Mufti Read online

  She nodded her head at him solemnly and waddled on, while Vane stood for a moment looking after her. Assuredly this common old woman possessed in her some spark of the understanding which is almost Divine… And Vane, with a quick flash of insight, saw the proud planting of the pin on Rumfold Hall – a strategic advance, but the casualty list had never been published…

  He strolled along the veranda and into the hall. Sir John with a very small audience – mostly newcomers – around him was holding forth on the new developments in France and Vane paused for a moment to listen.

  “You mark my words, me boys,” he was saying, “this is the big thing. I put my trust in Foch: he’s the fellow who’s got my money on him. No nonsense about Foch. Of course it’s going to be costly, but you can’t have omelettes without breaking eggs. An old proverb, me boys – but a true one.”

  “More than true, Sir John,” remarked Vane quietly. “And one that from time immemorial has proved an immense comfort to the egg.”

  He went on up to his room. It was too early yet to start for Blandford, but Vane was in no mood for his own thoughts. They had reached a stage, indeed, whence he preferred not to follow them further. Doubtless by the time Margaret returned on leave, the beaten track would have revealed itself: until then – cui bono?…

  He looked at his watch, and it occurred to him that he would just have comfortable time to pay a visit to old John before starting on his walk through the woods. From Robert he had found out where the old man was living in the village, and, a few minutes later, he was strolling down the drive towards his house. He found the little garden, just as perfectly kept as had been the one at the Lodge: the white muslin curtains in the front rooms were just as spotless. And old John himself was watering a row of sweet peas as he came to the little gate…

  “Ah! Mr Vane, sir,” he remarked, putting down his can and hobbling forward. “I’m honoured to see you, sir.” Then as he saw the three stars on Vane’s sleeve, he corrected himself. “Captain Vane, sir, I should have said…”

  “I don’t think we’re likely to fall out over that, John,” laughed Vane, “One never knows what anybody is these days. You’re a Colonel one minute, and a subaltern the next.”

  Old John nodded his head thoughtfully. “That’s true, sir – very true. One doesn’t seem to know where one is at all. The world seems topsy-turvy. Things have changed, sir – and I’m thinking the missus and I are getting too old to keep pace with them. Take young Blake, sir – down the village, the grocer’s son. Leastways, when I says grocer, the old man keeps a sort of general shop. Now the boy, sir, is a Captain… I mis’remember what regiment – but he’s a Captain.”

  “And very likely a devilish good one too, John,” said Vane smiling.

  “He is, sir. I’ve seen reports on him – at schools and courses and the like – which say he’s a fine officer. But what’s going to happen afterwards, sir, that’s what I want to know? Is young Bob Blake going to put on his white apron again, and hand the old woman her bit of butter and sugar over the counter? What about that, sir?”

  “I wish to Heaven I could tell you, John,” said Vane. “Bob Blake isn’t the only one, you know.”

  “Them as is sound, sir,” went on the old man, “won’t be affected by it. They won’t have their heads turned by having mixed with the gentry as their equals – like. And the real gentry won’t think no more nor no less of them when they goes back to their proper station… But there’ll be some as will want to stop on in a place where they don’t rightly belong. And it’ll make a world of unhappiness, sir, for all concerned…”

  Unconsciously the old man’s eyes strayed in the direction of Rumfold Hall, and he sighed.

  “You can’t alter the ways of the Lord, sir,” continued old John. “We read in the Book that He made them richer and poorer, and some of one class, and some of another. As long as everybody remembers which class he’s in, he’ll get what happiness he deserves…”

  Vane did not feel inclined to dispute this from the point of view of Holy Writ. The trouble is that it takes a stronger and more level head than is possessed by every boy of twenty to understand that a khaki uniform unlocks doors on which a suit of evening clothes bought off the peg and a made up tie fail to produce any impression. If only he realises that those doors are not worth the trouble of trying to unlock, all will be well for him; if he doesn’t, he will be the sufferer… Which is doubtless utterly wrong, but such is the Law and the Prophets.

