sitting round a card table. There were glasses, heaps of money and
candles on the table. They were clearly gambling feverishly and drinking
a lot. (‘There’s a song there really,’ said the Colonel, ‘only I’m
afraid I haven’t got a talkie apparatus yet.’) Then a highwayman holding
up the coach which Adam had seen; then some beggars starving outside
Doubting Church; then some ladies in fancy costume dancing a minuet.
Sometimes the heads of the dancers would disappear above the top of the
pictures; sometimes they would sink waist deep as though in a quicksand;
once Mr Isaacs appeared at the side in shirt sleeves, waving them on.
(‘I’ll have him out,’ said the Colonel.)
‘E P W O R T H R E C T O R Y , L I N C O L N S H I R E ( E N G . )’
(‘That’s in case it’s taken up in the States,’ said the Colonel. ‘I
don’t believe there is a Lincolnshire over there, but it’s always
courteous to put that in case.’)
A corner of Doubting Hall appeared with clouds of smoke billowing from
the windows. A clergyman was seen handing out a succession of children
with feverish rapidity of action. (‘It’s on fire, you see,’ said the
Colonel. ‘We did that quite simply, by burning some stuff Isaacs had. It
did make a smell.’)
So the film went on eventfully for about half an hour. One of its
peculiarities was that whenever the story reached a point of dramatic
and significant action, the film seemed to get faster and faster.
Villagers trotted to church as though galvanized; lovers shot in and out
of windows; horses flashed past like motor cars; riots happened so
quickly that they were hardly noticed. On the other hand, any scene of
repose or inaction, a conversation in a garden between two clergymen,
Mrs Wesley at her prayers, Lady Huntingdon asleep, etc., seemed
prolonged almost unendurably. Even Colonel Blount suspected this
imperfection.
‘I think I might cut a bit there,’ he said, after Wesley had sat
uninterruptedly composing a pamphlet for four and a half minutes.
When the reel came to an end every one stirred luxuriously.
‘Well, that was very nice,’ said the Rector’s wife, ‘very nice and
instructive.’
‘I really must congratulate you, Colonel. A production of absorbing
interest. I had no idea Wesley’s life was so full of adventure. I see I
must read up my Lecky.’
‘Too divine, Papa.’
‘Thank you so much, sir, I enjoyed that immensely.’
‘But, bless you, that isn’t the end,’ said the Colonel. ‘There are four
more reels yet.’
‘Oh, that’s good.’ ‘But how delightful.’ ‘Splendid.’ ‘Oh.’
But the full story was never shown. Just at the beginning of the second
part—when Wesley in America was being rescued from Red Indians by Lady
Huntingdon disguised as a cowboy—there occurred one of the mishaps from
which the largest super-cinemas are not absolutely immune. There was a
sudden crackling sound, a long blue spark, and the light was
extinguished.
‘Oh, dear,’ said the Colonel, ‘I wonder what’s happened now. We were
just getting to such an exciting place.’ He bent all his energies on the
apparatus, recklessly burning his fingers, while his audience sat in
darkness. Presently the door opened and a housemaid appeared carrying a
candle.
‘If you please, mum,’ she said, ‘the light’s gone out all over the
house.’
The Rector hurried across to the door and tried the switch in the
passage. He clicked it up and down several times; he tapped it like a
barometer and shook it slightly.
‘It looks as though the wires were fused,’ he said.
‘Really, Rector, how very inconvenient,’ said the Colonel crossly. ‘I
can’t possibly show the film without electric current. Surely there must
be something you can do?’
‘I am afraid it will be a job for an electrician; it will be scarcely
possible to get one before Monday,’ said the Rector with scarcely
Christian calm. ‘In fact it is clear to me that my wife and myself and
my whole household will have to spend the entire Christmas week-end in
darkness.’
‘Well,’ said the Colonel. ‘I never expected this to happen. Of course, I
know it’s just as disappointing for you as it is for me. All the same
. . .’
The housemaid brought in some candles and a bicycle lamp.
‘There’s only these in the house, sir,’ she said, ‘and the shops don’t
open till Monday.’
‘I don’t think in the circumstances my hospitality can be of much more
use to you, can it, Colonel? Perhaps you would like me to ring up and
get a taxi out from Aylesbury.’
‘What’s that? _Taxi?_ Why, it’s ridiculous to get a taxi out from
Aylesbury to go a quarter of a mile!’
