That evening there was an impromptu dance. It was much the same as other dances. There was plenty of music and champagne and laughter; and as usual several people tried, and as usual failed, to solve the problem of how it is that an ethereal-looking and fragile slip of a girl, wholly incapable of carrying a scuttle of coals upstairs or of walking five miles without collapsing, can go through an arduous night's exercise, waltzing strong men into a state of coma, without turning a hair.
Pip did his duty manfully, though his glimpses of Elsie were few and far between. That young lady, whether by accident or design, had filled her card rather fully before Pip reached her side. Consequently it was something like midnight when the piano and violin struck up the waltz that she had promised him, and Pip, hastily returning the eldest Miss Calthrop to her base of operations, braced himself forthemoment of the evening.
He waited for some time at the door of the dancing-room scanning the returning couples, but Elsie did not come; and Pip, who was preeminentlya man of action, set out to look for her.
He came upon the truant rather suddenly, round a screen at the end of a passage. She was sitting on a settee with Cullyngham, who, with his head close to hers, was talking softly and rather too earnestly Pip thought. On seeing Pip, Cullyngham began to smile at once, but Elsie looked a little confused.
"My dance, I think," said Pip gruffly.
Cullyngham rose to his feet.
"A thousand apologies, old boy," he said easily. "I had no idea the music had started again. So sorry! I surrender Miss Innes forthwith.Au revoir, partner, and thank you."
He swung gracefully down the passage and was gone.
Elsie felt a little uncomfortable. The woman never yet lived who did not enjoy playing two fish simultaneously, and under ordinary circumstances Elsie would have handled her line with all the pleasure and finesse of an expert. But somehow Pip was different. He was not the sort of person who shared a hook gracefully. He was perfectly capable of disregarding the rules of the game and making a fuss and breaking the line, unless treated with special and separate consideration.
She rose lightly.
"So sorry, Pip," she said, taking his arm almost caressingly. "I didn't mean to keep you waiting. Shall we go and dance?"
"No," said Pip. "Sit down a minute, please."
Elsie obeyed.
"It's only this," said Pip bluntly. "I can't help it if I offend you. Have as little to do with that chap as you can."
A brief silence, and these two young people surveyed each other. There was no flinching on either side. Then Elsie's eyes blazed.
"How paltry! How mean!" she said hotly. "Fancy trying to do it that way!"
"What do you mean by 'it'?" said Pip.
Elsie bit her lip. She had given herself away.
"You mean," went on Pip, "that I say this because I am jealous."
That was exactly what Elsie had meant, and she knew in her heart now that she had been wrong: Pip was not that sort. Still, she was young and independent. Pip was young and tactless. An older and more experienced girl would have seen that Pip's warning was well worth listening to. An older and more experienced man would have delivered it in a different way. Neither of them being possessed of these advantages, the net result of Pip's impromptu effort was to invest Cullyngham with a halo of romantic mystery in the eyes of Elsie, who, afterall, was only nineteen, and a daughter of Eve at that. Here were the elements of a pretty quarrel.
Five minutes later, after a hot altercation, Elsie sailed into the ballroom alone, with her small and admirably formed nose slightly in the air, leaving Pip, tardily recalling Raven's advice, to curse his tactless tongue on the settee behind the screen.
To him entered young Gresley. He dropped listlessly on to the settee.
"Pip," he said, "I'm in a devil of a hole."
"What's the matter?"
"I'm dipped—badly."
"Oh—money?"
"Yes."
Pip's eyes suddenly gleamed.
"Cullyngham?"
Gresley nodded.
Pip rose and pulled the screen completely across the passage.
"They'll think we're a spooning couple," he said. "Go on."
Gresley told his story. Flattered by Cullyngham's invitation, he had agreed to play picquet—a game with which he enjoyed only what may be called a domestic acquaintance—in the pavilion before lunch.
"I suppose we will play the usual club points?" Cullyngham had said.
"And like a blamed fool," continued Gresley, "I didn't like to let on that I didn't know what the usual club points were, but just nodded. I lost all the time, and when he added up at one o'clock I owed him five hundred points. He said I must have my revenge in the afternoon if it went on raining. Well, as you know, it did go on raining, and by the end of the day I was fifteen hundred points down. Then he told me, what I hadn't had the pluck to ask him, what we were playing for. He said that the ordinary club points were a fiver a hundred, and that I owed him seventy-five pounds."
"The d——d swine!" said Pip through his teeth.
"Arethey the ordinary club points, Pip?" said Gresley anxiously.
"Ordinary club grandmother! It's a swindle. He probably cheated in the actual play, too. What are you going to do?"
"I shall pay."
"Quite right," said Pip approvingly. "Pay first, and then we can go for him without prejudice. Have you got the money?"
The boy shook his head dismally. "About ten pounds," he said.
"I could raise a couple of fivers, perhaps," said Pip. "But in any case your best plan is to go straight and make a clean breast of it to your Governor."
"Pip, I couldn't! He's fearfully simple and straight in these things. It would break him up."
"I know him well enough," said Pip, "to be quite certain that you ought to tell him. He can't eat you, and he'll respect your pluck in being frank about it. If he finds out by accident, though—"
"You are right, Pip. I'll do it."
"Good! If you'll do that, I'll promise you something in return. I'll give Master Cullyngham such a quarter of an hour of his own previous history that he'll leave the place to-morrow morning and never darken its doors, or any other doors I care to specify, again. Now, you write straight off to your Governor; or, better still, make an excuse and run up to town and see him to-morrow, and leave me to tackle friend Cullyngham. I think I shall enjoy my interview more than you will."
Mr. Rupert Cullyngham had divested himself of his dress-coat, and was engaged in unfastening a neatly tied white tie, when his bedroom door opened and Pip came in.
"Cullyngham," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, "you must leave this house to-morrow morning."
Cullyngham turned and surveyed his visitorfor a moment with some amusement. Then he said,—
"Certainly! No idea you had bought the place. Can I have a trap, or must I walk?"
Pip did not rise to the level of this airy badinage. On the contrary, he was brusque and rude.
"You will get your cheque all right," he continued. "It will reach you on Sunday morning, so there's no need to hang on here for it."
"May I inquire—whatcheque?"
"The money young Gresley owes you."
Cullyngham whistled softly.
"So it's to that young fool that I owe the honour of this visit," he said. "Look here, old chap—"
Pip broke in.
