"I'm always a bit wakeful when the fly's up, sir; the river seems to draw me, and I can't leave it."
"Have a cigar," said Reggie, and sat down beside him.
They smoked in silence for a few minutes till Willets said—
"Seen anything of Miss Mary up there, sir?"
"No, Willets, I haven't been able to get away for a minute till now, but I may manage to run down to Woolwich next week just to buck to the General about my catch. You'll have him down then post haste—I bet——"
"I suppose, sir," said Willets, with studied carelessness, "you never happened to come across the young man that's member for these parts?"
"What, young Gallup? I believe I saw him once. He's making quite a name for himself I hear, his maiden speech was in all the papers. By the way though, Ididhear of him the other day in a letter I had from Miss Mary. They'd all been to dine at the House of Commons with him, and had no end of a time."
"Well Iamdamned!" said Willets.
He said it seriously, almost devoutly, and Reggie turned right round to stare at him.
"I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure, but I really was fairly flabbergasted."
He stood up sturdy and respectful in a patch of moonlight, and his keen brown eyes raked Reggie's as though they would read his very soul.
It wasn't an easy soul to read, and Reggie knew that Willets had something on his mind, so he waited.
"I beg your pardon, sir," Willets said again. He had never got over the feeling that Reggie was one of the young gentlemen, and that it behoved him to be careful of his language in front of him.
Reggie Peel laughed. "Look here, Willets," he said, "what's your objection? Why shouldn't they go to the House of Commons to dine with Gallup if it amuses them?"
"I don't know, sir, I'm sure, but I was took aback. An' in a small place like this it's certain to make talk. That old Miss Gallup, now, she'll be boasting everywhere that our Miss Mary went to dine with her nephew, just as she did when he went to a dinner party up at the house, and for us asbelongsto the house—well, we don't relish it. I hope, sir," Willets went on in quite a different tone, "that you'll make it convenient to go up and see after Miss Mary?"
The hawk's eyes were fixed unwinkingly on Reggie's face, so lean and sallow and set; the moonlight accentuated the rather hollow cheeks. and cast black shadows round his eyes, which looked green and sinister.
Suddenly he smiled, and when Reggie smiled, his whole face altered.
"Out with it, Willets," he said, "what maggot have you got in your head now? You're worried about something; you may as well tell me. I'm safe as a church."
"I'd like to know, sir," Willets remarked in a detached impersonal tone, "what's your opinion of mixed marriages?"
"Whatsort of marriages?"
"Well marriages where one of the parties has had a different bringing up to the other. Now suppose, sir—do you know Miss Shipway—over to Marlehouse; her father's got that big shop top of the market-place full of bonnets and mantles and such—good-looking girl she is——"
"I'm afraid I don't know the lady, Willets; why?"
"Well, sir, it's this way. She'll have a tidy bit of money when oldShipway dies; her mother was cook at the Fleece, but they've got on.Well now, sir, suppose you was to go after Miss Shipway——-"
Reggie's eyes twinkled. "It might be a most sensible proceeding on my part—a poor devil like me—if as you say she's a nice girl and will have a lot of money. Will you give me an introduction?"
"I'm not jokin', sir, nor taking the liberty to propose anything of the sort; it's only——"
"A hypothetical case?"
"That's it, sir. I mean suppose a gentleman like yourself was to marry a girl like her, do you think you'd be happy?"
"Surely it would all depend on whether they liked each other—and liked the same things——"
"Ah, sir, that's it.Wouldyou like the same things, do you suppose?"
"Well, Willets, I don't see that you've any cause to worry. Unfortunately I don't know the young lady, so I can't see how I'm to get any forrader."
"Suppose, sir, a younglady, like what the Mistress was, should marry a man in quite a different rank from herself, do you thinkthey'dbe happy?"
"It depends," said Reggie, "what sort of a chap he was. People rise, you know."
"Well, suppose he did, would they happy?"
"I couldn't say, Willets, I'm sure. Is it any particular young lady you're worried about?"
Willets sat down on the wall. "In my time," he said slowly, "I've seen a good bit; and all I have seen, seems to me to show that it's safest for ladies and gentlemen to stick to their own class. But I thought I'd like to have your opinion, sir."
