(From _Pan_)
1922
Standing in a sheltered doorway a tramp, with a slouch hat crammed low
over a notably unwashed face, watched the outside of the new works
canteen of the Sir William Rumbold Ltd., Engineering Company. Perhaps
because they were workers while he was a tramp, he had an air of
compassionate cynicism as the audience assembled and thronged into the
building, which, as prodigally advertised throughout Calderside, was to
be opened that night by Sir William in person.
There being no one to observe him, the tramp could be frank with his
cynicism; but inside the building, in the platform ante-room, Mr.
Edward Fosdike, who was Sir William's locally resident secretary, had
to discipline his private feelings to a suave concurrence in his
employer's florid enthusiasm. Fosdike served Sir William well, but no
man is a hero to his (male) secretary.
"I hope you will find the arrangements satisfactory," Fosdike was
saying, tugging nervously at his maltreated moustache. "You speak at
seven and declare the canteen open. Then there's a meal." He hesitated.
"Perhaps I should have warned you to dine before you came."
Sir William was aware of being a very gallant gentleman. "Not at all,"
he said heroically, "not at all. I have not spared my purse over this
War Memorial. Why should I spare my feelings? Well, now, you've seen
about the Press?"
"Oh, yes. The reporters are coming. There'll be flash-light
photographs. Everything quite as usual when you make a public
appearance, sir."
Sir William wondered if this resident secretary of his were quite
adequate. Busy in London, he had left all arrangements in his local
factotum's hands, and he was doubting whether those hands had grasped
the situation competently. "Only as usual?" he said sharply. "This War
Memorial has cost me ten thousand pounds."
"The amount," Fosdike hastened to assure him, "has been circulated,
with appropriate tribute to your generosity."
"Generosity," criticised Rumbold. "I hope you didn't use that word."
Mr. Fosdike referred to his notebook. "We said," he read, "'the cost,
though amounting to ten thousand pounds, is entirely beside the point.
Sir William felt that no expense was excessive that would result in a
fitting and permanent expression of our gratitude to the glorious
dead.'"
"Thank you, Fosdike. That is exactly my feeling," said the gratified
Sir William, paying Fosdike the unspoken compliment of thinking him
less of a fool than he looked. "It is," he went on, "from no egotistic
motive that I wish the Press to be strongly represented to-night. I
believe that in deciding that Calderside's War Memorial should take the
form of a Works Canteen, I am setting an example of enlightenment which
other employers would do well to follow. I have erected a monument, not
in stone, but in goodwill, a club-house for both sexes to serve as a
centre of social activities for the firm's employees, wherein the great
spirit of the noble work carried out at the Front by by the Y.M.C.A.
will be recaptured and adapted to peace conditions in our local
organisation in the Martlow Works Canteen. What are you taking notes
for?"
"I thought----" began Fosdike.
"Oh, well, perhaps you are right. Reporters have been known to miss
one's point, and a little first aid, eh? By the way, I sent you some
notes from town of what I intended to say in my speech. I just sent
them ahead in case there was any local point I'd got wrong."
He put it as a question, but actually it was an assertion and a
challenge. It asserted that by no possible chance could there be
anything injudicious in the proposed speech, and it challenged Fosdike
to deny that assertion if he dared.
And Fosdike had to dare; he had to accuse himself of assuming too
easily that Rumbold's memory of local Calderside detail was as fresh as
the memory of the man on the spot.
"I did want to suggest a modification, sir," he hazarded timidly.
"Really?"--quite below zero--"Really? I felt very contented with the
speech."
"Yes, sir, it's masterly. But on the spot here----"
"Oh, agreed. Quite right, Fosdike. I am speaking to-night to the
world--no; let me guard against exaggeration. The world includes the
Polynesians and Esquimaux--I am speaking to the English-speaking races
of the world, but first and foremost to Calderside. My own people. Yes?
You have a little something to suggest? Some happy local allusion?"
"It's about Martlow," said Fosdike shortly.
