 Chapter 5 of The Red Planet In due course Captain Connor's regiment went off to France, not with drums beating and colours flying. I wished to have not had, if there had been more pomp and circumstance in England. The popular imagination would have not remained untouched for so long a time. But in the cold silent hours of the night, like a gang of marauders, Betty did not go to bed after he had left, but sat by the fire till morning, and she dressed in uniform and resumed her duties at the hospital. Many a soldier's bride was doing much the same, and her days went on just as they did before her marriage. She presented a smiling face to the world. She said, If I'm as happy as can be expected in the circumstances, I think it my duty to look happier. It was a valiant philosophy. The falling of a chimney stack bought me up against Daniel Gage, who before the war did all my little repairs. The chimney I put in the hands of Dayan Higgins, another form of builders. A day or two afterward Othea shied at something, and I discovered it was Gage, who had advanced into the roadway, expressing a desire to have a word with me. I quieted the patriotic Othea, and drew up by the kerb. Gage was a lean, foxy-faced man with a long reddish nose and a long blunt chin, from which a grizzled beard spouted aggressively forward. He had hard, stupid eyes. I hope he'll excuse the liberty I'll take in stopping you, sir, he said, civilly. That's all right, said I. What's the matter? I thought I had given you satisfaction these last twenty years. I assented, quite correct, said I. Then may I ask so without offence why you've called in Dayan Higgins? You may, said I, and with or without offence, I'll answer your question. I called them in because they're good loyal people. Higgins has joined the army, and so has Dayan's eldest boy, while you have been going on like a confounded pro-German. You've no right to say that, Major Meredith. Not when you go over to Goodbury, the surging metropolis of the country some fifteen miles off, until a pack of fools to strike because this is a capitalist war. Not when you go around the mills here and do your best to stop young fellows from fighting for their country. God bless my soul, in whose interests are you acting, if not Germany's? He put on his best platform manner. I'm acting in the best interests of the people of this country. The war is wrong and incredibly foolish and can bring no advantage to the working man. Why should he go and be killed or maimed for life? Will it put an extra penny in his pocket or his widows? No. Oh, he checked my retort. I know everything you would say. I see the arguments every day in all your great newspapers. But the fact remains that I don't see eye to eye with you or those you represent. You think one way, I think another. We agree to differ. We don't, said I. I don't agree at all. At any rate, he said, I don't see how a difference of political opinion can affect my ability now to put a new chimney-stack in your house any more than it has done in the past. In the past, said I, political differences were parochial squabbles in comparison with things nowadays. You're either for England or against her. He smiled wily. I'm for England. We both are. You think her salvation lies one way, I think another. This is a free country in which every man has a right to his own opinion. Exactly so, said I. Therefore, you admit that I have a right to the opinion that you ought to be locked up either in a jail or in a lunatic asylum as a danger to the state, and that having that rightful opinion I'm justified in not entrusting the safety of my house to one who, in my aforesaid opinion, is either a criminal or a lunatic. Dialectically, I had him there. It afforded me cream enjoyment. Beside being a John Bull Englishman, I am a cripple, and therefore ever so little malicious. It's all very well for you to talk, my Jameraleth, said he, but your opinions cost you nothing. Mine are costing me my livelihood. It isn't fair. You might as well say, I replied, that I, who have never dared to steal anything in my life, live in ease and comfort, whereas poor Bill Sykes, who has devoted all his days to burglary, has seven years' penal servitude. No gage, I said, gathering up the reins. He can't be done. You can't have it both ways. He put a detaining hand on Hosea's bridle, and an evil flesh came into his hard gray eyes. I'll have it some other way, then, he said, a way you have no idea of, a way that'll knock all your great people of Willingsford off your high horses. If you drive me to it, you'll see. I'll bide my time, and I don't care whether it breaks me. He stamped his foot and tugged at the bridle. Two or three passes by, Holzer'd wonderingly. And pretty love, the hairdresser, moved across the pavement from his shop door, where he'd been taking the air. My good fellow said, I, you have lost your temper and a talking drivel. Kindly unhand my donkey. Pretty love, who has a sycophantic sense of humor, burst into a loud guffaw. Gage swung angrily away, and Hosea and I continued our interrupted progress down the high street. Although I had called his dark menace's drivel, I could not help wondering what it meant. Was he going to guide the German army to Willingsford? Was he a modern guy forks planning to barb the town hall while the mayor and corporation sat in council? He was not the man to utter purely idle threats. What the dickens was he going to do? Something mean and dirty and underhand. I knew his ways. He was always getting the better of somebody. The wise never let him put in a pane of glass without a specification and estimate, and if he had not been by far the most competent builder in the town—perhaps the only one who thoroughly knew his business in all its branches—no one would have employed him. When I next saw Betty, it was in one of the corridors of the hospital, after a committee meeting, who stopped by my cheer to pass the time of day. Through the open doorway of a ward, I perceived a well-known figure in nurse's uniform. Why, said I, that's Phyllis Gage. Betty nodded. She has just come in as a probationer. I thought her father wouldn't let her. I've heard heaven knows whether it's true, but it sounds likely that he said if men were such fools as to get shot, he didn't see why his daughter should help to mend them. He has consented now, said Betty, and Phyllis is delighted. No doubt it's a bid for popular favour, said I. And I told her of his dwindling business and of my own encounter with him. When I came to his threat, Betty's brows darkened. I don't like that at all, she said. Why, what do you think he means? Mischief. She lowered her voice for it being visiting day at the hospital. People were passing up and down the corridor. Supposing he has some of the people here in his power. Blackmail. I glanced up at her sharply. What do you know about it? Nothing, she replied abruptly. Then she looked down and fingered her wedding ring. I only said, suppose. A sister appeared at the door of the ward, and seeing us together paused hoveringly. I rather think you're wanted, said I. I left the hospital somewhat disturbed in mind. Summons to duty had cut our conversation short. But I knew that no matter how long I had crossed question, Betty, I should have got nothing further out of her. She was a remarkably outspoken young woman. What she said she meant, and what she didn't want to say, all the cripples in the British Army could not have dragged out of her. I tried her again a few days later. A slight cold, aided and abetted by a dear, exaggerating idiot of a tyrannical doctor, confined me to the house, and she came flying in, expecting to find me an extremist. When she saw me clothed and in my right mind and smoking a big cigar, she called me a fraud. Look here, said I, after a while, about Gage. Again her brow darkened and her lips set stiffly. Do you think he has his knife into young Randall Holmes? I had worried about the boy. Naturally, if Gage found the relations between his daughter and Randall unsatisfactory, no one could blame me for any outbreak of parental indignation. But he ought to break out openly, while there was yet time, before any harm was done, not nurse some diabolical scheme of subterraneous vengeance. Bet his brow cleared, and she laughed. I saw it once, that I was on a wrong track. Why should he have his knife into Randall? I suppose you've got Phyllis in your mind. I have, how did you guess? She laughed again. What other reason could he have? But how did you come to hear of Randall and Phyllis? Never mind, said I, I did, and if Gage is angry, I can to some extent sympathise with him. But he's not, not the least bit in the world, she declared, knighting a cigarette. Gage and Randall are as thick as thieves, and Phyllis won't have anything to do with either of them. Now, my dear, said I, now that you're married, become a real womanly woman, and fill my empty soul with gossip. There's no gossip at all about it, she replied serenely. It's all sordid and romantic fact. The two men hold long discussions together at Gage's house. Gage talking anti-patriotism, and Randall talking rot, which he calls philosophy. You can hear them, can't you? Their meeting ground is the absurdity of Randall joining the army. And Phyllis? She's a loyal little soul, and as miserable as can be. She's deprobly in love with Randall, she has told me so. And because she's in love with a man, whom she knows to be a slacker, she's eaten up with shame. Now, she won't speak to him. To avoid meeting him, she lives entirely at the hospital, a paying probationer. That must be since the last committee meeting, I said. Yes. And Daniel Gage pays again in a week. He doesn't, said Betty. I do. I accepted the information with a motion of the head. She went on after a minute or so. I have always been fond of the child. There was only three or four years' difference between them. And so I want to protect her. The time may come when she'll need protection. She has told me things, not now, but long ago, which frightened her. She came to me for advice. Since then, I've kept an eye on her, as far as I could. Her coming into the hospital helps me considerably. When you say things which frighten her, do you mean in connection with her father? Again the dark look in Betty's eyes. Yes, she said, he's an evil, dangerous man. That was all I could get out of her. If she had meant me to know the character of Gage's turpitude, she would have told me of her own accord. But in our talk at the hospital, she had hinted at blackmail, and blackmailers are evil, dangerous men. I went to see St. Anthony about it. Beyond calling him a damned scoundrel, a term which he applied to all pro-Germans, pacifists, and half the Cabinet, he did not concern himself about Gage. Young Randall Holmes' intimacy with the scoundrel seemed to him a matter of far greater importance. He strode up and down his library, choleric and gesticulating. A gentleman's scholar to hobnote with a treachery best like that. I know he writes for a filthy weekly paper. Somebody sent me a copy a few days ago. It's rot, but not actually poisonous, like that he much hear from Gage. That's the reason, I suppose, he's not in the King's uniform. I've had my eye on him for some time. That's why I've not asked him to the house. I told St. Anthony of my interview with the young man. He waxed worth. In a country with a backbone every Randall Holmes and the land would have been chucked willy-nilly into the army. But the country has spinal disorders. It has locomotor a-taxi. The result of sloth and his self-indulgence. We had the government we deserved. I need not quote further. You can imagine a fine old fox-hunting Tory gentleman with England filling all the spaces of his soul, blowing off the steam at his indignation. When he has ended, what, said I, is to be done? I'll lay my horse whip across the young beggar's shoulders the next time I meet him. Capital, said I, if I were you, I should never ride aboard except in my mare's gown and chain, so that you can give an official character to the threshing. He glanced swiftly at me in his bird-like fashion. His bow creased into a thousand tiny horizontal lines. It always took him a fraction of a second to get clear of the literal significance of words, and then he laughed. Personal violence was out of the question. Why, the young beggar might summon him for assault. No, he had a better idea. He would put in a word at the proper quarter, so that every recruiting sergeant in the district should have orders to stop him at every opportunity. I shouldn't do that, said I. That I don't know what to do as I can do, said Sir Anthony. As I didn't know either, our colloquy was fruitless. Eventually, Sir Anthony said, perhaps it's likely, after all, that Gage may offend young Oxford's fastidiousness. He can't be long before he discovers Gage to be nothing but a vulgar, blatant windbag, and then he may undergo some reaction. I agreed. It seemed to be the most sensible thing he had