For five minutes they sat in silence, then Willets remarked, "And you think you'll be going up to town next week, sir?"
"I think so. I shall try anyway."
"Would you be so good, sir, as to say to General Grantly that he'd better not put off much longer if he wants the best of the fishing."
"I'll be sure and tell him, Willets. I suppose we must go to bed. Many thanks for the splendid sport. I have to get back to Chatham to-morrow, worse luck, and with the Sunday trains it takes a deuce of a time."
"Good-night, sir, I'm glad you managed to come, even though it was for but one night."
Reggie let himself in very quietly and went up to his room.
He lit his pipe and went to the window to smoke it.
The moonlight was so brilliant that he drew a letter from his pocket and read it easily:
"Dear Reggie," it ran, "yours was a lovely long letter. I'm glad you rescued poor Clara, and you needn't be afraid of me selling papers or carrying sandwich boards. I'm much too busy having a lovely time. Ohneverhave I had such a time, but I grieve to tell you that both Ganpy and I are very shocked at the behaviour of Grannie. She is having an outrageous flirtation with young Mr Gallup, our member. It's all very well for her to say she is forming him. She is undermining all his most cherished principles, and if his nonconformist constituents hear of his goings on I don't believe they'll ever have him again.
"She has taught him auction: he played with her lastSundayafternoon because it was too wet to be out in the garden. She has sent him to lots of plays: he came with us one night to the Chocolate Soldier; she talks politics to him by the hour and demolishes his pet theories. She tells him that he has, up to now, thought so many things wrong that he can't possibly have any sense of proportion, or properly discriminate what really matters and what doesn't; and she is so brisk and masterful and delightfully amusing—you know Grannie's way—that the poor young man doesn't know whether he's on his head or his heels, and simply follows blindly wherever that reckless woman leads. He gave a dinner for us in the House the other night and got Ganpy a seat in the Stranger's Gallery. He couldn't get us into the Ladies' Gallery because of the silly rule about only wives and sisters or near relations made since the suffragette fusses, but he showed us all about and it was simply fascinating. Of course Grannie met lots of members she knew, and we enjoyed ourselves awfully. We are going to tea on the Terrace next week. The dance at the Shop was ripping, and you needn't think I only danced with cadets. I danced with majors and colonels, and a beautiful captain in the Argyle and Sutherland, but I've come to the conclusion that the jolliest thing is to be Ganpy's wife on these occasions. You never saw such court as gets paid to Grannie. She never has a dull minute.
"Grantly went home on Sat. just for the night, and he says it's all too beautiful for words. Sometimes I feel wicked to be missing it, and I get homesick for mother and the children; but I do enjoy it all. When are you coming up to play about too? You stern, industrious young man."
Reggie folded the letter and put it back in his pocket.
"So that's what old Willets was driving at," he thought. He leaned out again to shake the ash out of his pipe. In the far east there was a pearly streak. "Daylight," he muttered, "—and by Jove I see it."
Mrs Grantly was interested in Eloquent. He was quite unlike any of the innumerable young men she had had to do with before. His simplicity and directness appealed to her; she admired his high seriousness even while she seemed to deride it, and though violently opposed to his party, she shared that party's belief in his political future.
The General shook his head; not over what he and Mary called "Grannie's infatuation for Mr Gallup," but over the possible results of this friendliness and intimacy to Mr Gallup. For the General saw precisely the same possibilities that Mr Ffolliot had seen, and didn't like what he saw one whit better than did the Squire.
Eloquent never saw Mary alone. Generally he was wholly taken possession of by Mrs Grantly, or such friends of hers as would be bothered with him. Yet his golden dream was with him continually, and in the dear oasis of his fancy he walked in an enchanted garden with Mary. In his waking moments, his sane practical moments, he would realise that it was sheer absurdity to imagine that she ever could care for him. He did not expect her to care, but—and here he drifted across the desert of plain possibilities into the merciful mirage of things hoped for—if she would condescend to let him serve her, he might take heart of grace.
He watched her carefully.
