“Yes, England, look after my gal, will ye?
While I’m frontin’ the fire an’ the foe,
Be a faithful pal, and look after my gal--
An’ Gawd bless ye wheerever I go!”
When Mrs. Long-Adder heard the final verse, her delight knew no bounds.
She at once saw what capital could be made out of calling the “great
British Nation” the “pal” of Tommy Atkins, and of giving his “gal” in
trust to England. What a point for patriotic pathos! She practised the
inflexions of her voice before a mirror.
“Pass the hat round!” This, with demanding fervour, accompanied by the
instant action of lifting the hat from the head, and holding it out to
the audience. “And say when I’m done for.” Tears in the voice here,
with a quickly effective droop of the head and a faint gasp. Then with
a burst of enthusiasm and tenderness--“We’ll all look after his gal!”
“It will go like wildfire!” said Mrs. Long-Adder to herself, as she got
into her tights, and tried her “khaki” uniform--“Simply like wildfire!
That woman Arteroyd is too stupid for anything. She thinks she has
worked out a good trick for herself, and so she has, in a way, but she
doesn’t seem to see one bit what a first-rate business she is starting
_me_ on! _Won’t_ I fool old Dummer-Esel! _He’ll_ have to look after
_his_ ‘gal,’ you bet, or my name isn’t Myrtle Long-Adder!”
And acting on this resolve, she very soon set the ball rolling.
London, like a big child waiting to be amused, rose to the occasion,
and the forthcoming bazaar at the Gilded Rooms, when “the beautiful
Mrs. Long-Adder” would recite “an exquisite poem by the gifted Mrs.
Arteroyd, whose gallant husband, Colonel John Arteroyd, V.C., was now
fighting for England’s glory in South Africa,” became the talk of
the town. The Marquise Dégagée heard of it and nearly fainted. The
Bazaar would actually take place before her “Fancye Faire,”--before
she could have the chance of reciting “Tommy’s Bébé!” in the presence
of Prince Dummer-Esel! This was an unlooked-for catastrophe. And the
“strained relations between France and England” were not improved by
the contretemps. However, there was no help for it,--and the deeply
disappointed authoress of “Tommy’s Bébé!” had to conceal her chagrin
under an appearance of indifference to the world of fashion, which
poured into her rooms in the kindly way the world of fashion has, to
tell her of her existing rival,--of the splendour of the preparations
at the Gilded Rooms,--how “poor old Dummer-Esel” was really quite
off his head with excitement,--what interest he was taking in the
affair! How Her Highness of Gottenken was going!--how the Countess
of Tiddlywinks would be there!--how the Duchess of Gloriosa would
have a stall!--how that delightful dancer (not proper, my dear, but
so clever!), that delightful dancer who must be nameless, because so
very very bad, would assist in the selling of cigarettes--and Mrs.
Long-Adder!--oh yes!--Mrs. Long-Adder’s recitation would be “the thing
of the day!”
“And Mrs. Arteroyd,” said the breathless gossips, “is simply wonderful!
_She_ wrote the poem that Mrs. Long-Adder is to recite!--fancy
that! And that poor man of hers at the front! And she’s got a gown from
Paris that’s perfectly gorgeous;--and I know the man who does her hair,
and he told me the other day that he was sure she was going to be a
social favourite, as she had just bought three new tails of hair! Think
of that!--three new tails! And such a gown! My dear, it makes one’s
mouth water! And where she gets the money heaven knows! For that poor
man at the front has only got three thousand a year!”
“He may be dead by this time!” said the Marquise with a pretty little
shudder. “Poor ting! He may be dead!”
For a moment there was silence. The crowd of fashionable chatterers
felt distinctly uncomfortable.
The Marquise smiled,--she had made an effect and she was pleased.
“Yes, he may be dead!” she repeated. “And if ze news come while ze
bazaar go on--_hélas!_ Come and have some tea!”
The noisy voices and laughter broke out again--the sudden spell of
horror was dispersed. And a week later on the society throng “rushed”
to the bazaar at the Gilded Rooms,--to see and to be seen--to watch
Prince Dummer-Esel with slavish zeal,--to criticise the lovely Mrs.
