Eloquent rode the bicycle left outside by Miss Buttermish, rode carefully, bearing the suit-case in his left hand. The village was quite deserted and he reached the great gates of the Manor House unchallenged. The gates stood open and he entered the dark shadowy drive without having encountered a living soul. Lights gleamed from the lower windows of the house, but the porch was in darkness. He rang loudly, and Fusby, the old manservant, switched on the light as he opened the door and revealed a square, oak-panelled room and the warning cards. The inner door leading to the hall was closed, but the sound of cheerful voices reached Eloquent.
Fusby stood expectant, and in spite of his imperturbable and almost benedictory manner he looked mildly surprised.
"Is Mrs Ffolliot at home?" Eloquent asked rather breathlessly.
"She is, sir," Fusby answered, but in a tone that subtly conveyed the unspoken "to some people," fixing his eyes the while on the suitcase.
"Do you think she could speak to me here?" Eloquent continued humbly.
"I think not, sir; the mistress at present is dispensing tea to the fam'ly. She does not as a rule see people at the door. Can I take a message?"
"I fear I must disturb her," said Eloquent, conscious all the time that Fusby's mild gaze was concentrated on the suit-case. "One of her sons"—for the life of him he couldn't remember the boy's ridiculous name—"has broken his arm."
"Master Buz, sir?" asked Fusby, quite unmoved by the intelligence; "it's generally 'im."
"Yes, Master Buz, and he asked me to give you this. . . . It's some things of his. I'll send for the suit-case—put it out of the way somewhere—he was dressed up . . . these are the clothes——"
"He will 'ave 'is frolic," Fusby murmured indulgently; "a very light-'earted young gentleman he is—step this way, please, sir."
Fusby opened a door behind him, and announced in the voice of one issuing an edict, "Mr Gallup."
There seemed to Eloquent crowds of people in the hall, mostly gathered about a round table near the fire. He discerned Mrs Ffolliot in the very act of "dispensing tea" and General Grantly standing on the hearthrug warming his coat tails. Mary, too, he saw give a cup of tea into her grandfather's hands, and he was conscious of the presence of Mrs Grantly seated on an oaken settle at the other side of the fire from Mrs Ffolliot. These four were clear to him as he came into the hall. There was a fire of logs in the open fireplace and a good many lights, and Eloquent, coming out of the soft darkness of that winter afternoon, felt dazzled and intolerably hot.
The four people he saw first suddenly seemed to recede to an immeasurable distance, and he became conscious of others whom he could not focus. His tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, and he was conscious that at his entrance dead silence had fallen upon the group by the fire. Then Mrs Ffolliot rose and held out a kind fair hand to him, and said something that he could not hear. Somehow he reached the succouring hand and clung to it like a drowning man, mumbling the while, "Sorry to intrude upon you, but one of your sons"—again the name eluded him—"has broken his arm, and he's in my aunt's cottage."
"Look at Ganpie's tea!" exclaimed a shrill clear voice, and the Kitten diverted attention from Eloquent to the General, who was calmly pouring the tea from his newly filled cup upon the bear-skin hearthrug, as he gazed fixedly at this bringer of ill-tidings.
Eloquent could never remember clearly what happened between the dual announcement of the accident and the spilling of the General's tea, till the moment when he found himself sitting on the settle beside Mrs Grantly with a cup of tea of his own, which Mary had poured out. Everyone else seemed to have melted away, Mrs Ffolliot to telephone to the doctor, the General to order his motor, the Kitten and Ger to the nursery, and the rest of the party to the four winds.
But he, Mrs Grantly, and Mary were still sitting at the fire, and Mary had asked him if he took sugar.
"Two lumps," he said.
"So do I," said Mary, and it seemed a most wonderful coincidence of kindred tastes.
In thinking it over afterwards it struck him that the whole family took the accident very coolly. There was no fuss, very little exclamation; and to Eloquent, sitting as a guest in that old hall where, as a small boy, he had sometimes peeped wonderingly, there came a curious feeling that either he had dreamt of this moment or that it had all happened aeons of ages ago, and that if it was a dream then Mary was in a dream too, that he had always wanted her, been conscious of her, only then she was an immense way off; vaguely beautiful and desirable, but set in a luminous haze of impossibilities, remote, apart as a star.
Now she was friendly and approachable, only a few yards away, looking across at him with frank kind eyes and the firelight shining on her bright hair.
The time seemed all too short till Mrs Ffolliot, dressed for driving, in a long fur coat, came back to tell them that the doctor was at a case five miles off, at a house where there was no telephone, and that she had arranged to take Buz into the Marlehouse Infirmary to have the arm set there, and, if necessary, he must stay there till he could be moved. . . .
"Could they drive Mr Gallup back?"
So there was nothing for it but to accompany the General and MrsFfolliot.
Mr Ffolliot did not appear at all.
General Grantly went outside with the chauffeur, and Eloquent again experienced the queer dream-like sense of doing again something he had done already as he followed Mrs Ffolliot into the motor. He had never lost his awestruck admiration for her, and it never occurred to him to sit down at her side. He was about to put down one of the little seats and sit on that, when she said, "Oh, please, sit here, Mr Gallup," and he sank into the seat beside her, confused and tremulous. Mary and Mrs Grantly had come into the porch with them, and stood there now calling out all sorts of messages and questions. The inner door stood open, and the hall shone bright behind them.
The motor purred and slid swiftly down the drive.
Mrs Ffolliot switched off the light behind her head, and Eloquent became conscious of a soft pervading scent of violets. The twenty years that lay between her first visit to his father's shop and this wonderful new nearness seemed to him but as one short link in a chain of inevitable circumstances. Like a picture thrown on a screen he saw the little boy standing at her knee, the giggling shop assistants, and his father flushed and triumphant. And he knew that through all the years he had always been sure that such a moment as this would come, when he would sit beside her as an equal and a friend. . . . And here he was, sitting with her in her father's motor, sharing the same fur rug. What was she saying?
Something kind about the trouble he had taken . . . and the motor stopped at his aunt's gate.
* * * * * *
Uz was in the midst of a large bite of plum-cake when Eloquent announced his errand. Uz hastily took another bite, and just as the Kitten drew attention to her grandfather's tea he quietly opened the door of the hall, shut it after him softly, did the same by the front door, and hatless, coatless, and in his pumps—for his boots were exceedingly dirty, and Nana had caught him and turned him back to change before tea—he started down the drive at a good swinging run. His wind was excellent, and he reached Miss Gallup's gate in about five minutes. Only once had he stopped, when the piece of cake he was carrying broke off short and dropped in the mud; he peered about for it during some four seconds, then gave it up and ran on.
