WAR, CARPETS, AND CANDLES
I
The fleet put in to Arosa Bay, and, in less than twelve hours, sailed
thence without regret. On the day following their departure an event
occurred which, for the time being, changed the lives of every member
of the _King Arthur’s_ company. Late in the forenoon watch a wireless
signal was received and immediately submitted to the Rear-Admiral. This
much of its contents became public: that the Admiralty had ordered the
Cruiser Squadron, which at the time was making common speed with the
battleships, to proceed independently to Gibraltar at sixteen knots.
This speed, unusual and uneconomical enough to suggest that there was
serious reason for it, combined with the tension already created in
men’s minds by the happenings at Agadir, gave wonderful import to the
news, which spread with almost magical rapidity from the bridge to
the officers’ messes, from the fo’c’s’le to the boiler-room depths.
Speculation as to the meaning of the order was anxious and eager.
Rumours of war had in times past been so frequent as to colour all
prophecies with scepticism, but hope remained--hope that now at length
the consummation was at hand. The Rear-Admiral unbent so far as to
jest with the officer of the watch. The Yeoman of Signals overheard
him, and repeated his words on the lower bridge. The lower bridge
handed on the tale to the boatswain’s mate, who, having embellished
it, shared its marvel with the lower deck. In a quarter of an hour
the Rear-Admiral’s good-humour had permeated the ship. A Paymaster
celebrated it in the Wardroom Casemate by paying for a round of drinks.
The Senior Engineer put on clean overalls and went smiling below.
The stokers grumbled no more, but fired their boilers and slammed
their furnace-doors with vigorous enthusiasm. They were not going to
Gibraltar now to carry out gun-practice in Catalan Bay, gun-practice
in Tetuan, gun-practice in Catalan again. “Sixteen knots!” remarked a
Chief Stoker, with emphasis that made explanation unnecessary. “Sixteen
knots!” said one of the carpenter’s crew. “Looks as if we shan’t need
them targets wi’ the little red sails.”
Even in the Gunroom, comradeship displaced boredom. The Chaplain
relaxed discipline during School. Baring came in to drink a glass of
sherry and to share Wardroom opinion with Winton-Black. Midshipmen,
senior, intermediate, and junior, looked towards the future from a
common standpoint. The Clerk saw his ledger shrouded in the mists
of the past. His action-station, he said a dozen times, was with
the Dumaresq. “You won’t see much of the show from the Dumaresq,”
said Banford-Smith, and the Clerk replied humbly, but with complete
happiness: “No, but it’s better than the Ship’s Office.”
There was, too, a wonderful moment in which Krame seemed to forget
that John was a Wart whose duty it was to tidy up the Gunroom, to
polish the stove-pipes, and to do scuttle-drill when the sea ran high
and ventilation became necessary.
“Come on deck, Lynwood,” he said. “We had better have a glance round
our guns for minor defects.”
They strolled on deck together and visited every casemate in their
group. In that time they were friends, officers charged with a common
responsibility. The great game was about to begin, the game for which
the whole Service had been training for many weary years. All routine,
all hardness, all drudgery had become suddenly worth while. Spirit had
entered into the flesh.
At no time while he served in the _King Arthur_ was John happier. He
and Fane-Herbert, knowing nothing of war, congratulated themselves
upon the fact that it had come to them so early in their careers. “And
isn’t it amazing what a difference it makes?” said Fane-Herbert. “The
Gunroom is changed. All the senior snotties act as though we were their
friends.”
“I expect they would be better in the ordinary course,” John answered,
“if they got more leave clear away from the ship, and weren’t so
infernally bored by unbroken routine.”
But the excitement and its excellent effect endured not long. When they
arrived at Gibraltar nothing happened. The next day, while they coaled
ship, hope waned. “Come on, lads,” cried a petty officer to encourage
the grimy workers, “that’s about where Agadir lies.” He pointed a
finger towards Africa. But they laughed at him and glanced at the
coaling flags that told them how their work progressed. “Six ’undred
more to come,” they said; “six ’undred more ton....”
And when they sailed from Gibraltar, their destination was Catalan Bay,
their prospect gun-practice. The ship’s company added another memory to
their list of war scares, and suffered from the inevitable reaction.
II
The essential element in gun-practice and range keeping exercises is
waiting with nothing to do--waiting till the target is ready, waiting
till the ship’s turn comes, waiting while a passing merchant ship fouls
the range, waiting while the important people in the controls make
abstruse calculations with which the men at the guns have no concern.
