How he passed through the ordeal I don't know. If ever a man stood captain of his soul, it was Anthony Fenimore that day. And his soul was steel-armoured. Perhaps, if proof had come to him from an untainted source, it might have modified his attitude. I cannot tell. Without doubt the knavery of Gedge set aflame his indignation—or rather the fierce pride of the great old Tory gentleman. He would have walked through hell-fire sooner than yielded an inch to Gedge. So much would scornful defiance have done. But behind all this—and I am as certain of it as I am certain that one day I shall die—burned even fiercer, steadier, and clearer the unquenchable fire of patriotic duty. He was dealing not with a man who had sinned terribly towards him, but with a man who had offered his life over and over again to his country, a man who had given to his country the sight of his eyes, a man on whose breast the King himself had pinned the supreme badge of honour in his gift. He was dealing, not with a private individual, but with a national hero. In his small official capacity as Mayor of Wellingsford, he was but the mouthpiece of a national sentiment. And more than that. This ceremony was an appeal to the unimaginative, the sluggish, the faint-hearted. In its little way—and please remember that all tremendous enthusiasms are fit by these little fires—it was a proclamation of the undying glory of England. It was impersonal, it was national, it was Imperial. In its little way it was of vast, far-reaching importance.
I want you to remember these things in order that you should understand the mental processes, or soul processes, or whatever you like, of Sir Anthony Fenimore. Picture him. The most unheroic little man you can imagine. Clean-shaven, bullet-headed, close-cropped, his face ruddy and wrinkled like a withered apple, his eyes a misty blue, his big nose marked like a network of veins, his hands glazed and reddened, like his face, by wind and weather; standing, even under his mayoral robes, like a jockey. Of course he had the undefinable air of breeding; no one could have mistaken his class. But he was an undistinguished, very ordinary looking little man; and indeed he had done nothing for the past half century to distinguish himself above his fellows. There are thousands of his type, masters of English country houses. And of all the thousands, every one brought up against the stern issues of life would have acted like Anthony Fenimore. I say "would have acted," but anyone who has lived in England during the war knows that they have so acted. These incarnations of the commonplace, the object of the disdain, before the war, of the self-styled "intellectuals"—if the war sweeps the insufferable term into oblivion it will have done some good—these honest unassuming gentlemen have responded heroically to the great appeal; and when the intellectuals have thought of their intellects or their skins, they have thought only of their duty. And it was only the heroical sense of duty that sustained Sir Anthony Fenimore that day.
I did not see the reception at the Railway Station or join the triumphal procession; but went early to the Town Hall and took my seat on the platform. I glibly say "took my seat." A wheel-chair, sent there previously, was hoisted, with me inside, on to the platform by Marigold and a porter. After all these years, I still hate to be publicly paraded, like a grizzled baby, in Marigold's arms. For convenience' sake I was posted at the front left-hand corner. The hall soon filled. The first three rows of seats were reserved for the recipients of the municipality's special invitation; the remainder were occupied by the successful applicants for tickets. From my almost solitary perch I watched the fluttering and excited crowd. The town band in the organ gallery at the further end discoursed martial music. From the main door beneath them ran the central gangway to the platform. I recognised many friends. In the front row with her two aunts sat Betty, very demure in her widow's hat relieved by its little white band of frilly stuff beneath the brim. She looked unusually pale. I could not help watching her intently and trying to divine how much she knew of the story of Boyce and Althea. She caught my eye, nodded, and smiled wanly.
My situation was uncanny. In this crowded assemblage in front of me, whispering, talking, laughing beneath the blare of the band, not one, save Betty, had a suspicion of the tragedy. At times they seemed to melt into a shadow-mass of dreamland .... Time crawled on very slowly. Anxious forebodings oppressed me. Had Sir Anthony's valiancy stood the test? Had he been able to shake hands with his daughter's betrayer? Had he broken down during the drive side by side with him, amid the hooraying of the townsfolk? And Gedge? Had he found some madman's means of proclaiming the scandal aloud? Every nerve in my body was strained. Marigold, in his uniform and medals and patch and grey service cap plugged over his black wig, stood sentry by the side of the platform next my chair. All of a sudden he pulled out of his side pocket a phial of red liqueur in a medicine glass. He poured out the dose and handed it to me. I turned on him wrathfully.
"What the dickens is that?"
"Dr. Cliffe's orders, sir."
"When did he order it?"
"When I told him what you looked like after interviewing Mister Daniel Gedge. And he said, if you was to look like that again I was to give you this. So I'm giving it to you, sir."
There was no arguing with Marigold in front of a thousand people. I swallowed the stuff quickly. He put the phial and glass back in his pocket and resumed his wooden sentry attitude by my chair. I must own to feeling better for the draught. But, thought I, if the strain of the situation is so great for me, what must it be for Sir Anthony?
