CHAPTER XLVIII

TWO MEETINGS

After thirty years of following the wagon, Colonel Lewknor and his wife had returned home from India on a pittance of a pension.

There was a grandson now, and that grandson had to be sent to Eton like his father and his grandfather before him. Mrs. Lewknor was determined upon that. But the grandson's father was only a Captain in the Indian Army; ways and means had to be found; and openings are not many in modern life for a retired couple on the wrong side of fifty.

Then the Colonel's health became uncertain, and he was sent down to Trupp of Beachbourne.

While there Mrs. Lewknor caught influenza, and Mr. Trupp attended both.

A delightful intimacy sprang up between the three. The Colonel's sardonic humour and detached outlook upon life appealed to the great surgeon almost as much as did Mrs. Lewknor's experience and width of view to his wife.

Mr. Trupp attended his patients once a day for a fortnight.

When he paid his last visit, Mrs. Lewknor thanked him and asked him for his account.

"I'll see," answered Mr. Trupp. "What are you going to do when you leave here?"

"Go back to London and look out for a job, I suppose."

Mr. Trupp shook his head.

"The Colonel mustn't go back to London," he said. "Why not stay here and find your job here?"

He expounded his pet plan, cherished faithfully for years, of an Open-Air Hostel for his tuberculous patients.

"There's a site available in Coombe-in-the-Cliff," he said, "just at the back. Build a Home. I'll fill it for you. You'll make a lot of money."

Mrs. Lewknor was thrilled at the project. It was at least a great adventure; and, coming of the lion-hearted race that conquered Canaan, she had no fears.

The Colonel, it is true, was more tempered in his enthusiasm, but then, as he was fond of saying,

"I haven't the courage of a louse. No man has."

And he was content to stand aside, as often before, and watch his wife's audacities with admiration not untinged with irony.

She took a tiny house in Holywell for herself and her husband, set out to raise money with which to buy the site in Coombe-in-the-Cliff, and sat down in earnest to work out the scheme in co-operation with the inspirer of it.

Her visits to Old Town to consult Mr. Trupp were almost daily. In fine weather she would walk across the Golf Links; and when the turf was like a soaped sponge she would go round by the road through Beech-hangar.

Here one bitter April afternoon she marked a tall bowed old man walking dreamily under the beech-trees, the light falling through the fine net-work of twigs on his uplifted face. His hands were behind him, and he wore an old-fashioned roomy tail-coat.

Mrs. Lewknor's swift feminine eyes took him in at a glance.

He was a gentleman; he lived out of the world; and there was somebody at home who cared for him: for it was clear that he was not the kind of man who would care for himself.

As she drew near, she glanced away, and yet confirmed her impression with that trick of the well-bred woman who somehow sees without looking.

Then, as she passed him, a wave of recognition overwhelmed her, and she stopped suddenly.

"Mr. Edward Caspar!" she cried.

He, too, had half turned.

"I was wondering if you'd remember me," he rumbled, beaming kindly down on the little lady through gold-rimmed spectacles. "You still walk as if you were dancing."

"Who am I?" she asked.

"I don't know," he answered. "Thirty years ago you were Rachel Solomons."

The profound spiritual affinity which had made itself felt in that unforgettable moment under the palms in Grosvenor Square long ago manifested itself instantly.

Time was not. Only two spirits were, who recognized the familiar beat of each other's wings in the dark spaces of Eternity.

She regarded him affectionately.

"How's it gone?" she asked.

"Not so bad, I suppose," he mused. "Better than I expected, if worse than I hoped. I'm dreaming still instead of doing."

"Any big things in your life?"

"One."

"A woman?" fearlessly.

"No. My son. And he was taken from me--for ever, I thought at the time. And after that I made the Discovery."

The little lady nodded.

"It's worth making," she said.

"Yes," replied the old man with the sudden leaping enthusiasm she remembered so well of old, and the same spreading flush, "and you don't make it till you've lost everything. That's the condition."

He had turned and was rambling along at her side, as if he had belonged to her for the thirty years in which they had not met.

They walked together thus down the New Road, along Rectory Walk, and turned into Church Street.

Anne Caspar from the bedroom-window saw them pass and wondered.

