Part 17

"Nice of you to come and see me," he said. "You must excuse the room being in a litter." There was a table in the center on which was a drawing board, geometrical instruments, many sheets of paper. "I've been trying to work. I'm always trying ... but ... you need eyes to be an architect ... you need eyes."

Sally was suddenly pierced by the thought of his ambition and his passion for work. He was going to do so much, he had begun so well.

"I have an idea for a new cathedral for Louvain. Been studying ecclesiastical architecture for years in my spare time." As he paused his face looked ghastly. "It's all in my head ... but...."

"Is it possible"--she could hardly speak--"for any one to help you--in the details, I mean?"

"They would have to get right inside my mind ... some one practical ... yet very sympathetic ... and then the chances are that it wouldn't work out."

"It might, though."

"Somehow, I don't think so." He was curiously frank. "I tell myself it might, just to keep going. There's always the bare chance if I get the right person to help me ... some one with great intelligence, great insight, great sympathy, yet without ideas of their own."

"You mean they wouldn't have to know too much?"

"That's it ... not know too much. They would have to sink their individuality in ... in one who couldn't.... Your father suggested a partnership. But it wouldn't be fair, would it? Besides I should be terribly trying to work with ... terribly trying ... perhaps impossible."

"Do you think you would be?"

"In a partnership, yes. It couldn't answer. I'm so creative.... I have always to stamp myself on my work ... if you know what I mean. Then ... as I say ... I don't know yet ... that ... I can pick up all the threads that have been...."

"You need," said Sally slowly and softly, "some intelligent amateur, capable of drawing a ground plan, who would give himself up to you."

He threw up his head eagerly. "That's it ... somebody quite intelligent ... but without ambition ... who would"--the voice began to tail off queerly--"have the courage ... not to mind ... the ferocious egotism ... of the ... baffled." Suddenly he covered his face with his hands.

"It wouldn't take me very long to learn the rudiments, I think," said Sally. "I'm rather quick at picking up the things that interest me. It would be enormously interesting to see what could be done with this--this----"

"But you are off to France to-morrow."

"The war won't last forever."

The tone of her voice startled him. His heart leapt queerly. There was a time, not so long ago, when he would have given his soul to have surprised just that note in it. He began to shake violently.

With all the will his calamity had left him he strove to hold himself in. Her voice was music, her nearness magical; what she offered him now was beyond his wildest hopes. Once he had jumped at her too soon, in a moment of delirium; but he had always known, by force of the strong temperament, that was such a torment to him now, that she was the only woman in the world he would ever really care for.

"I see just the kind of helper you need." Divinely practical, yet divinely modern! "I could mug up my drawing in a week or two and I should never know enough to want to interfere with anything that mattered."

He held himself tensely like one who sees a precipice yawning under his feet. "America coming in, do you think?" It was a heroic change of voice. "I wish she would. I'm afraid it may be a draw without her."

Sally, with all her ribbons and her uniform, could rise to no immediate interest in America.

"Our poor lads have had an awful grueling on the Somme. Seven hundred thousand casualties and nothing to show for it so far."

"I know." The sightless eyes were lacerating her. "They ought to help us. It's their war as much as it's ours."

"We can't blame them for staying out. Can't blame anybody for staying out. But we'll never get the right peace unless they help us."

"Some people think they'd not make much difference."

"My God!" It was the vehemence she used not to like. "They'd simply tip the scale. Have you ever been there?"

"No."

"I have. Some country, America. They've pinched our best Torrington, curse them ... not that that took me there. One afternoon, though, I happened to be looking for it in a moldy, one-horse museum just off Washington Square--I forget the name of it--when I walked straight into the arms of dear old Jim Stanning who had actually come all the way from Europe on purpose to gaze at it."

Sally emitted becoming surprise.

"If you read that in a novel you'd say it was the sort of thing that doesn't happen. But it did happen. Fancy old Jim coming all those miles by flood and field to look at a strip of canvas not as big as that drawing board. 'The Valley of the Sharrow on an afternoon in July.' By the way, did you ever happen to meet him?"