said. Give Gage enough rope, and he would hang himself. So we parted. I have said before that when I wanted to show how independent I am of everybody, I drive aboard in my donkey carriage. But there are times when I have to be dependent on Marigold for carrying me into the houses I enter. On these helpless occasions I am driven about by Marigold in a little two-seater car. That is how I visited Wellings Park, and that is how I set off a day or two later to call on Mrs Boyce. As she took little interest in anything foreign to her own insight, she was not to most people an exhilarating companion. She even discussed the war in terms of her digestion. But we were old friends. Being a bit of a practical philosopher, I could always derive some entertainment from her serial romance of a gastric juice. And beside, she was the only person in Wellingsford whom I did not shrink from boring with the song of my own ailments. Rather than worry the fenimals or Betty or Mrs Holmes with my aches and pains, I would have hung on, like the idiot boy of Sparta with the fox, till my vitals were gnawed out, parenthically, who has always worried me to conjecture why a boy should steal a fox, why it should have been so valuable to the owner, and to what use he put it. In the case of all my other friends, I regarded myself as too much of an obvious nuisance, as it was, for me to work on their sympathy for infirmities that I could hide. But with Mrs Boyce it was different. The more I chanted antistrofe to her strofe of lamentation, the more was I welcome in her drawing-room. I had not seen her for some weeks. Perhaps I had been feeling remarkably well with nothing in the world to complain about, and therefore unequipped with a topic of conversation. However, hearty or not, it was time for me to pay her a visit, so I ordered the car. Mrs Boyce lived in a comfortable old house, half a mile or so beyond the other end of the town, standing a half a dozen well-wooded acres. It was a fair April afternoon, all pale sunshine and tenderness, a dream of fairy green and delicate pink, and shy blue sky melting into pearl. The air smelt sweet. It was good to be in it, among the trees and the flowers and the birds. Others must have also felt the calls of spring, for as we were driving up to the house, I caught a glimpse of the lawn, and of two figures strolling in affectionate attitude. One was that of Mrs Boyce. The other, car key clad and towering above her, had his arm round her waist. The car pulled up at the front door. Before we had time to ring, a trim parlour maid appeared. Mrs Boyce is not at home, sir. Murrigold, who, when my convenience was in question, swept away social conventions like cobwebs, fixed her with his one eye, and before I could interfere said, I'm afraid you're mistaken. I have just seen major Boyce and madam on the lawn. The maid readened and looked at me appealingly. My orders were to say not at home, sir. I quite understand, Mary, said I. Major Boyce is home on short leave, and they don't want to be disturbed. Isn't that it? Yes, sir. Murrigold, right about turn. Murrigold, who had stopped the car, got out unwillingly and went to the starting-handle. That I should be refused admittance to a house where I had dain to honour with my presence, he regarded as an intolerable insult. He also loved to have tea as a pampered guest in other folk's houses. When he got home, Mrs. Murrigold, as like as not, would give him plain slaves of bread buttered by her economical self. I knew my Murrigold. He gave a vicious and ineffectual turn or two, and then stuck his head into the bonnet. The situation was saved by the appearance from the garden of Mrs. Boyce herself. A handsome, erect, elegantly dressed old lady in the late sixties, pink and white like a dressed and figure, and in her usual condition of resplendent health, she held out her hand. I couldn't let you go without telling you that Leonard is back. I don't want the whole town to know. If I did, I should see nothing of him. His leave is so short. That's why I told Mary to say not at home. But an old friend like me, but an old friend like you, would you like to see him? Murrigold closed the bonnet and stood up with a grimace which passed for a happy smile. I should, of course, said I politely. But I quite understand. He want everything to say to each other. No, I won't stay. Murrigold's smile faded into woodenness. I only turned in idly to see how you were getting on. But just tell me, how is Leonard fit, I hope? He's wonderful, she said. I motioned Murrigold to start the car. Give him my kind regards, I said. No, indeed. He doesn't want to see an old croc like me. The engine rattled. I hope he's pleased at finding his mother looking so bonny. It's only excitement at having Leonard, she explained earnestly. In reality, I'm far from well, but I wouldn't tell him for worlds. What's that you wouldn't tell me, mother? Quite a soft, cheery voice. And Leonard, the fine flower of English soldiery, turned that corner of the house. There he stood tall, deep-chested, clear-eyed bronzed, his heavy chin in the air, his bull-neck not detracting from his physical handsomeness, but giving it a seal of enormous strength. My dear fellow, he cried, grasping my hand hardly. I'm glad I am to see you. Come along in and let mother give you some tea. Nonsense, he waved away my protest. Murrigold stopped that engine and bring in the major. I've lots of things to tell you, that's right. He strode boistly to the front door, which he threw open wide to admit Murrigold and myself and followed us with Mrs. Boyce into the drawing room, talking all the while. I must confess, I was just a little puzzled by his exuberant welcome, and to judge by the blank expression that fitted momentary over her face, so was his mother. If he was so delighted by my visit, why had he not crossed the lawn at once as soon as he saw the car? Why had he sent his mother on ahead? I was haunted by an exchange of words overheard in imagination, confirmed the fellow, what has he come here for? Mary will say not at home, but he has spotted us, do go and get rid of him. Such an old friend dear, we haven't time for old fossils, tell him to go and bury himself. And in my sensitive fancy she had delivered the import of the message. I had gathered that my visit was ill-timed. I was preparing to cut it short, when Leonard himself came up and whisked me against my will to the tea table. If my hypothesis were correct, he had evidently changed his mind as to the desirability of getting rid in so summary a fashion, of what he may have considered to be an impertinent and malicious little factor in Wellingston's gossip. At any rate, if he were playing a part, he played it very well. It was not in the power of man to be more cordial and gracious. He gave me a vivid account of the campaign. He had been through everything, the retreat from Mons, the Battle of the Aime, the Great Rush North, and the Battle of Nerve Chappelle on the 17th of March. I listened, fascinated to his tale, which he told the true soldiers in personal modesty. I was glad, said I, after a while, to see you twice mentioned in dispatchers. Mrs. Boyce turned on me triumphantly. He is going to get his DSO, by Jove, said I. Leonard laughed through one gated leg over the other and held up his hands at her. Who you feminine person, he smiled at me. I told my dear mother as a dead and solemn secret. But it will be gazetted in a few days, dear. One can never be absolutely sure of these things until they're in black and white. A pretty ass, I'd look if there were a hitch, say through some fool of a copying clerk, and I didn't get it, after all. It's only dear silly understanding things like mothers that would understand. Other people wouldn't. Don't you think I'm right, Meredith? Of course he was. I have known in my time of many disappointments. It is not every recommendation for honours that becomes effective. I congratulated him, however, and swore to secrecy. It's all luck, he said, just because a man happens to be spotted. If my regiment got its desserts, every Jack man would walk about in a suit of armour made of Victorian crosses. Give me some more tea, mother. The thing I shall never understand dear, she said artlessly, looking up at him while she handed him his cup, is when you see a lot of murderous Germans rushing at you with guns and shells and bayonets, how you are not afraid. He threw back his head and laughed in his debonair fashion. But I watched him narrowly, and I saw the corners of his mouth twitch for the infinitesimal fraction of a second. Oh, sometimes we're in an awful funk, I assure you, he replied gaily. Ask Meredith. We may be, said I, but we dare not show it. I'm speaking of officers. If an officer funks, he's generally responsible for the death of goodness knows how many men. And if the men funk, they're likely to be shot for cowardice in the face of the enemy. And what happens to officers who are afraid? If it's known, they get broke, said I. Boys swallowed his tea at a gulp, sat down the cup, and strode to the window. There was a short pause, presently he turned. Physical fear is a very curious thing, he said in a voice unnecessarily loud. I have seen a take hold of men have proved courage and paralysed them. It's just like an epileptic fit beyond a man's control. I've known a fellow the most reckless, hair-brained, daredevil you can imagine, to stand petrified with fear on the bank of a river and let a wounded comrade drown before his eyes. And he was a good swimmer too. What happened to him? I asked. He met my gaze for a moment, looked away, and then met it again. It seemed defiantly. What happened to him? Well, there was the tiniest possible pause, a pause that only an uneasy suspicious repository of the abominable story of Phil Box Farm could have noticed. Well, as he stood there, he got plugged, and that was the end of him. But what I... Was he an officer, dear? No, no mother had sergeant, he answered abruptly, and then the same breath continued. What I was going to say is this. No one as far as I know has ever bothered to work out the psychology of fear, especially the sudden thing that hits a man's heart and makes him stand stock still like a living corpse, unable to move a muscle, all his willpower out of gear, just as a motor is out of gear. I've seen a lot of it. Those men oughtn't to be called cowards. It's as much a fit, say, as epilepsy. Allowance ought to be made for them. It was a warm day. The windows were closed. My fellow Tudonarian hostess, having a horror of draughts, and a cheery fire was blazing up the chimney. Boys took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. Dear old mother, said he, you keep this room like an oven. It is you who have got so excited talking, dear, said Mr. Boys. I'm sure it can't be good for your heart. It is just the same with me. I remember I had to speak quite severely to Mary a week, no two days Tuesday, 10 days ago, and I had dreadful palpitations afterwards and broke out into a profuse perspiration and had to send for Dr. Miles. Now that's funny, said I. When I'm excited about anything, I grow quite cold. Boys lit a cigarette and laughed. I don't see where the excitement in the present case comes in. Mother started an interesting hair, and I followed it up. Anyhow, he threw himself on the sofa, blew a kiss to his mother in the most charming way in the world, and smiled on me. Anyhow, to see you two in this dearest bit of old England is like a dream. And I'm not going to think of the waking up. I want all the cushions and the lavender and the neat maid's caps and aprons. I said to Mary this morning when she drew my curtains, stay just there and let me look at you so I can realize I'm at home and not in my little grey trench in West Flanders. She got red and no doubt thought me a lunatic and felt inclined to squawk, but she stayed and looked jolly pretty and refreshing, only for a minute or two after which I dismissed her. Yes, my dears, I want everything that the old life means, the white table linen, the spring flowers, the scent of the air which has never known the taint of death, and all that this beautiful mother of England with her knitting needles stands for. I want to have a debauch of sweet and beautiful things. As far as I can give them to you, you shall have them, my dear. She dropped her knitting in her rope and looked over him tragically. I quite forgot to ask, did Mary put bath salts as I ordered into your bath this morning? Leonard threw away his cigarette and sloped his leg. By George, he cried, that explains it. I was wondering where the dickens that smell of ammonia came from. If you use it every day, it makes your skin so nice and soft, remarked Mrs Boyce. He laughed and made the obvious gist on the use of bath salts in the trenches. I wonder, mother, whether you have any idea of what trenches and dugouts look like. He told her very victuously, and went on to a general sketch of life at the front. He entertained me with