"His advice saved the match, and--and--and--" his voice had a curious
quaver in it--"and it's no good. Mark can never play footer again."
He sat down and laid his curly head upon a Greek lexicon.
"You see," Archie continued heavily, "I thought Mark would step into my
shoes."
"Good Lord!" said Jim, seeing Mark's foot. "He'd lose himself in 'em."
"The Lubber says he'd have made a great player, a great captain."
"So he will--yet. Footer's not the only game."
"That's true. There's cricket." Archie's face brightened. "I must
push him on at that. The governor might get a 'pro' to bowl to him
during the Easter holidays. He shall, by Jove! Yes, you're right. I
was a fool not to think of that. And when he leaves there will have
been three Samphires of Pitt Hall in the school eleven. I'll go now.
I've got to tackle a nasty bit of AEschylus. You played up like fun
to-day. I told the Doctor you came from our part of Slowshire. He said
something in Greek which I couldn't make head or tail of; but I grinned,
because I made certain it was complimentary. I say--don't be in too
much of a hurry to get into the Sixth. A fellow can't work and play
too. And I didn't come to Harrow to be killed by Greek tragedians.
By-the-by, if you could go down and give the old Lubber a 'con,' he'd be
grateful. He'd come up, as usual, only he doesn't want to climb these
stairs. Good night. We're to see Mark to-morrow, if he has a decent
sleep."
After Archie had left the room, Jim rose to go downstairs to the Lubber,
and in rising his eye caught a picture of Mark's mother, which hung to
the right of the head of the nine-pointer. On the other side was a
picture of the Squire, a capital portrait of that fine specimen of the
country gentleman. From time immemorial the owners of Pitt Hall had
sought wives in Slowshire; but Mark's father went a-wooing in London and
married a delicate creature of sensibility, refinement, and culture, the
daughter of an eloquent and impecunious member of Parliament, a friend
of Cobden and Bright, with some of Sheridan's wild blood in his veins,
tempered, however, by a tincture of John Wesley's. This lady bore her
husband three sons: George, cut to the old Samphire pattern (whose
fortunes do not concern us), Archibald, and Mark, the stammerer. Then
she died, and in due time the Squire of Pitt Hall married again,
selecting Miss Selina Lamb, of Cranberry-Orcas, of whom mention has been
made.
Jim stared at both portraits, seeing dimly the gulf between husband and
wife, realising that Mark was his mother's child, even as Archie was as
truly the son of his burly father. Mrs. Samphire's pathetic eyes seemed
to pierce his heart, so poignant was the reflection that the mother's
fine qualities of head and heart had been reproduced faithfully, and
with them her infirmity of body. Then he blundered out into the dimly
lit passage and stumbled against Nixon minimus going to supper, although
he was as full of tea and potted meat, and hot buttered toast, and
strawberry jam as a Fourth Form boy could be.
"I say," whined Nixon minimus, "I wish you'd look and see whom you're
shovin' into."
"I am looking," said Jim. "Unless I'm vastly mistaken, I heard you say
to me this afternoon: 'Why don't you run, you silly fool?' I'm going to
answer that question now. I didn't run because I was playing to orders.
Later, when I was lying flat on my back, with the wind squeezed out of
me, you specially urged me to get up and play up. Yes, you didn't mean
it, of course, but I happen to want to kick somebody, and I'm going to
kick you, you spoiled infant, you! Take that, and that!"
Jim went on his way relieved in mind and uplifted. The Lubber welcomed
him warmly, looking very funny, with his swollen foot in a footbath and
a huge piece of sticking-plaster across his nose. On his lap lay a
battered volume of Livy and a crib.
"I can give you a rare good pie," he said; "if you're hungry, stick your
nose into that cupboard!"
Jim declined this hospitable offer, and picked up the Livy.
"These cribs aren't much help," growled the Lubber. "It's the verbs and
idioms that flummux me. Eh? What? Oh, done it before! Bless you--a
dozen times; but my memory is rotten. As Billy said in pupil-room last
week, 'You'll forget your own name some day. West, and sign it North.'
Rather bad form making puns on a fellow's name. By gad! I'm glad you
came. No, hang the 'con'! I'll chance it. I want to have a yarn with
you about the Kid. Awful--wasn't it? And Archie says he won't be
allowed to play footer again. Old Archie has taken it hard. Not a bad
chap, Archie, but a bit stodgy--like me. It's on my mind that I've had
a hand in the overdoin' of the Kid. He's a corker is the Kid. I must
be blind as a bat, not to have found that out before. But he must go
slow, or he'll break down. Now it wouldn't surprise me if the Kid made
a mark. What? A joke? Not I. Never made one in my life--except by
accident. I mean he'll turn over some big things some day."
"He seems to have turned over some big things to-day. The three
Bashanites weren't small."
The Lubber laughed.
"To relieve your mind," Jim continued, "I don't mind telling you that
Billy has his eye on the Kid. He won't break down in his training."
The Lubber accepted this assurance with the faith of a child; then he
looked at the cupboard.
"I think," said he, "that if you don't mind hauling out that pie, I'll
have a go at it. Somehow, I couldn't tackle my tea. You'll have some
too, eh? That's right. I never feel quite myself when my tummy's
empty."
Next day, after dinner, Archie saw Mark. He was in bed, and above the
bed hung his "fez," placed there by the matron. Archibald tiptoed into
the room, feeling rather uncomfortable. Mark, he feared, would be
miserable. To his surprise, he was greeted with a grin.
"You don't care----"
"I've thought it out--with Billy. He was here before dinner. I slept
like a t-top last night, and when Billy came in I read his face. He was
awfully d-decent. It's a pity he has only a daughter, although,
perhaps, that makes him extra nice to the sons of other people. He said
that I was strong enough to know the truth. And the truth is that
footer isn't my game. Well--I knew it. But I wanted to get my 'fez,'
and--and there it hangs, and there is this. Billy must have had it
engraved the f-first thing this morning."
He put his hand under his pillow, and pulled out a small hunting-flask.
Upon it was inscribed his name, and beneath, in small script, the line
from Horace:
"_Palmam qui meruit ferat._"
"He gave me this," said Mark, "and with it a jolly good jaw. He m-made
me see that w-w-weakness is part of my kit, and the w-weak make the
running for the strong; and it's no use messin' about and trying to do
what others can do much better. And he s-said that a fellow who rebelled
and sulked was a silly ass--and--by Jove!--he's r-right!"
Mark recovered quickly, and was treated as an honoured guest by his kind
hostess, who played and sang to him every day. Boys, particularly
English boys, are not taught to express their gratitude in happy
phrases, but perhaps it is none the less on that account. If the lady
who played Strauss's waltzes to Mark Samphire should chance to read
these lines, let her believe that the memory of her kindness has ripened
with the passing years.
After the Christmas holidays Mark and Jim found themselves in the Sixth,
privileged to "fag," and accepted by Billy's as Olympians. It was a
pleasant half, and at the end of it Archibald won the school mile. Mark
trained him. Most of the boys who trained, trained too hard; and here
again Mark's weakness developed his brother's strength: they took their
"runs" slowly, but regularly. During these spring afternoons more than
fresh air was imbibed. Mark had capacity for absorbing information
about places and people. To him an ordinary cottage was a volume of
romance; a man asleep by the roadside quickened speculation; a
travelling van held inexhaustible material. One day they came upon an
encampment of gipsies. Mark insisted upon stopping to speak to an
onyx-eyed urchin, who asked for coppers, and while they were talking a
handsome girl of sixteen lounged forward, addressing Mark as "my pretty
gentleman."
