Part 9

“I am sure of it! By the way, your husband is at the front, isn’t he?”

“Yes. Jack is somewhere near Ladysmith, I believe.”

“Ah! That makes it all the more interesting! Now _do_ go home and finish ‘Tommy’s Gal.’ My recitation of it will quite take the colour of the Marquise Dégagée’s ‘Fancye Faire’!”

“Ah--h--h--h!” and Mrs. Arteroyd drew a sharp breath.

Mrs. Long-Adder’s Chinese eyes glittered--she laughed.

“I hate that Marquise! Don’t you?”

For the moment Mrs. Arteroyd felt that she loved Mrs. Long-Adder. But she was discreet.

“She is very--er--very--er--well!--pushing!” she said cautiously.

“Pushing! Oh, that’s nothing! I admire push. You _must_ push nowadays if you want to be anywhere. But she is so--so _vulgar_! So _very_ theatrical in private life! Yes!--your poem is lovely! Good-bye, dear! What an exquisite cloak!”

Moved by their mutual detestation of the Marquise Dégagée, these dear women kissed each other again--this time without looking over each other’s shoulders, and Mrs. Arteroyd departed in high satisfaction, leaving Mrs. Long-Adder to roll gently and voluptuously on her sofa-chair and to laugh to herself as she thought of the “effect” she would make on the mind of Prince Dummer-Esel, when dressed “in khaki”!

In a few days everything was arranged as triumphantly as the most ambitious advertisement-seeker could desire. Mrs. Arteroyd finished her “poem” effectively thus:--

“I ain’t much given to blubberin’, But a somethin’ blinded my eye When that there gal came to the station Last night to wish me good-bye! And now ’ere I am at Southampton, Under orders from bloomin’ Pall-Mall, An’ we sails in a hour for Capetown-- So--just look after my gal!

REFRAIN

“Just look after my gal, will ye? While I’m frontin’ the fire an’ the foe-- Like a good old pal, look after my gal-- An’ Gawd bless ye wheerever I go!

“If I fall, of course I’ll fall fightin’ For the honour an’ name of the Flag-- An’ I’ll only be one of ten thousand, Who’ll die for that rummy old rag! But we’re off--Good-bye, England!--I’ll trust ye-- The great British Nation’s my pal! Pass the hat round!--and say when I’m done for, ‘We’ll all look after his gal!’

REFRAIN

“Yes, England, look after my gal, will ye? While I’m frontin’ the fire an’ the foe, Be a faithful pal, and look after my gal-- An’ Gawd bless ye wheerever I go!”

When Mrs. Long-Adder heard the final verse, her delight knew no bounds. She at once saw what capital could be made out of calling the “great British Nation” the “pal” of Tommy Atkins, and of giving his “gal” in trust to England. What a point for patriotic pathos! She practised the inflexions of her voice before a mirror.

“Pass the hat round!” This, with demanding fervour, accompanied by the instant action of lifting the hat from the head, and holding it out to the audience. “And say when I’m done for.” Tears in the voice here, with a quickly effective droop of the head and a faint gasp. Then with a burst of enthusiasm and tenderness--“We’ll all look after his gal!”

“It will go like wildfire!” said Mrs. Long-Adder to herself, as she got into her tights, and tried her “khaki” uniform--“Simply like wildfire! That woman Arteroyd is too stupid for anything. She thinks she has worked out a good trick for herself, and so she has, in a way, but she doesn’t seem to see one bit what a first-rate business she is starting _me_ on! _Won’t_ I fool old Dummer-Esel! _He’ll_ have to look after _his_ ‘gal,’ you bet, or my name isn’t Myrtle Long-Adder!”

And acting on this resolve, she very soon set the ball rolling. London, like a big child waiting to be amused, rose to the occasion, and the forthcoming bazaar at the Gilded Rooms, when “the beautiful Mrs. Long-Adder” would recite “an exquisite poem by the gifted Mrs. Arteroyd, whose gallant husband, Colonel John Arteroyd, V.C., was now fighting for England’s glory in South Africa,” became the talk of the town. The Marquise Dégagée heard of it and nearly fainted. The Bazaar would actually take place before her “Fancye Faire,”--before she could have the chance of reciting “Tommy’s Bébé!” in the presence of Prince Dummer-Esel! This was an unlooked-for catastrophe. And the “strained relations between France and England” were not improved by the contretemps. However, there was no help for it,--and the deeply disappointed authoress of “Tommy’s Bébé!” had to conceal her chagrin under an appearance of indifference to the world of fashion, which poured into her rooms in the kindly way the world of fashion has, to tell her of her existing rival,--of the splendour of the preparations at the Gilded Rooms,--how “poor old Dummer-Esel” was really quite off his head with excitement,--what interest he was taking in the affair! How Her Highness of Gottenken was going!--how the Countess of Tiddlywinks would be there!--how the Duchess of Gloriosa would have a stall!--how that delightful dancer (not proper, my dear, but so clever!), that delightful dancer who must be nameless, because so very very bad, would assist in the selling of cigarettes--and Mrs. Long-Adder!--oh yes!--Mrs. Long-Adder’s recitation would be “the thing of the day!”