Sir William took him up. "Ah, now you're talking," he approved. "Yes,
indeed, anything you can add to my notes about Martlow will be most
welcome. I have noted much, but too much is not enough for such an
illustrious example of conspicuous gallantry, so noble a life, so great
a deed, and so self-sacrificing an end. Any details you can add about
Timothy Martlow will indeed----"
Fosdike coughed. "Excuse me, sir, that's just the point. If you talk
like that about Martlow down here, they'll laugh at you."
"Laugh?" gasped Rumbold, his sense of propriety outraged. "My dear
Fosdike, what's come to you? I celebrate a hero. Our hero. Why, I'm
calling the Canteen after Martlow when I might have given it my own
name. That speaks volumes." It did.
But Fosdike knew too well what would be the attitude of a Calderside
audience if he allowed his chief to sing in top-notes an unreserved
eulogy of Tim Martlow. Calderside knew Tim, the civilian, if it had
also heard of Tim, the soldier. "Don't you remember Martlow, sir?
Before the war, I mean."
"No. Ought I to?"
"Not on the bench?"
"Martlow? Yes, now I think of the name in connection with the old days,
there was a drunken fellow. To be sure, an awful blackguard,
continually before the bench. Dear me! Well, well, but a man is not
responsible for his undesirable relations, I hope."
"No, sir. But that was Martlow. The same man. You really can't speak to
Calderside of his as an ennobling life and a great example. The war
changed him, but--well, in peace, Tim was absolutely the local bad man,
and they all know it. I thought you did, or----"
Sir William turned a face expressive of awe-struck wonder. "Fosdike,"
he said with deep sincerity, "this is the most amazing thing I've heard
of the war. I never connected Martlow the hero with--well, well _de
mortuis_." He quoted:
"'Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it; he died
As one that had been studied in his death
To throw away the dearest thing he owed
As 'there a careless trifle.'
"Appropriate, I think? I shall use that."
It was, at least, a magnificent recovery from an unexpected blow,
administered by the very man whose duty it was to guard Sir William
against just that sort of blow. If Fosdike was not the local watch-dog,
he was nothing; and here was an occasion when the dog had omitted to
bark until the last minute of the eleventh hour.
"Very apt quotation, sir, though there have never been any exact
details of Martlow's death."
Sir William meditated. "Do you recall the name of the saint who was a
regular rip before he got religion?" he asked.
"I think that applies to most of them," said Fosdike.
"Yes, but the one in particular. Francis. That's it." He filled his
chest. "Timothy Martlow," he pronounced impressively, "is the St.
Francis of the Great War, and this Canteen is his shrine. Now, I think
I will go into the hall. It is early, but I shall chat with the people.
Oh, one last thought. When you mentioned Martlow, I thought you were
going to tell me of some undesirable connections. There are none?"
"There is his mother. A widow. You remember the Board voted her an
addition to her pension."
"Oh, yes. And she?"
"Oh, most grateful. She will be with you on the platform. I have seen
myself that she is--fittingly attired."
"I think I can congratulate you, Fosdike," said Sir William
magnanimously. "You've managed very well. I look forward to a pleasant
evening, a widely reported speech, and--"
Then Dolly Wainwright came into the ante-room.
"If you please, sir," she said, "what's going to be done about me?"
Two gentlemen who had all but reached the smug bathos of a mutual
admiration society turned astonished eyes at the intruder.
She wore a tam, and a check blanket coat, which she unbuttoned as they
watched her. Beneath it, suitable to the occasion, was a white dress,
and Sir William, looking at it, felt a glow of tenderness for this
artless child who had blundered into the privacy of the ante-room.
Something daintily virginal in Dolly's face appealed to him; he caught
himself thinking that her frock was more than a miracle in bleached
cotton--it was moonshine shot with alabaster; and the improbability of
that combination had hardly struck him when Fosdike's voice forced
itself harshly on his ears.
"How did you get in here?"
Sir William moved to defend the girl from the anger of his secretary,
but when she said, with a certain challenge, "Through the door," he
doubted if she were so defenceless as she seemed.
"But there's a doorkeeper at the bottom," said Fosdike. "I gave him my
orders."
"I gave him my smile," said Dolly. "I won."
"Upon my word--" Fosdike began.
"Well, well," interrupted Sir William, "what can I do for you?"
The reply was indirect, but caused Sir William still further to
readjust his estimate of her.