Presently the muffled sounds of outside cheering penetrated the hall. The band stopped abruptly, to begin again with "See the Conquering Hero Comes" when the civic procession appeared through the great doors. There was little Sir Anthony in his robes, grave and imposing, and beside him Mrs. Boyce, flushed, bright-eyed, and tearful. Then came Lady Fenimore with Boyce, black-spectacled, soldierly, bull-necked, his little bronze cross conspicuous among the medals on his breast, his elbow gripped by a weatherbeaten young soldier, one of his captains, as I learned afterwards, home on leave, who had claimed the privilege of guiding his blind footsteps. And behind came the Aldermen and the Councillors, and the General and his staff, and the Lord Lieutenant and Lady Laleham and the other members of the Reception Committee. The cheering drowned the strains of the "Conquering Hero." Places were taken on the platform. To the right of the Mayor sat Boyce, to the left his mother. On the table in front were set scrolls and caskets. You see, we had arranged that Mrs. Boyce should have an address and a casket all to herself. The gallery soon was picturesquely filled with the nurses, and the fire-brigade, bright-helmeted, was massed in the doorway.
God gave the steel-hearted little man strength to go through the ordeal. He delivered his carefully prepared oration in a voice that never faltered. The passages referring to Boyce's blindness he spoke with an accent of amazing sincerity. When he had ended the responsive audience applauded tumultuously. From my seat by the edge of the platform I watched Betty. Two red spots burned in her cheeks. The addresses were read, the caskets presented. Boyce remained standing, about to respond. He still held the casket in both hands. His FIDUS ACHATES, guessing his difficulty, sprang up, took it from him, and laid it on the table. Boyce turned to him with his charming smile and said: "Thanks, old man." Again the tumult broke out. Men cheered and women wept and waved wet handkerchiefs. And he stood smiling at his unseen audience. When he spoke, his deep, beautifully modulated voice held everyone under its spell, and he spoke modestly and gaily like a brave gentleman. I bent forward, as far as I was able, and scanned his face. Never once, during the whole ceremony, did the tell-tale twitch appear at the corners of his lips. He stood there the incarnation of the modern knights sans fear and sans reproach.
I cannot tell which of the two, he or Sir Anthony, the more moved my wondering admiration. Each exhibited a glorious defiance.
You may say that Boyce, receiving in his debonair fashion the encomiums of the man whom he had wronged, was merely exhibiting the familiar callousness of the criminal. If you do, I throw up my brief. I shall have failed utterly to accomplish my object in writing this book. I want no tears of sensibility shed over Boyce. I want you to judge him by the evidence that I am trying to put before you. If you judge him as a criminal, it is my poor presentation of the evidence that is at fault. I claim for Boyce a certain splendour of character, for all his grievous sins, a splendour which no criminal in the world's history has ever achieved. I beg you therefore to suspend your judgment, until I have finished, as far as my poor powers allow, my unravelling of his tangled skein. And pray remember too that I have sought all through to present you with the facts PARI PASSU with my knowledge of them. I have tried to tell the story through myself. I could think of no other way of creating an essential verisimilitude. Yet, even now, writing in the light of full knowledge, I cannot admit that, when Boyce in that Town Hall faced the world—for, in the deep tragic sense Wellingsford was his world—anyone knowing as much as I did would have been justified in calling his demeanour criminal callousness.
I say that he exhibited a glorious defiance. He defied the concrete Gedge. He defied the more abstract, but none the less real, tormenting Furies. He defied remorse. In accepting Sir Anthony's praise he defied the craven in his own soul.
After a speech or two more, to which I did not listen, the proceedings in the Town Hall ended. I drew a breath of relief. No breakdown by Sir Anthony, no scandalous interruption by Gedge, had marred the impressive ceremony. The band in the gallery played "God Save the King." The crowd in the body of the hall, who had stood for the anthem, sat down again, evidently waiting for Boyce and the notables to pass out. The assemblage on the platform broke up. Several members, among them the General, who paused to shake hands with Boyce and his mother, left the hall by the private side door. The Lord Lieutenant and Lady Laleham followed him soon afterwards. Then the less magnificent crowded round Boyce, each eager for a personal exchange of words with the hero. Sir Anthony remained at his post, keeping on the outskirts of the throng, bidding formal adieux to those who went away. Presently I saw that Boyce was asking for me, for someone pointed me out to his officer attendant, who led him down the steps of the platform and round the edge to my seat.
"Well, it has gone off all right," said he. "Let me introduce Captain Winslow, more than ever my right-hand man—Major Meredyth."
We exchanged bows.
"The old mother's as pleased as Punch. She didn't know she was going to get a little box of her own. I should like to have seen her face. I did hear her give one of her little squeals. Did you?"
"No," said I, "but I saw her face. It was that of a saint in an unexpected beatitude."
He laughed. "Dear old mother," said he. "She has deserved a show." He turned away unconsciously, and, thinking to address me, addressed the first row of spectators. "I suppose there's a lot of folks here that I know."
By chance he seemed to be looking through his black glasses straight at Betty a few feet away. She rose impulsively and, before all Wellingsford, went up to him with hand outstretched.
"There's one at any rate, Colonel Boyce. I'm Betty Connor—"
"No need to tell me that," said he, bowing.
Winslow, at his elbow, most scrupulous of prompters, whispered:
"She wants to shake hands with you."
So their hands met. He kept hers an appreciable second or two in his grasp.
"I hope you will accept my congratulations," said Betty.
"I have already accepted them, very gratefully. My mother conveyed them to me. She was deeply touched by your letter. And may I, too, say how deeply touched I am by your coming here?"
