"Even for a day!--"
"Even for an hour!--"
"Even for ten minutes! We should have been gone out of this place, and
they would not have got us until the show was over!"
Our eyes met, then dropped hurriedly. We had read one another's
thoughts. Discipline, Discipline, Discipline!
Roy picked up the two despatches, folded them, and put them mechanically
into the pocket of his field despatch-book. Then he cleared his throat
huskily. I found myself doing the same.
"Look here!--" we began both at once.
A cheery voice interrupted us:
"Good evening, sir. Is this Caterpillar Farm?"
We both jumped, like detected conspirators.
In the doorway stood a subaltern, saluting, with the totem of the Royal
Mid-Mudshire Regiment stencilled upon his tin bowler.
"Come in," I said. "This is the place you want. I presume you have
come to take over?"
About midnight, the Orderly-room Staff filed through the ghostly streets
of Albert, to the music of innumerable big guns working up to their
final spasm. At their head marched a silent major and a preoccupied
assistant adjutant.
Next morning, just after dawn, the Second Royal Covenanters went raging
to the opening attack of the greatest battle yet fought in the history
of warfare. We were led into action by our Commanding Officer, Eric
Bethune.
*CHAPTER XI*
*ENFIN!*
If those years brought unprecedented misery to the human family, they
had their compensating moments--especially for those most deeply
concerned. Lovers, for instance--true lovers. When two people really
love one another, and are limited by inexorable circumstances to rare
and brief periods of companionship, each one of which may be the very
last--and each succeeding day of those four years saw some six hundred
British soldiers of all ranks go back from Leave never to return--their
love is lifted to heights, and breathes an atmosphere, of which ordinary
workaday lovers can know nothing. Poor peace-time lovers--sitting
holding hands in a conservatory, or spooning on a golf course--what do
they know? Faced by a future all their own (and the enervating
consciousness that there will probably be a good deal of it), what do
they know? What do they know of the blind rapture of Six Days' Leave?
Roy's telegram preceded him by exactly one hour, so Marjorie had little
time to get excited. She merely embraced Liss, changed her frock,
embraced Liss again, changed her frock again, and dashed off to
Victoria. After that her recollection of events went out of focus a
little. She had watched the arrival of the Leave-train so often merely
as a benevolent spectator, that sudden and personal participation in
that function disarranged her perspectives.
She caught sight of Roy almost at once--singling out his glengarry from
among the flat caps and steel helmets. He was politely resisting the
importunity of an elderly gentleman in a grey uniform and a red
brassard, bent on luring him to a free ride upon the Underground
Railway. Next moment, Marjorie had slipped her arm through his. After
that, neither of them remembered anything much until they found
themselves sitting hand in hand in a taxi, gliding stealthily through
the darkened streets of London, both feeling a little constrained and
embarrassed. Re-united lovers, especially of our nation, do not always
spark immediately on contact. We are a highly-insulated race.
"They keep this old place pretty dark," said Roy, peering out of the cab
window. "Zeppelins, I suppose?"
"Yes. We had some last week."
"Have you ever seen one?"
"Rather!"
Roy laughed, constrainedly.
"It's funny you should have seen something in this war that I haven't,"
he said. "Where are we going?"
"To my flat."
Roy turned and surveyed Marjorie's profile in the dim light of the cab.
"I shall be able to see you properly then," he announced with
satisfaction. "It's as dark as the inside of a cow here. Have you
changed at all, I wonder?"
"You will find I am quite a big girl now," replied Marjorie, laughing
constrainedly.
Roy laughed too, and his face came closer to hers. Her hair brushed his
lips. Next moment their arms were about one another.
Five minutes later, they groped their way mechanically upstairs to
Marjorie's landing, while a slightly incredulous taxi-driver, with one
of the newly-invented pound notes in his oily palm, drove hurriedly away
before somebody came out of the chloroform.
"You are thinner, dear, and older--much older," was Marjorie's verdict
when they found themselves under the lamp by the sofa. "You look more
like thirty than twenty. I expect things have been pretty awful
sometimes, haven't they?"
Roy nodded. "Yes, sometimes," he said. "I'll tell you about it one
day." Then, suddenly and boyishly: "Dearest, you look wonderful!"
It was no more than the truth. Marjorie had felt tired enough a couple
of hours ago; but now her cheeks were pink, and her eyes glowed. Her
hair had suddenly recovered its lustre. For the first time in six
months she looked what she was--twenty. But she realised that the old
Roy could never come back to her. Her smooth-cheeked schoolboy was
gone, and in his place she had a man--thin as a lath, healthily bronzed,
and curiously grave. The Western Front lost no time in making a man in
those days--or breaking him.
They kissed again, with absolute lack of shyness this time. Suddenly a
thought struck Marjorie.
"Good gracious!" she cried. "What time is it?"
"Seven o'clock. Why?"
"My dear--the theatre! I'd forgotten all about it. I am an honest
working girl, and the curtain goes up at eight-thirty!"
"By gum!" said Roy, who of course knew all about "Too Many Girls."
"_Absent from parade when warned for duty_, eh? That will never do.
What about it? Can't you get a night off?"
"I might," said Marjorie doubtfully. "Most of the girls send a doctor's
certificate. But I don't think it's the game. They overdo it so."
"Quite right!" said that young disciplinarian, Lieutenant Birnie. "But
it's a bit rough, all the same."
A key rattled loudly and tactfully in the outer door, which then opened
with mature deliberation, and Liss appeared.
"I hadn't meant to butt in," she explained, after introductions, "but I
just want to say that I have seen Lancaster, and he says you can have
the night off. I told him about you," she explained to Roy, "and he
said you could have her this evening if you promised faithfully to send
her back for to-morrow's show."
"I will bring her back myself," replied Roy, "and buy the whole front
row to watch her from!"
"Righto! Good-bye, children! Enjoy yourselves!" said Liss, and
vanished, like a diplomatic little wraith.
After that, Roy and Marjorie sat down to make plans.
"First of all," began Roy, "I must hop off to the club and order a bed
and have a hot bath--a real hot bath! _Sah vah song dearie_, as we say
at the Quai D'Orsay. My last one was in a little house somewhere behind
Albert, in a sort of zinc coffin in front of the kitchen stove, with the
family sitting tactfully in the scullery. But I am digressing: let us
resume! After that, we will go and dine somewhere. By the way, I
suppose there is still plenty of food to be had in these days?"
"There is a shortage of potatoes at present, I am sorry to say," replied
Marjorie in her best canteen manner. "But--"
"We can worry along without potatoes," said Roy. "What I chiefly want
is to dine off a table covered with a white cloth instead of a
newspaper; and drink out of a glass instead of a tin cup. I think the
Carlton will meet the case. Oh, my dear, my dear! I can't believe it
all yet! Are you _really_ here?" ...
At this rate of progress it was nine o'clock before they sat down to the
feast, which was served to them by an obsequious neutral in a corner of
the big restaurant. It was a luxurious dinner for war time, though
bully beef and stewed tea would have served equally well. Reunited
lovers are not, as a rule, fastidious.
They talked steadily now, unfolding reminiscence after reminiscence.
Roy had most to tell; for Marjorie's adventures had been faithfully
recorded in her daily letters, while Roy, as previously noted, had
usually confined himself to breezy irrelevance.
"Uncle Alan is in command now," he said. "I suppose you heard that the
Colonel had been knocked out?"
"Colonel Bethune? Yes, I saw it in the paper." To her own annoyance,
Marjorie felt her colour rising. But Roy noticed nothing.
"Yes, he stopped a five-point-nine with his left arm on the second day
of the Somme show, and went home without it. We were in a pretty tight
place at the time, and it was a bit of a job getting him away. But I
hear he's all right again now, though short of a fin. Have you seen him
by any chance?"
"Not since April," said Marjorie. "He was in London then, on leave."
She was feeling thoroughly self-conscious, and despised herself for it.
"They gave him a bar to his D.S.O.," continued Roy. "He deserved it
too, for what he did."
"What did he do?" asked Marjorie jealously. She was a little critical of
a system which gave a decoration to a man for getting wounded and coming
home, and nothing to those who had to remain and carry on.
"We were right up in the air," explained Roy, "uncovered on both flanks.
We did not know where we were; Brigade Headquarters didn't know where we
were, so couldn't reinforce us; and the gunners didn't know where we
were, so couldn't fire for fear of hitting us. The only person who
really knew where we were was the Boche--a well-informed little fellow,
the Boche!--and he gave it to us good and hard. But the Colonel was
wonderful. We had no cover in particular, beyond a kneeling-trench
which we had scooped out for ourselves. There was no room for any
officer to pass up and down, so we all stayed where we found ourselves,
as ordered, and controlled our fire as well as possible. But the
Colonel came walking to us across the open from Battalion
Headquarters--an old mine-crater about a hundred yards in rear of
us--and strolled right along our whole front from end to end, with Boche
snipers taking pot-shots at him all the time; looking as if he had just
come out of his tailor's--he had _gloves_ on!--stopping here and there
to talk to the men, and telling them that no battalion of the
Covenanters had ever been known to go back, and that reinforcements were
coming up, and how pleased he was to see us so steady. (We weren't
feeling a bit steady, really.) The trenches were full of wounded men
whom we couldn't get away. He stopped and spoke to them all--by
name!--and gave them cigarettes. The result was that when the Boche
attacked, our fellows fought like tigers. It was after the attack got
round our undefended flanks that the hard time began. Finally, their
gunners got our range, and simply blew us out of the trench. Even then
the C.O. wouldn't give in. He stood on the parapet, giving fire orders
as cool as you please, and telling us how well we were doing. Finally
he was hit. They carried him away on a blanket, insensible, and Uncle
Alan took command. By this time we were surrounded on three
sides--enfiladed, and everything. Uncle Alan passed word along that we
were to fall back slowly to our proper place in the line."
"Your proper place?"
"Yes. I forgot to tell you about that. We had overrun our objective,
it seemed. Everybody else in the brigade was snugly dug in about half a
mile behind us, on a continuous line, except for a gap that we ought to
have been filling. We got there at last, but it was a pretty awful
walk. We got all our wounded away, though."
"Were there many?"
"A good lot. It was bad luck getting into that position at all.
However, we got a tremendous pat on the back from the Divisional
Commander afterwards. Apparently there had been some misunderstanding
about orders. Now let us talk about something else."
And that was as much as was ever told of the story of how Eric Bethune's
lofty contempt for the "book of the words" led a fine battalion into a
skilfully baited death-trap.
After that they talked, as lovers will, of the present. They even spoke
of the future--a subject upon which, in those days, few young people
cared to hazard conjecture in cold blood. But to-night their blood ran
hot and high. The world was theirs--for six days.
"To-morrow morning," continued Roy, with an air of immense authority, "I
shall take you out and buy you an engagement ring. It is perfectly
scandalous your going about with me in this way without one! (Still, I
suppose you will have to wear it round your neck on a string, anyway!)