"I've got friends in the meeting to-night," she concluded. "They'll
speak up for me, too, if I'm not righted. So I'm telling you."
"Don't threaten me, my girl," said Sir William without severity. "I am
always ready to pay attention to any legitimate grievance, but----"
"Legitimate?" she interrupted. "Well, mine's not legitimate. So there!"
"I beg your pardon?" She puzzled Sir William. "Come now," he went on in
his most patriarchal manner, "don't assume I'm not going to listen to
you. I am. To-night there is no thought in my mind except the welfare
of Calderside."
"Oh, well," she said apologetically, "I'm sorry if I riled you, but
it's a bit awkward to speak it out to a man. Only" (the unconscious
cruelty of youth--or was it conscious?) "you're both old, so perhaps I
can get through. It's about Tim Martlow."
"Ah," said Sir William encouragingly, "our glorious hero."
"Yes," said Dolly. "I'm the mother of his child."
We are all balloons dancing our lives amongst pins. Therefore, be
compassionate towards Sir William. He collapsed speechlessly on a hard
chair.
Fosdike reacted more alertly. "This is the first I've heard of
Martlow's being married," he said aggressively.
Dolly looked up at him indignantly. "You ain't heard it now, have you?"
she protested. "I said it wasn't legitimate. I don't say we'd not have
got married if there'd been time, but you can't do everything on short
leave."
There seemed an obvious retort. Rumbold and Fosdike looked at each
other, and neither made the retort. Instead, Fosdike asked: "Are you
employed in the works here?"
"I was here, on munitions," she said, "and then on doles."
"And now you're on the make," he sneered.
"Oh, I dunno," she said. "All this fuss about Tim Martlow. I ought to
have my bit out of it."
"Deplorable," grieved Sir William. "The crass materialism of it all.
This is so sad. How old are you?"
"Twenty," said Dolly. "Twenty, with a child to keep, and his father's
name up in gold lettering in that hall there. I say somebody ought to
do something."
"I suppose now, Miss----" Fosdike baulked.
"Wainwright, Dolly Wainwright, though it ought to be Martlow."
"I suppose you loved Tim very dearly?"
"I liked him well enough. He was good-looking in his khaki."
"Liked him? I'm sure it was more than that."
"Oh, I dunno. Why?" asked the girl, who said she was the mother of
Martlow's child.
"I am sure," said Fosdike gravely, "you would never do anything to
bring a stain upon his memory."
Dolly proposed a bargain. "If I'm rightly done by," she said, "I'll do
right by him."
"Anything that marred the harmony of to-night's ceremony, Miss
Wainwright, would be unthinkable," said Sir William, coming to his
lieutenant's support.
"Right," said Dolly cheerfully. "If you'll take steps according, I'm
sure I've no desire to make a scene."
"A scene," gasped Sir William.
"Though," she pointed out, "it's a lot to ask of any one, you know.
Giving up the certain chance of getting my photograph in the papers. I
make a good picture, too. Some do and some don't, but I take well and
when you know you've got the looks to carry off a scene, it's asking
something of me to give up the idea."
"But you said you'd no desire to make a scene."
"Poor girls have often got to do what they don't wish to. I wouldn't
make a scene in the usual way. Hysterics and all that. Hysterics means
cold water in your face and your dress messed up and no sympathy. But
with scenes, the greater the occasion the greater the reward, and
there's no denying this is an occasion, is there? You're making a big
to-do about Tim Martlow and the reward would be according. I don't know
if you've noticed that if a girl makes a scene and she's got the looks
for it, she gets offers of marriage, like they do in the police-court
when they've been wronged and the magistrate passes all the men's
letters on to the court missionary and the girl and the missionary go
through them and choose the likeliest fellow out of the bunch?"
"But my dear young lady----" Fosdike began.
She silenced him. "Oh, it's all right. I don't know that I want to get
married."
"Then you ought to," said Sir William virtuously.
"There's better things in life than getting married," Dolly said. "I've
weighed up marriage, and I don't see what there is in it for a girl
nowadays."
"In your case, I should have thought there was everything."
