Leonard Boyce had received me on sufferance. I had come upon him
while he was imprudently exposing himself to view. There had been
no way out of it. But he made it clear that he desired no other
Wellingsfordian to invade his privacy. Secretly he had come to see
his mother and secretly he intended to go. I remembered that
before he went to the front he had not come home, but his mother
had met him in London. He had asked me for no local news. He had
inquired after the welfare of none of his old friends. Never an
allusion to poor Oswald Fenimore's gallant death--he used to run
in and out of Wellings Park as if it were his own house. What had
he against the place which for so many years had been his home?
With regard to Betty Fairfax, he had loved and ridden away, it is
true, leaving her disconsolate. But though everyone knew of the
engagement, no one had suspected the defection. Betty was a young
woman who could keep her own counsel and baffle any curiosity-
monger or purveyor of gossip in the country. So when she married
Captain Connor, a little gasp went round the neighbourhood, which
for the first time remembered Leonard Boyce. There were some who
blamed her for callous treatment of Boyce, away and forgotten at
the front. The majority, however, took the matter calmly, as we
have had to take far more amazing social convulsions. The fact
remained that Betty was married, and there was no reason whatever,
on the score of the old engagement, for Boyce to manifest such
exaggerated shyness with regard to Wellingsford society.
If it had been any other man than Boyce, I should not have worried
about the matter at all. Save that I was deeply attached to Betty,
what had her discarded lover's attitude to do with me? But Boyce
was Boyce, the man of the damnable story of Vilboek's Farm. And
he, of his own accord, had revived in my mind that story in all
its intensity. A chance foolish question, such as thousands of
gentle, sheltered women have put to their suddenly,
uncomprehended, suddenly deified sons and husbands, had obviously
disturbed his nervous equilibrium. That little reflex twitch at
the corner of his lips--I have seen it often in the old times. I
should like to have had him stripped to the waist so that I could
have seen his heart--the infallible test. At moments of mighty
moral strain men can keep steady eyes and nostrils and mouth and
speech; but they cannot control that tell-tale diaphragm of flesh
over the heart. I have known it to cause the death of many a
Kaffir spy. ... But, at any rate, there was the twitch of the lips
... I deliberately threw weight into the scale of Mrs. Boyce's
foolish question. If he had not lost his balance, why should he
have launched into an almost passionate defence of the physical
coward?
My memory went back to the narrative of the poor devil in the Cape
Town hospital. Boyce's description of the general phenomenon was a
deadly corroboration of Somers's account of the individual case.
They had used the same word--"paralysed." Boyce had made a fierce
and definite apologia for the very act of which Somers had accused
him. He put it down to the sudden epilepsy of fear for which a man
was irresponsible. Somers's story had never seemed so convincing--
the first part of it, at least--the part relating to the paralysis
of terror. But the second part--the account of the diabolical
ingenuity by means of which Boyce rehabilitated himself--instead
of blowing his brains out like a gentleman--still hammered at the
gates of my credulity.
Well--granted the whole thing was true--why revive it after
fifteen years' dead silence, and all of a sudden, just on account
of an idle question? Even in South Africa, his "mention" had
proved his courage. Now, with the D. S. O. a mere matter of
gazetting, it was established beyond dispute.
On the other hand, if the Vilboek story, more especially the
second part, was true, what reparation could he make in the eyes
of honourable men?--in his own eyes, if he himself had succeeded
to the status of an honourable man? Would not any decent soldier
smite him across the face instead of grasping him by the hand? I
was profoundly worried.
Moreover Betty, level-headed Betty, had called him a devil. Why?
If the second part of Somers's story were true, he had acted like
a devil. There is no other word for it. Now, what concrete
diabolical facts did Betty know? Or had her instinctive feminine
insight pierced through the man's outer charm and merely perceived
horns, tail, and cloven hoof cast like a shadow over his soul?
How was I to know?