"Go along with you," said Mark. "I'm as ugly as they make 'em."
"You are not," the girl replied, staring impudently into his eyes.
"Them eyes of your'n are bits of heaven's own blue; and the women will
look into them and love you."
Mark turned scarlet.
"And you," the hussy turned to Archie. "Ah, you're a real beauty, but
your brother's eyes are handsomer than your'n."
"How do you know he's my brother?" said Archie.
"We Romanies know many things. Give me half a crown, and I'll tell you
both a true fortune."
"Shall we take a bob's worth?" said Archie. "Sixpence each?"
"I'll read your hand for a bob," said the girl, "and his," she nodded at
Mark, "for nothing."
Archie produced a shilling. The girl took his hand between her long,
slender fingers, and gazed at the lines on it.
"Well," said a harsh voice, "what do you see?"
An old hag, possibly the girl's grandmother, had approached silently.
"Hullo," said Archie, "I suppose you're the queen of the gipsies.
Mother Shipton herself," he added _sotto voce_.
"I'm a Stanley," said the old woman, not without dignity. "You're one
as looks for queens on thrones. The greatest queens, my pretty sir,
don't sit on thrones. Go on--tell his fortune! A child could read that
hand and face."
"I see a long life and a full one," droned the girl. "You will get what
you want, because you will want it so badly."
"A true fortune," mumbled the old woman.
"Your turn, Mark," said Archie. "Hold out your paw!"
Reluctantly, Mark obeyed. The girl took his hand as she had taken
Archie's, very delicately, and smoothed the palm with a touch that was
not unlike a caress. A puzzled smile curled her red lips. The old
woman peered over her shoulder. Again the girl stroked the boy's palm,
and he winced.
"Shrinks from a woman's touch," said the old woman.
"You tell it, mother," said the girl.
The old woman bent down.
"A happy hand," she muttered, "a happy hand, the hand of the free giver,
the blessed hand, the kind hand, and the strong hand. Ah, but what is
this? Sorrow, suffering, disappointment! And love," her harsh voice
softened: "you will love deeply and be loved in return. You are the
child of love----"
"I see more," said the girl softly, taking Mark's hand again. "This is
the hand of a fighter, mother."
"Ay, so 'tis, so 'tis."
"A fighter and a conqueror."
Before Mark could draw his hand away, she had bent down and kissed it.
Then she laughed and tossed her pretty head.
"He'd like a kiss on the mouth," she said, eyeing Archie saucily, "but
he won't get one from me."
*CHAPTER IV*
*MISS HAZELBY IS SHOCKED*
Betty Kirtling, when a child, had been heard to say: "I like girls, but
I love boys." Perhaps, beneath the smiles of the prim little English
misses who came to play with her, she perceived jealousies and meanness,
whereas the boys displayed hearts full of love, with no room for
anything else where she was concerned. The second Mrs. Samphire
maintained Betty to be a spoiled beauty before she was out of pinafores;
but Lady Randolph, a finer judge of character, held the contrary
opinion. The Admiral, it is true, set his niece upon a pedestal: an
action of which the nurse, Esther Gear, took fair advantage. "Lor bless
me, Miss Betty! what would your uncle say? You know he thinks you one
of the angels," was a phrase often in her mouth, and one not to be
disregarded by a child who valued the good opinion of others. "My
dear," Lady Randolph would add, "you must never disappoint your uncle.
If he knew you had told a fib, it would make him very unhappy." When
the time came to choose a governess, she selected a lady of strong
character, whose seeming severity was tempered by a sense of humour and
justice. Betty hated her at first, and then learned to love her.
Almost irredeemably ugly, with a square masculine head surmounting a
tall, lean, awkward figure, Miriam Hazelby made the large impression of
one hard to please, but for whose affection and esteem it were worth
striving. Her manner, however, was repellent. The austerity of feature
and deportment chilled a stranger to the marrow; her harsh voice,
emphatic in denouncing humbug and vanity and luxury, only softened when
she was speaking of suffering; then a quick ear might catch minor
harmonies, captivating because elusive.
During the Easter holidays following the term when the Samphires met the
gipsies, Mark was set upon procuring some eggs of the stonechat, which
nests in certain sheltered spots upon the Westchester downs. Mark had
told Betty--now a girl of fourteen--of his proposed expedition, and she
expressed an ardent wish to accompany him. Miriam Hazelby, however,
permitted nothing to interfere with lessons. Betty said sorrowfully:
"I don't suppose Lanky" (her name for Miss Hazelby) "would let me go
alone with you; she thinks you a young man, and I'm told twice a week
that I'm a young lady. But what a splendid time we would have had!"
Next day, Mark tramped off alone, taking the lane which leads to the
downs, and as he was passing the chalk-pit to the right of the village,
Betty sprang into the road with a gay laugh. She carried a basket and
wore an old pink linen frock.
"Betty," said Mark, "you've run away."
"Yes. Isn't it fun? Shan't I catch it from Lanky when I get back.
I've lunch in this basket. Two big bits of Buszard's cake, some
tartlets, sixpennorth of chocolate, four apples, and four bottles of
ginger-pop. Catch hold!"
The girl was in wild spirits. It happened to be a day of late April
when the sun, pouring its rays into the moist fresh earth, brings forth
spring, the Aphrodite of woods and fields, with the foam of milk-white
blossoms about her, and a cestus of tender green. As they passed out of
the lane on to the soft turf of the downs, the landscape widened till it
became panoramic. Behind lay King's Charteris encompassed by hanging
woods now bursting into leaf; beyond were rolling downs, wide breezy
pastures, sloping southerly and westerly to the sea, which gleamed, a
thread of silver, through an opalescent haze.
"Isn't it heavenly?" Betty cried.
"It is r-r-rather jolly!"
"R-r-r-ra--ther jolly," she mimicked him to the life, rounding her
shoulders and slouching forward in an attitude which Mark recognised,
not without dismay, as his own; "ra--ther jolly, awfully jolly, beastly
jolly. How Lanky would love to hear you."
"S-s-shut up, Betty!"
"What! You address a young lady in that manner! I must beg you"--she
had caught the accent and intonation of the excellent Miriam--"to speak
English. Young people, nowadays, are unintelligible. My father, in
whose presence I never ventured to take a liberty with the English
language, would not have believed it possible that a gentleman could use
such expressions...."
Mark tried to pull her hair, but she ran like Atalanta, Mark following
encumbered with the basket. Soon the business of the day began: the
finding of the stonechats' nests. Presently they sat down in the shade.
"Let us have a 'beyondy' talk," said Betty.
"A what....?"
"Oh, when talk is about things we can't see, I call it 'beyondy.' I
say--tell me, what--what are your besetting sins!" Then she laughed.
"We'll play 'swops.' I'll tell you my sins one by one, if you'll tell
me yours. Only you must begin. It will be splendid fun, and, as Lanky
says--improving. She says one ought to know oneself. I suppose you--a
grand Sixth Form boy--know yourself in all your moods and tenses. Give
us a lead. It would be so nice to find that you are wickeder than I."
"I am," said Mark.
