Part 1

Produced by Al Haines.

BROTHERS

THE TRUE HISTORY OF A FIGHT AGAINST ODDS

BY

HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL

LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1905

FIRST EDITION . . _May_ 1904 Reprinted . . _June_ 1904 Reprinted . . _August_ 1904 Reprinted . . _November_ 1904 Reprinted . . _December_ 1904 Reprinted . . _The same month_ Reprinted . . _January_ 1905

_Copyright in the United States of America by Horace Annesley Vachell_

TO ALL MEN AND WOMEN WHO HAVE STRIVEN: TO THE STRONG WHO HAVE ATTAINED THEIR GOAL, TO THE WEAK WHO HAVE MADE THE RUNNING FOR THE STRONG, AND IN PARTICULAR TO THOSE WHO HAVE CONFRONTED ILL-FORTUNE, ILL-HEALTH, AND DISAPPOINTMENT WITH FORTITUDE AND SERENITY, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

A DRAMA IN SUNSHINE JOHN CHARITY THE PROCESSION OF LIFE LIFE AND SPORT ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE THE SHADOWY THIRD THE PINCH OF PROSPERITY

*PREFATORY NOTE*

It is likely that the brothers in this book will be recognised by some readers who may indict the good taste of revealing a secret guarded jealously during many years. To these let it be said that the brother who attained to the highest honours and dignities of his profession earnestly desired that the truth concerning certain incidents in his earlier career should be told in a biography. A desire he was constrained reluctantly to forego. The story of the Samphires satisfies adequately enough the exigencies of a peculiar case. The many are not concerned; the few will discern truth through the thin veil of fiction.

*CONTENTS*

CHAPTER

Prologue

I. Bubble and Squeak II. Billy's *v.* Bashan's III. Which contains a Fortune IV. Miss Hazelby is Shocked V. Valete VI. At Burlington House VII. The Hunt Ball VIII. Barbizon IX. At King's Charteris X. After Three Years XI. In Love's Pleasaunce XII. Betty in Stepney XIII. Bagshot on the Rampage XIV. A Moral Exigency XV. Aphrodite Smiles and Frowns XVI. Westchester Cathedral XVII. Surrender! XVIII. Ariadne in Naxos XIX. A Sanatorium in Sutherland XX. Betty sees a Sprig of Rue XXI. Recuperation XXII. On Ben Caryll XXIII. Hymeneal XXIV. A Red Tie XXV. Mark Hears a Bleating XXVI. Readjustment XXVII. In Grub Street XXVIII. A Sunday in Cadogan Place XXIX. The Procession of Life XXX. A Note of Interrogation XXXI. Betty sees Danger Signals XXXII. Betty makes Good Resolutions XXXIII. Illumination XXXIV. Charing Cross XXXV. Chrysostom Returns to Chelsea XXXVI. Fenella XXXVII. Poppy and Mandragora XXXVIII. Gonzales XXXIX. At the Miraflores XL. "Come!" XLI. The Power Behind the Throne

*BROTHERS*

*PROLOGUE*

Mark Samphire clutched tightly his mother's hand, as the big room began to fill with people. Some he knew, and these he feared: because they might speak to him, and then he would stammer, and choke, and make a piteous spectacle of himself. He wished that he were his brother, Archibald, standing on the other side of his mother, Archie, the pink-skinned and golden-haired, a tremendous fellow clad in a new sailor suit, and tolerably self-possessed, but pinker than usual, because a lady in lavender silk had hugged him and called him "a darling." Nobody called Mark a darling except his mother, and that only when they were alone. The fat butler kept shouting out more names. Mrs. Corrance and Jim arrived. Mark hoped they would sit near him. Jim was his own age--a ripe seven--and a sworn friend. Lord Randolph talked to Admiral Kirtling, the funny man who made everybody laugh. Ah! Jim had pushed his way through the crowd. In a minute the two boys were whispering together, nineteen to the dozen, for Mark seldom stammered when he talked to Jim.

An older person than Mark would have seen on the faces of the assembled company an air of expectation. Big folding-doors, now shut, divided the drawing-room from the library. Upon these the eyes of the women lingered, for behind them stood mystery and--so it was reported--beauty! Meantime they chattered, talking for the most part about the house, newly built, and well named The Whim. Miss Selina Lamb, one of the Lambs from Cranberry-Orcas, who had so many relations that she was never out of half-mourning, gave information to the Dean of Westchester.

