Part 3

For answer, Mr. Clegg reopened the Bible, and with the accuracy of long practice came almost immediately upon what he wanted--certain illuminated manuscript pages occurring between the Old and New Testaments. There were six of these pages. Two were allotted to the Births, two to the Marriages, and two to the Deaths of the house of Clegg. Albert Clegg turned to the Births, and ran his finger down the list. There were quite a number of names, for the Bible was a family inheritance.

Presently he found what he wanted. A line in red ink had been drawn right across the page under the name of his youngest brother, Uncle Fred, to indicate the end of a generation. Below this line was written, in his own neat business hand:

_Children of Albert and Mary Clegg._

This title-heading had erred on the side of plurality, for beneath it came but one entry--that of the birth of Albert's eldest son, Amos, at Gateshead, upon the tenth of March, Eighteen Ninety-two. A second heading followed immediately:

_Children of Albert and Marjorie Clegg._

After this came quite a satisfying list. First, Joe's name--it proved to be Joshua, in full--recorded upon the twelfth of August, Eighteen Ninety-four. Then came the entry he was seeking:

_Marjorie; born at "The Laburnums," Jesmond, April twenty-fourth, Eighteen Ninety-Six_.

Albert Clegg surveyed his daughter over the top of his spectacles, which had been assumed for purposes of perusal, and performed a small exercise in mental arithmetic.

"That makes you eighteen," he observed.

Marjorie nodded. At this point, to her intense annoyance, the egregious Uncle Fred re-entered the room and joined the Board.

"Girls of eighteen--" began her father.

"Young ladies of eighteen," amended the Member of Parliament.

"--have no call to be independent," continued Albert Clegg; "and if they want to be of some use they can stay at home and help their mothers, as God meant them to."

"Mother," riposted Marjorie, "has more servants than she knows what to do with, and she hates interference with her house management, anyway. I have been home now for three months, honestly trying to help, and there isn't a single thing for me to do. There are hundreds of things I can do away from here. I do not ask to go out and do them now, but I do ask to be trained in something useful, so that when the time comes--"

"When what time comes?" asked her father quickly.

"The time when it will be a living impossibility for me to stick it out any longer," said Marjorie frankly. "Do you think I can sit here for ever"--with one comprehensive gesture she summarised Netherby, with its stodgy gentility, its squirrel-cage routine, and its cast-iron piety--"twiddling my thumbs? Every girl has a _right_ to make herself efficient, nowadays."

"What comes before our rights," said Albert Clegg, "is our duty--our grateful duty to the parents that brought us up."

"_Honour thy father and thy mother_," chaunted the apposite Uncle Fred, "_that thy days--_"

Marjorie sat up.

"I hope I do honour my father and mother," she said. "I am fond of them both: they have been kind to me all my life. But I do not see why I should be particularly grateful to them for bringing me up. After all"--turning to her father--"you _had_ to, hadn't you? You were responsible for my being here, weren't you? It seems to me that parents owe a debt to their children--not children to their parents!"

This amazingly audacious deliverance--and one had to be familiar with the Clegg tradition to realise how audacious it was--produced a stunning silence. Uncle Fred, fumbling in his repertoire for something really commensurate, breathed alarmingly. Presently Albert Clegg's heavy voice broke in:

"A debt? You mean I owe _you_ a--a debt of gratitude?"

"Not gratitude," replied Marjorie. "Something bigger--honour. I think that parents owe it to their children, having brought them into the world--and all that sort of thing," she added a little shyly, "to give them a chance to live the sort of life that appeals to them."

Uncle Fred was ready now.

"The French," he announced, "are a giddy and godless race!"

But neither Albert Clegg nor his daughter took any notice. Wide apart as their natures lay, they had one point in common--inflexible determination. Clegg surveyed Marjorie's curving lips and hot blue eyes for a moment, and asked:

"So you want to live your own life, eh?"

Marjorie nodded.

"Yes," she said. "At least, I don't want to rush off and live it right away; but I do think I ought to be given sufficient--" she hesitated for a word.