"No humbug--and 'bar chaff,' as dear Lanky would not say."
"I'm v-very ambitious, Betty."
She was lying full length on the grass. Now she sat up, opening her
eyes very wide.
"Are you really? Ambitious--eh? That's very interesting. I'm not
ambitious, not a bit. I'm greedy." As she spoke she set her pretty
teeth in an apple. "I'm greedy, and I'm fond of lying in bed. Lanky
says these are awful sins. Oh, dear, I've given you two sins to one.
Never mind. Lanky says a woman ought to give more than she gets. I
say, eat fair with the chocolate. You big boys pretend to despise
sweets, but I notice they go jolly quick when you're about. Yes;
greediness and sloth. It's horrid, but it's true. You see, I'm bound
to be wicked."
"Why?"
"Mother was wicked. I know it. I heard Lady Randolph say--oh, years
ago--that she hoped what was bad in the Kirtlings would kill what was
worse in the De Courcys. I'm not sure what she meant, and I dared not
ask her, because she thought I was looking at some photographs, but it
wasn't complimentary--was it?"
"No," said Mark, getting rather red.
"You are blushing," said Betty. "I do believe that you know something.
What is it?"
She turned a coaxing face to his, being one of those distracting
feminine creatures who have a thousand caresses distinctively their own.
Her touch was different to the touch of other girls--more delicate, more
subtle--an appeal to the finer, not the grosser side.
"What do you know?" she murmured.
"I c-can't tell you," Mark began bravely, and then ended with a
feeble--"m-m-much."
"Boys never can tell much," said Betty disdainfully. "Go on."
"Your m-m-mother ran away."
"Is that all? Why I know more than you. Yes; she ran away. I can't
think why she did, because father was so handsome. I often look at his
miniature; and he must have been the most fascinating man that ever
lived. Uncle calls him sometimes that 'rascal Fred.' Now what does he
mean by that?"
"Betty," said Mark desperately, "this talk is too b-b-beyondy for me."
She paid no attention whatsoever.
"I spoke to Lanky about it," she continued gravely. "She was nicer than
I had ever seen her. 'Betty,' she said, 'remember that it is not for you
to judge your parents. They may not have had your advantages.' Well,
that made me think a bit, and then I hoped their sins would not be
visited on me."
"W-w-what did she say to that, Betty?"
"She nodded that long head of hers in a terrible way. 'We all suffer,'
she growled, 'for the evil that others do.' Do _you_ think I must
suffer for what they did?"
"No, no," cried Mark. "Why, Betty, to me you are the princess who
l-l-lives for ever and ever, fair and happy."
She smiled.
"I love you when you talk like that," she murmured. "And---- Good
gracious me!" She dashed some tears from her eyes and sprang to her
feet. "Look here, we have that long strip of gorse to do before lunch.
Come on! I'll hop you down the hill. One--two-three--OFF!"
Away she went, laughing gaily, leaving care in the shade, and Mark after
her--a boy once more, but with an ache at his heart none the less.
At luncheon Betty speculated upon the nature of the punishment which
awaited her, assuring Mark that she did not care a hang, revelling the
more joyously in the present, because a cloud lay black upon the future.
Presently they discovered that the sun was declining into the soft haze
of the western horizon.
"We must run," cried Betty.
They ran and rested, and then ran again till they came to the sharp
incline from the downs into the valley which holds the village. And
here bad luck tempted them to link hands and race down a slippery,
grassy slope. Perhaps Mark went too fast. Betty fell with a dismal
thump, and a poignant note of anguish fluttered up from a crumpled heap
of linen.
"Are you hurt, Betty?"
"I have twisted my ankle," she groaned, her face puckering with pain.
Mark took off her boot and stocking. The ankle was already swollen and
inflamed. What a catastrophe! But Betty assured him she could limp
home leaning on his arm. They started very slowly and in silence. A
brook bubbled in front of them, and at Mark's advice Betty thrust her
foot into the cool water.
"What a horrid ending," sighed Betty, on the verge of tears. "This is
the punishment. Lanky will do nothing now."
"I should think not," said Mark indignantly. Presently he began to dry
her foot with his handkerchief. It lay soft and white in his hand. She
was sitting higher up on the bank, so that she looked down upon him.
"I like you better than Archie," she said slowly.
"W-w-why?" he stammered.
"You are so much more--sensible."
"Sensible?"
"Yes. Archie," she blushed faintly, "and that stupid old Jim Corrance
say they're in love with me! Isn't it absurd?"
Mark grew scarlet. He would have liked to say what Archie and Jim had
said, but a lump in his throat made him speechless.
"I feel that you are a real friend," pursued Betty. "Now we must be
getting home."
They set out slowly: Betty leaning on Mark's left arm and limping along
in silence. Presently Mark became aware that she was leaning more
heavily. Then he looked down upon a white, agonised face. They had
just reached the small hill whereon The Whim is set. Mark wondered
whether he could carry her to the summit of it. A feather-weight, this
dainty creature, but Mark was no colossus like Archie. Still, exercise
in the gymnasium and elsewhere had hardened his muscles. He bent down,
picked her up, and breasted the hill. Her arms were round his neck; his
arms held her body. But how heavy she grew with every step upward! How
Mark's back and loins and legs ached! How his heart beat! But he
reached the front door and set her down. And in the twilight she held
up her face and kissed him.
"Now," she commanded, "run home before they open the door."
"Leave you? Not I."
He was proof against persuasion, and simulated anger. The Admiral must
hear their misadventure from his lips.
"You obstinate wretch!" said Betty.
When the Admiral did hear the story, some three minutes later, he roared
with laughter, although he grew grave enough towards the end, and sent
his butler, hot-foot, for the village doctor. Nor was Mark permitted to
leave The Whim till that gentleman had pronounced the injury a trifling
affair, which time and cold compresses would set right. At parting the
Admiral admonished Mark solemnly.
"We must have no larks of this sort, my boy. What! _My_ niece
gallivanting about the downs with a lively young man! Miss Hazelby is
inexpressibly shocked. A rod has been pickling the whole day, you may
swear. And she says that you boys make love to the child. Do you?"
"I'd l-l-like to," said Mark abjectedly, "but I haven't--yet."
The Admiral paced the room slowly, as if it were a quarter-deck. His
grey beard lay upon his broad chest; his red weather-beaten countenance
was heavy with thought.
"Look ye here," said he at length. "This is serious, and I take it
seriously. I am tempted to call you a--jackanapes. As it is, I prefer
to say--nothing, except this: you ought to be birched."
"I f-feel as if you were b-b-birching me."
His face relaxed.
"My boy, I'm sorry for you. You may not believe it, but when I was
seventeen and in the Mediterranean squadron"--the Admiral's voice became
reminiscent--"I had the doose of an affair. I suffered like any Romeo,
and my Juliet was only eight-and--er--twenty! Well, sir, I fought and
conquered, and so must you, by God!"
"I have f-f-fought, sir; and I am c-c-conquered."
"You're glib with your tongue. I daresay Betty thinks you a tremendous
fellow."
"She thinks us--very s-s-silly."
"Us? Miriam Hazelby was right. The little baggage! A De Courcy from
tip to toe already. Well, my boy, shake hands! You've made a clean
breast of it, and I respect you for that. And you're in your salad
days, too. So--no more! If you choose to sigh for the moon I can't
prevent you. Good night."