"I assure you, Mr. Dean, that it is a fact. The dear Admiral got into a fly at Westchester--he carried nothing but a white umbrella, and told the man, Thomas Pinnick, who has driven me a score of times, to take him to 'some salubrious locality.' Thomas, quite properly, drove him here across the downs. The west wind was blowing strongly, and the dear man thought he was in the chops--it is chops, isn't it?--yes, in the chops of the Channel. He gave Thomas Pinnick a sovereign, and bought this hill within the week. Now he has built this remarkable house."

The Dean smiled, admitting that the house might be described as remarkable. Bedrooms covered the ground floor; above these the sitting-rooms commanded a fine view of the pastoral county of Slowshire; at the top of the house were the kitchen and servants' offices!

"I understand," said Mr. Dean, "that food descends like manna from above, and that the common odours of leek and cabbage ascend, and are smelled of none, save perhaps the skylarks."

"You always put things so poetically," murmured Miss Lamb. "Yes, you are right. The still-room is just above the library."

"Where it should be, my dear Miss Lamb. I hope the Admiral's housekeeper wears list slippers."

Miss Lamb, sensible that the Dean was making a joke which she could not quite understand, smiled, showing large even teeth, and asked if Mr. Dean had ever met the young lady in whose honour they had gathered together. Mr. Dean had not met the young lady, but he had known, intimately, her mother. Miss Lamb blushed.

"She was charming," murmured the Dean absently, "the most fascinating creature."

The spinster sniffed her surprise, reflecting that her companion was a radical. A true blue, the bishop, for instance, would not have mentioned the mother at all. She felt it her duty to bleat a feeble protest.

"She behaved so shockingly, Mr. Dean."

"True, true, but she was very young, Miss Lamb. Poor, pretty creature! And now--dead!"

Miss Lamb closed her thin lips, and her large, too prominent, china-blue eyes settled upon a portrait just opposite: the portrait of Colonel Kirtling, the Admiral's elder brother, the father of the mystery behind the folding-doors, and the husband of the pretty creature who had behaved so shockingly. The picture, painted by Richmond, was not unlike the famous portrait of Lord Byron. Colonel Fred Kirtling had been one of the handsomest men in the Guards. Richmond reproduced his curling auburn hair, his short upper lip, his finely modelled nose, his round chin with a distracting (the adjective was Lady Blessington's) dimple in it, and his "wicked" (Lady B. again) eyes.

"Did you know Colonel Kirtling, Mr. Dean?"

"Yes. A sad scamp, Miss Lamb, a scamp when he married--at sixty!"

He began to speak of the Kirtling family. Admiral Kirtling was the fourth son of the sixteenth Lord Kirtling, of Kirtling, in the county of Cumberland, who married a Penberthy from Cornwall, an heiress with a large fortune settled upon herself and her children. The seventeenth lord inherited whatever his sire had been unable to sell: Kirtling heavily mortgaged and stripped of its huge leaden roof (gambled away at hazard) and the wild moors which encompass it. This nobleman lived and died in chronic resentment against the poverty his father had inflicted upon him. His brother succeeded, and was the father of a son whom we shall meet by and by. Fred, the third brother, who had a royal duke for a godfather, married Louise de Courcy, a beauty with French blood in her veins. It is certain that she married Fred for love and against the wishes of her parents; and it is equally certain that she left him--just four years afterwards--because she loved somebody else much better. This somebody, who happened to be a peer and a famous soldier, offered Fred such satisfaction as one gentleman, even in those latter days, might tender an injured husband. Fred, however, wrote in reply that he was under an obligation to his lordship for taking off his hands the most ungrateful hussy in the kingdom. Fred's word, be it added, was little better than his bond (the children of Israel knew that to be worthless); and it is significant that Mrs. Kirtling's family, both French and Irish, abused Fred to all-comers: asserting that he had deceived dozens of women in his time, and none more cruelly than his charming wife. Death shut the mouths of the gossips by carrying off both Fred and Louise within six months of the latter's elopement.