They were not talking: Anne was glad of that. Her Ned was ambling along, apparently unaware of the little lady, strong as she was fine, walking at his side.

The pair turned down the hill at Billing's Corner.

It was afternoon, and the street was almost empty save for a shabby man walking up the hill towards them from the _Star_.

They did not see him, absorbed more in themselves than in each other; but he saw them and stepped into the porch of the parish-church as though to avoid them.

Just opposite the porch Edward Caspar came to himself and said good-bye with grunts.

Mrs. Lewknor looked after his heavy figure toiling laboriously up the hill.

Then her eyes caught the eyes peeping at her from the porch--eyes that possessed the same wistful quality as those of the man who had just left her side: eyes somehow familiar that were smiling at her.

"Why, Caspar!" she cried, and crossed the road.

The man left the beam against which he was leaning, and came towards her suddenly. There was a curious wan smile upon his face. He lurched, held out his hand like a child for help, and fell his length in the road.

A man from the iron-monger's shop opposite came out.

"He's out of work," he said. "He's half-starved. There's a lot the same. Funny world."

Mrs. Lewknor was horrified.

"Take him into the porch," she cried, "out of the road. He'll be run over here."

"No, not into the church!" came an authoritative voice. "I know the man. The church is a sacred edifice."

It was the Archdeacon. He bent his somewhat dandiacal figure elaborately, put his nose close to Ernie's lips, and sniffed deliberately.

"No, sir, it's not that," said the iron-monger shortly. "It's food he wants."

"Ah," said the Archdeacon, rising in gaitered majesty, his painful duty done. "I'm glad to heah it."

Mrs. Lewknor was trembling with fury.

Ernie, on his back in the mud, stirred and opened his eyes.

He saw wavering faces all about him.

"Guess I'm all right now," he said.

"Give him air!" ordered the Archdeacon magnificently. "Ayah, I say!" and he made a sweeping gesture with his arm to brush away the crowd who were not there.

"He's had plenty of air," retorted Mrs. Lewknor with the curt brutality that distinguished her on rare occasions. "What he wants is something more solid than he gets from the pulpit."

The Archdeacon eyed her _de-haut-en-bas_. From his undergraduate days he had believed implicitly in the power of his eye to master and demoralize his enemies and those of his Church, and the Lady Augusta Willcocks had loyally fostered his belief.

Now, however, his antagonist refused to be demoralized.

He saw that she was a lady, suspected that she might be "somebody," and with that fine flair for the things of this world which characterize the successful of his profession, he retired on gaitered legs with a somewhat theatrical dignity.

Ernie was helped to his feet.

A car, coming slowly down the hill, ground to a halt.

Mr. Trupp leaned out and took in the scene.

"Ernie, get up alongside your brother, will you?" he said. "Mrs. Lewknor!"

The car rolled on its way with its two new occupants.

"He don't want me," muttered Mr. Trupp in his companion's ear. "He wants my cook."

Mrs. Lewknor, still seething, recorded the incident.

"The Church is the limit," she snapped. "I could have pushed that man over in the mud."

"Yes," said Mr. Trupp soothingly. "But you mustn't take the Church too seriously. The right way to look on it is as rather a bad joke."

That evening, after his coffee, Mr. Trupp laid down his evening paper and stared long into the fire as his manner was.

His wife and daughter waited for the word that was slowly brewing.

It came in time.

"Men grow when they've got to," he announced at last with humorous sententiousness.

"They can't grow much without food," said Bess with warmth. The incident of the afternoon had stirred her generous young soul to the deeps. "It's monstrous!"

"It is," her father agreed. "And it's all because Civilization has thrown up a class that's above the Discipline it imposes upon others."

Mrs. Trupp eyed her husband sternly.

"William Trupp!" she said, "I believe you're a Socialist."

"My dear," he answered, "I've been told that before."

"Bess and I don't want to hear your viewy views," continued the lady. "We want to talk about flesh-and-blood Ernie and how to help him."

"Hear! hear!" said Bess.

"My dears," replied the annoying man, "it's just Ernie I'm talking about. He's growing again. My old friend Necessity's at work on him once more."