"Equipment?" suggested her father.

"Rope?" amended Uncle Fred.

Marjorie nodded to her father again.

"Yes," she said, "sufficient equipment. A girl ought to be capable of doing something. I have told you some of the things a girl might learn to do, but there are lots of others. Even if she could support herself on the Stage it would be something."

"_The Stage?_"

Marjorie had exploded a bombshell this time. Uncle Fred's goat-beard dropped upon his shirt front, and waggled helplessly. Albert Clegg gazed at his daughter long and fixedly. Then he pulled the Bible towards him again, and turned back a page or two in the family record. He twisted the great volume round, and pushed it in his daughter's direction and pointed.

"Look at that," he said.

Marjorie looked. Upon the page of births, near the bottom of the list of her father's brothers and sisters, she saw a horizontal black strip--perhaps a quarter of an inch high--extending the full width of the page, where an entry in the record had been crossed out again, and again, and again, by a thick quill pen. She had seen it before, and had asked what it meant--without success. Now apparently she was to know.

"That," said Albert Clegg, "was my youngest sister."

"Your Aunt Eliza," added Uncle Fred.

"When she was nineteen," continued Clegg, "she ran away from home--to go on the Stage."

"Hoo! Where?" asked Marjorie, intensely interested.

"London, my father thought; but he never enquired."

"He never--? You mean--?"

"He blotted her name out of the Book, and it was never mentioned in our home again."

"And not one of you ever tried to find what had become of her?"

"Certainly not."

Marjorie looked up at her father and drew a long and indignant breath.

"Well--!" she began.

"And now," explained Uncle Fred, "it's coming out in you, my girl."

What was coming out Marjorie did not trouble him to explain. It is doubtful if she heard him at all.

"You mean to say," she said hotly to her father, "that your father let his own daughter go right out of sight and mind, just like that?"

"He did. And I want to say to you, my daughter, that I think he was right. This life is a preparation for the next. As we live now, so shall we be rewarded hereafter. A few years' empty pleasure and excitement are a poor exchange for an eternity of punishment."

"That's right! Take no risks!" recommended the sage at the other end of the table. "Safety first!"

"The wisest life," concluded Mr. Clegg, "is the safe life. The safe life is the Christian life, and the sure foundation of the Christian life is family life--united, wisely controlled, family life. So you will stay at home and live that life; and some day you will be grateful. Now go to bed. I appreciate your honesty in telling me what is in your mind, but my advice to you is forget all about it. Good-night!"

"Don't forget your prayers!" added Uncle Fred.

*III*

Marjorie finished her breakfast without further flippancy, and in due course the family set out for church in the Rolls-Royce. That is to say, Mr. and Mrs. Clegg, Uncle Fred, Marjorie, and the younger children--Miss Amy, already mentioned, and Masters James and John, aged ten and eight--were packed into that spacious vehicle and driven into Craigfoot, with meticulous observation of the speed limit and all the windows up. Amos and Joe followed in the two-seater. The servants had the waggonette.

The parish kirk at Craigfoot has already been described in some detail, but it may be worth while to record a few observations made from a different angle.

From her seat against the wall in the high-curtained Netherby pew Marjorie could see nothing but the last few rows of the public gallery and the Baronrigg balcony. The latter fascinated her, for it was always full--usually of interesting, and always of different, people. Sir Thomas Birnie himself was a permanent figure. He sat in the left-hand corner of the balcony, at the end nearest the pulpit. Consequently, his severe gaze, concentrated upon the preacher, was averted from the other occupants of the pew--a circumstance particularly agreeable to some of the younger members of his numerous house parties. What fun they seemed to have among themselves! How they giggled and whispered! Marjorie longed and longed to be with them and of them, especially the girls of her own age. They were so pretty, so overflowing with life, and dressed so exactly right. For three months, ever since she came back from Paris to find her family at Netherby, and the comfortable hospitality of a Newcastle suburb exchanged for the frigid waiting-list of a county society where one knew either everybody or nobody, she had taken weekly notes of the ever-changing kaleidoscope in the Baronrigg pew--studying faces, studying frocks, studying characters, and weaving histories round each.