The monotony is varied by gun-drill, but even gun-drill palls. The
hours pass slowly. The eyes stare at the expressionless breech of
the gun until, tiring of that, they stare at the red wheel above the
ammunition hoist. Often they stare at the bugler as he passes the open
door of the casemate, and prayers go up that ultimately he may sound
the “Secure.” The captain of the gun, sick of the limited topics which
can be discussed within the hearing of the officer whose head is in
the sighting-hood, produces rags and a tin, and proceeds to polish
bright work already immaculate. Then he puts away his rags and tin, and
watches the bugler again.
Coming into Gibraltar for a week-end, John played in a cricket
match, in which, for lack of training, the batting was poor and the
bowling without sting. Gunroom Evolutions had long begun again. Krame
had forgotten the incident of the “minor defects,” and the junior
midshipmen were Warts without cease. In Tetuan Bay the natives ashore
appeared, to those who watched them through telescopes, to be carrying
on warfare. There were rifle flashes and smoke, and bodies of men
moving hastily hither and thither. No one cared very much. To the
midshipmen it meant something to record in the personal log-books they
submitted each Sunday morning to the Captain....
It was in Tetuan Bay, too, perhaps during the warfare, perhaps during
some other similar week after peace had been declared, that the ship’s
company bathed--the officers from the starboard after gangway, the
men for’ard from the port lower boom. John, as midshipman of the
watch, was on the quarter-deck, watching the clock for the time at
which he should recall the men from the water by ordering the bugler
to sound the “Retire.” Suddenly, on the port quarter, he caught sight
of the unmistakable fin. Sharks were not then to be expected in that
part of the world. He looked again, this time through a telescope.
“Quartermaster, what do you make of that?”
The Quartermaster borrowed the telescope. “Yessir. Shark, sir.”
John wheeled round. “Bugler! Sound the ‘Retire’ and sound the ‘Double.’
Go on sounding it until you are sure that all men in the water have
heard. Sound it first to the officers on the starboard side....
Boatswain’s-mate! Go and pipe by the lower boom: ‘Shark on the port
quarter. All hands return to the ship.’ Warn the boat.”
John called for a megaphone and summoned courage to address the
Commander, who, in the water, was very much like the rest of mankind.
It was bad enough to have sounded the “Retire” at him.
“Commander, sir!”
The Commander, much to John’s surprise, held up his hand to show he had
heard, just as John himself, had he been away in a boat, would have
held up his hand to indicate attention to the Commander’s orders.
“Shark on the port quarter, sir!”
The Commander raised himself an instant from the water and made a
funnel of his hands. “Get the men out,” he shouted, and swam towards
the ship. The other officers followed him. He met John on the top of
the gangway.
“Like shouting at the Commander?” he demanded.
John had not liked it. He had thought twice about doing it, but it had
seemed inevitable. Apparently he had done wrong. “I thought, sir----”
he began.
The Commander grinned and shook the drops from him. “Go on, boy. I’m
not an ogre. You did quite right. Very smartly, too.”
III
Early in November, when the day of joining the _King Arthur_ seemed
to be separated from the present by a lifetime, instead of by little
more than a month, of experience, and when the prospect of Christmas
leave, not infinitely remote, coloured even the present with hope,
John had an adventure in night boat work. For him the day had been
more than usually strenuous. The _King Arthur_ had been at sea for
Commander-in-Chief’s firing. From half-past eight in the morning until
half-past seven at night, John had been almost continuously on duty.
It had happened, as sometimes it must happen, that when he was not on
watch he was required in a duty boat, and when neither in a boat nor on
the bridge, he had had to go to his gun. At dinner he thought his day
was over, and, Krame having chosen a sing-song that night in preference
to Gunroom Evolutions, he settled down to read as best he could among
the choruses. But soon after nine a cutter was called away again.
Banford-Smith, whose duty it should have been, had advanced too far
into a cheerful evening to venture out into the night. Some midshipman
must run the boat, and the choice fell upon John.
Fortunately the evening was fine, for the trip seemed likely to be
long. It appeared that the _Vera_ was bringing or had brought into
harbour a target of which the _King Arthur_ stood in need. This target
required repairs and a new sail. “And first of all,” added the officer
of the watch, “you’ve got to find the thing.”