an interesting talk for the rest of my visit. I had already said that he was a man of great personal charm. He accompanied me to the car and saw me comfortably tucked in. He won't give me away, will you? He said, shaking hands. How, said I, by telling anyone I'm here. I promised and drove off. Marigold, full of the tea that is given to a guest, strove cheerfully to engage me in conversation. I hate to snub Marigold, excellent and devoted fellow, so I let him talk. But my mind was occupied with worrying problems. End of chapter 5 Chapter 6 of The Red Planet This is a LibriVox recording, or LibriVox recording. Or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Christine Blashford. The Red Planet by William J. Locke. Chapter 6 Leonard Boyce had received me on sufferance. I had come upon him while he was imprudently exposing himself to view. There had been no way out of it. But he made it clear that he desired no other welling sfordian to invade his privacy. Secretly he had come to see his mother, and secretly he intended to go. I remembered that before he went to the front he had not come home, but his mother had met him in London. He had asked me for no local news. He had inquired after the welfare of none of his old friends. Never an allusion to poor Oswald Fenimore's gallant death, he used to run in and out of Welling's Park as if it were his own house. What had he against the place, which for so many years had been his home? With regard to Betty Fairfax he had loved and ridden away, it is true, leaving her at disconsolate. But though everyone knew of the engagement, no one had suspected the defection. Betty was a young woman who could keep her own counsel and baffle any curiosity-monger or purveyor of gossip in the country. So when she married Captain Connor, a little gasp went round the neighbourhood, which for the first time remembered Leonard Boyce. There were some who blamed her for callous treatment of Boyce away and forgotten at the front. The majority, however, took the matter calmly as we have had to take far more amazing social convulsions. The fact remained that Betty was married, and there was no reason whatever on the score of the old engagement for Boyce to manifest such exaggerated shyness with regard to Wellingsford Society. If it had been any other man than Boyce, I should not have worried about the matter at all, save that I was deeply attached to Betty what had her discarded lover's attitude to do with me. But Boyce was Boyce, the man of the damnable story of Wilburck's farm, and he, of his own accord, had revived in my mind that story in all its intensity. A chance foolish question, such as thousands of gentle sheltered women have put to their suddenly uncomprehended, suddenly deified sons and husbands, had obviously disturbed his nervous equilibrium. That little reflex twitch at the corner of his lips, I have seen it often in the old times. I should like to have had him stripped to the waist so that I could have seen his heart, the infallible test. At moments of mighty moral strain, men can keep steady eyes and nostrils and mouth and speech, but they cannot control that telltale diaphragm of flesh over the heart. I have known it to cause the death of many a kafia spy, but at any rate there was the twitch of the lips. I deliberately threw weight into the scale of Mrs. Boyce's foolish question. If he had not lost his balance, why should he have launched into an almost passionate defense of the physical coward? My memory went back to the narrative of the poor devil in the Cape Town Hospital. Boyce's description of the general phenomenon was a deadly corroboration of Sama's account of the individual case. They had used the same word, paralyzed. Boyce had made a fierce and definite apology for the very act of which Sama's had accused him. He put it down to the sudden epilepsy of fear for which a man was irresponsible. Sama's story had never seemed so convincing—the first part of it, at least, the part relating to the paralysis of terror—but the second part, the account of the diabolical ingenuity by means of which Boyce rehabilitated himself, instead of blowing his brains out like a gentleman, still hammered at the gates of microjulity. Well, granted the whole thing was true, why revive it after fifteen years dead silence, and all of a sudden just on account of an idle question? Even in South Africa his mention had proved his courage. Now, with the DSO a mere matter of gazetting, it was established beyond dispute. On the other hand, if the Vilberg story, more especially the second part, was true, what reparation could he make in the eyes of honourable men, in his own eyes if he himself had succeeded to the status of an honourable man? Would not any decent soldier smite him across the face instead of grasping him by the hand? I was profoundly worried. Moreover, Betty, level-headed Betty, had called him a devil. Why? If the second part of Soma's story were true, he had acted like a devil, there is no other word for it. Now, what concrete diabolical facts did Betty know, or had her instinctive feminine insight pierced through the man's outer charm, and merely perceived horns, tail, and cloven hoof cast like a shadow over his soul? How was I to know? She came to dine with me the next evening, a dear way she had of coming uninvited, and God knows how a lonely cripple valued it. She was in uniform, being too busy to change, and looked remarkably pretty. She brought with her a cheery letter from her husband, received that morning, and read me such bits as the profane might hear, her eyes brightening as she glanced over the sections that she skipped. Beyond doubt, her marriage had brought her pleasure and pride, the pride she would have felt to some extent, I think, if she had married a grandpa, for when a woman has a husband at the front, she feels that she is taking her part in the campaign, and exposing herself vicariously to hardship and shrapnel, and in the eyes of the world she gains thereby a little in stature, a thing dear to every right-minded woman. But Betty's husband was not a grampus, but a very fine fellow, a mate to be wholly proud of, and he loved her devotedly, and expressed his love beautifully lover-wise, as her tell-tale face informed me. Gratefully and steadily, she had set herself out to be happy. She was succeeding. Lord bless you, millions of women who have married not the wretch they loved, but the other man have lived happily ever after. No, I had no fear for Betty now. I could not see that she had any fear for herself. After dinner, she sat on the floor by my side and smoked cigarettes in great content. She had done a hard day's work at the hospital. Her husband had done a hard day's work, probably was still doing it, in Flanders. Both deserved well of their country and their consciences. She was giving a poor, lonely paralytic, who had given his legs years ago, to the aforesaid country, a delightful evening. No, I'm quite sure such a patronizing thought never entered my Betty's head. After all, my upper half is sound, and I can talk sense or nonsense with anybody. What have one's legs to do with a pleasant after-dinner conversation? Years ago, I swore a great oath that I would see them damned before they got in the way of my intelligence. We were getting on famously. We had put both War and Wellingsford behind us, and talked of books. I found to my dismay that this fair and fearless high product of modernity had far less acquaintance with Matthew Arnold than with the evangelist of the same Pranaman. She had never heard of the Forsaken Merman, one of the most haunting romantic poems in the English language. I pointed to a bookcase and bade her fetch the volume. She brought it, and settled down again by my chair, and, as a punishment of ignorance and for the good of her soul, I began to read aloud. She is an impressionable young person, and yet one of remarkable candour. If she had not been held by the sea-music of the poem, she would not have kept her deep, steady brown eyes fixed on me. I have no hesitation in repeating that we were getting on famously, and enjoying ourselves immensely. I got nearly to the end. Here came a mortal, but faithless was she, and alone dwell for ever the kings of the sea, but children at midnight. The door opened wide. Topping his long, stiff body, Marigold's ugly, one-eyed head appeared, and as if he was tremendously proud of himself, he announced, Major Boyce! Boyce strayed quickly past him, and suddenly aware of Betty by my side, stopped short, like a private, suddenly summoned to attention. Marigold, unconscious of the blackest curses that had ever fallen upon him during his long and blundering life, made a perfect and self-satisfied exit. Betty sprang to her feet, held her tall figure very erect, and faced the untimely visitor, her cheeks flushing deep red. For an appreciable time, say, thirty seconds, Boyce stood stock still, looking at her from under heavy contracted brows. Then he recovered himself, smiled, and advanced to her with outstretched hand. But on his movement she had been quick to turn and bend down in order to pick up the book that had fallen from my fingers on the further side of my chair. So swiftly he wheeled to me with his handshake. It was very deft manoeuvring on both sides. The faithful Marigold didn't tell me that you weren't alone, Meredith, he said, in his cordial, charming way. Otherwise I shouldn't have intruded. But my dear old mother had an attack of something, and went to bed immediately after dinner, and I thought I'd come round and have a smoke and a drink in your company. Betty, who had occupied herself by replacing Matthew Arnold's poems in the bookcases, caught up the box of cigars that lay on the brass tray table by my side, and offered it to him. Here is the smoke, she said. And when, after a swift covert glance at her he had selected a cigar, she went to the bell-push by the mantelpiece. The drinks will be here in a minute. In order to do something to save this absurd situation, I drew from my waistcoat pocket a little cigar-cutter attached to my watch-chain and clipped the end of his cigar. I also lit a match from my box and handed it up to him. When he had finished with the match he threw it into the fireplace and turned to Betty. My congratulations are a bit late, but I hope I may offer them. She said, thank you, waved a hand. Won't you sit down? Wasn't it rather sudden, he asked? Everything in wartime is sudden, except the action of the British government. Your own appearance tonight is sudden. He laughed at her jest and explained, much as he had done to me, his reasons for wishing to keep his visit to Wellingsford a secret. Meanwhile Marigold had brought in decanters and siphons. Betty attended to Boyce's needs with a provoking air of nonchalance. If a notorious German inbrewed in the blood of babes had chance to be in her hospital, she would have given him his medicine with just the same air. Although no one could have specified a lack of courtesy towards a guest, for in my house she played hostess, there was an indefinable touch of cold consumely in her attitude. Whether he felt the hostility as acutely as I did, I cannot say, but he carried it off with a swaggering grace. He bowed to her over his glass. He is to the fortunate and gallant fellow over there. I saw her knuckles whitening, as with an inclination of the head, she acknowledged the toast. By the way, said he, what's his regiment? My good mother told me his name. Captain Connor, isn't it? But for the rest, she is vague. She's the vaguest old deer in the world. I found out to-day that she thought there was a long row of cannons, hundreds of them, all in a line in front of the English army, and a long row in front of the German army, and when there was a battle that they all blazed away. So when I asked her whether your husband was in the lifeguards or the army service corps, she said cheerfully that it was either one or the other, but she wasn't quite sure. So do give me some reliable information. My husband is in the tenth Wessex fusiliers, a territorial battalion, she replied coldly. I hope some day to have the pleasure of making his acquaintance. Stranger things have happened, said Betty. She glanced at the clock and rose abruptly. It's time I was getting back to the hospital. Voice rose too. How are you going? he asked. I'm walking. He advanced a step towards her. Won't you let me run you round in the car? I prefer to walk. Her tone was final. She took affectionate leave of me and went to the door, which Boyce held open. Good night, she said, without proffering her hand. He followed her out into the hall. Betty, he said in a low voice, won't you ever forgive me? I have no feelings towards you either of forgiveness or resentment, she replied. They did not mean to be overheard, but my hearing is unusually acute, and I could not help catching their conversation. I know I seem to have behaved badly to you. You have behaved worse to others, said Betty. I don't wonder at