Dolly sniffed. "There isn't liberty," she said. "And we won the fight
for liberty, didn't we? No; if I made that scene it 'ud be to get my
photograph in the papers where the film people could see it. I've the
right face for the pictures, and my romantic history will do the rest."
"Good heavens, girl," cried the scandalised Sir William, "have you no
reverence at all? The pictures! You'd turn all my disinterested efforts
to ridicule. You'd--oh, but there! You're not going to make a scene?"
"That's a matter of arrangement, of course," said the cool lady. "I'm
only showing you what a big chance I shall miss if I oblige you.
Suppose I pipe up my tale of woe just when you're on the platform with
the Union Jack behind you and the reporters in front of you, and that
tablet in there that says Tim is the greatest glory of Calderside----"
Sir William nearly screamed. "Be quiet, girl. Fosdike," he snarled,
turning viciously on his secretary, "what the deuce do you mean by
pretending to keep an eye on local affairs when you miss a thing like
this?"
"'Tisn't his fault," said Dolly. "I've been saving this up for you."
"Oh," he groaned, "and I'd felt so happy about to-night." He took out a
fountain pen. "Well, I suppose there's no help for it. Fosdike, what's
the amount of the pension we allow Martlow's mother?"
"Double it, add a pound a week, and what's the answer, Mr. Fosdike?"
asked Dolly quickly.
Sir William gasped ludicrously.
"I mean to say," said Dolly, conferring on his gasp the honour of an
explanation, "she's old and didn't go on munitions, and didn't get used
to wangling income tax on her wages, and never had no ambitions to go
on the pictures, neither. What's compensation to her isn't compensation
to me. I've got a higher standard."
"The less you say about your standards, the better, my girl," retorted
Sir William. "Do you know that this is blackmail?"
"No, it isn't. Not when I ain't asked you for nothing. And if I pass
the remark how that three pounds a week is my idea of a minimum wage,
it isn't blackmail to state the fact."
Sir William paused in the act of tearing a page out of Fosdike's
note-book. "Three pounds a week!"
"Well," said Dolly reasonably, "I didn't depreciate the currency. Three
pounds a week is little enough these times for the girl who fell from
grace through the chief glory of Calderside."
"But suppose you marry," suggested Mr. Fosdike.
"Then I marry well," she said, "having means of my own. And I ought to,
seeing I'm kind of widow to the chief glory of--"
Sir William looked up sharply from the table. "If you use that phrase
again," he said, "I'll tear this paper up."
"Widow to Tim Martlow," she amended it, defiantly. He handed her the
document he had drawn up. It was an undertaking in brief, unambiguous
terms to pay her three pounds a week for life. As she read it,
exulting, the door was kicked open.
The tramp, whose name was Timothy Martlow, came in and turning, spoke
through the doorway to the janitor below. "Call out," he said, "and
I'll come back and knock you down again." Then he locked the door.
Fosdike went courageously towards him. "What do you mean by this
intrusion? Who are you?"
The tramp assured himself that his hat was well pulled down over his
face. He put his hands in his pockets and looked quizzically at the
advancing Mr. Fosdike. "So far," he said, "I'm the man that locked the
door."
Fosdike started for the second door, which led directly to the
platform. The tramp reached it first, and locked it, shouldering
Fosdike from him. "Now," he said, Sir William was searching the wall,
"are there no bells?" he asked desperately.
"No."
"No?" jeered the tramp. "No bell. No telephone. No nothing. You're
scotched without your rifle this time."
Fosdike consulted Sir William. "I might shout for the police," he
suggested.
"It's risky," commented the tramp. "They sometimes come when they're
called."
"Then----" began the secretary.
"It's your risk," emphasised the tramp. "And, I don't advise it. I've
gone to a lot of trouble this last week to keep out of sight of the
Calderside police. They'd identify me easy, and Sir William wouldn't
like that."
"I wouldn't like?" said Rumbold. "I? Who are you?"
"Wounded and missing, believed dead," quoted the tramp. "Only there's
been a lot of beliefs upset in this war, and I'm one of them."
"One of what?"
"I'm telling you. One of the strayed sheep that got mislaid and come
home at the awkwardest times." He snatched his hat off. "Have a good
look at that face, your worship."
"Timothy Martlow," cried Sir William.
