E-text prepared by Al Haines



THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY

by

L. ALLEN HARKER







JOHN MURRAY




TO

MABEL VIOLET JEANS.

  For that dread "move" you saw me through,
  For all the things you found to do.
  For china washed and pictures hung--
  And oh, those books, the hours among!
  For merry heart that goes all day,
  For jest that turns work into play,
  For all the dust and dusters shared,
  For that dear self you never spared:
  And most of all, that all of it
  Was light with laughter, spiced with wit--
  Take, dear, my love, and with it take
  The little book you helped to make.




First Edition  . . . . . . .  July, 1913
Cheaper Edition  . . . . . .  September, 1919
Reprinted  . . . . . . . . .  January, 1925




THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY


CHAPTER I

ELOQUENT

"Father, what d'you think we'd better call him?" Mrs Gallup asked, when
the baby was a week old; "have you thought of a name?"

"I've _fixed_ on a name," her husband replied, triumphantly.  "The
child shall be called Eloquent."

"Eloquent," Mrs Gallup repeated, dubiously.  "That's a queer name,
isn't it?  'Tisn't a name at all, not really."

"It's going to be my son's name, anyhow," Mr Gallup retorted,
positively.  "I've thought the matter out, most careful I've considered
it, and that's the name my son's got to be called . . .  Eloquent
Gallup he'll be, and a very good name too."

"But why Eloquent?" Mrs Gallup persisted.  "How d'you know as he'll
_be_ eloquent? an' if he isn't, that name'll make him a laughing-stock.
Suppose he was to grow up one of them say-nothing-to-nobody sort of
chaps, always looking down his nose, and afraid to say 'Bo' to a goose:
what's he to _do_ with such a name?"

"There's no fear my son will grow up a-say-nothing-to-nobody sort of
chap," said Mr Gallup, boastfully.  "I'll take care of that.  Now you
listen to me, mother.  You know the proverb 'Give a dog a bad name'----"

"I never said it was a bad name," Mrs Gallup pleaded.

"I should think you didn't--but look here, if it's true of a bad name,
mustn't it be equally true of a good one?  Why, it's argument, it's
logic, that is.  Call a boy Eloquent and ten to one he'll _be_
eloquent, don't you see?"

"But what d'you want him to be eloquent for?" Mrs Gallup enquired
almost tearfully.  "What good will it do him--precious lamb?"

"There's others to be thought of as well as 'im," Mr Gallup remarked,
mysteriously.

"Who?  More children?" asked Mrs Gallup.  "I don't see as he'd need to
be eloquent just to mind his little brother or sister."

"Ellen Gallup, you listen to me.  That babe lying there on your knee
with a red face all puckered up is going to sway the multitude."  Mrs
Gallup gasped, and clutched her baby closer.  "He's going to be one of
those whose voice shall ring clarion-like"--here Mr Gallup
unconsciously raised his own, and the baby stirred uneasily--"over"--he
paused for a simile--he had been going to say "land and sea," but it
didn't finish the sentence to his liking, "far and wide," he concluded,
rather lamely.

Mrs Gallup made no remark, so he continued: "Eloquent Gallup shall be a
politician.  Some day he'll stand for parlyment, _and he'll get in_,
and when he's there he'll speak up and he'll speak out for the rights
of his fellow men, and he'll proclaim their wrongs."

And there and then, as if in vindication of his father's belief in him,
the baby began to roar so lustily that further converse was impossible.

A week later, the baby was baptized Eloquent Abel Gallup.  Abel was a
concession to his mother's qualms.  It was his father's name, and by
her it was looked upon as a loophole of escape for her son, should
Eloquent prove a misnomer.

"After all," she reflected, "if the poor chap shouldn't have the gift
of the gab, Abel's a good everyday workin' name, and he can drop the E
if it suits 'im.  'Tain't always them as has most to say does most,
that's certain; and why his father's so set on him being one of those
chaps forever standing on platforms and haranguing passes me.  I never
see no good come of an election yet, an' I've seen plenty of harm: what
with drinkin' and quarrellin', and standin' for hours at street corners
argifying.  Politics is all very well in their place, but let it be a
small place, says I, and let 'em keep there."

Abel Gallup was fifty years old and his wife over forty when they
married; staid, home-loving people both.  Abel's business was that of
"a General Outfitter," and "The Golden Anchor" that was hung over the
entrance to the shop presided over the fortunes of a sound, going
concern.  Only ready-made clothes were sold, only ready money was
accepted.  They were well-to-do, and living simply above their shop in
the main street of Marlehouse were able to save largely.

Abel Gallup, however, was not merely a keen man of business and
successful tradesman.  He was, in addition, an idealist and a dreamer
of dreams; but so shrewd and level-headed was he, that he kept the two
things quite apart.  His business was never neglected, and he returned
to it all the fresher, inasmuch as in his off times his mind was
ardently concerned with other things.

He was a self-educated, self-made man, who had started as shop-boy and
risen to be proprietor.  He had always been interested in politics, and
in their study had found the relaxation that others sought in art,
music, literature, or less intellectual pursuits.  He was proud of his
liking for politics, counting it for much righteousness that he should
be able to find such joy in what he considered so useful and important
a matter.  In fact, he had a habit of saying, "Seek ye first the
Kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be
added unto you," with the comfortable reflection that such temporal
prosperity as had been added to him was probably a reward for his
abstention from all frivolous pleasures.  He had no particular desire
to rise in the world, himself.  When he married, comparatively late in
life, it was a woman of his own class, a comely, sensible,
"comfortable" woman, who would order his house well, and see to it that
there was "no waste."

She did all this; but she did infinitely more.  She gave him a son, and
in that son all his hopes and dreams, his secret humilities and
unconscious vanities, his political devotions and antipathies were all
brought together and focussed in one great determination that this son
of his should have all that he had been denied; that in this son every
one of his own inarticulate aspirations should find a voice.

He was a Congregationalist and a prominent member of this sect, the
chief dissenting body in Marlehouse.  He read little poetry and no
fiction, but he was widely read in and thoroughly conversant with all
the political events and controversies of both his own generation and
of the one before it.  A political meeting was to him what a
public-house is to the habitual drunkard; he could not pass it.  He
never spoke in public himself, but he longed to do so with a longing
that was intense as it was hopeless.  He knew his limitations, and was
quite conscious that his English was not that of the platform.

Little Eloquent could never remember when he first began to hear the
names that were afterwards to be the most familiar household words to
him.  Two names, two personalities ever stood out in memory as an
integral part of his child-life--those of William Ewart Gladstone and
John Bright.

These were his father's idols.

They glowed, fixed planets in the political firmament, stable,
unquenchable, a lamp to the feet of the faithful.  Each shining with a
steady radiance that the divergence in their views on many points could
neither confuse nor obscure.

The square, dogged, fighting face of the man of peace; the serene,
scholarly, aquiline features of the great Liberal leader were familiar
to the little boy as the face of his own father.

That John Bright died when Eloquent was about six made no difference in
his influence.  There were two likenesses of him in the sitting-room,
and under one of these the words were inscribed: "Be just and fear
not"; and Eloquent, who was brought up to look upon justice as the
first of political virtues, used to wonder wistfully whether such
fearlessness could be achieved by one whose face at present showed none
of those characteristics of force, strength, and pugnacity manifested
in the portraits of the great commoner.  But he found comfort in the
reflection that "Dada," mirror of all the virtues, was yet quite mild
and almost insignificant in appearance; a small, stout, dapper, very
clean-looking little tradesman, with trim white whiskers, a bald head,
and a round, rosy face, wherein shrewd, blue eyes twinkled cheerfully.

No, dada bore not the slightest resemblance either to Mr Gladstone or
Mr Bright, and yet, Eloquent reflected, "what a man he was!"  Dada was
the chief factor in Eloquent's little world--law-giver, lover, and
friend.

It is probable that his childhood would have been more normal and less
politically precocious had his mother lived.  But she died when he was
four years old, a fortnight after the birth of a little sister who
lived but a few hours.

Abel Gallup's sister came to keep house for them, and luckily, she,
like his wife, was sensible and kindly, but she stood in great awe of
her brother and never dreamt of criticising his conduct.  Now his wife
had never spared him her caustic, common-sense comments.  Politics,
especially where they might have affected the well-being of the child,
were strictly kept in their proper place, And naturally she considered
that, in the upbringing of a very small boy, that place should be
remote almost to invisibility.

With her death all this was altered.  Abel Gallup was very lonely, and
turned to his little son for comfort.  The child was biddable, loving,
and gentle, and "to please his dada" had ever been held before him as
his highest honour and duty.

Before he could read he could repeat long portions from the various
speeches his father particularly admired; he learned by heart easily
and had a retentive memory, and his father had only to say over a
sentence two or three times when the child was word perfect.  It gave
Abel Gallup the most exquisite delight to stand his little son between
his knees and hear the stirring, sonorous sentences rolled out in the
high, child voice; and even in those early days he used to impress upon
Eloquent that when he was grown-up he "would have to speak different to
dada."

And little Eloquent, not realising that his father referred merely to
accent and general grammar, would puzzle for hours wondering how such
men as Mr Gladstone or John Bright would express their common wants.
In what lofty terms, for instance, would Mr Gladstone inform his aunt,
if he had an aunt, that his collar was frayed at the back and was
scratching his neck.  This, Eloquent felt, was quite a likely
contingency, "seeing as he wore 'em so high."  And how, he wondered,
would Mr John Bright intimate delicately to the authorities who ruled
his home that he hoped there would be pork for dinner on Sunday and
plenty of crackling.  He felt certain that Mr Bright would be
sympathetic in the matter of crackling; he didn't know why, but he was
sure of it.  Equally convinced was he that the great statesman would
express his desire in impressive and rhetorical language.  He repeated
"bits" from the speeches that he knew, to see if he could fasten on a
chance phrase here and there that could be introduced into the common
conversations of life; but they never did fit, and he was fain to
express his small wants in the plain language of the folk about him.

Another name floated vague and nebulous among the impressions of very
early childhood: that of one Herbert Spencer; and this was curious, for
Abel Gallup was what he would himself have described as "a sincere
Believer."  Nevertheless, he was immensely attracted by the
philosopher's _Study of Sociology_, and little Eloquent was made to
learn and repeat many long bits from that dispassionate work.  There
was no portrait of Mr Herbert Spencer hanging upon the walls; he was
not a living force, a real presence, like Mr Gladstone or Mr Bright; he
spake not with the words of "a great soul greatly stirred"; yet there
was something in his polished and logical sentences that gave Eloquent
a doubtless quite erroneous sense of his personality, and of a certain
aloofness in his attitude.  He never called into council the "bits"
from Mr Herbert Spencer in order to find majestic language in which to
express the ordinary wants of life.

Eloquent was taken to his first political meeting when he was six years
old, and he fell asleep before he had been there half an hour.  His
father put his arm round the child, rested the heavy little head
against his shoulder and let him sleep in peace.  Not even the cheering
woke him, and his father carried him home, still sleeping.  Perhaps
Abel believed that in some mysterious manner the child absorbed the
opinions of the speakers through the pores.  He was not in the least
annoyed with the little boy for falling asleep, nor did his tender
years prevent a repetition of the experiment a few months later.  This
time Eloquent kept awake for nearly an hour.  He was dreadfully bored,
but at the same time felt very elated and important.  He was the only
little boy in the hall.

Abel Gallup was never tired of impressing upon Eloquent that "the
people had the power, and the people had the votes to send you to
parlyment or keep you out.  Don't you be misled, my boy, by them as
would wish you to try to please the gentry by and bye.  The gentry's
few and the people's many.  I don't say a word against the gentry,
mind, they're all right in their proper place, and very pleasant they
be, some of them, but when the time comes for you to stand, just you
remember that even hereabout there's hundreds of little houses for one
manshun, and in every one of those little houses there's a vote, and
you can have it if you go the right way about.  When you're _in_,
Eloquent, then you can hob-a-nob with the gentry if it so pleases you;
but _till_ you're in, remember it's the working man as can make or mar
you."

Eloquent's aunt, Miss Gallup, had for many years "kept" the post-office
and general shop in the village of Redmarley; but when her brother
asked her to come and look after his home and his motherless child, she
did not hesitate.  She resigned her position of post-mistress, sold the
good-will of her shop, and went to live in Marlehouse at "The Sign of
the Golden Anchor."

She did not lose her interest in Redmarley, however; she had many
friends there, and it was one of the treats of little Eloquent's
childhood to drive there with his aunt "in a shay," to spend the
afternoon in the woods, and have tea afterwards either with the
housekeeper at the "Manshun" or in one of the cottages in the village.

In those days, only one old gentleman lived at the "Manshun."  He "kept
himself very much to himself," so aunt said, and Eloquent never saw him
except from an upper window in the Golden Anchor, when he happened to
drive through Marlehouse.

Neither did the little boy ever see much of the interior of the
"Manshun" itself, except the housekeeper's room, which was down a
passage just inside the back entrance.

It was during these visits to the housekeeper at Redmarley that it
first dawned upon Eloquent that there could be two opinions as to the
absolute righteousness of the Liberal Cause.  Moreover, he found out
that his aunt's political views were not on all fours with those of his
father.  This last discovery was quite a shock to him, and there was
worse in store.  For while he sat in solemn silence devouring bread and
jam at the housekeeper's well-spread table, with his own ears he heard
her dare to speak of the Grand Old Man as "that there Gladstone," and
the butler, an imposing gentleman in black, actually described him as
"a snake in the grass."

"It's curious, Miss Gallup," the butler said, thoughtfully, "that your
brother should be that side in politics, and him so well-to-do and all.
If he'd been in the boot trade now, I could have understood it--there's
something in the smell of leather that breeds Radicals like a bad drain
breeds fever; but clothes now, and lining and neck-ties and hosiery,
you'd think they'd have a softening effect on a man.  Dissenter, too,
he is, isn't he?"

"My brother's altogether out of the common run," Miss Gallup remarked,
rather huffily.  She might deplore his politics herself--when she was
some distance away from him--but no one else should presume to find
fault.  "He may be mistaken in his views--I think he is mistaken--but
that don't alter the fact that he's a very successful man: a solid man,
well thought of in Marlehouse, I can tell you."

"Dada says," Eloquent broke in, "that he's successful _because_ of his
views."

"Well, to be sure," exclaimed the housekeeper in astonishment, "who'd
have thought the child could understand."

"The child," groaned Miss Gallup, "hears nothing but politics all day
long--it turns me cold sometimes, it does really."




CHAPTER II

ONE OF THEM

When Eloquent was six years old his visits to the "Manshun" at
Redmarley ceased.

Old Mr Ffolliot died, and his nephew, Mr Hilary, reigned in his stead.
The butler and the housekeeper, handsomely pensioned, left the village.
The staff of servants was much reduced, and at first Mr Hilary Ffolliot
only came down to Redmarley for two or three days at a time.  Then he
married and came to live there altogether.

Eloquent had liked going to Redmarley.  The place attracted him, and
the people were kind, even if they were wrong-headed as to politics.
One day he asked his aunt when they would go again.

"I don't fancy we shall go much now," she replied; "most of my friends
have left.  It's all different now up at the 'Manshun,' with a young
missus and a new housekeeper; though they seem pleased enough about it
in the village; a well-spoken, nice-looking young lady they says she
is, but I shan't go there no more.  They don't know me and I don't know
them, and there we'll have to leave it."

And there it was left.

Redmarley would probably have faded altogether from Eloquent's mind,
but for something that occurred to give it a new interest in his eyes.

The summer that he was seven, he was sent to the Grammar School.  He
came home every day directly after morning lessons, for he was as yet
considered too small to take part in the games which were at that time
but slightly supervised.

One day he returned to find a victoria and pair standing at the shop
door, coachman on the box, footman standing on the pavement.  This was
unusual.  Such an equipage must, he felt, belong to some member of the
dangerously seductive "upper classes" his dada warned him against so
often.  The class that some day would _want_ him.  The class he was to
keep at arm's length till he was safely "in."

The shop door was open, and Eloquent looked in.  Dada, himself, was
serving a customer; moreover, he was looking particularly brisk and
pleased.

Eloquent crept into the shop cautiously.  None noticed him.  The four
shopmen were serving other customers, and they all happened to be at
the counter on the right-hand side.

It was a long shop with two counters that stretched its entire length,
and was rather dark and close as a rule, but to-day there was bright
sunshine outside.  It shone through the big plate-glass windows, the
glass door stood open, and somehow the shop looked gay.  Dada had the
left-hand counter all to himself.

Eloquent had never before seen anyone in the least like this customer,
who, with slender hands, sat turning over little ready-made suits,
boy's suits, and feeling the stuff to see if it were strong; she had
taken off one of her long white gloves, and it lay beside the suits.

Eloquent gazed and gazed, and edged up the side of the counter towards
her.  Had he possessed eyes for anybody else he would have observed
that the four assistants were staring also, and that his father, even,
seemed very much absorbed by this particular purchaser.

And, after all, why?

She was just a tall, quite young woman, very simply dressed in white.

But she was beautiful.

Not pretty; beautiful in a large, luminous, quite intelligible way.

It was all there, the gracious sovereignty of feature, colouring, above
all, expression--that governs men.

Little Eloquent knew it and came edging up the shop, drawn irresistibly
as by some powerful magnetic force.

The young shopmen knew it, and neglected their patrons as much as they
dared to stare at her.

Mr Gallup knew it, and stood rubbing his hands and thoroughly enjoying
the good moment.

Those other customers knew it, and although the inattention of the
young shopmen annoyed them, they sat well sideways in their chairs that
they, too, might take a peep at the lady without rudely turning round.

The only person in the shop who appeared to know nothing about it was
the lady herself.  She bent her lovely head over the little suits and
pondered, murmuring:

"I do wish I knew which they'd like best, a Norfolk jacket, or a jacket
and waistcoat.  Can you remember which you liked best?" she asked,
suddenly lifting large, earnest eyes to Mr Gallup's flushed and
cheerful countenance.

"Really, madam," said Mr Gallup, rather taken aback at the very
personal turn the subject had taken, "I shouldn't think it matters in
the least.  Both are equally suitable."

At that moment, the lady caught sight of Eloquent edging, edging up the
side of the counter, ever nearer to this astonishing vision.

"Here's somebody who can tell us," she exclaimed.  "I'll explain to
him. . . .  I'm buying suits for three little boys--Sunday suits, for
church and Sunday school, you know--I want them plain and serviceable
so that by and bye they won't look funny for school--_you_ know; well,
would they like coats and waistcoats, or a Norfolk--which do you think?"

"Coats and waistcoats," said Eloquent promptly, his eyes still glued to
her face.

"Why?" asked the lady.

"Because you can take off your coat, and _then_ you're in your
shirt-sleeves."

"But aren't you in your shirt-sleeves when you take off a Norfolk?"

"No," said Eloquent, "_then_ you're in your shirt."

The lady laughed.  Mr Gallup laughed.  The assistants, who had not
heard, for Eloquent spoke very low, sniggered sympathetically, and the
other customers frowned.

"That settles it," said the lady, "and I'm very much obliged to you.
I'll have the three little grey suits with coats and waistcoats.  Poor
little chaps, their mother died just a fortnight ago, and they've
nothing tidy."

"My mother's dead," Eloquent announced abruptly.

The lady's eyes had been so soft, her face so tender and full of pity
as she said, "poor little chaps," he felt a sudden spasm of jealousy.
He wanted her to look at him like that.

He did not see his father's start, nor the momentary pained contraction
of his cheerful features.

Eloquent's eyes were fixed on the lady's face, and sure enough he got
what he wanted.

"I'm so sorry," she said simply, and she looked it; she had turned her
kind eyes full upon him, eyes wide apart and grey and limpid.

He edged still nearer to her; so near that he stood upon her white
dress with his dusty little boots, and still he stared unblinkingly.

The young lady looked puzzled.  Why did the child regard her so
fixedly?  She suddenly awoke to the fact that everyone in the shop was
looking at her.  Even Mr Gallup, on the other side of the counter,
seemed suddenly stricken by inertia, and instead of putting up the
little suits in paper, was staring at the pair of them.

Then Eloquent was moved to explain.

"I've never seen anybody look like you before," he said gravely, "and I
like watching you."

"Thank you," said the lady, and she patted his cheek.

She laughed.

Mr Gallup laughed, and came back to the affairs of the Golden Anchor,
busying himself in tying up her parcel, while he explained that
Eloquent was his only child.

Eloquent did not laugh, for she was going away.

Dada carried the parcel to the shop door and gave it to the footman.
He put it in the carriage, and held out a thin silken cloak for the
lady, which she put on.  He covered her knees with a linen dust rug,
and smiling and bowing she drove away.

Eloquent turned back into the shop with his father.

It seemed to have got very dark and gloomy again.

"Dada," he asked, "who is that lady?"

"That," said Mr Gallup, loudly and with no little pride, "is Mrs
Ffolliot of Redmarley, the bride."

The customers were all listening, the four assistants were all
listening.

Mr Gallup held out his hand to Eloquent, and together they went through
the shop and upstairs into the sitting-room, that looked out upon the
market-place.

"Dada, is she one of the Classes?" Eloquent inquired, nervously.

"I believe you, my boy," Mr Gallup responded jocosely, "very much so,
she is; a regular out and outer."

His father went away chuckling, but Eloquent was much depressed.

He went and stood over against one of the portraits of John Bright and
looked at him for help.

"Be just and fear not," said that statesman.

"All very well," thought Eloquent, "she didn't pat _your_ cheek."

He went and sought counsel of Mr Gladstone, a youngish Mr Gladstone in
the Free Trade Hall, Manchester: "At last, my friends, I have come
amongst you . . . unmuzzled," said the legend underneath his portrait.

But Eloquent felt that this was just what he was not.  He felt very
muzzled indeed.  All sorts of vague thoughts went surging through his
brain that could find no expression in words.

"I do believe," he said desperately, "if she was to give the
whisperingest little call, I'd be obliged to go . . . and so would
you," he continued, shaking his head at Mr Gladstone, "you'd do just
the same."

He felt that, in some inexplicable, subtly mysterious fashion, there
was a kind of affinity between Mr Gladstone and Mrs Ffolliot.

Mr Gladstone would understand, and not be too hard upon him.

In the years that followed, he saw Mrs Ffolliot from time to time from
the window or in the street, but never again did he come so close to
her as to touch her.

Never did he see her, however, without that strange thrill of
enthusiastic admiration; that dumb, inarticulate sense of having seen
something entirely satisfying and delightful; satisfying for the moment
only: he paid dearly for his brief joy in after hours of curious
depression and an aching sense of emptiness and loss.  She was so far
away.

Sometimes she was driving with her husband, and little Eloquent
wondered after they had passed what manner of man it could be who had
the right to sit by her whenever he liked.  He never had time to notice
Mr Ffolliot, till one day he saw him in the carriage alone, and
scrutinised him sternly.  Long afterwards he read how some admirer of
Lord Hartington had said that what he liked most about him was his
"You-be-damnedness."  The phrase, Eloquent felt, exactly described Mr
Ffolliot; aloof, detached, a fastidious, fine gentleman to his finger
tips, entirely careless as to what the common people thought of him;
not willingly conscious, unless rudely reminded of their existence,
that there were any common people: such, Eloquent felt sure, was Mr
Ffolliot's mental attitude, and he hated him.

Mr Ffolliot wore a monocle, and just at that time a new figure loomed
large on the little boy's political horizon--a figure held up before
him not for admiration, but reprobation--as a turncoat, an apostate, a
real and menacing danger to the Cause dada had most at heart; the
well-known effigy of Mr Joseph Chamberlain.  He always appeared with
monocle and orchid.  In his expression, judged by the illustrated
papers, there was something of that same "you-be-damnedness" he
disliked so much in Mr Ffolliot.  Eloquent lumped them together in his
mind, and hated Mr Ffolliot as ardently as he worshipped his wife; and
to no one at all did he ever say a word about either of them.

He rose rapidly in the school, and when he was nine years old had
reached a form with boys much older than himself, boys old enough to
write essays; and Eloquent wrote essays too; essays which were cruder
and quainter than those of his companions.  One day the subject
given--rather an abstruse theme for boys to tackle--was Beauty.
Eloquent wrote as follows:

"Beauty is tall and has a pleasant sounding voice, and you want to come
as near as you can.  You want to look at her all the time because you
don't see it often.  Beauty is most pretty to look at and you don't
seem to see anyone else when it's there.  She smells nice, a wafty
smell like tobacco plants not pipes in the evening.  When beauty looks
at you you feel glad and funny and she smiles at you and looks with her
eyes.  She is different to aunts and people's wives.  Taller and quite
a different shape.  Beauty is different.--E. A. Gallup, class IIIb."


He was twelve years old when they left Marlehouse.  His father had
bought a larger business in a busy commercial town, where there was a
grammar school famous throughout the Midlands.

There Eloquent was educated until he was seventeen, when he, too, went
into the outfitting business.  He attended lectures and the science
school in his free time, and belonged to two or three debating clubs.
He was in great request at the smaller political gatherings as a
speaker, and with constant practice bade fair to justify his name.

He occasionally went to Marlehouse, generally on political business,
but never to Redmarley.  Nevertheless, stray items of Redmarley news
reached him through his aunt, who still kept up her friendship with
some of the village folk there.

From her he learned that there were a lot of young Ffolliots; that they
were wild and "mishtiful," unmanageable and generally troublesome; that
Mrs Ffolliot was still immensely popular and her husband hardly known
after all these years; that, owing, it was supposed, to their
increasing family, they did not entertain much, and that the "Manshun"
itself looked much as it had always looked.

Eloquent made no comment on these revelations, but he treasured them in
his heart.  Some day he intended to go back to Redmarley.  He never
forgot Mrs Ffolliot, or the impression she had made upon him the first
time he saw her.

When Eloquent was four-and-twenty Abel Gallup died.  He then learned
that his father was a much wealthier man than anyone had supposed.
Miss Gallup was left an annuity of a hundred a year.  The rest of the
very considerable property (some seventy thousand pounds) was left to
Eloquent, but with the proviso that until he was elected a member of
Parliament he could not touch more than three hundred a year, though he
was to be allowed two thousand pounds for his election expenses
whenever, and as often as he chose to stand, until he was elected; as
long as the money lasted.  Once he was in Parliament the property was
his absolutely, to dispose of as he thought fit.

It was proof of Abel Gallup's entire trust in his son, that there was
not one word in the will that in any way whatsoever expressed even a
hope as to the legatee's political convictions.

Miss Gallup went back to Redmarley.  Eloquent sold the outfitting
business, and went to London to study parliamentary business from the
stranger's gallery.




CHAPTER III

ANOTHER OF THEM

A young man was walking through Redmarley woods towards Redmarley
village, and from time to time he gazed sorrowfully at his boots.  There
had been a lot of rain that winter, and now on this, the third Sunday in
December, the pathway was covered with mud, which, when it was not
sticky, was extremely slippery.

The young man walked rather slowly, twirling a smart cane as he went, and
presently he burst into speech--more accurately--a speech.

"What, gentlemen," he demanded, loudly and rhetorically, "but no--I will
not call you gentlemen; here to-night, I note it with pride and gladness,
there are but few who can claim that courtesy title.  I who speak, and
most of you who do me the honour to listen, can lay claim to no prouder
appellation than that of MEN.  What then, fellow-men, I ask you, what
_is_ the House of Lords?  What purpose does it serve except to delay all
beneficent legislation, to waste the country's time and to nullify the
best efforts. . . .  Confound . . ."

He slipped, he staggered, his hat went one way, his stick another, and he
sat down violently and with a splash in a particularly large puddle.  And
at that instant he was suddenly beset by a dog--a curiously long-legged
fox-terrier--who came bouncing round him with short rushes and sharp
barks.  He had reached a part of the woods where the paths cross.  Fir
trees were very thick just there, and footsteps made hardly any sound in
the soft mud.

A tall girl came quickly round the corner, calling "Parker!" and pulled
up short as she beheld the stranger seated ingloriously in the puddle.
But it was only for a moment; she hastened towards him, rebuking the dog
as she came: "Be quiet, Parker, how rude of you, come off now, come to
heel"--then, as he of the puddle, apparently paralysed by his undignified
position, made no effort to arise, on reaching him she held out her
hands, saying; "I wouldn't _sit_ there if I were you, it's so awfully
wet.  Shall I pull you up?  Dig your heels in, that's it.  I say, you are
in a mess!"

He was.

The leggy fox-terrier ceased to bark.  Instead, he thrust an inquisitive
nose into the stranger's bowler hat and sniffed dubiously.

The girl was strong and had pulled with a will.

"I am much obliged to you," the young man remarked stiffly, at the same
time regarding his rescuer with a suspicious and inimical eye, to see if
she were laughing at him.

She did nothing of the kind.  Her candid gaze merely expressed dismay,
subtly mingled with commiseration.  "I don't see how we're to clean you,"
she said; "only scraping would do it--a trowel's best, but, then, I don't
suppose you've got one about you."

The young man tried to look down his back, always a difficult feat.

"You're simply covered with mud from head to foot," she continued.  "The
only thing I can think of for you to do is to come to the stables, and
I'll get Heaven to clean you . . . unless, perhaps," she added,
doubtfully, "you were coming to the house."

"If you will kindly direct me to the village," he said, "I have to pay a
call there, and no doubt my friends will assist me to remove some of this
mud."

"But you can't go calling like that," she expostulated; "you'd far better
come to the stables first.  Heaven's so used to us, he'd clean you up in
no time; besides, by far the quickest way to the village is down our
drive.  There's no right-of-way through these woods; didn't you see the
boards?"

"Whenever," he spoke with deliberate emphasis, "I see a board to the
effect that trespassers will be prosecuted, I make a point of walking
over that land as a protest."

"Dear me," she said.  "It must take you sadly out of your way sometimes.
Where have you come from to-day?"

"From Marlehouse."

"Then you'd have saved yourself at least a mile and a half, and your
trousers all that mud, if you'd stuck to the road; it's ever such a long
way round to come by the woods."

"I prefer the woods."

There was such superior finality in his tone, that the girl was
apparently crushed.  She started to walk, he followed; she waited for
him, and they tramped along side by side in silence; he, covertly taking
stock of his companion; she, gazing straight ahead as though for the
moment she had forgotten his existence.

A tall girl, evidently between sixteen and seventeen, for her hair was
not "done up," but tied together at the back with a large bow, whence it
streamed long and thick and wavy to her waist: abundant light brown hair,
with just enough red in it to give it life and warmth.

His appraising eye took in the fact at once that all her clothes were
old, shabby, and exceedingly well cut.  Her hat was a shapeless soft felt
with no trimming, save a rather ragged cord, and she wore it turned down
all round.  It had once been brown, but was now a mixture of soft faded
tints like certain lichens growing on a roof.  Her covert coat, rather
too big, and quite nondescript in colour, washed by the rains of many
winters, revealed in flowing lines the dim grace of the broad, yet
slender shoulders beneath.

Her exceedingly short skirt was almost as weather-beaten as the coat, but
it swung evenly with every step and there was no sagging at the back.

Last of all, his eyes dropped to her boots: wide welted, heavy brown
boots; regular country boots; but here again was the charm of graceful
line, and he knew instinctively that the feet they encased were slender
and shapely and unspoiled.

He raised his eyes again to the serenely unconscious profile presented to
his view: a very finished profile with nothing smudgy or uncertain about
it.  The little nose was high-bridged and decided, the red lips full and
shut closely together, the upper short and deeply cleft in the centre.

He was just thinking that, in spite of his muddy hat, he would rather
like her to look at him again, when she turned her large gaze upon him
with the question:

"Were you preaching just before you fell down?"

He flushed hotly.  "Certainly not--did it sound like . . . that?"

"Well, I wasn't sure.  I thought if you were a curate trying a sermon
you'd have said 'brethren,' but 'fellow men' would do, you know; and then
I heard something about the 'house of the Lord,' and I was sure you must
be a sucking parson; but when I came up I wasn't so sure.  What were you
saying over, if it wasn't a sermon?"

"It was stupid of me . . . but I do a good deal of public speaking, and I
never dreamt anyone was within miles . . ."

"Oh, a speech, was it?  Where are you going to speak it?"

"I shall probably address a meeting in Marlehouse to-morrow night."

"Why?"

"Because I've been asked to do so."

"Will it be in the paper on Saturday?"

"Probably."

"How grand; do tell me your name, then I can look for your speech.  I'd
love to read it and see if you begin with the bit I heard about fellow
men and the house of the Lord."

"The House of Lords," he corrected.

"Oh," said the girl.  "Them!  It's them you're against.  I was afraid you
objected to churches."

"I don't care much for churches, either," he observed, gloomily.  "Do
you?"

"I've really never thought about it," she confessed.  "One's supposed to
like them . . . they're good things, surely?"

"Institutions must be judged by their actual utility; their adaptability
to present needs.  Traditional benefits can no longer be accepted as a
reason for the support of any particular cause."

"I think," she said, "that the mud on your clothes is drying.  It will
probably brush off quite nicely."

Had he ever read _Alice in Wonderland_ he might have remembered what
preceded the Caucus Race.  But he never had, so he merely thought that
she was singularly frivolous and irrelevant.

"You haven't told me your name," she continued, "so that I can look for
that speech.  We're nearly home, and I'll hand you over to Heaven so that
he can make you tidy for your call."

"My name is E. A. Gallup," he replied, shortly.

"Up or op?" she asked.

"Up," he replied, wishing to heaven it weren't.

"Mine's M. B. Ffolliot, two 'fs' and two 'ls'.  We live here, you know."

"I guessed you were a Miss Ffolliot.  In fact, I may say I knew it."

"Everyone knows us about here," she said sadly.  "That's the worst of it.
You can never get out of anything you've done."

E. A. Gallup looked surprised, but as she was again gazing into space she
did not observe him.

"Whenever hay's trampled, or pheasants startled, or gates left open, or
pigs chased, or turkeys furious, they always say, 'It's them varmints of
young Ffolliots.'"

"Do you know," he said, and his grave face suddenly broke into a most
boyish grin, "I believe even I have heard something of the kind."

"If you live anywhere within six miles of Redmarley you'll hear little
else, and it isn't always us . . . though it is generally.  This stupid
gate's locked.  We'll have to get over.  It's easiest to do it like this."

"This" was to go back a few paces, run forward, put her hands on the top
and vault the gate as a boy vaults a "gym" horse.  E. A. Gallup did not
attempt to follow suit.  He climbed over, clumsily enough, dropping his
stick on the wrong side.  When he had recovered it, he raised his muddy
hat with a sweep.  "I see we are in a road of some sort, perhaps you will
kindly direct me to the village, and I will not trouble . . . er . . . Mr
Heaven----"

"But much the nearest way to the village is down our front drive.  And we
pass the stables to go to it."

"I couldn't think of intruding in your drive.  Have the goodness to
direct me."

"But the woods are ours just as much as the drive; where's the
difference?  In fact, we'd _rather_ have people walk in the drive because
of the pheasants."

"There _is_ a difference, though it may not be apparent to you . . . if I
follow this road, do I come to the village?"

"Don't be silly," she said shortly.  "If you prefer to be all over mud
there's no more to be said, but I can't direct you any more than I've
done.  If you want to get to the village you must go down our drive,
unless you go wandering another mile and a half out of your way.  It's
quite a short drive; only you must come by the stables to get to it.
_Are_ you coming?"

"I'm afraid I seem ungrateful," he began.

"You do rather," she interrupted.

"I assure you I am not.  I appreciate your kindness, but I cannot see why
I should trouble . . ."

"Oh, Heaven's used to it; _he_ wouldn't mind, but it's evident you would,
so come along.  It will be dark before long, and I'll get into no end of
a row if I'm out alone, and father meets me when I get in.  Not a soul
will see you, please hurry."

She led him across a deserted stableyard, and round the back of the house
through a wide-walked formal garden, where Christmas roses shone star
white in the herbacious border, where yew trees were clipped into
fantastic shapes, and tall grey statues looked like ghosts in the
gathering dusk, till they reached the sweep of gravelled drive in front
of the house.  Wide lawns sloped steeply to the banks of the Marle, which
flowed through the grounds.  The red December sun was reflected in a
myriad flames in the many mullioned windows of the Manor.  As the girl
had promised, not a soul was in sight, and it was very still.

"There, Mr Gallup," she announced, cheerfully, "follow the drive and
you'll find the village outside the gates.  Good-bye!  I must go in by
the side door with these boots."  And before he could do more than lift
his hat while he murmured inarticulate thanks, she had walked swiftly
away and vanished round the angle of the house.

For a moment he stood quite still, looking at the beautiful old Jacobean
manor-house so warmly red in the sunset.  Then he, too, turned and walked
quickly down the winding drive, and as he went he murmured softly: "So
that's what they're like . . . curious anomaly . . . curious anomaly."

The girl entered the house by the side door, changed her muddy boots and
hung up her coat and hat in a little room devoted to boot boxes and pegs,
and ran upstairs to the schoolroom.  Her elder brother, Grantly, who
lounged smoking in the deep window-seat, swung his feet to the floor with
a plump, and sat facing her as she came in, saying sternly:

"Mary, who on earth was that man you were with?  Where did you pick him
up?"

Mary laughed.  "I literally picked him up from the very wettest part of
the wood, where all the firs are, you know.  He was sitting mournfully in
a young pond, apparently quite incapable of getting up by himself, and
very much afraid of Parker, who was barking furiously."

"Showed his sense; but what was that chap doing there, and who is he?"

"He was trespassing, of course; makes a point of it, he says, but he'd
evidently lost his way, so I put him right.  I thought if he and the
pater met there'd be words.  He isn't at all a meek young man, and talks
like that _Course of Reading_ Miss Glover loves so."

"If he talked so much, he must have told you something about himself."

"Not much; his name is E. A. Gallup, and he was going to pay a call in
Redmarley."

"What's he like?  I only saw his back, and deucedly disreputable it was.
He looked as if he had been rolling drunk."

Mary laughed again.  "I shouldn't think _he_ ever got drunk," she said;
"he's far too solemn.  In appearance, he's rather like a very respectable
young milkman, fresh-coloured, you know, and sort of blunt everywhere,
but he speaks--if you can imagine a cross between a very superior curate
and the pater--that's what he speaks like, except that there's just an
echo of an accent--not bad, you know, but there."

Grantly took the pipe out of his mouth and pulled the lobe of his ear
meditatively.

"Gallup," he repeated.  "Gallup, I've heard something about that name
quite lately.  Surely, if you walked with him right from the Forty Firs
and talked all the time, you must have found out something more?"

"He's going to make a speech at Marlehouse to-morrow night; he was
spouting away like anything just before he fell down.  That's what made
Parker bark so."

"I've got it," cried Grantly.  "He's the Liberal candidate, that's what
he is.  He's standing against poor old Brooke of Medenham, and they say
he'll get in, too--young brute."

"Is he a Labour member?"

"No, Liberal, they couldn't run a Labour member at Marlehouse; not enough
cash in the constituency . . . tell you who he is, son of old Gallup that
kept the ready-made clothes shop in the market-place--'Golden Anchor' or
something, they called it.  Mother used to buy suits there for the kids
in the village for Easter, jolly decent suits they were, too."

"And does he keep on the 'Golden Anchor'?"

"I don't think so, but I don't know.  Jolly good cheek marching through
our woods, as if they belonged to him.  Wish I'd met him."

"My dear chap, we're the last people in the world who can say anything to
people for marching through other people's property, you especially.
Why, nine-tenths of the bad rows, ever since any of us could walk, have
been about that sort of thing."

"Good old Mary, that Radical chap's converted you.  What else did he say?
Come on; get it off your chest."

At that moment, the door was opened by an elderly man-servant, who
announced: "The master wishes to speak to you, Miss Mary."

"Oh, Botticelli!  Cimabue!  Burne Jones!" Mary ejaculated.  "The pater
must have been looking out of the window, too.  What _bad_ luck."

"I wouldn't mention having _touched_ the chap in your interview with the
pater," Grantly called after her.


As Eloquent neared the Manor gates--those great gates famous throughout
the country for the gryphons on their posts and their wonderful
fairy-like iron tracery--a little boy came out from amongst the tall
chestnuts in the avenue.  His face was dirty and his sailor-suit much the
worse for wear, but his outstanding, high-bridged little nose and broad,
confident smile proclaimed him one of the family.  He stood right in the
stranger's path, exclaiming:

"Hullo! had a scrap with the keeper?"

His tone proclaimed a purely friendly curiosity.  "Certainly not,"
Eloquent answered, coldly.  "I had the misfortune to slip and fall."

"Why ever didn't they clean you up a bit at the house?" the little boy
asked.

"Your sister was kind enough to suggest it----"

"Which sister?"

"Miss----" he hardly liked to say "M. B.," and paused.

"Big or little?  There's only two."

"Rather big, I should say."

"Oh, that's Mary--did she bump into you?"

Eloquent looked hopelessly puzzled, and the boy hastened to add:

"She's a bit of a gawk, you know, and awfully strong.  I thought she
might have charged into you and knocked you over . . . she wouldn't mean
to do it . . ."

"I must be going," said Eloquent, "good-evening," and he hastened on his
way.

"Sorry you couldn't stop to tea," the small boy called after him
hospitably.  "I'm Ger, so you'll know me again when you see me."

The child stood for a minute looking after the stranger in the hope that
he would turn his head, and nod or wave to him in friendly farewell, but
he did neither.  Ger gave a little sigh, and trotted up the drive towards
home.

Outside the gates Eloquent paused and looked back at them.  Brought from
Verona generations ago, they were a perfect example of a perfect period.
Richly decorative, various in design, light and flowing in form, the
delicate curves broke into actual leafage, sweeping and free as nature's
own.  The Ffolliots were proud of their gates.

He gazed at them admiringly, and then, like Ger, he sighed.

"Why," he muttered, "why should they have had all this always?  I wonder
if it's the constant passing through gates like this that helps to make
them what they are."




CHAPTER IV

REFLECTION AND ENLIGHTENMENT

Eloquent found that M. B. Ffolliot had not deceived him as to the
nearness of the village.  A few yards to the left, over the bridge, and
the long, irregular street lay in front of him; the river on one side;
the houses, various in size and shape, but alike in one respect, that
the most modern of them was over two hundred years old.  He knew that
his aunt's house was at the very end of the street and furthest from
the bridge, and that Redmarley village was nearly a mile in length.
Yet he did not hurry.  He walked very slowly in the middle of the muddy
road, resolved to marshal and tabulate his impressions as was his
orderly wont.

But in this instance his impressions refused to conform to either
process, and remained mutinously chaotic.

He found that, in thinking of Mary, he unconsciously called her "that
girl," whereas such maidens as he hitherto had encountered were always
"young ladies."  He didn't know many "young ladies," but those he did
know he there and then called into review and compared with Mary
Ffolliot.

They were all of them much better dressed, he was certain of that.  But
he was equally assured that not one of them would have forborne to
laugh at his plight, as he sat abject and ridiculous in the very
largest puddle in Redmarley woods.

She had not laughed.

And would any one of these well-dressed young ladies (Eloquent took
into account that it was Sunday) have held out helping hands to a total
stranger with such absolute simplicity, so entirely as a matter of
course? not as a young woman to a young man, but as one fellow-creature
to another who had, literally, in this instance, fallen upon evil times.

