Chapter 27

"That girl's getting on my nerves," Gilbert murmured when she had gone.

Magnolia followed Henry upstairs. They had to pass the room in which the dead woman lay, and Magnolia, when she reached the door, gave a little squeal of fright and ran forward, thrusting past Henry.... "Don't be a fool, Magnolia!" he said, catching hold of her arm and steadying her.

"I'm frightened, sir!" she moaned, looking up at him with dilated eyes.

"There's nothing to be afraid of. Come along!"

He took her to her room and opened the door for her.

"You're all right now, aren't you?" he said, switching on the light.

"Yes, thank you, sir!"

"Good-night, then!"

"Good-night, sir!"

When she had shut the door, he heard her turning the key in the lock, and he smiled at her precaution. "That wouldn't hinder Mrs. Clutters' ghost if she ... if she started to walk!" he thought to himself, as he descended the stairs to his room. He had switched off the light on Magnolia's landing, but there was a light showing dimly up the stairs from the landing beneath. It shone faintly on the door of the room in which Mrs. Clutters' body was lying. He went down the stairs towards the door, and then, half-way down, stopped. He could not look away from the door ... he felt that in a moment or two it would open, and Mrs. Clutters, in her grave-clothes, would stand in the shadow and look at him with fixed eyes....

"Don't be a fool!" he said aloud, shaking his head and dashing his hand across his eyes as if he were trying to sweep something away. "I'm nervy, that's what it is," he went on, still speaking aloud. "I'm worse than Magnolia!..."

He descended the rest of the stairs, determined not to show any sign of fear, and then, as he passed the door, he shut his eyes and hurried by. He ran down the next flight of stairs, afraid to look back, and did not pause in his running until he had reached the ground floor. He stood still in the hall for a few minutes to recover himself, and then he entered the room where the others were sitting.

They looked up at him.

"All right?" Ninian asked, and Henry nodded his head.

"You haven't brought the book," Roger said.

"No," he answered, "No ... I changed my mind. I didn't really want the book. I just said that to ... to get Magnolia out of the room!"

6

Mrs. Clutters' husband insisted on seeing them after the funeral because, he said, he wished to thank them for all they had done for "'er!" He made a jerk over his shoulder with his thumb when he said "'er," and they gathered that he was indicating the direction of Kensal Green cemetery. He was very maudlin and drunk, and Ninian thought that he ought to be kicked.

"I'm shorry," he said, "to be thish con ... condish'n, gemmem, but y'see it's like this. A gemman said to me, y'see, 'Bert,' 'e says ... thash my name ... Bert, called after Queen's 'usban' ... Gaw' bless 'er!... Alber' the Goo' they called '_im_ ... not me, oh, Lor' no!... thish gemmam, 'e says to me, 'Bert,' 'e says, 'come an' 'ave one!' an' so o' course I '_ad_ to 'ave one. Thash 'ow 'twas, see! Shorry to be in thish disgrashful state ... thish sad occas'n, gemmem. Very shorry! _I_ thank you!" He turned to leave them, staggering towards the door. "I ain't been a good 'usban' to 'er," he went on, again making the jerking gesture over his shoulder with his thumb. "Thash a fac'. I ain't. But I 'pologise. I'm shorry! Can't say no more'n that, can I? Goo'-ni', gemmem!"

And then he staggered out.

"Somebody ought to do him in," said Ninian, going to see that he left the house as quickly as possible.

"Well," said Roger, when Ninian had returned, "what are we going to do next?"

"Sack Magnolia," said Gilbert.

"And then?" Roger went on.

"I don't know," Gilbert replied.

"I suppose we can get another housekeeper," Henry suggested.

"Yes, we could do that," said Gilbert.

Roger got up and moved about the room for a few moments. "I think I shall get married," he said at last. "I've got to get married some time, and I might as well get married now. This ... this business seems to provide an opportunity, don't you think?"

"It's a pity to break up the house," Gilbert murmured.

"It'll have to be broken up some day," Roger retorted.

Ninian joined in. "There's talk of a big railway contract in South America, and I might have to go. Hare spoke of sending me. In about six months' time...."

"We might let the house furnished for the remainder of the lease," Roger went on. "Perhaps some one would take the furniture over altogether.... I could use some of it, of course, for my house when I get married!"

"You've settled it then!" said Gilbert.