After that, a little shopping! I suppose there will be no harm if I buy
you some things--long gloves, and high-heel shoes, and silk stockings,
and things like that? We'll throw in a nice sensible umbrella, as a
chaperon! Then in the evening we will dine early, so as to give you
plenty of time to get to your show."
Marjorie laid her slim fingers upon Roy's brown paw.
"Darling," she said firmly, "to-morrow morning I am going to take you to
a railway station, and you are going to take the train to Scotland, to
see your father!"
Roy's face fell ludicrously. Then the smile he had inherited from his
mother came suddenly back. He was all contrition.
"Good Heavens! You had me there, dear. I own up! For the last
twenty-four hours my noble parent has entirely escaped my memory. As
soon as they told me that I could go on leave I simply grabbed my
haversack, asked the Buzzers to send a wire, and then sprinted for the
railhead. Poor old dad! Of course you're right. I haven't had a line
from him for six weeks, by the way. I'll send a telegram to Baronrigg
at once, and start to-morrow." Then he added anxiously:
"How long must I stay?"
Marjorie considered.
"Your father doesn't know anything about _me_, of course?" she said.
"No; nobody knows. It's our secret--ours, and no one else's!" The
impulsive pair squeezed hands upon the secret, instantly revealing it to
the obsequious neutral aforementioned. "Still, perhaps it would be as
well if I told him, eh? Then he couldn't object to my coming back here
pretty quick."
"Supposing he doesn't approve?" said Marjorie doubtfully. "He doesn't
know me--nor my people, so far as I am aware. Or perhaps he does, which
might be worse!"
"My old dad's a white man," said Roy stoutly. "He'd understand. He
knows what it is for a fellow to have to go without. He once had to
endure seeing his girl--my mother--engaged to another man for several
months. He'll understand, all right!"
"I never knew that," said Marjorie. "Who was the other man?"
"Colonel Bethune. Of course he was only a subaltern then."
"_Who?_" Marjorie was fairly startled out of herself this time.
"Eric Bethune, our C.O. I thought that would surprise you! I never
knew myself until a few months ago. Uncle Alan told me. The Colonel
has always been rather heavily down on me--I never knew why--and one day
when I was more than usually fed up with things in general, having just
been informed by my commanding officer that I was not fit to hold the
King's Commission, old Uncle Alan told me all about it. He explained
that the Colonel didn't really think me a dud soldier; he was only
peeved at not being my father. Fancy disliking a fellow for that! It's
a queer world!"
Queer indeed! Marjorie, better informed than Roy, mused upon the
diabolical trick of fate which had caused a man to be baulked of the
only thing that really matters by two successive generations--first by
the father, then by the son. For the first time she felt a genuine pang
of pity for Eric Bethune. But it passed, in a flash. Eric was "heavily
down on" Roy--her Roy! All her generous soul revolted at the pettiness
of such a revenge.
"I often wondered," continued Roy, "why my mother broke it off. I don't
believe Uncle Alan knew. Why was it, do you think?"
"I don't know," said Marjorie. But she did.
Five minutes later they arrived at the theatre where the musical
comedy--or musical tragedy: you never know--of their choice was in
progress. The vestibule was deserted, but Roy held open the swing door
and ushered Marjorie into the darkened auditorium. A blast of hot air
and a concerted feminine screech greeted them.
"The curtain's up," said Roy. "Come along! Our seats are in the back
row, on the gangway. Rotten, but convenient!"
They slipped unostentatiously into their places. The company were massed
upon the stage; the orchestra was in full cry; the young persons of the
Chorus were in a state of unwonted animation. In the centre, a lady of
ravishing beauty was melting into the arms of a distinguished-looking
individual just over military age. Humourists supported either flank.
"This is going to be some show!" announced Roy, groping for Marjorie's
hand, and surveying the chorus with all the appreciation of a Robinson
Crusoe of six months' standing. "I shouldn't mind being Adjutant of
_that_ battalion! Not that any of them could walk down the same street
with you! Hallo, hallo! What's all this? The interval! We must have
come in late."
The curtain fell, and the audience, with one accord, rose to their feet
and made for the doors. The band offered a hurried tribute to the Crown.
Roy looked at his watch, and turned to Marjorie with a comical grimace.
"Eleven o'clock!" he announced. "We must have sat over dinner a bit
longer than we thought. The show's over! Does it matter?"
"Nothing in the world matters--this week!" said Marjorie, taking his
arm.
*CHAPTER XII*
*TOM BIRNIE*
*I*
Roy was duly despatched to Scotland the following morning.
"When does your leave end?" Marjorie asked, as they waited for the
crowded train to start.
"Let me see--this is Friday. I go back by the leave-train next
Wednesday afternoon--"
"Then travel back here on Sunday night," said Marjorie; "unless, of
course, you can persuade your father to come back with you at once."
Roy pondered.
"I don't know," he said, "that it wouldn't be better to stick the
week-end out at Baronrigg, and then come back alone, and have you all to
myself."
Your true lover is an uncompromising egotist. Marjorie at once
recognised the superiority of Roy's view.
"All right," she said. "There's the whistle! Get into the train, little
man. Send me a telegram when you arrive."
She watched the long train crawl out of sight, and went back to the flat
with a hungry heart. Six days! And she had to give him up for three of
them! Still, it was the game.
But she had not to wait so long. Roy burst into the flat about noon the
very next day--to the entire _bouleversement_ of Liss, who was a
dilatory dresser. Redirected by her (from behind the bathroom door) he
sought Marjorie at the canteen, dragged her almost forcibly out to
lunch, and communicated his news in a breath.
"Baronrigg is closed up tight! Has been for six weeks! Dad put all his
affairs into order at the beginning of last month, and disappeared!"
"Disappeared? What do you mean?"
"Well, he simply shut up the house, gave what servants were left by the
war a year's wages, walked to the station, and took the train for
London. He hasn't been heard of since."
"But where has he gone?"
"Nobody knows!"
"Was he ill, or anything?"
"No. By all accounts he was as hard as nails and as fit as a fiddle."
"But didn't he leave any message?" asked Marjorie, bewildered.
"Yes," replied Roy, unbuttoning his tunic pocket, "he did. This letter,
for me. I got it from old Gillespie at the Bank. I expect Dad knew I'd
pop in there!"
"But doesn't it explain?" asked Marjorie.
"I don't know," said Roy calmly. "I haven't opened it yet."
"You have had it for a day and a night, and haven't opened it?"
"No. I wanted to wait until you and I could read it together."
"But weren't you dying of curiosity?"
"I was, rather. Still, I said to myself--"
Marjorie slipped her arm impulsively into his.
"Roy, dearest," she said, "_I_ could never have done that!"
It was the first and last time Marjorie ever admitted to Roy that her
sex was in any way inferior to his. They returned to the flat and read
the letter together. That is to say, Roy read it aloud to Marjorie:
_My dear Son,_
_You will remember that when the war broke out I was among those who
thought it might have been avoided. I was also numbered among those who
thought it would be a short war. I was wrong in both views._
_My errors did not end there. I was not in favour of the raising of a
great army. My opinion was that we should limit our efforts to the
efficient policing of the seas, the supplying of munitions and equipment
to France and Russia, and the enforcement of a great commercial blockade
against the enemy. Neither honour nor interest, I said, demanded more
of us. When our young men left all and followed the Colours without, as
it seemed to me, pausing to reason why, I was inclined to regard them as
hysterical Jingoes._
"I remember him saying that," observed Roy. "We had quite a battle
before he would let me apply for a commission."
_The war has now been in progress for two years. My first purpose in
writing to you is to acknowledge to you that in your conception of
national duty you, my son, were right and, I, your father, was wrong._
"It was decent of him to put in that," said Roy, looking up again.
_I realise now that not only was the war inevitable, but that unless we
make a superhuman effort as a nation we shall not win it. That
realisation, unfortunately, is not universal in this district. Most of
our people have done magnificently, and I shall always be proud to think
that my only son was among the first and the youngest to volunteer._
"This," commented Roy, "is darned embarrassing to read aloud."
"Go on!" commanded Marjorie: "I love it!"
_Indeed, the effort has been too great. Too high a tax has been levied
on spontaneous loyalty. The general enthusiasm of the country has not
been maintained. Consequently the best of our stock, both gentle and
simple, is bearing the burden alone, at a cost which is ruining the
future of the country._
_That brings me to the second thing I have to say to you. In this very
neighbourhood there are many blind optimists, many drifters, many
irritating phrase-mongers, and a certain number of so-called
Conscientious Objectors to warfare._
"He must have met Amos!" said Marjorie.
_These latter are not dangerous: their very cowardice makes it easy to
deal with them. Far more pernicious are the optimists, the drifters,
and the phrase-mongers. Yesterday, at a meeting of the Territorial
Association, I met a typical specimen--Mr. Sanders, of Braefoot. You may
know him._
"I do," said Roy, grinning. "A celebrated captain of industry, now a
county magnate--Nineteen-Thirteen vintage!"
_This man said to me: "Sir Thomas, what I like about the situation is
the way we are all doing our bit. I, for instance, have been working
overtime on Government contracts for two years. I have bought nearly
one hundred thousand pounds worth of War Bonds, and I have given seven
nephews to the Army. Pretty good, eh?" By what authority, or with
whose knowledge, he had presented other men's sons to the Army he did
not explain._
_Roy, I am ashamed of such people. But who am I to be ashamed of anyone
but myself for not realising sooner--as soon as you--that in this sacred
cause of ours there is only one thing that counts, and that is personal
service? I am sound in wind and limb, and I have no helpless
dependents. To-morrow I am going to London to join the Army. As an
earnest of the fact that I do so in the spirit of humility and
contrition, and not from any desire to pose or advertise, I shall
communicate my intention to no one but yourself. I shall enlist as a
private soldier, but in a unit where I am not likely to meet any one I
know; and I pray God that he will enable me to serve my country as
effectively as my own dear son._
Roy's voice shook a little. He had just made his father's acquaintance.
_Should I not come back, you will find my affairs in perfect order, and
Baronrigg waiting for you. Your trustees are Lord Eskerley and Alan
Laing. Should neither of us come back--_
"Don't read any more, dear," said Marjorie.
"All right!" replied Roy. "That's practically all now." He folded the
letter and put it away in his tunic.
"I wish," he added thoughtfully--"I wish fathers and sons could get to
know one another a bit better while they have the chance!" Then, "I
wonder what regiment he enlisted in! I wonder if we shall ever meet out
there! I'm sorry he didn't see you before he went. You'd have liked
him, I think."
"I like him now," said Marjorie, with shining eyes. "I think he's
splendid! And"--she broke into a happy laugh--"I like him particularly
at this moment, because he has given you to me for four days more
instead of two!"
"Let's go shopping!" said Roy, rising importantly.
*II*
After a gloriously deliberate start, the six days, as usual, gathered
momentum. The last forty-eight hours whizzed by like an
eighteen-pounder shell.
