PART THIRTY-TWO

END—OR BEGINNING?

§ 1

Rightly to understand what follows—which is the ending (or the beginning, according to standpoint) of romance—you must recall to memory that Peter the First, grandfather of our Mr. Jameson, who left the country for the town at the commencement of the great English manufacturing era about eighteen hundred and forty, tried his luck in the City of London, and ended his days on the tobacco-farm in Guanabacoa, Cuba; also Peter the Second, father of our Mr. Jameson, and founder of Jameson & Co., Lime Street. Nor must you quite forget Captain “Chips” Bradley, Tessa Bradley, and the exotic Hebraic strain of the Miraflores. For all these played their ghostly parts in the mind of their descendant as he walked that debatable paddock in the warm sunshine of a late May morning ten days after the death of old man Tebbits. . . .

Fry had dug up half-an-acre of that paddock; and already the mauve potato-flower was in bloom above its dark leaves. “Confound it,” thought Peter, “I’m not going to be done out of this paddock. I paid to have it dug up, didn’t I?”

He looked at the two chicken-houses. They would have to be moved. It would take Fry half-a-day to move them. Half-a-day at thirty shillings a week. . . .

And immediately the word “business” formed itself in Peter’s brain. He had never before considered the country in the light of business: the country had been for him a place where town-people made holiday; a rather jolly picturesque kind of place—scenery among which one rode, or killed pheasants, or drove golf-balls. Now he saw the country as the peasant sees it—but the peasant in Peter had been sharpened by a half-a-generation among townsfolk.

“It isn’t just _a_ business,” he thought. “It’s _the_ business. The greatest business in the world. And I’ve been living right in the middle of it for six months without grasping that simple fact.”

Then the Jew in Peter said, quite distinctly, “My boy, there’s money in this.”

Prudence the pig grunted a hint of feeding-time. But to Peter she was Prudence the pig no longer: she was Prudence the breeding sow, and the sooner she went to the boar the better. Pigs! “Little pigs pays all right,” he seemed to hear old man Tebbits speaking. Then imagination outran Tebbits; if little pigs paid to sell, big hogs paid to rear. “Question of feeding cost,” remarked the ghost of Peter the First. . . .

The man in the white flannel trousers, with the belted shooting-coat and the Old Etonian tie, looked at the woods beyond the paddock. Beeches! There were beeches in those woods; beech-mast, roots, all sorts of pig-fodder. He saw an endless procession of hogs, running through the paddock to feed in those woods.

“Damn it,” said Peter, “I’ve got to have the paddock. . . .”

Three hens fluttered up onto the wire-netting round the potato-patch; swayed there a moment; dropped over among the potato-plants. Patricia couldn’t make hens pay. Of course she couldn’t. They were bad hens. And chicken food was too dear. But if one grew one’s own corn. . . .

“Self-supporting,” thought Peter suddenly. “Cut the middle-man’s profit.”

A cow lowed from across the road. Thought process went on. Peasant, soldier, Jew and business-man met round the board-room table of Peter’s brain. First the land; then the men to work the land. “Don’t pay rent. Buy outright,” said Business. “Keep ’em in order,” rasped the soldier. “Crops and stock,” said the peasant, “crops and stock, stock and crops.” “And your markets,” whispered the Jew, “never forget your markets. Work to your markets—supply and demand, demand and supply.” . . . All of which counsels the old Etonian crystallized into the words, “Why not become a gentleman-farmer?”

“Snobbish idea”—this time Peter spoke aloud. “Gentleman farmer—gentleman business-man—discharged officer would like to sell wine and cigars on commission. Rubbish! A job’s a job. The man who does his job is a gentleman: the man who plays with his job is. . . .” The Expeditionary Force epithet sailed bluely into the country air.

From abstract ideas, thought switched automatically to Tebbits’ Farm. The position, as far as he could gather from Harry, was this: the Colonel (“damn that Colonel,” thought Peter, “why hasn’t his wife called on Pat?”) did not want to renew old man Tebbits’ lease; the Colonel wanted to sell his land; Harry Tebbits couldn’t afford to buy it. But he, Peter, could afford to buy it; and if he didn’t—here the peasant in Peter grew very angry—somebody else might do him out of this very paddock. “Then sue Tebbits’ estate for damage,” counselled the Jew. “You don’t know anything about farming. You’ll make a hash of it like your brother Arthur. Farming’s a difficult business, my boy. Why not lend Harry the money? Six per cent and no risk. If he can’t make it pay, you foreclose. . . .”

Peter walked slowly back to the house; but the next morning, and the next, and the morning after that, he spent in the paddock. The more he considered this business of farming, the wider its scope appeared. It embraced everything he needed: plenty of work, limitless opportunities, a bit of a fight, a bit of a gamble, men to boss, horses to ride. And if one could learn to be a gunner in six months, surely one could learn to be a farmer. . . . “In how long?” asked Reason: and Peter realized for the first time his utter practical ignorance. . . .

For two days he abandoned the scheme. Then a milking-time visit to Tebbits’ brought the whole business back. He might not know much about farming; but any ass could see _this_ wasn’t right. “Filthy,” said the soldier in Peter, “filthy! Flies and filth and a dung-heap round the corner. That milk would poison a regiment.”

Finally, he decided to talk the whole thing out with Harry. If Harry would come into partnership; if Harry would listen to reason. . . . For already the business-man in Peter had realized that farming on Tebbits lines was a thing of the past; a picturesque anachronism.

“Farming”—Peter must have said this to himself at least a hundred times during those few days—“isn’t just _a_ business. It’s _the_ business. And like all businesses it’s got to be big. All this talk about small holdings is blather. The small-holder works himself to death for less wages than a dock-labourer.” . . .

