ENTERING FOR THE RACE.
Andy Hayes had never supposed that he would be the victim of a problem,
or exposed to the necessity of a momentous choice. Life had hitherto
been very simple to him--doing his work, taking his pay, spending the
money frugally and to the best advantage, sparing a small percentage for
the Savings Bank, and reconciling with this programme the keen enjoyment
of such leisure hours as fell to his lot. A reasonable, wholesome,
manageable scheme of life! Or, rather, not a scheme at all--Andy was no
schemer. That was the way life came--the way an average man saw it and
accepted it. From first to last he never lost the conception of himself
as an average man, having his capabilities, yet strictly conditioned by
the limits of the practicable; free in his soul, by no means perfectly
free in his activities. Andy never thought in terms of "environment" or
such big words, but he always had a strong sense of what a fellow like
himself could expect; the two phrases may, perhaps, come to much the
same thing.
In South Africa he had achieved his sergeant's stripes--not a
commission, nor the Victoria Cross, nor anything brilliant. In Canada he
had not become a millionaire, nor even a prosperous man or a dashing
speculator; he had been thought a capable young fellow, who would,
perhaps, be equal to developing the English side of the business. Andy
might be justified in holding himself no fool: he had no ground for
higher claims, no warrant for anything like ambition.
Thus unaccustomed to problems, he had expected to toss uneasily (he had
read of many heroes who "tossed uneasily") on his bed all night through.
Lawn-tennis and a good dinner saved him from that romantic but
uncomfortable ordeal; he slept profoundly till eight-thirty. Just before
he was called--probably between his landlady's knock and her remark that
it was eight-fifteen (she was late herself)--he had a brief vivid dream
of selling a very red joint of beef to a very pallid Vivien Wellgood--a
fantastic freak of the imagination which could have nothing to do with
the grave matter in hand.
Yet, on the top of this, as he lay abed awhile in the leisure of Sunday
morning, with no train to catch, he remembered his father's B.A. Oxon;
he recalled his mother's unvarying designation of old Jack as "the
butcher;" he recollected Nancy's pride in marrying "out of her
class"--it had been her own phrase, sometimes in boast, sometimes in
apology. Though Nancy had a dowry of a hundred pounds a year--charged on
the business, and now returned to Jack Rock since Nancy left no
children--she never forgot that she had married out of her class. And
into his father's? And into his own? "I'm a snob!" groaned Andy.
He grew a little drowsy again, and in his drowsiness again played tennis
at Nutley, again dined at Halton, again saw Vivien in the butcher's
shop, and again was told by Mr. Belfield not to undervalue himself. But
is to take nigh on five hundred pounds a year to undervalue
yourself--you who are making a precarious two? And where lies the
difference between selling wood and selling meat--wood from Canada and
meat in Meriton? Andy's broad conception of the world told him that
there was none; his narrow observation of the same sphere convinced him
that the difference was, in its practical bearings, considerable. Nay,
confine yourself to meat alone: was there no difference between
importing cargoes of that questionable "chilled" article and disposing
of joints of unquestionable "home-bred" over the counter? All the
argument was for the home-bred. But to sell the home-bred joints one
wore a blue apron and carried a knife and a steel--or, at all events,
smacked of doing these things; whereas the wholesale cargoes of
"chilled" involved no such implements or associations. Once again,
Canada was Canada, New Zealand New Zealand, Meriton Meriton. With these
considerations mingled two pictures--dinner at Halton, and Jack Rock's
convivial party.
"I'll get up," said Andy, too sore beset by his problem to lie abed any
more.
Church! The bells rang almost as soon as Andy--he had dawdled and
lounged over dressing and breakfast in Sunday's beneficent leisure--was
equipped for the day. In Meriton everybody went to Church, except an
insignificant, tolerated, almost derided minority who frequented a very
small, very ugly Methodist chapel in a by-street--for towns like Meriton
are among the best preserves of the Establishment. Andy always went to
church on a Sunday morning, answering the roll-call, attending parade,
accepting the fruits of his fathers' wisdom, as his custom was. "Church,
and a slice of that cold beef, and then a jolly long walk!" he said to
himself. He had a notion that this typical English Sunday--the relative
value of whose constituents he did not, and we need not, exactly
assess--might help him to settle his problem. The cold beef and the long
walk made part of the day's character--the "Church" completed it. This
was Andy's feeling; it is not, of course, put forward as what he ought
to have felt.