“Where is the _Vera_ lying, sir?” John asked.
“The Lord knows! The bridge seems to have lost her. She hasn’t come to
her buoy yet. But go to the dockyard wall first. The target is probably
there already. If it isn’t, you’ll have to look round till you find the
_Vera_, and make enquiries.”
John ran down the gangway into his cutter, seated himself on the
“dicky,” and gave orders to shove off. The oars dropped into the water
and the boat drew away from the ship. On one hand, the many lights
of the Fleet winked at their reflections in the smooth water; on the
other, the great rock, magnified by the night, and speckled with the
illumination of innumerable windows, rose, dark and gigantic, against
the sky. When the wall was reached they searched in vain for the
target, and turned to cruise the harbour in quest of the _Vera_.
Although he was tired and needed sleep before the morrow’s coaling,
he was glad that he had come. The click of the oars’ looms and the
hiss of their blades, the spring at the beginning and the slackening
at the end of each stroke, the ripple and suck about the stern, the
regular breathing of the crew and the synchronous creaking of their
stretchers, bespoke a romance that was not the romance of steel ships.
The coxswain sat motionless, his hand on the tiller, as rugged as a
statue rough-hewn in wood. Clustered in the stern sheets, with their
bags of glistening tools, the carpenter’s party lent emphasis to man’s
silence by their occasional whispering. John’s gaze strayed for’ard:
the white gleaming of the crew’s faces and of their hands curved over
the ears grew more and more indistinct towards the bows, and the line
of gunwale shrank to a delicate thread.
Swing, catch, and an easy stroke; the gleam, the dip, and the swirl
of blades; the hidden faces and the arms outstretched, the arms drawn
in and the faces raised. And he, above them, commanding them, passed
among the shadows of great ships into the darkness. On either hand the
little bow-wave ran out lapping, and flattened itself wide of the stern.
“Don’t see no _Vera_, sir,” said the coxswain.
“Not yet.”
“’Adn’t we better arst, sir?”
“Ask? Where?”
“Report at the ship for orders, sir.”
“The orders were to find the _Vera_.” John had no intention of
returning to the _King Arthur_ and confessing himself defeated.
“Don’t think we’ll find ’er, pullin’ round the ’arbour, sir--not
to-night, anyway.”
John had made up his mind. He would seek information elsewhere. The
helm was put over a little. At no great distance from him, lay the
_London_. At first he thought of going alongside her and asking her
officer of the watch for the position of the _Vera_, but he dismissed
this idea when he realized that this was no polite hour for midshipmen
to pay calls. Moreover, a story of his being lost might easily become
a jest in the Wardrooms of the Fleet.
“Goin’ alongside the _London_, sir?”
“No. When she hails, answer ‘passing.’ I’m going to stop under her
bridge.”
Came the hail: “Boat ahoy!”
“Passing!”
Judging the amount of way necessary to carry his boat to the
forebridge, John very quietly gave the order: “Oars!” The rowing
ceased, and the water licked at the sides. Presently the cutter was
still.
“Hail the bridge,” John said, “and ask the signalman of the watch for
the _Vera_. Hail quietly, so that they can’t hear you aft.”
The coxswain stood up. “_London_”--a thick sound, for it is no
easy thing to hail quietly. Then a little louder, in a tone almost
melodramatic: “_London_ ... _London_ ... _London_--bridge!”
The bowman could not resist it. “Change at the Elephant an’ Castle!”
The crew heard. The crew choked down a laugh hurtful to the coxswain’s
dignity. He turned on them.
“Knock orf chawin’ yer fat there,” he said angrily, and silence fell.
Someone peered over the bridge rails.
“D’you know where the _Vera_ ’angs out?” the coxswain asked quickly,
before the other had time to hail him.
“Lyin’ outside at anchor. Comin’ to ’er buoy to-morrer.”
“Outside the ruddy ’arbour?”
“Yes.”
“Gawd!” The coxswain sat down disconsolately. “We shall ’ave a night of
it,” he observed.
The music of the oars began again. They pulled slowly between the
ships, beyond the ships, out of the harbour. Soon the _Vera_, an
outpost of twinkling lights, beyond which lay the open sea, was hailing
them. Much to his surprise, John was welcomed by the officer of the
watch.
