PART NINE

TWO EXCUSES FOR FAILURE

§ 1

Peter’s Patricia was essentially a simple woman. The early training received from her father, her education, her first nine years of married life, had all taught her the necessity of “balance,” the advantage of reasoning things out for herself—but they had only developed, not altered, her original character: the matehood and the motherhood in her.

This new love for Peter, suddenly (and as she now believed reasonlessly) conceived on the night he informed her of his decision to apply for a commission, had struck deep roots. But, as yet, it gave neither leaf nor blossom.

Always, she felt conscious of it. Nearly always, the consciousness irritated her. To begin with, married women with completed families—she argued—ought to have got over that sort of thing. Secondly, there was no likelihood—“very little likelihood” corrected instinct—of the love developing into a mutual passion: they had become too set in their matrimonial comradeship for any such occurrence. And thirdly—this formed the main irritation—her sudden change of feeling towards the man was not _reasonable_.

One might—she decided—hate a husband because he wouldn’t fight for his country. One needn’t on the other hand fall madly in love with him (after eight tranquil years) just because he decided to do the right thing. Besides, he hadn’t “gone out,” yet—perhaps he never would. For Patricia’s experiences in driving tired mud-stained men from the cold darkness of Victoria Station to their outlying homes, had taught her the sharp difference between training in England, however uncomfortable, and the rigours of active service: taught her that difference better than her brother Jack’s careful letters from the front itself.

Resultantly, she arrived at the “Royal York,” (tooling the Crossley like a professional chauffeur), very much on her guard.

§ 2

Brighton-on-Sea’s first war-Christmas betrayed no lack of prosperity. Its hotels, booked up weeks in advance, its saloons, its piers, its theatres and its picture-houses palpitated gaiety. From their billets in Shoreham Town and Portslade, in Worthing and beyond Worthing, the Southdown Division poured in a constant stream of blue-clad men and khaki-clad officers: London sent flappers and chorus-ladies, middle-aged business men and elderly idlers, frisky matrons and demure maidens. The whole town seemed one strolling, dancing, theatre-going, drinking promenade.

“Preston must be making a lot of money,” said Peter, as he and his wife took their first meal together in the crowded dining-room.

“I suppose so.” She had never known him quite so absorbed. “Is there anything the matter, Peter?” she went on.

“Lots. I’ll tell you after lunch. I wrote you about Alice being here, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but you didn’t say where she was staying.”

“At the Metropole. We’re to dine with them this evening. There’s a dance or something, I believe.”

He was enormously glad to have her with him: but far too occupied about regimental and other matters to shew it. The handsome woman sitting opposite to him—tight chinchilla motor-bonnet and plain Lovat-tweed tailor-made accentuated both figure and fairness—summoned many eyes in that room: but not her husband’s.

Luncheon over, they settled themselves in the little apartment leading off the lounge; drew chairs to the fire: and he sketched for her the position as between himself and Locksley, Bromley and Locksley, the regiment and Locksley.

Her limited experience of men could not grasp it.

“But, Peter, it all seems so childish. Like a lot of boys at school. And surely, with people being killed every day, this is not the time for you others to quarrel.”

“You’re perfectly right, old thing. That’s what I told Harold only last night. What makes me mad is that one man can do so much harm. Honestly, if it weren’t for Locksley I believe we should never have had any of this trouble. As it is,” he paused a moment, “we two have decided to get out.”

“But isn’t that,” she said the words deliberately, “an admission of failure?”

“I suppose it is,” he reflected. “But what am I to do? It wouldn’t be playing the game to accept promotion over a friend’s head.” . . .

“No. I suppose not.” She began to realize that his seriousness had its reasons. “But the men?” she asked.

“I know.” He grew very silent. In those three months Peter had learned a great affection for “B” Company, which he had watched grow from a mere mob to an orderly body; a body to be moved at will and by a word. Individuals too, he would be sorry to part from: Gladeney, Sergeant Atkins, his servant Priestley, “long” Longstaffe who started the choruses from the leading “four” in Number Five platoon, a funny little chap called Haddock, always untidy but always willing. “It’s best for them, though. Rows between officers don’t do the men any good. But you’re right about it being a failure, Pat. I suppose that’s what’s making me so mad.”

Only then, did she quite understand. It _was_ failure: but failure excused by loyalty: loyalty to a friend, loyalty to his sense of playing the game, loyalty to that intangible thing—the spirit of a regiment, against which individuals do not count.