So Andy went to church--in a cut-away coat and a tall hat, though it
drizzled, and he would sooner have been in a felt hat, impervious to the
rain. He sat just half-way down the nave, and it must be confessed that
his attention wandered. He had such a very important thing to settle in
this world; it would not go out of his mind, though he strove to address
himself to the issues which the service suggested. He laboured under the
disadvantage of not being conscious of flagrant iniquity, though he duly
confessed himself a miserable offender. He looked round on the
neighbours he knew so well; they were all confessing that they were
miserable offenders. Andy believed it--it was in the book--but he
considered most of them to be good and honest people, and he was almost
glad to see that they did not look hopelessly distressed over their
situation.
The First Lesson caught and chained his wandering attention. It was
about David and Jonathan; it contained the beautiful lament of friend
for friend, the dirge of a brotherly love. The Rector's voice was rather
sing-song, but it would have needed a worse delivery to spoil the words:
"How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, thou
wast slain in thine high places! I am distressed for thee, my brother
Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love for me was
wonderful, passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen and the
weapons of war perished!" Thus ended the song, so rich in splendour, so
charged with sorrow.
"Clinking!" was Andy's inward comment. Then in a flash came the thought,
"Why, of course, I must ask Harry Belfield; he'll tell me what to do all
right."
The reference of his problem to Harry ought to have disposed of it for
good, and left Andy free to perform his devotions with a single mind.
But it only set him wondering what Harry would decide, wondering hard
and--there was no escaping from it--jealously. His service in the ranks,
his residence in communities at least professedly democratic, had not
made him a thorough democrat, it seemed. He might have acquired the side
of democracy the easier of the two to acquire; he might be ready to call
any man his equal, whatever his station or his work. He stumbled at the
harder task of seeing himself, whatever his work or station, as any
man's equal--at claiming or assuming, not at according, equality. And in
Meriton! To claim or assume equality with any and every man in Meriton
would, if he accepted Jack Rock's offer, be to court ridicule from
equals and unequals all alike, and most of all from his admitted
inferiors. Surely Harry would never send him to the butcher's shop? That
would mean that Harry thought of him (for all his kindness) as of Chinks
or of the Bird. Could he risk discovering that, after all, Harry--and
Harry's friends--thought of him like that? A sore pang struck him. Had
he been at Nutley--at Halton--only on sufferance? He had an idea that
Harry would send him to the butcher's shop--would do the thing ever so
kindly, ever so considerately, but all the same would do it. "Well, it's
the safe thing, isn't it, old chap?" he fancied Harry saying; and then
returning to his own high ambitions, and being thereafter very
friendly--whenever he chanced to pass the shop. Andy never deceived
himself as to the quality of Harry's friendship: it lay, at the most, in
appreciative acceptance of unbounded affection. It was not like
Jonathan's for David. Andy was content. And must not acceptance, after
all, breed some return? For whatever return came he was grateful. In
this sphere there was no room even for theories of equality, let alone
for its practice.
For some little time back Andy had been surprised to observe a certain
attribute of his own--that of pretty often turning out right. He
accounted for it by saying that an average man, judging of average men
and things, would fairly often be right--on an average; men would do
what he expected, things would go as he expected--on an average. Such
discernment as was implied in this Andy felt as no endowment, no
clairvoyance; rather it was that his limitations qualified him to
appreciate other people's. He would have liked to feel able to except
Harry Belfield who should have no limitations--only he felt terribly
sure of what Harry Belfield would say: Safety, and the shop!
By this time the church service was ended, the cold beef eaten, most of
the long walk achieved. For while these things went straight on to an
end, Andy's thoughts rolled round and round, like a squirrel in a cage.
"A man's only got one life," Andy was thinking to himself for the
hundredth time as, having done his fifteen miles, he came opposite the
entry to Nutley on his way home after his walk. What a lot of thoughts
and memories there had been on that walk! Walking alone, a man is the
victim--or the beneficiary--of any number of stray recollections, ideas,
or fancies. He had even thought of--and smiled over--sardonic Miss
Dutton's sardonic remark that he was worth ten of either Billy Foot
or--Harry Belfield! Well, the poor girl had come one cropper; allowances
must be made.
