him upon the dressing-table
lay a pot of shaving-soap of a widely advertised brand, a new
shaving-brush, a sixpenny bottle of bay rum, and a lather dish of
red indiarubber,--youthful extravagances to which the hardened
shaver of twenty years' standing, who smears himself with ordinary
Brown Windsor out of the soap-dish and wipes his razor on a piece
of newspaper or the window-curtain, looks back with mingled
amusement and regret. In his hand gleamed a new razor.
"Careful!" he gasped through a sea of lather. "Don't shake the room,
kid!"
Daphne sat cautiously down upon the bed, and surveyed the operator
with unfeigned pride and enthusiasm. She clasped her hands.
"Ally, how splendid! When did you begin doing it?"
Ally, weathering a hairless and slippery corner, replied--
"Third time. I'm doing it chiefly to make something _grow_. A man
simply _has_ to shave after he gets into the Fifteen: you look such a
fool on Saturday nights if you don't. A chap in our house called
Mallock, who has had his colours four years, has a beard about
half-an-inch long by Friday. He's a gorgeous sight."
Daphne shuddered slightly.
Ally continued.
"I don't expect to rival him, of course, but I should like to have
something to scrape off in the dormitory. My fag always grins so when
he brings me my shaving-water--little tick!"
Daphne was too well versed in the eccentricities of the young of the
male species to experience the slightest feeling of surprise at her
brother's singular ambition. She merely wrapped a blanket round her
shoulders and settled herself against the head of the bed, anxiously
contemplating the progress of a sanguinary campaign in the region
surrounding Ally's jugular vein.
Presently operations came to a conclusion; the traces of battle were
obliterated with much sponging and spraying; and the pair sat and
gossiped amicably while Ally stropped his razor and put studs in his
Sunday shirt.
It was a full quarter of an hour before Daphne returned to her room,
for her Sunday morning call upon Ally was always a protracted affair.
But before she left she had, after the usual blandishments, exacted
from him a promise that he would come to church. Their father never
exercised any compulsion in this matter; but if any member of the
family did stay at home on Sunday morning, the Rector's mute distress
was such as to blight the spirits of the household for the rest of the
day; and Daphne always exerted herself to the full to round up her
entire flock in the Rectory pew at the appointed hour. The most
recalcitrant members thereof were Ally and Nicky, but the former could
usually be cajoled and the latter coerced.
After breakfast the Rector retired to his study to con his sermon; and
not long afterwards was to be seen, key in hand, passing through the
wicket-gate which led from the garden into the churchyard. Having
tolled the church bell for five minutes, he busied himself at the
altar, and then turned up the lessons at the lectern, marking these
same in plain figures; for the Squire, who fulfilled the office of
reader, required careful guidance in this respect. (He had been known
to read the same lesson twice; also the Second Lesson before the
First; and once he had turned over two pages together towards the end
of a long chapter, and embarked with growing huskiness and visible
indignation upon a supplementary voyage of forty-seven verses.)
Presently the Rector returned to the house for his surplice; and ten
minutes later, a tall and saintly figure, followed his hobnailed and
bullet-headed choristers into the chancel.
Snayling Church, though a diminutive building, was one of the oldest
of its kind in England. The tower was square and stumpy, and had
served as a haven of refuge more than once. A later generation,
following the pious but unnecessary fashion of the day, had erected
upon its summit a steeple of homely design, which indicated the route
to heaven in an officious and altogether gratuitous manner. Inside the
building itself the roof was supported by massive stone pillars and
Norman arches. Beneath the floor lay folk long dead, their names,
virtues, and destination set forth in many curious inscriptions in
stone and brass, all greatly prized by the tourist with his
tracing-paper and heel-ball. The chancel contained a real Crusader,
who reclined, sword in hand and feet crossed, upon a massive
sarcophagus, his good lady by his side. Tony Vereker had woven many a
legend about _him_, you may be sure.
Each of the tiny transepts contained two square pews, decently veiled
from the public gaze by red curtains. Those on the north side belonged
respectively to the Squire, whose arrival in church with his wife and
four daughters always served as an intimation to the organist--Mr
Pack, the schoolmaster--that it was eleven o'clock and time to wind up
the voluntary; and old Lady Curlew of Hainings, who invariably arrived
five minutes before the hour, accompanied by her maid; who, having
packed her mistress into a corner of the pew with cushions and
hassocks, retired discreetly to the free seats by the door.
Of the pews in the south transept one was the property of the Lord of
the Manor, the Marquis of Kirkley. It was seldom occupied, for his
lordship suffered from the misfortune (which modern legislation is
doing so much to alleviate) of possessing more residences than he
could comfortably live in. His adjacent seat, Kirkley Abbey, was
seldom open except for a few weeks during the pheasant season; and
even the recurrence of that momentous period did not postulate undue
congestion in the family pew.
The other pew was the Rector's, and here Daphne succeeded on this
particular Sabbath morning in corralling the full strength of her
troupe.
_Non sine pulvere_, however. Ally, as already related, had proved
fairly tractable, but Nicky (who just at present stood badly in
need of the services of a competent exorcist) had almost evaded
ecclesiastical conscription by a new and ingenious device. At
ten-fifteen precisely she had fallen heavily down a flight of two
steps and sprained her ankle. Unsympathetic Daphne, experienced in the
detection of every form of malingering, had despatched her upstairs
with a bottle of Mr Elliman's strongest embrocation--the property of
Ally--with instructions to anoint the injured member and report
herself for duty at ten-forty-five prompt. At the appointed hour
Nicky, limping painfully and smiling heroically, had joined the rest
of the family in the hall.
Presently Ally remarked casually--
"Rotten stink here. Furniture polish, or something."
"Yes--filthy reek!" agreed Stiffy.
"It's turpentine," cried Cilly, crinkling her nose.
"It's Elliman," said Tony.
"It's _you_, Nicky!" said everybody at once.
Daphne, who was drawing on her gloves, peeled them off again with some
deliberation, and took her youngest sister by the shoulders.
"Nicky," she inquired, "how much Elliman did you use?"
That infant martyr, wincing ostentatiously, delicately protruded a
foot, and exhibited a long black leg heavily swathed from knee to
instep under her stocking with a bandage of colossal dimensions.
"Not more than I could help, Daph," she said. "I found one or two
other bruises on my--all over me, in fact: so I--I just put a little
Elliman on each. I didn't want to be a trouble to any one, so----"
"Run upstairs, Stiffy," Daphne interpolated swiftly, "and see how much
Elliman is left in the bottle."
By this time Cilly had thrown open the front door and staircase
windows, and the remainder of the Vereker family were fanning
themselves with their Sunday hats and ostentatiously fighting for
breath--an exercise in which they persevered until Stiffy reappeared
carrying an empty bottle.
"Two bobs' worth!" shouted Ally. "And I meant it to last for months!
Nicky, you little _sweep_!"
Daphne glanced at the hall clock.
"Fourteen minutes!" she calculated frantically. "Yes, it can just be
done. Nicky, my cherub, you shall come to church this morning if I
have to _scrape_ you. Go on, you others! I'll follow myself as quickly
as I can."
The last sentence was delivered far up the staircase, which Miss
Vereker was ascending with flying feet, a tearful and unwilling
appendage trailing behind her. Next moment the bathroom door banged,
and the departing worshippers heard both taps turned on.
* * * * *
At two minutes past eleven precisely Daphne and Nicky, the former
cool, collected, and as prettily dressed as any woman in the
congregation, the latter scarlet as if from recent parboiling, walked
demurely down the aisle just as the choir entered the chancel, lustily
bellowing a hymn which drew attention to the advantages accruing in
the next world to that Servant of the Lord who should be found Waiting
in his Office, in a Posture not specified--Tony used often to wonder
what would happen if the Day of Judgment should fall upon a Bank
holiday or Saturday afternoon--and joined the rest of the family in
the Rectory pew.
* * * * *
A sermon, we all know, offers unique facilities for quiet reflection.
As their father's silvery voice rose and fell in the cadences of his
discourse--he had soared far above the heads of his bucolic audience,
and was now disporting himself in a delectable but quite inaccessible
aether of his own, where the worshippers (such of them as had not
yielded to slothful repose) followed his evolutions with mystified and
respectful awe, much as a crowd of citizens in a busy street gape
upwards at the gambols of an aeroplane--the Rectory children wedged
themselves into their own particular nooks of the pew, and prepared to
get through the next twenty minutes in characteristic fashion.
Ally closed his eyes and assumed an attitude of slumber, as befitted
his years and dignity. But he was not asleep. He did not look
comfortable. Perhaps his breakfast had disagreed with him, or possibly
he was contemplating within himself the vision of a receding
University and an all-too-adjacent office-stool. Daphne, with her eyes
fixed on the wall opposite and her brow puckered, was pondering some
domestic problem--her own extravagantly small feet, mayhap, or
Wednesday's hypothetical leg of mutton. Despite her burden of care,
her face looked absurdly round and childish under her big beaver hat.
One hand supported her chin in a characteristic pose, the other
controlled the movements of the restless Anthony, who was
impersonating something of a vibratory nature. Cilly, with glowing
eyes and parted lips, was reading the Marriage Service in her
Prayerbook. Nicky, whose recent ablutions had apparently purged her of
outward sin only, had pulled forward two long wisps of black hair from
behind her ears, and by crossing these under her nose had provided
herself with a very realistic and terrifying pair of moustaches, by
portentous twistings of which, assisted by the rolling of a frenzied
eye, she was endeavouring to make poor Stiffy laugh. That right-minded
youth, though hard pressed, had so far withstood temptation by
resolutely reciting to himself a favourite excerpt from Bradshaw's
Railway Guide, beginning "Brighton (Central), Preston Park, Burgess
Hill, Hassocks" ... and ending with ... "Grosvenor Road, Victoria,"--a
sedative exercise to which he was much addicted at moments of bodily
anguish or mental stress; but it was plain that his defence was
weakening.
Fortunately, the approaching explosion, which would have been of a
cataclysmal nature,--Stiffy was not a boy to do things by halves,--was
averted by a change of demeanour on the part of the temptress. Her
quick ear had caught some unaccustomed sound behind her. Letting go
her moustaches, which immediately assumed a more usual position, she
squirmed round in her seat and gently parted the red rep curtains
which separated the Rectory pew from that of Kirkley Abbey. An excited
gurgle apprised her fellow-worshippers of the fact that some unusual
sight had met her eyes.
What Nicky saw was this.
Immediately opposite to her improvised peep-hole sat a man--a large
man with square shoulders and an immobile face. He was clean-shaven,
with two strong lines running from his nostrils to the corners of his
mouth--a mouth which even in repose looked determined and grim. He
possessed a square jaw and rather craggy brows. It was difficult to
decide if he were sleeping or no, for though his eyes were closed
there was none of the abandon of slumber about his pose. His most
noticeable feature was the set of his eyebrows, which, instead of
being arched or level, ran upwards and outwards in a diagonal
direction, and gave him a distinctly Satanic appearance--a
circumstance which Nicky noted with sympathetic approval. He was
dressed in the somewhat _degage_ Sabbath attire affected by Englishmen
spending the week-end in the country, and his feet were perched upon
the seat opposite to him.
Presently, for some cause unknown--possibly Nicky's hard breathing--he
opened his eyes.
Immediately in front of him the stranger beheld a small excited face,
a pair of saucer-like blue eyes, and a wide but attractive mouth--the
whole vision framed in dusty red rep. The face was flushed, the eyes
glowed, and the mouth was wide open.
The picture, suddenly surprised in its inspection by a pair of the
shrewdest and most penetrating eyes it had ever beheld, dropped
hurriedly out of its frame and disappeared. If Nicky had waited a
moment longer she would have received a less one-sided impression of
the stranger, for almost simultaneously with the discovery of the
apparition in the peep-hole the man smiled. Instantly his whole face
changed. The outer corners of his eyebrows descended, the crease
between them disappeared, and magnificent teeth gleamed for a moment
in the dim religious light of the pew.
Nicky leaned across to her eldest sister and whispered huskily:--
"There's somebody in the other pew. I think it's the Devil. Look
yourself!"
But Daphne, deep in domestic mental arithmetic, smiled and shook her
head; and Nicky received little more encouragement from the rest of
the family. The profession of scare-monger and exploiter of mares'
nests, though enjoyable on the whole, has its drawbacks: if you get
hold of a genuine scare or an authentic mare's nest, nobody believes
you.
The sermon began to draw to a close, and a few minutes later the
Rector descended from the clouds and gave out the final hymn,
prefacing his announcement by an intimation that the offertory that
day would be devoted to the needs of the Children's Cottage Hospital
in the neighbouring county town. His appeal was characteristic.
"Money," he mused, "is the most hampering and perplexing thing in this
life. It is so artificial and unnecessary. I often sigh for a world
where all commerce will be in kind--where a cheque on the Bank of
Gratitude will settle the weekly bills, and 'I thank you!' be regarded
as legal tender up to any amount. But there is no give and take in
these days. Everything, from Life and Love down to the raiment we
wear, is duly appraised and ticketed, and if we stand in need of these
things we must render a material tale of pounds and pence or go
without. No wonder men call this the Iron Age! But, though money as a
rule brings nothing in its train but disappointment and regret (and
therefore it is better to have too little than too much), there are
times and seasons when it is permitted to us to purchase happiness
with it. To-day gives us one of these opportunities. Do not let that
opportunity slip. _Post est Occasio calva._" (Respectful intake of
breath on the part of the congregation.) "I do not urge you to give on
the plea put forward in a hymn that you will find in your books--a
hymn written by a man who should have known better--a hymn which shall
never, so long as I am Rector of this parish, emerge from the
obscurity of the printed page--advocating generosity in almsgiving on
the ground that contributions to the offertory on earth will be
refunded at the rate of a hundred thousand per cent in heaven. I do
not ask you to give either much or little. Very few of us here are
over-burdened with this world's goods. Still, we can each afford to
buy _some_ happiness to-day, at a very low rate. And it will not be
transitory or temporary happiness either; for every time hereafter
that your daily task or a country walk takes you past the Children's
Hospital at Tilney, that happiness will blossom again with
ever-reviving fragrance in your hearts. Let us sing Hymn number three
hundred and sixty-nine--
'Thine arm, O Lord, in days of old
Was strong to heal and save....'"