Fosdike staggered to a chair while Dolly, who had shown nothing but
amusement at the tramp, now gave a quick cry and shrank back against
the wall, exhibiting every symptom of the liveliest terror. Of the
trio, Sir William, for whom surely this inopportune return had the most
serious implications, alone stood his ground, and Martlow grimly
appreciated his pluck.
"It's very near made a stretcher-case of him," he said, indicating the
prostrated Fosdike. "You're cooler. Walking wounded."
"I ... really...."
"Shake hands, old cock," said Martlow, "I know you've got it writ up in
there----" he jerked his head towards the hall--"that I'm the chief
glory of Calderside, but damme if you're not the second best yourself,
and I'll condescend to shake your hand if it's only to show you I'm not
a ghost."
Sir William decided that it was politic to humour this visitor. He
shook hands. "Then, if you know," he said, "if you know what this
building is, it isn't accident that brings you here to-night."
"The sort of accident you set with a time-fuse," said Martlow grimly.
"I told you I'd been dodging the police for a week lest any of my old
pals should recognise me. I was waiting to get you to-night, and
sitting tight and listening. The things I heard! Nearly made me take my
hat off to myself. But not quite. Not quite. I kept my hat on and I
kept my hair on. It's a mistake to act premature on information
received. If I'd sprung this too soon, the wrong thing might have
happened to me."
"What wrong thing, Martlow?" asked Sir William with some indignation.
If the fellow meant anything, it was that he would have been spirited
away by Sir William.
"Oh, anything," replied Martlow. "Anything would be wrong that made me
miss this pleasure. You and me conversing affable here. Not a bit like
it was in the old days before I rose to being the chief glory of
Calderside. Conversation was one-sided then, and all on your side
instead of mine. 'Here again, Martlow,' you'd say, and then they'd
gabble the evidence, and you'd say 'fourteen days' or 'twenty-one
days,' if you'd got up peevish and that's all there was to our friendly
intercourse. This time, I make no doubt you'll be asking me to stay at
the Towers to-night. And," he went on blandly, enjoying every wince
that twisted Sir William's face in spite of his efforts to appear
unmoved, "I don't know that I'll refuse. It's a levelling thing, war.
I've read that war makes us all conscious we're members of one
brotherhood, and I know it's true now. Consequently the chief glory of
the place ain't got no right to be too high and mighty to accept your
humble invitation. The best guest-room for Sergeant Martlow, you'll
say. See there's a hot water-bottle in his bed, you'll say, and in case
he's thirsty in the night, you'll tell them to put the whisky by his
side."
After all, a man does not rise to become Sir William Rumbold by being
flabby. Sir William struck the table heavily. Somehow he had to put a
period to this mocking harangue. "Martlow," he said, "how many people
know you're here?"
Tim gave a good imitation of Sir William's gesture. He, too, could
strike a table. "Rumbold," he retorted, "what's the value of a secret
when it's not a secret? You three in this room know, and not another
soul in Calderside."
"Not even your mother?" queried Rumbold.
"No. I been a bad son to her in the past. I'm a good one now I'm dead.
She's got a bit o' pension, and I'll not disturb that. I'll stay
dead--to her," he added forcibly, dashing the hope which leapt in
Rumbold.
"Why have you come here? Here--to-night?"
The easy mockery renewed itself in Martlow's voice. "People's ideas of
fun vary," he stated. "The fly's idea ain't the same as the spider's.
This 'ere is my idea--shaking your hand and sitting cosy with the bloke
that's sent me down more times than I can think. And the fun 'ull grow
furious when you and I walk arm in arm on to that platform, and you
tell them all I'm resurrected."
"Like this?" The proper Mr. Fosdike interjected.
"Eh?" said Tim. "Like what?"
"You can't go on to the platform in those clothes, Martlow. Have you
looked in a mirror lately? Do you know what you look like? This is a
respectable occasion, man."
"Yes," said Tim drily. "It's an occasion for showing respect to me.
I'll do as I am, not having had time to go to the tailor's for my dress
suit yet."
"Martlow," said Sir William briskly, "time's short. I'm due on that
platform."
"Right, I'm with you." Tim moved towards the platform door.
