move towards the door began to bark and run from side to side behind
him, for all the world as if he had been a flock of sheep.
“Keep her off!” said the nephew anxiously. “Keep her off. I refuse to be
bitten again.”
“Blink!” called Mr. Lavender in some agony. Blink, whose obedience was
excessive, came back to him at once, and stood growling from under her
master's hand, laid on the white hair which flowed back from her collar,
till the nephew's footsteps had died away. “I cannot imagine,” thought
Mr. Lavender, “why she should have taken exception to that excellent
journalist. Perhaps he did not smell quite right? One never knows.”
And with her moustachioed muzzle pressed to his chin Mr. Lavender
sought for explanation in the innocent and living darkness of his dog's
eyes....
On leaving Mr. Lavender's the nephew forthwith returned to the castle in
Frognal, and sought his aunt.
“Mad as a March hare, Aunt Rosie; and his dog bit me.”
“That dear doggie?”
“They're dangerous.”
“You were always funny about dogs, dear,” said his aunt soothingly.
“Why, even Sealey doesn't really like you.” And calling to the little
low white dog she quite failed to attract his attention. “Did you notice
his dress. The first time I took him for a shepherd, and the second
time—-! What do you think ought to be done?”
“He'll have to be watched,” said the nephew. “We can't have lunatics at
large in Hampstead.”
“But, Wilfred,” said the old lady, “will our man-power stand it?
Couldn't they watch each other? Or, if it would be any help, I could
watch him myself. I took such a fancy to his dear dog.”
“I shall take steps,” said the nephew.
“No, don't do that. I'll go and call on the people, next door. Their
name is Scarlet. They'll know about him, no doubt. We mustn't do
anything inconsiderate.”
The nephew, muttering and feeling his calf, withdrew to his study.
And the old lady, having put on her bonnet, set forth placidly,
unaccompanied by her little white dog.
On arriving at the castle embedded in acacias and laurustinus she asked
of the maid who opened:
“Can I see Mrs. Scarlet?”
“No,” replied the girl dispassionately; “she's dead.”
“Mr. Scarlet, then?”
“No,” replied the girl, “he's a major.”
“Oh, dear!” said the old lady.
“Miss Isabel's at home,” said the girl, who appeared, like so many
people in time of war, to be of a simple, plain-spoken nature; “you'll
find her in the garden.” And she let the old lady out through a French
window.
At the far end, under an acacia, Mrs. Sinkin could see the form of a
young lady in a blue dress, lying in a hammock, with a cigarette between
her lips and a yellow book in her hands. She approached her thinking,
“Dear me! how comfortable, in these days!” And, putting her head a
little on one side, she said with a smile: “My name is Sinkin. I hope
I'm not disturbing you.”
The young lady rose with a vigorous gesture.
“Oh, no! Not a bit.”
“I do admire some people,” said the old lady; “they seem to find time
for everything.”
The young lady stretched herself joyously.
“I'm taking it out before going to my new hospital. Try it,” she said
touching the hammock; “it's not bad. Will you have a cigarette?”
“I'm afraid I'm too old for both,” said the old lady, “though I've often
thought they must be delightfully soothing. I wanted to speak to you
about your neighbour.”
The young lady rolled her large grey eyes. “Ah!” she said, “he's
perfectly sweet.”
“I know,” said the old lady, “and has such a dear dog. My nephew's very
interested in them. You may have heard of him—Wilfred Sinkin—a very
clever man; on so many Committees.”
“Not really?” said the young lady.
“Oh, yes! He has one of those heads which nothing can disturb; so
valuable in these days.”
“And what sort of a heart?” asked the young lady, emitting a ring of
smoke.
“Just as serene. I oughtn't to say so, but I think he's rather a
wonderful machine.”
“So long as he's not a doctor! You can't think how they get on your
nerves when they're, like that. I've bumped up against so many of them.
They fired me at last!”
“Really? Where? I thought they only did that to the dear horses. Oh,
what a pretty laugh you have! It's so pleasant to hear anyone laugh, in
these days.”
“I thought no one did anything else! I mean, what else can you do,
except die, don't you know?”
“I think that's rather a gloomy view,” said the old lady placidly. “But
about your neighbour. What is his name?”
“Lavender. But I call him Don Pickwixote.”
“Dear me, do you indeed? Have you noticed anything very eccentric about
him?”
