Part 5

His eye searched the broken darkness in fugitive pursuit of a solution of the formless void. Quite near him, apparently, was an oblong board which amidst this wilderness of destruction seemed to have escaped untouched. As the dim violet light began to reveal certain definite concrete things, he became aware that on the board were some Roman letters. He looked at them for some time unseeingly. The word written there stamped itself without meaning on his brain. The word was: “FILLES.” He repeated it to himself over and over again. The earth seemed to rock again with a sullen, vibrating passion, as though irritated that the work of destruction was not entirely complete. Things already destroyed seemed to be subjected to further transmutation of formlessness. But still the board remained intact, and he fixed his eyes on it. It imbued him with a strange sense of tranquillity. _Filles!_ A little word, but it became to him a link to cosmic things. The desire to reason passed, as the ability to suffer passed. Across the mists of time he seemed to hear the laughter of children. He could almost see them pass. There were Jeannette and Marie, with long black pigtails and check frocks, and just behind them, struggling with a heavy satchel, little fair-haired Babette. How they laughed, those children! and yet he could not determine whether their laughter came from the years that had passed or from the years that were to come. But wherever the laughter came from, it seemed the only thing the powers of darkness could not destroy. He lay then for a long time, conscious of a peace greater than any he could have conceived. And the white arm of dawn crept over the door.

* * * * *

The crowd who habitually came down by the afternoon train trickled out of the station and vanished. The master of Wodehurst came limping through the doorway. His face was bronzed and perhaps a little thinner, but his eyes laughed, and his voice rang out to the steward waiting in the dog-cart:

“Hullo! Sam, how are you?”

He was leaning on two sticks, and a porter followed with his trunks.

“Can I help you up, sir?”

“No, it’s all right, old man; I can manage.”

He pulled himself up and laughed because he hit his knee upon the mudguard.

“It’s good to be home, Sam.”

“Yes; I expect your mother will be glad, sir,” answered Geddes, touching up the horse. “And so will we all, I’m thinking.”

They clattered down the road, and the high spirits of the wounded warrior rose. He asked a thousand questions, and insisted on taking the reins before they had gone far. It was dusk when they began to draw near Wodehurst; a sudden silence had fallen on Giles. The steward realized the reason. He coughed uncomfortably. They were passing within a hundred yards of Wodehurst Church. Suddenly he said in his deep burr:

“We were all very sorry, sir, about Master Robin.”

The eyes of the soldier softened; he murmured:

“Poor old chap!”

“I feel I ought to tell you, sir. It was a very queer thing. But one day that young Mr. Lawson—you know, the sculptor—about a week after it all happened, he must have got up at daybreak, I should say—nobody saw him do it. He must have gone down there to the churchyard with his tools, and what do you think? He carved something on the stone—on Mr. Robin’s stone.”

Giles said quickly: “Carved! What?”

“He carved just under the name and date, ‘He died for England.’”

“‘He died for England!’ He carved that on Robin’s grave? What did he mean?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Really! What a rum chap he must be!”

“We didn’t know what to do about it, sir. I saw it, and I didn’t like to tell your mother, and nobody likes to interfere with a tombstone, it seems profane-like. So there it is to this day.”

“Thank you, Sam. I’ll think about it.”

“Have you had much pain with your foot, sir?”

Giles laughed, and flicked the horse.

“Oh, nothing to write home about, Sam. I had a touch of fever, you know. I didn’t tell the mater. It was later on that I got this smash of my right foot. It happened at—I’ve forgotten the name; some damned little village on the Flemish border. I was lucky in a way, the shrapnel missed me. It was falling stonework that biffed up my foot. There was a building, a sort of school, I should think. It got blown to smithereens. It was rather a nasty mess-up. I was there for seven hours before they found me—Hullo! I see the mater standing at the gate.”

The horse nearly bolted with the violence of Giles’s waving arms....

The dinner—all the dishes that Giles specially loved—was finished. With his arm round his mother’s waist and a cigar in the corner of his mouth, he led her into the warm comfort of the white-paneled drawing-room.