She came to dine with me the next evening: a dear way she had of
coming uninvited, and God knows how a lonely cripple valued it.
She was in uniform, being too busy to change, and looked
remarkably pretty. She brought with her a cheery letter from her
husband, received that morning, and read me such bits as the
profane might hear, her eyes brightening as she glanced over the
sections that she skipped. Beyond doubt her marriage had brought
her pleasure and pride. The pride she would have felt to some
extent, I think, if she had married a grampus; for when a woman
has a husband at the front she feels that she is taking her part
in the campaign and exposing herself vicariously to hardship and
shrapnel; and in the eyes of the world she gains thereby a little
in stature, a thing dear to every right-minded woman. But Betty's
husband was not a grampus, but a very fine fellow, a mate to be
wholly proud of: and he loved her devotedly and expressed his love
beautifully loverwise, as her tell-tale face informed me.
Gratefully and sturdily she had set herself out to be happy. She
was succeeding. ... Lord bless you! Millions of women who have
married, not the wretch they loved, but the other man, have lived
happy ever after. No: I had no fear for Betty now. I could not see
that she had any fear for herself.
After dinner she sat on the floor by my side and smoked cigarettes
in great content. She had done a hard day's work at the hospital;
her husband had done a hard day's work--probably was still doing
it--in Flanders. Both deserved well of their country and their
consciences. She was giving a poor lonely paralytic, who had given
his legs years ago to the aforesaid country, a delightful evening.
... No, I'm quite sure such a patronising thought never entered my
Betty's head. After all, my upper half is sound, and I can talk
sense or nonsense with anybody. What have one's legs to do with a
pleasant after-dinner conversation? Years ago I swore a great oath
that I would see them damned before they got in the way of my
intelligence.
We were getting on famously. We had put both war and Wellingsford
behind us, and talked of books. I found to my dismay that this
fair and fearless high product of modernity had far less
acquaintance with Matthew Arnold than with the Evangelist of the
same praenomen. She had never heard of "The Forsaken Merman," one
of the most haunting romantic poems in the English language. I
pointed to a bookcase and bade her fetch the volume. She brought
it and settled down again by my chair, and, as a punishment of
ignorance, and for the good of her soul, I began to read aloud.
She is an impressionable young person and yet one of remarkable
candour. If she had not been held by the sea-music of the poem,
she would not have kept her deep, steady brown eyes fixed on me. I
have no hesitation in repeating that we were getting on famously
and enjoying ourselves immensely. I got nearly to the end:
"... Here came a mortal, But faithless was she, And alone dwell
forever The Kings of the sea. But, children at midnight--"
The door opened wide. Topping his long stiff body, Marigold's ugly
one-eyed head appeared, and, as if he was tremendously proud of
himself, he announced:
"Major Boyce."
Boyce strode quickly past him and, suddenly aware of Betty by my
side, stopped short, like a private suddenly summoned to
attention. Marigold, unconscious of the blackest curses that had
ever fallen upon him during his long and blundering life, made a
perfect and self-satisfied exit. Betty sprang to her feet, held
her tall figure very erect, and faced the untimely visitor, her
cheeks flushing deep red. For an appreciable time, say, thirty
seconds, Boyce stood stock still, looking at her from under heavy
contracted brows. Then he recovered himself, smiled, and advanced
to her with outstretched hand, But, on his movement, she had been
quick to turn and bend down in order to pick up the book that had
fallen from my fingers on the further side of my chair. So,
swiftly he wheeled to me with his handshake. It was very deft
manoeuvring on both sides.
"The faithful Marigold didn't tell me that you weren't alone,
Meredyth," he said in his cordial, charming way. "Otherwise I
shouldn't have intruded. But my dear old mother had an attack of
something and went to bed immediately after dinner, and I thought
I'd come round and have a smoke and a drink in your company."
Betty, who had occupied herself by replacing Matthew Arnold's
poems in the bookcase, caught up the box of cigars that lay on the
brass tray table by my side, and offered it to him.
