And instinct telling him that he had made his supreme effort, and that
anything further must be bathos, he turned abruptly and stalked into
his cottage, where he drank tea and ate bacon and thought chaotic
thoughts. And when his appetite declined to carry him more than half-way
through the third rasher, he understood. He was in love.
These strong, silent men who mean to be head-gardeners before they are
thirty, and eliminate woman from their lives as a dangerous obstacle to
the successful career, pay a heavy penalty when they do fall in love.
The average irresponsible young man who has hung about North Street on
Saturday nights, walked through the meadows and round by the mill and
back home past the creek on Sunday afternoons, taken his seat in the
brake for the annual outing, shuffled his way through the polka at the
tradesmen's ball, and generally seized all legitimate opportunities
for sporting with Amaryllis in the shade, has a hundred advantages
which your successful careerer lacks. There was hardly a moment during
the days which followed when Tom did not regret his neglected
education.
For he was not Sally's only victim in Millbourne. That was the trouble.
Her beauty was not of that elusive type which steals imperceptibly into
the vision of the rare connoisseur. It was sudden and compelling. It
hit you. Bright brown eyes beneath a mass of fair hair, a determined
little chin, a slim figure--these are disturbing things; and the
youths of peaceful Millbourne sat up and took notice as one youth.
Throw your mind back to the last musical comedy you saw. Recall the
leading lady's song with chorus of young men, all proffering devotion
simultaneously in a neat row. Well, that was how the lads of the
village comported themselves towards Sally.
Mr and Mrs Williams, till then a highly-esteemed but little-frequented
couple, were astonished at the sudden influx of visitors. The cottage
became practically a _salon_. There was not an evening when the
little sitting-room looking out on the garden was not packed. It is
true that the conversation lacked some of the sparkle generally found
in the better class of _salon_. To be absolutely accurate, there
was hardly any conversation. The youths of Melbourne were sturdy and
honest. They were the backbone of England. England, in her hour of
need, could have called upon them with the comfortable certainty that,
unless they happened to be otherwise engaged, they would leap to her
aid.
But they did not shine at small-talk. Conversationally they were a
spent force after they had asked Mr Williams how his rheumatism was.
Thereafter they contented themselves with sitting massively about in
corners, glowering at each other. Still, it was all very jolly and
sociable, and helped to pass the long evenings. And, as Mrs Williams
pointed out, in reply to some rather strong remarks from Mr Williams on
the subject of packs of young fools who made it impossible for a man to
get a quiet smoke in his own home, it kept them out of the public-houses.
Tom Kitchener, meanwhile, observed the invasion with growing dismay.
Shyness barred him from the evening gatherings, and what was going on
in that house, with young bloods like Ted Pringle, Albert Parsons,
Arthur Brown, and Joe Blossom (to name four of the most assiduous)
exercising their fascinations at close range, he did not like to
think. Again and again he strove to brace himself up to join the feasts
of reason and flows of soul which he knew were taking place nightly
around the object of his devotions, but every time he failed. Habit is
a terrible thing; it shackles the strongest, and Tom had fallen into
the habit of inquiring after Mr Williams' rheumatism over the garden
fence first thing in the morning.
It was a civil, neighbourly thing to do, but it annihilated the only
excuse he could think of for looking in at night. He could not help
himself. It was like some frightful scourge--the morphine habit, or
something of that sort. Every morning he swore to himself that nothing
would induce him to mention the subject of rheumatism, but no sooner
had the stricken old gentleman's head appeared above the fence than
out it came.
'Morning, Mr Williams.'
'Morning, Tom.'
Pause, indicative of a strong man struggling with himself; then:
'How's the rheumatism, Mr Williams?'
'Better, thank'ee, Tom.'
And there he was, with his guns spiked.
However, he did not give up. He brought to his wooing the same
determination which had made him second gardener at the Hall at
twenty-five. He was a novice at the game, but instinct told him that a
good line of action was to shower gifts. He did so. All he had to shower
was vegetables, and he showered them in a way that would have caused the
goddess Ceres to be talked about. His garden became a perfect crater,
erupting vegetables. Why vegetables? I think I hear some heckler cry.
