Bob Power spent the afternoon with us. Strictly speaking, I ought to
say he spent the afternoon with Marion. I only saw him at tea-time. He
let me understand then that he would like to stay and dine with us. I
felt that I ought to be vexed at the prospect of losing another quiet
evening. Conroy had cost me two evenings. My visit to Castle Affey, my
political March Past, and my expedition to Dublin had robbed me of
nine others. I could ill afford to spare a twelfth to Bob Power. Yet I
felt unreasonably pleased when he promised to dine with us. There is a
certain flavour of the sea about Bob, a sense of boisterous good
fellowship, a joyous irresponsibility, which would have been
attractive to me at any time, and were singularly pleasant after my
political experiences. I was not at all so well pleased when a note
arrived from Godfrey in which he asked whether he too could dine with
us.
He arrived long before dinner, before I had gone upstairs to dress,
and explained himself.
"I heard," he said, "that Power was up here, so I thought I'd better
come too."
"How lucky it is," I said, "that Pringle didn't invite you to-night."
"I shouldn't have gone if he had. I should have considered it my duty
to come here. After all, Excellency, some one ought to look after
Marion a bit."
"For the matter of that," I said, "some one ought to look after Tottie
Pringle."
"You never can tell," said Godfrey, "what silly fancy a girl will take
into her head, and that fellow Power is just the sort who might--"
Godfrey nodded sagaciously. It has always been understood that Godfrey
is to marry Marion at some future time. I have always understood this
and, on personal grounds, dislike it very much; though I do not deny
that the arrangement is convenient. My title is not a very ancient or
particularly honourable one, but I do not like to think of its being
dragged in the gutter by a pauper. If Godfrey married Marion he would
have the use of her income. Godfrey has certainly understood this plan
for the future. He may treat himself occasionally to the kisses of
Tottie Pringle, but he is not the man to allow kissing to interfere
with his prospect of earning a competence. Whether Marion understood
her fate or not, I do not know. She always endured Godfrey with
patience. I suppose that this condition of affairs gave Godfrey a
certain right to nod sagaciously when he spoke of looking after
Marion. But I resented both his tone and the things he said. I left
him and went up to dress.
Marion's behaviour during the evening fully justified Godfrey's fears,
though I do not think that anything would have excused him for
expressing them to me. She was amazingly cheerful during dinner, and
in so good a temper, that she continued smiling at Godfrey even when
he scowled at her. Bob Power was breezily agreeable, and I should have
thoroughly enjoyed the stories he told us if I had not been conscious
all the time that Godfrey was frowning at my right ear. He sat on
that side of me and Bob Power on the other, so my ear was, most of the
time, the nearest thing to my face that Godfrey could frown at.
After dinner Bob and Marion behaved really badly; not to Godfrey, but
to me. No one could behave badly to Godfrey because he always deserves
worse than the worst that is done to him. But I am not a very
objectionable person, and I have during the last twenty-two years
shown a good deal of kindness to Marion. I do not think that she and
Bob ought to have slipped out of the drawing-room window after singing
one short song, and left me to be worried by Godfrey for the whole
evening. Only one way of escape presented itself to me. I pretended to
go to sleep. That stopped Godfrey talking after a time; but not until
I had found it necessary to snore. I heard every word he said up to
that point. I woke up with a very good imitation of a start when Bob
and Marion came in again. That happened at ten o'clock, and Bob
immediately said good night. Under ordinary circumstances Godfrey
stays on till nearly eleven; but that night he went away five minutes
after Bob left.
Next morning there was trouble. It began with Marion's behaviour at
breakfast. As a rule she is a young woman of placid and equable
temper, one who is likely in the future to have a soothing effect on
her husband. That morning she was very nearly hysterical. When we went
into my study after breakfast she was quite incapable of work, and
could not lay her hands on any of the papers which I particularly
wanted. I was irritated at the moment, but I recognized afterwards
that she had some excuse, and in any case my morning's work would have
been interrupted.