It must be admitted that Peter’s first talk with Harry Tebbits frightened that worthy almost as much as “our Mr. Jameson” had frightened Turkovitch in Nirvana days. Still, Harry listened. “Yes, I know we don’t produce as cheap as we might, nor sell as dear as we could,” admitted Harry. “’Tis the Government’s fault, I’m thinking.”

Peter laughed. “They don’t grow much hay in Westminster, Harry. No English Government ever helped a business-man yet. We’ve got to help ourselves. Now about the milk. Sealed bottles _and_ our own deliveries, ‘guaranteed pure,’ ‘from the cow to the kid.’ Ford cars to Reading and Henley. Eggs too, _and_ vegetables. Bacon. . . .”

“Bacon!” ejaculated Harry.

“Of course. If little pigs pay, big hogs pay; if it pays people to buy big hogs, it will pay us to kill, cure, smoke _and_ retail ’em.”

“We can’t do anything this side of Michaelmas. Lease isn’t up till then,” said Harry, hardly convinced.

“No; but we can do an awful lot of _thinking_.” . . .

. . . And, thinking, thought expanded. With fourteen thousand pounds of capital; and the key-industry of life—what couldn’t a man accomplish? Peter sent for books, pamphlets; buried himself in statistics;—and the more he read the more he convinced himself that the secret of farming was no secret at all. Farming was just like any other business: it depended on two questions—“How cheaply can I produce? How dearly can I sell?”

“Machinery and marketing,” said Peter. “Same old problem.”

The spectre of “labour” did not frighten him. Eliminate the middle-man, and there would be enough surplus profits, in the particular business of farming, to give “labour” all it wanted. “Provided,” added Peter, “that ‘labour’ will do its job.” Besides, the Tebbits-Jameson farm would be run on co-partnership lines, as the Nirvana factory was to have been. “Share and share,” said our Mr. Jameson, “I’ll do my job if they’ll do theirs. . . .”

At which exact point in his schemes for the future—Peter Jameson fell head over ears in love with his own wife!

How the thing happened: whether he had always been “in love” with her and only just discovered the fact; whether the example of Francis and Beatrice, emerging from the seclusion of honeymoon, influenced him; whether leisure, returning health, heredity, environment, or his growing affection for Sunflowers first started the wheels of passion—it is impossible to say. Remains the fact that he did fall in love with her, head over heels, madly, crazily and unreasonably in love. To elaborate a slang expression much in vogue at the time, “he dived in at the deep end.”

§ 2

Peter “dived in” at exactly five o’clock on a gorgeous afternoon in earliest June. They were having tea on the sunk lawn—she, he, Francis, Beatrice, and the two children. And quite suddenly, watching her as she bent over the table, he knew an insane impulse. He wanted to cuddle his own wife, in full sunshine, shamelessly; he wanted “these people” out of the way. Instead, he asked her for another cup of tea!

But this “insane impulse” (so he phrased it to himself) refused to be suppressed. It recurred constantly that day, the next day and the day after. It became an obsession. He argued with it: “Don’t be a fool, P.J. She’ll think you’ve gone crazy. You _have_ gone crazy. . . .”

Then, he began to _think_ about her, as Heron Baynet had taught him to think, in pictures. He saw her kneeling at the altar, on their honeymoon, in Lowndes Square, at Brighton, in Harley Street. Always, she had been his pal. Damn it, he didn’t want her for his pal—he wanted to cuddle her. She became of a sudden so attractive that he could hardly sit opposite to her at the dinner-table. . . .

He said to himself: “But what _more_ do you want of her? She’s yours, isn’t she?” . . .

Followed self-reproach. What a wife she’d been to him! What a wife!! But had he ever appreciated her? No, he had not. He’d been a perfect cad to her. . . . What a wife! Had she ever grumbled? No, she had not. Had he ever grumbled? Yes, he had. When he lost his money, did she complain? No, she didn’t. Did he? Yes, he did . . . et caetera, et caetera. . . .

But the most amazing incident of those most amazing days was the simultaneous recurrence of two mind-pictures. In one picture, he lay on a bed, screens round it, and she looked down on him, love unmistakable in her eyes. In the other—but the other was incredible. He refused to believe that other. “I _have_ gone crazy,” he repeated, “perfectly crazy.” . . .

He decided himself the victim of hallucinations; and went on with his farming-plans. . . . But farming-plans could not exorcise the desire to cuddle Patricia, to hold her hand, to tell her that she was the only woman in the world, that he loved her madly. . . .

Finally, he determined to risk it. At the worst, she would only laugh. He realized that if she laughed he would hit her. Courage braced to the sticking-point, he waited his opportunity. . . .

And no opportunity came! They were never alone—except late at night, and “late at night” wouldn’t do. It wasn’t a “late at night” mood. It wasn’t a married mood at all. “Damn it!” said Peter Jameson, “can’t a man cuddle his own wife in the middle of the day if he wants to?”

But he couldn’t! Something or somebody always interfered: servants, children, visitors, Fry, the house. He began to hate “the house.” “The house” spoiled everything. He must get her away from the house, from Fanny and Elizabeth, from the children, from Fry and “those damn chickens” and Prudence the pig. . . .

At last, the great idea came. To himself, he called it their “second honeymoon”: to her, he said he wanted a “holiday.” The river in June and July was “top-hole”; he’d always wanted to punt—nothing but a punt seemed adequate—from Goring to Oxford, well not exactly Oxford, beyond Oxford, say Godstone. They might punt to Godstone and see Arthur. They might go further up Thames. It depended how he felt. He’d not been feeling very well lately. He wanted a change.

She demurred: one couldn’t leave the children. He sulked—cannily. Then he went to see Beatrice.