"Not exactly. I haven't said anything to Rachel yet. The idea occurred to me in the chapel while the parson was saying the Burial Service!"

"I could have hit that fellow," Gilbert exclaimed. "Gabbling it off like that! I suppose he was in a hurry to get home to tea!"

They sat in silence for a while, each of them conjuring up the vision of the cold little service in the cemetery chapel. Magnolia, clothed in black, had sobbed loudly, while Mr. Clutters sniffed and said "A-men" very emphatically, and the parson, regarding the little group of mourners with the curiosity of a man who is bored by death and the ritual of burial, gabbled away: _NowisChristrisen fromthedeadandbecomethefirstfruitsofthemthatsleptforsince_

_Bymancamedeathbymancamealso_

_Theresurrectionofthedead...._

"It means breaking up everything," Gilbert still protested.

"Things are always breaking up," said Roger.

"I suppose so," Gilbert replied.

Henry had not taken part in the conversation, but had lain back in his chair, with his hands clasped behind his head, lazily listening to what they were saying.

"I don't think I'd like to go on living here," he exclaimed, "particularly if Roger and Ninian go away. Perhaps we could share a flat or something, Gilbert?"

"That's a notion," Gilbert answered.

"There's no reason why the Improved Tories should collapse just because I'm going to get married," Roger asserted. "This house really isn't the most convenient place to meet. We might hire a room in a hotel near the Strand and meet there...."

7

The house was let unfurnished. The incoming tenant was willing to take on the remainder of their lease and continue in occupation of the house after its expiry, but he had furniture of his own, and so he had no use for theirs. Roger took his furniture to a small house in Hampstead, and offered to buy most of what was left, but they would not listen to his proposals. "We'll give it to you as a wedding present," they insisted. "If there's anything you don't want, well sell it!" Magnolia was presented with a couple of months' wages and a new dress, and bidden to get another home as soon as she could conveniently do so ... and then the house was abandoned.

"It's funny," said Gilbert, as they shut the door behind them for the last time, "it's funny that we hardly ever thought of that old woman, and yet, the minute she dies, we sort of go to pieces. We didn't even know she'd got a husband. Her name was Jennifer. I saw it on the coffin lid!..."

Their arrangements for quitting the house were not completed for a month after the burial of Mrs. Clutters, and before they finally settled their affairs, Ninian was told that he was to proceed to South America with the junior partner. He was to have a couple of months' leave ... "I shall go down to Boveyhayne," he said ... after which he would leave England for a lengthy while. "And then there were three!" said Gilbert, when Ninian told them of his appointment. "Three little clever boys," he went on, "going up to fame. One little clever boy got married and then there were two!..."

Until they could make some settlement of their future, they decided to live in a boarding house in Russell Square.

"We shall loathe it," Gilbert said, "but that will be good for us!"

8

And then Roger and Rachel got married. They walked into a Registrar's office, with Gilbert and Ninian and Henry to bear them company, and made their declarations of fealty to each other.

"My father would have been horrified," Roger said at luncheon afterwards. "If he'd been alive, Rachel, we'd have had to get married in a church!"

Rachel smiled. "I shouldn't have minded, Roger!" she answered. "You'll laugh, I know, when I tell you that half-way through the service I began to long for a surplice and the Voice that Breathed O'er Eden. A marriage in a church is a lot prettier than one in a Registrar's office!..."

"If only the Mayor of the Borough had performed the ceremony," Gilbert lamented. "In his nice furry red robes and cocked hat, joining you two together in the name of the Borough of Holborn, he 'd have looked rather jolly! Roger, we ought to get the Improved Tories to consider the question of Civil Marriage. We want more beauty in it. Rachel, my dear, I haven't kissed you yet. I look upon myself as Roger's best man, and I ought to kiss you!"

"Very well, Gilbert," she answered, turning her face towards him.

"You've deceived us all, Rachel," he said as he kissed her. "We'd made up our minds to hate you because you were taking our little Roger from us, and at first we thought we were right to hate you because you were so aggressive to us, but you've deceived us. We don't hate you. We like you, Rachel!"

"Do you, Gilbert?" She turned to Ninian and Henry. "Do you like me, too?" she said.

"I shouldn't mind marrying you myself," Ninian replied.

"I don't see why Gilbert should get all the kisses," said Henry. "After all, I more or less gave you away, didn't I? I was there anyhow!...."