At half-past ten I got a note from Godfrey--written in pencil and
almost illegible--in which he asked me to go down to see him at once.
He said that he was in severe pain and for the time confined to bed.
"You're sure," he said, "to have heard a garbled account of what
happened, before you get this letter. I want to tell you the _facts_
before I take further action."
The word "facts" was underlined shakily. I had, of course, heard no
account of anything which had happened. I handed the letter to Marion.
"Do you know what this means?" I asked.
Marion read it.
"Rose told me this morning," she said, "that there had been some kind
of a row last night. She said Godfrey was killed."
"That isn't true at all events," I said. "He's still alive."
"Of course I didn't believe her," said Marion.
"But I think you ought to have told me at breakfast," I said. "I hate
having these things sprung on me suddenly. At my time of life even
good news ought to be broken to me gradually. Any sudden shock is bad
for the heart."
"I thought there might be no truth in the story at all," said Marion,
"and you know, father, that you don't like being worried."
I don't. But I am worried a great deal.
"I suppose," I said, "that I'd better go down and see him. He says
he's in great pain, so he's not likely to be agreeable; but still I'd
better go."
"Do," said Marion; "and, of course, if there's anything I can do,
anything I can send down to him--"
"I don't expect he's as bad as all that," I said. "Men like Godfrey
are never seriously hurt. But if he expresses a wish for chicken jelly
I'll let you know at once."
I started at once. I met Bob Power just outside my own gate. He was
evidently a little embarrassed, but he spoke to me with the greatest
frankness.
"I'm extremely sorry, Lord Kilmore," he said, "but I am afraid I hurt
your nephew last night."
"Badly?"
"Not very," said Bob. "Collar bone and a couple of ribs. I saw the
doctor this morning."
"Broken?"
"Yes. It wasn't altogether my fault. I mean to say--"
"I'm sure it was altogether Godfrey's," I said. "The thing which
surprises me is that nobody ever did it before. Godfrey is nearly
thirty, so for twenty years at least every man he has met must have
been tempted to break his ribs. We must, in spite of what everybody
says, be a Christian nation. If we were not--"
"He would keep following me about," said Bob. "I told him several
times to clear away and go home. But he wouldn't."
"He has a fixed idea that you're engaged in smuggling."
"Even if I was," said Bob, "it would be no business of his."
"That's just why he mixes himself up in it. If it had been his
business he wouldn't have touched it. There's nothing Godfrey hates
more than doing anything he ought to do."
"I'm awfully glad you take it that way," said Bob. "I was afraid--"
"My dear fellow," I said, "I'm delighted. But you haven't told me yet
exactly how it happened."
"I was moving a packing-case," said Bob, "a rather large one--"
He hesitated. I think he felt that the packing-case might require some
explanation, especially as it was being moved at about eleven o'clock
at night. I hastened to reassure him.
"Quite a proper thing for you to be doing," I said, "and certainly no
business of Godfrey's. Every one has a perfect right to move
packing-cases about from place to place."
"He told me he was going for the police, so--"
"I don't think you need have taken any notice of that threat. The
police know Godfrey quite well. They hate being worried just as much
as I do."
"So I knocked him down."
"You must have hit him in several places at once," I said, "to have
broken so many bones."
"The fact is," said Bob, "that he got up again."
"That's just the sort of thing he would do. Any man of ordinary good
feeling would have known that when he was knocked down he was meant to
stay down."
"Then the two other men who were with me, young fellows out of the
town, set on him."
"Was one of them particularly freckly?" I asked.
"I didn't notice. Why do you ask?"
"If he was it would account for my daughter's maid getting hold of an
inaccurate version of the story this morning. But it doesn't matter.
Go on with what you were saying."
"There isn't any more," said Bob. "They hammered him, and then we
carried him home. That's all."
"I am going down to see him now," I said. "He's thinking of taking
further action."
"Let him," said Bob. "Is Miss D'Aubigny at home?"
"Yes, she is. If you're going up to see her--"
"I would," said Bob, "if I thought she wouldn't be angry with me."
