Part 5

At the red pillar-box, at the foot of the Square, he posted this second missive. "He'll receive them both by the first delivery to-morrow," he thought. "I wonder what he'll---- Rotten! But it can't be helped." Then he turned to the right by the Tube Station, going up the narrow old world passage, behind the backs of houses, through the graveyard of the Brompton Parish Church to Ennismore Gardens and the sudden, railed in solitudes of Hyde Park.

There were few pedestrians about. Until he reached the Park they were for the most part men in evening-dress, going to dinner-parties, like himself. Sometimes they were accompanied by their wives or sweethearts, whose little high-heeled shoes made a sharp tap-a-tap against the pavement. Lamps were lighted. The reluctant twilight was gradually fading; the sunset still glowed faintly above clustered chimney-pots to the west. "I'm going to meet Terry," he told himself. "If the day had worked out as I'd planned, I should be going to ask for her hand in marriage---- When I planned that, I still believed that I was young."

Then he thought forward. Sir Tobias, from the moment he entered, would be scheming to get him to himself. Sir Tobias must be avoided. Directly dinner was ended, he would try to hurry him off and imprison him in his library to discuss this Maisie woman and Adair. Still he was going to see Terry; merely to see her was a compensation which stirred his blood.

He crossed the Serpentine, stretching like a phantom lake, rose and slate-colored, through the Peter Pan haunted glades of Kensington Gardens. Then he emerged from the Victoria Gate and found himself ringing a bell and being admitted by a butler, who relieved him of his coat and hat with the velvet-plush manner of a fashionable surgeon feeling a patient's pulse.

"If you will come this way, Sir Tobias is waiting for your Lordship in the library."

It was happening precisely as he had foreseen; it was being taken for granted that he had come as her father's friend, and therefore in some absurd measure as his contemporary.

As he prepared to follow, his attention was attracted by the scarlet band and gold braid about an officer's cap which was lying carelessly on the hall-table beside a pair of dog-skin gloves.

V

Sir Tobias was standing astride the hearth-rug with his back towards the fire. As the door opened, he was caught in a last nervous adjustment of his tie.

He was a little man, inclined to be podgy, brimful of a darting kind of energy and dignified with an air of fussy distinction which none of his antics, however grotesque, could diminish. He was Shakespeare as he might have appeared at sixty, after years and a return to Ann Hathaway had quenched the taller flames of his poetic fire. The resemblance was haunting and remarkable: there underlay it a hint of gnome-like agility. One suspected that he affected age as a disguise. The pointed beard was white; the scanty hair had receded from the calm forehead; the eyes were blue and faded, and red about the rims with over-much study. The top part of the face above the cheek-bones was noble; but the lower part fell away to a mouth and chin which were amiable and undecided. At the hour of Tabs' arrival, he was flinging up his hands and spluttering impotently, an inexpert swimmer in the waters of adversity.

"My dear Lord Taborley! My dear fellow!" The moment he discovered his guest in the doorway he came darting forward. "My dear boy, this is real friendship. We missed you and wanted you so much.--So you're out of it at last? I mean the khaki."

The little, wrinkled hand with its stubby fingers reached up timidly in an attempt to pat the big breadth of shoulders.

"Yes, I'm out of it, Sir Tobias."

Tabs didn't want to be patted. He was impatient of polite evasions. He foresaw that he was expected to spend the next five minutes in replying to questions which required no answers--all this as a conventional preface to a discussion of the delicate position of Adair and Maisie. But Tabs had his own problem, and one question in particular about a hat on the hall-table that he was burning to ask. They stood staring at each other, the big, fair man and the worn version of Shakespeare, both wondering how long it would be decorous to chatter before they clinched with the vital topic.

"May as well sit down. There's time for a cigarette. Terry----" Sir Tobias made a short-winded attempt to push a second arm-chair into place beside the fire; Tabs achieved the desired end with one lurch of his body. "Terry brought some one in to tea; he's not gone yet. They never know when to go, these New Army fellows. Good at their job, they tell me, but no polish. I suppose I oughtn't to say that--ungrateful of me! But I'm sick of it all, the invasion of the classes, the women in trousers, the beggars on horseback, the Jazz music. I want the old world back--the womanly women, everybody labeled, and Beethoven."

He pushed the cigarette-box fretfully across to Tabs, having first selected one for himself.

"Beethoven," he snorted, "that's what I want, and no bobbed hair and everybody happily married."

"This New Army chap who's with Terry," Tabs paused to make his voice unanxious and ordinary, "does she see much of him? Is she fond of him?"