“And Mrs. Arteroyd,” said the breathless gossips, “is simply wonderful! _She_ wrote the poem that Mrs. Long-Adder is to recite!--fancy that! And that poor man of hers at the front! And she’s got a gown from Paris that’s perfectly gorgeous;--and I know the man who does her hair, and he told me the other day that he was sure she was going to be a social favourite, as she had just bought three new tails of hair! Think of that!--three new tails! And such a gown! My dear, it makes one’s mouth water! And where she gets the money heaven knows! For that poor man at the front has only got three thousand a year!”

“He may be dead by this time!” said the Marquise with a pretty little shudder. “Poor ting! He may be dead!”

For a moment there was silence. The crowd of fashionable chatterers felt distinctly uncomfortable.

The Marquise smiled,--she had made an effect and she was pleased.

“Yes, he may be dead!” she repeated. “And if ze news come while ze bazaar go on--_hélas!_ Come and have some tea!”

The noisy voices and laughter broke out again--the sudden spell of horror was dispersed. And a week later on the society throng “rushed” to the bazaar at the Gilded Rooms,--to see and to be seen--to watch Prince Dummer-Esel with slavish zeal,--to criticise the lovely Mrs. Long-Adder--and to congratulate Mrs. Arteroyd on “Tommy’s Gal!” And truly Mrs. Arteroyd was in her glory. She was quite clever enough to perceive that Mrs. Long-Adder meant to make capital for herself out of the business, and she had previously determined that, having paid a hundred guineas to be “talked about,” talked about she would be. And she spared no pains to win her object. Her dress was a “creation” of some wonderful clinging stuff of delicate amber shades softly interwoven, and impressing the eye with the suggestion of early primroses,--it fitted like a glove, and displayed the contour of the six-guinea corsets to perfection. Men said--poor, dear, deluded men!--“a fine figure of a woman!”--and women eyed her with that casual contempt which is the greatest compliment ill-dressed dames can pay to a well-dressed one. When presented to Prince Dummer-Esel, she curtsied with a fine carelessness, and gave him an upward smile of childlike questioning innocence,--whereat His Highness chuckled and scented fresh game.

“We are going to give you a wreath of laurels, Mrs. Arteroyd,” he graciously observed--“He--he--he--ha--ha! We are going to present you with the symbol of fame!--ha--ha! Pretty idea, isn’t it--he--he!--Mrs. Long-Adder suggested it--ha--ha!--woman of ideas, Mrs. Long-Adder--a woman of ideas! Hum--ha! We shall have a collection for ‘Tommy’s Gal’ in Mrs. Long-Adder’s hat, after your poem has been recited--in her hat--ha--ha!--the regular South African hat, you know, that goes with the khaki uniform--he--he! I shall put a Tenner into the hat--yes!--ha--ha! Mrs. Long-Adder’s hat!--he--he--he--he! And instead of a bouquet we shall give you a laurel wreath! You can keep it, you see--he--ha! hang it up in the drawing-room at home, till your husband comes back--ha--ha! He’ll have some laurels too, then, I dare say! Got a V.C., has he? Good--good! Yes, very good! ha--ha!”

And with these intelligent and distinguished remarks, he took his seat in front of the audience, and Mrs. Arteroyd had the satisfaction of being invited to sit beside him. Then there was a flourish of trumpets--a bit of “Soldiers of the King,” played by the band--and then--and then--amid a burst of frantic applause, Mrs. Long-Adder stepped upon a platform, gorgeous with palms and exotics, and showed herself unblushingly, arrayed in “khaki” uniform as “Tommy” bound for the front! The plaudits were deafening. Mrs. “Tommy” Long-Adder “saluted.” Prince Dummer-Esel grew apoplectically crimson with enthusiasm, and she turned one of her “Mongolian” eyes sideways upon him with a killing brilliancy. Then she began the doggerel lines, “Hullo, Tommy, wheer’ye off to!” reciting them with all the vulgar emphasis of that cheap, forced, sham sentiment which is the only emotional quality that succeeds nowadays in winning the attention of that still more vulgar, cheap, forced sham institution known as “smart society.”