Sally had never met Stanning the painter.

"One of the whitest men that ever lived. Lies out there. A great chap, Jim Stanning. Another Torrington almost for a certainty ... although he doubted himself, whether he was big enough to fight his own success. See what he meant?"

It thrilled him a little when he realized that she did.

For an instant the extinguished eyes seemed to well with light. "That picture of his, 'As the Leaves of the Tree,' carries technique to a point that makes one dizzy. Some say technique doesn't matter, but there's nothing permanent without it." He sighed heavily. "Of course the undaunted soul of man has to shine through it. And that's just what Jim Stanning was--an undaunted soul. Dead at thirty-nine. We shan't realize ... if we ever realize ... however...."

Overcome by his thoughts for a moment, he could not go on. Sally sat breathing hard.

"If I were a rich man, as rich as Ford or Carnegie, I'd buy that picture of old Jim's and send it to them in Berlin. Some day it might help them to ask themselves just what it was that brought the man who painted it, a man who simply lived for beauty, to die like a dog, half mad, in a poisoned muckyard in Flanders."

Suddenly he stopped and the light seemed to die in his face. Then he turned round on the piano stool and broke delicately into the opening bars of the haunted, wild and terrible Fifth Symphony. For the moment he had forgotten that Sally was there.

She got up from her chair and came to him as a child to a wounded and suffering animal. Putting an arm round his clean but frayed collar she kissed his forehead.

"I shall come and see you again ... if I may."

His sightless flesh seemed to contract as he lifted his thin hands from the keyboard. "Don't!" he gasped. "Better not ... better not ... for both of us."

She knew he was right and something in her voice told him so. "... If I may," she repeated weakly.

He didn't answer. She pressed her lips again upon his forehead, then took up her coat and went hastily from the room.

The old woman was in the act of turning the latchkey in the front door. She had got her coupons and was returning in triumph with a full basket.

"Not going, Miss Sally, are you? I should like you to have seen his decorations--D.S.O. with two Bars and such a wonderful letter from the General."

"I'm afraid I simply must go, Mrs. Nixey. Off to France to-morrow, and I've got to pack."

"Yes, my dear, I suppose so. Very good of you to come and see him."

"Don't say that."

At the sight of Sally's eyes the voice of the old woman changed suddenly. "He thinks, my dear, he'll get better ... he quite thinks he'll get better ... but ... but, Dr. Minyard...." Again the voice of the old woman changed. "Ah, there he is playing again. How beautifully he does play, doesn't he? Hours ... and hours ... and hours. So soft and gentle ... the bit he's playing now reminds him of the wind in Dibley Chase. Yes, and that bit too ... he says it makes him see the sun dancing along the Sharrow on an afternoon in July. Beautiful piano! So kind and thoughtful of your dear father! He quite thinks ... he'll...."

XLVII

The Corporal's leg was a long time getting well.

First it came on a bit, then it went back a bit; but the process of recovery was a painful and a tardy business. Still it was much softened by the judicious help of others. By the interest of the Mayor of the city, whose model hospital on The Rise and its last word in equipment meant access to more than one influential ear, Corporal Hollis in the later stages of a long convalescence had the privileges of an out patient.

These privileges, moreover, were enjoyed in ideal conditions. Early in April, Melia was installed at Torrington Cottage, Dibley. To the secret gratification of her family, the business in Love Lane was given up, and Melia's checkered life entered upon a new phase amid surroundings wholly different from any it had known before.

At first the change seemed almost too great to be enjoyed. After the gloom, the semi-squalor, the hard toil of Love Lane, it was like an entrance into paradise. And when, at the end of that enchanted month of April, the Corporal joined her in the new abode, Melia's cup of happiness seemed quite perilously full.

That was a summer of magic days. For weeks on end they lived in a dream that had come true. To Melia the well appointed house, the beautiful surroundings, the bounty of her father were sources of perpetual amazement; to the Corporal the extensive garden, so gloriously stocked with flowers, fruit and vegetables, was a thing of delight; above all, the tower at the end of it, commanding on every hand his lovely native county, was a sacred thing, a temple of august memories.