On Wednesday morning Roy, once more equipped in mud-stained khaki and
bristling with portable property, appeared at the flat for breakfast at
nine o'clock. Marjorie was ready for him. Liss joined the party a
little later. For all her feather-head, she was no mean tactician.
Having conscientiously effaced herself throughout the week, instinct now
told her that her presence at the parting breakfast would be a good
thing. So she uprooted herself from her beloved bed, and entered upon
the task of distracting the lovers from the contemplation of the
immediate future.
"I thought it was just time," she announced to Roy, "to bring myself to
your notice a little. I am here, you know! I have been here most of the
week, only I don't think you observed me very much."
"Oh, yes, I did," replied Roy gallantly. "Who could help it?"
"Well, you could--and did! I don't much like being in the same room
with people who don't know I'm there. It's not safe. You walked
straight through me the other afternoon, when you called to collect
Marjorie. And the day before that, when I opened the door to you, you
wiped your feet on me! I've had a wonderful week!"
With such blunt shafts of wit as these Miss Lyle ultimately provoked the
lovers to a smile.
"That's better!" she said. "Now, next time you come home on leave, give
us longer notice, and I will warn Leonard, or somebody, for duty. Then I
shan't feel such an outsider."
Roy promised to do so.
"You will take care of Marjorie, won't you?" he added.
Miss Lyle favoured him with a gaze of withering wonder.
"You have been trying to take care of her yourself most of this week,
haven't you?" she demanded.
"I have been doing my best," admitted Roy, cautiously.
"Very well, then! What happened? How did it end?"
"It ended, I think," confessed Roy, "in her taking care of me!"
Liss nodded her bobbed head triumphantly. "That's it," she said.
"That's what always happens to people who try to take care of Marjie.
She grabs them by the neck, puts them in her pocket, and keeps them
there! That's what she'll do to me again, when you're gone. It's no
good my pretending I ever do anything for her."
"Nonsense!" said Marjorie.
"But I'll tell you what," continued Liss: "I'll see she doesn't take
care of anybody else while you're away--if I can. That's her trouble:
she'd take care of the whole army, and navy, and munition people, and
Red Cross, and everything, if she was let! But I'll watch her, and save
the leavings for you!" She glanced at the clock, and rose. "Now,
children, your Auntie Liss is going to leave you! Tactful--that's me!
When is your train, General?"
"Two o'clock," said Roy. "I fancy we sail from Folkestone about six."
"Then," inquired Liss, playing a carefully hoarded ace of trumps, "why
not go down to Folkestone _now_, both of you, by the morning train?
That way you would have her until nearly six, instead of two. It's all
right; don't thank me!" she concluded pathetically, as Marjorie, without
a word, dived into the bedroom for her hat, and Roy began to struggle
madly into his equipment.
*III*
They spent the bleak November afternoon on the Leas at Folkestone. At
their feet lay the Straits of Dover, across whose waters British
soldiers had come and gone for twenty-six months, and continued to come
and go for twenty-five more, without the loss of a single soldier's
life. But they could not see their feet that afternoon: their heads were
in the clouds--private clouds, to which we will not presume to follow
them.
As the autumn darkness fell, they took an early dinner in an almost
empty hotel hard by the harbour, talking cheerfully of things that did
not matter. Roy ordered champagne, and they drank a silent toast with a
fleeting glance over the rims of their glasses.
"When does my train start?" asked Marjorie at length. "Don't forget
that I have to be back for the evening performance."
Roy would inquire.
"Half-past five, from the Town station," he announced on returning.
"That's some way from here. I have ordered a car, and if we start now I
can go with you and see you off. That will give me just time to hop
into the official leave-train coming down from London. It stops at
Folkestone Town to turn round, and then backs right down to the boat."
Once more the parting was staved off. However, one cannot go on
pilfering minutes eternally. This time it really was good-bye. It was
half-past five; and they stood on the Town station platform.
"This is your train," said Roy, "standing here. Mine is due at the other
platform now. There goes the signal! I must skip across the bridge.
So--"
He drew Marjorie behind a friendly pile of luggage.
"It has been wonderful, Roy dear--wonderful!" For a moment she laid her
head on Roy's breast. "But we did one stupid thing."
"What was that?"
"We ought to have got married!"
"I never thought of it," said Roy simply. "We were so happy, there
didn't seem to be anything else."
"But we'll remember next time!" said Marjorie.
"I will give the matter my personal attention!" Roy assured her.
"So-long, and take care of yourself!"
*CHAPTER XIII*
*ALBERT CLEGG*
In the early summer of Nineteen-Seventeen Uncle Fred paid a prolonged
visit to Netherby--ostensibly to renew family ties, in reality for
reasons not altogether unconnected with air-raids on London.
For the moment the fortunes of the war were back in the melting pot.
The Battle of the Somme had bundled Brother Boche right back to the
Siegfried Line, and enemy morale on the Western Front was low. The
British army, fortified by twelve months of conscription, was blundering
forward in characteristic fashion upon many fronts. The navy had
swelled to a size undreamed of by any, and known only to few. Over the
British coast alone nearly three thousand vessels of all sorts and
conditions were keeping watch. The "Q" boat, too, with its crazy crew
of immortals, was abroad upon the face of the waters, and the hunter had
become the hunted.
But there was much to be set down upon the contra side. The spring
offensive of the French army, after a brilliant beginning, had faltered,
then halted. There had been recriminations, inquiries, resignations;
and Petain, the saviour of Verdun, had succeeded the gallant Nivelle. To
keep the enemy from benefiting by the sudden relaxation of pressure on
the Chemin des Dames the British army had flung itself into the
premature Battle of Arras, and once more the casualty lists had shot up.
At home, the talk was mainly of Gothas--the Zeppelin was entirely
_demode_--and ration cards. The war was costing us six million pounds a
day. Income tax at six shillings in the pound was teaching the man of
moderate means the meaning of war; super-tax and excess profits tax were
subjecting the capitalistic waistcoat to a not unsalutary reduction.
Labour--or rather what was left, now that all that was best and soundest
in Labour was away fighting--was going on strike periodically and with
invariable success for more adequate recognition of its efforts to
furnish the sinews of war to its wasteful and unproductive brothers in
the trenches.
In Russia the Empire, battered from without and all corroded within, had
collapsed upon itself; and an earnest but unpractical gentleman named
Kerensky was rapidly undermining what was left of Russian staying-power,
and, with the enthusiastic assistance of the German General Staff,
paving the way for those great twin brethren, Lenin and Trotsky. One
jaw of the vice which had been crushing the Hun to death was relaxed for
good.
Still, there was no weakening on the Western Front. The Messines Ridge
had recently "gone up," with a bang which had warmed the heart of every
schoolboy in that schoolboy army, the British Expeditionary Force. The
Salient of Ypres, that graveyard of British soldiers and German hopes,
stood more inviolate than ever. Bagdad had been captured: Palestine was
being freed. And in France, down in the Vosges, within the great
quadrilateral formed by Chaumont, Toul, Vittel, and Ligny-en-Barrois,
huge cantonments were being run up, and roads and railways laid down, by
long-legged, slim-hipped, slow-speaking, workmanlike young men from a
vast continent overseas--the forerunners of an army of indefinite
millions which had pledged itself to come and redress the final balance
at no very distant date.
But all this did not prevent London from being an extremely
uncomfortable, not to say unsafe, place of residence for a high official
of the noble army of Bomb-Dodgers. Finally, after a Gotha raid over
London in broad daylight one bright morning in July, in which
fifty-seven people were killed, Uncle Fred decided that it was no longer
either just or prudent to risk a valuable life further, and went to
Netherby, where he succeeded without any difficulty whatever in
outstaying his welcome by a considerable margin.
Netherby itself was not over-cheerful, even though the master of the
house was absent a good deal. Albert Clegg spent most of his time in
those days on Tyneside, making himself liable to excess profits tax.
Amos, his eldest son, who from early boyhood had cultivated the valuable
habit of keeping one ear to the ground, was by this time in Glasgow,
safely embedded in a convenient stronghold labelled "Civilian War Work
of National Importance." Brother Joe was far away, as happy as a
sandboy--and living like one--assisting General Allenby to construct a
military railway from Beersheba to Dan. The younger members of the
family were occupied in making unserviceable articles for the Red Cross,
and complaining of the shortage of sugar. Mrs. Clegg faithfully attended
committee meetings and gatherings where bandages were rolled and inside
information imparted. Craigfoot lay remote from the tumult of war,
though Edinburgh to the north, and Tynemouth to the south, had each been
soundly bombed. Still, there was no lack of military atmosphere.
Colonel Bethune himself--minus an arm, and with a bar to his D.S.O.--was
back in command of the depot, an object of respectful worship to the
entire community; and was always ready and willing to enlarge upon the
situation, whether to an attentive mess or to a casually encountered
ploughman. His august mother, Lady Christina, specialised upon the
crimes of the Government, and had it on reliable authority that the
counsels of the Cabinet were now entirely directed from Potsdam. Men on
leave came and went, with tales of glory and gloom. Many of the girls
were in London or in France; and there were countless letters to quote.
Mrs. Clegg sat and listened to the babble of rumour and conjecture,
shyly contributing here and there an excerpt from Palestine. Joe had
never been home since his clandestine enlistment, but as the event had
proved that conscription would have claimed him in any case, his father
had decided to forgive him.
Marjorie's name was never mentioned at Netherby, by decree of the master
of the house. With Mrs. Clegg--gentle, submissive, colourless--to yield
in act was to yield in opinion. She possessed the faculty (recently
enjoined, with indifferent success, upon an entire nation) of being
"neutral even in thought." She accepted Marjorie's excommunication as
she would have accepted her death, or any other form of irrevocability.
It was the last day of Uncle Fred's hegira. On the morrow he was to
return, to face the dangers of Dulwich. Evening prayers had been
concluded, and Albert Clegg was setting the markers in the Bible for
to-morrow morning's exercises. Suddenly he looked up, and spoke:
"Fred!"
"Yes, Albert?"
"When you return to London I shall be obliged to you if you will make
inquiries about my daughter."
Uncle Fred sat up--his back perfectly straight for the first time for
many years. Mrs. Clegg's knitting dropped from her fingers. No one else
was present. Only children remained at Netherby, and they had gone to
bed.
"I have been thinking matters over," announced Albert, in measured
tones. "I try to be a just man in all my dealings. It is one year
to-day since the news came to me that my daughter had taken to--her
present ways. By this time her punishment has possibly begun. It is
not my intention to intervene between her and her Maker; but I have
decided that there can be no harm in taking steps to ascertain what has
become of her."
Mrs. Clegg caught her breath. Uncle Fred, utterly dazed, wagged his
beard weakly.
"That's very handsome of you, Albert," he said respectfully.
