Part 6

Still, even then, the country hesitated to take the plunge. Conscription seemed to many the direct negation of what it had stood for in the past. These still pinned their faith to the system of voluntary levies. The rally of the country's manhood to a cause only indirectly its own was beyond all precedent. Field Marshal Viscount Partington mobilized his very best mop and sent it to deal with the Atlantic. For all that the flood did not subside and it gradually dawned on the public mind that more comprehensive methods might be needed.

In the meantime the Hun was at the gate of Paris. The Channel ports, if not actually in the hands of the enemy, were as good as lost. Belgium was being ground under the heel of a savage conqueror. And in the city of Blackhampton, as elsewhere in Britain, these things made a very deep impression.

Among the many forcible men that a new world phase revealed Blackhampton to possess, none stood out more boldly in those first grim weeks than Josiah Munt. The proprietor of the Duke of Wellington was a man of peculiar gifts, and it was soon only too clear that not only Blackhampton, but England herself, had need of them. His was the ruthless energy that disdains finesse. It sees what to do, or believes it does--almost as important in life as we know it!--and goes straight ahead and gets it done.

One evening in the middle of September Josiah came home to dinner in a very black mood. It was not often that he yielded to depression. But he had had a hard day on local war committees in the course of which he had been in contact with men nearer to the center of things than he was himself. Moreover, these were men from whom this shrewd son of the midlands was only too ready to learn. They were behind the scenes. Sources of information were open to them which even a Blackhampton alderman might envy; and they were far from echoing the airy optimism of the public press. The fabric of society, stable but elastic, by means of which Josiah himself and so many like him had been able in the course of two or three decades to rise from obscurity to a certain power and dignity was in urgent danger. The whole of the western world was in the melting pot. That which had been could never be again. Cherished institutions were already in the mire. And all this was but the prelude to a tragedy of which none could see the end.

Josiah's mood that evening was heavy. Even the presence at the meal of his sister-in-law, as a rule a natural tonic, did little to lighten it.

"They won't get Paris now," she affirmed.

"We don't know that." He shook his head with the gesture of a tired man. "Nobody knows it."

"No, I suppose they don't." Miss Preston read in that somber manner the need for mental readjustment. "But the papers say that General Joffre has the situation in hand."

Josiah renounced a plate of mutton broth only half consumed. "Mustn't believe a word you see in the papers, my gel. They don't know much, and half of what they do know they are not allowed to tell." Miss Preston discreetly supposed that it was so. "But things are going better, aren't they?"

"We'll hope they are." Josiah's fierce attack upon the joint in front of him seemed to veto the subject.

The silence that followed was broken by Maria, whose entrance into the conversation was quite unexpected and rather startling. "Did you know," she said, "that Melia's husband has joined the army?"

Josiah suspended operations to poise an interrogatory carving knife. "Who tells you that?" he said frostily.

"The boy from Murrell's, the greengrocer's,"--somehow the infrequent voice of Maria had an odd precision--"said to Alice this morning that he heard that Mr. Hollis had gone for a soldier."

Josiah returned to the joint, content for the time being with the remark, "that it was a bad lookout for the Germans," a sally that won a timely laugh from his sister-in-law. On the other hand, Maria, who had never been known to laugh at anything in all her anxious days, began to wonder somberly whether Melia would be able to carry on the business.

"From all that I hear," growled Josiah, "there ain't a sight o' business to be carried on."

In the silence which followed Maria gave a sniff that was slightly lachrymose, and then the strategic Gerty after a veiled glance towards the head of the table, ventured on "Poor Amelia."

Josiah was in the act of giving himself what he called "a man's helping" of beans. "She made her own bed," he said in a tone that gained in force by not being forcible, "and now she's got to lie in it."

For the first time in many years, however, Maria seemed to be visited by a spark of spirit. "Well, I think it's credible of that Hollis, very creditable."

Josiah raised a glass of beer to the light with a connoisseur's disparagement of its color, and then he said, "In my opinion he's running away from his creditors. I hear he owes money all round."

"He's going to risk his life, though," ventured Aunt Gerty. "And that's something."

"It is--if he risks it," Josiah reluctantly allowed.

Maria became so tearful that she was unable to continue her dinner.

XVIII

The next morning, about a quarter to ten, Josiah boarded a Municipal tram at the foot of The Rise, earning in the process the almost groveling respect of its conductor, and paid twopence for a journey to Love Lane. Five doors up on the left was a meager house that had been converted into a greengrocer's shop. By far the most imposing thing about it was a signboard, which, although sadly in need of a coat of paint, boldly displayed the name William Hollis Fruiterer, in white letters on a black ground. For the last sixteen years, whenever the proprietor of the Duke of Wellington had occasion to pass this eyesore which was clearly visible from the busy main thoroughfare that ran by the end of the street, he made it a fixed rule to look the other way. But this morning when he got off the tram car at the corner, he set his teeth, faced the signboard resolutely and walked slowly towards it.