Mark went home, humble as Uriah Heap. None the less, he made a
tolerable dinner, and felt happy and hopeful after it. And that night
he dreamed he was illustrious--a great soldier, a ruler amongst men.
But, high though he climbed, aye, even to the Milky Way itself, where
honours gleamed innumerable, he could not attain to the object of his
dreams--the lovely Moon!
*CHAPTER V*
*VALETE*
It was now definitely decided that Archibald Samphire must go into the
Church, and in due time hold the snug family living. The Squire,
however, was of the opinion that Her Majesty's scarlet would mightily
become his handsome second son, whereas the black of a Clerk in Orders
would do well enough for Mark. Archie, to his father's surprise, chose
the sable instead of the gules. Amongst the Samphires it was a
tradition that the second son always became a parson. Archie had a
respect amounting to veneration for tradition.
"Suit yourselves," said the Squire of Pitt Hall to his sons. "I should
have liked to have seen Archie on a charger."
"But what a leg for a gaiter," said Mark, hinting at episcopal honours.
Archibald was now a very big fellow indeed, so big that when he went in
to bat at Lord's, as captain of the Harrow eleven, a small Eton boy, not
far from Lord Randolph's coach, called out shrilly: "I say, Samphire,
how's your wife and family?" This was the famous year when Eton was
beaten by five wickets, having suffered defeat during four previous
summers. And the only thing that marred Archie's triumph was the fact
that Mark, despite the services of a professional during the Easter
holidays, had not a place in his eleven. On the eve of the great match
one vacancy remained to be filled. It became certain that either Mark
or Jim Corrance would fill it. Jim has confessed since with shame that
he was miserably jealous of Mark, that for a dreadful three weeks this
feeling strained their friendship. And he knew that Mark was the better
cricketer; more, that he had made his friend a better cricketer, that
Jim's understanding of and skill in the game were due to Mark's precept
and practice. Mark would whip a cricket-ball out of his pocket,
whenever five minutes could be spared, crying, "Come on, old chap, you
muffed an easy one yesterday--_catch_!" And the ball would whizz at
Jim's toes. But during the last trial match Mark fainted from the heat,
and Jim took his place in the slips. That night Archie sent for Jim.
"You can get your 'straw,'" he growled.
"But Mark----"
"Won't take it."
"Won't--take--it?"
"He's right. He hasn't the strength. He might faint at Lord's. We
can't run any risks."
Jim went back to his room--confounded. Mark met him and gripped his
hands.
"You've g-got it," he cried. "I _am_ glad. Isn't it glorious?"
"_Glorious?_"
Jim sat down and blubbered, like a Fourth Form boy.
However, it seemed certain then that another year would place Mark in
the eleven, and also amongst the monitors, but this happy end to his
Harrow career was not to be. Archibald, Jim, and he left Billy's at the
end of the Easter half. In those days it was hardly possible for a boy
to pass into Sandhurst direct from a public school. Billy said that
Mark could do it--at the expense of his health; for extra subjects, like
geometrical drawing, English literature, history, and so forth, would
have had to be learned in addition to the regular school work, which in
the Upper Sixth was as stiff as it could be.
"I'm very sorry to lose you," said Billy, when the brothers bade him
good-bye. "Samphire major's future I am not concerned about. But I do
worry about you, Samphire minor, because you attempt too much,
you--er--so to speak--strain at the camel and swallow the gnat. Well,
well," he fumbled with his glasses, "I should like to give you the
benefit of my experience, but," he pursed up his lips, "I am not
sanguine enough to hope that you will profit by it. Some excellent
people think I take my duties too lightly. Perhaps I do, per--haps I
do. A big house like this represents a force against which one
individual is expected to pit his strength. But I realised long ago
that what energy I could spare must of necessity
prove--er--intermittent, the undisciplined, amorphous resistance would
be constant. You--er--take me? Yes. So I governed myself accordingly.
The great force which I was invited to control sways hither and thither,
veering now to the right, and now--er--to the wrong. The swing of the
pendulum, in fine. When it swings to the right I push it, so it swings
a little farther; and when it swings the other way I pull behind, and
perhaps it does not swing quite so far; but I don't try to stop the
swing, because I know that such a feat is beyond my powers. I trust you
are following me, Samphire minor. You, I fear, will recklessly expose
yourself--and be rolled over, as happened in our house-match against
Bashan's. There--I have warned you."
He signed to Archibald to remain behind. For a moment there was
silence. Billy leaned back in his chair polishing the lenses of his
pince-nez with a fine cambric handkerchief.
"If Mark had your body," he began absently, then, faintly smiling, he
added: "Ah, what possibilities lie in that 'if,' which it were vain,
quite vain to consider. Well, I hope that nothing will come between you
and him, that your brotherly love, which has been a pleasant thing to
witness, will continue to grow in strength. Mark has an extravagant
affection for you--the greater because he does not wear it on his
sleeve. Your success here has sweetened the bitterness of his many
disappointments. You will get more from him than you give."
Archibald felt his cheek beginning to burn.
"Don't distress yourself on that account," said Billy kindly; "only take
what he gives, _generously_, and so you will best help him to play his
part in life."
After this interview followed the farewell supper in the common-room,
with its toasts and speeches. Archie made certain that he would break
down in his speech. And before the fags! He could see and hear the
heartless little beasts snickering! As captain of the eleven and of the
Philathletic Club, he was expected to speak about games; as a monitor,
it was no less a duty to mention work. Finally he wrote out his speech
and submitted it to Mark.
"Just what they'll expect," Mark observed. "You j-j-jolly well crack
'em up, and then let 'em down a peg or two. You tell 'em what they know
already--that Billy's is the best house in the school; and then you hope
that it will remain so after you have left. No doubt without your moral
and physical support, Billy's is likely to go to p-p-pot."
"You make me out an ass."
"Most Englishmen either grunt or bray when they get on to their legs to
m-m-make a speech."
"And what are you going to say?"
"Nothing. Mum's the word for a stammerer. I shall bid 'em good-bye,
that's all."
Thanks to Mark's criticism, Archie saw and seized an opportunity. He
told the house he was convinced that its present prosperous condition
was entirely due to his personal exertions, that he trembled for its
future after he had left, that, if possible, he promised to run down
from time to time for the purpose of giving advice to the Doctor, which
he was sure would be appreciated--and so forth. Billy's roared with
laughter, although the sneering voice of Nixon minimus was heard: "I
say, he's trying to be funny!" When Archie sat down, the head of the
house proposed Mark's health. The old common-room rocked with cheers.
None doubted his popularity, but this deafening roar of applause lent it
extraordinary significance, because such tributes were reserved for
famous athletes, and for them alone.
"Thank you," he began; "thank you very much. I suppose you have believed
all the p-pleasant things that the head of the house has just told you
about me..." Here a dozen voices interrupted, "Yes, we do"; "He didn't
lay it on thick enough"; "You're a beast to leave us," and the like.
Mark continued, and in his voice there was a curious minor inflection
which held attention and silence in thrall: "I am glad you believe them,
although he has laid it on too thick. You see we can't get away from
f-f-facts, can we? And the fact is I've been a f-f-failure." He
paused. "I wanted to play in a cockhouse m-match at footer; I w-wanted
to w-win a school race; and I w-w-wanted--by Jove! how b-badly I
w-wanted that--I wanted my 'straw.'"