Cool, serene, with what might appear to the eyes of less happy people an
almost insolently secure possession of fortune's favour, Harry Belfield
stood at Nutley gate. Andy, hot and dusty, winced at being seen by him;
Harry was so remote from any disarray. Andy's heart leapt at the sight
of his friend--and seemed to stand still in the presence of his judge.
Because the thing--the problem--must come out directly. There was no
more possibility of shirking it.
Vivien was flitting--her touch of the ground seemed so light--down the
drive, past the deep dark water, to join Harry for a stroll. His
invitation to a stroll on that fine still Sunday afternoon had not been
given without significance nor received without a thousand tremblings.
So it would appear that it was Andy's ill-fortune to interrupt.
Harry was smoking. He took his cigar out of his mouth to greet Andy.
"Treadmill again, old boy? Getting the fat off?"
"You're the one man I wanted to see." Then Andy's face fell; it was an
awful moment. "I want to ask your advice."
"Look sharp!" said Harry, smiling. "I've an appointment. She'll be here
any minute."
"Jack Rock's offered to turn the shop over to me, as soon as I learn the
business. I say, I--I suppose I ought to accept? He says it's worth hard
on five hundred a year. I say, keep that dark; he told me not to tell
anybody."
"Gad, is it?" said Harry, and whistled softly.
Vivien came in sight of him, and walked more slowly, dallying with
anticipation.
"Splendid of him, isn't it? I say, I suppose I ought to--to think it
over?" He had been doing nothing else for what seemed eternity.
Harry laughed--that merry irresponsible laugh of his. "Blue suits your
complexion, Andy. It seems damned funny--but five hundred a year! Worth
that, is it now, really? And he'd probably leave you anything else he
has."
Silently-flitting Vivien was just behind Harry now. Andy saw her, Harry
was unaware of her presence. She laid her finger on her lips, making a
confidant of Andy, in her joy at a trick on her lover.
"Of course it--well, it sort of defines matters--ties you down, eh?"
Harry's laugh broke out again. "Andy, old boy, you'll look infernally
funny, pricing joints to old Dove or Miss Pink! Oh, I say, I don't think
you can do it, Andy!"
"Don't you, Harry?" Andy's tone was eager, beseeching, full of hope.
"But I suppose you ought." Harry tried to be grave, and chuckled again.
"You'd look it uncommon well, you know. You'd soon develop the figure.
Old Jack never has--doesn't look as if his own steaks did him any good.
But you--we'd send you to Smithfield in no time!"
"What are you two talking about?" asked Vivien suddenly.
"Oh, there you are at last! Why, the funniest thing! Old Andy here wants
to be a butcher."
"I don't want--" Andy began.
"A butcher! What nonsense you do talk sometimes, Harry!" She stood by
Harry's side, so happy in him, so friendly to Andy.
"Fact!" said Harry, and acquainted her with the situation.
Vivien blushed red. "I--I'm very sorry I said what--what I did to you.
You remember?"
"Oh yes, I remember," said Andy.
"Of course I--I never knew--I never thought--Of course, somebody
must--Oh, do forgive me, Mr. Hayes!"
Harry raised his brows in humorous astonishment. "All this is a secret
to me."
"I--I told Mr. Hayes I didn't like--well--places where they sold
meat--raw meat, Harry."
"What do you think really, Harry?" Andy asked.
Harry shrugged his shoulders. "Your choice, old man," he said. "You've
looked at all sides of it, of course. It's getting latish, Vivien."
Andy would almost rather have had the verdict which he feared. "Your
choice, old man"--and a shrug of the shoulders. Yet his loyalty
intervened to tell him that Harry was right. It was his choice, and must
be. He found Vivien's eyes on him--those distant, considering eyes.
"I suppose you couldn't give me an opinion, Miss Wellgood?" he asked,
mustering a smile with some difficulty.
Vivien's lips drooped; her eyes grew rather sad and distinctly remote.
She gave no judgment; she merely uttered a regret--a regret in which
social and personal prejudice (it could not be acquitted of that)
struggled with kindliness for Andy.