How tall she was, and how strong.

Again (he blushed at the recollection) he seemed to feel the clasp of
those muscular young hands in the worn tan-coloured gloves, gloves
loose at the wrists, that did not button but were drawn on.  He had
noticed her leather gloves as she held out her hands to him, and knew
that in the language of the trade they were "rather costly to start
with, but lasted for ever."

They did not stock goods of that class in the particular branch of the
outfitting trade that he knew best.  People wouldn't pay the price.
And he found himself saying over and over again, "wouldn't pay the
price," and it was of the girl he was thinking, not of her gloves.

How eager she had been that he should come and be brushed; "I've no
objection," Eloquent reflected, "to being under an obligation to her,
but I'm hanged if I'd be beholden to Ffolliot for anything."  Somehow
it gave him infinite satisfaction to think of Mary's father in that
familiar fashion.  He, to put up boards about trespassers in the woods!

Who was he?

Eloquent ignored the fact that they were the same boards that had been
there in old Mr Ffolliot's time, and badly needed repainting.

That little boy, too, who first appeared to suspect him of poaching,
and then expressed sorrow that he would not stay to tea.  What an
extraordinary family they seemed to be!

The girl had actually owned to being constantly suspected of all sorts
of damage, and not always wrongfully either.  He was devoured by
curiosity as to what forms her lawlessness could take.

"A bit of a gawk" her young brother had called her.  How dared he?

"Goddess," thought Eloquent, was much more appropriate than gawk.  He
had no very clear conception of a goddess, but vaguely pictured a woman
fair and simple and superb and young--not quite so young as Mary
Ffolliot.  It was only during the last year or two that he had read any
poetry, and he was never quite sure whether he liked it or not.  It was
upsetting stuff he considered, vaguely disquieting and suggestive.  Yet
there were times when it came in useful.  It said things for a chap
that he couldn't say for himself.  It expressed the inexpressible . . .
in words.  It synthesised and formulated fantastic and illusive
experiences.

His youthful facility in learning "bits" of prose by heart had not
deserted him, and he found verse even easier to remember; in fact,
sometimes certain stanzas would recur with irritating persistency when
he didn't want them at all; and in thinking of this, to him, new type
of girl, there flowed into his mind the lines:

  "Walking in maiden wise,
  Modest and kind and fair,
  The freshness of spring in her eyes
  And the fulness of spring in her hair."


Gawk, indeed! that little boy ought to have his head smacked.

And having come to a definite condition at last, he found he had
reached his aunt's house.  The lamp was lit in the parlour and the
blind was down, for it was already quite dark.  He had taken
twenty-five minutes to walk from Mr Ffolliot's gates to his aunt's
house.

Miss Gallup, plump, ruddy, and garrulous, very like her brother Abel
with her round pink face and twinkling eyes, was greatly delighted to
see him.

"You've come to your old aunt first thing, Eloquent," she cried
triumphantly, "which is no more than I expected, though none the less
gratifying, and you nearly a member and all.  How things do come to
pass, to be sure.  I wish as your poor father had lived to see this
day, and you going into parlyment with the best of 'em."

"Don't say 'going in,' aunt," Eloquent expostulated.  "It's quite on
the cards that they won't elect me.  Personally, I think they would
have done better to put up a stronger candidate.  Marlehouse is always
looked upon as a safe Tory seat; you know Mr Brooke has been member for
a long time, and was unopposed at the last election."

"An' never opens his mouth in London from one year's end to the other,
sits and sleeps, so I've heard, and leaves the rest to do all the
talking and bills and that.  My dear boy, don't tell me!  Marlehouse
folk's got too much sense to give the go-by to one as can talk and was
born amongst 'em, and they all know you."

"But, Aunt Susan, I thought you were ever such a Tory.  What has become
of all your political convictions, if you want me to get in?"

Miss Gallup laughed.  "Precious little chance; I had of _'aving_ any
convictions all the years I kept house for your dear father; an' a
pretty aunt I'd be if I could go against you now.  Politics is all very
well, but flesh and blood's a deal more, an' a woman wouldn't be half a
woman if she didn't stand by her own.  It don't seem to matter much
which side's in.  There'll be plenty to find fault with 'em whichever
it is, and anyway from all I can hear just now you're on the winnin'
side, so 'vote for Gallup,' says I, an' get someone as'll speak up for
you--and not sit mumchance for all the world like a stuckey image night
after night.  Your bag come by the carrier all right yesterday.  And
now you must want your tea after that long walk--but, good gracious me,
boy, have you met with an accident, or what, that you're all over with
mud like that?  You aren't hurted, are you?"

Eloquent again explained his mishap, but he said nothing about Mary
Ffolliot.  His aunt took him to the back-door and brushed him
vigorously, then they both sat down to tea in her exceedingly cosy
sitting-room.

"Do you like being back here again after all these years, Aunt Susan?"
asked Eloquent.  "I suppose everything has changed very much since you
lived here before."

"Not so much as you'd think; and then the _place_ is the same, and as
one grows older that counts for a lot.  When one's young, one's all for
change and gallivantin', but once you're up in years 'tis the old
things you cares for most; 'an when I heard as the house I was born in
was empty I just had to come back.  Redmarley village don't change,
because no one can build.  Mr Ffolliot sees to that; not one rood of
land will he sell, and the old houses looks just the same as when I was
a little girl.  Your father he left Redmarley when he was fourteen, and
went 'prentice to the 'Golden Anchor,' an' he never cared for the
village like me.  I hardly knew him when I was young, he being twelve
years older than me, and him coming home but seldom."

"It must make a good deal of difference having a family at . . . the
Manor," said Eloquent, with studied carelessness.  He had nearly said
"the Manshun," after the fashion of the villagers.

"Of course it do.  There's changes there, if you like."

"I suppose you sometimes see . . . the young people?"

"See them?  I should just think we do, _and_ hear them and hear _about_
them from morning to night.  There never was more mixable children than
the young Ffolliots."

"How many are there?"  Eloquent tried to keep his voice cool and
uninterested, but he felt as he used to feel when he was a child in
"hiding games," when some one told him he was "getting warm."

"Well, there's Mr Grantly, he's the eldest; he's going to be an officer
in the army like his grandpa; he's gone apprentice to some shop."

"What?" asked Eloquent, in astonishment.

"I thought it a bit queer myself, but Miss Mary herself did say it.
'Grantly's gone to the shop,' she said, 'to learn to be a soldier'; and
I said, 'Well, the gentry's got more sense than I thought for, if they
gives 'em a trade as well.'  And Miss Mary she said again, he'd gone to
a shop right enough, and went off laughing."

"But that's impossible," said Eloquent.  "He must have gone either to
Sandhurst or Woolwich; there's nowhere else he could go."

"She never mentioned neither of those names.  'Shop,' she said . . .
you needn't look at me like that, Eloquent . . . I'm positive."

"You were telling me how many children there were," Eloquent remarked
pacifically, "Grantly, the eldest son, and then . . . ?"

"I'm getting warm," his mind kept saying.

"Then Miss Mary, just a year younger, very like her mother she is . . .
in looks, but she hasn't got the gumption of Mrs Ffolliot.  That'll
come, perhaps . . . later.  A bit of a tomboy she's bin, but she's
settling down."

"I suppose she is nearly grown up?"

"Between seventeen and eighteen, she'll be, but not done up her hair
yet--that's Mr Ffolliot's doin's; he's full of fads as an egg's full o'
meat.  Then there's the twins, Uz and Buz they calls 'em.  They're at
Rugby School, they are, but they'll be home for the holidays almost
directly.  I can't say I'm partial to scripture names myself, and only
last time he was here I asked Mr Grantly what they called them that
for, when there was so many prettier names in our language, and he
said, quite solemn like, 'Uz his first-born and Buz his brother, that's
why, you see.'  And I said, 'but they're twins, sir'; and he said, 'but
Uz was born five minutes before Buz, so it's quite correct,' and went
off laughing.  They're always laughing at something, those children."

"Then are there just the four?' asked Eloquent, who knew perfectly well
there were more.

"Oh, bless you, no; there's Master Ger; now I call him the pick of the
bunch, the most conformable little chap and full of sense: he'll talk
to you like one of yourselves; he's everybody's friend, is Master Ger.
Miss Kitten's the youngest, and a nice handful she is.  She and Master
Ger does everything together, and they do say as she's the only one as
don't care two pins for her papa; nothing cows her, she'd sauce the
king himself if she got the chance."

"From what you say, I gather that they seem to do pretty much as they
like," Eloquent remarked primly.

"Outside they do, but in the house they say those poor children's
hushed up something dreadful.  Mr Ffolliot's a regular old Betty, he
never ought to have had one child, let alone six.  He's always reading
and writing and studying and sitting with his nose in a book, and then
he complains of nerves.  I'd nerve him if I was his wife--but she's all
for peace, poor lady, and I suppose she makes the best of a bad job."

"Is she unhappy?" Eloquent demanded, with real solicitude.

"If she is, she don't show it, anyhow.  She goes her way, and he goes
his, and her way's crowded with the children, and there it is."

"Are you thinking of going to church, Aunt Susan?"

Miss Gallup looked surprised.

"Well, no, not if you don't want to come.  I generally go, but I'm more
than willing to stop with you."

"But I'd like to go," Eloquent asserted, and got very red in the face
as he did so.  "I don't think I've ever been in the church here."

"Well, there's no chapel as you could go to if you was ever so minded.
Old Mr Molyneux mayn't be so active as some, but there's never been no
dissent since he was vicar, and that's forty years last Michaelmas."

"What about my father?" Eloquent suggested.

"Your dear father got his dissenting opinions and his politics in
Marlehouse, not here."

"Then I'm afraid I shan't get many votes from this village," said
Eloquent, but he said it cheerfully, as though he didn't care.

"That's for you to see to," Miss Gallup said significantly; "there's no
tellin' what a persuasive tongue mayn't do."

As Eloquent walked through the darkness with his aunt, he heard her
cheerful voice go rippling on as in a dream.  He had no idea what she
talked about, his whole mind was concentrated in the question: "Will
she be there?"




CHAPTER V

THE IMPRESSIONS ARE INTENSIFIED

The service at Redmarley Church was "medium high."  It boasted an
organist and a surpliced choir, and the choir intoned the responses.
"The old Vicar," as Mr Molyneux liked to be called, was musical, and
saw to it that the Sunday services were melodiously and well rendered.
Very rarely was there a week-day service.  The villagers would have
regarded them in the light of a dangerous innovation; yet,
notwithstanding the lack of daily services, the church stood open from
sunrise to sunset always, and though very few people ever entered it
during the week, they would have been most indignant had it ever been
shut.

The church was too big for the village: it was built early in the
fourteenth century when the Manor House was a monastery, and at a time
when Redmarley was the religious centre for half a dozen outlying
villages that now had churches of their own.  Therefore, it was never
full, and even if every soul in the village had made a point of going
to divine service at the same time, it would still have appeared but
sparsely attended.

Miss Gallup's seat, with a red cushion and red footstools and
everything handsome about it, was about half-way up the aisle on the
left.

On the right, one behind the other, were two long oaken pews next the
chancel steps belonging to the Manor House.  In the one, there were
three young women, obviously servants; the front one was empty.

Eloquent began to wish he had not come.

People bustled and creaked and pattered up the aisle after their
several fashions.  The organist started the voluntary, and the choir
came in.

The congregation stood up, when suddenly his aunt gave Eloquent's elbow
a jerk, and whispered: "There's Mr Grantly and Miss Mary."

As if he didn't know!

Just the same leisurely, unconscious, strolling walk that got over the
ground so much more quickly than one would have thought.

She had changed her clothes and looked, he noted it with positive
relief, much more Sundayish.  In fact, her costume (Eloquent used this
dreadful word) now compared quite favourably with those of the other
young ladies of his acquaintance.  Not that she in the least resembled
them.  Not a bit.  Her things were ever so much plainer, but Eloquent's
eagle eye, trained to acute observation by his long service in the
outfitting line, grasped at once that plain as was the dark blue coat
and skirt, it was uncommonly well made.  She wore blue fox furs, too,
hat and stole and muff all matching, and her hair was tied twice with
dark blue ribbon, at the nape of the neck and about half-way down.

Yes, M. B. Ffolliot was very tidy indeed.  Behind her followed a youth
ridiculously like her in feature, but he was half a head taller.  He
walked with quick, short steps, and had a very flat back and square
shoulders.  His appearance, even allowing for the high seriousness of
an outfitter's point of view, was eminently satisfactory.  There was no
fleck or speck of fluff or dust or mud about _his_ clothes.  He was,
Eloquent decided grimly, a "knut" of the nuttiest flavour; from the top
of his exceedingly smooth head to his admirable grey spats and
well-shaped boots, a thoroughly well-dressed young man.

"Shop, indeed!" thought Eloquent.  "He's never seen the wrong side of a
counter in his life."

"Rend your hearts and not your garments," so the Vicar adjured the
congregation in his agreeable monotone, and the service began.

Eloquent could see Mary's back between the heads of two maids: her hair
shone burnished and bright in the lamplight.  Just before the psalms
she turned and whispered to her brother, and he caught a glimpse of her
profile for the space of three seconds.

When the psalms ended, the "knut" came out into the aisle, mounted the
steps leading to the lectern, and started to read the first lesson.

"Woe to thee that spoilest and thou wast not spoiled," Grantly Ffolliot
began in a voice of thunder.  The congregation lifted startled heads,
and looked considerably surprised.  Grantly was nervous.  He read very
fast, and so loud that Mary was moved to cover her ears with her hands;
and Eloquent saw her and sympathised.

Now here was a matter in which he could give young Ffolliot points and
a beating.  He longed passionately to stand up at that brass bird and
read the Bible to the people of Redmarley; to one person in particular.
He knew exactly the pitch of voice necessary to fill a building of that
size.

"He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth
the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from the holding of
bribes. . . ."

How curiously applicable certain of Isaiah's exhortations are to the
present day, thought Eloquent. . . .  The "knut" had somewhat subdued
his voice, and even he could not spoil the music and the majesty of the
words, "a place of broad rivers and streams wherein shall go no galley
with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby."  Two more verses,
and the first lesson was ended, and Grantly Ffolliot, flushed but
supremely thankful, made his way back to his seat.

Eloquent registered a vow.

The vicar himself read the second lesson, and the meditations of the
assembled worshippers were undisturbed.

The vicar always preached for exactly ten minutes.  He took an
old-fashioned hour-glass up into the pulpit with him, and when it ran
out he concluded his discourse.  Redmarley folk highly approved this
ritual.  When stray parsons came to preach, especially if they were
dignitaries of the church, a body could never tell what they might be
at, and the suspense was wearing.  Why, the Dean of Garchester had been
known to keep on for half an hour.

The Redmarley worshippers rarely slept.  It wasn't worth while.
Instead, they kept a wary eye upon the hour-glass.  They trusted to
their vicar's honour, and he rarely failed them.  As the last grains of
sand ran out he turned to the east, and most people were back home and
sitting down to supper by eight o'clock.

Miss Gallup never hurried out of church.  She thought it unseemly.
Therefore, it came to pass that Eloquent was still standing in his
place as Mary Ffolliot and her brother came down the aisle.  Mary
looked him full in the face as she passed, and smiled frankly at him
with friendly recognition.

The "knut" had gone on ahead.

Eloquent gave no answering smile.  For one thing, he had never for one
moment expected her to take the slightest notice of him, and the fact
that she had done so raised a perfect tumult of unexpected and
inexplicable emotion.

The hot blood rushed to his face, and there was a singing in his ears.
He turned right round and stared down the aisle at her retreating form,
and was only roused to a sense of mundane things by a violent poke in
the small of his back, and his aunt's voice buzzing in an irritated
whisper: "Go on, my boy, do you want to stop here all night?"

"Mr Grantly read very nice, didn't he?"

Miss Gallup remarked complacently, as they were walking home.

"To tell you the truth, Aunt Susan, I thought he read very badly: he
bellowed so, and was absolutely wanting in expression."

"Poor young gentleman," Miss Gallup said tolerantly.  "Last time he
read, back in summer it was, he did read so soft like, no one could
hear a word he said, and I know they all went on at him something
dreadful, so this time I suppose he thought as they _should_ hear him."

"Do you think," Eloquent asked diffidently, "that Mr Molyneux would
like me to read the lessons some Sunday when I'm down here?"

Miss Gallup stopped short.

"Well, now," she exclaimed, "to think of you suggestin' that, an' I was
just wonderin' at that very minute whether if I was to ask you--you'd
snap my head off, you being chapel and all."

Eloquent longed to say that he was not so wrapped up in chapel as all
that, but long habits of self-restraint stood him in good stead.  Where
possible votes were concerned it did not do to speak the thought of the
moment, so he merely remarked indifferently that he'd be "pleased to be
of any assistance."

"Of course," Miss Gallup continued, as she walked on, "there's no
knowing whether, with the election coming on and all, the vicar might
think it quite suitable, though he's generally glad to get any one to
read as will."

"Surely," Eloquent said severely, "he does not carry his political
views into his religious life, to the extent of boycotting those who do
not agree with him."

"It's his church," Miss Gallup rejoined stoutly; "no one can read in it
without 'tis his wish."

"My dear aunt, you surely don't imagine that I want to read the lessons
at Redmarley except as a matter of kindness . . . assistance to Mr
Molyneux.  What other reason can I have?"

"Well," said Miss Gallup, shrewdly, "it might be that you wanted to
show how well you could do it . . ." she paused.

Eloquent blushed in the darkness.

"And with an election coming on, you never know what motives folks
has," she continued.  "But it's my belief Mr Molyneux'd be pleased as
Punch.  He's all for friendliness, he is.  I know who wouldn't be
pleased, though----"

"Who is that?" asked Eloquent, as his aunt had stopped, evidently
waiting to be questioned.

"Why, Mr Ffolliot; he don't take much part in politics, but he thinks
Redmarley belongs to him, and he'd be mighty astonished if you was to
get up and read in the parish church, and him not been told anything
about it."

"I shall certainly call on Mr Molyneux tomorrow," said Eloquent.




CHAPTER VI

THE SQUIRE

Hilary Ffolliot, squire of Redmarley in the county of Garsetshire, did
not appreciate the blessings heaped upon him by providence in the shape
of so numerous a family, and from their very earliest years manifested
a strong determination that no child of his should be spoilt through
any injudicious slackening of discipline.

His rules and regulations were as the sands of the sea for number, and
as they all tended in the same direction, namely, to the effacement of
his lively and ubiquitous offspring, it is hardly surprising that such
a large and healthy family found it difficult, not to say impossible,
to attain to his ideal of the whole duty of children.  And although a
desire not to transgress his code regarding silence and decorum in such
parts of the house as were within ear-shot of his study was strong in
the children, knowing how swift and sure was the retribution overtaking
such offenders--yet, however willing the spirit, the flesh was weak,
and succumbed to temptations to jump whole flights of stairs, to slide
down bannisters, arriving with a sounding thump at the bottom, and
occasionally to bang the schoolroom door in the faces of the pursuing
brethren.

Thus it was that strangers ringing the front-door bell at the Manor
House were, on being admitted, faced by large cards on the opposite
wall bearing such devices as, "Be sure you shut the door quietly," "Do
not speak loudly," "Go round to the back if possible."  And it is told
of one timid guest, that on reading the aforesaid directions (which, by
the way, were only supposed to apply to the children) he incontinently
fled before the astonished butler could stop him; and, as directed,
meekly rang the back-door bell, some five minutes afterwards.

Mr Ffolliot suffered from nerves.  He was by temperament quite unfitted
to be either a country squire or the father of a large family.  Above
all, was he singularly unable to bear with equanimity the strain upon
his income such a large family entailed.  He liked his comforts about
him, he was by nature of a contemplative and aesthetically studious
turn, and saw no good reason why his learned leisure should suffer
interruption, or his delicate susceptibilities be ruffled by such
incongruities as the loud voices and inharmonious movements of a set of
thoughtless children.

The village was small and well-to-do, his duties as a landowner sat
lightly upon him, and he was very awe-inspiring, didactic, and distant
in his dealings with the surrounding neighbours.  He had a fine taste
in old prints and old port, and every spring his health necessitated a
somewhat lengthened stay in an "oasis" which he had "discovered," so he
said, in the south of France, where he communed with nature, and
manifested a nice appreciation of the artistic efforts of his host's
most excellent cook.

In fact, the matter of intercourse with outsiders was largely left to
the discretion of his wife; and whoever had much to do with Mrs
Ffolliot (and most people wanted as much as they could get) spent a
good deal of time in the society of the children.  And to the
children--what was she not to those children?

For them "mother" signified everything that was kind, and gay, and
gracious, and above all, understanding.  Other people might be stupid,
and attaint with evil intention accidents, which while certainly
unfortunate in their results, were wholly unpremeditated, but mother
always gave the offender the benefit of the doubt, and not infrequently
by her charms of person and persuasive arts of conversation, so
effectually turned away the wrath of the injured one (generally a
farmer), that no hint of the escapade reached Mr Ffolliot's ears.

For the fact is that being somewhat tightly kept at home, the young
Ffolliots were more than something of a nuisance when they went abroad;
and as several of them generally were abroad, in their train did
mischief and destruction follow.

For three hundred years there had been Ffolliots at Redmarley; of the
last three owners two were married and childless, and the one
immediately preceding Mr Hilary Ffolliot was a bachelor.  But the fact
that the Manor had not for over a hundred years descended from father
to son, in no way affected the love each reigning Ffolliot felt for it.

There was something about Redmarley that seized the imagination and the
affection of the dwellers there.  The little grey stone village that
lay so lovingly along the banks of the Marle was so enduring, so
valorous in its sturdy indifference to time; in the way its gabled
cottages under their overhanging eaves faced summer sun and winter
rains, and instead of crumbling away seemed but to stand the firmer and
more dignified in their cheery eld.

The Ffolliots were good landlords.  No leaking roofs or defective walls
were complained of at Redmarley.  Never was Ffolliot yet who had not
realised the unique quality of the village, and done his best to
maintain it.  It never grew, rarely was a house to let, and the jerry
builder was an unknown evil.  It was a healthy village, too, set high
in the clean Cotswold air.  Big farms surrounded it, the nearest
railway line was three miles off, and the nearest station almost seven.

Of course there was poverty and a good deal of rheumatism among the
older inhabitants, but on the whole the periodic outbursts of
industrial discontent and unrest that convulsed other parts of England
seemed to pass Redmarley by.

Had the Manor stood empty or the vicar been a poor man with a large
family, doubtless things would have been uncomfortable enough to stir
the villagers out of their habitual philosophic acceptance of the "rich
man in his castle, the poor man at his gate" as an inevitable and
immutable law.  But they couldn't actively dislike either squire or
parson, and although the agricultural labourer is slow of speech he is
not lacking in shrewdness, and those at Redmarley realised that things
would be much worse than they were if Squire and Parson were suddenly
eliminated.

Hilary Ffolliot liked the rôle of landed proprietor in the abstract.
He would not have let the Manor and lived elsewhere for the world.  He
went regularly to church on Sunday morning, though it bored him
extremely, because, like Major Pendennis, he thought that "when a
gentleman is _sur ses terres_ he must give an example to the country
people."  Had he been starving he would not have sold a single rood of
Redmarley land to assuage his hunger.  Similarly he would himself have
done without a great many things rather than let any of his people go
hungry.  But it was only because they were _his_ people, part of the
state and circumstance of Redmarley.  He didn't care for them a bit as
individuals.  Any intercourse with the peasantry was irksome to him.
Dialect afflicted him.  He had nothing to say to them, and they were
stricken dumb in his awe-inspiring presence.  He was well content to
have few personal dealings with those, who, in his own mind, he thought
of as his "retainers."  He left everything of that sort to his wife.

It was the same with the children.  He looked upon them as a concession
to Marjory's liking for that sort of thing: and by "that sort of thing"
he meant his wife's enthusiastic interest in her fellow-creatures.

To be sure he was pleased that there should be no question as to a
direct heir . . . but . . . six of them was really rather a nuisance.
Children were like peasantry, inclined to be awkward and uncouth, crude
in thought and word and deed; apt to be sticky unless fresh from the
hands of nurse; in summer nearly always hot, frequently dirty, and
certainly always noisy, with, moreover, a distinct leaning towards low
company and a plainly manifest discomfort in his own.

He was proud of them because they were Ffolliots, and because they were
tall and straight and handsome (how wisely he had chosen their
mother!), and he supposed that some day, when they became more
civilised, he would be able to take some pleasure in their society.
Even the two eldest, Grantly and Mary, wearied him.  He could never
seem to find any topic of mutual interest, except Redmarley itself, and
then they always introduced irrelevant matter relating to the
inhabitants that he had no desire to hear.

Had Marjory, his wife, grown plain and anxious during her twenty years
of married life, it is probable she would have bored him too.  But she
kept her hold upon him because she was not only the most beautiful
woman he knew, but she satisfied his artistic sensibilities all round.
She was full of individuality and quick-witted decision.  Long ago she
had made up her mind that it was quite impossible to alter him, but she
was equally assured as to her perfect right to differ from him in every
possible way.  He quite fell in with this view of the situation; so
long as he was allowed unchallenged to be as stiff and stand-off and
unapproachable as he pleased, he was well content that she should be
extraordinarily sympathetic, gracious, and gay.  It pleased him that
the "retainers" should adore her and come to her in their troubles and
difficulties; that she should be constantly surrounded by her children;
that she should be in great request at every social gathering in the
county.

Did it happen that his need of her clashed with the children's, and
that just then she considered theirs was the stronger claim, he was
annoyed; but apart from that he approved of her devotion to them.
Somebody must look after the children; and it was not in his line.

So many things were not in his line.

One day, early in their married life, with unusual want of tact,
Marjory had asked him what his line was.

The question surprised and distressed him, it was so difficult to
answer.  However, the retort courteous came easily to Mr Ffolliot, and
raising her hand to his lips, he replied, "To provide a sufficiently
beautiful setting for you, my dear, that is my _métier_ at present."
And Marjory, who had spent a long, hot morning in superintending the
removal of books, busts, and pictures to the room that, for the future,
was to be his study, the room that till then had been her drawing-room,
felt an unregenerate desire to slap him with the hand he had just
kissed.

Mr Ffolliot believed that he could best develop the ultimate highest
that was in him if his surroundings were entirely harmonious.
Therefore had he selected the sunniest, largest room on the entrance
floor for his own study.  It had a lovely view of the river.

The oak wainscotting and shelves were removed there piece by piece from
the old library at the back, which faced north and had rather an
uninteresting outlook towards the woods.  This rather gloomy chamber he
caused to be newly panelled with wood enamelled white, and presented it
to his wife for her own use with a "God bless you, my darling, I hope
you may have many happy hours here."

Her drawing-room was the only room in Redmarley that Marjory Ffolliot
thoroughly disliked, and she never sat there if she could help it.

On that Sunday afternoon when Eloquent thought fit to visit his aunt,
Mr Ffolliot had left his writing-table and was standing in one of the
great windows that he might look out and, with the delicate
appreciation of the connoisseur, savour the crimson beauties of the
winter sunset.

As he gazed he mentally applauded the pageant of colour provided for
his enjoyment, and then he perceived two figures standing not fifty
yards from his window.

One he recognised at once as his daughter, and for a moment he included
her in his beatitude at the prospect presented to his view.  Yes; Mary
was undoubtedly pleasing to the eye, she was growing very like his
wife, and for that resemblance, like the Ancient Mariner, "he blessed
her unaware."

But when he became fully cognisant of the other figure, his feeling
wholly changed.  He screwed his eyeglass firmly into his eye and glared
at the couple.

Who on earth was this muddy, rather plebeian-looking person with whom
Mary was conversing on apparently friendly and familiar terms?  He
suddenly realised with an irritated sense of rapidly approaching
complications that Mary was nearly grown up.

In another minute the young man was walking down the drive alone, and
his daughter had vanished.

He gave her time to take off her boots, then he sent for her.

He sat down at his writing-table and awaited her, feeling intensely
annoyed.

How dared that mud-bespattered young man speak to her?

How could Mary be so wanting in dignity as to reply?

What was Marjory about to allow it?

Those children had far too much latitude.

He was in that frame of mind which, during the middle ages, resulted in
the immurement of such disturbing daughters in the topmost turrets of
their fathers' castles.

Mary came in, shut the door softly, and waited just inside it to say
nervously:

"You sent for me, father?"

"Come here," said Mr Ffolliot.

Mary crossed the big room and stood at the other side of the knee-hole
table facing him.

"I sent for you," Mr Ffolliot began slowly, and paused.  Angry as he
was, he found a moment in which to feel satisfaction at her pure
colouring . . . "to make enquiries" he continued, "as to your late
companion.  Who is that exceedingly muddy person with whom you were
talking in the front drive a few minutes ago?"

Yes; her colouring was certainly admirable.  A good healthy blush
sweeping over the white forehead till it reached the pretty growth of
hair round the temples and dying away as rapidly as it had arisen, was
quite a forgivable weakness in a young girl.

"I believe," said Mary cautiously, "that he is Mr Gallup, the new
Liberal candidate."

"Did he tell you so?"

"No, father.  He told me his name, but it was Grantly who thought he
was that one."

"And may I ask what reason Mr Gallup had for imparting his name to
you--did no one introduce him?"

"No, father."

"Well, how did the man come to speak to you?" Mr Ffolliot demanded,
irritably.  "You must see that the matter requires explanation."

"He was lost," Mary said mournfully, "and so I showed him the way."

"Lost," Mr Ffolliot repeated scornfully; "lost in Redmarley!"

"No, father, in the wood."

"And what was he doing in our woods, pray?"

"He had tried to come by a short-cut and got muddled and he fell down,
and I couldn't pass by without speaking, could I . . . he might have
broken his leg or something."

"What were you doing in the woods alone?  I have told you repeatedly
that I will not have you scouring the country by yourself.  You have
plenty of brothers, let one of them accompany you."

"I wasn't exactly alone," Mary pleaded; "Parker was with me."

"Mary," Mr Ffolliot said solemnly, "has it ever occurred to you that
you are very nearly eighteen years old?"

"Yes, father."

"Well, that being the case, don't you think that decorum in your
conduct, more dignity and formality in your manner are a concession you
owe to your family.  You know as well as I do that a young girl in your
position does not converse haphazard with any stranger that she happens
to find prone in the woods.  It's not done, Mary, and what is more, _I_
will not have it.  This impertinent young counter-jumper probably was
only too ready to seize upon any excuse to address you.  You should
have given him the information he asked and walked on."

"But we were going the same way," Mary objected; "it seemed so snobby
to walk on, besides . . ." again that glorious blush, "he didn't speak
to me first, I spoke to him."

Mr Ffolliot sighed.  "Remember," he said solemnly, "that should you see
him again you do not know that young man. . . ."

Silence on the part of Mary.  Deep thought on the brow of Mr Ffolliot.

"To-morrow," he said at last, "you may do up your hair."

"Oh, father, mayn't I do it up to-night before church.  I should love
to, do let me."

"No, my child, to-morrow is more suitable."

Mary did not ask why.  None of the children except the Kitten ever
questioned any of Mr Ffolliot's decisions . . . to him.

"Have you done with me, father?" Mary asked.  "I think it must be
tea-time."

"Yes, Mary, you may go, but remember, nothing of this sort must ever
occur again; it has distressed and annoyed me."

"I'm sorry, father, I didn't think . . ."

"You never do," said Mr Ffolliot, "that is what I complain of."

Thus it came about that Mr Ffolliot was himself directly responsible
for the friendly smile which greeted Eloquent as Mary passed him in the
aisle of Redmarley church that evening.

She had not been allowed to put up her hair that evening.  She was not
a grown-up lady yet.

Therefore would she grin at whomsoever she pleased.




CHAPTER VII

THE KITTEN

The Kitten was born on a Whitsunday morning about eight o'clock.  Mr
Ffolliot went himself to announce the news to Ger, who was sitting in
his high chair eating bread and milk at nursery breakfast.  Ger was all
alone with Thirza, the under-nurse, and he was thunderstruck to see his
father at such an unusual hour, above all, in such an unusual place as
his nursery.

"Ger," said Mr Ffolliot, quite genially for him, "you've got a new
little sister."

Ger regarded his father solemnly with large, mournful eyes, then said
aggrievedly, "Well, _I_ can't help it."

Mr Ffolliot laughed.  "You don't seem overjoyed," he remarked.

"Are you sorry, father?" Ger asked anxiously.

"Sorry," Mr Ffolliot repeated, "of course not; why should you think I'm
sorry?"

"Well, you see," said Ger, "it makes another of us."

Mr Ffolliot ignored this remark.  He moved towards the door.  At the
door he paused; "You may," he said graciously, "go and see your little
sister in an hour or two; mother said so."

As the door was closed behind him, Thirza sat down again with a sort of
gasp.  "Whatever did you mean, my dear, talking to Squire like that?"
she demanded shrilly.

"Like what?" asked Ger.

"Sayin' as it wasn't your fault, and seemin' so down about it all.
Why, you ought to be glad there's a dear little new baby, and you such
an affectionate child an' all."

"It makes another of us," Ger persisted, and Thirza gave him up as an
enigma.

In due time he went to the dressing-room off the big spare bedroom, and
there sat the kind, comfortable lady he knew as "mother's nurse" (Ger
had not seen her as often as the others, but still she came from time
to time "just to see how they were all getting on," and he liked her).
There she sat on a small rocking-chair with a bundle on her knee.

"Come, my darling, and see your little sister," she cried cheerfully.

Ger advanced.  She opened the head flannel and displayed a small, dark
head, and a red, puckered countenance.

"When will she be able to see?" asked Ger.

As if in answer the baby opened a pair of large dark eyes and stared
fixedly at the round, earnest face bent above her.

"See, bless you!" mother's nurse exclaimed, "see! why, she isn't a
kitten.  She can see right enough.  Look how she's taking you in.  She
has stared about from the minute she was born, as if she'd been here
before and was looking round to see that things were all the same.
She's the living image of Squire."

"I think she's rather like a kitten," Ger persisted, "but I'm glad she
can see.  I think she likes me rather."

And that was how the Kitten got her name.

She was not a Grantly.  She was all Ffolliot, and she was the only one
of the children absolutely fearless in the presence of her father.

Small and dark and delicately made, with quick-sighted falcon-coloured
eyes that nothing escaped.  Unlike her big, healthy brethren, she was
never in the slightest degree shy or clumsy, and she cared not a single
groat for anyone or anything in the whole wide world so long as she got
her own way.  And this, being a member of the Ffolliot family, she did
not get nearly as often as she would have liked.  But she understood
her father as did none of the others, and she could "get round him" in
a fashion that filled those others with astonished admiration.

She also considerably astonished Mr Ffolliot, for from the very first
she was familiar, and familiarity on the part of his children he
neither encouraged nor desired.  Moreover, she was ubiquitous and
elusive.  No army of nurses could restrain the Kitten in her
peregrinations.  She could speak distinctly, run, and run fast, when
she was little over a year old, and she possessed a singularly
enquiring mind.  She was demonstrative but not affectionate; she was
enchanting, and stony-hearted was the creature who could resist her.
She liked an audience, and she loved to "tell" things.  To this end she
would sit on your knee and lay one small but determined hand upon your
cheek to turn your face towards her, so that she could make sure you
were attending.  She kept the small hand there, soft and light, a
fairy-like caress, unless your attention wandered.  If this happened, a
sharp little pinch quickly diverted your thoughts into the proper
channel.  As she pinched you, the Kitten dropped her eyes so that you
noticed how long and black were her eyelashes.  Then, having punished
you, she raised her eyes to yours with so seraphic an expression that
you thought of "large-eyed cherubim" and entirely forgot that she had
pinched you at all, unless next day as you looked in the glass you
happened to notice a little blue mark on your cheek.  The Kitten could
pinch hard.

She was Ger's greatest joy and his unceasing anxiety.  From the very
first he had constituted himself her guide, philosopher . . . and
slave.  Yet the dictatorial little lady found out very early in the
day, that in certain things she had to conform to her indulgent
brother's standards, the family standards; and though she might be all
Ffolliot in certain matters, the Grantly ethics were too strong for
her.  That Ger should love her, that he should be always kind and
protective and unselfish she took as a matter of course; but she wanted
him to admire her too, and ready as he was to oblige her in most
things, she found that here he was strangely firm.  If she told tales
or complained of people, or persisted in tiresome teasing when asked
politely to desist, Ger withdrew the light of his countenance, and the
Kitten was uncomfortable.

To tell tales, or complain, or try to get another into trouble for any
reason whatsoever was forbidden.  The others had each in their turn
accepted this doctrine as they accepted day and night, the sun and moon
and stars.  The Kitten had to be taught these things, and Ger it was
who saw to it that she learned them.

There was a law in the family that if any member of it, after enduring
for a space a certain line of conduct from another, said, "_Please_
stop it," that person had to stop, or nemesis, by no means
leaden-footed, overtook the offender.  It took quite a long time to get
it into the Kitten's head that it was a law.

She had an extraordinarily loud and piercing cry when she was angry--a
cry that penetrated to the sacred study itself, no matter where she
might be in the house.

One day when she was about three years old she was so naughty, so
disobedient, so entirely unmanageable at nursery tea, that Nana, the
long-suffering, fairly lost her temper.  The Kitten placed the final
stone on a pillar of wrongdoing by drawing patterns on the tablecloth
with a long line of golden syrup dropped from a blob she had secured on
her small finger, and Nana gave the chubby hand belonging to the finger
a good hard smack.  The Kitten opened her mouth and gave vent to a yell
almost demoniacal in its volume and intensity.

Mr Ffolliot, reading the _Quarterly Review_ in dignified seclusion,
heard it in his study, was convinced that his youngest child was being
tortured by the others, and hastened hot-foot to the nursery.

Ger had his fingers in his ears.  Nana, flushed and angry, stirred her
tea pretending that she didn't hear; Thirza murmured pacific and wholly
useless nothings.  At her father's sudden and wholly unexpected
appearance, accompanied as it was by the swift uprising of both the
nurses, the Kitten stopped her clamorous vociferation, and with bunches
of tears still hanging on her lashes smiled radiantly at the Squire,
announcing with a wave of her sticky little hand.

"'At's fahver."

"What," Mr Ffolliot demanded angrily, "what in heaven's name has been
done to that child to make her shriek like that?  What happened?"

"Miss Kitten, sir," Nana said slowly, "has not been very good at tea
this afternoon."

"But what made her shriek like that?" Mr Ffolliot continued--"a more
alarming cry I never heard."

"She smacked me," said the Kitten, glowering at Nana, "she 'urted me";
and at that moment she met Ger's eyes.

The Kitten turned very red.

"Who smacked you?" asked Mr Ffolliot unwisely.

Ger stared at the Kitten, and the Kitten wriggled in her chair.

"Say what _you_ did," muttered Ger, still holding his small sister in
compelling gaze.

Nana smiled.  She had started with Grantly, and knew the family.

"Fahver," said the Kitten in her most seductive tones, "take me," and
she held out her arms.

Mr Ffolliot succumbed.  He went round to his youngest daughter and
lifted her out of her high chair, only to put her down with exceeding
haste a moment later.

"The child is all over some horrible sticky substance," he cried,
irritably.

"'At was it," said the Kitten.

Mr Ffolliot fled to wash his hands and change his coat.  Nana and
Thirza sat down again.  Ger shook his head at his small sister.  "You
_are_ a rotter," he said, sadly.

The Kitten began to cry again, but this time she cried quite softly,
and Nana, in spite of the libations of golden syrup, took her upon her
knee to comfort her.

Every evening the children went down to the hall to play with their
mother, and when their grandparents were there things were more than
usually festive.  Ganpie never seemed to mind how many children swarmed
over him--in fact, he rather seemed to like it; and Grannie assuredly
knew more entrancing games than anyone else in the world.

One Christmas Eve, just after tea, the whole family, including Mr
Ffolliot, were gathered in the hall.  Fusby had just taken the tray,
the General was sitting by the fire with Ger on his knee, the Kitten
sat on the opposite side of the hearth on her father's, while the rest
of the young people indulged in surreptitious "ragging."  Uz and Buz,
by some mischance, charged into a heavy oaken post crowned by a large
palm, with such force that they knocked it over, and the big flower-pot
missed their grandfather and Ger by a hair's breadth.

When the universal consternation had subsided, the scattered earth been
swept up, and the twins had been suitably reprimanded, the Kitten
scrambled down from her father's knee, and trotted across to her
grandmother, was duly taken up, and with small insistant hand turned
her Grannie's face towards her.

"Which would you rather?" she asked in her high clear voice, "that
Ganpie had been killed or Ger?"

Mrs Grantly shuddered--"Baby, don't suggest such dreadful things," she
exclaimed.

"But which would you rather?" the Kitten persisted.  "You're all saying
'another inch and it would have killed one of zem'--which one would you
rather?"

But Mrs Grantly flatly refused to state her preference, and the Kitten
was clearly disappointed.

That night she added an additional clause to her prayers: "Thank you,
God dear, for not letting the flower-pot kill Ganpie or Ger, and I'm
sure Grannie's very much obliged too."

At her prayers the Kitten always knelt bolt upright with her hands
tightly clasped under her chin, her nightgown draped in graceful folds
about her--a most reverent and saintly little figure, except that she
had from the very first firmly refused to shut her eyes.

She was fond of adding a sort of P.S. to her regular prayers, and
enjoyed its effect upon her mother, who made a point of, herself,
attending the orisons of her two youngest children.  One evening when
Mrs Ffolliot had been reading her a rather pathetic story of a
motherless child, the Kitten added this petition, "Please, God, take
care of all the little girls wiv no mummies."

Mrs Ffolliot was touched and related the story afterwards to Uz and
Buz, who grinned sceptically.

Next night, when the Kitten had been very naughty, and Mrs Ffolliot had
punished her, she repeated her prayers with the greatest unction, and
when she reached the usual postscript, fixed her eyes sternly on her
mother's face as she prayed fervently, "And please, dear God, take
great care of the poor little girls what _have_ got mummies."

A mystically minded friend of Mrs Ffolliot's had talked a good deal of
guardian angels to Ger and the Kitten.  Ger welcomed the belief with
enthusiasm.  It appealed at once to his friendly nature, and the
thought of an angel, "a dear and great angel," all for himself,
specially concerned about him, and there always, though invisible save
to the eye of faith, was a most pleasing conception.

Not that it would have pleased Ger unless he had been assured that
everyone else had one too.  And he forthwith constructed a theory that
when people got tired of doing nothing in heaven they came back again
and looked after folks down here.

His views of the angel's actual attributes would much have astonished
his mother's friend had he expressed them.  But Ger said nothing, and
quietly constructed an angel after his own heart, who was in point of
fact an angelic sort of soldier servant, never in the way, but always
there and helpful if wanted.

He could not conceive of any servant who was not also a friend, and
having received much kindness from soldiers in the ranks he fixed upon
that type as the most agreeable for a guardian angel.  And although he
greatly admired the two framed pictures of angels the lady had given
them to hang in the nursery--Guercino's Angel and Carpaccio's "Tobias
and the angels"--his own particular angel was quite differently clad,
and was called "Spinks" after a horse gunner he had dearly loved, who
was now in India.