Betty looked swiftly round and her cheeks flushed, for there were many of us within earshot. She laughed off her embarrassment.
"You have developed from a man into a Wellingsford Institution, and I had to come and see you inaugurated. My aunts, too, are here." She beckoned to them. "They are shyer than I am."
The elderly ladies came forward and spoke their pleasant words of congratulation. Mrs. Holmes and others, encouraged, followed their example. Mrs. Boyce suddenly swooped from the platform into the middle of the group and kissed Betty, who emerged from the excited lady's embrace blushing furiously. She shook hands with Betty's aunts and thanked them for their presence; and in the old lady's mind the reconciliation of the two houses was complete. Then, with cheeks of a more delicate natural pink than any living valetudinarian of her age could boast of, and with glistening eyes, she made her way to me, and reaching up and drawing me down, kissed me, too.
While all this was going on, the body of the hall began to empty. The programme had arranged for nothing more by way of ceremonial to take place. But a public gathering always hopes for something unexpected, and, when it does not happen, takes its disappointment philosophically. I think Betty's action must have shown them that the rest of the proceedings were to be purely private and informal.
The platform also gradually thinned, until at last, looking round, I saw that only Sir Anthony and Lady Fenimore and Winterbotham, the Town Clerk, remained. Then Lady Fenimore joined us. We were about a score, myself perched on the edge and corner of the platform, the rest standing on the floor of the hall in a sector round me, Marigold, of course, in the middle of them by my side, like an ill-graven image. As soon as she could Lady Fenimore came up to me.
"Don't you think it splendid of Betty Connor to bury the hatchet so publicly?" she whispered.
"The war," said I, "is a solvent of many human complications."
"It is indeed." Then she added: "I am going to have a little dinner party some time soon for the Boyces. I sounded him to-day and he practically promised. I'll ask the Lalehams. Of course you'll come. Now that things have shown themselves so topsy-turvy I've been wondering whether I should ask Betty."
"Does Anthony know of this dinner party?" I enquired.
"What does it matter whether he does or not?" she laughed. "Dinner parties come within my province and I'm mistress of it."
Of course Boyce had half promised. What else could he do without discourtesy? But the banquet which, in her unsuspecting innocence she proposed, seemed to me a horrible meal. Doubtless it would seem so to Sir Anthony. At the moment I did not know whether he intended to tell Gedge's story to his wife. At any rate, hitherto, he had not done so.
"All the same, my dear Edith," I replied, "Anthony may have a word to say. I happen to know he has no particular personal friendship for Boyce, who, if you'll forgive my saying so, has treated you rather cavalierly for the past two years. Anthony's welcome to-day was purely public and official. It had nothing to do with his private feelings."
"But they have changed. He was referring to the matter only this morning at breakfast and suggesting things we could do to lighten the poor man's affliction."
"I don't think a dinner party would lighten it," I said. "And if I were you, I wouldn't suggest it to Anthony."
"That's rather mysterious." She looked at me shrewdly. "And there's another mysterious thing. Anthony's like a yapping sphinx over it. What were you two talking to Gedge about this morning?"
"Nothing particular."
"That's nonsense, Duncan. Gedge was making himself unpleasant. He never does anything else."
"If you want to know," said I, with a convulsive effort of invention, "we heard that he was preparing some sort of demonstration, going to bring down some of his precious anti-war-league people."
"He wouldn't have the pluck," she exclaimed.
"Anyhow," said I, "we thought we had better have him in and read him the Riot—or rather the Defence of the Realm—Act. That's all."
"Then why on earth couldn't Anthony tell me?"
"You ought to know the mixture of sugar and pepper in your husband's nature better than I do, my dear Edith," I replied.
Her laugh reassured me. I had turned a difficult corner. No doubt she would go to Sir Anthony with my explanation and either receive his acquiescence or learn the real truth.
She was bidding me farewell when Sir Anthony came along the platform to the chair. I glanced up, but I saw that he did not wish to speak to me. He was looking grim and tired. He called down to his wife:
"It's time to move, dear. The troops are still standing outside."
She bustled about giving the signal for departure, first running to Boyce and taking him by the sleeve. I had not noticed that he had withdrawn with Betty a few feet away from the little group. They were interrupted in an animated conversation. At the sight I felt a keen pang of repulsion. Those two ought not to talk together as old friends. It outraged decencies. It was all very well for Betty to play the magnanimous and patriotic Englishwoman. By her first word of welcome she had fulfilled the part. But this flushed, eager talk lay far beyond the scope of patriotic duty. How could they thus converse over the body of the dead Althea? With both of them was I indignant.
In my inmost heart I felt horribly and vulgarly jealous. I may as well confess it. Deeply as I had sworn blood-brotherhood with Boyce, regardless of the crimes he might or might not have committed, I could not admit him into that inner brotherhood of which Betty and I alone were members. And this is just a roundabout, shame-faced way of saying that, at that moment, I discovered that I was hopelessly, insanely in love with Betty. The knowledge came to me in a great wave of dismay.
"You'll let me see you again, won't you?" he asked.
"If you like."
