Chapter 7

“I assure you, madam,” replied Mr. Lavender, striving to regain contact, “I wouldn't harm you for the world. Can you tell me in what portion of the hall we are?” And crouching down he stretched out his arms and felt about him. No answer came; but he could tell that he was between two rows of chairs, and, holding to the top of one, he began to sidle along, crouching, so as not to lose touch with the chairs behind him. He had not proceeded the length of six chairs in the pitchy darkness when the light was suddenly turned up, and he found himself glaring over the backs of the chairs in front into the eyes of a young woman, who was crouching and glaring back over the same chairs.

“Dear me,” said Mr. Lavender, as with a certain dignity they both rose to their full height, “I had no conception——”

Without a word, the young woman put her hand up to her back hair, sidled swiftly down the row of chairs, ran down the aisle, and vanished. There was no one else in the chapel. Mr. Lavender, after surveying the considerable wreckage, made his way to the door and passed out into the night. “Like a dream,” he thought; “but I have done my duty, for no meeting was ever more completely broken up. With a clear conscience and a good appetite I can how go home.”

XII SPEEDS UP TRANSPORT, AND SEES A DOCTOR

Greatly cheered by his success at the Peace meeting, Mr. Lavender searched his papers next morning to find a new field for his activities; nor had he to read far before he came on this paragraph:

“Everything is dependent on transport, and we cannot sufficiently urge that this should be speeded up by every means in our power.”

“How true!” he thought. And, finishing his breakfast hastily, he went out with Blink to think over what he could do to help. “I can exhort,” he mused, “anyone engaged in transport who is not exerting himself to the utmost. It will not be pleasant to do so, for it will certainly provoke much ill-feeling. I must not, however, be deterred by that, for it is the daily concomitant of public life, and hard words break no bones, as they say, but rather serve to thicken the skins and sharpen the tongues of us public men, so that, we are able to meet our opponents with their own weapons. I perceive before me, indeed, a liberal education in just those public qualities wherein I am conscious of being as yet deficient.” And his heart sank within him, thinking of the carts on the hills of Hampstead and the boys who drove them. “What is lacking to them,” he mused, “is the power of seeing this problem steadily and seeing it whole. Let me endeavour to impart this habit to all who have any connection with transport.”

He had just completed this reflection when, turning a corner, he came on a large van standing stockstill at the top of an incline. The driver was leaning idly against the hind wheel filling a pipe. Mr. Lavender glanced at the near horse, and seeing that he was not distressed, he thus addressed the man:

“Do you not know, my friend, that every minute is of importance in this national crisis? If I could get you to see the question of transport steadily, and to see it whole, I feel convinced that you would not be standing there lighting your pipe when perhaps this half-hour's delay in the delivery of your goods may mean the death of one of your comrades at the front.”

The man, who was wizened, weathered, and old, with but few teeth, looked up at him from above the curved hands with which he was coaxing the flame of a match into the bowl of his pipe. His brow was wrinkled, and moisture stood at the comers of his eyes.

“I assure you,” went on Mr. Lavender, “that we have none of us the right in these days to delay for a single minute the delivery of anything—not even of speeches. When I am tempted to do so, I think of our sons and brothers in the trenches, and how every shell and every word saves their lives, and I deliver——”

The old man, who had finished lighting his pipe, took a long pull at it, and said hoarsely:

“Go on!”

“I will,” said Mr. Lavender, “for I perceive that I can effect a revolution in your outlook, so that instead of wasting the country's time by leaning against that wheel you will drive on zealously and help to win the war.”

The old man looked at him, and one side of his face became drawn up in a smile, which seemed to Mr. Lavender so horrible that he said: “Why do you look at me like that?”

“Cawn't 'elp it,” said the man.

“What makes you,” continued Mr. Lavender, “pause here with your job half finished? It is not the hill which keeps you back, for you are at the top, and your horses seem rested.”

“Yes,” said the old man, with another contortion of his face, “they're rested—leastways, one of 'em.”

“Then what delays you—if not that British sluggishness which we in public life find such a terrible handicap to our efforts in conducting the war?”

“Ah!” said the old man. “But out of one you don't make two, guv'nor. Git on the offside and you'll see it a bit steadier and a bit 'oler than you 'ave 'itherto.”