“I’m sorry.” She laid a hand on his arm. He took it, rather shamefacedly: said “Come on, old thing. Let’s go out for a walk.”

§ 3

They walked straight out of the hotel into the arms of a voluble stout little civilian, with eyebrows like the horns of a stag-beetle, a blue silk muffler round his throat and a bowler hat, not quite clean, crammed down over his big head.

“And how are you, Mr. Jameson? Very glad to see you, I’m sure. My cousin Sam told me I might run into you down here.”

Peter introduced Marcus Bramson, owner of Bramson’s Pullman Virginia’s (“the cigarette you _must_ try”) to a slightly standoffish Patricia.

“A fine fellow, your husband, Mrs. Jameson. Everybody in the trade is proud of the way he enlisted. Right at the start, too. I was telling my cousin Sam, only the other night, how grateful he ought to be to work for such a man.”

They couldn’t get rid of Marcus! He stood there, looking like a strapped mummy in his tight overcoat, pouring out compliments and trade-gossip alternately.

“Poor young Schornstein. He’s been killed, you know. Sam Elkins gave his car to the Red Cross. I’m an old man, worse luck. Still, I’m trying to do my bit. And Mrs. Bramson, she’s running a canteen.

“Well, I mustn’t be keeping you like this,” he said at last. “We’re spending Christmas at this hotel. So if you’re passing again, drop in and take a drink with us. I’d like to have a little private talk with you, Mr. Jameson,” he added, as he wrenched off his hat and passed in through the glass doors.

“Quaint old bird, Marcus,” announced Peter, still smarting under the compliments. “Did you see what he was driving at?”

“No.” Patricia swung down the crowded parade. “I only thought of his clothes. How _can_ he afford to stay at the ‘Royal York?’”

“Marcus must be worth at least a quarter of a million. He’s one of those chaps who simply can’t help making money. And he spends nothing. They live in an eighty-pound villa at Maida Vale, keep two servants, and take a holiday like this three times a year.”

They threaded their way out of the crowd; made towards Hove. It was a mild, misty afternoon: sun hanging low and scarlet over a dun sea.

“And what _was_ he driving at?” she asked.

“Nirvana.”

“But you’re not going to sell it, Peter?” She looked round at him; but his eyes avoided her.

“I’m afraid so, dear.”

They walked on.

“Failure again!” he commented bitterly.

Now, she was loving him madly, reasonlessly. And she couldn’t help him. He had gone back beyond her reach, into the old world: the world of denied accomplishment.

“Failure,” he repeated.

“It isn’t.” Her eyes lit. “It isn’t. It’s splendid. To give up something you really loved for the sake of your country—_that_ can’t be failure.”

“Oh, _the country_. . . .” The word was almost a sneer. This man’s patriotism lay deep down in his nature, a thing of whispers and suggestions, a thing to die for but not to discuss.

“The country!” he went on. “‘We don’t want to lose you, but we think you ought to go’. . . . And once you have gone, we’ll take devilish good care to snaffle anything you’ve left behind you.”

“You don’t mean a word you’re saying.” The hostility in her tone caught his ear. In eight years, they had never quarrelled. This Patricia was as new to her husband as to herself. He walked on in silence.

“You could resign your commission, I suppose?” She said it purposely, meaning to provoke him.

“Resign! Damn it, woman, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” It was the first time he had ever sworn at her. Inwardly she laughed.

“I’m sorry, old thing,” he said a minute later.

She stalked on haughtily. She was flirting, deliberately flirting, with her own husband. And she felt a fool. Rather a delicious fool, though. Suddenly, he became aware of her; acutely, physically almost. . . . Then the custom of years overwhelmed both.

“The trout,” remarked Patricia, “took the May-fly with a rush. . . .”

He caught her meaning at once. “But you shouldn’t rag about that sort of thing, Pat.”

“You deserved it. And besides, you lost your temper with me. That means a forfeit—fizz for dinner.”

They had drifted back—neither quite realizing—to the early days of their marriage.

“There’ll be plenty of bubbly tonight, without my standing any.” He began to talk about Alice’s husband. She countered with a relation of Violet’s sudden prosperity. Peter had not told about his quarrel with Herbert Rawlings: Pat objected to criticism of her relatives—even when she knew the criticism justified. His little mood of bitterness passed; leaving only a caustic humour in its wake.