There was a general upheaval of the congregation and a clatter of
rustic boots; the little organ gave a premonitory rumble, and the hymn
began.
The hymn after the sermon is not, as a rule--to-day was an
exception--an impressive canticle. _Imprimis_, it is of abnormal
length and little coherence, having apparently been composed for the
sole purpose of lasting out the collection of the offertory; _item_,
the congregation is furtively engaged in retrieving umbrellas from
under seats and gliding into overcoats. Hence it was always a pleasant
diversion to the Rectory children to follow the movements of the two
churchwardens as they ran their godly race up the aisle in the pursuit
of alms and oblations. They even risked small sums on the result. When
the Squire and Mr Murgatroyd (Stationer and Dealer in Fancy Goods)
stepped majestically from their respective pews and set to work on
this particular morning, Daphne produced five sixpences and handed
them to her brothers and sisters. Nicky, in her anxiety to see what
sum the stranger in the Kirkley Abbey pew would contribute to the
total, received her own contribution with such nonchalance that the
coin slipped from her hand, and was being hunted for among hassocks
upon the floor at the moment when Mr Murgatroyd reached the stranger's
pew.
Nicky found her sixpence, and resumed an upright attitude just in time
to hear (in a pause between two verses) a faint papery rustle on the
other side of the curtain.
A moment later Mr Murgatroyd opened the door of the Rectory pew, with
his usual friendly air of dropping in for a cup of tea, and presented
the bag. The children put in their sixpences one by one. Nicky's turn
came last. She peered into the bag, and her sharp eyes caught sight of
something white protruding from amid the silver and copper.
Taking the bag from Mr Murgatroyd's hands--she controlled that
indulgent bachelor as she willed: he counted it a pleasure to turn his
stock inside out on a Saturday afternoon whenever Miss Veronica came
in with a penny to spend--Nicky deliberately drew out a piece of
folded crinkly white paper. This, laying the offertory bag upon the
baize-covered table in the middle of the pew, she carefully unfolded,
and perused the staring black legend inscribed upon the flimsy white
background. When she raised her eyes they were those of an owlet
suffering from mental shock.
"Golly!" she observed in bell-like tones. "The Devil has put in a
ten-pound note!"
CHAPTER FIVE.
A SABBATH-DAY'S JOURNEY.
The Rectory children, washed and combed for Sunday dinner, sat at ease
in the old nursery--promoted to schoolroom since Tony went into
knickerbockers--and discussed the munificent stranger of the morning.
Their interest in his movements and identity had been heightened by
the fact that after service was over he had proceeded to the right
instead of the left on leaving the Kirkley Abbey pew, and, turning his
broad back upon an undisguisedly interested congregation, had stalked
up the chancel and disappeared through the door leading to the vestry.
"I _wonder_ what he went for," said Cilly for the third time.
"Perhaps he was going to give Dad more banknotes," suggested the
optimistic Stiffy.
"More likely going to ask for change out of the first one," rejoined
Ally, the cynic.
"I expect he was going to complain about you making faces at him
through the curtain, Nicky," coldly observed Cilly, who had not yet
forgiven her small sister's innuendoes on the subject of Mr Robert
Gill.
"Rats!" demurred Nicky uneasily. "I didn't make faces. I expect he's
only some tourist who wants to rub brasses, or sniff a vault, or
something."
"He must be a friend of Lord Kirkley's," said Ally, "because----"
"_I'll_ show you who he is," shrilled a voice from the depth of a
cupboard under the window.
Tony, who had been grubbing among a heap of tattered and dusty
literature in the bottom shelf, now rose to his feet and staggered
across the room carrying an ancient but valuable copy of 'The
Pilgrim's Progress,' embellished with steel engravings.
Having deposited the volume upon the hearthrug he proceeded to hunt
through its pages. Presently, with a squeal of delight, he placed a
stumpy fore-finger upon a full-page illustration, and announced
triumphantly--
"That's him!"
The picture represented Christian's battle with Apollyon. Christian,
hard pressed, had been beaten to his knees, and over him towered the
figure of the Prince of Darkness, brandishing a sword and (in the most
unsportsmanlike manner) emitting metallic-looking flames from his
stomach. The children gathered round.
"You are right, Tony," said Cilly at length, "it _is_ like him."
Certainly Apollyon bore a sort of far-away resemblance to the late
occupant of the Kirkley Abbey pew.
"Look at his eyebrows," said Nicky, "they go straight up----"
The churchyard gate clicked, and voices were heard in conversation
outside. Daphne sped to the window.
"Heavens!" she exclaimed in an agonised whisper, "Dad is bringing him
in to lunch! Ally, take your boots off the mantelpiece! Nicky, pull up
your stockings! Cilly, knock Dawks off the sofa! I must fly. I wonder
if there's enough cream to make a trifle. Anyhow, the beef----"
And she sped away kitchenwards like an agitated butterfly.
A few minutes later the Rector appeared in the schoolroom, smiling
joyously, with his hand resting lightly on the shoulder of the
recently identified Apollyon. Tony was restoring 'The Pilgrim's
Progress' to its shelf with the complacency of a second Bertillon.
"These are my flock, Jack," said Brian Vereker. "I wonder if any of
you children can guess who this gentleman is? Would you think that he
and I were at school together? Tony, I have often told you of little
Jack Carr, who used to light my fire and cook my breakfast. And a
shocking mess he used to make of it, eh? Didn't you, Jack? Do you
remember the day you fried sausages in marmalade, because the label on
the pot said marmalade would be found an excellent substitute for
butter? Well, here he is, Tony. We have run together again after
twenty-five years. Come and shake hands. These are my two younger
girls, Jack, and these are my three boys. Where is Daphne, children?"
The Vereker family, drawn up in a self-conscious row, were understood
to intimate that Daphne was downstairs. A move was therefore made in
the direction of the dining-room, where Keziah, the little maid, was
heatedly laying an extra place. Daphne joined the party a moment
later, and welcomed Sir John Carr--such was his full title, it
appeared--with prettiness and composure. But Cilly and Nicky noted
that she had found time to rearrange her hair in honour of the
occasion, and adorn herself with most of her slender stock of
jewellery--two bangles and a thin gold chain.
Sunday dinner was something of a function at the Rectory. For one
thing there was hot roast beef, which counts for much when you see the
like only once in the week. The Rector carved and Stiffy handed round
the plates, Keziah, whose Sunday-afternoon-out commenced technically
the moment the sirloin was dished, being excused from further
attendance. Daphne presided over the vegetable dishes and Ally cut
bread at the sideboard. The office of butler was in abeyance, for the
Vereker family drank only water from their highly polished
christening-mugs. Nicky was responsible for the table-napkins, and
Cilly mixed salads in season.
All these domestic details Daphne explained, with captivating
friendliness and a freedom from self-consciousness that many a more
matured hostess might have envied, to the silent man beside her.
"Sorry to have _all_ the family pouring things over you," she said, as
Stiffy with a plate of beef, Ally with a lump of bread impaled upon a
fork, and Cilly with a bowl of lettuce, egg, and beetroot cunningly
intermingled, converged simultaneously upon the guest; "but we have
only one servant, and----"
Stephen Blasius Vereker, poised upon his toes and holding his breath,
was leaning heavily over the guest's right shoulder, proffering a
platter upon the edge of which a billow of gravy, piling itself up
into a tidal wave, strove to overcome the restraining influence of
surface tension. Apollyon, his features unrelaxed, gravely took the
plate, and restoring it to a horizontal position, turned deferentially
to resume his conversation with his young hostess.
----"And I like poor Keziah to have as long a Sunday out as
possible," continued Daphne, entirely unruffled.
"Her young man waits for her at the stile down by Preston's farm,"
supplemented Nicky. "They go for a walk down Tinkler's Den, and never
speak a _word_ to each other."
----"So we wait on ourselves at this meal," concluded Daphne. "What
will you drink, Sir John? Father is a teetotaller, and so are all of
us; but if you are not, I've got some brandy upstairs in the nursery
medicine cupboard."
"Thank you, I will drink water," said Sir John solemnly.
By this time the Vereker family had settled down to their own
portions, and were babbling as cheerfully and unrestrainedly as usual.
Shyness in the presence of strangers was not one of their weaknesses,
and presently, taking advantage of Daphne's departure to the kitchen
in quest of the second course, they engaged their guest in
conversation, inviting his opinions on such widely different subjects
as the quality of the salad (Cilly), the merits of the automatic
vacuum railway brake as compared with those of the Westinghouse
(Stiffy), and the prospects of Cambridge in the coming Boat Race
(Ally). All of which queries were answered in a fashion which, while
lacking in geniality and erring a little on the side of terseness,
showed that the respondent knew what he was talking about.
The Rector, at the head of the table, smiled benignantly. To him this
reticent man of over forty, with the deep-set eyes and square jaw, was
the sturdy chubby boy who had cooked his breakfast and worshipped him
from afar in the dim but joyous days when Brian Vereker was a giant of
nineteen, with side whiskers, and Jacky Carr a humble fag of twelve.
It was almost a shock to hear him offered spirits to drink.
Presently Daphne returned, and another general post ensued, at the end
of which the beef and vegetables had disappeared, and a suet pudding
(the standing Sabbath sweet at the Rectory), flanked by a dish of
trifle of diminutive proportions, lay before the hostess. The Rector
was confronted by a melon.
Taking advantage of a covering conversation between the guest and her
eldest brother, Miss Vereker made a mysterious pass over the surface
of the trifle with a spoon, while she murmured to such of the family
as were within earshot the mystic formula, "F. H. B.!" Then she
inquired aloud--
"Cilly, dear, which pudding will you have?"
"Baby Maud, please," replied Miss Cecilia promptly, indicating the
stiff, pallid, and corpse-like cylinder of suet.
She was helped, and Nicky's choice was ascertained.
"I don't _think_," that damsel replied sedately, "that I'll have
anything, thank you, Daphne. I'm not very hungry to-day."
Daphne, with a slight twitch at the corners of her mouth--she
appreciated Nicky's crooked little ways, despite herself--turned to
the guest.
"Will you have pudding or trifle, Sir John? Let me recommend the
trifle."
"Thank you, I never eat sweets," was the reply.
An audible sigh of relief rose from the Messrs Vereker.
"Daph, dear," said Nicky before any one else could speak, "I think
I'll change my mind and have some trifle."
And thus, by prompt generalship, Miss Veronica Vereker, while obeying
to the letter the laws of hospitality and precedence, stole a march
upon her slow-moving brethren and sisters and received the lion's
share of the trifle, the balance going to Tony by virtue of juniority.
As Daphne handed her triumphant little sister her portion, she
distinctly heard a muffled sound on her right.
"I like this man!" she said to herself.
"If you don't take sweets, Jack," observed the Rector from the other
end of the table, "allow me to introduce you to this melon--a present
from the Squire. Take the melon round to Sir John, Stiffy, and he
shall cut in where he pleases; though, strictly speaking," he added,
with simple enjoyment of his own joke, "it is hardly etiquette to cut
anything you have been introduced to!"
There was a momentary stoppage in the general mastication of "Baby
Maud," and the right hand of each Vereker present performed the same
evolution. Next moment the repast was resumed, but the guest observed,
not without surprise, that every christening-mug--even Daphne's--had a
knife lying across its top.
"That is one of our customs," explained Cilly politely. "We do it
whenever any one makes a stale joke."
"_Alice through the Looking-Glass_," corroborated Nicky, scooping up
trifle with an air of severe reproof--"page two hundred and seven."
"You see my servile and dependent position in this house, Jack!" said
the Rector, not altogether dejectedly.
"I perceive that I have dropped into a Republic," said Sir John Carr.
"Republic? A more absolute despotism never existed. Wait until you
have transgressed one of the Laws of the Medes and Persians and been
brought up for judgment before my eldest daughter? _We_ know, don't
we--eh, Nicky?"
Brian Vereker projected the furtive smile of a fellow-conspirator
upon his youngest daughter, and then turned to gaze with unconcealed
fondness and pride upon his eldest.
"I trust that when I transgress," said Sir John, "I shall get off
under the First Offender's Act."
"You have broken that already," said Daphne readily; "but it's Dad's
fault. It is twenty minutes to three, and you two ought to have been
smoking in the study ten minutes ago instead of talking here. I want
to get this room cleared for the children to learn their Catechism
in."
* * * * *
At half-past three Brian Vereker summoned his eldest daughter to the
study, and announced with frank delight that Sir John Carr had agreed
to vacate the Kirkley Arms and accept the hospitality of the Rectory.
"I am going to walk down to the inn now," said Apollyon to Daphne, "to
see about my luggage. Perhaps you will keep me company?"
"All right," said Daphne. "I'll bring Mr Dawks too. He wants a walk, I
know."