The lamp was lit in Miss Gallup's sitting-room, but the blind was not pulled down. He looked in at the window and saw his brother lying on the sofa under the eiderdown, opened the front door—no one ever locks a door in Redmarley unless they go out, and then the key is always under the scraper—and walked in.
"Hullo," said Buz; "isn't this rotten?"
"Little man's just come, so I did a bunk. I didn't wait to hear his revelations about the lovely suffragette——"
"I don't believe he'll tell," Buz said; "he's not a bad little chap, he wasn't a bit shirty, helped me out of those beastly clothes and never said a word; took them with him too, so's they shouldn't be found here. I say, by the way, tell Adèle to get the jacket mended and I'll pay it whenever I can get any money. I'm frightfully sorry about that—he cut the sleeve right up to get my arm out. Who got the togs?"
"I don't know, he hadn't 'em when he came in——"
"Gave 'em to Fusby, I expect; he'll see they're properly distributed——"
"What happened, did you have a lark?"
"He rose like anything," Buz chuckled delightedly. "Chuck us your handkerchief, old chap, mine's in that coat—I'm only sorry for one thing."
"What's that?"
"I told him if he wouldn't declare for Votes for Women he'd better put up his shutters, and I know he thought I meant to rub it in about his father's shop—I didn't, it would have been beastly; but I'm certain he thought so by the way he flushed up. He's a game little beggar, he wouldn't give in, or palaver or promise. . . . Hullo, here's two more of the family——"
The two more were Reggie Peel and Grantly. The Ffolliots were not demonstrative, but they always shared good-luck or ill, therefore Reggie and Grantly made a bee-line for Miss Gallup's cottage whenever they understood what had happened. They knew nothing of Miss Buttermish, and neither of the younger boys enlightened them.
Miss Gallup returned to find her parlour full of Ffolliots; and just after her came her nephew, accompanied by General Grantly and Mrs Ffolliot, who bore Buz away in the motor to Marlehouse wrapped in a blanket and with the broken arm in a sling.
When they had all gone—the motor towards Marlehouse, the three others to the Manor—Eloquent stood at the open gate for a minute or two and then went out, shutting it after him very softly, so that neither the three walking up the road, nor his aunt waiting at her open door, should hear. Then he, too, set off in the direction of Marlehouse. He had no intention whatever of walking there, but he could not face his aunt just then, nor bear the torrent of questions and comments that he knew would submerge him.
The last hour had been for him an epoch-making, a profound experience, and he wanted, as his aunt would have said, "to squeege his orange dry."
A course of action intensely irritating to Miss Gallup, who awaited his return, after seeing the Ffolliots off, with the utmost impatience.
"Wherever could he have got to?"
Em'ly-Alice, however, was longing to be questioned, and Miss Gallup indulged her.
"How did the poor young gentleman break his arm?"
"Fell off 'is bike, 'e did, and it must 'ave bin but a minute or two after the young lady'd gone——
"Young lady! What young lady?" Miss Gallup demanded sternly.
"A young lady as come to see Mr Gallup. Miss Buttermish was 'er name;I remember it most pertikler, because I thought what a funny name."
"Buttermish, Buttermish," Miss Gallup repeated; "where did she come from?"
"That I can't tell you, Miss; I was in the kitchen polishing the teapot for your tea when there comes a knock at the door, and when I opens it, there stood the young lady. 'Can I see Mr Gallup?' she says, and knowing he was in the parlour I as't her in. She didn't stop long and no sooner was she gone than I hears Mr Gallup runnin' upstairs an' in and out, and presently 'e called out, 'Master Ffolliot's broken 'is arm,' and went off in ever such an 'urry. I see 'im run down the garden, and 'e 'ad 'is portmanteau in 'is 'and——"
"Nonsense," Miss Gallup said crossly; "what would he be doing with a portmanteau?"
"That I can't say, mum, but 'e 'ad it, and when 'e'd gone I took the lamp in to the poor young gentleman wot was lyin' all 'uddled up on the sofa—'e said 'thank you' in a muffled voice that mournful, and I made up the fire and waited a minute but 'e didn't say no more, so I come away, an' in a few minutes the 'ouse seemed chock-full o' people. Where they come from passes me——"
"Well, get tea now, as quick as you can. I can't think where Mr Gallup can have got to."
Miss Gallup lit a candle and went straight upstairs to her nephew's room. His clothes were still in the drawers as she, herself, had arranged them—but the suit-case, the smart new leather suit-case, with E. A. G. in large black letters upon its lid, was gone.
Miss Gallup sank heavily on a chair. What could it mean?
She immediately connected the advent of the strange young lady and the disappearance of her nephew's suit-case.
She took off her bonnet and cloak and did not put them away, but left them lying on her bed; a sure sign of perturbation with Miss Gallup, who was the tidiest of mortals.
She sought Em'ly-Alice in the bright little kitchen. "What was the young lady like?" she asked.
"Oh a superior young person, Miss, all in black."
"Young, was she?" Miss Gallup remarked suspiciously.
"Yes, Miss, quite young, I should say—about my own age; I couldn't see 'er face very well, but she did talk like the gentry, very soft and distinct."
"Did Mr Gallup seem pleased to see her?"
"That I couldn't say, Miss, I'm sure. I left 'em together and come out and shut the door."
Miss Gallup went back to the parlour shaking her head.
"There's a lot of them will be after him now 'e's stood for Parliament," she reflected grimly; "but I didnotthink they'd have the face to track him to his aunt's house. She's hanging about the lanes for him now I'll warrant. Miss Buttermish indeed!"
Eloquent had taken a small furnished house in Marlehouse, and was installed there with a housekeeper and manservant for the fortnight preceding the election. The Moonstone, chief, and in fact only, hotel in the town, was "blue," and although the proprietor would have been glad enough to secure Eloquent's custom, it was felt better "for all parties" that he should make his headquarters elsewhere. He worked hard and unceasingly, his agent was equally tireless, and it was only at the last that Mr Brooke's supporters awoke to the fact that if he was to represent Marlehouse again no stone should be left unturned. But it was too late: Mr Brooke, elderly, amiable, and lethargic, was quite incapable of either directing or controlling his more ardent supporters, and their efforts on his behalf were singularly devoid of tact. The Tory and Unionist ladies were grievous offenders in this respect. They started a house-to-house canvass in the town, and those possessed of carriages or motors parcelled out the surrounding villages and "did" them, their methods being the reverse of conciliatory. Indeed, had Mr Brooke in the smallest degree realised how these zealous supporters were injuring his cause, his smiling optimism would have been sadly shaken.
The day after the accident Eloquent called at Marlehouse Infirmary to ask for Buz, and was informed that the arm had been set successfully, that it was a bad break, but that the Rontgen rays had been used, and it was going on satisfactorily.