“You won’t mind my smoking in here to-night, mater?”

“My dear boy!”

They sat in silence, watching the red glow of the log fire. Suddenly Giles said:

“I say, mater, do you know an awfully rum thing Geddes told me?”

His mother looked up.

“I think perhaps I know. Do you mean in the—cemetery?”

Giles nodded, puffing at his cigar in little nervous inhalations.

“Yes. I knew. I saw it, of course. I’ve sat and wondered.”

“Such a rum thing to do! What do you think we ought to do about it, mater?”

He saw his mother lean forward; the waves of silver hair seemed to enshrine the beautiful lines of her drawn face; her voice came whispering:

“Hadn’t we better leave it, Giles?... Perhaps he really did die for England?”

The young man glanced at her quickly. He saw her aged and broken by the war. He thought of his brother.... Then he caught sight of his own face in the mirror, lean, youthful, vigorous. The old tag flashed through his mind:

“They also serve who only stand and wait.”

He thrust away that emotional expression, and in the manner of his kind stayed silent, rigid, with his back to the fire. And suddenly he said:

“I say, mater, won’t you play me something? Chopin, or one of those Russian Johnnies you play so rippingly?”

“OLD IRON”

“OLD IRON”

You know how the story goes, of course. Husband and wife just about to retire to bed. Wife yawns, husband knocks out his pipe on the grate and remarks:

“Well, better turn in, I suppose.”

Wife replies:

“Yes”; then adds languidly:

“I meant to call round to ask the Cartwrights to dinner on Thursday.”

Husband, after prolonged pause:

“I’ll pop round and ask them now, if you like. They never go to bed till very late.”

“I wish you would, dear.”

Husband pulls on a cloth cap and goes out. Wife yawns again, and picks up _The Ladies’ Boudoir_, and idly examines charmeuse gown, and notes the prices of gloves at Foxtrot’s & Fieldfern’s. Yawns again more audibly. Collects sewing and places it in work-basket. Takes the kitten out and locks it up in the scullery. Yawns, and walks languidly upstairs. Turns on the light and spends fifteen minutes examining face at various angles in the glass. Begins to disrobe. Thinks sleepily: “Tom’s a long time.” Brushes out her hair and admires it considerably. Conceives a new way of dressing it for future festivities. Disrobes farther. Yawns. Disrobes completely and re-robes—dressing-gown.

“It’s too bad being all this time!”

Vitality slightly stirred in the direction of resentment and a kind of mild apprehension. Lies on the bed and drowsily reviews the experiences of the day. Dreams.... Suddenly starts with a consciousness of cold. Gropes for her wrist-watch. _A quarter past one!_ Jumps from the bed, feeling the cold hand of fear on her heart. Runs downstairs and stares helplessly out of the front door. Pauses to consider a thousand possible eventualities. Returns to bedroom and completely re-robes, not forgetting to do her hair neatly and powder her nose. Puts on cloak and goes out. Cartwrights’ house all in darkness. Bangs on the front door and rings bell. Head of old Mr. Cartwright at first-floor window:

“Who the devil’s that?”

“It’s me. Where’s Tom?”

“Tom! Haven’t seen him for weeks!”

“Good God! Let me in.”

Cartwright family aroused. Panic. Fainting scene in drawing-room. Brandy, smelling-salts and eau-de-cologne. Young George Cartwright mounts his bicycle—rides to the police-station; on the way talks to policeman on point duty. No, no one heard anything of a thin man with a snuff-colored mustache. At police-station, no accidents so far reported. Chief inspector will make a note and await developments. Night passes, and the following day. No news.

Weeks, months, years elapse. Eight years slide easily by. The wife survives her grief. She marries the local organist, a blond and commendable young man. They continue to live in the wife’s house. Children gather round her knee. One, two, three, twins, an interval, six, seven handsome blond children. They grow up.

Twenty-two years elapse. They are sitting at tea. The father, the mother and the oldest son, a handsome young man in a gray flannel suit. He kisses his mother and says:

“I must go now, mother dear. I have to take a Bible-class.”