"Fond of him!" The little man jerked round quickly. He was in a mood to see the shadow of terror in the most far-fetched suggestion. "If I thought she was, I should pack her off to Lady Dawn and keep her with her until the fellow was dead or----"

"What's the matter with him?" Tabs flipped the ash off his cigarette indifferently.

"The matter with him!" Sir Tobias pulled at the point of his beard, making a mental effort to frame the charge. "If you'd asked me that question five years ago I could have told you; but not now. In 1914 we spoke of a man as belonging to our class and meant that he had our standards of conduct, our code of honor, our sense of public duty, our traditions--that he could be trusted to run true to form. To-day any man's a gentleman, provided he killed enough Germans."

"But still you do feel that there's something the matter with him."

"Yes, but I can't tell you for the life of me why I feel it. In many ways he's admirable: I believe he's about the youngest brigadier we have who rose from the ranks. There was no hanky-panky about his promotion either--no petticoat influence; it was all sheer merit and courage. He was a fighting-man from first to last and shared all the chances. But the trouble is that one doesn't know where he came from, and, therefore, one can't be sure where he's going. I know that sounds snobbish. You have the right to tell me that if a man was good enough to be butchered to save an old chap like myself, he ought to be good enough to sit down with me at the same table. But what people don't realize is that men have been wounded in protecting old chaps like myself in coal-mines, and on railroads, and a thousand other places ever since the world started, but until now we never felt it necessary to offer them a bed in our houses. War asked for the simplest gifts from men, physical strength, uncomplaining endurance and courage. The war's ended, and if those same gifts are to continue to secure social advancement, every policeman who captures a burglar ought to be made a bank-president. When I demand that a man shall have traditions to be my friend, I ask no more than when I refuse to buy a dog without a pedigree."

"But this man, what's he called? If he's as distinguished as you say, I ought to have heard of him."

Before his host could answer, the door was discreetly opened. "Dinner is being served, Sir Tobias."

There was a rush of light footsteps and Terry breezed past the butler. "I know you're going to scold me, Daddy. It's all my fault that you were kept waiting. It took me so long to persuade General Braithwaite. By the time he'd consented---- I had to dress like a hurricane. I'm not at all sure that I'm properly hooked up the back. I know I feel draughty." Then, as though she had not remembered that he was expected, "Why, hullo, Tabs! In a dinner-jacket! You do look peaceful and jolly."

VI

They had taken their places at the square handsome table, illuminated at each corner by a silver candle-stick, red-shaded and electric-lighted. Tabs and Terry were seated side by side, so that he saw her always in profile, except when she turned to him in conversation. He saw the soft roundness of her shoulder, the satin pallor of her throat and breast, the quivering gold of her childishly wavy hair.

The General sat isolated, opposite and facing them. Sir Tobias and his wife sat at either end--had they known it, for all the world like judges.

Lady Beddow was a proud, unbending woman, gracious to her own sort, unquestioningly respectful to those above her, tender in a practical way to those below her and coldly scrutinizing to any one who tapped at her door claiming to be an equal. Being bred to her finger-tips, she was as ill-at-ease as her husband in the jostling democracy of the moment.

In the hall Sir Tobias rather huffily had introduced his guests. Tabs had relieved the tension by smiling quietly at Braithwaite, "The General and I have met before."

It was an uncomfortable dinner from the moment they sat down. Sir Tobias, although he had shown no signs of it in the library, seemed to have developed a resentment at having been kept waiting. No reference was made to this resentment, but Terry and the General were obviously the culprits. Sir Tobias was vaguely unhappy and had to blame somebody. Under the tacitly implied criticism Terry's rebellious spirits rose higher, but the General's authoritative assurance began to crumble.

Sir Tobias was continuing the conversation which had started in the library. He seemed oblivious to the fact that it had then concerned the man who was now present. "You can't make the world afresh with a catastrophe. Men are like water: in a storm they rise above or sink below themselves. When the disturbance is ended, they tend to find their own level. War destroys; it never created anything."

"That's not true, if you'll excuse me for contradicting you. You're speaking without knowledge." Braithwaite uttered himself bluntly as he would have done in his own Headquarters' mess--this despite the fact that it was Tabs whom his host had been addressing.

In his astonishment, Sir Tobias nearly gagged himself with the soup that he was on the point of swallowing. He blinked mildly at this confident young man, his breast ablaze with decorations, whom he had not invited. "Then, in your opinion, what has war ever created," he asked with dangerous courtesy; "this war, for instance, that's just ended?"