Some of the faces were quite familiar. This morning, for instance, in the right-hand corner of the front row, sat Major Laing. He was a frequent visitor at Baronrigg, and was a widower. Marjorie knew that his wife had been a twin-sister of the late Lady Birnie. Then there were Captain and Mrs. Roper. Captain Roper owned horses, and was here--in fact, the whole house-party was here--for the Castleton Races, the largest meeting on this side of the Border. They were constant visitors. Then there was a pretty little woman in a big hat--Mrs. Pomeroy, really--of which Marjorie took mental and quite unsabbatical note. There was Arthur Langley, one of the best-known gentlemen riders in England. There was a tall girl with fair hair--not unlike Marjorie herself. Marjorie decided that this girl was dressed not quite right. She would have been better placed in a fashionable West-end church in London than in this grey, prim, Presbyterian conventicle. Probably her first visit, Marjorie decided. She would know better next time.

Her shrewd gaze passed on.

And then, for the first time in her life, she saw Roy Birnie, home after four months of toil and tribulation at an army crammer's. He had been plucked out of Eton at Christmas to that end, Eton having decided that it was a case for desperate measures. Three months of intensive brain-culture had not affected his appearance, which was healthy, nor his snub nose, nor his cheerful grin, nor the slight curl in his hair, of which his mother had once been so proud and of which he was still so ashamed. He sat on the left of Major Laing, his chin resting on the pew ledge, his grey eyes devoutly closed, and his ebullient spirits throttled down until it should please Doctor Chirnside to conclude the first prayer. He was exactly like hundreds of other clean-run Public School boys of eighteen. Marjorie had observed a dozen such in that very pew during the past three months. But, as already noted, she had never seen Roy.

That usually dependable organ, her heart, missed a couple of beats, and she lowered her head quickly.

Presently, impelled by a power greater than herself (or, indeed, than any of us), she lifted her head and looked up--only to find that Roy was gazing straight down upon her.

For the moment her eyes were interlocked with his. Then suddenly she became aware of the expression upon his face. The result has already been described.

That evening, after prayers, her father motioned to her to stay behind. When they were alone, he said:

"I hope you have given up that idea of yours about going away."

"Well," replied his daughter pleasantly, "I have postponed it, anyhow, father."

"You have decided wisely for yourself," said Mr. Clegg.

Marjorie felt inclined to agree. But it is just possible that the matter had been decided for her.

*CHAPTER III*

*DER TAG*

*I*

I suppose I may be forgiven for having felt a trifle preoccupied upon the first of August, nineteen-fourteen. Most people did. But the European situation, desperate though it was, was not sufficiently desperate to excuse me for forgetting that the first Saturday in August is the inexorable date of Lady Christina's annual garden party at Buckholm. So I blundered right into it.

I am a methodical person, and I like to do the same things at the same seasons. When it comes to revisiting the place of my birth, marriage and, I hope, interment, I make a practice of going to Baronrigg for Easter, Buckholm for the August cricket week, and The Heughs for the woodcock. On this particular occasion I had travelled from King's Cross by the early morning express--it leaves at five o'clock, and is the best train in the day, if only people knew about it--with the result that by four o'clock in the afternoon I found myself rumbling along in the Craigfoot station fly, in lovely, summer weather, _en route_ for the Buckholm cricket week. Lady Christina, whose foes--and their name is legion, for they are many--accuse her of parsimony, does not usually send the motor to the station to meet unencumbered males. She expects such guests to cover the last stage of the journey at their own charges and, in addition, to share the conveyance with such parcels and oddments as may be lying in the station office consigned to Buckholm.

On this occasion Mr. Turnbull, the station master, apologetically packed me into the fly in company with half a sheep and three bright new zinc buckets, freshly arrived from the stores in Edinburgh.