Sir John made no comment, but gave no active support to the inclusion
of Mr Dawks in the party. It may be noted, however, that when Daphne
had at length achieved that feat which encroaches so heavily upon a
woman's share of eternity--the putting on of her hat--and joined her
guest in the garden accompanied by Mr Dawks in person, Apollyon
greeted the owner of the name with far more cordiality than he had
greeted the name itself. It is sometimes misleading to bestow
Christian titles upon dumb animals.
Once away from the rest of the family, Daphne's maternal solemnity
fell from her like a schoolmaster's cap and gown in holiday time. She
chattered like a magpie, pointing out such objects of local interest
as--
(1) Farmer Preston's prize bull;
(2) The residence of a reputed witch;
(3) A spinney, where a dog-fox had once gone to ground at one end of
an earth and a laughing hyena (subsequently ascertained to be the lost
property of that peripatetic nobleman Lord George Sanger) had emerged
from the other, to the entire and instantaneous disintegration of a
non-abstaining local Hunt.
"I say, where do you live?" she inquired suddenly, breaking off in the
middle of a detailed history of Kirkley Abbey, whose _facade_ could be
discerned through the trees on their right--"London?"
"Yes."
"All the year round?"
"No. I spend a good deal of my time in the North."
"Oh. What do you do there? What _are_ you, by the way?" Daphne looked
up at her companion with bird-like inquisitiveness. She moved in a
society familiar with the age, ancestry, profession, wardrobe,
ailments, love affairs, and income of every one within a radius of
five miles. Consequently she considered a new acquaintanceship
incomplete in the last degree until she had acquired sufficient
information on the subject in hand to supply, say, a tolerably
intimate obituary notice.
"I suppose you are _something_," she continued. "I hope so, anyhow. An
idle man is always so mopy."
"What would you put me down as?" asked Apollyon.
Daphne scrutinised him without fear or embarrassment.
"I'm not much of a judge," she said. "You see, we don't come across
many men here, and we are so poor that we don't get away much."
"Don't you go up to London occasionally, to buy a new frock?" said Sir
John, covertly regarding the trim figure by his side.
"Me--London? Not much. Dad has a lot of grand relations there, but I
don't think he bothered much about them, or they about him, after he
married. He was too much wrapped up in mother. So we never hear
anything of them now. No, I have hardly ever been away from Snayling,
and I'm a great deal too busy here to worry about London or any other
such place. So I don't know much about men," she concluded
simply--"except my own, of course."
"Your own?"
"Yes--Dad and the boys. And then I know all about the sort of man one
meets round here. I can tell a ditcher from a ploughman; and if I meet
a man in a dog-cart with cases at the back I know he's a commercial
traveller, and if he has a red face I know he's a farmer, and if he
hasn't I know he's a doctor; but I haven't had much other experience."
"Still, what am _I_?" reiterated Apollyon.
"Well--I suppose you are not a soldier, or you would have a
moustache."
"No."
"You might be a lawyer, being clean-shaven. Are you?"
"No."
"Oh! That's rather disappointing. You would make a ripping judge, with
a big wig on. Well, perhaps you write things. I know--you are an
author or an editor?"
"No."
"Foiled again!" said Daphne cheerfully. "Let me see, what other
professions are there? Are you a Don, by any chance? A fellow, or
lecturer, or anything? We had a Fellow of All Souls down here once. He
was a dear."
"No."
"You are a 'Varsity man, I suppose."
"Yes."
"Oxford or Cambridge?"
"Cambridge."
"I am glad. Dark blue is _so_ dull, isn't it? Besides, Dad is a
Cambridge man. He is an old Running Blue. He won--but of course you
know all about that. It seems queer to think you knew him before I
did! Well, I give you up. What _do_ you do?"
Apollyon reflected.
"I sell coals," he replied at last, rather unexpectedly.
This announcement, and the manner in which it was made, momentarily
deprived Miss Vereker of speech--a somewhat rare occurrence.
"I see," she said presently. "We get ours from the station-master,"
she added politely.
"I was not proposing to apply for your custom," said Apollyon meekly.
At this point they reached the Kirkley Arms, and in the effort
involved in rousing that somnolent hostelry from its Sabbath coma and
making arrangements for the sending up of Sir John Carr's luggage to
the Rectory, the question of why he sold coals, and whether he hawked
the same round in a barrow or delivered his wares through the medium
of the Parcels Post, was lost sight of.
On the homeward walk conversation was maintained on much the same
terms. Daphne held forth unwearyingly, and Apollyon contented himself
for the most part with answering her point-blank questions and putting
a few--a very few--of his own. Certainly the man was a born listener,
and amazingly magnetic. Tacitus himself could not have said less, and
the greatest cross-examiner in the legal profession could not have
extracted more. As they strolled side by side through the Kirkley
woods, where the last of the daffodils were reluctantly making way for
the first of the primroses, Daphne found herself reciting, as to a
discreet and dependable father-confessor, a confidential but
whole-hearted summary of the present state of domestic politics.
Ally's failure to secure a scholarship at the University was
mentioned.
It was disgusting of him to miss the Greek Prose paper, Daphne
considered. "He didn't oversleep at all, of course. I soon found
_that_ out. The real reason was that he had gone to some man's rooms
the night before, and the silly brat must go and drink a
whisky-and-soda and smoke a cigar. That did it! It was no use telling
Dad, because he simply wouldn't believe such a story; and if he did,
it would make him unhappy for weeks. Besides, who can blame the poor
dear? You can't be surprised if a schoolboy kicks over the traces a
bit the first time he finds himself out on his own--can you?"
"I thought," replied Sir John, finding that some answer was expected
of him, "that you said you knew nothing of men?"
"I said I didn't know _many_ men," corrected Daphne. "But those I do
know I know pretty thoroughly. They're very easy to understand, dear
things! You always know where you are with them. Now, girls are
different. Did you notice that boy whom we passed just now, who went
pink and took off his hat. That's Bobby Gill--a flame of Cilly's. I'm
going to have a lot of trouble with Cilly's love-affairs, I can see.
She falls down and worships every second man she meets. I believe she
would start mooning round the place after _you_ if you weren't so
old," she added. "Cilly's a darling, but what she wants----"
She plunged, with puckered brow and tireless tongue, into a further
tale of hopes and fears. Stiffy's schooling, Nicky's boots, the curate
who _had_ to come--all were laid upon the table. Even the Emergency
Bag and Wednesday's joint crept in somehow.
They were almost home when she concluded.
Suddenly Apollyon inquired:
"Do you know the name of that little hollow on our right? Is it
Tinkler's Den?"
"Yes; we often have picnics there. How did you know?"
"It is part of Lord Kirkley's estate, as you are probably aware; and
his lordship, finding like most of us that he has not sufficient money
for his needs, has asked me to come and have a look at the ground
round Tinkler's Den on the off-chance of our finding coal there."
Daphne turned upon him, wide-eyed and horror-struck.
"You mean to say," she gasped, "that you are going to dig for coals in
Tinkler's Den?"
"I can't tell you, until----"
Apollyon paused. A small hand was resting on his sleeve, and a very
small voice said beseechingly--
"Don't--_please_!"
"Very well, then: I won't," he said, in a matter-of-fact fashion; and
they resumed their walk.
* * * * *
"I hope you haven't been bored," said Daphne, the hostess in her
rising to the surface as the shadow of the Rectory fell upon her once
more. "Your ears must be simply aching, but it's such a treat to talk
to any one who knows about things. I never get the chance to ask
advice. I usually have to give it. Dad and the boys are so helpless,
bless them!"
They were passing through the wicket-gate. Daphne suddenly paused, and
looked up at her guest with more mischief in her eyes than her
brothers and sisters would have given her credit for.
"It's queer," she mused, "that you should sell coals. _We_ thought you
_shovelled_ them!"
"Explain, please!" said Sir John.
Daphne did so. "We _had_ to call you something," she concluded
apologetically. "Do you mind?"
"Not at all. I have been called a good many names in my time," said
Sir John grimly.
"What do your friends call you?" asked Daphne--"your intimate
friends."
"I am not sure that I have any."
Daphne surveyed him shrewdly, with her head a little on one side.
"No--I should think you _were_ that sort," she said gravely. "Well,
what do your--do other people call you?"
"Most of them, I believe," said Sir John, "call me 'Juggernaut
Carr.'"
CHAPTER SIX.
DAPHNE AS MATCHMAKER.
Juggernaut's stay at the Rectory had been prolonged for more than
three weeks, the business upon which he was engaged being as easily
directed, so he said, from Brian Vereker's study as from his own
London offices. An unprejudiced observer might have been forgiven for
remarking that to all appearances it could have been directed with
equal facility from the Two-penny Tube or the North Pole; for if we
except a prolonged interview with Lord Kirkley's land agent on the
second day after his arrival, Juggernaut's activities had been limited
to meditative contemplation of the Rector's spring flowers and some
rather silent country walks in company with the lady to whom the
Rector was wont to refer to in his playful moments as "my elderly ugly
daughter."
Whether Daphne's impulsive protest against the desecration of her
beloved Tinkler's Den carried weight, or whether that sylvan spot was
found wanting in combustible properties, will never be known; but it
may be noted here that Lord Kirkley was advised that there was no
money in his scheme, and Snayling remains an agricultural centre to
this day.
However, if it be a fact that no fresh experience can be altogether
valueless, Juggernaut's time was certainly not wasted. He was absorbed
into the primitive civilisation of Snayling Rectory. He was initiated
into tribal custom and usage, and became versed in a tribal language
consisting chiefly of abbreviations and portmanteau words. He was
instructed in the principles which underlie such things as precedence
in the use of the bath and helpings at dinner. He also studied with
interest the fundamental laws governing the inheritance of out-grown
garments. Having been born without brothers and sisters, he found
himself confronted for the first time with some of those stern
realities and unavoidable hardships which prevail when domestic supply
falls short of domestic demand. The mystic phrase "F. H. B.!" for
instance, with which Daphne had laid inviolable taboo upon the trifle
on the day of his arrival, he soon learned stood for "Family, hold
back!"
Again, if Master Stephen Blasius Vereker suggested to Miss Veronica
Elizabeth Vereker that a B. O. at the T. S. would be an L. B. of
A. R.; to which the lady replied gently but insistently, "Is it
E. P.?" Juggernaut was soon able to understand that in response to an
intimation on the part of her brother that a Blow Out at the Tuck Shop
would be a Little Bit of All Right, the cautious and mercenary damsel
was inquiring whether her Expenses would be Paid at the forthcoming
orgy. If Stiffy continued, "Up to 2 D.," and Nicky replied, "If you
can't make it a tanner, Stiffy, darling, je pense _ne_!" the visitor
gathered without much difficulty that in the opinion of Miss Veronica
no gentleman worthy of the name should presume to undertake the
entertainment of a lady under a minimum outlay of sixpence.
Juggernaut soon settled down to the ways of the establishment. He said
little, but it was obvious, even to the boys, that he was taking a
good deal in. He seldom asked questions, but he possessed an uncanny
knack of interpreting for himself the most secret signs and cryptic
expressions of the community. This established for him a claim to the
family's respect, and in acknowledgment of the good impression he had
created he was informally raised from the status of honoured guest to
that of familiar friend. What the Associated Body of Colliery Owners
would have thought if they could have seen their chairman meekly
taking his seat at the breakfast-table, what time the family,
accompanying themselves with teaspoons against teacups, chanted a
brief but pointed ditty consisting entirely of the phrase "pom-pom!"
repeated _con amore_ and _sforzando_ until breathlessness
intervened--an ordeal known at the Rectory as "pom-pomming," and
inflicted daily upon the last to appear at breakfast--is hard to say.
Mr Montague for one would have enjoyed it.
Only once did this silent and saturnine man exhibit any flash of
feeling. One morning before breakfast Daphne, busy in the
knife-and-boot shed at the back of the house, heard a step on the
gravel outside, and Juggernaut stood before her.
"Good-morning!" she said cheerfully. "Excuse my get-up. I expect I
look rather a ticket."
Juggernaut surveyed her. She wore a large green baize apron. Her skirt
was short and business-like, and her sleeves were rolled up above the
elbow. Her hair was twisted into a knot at the back of her head.
Plainly her toilet had only reached the stage of the _petit lever_.
She was engaged in the healthful but unfashionable occupation of
blacking boots; _per contra_, what Juggernaut chiefly noted was the
whiteness of her arms. Finally his eye wandered to the boot in which
her left hand was engulfed.
"Whose boot is that?" he asked.
"Yours, I should say. Dad's are square in the toes."
Next moment a large and sinewy hand gripped her by the wrist, and the
boot was taken from her.
"Understand," said Apollyon, looking very like Apollyon indeed, "this
must never occur again. I am angry with you."
He spoke quite quietly, but there was a vibrant note in his voice
which Daphne had never heard before. Mr Tom Winch and Mr Montague
would have recognised it. She looked up at him fearlessly, rather
interested than otherwise in this new side of his character.
"I can't quite grasp why you _should_ be angry," she said, "though I
can see you are. Not being millionaires, we all clean our own
boots--excepting Dad, of course. I always do his. You being a visitor,
I threw yours in as a make-weight. It's all in the day's work."
But Juggernaut's fit had passed.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I have no right to be angry with any
one but myself. I am ashamed. I should have thought about this sooner,
but I accepted your assurance that my visit would throw no extra
burden upon the household rather too readily. Now, for the rest of the
time I am here I propose, with your permission, to black my own boots.
And as a sort of compensation for the trouble I have caused, I am
going to black my hostess's as well."
"Do you know _how_ to?" inquired the hostess, rather apprehensively.
For answer Juggernaut picked up a laced shoe from off the bench and
set to work upon it.