“You wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on things when we’re away?”

“But _why_ do you want to go?” asked Francis’ wife. She had installed herself in the oak-panelled morning-room; looked like a _blonde cendrée_ lily in the mellow gloom of its beeswaxed walls.

“Just for a holiday,” prevaricated Peter; but he blushed faintly as he spoke.

“Don’t English people ever tell the truth?” she said understandingly.

He hesitated the fraction of a second before answering: “Very rarely—about that sort of thing.”

Two days later, perfectly unconscious of the web which had been woven round her, Patricia yielded; and they started on the twelfth of June: two very ordinary people with two very ordinary suit-cases and a large luncheon-basket: he in white duck trousers, brogued buskin shoes, and flannel blazer; she in shantung coat and skirt, remnant of Lodden Lodge holidays—écru velours hat, Beatrice’s gift, shading her slumbrous eyes. . . .

§ 3

If you take punt at Hobbs’ Wharf, which banks the mill-creek beside Goring Lock; and glide out through some great morning of river-sunshine, under the white willows of “Nun’s Acre,” past Cleeve Lock ablaze with roses, into that long reach which runs lockless between oak and elm as far as Wallingford: (you will find at Molesey ferry a pleasant hostelry yclept “The Beetle and Wedge,” set a-purpose to hearten weary punters ere they pass under the almost ugliness of a red-brick railroad-causeway): and if, having rested at Wallingford, you pole on, by the narrow cleft of Benson’s Lock; and on, over the broad river-highway, through Shillingford; you will come in the fulness of even-time, past over-arching woods, to the vaulted spans of Clifton Hampden Bridge. . . .

Clifton Hampden’s self is a village of honeysuckled cottages, and quiet lost housen of quiet lost gentlefolk who climb o’ Sundays to the belled Church which looks down on Clifton Hampden’s Bridge and Clifton Hampden’s “Barley Mow.” . . .

But if you love our Thames, who is the father of England even as the sea is England’s great mother (and these twain mate in London Pool for all the world to see), you will not rest overlong at the “Barley Mow.” Father Thames will draw you on, against his own current, past Sutton Courtney’s foaming weirs and Wittenham’s “Plough,” and the mouth of the “Thame” (which is not the Thames, though it serpentines cunningly through flat fields to Dorchester, where, in an Abbey of olden stone, rest the bones of many a saint and many a Norman knight and dame); and on past Dorchester to Abingdon. . . .

At Abingdon, rest you one night—even as Peter and Patricia rested—yet rest not over-late. For beyond Abingdon (and this is a glory of wood and waterland you shall scarce believe) Radley’s flag flaunts, bright as colours at a girl’s bosom, among the bosoming downs of English oak. . . . Yet even this glory, Father Thames—if he loves you—will bid you leave behind. It shall dwindle astern as the steady pole dives from your hand and the taut body presses you onwards. . . .

Thus, ere river-afternoon is river-evening, shall you raise the plumed smoke-stack of Sandford Mills; and, lingering not, make Iffley, and the meadow-banks beyond Iffley, and Magdalen Tower, and the mellow dome of the Bodleian Library. And haply _you_ shall see the old-time Oxford of dreaming spires and leisured youth—not Patricia’s khaki-haunted, headstrong, hurrying town. . . .

Oxford passed (and this passing is a sadness, for sloven houses creep down to Thames bank, and Victorian factories blacken the clear stream, and children such as should not be in England dabble thin legs in the mud), Father Thames hesitates among meadow-flats—as you will hesitate between the “Perch” and the “Trout,” neither of which will allure you, for the one is of the beanfeaster and the other (though it was a guest-house in days when Fair Rosamond languished a bow-shot away at Godstone) resounds all day to the drone of the circling ’plane. . . . Wherefore, pole up beyond Godstone: and there, where Father Thames runs young between flag-flower-stems and faded meadow-sweet and sharpening bulrush-spears, may his river-nymphs be as benign for you as they were for Peter and his Patricia on that windless evening of an English June-time. . . .

It seemed to them that they had scarce left Sunflowers behind; and yet it seemed to them as though not only Sunflowers but all their known life lay so far behind them as to be almost out of memory. They had glided out of life, over endless rippleless water, through endless sunshine, into love’s own land. But no word of love had these two yet spoken. . . .

The fog of the years still hid them, each from each: only now the fog was all irradiated, a mist of sun-motes; and through the shimmering radiance of that clearing mist, their souls, not yet full-visioned, came peering and afraid. . . .

Many times, in those days of river-sunshine, their souls had caught glimpses of each other; touched, even as their bodies touched in the fragrance of the river-nights. But fulfilment and full-visioning had not yet been given. A strange shy tenderness separated them; locking Peter’s lips. . . .

But already, Patricia knew! The knowledge lay deep down in her heart—maiden-knowledge. Her womanhood, her experience, the reasoning powers on which she had prided herself so long, played no part in this secret awareness of love. It seemed to her that she had never been his wife; never borne his children nor tended his house; that she would come to him virgin. And as virgins are aware, so she knew that she would be aware of the time and place appointed for her bridal. . . .

§ 4

“I say, Pat, what about tea?”

Peter ran the long racing-punt skilfully to the slip-stage of Eynsham Weir; stood balanced on slanting pole.

She looked up from the cushions. “If you like, dear. Are you feeling tired?”

“A little,” he admitted.

The weir-man (there are few locks on the upper Thames) strolled down to help them out; took the luncheon-basket.

“Have to take those bags out before we run her over, I’m afraid, sir. She’ll be liable to break her back if we don’t.”

“Tie her up where she is for a bit. We’re not in any hurry.” Peter, coat over arm, followed his wife up the slipway.