Why not flowers--fresh, fair, fragrant flowers? You can do a lot with
flowers. Girls love them. There is poetry in them. And, what is more,
there is a recognized language of flowers. Shoot in a rose, or a
calceolaria, or an herbaceous border, or something, I gather, and you
have made a formal proposal of marriage without any of the trouble of
rehearsing a long speech and practising appropriate gestures in front
of your bedroom looking-glass. Why, then, did not Thomas Kitchener give
Sally Preston flowers? Well, you see, unfortunately, it was now late
autumn, and there were no flowers. Nature had temporarily exhausted her
floral blessings, and was jogging along with potatoes and artichokes
and things. Love is like that. It invariably comes just at the wrong
time. A few months before there had been enough roses in Tom
Kitchener's garden to win the hearts of a dozen girls. Now there were
only vegetables, 'Twas ever thus.
It was not to be expected that a devotion so practically displayed
should escape comment. This was supplied by that shrewd observer, old
Mr Williams. He spoke seriously to Tom across the fence on the subject
of his passion.
'Young Tom,' he said, 'drop it.'
Tom muttered unintelligibly. Mr Williams adjusted the top-hat without
which he never stirred abroad, even into his garden. He blinked
benevolently at Tom.
'You're making up to that young gal of Jane's,' he proceeded. 'You
can't deceive _me_. All these p'taties, and what not. _I_ seen
your game fast enough. Just you drop it, young Tom.'
'Why?' muttered Tom, rebelliously. A sudden distaste for old Mr
Williams blazed within him.
'Why? 'Cos you'll only burn your fingers if you don't, that's why. I
been watching this young gal of Jane's, and I seen what sort of a young
gal she be. She's a flipperty piece, that's what she be. You marry that
young gal, Tom, and you'll never have no more quiet and happiness.
She'd just take and turn the place upsy-down on you. The man as marries
that young gal has got to be master in his own home. He's got to show
her what's what. Now, you ain't got the devil in you to do that, Tom.
You're what I might call a sort of a sheep. I admires it in you, Tom. I
like to see a young man steady and quiet, same as what you be. So
that's how it is, you see. Just you drop this foolishness, young Tom,
and leave that young gal be, else you'll burn your fingers, same as
what I say.'
And, giving his top-hat a rakish tilt, the old gentleman ambled
indoors, satisfied that he had dropped a guarded hint in a pleasant and
tactful manner.
It is to be supposed that this interview stung Tom to swift action.
Otherwise, one cannot explain why he should not have been just as
reticent on the subject nearest his heart when bestowing on Sally the
twenty-seventh cabbage as he had been when administering the hundred
and sixtieth potato. At any rate, the fact remains that, as that
fateful vegetable changed hands across the fence, something resembling
a proposal of marriage did actually proceed from him. As a sustained
piece of emotional prose it fell short of the highest standard. Most of
it was lost at the back of his throat, and what did emerge was mainly
inaudible. However, as she distinctly caught the word 'love' twice, and
as Tom was shuffling his feet and streaming with perspiration, and
looking everywhere at once except at her, Sally grasped the situation.
Whereupon, without any visible emotion, she accepted him.
Tom had to ask her to repeat her remark. He could not believe his
luck. It is singular how diffident a normally self-confident man can
become, once he is in love. When Colonel Milvery, of the Hall, had
informed him of his promotion to the post of second gardener, Tom had
demanded no _encore_. He knew his worth. He was perfectly aware
that he was a good gardener, and official recognition of the fact left
him gratified, but unperturbed. But this affair of Sally was quite
another matter. It had revolutionized his standards of value--forced
him to consider himself as a man, entirely apart from his skill as a
gardener. And until this moment he had had grave doubt as to whether,
apart from his skill as a gardener, he amounted to much.
He was overwhelmed. He kissed Sally across the fence humbly. Sally, for
her part, seemed very unconcerned about it all. A more critical man
than Thomas Kitchener might have said that, to all appearances, the
thing rather bored Sally.
'Don't tell anybody just yet,' she stipulated.
Tom would have given much to be allowed to announce his triumph
defiantly to old Mr Williams, to say nothing of making a considerable
noise about it in the village; but her wish was law, and he reluctantly
agreed.
* * * * *
There are moments in a man's life when, however enthusiastic a
gardener he may be, his soul soars above vegetables. Tom's shot with a
jerk into the animal kingdom. The first present he gave Sally in his
capacity of fiance was a dog.
It was a half-grown puppy with long legs and a long tail, belonging
to no one species, but generously distributing itself among about six.