He wondered if he ought to send flowers or fruit to the invalid, but a vivid recollection of the look in Buz's eyes as he watched him pack his suit-case decided him that any such manifestation of sympathy would be unsuitable. He then, although he was so rushed that he could hardly overtake his engagements, hired a motor to drive out to the Manor House, and so hurried the chauffeur that they fell straightway into a police trap and were "warned."
He asked for Mrs Ffolliot, and Fusby blandly informed him that she was in Marlehouse with Master Buz.
"Is Miss Ffolliot at home?" Eloquent asked boldly.
"Miss Ffolliot is out huntin' with the young gentlemen," Fusby remarked stiffly.
So Eloquent was fain to get into his motor again, and quite forgot to look in on his aunt on the way back.
The night before the election there was a Liberal meeting in the Town Hall, and a certain section of the Tory party, a youthful and irresponsible section it must be confessed, had arranged to attend the meeting, and if possible bring it to nought. The ringleader in this scheme was a young man named Rabbich, whose people some years before had bought a large property in a village about four miles from Redmarley.
Mr Rabbich, senr., was an extremely wealthy man with many irons in the fire, a man so busy that he found little time to look after either his property or his family, and though he, himself, was generally declared to be a "very decent sort" with no nonsense or "side" about him, and of a praiseworthy liberality in the matter of subscriptions, his wife and children did not find equal favour either in the eyes of the villagers or those of his neighbours.
Mrs Rabbich was a foolish woman whose fetich was society with a big "S," and she idolised her only son, a rather vacuous youth who had just managed to scrape into Sandhurst.
On the night before the election then, young Rabbich gave a dinner at the Moonstone to some twenty youths of his own age, and Grantly Ffolliot was of the party. Grantly did not like young Rabbich, and as a rule steered clear of him in the hunting-field and elsewhere, though civil enough if actually brought into contact with him. But though Grantly did not like young Rabbich, he dearly loved any form of "rag," and as party feeling ran very high just then, the chance of disturbing the last Liberal meeting before the election was far too entrancing to be missed. He obtained his father's permission to go to the dinner (Mr Ffolliot was never difficult when his sons asked for permission to go from home), told his mother he would be late, obtained the key of the side door from Fusby, and quite unintentionally left his family under the impression that he was dining at the Rabbich's.
Mine host of the Moonstone provided an excellent dinner, and young Rabbich kept calling for more champagne, so that it was a very hilarious and somewhat unsteady party that presently, in a solid phalanx, got wedged in at the very back of the Town Hall, which was filled to overflowing. Twenty noisy young men in evening clothes, and all together, made a fairly conspicuous feature in the meeting, and the crowd, which was almost wholly Liberal in its sympathies, guessed they were out for trouble.
During the first couple of speeches, which were short and introductory, they were fairly quiet, only indulging in occasional derisive comments. When Eloquent arose to address the meeting he was greeted by such a storm of cheering from his supporters, as quite drowned the hisses and cat-calls of the "knuts" at the back of the hall.
But when he started to speak, their interruptions were incessant, irrelevant, and in the case of young Rabbich, offensive.
Eloquent, who was long-sighted, clearly perceived Grantly Ffolliot, flushed, with rumpled hair and gesticulating arms, in the group at the back of the hall. Young Rabbich, whose father had made the greater part of his money in butter and bacon, kept urging Eloquent to "go back to the shop," inquired the present price of socks and pyjamas, and whether the clothes he wore just then were made in Germany?
Eloquent saw Grantly Ffolliot frown and say something to his companion as young Rabbich continued his questions, and then quite suddenly the whole of that end of the hall was in a turmoil, and one by one the interrupters were hauled from their seats and forcibly ejected from the meeting, in spite of desperate resistance on their part. After that, peace was restored, and Eloquent continued his speech amidst the greatest enthusiasm.
His supporters cheered him to his house, and then departed to parade the town, while their band played "Hearts of Oak," the chosen war-song of the "Yallows." Meanwhile the Rabbich party had returned to the Moonstone to compare their bruises and to get more drinks, and then they sallied forth again to join a "Blue" procession, headed by a band that played "Bonnie Dundee," which is the battle-cry of the Blues.
The rival bands met, the rival processions met and locked, and there was a regular shindy. Eloquent, very tired and rather depressed, as a man usually is on the eve of any great struggle, heard the distant tumult and the shouting, and thought he had better go out and see what was afoot.
He had hardly got outside his own front door, which was in a little-frequented street not far from the police-station, when he saw two policemen on either side of a hatless, dishevelled, and unsteady youth, who held one of them affectionately by the arm while the other held him.
Another glance and he perceived that the hatless one was GrantlyFfolliot.
"Hullo!" cried Eloquent, "what's to do here?"
"Gentleman very disorderly, sir, throwing stones at windows of your committee-room, fighting and brawling, and resisted violently—so we're taking him to the station."
"He seems quiet enough now," Eloquent suggested.
Grantly smiled at him sleepily. "Good chaps, policemen," he murmured; "fine beefy chaps."
"Look here," said Eloquent, "I'd much prefer you didn't charge him. His people are well known; it will only create ill-feeling. I'll look after him if you leave him with me."
The policemen looked at one another. . . . "Of course," said the one to whom Grantly clung so lovingly, "we couldn't swear as it was him who threw the stones, though he was among them as did."
"He's only a boy," Eloquent continued, "and he's drunk . . . it would be a pity to make a public example of him . . . just now—don't you think?—If you could oblige me in this . . . I'm very anxious that the election should be fought with as little ill-feeling as possible."
Something changed hands.
"What about the other young gentlemen, sir?" asked the younger policeman.
"With the other young gentlemen," Eloquent said ruthlessly, "you can deal exactly as you please, but if it can be managed don't charge any of them."
With difficulty policeman number one detached himself from Grantly's embrace and handed him over to Eloquent.
"Good-bye, old chap," Grantly called fondly as his late prop departed, "when I'm as heavy as you, you won't cop me so easy—eh, what?"
Eloquent took the boy firmly by the arm and led him in. His steps were uncertain and his speech was thick, but he was quite biddable, and brimming over with loving kindness for all the world.
Eloquent took him into the sitting-room and placed him in a large arm-chair. Grantly pushed his hair off his forehead and gazed about the room in rather bewildered fashion, at the round table strewn with papers, at the tray with a glass of milk and plate of sandwiches standing on the bare little sideboard, at his pale, fagged host, who stood on the hearthrug looking down at him.
As he met Eloquent's stern gaze he smiled sweetly at him, and he was so like Mary when he smiled that Eloquent turned his eyes away in very shame. It seemed sacrilege even to think of her in connection with anything so degraded and disgusting as Grantly's state appeared to him at that moment. His Nonconformist conscience awoke and fairly shouted at him that he should have interfered to prevent the just retribution that had overtaken this miserable misguided boy . . . but he was her brother; he was the son of that gracious lady who was set as a fixed star in the firmament of his admirations; he could not hold back when there was a chance of saving him from this disgrace. For to be charged with being "drunk and disorderly" in the Police Court appeared to Eloquent just then as the lowest depths of ignominy.