"Here is the smoke," she said.
And when, after a swift, covert glance at her, he had selected a
cigar, she went to the bell-push by the mantelpiece.
"The drinks will be here in a minute."
In order to do something to save this absurd situation, I drew
from my waistcoat pocket a little cigar-cutter attached to my
watch-chain, and clipped the end of his cigar. I also lit a match
from my box and handed it up to him. When he had finished with the
match he threw it into the fireplace and turned to Betty.
"My congratulations are a bit late, but I hope I may offer them."
She said, "Thank you." Waved a hand. "Won't you sit down?"
"Wasn't it rather sudden?" he asked.
"Everything in war time is sudden--except the action of the
British Government. Your own appearance to-night is sudden."
He laughed at her jest and explained, much as he had done to me,
his reasons for wishing to keep his visit to Wellingsford a
secret. Meanwhile Marigold had brought in decanters and syphons.
Betty attended to Boyce's needs with a provoking air of
nonchalance. If a notorious German imbrued in the blood of babes
had chanced to be in her hospital, she would have given him his
medicine with just the same air. Although no one could have
specified a lack of courtesy towards a guest--for in my house she
played hostess--there was an indefinable touch of cold contumely
in her attitude. Whether he felt the hostility as acutely as I
did, I cannot say; but he carried it off with a swaggering grace.
He bowed to her over his glass.
"Here's to the fortunate and gallant fellow over there."
I saw her knuckles whiten as, with an inclination of the head, she
acknowledged the toast.
"By the way," said he, "what's his regiment? My good mother told
me his name. Captain Connor, isn't it? But for the rest she is
vague. She's the vaguest old dear in the world. I found out to-day
that she thought there was a long row of cannons, hundreds of
them, all in a line, in front of the English Army, and a long row
in front of the German Army, and, when there was a battle, that
they all blazed away. So when I asked her whether your husband was
in the Life Guards or the Army Service Corps, she said cheerfully
that it was either one or the other but she wasn't quite sure. So
do give me some reliable information."
"My husband is in the 10th Wessex Fusiliers, a Territorial
battalion," she replied coldly.
"I hope some day to have the pleasure of making his acquaintance."
"Stranger things have happened," said Betty. She glanced at the
clock and rose abruptly. "It's time I was getting back to the
hospital."
Boyce rose too. "How are you going?" he asked.
"I'm walking."
He advanced a step towards her. "Won't you let me run you round in
the car?"
"I prefer to walk."
Her tone was final. She took affectionate leave of me and went to
the door, which Boyce held open.
"Good-night," she said, without proffering her hand.
He followed her out into the hall.
"Betty," he said in a low voice, "won't you ever forgive me?"
"I have no feelings towards you either of forgiveness or
resentment," she replied.
They did not mean to be overheard, but my hearing is unusually
acute, and I could not help catching their conversation.
"I know I seem to have behaved badly to you."
"You have behaved worse to others," said Betty. "I don't wonder at
your shrinking from showing your face here." Then, louder, for my
benefit. "Good-night, Major Boyce. I really can walk up to the
hospital by myself."
Evidently she walked away and Boyce after her, for I heard him
say:
"You shan't go till you've told me what you mean."
What she replied I don't know. To judge by the slam of the front
door it must have been something defiant. Presently he entered
debonair, with a smile on his lips.
"I'm afraid I've left you in a draught," he said, shutting the
door. "I couldn't resist having a word with her and wishing her
happiness and the rest of it. We were engaged once upon a time."
"I know," said I.
"I hope you don't think I did wrong in releasing her from the
engagement. I don't consider a man has a right to go on active
service--especially on such service as the present war--and keep a
girl bound at home. Still less has he a right to marry her. What
happens in so many cases? A fortnight's married life. The man goes
to the front. Then ping! or whizz-bang! and that's the end of him,
and so the girl is left."