your shrinking from showing your face here. Then louder for my benefit. Good night, Major Boyce. I really can walk up to the hospital by myself." Evidently she walked away, and Boyce after her, thought I heard him say, You shan't go till you've told me what you mean. What she replied, I don't know. To judge by the slam of the front door it must have been something defiant. Presently he entered debonair with a smile on his lips. I'm afraid I've left you in a draft, he said, shutting the door. I couldn't resist having a word with her and wishing her happiness and the rest of it. We were engaged once upon a time. I know, said I. I hope you don't think I did wrong in releasing her from the engagement. I don't consider a man has a right to go on active service, especially on such service as the present war, and keep a girl bound at home. Still less has he a right to marry her. What happens in so many cases? A fortnight's married life. The man goes to the front, then ping or whizbang, and that's the end of him, and so the girl is left. On the other hand, said I, You must remember that the girl may hold very strong opinions, and take pings and whizbangs very deliberately into account. Boyce helped himself to another whiskey and soda. It's a matter for the individual conscience. I decided one way, Connor obviously decided another, and like a lucky fellow, found better of his way of thinking. Perhaps I have old-fashioned notions. He took a long pull at his drink. Well, it can't be helped, he said with a smile. The other fellow has won, and I must take it gracefully. By George, wasn't she looking stunning tonight, in that kit? I hope you didn't mind me bursting in on you. Of course not, said I politely. He drained his glass. The fact is, said he, this war is a nerve-wracking business. I never dreamed I was so jumpy until I came home. I hate being by myself. I've kept my poor devoted mother up till one o'clock in the morning. Tonight she struck, small-blame to her, but after five minutes on my loans, I felt as if I should go off my head. So I routed out the car, and came along. But of course, I didn't expect to see Betty. The sight of Betty in the flesh, as a married woman, nearly bowled me over. May I help myself again? He poured out a very much stiffer drink than before, and poured half of it down his throat. It's not a joyous thing to see the woman one has been crazy over, the wife of another fellow. I suppose it isn't, said I. Of course, I might have made some subtle and cunning remark, suavely put a leading question which would have led him on, in his unbalanced mood, to confidential revelations. But the man was a distinguished soldier and my guest, to what he chose to tell me voluntarily I could listen. I could do no more. He did not reply to my last and important remark, but lay back in his arm-chair watching the blue spirals of smoke from the end of his cigar. There was a fairly long silence. I was worried by the talk I had overheard through the open door. You have behaved worse to others. I don't wonder at your shrinking from showing your face here. Betty had, weeks ago, called him a devil. She had treated him to-night in a manner which, if not justified, was abominable. I was forced to the conclusion that Betty was fully aware of some discreditable chapter in the man's life, which had nothing to do with the affair at Vilberg's Farm, which indeed had to do with another woman and this humdrum little town of Wellingsford. Otherwise why did she taunt him with hiding from the light of Wellingsfordian day? Now please don't think me little-minded, or if you do think so, please remember the conditions under which I have lived for so many years and grant me your kind indulgence for a confession I have to make. Besides being worried, I felt annoyed. Wellingsford was my little world. I knew everybody in it. I had grown to regard myself as the repository of all its gossip. The fraction of it that I retailed was a matter of calculated discretion. I made a little hobby. It was a foible, a vanity, what you will, of my omniscience. I knew months ahead the dates of the arrivals of young Wellingsfordians in this world of pain and plenitude. I knew of maidens who were wronged and youths who were jilted, of wives who led their husbands adduce of a dance, and of wives who kept their husbands out of the bankruptcy court. When young Trexham, the son of the lord-left tenant of the county, married a minor light of musical comedy at a registrar's office, I was the first person in the place to be told, and I flatter myself that I was instrumental in inducing a pig-headed old idiot to receive an exceedingly charming daughter-in-law. I love to look upon Wellingsford as an open book. Can you blame me for my resentment at coming across, so to speak, a couple of pages glued together? The only logical inference from Betty's remark was that boys had behaved abominably, and even notoriously, to a woman in Wellingsford. To do him justice, I declare I had never heard his name associated with any woman or girl in the place save Betty herself. I felt that, in some crooked fashion or the other, I had been done out of my rights. And there, placidly smoking his cigar and watching the wreaths of blue smoke with the air of an idle serif contemplating a wisp of cirrus in heaven's firmament, sat the man who could have given me the word of the enigma. He broke the silence by saying, Have you ever seriously considered the real problems of the Balkans? Now, what on earth had the Balkans to do with the thoughts that must have been rolling at the back of the man's mind? I was both disappointed and relieved. I expected him to resume the personal talk, and I dreaded lest he should entrust me with embarrassing confidences. After three strong whiskeys and sodas, a man is apt to relax hold of his discretion. Anyhow, he jerked me back to my position of host. I made some sort of polite reply. He smiled. You, my dear Meredith, like the rest of the country, are half asleep. In a few months' time you'll get the awakening of your life. He began to discourse on the diplomatic situation. Months afterwards I remembered what he had said that night and how accurate had been his forecast. He talked brilliantly for over an hour, during which, keenly interested in his arguments, I lost the puzzle of the man in admiration of the fine soldier and clear and daring thinker. It was only when he had gone that I began to worry again. And before I went to sleep I had fresh cause for anxious speculation. Marigold said I, when he came in as usual to carry me to bed, didn't I tell you that major boys particularly wanted no one to know that he was in the town? Yes, sir, said Marigold. I told nobody. And yet you showed him in without informing him that Mrs. Connor was here. Really, you ought to have had more tact. Marigold received his reprimand with the solidity of the old soldier. I have known men who have been informed that they would be caught marshalled and most certainly shot make the same reply. Very good, sir, said he. I softened. I was not Marigold's commanding officer, but his very grateful friend. You see, said I, they were engaged before Mrs. Connor married. I needn't tell you that. It was common knowledge, and so their sudden meeting was awkward. Mrs. Marigold has already explained, sir, said he. I chuckled inwardly all the way to my bedroom. All the same, sir, said he, aiding me in my toilet, which he did with stiff military precision. I don't think the major is as incognito—the spelling is phonetic—as he would like. Pretty Love was shaving me this morning, and told me the major was here. As I considered it my duty, I told him he was a liar, and he was so upset that he nicked my Adam's apple, and I was that covered with blood that I accused him of trying to cut my throat, and I went out and finished shaving myself at home, which is unsatisfactory when you only have a thumb on your right hand to work the razor. I laughed, picturing the scene. Pretty Love is an inoffensive little rabbit of a man. Marigold might sit for the model of a war-scarred mercenary of the Middle Ages, and when he called a man a liar, he did it with accentuation and vehemence. No wonder Pretty Love jumped. And then again this evening, sir, continued Marigold, slipping me into my pajama jacket. As I was starting the major's car, who should be waiting there for him but Mr. Gedge? Gedge, I cried. Yes, sir, waiting by the side of the car. Can I have a word with you, Major Boy, says he? No, you can't, says the major. I think it's advisable, says he. Those repairs are very pressing. All right, says the major, jump in. Then he says, that'll do, Marigold, good night. And he drives off with Mr. Gedge. Well, if Mr. Gedge and Pretty Love know he's here, then everyone knows it. Was Gedge inside the drive, I asked. The drive was a small, semi-circular sort of affair between gate and gate. He was standing by the car waiting, said Marigold. Now, sir, he lifted me with his usual cast iron tenderness into bed, and pulled the coverings over me. It's a funny time to talk about house repairs at eleven o'clock at night, he remarked. Nothing is funny in wartime, said I. Either nothing or everything, said Marigold. He first, methodically about the room, picked up an armful of clothes, and paused by the door, his hand on the switch. Anything more, sir? Nothing, thank you, Marigold. Good night, sir. The room was in darkness. Marigold shut the door. I was alone. What the juice was the meaning of this way-laying of voice by Daniel Gedge. Chapter 7 Major Boyce is gone, sir, said Marigold, the next morning, as I was tapping my breakfast egg. Gone, I echoed. Boyce had made no reference the night before to so speedy departure. By the eight-thirty train, sir. Every train known by your scheduled time at Wellingsford goes to London. There may be other trains proceeding from the station in the opposite direction, but nobody heats them. Boyce had taken train to London. I asked my omniscient sergeant, how did you find that out? It appeared it was the driver of the railway delivery van. I smiled at Boyce's ostrich-like faith in the invisibility of his hind-a-block. What could occur in Wellingsford, without it being known at once to van-men and postmen, and barbers, and servants, and masters, and mistresses? How could a man hope to conceal his goings and comings and secret actions? He might just as well expect to take a secluded noontide bath in the fountain in Piccadilly Circus. Perhaps that's why the matter of those repairs was so pressing, sir, said Marigold. No doubt of it, said I. Marigold hung about, his fingertips pushing towards me, mustered down apples and tulips, and everything that one does not eat with egg. But it was no use. I had no desire to pursue the conversation. I continued my breakfast stolately, and read the newspaper propped up against the coffee-pot. So many circumstances connected with Boyce's visit were of a nature that precluded confidential discussion with Marigold. That precluded, indeed, confidential discussion with anyone else. The suddenness of his departure I learned that afternoon from Mrs Boyce, who sent me by hand a miserable letter characteristically rambling. From it I gathered certain facts. Leonard had come into her bedroom at seven o'clock, awakening her from the first half-hour sleep she had enjoyed all night, with the news that he had been unexpectedly summoned back. When she came to think of it she couldn't imagine how he got the news, for the post did not arrive till eight o'clock, and Mary said no telegram had been delivered, and there had been no call on the telephone. But she supposed the war-office had secret ways of communicating with officers, which it would not be well to make known. The whole of this war, with its killing off of the sons of the best families in the land, and the sleeping in the mud with one's boots on, to say nothing of not being able to change for dinner, and the way in which they knew when to shoot and when not to shoot, was also mysterious that she had long ago given up hope of understanding any of its details. All she could do was to pray, God, that her dear boy should be spared. At any rate, she knew the duty of an English mother when the country was in danger. So she had sent him away with a brave face and her blessing, as she had done before. But although English mothers could show themselves Spartans, she spelled it Spartans, dear lady, but no matter. Yet they were women, and had to sit at home and weep. In the meanwhile, her palpitations had come on dreadfully bad, and so had her neuritis, and she had suffered dreadfully after eating some fish at dinner, which she was sure, penny-death, the fishmonger. She always felt that man was an anarchist in disguise, had bought out of the condemned stock at Billingsgate, and none of the doctor's medicines were of the slightest good to her. And she was heartbroken at having to part so suddenly from Lennart. And would I spare half an hour to comfort an old woman, who