LOVE—AND THE SNAKE.
Damocles de Warrenne, gentleman-cadet, on the eve of returning from
Monksmead to the Military Academy of Sandhurst, appeared to have
something on his mind as he sat on the broad coping of the terrace
balustrade and idly kicked his heels. Every time he had returned to
Monksmead from Wellingborough and Sandhurst, he had found Lucille yet
more charming, delightful, and lovable. As her skirts and hair
lengthened she became more and more the real companion, the pal, the
adviser, without becoming any less the sportsman.
He had always loved her quaint terms of endearment, slang, and
epithets, but as she grew into a beautiful and refined and dignified
girl, it was still more piquant to be addressed in the highly
unladylike (or un-Smelliean) terms that she affected.
Dam never quite knew when she began to make his heart beat quicker, and
when her presence began to act upon him as sunshine and her absence as
dull cloud; but there came a time when (whether she were riding to
hounds in her neat habit, rowing with him in sweater and white skirt,
swinging along the lanes in thick boots and tailor-made costume,
sitting at the piano after dinner in simple white dinner-gown, or
waltzing at some ball—always the belle thereof for him) he _did_ know
that Lucille was more to him than a jolly pal, a sound adviser, an
audience, a confidant, and ally. Perhaps the day she put her hair up
marked an epoch in the tale of his affections. He found that he began
to hate to see other fellows dancing, skating, or playing golf or
tennis with her. He did not like to see men speaking to her at meets or
taking her in to dinner. He wanted the blood of a certain neighbouring
spring-Captain, a hunter of “flappers” and molester of parlour-maids,
home on furlough, who made eyes at her at the Hunt Ball and followed
her about all Cricket Week and said something to her which, as Dam
heard, provoked her coolly to request him “not to be such a priceless
ass”. What it was she would not tell Dam, and he, magnifying it,
called, like the silly raw boy he was, upon the spring-Captain, and
gently requested him to “let my cousin alone, Sir, if you don’t mind,
or—er—I’ll jolly well make you”. Dam knew things about the gentleman,
and considered him wholly unfit to come within a mile of Lucille. The
spring-Captain was obviously much amused and inwardly much annoyed—but
he ceased his scarce-begun pursuit of the hoydenish-queenly girl, for
Damocles de Warrenne had a reputation for the cool prosecution of his
undertakings and the complete fulfilment of his promises. Likewise he
had a reputation for Herculean strength and uncanny skill. Yet the gay
Captain had been strongly attracted by the beauty and grace of the
unspoilt, unsophisticated, budding woman, with her sweet freshness and
dignity (so quaintly enhanced by lapses into the slangy, unfettered
schoolgirl …). Not that he was a marrying man at all, of course….
Yes—Dam had it weightily on his mind that he might come down from
Sandhurst at any time and find Lucille engaged to some other fellow.
Girls did get engaged…. It was the natural and obvious thing for them
to do. She’d get engaged to some brainy clever chap worth a dozen of
his own mediocre self…. Of course she liked him dearly as a pal and all
that, an ancient crony and chum—but how should he hope to compete with
the brilliant fellers she’d meet as she went about more, and knew them.
She was going to have a season in London next year. Think of the kind
of chaps she’d run across in Town in the season. Intellectual birds,
artists, poets, authors, travellers, distinguished coves, rising
statesmen, under-secretaries, soldiers, swells, all sorts. Not much
show for him against that lot!
Gad! What a rotten look-out! What a rotten world to be sure! Fancy
losing Lucille!… Should he put his fortunes to the touch, risk all, and
propose to her. Fellows did these things in such circumstances….
No—hardly fair to try to catch her like that before she had had at
least one season, and knew what was what and who was who…. Hardly the
clean potato—to take advantage of their long intimacy and try to trap
her while she was a country mouse.