"On the other hand," said I, "you must remember that the girl may
hold very strong opinions and take pings and whizz-bangs very
deliberately into account."
Boyce helped himself to another whisky and soda. "It's a matter
for the individual conscience. I decided one way. Connor obviously
decided another, and, like a lucky fellow, found Betty of his way
of thinking. Perhaps I have old-fashioned notions." He took a long
pull at his drink. "Well, it can't be helped," he said with a
smile. "The other fellow has won, and I must take it gracefully.
... By George! wasn't she looking stunning to-night--in that kit?
... I hope you didn't mind my bursting in on you--"
"Of course not," said I, politely.
He drained his glass. "The fact is," said he, "this war is a
nerve-racking business. I never dreamed I was so jumpy until I
came home. I hate being by myself. I've kept my poor devoted
mother up till one o'clock in the morning. To-night she struck,
small blame to her; but, after five minutes on my lones, I felt as
if I should go off my head. So I routed out the car and came
along. But of course I didn't expect to see Betty. The sight of
Betty in the flesh as a married woman nearly bowled me over. May I
help myself again?" He poured out a very much stiffer drink than
before, and poured half of it down his throat. "It's not a joyous
thing to see the woman one has been crazy over the wife of another
fellow."
"I suppose it isn't," said I.
Of course I might have made some subtle and cunning remark,
suavely put a leading question which would have led him on, in his
unbalanced mood, to confidential revelations. But the man was a
distinguished soldier and my guest. To what he chose to tell me
voluntarily I could listen. I could do no more. He did not reply
to my last unimportant remark, but lay back in his armchair
watching the blue spirals of smoke from the end of his cigar.
There was a fairly long silence.
I was worried by the talk I had overheard through the open door.
"You have behaved worse to others. I don't wonder at your
shrinking from showing your face here." Betty had, weeks ago,
called him a devil. She had treated him to-night in a manner
which, if not justified, was abominable. I was forced to the
conclusion that Betty was fully aware of some discreditable
chapter in the man's life which had nothing to do with the affair
at Vilboek's Farm, which, indeed, had to do with another woman and
this humdrum little town of Wellingsford. Otherwise why did she
taunt him with hiding from the light of Wellingsfordian day?
Now, please don't think me little-minded. Or, if you do think so,
please remember the conditions under which I have lived for so
many years and grant me your kind indulgence for a confession I
have to make. Besides being worried, I felt annoyed. Wellingsford
was my little world. I knew everybody in it. I had grown to regard
myself as the repository of all its gossip. The fraction of it
that I retailed was a matter of calculated discretion. I made a
little hobby--it was a foible, a vanity, what you will--of my
omniscience. I knew months ahead the dates of the arrivals of
young Wellingsfordians in this world of pain and plenitude. I knew
of maidens who were wronged and youths who were jilted; of wives
who led their husbands a deuce of a dance, and of wives who kept
their husbands out of the bankruptcy court. When young Trexham,
the son of the Lord Lieutenant of the county, married a minor
light of musical comedy at a registrar's office, I was the first
person in the place to be told; and I flatter myself that I was
instrumental in inducing a pig-headed old idiot to receive an
exceedingly charming daughter-in-law. I loved to look upon
Wellingsford as an open book. Can you blame me for my resentment
at coming across, so to speak, a couple of pages glued together?
The only logical inference from Betty's remark was that Boyce had
behaved abominably and even notoriously to a woman in
Wellingsford. To do him justice, I declare I had never heard his
name associated with any woman or girl in the place save Betty
herself. I felt that, in some crooked fashion, or the other, I had
been done out of my rights.
And there, placidly smoking his cigar and watching the wreaths of
blue smoke with the air of an idle seraph contemplating a wisp of
cirrus in Heaven's firmament, sat the man who could have given me
the word of the enigma.
He broke the silence by saying:
"Have you ever seriously considered the real problems of the
Balkans?"