"This war that's just ended is the only war of which I have had any experience." Braithwaite glanced across at Terry for encouragement. "I know what it created in me and in thousands like me. It created in us the most valuable of all assets--character. In the bitter test of pain and dirt and despair we _found_ ourselves--found ourselves capable of more nobility than we had ever dreamt possible. We sorted out afresh, in hours that we thought would be our last, all our inherited superstitions and servilities; in so doing we discovered that God and life itself are much kinder than we had been informed. Because of that discovery men who had been timid learnt how to face death gladly, shirkers how to shoulder responsibility, selfish people how to become decent through the fine humanity of sharing. Time-servers learnt how to get up off their bellies and confront misfortune with a laugh. I don't know whether I make myself clear; perhaps one had to be a part of the great game to understand its lessons. That we do understand them is the reward of those who have survived. We've come back to you as uncomfortable fellows; we shall be much more uncomfortable before we're satisfied. We intend to fight for the same equalities in peace that you sent us out to fight for in war. You asked me what this particular war has created; it has created a complete new set of social and spiritual values. It's done away with the uncharity of caste."

During his last words he had been gazing across the table at Tabs with a fearless challenge, as much as to say, "That's who I am. Now expose me."

But Tabs was remembering the coster's reason for not having dragged him into the police-courts, "Served in the ranks, did yer? Then you and me was pals out there!" Braithwaite, whether he knew it or not, had been doing a piece of special pleading for himself. He and Braithwaite, whatever they might be now, had been pals out there. Silently Tabs had been thinking while he had been listening, "You're right and I'm with you. I'd be with you still more if you'd only live up to your standards by sticking to Ann."

It was Sir Tobias who took the offensive. The soup-plates had been removed and the fish-course had not yet been served. He had the leisure to talk. "You men who have been in the Army," he said testily, "especially those of you who have gained your promotion rapidly, always speak as if the rest of us had been receivers of stolen goods until you put on uniforms. Armies are composed of youth; for most of you it was the first time you had tasted authority. It's gone to your heads; you want to brush experience aside and dragoon the older world into new formations. You, who were civilians yourselves, have come back despising us civilians; your contempt is three-parts fear lest you'll fail, as you failed before, in the old civilian competitive struggle. You talk about the virtues war has taught; let's grant them and grant them gratefully--they saved us from destruction. But what about the frantic recklessness it encouraged, the cheap views of bodily chastity, the desperate insistence on momentary happiness?" At the mention of bodily chastity, Lady Beddow from the other end of the table had stuttered a "tut, tut!" Her husband dodged it, as a boy might dodge a wheelbarrow upset in his path. Without shifting his glance he ran on. "A complete new set of social and spiritual values! Rubbish! War places an excessive premium on merely brutal qualities--muscle, bone, sinew, all the paraphernalia of physical endurance. What use has it got for old fellows of intellectual attainments like myself? It takes the greatest poet, singer, painter, violinist; all it can do with him is to thrust a rifle into his hands. All brains look alike, Michael Angelo's or a rag-picker's, when they're spattered in the mud of a trench. Take Lord Taborley here, for instance--all that military stupidity could do with him was to keep him in the ranks for two years. You can't make me believe in your complete new set of social and spiritual values. A complete unrest and insubordination to time-honored moralities is the legacy of war."

Having delivered himself, he tucked his napkin tighter into his waistcoat and attacked the fish-course, as though by this display of gastronomic energy he could somehow strengthen his argument.

It was clear to Tabs that behind all that Sir Tobias had been saying lay his misery over Maisie and Adair. He saw the world always in the personal equation.

"I agree with most of your statements," the General blundered on. "And yet you're wrong. You miss something. I think it's the vision of the stupendous heroism. You never saw it; you don't want to see it. That you never saw it we can understand; but that you shouldn't want to see it, makes us see red. It was something that we did for you, and you take it all for granted. You cheered us and jeered us into going because you were frightened. You handed us white feathers if we hesitated. You dragged us from our jobs and very often we were poor men, who had no such financial security as was yours. You promised that if we would share our lives with you, you'd go fifty-fifty with us on your financial security. There wasn't time to have deeds of agreement drawn up; we took you at your word. And what a lie it was! Why, I passed a blinded officer in Regent Street to-day peddling shoe-laces. The day before a jobless soldier threw himself beneath a train and his last words were, 'Over the top and the best of luck.' There's a Colonel I see by to-night's paper who's gone back to being a policeman. If you see a man in uniform to-day, your unspoken thought is, 'For God's sake take it off.' I tell you it's all wrong. It's that kind of ingratitude that leads to revolution. You talk about the brutality of war; it's not a patch on the brutality of peace. You treated men's lives as yours while the danger lasted, but you insist that your possessions are your own now that it's been averted."