“Great man, that brother-in-law of yours,” he laughed. “I saw his picture in one of the illustrateds last week. They called him ‘a patriotic war-worker.’ I think. Something of the sort. . . .”

§ 4

They returned for tea in the lounge; and were unavoidably buttonholed by Marcus Bramson, looking shabbier than ever in a greasy tail-coat and elastic-sided boots.

“Mrs. Bramson would be so glad to know you,” he told Patricia, “but she’s lying down at the moment. So you won’t mind, Mrs. Jameson, if your husband and I have a little talk?”

He drew a chair to their table, began to gossip. Tea over, Pat accepted the cigarette he offered; leaned back in her sofa. They made a curious contrast: her husband, workmanlike in his khaki, cigar in the corner of his mouth, very deliberate, (it was the first time she had ever seen him talking business to a stranger); and the voluble little old man, wheedling, gesticulating,—but never missing a point.

“That cousin of mine,” began Bramson, “he’s always been a bit of a waster, you know. Good fellow, excellent salesman—but no head for money.”

“Oh, come,” began Peter.

“Nice of you to stand up for him, Mr. Jameson. Very nice of you, I must say. But I know him better than you do. Now, between you and me”—the voice dropped—“he’s not doing you any good.”

Much as Peter hated the idea of parting with Nirvana, he could not but appreciate Marcus’ opening.

The old man paused. “I always did wonder” he went on reflectively, “why you wanted to bother yourself with that factory. It isn’t as if you hadn’t got another business. A rich young man like you don’t want to trouble himself about making cirgarettes. Now Jamesons, that’s a good business, that is. . . .”

“Trying to buy me out?” The attack came suddenly—and to Patricia, unexpectedly.

“I wouldn’t mind.” Bramson lit himself a cigarette. “I’m always buying businesses, I am.”

He waited for his opponent to speak; waited vainly.

“Well? What do you think about it, Mr. Jameson?”

“To tell you the truth,” prevaricated Peter, “I’ve never contemplated such a thing.”

To the woman-mind of Patricia, the conversation grew more and more fantastic; seemed like the game of cross-purposes and crooked answers she had played as a child. “Here”—she reasoned—“were two men, one of whom obviously wanted to buy, the other to sell. Why, then, all this finessing?”

Gradually, she lost interest; began to think of her kiddies. What a shame they should be left alone for Christmas. She blamed herself a little, her desire to be alone with Peter. . . . Six o’clock! And she hadn’t unpacked yet. . . .

Both men got up to bid her _au revoir_: sat down again. She could hear their voices as she waited for the lift.

“_You_ don’t want to be bothered with it, Mr. Jameson. Not now you’re in the Army. And I’d pay you a good price. I would _reelly_.”

§ 5

Unpacking Peter’s haversack in the warm, lighted bedroom with the drawn blue curtains and the two brass bedsteads, Patricia found a bundle of correspondence addressed “Francis Gordon, Esq., 10 Mecklinburgh Square.” A postcard, an American picture-post-card, dropped out of the bundle: lay, address downwards, on the carpet. The colouring and design—a large white hotel set among palm-trees—caught her eyes; and she could not help reading the handwriting underneath: “_A happy Christmas. It’s a long time since you’ve written. Why? B.C._”

Patricia had asked herself the same question many times in the last months. Nobody knew exactly what had happened to Francis Gordon. Except Peter. She felt certain that Peter knew. But Peter wouldn’t say; contented himself, in reply to verbal enquiries with: “All I can tell you, is that he’s all right.” Her letters on the subject, he had calmly ignored. . . .

§ 6

Colonel Stark’s Christmas Eve dinner-party at the Metropole did not belie his reputation for bibulous hospitality. A tray of cocktails, poised unsteadily on a tiny table, opened the proceedings; sherry accompanied the soup; Chambertin followed Niersteiner (“patriotism,” announced the Weasel, quoting Bismarck, “stops at the palate”), Bollinger preceded port and brandy.