"I once blacked my own boots every day for two years," he said,
breathing heavily upon the shoe. "Now, if you want to go in and
superintend the preparation of breakfast, you may leave me here, and I
will undertake to produce the requisite standard of brilliancy." His
face lit up with one of his rare and illuminating smiles, and he set
grimly to work again.
Daphne hesitated for a moment, and surveyed her guest doubtfully. He
was burnishing her shoe in a manner only to be expected of an
intensely active man who has been utterly idle for a fortnight. His
face was set in the lines which usually appeared when he was driving
business through a refractory meeting. Daphne turned and left the
boot-house, unpinning her apron and whistling softly.
Juggernaut finished off her shoes with meticulous care, and putting
them back upon the bench turned his attention to his own boots. But
his energy was plainly flagging. Several times his hand was stayed,
and his eye wandered in the direction of his hostess's shoes. They
were a remarkably neat pair. Daphne was proud of her feet--they were
her only real vanity--and she spent more upon her boots and shoes
than the extremely limited sum voted for the purpose by her
conscience. More than once Juggernaut laid aside his own property and
returned to the highly unnecessary task of painting the lily--if such
a phrase can be applied to the efficient blacking of a shoe. Finally
he picked up his boots and departed, to endure a pom-pomming of the
most whole-hearted description on his appearance at the breakfast
table.
But henceforth he found his way to the boot-house every morning at
seven-thirty, where, despite his hostess's protests, he grimly carried
out his expressed intention.
This was the only occasion, however, on which he asserted his will
with Daphne. In all else she found him perfectly amenable. He
permitted her without protest to overhaul his wardrobe, and submitted
meekly to a scathing lecture upon the negligence apparent in the
perforated condition of some of his garments and the extravagance
evinced by the multiplicity of others. In short, Daphne adopted
Juggernaut, as only a young and heart-whole girl can whose experience
of men so far has been purely domestic. She felt like his mother. To
her he was a child of the largest possible growth, who, not having
enjoyed such advantages as she had all her life bestowed upon the rest
of the flock, must needs be treated with twofold energy and special
consideration. He was her Benjamin, she felt.
* * * * *
Juggernaut was to depart to-morrow. His socks were darned. Items of
his wardrobe, hitherto anonymous, were neatly marked with his
initials. His very pocket-handkerchiefs were numbered.
"You are sending me back to work thoroughly overhauled and refitted,"
he said to Daphne, as she displayed, not without pride, his renovated
garments laid out upon the spare bed. "I feel like a cruiser coming
out of dry dock."
"Well, don't get your things in that state again," said Daphne
severely--"that's all! Who looks after them?"
"My man."
"He ought to be ashamed of himself, then. By the way, there is a dress
waistcoat of yours with two buttons off. Can I _trust_ you, now, to
get them put on again, or had I better keep the waistcoat until I can
get buttons to match?"
"You are very good," said Juggernaut, bowing before the storm.
"That's settled, then. Where shall I send it to?"
Juggernaut thought, and finally gave the address of a club in Pall
Mall.
"Club--do you live in a _club_?" inquired Daphne, with a woman's
instinctive dislike for such a monastic and impregnable type of
domicile.
"Sometimes. It saves trouble, you see," said Juggernaut
apologetically. "My house in town is shut at present. I spend a good
deal of time in the north."
"Where do you live when you are in the north?" inquired Daphne, with
the healthy curiosity of her age and sex.
"I have another house there," admitted Juggernaut reluctantly. "It is
called Belton."
"How many houses have you got altogether?" asked Daphne, in the
persuasive tones of a schoolmaster urging a reticent culprit to make a
clean breast of it and get it over like a man.
"I have a little place in the Highlands," said Juggernaut humbly--
Daphne rolled her brown eyes up to the ceiling.
--"But it is the merest shooting-box," he added, as if pleading for a
light sentence.
"Is that all?"
"Yes--on my honour!"
"And--you live in a _club_!"
Then came the verdict--the inevitable verdict.
"What you want," said Daphne, regarding the impassive features of the
prisoner at the bar, "is a wife. It's not too late, really," she
added, smiling kindly upon him. "Of course, you think now at your age
that you could never get used to it, but you could."
"Do you think any girl would marry a man practically in his dotage?"
inquired Juggernaut respectfully.
"Not a girl, perhaps," admitted Daphne, "but somebody sensible and
good. I'll tell you what--don't you know any nice widows? A widow
would suit you top-hole. She would be used to men already, which would
help her a lot, poor thing! Then, she would probably let you down more
easily than an old maid. She would know, for instance, that it's
perfectly hopeless to get a man to keep his room tidy, or to stop
leaving his slippers about on the dining-room hearthrug, or dropping
matches and ash on the floor. Do marry a widow, Sir John! Don't you
know of any?"
Sir John smiled grimly.
"I will consult my visiting-list," he said; "but I won't promise
anything. In spite of the apparent docility of my character, there are
just one or two things which I prefer to do in my own way."
"Still, I don't despair of you," said Daphne. "Old Martin down in the
village married only the other day, and he was seventy-two. Nearly
bedridden, in fact," she added encouragingly.
That evening after supper the Rectory children sat round the table
engaged in card games of a heating and complicated nature, Miss
Vereker as usual doubling the parts of croupier and referee. The guest
and the Rector were smoking in the study.
Suddenly the door of the dining-room opened, and Brian Vereker
appeared.
"Daphne, my daughter," he said, "can you leave these desperadoes for a
while and join us in the study?"
"All right, Dad. Ally, you had better be dealer. Nicky, if you cheat
while I am away you know the penalty! Come with me, Dawks. So long,
everybody. Back directly!"
But she was wrong. Game succeeded game: the time slipped by unheeded
by all except Nicky and Tony, who, because it was past their hour for
going to bed, noted its flight with special and personal relish; and
it was not until the almost tearful Cilly had been rendered an old
maid for the fourth consecutive time that the family realised that it
was nearly half-past ten and Daphne had not returned.
"Of course," said Nicky, wagging her head triumphantly, "we all know
what _that_ means!"
And for once in her small, scheming, prying life, she was right.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
THE MATCH IS STRUCK.
Daphne sat rather dizzily by her father's side, holding his hand
tightly and gazing straight before her. A sudden turn, and lo! before
her lay a great break in the road. She had arrived at one of life's
jumping-off places. No wonder she gripped her father's hand.
Now, for a young girl to consent to a marriage with a man considerably
older than herself, a man whom she hardly knows and does not love, is
rightly regarded as a most unromantic proceeding; and since romance is
the sugar of this rather acrid existence of ours, we are almost
unanimous in discouraging such alliances. And yet there are two sides
to the question. A loveless marriage may lead to the ruin of two
lives: on the other hand, it introduces into the proceedings an
element of business and common-sense all too rare in such enterprises.
It is true that the newly united pair dream no dreams and see no
visions. Each comes to the other devoid of glamour or false pretences.
But if a couple find marriage feasible under such circumstances, the
chances are that they are of a type which stands in no need of that
highly intoxicating stimulant, Passion. They are simply people who
realise at the outset, instead of later on, that life is a campaign
and not a picnic; and each sees in the other not so much an idol or a
plaything as a trusty ally. For such, mutual respect cannot but spring
into being, and will in all likelihood grow into mutual love; and
mutual love which matures from such beginnings as these is ten
thousand times more to be desired than the frothy headachy stuff which
we quaff in such reckless magnums in our thirsty youth.
On the other hand, marriages made on earth (as opposed to what are
popularly regarded as the celestial variety) can and often do lead to
shipwreck. Granted. Still, marriage is a leap in the dark in any case,
and humdrum philosophers must at least be excused for suggesting that
one may as well endeavour to illuminate this hazardous feat of agility
by the help of the Torch of Reason as not. But of course no one ever
agrees with such suggestions. Romance and Sentiment cry, "Never!
Shame! Monstrous!" And most of us very humanly, naturally, and rightly
associate ourselves in the most cordial manner with the opinions of
this old-established and orthodox firm.
We left Daphne gazing into the study fire, with a silent man on either
side of her and Mr Dawks' head upon her knee. She looked perfectly
composed, but something was rocking and trembling within her.
It is certainly disconcerting, even for the most self-possessed of
maidens, to realise, suddenly and without warning, that there are
deeper things than the domestic affections. It is still more
disconcerting when an individual whom Nature might with perfect
propriety have appointed your father, and whom you with feminine
perversity have adopted as a son, suddenly kicks over the traces and
suggests as a compromise that he should occupy the intermediate
position of husband.
Brian Vereker sat smiling, happy and confident. The fact that Sir John
Carr was forty-two and Daphne barely twenty had not occurred to him.
All he realised was that the little boy who had been his fag at
school, who had lit his fire and made his toast in return for
occasional help with caesuras and quadratic equations, had grown up
into a man, and desired to marry his daughter. The whole thing seemed
so natural, so appropriate. He glowed with humble pride that
Providence should so interest itself in his little household. He
beamed upon the young people.
Suddenly Daphne turned to him, and released her hold on his hand.
"Dad, will you leave us for a little?" she said. "I want to talk to
Sir John."
The Rector rose.
"By all means," he said. "Now I come to think of it, the presence of a
third party is not essential to a proposal of marriage. I am _de
trop_! I shall be upstairs."
He laughed boyishly, and left them.
When the door closed Daphne turned to her suitor.
"So you want me for your wife?" she said, with the air of one opening
a debate.
"I do," said Juggernaut. It was the first time he had spoken since she
entered the room.
"And you went and saw Dad about it," continued Daphne, rather
unexpectedly.
"Yes. As I understood you were not of age, I asked his permission to
speak to you. He rather took the words out of my mouth by calling you
in and telling you himself."
"I'm glad to hear you say that," said Daphne. "I thought at first the
thing was being arranged over my head, and that I wasn't to be
consulted at all. But you _were_ going to ask me properly, weren't
you? We prefer that, you know." She spoke for her sex.
Juggernaut nodded.
"Only Dad rushed in and spoiled it--eh?"
"That is correct," said Juggernaut.
"Well, begin now," said Daphne calmly. "A girl doesn't like to be
done out of a proposal. It would be something to tell the kids about
afterwards, anyhow."
Juggernaut became conscious of a distinctly more lenient attitude
towards the Rector's precipitancy.
"Now that you know," he began, "a formal proposal would sound rather
dull and superfluous, wouldn't it?"
"Perhaps you are right," said Daphne, half regretfully. "Dad has
spoiled it for me, after all!"
Presently--
"I wonder _why_ you want to marry me," she mused, fondling Mr Dawks'
ears. "I suppose you have come to the conclusion that it is time you
had some one to look after all those houses and servants of yours. Is
that it?"
Juggernaut regarded her curiously for a moment.
"Perhaps," he said.
"You are not in love with me, of course," continued the practical Miss
Vereker, ticking off the unassailable features of the case. "At least,
I suppose not--I don't see how you possibly could be. It's rather hard
for me to tell, though, because I don't quite know the meaning of the
word. I love Dad and the boys, and Cilly, and Nicky, and Mr
Dawks--_don't_ I, Dawks, dear?--and I would do _anything_ to save them
pain or unhappiness. But I suppose that's not the sort of love that
people call love. It seems to have been left out of my composition,
or perhaps it hasn't cropped up yet. Now Cilly--I am her exact
opposite--Cilly is always in love with some man or other. By the way,
she told me last night when I went to dry her hair that she had just
fallen in love with you, so evidently you aren't too old after all!
Would it do as well if you married Cilly?" Daphne inquired
tentatively.
"I'm afraid not," said Juggernaut.
"Well, perhaps you are right. Cilly's a darling, but she is very young
yet," agreed the time-worn Miss Vereker. "But"--she broke off
short--"it seems to me that I am doing most of the talking. Would you
care to address the meeting--say a few words? I think I should like to
hear a bit of that proposal after all. So far, all I know is that you
want to marry me. And _that_ I got from Dad. Now--I'm listening!"
Daphne leaned back in her big chair and smiled upon her suitor quite
maternally. There was something pathetic in her childish freedom from
embarrassment or constraint under circumstances which usually test the
_sang-froid_ of man and maid alike. Perhaps Sir John was struck by
this, for his eyes suddenly softened and the lines about his mouth
relaxed.
"You needn't say you love me, or anything like that, if you don't,"
supplemented Daphne. "I shall understand."
Sir John's eyes resumed their normal appearance.
"As you seem to prefer to keep matters on a strictly business
footing," he said, "I will come to the point at once. If you will
marry me I think I can make you tolerably happy and comfortable. I am
a prosperous man, I suppose, and as my wife you would find a certain
social position awaiting you. Any desires of yours in the way of
houses, clothes, jewels, and so on, you could always gratify, within
limits, at will. I mention these things, not because I think they will
influence your decision--I should not want you for a wife if I thought
they would--but because I feel that every woman is entitled to a plain
statement of fact about the man who wishes to marry her. Too often,
under the delusion that the sheer romance of a love-affair wipes all
mundane considerations off the slate, she puts up with the wildest of
fictions. However, I may point out to you that acceptance of my
worldly goods would enable you to carry out certain schemes that I
know lie very near your heart. You could send Ally to the University.
You could have Cilly finished, or whatever the expression is, and
bring her out yourself. And you could pay for a curate for your
father. You can have all the money you want for these enterprises by
asking for it; or if you prefer something more definite I would settle
an annual sum upon you--say a thousand a-year."
A thousand a-year! Daphne closed her eyes giddily. Before her arose a
vision of a renovated Rectory--a sort of dimity Palace Beautiful--with
an enlarged kitchen-boiler, new carpets, and an extra servant. She saw
her father bending happily over his sermon while a muscular young
Christian tramped round the parish. She saw Ally winning first classes
at Cambridge, and Cilly taking London drawing-rooms by storm. Her
pulse quickened. But Juggernaut was still speaking.