‘I’m sure Mrs Littlejohn wouldn’t like to walk all the way on a night
like this?’
‘Perhaps a taxi would be a good idea, Papa.’
‘Of course, if you’ld care to take shelter here . . . it may clear up a
little. But I think you’ld find it very wretched, sitting here in the
dark?’
‘No, no, of course, order a taxi,’ said the Colonel.
On the way back to the house he said, ‘I’d half made up my mind to lend
him some of our lamps for the week-end. I certainly shan’t now. Fancy
hiring a taxi seven miles to drive us a few hundred yards. On Christmas
Eve, too. No wonder they find it hard to fill their churches when that’s
their idea of Christian fellowship. Just when I’d brought my film all
that way to show them . . .’
Next morning Adam and Nina woke up under Ada’s sprig of mistletoe to
hear the bells ringing for Christmas across the snow. ‘Come all to
church, good people; good people come to church.’ They had each hung up
a stocking the evening before, and Adam had put a bottle of scent and a
scent spray into Nina’s, and she had put two ties and a new kind of
safety razor into his. Ada brought them their tea and wished them a
happy Christmas. Nina had remembered to get a present for each of the
Florins, but had forgotten Ada, so she gave her the bottle of scent.
‘Darling,’ said Adam, ‘it cost twenty-five shillings—on Archie
Schwert’s account at Asprey.’
Later they put some crumbs of their bread and butter on the windowsill
and a robin redbreast came to eat them. The whole day was like that.
Adam and Nina breakfasted alone in the dining-room. There was a row of
silver plates kept hot by spirit lamps which held an omelette and
devilled partridges and kedgeree and kidneys and sole and some rolls;
there was also a ham and a tongue and some brawn and a dish of pickled
herrings. Nina ate an apple and Adam ate some toast.
Colonel Blount came down at eleven wearing a grey tail coat. He wished
them a very good morning and they exchanged gifts. Adam gave him a box
of cigars; Nina gave him a large illustrated book about modern cinema
production; he gave Nina a seed pearl brooch which had belonged to her
mother, and he gave Adam a calendar with a coloured picture of a bulldog
smoking a clay pipe and a thought from Longfellow for each day in the
year.
At half-past eleven they all went to Matins.
‘It will be a lesson to him in true Christian forgiveness,’ said the
Colonel (but he ostentatiously read his Bible throughout the sermon).
After church they called in at two or three cottages. Florin had been
round the day before distributing parcels of grocery. They were all
pleased and interested to meet Miss Nina’s husband. Many of them
remembered him as a little boy, and remarked that he had grown out of
all recognition. They reminded him with relish of many embarrassing
episodes in Ginger’s childhood, chiefly acts of destruction and cruelty
to cats.
After luncheon they went down to see all the decorations in the
servants’ hall.
This was a yearly custom of some antiquity, and the Florins had prepared
for it by hanging paper streamers from the gas brackets. Ada was having
middle-day dinner with her parents who lived among the petrol pumps at
Doubting village, so the Florins ate their turkey and plum pudding
alone.
‘I’ve seen as many as twenty-five sitting down to Christmas dinner at
this table,’ said Florin. ‘Regular parties they used to have when the
Colonel and Mr Eric were boys. Theatricals and all the house turned
topsy-turvy, and every gentleman with his own valet.’
‘Ah,’ said Mrs Florin.
‘Times is changed,’ said Florin, picking a tooth.
‘Ah,’ said Mrs Florin.
Then the family came in from the dining-room.
The Colonel knocked on the door and said, ‘May we come in, Mrs Florin?’
‘That you may, sir, and welcome,’ said Mrs Florin.
Then Adam and Nina and the Colonel admired the decorations and handed
over their presents wrapped in tissue paper. Then the Colonel said, ‘I
think we should take a glass of wine together.’
Florin opened a bottle of sherry which he had brought up that morning
and poured out the glasses, handing one first to Nina, then to Mrs
Florin, then to the Colonel, then to Adam, and, finally, taking one for
himself.
‘My very best wishes to you, Mrs Florin,’ said the Colonel, raising his
glass, ‘and to you, Florin. The years go by, and we none of us get any
younger, but I hope and trust that there are many Christmases in store
for us yet. Mrs Florin certainly doesn’t look a day older than when she
first came here. My best wishes to you both for another year of health
and happiness.’