Long-Adder--and to congratulate Mrs. Arteroyd on “Tommy’s Gal!” And
truly Mrs. Arteroyd was in her glory. She was quite clever enough to
perceive that Mrs. Long-Adder meant to make capital for herself out
of the business, and she had previously determined that, having paid
a hundred guineas to be “talked about,” talked about she would be.
And she spared no pains to win her object. Her dress was a “creation”
of some wonderful clinging stuff of delicate amber shades softly
interwoven, and impressing the eye with the suggestion of early
primroses,--it fitted like a glove, and displayed the contour of
the six-guinea corsets to perfection. Men said--poor, dear, deluded
men!--“a fine figure of a woman!”--and women eyed her with that casual
contempt which is the greatest compliment ill-dressed dames can pay to
a well-dressed one. When presented to Prince Dummer-Esel, she curtsied
with a fine carelessness, and gave him an upward smile of childlike
questioning innocence,--whereat His Highness chuckled and scented
fresh game.
“We are going to give you a wreath of laurels, Mrs. Arteroyd,” he
graciously observed--“He--he--he--ha--ha! We are going to present you
with the symbol of fame!--ha--ha! Pretty idea, isn’t it--he--he!--Mrs.
Long-Adder suggested it--ha--ha!--woman of ideas, Mrs. Long-Adder--a
woman of ideas! Hum--ha! We shall have a collection for ‘Tommy’s
Gal’ in Mrs. Long-Adder’s hat, after your poem has been recited--in
her hat--ha--ha!--the regular South African hat, you know, that
goes with the khaki uniform--he--he! I shall put a Tenner into the
hat--yes!--ha--ha! Mrs. Long-Adder’s hat!--he--he--he--he! And instead
of a bouquet we shall give you a laurel wreath! You can keep it, you
see--he--ha! hang it up in the drawing-room at home, till your husband
comes back--ha--ha! He’ll have some laurels too, then, I dare say! Got
a V.C., has he? Good--good! Yes, very good! ha--ha!”
And with these intelligent and distinguished remarks, he took his
seat in front of the audience, and Mrs. Arteroyd had the satisfaction
of being invited to sit beside him. Then there was a flourish of
trumpets--a bit of “Soldiers of the King,” played by the band--and
then--and then--amid a burst of frantic applause, Mrs. Long-Adder
stepped upon a platform, gorgeous with palms and exotics, and showed
herself unblushingly, arrayed in “khaki” uniform as “Tommy” bound
for the front! The plaudits were deafening. Mrs. “Tommy” Long-Adder
“saluted.” Prince Dummer-Esel grew apoplectically crimson with
enthusiasm, and she turned one of her “Mongolian” eyes sideways upon
him with a killing brilliancy. Then she began the doggerel lines,
“Hullo, Tommy, wheer’ye off to!” reciting them with all the vulgar
emphasis of that cheap, forced, sham sentiment which is the only
emotional quality that succeeds nowadays in winning the attention of
that still more vulgar, cheap, forced sham institution known as “smart
society.”
* * * * *
Away in South Africa, far removed from all social hypocrisies, out
on the bare brown _veldt_, and under the sickening scorch of
a pitilessly hot sun, two men, friends and comrades-in-arms, were
exploring the ground together and anxiously surveying the Boer
position. They had made their way cautiously along as extemporized
scouts from the British camp to one particular spot which seemed
a sheltered coign of vantage, to see if they could form any idea
as to the extent of the enemy’s defences. One of them, dark and
broad-shouldered, lay flat, chest downwards on the grass, rifle in
hand, looking up at his companion, who, tall and fair, and of an
imposing figure, stood erect, gazing out far ahead with something of a
dreamy expression softening the light of his keen grey eyes.
“I say, Arteroyd, hadn’t you better lie low?” said the recumbent man.
“You need not make yourself a target for any marksman who may be
inclined to try his aim.”