"Handsomeness has nothing to do with it!" snapped Albert, among whose
rare and austere amusements none was more prized than that of keeping
his younger brother in his place. "I am simply doing what I consider to
be right and just. Now, when you return to London I want you to
institute inquiries as to where my daughter is to be found. If you are
successful, I wish you to visit her. I should not like to think that
she was actually destitute. Of course, she can never return here, but I
can see that she is provided for."
There was silence. Then Uncle Fred inquired, after the fashion of all
feeble folk:
"How should I set about finding her? London is a big place. I suppose
the police--"
"I will not have the police brought into the matter until absolutely
necessary," thundered Albert. "You must search the theatres!"
It was a magnificent suggestion, but too daring for Albert's
audience--certainly for Uncle Fred.
"I have never been inside a theatre in my life," he objected.
"Neither have I. But you need not go inside. Enquire at the door
whether my daughter is employed there. Demand to see the manager!"
"Do you think he will tell me?"
"Threaten him with the law if he won't. These fellows are usually under
police observation, in any case. They won't dare to fight."
"Perhaps a word with the stage-door keeper--" suggested Mrs. Clegg
timidly.
"There's no need for Fred to get mixed up with the dissolute crowd that
hangs round stage-doors," was the stern reply. "He'll go in by the
front!"
Uncle Fred, flattered on the whole at being still regarded as a
potential profligate, hastened to associate himself with this sentiment.
But at heart he felt a little ashamed. There were elements of the
dare-devil about Uncle Fred. Still, he reflected, he could take his own
line of action when he got back to London. He propounded another
conundrum.
"Supposing she isn't in one of the theatres--what then? Would it be any
good trying the churches? She may be attending some place of worship
regularly."
"If she is, it is bound to be Church of England; and I don't intend to
be beholden to that body for _any_ help!" replied Albert firmly. "You
might try the Salvation Army. Their rescue work brings them in contact
with every walk of life--the West End restaurants and clubs, and haunts
of that kind."
The implied spectacle of Uncle Fred, assisted by a contingent of
Hallelujah Lasses, raiding the Athenaeum or The Popular Cafe, for a lost
niece was not without its humour; but the paths of humour and
righteousness converge too seldom, to their mutual detriment.
"When you find her," concluded Albert, "ascertain quietly what her
circumstances are, and report to me. I will then decide what it is best
for me to do."
Uncle Fred, duly uplifted, wagged his head with increased solemnity.
"I must say, Albert," he announced, "even though it angers you, that you
are acting in a very generous manner."
"Yes, father," added Mrs. Clegg wistfully.
In a watery way, her heart yearned over her daughter.
"Nothing of the kind!" said Clegg. "I am merely acting as my conscience
directs me. These are demoralising times for the best of us"--perhaps
Albert's excess profits were pricking him--"and we must make certain
allowances. Of course, having acted the way she has, after her
Christian upbringing, she can never expect forgiveness. But--well, I
shall wait until I hear from you, Fred."
*CHAPTER XIV*
*TWO SPARROWS*
*I*
Marjorie was one of those who were "able to proceed to their own homes
after receiving surgical aid." Others were not so fortunate. The
Mouldy Old Copper--badly wounded by splinters of glass, and excoriating
the entire Teutonic race with a failing tongue but unabated spirit--was
borne off to St. Thomas's Hospital, followed by others. The canteen had
been moderately full at the time, and more than one soldier home on
leave had had his leave indefinitely prolonged by the visitation.
Providentially, no one was killed; the bomb had fallen just too far down
the street.
The raid took place on a Sunday evening, during Marjorie's one period of
night duty in the week. (In this way, she gave herself one clear
weekday for fresh air and exercise.) They kept her at the hospital
until she had breakfasted, then dispatched her homeward, with
instructions to return daily as an out-patient until further notice.
She walked across Westminster Bridge in the morning sunshine, feeling
badly shaken, but not a little proud. Few of us ever outgrow a childish
thrill at finding our arm in a sling. Not only was Marjorie's arm in a
sling, but her right shoulder was bandaged. ("Just missed your carotid
artery, my dear," had been the comment of the elderly house surgeon.)
She felt gloriously conspicuous. A 'bus-load of convalescent soldiers
in hospital blue recognised her as one of the elect, and inquired
affectionately whether she had been out in a trench raid. She waved her
sound arm in cordial acknowledgment of the pleasantry. Roy would be
interested to hear about this. On second thoughts, no. Roy never told
her when he had had an escape; she must maintain Roy's standard of
reticence.
She walked jauntily into the flat, and sat down, a little suddenly, upon
the feet of Miss Elizabeth Lyle, who, as already noted, was usually
insensible until about eleven a.m. Liss rolled over with a resigned
sigh, poked her _nez retrousse_ out from under the sheet, and remarked
meekly:
"All right! Give me just five minutes more, and I promise--My goodness
gracious, Marjie, what _have_ you been doing to yourself?"
Marjorie described the raid. She told the tale as lightly as she could,
with humorous touches here and there; for she had seen human blood flow
freely, and was feverishly conscious of a desire to get the picture out
of her mind. Gradually the narrative became more frivolous, the touches
more and more humorous. Finally, the narratress grew so amused with the
recollection of her own experiences that she threw her head back and
laughed loud and long.
Liss slipped hurriedly out of bed, put both arms round her uproarious
friend, and laid her by main force in the place which she had just
vacated.
"You stay there, dearie," she said. "They ought never to have let you
out."
"The hospital was so full!" Marjorie was shivering all over now, and
battling with an inclination to tears. "They said that they were very
sorry--_very_ sorry--very sorry indeed--but--"
"That's all right!" said little Liss soothingly, covering her up, and
patting her undamaged arm. "I'll make you a good, strong cup of tea,
and then you will have a nice sleep, and you'll wake up as right as
ninepence! I'll slip round to the theatre and tell them they needn't
expect to see you again for a week or two. The show is going to close
soon, anyhow."
"I don't care if it does!" murmured Marjorie, her head on Liss's pillow.
She did not even trouble to cross the room to her own bed. "I have
learnt one thing in the last year, and that is that I am not cut out for
the stage. It bores me. I was meant to stay at home, and look after
little people like you--and Roy! _That's_ what I--"
She settled down like a tired child, and fell sound asleep. Liss
snatched some apparel from a chair, padded out of the room in her bare
feet, and closed a door gently for about the first time in her life.
*II*
Marjorie woke up in the afternoon--herself again, but stiff and bruised.
She rose, and entered the sitting-room. Liss was lying on the sofa,
reading the _Daily Mirror_ and smoking a cigarette. She sprang up on
seeing Marjorie, and flew to her, stopping just in time.
"Sorry, duckie!" she said. "I must remember that arm of yours. Are you
feeling all right again?"
"Splendid!" said Marjorie. "What time is it?"
"About four."
"Let us have some tea then, and I'll go round to the hospital and get my
arm dressed again. Hallo, it's raining!"
"Yes; it has been pouring ever since eleven o'clock this morning," said
Liss; and coughed.
Marjorie turned upon her sharply. Liss was one of those persons to whom
coughing is a forbidden luxury.
"Liss," she cried, "you're soaking! Every rag you have on is sticking
to you! What's the matter?" She began to fumble at the back of the
child's blouse. "Here, undress yourself! I have only one hand."
"I got a bit wet when I went out to the theatre," said Liss airily.
"But why on earth didn't you--" Marjorie glanced towards the bedroom
door, and stopped abruptly. She understood. "I see," she said, "you
didn't want--? Was that it? How long have you been like this?"
"Oh, not long," Liss assured her; and coughed again.
*III*
Marjorie, returning from her alternative role of out-patient to resume
that of head nurse, walked into the flat, and sat down heavily on Liss.
"How are you feeling this morning, Baby?" she inquired.
"Top-hole!" replied the invalid.
Three weeks had passed. Liss was now convalescent; but congestion of
the lungs is not a malady to be taken lightly, especially by little
wraiths with weak chests. Marjorie herself had nearly shaken off the
shock-effect of the raid. Her arm was still lightly bandaged.
"It's a lovely day," she said. "I will take you for a bus ride this
afternoon, if you're good. Meanwhile, I want to have a pow-wow with
you." Marjorie had picked up this expression from Roy, and was rather
proud of it.
"What about?"
"Well--have you any money?"
"I thought there'd be a catch about it," said Liss, reaching out to the
little table beside her bed for the bag in which the young woman of
to-day is reputed to keep everything but the kitchen stove. "Let me
see!" she said. She laid out on the counterpane a cigarette-case
bearing a regimental crest, a match-case bearing another, entirely
different, a long cigarette-holder, a powder-puff box, a lip-stick, and
a diminutive handkerchief. "Now we're getting down to business!" she
announced encouragingly. "Here's a shilling--a threepenny bit--and four
pennies. Wait a minute! Here's a crumpled up thing here that might be
a Bradbury. No, it's a note from Reggie. I suppose I oughtn't to keep
that now!"
Liss tore up the _billet-doux_ with a sentimental sigh. It may be noted
in passing that her engagement to Master Leonard had terminated some
months previously by mutual and violent consent. A subsequent contract
of eternal fidelity to a young gentleman in the Royal Flying Corps--one
Reginald Bensham--had recently been dissolved, by unanimous vote. At
present Miss Lyle's affections were disengaged.
"One and sevenpence!" she announced. "You can search me for more!"
"That's rather a blow," said Marjorie.
"Are we running short?" asked Liss. "Of course we must be, both having
been out of a job for three weeks. But I thought--"
"So did I," replied Marjorie. "I thought we had a nest-egg in the bank
at my home in Scotland. I haven't touched it for a year, because I
wanted it to accumulate for a rainy day. On Monday I came to the
conclusion that our present days were rainy enough--there's the doctor's
bill, for one thing--so I wrote to Mr. Gillespie, the manager, and asked
what my balance was. I got his answer this morning."
"I hate to ask--but what is the balance?"
Marjorie smiled dismally.
"That's just it! There isn't any balance at all! Just a few odd
shillings. My father seems to have cut off my allowance about a year
ago. I wonder why? At least, if he was going to do it at all I wonder
why he didn't do it in the very beginning. However, we won't worry
about that. The situation is, that you have one and sevenpence, and I
have about two pounds ten."
"Two pounds ten, and one and sevenpence--that's about two pounds
fifteen," announced Liss, after a brief calculation. "We can live for
weeks on that. Before it's gone we shall be back in a job again."
"I shan't let you take a job again for a long time, my dear," said
Marjorie. "They won't have much use for me, either; I can't lift my arm
above my shoulder at present. How could I hold up the Torch of Liberty
in the last act?"
"We'll rub along," announced the small optimist in the bed. "If the
worst came to the worst, I could always get engaged again. There's a
perfectly sweet boy in the Tanks--"
But Marjorie's hand was over Liss's mouth. "Baby, remember you don't get
engaged again without my permission!"