Mrs Florin said, ‘Best respects, sir, and thank you, sir, and the same
to you.’
Florin said, ‘And a great pleasure it is to see Miss Nina—Mrs
Littlejohn, I should say—with us once more at her old home, and her
husband too, and I’m sure Mrs Florin and me wish them every happiness
and prosperity in their married life together, and all I can say, if
they can be as happy together as me and Mrs Florin has been, well,
that’s the best I can wish them.’
Then the family went away, and the house settled down to its afternoon
nap.
After dinner that night Adam and the Colonel filled up their port
glasses and turned their chairs towards the fire. Nina had gone into the
drawing-room to smoke.
‘You know,’ said the Colonel, poking back a log with his foot, ‘I’m very
glad that Nina has married you, my boy. I’ve liked you from the moment I
saw you. She’s a headstrong girl—always was—but I knew that she’d make
a sensible choice in the end. I foresee a very agreeable life ahead of
you two young people.’
‘I hope so, sir.’
‘I’m sure of it, my boy. She’s very nearly made several mistakes. There
was an ass of a fellow here the other day wanting to marry her. A
journalist. Awful silly fellow. He told me my old friend Canon
Chatterbox was working on his paper. Well, I didn’t like to contradict
him—he ought to have known, after all—but I thought it was funny at
the time, and then, d’you know, after he’d gone I was going through some
old papers upstairs and I came on a cutting from the _Worcester Herald_
describing his funeral. He died in 1912. Well, he must have been a
muddle-headed sort of fellow to make a mistake like that, mustn’t he?
. . . Have some port?’
‘Thank you.’
‘Then there was another chap. Came here selling vacuum cleaners, if you
please, and asked me to give him a thousand pounds! Impudent young cub.
I soon sent him about his business. . . . But you’re different,
Littlejohn. Just the sort of son-in-law I’d have chosen for myself. Your
marriage has been a great happiness to me, my boy.’
At this moment Nina came in to say that there were carol singers outside
the drawing-room window.
‘Bring ’em in,’ said the Colonel. ‘Bring ’em in. They come every year.
And tell Florin to bring up the punch.’
Florin brought up the punch in a huge silver punch bowl and Nina brought
in the waits. They stood against the sideboard, caps in hand, blinking
in the gaslight, and very red about the nose and cheeks with the sudden
warmth.
‘_Oh, tidings of comfort and joy_,’ they sang, ‘_comfort and
joy, Oh, tidings of comfort and joy_.’
They sang _Good King Wenceslas_, and _The First Noel_, and _Adeste
Fideles_, and _While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks_. Then Florin ladled
out the punch, seeing that the younger ones did not get the glasses
intended for their elders, but that each, according to his capacity, got
a little more, but not much more, than was good for him.
The Colonel tasted the punch and pronounced it excellent. He then asked
the carol singers their names and where they came from, and finally gave
their leader five shillings and sent them off into the snow.
‘It’s been just like this every year, as long as I can remember,’ said
the Colonel. ‘We always had a party at Christmas when we were boys . . .
acted some very amusing charades too . . . always a glass of sherry
after luncheon in the servants’ hall and carol singers in the
evening. . . . Tell me,’ he said, suddenly changing the subject, ‘did
you _really_ like what you saw of the film yesterday?’
‘It was the most divine film I ever saw, Papa.’
‘I enjoyed it enormously, sir, really I did.’
‘Did you? Did you? Well, I’m glad to hear that. I don’t believe the
Rector did—not properly. Of course, you only saw a bit of it, most
disappointing. I didn’t like to say so at the time, but I thought it
most negligent of him to have his electric light in that sort of
condition so that it wouldn’t last out for one evening. Most
inconsiderate to any one who wants to show a film. But it’s a glorious
film, isn’t it? You did think so?’
‘I never enjoyed a film so much, honestly.’