“Nice,” he said, eyes on the river.

To her it was more than “nice.” Thames flowed down to them, circling willow-fringed through lush meadowlands, spanned in near distance by a humped bridge of mellow stone. At bridge-end, below toll-house, a farm nestled red among scant trees. Left of them, twin hillocks crested to blue of sky. At their feet, Thames plunged in gurgling gold to the weir-pool, foam-flecked under deep banks. Hitherside the stream, dyked pasturage glowed in the sun. . . .

And not thirty yards from the weir-pool—flies rolled-up, flap open—stood a tent: a perfectly good, apparently unoccupied tent!

All the time they were having their meal—the weir-man indicated a tiny arbour; boiled them hot water on the stove in his one-roomed cabin—thought of that tent obsessed their minds. To whom did that tent belong? Why shouldn’t they use that tent? River-inns were hot stuffy places, whereas a tent. . . .

Peter, balancing his third cup of tea on white-flannelled leg, approached the subject diffidently. “I say, Pat,” he began, “have you ever thought of camping-out? Rather jolly—camping-out. That tent reminded me. . . .”

“Oh, but we couldn’t possibly use _that_ tent”—Patricia started packing-up the tea-things—“it’s sure to belong to somebody.”

“One might as well find out.” He rose from the rough bench of the tiny arbour; lounged away; came back in a few minutes, face a little flushed, eyes twinkling.

“The weir-man says that we can use it if we like. ‘The gentleman isn’t coming down till tomorrow evening.’”

“What gentleman?” asked Patricia.

“The gentleman who owns the tent, I suppose. I say, Pat, do let’s! It’d be a fearful lark. We could go into the town and buy our rations. . . .”

There and then, they settled the matter. The weir-man produced mattresses, blankets, a rug; unpacked the punt; directed them across the dyked pasturage towards Eynsham. And at Eynsham—which is the least interesting, ugliest village between Gravesend and Cricklade—they bought them eggs, and tinned foods, and a loaf of bread, and butter, and candles, and a huge basket of strawberries which Peter discovered hidden away in the dark of a greengrocer’s shop.

Evening began as they dawdled back, parcel-laden, along the high road; turned off from high road across the dyked pasturage. Now, willows screened the ugly village behind. They could see only the bridge, and the two hillocks beyond, and their tent—their very own tent—marking the river-bank. . . .

“It’ll be a frightful lark,” said Peter.

“Won’t it?” she answered.

Of the thing each had at heart, neither dared speech. . . .

§ 5

Twilight had come in gold and gone in crimson: only faintest hints of greens and lilacs still lingered low down on the horizon. Eynsham Bridge was a humped black shadow across the dulled silver of the stream. Eynsham hills stood out in clear sepia against a turquoise sky.

“Good-night,” called the weir-man.

“Good-night,” they called back to him.

Now, they were utterly alone. The weir plunged and gurgled; a fish leaped in the pool. Darker it grew, and darker.

They could hardly see each other across the rug which had served them for dinner-table.

“Shall I light the candles in the tent?” he asked.

“If you like, dear.”

He rose slowly to his feet; and she watched his flannelled figure disappear in the gloom. Light winked from the tent-flap; the tent glowed suddenly, a cone of saffron radiance. . . .

He came back to her, picking his way quietly across the grass; saw that she had not moved. She was aware of him, dropping down beside her in the gloom.

“Pat darling,”—his voice held a new tenderness; his hand, as it sought hers, seemed to tremble—“I’ve been wanting to tell you something ever since we started.”

Their fingers trembled together, met and twined. His left arm slipped round her shoulders.

“What have you wanted to tell me?”

He drew her close to him. His heart throbbed against her shoulder-blades.

“I don’t quite know how to say it.” She could feel him blush in the darkness. “It—it isn’t the sort of thing one says to one’s wife. . . .”

He couldn’t go on: he was afraid she would laugh at him.

“What isn’t, Peter?” The whisper hardly reached him.

“I mean”—words came stumblingly—“I mean—the thing I wanted to tell you. . . . Pat darling, it isn’t very much. It’s—it’s just that I love you. And you mustn’t laugh at me for it.”

“Why should I laugh at you, boy?” she whispered.

“I don’t know. Why shouldn’t you laugh at me? Don’t you remember—before we got married—you said that being in love was all nonsense; that husband and wife ought to be. . . .”

“Don’t, Peter, don’t!”—he knew, though in all his life he had never heard her cry, that she was crying. “You make me so ashamed. It’s been my own fault—every bit of it has been my own fault”—he couldn’t understand—he only knew that suddenly happiness had come to them both—she crept into his arms—“Peter?”

“Yes, darling.”

“Am I the only woman you’ve ever tried to make love to? . . . .”

Was she laughing now? or crying? He couldn’t understand—he couldn’t understand at all.

“Do answer me, boy?”

“Of course you are. I’ve never loved anybody but you in my life.”

“Honestly?” she asked.

“On my dying oath, Pat.”

Suddenly, he felt her hand on his shoulder; heard her say: “Oh, boy, boy, I believe you. . . . You’re such a rotten lover, boy. . . . You haven’t even asked me whether I love you. . . .”

“I—” he began.

“Don’t. I’m—I’m rather glad you’re such a rotten lover, boy. I—I love you for it.”

Very tenderly, their lips met in the darkness. . . .

* * * * *

Tent on the river-bank glowed saffron among the shadows. . . . Light vanished from the tent. . . . Moon, riding over Eynsham Bridge, saw it, a gray ghost by the gurgling weir. . . . Moon dipped behind the willows. . . . Sky lightened. . . . Stars faded. . . . Dyked pastures silvered to the dawn-gleams. . . . Sun-rim peeped over Eynsham Hills. . . . The tent-flap parted. . . .