Sir William, with a serene air of triumph, played his trump card. He
took out his cheque-book. "No," he said. "You're not coming. Instead--"
He shrank back hastily as a huge fist was projected vehemently towards
his face. But the fist swerved and opened. The cheque-book, not Sir
William's person, was its objective. "Instead be damned," said Tim
Martlow, pitching the cheque-book to the floor. "To hell with your
money. Thought I was after money, did you?"
Sir William met his eye. "Yes, I did," he said hardily.
"That's the sort of mean idea you would have, Sir William Rumbold. They
say scum rises. You grew a handle to your name during the war, but you
ain't grown manners to go with it. War changes them that's changeable.
T'others are too set to change."
Sir William felt a strange glow of appreciation for this man who, with
so easy an opportunity to grow rich, refused money. "It's changed you,"
he said with ungrudging admiration that had no tincture of diplomacy in
it.
"Has it?" mused Tim. "From what?"
"Well--" Sir William was embarrassed. "From what you were."
"What was I?" demanded Tim. "Go on, spit it out. What sort of character
would you have given me then?" "I'd have called you," said Sir William
boldly, "a disreputable drunken loafer who never did an honest day's
work in his life." Which had the merit of truth, and, he thought, the
demerit of rashness.
To his surprise he found that Tim was looking at him with undisguised
admiration. "Lummy," he said, "you've got guts. Yes, that's right.
'Disreputable drunken loafer.' And if I came back now?" he asked.
"You were magnificent in the war, Martlow."
"First thing I did when I got civvies on was to get blind and skinned.
Drink and civvies go together in my mind."
"You'll get over that," said Sir William encouragingly; but he was
puzzled by the curiously wistful note which had replaced Tim's
hectoring.
"There's a chance," admitted Tim. "A bare chance. Not a chance I'd
gamble on. Not when I've a bigger chance than that. You wouldn't say,
weighing me up now, that I've got a reformed look, would you?"
Sir William couldn't. "But you'll pull yourself together. You'll
remember--"
"I'll remember the taste of beer," said Tim with fierce conviction.
"No, I never had a chance before, but I've got one now, and, by heaven,
I'm taking it." Sir William's apprehension grew acute; if money was not
the question, what outrageous demand was about to be made of him? Tim
went on, "I'm nothing but a dirty, drunken tramp to-day. Yes, drunk
when I can get it and craving when I can't. That's Tim Martlow when
he's living. Tim Martlow dead's a different thing. He's a man with his
name wrote up in letters of gold in a dry canteen. Dry! By God, that's
funny! He's somebody, honoured in Calderside for ever and ever, amen.
And we won't spoil a good thing by taking chances on my reformation.
I'm dead. I'll stay dead." He paused in enjoying the effect he made.
Sir William stooped to pick his cheque-book from the floor. "Don't do
that," said Tim sharply. "It isn't out of your mind yet that money's
what I came for. Fun's one thing that brought me. Just for the treat of
showing you myself and watching your quick-change faces while I did it.
And I've had my fun." His voice grew menacing. "The other thing I came
for isn't fun. It's this." Dolly screamed as he took her arm and jerked
her to her feet from the corner where she had sought obscurity. He
shook her urgently. "You've been telling tales about me. I've heard of
it. You hear all the news when you lie quiet yourself and let other
people do the talking. You came in here to-night to spin a yarn. I
watched you in. Well, is it true?"
"No," said Dolly, gasping for breath. "I mean--" he insisted, "what you
said about you and me. That isn't true?"
She repeated her denial. "No," he said, releasing her, "it 'ud have a
job to be seeing this is the first time I've had the pleasure of
meeting you. That'll do." He opened the platform door politely. "I hope
I haven't made you late on the platform, sir," he said.
Both Sir William and the secretary stared fascinated at Dolly, the
enterprising young person who had so successfully bluffed them. "I
repeat, don't let me make you late," said Tim from the now wide open
door.
Rumbold checked Fosdike who was, apparently, bent on doing Dolly a
personal violence. "That can wait," he said. "What can't wait is this."
He held out his hand to Martlow. "In all sincerity, I beg the honour."
Tim shook his hand, and Rumbold turned to the door. Fosdike ran after
him with the notes of his speech. "Your speech, sir."