I don't think I heard the words, but I traced them on their lips. They parted. Sir Anthony descended from the platform and gave his arm to Mrs. Boyce. Lady Fenimore still clung to Boyce. Winterbotham came next, bearing the two caskets, which had been lying neglected on the table. The sparse company followed down the empty hall. Marigold signalled to the porter and they hoisted down my chair. Betty, who had lingered during the operation, walked by my side. Being able now to propel myself, I dismissed Marigold to a discreet position in the rear. Betty, her face still slightly flushed, said:
"I'm waiting for congratulations which seem to be about as overwhelming as snow in August. Don't you think I've been extraordinarily good?"
"Do you feel good?"
"More than good," she laughed. "Christianlike. Aren't we told in the New Testament to forgive our enemies?"
"'And love those that despitefully use us?'" I misquoted maliciously. A sudden gust of anger often causes us to do worse things than trifle with the text of the Sermon on the Mount.
She turned on me quickly, as though stung. "Why not? Isn't the sight of him maimed like that enough to melt the heart of a stone?"
I replied soberly enough. "It is indeed."
I had already betrayed my foolish jealousy. Further altercation could only result in my betraying Boyce. I did not feel very happy. Conscious of having spoken to me with unwonted sharpness, she sought to make amends by laying her hand on my shoulder.
"I think, dear," she said, "we're all on rather an emotional edge to-day."
We reached the front door of the hall. At the top of the shallow flight of broad stairs the little group that had preceded us stood behind Boyce, who was receiving the cheers of the troops—soldiers and volunteers and the Godbury School Officers' Training Corps—drawn up in the Market Square. When the cheers died away the crowd raised cries for a speech.
Again Boyce spoke.
"The reception you have given my mother and myself," he said, "we refuse to take personally. It is a reception given to the soldiers, and the mothers and wives of soldiers, of the Empire, of whom we just happen to be the lucky representatives. Whole regiments, to say nothing of whole armies, can't all, every jack man, receive Victoria Crosses. But every regiment very jealously counts up its honours. You'll hear men say: 'Our regiment has two V.C.s, five D.S.O.s, and twenty Distinguished Conduct Medals.' and the feeling is that all the honours are lumped together and shared by everybody, from the Colonel to the drummer-boys. And each individual is proud of his share because he knows that he deserves it. And so it happens that those whom chance has set aside for distinction, like the lucky winners in a sweepstake, are the most embarrassed people you can imagine, because everybody is doing everything that they did every day in the week. For instance, if I began to tell you a thousandth part of the dare-devil deeds of my friend here, Captain Winslow of my regiment, he would bolt like a rabbit into the Town Hall and fall on his knees and pray for an earthquake. And whether the earthquake came off or not, I'm sure he would never speak to me again. And they're all like that. But in honouring me you are honouring him, and you're honouring our regiment, and you're honouring the army. And in honouring Mrs. Boyce, you are honouring that wonderful womanhood of the Empire that is standing heroically behind their men in the hell upon God's good earth which is known as the front."
It was a soldierlike little speech, delivered with the man's gallant charm. Young Winslow gripped his arm affectionately and I heard him say—"You are a brute, sir, dragging me into it." The little party descended the steps of the Town Hall. The words of command rang out. The Parade stood at the salute, which Boyce acknowledged. Guided by Winslow and his mother he reached his car, to which he was attended by the Mayor and Mayoress. After formal leave-taking the Boyces and Winslow drove off amid the plaudits of the crowd. Then Sir Anthony and Lady Fenimore. Then Betty and her aunts. Last of all, while the troops were preparing to march away and the crowd was dispersing and all the excitement was over, Marigold picked me out of my chair and carried me down to my little grey two-seater.
Of course, after this (in the words of my young friends) I crocked up. The confounded shell that had played the fool with my legs had also done something silly to my heart. Hence these collapses after physical and emotional strain. I had to stay in bed for some days. Cliffe told me that as soon as I was fit to travel I must go to Bournemouth, where it would be warm. I told Cliffe to go to a place where it would be warmer. As neither of us would obey the other, we remained where we were.
Cliffe informed me that Lady Fenimore had called him in to see Sir Anthony, whom she described as being on the obstinate edge of a nervous breakdown. I was sorry to hear it.
"I suppose you've tried to send him, too, to Bournemouth?"
"I haven't," Cliffe replied gravely. "He has got something on his mind. I'm sure of it. So is his wife. What's the good of sending him away?"
"What do you think is on his mind?" I asked.
"How do I know? His wife thinks it must be something to do with Boyce's reception. He went home dead-beat, is very irritable, off his food, can't sleep, and swears cantankerously that there's nothing the matter with him,—the usual symptoms. Can you throw any light on it?"
"Certainly not," I replied rather sharply.
Cliffe said "Umph!" in his exasperating professional way and proceeded to feel my pulse.
"I don't quite see how Friday's mild exertion could account for YOUR breakdown, my friend," he remarked.
"I'm so glad you confess, at last, not to seeing everything," said I.
I was fearing this physical reaction in Sir Anthony. It was only the self-assertion of Nature. He had gone splendidly through his ordeal, having braced himself up for it. He had not braced himself up, however, sufficiently to go through the other and far longer ordeal of hiding his secret from his wife. So of course he went to pieces.
