standing side by side, staring at Mr Lavender with eyes full of anxiety
and wonder. Their hands, which still held the implements of dentistry,
insensibly sought each other.
“Be under no apprehension,” cried Mr. Lavender, much moved; “I can see
that you are greatly attached, and even though your husband is a German,
he is still a man, and I could never bring myself to separate him from
you.”
“Who are you?” said the young woman in a frightened voice, putting her
arm round her husband's waist.
“Just a public man,” answered Mr. Lavender.
“I came here from a sense of duty; nothing more, assure you.”
“Who put you up to it?”
“That,” said Mr. Lavender, bowing as best he could from the angle he was
in, “I am not at liberty to disclose. But, believe me, you have nothing
to fear from this visit; I shall never do anything to distress a woman.
And please charge me as if the tooth had been extracted.”
The young German smiled, and shook his head.
“Sir,” he said, “I am grateful to you for coming, for it shows us what
danger we are in. The hardest ting to bear has been the uncertainty of
our bosition, and the feeling that our friends were working behind our
backs. Now we know that this is so we shall vordify our souls to bear
the worst. But, tell me,” he went on, “when you came here, surely you
must have subbosed that to tear me away from my wife would be very
bainful to her and to myself. You say now you never could do that, how
was it, then, you came?”
“Ah, sir!” cried Mr. Lavender, running his hands through his hair and
staring at the ceiling, “I feared this might seem inconsistent to your
logical German mind. But there are many things we public men would never
do if we could see them being done. Fortunately, as a rule we cannot.
Believe me, when I leave you I shall do my best to save you from a fate
which I perceive to be unnecessary.”
So saying, he rose from the chair, and, picking up his hat, backed
towards the door.
“I will not offer you my hand,” he said, “for I am acutely conscious
that my position is neither dignified nor decent. I owe you a tooth that
I shall not readily forget. Good-bye!”
XV.
And backing through the doorway he made his way down the stairs and out
into the street, still emotionalized by the picture of the two young
people holding each other by the waist. He had not, however, gone far
before reason resumed its sway, and he began to see that the red velvet
chair in which he had been sitting was in reality a wireless apparatus
reaching to Berlin, or at least concealed a charge of dynamite to blow
up some King or Prime Minister; and that the looking-glasses, of which
he had noticed two at least, were surely used for signalling to Gothas
or Zeppelins. This plunged him into a confusion so poignant that, rather
by accident than design, he found himself again at Hampstead instead of
at Scotland Yard. “In the society of Aurora alone,” he thought, “can I
free myself from the goadings of conscience, for it was she who sent me
on that errand.” And, instead of going in, he took up a position on his
lawn whence he could attract her attention by waving his arms. He had
been doing this for some time, to the delight of Blink, who thought it
a new game, before he saw her in her nurse's dress coming out of a
French-window with her yellow book in her hand. Redoubling his efforts
till he had arrested her attention, he went up to the privet hedge, and
said, in a deep and melancholy voice:
“Aurora, I have failed in my duty, and the errand on which you sent me
is unfulfilled. Mrs. Pullbody's sister's husband's sister's husband is
still, largely speaking, at large.”
“I knew he would be,” replied the young lady, with her joyous smile,
“that's why I put her on to you—the cat!”
At a loss to understand her meaning, Mr. Lavender, who had bent forward
above the hedge in his eagerness to explain, lost his balance, and,
endeavouring to save the hedge, fell over into some geranium pots.
“Dear Don Pickwixote,” cried the young lady, assisting him to rise,
“have you hurt your nose?”
“It is not that,” said Mr. Lavender, removing some mould from his hair,
and stifling the attentions of Blink; “but rather my honour, for I have
allowed my duty to my country to be overridden by the common emotion of
pity.”
“Hurrah!” cried the young lady. “It'll do you ever so much good.”
“Aurora!” cried Mr. Lavender aghast, walking at her side. But the young
lady only uttered her enchanting laugh.
“Come and lie down in the hammock!” she said you're looking like a
ghost. “I'll cover you up with a rug, and smoke a cigarette to keep the
midges off you. Tuck up your legs; that's right!”
“No!” said Mr. Lavender from the recesses of the hammock, feeling his
nose, “let the bidges bide me. I deserve they should devour me alive.”
“All right,” said the young lady. “But have a nap, anyway!” And sitting
down in a low chair, she opened her book and lit a cigarette.