A stately thirty seconds or so of progress brought him to the shop itself. For a moment he stood looking in the window, which was neither more nor less than that of a visibly unprosperous greengrocer in a very small way of business. He then entered a rather moribund interior, the stock in trade of which consisted in the main of baskets of potatoes and carrots and an array of stale cabbages laid in a row on the counter.

The shop had no one in it, but the first step taken by an infrequent customer across its threshold rang a bell attached to the underside of a loose board in the floor, thereby informing a mysterious entity beyond a glass door draped with a surprisingly clean lace curtain that it was required elsewhere.

The entity did not immediately respond to Josiah's heavy-footed summons. When it did respond it was seen to be that of a thin faced, exceedingly unhappy looking woman of thirty-five whose hair was beginning to turn gray. Her print dress, much worn but scrupulously clean and neat, had its sleeves rolled back beyond the elbows; and this fact and a coarse sackcloth apron implied that she had been interrupted in the task of scrubbing the floor of the back premises.

The interior of the shop was rather dark and Josiah, having taken up a position in its most sunless corner, was not recognized at once by his eldest daughter.

They stood looking at each other, not knowing what to say or how to carry themselves after a complete estrangement of sixteen years. Josiah, however, had taken the initiative; he was a ready-witted man of affairs and he had been careful to enter the shop with a formula already prepared to his mind. It might or might not bridge the gulf, but in any case that did not greatly matter. He had not come out of a desire to make concessions; he was there at the call of duty.

"They tell me your man's joined th' army." That was the formula, but it needed speaking. And when spoken it was, after a moment uncannily tense, it was not as Alderman Munt J.P. had expected and intended to utter it. Instead of being quite impersonal, the tone and the manner were rude and grim. Somehow they had thrown back to an earlier phase of autocratic parenthood.

Melia turned very white. It did not seem possible for her to say anything beyond a defiant "yes." Breathing hard, she stood looking stonily at her father.

"When did he go?"

"Monday." The tone of Melia was queerly like his own.

Josiah rolled the scrub of whisker under his chin between his thumb and forefinger, and then slowly transferred the weight of his ponderous body from one massive foot to the other. "Don't seem to be doing much trade."

"Not much." But the tone of Melia rather implied that it was none of his business even if such was the case.

"Will ye be able to carry on?"

Melia didn't know. Her father didn't either. He was inclined to think not, but without expressing that opinion he stood with narrowed eyes and pursing his lips somberly. "Where's the books?" he said abruptly.

The desire uppermost in Melia was to tell him in just a few plain words that the books were no concern of his and that she would be much obliged if he would go about his own affairs. But for some reason she was not able to do so. She was no longer afraid of him; years ago she had learned to hate and despise him; but either she was not strong enough, not a big enough character to be openly rude to him, or the subtle feelings of a daughter, long since rejected and forgotten, may have intervened. For after a horrible moment, in which devils flew round in her, she said impassively, "Don't keep none."

"Not books! Don't keep books!" The man of affairs caught up the admission and treated it almost as a young bull in a paddock might have treated a red parasol. "Never heard the like!" He cast a truculent glance round the half denuded shop. "No wonder the jockey has to make compositions with his creditors."

Melia flushed darkly. She would have given much had she been able at that moment to order this father of hers out of the shop, but every minute now seemed to bring him an increasing authority. The Dad, the tyrant and the bully whom she had feared, defied and secretly admired, was now in full possession. At bottom, sixteen years had not changed him and it had not changed her. Had the man for whom she had wrecked her life had something of her father's quality she might have forgiven his inefficiency, his tragic failure as a human being, or at any rate have been more able to excuse herself for an act which, look at it as one would, was simply unforgivable.

"I don't know what you mean." Her hard voice trembled and then broke harshly--but anger and defiance could not go beyond that. "He paid the quarter's rent before he went. He owes a few pounds but he's going to send me a bit every week until it's paid."

"I suppose you've got a list of his liabilities." Even his voice shook a little, but he treated the scorn, the anger, the hard defiance in her eyes as if they were not there.

Again the paramount desire was to insult this father of hers, had it been humanly possible to do so. But again was she bereft of the power even to make the attempt. "Yes, I have," she said sullenly.

"Let me see it, gel."

For nearly a minute she stood biting her lips and looking at him, while for his part he coolly surveyed the shop in all its miserable inadequacy. She still wanted to order him out. His proprietary air enraged her. Yet she could not repress a sneaking admiration for it and that enraged her even more. But she suddenly gave up fighting and retired in defeat to the mysterious region beyond the curtained door, whence she returned very soon with a piece of paper in her hand.