The Kitten, far less impressionable, and extremely cautious, was
pleased with the idea when it was first mooted, and discussed the
question exhaustively with Ger, deciding that her angel had large wings
like the one with the child in the picture.

"Does it stay with me in the night-nursery all night?" she enquired.

"'He,' not 'it,'" Ger corrected; "but perhaps yours is a 'she.'"

"I won't have a she," the Kitten said decidedly, for even at four years
old she had already learnt that her own sex had small patience with her
vagaries.

"You'll have to have what's sent you," Ger said solemnly.

"I won't have a lady angel, so there," said the Kitten, "I'll have a
man angel."

"I daresay they'll let you," Ger said soothingly.  "A great, big, kind
man with wings like you said."

"Has yours got wings?" the Kitten demanded.

"I don't think so," said Ger, "he's not that sort; but," he added
proudly, "he's got spurs."

"Will it stay in the nursery _all_ night?" the Kitten asked again
rather nervously.

"Of course that's what he's for, to take care of you, so that you'll
feel quite safe and happy."

"Oh," said the Kitten, and her voice betrayed the fact that she found
this statement far from reassuring.

She said nothing to her mother, and Mrs Ffolliot heard her say her
prayers as usual, kissed her, blessed her, and tucked her in.  No
sooner, however, had Mrs Ffolliot gone down the passage than the most
vigorous yells brought her back to the night-nursery, while both Nana
and Thirza hastened there also.

The Kitten was sitting up in bed, wide-eyed and apparently more
indignant than frightened.

"Take it away," she exclaimed; "open the window and let it out."

"Let what out?" asked the bewildered Mrs Ffolliot.

"The angel," sobbed the Kitten, "I don't want it, I heard its wings
rustling and it disturbed me dreffully--I don't want it, open the
window wide."

"The window is open at the top," said Mrs Ffolliot; "but why do you
want to get rid of an angel?  Surely that's a lovely thing to have in
the room."

"No," said the Kitten firmly, "I don't like it, and I don't want it.  I
don't want no angel I haven't seen.  I don't like people in my room
when I go to sleep."

Nana and Thirza had melted away, only too thankful not to be called
upon to arbitrate in the angel question.  Mrs Ffolliot and her small
daughter stared at each other in the flickering firelight.

"I'm sure," said Mrs Ffolliot, trying hard to steady her voice, "that
no self-respecting angel would stay for a minute with a little girl
that didn't want him.  You may be certain of that."

"A she might," the Kitten suggested suspiciously.

"No angel would," Mrs  Ffolliot said decidedly.

"Do you think," the Kitten asked anxiously, "that there's enough room
at the top for it to squeege froo?  I can't _bear_ those wings
rustling."

Mrs Ffolliot switched on the light.  "You can see for yourself."

"Thank you, mummy dear, I'll be much happier by myself, really," and
the Kitten lay down quite contentedly.




CHAPTER VIII

GENTLEMAN GER

It was the 22nd of December, the younger Ffolliots were gathered in the
schoolroom, and Ger was in disgrace.

The twins were back from school, and that afternoon they had unbent
sufficiently to take part in a representation of "Sherlock Holmes" in
the hall.  The whole family, with the exception of the Kitten, had seen
the play in the Artillery Theatre at Woolwich during their last visit
to grandfather.

It is a play that not only admits of, but necessitates, varied and loud
noises.

Everything ought to have gone without a hitch, for earlier in the
afternoon Mr Ffolliot had departed in the carriage to take the chair at
a lecture in Marlehouse; and a little later Grantly had driven his
mother to the station in the dogcart to meet a guest.

Unfortunately the lecture on Carpaccio at the Literary Institute was of
unusually short duration, and Mr Ffolliot returned tired and rather
cross, just as Ger was enacting the hansom cab accident at the foot of
the staircase, by beating a deafening tattoo on the Kitten's bath with
a hair-brush.

The twins and the Kitten (who had proved a wrapt and appreciative
audience) melted away with Boojum-like stealth the moment the hall door
was opened; but Ger, absorbed in the entrancing din he was making,
noticed nothing, and his father had to shake him by the shoulders
before he would stop.

"I suppose," Ger remarked thoughtfully, "that we must look upon father
as a cross."

"He certainly _is_ jolly cross," Uz murmured.  "He should hear the row
we kick up at school when we've won a match, and nobody says a
syllable."

"But I mean," Ger persisted, wriggling about on his seat as though the
problem tormented him, "that if father were as nice as mother we'd be
too happy, and it wouldn't be good for us; like the people in Fairy
stories, you know, when they're too well off, misfortunes come."

"I don't think," Buz said dryly, "that we have any cause to dread
misfortunes on that score.  But cheer up, Ger, it'll soon be time for
the pater to go abroad, and then nobody will get jawed for six long
weeks."

"I shouldn't mind the jawings so much or the punishments," said Ger,
after a minute's pause, "if it wasn't for mother.  She minds so, she
never seems to get used to it.  I'm glad she was out this
afternoon--though we did want her to see the play--but whatever will
she say when I can't go down to meet Reggie with the rest of you?  And
what'll _he_ think?"

Ger's voice broke.  Punishment had followed hard on the heels of the
crime, and banishment to the schoolroom for the rest of the evening was
Ger's lot.  Had Mr Ffolliot belonged to a previous generation he would
probably, when angry, have whacked his sons and whacked them hard.
They would infinitely have preferred it.  But his fastidious taste
revolted from the idea of corporal punishment, and his ingenuity in
devising peculiarly disagreeable penalties in expiation of their
various offences, was the cause of much tribulation to his indignant
offspring.

"Here _is_ mother!" cried Buz, "and she's got Reggie.  Come down and
see him you others, but for heaven's sake, come quietly."

The Reggie in question was a young Sapper just then stationed at
Chatham, and a "very favourite cousin."

The Ffolliot children were in the somewhat unusual position of having
no uncles and aunts, and no cousins of their own, for the sad reason
that both their parents were "onlies."  Therefore did they right this
omission on the part of providence in their own fashion, by adopting as
uncles, aunts, and cousins all pleasant guests.

Reggie wasn't even a second cousin; but his people being mostly in
India, he had for many years spent nearly all his holidays, and later
on his leave, at Redmarley, and he was very popular with the whole
family.  Even Mr Ffolliot unbent to a dignified urbanity in his
presence.  He approved of Reggie, who had passed seventh into Woolwich
and first into the Sappers, and Grantly always thanked his lucky stars
that he was destined for Field Artillery, and was not expected to
follow in Reggie's footsteps in the matter of marks.

Ger worshipped Reggie, and it was with a heart full of bitterness, and
eyes charged with hot tears that blurred the firelight into long bands
of crimson, that he leant against the schoolroom table, alone, while
the others all trooped off on tiptoe into the hall to give rapturous
though whispered greeting to their guest.

Reggie did not whisper though; the warning cards had no sort of effect
upon him, and the forlorn little figure drooping against the table
sprang erect and shook the big drops from his cheeks as he heard his
cousin's jolly voice "Where's my friend Ger?"--a murmured
explanation--then, "O _bad_ luck!  I'll go to him--No don't come with
me--not for two minutes."

How Ger blessed him for that forethought!  To be found in disgrace was
bad enough; but to be seen in tears, and by his whole family! . . .

Hastily scraping his cheeks with a corner of his dilapidated Norfolk
jacket--if you have ever tried to do this you'll know that it is more
or less of a test of suppleness--he went slowly to the door, and in
another minute was lifted high into the air and shaken violently by a
slight, rather plain young man, who bore with the utmost meekness a
passionate embrace highly detrimental to his immaculate collar: and the
best of it all was, that he was quite unconscious of the fact that Ger
had not met him with the others, nor seemed aware of anything unusual
beyond the pleasantness of once more sitting in the big slippery
leather-covered arm-chair beside the schoolroom fire, while the rest of
the family, having given him exactly the two minutes' start he had
demanded, came flocking back to sit all over him and shout their news
in an excited chorus.

Next morning, while his father was out in the village, Ger ensconced
himself in one of the deep-seated windows of the study, as a quiet
haven wherein he might wrestle in solitude with the perfect and
pluperfect of the verb _esse_, which he had promised his mother he
would repeat to her that morning.

Their governess had gone home for the holidays, but Ger was so backward
that his father insisted that he must do a short lesson (with Mrs
Ffolliot) every morning.  Ger could not read.  It was extraordinary how
difficult he found it, and how dull it appeared to him, this art that
seemed to come by nature to other people; which, once mastered,
appeared capable of giving so much pleasure.

It puzzled Ger extremely.

Mrs Ffolliot had, herself, instructed all her sons in the rudiments of
the Latin Grammar, and very well and thoroughly she did it, but so
pleasantly, that in their minds the declensions and the conjugations
were ever vaguely associated with the scent of violets.  The reason for
this being, that the instructed one invariably squeezed as close as
possible to his teacher, and as there were violets at Redmarley nearly
all the year round, Mrs Ffolliot always wore a bunch tucked into her
waistband.

It was characteristic of the trust the squire had in his wife's
training that he had not the slightest objection to the children using
the library when he, himself, was not there to be disturbed, being
quite certain that as they had promised her not to touch his writing
table, the promise would be faithfully kept.  Besides, like all true
book-lovers, he was generous in the matter of his books, and provided
the children treated them with due care and respect, had no objection
to their taking them out of the shelves and reading them.

For a long time there was no sound in the room but an occasional
whispered, "_fui, fuisti, fuit_."  Presently Grantly and Mary came in
to discuss a fancy-dress dance to which they were bidden that evening
at a neighbour's; then, in rushed Reggie in coat and hat with a newly
arrived parcel in his hand.  Ger had seen the railway van come up the
drive, but as he had promised his mother not to move until he had
mastered his verb, he did not make his presence known to anyone.

Reggie went over to Mr Ffolliot's desk, and seeing a shilling lying on
the table seized it and fled from the room.  Three minutes later Ger
saw him bowling down the drive in the dog-cart, then Mr Ffolliot
returned, and Ger, feeling tolerably certain of the "perfect and
pluperfect and future perfect," went slowly upstairs to his mother to
repeat it.

All went on peacefully and quietly in the schoolroom for the next half
hour, when suddenly Grantly and Mary whirled into the room in a state
of such excited indignation as took their mother quite five minutes to
discover what all the fuss was about.  When at last they had been
induced to tell their story separately, and not in a chorus almost
oratorio-like in its confusion, Mrs Ffolliot discovered to her dismay
that they were accused of meddling with a shilling which their father
had placed on the book-club collecting card, ready for the collector
when she should call.

When she _did_ call the shilling was gone, and as Grantly and Mary were
known to have been in the study, the squire came to the conclusion that
one of them must have knocked against his table and brushed it off, and
he gave it out that "unless they found it, and thus repaired the
mischief and annoyance their carelessness had caused, he would not
allow them to go to the dance that evening!"

He never suspected that any member of his family would take the
shilling, but he was ready to believe all things of their clumsiness.
In vain did Grantly and Mary protest that they had never been near his
desk; the squire might have been Sherlock Holmes himself, so certain
was he as to the exactitude of his deductions.

"The card has been pushed from where it was originally placed to the
extreme edge of the table; the shilling must have been knocked off, and
had doubtless rolled under some article of furniture; let them see to
it that it was found; they might hunt there and then if they liked, as
he would not require the room for half an hour."

The consciousness of their innocence in no way sustained Grantly and
Mary under the appalling prospect of losing the party.  They had of
course hunted frantically everywhere, but naturally had found no trace
of the shilling.

Ger sat quite still during the recital of their wrong's, his face
growing paler and paler, and his honest grey eyes wider and wider in
the horror of his knowledge.  For he knew who had taken the shilling,
and he knew also that it was his plain duty to right his innocent
brother and sister.  But at what a cost!  He could not tell of Reggie,
and yet it was so unlike Reggie for it was . . . even to himself Ger
hardly liked to confess what it was--and he had gone off in such a
hurry!  To Ger, a shilling seemed a very large sum, his own greatest
wealth, amassed after many weeks of hoarding, had once reached five
pence halfpenny, nearly all in farthings; and he even found himself
conjecturing the sort of monetary difficulty into which Reggie had
fallen, and from which a shilling might extricate him.  He knew there
were such things as "debts," and that the army was "very expensive,"
for he had heard his grandfather say so.  Like many extremely upright
people Ger was gentle in his judgments of others.  Himself of the most
crystalline honesty, he could yet conceive of circumstances wherein a
like probity might be hard for somebody else: at all costs poor Reggie
must be screened, but it was equally clear to him that his brother and
sister must not lose the pleasure long looked-forward-to as the opening
joy of the holidays.

Now there was about Ger a certain loyalty and considerateness in his
dealings with others, that had earned for him the _sobriquet_ of
"Gentleman Ger."  He was very proud of the title, and his mother, whom
he adored, had done all in her power to foster the feeling of _noblesse
oblige_; so Ger felt that here and now a circumstance had arisen which
would try what stuff he was made of.  The excited talk raged round him
like a storm, but after the first he heard none of it.  He slipped
quietly off his chair, and unnoticed by the group round his mother,
left the room and crept down the back staircase.  All doubt and
questioning was at an end.  His duty seemed quite clear to him: he
would take the blame of that shilling, Mary and Grantly would go to
their party, and Reggie . . .  Reggie would not be back till quite
late, when he, too, was going to the fancy-dress dance.  Reggie need
never know anything about it.

By this time he had reached the study door, and stood with his hand
upon the handle.  And as he waited, screwing his courage to the
sticking point, there came into his mind the words of a psalm that he
had learned by heart only last Sunday to repeat to his mother.  He
learned it more easily than usual because he liked it; when she read it
to him he found he could remember it, and now, just as a dark room is
transiently illumined by the falling together of the fire in sudden
flame, there came into Ger's mind the words, "He that sweareth to his
own hurt and changeth not."  He turned the handle and went in.

The squire was sitting in his big armchair in front of the fire reading
_Marius the Epicurean_, and trying to compose his nerves, which still
vibrated unpleasantly after all the fuss about the shilling.  He had
even quoted to himself somewhat testily something about "fugitive
things not good to treasure"; but whether he referred to the nimbly
disappearing shilling, or to the protestations of Grantly and Mary, was
not clear.  He generally solaced himself with Pater when perturbed, and
he had nearly persuaded himself that he was once more nearly attuned to
"perfect tone, fresh and serenely disposed of the Roman Gentleman,"
when Ger opened the door, and walked over towards him without shutting
it--an unpardonable offence at any time.

"Gervais," exclaimed the squire, and his tone was the reverse of
serene, "Why are you not in the schoolroom?  What on earth do you want?"

Ger went back and shut the door carefully and quietly, and once more
crossed the room till he stood directly in front of his father.  The
squire noted with a little pang of compunction how pale the child was.
"What is it?" he said more gently.

"Father, I've come about that shilling.  I took it."

"_You_ took it," exclaimed the squire in amazement.  "Why?"

Here was a poser.  Ger was so absolutely unused to lying that he was
quite unprepared for any such question as this, so he was silent.

"Why did you take it?" angrily reiterated his father.  "And what have
you done with it?  Answer at once.  You know perfectly well that it is
a most shocking breach of good manners to ignore a question in this
fashion."

"I took it," repeated Ger stupidly, his large grey eyes looking into
space beyond his father.

"So I hear," said the squire, growing more and more annoyed.  "But why
did you take it?  and where have you put it?"

"I can't tell you, father," said Ger firmly, and this time he met his
father's eyes unflinchingly.  To himself he said, "I won't tell more'n
_one_ lie for mother's sake."

The squire was dumfoundered by this obstinacy.  It was unheard
of--absolutely without parallel in his domestic annals--that one of his
children should actually flout him! yes! actually flout him with such
an answer as this.

"Go and stand over there in that corner," he thundered, "and you shan't
move until you can answer my questions, if you stand there for the rest
of the day.  If you children have nothing else, I am determined that
you shall have good manners."

      *      *      *      *      *      *

It was nearly five o'clock, and Ger still stood in the same corner of
the study watching the last streak of red fade from the chill January
sky.  There was no sound in the room save only the soft "plop" of a
cinder as it fell on to the tiled hearth.  The fire had burned low, and
he was very cold.  Never in all his life had he gone without his dinner
before, and although he was no longer hungry, everything seemed, as he
said afterwards, "funny and misty."

The squire had fulfilled his threat.  After sending the culprit away to
wash his tear-stained face and hands, and to procure a clean
handkerchief, he bade him return to stand in the same corner till he
should arrive at a proper sense of the respect due to a parent.  He had
locked the door upon Ger when he went to lunch, and forbade any member
of the family, including his wife, to hold any sort of communication
with the culprit.  Parker the fox-terrier, however, did not obey the
squire, and remained in the study with Ger regardless of the fact that
the servants' dinner bell had rung, which was also the signal for his
own.  And to Parker Ger confided the whole story, and very puzzled and
unhappy it made him, for he ran between Ger and the door snuffing and
whining till the squire came back and turned him out, when he remained
upon the mat outside uneasily barking at intervals.

Mrs Ffolliot was almost beside herself with grief and consternation.
It was such an inexplicable piece of obstinacy on Ger's part, and he
was not usually obstinate.

Grantly and Mary, while relieved that they would still have the
opportunity of wearing the dresses which had been the object of so much
thought, were really concerned about Ger; it seemed so senseless of
him, "why couldn't he say why he wanted the beastly shilling and have
done with it?"

The squire himself was very seriously disturbed.  He had stormed and
raged, he had argued, he had even spoken very kindly and eloquently on
the subject of dishonesty, and the necessity there was for full
confession before forgiveness could be obtained (this last appeal
sorely trying Ger's fortitude), but all to no avail.  As the needle
points ever to the north, so all the squire's exhortations ended with
the same question, to be met with the same answer, growing fainter in
tone as the hours wore on, but no less firm in substance.  "I can't
tell you, father."

Mr Ffolliot could no longer bear the little white-faced figure standing
so silently in the corner of the room.  He went forth and walked about
the garden.  He really was a much tried man just then.  Only last night
Buz, lying in wait for Reggie as he came to bed, had concealed himself
in an angle of the staircase, and when his cousin, as he thought,
reached his hiding-place, pounced out upon him, blowing out his lighted
candle, and exclaiming in a sepulchral voice, "Out, out, damned
candle!" (Buz was doing _Macbeth_ at school and had a genius for inept,
and generally inaccurate quotation)--then flew up the dark staircase
two steps at a time fully expecting hot pursuit, but none came.  Dead
silence, followed by explosive bursts of smothered laughter from Reggie
and Grantly who had followed the squire upstairs.  It did not comfort
Mr Ffolliot at the present moment to reflect that Buz had had to write
out the whole scene in which the "germ," as his father called it, of
his misquotation occurred.  At present his mind was full of Ger, and
ever and anon like the refrain of a song, there thrust into his
thoughts a sentence he had been reading when the little boy had
interrupted him that morning, "and towards such a full and complete
life, a life of various yet select sensation, the most direct and
effective auxiliary must be, in a word, insight."  "Could it be
possible?" he asked himself, "that he was in some way lacking in this
quality?"

He turned somewhat hastily and went back into the house.  Once more Ger
heard the key turn in the lock, and his father came in, followed by
Fusby, bearing tea upon a tray.

The front door banged, and Ger's heart positively hammered against his
ribs, for no one but Reggie ever dared to bang the Manor House front
door.  In another minute he had come in, and was standing on the
hearth-rug beside Mr Ffolliot, bringing with him a savour of frosty
freshness into the warm, still room.

"I got through sooner than I expected," said Reggie, in his big cheery
voice, "and caught the two twenty-five, so I walked out.  I've been to
the stables to tell Heaven he needn't drive in for me after all.  O
tea!  That's good,--where's Aunt Marjory?  By the way, uncle, I owe you
a shilling.  A parcel came for me just as I was starting, and there was
a shilling to pay on it.  I had no change and was in a tearing hurry,
so I took one I saw lying on your desk--hope it was all right."

There was a little soft thud in the far corner of the room, as Ger fell
forward on his face, worn out by his long watch, and the rapture of
this immense relief.

When things grew clear again the room was full of light and he was
lying in his mother's arms.  Reggie was kneeling beside him trying to
force something in a spoon between his lips, something that smelt, so
Ger said, "like a shop in Woolwich" and tasted very queer and hot.

"Lap it up, old chap," whispered Reggie, and Ger wondered why he seemed
to have lost his voice.  "There now, that's all right.  You'll be as
fit as possible directly," and Reggie scrambled up from his knees and
bolted from the room.

Ger sat up and looked at his father who was standing beside him.  The
lamp shone full on the squire's face, and he, too, like Reggie, seemed
to have got a cold in his eyes; but in spite of this peculiarity, there
was that in their expression which told Ger that everything was all
right again, and that in this instance absolution without confession
had been fully and freely granted.

So Ger, from the safe shelter of his mother's arms, explained, "I
couldn't tell more'n one lie because of mother, you know, and I thought
he wanted it for debts or something.  Is those sangwidges anchovy or
jam, do you think?"




CHAPTER IX

THE DANCE

Reggie Peel was not quite sure whether he liked Mary with her hair up
or not.  The putting up of the hair necessitated a readjustment of his
whole conception of her, and . . . he was very conservative.

With Mary the tom-boy child, with Mary the long-legged flapper and good
chum, he was affectionately at his ease.  He had petted and tormented
her by turns, ever since as a boy of ten he had first seen her, a baby
a year old, in his Aunt Marjory's arms.  Throughout her turbulent but
very cheerful childhood he had been her firm, if patronising, friend.
Then as she developed into what Ger had described to Eloquent as "a bit
of a gawk," he became more than ever her friend and champion.  "Uncle
Hilary was so beastly down on Mary;" and Mary, though she did knock
things over and say quite extraordinarily stupid things on occasion,
was "such a good old sort."

He had never considered the question of her appearance till this
Christmas.  He supposed she was good-looking--all the Ffolliots were
good-looking--but it really didn't matter much one way or another.  She
was part of Redmarley, and Redmarley as a whole counted for a good deal
in Reginald Peel's life.  He, too, had fallen under its mysterious
charm.  The manor-house mothered him, and the little Cotswold village
cradled him in kindly keeping arms.  His own mother had died when he
was seven, his father married again a couple of years later; but, as Mr
Peel was in the Indian Forest Department, and Reggie's young stepmother
a faithful and devoted wife, he saw little of either of them, except on
their somewhat infrequent leaves when they paid so many visits and had
to see so many people, that he never really got to know either them or
his half-brother and sister.

The love of Redmarley had grown with his growth till it became part of
him; so far he had looked upon Mary as merely one of the many pleasant
circumstances that went to the making of Redmarley.  Now, somehow, she
seemed to have detached herself from the general design and to have
taken the centre of the picture.  He was not sure that he approved of
such prominence.

She startled him that first evening when, with the others, she met him
in the hall.  She was unexpected, she was different, and he hated that
anything at Redmarley should be different.

"Mary's grown up since yesterday," Uz remarked ironically, "she's like
you when you first managed to pull your moustache."

Of course Reggie suitably chastised Uz for his cheek, but all the same
there was a difference.

To be sure she still wore her skirts well above her ankles, but
nowadays quite elderly ladies wore short skirts, so that in no way
accentuated her youth; and after all was she so very young?

Mary would be eighteen on Valentine's day.

Arrayed in Elizabethan doublet and hose for Lady Campion's dance,
Reggie stood before his looking-glass and grinned at himself
sardonically.

"Ugly devil," he called himself, and then wondered how Mary would look
as Phyllida the ideal milkmaid.

Ugly he might be, but his type was not unsuited to the period he had
chosen.  A smallish head, wide across the brows, well-shaped and
poised, with straight, smooth hair that grew far back on the temples
and would recede even further as the years went on; humorous bright
grey eyes, not large, but set wide apart under slightly marked
eyebrows; a pugnacious, rather sharply-pointed nose with a ripple in
it.  Reggie declared that his nose had really meant well, but changed
its mind half way down.  His mouth under the fair moustache was not in
the least beautiful, but it was trustworthy, neither weak nor sensual,
and the chin was square and dogged.  His face looked long with the
pointed beard he had stuck on with such care, and above the wide white
ruff, might well have belonged to some gentleman adventurer who
followed the fortunes of Raleigh or Drake.  For in spite of its
insignificant irregularity of feature there was alert resolve in its
expression; a curious light-hearted fixity of purpose that was
arresting.

Reggie had never been popular or distinguished at Wellington; yet those
masters who knew most about boys always prophecied that "he would make
his mark."

It was the same at the "Shop"; although he never rose above a corporal,
there were those among the instructors who foretold great things of his
future.  His pass-out place was a surprise to everyone, himself most of
all.  He was reserved and did not make friends easily; he got on quite
pleasantly with such men as he was thrown with; but he was not a
_persona grata_ in his profession.  He got through such a thundering
lot of work with such apparent ease.

"A decent chap, but a terrible beggar to swat," was the general verdict
upon Reginald Peel.

To Mrs Ffolliot and the children he showed a side of his character that
was rigidly concealed from outsiders, the truth being that as a little
boy he had been very hungry for affection.  The Redmarley folk loved
him, and his very sincere affection for them was leavened by such
passionate gratitude as they never dreamed of.

His face grew very gentle as he gazed unseeingly into the glass.  He
was thinking of loyal little Ger.

The clock on the mantelpiece struck the quarter.  He blew out the
candles on his dressing-table and fled.

Few gongs or dinner bells were sounded at the Manor House.  Mr Ffolliot
disliked loud noises.  As he ran down the wide shallow staircase into
the hall he saw that Mary was standing in the very centre of it, while
her father slowly revolved round her in appreciative criticism, quoting
the while:--

  "The ladies of St James's!
  They're painted to the eyes;
  Their white it stays for ever,
  Their red it never dies;
  But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
  Her colour comes and goes;
  It trembles to a lily,--
  It warms to a rose--"


This was strictly true, for Mary flushed and paled under her father's
gaze, standing there tall and slender in russet gown and white bodice,
a milking stool under her arm.  She wore "buckled shoon" and a white
sunbonnet, and was as fair a maid as a man could see between
Christmases.

She was surprised that her father should express his approval thus
graciously, but she was not uplifted.  It was Mr Ffolliot's way.  He
had been detestable all day, and now he was going to be charming.  His
compliments counted for little with Mary.  Yesterday he had told her
she moved like a Flanders mare, and hurt her feelings very much.  Her
dress was made in the house and cost about half the price of her shoes
and stockings, but Mary was not greatly concerned about her dress.  She
wanted to go to the dance, to dance all night and see other people.

Mrs Ffolliot, looking tired and pale, was sitting with Ger on an oak
settle by the hearth.  Ger had been allowed to stay up till dinner time
to see his family dressed.  The twins were sitting on the floor in
front of the fire.  Reggie paused on the staircase four steps up, and
behind him came Grantly in smock frock (borrowed from the oldest
labourer in Redmarley) and neat gaiters as the typical Georgian
"farmer's boy" to match Mary's milk-maid.

"Aren't you coming, Aunt Marjory?" Reggie asked.  "I thought you were
to appear as one of the Ladies of St James's as a foil for Mary."

Mrs Ffolliot shook her head.  "I did think of it, but I've got a bad
headache.  Mary doesn't really need me as a chaperon, it's only a boy
and girl dance; besides, you and Grantly can look after her."

Mr Ffolliot went and sat down on the settle beside his wife.  "You're
much better at home," he said tenderly, "you'd only get tired out
sitting up so late."

Grantly and Mary exchanged glances.  They knew well enough that Mrs
Ffolliot had decided at the last moment that she had better stay at
home to look after the twins, who were certain, if left to their own
devices, to get into mischief during her absence.

"That rumpus with Ger upset her awfully," Mary whispered to Reggie as
they went into dinner, "and she won't risk anything fresh.  It is a
shame, for she'd have loved it, and she always looks so ripping."

The three young people left directly after dinner.  Grantly stopped the
carriage at an old Ephraim Teakle's cottage in the village, and they
all went in to let him have a look at them, for it was his smock, a
marvel of elaborate stitching, that Grantly was wearing.

Ephraim was eighty-seven years old and usually went to bed very early,
but to-night he sat up a full hour to see "them childer," as he called
the Ffolliots.  He was very deaf, but had the excellent sight of a
generation that had never learned to read.  He stood up as the young
people came in, and joined in the chorus of "laws," of "did you evers,"
indulged in by his granddaughter and her family.

"'Er wouldn' go far seekin' sarvice at mop, not Miss Mary wouldn't," he
said; "an' as for you, Master Grantly, you be the very moral of me when
I did work for Farmer Gayner over to Winson.  Maids did look just like
that when I wer a young chap--pretty as pins, they was."

But Mrs Rouse, his granddaughter, thought "Mr Peel did look far an'
away the best, something out o' the common 'e were, like what a body
sees in the theatre over to Marlehouse . . . but there, I suppose 'tis
dressin' up for the likes o' Master Grantly, an' I must say
laundry-maid, she done up grandfather's smock something beautiful."

Abinghall, Sir George Campion's place, was just outside Marlehouse
town.  The house, large and square and comfortable, was built by the
first baronet early in the nineteenth century.  The Campions always did
things well, and "the boy and girl dance" had grown very considerably
since its first inception.  Indeed, had Mrs Ffolliot realised what
proportions it had assumed since she received the friendly informal
invitation some five weeks before, she would have risked the
recklessness of the twins, and made a point of chaperoning Mary herself.

For the last three generations the Campions had been strong Liberals,
therefore it was quite natural that with an election due in a fortnight
there should be bidden to the dance many who were not included in Lady
Campion's rather exclusive visiting list.

It is extraordinary how levelling an election is, especially at
Christmas time, when peace and goodwill are acknowledged to be the
prevailing and suitable sentiments.

Even the large drawing-room at Abinghall wouldn't hold the dancers, so
a floor and a huge tent had been imported from London, and joined to
the house by a covered way.  A famous Viennese band played on a stage
at one end, and around the sides were raised red baize seats for those
who wanted to watch the dancing.  Lady Campion received her guests at
the door of the large drawing-room; she caught Mary by the arm and held
her to whisper rapidly, "I don't know half the people, Mary, do help
me, and if you see anyone looking neglected, say a kind word, and get
partners, like a dear.  I depended on your mother, and now she has
failed me."

Naturally the Liberal candidate was bidden to the dance, and Eloquent
arrayed in the likeness of one of Cromwell's soldiers, a dress he had
worn in a pageant last summer, was standing exactly opposite the
entrance to the tent, when at the second dance on the programme
Phyllida and the Farmer's Boy came in, and with the greatest good-will
in the world proceeded to Boston with all the latest and dreadful
variations of that singularly unbeautiful dance.  Grantly had imported
the very newest thing from Woolwich, Mary was an apt pupil, and the two
of them made a point always of dancing the first dance together
wherever they were.  They were singularly well-matched, and tonight
their height, their quaint dress, their remarkable good looks and
their, to Marlehouse eyes, extraordinary evolutions, made them
immediately conspicuous.

Eloquent, stiff, solemn, and uncomfortable in his wide-leaved hat and
flapping collar, watched the smock-frock and russet gown as they bobbed
and glided, and twirled and crouched in the mazes of that mysterious
dance, and the moment they stopped, shouldered his way through the
usual throng of pierrots, flower-girls, Juliets, Carmens, Sikhs, and
Chinamen to Lady Campion, who was standing in the entrance quite near
the milk-maid who was already surrounded by would-be partners.

"Lady Campion, will you present me to Miss Ffolliot," Eloquent asked in
a stand-and-deliver sort of voice, the result of the tremendous effort
it had been to approach her at all.

She looked rather surprised, but long apprenticeship to politics had
taught her that you must bear all things for the sake of your party, so
she smiled graciously on the stiff, rosy-faced Cromwellian, and duly
made the presentation.

"May I," Eloquent asked, with quite awful solemnity, "have the pleasure
of a dance?"

"I've got twelve or fourteen and an extra, but I can't promise to dance
any one of them if other people are sitting out, because I've promised
Lady Campion to help see to people.  I'll give you one if you'll
promise to dance it with someone else--if necessary----"

Eloquent looked blue.  "Isn't that rather hard?" he asked meekly.

"Everyone's in the same box," Mary said shortly, "and you, of all
people, ought simply to dance till your feet drop off.  Let me see your
card--What? no dances at all down?  Oh, that's absurd--come with me."
And before poor Eloquent could protest he found himself being whisked
from one young lady to another, and his card was full all except
twelve, fourteen, and the second extra--which he rigidly reserved.

"There," said Mary, smiling upon him graciously, "that's well over.
I've been most careful; you are dancing with just about an equal number
of Liberal and Tory young ladies, and you ought to take at least five
mamas into supper; don't forget; look pleased and eager, and be careful
what you say to the pretty girl in pink, she's a niece of our present
member."

Here a partner claimed Mary, and Eloquent, feeling much as the White
King must have felt when Alice lifted him from the hearth to the table
(he certainly felt dusted), went to seek one Miss Jessie Bond whose
name figured opposite the number on his programme that was just
displayed on the bandstand.

He really worked hard.  He danced carefully and laboriously--he had had
lessons during his last year in London--and entirely without any
pleasure.  So far, he had fulfilled Mary's instructions to the very
letter, except in the matter of looking "pleased and eager."  His
round, fresh-coloured face maintained its habitual expression of rather
prim gravity.  The Liberal young ladies, while gratified that he should
have danced with them, thought him distinctly dull, the Tory young
ladies declared him an insufferable oaf; but Phyllida the tall
milk-maid, when she came across him in the dance, nodded and smiled at
him in kindly approval.  He noticed that she danced several times with
the plain young man in the Elizabethan ruff, and that they seemed very
good friends.

At last number twelve showed on the bandstand.  Eloquent was not very
clear as to whether Mary had given him this dance or not, but he went
to her to claim it.  It came just before the supper dances.

"Yes, this is our dance," said Mary, "shall we one-step for a change?"

"It seems to me," said Eloquent mournfully, "that one does nothing but
change all the time.  Now this is a waltz, how can you one-step to a
waltz?"

"Poor man," Mary remarked pityingly.  "It _is_ muddling if you're not
used to it.  Let us waltz then, that will be a change."

Once round the room they went, and Eloquent felt that never before had
he realised the true delight of dancing.  He was very careful, very
accurate, and his partner set herself to imitate exactly his archaic
style of dancing, so that they were a model of deportment to the whole
room.  But it was only for a brief space that this poetry of motion was
vouchsafed to him.

Mary stopped.

"Do you see," she asked, "that old lady near the band.  She has been
sitting there quite alone all the evening and she must be dying for
something to eat.  Don't you think you'd better take her to have some
refreshment?"

"No," said Eloquent decidedly, "not just now.  I've been dancing with
all sorts of people with whom I didn't in the least desire to dance
solely because you said I ought, and now I'm dancing with you and I'm
not going to give it up.  May we go on again?"

Again they waltzed solemnly round.  Again Eloquent felt the thrill that
always accompanies a perfect achievement.  Again Mary stopped.

"That old lady is really very much on my conscience," she said; "if you
won't take her in to have some supper, I must get Reggie, he'd do it."

"But why now?" Eloquent pleaded.  "If, as you say, she has sat there
all night, a few minutes more or less can make no difference--why
should we spoil our dance by worrying about her?  Do you know her?"

"I don't think I know her," Mary said vaguely, "but I have an idea she
has something to do with coal.  She's probably one of your
constituents, and I think it's rather unkind of you to be so
uninterested; besides, what does it matter whether one knows her or
not, she's here to enjoy herself, it's our business to see that she
does it. . . ."

"Why our business?"  In a flash Eloquent saw he had made a mistake.
Mary looked genuinely surprised this time.

"Why, don't you think in any sort of gathering it's everybody's
business . . . if you see anyone lonely . . . left out . . . one
tries. . . ."

"I've been lonely and left out at dozens of parties in London, where I
didn't know a soul, and I never discovered that anyone was in the least
concerned about me.  At all events no one ever tried to ameliorate my
lot."

"But you're a man, you know. . . ."

"A man can feel just as out of it as a woman.  It's worse for him in
fact, for it's nobody's business to look after him."

Eloquent spoke bitterly.

"But surely since you, yourself, have suffered, you ought to be the
more sympathetic with that stout lady----"

"I will go, since you wish it; but I don't know her and she may think
it impertinent. . . ."

"I'll come too," said Mary.  "_I_ don't know her but I can introduce
you . . . we'll both go."

The lady in question was stout and rubicund, with smooth,
tightly-braided brown hair, worn very flat and close to the head, and
bright observant black eyes.  She wore a high black satin dress, and
had apparently been poured into it, so tight was it, so absolutely
moulded to her form.  A double gold chain was arranged over her ample
bosom, and many bracelets decorated her fat wrists.  She was quite
alone on the raised red seat.  For the last two hours Mary had noticed
her sitting there, and that no one, apparently, ever spoke to, or came
to sit by her.

There she remained placidly watching the dancers, her plump ungloved
hands folded in her lap.  She appeared rather cold for she wore no
wrap, and what with draughts and the breeze created by the dancers, the
tent was a chilly place to sit in.

Mary mounted the red baize step and sat down beside the solitary one.

"Don't you think it's time you had something to eat?" she shouted . . .
they were _so_ near the band, which at that moment was braying the
waltz song from the "Quaker Girl."  The old lady beamed, but shook her
head:

"I'm very well where I am, my dear, I can see nicely and I'm glad I
came."

"But you can come back," Mary persisted.  "This gentleman"--indicating
Eloquent--"will take you to have some supper, and then he'll bring you
back again just here if you like. . . .  May I introduce Mr Gallup?
Mrs . . . I fear I don't know your name. . . ."

Eloquent stood below bowing stiffly, and offered his arm.  The lady
stood up, chuckled, winked cheerfully at Mary, and stepped down on to
the floor.

"Well, since you _are_ so obliging," she said, and took the proffered
arm.  "You don't know me, Mr Gallup," she continued, "but you will do
before the election's over.  Don't look so down in the mouth, I shan't
keep you long, just a snack's all I want, and to stamp my feet a bit,
which they're uncommonly cold, and then you can go back to the sweet
pretty thing that fetched you to do the civil--oh, I saw it all! what a
pity she's the other side, isn't it? what a canvasser she'd make with
that smile . . . well, well, there's many a pretty Tory lady married a
Radical before this _and_ changed her politics, so don't you lose
heart . . . soup, yes, I'd fancy some soup . . . well, what a sight to
be sure . . . and how do you feel things are going in the
constituency? . . ."

But Eloquent had no need to answer.  His charge kept up a continual
flow of conversation, only punctuated by mouthfuls of food.  When at
last he took her back to the seat near the band, Mary had gone to
supper and was nowhere to be seen.

"I'm much obliged to you, Mr Gallup," said the lady, "though you
wouldn't have done it if you hadn't been forced.  Now let an old woman
give you a bit of advice. . . .  _Look_ willin' whether you are or not."

Poor Eloquent felt very much as though she had boxed his ears.  A few
minutes later he saw that the Elizabethan gentleman and Mary were
seated on either side of his recent partner and were apparently well
amused.

How did they do it?

And presently when Reggie Peel and Mary passed him in the Boston he
heard Peel say, "Quite the most amusing person here to-night.  I shall
sit out the next two dances with her, I'm tired."

"I was tired too, that's why . . ." they went out of earshot, and he
never caught the end of the sentence.

Eloquent danced no more with Mary, nor did he sit out at all with the
indomitable old lady, who, bright-eyed and vigilant, still watched from
her post near the band.  The end was really near, and he stood against
the wall gloomily regarding Mary as she flew about in the arms--very
closely in the arms as ruled by the new dancing--of a young barrister.
He was staying with the Campions and had, all the previous week, been
helping heartily in the Liberal cause.  He had come down from London
especially to do so, but during Christmas week there was a truce on
both sides, and he remained to enjoy himself.

Just then Eloquent hated him.  He hated all these people who seemed to
find it so easy to be amusing and amused.  Yet he stayed till the very
last dance watching Phyllida, the milkmaid, with intense disapproval,
as, her sun-bonnet hanging round her neck, she tore through the Post
Horn Gallop with that detestable barrister.  He decided that the
manners of the upper classes, if easy and pleasant, were certainly much
too free.

It was a fine clear night and he walked to his rooms in Marlehouse.  He
felt that he had not been a social success.  He was much more at home
on the platform than in the ball-room, yet he was shrewd enough to see
that his lack of adaptability stood in his way politically.

How could he learn these things?

And as if in answer to his question, there suddenly sounded in his ears
the fat chuckling voice of the black satin lady:

"Well, well, there's many a pretty Tory lady married a Radical before
this, _and_ changed her politics, so don't you lose heart."




CHAPTER X

"THE GANPIES"

"Father's mother," living alone far away in the Forest of Dean, rarely
came to Redmarley, and the children never went to visit her.  A frail
old lady to whom one was never presented save tidily clad and fresh
from the hands of nurse for a few moments, with injunctions still
ringing in one's ears as to the necessity for a quiet and decorous
demeanour.

This was grandmother, a shadow rather than a reality.

The Ganpies were something very different.  The name, an abbreviation
for grandparents, was invented by Grantly when he was two years old,
and long usage had turned it into a term of endearment.  People who
knew them well could never think of General and Mrs Grantly apart, each
was the complement of the other; and for the Ffolliot children they
represented a dual fount of fun and laughter, understanding and
affection.  They were the medium through which one beheld the
never-ending pageant unrolled before the entrancéd eyes of such happy
children as happened to "belong" gloriously to one "commanding the R.A.
Woolwich."  And intercourse with the Ganpies was largely leavened by
concrete joys in the shape of presents, pantomimes, tips, and all
things dear to the heart of youth all the world over.

Such were the Ganpies.  Nothing shadowy about them.  They were a
glorious reality; beloved, familiar, frequent.

They were still comparatively young people when their daughter married,
and Mrs Grantly was a grandmother at forty-one.  They would have liked
a large family themselves, but seeing that Providence had only seen fit
to bestow on them one child, they looked upon the six grandchildren as
an attempt to make amends.

Mrs Grantly's one quarrel with Marjory Ffolliot was on the score of
what she called her "niggardliness and greed," in refusing to hand over
entirely one of the six to their grandparents.

It is true that the large house on the edge of Woolwich Common was
seldom without one or two of the Ffolliot children.  Mr Ffolliot was
most accommodating, and was more then ready to accept the General's
constant invitations to his offspring; but in spite of these
concessions Mrs Grantly was never wholly satisfied, and it was
something of a grievance with her that Marjory was so firm in her
refusal to "give away" any one of the six.

Casual observers would have said that Mrs Grantly was by far the
stronger character of the two, but people who knew General Grantly
well, realised that his daughter had her full share of his quiet
strength and determination.  Mrs Ffolliot, like her father, was
easy-going, gentle, and tolerant; it was only when you came "up
against" either of them that you realised the solid rock beneath the
soft exterior.