It was not as though he were clever and could hope for a great career
and the power to offer her the position for which she was fitted. Why,
he was nearly bottom of his year at Sandhurst—not a bit brilliant and
brainy. Suppose she married him in her inexperience, and then met the
right sort of intellectual, clever feller too late. No, it wouldn’t be
the straight thing and decent at all, to propose to her now. How would
Grumper view such a step? What had he to offer her? What was he? Just a
penniless orphan. Apart from Grumper’s generosity he owned a single
five-pound note in money. Never won a scholarship or exam-prize in his
life. Mere Public Schools boxing and fencing champion, and best
man-at-arms at Sandhurst, with a score or so of pots for running,
jumping, sculling, swimming, shooting, boxing, fencing, steeple-chasing
and so forth. His total patrimony encashed would barely pay for his
Army outfit. But for Grumper’s kindness he couldn’t go into the Army at
all. And Grumper, the splendid old chap, couldn’t last very much
longer. Why—for many a long year he would not earn more than enough to
pay his mess-bills and feed his horses. Not in England certainly…. Was
he to ask Lucille to leave her luxurious home in a splendid mansion and
live in a subaltern’s four-roomed hut in the plains in India? (Even if
he could scrape into the Indian army so as to live on his pay—more or
less.) Grumper, her guardian, and executor of the late Bishop’s will,
might have very different views for her. Why, she might even be his
heiress—he was very fond of her, the daughter of his lifelong friend
and kinsman. Fancy a pauper making up to a very rich girl—if it came to
her being that, which he devoutly hoped it would not. It would remove
her so hopelessly beyond his reach. By the time he could make a
position, and an income visible to the naked eye, he would be
grey-haired. Money was not made in the army. Rather was it becoming no
place for a poor gentleman but the paradise of rich bounders, brainy
little squits of swotters, and commission-without-training
nondescripts—thanks to the growing insecurity of things among the army
class and gentry generally. If she were really penniless he might—as a
Captain—ask her to share his poverty—but was it likely shed be a
spinster ten years hence—even if he were a Captain so soon? Promotion
is not violently rapid in the Cavalry…. And yet he simply hated the
bare thought of life without Lucille. Better to be a gardener at
Monksmead, and see her every day, than be the Colonel of a Cavalry
Corps and know her to be married to somebody else…. Yes—he would come
home one of these times from Sandburst or his Regiment and find her
engaged to some other fellow. And what then? Well—nothing—only life
would be of no further interest. It was bound to happen. Everybody
turned to look at her. Even women gave generous praise of her beauty,
grace, and sweetness. Men raved about her, and every male creature who
came near her was obviously dpris in five minutes. The curate, plump
“Holy Bill,” was well known to be fading away, slowly and beautifully,
but quite surely, on her account. Grumper’s old pal, General
Harringport, had confided to Dam himself in the smoking-room, one very
late night, that since he was fifty years too old for hope of success
in that direction he’d go solitary to his lonely grave (here a very wee
hiccup), damn his eyes, so he would, unwed, unloved, uneverything. Very
trag(h)ic, but such was life, the General had declared, the one
alleviation being the fact that he might die any night now, and ought
to have done so a decade ago.
Why, even the little useless snob and tuft-hunter, the Haddock, that
tailor’s dummy and parody of a man, cast sheep’s eyes and made what he
called “love” to her when down from Oxford (and was duly snubbed for it
and for his wretched fopperies, snobberies, and folly). He’d have to
put the Haddock across his knee one of these days.
Then there was his old school pal and Sandhurst senior, Ormonde
Delorme, who frequently stayed at, and had just left, Monksmead —fairly
dotty about her. She certainly liked Delorme—and no wonder, so
handsome, clever, accomplished, and so fine a gentleman. Rich, too.
Better Ormonde than another—but, God! what pain even to think of it….
Why had he cleared off so suddenly, by the way, and obviously in
trouble, though he would not admit it?…
Lucille emerged from a French window and came swinging across the
terrace. The young man, his face aglow, radiant, rose to meet her. It
was a fine face—with that look on it. Ordinarily it was somewhat marred
by a slightly cynical grimness of the mouth and a hint of trouble in
the eyes—a face a little too old for its age.
“Have a game at tennis before tea, young Piggy-wig?” asked Lucille as
she linked her arm in his.
“No, young Piggy-wee,” replied Dam. “Gettin’ old an’ fat. Joints
stiffenin’. Come an’ sit down and hear the words of wisdom of your old
Uncle Dammiculs, the Wise Man of Monksmead.”
“Come off it, Dammy. Lazy little beast. Fat little brute,” commented
the lady.
As Damocles de Warrenne was six feet two inches high, and twelve stone
of iron-hard muscle, the insults fell but lightly upon him.
“I will, though,” she continued. “I shan’t have the opportunity of
hearing many more of your words of wisdom for a time, as you go back on
Monday. And you’ll be the panting prey of a gang of giggling girls at
the garden party and dance to-morrow…. Why on earth must we muck up
your last week-day with rotten ‘functions’. You don’t want to dance and
you don’t want to garden-part in the least.”
“Nit,” interrupted Dam.
“ … Grumper means it most kindly but … we want you to ourselves the
last day or two … anyhow….”
