Part 4

The voice was glad and frank, though its habit of command was unmistakable. Every gesture bespoke authority and arrogance of body. Even in this moment of geniality, "Obedience and no explanations" was written all over him. He was a man who believed his acceptable importance to be a verity established beyond the pale of challenge. Yet there was something lacking--a sureness of refinement, a last considerateness. With the first word he had spoken, Tabs had detected that he wasn't quite the part.

Terry had hurried forward to meet him. She was saying something in a voice so subdued that it did not carry. She had so contrived their grouping--or was it an accident?--that the General's face was hidden.

Tabs waited, then turned to Prentys, "My taxi-man's getting impatient. Will you give my thanks to the General for his kindness and make the explanations?---- And I hope that your wrist will soon be better."

He had given the driver his address and was stepping into the taxi, when he heard Terry's voice, "Why, you're running away! You mustn't go without meeting the General. General Braithwaite, I want to introduce you to Lord Taborley, of whom I've spoken to you so often."

Tabs limped back to the pavement and found the General regarding him intently. "I'm glad to make Lord Taborley's acquaintance," he said formally. And then to Terry, "You didn't tell me that it was for Lord Taborley you were borrowing my car."

Before Terry could reply, Tabs was answering for her, "Then I have to apologize to you, sir, as well as to thank you. But we've used the same car often, haven't we? In fact, I'm certain that we've met many times."

"Never to my knowledge." The General drew himself up stiffly. "You mistake me. It's the first time I've had the pleasure."

The two tall men stood glooming at each other. Tabs had it on the tip of his tongue to say something more, but glanced at Terry and thought better of it. Instead he addressed her, "Do I drive you home?"

The General interrupted. "It'll be out of your way. I'm going right past Miss Beddow's house."

For the first time since they had been introduced Terry came between their hostility. "How did you know where Lord Taborley lived and that it would be out of his way? You said that this was the first time you had met him."

Tabs refused to make her the witness of a quarrel. "Since General Braithwaite knows where I live, perhaps he will call and explain that to me later. I can't keep my cab waiting longer--are you riding with me, Terry?"

She avoided his eyes. "With the General." And then, "You won't forget that you're dining to-night with father?"

"To-night. At seven-thirty, I suppose, as usual?"

"At seven-thirty."

He raised his hat. As he drove away he felt compelled to look back just once to assure himself. He caught the General's features in full sunlight; he had not been mistaken.

"So that's why my letters to him weren't returned, and that's why he didn't write! He's gone farther than far with a vengeance." He clenched his fists and frowned savagely at his crippled leg. "I felt so sure of her--and to have to compete with my own valet!"

CHAPTER THE SECOND

RETRIEVERS OF YOUTH

I

The taxi had scarcely drawn up before a small, prim house in Brompton Square when the door was opened by a neat maid in immaculate cap and apron. She was so neat and respectful as to appear almost passionless. She had the high complexion of a Country girl, good gray eyes, a slim, attractive figure and dark, wavy hair which escaped rebelliously from beneath her cap. One wondered how she looked in her off-duty moments, when she wasn't saying, "Yes, your Lordship" and "No, your Lordship." Tabs mustered a smile and called to her, "Thank you, Ann. I'll be with you in a moment."

As he paid the fare, he let his eyes wander. The outside of the house had been painted white, evidently in honor of his home-coming. The work had been only recently completed, for the chalked warning on the pavement was not yet obliterated, "Wet Paint Beware." He had given no orders; it was Ann's doing--her accustomed, tactful thoughtfulness. The steps were speckless as a newly laundered shirt, the brasses polished to the brilliancy of precious metal. His window-boxes---- He glanced along the fronts of his neighbors' houses; they hadn't put theirs out yet. His were ahead of everybody's; they made a cheerful splash of red, with their soldierly upstanding tulips, above the long serried line of area-railings. Again Ann's doing! And the snow-white curtains behind each row of panes were also Ann's.

The driver clicked his "For Hire" sign into the upright position and chugged away to join the flow of traffic which thumped orchestrally past the end of the Square. Tabs climbed the three low steps separately; he had been used to take them at a bound. He tried to climb them slowly as though from choice, and not from necessity. He was very conscious that Ann was watching. As she closed the door behind him he said, "So you knew I was coming? You received my telegram?"

"Yes, your Lordship."

"I was sorry I couldn't tell you the exact hour. I didn't know it myself. I hope you didn't trouble to prepare lunch."

"It was no trouble, your Lordship."

"Then you've managed to get some one in the kitchen? They tell me that all the cooks have become bus-conductresses or lady-secretaries."