Struck by his words, which were accompanied by a painful puckering of the checks, Mr. Lavender moved round the van looking for some defect in its machinery, and suddenly became aware that the off horse was lying on the ground, with the traces cut. It lay on its side, and did not move.

“Oh!” cried Mr. Lavender; “oh!” And going up to the horse's head he knelt down. The animal's eye was glazing.

“Oh!” he cried again, “poor horse! Don't die!” And tears dropped out of his eyes on to the horse's cheek. The eye seemed to give him a look, and became quite glazed.

“Dead!” said Mr Lavender in an awed whisper. “This is horrible! What a thin horse—nothing but bones!” And his gaze haunted the ridge and furrow of the horse's carcase, while the living horse looked round and down at its dead fellow, from whose hollow face a ragged forelock drooped in the dust.

“I must go and apologize to that old man,” said Mr. Lavender aloud, “for no doubt he is even more distressed than I am.”

“Not 'e, guv'nor,” said a voice, and looking beside him he saw the aged driver standing beside him; “not 'e; for of all the crool jobs I ever 'ad—drivin' that 'orse these last three months 'as been the croolest. There 'e lies and 'es aht of it; and that's where they'd all like to be. Speed, done 'im in, savin' 'is country's 'time an' 'is country's oats; that done 'im in. A good old 'orse, a willin' old 'orse, 'as broke 'is 'eart tryin' to do 'is bit on 'alf rations. There 'e lies; and I'm glad 'e does.” And with the back of his hand the old fellow removed some brown moisture which was trembling on his jaw. Mr. Lavender rose from his knees.

“Dreadful!—monstrous!” he cried; “poor horse! Who is responsible for this?”

“Why,” said the old driver, “the gents as sees it steady and sees it 'ole from one side o' the van, same as you.”

So smitten to the heart was Mr. Lavender by those words that he covered his ears with his hands and almost ran from the scene, nor did he stop till he had reached the shelter of his study, and was sitting in his arm-chair with Blink upon his feet. “I will buy a go-cart,” he thought, “Blink and I will pull our weight and save the poor horses. We can at least deliver our own milk and vegetables.”

He had not been sitting there for half-an-hour revolving the painful complexities of national life before the voice of Mrs. Petty recalled him from that sad reverie.

“Dr. Gobang to see you, sir.”

At sight of the doctor who had attended him for alcoholic poisoning Mr. Lavender experienced one or those vaguely disagreeable sensations which follow on half-realized insults.

“Good-morning, sir,” said the doctor; “thought I'd just look in and make my mind easy about you. That was a nasty attack. Do you still feel your back?”

“No,” said Mr. Lavender rather coldly, while Blink growled.

“Nor your head?”

“I have never felt my head,” replied Mr. Lavender, still more coldly.

“I seem to remember——” began the doctor.

“Doctor,” said Mr. Lavender with dignity, “surely you know that public men—do not feel—their heads—it would not do. They sometimes suffer from their throats, but otherwise they have perfect health, fortunately.”

The doctor smiled.

“Well, what do you think of the war?” he asked chattily.

“Be quiet, Blink,” said Mr. Lavender. Then, in a far-away voice, he added: “Whatever the clouds which have gathered above our heads for the moment, and whatever the blows which Fate may have in store for us, we shall not relax our efforts till we have attained our aims and hurled our enemies back. Nor shall we stop there,” he went on, warming at his own words. “It is but a weak-kneed patriotism which would be content with securing the objects for which we began to fight. We shall not hesitate to sacrifice the last of our men, the last of our money, in the sacred task of achieving the complete ruin of the fiendish Power which has brought this great calamity on the world. Even if our enemies surrender we will fight on till we have dictated terms on the doorsteps of Potsdam.”

The doctor, who, since Mr. Lavender began to speak, had been looking at him with strange intensity, dropped his eyes.

“Quite so,” he said heartily, “quite so. Well, good-morning. I only just ran in!” And leaving Mr. Lavender to the exultation he was evidently feeling, this singular visitor went out and closed the door. Outside the garden-gate he rejoined the nephew Sinkin.

“Well?” asked the latter.

“Sane as you or me,” said the doctor. “A little pedantic in his way of expressing himself, but quite all there, really.”

