Of course, after this (in the words of my young friends) I crocked up.
The confounded shell that had played the fool with my legs had also
done something silly to my heart. Hence these collapses after physical
and emotional strain. I had to stay in bed for some days. Cliffe told
me that as soon as I was fit to travel I must go to Bournemouth, where
it would be warm. I told Cliffe to go to a place where it would be
warmer. As neither of us would obey the other, we remained where we
were.
Cliffe informed me that Lady Fenimore had called him in to see Sir
Anthony, whom she described as being on the obstinate edge of a nervous
breakdown. I was sorry to hear it.
"I suppose you've tried to send him, too, to Bournemouth?"
"I haven't," Cliffe replied gravely. "He has got something on his mind.
I'm sure of it. So is his wife. What's the good of sending him away?"
"What do you think is on his mind?" I asked.
"How do I know? His wife thinks it must be something to do with Boyce's
reception. He went home dead-beat, is very irritable, off his food,
can't sleep, and swears cantankerously that there's nothing the matter
with him,--the usual symptoms. Can you throw any light on it?"
"Certainly not," I replied rather sharply.
Cliffe said "Umph!" in his exasperating professional way and proceeded
to feel my pulse.
"I don't quite see how Friday's mild exertion could account for YOUR
breakdown, my friend," he remarked.
"I'm so glad you confess, at last, not to seeing everything," said I.
I was fearing this physical reaction in Sir Anthony. It was only the
self-assertion of Nature. He had gone splendidly through his ordeal,
having braced himself up for it. He had not braced himself up, however,
sufficiently to go through the other and far longer ordeal of hiding
his secret from his wife. So of course he went to pieces.
After Cliffe had left me, with his desire for information unsatisfied,
I rang up Wellings Park. It was the Sunday morning after the reception.
To my surprise, Sir Anthony answered me; for he was an old-fashioned
country churchgoer and plague, pestilence, famine, battle, murder and
sudden death had never been known to keep him out of his accustomed pew
on Sunday morning. Edith, he informed me, had gone to church; he
himself, being as nervous as a cat, had funked it; he was afraid lest
he might get up in the middle of the sermon and curse the Vicar.
"If that's so," said I, "come round here and talk sense. I've something
important to say to you."
He agreed and shortly afterwards he arrived. I was shocked to see him.
His ruddy face had yellowed and the firm flesh had loosened and sagged.
I had never noticed that his stubbly hair was so grey. He could
scarcely sit still on the chair by my bedside.
I told him of Cliffe's suspicions. We were a pair of conspirators with
unavowable things on our minds which were driving us to nervous
catastrophe. Edith, said I, was more suspicious even than Cliffe. I
also told him of our talk about the projected dinner party.
"That," he declared, "would drive me stark, staring mad."
"So will continuing to hide the truth from Edith," said I. "How do you
suppose you can carry on like this?"
He grew angry. How could he tell Edith? How could he make her
understand his reason for welcoming Boyce? How could he prevent her
from blazing the truth abroad and crying aloud for vengeance? What kind
of a fool's counsel was I giving him?
I let him talk, until, tired with reiteration, he had nothing more to
say. Then I made him listen to me while I expounded that which was
familiar to his obstinate mind--namely, the heroic qualities of his own
wife.
"It comes to this," said I, by way of peroration, "that you're afraid
of Edith letting you down, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself."
At that he flared out again. How dared I, he asked, eating his words,
suggest that he did not trust the most splendid woman God had ever
made? Didn't I see that he was only trying to shield her from knowledge
that might kill her? I retorted by pointing out that worry over his
insane behaviour--please remember that above our deep unchangeable
mutual affection, a violent surface quarrel was raging--would more
surely and swiftly kill her than unhappy knowledge. Her quick
brain--had already connected Gedge, Boyce, and his present condition as
the main factors of some strange problem. "Her quick brain!" I cried.
"A half idiot child would have put things together."
Presently he collapsed, sitting hopelessly, nervelessly in his chair.