"I did, your Lordship. My sister--the one who lost her husband at Mons. I thought you wouldn't object----"

He cut her short. "Ann, you know I never object; you never need to go into details. Whatever you've done is right. From what I've seen already you've done splendidly."

Under his praise she flushed and became a little less the servant. "I was afraid you might think I'd taken too much upon myself, what with the flower-boxes and having the house repainted. I wanted to have things nice for your Lordship after----" She hesitated for a word, and then burst out, "After all the dirt and beastliness! Your Lordship ought never to have gone in the ranks, begging your pardon; you weren't fitted for it. You ought to have gone as a General. Then you wouldn't have come home with that poor leg and----" She saw him wince and changed the subject. "But about doing things without orders, I knew that if Braithwaite--if Braithwaite----" Her voice sagged and her eyes misted over. At last Tabs saw how she looked in her off-duty moments, when she wasn't occupied with being respectful. The sudden memory came back of intuitions he had had that she and his valet might one day marry. From time to time he had twitted them on their fondness, taking an idle pleasure in forwarding the match. And Braithwaite had kissed her before he marched away. Ridiculous to remember it now! It signified nothing. People in their station kissed when they felt kindly, and on that occasion they had had an epoch-making pretext.

Her eyes were searching his with a hungry wistfulness. "What I was meaning, your Lordship, was that if he had been spared, he'd have done things on his own and gone ahead, the same as he always did. So I, seeing as how he wasn't----"

Tabs touched her shoulder gently. "It's all right, Ann. I appreciate your motives. I'm glad you went ahead. But you haven't shaken hands yet."

He glanced in at the dining-room before he went upstairs. The table was spread for dinner. Cut flowers were standing about in vases. The very silver had a festive shine.

"Again I have to be sorry," he told her. "I'm dining with Sir Tobias Beddow."

"And Miss Terry," she inquired, "is she well?"

When he went to climb the narrow stairs she refused to permit him to carry his bag. He guessed the reason--that he might be freer to support himself by the rail of the banisters. On the first small landing, which looked out at the back on to the Oratory and the graveyard of the Parish Church, there were still more flowers. When he reached his bedroom, three flights up, he found that his evening clothes had been all laid out and just as carefully as if Braithwaite--the old Braithwaite whom he had loved--had been there before him.

As she unpacked his bag, opening and closing drawers, "I shall have to look round for another valet," he said.

"Please don't." Her tone was sharp with earnestness.

Tabs felt sorry for her. She, too, like all the world was wanting the thing that she could never have. He wondered whether it wouldn't be kinder to tell her and let her know the worst. "But sha'n't I, Ann?"

With simple pathos, which was the more touching because it was so unconscious, she clasped her hands, "He might come back. He was never reported. My letters were returned unopened. I've not given over hoping. I shouldn't like him to find that your Lordship---- If he found another man in his place, he might feel like he hadn't been wanted. Me and sister can manage----"

"But----"

He got no further, for her eyes were meeting his with an appeal that was desperate. "A strange man--his ways would be different. He'd make one know that everything--everything was ended."

She glanced hurriedly round for a last time to make sure that there was nothing she had omitted--collar, tie, silk socks, dress-shoes, shaving-water, razor. "I'll be listening for the bell in case there's anything that I've forgotten, sir."

With that she closed the door between himself and her emotion. As she rustled discreetly down the stairs, he thought he heard a sound of sobbing.

II

It was too early to dress--not five o'clock yet. He made an estimate of the time he had to spare. If he walked across the Park to Sir Tobias Beddow's, that would take him from a half to three-quarters of an hour. At the earliest he wouldn't have to leave the house till six-thirty. So he had the best part of two hours during which to think out his line of conduct and to dress. At dinner he would meet Terry--how would she act? And what was the right thing for him to do as her family's trusted friend? He felt very tired. It took a tremendous lot out of one pretending to other people that one wasn't tired. He was ashamed to have to own to himself how quickly nowadays he could use up his physical reserves. For the moment there was no one to watch him; he stretched himself out at full length on the couch.

He was glad to be back in this friendly house with its narrow stairways and endearing littleness; it had been his American mother's before him. Within its walls were the exquisite traces of a temperament and taste that had been hers. She hadn't always been a great lady; to the end of her days there had remained with her the love of small things which one finds in nun-like New England towns. There had been times when the ostentation and entertaining at Taborley House had become too much for her; this nest of refuge had been her secret--her place of retreat where she had regarnered her sincerities. She had loved the Square's old-fashioned primness, its tininess, its unchanging atmosphere of rest. It was scarcely invaded by the strum of London. In the cloud of greenness which drifted above its communal garden, one could still listen to the country sounds of birds. At the back gray religion spoke in the tolling bell of the Parish Church; through Sabbath stillnesses one could catch the pealing of the organ in the Oratory and the mutter of worshipers at prayer. Tabs had kept the house as she had left it. It was something faithful to which to return, however much he failed in the search for his kingdom and however far he wandered.