“Did his dog bite you?” muttered the nephew. “No,” said the doctor absently. “I wish to heaven everyone held his views. So long. I must be getting on.” And they parted.

But Mr. Lavender, after pacing the room six times, had sat down again in his chair, with a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, such as other men feel on mornings after a debauch.

XIII ADDRESSES SOME SOLDIERS ON THEIR FUTURE

On pleasant afternoons Mr. Lavender would often take his seat on one of the benches which adorned the Spaniard's Road to enjoy the beams of the sun and the towers of the City confused in smoky distance. And strolling forth with Blink on the afternoon of the day on which the doctor had come to see him he sat down to read a periodical, which enjoined on everyone the necessity of taking the utmost interest in soldiers disabled by the war. “Yes,” he thought, “it is indeed our duty to force them, no matter what their disablements, to continue and surpass the heroism they displayed out there, and become superior to what they once were.” And it seemed to him a distinct dispensation of Providence when the rest of his bench was suddenly occupied by three soldiers in the blue garments and red ties of hospital life. They had been sitting there for some minutes, divided by the iron bars necessary to the morals of the neighbourhood, while Mr. Lavender cudgelled his brains for an easy and natural method of approach, before Blink supplied the necessary avenue by taking her stand before a soldier and looking up into his eye.

“Lord!” said the one thus accosted, “what a fyce! Look at her moustache! Well, cocky, 'oo are you starin' at?”

“My dog,” said Mr. Lavender, perceiving his chance, “has an eye for the strange and beautiful.

“Wow said the soldier, whose face was bandaged, she'll get it 'ere, won't she?”

Encouraged by the smiles of the soldier and his comrades, Mr. Lavender went on in the most natural voice he could assume.

“I'm sure you appreciate, my friends, the enormous importance of your own futures?”

The three soldiers, whose faces were all bandaged, looked as surprised as they could between them, and did not answer. Mr. Lavender went on, dropping unconsciously into the diction of the article he had been reading: “We are now at the turning-point of the ways, and not a moment is to be lost in impressing on the disabled man the paramount necessity of becoming again the captain of his soul. He who was a hero in the field must again lead us in those qualities of enterprise and endurance which have made him the admiration of the world.”

The three soldiers had turned what was visible of their faces towards Mr. Lavender, and, seeing that he had riveted their attention, he proceeded: “The apathy which hospital produces, together with the present scarcity of labour, is largely responsible for the dangerous position in which the disabled man now finds himself. Only we who have not to face his future can appreciate what that future is likely to be if he does not make the most strenuous efforts to overcome it. Boys,” he added earnestly, remembering suddenly that this was the word which those who had the personal touch ever employed, “are you making those efforts? Are you equipping your minds? Are you taking advantage of your enforced leisure to place yourselves upon some path of life in which you can largely hold your own against all comers?”

He paused for a reply.

The soldiers, silent for a moment, in what seemed to Mr. Lavender to be sheer astonishment, began to fidget; then the one next him turned to his neighbour, and said:

“Are we, Alf? Are we doin' what the gentleman says?”

“I can answer that for you,” returned Mr. Lavender brightly; “for I can tell by your hospitalized faces that you are living in the present; a habit which, according to our best writers, is peculiar to the British. I assure you,” he went on with a winning look, “there is no future in that. If you do not at once begin to carve fresh niches for yourselves in the temple of industrialism you will be engulfed by the returning flood, and left high and dry upon the beach of fortune.”

During these last few words the half of an irritated look on the faces of the soldiers changed to fragments of an indulgent and protective expression.

“Right you are, guv'nor,” said the one in the middle. Don't you worry, we'll see you home all right.

“It is you,” said Mr. Lavender, “that I must see home. For that is largely the duty of us who have not had the great privilege of fighting for our country.”

These words, which completed the soldiers' conviction that Mr. Lavender was not quite all there, caused them to rise.

“Come on, then,” said one; “we'll see each other home. We've got to be in by five. You don't have a string to your dog, I see.”

“Oh no!” said Mr. Lavender puzzled “I am not blind.”

“Balmy,” said the soldier soothingly. “Come on, sir, an' we can talk abaht it on the way.”