Sally loved it, and took it with her wherever she went. And on one of
these rambles down swooped Constable Cobb, the village policeman,
pointing out that, contrary to regulations, the puppy had no collar.
It is possible that a judicious meekness on Sally's part might have
averted disaster. Mr Cobb was human, and Sally was looking
particularly attractive that morning. Meekness, however, did not come
easily to Sally. In a speech which began as argument and ended (Mr
Cobb proving solid and unyielding) as pure cheek, she utterly routed
the constable. But her victory was only a moral one, for as she turned
to go Mr Cobb, dull red and puffing slightly, was already entering
particulars of the affair in his note-book, and Sally knew that the
last word was with him.
On her way back she met Tom Kitchener. He was looking very tough and
strong, and at the sight of him a half-formed idea, which she had
regretfully dismissed as impracticable, of assaulting Constable Cobb,
returned to her in an amended form. Tom did not know it, but the
reason why she smiled so radiantly upon him at that moment was that she
had just elected him to the post of hired assassin. While she did not
want Constable Cobb actually assassinated, she earnestly desired him
to have his helmet smashed down over his eyes; and it seemed to her
that Tom was the man to do it.
She poured out her grievance to him and suggested her scheme. She even
elaborated it.
'Why shouldn't you wait for him one night and throw him into the creek?
It isn't deep, and it's jolly muddy.'
'Um!' said Tom, doubtfully.
'It would just teach him,' she pointed out.
But the prospect of undertaking the higher education of the police did
not seem to appeal to Tom. In his heart he rather sympathized with
Constable Cobb. He saw the policeman's point of view. It is all very
well to talk, but when you are stationed in a sleepy village where no
one ever murders, or robs, or commits arson, or even gets drunk and
disorderly in the street, a puppy without a collar is simply a godsend.
A man must look out for himself.
He tried to make this side of the question clear to Sally, but failed
signally. She took a deplorable view of his attitude.
'I might have known you'd have been afraid,' she said, with a
contemptuous jerk of her chin. 'Good morning.'
Tom flushed. He knew he had never been afraid of anything in his life,
except her; but nevertheless the accusation stung. And as he was still
afraid of her he stammered as he began to deny the charge.
'Oh, leave off!' said Sally, irritably. 'Suck a lozenge.'
'I'm not afraid,' said Tom, condensing his remarks to their minimum as
his only chance of being intelligible.
'You are.'
'I'm not. It's just that I--'
A nasty gleam came into Sally's eyes. Her manner was haughty.
'It doesn't matter.' She paused. 'I've no doubt Ted Pringle will do
what I want.'
For all her contempt, she could not keep a touch of uneasiness from her
eyes as she prepared to make her next remark. There was a look about
Tom's set jaw which made her hesitate. But her temper had run away with
her, and she went on.
'I am sure he will,' she said. 'When we became engaged he said that he
would do anything for me.'
There are some speeches that are such conversational knockout blows
that one can hardly believe that life will ever pick itself up and go
on again after them. Yet it does. The dramatist brings down the
curtain on such speeches. The novelist blocks his reader's path with a
zareba of stars. But in life there are no curtains, no stars, nothing
final and definite--only ragged pauses and discomfort. There was such
a pause now.
'What do you mean?' said Tom at last. 'You promised to marry me.'
'I know I did--and I promised to marry Ted Pringle!'
That touch of panic which she could not wholly repress, the panic that
comes to everyone when a situation has run away with them like a
strange, unmanageable machine, infused a shade too much of the defiant
into Sally's manner. She had wished to be cool, even casual, but she
was beginning to be afraid. Why, she could not have said. Certainly she
did not anticipate violence on Tom's part. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps
it was just because he was so quiet that she was afraid. She had always
looked on him contemptuously as an amiable, transparent lout, and now
he was puzzling her. She got an impression of something formidable
behind his stolidity, something that made her feel mean and
insignificant.
She fought against the feeling, but it gripped her; and, in spite of
herself, she found her voice growing shrill and out of control.
'I promised to marry Ted Pringle, and I promised to marry Joe Blossom,
and I promised to marry Albert Parsons. And I was going to promise to
marry Arthur Brown and anybody else who asked me. So now you know! I
told you I'd make father take me back to London. Well, when he hears
that I've promised to marry four different men, I bet he'll have me
home by the first train.'