And out of the tent, stepping quietly lest she waken her sleeping mate, came a woman, golden hair unbound, white feet bare to the dew. . . . Very quietly she came, like a nymph in the dawn. . . . Very quietly, she sank to her white knees, alone on the river-bank by the gurgling weir. . . . Very quietly, she raised her white hands to the rising day. . . .

“O God,” prayed Patricia, “dear God—let me give him a son.”

EPILOGUE

§ 1

“Six thirty, ack emma, sir. Time to get up, sir.”

James Garton, sometime driver in the Royal Field Artillery, now convalescing from wounds, on the Tebbits-Jameson farm, tapped his sleeping master on the left shoulder. Peter, waking with a start, looked round his comfortable dressing-room, at the mauve eiderdown on his bed, the bow-fronted wardrobe, the hunting prints on the walls.

“Lord, Garton! What on earth are you playing at? We aren’t on active service now.”

“No, sir.” The Yorkshireman grinned. “I don’t think there’ll be much active service after today, sir. Not if the Huns sign this armistice”—he pronounced the word armistïce—“the newspapers are talking about.”

“Thought I’d like to wake you for the last morning of the war, sir,” Garton went on, producing a cup of tea and some biscuits. “Should I put out your riding-kit, sir?”

“No, Garton, you should not”—laughed Peter, falling in with the spirit of the game—“you should put out the blue suit of mufti you’ll find in that wardrobe. Also, you should prepare my bath.”

Said the Yorkshireman, hanging serge slacks carefully over the back of a chair, “Mister Harry says that you and Mrs. Jameson are sure to get taken up for joy-riding, sir.”

“That be damned for a tale.” Peter, tea finished, tumbled out of bed; stuck his feet into a pair of red morocco slippers; drew silk dressing-gown over pyjamas.

They had been speaking very quietly for fear of waking the pair in the next room: but now a voice, Patricia’s voice, called through the doorway:—

“Time to get up, Peter. Are you awake, Peter?”

“Of course I’m awake. Been awake for hours. How’s Peter the Fourth?”

“Slept like a top.” The door opened, revealing Patricia, slipperless, golden hair falling about her white shoulders. “What on earth. . . .”

Garton, blushing furiously, fled: they heard him busy in the bath-room as they kissed good-morning.

“Funny fellow, isn’t he?” Peter explained his quondam servant’s presence. “And now let’s have a look at the heir.”

Arms linked, they passed into the curtained bed-room. Mauve-shaded candles burned on the white over-mantel, on the table by the lace-canopied cot. Blinking at the light, still only half awake, lay Peter the Fourth. The newly-weaned baby smiled happily at its parents. Peter the Fourth, they thought, would have his mother’s hair, his father’s eyes: Peter the Fourth, they thought . . . but what these two thought about their eight-months old son would fill a prologue, an epilogue, and a hundred chapters in between.

As Evelyn confided, early in the summer, to Primula: “I don’t believe a word of that gooseberry-bush story, Prim. I believe Mummy and the pater made that child themselves. They couldn’t be so gone on it”—(“gone on,” acquired from Garton, was _the_ school-room word of the moment)—“if they’d just _found_ it.”

Said Primula, sternly practical, “It must be frightfully difficult to make a baby. Think of its ears. . . .”

The two girls came running, fully dressed, into Patricia’s room just as Peter slipped off for his bath; stood chattering till Patricia shooed them away and rang for Elizabeth. . . .

§ 2

The Peter Jameson who breakfasted with his wife at a quarter to eight on Armistice Morning was a very different animal from the our Mr. Jameson whose taxi had driven up to 22 a. Lowndes Square, London, four and a half years previously. Grayed hair and lined face still betrayed convalescence, the weariness of war-time; but his eyes, his voice, the whole atmosphere of happiness he exuded, testified a change in the man’s mentality.

His essential creed had not altered: he still believed in work, and in successful work; he still loathed inefficiency, slackness, the never-mind-tomorrow attitude. But love, impersonated in Patricia, had softened the harshness of his youth; taught him the grand lesson of tolerance. Love had nearly bridged that vast, bitter gulf between fighting-man and stay-at-home: almost, he saw England whole—-not a country divided against itself, but a People working hand-in-hand for the common cause. Love, too, had opened Peter Jameson’s eyes so that they saw not only profits but also beauty in the new work to which he had dedicated himself.

This new work prospered slowly, as the land should prosper. Already Capital had begun its revivifying influence. Old man Tebbits’ tumble-down milking-sheds existed no longer: instead, were clean stables of brick and tile, spotless pails and sterilized pans. Useless wooden structures, harbourage of rats, had been pulled down. The ricks stood, stone-based, two feet above ground. Charlie Tebbits had re-built and added to old man Tebbits’ insanitary pig-sties. A tractor-plough phutted in the fields. Also—Peter’s first _coup_—Tebbits-Jameson Ltd. had bought out the Arlsfield “carrier,” a rickety old man with a rickety old horse; replaced his creaking equipage by a petrol delivery-van; and made themselves masters of the transport-situation. This van, as Peter saw it, was to be the forerunner of a fleet which would carry passengers, market produce, sell _and buy_ eggs and milk, fruit and honey and vegetables across half-a-county. Plans for bacon-factory, cheese-factory, jam-factory—(and tracings of a sugar-beet plant which Peter had not yet dared show Harry Tebbits)—all lay locked away till peace-time in the drawers of Peter’s walnut-wood writing-desk.