‘It makes a stepping stone in the development of the British film
industry,’ said the Colonel dreamily. ‘It is the most important
all-talkie super-religious film to be produced solely in this country by
British artists and management and by British capital. It has been
directed throughout regardless of difficulty and expense, and supervised
by a staff of expert historians and theologians. Nothing has been
omitted that would contribute to the meticulous accuracy of every
detail. The life of that great social and religious reformer John Wesley
is for the first time portrayed to a British public in all its humanity
and tragedy. . . . I’m glad you realized all that, my boy, because as a
matter of fact, I had a proposal to make to you about it. I’m getting an
old man and can’t do everything, and I feel my services should be better
spent in future as actor and producer, rather than on the commercial
side. One needs some one young to manage that. Now what I thought was,
that perhaps you would care to come in with me as business partner. I
bought the whole thing from Isaacs and, as you’re one of the family, I
shouldn’t mind selling you a half-share for, say, two thousand pounds. I
know that that isn’t much to you, and you’ld be humanly certain to
double your money in a few months. What do you say to it?’
‘_Well_ . . .’ said Adam.
But he was never called upon to answer, for just at that moment the door
of the dining-room opened and the Rector came in.
‘Hullo, Rector, come in. This is very neighbourly of you to come and
call at this time of night. A happy Christmas to you.’
‘Colonel Blount, I’ve got very terrible news. I had to come over and
tell you . . .’
‘I say, I am sorry. Nothing wrong at the Rectory, I hope?’
‘Worse, far worse. My wife and I were sitting over the fire after
dinner, and as we couldn’t read—not having any light—we put on the
wireless. They were having a very pretty carol service. Suddenly they
stopped in the middle and a special news bulletin was read. . . .
Colonel, the most terrible and unexpected thing—_War has been
declared_.’
_Happy Ending_
On a splintered tree stump in the biggest battlefield in the history of
the world, Adam sat down and read a letter from Nina. It had arrived
early the day before, but in the intensive fighting which followed he
had not had a spare minute in which to open it.
_Doubting Hall_,
_Aylesbury_.
‘_Dearest Adam,—I wonder how you are. It is difficult to know
what is happening quite because the papers say such odd things.
Van has got a divine job making up all the war news, and he
invented a lovely story about you the other day, how you’d saved
hundreds of people’s lives, and there’s what they call a popular
agitation saying why haven’t you got the V.C., so probably you
will have by now, isn’t it amusing?_
‘_Ginger and I are very well. Ginger has a job in an office in
Whitehall and wears a very grand sort of uniform, and, my dear,
I’m going to have a baby, isn’t it too awful? But Ginger has
quite made up his mind it’s his, and is as pleased as anything,
so that’s all right. He’s quite forgiven you about last
Christmas, and says anyway you’re doing your bit now, and in war
time one lets bygones be bygones._
‘_Doubting is a hospital, did you know? Papa shows his film to
the wounded and they adore it. I saw Mr Benfleet, and he said
how awful it was when one had given all one’s life in the cause
of culture to see everything one’s stood for swept away, but
he’s doing very well with his “Sword Unsheathed” series of war
poets._
‘_There’s a new Government order that we have to sleep in gas
masks because of the bombs, but no one does. They’ve put Archie
in prison as an undesirable alien, Ginger saw to that, he’s
terrific about spies. I’m sick such a lot because of this baby,
but everyone says it’s patriotic to have babies in war time.
Why?_
‘_Lots of love, my angel, take care of your dear self._
_N._’
He put it back in its envelope and buttoned it into his breast-pocket.
Then he took out a pipe, filled it and began to smoke. The scene all
round him was one of unrelieved desolation; a great expanse of mud in
which every visible object was burnt or broken. Sounds of firing
thundered from beyond the horizon, and somewhere above the grey clouds
there were aeroplanes. He had had no sleep for thirty-six hours. It was
growing dark.
Presently he became aware of a figure approaching, painfully picking his
way among the strands of barbed wire which strayed across the ground
like drifting cobweb; a soldier clearly. As he came nearer Adam saw that
he was levelling towards him a liquid fire-projector. Adam tightened his
fingers about his Huxdane-Halley bomb (for the dissemination of leprosy
germs), and in this posture of mutual suspicion they met. Through the
dusk Adam recognized the uniform of an English staff officer. He put the
bomb back in his pocket and saluted.
The newcomer lowered his liquid-fire projector and raised his gas mask.
‘You’re English, are you?’ he said. ‘Can’t see a thing. Broken my damned
monocle.’
‘Why,’ said Adam. ‘You’re the drunk Major.’
‘I’m not drunk, damn you, sir,’ said the drunk Major, ‘and, what’s more,
I’m a General. What the deuce are _you_ doing here?’
‘Well,’ said Adam. ‘I’ve lost my platoon.’
