CHAPTER V

THE SEEKING OF BEALBY

§ 1

On the same Monday evening that witnessed Bealby’s first experience of

the theatre, Mr. Mergleson, the house steward of Shonts, walked slowly

and thoughtfully across the corner of the park between the laundry and

the gardens. His face was much recovered from the accidents of his

collision with the Lord Chancellor, resort to raw meat in the kitchen

had checked the development of his injuries, and only a few contusions

in the side of his face were more than faintly traceable. And suffering

had on the whole rather ennobled than depressed his bearing. He had a

black eye, but it was not, he felt, a common black eye. It came from

high quarters and through no fault of Mr. Mergleson’s own. He carried it

well. It was a fruit of duty rather than the outcome of wanton

pleasure-seeking or misdirected passion.

He found Mr. Darling in profound meditation over some peach trees

against the wall. They were not doing so well as they ought to do and

Mr. Darling was engaged in wondering why.

“Good evening, Mr. Darling,” said Mr. Mergleson.

Mr. Darling ceased rather slowly to wonder and turned to his friend.

“Good evening, Mr. Mergleson,” he said. “I don’t quite like the look of

these here peaches, _blowed_ if I do.”

Mr. Mergleson glanced at the peaches, and then came to the matter that

was nearest his heart.

“You ’aven’t I suppose seen anything of your stepson these last two

days, Mr. Darling?”

“Naturally _not_,” said Mr. Darling, putting his head on one side and

regarding his interlocutor. “Naturally not,—I’ve left that to you, Mr.

Mergleson.”

“Well, that’s what’s awkward,” said Mr. Mergleson, and then, with a

forced easiness, “You see, I ain’t seen ’im either.”

“No!”

“No. I lost sight of ’im—” Mr. Mergleson appeared to reflect—“late on

Sattiday night.”

“’Ow’s that, Mr. Mergleson?”

Mr. Mergleson considered the difficulties of lucid explanation. “We

missed ’im,” said Mr. Mergleson simply, regarding the well-weeded garden

path with a calculating expression and then lifting his eyes to Mr.

Darling’s with an air of great candour. “And we continue to miss him.”

“_Well!_” said Mr. Darling. “That’s rum.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Mergleson.

“It’s decidedly rum,” said Mr. Darling.

“We thought ’e might be ’iding from ’is work. Or cut off ’ome.”

“You didn’t send down to ask.”

“We was too busy with the week-end people. On the ’ole we thought if ’e

_’ad_ cut ’ome, on the ’ole, ’e wasn’t a very serious loss. ’E got in

the way at times.... And there was one or two things ’appened—... Now

that they’re all gone and ’e ’asn’t turned up—Well, I came down, Mr.

Darling, to arst you. Where’s ’e gone?”

“’E ain’t come ’ere,” said Mr. Darling surveying the garden.

“I ’arf expected ’e might and I ’arf expected ’e mightn’t,” said Mr.

Mergleson with the air of one who had anticipated Mr. Darling’s answer

but hesitated to admit as much.

The two gentlemen paused for some seconds and regarded each other

searchingly.

“Where’s ’e _got_ to?” said Mr. Darling.

“Well,” said Mr. Mergleson, putting his hands where the tails of his

short jacket would have been if it hadn’t been short, and looking

extraordinarily like a parrot in its more thoughtful moods, “to tell you

the truth, Mr. Darling, I’ve ’ad a dream about ’im—and it worries me. I

got a sort of ideer of ’im as being in one of them secret passages.

’Iding away. There was a guest, well, I say it with all respec’ but

_anyone_ might ’ave ’id from ’im.... S’morning soon as the week-end ’ad

cleared up and gone ’ome, me and Thomas went through them passages as

well as we could. Not a trace of ’im. But I still got that ideer. ’E was

a wriggling, climbing,—enterprising sort of boy.”

“I’ve checked ’im for it once or twice,” said Mr. Darling with the red

light of fierce memories gleaming for a moment in his eyes.

“’E might even,” said Mr. Mergleson, “well, very likely ’ave got ’imself

jammed in one of them secret passages....”

“Jammed,” repeated Mr. Darling.

“Well—got ’imself somewhere where ’e can’t get out. I’ve ’eard tell

there’s walled-up dungeons.”

“They say,” said Mr. Darling, “there’s underground passages to the Abbey

ruins—three good mile away.”

“Orkward,” said Mr. Mergleson....

“Drat ’is eyes!” said Mr. Darling, scratching his head. “What does ’e

mean by it?”

“We can’t leave ’im there,” said Mr. Mergleson.

“I knowed a young devil once what crawled up a culvert,” said Mr.

Darling. “’Is father ’ad to dig ’im out like a fox.... Lord! ’ow ’e

walloped ’im for it.”

“Mistake to ’ave a boy in so young,” said Mr. Mergleson.

“It’s all very awkward,” said Mr. Darling, surveying every aspect of the

case. “You see—. ’Is mother sets a most estrordinary value on ’im. Most

estrordinary.”

“I don’t know whether she oughtn’t to be told,” said Mr. Mergleson. “I

was thinking of that.”

Mr. Darling was not the sort of man to meet trouble half-way. He shook

his head at that. “Not yet, Mr. Mergleson. I don’t think yet. Not until

everything’s been tried. I don’t think there’s any need to give her

needless distress,—none whatever. If you don’t mind I think I’ll come up

to-night—nineish say—and ’ave a talk to you and Thomas about it—a quiet

talk. Best to begin with a _quiet_ talk. It’s a dashed rum go, and me

and you we got to think it out a bit.”

“That’s what _I_ think,” said Mr. Mergleson with unconcealed relief at

Mr. Darling’s friendliness. “That’s exactly the light, Mr. Darling, in

which it appears to me. Because, you see—if ’e’s all right and in the

’ouse, why doesn’t ’e come for ’is vittels?”

§ 2

In the pantry that evening the question of telling someone was discussed

further. It was discussed over a number of glasses of Mr. Mergleson’s

beer. For, following a sound tradition, Mr. Mergleson brewed at Shonts,

and sometimes he brewed well and sometimes he brewed ill, and sometimes

he brewed weak and sometimes he brewed strong, and there was no monotony

in the cups at Shonts. This was sturdy stuff and suited Mr. Darling’s

mood, and ever and again with an author’s natural weakness and an

affectation of abstraction Mr. Mergleson took the jug out empty and

brought it back foaming.

Henry, the second footman, was disposed to a forced hopefulness so as

not to spoil the evening, but Thomas was sympathetic and distressed. The

red-haired youth made cigarettes with a little machine, licked them and

offered them to the others, saying little, as became him. Etiquette

deprived him of an uninvited beer, and Mr. Mergleson’s inattention

completed what etiquette began.

“I can’t bear to think of the poor little beggar, stuck head foremost

into some cobwebby cranny, blowed if I can,” said Thomas, getting help

from the jug.

“He was an interesting kid,” said Thomas in a tone that was frankly

obituary. “He didn’t like his work, one could see that, but he was

lively—and I tried to help him along all I could, when I wasn’t too busy

myself.”

“There was something sensitive about him,” said Thomas.

Mr. Mergleson sat with his arms loosely thrown out over the table.

“What we got to do is to tell someone,” he said, “I don’t see ’ow I can

put off telling ’er ladyship—after to-morrow morning. And then—’eaven

’elp us!”

“’Course _I_ got to tell _my_ missis,” said Mr. Darling, and poured in a

preoccupied way, some running over.

“We’ll go through them passages again now before we go to bed,” said Mr.

Mergleson, “far as we can. But there’s ’oles and chinks on’y a boy could

get through.”

“_I_ got to tell the missis,” said Mr. Darling. “That’s what’s worrying

me....”

As the evening wore on there was a tendency on the part of Mr. Darling

to make this the refrain of his discourse. He sought advice. “’Ow’d you

tell the missis?” he asked Mr. Mergleson, and emptied a glass to control

his impatience before Mr. Mergleson replied.

“I shall tell ’er ladyship, just simply, the fact. I shall say, your

ladyship, here’s my boy gone and we don’t know where. And as she arsts

me questions so shall I give particulars.”

Mr. Darling reflected and then shook his head slowly.

“’Ow’d _ju_ tell the missis?” he asked Thomas.

“Glad I haven’t got to,” said Thomas. “_Poor_ little beggar.”

“Yes, but ’ow _would_ you tell ’er?” Mr. Darling said, varying the

accent very carefully.

“I’d go to ’er and I’d pat her back and I’d say, ‘bear up,’ see, and

when she asked what for, I’d just tell her what for—gradual like.”

“You don’t know the missis,” said Mr. Darling. “Henry, ’ow’d _ju_ tell

’er?”

“Let ’er find out,” said Henry. “Wimmin do.”

Mr. Darling reflected, and decided that too was unworkable.

“’Ow’d _you_?” he asked with an air of desperation of the red-haired

youth.

