Mufti Page 12

  “She is nursing at Etaples, I believe,” he answered casually, but a soft gurgle of laughter told him it was useless.

  “Captain Vane, Dad, is the soul of discretion,” mocked Joan. “I shouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t nursed by her…”

  “Devilish nice girl to be nursed by, too, my dear,” chuckled her father, “from what I remember of her. What do you think, Vane?” He was mercifully spared the necessity of answering by the intervention of Aunt Jane, who had pursued her own train of thought, blissfully unconscious of any change of conversation.

  “How many of the brutes did you say you’d killed, young man?” she boomed at him, at the same time putting her ear-trumpet at the “ready.”

  “Two for certain,” howled Vane; “perhaps three.”

  She resumed her lunch, and Sir James laughed. “My sister,” he remarked, “is full of war… Rather fuller – like a good many of those who have stayed behind – than you fellows…”

  “It’s very much nicer,” said Vane with a laugh, “to kill – even a Boche – in imagination than in reality… Though I’ve seen many men,” he added thoughtfully, “go blood mad.”

  “Do you remember that description of Kipling’s,” said Sir James, “of the scrap between the Black Tyrone and the Pathans? Mulvaney was sick, and Ortheris cursed, and Learoyd sang hymns – wasn’t it?”

  “I’ve seen them all those ways,” said Vane thoughtfully, “and the worst of the lot are the silent ones… There was one fellow I had who never uttered a word from the time we went over till the finish, and he never – if he could avoid it – struck a man anywhere except in the stomach… And incidentally he could quote more from the Bible than most Bishops… In fact, if he ever did speak, so I’m told, when he was fighting it was just to remark, ‘And the Lord said’ – as he stabbed.”

  Sir James nodded, and then half-closed his eyes. “One just can’t get it,” he said. “None of us who haven’t been there will ever get it – so I suppose it’s not much use trying. But one can’t help thinking that if only a few of the people who count over here could go and see, it might make a difference. We might not be having so much trouble…”

  “See the reality and clear away the humbug,” said Vane. “Can’t be done, Sir James. I know Staff Officers who would willingly give a year’s pay to shepherd a personally conducted Cook’s party to France of the British working man. They get their legs pulled right and left by everybody out there; and do you wonder?” He laughed shortly. “Tommy’s no fool: six pounds a week instead of a shilling a day. And comparisons are odious.”

  “But couldn’t they be taken really into things?” asked his host.

  “I can’t quite see the party popping the parapet,” grinned Vane. “It’s not a thing which anyone does for pleasure…”

  It was at that moment that with a loud booming noise Aunt Jane again contributed to the conversation. “I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time out there, young man.”

  “She means that two Germans and one doubtful isn’t enough,” gurgled Joan, as she saw Vane’s look of bewilderment. To his relief the old lady did not adjust her trumpet, so he assumed rightly that he would be allowed to suffer her displeasure in silence…

  “Well,” said Sir James after a pause. “I suppose there are unsurmountable difficulties in making people understand. But if I had my way I’d take some of these blackguards who are fattening on the country’s helplessness and I’d put ’em in the front line trenches…”

  “With a trench mortar bombardment on,” supplemented Vane laughing.

  “And I’d let ’em stop there and rot,” continued Sir James. “It’s wicked; it’s vile; it’s abominable – exploiting their country’s danger for their own pockets… What’s going to happen when the war is over, God alone knows.”

  “Your fish will get cold, Daddy, unless you go on with it,” said Joan soothingly.

  But Sir James was started on his favourite hobby. It would have taken more than the possibility of cold fish to stem the torrent, and Vane, supported by the most fleeting of winks from Joan, made no attempt to do so. He had heard it all before; the worthy Baronet’s views were such as are delivered daily by the old order in every part of the country. And the thing that perplexed Vane more and more as he listened, and periodically returned a non-committal “Yes” or “No,” was where the fallacy lay. These were the views he had been brought up on; they were the views with which, in his heart of hearts, he agreed. And yet he felt dimly that there must be another side to the question: he knew there was another side. Otherwise…but Sir James, when he got into his stride, did not permit much meditation on the part of his audience.