"Oh, I thought you were going to be a friend of ours," she murmured
sadly. She gave Andy a mournful little nod of farewell--of final
farewell, as it seemed to his agitated mind--and walked off with Harry,
who was still looking decidedly amused.
That our great crises can have an amusing side even in the eyes of those
who wish us well is one of life's painful discoveries. Andy had expected
to be told that he must accept Jack Rock's offer, but he had not thought
that Harry would chaff him about it. He tried, in justice to Harry and
in anxiety not to feel sore with his hero, to see the humorous side for
himself. He admitted that he could not. A butcher was no more ridiculous
than any other tradesman. Well, the comic papers were rather fond of
putting in butchers, for some inscrutable reason. Perhaps Harry happened
to think of some funny picture. Could that idea give Andy a rag of
comfort to wrap about his wound? The comfort was of indifferent quality;
the dressing made the wound smart.
He was alone in the road again, gay Harry and dainty Vivien gone,
thinking little of him by now, no doubt. Yes, the choice must be his
own. On one side lay safety for him and joy for old Jack; on the other a
sore blow to Jack, and for himself the risk of looking a sad fool if he
came to grief in London. So far the choice appeared easy.
But that statement of the case left out everything that really tugged at
Andy's heart. For the first time in his existence he was, vaguely and
dimly, trying to conceive and to consider his life as a whole, and
asking what he meant to do with it. Acutest self-reproach assailed him;
he accused himself inwardly of many faults and follies--of ingratitude,
of snobbishness, of a ridiculous self-conceit. Wasn't it enough for a
chap like him to earn a good living honestly? Oughtn't he to be thankful
for the chance? What did he expect anyhow? He was very scornful with
himself, fiercely reproving all the new stirrings in him, yet at the
same time trying to see what they came to; trying to make out what they,
in their turn, asked, what they meant, what would content them. He could
not satisfy himself what the stirrings meant nor whence they came. When
he asked what would content them he could get only a negative answer;
keeping the shop in Meriton would not. In regard neither to what it
entailed nor to what it abandoned could the stirrings find contentment
in that.
He had been walking along slowly and moodily. Suddenly he quickened his
pace; his steps became purposeful. He was going to Jack Rock's. Jack
would be just having his tea, or smoking the pipe that always followed
it.
Jack sat in his armchair. Tea was finished, and his pipe already alight.
When he saw Andy's face he chuckled.
"Ah, that's how I like to see you look, lad!" he exclaimed joyfully.
"Not as you did when you went away last night."
"Why, how do I look?" asked Andy, amazed at this greeting.
"As if you'd just picked up a thousand pound; and so you have, and
better than that."
All unknown to himself, Andy's face had answered to his feelings--to the
sense of escape from bondage, of liberty restored, of possibilities once
more within his reach. The renewed lightness of his heart had made his
face happy and triumphant. But it fell with a vengeance now.
"Well?" asked Jack, to whom the change of expression was bewildering.
"I'm sorry--I've never been so sorry in my life--but I--I can't do it,
Jack."
Jack sat smoking silently for a while. "That was what you were lookin'
so happy about, was it?" he asked at last, with a wry smile. "I've never
afore seen a man so happy over chuckin' away five hundred a year. Where
does the fun come in, Andy?"
"O lord, Jack, I can't--I can't tell you about it. I--"
"But if it does do you all that good, I suppose you've got to do it."
Andy came up to him, holding out his hand. Jack took it and gave it a
squeeze.
"I reckon I know more about it than you think. I've been goin' over
things since last night--and goin' back to old things too--about the old
gentleman and Nancy."
"It seems so awfully--Lord, it seems everything that's bad and rotten,
Jack."
"No, it don't," said old Jack quietly. "It's a bit of a facer for me--I
tell you that straight--but it don't seem unnatural in you. Only I'm
sorry like."
"If there was anything in the world I could do, Jack! But there it
is--there isn't."
"I'm not so sure about that." He was smoking very slowly, and seemed to
be thinking hard. Andy lit a cigarette. His joy was quenched in sympathy
with Jack.
"You've given me a disappointment, Andy. I'm not denyin' it. But there,
I can't expect you to feel about the business as I do. Comin' to me from
my father, and havin' been the work o' the best years of my life! And no
better business in any town of the size o' Meriton all the country
through--I'll wager that! No, you can't feel as I do. And you've a right
to choose your own life. There's one thing you might do for me, Andy,
though."