At last he lifted a piteously humble face.
"What would you suggest my doing, Duncan?"
There seemed to me to be only one thing he could do in order to
preserve, if not his reason, at any rate his moral equilibrium in the
position which he had contrived for himself. To tell him this had been
my object in seeking the interview, and the blessed opportunity only
came after an hour's hard wrangle--in current metaphor after an hour's
artillery preparation for attack. He looked so battered, poor old
Anthony, that I felt almost ashamed of the success of my bombardment.
"It's not a question of suggesting," said I. "It's a question of things
that have to be done. You need a holiday. You've been working here at
high pressure for nearly a couple of years. Go away. Put yourself in
the hands of Cliffe, and go to Bournemouth, or Biarritz, or Bahia, or
any beastly place you can fix up with him to go to. Go frankly, for
three or four months. Go to-morrow. As soon as you're well out of the
place, tell Edith the whole story. Then you can take counsel and
comfort together."
He was in the state of mind to be impressed by my argument. I followed
up my advantage. I undertook to send a ruthless flaming angel of a
Cliffe to pronounce the inexorable decree of exile. After a few
faint-hearted objections he acquiesced in the scheme. I fancy he
revolted against even this apparent surrender to Gedge, although he was
too proud to confess it. No man likes running away. Sir Anthony also
regarded as pusillanimous the proposal to leave his wife in ignorance
until he had led her into the trap of holiday. Why not put her into his
confidence before they started?
"That," said I, "is a delicate question which only you yourself can
decide. By following my plan you get away at once, which is the most
important thing. Once comfortably away, you can choose the opportune
moment."
"There's something in that," he replied; and, after thanking me for my
advice, he left me.
I do not defend my plan. I admit it was Machiavellian. My one desire
was to remove these two dear people from Wellingsford for a season.
Just think of the horrible impossibility of their maintaining social
relations with the Boyces ....
By publicly honouring Boyce, Sir Anthony had tied his own hands. It was
a pledge to Boyce, although the latter did not know it, of condonation.
Whatever stories Gedge might spread abroad, whatever proofs he might
display, Sir Anthony could take no action. But to carry on a semblance
of friendship with the man responsible for his daughter's death--for
the two of them, mind you, since Lady Fenimore would sooner or later
learn everything--was, as I say, horribly impossible.
Let them go, then, on their nominal holiday, during which the air might
clear. Boyce might take his mother away from Wellingsford. She would do
far more than uproot herself from her home in order to gratify a wish
of her adored and blinded son. He would employ his time of darkness in
learning to be brave, he had told me. It took some courage to face the
associations of dreadful memories unflinchingly, for his mother's sake.
Should he learn, however, that the Fenimores had an inkling of the
truth, he would recognise his presence in the place to be an outrage.
And such inkling--who would give it him? Perhaps I, myself. The Boyces
would go--the Fenimores could return. Anything, anything rather than
that the Fenimores and the Boyces should continue to dwell in the same
little town.
And there was Betty--with all the inexplicable feminine whirring inside
her--socially reconciled with Boyce. Where the deuce was this
reconciliation going to lead? I have told you how my lunatic love for
Betty had stood revealed to me. Had she chosen to love and marry any
ordinary gallant gentleman, God knows I should not have had a word to
say. The love that such as I can give a woman can find its only true
expression in desiring and contriving her happiness. But that she
should sway back to Leonard Boyce--no, no. I could not bear it. All the
shuddering pictures of him rose up before me, the last, that of him
standing by the lock gates and suddenly running like a frightened
rabbit, with his jaunty soft felt hat squashed shapelessly over his
ears.
Gedge could not have invented that abominable touch of the squashed hat.