In addition to my personal luggage, I was laden with a limp, damp package, smelling to heaven of fish, which had borne me noisome company all the way from my flat in Jermyn Street, having been delivered there by an accomplice of Lady Christina's the night before my departure, with the information that her ladyship had signified my willingness to convey it to Buckholm.

But things might have been worse. Lady Christina had played this fish trick upon me last year as well. (It is one of her most cherished economies.) On that occasion the fish was delivered at my flat five minutes after I had left for Scotland. It was marked "Very Important"; so the lift boy, a conscientious but unimaginative youth, sent for the pass-key and carefully deposited the package in my hall cupboard. I found it there, quite safe, when I returned from Scotland, three weeks later.

The first warning that all was not well came to me when my equipage drew up, to a symphonic accompaniment of rattling buckets, at the lodge gates of Buckholm. These were held, like the bridge across the Tiber upon a famous occasion, by a resolute trio composed of Mackellar, the under-gardener, and Mesdames Elspeth and Maggie Mackellar, Mackellar's daughters, aged about fourteen. Horatius Codes (Mackellar) informed me that by her ladyship's orders it was "hauf-a-croon to get in," adding (quite incomprehensibly at the moment) that it was "on account of the Feet for Charity."

My contention that, as a guest, I was entitled to exemption, or, at least, abatement of entrance fee, was overruled by a dour but respectful majority of three to one. I handed Horatius Codes a reluctant half-crown; Herminius and Spurius Lartius threw open the gates, and the experienced animal between the shafts, unusually braced by the eerie combination of sounds and smells conveyed to his senses by a following breeze, delivered me at the front door, with much spurting of gravel, four minutes later.

My worst fears were realised. Dotted about the wide lawns stood bazaar-stalls, under striped awnings. The band of our Third Battalion from the Depot was making music on the terrace, and fair women and brave men drifted here and there, shying nervously at the stalls. Too late, I understood Mackellar's reference to the "Feet for Charity." I had heard from afar of the existence of this recurrent and gruesome festival for many years. No one knew why it was held, or to what charity Lady Christina devoted the proceeds. I once asked Lord Eskerley if he could tell me. He replied that so far as he was aware it was a charity which was not puffed up, and began at home. But Lord Eskerley is a cynical old gentleman, and has been at war with Lady Christina for forty years.

A sympathetic butler received me and showed me my room. The ceremony was purely formal: I knew the room almost as well as I knew him.

"It will go on until ten o'clock, sir," he announced mournfully, in reply to my anxious query. "The present company will leave about seven; but the townspeople begin to arrive then, when the admission fee is reduced to sixpence. Are we going to have a flare-up, sir?"

"No. What's the use? We shall take it lying down, Bates, as usual. You know Lady Christina!"

"I was referring, sir, to the European situation."

"Oh, sorry! Yes, it looks like it. If Germany joins Austria against Russia, France is bound to come in on the side of Russia; and if France comes in I fancy we shall all come in. And then God knows what will happen! Is there much excitement down here?"

"Very little at present, sir--less than when the South African War was imminent. But I understand that all the officers at the Depot are being recalled from leave. You will find several of them here, sir."

"Mr. Eric is here, of course?"

"For the afternoon, sir, yes. But he sleeps at the Depot now. He is very busy. You will change into flannels, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"It will fill out the time a bit, sir, before you need go outside. Her Ladyship is not aware of your arrival. Shall I bring you a whisky and soda?"

"Please."

By judicious dawdling I staved off the moment of my entrance into the "Feet" for another half-hour. Then, fortified by Bates's timely refreshment, I went downstairs to search for my hostess.

The garden was full of people--sirens in lace caps proffering useless articles of merchandise; officers from the Depot; boys and girls just home for the holidays; local dames talking scandal in deck-chairs. Upon the distant croquet lawn I beheld my hostess engaged in battle. I could hear her quite easily, shouting: "Now then--no treachery, no treachery!" to her partner, a nervous subaltern who was furtively offering advice to a pretty opponent. I remembered Bates's hint, also a maxim to the effect that what is not missed is not mourned. Perhaps it would be wiser--

"Yes, I would if I were you," remarked a raven's voice at my elbow. "She hasn't seen you yet!"