"Thanks, I can do without that. Let us have no rotten pretence on the subject. To be quite frank, I was rather surprised to find you in this house at all—so was Raven Innes. However, we decided not to make any remark—"
"Thatwasdecent of you!"
Pip continued, meditatively—
"Chell had probably asked you here on your cricket reputation. However, as I find you can't refrain from behaving like the cad you are, even when asked down to a house like this, I have decided to take things in hand myself. You willmake an excuse to the Chells in the morning, and go straight away back—"
Cullyngham, who had been restraining himself with difficulty, turned suddenly round and advanced upon him.
"Get out!" he said, his eyes blazing.
Pip, who was lounging on the arm of a chair, never stirred.
"If you will sit down for five minutes," he observed steadily, "I'll give you a few reasons for my assurance in this matter. The fact is, Cullyngham, you aren't in a position to retaliate. To-day, for instance, you were wearing the colours of your old school club. You are not a member. They don't elect people who have been—sacked. Also, I came across a friend of yours not long ago. She wanted your address, or rather her daughter did. Her name was—"
Cullyngham, whose face had been gradually changing from a lowering red to a delicate green, suddenly noticed that the door was standing ajar. He hurried across the room, shut it, and turned the key.
Ten minutes later the door opened again, and Pip stepped out into the dark passage. An item in his host's valedictory remarks took him back into the room again, and he stood holding the door-handle as he spoke.
"Cullyngham, you certainly owe me one forthis, so you can blackguard me to your heart's content. Also, you may interpret my motives as you like; but—we will leave ladies' names out of this question, please. Remember that!"
At breakfast next morning, amid much masculine concern and feminine lamentation, Cullyngham announced that unexpected and urgent family business called him away to town.
The Squire expostulated.
"My dear fellow, this is simply outrageous! What are we to do? The Gentlemen have whipped up the hottest side I have ever seen on this ground, and first of all young Gresley slips off before breakfast, and now you want to go. We shall get simply trampled on!"
Cullyngham, his smile once again in full working order, confessed himself utterly desolated; but the business was of a pressing, and, he hinted, rather painful, nature, and go he must.
Accordingly a trap was ordered round for the twelve o'clock train, and the depleted Eleven, together with the greater part of the house-party, strolled down to the ground to face the redoubtable Gentlemen of the County.
Pip had been promised an hour's golf with Elsie after breakfast. He was at the tee at the appointed hour of ten, but was not in the leastsurprised when his teacher failed to put in an appearance. After smoking patiently upon the sand-box for a quarter of an hour, the unconscious target of a good many curious eyes on the terrace above, he sadly knocked the ashes out of his pipe and returned to the house, to prepare himself for the labours of the day.
This was to be no picnic match. The County Club had no other fixture that day, so could put its full amateur strength into the field. With Gresley and Cullyngham playing the sides would have been about equally balanced, but now it was odds on the visitors.
However, the men of Rustleford, fortifying themselves with the comforting reflection that cricket, like most other departments of life, is a game of surprises, enrolled two substitutes for their absent warriors, and took the field with a stout heart, having lost the toss as a preliminary.
There had been more rain during the night, and the wicket, though sodden, was easy. The Gentlemen opened nicely, scoring forty-five runs by pretty cricket before a wicket fell. After that two more wickets fell rather easily, and then came another stand, during which the score rose from forty-five to eighty, at which point the more passive of the two resisters was given out leg-before-wicket. Then came adébâcle, absolute and complete, but not altogether inexplicable.The clouds were dispersing rapidly, and, once free of their nebulous embraces, the July sun began to beat down fiercely, "queering the patch" in the most literal sense of the word, and thus enabling Pip and the village prodigy to dismiss an undeniably strong batting side for a hundred and eight.
Loud were the congratulations of the spectators. The ladies especially were jubilant, the flapper going so far as to ask her two admirers for a quotation of odds—in the current coin of flapperdom, chocolates—against Rustleford's chances of an innings victory. But the Squire looked up at the blazing sun and down at the rapidly drying pitch, and glanced inquiringly at Pip.
Pip removed his pipe from his mouth, and grunted,—
"Lucky if we get half the runs."
As it turned out, this was an overestimate. The Rustleford Manor Eleven went in to bat at one o'clock precisely, and were all dismissed in the space of forty-five minutes for forty-nine runs. The pitch was almost unplayable; each bowler found a "spot"; and it was only some berserk slogging by Pip, who went in last and refused to allow any ball to alight on the treacherous turf at all, that this insignificant total was not halved.
The Elevens lunched together in the pavilion,but the rest of the party returned to the house. Here Elsie, who had spent a not altogether comfortable night and morning, was somewhat surprised to find herself seated next to Cullyngham.
"I thought you had gone," she said.
"Unfortunately," he replied, "I came down at twelve to drive to the station, to find that I had misunderstood Mrs. Chell and kept the trap too late to have any chance of catching the train."
"Never mind," said Elsie. "You'll be able to come and see the match now. It is going to be tremendously exciting."
Cullyngham lowered his head in her direction, and said,—
"Will you let me have that round of golf this afternoon—the one I should have had next Monday?"
Elsie surveyed him doubtfully. Under ordinary circumstances she would have preferred to see the cricket, but she was not insensible to Cullyngham's charms, and she liked the flattering way in which he had couched his request.
"But the cricket?" she said. "Surely you—"
"Some things are worth many cricket-matches," said Cullyngham sententiously.
Elsie gasped a little, and Cullyngham continued,—
"You will come? Leave the cricketers tothemselves this time. They'll get too conceited with so much attention."
Now, whether Cullyngham meant this remark to have a particular significance, or to be merely of general application, one cannot say, but its effect was to suggest to Elsie a most appropriate punishment for Pip. Instead of sitting on the pavilion lawn applauding his performance, she would stay at home and play golf with his rival. Little boys must be taught not to be jealous.
"Very well," she said.
Cullyngham called for more whiskey-and-soda.
The Gentlemen of the County began their second innings after lunch. News of the exciting state of the game had spread abroad, and the Manor ground was rapidly being encircled by a ring of carriages and motors, tenanted by masses of white fluff, which at intervals disintegrated itself into its component elements for purposes of promenade, dress-reviewing, and refreshment.