By this time the Admiral, a bachelor of some eccentricity, had just settled into his new house at King's Charteris, near Westchester, and was known to be averse to leaving it. Yet he had to answer the question: "Who will take care of Fred's baby?" Lady Randolph, a kinswoman, was called into council.

"Children are the devil," said the Admiral gloomily. "Think of my nymphs." (He had some beautiful china).

"This one may prove the prettiest of them all," said Lady Randolph.

"Yes, yes; father and mother the handsomest couple, even if forty years were between 'em. Well, well, I lean on you, dear lady."

Lady Randolph did not fail him. She fetched the child from town, gave the nurse, an impudent town minx, twenty-four hours' notice, and installed in her place a respectable girl, Esther Gear, out of her own village of Birr Wood.

So much, and little more, was known to the company assembled in the Admiral's drawing-room.

Presently the big folding-doors were flung open, and Lady Randolph passed through, leading by the hand little Elizabeth Kirtling. A buzz of admiration greeted Betty. She wore a delicate India muslin frock, encircled by a rose-coloured sash. Rose-coloured shoes embellished her tiny feet, and a knot of the same coloured riband glowed in her dark curls, which framed an oval face. The Admiral had told Esther Gear that he would tolerate no black, which came, he said, into people's lives soon enough. Round her neck was a string of coral beads which matched the tints of her cheeks. Her great hazel eyes shone demurely beneath their thick black lashes, and when she smiled her lips parted, revealing a fairy's set of teeth between two dimples. The Admiral met his niece on the threshold of the room, took her hand, and patted it softly. Then he led her forward. The finely proportioned saloon, filled with rare and beautiful things, the silver light of an October afternoon, the many faces--young and old alike touched and interested--served as a setting for the grizzled veteran, with his whimsical weather-beaten face seamed by a thousand lines, and the diminutive creature at his side. Mrs. Samphire let two tears trickle unheeded down her thin cheeks, but her pretty mouth was smiling. Mark felt that his mother's grasp had tightened. Perhaps she foresaw, poor lady, that the time appointed for her to leave her sons was near at hand. Mark stared hard at the little girl as if indeed--as was true--he had never seen her like.

Now it seems that the Admiral had told his niece, with a twinkle in his kind eyes, that the drawing-room was her room: the state apartment of the only lady of his house. And so, when Betty looked up and saw many strange faces about her she recalled an adjective too often in her father's mouth, and said clearly and loudly: "Uncle, what are all dese dam peoples doing in my room?"

When the laughter died down, the Admiral said with his queer chuckle: "Egad! this is a maid of surprises"; but he was careful to explain to his niece that his friends were her friends, to be honoured and loved by her. The child's mouth puckered, and her great eyes were troubled.

"I can't love all dese peoples," she protested, on the edge of tears. The Admiral laughed.

"You must pick and choose, Betty. 'Tis the privilege of your sex. Come now, who pleases you best?"

She understood perfectly: examining the company with dignified curiosity. Finally, her eyes rested upon the three boys at Mrs. Samphire's side.

"I like dem boys," she said clearly.

The three boys were confused but charmed.

"She likes the boys, the coquette!" exclaimed the Admiral. "And which of the three, missie, do you like best?"

The boys blushed because the company stared at them. Archie, the handsome one, stood nearest to little Betty, and seeing her hesitation held out his hands; Jim Corrance smiled invitingly; Mark, the stammerer, attempted no lure, dismally conscious that he could not compete against the others, but his forget-me-not blue eyes, the only fine feature he possessed, suffused a soft radiance.

"I love him!" cried Betty, running forward. She passed Archie and Jim, flinging her arms round Mark's neck, who bashfully returned her eager kisses.

"Um!" said the Admiral, half smiling, half frowning, "as I remarked just now, here is a Maid of Surprises."

*CHAPTER I*

*BUBBLE AND SQUEAK*

This is the history of a fighter, a fighter against odds, whose weapons were forged at Harrow-on-the-Hill. Afterwards, in Mark Samphire's eyes, all school buildings, even the humblest, had a certain sanctity, because they are strewn with precious dust, the _pulverem Olympicum_, so pungent to the nostrils of a combatant. To him, for instance, the ancient Fourth Form Room at Harrow was no battered mausoleum of dead names, but a glorious Campus Martius, where Byron, Peel, and other immortal youths wrestled with their future, even as Jacob wrestled with the angel.