‘Lost your platoon. . . . I’ve lost my whole bloody division!’
‘Is the battle over, sir?’
‘I don’t know, can’t see a thing. It was going on all right last time I
heard of it. My car’s broken down somewhere over there. My driver went
out to try and find some one to help and got lost, and I went out to
look for him, and now I’ve lost the car too. Damn difficult country to
find one’s way about in. No landmarks. . . . Funny meeting you. I owe
you some money.’
‘Thirty-five thousand pounds.’
‘Thirty-five thousand and five. Looked for you everywhere before this
scrap started. I can give you the money now if you like.’
‘The pound’s not worth much nowadays, is it?’
‘About nothing. Still, I may as well give you a cheque. It’ll buy you a
couple of drinks and a newspaper. Talking of drinks, I’ve got a case of
bubbly in the car if we could only find it. Salvaged it out of an R.A.F.
mess that got bombed back at H.Q. Wish I could find that car.’
Eventually they did find it. A Daimler limousine sunk to the axles in
mud.
‘Get in and sit down,’ said the General hospitably. ‘I’ll turn the light
on in a second.’
Adam climbed in and found that it was not empty. In the corner, crumpled
up in a French military greatcoat, was a young woman fast asleep.
‘_Hullo_, I’d forgotten all about you,’ said the General. ‘I picked up
this little lady on the road. I can’t introduce you, because I don’t
know her name. Wake up, mademoiselle.’
The girl gave a little cry and opened two startled eyes.
‘That’s all right, little lady, nothing to be scared about—all friends
here. _Parlez anglais?_’
‘Sure,’ said the girl.
‘Well, what about a spot?’ said the General, peeling the tinfoil from
the top of a bottle. ‘You’ll find some glasses in the locker.’
The woebegone fragment of womanhood in the corner looked a little less
terrified when she saw the wine. She recognized it as the symbol of
international good will.
‘Now perhaps our fair visitor will tell us her name,’ said the General.
‘I dunno,’ she said.
‘Oh, come, little one, you mustn’t be shy.’
‘I dunno. I been called a lot of things. I was called Chastity once.
Then there was a lady at a party, and she sent me to Buenos Aires, and
then when the war came she brought me back again, and I was with the
soldiers training at Salisbury Plain. That was swell. They called me
bunny—I don’t know why. Then they sent me over here and I was with the
Canadians, what they called me wasn’t nice, and then they left me behind
when they retreated and I took up with some foreigners. They were nice
too, though they _were_ fighting against the English. Then _they_ ran
away, and the lorry I was in got stuck in the ditch, so I got in with
some other foreigners who were on the same side as the English, and they
were beasts, but I met an American doctor who had white hair, and he
called me Emily because he said I reminded him of his daughter back
home, so he took me to Paris and we had a lovely week till he took up
with another girl in a night club, so he left me behind in Paris when he
went back to the front, and I hadn’t no money and they made a fuss about
my passport, so they called me _numero mille soixante dix huit_, and
they sent me and a lot of other girls off to the East to be with the
soldiers there. At least they would have done only the ship got blown
up, so I was rescued and the French sent me up here in a train with some
different girls who were very unrefined. Then I was in a tin hut with
the girls, and then yesterday they had friends and I was alone, so I
went for a walk, and when I came back the hut was gone and the girls
were gone, and there didn’t seem any one anywhere until you came in your
car, and now I don’t rightly know where I am. _My_, isn’t war awful?’
The General opened another bottle of champagne.
‘Well, you’re as right as rain now, little lady,’ he said, ‘so let’s see
you smile and look happy. You mustn’t sit there scowling, you know—far
too pretty a little mouth for that. Let me take off that heavy coat.
Look, I’ll wrap it round your knees. There, now, isn’t that better?
. . . Fine, strong little legs, eh? . . .’
Adam did not embarrass them. The wine and the deep cushions and the
accumulated fatigue of two days’ fighting drew him away from them and,
oblivious to all the happy emotion pulsing near him, he sank into sleep.
The windows of the stranded motor car shone over the wasted expanse of
the battlefield. Then the General pulled down the blinds, shutting out
that sad scene.
‘Cosier now, eh?’ he said.
And Chastity in the prettiest way possible fingered the decorations on
his uniform and asked him all about them.
And presently, like a circling typhoon, the sounds of battle began to
return.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple
spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors
occur.