The Corporal sunning himself and smoking his pipe by the south wall, where the peaches grew, could never have believed it to be possible. Melia, tending the flowerbeds and the grass, at the end of a not-too-strenuous summer's day, felt somehow that this was fairyland. Yes, their dreams of the long ago had more than come true. And, crowning consummation, in the eyes of each other, they were honored husband and cherished wife.

The Corporal was a long time getting well, but in that he was obeying instructions. Those most competent to speak of his case had told him not to be in a hurry; otherwise he might be permanently lame. And he was entitled to take his time. He had done his bit. Moreover, as his father-in-law assured him, it was the turn of younger men to "carry on." He had been through more than a year and a half in the trenches amid some of the cruelest fighting of the war; he was entitled to wear two stripes of gold braid on his sleeve. If any man could nurse a painful injury with a good conscience that man was Corporal Hollis.

In spite of searing memories, in spite of the whole nation's anxieties, in a measure made less, yet not wholly dispelled by the entrance into the war of a great Ally, the Corporal was allowed a taste of those half-forbidden fruits, Poetry and Romance. At such a time, perhaps, with the issue still undecided and the trials of the people growing more severe every week, the gilt on life's gingerbread should have been denied him altogether. And yet by dogged pluck he had earned that guerdon, and Melia by her simple faith was worthy to share it with him.

The famous erection at the end of the garden, a weathercock at its apex, a course of bricks and twelve stone steps at its base, was haunted continually by an unseen presence. And it was a presence with whom the Corporal long communed. Many an odd hour between sunrise and sunset, a humble disciple of the Highest, pencil or brush in hand, strove with hardly more than infantile art to surprise some of the secrets of woodland, stream and hill.

No wonder that at that particular corner, where mile upon lovely mile of England rolled back to the frontiers of three counties, two of her greatest painters had gloried in Beauty and drunk deep. The lights tossed from the sky to the silver-breasted river gleaming a thousand feet below and then cast back again were so many heralds and sconce-bearers for those who had eyes to see.

When the Corporal was not being wheeled round his enchanted garden, or was not smoking his pipe in the sun, he was sitting with his back to the weather, drawing and painting and dwelling in spirit with the genius of place and, through it, with one immortal friend.

Autumn came and the Corporal still needed a crutch. But he could get about the garden now and even pluck the weeds, although not yet able to dig. And he was so happy that he didn't chafe against the slow recovery. He needed rest and he had earned it; of that there could be no question.

Meanwhile the months passed and events moved quickly. The war, to which no glimpse of an end was yet in sight, continued to press ever more severely upon all sections of the population. There was a shortage of everything now except the spirit of grim determination. It was a people's war, as no war had ever been, and the people, come what might, were set on winning it.

In November the signal compliment was paid Josiah of electing him to office a third consecutive year. If anything, his second term had enhanced his prestige; his authority in the city of Blackhampton was greater than ever. More and more did he seem to be the man such abnormal times required. And the Mayoress, although under the constant threat of dissolution throughout a strenuous year, was still in the land of the living. Looking back on what she had suffered, the fact appeared miraculous; and yet as the end of the second term drew near, had she been quite honest with herself, she might have been tempted to own that she was none the worse for her experience. In some ways, although the admission would have called for wild horses, she might almost be said to be the better for it. Gertrude Preston, at any rate, openly said so.

Such being the case, Josiah did not hesitate to accept office for a third term. By now he realized that he was the best man in the city, at all events for that particular job. Everybody said so, from the Town Clerk down; and it was no mere figure of speech. Indeed, Josiah felt that Blackhampton could hardly "carry on" without him.