The red-haired youth remained for a moment with his tongue extended,

licking the gum of a cigarette paper, and his eyes on Mr. Darling. Then

he finished the cigarette slowly, giving his mind very carefully to the

question he had been honoured with. “I think,” he said, in a low serious

voice, “I should say, just simply, Mary—or Susan—or whatever her name

is.”

“Tilda,” supplied Mr. Darling.

“‘Tilda,’ I should say. ‘The Lord gave and the Lord ’ath taken away.

Tilda!—’e’s gone.’ Somethin’ like that.”

The red-haired boy cleared his throat. He was rather touched by his own

simple eloquence.

Mr. Darling reflected on this with profound satisfaction for some

moments. Then he broke out almost querulously, “Yes, but brast

him!—_where’s_ ’e gone?”

“Anyhow,” said Mr. Darling, “I ain’t going to tell ’er, not till the

morning. I ain’t going to lose my night’s rest if I _have_ lost my

stepson. Nohow. Mr. Mergleson, I _must_ say, I don’t think I ever _’ave_

tasted better beer. Never. It’s—it’s famous beer.”

He had some more....

On his way back through the moonlight to the gardens Mr. Darling was

still unsettled as to the exact way of breaking things to his wife. He

had come out from the house a little ruffled because of Mr. Mergleson’s

opposition to a rather good idea of his that he should go about the

house and “holler for ’im a bit. He’d know my voice, you see. Ladyship

wouldn’t mind. Very likely ’sleep by now.” But the moonlight dispelled

his irritation.

How was he to tell his wife? He tried various methods to the listening

moon.

There was for example the off-hand newsy way. “You know tha’ boy yours?”

Then a pause for the reply. Then, “’E’s toley dis’peared.”

Only there are difficulties about the word totally.

Or the distressed impersonal manner. “Dre’fle thing happen’d. Dre’fle

thing. Tha’ poo’ lill’ chap, Artie—toley dis’peared.”

Totally again.

Or the personal intimate note. “Dunno wha’ you’ll say t’me, Tilda, when

you hear what-togottasay. Thur’ly bad news. Seems they los’ our Artie up

there—clean los’ ’im. Can’t fine ’im nowhere tall.”

Or the authoritative kindly. “Tilda—you go’ control yourself. Go’ show

whad you made of. Our boy—’e’s—hic—_los’_.”

Then he addressed the park at large with a sudden despair. “Don’ care

wha’ I say, she’ll blame it on to me. I _know_ ’er!”

After that the enormous pathos of the situation got hold of him. “Poor

lill’ chap,” he said. “Poor lill’ fell’,” and shed a few natural tears.

“Loved ’im jessis mione son.”

As the circumambient night made no reply he repeated the remark in a

louder, almost domineering tone....

He spent some time trying to climb the garden wall because the door did

not seem to be in the usual place. (Have to enquire about that in the

morning. Difficult to see everything is all right when one is so

bereaved). But finally he came on the door round a corner.

He told his wife merely that he intended to have a peaceful night, and

took off his boots in a defiant and intermittent manner.

The morning would be soon enough.

She looked at him pretty hard, and he looked at her ever and again, but

she never made a guess at it.

Bed.

§ 3

So soon as the week-enders had dispersed and Sir Peter had gone off to

London to attend to various matters affecting the peptonizing of milk

and the distribution of baby soothers about the habitable globe, Lady

Laxton went back to bed and remained in bed until midday on Tuesday.

Nothing short of complete rest and the utmost kindness from her maid

would, she felt, save her from a nervous breakdown of the most serious

description. The festival had been stormy to the end. Sir Peter’s

ill-advised attempts to deprive Lord Moggeridge of alcohol had led to a

painful struggle at lunch, and this had been followed by a still more

unpleasant scene between host and guest in the afternoon. “This is an

occasion for tact,” Sir Peter had said and had gone off to tackle the

Lord Chancellor, leaving his wife to the direst, best founded

apprehensions. For Sir Peter’s tact was a thing by itself, a mixture of

misconception, recrimination and familiarity that was rarely well

received....

She had had to explain to the Sunday dinner party that his lordship had

been called away suddenly. “Something connected with the Great Seal,”

Lady Laxton had whispered in a discreet mysterious whisper. One or two

simple hearers were left with the persuasion that the Great Seal had

been taken suddenly unwell—and probably in a slightly indelicate manner.

Thomas had to paint Mergleson’s eye with grease-paint left over from

some private theatricals. It had been a patched-up affair altogether,

and before she retired to bed that night Lady Laxton had given way to

her accumulated tensions and wept.

There was no reason whatever why to wind up the day Sir Peter should

have stayed in her room for an hour saying what he thought of Lord

Moggeridge. She felt she knew quite well enough what he thought of Lord

Moggeridge, and on these occasions he always used a number of words that

she did her best to believe, as a delicately brought up woman, were

unfamiliar to her ears....

So on Monday, as soon as the guests had gone, she went to bed again and

stayed there, trying as a good woman should to prevent herself thinking

of what the neighbours could be thinking—and saying—of the whole affair,

by studying a new and very circumstantial pamphlet by Bishop Fowle on

social evils, turning over the moving illustrations of some recent

antivivisection literature and re-reading the accounts in the morning

papers of a colliery disaster in the north of England.

To such women as Lady Laxton, brought up in an atmosphere of refinement

that is almost colourless, and living a life troubled only by small

social conflicts and the minor violence of Sir Peter, blameless to the

point of complete uneventfulness, and secure and comfortable to the

point of tedium, there is something amounting to fascination in the

wickedness and sufferings of more normally situated people, there is a

real attraction and solace in the thought of pain and stress, and as her

access to any other accounts of vice and suffering was restricted she

kept herself closely in touch with the more explicit literature of the

various movements for human moralization that distinguish our age, and

responded eagerly and generously to such painful catastrophes as enliven

it. The counterfoils of her cheque book witnessed to her gratitude for

these vicarious sensations. She figured herself to herself in her day

dreams as a calm and white and shining intervention checking and

reproving amusements of an undesirable nature, and earning the tearful

blessings of the mangled by-products of industrial enterprise.

There is a curious craving for entire reality in the feminine

composition, and there were times when in spite of these feasts of

particulars, she wished she could come just a little nearer to the heady

dreadfulnesses of life than simply writing a cheque against it. She

would have liked to have actually _seen_ the votaries of evil blench and

repent before her contributions, to have, herself, unstrapped and

revived and pitied some doomed and chloroformed victim of the so-called

“scientist,” to have herself participated in the stretcher and the

hospital and humanity made marvellous by enlistment under the red-cross

badge. But Sir Peter’s ideals of womanhood were higher than his

language, and he would not let her soil her refinement with any vision

of the pain and evil in the world. “Sort of woman they want up there is

a Trained Nurse,” he used to say when she broached the possibility of

_going_ to some famine or disaster. “_You_ don’t want to go prying, old

girl....”

She suffered, she felt, from repressed heroism. If ever she was to shine

in disaster that disaster, she felt, must come to her, she might not go

to meet it, and so you realize how deeply it stirred her, how it

brightened her and uplifted her to learn from Mr. Mergleson’s halting

statements that perhaps, that probably, that almost certainly, a painful

and tragical thing was happening even now within the walls of Shonts,

that there was urgent necessity for action—if anguish was to be

witnessed before it had ended, and life saved.

She clasped her hands; she surveyed her large servitor with agonized

green-grey eyes.

“Something must be done at once,” she said. “Everything possible must be

done. Poor little Mite!”

“Of course, my lady, ’e _may_ ’ave run away!”

“Oh no!” she cried, “he hasn’t run away. He hasn’t run away. How can you

be so _wicked_, Mergleson. Of course he hasn’t run away. He’s there now.

And it’s too dreadful.”

She became suddenly very firm and masterful. The morning’s colliery

tragedy inspired her imagination.

“We must get pick-axes,” she said. “We must organize search parties. Not

a moment is to be lost, Mergleson—not a moment.... Get the men in off

the roads. Get everyone you can....”

And not a moment was lost. The road men were actually at work in Shonts

before their proper dinner-hour was over.

They did quite a lot of things that afternoon. Every passage attainable

from the dining-room opening was explored, and where these passages gave

off chinks and crannies they were opened up with a vigour which Lady

Laxton had greatly stimulated by an encouraging presence and liberal

doses of whisky. Through their efforts a fine new opening was made into

the library from the wall near the window, a hole big enough for a man

to fall through, because one did, and a great piece of stonework was

thrown down from the Queen Elizabeth tower, exposing the upper portion

of the secret passage to the light of day. Lady Laxton herself and the

head housemaid went round the panelling with a hammer and a chisel, and

called out “Are you there?” and attempted an opening wherever it sounded

hollow. The sweep was sent for to go up the old chimneys outside the

present flues. Meanwhile Mr. Darling had been set with several of his

men to dig for, discover, pick up and lay open the underground passage

or disused drain, whichever it was, that was known to run from the

corner of the laundry towards the old ice-house, and that was supposed

to reach to the abbey ruins. After some bold exploratory excavations

this channel was located and a report sent at once to Lady Laxton.