  “Organised labour,” he thundered, “has found itself, because we are at war, all powerful. We depend on the organised workers, and they know it. The lives of our men are at stake… Their brothers, mark you, Vane. What do they care? Not a damn, sir, not a damn. More money, money – that’s all they want. They know the State won’t dare a lock-out – and they trade on it… Why don’t they conscript ’em, sir I – why don’t they put the whole cursed crowd into khaki? Then if they strike send ’em over into the trenches as I said, and let ’em rot there. That would soon bring ’em to their senses…” Sir James attacked his chicken viciously.

  “What’s going to happen,” he went on after a moment, “when we return to peace conditions? The private employer can’t pay these inflated wages… He simply can’t do it, and that’s an end of it. But now, of necessity it’s been a case of surrender – surrender – surrender to any demands the blackguards like to put up. And they’ve got it each time. Do you suppose they’re going to stop?”

  “But surely there’s such a thing as common sense,” interrupted Vane. “Surely the matter can be put in front of them so that they will understand?… If not, it’s a pretty useful confession of ineptitude.”

  Sir James laughed shortly. “There are several floating round at the moment… But it isn’t quite as easy as all that, my dear fellow. In times of unrest power comes automatically more and more into the hands of the man who can talk; men like Ramage, and others of his kidney. A few meaningless but high flown phrases; a few such parrot cries as ‘Down with the Capitalist and the Future is for the Worker,’ and you’ve got even the steadiest man unsettled… Especially if he’s one of a crowd; mob psychology is the devil…” Sir James paused and stared out of the window. “I don’t fear for the decent fellow in the long run; it’s in the early stages he may get blown…”

  “What are you two men talking about so busily?” Aunt Jane once again presented her trumpet to Vane.

  “Labour trouble, Miss Devereux,” he roared. “Trouble in the labour market.”

  The old lady’s face set grimly. “My convictions on that are well known,” she boomed. “Put them in a row against a wall and shoot them.”

  “My sister’s panacea for all evil,” said Sir James with a smile.

  “There are others as well as Miss Devereux who would recommend the same thing,” said Vane with a short laugh.

  Shoot ’em,” rasped the old lady; “shoot ’em, and go on shooting till there are no more left to shoot. I’m sure we’d get along very well without the brutes.”

  “What’s going to stop ’em?” Sir James returned to his former question. “Nothing – until they’ve tried everything, and found they’re wrong. And while they’re finding out the simple fact that no employer can pay a guinea for a pound’s worth of work the country will crash. We’ll have anarchy, Vane – Bolshevism like Russia, unless a miracle saves us… Financed by the Boche probably into the bargain.”

  “Dear old Daddy,” laughed Joan. “You’re such an optimist, aren’t you?”

  “It’s no laughing matter, my dear,” snorted her father. “There’s a wave of madness over the world... absolute madness. The more you give into them – the more decently you treat ’em
– the more they want… People talk about the old order changing; what I want to know is what they’re going to put in its place? When they’ve broken up the Empire and reduced England to a fifth-rate Power, they’ll probably want the old order back… It’ll be too late to want then.”

  “I gather, Sir James, that you are not exactly a Socialist,” murmured Vane gravely, with a side glance at Joan.

  His host rose to the bait. “I – a Socialist – I! Why – why!…” he spluttered, and then he saw his daughter’s face. She was dimpling with laughter, and suddenly Sir James laughed too.

  “You nearly had me then, my boy,” he cried; “very nearly. But it’s on that point, Vane, that I get so wild with these intellectual men – men who should know better. Men like Ramage, and Johnson and all that lot. They know themselves that Socialism is a wild impossibility; they know that equality is out of the question, and yet they preach it to men who have not got their brains. It’s a dangerously attractive doctrine; the working man who sees a motor flash past him wouldn’t be human if he didn’t feel a tinge of envy… But the Almighty has decreed that it should be so and it’s flying in His Face to try to change it.”