* * * * *

Away in South Africa, far removed from all social hypocrisies, out on the bare brown _veldt_, and under the sickening scorch of a pitilessly hot sun, two men, friends and comrades-in-arms, were exploring the ground together and anxiously surveying the Boer position. They had made their way cautiously along as extemporized scouts from the British camp to one particular spot which seemed a sheltered coign of vantage, to see if they could form any idea as to the extent of the enemy’s defences. One of them, dark and broad-shouldered, lay flat, chest downwards on the grass, rifle in hand, looking up at his companion, who, tall and fair, and of an imposing figure, stood erect, gazing out far ahead with something of a dreamy expression softening the light of his keen grey eyes.

“I say, Arteroyd, hadn’t you better lie low?” said the recumbent man. “You need not make yourself a target for any marksman who may be inclined to try his aim.”

“They have ceased firing for the present,” and Colonel John Arteroyd, V.C., calmly took out his field glasses and prepared to adjust them. “That ridge opposite is deserted.” As he spoke he glanced down at his friend and smiled. “Dandy Ferrers knows how to make himself comfortable, I think, even under possible fire! I shall have to report you at home as a funk! Lie low, indeed! However, you’re no safer than I am, if a shell comes our way.”

Captain James Ferrers, called “Dandy” by all his friends at home, on account of his somewhat curious and capricious taste in neckties, laid down his rifle and took out his cigar-case.

“I suppose,” he said slowly as he lit a precious “Havana,” one of the last he had or would have, till he returned to England (if ever he returned)--“I suppose you really wouldn’t care much? You’ve got the V.C.”

“Yes, I’ve got the V.C.” And Colonel Arteroyd unscrewed and polished his field glasses with scrupulous attention. “It’s the best thing a soldier can have. But it isn’t everything.”

Dandy Ferrers reddened with a quick sense of compunction.

“No--of course!--I forgot--there’s your wife--”

Arteroyd looked at him steadfastly.

“Yes,--there’s my wife. And she is the very reason why--as you say--I shouldn’t care much.”

“Isn’t she good to you, old chap?” queried Dandy sympathetically.

Colonel Arteroyd smiled a trifle sadly.

“Good to me? Oh yes, I suppose so! But--you see--when I married her--I--I loved her. That is what she didn’t understand. When a man _loves_ a woman--really _loves_ her, you know--”

Dandy nodded gravely.

“Well--then, he likes to think of her as something altogether sacred--something removed and different to himself. We don’t want women to be angels--no,--but something very near it. I wanted my wife to love me as I loved her--I wanted to feel that she was proud of me, and that if I could do a good thing at any time, she would be glad. A sort of giving her my laurels, you know, if I got any. Well--I soon found out she never would be glad _that_ way. She wanted everything I couldn’t get. She went in for society,--I hate society. I can’t smile when I’m told to. I can’t tell lies thirteen to the dozen. And unless you can do that sort of thing, society doesn’t want you. Then our little child--a boy--died when he was two. He was a jolly little chap,--he got very fond of me--used to play with my moustache and kiss me with all his little might--” Here Arteroyd paused and put his field glasses up to his eyes. Dandy Ferrers puffed a big blue ring of cigar smoke up into the burning sky and thought it likely that the Colonel was not taking a particularly clear sight for the moment.

“Yes--that ridge is deserted,” resumed Arteroyd coolly--“I thought I saw a moving speck--but I was mistaken. I believe they’ve got no more ammunition up there.”

“Go on with your story,” said Ferrers softly.

“Oh, my story! It isn’t much of a story, old chap! The little kiddie died, as I said. That rather knocked me up,--left me a bit lonely. Then my wife--well, she was all the time anxious to be a great figure in society. I wanted a home,--she didn’t care about it. She said that housekeeping was a bore, and that she liked hotels better. And I--well!--I felt myself rather in her way. So I was glad to be ordered out on active service. You see, I want _her_ to be happy,--for me, nothing matters.”

Ferrers was silent.

“I have often thought,” went on Arteroyd musingly, “especially since I’ve been out here on these great bare stretches of burnt-up land, without a tree in sight, that death isn’t the worst part of life. There’s a God somewhere, Dandy!”

“Of course there is!” answered Dandy promptly. “It’s only the parsons that make us doubt it.”

“When all the colour and gladness have gone out of the world for a man,” said Arteroyd, talking to himself more than to his friend--“when he does not see any hope or beauty anywhere,--and when the one thing--the best thing of all--love--has failed him--and with it all he’s done a bit of service to his country and lived as straight as he can--then I think death is often sent to him just in the nick of time--to save him from growing hard and mean and bitter--and to take his soul to his Maker while it’s fairly clean and sweet--”

Ps--st! A sharp report--a sudden hiss through the air--a small but vivid flash of flame--a smothered cry--

“Look out, Dandy!--Take care of yourself! Good-bye!”