He goes out (presumably to the Bible-class). The mother smiles with pride, the father glows with benignity and helps himself to another buttered muffin. Everything perfect. Suddenly the door opens, and an old man in a long gray beard and perambulating manner wanders into the room. He stares at the wife, and mumbles:

“Did you say Thursday or Friday?... My memory is not what it was....”

And the wife stares at the old man, and then at the blond organist. And the blond organist stares at the mother of his beautiful children, and then at the bearded interloper. And they all stare at each other and feel very embarrassed.

* * * * *

The story is familiar to you? Well, perhaps so. It is the story of the eternal triangle, the most useful pattern of geometrical forms in the construction of a romantic pattern.

Heigho! the trouble with human triangles is that they are never equilateral. Two sides together are invariably greater than the third side.

Jim Canning was the third side of a triangle, and he got flattened out. In fact, his wife used to flatten him out on every possible occasion. She was bigger than he, and she was aided by the _tertium quid_, Ted Woollams, who was nothing more or less than a professional pugilist. What was Jim to do? In every well-conducted epic the hero performs physical feats which leave you breathless. He is always tall and strong, and a bit too quick with the rapier for any villain who crosses his path. But what about a hero who is small and elderly, of poor physique, short-sighted, asthmatical, with corns which impede his gait? You may say that he has no place in the heroic arena. He should clear out, go and get on with his job, and leave heroism to people who know how to manage the stuff. And yet there was something heroic in the heart of Jim Canning: a quick sympathy, and an instinct for self-sacrifice.

He used to keep a second-hand furniture shop, which, you must understand, is a very different thing from an antique shop. Jim’s furniture had no determinate character such as that which is associated with the name of Chippendale, Sheraton or Heppelwhite. It was just “furniture.” Well-worn sofas, broken chairs and tables, mattresses with the stuffing exuding from holes, rusty brass beds with the knobs missing, broken pots and mirrors and dumb-bells; even clothes, and screws, false teeth and bird-cages, and ancient umbrellas. But his specialty was old iron. Trays and trays and baskets filled with scraps of old iron.

His establishment used to be known in Camden Town at that time as “The Muck Shop.” At odd times of the day you might observe his small pathetic figure trundling a barrow laden with the spoils of some hard-pressed inhabitant. What a tale the little shop seemed to tell! Struggle and poverty, homes broken up, drink, ugly passions, desperate sacrifices—a battered array of the symbols of distress. And, somehow, in his person these stories seemed to be embodied. One felt that he was sorry for the people whose property he bought. He was always known as a fair dealer. He paid a fair price and never took advantage of ignorance.

His marriage was a failure from the very first. She was a big, strapping woman, the daughter of a local greengrocer. Twelve years younger than Jim, vain, frivolous, empty-headed and quarrelsome. Her reasons for marrying him were obscure. Probably she had arrived at the time when she wanted to marry, and Jim was regarded as a successful shop-keeper who could keep her in luxury. He was blinded by her physical attractions, and tried his utmost to believe that his wife was everything to be desired. Disillusionment came within the first month of their married life, at the moment, indeed, when Clara realized that her husband’s business was not so thriving as she had been led to believe. She immediately accused him of deceiving her. Then, she began to sulk and neglect him. She despised his manner of conducting business—his conscientiousness and sense of fair-dealing.

“If you’d put some ginger into it,” she once remarked, “and not always be thinking about the feelings of the tripe you buy from, we might have a house in the Camden Road and a couple of servants.”

This had never been Jim’s ambition. Many years ago he had attended a sale at Shorwell Green, on the borders of Sussex, a glorious spot near the downs, amidst lime-trees and little running streams. It had been the dream of his life that one day he would retire there, with the woman he loved—and her children. When he put the matter to Clara, she laughed him to scorn.

“Not half!” she said. “Catch me living among butterflies and blinking cows. The Camden Road is my game.”