"On the other hand, I ought to warn you that I am a hard man--at
least, I believe that is my reputation--with somewhat rigid notions on
the subject of _quid_ and _quo_. I would endeavour to supply my wife
with every adjunct to her happiness; but--I should expect her in
return to stand by my side and do her duty as my wife so long as we
both lived. They say of me that I never make a mistake in choosing a
lieutenant. Well, the instinct which has served me so often in that
respect is prompting me now; and it is because I see in you a woman
who would stand by her husband as a matter of duty alone, quite apart
from"--he hesitated--"from inclination, that I ask you to marry me."
Daphne gazed at him. Her heart was bumping gently. There was
something rather fine about this proposed bargain--a compact between a
man and a woman to stand by one another through thick and thin, not
because they liked doing so but because it was playing the game.
Daphne felt proud, too, that this master of men should have adjudged
her--a woman--to be of the true metal. But she was honest to the end.
"You would give all that to have me for your wife," she said.
Sir John bowed his head with grave courtesy.
"I would," he said simply.
"I'm not worth it," said Daphne earnestly. "I am only accustomed to
looking after our little Rectory and the family. I might make a
fearful mess of all your grand houses. Supposing I did? What if I
wasn't up to your mark? How if your friends didn't like me? It would
be too late to send me back," she pointed out, rather piteously.
Sir John's features did not relax.
"I am willing to take the risk," was all he said.
There was a long pause.
"Let me think," said Daphne suddenly and feverishly.
She slipped out of her chair on to the hearthrug, and lay before the
twinkling fire with her arms clasped round the neck of the
ever-faithful Mr Dawks and her face buried in his rough coat. There
was a tense silence, accentuated by the amiable thumping of Dawks'
tail. Sir John Carr sat in his chair like a graven image, looking down
upon the slim lithe figure at his feet. Daphne just then was a sight
to quicken the blood in a man's veins, but Juggernaut never moved.
Perhaps he realised, for all his lack of lover's graces and his harsh
methods of wooing, something of the solemnity of the moment. A child,
without experience, with nothing but her own untutored instincts to
guide her, was standing at her cross-roads. Would she go forward with
the man whose path through life had so suddenly converged on hers, or
fare on alone? And the man--what were his feelings? None could have
told by outward view. He simply waited--sitting very still.
At last Daphne sat up, and shook back her hair from her eyes.
"We'll leave it to Mr Dawks," she said. "Dawks, old boy, shall we _do_
it?"
The house waited in breathless silence for Mr Dawks' casting vote.
That affectionate and responsive arbitrator, hearing himself
addressed, raised his head, licked his mistress's hand, and belaboured
the floor with his tail in a perfect ecstasy of cordiality.
Daphne turned to the man in the chair.
"All right!" she said. "It's a bargain. I'll marry you."
CHAPTER EIGHT.
"MORITURA TE SALUTAT."
On a bright spring afternoon three weeks later the Rectory children
sat huddled together like a cluster of disconsolate starlings upon the
five-barred gate leading into Farmer Preston's big pasture meadow.
It was the eve of Daphne's wedding-day.
To those readers of this narrative who feel inclined to dilate upon
the impropriety of marrying in haste, it may be pointed out that the
bride possessed no money and the bridegroom no relatives. Consequently
there would be no presents, no _trousseau_. The principal incentives
to what Miss Veronica Vereker pithily described as a "circus wedding"
being thus eliminated, the pair were to be married quietly next day in
the little church where Daphne had been christened and confirmed, and
under the shadow of which she had lived all her short life.
As noted above, the bride had no _trousseau_, for her father could not
afford one, and she flatly declined to take a penny from her _fiance_
until he became her husband. The little village dressmaker had turned
out a wedding-dress over which Cilly hourly gloated, divided between
ecstasy and envy; and this, together with an old lace veil in which
her mother had been married, would serve Daphne's needs.
In truth, she had little time to think of herself. She was
relinquishing a throne which she had occupied since she was eleven
years old, and the instruction and admonition of her successor had
occupied her attention ever since the date of her wedding had been
fixed. Keys had to be handed over, recipes confided, and the mysteries
of feminine book-keeping unfolded. There were good-byes to be said to
bedridden old women and tearful cottage children. The bridegroom too,
she felt, had a certain claim upon her attention. He had departed the
morning after Daphne had accepted him, and was now very busy preparing
his house in London for the reception of the future Lady Carr. But he
had spent a good deal of time at the Rectory for all that, coming down
for week-ends and the like; and Daphne, mindful of the duties of a
_fiancee_, devoted herself conscientiously to his entertainment
whenever he appeared.
But now the end of all things was imminent. To-morrow the management
of the Rectory would pass into the hands of the dubious and
inexperienced Cilly.
Meanwhile the Rectory children continued to sit disconsolately upon
the gate. They were waiting for Daphne, who had promised to spend her
last afternoon with them. Sir John, who was now staying at Kirkley
Abbey,--to the mingled apprehension and exhilaration of the chief
bridesmaid Lord Kirkley had offered to act as best man,--was to come
over that afternoon, but only to see the Rector on matters connected
with settlements and other unromantic adjuncts to the married state.
The gate proving unsuitable for prolonged session, the family
abandoned their gregarious attitude and disposed of themselves in more
comfortable fashion. Ally, home on two days' special leave from
school, lay basking in the sun. Cilly sprawled on the grass with her
back against a tree trunk, her brow puckered with the gradual
realisation of coming responsibility. Stiffy, simple soul, with his
knees clasped beneath his chin, sorrowfully contemplated to-morrow's
bereavement. Master Anthony Cuthbert, perched on a log with a switch
in his hand, was conducting an unseen orchestra. Nicky, soulless and
flippant as ever, speculated at large upon her sister's future.
"It'll be pretty hot for Daph living down there at first," she mused.
A joke lasted Nicky a long time: the humorous fiction that the
bride-elect would to-morrow be carried off to reside permanently in
the infernal regions was still as a savoury bakemeat to her palate.
"Of course, Polly"--this was her abbreviation for Apollyon, adopted as
soon as that gentleman had ascended from the grade of familiar friend
to that of prospective relative--"will be glad to get back to his own
fireside, but Daph will feel it a bit, I should think. Perhaps he will
let her use a screen to begin with!... I wonder what housekeeping will
be like. I suppose the cook will have horns and a tail, and all the
food will be devilled. I should like to see Daph ordering dinner.
'Good morning, Diabolo!' 'Good morning, miss! What would you like for
dinner to-night?' 'Well, Diabolo, what have you _got_?' 'There's a
nice tender sinner came in this morning, miss. You might have a few of
his ribs; or would you prefer him served up grilled, with brimstone
sauce? And I suppose you would like devils-on-horseback for a
savoury.' 'That will do _very_ nicely, Diabolo. Oh, I forgot! It's
possible that the Lucifers will drop in. Perhaps we'd better have
yesterday's moneylender cold on the side-board in case there isn't
enough to go round. And we must have something special to'--Ally, what
do people drink in Hades?"
"Dunno," said Ally drowsily; "molten lead, I should think."
"Only the _lower_ classes, dear," said Nicky witheringly. "I am
talking about the best people."
"Sulphuric acid?" suggested Ally, who was beginning to study chemistry
at school.
"That will do," said Nicky, and returned to her dialogue. "'Diabolo,
will you tell the butler to put a barrel--no, a _vat_--of sulphuric
acid on ice. You know what the Lucifers are, when'--hallo, here's Daph
at last!"
The bride-elect approached, swinging her garden-hat in her hand, and
followed by Mr Dawks.
"Well, family," she said, "I'm yours for the rest of the day. What
shall we do?"
"Where is John?" inquired Ally. (John, it may be explained, was the
name by which the family, with the exception of Nicky, had decided to
address their future brother-in-law.)
"In the study with Dad."
"Has he arranged about having the five o'clock train stopped to-morrow
afternoon?" inquired the careful Stiffy.
"No. We are going in a motor all the way to London," said Daphne.
"Jack was keeping it as a surprise for me. It's a new one, a----"
"All the way to _where_?" inquired that economical humourist, Miss
Veronica Vereker.
"London."
"H'm! Yes, I _have_ heard it called that, now I come to think of it,"
conceded Nicky; "but it seems a waste of a good car, especially if
it's a new one. Unless it's made of some special--Stiffy, what's the
name of that stuff that won't burn?"
"Asbestos?"
"That's it--asbestos. I didn't expect to see you drive off down the
road, somehow," continued Nicky in a somewhat injured voice, "just
like an ordinary couple. I thought Polly would stamp his foot on the
lawn, and a chasm would yawn at your feet, and in you'd both pop, and
you would be gone for ever, like--Ally, who were those two people in
the Latin book you had for a holiday task?"
"What you want, Nicky," responded Mr Aloysuis Vereker, "is chloroform.
Do you mean Pluto and Proserpine?"
"That's it--Proserpine. Well, Proserpine, what are you going to do to
entertain your little brothers and sisters this afternoon?"
"Anything you like," said Proserpine, endeavouring to balance herself
on the top bar of the gate. "How about making toffee down in the Den?"
There was a chorus of approval. Nursery customs die hard. Even the
magnificent Ally found it difficult to shake off the glamour of this
youthful dissipation.
"I'll tell you what," continued Daphne, warming up to the occasion,
"we'll have a regular farewell feast. We'll send down to the shop and
get some buns and chocolates and gingerbeer, and--and----"
"Bananas," suggested Tony.
"Nuts," added Cilly.
"Cigarettes," said Ally.
"Who has got any money?" inquired Nicky.
The family fumbled in its pockets.
"Here's threepence--all I have," said Cilly at length.
"Twopence," said Ally, laying the sum on Cilly's threepenny bit.
"Awfully sorry," said Stiffy, "but I'm afraid I've only got a stamp.
It's still quite gummy at the back, though," he added hopefully.
"They'll take it."
Tony produced a halfpenny.
"You can search _me_, friends!" was Nick's despairing contribution.
"I have fourpence," said the bride--"not a penny more. I handed over
all the spare housekeeping money to Dad this morning. That only makes
tenpence-halfpenny, counting Stiffy's stamp." She sighed wistfully.
"And I did so want to give you all a treat before I went! Well, we
must do without the nuts and chocolates, and----"
Nicky rose to her feet, swelling with sudden inspiration.
"Daph, what's the matter with running along to this millionaire young
man of yours and touching _him_ for a trifle?" she inquired
triumphantly.
Daphne hesitated. True, to-morrow she would be a rich man's wife, able
to afford unlimited gingerbeer. But the idea of asking a man for money
did not appeal to her. Pride of poverty and maidenly reserve make an
obstinate mixture. Yet the flushed and eager faces of Nicky and Tony,
the polite deprecations of the selfless Stiffy, and the studied
indifference of Cilly and Ally, were hard to resist.
"I wonder if he would mind," she said doubtfully.
"Mind? Oh, no. Why should he?" urged the chorus respectfully.
"Have a dart for it, anyhow," said Nicky.
Daphne descended from the gate.
"Righto!" she said. "After all, it's our last afternoon together, and
I _should_ like to do you all proud. I'll chance it. The rest of you
can start down to the Den and collect sticks, while I run along to the
house and ask him. Nicky, you had better come with me to carry down
saucepans and things. Come on--I'll race you!"
Three minutes later, Sir John Carr, smoking a meditative cigar upon
the lawn, was aware of a sudden scurry and patter in the lane outside.
Directly after this, with a triumphant shriek, the small figure of his
future sister-in-law shot through the garden-gate, closely followed
by that of his future wife. Mr Dawks, faint yet pursuing, brought up
the rear.
The competitors flung themselves down on the grass at his feet,
panting.
"We have been having a race," explained Daphne rather gratuitously.
"I won!" gasped Nicky. "Daph has the longest legs," she continued,
"but I have the shortest skirts. Now, my children, I must leave you.
Wire in!" she concluded, in a hoarse and penetrating whisper to
Daphne.
Her short skirts flickered round the corner of the house, and she was
gone. Daphne was left facing her _fiance_.
"I say," she began rather constrainedly--"don't get up; I'm not going
to stay--do you think you could lend me a little money? I--I'll pay
you back in a day or two," she added with a disarming smile. "The fact
is, we are going to make toffee down in the Den, and I wanted to get a
few extra things, just to give them all a real treat to finish up
with, you know. Will you--Jack?"
Juggernaut looked up at her with his slow scrutinising smile.
"What sort of extra things?" he inquired.
"Oh!"--Daphne closed her eyes and began to count on her
fingers--"buns, and chocolates, and nuts, and gingerbeer. And I wanted
to give Ally a packet of cigarettes. (After all, he's eighteen, and
he does love them so, and they are only ten for threepence.) And if
you could run to it, I should like to get a few bananas as well," she
concluded with a rush, laying all her cards on the table at once.
Juggernaut leaned back in his chair and looked extremely judicial.
"What will all this cost?" he inquired.
"One and eleven," said Daphne. "Jack, you _dear_! We _shall_ have a
time!"
Juggernaut had taken a handful of change out of his pocket.
"One and eleven," he said; "I wonder, Daphne, if you will be able to
purchase an afternoon of perfect happiness for that sum in a year's
time."
He handed over the money.
"May I have a receipt?" he asked gravely.
Daphne took his meaning, and kissed him lightly. She lingered for a
moment, anxious not to appear in a hurry to run away.
"Is there anything else?" inquired Sir John at length.