Now there was nothing hidden about Mrs Grantly.  She appeared exactly
what she was.  Everything about her was definite and decided, though
she was various and unexpected as our British weather.  She was an
extraordinary mixture of whimsicality and common sense, of heroic
courage and craven timidity, of violence and tenderness, of
impulsiveness and caution.  In very truth a delightful bundle of
paradox.  Quick-witted and impatient, she had yet infinite toleration
for the simpleton, and could on occasion suffer fools with a gladness
quite unshared by her much gentler daughter or her husband.  But the
snob, the sycophant, and, above all, the humbug met with short shrift
at her hands, and the insincere person hated her heartily.  She spoke
her mind with the utmost freedom on every possible occasion, and as she
had plenty of brains and considerable shrewdness her remarks were
generally illuminating.

The villagers at Redmarley adored her, for, from her very first visit
she made her presence felt.

It had long been the custom at Redmarley for the ladies in the village
and neighbourhood to meet once a week during the earlier winter months
to make garments for presentation to the poor at Christmas, and the
first meeting since the Manor House possessed a mistress took place
there under Mrs Ffolliot's somewhat timid presidency.  It coincided
with Mrs Grantly's first visit since her daughter's marriage, and she
expressed her willingness to help.

At Mrs Ffolliot's suggestion it had already been arranged that a blouse
instead of a flannel petticoat should this year be given to the younger
women.  The other ladies had fallen in graciously with the idea (they
were inclined to enthuse over the "sweet young bride"), and according
to custom one Miss Tibbits, a spinster of large leisure and masterful
ways, had undertaken to procure the necessary material.  For years
donors and recipients alike had meekly suffered her domination.  She
chose the material, settled what garments should be made and in what
style, and who should receive them when made.

On the afternoon in question Miss Tibbits duly descended from her
brougham, bearing a parcel containing the material for the blouses
which Mrs Grantly volunteered to cut out.  Miss Tibbits undid the
parcel and displayed the contents to the nine ladies assembled round
the dining-room table.

Mrs Grantly was seen to regard it with marked disapproval, and hers was
an expressive countenance.

"May I ask," she began in the honeyed, "society" tone that in her own
family was recognised as the sure precursor of battle, "why the poor
should be dressed in dusters?"

The eight ladies concentrated their gaze upon the roll of material
which certainly did bear a strong resemblance to the bundles offered by
drapers at sale times as "strong, useful, and much reduced."

"It is the usual thing," Miss Tibbits replied shortly, "we have to
consider utility, not ornament."

Mrs Grantly stretched across the table, swiftly seized the material,
gathered it up under her chin, and with a dramatic gesture stood up so
that it fell draped about her.

"Look at me!" she exclaimed.  "If I had to wear clothes made of stuff
like this, I should go straight to the Devil!"

And at that very moment, just as she proclaimed in a loud voice the
downward path she would tread if clad in the material Miss Tibbits had
selected, the door was opened, and Mr Molyneux was announced.

The ladies gasped (except Marjory Ffolliot, who had dissolved into
helpless laughter at the sight of her large and portly parent draped in
yards of double-width red and brown check), but Mrs Grantly was no whit
abashed.

"Look at me, Mr Molyneux," she cried.  "Can you conceive any
self-respecting young woman ever taking any pleasure in a garment made
of _this_?"

"A garment," the vicar repeated in wonderment, "is it for a garment?"

"Yes, and not an undergarment either," Mrs Grantly retorted.  "Now you
are here, you shall tell us plainly . . . are the things we are to make
supposed to give any pleasure to the poor creatures or not."

"I should say so most assuredly," the vicar replied, his eyes twinkling
with fun.  "What other purpose could you have?"

Miss Tibbits cleared her throat.  "I have always understood," she said
primly, "that the sewing club was instituted to make useful garments
for deserving persons, who were, perhaps, so much occupied by family
cares that they had little time available for needle-work."

"That is," said the vicar solemnly, "the laudable object of the sewing
club."

"But I don't suppose," Mrs Grantly remarked briskly, still standing
draped in the obnoxious material, "that there is any bye-law to the
effect that the garments should be of an odious and humiliating
description."

"Of course not," the ladies chorussed, smiling.  They were beginning,
all but Miss Tibbits, who was furious, to enjoy Mrs Grantly.

"Then let us," Mrs Grantly's voice suddenly became soft and seductive,
and she flung the folds of material from her, "give them something
pretty.  They don't have much, poor things, and it's just as easy to
make them pretty as ugly.  Ladies, I've been to a good many sewing
meetings in my life, and I always fight for the same thing, a present
should be just a little bit different--don't you think--not hard and
hideous and ordinary. . . ."

"That material is bought and paid for," Miss Tibbits interrupted, "it
must be used."

"It shall be used," cried Mrs Grantly, "I'll buy it, and I'll make it
into dusters for which purpose it was obviously intended, and every
woman in Redmarley shall have two for Christmas as an extra.  A good
strong duster never comes amiss."

"Perhaps," Miss Tibbits said coldly, "you will undertake to procure the
material."

"Certainly," said Mrs Grantly, "but I'll buy it in blouse lengths, and
every one different.  Why should a whole village wear the same thing as
though it was a reformatory?"

It appeared that the vicar had called with his list of the "deserving
poor."  In five minutes Mrs Grantly had detached each person, and made
a note of her age and circumstances.  She had only been in the village
a week, and she already knew every soul in it.

She whirled off the vicar in a gale of enthusiasm, nobody else got a
word in edgewise.  Finally she departed with him into the hall, and saw
him out at the front door, and her last whispered words were
characteristic:

"You've let that Tibbits woman bully you for twenty years, now I'm
going to bully you for a bit instead, and between us we'll give those
poor dears a bit of cheer this Christmas."

From that moment the vicar was Mrs Grantly's slave.

Nobody knew how the affair leaked out, but the whole thing was known in
the village before a week had passed, with the result that fifteen
women visited the vicar, one after the other, and after much
circumlocution intimated that "If so be as 'e would be so kind, they'd
be glad if 'e'd 'int to the ladies as they 'adn't nearly wore out last
Christmas petticoat, and, if it were true wot they'd 'eard as they was
talkin' of givin' summat different, might Mrs Mustoe, Gegg, Uzzel, or
Radway, etc., have anything they did choose to make as warn't a
petticoat."

There was a slump in petticoats.

In despair he went to Mrs Grantly, and she undertook to see the matter
through.

"It's absurd," Mrs Grantly remarked to her daughter, "in a little place
like this where one knows all the people, and exactly what they're
like, to make things all the same size.  Fancy me trying to get into a
blouse that would fit that skinny Miss Tibbits!  A little common sense
is what's needed in this sewing society, and, Marjory, my dear, I'm
going to do my best to supply it."

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Throughout the years that followed, Mrs Grantly continued to supply
common sense to the inhabitants of Redmarley.  She found places for
young servants, both in her own household and those of her friends,
till gradually there were many links between the village and "'Orse and
Field and Garrison."

More than one Redmarley damsel married a gunner "on the strength."  Had
the intending bridegroom been anything else, Mrs Grantly would herself
have forbidden the banns!




CHAPTER XI

CHRISTMAS AT REDMARLEY

That year Christmas Day fell on a Sunday, and on the Saturday afternoon
Eloquent drove out from Marlehouse to Redmarley to spend the week-end
with his aunt.  She was out when he arrived, and he went straight to
the vicarage, asked for the vicar, and was shown into the study, where
Mr Molyneaux sat smoking by the fire in a deep-seated high-backed chair.

Even as he entered the room, Eloquent was conscious of the pleasurable
thrill that things beautiful and harmonious never failed to evoke.  The
windows faced west; the red sun, just sinking behind Redmarley Woods,
shone in on and was reflected from walls covered from floor to ceiling
with books; books bound for the most part in mellow brown and yellow
calf, that seemed to give forth an amber light as from sun-warmed
turning beeches.

The vicar had discarded his clerical coat, and wore a shabby grey-green
Norfolk jacket frayed at the cuffs; nevertheless, Eloquent sincerely
admired him as he rose to give courteous greeting to his guest.

The old vicar was stout and bald, and the grey hair that fringed his
head was decidedly rumpled.  A long face, with high, narrow forehead
and pointed beard, cheeks heavy and creased, straight nose, with
strongly marked, sensitive nostrils.  The mouth, full-lipped and
shutting firmly under the grey moustache, cut straight across the upper
lip; the eyes, rather prominent blue eyes, had once been bold and
merry, and were still keen.  A fine old face, deeply lined and
sorrowful, bearing upon it the impress of great possibilities that had
remained--possibilities.  He was somehow in keeping with his room, this
warm, untidy, comfortable room that smelt of tobacco and old leather,
where there was such a curious jumble of things artistic and sporting:
a few pictures and bas-reliefs, nearly all of the pre-Renaissance
Italian School, a big stuffed trout in a glass case, a fox's brush and
mask, an old faded cricket cap; and over the carved mantelshelf, the
portrait of a Georgian beauty in powder and patches, whose oval face,
heavy-lidded eyes, and straight features were not unlike the vicar's
own.

There was in the vicar's manner the welcoming quality that puts the
shyest person at his ease.  He was secretly much surprised that young
Gallup should call upon him; but no hint of this appeared in his
manner, and Eloquent found no difficulty in stating the object of his
visit with business-like directness.

"I came to ask you," he remarked with his usual stiff solemnity, "if
you would care for me to read the lessons at morning service
to-morrow. . . .  I do not read badly. . . .  I have studied elocution."

The humorous lines round the old vicar's eyes deepened, but he answered
with equal gravity, "That is very good of you, and I gratefully accept
your kind offer.  General Grantly has promised to read the first
lesson, but I shall be glad if you will read the second.  Will you do
both at the afternoon service?  There's no evensong on Christmas Day."

This was rather more than Eloquent had bargained for, but . . . she
might come to the afternoon service as well.  "I shall be most happy,"
he said meekly, "to do anything I can to assist."

The vicar rang for tea, but Eloquent arose hastily, saying he had
promised to have tea with his aunt.  He had no desire to prolong the
interview with this urbane old gentleman now that its object was
achieved.  Mr Molyneux saw him to the front door and watched him for a
moment as he bustled down the drive.  "So that," he said to himself, as
he went back to the warm study, "is our future member . . . for
everyone says he will get in.  Why does he want to read the lessons, I
wonder?  It will certainly do him no good with his dissenting
constituents, and it is they who will get him in--what can his object
be?"

The Ffolliot family formed quite a procession as they marched up the
aisle on Christmas morning.  General and Mrs Grantly were there;
Reggie, Mr and Mrs Ffolliot, and the six young Ffolliots.  They
overflowed into the seat behind, and the Kitten, whom nothing ever awed
or subdued, was heard to remark that since she couldn't sit with
Willets, the keeper, who always had "such instasting things in his
pottets," she'd sit "between the Ganpies."  Reggie, Mary, and her four
brothers filled the second seat: Mary sat at the far end, and Ger
nearest the aisle, that he might gaze entrancedly at his grandfather
while he read the lesson.  Reggie came next to Ger, and Grantly
separated Uz and Buz, so that Eloquent only caught an occasional
glimpse of Mary's extremely flat back between the heads of other
worshippers.

"Oh come, all ye faithful!" the choir sang lustily as it started in
procession round the church, and the faithful responded vigorously.
The Kitten pranced on her hassock, and always started the new verse
before everyone else in the clearest of pure trebles.  The Ffolliot
boys shouted, and for once Mr Ffolliot forebore to frown on them.  No
woman with a houseful of children can remain quite unmoved on Christmas
morning during that singularly jubilant invocation, and Mrs Grantly and
Margery Ffolliot ceased to sing, for their eyes were full of tears.  Mr
Ffolliot fixed his monocle more firmly, and bent forward to look at the
Kitten, and to catch her little pipe above the shouts of her brothers
behind.

The Kitten sang words of her own composition during the Psalms, her
grandparents both singing loudly themselves in their efforts not to
hear her, for the Kitten's improvisations were enough to upset the
gravity of a bench of bishops.

The General read the first lesson in a brisk and business-like
monotone, and when he had finished his grandsons applauded noiselessly
under the book-board.

The Kitten was very much to the fore during "Praise him and magnify him
for ever," and then came the second lesson.

Eloquent walked up the aisle and took his stand at the lectern with the
utmost unconcern.  Shy and awkward he might be in ordinary social
intercourse, but whenever it was a matter of standing up before his
fellow-creatures and haranguing them, his self-consciousness dropped
from him like a discarded garment, and he instantly acquired a mental
poise and serene self-confidence wholly lacking at other times.

The second lesson on Christmas morning contains the plainest possible
statement of a few great facts, and Eloquent proclaimed them in a
singularly melodious voice with just exactly the emphatic simplicity
they demanded.

The perfect sincerity of great literature is always impressive.  All
over the church heads were turned in the direction of the lectern, and
when the short lesson ended the Kitten demanded in a quite audible
voice, "Why did he stop so soon for?"

Eloquent looked at Mary as he passed down the aisle to his place,
half-hoping she might meet his glance with the frank confident smile he
found so disturbing and delicious.  But her eyes were bent upon her
prayer-book and she appeared quite unconscious that someone had just
been reading the Bible exceptionally well.

He felt chilled and disappointed.  "It is quite possible," he reflected
bitterly, "that in this out-of-the-way old church they don't know good
reading from bad."

There is no sermon at Redmarley on Christmas morning, and people who
have been at the early service get out soon after twelve o'clock.
Eloquent waited in the churchyard and watched the young Ffolliots and
Reggie Peel come out.  Mary saw him and nodded cheerfully, but she did
not, as he felt might have been expected, come up to him and exclaim,
"How beautifully you read!"

No one did.

Such of the congregation as had already been to early service hurried
home to look after the dinner; or, as in the case of the young
Ffolliots, to deposit prayer-books and take violent exercise until
lunch time.

In the afternoon Eloquent read the lessons to a very meagre assembly.
The Manor House seats were empty and his enthusiastic desire to be of
assistance to the vicar cooled considerably.  His aunt during dinner
announced with the utmost frankness that wild horses would not drag her
to church "of an afternoon"; she "liked her forty winks peaceable."
She, however, further informed him that "he read very nice"; but as she
had said the same thing of Grantly Ffolliot's performance, her nephew
could not feel uplifted by her praise.

The vicar poured a little balm on his wounded spirit by hastening after
him as he walked slowly and gloomily homewards, to thank him with warm
urbanity for his kind help, but he made no remark upon his reading.
They parted at the vicarage gate, and Eloquent pursued his way alone.

He felt restless and curiously disappointed.  Everything was exactly as
it had been before, and somehow he had expected it to be different.

So far he had encountered no special desire on the part of the "upper
classes" to cultivate him.  He was quite shrewd enough to perceive that
those he had met--the Campions at Marlehouse and the few who had
offered him hospitality in London--had done so purely on political
grounds.

Only one, so far, had shown any kindness to him, the shy, wistfully
self-conscious young man, hungry for sympathy and comprehension.  Only
one, Mary Ffolliot, had seemed to recognise in him other possibilities
than those of party: but had she?

Anyway, here was he in the same village with her not a mile away, and
yet a gulf stretched between them apparently impassable as a river in
flood to a boatless man who could not swim.

That evening Miss Gallup decided that her nephew did not possess much
general conversation.




CHAPTER XII

MISS ELSMARIA BUTTERMISH

The twins were not in the least alike, either in disposition or
appearance, but they were inseparable.  They were known to their large
circle of friends and still more numerous censors as "Uz" and "Buz,"
but their real names were Lionel and Hilary, a fact they rigidly
suppressed at all times.

Buz was tall for his age, slender and fair, with regular, Grantly
features, and eyes like his mother's.  Uz was short and chubby,
tirelessly mischievous, and of an optimistic cheerfulness that neither
misfortune nor misunderstanding could diminish.  Buz was the reading
Ffolliot, imaginative, and easily swayed by what he read; and his was
the fertile brain that created and suggested all manner of wrong-doing
to his twin.  Just then the mania of both was for impersonation.  "To
dress up," and if possible to mislead their fellow-creatures as to
their identity, was their chief aim in life.  Here, the "prettiness"
that in his proper person Buz deplored and abhorred came in useful.  He
made a charming girl, his histrionic power was considerable, and on
both accounts he was much in demand at school theatricals; moreover,
his voice had not yet broken, and when he desired to do so he could
speak with lady-like softness and precision.

"Who's the chap that read the second lesson?" he asked Ger, who proudly
walked between the twins on their way from church.  Ger adored the
twins.

"He's the muddy young man who came last Sunday," Ger answered promptly.
Proud to be able to afford information, he continued, "His aunt's our
nice Miss Gallup, and he's going to get in at the Election, nurse says."

"Oh, is he?" cried Uz, whose political views were the result of strong
conviction unbiassed by reflection.  "We'll see about that."

"I feel," Buz murmured dreamily, "that it is my duty to find out that
young man's views on Female Suffrage.  The women in this district
appear to me sadly indifferent as to this important question.  It's
doubtful if any of them will tackle him.  Now I'm well up in it just
now, owing to that rotten debate last term."

"When that long-winded woman jawed for nearly an hour, d'you mean?"
asked Uz "Exactly.  I never dreamt she would come in useful, but you
never know."

"Shall you call?" Uz gurgled delightedly.  "Where'll you get the
clothes?  Mary's would be too big, besides everyone about here knows
'em, they're so old, and she'd never lend you anything decent.'

"I shouldn't ask her if I really wanted them; but in this instance I
scorn the mouldy garments of Sister Mary."

"Whose'll you get?" Uz asked curiously.

"My son," Buz rejoined, "I shall be like the king's daughter in the
Psalms.  Never you fear for my appearance.  As our dear French prose
book would remark: 'The grandmother of the young man so attractive has
a maid French, of the heart excellent, and of the habits most chic.'"

"You mean Adèle will lend them?"

"You bet.  She says I speak her tongue to the marvel, is it not?"


On Boxing-Day Eloquent called upon as many of the vote-possessing
inhabitants of Redmarley as could be got in before his aunt's early
dinner.  He found but few at home, for on that morning there is always
a meet in the market-place at Marlehouse, and the male portion of the
inhabitants is sporting both by inclination and tradition.  He found
the wives, however, and on the whole they were gracious to him.  His
visit pleased, for the then member, Mr Brooke, had not been near
Redmarley for years, and left the whole constituency to his agent, who
was nearly as slack as the member for Marlehouse himself.

Eloquent, who had by no means made up his mind as to Female Suffrage,
was much relieved that not a single woman in Redmarley had so much as
breathed its name.  His inclinations led him to follow where Mr Asquith
led, but his long training in the doctrines of expediency gave him
pause.  He decided that he could not yet range himself alongside of the
anti-suffrage party.  As his old father was wont to remark cautiously,
"You must see where you are first," and as yet Eloquent had not clearly
discovered his whereabouts.

He ate his cold turkey with an excellent appetite, feeling that he had
spent a useful if arduous morning.  The give-and-take of ordinary
conversation was always a difficult matter for Eloquent, but on this
occasion he related his experiences to his aunt, and was quite
talkative; so that, to a certain extent, she revised her unfavourable
impression as to his conversational powers, and became more hopeful for
his success in the Election.  His gloom and taciturnity on Christmas
Day had filled her with forebodings.

In the afternoon he devoted himself to his correspondence.  His aunt
gave up the parlour to him and went out to see her friends, while he
sat in stately solitude at a table covered with papers plainly
parliamentary in kind.

For about an hour he worked on undisturbed.  Presently he heard the
front gate creak, and looking up beheld a bicycle, a lady's bicycle,
propped against the garden wall.  Someone rapped loudly at the front
door, and whoever it was had hard knuckles, for there was no knocker.

Presently Em'ly-Alice, Miss Gallup's little maid, appeared holding a
card between her finger and thumb, and announced--"A young lady come to
see you, please, sir."

For one mad moment Eloquent thought it might perhaps be Mary with some
message for his aunt, but the card disillusioned him.  It was a very
shiny card, and on it was written in ink in round, very distinct
writing--

"Miss Elsmaria Buttermish."

He had barely time to take this in before Miss Buttermish herself
appeared.

"I'm glad to have found you at home, Mr Gallup," she announced easily;
"I come on behalf of our beloved leaders to obtain a clear statement of
your views as to 'Votes for Women,' for on those views a great deal
depends.  Kindly state them as clearly and concisely as you can."

Miss Buttermish drew up a chair to the table, sat down and produced a
note-book and pencil; while Eloquent, speechless with astonishment and
dismay, stood on the other side of it holding the shiny visiting-card
in his hand.

Miss Buttermish tapped with her pencil on the table and regarded him
enquiringly.

Apparently quite young, she was also distinctly pleasing to the eye.
She wore an exceedingly well cut, heavily braided black coat and skirt,
the latter of the tightest and skimpiest type of a skimpy period.  Her
hat was of the extinguisher order, entirely concealing her hair, except
that just in the front a few soft curls were vaguely visible upon her
forehead.  A very handsome elderly-looking black fox stole threw up the
whiteness of her rounded chin in strong relief, and her eyes looked
large and mysterious through the meshes of her most becoming veil.
Eloquent was conscious of a certain familiarity in her appearance.  He
was certain that he had seen her before somewhere, and couldn't recall
either time or place.

"I'm waiting, Mr Gallup," she remarked pleasantly.  "You must have made
up your mind one way or other upon this important question, and it will
save both my time and your own if you state your views--may I say, as
briefly as possible."

Eloquent gasped . . . "I fear," he said, "that I have by no means made
up my mind with any sort of finality--it is such a large
question. . . .  I have not yet had time to go into it as thoroughly as
I could wish. . . .  There is so much to be said on both sides."

"There," Miss Buttermish interrupted, "you are mistaken; there is
_nothing_ to be said for the '_antis_.'  Their arguments are
positively . . . footling."

"I cannot," Eloquent said stiffly, "agree with you."

"Sit down, Mr Gallup," Miss Buttermish said kindly, at the same time
getting up and seating herself afresh on a corner of the sofa.  "We've
got to thresh this matter out, and you've got to make up your mind
whether you are for or against us.  You are young, and I think that you
hardly realise the forces that will be arrayed against _you_ if you
join hands with Mr Asquith on this question."

Miss Buttermish sat up very stiff and straight on the end of the sofa,
and Eloquent, still standing with the table between them, felt rather
like a naughty boy in the presence of an accusing governess.  The
allusion to his youth rankled.  He did not sit down, but stood where he
was, staring darkly at his guest.  After a very perceptible pause he
said:

"It is impossible for me to give you a definite opinion . . ."

"It's not an _opinion_ I want," Miss Buttermish interrupted scornfully,
"it's a definite guarantee.  Otherwise, young man, you may make up your
mind to incessant interruption and . . . to various other annoyances
which I need not enumerate.  We don't care a bent pin whether you are a
Liberal or a Tory or a red-hot Socialist, so long as you are sound on
the Suffrage question.  If you are in favour of 'Votes for Women,' then
we'll help you; if not . . . I advise you to put up your shutters."

Eloquent flushed angrily and, strangely enough, so did Miss Buttermish
at the same moment.  In fact, no sooner had she spoken the last
sentence than she looked extremely hot and uncomfortable.

"I see no use," he said coldly, "in prolonging this interview.  I
cannot give you the guarantee you wish for.  It is not my custom to
make up my mind upon any question of political importance without
considerable research and much thought.  Intimidation would never turn
me from my course if, after such investigation, I should decide against
your cause.  Nor would any annoyance your party may inflict upon me
now, affect my support of your cause should I, ultimately, come to
believe in its justice."

Miss Buttermish rose.  "Mr Gallup," she said solemnly, "there is at
present a very wide-spread discontent among us.  Till we get the vote
we shall manifest that discontent, and I warn you that the lives of
members of Parliament and candidates who are not avowedly on our side
will be made"--here Miss Buttermish swallowed  hastily . . . "most
unpleasant.  Those that are not for us are against us, and . . . we are
very much up against them.  I am sorry we should part in anger . . ."

"Pardon me," Eloquent interrupted, "there is no anger on my side.  I
respect your opinions even though as yet I may not wholly share them."

Miss Buttermish shook her head.  "I'm really sorry for you," she
murmured; "you are young, and you little know what you are letting
yourself in for."

Eloquent opened the parlour door for her with stiff politeness, and she
passed out with bent head and shoulders that trembled under the heavy
fur.  Surely this militant young person was not going to cry!

He followed her in some anxiety down to the garden gate, held it open
for her to pass through, which she did in absolute silence, and he
waited to watch her mount her bicycle.

This she did in a very curious fashion.  She started to run with it,
leapt lightly on one pedal, and then, to Eloquent's amazement, essayed
to throw her other leg over like a boy.

The lady's skirt was tight, the Redmarley roads were extremely muddy,
the unexpected jerk caused the bicycle to skid, and lady and bicycle
came down sideways with considerable violence.

"Damn!" exclaimed Miss Buttermish.

"Oh, those modern girls!" thought the shocked Eloquent as he ran
forward to assist.  He pulled the bicycle off Miss Buttermish, and
stood it against the wall.  She sat up, her hat very much on one side.

"Do you know," she said rather huskily, "I do believe I've broken my
confounded arm."

She held out her left hand to Eloquent, who pulled her to her feet.
Her right arm hung helpless, and even through her bespattered veil he
could see that she was very white.

"Pray come in and rest for a little," he said concernedly, "and we can
see what has happened."

"I'm sure it's broken, I heard the beastly thing snap----" the girl
stumbled blindly, Eloquent caught her in his arms, and saw that she had
fainted from pain.

He carried her into the house and laid her on the horsehair sofa, put a
cushion under her arm, and seizing the large scissors that his orderly
aunt kept hanging on a hook at the side of the fire, cut her jacket
carefully along the seam from wrist to shoulder.  She wore a very
mannish, coloured flannel shirt.  This sleeve, too, he cut, and
disclosed a thin arm, extremely brown nearly to the elbow, and very
fair and white above, but the elbow was distorted and discoloured; a
bad break, Eloquent decided, with mischief at the joint as well
probably.  He had studied first-aid at classes, and he shook his head.
It did not occur to him to call the little servant to assist him.  With
his head turned shyly away he removed the young lady's hat and loosened
her heavy furs.  Then he flew for water and a sponge, thinking the
while of her curious Christian name "Elsmaria."  She looked
pathetically young and helpless lying there.  Eloquent forgot her
militancy and her shocking language in his sorrow over her pain.  As he
knelt down by the sofa to sponge her face he started so violently that
he upset a great deal of the water he had brought.

It was already growing dark, but even in the dim light as he looked
closely at Miss Buttermish without her hat, her likeness to Mary
Ffolliot was striking.  She wore her hair cropped close.  "Could she
have been in prison?" thought Eloquent, remembering how light she was
when he carried her in.

With hands that trembled somewhat he pushed the wet curly hair back
from the forehead so like Mary's.  There were the same wide brow, the
same white eyelids with the sweeping arch and thick dark lashes, the
delicate high-bridged nose and well-cut, kindly mouth; the same pure
oval in the line of cheek and chin.

Certainly an extraordinary resemblance.  She must at least be a cousin;
and, in spite of his sincere commiseration of the young lady's
suffering, he felt a jubilant thrill in the reflection that this
accident must bring him into further contact with the Ffolliots.

There was no brandy in the house, for both he and his aunt were total
abstainers, so he fetched a glass of water and held it to the young
lady's lips as she opened her eyes.  She drank eagerly, looked
searchingly at him, then she glanced down at her bare arm and the cut
sleeve.  The colour flooded her face, and with real horror in her voice
she exclaimed, "You've never gone and _cut_ that jacket!"

"I had to.  Your arm ought to be set at once, and goodness knows where
the doctor may be to-day.  You'd best be taken to Marlehouse Infirmary,
I think; it's a bad break."

"But it's her best coat, quite new," Miss Buttermish persisted
fretfully, "quite new; you'd no business to go and cut it.  I promised
to take such care of it."

"I'm very sorry," Eloquent replied meekly; "but it really was necessary
that your arm should be seen to at once, and I dared not jerk it about."

"Can it be mended, do you think, so that it won't show?"  There was
real concern in her voice.

"I'm sure of it," he answered, much astonished at this fuss about a
coat at such a moment; "I cut it carefully along the seam."

"I say," exclaimed Miss Buttermish, "I must get out of this"--and she
prepared to swing her feet off the sofa--rather big feet, he noted, in
stout golfing shoes.  Forcibly he held her legs down.

"Please don't," he implored.  "You must not jar that arm any more than
can be helped.  Shall I go up to the Manor House and get them to send a
conveyance for you?--you really mustn't think of walking, and I don't
know where else we could get one to-day."

Miss Buttermish closed her eyes and frowned heavily.  Then in a faint
voice--

"How do you know I'm from the Manor House?"

"Well, for one thing, you're very like . . . the family."

"_All_ of them?" she asked anxiously.

"You are very like certain members of the family I have seen," he said
cautiously.  "May I go?  I'll send the servant to sit with you----"

Miss Buttermish clutched at him violently with her left hand,
exclaiming, "No, no--don't send anybody yet; I must get out of this
beastly skirt before anyone comes. . . .  Look here, you're a very
decent chap and I'm sorry I rotted you--will you play the game when you
go home and hide these beastly clothes before anyone comes?  The
blessed thing hooks at the side, see; it's coming undone now; if you'll
just give a pull I can wriggle out without getting up. . . .  Oh,
confound . . .  I'm Buz, you know, I dressed up on purpose to rot
you . . . but if you _could_ not mention it . . ."

Her head fell back and she nearly fainted again from pain.  Eloquent
divested her of her skirt, and with it the last remnant of Miss
Buttermish disappeared--a slim slip of a boy in running shorts, with
bare knees, and a gym-belt lay prone on the sofa, very pale and
shivering.

In absolute silence Eloquent folded the skirt and the coat, and laying
hat and furs on the top, placed them in a neat heap on a chair in the
corner.

He went to his bedroom, fetched the eiderdown off his own bed and
covered the boy with it.  As he was tucking in the eiderdown at the
side Buz put out a cold left hand and held him by the coat sleeve,
saying curiously--"Are you in an awful bait? are you going to be really
stuffy about it?"

Eloquent looked straight into the quizzical grey eyes that held his.
The boy's voice belied the eyes, for it was anxious.

"Of course not," he said quite seriously, "I'm only too sorry your
trick should have had such a disastrous conclusion.  Who shall I ask
for up at the house, and what shall I do with the things?"

"Oh take them with you--could you?  Give 'em to Fusby, and tell him to
put them in their rooms--the furs are granny's.  He'll do it and never
say a word; decent old chap, Fusby.  I say, I'm awfully sorry to be
such a nuisance.  I'm certain I could walk home if you'll let me."

"That you certainly must not do, I'll go at once.  Here's the
hand-bell.  I'll tell the maid that she is to come if you ring.  I
expect my aunt will be in directly--I'll be as quick as I can--cheer
up."

Eloquent bustled about putting the remains of Miss Buttermish tidily
into his suit-case while the grey eyes followed his movements with
amused interest.

"I'm most awfully obliged," said Buz in a very low voice; "I do feel
such an ass lying here."

There was a murmur of voices in the passage.  The front door was closed
with quiet decorum and the little sitting-room grew darker.  Two big
tears rolled over and Buz sniffed helplessly, for his handkerchief was
in the pocket of the jacket lately worn with such gay impudence by Miss
Elsmaria Buttermish.




CHAPTER XIII

THE THIN END

Eloquent rode the bicycle left outside by Miss Buttermish, rode
carefully, bearing the suit-case in his left hand.  The village was
quite deserted and he reached the great gates of the Manor House
unchallenged.  The gates stood open and he entered the dark shadowy
drive without having encountered a living soul.  Lights gleamed from
the lower windows of the house, but the porch was in darkness.  He rang
loudly, and Fusby, the old manservant, switched on the light as he
opened the door and revealed a square, oak-panelled room and the
warning cards.  The inner door leading to the hall was closed, but the
sound of cheerful voices reached Eloquent.

Fusby stood expectant, and in spite of his imperturbable and almost
benedictory manner he looked mildly surprised.

"Is Mrs Ffolliot at home?" Eloquent asked rather breathlessly.

"She is, sir," Fusby answered, but in a tone that subtly conveyed the
unspoken "to some people," fixing his eyes the while on the suitcase.

"Do you think she could speak to me here?" Eloquent continued humbly.

"I think not, sir; the mistress at present is dispensing tea to the
fam'ly.  She does not as a rule see people at the door.  Can I take a
message?"

"I fear I must disturb her," said Eloquent, conscious all the time that
Fusby's mild gaze was concentrated on the suit-case.  "One of her
sons"--for the life of him he couldn't remember the boy's ridiculous
name--"has broken his arm."

"Master Buz, sir?" asked Fusby, quite unmoved by the intelligence;
"it's generally 'im."

"Yes, Master Buz, and he asked me to give you this. . . .  It's some
things of his.  I'll send for the suit-case--put it out of the way
somewhere--he was dressed up . . . these are the clothes----"

"He will 'ave 'is frolic," Fusby murmured indulgently; "a very
light-'earted young gentleman he is--step this way, please, sir."

Fusby opened a door behind him, and announced in the voice of one
issuing an edict, "Mr Gallup."

There seemed to Eloquent crowds of people in the hall, mostly gathered
about a round table near the fire.  He discerned Mrs Ffolliot in the
very act of "dispensing tea" and General Grantly standing on the
hearthrug warming his coat tails.  Mary, too, he saw give a cup of tea
into her grandfather's hands, and he was conscious of the presence of
Mrs Grantly seated on an oaken settle at the other side of the fire
from Mrs Ffolliot.  These four were clear to him as he came into the
hall.  There was a fire of logs in the open fireplace and a good many
lights, and Eloquent, coming out of the soft darkness of that winter
afternoon, felt dazzled and intolerably hot.

The four people he saw first suddenly seemed to recede to an
immeasurable distance, and he became conscious of others whom he could
not focus.  His tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, and he was
conscious that at his entrance dead silence had fallen upon the group
by the fire.  Then Mrs Ffolliot rose and held out a kind fair hand to
him, and said something that he could not hear.  Somehow he reached the
succouring hand and clung to it like a drowning man, mumbling the
while, "Sorry to intrude upon you, but one of your sons"--again the
name eluded him--"has broken his arm, and he's in my aunt's cottage."

"Look at Ganpie's tea!" exclaimed a shrill clear voice, and the Kitten
diverted attention from Eloquent to the General, who was calmly pouring
the tea from his newly filled cup upon the bear-skin hearthrug, as he
gazed fixedly at this bringer of ill-tidings.

Eloquent could never remember clearly what happened between the dual
announcement of the accident and the spilling of the General's tea,
till the moment when he found himself sitting on the settle beside Mrs
Grantly with a cup of tea of his own, which Mary had poured out.
Everyone else seemed to have melted away, Mrs Ffolliot to telephone to
the doctor, the General to order his motor, the Kitten and Ger to the
nursery, and the rest of the party to the four winds.

But he, Mrs Grantly, and Mary were still sitting at the fire, and Mary
had asked him if he took sugar.

"Two lumps," he said.

"So do I," said Mary, and it seemed a most wonderful coincidence of
kindred tastes.

In thinking it over afterwards it struck him that the whole family took
the accident very coolly.  There was no fuss, very little exclamation;
and to Eloquent, sitting as a guest in that old hall where, as a small
boy, he had sometimes peeped wonderingly, there came a curious feeling
that either he had dreamt of this moment or that it had all happened
aeons of ages ago, and that if it was a dream then Mary was in a dream
too, that he had always wanted her, been conscious of her, only then
she was an immense way off; vaguely beautiful and desirable, but set in
a luminous haze of impossibilities, remote, apart as a star.

Now she was friendly and approachable, only a few yards away, looking
across at him with frank kind eyes and the firelight shining on her
bright hair.

The time seemed all too short till Mrs Ffolliot, dressed for driving,
in a long fur coat, came back to tell them that the doctor was at a
case five miles off, at a house where there was no telephone, and that
she had arranged to take Buz into the Marlehouse Infirmary to have the
arm set there, and, if necessary, he must stay there till he could be
moved. . . .

"Could they drive Mr Gallup back?"

So there was nothing for it but to accompany the General and Mrs
Ffolliot.

Mr Ffolliot did not appear at all.

General Grantly went outside with the chauffeur, and Eloquent again
experienced the queer dream-like sense of doing again something he had
done already as he followed Mrs Ffolliot into the motor.  He had never
lost his awestruck admiration for her, and it never occurred to him to
sit down at her side.  He was about to put down one of the little seats
and sit on that, when she said, "Oh, please, sit here, Mr Gallup," and
he sank into the seat beside her, confused and tremulous.  Mary and Mrs
Grantly had come into the porch with them, and stood there now calling
out all sorts of messages and questions.  The inner door stood open,
and the hall shone bright behind them.

The motor purred and slid swiftly down the drive.

Mrs Ffolliot switched off the light behind her head, and Eloquent
became conscious of a soft pervading scent of violets.  The twenty
years that lay between her first visit to his father's shop and this
wonderful new nearness seemed to him but as one short link in a chain
of inevitable circumstances.  Like a picture thrown on a screen he saw
the little boy standing at her knee, the giggling shop assistants, and
his father flushed and triumphant.  And he knew that through all the
years he had always been sure that such a moment as this would come,
when he would sit beside her as an equal and a friend. . . .  And here
he was, sitting with her in her father's motor, sharing the same fur
rug.  What was she saying?

Something kind about the trouble he had taken . . . and the motor
stopped at his aunt's gate.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Uz was in the midst of a large bite of plum-cake when Eloquent
announced his errand.  Uz hastily took another bite, and just as the
Kitten drew attention to her grandfather's tea he quietly opened the
door of the hall, shut it after him softly, did the same by the front
door, and hatless, coatless, and in his pumps--for his boots were
exceedingly dirty, and Nana had caught him and turned him back to
change before tea--he started down the drive at a good swinging run.
His wind was excellent, and he reached Miss Gallup's gate in about five
minutes.  Only once had he stopped, when the piece of cake he was
carrying broke off short and dropped in the mud; he peered about for it
during some four seconds, then gave it up and ran on.

The lamp was lit in Miss Gallup's sitting-room, but the blind was not
pulled down.  He looked in at the window and saw his brother lying on
the sofa under the eiderdown, opened the front door--no one ever locks
a door in Redmarley unless they go out, and then the key is always
under the scraper--and walked in.

"Hullo," said Buz; "isn't this rotten?"

"Little man's just come, so I did a bunk.  I didn't wait to hear his
revelations about the lovely suffragette----"

"I don't believe he'll tell," Buz said; "he's not a bad little chap, he
wasn't a bit shirty, helped me out of those beastly clothes and never
said a word; took them with him too, so's they shouldn't be found here.
I say, by the way, tell Adèle to get the jacket mended and I'll pay it
whenever I can get any money.  I'm frightfully sorry about that--he cut
the sleeve right up to get my arm out.  Who got the togs?"

"I don't know, he hadn't 'em when he came in----"

"Gave 'em to Fusby, I expect; he'll see they're properly
distributed----"

"What happened, did you have a lark?"

"He rose like anything," Buz chuckled delightedly.  "Chuck us your
handkerchief, old chap, mine's in that coat--I'm only sorry for one
thing."

"What's that?"

"I told him if he wouldn't declare for Votes for Women he'd better put
up his shutters, and I know he thought I meant to rub it in about his
father's shop--I didn't, it would have been beastly; but I'm certain he
thought so by the way he flushed up.  He's a game little beggar, he
wouldn't give in, or palaver or promise. . . .  Hullo, here's two more
of the family----"

The two more were Reggie Peel and Grantly.  The Ffolliots were not
demonstrative, but they always shared good-luck or ill, therefore
Reggie and Grantly made a bee-line for Miss Gallup's cottage whenever
they understood what had happened.  They knew nothing of Miss
Buttermish, and neither of the younger boys enlightened them.

Miss Gallup returned to find her parlour full of Ffolliots; and just
after her came her nephew, accompanied by General Grantly and Mrs
Ffolliot, who bore Buz away in the motor to Marlehouse wrapped in a
blanket and with the broken arm in a sling.

When they had all gone--the motor towards Marlehouse, the three others
to the Manor--Eloquent stood at the open gate for a minute or two and
then went out, shutting it after him very softly, so that neither the
three walking up the road, nor his aunt waiting at her open door,
should hear.  Then he, too, set off in the direction of Marlehouse.  He
had no intention whatever of walking there, but he could not face his
aunt just then, nor bear the torrent of questions and comments that he
knew would submerge him.

The last hour had been for him an epoch-making, a profound experience,
and he wanted, as his aunt would have said, "to squeege his orange dry."

A course of action intensely irritating to Miss Gallup, who awaited his
return, after seeing the Ffolliots off, with the utmost impatience.

"Wherever could he have got to?"

Em'ly-Alice, however, was longing to be questioned, and Miss Gallup
indulged her.

"How did the poor young gentleman break his arm?"

"Fell off 'is bike, 'e did, and it must 'ave bin but a minute or two
after the young lady'd gone----

"Young lady!  What young lady?" Miss Gallup demanded sternly.

"A young lady as come to see Mr Gallup.  Miss Buttermish was 'er name;
I remember it most pertikler, because I thought what a funny name."

"Buttermish, Buttermish," Miss Gallup repeated; "where did she come
from?"

"That I can't tell you, Miss; I was in the kitchen polishing the teapot
for your tea when there comes a knock at the door, and when I opens it,
there stood the young lady.  'Can I see Mr Gallup?' she says, and
knowing he was in the parlour I as't her in.  She didn't stop long and
no sooner was she gone than I hears Mr Gallup runnin' upstairs an' in
and out, and presently 'e called out, 'Master Ffolliot's broken 'is
arm,' and went off in ever such an 'urry.  I see 'im run down the
garden, and 'e 'ad 'is portmanteau in 'is 'and----"

"Nonsense," Miss Gallup said crossly; "what would he be doing with a
portmanteau?"

"That I can't say, mum, but 'e 'ad it, and when 'e'd gone I took the
lamp in to the poor young gentleman wot was lyin' all 'uddled up on the
sofa--'e said 'thank you' in a muffled voice that mournful, and I made
up the fire and waited a minute but 'e didn't say no more, so I come
away, an' in a few minutes the 'ouse seemed chock-full o' people.
Where they come from passes me----"

"Well, get tea now, as quick as you can.  I can't think where Mr Gallup
can have got to."

Miss Gallup lit a candle and went straight upstairs to her nephew's
room.  His clothes were still in the drawers as she, herself, had
arranged them--but the suit-case, the smart new leather suit-case, with
E. A. G. in large black letters upon its lid, was gone.

Miss Gallup sank heavily on a chair.  What could it mean?

She immediately connected the advent of the strange young lady and the
disappearance of her nephew's suit-case.

She took off her bonnet and cloak and did not put them away, but left
them lying on her bed; a sure sign of perturbation with Miss Gallup,
who was the tidiest of mortals.

She sought Em'ly-Alice in the bright little kitchen.  "What was the
young lady like?" she asked.

"Oh a superior young person, Miss, all in black."

"Young, was she?" Miss Gallup remarked suspiciously.

"Yes, Miss, quite young, I should say--about my own age; I couldn't see
'er face very well, but she did talk like the gentry, very soft and
distinct."

"Did Mr Gallup seem pleased to see her?"

"That I couldn't say, Miss, I'm sure.  I left 'em together and come out
and shut the door."