"Now what in the world," he asked presently, "am I to do with you? You can't go home in that state."
"Bed, my dear chap, bed's what I'm for, . . . so sleepy, can hardly hold up my head . . . any shake-down'll do——"
Grantly's head fell back against the chair, and he closed his eyes in proof of his somnolence.
"All right," said Eloquent, "you come with me."
With some difficulty he got Grantly upstairs and into his own room. Before the meeting he had told the servants they need not sit up for him; his own was the only other bed made up in the house. Grantly lay down upon it, muddy boots and all, and turned sideways with a sigh of satisfaction; but just before he settled off he opened his eyes and said warningly:
"I say, if I was you I wouldn't go about with young Rabbich—he's a wrong 'un—you may take it from me, he really is—he'll do you no good—Don't you be seen about with him."
"Thank you," Eloquent said dryly, "I will follow your advice."
"That's right," Grantly murmured, "never be 'bove taking advice."
And in another minute he was fast asleep. Eloquent covered him with a railway rug, thinking grimly the while that it seemed to have become his mission in life to cover up prostrated Ffolliots.
He went downstairs, made up the fire, and lay down on the hard sofa in his dining-room, and slept an intermittent feverish sleep, in which dreadful visions of Mary between two policemen, mingled with the declaration of the poll, which proclaimed Mr Brooke to have been elected member for Marlehouse by an enormous majority.
At six o'clock he got up. In half an hour his servants would be stirring, and Grantly must be got out of the house before they appeared.
He went to the kitchen, got a little teapot and cups, and made some tea. Then he went to rouse Grantly.
This was difficult, as he couldn't raise his voice very much because of the servants, and Grantly was sleeping heavily. At last, by a series of shakes and soft punches, he succeeded in making him open his eyes. Eloquent had already turned up the gas, and the room was full of light.
There is a theory extant that a man shows his real character when he is suddenly aroused out of sleep. That if he is naturally surly, he will be surly then; if he is of an amiable disposition, he is good-natured then.
Grantly sat up with a start and swung his feet off the bed. "Mr Gallup," he said very gently, "I can't exactly remember what I'm doing here, but I do apologise."
"That's all right," Eloquent said awkwardly. "I thought perhaps you'd like to get home before the servants were about, and it's six o'clock. Come and have a cup of tea."
"May I wash my face?" Grantly asked meekly.
This accomplished, he went downstairs and drank the cup of tea Eloquent had provided for him. His host lent him a bicycle and speeded him on his way. At the door Grantly paused to say in a mumbling voice: "I don't know, sir, why you've been so awfully decent to me, but will you remember this? that if ever I can do anything for you, it would be very generous of you to tell me—will you remember this?"
"I will remember," said Eloquent.
As Grantly rode away Eloquent was filled with self-reproach, for he had not said one word either of warning or rebuke, and he had been brought up to believe in the value of "the word in season."
Grantly pedalled as hard as he could through the dark deserted roads, and though his head was racking and he felt, as he put it, "like nothing on earth," he covered the five miles between Marlehouse and Redmarley in under half an hour. He went round to the side door and felt for the key, as he hoped to slip in without meeting any of the servants who were, he saw by stray lights, just astir.
That key was nowhere to be found.
He tried every pocket in his overcoat, his tail coat, his white waistcoat, his trousers, all in vain. That key was gone; lost!
There was nothing for it but to try Mary's window. Parker slept in her room, but Parker would never bark at any member of the family. All the bedroom windows at Redmarley were lattice, and Mary's, at the back of the house on the first floor, stood open about a foot.
"Parker," Grantly called softly, "Parker, old chap, rouse her up and ask her to let me in."
An old wistaria grew under the window with thick knotted stems. Grantly climbed up this, and although it was very dark he was aware of something dimly white at the window. Parker, much longer in the leg than any well-bred fox-terrier has a right to be, was standing on his hind legs thrusting his head out in silent welcome.
"Go and rouse her up, old chap," Grantly whispered. "I want her to open the window wide enough for me to get through."
All the windows at the Manor House, open or shut, had patent catches that it was impossible to undo from the outside.
He heard Parker jump on Mary's bed and probably lick her face, then a sleepy "What is it, old dog, what's the matter?" and a soft movement as Mary raised herself on her elbow and switched on the light.
"Mary," in a penetrating whisper, "let me in, I've lost that confounded key."
In a moment Mary was over at the window, undid the catches, and Grantly scrambled through.
"Grantly!" Mary exclaimed. "What on earth is the matter? You look awful."
Grantly caught sight of himself in her long glass and agreed with her.
He was covered with mud from head to foot, his overcoat was torn, his white tie was gone, his beautiful smooth hair, with the neat ripple at the temples, stood on end in ragged locks; in fact he was as unlike the "Knut" of ordinary life as he could well be.
"Get into bed, Mary," he said, "you'll catch cold . . ."
Mary, looking very tall in her straight white nightgown, turned slowly and got into bed. "Now tell me," she said.
Grantly went and sat at the end of her bed and Parker joined him, cuddling up against him and trying to lick his face. It mattered nothing to Parker that he was ragged and dirty and disreputable; nothing that he might have committed any crime in the rogues' calendar. He was one of the family, he was home, he had evidently been in trouble, he needed comfort, therefore Parker made much of him. Grantly felt this and was vaguely cheered.
"Now," said Mary again, and switched off the light; "you can have the eiderdown if you're cold."
"Well, if you must know," said Grantly, "we went to the Radical meeting and got chucked out."
"Who went? I thought you were dining with the Rabbiches."
"NottheRabbiches,aRabbich, and an insufferable bounder at that; but he gave us a jolly good dinner, champagne flowed."
"And you got drunk? Oh, Grantly!"
"Well, no; I shouldn't describe it thus crudely—like the Irishman, I prefer to say 'having drink taken.'"
"Well, 'having drink taken'—then?"
"After we were chucked out for interrupting (itwasa rag) we went back to the Moonstone."
"To the Moonstone," Mary repeated; "why there?"
"Because we dined there, my dear. Young Rabbich gave the feast; it was all arranged beforehand. We meant to spoil that meeting, but we began too soon, and they were too strong for us, and . . . he's an ass, and shouted out all sorts of things he shouldn't—we deserved what we got."
"And then?"
"I'm not very clear what happened then, except that there was the most tremendous shindy in the street, and fur was flying like anything, and the next I know was two bobbies had got me, and your friend Gallup squared them and took me home and put me to bed . . . and here I am."
"Mr Gallup," Mary repeated incredulously; "you've been to bed in his house?"