Daphne ran an inward eye over the possibilities of dissipation.
"No, I don't think so," she said. "Thanks ever so much! We shall be
back about six. So long, old man. Don't go to sleep in this hot sun."
She flitted away across the lawn, jingling the money in her hand. At
the gate she turned and waved her hand. Juggernaut's eyes were fixed
upon her, but he did not appear to observe her salutation. Probably he
was in a brown study about something.
Daphne was half-way down to the Den before it occurred to her that it
would have been a graceful act--not to say the barest civility--to
invite the donor of the feast to come and be present thereat. But she
did not go back.
"It would bore him so, poor dear!" she said to herself; "and--and us,
too!"
* * * * *
Next day they were married.
BOOK TWO.
FLICKERINGS.
CHAPTER NINE.
A HORSE TO THE WATER.
"And how is her ladyship?" inquired Mrs Carfrae.
"Her ladyship," replied Sir John Carr, "is enjoying life. What good
bread-and-butter you always keep."
They were sitting in Mrs Carfrae's tiny drawing-room in Hill Street.
Mrs Carfrae was a little old lady in a wheeled chair. Her face was
comparatively youthful, but her hair was snowy white. She spoke with
what English people, to whom the pure Highland Scots of Inverness and
the guttural raucousness of Glasgow are as one, term "a Scotch
accent."
"I am glad you like my bread-and-butter," she said; "but I fancy you
get as good at your wife's tea-table."
"I don't often see my wife's tea-table," confessed Juggernaut. "She is
out a good deal, and as a rule it is more convenient for me to have my
tea sent into my study."
"Where you grumble at it, I'll be bound. I ken husbands. So her
ladyship is out a good deal? Well do I mind the first time I caught
her in, the besom! That was nearly three years ago. I am not a payer
of calls, as you know; but I felt that I must be the very first to
greet your wife, Johnny boy. So the day after I knew you had settled
in, I had myself bundled into the carriage, and off I went to
Grosvenor Street. I told Maxwell to ring the bell and inquire if her
ladyship was at home. The door was thrown open immediately--rather
prematurely, in fact. I heard a sound like the cheep of a frightened
mouse, and I saw a grand silk skirt and a pair of ankles scuttering up
the staircase. I knew fine what had happened. I was her first caller:
and though the child was sitting in her new drawing-room waiting for
me and those like me, her courage had failed at the sound of the bell,
and she was galloping up the stair out of the way when the man opened
the door. Poor lassie! I did exactly the same thing at her age."
"Did you go in?"
"I did. I was determined to do it. I gripped my crutch and was out of
the carriage and up the steps before the footman could answer Maxwell.
I hobbled past the man--he just gaped at me like a puddock on a hot
day--and got to the foot of the stair and looked up. As I expected,
there was Madam, hanging over the banisters to see what sort of a
caller she had hooked the first time. There was another creature
beside her, with wild brown hair and eyes like saucers. They were
clutching each other round the waist. When they saw me they gave a
kind of horrified yelp. But I cried to them to come down, and in ten
minutes we were the best of friends. They were terribly prim at first;
but when they found out that I was just a clavering old wife and
nothing more, they lost their grand manners. They overlaid me with
questions about London, and while I was answering them the saucer-eyed
one set to work cracking lumps of sugar with her teeth. The other--her
ladyship--was eating jam out of an Apostle spoon. The spoon was in her
mouth when a footman came in to mend the fire. She was fairly taken by
surprise, and tried to push the whole concern into her mouth until the
man should be gone. I thought at first she had swallowed it, but
presently I saw the Apostle sticking out. And that was three years
ago. Well, I have become less active since then, and I pay no more
calls--wheel me a piece nearer the fire, Johnny--so I do not see so
much of her ladyship as I did. Still, I am glad to hear she is
enjoying life. And how is the baby?"
"The baby," replied its male parent, "looks and sounds extremely
robust. He uttered several articulate words the other day, I am told."
"Can he walk?"
"He can lurch along in a slightly dissipated manner."
"Good! And how does your Daphne handle all these houses and servants
of yours?"
Sir John smiled.
"She was a little out of her depth at first," he said. "She had not
been accustomed to cater for a large household. The extravagance of
ordering at least one fresh joint a-day appalled her, and it was a
long time before the housekeeper could cure her of a passion for
shepherd's pie. But she has a shrewd head. She soon discovered which
items of domestic expenditure were reasonable and which were not. She
has cut down the bills by a half, but I don't notice any corresponding
falling off in the quality of the _menu_."
"And does she love fine clothes, and gaiety?"
"I think she found her maid rather a trial at first. She had been so
accustomed not only to attiring herself but to going round and hooking
up her sisters as well, that a woman who handled her like a baby
rather paralysed her. She also exhibited a _penchant_ for wearing her
old clothes out--to rags, that is--in private. But I think she is
getting over that now. I received her dressmaker's latest bill this
morning. It reveals distinct signs of progress."
"And I hear she looks just beautiful."
"She does. I must admit that."
"_Then_," the old lady raised herself a little in her chair, and
settled her spectacles with her unparalysed hand, "what is the
trouble, Johnny Carr?"
Juggernaut laid down his tea-cup with a slight clatter.
"I was not aware," he said curtly, "that there was any trouble."
Mrs Carfrae surveyed him long and balefully over her spectacles.
"Johnny Carr," she observed dispassionately, "I have known you ever
since you could roar for your bottle, and I have never had any
patience with you either then or since. You are a dour, dreich,
thrawn, camstearie creature. You have more money than you can spend,
grand health, and a young and beautiful wife. But you are not happy.
You come here to tell me so, and when I ask you to begin, you say
there is nothing! Well, _I_ will tell you what the matter is. There is
some trouble between you and your Daphne."
Considerable courage is required to inform a man to his face that all
is not well between him and his wife; but courage was a virtue that
Elspeth Carfrae had never lacked. Juggernaut experienced no feeling of
resentment or surprise that this old lady should have instantaneously
sized up a situation which he himself had been investigating in a
groping and uncertain fashion for nearly three years. Life is a big
book of problems, and while man is content to work them out figure by
figure, taking nothing for granted which cannot be approved by
established formulae, woman has an exasperating habit of skipping
straight to the solution in a manner which causes the conscientious
and methodical male to suspect her of peeping at the answers at the
end of the book.
"Perhaps you had not realised that," pursued Mrs Carfrae. "Men are apt
to be slow in the uptake," she added indulgently.
"I fail to see where you get your _data_ from," replied Juggernaut. "I
have not been particularly communicative on the subject. In fact, I
don't remember telling you a single----"
Mrs Carfrae subjected him to a withering glare.
"If all that women knew," she observed frostily, "was what men had
told them, I wonder how many of us would be able to spell our own
names. No, laddie, you have told me nothing: that's true enough. But I
know fine why you came here to-day. You are worried. You and Daphne
are getting on splendidly. The match has been a great success. You
have a son and heir. But--you are not happy; and it is about your
Daphne that you are not happy."
Juggernaut gazed into the fire.
"You are right," he said. "I confess that my marriage has not been so
uplifting as I had hoped. I daresay it is my own fault. As you point
out, I am--well, all the Caledonian adjectives you heaped upon me just
now: all that and a good deal more. I have the reputation of being a
harsh man, and I hate it. I hoped, when I married that child, that she
would pull me out of my rigid, undeviating way of life, and broaden my
sympathies a little. I looked forward to a little domesticity." His
dark face coloured slightly. "I may be an ogre, but I have my soft
side, as you know."
"None better," said the old lady gently.
"Well, somehow," continued Juggernaut, "my marriage has not made the
difference to me that I had hoped. We two have had our happy hours
together, but we don't seem to progress beyond a certain point. We are
amiability itself. If I ask Daphne to see to anything about the house,
she sees to it; if she asks me to go with her to a tea-fight, I go.
But that seems to be about the limit. I can't help thinking that
marriage would not have survived so long as an institution if there
had been no more behind it than that. I was under the impression that
it made two one. At present we are still two--very decidedly two;
and--and----"
"And being you, it just maddens you not to be able to get your money's
worth," said Mrs Carfrae calmly. "Now, John Carr, just listen to me.
First of all, have you had any trouble with her?"
"Trouble?"
"Yes. Any direct disagreement with her?"
"Never. Stop--we had one small breeze."
Mrs Carfrae wagged a forefinger.
"You have been bullying her, monster!"
"Heavens, no!"
"Well, tell me the story."
"Six months ago," said Juggernaut, "she came to me and asked for
money--much as a child asks for toffee--with a seraphic smile and an
ingratiating rub up against my chair. I asked her what it was for."
"Quite wrong!" said Mrs Carfrae promptly.
"But surely----" began Juggernaut, the man of business up in arms at
once.
"You should have begun by taking out your cheque-book and saying, 'how
much?'" continued his admonitress. "Then she would have called you a
dear, or some such English term of affection, and recognising you as
her natural confidant would have told you everything. After that you
might have improved the occasion. As it was, you just put her back up,
and she dithered."
"She did, so far as I understand the expression. But, finding that I
was firm----"
"Oh, man, man, how can a great grown creature like you bear to be
_firm_--_hard_, you mean, of course--with a wild unbroken lass like
that? Well, go on. You were firm. And what did her poor ladyship say
she wanted the money for?"
"For her young cub of a brother," said Juggernaut briefly.
"A wealthy young wife daring to want to help her own brother!
Monstrous!" observed Mrs Carfrae.
"I think you are unjust to me in this matter. Listen! When I married
Daphne I was aware that she would want to finance her entire family:
in fact, it was one of the inducements to marrying me which I laid
before her. For that purpose, to save her the embarrassment of
constantly coming to me for supplies, I settled upon her a private
allowance of--what do you think?"
"Out with it! No striving after effect with _me_, my man!" was the
reply of his unimpressionable audience.
"I gave her a thousand a year," said Juggernaut.
"That should have been sufficient," said Mrs Carfrae composedly. "But
do not be ostentatious about it. You could well afford the money."
"Well, she had spent most of that year's allowance in six months,"
continued Juggernaut, disregarding these gibes--"on her father's
curate, the younger children's education, and so forth--and she wanted
more."
"What age is this brother?"
"Twenty, I think. He is up at Cambridge, and wants to get into the
Army as a University candidate. At present he appears to be filling
in his time philandering with a tobacconist's daughter. The
tobacconist's bill for moral and intellectual damage came to five
hundred pounds. Before writing the cheque, I stipulated--"
"You would!" said the old lady grimly.
--"That I should be permitted to make a few investigations on my own
behalf. Young Vereker is a handsome, fascinating rascal, with about as
much moral fibre as a Yahoo. He was a good deal franker in his
admissions to me than he had been to his sister--"
"Ay, I once heard you cross-examining a body," confirmed Mrs Carfrae.
--"And on the completion of my inquiries I paid the money down on the
nail. It was the only thing to do."
"Did you tell Daphne the whole story?"
"No. I should hate to dispel her illusions. She loves her brothers and
sisters."
"There is no need to excuse yourself, John Carr. I knew fine that you
would not tell her. Instead, you glowered at her, and read her a
lecture about extravagance and improvidence. She tried to look prim
and penitent, but danced down the stair the moment she got the door
shut behind her. Now, mannie, listen to me. This is no light charge
you have taken on yourself--to rule a wild, shy, impulsive taupie like
that. You cannot contain the like with bit and bridle, mind. I have
been one myself, and I know. There is just one thing to do. She must
learn to _love_ you, or the lives of the pair of you will go
stramash!"
Juggernaut's old friend concluded this homily with tremendous
emphasis, and there was a long silence. Then the man drew his chair a
little closer.
"How can I teach her?" he asked humbly. "I have no _finesse_, no
attractiveness. Do you think I--I am too old for her?"
"Old? Toots! I was nineteen when I married on my Andy, and he was
thirty-nine. For the first few years after we married I called him
'daddy' to his face. After that I found that I was really old enough
to be the man's mother; so I called him 'sonny.' But that is a
digression. I will tell you how to teach her. Do not be monotonous.
It's no use just to be a good husband to her: any gowk can be that. Do
not let your affection run on in a regular, dutiful stream: have a
spate occasionally! Get whirled off your feet by her, and let her see
it. Prepare some unexpected ploy for her. Rush her off to dine
somewhere on the spur of the moment--just your two selves. Stop her
suddenly on the staircase in a half-light, and give her a hug."
"She'd never stand it!" cried Juggernaut in dismay. "And I could never
do it," he added apprehensively.
"You _do_ it, my callant," said Mrs Carfrae with decision, "and she'll
stand it right enough! She may tell you not to be foolish, but she
will not make a point of coming down by the back stair in future for
all that. And let her see that with you she comes _first_ in
everything. What a crow she will have to herself when she realises
that a feckless unbusinesslike piece like herself has crept right into
the inmost place in the heart of a man whose gods used to be hard work
and hard words and hard knocks! She'll just glory in you!
"Lastly, do not be discouraged if you have no success to begin with.
At all costs you must keep on smiling. A dour, bleak man is no fit
companion for a young girl who has always lived a sheltered sunny
life. He just withers her. She may last for a while, and do her duty
by him, but in time he'll break her heart. Ay, keep on smiling,
Johnny, even if she hurts you. She will hurt you often. Young girls
are like that. It takes time for a woman to realise that a man is just
about twice as sensitive as herself in certain matters, and she will
not make allowances for him at first. But until she does--and she
will, if you give her time--keep on smiling! If you keep on long
enough you will get your reward. Make the effort, my man! I have had
to make efforts in my time--"
"I know that," said Juggernaut.