"All right!" mumbled Liss. "Have it your own way! But what about your
Roy? Can't you raise a small subscription out of him? That would be
quite O.K., wouldn't it? You're going to marry--" Suddenly Liss sat up
in bed, for she had caught sight of Marjorie's face. "Why, what's the
matter, dear?" she asked.
"I haven't heard a word from him for five weeks," said Marjorie in a low
voice. "I'm most awfully unhappy, Liss."
Liss forgot all about herself at once, and put both arms round her
protector.
"Think what a lot of letters must be lying waiting for you somewhere,"
she said. "You'll get a whole bunch one morning. Now I'm going to get
up, and we'll go on that bus ride."
They lunched frugally at an A.B.C. shop, and having boarded a Number
Nine bus sped westward along Piccadilly. A communicative man with a
broken nose, wearing the silver badge of a discharged soldier, leaned
over their shoulders from the seat behind them.
"Sir Dougliss 'as done it again, ladies!" he announced importantly,
thrusting an evening paper before them. "Look! _Fifteen-mile
front--twelve villages--five thousand prisoners_! That's the stuff to
give 'em!"
The girls read the report eagerly. It described the opening British
attack of the Third Battle of Ypres. (In the first two, the attack had
come from the other side.) Woods and villages, long familiar in daily
bulletins as German strongholds, were at last in British
hands--Hollebeke, Sanctuary Wood, Saint Julien, Hooge--and the advance
was still continuing. Marjorie's heart quickened--then faltered. Great
victories mean big casualties--and she did not even know where Roy was.
When last heard of she had gathered that he was in a rest-area somewhere
behind Amiens. But that had been five weeks ago.
"Do you know that district?" Liss was asking.
"Know it? I should think I did, miss--like the back of me 'and! I
copped a sweet one there in 'fifteen--near Cambray."
"But Cambrai is not in the Salient," observed Marjorie.
The communicative man conceded the point immediately.
"Neither it is, miss--not in that _Salient_. My error! They rushed us
up and down that Western Front so fast, no wonder a feller gets mixed! I
was hit in both places, though. Well, 'ere we are in good old
'Ammersmiff. This is where I 'ops off. Good-day, ladies! Keep the
paper, and welcome."
"It's big news, isn't it?" said Liss, continuing to skim through the
heavily leaded paragraph.
"I wonder why that man thought Cambrai was in the Salient," remarked
Marjorie.
"Swank, I expect," said Liss. "Probably he hasn't been out at all--_or_
wounded!"
"But he was wearing a silver badge," objected Marjorie, to whom all
military geese were swans.
"Perhaps he pinched it," suggested Miss Lyle, who harboured few
illusions concerning the male sex.
Her theory received entire corroboration a moment later. On folding up
the newspaper before descending they discovered that Marjorie's
vanity-bag, which was lying on the seat between them, had been neatly
slit open and its entire contents extracted.
The pair turned and regarded one another silently. Liss was the first
to speak.
"That brings us down to one and sevenpence," she remarked. "No wonder
he didn't know where Cambrai was!"
*IV*
"Luncheon is served," announced Liss.
"What is there?" asked Marjorie.
"The same as breakfast, with Willie and John thrown in. Also the rest
of the day before yesterday's loaf. Pull up your chair, dear."
As breakfast had consisted of nothing at all, the prodigality of this
menu can be readily gauged. Willie and John, by the way, were the last
two sardines in the tin.
"You take Willie," said Liss. "Here's your half of the bread. Oh my,
but I'm hungry! Good-bye, John dear! Marjorie, what are we going to do
next?"
Marjorie bent her brows judicially.
"Let me see," she said. "I've tried the theatre, and they don't begin
rehearsing the new piece for a fortnight. It was no use trying the
canteen, because it isn't there any more--at least, nothing worth
considering. And as it happens, I don't know anyone else in any other
canteen."
"We haven't got an account at any shop," continued Liss, "because we've
always been to the cheap cash places. I don't know a living soul in
London, except my family; and if I go back to Finchley I know I'll jolly
well have to stay there for the duration."
"And I," supplemented Marjorie, "know no one except Uncle Fred, in
Dulwich. And I'd rather die than ask _him_ for help!"
"No one at all?" exclaimed Liss. "Do you and I mean to sit here and
tell each other that we know no one in London, except the people at the
theatre, and the people at your canteen, and one or two dud relations?
Why not call on your old Lord Eskerley?"
Marjorie hesitated.
"I don't think I can," she said. "I have no particular claim--"
"No claim? Didn't you drive his silly old car in all weathers for
nearly a year? Didn't he tell you to come back and see him whenever you
had time? It's no use being modest when you're starving. If you don't
go and see him, I shall."
"Then I may as well tell you, dear," announced Marjorie, "that I have
been already."
"Why didn't you say so before?"
"I didn't want to disappoint you."
"Why? Were you chucked out?"
"No. He's away in Paris, on an indefinite mission. The butler was very
nice about it, but he had no information as to when his lordship would
be back. I hadn't been entirely forgotten, though. There was a message
for me. It had been lying there for weeks."
"What did it say?"
"It was just a scribbled note in an envelope with my motor licence,
which I had left behind in the garage." Marjorie crossed the room to
her little bureau. "Here it is! It says:
_My dear late lamented Habakkuk,--I enclose your licence, which you have
inadvertently left on my premises. No doubt you will need it again some
day._
_With kind regards,_
_Yours sincerely--_
There's a postscript," she added:
_Apropos of motor licences, let me offer you a piece of advice. Always
keep an adequate sum--say a pound or so--folded up and tucked away
between the covers of the licence itself. This expedient, when you get
held up in a police-trap, and the minion of the law examines your
credentials, may obviate a public appearance before the local Beaks.
Verb, sap.! Very useful. Don't say I told you._
Marjorie laid down this characteristic effusion, and laughed.
"I don't think we are likely to tie up any capital in that way at
present!" she said, finishing the last crumb of her bread. "We are down
to fourpence now. We had better keep that for to-morrow, and go without
supper to-night. No, we'll spend threepence on biscuits, and have a
biscuit apiece at bed-time!"
"By golly, we do go it, don't we!" Liss looked round the room hungrily.
"Isn't there _anything_ left that we can pop?"
"Nothing, I'm afraid. My jewellery is all at Netherby. I have my
engagement-ring, of course--"
"That stays!" announced Liss firmly. "It was lucky," she went on with
more cheerfulness, "that my little Leonard did not want his back! Not
that we got much for it; I always _said_ he bought it at a stationer's!
Now, if it had only been the one Reggie gave me, that would have been a
different story; his was a beauty. But the little beast practically
grabbed it back from me. Marjie, I _really_ think I'd better get
engaged again. I could wire Toby, at--"
"You will do no such thing!" said Marjorie. "Besides, you can't send a
wire for fourpence."
"I suppose," continued Liss (whose motto in life was "Anything Once!")
"it wouldn't do to go and sit about in a restaurant somewhere, and get
taken out to dinner by an Australian, or somebody? All right, I was
only joking! Well, we must just hang on till Saturday; then there will
be lots of our nice boy friends in town for the week-end, and we can
make up for lost time. Meanwhile, let's go round and see if we can't get
a job directing envelopes, or something. Carry on, partner!"
*V*
Towards evening our two hungry sparrows forgathered again, footsore and
faint, but still smiling. Liss, who ought by rights to have been in bed
consuming chicken-broth, was as white as wax.
"What luck?" she enquired.
"Nothing doing!" sighed Marjorie. "They will take me on at an office in
Holborn as soon as my arm is well enough to write, but they wouldn't
give me an advance of pay. They just told me to report at nine o'clock
on Monday."
"And to-day's Thursday! Thank them for nothing!"
"Did you get anything?" asked Marjorie.
"No--except that I went round to the theatre again, and they are putting
on the new show a little sooner. There's a call for rehearsal on
Saturday. That doesn't mean any salary for a long while, but I ought to
be able to borrow a shilling or two from the girls. Not that it will be
easy: they all need the money themselves these days, poor things! I'm
cold. Let's have our biscuit and go to bed."
"I wonder what time it is?" said Marjorie, getting up from her chair.
"About eight, I should say." (Watches had been hypothecated long
since.) "It's a bit early."
"_Qui dort, dine,_" quoted Marjorie.
"What does that mean?"
"It's what Lord Eskerley used to say when he'd been to the House of
Lords. Let's go to bed; I'm comfortably tired. London's a big place to
get about in--when one hasn't a bus fare!"
They shared Marjorie's bed that night, for misery loves company.
"I say," suggested Liss suddenly, "couldn't we go round and get a meal
from the Red Cross, or somebody?"
Marjorie, who was just dropping off to sleep, replied with great
firmness:
"The Red Cross can only assist people who have been wounded in action.
If they go beyond that, the Geneva Convention allows them to be fired
on; and then Roy might--No, we _can't_ ask the Red Cross--unless we get
hit in another air-raid!" she added hopefully.
Having no more suggestions to offer, Liss dropped off to sleep in her
favourite attitude--with her head under the pillow. Marjorie lay awake
for a long time, pondering many things in her heart--speculating mainly
as to whether she could last out until Baby's flock of plutocratic
second lieutenants came to town on Saturday. She decided immediately
that she could, adding a mental rider condemning persons who, like
herself, worried about their own personal comforts when there was a war
on. She also wondered, again and again, what had become of Roy. She
wondered whether he were hungry too. Presumably not. He had assured her
that the British Army on the Western Front were grossly overfed--in
fact, the inevitability with which the Army Service Corps got the
rations up and through bordered on the uncanny. No, she need not worry
about Roy's diet. His safety was another matter. Five weeks! She
dropped into a troubled sleep.
*CHAPTER XV*
*THE EXPLORER*
Meanwhile, in a crowded street just off the Strand, in the fading light
of a July evening, an elderly gentleman with a goat's beard, spectacles
on nose, was diligently examining the framed photographs exhibited
outside a very popular theatre. His attention was particularly directed
to a large chorus group--an ensemble of attractive young women in
costumes attuned to the economical spirit of wartime.
Aware of a sudden interference with the not too abundant supply of
light, the elderly investigator turned round, a little guiltily, to find
that he was being assisted in his investigations by three hard-breathing
members of His Majesty's Forces--an English Sapper, a Highlander, and a
Canadian of enormous bulk.
"And very nice, too!" observed the Sapper. "But Grandpa, not at your
time of life, you didn't ought to--reelly! 'Op it--there's a good boy!"
"Awa' hame!" added the Scot severely--"or I'll tell on ye tae Grandmaw!"