However much he failed! This first day of freedom had been anything but successful. He felt as though every hope that he had had had been blotted out; that morning he had had no plan for the future which had not included Terry. What would be the upshot? Would Braithwaite accept his challenge to visit him? If he did, what then? He, Tabs, couldn't very well ask his ex-valet, merely because he was his ex-valet, to desist from loving the same girl. He had no doubt that Braithwaite, in his new incarnation as a General, did dare to love her. He had little doubt that Terry had shown herself at least susceptible to the glamor of his infatuation. How far had the matter gone between them? There lay the guess.

He searched back, trying to piece together phrases which would indicate the correct answer. There was her disturbing confession about having given away bits of herself, little bits of herself in wrong directions. There was her reticence as to the ownership of the car and the way in which she had tried to prevent a meeting. There was her sympathy for Maisie's matrimonial excesses; her unnatural tolerance for Adair; her reiterated excuse for the current love-madness, that people had the right at any cost to be happy; and the eagerness with which she had seized on his own words, "to recover our lost years by violence." In the silence of his brain he heard her voice pleading, urgent with pain and underlying terror, "Don't you see why I don't condemn? I'm sorry for you, for myself, for everybody." His knowledge of the world told him that impassioned latitudinarians were most frequently found among those who had themselves offended the conventions. Whatever Terry knew or did not know, she was certainly aware that a match between herself and General Braithwaite was completely off the map and would be regarded by every one who counted as a _mésalliance_.

And what did she know? Not that Braithwaite had been a valet--most decidedly not that he had been _his_ valet; at most she suspected that they had been acquainted when Braithwaite had moved in humbler circles. Had she been possessed of the exact truth, she would never have borrowed a car from that quarter to meet her ex-lover on his home-coming. She had been testing--trying to discover. She had scented a mystery--one for the solving of which none of the General's explanations had proved convincing. Then had come the unforeseen encounter outside the War Office and Braithwaite's falsehood, which even Terry had detected. "You mistake me. It's the first time I've had the pleasure." What was the man's game? Did he hope to erase his old identity? Did he think----

At this point Tabs' patience broke down. "Dash it all," he muttered, "if there hadn't been a war, the fellow would have been running my bath-water at this moment."

If there hadn't been a war! But there had; and this was only one of the many preposterous situations which had resulted from it. Terry was right in at least one thing that she had said--the world was upside down and walking on its head.

As he lay there thinking, with the topmost branches of the trees in the Square weaving a tracery of green shadows against his windows, a sudden inspiration came to him. He sat up. "By Jove, I've got it. Terry's proud as Lucifer. I can stop this nonsense at any time by telling her who her lover was. Braithwaite will have to call to see me; I can force him to it. When he calls, the door will be opened by Ann. I can hold the threat over him that, if he doesn't promise to break with Terry, I'll expose him."

He went across to his writing-table, selected a pen and wrote:--

_General Braithwaite, The War Office, Whitehall, London.

Sir:

I shall be pleased to see you any time to-morrow at my house in Brompton Square, which you know so well. The matter which we have to discuss is urgent.

Yours truly, Taborley._

He addressed the envelope, sealed it and rang the bell. When Ann appeared, he handed it to her. "Please see that it's posted immediately."

He had done something decisive. For the time being he felt happier. "Nothing like getting a thing off your chest!" He took a bath and, having slipped into his dressing-gown, commenced to shave. Between these acts he whistled snatches of street-songs to prove to himself his genuine light-heartedness. It was while he was drying his razor that he started on the wrong air. Where had he heard it? Oh, yes, the sunlit street, the children dancing and a voice at his side murmuring the words of the refrain, "Après la Guerre, there'll be a good time everywhere."

The old argument commenced again, but with a new justice. "What have I really got against this chap? To rise from a private to a General is no crime; it's to his credit. We all had his chance and some of us had more influence; yet he got there."