had sent her only son to die for his country, and was ready when it pleased God, if not sooner, to die in the same sacred cause? So, of course, I went. The old lady, propped on pillows in an overheated room, gave me tea, and poured into my ear all the anguish of her simple heart. In an abstracted, anxious way, she ate a couple of crumpets and a wedge of cake with almond icing, and was comforted. We continued our discussion of the war, or rather Lennart, for with her Lennart seemed to be the war. She made some remark deliciously inept. I wish I could remember it. I made a sly rejoinder. She said, both upright and flush came into her dressed in tiny cheek, and her old eyes flashed. You may think I'm a silly old woman, Duncan. I dare say I am. I can't take in things that I used to do when I was young. But if Lennart should be killed in the war, I think of it night and day. What I should like to do would be to drive to the market square of Wellingsford, and wave a union jack, round and round, and fall down dead. I made some sort of sympathetic gesture. And I certainly should, she added. My dear friend, said I, if I could move from this confounded chair, I would kiss your brave hands. And how many brave hands of English mothers, white and delicate, coarse and toil-worn, do not demand the wandering, heartfelt homage of us all. And hundreds of thousands of them don't know why we are fighting. Hundreds of thousands of them have never read a newspaper in their lives. I doubt whether they would understand one if they tried. I doubt whether all could read one in the literal sense of the word. We have had, we have still, the most expensive and rottenest system of primary education in the world, the worst that squabbling sectarians can devise. Arab children, squatting round the courtyard of a mosque and swaying backwards and forwards as they get by heart, meaningless bits of the Quran, are not sent out into life more inadequately armed with elementary educational weapons than our English children. Our state of education has nominally been systematized for 45 years, and yet now in our hospitals we have splendid young fellows in their early 20s who can neither read nor write. I have talked with them. I have read to them. I have written letters for them. Clean cut, decent, brave, honorable Englishmen, not gutterbred hooligans dragged from the abyss by the recruiting sergeant, but men who have thrown up good employment because something noble inside them responded to the great call. And to the eternal disgrace of governments in this disastrously politician-ridden land, such men have not been taught to read and write. It is of no use, anyone saying to me, that it is not so. I know of my own certain intimate knowledge that it is so. Even among those who technically have the three Rs. I have met scores of men in our Wellingsford Hospital who, bedridden for months, would give all they possess to be able to enjoy a novel, say a volume of W. W. Jacobs, the writer who, above all others, has conferred the precious boon of laughter on our wounded, but to whom the intellectual strain of following the significance of consecutive words is far too great. Thousands and thousands of men have lain in our hospitals, deprived by the criminal insanity of party politicians, of the infinite consolation of books. Christ, whom all these politicians sanctimoniously pretend to make such a fuss off, once said that a house divided against itself cannot stand. And yet, we regard this internecine conflict between our precious political parties as a sacred institution. By Allah, we are a funny people. Of course, your officials at the Board of Education, that beautiful timber-headed, timber-hearted, timber-sold structure, could come down on me with an avalanche of statistics. Look at our results, they cry. I look. There are certain brains that even our educational system cannot be numb. A few clever ones, at the cost of enormously expensive machinery, are sent to the universities, where they learn how to teach others the important things, whereby they achieved their own unimportant success. The shining lights of those whom we turn out as syndicalist leaders, and other kinds of anti-patriotic demagogues, will systematically deny them the wine of thought, but give them the dregs. But in the past, we did not care. They were vastly clever people, a credit to our national system. It gave them chances which they took. We were devilish proud of them. On the other hand, the vast miles are sent away with the intellectual equipment of a public schoolboy of twelve, and, as I have declared, a large remnant have not been taught even how to read and write. The storm of political controversy on educational matters has centered round such questions as whether the story of Joseph and his brethren, and the parable of the prodigal son, should be taught to little Baptists by a Church of England teacher, and what proportion of rates paid by Church of England ratepayers should go to giving little Baptists a Baptistical training. If there was a Christ who could come down among us, with what scorching sarcasm would he not travel up the scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who, in his name, have prevented the people from learning how to read and write. Look through Hansard. There never has been a debate in the House of Commons devoted to the question of education itself. If the work can teach us any lessons, as a nation, and sometimes I doubt whether it will, it ought at least to teach us the essential vicious rottenness of our present educational system. This tirade may seem a far cry from Mrs. Boyce and her sister mothers. It is not. I started by saying that there are hundreds of thousands of British mothers with sons in the army who have never read a line of print dealing with the war, who have the haziest notion of what it is all about. All they know is that we are fighting Germans, who, for some incomprehensible reason, have declared themselves to be our enemies. That the Germans, by hearsay accounts, are dreadful people who stick babies on bayonets and drop bombs on women and children. They really know a little more, but that is enough. They know that it is the part of a man to fight for his country. They would not have their sons be called cowards. They themselves have the blind, instinctive, and therefore sacred love of country, which is named patriotism, and they sent forth their sons to fight. I stand up to kiss the white and delicate hand of the gentle woman who sends her boy to the war, for its owner knows as well as I do, or ought to, all that is involved in this colossal struggle. But to the toil worn cause-handed mother I go and bend its knees. Nothing intellectual comes within the range of her ideas. Her boy is fighting for England. She would be ashamed if he were not. Were she a man, she would fight too. He has gone with good art, the stereotyped phrase with which every English private soldier tongue-tied hides the expression of his unconquerable soul. How many times have I not heard it from wounded men healed of their wounds? I have never heard anything else. The man who says he wants to go back is a liar, but if they send me, I'll go with a good art. The phrase which ought to be immortalized on every grave in Flanders and France, and Gallipoli, and Mesopotamia. 17735. Private Thomas Atkins first got his own regiment. He died with a good art. So, you see, I looked at this rather silly, malade imaginaire of an old lady with whom I was taking tea, and suddenly conceived for her a vast respect, even veneration. I say rather silly. I had many a time qualified the adjective much more forcibly. I took her to have the intellectual endowment of a hen. But then she flashed out suddenly before me an elderly gendak, that to me Leonard Boyce was suspect, did not enter at all into the question. To her, and it was all that mattered, he was Segalahat, Lancelot, King Arthur, Bayard, St. George, Hector, Lysander, Miltiades, all rolled into one. The passion of her life was spent on him. To do him justice, he had never failed to display to her the most tender affection. In her eyes, he was perfection. His death would mean the wiping out of everything between earth and heaven. And yet, paramount in her envisagement of such a tragedy was the idea of a public proclamation of the cause of England in which he died. In this war, the women of England, the women of Great Britain and Ireland, the women of the far-flung regions of the British Empire have their part. Now and then, mild business matters call me up to London. On these occasions, Marigold gets himself up in a kind of yorting kit, which he imagines will differentiate him from the ordinary chauffeur, and at the same time proclaim the dignity of the Meredith Marigold establishment. He loves to swagger up the steps of my service club, and announce my arrival to the whole porter, who already, warned by telephone of my advent, has my little wicker work tricycle chair in readiness. I think he feels, dear fellow, that he and I are keeping our end up, that, although there are only bits of us left, we are thereby inalienable right as part and parcel of the British army, none of your territorial or kitcheners, but the old original British army, whose prestige and honour were those of his own straight soul. The whole porter is an ex-Sergeant major, and he and Marigold are old acquaintances, and a meeting of the two warriors is acknowledged by a wink and a military jerk of the head. I think it is Marigold that impresses Bunworthy with the respect for me, for that August functionary never fails to dissent the steps and cross the pavement to my modest little two-seater. An act of graciousness, which, so I am given to understand by my friends, he will only perform in the case of royalty itself. A mere field-martial has to mount the steps unattended, like any subaltern. These red-letter days, when I drive through the familiar and now exciting hubbub of London, I love, strange taste, every motor omnibus, every pretty woman, every sandwich man, every fine young fellow in khaki, every carload of men in blue hospital uniform. I love the smell of London, the cinematographic picture of London, the thrill of London. To understand what I mean, you have only got to get rid of your legs, and keep your heart and nose and memories, and live in a little country town. Yes, my visits to London are red-letter days. To get there with any enjoyment to myself involves such a fascification, and such an unauthorized claim on the services of other people, that my visits are few and far between. A couple of hours in the club smoking-room, to the normal man amir putting in of time, evanes a season boredom, a vacuous habit, is to me a strange wonder and delight. After Wellingsford, the place is resonant with actualities. I hear all sorts of things, mostly lies, I know, but what matter? When a man tells me that his cousin knows a man, attached as liaison officer to the staff of General Joffrey, who has given out confidentially that such and such a thing is going to happen, I am all ears. I feel that I am sucked into the great whirlpool of vast events. I don't care a bit about being disillusioned afterwards. The experience has done me good, made a man of me, and sent me back to Wellingsford as an oracle. And if you bring me a man who declares that he does not like being an oracle, I will say to his face that he is an unblushing liar. All this is by way of preface to the statement that on the 3rd of May, Vid Dari, I went to the club. It was just after lunch, and the great smoking-room was full of men in khaki, and men in blue and gold, with a sprinkling of men, mostly elderly, in mufti. And from their gilt frames, the full-length portraits of departed men of war, in gorgeous uniforms, looked down supercellously on their more sadly attired descendants. I got into a corner by the door, so asked to be out of the way, for I knew by experience that, should there be in the room a choleric general, he would inevitably trip over the casually extended front wheel of my chair, greatly to the scandal of modest ears, and to my own physical disconfiture. Various seniors came up and passed the time of the day with me. One or two were bald-headed retired kernels of sixty, dressed in khaki, with bell-slug equators on a terrestrial globe, and with the captain's three stars on their sleeves. Gallant old boys, full of gout and softness, that sunk their rank and taken whatever dull jobs, such as guarding interment camps or railway bridges, the war-office condescendingly thought fit to give them. They listened sympathetically to my grievances, for they had grievances of their own. When soldiers have no grievances, the army will perish of smug content. Why can't they give me a billet in the army pay and let me release a man, sounder of wind and limb? I asked. What's the good old extra man who sits on his hunkers all day in an office, and fills up army forms? I hate seeing you lucky fellows in uniform. We're not