THE COLONEL LEARNS A SECRET
If the Colonel in his missionary efforts for the National Service
League made little impression on the masses in the East-end, he was
astonishingly successful with such labour as existed in Old Town; which
in political consciousness lagged fifty years behind its tumultuous
neighbour on the edge of the Levels, and retained far into this century
much of the atmosphere of a country village. There the Church was
still a power politically, and the workers disorganised. The Brewery
in the Moot and the Southdown Transport Company were the sole employers
of labour in the bulk; and Mr. Pigott the only stubborn opponent of the
programme of the League.
Archdeacon Willcocks backed the Colonel with whole-hearted ferocity,
and lent him the services of the Reverend Spink, who, flattered at
working with a Colonel D.S.O., showed himself keen and capable, and
proposed to run the Old Town branch of the League in conjunction with
the Church of England's Men's Society.
"I've got a first-rate secretary as a start," he told the Colonel
importantly.
"Who's that?"
"Caspar."
"Ernest Caspar!" cried the Colonel. "The old Hammer-man!"
"No, his brother. Twice the man. Alfred--Mr. Trupp's chauffeur."
A few days later, when leaving the curate's lodgings, the Colonel ran
up against Ernie in Church Street.
"Your brother's joined us," he said. "Are you going to?"
Ernie's charming face became sullen at once.
"I would, sir," he said. "Only for that."
"Only for what?"
"Alf."
"You won't join because your brother has!" grinned the Colonel.
Ernie rolled a sheepish head.
"It's my wife, sir," he muttered. "See, he persecutes her somethink
shameful."
Next afternoon the Colonel was crossing Saffrons Croft on his way to
the Manor-house for tea, when a majestic young woman, a baby in her
arms, sauntering under the elms watching the cricket, smiled at him
suddenly.
He stopped, uncertain of her identity.
"I'm Mrs. Caspar, sir," she explained. "We met you the other night on
the Head--Ern and me."
"Oh, I know all about you!" replied the Colonel, glancing at the baby
who lifted to the sky a face like a sleeping rose. "My word!--she's a
bonny un."
"She grows, sir," replied Ruth, cooing and contented. "We gets her all
the air we can. So we come here with the children for a blow of the
coolth most in general Saraday afternoons. More air than in the Moot."
"Where's Caspar?" asked the Colonel.
"Yonder under the ellums, sir, along with a friend. Come about the
classes or something I did hear."
"The class-war?" asked the Colonel grimly.
"No, sir," answered Ruth. "Classes for learning you learning, I allow.
Man from the North, I yeard say. Talks funny--foreign talk I call it."
Just then the Colonel's glance fell on a child, slim as a daisy stalk,
and with the healthy pallor of a wood-anemone, hiding behind Ruth's
skirt and peeping at the stranger with fearless blue eyes that seemed
somehow strangely familiar.
"And what's your name, little Miss Hide-away?" he asked, delighted.
"Little Alice," the child replied, bold and delicate as a robin.
The fact that the child was obviously some four years old while Ernie
had not been married half that time did not occur to the Colonel as
strange. He glanced at the young mother, noble in outline, and in her
black and red beauty of the South so unlike the child.
"She doesn't take after her mother and father," he said, with the
reckless indiscretion of his sex.
Then he saw his mistake. Ruth has run up signals of distress. Ernie,
who had now joined them, as always at his best in an emergency, came
quickly to the rescue.
"Favours her grandmother, sir, I say," he remarked.
"Like my boy," commented the Colonel, recovering himself. "I don't
think anybody'd have taken our Jock for his father's son when he joined
us at Pindi in 1904--eh, Caspar?"
The two old Hammer-men chatted over days in India. Then the Colonel
went on up the hill, the eyes of the child still haunting him.
The Manor-house party were having tea on the lawn, under the laburnum,
looking over the sunk fence on to Saffrons Croft beyond, when the
Colonel joined them. Mrs. Lewknor was already there; and young Stanley
Bessemere, the Conservative candidate for Beachbourne East. He and
Bess were watching a little group of people gathered about a man who
was standing on a bench in Saffrons Croft haranguing.
