MAINLY ABOUT REGINALD PEEL
The holidays had started badly, there was no doubt about that. All the
young Ffolliots were agreed about it. First Buz broke his arm on
Boxing-day. That was upsetting in itself, and Buz, as an invalid, was
a terrible nuisance. Then the Ganpies had to return to Woolwich much
sooner than they had expected: another matter for gloom and woe. And
finally came the crushing intelligence that Mr Ffolliot did not intend
to start for his oasis till the beginning of February, after the twins
had gone back to school and Grantly to the Shop. And this was
considered the very limit. Fate had done its worst.
No party: no relaxation of the rules as to absence of noise and
presence of perfect regularity and punctuality at meals: no cheerful
gathering together of neighbouring families for all sorts of
junkettings; in fact, none of the usual features of the last fortnight
of the Christmas holidays. And yet, in looking back afterwards, the
young Ffolliots, with, perhaps, the exception of the unfortunate Buz,
would have confessed that on the whole they had had rather a good time.
Mary, in particular, would have owned frankly, had she been asked, that
she had never enjoyed a holiday more.
For one thing, the big boys had been "so nice to her," and by "the big
boys" she meant Grantly and Reggie Peel.
She and Grantly had always been great allies. When they were little
they did everything together, for the three and a half years that
separated Mary from the twins seemed, till they should all get into the
twenties, an immeasurable distance. But Grantly hitherto had been no
more polite and considerate than the average brother. He was both
critical and plain-spoken, and poor Mary had suffered many things at
his hands . . . till this holiday; and it never occurred to her that
this agreeable change in Grantly's attitude might be due to some
alteration in herself rather than in him.
Mary was far too interested in life with a big "L" to waste any time
upon self-analysis or introspection. Neither she nor Grantly had ever
referred to the night of young Rabbich's dinner at the Moonstone, but
since that night she had been distinctly conscious of a slightly more
respectful quality in his manner towards her. The tendency was
indefinable, illusive, but it was there, and simple-minded Mary only
reflected gratefully that Grantly was "growing up awfully nice."
Regarding Reggie Peel, however, she did venture to think that she must
be rather more attractive than she used to be; and complacently
attributed his new gentleness to the fact that she had put up her hair
since she last saw him.
Gentleness was by no means one of Reggie's chief characteristics. He
was ruthless where his own ends were concerned, tirelessly hard
working, amusing, and of a caustic tongue: a cheerful pessimist who
expected the very least of his fellow-creatures, until such time as
they had given some proof that he might expect more. Yet there were a
favoured few, a very few, whom he took for granted thankfully, and Mary
had long known that her mother was one of those few. Lately she had
realised with a startled thrill of gratification that she, too, had
stepped out of the rank and file to take her place among those chosen
ones, for Reggie had confided to her a secret that none of the others,
not even her mother, knew.
Among the many serious periodicals of strictly Imperial tone that Mr
Ffolliot read, was one that from time to time indulged its readers with
exceptionally well-written short stories. Quite recently a couple of
these stories had dealt with military subjects, and were signed
"Ubique." The stories were striking, strong, and evidently from the
pen of one who knew his ground. Mr Ffolliot admired them, and
graciously drew the attention of his family to them. One had appeared
in the January number, and Mrs Ffolliot and Mary fell foul of it
because it was too painful. They thought it pitiless, even savage, in
its inexorable disregard of the individual and deification of the
Cause. Grantly, of course, upheld the writer. The male of the species
prides itself on inhumanity in youth. Mr Ffolliot approved the story
from the artistic standpoint, and the General defended it on the score
of its absolute truth. Reggie, quite contrary to custom, gave no
opinion at all till he was asked by Mary, one day when they were riding
together.
As she expected, he defended the writer's stern realism. But what she
did not expect was that he seemed to make a personal matter of it,
almost imploring her to see eye to eye with him, which she wholly
failed to do.
"I think he must be a terribly hard man, that 'Ubique,'" she said at
last, "with no toleration or compassion. He talks as though
incompetence were an unpardonable crime."
"So it is; if you undertake a job you ought to see that you're fit to
carry it out."
"You can't always be sure. . . . You may do your best and . . . fail."
"I grant you some people's best is a very poor best, but in this case
the man let a flabby humanitarianism take the place of his judgment,
and he caused far more misery in the end. Can't you see that?"
"All the same," Mary said decidedly, "I wouldn't like to fall into the
hands of that man, the Ubique man I mean, not the failure. He must be
a cold-blooded wretch, or he couldn't write such things. It makes me
shudder."
And Mary shivered as she spoke.
"He must be a beast," she added.
They were walking their horses along the turf at the side of the road
skirting the woods. Reggie pulled up and Mary stopped also a little in
front.
"Got a stone?" she asked carelessly.
Reggie did not answer or dismount, and she turned in her saddle to look
at him, to meet his crooked, whimsical smile. Suddenly he dropped his
reins and beat his breast, exclaiming melodramatically: "And Nathan
said unto David, 'Thou art the man.'"