a pretty sight, said the most rotund, who was a whack in his way. Then we discussed what we knew and what we didn't know of the Battle of Ypres, and withdrawal of our second army, and shook our heads dollarously over the casualty lists, every one of which in those days contained the names of old comrades and of old comrades' boys. And when they had finished their coffee and mild cigars, they went off well contented to the dull jobs, and the room began to thin. Other acquaintances on their way out paused for a handshake and a word, and I gathered scraps of information that had come straight from Kitchener, and felt wonderfully wise and cheerful. I had been sitting alone for a few minutes, when a man rose from a far corner, a tall soldierly figure, his arm in a sling, and came straight towards me with that supple, easy stride that only years of confident command can give. He had keen blue eyes and a pleasant, bronzed face, which I knew that I had seen somewhere before. I noticed on his sleeve the crown and star of a lieutenant colonel. He said, pleasantly, you're Major Meredith, aren't you? Yes, said I. You don't remember me, no reason why you should, but my name is Daker, Reggie Daker, brother of Johnny Daker in your battery. We met in Cape Town. I held out my hand. Of course, said I, you took me to a hospital. Do sit down for a bit. You a member here? No, I belong to the naval and military, lunching with old General Donovan, a sort of godfather of mine. He told me who you were. I haven't seen you since that day in South Africa. I asked for news of Johnny, who had been lost to my ken for years. Johnny had been in India, and was now doing splendidly with his battery somewhere near La Bassée. I pointed to the sling. Badly hurt. No, a bit of flesh torn by shrapnel. Bone, thank God, not touched. It was only horny-headed idiots like the British R.A.M.C. that would send a man home for such a trifle. It was devilish hard lines to be hoofed away from the regiment, practically just after he had got his command. However, he would be back in a week or two. He laughed. Lucky to be alive at all. Or not done in forever like myself, said I. I didn't like to ask, he said. Men would rather die than commit the indelicacy of appearing to notice my infirmity. You haven't been out there? No such luck, said I. I got this little lot about a fortnight after I saw you. Johnny was still on sick leave, and so was out of that scrap. He commiserated with me on my ill fortune, and handed me his cigarette case. We smoked. You've been on my mind for months, he said abruptly. I, he nodded. I thought I recognized you. I asked the general who you were. He said, Meredith of the Gunners, so I knew I was right and made a beeline for you. Do you remember the story of that man in the hospital? Perfectly, said I, about boys of the King's watch. Yes, said I. I saw boys home and leave about a fortnight ago. I suppose you saw his DSO gazetted. I did, and he deserves a jolly side more, he exclaimed heartily. I've come to the conclusion that that fellow in the hospital, I forget the brute's name, Somers, said I. Yes, Somers. I've come to the conclusion that he was the dumbest, filthiest, lyingest hound that ever was popped. I'm glad to hear it, said I. It was a horrible story. I remember making your brother and yourself vow eternal secrecy. You can take it from me that we haven't breathed the word to anybody. As a matter of fact, the whole damn thing had gone out of my head for years. Then I begin to hear of a fellow called Boys of the Rivals, doing the most crazy, magnificent things. I make inquiries and find it's the same Leonard Boys of the Vilbuk farm story. We're in the same brigade. You don't often hear of individual men out there, your minds too jolly well concentrated on your own tiny show. But Boys has sort of burst out beyond his enragment, and with just one or two others, is beginning to be legendary. He has done the maddest things and won the VC twenty times over. So that blighter Somers, accusing him of cowardice, was a ghastly liar. And then I remembered taking you up to hear that damnable slander, and I felt that I had a share in it, as far as you were concerned, and I longed to get at you somehow and tell you about it. I wanted to get it off my chest. And now, said he with the breath of relief, thank God I've been able to do so. I wish you would tell me of an incident or two, said I. He's got a live preserver that looks like an ordinary cane, had it specially made. It's quite famous. Men tell me that Knopp is a rich, deep, polished vermillion. He'll take on any number of Bosch with it single-handed. If there's any sign of wire cutting, he'll not let the men fire, but will take it on himself, and creep like a gerker and do the devil's in. One night he got a whole listening post like that. He does a lot of things, a second in command hasn't any business to do, but his men would follow him anywhere. He bears a charmed life. I could tell you lots of things, but I see my old generals getting restive. He rose, stretched out his hand. At any rate, take my word for it, if there's a man in a British army who doesn't know what fear is, that man is Leonard Boyce. He nodded in his frank way and rejoined his old general. As I had had enough exciting information for one visit to town, I motored back to Wellingsford. End of chapter 7 Chapter 8 of The Rat Planet My house, as I have already mentioned, is situated at the extreme end of the town on the main road, already called the Road on Road, which is an extension of the high street. It stands a little way back to a low room for a semicircular drive, at each end of which is a broad gate. The semicircle encloses a smooth shaven lawn, of which I am vastly proud. In the squanderers by the side of the house there are labyrinths and lilacs and laurels. From gate to gate stretch island railings, planned in a low stone parapet, and unencumbered with vegetation so that the view from road to lawn and from road to road is unrestricted. Thus I can take my position on my lawn near the railings and greet all passes by. It was a lovely main morning. My labyrinths and lilacs were in flower. On the other side of the way the hedge of white thorn screening the grounds of a large preparatory school was in a flower also, and deliciously scented the air. I set in my accustomed spot a table with writing materials, tobacco, and books by my side, and a mass of newspapers at my feet. There was going to be a coalition government. Great statesmen were going to forget that there was such a thing as party politics, except in the distribution of minor offices, when the claims of good and faithful jackals on either side would have to be considered. And my heart grew sick within me, and I longed for a man to arise, who, with a snap of his strong fingers, would snap out the little perish-bump folk who have misruled England this many a year with their limited vision and sordid aspirations, and would take the great, unshakable, triumphant command of a mighty empire passionately yearning to do his bidding. I could read no more newspapers. They disgusted me. One faction seemed dodgily opposed to any proposition for the amelioration of the present disastrous state of affairs. The salvation of racket political theories loomed far more important in their darkened minds than the salvation, by hook or crook, for the British Empire. The other faction, more patriotic in theory, crowd-aloud stinking fish, and by scurrilous overstatement defeated their own ends. In the general ignoble screech the pronouncements of the one or two dignified and thoughtful London newspapers passed unheeded. I drew what comfort I could from the side of the continually passing troops, a platoon of the musketry training, a battalion, brown and dusty, on a route marked with full equipment, whistling tipperary. Sections of an army service trained, cursing good humorily at their meals. A battery of artillery, thundering along at a clean, rhythmical troth which, considering what they were like in their slovenly jogging and bumping three months ago, afforded me prodigious pleasure. On the passing of this last mentioned, I felt inclined to clap my hands and generally proclaim my appreciation. Indeed, I did arrest a fresh-faced subaltern, bringing up the rear of the battery, who, having acquaintance with me, saluted and I shouted, They are magnificent! He rared up his horse and flushed with pleasure. We've done our best, sir, said he. We had news last week that we should be sent out quite soon, and that has buckled them up enormously. He saluted again and rode off, and my heart went with him. What a joy it would be to clatter down a road once again with the guns. And other people passed. Tom's folk who gave me a kindly warning major, and went on. And others who posed a while and gave me the gossip of the day. And presently young Randall Holmes went by on a motor bicycle. He caught sight of me, disappeared, and then suddenly reappeared, willing his machine. He rested it by the curb of the sidewalk, and approached the railings. He was within a yard of me. Would you let me speak to you for half a minute, major? Certainly, said I. Come in. He swung through the gate and crossed the lawn. You said very hard things to me some time ago. I did, said I, and I don't think they were undeserved. Up to a certain point I agree with you, he replied. He looked extraordinarily robust and athletic in his canvas kit. Why should he be tearing about aimlessly on a motor bicycle this May morning, when he ought to be in France? I wish he agreed with me all along the line, said I. He found a little iron garden seat and sat down by my side. I don't want to enter into controversial questions, he said. Confund him. He might have been fifteen instead of four and twenty. Controversial questions. His assured young Oxford voice irritated me. What do you want to enter into? I asked. A question of honour, he answered calmly. I have been wanting to speak to you, but I didn't like to. Passing by you just now I made a sudden resolution. You have thought badly of me on account of my attitude towards Philip Gage. I want to tell you that you are quite right. My attitude was illogical and absurd. You have discovered, said I, that she is not the inspiration you thought she was, and like an honest man have decided to let her alone. On the contrary, said he, I'd give the eyes out of my head to marry her. Why? He met my gaze very frankly. For the simple reason, major Meredith, that I love her. All this natural matter-effect simplicity coming from so artificial a product of Balliol as Randall Holmes was a bit upsetting. After a pause I said, If that is so, why don't you marry her? She'll have nothing to do with me. Have you asked her? I have, in writing. There's no mistake about it. I'm in earnest. I'm exceedingly glad to hear it, said I. And I was. An honest lover I can understand, and a Don Juan I can understand. But a tepid philanderer has always made my toes tingle, and I was glad too to hear that little Philip's Gage had so much dignity and common sense. Not many small builders' daughters would have sent packing a brilliant young man like Randall Holmes, especially if they happened to be in love with him. As I did not particularly wish to be the confident of this love-lorn shepherd, I said nothing more. Randall lit a cigarette. I hope I'm not boring you, he said. Not a bit. Well, what complicates the matter is that her father the most infernal swine unhung. I started remembering what Betty had told me. I thought, said I, that you were fast friends. Who told you so? he asked. All the birds in wellings, Ford. I did go to see him now and then, he admitted. I thought he was much maligned. A man with sincere opinions, even though they are wrong, is deserving of some respect, especially when the expression of them involves considerable courage and sacrifice. I wanted to get to the bottom of his point of view. If you use such a metaphor in the Albomarle, I interrupted. I'm afraid you would be sacrificed by your friends. He had the grace to laugh. You know what I mean. And did you get to the bottom of it? I think so. And what did you find? Crass ignorance and malevolent hatred of anyone better born, better educated, better off, better dressed, better spoken than himself. Still, said I, a human being can have those disabilities, and yet not deserve to be qualified as the most infernal swine unhung. That's a different matter, said he, and buttoning his canvas jacket, for the morning was warm. I can talk patiently to a fool. To be able to do so is an elementary equipment for the life among men and women. Why to do so, Dorae, wasn't he expanding his precious acquirement on a platoon of agriculture recruits? The officer who suffers such gladly has his name inscribed in the golden legend, unfortunately unpublished, of the British army. But when it comes, he went on, to low down lying navery, then I'm done. I don't know how to tackle it. All I can do is to get out of the