“D’you want me to yourself, Piggy-wee?” asked Dam, trying to speak
lightly and off-handedly.
“Of course I do, you Ass. Shan’t see you for centuries and months.
Nothing to do but weep salt tears till Christmas. Go into a decline or
a red nose very likely. Mind you write to me twice a week at the very
least,” replied Lucille, and added:—
“Bet you that silly cat Amelia Harringport is in your pocket all
to-morrow afternoon and evening. _All_ the Harringport crowd are coming
from Folkestone, you know. If you run the clock-golf she’ll _adore_
clock-golf, and if you play tennis she’ll _adore_ tennis…. Can’t think
what she sees in you….”
“Don’t be cattish, Lusilly,” urged the young man. “‘Melier’s all right.
It’s you she comes to see, of course.”
To which, it is regrettable to have to relate, Lucille replied
“Rodents”.
Talk languished between the young people. Both seemed unwontedly ill at
ease and nervous.
“D’you get long between leaving Sandhurst and joining the Corps you’re
going to distinguish, Dammy?” asked the girl after an uneasy and
pregnant silence, during which they had furtively watched each other,
and smiled a little uncomfortably and consciously when they had caught
each other doing so.
“Dunno. Sure not to. It’s a rotten world,” replied Dam gloomily. “I
expect I shall come back and find you—”
“Of course you’ll come back and find me! What do you mean, Dam?” said
the girl. She flushed curiously as she interrupted him. Before he could
reply she continued:—
“You won’t be likely to have to go abroad directly you join your
Regiment, will you?”
“I shall try for the Indian Army or else for a British Regiment in
India,” was the somewhat sullen answer.
“Dam! What ever for?”
“More money and less expenses.”
“Dam! You mercenary little toad! You grasping, greedy hog!… Why! I
thought….”
Lucille gazed straight and searchingly at her life-long friend for a
full minute and then rose to her feet.
“Come to tea,” she said quietly, and led the way to the big lawn where,
beneath an ancient cedar of Lebanon, the pompous Butterton and his
solemn satellite were setting forth the tea “things”.
Aunt Yvette presided at the tea-table and talked bravely to two
woolly-witted dames from the Vicarage who had called to consult her
anent the covering of a foot-stool “that had belonged to their dear
Grandmamma”.
(“‘Time somebody shot it,” murmured Dam to Lucille as he handed her
cup.)
Anon Grumper bore down upon the shady spot; queer old Grumper, very
stiff, red-faced, dapper, and extremely savage.
Having greeted the guests hospitably and kindly he confined his
subsequent conversation to two grunts and a growl.
Lucille and Damocles could not be said to have left the cane-chaired
group about the rustic tables and cake-stands at any given moment.
Independently they evaporated, after the manner of the Cheshire Cat it
would appear, really getting farther and farther from the circle by
such infinitely small degrees and imperceptible distances as would have
appealed to the moral author of “Little by Little”. At length the
intervening shrubbery seemed to indicate that they were scarcely in the
intimate bosom of the tea-party, if they had never really left it.
“Come for a long walk, Liggy,” remarked Dam as they met, using an
ancient pet-name.
“Right-O, my son,” was the reply. “But we must start off mildly. I have
a lovely feeling of too much cake. Too good to waste. Wait here while I
put on my clod-hoppers.”
The next hour was _the_ Hour of the lives of Damocles de Warrenne and
Lucille Gavestone—the great, glorious, and wonderful hour that comes
but once in a lifetime and is the progenitor of countless happy
hours—or hours of poignant pain. The Hour that can come only to those
who are worthy of it, and which, whatever may follow, is an unspeakably
precious blessing, confuting the cynic, shaming the pessimist,
confounding the atheist, rewarding the pure in heart, revealing God to
Man.
Heaven help the poor souls to whom that Hour never comes, with its
memories that nothing can wholly destroy, its brightness that nothing
can ever wholly darken. Heaven especially help the poor purblind soul
that can sneer at it, the greatest and noblest of mankind’s gifts, the
countervail of all his cruel woes and curses.
As they walked down the long sweep of the elm-avenue, the pair
encountered the vicar coming to gather up his wife and sister for the
evening drive, and the sight of the two fine young people gladdened the
good man’s heart. He beheld a tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped
young man, with a frank handsome face, steady blue eyes, fair hair and
determined jaw, a picture of the clean-bred, clean-living, out-door
Englishman, athletic, healthy-minded, straight-dealing; and a slender,
beautiful girl, with a strong sweet face, hazel-eyed, brown-haired,
upright and active of carriage, redolent of sanity, directness, and all
moral and physical health.