So she kissed Ninian and Henry too. Then, a little later, Roger and she went off to spend a honeymoon in Normandy.

9

"I feel horribly lonely somehow," said Gilbert to Henry. Ninian, in a hurry to catch the train for Boveyhayne at Waterloo, had left them at Charing Cross.

Henry nodded his head.

"This marrying and giving in marriage is the devil, isn't it?" Gilbert went on. "We ought to cheer ourselves up, Quinny!"

"We ought, Gilbert!"

"Let's go and see my play. Perhaps that'll make us feel merry and bright!..."

"No," said Henry. "It wouldn't. It 'ud depress us. We'd keep thinking of Ninian and Roger. I think we ought to get drunk, Gilbert, very and incredibly drunk...."

"I should feel like Mrs. Clutters' husband if I did that," Gilbert answered. "Aren't there any other forms of debauchery? Couldn't we go to a music-hall or a picture-palace or something? Or we might discuss our future!..."

"I'm sick of this boarding house we're in," Henry exclaimed.

"So am I, but I don't feel like setting up house again. I'm certain you'd go and get married the moment we'd settled into a place...."

"I'm not a marrying man, Gilbert," Henry interrupted.

"Well, what are you, Quinny?"

"I don't know!"

They were wandering aimlessly along the streets. They had drifted along Regent Street, and then had drifted into Oxford Street, and were going slowly in the direction of Marble Arch.

"Quinny!" said Gilbert after a while.

"Yes?" Henry answered.

"Have you ... have you seen Cecily since you came back?"

"Yes. Twice!"

Gilbert did not ask the question which was on the tip of his tongue, but Henry was willing to give the answer without being asked.

"She didn't appear to know I'd been away," he said.

"She knew all the same!..."

"She just said, 'Hilloa, Paddy I' and went on talking to the other people who were there too. I tried to outstay them, but Jimphy came in the first time, and there was a painter there the second time, who wouldn't budge. He's painting her portrait. I've not seen her since...."

"You're glad, aren't you, that I kidnapped you, Quinny?"

"In a way, yes!"

"You got on with your book, anyhow. You'd never have done that if you'd stayed in town, trailing after Cecily!"

"I can't quite make you out, Gilbert," Henry said, turning to his friend. "Are you in love with Cecily?"

Gilbert nodded his head. "Of course, I am, but what's the good? Cecily doesn't love me any more than she loves you. She doesn't love any man particularly. She's ... just an Appetite. You and I are no more to her than ... than the caramel she ate last Tuesday. The only hope for us is that we shall grow out of this caramel state or at all events get the upper hand of it.... In the meantime, what are we going to do?"

"Work, I suppose. 'Turbulence' is nearly finished, and I'm itching to get on with a new story I've thought of. I'm calling it 'The Wayward Man.' ..."

"We might go into the country...."

"Or hire a furnished flat for a while...."

"Or do something.... Lordy God, Quinny, we're getting frightfully vague and loose-endy. We really must pull ourselves together. There's a bun-shop somewhere about. Suppose we have tea?"

10

They took a furnished flat in Buckingham Street, and lived there while Henry completed "Turbulence" and saw it through the press. Gilbert had finished another comedy soon after the production of "The Magic Casement," and Sir Geoffrey Mundane had asked for a first option on it. "The Magic Casement" was not a great popular success, but it "paid its way," as Sir Geoffrey said. It was performed for a hundred and twenty times in England, and for three weeks in America, where it failed lamentably. "I never did think much of a republic!" Gilbert said when he heard of the play's failure.

Roger and Rachel had settled in their house in Hampstead soon after Gilbert and Henry had taken the furnished flat, and after a while, some of the old routine of their lives, except that part of it represented by Ninian, went on as before. Most of Ninian's leave was spent in quelling his mother's alarms about his journey to South America. "It's a splendid chance for me, mother!" he insisted. "It's jolly decent of old Hare to give it to me!"

"But it's so far away, Ninian, dear, and if anything were to happen to you!..."

"Nothing'll happen to me, mother ... nothing serious anyhow. Heaps of chaps go off to places like that without turning a hair!"

"But I've only got you, Ninian!" Mrs. Graham objected.

"You've got Mary, too, and I shall come back to you!"