Bitterly ashamed at having his motives thus misconstrued, Uncle Fred
hurried away. His course now took him westward along the Strand, which
was packed from end to end with seekers after diversion--mostly soldiers
and their adherents. He plodded steadily through the press, with the
air of a man who has a definite goal before him. This was the second
week of his search for Marjorie, but he had considerably modified the
plan of action laid down for him by his elder brother. His attempts to
call upon the theatrical managers of London, _seriatim_, for the purpose
of compelling them to disgorge his niece, had resulted in a sequence of
humiliating reverses at the hands of stunted but precocious children in
the outer office. Uncle Fred had now evolved a plan of his own. He had
observed that theatres were accustomed to stimulate the appetites of
their patrons by displaying samples of their wares--in the form of large
framed photographs--outside the entrance to the theatre. Good! He would
resolve himself into an investigating committee of one, visit each
theatre in turn, and examine photographs until he had located Marjorie.
After that, the stronghold itself must be penetrated. A somewhat
hazardous enterprise, he decided, but not without its romantic side. As
already noted, there was the making of a man-about-town in Uncle Fred.
His self-imposed quest had been in progress for several evenings, and,
as yet, had borne no fruit. Uncle Fred was not familiar with the life
of the West End--his knowledge of social life in London, like that of
too many Members of Parliament, was limited to the tea-room of the House
of Commons--and he had wasted a good deal of time hunting for
photographs outside establishments where chorus girls are not usually to
be found--Maskelyne and Cook's, for instance, and the Polytechnic.
Also, it required expert knowledge to distinguish the humble home of the
Drama from the palace of the Movie Queen. But he was learning rapidly.
Assisted by the advertisements in the daily press and a District Railway
map of London, he had now charted out the whole of theatre-land, and had
very nearly completed a most methodical survey thereof. He knew the
name of every revue and musical comedy in London, and could have given
points, in his familiarity with the features of professional beauty, to
the average Flying Corps subaltern.
He crossed Trafalgar Square, and headed for the Shaftesbury Avenue
district. A hurried reference to the map, in a quiet corner behind the
National Gallery, confirmed him in his bearings. Presently he found
himself before another theatre. It was nearly nine o'clock; but, thanks
to the Summer Time Act, it was still daylight. The name of the current
attraction of the house, as stated on the bill-boards outside, was _Too
Many Girls_. Diagonally across each bill-board was pasted a printed
slip which said, a little ambiguously, "_Last Week_."
"That's a pity," mused Uncle Fred. "But I can slip inside and find out
what they are doing this week and next. There's some sort of
entertainment going on: I can hear it."
Thrusting his beard well forward, Uncle Fred marched boldly into the
vestibule of the theatre. The framed photographs had been taken in for
the night, and were ranged round the wall on easels. Uncle Fred set his
spectacles in position, and began his usual methodical tour of
inspection, at his regulation range of six inches.
A stout lady, confined in a gilded cage in one of the walls, engaged in
counting change, suspended operations to watch him. She caught the eye
of the commissionnaire who stood at the swing-door leading to the
stalls, and coughed delicately. Certainly Uncle Fred, in his
semi-ecclesiastical frock-coat and Heath Robinson tall hat, crouching
astride his umbrella in a strained endeavour to scrutinise the very
lowest row in a large photographic group of chorus girls, fairly invited
comment.
"Boys will be boys!" observed the commissionnaire, to no one in
particular; and the siren in the cage giggled.
Suddenly Uncle Fred came to a dead point opposite the very last
photograph in the last row. Feverishly reinforcing his spectacles with a
pair of eye-glasses, he made a confirmatory examination, and then rose
to an upright position--looking as Stanley may have looked when he found
Livingstone. Then, for the first time, he became aware that he was not
alone.
"Naughty, naughty!" said a wheezy feminine voice.
"Haw, haw, haw!" roared the commissionnaire.
"I'm ashamed of you, little brighteyes!" declared the accusing angel in
the cage.
"Outside!" added the commissionnaire, recalled to a sense of duty by the
appearance at the swing-door of an authoritative-looking person in a
dinner jacket.
Uncle Fred, shamefully misunderstood and deeply wounded, hurried out.
In the street he hesitated.
"Those people might have given me some useful information," he
reflected. "But I won't go back now, to be insulted! I think, after
all, it would be best to see the caretaker at the stage door. I suppose
that will be somewhere at the back."
A voyage of circumnavigation brought him to the dingy portal which early
training and settled conviction had always represented to him as giving
direct access to the Infernal Regions. With a guilty thrill he crossed
the threshold, and found himself confronted by an unshaven man
slumbering in a glass box. Uncle Fred coughed nervously. The man opened
his eyes, and pushed open a glass shutter.
"Well?" he enquired.
"I want to ask a favour," began Uncle Fred. But the man cut him short.
"What is it? Temperance, or Christian Science? You can't put up no
notices on our call-board. Management don't allow it."
"I have reason to believe," pursued Uncle Fred, with feeble dignity,
"that a young woman is employed here--"
"We employ thirty-six of 'em," said the stage-door man.
"I have just seen her likeness--in a group--round there"--explained
Uncle Fred, waving his umbrella vaguely towards the front of the house.
"It very often starts that way," remarked the stage-door man. "But why
not pay for a seat, like a little gentleman, and go in front and see the
gel?"
"She's my niece," explained Uncle Fred.
"They always are," said the stage-door man. "Or else cousins! Good
night, Tirpitz!"
He shut the little glass shutter in the investigator's face, and
recomposed his features to slumber. But Uncle Fred, though not a
dashing person, possessed some elements of the dogged persistence of the
Clegg family. He rapped on the window-pane. The stage-door man opened
it again.
"Now, you run away!" he said. "'Op it! Sling yer 'ook, or I'll set the
cat on you!"
"Is my niece here to-night?" asked Uncle Fred, employing the handle of
his umbrella as a lever of the third order. "I am very anxious to have
a few words with her, on a domestic matter. I see a notice outside,
saying that the present entertainment concluded last week. But it has
occurred to me that it is still possible--"
The stage-door man slid from his stool, came out of his den, and laid a
heavy hand, not unkindly, on the orator's shoulder.
"What you want to do, ole friend," he said, "is to 'ire the Albert 'All,
and make a night of it! That'll get it out of your system nicely.
Good-bye!" He gently impelled his guest in the direction of the street.
"I want my niece's address," gasped Uncle Fred, clinging like a limpet
to the door-post.
"Go along, you silly old sinner!" said the stage-door man, disengaging
him. "I'm ashamed of you."
"I will pay you!" said Uncle Fred desperately.
The stage-door man relaxed at once.
"Now you're _talking_!" he announced.
Five minutes later, after a sordid commercial wrangle, Uncle Fred
emerged from the stage door with a slip of paper in his hand. He walked
straight into the arms of three members of His Majesty's Forces. They
recognised him, and drew back in affected horror.
"What, again?" cried the Canadian. "My God, he's a Mormon! Come along,
boys!"
*CHAPTER XVI*
*THE GREAT PRETEND*
"And the sweet?" enquired Marjorie, pencil poised.
"_Meringues!_" said Liss firmly.
"Well, I would say chocolate _souffle_ every time--with whipped cream,
of course!" replied Marjorie. "But have it your own way. Now for the
savoury!"
"We don't want a savoury," said Liss.
"Remember," Marjorie reminded her, "that there will be gentlemen
present."
"I was forgetting the gentlemen. Well--what?"
"_My_ gentleman friend," said Marjorie, "is very fond of
angels-on-horseback."
"All right! You can put them down if you like; only don't ask me to eat
them: I expect I shall be stodged by that time, anyhow. Oh Marjie, if
only it were true!" Liss hugged her hungry little self, longingly.
"There, that's the complete _menu_," said Marjorie. She laid down her
pencil, took up the writing pad, and began to read:
"_Oysters!_" She took up her pencil again. "By the way, we can't have
oysters."
"Why not?"
"You can only have oysters when there's an R in the month."
"Well, it's August!" said Liss. "And as they aren't going to be there
anyhow, they may as well stay in!"
"No," said Marjorie. "This dinner is going to be things we would order
here and now--just supposing we could. So don't let us spoil it by
putting down impossible things."
Liss at once recognised the logical consistency of this view.
"All right!" she said. "No oysters! _Hors d'oeuvres_, instead. Then
nice hot soup!"
"Yes--_Potage a la reine_."
"It sounds a bit watery; but I don't mind, so long as it's hot. Oh, how
_lovely_ it would be!"
"_Sole meuniere_. That's Roy's favourite."
"Oh--Roy's to be there? That's your pretend, is it?"
Marjorie nodded over her hypothetical menu.
"That's a good idea. Who shall I pretend my man is? Toby?"
"All right."
"In that case, we shall want more than one bottle of champagne. You
know what that child is! But never mind that just now! Read out some
more food."
"_Duckling--_"
"And green peas, of course?"
"Of course!"
"What then?"
"That brings us to the _meringues_."
"Good! That should be enough. We will have coffee and _creme de
menthe_ afterwards, of course?"
"We will have cognac as well. You see, Roy--Oh, Liss!" For a moment
Marjorie's fortitude forsook her. Her face sank into her friend's
fluffy hair.
"Liss, dear," she murmured, "if _only_ I knew!"
"It's Friday afternoon now," said Liss cheerfully. "We'll get lots to
eat to-morrow, when the boys come up to town."
"I wasn't thinking of food," said Marjorie--"just then!"
"Well, I was! Oh, my _dear_, I'm hungry! I didn't know it was possible
to be so hungry. What time is it?"
"About five, I think."
"Well, let's have a nice drink of water, and eat a couple of biscuits,
and go to bed. It's the best way."
"Very well," said Marjorie listlessly. She was the more exhausted of
the two; for Liss was of the ethereal type that seems to thrive on a
diet of next-to-nothing. Neither girl had touched food, except a few
biscuits, since the previous evening. This afternoon they had
endeavoured to maintain _morale_ by indulging in one of the oldest
pastimes known to children of the world--the game of "Let's
pretend!"--sturdily endeavouring to hold a fire in their hands by
thinking on the frosty Caucasus.
Suddenly there came a tapping on the outer door. Both girls started up.
"Who on earth can that be?" said Marjorie, hurrying automatically to the
mirror above the mantelpiece.
"I wonder if it is anybody with any money!" remarked Liss, hastily
removing herself from the couch, where she had been stifling the pangs
of hunger by lying on her front.
"Go and see!" commanded Marjorie, busy at the mirror.
Liss went out into the little vestibule, and reappeared, followed by a
visitor. Her face was a study.
"This gentleman wants to see you, dear," she said solemnly. "I will
leave you together!"
Marjorie turned hastily round.
"No--stay!" she commanded. "How do you do, Uncle Fred?"
"I am very well, thank you," said Uncle Fred in a low voice.
Apprehension was written upon his features, and his large, weak mouth
trembled. This adventure was trying him high. To penetrate into the
boudoir of an actress--two actresses, apparently--was practically
equivalent to visiting a theatre dressing-room, which he knew to be the
last station before perdition.
Marjorie shook hands.
"Sit down," she said. "I am afraid we are not quite dressed for
callers. Do you mind?"