It was this and the new and alarming scar on the Queen Elizabeth tower

that brought Mr. Beaulieu Plummer post-haste from the estate office up

to the house. Mr. Beaulieu Plummer was the Marquis of Cranberry’s estate

agent, a man of great natural tact, and charged among other duties with

the task of seeing that the Laxtons did not make away with Shonts during

the period of their tenancy. He was a sound compact little man, rarely

out of extreme riding breeches and gaiters, and he wore glasses, that

now glittered with astonishment as he approached Lady Laxton and her

band of spade workers.

At his approach Mr. Darling attempted to become invisible, but he was

unable to do so.

“Lady Laxton,” Mr. Beaulieu Plummer appealed, “may I ask—?”

“Oh Mr. Beaulieu Plummer, I’m so _glad_ you’ve come. A little

boy—suffocating! I can hardly _bear_ it.”

“Suffocating!” cried Mr. Beaulieu Plummer, “_where_?” and was in a

confused manner told.

He asked a number of questions that Lady Laxton found very tiresome. But

how did she _know_ the boy was in the secret passage? Of course she

knew; was it likely she would do all this if she didn’t know? But

mightn’t he have run away? How could he when he was in the secret

passages? But why not first scour the countryside? By which time he

would be smothered and starved and dead!...

They parted with a mutual loss of esteem, and Mr. Beaulieu Plummer,

looking very serious indeed, ran as fast as he could straight to the

village telegraph-office. Or to be more exact, he walked until he

thought himself out of sight of Lady Laxton and then he took to his

heels and ran. He sat for some time in the parlour post office spoiling

telegraph forms, and composing telegrams to Sir Peter Laxton and Lord

Cranberry.

He got these off at last, and then drawn by an irresistible fascination

went back to the park and watched from afar the signs of fresh

activities on the part of Lady Laxton.

He saw men coming from the direction of the stables with large rakes.

With these they dragged the ornamental waters.

Then a man with a pick-axe appeared against the skyline and crossed the

roof in the direction of the clock tower, bound upon some unknown but

probably highly destructive mission.

Then he saw Lady Laxton going off to the gardens. She was going to

console Mrs. Darling in her trouble. This she did through nearly an hour

and a half. And on the whole it seemed well to Mr. Beaulieu Plummer that

so she should be occupied....

It was striking five when a telegraph boy on a bicycle came up from the

village with a telegram from Sir Peter Laxton.

“Stop all proceedings absolutely,” it said, “until I get to you.”

Lady Laxton’s lips tightened at the message. She was back from much

weeping with Mrs. Darling and altogether finely strung. Here she felt

was one of those supreme occasions when a woman must assert herself. “A

matter of life or death,” she wired in reply, and to show herself how

completely she overrode such dictation as this she sent Mr. Mergleson

down to the village public-house with orders to engage anyone he could

find there for an evening’s work on an extraordinarily liberal overtime

scale.

After taking this step the spirit of Lady Laxton quailed. She went and

sat in her own room and quivered. She quivered but she clenched her

delicate fist.

She would go through with it, come what might, she would go on with the

excavation all night if necessary, but at the same time she began a

little to regret that she had not taken earlier steps to demonstrate the

improbability of Bealby having simply run away. She set to work to

repair this omission. She wrote off to the Superintendent of Police in

the neighbouring town, to the nearest police magistrate, and then on the

off chance to various of her week-end guests, including Captain Douglas.

If it was true that he had organized the annoyance of the Lord

Chancellor (and though she still rejected that view she did now begin to

regard it as a permissible hypothesis), then he might also know

something about the mystery of this boy’s disappearance.

Each letter she wrote she wrote with greater fatigue and haste than its

predecessor and more illegibly.

Sir Peter arrived long after dark. He cut across the corner of the park

to save time, and fell into one of the trenches that Mr. Darling had

opened. This added greatly to the _éclat_ with which he came into the

hall.

Lady Laxton withstood him for five minutes and then returned abruptly to

her bedroom and locked herself in, leaving the control of the operations

in his hands....

“If he’s not in the house,” said Sir Peter, “all this is thunderin’

foolery, and if he’s in the house he’s dead. If he’s dead he’ll smell in

a bit and then’ll be the time to look for him. Somethin’ to go upon

instead of all this blind hacking the place about. No wonder they’re

threatenin’ proceedings....”

§ 4

Upon Captain Douglas Lady Laxton’s letter was destined to have a very

distracting effect. Because, as he came to think it over, as he came to

put her partly illegible allusions to secret passages and a missing boy

side by side with his memories of Lord Moggeridge’s accusations and the

general mystery of his expulsion from Shonts, it became more and more

evident to him that he had here something remarkably like a clue,

something that might serve to lift the black suspicion of irreverence

and levity from his military reputation. And he had already got to the

point of suggesting to Miss Philips that he ought to follow up and

secure Bealby forthwith, before ever they came over the hill crest to

witness the disaster to the caravan.

Captain Douglas, it must be understood, was a young man at war within

himself.

He had been very nicely brought up, firstly in a charming English home,

then in a preparatory school for selected young gentlemen, then in a

good set at Eton, then at Sandhurst, where the internal trouble had

begun to manifest itself. Afterwards the Bistershires.

There were three main strands in the composition of Captain Douglas. In

the first place, and what was peculiarly his own quality, was the

keenest interest in the _why_ of things and the _how_ of things and the

general mechanism of things. He was fond of clocks, curious about

engines, eager for science; he had a quick brain and nimble hands. He

read Jules Verne and liked to think about going to the stars and making

flying machines and submarines—in those days when everybody knew quite

certainly that such things were impossible. His brain teemed with larval

ideas that only needed air and light to become active full-fledged

ideas. There he excelled most of us. In the next place, but this second

strand was just a strand that most young men have, he had a natural keen

interest in the other half of humanity, he thought them lovely,

interesting, wonderful, and they filled him with warm curiosities and

set his imagination cutting the prettiest capers. And in the third

place, and there again he was ordinarily human, he wanted to be liked,

admired, approved, well thought of.... And so constituted he had passed

through the educational influence of that English home, that preparatory

school, the good set at Eton, the Sandhurst discipline, the Bistershire

mess....

Now the educational influence of the English home, the preparatory

school, the good set at Eton and Sandhurst in those days—though

Sandhurst has altered a little since—was all to develop that third chief

strand of his being to the complete suppression of the others, to make

him look well and unobtrusive, dress well and unobtrusively, behave well

and unobtrusively, carry himself well, play games reasonably well, do

nothing else well, and in the best possible form. And the two brothers

Douglas, who were really very much alike, did honestly do their best to

be such plain and simple gentlemen as our country demands, taking

pretentious established things seriously, and not being odd or

intelligent—in spite of those insurgent strands.

But the strands were in them. Below the surface the disturbing impulses

worked and at last forced their way out....

In one Captain Douglas, as Mrs. Rampound Pilby told the Lord Chancellor,

the suppressed ingenuity broke out in disconcerting mystifications and

practical jokes that led to a severance from Portsmouth, in the other

the pent-up passions came out before the other ingredients in an

uncontrollable devotion to the obvious and challenging femininity of

Miss Madeleine Philips.... His training had made him proof against

ordinary women, deaf as it were to their charms, but she—she had

penetrated. And impulsive forces that have been pent up—go with a bang

when they go....

The first strand in the composition of Captain Douglas has still to be

accounted for, the sinister strain of intelligence and inventiveness and

lively curiosity. On that he had kept a warier hold. So far that had not

been noted against him. He had his motor bicycle, it is true, at a time

when motor bicycles were on the verge of the caddish; to that extent a

watchful eye might have found him suspicious; that was all that showed.

I wish I could add it was all that there was, but other things—other

things were going on. Nobody knew about them. But they were going on

more and more.

He read books.

Not decent fiction, not official biographies about other fellows’

fathers and all the old anecdotes brought up to date and so on, but

books with ideas,—you know, philosophy, social philosophy, scientific

stuff, all that rot. _The sort of stuff they read in mechanics’

institutes._

He thought. He could have controlled it. But he did not attempt to

control it. He _tried_ to think. He knew perfectly well that it wasn’t

good form, but a vicious attraction drew him on.

He used to sit in his bedroom-study at Sandhurst, with the door locked,

and write down on a bit of paper what he really believed and why. He

would cut all sorts of things to do this. He would question—things no

properly trained English gentleman ever questions.

And—he experimented.