Jim sighed, and went on trundling his barrow. Well, there it was! If the woman he had married desired it, he must do what she wanted. In any case it was necessary to begin to save. But with Clara he found it exceedingly difficult to begin to save. She idled her day away, bought trinkets, neglected her domestic offices, went to the pictures, and sucked sweets. Any attempt to point out to her the folly of her ways only led to bitter recriminations, tears and savage displays of temper, even physical violence to her husband.

Then there came a day when Jim fondly believed that the conditions of their married life would be ameliorated. A child was born, a girl, and they called her Annie. Annie became the apple of his eye. He would hurry back from the shop to attend at Annie’s bath. He would creep in at night and kiss the warm skin of her little skull. He would think of her as he pottered around amidst his broken chairs and tables, and utter little croons of anticipatory pleasure. Annie! She would grow up and be the mainstay of his life. He would work and struggle for her. Her life should be a path of roses and happiness. His wife, too, appeared to improve upon the advent of Annie. For a time the baby absorbed her. She displayed a kind of wild animal joy in its existence. She nursed it and fondled it, and did not seem to resent the curtailment of her pleasures. It was an additional mouth to feed; nevertheless their expenses did not seem to greatly increase, owing probably to Clara’s modified way of living.

Four years of comparative happiness followed. Jim began to save. Oh! very slowly; very, very slowly. He still had less than three hundred pounds put on one side for—that vague future of settled security. But still it was a solid beginning. In another ten or fifteen years he would still be—well, not quite an old man; an active man, he hoped. If he could save only one hundred pounds a year!

It was at this point that Ted Woollams appeared on the scene. He was the son of a manager of a Swimming Bath. On Sundays he used to box in “Fairyland” for purses of various amounts—he was a redoubtable middle-weight. During the week he swaggered about Camden Town in new check suits, his fingers glittering with rings. He met Clara one evening at a public dance. The mutual attraction appears to have been instantaneous. They danced together the whole evening, and he saw her home.

And then began the squeezing out of the third side of the triangle. Jim was not strong enough for them. At first he professed to see nothing in the friendship. He described Ted as “a jolly young fellow, a great pal of my wife’s.” And Ted treated him with a certain amount of respect. He called in at odd times, stayed to meals, drank Jim’s beer, and smoked Jim’s tobacco. The triangle was quite intact. It was Annie who caused the first disruption. She disliked the prize-fighter, and screamed at the sight of him. This led to reprisals when he had gone, and Jim’s championship of the child did not help to cement the always doubtful nature of the affection between husband and wife. There were cross words and tears, and once she pushed him over a chair, and, in the fall, cut his temple.

A few days later, Ted Woollams called in a great state of agitation. He wished to see Jim alone. It appeared that a wonderful opportunity had occurred to him. It was a complicated story about a quantity of bonded brandy which he had a chance of acquiring and selling at an enormous profit. He wanted to borrow fifty pounds till Saturday week, when he would pay Jim back sixty. Jim said he would lend him the fifty, but he didn’t want any interest.

When Saturday week came, Ted said the deal had fallen through, but he would let him have the money back the following Saturday. In the meantime he came to supper nearly every night. Sometimes he drank too much beer.

Then Clara began to dress for the part. She bought expensive frocks, and had the account sent in to Jim. She neglected the child.

The months drifted by, and Ted was always going to pay, but he became more and more part and parcel of the household. Jim’s savings began to dwindle. He protested to both his wife and Ted, but they treated him with indifference. The boxer began to abuse his familiarity. He would frequently tell Jim that he was not wanted in the drawing-room after supper. When spoken to about the money he laughed and said:

“Oh, you’ve got plenty, old ’un. Lend us another fiver.”

On one occasion Jim was foolish enough to lend him another ten pounds, under the spell of some heartrending story about a poor woman in the street where Woollams lived. This lopsided triangle held together for nearly four years. Jim was unhappy and distracted. He did not know how to act. He could not leave his wife, for the sake of the child. If he turned her out—and he had no legal power to do so—she would probably take Annie with her. And the child was devoted to him. They were great friends, and it was only this friendship which prevented him indulging in some mad act. Several times he ordered Woollams out of the house and forbade him to come again, but the boxer laughed at him and called him an old fool. He knew that his wife was practically keeping the man. They went to cinemas together, and often disappeared for the whole day, but she always returned at night, although it was sometimes two or three in the morning before she did so. Jim had no proof of actual unfaithfulness. Neither could he afford to hire detectives, a course of action which in any case appeared to him distasteful. Far from saving a hundred pounds a year, he was spending more than his income. His savings had dwindled to barely forty pounds. His business was stagnant, but still he trundled his barrow hither and thither, calling out, “Old iron! old iron!” and he struggled to pay the fair price.