“That depends on what you call eccentric. Wearing a nightshirt, for
instance? I don't know what your standard is, you see.”
The old lady was about to reply when a voice from the adjoining garden
was heard saying:
“Blink! Don't touch that charming mooncat!”
“Hush!” murmured the young lady; and seizing her visitor's arm, she drew
her vigorously beneath the acacia tree. Sheltered from observation by
those thick and delicate branches, they stooped, and applying their eyes
to holes in the privet hedge, could see a very little cat, silvery-fawn
in colour and far advanced in kittens, holding up its paw exactly like a
dog, and gazing with sherry-coloured eyes at Mr. Lavender, who stood in
the middle of his lawn, with Blink behind him.
“If you see me going to laugh,” whispered the young lady, “pinch me
hard.”
“Moon-cat,” repeated Mr. Lavender, “where have you come from? And what
do you want, holding up your paw like that? What curious little noises
you make, duckie!” The cat, indeed, was uttering sounds rather like a
duck. It came closer to Mr. Lavender, circled his legs, drubbed itself
against Blink's chest, while its tapered tail, barred with silver,
brushed her mouth.
“This is extraordinary,” they heard Mr. Lavender say; “I would stroke it
if I wasn't so stiff. How nice of you little moon-cat to be friendly to
my play-girl! For what is there in all the world so pleasant to see as
friendliness between a dog and cat!”
At those words the old lady, who was a great lover of animals, was so
affected that she pinched the young lady by mistake.
“Not yet!” whispered the latter in some agony. “Listen!”
“Moon-cat,” Mr. Lavender was saying, “Arcadia is in your golden eyes.
You have come, no doubt, to show us how far we have strayed away from
it.” And too stiff to reach the cat by bending, Mr. Lavender let himself
slowly down till he could sit. “Pan is dead,” he said, as he arrived on
the grass and crossed his feet, “and Christ is not alive. Moon-cat!”
The little cat had put its head into his hand, while Blink was thrusting
her nose into his mouth.
“I'm going to sneeze!” whispered the old lady, strangely affected.
“Pull your upper lip down hard, like the German Empress, and count
nine!” murmured the young.
While the old lady was doing this Mr. Lavender had again begun to speak.
“Life is now nothing but explosions. Gentleness has vanished, and beauty
is a dream. When you have your kittens, moon-cat, bring them up in
amity, to love milk, dogs, and the sun.”
The moon-cat, who had now reached his shoulder, brushed the tip of her
tail across his loose right eyebrow, while Blink's jealous tongue avidly
licked his high left cheekbone. With one hand Mr. Lavender was cuddling
the cat's head, with the other twiddling Blink's forelock, and the
watchers could see his eyes shining, and his white hair standing up all
ruffled.
“Isn't it sweet?” murmured the old lady.
“Ah! moon-cat,” went on Mr. Lavender, “come and live with us. You shall
have your kittens in the bathroom, and forget this age of blood and
iron.”
Both the old lady and the young were removing moisture from their eyes
when, the voice of Mr. Lavender, very changed, recalled them to their
vigil. His face had become strained and troubled.
“Never,” he was saying, “will we admit that doctrine of our common
enemies. Might is not right gentlemen those who take the sword shall
perish by the sword. With blood and iron we will ourselves stamp
out this noxious breed. No stone shall be left standing, and no
babe sleeping in that abandoned country. We will restore the tide of
humanity, if we have to wade through rivers of blood across mountains of
iron.”
“Whom is he calling gentlemen?” whispered the old lady.
But Blink, by anxiously licking Mr. Lavender's lips, had produced a
silence in which the young-lady did not dare reply. The sound of the
little cat's purring broke the hush.
“Down, Blink, down!” said Mr. Lavender.
“Watch this little moon-cat and her perfect manners! We may all learn
from her how not to be crude. See the light shining through her pretty
ears!”
The little cat, who had seen a bird, had left Mr. Lavender's shoulder,
and was now crouching and moving the tip of its tail from side to side.
“She would like a bird inside her; but let us rather go and find her
some milk instead,” said Mr. Lavender, and he began to rise.
“Do you know, I think he's quite sane,” whispered the old lady, “except,
perhaps, at intervals. What do you?”