  “I reckons there are troublous times ahead of us, sir,” went on the old man. “More troublous than any we are going through now – though them’s bad enough, in all conscience. Why, only the other evening, I was down at the Fiddlers’ Arms, for a glass of what they do call beer – ’tis dreadful stuff, sir, that there Government beer…” Old John sighed mournfully at the thought of what had been. “I was sitting in there, as I says, when in comes some young feller from Grant’s garage, up the road. Dressed classy he was – trying to ape his betters – with a yellow forefinger from smoking them damned stinking fags – and one of them stuck behind his ear.

  “‘Hullo, gaffer,’ he says, ‘how’s the turnips?’

  “‘Looking worse in France than they do in England,’ says I. ‘Have you been to see?’

  “That hit him, sir, that did,” chuckled old John. “He fair squirmed for a moment, while the others laughed. ‘Don’t you know I’m on work of national importance?’ he says. ‘I’m exempted.’

  “‘The only work of national importance you’re ever likely to do, my lad,’ says I, ‘won’t be done till you’re dead. And not then if you’re buried proper.’

  “‘What do you mean?’ he asks.

  “‘You might help the turnips you’re so anxious about,’ says I, ‘if they used you as manure.’” Old John, completely overcome by the remembrance of this shaft, laughed uproariously.

  “You should have seen his face, sir,” he went on when he had partially recovered. “He got redder and redder, and then he suddenly says, ’e says, ‘Weren’t you the lodge keeper up at Rumfold Hall?’

  “‘I was,’ I answered quiet like, because I thought young Master Impudence was getting on dangerous ground.

  “‘One of the poor wretched slaves,’ he sneers, ‘of a bloated aristocrat… We’re going to alter all that,’ he goes on, and then for a few minutes I let him talk. He and his precious friends were going to see that all that wretched oppression ceased, and then he finished up by calling me a slave again, and sneering at his Lordship.”

  Old John spat reflectively. “Well, sir, I stopped him then. In my presence no man may sneer at his Lordship – certainly not a callow pup like him. His Lordship is a fine man and a good man, and I was his servant.” The old man spoke with a simple dignity that impressed Vane. “I stopped him, sir,” he continued, “and then I told him what I thought of him. I said to him, I said, ‘Young man, I’ve listened to your damned nonsense for five minutes – now you listen to me. When you – with your face all covered with pimples, and your skin all muddy and sallow – start talking as you’ve been talking, there’s only one thing should be done. Your mother should take your trousers down and smack you with a hair brush; though likely you’d cry with fright before she started. I was his Lordship’s servant for forty-two years, and I’m prouder of that fact than anyone is likely to be over anything you do in your life. And if his Lordship came in at that door now, he’d meet me as a man meets a man. Whereas you – you’d run round him sniffing like the lickspittle you are – and if he didn’t tread on you, you’d go and brag to all your other pimply friends that you’d been talking to an Earl…’”

  “Bravo! old John…bravo!” said Vane quietly. “What did the whelp do?”

  “Tried to laugh sarcastic, sir, and then slunk out of the door.” The old man lit his pipe with his gnarled, trembling fingers. “It’s coming, sir – perhaps not in my time
– but it’s coming. Big trouble… All those youngsters with their smattering of edication, and their airs and their conceits and their ‘I’m as good as you.’” He fell silent and stared across the road with a troubled look in his eyes. “Yes, sir,” he repeated, “there be bad days coming for England – terrible bad – unless folks pull themselves together…”

  “Perhaps the Army may help ’em when it comes back,” said Vane.

  “May be, sir, may be.” Old John shook his head doubtfully. “Perhaps so. Anyways, let’s hope so, sir.’’

  “Amen,” answered Vane with sudden earnestness.