I have said that possibly I myself might give Boyce an inkling of the
truth. Thinking over the matter in my restless bed, I shrank from doing
so. Should I not be disingenuously serving my own ends? Betty stepped
in, whom I wanted for myself. Neither could I go to Boyce and challenge
him for a villain and summon him to quit the town and leave those dear
to me at peace. I could not condemn him. I had unshaken faith in the
man's noble qualities. That he drowned Althea Fenimore I did not, could
not, believe. After all that had passed between us, I felt my loyalty
to him irrevocably pledged. More than ever was I enmeshed in the net of
the man's destiny.
As yet, however, I could not bear to see him. I could not bear to see
Betty, who called now and then. For the first time in my life I took
refuge in my invalidity, whereby I earned the commendation of Cliffe.
Betty sent me flowers. Mrs. Boyce sent me grapes and an infallible
prescription for heart attacks which, owing to the hopeless mess she
had made in trying to copy the wriggles indicating the quantities of
the various drugs, was of no practical use. Phyllis Gedge sent me a few
bunches of violets with a shy little note. Lady Fenimore wrote me an
affectionate letter bidding me farewell. They were going to Bude in
Cornwall, Anthony having put himself under Dr. Cliffe's orders like a
wonderful lamb. When she came back, she hoped that her two sick men
would be restored to health and able to look more favourably upon her
projected dinner party. Marigold also brought into my bedroom a
precious old Waterford claret jug which I had loved and secretly
coveted for twenty years, with a card attached bearing the inscription
"With love from Anthony." That was his dumb, British way of informing
me that he was taking my advice.
When my self-respect would allow me no longer to remain in bed, I got
up; but I still shrank from publishing the news of my recovery, in
which reluctance I met with the hearty encouragement both of Cliffe and
Marigold. The doctor then informed me that my attack of illness had
been very much more serious than I realised, and that unless I made up
my mind to lead the most unruffled of cabbage-like existences, he would
not answer for what might befall me. If he could have his way, he would
carry me off and put me into solitary confinement for a couple of
months on a sunny island, where I should hold no communication with the
outside world. Marigold heard this announcement with smug satisfaction.
Nothing would please him more than to play gaoler over me.
At last, one morning, I said to him: "I'm not going to submit to
tyranny any longer. I resume my normal life. I'm at home to anybody who
calls. I'm at home to the devil himself."
"Very good, sir," said Marigold.
An hour or two afterwards the door was thrown open and there stood on
the threshold the most amazing apparition that ever sought admittance
into a gentleman's library; an apparition, however, very familiar
during these days to English eyes. From the shapeless Tam-o'-Shanter to
the huge boots it was caked in mud. Over a filthy sheepskin were slung
all kinds of paraphernalia, covered with dirty canvas which made it
look a thing of mighty bulges among which a rifle was poked away. It
wore a kilt covered by a khaki apron. It also had a dirty and unshaven
face. A muddy warrior fresh from the trenches, of course. But what was
he doing here?
"I see, sir, you don't recognise me," he said with a smile.
"Good Lord!" I cried, with a start, "it's Randall."
"Yes, sir. May I come in?"
"Come in? What infernal nonsense are you talking?" I held out my hand,
and, after greeting him, made him sit down.
"Now," said I, "what the deuce are you doing in that kit?"
"That's what I've been asking myself for the last ten months. Anyhow I
shan't wear it much longer."
"How's that?"
"Commission, sir," he answered.
"Oh!" said I.
His entrance had been so abrupt and unexpected that I hardly knew as
yet what to make of him. Speculation as to his doings had led me to
imagine him engaged in some elegant fancy occupation on the fringe of
the army, if indeed he were serving his country so creditably. I found
it hard to reconcile my conception of Master Randall Holmes with this
businesslike Tommy who called me "Sir" every minute.
"I'll tell you about it, sir, if you're interested. But first--how is
my mother?"
"Your mother? You haven't seen her yet?"
Here, at least, was a bit of the old casual Randall. He shook his head.
"I've only just this minute arrived. Left the trenches yesterday.
Walked from the station. Not a soul recognised me. I thought I had
better come here first and report, just as I was, and not wait until I
had washed and shaved and put on Christian clothes again. He looked at
me and grinned. "Seeing is believing."