“A well-matched pair,” he smiled to himself as they passed him with a
cheery greeting.
For a mile or two both thought much and spoke little, the man thinking
of the brilliant, hated Unknown who would steal away his Lucille; the
woman thinking of the coming separation from the friend, without whom
life was very empty, dull, and poor. Crossing a field, they reached a
fence and a beautiful view of half the county. Stopping by mutual
consent, they gazed at the peaceful, familiar scene, so ennobled and
etherealized by the moon’s soft radiance.
“I shall think of this walk, somehow, whenever I see the full moon,”
said Dam, breaking a long silence.
“And I,” replied Lucille.
“I hate going away this time, somehow, more than usual,” he blurted out
after another spell of silence. “I can’t help wondering whether you’ll
be—the same—when I come back at Christmas.”
“Why—how should I be different, Dammy?” asked the girl, turning her
gaze upon his troubled face, which seemed to twitch and work as though
in pain.
“How?… Why, you might be—”
“Might be what, dear?”
“You might be—engaged.”
The girl saw that in the man’s eyes to which his tongue could not, or
would not, give utterance. As he spoke the word, with a catch in his
breath, she suddenly flung her arms round his neck, pressed her lips to
his white face, and, with a little sob, whispered:—
“Not unless to you, Dam, darling—there is no other man in the world but
you,” and their lips met in their first lover’s kiss…. Oh, the
wonderful, glorious world!… The grand, beautiful old world! Place of
delight, joy, wonder, beauty, gratitude. How the kind little stars sang
to them and the benign old moon looked down and said: “Never despair,
never despond, never fear, God has given you Love. What matters else?”
How the man swore to himself that he would be worthy of her, strive for
her, live for her; if need be—die for her. How the woman vowed to
herself that she would be worthy of her splendid, noble lover, help
him, cheer him, watch over him. Oh, if he might only need her some day
and depend on her for something in spite of his strength and manhood.
How she yearned to do something for him, to give, to give, to give.
Their hour lasted for countless ages, and passed in a flash. The world
intruded, spoiling itself as always.
“Home to dinner, darling,” said the girl at last. “Hardly time to dress
if we hurry. Grumper will simply rampage and roar. He gets worse every
day.” She disengaged herself from the boy’s arms and her terribly
beautiful, painfully exquisite, trance.
“Give me one more kiss, tell me once more that you love me and only me,
for ever, and let us go…. God bless this place. I thank God. I love
God—now …” she said.
Dam could not speak at all.
They walked away, hand in hand, incredulous, tremulous, bewildered by
the beauty and wonder and glory of Life.
Alas!
As they passed the Lodge and entered the dark avenue, Dam found his
tongue.
“Must tell Grumper,” he said. Nothing mattered since Lucille loved him
like that. She’d be happier in the subaltern’s hut in the plains of
India than in a palace. If Grumper didn’t like it, he must lump it. Her
happiness was more important than Grumper’s pleasure.
“Yes,” acquiesced Lucille, “but tell him on Monday morning when you go.
Let’s have this all to ourselves, darling, just for a few hours. I
believe he’ll be jolly glad. Dear old bear, isn’t he—really.”
In the middle of the avenue Lucille stopped.
“Dammy, my son,” quoth she, “tell me the absolute, bare, bald truth.
Much depends upon it and it’ll spoil everything if you aren’t
perfectly, painfully honest.”
“Right-O,” responded Dam. “Go it.”
“Am I the very very loveliest woman that ever lived?”
“No,” replied Dam, “but I wouldn’t have a line of your face changed.”
“Am I the cleverest woman in the world?”
“No. But you’re quite clever enough for me. I wouldn’t have you any
cleverer. God forbid.”
“Am I absolutely perfect and without flaw—in character.”
“No. But I love your faults.”
“Do you wish to enshrine me in a golden jewel-studded temple and
worship me night and day?”
“No. I want to put you in a house and live with you.”
“Hurrah,” cried the surprising young woman. “That’s _love_, Dam. It’s
not rotten idealizing and sentimentalizing that dies away as soon as
facts are seen as such. You’re a man, Dam, and I’m going to be a woman.
I loathe that bleating, glorified nonsense that the Reverend Bill and
Captain Luniac and poor old Ormonde and people talk when they’re ‘in
love’. _Love!_ It’s just sentimental idealizing and the worship of what
does not exist and therefore cannot last. You love _me_, don’t you,
Dammy, not an impossible figment of a heated imagination? This will
last, dear…. If you’d idealized me into something unearthly and
impossible you’d have tired of me in six months or less. You’d have
hated me when you saw the reality, and found yourself tied to it for
life.”