“Glorious print!” cried Mr. Lavender suddenly, for a journal had fallen
from his pocket, and the sight of it lying there, out of his reach,
excited him. “Glorious print! I can read you even from here. When the
enemy of mankind uses the word God he commits blasphemy! How different
from us!” And raising his eyes from the journal Mr. Lavender fastened
them, as it seemed to his anxious listeners, on the tree which sheltered
them. “Yes! Those unseen presences, who search out the workings of our
heart, know that even the most Jingo among us can say, 'I am not as they
are!' Come, mooncat!”
So murmuring, he turned and moved towards the house, clucking with his
tongue, and followed by Blink.
“Did he mean us?” said the old lady nervously.
“No; that was one of his intervals. He's not mad; he's just crazy.”
“Is there any difference, my dear?”
“Why, we're all crazy about something, you know; it's only a question of
what.”
“But what is his what?”
“He's got a message. They're in the air, you know.”
“I haven't come across them,” said the old lady. “I fear I live a very
quiet life—except for picking over sphagnum moss.”
“Oh, well! There's no hurry.”
“Well, I shall tell my nephew what I've seen,” said the old lady.
“Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” responded the young; and, picking up her yellow book, she
got back into the hammock and relighted her cigarette.
VII SEES AND EDITOR, AND FINDS A FARMER
Not for some days after his fall from the window did Mr. Lavender begin
to regain the elasticity of body necessary to the resumption of
public life. He spent the hours profitably, however, in digesting the
newspapers and storing ardour. On Tuesday morning, remembering that no
proof of his interview had yet been sent him, and feeling that he ought
not to neglect so important a matter, he set forth to the office of the
great journal from which, in the occult fashion of the faithful, he was
convinced the reporter had come. While he was asking for the editor
in the stony entrance, a young man who was passing looked at him
attentively and said: “Ah, sir, here you are! He's waiting for you. Come
up, will you?”
Mr. Lavender followed up some stairs, greatly gratified at the thought
that he was expected. The young man led him through one or two swing
doors into an outer office, where a young woman was typing.
Mr. Lavender shook his head, and sat down on the edge of a green leather
chair. The editor, resuming his seat, crossed his legs deferentially,
and sinking his chin again on his chest, began:
“About your article. My only trouble, of course, is that I'm running
that stunt on British prisoners—great success! You've seen it, I
suppose?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mr. Lavender; I read you every day.
The editor made a little movement which showed that he was flattered,
and sinking his chin still further into his chest, resumed:
“It might run another week, or it might fall down to-morrow—you never
can tell. But I'm getting lots of letters. Tremendous public interest.”
“Yes, yes,” assented Mr. Lavender, “it's most important.”
“Of course, we might run yours with it,” said the editor. “But I don't
know; I think it'd kill the other. Still——”
“I shouldn't like——” began Mr. Lavender.
“I don't believe in giving them more than they want, you know,” resumed
the editor. “I think I'll have my news editor in,” and he blew into a
tube. “Send me Mr. Crackamup. This thing of yours is very important,
sir. Suppose we began to run it on Thursday. Yes, I should think they'll
be tired of British prisoners by then.”
“Don't let me,” began Mr. Lavender.
The editor's eye became unveiled for the Moment. “You'll be wanting to
take it somewhere else if we——Quite! Well, I think we could run them
together. See here, Mr. Crackamup”—Mr. Lavender saw a small man like
Beethoven frowning from behind spectacles—“could we run this German
prisoner stunt alongside the British, or d'you think it would kill it?”
Mr. Lavender almost rose from his chair in surprise. “Are you——” he
said; “is it——”
The small man hiccoughed, and said in a raw voice:
“The letters are falling off.”
“Ah!” murmured the editor, “I thought we should be through by Thursday.
We'll start this new stunt Thursday. Give it all prominence, Crackamup.
It'll focus fury. All to the good—all to the good. Opinion's ripe.” Then
for a moment he seemed to hesitate, and his chin sank back on his chest.
“I don't know,” he murmured, “of course it may——”
“Please,” began Mr. Lavender, rising, while the small man hiccoughed
again. The two motions seemed to determine the editor.
“That's all right, sir,” he said, rising also; “that's quite all right.
We'll say Thursday, and risk it. Thursday, Crackamup.” And he held out
his hand to Mr. Lavender. “Good morning, sir, good morning. Delighted to
have seen you. You wouldn't put your name to it? Well, well, it doesn't
matter; only you could have written it. The turn of phrase—immense!