They sat down, a round dozen of them, to a round table, red with holly and white with mistletoe, in a private sitting-room on the first floor: three married couples, the Starks, the Jamesons, Colonel and Mrs. Mallory (a jolly old Artillery “dug-out,” well over seventy, with red cheeks, white moustaches, and a pink and white wife, five years his junior, to match): Harold Bromley, very shy with Mrs. Armitage, a sprightly middle-aged widow, alternately horsy and languorous: Torrington, a fair pale dark-eyed boy, who wore the three stars of a Captain, and told Patricia, when she asked what his brick-red medal-ribbon betokened, “That’s the Vic. C.,[3] Mrs. Jameson”: Purves, fresh from Oxford, with a budding moustache and a Balliol drawl, still self-conscious about his subaltern’s kit: Lodden, a fierce-looking black-moustached Major of Territorials, who appeared in a frightful rage about the world in general: and Pettigrew, a silent youngster, not in the least shy, who twinkled whenever one spoke to him.

They ate; and they drank; and they talked; slowly, and except for Lodden, without any undue excitement.

Said Lodden to Mrs. Mallory, stabbing furiously at his last morsel of fish: “But the thing’s a scandal. A positive scandal.”

“What’s a scandal?” asked the Weasel from the opposite end of the table.

“I was talking about the Foreign Office, Colonel. They tell me that cotton’s pouring into Germany, simply pouring in, through Holland.”

“Oh, I thought you meant a really amusing scandal, Major,” put in Mrs. Armitage.

“Plenty of that about in Brighton, if one looks for it,” scowled the Major.

Everybody laughed: and Lodden, distinctly pleased with himself, attacked the next course. The Burgundy arrived: and with its outpouring, talk quickened. The two Colonels fell into an argument about who won the Grand Military Steeplechase in ’93; Mrs. Armitage, abandoning Bromley as hopeless, turned her attention to Pettigrew and Purves,—repartees snapping back and forwards between the three of them; Mrs. Mallory did her best to smooth another grievance of Lodden’s; Peter and Alice talked Devonshire, her county.

Said Torrington to Patricia, “I hear your husband may be coming to us, Mrs. Jameson. If he does you must come down to Brighton and stay.”—_sotto voce_—“I’ll find you a horse to ride. It’s against regulations, of course. . . .”

“How did you know about Peter?” smiled Patricia, looking her stateliest in black velvet.

“I’m helping the Colonel in the office. Light duty, you know. He told me he meant to get your husband and that other chap, Bromley. The Colonel usually gets what he goes for.” He looked meaningly across at Alice, and added maliciously. “By the way, aren’t you Jacky Baynet’s sister?”

“Yes.”

“Jacky was devilish cut-up when the old man married Alice. . . .”

Waiters brought in the champagne, three magnums.

“I am perfectly certain,” drawled Purves—in the middle of a hush—to the widow, “that any more wine will have a most intoxicating affect on the party.”

“Turn his glass down, Mrs. Armitage.” This from the Weasel. “We musn’t let the children get into bad habits.”

Mrs. Armitage obeyed: and the two struggled amiably together, Pettigrew twinkling over the fray.

“Peter,” lisped Alice, bubbling glass at red lips, “Douglas is so keen on you and your friend coming to _us_.”

Our Mr. Jameson, whose head was very nearly as good as the Weasel’s own, drained his bumper before replying. “Oh, we’re coming,” he said.

“Douglas will be pleased. Douglas dear,” she called across to her husband, “I’ve got you two new officers.”

By now the whole table, not excepting Bromley, were in that pleasant state when the better-class Englishman becomes almost as talkative as the average foreigner.

“Don’t talk shop in mess, me dear,” beamed Stark: and to Mallory, “How long did it take you to discipline your wife, sir?”

Mallory, (“Sir” by right of age), looked across at his Hetty, said: “Hopeless task, Stark. Hopeless task.”

By general request, the ladies did not rise with the port. They drank the King-Emperor’s health, proposed by Purves as the most junior officer present: a Merry Christmas (Colonel Mallory); and “_Gott strafe_ Germany,” (Major Lodden).

The Weasel looked at his watch. “If you youngsters”—he winked at Mallory—“want to dance, it’s about time we went downstairs.”

Alice rustled out with the ladies: her husband came over to Peter and Bromley; said: “Better come to my office, both of you, the day after tomorrow.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to manage it, sir,” replied Bromley. “I may be on duty.”

“Then get some one else to do your duty,” snapped the Weasel. It was the only sign he gave, during the whole evening, of an alcoholic consumption which would have put any ordinary man under the table.