"It was offered him," said Archie.
"It was offered me," repeated Mark. "And if I'd taken it, it might have
p-proved the straw which breaks the camel's back. Jim Corrance got it,
and we know what back he broke--eh? The b-b-back of the Eton bowling."
(A terrible din followed, during which Billy appeared, holding up a
protesting hand: "My dear fellows, unless you are more careful you will
destroy this ramshackle house!")
Meantime Mark had sat down, but every boy in Billy's respected his
silence. He did not wish them good-bye, because he couldn't.
*CHAPTER VI*
*AT BURLINGTON HOUSE*
You may divide the world into those who pipe and those who dance. The
pipers, for the most part, envy the dancers; but many a dancer has
confessed that the piper, after all, has the best of it.
Mark and Jim Corrance, at this period of their lives, were dancers to
lively measures. They lived at home for a year, emancipated youths,
enjoying the pleasures of Arcadia. Three times a week they rode across
the grey, green downs, "that melt and fade into the distant sky," into
Westchester, where a scholar of repute undertook their preparation for
Sandhurst. Other days they worked at home, not too hard, and played
much tennis--a new game then--and practised arts which please country
maidens, amongst whom Betty Kirtling was not. For the Admiral, having
no stomach for immature Romeos, sent his niece abroad (in the company of
Miss Hazelby) to Dresden and Lausanne, whence letters came describing
queer foreign folk with sprightliness and humour, and always ending
"your most affectionate--Betty."
As the months passed, Jim became aware how strenuously Mark's heart was
set on a soldier's career. One night, for instance, the young fellows
were dining with the Randolphs at Birr Wood, when a famous general was
present. Mark confessed himself aflame to meet the hero; and the hero,
when he met Mark, became interested in him. Who shall say there is not
some subtle quality, undetected by the common herd, which reveals itself
to genius, because it is part, and not the least part, of genius? And
you will notice that if a great man be speaking in general company, his
eyes will wander here and there in search of the kindred soul, and when
that is found, they wander no more. On this occasion a chance remark
led the talk to India. Lord Randolph regretted that so brilliant a
soldier as Hodson should have slain the Taimur princes with his own
hand. The hero, who had known Hodson intimately, said that the princes
had been given no assurance that their lives would be spared, and that
their escape would have proved an immeasurable calamity. As he went on
to speak of Nicholson and the siege of Delhi, the buzz of prattle round
the big table ceased.
"He suffered excruciating pain" (the general was alluding to Nicholson),
"but not a complaint, not a sigh, leaked from his lips. During nine
awful days of agony, his heroic mind fixed itself upon the needs of his
country, to the very last he gave us sound and clear advice. When he
died, the grim frontier chiefs, who had witnessed unmoved the most
frightful atrocities, stood by his dead body with the tears streaming
down their cheeks...."
"What a man!" exclaimed Mark.
"Ay," said the general. He stared at Mark, and continued, giving
details of what followed the fall of Delhi: then unpublished history.
The speaker had marched with the column despatched to the relief of
Cawnpore. "We could only spare," said he, "seven hundred and fifty
British and one thousand nine hundred native soldiers, and--let me
see--how many field-guns?" He paused with his eyes still on Mark.
"Sixteen field-guns," said Mark.
"Yes, you are right. Sixteen field-guns." Then as he realised from
whom he had received this piece of information, he broke into an
exclamation: "God bless me! How did _you_ know that?"
"I've read the d-despatches," said Mark, blushing.
After dinner the general came up to Mark and asked him if he were going
to be a soldier. On Mark's eager affirmative, he said deliberately:
"When you are gazetted, my boy, come to see me. I'd like to make your
better acquaintance."
For a week Mark could talk of nothing save the Indian Mutiny.
"You're too keen," said Jim. "Suppose we don't pass?"
"Not p-p-pass? That's a dead certainty."
"If we did not pass----"
"We could enlist, Jim. I say, you're not going into the Service
because, b-b-because I am?"
"You lit the match," Jim admitted. "A fellow must do something.
Soldiering's as good as anything else."
"Ten times as good as anything else," Mark exclaimed.
Jim nodded, sensible that Mark cast a glamour over the future. As a
child Jim could never listen to tales of smuggling, of hidden treasure,
of Captain Kidd and the Spanish Main, without feeling a titillation of
the marrow. And now that he was eighteen, with fluff on his lip, Mark
could provoke this agreeable sensation whenever he pleased. That he
could fire Jim was not surprising, for Jim was tinder to many sparks,
but he could fire Archibald also.
"I back you to win big stakes," he would say. "W-w-what did the gipsy
predict? You will g-get what you want, because you want it so badly.
You've a leg for a g-g-gaiter. And your voice, your v-voice is amazing.
I'd sooner hear you sing r-rot than listen to Lord Randolph talking
s-sense. You must have the best of singing lessons. Why--you'll charm
the b-birds off the trees."
Archie did take lessons; and began to warble at many houses ballads such
as "'Twas in Trafalgar's Bay," "Sally in our Alley," and "I saw from the
Beach when the Morning was Shining." He grew bigger and stronger and
handsomer every day, and Mark's pride in and affection for this splendid
elder brother became something of a thorn in the side of his friend Jim.
Mark had an ingenuous habit of putting wise words into the mouth of this
Olympian. "Old Archie," he would observe, with a beaming face, "thinks
so-and-so...." Jim was sorely tempted to retort: "If old Archie thinks
that, why the deuce doesn't he say it?" It was plain to Jim that
Archie's brains were of a quality inferior to Mark's, but Mark would not
allow this, and always waxed warm if anyone dared to speak slightingly
of the colossus. Archie, for his part, returned his minor's affection,
and not only sought for, but accepted graciously that minor's advice.
A year later Mark and Jim went up to London for the competitive
examination, lodging at a family hotel in Down Street, an old-fashioned
inn where the name of Samphire was known and respected. The Squire
offered to accompany them, but Mark begged him to stay at Pitt Hall.
Mark and Jim unpacked their traps, and then looked out of the window
over the great world of London.
"Too much smoke for me," said Jim, seeing nothing but dun-coloured roofs
and chimney-pots innumerable.
"But think of the f-f-fires," said Mark, "and of the faces round the
fires. I am sure I should learn to like London, if it were not so
beastly dirty. Why, there are smuts on my cuffs already."
They had a luncheon such as boys love: chops fizzing and sputtering from
the gridiron, a couple of tankards of stout, a tart with Devonshire
cream, and some Stilton cheese.
"Are you nervous?" said Mark.
Jim admitted a qualm or two.
"We ought to come out amongst the first twenty."
"If I am dead lag, I shall be jolly thankful," said Jim.
After lunch they took a turn down Piccadilly. Mark talked: "I say, what
a glorious b-buzzing, like a swarm o' bees in June, and we're in the
hive--eh?"
Presently they entered the Burlington Arcade, exchanging greetings with
old school-fellows; some of them forlorn of countenance; others bubbling
over with self-assurance. The Medical Board had to be passed that
afternoon. Disjointed phrases flitted in and out of Mark's ear. "Not
got a chance, I tell you, but it pleases my people to see me make an ass
of myself--Fancy a rank outsider like that wanting to go into the
Service--Yes; seventy-nine, not out--and first-class cricket--Who are
those fellows with dirty collars?--If you try to crib and get nailed,
you're done--Hullo, Samphire minor! you're going to pass in first, I
know--I say, I saw your aunt the other day--What dead?--And a jolly good
thing, too--One of the biggest duffers in the school, I tell you--With
windgalls and an awful splint--Played for the 'Varsity--And, as luck 'd
have it, he hit her favourite cat----"
Outside the Arcade, they shook themselves free of the chatterers.