“They have ceased firing for the present,” and Colonel John Arteroyd,
V.C., calmly took out his field glasses and prepared to adjust them.
“That ridge opposite is deserted.” As he spoke he glanced down at
his friend and smiled. “Dandy Ferrers knows how to make himself
comfortable, I think, even under possible fire! I shall have to report
you at home as a funk! Lie low, indeed! However, you’re no safer than I
am, if a shell comes our way.”
Captain James Ferrers, called “Dandy” by all his friends at home, on
account of his somewhat curious and capricious taste in neckties, laid
down his rifle and took out his cigar-case.
“I suppose,” he said slowly as he lit a precious “Havana,” one of the
last he had or would have, till he returned to England (if ever he
returned)--“I suppose you really wouldn’t care much? You’ve got the
V.C.”
“Yes, I’ve got the V.C.” And Colonel Arteroyd unscrewed and polished
his field glasses with scrupulous attention. “It’s the best thing a
soldier can have. But it isn’t everything.”
Dandy Ferrers reddened with a quick sense of compunction.
“No--of course!--I forgot--there’s your wife--”
Arteroyd looked at him steadfastly.
“Yes,--there’s my wife. And she is the very reason why--as you say--I
shouldn’t care much.”
“Isn’t she good to you, old chap?” queried Dandy sympathetically.
Colonel Arteroyd smiled a trifle sadly.
“Good to me? Oh yes, I suppose so! But--you see--when I married
her--I--I loved her. That is what she didn’t understand. When a man
_loves_ a woman--really _loves_ her, you know--”
Dandy nodded gravely.
“Well--then, he likes to think of her as something altogether
sacred--something removed and different to himself. We don’t want women
to be angels--no,--but something very near it. I wanted my wife to
love me as I loved her--I wanted to feel that she was proud of me, and
that if I could do a good thing at any time, she would be glad. A sort
of giving her my laurels, you know, if I got any. Well--I soon found
out she never would be glad _that_ way. She wanted everything
I couldn’t get. She went in for society,--I hate society. I can’t
smile when I’m told to. I can’t tell lies thirteen to the dozen. And
unless you can do that sort of thing, society doesn’t want you. Then
our little child--a boy--died when he was two. He was a jolly little
chap,--he got very fond of me--used to play with my moustache and kiss
me with all his little might--” Here Arteroyd paused and put his field
glasses up to his eyes. Dandy Ferrers puffed a big blue ring of cigar
smoke up into the burning sky and thought it likely that the Colonel
was not taking a particularly clear sight for the moment.
“Yes--that ridge is deserted,” resumed Arteroyd coolly--“I thought I
saw a moving speck--but I was mistaken. I believe they’ve got no more
ammunition up there.”
“Go on with your story,” said Ferrers softly.
“Oh, my story! It isn’t much of a story, old chap! The little kiddie
died, as I said. That rather knocked me up,--left me a bit lonely.
Then my wife--well, she was all the time anxious to be a great figure
in society. I wanted a home,--she didn’t care about it. She said
that housekeeping was a bore, and that she liked hotels better. And
I--well!--I felt myself rather in her way. So I was glad to be ordered
out on active service. You see, I want _her_ to be happy,--for me,
nothing matters.”
Ferrers was silent.
“I have often thought,” went on Arteroyd musingly, “especially since
I’ve been out here on these great bare stretches of burnt-up land,
without a tree in sight, that death isn’t the worst part of life.
There’s a God somewhere, Dandy!”
“Of course there is!” answered Dandy promptly. “It’s only the parsons
that make us doubt it.”
“When all the colour and gladness have gone out of the world for a
man,” said Arteroyd, talking to himself more than to his friend--“when
he does not see any hope or beauty anywhere,--and when the one
thing--the best thing of all--love--has failed him--and with it all
he’s done a bit of service to his country and lived as straight as
he can--then I think death is often sent to him just in the nick of
time--to save him from growing hard and mean and bitter--and to take
his soul to his Maker while it’s fairly clean and sweet--”
Ps--st! A sharp report--a sudden hiss through the air--a small but
vivid flash of flame--a smothered cry--
“Look out, Dandy!--Take care of yourself! Good-bye!”