"Well, if there's anything else in the world--"
"I loved Nancy better than anybody, and the old gentleman--well, as I've
told you, he never let me see a difference. I've got no kin--unless I
can call you kin, Andy. If you want to make up for givin' me this bit
of--of a facer, as I say, I'll tell you what you can do. There's times
in a young chap's life when bein' able to put up a bit o' the ready
makes all the difference, eh? If so be as you should find yourself
placed like that, I want you to promise to ask me for it. Will you,
lad?" Jack's voice faltered for a moment. "No call for you to go back
across half the world for it. It's here, waitin' for you in Martin's
bank in High Street. If you ever want to enter for an event, let me put
up the stakes for you, Andy. Promise me that, and we'll say no more
about the shop."
Andy was touched to the heart. "I promise. There's my hand on it, Jack."
"You'll come to me first--you won't go to any one before me?" old Jack
insisted jealously.
"I'll come to you first--and last," said Andy.
"Aye, lad." The old fellow's eyes gleamed again. "Then it'll be our
race. We'll both be in it, won't we, Andy? And if you pass the post
first, I shall have a right to throw up my hat. And why shouldn't you?
The favourite don't always win."
"I'm not expecting to do anything remarkable, Jack. I'm not such a fool
as that."
"You're no fool, or you'd never have been put to the trouble of refusin'
my shop," observed Jack with emphasis. "And in the end I'm not sure but
what you're right. I've never tried to rise above where I was born; but
I don't know as there's any call for you to step down. I don't know as I
did my duty by the old gentleman in temptin' you. I'm not sure he'd have
liked it, though he'd have said nothing; he'd never have let me see--not
him!" He sighed and smiled over his reverential memories of the old
gentleman, yet his eyes twinkled rather maliciously as he said to Andy,
"Dinin' at Halton again to-night?"
"No," laughed Andy, "I'm not. I'm coming to supper with you if you'll
have me. What have you got?"
"Cold boiled aitch-bone, and apple-pie, and a Cheshire in good
condition."
"Oh, that's prime! But I must go and change first. I've walked fifteen
or sixteen miles, and I must get into a clean shirt."
"We don't dress for supper--not o' Sundays," Jack informed him gravely.
"Oh, get out, Jack!" called Andy from the door.
"Supper at nine precise, carriages at eleven," Jack called after him,
pursuing his joke to the end with keen relish.
Andy walked back to his lodgings, in the old phrase "happy as a king,"
and infinitely the happier because old Jack had taken it so well, had
understood, and, though disappointed, had not been hurt or wounded.
There was no breach in their affection or in their mutual confidence.
And now, he felt, he had to justify himself in Jack's eyes, to justify
his refusal of a safe five hundred pounds a year. The refusal became, as
he thought over it, a spur to effort, to action. "I must put my back
into it," said Andy to himself, and made up his mind to most strenuous
exertions to develop that rather shy and coy timber business of his in
London.
Yet, after he had changed, as he sat listening to the church bells
ringing for evening service, a softer strain of meditation mingled with
these stern resolves. Memories of his "Saturday-off" glided across his
mind, echoes of this evening's encounter with Harry and Vivien sounded
in his ears. There was, as old Jack Rock himself had ended by
suggesting, no call for him to step down. He could take the place for
which he was naturally fit. He need not renounce that side of life of
which he had been allowed a glimpse so attractive and so full of
interest. The shop in Meriton would have opened the door to one very
comfortable little apartment. How many doors would it not have shut? All
doors were open now.
"I thought you were going to be a friend of ours." Andy, sitting in the
twilight, listening to the bells, smiled at the echo of those regretful
words. He cherished their kindliness, and smiled at their prejudice. The
shop and Vivien were always connected in his mind since the first day he
had met her. Her words came back to him now, summing up all that he
would have lost by acceptance, hinting pregnantly at all that his
refusal might save or bring.
He stretched his arms and yawned; mind and body both enjoyed a happy
relaxation after effort.
"What a week-end it's been!" he thought. Indeed it had--a week-end that
was the beginning of many things.