It was quite plain that runs would be hard to get on that wicket. There was a crust of dried mud on the top and a quagmire below. The sun still beat down strongly, the birds were celebrating the termination of twenty-four hours' rain in every tree, and everybody was alert and excited at the prospect of an open game and a close finish.
Their expectations were fully realised. TheGentlemen of the County, either through anxiety to eclipse their rivals' sensational breakdown, or through excess of confidence, or simply because they could not help it, scored exactly thirty-five runs. Pip took eight wickets for sixteen. He was always a bowler of moods, and his work in the morning, though good enough, had not been particularly brilliant. A man can no more take a wicket than he can take a city unless he gives his mind to it, and it must be confessed that up to the luncheon interval Pip had been wool-gathering. His interview with Cullyngham, his rather brief night's rest, and his tiff with Elsie had kept his wits wandering. Now, braced by the knowledge that Cullyngham was speeding on his way south, that Elsie was sitting safely on the pavilion lawn, and that—most blessed of rest cures!—there was work, hard work, before him, Pip rolled up his sleeves, set his field, and bowled. He made no fuss about it; he merely rose to the top of his form and stayed there. The wickets fell like ninepins, the crowd shouted itself hoarse, and when it was all over, Pip, walking soberly in with the rest, found himself punched, slapped, and otherwise embraced by various frantic people in the pavilion.
Among the forest of hands, each containing a sizzling tumbler, that were extended towards him, Pip observed one containing a telegram.Mechanically he took the orange-coloured envelope with one hand and a tall tumbler with the other, and, thrusting the former safe out of harm's way in his pocket, devoted his attention to the latter.
This done, he put on his blazer, lit his pipe, and took up his favourite position on the railing of the pavilion veranda, what time the two chief batsmen of his side buckled on their pads. There were ninety-five runs to make, and they had to be made on a wicket in the last stages of decomposition. The two heroes, nervous but resolute, took the field for the last time, and, with nearly three hours before them, set to work, slowly and cautiously, to make the runs.
But Pip was not watching the cricket. His eye was travelling steadily round the pavilion lawn, dodging pink frocks and skipping over blue frocks in its search for the white piqué costume that Elsie had worn that morning. It was not there.
Mindful that the female sex, not content with having once successfully surmounted that most monumental nuisance of civilisation, the daily toilet, is addicted to inexplicable and apparently enjoyable repetitions of the same, Pip tried again, and scrutinised the pink frocks and the blue frocks. Elsie was not in any of them. Pip felt vaguely uneasy. Of course Cullyngham wasalmost back in town by this time. Still—The two batsmen were making a respectable show. Pip was to go in last. The greatest possible series of catastrophes could not bring his services into requisition for another twenty minutes at any rate. He would run up to the house and see. See what? He did not know, but he would go and see it.
He vaulted over a fence, slipped through a plantation, and tramped under the hot afternoon sun across the meadow which separated the Manor from the cricket-ground. Suddenly, in his pocket, his hand encountered the telegram that had been handed to him after the innings: it had gone right out of his memory.
"Wonder if it's an abusive message from Cully," he said to himself.
No, it was from Pipette, and Pip sat down on a hurdle and steadied himself after reading it. Presently, after a stunned interval, he continued mechanically on his way.
"Let me see," he found himself saying,—"I had better pack up my things, get a trap at the stables, and catch the five-thirty train. I'll leave a note for the Chells, and then I shan't have to face the whole crowd again. If there's no trap to be had I'll leave my bag and leg it. Only a mile or so,—I wish it was more,—got an hour and a half to fill in."
By this time he had reached the house. Theplace was deserted, for the butler and, indeed, most of the establishment were down at the cricket-ground. Pip went rather heavily upstairs and packed his portmanteau, which he presently brought down to the hall door. After that he went to the library and wrote a brief letter.
"Now to find some one to leave this with," he said to himself. "The maids can't all be out. After that I'll go to the stables. Hallo! That sounded like a voice. There it is again! A sort of shriek! It comes from the conservatory. My God! it's—"
He hurried into the drawing-room and darted across to the large French windows that opened into the conservatory. Then, stepping out and passing round a great orange tree in a green tub, he came suddenly on a sight that caused something inside him to gather into a sickening knot and sink down, down, down, dragging his very heart with it.
Elsie and Cullyngham, the latter with his back to Pip, were standing face to face in the middle of the conservatory. They were pressed close together, and both Elsie's arms were round Cullyngham's neck.
Somehow the golf-match was not quite as amusing as Elsie had expected. Cullyngham wasall deference and vivacity, and played like the stylist he was. Still, Elsie could not help wondering how the cricket-match was getting on; and when at half-past three the round of nine holes was completed, she announced her intention of going down to the ground to see the finish.
"What, and desert me?" inquired her opponent pathetically.
"You can come too, if you like."
"Hardly worth while, I'm afraid. I have to pack my bag and get some tea, and then I shall be due at the station."
"I thought your bag was packed already. You were to have gone by the twelve train, you know," said Elsie rather doubtfully.
"Yes," said Cullyngham easily, "but you forgot I had to unpack again to get out my golfing shoes. Now, I'll tell you what," he continued rapidly. "They are going to give me tea in the conservatory before I go: won't you stay and pour it out for me? Just five minutes—please!"
Elsie felt that she could hardly in decency refuse, and accompanied Cullyngham to the house and thence to the conservatory, where the maid who brought the tea informed them of the glorious downfall of the County Eleven and of Pip's share therein.
This decided Elsie. She had no desire to appear in any scene where Pip was the centralfigure, so she accepted Cullyngham's pressing invitation to share his tea, and, sinking into a large armchair, prepared to spend an idle half-hour until popular enthusiasm on the cricket-ground should have abated. Pip was unconsciously proving the profound wisdom of the maxim which warns us to beware when all men speak well of us. He was paying the penalty of success. If he had been bowled first ball, or had missed three easy catches, Elsie, being a woman, would probably have melted and been kind to him. But to unbend to him now would savour of opportunism, hero-worship, and other disagreeable things. Elsie set her small white teeth, frowned at an orange tree in a green tub, and prepared for atête-à-tête. The house seemed deserted.
"Penny for your thoughts!" said Cullyngham.
Elsie smiled composedly.
"If they were only worth that I would make you a present of them," she said. "If they were worth more they would not be for sale."
"Are they worth more?"