Miss Gallup went back to the parlour shaking her head.

"There's a lot of them will be after him now 'e's stood for
Parliament," she reflected grimly; "but I did _not_ think they'd have
the face to track him to his aunt's house.  She's hanging about the
lanes for him now I'll warrant.  Miss Buttermish indeed!"




CHAPTER XIV

THE ELECTION

Eloquent had taken a small furnished house in Marlehouse, and was
installed there with a housekeeper and manservant for the fortnight
preceding the election.  The Moonstone, chief, and in fact only, hotel
in the town, was "blue," and although the proprietor would have been
glad enough to secure Eloquent's custom, it was felt better "for all
parties" that he should make his headquarters elsewhere.  He worked
hard and unceasingly, his agent was equally tireless, and it was only
at the last that Mr Brooke's supporters awoke to the fact that if he
was to represent Marlehouse again no stone should be left unturned.
But it was too late: Mr Brooke, elderly, amiable, and lethargic, was
quite incapable of either directing or controlling his more ardent
supporters, and their efforts on his behalf were singularly devoid of
tact.  The Tory and Unionist ladies were grievous offenders in this
respect.  They started a house-to-house canvass in the town, and those
possessed of carriages or motors parcelled out the surrounding villages
and "did" them, their methods being the reverse of conciliatory.
Indeed, had Mr Brooke in the smallest degree realised how these zealous
supporters were injuring his cause, his smiling optimism would have
been sadly shaken.

The day after the accident Eloquent called at Marlehouse Infirmary to
ask for Buz, and was informed that the arm had been set successfully,
that it was a bad break, but that the Rontgen rays had been used, and
it was going on satisfactorily.

He wondered if he ought to send flowers or fruit to the invalid, but a
vivid recollection of the look in Buz's eyes as he watched him pack his
suit-case decided him that any such manifestation of sympathy would be
unsuitable.  He then, although he was so rushed that he could hardly
overtake his engagements, hired a motor to drive out to the Manor
House, and so hurried the chauffeur that they fell straightway into a
police trap and were "warned."

He asked for Mrs Ffolliot, and Fusby blandly informed him that she was
in Marlehouse with Master Buz.

"Is Miss Ffolliot at home?" Eloquent asked boldly.

"Miss Ffolliot is out huntin' with the young gentlemen," Fusby remarked
stiffly.

So Eloquent was fain to get into his motor again, and quite forgot to
look in on his aunt on the way back.

The night before the election there was a Liberal meeting in the Town
Hall, and a certain section of the Tory party, a youthful and
irresponsible section it must be confessed, had arranged to attend the
meeting, and if possible bring it to nought.  The ringleader in this
scheme was a young man named Rabbich, whose people some years before
had bought a large property in a village about four miles from
Redmarley.

Mr Rabbich, senr., was an extremely wealthy man with many irons in the
fire, a man so busy that he found little time to look after either his
property or his family, and though he, himself, was generally declared
to be a "very decent sort" with no nonsense or "side" about him, and of
a praiseworthy liberality in the matter of subscriptions, his wife and
children did not find equal favour either in the eyes of the villagers
or those of his neighbours.

Mrs Rabbich was a foolish woman whose fetich was society with a big
"S," and she idolised her only son, a rather vacuous youth who had just
managed to scrape into Sandhurst.

On the night before the election then, young Rabbich gave a dinner at
the Moonstone to some twenty youths of his own age, and Grantly
Ffolliot was of the party.  Grantly did not like young Rabbich, and as
a rule steered clear of him in the hunting-field and elsewhere, though
civil enough if actually brought into contact with him.  But though
Grantly did not like young Rabbich, he dearly loved any form of "rag,"
and as party feeling ran very high just then, the chance of disturbing
the last Liberal meeting before the election was far too entrancing to
be missed.  He obtained his father's permission to go to the dinner (Mr
Ffolliot was never difficult when his sons asked for permission to go
from home), told his mother he would be late, obtained the key of the
side door from Fusby, and quite unintentionally left his family under
the impression that he was dining at the Rabbich's.

Mine host of the Moonstone provided an excellent dinner, and young
Rabbich kept calling for more champagne, so that it was a very
hilarious and somewhat unsteady party that presently, in a solid
phalanx, got wedged in at the very back of the Town Hall, which was
filled to overflowing.  Twenty noisy young men in evening clothes, and
all together, made a fairly conspicuous feature in the meeting, and the
crowd, which was almost wholly Liberal in its sympathies, guessed they
were out for trouble.

During the first couple of speeches, which were short and introductory,
they were fairly quiet, only indulging in occasional derisive comments.
When Eloquent arose to address the meeting he was greeted by such a
storm of cheering from his supporters, as quite drowned the hisses and
cat-calls of the "knuts" at the back of the hall.

But when he started to speak, their interruptions were incessant,
irrelevant, and in the case of young Rabbich, offensive.

Eloquent, who was long-sighted, clearly perceived Grantly Ffolliot,
flushed, with rumpled hair and gesticulating arms, in the group at the
back of the hall.  Young Rabbich, whose father had made the greater
part of his money in butter and bacon, kept urging Eloquent to "go back
to the shop," inquired the present price of socks and pyjamas, and
whether the clothes he wore just then were made in Germany?

Eloquent saw Grantly Ffolliot frown and say something to his companion
as young Rabbich continued his questions, and then quite suddenly the
whole of that end of the hall was in a turmoil, and one by one the
interrupters were hauled from their seats and forcibly ejected from the
meeting, in spite of desperate resistance on their part.  After that,
peace was restored, and Eloquent continued his speech amidst the
greatest enthusiasm.

His supporters cheered him to his house, and then departed to parade
the town, while their band played "Hearts of Oak," the chosen war-song
of the "Yallows."  Meanwhile the Rabbich party had returned to the
Moonstone to compare their bruises and to get more drinks, and then
they sallied forth again to join a "Blue" procession, headed by a band
that played "Bonnie Dundee," which is the battle-cry of the Blues.

The rival bands met, the rival processions met and locked, and there
was a regular shindy.  Eloquent, very tired and rather depressed, as a
man usually is on the eve of any great struggle, heard the distant
tumult and the shouting, and thought he had better go out and see what
was afoot.

He had hardly got outside his own front door, which was in a
little-frequented street not far from the police-station, when he saw
two policemen on either side of a hatless, dishevelled, and unsteady
youth, who held one of them affectionately by the arm while the other
held him.

Another glance and he perceived that the hatless one was Grantly
Ffolliot.

"Hullo!" cried Eloquent, "what's to do here?"

"Gentleman very disorderly, sir, throwing stones at windows of your
committee-room, fighting and brawling, and resisted violently--so we're
taking him to the station."

"He seems quiet enough now," Eloquent suggested.

Grantly smiled at him sleepily.  "Good chaps, policemen," he murmured;
"fine beefy chaps."

"Look here," said Eloquent, "I'd much prefer you didn't charge him.
His people are well known; it will only create ill-feeling.  I'll look
after him if you leave him with me."

The policemen looked at one another. . . .  "Of course," said the one
to whom Grantly clung so lovingly, "we couldn't swear as it was him who
threw the stones, though he was among them as did."

"He's only a boy," Eloquent continued, "and he's drunk . . . it would
be a pity to make a public example of him . . . just now--don't you
think?--If you could oblige me in this . . .  I'm very anxious that the
election should be fought with as little ill-feeling as possible."

Something changed hands.

"What about the other young gentlemen, sir?" asked the younger
policeman.

"With the other young gentlemen," Eloquent said ruthlessly, "you can
deal exactly as you please, but if it can be managed don't charge any
of them."

With difficulty policeman number one detached himself from Grantly's
embrace and handed him over to Eloquent.

"Good-bye, old chap," Grantly called fondly as his late prop departed,
"when I'm as heavy as you, you won't cop me so easy--eh, what?"

Eloquent took the boy firmly by the arm and led him in.  His steps were
uncertain and his speech was thick, but he was quite biddable, and
brimming over with loving kindness for all the world.

Eloquent took him into the sitting-room and placed him in a large
arm-chair.  Grantly pushed his hair off his forehead and gazed about
the room in rather bewildered fashion, at the round table strewn with
papers, at the tray with a glass of milk and plate of sandwiches
standing on the bare little sideboard, at his pale, fagged host, who
stood on the hearthrug looking down at him.

As he met Eloquent's stern gaze he smiled sweetly at him, and he was so
like Mary when he smiled that Eloquent turned his eyes away in very
shame.  It seemed sacrilege even to think of her in connection with
anything so degraded and disgusting as Grantly's state appeared to him
at that moment.  His Nonconformist conscience awoke and fairly shouted
at him that he should have interfered to prevent the just retribution
that had overtaken this miserable misguided boy . . . but he was her
brother; he was the son of that gracious lady who was set as a fixed
star in the firmament of his admirations; he could not hold back when
there was a chance of saving him from this disgrace.  For to be charged
with being "drunk and disorderly" in the Police Court appeared to
Eloquent just then as the lowest depths of ignominy.

"Now what in the world," he asked presently, "am I to do with you?  You
can't go home in that state."

"Bed, my dear chap, bed's what I'm for, . . . so sleepy, can hardly
hold up my head . . . any shake-down'll do----"

Grantly's head fell back against the chair, and he closed his eyes in
proof of his somnolence.

"All right," said Eloquent, "you come with me."

With some difficulty he got Grantly upstairs and into his own room.
Before the meeting he had told the servants they need not sit up for
him; his own was the only other bed made up in the house.  Grantly lay
down upon it, muddy boots and all, and turned sideways with a sigh of
satisfaction; but just before he settled off he opened his eyes and
said warningly:

"I say, if I was you I wouldn't go about with young Rabbich--he's a
wrong 'un--you may take it from me, he really is--he'll do you no
good--Don't you be seen about with him."

"Thank you," Eloquent said dryly, "I will follow your advice."

"That's right," Grantly murmured, "never be 'bove taking advice."

And in another minute he was fast asleep.  Eloquent covered him with a
railway rug, thinking grimly the while that it seemed to have become
his mission in life to cover up prostrated Ffolliots.

He went downstairs, made up the fire, and lay down on the hard sofa in
his dining-room, and slept an intermittent feverish sleep, in which
dreadful visions of Mary between two policemen, mingled with the
declaration of the poll, which proclaimed Mr Brooke to have been
elected member for Marlehouse by an enormous majority.

At six o'clock he got up.  In half an hour his servants would be
stirring, and Grantly must be got out of the house before they appeared.

He went to the kitchen, got a little teapot and cups, and made some
tea.  Then he went to rouse Grantly.

This was difficult, as he couldn't raise his voice very much because of
the servants, and Grantly was sleeping heavily.  At last, by a series
of shakes and soft punches, he succeeded in making him open his eyes.
Eloquent had already turned up the gas, and the room was full of light.

There is a theory extant that a man shows his real character when he is
suddenly aroused out of sleep.  That if he is naturally surly, he will
be surly then; if he is of an amiable disposition, he is good-natured
then.

Grantly sat up with a start and swung his feet off the bed.  "Mr
Gallup," he said very gently, "I can't exactly remember what I'm doing
here, but I do apologise."

"That's all right," Eloquent said awkwardly.  "I thought perhaps you'd
like to get home before the servants were about, and it's six o'clock.
Come and have a cup of tea."

"May I wash my face?" Grantly asked meekly.

This accomplished, he went downstairs and drank the cup of tea Eloquent
had provided for him.  His host lent him a bicycle and speeded him on
his way.  At the door Grantly paused to say in a mumbling voice: "I
don't know, sir, why you've been so awfully decent to me, but will you
remember this? that if ever I can do anything for you, it would be very
generous of you to tell me--will you remember this?"

"I will remember," said Eloquent.

As Grantly rode away Eloquent was filled with self-reproach, for he had
not said one word either of warning or rebuke, and he had been brought
up to believe in the value of "the word in season."

Grantly pedalled as hard as he could through the dark deserted roads,
and though his head was racking and he felt, as he put it, "like
nothing on earth," he covered the five miles between Marlehouse and
Redmarley in under half an hour.  He went round to the side door and
felt for the key, as he hoped to slip in without meeting any of the
servants who were, he saw by stray lights, just astir.

That key was nowhere to be found.

He tried every pocket in his overcoat, his tail coat, his white
waistcoat, his trousers, all in vain.  That key was gone; lost!

There was nothing for it but to try Mary's window.  Parker slept in her
room, but Parker would never bark at any member of the family.  All the
bedroom windows at Redmarley were lattice, and Mary's, at the back of
the house on the first floor, stood open about a foot.

"Parker," Grantly called softly, "Parker, old chap, rouse her up and
ask her to let me in."

An old wistaria grew under the window with thick knotted stems.
Grantly climbed up this, and although it was very dark he was aware of
something dimly white at the window.  Parker, much longer in the leg
than any well-bred fox-terrier has a right to be, was standing on his
hind legs thrusting his head out in silent welcome.

"Go and rouse her up, old chap," Grantly whispered.  "I want her to
open the window wide enough for me to get through."

All the windows at the Manor House, open or shut, had patent catches
that it was impossible to undo from the outside.

He heard Parker jump on Mary's bed and probably lick her face, then a
sleepy "What is it, old dog, what's the matter?" and a soft movement as
Mary raised herself on her elbow and switched on the light.

"Mary," in a penetrating whisper, "let me in, I've lost that confounded
key."

In a moment Mary was over at the window, undid the catches, and Grantly
scrambled through.

"Grantly!" Mary exclaimed.  "What on earth is the matter?  You look
awful."

Grantly caught sight of himself in her long glass and agreed with her.

He was covered with mud from head to foot, his overcoat was torn, his
white tie was gone, his beautiful smooth hair, with the neat ripple at
the temples, stood on end in ragged locks; in fact he was as unlike the
"Knut" of ordinary life as he could well be.

"Get into bed, Mary," he said, "you'll catch cold . . ."

Mary, looking very tall in her straight white nightgown, turned slowly
and got into bed.  "Now tell me," she said.

Grantly went and sat at the end of her bed and Parker joined him,
cuddling up against him and trying to lick his face.  It mattered
nothing to Parker that he was ragged and dirty and disreputable;
nothing that he might have committed any crime in the rogues' calendar.
He was one of the family, he was home, he had evidently been in
trouble, he needed comfort, therefore Parker made much of him.  Grantly
felt this and was vaguely cheered.

"Now," said Mary again, and switched off the light; "you can have the
eiderdown if you're cold."

"Well, if you must know," said Grantly, "we went to the Radical meeting
and got chucked out."

"Who went?  I thought you were dining with the Rabbiches."

"Not _the_ Rabbiches, _a_ Rabbich, and an insufferable bounder at that;
but he gave us a jolly good dinner, champagne flowed."

"And you got drunk?  Oh, Grantly!"

"Well, no; I shouldn't describe it thus crudely--like the Irishman, I
prefer to say 'having drink taken.'"

"Well, 'having drink taken'--then?"

"After we were chucked out for interrupting (it _was_ a rag) we went
back to the Moonstone."

"To the Moonstone," Mary repeated; "why there?"

"Because we dined there, my dear.  Young Rabbich gave the feast; it was
all arranged beforehand.  We meant to spoil that meeting, but we began
too soon, and they were too strong for us, and . . . he's an ass, and
shouted out all sorts of things he shouldn't--we deserved what we got."

"And then?"

"I'm not very clear what happened then, except that there was the most
tremendous shindy in the street, and fur was flying like anything, and
the next I know was two bobbies had got me, and your friend Gallup
squared them and took me home and put me to bed . . . and here I am."

"Mr Gallup," Mary repeated incredulously; "you've been to bed in his
house?"

"You've got it, my sister; lay on his bed just as I am . . . and he
woke me at six and sent me home on his bicycle."

"But why--why should he have interfered?  I should have thought he'd
have been _glad_ for you to be taken up, interrupting his meeting and
being on the other side . . . and everything."

"Well, anyway, that's what he did, and whatever his motives may have
been it was jolly decent of him . . . and . . ." here Grantly lowered
his voice to the faintest mumble, "he never said a word of reproof or
exhortation . . .  I tell you he behaved like a gentleman.  What's to
be done?"

"Nothing," said Mary decidedly.  "You've played the fool, and by the
mercy of Providence you've got off uncommonly cheap.  It would worry
mother horribly if she knew, and as for father . . . well you know what
_he_ thinks of people who can't carry their liquor like gentlemen, and
grandfather too . . . and . . . oh, Grantly--father's not going South
till the very end of January; he decided to-night that as the weather
was so mild he'd wait till then.  So it would _never_ do if it was to
come out, your life would be unbearable, all of our lives; he'd say it
was the Grantly strain coming out--you know how he blames every bit of
bad in us on mother's people."

"I know," groaned Grantly, "I know."

"Well, anyway," Mary said in quite a different tone, "there's one thing
we've got to remember, and that is we must be uncommonly civil to that
young man if we happen to meet him--he's put us under an obligation."

"I know . . . I know, that's what I feel, and I shall never have an
easy minute till I've done something for him . . . and I don't see
anything I can do with the pater like he is and all.  Isn't it a
_beastly_ state of things?"

In the darkness Mary leant forward and stroked the tousled head bent
down over Parker.

"Poor old boy," she said softly, "poor old boy," and Parker licked
something that tasted salt off the end of his nose.

When Grantly left his sister's room Parker went with him.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Eloquent's housekeeper found the missing key under his bed, and he sent
it out to the Manor House that morning, addressed to Grantly, in a
sealed envelope by special messenger.

In the evening the poll was declared in Marlehouse, and the Liberal
candidate was elected by a majority of three hundred and forty-nine
votes.




CHAPTER XV

OF THINGS IN GENERAL

The result of the election was no surprise to the defeated party.  The
honest among them acknowledged that they deserved to be beaten, and
they felt no personal rancour against Eloquent.

If Marlehouse was unfortunate enough to be represented by a Radical,
they preferred that the Radical should be a Marlehouse man and not some
"carpet-bagger" imported from South Wales.  Eloquent's bearing, both
during the contest and afterwards, was acknowledged to be modest and
"suitable."  If he was lacking in geniality and address, he was, at all
events, neither bumptious nor servile.  His lenity towards the youths
who had done their best to break up his meeting and wreck his committee
rooms had leaked out, and gained for him, if not friends, at least
toleration among several leading Conservatives who had been his
bitterest opponents.

Mary, Grantly, and Buz Ffolliot all felt a sneaking satisfaction that
he _had_ got in.  A satisfaction they in no wise dared to express, for
Mr Ffolliot was really much upset at the result of the election;
feeling it something of a personal insult that one so closely
associated with a ready-made clothes' shop, a shop in his own nearest
town, should represent him in Parliament.  Mr Ffolliot would have
preferred the "carpet-bagger."

Mary, who cared as little as she knew about politics, was pleased.
Because Eloquent had been "decent" to Grantly, she was glad he had got
what he wanted, though why he should ardently desire that particular
thing she did not attempt to understand.  Grantly was sincerely
grateful to Eloquent for getting him out of what would undoubtedly have
been a most colossal row, had any hint of his conduct at Marlehouse on
the eve of the election reached his father's ears.

Neither Grantly nor Mary knew anything of the Miss Buttermish episode.
For Buz, since the accident, was basking in the sympathy of his family,
and had no intention of diverting the stream of favours that flowed
over him by any revelations they might not wholly approve.  Buz,
therefore, had his own reasons, unshared by anyone but Uz (who was
silent as the grave in all that concerned his twin), for gratitude to
Eloquent.  Grantly and Buz unconsciously shared a rather unwilling
admiration for the little, common-looking man who could do a good turn
and hold his tongue, evidently expecting neither recognition nor
remembrance.  For Eloquent expected neither, and yet he could not
forget the real earnestness of Grantly Ffolliot's parting words.

Could such a foolish youth be trusted to mean what he said? or was it
only the surface courtesy that seemed to come so easily to the
"classes" Eloquent still regarded with mistrust and suspicion?

He longed to test Grantly Ffolliot.

An opportunity came sooner than he expected.  Parliament did not meet
till the end of the month, and although he went to London a good deal
on varied business, he kept on the little house in his native town,
wrote liberal cheques for all the charities, opened a Baptist bazaar,
and generally did his duty according to his lights and the instructions
of his agent.

In the third week of January he was asked to "kick off" at a "soccer"
match to be held in Marlehouse.  This was rather an event, as two
important teams from a distance were for some reason or other to play
there.  The Marlehouse folk played "Rugger" as a rule, but this match
was regarded in the light of a curiosity; people would come in from
miles round, and hordes of mechanics would flock over from Garchester,
the county town.  It was considered quite a big sporting event, and his
agent informed Eloquent that a great honour had been done him.

Eloquent appeared duly impressed and accepted the invitation.

Then it occurred to him that never in his life had he seen a football
match of any kind.

Games were not compulsory at the Grammar School, and Eloquent had no
natural inclination to play them.  When a little boy he had generally
gone for a walk with his father or his aunt on a half-holiday.  As he
grew older he either attended extra classes at the science school or
read for himself notable books bearing upon the political history of
the last fifty years.  Games had no place in his scheme of existence.
His father, most certainly, had never played games and had no desire
that Eloquent should do so; as for going to watch other people play
them--such a proceeding would have been dismissed by the elder Mr
Gallup as "foolhardy nonsense."  Serious-minded men had no time for
such frivolity.

Nevertheless it became increasingly evident to Eloquent that a large
number of his constituents--whether they actually took part in what he
persisted in calling "these pastimes" or not--were very keenly
interested in watching others do so, and Eloquent was consumed by
anxiety as to how he was to discover what it was he was expected to do.

There were plenty of his political supporters who were not only able
but would have been most willing to solve his difficulty, but he
dreaded the inevitable confession of his ignorance.  They would be kind
enough, he was sure of that, but would they make game of his ignorance
afterwards?  Would they _talk_?

He was pretty sure they would.

Eloquent hated talk.  Grantly and Buz Ffolliot had each recognised and
admired that quality in him, and it is possible that he had vaguely
discerned a kindred reticence in these feather-brained boys.

He distrusted all his political allies in Marlehouse in this matter of
the kick-off.

Why then should Grantly Ffolliot occur to him as a person able and
likely to help him in this dilemma?

He was pretty sure that Grantly played football.  Soldiers did these
things, and Grantly was going to be a soldier.  A soldier, in
Eloquent's mind, epitomised all that was useless, idle, luxurious, and
destructive.  Mr Gallup and his friends had disapproved of the
Transvaal War; our reverses did not affect them personally, for they
had no friends at the front, and our long-deferred victories left them
cold.  The flame of Eloquent's enthusiasm was fanned at school, only to
be quenched at home by the wet blanket of his father's disapproval.
Sturdy Miss Gallup snapped at them both, and knitted helmets and
mittens and sent socks and handkerchiefs and cocoa to the Redmarley men
in South Africa; and her brother gave her the socks and handkerchiefs
out of stock, but under protest.

Eloquent knew no soldiers, either officers or in the ranks.  He had
been taught to look upon the private as almost always drawn from the
less reputable of the working classes, and although he acknowledged
that officers might, some of them, be hard-working and intelligent, he
was inclined to regard them with suspicion.

Suppose he did ask Grantly Ffolliot about this ridiculous kick-off, and
Grantly went about making fun of him afterwards?

"Then I shall know," he said to himself.  All the same it appeared to
him that Grantly Ffolliot was the only possible person _to_ ask.

It came about quite easily.  One morning he was coming down the steps
of the bank in Marlehouse and saw Grantly on horseback waiting at the
curb till someone should turn up to hold his horse while he went in.
He had ridden in to cash a cheque for his mother.  The main street was
very empty and no available loafer was to be seen.

As Grantly caught sight of Eloquent descending the steps he smiled his
charming smile.  "Hullo, I've never seen you since the election.
Heartiest grats," the boy called cheerily.  Eloquent went up to him and
held out his hand.  He looked up and down the street, no one was within
earshot.  "I've a favour to ask you, Mr Ffolliot," he said in a low
tone, "but you must promise to refuse at once if you have any
objection."

Grantly leant down to him, smiling more broadly than ever.  "That's
awfully decent of you," he said, and he meant it.

Again Eloquent cast an anxious look up and down the street.  "They've
asked me to kick-off at the match on Saturday, and . . . you'll think
me extraordinarily ignorant . . .  I've no idea what one does.  Can I
learn in the time?"

Eloquent's always rosy face was almost purple with the effort he had
made.

Grantly, on the contrary, appeared quite unmoved.  He fixed his eyes on
his horse's left ear and said easily: "It's the simplest thing in the
world.  All we want is a field and a ball, and we've got both at home.
At least . . . not a soccer ball--but I don't think that matters.  When
will you come?"

"When may I come?"

"Meet me this afternoon in the field next but one behind the church.
There's never anyone there, and we'll fix it up."

"All right," said Eloquent.  "Many thanks . . .  I suppose you think it
very absurd?" he added nervously.

This time Grantly did not look at Mafeking's left ear, he looked
straight into Eloquent's uplifted eyes, saying slowly:

"I don't see that I'm called upon to think anything about it.  You've
done another kind thing in asking me.  Why should you think I don't see
it?"

And in spite of himself Eloquent mumbled, "I beg your pardon."

"This afternoon then, at three-thirty sharp--good-day."

A loafer hurried up at this moment and Grantly swung off his horse and
ran up the steps into the bank.

Eloquent looked after the graceful figure in the well-cut riding
clothes and sighed--

"If I'd been like himself he'd have asked me to hold his horse while he
went in, but things being as they are, he wouldn't," he reflected
bitterly.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Only one belonging to a large family knows how difficult it is to do
anything by one's self.

That afternoon it seemed to Grantly that each member of the Manor House
party wanted him for something, and he offended every one of them by
ungraciously refusing to accompany each one in turn.

His mother and Mary were driving into Marlehouse and wanted him to come
and hold the horse while they went into the different shops, but he
excused himself on the score of his morning's errand, and Uz was told
off for the duty, greatly to his disgust.  Reggie asked Grantly to ride
with him, but Grantly complained of fatigue, and Reggie, who knew
perfectly well that the excuse was invalid, called him a slacker and
started forth huffily alone, mentally animadverting on the "edge"
displayed by the new type of cadet.

Nearly ten years' service gave Reggie the right to talk regretfully of
the stern school he had been brought up in.

Ger, on the previous day, had been sent to his grandparents at Woolwich
"by command"; and the Kitten was going with Thirza to a children's
party.  She was therefore made to lie down for an hour after lunch--so
she was disposed of.  There remained only Buz, and Buz was on the prowl
seeking someone to amuse him.  His arm was still in a sling and he
expected sympathy.  He shadowed Grantly till nearly half-past three,
when that gentleman appeared in the back passage clad in sweater and
shorts, with a Rugger ball under his arm.

"Hullo," cried Buz, "where are you off to?"

"I'm going to practise drop-kicks . . . by myself," Grantly answered
grumpily.

"Why can't I come?  I could kick even if I can't use this beastly arm."

"No, it's too cold for you to stand about."

"Bosh; I can wrap myself in a railway rug if it comes to that."

"It needn't come to that.  You go for a sharp walk or else take a book
and amuse yourself.  I must be off."

"Well you _are_ a selfish curmudgeon," Buz exclaimed in real
astonishment.  "Why this sudden passion for solitude?"

Grantly banged the door in Buz's face, regardless of the warning cards,
and set off to run.  Buz opened the door and looked after him, noted
the direction, nodded his head thrice and nipped upstairs to Grantly's
room, where he abstracted his field-glasses from their case hanging on
a peg behind the door.  He hung them round his neck by the short black
strap, tied a sweater over his shoulders, and went out by the side door
in quite a different direction from that taken by his brother.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Oblivious of the surgeon's strict injunctions that he was on no account
to run or risk a fall of any kind, holding the glasses with his free
hand so that they shouldn't drag on his neck, directly he was clear of
the house he broke into the swinging steady trot that had won him the
half-mile under fifteen in the last school sports; climbed two gates
and jumped a ditch, finally arriving at the top of a small hill, the
very highest point on the Manor property.  From this eminence he
surveyed the country round, and speedily, without the aid of the
field-glasses, discerned his brother kicking a football well into the
centre of the field, while the Liberal member for Marlehouse ran after
it and tried somewhat feebly to kick it back.

"Well I'm jiggered!" Buz exclaimed in breathless astonishment; "so he
knows him too.  Whatever are they playing at?"

He fixed the field-glasses, watching intently, then dropped them and
rubbed his eyes, took them up again and gazed fixedly, and so absorbed
was he that he positively leapt into the air when he heard his father's
voice close beside him asking mildly, "What are you watching so
intently, Hilary?"

The lovely winter afternoon had tempted Mr Ffolliot out.  Usually Mrs
Ffolliot accompanied him on his rare walks, but this afternoon he only
decided to go out after she had left for Marlehouse.  Like Buz, he
sought the highest point of his estate, in his case that he might
complacently survey its many acres.

Buz dropped the glasses so that they hung by their strap and swung
round, facing his father with his back to the distant figures with the
football, seized the glasses again and gazed into the copse, exclaiming
eagerly, "A fox, sir; perhaps you could see him if you're quick,"
pulled the strap over his head, gave the glasses a dextrous twist,
entirely destroying their focus, and handed them to his father, who
fiddled about for some time before he could see anything at all.

"A fox," Mr Ffolliot repeated, "in the copse.  We had better go and
warn Willets to look out for his ducks and chickens."

"I don't suppose he'll stay, sir, but perhaps it would be as well.
Shall I take the glasses, father, they're rather heavy?"

But Mr Ffolliot had got them focussed and was leisurely surveying the
distant scene; gradually turning so that in another moment he would
bear directly on the field where Grantly and Eloquent were now to be
seen standing in earnest conversation.

"There he is," shouted the mendacious Buz, seizing his father by the
arm so violently that he almost knocked him down, "over there towards
the house; don't you see him? a big dog fox with a splendid brush----"

Imperceptibly Buz had propelled his father down the slope on the side
farthest from his brother.

"My dear Hilary," Mr Ffolliot exclaimed, straightening his hat, which
had become disarranged in the violence of his son's impact, "one would
think no one had ever seen a fox before; why be so excited about it?"

"But didn't you see him, sir?" Buz persisted.  "There he goes close by
the garden wall; oh, do look."

Mr Ffolliot looked for all he was worth.  He twiddled the glasses and
put them out of focus, but naturally he failed to behold the mythical
fox which was the product of his offspring's fertile brain.

They were at the bottom of the slope now, and Buz gave a sigh of relief.

"I thought I saw two youths in the five-acre field," Mr Ffolliot
remarked presently; "what were they doing?"

"Practising footer, I fancy," Buz said easily, thankful that at last he
could safely speak the truth.

"Ah," said Mr Ffolliot, "it is extraordinary what a lot of time the
working classes seem able to spend upon games nowadays.  Still, I'm
always glad they should play rather than merely watch.  It is that
watching and not doing that saps the moral as well as the physical
strength of the nation."

"It's Thursday, you see, father--early closing," Buz suggested.

"Well, well, I'm glad they should have their game.  Shall we stroll
round and have a look at them?"

"Oh I wouldn't, if I were you, father, they'd stop directly.  These
village chaps are always so shy.  It would spoil their afternoon."

"Would it?" Mr Ffolliot asked dubiously; "would it?  I should have
thought they would have found encouragement in the fact that their
Squire took an interest in their sports."

"I don't think so," Buz said decidedly; "they hate to be looked at when
they're practising."

"Very well, very well, if you think so," Mr Ffolliot said with
surprising meekness; "we'll go and see Willets instead, and tell him
about that fox."

"I don't think I'd bother him, the fox is miles away by now."

"Well, where shall we go?" Mr Ffolliot demanded testily; "I've come out
to walk with you, and you do nothing but object to every direction I
propose."

"Let us," said Buz, praying for inspiration, "let us go straight on
till we come to a cleaner bit."

Mr Ffolliot looked ruefully at his boots.  "It is wet," he remarked,
"mind you don't slip with that arm of yours."

"Shall I take the glasses, father?" Buz asked politely.

"Yes, do, though I'm not sure that I wholly approve of Grantly lending
these expensive glasses to you younger ones.  I must speak to him about
it."

Buz sighed heavily.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Just once more did Eloquent see Mary before Parliament met.  It was in
a shop in Marlehouse the day after he had received his lesson in
kicking off, and he was buying ties.  Eloquent was critical about ties,
he had by long apprenticeship penetrated to the true inwardness of
their importance, and this afternoon he was very difficult to please.
Many boxes were laid upon the counter before him, the counter was
strewn with "neckwear," and yet he had only found one to his liking.
While the assistant was away seeking others from distant shelves,
Eloquent busied himself in arranging the scattered ties carefully in
their proper boxes.  For him it was a perfectly natural thing to do,
but he happened to look into the mirror that faced the counter, and in
it he beheld Mary Ffolliot seated at the counter behind him, and she
was watching him with fascinated interest.  Buz was with her and they
were buying socks.  Eloquent's deft hands dropped to his sides and he
turned furiously red.  For no one knew better than he that it is not
usual for a customer to arrange goods in a shop.

The young lady in the mirror had discreetly turned her head away, the
assistant came back, Eloquent bought two ties without having the least
idea what they were like, and then he heard a voice behind him saying,
"How do you do, Mr Gallup--we've not seen you since the election to
congratulate you," and Mary was standing at his side holding out her
hand.

He shook hands with Mary, he shook hands with Buz, he mumbled something
incoherent, and they were gone.

The Liberal member for Marlehouse rushed from the shop in an opposite
direction without taking or paying for his ties, and the astute
assistant packed them up, having added three that Eloquent did not buy,
for the good of the trade.




CHAPTER XVI

MAINLY ABOUT REGINALD PEEL

The holidays had started badly, there was no doubt about that.  All the
young Ffolliots were agreed about it.  First Buz broke his arm on
Boxing-day.  That was upsetting in itself, and Buz, as an invalid, was
a terrible nuisance.  Then the Ganpies had to return to Woolwich much
sooner than they had expected: another matter for gloom and woe.  And
finally came the crushing intelligence that Mr Ffolliot did not intend
to start for his oasis till the beginning of February, after the twins
had gone back to school and Grantly to the Shop.  And this was
considered the very limit.  Fate had done its worst.

No party: no relaxation of the rules as to absence of noise and
presence of perfect regularity and punctuality at meals: no cheerful
gathering together of neighbouring families for all sorts of
junkettings; in fact, none of the usual features of the last fortnight
of the Christmas holidays.  And yet, in looking back afterwards, the
young Ffolliots, with, perhaps, the exception of the unfortunate Buz,
would have confessed that on the whole they had had rather a good time.
Mary, in particular, would have owned frankly, had she been asked, that
she had never enjoyed a holiday more.

For one thing, the big boys had been "so nice to her," and by "the big
boys" she meant Grantly and Reggie Peel.

She and Grantly had always been great allies.  When they were little
they did everything together, for the three and a half years that
separated Mary from the twins seemed, till they should all get into the
twenties, an immeasurable distance.  But Grantly hitherto had been no
more polite and considerate than the average brother.  He was both
critical and plain-spoken, and poor Mary had suffered many things at
his hands . . . till this holiday; and it never occurred to her that
this agreeable change in Grantly's attitude might be due to some
alteration in herself rather than in him.

Mary was far too interested in life with a big "L" to waste any time
upon self-analysis or introspection.  Neither she nor Grantly had ever
referred to the night of young Rabbich's dinner at the Moonstone, but
since that night she had been distinctly conscious of a slightly more
respectful quality in his manner towards her.  The tendency was
indefinable, illusive, but it was there, and simple-minded Mary only
reflected gratefully that Grantly was "growing up awfully nice."

Regarding Reggie Peel, however, she did venture to think that she must
be rather more attractive than she used to be; and complacently
attributed his new gentleness to the fact that she had put up her hair
since she last saw him.

Gentleness was by no means one of Reggie's chief characteristics.  He
was ruthless where his own ends were concerned, tirelessly hard
working, amusing, and of a caustic tongue: a cheerful pessimist who
expected the very least of his fellow-creatures, until such time as
they had given some proof that he might expect more.  Yet there were a
favoured few, a very few, whom he took for granted thankfully, and Mary
had long known that her mother was one of those few.  Lately she had
realised with a startled thrill of gratification that she, too, had
stepped out of the rank and file to take her place among those chosen
ones, for Reggie had confided to her a secret that none of the others,
not even her mother, knew.

Among the many serious periodicals of strictly Imperial tone that Mr
Ffolliot read, was one that from time to time indulged its readers with
exceptionally well-written short stories.  Quite recently a couple of
these stories had dealt with military subjects, and were signed
"Ubique."  The stories were striking, strong, and evidently from the
pen of one who knew his ground.  Mr Ffolliot admired them, and
graciously drew the attention of his family to them.  One had appeared
in the January number, and Mrs Ffolliot and Mary fell foul of it
because it was too painful.  They thought it pitiless, even savage, in
its inexorable disregard of the individual and deification of the
Cause.  Grantly, of course, upheld the writer.  The male of the species
prides itself on inhumanity in youth.  Mr Ffolliot approved the story
from the artistic standpoint, and the General defended it on the score
of its absolute truth.  Reggie, quite contrary to custom, gave no
opinion at all till he was asked by Mary, one day when they were riding
together.

As she expected, he defended the writer's stern realism.  But what she
did not expect was that he seemed to make a personal matter of it,
almost imploring her to see eye to eye with him, which she wholly
failed to do.

"I think he must be a terribly hard man, that 'Ubique,'" she said at
last, "with no toleration or compassion.  He talks as though
incompetence were an unpardonable crime."

"So it is; if you undertake a job you ought to see that you're fit to
carry it out."

"You can't always be sure. . . .  You may do your best and . . . fail."

"I grant you some people's best is a very poor best, but in this case
the man let a flabby humanitarianism take the place of his judgment,
and he caused far more misery in the end.  Can't you see that?"

"All the same," Mary said decidedly, "I wouldn't like to fall into the
hands of that man, the Ubique man I mean, not the failure.  He must be
a cold-blooded wretch, or he couldn't write such things.  It makes me
shudder."

And Mary shivered as she spoke.

"He must be a beast," she added.

They were walking their horses along the turf at the side of the road
skirting the woods.  Reggie pulled up and Mary stopped also a little in
front.

"Got a stone?" she asked carelessly.

Reggie did not answer or dismount, and she turned in her saddle to look
at him, to meet his crooked, whimsical smile.  Suddenly he dropped his
reins and beat his breast, exclaiming melodramatically: "And Nathan
said unto David, 'Thou art the man.'"

"What on earth do you mean?" Mary asked, bewildered.  "What man? do you
mean you'd behave like the man in the story, or you wouldn't, or . . .
Oh, Reggie, you don't mean to say you wrote it yourself?"

"You have spoken."

"You must be awfully clever!" Mary ejaculated with awe-struck
admiration.

"My cleverness will not be of much comfort to me if you persist in your
wrong-headed opinion that the man who wrote that story is a beast."

"Oh, that's different.  I know you, you see, and you're not a beast.
You aren't really like that."

"But I am.  That's the real me.  It is truly; the real, deep-down me,
the me that's worth anything."

"No," said Mary, shaking her head, "I don't believe it; you _have_ some
consideration for other people."

"Not in that sense; if there was anything, any big thing, I had to put
through--no one should stand in my way.  And it's the same with
anything I want very much.  I go straight for it, and it matters
nothing to me who gets knocked down on the route . . . and so you'll
find," Reggie added very low.

They were looking each other straight in the face, Mary a little
breathless and wondering: "And so you'll find," Reggie repeated a
little louder, and there was a look in his eyes that caused Mary to
drop hers, and she rode on.

Reggie caught her up.

"Are you sorry, Mary?" he asked gently.

"About what?"

"Well . . . about everything.  The story, and my ferocious mental
attitude, and all the rest of it."

He laid his hand on her horse's neck, and leaned forward to look in her
face.  They were riding very close together, and Mary was too near the
hedge to put more distance between them.

"I can't be sorry you write so well," she said slowly, "it is very
exciting--is the news for publication or not?"

"I'd be grateful if you'd say nothing as yet--you see I've only done
these two, and what's a couple of short stories?  Besides, it's not
really my job, only it's amusing, and one can rub it in that way, and
reach a larger class than by the strictly military article--no one
knows anything about it except the editor of _The Point of View_--and
you--I'd rather you didn't mention it, if you don't mind."

"Of course I shan't mention it, but I shall look out for 'Ubique' with
much greater interest."

"And still think him a beast?"

"That depends on what he writes."

"I'm not so much concerned about what you think of Ubique as that you
should remember that I mean what I say."

"You say a good many absurd things."

"Yes, but this is not absurd--when I want a thing very much . . ."

"Oh, you needn't say all that again.  Be a silent, strong man like the
heroes in Seton Merriman, they're much the best kind."

"I'm not particularly silent, but I flatter myself that . . ."

"It's a shame to crawl over this lovely grass--come on and have a
canter," said Mary.

That night Reggie Peel sat long by his bedroom fire.  The bedroom fire
was a concession to his acknowledged grown-upness.  The young Ffolliots
were allowed no bedroom fires.  Only when suffering from bad colds or
in the very severest weather was a fire granted to any child out of the
nursery.  But Reggie, almost a captain now, was popular with the
servants, especially with the stern Sophia, head-housemaid, and she
decreed that he had reached the status of a visitor, and must,
therefore, have a fire in his bedroom at night.  He sat before it now,
swinging the poker which had just stirred it to a cheerful blaze.  He
had carefully switched off the light, for they were very economical of
the electric light at Redmarley.  It had cost such a lot to put in.

Five years ago he and General Grantly between them had supervised its
installation, and the instruction of the head-gardener in the
management of the dynamo-room; each going up and down, as often as they
could get away, to share the discomfort with Mrs Ffolliot, and look
after the men.  Mrs Grantly was, for once, almost satisfied, for she
had carried off all the available children.  Mr Ffolliot had decreed
that the work should be done while he was in the South of France, and
expressed a strong desire that all should be in order before his
return; and it was finished, for he stayed away seven weeks.

And Reggie sat remembering all this, five years ago; and how just
before the children were sent to their grandmother Mary used to want to
sit on his knee, and how he would thrust her off with insulting remarks
as to her weight and her personal appearance generally.

She was a good deal heavier now, he reflected, and yet--

Reggie had come to the parting of the ways, and had decided which he
would follow.

Like most ambitious young men he had, so far, taken as his motto a
couplet, which, through over-usage, has become a platitude--

  "High hopes faint on a warm hearth-stone,
  He travels the fastest who travels alone."


Reggie had accepted this as an incontrovertible truth impossible to
dispute; but then he had never until lately felt the smallest desire to
travel through life accompanied by any one person.  He had fallen in
and out of love as often as was wholesome or possible for so
hard-working a young man, and always looked upon the experience as an
agreeable relaxation, as it undoubtedly is.  But never for one moment
did he allow such evanescent attachments to turn him a hair's breadth
out of his course.  Now something had happened to him, and he knew that
for the future the platitude had become a lie, and that the only
incentive either to high hopes or their fulfilment lay in the prospect
of a hearth-stone shared by the girl who a few hours ago declared that
she "would not like to fall into that man's hands."