After Cliffe had left me, with his desire for information unsatisfied, I rang up Wellings Park. It was the Sunday morning after the reception. To my surprise, Sir Anthony answered me; for he was an old-fashioned country churchgoer and plague, pestilence, famine, battle, murder and sudden death had never been known to keep him out of his accustomed pew on Sunday morning. Edith, he informed me, had gone to church; he himself, being as nervous as a cat, had funked it; he was afraid lest he might get up in the middle of the sermon and curse the Vicar.
"If that's so," said I, "come round here and talk sense. I've something important to say to you."
He agreed and shortly afterwards he arrived. I was shocked to see him. His ruddy face had yellowed and the firm flesh had loosened and sagged. I had never noticed that his stubbly hair was so grey. He could scarcely sit still on the chair by my bedside.
I told him of Cliffe's suspicions. We were a pair of conspirators with unavowable things on our minds which were driving us to nervous catastrophe. Edith, said I, was more suspicious even than Cliffe. I also told him of our talk about the projected dinner party.
"That," he declared, "would drive me stark, staring mad."
"So will continuing to hide the truth from Edith," said I. "How do you suppose you can carry on like this?"
He grew angry. How could he tell Edith? How could he make her understand his reason for welcoming Boyce? How could he prevent her from blazing the truth abroad and crying aloud for vengeance? What kind of a fool's counsel was I giving him?
I let him talk, until, tired with reiteration, he had nothing more to say. Then I made him listen to me while I expounded that which was familiar to his obstinate mind—namely, the heroic qualities of his own wife.
"It comes to this," said I, by way of peroration, "that you're afraid of Edith letting you down, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself."
At that he flared out again. How dared I, he asked, eating his words, suggest that he did not trust the most splendid woman God had ever made? Didn't I see that he was only trying to shield her from knowledge that might kill her? I retorted by pointing out that worry over his insane behaviour—please remember that above our deep unchangeable mutual affection, a violent surface quarrel was raging—would more surely and swiftly kill her than unhappy knowledge. Her quick brain—had already connected Gedge, Boyce, and his present condition as the main factors of some strange problem. "Her quick brain!" I cried. "A half idiot child would have put things together."
Presently he collapsed, sitting hopelessly, nervelessly in his chair. At last he lifted a piteously humble face.
"What would you suggest my doing, Duncan?"
There seemed to me to be only one thing he could do in order to preserve, if not his reason, at any rate his moral equilibrium in the position which he had contrived for himself. To tell him this had been my object in seeking the interview, and the blessed opportunity only came after an hour's hard wrangle—in current metaphor after an hour's artillery preparation for attack. He looked so battered, poor old Anthony, that I felt almost ashamed of the success of my bombardment.
"It's not a question of suggesting," said I. "It's a question of things that have to be done. You need a holiday. You've been working here at high pressure for nearly a couple of years. Go away. Put yourself in the hands of Cliffe, and go to Bournemouth, or Biarritz, or Bahia, or any beastly place you can fix up with him to go to. Go frankly, for three or four months. Go to-morrow. As soon as you're well out of the place, tell Edith the whole story. Then you can take counsel and comfort together."
He was in the state of mind to be impressed by my argument. I followed up my advantage. I undertook to send a ruthless flaming angel of a Cliffe to pronounce the inexorable decree of exile. After a few faint-hearted objections he acquiesced in the scheme. I fancy he revolted against even this apparent surrender to Gedge, although he was too proud to confess it. No man likes running away. Sir Anthony also regarded as pusillanimous the proposal to leave his wife in ignorance until he had led her into the trap of holiday. Why not put her into his confidence before they started?
"That," said I, "is a delicate question which only you yourself can decide. By following my plan you get away at once, which is the most important thing. Once comfortably away, you can choose the opportune moment."
"There's something in that," he replied; and, after thanking me for my advice, he left me.
I do not defend my plan. I admit it was Machiavellian. My one desire was to remove these two dear people from Wellingsford for a season. Just think of the horrible impossibility of their maintaining social relations with the Boyces ....
By publicly honouring Boyce, Sir Anthony had tied his own hands. It was a pledge to Boyce, although the latter did not know it, of condonation. Whatever stories Gedge might spread abroad, whatever proofs he might display, Sir Anthony could take no action. But to carry on a semblance of friendship with the man responsible for his daughter's death—for the two of them, mind you, since Lady Fenimore would sooner or later learn everything—was, as I say, horribly impossible.
Let them go, then, on their nominal holiday, during which the air might clear. Boyce might take his mother away from Wellingsford. She would do far more than uproot herself from her home in order to gratify a wish of her adored and blinded son. He would employ his time of darkness in learning to be brave, he had told me. It took some courage to face the associations of dreadful memories unflinchingly, for his mother's sake. Should he learn, however, that the Fenimores had an inkling of the truth, he would recognise his presence in the place to be an outrage. And such inkling—who would give it him? Perhaps I, myself. The Boyces would go—the Fenimores could return. Anything, anything rather than that the Fenimores and the Boyces should continue to dwell in the same little town.
And there was Betty—with all the inexplicable feminine whirring inside her—socially reconciled with Boyce. Where the deuce was this reconciliation going to lead? I have told you how my lunatic love for Betty had stood revealed to me. Had she chosen to love and marry any ordinary gallant gentleman, God knows I should not have had a word to say. The love that such as I can give a woman can find its only true expression in desiring and contriving her happiness. But that she should sway back to Leonard Boyce—no, no. I could not bear it. All the shuddering pictures of him rose up before me, the last, that of him standing by the lock gates and suddenly running like a frightened rabbit, with his jaunty soft felt hat squashed shapelessly over his ears.