"I don't know, really. Anyhow, they are not on the market." She drank some tea with a prim air, uncomfortably conscious that she was blushing.
There was a short pause, and Cullyngham spoke again.
"I hope I'm not boring you," he said, with a smile which took for granted the impossibility of the idea.
"Oh, dear, no. I'm seldom bored at meals." Elsie took a bite out of a bun.
"Very well. Till you have finished tea I will keep quiet; after that I will endeavour to amuse you."
The meal continued solemnly. Once or twice Elsie directed a furtive glance at the man beside her, and detected him eyeing her in a manner which made her feel hot and cold by turns. It was not that he was rude or objectionable, but Elsie suddenly felt conscious that Pip's open stare of honest admiration was infinitely less embarrassing than this.
Cullyngham, as a matter of fact, was in a dangerous mood. His was not a pride that took a fall easily, and the fact that he had been compelled to submit to Pip's unconditional ultimatum was goading him to madness. No man is altogether bad, but we are all possessed of our own particular devils, and Cullyngham accommodated more than his fair share of them. He had never denied himself the gratification of any passion, however unworthy, and at that moment his one consuming desire was to retaliate upon the man who had humiliated him. He looked around the empty conservatory, and then againat the girl in the basket-chair beside him. He could punish Pip now in a most exquisite manner.
Elsie caught the glance, and for a moment was suddenly conscious of an emotion hitherto unknown to her—acute physical fear. But Cullyngham said lightly—
"Enjoyed your tea?"
"Yes, thanks," she replied rather tremulously, putting down her cup.
"Then may I smoke?"
"Certainly. But I am going now."
"Right, if you must. I'll just light my cigarette and see you to the end of the drive."
Cullyngham produced a box of matches, and, with the paternal air of one endeavouring to amuse a child, performed various tricks with them. Then he lit a cigarette, and showed Elsie how, by doubling up your tongue, it is possible to grip the cigarette in the fold and draw it into your mouth, reproducing it, still lighted and glowing, a minute later.
"Quite a little exhibition!" said Elsie, at her ease again. "You ought to set up as a conjurer. Now I must be off."
"There is one other little trick with a match that might amuse you," said Cullyngham. "It was taught me by a girl I know. She made me go down on my hands and knees—"
"I refuse to go down on my knees for anybody," said Elsie, with spirit.
"Never mind. I will do that part. I go on my hands and knees on the floor, like this, with a match lying on my back between my shoulder-blades. Then the other person—you—has his hands tied together with a handkerchief, and tries to brush the match off the other person's back. It's extraordinary how difficult it is to do it with one's hands tied and the other person bobbing and dodging to get away from you."
"It sounds absolutely idiotic," said Elsie coldly.
"It isn't, though. Of course it would be idiotic for you and me to play it now by ourselves; but I'll just show you the trick of it, and you will be able to have some sport with them in the billiard-room to-night. Shall I show you?"
Elsie agreed, without enthusiasm. It seemed churlish to refuse such a trifling request to a man who was making laborious efforts to amuse her; but, for all that, thistête-à-têtehad lasted long enough. However, she would be on the cricket-ground in a few minutes.
Her doubts were in a measure revived when Cullyngham tied her two wrists together with a silk handkerchief. He performed the operation very quickly, and then dropped on to his hands and knees on the floor and carefully balanced a match on the broad of his back.
"Now," he said, looking up at her, "just try to knock that match off my back. Of course I shall dodge all I can. I bet you won't be able to do it."
Elsie, feeling uncommonly foolish, made one or two perfunctory dabs at the match with her bound hands. Once she nearly succeeded, but Cullyngham backed away just in time. Piqued by his derisive little laugh, she took a quick step forward, and leaning over him, was on the point of brushing the match on to the floor, when suddenly Cullyngham slewed round in her direction, and, thrusting his head into the enclosure of her arms, scrambled to his feet. Next moment Elsie, dazed, numbed, terrified, found herself on tiptoe, hanging round a man's neck, while the man's arms were round her and his hateful smiling face was drawing nearer, nearer, nearer to her own.
Never was a girl in more deadly peril. Elsie uttered a choking scream.
"It's no good, little girl," said Cullyngham. "I've got you fast, and there's not a soul in the house. A kiss, please!" He spoke thickly: the man was dead within him.
Elsie, inert and drooping, shrank back as far as her manacled wrists would allow her, and struggled frantically to free herself. But Cullyngham's arms brought her towards him again.And then, paralysed with terror, with eyes wide open, she found herself staring right over Cullyngham's shoulder at—Pip!—Pip, sprung from the earth, and standing only five yards away.
"Pip!" she moaned; "Pip, save me!"
Almost simultaneously Cullyngham became conscious of something that gripped him by the nape of his neck, just below Elsie's fettered wrists—something that felt like a steel vice. Tighter and tighter grew the grip. The veins began to stand out on Cullyngham's forehead, and he gurgled for breath. Down he went, till his head was once more on a level with the floor and his aristocratic nose was rubbed into the matting. In a moment the girl had slipped her wrists over his head and stood free—pale, shaken, but free!
"Run into the house," said Pip. "I will come in a minute."
Elsie tottered through the French window and disappeared, with her hands still bound before her, and the two men were left alone.
Finding himself in a favourable geographical position, Pip kicked Cullyngham till his toes ached inside his boots. Then he thrust him away on to the floor. Cullyngham, free at last and white with passion, was up in a moment and rushed at Pip. He was met by a crashing blow in the face and went down again.
If Pip had been himself he would have desistedthere and then, for he had his enemy heavily punished already. But he was in a raging passion. He knew now that Elsie was more to him than all the world together, and his sudden realisation of the fact came at an inopportune moment for Cullyngham. Pip drove him round the conservatory, storming, raging, blaring like an angry bull, getting in blow upon blow with blind, relentless fury. Cullyngham was no weakling and no coward. Again and again he stood up to Pip, only to go down again under a smash like the kick of a horse. Finally, in a culminating paroxysm of frenzy, Pip took his battered opponent in his arms and hurled him into the green tub containing the orange tree.
Then he went into the house, locking the French window behind him. The fit had passed.
Five minutes devoted to a wash, and a slight readjustment of his collar and tie, and Pip was himself again. Presently he went to seek Elsie. The girl had succeeded in freeing her hands from the handkerchief, and was sitting, badly shaken, a poor little "figure of interment," as the French say, on a sofa in the library. She looked up eagerly at his approach.
