CHAPTER XLVII

ALF TRIES TO HELP

Ernie was now in a bad way materially.

He became seedy and slipshod, with hollow eyes, and clothes that hung loosely upon his diminishing frame.

Alf resented his presence and appearance as a personal injury.

"Does it to spite me, it's my belief," he told his mother furiously. "Always at the _Star_ corner lookin like a scare-crow and askin for pity. A fair disgrace on the family. Of course all the folks want to know why I don't help him. What's the good of helping him? He's the sort the more you help the less he'll help himself. Help him downhill, as Reverend Spink says."

The thing became a scandal locally, and Anne Caspar shared something of the feeling of her younger son.

If Ern must starve, why do it at her door?

Happily her husband was, as always, blind to what was going on beneath his nose; and so long as he was not disturbed Anne could stifle any pangs of conscience that might trouble her.

Alf, on the other hand, had no pangs to stifle: for to the hardness of the egoist he added the mercilessness of the degenerate. His mental attitude towards the weak was that of the lower animals towards the wounded of their kind. He wanted them out of the way. Indeed, but for his ever-present sense of the Man in Blue at the corner of the street he would have dealt with Ernie, dragging a broken wing, as the maimed rook is dealt with by its mates.

He eased himself, however, and took characteristic revenge on his brother for the spiritual wrongs that the needy can inflict upon the prosperous by direct action.

At a meeting of the Church of England Men's Society in Old Town, he asked in laboured words and with obvious emotion for the prayers of those present for "a dear one who had gone astrye"; squeezing his eyes and contorting his features in a fashion that led certain ladies of the congregation of St. Michael to whisper among themselves that Mr. Caspar was a very earnest young man.

Even in the C.E.M.S. Alf had few friends and some enemies; and Ernie heard from one of these--whom a sense of duty had compelled to speak--what had passed at the meeting in the Church-room.

Ernie accordingly stopped his brother in the street next day. He looked white and dangerous. Alf knew that look and halted. His heart, too, brought up with a jolt, and then began to patter furiously.

"What's all this, then?" began Ernie, breathing heavily through his nose.

"What's what?"

"At the Men's Society last night. Can't do nothing to help your brother...."

Alf held up a deprecatory hand.

"You don't know what you're talkin about, Ernest," he said solemnly. "I'm doin more for you nor what you know."

Ernie came closer. There was in his eyes a surprising flash and glitter as of steel suddenly unsheathed; and he was kneading his hands. Ern's "punch" had been famous in certain circles in Old Town long before he went into the Army.

Now Alf had a spot upon his soul. He, too, possessed a weakness of a sort that Civilization in its kindest mood covers except in times of extraordinary and brutal stress.

"I know _just_ what you're doing for me, Alf," said Ernie quietly. "Let's have no more of it, see, or I'll bloody well bash you!"

There was no question that Ernie meant what he said. Easy-going though he was, all his life he had been subject to these sudden eruptions which flooded the sunny and somnolent landscape with white-hot lava; as his brother knew to his cost of old.

Alf put his hand up as though he had been already bashed.

"Ow!" he gasped, "Ow!" and passed on swiftly.

That evening he went, as was very proper, to see and consult his spiritual director.

The origin of the Reverend Spink was known to few. He was in reality the son of a Nonconformist grocer in the North, and had been educated with a view to the ministry. His mother had been a governess, a fact of which her son at the outset of his career was perhaps unduly proud; though later in life, when referring to it, he would say with quite unnecessary ferocity, "And I'm not ashamed of it, eether."

After his father's death the superior attraction of what his mother truly called "the church of the gentry" seduced him from his old-time allegiance. With the aid of the local Bishop he was sent to a Theological College, and shortly received what he was fond of naming in militarist moments, "a commission" in the Established Church.

He did not like his brother-curates to have been public-schoolmen, and, when asked, would say that he himself had been educated privately. The Archdeacon, who was not jealous of him, spoke of him to those of his staff he considered on his own social level as "dear brother Spink." On the rare occasions when the Lady Augusta Willcocks asked him to supper, he oiled his hair before the great event and prayed fervently for guidance at his bed-side.

He was a small man, plump and rather puffy, who wore pince-nez, was spruce in his person, and walked about in a brisk, rather bustling way, as though he could not afford to lose a minute if all the souls waiting for him to save them were to be gathered in.

He and Alf were of much the same class if of somewhat different calibre. It was, indeed, from a close observation and imitation of the facial activities of the Reverend Spink at devotion that Alf had been enabled to win the benedictions of the virgins of St. Michael's.

Alf now called on his friend and pitched his tale.

"Past ope," he said lugubriously. "I'm sorry to say it of any man, let alone me own blood brother. But it's my true belief all the same."

"To man, my dear friend," said the Reverend Spink, rising heavenward on his toes with a splendid smile, "much is impossible. Not so to Go-urd."

Alf looked into the fire very religiously. Then he nodded his head and said after an impressive pause,

"I believe you, sir." He lifted his face with a frankness the curate thought beautiful. "Of course I ain't told you all I know about our Ern," he said. "After all, he _is_ me own brother. And, as I often says, blood is thickerer nor what water is."

It was some months later that Alf swaggered into his mother's kitchen late one night.

The knowing look upon his face was mingled with one of obvious relief.

He sat down before the fire and smiled secretively. Once he sighed, and then chuckled till his mother's attention was attracted.

"What is it?" she asked.

Alf nodded his great head.

"Ah," he said. "He'll be easier now, you'll see. That's all. _She's_ left."

His mother, who was stirring something in a saucepan, looked up.

"Who's left?"

"Her Ern got into trouble with."

Anne Caspar ceased to stir.

"What's that?" she asked sharply.

Alf smirked as he stared into the fire.

"One of the flash-girls from the Hotel. I see her off to-day for Mr. Trupp."

Anne Caspar was breathing deep.

"Was Mr. Trupp seeing to her?"

"That's it," said Alf. "Sea View. You know."

Yes, Anne Caspar knew all about Sea View.

"Was that why Ernie left the Hotel?" she asked at last, white as a sword.

"Ah," said Alf, significantly. "It was one why, I reck'n."

Anne Caspar was not critical nor logical nor even just.

Next Saturday, when Ern called to take his father out, his mother met him with terrible hostility.

"She won't come on you now," she said with a white sneer. "You needn't worry no more."

Ernie was taken aback.

"Who won't come on me?" he asked.

"That girl you got into trouble."

Ern turned ghastly. His mother's eyes held his face with cruel tenacity, although she was trembling.

"She's gone away to London," Anne continued,--"with her child."

Ernie threw back his head with a little hoary smile.

"Ah," he said, "Alf," and went out slowly.

His mother's voice pursued him, dreadful in its caressing cruelty.

"I shan't tell dad," she said.

It was not often Ernie drew his sword. Now he knew no mercy.

"You can," he retorted. "He won't believe you."