"I am in a beastly funk," said Jim, as they went up the stairs of
Burlington House.
"Funk of what?" Mark answered impatiently.
"I don't know," Jim muttered vaguely.
They entered a long, ill-lighted room, and waited their turn. Boy after
boy came out grinning, and buttoning up coat and waistcoat.
"Rather a farce this medical exam," whispered Mark; and then, as he
spoke, his voice broke into a stammer: "I s-s-say--w-w-who's this?"
A fellow they had known at Harrow was coming through the great double
doors. His face was white as a sheet and his lips blue. He was
hurrying by, when Mark called him by name.
"They won't have me," he gasped. "I--I thought I was all right," he
added piteously, "but I ain't."
"What's wrong?" said Mark.
"Heart. I asked 'em to tell me. They were rather decent, but I'm done.
If you don't mind, I'll hook it now. No, don't come with me. I'm not
as bad as that. Only it will, it may--grow worse."
He shambled away with the step of an old man. Mark's face was working
with sympathy.
"How b-b-beastly!" he said. "And it m-m-might be one of us."
They passed through the doors into a larger room beyond. Here a score
or more boys in all stages of dressing and undressing were dotting the
floor. Near the window a big, burly man was testing the sight of a
slender, round-shouldered youth. "How many fingers do I hold up?" Jim
heard him say; and the unhappy youth replied: "Three!" The big man
laughed grimly. "Wrong. Come a little nearer, and try again."
Jim was confoundedly pale.
"Pinch your cheeks," Mark whispered.
They were told to strip, and did so, but waited for some time, while the
wind from an open window blew cold on their bare backs.
"Let's slip on our coats," Jim suggested.
"The others don't do it," said Mark, glancing at a row of shivering
boys, "and we won't."
After what seemed an interminable interval, Jim's name was called. The
doctor into whose hands he fell made short work of him. He clapped a
stethoscope to his chest and back, looked at his legs, asked a few
questions, and smiled pleasantly. "If you can see and hear, you're all
right," said he. "_Next!_" Jim went back to where his clothes lay in a
heap on the chair. He knew that his sight and hearing were excellent;
but why in the name of all that was hateful did not Mark come back?
Half-way down the room Jim could see him, standing in front of a small,
ferret-faced man, who was talking quickly. Now, Jim had not been asked
to run round a table or to perform any other strange exercises, but Mark
was treated less kindly. Jim saw him jump on and off a bench; then he
began to run, and Jim caught the quick command: "Faster, sir, faster!"
And then the stethoscope was laid upon his heaving chest. Jim watched
the doctor's impassible face. Suddenly the doctor looked up and
beckoned to the man who had examined Jim. The second doctor put his ear
to the stethoscope.
"Catch him!" yelled Jim.
A hush fell upon the big room as Jim sprang forward, half clothed and
choking with excitement. He had seen Mark quiver and reel, but the tall,
thin doctor had seen it too. When Jim reached them, Mark was on his
back on the big table. The ferret-faced man was smiling disagreeably,
and tapping the palm of his hand with the end of his stethoscope.
"Absolutely unfit," Jim heard him say. "Not a surgeon in London would
pass him."
"Not pass him?" Jim said furiously. "He's only fainted; he's done that
before, that's nothing."
"Isn't it?" said the little man drily. Then he added malevolently:
"When I am ready to receive instruction from you, young sir, I will let
you know."
When they got back to the hotel and were alone, Mark flung himself into
an armchair. Presently he said quietly: "Let's get seats for the play";
so they walked as far as Mitchell's in Bond Street, and bought two
stalls for the _Colleen Bawn_, in which Dion Boucicault was acting.
Then they strolled on to Regent's Park. Not a word was said about what
passed in Burlington House till they were crossing Portland Place, where
a cousin of Mark's had a house.
"I shan't go back to Pitt Hall till your exam is over," Mark said. "I'd
sooner stop up here with you."
"I don't care a hang about the exam now," Jim blurted out.
"I know you don't," Mark replied. "All the same, you must do your level
best."
This calmness surprised Jim. But after the play, as they were strolling
home through the crowded, gas-lit streets, Mark whispered fiercely: "I'd
like to get drunk to-night."
"Let's do it," said Jim.
"Good old chap! Do you think I'd let you do it?" He glanced at a
handsome roysterer, who was reeling by on the arm of a girl as
reckless-looking as her companion. "I can guess how _they_ feel, poor
devils!"
"We'll have a nightcap, anyhow," said Jim.
So they turned into one of the Piccadilly bars, full of men and women,
and ablaze with light reflected from a thousand glasses and mirrors.
Mark had never set foot in a London bar at midnight. The roar of the
voices, interpenetrated by the shrill laughter of the women, the
clinking of glasses, the swish of silk petticoats, the white glare, the
overpowering odours of the liquors and perfumes, the atmosphere hot on
one's cheek--these smote him. Yet the sensation of violence was not
unpleasant. He was sensible that he might yell if he liked, and that no
one would heed him. They edged up to the bar, squeezing through the mob
till they were opposite a young woman whose plain black dress and
immaculate apron were crowned by a mop of chestnut hair.
"Why it's--it's Squeak," Jim said to Mark.
She recognised them at once.
"Hullo, Mr. Samphire minor--why ain't you in bed?"
They demanded whiskies and sodas.
"You can tell that 'andsome brother of yours that I'm here," said
Squeak, as she pushed the drinks across the bar.
"I'll mention it to him," said Mark.
"I want to see him, to thank him. He got me this job. Don't worry! I
mean that if I'd not got the chuck from Brown's I shouldn't be 'ere, but
there. I've not seen 'im. He's one of the kind that loves and runs
away."
She laughed shrilly, staring with angry eyes at the young men. Her
complexion had lost its freshness and delicacy; her eyes were no longer
clear and bright. Mark's impassive face exasperated her.
"Tell 'im to send back all the 'air I gave 'im," she continued
viciously.
"You have not quite so much left," said Mark.
"Don't look at me like that, you kid, you! I know you're thinking," she
spoke very low, bending across the bar, "that I'm not any younger, or
prettier, or better be'aved. Well--I ain't. And that's why I want to
thank your brother."
"I shall not forget to tell him to come to see you. It will be safe
enough--now."
They dropped back into the crowd. By this time Mark was able to take
note of his surroundings. Squeak, so to speak, had given him bearings.
The faces, in relation to hers, had a certain resemblance, as if those
present belonged to the same family. Next to Jim stood an obese
Israelite, puffy of face, with thick, red lips shining through an oily,
black beard. Jim felt a mad impulse to kick him on the shins. Beside
him was a tall, thin youth of the type known in the seventies as the
la-di-da young man. His pallid, clean-shaven face, his light-blue eyes,
his closely cropped flaxen hair, his delicate features were all in
striking contrast to the Jew's gross, corpulent person. The hands of
each were as different as could be: the Jew's short and thick, and none
too clean, with a couple of big yellow diamonds blazing on them; the
youth's long and thin, very white and bony, with polished nails. And
yet the pair were as twins, for the same evil spirit leered out of their
eyes.