Reggie was very modern.  He built no altar to Mary in his heart nor did
he set her image in a sacred shrine apart.  He had no use for anyone in
a shrine.  He wanted a comrade, and he craved this particular comrade
with all the intensity of a well-disciplined, entirely practical
nature.  He was not in the least conceited, but he knew that if he
lived he would "get there," and the fact that he never had had, or ever
would have, sixpence beyond the pay he earned did not deter him in his
quest a single whit.  Mary wouldn't have sixpence either.  He knew the
Redmarley rent-roll to a halfpenny.  Mrs Ffolliot frankly talked over
her affairs with him ever since he left Woolwich, and more than once
his shrewd judgment unravelled some tangle which Mr Ffolliot's
singularly unbusiness-like habits had created.  He knew very well that
were it not for General Grantly the boys could never have got the
chance each was to get.  That General Grantly was spending the money he
would have left his daughter at his death in helping her children now
when they needed it most.  Mary and he were young and strong.  They
could rough it at first.  Afterwards--he had no fears about that
afterwards if Mary cared.

But would Mary care?

Reggie felt none of the qualms of a more sensitive man in making love
to a very young girl who might certainly, both as regarded looks and
social position, be expected to make an infinitely better marriage.  He
was assailed by no misgivings as to what might be thought of the man
who made use of his position as almost a son of the house to make love
to this girl hardly out of the schoolroom.

It was Mr Ffolliot's business to guard against such possibilities.

If, however, he might be called unscrupulous on that score, his sense
of fairness was stronger than his delicacy; for where the latter proved
no obstacle, the former decided him that it would not be playing the
game to make open love to Mary till she had "been out a bit," and he
laid down the poker with a smothered oath.

He had gone further than he intended that afternoon and he was
sorry--but not very sorry.  "There's no harm in letting her know I'm in
the running," he reflected.  "I hope it will sink in.  Otherwise she
might stick me down in the same row with Grantly and the twins, which
is the last thing in the world I want."

He was glad he had told her about that story, even if it revealed him
in an unfavourable light.  "If she ever cares for me, and God help me
if she doesn't--she must care for me as I really am, an ugly devil with
some brains and a queer temper.  I'll risk no disillusionment
afterwards.  She must see plenty of other chaps first--confound them;
but if any one out of the lot shows signs of making a dart I'll cut in
first, I won't wait another minute, I'm damned if I will."

And suddenly conscious that he had spoken aloud, Reggie undressed and
went to bed, knowing full well that even though the hearth-stone should
be eternally cold, and the high hopes flattened beyond all possible
recognition, there yet remained to him something passing the love of
women.

For Reggie was not without an altar and a secret shrine, though not
even the figure of the woman he loved best would ever fill it.  The
sacred fire of his devotion burned with a steady flame that illumined
his whole life, though not even to himself did he confess the vows he
paid.

"One must choose one's own mystery: the great thing is to have one."
And if prayer be the daily expression to the soul of the desire to do
the right thing, then Reggie prayed without ceasing that he might do
his WORK, and do it well.  His profession was his God, and he served
faithfully and with a single heart.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Mary had no fire to sit over, but all the same she dawdled throughout
her undressing and, unlike Reggie, wasted the precious electric light.
She had a great deal to think about, for Grantly and Reggie were not
the only people to confide in Mary that holiday.  The day before he
left, General Grantly had taken her for a walk, sworn her to secrecy,
and then had sprung upon her a most astounding project.  No other than
that he and Mrs Grantly should take her mother with them when they went
to the South of France for March--their mother without any of them.

"She has never had a real holiday by herself since she was married,"
the General said, "and my idea is that she should come with us directly
your father gets back.  The boys will be at school--Grantly at the
Shop.  There will only be the two little ones and your father to
consider, and you could look after them.  I'd like to take you too, my
dear, but I don't fancy your mother could be persuaded to leave your
father unless there was someone to see to things for him."

"She'd never leave father alone," Mary said decidedly; "but she might,
oh, she might go now I'm really grown up.  I should love her to go.
Don't you think"--Mary's voice was very wistful--"that she's been
looking a little tired lately . . . not quite so beautiful . . . as
usual?"

"Ah, you've noticed it too--that settles it--not a word, mind; if it's
sprung upon her at a few days' notice it may come off.  If she has time
to think she'll discover insurmountable difficulties.  Strategy, my
dear, strategy must be our watchword."

"But father," Mary suggested dubiously, "who's going to manage him?"

"I think," the General said grimly, "I think we may safely leave your
father in Grannie's hands.  She has undertaken to square him, and, what
she undertakes--I have never known her fail to put through."

"It will be most extraordinary to have mother go off for quite a long
time by herself," Mary said thoughtfully.

"She won't be by herself, she'll be with _her_ father and mother; has
it never occurred to you as possible that sometimes we might like our
daughter to ourselves?"

Mary turned an astonished face towards her grandfather, exclaiming
emphatically,

"No, Ganpy, it certainly never has . . . before."





CHAPTER XVII

THE RAM-CORPS ANGEL

Grannie was writing letters.  Grandfather had gone into London to the
War Office, and it was only ten o'clock.  Grannie was safe for an hour
or two, for she was sending out notices about something, and that
always took a long time.

Ger was rather at a loose end, but with the admirable spirit of the
adventurous for making the best of things, he decided to go forth and
see what he could see.  No one was in the hall to question him as he
went out, and he made straight for the common, where something exciting
was always toward.  He had forgotten to put on a coat, and the wind was
cold, so he ran along with his hands in the pockets of his jacket.  His
cap was old, his suit, "a descended suit," was old, and his face,
though it was still so early in the day, was far from clean.

For once the common was almost deserted; but far away in front of the
"Shop" a thin line of khaki proclaimed the fact that some of the cadets
were drilling.

Ger loved the Shop.  He had been there on several occasions,
accompanied by one or other of his grandparents, to see Grantly, and he
knew that he must not go in alone, or his brother would, as he put it,
"get in a bate."  But there could be no objection to his standing at
the gate and looking in at the parade ground.  He knew the porter, a
nice friendly chap who would not drive him away.

He turned off the common into the road that runs up past the Cadet
Hospital.  He knew the Cadet Hospital, for once he had gone there with
Grannie to visit "a kind of cousin" who had broken his collar-bone in
the riding-school.  As he passed Ger looked in at the open door.  A
little crowd of rather poor-looking people stood in the entrance, among
them a boy about his own age, with a great pad of cotton-wool fastened
over his ear by a bandage.

A crowd of any sort had always an irresistible fascination for Ger.  He
skipped up the path and pushed in among the waiting people to the side
of the boy with the tied-up head.

"Got a sore ear?" he murmured sympathetically.

"Wot's it to you wot I got?" was the discouraging reply.

"Well, I'm sorry, you know," said Ger with obvious sincerity.

The boy looked hard at him and grunted.

"What are you here for?" Ger whispered.

"The Myjor, 'e got to syringe it," the boy mumbled, but this time his
tone was void of offence.

"Does it hurt?"

"'E don't 'urt, not much, 'e is careful; 'e's downright afraid of
urtin' ya'. . . .  An' if 'e does 'urt, it's becos 'e can't 'elp it,
an' so," here he wagged his head impressively, "ya' just doesn't let
on . . . see?  Wots the matter wiv you?"

Here was a poser.  Yet Ger was consumed by a desire to see this
mysterious "myjor" who syringed ears and didn't hurt people.  He had
fallen upon an adventure, and he was going to see it out.

"I don't know exactly," he whispered mysteriously, "but I've got to see
him."

"P'raps they've wrote about ya'," the bandaged boy suggested.

Ger thought this was unlikely, but let the suggestion pass
unchallenged.  He watched the various people vanish into a room on the
right, saw them come out again, heard the invariable "Next please"
which heralded the seclusion of a new patient, till everybody had gone
and come back and gone forth into the street again save only the
bandaged boy and himself.

"You nip in w'en I comes out," the boy said encouragingly, "it's a bit
lyte already, but 'e'll see ya' if yer slippy."

It seemed a long time to Ger as he waited.  The little crowd of women
and children had melted away.  Men in blue cotton jackets passed to and
fro across the hall, "Sister," in a curious headdress and scarlet cape,
looking like a picture by Carpaccio, came out of another room, went up
the staircase and vanished from view.  No one spoke to him or asked his
business, and Ger stood in a dark corner holding his cap in his hands
and waiting.

At last the boy came back with a clean bandage and a big new pad of
cotton-wool over the syringed ear.

"'Urry up," he whispered as he passed.  "I told 'im as there was one
more."

Ger hurried.

Once inside that mysterious door he started violently, for a tall
figure clad in a long white smock was standing near a sink brushing his
nails.  He wore a black band round his head, and on his forehead,
attached to the band, was a round mirror.  The very brightest mirror
Ger had ever seen.

So this was the Myjor.

The uniform was quite new to Ger.

The eyes under the mirror were very blue, and for the rest this
strangely clad tall man had a brown moustache and a pleasant voice as
he turned, and drying his hands the while, said:

"Well, young shaver, what's the matter with you?"

In his eight years Ger had had but few aches and pains save such as
followed naturally upon falls or fights, but he knew that if this
interview was to be prolonged he must have something, so he hazarded an
ailment.

"I've a muzzy feeling in my head sometimes, sir, a sort of ache, not
bad, you know."

The Myjor looked very hard at Ger as he spoke--evidently the little
boy's voice and accent were in some way unexpected.

He sat down and drew him forward close to his knees.  The round mirror
on his forehead flashed into Ger's eyes and he winced.

"Headache, eh?" said the Myjor cheerfully.  "You don't look as though
you ought to get headaches.  Can you read?"

"No, sir, that's just what I can't do, and there's awful rows about it.
I can't seem to read, I don't want to much, but I do try . . .  I do
really, but it's so muddly."

"How long have you been learning?"

"Years and years," said Ger mournfully.  "They say Kitten 'll read
before me, and she's only four."

"Um," said the Myjor, "that will never do.  We can't have Kitten
stealing a march on us that way.  This must be seen into.  By the way,
what's your name?"

"Gervais Folaire Ffolliot," Ger answered solemnly, as though he were
saying his catechism.

"Ffolliot . . . Ffolliot . . . where d'you live?"

"Redmarley . . . it's a long way from here."

"What are you doing here, then?"

"I'm stopping with grannie and grandfather."

"And who is grandfather?"

"General Grantly," Ger answered promptly, smiling broadly.  He always
felt that his grandfather was a trump card anywhere, but in Woolwich
most of all, "and he's got such a lot of medals, teeny ones, you know,
like the big ones.  I can read _them_," he added proudly.  "I know them
all.  Grannie taught me."

"But why have you come to me?  And why on earth do you come in among
the wives and children of the Shop servants?"

"The door was open," Ger explained, "and I talked to the ear boy, and
he said you were most awfully gentle and didn't hurt and hated if you
had to--so I knew you were kind, and I'm awfully fond of kind people,
so I wanted to see you--you're not cross, are you?" he asked anxiously.

"Um," again remarked the Myjor, and stared at Ger thoughtfully.
"Well," he said at last, "since you are here, what is it you find so
hard about reading?"

"It's so muddly," Ger complained, "nasty little letters and all so much
alike."

"Exactly so," said the Myjor.

Then he drew down the blinds.

Ger's heart beat fast.  Here was an adventure indeed, and when you were
once well in for an adventure all sorts of queer things happened.

Unprecedented things happened to Ger, but he was never very clear
afterwards as to what they were.  So many things were "done to him"
that he became quite confused.  Lights flashed into eyes, lights so
brilliant that they quite hurt.  Curious spectacles with heavy frames
and glasses that took in and out were placed upon his nose, and he was
only allowed to use one eye at a time, the other being blotted out by a
black disk in the spectacles.  At last he looked through with both eyes
together at letters on a card, letters that were blacker and clearer
than any he had ever seen before . . . and the blinds were drawn up.

"Will you please tell me," Ger asked politely, "what is that curious
uniform you wear?  I don't seem to have seen it before, an' I've seen a
great many."

The Myjor laughed.  "It's my working kit; don't you like it?"

"Very much," said Ger, "I think you look like an angel."

"Really," said the Myjor.  "I haven't met any, so I don't know."

"I haven't exactly met any," said Ger, "but I've seen portraits of two,
and . . . I know a lot about them."

"Now, young man, you listen to me," said the Ram-Corps Angel.  "Eyes
are not my job really, but I'm glad you looked in to see me, for I'll
send you to someone who'll put you right and you'll read long before
the Kitten.  She'll never catch you.  Right away you'll go, she won't
be in the same field.  You'd better go back now, or Mrs Grantly will be
wondering where you are--cheer up about that reading."

"Will I?" Ger asked breathlessly.  "Shall I be able to get into the
Shop?  They pill you for eyes, you know."

"Your eyes will be all right by the time you're ready for the Shop.
You see crooked just now, you know--and it wants correcting, that's
all."

"What?" cried Ger despairingly.  "Do I squint?"

"Bless you, no; the sight of your two eyes is different, that's
all--when you get proper glasses you'll be right as rain.  Lots of
people have it . . . if you'd been a Board School you'd have been seen
to long ago," he added, more to himself than to Ger.

Then Ger shook hands with the Ram-Corps Angel and walked rather slowly
and thoughtfully across the common to grandfather's house though the
wind was colder than ever.  He forgot to look in at the Shop gate, but
the parade ground was empty.  The cadets had finished drilling.  Ger
had been so long in that darkened room.

He had lunch alone with his grannie, for grandfather was lunching at
his club.  There was no poking of the Ffolliot children into
schoolrooms and nurseries for meals when they stayed with the ganpies.
His face was clean and his hair very smooth, and he held back Mrs
Granny's chair for her just as grandfather did.  She stooped and kissed
the fresh, friendly little face and told him he was a dear, which was
most pleasant.

He was hungry and the roast mutton was very good, moreover he was going
to the Zoo that afternoon directly after lunch, grannie's French maid
was to take him.  They were to have a taxi from Charing Cross, and
lunch passed pleasantly, enlivened by the discussion of this enchanting
plan.

Presently he asked, apropos of nothing: "Do all the Ram-Corps officers
look like angels?"

"Like angels!" Mrs Grantly repeated derisively.  "Good gracious, no!
Very plain indeed, some of them I've seen."

"The one at the Cadet Hospital does," Ger said positively, "like a
great big angel and a dear."

"Who?  Major Murray?" Mrs Grantly inquired, looking puzzled; "where
have you seen him?"

But at this very moment someone came to tell Ger it was time to get
ready, and in the fuss and excitement of seeing him off, his grannie
forgot all about the Ram Corps and its angelic attributes.

It was her day.  Guest after guest arrived, and she was pretty tired by
the time she had given tea to some five and twenty people.

The General never came in at all till the last guest had gone.  Then he
sought his wife, and standing on the hearth-rug with his back to the
fire he told her that Major Murray had been to see him, and had
recounted Ger's visit of the morning, and the result of his
investigations.

Mrs Grantly, which was unusual, never interrupted once.

"So you can understand," the General concluded, "I didn't feel like
facing a lot of people."

"I shall write at once to Margie," Mrs Grantly cried breathlessly, "and
tell her she is a fool."

"I wouldn't do that," the General said gently; "poor Margie, she has a
good deal on her shoulders."

"All the same--do you remember that that unfortunate child has been
punished--punished because he was considered idle and obstinate over
his lessons . . . punished . . . little Ger--friendly, jolly little
Ger . . . I can't bear it," and Mrs Grantly burst into tears.

The General looked very much as though he would like to cry too.  "It's
an unfortunate business," he said huskily, "but you see, none of us
have ever had any eye trouble, and the other children have all such
good sight . . . it never occurred to me . . .  I must confess . . . of
course it can be put right very easily; you're to take him to the
oculist to-morrow; I've telephoned and made the appointment."

Mrs Grantly dried her eyes.

"We're all to blame," she exclaimed, "I'm just as much to blame as
Margie . . . she'll be fearfully upset   I don't know how to tell her."

"Tell you what," exclaimed the General, "I'll write to Ffolliot . . .
I'll do it now, this instant, and the letter will catch the 7.30
post . . ."

At the door he paused and added more cheerfully, "I shall enjoy writing
to Ffolliot."




CHAPTER XVIII

WHAT FOLLOWED

As General Grantly had predicted, Mrs Ffolliot was very much upset when
she heard about Ger's eyes, and was for rushing up to London herself,
there and then to interview the oculist.  But Mr Ffolliot dissuaded
her.  For one thing, he hated Redmarley without her even for a single
night.  For another, he considered such a journey a needless expense.
This, however, he did not mention, but contented himself with the
suggestion that it would seem a reflection upon Mrs Grantly's
competence to do anything of the kind; and that consideration weighed
heavily with his wife where the other would have been brushed aside as
immaterial and irrelevant.  "I can't understand it," the Squire
remarked plaintively; "I did not know there had ever been any eye
trouble in your family."

"There never has, so far as I know; but surely," and Mrs Ffolliot spoke
with something less than her usual gentle deference, "we needn't seek
far to find where Ger gets his."

"Do you mean that he inherits it from ME?"

"Well, my dear Larrie, surely _you've_ got defective sight, else why
the monocle?"

"But Ger isn't a bit like me.  He is all Grantly.  In character, I
sometimes think he resembles your mother, he is so fond of society; in
appearance he's very like the others, except the Kitten.  Now, if the
Kitten's sight had been astigmatic . . ."

"We must take care that she doesn't suffer from neglect like poor
little Ger," Mrs Ffolliot interrupted rather bitterly.  "I shall write
at once to their house-master to have the twins' eyes tested.  I'll run
no more risks.  We know Grantly's all right because he passed his
medical so easily.  Poor, poor little Ger."

"It certainly is most unfortunate," said Mr Ffolliot.

He was really concerned about Ger, but mingled with his concern was the
feeling that the little boy had taken something of a liberty in
developing that particular form of eye trouble.  It seemed an unfilial
reflection upon himself.  Moreover, there was something in the
General's letter plainly stating the bare facts that he did not exactly
like.  It was, he considered, "rather brusque."  He started for the
South, of France four days earlier than he had originally intended.

Ger was taken to the great oculist in London, who confirmed the
"Myjor's" diagnosis of his case, and he was forthwith put into large
round spectacles.  When he got them, his appearance brought the tears
to his grandmother's eyes--tears she rigidly repressed, for Ger was so
enormously proud of them.  The first afternoon he wore them he went
with his grandfather to see Grantly playing in a football match at the
Shop, and among those watching on the field he espied his friend "the
Ram-Corps Angel."  Ger knew him at once, although he wore no white
garment, not even khaki, just a plain tweed suit like his grandfather's.

While the General was deep in conversation with the "Commy," Ger
slipped away and sought his friend.

"Hullo," said the 'Myjor,' "so you've got 'em on."

"Yes, sir," said Ger, saluting solemnly, "and I'm very much obliged.
It's lovely to see things so nice and clear.  Please may I ask you
something?"

The Major stepped back out of the crowd and Ger slipped a small hand
confidingly into his.  Ger had not been to school yet, so there were
excuses for him.

"Do you think," he asked earnestly, "that if I'm very industr'us and
don't turn out quite so stupid as they expected, that by-and-by I might
get into the Ram Corps?"

Major Murray looked down very kindly at the anxious upturned face with
the large round spectacles.

"But I thought the Shop was the goal of your ambition?"

"So it was, sir, at first.  Then I gave it up because it seemed so
difficult, and I talked it over with Willets, and he said _he'd_ never
had a great deal of book-learnin'--though he writes a beautiful hand,
far better than father--and then I thought I'd be a gamekeeper."

"And what did Willets think?"

"Well, he didn't seem to be very sure--and now I come to think of it,
I'm not very fond of killing things . . . so if there was just a
chance . . ."

"I'd go into the Ram Corps if I were you," said Major Murray; "by the
time you're ready, gamekeepers--if there are any--will have to pass
exams, like all the other poor beggars.  You bet your boots on that.
Some Board of Forestry or other will start 'em, you see if they don't."

"Oh, well, if there's to be exams, that settles it.  I certainly shan't
be one," Ger said decidedly; "I've been thinking it over a lot----"

"Oh, you have, have you?"

"An' it seems to me . . ."

"Yes, it seems to you?"

"That pr'aps you get to know people better if you mend all their
accidents and things.  I'm awfully fond of people, they're so
intrusting, I'd rather know about them than anything."

"What sort of people?"

"The men you know, and their wives and children; they're awfully nice,
the ones I know--and if you see after them when they're ill and that,
they're bound to be a bit fond of you, aren't they?"

Major Murray gave the cold little hand in his a squeeze.  "It seems to
me," he said, "that you're just the sort of chap we want.  You stick to
it."

"Is it _very_ hard to get in?"

"Well, it isn't exactly easy, but it's dogged as does it, and if you
start now--why, you've plenty of time."

"That's settled then," said Ger, "and when you're Medical
Inspector-General or some big brass hat like the fat old gentleman who
came to see Ganpy yesterday--you'll say a good word for me, won't you?"

"I will," Major Murray promised, "I most certainly will."

"You see," Ger continued, beaming through his spectacles, "if there's
war I should be bound to go, they can't get on without the Ram Corps
then, and I'd be doing things for people all day long.  Oh, it would be
grand."

"It strikes me," said Major Murray, more to himself than to Ger, "that
you stand a fair chance of getting your heart's desire--more than most
people."

"I'm very partikler about my nails now," said Ger.  "I saw you
scrubbing yours that day at the Cadet Hospital."

When he got home Mrs Ffolliot retired to her room and cried long and
heartily, but Ger never knew it.  His spectacles to him were a joy and
a glory, and he confided to the Kitten that _his_ guardian angel,
Sergeant-Major Spinks, did sentry beside them every night so that they
shouldn't get lost or broken.

"My angel's in prizzen," the Kitten announced dramatically.

"In prison!" exclaimed Ger, "whatever for?"

"For shooting turkeys," the Kitten replied, "an' he's all over
chicken-spots."

"Why did he shoot turkeys for?"

"'Cause he wanted more feathers for his wings."

"But that wouldn't give him chicken-spots."

"No, _that_ didn't--he got them at a pahty, like you did last
Christmas."

"Poor chap," said Ger, "but I can't see why he stays in prison when he
could fly away."

"They clipped his wings," the Kitten said importantly, "an' I'm glad;
he can't come and bother me no more now."

"I hope Spinks won't go shooting fowls and things in his off-time," Ger
said anxiously.  "I must warn him."

"Pheasants wouldn't matter so much," the Kitten said leniently, "I
asked Willets; but turkeys is orful."

"Not at all sporting to shoot turkeys," Ger agreed, "though they are so
cross and gobbly."

In the middle of February Mrs Ffolliot fell a victim to influenza, and
she was really very ill.

At first she would not allow anyone to tell her husband about it, but
when she became too weak to write herself, Mary took it upon her to
inform her father of her mother's state.  The doctor insisted on
sending a nurse, as three of the servants had also collapsed, and Mrs
Grantly came down from Woolwich to see to things generally; though when
she came, she acknowledged that Mary had done everything that could be
done.

Mr Ffolliot curtailed his holiday by a week, and returned at the end of
February, to find his wife convalescent, but thin and pale and weak as
he had never before seen her during their married life.

He decided that he would take her for a fortnight to Bournemouth.

But Mrs Grantly had other views.

She, Mary, and Mr Ffolliot were sitting at breakfast the day after his
return, when he suggested the Bournemouth plan with what Willets would
have called his most "Emp'rish air."

Mrs Grantly looked across at Mary and the light of battle burned in her
bright brown eyes.

"I don't think Bournemouth would be one bit of good for Margie," she
said briskly, "you can't be sure of sunshine--it may be mild, but it's
morally certain to rain half the time, and Margie needs cheerful
surroundings--sunshine--and the doctor says . . . a complete change of
scene and people."

"Where would you propose that I should take her?" Mr Ffolliot asked,
fixing his monocle and staring steadily at his mother-in-law.

"To tell you the truth, Hilary, I don't propose that _you_ should take
her anywhere.  What I propose is that her father and I should take her
to Cannes with us a week to-day."

"To Cannes," Mr Ffolliot gasped, "in a week.  I don't believe she could
stand the journey."

"Oh yes, she could.  Her father will see that she does it as
comfortably as possible, and I shall take Adèle, who can look after
both of us.  We'll stay a night in Paris, and at Avignon if Margie
shows signs of being very tired.  You must understand that Margie will
go as our guest."

Mr Ffolliot dropped his monocle and leant back in his chair.  "It is
most kind of you and the General," he said politely, "but I doubt very
much if she can be persuaded to go."

"Oh she's going," Mrs Grantly said easily, while Mary, with scarlet
cheeks, looked at her plate, knowing well that the subject had never
been so much as touched upon to her mother.  "You see, Hilary, she has
had a good deal of Redmarley, and the children and you, during the last
twenty years, and it will do her all the good in the world to get away
from you all for a bit.  Don't you agree with me, Mary?"

Mary lifted her downcast eyes and looked straight at her father.  "The
doctor says it's mother's only chance of getting really strong," she
said boldly, "to get right away from all of us."

"You, my dear Hilary," Mrs Grantly continued in the honeyed tones her
family had long ago learnt to recognise as the precursor of verbal
castigation for somebody, "would not be the agreeable and well-informed
person you are, did you not go away by yourself for a fairly long time
during every year.  I don't think you have missed once since Grantly
was born.  How often has Margie been away by herself, even for a couple
of nights?"

"Margie has never expressed the slightest wish to go away," Mr Ffolliot
said reproachfully.  "I have often deplored her extreme devotion to her
children."

"Somebody had to be devoted to her children," said Mrs Grantly.

Mr Ffolliot ignored this thrust, saying haughtily, "Since I understand
that this has all been settled without consulting me, I cannot see that
any good purpose can be served in further discussion of the arrangement
now," and he rose preparatory to departure.

"Wait, Hilary," Mrs Grantly rose too.  "I don't think you quite
understand that the smallest objection on your part to Margie would at
once render the whole project hopeless.  What you've got to do is to
smile broadly upon the scheme----"

Here Mary gasped, the "broad smile" of the Squire upon anything or
anybody being beyond her powers of imagination.

"Otherwise," Mrs Grantly paused to frown at Mary, who softly vanished
from the room, "you may have Margie on your hands as an invalid for
several months, and I don't think you'd like that."

"But who," Mr Ffolliot demanded, "will look after things while she's
away?"

"Why you and Mary, to be sure.  My dear Hilary," Mrs Grantly said
sweetly, "a change is good for all of us, and it will be wholesome for
you to take the reins into your own hands for a bit.  I confess I've
often wondered how you could so meekly surrender the whole management
of this big place to Margie.  It's time you asserted yourself a little."

Mr Ffolliot stared gloomily at Mrs Grantly, who smiled at him in the
friendliest fashion.  "You see," she went on, "you are, if I may say
so, a little unobservant, or you would perhaps have personally
investigated what made Ger, an otherwise quite normally intelligent
child, so very stupid over his poor little lessons."

"I've always left everything of that sort to his mother."

"I know you have--but do you think it was quite fair?  And for a long
time Margie has been looking thin and fagged.  Her father was most
concerned about it at Christmas--but I never heard you remark upon it."

"She never complains," Mr Ffolliot said feebly.

"Complains," Mrs Grantly repeated scornfully.  "We're not a complaining
family.  But I should have thought _you_ with your strong love of the
beautiful would at least have remarked how she has gone off in looks."

"She hasn't," said Mr Ffolliot with some heat.

"She looks her age, every day of it," Mrs Grantly persisted.  "When we
bring her back she'll look like Mary's sister!"

"How long do you propose to be away?"

"Oh, three weeks or a month; at the most a fortnight less than you have
had every year for nineteen years."

Mr Ffolliot made no answer; he took out his cigarette case and lit a
cigarette with hands that were not quite steady.

"You quite understand then, Hilary, that you are to put the whole
weight of your authority into the scale that holds France for Margie?"

"I thought you said it was settled?"

"My dear man, you know what a goose she is; if she thought you hated
it, nothing would induce her to go--you _must_ consider her for once."

"I really must protest," Mr Ffolliot said stiffly, "against your
gratuitous assumption that _I_ care nothing for Margie's welfare."

"Not at all," Mrs Grantly said smoothly, "I only ask for a modest
manifestation of your devotion, that's all."

"Shall I go to her now?" said Mr Ffolliot with the air of a lamb led to
the slaughter.

"Certainly not--she'll probably be trying to get up lest you should
want her for anything.  _I'll_ go and keep her in bed till luncheon.
You may come and see her at eleven."

When Fusby came in for the breakfast tray, Mr Ffolliot was still
standing on the hearth-rug immersed in thought.




CHAPTER XIX

MARY AND HER FATHER

In the lives of even the strongest and most competent among us, there
will arise moments when decision of any kind has become impossible, and
it is a real relief to have those about us who settle everything
without asking whether we like it or not.  Such times are almost always
the result of physical debility, when the enfeebled body so reacts upon
brain and spirit that no matter how vigorous the one or valorous the
other, both seem atrophied.

It is at such times that we have cause to bless the doctor who is a
strong man, and fears not to give orders or talk straight talk; and the
relations who never so much as mention any plan till it has been
decided, taking for granted we will approve the arrangements they have
made.

We are generally acquiescent, for it is so blessed to drift passively
in the wake of these determined ones, till such time as, with returning
physical strength, the will asserts itself once more.

Thus it fell out that Mrs Ffolliot was surprisingly submissive when she
was told by the doctor, a plain-spoken country doctor, who did not
mince his words, that she must seize the chance offered of going to the
South of France with her parents, or he wouldn't answer for the
consequences.

"You are," he said, "looking yellow and dowdy, and you are feeling blue
and hysterical; if you don't go away at once you'll go on doing both
for an interminable time."

Mrs Ffolliot laughed.  "Then I suppose for the sake of the rest of the
family I ought to go"--and she went.

If Mr Ffolliot did not take Mrs Grantly's advice and look after things
himself, he certainly was forced to attend to a good many tiresome
details in the management of things outside the Manor House than had
ever fallen to his lot before.  Mary saved him all she could, but
Willets and Heaven and Fusby seemed to take a malicious delight in
consulting him about trivial things that he found himself quite unable
to decide one way or other.

At first he tried to put them off with "Ask Miss Mary," but Willets
shook his head, smiled kindly, and said firmly, "Twouldn't be fair,
sir, 'twouldn't really."

Ger and the Kitten had never seemed so tiresome and ubiquitous before,
coming across his path at every turn; and Ger certainly nullified any
uneasiness on the Squire's part regarding his eyes by practising, in
and out of season, upon a discarded bugle.  A bugle bought for him by
one of his friends in the Royal 'Orse for the sum of three and
ninepence.  Ger had amassed three shillings of this sum, and the
good-natured gunner never mentioned the extra ninepence.

Ger had a quick ear and could already pick out little tunes on the
piano with one finger, though, so far, he had found musical notation as
difficult as every other kind of reading.

But he took to the bugle like a duck to water, and on an evil day
someone in Woolwich had taught him the peace call, "Come to the
Cookhouse Door."

The inhabitants of Redmarley were summoned to the cook-house door from
every part of the village, from the woods, from the riverside, and from
the churchyard.

He played the bugle in the nursery and in the stableyard, he played it
in the attics and outside the servants' hall when the servants' dinner
was ready.

He was implored, threatened and punished, but all without avail, for
Ger had tasted the joys of achievement.  He had found what superior
persons call "the expression of his essential ego," and just then his
cosmos was all bugle.

Not even his good-natured desire to oblige people was proof against
this overwhelming desire to call imaginary troops to feed together on
every possible and impossible occasion.  He did try to keep a good way
from the house, or to choose moments in the house when he knew his
father was out, but he made mistakes.  He could not discover by
applying his eye to the keyhole of the study door whether his father
was in the room or not, and, as he remarked bitterly, "Father always
sat so beastly still" it was impossible to hear.

He looked upon the Squire's objections as a cross, but the dread of his
father's anger was nothing like so strong as his desire to play the
bugle, and even the Squire perceived that short of taking the bugle
away from him, which would have broken his heart, there was nothing for
it but to frown and bear it--in moderation.

Mrs Grantly's very direct assault had made a small breach in the wall
of Mr Ffolliot's complacency; and a fairly vivid recollection of the
shilling episode inclined him to deal leniently with Ger while his
mother was away.  He rang the bell furiously for Fusby whenever the
most distant strains of "Come to the Cook-house Door" smote upon his
ears, and sent him post haste to stop that "infernal braying and
bleating"; but beyond such unwelcome interruptions Ger tootled in peace.

Mary was lonely and the days seemed long; she saw no one but her
father, the servants, the two children and Miss Glover, the meek little
governess, who seemed to spend most of her time in hunting for Ger
among outhouses and gardens, and was scorned by Nana in consequence.

When her mother was at home Mary was accustomed to wander about
Redmarley unchallenged and unaccompanied save by the faithful Parker.
But Mr Ffolliot took his duties as chaperon most seriously and expected
that Mary should never stir beyond the gardens unless accompanied by
Miss Glover.  He even seemed suspicious as to her most innocent
expeditions, and every morning at breakfast demanded a minute
time-table planning her day.

Mary didn't mind this.  It was easy enough to say that after she had
interviewed the cook (there was no housekeeper now at Redmarley) she
would practise, or read French with Miss Glover; or go into Marlehouse
accompanied by Miss Glover for a music lesson; or drive with Miss
Glover and the children to Marlehouse to do the weekly shopping; or go
with Miss Glover to the tailor to be fitted for a coat and skirt.  All
that was easy enough to reel off in answer to the Squire's inquiries.
It was the afternoons that were difficult.  She had been used to go
into the village and visit her friends, Willets, Miss Gallup, the
laundry-maid's mother, everybody there in fact, and now this seemed to
be forbidden her unless Miss Glover went too, which spoiled everything.

Sometimes she walked with the Squire and tried to feel an intelligent
interest in Ercole Ferrarese, whose work Mr Ffolliot greatly admired.
In fact he was just then engaged on a somewhat lengthy monograph
concerning both the man and his work.

Mary, in the hope of making herself a more congenial companion to her
father, even went as far as to look up "Ercole" in Vasari's _Lives_.
But Vasari was not particularly copious in details as to Ercole
Ferrarese, and the particulars he did give which impressed Mary were
just those most calculated to annoy her father.  As, for instance, that
"Ercole had an inordinate love of wine and was frequently intoxicated,
in so much that his life was shortened by this habit."

The difficulties that may arise from such an inordinate affection had
been brought home to her quite recently, and in one of their walks
together after a somewhat prolonged silence she remarked to her father--

"It was a pity that poor Ercole drank so much, wasn't it?"

"Why seize upon a trifling matter of that sort when we are considering
the man's work?" Mr Ffolliot asked angrily.  "For heaven's sake, do not
grow into one of those people who only perceive the obvious; whose only
knowledge of Cromwell would be that he had a wart on his nose."

"I shouldn't say it was a very trifling matter seeing it killed
him--drink I mean, not Cromwell's wart," Mary responded with more
spirit than usual.  "Vasari says so."

"It is quite possible that he does, but it is not a salient feature."

"A wart on the nose would be a very salient feature," Mary ventured.

"Exactly, that is what you would think and that is what I complain of.
It is a strain that runs through the whole of you--except perhaps the
Kitten--a dreadful narrowness of vision--don't tell me your sight is
good--I'm only referring to your mental outlook.  It is the fatal
frivolous attitude of mind that always remembers the wholly irrelevant
statement that the Earl of Warwick, the King-maker, was born when his
mother was fourteen."

"Was he?" Mary exclaimed with deep interest; "how very young to have a
baby."

Mr Ffolliot glared at her: "and nothing else," he continued, ignoring
the interruption.

"Oh, but I do remember other things about Ercole besides being a
drunkard," she protested; "he hated people watching him work, I can
understand that, and he was awfully kind and faithful to his master."

"All quite useless and trifling in comparison with what I, myself, have
told you of his work, which you evidently don't remember.  It is a
man's work that matters, not little peculiarities of temperament and
character."

"I think," Mary said demurely, "that little peculiarities of
temperament and character matter a good deal to the people who have to
live with them."

"That is possible but quite unimportant.  It is a man's intellect that
is immortal, not his temperament."

Again a long silence till Mary said suddenly: "Mother has never written
anything or painted anything or done anything very remarkable, and yet
she seems to matter a great deal to a lot of people besides us.  I
never go outside the gates but people stop me and ask all sorts of
questions about her.  Surely character can matter too?"

Mr Ffolliot's scornful expression changed.  He looked at his daughter
with interest.  "Do you know, Mary," he said quite amiably, "that
sometimes I think you can't be quite as stupid as you make yourself
appear."

That was on Friday.  On Saturday Mary was in dire disgrace.

Nana had taken the children to a cinematograph show in Marlehouse.
Miss Glover went with them in the bucket to visit a friend there.  The
Squire had affixed a paper to the outside of the study door saying that
he was not to be disturbed till five o'clock, and it was a lovely
afternoon.  The sort of afternoon when late March holds all the promise
of May, when early daffodils shine splendidly in sheltered corners, and
late snowdrops in a country garden look quite large and solemn.  When
trodden grass has a sweet sharp smell, and all sorts of pretty things
peep from the crannies of old Cotswold walls: those loose grey walls
that are so infinitely various, so dear and friendly in their constant
beautiful surprises.

Mary saw the nursery party go, and stood and waved to them till they
were out of sight, when a faint and distant summons to the cook-house
door proved that Ger had begun to play the instant the bucket had
turned out of the gates.

Mary called Parker and went out.

Down the drive she went, through the great gates and over the bridge to
Willets' cottage.  Willets was out, but Mrs Willets was delighted to
see her.  Mrs Willets was a kind, comfortable person, who brewed
excellent home-made wines which she loved to bestow upon her friends.
Mary partook of a glass of ginger wine, very strong and very gingery,
and having given the latest news of the mistress (she, herself, was
"our young lady" now), received in return the mournful intelligence
that Miss Gallup had had a touch of bronchitis, "reely downright bad
she'd bin, and now she was about but weak as a kitten, and very low in
her mind; if you'd the time just to call in and see 'er, I'm sure she'd
take it very kind, with your ma away, and all."

So Mary hied her to Miss Gallup at the other end of Redmarley's one
long lopsided street.  Her progress was a slow one, for at every
cottage gate she was stopped with exclamations: "Why we thought you was
lost, or gone to furrin parts with the mistress; none on us seen you
since Church last Sunday."

At last she reached "Two Ways," Miss Gallup's house, and Eloquent, of
all people in the world, opened the door to her.

Mary merely thought "How nice of him to come and see his aunt," and
remarked aloud:

"Ah, Mr Gallup, I'm glad to see you've come to look after the invalid,
I've only just heard of her illness.  May I come in?  Will it tire her
to see me?"

And Eloquent could find no words to greet her except, "Please step this
way," and he was nevertheless painfully aware that exactly so would he
have addressed her half a dozen years ago had he been leading her to
the haberdashery department of the Golden Anchor.

Poor Eloquent was thrown off his mental balance altogether, for to him
this was no ordinary meeting.

Picture the feelings of a young man who thinks he is opening the door
to the baker and finds incarnate spring upon the threshold.  Spring in
weather-beaten, well-cut clothes, with a sweet, friendly voice and
adorable, cordial smile.

There she was, sitting opposite Miss Gallup on one slippery horsehair
"easy chair," while her hostess, much beshawled, cushioned and
foot-stooled, sat on the other.

"My dear," Miss Gallup said confidentially, "Em'ly-Alice has gone to
the surgery for my cough mixture and some embrocation, and she takes
such a time.  I'm certain she's loitering and gossiping, and she knows
I like my cup of tea at four, and you here, and all; if it wasn't that
my leg's seem to crumble up under me I'd go and get it myself."

"Dear Miss Gallup, don't be hard on Em'ly-Alice," Mary pleaded; "it's
such a lovely afternoon I don't wonder she doesn't exactly hurry.  As
for tea, let me get you some tea----"

"I could," Eloquent interposed hastily, "I'm sure I could," and rose
somewhat vaguely to go to the kitchen.

"Let us both get it," Mary cried gaily, "we'll be twice as quick."

And before Miss Gallup could protest they had gone to the kitchen and
she could hear them laughing.

Mary was thoroughly enjoying herself.  For three weeks she had poured
out tea for her father solemnly at five o'clock and been snubbed for
her pains.

Here were two people who liked her, who were glad to see her, who
thought it kind of her to come.  No girl can be wholly unconscious of
admiration; nor, when it is absolutely reverential, can she resent it,
and Mary felt no displeasure in Eloquent's.

They could neither of them cut bread and butter.  It was a plateful of
queerly shaped bits that went in on the tray; but there was an egg for
Miss Gallup, and the tea was excellent.

Miss Gallup began to feel more leniently disposed towards Em'ly-Alice.
"She's done for me pretty well on the whole," she told Mary.  "Doctor,
he wanted me to have the parish nurse over to Marle Abbas, but I don't
hold with those new-fangled young women."

"She's a dear," said Mary; "mother thinks all the world of her."

"May be, may be," Miss Gallup said dryly; "but when you come to my time
of life you've your own opinion about draughts.  And as for that
constant bathin' and washin', I don't hold with it at all.  A bed's a
bed, I says, and not a bath, and if you're in bed you should stay there
and keep warm, and not have all the clothes took off you to have your
legs washed.  How can your legs _get_ dirty if you're tucked in with
clean sheets, in a clean room, in a clean house.  When I haves a bath I
like it comfortable, once a week, at night in front of the kitchen
fire, and Em'ly-Alice safe in bed.  No, my dear, I don't hold with
these new-fangled notions, and Nurse Jones, she worries me to death.  I
'ad 'er once, and I said, never again--whiskin' in and whiskin' out,
and opening windows and washin' me all over, like I 'was a baby--most
uncomfortable I call it."

The clock on the mantelpiece struck five, Mary jumped up.  "I must
fly," she exclaimed, "it's time for father's tea; I've been enjoying
myself so much I forgot all about the time."

"You see Miss Mary as far as the gates," Miss Gallup said to her
nephew.  "Em'ly-Alice is in, I 'eard 'er pokin' the fire the wasteful
way she has."

Mary did not want Eloquent, for she greatly desired to run, but he
followed with such alacrity she had not the heart to forbid him.  He
walked beside her, or, more truly, he trotted beside her, through the
village street, for Mary went at such a pace that Eloquent was almost
breathless.  He found time, however, to tell her that he had paired at
the House on Friday, and took the week-end just to look after Miss
Gallup, who had seemed rather low-spirited since her illness.  They did
the distance in record time, and outside the gates they found Mr
Ffolliot waiting.

"I've been to see Miss Gallup, father, she has been ill, and I looked
in to inquire. . . .  I don't think you know Mr Gallup."

Mr Ffolliot bowed to Eloquent with a frigidity that plainly proved he
had no desire to know him.

"I regret," Mr Ffolliot said in an impersonal voice, "that Miss Gallup
has been ill.  Do you know, Mary, that it is ten minutes past five?"

"Good evening, Miss Ffolliot," Eloquent said hastily; "it was most kind
of you to call, and it did my aunt a great deal of good.  Good-evening,
Mr Ffolliot."  He lifted his hat and turned away.