Sunflowers, run as a separate establishment, was already unrecognizable. The paddock—silent, original founder of “T.J.’s Ltd.”—existed no longer. Only the pig-path, fenced from sties to wood’s edge, still showed a band of narrowing-green ribbon across the brown of plough. All autumn, the “paddock” had been a mellow-gold riot of Russian sunflowers: two acres of sunflowers whose produce, bushel upon bushel of the finest chicken-feed, filled a dozen zinc bins in the new poultry store-room. Roger Fry had gone to the war; Roger Fry’s hybrids to the stock-pot. In their place, came a marvel of a man from St. Dunstan’s Hospital, the cheeriest soul for all his blinded eyes that ever took good wages of a Saturday, and two hundred black Leghorns who clucked about the orchard from sunrise to sun-downing.

“And it’s only in its infancy,” thought Peter, helping himself to another rasher of Miss Tebbits’ black-treacle curing, “only in its infancy. Scrap the ‘state-control’ idea. Give every man his chance. Let Capital and Labour co-operate as we’re co-operating—and the Lord knows where we won’t get to in a dozen years of peace.”

“We ought to be off in about ten minutes,” he said to his wife. “You know what Dilly and Dally are at this time in the morning.”

“Dilly and Dally,” at Sunflowers, meant the inhabitants of Glen Cottage, who kept a mystic time-table of their own, officially supposed to depend on Francis’ working hours, but actually adjusted—with meticulous accuracy—to weather-conditions. “When it’s fine,” Beatrice once condescended to explain, “Prout thinks we ought to rise with the sun. When it’s wet, he doesn’t think we ought to get up at all.”

“I told them to be ready by half-past eight”—Patricia glanced at the clock on the wall-bracket—“we don’t want to scorch.”

§ 3

Francis Gordon’s idea of motoring up to London for Armistice Day—a pastime forbidden by the anti-joy-riding provisions of the Defence of the Realm Act—had entirely upset the Sunflowers-Tebbits routine. Usually, by breakfast-time, Peter had made his first inspection of the poultry houses; visited the milking-sheds; sped Sid Dyson on his way to Arlsfield Park (Peter, after endless finesse, had secured a timber-felling contract from the Colonel); discussed his round with ex-Corporal Hankins, who had one artificial leg, two merry blue eyes, and a mechanic’s passion for the delivery-van; and argued out at least one abstruse farming-problem with Harry Tebbits. On this particular morning it was Harry Tebbits, pipe in mouth, who strode over to see Peter; found him, cap on head, coat over arm, standing under the beaten walnut tree.

The blond giant opined that if Peter really meant to go up to London, the least Peter could do would be to bring back some whisky.

“Well,” said Peter, “I’ll do the best I can, Harry. But if the armistice _is_ signed, I expect London’ll be drunk dry by half-past two. Don’t suppose you’ll get much out of the folk today, Harry.”

The giant smiled. “Not much use telling the cows about Armistices. Still, I don’t expect we’ll kill ourselves with work. Not today at all events. Old Tiger’s been after the skim again. Never saw such a dog for the milk.”

“Tiger o’ Sunflowers,” an enormous silver-brindled Dane, lounged up the drive; gave his master dignified greeting. Patricia, furred and gauntleted, came hurrying out of the house.

“Well, I may as well see you safe off the premises,” smiled Harry Tebbits. The three made their way to the “garrige.” Passing the stables, they heard Driver Garton’s, “Now then, you”; Evelyn and Primula’s raised voices; the stamp of hooves on tile. Wilhelmina, the bay filly who had succeeded Little Willie in Peter’s heart, was protesting as usual about her morning toilet. . . .

Peter and Corporal Hankins had spent all Sunday tinkering with the Crossley, rubbing away the grease of two years’ idleness, fitting new sparking-plugs, testing brake-shoes and magneto, filling her petrol-tank and polishing her brass-work. Still, the car looked her age.

“Charlie’ll have to give her a coat of varnish one of these days,” hazarded Charlie’s brother, tapping strong fingers on the bonnet. But the engine started sweetly enough; and Peter, running her out for Patricia to mount, felt conscious of the old driving-thrill.

“Shan’t be at Dilly-Dally’s till nine,” he said as she climbed up beside him. Harry ran to open the gate; Tiger o’ Sunflowers smelt at the Klaxon, bounded away barking at the bark of it; Evelyn and Primula waved good-bye from the stable-door. They were off.

By the meadow-patch it is a bare mile from Sunflowers to Glen Cottage; but the shortest road takes you half way to Arlsfield; circles a fair portion of the Tebbits-Jameson land before it dives towards the chestnut trees of Arlsfield Park.

It was a goodly November day; soft gray clouds, sun atween, hinting of rain to come.

They passed the eight-acre vegetable field,—inter-cropped, potatoes, already dug, with winter green-stuff, fat white-hearted savoys, inturned broccoli, curly-leaved kale and knee-high Brussels sprouts; they passed the “warren”—fenced dip of chalk pitted land on which Peter had turned down half a hundred Belgian Hare does to mate with the “original inhabitants”; they skirted two stubbles, and a new-sown patch of pedigreed wheat; hummed through the browning spinney—and made Glen Cottage by five minutes to nine.

The home of Francis and Beatrice showed no signs of intensive cultivation; meadow-land, over which Peter’s merinos and Peter’s Jerseys browsed and grazed at will, ran down to its very walls. Three times, the indomitable Beatrice had engaged a gardener, but each time Peter, hungry for men, enticed him away.

“Private gardens,” said our Mr. Jameson, “are out of date. Besides, as your landlord, your greengrocer, your carrier, your poulterer and your dairyman—I forbid it.”

Beatrice christened him the “Octopus of Arlsfield”; but eventually submitted. She was standing at the cottage-gate as the Octopus and his wife drove up. Fifteen months of matrimony had not altered her essential girlishness: but the face under the close-fitting toque of ermine seemed less pale than the day she and Peter first met; the gray eyes, though still thoughtful, held more of laughter.