"You've got it, my sister; lay on his bed just as I am . . . and he woke me at six and sent me home on his bicycle."
"But why—why should he have interfered? I should have thought he'd have beengladfor you to be taken up, interrupting his meeting and being on the other side . . . and everything."
"Well, anyway, that's what he did, and whatever his motives may have been it was jolly decent of him . . . and . . ." here Grantly lowered his voice to the faintest mumble, "he never said a word of reproof or exhortation . . . I tell you he behaved like a gentleman. What's to be done?"
"Nothing," said Mary decidedly. "You've played the fool, and by the mercy of Providence you've got off uncommonly cheap. It would worry mother horribly if she knew, and as for father . . . well you know whathethinks of people who can't carry their liquor like gentlemen, and grandfather too . . . and . . . oh, Grantly—father's not going South till the very end of January; he decided to-night that as the weather was so mild he'd wait till then. So it wouldneverdo if it was to come out, your life would be unbearable, all of our lives; he'd say it was the Grantly strain coming out—you know how he blames every bit of bad in us on mother's people."
"I know," groaned Grantly, "I know."
"Well, anyway," Mary said in quite a different tone, "there's one thing we've got to remember, and that is we must be uncommonly civil to that young man if we happen to meet him—he's put us under an obligation."
"I know . . . I know, that's what I feel, and I shall never have an easy minute till I've done something for him . . . and I don't see anything I can do with the pater like he is and all. Isn't it abeastlystate of things?"
In the darkness Mary leant forward and stroked the tousled head bent down over Parker.
"Poor old boy," she said softly, "poor old boy," and Parker licked something that tasted salt off the end of his nose.
When Grantly left his sister's room Parker went with him.
* * * * * *
Eloquent's housekeeper found the missing key under his bed, and he sent it out to the Manor House that morning, addressed to Grantly, in a sealed envelope by special messenger.
In the evening the poll was declared in Marlehouse, and the Liberal candidate was elected by a majority of three hundred and forty-nine votes.
The result of the election was no surprise to the defeated party. The honest among them acknowledged that they deserved to be beaten, and they felt no personal rancour against Eloquent.
If Marlehouse was unfortunate enough to be represented by a Radical, they preferred that the Radical should be a Marlehouse man and not some "carpet-bagger" imported from South Wales. Eloquent's bearing, both during the contest and afterwards, was acknowledged to be modest and "suitable." If he was lacking in geniality and address, he was, at all events, neither bumptious nor servile. His lenity towards the youths who had done their best to break up his meeting and wreck his committee rooms had leaked out, and gained for him, if not friends, at least toleration among several leading Conservatives who had been his bitterest opponents.
Mary, Grantly, and Buz Ffolliot all felt a sneaking satisfaction that hehadgot in. A satisfaction they in no wise dared to express, for Mr Ffolliot was really much upset at the result of the election; feeling it something of a personal insult that one so closely associated with a ready-made clothes' shop, a shop in his own nearest town, should represent him in Parliament. Mr Ffolliot would have preferred the "carpet-bagger."
Mary, who cared as little as she knew about politics, was pleased. Because Eloquent had been "decent" to Grantly, she was glad he had got what he wanted, though why he should ardently desire that particular thing she did not attempt to understand. Grantly was sincerely grateful to Eloquent for getting him out of what would undoubtedly have been a most colossal row, had any hint of his conduct at Marlehouse on the eve of the election reached his father's ears.
Neither Grantly nor Mary knew anything of the Miss Buttermish episode. For Buz, since the accident, was basking in the sympathy of his family, and had no intention of diverting the stream of favours that flowed over him by any revelations they might not wholly approve. Buz, therefore, had his own reasons, unshared by anyone but Uz (who was silent as the grave in all that concerned his twin), for gratitude to Eloquent. Grantly and Buz unconsciously shared a rather unwilling admiration for the little, common-looking man who could do a good turn and hold his tongue, evidently expecting neither recognition nor remembrance. For Eloquent expected neither, and yet he could not forget the real earnestness of Grantly Ffolliot's parting words.
Could such a foolish youth be trusted to mean what he said? or was it only the surface courtesy that seemed to come so easily to the "classes" Eloquent still regarded with mistrust and suspicion?
He longed to test Grantly Ffolliot.
An opportunity came sooner than he expected. Parliament did not meet till the end of the month, and although he went to London a good deal on varied business, he kept on the little house in his native town, wrote liberal cheques for all the charities, opened a Baptist bazaar, and generally did his duty according to his lights and the instructions of his agent.
In the third week of January he was asked to "kick off" at a "soccer" match to be held in Marlehouse. This was rather an event, as two important teams from a distance were for some reason or other to play there. The Marlehouse folk played "Rugger" as a rule, but this match was regarded in the light of a curiosity; people would come in from miles round, and hordes of mechanics would flock over from Garchester, the county town. It was considered quite a big sporting event, and his agent informed Eloquent that a great honour had been done him.
Eloquent appeared duly impressed and accepted the invitation.
Then it occurred to him that never in his life had he seen a football match of any kind.
Games were not compulsory at the Grammar School, and Eloquent had no natural inclination to play them. When a little boy he had generally gone for a walk with his father or his aunt on a half-holiday. As he grew older he either attended extra classes at the science school or read for himself notable books bearing upon the political history of the last fifty years. Games had no place in his scheme of existence. His father, most certainly, had never played games and had no desire that Eloquent should do so; as for going to watch other people play them—such a proceeding would have been dismissed by the elder Mr Gallup as "foolhardy nonsense." Serious-minded men had no time for such frivolity.
Nevertheless it became increasingly evident to Eloquent that a large number of his constituents—whether they actually took part in what he persisted in calling "these pastimes" or not—were very keenly interested in watching others do so, and Eloquent was consumed by anxiety as to how he was to discover what it was he was expected to do.
There were plenty of his political supporters who were not only able but would have been most willing to solve his difficulty, but he dreaded the inevitable confession of his ignorance. They would be kind enough, he was sure of that, but would they make game of his ignorance afterwards? Would theytalk?
He was pretty sure they would.
Eloquent hated talk. Grantly and Buz Ffolliot had each recognised and admired that quality in him, and it is possible that he had vaguely discerned a kindred reticence in these feather-brained boys.
He distrusted all his political allies in Marlehouse in this matter of the kick-off.
Why then should Grantly Ffolliot occur to him as a person able and likely to help him in this dilemma?