"Come on," said Mark.
Outside the air was delightfully fresh and cool, but the crowd seemed to
have thickened. A tremendous human tide ebbed and flowed between the
tall, dark houses. Jim's eye caught a white feather in the hat of a
girl, which tossed like foam upon troubled waters. Suddenly the
fascination of the scene gripped him. This was London--_London_, the
city of millions; and he stood on the pavement of its most famous
thoroughfare, of it and in it, whether he loved it, feared it, or hated
it. And at the moment, so overpowering was the sense of something new
and strange and terrible that he could not determine whether his feeling
for the capital of the world was one of attraction or repulsion.
Mark and he moved slowly on, till they came to the wall which
encompasses Devonshire House. At the corner stood a huge policeman,
grimly impassive, one of London's hundred thousand warders, and an
epitome of all.
"When is closing time?" said Mark to the constable.
"Quarter-past twelve, sir."
Mark looked at his watch.
"Five minutes more. I'm going back."
"Where?"
"To that girl--Squeak."
"What on earth for?"
"I spoke brutally. I shall beg her p-pardon. Don't come with me!"
"You're as mad as a hatter."
Jim went on to Down Street, ascended the stairs, and began to undress,
thinking of two things which obliterated all others--the slender figure
of Mark when it reeled back into the arms of the tall, thin surgeon, and
the white feather wavering hither and thither above the turbulent crowd.
Half an hour passed, and Mark did not return. Jim grew apprehensive. If
Mark had fainted--if he had fallen into coarse, gross hands such as
those of the Jew. Then he thought of the colossus at the corner of
Devonshire House, and took comfort in him--the Argus-eyed, the
omnipresent and omnipotent.
"Not in bed yet?" said Mark.
"By Jove, here you are! I saw you trampled under foot."
"I'm glad I went back. The girl's a good sort--silly, vain, terribly
ignorant, but not without heart. I promised to see her again. It
wouldn't be a b-bad bit of work to get her out of that--hell."
"You're a rum 'un," said Jim, for since they had parted Mark's face had
resumed its natural expression--that look of joyousness which redeemed
the harsh features and sallow skin.
"A rum 'un--why?"
"Well, I supposed, you know, that you'd be thinking just now of--of
yourself."
"I'm rather s-sick of that subject."
He flung off his clothes and turned out the gas. Jim slipped into bed in
the adjoining room. He couldn't sleep for an hour or two, wondering
whether Mark would break down when he found himself alone, listening
with ears attuned to catch the lightest sigh. To his astonishment, Mark
breathed quietly and regularly. He must be--asleep! Jim waited for
another ten minutes; then he slipped out of bed. The moon was throwing a
soft radiance upon Mark's figure. He lay flat on his back, with his
arms straight at his side. _He was smiling_! But his fists were
clenched, and the jaw below the parted lips stood out firm, square, and
aggressive....
Jim watched him lying thus for several minutes; then he stole back to
bed--no longer a boy, but a man. By many, doubtless, the step between
boyhood and manhood is taken at random, and forgotten as soon as taken;
or it escapes observation altogether. But Jim was shown, as in a vision,
the past and the future: the green playing-fields, the happy lanes of
childhood, and beyond--the hurly-burly, the high winds and whirling
dust-clouds, the inexorable struggle for and of Life!
*CHAPTER VII*
*THE HUNT BALL*
At Harrow, Mark had been told by the drawing-master that he had great
talent as a draughtsman, and possibly something more. The vague
"something more" kindled possibilities which smouldered, and burst into
flame when the doctors at Burlington House pronounced him unfit to serve
his sovereign. The Squire suggested the Bar, a bank, or a junior
partnership in a brewery. Mark shook his head. Briefs--supposing they
came to him--bullion, beer, left fancy cold. But to paint a great
picture, to interpret by means of colour a message vital to the world,
this indeed would be worth while!
Mrs. Samphire bleated dismay and displeasure; but much to the Squire's
surprise, Lady Randolph sustained Mark's choice of art as an avenue to
success.
"Fame's temple," she said, "lies in the heart of a maze to which
converge a thousand paths--most of 'em blind alleys. Mark may try one
path after another, but in the end--in the end, mind you--he will choose
the right one."
After a few months' work in South Kensington, Mark went to Paris, where
he became a pupil of the famous Saphir at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.
Saphir looked at his studies and shook his head. He was of opinion that
Mark had better join Julian's for a year; the standard at the Beaux Arts
was very high. Mark showed his disappointment.
"Oh, monsieur, I am so anxious to be under you."
"Have you no better reason than that?" said the great man.
"Our n-n-names are alike," stammered Mark.
"_Tiens_! Any reason is better than none. _Samphire et Saphir_."
"And the l-l-less," said Mark, "includes the g-g-greater."
Saphir laughed at the compliment, and told Mark he might join his
_atelier_. "Only you must work--work--work. That is my first word to
you--work!"
Mark worked furiously. Many well-informed persons believe that an art
student's life in Paris (particularly that part of Paris which lies on
the left bank of the Seine) is a sort of carnival--a procession up and
down the Boul' Mich', varied by frequent excursions to the Moulin Rouge
and other places of entertainment in Montmartre. Of the unremitting
labour, of the grinding poverty, of the self-denial cheerfully
confronted by the greater number, an adequate idea perhaps may be
gleaned from Zola's _L'OEuvre_, which sets forth, photographically and
pathologically, French art life as it is. _L'OEuvre_, however, deals
with the struggle for supremacy between the academic and the "_plein
air_" schools. When Mark entered the Beaux Arts, this struggle, although
not at an end, had become equalised, the balance of power and popularity
lying rather with the _plein air_ party, of which Saphir was the bright
particular star. Saphir introduced Mark to Pynsent, then considered one
of the rising men. Born in the East of America, related on his mother's
side to two of the Brook Farm celebrities, Pynsent had renounced a
promising career as a lawyer in the hope of making his fortune out West.
In California he lost what money he possessed trying to develop a
"salted mine." Then he "taught school" for bread and butter--a foothill
school on the slopes of the Santa Lucia mountains, where the pupils were
the children of squatters, and "Pikers," and greasers. Here he found
his true vocation. For a couple of years he denied himself the
commonest comforts, living on beans for the most part, saving his
pitiful salary. Then he worked his passage round the Horn in a
sailing-ship, and began at thirty years of age to draw from plaster
casts! Since, he had taken most of the prizes open to foreigners at the
Ecole des Beaux Arts!
Pynsent found Mark a lodging and studio in the Rue de l'Ancienne
Comedie, not far from the famous Cafe Procope, the cafe of Voltaire and
Verlaine. With Pynsent as guide, he learned to know Paris--the Paris of
the Valois and Bourbon, the Paris of the Terror, of the Empire, and of
the Republic. Pynsent had a prodigious memory, and an absorbing passion
for colour. He was always hopeful, generous, proud, inordinately
ambitious, and willing to sacrifice everything to his art. He exercised
an enormous influence upon Mark, making plain to him the virtue which
underlies so much that is vile and vicious on the surface.