nice way. I found Getch to be a beast, and I'm very honorably in love with Getch's daughter, and I've asked her to marry me. I attached some value, major, to your opinion of me, and I want you to know these two facts. I again expressed my gratification at learning his honorable intentions towards Phyllis, and I commanded his discovery of Getch's fundamental turpitude. I cannot say that I was cordial. At this period the unmilitary youth of England were not affectionately coddled by their friends. Still I was curious to see whether Getch's depravity extended beyond a purely political scope. I questioned my young visitor. Oh, it's nothing to do with abstract opinions, said he, thinning away the butt-end of his cigarette, and nothing to do with treason or anything of that kind. He has got hold of a horrible story, told me all about it when he was foully drunk. That in itself would have made me break with him, for I loath drunk a man. And gloats over the fact that he is holding it over somebody's head. Oh, a ghastly story. I bend my brows on him. Anything to do with South Africa? South Africa? No, why? The puzzled look on his face showed that I was entirely on the wrong track. I was disappointed at the faultiness of my acumen. You see, I argued thus. Getch goes off on a mysterious jaunt with Boyce. Boyce retreats precipitately to London. Getch, in his cups, tells a horrible scandal with the suggestion of blackmail to Randall Holmes. What else could he have divulged saved a will-book farm affair? My nimble wit had led me to a jack-o'-laton dance to nowhere. Why South Africa? he repeated. I replied with Machiavellian astuteness, so as to put him on the false scent. A stupid slander about illicit diamond buying in connection with a man, now dead, who used to live here, some years ago. Oh no, said Randall with a superior smile, nothing of that sort. Well, what is it? I asked. He helped himself to another cigarette. Dead, said he, I can't tell you. In the first place I gave my word of honour as to secrecy before he told me, and in the next, even if I hadn't given my word, I would not be a party to such a slander by repeating it to any living man. He bent forward and looked me straight in the eyes, even to you, Major, who have been a second father to me. A man, said I, has a priceless possession that he should always keep in his own counsel. I've only told you as much as I have done, said Randall, because I want to make clear to you my position with regard both to Phyllis and her father. May I ask, said I, what is Phyllis's attitude towards her father? I knew well enough from Betty, but I wanted to see how much Randall knew about it. She is so much out of sympathy with his opinions that she has gone to live at the hospital. Perhaps she thinks you share those opinions, and for that reason won't marry you. That may have something to do with it, although I have done my best to convince her that I hold diametrically opposite views, but you can't expect a woman to reason. The unexpected sometimes happens, I remarked. And then comes Catastrophe. In this case, not to the woman. I cannot say that my tone was sympathetic. I had cause of interest in his artless table, but it was cold and dispassionate. Tell me, I continued, when did you discover the diabolical nature of the man Gage? Last night. And when did you ask Phyllis to marry you? A week ago. What's going to happen now? I asked. I'm hanged if I know, said he gloomily. I was in no mood to offer the young man any advice. The poor little wretch at the hospital, so Betty had told me, was crying her eyes out for him, and it was not for his soul's good that he should know it. In heroic days, said I, a hopeless lover always finds a sovereign remedy against an odd-dured mistress. He rose, and buttoned up his canvas jacket. I know what you mean, he said, and I didn't come to discuss it, if you'll excuse my apparent truthness in saying so. Then things are as they were between us. Not quiet, I hope, he replied in a dignified way. My last you spoke to me about Phyllis' Gage, I really didn't know my own mind. I am not a cat, and the thought of anything wrong never entered my head. On the other hand, marriage seemed out of the question. I remember, said I, you talk some blittering rot about her being a symbol. I am quite willing to confess I was a fool, he admitted gracefully, and I merited your strictures. His revision to artificiality annoyed me. I am far from being of an angelic disposition. My dear boy, I cried, do for God's sake talk human English and not the new Oxford Dictionary. He flushed angrily, snapped an impatient finger and thumb, and marched away to the grave of Palf. I sang out sharply. Rundle. He turned. I cried. Come here at once. He came with solemn reluctance. Afterwards, I was rather tickled at realizing that the lame old war dog had so much authority left. If he had gone defiantly off, I should have felt rather a fool. My dear boy, I said, I didn't mean to insult you. But can't a clever fellow like you understand that all the pretty frills and preciousness of a year ago are as dead as the last year's bristles sprout? We are up against elemental things, and can only get at them with elemental ideas expressed in elemental language. I'd have you to know, said Rundle, that I spoke classical English. Quiet so, said I. But a man of today speaks Saxon English, Cockney English, Slang English, and a damned sort of English that is virile and spontaneous. As I say, you are a clever fellow. Can't you see my point? Speech is an index of mental attitude. I bet you what you like fill its gauge with seed at once. Just imagine a subtle turn at the front after a bad quarter of an hour with his canal. I've merited your stricture, sir. If there was a bomb handy, the canal would cat it up and slay him on the spot. But I don't happen to be at the front, major, said Rundle. Then you damned well ought to be, said I, in sudden breath. I couldn't help it. He asked for it. He got it. He went away, mounted his motor-bicycle, and drove off. I was sorry. The boy evidently was in a chastened mood. If I had handled him gently and diplomatically, I might have done something with him. I suppose I'm an irritable, nasty-tempered beast. It is easy to lay the blame on my helpless legs. It isn't my legs. I've conquered my damned legs. It isn't my legs. It's me. I was ashamed of myself. And one later, Marigold inquired whether the doors were still shut against Mr. Holmes. I asked him what the blazes he meant by not minding his own business. And Marigold said, Very good, sir. End of chapter 8 Chapter 9 of The Red Planet This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Christine Blashford The Red Planet by William J. Locke Chapter 9 For a week or two, the sluggish stream of Welling's Faudian life flowed on undisturbed. The chief incident was a recruiting meeting held on the common. Sir Anthony Fenimore, in his civic capacity, a staff officer with red tabs, the wounded soldier, an elderly, eloquent gentleman from recruiting headquarters in London, and one or two nondescripts, including myself, were on the platform. A company of a county-territorial battalion and the OTC of the Godbury grammar school gave a semblance of military display. The town band, in a sort of Hungarian uniform, discoursed martial music. Old men and maidens, mothers and children, and contented young fellows in khaki, belonging to all kinds of arms, formed a most respectable crowd. The flower of Welling's Faudian youth was noticeably absent. They were having too excellent a time to be drawn into the temptation of a recruiting meeting, in spite of the band, and the fine afternoon, and the promiscuity of attractive damsels. They were making unheard-of money at the circumjacent factories, their mothers were waxing fat on billeting money. They never had so much money to spend on moving picture palaces and cheap jewellery for their enamoratas in their lives, as our beautiful educational system had most scrupulously excluded from their school curriculum any reference to patriotism, any rudimentary conception of England as their sacred heritage, and as they had been afforded no opportunity since they left school of thinking of anything save their material welfare and grosser material appetites. The vague talk of peril to the British Empire left them unmoved. They were quite content to let others go and fight. They had their own comfortable theories about it. Some fellows liked that sort of thing. They themselves didn't. In ordinary times it amused that kind of fellow to belong to a Harriers' Club, and clad in shorts and zephas go on Sundays for twenty-mar runs. It didn't amuse them. A cigarette, a girl, and a style formed their ideal of Sunday enjoyment. They had no quarrel with the Harrier Fellow or the Soldier Fellow for following his bent. They were most broad-minded. But they flattered themselves that they were fellows of a superior and more intelligent breed. They were making money and living warm, the only ideal of existence of which they had ever heard, and what did anything else matter. If a man has never been taught that he has a country, how the deuce do you expect him to love her, still less to defend her with his blood? Our more than damnable governments for the last thirty years have done everything in their power to crush in English hearts the national spirit of England. God knows I have no quarrel with Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. I speak in no disparagement of them, quite the reverse. In this war they have given freely of their blood. I only speak as an Englishman of England, the great mother of the Empire. Scott, Irishman, Welshman, Canadian, Australian are filled with the pride of their nationality. It is part of their being. Wisely they have been trained to it from infancy. England, who is far bigger, far more powerful than the whole lot of them put together, it's a statistical fact, has deliberately sunk herself in her own esteem, in her own pride. Only one great man has stood for England, as England the great mother, for the last thirty years, and that man is Rudyard Kipling. And the little folk in authority in England have spent their souls in rendering Newgatory his inspired message. This criminal self-affacement of England is at the root of the peril of the British Empire during this war. I told you at the beginning that I did not know how to write a story. You must forgive me for being led away into divigations, which seem to be irrelevant to the dramatic sequence. But when I remember that the result of all the pomp and circumstance of that meeting was seven recruits, of whom three were rejected as being physically unfit, my pen runs away with my discretion and my conjecturing as to artistic fitness. Yes, the major spoke. Sir Anthony is a peppery little person, and the audience enjoyed the k.n. Peacancy of his remarks. The red-tabbed Lieutenant Colonel spoke. He was a bit dull. The elderly orator from London roused enthusiastic cheers. The wounded sergeant, on crutches, displaying a foot like a bandaged mop, brought tears into the eyes of many women, and evoked hoarse cheers from the old men. I spoke from my infernal chair, and I think I was quite a success with the good fellows in Kharky, but the only men we wanted to appeal to had studiously refrained from being present. The whole affair was a fiasco. When we got home, Marigold, who had stood behind my chair during the proceedings, said to me, I think I know personally about thirty slackers in this town, sir, and I am more than a match for any three of them put together. Suppose I was to go to the rounds, so to speak, and say to each of them, you young blighter, if you don't come with me and enlist, I'll knock hell out of you, and if he didn't come, I did knock hell out of him. What exactly would happen, sir? You would be summoned, said I, for thirty separate cases of assault and battery, reckoning the penalty at six months each, you would have to go to prison for fifteen years." Marigold's one eye grew pensive and sad. And they call this, said he, a free country. I began this chapter by remarking that for a week or two after my second interview with Randall Holmes, nothing particular happened. Then one afternoon came Sir Anthony Fenimore to see me, and with a view to obtaining either my advice or my sympathy, reopened the story of his daughter Althea found drowned in the canal eleven months before. What he considered a most disconcerting light had just been cast on the tragedy by Maria Beckles. This lady was Lady Fenimore's sister. A deadly feud, entirely of Miss Beckles initiating and nourishing, had existed between them for years. They had been neither on speaking nor on writing terms. Miss Beckles, ten years Lady Fenimore's senior was, from all I had heard, a most disagreeable and ill-conditioned person, as different from my charming friend Edith Fenimore as the ugly old sisters were from Cinderella. Although she belonged to a good old South of England family, she had