Gedge could not have invented that abominable touch of the squashed hat.
I have said that possibly I myself might give Boyce an inkling of the truth. Thinking over the matter in my restless bed, I shrank from doing so. Should I not be disingenuously serving my own ends? Betty stepped in, whom I wanted for myself. Neither could I go to Boyce and challenge him for a villain and summon him to quit the town and leave those dear to me at peace. I could not condemn him. I had unshaken faith in the man's noble qualities. That he drowned Althea Fenimore I did not, could not, believe. After all that had passed between us, I felt my loyalty to him irrevocably pledged. More than ever was I enmeshed in the net of the man's destiny.
As yet, however, I could not bear to see him. I could not bear to see Betty, who called now and then. For the first time in my life I took refuge in my invalidity, whereby I earned the commendation of Cliffe. Betty sent me flowers. Mrs. Boyce sent me grapes and an infallible prescription for heart attacks which, owing to the hopeless mess she had made in trying to copy the wriggles indicating the quantities of the various drugs, was of no practical use. Phyllis Gedge sent me a few bunches of violets with a shy little note. Lady Fenimore wrote me an affectionate letter bidding me farewell. They were going to Bude in Cornwall, Anthony having put himself under Dr. Cliffe's orders like a wonderful lamb. When she came back, she hoped that her two sick men would be restored to health and able to look more favourably upon her projected dinner party. Marigold also brought into my bedroom a precious old Waterford claret jug which I had loved and secretly coveted for twenty years, with a card attached bearing the inscription "With love from Anthony." That was his dumb, British way of informing me that he was taking my advice.
When my self-respect would allow me no longer to remain in bed, I got up; but I still shrank from publishing the news of my recovery, in which reluctance I met with the hearty encouragement both of Cliffe and Marigold. The doctor then informed me that my attack of illness had been very much more serious than I realised, and that unless I made up my mind to lead the most unruffled of cabbage-like existences, he would not answer for what might befall me. If he could have his way, he would carry me off and put me into solitary confinement for a couple of months on a sunny island, where I should hold no communication with the outside world. Marigold heard this announcement with smug satisfaction. Nothing would please him more than to play gaoler over me.
At last, one morning, I said to him: "I'm not going to submit to tyranny any longer. I resume my normal life. I'm at home to anybody who calls. I'm at home to the devil himself."
"Very good, sir," said Marigold.
An hour or two afterwards the door was thrown open and there stood on the threshold the most amazing apparition that ever sought admittance into a gentleman's library; an apparition, however, very familiar during these days to English eyes. From the shapeless Tam-o'-Shanter to the huge boots it was caked in mud. Over a filthy sheepskin were slung all kinds of paraphernalia, covered with dirty canvas which made it look a thing of mighty bulges among which a rifle was poked away. It wore a kilt covered by a khaki apron. It also had a dirty and unshaven face. A muddy warrior fresh from the trenches, of course. But what was he doing here?
"I see, sir, you don't recognise me," he said with a smile.
"Good Lord!" I cried, with a start, "it's Randall."
"Yes, sir. May I come in?"
"Come in? What infernal nonsense are you talking?" I held out my hand, and, after greeting him, made him sit down.
"Now," said I, "what the deuce are you doing in that kit?"
"That's what I've been asking myself for the last ten months. Anyhow I shan't wear it much longer."
"How's that?"
"Commission, sir," he answered.
"Oh!" said I.
His entrance had been so abrupt and unexpected that I hardly knew as yet what to make of him. Speculation as to his doings had led me to imagine him engaged in some elegant fancy occupation on the fringe of the army, if indeed he were serving his country so creditably. I found it hard to reconcile my conception of Master Randall Holmes with this businesslike Tommy who called me "Sir" every minute.
"I'll tell you about it, sir, if you're interested. But first—how is my mother?"
"Your mother? You haven't seen her yet?"
Here, at least, was a bit of the old casual Randall. He shook his head.
"I've only just this minute arrived. Left the trenches yesterday. Walked from the station. Not a soul recognised me. I thought I had better come here first and report, just as I was, and not wait until I had washed and shaved and put on Christian clothes again. He looked at me and grinned. "Seeing is believing."
"Your mother is quite well," said I. "Haven't you given her any warning of your arrival?"
"Oh, no!" he answered. "I didn't want any brass bands. Besides, as I say, I wanted to see you first. Then to look in at the hospital. I suppose Phyllis Gedge is still at the hospital?"
"She is. But I think, my dear chap, your mother has the first call on you."
"She wouldn't enjoy my present abominable appearance as much as Phyllis," he replied, coolly. "You see, Phyllis is responsible for it. I told you she refused to marry me, didn't I, sir? After that, she called me a coward. I had to show her that I wasn't one. It was an awful nuisance, I admit, for I had intended to do something quite different. Oh! not Gedging or anything of that sort—but—" he dived beneath his sheepskin and brought out a tattered letter case and from a mass of greasy documents (shades of superior Oxford!) selected a dirty, ragged bit of newspaper—"but," said he, handing me the fragment, "I think I've succeeded. I don't suppose this caught your eye, but if you look closely into it, you'll see that 11003 Private R. Holmes, 1st Gordon Highlanders, a couple of months ago was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. I may be any kind of a fool or knave she likes to call me, but she can't call me a coward."