“That infernal target?” he said. “It _is_ alongside the wall--right at
the far end. What an hour to send you out after it! I’m afraid you have
a long job of repairs; it was knocked about a bit. Come down into the
Wardroom before you start.”
John went below and accepted whisky and soda, an illegal proceeding,
for by regulation he was too young to drink spirits. They offered
cigarettes, and when he refused to smoke one because his crew was
waiting, they gave him a handful to take away with him.
“You’ll have time to smoke them all before you get home to-night,” said
the Gunnery Lieutenant. “Well, so long. You will have luck if you are
turned in before the end of the middle watch. Sorry you have had so far
to come.”
A long pull shoreward brought the cutter at last to the target. John
turned out the carpenter’s party and all the boat’s crew save one, whom
he kept with him as a boat-keeper. John soon found that in the man he
had retained he was to have a remarkable companion. He came aft, seated
himself in the stern sheets, and looked up expectantly.
“’Ave a smoke, sir?”
“Yes; carry on smoking.”
“’Ave a cigar, sir?”
John hesitated. He would have felt safer with one of the _Vera’s_
cigarettes. He was not inured to cigars, but for company’s sake he took
one and lighted it.
“Funny thing, sir,” the man said, “these night trips always make me
feel mysterious-like. You feel more powerful some’ow in the dark. Do it
take you that way, sir?”
“Powerful?” John asked, wondering how much this had in common with his
own sensation.
“Same as you feel, sir, when you’re alone, an’ there ain’t no one to
see ’ow small you are. I always thinks then o’ the things I might do
if I liked--but it don’t seem a fair advantage to take o’ folk what
aren’t made the same way.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s this way, sir. You see, I can make people do things--anything.
I don’t rightly know what the name of it is--’ypnotism, or mesmerism,
or the like. It don’t make much odds what they call it. But I can make
people do things all right, I can, an’ ’ere they are makin’ me do
things all day. I’m a proper bad ’at, I am--always on the carpet. I get
to feel angry like, knowin’ the power I ’ave. I did a turn at a ship’s
concert once--afore you young gen’lemen joined--an’ the Commander, ’e
won’t ’ave me doin’ it no more.”
“Could you make me do things now?”
The man held up a finger. “I could make you ’op into the water, sir.”
John looked over the side, and the voice went on. “An’ if I went up
close to ’em, I could make the ruddy carpenter’s party stand on their
ruddy ’eads an’ stop there. An’ if I stepped out in front of ’em, an’
the ship’s police kep’ their ’ands off, I could make the Captain an’
the Commander do a cake-walk at Sunday Divisions, I could.”
“Why on earth don’t you?” said John.
“Oh, it wouldn’t never do, sir. That ain’t Service, sir--the orficers
cake-walkin’. I should be doin’ detention for the rest o’ me mortal....
Besides, that ain’t what I likes doin’--sing-song turns, an’ funny
stunts, an’ the like.” He looked away, and his words drifted into
vagueness, being no longer addressed to an audience. “I likes talkin’
to a crowd an’ seein’ ’em all comin’ round, comin’ round gradual-like,
not knowin’ ’ow or why, all of ’em comin’ round to my way o’ thinkin’.
They don’t agree to start off, but soon I sees ’em noddin’ their ’eads,
an’ smilin’ an’ smilin’, an’ sayin’ ‘Aye, aye,’ an’ ‘’Ere, ’ere.’ An’
their faces looks strange some’ow till they douse the glim.” He paused,
shot out both hands in an expansive gesture, and let them fall again
to his sides. “’Ere I be, Able Seaman, ’undredth class for conduck,
’undredth class for leaf, an’, Gawd Almighty! I might ’a bin Prime
Minister of All England, wi’ the Albert ’All risin’ up to me, jus’ as
if I ’ad ’em on strings....”
Together they sat there, dreaming vast dreams. Above them the
carpenter’s party was driving in nails. John held his cigar close to
the water, and watched the diffused red of its reflection. When he
dropped it, as if by accident, it fizzled sharply.
“Dropped yer cigar, sir?”
“Yes.”
“’Ave another, sir?”
“No, thanks.”
Silence again.... The work on the target was at last completed. Tired
men climbed back into the boat. Oars were got out lazily. It was five
in the morning when they reached the _King Arthur_. A bugle was calling
the hands to coal ship.
IV
The year dragged towards its end. The novelty of night firing wore off.