He was pretty sure that Grantly played football. Soldiers did these things, and Grantly was going to be a soldier. A soldier, in Eloquent's mind, epitomised all that was useless, idle, luxurious, and destructive. Mr Gallup and his friends had disapproved of the Transvaal War; our reverses did not affect them personally, for they had no friends at the front, and our long-deferred victories left them cold. The flame of Eloquent's enthusiasm was fanned at school, only to be quenched at home by the wet blanket of his father's disapproval. Sturdy Miss Gallup snapped at them both, and knitted helmets and mittens and sent socks and handkerchiefs and cocoa to the Redmarley men in South Africa; and her brother gave her the socks and handkerchiefs out of stock, but under protest.
Eloquent knew no soldiers, either officers or in the ranks. He had been taught to look upon the private as almost always drawn from the less reputable of the working classes, and although he acknowledged that officers might, some of them, be hard-working and intelligent, he was inclined to regard them with suspicion.
Suppose he did ask Grantly Ffolliot about this ridiculous kick-off, andGrantly went about making fun of him afterwards?
"Then I shall know," he said to himself. All the same it appeared to him that Grantly Ffolliot was the only possible persontoask.
It came about quite easily. One morning he was coming down the steps of the bank in Marlehouse and saw Grantly on horseback waiting at the curb till someone should turn up to hold his horse while he went in. He had ridden in to cash a cheque for his mother. The main street was very empty and no available loafer was to be seen.
As Grantly caught sight of Eloquent descending the steps he smiled his charming smile. "Hullo, I've never seen you since the election. Heartiest grats," the boy called cheerily. Eloquent went up to him and held out his hand. He looked up and down the street, no one was within earshot. "I've a favour to ask you, Mr Ffolliot," he said in a low tone, "but you must promise to refuse at once if you have any objection."
Grantly leant down to him, smiling more broadly than ever. "That's awfully decent of you," he said, and he meant it.
Again Eloquent cast an anxious look up and down the street. "They've asked me to kick-off at the match on Saturday, and . . . you'll think me extraordinarily ignorant . . . I've no idea what one does. Can I learn in the time?"
Eloquent's always rosy face was almost purple with the effort he had made.
Grantly, on the contrary, appeared quite unmoved. He fixed his eyes on his horse's left ear and said easily: "It's the simplest thing in the world. All we want is a field and a ball, and we've got both at home. At least . . . not a soccer ball—but I don't think that matters. When will you come?"
"When may I come?"
"Meet me this afternoon in the field next but one behind the church.There's never anyone there, and we'll fix it up."
"All right," said Eloquent. "Many thanks . . . I suppose you think it very absurd?" he added nervously.
This time Grantly did not look at Mafeking's left ear, he looked straight into Eloquent's uplifted eyes, saying slowly:
"I don't see that I'm called upon to think anything about it. You've done another kind thing in asking me. Why should you think I don't see it?"
And in spite of himself Eloquent mumbled, "I beg your pardon."
"This afternoon then, at three-thirty sharp—good-day."
A loafer hurried up at this moment and Grantly swung off his horse and ran up the steps into the bank.
Eloquent looked after the graceful figure in the well-cut riding clothes and sighed—
"If I'd been like himself he'd have asked me to hold his horse while he went in, but things being as they are, he wouldn't," he reflected bitterly.
* * * * * *
Only one belonging to a large family knows how difficult it is to do anything by one's self.
That afternoon it seemed to Grantly that each member of the Manor House party wanted him for something, and he offended every one of them by ungraciously refusing to accompany each one in turn.
His mother and Mary were driving into Marlehouse and wanted him to come and hold the horse while they went into the different shops, but he excused himself on the score of his morning's errand, and Uz was told off for the duty, greatly to his disgust. Reggie asked Grantly to ride with him, but Grantly complained of fatigue, and Reggie, who knew perfectly well that the excuse was invalid, called him a slacker and started forth huffily alone, mentally animadverting on the "edge" displayed by the new type of cadet.
Nearly ten years' service gave Reggie the right to talk regretfully of the stern school he had been brought up in.
Ger, on the previous day, had been sent to his grandparents at Woolwich "by command"; and the Kitten was going with Thirza to a children's party. She was therefore made to lie down for an hour after lunch—so she was disposed of. There remained only Buz, and Buz was on the prowl seeking someone to amuse him. His arm was still in a sling and he expected sympathy. He shadowed Grantly till nearly half-past three, when that gentleman appeared in the back passage clad in sweater and shorts, with a Rugger ball under his arm.
"Hullo," cried Buz, "where are you off to?"
"I'm going to practise drop-kicks . . . by myself," Grantly answered grumpily.
"Why can't I come? I could kick even if I can't use this beastly arm."
"No, it's too cold for you to stand about."
"Bosh; I can wrap myself in a railway rug if it comes to that."
"It needn't come to that. You go for a sharp walk or else take a book and amuse yourself. I must be off."
"Well youarea selfish curmudgeon," Buz exclaimed in real astonishment. "Why this sudden passion for solitude?"
Grantly banged the door in Buz's face, regardless of the warning cards, and set off to run. Buz opened the door and looked after him, noted the direction, nodded his head thrice and nipped upstairs to Grantly's room, where he abstracted his field-glasses from their case hanging on a peg behind the door. He hung them round his neck by the short black strap, tied a sweater over his shoulders, and went out by the side door in quite a different direction from that taken by his brother.
* * * * * *
Oblivious of the surgeon's strict injunctions that he was on no account to run or risk a fall of any kind, holding the glasses with his free hand so that they shouldn't drag on his neck, directly he was clear of the house he broke into the swinging steady trot that had won him the half-mile under fifteen in the last school sports; climbed two gates and jumped a ditch, finally arriving at the top of a small hill, the very highest point on the Manor property. From this eminence he surveyed the country round, and speedily, without the aid of the field-glasses, discerned his brother kicking a football well into the centre of the field, while the Liberal member for Marlehouse ran after it and tried somewhat feebly to kick it back.
"Well I'm jiggered!" Buz exclaimed in breathless astonishment; "so he knows him too. Whatever are they playing at?"
He fixed the field-glasses, watching intently, then dropped them and rubbed his eyes, took them up again and gazed fixedly, and so absorbed was he that he positively leapt into the air when he heard his father's voice close beside him asking mildly, "What are you watching so intently, Hilary?"
The lovely winter afternoon had tempted Mr Ffolliot out. Usually Mrs Ffolliot accompanied him on his rare walks, but this afternoon he only decided to go out after she had left for Marlehouse. Like Buz, he sought the highest point of his estate, in his case that he might complacently survey its many acres.
Buz dropped the glasses so that they hung by their strap and swung round, facing his father with his back to the distant figures with the football, seized the glasses again and gazed into the copse, exclaiming eagerly, "A fox, sir; perhaps you could see him if you're quick," pulled the strap over his head, gave the glasses a dextrous twist, entirely destroying their focus, and handed them to his father, who fiddled about for some time before he could see anything at all.
"A fox," Mr Ffolliot repeated, "in the copse. We had better go and warn Willets to look out for his ducks and chickens."