They'll tumble all right!” And Mr. Lavender found himself, with Mr.
Crackamup, in the lobby. “It's bewildering,” he thought, “how quickly he
settled that. And yet he had such repose. But is there some mistake?”
He was about to ask his companion, but with a distant hiccough the small
man had vanished. Thus deserted, Mr. Lavender was in two minds whether
to ask to be readmitted, when the four gentlemen with notebooks repassed
him in single file into the editor's room.
“My name is Lavender,” he said resolutely to the young woman. “Is that
all right?”
“Quite,” she answered, without looking up.
Mr. Lavender went out slowly, thinking, “I may perhaps have said more in
that interview than I remember. Next time I really will insist on having
a proof. Or have they taken me for some other public man?” This notion
was so disagreeable, however, that he dismissed it, and passed into the
street.
On Thursday, the day fixed for his fresh tour of public speaking,
he opened the great journal eagerly. Above the third column was the
headline: OUR VITAL DUTY: BY A GREAT PUBLIC MAN. “That must be it,” he
thought. The article, which occupied just a column of precious space,
began with an appeal so moving that before he had read twenty lines
Mr. Lavender had identified himself completely with the writer; and if
anyone had told him that he had not uttered these sentiments, he would
have given him the lie direct. Working from heat to heat the article
finished in a glorious outburst with a passionate appeal to the country
to starve all German prisoners.
Mr. Lavender put it down in a glow of exultation. “I shall translate
words into action,” he thought; “I shall at once visit a rural district
where German prisoners are working on the land, and see that the farmers
do their duty.” And, forgetting in his excitement to eat his breakfast,
he put the journal in his pocket, wrapped himself in his dust-coat and
broad-brimmed hat, and went out to his car, which was drawn up, with
Blink, who had not forgotten her last experience, inside.
“We will go to a rural district, Joe,” he said, getting in.
“Very good, sir,” answered Joe; and, unnoticed by the population, they
glided into the hazy heat of the June morning.
“Well, what abaht it, sir?” said Joe, after they had proceeded for some
three hours. “Here we are.”
Mr. Lavender, who had been lost in the beauty of the scenes through
which he was passing, awoke from reverie, and said:
“I am looking for German prisoners, Joe; if you see a farmer, you might
stop.”
“Any sort of farmer?” asked Joe.
“Is there more than one sort?” returned Mr. Lavender, smiling.
Joe cocked his eye. “Ain't you never lived in the country, sir?”
“Not for more than a few weeks at a time, Joe, unless Rochester counts.
Of course, I know Eastbourne very well.”
“I know Eastbourne from the inside,” said Joe discursively. “I was a
waiter there once.”
“An interesting life, a waiter's, Joe, I should think.”
“Ah! Everything comes to 'im who waits, they say. But abaht
farmers—you've got a lot to learn, sir.”
“I am always conscious of that, Joe; the ramifications of public life
are innumerable.”
“I could give you some rummikins abaht farmers. I once travelled in
breeches.”
“You seem to have done a great many things Joe.”
“That's right, sir. I've been a sailor, a 'traveller,' a waiter, a
scene-shifter, and a shover, and I don't know which was the cushiest
job. But, talking of farmers: there's the old English type that wears
Bedfords—don't you go near 'im, 'e bites. There's the modern scientific
farmer, but it'll take us a week to find ''im. And there's the
small-'older, wearin' trahsers, likely as not; I don't think 'e'd be any
use to you.
“What am I to do then?” asked Mr Lavender.
“Ah!” said Joe, “'ave lunch.”
Mr. Lavender sighed, his hunger quarelling with his sense of duty. “I
should like to have found a farmer first,” he said.
“Well, sir, I'll drive up to that clump o'beeches, and you can have a
look round for one while I get lunch ready.
“That will do admirably.”
“There's just one thing, sir,” said Joe, when his master was about to
start; “don't you take any house you come across for a farm. They're
mostly cottages o' gentility nowadays, in'abited by lunatics.”
“I shall be very careful,” said Mr. Lavender.