Sir William turned on him angrily. "Man," he said, "haven't you heard?
That muck won't do now. I have to try to do Martlow justice." He went
out to the platform, Fosdike after him.
Tim Martlow sat at the table and took a bottle from his pocket. He drew
the cork with his teeth, then felt a light touch on his arm. "I was
forgetting you," he said, replacing the bottle.
"I ain't likely to forget you," said Dolly ruefully.
He gripped her hard. "But you are going to forget me, my girl," he
said. "Tim Martlow's dead, and his letters of gold ain't going to be
blotted by the likes of you. You that's been putting it about
Calderside I'm the father of your child, and I ain't never seen you in
my life till to-night."
"Yes, but you're getting this all wrong," she blubbered. "I didn't have
a baby. I was going to borrow one if they'd claimed to see it."
"What? No baby? And you put it across old Rumbold?" Laughter and sheer
admiration of her audacity were mingled in his voice. With a baby it
was a good bluff; without one, the girl's ingenuity seemed to him to
touch genius.
"He gave me that paper," she said, pride subduing tears as she handed
him her splendid trophy.
"Three pounds a week for life," he read, with profound reverence. "If
you ain't a blinkin' marvel." He complimented her, giving her the paper
back. Then he realised that, through him, her gains were lost.
"Gawd, I done wrong. I got no right to mess up a thing like that. I
didn't know. See, I'll tell him I made you lie. I'll own the baby's
mine."
"But there ain't no baby," she persisted.
"There's plenty of babies looking for a mother with three pounds a
week," he said.
She tore the paper up. "Then they'll not find me," she said. "Three
pounds a week's gone. And your letters of gold, Mr. Martlow, remain."
The practised voice of Sir William Rumbold, speaking on the platform,
filled the ante-room, not with the rhetorician's counterfeit of
sincerity, but, unmistakably, with sincerity itself. "I had prepared a
speech," he was saying. "A prepared speech is useless in face of the
emotion I feel at the life of Timothy Martlow. I say advisedly to you
that when I think of Martlow, I know myself for a worm. He was despised
and rejected. What had England done for him that he should give his
life for her? We wronged him. We made an outcast of him. I personally
wronged him from the magistrate's bench, and he pays us back like this,
rising from an undeserved obscurity to a height where he rests secure
for ever, a reproach to us, and a great example of the man who won. And
against what odds he played it out to a supreme end, and----"
"You're right," said Tim Martlow, motioning the girl to close the door.
He wasn't used to hearing panegyrics on himself, nor was he aware that,
mechanically, he had raised the bottle to his lips.
Dolly meant to close the door discreetly; instead, she threw it from
her and jumped at the bottle. Tim was conscious of a double crash,
putting an emphatic stop to the sound of Sir William's eulogy--the
crash of the door and the bottle which Dolly snatched from him and
pitched against the wall.
"Letters of gold," she panted, "and you shan't tarnish them. I'll see
to that."
He gaped for a moment at the liquor flowing from the bottle, then
raised his eyes to hers. "You?" he said.
"I haven't got a baby to look after," said Dolly. "But--I've you. Where
were you thinking of going now?"
His eyes went to the door behind which Sir William was, presumably,
still praising him, and his head jerked resolutely. "Playing it out,"
he said. "I've got to vanish good, and sure after that. I'll play it
out, by God. I was a hero once, I'll be a hero still." His foot
crunched broken glass as he moved. "I'm going to America, my girl. It's
dry."
Perhaps she distrusted the absolute dryness of America, and perhaps
that had nothing to do with Dolly. She examined her hand minutely.
"Going to the Isle of Man on a rough day, I wasn't a bit ill," she said
casually. "I'm a good sailor."
"You put it across Sir William," he said. "You're a blinkin' marvel."
"No," she said, "but a thing that's worth doing is worth doing well.
I'm not a marvel, but I might be the metal polish in those gold letters
of yours if you think it worth while."
His trampish squalor seemed to him suddenly appalling. "There, don't do
that," he protested--her arm had found its way into his. "My sleeve's
dirty."
"Idiot!" said Dolly Wainwright, drawing him to the door.