Uncle Fred shook his head feebly, guiltily conscious that he did not
mind enough. His niece was dressed in a very simple blue serge frock,
with touches of scarlet at her waist and wrists. She was thinner and
paler than when he had last seen her. Late suppers, of course. She had
done something theatrical but undeniably becoming to her hair, which,
instead of being discreetly piled upon her head, framed her face in a
sort of aureole. In order to shake hands with him she had deposited
upon the mantelpiece, without any attempt at concealment, a small
powder-puff, with which she had obviously been tampering with that
infallible symbol of respectability, a shiny nose. She wore very thin
black silk stockings and patent leather shoes, with dangerously high
heels. One of the shoes had a hole in the sole, but Marjorie kept that
sole glued to the floor throughout the interview. The silk stockings
had lisle tops, but naturally Uncle Fred did not know this. Blinking
feebly, he turned his attention to Marjorie's companion. In the
obscurity of the vestibule he had not particularly noticed her. He did
so now. His pale blue eyes bulged.
Before him he beheld a small, fluffy creature in a flimsy garment which
she would have called a _negligee_, but which to Uncle Fred looked
suspiciously like a nightgown. On her feet were padded pink satin
bedroom slippers. Her lips were bright red, and were directing a
dazzling smile upon him. There were dark hollows under her large grey
eyes. Uncle Fred resolutely averted his gaze, and turned again to his
niece.
"This is Miss Lyle," announced Marjorie. "We share the flat. Liss,
dear, this is my uncle, Mr. Clegg. Well, Uncle Fred, how are you? I'm
sorry we can't offer you tea, but we--we have practically all our meals
at a restaurant. Don't we, Liss?"
"We simply live there!" affirmed Liss.
"Will you have a cigarette?" continued Marjorie, offering a box. "Don't
mind about that being the last one! There are plenty more."
"I do not smoke," replied Uncle Fred coldly.
"Throw it to me, Marjorie!" chirped the vision in the _negligee_. A
moment later, genuinely oblivious of the sensation she was causing, Liss
was lying back in the arm-chair, blowing smoke rings up to the ceiling.
Marjorie proceeded to make conversation.
"Have you been at Netherby lately?" she asked. "I haven't heard a word
from anybody there since I left. I wrote to father and mother, but
neither of them answered, so I gave it up. I was sorry, all the same.
I hear from Joe, of course. Have they conscripted Amos yet? How are
the children?"
This was neither the tone nor the temper that Uncle Fred had anticipated
from the prodigal. He had expected either flamboyant defiance or
broken-hearted contrition--most probably the latter. This resolute,
cheery, ladylike--yes, he had to admit it, ladylike--bonhomie was making
his mission more difficult than he had anticipated. He cleared his
throat.
"I was at Netherby during July," he began. "Your father and mother are
well, though borne down with sorrow, over--over--"
"Over what?"
Uncle Fred, who had meant to improve the occasion, baulked at his first
fence.
"Over this wicked war," he substituted.
"Well, they haven't much to worry about," said Marjorie composedly.
"Joe tells me that he's in no particular danger, except from odd
long-range shells. Amos--I suppose he has kept out of it all right?"
"Your brother is in Glasgow," said Uncle Fred, "doing civilian war work
of national importance."
"I thought so," said Marjorie. "Trust Amos!"
"Your father," continued Uncle Fred, "commissioned me to ascertain your
whereabouts in London--"
"How _did_ you find us, by the way?" asked Marjorie. "It was rather
clever of you."
"I set an investigation on foot," replied Uncle Fred with a not very
successful assumption of grandeur.
"Quite a little Sherlock Holmes!" remarked an approving voice.
Despite himself, Uncle Fred looked round. The small siren in the
arm-chair was regarding him with obvious interest. Doubtless she was
taking his moral measure, with a view to ultimate conquest. As a matter
of fact, Liss was wondering whether it would be feasible to borrow five
shillings from him.
"How _did_ you set about it?" Marjorie continued.
"I decided not to question the police. We were anxious to have as
little scandal as possible--"
Marjorie rose with some deliberation, and took her stand upon the
hearthrug exactly opposite her diplomatic relative.
"What did you do?" she asked.
"I began by instituting inquiries among the London theatrical managers."
"Then you knew I was working on the stage?"
"Yes. Your mother recognised your likeness in some periodical."
Marjorie nodded her head.
"So that was why father stopped my allowance!" she said. "I was
wondering. Well, go on. Father has sent you to see me? What for?"
Uncle Fred had carefully rehearsed the little address which he proposed
to deliver to his errant niece. Marjorie's point-blank query gave him
as good an opening as he appeared likely to get.
"Your father," he began, settling down to work, "is a just man--"
"Yes; I think you're right there," agreed Marjorie. "He tries to be,
anyhow; but he's too ignorant and narrow to succeed. That was why I
left home. Go on!"
"Your father," reiterated Uncle Fred, who was of that brand of orator
which finds it easier, when interrupted, to go right back to the
beginning, "is a just man--"
"Yes; I know. You said that before," said Marjorie.
"_No Encores, by Request!_" added Liss.
"Your father suggested that when I returned to London I should institute
inquiries as to your whereabouts. He was anxious to know if you had
been spared during these years, and--"
"That was very kind of him," said Marjorie. "No!"--as Uncle Fred took
another breath--"don't go back to the beginning again! 'If I had been
spared'--yes?"
"And, if so, what your circumstances were."
"Why?"
"Your father said he would not like to feel that you were in actual
destitution, and--"
"Oh! _And?_"
"I was to tell him if you were."
"And if I were?"
"He did not say; but he practically gave me to understand that if you
would send him your assurance that you were truly and humbly repentant,
and would endeavour in future, by Divine Grace, to raise yourself from
your present condition"--Uncle Fred was settling comfortably down now to
his pulpit manner--"he was prepared on his part, to temper justice with
mercy. You would be provided for. Of course, you would never be
permitted to return home. There are the children to think of--"
Next moment, Uncle Fred had the surprise of his blameless and dreary
existence. A small figure in a tempestuous _negligee_ whirled into his
field of vision, and Liss--white-faced, stammering, passionate--stood
over him.
"What do you mean?" she screamed. "You silly old blear-eyed devil, what
do you mean by it? What do you mean by crowding into this flat where
you weren't invited, and insulting my Marjie? How _dare_ you! Get out
before we throw you out--do you hear? You psalm-singing old nanny-goat,
for two pins I'd pull your rotten little beard off!" She flew to
Marjorie, and threw an arm round her shoulders. "And to think that real
men are dying in this war every minute--and the finest women in the
world killing themselves with overwork--just to keep insects like you
_alive_! Why, I--_Oh!_" She choked.
Marjorie restored her small, hysterical, half-famished champion to the
arm-chair.
"That's all right, Baby," she said placidly. "He means well, but he's
had the same upbringing as father--poor old man! Sit down! Sit down
too, Uncle Fred!" (The dazed ambassador was groping for the door.) "I
want to talk to you."
The symposium resumed its session. Uncle Fred was so benumbed by his
recent experience that when his late assailant deliberately renovated
the scarlet of her lips in his presence he made no protest at all. How
quickly a man can become a _roue_, even at fifty-nine!
"You can tell father," announced Marjorie, "that you gave me his
message, and that I know him well enough to understand his point of
view. In a way, there's something rather fine about it. I have seen
enough of life in the last year or two to know that this world would be
none the worse for a touch of good old-fashioned, Old Testament,
discipline. Also, that many of my sex aren't to be trusted with a
latch-key. But you can remind him, from me, that I am his daughter--and
quite capable of taking care of myself!" She sat down again.
"Now, I will tell you exactly what I have been doing during the last two
years. Like every decent, able-bodied person in this land, I have been
doing what I could in the way of war work. I wasn't able to do as much
as I wanted, because my education had been completely neglected; also,
as most war work is unpaid, I had to work for my living at the same
time. That was why I went on the stage. By working at night I had my
days free to serve in a canteen. I have been in the canteen for more
than a year now. I am not working at present, because I had a slight
accident to my arm. I have also driven a motor-car, for a cabinet
minister, liberating a man for active service. That was why I bobbed my
hair, so that I could put my service-cap on and off my head easily.
Most of us have done it; no one has time to waste over doing hair these
days. We girl chauffeurs and munition makers have set quite a fashion.
But, of course, you aren't interested in fashions. Besides, bobbed hair
doesn't really prove anything. What you want is some direct evidence of
what I have been doing." She thought for a moment. "I'll tell you
what--I'll show you my motor-driver's licence. I know I put it away
somewhere."
She crossed to the bureau, and took the licence out of a drawer.
"Here it is," she said, unfolding it. "You will notice it hasn't been
renewed. That was because--"
Her voice died away. Liss glanced up, saw that her friend had turned
white, and was swaying on her feet. She ran impulsively to her aid; but
in a moment Marjorie had recovered herself, walked across to her
flinching relative, and proffered the licence.
"There--you see!" she said. "I drove a car during all that time. It
was war work, all right."
Uncle Fred examined the document mechanically, and handed it back.
"That seems quite in order," he muttered.
"Father is a business man, I know," continued Marjorie, with a cheery
smile; "and I know business men like to see evidence in black and white.
You can keep that licence, if you like, and send it to him from me, as a
certificate of character, and tell him that I am very well--_and_
busy--_and_ happy--_and_ respectable--and don't require providing for in
any way whatever. And you can give my love to mother."
Uncle Fred rose to his feet, and held out his hand hesitatingly. Down
in his puny soul he dimly felt himself in the presence of something
rather unusually big.
"I will tell your father I have seen you," he said, "and what you have
told me. And I'm--I'm sorry, if--"
Marjorie cut him short.
"That's all right!" she said, with great cheerfulness. "It was a
difficult mission for you, I know, and I'm not surprised you made a mess
of it. Now," she added briskly, "I feel terribly inhospitable at not
having given you any tea. Liss and I are just going out to dinner.
It's--it's--rather a special occasion with us, and we are going to have
an extra good one. Won't you join us?"
She crossed to the bureau again, and picked up the writing-pad.
"We are going," she announced, resolutely avoiding the bulging eyes of
Miss Elizabeth Lyle, "to have _Potage a la reine, Sole meuniere,
Duckling, Meringues--_"
But Uncle Fred was down and out.
"I can't accept," he replied, almost piteously. "I must be off to
Dulwich. But thank you kindly!" He moved to the door. "I will write
to your father. Good-bye, my girl!" He nodded nervously towards Liss.
"Good-evening, all!"
Next moment the vestibule door had clicked behind him, and the girls
were alone.
Liss threw her arms round Marjorie's neck.
"O magnificent, wonderful angel! How you stood up to that silly old
Nosey Parker! How you put him in his place! How you bluffed him! But,
darling, what a risk! Supposing he had accepted--what then?"
"What then?" Marjorie laughed unsteadily. "We would have taken him
round the corner to Savroni's, and _given_ him his dinner--every bit of
it--that's all!"
Liss looked timidly up into her idol's face.