I congratulated him with all my heart, which, after the first shock, was warming towards him rapidly.
"But why," I asked, still somewhat bewildered, "didn't you apply for a commission? A year ago you could have got one easily. Why enlist? And the 1st Gordons—that's the regular army."
He laughed and asked permission to help himself to a cigarette. "By George, that's good," he exclaimed after a few puffs. "That's good after months of Woodbines. I found I could stand everything except Tommy's cigarettes. Everything about me has got as hard as nails, except my palate for tobacco .... Why didn't I apply for a commission? Any fool could get a commission. It's different now. Men are picked and must have seen active service, and then they're sent off to cadet training corps. But last year I could have got one easily. And I might have been kicking my heels about England now."
"Yet, at the sight of a Sam Browne belt, Phyllis would have surely recanted," said I.
"I didn't want the girl I intended to marry and pass my life with to have her head turned by such trappings as a Sam Browne belt. She has had to be taught that she is going to marry a man. I'm not such a fool as you may have thought me, Major," he said, forgetful of his humble rank. "Suppose I had got a commission and married her. Suppose I had been kept at home and never gone out and never seen a shot fired, like heaps of other fellows, or suppose I had taken the line I had marked out—do you think we should have been assured a happy life? Not a bit of it. We might have been happy for twenty years. And then—women are women and can't help themselves—the old word—by George, sir, she spat it at me from a festering sore in her very soul—the old word would have rankled all the time, and some stupid quarrel having arisen, she would have spat it at me again. I wasn't taking any chances of that kind."
"My dear boy," said I, subridently, "you seem to be very wise." And he did. So far as I knew anything about humans, male and female, his proposition was incontrovertible. "But where did you gather your wisdom?"
"I suppose," he replied seriously, "that my mind is not entirely unaffected by a very expensive education."
I looked at the extraordinary figure in sheepskin, bundles and mud, and laughed out loud. The hands of Esau and the voice of Jacob. The garb of Thomas Atkins and the voice of Balliol. Still, as I say, the fellow was perfectly right. His highly trained intelligence had led him to an exact conclusion. The festering sore demanded drastic treatment,—the surgeon's knife. As we talked I saw how coldly his brain had worked. And side by side with that working I saw, to my amusement, the insistent claims of his vanity. The quickest way to the front, where alone he could re-establish his impugned honour was by enlistment in the regular army. For the first time in his life he took a grip on essentials. He knew that by going straight into the heart of the old army his brains, provided they remained in his head, would enable him to accomplish his purpose. As for his choice of regiment, there his vanity guided. You may remember that after his disappearance we first heard of him at Aberdeen. Now Aberdeen is the depot of the Gordon Highlanders.
"What on earth made you go there?" I asked.
"I wanted to get among a crowd where I wasn't known, and wasn't ever likely to be known," he replied. "And my instinct was right. I was among farmers from Skye and butchers from Inverness and drunken scallywags from the slums of Aberdeen, and a leaven of old soldiers from all over Scotland. I had no idea that such people existed. At first I thought I shouldn't be able to stick it. They gave me a bad time for being an Englishman. But soon, I think, they rather liked me. I set my brains to work and made 'em like me. I knew there was everything to learn about these fellows and I went scientifically to work to learn it. And, by Heaven, sir, when once they accepted me, I found I had never been in such splendid company in my life."
"My dear boy," I cried in a burst of enthusiasm, "have you had breakfast?"
"Of course I have. At the Union Jack Club—the Tommies' place the other side of the river—bacon and eggs and sausages. I thought I'd never stop eating."
"Have some more?"
He laughed. "Couldn't think of it."
"Then," said I, "get yourself a cigar." I pointed to a stack of boxes. "You'll find the Corona—Coronas the best."
As I am not a millionaire I don't offer these Coronas to everybody. I myself can only afford to smoke one or two a week.
When he had lit it he said: "I was led away from what I wanted to tell you,—my going to Aberdeen and plunging into the obscurity of a Scottish regiment. I was absolutely determined that none of my friends, none of you good people, should know what an ass I had made of myself. That's why I kept it from my mother. She would have blabbed it all over the place."
"But, my good fellow," said I, "why the dickens shouldn't we have known?"
"That I was making an ass of myself?"
"No, you young idiot!" I cried. "That you were making a man of yourself."
"I preferred to wait," said he, coolly, "until I had a reasonable certainty that I had achieved that consummation—or, rather, something that might stand for it in the prejudiced eyes of my dear friends. I knew that you all, ultimately, you and mother and Phyllis, would judge by results. Well, here they are. I've lived the life of a Tommy for ten months. I've been five in the thick of it over there. I've refused stripes over and over again. I've got my D.C.M. I've got my commission through the ranks, practically on the field. And of the draft of two hundred who went out with me only one other and myself remain."
"It's a splendid record, my boy," said I.