During a great period of his life Jim had enjoyed an unaccountable but staunch friendship with a gentleman named Isaac Rubens. Isaac Rubens was a Jew in a slightly similar way of business to himself, and he conducted a thriving house at the corner of the Holy Angel Road. Isaac was in many respects a very remarkable man. Large, florid, and puffy, with keen eagle eyes and an enormous nose, he was a man of profound knowledge of the history and value of _objets d’art_. He was moreover a man of his word. He was never known to give or accept a written contract, and never known to break a verbal one. The friendship between these two was in many respects singular. Isaac was a keen man of business, and Jim was of very little use to him. Isaac’s furniture was the real thing, with names and pedigrees. He did not deal in old iron but in stones and jewels and ornaments. Nevertheless he seemed to find in Jim’s society a certain pleasure. Jim would call on his rounds and, leaving his barrow out in the road, would spend half-an-hour or so chatting with the Jew across the counter.

Sometimes after supper they would call on each other and smoke a pipe and discuss the vagaries of their calling, or the more abstract problems of life and death.

When this trouble came upon Jim he immediately repaired to his friend’s house and told him the whole story.

“Oh, dear! oh, dear! This is a bad business! a bad business!” exclaimed Isaac, when it was over. His moist eyes glowed amidst the general humidity of his face. “How can I advise you? An erring wife is the curse of God. You cannot turn her away without knowledge. Thank God, my Lena.... But there! among my people such lapses are rare. You have no evidence of unfaithfulness?”

“No.”

“You must be gentle with her, gentle but firm. Point out the error of her ways.”

“I am always doing that, Isaac.”

“She may get over it—a passing infatuation. Such things happen.”

“If it wasn’t for the child!”

“Yes, yes, I understand. Oh, dear! oh, dear! very distressing, my friend. If I can be of any assistance—”

He thrust out his large hands helplessly. It is the kind of trouble in which no man can help another, and each knew it. Jim hovered by the door.

“It’s nice to have some one to—talk to, anyway,” he muttered; then he picked up his cap and shuffled away, calling out:

“Old iron! Old iron!”

Annie was nine when the climax came. An intelligent, pretty child, with dark hair and quick, impulsive manners. Her passionate preference for her father did not tend to smooth the troubles of the household. She attended the grammar-school and had many girl-friends. She saw very little of her mother.

One evening Jim returned home late. He had been on a visit to his friend, Isaac. He found Annie seated on the bottom stair, in her nightdress. Her face was very pale and set, her eyes bright. She had been crying. When she saw her father she gasped:

“Daddy!... Oh, Daddy!”

He seized her in his arms and whispered:

“What is it, my dear?”

Then she cried quietly while he held her. He did not attempt to hurry her. At last she got her voice under control and gasped quietly:

“I had gone to bed. I don’t know why it was. I got restless in bed. I came down again softly. I peeped into the sitting-room.... Oh, Daddy!”

“What? What, my love?”

“That man.... That man and—”

“Your mother?”

“Yes.”

“He was—”

“He was kissing her and—Oh!”

Jim clutched his child and pressed her head against his breast.

“I went in.... He _struck_ me.”

“What!”

“He struck me because I wouldn’t promise not to tell.”

“He struck you, eh? He struck you! That man struck you, eh?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Where is he?”

“They’re—up there now. I’m frightened.”

“Go to bed, my love. Go to bed.”

He carried her up the stairs and fondled her, and put her into bed.

“It’s all right, my love. Go to sleep. Pleasant dreams. It’s all right. Daddy will look after you.”

Then he went downstairs.