--"And the efforts have been the making of _me_. For one thing, I have
acquired a sense of proportion. When we are young and lusty our
knowledge of perspective is so elementary that in our picture of life
our own Ego fills the foreground to the exclusion of all else; with
this result, that we get no view of the countless interesting and
profitable things that lie behind. My Ego is kept in better order
these days, I assure you. It gets just a good comfortable place in the
picture and no more. If Elspeth Carfrae stirs from that, or comes
creeping too far forward so as to block out other things, she hears
from me!"
"Does she always obey you?" asked Juggernaut.
"She got far beyond my control once," admitted the old lady. "I
mind when my Andy went from me she swelled and swelled until she
blotted out everything--earth, sea, and sky. But she has been back
in her place these twenty years, and there she shall bide. There is
no great selfish Ego blocking the view now when I sit and look out
upon my section of the world. You have no idea how interesting it
is to study your friends' troubles instead of your own, John. The
beauty of it is that you need not worry over them: you just watch
them--unconcernedly."
The Scots have their own notion of what constitutes an excursion into
the realms of humour, and Juggernaut, knowing this, made no attempt to
controvert his hostess's last statement.
"Not that I grudged my Andy," continued the old lady presently. "No
wife worthy of the name could grudge her man to his country when he
died as Andy died. But my only son--that was my own fault, maybe. I
would not put him into the Army like his father, thinking to keep him
safer that way; and he died of pneumonia at seven-and-twenty, an East
End curate. Then my Lintie. But I have no need to be talking of Lintie
to you, John Carr. You mind her still, Daphne or no Daphne. Then"--she
indicated her paralysed shoulder--"this! But I keep on smiling.
Perhaps that is why people are so kind to me. Perhaps if I did not
smile they would not seek my company so freely. I suppose they see
something in me, that they come and listen to me havering. When I
first settled down here by myself in this little house many kind
people called. I never thought to see them twice; but they come again
and again. Maybe it is because English people have a notion that the
Scots tongue is 'so quaint!' They seem to find something exhilarating
in hearing fish called fush. Not that I call it any such thing, but
they think I do. Anyhow, they come. Some of them bring their troubles
with them, and go away without them. When they do that I know that it
was worth while to keep a smiling face all these years. So smile
yourself, Johnny Carr! And some day, when your Daphne comes and puts
her head on your shoulder and tells you all that is troubling her, you
will know that you have won through. And when that happens come and
call me. I like to hear when my methods succeed."
"I will remember," said Juggernaut gravely. "Good-bye."
Mrs Carfrae watched his broad back through the doorway.
"But I doubt you will both have to be worse before you are better,"
she added to herself.
* * * * *
An hour later Lady Carr, a radiant vision of glinting hair and
rustling skirts, on her way upstairs to dress for dinner, encountered
her husband coming down. There was a half light. Sir John paused.
"Are you dining anywhere to-night, Daphne?" he said.
Daphne, her youthful shrewdness uneradicated by three years of adult
society, replied guardedly--
"Are you trying to pull my leg? If I say 'No,' will you tell me that
in that case I shall be very hungry by bedtime, or something? I
suppose that old chestnut has just got round to your club. Have you
been electing Noah an honorary member?"
"I was about to suggest," said Juggernaut perseveringly, "that we
should go and dine at the Savoy together."
Daphne dimpled into a delighted smile.
"You dear! And we might go on somewhere afterwards. What would you
like me to wear?" She preened herself in anticipation.
"Oh, anything," said Juggernaut absently. He was regarding his wife in
an uncertain and embarrassed fashion.
Suddenly he drew a deep breath, and took a step down towards her.
Then, with equal suddenness, he turned on his heel and retired
upstairs rather precipitately in the direction of his dressing-room.
It was as well that Mrs Carfrae was not present.
CHAPTER TEN.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A SOCIAL SUCCESS.
By nine o'clock next morning Lady Carr, becomingly arrayed, was
sitting up in bed munching a hearty breakfast, and reflecting
according to her habit upon yesterday's experiences and to-day's
arrangements.
She had dined with her husband at the Savoy, but the meal had not been
quite such a success as she had anticipated. Juggernaut had treated
her with the restrained courtesy which was habitual to him; but ladies
who are taken out to dinner at the Savoy, even by their husbands,
usually expect something more than restrained courtesy. You must be
animated on these occasions--unless of course you happen to be a
newly-engaged couple, in which case the world benignantly washes its
hands of you--or the evening writes itself down a failure. Juggernaut
had not been animated. He had ordered a dinner which to Daphne's
gratification and surprise--she had not credited him with so much
observation--had consisted almost entirely of her favourite dishes.
But he had not sparkled, and sparkle at the Savoy, as already
intimated, is essential.
About ten o'clock he had been called away to an important division in
the House, and Daphne had gone on to a party, escorted by her
husband's secretary, factotum, and right-hand man, one Jim Carthew,
who arrived from Grosvenor Street in answer to a telephone summons.
Carthew was a new friend of Daphne's. She accumulated friends much as
a honey-pot accumulates flies, but Jim Carthew counted for more than
most. They had never met until five weeks ago, for Carthew had always
been up north engaged on colliery business when Daphne was in London;
and when Daphne was at Belton, her husband's old home near Kilchester,
Carthew had been occupied by secretarial work in town. But they had
known one another by name and fame ever since Daphne's marriage, and
at last they had met. Daphne was not slow to understand why her
husband, impatient of assistance as he usually was, had always
appeared ready to heap labour and responsibility upon these youthful
shoulders. Carthew was barely thirty, but he was perfectly capable of
upholding and furthering his leader's interests in the great
industrial north; while down south it was generally held that
whenever he grew tired of devilling for Juggernaut the Party would
find him a seat for the asking.
But so far Carthew seemed loth to forsake the man who had taught him
all he knew. He cherished a theory, somewhat unusual in a rising man,
that common decency requires of a pupil that he shall repay his
master, at the end of the period of instruction, by a period of
personal service.
He was a freckle-faced youth, with a frank smile of considerable
latitude, and a boyish zeal for the healthy pursuits of life. He
possessed brains and character, as any man must who served under
Juggernaut; and like his master he was a shrewd judge of men. Of his
capacity for dealing with women Daphne knew less; but she had already
heard rumours--confidences exchanged over teacups and behind fans--of
a certain Miss Nina Tallentyre, perhaps the acknowledged beauty of
that season, at the flame of whose altar Jim Carthew was said to have
singed his wings in a conspicuously reckless fashion. But all this was
the merest hearsay, and Daphne was unacquainted with the lady into the
bargain. Possibly it was with a view to remedying this deficiency in
her circle of acquaintance that she kept Jim Carthew at her side for
the space of half an hour after they reached Mrs Blankney-Pushkins'
reception.
After a couple of waltzes Lady Carr expressed a desire to be fed with
ices and cream buns.
Mr Carthew assented, but with less enthusiasm than before. Daphne
noticed that his eye was beginning to wander.
"After that," she continued cheerfully, "we will find seats, and you
shall tell me who everybody is. I am still rather a country mouse."
"I should think so!" said Carthew, reluctantly recalling his gaze from
a distant corner of the refreshment-room. "I beg your pardon! You were
saying?"
"Perhaps there is some one else whom you have promised to dance with,
though," continued the country mouse demurely.
Carthew, whose eye had slid stealthily round once more in the
direction of a supper-party in the corner, recovered himself
resolutely, and made the only reply that gallantry permitted.
"That's all right, then," said Daphne. "Tell me who those people are,
having supper over there. That man with the fierce black eyes--who is
he? He looks wicked."
"As a matter of fact," said Carthew, resigning himself to his fate,
"he is about the most commonplace bore in the room. If he takes a girl
in to dinner he talks to her about the weather with the soup, the
table decorations with the fish, and suffragettes with the _entree_.
About pudding-time he takes the bit between his teeth and launches
out into a description of the last play he saw--usually _Charley's
Aunt_ or _East Lynne_. If he goes to a wedding he refers to the church
as a 'sacred edifice,' and the bride and bridegroom as 'the happy
couple.' When he unexpectedly encounters a friend at a sea-side
watering-place, he observes that 'the world is a very small place.' At
his own funeral (to which I shall send a wreath) he will sit up and
thank the mourners for 'this personal tribute of affection and
esteem.'"
Daphne sat regarding this exhibition of the art of conversation with
some interest. She observed that Carthew's wits were wandering, and
that with inherent politeness he was exercising a purely mechanical
faculty to entertain her pending their return. Jim Carthew was a true
Briton in that he hated revealing his deeper thoughts to the eyes of
the world. But unlike the ordinary Briton who, when his feelings do
get the better of him, finds himself reduced to silent and portentous
gloom, he instinctively clothed his naked shrinking soul in a garment
of irresponsible frivolity. The possession of this faculty is a
doubtful blessing, for it deprives many a deserving sufferer of the
sympathy which is his right, and which would be his could he but take
the world into his confidence. But the world can never rid itself of
the notion that only still waters run deep. Consequently Jim Carthew
passed in the eyes of most of his friends as a kindly, light-hearted,
rather soulless trifler. But Daphne was not altogether deceived. She
took an instinctive interest in this young man. She interrupted his
feverish monologue, and inquired--
"Tell me, who is that girl? The tall one, with fair hair and splendid
black eyes."
"What is she dressed in?" asked Carthew, surveying the throng with
studied diligence.
"Flame-coloured chiffon," said Daphne.
"That is a Miss Tallentyre," replied Carthew carelessly. "Do you think
she is pretty?" he added, after a slightly strained pause.
"I think she is perfectly magnificent. Do you know her?"
"Er--yes."
"Will you introduce me?" asked Daphne. "I should like to know her.
See, she has just sent away her partner. Take me over and leave me
with her, and then you will be free to run off and find the charmer I
can see you are so anxious about."
The hapless Carthew having asserted, this time with considerably more
sincerity, that he had now no further thoughts of dancing, the
introduction was effected. The sequel lay this morning upon Daphne's
breakfast-tray, amid a heap of invitations--Daphne was in great
request at present--in the form of a note, written upon thick blue
paper, in a large and rather ostentatious feminine hand. It ran--
"DEAR LADY CARR,--Don't consider me a forward young person if
I ask you to be an angel and come and lunch with me to-day.
I know all sorts of ceremonies ought to be observed before such
a climax is reached; but will you take them for granted and
_come_? We had such a tiny talk last night, and I do so want to
know you better. I have been dying to make your acquaintance
ever since I first saw you.--Sincerely yours,
"NINA TALLENTYRE."
Daphne was not the sort of girl to take it amiss that she, a married
woman of twenty-three, with a husband and baby of her own, should
informally be bidden to a feast by a young person previously unknown
to her, who possessed neither. In any case the last sentence would
have been too much for her vanity. She scribbled a note of acceptance
to Miss Tallentyre's invitation, and set about her morning toilet.
Once downstairs, she paid her regulation punctilious visit to the
library, where her husband was usually to be found until twelve
o'clock. She inquired in her breezy fashion after the health of the
Mother of Parliaments, and expressed a hope that her spouse had come
home at a reasonable hour and enjoyed a proper night's rest. She next
proceeded to the orders of the day.
"Are you dining out to-night, dear?" she inquired.
"Yes, for my sins! A City dinner at six-thirty."
"You'll be bad the morn!" quoted Lady Carr.
"True for you, Daphne. Are you going anywhere?"
"No."
"Well, you had better have Carthew to dine with you, and then he can
take you to the theatre afterwards. Sorry I can't manage it my--for
our two selves," he added, guiltily conscious of Mrs Carfrae's recent
homily.
But Daphne was quite satisfied with the arrangement, which she
designated top-hole.
"Now I am off shopping," she announced. "After that I am lunching with
a girl I met last night; then Hurlingham, with the Peabodys. If you
are going gorging at six-thirty, I probably shan't see you again
to-day; so I'll say good-night now. Pleasant dreams! I am off to play
with Baby before I go out. So long!"
She presented her husband with his diurnal kiss, and departed in
search of Master Brian Vereker Carr, whose domain was situated in the
upper regions of the house. Here for a time the beautiful and stately
consort of Sir John Carr merged into the Daphne of old--Daphne, the
little mother of all the world, the inventor of new and delightful
games and repairer of all damages incurred therein. Her son's rubicund
and puckered countenance lightened at her approach. He permitted his
latest tooth to be exhibited without remonstrance; he nodded affably,
even encouragingly, over his mother's impersonation of a dying pig;
and paid her the supreme compliment of howling lustily on her
departure.
Master Carr never interviewed his parents simultaneously. His father's
visits--not quite so constrained as one might imagine, once the
supercilious nurse had been removed out of earshot--usually took place
in the evening, just before dinner; but father and mother never came
together. Had they done so, it is possible that this narrative might
have followed a different course. A common interest, especially when
it possesses its father's mouth and its mother's eyes, with a
repertory of solemn but attractive tricks with its arms and legs
thrown in, is apt to be a very uniting thing.
II.
Daphne duly lunched with Miss Tallentyre.
"May I call you Daphne?" the siren asked, in a voice which intimated
that a request from some people is as good as a command from most. "I
have taken a fancy to you; and when I do that to anybody--which isn't
often--I say so. My dear, you are perfectly _lovely_! I wish I had
your complexion. You don't put anything on it, do you?"
"Soap," said Daphne briefly. She was not of the sort which takes
fancies readily.
Miss Tallentyre smiled lazily.
"I see you haven't got the hang of me yet," she drawled. "You are a
little offended with me. Most people are at first, but they soon find
that it's not really rudeness--only _me_!--and they come round. I
don't go in for rouge either. Like you, I don't need it. But I have to
touch up my eyebrows. They are quite tragically sandy, and my face
looks perfectly insipid if I leave them as they are." She laughed
again. "Have I shocked you? You see, I believe in being frank about
things--don't you? Be natural--be yourself--say what you think! That
is the only true motto in life, isn't it?"