"I don't suppose he'll stay, sir, but perhaps it would be as well.Shall I take the glasses, father, they're rather heavy?"
But Mr Ffolliot had got them focussed and was leisurely surveying the distant scene; gradually turning so that in another moment he would bear directly on the field where Grantly and Eloquent were now to be seen standing in earnest conversation.
"There he is," shouted the mendacious Buz, seizing his father by the arm so violently that he almost knocked him down, "over there towards the house; don't you see him? a big dog fox with a splendid brush——"
Imperceptibly Buz had propelled his father down the slope on the side farthest from his brother.
"My dear Hilary," Mr Ffolliot exclaimed, straightening his hat, which had become disarranged in the violence of his son's impact, "one would think no one had ever seen a fox before; why be so excited about it?"
"But didn't you see him, sir?" Buz persisted. "There he goes close by the garden wall; oh, do look."
Mr Ffolliot looked for all he was worth. He twiddled the glasses and put them out of focus, but naturally he failed to behold the mythical fox which was the product of his offspring's fertile brain.
They were at the bottom of the slope now, and Buz gave a sigh of relief.
"I thought I saw two youths in the five-acre field," Mr Ffolliot remarked presently; "what were they doing?"
"Practising footer, I fancy," Buz said easily, thankful that at last he could safely speak the truth.
"Ah," said Mr Ffolliot, "it is extraordinary what a lot of time the working classes seem able to spend upon games nowadays. Still, I'm always glad they should play rather than merely watch. It is that watching and not doing that saps the moral as well as the physical strength of the nation."
"It's Thursday, you see, father—early closing," Buz suggested.
"Well, well, I'm glad they should have their game. Shall we stroll round and have a look at them?"
"Oh I wouldn't, if I were you, father, they'd stop directly. These village chaps are always so shy. It would spoil their afternoon."
"Would it?" Mr Ffolliot asked dubiously; "would it? I should have thought they would have found encouragement in the fact that their Squire took an interest in their sports."
"I don't think so," Buz said decidedly; "they hate to be looked at when they're practising."
"Very well, very well, if you think so," Mr Ffolliot said with surprising meekness; "we'll go and see Willets instead, and tell him about that fox."
"I don't think I'd bother him, the fox is miles away by now."
"Well, where shall we go?" Mr Ffolliot demanded testily; "I've come out to walk with you, and you do nothing but object to every direction I propose."
"Let us," said Buz, praying for inspiration, "let us go straight on till we come to a cleaner bit."
Mr Ffolliot looked ruefully at his boots. "It is wet," he remarked, "mind you don't slip with that arm of yours."
"Shall I take the glasses, father?" Buz asked politely.
"Yes, do, though I'm not sure that I wholly approve of Grantly lending these expensive glasses to you younger ones. I must speak to him about it."
Buz sighed heavily.
* * * * * *
Just once more did Eloquent see Mary before Parliament met. It was in a shop in Marlehouse the day after he had received his lesson in kicking off, and he was buying ties. Eloquent was critical about ties, he had by long apprenticeship penetrated to the true inwardness of their importance, and this afternoon he was very difficult to please. Many boxes were laid upon the counter before him, the counter was strewn with "neckwear," and yet he had only found one to his liking. While the assistant was away seeking others from distant shelves, Eloquent busied himself in arranging the scattered ties carefully in their proper boxes. For him it was a perfectly natural thing to do, but he happened to look into the mirror that faced the counter, and in it he beheld Mary Ffolliot seated at the counter behind him, and she was watching him with fascinated interest. Buz was with her and they were buying socks. Eloquent's deft hands dropped to his sides and he turned furiously red. For no one knew better than he that it is not usual for a customer to arrange goods in a shop.
The young lady in the mirror had discreetly turned her head away, the assistant came back, Eloquent bought two ties without having the least idea what they were like, and then he heard a voice behind him saying, "How do you do, Mr Gallup—we've not seen you since the election to congratulate you," and Mary was standing at his side holding out her hand.
He shook hands with Mary, he shook hands with Buz, he mumbled something incoherent, and they were gone.
The Liberal member for Marlehouse rushed from the shop in an opposite direction without taking or paying for his ties, and the astute assistant packed them up, having added three that Eloquent did not buy, for the good of the trade.
The holidays had started badly, there was no doubt about that. All the young Ffolliots were agreed about it. First Buz broke his arm on Boxing-day. That was upsetting in itself, and Buz, as an invalid, was a terrible nuisance. Then the Ganpies had to return to Woolwich much sooner than they had expected: another matter for gloom and woe. And finally came the crushing intelligence that Mr Ffolliot did not intend to start for his oasis till the beginning of February, after the twins had gone back to school and Grantly to the Shop. And this was considered the very limit. Fate had done its worst.
No party: no relaxation of the rules as to absence of noise and presence of perfect regularity and punctuality at meals: no cheerful gathering together of neighbouring families for all sorts of junkettings; in fact, none of the usual features of the last fortnight of the Christmas holidays. And yet, in looking back afterwards, the young Ffolliots, with, perhaps, the exception of the unfortunate Buz, would have confessed that on the whole they had had rather a good time. Mary, in particular, would have owned frankly, had she been asked, that she had never enjoyed a holiday more.
For one thing, the big boys had been "so nice to her," and by "the big boys" she meant Grantly and Reggie Peel.
She and Grantly had always been great allies. When they were little they did everything together, for the three and a half years that separated Mary from the twins seemed, till they should all get into the twenties, an immeasurable distance. But Grantly hitherto had been no more polite and considerate than the average brother. He was both critical and plain-spoken, and poor Mary had suffered many things at his hands . . . till this holiday; and it never occurred to her that this agreeable change in Grantly's attitude might be due to some alteration in herself rather than in him.
Mary was far too interested in life with a big "L" to waste any time upon self-analysis or introspection. Neither she nor Grantly had ever referred to the night of young Rabbich's dinner at the Moonstone, but since that night she had been distinctly conscious of a slightly more respectful quality in his manner towards her. The tendency was indefinable, illusive, but it was there, and simple-minded Mary only reflected gratefully that Grantly was "growing up awfully nice."
Regarding Reggie Peel, however, she did venture to think that she must be rather more attractive than she used to be; and complacently attributed his new gentleness to the fact that she had put up her hair since she last saw him.
Gentleness was by no means one of Reggie's chief characteristics. He was ruthless where his own ends were concerned, tirelessly hard working, amusing, and of a caustic tongue: a cheerful pessimist who expected the very least of his fellow-creatures, until such time as they had given some proof that he might expect more. Yet there were a favoured few, a very few, whom he took for granted thankfully, and Mary had long known that her mother was one of those few. Lately she had realised with a startled thrill of gratification that she, too, had stepped out of the rank and file to take her place among those chosen ones, for Reggie had confided to her a secret that none of the others, not even her mother, knew.