John was soon to cease watchkeeping on the upper deck and to join the
engineering staff for a period of training. He wrote to his mother,
asking her to send him a pipe, for among the boilers even midshipmen
under eighteen can console themselves with tobacco. Once, with Gunroom
Evolutions in his mind, he wrote: “I think we may have had the worst of
our time in this ship. For a whole week now we have been left pretty
well alone.” But the next evening his hopes were shattered, and the
old business began again. The need of leave, of an interval, however
brief, in which there would be no Krame and no Commander, became
imperative. When they went ashore the junior midshipmen found a place
of refuge in the Garrison Library. There, having paid a small monthly
subscription, they could read the newspapers without fear that Krame
would enter suddenly, and, because one of them was reading _The Times_,
exclaim: “Who has _The Times_? I want _The Times_.” There they could
sit in comfortable chairs, and enjoy teas marvellously inexpensive,
certain--quite certain--that, until the clock told them they must go,
their time was their own. No one would shout at them to pick up paper.
Howdray would not make them put away their letters and write out his
Division List for him. Elstone would not tell them that he wanted a
sketch for his log-book done immediately. In the Garrison Library there
was peace. They could talk without continually glancing over their
shoulders lest someone should enter by the Gunroom door.
They did talk to their great relief. It was good to plan rebellion,
though they knew nothing could ever spring from their plans. It was
satisfactory to hear, from midshipmen of other ships, that these things
went on not in the _King Arthur_ alone. It was amusing to compare
method and detail, and to congratulate themselves because certain
Evolutions usual in H.M.S ---- and H.M.S. ---- had not yet been devised
by Krame’s inventive mind.
One afternoon someone brought in news that what was happening in a Home
Fleet ship had leaked out. A complaint had been made to the Admiralty.
A Court of Enquiry had been ordered. Great things were expected to
result from this--perhaps a general reformation.
“No,” said Fane-Herbert. “Probably they will keep it out of the
papers. And anyhow, people will say: ‘Oh, it’s all an exceptional
case. How terrible! but it’s just an exceptional case.’ There may be a
court-martial. The Sub or someone may get dipped. And then it will blow
over and be forgotten. It won’t make any difference to us.”
The great day came at last. “This time to-morrow we shall be on our way
home.”
“They will give us hell going across the Bay. It’s always worse at sea.
No one is away on late leave.”
“Oh, what does it matter now? Next week we shall be out of it. Think,
sleeping in a bed, and people who don’t shout, and no tidying up the
Gunroom, and no Krame for days on end!”
“And London....”
“And pictures, and carpets, and flowers....”
“And think of meeting a lady again!” said Fane-Herbert.
They laughed at him for that. “Aren’t there ladies at Gib.?”
“Yes; but they know the difference between a Lieutenant and a Wart. I
mean a--a _civilian_ lady.... By the way, Lynwood, you must come round
and see my mother and sister. Why not stay with us in Town the first
night of leave, and go down to your own home the next day?”
John nodded. “Thanks, I should like to.... Think of a day with no
routine!”
And they laughed again.
V
On that first night of leave for which they had been laying innumerable
and contradictory plans, Fane-Herbert came into John’s room while he
was dressing. He sat down on the bed.
“Do you know we are to have a great man to dinner to-night?”
“I thought you insisted that there should be no dinner-party?”
“So I did. This isn’t a party. He’s the only guest. My mother knows him
very well, and, strangely enough, he appears to be an old friend of
your mother’s. He heard you were going to be here to-night, and invited
himself.”
“Who is he?”
“A novelist, a poet, a writer of biography; a very important person
indeed. Can you guess? He has the Order of Merit, the only literary one
except Thomas Hardy’s.”
“Wingfield Alter, of course. That’s rather terrifying. What is he like?”
“I haven’t met him for a long time. He used to give me shillings when
I was a small boy, and tell me stories. But that was ten years ago; he
may have changed since then. Margaret likes him, though, so I expect
he is all right.” Fane-Herbert went to the door. “Shall I tell him you
write poetry?” he asked laughingly as he went out.
“No; for the Lord’s sake don’t be a fool!”
On his way downstairs John met Margaret.
“Have you heard of our guest?” she asked.
“Alter? Yes. Is it an ordeal?”
“Oh no. He is really a delightful person--tremendously interested in
everything. The only people he can’t endure are old ladies with salons
who pat the lion. Mr. Alter won’t be patted.”