It did not seem to him that there was anybody else. There were crowds: crowds of dreadful, well-dressed, good-looking, cheerful men, who chaffed and laughed and quaffed any drinks that happened to be going; but he did not fear the enemy in battalions, and so far it appeared that her besiegers always attacked in companies.
Sometimes he was sure that she knew how he felt, and was trying in gentle, delicately pitiful ways to show him that it was of no use. Then again he would dismiss this thought as absurd and conceited. How should Mary know? How could she try to show him she didn't care when he had never shown her that he did? How could he show her?
It was this desire to show her, this hope of familiarising her with the idea that caused Eloquent to resort to every possible place where he might see her. He went down to Woolwich as often as decency would permit, which wasn't often. He inundated Mrs Grantly with invitations to the House, and he haunted the theatres, generally in vain, in the hope of seeing her at the play. He would often reflect bitterly how easy things were for the young shopman in these matters. He met his girl and took her for a walk, and no one thought any the worse of either of them. There was none of this nerve-racking, heartrending uncertainty, this difficulty of access, this sense of futility, in their relations.
Of the many mysterious attributes of the "classes," there was none to be so heartily deplored as their entire success in secluding their young women, while apparently they gave them every possible opportunity for amusement of all kinds.
* * * * * *
Reggie went down to Woolwich once while Mary was with her grandparents, but it was not, from her point of view, a very satisfactory visit. Reggie was grumpy, and looked very tired and overworked. Moreover, Mary, though she could not have confessed it for the world, was just a trifle hurt that he never reminded her of that last ride together.
Just as he was leaving on the Sunday night, and they were all in the garden, he walked with her a little way down a winding path that hid them from the others, saying abruptly—
"Shall I let you know directly if they are going to send me to theShiny?"
"Of course I should like to know, but . . . India is a long way off,Reggie, why do you want to go so far?"
"Because, my dear, it means work and promotion, and one's chance, and lots of things; one being quite decent pay. Besides, I like India, I shall be glad to go back, if . . ."
They had followed the path, and it led them out to the lawn again, where the others were standing. He didn't finish his sentence—
"Say you want me to get out there, Mary."
"Of course I want you to go if you really wish it."
"I'll let you know then. I shall know myself early in July, I fancy . . . perhaps I'll run down to Redmarley; you'll be back then?"
They joined the others; Reggie made his farewells and left.
Mary went and took her grandfather's arm, and made him walk round the garden with her. She developed an intelligent interest in geography, and made searching inquiries as to the healthiness of India generally.
It was comforting to walk arm and arm with grandfather. She didn't know why, but she felt a little frightened, a little homesick. How clearly one can see some people's faces when they are not there. What unusual eyes Reggie had, so green in some lights. He was looking dreadfully thin, poor boy, downright ill he looked, and yet everyone said he was very strong. No one else shook hands quite like Reggie: he had nice hands, strong and gentle; thin, but not hard and nubbly. Why is a summer night often so sad? Night-scented stock has a sad smell, though it is so sweet. He shouldn't work so hard. He was overdoing it. Surely if he went to India they'd give him some leave . . . it might be years before he came back. Three years he was away once.
Mary clasped both her hands over her grandfather's arm. "I do love you so, Ganpy," she said; "there's nobody like you in the world, no one at all."
The General smiled in the twilight, and pressed the arm in his against his side. He said nothing at all, yet Mary felt vaguely comforted.
In the beginning of July she went back to Redmarley, and everyone was very glad to see her again. One Saturday morning when the Squire and Mrs Ffolliot had started in the victoria to lunch with neighbours on the other side of Marlehouse, Mary called Parker and went to walk in the woods. It was a grey morning, warm and sunless and still. She wandered about quite aimlessly. She was restless and unsettled, and had a good deal to think over.
Just before she left Woolwich, Eloquent Gallup had called one afternoon when both the General and Mrs Grantly were out; but he asked boldly for Mary. She was at home, and he was shown into the cool, shady garden, where she was lying in a hammock reading a novel.