This you know was long before the French and American aviators. It was

long before the coming of that emphatic lead from abroad without which

no well-bred English mind permits itself to stir. In the darkest secrecy

he used to make little models of cane and paper and elastic in the hope

that somehow he would find out something about flying. Flying—that

dream! He used to go off by himself to lonely places and climb up as

high as he could and send these things fluttering earthward. He used to

moon over them and muse about them. If anyone came upon him suddenly

while he was doing these things, he would sit on his model, or pretend

it didn’t belong to him, or clap it into his pocket, whichever was most

convenient, and assume the vacuous expression of a well-bred gentleman

at leisure—and so far nobody had caught him. But it was a dangerous

practice.

And finally, and this now is the worst and last thing to tell of his

eccentricities, he was keenly interested in the science of his

profession and intensely ambitious.

He thought—though it wasn’t his business to think, the business of a

junior officer is to obey and look a credit to his regiment—that the

military science of the British army was not nearly so bright as it

ought to be, and that if big trouble came there might be considerable

scope for an inventive man who had done what he could to keep abreast

with foreign work, and a considerable weeding out of generals whose

promotion had been determined entirely by their seniority, amiability

and unruffled connubial felicity. He thought that the field artillery

would be found out—there was no good in making a fuss about it

beforehand—that no end of neglected dodges would have to be picked up

from the enemy, that the transport was feeble, and a health

service—other than surgery and ambulance—an unknown idea, but he saw no

remedy but experience. So he worked hard in secret; he worked almost as

hard as some confounded foreigner might have done; in the belief that

after the first horrid smash-up there might be a chance to do things.

Outwardly of course he was sedulously all right. But he could not quite

hide the stir in his mind. It broke out upon his surface in a chattering

activity of incompleted sentences which he tried to keep as decently

silly as he could. He had done his utmost hitherto to escape the

observation of the powers that were. His infatuation for Madeleine

Philips had at any rate distracted censorious attention from these

deeper infamies....

And now here was a crisis in his life. Through some idiotic entanglement

manifestly connected with this missing boy, he had got tarred by his

brother’s brush and was under grave suspicion for liveliness and

disrespect.

The thing might be his professional ruin. And he loved the suppressed

possibilities of his work beyond measure.

It was a thing to make him absent-minded even in the company of

Madeleine.

§ 5

Not only were the first and second strands in the composition of Captain

Douglas in conflict with all his appearances and pretensions, but they

were also in conflict with one another.

He was full of that concealed resolve to do and serve and accomplish

great things in the world. That was surely purpose enough to hide behind

an easy-going unpretending gentlemanliness. But he was also tremendously

attracted by Madeleine Philips, more particularly when she was not

there.

A beautiful woman may be the inspiration of a great career. This,

however, he was beginning to find was not the case with himself. He had

believed it at first and written as much and said as much, and said it

very variously and gracefully. But becoming more and more distinctly

clear to his intelligence was the fact that the very reverse was the

case. Miss Madeleine Philips was making it very manifest to Captain

Douglas that she herself was a career; that a lover with any other

career in view need not—as the advertisements say—apply.

And the time she took up!

The distress of being with her!

And the distress of _not_ being with her!

She was such a proud and lovely and entrancing and distressing being to

remember, and such a vain and difficult thing to be with.

She knew clearly that she was made for love, for she had made herself

for love; and she went through life like its empress with all mankind

and numerous women at her feet. And she had an ideal of the lover who

should win her which was like a oleographic copy of a Laszlo portrait of

Douglas greatly magnified. He was to rise rapidly to great things, he

was to be a conqueror and administrator, while attending exclusively to

her. And incidentally she would gather desperate homage from all other

men of mark, and these attentions would be an added glory to her love

for him. At first Captain Douglas had been quite prepared to satisfy all

these requirements. He had met her at Shorncliffe, for her people were

quite good military people, and he had worshipped his way straight to

her feet. He had made the most delightfully simple and delicate love to

her. He had given up his secret vice of thinking for the writing of

quite surprisingly clever love-letters, and the little white paper

models had ceased for a time to flutter in lonely places.

And then the thought of his career returned to him, from a new aspect,

as something he might lay at her feet. And once it had returned to him

it remained with him.

“Some day,” he said, “and it may not be so very long, some of those

scientific chaps will invent flying. Then the army will have to take it

up, you know.”

“I should _love_,” she said, “to soar through the air.”

He talked one day of going on active service. How would it affect them

if he had to do so? It was a necessary part of a soldier’s lot.

“But I should come too!” she said. “I should come with you.”

“It might not be altogether convenient,” he said, for already he had

learnt that Madeleine Philips usually travelled with quite a large

number of trunks and considerable impressiveness.

“Of course,” she said, “it would be splendid! How could I let you go

alone. You would be the great general and I should be with you always.”

“Not always very comfortable,” he suggested.

“Silly boy!—I shouldn’t mind _that_! How little you know me! Any

hardship!”

“A woman—if she isn’t a nurse—”

“I should come dressed as a man. I would be your groom....”

He tried to think of her dressed as a man, but nothing on earth could

get his imagination any further than a vision of her dressed as a

Principal Boy. She was so delightfully and valiantly not virile; her

hair would have flowed, her body would have moved, a richly fluent

femininity—visible through any disguise.

§ 6

That was in the opening stage of the controversy between their careers.

In those days they were both acutely in love with each other. Their

friends thought the spectacle quite beautiful; they went together so

well. Admirers, fluttered with the pride of participation, asked them

for week-ends together; those theatrical week-ends that begin on Sunday

morning and end on Monday afternoon. She confided widely.

And when at last there was something like a rupture it became the

concern of a large circle of friends.

The particulars of the breach were differently stated. It would seem

that looking ahead he had announced his intention of seeing the French

army manœuvres just when it seemed probable that she would be out of an

engagement.

“But I ought to see what they are doing,” he said. “They’re going to try

those new dirigibles.”

Then should she come?

He wanted to whisk about. It wouldn’t be any fun for her. They might get

landed at nightfall in any old hole. And besides people would talk—

Especially as it was in France. One could do unconventional things in

England one couldn’t in France. Atmosphere was different.

For a time after that halting explanation she maintained a silence. Then

she spoke in a voice of deep feeling. She perceived, she said, that he

wanted his freedom. She would be the last person to hold a reluctant

lover to her side. He might go—to _any_ manœuvres. He might go if he

wished round the world. He might go away from her for ever. She would

not detain him, cripple him, hamper a career she had once been assured

she inspired....

The unfortunate man, torn between his love and his profession, protested

that he hadn’t meant _that_.

Then what _had_ he meant?

He realized he had meant something remarkably like it and he found great

difficulty in expressing these fine distinctions....

She banished him from her presence for a month, said he might go to his

manœuvres—with her blessing. As for herself, that was her own affair.

Some day perhaps he might know more of the heart of a woman.... She

choked back tears—very beautifully, and military science suddenly became

a trivial matter. But she was firm. He wanted to go. He must go. For a

month anyhow.

He went sadly....

Into this opening breach rushed friends. It was the inestimable triumph

of Judy Bowles to get there first. To begin with, Madeleine confided in

her, and then, availing herself of the privilege of a distant

cousinship, she commanded Douglas to tea in her Knightsbridge flat and

had a good straight talk with him. She liked good straight talks with

honest young men about their love affairs; it was almost the only form

of flirtation that the Professor, who was a fierce, tough,

undiscriminating man upon the essentials of matrimony, permitted her.

And there was something peculiarly gratifying about Douglas’s

complexion. Under her guidance he was induced to declare that he could

not live without Madeleine, that her love was the heart of his life,

without it he was nothing and with it he could conquer the world....

Judy permitted herself great protestations on behalf of Madeleine, and

Douglas was worked up to the pitch of kissing her intervening hand. He

had little silvery hairs, she saw, all over his temples. And he was such

a simple perplexed dear. It was a rich deep beautiful afternoon for

Judy.

And then in a very obvious way Judy, who was already deeply in love with

the idea of a caravan tour and the “wind on the heath” and the “Gipsy

life” and the “open road” and all the rest of it, worked this charming

little love difficulty into her scheme, utilized her reluctant husband

to arrange for the coming of Douglas, confided in Mrs. Geedge....

And Douglas went off with his perplexities. He gave up all thought of

France, week-ended at Shonts instead, to his own grave injury, returned

to London unexpectedly by a Sunday train, packed for France and started.

He reached Rheims on Monday afternoon. And then the image of Madeleine,

which always became more beautiful and mysterious and commanding with

every mile he put between them, would not let him go on. He made

unconvincing excuses to the _Daily Excess_ military expert with whom he

was to have seen things. “There’s a woman in it, my boy, and you’re a

fool to go,” said the _Daily Excess_ man, “but of course you’ll go, and

I for one don’t blame you—” He hurried back to London and was at Judy’s

trysting-place even as Judy had anticipated.