Mr. Lavender remained silent, watching her with the eyes of an acolyte,
and wondering whether he was in his senses to have alighted on so rare a
fortune. Nor was it long before he fell into a hypnotic doze.
How long Mr. Lavender had been asleep he could not of course tell before
he dreamed that he was caught in a net, the meshes of which were formed
of the cries of newspaper boys announcing atrocities by land and sea. He
awoke looking into the eyes of Aurora, who, to still his struggles, had
taken hold of his ankles.
“My goodness! You are thin!” were the first words he heard. “No wonder
you're lightheaded.”
Mr. Lavender, whose returning chivalry struggled with unconscious
delight, murmured with difficulty:
“Let me go, let me go; it is too heavenly!
“Well, have you finished kicking?” asked the young lady.
“Yes,” returned Mr. Lavender in a fainting voice——“alas!”
The young lady let go of his ankles, and, aiding him to rise from the
hammock, said: “I know what's the matter with you now—you're starving
yourself. You ought to be kept on your back for three months at least,
and fed on butter.”
Mr. Lavender, soothing the feelings of Blink, who, at his struggles, had
begun to pant deeply, answered with watering lips:
“Everyone in these days must do twice as much as he ought, and I eat
half, for only in this way can we compass the defeat of our common
enemies.” The young lady's answer, which sounded like “Bosh!” was lost
in Mr. Lavender's admiration of her magnificent proportions as she bent
to pick up her yellow book.
“Aurora,” he said, “I know not what secret you share with the goddesses;
suffer me to go in and give thanks for this hour spent in your company.”
And he was about to recross the privet hedge when she caught him by the
coat-tag, saying:
“No, Don Pickwixote, you must dine with us. I want you to meet my
father. Come along!” And, linking her arm in his, she led him towards
her castle. Mr. Lavender, who had indeed no, option but to obey, such
was the vigour of her arm, went with a sense of joy not unmingled with
consternation lest the personage she spoke of should have viewed him in
the recent extravagance of his dreaming moments.
“I don't believe,” said the young lady, gazing down at him, “that you
weigh an ounce more than seven stone. It's appalling!
“Not,” returned Mr. Lavender, “by physical weight and force shall we
win this war, for it is at bottom a question of morale. Right is, ever
victorious in the end, and though we have infinitely greater material
resources than our foes, we should still triumph were we reduced to the
last ounce, because of the inherent nobility of our cause.”
“You'll be reduced to the last ounce if we don't feed, you up somehow,”
said the young lady.
“Would you like to wash your hands?”
Mr. Lavender having signified his assent, she left him alone in a place
covered with linoleum. When, at length, followed by Blink, he emerged
from dreamy ablutions, Mr. Lavender, saw that she had changed her
dress to a flowing blue garment of diaphanous character, which made her
appear, like an emanation of the sky. He was about to say so when he
noticed a gentleman in khaki scrutinizing him with lively eyes slightly
injected with blood.
“Don Pickwixote,” said the young lady; “my father, Major Scarlet.”
Mr. Lavender's hand was grasped by one which seemed to him made of iron.
“I am honoured, sir,” he said painfully, “to meet the father of my
charming young neighbour.”
The Major answered in a voice as clipped as his grey bottle-brush
moustache, “Delighted! Dinner's ready. Come along!”
Mr. Lavender saw that he had a mouth which seemed to have a bitt in
it; several hairs on a finely rounded head; and an air of efficient and
truculent bonhomie tanned and wrinkled by the weather.
The table at which they became seated seemed to one accustomed to
frugality to groan with flowers and china and glass; and Mr. Lavender
had hardly supped his rich and steaming soup before his fancy took fire;
nor did he notice that he was drinking from a green glass in which was a
yellow fluid.
“I get Army rations,” said the Major, holding a morsel of fillet of beef
towards Blink. “Nice dog, Mr. Lavender.”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Lavender, ever delighted that his favourite should
receive attention, “she is an angel.”
“Too light,” said the Major, “and a bit too narrow in front; but a nice
dog. What's your view of the war?”
Before Mr. Lavender could reply he felt Aurora's foot pressing his, and
heard her say:
“Don Pickwixote's views are after your own heart, Dad; he's for the
complete destruction of the Hun.”
“Indeed, yes,” cried Mr. Lavender with shining eyes. “Right and justice
demand it. We seek to gain nothing!”
“But we'll take all we can get,” said the Major.
“They'll never get their Colonies back. We'll stick to them fast
enough.”