  And then for a while they talked of the soldier son who had been killed. With a proud lift to his tired, bent shoulders old John brought out the letter written by his platoon officer, and showed it to the man who had penned a score of similar documents. It was well thumbed and tattered, and if ever Vane had experienced a sense of irritation at the exertion of writing to some dead boy’s parents or wife he was amply repaid now. Such a little trouble really; such a wonderful return of gratitude even though it be unknown and unacknowledged… “You’ll see there, sir,” said the old man, “what his officer said. I can’t see myself without my glasses – but you read it, sir, you read it… ‘A magnificent soldier, an example to the platoon. I should have recommended him for the stripe.’ How’s that, sir…? And then there’s another bit… ‘Men like him can’t be replaced.’ Eh! my boy… Can’t be replaced. You couldn’t say that, sir, about yon pimply ferret I was telling you about.”

  “You could not, old John,” said Vane. “You could not.” He stood up and gave the letter back. “It’s a fine letter; a letter any parent might be proud to get about his son.”

  “Aye,” said the old man, “he was a good boy was Bob. None o’ this new-fangled nonsense about him.” He put the letter carefully in his pocket. “Mother and me, sir, we often just looks at it of an evening. It sort of comforts her… Somehow it’s hard to think of him dead…” His lips quivered for a moment, and then suddenly he turned fiercely on Vane. “And yet, I tells you, sir, that I’d sooner Bob was dead over yonder – aye – I’d sooner see him lying dead at my feet, than that he should ever have learned such doctrines as be flying about these days.”

  Thus did Vane leave the old man, and as he walked down the road he saw him still standing by his gate thumping with his stick on the pavement, and shaking his head slowly. It was only when Vane got to the turning that old John picked up his can and continued his interrupted watering… And it seemed to Vane that he had advanced another step towards finding himself.

  Chapter 9

  Vane, conscious that he was a little early for lunch, idled his way through the woods. He was looking forward, with a pleasure he did not attempt to analyse, to seeing Joan in the setting where she belonged. And if occasionally the thought intruded itself that it might be advisable to take a few mental compass bearings and to ascertain his exact position before going any further, he dismissed them as ridiculous. Such thoughts have been similarly dismissed before… It was just as Vane was abusing himself heartily for being an ass that he saw her coming towards him through a clearing in the undergrowth. She caught sight of him at the same moment and stopped short with a swift frown.

  “I didn’t know you knew this path,” she said as he came up to her.

  “I’m sorry – but I do. You see, I knew Rumfold pretty well in the old days… Is that the reason of the frown?”

  “I wasn’t particularly anxious to see you or anybody,” she remarked uncompromisingly. “I wanted to try to think something out…”

  “Then we are a well met pair,” laughed Vane. “I will walk a few paces behind you, and we will meditate.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” said Joan still more uncompromisingly. “And anyway you’re very early for lunch.” She looked at her wrist watch… “I said one o’clock and it’s only half past twelve. The best people don’t come before they’re asked…

  “I throw myself on the mercy of the court,” pleaded Vane solemnly. “I’ll sit on this side of the bush and you sit on the other and in a quarter of an hour we will meet unexpectedly with all the usual symptoms of affection and joy…”

  The girl was slowly retracing her steps, with Vane just behind her, and suddenly through an opening in the trees Blandford came in sight. It was not the usual view that most people got, because the path through the little copse was not very well known – but from nowhere could the house be seen to better advantage. The sheet of placid, unruffled water with its low red boathouse: the rolling stretch of green sweeping up from it to the house broken only by the one terrace above the tennis lawns; the rose garden, a feast of glorious colour, and then the house itself with its queer turrets and spires and the giant trees beyond it; all combined to make an unforgettable picture.

  Joan had stopped and Vane stood silently beside her. She was taking in every detail of the scene, and Vane, glancing at her quickly, surprised a look of almost brooding fierceness in her grey eyes. It was a look of protection, of ownership, of fear, all combined: a look such as a tigress might give if her young were threatened… And suddenly there recurred to his mind that phrase in Margaret’s letter about financial trouble at Blandford. It had not impressed him particularly when he read it; now he found himself wondering…

  “Isn’t it glorious?” The girl was speaking very low, as if unconscious that she had a listener. Then she turned on Vane swiftly. “Look at that!” she cried, and her arm swept the whole perfect vista. “Isn’t it worth while doing anything – anything at all – to keep that as one’s own? That has belonged to us for five hundred years – and now!… My God! just think of a second Sir John Patterdale – here” – the brooding wild mother look was in her eyes again, and her lips were shut tight.