“Make a speech, Daughter,” replied Damocles. “Get on a stump and make a
blooming speech.”
Both were a little unstrung.
“I must wire this news to Delorme,” said he suddenly. “He’ll be
delighted.” Lucillemade no reply.
As they neared the end of the drive and came within sight of the house,
the girl whispered:—
“My own pal, Dammy, for always. And you thought I could be engaged to
anyone but _you_. There _is_ no one but you in the world, dear. It
would be quite empty if you left it. Don’t worry about ways and means
and things, Dam, I shall enjoy waiting for _you_—twenty years.”
He thought of that, later.
On the morrow of that incredible day, Damocles de Warrenne sprang from
his bed at sunrise and sought the dew-washed garden below the big south
terrace.
The world contained no happier man. Sunrise in a glorious English
summer and a grand old English garden, on the day after the Day of
Days. He trod on air as he lived over again every second of that
wonderful over-night scene, and scarcely realized the impossible truth.
Lucille loved him, as a lover! Lucille the _alter ego_, the
understanding, splendid friend; companion in play and work, in idle
gaiety and serious consideration; the _bon camarade_, the real chum and
pal.
Life was a Song, the world a Paradise, the future a long-drawn Glory.
He would like to go and hold the Sword in his hand for a minute,
and—something seemed to stir beneath his foot, and a shudder ran
through his powerful frame.
The brightness of the morning was dimmed, and then Lucille came towards
him blushing, radiant, changed, and all was well with the world, and
God in high heaven.
After breakfast they again walked in the garden, the truly enchanted
garden, and talked soberly with but few endearments though with
over-full hearts, and with constant pauses to eye the face of the other
with wondering rapture. They came of a class and a race not given to
excessive demonstrativeness, but each knew that the other loved—for
life.
In the afternoon, guests began to arrive soon after lunch, duties
usurped the place of pleasures, and the lovers met as mere friends in
the crowd. There was meaning in the passing glances, however, and an
occasional hand-touch in the giving of tennis-ball, or tea-cup.
“Half the County” was present, and while the younger fry played tennis,
croquet, clock-golf, and bowls, indulged in “mixed cricket,” or
attempted victory at archery or miniature-rifle shooting, the sedate
elders strolled o’er velvet lawns beneath immemorial elms, sat in
groups, or took tea by carpet-spread marquees.
Miss Amelia Harringport, seeing Dam with a croquet-mallet in his hand,
observed that she _adored_ croquet. Dam stated in reply that Haddon
Berners was a fearful dog at it, considered there should be a croquet
Blue in fact, and would doubtless be charmed to make up a set with her
and the curate, the Reverend William Williamson Williams (Holy Bill),
and Another. Dam himself was cut off from the bliss of being the
Other—did not know the game at all.
Miss Amelia quickly tired of her croquet with the Haddock, Holy Bill
and the Vicar’s Wife’s Sister, who looked straitly after Holy Bill on
this and all other occasions. Seeing Dam shepherding a flock of elders
to the beautifully-mown putting-tracks radiating from the central
circle of “holes” for the putting competition, she informed him that
she _adored_ putting, so much so that she wanted lessons from him, the
local amateur golf-champion.
“I just want a little _personal tuition_ from the Champion and I shall
be quite a classy putter,” she gurgled.
“I will personally tuit,” replied Dam, “and when you are tuited we will
proceed to win the prize.”
Carefully posing the maiden aspirant for putting excellence at the end
of the yard-wide velvety strip leading to the green and “hole,” Dam
gave his best advice, bade her smite with restraint, and then proceeded
to the “hole” to retrieve the ball for his own turn. Other couples did
“preliminary canters” somewhat similarly on the remaining spokes of the
great wheel of the putting “clock”.
The canny and practised Amelia, who had designs upon the handsome
silver prize as well as upon the handsome Damocles, smote straight and
true with admirable judgment, and the ball sped steadily down the track
direct for the “hole,” a somewhat large and deep one.
“By Jove! Magnificent!” cried Dam, with quick and generous appreciation
of the really splendid putt. “You’ll hole out in one this time,
anyhow.” As the slowing ball approached the “hole” he inserted his hand
therein, laughing gaily, to anticipate the ball which with its last
grain of momentum would surely reach it and topple in.
Then the thing happened!