One evening, as they walked along the road that leads to Sidmouth, she put her arm in his, and drew him near to her.

"Ninian, dear," she said very softly and hesitatingly as if she were afraid to say all that was in her mind.

"Yes, mother!"

"Ninian, I sometimes wish ..."

Again she hesitated, and again he said, "Yes, mother?"

Her speech took another direction. "There have been Grahams at Boveyhayne for four hundred years, dear, and there's only you left now."

He looked at her uncomprehendingly. "Well, mother!..."

"My dear, we can't let it go away from us. It's us, and we're it, and if anything were to happen to you, and a stranger were to come here!"

"But, my dear mother," he interrupted, "nothing's going to happen to me, and no one's going to get Boveyhayne away from us. Why should any one?..."

She put her free hand on his sleeve. "When Roger married Rachel," she said, "I wished ... I wished that you were Roger, Ninian!"

"You want me to get married, mother?"

She did not answer, but her clasp on his arm tightened.

"A chap can't marry a girl just for the sake of getting married, mother!..."

"No, dear, I know, but ..."

"I've not seen a girl yet that I wanted particularly. You see, I've been awfully busy at my job!... I know how you feel, mother, about Boveyhayne, and I feel like that myself sometimes. I used to think it was rather rot all this talk about Family and keeping on and ... and that kind of thing, but I can't help feeling proud of ... of all those old chaps who went before me, and ... all that, and I'd hate to break the line ... only I can't just go up to a girl and ... and say, 'We want some ... some babies in our house!' ..."

"No, dear, you can't say _that_, of course, but there are plenty of nice girls about, and if you would just ... just think of some of them, instead of always thinking of works and tunnels and things!... Of course, I know that tunnels are very interesting, Ninian, but ... but Boveyhayne!..."

She did not say any more. She stood by the gate of a field, looking over the valley of the Axe to the hilly country that separates Dorset from Devon, seeing nothing because her eyes were full of tears. He slipped his arm from hers and put it round her waist and drew her close to him. "All right, mother!" he said.

"My dear!" she said, reaching up and kissing him.

11

They dined together on Ninian's last night in England. Rachel, with fine understanding, insisted that they should dine alone, although they urged her to join them.

"I say, you chaps," Ninian said to them, "you might go and see my mater sometimes. She'd be awfully glad. Quinny, you haven't been to Boveyhayne for centuries. ... If you'd go, now and then, you'd cheer the mater up. She's awfully down in the mouth about me going!"

"Righto, Ninian!" said Gilbert.

"Mary was saying what a long time it was since you were there, Quinny," Ninian went on.

"Did she?" Henry answered.

"Yes. I hope you'll go down sometime."

"I will," he said.

THE SECOND CHAPTER

1

Mrs. Graham invited Gilbert and Henry to spend Christmas at Boveyhayne, and they gladly accepted her invitation, but a week before they were due to go to Devonshire, Mr. Quinn fell ill, and Henry, alarmed by the reports which were sent to him by Hannah, wrote to Mrs. Graham to say that he must travel to Ireland at once. He hurried home to Ballymartin, and found that his father was more ill even than Hannah had hinted.

"I wouldn't have let her send for you, Henry!" he said, apologetically, "only I was afraid ... I mightn't see you again!"

He tried to cheer his father by protesting that in a little while he would be astride his horse again, directing the farm experiments as vigorously as ever, but Mr. Quinn shook his head. "I don't think so, Henry!" he said. "I'll not be fit for much anyway. You'll have to lend a hand with the estate, my son."

"I'll help all I can, father, but I'm not much of an agriculturist!..."

"Well, you can't be everything. That new book of yours ... the one you sent me the other day!..."

"'Turbulence,' father?"

"Aye. It's a gran' book, that. I'd like well to be able to write a book of that sort. I'm proud of you. Henry!"

Henry blushed and turned away shyly, for direct praise always embarrassed him, but he was very pleased with his father's praises which gave him greater pleasure than the praises of any one else, even Gilbert.

"You'll stay home a while, now you're here, Henry, son, won't you?"

"Yes, father, as long as you like!"

"That's right. You'll be able to work away here in peace and quietness. Nobody'll disturb you. I suppose you're started on another book?"

Henry told him of "The Wayward Man." ...