  Vane moved restlessly beside her. He felt that the situation was delicate; that it was only his unexpected and unwelcome arrival on the scene that had made her take him into his confidence. Evidently there was something gravely the matter; equally evidently it was nothing to do with him…

  “I hope there’s no chance of such a tragedy as that,” he said gravely.

  She turned and faced him. “There’s every chance,” she cried fiercely. “Dad is up against it – I know he is, though he doesn’t say much. And this morning…” she bit her lip, and once more her eyes rested on the old house. “Oh! what’s the good of talking?” she went on after a moment. “What has to be – has to be; but, oh! it makes me mad to think of it. What good does it do, what purpose in the scheme of things you may talk about, does it serve to turn out a man, who is beloved for miles around, and put in his place some wretched pork butcher who has made millions selling cat’s meat as sausages?”

  She faced Vane defiantly, and he wisely remained silent.

  “You may call it what you like,” she stormed; “but it’s practically turning him out. Is it a crime to own land, and a virtue to make a fortune out of your neighbours in trade? Dad has never swindled a soul. He’s let his tenants down easy all through the war when they’ve had difficulties over their rent; he’s just idolised by them all. And now he’s got to go – unless…” She paused and her two hands clenched suddenly. Then she continued, and her voice was quite calm. “I know I’m talking rot – so you needn’t pay any attention. The great thinkers are all agreed – aren’t they? – that the present land system is wrong – and they must know, of course. But I’m not a great thinker, and I can’t get beyond the fact that it’s not going to increase anybody’s happiness and there are a good many to be considered – if Dad goes, and a pork butcher comes in… And that’s that…”

  “Supposing,” said Vane curiously, “it wasn’t a pork butcher? Suppose it was someone who – well, let’s say whom you wouldn’t mind going in to dinner with.”

  “It would be just the same,” she answered after a moment. “Just the same. It’s ours, don’t you see? – it’s ours
. It’s always been ours.” And the brooding, animal look had come back into her eyes…

  Then with a laugh she turned to him. “Come on; you’ve got to make a bow to Aunt Jane. Mind you tell her you’ve killed a lot of Germans. She’ll adore you for ever…”

  She threw off her fit of depression and chatted gaily all the way up to the house.

  “I’ve told Dad you’re a very serious young man,” she remarked, as they reached the drive; “so you’d better live up to your reputation.”

  Vane groaned. “Your sins be upon your own head,” he remarked, “I’ve already had one serious dissertation this morning from old John, who used to be lodgekeeper at Rumfold.”

  “I know him well,” cried the girl. “A dear old man…”

  “Who shares your views on the land question,” said Vane with a smile.

  She stopped and faced him. “Don’t you?” she demanded quietly.

  “In your own words, Joan – I am a very serious young man; and I am seeking for knowledge.”

  For a moment she seemed about to reply, and then, with a short laugh, she turned on her heel and walked on. It was just as they were entering the drawing-room that she looked at him over her shoulder. “I hope your search will be successful,” she remarked; “and I hope still more that when it is successful you won’t commit suicide. To have knowledge, to know today what is the truth, would be, I think, the most terrible burden any man could bear. Have you ever thought how tired God must be?”

  Before he could answer she was shouting down her aunt’s ear-trumpet. And Vane was left wondering at the strange mixture which went to make up Joan Devereux.

  Sir James was cordially delighted to see him, especially when he discovered that Vane knew Mr Trent.

  “Where’s the little girl?” he asked as they sat down to luncheon. “Margaret was her name, I think.”

  To his intense annoyance Vane found himself colouring slightly, and at the same moment he became acutely aware that a pair of grey eyes were fixed on him from the other side of the table.