"Your mother is quite well," said I. "Haven't you given her any warning
of your arrival?"
"Oh, no!" he answered. "I didn't want any brass bands. Besides, as I
say, I wanted to see you first. Then to look in at the hospital. I
suppose Phyllis Gedge is still at the hospital?"
"She is. But I think, my dear chap, your mother has the first call on
you."
"She wouldn't enjoy my present abominable appearance as much as
Phyllis," he replied, coolly. "You see, Phyllis is responsible for it.
I told you she refused to marry me, didn't I, sir? After that, she
called me a coward. I had to show her that I wasn't one. It was an
awful nuisance, I admit, for I had intended to do something quite
different. Oh! not Gedging or anything of that sort--but--" he dived
beneath his sheepskin and brought out a tattered letter case and from a
mass of greasy documents (shades of superior Oxford!) selected a dirty,
ragged bit of newspaper--"but," said he, handing me the fragment, "I
think I've succeeded. I don't suppose this caught your eye, but if you
look closely into it, you'll see that 11003 Private R. Holmes, 1st
Gordon Highlanders, a couple of months ago was awarded the
Distinguished Conduct Medal. I may be any kind of a fool or knave she
likes to call me, but she can't call me a coward."
I congratulated him with all my heart, which, after the first shock,
was warming towards him rapidly.
"But why," I asked, still somewhat bewildered, "didn't you apply for a
commission? A year ago you could have got one easily. Why enlist? And
the 1st Gordons--that's the regular army."
He laughed and asked permission to help himself to a cigarette. "By
George, that's good," he exclaimed after a few puffs. "That's good
after months of Woodbines. I found I could stand everything except
Tommy's cigarettes. Everything about me has got as hard as nails,
except my palate for tobacco .... Why didn't I apply for a commission?
Any fool could get a commission. It's different now. Men are picked and
must have seen active service, and then they're sent off to cadet
training corps. But last year I could have got one easily. And I might
have been kicking my heels about England now."
"Yet, at the sight of a Sam Browne belt, Phyllis would have surely
recanted," said I.
"I didn't want the girl I intended to marry and pass my life with to
have her head turned by such trappings as a Sam Browne belt. She has
had to be taught that she is going to marry a man. I'm not such a fool
as you may have thought me, Major," he said, forgetful of his humble
rank. "Suppose I had got a commission and married her. Suppose I had
been kept at home and never gone out and never seen a shot fired, like
heaps of other fellows, or suppose I had taken the line I had marked
out--do you think we should have been assured a happy life? Not a bit
of it. We might have been happy for twenty years. And then--women are
women and can't help themselves--the old word--by George, sir, she spat
it at me from a festering sore in her very soul--the old word would
have rankled all the time, and some stupid quarrel having arisen, she
would have spat it at me again. I wasn't taking any chances of that
kind."
"My dear boy," said I, subridently, "you seem to be very wise." And he
did. So far as I knew anything about humans, male and female, his
proposition was incontrovertible. "But where did you gather your
wisdom?"
"I suppose," he replied seriously, "that my mind is not entirely
unaffected by a very expensive education."
I looked at the extraordinary figure in sheepskin, bundles and mud, and
laughed out loud. The hands of Esau and the voice of Jacob. The garb of
Thomas Atkins and the voice of Balliol. Still, as I say, the fellow was
perfectly right. His highly trained intelligence had led him to an
exact conclusion. The festering sore demanded drastic treatment,--the
surgeon's knife. As we talked I saw how coldly his brain had worked.
And side by side with that working I saw, to my amusement, the
insistent claims of his vanity. The quickest way to the front, where
alone he could re-establish his impugned honour was by enlistment in
the regular army. For the first time in his life he took a grip on
essentials. He knew that by going straight into the heart of the old
army his brains, provided they remained in his head, would enable him
to accomplish his purpose. As for his choice of regiment, there his
vanity guided. You may remember that after his disappearance we first
heard of him at Aberdeen. Now Aberdeen is the depot of the Gordon
Highlanders.