Mr. Lavender, delighted at the impression he had made, rose and walked beside them, taking insensibly the direction for home.

“What do you advise us to do, then, guv'nor?” said one of the soldiers.

“Throw away all thought of the present,” returned Mr. Lavender, with intense earnestness; “forget the past entirely, wrap yourselves wholly in the future. Do nothing which will give you immediate satisfaction. Do not consider your families, or any of those transient considerations such as pleasure, your homes, your condition of health, or your economic position; but place yourselves unreservedly in the hands of those who by hard thinking on this subject are alone in the condition to appreciate the individual circumstances of each of you. For only by becoming a flock of sheep can you be conducted into those new pastures where the grass of your future will be sweet and plentiful. Above all, continue to be the heroes which you were under the spur of your country's call, for you must remember that your country is still calling you.”

“That's right,” said the soldier on Mr. Lavender's left. “Puss, puss! Does your dog swot cats?”

At so irrelevant a remark Mr. Lavender looked suspiciously from left to right, but what there was of the soldiers' faces told him nothing.

“Which is your hospital?” he asked.

“Down the 'ill, on the right,” returned the soldier. “Which is yours?”

“Alas! it is not in a hospital that I——”

“I know,” said the soldier delicately, “don't give it a name; no need. We're all friends 'ere. Do you get out much?”

“I always take an afternoon stroll,” said Mr. Lavender, “when my public life permits. If you think your comrades would like me to come and lecture to them on their future I should be only too happy.”

“D'you 'ear, Alf?” said the soldier. “D'you think they would?”

The soldier, addressed put a finger to the sound side of his mouth and uttered a catcall.

“I might effect a radical change in their views,” continued Mr. Lavender, a little puzzled. “Let me leave you this periodical. Read it, and you will see how extremely vital all that I have been saying is. And then, perhaps, if you would send me a round robin, such as is usual in a democratic country, I could pop over almost any day after five. I sometimes feel”—and here Mr. Lavender stopped in the middle of the road, overcome by sudden emotion—“that I have really no right to be alive when I see what you have suffered for me.”

“That's all right, old bean,”, said the soldier on his left; “you'd 'a done the same for us but for your disabilities. We don't grudge it you.”

“Boys,” said Mr. Lavender, “you are men. I cannot tell you how much I admire and love you.”

“Well, give it a rest, then; t'ain't good for yer. And, look 'ere! Any time they don't treat you fair in there, tip us the wink, and we'll come over and do in your 'ousekeeper.”

Mr. Lavender smiled.

“My poor housekeeper!” he said. “I thank you all the same for your charming goodwill. This is where I live,” he added, stopping at the gate of the little house smothered in lilac and laburnum. “Can I offer you some tea?”

The three soldiers looked at each other, and Mr. Lavender, noticing their surprise, attributed it to the word tea.

“I regret exceedingly that I am a total abstainer,” he said.

The remark, completing the soldiers' judgment of his case, increased their surprise at the nature of his residence; it remained unanswered, save by a shuffling of the feet.

Mr. Lavender took off his hat.

“I consider it a great privilege,” he said, “to have been allowed to converse with you. Goodbye, and God bless you!”

So saying, he opened the gate and entered his little garden carrying his hat in his hand, and followed by Blink.

The soldiers watched him disappear within, then continued on their way down the hill in silence.

“Blimy,” said one suddenly, “some of these old civilians 'ave come it balmy on the crumpet since the war began. Give me the trenches!”

XIV ENDEAVOURS TO INTERN A GERMAN

Aglow with satisfaction at what he had been able to do for the wounded soldiers, Mr. Lavender sat down in his study to drink the tea which he found there. “There is nothing in life,” he thought, “which gives one such satisfaction as friendliness and being able to do something for others. Moon-cat!”

The moon-cat, who, since Mr. Lavender had given her milk, abode in his castle, awaiting her confinement, purred loudly, regarding him with burning eyes, as was her fashion when she wanted milk, Mr. Lavender put down the saucer and continued his meditations. “Everything is vain; the world is full of ghosts and shadows; but in friendliness and the purring of a little cat there is solidity.”

“A lady has called, sir.”

Looking up, Mr. Lavender became aware of Mrs. Petty.