And Arteroyd’s tall figure, erect a moment before, rolled over and over on the ground, and then lay motionless.

Reckless of all danger for himself, Ferrers rushed to his side.

“Jack!”

Silence! A peaceful smile rested on the lips of his fallen comrade, but no sound came from them,--no sound would ever come from them again. Shot straight through the heart, death had been instantaneous, and Ferrers, dropping on his knees by the slain man, broke out sobbing, and was not ashamed of his tears. He cared nothing if the same Boer marksman who had “picked out” one of the King’s bravest officers with such deadly aim should make for him as well. Almost he hoped for the same fate, and once or twice looked longingly towards the ridge from whence the fatal bullet had sped. But there was not a creature in sight,--whoever it was that had hit his mark so well had retired, apparently satisfied,--and the unkind sun blazed fierce and furnace-like through clear and smokeless ether. With the salt drops of sorrow blistering his cheeks, poor “Dandy” reverently composed the limbs of the dead, and, crossing the yet warm hands upon the breast, unsheathed the sword that had so often flashed aloft in fight, as a signal of courage and of victory, and laid it, hilt heart-wards, between the stiffening fingers. Then planting his own rifle upright in the ground to mark and guard the spot till he could return with help to bear the body into camp, he paused.

“Good-bye, Jack!” he said hoarsely--and with a simple boyish tenderness he kissed the dead man’s forehead--“Good-bye! You said you didn’t care much--and--considering everything--I don’t suppose you did. But you got your V.C.! And God knows you deserved it!”

* * * * *

The same evening that saw the Colonel’s body wrapped in a soldier’s blanket and committed to a South African grave, “the beautiful Mrs. Arteroyd,” as she was now admittedly and eagerly entitled, owing to the proud fact of having been seen seated next to His Highness of Dummer-Esel, scored a great “social” success. Her verses, “Tommy’s Gal,” were received with hysterical enthusiasm, and the collection made in Mrs. Long-Adder’s hat after the recitation amounted to two or three hundred pounds. An enterprising newspaper proprietor offered to buy the manuscript and “run it up to auction” for one of the Tommy-Funds, which offer Mrs. Arteroyd condescendingly accepted. And then, a classic wreath of laurels, tied with the English colours, was presented to her by Prince Dummer-Esel himself with his own hands, accompanied by the gracious words--

“You must keep your laurels for your husband, Mrs. Arteroyd! Add them to his V.C.!--ha--ha--! Add them to his V.C.!”

It was a proud moment! Expanding with her inward sense of elation, she received the garland with a studied affectation of graceful humility, and curtsied beneath the sunshine of the princely smile. Then, swinging the wreath picturesquely on one arm, she raised her head, flashed her eyes, and glanced round with an air of amused indifference on all the unsuccessful and discomfited women present, and in honey-sweet tones accepted an invitation to a private little supper-party at which His Highness of Dummer-Esel--with Mrs. Long-Adder--would be present, on a certain evening in the coming week. But--

Unfortunately there is always a “but.” And it most often comes in when it is least wanted. Solomon’s lament on the vanity of human wishes is the universal daily moan. And the disappointments which sometimes (though not half often enough) fall to the lot of society-schemers and notoriety-hunters, almost call for a new Solomon to bewail them. Only two days after her triumph, when “the beautiful Mrs. Arteroyd” was just pleasantly engaged in reading a glowing description of herself and her gown in a favourite pictorial “weekly,” a telegram, not of the appearance of every-day telegrams, was handed to her. Its envelope was red. Her heart gave a sudden leap of fear as she tore it open. Its contents were brief, and were dated from the War Office.

“Deeply regret--Colonel John Arteroyd, V.C. Killed. Ladysmith.”

And Colonel John Arteroyd’s widow stood rigid and tearless. Her “society” laurels were withered. She would have to “look her worst in black” after all!

TO “THE QUARTERLY”

_With_ THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON

GREETING, old friend! a merry Christmas time To you, who nothing merry ever see;-- Great Murderer of poets in their prime,-- Why have you struck at _me_?

With vengeful hooks of sharpened critic-steel You tortured giants in the days gone by,-- And now upon your creaking, rusty wheel, You’d break a Butterfly!

Alas! you’re far too cumbrous for such things! Your heavy, clanking axle drags i’ the chase;-- The happy Insect has the use of wings, And keeps its Sunshine-place!

THE PRAYER OF THE SMALL COUNTRY M.P.

WHICH HE PRAYETH DAILY