"She's nervous," I said, "and excited; but she didn't seem angry."
Just outside the town I met Crossan and, very much to my surprise,
McNeice walking with him. Crossan handed me a letter. I put it into my
pocket and greeted McNeice.
"I did not know you were here," I said. "When did you come?"
"Last night," said McNeice. "Crossan brought me on his motor."
"Were you in time for the scrimmage?"
"You'd maybe better read the letter I've given you, my lord," said
Crossan.
"If I'd been there," said McNeice, "your nephew would probably be dead
now. In my opinion he ought to be."
"The letter I've just given your lordship," said Crossan, "is an
important one."
"I'm sure it is," I said. "But I haven't time to read it now."
"What's in it, my lord, is this. I'm resigning the management of your
business here, and the sooner you're suited with a new man the
better."
"If my nephew Godfrey has been worrying you, Crossan," I said, "I'll
take steps--"
"It's not that, my lord. For all the harm his talk ever did me I'd
stay on. But--"
He looked at McNeice as if asking permission to say more.
"Political business," said McNeice.
"Of course," I said, "if it's a matter of politics, everything must
give way to politics. But I'm very sorry to lose you, Crossan. My
business affairs--"
"You'll have no business affairs left, my lord, if the Home Rule Bill
passes."
"But you're going to stop it," I said.
"We are," said Crossan.
He certainly believed that he was. At the present moment he believes
that he did stop it.
I found Godfrey propped up in bed. His face had a curiously unbalanced
appearance owing to the way in which one side of his jaw was swollen.
Bob Power's original blow must have been a hard one. I noticed when he
spoke that one of his eye teeth was broken off short. He began to pour
out his complaint the moment I entered the room.
"A murderous assault was made on me last night," he said. "After I
left your house I walked down--"
"Don't talk if it hurts you, Godfrey," I said.
He was speaking in a muffled way which led me to think that the inside
of his mouth must be nearly as much swollen as the outside.
"That fellow Power had a band of ruffians with him. If he had fought
fair I shouldn't have minded, but--"
"What were you doing," I said, "to make him attack you? He must have
had some reason."
"I wasn't doing anything. I was simply looking on."
"That may have been the most objectionable thing possible," I said. "I
don't say that his violence was justified; but it may have been quite
excusable if you insisted on looking on at something which he didn't
want you to see."
Godfrey actually tried to smile. He could not do so, of course, on
account of the condition of his mouth, but I judged by the expression
of his eyes that he was trying to. Godfrey's smiles are always either
malicious or idiotic. This one, if it had come off, would have been
malicious.
"I saw all I wanted to," he said, "before they attacked me. In fact, I
was just going for the police--"
"I suppose you sent for the police this morning?" I said.
"No, I didn't. I don't trust the police. I wouldn't trust the
magistrates here, except you, of course, Excellency. What I'm going to
do is write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer."
"Good gracious, Godfrey! Why the Chancellor of the Exchequer? What
interest can you expect him to take in your fights? If you are going
to make a political matter of it at all, you'd far better try the
Secretary of State for War. It's much more in his line."
"But the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the man who's responsible for
the revenue, isn't he?"
"You can't expect him to give you a pension simply because Power
knocked out your teeth."
"He'll stop Power smuggling," said Godfrey.
"I suppose," I said, "that it's no use my telling you that he was not
smuggling?"
"I saw him at it," said Godfrey, "and I'm going to write to the
Chancellor of the Exchequer."
"What on earth do you expect to gain by that?" I asked.
"He ought to be grateful to me for putting him on the track of the
smuggling," said Godfrey. "I should think he'd want to do something
for me afterwards. He might--"
"Give you a job," I said.
"Yes," said Godfrey. "I always heard that fellows in the Treasury got
good salaries."