“Of course he is pleasant to you,” said John. “But, if he knows
anything of the Navy, he won’t have much use for junior midshipmen.”
“Why not?”
John did not wish to explain. “Oh,” he said vaguely, “junior midshipmen
are rather looked down on in the Service.”
“Only by senior midshipmen or their equivalent,” she answered. “You
will find that Mr. Alter doesn’t take much notice of rank--rank of any
kind, I mean, except that of ability.”
At the foot of the stairs John’s attention was arrested by a portrait
in oils that hung there.
“Who is that?” he asked.
“My great-grandmother--on my mother’s side.”
“She is extraordinarily like you. Is there a portrait of her when she
was your age?”
“No, I’m afraid not. That was done some time after her marriage. She
was about twenty-six, I believe.”
The subject of the portrait looked younger. She had Margaret’s wide-set
grey eyes, her dark hair, her clear skin, to which colour flowed richly
only in emotion. And the resemblance went further than the physical,
for John saw above him that expression, so remarkable for its vitality
and yet so comforting in its repose, with which, when he turned his
head, he found Margaret regarding him. In her eyes, though, was the
brightness of laughter, and her great-grandmother had been a grave
sitter.
“Is it so astonishing?”
“It is a wonderful portrait. You are sound evidence for the artist.”
“I had her hung there,” Margaret said, the light of laughter flickering
out--“I had her hung there, at the foot of the stairs, so that I might
see her whenever I came down to a dance or a dinner, and each morning
before the day began. She looks so extraordinarily alive--so interested
in all the world. And now--well, now, so far as the world is concerned,
she’s a picture on the wall and a name in a genealogical table.”
“And so you use her as a text?”
“Not that. I don’t attempt to weave philosophies around her. I suppose
it’s an odd form of superstition--at any rate, you can call it that,
if you like. She seems to keep a certain balance----” Margaret paused
suddenly.
“Isn’t that morbid?” Not till the question was out did he realize that
he had spoken to test her.
“Morbid?” she repeated. “That’s an easy word with which to dismiss
the things you are afraid of. I’m not in the least afraid of
great-grandmother.... Besides, I don’t think of her as dead. She is the
best of great-grandmothers--extremely practical. She makes compliments
transparent--on her stairs, at any rate.” Margaret laid her hand on the
panels. “And she makes me glad I can _feel_ the grain in this oak.” She
turned away and walked to the bottom of the flight. Then she glanced
up at John with a quick smile. “And sometimes, when I have been lazy,
she sends me up to my room again to change my dress.”
She took him to admire a lacquer cabinet that stood in the hall.
“I expect you like looking at and touching these things? I know I
should, if I had been long in a warship.”
John rejoiced in her understanding. “Carpets,” he said, “are the
unceasing wonders; and the sound of dresses, and candles!”
“Candles? Do you remember that phrase in a poem of yours--‘the
spear-head flames’?”
“Yes. How did you see it?”
“Hugh sent home the copy you gave him. And--do you mind?--I showed it
and other poems of yours, without your name, of course, to a friend of
ours, a man whose judgment people believe in.”
“I’m very glad. What did he say?”
“Good things. I’ll tell you when there is more time.”
“Who was he?”
“I’ll get you to meet him some day--if you are not for ever out of
England.... Why didn’t you ask me what I thought of the poems myself?”
“I thought you would tell me.”
“I’m scarcely a year older than you.”
“Does that matter? It depends on what you were born and what you have
read.”
“I have read----” She broke off suddenly. “But no; I am sure poetry
depends very much on what you have been through.”
There was a pause.
“Mr. Alter, if he heard us, would say we were very young,” John said.
Margaret looked back over their conversation and laughed.
“Have we been taking ourselves so seriously? Look at my
great-grandmother. She is telling us to get along with us into the
drawing-room.”
There they found Wingfield Alter and Mrs. Fane-Herbert. Hugh came in a
moment later. Alter had his back to the door as they entered, a square,
broad back, full of determination. When he turned his head there were
legible in the deeply lined face, with its high forehead and proudly
carried chin, a self-confidence and directness of purpose which made
it almost unnoticeable that Alter was a short, ungainly man. He wore a
spare moustache and a pointed beard which began so far down his chin
that his lips were unobscured by it. He waited for no introduction,
but took John’s hands at once, welcoming him as his mother’s son, and
looking at him closely.