"What on earth made you go there?" I asked.
"I wanted to get among a crowd where I wasn't known, and wasn't ever
likely to be known," he replied. "And my instinct was right. I was
among farmers from Skye and butchers from Inverness and drunken
scallywags from the slums of Aberdeen, and a leaven of old soldiers
from all over Scotland. I had no idea that such people existed. At
first I thought I shouldn't be able to stick it. They gave me a bad
time for being an Englishman. But soon, I think, they rather liked me.
I set my brains to work and made 'em like me. I knew there was
everything to learn about these fellows and I went scientifically to
work to learn it. And, by Heaven, sir, when once they accepted me, I
found I had never been in such splendid company in my life."
"My dear boy," I cried in a burst of enthusiasm, "have you had
breakfast?"
"Of course I have. At the Union Jack Club--the Tommies' place the other
side of the river--bacon and eggs and sausages. I thought I'd never
stop eating."
"Have some more?"
He laughed. "Couldn't think of it."
"Then," said I, "get yourself a cigar." I pointed to a stack of boxes.
"You'll find the Corona--Coronas the best."
As I am not a millionaire I don't offer these Coronas to everybody. I
myself can only afford to smoke one or two a week.
When he had lit it he said: "I was led away from what I wanted to tell
you,--my going to Aberdeen and plunging into the obscurity of a
Scottish regiment. I was absolutely determined that none of my friends,
none of you good people, should know what an ass I had made of myself.
That's why I kept it from my mother. She would have blabbed it all over
the place."
"But, my good fellow," said I, "why the dickens shouldn't we have
known?"
"That I was making an ass of myself?"
"No, you young idiot!" I cried. "That you were making a man of
yourself."
"I preferred to wait," said he, coolly, "until I had a reasonable
certainty that I had achieved that consummation--or, rather, something
that might stand for it in the prejudiced eyes of my dear friends. I
knew that you all, ultimately, you and mother and Phyllis, would judge
by results. Well, here they are. I've lived the life of a Tommy for ten
months. I've been five in the thick of it over there. I've refused
stripes over and over again. I've got my D.C.M. I've got my commission
through the ranks, practically on the field. And of the draft of two
hundred who went out with me only one other and myself remain."
"It's a splendid record, my boy," said I.
He rose. "Don't misunderstand me, Major. I'm not bragging. God forbid.
I'm only wanting to explain why I kept dark all the time, and why I'm
springing smugly and complacently on you now."
"I quite understand," said I.
"In that case," he laughed, "I can proceed on my rounds." But he did
not proceed. He lingered. "There's another matter I should like to
mention," he said. "In her last letter my mother told me that the Mayor
and Town Council were on the point of giving a civic reception to
Colonel Boyce. Has it taken place yet?"
"Yes," said I.
"And did it go off all right?"
In spite of wisdom learned at Balliol and shell craters, he was still
an ingenuous youth.
"Gedge was perfectly quiet," I answered.
He started, as he had for months learned not to start, and into his
eyes sprang an alarm that was usually foreign to them.
"Gedge? How do you know anything about Gedge and Colonel Boyce? Good
Lord! He hasn't been spreading that poisonous stuff over the town?"
"That's what you were afraid of when you asked about the reception?"
"Of course," said he.
"And you wanted to have your mind clear on the point before
interviewing Phyllis."
"You're quite right, sir," he replied, a bit shamefacedly. "But if he
hasn't been spreading it, how do you know? And," he looked at me
sharply, "what do you know?"
"You gave your word of honour not to repeat what Gedge told you. I
think you may be absolved of your promise. Gedge came to Sir Anthony
and myself with a lying story about the death of Althea Fenimore."
"Yes," said he. "That was it."
"Sit down for another minute or two," said I, "and let us compare
notes."