He took a breath and glanced round.

Tabs was nodding unconscious approval. Terry's face reflected the fire of his own passionate indignation and enthusiasm. The butler in the shadows had turned his back non-committally and was making a pretense of fiddling with the next course. Lady Beddow sat very upright and startled, grasping her knife and fork as though they helped to support her. The only person who was still doing justice to the meal was the worn-out version of Shakespeare, who was responsible for the storm.

The silence seemed to call for a final climax. The ex-valet cleared his throat. And it was to his ex-valet that Tabs listened; he had forgotten the General. It was as though the grimness of reality had interrupted a piece of play-acting. There was less heat in Braithwaite's voice now and more reproach. "You said nothing about caste in those days, when you hurried us to the shambles. You promised us---- What was it that you promised us?"

"A kingdom round the corner," Tabs suggested. The next minute he felt Terry's warm little hand clinging to his own beneath the tablecloth.

Braithwaite stared at Tabs to see whether he were jesting; then smiled in relieved friendship at this proof of comradeship from an unexpected quarter. "Yes, perhaps it was that--a future kindliness, where we should all be men together, neither free nor bond." Then again to his host, "You sent us out there where everything was censored. Scarcely a whisper of the truth reached you. The very war-correspondents were instructed to delete the horror and to write nothing that would disturb your calm. We've come back, what are left of us; we think you ought to know what really happened. It isn't that we take much pleasure in telling you, but we think that if you knew, you might be persuaded to keep at least some of your promises. And what do you do? You reassert your privilege to despise us. You stuff your fingers in your ears and talk about caste, and forgetting the war, and getting back to work. Sir Tobias, I'm afraid I'm being far too personal, but you're a sample of millions who weren't there. You're living in a totally altered world of whose very existence you're content to be unaware. Your complacency drives men like myself to the point of madness. We hold that you have no right to be complacent until the bill you put your hand to has been settled. I don't know how Lord Taborley feels; he's not expressed----"

"Tabs feels exactly the way you do and so do I." It was Terry speaking, like the shrill courage of a bugle answering the slow bass of a trumpet-call. "We're the world that purchased victory--we three, while the rest of the world sat back. It was men like you two who got gassed, and wrenched, and tortured, and girls like myself who patched you up and flirted with you so that we might send you back to the Front cheery--girls like myself who hadn't known love, or children, or anything but a nursery sort of happiness. We three and people like us understand, because we paid the price together."

"Really, Terry, I must confess there are times when you shock me." As Lady Beddow rose from her seat, she was the picture of disapproval. From the door, which the butler held open for her, she glanced back. "I think this discussion has gone _very_ far."

As she swept out, she called across her shoulder, as one might call to a pet dog, "Come, Terry."

VII

But Terry did not come; she sat on tightly, just as if she were a man among men. Until coffee had been served and the room was free from servants, there was a pretense at small-talk in which Sir Tobias did not join. He crouched moodily in his chair, an unlighted cigar between his fingers, looking very old and somehow deserted. With the instinctive tenderness which she always showed when she knew that she had hurt, Terry got up and went to him. She linked her arms about his neck and stooped to kiss the bald-spot on his head. "Cheer up, Daddy dear; it isn't half as bad as it sounded. Don't you want me to light your cigar for you?"

Tabs, to distract attention from the reconciliation, addressed the General. It was odd that he should feel so much sympathy for a man whom his letters, already beyond recall, would stir into panic in the morning. "Do you intend to stay in the Army, sir?"

"No. But why do you ask? They're getting rid of all of us who aren't Regulars, no matter how brilliant our service. They're making the Army again a social club. I shall soon be out of uniform."

"And then?" Tabs persisted.

"Oh, then I shall find something else." He spoke airily, but the shadow which crossed his handsome face added plainly as words, "If I can find anything."

"If it isn't impertinence," Tabs sank his voice, "may I ask what you intend to turn to?"

The General eyed him suspiciously, wondering whether he was again about to lay claim to the previous embarrassing acquaintance. "I have several things in view," he said sketchily, "from which a man in my position ought to be able to choose."

"Ought! But that hasn't been the story up-to-date. What of the Colonel you were just telling us about?" Tabs saw that another storm was brewing. He leant across the table and hurried on. "If the worst comes to the worst, I expect your old job's waiting for you. The qualities which have made you what you are to-day, must have been recognized and valued----" Terry had completed her reconciliation with her father and was resting her gaze upon them. Tabs altered his tone. "You put what you said at dinner rather strongly, sir. But I understand what you were driving at--it was the democracy of the front-line where courage, which at its best is unselfishness, was our only standard of aristocracy."