I was greatly relieved when I left Godfrey. I expected that he would
want to take some sort of legal proceedings against Bob Power which
would have involved us all in a great deal of unpleasantness. I should
not have been surprised if he had tried to blackmail Bob or Conroy, or
both, and I should have disliked that very much. But his letter to the
Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to be merely foolish. In the first
place Bob Power was not smuggling. In the next place the Chancellor of
the Exchequer would never see Godfrey's letter. It would be opened, I
supposed, by some kind of clerk or secretary. He would giggle over it
and show it to a friend. He would also giggle. Then unless the
spelling was unusually eccentric the letter would go into the
waste-paper basket. Nothing whatever would happen.
I was, I own, entirely wrong. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did see
the letter. I take that for granted, because the Prime Minister saw
it, and I cannot see how it could have got to him except through the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. The spelling may have been as bad as
Godfrey's spelling usually is, but the letter evidently gave a
detailed account of what had happened, the kind of account which
impresses people as being true. The letter was, in fact, the first
direct evidence the Government got about what Conroy and McNeice and
Bob were doing. I dare say there were suspicions abroad before. The
offer of a peerage to Conroy showed that there was good reason to
placate him. But it was Godfrey's absurd letter which first suggested
to the minds of the Cabinet that Conroy was using his yacht, the
_Finola_, for importing arms into Ulster. Even then I do not think
that anybody in authority suspected how thoroughly Conroy and Bob were
doing the work. They may have thought of a cargo of rifles, and a few
thousand cartridges. The existence of the Ulster artillery was a
surprise to them at the very moment when the guns first opened fire.
So far from having no consequences at all, Godfrey's ridiculous letter
actually precipitated the conflict which took place. I do not think
that it made any difference to the result of the fighting. That would
have been the same whether the fighting came a little sooner or a
little later. But the letter and the action of the Government which
followed it certainly disorganized Conroy's plans and hustled McNeice.
I found McNeice in my study when I got home. I told him, by way of a
joke, about the letter which Godfrey intended to write. To my surprise
he did not treat it as a joke. I suppose he realized at once what the
consequences of such a letter might be.
"They ought to have put him past writing letters," he growled, "when
they had him."
Then, without even saying good-bye to me, he got up and left the room.
In less than an hour he and Crossan were rushing off somewhere in
their motor car. They may have gone to hold a consultation with
Conroy. He was in Belfast at the time.
I found Bob Power and Marion in the garden, but not, as I expected,
eating gooseberries. They were sitting together on a seat opposite a
small artificial pond in which I try to keep gold fish. When I came
upon them they were sitting up straight, and both of them were gazing
intently into the pond. This surprised me, because all the last
consignment of gold fish had died, and there was nothing in the pond
to look at.
I told Bob about Godfrey and the letter to the Chancellor of the
Exchequer. His reception of the news was even more disappointing than
McNeice's was. He neither laughed, as I hoped, nor even scowled. In
fact, if I had not spoken quite distinctly, I should have thought that
he did not hear what I said.
"Lord Kilmore," he said, "I think I ought to tell you at once--"
Then he stopped and looked at Marion. She became very red in the face.
"Father," she said, "Bob and I--"
Then she stopped too. I waited for a long time. Neither of them did
more than begin a sentence; but Bob took Marion's hand and held it
tight. I thought it better to try to help them out.
"I don't know," I said, "whether I've guessed rightly--"
"Of course you have, father," said Marion.
"If not," I said, "it'll be very embarrassing for all of us when I
tell you what my guess is."
"Marion and I--" said Bob.
"Have spent the morning," I said, "in finding out that you want to
marry each other?"
"Of course we have," said Marion.
"Of course," said Bob.
The discovery that they both wanted the same thing made them
ridiculously happy. Marion kissed me with effusive ardour, putting her
left arm tight round my neck, but still holding on to Bob with her
right hand. Bob, after our first raptures had subsided a little,
insisted on going down to Godfrey's lodgings, and apologizing for
breaking his ribs. I told him that an apology delivered in that spirit
would merely intensify Godfrey's wish to write to the Chancellor of
the Exchequer. But nothing I said moved Bob in the least. He was so
happy that he wanted to abase himself before some one.