"Oh, Pip, did you hurt him?"
"I hope so," said Pip simply. "Will you tell how it happened? At least—don't, if you'd rather not."
But she told him all. "You were just in time, Pip," she concluded. "I was just going to faint, I think."
She looked up at him with shining eyes. Pip saw them, and permitted himself one brief gaze. This was no time for tender passages. He put his hand in his pocket and produced a rather crumpled envelope.
"Would you mind giving that to the Squire for me?" he said. "I have to go away."
"Go away? Oh, Pip! Now?"
"Yes, you see, I have just—"
"But are you going to leave me in the house with that man?" cried Elsie, with a sudden access of her old terror.
"If I am any judge of human nature," said Pip, "he is out of the house by this time. I don't think he will even wait for his luggage. He—he's not very presentable. I see the trap has come round for him. It can take me instead, and I'll cart his luggage up to town and leave it at his club. I owe him some consideration," he added, surveying his knuckles thoughtfully.
Elsie acquiesced.
"Yes, that will be best," she said. "The Chells will think he went off in the ordinary way, and nobody will ever know—Pip, it was awful."
She broke off, and shuddered again and again.
"I should go and lie down till dinner if I were you," said Pip gently. "All over now: forget it. Good-bye."
They shook hands and walked to the door together.
"Why are you going away like this?" said Elsie, as the groom piled the luggage into the trap.
Pip's face clouded.
"I'm ashamed to say that what has happened made me forget for a bit," he said. "I have just had a wire from Pipette—I say, here is the whole cricket-party coming across the lawn! I simply can't face them now. I could have told you about it, but not them. Good-bye, and—good-bye. I shall see you again soon, I hope."
He jumped into the cart, and was rattling down the drive by the time that the cricketers and their attendant throng, hot, noisy, and jubilant, burst like a wave into the hall. Elsie turned hastily from a window as they entered.
"Hallo, Elsie," cried Raven Innes, "what are you doing here?"
"Rather a headache, Raven. I have stayed in since tea," said Elsie.
"You certainly don't look very well, dear," said Mrs. Chell.
"You missed a great finish," said Cockles.
"Only two wickets," shrieked the flapper.
"Yes," added the Squire, "and if one of them had gone down we should have been dished. Pip deserted. Where was the ruffian? Have you seen anything of him, my dear?"
"Yes," said Elsie; "he was here just now."
One or two knowing smiles illuminated the honest faces of the cricketers.
"He came up," she continued composedly, "about four, and hurried away to catch the five-thirty train. He has just gone. He gave me this note for you, Mr. Chell."
The Squire took the note and read it, and his jolly face grew grave.
"Poor fellow!" he said soberly.
"What is it?" said everybody.
"Pip has had a wire from his sister to say that his father died suddenly this morning—heart failure. Pip has slipped away by the afternoon train: he did not want to spoil our fun. He asks me to say good-bye to all of you from him."
Pipreached London that evening to find the great gloomy house in Westock Square shuttered and silent. His father's brougham had driven up as usual at lunch-time, after the morning round, and its owner had been discovered lying in a dead faint inside it. He had been carried into the house, to die—not even in his bed. Death, with whom he had waged a vicarious and more than commonly successful warfare for thirty-one years, had conquered at last, and that, too, with grim irony, in the very arena of the dead man's triumphs—his own consulting-room. The great physician lay peacefully on an operating-couch near the darkened window, surrounded by life-saving appliances and books that tell how death may be averted.
His affairs were in a hopeless tangle. He had risked almost every penny he possessed in an ill-judged effort to "get rich quick," and so provide for himself, or at any rate for his family, however sudden and direct the course that his malady might take. Half his capital had been sunk in unremunerative investments, which might ormight not pay fifty per cent some day; and the other half was gone beyond recall on an unrealised anticipation of a fall in copper shares.
A week later Pip, Pipette, and Mr. Hanbury—the latter ten years older than when we last heard of him, but not much changed except for a little reasonable adiposity—sat at dinner. It was almost the last meal they were to take in the old house, for nowres angustæwere to be the order of the day.
The meal ended, and coffee having been served, Pipette, looking pale and pretty in her black evening frock, gave each of the men a cigar, snipping the ends herself, as she had been accustomed to do for her father; and the trio composed themselves to conversation.
"I saw Crampton to-day," said Pip. (Crampton was the family lawyer.) "He gave me the facts and figures about things. I couldn't follow all the stuff on blue paper, but I asked him questions and jotted down what I wanted."
"How does it work out?" inquired Hanbury.
"By putting what money there is in the bank into Consols, and adding the interest on the few investments that are paying anything at all, the total income of the estate comes to exactly one hundred and fifty a year," said Pip.
"So long as the capital sunk in the other investments produces nothing, that is?"
"Yes. There is a matter of fifteen thousand pounds buried in some Australian mining group: it might as well be sunk in the sea for all the good it is doing us. Of course it may turn up trumps some day, but not at present, Crampton says. So Pipette and I are worth just a hundred and fifty a year between us."
There was a silence, and the ash on Pip's cigar was perceptibly longer when he spoke again.
"A hundred and fifty," he said, "is not much use for two, but it's a comfortable little sum for one; so Pipette is going to take it all."
Pipette came round and sat on the arm of Pip's chair with the air of one who wishes to argue the point, and Pip continued hurriedly,—
"We talked it over with her this afternoon, Ham, and she agreed with me that for the present it will be best for her to accept the Rossiters' invitation to join them on their visit to Spain and Algiers, which is to last about a year. Pipette will be able to pay her full share of the expenses, so she won't be dependent on anybody. At the same time she will be having a good time with really nice people instead of—instead of—"
"Instead of sitting all day in a two-pair-back in London?" said Hanbury.
"That's it, exactly," said Pip, grateful for this moral support. "Of course it would be ripping".—Pipette was beginning to shake, and he puthis arm clumsily round her—"it would be ripping to have remained together, but it can't be done at present. In a year, perhaps. The old lady has been very sensible about it."
Apparently being "sensible" did not include abstinence from tears, for Pipette was now weeping softly. She had lost her father only a week, and now she was to lose her beloved brother.
Hanbury, who, like most strong men, was helpless against feminine tears, coughed self-consciously.