joined, for reasons known only to herself, the old Freekirk of Scotland, found a congenial Calvinistic centre in Galloway, and after insulting her English relations and friends in the most unconscionable way, cut herself adrift from them for ever. Mad as a hatter, Sir Anthony used to say, and never having met the lady, I agreed with him. She loathed her sister, she detested Anthony, and she appeared to be coldly indifferent to the fact of the existence of her nephew Oswald. But for Althea, and for Althea alone, she entertained a curious, indulgent affection, and every now and then Althea went to spend a week or so in Galloway, where she contrived to obtain considerable amusement. Aunt Maria did both herself and her visitors very well, said Althea, who had an appreciative eye for the material blessings of life. Althea walked over the moors and fished, and took Aunt Maria's cars out for exercise, and, except whistle on the Sabbath, seemed to do exactly what she liked. Now, in January 1914, Althea announced to her parents that Aunt Maria had summoned her for a week to Galloway. Sir Anthony stuffed her handbag with five-pound notes, and at an early hour of the morning sent her up in the car to London in charge of the chauffeur. The chauffeur returned, saying that he had bought Miss Althea's ticket at Euston, and seen her start off comfortably on her journey. A letter or two had been received by the Fenimore's from Galloway, and letters they had written to Galloway had been acknowledged by Althea. She returned to Wellingsford in due course, with Bonnie cheeks and wind-swept eyes, and told us all funny little stories about Aunt Maria. No one thought anything more about it until one fine afternoon in May, 1915, when Maria Beckles walked unexpectedly into the drawing-room of Wellings Park, while Sir Anthony and Lady Fenimore were at tea. My dear Edith, she said to her astounded hostess, who had not seen her for fifteen years. In this orgy of hatred and strife that is going on in the world, it seems ridiculous to go on hating and fighting one's own family. We must combine against the Germans and hate them. Let us be friends." Mad as crazy Jane, said Sir Anthony, telling me the story. But I, who had never heard Aunt Maria's side of the dispute, thought it very high-spirited of the old lady to come and hold out the olive branch in so uncompromising a fashion. Lady Fenimore then said that she had never wished to quarrel with Maria, and Sir Anthony declared that her patriotic sentiments did her credit, and that he was proud to receive her under his roof, and in a few minutes Maria was drinking tea and discussing the war in the most contented way in the world. I didn't write to you on the occasion of the death of your two children, because you knew I didn't like you, said this outspoken lady. I hate hypocrisy. Also, I thought that tribulation might chase in you in the eyes of the Lord. I've discussed it with our minister, a poor body, but a courageous man. He told me I was un-Christian. Now, what with all this universal massacre going on, and my unregenerate longing, old woman as I am, to wade knee-deep in German blood, I don't know what the devil I am. The more Anthony told me of Aunt Maria, the more I liked her. Can't I come round and make her acquaintance? I cried. She's the sort of knotty, solid human being that I should love. No wonder Althea was fond of her. This happened a week ago. She only stayed a night, replied Sir Anthony. I wished to God we had never seen her or heard of her. And then the good, heart-rung little man, who had been beating about the bush for half an hour, came straight to the point. You remember Althea's visit to Scotland in January last year? Perfectly, said I. He rose from his chair, and looked at me in wrinkled anguish. She never went there, he said. That was what he had come to tell me. A natural reference to the last visit of Althea to her aunt had established the stupefying fact. Althea's last visit was in October, 1913, said Miss Beckels. But we have letters from your house to prove she was with you in January, said Sir Anthony. Most methodical and correspondence docting of men, he went to his library and returned with a couple of letters. The old lady looked them through grimly. Pretty vague, no details. Read them again, Anthony. When he had done so, she said, well— Lady Fenimore objected, but Althea did stay with you. She must have stayed with you. All right, Edith, said Maria, sitting bold upright. Call me a liar and have done with it. I've come here at considerable dislocation of myself and my principles to bury the hatchet for the sake of unity against the enemy, and this is how I'm treated. I can only go back to Scotland at once. Sir Anthony succeeded in pacifying her. The letters were evidence that Edith and himself believed that Althea was in Galloway at the time. Maria's denial had come upon them like a thunderclap bewildering, stunning. If Althea was not in Galloway, where was she? Maria Beckles did not reply for some time to the question. Then she took the pins out of her hat and threw it on a chair, thus symbolizing the renunciation of her intention of returning forthwith to Scotland. Yes, Maria, said Lady Fenimore with fear in her dark eyes. We don't doubt your word, but, as Anthony has said, if she wasn't with you, where was she? How do I know? Maria Beckles pointed a lean finger. She was a dark and shriveled, gypsy-like creature. You might as well ask the canal in which she drowned herself. But my God, Anthony, I cried when he had got thus far. What did you think? What did you say? I realized that the old lady had her social disqualifications. Plain dealing is undoubtedly a virtue. But there are several virtues which the better class of angel keeps chained up in a dog-canal. Of course, she was acute. A mind trained in the acrobatics of Calvinistic theology is, within a narrow compass, surprisingly agile. It jumped at one bound from the missing week in Althea's life into the black water of the canal. It was incapable, however, of appreciating the awful horror in the minds of the beholders. I don't know what I said, replied Sir Anthony, walking restlessly about my library. We were struck all over heap. As you know, we never had reason to think that the poor dear child's death was anything but an accident. We were not narrow-minded old idiots. She was a dear good girl. In a modern way, she claimed her little independence. We let her have it. We trusted her. We took it for granted. You know it, Duncan, as well as I do. That a hot night in June, not able to sleep, she had stuck on a hat and wandered about the grounds as she had often done before, and a spirit of childish adventure had tempted her, that night, to walk round the back of town, and—well until in the dark—she stepped off the tow-path by the lock-gates into nothing, and found the canal. It was an accident, he continued, with a hand on my shoulder, looking down on me in my chair. The inquest proved that I accepted it, as you know, as a visitation of God. Edith and I sorrowed for her, like cowards. It took the war to bring us to our senses. But now this damned old woman comes and upsets the whole thing. But, said I, after all, it was only a bower to venture on the part of the old lady. I wish it were, said he, and he handed me a letter which Maria had written to him the day after her return to Scotland. The letter contained a pretty piece of information. She had summarily discharged Elspeth McCray, her confidential maid of five and twenty years standing. Elspeth McCray, on her own confession, had, out of love for Althea, performed the time-honoured jugglery with correspondence. She had posted in Galloway letters which she had received undercover, from Althea, and had forwarded letters that had arrived addressed to Althea, to an accommodation address in Carlisle, so have sentimental serving-maids done since the world began. What do you make of it, asked Sir Anthony? What else could I make of it but the one sorry theory? What woman employs all this subterfuge in order to obtain a week's liberty for any other purpose than the one elementary purpose of young humanity? We read the inevitable conclusion in each other's eyes. Who is the man, Duncan? I suppose you have searched her desk and things. Last year, everything most carefully, it was awful, but we had to. Not a scrap of paper that wasn't innocent itself. It can't be any one here, said I. You know what the place is. The slightest spark sends gossip aflame like the fumes of petrol. He sat down by my side and rubbed his close-cropped grey head. It couldn't have been young Holmes. The little man had a brave directness that sometimes disconcerted me. I knew the ghastly stab that every word cost him. She used to make mock of Randall, said I. Don't you remember she used to call him the gilded poet? Once she said he was the most ladylike young man of her acquaintance. I don't admire our young friend, but I think you're on the wrong track, Anthony. I don't see it, said he. That sort of flippancy goes for nothing. Women use it as a sort of quick-set hedge of protection. He bent forward and tapped me on my senseless knee. Young Holmes always used to be in and out of the house. They had known each other from childhood. He had a distinguished Oxford career. When he won the nudigate, she came running to me with the news as pleased as punch. I gave him a dinner in honour of it, if you remember. I remember, said I. I did not remind him that he had made a speech which sent cold shivers down the spine of our young Apollo, that, in a fine rhetorical flourish, dear old Fox-hunting Ignoramus, he declared that the winner of the nudigate carried the bays of the laureate in his knapsack, that Randall white-lipped with horror murmured to Betty Fairfax, his neighbour at the table, My God! the poet laureate's unhallowed grave! I must burn the knapsack and take to a hod. It was too tragical a conversation for light allusion. The poor dear child, Edith and I have sized it up, was all over him that evening. What more youthfully natural, said I, than that she should carry off the hero of the occasion, her childhood's play-fellow. All sorts of apparently insignificant details, Duncan, taken together, especially if they fit in, very often make up a whole case for prosecution. You're a chairman of quarter-sessions, I admitted, and so you ought to know. I know this, said he, that Holmes only spent part of that Christmas vacation with his mother, and went off somewhere or the other early in January. I cuddled back my memory into confirmation of his statement, to remember trivial incidents before the war takes a lot of cuddling. Yes, I distinctly recollected the young man's telling me that Oxford being an intellectual hot-house, and Wellingsford an intellectual Arabia Petria, he was compelled, for the sake of his mental health, to find a period of repose in the intellectual nature of London. I mentioned this to Sir Anthony. Yet I said, I don't think he had anything to do with it. Why? It would have been far too much moral exertion. You call it moral, Sir Anthony burst out angrily. I pacified him with an analysis, from my point of view, of Randall's character. Centripetal forces were too strong for the young man. I dissipated on his armours with Phyllis Gedge. No, my dear old friend, said I, in conclusion, I don't think it was Randall Holmes. Sir Anthony rose and shook his fist in my face. As I knew he meant me no bodily harm, I did not blench. Who was it then? Althea, said I, often used to stay in town with your sister. Lady Greater X has a wide circle of acquaintances. Do you know anything of the men Althea used to meet at her house? Of course I don't, replied Sir Anthony. Then he sat down again with a gesture of despair. After all, what does it matter? Perhaps it's as well I don't know who the man was, for, if I did, I'd kill him. He set his teeth and gloured at nothing, and smote his left palm with his right fist, and there was a long silence. Presently he repeated, I'd kill him. We fell to discussing the whole matter over again. Why, I asked, should we assume that the poor child was led astray by a villain? Might there not have been a romantic marriage, which, for some reason we could not guess, she desired to keep secret for a tune. Had she not been bright and happy from January to June? And that night of tragedy, what more likely than that she had gone forth to keep Trist with her husband and accidentally met her death. He arrives, said I, waits for her. She never comes. He goes away. The next day he learns from local gossip or from newspapers what has happened. He thinks it best to keep silent and let her fair name be untouched. What have you to say against that theory? Possible, he replied. Anything conceivable within the limits of physical possibility is possible. But it isn't probable. I have an intuitive feeling that there was villainy about, and if I ever get hold of that man, God help him. So there was nothing more to be said.