She stopped. She had more to say, but she could not say it. She stood
looking at him. And he looked at her. His face was grey and his mouth
oddly twisted. Silence seemed to fall on the whole universe.
Sally was really afraid now, and she knew it. She was feeling very
small and defenceless in an extremely alarming world. She could not
have said what it was that had happened to her. She only knew that life
had become of a sudden very vivid, and that her ideas as to what was
amusing had undergone a striking change. A man's development is a slow
and steady process of the years--a woman's a thing of an instant. In
the silence which followed her words Sally had grown up.
Tom broke the silence.
'Is that true?' he said.
His voice made her start. He had spoken quietly, but there was a new
note in it, strange to her. Just as she could not have said what it was
that had happened to her, so now she could not have said what had
happened to Tom. He, too, had changed, but how she did not know. Yet
the explanation was simple. He also had, in a sense, grown up. He was
no longer afraid of her.
He stood thinking. Hours seemed to pass.
'Come along!' he said, at last, and he began to move off down the road.
Sally followed. The possibility of refusing did not enter her mind.
'Where are you going?' she asked. It was unbearable, this silence.
He did not answer.
In this fashion, he leading, she following, they went down the road
into a lane, and through a gate into a field. They passed into a second
field, and as they did so Sally's heart gave a leap. Ted Pringle was
there.
Ted Pringle was a big young man, bigger even than Tom Kitchener, and,
like Tom, he was of silent habit. He eyed the little procession
inquiringly, but spoke no word. There was a pause.
'Ted,' said Tom, 'there's been a mistake.'
He stepped quickly to Sally's side, and the next moment he had swung
her off her feet and kissed her.
To the type of mind that Millbourne breeds, actions speak louder than
words, and Ted Pringle, who had gaped, gaped no more. He sprang
forward, and Tom, pushing Sally aside, turned to meet him.
I cannot help feeling a little sorry for Ted Pringle. In the light of
what happened, I could wish that it were possible to portray him as a
hulking brute of evil appearance and worse morals--the sort of person
concerning whom one could reflect comfortably that he deserved all he
got. I should like to make him an unsympathetic character, over whose
downfall the reader would gloat. But honesty compels me to own that Ted
was a thoroughly decent young man in every way. He was a good citizen,
a dutiful son, and would certainly have made an excellent husband.
Furthermore, in the dispute on hand he had right on his side fully as
much as Tom. The whole affair was one of those elemental clashings of
man and man where the historian cannot sympathize with either side at
the expense of the other, but must confine himself to a mere statement
of what occurred. And, briefly, what occurred was that Tom, bringing to
the fray a pent-up fury which his adversary had had no time to
generate, fought Ted to a complete standstill in the space of two
minutes and a half.
Sally had watched the proceedings, sick and horrified. She had never
seen men fight before, and the terror of it overwhelmed her. Her
vanity received no pleasant stimulation from the thought that it was
for her sake that this storm had been let loose. For the moment her
vanity was dead, stunned by collision with the realities. She found
herself watching in a dream. She saw Ted fall, rise, fall again, and
lie where he had fallen; and then she was aware that Tom was speaking.
'Come along!'
She hung back. Ted was lying very still. Gruesome ideas presented
themselves. She had just accepted them as truth when Ted wriggled. He
wriggled again. Then he sat up suddenly, looked at her with unseeing
eyes, and said something in a thick voice. She gave a little sob of
relief. It was ghastly, but not so ghastly as what she had been
imagining.
Somebody touched her arm. Tom was by her side, grim and formidable. He
was wiping blood from his face.
'Come along!'
She followed him without a word. And presently, behold, in another
field, whistling meditatively and regardless of impending ill, Albert
Parsons.
In everything that he did Tom was a man of method. He did not depart
from his chosen formula.
'Albert,' he said, 'there's been a mistake.'
And Albert gaped, as Ted had gaped.
Tom kissed Sally with the gravity of one performing a ritual.
The uglinesses of life, as we grow accustomed to them, lose their power
to shock, and there is no doubt that Sally looked with a different eye
upon this second struggle. She was conscious of a thrill of
excitement, very different from the shrinking horror which had seized
her before. Her stunned vanity began to tingle into life again. The
fight was raging furiously over the trampled turf, and quite suddenly,
as she watched, she was aware that her heart was with Tom.
It was no longer two strange brutes fighting in a field. It was her man
battling for her sake.