Mr Ffolliot stood perfectly still and looked his daughter over.  From
the crown of her exceedingly old hat to her admirable boots he surveyed
her leisurely.

"Don't you want your tea, father?" Mary asked nervously, "or have you
had it?"

"I did want tea, at the proper hour, and I have not had it; but what I
want much more than tea is an explanation of that young man's presence
in your society."

"I told you, father, I went to see Miss Gallup, who has had bronchitis,
and he had come down from London for the week-end to see her, and so he
walked back with me."

"Did you know he was there?"

"Of course not," Mary flushed angrily, "I didn't know Miss Gallup had
been ill till Mrs Willets told me.  I haven't been outside the grounds
for a fortnight except in the bucket, so I've heard no village news."

"And why did you take it upon yourself to go outside the grounds to-day
without consulting me?"

"I was rather tired of the garden, father, and it was such a lovely
day, and it seemed rather unkind never to go near any of the people
when mother was away."

"None of these reasons--if one can call them reasons--throws the
smallest light upon the fact that you have been parading the village
with this fellow, Gallup.  I have told you before, I don't wish to know
him, I will not know him.  His politics are abhorrent to me, and his
antecedents. . . .  Surely by this time you know, Mary, that I do not
choose my friends from among the shopkeepers in Marlehouse."

"I'm sorry, father, but this afternoon it really couldn't be helped.  I
couldn't be rude to the poor man when he came with me.  He seemed to
take it for granted he should; Miss Gallup suggested it.  I daresay he
didn't want to come at all.  But they both meant it kindly--what could
I do?"

"What you can do, and what you must do, is to obey my orders.  I will
not have you walk anywhere in company with that bounder----"

"He isn't a bounder, father.  You're wrong there; whatever he may be he
isn't that."

Mr Ffolliot turned slowly and entered the drive.  Mary followed, and in
silence they walked up to the house.

He looked at his tall daughter from time to time.  She held her head
very high and her expression was rebellious.  She really was an
extremely handsome girl, and, in spite of his intense annoyance, Mr
Ffolliot felt gratification in this fact.

At the hall door he paused.  "I must ask you to remember, Mary, that
you are no longer a child, that your actions now can evoke both comment
and criticism, and I must ask you to confine your friendships to your
own class."

"I shall never be able to do that," Mary answered firmly; "I love the
village people far too much."

"That is a wholly different matter, and you know very well that I have
always been the first to rejoice in the very friendly relations between
us and--er--my good tenants.  This Gallup person is not one of them.
There is not the smallest necessity to know him, and what's more, I
decline to know him.  Do you understand?"

"No, father, I don't.  I can't promise to cut Mr Gallup or be rude to
him if I happen to meet him; he has done nothing to deserve it.  You
don't ask us to cut that odious Rabbich boy, who _is_ a bounder, if you
like."

"I know nothing about the Rabbich boy, as you call him.  If he is what
you say, I should certainly advise you to drop his acquaintance; but I
must and do insist that you shall not further cultivate the
acquaintance of this young Gallup."

"He's going back to London to-morrow afternoon, father.  What _is_
there to worry about?"

Mr Ffolliot sighed.  "I shall be glad," he exclaimed, "when your mother
returns."

"So will everybody," said Mary.




CHAPTER XX

THE GRANTLY STRAIN

Easter, that year, fell in the second week of April, and both Grantly
and the twins were home for it.  Mrs Ffolliot was back too.  The
Riviera had done wonders for her, and she returned beautiful and gay,
and immensely glad to have her children round her once more.

To celebrate Mrs Ffolliot's return, it was decided to give a
dinner-party.  Dinner-parties were rare occurrences at the Manor.  The
Squire allowed about two a year, and grumbled a good deal over each.
If he would have left the whole thing to Mrs Ffolliot, she and everyone
else would have enjoyed it; but he would interfere.  Above all, he
insisted on supervising the list of guests, and settling who was to go
in with whom.  This time they were to number fourteen in all, and as
Grantly and Mary were to be of the party, that left ten people to be
discussed.

It was arranged with comparative ease till about a week before the day
fixed the bachelor intended for Mary broke his leg out hunting.  Mary
had been allowed a new dress for the occasion; it would be the first
time she had been at a real party in her father's house, and to be left
out would have been a cruel disappointment.

Bachelors in that neighbourhood, even elderly bachelors, who came up to
the standard required by Mr Ffolliot were few, and there was
comparatively little time.

The four elder children, their father, and mother were sitting at
lunch; they had reached the cheese stage.  Fusby and his attendant maid
had departed, and the question of a "man for Mary" occupied the
attention of the family.  When Mrs Ffolliot quite innocently discharged
a bomb into their midst by exclaiming, "I've got it.  Let's ask Mr
Gallup.  He's our member; he was very kind in coming to tell me about
poor Buz's accident, very kind to him, too, I remember.  It would be a
friendly thing to do.  The Campions are coming, they'd be pleased."

Had Mrs Ffolliot not been gazing straight at her husband, she might
have noticed that three pairs of startled eyes looked up at the same
moment, and then were bent sedulously on the table.

Uz alone curiously regarded his brethren.  Mr Ffolliot paused in the
very act of pouring himself out another glass of marsala and set the
decanter on the table with a thump, the glass only half-full.

"Impossible," he said coldly, "absolutely out of the question."

"But why?" Mrs Ffolliot asked; "there's nothing against the young man,
and it would be a friendly thing to do."

"That's why I won't have it done," Mr Ffolliot said decidedly.  "It
would give a false impression.  He might be disposed to take liberties."

"Oh no, Larrie; why should you think anything of that sort?  It seems
to me such a pity people in the county shouldn't be friendly.  The
Campions speak most highly of him."

"My dear"--Mr Ffolliot spoke with evident self-restraint--"I do not
care to ask my friends to meet Mr Gallup as an equal.  How could you
ask any lady of your own rank to go in to dinner with him?  The thing
is outrageous."

"I was going to send him in with Mary," Mrs Ffolliot said innocently.
"We must get somebody, and I know he's in the neighbourhood, for I saw
him to-day."

"If he were in Honolulu he would not be more impossible than he is at
present," said the Squire irritably.  "Don't discuss it any more, my
dear, I beg of you.  It is out of the question."

And Mr Ffolliot rose from the table and took refuge in his study.

"I'm sorry," Mrs Ffolliot sighed, "I should have liked to ask him," and
then she suddenly awoke to the fact that her entire family looked
perturbed and miserable to the last degree.

Grantly pushed back his chair.  "May I go, mother," he said, "I've
something I must say to father."

"Not now, Grantly," and Mrs Ffolliot laid a gentle detaining hand upon
his arm as he passed, "not just when he's feeling annoyed--if there's
anything you have to tell him let it wait--don't go and worry him now."

Grantly lifted his mother's hand off his arm very gently.  "I must,
mummy dear, it can't wait."

He looked rather pale but his eyes were steady, and she thought with a
little thrill of pride how like his grandfather he was growing.

He went straight to the study.  Mr Ffolliot was seated by the fire with
_Gaston Latour_ open in his hand.

Grantly shut the door, crossed to the fireplace and stood on the
hearth-rug looking down at his father.  "I've come to say, father, that
I think we _ought_ to ask Mr Gallup to dinner."

"_You_ think we ought to . . ." the Squire paused in breathless
astonishment.

"Yes, sir, I do.  And I hope you'll think so too when you hear what
I've got to say."

"Go on," said Mr Ffolliot, laying down his book.  "Go on."

It wasn't very easy.  Grantly swallowed something in his throat, and
began rather huskily: "You see, sir, we're under an obligation to
Gallup.  We are really."

"_We_ are under an obligation.  What on earth do you mean?"

"Well I am, father, anyway.  You remember the night before the
election----?"

"I don't," the Squire interrupted, "why in the world should I----?"

"Well, sir, it was like this . . .  I went to dinner with young Rabbich
at the Moonstone, and I got drunk----"

"You--got--drunk?" the pauses between each word were far more emphatic
than the words themselves.

"Yes, sir, we all had more than was good for us, and we went to the
Radical meeting and made an awful row, and got chucked out and----"

"Look here, Grantly, what has all this to do with young Gallup?  It was
idiotic of you to go to his meeting, and the conduct of a vulgar
blockhead to get drunk; but in what way . . ."

"That's not all, sir; after the meeting the bands came into collision,
and I got taken up."

"_You_ got taken up?"

"Two policemen, sir, taking me to the station, and Mr Gallup got me out
of it and gave me a bed in his house."

Mr Ffolliot sat forward in his chair.  "You accepted his
hospitality--you slept the night in his house?"

"If I hadn't I'd have slept the night in the lock-up, and it would have
been in the papers."

"But why--why should he have intervened to protect you?"

"Do you think, sir"--Grantly's voice was very shy--"that it might be
because we both come from the same place?"

"He doesn't belong to the village."

"In a way he does; there have been Gallups in Redmarley nearly as long
as us."

Mr Ffolliot said nothing.  He sat staring at his tall young son as if
he were a new person.

Grantly fidgetted and flushed and paled under this steady
contemplation, saying at last: "You do see what I mean, don't you,
father?"

"I do."

"That we ought to do something friendly?"

"He has certainly, through your idiotic fault, contrived to put us
under an obligation.  Why, I cannot think, but the fact remains.  I do
not know anything that could have annoyed me more."

Grantly ventured to think that perhaps a paragraph in the police
reports of the local newspaper might have tried the Squire even more
severely, but he did not say so.  He waited.

"Does your mother know of all this?"

"Oh no, father, it would make her so sorry.  Must we tell her?"

"Your tenderness for her feelings in no way restrained you at the time;
why this solicitude now?"

"I'd rather she knew than seem to go back on Gallup."

"You may go, Grantly, and leave me to digest this particularly
disagreeable intelligence.  I have long reconciled myself to your lack
of intellectual ability, but I did not know that you indulged in such
coarse pleasures."

"Father--did you never do anything of that kind when you were young?"

"Most truthfully I can answer that I never did.  It would not have
amused me in the least."

"It didn't _amuse_ me," Grantly said ruefully; "I can't remember much
about it."

"Go," said Mr Ffolliot, and Grantly went, looking rather like Parker
with his tail between his legs.

Hardly had Mr Ffolliot realised the import of what Grantly had told him
when the door was opened again and Buz came in.

Buz, too, made straight for the hearth-rug, and standing there faced
his bewildered parent (these sudden invasions were wholly without
precedent), saying: "I've come to tell you, sir, that I think we
_ought_ to ask Mr Gallup to dinner."

Had Mr Ffolliot been a man of his hands he would have fallen upon Buz
and boxed his ears there and then; as it was, he replied bitterly:

"I am not interested in your opinion, boy, on this or any other
subject.  Leave the room at once."

But Buz, to his father's amazement, stood his ground.

"You must hear me, father, else you can't understand."

"If you've come to say anything about Grantly you may spare yourself
the pains, he has told me himself."

"About Grantly," Buz repeated stupidly, "why should I want to talk
about Grantly?--it's about him and me I want to talk."

"Him and you?"  Mr Ffolliot echoed desperately.

"Yes, I rotted him that night and he was awfully decent----"

"What night?"

"The night I broke my arm--they said at the Infirmary that if he hadn't
been so careful of me it would have been much worse."

"You refer, I suppose, to Gallup?"

"Yes, father, and it really was decent of him, because I went dressed
up as a suffragette and had no end of a rag; he might have been awfully
shirty, and he wasn't--he never told a soul.  Don't you think we ought
to ask him?"

"Does your mother know about this?"

"Of course not, nobody knew except Uz and," Buz added truthfully,
"Adèle."

"Leave me," said Mr Ffolliot feebly, "I've had about as much as I can
bear this afternoon--Go."

"You do see, sir, that it makes a difference," pleaded the persistent
Buz.

"Go," thundered the exasperated Squire.

"All right, father, I'm going, but you _do_ see, don't you?" said Buz
from the door.




CHAPTER XXI

A RETROSPECT AND A RESULT

Mr Ffolliot was really a much-tried man.  Those interviews with Grantly
and Buz caused his nerves to vibrate most unpleasantly.

So unhinged was he that for quite half an hour after Buz's departure he
kept looking nervously at the door, fully expectant that it would open
to admit Uz, primed with some fresh reason why Eloquent Gallup should
be asked to dinner; and that he would be followed by Ger and the Kitten
bent on a similar errand.

However, no one else invaded his privacy.  The Manor House was very
still; the only occasional sound being the soft swish of a curtain
stirred by the breeze through the open window.

Mr Ffolliot neither read _Gaston Latour_ nor did he write, though his
monograph on Ercole Ferrarese was not yet completed.

Wrapped in thought he sat quite motionless in his deep chair, and the
subject that engrossed him was his own youth; comparing what he
remembered of it with these queer, careless sons of his, who seemed
born to trouble other people, Mr Ffolliot could not call to mind any
occasion when he had been a nuisance to anybody.  He honestly tried and
wholly failed.

Such persons as have been nourished in early youth on Mr Thackeray's
inimitable _The Rose and The Ring_ will remember how at the christening
of Prince Giglio, the Fairy Blackstick, who was his godmother, said,
"My poor child, the best thing I can send you is a little misfortune!"

Now the Fairy Blackstick had evidently absented herself from Hilary
Ffolliot's christening, for his youth was one long procession of
brilliant successes.  It is true that his father, an easy-going,
amiable clergyman, died during his first term at Harrow, but that did
not affect Hilary's material comfort in any way.  It left his mother
perfectly free to devote her entire attention to him.

He was a good-looking, averagely healthy boy, who carried all before
him at preparatory school.  Easily first in every class he entered, he
was quite able to hold his own in all the usual games, and he left for
Harrow in a blaze of glory, having obtained the most valuable classical
scholarship.

Throughout his career at school he never failed to win any prize he
tried for, and when he left, it was with scholarships that almost
covered the expenses of his time at Cambridge.  Moreover, he was head
of his house and a member of the Eleven.

His mother, a gentle and unselfish lady, felt that she could not do
enough to promote the comfort of so brilliant and satisfactory a son.
Hilary's likes and dislikes in the matter of food, Hilary's preference
for silk underwear, Hilary's love of art and music, were all matters of
equal and supreme importance to Mrs Ffolliot, and in every way she
fostered the strain of selfishness that exists even in the best of us.

At the university he did equally well.  He took a brilliant degree, and
then travelled for a year or so, devoting himself to the study of
Italian art and architecture; and finally accepted (he never seemed to
try for things like other people) a clerkship in the Foreign Office.

When he was eight and twenty his uncle died, and he inherited Redmarley.

His conduct had always been blameless.  He shared the ordinary
pleasures of upper-class young men without committing any of their
follies.  He was careful about money, and never got into debt.  He
accepted kindnesses as his right, and felt under no obligation to
return them.

He could not be said ever to have worked hard, for all the work he had
hitherto undertaken came so easily to him.  He possessed a large circle
of agreeable acquaintances, and no intimate friends.

He met Marjory Grantly in her second season, and for the first time in
his life fell ardently and hopelessly in love.

Now was the chance for the Fairy Blackstick!

But she evidently took no interest in Hilary Ffolliot, for Marjory,
instead of sending him about his business, and perhaps thus rendering
him for a space the most miserable of men, fell in love with him, and
they were married in three months.

The General, it is true, had misgivings, and remarked to Mrs Grantly
that Ffolliot seemed too good to be true.  But there was no disproving
it; and Hilary was so much in love that for a while, for nearly a year,
he thought more about Marjory's likes and dislikes than his own.

And Marjory's likes included such a vast number of other people.

But the chance, the hundred-to-one chance, of turning him into an
ordinary human being--loving, suffering, understanding--was lost.

Once more in Life's Market he had got what he wanted at his own price,
and with the cessation of competitive examinations all ambition seemed
dead in him.

And what of Marjory?

Nobody, not even her father and mother who loved her so tenderly, ever
knew what Marjory felt.  She had chosen her lot.  She would abide by
it.  No doubt she saw her husband as he was, but as time went on she
realised how few chances he had had to be anything different.  She was
an only child herself.  She, too, had adoring parents, but their
adoration took a different form from the somewhat abject and wholly
blind devotion of Hilary's mother.  General and Mrs Grantly saw to it
from the very first that they should love their daughter because she
was lovable, and not only because she was theirs.  They had troops of
friends, and exercised a large hospitality that entailed a constant
giving out of sympathy for and interest in other people.  That there
was much suffering, and sadness, and sin in the world was never
concealed from Marjory in her happy girlhood; that it had not touched
her personally was never allowed to foster the belief that it did not
exist.  That there was also much happiness, and gaiety, and kindness
was abundantly manifest in her own home, and every scope was given her
for the development of the social instincts which were part of her
charm.  She went to her husband at twenty "handled and made," and
twenty years of married life had only perfected the work.

As a girl she was perhaps intellectually intolerant.  Stupid people
annoyed her, and she possessed all youth's enthusiastic admiration for
achievement, for people who did things, who had arrived.  Hilary
Ffolliot was a new type to her.  His brilliant record impressed her.
His cultivated taste and extraordinary versatility attracted her, and
his evident admiration gratified her girlish vanity.

She was a proud woman, and if she had made a mistake she was not going
to let it spoil her life.  Only once did she come near showing her
heart even to her mother.  It was a year after the Kitten was born,
when the General had just got the command at Woolwich, and Mrs Grantly
once more came back to the assault--her constant plea that she should
have Ger given over to her entirely.

"You really are, Margie, a greedy, grasping woman.  Here are you with
six children, four of them sons.  And here am I with only one child, a
miserable, measly girl, and you won't let me have even one of the boys."

The miserable, measly girl referred to laughed and knelt down at her
mother's knee.  "Dearest, you really get quite as much of the children
as is good for you--or them----"

"You can't say I spoil them; I didn't spoil you, and you were only one."

"I'm sorry I couldn't be more," Mrs Ffolliot said contritely; "but you
see, mother dear, it's like this, it's just because I was only one I
want the children to have as much as possible of each other . . . while
they are young . . .  I want them to grow up . . ."  Mrs Ffolliot sat
down on the floor and leant her head against Mrs Grantly's knees so
that her face was hidden.  "I want them to realise what a lot of other
people there are in the world, all with hopes and fears and likes and
dislikes and joys and sorrows . . . and that each one of them is only a
very little humble atom of a great whole--and that's what they can
teach each other--I can't do it--you can't do it--but they can manage
it amongst them."

Mrs Grantly did not answer; quick as she was in repartee, she had the
much rarer gift of sympathetic silence.  She laid a kind hand on her
daughter's bent head and softly stroked it.

The clock struck four, and still Mr Ffolliot sat on in his chair with
_Gaston Latour_ unopened, held loosely in his long slender hands.

A dignified presence with every attribute that goes to make the scholar
and the gentleman; though one who judged of character from external
appearance might have misdoubted the thin straight lips, the rather
pinched nostrils, the eyes too close together, and above all, the
head--high and intellectual, but almost devoid of curve at the back.  A
clean-cut, ascetic, handsome face, as a rule calm and judicial in its
dignified repose.

This afternoon, though, the Squire lacks his usual serene poise.  His
self-confidence has been shaken, and it is his young sons who have
disturbed its delicately adjusted equilibrium.

He was puzzled.

It is a mistake to imagine that selfish and ungrateful people fail to
recognise these qualities in others.  Not only are they quick to
perceive incipient signs of them, but they demand the constant exercise
of their opposites in their fellow men.

Mr Ffolliot was puzzled.

Among the words he used most constantly, both on paper and in
conversation, were "fine shades" and "fineness" in its most
psychological sense.  "Fineness" was a quality he was for ever
belauding: a quality that he believed was only to be found in persons
of complex character and unusually sensitive organisation.

And yet he grudgingly conceded that he had, that afternoon, been
confronted by it in two of his own quite ordinary children.

What rankled, however, was that Buz, at all events, seemed doubtful
whether he, the Squire, possessed it.  The dubious and thrice-repeated
"you do understand, don't you, father?" rang in his ears.

How was it that Buz, the shallow and mercurial, seemed to fear that
what was so plain to him might be hidden from his father?

Undesired and wholly irrelevant there flashed into his mind that walk
with Mary, a short ten days ago, when he had reproached her with her
limitations, her power to grasp only the obvious.  And it was suddenly
revealed to Mr Ffolliot that certain obligations were obvious to his
children that were by no means equally clear to him.

Why was this?

As if in answer came his own phrase, used so often in contemptuous
explanation of their more troublesome vagaries--"the Grantly Strain."

He was fair-minded and he admired courage.  He in no way underrated the
effort it must have been for Grantly and Buz to come and confess their
peccadillos to him.  And he knew very well that only because they felt
someone else was involved had they summoned up courage to do so.

If their evil-doings were discovered, they did not lie, these noisy,
blundering children of his; but they never showed the smallest desire
to draw attention to their escapades.

His mind seemed incapable of concentration that afternoon, for now he
began to wonder how it was that "the children" lately had managed to
emerge from the noun of multitude and each had assumed a separate
identity with marked and definite characteristics.

There was Mary . . .

Mr Ffolliot frowned.  If it hadn't been for Mary he really would have
been quite glad to ask young Gallup to dinner.  But Mary complicated
matters; for he had instantly divined what had struck none of the
others, a connection between the Liberal member's amiability to his
sons and the fact that those sons possessed a sister.

Presently Fusby came in to make up the fire.  "Do you happen to know,
Fusby, if your mistress is in the house and disengaged?"

"I saw the mistress as I came through the 'all, sir, sitting in a
window reading a book.  She was quite alone, sir."

"Ah," said Mr Ffolliot, "thank you, I will go to her."

As the door was closed behind his master, Fusby arose from brushing the
hearth and shook his fist in that direction.

"Go, I should think you would go, you one-eyed old image you.  Did you
think I was going to fetch her to wait your pleasure?"

Mrs Ffolliot laid down her book as her husband came across the wide old
hall.  She made room for him on the window-seat beside her.  She
noticed that he was flushed and that his hair was almost shaggy.

"Have you got a headache, Larrie?" she asked in her kind voice.  "I
hope Grantly had nothing disturbing to relate."

"Yes, no," Mr Ffolliot replied vaguely; "I've been thinking things
over, my dear, and I've come round to your opinion that perhaps it
would be the right thing to ask young Gallup to dinner on the
twenty-first.  There will be the Campions and the Wards to keep him in
countenance."

"I'm so glad you see it as I do," Mrs Ffolliot said gently, looking,
however, much surprised.  "After all, he may not come, you know."

"He'll come," and his wife wondered why the Squire laid such grim
emphasis upon the words.

"By the way," Mr Ffolliot said in quite a new tone, "you were saying
something the other day about your mother's very kind offer to have
Mary for some weeks after the May drawing-room.  I think it would be a
good thing.  You don't want the fag and expense of going up to town so
soon after you've come home.  Let her stay with her grandmother for a
bit and go out--see that she has proper clothes--they will enjoy having
the child, and she will see something of the world.  Let her have her
fling--don't hurry her."

"Why, Hilary, what a _volte-face_!  When I spoke to you about it before
I was ill you said it was out of the question . . ."

"My dear," said Mr Ffolliot testily, "only stupid people think that
they must never change their minds.  I have decided that it will be
good for Mary to leave Redmarley for a bit.  You must remember that I
have been carefully observing her for the last few weeks.  She will
grow narrow and provincial if she never meets anyone except the
Garsetshire people.  Surely you must see that?"

"May I tell Mary?  It's such fun when you're young to look forward to
things."

"Certainly tell Mary, and let her go as soon as her grandmother will
have her.  She'd better get what clothes she wants in town."

"She can go up with Grantly when he goes back to the Shop.  It _is_
nice of you, Larrie."

"I suppose she must stay for this tiresome dinner?  Why not let her go
beforehand?  It's always very easy to get an odd girl."

"That wouldn't do," Mrs Ffolliot said decidedly, "the child would be
disappointed--besides I want her."

Mr Ffolliot sighed.  "As you will, my dear," he said meekly, "but she'd
better go directly it is over."




CHAPTER XXII

THE DREAM GOES ON

"Aunt Susan, will you give me a bed on Thursday night?"

Eloquent, who was spending the Easter recess at Marlehouse, had
bicycled out to tea with Miss Gallup.

"You know as I'm always pleased to give you a bed any time.  What do
you want it then for?  Are you coming to stop a bit?"

"Because," Eloquent took a deep breath and watched his aunt closely,
"I'm dining at the Manor that night."

"Then," said Miss Gallup sharply, "you don't have a bed here."

"Why ever not?" and in his astonishment Eloquent dropped into the
Garsetshire idiom he was usually so careful to avoid.

"Because," Miss Gallup was flushed and tremulous, "no one shall ever
say I was as a drag on you."

"But, Aunt Susan, no one could say it, and if they did, what would it
matter? and what in the world has that to do with giving me a bed?"

"My dear," said Miss Gallup, "I know my place if you don't.  When you
goes to dinner with Squire Ffolliot you must go properly from
Marlehouse like anybody else--you must drive out, or hire a motor and
put it up there, same as other people do, and go back again to your own
house where you're known to be--it's in the paper.  There's no sort of
use draggin' _me_ in.  I always knew as you'd get there some day, and
now you've got there and no one's pleasder than me.  Do show me the
invitation."

Eloquent took a note from his breast-pocket and handed it to his aunt,
who put on her spectacles and read aloud, slowly and impressively:--


Dear Mr Gallup,--If you have no other engagement, will you come and
dine with us on the twenty-first at eight o'clock.  It will give us
great pleasure if you can.--Yours sincerely,

MARGERY FFOLLIOT.


"H'm, now that's not what I should have expected," Miss Gallup said in
a disappointed tone.  "_I_ should have thought she'd 'a said, 'Mr and
Mrs Ffolliot presents their compliments to Mr Gallup, and requests the
pleasure of his company at a dinner-party'--I know there is a party,
for Dorcas did tell Em'ly-Alice there was going to be one; only last
night she was talking about it--it's downright blunt that note--I call
it----"

Eloquent laughed.  "All the same I've accepted, and now do explain why
I can't sleep here instead of trailing all the way back into Marlehouse
at that time of night."

"If you can't _see_, why you must just take my word for it.  You and
me's in different walks of life, and it's my bounden duty to see as you
don't bemean yourself.  I'm always pleased to see you in a quiet way,
but there's no use in strangers knowing we're relations."

"What nonsense," Eloquent exclaimed hotly, "I've only got one aunt in
the world, and I'm very proud of her, so let there be an end of this
foolishness."

Miss Gallup wiped her eyes.  "In some ways, Eloquent," she said
huskily, "with all your politics an' that, you're no better than a
child."

"I'm hanged if I can see what you're driving at," Eloquent exclaimed in
great irritation.  "Once more, Aunt Susan, will you give me a bed on
Thursday?"

"Don't ask me, my dear, don't ask me.  It's for your good as I refuse.
_I_ can see the difference between us if you can't, and when you took
on so with politics, and then your father left all that fortune so as
you could leave the likes of the Golden Anchor, I said to myself, 'Now,
Martha Gallup, don't you interfere.  Don't you go intrudin' on your
brother's child.  If he sees fit to keep friendly it shows he's a good
heart, but you keep your place.' . . .  An' I've kep' it; never have I
been near you in Marlehouse, as you know--Not but what you've as't me,
and very pleased I was to be as't . . ."

"And very displeased I was that you would never come," Eloquent
interrupted.

"I know my place," Miss Gallup persisted.  "I don't mind the likes of
the Ffolliots knowing we're related. . . .  They're bound to know, and
they're not proud, none of 'em exceptin' Squire, that is to say, and he
wouldn't think it worth while to be proud to the likes of me.  But I
don't want to hang on and keep you down, and there's some as would
think less of you for me bein' your aunt, so where's the use of
flaunting an old-fashioned piece like me in their faces. . . .  If
you'll come out next day and tell me all about the party, I'd take it
most kind of you, Eloquent, that I should."

"Why shouldn't I come here straight that night?  I shouldn't have
forgotten anything by then."

"No," Miss Gallup said firmly.  "I'd much rather you didn't come to me
from that 'ouse nor go there from me.  You go back 'ome like a good
boy.  It isn't as if you couldn't afford a chaise to bring you."

Eloquent saw that she really meant what she said.  He was puzzled and
rather hurt, for it had never occurred to him that his aunt was
anything but his aunt: a kindly garrulous old lady who had always been
extremely good to him, whom it was his duty to cherish, who looked upon
him in the light of a son.

He was a simple person and never realised that this simplicity and
directness had a good deal to do with the undoubted cordiality of
certain persons, who, apart from politics, were known to be very
exclusive in the matter of their acquaintance; and that it was largely
owing to the fact that he never showed the smallest false shame as to
his origin, that members of his party who had at first consented to
know him solely for political reasons, continued to know him when the
Liberal Government was for a second time firmly established.  They
perceived his primness, were faintly amused by his immense earnestness,
and they respected his sincerity.

The manner of his arrival on the fateful night was settled for him by
Sir George Campion, who, meeting him in the street, offered him a seat
in their motor.  Eloquent never knew that Mrs Ffolliot had asked Sir
George to do this, thinking that it would make things easier and
pleasanter for the guest who was the one stranger to the assembled
party.

On the night of the dinner Mary was dressed early and went to her
mother's room to see if she could help her.

Mrs Ffolliot was standing before her long glass and Sophia was shaking
out the train of her dress, a soft grey-blue dress full of purple
shadows and silvery lights.

She turned and looked at her tall young daughter, critically, fondly,
with the pride and fear and wonder a woman, above all a beautiful
woman, feels as she realises that for her child everything is yet to
come; the story all untold.

"You may go, Sophia," she said gently.  "I think Miss Mary looks nice,
don't you?  It's her first real evening frock, you know."

Sophia looked from the one to the other and her severe face relaxed a
little.  "It fits most beautiful," she vouchsafed.

"Mother," Mary said when Sophia had gone, "I wanted to catch you just a
minute--I've seen Mr Gallup since that night he came to tell us about
Buz . . ."

"You've met?" Mrs Ffolliot exclaimed, "where? and why have you never
told me?"

"It was while you were away.  Miss Gallup had been ill and I went to
ask for her and he was there, and he walked home with me . . ."

Mrs Ffolliot raised her eyebrows.

"Oh, you think it funny too?  It couldn't be helped--old Miss Gallup
seemed to think it was the proper thing and sent him--and father was
waiting for me at the gate and was awfully cross. . . .  Mother, how
_did_ you persuade him to let you ask Mr Gallup?"

Mrs Ffolliot turned to her dressing-table and began to collect fan and
handkerchief.  She looked in the glass and saw Mary behind her, eager,
radiant, slim, upright, and gloriously young.  She began to see why
father was so awfully cross.  There was more excuse than usual.

"Why don't you answer me, mother? didn't you hear what I said?"

"I heard, my darling.  Father needed no persuasion.  He simply changed
his mind; but I can't think why you never told me you had met Mr Gallup
already."

Mary blushed.  The warm colour dyed forehead and neck and ears, and
faded into the exceedingly white chest and shoulders, revealed to the
world for the first time.

Mrs Ffolliot saw all this in the glass, wondered if she could have
imagined it, and turned to face her daughter.

"Mother"--what honest eyes the child had, to be sure--"it wasn't the
first time I'd spoken to him."

"Really, Mary, you are very mysterious----"

"I met him in the woods once before Christmas, and he was lost, and I
showed him the way out, and father saw us . . . and was just as cross."

Mrs Ffolliot felt more in sympathy with her husband than usual.  But
all she said was, "Well, well, it's evident you don't need an
introduction.  I forgot you'd seen him when he called.  I'm glad you
told me in time to prevent it, or he would have thought it so
odd--come, my child, we must go down."

"_You_ aren't cross, are you, mother?" Mary asked wistfully.

"Cross!" Mrs Ffolliot repeated, "at your first party.  What is there to
be cross about?  Yes, my child, that dress is quite charming--father
was right, you can stand that dead white--but it's trying to some
people--come."

The Campions called for Eloquent, and he found himself seated side by
side with Sir George on one of the little seats, while Lady Campion and
a pretty niece called Miss Bax sat opposite.  Miss Bax was disposed to
be friendly and conversational, but to Eloquent the fact that he was
going to Redmarley was no ordinary occurrence, and he would infinitely
have preferred to have driven out alone, or, better still, to have
walked through the soft spring night from his aunt's house to the
Manor, which still held something of the glamour that had surrounded it
in his childhood.

For him it was still "the Manshun," immense, remote, peopled by
inhabitants fine and strange, and far removed from ordinary life.  A
house whose interior common folk were, it is true, occasionally allowed
to see, walking on tiptoe, speaking in whispers, led and instructed by
an important rustling old lady who wore an imposing cap and a silk
apron; a strange, silent house where none save servants ever seemed to
come and go.  He had not yet quite recovered from the shock it was to
him to hear voices and laughter in that old panelled hall which he had
known in childhood as so vast and shadowy.  He liked to remember all
this, and to feel that he was going there as THEIR guest, to be with
THEM on intimate friendly terms.  It was wonderful, incredible; it was
part of the dream.

". . . don't you think so, Mr Gallup?" asked Miss Bax, and Eloquent
woke with a start to realise that he had not heard a word his pretty
neighbour was saying.  He was thankful that the motor was dark and that
the others could not notice how red he was.

"I beg your pardon," he said loudly, leaning forward, "I didn't catch
what you said."

"Is the man deaf?" Miss Bax wondered, for the motor was a Rolls-Royce
and singularly smooth and noiseless.  "I was saying," she went on
aloud, "that it will probably be my lot to go in to dinner with Grantly
Ffolliot, and that cadets as a class are badly in need of snubbing;
don't you agree with me?"

"I haven't met any except young Mr Ffolliot," Eloquent said primly,
"and I must say he did not strike me as a particularly conceited young
man."

"He isn't," Sir George broke in, "he's an exceedingly nice boy, they
all are.  Their mother has seen to that."

"Boys are so difficult to talk to," Miss Bax lamented; "their range is
so limited, and my enthusiasm for football is so lukewarm."

"Try him on his profession," Lady Campion suggested.

"That would be worse.  Cadets do nothing but tell you how hard they are
worked, and what a fearful block there is in the special branch of the
army they are going in for.  Is young Ffolliot going to be a Sapper by
any chance? for they're the worst of all--considering themselves, as
they do, the brains of the army."

"I don't think so," said Sir George; "he's not clever enough.  He's
only got moderate ability and an uncommonly pretty seat on a horse.
He'll get Field all right.  But why are you so sure, my dear, that
he'll be your fate?  Why not Gallup here? and you could try and convert
him to your views on the Suffrage question?  He'd be some use, you
know.  He _has_ a vote."

Again Eloquent blessed the darkness as he coloured hotly and brought
his mind back to the present with a violent wrench.  He knew he ought
to say something, but what?  He fervently hoped they would not assign
him to this severe self-possessed young lady who thought cadets
conceited and had political views.  Heavens! she might be another
Elsmaria Buttermish with no blessed transformation later on into
something human and approachable.

"I'm afraid"--he heard Miss Bax talking as it were an immense way off
as he floated away on the wings of his dream--"that my views would
startle Mr Gallup."

The motor turned in at the drive gates, they had reached the door.

Eloquent was right in the middle of his dream.

He followed Lady Campion and Miss Bax across the hall and down a
corridor to a room he had never been in when he was a child.

Fusby threw open a door and announced loudly, "Sir George and Lady
Campion, Miss Bax, Mr Gallup."

They were the last of the guests.

For a little while he was less conscious of his dream.  This light,
bright room with white panelled walls and furniture covered with gay
chintzes, soft blurred chintz in palest pinks and greens, with pictures
in oval frames, and people, ordinary people that he had seen before,
all talking and laughing together.  This was not the Redmarley that he
knew, grave and beautiful and old.

This was not the Redmarley of his dream.  It came back to him as Mrs
Ffolliot gave him her hand in welcome, presenting him to her husband
and one or two other people.  It left him as she turned away and
Grantly came forward and greeted him.  Grantly, tall and irreproachably
well dressed, cheerful withal and quite at his ease.

Sir George had pulled Mary into the very middle of the room and held
her at arm's length with laughing comments.  How could men find the
courage for that sort of thing?  He heard him ask what she had done
with her sash, and then Mrs Ffolliot said, "I think you know my
daughter, Mr Gallup; will you take her in to dinner?"

And once more he was well in the middle of his dream, for he found
himself in the corridor he knew, side by side with Mary, part of a
procession moving towards the dining-room.

Her hand was on his arm, but the exquisite moment was a little marred
by the discovery that she was quite an inch taller than he.

Eloquent had been to a good many public dinners; he had even dined with
certain Cabinet Ministers, but always when there were only men.  He had
never yet dined with people of the Ffolliots' class in this intimate,
friendly way, and he found everything a little different from what he
expected.  He had read very little fiction, and such mental pictures as
he had evolved were drawn from his inner consciousness.  As always, he
wondered how they contrived to be so gay, to talk such nonsense, and to
laugh at it.  Seated between Mary and witty Mrs Ward, whose husband was
one of his ardent supporters in the county, he did his best to join in
the general conversation, but he found it hard.  Miss Bax, whose
premonition regarding her fate was justified, seemed to have overcome
her objection to cadets.  She and Grantly were just opposite to him,
and he noticed with regret that Grantly was drinking champagne.  It
would have been better, Eloquent thought, if the boy had abstained
altogether after his experience at the election.  Mary, too, drank
champagne, but Eloquent condoned this weakness in her case, she drank
so little.  Everyone drank champagne except Sir George, who preferred
whisky, and Eloquent himself, who drank Apollinaris.

"Do you suffer from rheumatism?" Mary asked innocently.  "Do you think
it would hurt you once in a way?"

"I am not in the least rheumatic," Eloquent protested, "but I have
never tasted anything intoxicating."

"Then you don't know whether you'd like it or not.  Why not try some
and see?" Mary suggested hospitably.

Eloquent shook his head.  "Better not," he said, "you don't know what
effect it might have on me."

He ate whatever was put before him, wholly unaware of its nature, and
in spite of Mary's efforts to keep the conversational ball rolling
gaily, he was very silent.

The dream had got him again, for he knew this room with the dark oak
panelling and great old portraits of departed Ffolliots, some of them
with eyes that followed you.  He knew the room, but as he knew it, the
long narrow table, like the table in a refectory, was bare and polished
and empty; or with a little cloth laid just at one end for old Mr
Ffolliot.

What did they think of it now, these solemn pictured people?--this
long, narrow strip of brilliant light and flowers and sparkling glass
and silver, surrounded by well-dressed cheerful persons, all,
apparently, laughing and talking at the same time.

They had reached dessert, and he was handing Mary a dish of sweets; she
took four.  "Do take some," she whispered, "take lots, and what you
don't want give to me; you can put them in my bridge-bag under the
table, I want them for the children.  I promised Ger."

Bewildered, but only too happy to do anything she asked him, Eloquent
helped himself largely.

"Now," Mary whispered, holding a little white satin bag open under the
table, "and if they come round again, take some more."

"It was my grandfather began it," she explained; "he used always to
save sweets for us when we stayed with him, and now it's a rule--if we
dine downstairs--if there are any--there aren't always, you know--and
Fusby's so stingy, if there are any left he takes them and locks them
up in a box till next time.  You watch Grantly, he's got some too, but
he hasn't got anywhere to put them, like me.  I must go round behind
him when mother collects eyes, then I'll nip up to Ger, for he'll never
go to sleep till I've been . . ."

"You see," she went on confidentially, "they will take them to Willets
to-morrow.  He loves good sweets and he never gets any unless they take
them to him.  They'll make a party of it, and Mrs Willets will give
them each a weeny glass of ginger-wine.  They'll have a lovely time--do
you know Willets?"

"By sight, I think . . . he's your keeper, isn't he?  From all I can
hear to-night he seems a very remarkable person, everyone is talking
about him."

"Oh, you ought to know him, he's the greatest dear in Redmarley.
Everyone who knows us knows Willets, and dukes and people have tried to
get him away, he's such a good sportsman, but he won't leave us.  We
love him so much we couldn't bear it.  He couldn't either.  He's been
keeper here nearly twenty-three years.  Before mother came he was here,
and now there's all of us he'll never leave."

"Have you got enough?  Won't they want some for themselves as well as
Willets?"

"Thanks to you, I've got a splendid lot.  One can't always ask people,
you know, but I thought you wouldn't mind."

"Shall I demand some more in a loud voice? there are some at the end of
the table," Eloquent murmured; "I'm very shy, but I can be bold in a
good cause."

Mary looked at him in some surprise.  "Would you really?  Ah, it's too
late, there's mother----"

Eloquent watched her with breathless interest as she "went round the
longest way" and received new spoils from Grantly as she passed.  How
curious they were about their servants these people, where Fusby seemed
to control the supplies and the children of the house secretly saved
sweets for the keeper.

The men did not sit long over their wine, and it was to the hall they
went and not to the white-panelled room that Eloquent unconsciously
resented as an anachronism; and in the hall bridge-tables were set out.

This was a complication Eloquent had not foreseen.  Among his father's
friends cards were regarded as the Devil's Books, and he did not know
the ace of spades from the knave of hearts.

Would they force him to play, he wondered.  Would he cover himself with
shame and ignominy? and what if he said it was against his principles
to play for money?

He braced himself to be faithful to the traditions in which he had been
trained, only to find that on his saying he never _had_ played bridge
no one expressed the smallest desire that he should do so.

In fact it seemed to him that three tables were arranged with almost
indecent haste, cryptic remarks about "cutting in" were bandied about,
and in less than five minutes he was sitting on the oak settle by the
fire with Mrs Ffolliot, who talked to him so delightfully that the
dream came back.

Here on the high-backed settle he found courage to tell her how clearly
he remembered that first time he had seen her in his father's shop; and
plainly she was touched and interested, and drew him on to speak of his
queer lonely childhood and the ultimate goal that had been kept ever
before his eyes.

He was very happy, and it seemed but a short time till somebody at one
of the tables exclaimed "game and rub," and Mary came over to the
settle saying, "Now, mother, you must take my place.  I've been awfully
lucky, I've won half a crown."

She sat down beside him on the settle asking, "Would you care to watch,
or shall we just sit here and talk--which would you rather?"

What Eloquent wanted to do was to stare: to gaze and gaze at the
gracious young figure sitting there in gleaming white flecked with
splashes of rosy light from the dancing flames, but he could hardly say
this.

"I'm afraid it would be of no use for me to watch; I have never played
cards, and don't understand them in the least."

"You mean you don't know the suits?"

"What are suits?"

"This must be seen to," said Mary; "you don't smoke, you drink nothing
festive, you don't know one card from another; you can't go through
life like this.  It's not fair.  We won't waste another minute, I'll
teach you the suits now."

She made him fetch a little table, she produced a pack of cards.  She
spread them out and she expounded.  He was a quick study.  By the time
Mr Ffolliot came to take Mary's place he knew all the suits.  By the
time Mr Ffolliot had thoroughly confused him by a learned disquisition
on the principles of bridge, Lady Campion's motor was announced, and he
departed in her train.

"Surely Mr Gallup is a very absent-minded person," Miss Bax remarked to
her aunt when they had deposited Eloquent at his door.

"I expect he's shy," said Lady Campion, who was sleepy and not
particularly interested; "but wasn't Mary nice to him?--I do like that
girl--she's so natural and unaffected."