Mr. Lavender stared at him for a moment, then, remembering what he had
so often read, he murmured:
“Aggrandizement is not our object; but we can never forget that so
long as any territory remains in the hands of our treacherous foe the
arteries of our far-flung Empire are menaced at the roots.”
“Right-o,” said the Major, “we've got the chance of our lives, and we're
going to take it.”
Mr. Lavender sat forward a little on his chair. “I shall never admit,”
he said, “that we are going to take anything, for that would be contrary
to the principles which we are pledged to support, and to our avowed
intention of seeking only the benefit of the human race; but our inhuman
foes have compelled us to deprive them of the power to injure others.”
“Yes,” said the Major, “we must just go on killing Germans and collaring
every bit of their property we can.”
Mr. Lavender sat a little further forward on his chair, and the trouble
in his eyes grew.
“After all's said and done,” continued the Major; “it's a simple war—us
or them! And in the long run it's bound to be us. We've got the cards.”
Mr. Lavender started, and said in a weak and wavering voice:
“We shall never sheathe the sword until——”
“The whole bag of tricks is in our hands. Might isn't Right, but Right's
Might, Mr. Lavender; ha, ha!”
Mr. Lavender's eyes lighted on his glass, and he emptied it in his
confusion. When he looked up again he could not see the Major very well,
but could distinctly hear the truculent bonhomie of his voice.
“Every German ought to be interned; all their property ought to be
confiscated; all their submarines' and Zeppelins' crews ought to be
hung; all German prisoners ought to be treated as they treat our men.
We ought to give 'em no quarter. We ought to bomb their towns out of
existence. I draw the line at their women. Short of that there's nothing
too bad for them. I'd treat 'em like rabbits. Vermin they were, and
vermin they remain.”
During this speech the most astounding experience befell Mr. Lavender,
so that his eyes nearly started from his head. It seemed to him, indeed,
that he was seated at dinner with a Prussian, and the Major's voice had
no sooner ceased its genial rasping than with a bound forward on his
chair, he ejaculated:
“Behold the man—the Prussian in his jack-boot!” And, utterly oblivious
of the fact that he was addressing Aurora's father, he went on with
almost terrible incoherence: “Although you have conquered this country,
sir, never shall you subdue in my breast the sentiments of liberty
and generosity which make me an Englishman. I abhor you—invader of the
world—trampler underfoot of the humanities—enemy of mankind—apostle of
force! You have blown out the sparks of love and kindliness, and have
for ever robbed the Universe. Prussian!”
The emphasis with which he spoke that word caused his chair, on the edge
of which he was sitting, to tilt up under him so that he slid under the
table, losing the vision of that figure in helmet and field-grey which
he had been apostrophizing.
“Hold up!” said a voice, while Blink joined him nervously beneath the
board.
“Never!” cried Mr. Lavender. “Imprison, maltreat me do what you
will. You have subdued her body, but never will I admit that you have
conquered the honour of Britain and trodden her gentle culture into the
mud.”
And, convinced that he would now be dragged away to be confined in some
dungeon on bread and water, he clasped the leg of the dining-table with
all his might, while Blink, sagaciously aware that something peculiar
was occurring to her master, licked the back of his neck. He had been
sitting there perhaps half a minute, with his ears stretched to catch
the half-whispered sounds above, when he saw a shining object appear
under the table, the head, indeed, of the Prussian squatting there to
look at him.
“Go up, thou bald-head,” he called out at once; “I will make no terms
with the destroyer of justice and humanity.”
“All right, my dear sir,” replied the head.
“Will you let my daughter speak to you?”
“Prussian blasphemer,” responded Mr. Lavender, shifting his position so
as to be further away, and clasping instead of the table leg some soft
silken objects, which he was too excited to associate with Aurora,
“you have no daughter, for no woman would own one whose hated presence
poisons this country.”
“Well, well,” said the Major. “How shall we get him out?”
Hearing these words, and believing them addressed to a Prussian guard,
Mr. Lavender clung closer to the objects, but finding them wriggle in
his clasp let go, and, bolting forward like a rabbit on his hands
and knees, came into contact with the Major's head. The sound of the
concussion, the Major's oaths, Mr. Lavender's moans, Blink's barking,
and the peals of laughter from Aurora made up a noise which might have
been heard in Portugal. The situation was not eased until Mr. Lavender
crawled out, and taking up a dinner-knife, rolled his napkin round his
arm, and prepared to defend himself against the German Army.
“Well, I'm damned,” said the Major when he saw these preparations; “I am
damned.”