As he put his hand to the grass-encircled goal of the maiden’s hopes
and ball, its gloomy depths appeared to move, swirl round, rise up, as
a small green snake uncoiled in haste and darted beneath Dam’s
approaching upturned hand, and swiftly undulated across the lawn.
With a shriek that momentarily paralysed the gay throng, turned all
eyes in his direction, and brought the more cool and helpful running to
the spot, Dam fell writhing, struggling, and screaming to the ground.
“The SNAKE! The SNAKE!” he howled, while tears gushed from his eyes and
he strove to dig his way into the ground for safety.
“There it goes!” squealed the fair Amelia pointing tragically. Ladies
duly squeaked, bunched their skirts tightly, jumped on chairs or sought
protection by the side of stalwart admirers.
Men cried “Where?” and gathered for battle. One sporting character
emitted an appalling “View Halloo” and there were a few “Yoicks” and
“Gone Aways” to support his little solecism. Lucille, rushing to Dam,
encountered the fleeing reptile and with a neat stroke of her putter
ended its career.
“It’s all right, old chap,” sneered Haddon Berners, as the mad,
convulsed, and foaming Dam screamed: “_It’s under my foot. It’s moving,
moving, moving out_,” and doubled up into a knot.
“Oh no, it isn’t,” he continued. “Lucille has killed it. Nothing to be
terrified about…. Oh, chuck it, man! Get up and blow your nose….” He
was sent sprawling on his back as Lucille dropped by Dam’s side and
strove to raise his face from the grass.
“Come off it, Dam! You’re very funny, we know,” adjured the sporting
character, rather ashamed and discomfortable at seeing a brother man
behaving so. There are limits to acting the goat—especially with wimmin
about. Why couldn’t Dam drop it?…
Lucille was shocked and horrified to the innermost fibres of her being.
Her dignified, splendid Dam rolling on the ground, shrieking, sobbing,
writhing…. Ill or well, joke or seizure, it was horrible, unseemly….
Why couldn’t the gaping fools be obliterated?…
“Dam, dear,” she whispered in his ear, as she knelt over the
shuddering, gasping, sobbing man. “What is it, Dam? Are you ill? Dam,
it’s Lucille…. The snake is quite dead, dear. I killed it. Are you
joking? Dam! _Dam_!” …
The stricken wretch screamed like a terrified child.
“Oh, won’t somebody fetch Dr. Jones if he’s not here yet,” she wailed,
turning to the mystified crowd of guests. “Get some water quickly,
somebody, salts, brandy, anything! Oh, _do_ go away,” and she deftly
unfastened the collar of the spasm-wracked sufferer. “Haddon,” she
cried, looking up and seeing the grinning Haddock, “go straight for Dr.
Jones. Cycle if you’re afraid of spoiling your clothes by riding.
Quick!”
“Oh, he’ll be all right in a minute,” drawled the Haddock, who did not
relish a stiff ride along dusty roads in his choicest confection. “He’s
playing the fool, I believe—or a bit scared at the ferocious serpent.”
Lucille gave the youth a look that he never forgot, and turned to the
sporting person.
“You know the stables, Mr. Fellerton,” she said. “Would you tell
Pattern or somebody to send a man for Dr. Jones? Tell him to beat the
record.”
The sporting one sprinted toward the shrubbery which lay between the
grounds and the kitchen-gardens, beyond which were the stables.
Most people, with the better sort of mind, withdrew and made efforts to
recommence the interrupted games or to group themselves once more about
the lawns and marquees.
Others remained to make fatuous suggestions, to wonder, or merely to
look on with feelings approaching awe and fascination. There was
something uncanny here—a soldier and athlete weeping and screaming and
going into fits at the sight of a harmless grass-snake, probably a mere
blind worm! Was he a hysterical, neurotic coward, after all—a wretched
decadent?
Poor Lucille suffered doubly—every pang, spasm, and contortion that
shook and wrung the body of her beloved, racked her own frame, and her
mind was tortured by fear, doubts, and agony. “Oh, please go away, dear
people,” she moaned. “It is a touch of sun. He is a little subject to
slight fits—very rarely and at long intervals, you know. He may never
have another.” A few of the remaining onlookers backed away a little
shamefacedly. Others offered condolences while inwardly scoffing at the
“sun” explanation. Did not de Warrenne bowl, bat, or field,
bare-headed, throughout the summer’s day without thinking of the sun?
Who had heard of the “fits” before? Why had they not transpired during
the last dozen years or so? “Help me carry him indoors, somebody,” said
the miserable, horrified Lucille. That would get rid of the silly
staring “helpers” anyhow—even if it brought matters to the notice of
Grumper, who frankly despised and detested any kind of sick person or
invalid.