"She always strikes me as being a mere child," said Miss Bax, "so very
unformed; is she out yet, or is she still in the schoolroom?"

Sir George chuckled.  "She's on her way out," he said, "and, I fancy,
on her way to an uncommonly good time as well.  That girl is a sight to
make an old man young."

"She certainly is handsome," said Miss Bax.

Sir George chuckled again.  "Unformed," he repeated, "there's some of
us likes 'em like that."

Eloquent sat long in his orderly little dining-room where the glass of
milk and tray of sandwiches awaited him on the sideboard.  His head was
in a whirl.  She drank champagne.  She gambled.  She seemed to think it
was perfectly natural and right to do these things.  It probably was if
she thought so.  She . . .

Heavens! what an adorable wife she would be for a young Cabinet
Minister.




CHAPTER XXIII

WILLETS

Had Eloquent ever taken the smallest interest in country pursuits he
must have come across Willets, for in that part of the Cotswolds
Willets was as well known as the Marle itself.

A small thick-set man with a hooky nose, and with bright, long-sighted
brown eyes and strong, sensitive hands, wrists tempered and supple as a
rapier, and a tongue that talked unceasingly and well.

Sporting people wondered why Willets, with his multifarious knowledge
of wood and river craft, should stay at Redmarley: a comparatively
small estate, whose owner was known to preserve only because it was a
tradition to do so, and not because he cared in the least about the
sport provided.  Willets was wasted, they said, and it is possible that
at one time Willets, himself, agreed with them.

He came originally of Redmarley folk, and his wife from a neighbouring
village.  He "got on" and became one of the favourite keepers on a
ducal estate in the North, much liked both by the noble owner and his
sporting friends; a steady, intelligent man with a real genius for the
gentle craft.  He could charm trout from water where, apparently, no
trout existed; he could throw a fly with a skill and precision
beautiful to behold, and he was well read in the literature of his
pursuits.  Much converse with gentlemen had softened the asperities of
his Cotswold speech, he expressed himself well, wrote both a good hand
and a good letter, and was very popular with those he served.  Life
looked exceedingly rosy for Willets--for he was happy in his marriage
and a devoted father to his three little girls--when the hand of fate
fell heavily upon him.  There came a terribly severe winter in that
part of Scotland, and one after another the little girls got bronchitis
and died; the three in five months.

He and his wife could bear the place no longer, and came South.  The
Duke was really sorry to lose him, and took considerable trouble to
find him something to do in the Cotswold country whence he came.

It happened that just then old Mr Ffolliot was looking for a keeper who
would see after things in general at the Manor, and the fishing in
particular; so Willets accepted the situation merely as a make-shift
for a short time, till something worthier of his powers should turn up.

It was pleasant to be in the old county once more.  There was help and
healing in the kind grey houses and the smiling pastoral country.  His
wife was pleased to be near her people, and his work was of the
lightest.  But Willets was not yet forty, he had ambitions, and the
wages were much smaller than what he had been getting.  It would do,
perhaps, for a year or two, and he knew that whenever he liked, his
late master would be glad to have him back and would give him a post in
the Yorkshire dales.

Old Mr Ffolliot died, and his nephew, Hilary, reigned in his stead.
Willets announced to his wife that their time in Redmarley would be
short.

The young Squire married and in the bride's train came General Grantly
with all the patience and enthusiasm and friendly anecdotal powers of
your true angler; and in his train came like-minded brother officers to
whom, it must be conceded, Hilary Ffolliot was always ready to offer
hospitality.

Things livened up a bit at Redmarley, and Willets decided to stay a
little longer.

Margery Ffolliot liked the Willets and was passionately sorry for them
about the little girls; but it was the Ffolliot children who wove about
Willets an unbreakable charm, binding him to his native village.

One by one, with toddling steps and high, clear voices, they stormed
the little house by the bridge and took its owners captive.

Saving only their mother, Willets had a good deal more to do with the
upbringing of the young Ffolliots in their earliest years than anybody
else.  Singly and collectively, they adored him, tyrannised over him,
copied him, learnt from him, and wasted his time with a prodigality a
more sporting master than the Squire might have resented seriously.

Thus it fell out that offers came to Willets, good offers from places
far more important than Redmarley, where there were possibilities both
in the way of sport and of tips--there was a sad scarcity of tips at
Redmarley--and yet he passed them by.

Sometimes his wife would be a little reproachful, pointing out that
they were saving nothing and he was throwing away good money.

Willets had always some excellent reason for not leaving just then.

Redmarley had possibilities; it would be a nice place by the time
Master Grantly was grown up and brought his friends.  No one else would
take quite the same interest in it that he did; he was proud of the
children, and money wasn't everything, and so Willets stayed on.

With the arrival of the Kitten his subjugation was completed, and a
seal was set upon the permanence of his relations with the Manor House.
From the days when the Kitten in a white bonnet and woolly gaiters
would struggle out of her nurse's arms to be taken by Willets, sitting
on his knee and gazing at him with wine-coloured bright eyes not unlike
his own, occasionally putting up a small hand encased in an absurd
fingerless glove to turn his face that she might see it better, Willets
was her infatuated and abject slave.  When on these occasions he
attempted to restore her to her nurse she would clutch him fiercely and
scream, so that it ended in his carrying her up to the house and up the
backstairs to the nursery, whence he only escaped by strategy.

No day passed without a visit from the Kitten and although he was not
wholly blind to the defects in her character, he was sure she was the
"peartest, sauciest, cleverest little baggage in the British Isles."

Of course the fact that Eloquent had been asked to dine at the Manor
House was much canvassed in the village.  Miss Gallup trumpeted the
matter abroad, and naturally it was discussed exhaustively by what Mr
Ffolliot would have called his "retainers."

Willets was not sure that he approved.  "I've no doubt," he said
leniently to Mrs Willets as they were sitting at tea, "that he's a
smart young chap and he's got on wonderfully, but I don't altogether
trust that pushing kind myself, and he's that sort.  Why, I saw him,
with my own eyes, walk past this house with our Miss Mary as bold as
brass.  I'll warrant if Squire had seen him he'd have been put out."

"He was her partner at dinner last night," Fusby was saying, "and
what's more," here Mrs Willets lowered her voice mysteriously, "he says
as he looked at her that loving, he's sure he's after her."

"After your grandmother!" Willets said rudely, his hawk's eyes bright
with anger.  "As if Miss Mary would so much as look at him!  Let him
seek a mate in his own class."

"That's just what he won't do; Miss Gallup--she's that set-up and silly
about him--says he must marry a lady, one who'll be able to help him
now he's got so high up.  I'm surprised, I own it, at Squire--but
probably it was the Mistress, she's all for friendliness always.  But
I'll warrant they'd both be in a pretty takin' if they thought he was
after Miss Mary."

"I tell you he's nothing of the kind," Willets shouted, thumping the
table so violently that he hurt his hand.  "It's scandalous to say such
things, and so I'll tell Fusby the first time I see him--gossiping old
silly."

"Now, William, it's no good going on against Fusby.  He was as upset as
you could be yourself, an' he only told me when he looked in this
afternoon because he felt worried like.  He wouldn't care a bit if it
wasn't that she seems taken with 'im.  He says he saw them whisperin'
at dinner, and young Gallup he give something to Miss Mary under the
table.  Fusby _saw_ them."

"I don't believe it," Willets said stoutly.  "It's all some foolishness
Fusby's gone and made up.  I don't hold with such cackle, and I'm
surprised at you, my dear, allowing him to say such things."

"How could I stop him?  He was worried, I tell you.  You talk to him
about it yourself and see what he says."

"I'm not going to talk about Miss Mary to anyone, let alone Fusby.
There's nothing but mischief happens when people begins talking about a
young lady.  I've seen it over and over again.  If, which I can't
believe, young Gallup's got the cheek to be after our Miss Mary, he'll
be choked off, and pretty quick too."

"Who's going to do the chokin'?  He's in parlyment, he's got plenty
money, there's nothing against him as I know of, and they've asked him
to their house.  Who's going to do the chokin?"

Mrs Willets paused, breathless and triumphant.  She seemed to take a
malicious delight in considering the possibility of such a courtship.

Willets looked at her steadily.  "We shan't have far to seek," he said,
"and that old fool Fusby's got a maggot in his head.  Why, the fellow's
gone to London; Parliament meets to-morrow, I saw it in the paper."

Mrs Willets nodded, as who should say "I could an' I would"--aloud she
remarked, "And Miss Mary's going to London to her granpa for a long
visit, beautiful new clothes she's gettin', and going to see the King
and Queen and all, so they're certain to meet.  It's quite like a story
book."

Willets frowned.  He had once spent two days in London.  He realised
what a big place it was, but he also remembered that during those two
days he had met seven people he knew in other parts of the country.




CHAPTER XXIV

CROSS CURRENTS

Reggie kept his word as to not interfering with Mary till such time as
she should have seen a little more of the world.  How much of the world
in general, and the male portion of it in particular, he was willing
she should see, he could not make up his mind.  Sometimes he thought a
very little would sufficiently salve his conscience and make a definite
course of action possible.  Reggie was not one of those who feared his
fate.  He was always eager to put it to the touch.  Inaction was
abhorrent to him.  To desire a thing and to do nothing to obtain it
seemed to him sheer foolishness.  Whether any amount of effort would
get for him what he desired just now was on the knees of the gods.  But
it was the waiting that tried him far more than the uncertainty.  He
was not conceited.  He was confident, ready to take risks and to accept
responsibility, but that is quite another thing.

Just before her birthday he sent her a little necklet under cover to
Mrs Ffolliot, asking that it might be put with Mary's other presents on
her plate that morning.  And she had written to thank him for it, but
he did not answer the letter.  He had always been by way of writing to
her from time to time; letters, generally embellished with comic
sketches and full of chaff and nonsense, which were shared by the
family.  Lately he had not felt in the mood to write such letters.  He
wanted to see her with an unceasing ache of longing intense and
persistent; and if he wrote he wanted to write, not a love
letter--Reggie did not fancy he'd be much of a hand at love
letters--but something intimate and revealing that would certainly be
unsuitable for "family reading."

Then he got two letters from Redmarley that seemed to him to need an
answer.

These were the letters:--


REDMARLEY,
  _Tuesday._

DEAR REGGIE,--We were all very excited to see it in the _Gazette_ this
morning, though of course we knew it was coming.  The children took the
_Times_ down to Willets at tea-time, and Fusby was at special pains to
ask mother after lunch if there was any chance of Captain Peel coming
down soon.  Is there?  You won't find me here unless it's very soon,
for I'm actually to be allowed to stay with grannie for quite a long
time.  After swearing that I should only go up for the drawing-room,
and that it was nonsense to talk of my going out at all till mother
could take me, the _pater_ has suddenly veered round, and I am to go up
to Woolwich on May-Day, and what's more, he is taking me up himself.
At first I thought I was to go with Grantly when he went back to the
Shop, but that wouldn't do seemingly, Grantly wasn't enough chaperon,
so father's coming just for one night.

Last night we had a dinner-party and the Liberal member took me in.  He
is such an odd little man.  Very, very good, I should think; very
kind--not hard-hearted and ruthless like some people who write cruel
stories about war--he is a nonconformist of sorts and doesn't do any of
the usual things, so it's a little difficult to talk to him, but mother
managed it--to make him talk, I mean.  I heard him murmuring away like
anything while we were playing bridge.  She likes him too.  He has an
odd way of looking at you as if you were a picture and not a person.
Don't you think it's fun to be going to town on May-Day and to have
proper dinner every night whether there are people or not.  I hope
there will be lots of people.  Do come to Woolwich while I'm there, and
mind you treat me with great respect.

When is the new story coming out?  I wish they'd hurry up.  It will be
so exciting to hear people talk about it and to think I know who wrote
it and they don't.  Clara Bax came with the Campions last night--do you
remember her?  She is _very_ pretty and so clever, understands all
about politics and things like that.  Fancy, she sells newspapers in
the street for the Cause.  She asked me if I'd help her, and I thought
it would be great fun, but father--you know how he pounces--heard from
the other end of the table, and though just a minute before he'd been
ever so sympathetic with Miss Bax, at once interfered, and said I was
much too ignorant to take any active part as yet, and Grantly frowned
at me across the table.  Would you buy a newspaper from me, I wonder?

When father pounces I always feel that I could almost marry an
impossible person just to annoy him; but the worst of it is that I
should have the impossible person always, and I might get rather tired
of it.  Why should Miss Bax steal a horse and father beam and pay her
compliments, and yet if I so much as look over the fence he shoos me
away with a pitch-fork.

I wonder if you will get out to India, as you wish?  In a way I hope
you won't, because you'd go out in the autumn, wouldn't you? and if you
are stationed anywhere at home you could come sometimes for a few days'
hunting; but of course if you want it very much I want you to have it.

This is a very long letter.  Good-bye, Reggie, and heaps of grats.  You
a captain and me grown up: we are coming on.--Yours: affectionately,

MARY B. FFOLLIOT.

P.S.--Some fiend in human shape sent Ger a little red book, trumpet,
and bugle notes for the army, and he makes Miss Glover play them and
then practises.  There's one thing, it's a little change from the
eternal "cook-house door," but it's very dreadful all the same.


BRIDGE HOUSE, REDMARLEY,
  _27th. April._

DEAR SIR,--Excuse the liberty I take in writing to offer you my
congratulations on the announcement in the paper yesterday.  Master Ger
and Miss Kitten came to tea with my wife, and the mistress, with her
usual kindness, sent me the paper.  When I first knew you, sir, you
were very much the size Master Ger is now, and yet it seems but
yesterday when I was teaching you to throw a fly just beyond the bridge
here.  I always look on you as one of our young gentlemen, for you've
come amongst us so many years now and always been so free and pleasant,
and I hope I may have the pleasure of going out with you often in the
future, though Master Ger did say he'd heard that you were thinking of
India.  If that is so, I hope you'll make a point of coming down for a
few days early in June, when the fly will be at its best.  If this mild
weather continues we ought to get some very sizeable fish.

It's funny to me to think how I've been here twenty-three years come
Michaelmas, and when the present Squire came I never thought I should
stop, he not being fond of sport.  If I may say so, you, sir, had a
good deal to do with me stopping on that first summer, me being very
fond of children, and then when they came at the Manor House and the
mistress always sent them down to be shown to us as soon as ever they
went out, I began to feel I'd taken root here, and so I suppose I have.

Master Ger is becoming a first-rate performer on the bugle, he played
for us yesterday, quite wonderful it was.  My wife begs to join with me
in respectful congratulations.--Your obedient servant,

WILLIAM WILLETS.


He wrote to Willets at once, promising to come down at the end of May
for a week-end, even if he couldn't get more.  He was frightfully busy,
for he was one of the instructors at Chatham, and had many other irons
in the fire as well.  He waited till he knew Mary was in Woolwich and
then he wrote to her:--


It was nice of you to send me such pretty grats, and I am truly
appreciative.  I also had the jolliest letter from old Willets.  He
promises good sport very shortly, and I shall make a point of turning
up at Redmarley when the fly is on the water, if only for a couple of
nights, for when Willets foretells "sizeable fish" you know you're in
for a first-class thing.  It will be queer to be at the Manor House and
you away.  Only once has that happened to me, the year you were at
school, and now "all that's shuv be'ind you" and you're out and dancing
about.  I shall certainly have urgent private affairs in Woolwich
during the next month.  Talk of respect!  When was I ever anything but
grovelling?  And once I have gazed upon your portrait in train and
feathers I shall be reduced to such a state of timidity you won't know
me.

The other day I met your friend Clara Bax selling _Votes for Women_ at
the Panton Street corner of Leicester Square, and she hadn't at all a
Hurrah face on.  I greeted her and bought one of the beastly little
papers, and went on my way.  But something caused me to look back, and
I beheld Miss Bax seemingly in difficulties with two young
feller-me-lads, who evidently had no intention of going on.  There was
no policeman handy--besides, there's a coolness at present between
members of the force and the fair militants--so I went back and dealt
faithfully with Miss Bax's admirers, and they departed, I regret to
say, blaspheming.

Miss Bax seemed rather shaken, the type was evidently new to her, and I
suggested that she should quit her pitch for the moment and come and
have lunch with me; so we went together to the _Petit Riche_, where we
consumed an excellent omelette; and the bundle of papers, which I,
Mary, had nobly carried through the streets of London, sat on a chair
between us and did chaperon.

Personally, I see no reason why women should not have votes if they
want 'em, but I see every reason why no woman, and above all no young
woman, should sell papers anywhere, more especially in Leicester
Square.  I'd like to give the Panks, and the Peths, and the Hicemen a
bit of my mind on the subject.  The mere thought of you ever indulging
in such unseemly vagaries fills me with horror unspeakable.  Talk of
the Squire!  Pouncing and pitchforks wouldn't be in it with me, I can
tell you, and yet Miss Bax isn't an orphan.

That very day I met a lugubrious procession of females, encased in
large sandwich-boards proclaiming a meeting somewhere.  They were
dismally dodging the traffic, and looked about as dejected as they
could look--ladies every one of them.  I begin to think old England's
no place for women when they're reduced to that sort of thing--what do
you say to India for a change?

The story will be out next month, but you won't like it--too technical.

I hope young Grantly's doing some work.  This term counts a lot, and he
mustn't pass out low for the honour of the family.

My salaams to the General and Mrs Grantly, and to you--my remembrances.
Do you, by the way, remember "our last ride together" in January?  When
shall we have another?  Would the General let us ride in the park one
day if I could get off?--Yours,

REGGIE.

P.S.--Why the kind and blameless member for Marlehouse?  Has the Squire
changed his politics?  It's all very well for you to say the young man
looked at you as if you were a picture.  We've another name for that
sort of sheep's eyes where I come from.  He'd better not let me catch
him at it.


Eloquent came to the conclusion that it is very difficult to pay court
to a girl who belongs to what his father was wont to call "the
classes."  He wondered how they managed it.  Such girls, it seemed to
him, were never left alone for a minute.  One's only chance was to see
them at parties in a crowd, and if you did dine at their houses, there
was always bridge directly after dinner, when conversation was
restricted to "I double hearts," or "with you," or "No."  He studied
the rules of bridge industriously, for he found on inquiry that even
Cabinet Ministers did not disdain it as a recreation.  Therefore Dalton
shared with blue-books the little table by his bed.

It's a far cry from Westminster to Woolwich, and in spite of
indefatigable spade-work on his part, it was well on in the third week
in May before he so much as caught a glimpse of Mary Ffolliot.

Then one morning he saw her in Bond Street with her grandmother.  She
was on the opposite side of the street rather ahead of him, but he knew
that easy strolling walk, the flat back, and proud carriage of the
head: that head with its burnished hair coiled smoothly under a
bewitching hat.  They stopped to look in at Asprey's window, and he
dashed across the road in the full stream of traffic.  Two indignant
taxi-drivers swore, and he reached the curb breathless, but uninjured,
just as they went into the shop.

He stood staring at the window, keeping at the same time a sharp
look-out on the door.

What an age they were!

He had just decided that the only thing to do was to go in and buy
something, when they came out.

Mary saw him at once, and his round face looked so wistful that she
greeted him with quite unnecessary warmth.  She recalled him to Mrs
Grantly, who, remembering vaguely that he was a young man who had
"risen from the ranks," was also more cordial than the occasion
demanded.

He walked up Bond Street with them, piloted them across Piccadilly, and
turned with them down Haymarket, so plainly delighted to see them, so
nervous, so pathetically anxious to please, that Mrs  Grantly's
hospitable instincts, fatally easy to rouse where pity played a part,
overcame her discretion.  Her husband and her daughter used to declare
that she had a perfect genius for encumbering herself with impossible
people--and repenting afterwards.  With dismay she realised that
Eloquent had, apparently, attached himself to them.  Short of cruelly
wounding his feelings, she saw herself walking about London all day,
accompanied by this painfully polite young man.  It seemed impossible
to call a taxi, and leave him desolate there on the pavement
unless . . .  Mrs Grantly's heart was hopelessly soft where animals
were concerned, and just then Eloquent reminded her of nothing so much
as an affectionate dog, allowed to frisk gaily to the front door, and
cruelly shut in on the wrong side, as she said--

"We've got to meet my husband at the Stores, Mr Gallup, perhaps you'll
kindly get us a taxi, as I'm rather tired."

His woebegone face was too much for her, and she added, "We're always
at home on Sunday afternoons."

Mary rather wondered at her grannie.

The taxi drove away and Eloquent walked down Haymarket as though he
were treading on air.  To-day was Friday.  Sunday, oh blessed day! was
the day after to-morrow.

There were clovers nodding in her hat, a wide-brimmed fine straw hat
that threw soft shadows over her blue eyes and turned them dark as the
clear water underneath Redmarley Bridge.  And he would see her again on
Sunday.

That lady, that handsome portly lady, he had been afraid of her at
first, she looked so large and imposing, but how kind she was!  How
wonderfully kind and hearty she had been.  It was she who had invited
him.  "We are always at home on Sundays," she said.  Surely that meant
he might go more than once?

That night he made his maiden speech in the House.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Reggie went down to Redmarley at the beginning of June from Saturday
afternoon till Sunday evening.  The Squire had a bad cold and was
confined to the house.  His nerves vibrated, so did the tempers of
other people, but Reggie did not care.  He joined Willets at the river
and fished till dinner-time.  Directly after dinner he went out again
and they had splendid sport till nearly ten.  Willets walked with him
back to the house, and Reggie had a curious feeling that Willets wanted
to tell him something and couldn't come to the point.  So strong was
this feeling that as they parted he said, "I shan't go to bed yet,
Willets.  It's such a perfect night--may stroll down to the bridge, and
if you're still up we might have a cigar together."

He went into the house, chatted a while to Mrs Ffolliot and the Squire,
and when they went to bed let himself out very quietly and strolled
down the drive and out of the great gates to the bridge.  The perfect
peace of the warm June night, the yellow moonlight on the quiet water,
the wide-spanned bridge, the long straggling street of irregular gabled
houses so kindly and so sheltering with their overhanging eaves, the
dear familiar charm of it all seemed to grip Reggie by the throat and
caused an unwonted smarting in his eyes.

The village was absolutely deserted save for one motionless figure
sitting on the wall at the far end of the bridge.

"Hullo, Willets," Reggie called, "not in bed yet?"

"I'm always a bit wakeful when the fly's up, sir; the river seems to
draw me, and I can't leave it."

"Have a cigar," said Reggie, and sat down beside him.

They smoked in silence for a few minutes till Willets said--

"Seen anything of Miss Mary up there, sir?"

"No, Willets, I haven't been able to get away for a minute till now,
but I may manage to run down to Woolwich next week just to buck to the
General about my catch.  You'll have him down then post haste--I
bet----"

"I suppose, sir," said Willets, with studied carelessness, "you never
happened to come across the young man that's member for these parts?"

"What, young Gallup?  I believe I saw him once.  He's making quite a
name for himself I hear, his maiden speech was in all the papers.  By
the way though, I _did_ hear of him the other day in a letter I had
from Miss Mary.  They'd all been to dine at the House of Commons with
him, and had no end of a time."

"Well I _am_ damned!" said Willets.

He said it seriously, almost devoutly, and Reggie turned right round to
stare at him.

"I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure, but I really was fairly
flabbergasted."

He stood up sturdy and respectful in a patch of moonlight, and his keen
brown eyes raked Reggie's as though they would read his very soul.

It wasn't an easy soul to read, and Reggie knew that Willets had
something on his mind, so he waited.

"I beg your pardon, sir," Willets said again.  He had never got over
the feeling that Reggie was one of the young gentlemen, and that it
behoved him to be careful of his language in front of him.

Reggie Peel laughed.  "Look here, Willets," he said, "what's your
objection?  Why shouldn't they go to the House of Commons to dine with
Gallup if it amuses them?"

"I don't know, sir, I'm sure, but I was took aback.  An' in a small
place like this it's certain to make talk.  That old Miss Gallup, now,
she'll be boasting everywhere that our Miss Mary went to dine with her
nephew, just as she did when he went to a dinner party up at the house,
and for us as _belongs_ to the house--well, we don't relish it.  I
hope, sir," Willets went on in quite a different tone, "that you'll
make it convenient to go up and see after Miss Mary?"

The hawk's eyes were fixed unwinkingly on Reggie's face, so lean and
sallow and set; the moonlight accentuated the rather hollow cheeks.
and cast black shadows round his eyes, which looked green and sinister.

Suddenly he smiled, and when Reggie smiled, his whole face altered.

"Out with it, Willets," he said, "what maggot have you got in your head
now?  You're worried about something; you may as well tell me.  I'm
safe as a church."

"I'd like to know, sir," Willets remarked in a detached impersonal
tone, "what's your opinion of mixed marriages?"

"_What_ sort of marriages?"

"Well marriages where one of the parties has had a different bringing
up to the other.  Now suppose, sir--do you know Miss Shipway--over to
Marlehouse; her father's got that big shop top of the market-place full
of bonnets and mantles and such--good-looking girl she is----"

"I'm afraid I don't know the lady, Willets; why?"

"Well, sir, it's this way.  She'll have a tidy bit of money when old
Shipway dies; her mother was cook at the Fleece, but they've got on.
Well now, sir, suppose you was to go after Miss Shipway-----"

Reggie's eyes twinkled.  "It might be a most sensible proceeding on my
part--a poor devil like me--if as you say she's a nice girl and will
have a lot of money.  Will you give me an introduction?"

"I'm not jokin', sir, nor taking the liberty to propose anything of the
sort; it's only----"

"A hypothetical case?"

"That's it, sir.  I mean suppose a gentleman like yourself was to marry
a girl like her, do you think you'd be happy?"

"Surely it would all depend on whether they liked each other--and liked
the same things----"

"Ah, sir, that's it.  _Would_ you like the same things, do you suppose?"

"Well, Willets, I don't see that you've any cause to worry.
Unfortunately I don't know the young lady, so I can't see how I'm to
get any forrader."

"Suppose, sir, a young _lady_, like what the Mistress was, should marry
a man in quite a different rank from herself, do you think _they'd_ be
happy?"

"It depends," said Reggie, "what sort of a chap he was.  People rise,
you know."

"Well, suppose he did, would they happy?"

"I couldn't say, Willets, I'm sure.  Is it any particular young lady
you're worried about?"

 Willets sat down on the wall.  "In my time,"
he said slowly, "I've seen a good bit; and all I have seen, seems to me
to show that it's safest for ladies and gentlemen to stick to their own
class.  But I thought I'd like to have your opinion, sir."

For five minutes they sat in silence, then Willets remarked, "And you
think you'll be going up to town next week, sir?"

"I think so.  I shall try anyway."

"Would you be so good, sir, as to say to General Grantly that he'd
better not put off much longer if he wants the best of the fishing."

"I'll be sure and tell him, Willets.  I suppose we must go to bed.
Many thanks for the splendid sport.  I have to get back to Chatham
to-morrow, worse luck, and with the Sunday trains it takes a deuce of a
time."

"Good-night, sir, I'm glad you managed to come, even though it was for
but one night."

Reggie let himself in very quietly and went up to his room.

He lit his pipe and went to the window to smoke it.

The moonlight was so brilliant that he drew a letter from his pocket
and read it easily:

"Dear Reggie," it ran, "yours was a lovely long letter.  I'm glad you
rescued poor Clara, and you needn't be afraid of me selling papers or
carrying sandwich boards.  I'm much too busy having a lovely time.  Oh
_never_ have I had such a time, but I grieve to tell you that both
Ganpy and I are very shocked at the behaviour of Grannie.  She is
having an outrageous flirtation with young Mr Gallup, our member.  It's
all very well for her to say she is forming him.  She is undermining
all his most cherished principles, and if his nonconformist
constituents hear of his goings on I don't believe they'll ever have
him again.

"She has taught him auction: he played with her last _Sunday_ afternoon
because it was too wet to be out in the garden.  She has sent him to
lots of plays: he came with us one night to the Chocolate Soldier; she
talks politics to him by the hour and demolishes his pet theories.  She
tells him that he has, up to now, thought so many things wrong that he
can't possibly have any sense of proportion, or properly discriminate
what really matters and what doesn't; and she is so brisk and masterful
and delightfully amusing--you know Grannie's way--that the poor young
man doesn't know whether he's on his head or his heels, and simply
follows blindly wherever that reckless woman leads.  He gave a dinner
for us in the House the other night and got Ganpy a seat in the
Stranger's Gallery.  He couldn't get us into the Ladies' Gallery
because of the silly rule about only wives and sisters or near
relations made since the suffragette fusses, but he showed us all about
and it was simply fascinating.  Of course Grannie met lots of members
she knew, and we enjoyed ourselves awfully.  We are going to tea on the
Terrace next week.  The dance at the Shop was ripping, and you needn't
think I only danced with cadets.  I danced with majors and colonels,
and a beautiful captain in the Argyle and Sutherland, but I've come to
the conclusion that the jolliest thing is to be Ganpy's wife on these
occasions.  You never saw such court as gets paid to Grannie.  She
never has a dull minute.

"Grantly went home on Sat. just for the night, and he says it's all too
beautiful for words.  Sometimes I feel wicked to be missing it, and I
get homesick for mother and the children; but I do enjoy it all.  When
are you coming up to play about too?  You stern, industrious young man."

Reggie folded the letter and put it back in his pocket.

"So that's what old Willets was driving at," he thought.  He leaned out
again to shake the ash out of his pipe.  In the far east there was a
pearly streak.  "Daylight," he muttered, "--and by Jove I see it."




CHAPTER XXV

"MEN'S MEAL, FIRST CALL"

Mrs Grantly was interested in Eloquent.  He was quite unlike any of the
innumerable young men she had had to do with before.  His simplicity
and directness appealed to her; she admired his high seriousness even
while she seemed to deride it, and though violently opposed to his
party, she shared that party's belief in his political future.

The General shook his head; not over what he and Mary called "Grannie's
infatuation for Mr Gallup," but over the possible results of this
friendliness and intimacy to Mr Gallup.  For the General saw precisely
the same possibilities that Mr Ffolliot had seen, and didn't like what
he saw one whit better than did the Squire.

Eloquent never saw Mary alone.  Generally he was wholly taken
possession of by Mrs Grantly, or such friends of hers as would be
bothered with him.  Yet his golden dream was with him continually, and
in the dear oasis of his fancy he walked in an enchanted garden with
Mary.  In his waking moments, his sane practical moments, he would
realise that it was sheer absurdity to imagine that she ever could care
for him.  He did not expect her to care, but--and here he drifted
across the desert of plain possibilities into the merciful mirage of
things hoped for--if she would condescend to let him serve her, he
might take heart of grace.

He watched her carefully.

It did not seem to him that there was anybody else.  There were crowds:
crowds of dreadful, well-dressed, good-looking, cheerful men, who
chaffed and laughed and quaffed any drinks that happened to be going;
but he did not fear the enemy in battalions, and so far it appeared
that her besiegers always attacked in companies.

Sometimes he was sure that she knew how he felt, and was trying in
gentle, delicately pitiful ways to show him that it was of no use.
Then again he would dismiss this thought as absurd and conceited.  How
should Mary know?  How could she try to show him she didn't care when
he had never shown her that he did?  How could he show her?

It was this desire to show her, this hope of familiarising her with the
idea that caused Eloquent to resort to every possible place where he
might see her.  He went down to Woolwich as often as decency would
permit, which wasn't often.  He inundated Mrs Grantly with invitations
to the House, and he haunted the theatres, generally in vain, in the
hope of seeing her at the play.  He would often reflect bitterly how
easy things were for the young shopman in these matters.  He met his
girl and took her for a walk, and no one thought any the worse of
either of them.  There was none of this nerve-racking, heartrending
uncertainty, this difficulty of access, this sense of futility, in
their relations.

Of the many mysterious attributes of the "classes," there was none to
be so heartily deplored as their entire success in secluding their
young women, while apparently they gave them every possible opportunity
for amusement of all kinds.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Reggie went down to Woolwich once while Mary was with her grandparents,
but it was not, from her point of view, a very satisfactory visit.
Reggie was grumpy, and looked very tired and overworked.  Moreover,
Mary, though she could not have confessed it for the world, was just a
trifle hurt that he never reminded her of that last ride together.

Just as he was leaving on the Sunday night, and they were all in the
garden, he walked with her a little way down a winding path that hid
them from the others, saying abruptly--

"Shall I let you know directly if they are going to send me to the
Shiny?"

"Of course I should like to know, but . . .  India is a long way off,
Reggie, why do you want to go so far?"

"Because, my dear, it means work and promotion, and one's chance, and
lots of things; one being quite decent pay.  Besides, I like India, I
shall be glad to go back, if . . ."

They had followed the path, and it led them out to the lawn again,
where the others were standing.  He didn't finish his sentence--

"Say you want me to get out there, Mary."

"Of course I want you to go if you really wish it."

"I'll let you know then.  I shall know myself early in July, I
fancy . . . perhaps I'll run down to Redmarley; you'll be back then?"

They joined the others; Reggie made his farewells and left.

Mary went and took her grandfather's arm, and made him walk round the
garden with her.  She developed an intelligent interest in geography,
and made searching inquiries as to the healthiness of India generally.

It was comforting to walk arm and arm with grandfather.  She didn't
know why, but she felt a little frightened, a little homesick.  How
clearly one can see some people's faces when they are not there.  What
unusual eyes Reggie had, so green in some lights.  He was looking
dreadfully thin, poor boy, downright ill he looked, and yet everyone
said he was very strong.  No one else shook hands quite like Reggie: he
had nice hands, strong and gentle; thin, but not hard and nubbly.  Why
is a summer night often so sad?  Night-scented stock has a sad smell,
though it is so sweet.  He shouldn't work so hard.  He was overdoing
it.  Surely if he went to India they'd give him some leave . . . it
might be years before he came back.  Three years he was away once.

Mary clasped both her hands over her grandfather's arm.  "I do love you
so, Ganpy," she said; "there's nobody like you in the world, no one at
all."

The General smiled in the twilight, and pressed the arm in his against
his side.  He said nothing at all, yet Mary felt vaguely comforted.

In the beginning of July she went back to Redmarley, and everyone was
very glad to see her again.  One Saturday morning when the Squire and
Mrs Ffolliot had started in the victoria to lunch with neighbours on
the other side of Marlehouse, Mary called Parker and went to walk in
the woods.  It was a grey morning, warm and sunless and still.  She
wandered about quite aimlessly.  She was restless and unsettled, and
had a good deal to think over.

Just before she left Woolwich, Eloquent Gallup had called one afternoon
when both the General and Mrs Grantly were out; but he asked boldly for
Mary.  She was at home, and he was shown into the cool, shady garden,
where she was lying in a hammock reading a novel.

This was Eloquent's chance and he took it.  He did not stay long.  He
left before tea, but during the time he did stay he contrived to let
Mary see . . . what it must be confessed she had already suspected.  He
said nothing definite.  He was immensely distant in his reverence, but
a much humbler girl than Mary could hardly have mistaken his meaning.
He was so pathetically diffident it was impossible to snub him, and she
had no desire to snub him.  Always she was immensely sorry for
him--why, she did not know.

He was plain.  He was insignificant.  He was not a gentleman by birth,
but he was--and Mary's standard was fairly high--so far as she could
see, a thorough gentleman in feeling and in action.  Moreover, he had
ability, and an immense capacity for hard work, both of them qualities
that appealed to Mary.

So she allowed herself to dally vaguely with the idea.  It was very
pleasant to be set in a shrine; to be worshipped; to be served in a
prayerful attitude of adoration.  To be able by a kind word, a kind
glance, to raise a fellow creature to a dizzy height of happiness.  How
could anyone be unkind to that excellent little man?  Suppose . . .
this was a daring supposition, and Mary grew hot all over as she
entertained it--suppose, in the dim and distant future, when
Reggie . . .  Reggie had never written after he went back to Chatham,
nothing had happened then about India; but suppose he did go for years
and years, and forgot her . . . perhaps he had never wanted to remember
her in that particular way, and she had magnified quite little things
that meant nothing at all. . . .  Suppose she ultimately, years hence,
could bring herself to marry Mr Gallup.  How angry her father would be!
But that was a prospective contingency that only amused Mary.  He would
be angry whoever she married.  He would be exceedingly angry if she got
engaged to . . . that young man at Chatham who was so taciturn and
neglectful . . . who didn't seem to want to get engaged to anyone.
Clara Bax said it would be dreadfully dull to marry anyone you'd known
all your life.  Would it?  Clara Bax said it would be tiresome in the
extreme to marry anybody.  But about that Mary was not sure.

Westminster is certainly the nicest part of London; there are bits of
it that remind one of Redmarley.  It would be pleasant to be rich and
important, and feel that you are helping to pull the wires that control
destinies; helping to make history.  Ah, that was what Reggie called
it.  He would do it.  She was sure of that; but Reggie's wife would
have no hand in it.

With clear intuition she saw that of these two men, only one could be
influenced by his wife in anything that concerned his work.  Reggie's
wife would be outside all that.  Eloquent's wife, _if she were the
right woman_, would share everything: and at that moment Parker began
to bark, and Mary found that she had walked into a part of the wood
called the Forty Firs, and that Eloquent Gallup was standing right on
the very same spot, where seven months ago she had assisted him to rise
from a puddle.

Parker didn't like Eloquent upright a bit better than he had liked
Eloquent prone, and he made a great yapping and growling and bouncing
and skirmishing around about the two of them, until he finally subsided
into suspicious sniffing at Eloquent's ankles.

"Has Parliament risen then?" Mary asked, when she had soothed Parker to
quiescence.

"No, Miss Ffolliot, I came down"--Eloquent's eyes were fixed hungrily
on her face, and she noticed that his was nothing like so round as it
used to be, and that he was very pale--"because I couldn't keep away."

Mary said nothing.  There seemed nothing to say.

"Miss Ffolliot," Eloquent said again, "I think you must know why I have
come down, what I feel about you, what I have felt about you since the
first minute I saw you in this very place, when I was so ridiculous and
you so beautiful and kind.  I have travelled a good way since then, but
I know that in caring for you as I do I am still ridiculous, and it is
only because you are so beautiful and kind, although you are so far
above me, that I dare to tell you what I feel . . . but I would like
your leave to think about you.  Somehow, without it, it seems an
impertinence, and, God knows, no man ever felt more worship for a woman
than I feel for you.  Do you give me that leave?"

Mary was very much touched, very much shaken.  Eloquent's power lay in
his immense earnestness.  She no longer saw him small and insignificant
and common.  She saw the soul of him, and recognised that it was a
great soul.  For one brief moment she wondered if she could . . .

Through the woods rang the notes of a bugle.  Ger was playing "Come to
the cook-house door."  Mary's heart seemed to leap up and turn right
over.

"Come to the cook-house door" is not by any means one of the most
beautiful of the bugle sounds of the British Army.  It is rather jerky
at the best of times, and as performed by Ger it was wheezy as well.
But for Mary just then it was a clear call to consciousness.

Pity and sympathy and admiration are not love: and Mary knew it, and in
that moment she became a woman.

Eloquent had taken her hand, taken it with a respect and gentleness
that affected her unspeakably.  She gave a little sob.  She did not try
to draw it away.  "Oh dear," she sighed, "I am so sorry, for it's all
no use," and the tears ran down her cheeks.

Eloquent lifted her hand and kissed it.

"Don't cry, my dear," he said, "don't cry.  I'm glad I've known you and
loved you. . . ."

Again through the woods there rang that "first call" so dear to the
heart of Ger.

"Good-bye, Mr Gallup, I mustn't stay . . . try to forgive me, and . . ."

"Forgive," Eloquent repeated scornfully, "what have I to forgive?
_That_ is for you."

Mary turned and walked swiftly away, and Eloquent watched her till she
was out of sight.

Parker kept close at her side, but every now and then he jumped up and
tried to lick her face.  Parker knew all was not right with Mary and he
was uneasy.

Mary knew full well that it was to no comfortable cook-house door that
Ger had summoned her.  That wheezy bugle called her to the outposts of
the world; to a life of incessant acerbating change, where there was no
certainty, no stability, no sweet home peace, or that proud fixity of
tenure that is the heritage of those who own the land on which they
live.  She had no illusions.  Not in vain had she lived with her
grandmother at Woolwich and heard the lamentations of the officers'
wives when plans were changed at the last moment, and the fair prospect
of a few years at home was blotted out by the inexorable orders for
foreign service.  And the Sappers were worst of all, for except at a
very few stations they hadn't even a mess, and there was not the
friendly fellowship of "the Regiment" to count upon.

The yard was quite deserted, for the men had gone to dinner.  She
paused at the gate and looked long and lovingly at the clustering
chimneys, and lichened, grey-green roofs she loved: and as she looked a
new sound broke the stillness.  Three loud reports and then the
touf-touf, spatter-dash-spatter-dash of a motor bicycle.

Mary opened the gate, went through, shut it behind her and leant
against it, for her knees were as water.

The noise came on, it passed the house, turned into the back drive,
came round, and someone in overalls, covered with dust from head to
foot, swept into the deserted yard; saw Mary, pulled up short, and
pushed the bike against a wall.

This dusty person tore off his goggles.  It was Captain Reginald Peel,
R.E., and he came across the yard towards her.

"Hullo, Mary," he said, "I told you I'd let you know whenever I heard.
The A.A.G.'s a brick, I'm going to India.  Marching orders came last
night."

Mary's lips trembled and her voice died in her throat.  Reggie took out
a large silk handkerchief and mopped his dusty face.

He came on towards her and took both her hands.

"Mary," he said, "can you leave all this?  Can you face it?  Will you
come with me and help me to build bridges and make roads and dig
drains. . . .  Will you come so that we can have the rest of our
lives . . . together?"

They looked straight into one another's eyes.

"I will," said Mary, and she said it as solemnly as if she were
repeating a response in the Marriage Service.

Reggie loosed one of her hands.  Again he polished his face.

"I should like awfully to kiss you," he said, "but I'm so fearfully
dusty--do you mind?"

"I think," said Mary, with a queer choky laugh, "that I'd rather like
it."

And just at that moment Willets appeared at a gate leading from the
garden.  He didn't see them, and opened the gate, which squeaked
abominably, came through and let it shut with a clang, but they,
apparently, heard nothing.

Willets stood transfixed, for he saw the motor-bike and the dusty young
man in overalls, and clasped close in the arms of the said dusty young
man was Miss Mary!

Willets gave one quick glance, smote his hands softly together, and
turned right round with his back to them.  He leaned on the gate and
gazed steadfastly into the distant garden.  It was a squeaky gate, that
gate.  If he opened it, it might disturb them, and bless you, they were
but young, and one is only young once.

So kindly Willets stared, with eyes that were not quite so keen as
usual, at the bit of garden he could see; and there, delphiniums were
blooming.  The sun came out just at that moment, and they looked
particularly blue and tall and splendid.

It seemed to Willets that he admired those delphiniums for hours and
hours, but it was really only a few minutes till he heard a rather
husky voice behind him saying, "It's all right, Willets, you may turn
round and congratulate us."

And there they were both standing "as bold as brass" he said
afterwards, and the delphiniums he had just been studying so closely
were not as blue as Mary's eyes.