Now what on earth had the Balkans to do with the thoughts that
must have been rolling at the back of the man's mind? I was both
disappointed and relieved. I expected him to resume the personal
talk, and I dreaded lest he should entrust me with embarrassing
confidences. After three strong whiskies and sodas a man is apt to
relax hold of his discretion. ... Anyhow, he jerked me back to my
position of host. I made some sort of polite reply. He smiled.
"You, my dear Meredyth, like the rest of the country, are half
asleep. In a few months' time you'll get the awakening of your
life."
He began to discourse on the diplomatic situation. Months
afterwards I remembered what he had said that night and how
accurate had been his forecast. He talked brilliantly for over an
hour, during which, keenly interested in his arguments, I lost the
puzzle of the man in admiration of the fine soldier and clear and
daring thinker. It was only when he had gone that I began to worry
again.
And before I went to sleep I had fresh cause for anxious
speculation.
"Marigold," said I, when he came in as usual to carry me to bed,
"didn't I tell you that Major Boyce particularly wanted no one to
know that he was in the town?"
"Yes, sir," said Marigold. "I've told nobody."
"And yet you showed him in without informing him that Mrs. Connor
was here. Really you ought to have had more tact."
Marigold received his reprimand with the stolidity of the old
soldier. I have known men who have been informed that they would
be court-martialled and most certainly shot, make the same reply.
"Very good, sir," said he.
I softened. I was not Marigold's commanding officer, but his very
grateful friend. "You see," said I, "they were engaged before Mrs.
Connor married--I needn't tell you that; it was common knowledge--
and so their sudden meeting was awkward."
"Mrs. Marigold has already explained, sir," said he.
I chuckled inwardly all the way to my bedroom.
"All the same, sir," said he, aiding me in my toilet, which he did
with stiff military precision, "I don't think the Major is as
incognighto" (the spelling is phonetic) "as he would like.
Prettilove was shaving me this morning and told me the Major was
here. As I considered it my duty, I told him he was a liar, and he
was so upset that he nicked my Adam's apple and I was that covered
with blood that I accused him of trying to cut my throat, and I
went out and finished shaving myself at home, which is
unsatisfactory when you only have a thumb on your right hand to
work the razor."
I laughed, picturing the scene. Prettilove is an inoffensive
little rabbit of a man. Marigold might sit for the model of a war-
scarred mercenary of the middle ages, and when he called a man a
liar he did it with accentuaton and vehemence. No wonder
Prettilove jumped.
"And then again this evening, sir," continued Marigold, slipping
me into my pyjama jacket, "as I was starting the Major's car, who
should be waiting there for him but Mr. Gedge."
"Gedge?" I cried.
"Yes, sir. Waiting by the side of the car. 'Can I have a word with
you, Major Boyce?' says he. 'No, you can't,' says the Major. 'I
think it's advisable,' says he. 'Those repairs are very pressing.'
'All right,' says the Major, 'jump in.' Then he says: 'That'll do,
Marigold. Good-night.' And he drives off with Mr. Gedge. Well, if
Mr. Gedge and Prettilove know he's here, then everyone knows it."
"Was Gedge inside the drive?" I asked. The drive was a small
semicircular sort of affair, between gate and gate.
"He was standing by the car waiting," said Marigold. "Now, sir."
He lifted me with his usual cast-iron tenderness into bed and
pulled the coverings over me. "It's a funny time to talk about
house repairs at eleven o'clock, at night," he remarked.
"Nothing is funny in war-time," said I.
"Either nothing or everything," said Marigold. He fussed
methodically about the room, picked up an armful of clothes, and
paused by the door, his hand on the switch.
"Anything more, sir?"
"Nothing, thank you, Marigold."
"Good-night, sir."
The room was in darkness. Marigold shut the door. I was alone.
What the deuce was the meaning of this waylaying of Boyce by
Daniel Gedge?