Daphne agreed cautiously. She had not yet plumbed this rather peculiar
young woman. It had never occurred to her, in the whole course of her
frank ingenuous existence, to ask herself whether she was herself or
not. Such things were too high for her. She began to feel that she had
been somewhat remiss in the matter. Miss Tallentyre appeared to have
made a speciality of it.
But as shrewd Daphne was soon to discern for herself, this was only
pretty Nina's way. A more confirmed _poseuse_ never angled for the
indiscriminate admiration of mankind. Nina Tallentyre was no fool.
Having observed that in order to become conspicuous in this world it
is an advantage to possess marked individuality, and having none of
her own beyond that conferred by her face and figure, she decided to
manufacture an individuality for her herself. She accordingly selected
what she considered the most suitable of the _roles_ at her disposal,
rehearsed it to her satisfaction, assumed it permanently, and played
it, it must be confessed, uncommonly well. Her pose was that of the
blunt and candid child of nature, and her performances ranged from
unblushing flattery towards those with whom she desired to stand well
to undisguised rudeness towards those whom she disliked and did not
think it necessary to conciliate.
Her method prospered. Whatever wise men may think or say of us, fools
usually take us at our own valuation. Consequently Miss Tallentyre
never lacked a majority of admirers. She set a very high price upon
her friendship, too, conferring it only as an exceptional favour; and
the public, which always buys on the rise, had long since rushed in
and bulled Miss Tallentyre's stock--her beauty, her wit, her
transparent honesty--sky high.
The luncheon was a _tete-a-tete_ function, the parent-birds, as Miss
Tallentyre termed them, being absent upon a country visit. Afterwards
Russian cigarettes and liqueur brandy were served with the coffee.
Daphne declined these manly luxuries, but her hostess took both.
"Not that I like them," she explained with a plaintive little sigh,
"but it looks _chic_; and one must be _chic_ or die. Besides, I am
doing it to annoy one of my admirers--one of those simple-minded,
early Victorian, John Bullish creatures who dislike seeing a girl
smoke, or drink cognac, or go to the theatre without a chaperone. Here
is his latest effusion; it will make you shriek."
She picked up a letter from a little table by her side and began to
read aloud.
"'_Nina, dear child, I know you don't care for me any more,_'--
As a matter of fact I never cared for him at any time--
'_but I can't help still taking an interest in you, and all
that. I must say this. On Tuesday night I saw you sitting at
supper with two men at the Vallambrosa, without anybody else
to keep you in countenance, sipping liqueur brandy and
smoking. Well, don't--there's a dear! You simply don't know
what cruel things people say about a girl who does that sort of
thing in public. Of course I know that you are absolutely----_'"
But Lady Carr was on her feet, slightly flushed.
"I think I must be going now," she said. "I had no idea it was so
late. I have to meet some people at Hurlingham."
"Sorry you have to rush off," said Miss Tallentyre regretfully; "we
were so cosy. Isn't this letter perfectly sweet?"
Daphne, who was glowing hotly, suddenly spoke her mind.
"If an honest man," she said, "wrote me a letter like that, I don't
think I should read it aloud to total strangers, even if I was
mortally offended by it. It doesn't seem to me cricket. Good-bye, and
thank you so much for asking me to lunch."
"_Not_ altogether a successful party," mused Daphne, as a taxi-cab
conveyed her to Hurlingham. "What a hateful girl! And yet, at the back
of all that affectation I believe there is something. I couldn't help
liking her. She certainly is very lovely, and she must have been a
darling before men got hold of her and spoiled her.... I wonder if
that letter was from Jim Carthew. It sounded like his blunt
blundering way of doing things. Well, he is well rid of her, anyhow.
Hurrah! here is Hurlingham, and there are the Peabodys! How lovely to
see the trees and grass again! And the _dear_ ponies!"
The country-bred girl drew a long luxurious breath, and in the fulness
of her heart grossly overpaid her charioteer on alighting. Then,
forgetting Miss Tallentyre and her exotic atmosphere utterly and
absolutely, she plunged with all the energy of her sunny soul into the
sane delights and wholesome joys afforded by green trees, summer
skies, and prancing polo-ponies.
III.
Daphne concluded her day, after a joyous drive home in the cool of the
evening on the box-seat of a coach, by entertaining Jim Carthew to
dinner. Afterwards he was to take her to _The Yeoman of the Guard_,
which was running through a revival at the Savoy Theatre. Daphne was
by no means a _blasee_ Londoner as yet, for much of her short married
life had been spent at Belton; and the theatre was still an abiding
joy to her. On the way she rattled off a list of the pieces she had
seen.
"And you have never been to a Gilbert and Sullivan opera?" asked
Carthew incredulously.
"No--never."
"All I can say is--cheers!"
"Why?"
"Supposing you were a benevolent person about to introduce a small boy
to his first plum-pudding, you would feel as I do," replied her
companion. "But wait. Here is the theatre: we are in the fourth row of
stalls."
Daphne sat raptly through the first act. Once or twice her laughter
rang out suddenly and spontaneously like a child's, and indulgent
persons turned and smiled sympathetically upon her; but for the most
part she was still and silent, revelling in Sullivan's ever-limpid
music and following the scenes that passed before her with breathless
attention.
When the curtain fell slowly upon the finale of the first act--the
suddenly deserted stage, the bewildered Fairfax holding his fainting
bride in his arms, and the black motionless figure of the executioner
towering over all--Daphne drew a long and tremulous breath, and turned
to her companion.
"I understand now what you meant," she said softly. "How splendid to
be able to bring some one here for the first time!"
"What surprises me," said Carthew, "is that Sir John hasn't brought
you here already. I know he simply loves it."
"I am usually taken to places like the Gaiety," confessed Lady Carr.
"Probably Jack considers them more suited to my intellect. Hallo, here
are the orchestra-men crawling out of their holes again! Good!"
Presently the curtain went up on the last act, and Jack Point
introduced a selection of the Merry Jests of Hugh Ambrose, to the
audible joy of the fourth row of stalls. The Assistant Tormentor and
his beloved were likewise warmly received; but presently Daphne's
smiles faded. Poor Jack Point's tribulations were too much for her:
during the final recurrence of _I Have a Song to Sing, O!_ tears came,
and as the curtain fell she dabbed her eyes hurriedly with an
inadequate handkerchief.
"Awfully sorry!" she murmured apologetically. "Luckily you are not the
sort to laugh at me."
Carthew silently placed her wrap round her shoulders.
"Mr Carthew," said Daphne suddenly, "will you take me somewhere gay
for supper? It wouldn't be awfully improper, would it? I can't go home
feeling as sad as this."
"Come along!" said Carthew.
He escorted her to an establishment where the electric lights blazed
bravely, a band blared forth a cacophonous cake-walk entitled
(apparently) "By Request," and the brightest and best of the _jeunesse
doree_ of London mingled in sweet companionship with the haughty but
hungry divinities of the musical comedy stage.
Carthew secured a table in a secluded corner, as far as possible from
the band.
"Sorry to have given you the hump," he said, with his boyish smile.
"Next week I will take you to _The Mikado_. No tears there! You will
laugh till you cry. Rather a bull that--what?"
He persevered manfully in this strain in his endeavour to drive away
impressionable Daphne's distress on Jack Point's behalf, and
ultimately succeeded.
"I hope he was _dead_, not simply in a faint," was her final reference
to the subject. Then she continued: "I shall take them _all_ to see
that lovely piece--separately. I am not sure about Nicky, though. She
is just at the scoffing age just now, and I don't think I could bear
it, if she----"
"Not long ago," said Carthew, "I took a girl--that sort of girl--to
see _The Yeomen_."
Daphne regarded him covertly. She knew the girl.
"Well?" she said.
"I took her on purpose," continued Carthew--"to see how she----"
Daphne, deeply interested, nodded comprehendingly.
"I know," she said. "How did she take it?"
"She never stirred," said Carthew, "all through the last act. When
the curtain fell, she sat on for a few moments without saying a word,
and she never spoke all the time I was taking her home. When I said
good-night to her, she--she said something to me. It was not much, but
it showed me that she _was_ the right sort after all, in spite of what
people said----"
He checked himself suddenly, as if conscious that his reminiscences
were becoming somewhat intimate. But Daphne nodded a serious head.
"I'm glad," she said simply. "One likes to be right about one's
friends."
Carthew shot a grateful glance at her; and presently they drifted into
less personal topics, mutually conscious that here, if need be, was a
friend--an understanding friend.
The evening had yet one more incident in store for Daphne.
Twelve-thirty, the _Ultima Thule_ of statutory indulgence--the hour
at which London, thirty minutes more fortunate than Cinderella,
must perforce fly home from scenes of revelry and get ready to
shake the mats--was fast approaching; and the management of the
restaurant began, by a respectful but pertinacious process of
light-extinguishing, to apprise patrons of the fact.
As Daphne and Carthew passed through the rapidly emptying vestibule
to their cab, five flushed young gentlemen, of the _genus_
undergraduate-on-the-spree, suddenly converged upon the scene from
the direction of the bar, locked together in a promiscuous and not
altogether unprofitable embrace. They were urged from the rear by
polite but inflexible menials in brass buttons.
"What ho, Daph!"
The cry emanated from the gentleman who was acting for the moment as
keystone of the arch. Daphne, stepping into the cab, looked back.
"Mr Carthew," she exclaimed, "it's Ally--my brother! He must have come
up from Cambridge for the day. Do go and bring him here."
She took her seat in the hansom, and Carthew went back. Presently he
returned.
"I would not advise an interview," he said drily. "Your brother--well,
you know the effect of London air upon an undergraduate fresh from the
country! Let him come round and see you in the morning."
He gave the cabman his orders, and their equipage drove off, just as
Sebastian Aloysius Vereker, the nucleus of a gyrating mass of humanity
(composed of himself and party, together with two stalwart myrmidons
of the Hilarity Restaurant and a stray cab-tout), toppled heavily out
of the portals of that celebrated house of refreshment into the arms
of an indulgent policeman.
* * * * *
More life--real life! reflected Daphne, as she laid her head on her
pillow, tired out and utterly contented. To-day had yielded its full
share. That peculiar but interesting interview with Miss Tallentyre,
that glorious carnival under the blue sky at Hurlingham, and that
laughter-and-tear-compelling spectacle at the Savoy--all had
contributed to the total. Finally, that _tete-a-tete_ supper with Jim
Carthew--indubitably a dear--ending with the episode of Ally. A little
disturbing, that last! Well, perhaps Ally was only trying to see life
too, in his own way. Life! Daphne tingled as she felt her own leap in
her veins. And to-morrow would bring more!
Then the sandman paid his visit, and she slept like the tired child
that she was, having completed to her entire satisfaction another day
of what, when you come to think of it, was nothing more or less than
an utterly idle, selfish, unprofitable existence.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
DIES IRAE.
At Belton, Daphne, like her Scriptural counterpart, came to herself.
Attired in what she called "rags," she ran wild about the woods and
plantations, accompanied by the faithful Mr Dawks, who found a green
countryside (even when marred at intervals by a grimy pithead)
infinitely preferable to Piccadilly, where the pavement is hot and
steerage-way precarious.
They were to stay at Belton till Christmas, after which the house in
Berkeley Square would be ready for her. Hitherto she had been well
content with the little establishment in Grosvenor Street; but her
ideas in certain directions, as her husband had observed to Mrs
Carfrae, were developing in a very gratifying manner.
One hot morning Daphne arrived at breakfast half-an-hour late. To do
her justice, this was an unusual fault; for in the country she would
never have dreamed of indulging in such an urban luxury as breakfast
in bed. Her unpunctuality was not due to sloth. She had already
superintended the morning toilet of Master Brian Vereker Carr, and had
even taken a constitutional with Mr Dawks along the road which ran
over the shoulder of a green hill towards Belton Pit, two miles away.
She knew that her husband had gone out at seven o'clock to interview
the manager at the pithead, and she had reckoned on being picked up by
the returning motor and brought home in time for nine o'clock
breakfast. Unfortunately Juggernaut had changed his plans and gone to
another pit in the opposite direction, with the result that Daphne,
besides being compelled to walk twice as far as she intended, found an
uncomfortable combination of cold food and chilly husband waiting for
her when she reached home.
Juggernaut never called Daphne to book for her shortcomings now. It
had become his custom of late, if he found anything amiss in the
management of the establishment, to send a message to the housekeeper
direct. He should have known better. Daphne, regarding such a
proceeding as an imputation of incompetence on her part, boiled
inwardly at the slight, though her innate sense of justice told her
that it was not altogether undeserved. Being a great success is apt to
be a slightly demoralising business, and Daphne herself was beginning
dimly to realise the fact. There was no doubt, for instance, that she
was not the housekeeper she had been. But what was the good? There had
been some credit in feeding the boys and Dad on half nothing, and in
conjuring that second weekly joint out of a housekeeping surplus that
was a little financial triumph in itself. But now, who cared if a leg
of mutton were saved or not? What did it matter if the cook sold the
leavings and the butler opened more wine than he decanted? Her husband
could afford it. And so on.
A discussion had arisen upon this subject the evening before; and the
silent enigmatical man whom she had married, whom she understood so
little, and who, from the fact that he treated her as something
between an incompetent servant and a spoiled child, appeared to
understand her even less, had spoken out more freely than usual, with
not altogether happy results. Daphne above all loved opennes
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