And when he saw Madeleine standing in the sunlight, pleased and proud

and glorious, with a smile in her eyes and trembling on her lips, with a

strand or so of her beautiful hair and a streamer or so of delightful

blue fluttering in the wind about her gracious form, it seemed to him

for the moment that leaving the manœuvres and coming back to England was

quite a right and almost a magnificent thing to do.

§ 7

This meeting was no exception to their other meetings.

The coming to her was a crescendo of poetical desire, the sight of her a

climax, and then—an accumulation of irritations. He had thought being

with her would be pure delight, and as they went over the down straying

after the Bowles and the Geedges towards the Redlake Hotel he already

found himself rather urgently asking her to marry him and being annoyed

by what he regarded as her evasiveness.

He walked along with the restrained movement of a decent Englishman; he

seemed as it were to gesticulate only through his clenched teeth, and

she floated beside him, in a wonderful blue dress that with a wonderful

foresight she had planned for breezy uplands on the basis of

Botticelli’s _Primavera_. He was urging her to marry him soon; he needed

her, he could not live in peace without her. It was not at all what he

had come to say; he could not recollect that he had come to say

anything, but now that he was with her it was the only thing he could

find to say to her.

“But, my dearest boy,” she said, “how are we to marry? What is to become

of _your_ career and _my_ career?”

“I’ve _left_ my career!” cried Captain Douglas with the first clear note

of irritation in his voice.

“Oh! don’t let us quarrel,” she cried. “Don’t let us talk of all those

_distant_ things. Let us be happy. Let us enjoy just this lovely day and

the sunshine and the freshness and the beauty.... Because you know we

are snatching these days. We have so few days together. Each—each must

be a gem.... Look, dear, how the breeze sweeps through these tall dry

stems that stick up everywhere—low broad ripples.”

She was a perfect work of art, abolishing time and obligations.

For a time they walked in silence. Then Captain Douglas said, “All very

well—beauty and all that—but a fellow likes to know where he is.”

She did not answer immediately, and then she said, “I believe you are

angry because you have come away from France.”

“Not a bit of it,” said the Captain stoutly. “I’d come away from

anywhere to be with you.”

“I wonder,” she said.

“Well,—haven’t I?”

“I wonder if you ever are with me.... Oh!—I know you _want_ me. I know

you desire me. But the real thing, the happiness,—love. What is anything

to love—anything at all?”

In this strain they continued until their footsteps led them through the

shelter of a group of beeches. And there the gallant captain sought

expression in deeds. He kissed her hands, he sought her lips. She

resisted softly.

“No,” she said, “only if you love me with all your heart.”

Then suddenly, wonderfully, conqueringly she yielded him her lips.

“Oh!” she sighed presently, “if only you understood.”

And leaving speech at that enigma she kissed again....

But you see now how difficult it was under these mystically loving

conditions to introduce the idea of a prompt examination and dispatch of

Bealby. Already these days were consecrated....

And then you see Bealby vanished—going seaward....

Even the crash of the caravan disaster did little to change the

atmosphere. In spite of a certain energetic quality in the Professor’s

direction of the situation—he was a little embittered because his thumb

was sprained and his knee bruised rather badly and he had a slight

abrasion over one ear and William had bitten his calf—the general

disposition was to treat the affair hilariously. Nobody seemed really

hurt except William,—the Professor was not so much hurt as annoyed,—and

William’s injuries though striking were all superficial, a sprained jaw

and grazes and bruises and little things like that; everybody was

heartened up to the idea of damages to be paid for; and neither the

internal injuries to the caravan nor the hawker’s estimate of his

stock-in-trade proved to be as great as one might reasonably have

expected. Before sunset the caravan was safely housed in the

Winthorpe-Sutbury public house, William had found a congenial corner in

the bar parlour, where his account of an inside view of the catastrophe

and his views upon Professor Bowles were much appreciated, the hawker

had made a bit extra by carting all the luggage to the Redlake Royal

Hotel and the caravanners and their menfolk had loitered harmoniously

back to this refuge. Madeleine had walked along the road beside Captain

Douglas and his motor bicycle, which he had picked up at the now

desolate encampment.

“It only remains,” she said, “for that thing to get broken.”

“But I may want it,” he said.

“No,” she said, “Heaven has poured us together and now He has smashed

the vessels. At least He has smashed one of the vessels. And look!—like

a great shield, there is the moon. It’s the Harvest Moon, isn’t it?”

“No,” said the Captain, with his poetry running away with him. “It’s the

Lovers’ Moon.”

“It’s like a benediction rising over our meeting.”

And it was certainly far too much like a benediction for the Captain to

talk about Bealby.

That night was a perfect night for lovers, a night flooded with a kindly

radiance, so that the warm mystery of the centre of life seemed to lurk

in every shadow and hearts throbbed instead of beating and eyes were

stars. After dinner every one found wraps and slipped out into the

moonlight; the Geedges vanished like moths; the Professor made no secret

that Judy was transfigured for him. Night works these miracles. The only

other visitors there, a brace of couples, resorted to the boats upon the

little lake.

Two enormous waiters removing the coffee cups from the small tables upon

the verandah heard Madeleine’s beautiful voice for a little while and

then it was stilled....

§ 8

The morning found Captain Douglas in a state of reaction. He was anxious

to explain quite clearly to Madeleine just how necessary it was that he

should go in search of Bealby forthwith. He was beginning to realize now

just what a chance in the form of Bealby had slipped through his

fingers. He had dropped Bealby and now the thing to do was to pick up

Bealby again before he was altogether lost. Her professional life

unfortunately had given Miss Philips the habit of never rising before

midday, and the Captain had to pass the time as well as he could until

the opportunity for his explanation came.

A fellow couldn’t go off without an explanation....

He passed the time with Professor Bowles upon the golf links.

The Professor was a first-rate player and an unselfish one; he wanted

all other players to be as good as himself. He would spare no pains to

make them so. If he saw them committing any of the many errors into

which golfers fall, he would tell them of it and tell them why it was an

error and insist upon showing them just how to avoid it in future. He

would point out any want of judgment, and not confine himself, as so

many professional golf teachers do, merely to the stroke. After a time

he found it necessary to hint to the Captain that nowadays a military

man must accustom himself to self-control. The Captain kept Pishing and

Tushing, and presently, it was only too evident, swearing softly; his

play got jerky, his strokes were forcible without any real strength,

once he missed the globe altogether and several times he sliced badly.

The eyes under his light eyelashes were wicked little things.

He remembered that he had always detested golf.

And the Professor. He had always detested the Professor.

And his caddie; at least he would have always detested his caddie if he

had known him long enough. His caddie was one of those maddening boys

with no expression at all. It didn’t matter what he did or failed to do,

there was the silly idiot with his stuffed face, unmoved. Really, of

course overjoyed—but apparently unmoved....

“Why did I play it that way?” the Captain repeated. “Oh! because I like

to play it that way.”

“_Well_,” said the Professor. “It isn’t a recognized way anyhow....”

Then came a moment of evil pleasures.

He’d sliced. Old Bowles had sliced. For once in a while he’d muffed

something. Always teaching others and here he was slicing! Why,

sometimes the Captain didn’t slice!...

He’d get out of that neatly enough. Luck! He’d get the hole yet. What a

bore it all was!...

Why couldn’t Madeleine get up at a decent hour to see a fellow? Why must

she lie in bed when she wasn’t acting? If she had got up all this

wouldn’t have happened. The shame of it! Here he was, an able-bodied

capable man in the prime of life and the morning of a day playing this

blockhead’s game—!

Yes—blockhead’s game!

“You play the like,” said the Professor.

“_Rather_,” said the Captain and addressed himself to his stroke.

“That’s not your ball,” said the Professor.

“Similar position,” said the Captain.

“You know, you might _win_ this hole,” said the Professor.

“Who cares?” said the Captain under his breath and putted extravagantly.

“That saves me,” said the Professor, and went down from a distance of

twelve yards.

The Captain, full of an irrational resentment, did his best to halve the

hole and failed.

“You ought to put in a week at nothing but putting,” said the Professor.

“It would save you at least a stroke a hole. I’ve noticed that on almost

every green, if I haven’t beaten you before I pull up in the putting.”

The Captain pretended not to hear and said a lot of rococo things inside

himself.

It was Madeleine who had got him in for this game. A beautiful healthy

girl ought to get up in the mornings. Mornings and beautiful healthy

girls are all the same thing really. She ought to be _dewy_—positively

dewy.... There she must be lying, warm and beautiful in bed—like

Catherine the Great or somebody of that sort. No. It wasn’t right. All

very luxurious and so on but not _right_. She ought to have understood

that he was bound to fall a prey to the Professor if she didn’t get up.

Golf! Here he was, neglecting his career; hanging about on these

_beastly_ links, all the sound men away there in France—it didn’t do to

think of it!—and he was playing this retired tradesman’s consolation!

(Beastly the Professor’s legs looked from behind. The uglier a man’s

legs are the better he plays golf. It’s almost a law.)