He was an autocrat, it was true, his temper was despotic, but that was the kind of man the times called for. It was no use having a divided mind, it was no use having a mealy-mouth. With the political instinct of a hardheaded race he had contrived to find a formula of government. He could talk to Labor in the language it understood; and the employers of Labor allowed him to talk to them, perhaps mainly for the reason that he was not himself an employer, but a disinterested and, if anything, slightly too honest, private citizen.

Therefore, no great surprise was caused at the beginning of the New Year when it was announced that the dignity of a Knight of the British Empire had been conferred upon the Mayor of Blackhampton. Sir Josiah Munt, K.B.E., took it as "all in the day's work." A democrat pur sang, yet he didn't doubt "that he'd make as good a knight as some of 'em." But the hapless Maria showed less stoicism. According to credible witnesses, when the news came to her that Lady Munt was her future style and degree, she fainted right off, and when at last the assiduous Alice had brought her to, she put herself to bed for three days.

Be that as it may, old issues were revived in that tormented breast. Horace, Doctor Cockburn, had immensely strengthened his position in the triumphant course of the preceding year, but the new situation cried aloud for Doctor Tremlett. However, the Mayor telephoned to his sister-in-law "to come at once and set her ladyship to rights," the call was promptly obeyed by the dauntless Gerty, and the crisis passed.

XLVIII

The early months of the year 1918 saw the entire Allied Cause in the gravest jeopardy. Even a superficial study of facts only partially revealed has made it clear that disaster was invited by an almost criminal taking of chances. The time is not yet for the whole truth to be known. Meanwhile the muse of history continues to weave her Dædalian spells....

On the last Sunday morning of that momentous and terrible March the Mayor sent his car to Torrington Cottage. Melia and her husband had been invited to spend the day at Strathfieldsaye. For several months the Corporal had been working at a new aerodrome along the valley, which happened to be within easy reach of his tricycle. His last Medical Board had proved that his leg was still weak and in its opinion not unlikely to remain so. But he had not been invalided out of the Army, as there was still a chance that presently he might be able to pass the doctor; at the same time, having regard to his age and the nature of his injury, he had a reasonable hope of getting his discharge whenever he cared to apply for it.

More than once had Melia urged him to do so. Her arguments were strong. He was not a young man and he had already "done his bit"; they were very happy together in their charming house; and her father had said that it would continue to be theirs as long as they cared to live in it. The Corporal, however, could not quite bring himself to quit the Army, even had such a course been possible. Something still held him. He didn't know exactly what it was, but even now that the chance had been given him he was loathe "to cut the painter." Pride seemed to lie at the root of his reluctance. Melia felt it must be that. But the Corporal knew that alchemies more potent were at work.

On this fateful Sunday in March, after the midday meal, as he sat smoking one of his father-in-law's cigars in the little room across the hall he realized that pressure was being brought to bear upon him to make a decision. Moreover, in Josiah's arguments, he heard the voice of his wife. Melia had lately astonished the world with the news that she was expecting a baby. The fact was very hard to credit that she was now preparing clothes for her first-born. A nine days' wonder had ensued. Such a thing was almost beyond precedent, yet, after all, Dame Nature had been known to indulge in these caprices! The startled, fluttered, rather piqued Mrs. Doctor, after consultation with her lord, was able to furnish instances. Still, it was remarkable! And it lent much cogency to Melia's desire that the Corporal should now apply for his discharge from the Army.

This afternoon it was clear that Josiah was pleading Melia's case. There was an excellent billet waiting for the Corporal at Jackson and Holcroft's if he cared to take it. They offered short hours and good pay. Why not? He was still going a trifle lame; the Medical Board was not likely to raise any objection; and it would be a relief to Melia who ought to be considered now.

The Corporal, however, shifted uneasily in his chair. All through luncheon he had seemed terribly gloomy; and, if anything, his father-in-law's arguments had deepened the clouds. One reason was, perhaps, that Josiah himself was terribly gloomy. The whole country was terribly gloomy. It had suddenly swung back to the phase of August, 1914.

The simple truth was that disaster was in the air. A crushing blow had fallen, a blow doubly cruel because so long foreseen and, therefore, to be parried if not actually prevented.