He rose. "Don't misunderstand me, Major. I'm not bragging. God forbid. I'm only wanting to explain why I kept dark all the time, and why I'm springing smugly and complacently on you now."
"I quite understand," said I.
"In that case," he laughed, "I can proceed on my rounds." But he did not proceed. He lingered. "There's another matter I should like to mention," he said. "In her last letter my mother told me that the Mayor and Town Council were on the point of giving a civic reception to Colonel Boyce. Has it taken place yet?"
"Yes," said I.
"And did it go off all right?"
In spite of wisdom learned at Balliol and shell craters, he was still an ingenuous youth.
"Gedge was perfectly quiet," I answered.
He started, as he had for months learned not to start, and into his eyes sprang an alarm that was usually foreign to them.
"Gedge? How do you know anything about Gedge and Colonel Boyce? Good Lord! He hasn't been spreading that poisonous stuff over the town?"
"That's what you were afraid of when you asked about the reception?"
"Of course," said he.
"And you wanted to have your mind clear on the point before interviewing Phyllis."
"You're quite right, sir," he replied, a bit shamefacedly. "But if he hasn't been spreading it, how do you know? And," he looked at me sharply, "what do you know?"
"You gave your word of honour not to repeat what Gedge told you. I think you may be absolved of your promise. Gedge came to Sir Anthony and myself with a lying story about the death of Althea Fenimore."
"Yes," said he. "That was it."
"Sit down for another minute or two," said I, "and let us compare notes."
He obeyed. We compared notes. I found that in most essentials the two stories were identical, although Gedge had been maudlin drunk when he admitted Randall into his confidence.
"But in pitching you his yarn," cried Randall, "he left out the blackmail. He bragged in his beastly way that Colonel Boyce was worth a thousand a year to him. All he had to live upon now that the blood-suckers had ruined his business. Then he began to weep and slobber—he was a disgusting sight—and he said he would give it all up and beg with his daughter in the streets as soon as he had an opportunity of unmasking 'that shocking wicked fellow.'"
"What did you say then?" I asked.
"I told him if ever I heard of him spreading such infernal lies abroad, I'd wring his neck."
"Very good, my boy," said I. "That's practically what Sir Anthony told him."
"Sir Anthony doesn't believe there's any truth in it?"
"Sir Anthony," said I, boldly, "knows there's not a particle of truth in it. The man's malignancy has taken the form of a fixed idea. He's crack-brained. Between us we put the fear of God into him, and I don't think he'll give any more trouble."
Randall got to his feet again. "I'm very much relieved to hear you say so. I must confess I've been horribly uneasy about the whole thing." He drew a deep breath. "Thank goodness I can go to Phyllis, as you say, with a clear mind. The last time I saw her I was half crazy."
He held out his hand, a dirty, knubbly, ragged-nailed hand—the hand that was once so irritatingly manicured.
"Good-bye, Major. You won't shut the door on me now, will you?"
I wrung his hand hard and bade him not be silly, and, looking up at him, said:
"What was the other thing quite different you were intending to do before you, let us say, quarreled with Phyllis?"
He hesitated, his forehead knit in a little web of perplexity.
"Whatever it was," I continued, "let us have it. I'm your oldest friend, a sort of father. Be frank with me and you won't regret it. The splendid work you've done has wiped out everything."
"I'm afraid it has," said he ruefully. "Wiped it out clean." With a hitch of the shoulders he settled his pack more comfortably. "Well, I'll tell you, Major. I thought I had brains. I still think I have. I was on the point of getting a job in the Secret Service—Intelligence Department. I had the whole thing cut and dried—to get at the ramifications of German espionage in socialistic and so-called intellectual circles in neutral and other countries. It would have been ticklish work, for I should have been carrying my life in my hands. I could have done it well. I started out by being a sort of 'intellectual' myself. All along I wanted to put my brains at the service of my country. I took some time to hit upon the real way. I hit upon it. I learned lots of things from Gedge. If he weren't an arrant coward, he might be dangerous. He would be taking German money long ago, but that he's frightened to death of it." He laughed. "It never occurred to you, I suppose, a year ago," he continued, "that I spent most of my days in London working like a horse."
"But," I cried—I felt myself flushing purple—and, when I flush purple, the unregenerate old soldier in me uses language of a corresponding hue—"But," I cried—and in this language I asked him why he had told me nothing about it.
"The essence of the Secret Service, sir," replied this maddening young man, "is—well—secrecy."
"You had a billet offered to you, of the kind you describe?"
"The offer reached me, very much belated, one day when I was half dead, after having performed some humiliating fatigue duty. I think I had persisted in trying to scratch an itching back on parade. Military discipline, I need not tell you, Major, doesn't take into account the sensitiveness of a recruit's back. It flatly denies such a phenomenon. Now I think I can defy anything in God's quaint universe to make me itch. But that's by the way. I tore the letter up and never answered it. You do these things, sir, when the whole universe seems to be a stumbling-block and an offence. Phyllis was the stumbling-block and the rest of the cosmos was the other thing. That's why I have reason on my side when I say that, all through Phyllis Gedge, I made an ass of myself."
He clutched his rude coat with both hands. "An ass in sheep's clothing."
He drew himself up, saluted, and marched out.
He marched out, the young scoundrel, with all the honours of war.