“This glorious land!” he thought, walking away from the beech clump,
with Blink at his heels; “how wonderful to see it being restored to its
former fertility under pressure of the war! The farmer must be a happy
man, indeed, working so nobly for his country, without thought of
his own prosperity. How flowery those beans look already!” he mused,
glancing at a field of potatoes. “Now that I am here I shall be able
to combine my work on German prisoners with an effort to stimulate food
production. Blink!” For Blink was lingering in a gateway. Moving back to
her, Mr. Lavender saw that the sagacious animal was staring through the
gate at a farmer who was standing in a field perfectly still, with his
back turned, about thirty yards away.
“Have you——” Mr. Lavender began eagerly; “is it—are you employing any
German prisoners, sir?”
The farmer did not seem to hear. “He must,” thought Mr. Lavender, “be of
the old stolid English variety.”
The farmer, who was indeed attired in a bowler hat and Bedford cords,
continued to gaze over his land, unconscious of Mr. Lavender's presence.
“I am asking you a question, sir,” resumed the latter in a louder voice.
“And however patriotically absorbed you may be in cultivating your soil,
there is no necessity for rudeness.”
The farmer did not move a muscle.
“Sir,” began Mr. Lavender again, very patiently, “though I have always
heard that the British farmer is of all men least amenable to influence
and new ideas, I have never believed it, and I am persuaded that if you
will but listen I shall be able to alter your whole outlook about the
agricultural future of this country.” For it had suddenly occurred to
him that it might be a long time before he had again such an opportunity
of addressing a rural audience on the growth of food, and he was loth to
throw away the chance. The farmer, however, continued to stand with
his hack to the speaker, paying no more heed to his voice than to the
buzzing of a fly.
“You SHALL hear me,” cried Mr. Lavender, unconsciously miming a voice
from the past, and catching, as he thought, the sound of a titter, he
flung his hand out, and exclaimed:
“Grass, gentlemen, grass is the hub of the matter. We have put our hand
to the plough”—and, his imagination taking flight at those words, he
went on in a voice calculated to reach the great assembly of farmers
which he now saw before him with their backs turned—“and never shall we
take it away till we have reduced every acre in the country to an arable
condition. In the future not only must we feed ourselves, but our dogs,
our horses, and our children, and restore the land to its pristine glory
in the front rank of the world's premier industry. But me no buts,” he
went on with a winning smile, remembering that geniality is essential in
addressing a country audience, “and butter me no butter, for in future
we shall require to grow our margarine as well. Let us, in a word, put
behind us all prejudice and pusillanimity till we see this country of
ours once more blooming like one great cornfield, covered with cows.
Sirs, I am no iconoclast; let us do all this without departing in
any way from those great principles of Free Trade, Industrialism, and
Individual Liberty which have made our towns the largest, most crowded,
and wealthiest under that sun which never sets over the British Empire.
We do but need to see this great problem steadily and to see it whole,
and we shall achieve this revolution in our national life without
the sacrifice of a single principle or a single penny. Believe me,
gentlemen, we shall yet eat our cake and have it.”
Mr. Lavender paused for breath, the headlines of his great speech in
tomorrow's paper dancing before his eyes: “THE CLIMACTERIC—EATS CAKE AND
HAS IT—A GREAT CONCLUSION.” The wind, which had risen somewhat during
Mr. Lavender's speech, fluttered the farmer's garments at this moment,
so that they emitted a sound like the stir which runs through an
audience at a moment of strong emotion.
“Ah!” cried Mr. Lavender, “I see that I move you, gentlemen. Those have
traduced you who call you unimpressionable. After all, are you not the
backbone of this country up which runs the marrow which feeds the
brain; and shall you not respond to an appeal at once so simple and so
fundamental? I assure you, gentlemen, it needs no thought; indeed, the
less you think about it the better, for to do so will but weaken your
purpose and distract your attention. Your duty is to go forward with
stout hearts, firm steps, and kindling eyes; in this way alone shall we
defeat our common enemies. And at those words, which he had uttered
at the top of his voice, Mr. Lavender stood like a clock which has run
down, rubbing his eyes. For Blink, roaming the field during the speech,
and encountering quadruped called rabbit, which she had never seen
before, had backed away from it in dismay, brushed against the farmer's
legs and caused his breeches to fall down, revealing the sticks on which
they had been draped. When Mr. Lavender saw this he called out in a loud
voice Sir, you have deceived me. I took you for a human being. I now
perceive that you are but a selfish automaton, rooted to your own
business, without a particle of patriotic sense. Farewell!”
VIII STARVES SOME GERMANS