Aurora, who had been leaning against the wall from laughter, here came
forward, gasping:
“Go away, Dad, and leave him to me.”
“To you!” cried the Major. “He's not safe!”
“Oh yes, he is; it's only you that are exciting him. Come along!”
And taking her father by the arm she conducted him from the room.
Closing the door behind him, and putting her back against it, she said,
gently:
“Dear Don Pickwixote, all danger is past. The enemy has been repulsed,
and we are alone in safety. Ha, ha, ha!”
Her voice recalled. Mr. Lavender from his strange hallucination. “What?”
he said weakly.
“Why? Who? Where? When?”
“You have been dreaming again. Let me take you home, and tuck you
into bed.” And taking from him the knife and napkin, she opened the
French-window, and passed out on to the lawn.
Lavender, who now that his reason had come back, would have followed her
to the death, passed out also, accompanied by Blink, and watched by the
Major, who had put his head in again at the door. Unfortunately, the
spirit moved Mr. Lavender to turn round at this moment, and seeing the
head he cried out in a loud voice:
“He is there! He is there! Arch enemy of mankind! Let me go and die
under his jackboot, for never over my living body shall he rule this
land.” And the infatuated gentleman would certainly have rushed at his
host had not Aurora stayed him by the slack of his nether garments. The
Major withdrawing his head, Mr. Lavender's excitement again passed from
him, and he suffered himself to be led dazedly away and committed to the
charge of Mrs. Petty and Joe, who did not leave him till he was in bed
with a strong bromide to keep him company.
XVI FIGHTS THE FIGHT OF FAITH
The strenuous experiences through which Mr. Lavender had passed resulted
in what Joe Petty called “a fair knock-out,” and he was forced to spend
three days in the seclusion of his bed, deprived of his newspapers. He
instructed Mrs. Petty, however, on no account to destroy or mislay any
journal, but to keep them in a pile in his study. This she did, for
though her first impulse was to light the kitchen fire with the five
of them every morning, deliberate reflection convinced her that twenty
journals read at one sitting would produce on him a more soporific
effect than if he came down to a mere five.
Mr. Lavender passed his three days, therefore, in perfect repose,
feeding Blink, staring at the ceiling, and conversing with Joe. An
uneasy sense that he had been lacking in restraint caused his mind to
dwell on life as seen by the monthly rather than the daily papers,
and to hold with his chauffeur discussions of a somewhat philosophical
character.
“As regards the government of this country, Joe,” he said, on the last
evening of his retirement, “who do you consider really rules? For it is
largely on this that our future must depend.”
“Can't say, sir,” answered Joe, “unless it's Botty.”
“I do not know whom or what you signify by that word,” replied Mr.
Lavender; “I am wondering if it is the People who rule.”
“The People!” replied Joe; “the People's like a gent in a lunatic
asylum, allowed to 'ave instinks but not to express 'em. One day it'll
get aht, and we shall all step lively.”
“It is, perhaps, Public Opinion,” continued Mr. Lavender to himself, “as
expressed in the Press.”
“Not it,” said Joe, “the nearest opinion the Press gets to expressin' is
that of Mayors. 'Ave you never noticed, sir, that when the Press is 'ard
up for support of an opinion that the public don't 'old, they go to the
Mayors, and get 'em in two columns?”
“Mayors are most valuable public men,” said Mr. Lavender.
“I've nothin' against 'em,” replied Joe; “very average lot in their walk
of life; but they ain't the People.”
Mr. Lavender sighed. “What, then, is the People, Joe?”
“I am,” replied Joe; “I've got no opinions on anything except that I
want to live a quiet life—just enough beer and 'baccy, short hours, and
no worry.”
“'If you compare that with the aspirations of Mayors you will see how
sordid such a standard is,” said Mr. Lavender, gravely.
“Sordid it may be, sir,” replied Joe; “but there's, a thing abaht it
you 'aven't noticed. I don't want to sacrifice nobody to satisfy my
aspirations. Why? Because I've got none. That's priceless. Take the
Press, take Parlyment, take Mayors—all mad on aspirations. Now it's
Free Trade, now it's Imperialism; now it's Liberty in Europe; now it's
Slavery in Ireland; now it's sacrifice of the last man an' the last
dollar. You never can tell what aspiration'll get 'em next. And the 'ole
point of an aspiration is the sacrifice of someone else. Don't you make
a mistake, sir. I defy you to make a public speech which 'asn't got that
at the bottom of it.”
“We are wandering from the point, Joe,” returned Mr. Lavender. “Who is
it that governs, the country?”