Even at dinner John felt those deep-set eyes turned continually upon
him, searching, he supposed, for points of resemblance to his mother.
Mrs. Fane-Herbert, tall and slim at the end of the table, was a clever
woman and Alter an eager listener. She turned the conversation to
the Navy, and for long he was a willing and appreciative pupil. Hugh
instructed him with great zest.
“How long is it, sir, since you were in a warship?”
“It must be four or five years. I have been in Russia since, and have
lost touch. I see I must renew my acquaintance. I want to see what I
can of the officers produced by the New Scheme--all my friends were
_Britannia_ cadets. Your education has been broader, less rigidly
specialized than theirs. What is the effect on efficiency?”
“There must be a danger,” said Mrs. Fane-Herbert, “of encouraging ideas
and tastes, good in themselves, but ill-suited to the naval officer as
such.”
“I often wonder about that,” Alter answered. “The Service is very
exacting, very highly specialized, narrow in a sense. And boys enter it
very early, knowing nothing of what they are or what they will become.
They enter it in much the same spirit as that in which they choose the
career of an engine-driver. Tendencies undreamed of then are bound to
develop later--diverse tendencies, probably opposed in a thousand ways
to Service requirements. Am I right?”
“Every word,” said John, leaning forward a little.
“For example,” Alter continued, “what on earth would have become of
that young man whose work you showed me, Margaret, if he had committed
himself to the Navy at the age of thirteen? Of course, any critic would
say those poems were immature. So they were; the technique of the
sonnet was awry; the scansion was often loose; here and there they were
too sonorous, too strained for the sake of effect. But so many of the
essentials of poetry were there--real feeling, real imagination, and
observation of the kind that’s worth having. Never an adjective that he
had not thought out with his eyes tight shut or wide open. If he can
write like that before he is twenty--why, given a chance to develop,
he might do anything. But if he were shut up in the Navy, burdened
with the sameness of routine, brought into contact only with men whose
minds are highly specialized for one purpose, war----” He interrupted
himself with a gesture. “And there must be people of that kind in the
Fleet--not poets necessarily, but men who, for one reason or another,
need--need desperately--intellectual space. Most of us need it, unless
our minds are very limited--that’s the worst of the tragedy, _most_ of
us need it. And in the Navy, so far as I can judge, it must be almost
impossible to obtain--at any rate, it is probably to be purchased only
at the price of resignation or professional failure.”
John did not hear the conversation that followed. His thoughts were
proceeding by strange paths, now of pride and gladness, now so steep
and dark that he could neither see nor imagine any end to them. Later
in the evening Alter spoke to him alone.
“I’m unspeakably sorry,” he said. “It was stupid of me not to have
guessed; but Margaret ought to have warned me--she, with her mysterious
poet whose name she would conceal in order to tantalize me. It’s of no
use to ask you not to let my words unsettle you; they are said, and I
meant them, and there’s an end of it. But I shall feel responsible now.
Will you let me help you, if I can? I don’t mean with master-keys to
editors’ rooms--you must win them for yourself. But I can give advice
and criticism for what they are worth. I should want to help in any
case now, but the more because you are my old friend’s son. Will you
remember?”
John thanked him as well as he could. When Alter had gone Margaret came
to him.
“I never guessed that he might talk of it to-night,” she said. “But you
have heard his opinion yourself, and I am glad of that. Was the rest of
what he said true?”
“Yes--in a way. I never thought of it in those terms before.”
“And now you will go on thinking of it. You mustn’t, you mustn’t--but
I know you will. And if it hurts, I am the cause of every hurt. I made
you see clearly.” She looked straight into his eyes, her own eyes
glistening. “Whatever comes of it all, will you try to forgive me?”
“Perhaps I shall thank you some day,” he answered. “After all, it is
better to see clearly, isn’t it?”
“Great-grandmother would say so. But it’s the bravest thing of all.”
She gave him her hand and said good-night. Presently he was sitting in
the smoking-room with Hugh, still conscious of her touch and hearing
her voice, still seeing her dress flicker between the banisters as she
went upstairs.
The next morning he went into the country to his own home. He told his
mother that he had met Wingfield Alter.
“He is a very dear friend of mine,” she said. “I knew him before I
met your father. He was married then, and poor, with no literary
reputation. I saw him last soon after your father’s death.”
“But you never mentioned him?”
“London is so far away.”
With a little sigh, she returned to her embroidery.