He obeyed. We compared notes. I found that in most essentials the two
stories were identical, although Gedge had been maudlin drunk when he
admitted Randall into his confidence.
"But in pitching you his yarn," cried Randall, "he left out the
blackmail. He bragged in his beastly way that Colonel Boyce was worth a
thousand a year to him. All he had to live upon now that the
blood-suckers had ruined his business. Then he began to weep and
slobber--he was a disgusting sight--and he said he would give it all up
and beg with his daughter in the streets as soon as he had an
opportunity of unmasking 'that shocking wicked fellow.'"
"What did you say then?" I asked.
"I told him if ever I heard of him spreading such infernal lies abroad,
I'd wring his neck."
"Very good, my boy," said I. "That's practically what Sir Anthony told
him."
"Sir Anthony doesn't believe there's any truth in it?"
"Sir Anthony," said I, boldly, "knows there's not a particle of truth
in it. The man's malignancy has taken the form of a fixed idea. He's
crack-brained. Between us we put the fear of God into him, and I don't
think he'll give any more trouble."
Randall got to his feet again. "I'm very much relieved to hear you say
so. I must confess I've been horribly uneasy about the whole thing." He
drew a deep breath. "Thank goodness I can go to Phyllis, as you say,
with a clear mind. The last time I saw her I was half crazy."
He held out his hand, a dirty, knubbly, ragged-nailed hand--the hand
that was once so irritatingly manicured.
"Good-bye, Major. You won't shut the door on me now, will you?"
I wrung his hand hard and bade him not be silly, and, looking up at
him, said:
"What was the other thing quite different you were intending to do
before you, let us say, quarreled with Phyllis?"
He hesitated, his forehead knit in a little web of perplexity.
"Whatever it was," I continued, "let us have it. I'm your oldest
friend, a sort of father. Be frank with me and you won't regret it. The
splendid work you've done has wiped out everything."
"I'm afraid it has," said he ruefully. "Wiped it out clean." With a
hitch of the shoulders he settled his pack more comfortably. "Well,
I'll tell you, Major. I thought I had brains. I still think I have. I
was on the point of getting a job in the Secret Service--Intelligence
Department. I had the whole thing cut and dried--to get at the
ramifications of German espionage in socialistic and so-called
intellectual circles in neutral and other countries. It would have been
ticklish work, for I should have been carrying my life in my hands. I
could have done it well. I started out by being a sort of
'intellectual' myself. All along I wanted to put my brains at the
service of my country. I took some time to hit upon the real way. I hit
upon it. I learned lots of things from Gedge. If he weren't an arrant
coward, he might be dangerous. He would be taking German money long
ago, but that he's frightened to death of it." He laughed. "It never
occurred to you, I suppose, a year ago," he continued, "that I spent
most of my days in London working like a horse."
"But," I cried--I felt myself flushing purple--and, when I flush
purple, the unregenerate old soldier in me uses language of a
corresponding hue--"But," I cried--and in this language I asked him why
he had told me nothing about it.
"The essence of the Secret Service, sir," replied this maddening young
man, "is--well--secrecy."
"You had a billet offered to you, of the kind you describe?"
"The offer reached me, very much belated, one day when I was half dead,
after having performed some humiliating fatigue duty. I think I had
persisted in trying to scratch an itching back on parade. Military
discipline, I need not tell you, Major, doesn't take into account the
sensitiveness of a recruit's back. It flatly denies such a phenomenon.
Now I think I can defy anything in God's quaint universe to make me
itch. But that's by the way. I tore the letter up and never answered
it. You do these things, sir, when the whole universe seems to be a
stumbling-block and an offence. Phyllis was the stumbling-block and the
rest of the cosmos was the other thing. That's why I have reason on my
side when I say that, all through Phyllis Gedge, I made an ass of
myself."
He clutched his rude coat with both hands. "An ass in sheep's clothing."
He drew himself up, saluted, and marched out.
He marched out, the young scoundrel, with all the honours of war.