“Dally won’t be a minute,” she smiled at them. “You’ve just got time to turn the car.”

Peter, with a jest about not having enough “gasoline,” obeyed; throttled down his engine; gave a glance at clock on dashboard as the two women kissed good-morning.

“Confound Dally,” he said after a while, “it’s nearly ten past already.”

Francis, followed by Prout, who carried an enormous basket and a long thin parcel wrapped in brown paper, limped out of the house. He wore his usual brown overcoat, his usual cream buckskin gloves, his inevitable old Etonian tie.

“What on earth have you got there?” demanded his cousin.

“Food, fizz and flags,” chuckled Francis. “Shove ’em in the tonneau, Prout. If I know London, we’ll have about as much chance of getting anything to eat. . . .” He superintended the disposal of these treasures; handed Beatrice into the car—-and remembered he had forgotten her muff. By the time Prout had retrieved this, tucked in the young people, and closed the door on them, it was twenty past nine.

“Shall we do it?” asked Patricia.

“Do it?”—Peter chuckled scornfully—“you watch!” He opened throttle as he spoke; fingered lever gently from neutral to first, first to second, second to top. Horse-chestnuts popped from tire-covers as the Crossley gathered way. Arlsfield Park, a blurr of tree-trunks at side and interlaced branches overhead, spun behind them. They missed Sid Dyson’s timber-tug by an ant’s breadth; hooted past the Colonel’s crested gate-pillars; switchbacked downhill towards Henley.

Dilly and Dally, feet tight-propped against the provision basket, looked at each other in mock alarm. “It wasn’t our fault,” stammered Francis through chattering teeth, “why wasn’t the Octopus on time? He said half-past eight.”

Beatrice, craning forward a moment, eyed the speedometer. “What are we doing, Beatrice?” “Forty-five and a chip.” “Lord!”

The car shot on, purring—Peter, nearly recumbent, notched wheel gripped easily in gloved hands; Patricia bolt upright, eyes on the speeding hedge-rows.

They made the six miles to Henley in a fraction over twelve minutes; swirled righthanded at the railway-station; took the water-front at a bound; skidded the Bridge-corner on two wheels. Church, bridge and river vanished like mad movies.

“Going well,” muttered Peter through set teeth. White Hill rose up like a roof ahead. “Open that cut-out for me.” Exhaust roaring, cylinders throbbing, the Crossley hurtled up between the trees; slowed to twenty; felt herself flung back into second; topped the rise; raced engine the fraction of an instant; took top-gear again; shot on.

Houses, trees, a crawling dray, flashed astern. Gray tarmac zipped under. Ahead, the road rose; dropped; rose again. Now, they were in open country. Peter took one deep breath; fidgeted throttle-lever full open; jammed foot on accelerator. Couple behind felt the car gather herself as if for a great leap; saw passing hedge-rows fade out to a continuous blurr. Speedometer-needle clicked to sixty; held there for three and a half ecstatic minutes. . . .

“Right, isn’t it?” shouted Peter suddenly. “Yes.” Patricia, map on knee, watched Hurley Bottom skim by. He slowed; climbed a hair-pin turn warily; nipped across the Thicket; veered left for Maidenhead.

The clock at Nicholson’s Brewery showed five minutes past ten as they crawled down into the town; opened out again for the Bridge; swished over it past Skindle’s Hotel.

“Shall we do it?” asked Pat.

“Question of luck.” He opened the cut-out again; roared under Taplow Railway-viaduct. So far, road had been almost empty. Now, other cars appeared ahead. The Crossley raced them down the Bath Road; passed them one by one. Slough vanished. Something honked behind them; honked again. Peter, wheels almost on turf, was aware of a Rolls-Royce bonnet, of a dark-blue car sweeping by; caught a glimpse of Arthur, in sky-blue Air Service uniform, sitting rigid at the wheel. . . .

Crossley gathered way; Klaxon barked furiously; Rolls-Royce swerved; Peter, grin on his face, shot past. Beatrice, peering over the back of the cabriolet, saw Arthur’s eyes light; saw his hand move slowly on the wheel. Then the Rolls-Royce was on them; creeping up, effortless, silent. . . . Honk, honk, honk. “Drat the fellow,” muttered Peter. For a mile, he refused way; then Arthur, with two inches to spare, purred calmly by; recognized Peter with a wave of the hand—and disappeared in dust. . . .

Still, they made Hounslow by half-past ten; edged warily over tram-lines; pulled up for a second to avoid disaster.

“Hope you’re not joy-riding, sir,” grinned a blue-helmeted constable.

“Joy-riding!”—Peter, hand on gear lever, grinned back scornfully—“do we look as if we were joy-riding!” Francis, peeping overside, was understood to mutter something about, “bringing the good news from Aix to Ghent.” . . .

None of the four quite remembers how they made the last lap to London. It comes back to them as a jerking, fidgety dream—houses, tram-lines, motor-omnibuses; a scrap of clear straight road here; turns there; people staring, people cursing; shop-windows in which they saw themselves skidding past; dogs diving for cover; scream of Klaxon, jar of gear-lever, throb of engine. . . . “Time?”, Peter kept asking. “Time, Pat?” . . . “Ten-thirty-five.” . . . “Ten-forty.” . . . “Quarter to, all but ten seconds.” . . . “Damn it, we must make Piccadilly by eleven o ’clock.” . . . More houses. . . . A saloon. . . . Francis, head down in the tonneau, groping for his flags, hitting his head against the back of the driving-seat. . . . “Twelve minutes to eleven.” . . . Beatrice, eyes on Peter’s cap, muttering to herself, “He’ll never do it. I’ll never forgive him if he doesn’t do it.” . . .