This was Eloquent's chance and he took it. He did not stay long. He left before tea, but during the time he did stay he contrived to let Mary see . . . what it must be confessed she had already suspected. He said nothing definite. He was immensely distant in his reverence, but a much humbler girl than Mary could hardly have mistaken his meaning. He was so pathetically diffident it was impossible to snub him, and she had no desire to snub him. Always she was immensely sorry for him—why, she did not know.
He was plain. He was insignificant. He was not a gentleman by birth, but he was—and Mary's standard was fairly high—so far as she could see, a thorough gentleman in feeling and in action. Moreover, he had ability, and an immense capacity for hard work, both of them qualities that appealed to Mary.
So she allowed herself to dally vaguely with the idea. It was very pleasant to be set in a shrine; to be worshipped; to be served in a prayerful attitude of adoration. To be able by a kind word, a kind glance, to raise a fellow creature to a dizzy height of happiness. How could anyone be unkind to that excellent little man? Suppose . . . this was a daring supposition, and Mary grew hot all over as she entertained it—suppose, in the dim and distant future, when Reggie . . . Reggie had never written after he went back to Chatham, nothing had happened then about India; but suppose he did go for years and years, and forgot her . . . perhaps he had never wanted to remember her in that particular way, and she had magnified quite little things that meant nothing at all. . . . Suppose she ultimately, years hence, could bring herself to marry Mr Gallup. How angry her father would be! But that was a prospective contingency that only amused Mary. He would be angry whoever she married. He would be exceedingly angry if she got engaged to . . . that young man at Chatham who was so taciturn and neglectful . . . who didn't seem to want to get engaged to anyone. Clara Bax said it would be dreadfully dull to marry anyone you'd known all your life. Would it? Clara Bax said it would be tiresome in the extreme to marry anybody. But about that Mary was not sure.
Westminster is certainly the nicest part of London; there are bits of it that remind one of Redmarley. It would be pleasant to be rich and important, and feel that you are helping to pull the wires that control destinies; helping to make history. Ah, that was what Reggie called it. He would do it. She was sure of that; but Reggie's wife would have no hand in it.
With clear intuition she saw that of these two men, only one could be influenced by his wife in anything that concerned his work. Reggie's wife would be outside all that. Eloquent's wife,if she were the right woman, would share everything: and at that moment Parker began to bark, and Mary found that she had walked into a part of the wood called the Forty Firs, and that Eloquent Gallup was standing right on the very same spot, where seven months ago she had assisted him to rise from a puddle.
Parker didn't like Eloquent upright a bit better than he had liked Eloquent prone, and he made a great yapping and growling and bouncing and skirmishing around about the two of them, until he finally subsided into suspicious sniffing at Eloquent's ankles.
"Has Parliament risen then?" Mary asked, when she had soothed Parker to quiescence.
"No, Miss Ffolliot, I came down"—Eloquent's eyes were fixed hungrily on her face, and she noticed that his was nothing like so round as it used to be, and that he was very pale—"because I couldn't keep away."
Mary said nothing. There seemed nothing to say.
"Miss Ffolliot," Eloquent said again, "I think you must know why I have come down, what I feel about you, what I have felt about you since the first minute I saw you in this very place, when I was so ridiculous and you so beautiful and kind. I have travelled a good way since then, but I know that in caring for you as I do I am still ridiculous, and it is only because you are so beautiful and kind, although you are so far above me, that I dare to tell you what I feel . . . but I would like your leave to think about you. Somehow, without it, it seems an impertinence, and, God knows, no man ever felt more worship for a woman than I feel for you. Do you give me that leave?"
Mary was very much touched, very much shaken. Eloquent's power lay in his immense earnestness. She no longer saw him small and insignificant and common. She saw the soul of him, and recognised that it was a great soul. For one brief moment she wondered if she could . . .
Through the woods rang the notes of a bugle. Ger was playing "Come to the cook-house door." Mary's heart seemed to leap up and turn right over.
"Come to the cook-house door" is not by any means one of the most beautiful of the bugle sounds of the British Army. It is rather jerky at the best of times, and as performed by Ger it was wheezy as well. But for Mary just then it was a clear call to consciousness.
Pity and sympathy and admiration are not love: and Mary knew it, and in that moment she became a woman.