"Over a wide front the British Army is beaten!" Such was the enemy message to the Sunday papers. "Ninety thousand prisoners and an enormous booty have been taken!" And the greatest disaster in the long history of British arms was confirmed by the artless official meiosis. "Our Fourth and Fifth Armies have retired to a previously prepared position." It omitted to state that the position was some thirty miles nearer Paris, but that fact received confirmation from the French communiqué in the next column, "The capital is being bombarded by long-range guns."

No day could have been less propitious for Melia. And after the Mayor had sat smoking a few minutes with his gloomy son-in-law he appeared to realize the state of the case. As the Corporal drew at his cigar in a silence that was almost morose, Josiah's own thoughts and feelings began to take color from their surroundings. He lapsed into silence also. It seemed to come home to him all at once and for the first time in his life that he had been guilty of impertinence. This little man with his bloodshot eyes and few struggling wisps of gray hair, with his twitching hands and his air of smoldering rage, had been through it. Even to have been Mayor of Blackhampton three years running was very little by comparison. Josiah was man enough to feel keenly annoyed for having allowed his tongue so free a rein.

There came at last a deep growl from the Corporal. It was the note of an old dog, whose life of many battles has not improved his temper. "If the bloody politicians will interfere!"

The words found an echo in the heart of the Mayor. Sinister tales were rife on every hand. And of his own knowledge he was aware that there were hundreds of thousands of trained men in the country at that moment whose presence was most imperatively called for on the perilously weakened and extended British line to France.

"Goin' to call up the grandads, I see," said the Corporal, grimly.

"Aye!" The Mayor laughed bitterly. "Fat lot o' use they'll be when they've got 'em. Muddle, muddle, muddle." Like the Corporal, he was in a very black humor. "It's a mercy the Yankees are with us now--if they are not in too late."

"Fancy muckin' it," said the Corporal, "with the game in our hands. A year ago we'd got 'em beat."

"Press government," said Josiah savagely.

The Corporal proceeded to chew a good cigar. "Dad," he said at last, and it was the first time in his life he had addressed his former employer so familiarly, "I'm thinking I'll have to go before the Medical Board again."

Josiah combed an incipient goatee with a dubious forefinger. "But, my boy, from what you told me, you thought you could get your discharge any time you liked to ask for it."

"That was back in January."

"You're no fitter now than you were then, are you?"

The Corporal slowly stretched his right leg to its full length, and then, gathering it under him leant his whole weight upon it. "I'm much firmer on my pins than I was then." His rough voice suddenly regained its usual gentleness. "Work seems to suit me." He laughed rather wryly. "I expect the Board'll pass me now--if I ask 'em to."

It was the turn of Josiah to maltreat his cigar. "Not thinking of going back into the Line, are you?"

"If they'll take me." The Corporal spoke slowly and softly. "And I daresay they will--if I ask 'em polite."

Josiah's keen face was full of queer emotion. "Not for me to say anything." But he had been charged with a mission by the urgent Melia. No matter what his private feelings let him not betray it! "Seems to me, my boy, although it's not for me to say anything, that no one'll blame you, after what you've been through, if you stand aside and make room for others."

The Corporal extended both legs towards the fire. He gazed into it solemnly without speaking.

"Well, think it over, Bill." The voice of the tempter. "No one can blame you, if you stick to your present billet, which suits you so well--or even if you go into munitions at a good salary. You'll have earned anything they give you. And in a manner o' speaking you'll still be doing your bit. But as I say ... it's not for me...."

Strangling a groan, the Corporal rose suddenly from his chair, "I must think it over." He threw the stump of his cigar into the fire. "You see, I don't like leaving the Chaps." The voice of the Corporal sank almost to a whisper.

The Mayor gave his guest a second cigar and chose another for himself. But he didn't say anything.

"You see--as you might say--I've had Experience."

The Mayor looked a little queerly at the Corporal. Then he took a penknife out of the pocket of a rather ornate knitted waistcoat and dexterously removed the tip from his cigar.