What would he say and do? What had happened to the glowing, glorious
world that five minutes ago was fairy-land and paradise? Was her Dam a
wretched coward, afraid of things, screaming like a girl at the sight
of a common snake, actually terrified into a fit? Better be a
pick-pocket than a…. Into the thinning, whispering circle came General
Sir Gerald Seymour Stukeley, apoplectically angry. Some silly fool, he
understood, had fainted or something—probably a puling tight-laced fool
of a woman who starved herself to keep slim. People who wanted to faint
should stay and do it at home—not come creating disturbances and
interruptions at Monksmead garden-parties….
And then he saw a couple of young men and Lucille striving to raise the
recumbent body of a man. The General snorted as snorts the wart-hog in
love and war, or the graceful hippopotamus in the river.
“What the Devil’s all this?” he growled. “Some poor fella fainted with
the exertions of putting?” A most bitter old gentleman.
Lucille turned to him and his fierce gaze fell upon the pale,
contorted, and tear-stained face of Dam.
The General flushed an even deeper purple, and the stick he held
perpendicularly slowly rose to horizontal, though he did not raise his
hand.
He made a loud but wholly inarticulate sound.
Haddon Berners, enjoying himself hugely, volunteered the information.
“He saw a little grass-snake and yelled out. Then he wept and fainted.
Coming round now. Got the funks, poor chap.”
Lucille’s hands closed (the thumbs correctly on the knuckles of the
second fingers), and, for a moment, it was in her heart to smite the
Haddock on the lying mouth with the straight-from-the-shoulder drive
learned in days of yore from Dam, and practised on the punching-ball
with great assiduity. Apparently the Haddock realized the fact for he
skipped backward with agility.
“He is ill, Grumper dear,” she said instead. “He has had a kind of fit.
Perhaps he had sunstroke in India, and it has just affected him now in
the sun….”
Grumper achieved the snort of his life.
It may have penetrated Dam’s comatose brain, indeed, for at that
moment, with a moan and a shudder, he struggled to a sitting posture.
“The Snake,” he groaned, and collapsed again.
“What the Devil!” roared the General. “Get up, you miserable, whining
cur! Get indoors, you bottle-fed squalling workhouse brat! Get out of
it, you decayed gentlewoman!” … The General bade fair to have a fit of
his own.
Lucille flung herself at him.
“Can’t you see he’s very ill, Grumper? Have you no heart at all? Don’t
be so cruel … and … stupid.”
The General gasped…. Insults!… From a chit of a girl!… “Ill!” he
roared. “What the Devil does he want to be ill for now, here, to-day? I
never …”
Dam struggled to his feet with heroic efforts at self-mastery, and
stood swaying, twitching, trembling in every limb, and obviously in an
agony of terror.
“The Snake!” he said again.
“Ha!” barked General Stukeley. “Been fighting forty boa-constrictors,
what? Just had a fearful struggle with five thousand fearful pythons,
what? There’ll be another Victoria Cross in your family soon, if you’re
not careful.”
“You are an unjust and cruel old man,” stormed Lucille, stamping her
foot at the hitherto dread Grumper. “He is ill, I tell you! You’ll be
ill yourself someday. He had a fit. He’ll be all right in a minute. Let
him go in and lie down. It wasn’t the snake at all. There wasn’t any
snake—where he was. He is just ill. He has been working too hard. Let
him go in and lie down.”
“Let him go to the Devil,” growled the infuriated General, and turned
to such few of the guests as had not displayed sufficient good sense
and good taste to go elsewhere and resume their interrupted games, tea,
or scandal, to remark:—
“I really apologize most sincerely and earnestly for this ridiculous
scene. The boy should be in petticoats, apparently. I hope he won’t
encounter a mouse or a beetle to-night. Let’s all—er—come and have a
drink.”
Lucille led her shaking and incoherent lover indoors and established
him on a sofa, had a fire lit for him as he appeared to be deathly
cold, and sat holding his clammy hand until the arrival of Dr. Jones.
As well as his chattering teeth and white frozen lips would allow, he
begged for forgiveness, for understanding. “He wasn’t really wholly a
coward in essentials.” …
The girl kissed the contorted face and white lips passionately. Dr.
Jones prescribed bed and “complete mental and bodily rest”. He said he
would “send something,” and in a cloud of wise words disguised the fact
that he did not in the least know what to do. It was not in his
experience that a healthy young Hercules, sound as a bell, without spot
or blemish, should behave like an anaemic, neurotic girl….