Josiah impressively put on his gold-rimmed eyeglasses, a recent addition to his greatness, and examined the paper critically. The amount of William Hollis's indebtedness, declared in hurried, rather illiterate pencil, as if the heart of the writer had not been in his task, came to rather less than twenty pounds.

"This the lot?" He spoke as if he had a perfect right to ask the question.

"It is." Her eyes and her voice contested the right, yet in spite of themselves they admitted it.

"Who owns this here property?" Again the half truculent glance explored every nook and cranny of the meager premises.

"Whatmore the builder."

Josiah rubbed a thick knuckle upon his cheek. "Ah!" That was his only comment. "Owns the row, I suppose?"

Melia supposed he did.

"What rent do you pay?"

"Twenty-five." She resented the question, but the growing magnetism of having again a real live man to deal with was making her clay in his hands.

He took a step to the shop door, the paper still in his hand, and stood an instant looking up the dreary length of narrow street. It was only an instant he stood there, but it was long enough to enable him to make up his mind. Suddenly he swung round on his heel to confront the still astonished and resentful Melia.

"Want more window space," he said. "Casement ought to be lower and larger. Those flowers"--he pointed to a bowl of stocks on the counter--"ought to be where people can look at 'em. But this isn't a neighborhood for flowers. Offer vegetables and fruit at a low price, but more shop room's needed so that folks can see 'em and so that you can buy in bigger quantities. Who is your wholesaler?" He looked down the list. "Coggins, eh? Coggins in the Market Place?"

Melia nodded. Should she tell him that Coggins had that morning refused to supply anything else until the last delivery of potatoes, bananas and tomatoes had been paid for? Pride said no, but a force more elemental than pride had hold of her now.

"Owe him six pound, I see. What does he let you have in the way of credit?"

"He won't let me have anything else until I've paid his account," said the reluctant Melia. "And he says it's all got to be cash for the future."

"When did he say that?"

"He's just been up to see me."

"Can you pay him?"

"I promised him two pounds by Saturday."

Josiah made no comment. Once more his eyes made the tour of the shop. And then he said with the slow grunt that Melia knew so well:

"Very creditable to your man to join up ... if he sticks it."

The four last little words were almost sinister. And then in the unceremonious way in which he had entered the shop the great man walked out. The place was as distasteful to him as his presence in it was distasteful to his eldest daughter. Yet for both, and in spite of themselves, their meeting after long years had had an extraordinary grim fascination.

XIX

At Christmas Private Hollis was granted forty-eight hours' leave. He had been a member of the Blackhampton Battalion rather less than three months, but this was a piece of luck for which he felt very grateful.

Those three months had been a grueling time. His age was forty-one, and, in order to comply with the arbitrary limit of thirty-eight imposed by Field Marshal Viscount Partington in the first days of strife, it had been necessary to falsify his age. Many another had done likewise. Questions were not asked, and if a man had physical soundness and the standards of measurement demanded by the noble Viscount there seemed no particular reason why they should be. All the same the sudden and severe change from a soft life found some weak places in Private Hollis.

How he stuck it he hardly knew. Many a time in those trying early weeks he was sorely tempted to go sick with "a pain in his hair." But ever at the back of his mind hovered the august shade of Troop Sergeant Major William Hollis, the distinguished kinsman who had fought at Waterloo, whose spurs and sword hung in the little back sitting room of Number Five, Love Lane; and that old warrior simply would not countenance any such proceeding. Therefore, Christmas week arrived without Private Hollis having missed a single parade. Although not one of the bright boys of the Battalion, he was not looked upon unfavorably, and on Christmas Eve, about four o'clock, he returned to his home from the neighboring town of Duckingfield.

His home in the course of the sixteen years he had lived in it had brought him precious little in the way of happiness. More than once he had wondered if ever he would be man enough to break its sinister thrall; more than once he had wished to end the ever-growing aversion of man and wife by doing something violent. He had really grown to hate the place. And yet after an absence of less than three months he was returning to it with a thankfulness that was surprising.

All the same he was not sure how Melia would receive him. When at last he had made the great decision and had told her that he was going to join up he had said she must either carry on the business in his absence, or that it could be wound up and she must be content with the separation allowance. Her answer had been a gibe. However, she proposed to carry on in spite of the fact that W. Hollis Fruiterer as a means of livelihood was likely to prove a stone about her neck. Still there was a pretty strong vein of independence in her and if she could keep afloat by her own exertions she meant to do so.

During his three months' absence in camp their correspondence had been meager; it had also been formal, not to say cold. The estrangement into which they had drifted was so wide that even the step he had recently taken could not bridge it. He had told her on a picture postcard with a view of Duckingfield Parish Church that he was quite well and he hoped that she was and that things were going on all right; and with a view of the Market Place she replied that she was glad to know that he was quite well as it left her at present. However, he was careful to supplement this marital politeness with a few words every Saturday when he sent her five shillings, all he could spare of his pay. The money was always acknowledged briefly and coldly. No clew was given to her feelings, or to her affairs, but when he told her he was coming home at Christmas for two days she wrote to say that she would be pleased to see him.