  Vane looked thoughtfully at his host. “I fancy the Almighty’s dictates are less likely to be questioned by the motor car owner than by the working man.”

  “I agree with you, Vane,” returned Sir James at once. “But that doesn’t alter the principle of the thing… By all means improve their conditions…give them better houses…stop sweated labour. That is our privilege and our duty. But if they continue on their present line, they’ll soon find the difference. Things we did for ’em before, they’ll have to whistle for in the future.”

  “You’re getting your money’s worth this time, aren’t you, Captain Vane?” said Joan demurely.

  But Vane only smiled at her gravely and did not answer. Here were the views, crudely expressed, perhaps, of the ordinary landed gentleman. The man who of all others most typically represented feudalism. Benevolent, perhaps – but feudalism… The old order. “They talk about ‘back to the land,’” snorted Sir James suddenly, “as the sovereign cure for all evils. You can take it from me, Vane, that except in a few isolated localities the system of small holdings is utterly uneconomical and unsuccessful. It means ceaseless work, and a mere pittance in return. You know Northern France – well, you’ve got the small holdings scheme in full blast there. What time do they get up in the morning; what time do they go to bed at night? What do they live on? And from what you know of your own fellow countrymen, do you think any large percentage would tackle such a life? Believe me, these days, none of us want to keep land very much.” Sir James frowned slightly. “Unless one has old family traditions… And even those will have to go by the board – sooner or later… It doesn’t pay, Vane, you can take it from me… And to split it up into small holdings, and invite men of varying degrees of inefficiency to earn a livelihood on it, won’t help matters.”

  Sir James pushed back his chair and they rose from the table.

  “I have victimised you enough, my dear boy,” he remarked. “I think Joan had better carry on the good work.” She put her arm round his waist, and her father looked down at her lovingly. “What are you going to do with him, old lady?”

  “Are you busy, Dad, this afternoon?” she asked.

  Sir James nodded, and he seemed to Vane to have grown very old. “The old order is changing – what are they going to put in its place?…” A sudden fear caught him in its grip. He turned quickly and stared out of the window; at the wonderful bit of England that lay before him. Quiet and smiling in the warm sun, it lay there – a symbol of the thing for which Englishmen have laid down their lives since time started. At that very second men were dying for it – over the water. Was it all to be in vain?

  “Yes, girlie,” Sir James was speaking. “I’ve got a lot of business to attend to. That wretched fellow Norton can’t pay his rent again…”

  “Oh! Dad, he is a bit steep,” cried the girl. “That’s the third time.”

  Sir James laughed. “I know, my dear; but things are bad. After all, he has lost one of his sons in Mesopotamia.”

  “A drunken waster,” cried the girl.

  “He died, Joan,” said her father simply. “No man may do more.”

  “You’re too kind-hearted, Dad,” she said, patting his arm, and looking up into his face. “I wouldn’t be.”

  Sir James laughed. “Oh! yes, you would. Besides, I shan’t have a chance much longer.” With a quick sigh, he bent and kissed her. “Run along and take Vane out on the lake. I’ll come down later and shout at you from the bank.” She watched her father leave the room, and then she turned to Vane.

  “Would you care to come on the lake?” she asked, and in her eyes there was a strange, inscrutable look which set him wondering.

  “I’d love it,” said Vane. He followed her into the open window and together they stepped on to the lawn.

  Aunt Jane had already taken her usual position, preparatory to her afternoon nap; but Vane’s sudden appearance apparently stirred some train of thought in her mind. As he came up to her she adjusted her trumpet and boomed. “Shoot ’em, young man – shoot ’em until there are none left.”

  “Why, certainly, Miss Devereux,” he shouted. “That’s what I think.” She nodded her approval at meeting such a kindred spirit, and replaced the foghorn on the ground beside her. He felt that his poor record of dead Huns was forgiven him, and rejoined Joan with a smile.