"That's a great title," he said. "You're a gran' one at gettin' good titles for your books, Henry. I was readin' a bit in the paper about you the other day, an' I near wrote to the man an' told him you were my son, I was that pleased. Ease this pillow under my head, will you? Thanks, boy!"

He took Henry's hand in his. "I'm right an' glad to have you home again," he said, smiling at him. "Right an' glad!"

2

The whole of "The Wayward Man" was completed before Mr. Quinn was well enough to move about easily. Henry spent the morning and part of the afternoon on his novel, giving the rest of the day to his father. Sometimes, in his walks, Henry met young farmers and labourers returning from the Orange Hall where they had been doing such drill as can be done indoors. On Saturday afternoons, they would set off to join other companies of the Ulster Volunteer Force in a route march. Jamesey McKeown had begun to learn wireless telegraphy and was already expert with flag-signals and the heliograph. Peter Logan, who had married Sheila Morgan, had been promoted to be a sergeant.... "I suppose Sheila's a nurse?" Henry said to him the first time he met him.

"She's nursin' a wean, Mr. Henry!" Logan replied, winking heavily. "We've a couple already, an' there'll be another afore long. She's as punctual as the clock, Sheila. She's a great woman for fine, healthy childher!"

"Well, that's what you want, isn't it?" Henry said.

"Aye, you're right, sir. You are, indeed. There's nothin' til beat a lot of young childher about the house. Will you come an' see the drill?..."

Henry went to see a display in a field just outside Ballymartin. The men marched and counter-marched, and charged and skirmished, and did physical drill until they were tired and sweating, while their women looked on in pride and pleasure. Sheila was there, too, and Henry went to her and sat beside her while the military manoeuvres took place. She made no impression on him now ... he saw her simply as a countrywoman in the family way ... a little blowsy and dishevelled and red with exertion.

"For dear sake, Henry!" she said in greeting, holding out her hand to him.

"Well," he said, "when does the war begin?"

"Aw, now," she answered, "don't ask me! Sure, I'm never done coddin' Peter about it. But it's the grand health, Henry. You'd never believe the differs it's made to that wee lad, Gebbie, that serves in Dobbin's shop. I declare to my God, he had a back as roun' as a hoop 'til they started these Volunteers, but now he's like a ramrod. He's a marvel, that lad! Teeshie Halpin's taken a notion of him since he straightened up, an' as sure as you're living she'll have him the minute they can scrape a few ha'pence thegether to buy a wheen of furniture. Well, if the Volunteers never does no more nor that, they'll have done well, for dear knows, Andy Gebbie was an affront to the Almighty, an' him stoopin' that way!"

"But are they going to fight, Sheila?..."

"Ah, get away with you, man!" said Sheila. "What in the name of all that's good an' gracious, would they be fightin' for? Sure, they're lettin' on, to frighten the English out of their wits!" She changed the talk to more interesting discourse. "I've two childher now," she said.

"So Peter was telling me," he answered.

"A wee boy an' a wee girl. An' terrible wee tories they are, too! They're about somewhere with their aunt Kate. An' how an' all are you, Henry?"

"I'm very well, Sheila."

"You're lookin' gran'. I hear you write books, but I never read noan of them!"

"Would you like to read them?" he asked.

"I would, fine. Dear, oh, I often wonder how anybody can write books. I never was no hand at writin' anything, not even a letter. But I suppose there's a knack in it, an' once you learn it, you're all right!"

"Yes," he replied, "that's about it. I'll send my books to you. I'd have sent them before if I'd thought you'd care to read them!"

"You might 'a' knowed rightly, I'd be glad to have them...."

3

But Sheila's good-natured scorn for the Ulster Volunteer Force did not convince Henry. One could not look at these drilling men, and feel satisfied that they were pretending to be angry or that they did not mean what they said, when they declared that they would die in the last ditch rather than consent to be governed by Nationalists. Mr. Quinn spent much time in denouncing Sir Edward Carson and his friends, but he did not doubt for a moment that the followers would fight. He had very little faith in the sincerity of the politicians. "That fellow, F. E. Smith," he exclaimed wrathfully, "what in hell is he doin' over here, I'd like to know? I'd like to kick his backside for him, an' pack him back to wherever he come from!" And there was F. E. Robinson, too, bounding about Ulster like a well-polished young gentleman from the Gaiety chorus, and delivering historical orations that filled the crowd with amazement.