“Five to!” called Patricia—and Fulham Road streamed out behind as they zig-zagged in and out among sparse traffic. . . .

“Three minutes.” . . . “What was that? Oh, yes, Harrods. Good old Harrods.” . . . “Two minutes more.” . . . The Hyde Park Hotel whizzed by. . . . Railings. . . . A clear road. . . . Hyde Park Corner ahead . . . and:—

“Done it, I think,” remarked our Mr. Jameson, as a motor-bus, swaying out of Park Lane, missed their rear mud-guards by the grace of God and two inches. . . .

Thut of cylinders dropped to steady purr. Clubland on their left, railings on their right, slackened speed; grew steady and perceptible. Traffic, through which the Crossley threaded easy way, appeared all round them. . . . They were in Piccadilly! . . .

Clarges Street—Half Moon Street—Bolton Street—known names, black-lettered on gray stone—Apsley House—The Ritz—corner of Bond Street. . . .

And, suddenly, they heard a voice. “P.J.!” bawled the voice. “Hi! P.J.! Halt, will you! Halt, I say.”

Peter, jamming brakes hard on, felt the car skid under him; felt wheels jar against sidewalk; was aware of Francis, shouting in his ear “Bravo, well-driven old thing,” of Beatrice and Patricia standing up, of a taxi-back two inches from his radiator, of a motor-bus grinding to standstill—and of a little red man, with flat red moustaches on his face and faded red tabs on his uniform, a little red man in a huge cap, who came dashing out of Scott’s hat-shop, bawling: “Halt, confound you, P.J. Halt! It’s eleven o’clock.” . . .

It was the Weasel; and even as the Weasel darted across the sidewalk, London went mad and they with London!

Pandemonium broke loose—a tornado of sound—horns, whistles, rowing-rattles, bugles—men shouting—women screaming. The five in the Crossley couldn’t hear pandemonium. They were of pandemonium—crazy. Brigadier General the Weasel, palms to mouth, straddling the radiator with spurred legs, beating bonnet with his cane, was hallooing like a lunatic: “Forrard away!” hallooed the Weasel. “Forrard away! Forrard away! Hi, tear ’em, tear ’em, tear ’em.” Francis, scarlet in the face, bolt upright, lameness forgotten, bawled an inarticulate “Eton! Well rowed, Eton.” Peter, finger pressed home on the hoarsely-shrieking Klaxon, was howling some Indian war-whoop of his own. Patricia, dumb with emotion, imagined herself to be cheering. And Beatrice, the hyper-critical, hyper-sensitive Beatrice, was yelling, yelling at the top of her voice. “Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya,” yelled Beatrice—but somehow or other she couldn’t finish the yell; dropped back, speechless, in the tonneau. . . .

Pandemonium! Traffic had stopped. There was no traffic: only motionless vehicles—lorries, motor-omnibuses, taxis, a Rolls-Royce, a hansom-cab—yes, a veritable hansom cab. And every vehicle swarmed with men and women. Men and women swarmed on every vehicle. Swarmed and shrieked and waved flags. . . .

Pandemonium! The very houses had gone mad. The houses were alive—alive with men and women. The houses were wide open. Men and women poured out of the houses into the streets. The streets were alive with men and women. They swarmed in the streets; swarmed and danced and cheered and shouted and waved flags. . . .

Pandemonium! The flags had gone mad. There were a million flags—Union Jacks and Stars-and-Stripes, Tricolour flags and Belgian flags and Japanese flags; Italian flags and Portuguese flags, Commonwealth flags and Dominion flags, Royal Standards and White Ensigns. . . .

Pandemonium! Everybody was moving—vehicles were moving—people were moving—flags were moving. Their own flags—Union Jack with Old Glory—were moving. The Crossley was moving. . . .

“Forrard away,” hallooed Brigadier General the Weasel, still astride the radiator. “Forrard away, sir,” Peter howled back from the driving seat. . . .

Pandemonium! Everybody was dancing. The flags were dancing. Men and women on the sidewalk were dancing. Soldiers were dancing—English soldiers and American soldiers, French soldiers and Belgian soldiers, Portuguese and Japanese and Italian soldiers—lame soldiers and legless soldiers and armless soldiers—ill soldiers and well soldiers. Sailors were dancing—English sailors and American sailors, French sailors and Italian sailors and Japanese sailors. The very houses were dancing: floods of white paper came dancing down out of the dancing houses. Their own car was dancing: her cushions were dancing: they could feel her engine dancing. They themselves were dancing: they could feel their hearts dancing inside them: the blood was dancing in their veins, dancing and dancing. . . .

* * * * *

But late that Armistice Day afternoon when the five sat knee-to-knee in the closed and motionless car—Hyde Park trees at its windows, rain tapping on its taut roof; when they poured the dancing wine of Francis’ forethought from gold-foiled bottle-neck and clinked brimmed glasses in token of civilization’s triumph over the Beast; when the Weasel, speaking solemnly as though he were proposing the King’s Health on guest-night, gave them: “Our men, God bless them, our splendid, splendid men!”—then Beatrice and Patricia could have sworn that they saw the tears of their own hearts reflected not only in their lovers’ eyes, but in the hard blue eyes of Brigadier General Douglas Stark, Royal Field Artillery.

THE END

_The characters of Peter Jameson and his wife Patricia were originally conceived in Stockholm, Sweden, one night in June, 1912. Their story was finally brought to fruition at The Old Barn, Oxfordshire, England, in November, 1919._

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.

Inconsistency in hyphenation has been retained.

Inconsistency in accents has been retained.