"It sounds a good arrangement," he said. "I suppose it is quite impossible for you two to live together? With the hundred and fifty, and what you could make yourself, Pip—"
"How am I going to make it?" inquired Pip.
"What are your prospects?"
"What are my accomplishments? I am just twenty-five; I am sound in wind and limb; and I sometimes take wickets. Can you suggest anything else?"
"Yes; you possess a stout heart and a hard head."
"If by hard you mean thick, I do," agreed Pip dismally.
"Thick heads have their market like everything else. Where are you going to take yours?"
"Where would you suggest? I have my ownideas on the subject, of course, but I should like to hear yours, Ham."
Hanbury looked across at him quizzically.
"My young friend," he said, with a flash of his old pedagogic manner, "long experience of your character warns me that you have determined on some crack-brained scheme, and are now prepared to defend it against all comers. Proceed."
Pip grinned.
"As you like," he said. "But I think a discussion would clear the air. Here goes! Pipette is appointed chairman. The subject for debate is 'The Choice of a Career for a Young Man without Education, Ability, or Prospects.' Fire away, Ham, and bear in mind that all the learned professions are barred to me."
"I'm not sure of that. How about school-mastering?"
"At a Preparatory?"
"Yes."
"Do you recommend the billet?"
"Frankly—no. Preparatory work is all right provided that you don't mind a berth in which your real work only begins at playtime, and which, unless you can afford ultimately to set up for yourself, offers you an absolutely maximum screw of about two hundred a year."
"I know the sort of thing," said Pip. "You start on about eighty, with board—"
"Which means a poky dust-hole to sleep in, meat-tea, and—"
"'The post is one we can unreservedly recommend'—I know."
"'Write promptly yet carefully,'" chanted Ham, "'to the Principal, the Rev. Adolphus Buggins—'"
"'Explaining that you have heard of this vacancy through our agency—'"
"'Stating your degree and previous experience (if any)—'"
"'If a member of the Church of England—'"
"'Your willingness to participate in school games—'"
"'If musical—'"
"'If possible, a photograph'—yah!"
"Don't you think we are rather wandering from the point?" inquired the mystified chairwoman.
The rhapsodists ceased their antistrophes and apologised.
"True," said Ham. "Suggestion number one is negatived without a division. Let us try a fresh cast. Have you any influence with business firms?"
"No, thank God!" said Pip simply. "An office would just kill me. If I had any chance of a post I should of course have to apply; but I haven't, so I needn't."
There was another pause.
"If," said Ham reflectively, "there was any prospect of your sunken capital rising to the surface again, say in two or three years' time, and it was simply a matter of hanging on till then, you could afford to spend the intervening period in a very interesting fashion."
"As how?"
"Go and see the world for yourself, above and below, inside and out. Knock about and rub shoulders with all sorts of folk. Plunge beneath the surface and see things as they are. Make your way everywhere, and if possible live by the work of your own two hands. You would acquire a knowledge of mankind that few men possess. At the worst you could hang on and make a living somehow until your ship came in—if it were only as a dock-hand or a railway porter. It would be a grand chance, Pip. Most men are so unenterprising. Those at the top never want to see what things are like below, and those below are so afraid of staying there forever that their eyes are constantly turned upwards and they miss a lot. I'd give something to be a vagabond for a year or two."
"What fearful sentiments for a respectable house-master!" said Pipette severely; but Pip's eyes glowed.
"However," continued Hanbury more soberly,"Pip can't afford to waste time observing life in a purely academic way down in the basement. He must start getting upstairs at once."
"Hear, hear!" said the chairwoman.
"As a matter of fact," said Pip, "the scheme I have in my eye rather meets the case, I think."
"What is it?"
"Well, I made a list of all the careers open to me. I'll go through them."
Though his final choice was all they wished to know, his audience settled themselves patiently to listen. They knew it was useless to hurry Pip.
"The things I thought of," continued the orator, "are—cricket-pro, gamekeeper, policeman, emigrant to Canada, and Tommy."
He smiled genially upon his gaping companions. "They are all good open-air jobs," he explained.
Pipette stiffened in her chair.
"But they will none of them do," he added.
Pipette relaxed again.
"This," said Hanbury, "is interesting and human. We must have your reasons for rejecting these noble callings,seriatim. A cricket-pro, for instance?"
"Once a 'pro' always a 'pro,'" said Pip. "I hope some day to play as an amateur again. And while we are on the subject, I may as well say that I'mnotgoing to be a professional-amateur.No two hundred a year as assistant-deputy-under-secretary to a county club for me, please!"
"Good boy," said Hanbury. "Now, please—gamekeeper?"
"I'm too old. A gamekeeper requires to be born to the job. I have the ordinary sporting man's knowledge of game and sport generally, but I should be a hundred before I learned as much about the real ins and outs of the business as—a poacher's baby."
"Quite so. Policeman?"
"The only chance of promotion in the police force is in the detective direction, and I—I think detection comes under the head of learned professions."
"Tommy, then?"
"A Tommy's would be a grand life if there was always a war. But, Ham, think what the existence of a gentleman-ranker must be in time of peace. A few hours' duty a day, and the rest—beer and nursemaids! Help!"
"You have been devoting much time to reflection, Pip. Well, to continue. How about emigrating?"
"Emigration is such a tremendously big step. If one is prepared for it, well and good. But I'm not ripe yet. You see, Canada and Australia are so far away, and I'm not quite prepared to give up—"
"England, home,andbeauty—eh, Pip? Is that how the wind blows?"
"Dry up!" said Pip, hastily passing on to his peroration. "Before I try any of these things I am going to see how my own pet scheme pans out."
"And that is—?" said Pipette breathlessly.
"I can use my hands a bit, and have a sort of rough knowledge of mechanics," continued Pip, staring into the fire and stating his case with maddening deliberation, "and I don't mind hard work. Mind you—"
"Pip,doget on!" almost screamed poor Pipette.
Pip, looking slightly surprised, came to the point.
"I am going to try for a job," said he, "at a big motor works I know of. I will start as a cleaner, or greaser, or anything they please, if they'll take me; and when I have got a practical knowledge of the ins and outs of the business, I shall try to set up as a chauffeur."
He broke off, and scanned his hearers' faces rather defiantly.
"How do you like the idea?" he asked.
"You'd get horribly dirty, Pip," said practical Pipette. "Think of the oil!"