Eloquent had taken her hand, taken it with a respect and gentleness that affected her unspeakably. She gave a little sob. She did not try to draw it away. "Oh dear," she sighed, "I am so sorry, for it's all no use," and the tears ran down her cheeks.
Eloquent lifted her hand and kissed it.
"Don't cry, my dear," he said, "don't cry. I'm glad I've known you and loved you. . . ."
Again through the woods there rang that "first call" so dear to the heart of Ger.
"Good-bye, Mr Gallup, I mustn't stay . . . try to forgive me, and . . ."
"Forgive," Eloquent repeated scornfully, "what have I to forgive?Thatis for you."
Mary turned and walked swiftly away, and Eloquent watched her till she was out of sight.
Parker kept close at her side, but every now and then he jumped up and tried to lick her face. Parker knew all was not right with Mary and he was uneasy.
Mary knew full well that it was to no comfortable cook-house door that Ger had summoned her. That wheezy bugle called her to the outposts of the world; to a life of incessant acerbating change, where there was no certainty, no stability, no sweet home peace, or that proud fixity of tenure that is the heritage of those who own the land on which they live. She had no illusions. Not in vain had she lived with her grandmother at Woolwich and heard the lamentations of the officers' wives when plans were changed at the last moment, and the fair prospect of a few years at home was blotted out by the inexorable orders for foreign service. And the Sappers were worst of all, for except at a very few stations they hadn't even a mess, and there was not the friendly fellowship of "the Regiment" to count upon.
The yard was quite deserted, for the men had gone to dinner. She paused at the gate and looked long and lovingly at the clustering chimneys, and lichened, grey-green roofs she loved: and as she looked a new sound broke the stillness. Three loud reports and then the touf-touf, spatter-dash-spatter-dash of a motor bicycle.
Mary opened the gate, went through, shut it behind her and leant against it, for her knees were as water.
The noise came on, it passed the house, turned into the back drive, came round, and someone in overalls, covered with dust from head to foot, swept into the deserted yard; saw Mary, pulled up short, and pushed the bike against a wall.
This dusty person tore off his goggles. It was Captain Reginald Peel,R.E., and he came across the yard towards her.
"Hullo, Mary," he said, "I told you I'd let you know whenever I heard. The A.A.G.'s a brick, I'm going to India. Marching orders came last night."
Mary's lips trembled and her voice died in her throat. Reggie took out a large silk handkerchief and mopped his dusty face.
He came on towards her and took both her hands.
"Mary," he said, "can you leave all this? Can you face it? Will you come with me and help me to build bridges and make roads and dig drains. . . . Will you come so that we can have the rest of our lives . . . together?"
They looked straight into one another's eyes.
"I will," said Mary, and she said it as solemnly as if she were repeating a response in the Marriage Service.
Reggie loosed one of her hands. Again he polished his face.
"I should like awfully to kiss you," he said, "but I'm so fearfully dusty—do you mind?"
"I think," said Mary, with a queer choky laugh, "that I'd rather like it."
And just at that moment Willets appeared at a gate leading from the garden. He didn't see them, and opened the gate, which squeaked abominably, came through and let it shut with a clang, but they, apparently, heard nothing.
Willets stood transfixed, for he saw the motor-bike and the dusty young man in overalls, and clasped close in the arms of the said dusty young man was Miss Mary!
Willets gave one quick glance, smote his hands softly together, and turned right round with his back to them. He leaned on the gate and gazed steadfastly into the distant garden. It was a squeaky gate, that gate. If he opened it, it might disturb them, and bless you, they were but young, and one is only young once.
So kindly Willets stared, with eyes that were not quite so keen as usual, at the bit of garden he could see; and there, delphiniums were blooming. The sun came out just at that moment, and they looked particularly blue and tall and splendid.
It seemed to Willets that he admired those delphiniums for hours and hours, but it was really only a few minutes till he heard a rather husky voice behind him saying, "It's all right, Willets, you may turn round and congratulate us."
And there they were both standing "as bold as brass" he said afterwards, and the delphiniums he had just been studying so closely were not as blue as Mary's eyes.