"Men fail here," said he, "not so much from incapacity as ignorance. I
could not interpret Paris to you or to myself had I not served my
apprenticeship in California. Because my energies were misdirected
there, I have learned to direct them here. Great Caesar's ghost! What
mistakes I have made! But you can bet your life that the fellow who
makes no mistakes is either a parasite or a jelly-fish. Tell me what a
man's mistakes are, and I'll tell you what he is."
"Am I making a mistake?" said Mark.
He had worked--furiously, as has been said--for two years. Pynsent
smoked his cigarette for a full minute before he replied: "I don't know
yet. I shall know soon."
"When you do know, tell me," said Mark.
Meanwhile Archibald Samphire was occupying a corner of that famous
quadrangle of Trinity College where Byron, Newton, Macaulay--and how
many more?--have kept their terms. Archie was considered by impartial
judges to be a distinguished young man. A "double blue," he represented
his University at cricket and as a runner; he was certain to take a good
degree; he could sing charmingly; he was handsome as Narcissus. At the
end of the second year's work in Paris, Mark and Archie and Jim Corrance
made a tour of France, with the intention of visiting the Gothic
cathedrals; but, as a rule, after the dust and glare of the French
roads, both Archie and Jim Corrance would seek and find some cool cafe.
Mark, however, would hurry off to the nearest church, and return raving
of foliations and triforia and clerestories--empty words to Philistines,
but to him documents of surpassing interest. Archibald was going to
take Orders, not swerving by a hand's breadth from his goal; but Jim,
after a year at Sandhurst, had resigned his commission.
"I'm no soldier," he told Mark. "I went up for my exam because you
fired me. I want to make money--a big pile." Mark said nothing, but he
thought of Betty Kirtling, now eighteen, and still abroad. Jim had
mentioned (with a flushed cheek) that Betty was coming out at the
Westchester Hunt Ball, always held in New Year's week, and Mark had said
that he would assist at that and other festivities.
When Christmas came Mark crossed the Channel. He brought Pynsent with
him as a guest. Mark was now twenty-two, but he looked older. You must
imagine a long, thin, sallow face, illumined by two splendid blue eyes
and a wide mouth filled with white even teeth. The hair was dark brown,
and the eyebrows were arched, like the eyebrows of the poet Shelley.
His nose was too long--so Pynsent said--and the chin was too prominent,
the eyes set too far apart, the brow too wide. For the rest the figure
was tall and slight, with finely shaped extremities. Curiously enough,
although ninety-nine out of a hundred persons would have pronounced Mark
an ugly man; yet, dressed in petticoats, judiciously painted and
bewigged, he made a captivating woman. At a dance in one of the
studios, he impersonated an American heiress with so much spirit and
appreciation of the attention he received, that before the night was out
he had promised to become the wife of an impoverished French count: a
prank provoking a challenge, which Mark accepted and which doubtless
would have ended in a duel, had not Pynsent explained to the victim of
the joke that if Mark was killed, the slayer of so popular a person
would have to fight his friends, man by man, till not one Englishman or
American was left alive in Saphir's studio. "It is the woman in Mark's
face," said Pynsent, "which gives it charm and quality; but the man,
strong and ardent, looks out of his eyes."
Mark did not meet Betty till the night of the Hunt Ball. He was
standing beside Archie and Pynsent, as she entered the room.
"Great Scott--here's Beatrice Cenci!" said Pynsent.
The artist was thinking of the fascinating portrait which hangs in the
Barberini Palace, not of the wooden counterfeit presentment so familiar
to buyers of cheap chromo-lithographs.
"It's our Betty," said Archie.
"As if it could be anybody else," Mark added.
Betty advanced, tall and slim and pale: her great hazel eyes sparkling
with pleasure and excitement. Beside her, beaming with pride, walked the
grey-headed, grey-bearded Admiral; behind came two nice-looking youths,
fingering their highly glazed Programmes and gazing at the milk-white
neck and shoulders in front of them. The big room was full of people:
men in the "pink" of four hunts, officers in scarlet, officers in dark
green and silver, dignitaries of the Church, bland and superior; lesser
luminaries, such as canons and archdeacons; masters from the college,
supercilious gentlemen for the most part, and the sisters and wives and
cousins of these. A roving eye might detect the difference between those
of the county and those of the town, dividing the latter again into
those of the barracks, the close, and the college; and a stranger might
have whiled away the evening, even if he did not dance, by noting the
subtler distinction between the wife of a rural dean and the mistress of
a country vicarage, or between Lady Randolph, the wife of the
Lord-Lieutenant, and Lady Bellowes, whose husband was a baronet of
recent creation.
The first dance had just come to an end, so the floor was comparatively
clear for the passage of Betty and her squires. Archibald went forward,
smiling, to greet her, followed by Mark and Jim Corrance.
"I've saved three dances apiece for you," said Betty.
One of the young men behind, Lord Kirtling's eldest son, protested
loudly: "Oh, I say--and I'm a cousin."
"A cousin!" cried Betty gaily. "Why, these are my best and oldest
friends. We've sucked the same acidulated drop."
Mark introduced Pynsent. Then Lord Randolph came up; and Betty was
escorted in triumph to the corner sacred to the magnates, where her card
was almost torn in pieces by the young men.
"Never saw such a pair," said Pynsent to Mark, indicating Archie and
Betty.
Archibald, in the scarlet coat with white facings of the Quest Hunt, was
standing beside Betty, who wore a pearly brocade embroidered with true
lovers' knots.
"Dear old Archie looks splendid," said Mark.
A set of lancers was being formed. Mrs. Samphire, discovering that Mark
had no partner, begged him to sit down beside her. The years which had
passed since she married the Squire had turned her from a thin, prim,
slightly acidulous spinster into a plump, smirking matron, whose skin
seemed too tight for her face, even as her bodice seemed too tight for
her figure. A voluble talker, she was never known to listen to any
person save her superior in position or rank. Lady Randolph's lightest
words she cherished and generally repeated them afterwards--as her own.
"I've hardly had time to say anything to you," she bleated. "How well
Archibald looks to-night! It distresses me dreadfully to think that he
will never wear pink again. Betty is very handsome. What do you say?
A beauty? No, no. I can't agree with you. And I always admire
blondes. All the Lambs are blondes."
"No black sheep in your family?" said Mark. Lady Randolph, who was near,
smiled.
"Black sheep? Never! Dear me! Who is that? Oh, Harry Kirtling. What
a nice-looking young fellow! One guesses why he is here. Our dear
Admiral is anxious to see a coronet on his niece's head. Don't move,
Mark! Ah! there is Lady Valence and her blind husband. Do tell me--I
am so short-sighted--who is that very common young man with them? What?
Oh, oh, indeed! The Duke of Brecon! I must say a word to dear Lady
Valence."
She bustled across the room. Mark turned to Lady Randolph.
"Have you any m-m-mint s-sauce? There is s-something about all the
Lambs which----"
"Does not bring out our great qualities," said Lady Randolph. "See!
She has put the Duke to rout, and he is going to take refuge with me."
Mark glanced up, noting that the Duke's feet were flat and turned out at
an absurd angle, giving him a shuffling and awkward gait.
"He is a better fellow than he looks," whispered Lady Randolph.
"Will you do me a favour, Lady Randolph?" The Duke's voice was very
pleasant. "Perhaps you can guess the nature of it?"
"An introduction to Miss Kirtling, of course."
"Of course," he repeated, laughing.