“Rummy devil,” confided Torrington to Peter and Bromley, as they strolled downstairs. “I was in his battery at Le Cateau. Brave! My hat—” this from a V.C.—“if his wife knew how he really got that D.S.O. she’d have a fit.”

“Tell me,” said Peter. But Torrington, who won his own “gong” at the same time, grew suddenly shy; broke off the conversation.

They descended to the cellar-like dancing-room, found it crowded. Rag-time thumped; lights blazed; couples slithered. Purves, too gentlemanly for words, was already partnering Mrs. Armitage: Pettigrew had taken the Colonel’s wife: Mrs. Mallory, despite her husband’s jocular entreaties, refused to dance: Major Lodden was grousing to Patricia.

“How about another liqueur?” suggested Torrington.

“I don’t think we’d better join the Gunners after all,” laughed Bromley to Peter: but he went to the bar with them just the same. There, they found the Weasel, drinking brandy-and-soda.

“You youngsters had better not drink any more tonight,” he commanded. “Why aren’t you dancing?”

“I’m not sure, sir,” from Torrington, “that I quite approve of officers dancing in their khaki.”

“I’m quite sure I _don’t_”—the Colonel’s blue eyes hardened—“but the ladies insist.”

They stood chatting till the music stopped. None of the four had drunk too much: but each of them, according to his capacity, had had quite enough. Bromley detailed a South African experience; Torrington capped it with a story of the Retreat; the Colonel listened professionally.

Peter had arrived at that mellow stage when he could regard the failures of our Mr. Jameson from a standpoint of pleasant detachment: in which state he decided that our Mr. Jameson was inclined to take life a little too seriously. During the remainder of the evening—except for the last “John Peel” which Torrington claimed—he and Patricia danced accurately with each other. . . .

[3] Victoria Cross medal.

§ 7

They walked home together, arm-in-arm, down the darkling sea-front. A moist breeze blew in their faces: and she clung to him. Their old-time friendship seemed to have renewed itself. The man felt supremely contented: the woman—a trifle off her guard. . . .

And then, they found Marcus Bramson waiting up for them!

He was prowling about the half-lit lounge, purpose in his eye; insisted they must come to his sitting-room; be introduced to Mrs. Bramson; have “one little glass of something, just to celebrate Christmas Day.”

“Confound Marcus,” yawned Peter as—some hours later—he struggled sleepily between cool sheets, “it must be about two G. M.”

“Half-past,” corrected Patricia, combing gold hair before the slanting mirror. She came over; kissed him according to custom; climbed into her own bed; switched off the lights.

§ 8

Peter’s leave lasted four days; and Marcus Bramson haunted every hour of it.

They found him in the lounge when they came down to breakfast, still there—eager for a chat—when they had finished; they ran into him, asking for letters at the porter’s lodge, as they went out for their morning walk; he and Mrs. Bramson, an over-awed woman of the middle-fifties, met them on the Front; trailed them back to lunch; followed them to the Metropole for tea; sat next to them at dinner; pursued them to the Hippodrome; waited up for them late, prevented them going to bed early.

On Boxing Day, when Peter and Bromley returned to the hotel from their first official interview with Colonel Stark, eager to discuss the arrangements made—the letter Stark had written to Andrews, the letters they must write to Andrews, their interview with General Blacklock, Commanding Southdown Divisional Artillery—it was to find Patricia wedged between Marcus and his wife, virtually a prisoner.

Escape, except in the car—and it rained two days out of the four—was impossible.

Once even, the persistent old man waylaid Patricia alone; and she had to listen, for a long half hour, to his protestations: “You see, Mrs. Jameson, it’s like this. I know my cousin, Sam. He’s a waster. A good fellow, but no head for figures. And your husband had much better sell that business now. He’ll lose a bit; but he’ll lose more if he waits. Honestly, Mrs. Jameson, I’m not thinking only of myself—nor Sam neither. I like your husband. He’s a patriotic chap. And I’ll pay him a good price. I will _reelly_. Only he’s so obstinate. Won’t you use your influence with him, Mrs. Jameson. . . .”

“The funny thing about Marcus,” laughed Peter when she told him of the interview, “is that he feels he’ll be doing me a kindness. Marcus isn’t a bad old boy at heart: but my word, he is a bore.”

* * * * *

Patricia, driving Londonwards through the rain, could not make up her mind whether the Bramsons had been a bore or a godsend. Falling in love with one’s own husband has its disadvantages!