"What on earth do you mean?" Mary asked, bewildered. "What man? do you
mean you'd behave like the man in the story, or you wouldn't, or . . .
Oh, Reggie, you don't mean to say you wrote it yourself?"
"You have spoken."
"You must be awfully clever!" Mary ejaculated with awe-struck
admiration.
"My cleverness will not be of much comfort to me if you persist in your
wrong-headed opinion that the man who wrote that story is a beast."
"Oh, that's different. I know you, you see, and you're not a beast.
You aren't really like that."
"But I am. That's the real me. It is truly; the real, deep-down me,
the me that's worth anything."
"No," said Mary, shaking her head, "I don't believe it; you _have_ some
consideration for other people."
"Not in that sense; if there was anything, any big thing, I had to put
through--no one should stand in my way. And it's the same with
anything I want very much. I go straight for it, and it matters
nothing to me who gets knocked down on the route . . . and so you'll
find," Reggie added very low.
They were looking each other straight in the face, Mary a little
breathless and wondering: "And so you'll find," Reggie repeated a
little louder, and there was a look in his eyes that caused Mary to
drop hers, and she rode on.
Reggie caught her up.
"Are you sorry, Mary?" he asked gently.
"About what?"
"Well . . . about everything. The story, and my ferocious mental
attitude, and all the rest of it."
He laid his hand on her horse's neck, and leaned forward to look in her
face. They were riding very close together, and Mary was too near the
hedge to put more distance between them.
"I can't be sorry you write so well," she said slowly, "it is very
exciting--is the news for publication or not?"
"I'd be grateful if you'd say nothing as yet--you see I've only done
these two, and what's a couple of short stories? Besides, it's not
really my job, only it's amusing, and one can rub it in that way, and
reach a larger class than by the strictly military article--no one
knows anything about it except the editor of _The Point of View_--and
you--I'd rather you didn't mention it, if you don't mind."
"Of course I shan't mention it, but I shall look out for 'Ubique' with
much greater interest."
"And still think him a beast?"
"That depends on what he writes."
"I'm not so much concerned about what you think of Ubique as that you
should remember that I mean what I say."
"You say a good many absurd things."
"Yes, but this is not absurd--when I want a thing very much . . ."
"Oh, you needn't say all that again. Be a silent, strong man like the
heroes in Seton Merriman, they're much the best kind."
"I'm not particularly silent, but I flatter myself that . . ."
"It's a shame to crawl over this lovely grass--come on and have a
canter," said Mary.
That night Reggie Peel sat long by his bedroom fire. The bedroom fire
was a concession to his acknowledged grown-upness. The young Ffolliots
were allowed no bedroom fires. Only when suffering from bad colds or
in the very severest weather was a fire granted to any child out of the
nursery. But Reggie, almost a captain now, was popular with the
servants, especially with the stern Sophia, head-housemaid, and she
decreed that he had reached the status of a visitor, and must,
therefore, have a fire in his bedroom at night. He sat before it now,
swinging the poker which had just stirred it to a cheerful blaze. He
had carefully switched off the light, for they were very economical of
the electric light at Redmarley. It had cost such a lot to put in.
Five years ago he and General Grantly between them had supervised its
installation, and the instruction of the head-gardener in the
management of the dynamo-room; each going up and down, as often as they
could get away, to share the discomfort with Mrs Ffolliot, and look
after the men. Mrs Grantly was, for once, almost satisfied, for she
had carried off all the available children. Mr Ffolliot had decreed
that the work should be done while he was in the South of France, and
expressed a strong desire that all should be in order before his
return; and it was finished, for he stayed away seven weeks.
And Reggie sat remembering all this, five years ago; and how just
before the children were sent to their grandmother Mary used to want to
sit on his knee, and how he would thrust her off with insulting remarks
as to her weight and her personal appearance generally.
She was a good deal heavier now, he reflected, and yet--
Reggie had come to the parting of the ways, and had decided which he
would follow.
Like most ambitious young men he had, so far, taken as his motto a
couplet, which, through over-usage, has become a platitude--
"High hopes faint on a warm hearth-stone,
He travels the fastest who travels alone."
Reggie had accepted this as an incontrovertible truth impossible to
dispute; but then he had never until lately felt the smallest desire to
travel through life accompanied by any one person. He had fallen in
and out of love as often as was wholesome or possible for so
hard-working a young man, and always looked upon the experience as an
agreeable relaxation, as it undoubtedly is. But never for one moment
did he allow such evanescent attachments to turn him a hair's breadth
out of his course. Now something had happened to him, and he knew that
for the future the platitude had become a lie, and that the only
incentive either to high hopes or their fulfilment lay in the prospect
of a hearth-stone shared by the girl who a few hours ago declared that
she "would not like to fall into that man's hands."