He tried to eliminate his own desires and wounded pride from the problem. For five years he had been nothing and had been glad to be nothing, that the cause which he believed to be righteous might triumph by his self-effacement. What sickness of soul had overtaken him that, on this, his first day of freedom, he had immediately surrendered to this orgy of outrageous selfishness? It was Terry that mattered and only Terry. The stronghold of her happiness was threatened by Braithwaite's lie. There was a kingdom for everybody, his old theory. As for himself, if he had been mistaken and his kingdom was not Terry, then he must press on, for it lay further up the road round some newer turning. Meanwhile, at whatever cost to himself he must rescue Terry's happiness.

His heroic state of mind lasted no longer than it takes to set down. He was demanding too much of his exhausted capacity for self-abnegation. He was starving for her. His old hunger to win her swept over him ravenously. Only by winning her could his lost youth be regained.

III

He had almost completed dressing when there came a tap at the door. Finishing what he was doing in front of the mirror, he answered, "Yes, what is it, Ann?"

"Before you go, I should like to speak with your Lordship."

"Is it important? I've not got too much time."

"It's--it's something to do with myself."

"All right. Half a second."

On opening the door, he saw at once that her face was disturbed.

"What is it?"

"It's something to do with him, sir."

"With whom?"

"With Braithwaite."

It was evident that for Ann there was only one _him_ in the world.

"Well, what of him?"

Ann commenced speaking slowly. Under the stress of her nervousness she forgot the correct demeanor for a high-class parlor-maid and became a country girl, twisting the corner of her white, starched apron in her hands.

"I was noticing the address on that letter your Lordship gave me to post." Tabs thought quickly, "Hullo, we're in for it. That was foolish of me. She's put two and two together."

But Ann reassured him in her next sentence. "It was to a General at the War Office and I was thinking that he might help. Braithwaite and I had an understanding. I'm not saying we were engaged; we weren't. We didn't tell anybody. But we'd made up our minds to get married if he ever came back. If I'd been engaged to him, I'd have a right to make enquiries; but now, in most people's eyes, I was nothing to him. That's--that's the hardest part of it. You see, sir, he was never reported dead or missing or anything. I just stopped hearing from him. So I thought that if this General was your Lordship's friend----"

Tabs' brain had been working. He already had a plan. "You thought that I might persuade him to use his influence to have the records searched?"

She glanced up hopefully. "That's what I was thinking. Would he do it for your Lordship? I don't know how to set about things myself. It's this--this," she almost broke down, "this uncertainty that's a-killing of me. Sister knows about her man, but I----"

Tabs saw the redness of sleeplessness in her eyes; it was true--the uncertainty was killing her. "Don't upset yourself by talking about it," he said kindly. "I'll write to the General and post my request on my way out."

He had supposed he had dismissed her and had seated himself at his desk. A sound behind him warned him; he looked across his shoulder to find her still hovering in the doorway.

She answered his unspoken question as to why she was delaying. "Aren't there any particulars that your Lordship ought to have? Things like his regimental number, and his birthday, and where he was born, and all that? And wouldn't this help?"

"What's that?"

She pulled out from her apron-pocket an envelope. "It's one of his letters. If the General was to see it, he'd know I had the right."

"May I glance through it?"

Tabs unfolded the scribbled sheets of paper. They were torn from an Army note-book.

_"My darling Ann:

The jolly old war drags on and seems as though it were never going to end. Not that I've much to kick about, for it's proved a chance for me. Here's the great news. I'm in for my commission and shall soon be 'an officer and a gentleman.' Don't tell his Lordship if you write to him or see him; he's still in the ranks and might not like it. It's funny to think that I shall be his military superior before many weeks are out and that, were he and I to meet, he'd have to salute me. If I come through the war, I sha'n't go back to being a valet. Once having been a gentleman----"_

Tabs ran rapidly through this sheet and turned to the next:--

_"You're wonderfully good. I got the socks that you knitted and the two parcels of food from Harrods. You mustn't spend so much of your money on me. When it's all ended, I'll pay you back. We'll get married and have a little cottage in a little town, the way the song says that we heard together at the Comedy on my last leave. You remember how it goes.

'And we'll have a little mistress in a silken gown. A little doggie, a little cat, A little doorstep, with WELCOME on the mat.'

"My dearest sweetheart, I love you.

"Yours, in the pink, etc."_

Tabs looked up. "May I keep this for the present?--And, by the way, how many more of them have you?"

"Nearly a hundred from the day he enlisted. That's one of the last--I never heard from him whether he lived to get his commission."

When she had vanished, he reread the letter more carefully, made a copy of it and slipped the copy into another envelope addressed to General Braithwaite, together with a note from himself, which read, "_One of the important reasons why I am insistent that you shall call on me is contained in the enclosed copy of one of your many letters, the originals of all of which are in my possession. To a man of honor it speaks for itself_."

IV