Mark and his friend Jim Corrance became Harrovians when they were fourteen, taking their places in the First Shell, the highest form but one open to new boys. Archibald Samphire, their senior by eighteen months, had just reached the Upper Remove, two forms ahead of the First Shell.

The three boys travelled together from King's Charteris to London; but at Euston Mark and Jim were bundled by Archie into a first-class carriage, with instructions to sit still and not "swagger." Archie joined some swells on the platform. One of these Olympians lighted a cigar, which he smoked for a couple of minutes, throwing it away with the observation that really he must tell the dear old governor to buy better weeds.

"How do you feel, Mark?" whispered Jim.

"If I l-looked as small as I f-f-feel," said Mark, "you wouldn't be able to s-s-see me."

An hour later they stood in the schoolyard. Here "bill" was called; here yard-cricket, beloved by many generations of boys, was played; here, peering out of his cell, might be seen the rosy, clean-shaven face of old Sam, _Custos_, as the Doctor called him; that sly old Sam who sold all things pertaining to Harrow games at a preposterous profit; who prepared the rods, who was present when those rods fell hurtling upon the bare flesh--Sam of the fair, round belly, Sam of the ripe, ruby-coloured nose, who has led bishops, statesmen, field-marshals, peers and baronets, members of Parliament, members of the Bar, members of the Stock Exchange--to the BLOCK! Can it be possible that Sam has passed away? Surely not. Is he not part and parcel of the Yard? And when the Yard lies silent and deserted, when the moonbeams alone play upon it, when the school clock tolls midnight, does not the ghost of old Sam fare forth on his familiar rounds, keeping watch and ward in the ancient precincts?

From the Yard Archibald escorted Mark and Jim to Billy's, their boarding-house, where the boys found themselves joint tenants of a two-room, a piece of good fortune (for there were several three-rooms and one four-room) which they owed partly to Archie, as he was careful to inform them, and partly to the high places they had taken in the school. Long and narrow, with a door at one end and a window at the other, this room contained two battered fold-up bedsteads, two washhand-stands, two bureaux, a shabby carpet, a table, a fireplace, and three Windsor chairs. Here the boys were expected to work, to sleep, and to eat breakfast and tea. No room, according to Mark, has since given him the pleasure and pride which he derived from this. And Jim Corrance, after he had made his enormous fortune, liked to speak of the first sporting-prints which he bought and of the moth-eaten head of a red deer, a nine-pointer, found in an attic at Pitt Hall, the home of the Samphires.

This first summer half was as pleasant as any Mark spent at Harrow. He learned to swim in "Ducker," the school bathing-place, a puddle in those days, but since greatly enlarged and improved; he was taught to play cricket with a straight bat; he lay upon the green slopes of the Sixth Form Ground and ate ices; he spent his _exeat_ at Randolph House in Belgrave Square, and witnessed at "Lord's" the defeat of the Eton eleven from the top of Lord Randolph's coach, returning to Harrow with a sovereign in his pocket, pride in his heart, and heaven knows what mixture of pie and pudding and champagne in his small stomach!

At Billy's the colour, tone, and texture of the "house" were exceptionally good. Billy treated his boys as gentlemen. Some dominies play the spy, thereby turning boys into enemies instead of friends; Billy always coughed discreetly when making his rounds. And if he had reason to suspect a boy of conduct unbecoming an Harrovian, he would send for him and speak to him quietly, or perhaps, if the offender was a good fellow, ask him to breakfast or dinner, heaping food upon his plate and coals of fire upon his head. His favourite warning may be quoted: "I have had my eye on you for some time." But Mark knew, even then, that Billy's eyes were none of the best, and that often they pretended not to see much that a wise man overlooks.