  “How easy it would be, if that was the way,” she said quietly. “Dear old Aunt Jane – I remember sitting up with her most of one night, trying to comfort her, when her pug dog went lame on one foot.”

  Vane laughed, and as they came to a turn in the path, they looked back. The old lady was already dozing gently – at peace with all the world.

  Chapter 10

  “If you say one word to me this afternoon which might even be remotely twisted into being serious,” said Joan, “I shall upset you in the middle of the lake.”

  An inspection of the general lines of the boat prevented Vane from taking the threat too seriously; with anything approaching luck a party of four could have crossed the Atlantic in it. Innumerable cushions scattered promiscuously served to make it comfortable, and as the girl spoke Vane from his seat in the stern was helping to push the boat from the boathouse.

  “You terrify me, lady,” he murmured. “What shall I talk to you about?”

  The girl was pulling lazily at the oars, and slowly they drifted out into the sunshine. “So she who must be obeyed is Margaret Trent, is she?

  “The evidence seems a trifle slight,” said Vane. “But as I rather gather you’re an insistent sort of person, I will plead guilty at once, to save bother.”

  “You think I generally get my own way, do you?”

  “I do,” answered Vane. “Don’t you?”

  The girl ignored the question. “What is she like? I’ve often heard dad speak about Mr Trent; and I think she came once to Blandford, when I was away.”

  “I gather that you were being finished.” Vane started filling his pipe. “At least she said so in a letter I got this morning.”

  Joan looked at him for a moment. “Did you write to her about me?”

  “I don’t think she even knows you’re at home,” said Vane shortly, “much less that I’ve met you.”

  “Would you mind her knowing?” persisted the girl.

  “Why on earth should I?” demanded Vane with a look of blank surprise.

  She took a few strokes, and then rested on her oars again. “There are people,” she said calmly, “who consider I’m the limit – a nasty, fast hussy…”

  “What appalling affectation on your part,” jeered Vane lighting his pipe. “What do you do to keep up your reputation – sell flags in Leicester Square on flag days?�
� The girl’s attention seemed to be concentrated on a patch of reeds where a water-hen was becoming vociferous. “Or do you pursue the line taken up by a woman I met last time I was on leave? She was a Wraf or a Wren or something of that kind, and at the time she was in mufti. But to show how up to date she was she had assimilated the jargon, so to speak, of the mechanics she worked with. It almost gave me a shock when she said to me in a confidential aside at a mutual friend’s house, ‘Have you ever sat down to a more perfectly bloody tea?’”

  “I think,” said Joan with her eyes still fixed on the reeds, “that that is beastly. It’s not smart, and it does not attract men…”

  “You’re perfectly right there,” returned Vane, grimly. “However, arising out of that remark, is your whole object in life to attract men?”

  “Of course it is. It’s the sole object of nine women out of ten. Why ask such absurd questions?”

  “I sit rebuked,” murmured Vane. “But to return – in what way do your charitable friends consider you the limit?”

  “I happen to be natural,” said Joan, “and at times that’s very dangerous. I’m not the sort of natural, you know, that loves cows and a country life, and gives the chickens their hard-boiled eggs, or whatever they eat, at five in the morning.”

  “But you like Blandford,” said Vane incautiously.

  “Blandford!” A passionate look came into her face, as her eyes looking over his head rested on the old house. “Blandford is just part of me. It’s different. Besides, the cow man hasn’t been called up,” she added inconsequently. “He’s sixty-three.”

  “A most tactful proceeding,” said Vane, skating away from thin ice.

  “I’m natural in another way,” she went on after a short silence. “If I want to do a thing – I generally do it. For instance, if I want to go and talk to a man in his rooms, I do so. Why shouldn’t I? If I want to dance a skirt dance in a London ballroom, I do it. But some people seem to think it’s fast. I made quite a lot of money once dancing at a restaurant with a man, you know – in between the tables. Of course we wore masks, because it might have embarrassed some of the diners to recognise me.” The oars had dropped unheeded from her hands, and she leaned forward, looking at Vane with mocking eyes. “I just loved it.”