"Lend me your bird-glasses, Miss Trupp," said her companion eagerly.
He stood up, a fine figure of a man, perfectly tailored,
"Yes," he said. "I thought so. It's my friend."
"Who's that?" asked the Colonel.
"Our bright particular local star of Socialism," the other answered.
"The very latest thing from Ruskin College. I thought he confined
himself to the East-end, but I'm glad to find he gives you Old Towners
a turn now and then, Miss Trupp. And I hope he won't forget you up at
Meads, Colonel."
"What's his name?" asked Bess, amused.
"Burt," replied the other. "He comes from the North--and he's welcome
to go back there to-morrow so far as I'm concerned."
"You're from the North yourself, Mr. Bessemere," Mrs. Trupp reminded
him.
"I am," replied the young man, "and proud of it. But for political
purposes, I prefer the South. That's why I'm a candidate for
Beachbourne East."
A few minutes later he took his departure. The Colonel watched him go
with a sardonic grin. Philosopher though he might be, he was not above
certain of the prejudices common to his profession, and possessed in an
almost exaggerated degree the Army view of all politicians as the
enemies of Man at large and of the Services in particular.
Bess was still observing through her glasses the little group about the
man on the bench.
"There's Ruth!" she cried--"and Ernie!"
"Listening to the orator?" asked the Colonel, joining her.
"Not Ruth!" answered Bess with splendid scorn. "No orators for her,
thank you!--She's listening to the baby. Ernie can listen to him."
The Colonel took the glasses and saw Ruth and Ernie detach themselves
from the knot of people and come slowly up the hill making for Borough
Lane.
"That really is a magnificent young woman of Caspar's," he said to his
host.
"She's one in a million," replied the old surgeon.
"William's always been in love with her," said his wife.
"All the men are," added Mrs. Lewknor, with a provocative little nod at
her husband.
"Where did he pick up his pearl?" asked the Colonel. "I love that
droning accent of hers. It's like the music of a rookery."
"She can ca-a-a away with the best of them when she likes," chuckled
Bess. "You should hear her over the baby!"
"An Aldwolston girl," said Mrs. Trupp. "She's Sussex to the core--with
that Spanish strain so many of them have." She added with extreme
deliberation,--"She was at the Hohenzollern for a bit one time o day,
as we say in these parts."
Mrs. Lewknor coloured faintly and looked at her feet. Next to her
Jocko and his Jock the regiment was the most sacred object in her
world. But the harm was done. The secret she had guarded so long even
from her husband was out. The word Hohenzollern had, she saw, unlocked
the door of the mystery for him.
Instantly the Colonel recalled Captain Royal's stay at the hotel on the
Crumbles a few years before ... Ernie Caspar's service there ... the
clash of the two men on the steps of the house where he was now having
tea ... Royal's sudden flight, and the rumours that had reached him of
the reasons for it.
The eyes which had looked at him a few minutes since in Saffrons Croft
from beneath the fair brow of little Alice were the eyes of his old
adjutant.
Then Mr. Trupp's voice broke in upon his reverie.
"Ah," said the old surgeon, "I see you know."
"And I'm glad you should," remarked Mrs. Trupp with the almost
vindictive emphasis that at times characterised this so gentle woman.
"Everybody does, mother," Bess interjected quietly...
As the Colonel and his wife walked home across the golf links he turned
to her.
"Did you know that, Rachel?" he inquired.
She looked straight in front of her as she walked.
"I did, my Jocko ... Mrs. Trupp told me."
The Colonel mused.
"What a change!--from Royal to Caspar!" he said.
She glanced up at him.
"You don't understand, Jocko," she said quietly. "Ruth was never
Royal's mistress. She was a maid on the Third Floor at the
Hohenzollern when he was there. He simply raped her and bolted."
The Colonel shrugged.
"Like the cad," he said.
They walked on awhile. Then the Colonel said more to himself than to
his companion,
"I wonder if she's satisfied?"
The little lady at his side made a grimace that suggested--"Is any
woman?"
But all she said was,
"She's a good woman."
"She's come a cropper once," replied the Colonel.
"She was tripped," retorted the other almost tartly. "She didn't fall."