As he stepped off the tram into the raw Blackhampton mirk which awaited him at the end of Love Lane that formal phrase came rather oddly into his mind. It gave him a sort of consolation to reflect that Melia was one who said what she meant and meant what she said. But, whether or not she would be pleased to see him at the present moment, he was genuinely pleased to be seeing her.

It was strange that it should be so. But Melia with all her grim humors stood for freedom, a life of physical ease and cushioned independence, and this was what a slack fibered man of one and forty simply longed for after three months' "grueling." For a man past his physical best, of slothful habits and civilian softness, the hard training had not been child's play. Besides, his home meant something. It always had meant something. That was why in the face of many difficulties he had struggled in his spasmodic way to keep it together. It had seemed to give him no pleasure, it had seemed to bring nothing into his life, but somehow he had felt that if once he let go of it, as far as he was concerned it would mean the end of all things. He would simply fall to pieces. He would sink into the gutter and he would never be able to rise again.

Getting off the tram at the end of Love Lane he felt a sensation that was almost pride to think that he had a place of his own to come home to. After all it stood for sixteen years of life and struggle. And at that moment he was particularly glad that he had sent that five shillings a week regularly. Unless he had done so he would not now have been able to go and face Melia.

There was not much light in the little street, but it was not yet quite dark. And the first sight of his home gave him a shock. The outside of the shop had changed completely. Not only was the signboard and the rest of the woodwork resplendent with new paint, but the window was more than twice the size it had been. Moreover it was brilliantly lighted; there was a fine display of apples, oranges, prunes, nuts, even boxes of candied fruits and bonbons; and in the center of this amazing picture was a large Christmas tree, artfully decorated, in a pot covered with pink paper.

William Hollis gave a gasp. And then a slow chill spread over him as he realized the truth. Somebody had taken over the business, somebody with capital, brains, business experience. But that being the case why had Melia kept it all so dark? And why, if the business belonged to somebody else, was his name still on the signboard? And why had it had that new coat of paint?

The sheer unexpectedness struck him internally, as if a bucket of water had been dashed in his face. It was the worst set-back he had ever had in his life. Not until that moment did he realize how much the shop meant to him. He was bitterly angry that such a trick had been played. It showed, as hardly anything else could have done, the depth of Melia's venom; it showed to what a point she was prepared to carry her resentment.

It took him a minute to pull himself together, and then he walked into the shop, not defiantly, not angrily, but with a sense of outrage. There was nobody in it, but, as he cast round one indignant glance at its new and guilty grandeur and then crossed heavily to the curtained door, he held himself ready to meet the new proprietor.

Beyond that mysterious portal the small living room was very spick and span. Almost to his surprise he found Melia there. She matched the room in appearance and at the moment he came in she was putting a log of wood on the fire. Great Uncle William's sword and accouterments, hanging from the wall, were decorated with holly, the pictures also and a new grocer's almanac, and a small bunch of mistletoe was suspended from the gas bracket in the middle of the ceiling. Everything was far more cheerful and homelike than he ever remembered to have seen it. The note of Christmas was there, which in itself meant welcome and good cheer.

He stood at the threshold of the curtained door, a neat soldierlike figure with a chastened mustache, looking wonderfully trim and erect in his uniform. She greeted him with a kind of half smile on her hard sad face, but he didn't offer to kiss her. Not for long years had they been on those terms; they were man and wife in hardly more than name. And if in his absence, as there was reason to suspect, she had played him a trick in revenge for her years of disappointment, he somehow felt man enough at that moment to make an end of things altogether so far as she was concerned. There were faults on both sides, no doubt. Perhaps he hadn't quite played jannock; but if the business now belonged to somebody else, he would simply walk straight out of the place and he would never enter it again.

She stood looking at him, as if she expected him to speak first. But he didn't know what to say to her, with that doubt in his mind. Braced by the stern discipline which he felt already had made him so much more a man than he had ever been in his life, he had come home fully prepared to make a fresh start. In spite of her embittered temper, he had not lost quite all his affection for her. He was the kind of man who craves for affection; absence and hardship had made him realize that. He had looked forward to this homecoming, not merely as a relief from the grind of military routine, which galled him at times so that he could hardly bear it, but as an assertion of the manhood, of the husbandhood, that had long been overdue.

"Evenin', Melia," he said at last.

"Evenin', Bill," as she spoke she dropped her eyes.

"Happy Christmas to you." Somehow his voice sounded much deeper than ever before.

"Same to you. Bill." There was almost a softness in the fall of the words that took his mind a long way back.