Pip laughed. "I'll get used to that."
"And how long would you stick to it?"
"What, the oil?"
"No, the trade."
"That depends. If I find the life absolutely unbearable for any reason—Trades Unions, for instance—I shall jack it up. But I don't think it is very likely."
"Neither do I," said Hanbury, who had had exceptional opportunities for studying Pip's character.
"Then," continued Pip, with something like enthusiasm, "if those sunken shares took up, and there was money to be had, I might buy myself a partnership in a motor business. If they don't take up, I must just save my wages till I can afford to go out and farm in Canada. I'll take you with me, Pipette, if I go," he added reassuringly.
A month later Pip obtained a humble and oleaginous appointment at the Gresley Motor Works in Westminster Bridge Road.
The foreman who engaged him was short-handed at the time, and though Pip was obviously too old for a beginner, he was impressed with his thews and sinews. After a few weeks, finding that Pip did not drink, and if given a job, however trivial, to perform, could be relied on with absolute certainty to complete it on time,the foreman unbent still further, and paid Pip the compliment of heaping upon him work that should have been done by more competent but less dependable folk. Pip throve under this treatment, and in spite of the aloofness of his fellow-workmen, who scented a "toff," the novelty and genuine usefulness of his new life inspired him with a zest and enthusiasm that took him over many rough places.
For it was not all plain sailing. The horny-handed son of toil is no doubt the salt of the earth and the backbone of the British nation, but he is not always an amenable companion, and he is apt to regard habitual sobriety and strict attention to duty in a colleague as a species of indirect insult to himself. However, abundance of good temper, together with a few hard knocks when occasion demanded, soon smoothed over Pip's difficulties in this direction; and presently the staff of Gresley's left him pretty much to himself, tacitly agreeing to regard him as an eccentric but harmless lunatic who liked work.
Pip purposely avoided young Gresley when he applied for the post. His idea was to obtain employment independently, if possible, and only to appeal to his friend as a last resource. He was anxious, too, to spare Gresley the undoubted embarrassment of having to oblige a venerated member of his own college and club by appointinghim to a job worth less than thirty shillings a week. Gresley, moreover, would probably have foisted him into a position for which he was totally unfitted, or would have pressed a large salary on him in return for purely nominal services. Pip was determined that what he made he would earn, and so he started quietly and anonymously at the foot of the ladder. He even adopted anom de guerre, lest a glance at the time-sheet or pay-list should betray his identity to his employer. The Gresley Works contained seven hundred men, and it was not likely, Pip thought, that young Gresley, who, though he was seen frequently about the shops, spent most of his time in the drawing-office, would recognise even his most admired friend amid a horde of grimy mechanics.
But for all that they met, as they were bound to do. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Pip's reliability and general smartness soon raised him from the ruck of his mates, and presently his increasing responsibilities began to bring him in contact with those in authority. He had not counted on this; so, realising that recognition was now only a matter of time, and wishing to avoid the embarrassment of an unpremeditated meeting in the works, he waylaid his friend one morning in a quiet storehouse. The surprise took young Gresley's breath away, and Pip tookadvantage of the period preceding its return to give a hurried explanation of his presence there, coupled with a request that his anonymity might be respected.
That night young Gresley, filled with admiration, told the whole story to his father.
"Of course, Dad, you'll move him up to a good post at once?" he said.
Old Gresley, leaning his scraggy face upon his hand, replied curtly, "I shall do no such thing."
The son, who knew that his father never said a thing without reason, waited.
"Wilmot? He was the young fellow who helped you when you went fooling away your money at cards, wasn't he?" continued the old man, suddenly turning his Napoleonic eye upon his son.
"Yes. He pulled me out of a tight place."
"That young man wouldn't thank me for undeserved promotion. He has the right stuff in him, and he wants to do things from the beginning—the only way! I often wish that you had had to start in the same fashion, Harry: there's nothing like it for making men. But your foolish old dad had been over the ground before you, and that made things easy. What that boy wants is work. I'll see he gets it, and I'll watch how he does it, and I'll take care that he is paid according to his merits."
Consequently Pip, much to his relief, was left in undisturbed possession of his self-sought limbo, and made the recipient of an ever-increasing load of work,—varied, strenuous, responsible work,—and for three sturdy years he lived a life that hardened his muscles, broadened his views, taught him self-reliance, cheery contentment with his lot, and, in short, made a man of him.
He learned to live on a pound a week. He learned to drink four ale and smoke shag. He became anhabituéof those establishments which are so ably administered by Lord Rowton and Mr. Lockhart. He obtained an insight into the workings of the proletariat mind. He learned the first lesson which all who desire to know their world must learn, namely, that mankind is not divided into three classes,—our own, another immediately above it, and another immediately below it,—but that a motor factory may contain as many grades and distinctions, as many social barriers and smart sets, as many cliques and cabals, as Mayfair—or Upper Tooting. He learned to distinguish the stupid, beer-swilling, illiterate, but mainly honest British workman of the old-fashioned type from the precocious, clerkly, unstable, rather weedy product of the board-school and music-hall. He discovered earnest young men in blue overalls who read Ruskin, and pulverised empires and witheredup dynasties once a week in a debating society. He made the acquaintance of the paid agitator, with his stereotyped phrases and glib assertions of the right of man to a fair day's work and a fair day's wage, oblivious of the fact that he did not know the meaning of the first and would never have been content with the second. He rubbed shoulders with men who struggled, amid cylinders and accumulators, with religious doubts; men who had been "saved," and who insisted on leaving evidence to that effect, in pamphlet form, in their mates' coat-pockets; and men who, either through excess of intellect or from lack of adversity, had never had any need of God, and consequently did not believe in Him.
He saw other things, many of which made him sick. He saw child-wives of seventeen, tied to stunted youths of twenty, already inured and almost indifferent to a thrashing every Saturday night. He saw babies everywhere, chiefly in public-houses, where their sole diet appeared to consist of as much gin as they could lick off the fingers which accommodating parents from time to time dipped into their glasses and thrust into their wailing little mouths. He saw the beast that a woman can make of a man and the wreck that a man can make of a woman, and the horror that drink can make of both; and, being young and inexperienced, he grew depressed at thesesights, and came to the conclusion that the world was very evil.