That’s what it was, a retired tradesman’s consolation. A decent British

soldier has no more business to be playing golf than he has to be

dressing dolls. It’s a game at once worthless and exasperating. If a man

isn’t perfectly fit he cannot play golf, and when he is perfectly fit he

ought to be doing a man’s work in the world. If ever anything deserved

the name of vice, if ever anything was pure, unforgivable dissipation,

surely golf was that thing....

And meanwhile that boy was getting more and more start. Anyone with a

ha’porth of sense would have been up at five and after that brat—might

have had him bagged and safe and back to lunch. _Ass_ one was at times!

“You’re here, sir,” said the caddie.

The captain perceived he was in a nasty place, open green ahead but with

some tumbled country near at hand and to the left, a rusty old gravel

pit, furze at the sides, water at the bottom. Nasty attractive hole of a

place. Sort of thing one gets into. He must pull himself together for

this. After all, having undertaken to play a game one must play the

game. If he hit the infernal thing, that is to say the ball, if he hit

the ball so that if it didn’t go straight it would go to the right

rather—clear of the hedge it wouldn’t be so bad to the right. Difficult

to manage. Best thing was to think hard of the green ahead, a long way

ahead,—with just the slightest deflection to the right. Now then,—heels

well down, club up, a good swing, keep your eye on the ball, keep your

eye on the ball, keep your eye on the ball just where you mean to hit

it—far below there and a little to the right—and _don’t_ worry....

_Rap._

“In the pond I _think_, sir.”

“The water would have splashed if it had gone in the pond,” said the

Professor. “It must be over there in the wet sand. You hit it pretty

hard, I thought.”

Search. The caddie looked as though he didn’t care whether he found it

or not. _He_ ought to be interested. It was his profession, not just his

game. But nowadays everybody had this horrid disposition towards

slacking. A Tired generation we are. The world is too much with us. Too

much to think about, too much to do, Madeleines, army manœuvres, angry

lawyers, lost boys—let alone such exhausting foolery as this game....

“_Got_ it, sir!” said the caddie.

“Where?”

“Here, sir! Up in the bush, sir!”

It was resting in the branches of a bush two yards above the slippery

bank.

“I doubt if you can play it,” said the Professor, “but it will be

interesting to try.”

The Captain scrutinized the position. “I can play it,” he said.

“You’ll slip, I’m afraid,” said the Professor.

They were both right. Captain Douglas drove his feet into the steep

slope of rusty sand below the bush, held his iron a little short and

wiped the ball up and over and as he found afterwards out of the rough.

All eyes followed the ball except his. The Professor made sounds of

friendly encouragement. But the Captain was going—going. He was on all

fours, he scrabbled handfuls of prickly gorse, of wet sand. His feet,

his ankles, his calves slid into the pond. How much more? No. He’d

reached the bottom. He proceeded to get out again as well as he could.

Not so easy. The bottom of the pond sucked at him....

When at last he rejoined the other three his hands were sandy red, his

knees were sandy red, his feet were of clay, but his face was like the

face of a little child. Like the face of a little fair child after it

has been boiled red in its bath and then dusted over with white powder.

His ears were the colour of roses, Lancaster roses. And his eyes too had

something of the angry wonder of a little child distressed....

“I was afraid you’d slip into the pond,” said the Professor.

“I didn’t,” said the Captain.

“!”

“I just got in to see how deep it was and cool my feet—I hate warm

feet.”

He lost that hole but he felt a better golfer now, his anger he thought

was warming him up so that he would presently begin to make strokes by

instinct, and do remarkable things unawares. After all there is

something in the phrase “getting one’s blood up.” If only the Professor

wouldn’t dally so with his ball and let one’s blood get down again.

Tap!—the Professor’s ball went soaring. Now for it. The Captain

addressed himself to his task, altered his plans rather hastily, smote

and topped the ball.

The least one could expect was a sympathetic silence. But the Professor

thought fit to improve the occasion.

“You’ll never drive,” said the Professor; “you’ll never drive with that

_irritable_ jerk in the middle of the stroke. You might just as well

smack the ball without raising your club. If you think—”

The Captain lost his self-control altogether.

“Look here,” he said, “if _you_ think that _I_ care a single rap about

how I hit the ball, if you think that I really want to win and do well

at this beastly, silly, elderly, childish game—.”

He paused on the verge of ungentlemanly language.

“If a thing’s worth doing at all,” said the Professor after a pause for

reflection, “it’s worth doing well.”

“Then it isn’t worth doing at all. As this hole gives you the game—if

you don’t mind—”

The Captain’s hot moods were so rapid that already he was acutely

ashamed of himself.

“O _certainly_, if you wish it,” said the Professor.

With a gesture the Professor indicated the altered situation to the

respectful caddies and the two gentlemen turned their faces towards the

hotel.

For a time they walked side by side in silence, the caddies following

with hushed expressions.

“Splendid weather for the French manœuvres,” said the Captain presently

in an off-hand tone, “that is to say if they are getting this weather.”

“At present there are a series of high pressure systems over the whole

of Europe north of the Alps,” said the Professor. “It is as near set

fair as Europe can be.”

“Fine weather for tramps and wanderers,” said the Captain after a

further interval.

“There’s a drawback to everything,” said the Professor. “But it’s very

lovely weather.”

§ 9

They got back to the hotel about half-past eleven and the Captain went

and had an unpleasant time with one of the tyres of his motor bicycle

which had got down in the night. In replacing the tyre he pinched the

top of one of his fingers rather badly. Then he got the ordnance map of

the district and sat at a green table in the open air in front of the

hotel windows and speculated on the probable flight of Bealby. He had

been last seen going south by east. That way lay the sea, and all boy

fugitives go naturally for the sea.

He tried to throw himself into the fugitive’s mind and work out just

exactly the course Bealby _must_ take to the sea.

For a time he found this quite an absorbing occupation.

Bealby probably had no money or very little money. Therefore he would

have to beg or steal. He wouldn’t go to the workhouse because he

wouldn’t know about the workhouse, respectable poor people never know

anything about the workhouse, and the chances were he would be both too

honest and too timid to steal. He’d beg. He’d beg at front doors because

of dogs and things, and he’d probably go along a high road. He’d be more

likely to beg from houses than from passers-by, because a door is at

first glance less formidable than a pedestrian and more accustomed to

being addressed. And he’d try isolated cottages rather than the village

street doors, an isolated wayside cottage is so much more confidential.

He’d ask for food—not money. All that seemed pretty sound.

Now this road on the map—into it he was bound to fall and along it he

would go begging. No other?... No.

In the fine weather he’d sleep out. And he’d go—ten, twelve,

fourteen—thirteen, thirteen miles a day.

So now, he ought to be about here. And to-night,—here.

To-morrow at the same pace,—here.

But suppose he got a lift!...

He’d only get a slow lift if he got one at all. It wouldn’t make much

difference in the calculation....

So if to-morrow one started and went on to these cross roads marked

_Inn_, just about twenty-six miles it must be by the scale, and beat

round it one ought to get something in the way of tidings of Mr. Bealby.

Was there any reason why Bealby shouldn’t go on south by east and

seaward?...

None.

And now there remained nothing to do but to explain all this clearly to

Madeleine. And why didn’t she come down? Why didn’t she come down?

But when one got Bealby what would one do with him?

Wring the truth out of him—half by threats and half by persuasion.

Suppose after all he hadn’t any connexion with the upsetting of Lord

Moggeridge? He had. Suppose he hadn’t. He had. He had. He had.

And when one had the truth?

Whisk the boy right up to London and confront the Lord Chancellor with

the facts. But suppose he wouldn’t be confronted with the facts. He was

a touchy old sinner....

For a time Captain Douglas balked at this difficulty. Then suddenly

there came into his head the tall figure, the long moustaches of that

kindly popular figure, his adopted uncle Lord Chickney. Suppose he took

the boy straight to Uncle Chickney, told him the whole story. Even the

Lord Chancellor would scarcely refuse ten minutes to General Lord

Chickney....

The clearer the plans of Captain Douglas grew the more anxious he became

to put them before Madeleine—clearly and convincingly....

Because first he had to catch his boy....

Presently, as Captain Douglas fretted at the continued eclipse of

Madeleine, his thumb went into his waistcoat pocket and found a piece of

paper. He drew it out and looked at it. It was a little piece of stiff

note-paper cut into the shape of a curved V rather after the fashion of

a soaring bird. It must have been there for months. He looked at it. His

care-wrinkled brow relaxed. He glanced over his shoulder at the house

and then held this little scrap high over his head and let go. It

descended with a slanting flight curving round to the left and then came

about and swept down to the ground to the right.... Now why did it go

like that? As if it changed its mind. He tried it again. Same result....

Suppose the curvature of the wings was a little greater? Would it make a

more acute or a less acute angle? He did not know.... Try it.