"Dearest," she enquired apprehensively, "are you feeling _funny_, at
all? I don't like the way your fist is clenched. Relax!"
"I'm not feeling funny," Marjorie assured her, relaxing the fist in
question. "Unless it's funny to be rich!" She held out her hand.
"Look! Look what I found inside the pocket of my motor licence! I might
have guessed, after that message. Dear, kind old man! I might have
guessed--bless him!"
In her upturned palm lay a neatly folded bank-note.
Liss's eyes goggled.
"How much?" she whispered.
"We'll see." Marjorie unfolded the rustling treasure-trove. "Ten
pounds! Now wasn't I right not to put down oysters? Oh, Baby, if only,
only, only we had the guests!"
But Fortune, once she veers round, seldom does things by halves. There
came a knock on the outer door.
"Hallo!" cried Liss. "Surely it's not that old Nanny back again?"
It was not. It was a soldier--or rather, an elderly civilian in
uniform. He saluted, with all the elaboration of the newly initiated.
Both girls surveyed him in perplexity. Then Liss screamed:
"It's Uncle Ga-Ga!" and embraced him forthwith.
Uncle Ga-Ga it was. With his hair dyed a new and awe-inspiring colour,
and an almost convincing set of false teeth, he did not look a day over
forty-five. He held his old head proudly erect, and offered a hand to
each of the girls, with a gallant gesture.
"Yes, ladies," he said; "I have the great happiness to inform you that I
have this day been accepted as a member of His Majesty's Forces. I wear
the uniform of King George the Fifth." His right hand went to the
salute. "The King--God bless him! I have only just put it on, and I
came round here at once to show myself to you--my two kind friends and
unfailing supporters! There were some of my colleagues"--his mild eyes
flashed--"men who should have known better--who derided my
pretensions--who said that the King had no need of my services! But not
you, ladies! You knew the King better than they did! Now, behold me!
It is a common triumph for us all!"
"And we are going to celebrate it!" announced Liss. "You are coming
straight out to dinner with us--isn't he, Marjorie?"
"Most certainly he is!" said Marjorie.
"We are going," proclaimed Liss, "to have _Potage a la reine; Sole
meuniere--_"
Uncle Ga-Ga laid his hand upon his heart, and made a courtly bow.
"Ladies," he announced, "you overwhelm me! But before I accede to your
most hospitable invitation, pray read this: it may affect your immediate
plans. I found it lying thrust under your outer door."
He proffered an orange-coloured envelope. It was addressed to Marjorie.
Telegrams in war-time take tense priority over everything else.
Marjorie seized the envelope, ripped open the flap with one feverish
movement, took out the message, and carried it to the window to read.
Then, very deliberately, for the first and only time in her life, she
slid down upon the floor, with her head on the window-seat, in a dead
faint."
"Oh, God!" cried Liss, running to her--"it must be something about Roy!"
They carried her to the sofa, and laid her down. Her eyes were closed,
but began to flutter again almost immediately.
"The telegram--should we read it? Would it be right?" asked Uncle
Ga-Ga.
"Oh, yes!" said Liss: "I'd forgotten about it." She turned back
Marjorie's closed fingers, extracted the crumpled message, and smoothed
it out. Then she gave a little sudden chuckling sob.
"Listen!" she said; and read the message aloud....
"Sent off from Folkestone," she added breathlessly, "at four-forty.
What time is it now?"
"About half-past six, I think."
"Then he will be here any minute!" cried Liss, in sudden panic. "We
must get her to for him," she added, in the mysterious syntax of her
kind. "Help me, Uncle!"
"A lovely face!" observed Uncle Ga-Ga, respectfully, as he assisted Liss
in administering to Marjorie what they both firmly believed to be First
Aid--"but pale, and thin!" He sighed gently. "It is rather beautiful
to think that people can still swoon for joy."
"Not joy," said Liss, panting--"starvation! But she'll have her guest at
dinner, after all. (She's coming to now.) It's been a great pretend!
(Darling, lean your head on me.) She'll be as right as rain to-morrow.
In fact, she's jolly well got to be. It's her wedding day!"
*CHAPTER XVII*
*THE UNDEFEATED*
This morning I went to church, in a real church--the parish church of
Craigfoot. After more than three years, I found myself once again in
the Baronrigg gallery.
Of late, I have become accustomed to performing my religious exercises
in the open air, in a boggy field of Flanders or Picardy, struggling, in
company with a choir of some hundreds of devout, mud-splashed "Jocks,"
armed to the teeth and insufficiently supplied with hymn-books, to
produce a respectable volume of psalmody; or listening resignedly, in an
east wind, to a sermon replete with apposite references to the
canker-wurrum and the pammer-wurrum, delivered with gusto by an untimely
young chaplain newly out from home.
I shared the Baronrigg pew with the Matron of the Eskerley Auxiliary
Military Hospital, and some half-dozen restive convalescents in hospital
blue. It was January, and bitter cold, but no fire burned in old Neil
Carrick's grate at the back of the gallery. The coal ration--like the
thermometer--hovered near to zero in those days.
Of the rightful occupants of the pew there was no representative. The
son of the house was commanding his company somewhere in the
neighbourhood of La Bassee: at least, that was where I had left him last
week. The master--well, there I was no wiser than the rest. All I knew
was what I had read in the letter which he had written me at the time of
his disappearance--a letter very similar in substance and temper to that
received by his son.
My eyes wandered over the familiar scene below. Here, too, were
changes: even the immutable ritual of a Scottish parish church had been
affected by forty-one months of war. Doctor Chirnside was still in
command. He was preaching the sermon now--on a text from his beloved
Isaiah--more gaunt, more eagle-eyed, more uncompromising than ever. The
parish, I knew, were of the opinion that "the auld man was failing."
Still, there he was, sticking to his post.
"The most practical way," he had declared recently to a tactfully
inquisitive Kirk Session, "to maintain national efficiency at a time of
abnormal national wastage is for those of us who are spared to increase
our output; to work longer hours--longer years, in my case--in order to
make good the loss of those who have been called from our midst. So,
though I have laboured long in the vineyard; though I have lingered long
in the arena, and am now perhaps _dignus rude donari_, I shall remain at
my post until God giveth the Victory. In other words, Gentlemen, you
may whistle for my resignation!"
Still, the influences of the time seemed to have affected the Doctor
like the rest of us. He was more human, less Olympian. The First
Prayer--in which, it may be remembered, the Doctor was accustomed to
commune with his Maker to the pointed exclusion of the congregation--was
now much shorter. The Second Prayer--the Prayer of Intercession--was
considerably longer, and very moving to hear. In that prayer, week by
week, the progress of the Great War was reviewed--reviewed from the
standpoint of an obscure but not altogether undutiful little parish in
the Lowlands of Scotland. Not a boy from that parish, be he laird's son
or herd laddie, fell in action on this front or that but the fact was
duly noted, with sorrowful pride and amazing tenderness, in the Prayer
of Intercession in the Parish Kirk of Craigfoot on the following
Sabbath.
There were many such events to record. The Roll of Honour, fluttering
in the draughty porch outside, bore witness to that fact. So did the
composition of the congregation. Most of the men present were
forty-five years old and upwards. Those below that age were mainly in
khaki. But it was the women who told the most eloquent tale. The three
tall daughters of Sir Alistair Graeme--The Three Grenadiers--still sat
side by side in the Burling pew, to all appearances unchanged except for
their V.A.D. uniforms. Yet I knew that each of those girls had been made
a wife and widow within three short years. Mrs. Gillespie, the Bank
Manager's wife, on the other hand, made no pretence of being the same
woman: her son Robert, the Divinity student, had died of dysentery in
Mesopotamia. Of the Misses Peabody, only the elder now sat in the pew.
The younger was dead--dead of overwork as a ward-maid in a Base
Hospital. None disputed her claim to be of the elect now. Little Mrs.
Menzies, the wife of Lord Eskerley's late factor, was changed too--but
only in name. She had done her bit--by becoming the widow of a D.S.O.
and promptly marrying a C.M.G.
Looking further afield, I observed that old Couper and his wife were
almost crowded out of their pew by a string of grandchildren, billeted
upon Abbotrigg until such time as a newly-widowed daughter-in-law could
adjust her compasses again. I missed the kindly vacant countenance of
my friend Jamie Leslie, our organ-blower, which had usually been
visible, on pre-war days, peering furtively round the red rep curtain
which screened the organ-bellows from view. His place was now occupied
by a bucolic young gentleman of thirteen. Subsequent inquiry on my part
elicited the news that Jamie had at last achieved his heart's desire and
been accepted for the Army, the authorities having very properly decided
that what was sauce for the Staff was sauce for the rank-and-file.
In a back pew under the gallery I noticed old Mrs. Rorison, accompanied
by her giant son, Jock, the Scots Guardsman--discharged, permanently
unfit, with a crippled foot. I had met the pair in Main Street the day
before.
"That's bad luck, Jock!" I had said, noting his crutches.
"It's naething of the kind!" replied Jock's mother, tartly. (She
usually replied for Jock.) "See him, sir! Sax feet fower--and gets
himsel' shot in the fit! I doot he was standing on his head in they
trenches!" concluded the old lady bitterly. "Trust him!"
Eric was sitting in the Buckholm pew, with his lady mother: I was to
lunch with them presently. I surveyed my friend's handsome profile, his
empty sleeve, and the medal ribbons on his uniform. I thought of our
regiment--which I now commanded and which he himself had led. I thought
of the day, eighteen months since, when we had carried him away
insensible, followed by what was left of our personnel, from that tight
corner opposite Beaumont Hamel. Eric was home now with a decoration and
a soft job--the idol and the oracle of the country-side. I had not been
decorated, or even mentioned in Dispatches, but I had, so far, preserved
a whole skin--which was far better--and been confirmed in my rank.
Though lean and grizzled, I still felt fighting fit, and had no desire
to change places with any one. I was staying at The Heughs--a sober
household in those days, for my brother Walter had lost his eldest boy
at Gallipoli. Of the other two, John was helping to navigate one of His
Majesty's Destroyers, while the youngest, Alan, my namesake and
particular crony, was consuming his impatient young soul--to his
mother's private relief--at Sandhurst.
"_Finally, my brethren_"--began Doctor Chirnside; and I knew that we
were within five minutes of the end of the sermon. The maimed men
beside me wriggled in relieved anticipation, then settled down again;
and I hastened to conclude my church inspection.
I glanced across to the Netherby pew. Mr. and Mrs. Clegg were both
there, with the younger children. The two grown-up sons were absent: I
remembered having heard vaguely that one of them had enlisted and that
the other had secured a "cushie" job somewhere. The fair daughter was
nowhere to be seen. I was sorry, because a thing of beauty is a joy for
ever--especially during a long sermon. I wondered what had become of
her--and Master Roy's infatuation. I had once or twice, during the early
days in France, made playful allusion to the lady in Roy's presence, but
my pleasantries had not been well received, and had been discontinued.