“How very agreeable!

“I don't know, sir,” returned his housekeeper in her decisive voice; “but she wants to see you. Name of Pullbody.”

“Pullbody,” repeated Mr. Lavender dreamily; “I don't seem——Ask her in, Mrs. Petty, ask her in.”

“It's on your head, sir,” said Mrs. Petty, and went out.

Mr. Lavender was immediately conscious of a presence in dark green silk, with a long upper lip, a loose lower lip, and a fixed and faintly raddled air, moving stealthily towards him.

“Sit down, madam, I beg. Will you have some tea?”

The lady sat down. “Thank you, I have had tea. It was on the recommendation of your next-door neighbour, Miss Isabel Scarlet——”

“Indeed,” replied Mr. Lavender, whose heart began to beat; “command me, for I am entirely at her service.”

“I have come to see you,” began the lady with a peculiar sinuous smile, “as a public man and a patriot.”

Mr. Lavender bowed, and the lady went on: “I am in very great trouble. The fact is, my sister's husband's sister is married to a German.”

“Is it possible, madam?” murmured Mr. Lavender, crossing his knees, and joining the tips of his fingers.

“Yes,” resumed the lady, “and what's more, he is still at large.”

Mr. Lavender, into whose mind there had instantly rushed a flood of public utterances, stood gazing at her haggard face in silent sympathy.

“You may imagine my distress, sir, and the condition of my conscience,” pursued the lady, “when I tell you that my sister's husband's sister is a very old friend of mine—and, indeed, so was this German. The two are a very attached young couple, and, being childless, are quite wrapped up in each other. I have come to you, feeling it my duty to secure his internment.”

Mr. Lavender, moved by the human element in her words, was about to say, “But why, madam?” when the lady continued:

“I have not myself precisely heard him speak well of his country. But the sister of a friend of mine who was having tea in their house distinctly heard him say that there were two sides to every question, and that he could not believe all that was said in the English papers.

“Dear me!” said Mr. Lavender, troubled; “that is serious.”

“Yes,” went on the lady; “and on another occasion my sister's husband himself heard him remark that a man could not help loving his country and hoping that it would win.”

“But that is natural,” began Mr. Lavender.

“What!” said the lady, nearly rising, “when that country is Germany?”

The word revived Mr. Lavender's sense of proportion.

“True,” he said, “true. I was forgetting for the moment. It is extraordinary how irresponsible one's thoughts are sometimes. Have you reason to suppose that he is dangerous?”

“I should have thought that what I have said might have convinced you,” replied the lady reproachfully; “but I don't wish you to act without satisfying yourself. It is not as if you knew him, of course. I have easily been able to get up an agitation among his friends, but I should not expect an outsider—so I thought if I gave you his address you could form your own opinion.”

“Yes,” murmured Mr. Lavender, “yes. It is in the last degree undesirable that any man of German origin should remain free to work possible harm to our country. There is no question in this of hatred or of mere rabid patriotism,” he went on, in a voice growing more and more far-away; “it is largely the A. B. C. of common prudence.”

“I ought to say,” interrupted his visitor, “that we all thought him, of course, an honourable man until this war, or we should not have been his friends. He is a dentist,” she added, “and, I suppose, may be said to be doing useful work, which makes it difficult. I suggest that you go to him to have a tooth out.”

Mr. Lavender quivered, and insensibly felt his teeth.

“Thank you,” he said, “I will see if I can find one. It is certainly a matter which cannot be left to chance. We public men, madam, often have to do very hard and even inhumane things for no apparent reason. Our consciences alone support us. An impression, I am told, sometimes gets abroad that we yield to clamour. Those alone who know us realize how unfounded that aspersion is.”

“This is his address,” said the lady, rising, and handing him an envelope. “I shall not feel at rest until he is safely interned. You will not mention my name, of course. It is tragic to be obliged to work against one's friends in the dark. Your young neighbour spoke in enthusiastic terms of your zeal, and I am sure that in choosing you for my public man she was not pulling—er—was not making a mistake.”

Mr. Lavender bowed.

“I hope not, madam, he said humbly I try to do my duty.”

The lady smiled her sinuous smile and moved towards the door, leaving on the air a faint odour of vinegar and sandalwood.