He felt in his pocket for a piece of paper, found Lady Laxton’s letter,

produced a stout pair of nail scissors in a sheath from a waistcoat

pocket, selected a good clear sheet, and set himself to cut out his

improved V....

As he did so his eyes were on V number one, on the ground. It would be

interesting to see if this thing turned about to the left again. If in

fact it would go on zig-zagging. It ought, he felt, to do so. But to

test that one ought to release it from some higher point so as to give

it a longer flight. Stand on the chair?...

Not in front of the whole rotten hotel. And there was a beastly looking

man in a green apron coming out of the house,—the sort of man who looks

at you. He might come up and watch; these fellows are equal to anything

of that sort. Captain Douglas replaced his scissors and scraps in his

pockets, leaned back with an affectation of boredom, got up, lit a

cigarette—sort of thing the man in the green apron would think all

right—and strolled off towards a clump of beech trees, beyond which were

bushes and a depression. There perhaps one might be free from

observation. Just try these things for a bit. That point about the angle

was a curious one; it made one feel one’s ignorance not to know that....

§ 10

The ideal King has a careworn look, he rules, he has to do things, but

the ideal Queen is radiant happiness, tall and sweetly dignified, simply

she has to be things. And when at last towards midday Queen Madeleine

dispelled the clouds of the morning and came shining back into the world

that waited outside her door, she was full of thankfulness for herself

and for the empire that was given her. She knew she was a delicious and

wonderful thing, she knew she was well done, her hands, the soft folds

of her dress as she held it up, the sweep of her hair from her forehead

pleased her, she lifted her chin but not too high for the almost

unenvious homage in the eyes of the housemaid on the staircase. Her

descent was well timed for the lunch gathering of the hotel guests;

there was “_Ah!_—here she comes at last!” and there was her own

particular court out upon the verandah before the entrance, Geedge and

the Professor and Mrs. Bowles—and Mrs. Geedge coming across the

lawn,—and the lover?

She came on down and out into the sunshine. She betrayed no surprise.

The others met her with flattering greetings that she returned

smilingly. But the lover—?

He was not there!

It was as if the curtain had gone up on almost empty stalls.

He ought to have been worked up and waiting tremendously. He ought to

have spent the morning in writing a poem to her or in writing a

delightful poetical love letter she could carry away and read or in

wandering alone and thinking about her. He ought to be feeling now like

the end of a vigil. He ought to be standing now, a little in the

background and with that pleasant flush of his upon his face and that

shy, subdued, reluctant look that was so infinitely more flattering than

any boldness of admiration. And then she would go towards him, for she

was a giving type, and hold out both hands to him, and he, as though he

couldn’t help it, in spite of all his British reserve, would take one

and hesitate—which made it all the more marked—and kiss it....

Instead of which he was just not there....

No visible disappointment dashed her bravery. She knew that at the

slightest flicker Judy and Mrs. Geedge would guess and that anyhow the

men would guess nothing. “I’ve rested,” she said, “I’ve rested

delightfully. What have you all been doing?”

Judy told of great conversations, Mr. Geedge had been looking for

trout in the stream, Mrs. Geedge with a thin little smile said she

had been making a few notes and—she added the word with

deliberation—“observations,” and Professor Bowles said he had had a

round of golf with the Captain. “And he lost?” asked Madeleine.

“He’s careless in his drive and impatient at the greens,” said the

Professor modestly.

“And then?”

“He vanished,” said the Professor, recognizing the true orientation of

her interest.

There was a little pause and Mrs. Geedge said, “You know—” and stopped

short.

Interrogative looks focussed upon her.

“It’s so odd,” she said.

Curiosity increased.

“I suppose one ought not to say,” said Mrs. Geedge, “and yet—why

shouldn’t one?”

“Exactly,” said Professor Bowles, and every one drew a little nearer to

Mrs. Geedge.

“One can’t help being amused,” she said. “It was so—extraordinary.”

“Is it something about the Captain?” asked Madeleine.

“Yes. You see,—he didn’t see me.”

“Is he—is he writing poetry?” Madeleine was much entertained and

relieved at the thought. That would account for everything. The poor

dear! He hadn’t been able to find some rhyme!

But one gathered from the mysterious airs of Mrs. Geedge that he was not

writing poetry. “You see,” she said, “I was lying out there among the

bushes, just jotting down a few little things,—and he came by. And he

went down into the hollow out of sight.... And what do you think he is

doing? You’d never guess? He’s been at it for twenty minutes.”

They didn’t guess.

“He’s playing with little bits of paper—Oh! like a kitten plays with

dead leaves. He throws them up—and they flutter to the ground—and then

he pounces on them.”

“But—” said Madeleine. And then very brightly, “let’s go and see!”

She was amazed. She couldn’t understand. She hid it under a light

playfulness, that threatened to become distraught. Even when presently,

after a very careful stalking of the dell under the guidance of Mrs.

Geedge, with the others in support, she came in sight of him, she still

found him incredible. There was her lover, her devoted lover, standing

on the top bar of a fence, his legs wide apart and his body balanced

with difficulty, and in his fingers poised high was a little scrap of

paper. This was the man who should have been waiting in the hall with

feverish anxiety. His fingers released the little model and down it went

drifting....

He seemed to be thinking of nothing else in the world. She might never

have been born!...

Some noise, some rustle, caught his ear. He turned his head quickly,

guiltily, and saw her and her companions.

And then he crowned her astonishment. No lovelight leapt to his eyes; he

uttered no cry of joy. Instead he clutched wildly at the air, shouted,

“Oh _damn_!” and came down with a complicated inelegance on all fours

upon the ground.

He was angry with her—angry; she could see that he was extremely angry.

§ 11

So it was that the incompatibilities of man and woman arose again in the

just recovering love dream of Madeleine Philips. But now the discord was

far more evident than it had been at the first breach.

Suddenly her dear lover, her flatterer, her worshipper, had become a

strange averted man. He scrabbled up two of his paper scraps before he

came towards her, still with no lovelight in his eyes. He kissed her

hand as if it was a matter of course and said almost immediately: “I’ve

been hoping for you all the endless morning. I’ve had to amuse myself as

best I can.” His tone was resentful. He spoke as if he had a claim upon

her—upon her attentions. As if it wasn’t entirely upon his side that

obligations lay.

She resolved that shouldn’t deter her from being charming.

And all through the lunch she was as charming as she could be, and under

such treatment that rebellious ruffled quality vanished from his manner,

vanished so completely that she could wonder if it had really been

evident at any time. The alert servitor returned.

She was only too pleased to forget the disappointment of her descent and

forgive him, and it was with a puzzled incredulity that she presently

saw his “difficult” expression returning. It was an odd little knitting

of the brows, a faint absentmindedness, a filming of the brightness of

his worship. He was just perceptibly indifferent to the charmed and

charming things she was saying.

It seemed best to her to open the question herself. “Is there something

on your mind, Dot?”

“Dot” was his old school nickname.

“Well, no—not exactly on my mind. But—. It’s a bother of course. There’s

that confounded boy....”

“Were you trying some sort of divination about him? With those pieces of

paper?”

“No. That was different. That was—just something else. But you see that

boy—. Probably clear up the whole of the Moggeridge bother—and you know

it _is_ a bother. Might turn out beastly awkward....”

It was extraordinarily difficult to express. He wanted so much to stay

with her and he wanted so much to go.

But all reason, all that was expressible, all that found vent in words

and definite suggestions, was on the side of an immediate pursuit of

Bealby. So that it seemed to her he wanted and intended to go much more

definitely than he actually did.

That divergence of purpose flawed a beautiful afternoon, cast chill

shadows of silence over their talk, arrested endearments. She was

irritated. About six o’clock she urged him to go; she did not mind,

anyhow she had things to see to, letters to write, and she left him with

an effect of leaving him for ever. He went and overhauled his motor

bicycle thoroughly and then an aching dread of separation from her

arrested him.

Dinner, the late June sunset and the moon seemed to bring them together

again. Almost harmoniously he was able to suggest that he should get up

very early the next morning, pursue and capture Bealby and return for

lunch.

“You’d get up at dawn!” she cried. “But how perfectly Splendid the

midsummer dawn must be.”

Then she had an inspiration. “Dot!” she cried, “I will get up at dawn

also and come with you.... Yes, but as you say he cannot be more than

thirteen miles away we’d catch him warm in his little bed somewhere. And

the freshness! The dewy freshness!”

And she laughed her beautiful laugh and said it would be “Such _Fun_!”

entering as she supposed into his secret desires and making the most

perfect of reconciliations. They were to have tea first, which she would

prepare with the caravan lamp and kettle. Mrs. Geedge would hand it over

to her.

She broke into song. “A Hunting we will go-ooh,” she sang. “A Hunting we

will go....”