And then he began to notice other things—the goodness of the poor to the poor; game struggles with grinding poverty; incredible cheerfulness under drab surroundings and in face of imminent starvation; the loyalty of the wife to the husband who ill-used her; the good-humoured resignation of the shrew's husband; the splendid family pride of the family who, though they lived in one room, considered very properly that one room (with rent paid punctually) constitutes a castle; the whip-round among a gang of workmen when a mate was laid by and his whole family rendered destitute; and finally the children, whom neither dingy courts, nor crowded alleys, nor want of food, nor occasional beatings, nor absence of any playthings save tiles, half-bricks, and dead kittens, could prevent from running, skipping, shouting, quarrelling, playing soldiers, keeping shop, and making believe generally, just as persistently and inconsequently as their more prosperous little brethren were doing, much more expensively, not many streets away. Pip saw all these things, and he began to realise, as we must all do if we wait long enough, that it takes all sorts to make a world, and that life is full of compensations.
In short, three years of close contact with theraw material of humanity gave Pip a deeper knowledge of man as God made him, than he could have acquired perhaps from a whole lifetime spent in contemplating the finished article in a more highly veneered and less transparent class of society.
Pip allowed himself certain relaxations. He had consented to keep fifty pounds out of Pipette's hundred and fifty a year, and once a month, on Saturday afternoons, after a preliminary scrub and change in his lodging, he departed to the West End, and indulged in the luxury of a Turkish bath. (He needed it, as the heated individual who operated upon him was wont, with some asperity, to remark.) Then he dined in state at one of those surprising two-shillingtables d'hôtein a Soho restaurant, and went on to the play—the pit. Sometimes he went to the Oval or Lord's, and with itching arm watched the cricket. Once he heard a bystander lament the absence, abroad, of one Wilmot, a celebrated "left-'ender" ("Terror, my boy! Mike this lot sit up if 'e was 'ere!"), and he glowed foolishly to think that he was not forgotten. Absence abroad was the official explanation of his non-appearance in first-class cricket during this period, and also served to satisfy the curiosity of those of his friends who wanted to know what had become of him.
Sometimes, as he sat in the shilling seats at Lord's, he wondered if he would ever be able to use his member's ticket again; and he smiled when he pictured to himself what the effect would be if a petrol-scented mechanic were to elbow his way in and claim a seat in the Old Blues' reservation!
He saw no friends but Hanbury, who occasionally looked him up in his lodging, and with whom he once went clothed andin propria personato a quiet golfing resort during one joyful Christmas week, when the works were closed from Friday night till Wednesday morning. He heard regularly from Pipette. At first she was obviously miserable, and Pip was at some pains to write her boisterously cheerful letters about the pleasantness of his new existence and the enormous saving of money to be derived from not keeping up appearances, knowing well that the knowledge that he was happy would be the first essential in producing the same condition in Pipette. After a little she wrote more cheerfully: then followed a regular year of light, irresponsible, thoroughly feminine correspondence, full of the joy of youth and lively appreciation of the scenes and people around her. Then came a period when unseeing Pip found her letters rather dull—a trifle perfunctory, in fact. Then came a fortnight during which there was no letter at all, andPip grew anxious. Finally, just as he sat down to write to Mrs. Rossiter inquiring if his sister was ill, there came a letter,—a long, breathless, half-shy, half-rapturous screed,—containing the absolutely unprecedented piece of information that Providence had brought her into contact with the most splendid fellow—bracketed with Pip, of course—that the world had ever seen; that the said fellow—Jim Rossiter—incredible as it might appear, had told her that he loved her; whereupon Pipette had become suddenly conscious that she loved him; that everybody was very pleased and kind about it, and—did Pip mind?
Pip, who knew Jim Rossiter for a good fellow, wrote back soberly but heartily. He congratulated Pipette, gave his unconditional assent to the match, gratefully declined an invitation to come and take up his abode with the young couple after their marriage, and faithfully promised, whenever that joyful ceremony should take place, to have a bath and come and give the bride away. Which brings little Pipette's part in this narrative to a happy conclusion.
Of Elsie Pip heard little, and tried to think not at all. At present she was not for him, and probably never would be. His mind was quite clear on the subject. When, if ever, his ship came in, he would seek her out wherever shewas, and—provided she had not married some one else, which was only too likely, Pip thought—ask her to marry him. Till then he was a member of the working classes, and must not cry for the moon. Still, though he conscientiously refrained from direct inquiries, he greedily hoarded every careless item of information on the subject that cropped up in Pipette's letters.
Elsie had no parents, and soon after Pip's disappearance "abroad" had gone for a trip round the world with Raven Innes and his wife. She spent some months in India, and Pip, who knew that that bright jewel of the Empire's crown contains many men and few women, shuddered and ground his teeth. However, no bad news came, and presently he heard from Pipette that the travellers had left Colombo and were on their way to Australia. After that Pipette became engaged, and the curtain fell upon Elsie's movements, for Pipette's letters now harped upon a single string, and Pip was far too shy to ask for information outright. So he hardened his heart, hoped for the best, and went on with his day's work, as many a man has had to do before him, and been all the better for it.
One sentimental indulgence he allowed himself. Every Christmas he sent Elsie a present, together with his best wishes for the season. Onlythat, and nothing more. No long screed: above all, no address. He had his pride.
After two years' work his duties took a more varied and infinitely pleasanter form. He was by this time a thoroughly competent workman. He could take an engine to pieces and put it together again. He could diagnose every ill that a motor-car is heir to,—and a motor-car is more than human in this respect,—and he was a fearless and cool-headed driver. Consequently he was frequently sent out on trial trips, touring excursions, and the like; and owing to his excellent appearance and pleasant manner, was greatly in request as a teacher. More than one butterfly of fashion conceived a tenderness in her worldly and elastic little heart for the big silent chauffeur, who explained the whole art of motoring so clearly and quietly, and was never dirty to look at or familiar to speak to. He grew accustomed—though slowly—to receiving tips, even from his own former friends and acquaintances, more than one of whom sat by his side, and even conversed with him without recognition. His name was now John Armstrong,—he was holding back his own till a more prosperous time,—and he had shaved off a mustache of which, as an undergraduate, he had been secretly but inordinately proud. These changes, together with his leather livery and peaked cap, neutralisedhim down into one of a mere type, and he looked just like scores of other clean-shaven, hawk-eyed chauffeurs.