Among the many serious periodicals of strictly Imperial tone that Mr Ffolliot read, was one that from time to time indulged its readers with exceptionally well-written short stories. Quite recently a couple of these stories had dealt with military subjects, and were signed "Ubique." The stories were striking, strong, and evidently from the pen of one who knew his ground. Mr Ffolliot admired them, and graciously drew the attention of his family to them. One had appeared in the January number, and Mrs Ffolliot and Mary fell foul of it because it was too painful. They thought it pitiless, even savage, in its inexorable disregard of the individual and deification of the Cause. Grantly, of course, upheld the writer. The male of the species prides itself on inhumanity in youth. Mr Ffolliot approved the story from the artistic standpoint, and the General defended it on the score of its absolute truth. Reggie, quite contrary to custom, gave no opinion at all till he was asked by Mary, one day when they were riding together.
As she expected, he defended the writer's stern realism. But what she did not expect was that he seemed to make a personal matter of it, almost imploring her to see eye to eye with him, which she wholly failed to do.
"I think he must be a terribly hard man, that 'Ubique,'" she said at last, "with no toleration or compassion. He talks as though incompetence were an unpardonable crime."
"So it is; if you undertake a job you ought to see that you're fit to carry it out."
"You can't always be sure. . . . You may do your best and . . . fail."
"I grant you some people's best is a very poor best, but in this case the man let a flabby humanitarianism take the place of his judgment, and he caused far more misery in the end. Can't you see that?"
"All the same," Mary said decidedly, "I wouldn't like to fall into the hands of that man, the Ubique man I mean, not the failure. He must be a cold-blooded wretch, or he couldn't write such things. It makes me shudder."
And Mary shivered as she spoke.
"He must be a beast," she added.
They were walking their horses along the turf at the side of the road skirting the woods. Reggie pulled up and Mary stopped also a little in front.
"Got a stone?" she asked carelessly.
Reggie did not answer or dismount, and she turned in her saddle to look at him, to meet his crooked, whimsical smile. Suddenly he dropped his reins and beat his breast, exclaiming melodramatically: "And Nathan said unto David, 'Thou art the man.'"
"What on earth do you mean?" Mary asked, bewildered. "What man? do you mean you'd behave like the man in the story, or you wouldn't, or . . . Oh, Reggie, you don't mean to say you wrote it yourself?"
"You have spoken."
"You must be awfully clever!" Mary ejaculated with awe-struck admiration.
"My cleverness will not be of much comfort to me if you persist in your wrong-headed opinion that the man who wrote that story is a beast."
"Oh, that's different. I know you, you see, and you're not a beast.You aren't really like that."
"But I am. That's the real me. It is truly; the real, deep-down me, the me that's worth anything."
"No," said Mary, shaking her head, "I don't believe it; youhavesome consideration for other people."
"Not in that sense; if there was anything, any big thing, I had to put through—no one should stand in my way. And it's the same with anything I want very much. I go straight for it, and it matters nothing to me who gets knocked down on the route . . . and so you'll find," Reggie added very low.
They were looking each other straight in the face, Mary a little breathless and wondering: "And so you'll find," Reggie repeated a little louder, and there was a look in his eyes that caused Mary to drop hers, and she rode on.
Reggie caught her up.
"Are you sorry, Mary?" he asked gently.
"About what?"
"Well . . . about everything. The story, and my ferocious mental attitude, and all the rest of it."
He laid his hand on her horse's neck, and leaned forward to look in her face. They were riding very close together, and Mary was too near the hedge to put more distance between them.
"I can't be sorry you write so well," she said slowly, "it is very exciting—is the news for publication or not?"
"I'd be grateful if you'd say nothing as yet—you see I've only done these two, and what's a couple of short stories? Besides, it's not really my job, only it's amusing, and one can rub it in that way, and reach a larger class than by the strictly military article—no one knows anything about it except the editor ofThe Point of View—and you—I'd rather you didn't mention it, if you don't mind."
"Of course I shan't mention it, but I shall look out for 'Ubique' with much greater interest."
"And still think him a beast?"
"That depends on what he writes."
"I'm not so much concerned about what you think of Ubique as that you should remember that I mean what I say."
"You say a good many absurd things."
"Yes, but this is not absurd—when I want a thing very much . . ."
"Oh, you needn't say all that again. Be a silent, strong man like the heroes in Seton Merriman, they're much the best kind."
"I'm not particularly silent, but I flatter myself that . . ."
"It's a shame to crawl over this lovely grass—come on and have a canter," said Mary.
That night Reggie Peel sat long by his bedroom fire. The bedroom fire was a concession to his acknowledged grown-upness. The young Ffolliots were allowed no bedroom fires. Only when suffering from bad colds or in the very severest weather was a fire granted to any child out of the nursery. But Reggie, almost a captain now, was popular with the servants, especially with the stern Sophia, head-housemaid, and she decreed that he had reached the status of a visitor, and must, therefore, have a fire in his bedroom at night. He sat before it now, swinging the poker which had just stirred it to a cheerful blaze. He had carefully switched off the light, for they were very economical of the electric light at Redmarley. It had cost such a lot to put in.
Five years ago he and General Grantly between them had supervised its installation, and the instruction of the head-gardener in the management of the dynamo-room; each going up and down, as often as they could get away, to share the discomfort with Mrs Ffolliot, and look after the men. Mrs Grantly was, for once, almost satisfied, for she had carried off all the available children. Mr Ffolliot had decreed that the work should be done while he was in the South of France, and expressed a strong desire that all should be in order before his return; and it was finished, for he stayed away seven weeks.
And Reggie sat remembering all this, five years ago; and how just before the children were sent to their grandmother Mary used to want to sit on his knee, and how he would thrust her off with insulting remarks as to her weight and her personal appearance generally.
She was a good deal heavier now, he reflected, and yet—
Reggie had come to the parting of the ways, and had decided which he would follow.
Like most ambitious young men he had, so far, taken as his motto a couplet, which, through over-usage, has become a platitude—
"High hopes faint on a warm hearth-stone,He travels the fastest who travels alone."
Reggie had accepted this as an incontrovertible truth impossible to dispute; but then he had never until lately felt the smallest desire to travel through life accompanied by any one person. He had fallen in and out of love as often as was wholesome or possible for so hard-working a young man, and always looked upon the experience as an agreeable relaxation, as it undoubtedly is. But never for one moment did he allow such evanescent attachments to turn him a hair's breadth out of his course. Now something had happened to him, and he knew that for the future the platitude had become a lie, and that the only incentive either to high hopes or their fulfilment lay in the prospect of a hearth-stone shared by the girl who a few hours ago declared that she "would not like to fall into that man's hands."