But she could not conquer the churlish underside of the Captain’s nature

even by such efforts. She threw a glamour of vigour and fun over the

adventure, but some cold streak in his composition was insisting all the

time that as a boy hunt the attempt failed. Various little delays in her

preparations prevented a start before half-past seven, he let that weigh

with him, and when sometimes she clapped her hands and ran—and she ran

like a deer, and sometimes she sang, he said something about going at an

even pace.

At a quarter past one Mrs. Geedge observed them returning. They were

walking abreast and about six feet apart, they bore themselves grimly,

after the manner of those who have delivered ultimata, and they

conversed no more....

In the afternoon Madeleine kept her own room, exhausted, and Captain

Douglas sought opportunities of speaking to her in vain. His face

expressed distress and perplexity, with momentary lapses into wrathful

resolution, and he evaded Judy and her leading questions and talked

about the weather with Geedge. He declined a proposal of the Professor’s

to go round the links, with especial reference to his neglected putting.

“You ought to, you know,” said the Professor.

About half-past three, and without any publication of his intention,

Captain Douglas departed upon his motor bicycle....

Madeleine did not reappear until dinner-time, and then she was clad in

lace and gaiety that impressed the naturally very good observation of

Mrs. Geedge as unreal.

§ 12

The Captain, a confusion of motives that was as it were a mind returning

to chaos, started. He had seen tears in her eyes. Just for one instant,

but certainly they were tears. Tears of vexation. Or sorrow? (Which is

the worse thing for a lover to arouse, grief or resentment?) But this

boy must be caught, because if he was not caught a perpetually

developing story of imbecile practical joking upon eminent and

influential persons would eat like a cancer into the Captain’s career.

And if his career was spoilt what sort of thing would he be as a lover?

Not to mention that he might never get a chance then to try flying for

military purposes.... So anyhow, anyhow, this boy must be caught. But

quickly, for women’s hearts are tender, they will not stand exposure to

hardship. There is a kind of unreasonableness natural to goddesses.

Unhappily this was an expedition needing wariness, deliberation, and one

brought to it a feverish hurry to get back. There must be self-control.

There must be patience. Such occasions try the soldierly quality of a

man....

It added nothing to the Captain’s self-control that after he had

travelled ten miles he found he had forgotten his quite indispensable

map and had to return for it. Then he was seized again with doubts

about his inductions and went over them again, sitting by the

roadside. (There must be patience.) ... He went on at a pace of

thirty-five miles an hour to the inn he had marked upon his map as

Bealby’s limit for the second evening. It was a beastly little inn, it

stewed tea for the Captain atrociously and it knew nothing of Bealby.

In the adjacent cottages also they had never heard of Bealby. Captain

Douglas revised his deductions for the third time and came to the

conclusion that he had not made a proper allowance for Wednesday

afternoon. Then there was all Thursday, and the longer, lengthening

part of Friday. He might have done thirty miles or more already. And

he might have crossed this corner—inconspicuously.

Suppose he hadn’t after all come along this road!

He had a momentary vision of Madeleine with eyes brightly tearful. “You

left me for a Wild Goose Chase,” he fancied her saying....

One must stick to one’s job. A soldier more particularly must stick to

his job. Consider Balaclava....

He decided to go on along this road and try the incidental cottages that

his reasoning led him to suppose were the most likely places at which

Bealby would ask for food. It was a business demanding patience and

politeness.

So a number of cottagers, for the greater part they were elderly women

past the fiercer rush and hurry of life, grandmothers and ancient dames

or wives at leisure with their children away at the Council schools, had

a caller that afternoon. Cottages are such lonely places in the daytime

that even district visitors and canvassers are godsends and only tramps

ill received. Captain Douglas ranked high in the scale of visitors.

There was something about him, his fairness, a certain handsomeness, his

quick colour, his active speech, which interested women at all times,

and now an indefinable flow of romantic excitement conveyed itself to

his interlocutors. He encountered the utmost civility everywhere; doors

at first tentatively ajar opened wider at the sight of him and there was

a kindly disposition to enter into his troubles lengthily and

deliberately. People listened attentively to his demands, and before

they testified to Bealby’s sustained absence from their perception they

would for the most part ask numerous questions in return. They wanted to

hear the Captain’s story, the reason for his research, the relationship

between himself and the boy, they wanted to feel something of the

sentiment of the thing. After that was the season for negative facts.

Perhaps when everything was stated they might be able to conjure up what

he wanted. He was asked in to have tea twice, for he looked not only

pink and dusty, but dry, and one old lady said that years ago she had

lost just such a boy as Bealby seemed to be—“Ah! not in the way _you_

have lost him”—and she wept, poor old dear! and was only comforted after

she had told the Captain three touching but extremely lengthy and

detailed anecdotes of Bealby’s vanished prototype.

(Fellow cannot rush away, you know; still all this sort of thing,

accumulating, means a confounded lot of delay.)

And then there was a deaf old man.... A very, very tiresome deaf old man

who said at first he _had_ seen Bealby....

After all the old fellow was deaf....

The sunset found the Captain on a breezy common forty miles away from

the Redlake Royal Hotel and by this time he knew that fugitive boys

cannot be trusted to follow the lines even of the soundest inductions.

This business meant a search.

Should he pelt back to Redlake and start again more thoroughly on the

morrow?

A moment of temptation.

If he did he knew she wouldn’t let him go.

_No!_

NO!

He must make a sweeping movement through the country to the left, trying

up and down the roads that, roughly speaking, radiated from Redlake

between the twenty-fifth and the thirty-fifth milestone....

It was night and high moonlight when at last the Captain reached

Crayminster, that little old town decayed to a village, in the Crays

valley. He was hungry, dispirited, quite unsuccessful, and here he

resolved to eat and rest for the night.

He would have a meal, for by this time he was ravenous, and then go and

talk in the bar or the tap about Bealby.

Until he had eaten he felt he could not endure the sound of his own

voice repeating what had already become a tiresome stereotyped formula;

“You haven’t I suppose seen or heard anything during the last two days

of a small boy—little chap of about thirteen—wandering about? He’s a

sturdy resolute little fellow with a high colour, short wiry hair,

rather dark....”

The White Hart at Crayminster, after some negotiations, produced mutton

cutlets and Australian hock. As he sat at his meal in the small

ambiguous respectable dining-room of the inn—adorned with framed and

glazed beer advertisements, crinkled paper fringes and insincere

sporting prints—he became aware of a murmurous confabulation going on in

the bar parlour. It must certainly he felt be the bar parlour....

He could not hear distinctly, and yet it seemed to him that the

conversational style of Crayminster was abnormally rich in expletive.

And the tone was odd. It had a steadfast quality of commination.

He brushed off a crumb from his jacket, lit a cigarette and stepped

across the passage to put his hopeless questions.

The talk ceased abruptly at his appearance.

It was one of those deep-toned bar parlours that are so infinitely more

pleasant to the eye than the tawdry decorations of the genteel

accommodation. It was brown with a trimming of green paper hops and it

had a mirror and glass shelves sustaining bottles and tankards. Six or

seven individuals were sitting about the room. They had a numerous

effect. There was a man in very light floury tweeds, with a floury bloom

on his face and hair and an anxious depressed expression. He was clearly

a baker. He sat forward as though he nursed something precious under the

table. Next him was a respectable-looking, regular-featured fair man

with a large head, and a ruddy-faced butcher-like individual smoked a

clay pipe by the side of the fireplace. A further individual with an

alert intrusive look might have been a grocer’s assistant associating

above himself.

“Evening,” said the Captain.

“Evening,” said the man with the large hand guardedly.

The Captain came to the hearthrug with an affectation of ease.

“I suppose,” he began, “that you haven’t any of you seen anything of a

small boy, wandering about. He’s a little chap about thirteen. Sturdy,

resolute-looking little fellow with a high colour, short wiry hair,

rather dark....”

He stopped short, arrested by the excited movements of the butcher’s

pipe and by the changed expressions of the rest of the company.

“We—we seen ’im,” the man with the big head managed to say at last.

“We seen ’im all right,” said a voice out of the darkness beyond the

range of the lamp.

The baker with the melancholy expression interjected, “I don’t care if I

don’t ever see ’im again.”

“Ah!” said the Captain, astonished to find himself suddenly beyond

hoping on a hot fresh scent. “Now all that’s very interesting. Where did

you see him?”

“Thunderin’ vicious little varmint,” said the butcher. “Owdacious.”

“Mr. Benshaw,” said the voice from the shadows, “’E’s arter ’im now with

a shot gun loaded up wi’ oats. ’E’ll pepper ’im if ’e gets ’im, Bill

will, you bet your ’at. And serve ’im jolly well right _tew_.”

“I doubt,” said the baker, “I doubt if I’ll ever get my stummik—not

thoroughly proper again. It’s a Blow I’ve ’ad. ’E give me a Blow. Oh!

Mr. ’Orrocks, _could_ I trouble you for another thimbleful of brandy?

Just a thimbleful neat. It eases the ache....”