“A Unseen Power,” replied Joe promptly.
“How?”
“Well, sir, we're a democratic country, ain't we? Parlyment's elected by
the People, and Gover'ment's elected by Parlyment. All right so far;
but what 'appens? Gover'ment says 'I'm going to do this.' So long as it
meets with the approval of the Unseen Power, well an' good. But what
if it don't? The U.P. gets busy; in an 'undred papers there begins to
appear what the U.P. calls Public Opinion, that's to say the opinion
of the people that agree with the U.P. There you 'ave it, sir, only
them—and it appears strong. Attacks on the Gover'ment policy, nasty
things said abaht members of it that's indiscreet enough to speak aht
what, they think—German fathers, and other secret vices; an' what's more
than all, not a peep at any opinion that supports the Gover'ment. Well,
that goes on day after day, playin' on the mind of Parlyment, if they've
got any, and gittin' on the Gover'ment's nerves, which they've got weak,
till they says: 'Look 'ere, it's no go; Public Opinion won't stand it.
We shall be outed; and that'll never do, because there's no other set of
fellows that can save this country.' Then they 'ave a meetin' and change
their policy. And what they've never seen is that they've never seen
Public Opinion at all. All they've seen is what the U.P. let 'em. Now if
I was the Gover'ment, I'd 'ave it out once for all with the U. P.”
“Ah!” cried Mr. Lavender, whose eyes were starting from his, head, so
profoundly was he agitated by what was to him a new thought.
“Yes,” continued Joe, “if I was the Gover'ment, next time it 'appened,
I'd say: 'All right, old cock, do your damnedest. I ain't responsible to
you. Attack, suppress, and all the rest of it. We're goin' to do what
we say, all the same!' And then I'd do it. And what'd come of it? Either
the U.P. would go beyond the limits of the Law—and then I'd jump on it,
suppress its papers, and clap it into quod—or it'd take it lyin' down.
Whichever 'appened it'd be all up with the U. P. I'd a broke its chain
off my neck for good. But I ain't the Gover'ment, an Gover'ment's got
tender feet. I ask you, sir, wot's the good of havin' a Constitooshion,
and a the bother of electing these fellows, if they can't act according
to their judgment for the short term of their natural lives? The U.P.
may be patriotic and estimable, and 'ave the best intentions and all
that, but its outside the Constitooshion; and what's more, I'm not goin'
to spend my last blood an' my last money in a democratic country to suit
the tastes of any single man, or triumpherate, or wotever it may be made
of. If the Government's uncertain wot the country wants they can always
ask it in the proper way, but they never ought to take it on 'earsay
from the papers. That's wot I think.”
While he was speaking Mr. Lavender had become excited to the point of
fever, for, without intending it, Joe had laid bare to him a yawning
chasm between his worship of public men and his devotion to the Press.
And no sooner had his chauffeur finished than he cried: “Leave me, Joe,
for I must think this out.”
“Right, sir,” answered Joe with his smile, and taking the tea-tray from
off his master, he set it where it must infallibly be knocked over, and
went out.
“Can it be possible,” thought Mr. Lavender, when he was alone, “that
I am serving God and Mammon? And which is God and which is Mammon?” he
added, letting his thoughts play over the countless speeches and leading
articles which had formed his spiritual diet since the war began. “Or,
indeed, are they not both God or both Mammon? If what Joe says is true,
and nothing is recorded save what seems good to this Unseen Power, have
I not been listening to ghosts and shadows; and am I, indeed, myself
anything but the unsubstantial image of a public man? For it is true
that I have no knowledge of anything save what is recorded in the
papers.” And perceiving that the very basis of his faith was endangered,
he threw off the bedclothes, and began to pace the room. “Are we, then,
all,” he thought, “being bounded like india-rubber balls by an unseen
hand; and is there no one of us strong enough to bounce into the eye
of our bounder and overthrow him? My God, I am unhappy; for it is a
terrible thing not to know which my God is, and whether I am a public
man or an india-rubber ball.” And the more he thought the more dreadful
it seemed to him, now that he perceived that all those journals,
pamphlets, and reports with which his study walls were lined might not
be the truth, but merely authorized versions of it.
“This,” he said aloud, “is a nightmare from which I must awaken or lose
all my power of action and my ability to help my country in its peril.”
And sudden sweat broke out on his brow, for he perceived that he had
now no means of telling even whether there was a peril, so strangely had
Joe's words affected his powers of credulity.