Reggie was very modern. He built no altar to Mary in his heart nor did
he set her image in a sacred shrine apart. He had no use for anyone in
a shrine. He wanted a comrade, and he craved this particular comrade
with all the intensity of a well-disciplined, entirely practical
nature. He was not in the least conceited, but he knew that if he
lived he would "get there," and the fact that he never had had, or ever
would have, sixpence beyond the pay he earned did not deter him in his
quest a single whit. Mary wouldn't have sixpence either. He knew the
Redmarley rent-roll to a halfpenny. Mrs Ffolliot frankly talked over
her affairs with him ever since he left Woolwich, and more than once
his shrewd judgment unravelled some tangle which Mr Ffolliot's
singularly unbusiness-like habits had created. He knew very well that
were it not for General Grantly the boys could never have got the
chance each was to get. That General Grantly was spending the money he
would have left his daughter at his death in helping her children now
when they needed it most. Mary and he were young and strong. They
could rough it at first. Afterwards--he had no fears about that
afterwards if Mary cared.
But would Mary care?
Reggie felt none of the qualms of a more sensitive man in making love
to a very young girl who might certainly, both as regarded looks and
social position, be expected to make an infinitely better marriage. He
was assailed by no misgivings as to what might be thought of the man
who made use of his position as almost a son of the house to make love
to this girl hardly out of the schoolroom.
It was Mr Ffolliot's business to guard against such possibilities.
If, however, he might be called unscrupulous on that score, his sense
of fairness was stronger than his delicacy; for where the latter proved
no obstacle, the former decided him that it would not be playing the
game to make open love to Mary till she had "been out a bit," and he
laid down the poker with a smothered oath.
He had gone further than he intended that afternoon and he was
sorry--but not very sorry. "There's no harm in letting her know I'm in
the running," he reflected. "I hope it will sink in. Otherwise she
might stick me down in the same row with Grantly and the twins, which
is the last thing in the world I want."
He was glad he had told her about that story, even if it revealed him
in an unfavourable light. "If she ever cares for me, and God help me
if she doesn't--she must care for me as I really am, an ugly devil with
some brains and a queer temper. I'll risk no disillusionment
afterwards. She must see plenty of other chaps first--confound them;
but if any one out of the lot shows signs of making a dart I'll cut in
first, I won't wait another minute, I'm damned if I will."
And suddenly conscious that he had spoken aloud, Reggie undressed and
went to bed, knowing full well that even though the hearth-stone should
be eternally cold, and the high hopes flattened beyond all possible
recognition, there yet remained to him something passing the love of
women.
For Reggie was not without an altar and a secret shrine, though not
even the figure of the woman he loved best would ever fill it. The
sacred fire of his devotion burned with a steady flame that illumined
his whole life, though not even to himself did he confess the vows he
paid.
"One must choose one's own mystery: the great thing is to have one."
And if prayer be the daily expression to the soul of the desire to do
the right thing, then Reggie prayed without ceasing that he might do
his WORK, and do it well. His profession was his God, and he served
faithfully and with a single heart.
* * * * * *
Mary had no fire to sit over, but all the same she dawdled throughout
her undressing and, unlike Reggie, wasted the precious electric light.
She had a great deal to think about, for Grantly and Reggie were not
the only people to confide in Mary that holiday. The day before he
left, General Grantly had taken her for a walk, sworn her to secrecy,
and then had sprung upon her a most astounding project. No other than
that he and Mrs Grantly should take her mother with them when they went
to the South of France for March--their mother without any of them.
"She has never had a real holiday by herself since she was married,"
the General said, "and my idea is that she should come with us directly
your father gets back. The boys will be at school--Grantly at the
Shop. There will only be the two little ones and your father to
consider, and you could look after them. I'd like to take you too, my
dear, but I don't fancy your mother could be persuaded to leave your
father unless there was someone to see to things for him."
"She'd never leave father alone," Mary said decidedly; "but she might,
oh, she might go now I'm really grown up. I should love her to go.
Don't you think"--Mary's voice was very wistful--"that she's been
looking a little tired lately . . . not quite so beautiful . . . as
usual?"
"Ah, you've noticed it too--that settles it--not a word, mind; if it's
sprung upon her at a few days' notice it may come off. If she has time
to think she'll discover insurmountable difficulties. Strategy, my
dear, strategy must be our watchword."
"But father," Mary suggested dubiously, "who's going to manage him?"
"I think," the General said grimly, "I think we may safely leave your
father in Grannie's hands. She has undertaken to square him, and, what
she undertakes--I have never known her fail to put through."
"It will be most extraordinary to have mother go off for quite a long
time by herself," Mary said thoughtfully.
"She won't be by herself, she'll be with _her_ father and mother; has
it never occurred to you as possible that sometimes we might like our
daughter to ourselves?"
Mary turned an astonished face towards her grandfather, exclaiming
emphatically,
"No, Ganpy, it certainly never has . . . before."