Lord Eskerley is a very remarkable old gentleman, with certain pronounced and rather alarming characteristics. In the first place, he has an uncanny knack of reading one's thoughts, which enables him to begin a conversation without wasting time over preliminaries, which he hates. Secondly, he has a peculiar habit of side-tracking a subject right in the middle of a sentence, sometimes because he is overtaken by a reverie, sometimes because another subject occurs to him--to return sooner or later, but always without warning, to the original topic--like brackets in algebra. I once met him coming out of Brooks's Club, and accompanied him down St. James's Street.

"Just been to a funeral," he announced; and forthwith subsided into a brown study.

I offered a few appropriate observations regarding the uncertainty of human life, and then proceeded to the political situation. He replied with his usual incisiveness. Ten minutes later, as we passed through the Horse Guards into Whitehall, he stopped abruptly, shook me by the hand, and said:

"Good-bye! At Woking. We cremated him. Very interesting!"--and set off at a brisk walk in the direction of the Houses of Parliament.

These conversational acrobatics call for considerable agility on the part of the listener. The strain is increased by the circumstance that, owing to his uncanny powers of memory, Lord Eskerley is able (and usually proceeds) to take up a conversation with you exactly where he left it off, sometimes after an interval of months. I was once walking in the Park on Sunday morning with Lady Christina, whom I had encountered for my sins after church. Near the Achilles statue I was aware of Lord Eskerley, plunged in profound meditation. Suddenly he looked up and saw me. He hurried forward and shook hands, utterly ignoring Lady Christina.

"Courvoisier," he said, "not Martell!"--and departed towards Stanhope Gate.

"What does the demented creature mean?" inquired Lady Christina.

I was able to explain that His Lordship had merely been unburdening himself of a name which he had been unable to recall at the time of our last conversation. Criminology is one of his numerous hobbies, and on this occasion he had been trying to tell me the name of one of the last murderers publicly hanged in England. (Thackeray went to see it.) All he could recall, however, was that the murderer had been a valet in Park Lane, and that his name had suggested liqueur brandy.

Decidedly he is a character. But he is a Pillar of State for all that, and, unlike some Pillars of State, he has done the State some service. He likes me, because I catch his references more quickly than most people.

"Well," I rejoined, "suppose you assist me to find cover?"

"Certainly!" he replied. "By the way"--extending a hand--"how do you do? Wonderful day! Now come and find a seat, and we will smoke."

We doubled a promontory of rhododendrons and sat down on a rustic bench, somewhat apart from the turmoil. The only person in sight was a girl, with very good ankles. (Eve always reproved me for beginning at that end.) She was standing fifty yards away from us, under the dappled shade of a copper-beech, surveying the scene--a little disconsolately, I thought. My companion, as usual, was ready with an appropriate but elliptic comment.

"Doesn't know he's here!" he observed.

"Why don't you tell her?" I asked.

"No need. They'll find one another all right."

"Who is she? And he?"

The question partly answered itself, for at that moment the girl turned in our direction, and I recognised her as the unexpected young beauty of the Netherby pew. Aware that two inquisitive dotards were leering at her, she withdrew out of sight. Lord Eskerley did not answer the rest of my question, because his thoughts had run ahead of the situation.

"There is something particularly cruel and brutal," he said, "about British snobbery. If this had been America, her hostess would have introduced her to every one in sight. (If she had not been prepared to do so, she would not have invited her at all.) On the Continent, young men would have led one another up, and clicked their heels together, and announced their names, with a view to a fair exchange. But here--well, she knows nobody, and every woman in the county will see to it that she continues to know nobody. Practically, that was why she was invited here. Tantalus, and so on!"

"I have often wondered," I said, "why we never go in for introducing. It would save much discomfort to rustic persons like myself."