She desired overwhelmingly that he should win, that he should not be
hurt, that he should sweep triumphantly over Albert Parsons as he had
swept over Ted Pringle.
Unfortunately, it was evident, even to her, that he was being hurt, and
that he was very far from sweeping triumphantly over Albert Parsons. He
had not allowed himself time to recover from his first battle, and his
blows were slow and weary. Albert, moreover, was made of sterner stuff
than Ted. Though now a peaceful tender of cows, there had been a time
in his hot youth when, travelling with a circus, he had fought, week
in, week out, relays of just such rustic warriors as Tom. He knew their
methods--their headlong rushes, their swinging blows. They were the
merest commonplaces of life to him. He slipped Tom, he side-stepped
Tom, he jabbed Tom; he did everything to Tom that a trained boxer can
do to a reckless novice, except knock the fight out of him, until
presently, through the sheer labour of hitting, he, too, grew weary.
Now, in the days when Albert Parsons had fought whole families of Toms
in an evening, he had fought in rounds, with the boss holding the
watch, and half-minute rests, and water to refresh him, and all orderly
and proper. Today there were no rounds, no rests, no water, and the
peaceful tending of cows had caused flesh to grow where there had been
only muscle. Tom's headlong rushes became less easy to side-step, his
swinging blows more difficult than the scientific counter that shot out
to check them. As he tired Tom seemed to regain strength. The tide of
the battle began to ebb. He clinched, and Tom threw him off. He
feinted, and while he was feinting Tom was on him. It was the climax of
the battle--the last rally. Down went Albert, and stayed down.
Physically, he was not finished; but in his mind a question had framed
itself--the question. 'Was it worth it?'--and he was answering, 'No.'
There were other girls in the world. No girl was worth all this
trouble.
He did not rise.
'Come along!' said Tom.
He spoke thickly. His breath was coming in gasps. He was a terrible
spectacle, but Sally was past the weaker emotions. She was back in the
Stone Age, and her only feeling was one of passionate pride. She tried
to speak. She struggled to put all she felt into words, but something
kept her dumb, and she followed him in silence.
In the lane outside his cottage, down by the creek, Joe Blossom was
clipping a hedge. The sound of footsteps made him turn.
He did not recognize Tom till he spoke.
'Joe, there's been a mistake,' said Tom.
'Been a gunpowder explosion, more like,' said Joe, a simple, practical
man. 'What you been doin' to your face?'
'She's going to marry me, Joe.'
Joe eyed Sally inquiringly.
'Eh? You promised to marry _me_.'
'She promised to marry all of us. You, me, Ted Pringle, and Albert
Parsons.'
'Promised--to--marry--all--of--us!'
'That's where the mistake was. She's only going to marry me. I--I've
arranged it with Ted and Albert, and now I've come to explain to you,
Joe.'
'You promised to marry--!'
The colossal nature of Sally's deceit was plainly troubling Joe
Blossom. He expelled his breath in a long note of amazement. Then he
summed up.
'Why you're nothing more nor less than a Joshua!'
The years that had passed since Joe had attended the village
Sunday-school had weakened his once easy familiarity with the
characters of the Old Testament. It is possible that he had somebody
else in his mind.
Tom stuck doggedly to his point.
'You can't marry her, Joe.'
Joe Blossom raised his shears and clipped a protruding branch. The
point under discussion seemed to have ceased to interest him.
'Who wants to?' he said. 'Good riddance!'
They went down the lane. Silence still brooded over them. The words
she wanted continued to evade her.
They came to a grassy bank. Tom sat down. He was feeling unutterably
tired.
'Tom!'
He looked up. His mind was working dizzily.
'You're going to marry me,' he muttered.
She sat down beside him.
'I know,' she said. 'Tom, dear, lay your head on my lap and go to
sleep.'
If this story proves anything (beyond the advantage of being in good
training when you fight), it proves that you cannot get away from the
moving pictures even in a place like Millbourne; for as Sally sat
there, nursing Tom, it suddenly struck her that this was the very
situation with which that 'Romance of the Middle Ages' film ended. You
know the one I mean. Sir Percival Ye Something (which has slipped my
memory for the moment) goes out after the Holy Grail; meets damsel in
distress; overcomes her persecutors; rescues her; gets wounded, and is
nursed back to life in her arms. Sally had seen it a dozen times. And
every time she had reflected that the days of romance are dead, and
that that sort of thing can't happen nowadays.