Dam passed the night in the unnameable, ghastly hell of agony that he
knew so well and that he wondered to survive.
In the morning he received a note from Sir Gerald Seymour Stukeley. It
was brief and clear:—“Sandhurst is scarcely the place for a squealing
coward, still less the Army. Nor is there room for one at Monksmead. I
shall not have the pleasure of seeing you before you catch the 11.15
train; I might say things better left unsaid. I thank God you do not
bear our name though you have some of our blood. This will be the one
grain of comfort when I think that the whole County is gibing and
jeering. No—your name is no more Seymour Stukeley than is your nature.
If you will favour my Solicitors with your address, they will furnish
you with an account of your patrimony and such balance thereof as may
remain—if any. But I believe you came to England worth about fifty
pounds—which you have probably spent as pocket-money. I beg of you to
communicate with me or my household in no way whatsoever.
“G.S.S.”
Hastily dressing, Dam fled from the house on foot, empty handed and
with no money but a five-pound note legitimately his own private
property. On his dressing-table he left the cheque given to him by his
“grandfather” for ensuing Sandhurst expenses. Hiding in the station
waiting-room, he awaited the next train to London—with thoughts of
recruiting-sergeants and the Guards. From force of habit he travelled
first-class, materially lessening his five pounds. In the carriage,
which he had to himself, he sat stunned. He was rather angry than
dismayed and appalled. He was like the soldier, cut down by a
sabre-slash or struck by a bullet, who, for a second, stares dully at
the red gash or blue hole—waiting for the blood to flow and the pain to
commence.
He was numbed, emotionally dead, waiting the terrible awakening to the
realization that he had _lost Lucille_. What mattered the loss of home,
career, friends, honour—mere anti-climax to glance at it.
Yesterday!… To-day!
What was Lucille thinking? What would she do and say? Would she grow to
hate the coward who had dared to make love to her, dared to win her
love!
Would she continue to love him in spite of all?
_I shall enjoy waiting twenty years for you_, she had said yesterday,
and _The world would be quite empty if you left it_. What would it be
while he remained in it a publicly disgraced coward? A coward ridiculed
by the effeminate, degenerate Haddock, who had no soul above
club-ribbons, and no body above a Piccadilly crawl!
Could she love him in spite of all? She was great-hearted enough for
anything. Perhaps for anything but that. To her, cowardice must be the
last lowest depths of degradation. Anyhow he had done the straight
thing by Grumper, in leaving the house without any attempt to let her
know, to say farewell, to ask her to believe in him for a while. If
there had been any question as to the propriety of his trying to become
engaged to her when he was the penniless gentleman-cadet, was there any
question about it when he was the disgraced out-cast, the publicly
exposed coward?
Arrived at the London terminus he sought a recruiting-sergeant and, of
course, could not find one.
However, Canterbury and Cavalry were indissolubly connected in his
mind, and it had occurred to him that, in the Guards, he would run more
risk of coming face to face with people whom he knew than in any other
corps. He would go for the regiment he had known and loved in India (as
he had been informed) and about which he had heard much all his life.
It was due for foreign service in a year or two, and, so far as he
knew, none of its officers had ever heard of him. Ormonde Delorme was
mad about it, but could not afford its expensive mess. Dam had himself
thought how jolly it would be if Grumper “came down” sufficiently
handsomely for him to be able to join it on leaving Sandhurst. He’d
join it _now_!
He hailed a hansom and proceeded to Charing Cross, whence he booked for
the noble and ancient city of Canterbury.
Realizing that only one or two sovereigns would remain to him
otherwise, he travelled in a third-class carriage for the first time in
his hitherto luxurious life. Its bare discomfort and unpleasant
occupants (one was a very malodorous person indeed, and one a smoker of
what smelt like old hats and chair-stuffing in a rank clay pipe)
brought home to him more clearly than anything had done, the fact that
he was a homeless, destitute person about to sell his carcase for a
shilling, and seek the last refuge of the out-of-work, the
wanted-by-the-police, the disgraced, and the runaway.
That carriage and its occupants showed him, in a blinding flash, that
his whole position, condition, outlook, future, and life were utterly
and completely changed.
He was Going Under. Had anybody else ever done it so quickly?…
He went Under, and his entrance to the Underworld was through the great
main-gates of the depot of the Queen’s Own (2nd) Regiment of Heavy
Cavalry, familiarly known as the Queen’s Greys.