The first year passed quickly. Mark and Jim found themselves in the Lower Remove at the beginning of the winter half, where they achieved the distinction of a "double," jumping over the Upper Remove into the Third Fifth, known as "Paradise," a place so pleasant that some boys refused to leave it. One could say to aunts and uncles, "Oh, I'm in the Fifth," and few were unkind enough to ask, "Which Fifth?" Here they found Archie and a friend of his, Lubber West, who in these latter days doubtless would have been superannuated, and not without cause. Archie and the Lubber practised what they called the "co-operative system of work." They would come to Mark's room and sit upon the sofa with a large gallipot of strawberry-ice between them. Then Mark and Jim were instructed to "mug up" forty lines of Euripides. This took time, and meanwhile the ice was consumed and anything else in the form of light refreshment which might be offered. When Mark was ready to construe, Archie and the Lubber produced a couple of battered books, and listened attentively enough to what Mark had to say, noting in light pencil marks unfamiliar verbs and nouns. In this way, as Archie observed, much valuable time was saved, and the lesson honourably learned. Archie had a number of "cribs," but, as elder brother, he denounced their use by Mark as immoral. "Samphire major has given us a very 'Smart'[#] translation," was one of Billy's bon mots, not original with him by any means, but accepted by his pupils as proof of wit and gentlemanlike satire.

[#] Horace was translated by Smart.

During this half, Archibald was working hard at cricket, under the kindly eyes of those famous coaches, the late Lord Bessborough and Mr. Robert Grimston. He had more than a chance of playing for the school; and accordingly he pointed out to Mark that it was the minor's duty to help his major with Greek and Latin. "If I do get my straw,"[#] he said, "you will reap your reward." This unconscious humorist was now a glorious specimen of Anglo-Saxon youth. He had crisp yellow hair, curling tightly over a round, well-proportioned head, the clear, ruddy skin which from the days of David has always commanded admiration, and a tenor voice of peculiarly fine quality. Mark was his humble and adoring slave. Now, it chanced that in a shop half-way down Harrow Hill two young women possessed of bright complexions and waspish waists served hot chocolate and buttered toast to boys coming up from the playing fields, and in particular to certain boys of Billy's. Behind the shop was a back room, into which two or three big fellows were admitted. In a certain set it became the thing to drop into Brown's at half-past four and have a lark with the girls. The girls were able to take care of themselves; the boys lost their heads. Because Archie's head was a pretty one, the girls were not particularly anxious that he should find it. During the Christmas term he and a boy from another house were in and out of Brown's half a dozen times a day, and the school wondered what would happen.

[#] The black-and-white straw hat only worn by members of the school eleven.

"I l-l-loathe those girls," said Mark; "one b-b-bubbles and one squeaks."

Billy's seized the phrase. Within a week the girls were known as Bubble and Squeak. One of the fags pinned a card to Archie's door:--

"Which do you like best: chocolate and buttered toast or Bubble and Squeak?"

"What can we do?" said Mark to Jim.

"Is it Bubble or Squeak?" Jim asked.

"I d-d-don't know or care; they're vulgar b-b-beasts. Old Archie has a lock of hair. They've given away tons of it: enough to stuff a sofa."

"They can get more from the same old place," said Jim.

"Oh, it's their own," said Mark. "I hate marmalade-coloured hair--don't you?"

It was after this brief dialogue that Jim noticed a falling off of Mark's interest in his work. For the first time a copy of Iambics deserved some of the remarks which the form-master made upon them. During the next fortnight this negligence, coupled with his stutter and a temporary deafness, sent Mark to the bottom of his class. Jim asked for an explanation.

"It's old Archie. He's playing the devil with himself."

"Let him," said Jim, who was no altruist. "What's the good of worrying? We can't do anything."

"Perhaps we c-c-can," said Mark. "We _must_," he added.

"You have a scheme?"

Mark nodded. "I d-d-don't know w-what you'll say to it."

"I can't say anything till I hear it."

"S-suppose I give Billy a hint?"

The scheme was so alien to a boy's conception of the word "honour," such a violation of an unwritten code--in fine, such a desperate remedy--that Jim gasped.

"D-don't look like that!" said Mark sharply. "C-can't you see that I loathe it--as--you do. If m-mother were alive I'd write to her. But if I told father, he would come bellowing down, and behave like a bull in a china shop. There would be a jolly r-r-row then."

"Mark," said Jim, "Archie is big enough to look after himself."

"It's worse than you think," Mark said. "He's meeting this g-g-girl after lock-up. He gets out of the pantry window. I daresay he's squared one of the Tobies" (Toby was the generic name for footmen). "And it's frightfully r-r-risky. If he's nailed, he'll be sacked."

"What a silly old ass!" said Jim.