And Arteroyd’s tall figure, erect a moment before, rolled over and over
on the ground, and then lay motionless.
Reckless of all danger for himself, Ferrers rushed to his side.
“Jack!”
Silence! A peaceful smile rested on the lips of his fallen comrade, but
no sound came from them,--no sound would ever come from them again.
Shot straight through the heart, death had been instantaneous, and
Ferrers, dropping on his knees by the slain man, broke out sobbing,
and was not ashamed of his tears. He cared nothing if the same Boer
marksman who had “picked out” one of the King’s bravest officers
with such deadly aim should make for him as well. Almost he hoped
for the same fate, and once or twice looked longingly towards the
ridge from whence the fatal bullet had sped. But there was not a
creature in sight,--whoever it was that had hit his mark so well had
retired, apparently satisfied,--and the unkind sun blazed fierce and
furnace-like through clear and smokeless ether. With the salt drops
of sorrow blistering his cheeks, poor “Dandy” reverently composed the
limbs of the dead, and, crossing the yet warm hands upon the breast,
unsheathed the sword that had so often flashed aloft in fight, as
a signal of courage and of victory, and laid it, hilt heart-wards,
between the stiffening fingers. Then planting his own rifle upright in
the ground to mark and guard the spot till he could return with help
to bear the body into camp, he paused.
“Good-bye, Jack!” he said hoarsely--and with a simple boyish tenderness
he kissed the dead man’s forehead--“Good-bye! You said you didn’t care
much--and--considering everything--I don’t suppose you did. But you got
your V.C.! And God knows you deserved it!”
* * * * *
The same evening that saw the Colonel’s body wrapped in a soldier’s
blanket and committed to a South African grave, “the beautiful Mrs.
Arteroyd,” as she was now admittedly and eagerly entitled, owing to
the proud fact of having been seen seated next to His Highness of
Dummer-Esel, scored a great “social” success. Her verses, “Tommy’s
Gal,” were received with hysterical enthusiasm, and the collection made
in Mrs. Long-Adder’s hat after the recitation amounted to two or three
hundred pounds. An enterprising newspaper proprietor offered to buy
the manuscript and “run it up to auction” for one of the Tommy-Funds,
which offer Mrs. Arteroyd condescendingly accepted. And then, a classic
wreath of laurels, tied with the English colours, was presented to her
by Prince Dummer-Esel himself with his own hands, accompanied by the
gracious words--
“You must keep your laurels for your husband, Mrs. Arteroyd! Add them
to his V.C.!--ha--ha--! Add them to his V.C.!”
It was a proud moment! Expanding with her inward sense of elation, she
received the garland with a studied affectation of graceful humility,
and curtsied beneath the sunshine of the princely smile. Then, swinging
the wreath picturesquely on one arm, she raised her head, flashed her
eyes, and glanced round with an air of amused indifference on all the
unsuccessful and discomfited women present, and in honey-sweet tones
accepted an invitation to a private little supper-party at which His
Highness of Dummer-Esel--with Mrs. Long-Adder--would be present, on a
certain evening in the coming week. But--
Unfortunately there is always a “but.” And it most often comes in when
it is least wanted. Solomon’s lament on the vanity of human wishes
is the universal daily moan. And the disappointments which sometimes
(though not half often enough) fall to the lot of society-schemers
and notoriety-hunters, almost call for a new Solomon to bewail them.
Only two days after her triumph, when “the beautiful Mrs. Arteroyd” was
just pleasantly engaged in reading a glowing description of herself
and her gown in a favourite pictorial “weekly,” a telegram, not of the
appearance of every-day telegrams, was handed to her. Its envelope was
red. Her heart gave a sudden leap of fear as she tore it open. Its
contents were brief, and were dated from the War Office.
“Deeply regret--Colonel John Arteroyd, V.C. Killed. Ladysmith.”
And Colonel John Arteroyd’s widow stood rigid and tearless. Her
“society” laurels were withered. She would have to “look her worst in
black” after all!