H. C. McNeile

“ And so in the course of two or three days Vane drove up to the historic gates of Rumfold Hall in an ambulance. The house, situated in the heart of Surrey, was surrounded by extensive grounds. The view from it was magnificent, stretching away for miles and miles to the south, and terminating in the purple downs: and Vane, as the car waited for the gates to be opened, felt that indefinable thrill of pride that comes to every man when he looks on some glorious stretch of his own country. He noticed that the lodge-keeper had changed since he was there last, and not, it struck him, for the better. ”

“ There was something noble about the simplicity of the old man, confronted by the crashing of the system in which he and his father, and his father's father had been born. A puzzled look seemed ever in his eyes: the look of a dog parted from a beloved master, in new surroundings amongst strange faces. And officially, at any rate, the crash was entirely for the benefit of him and his kind . . . . wherein lay the humour.
Vane laughed shortly as he pushed back his chair. "Does anything matter save one's own comfort? Personally I think slavery would be an admirable innovation." ”

“ Do you understand?"
"My dear, I understand perfectly," answered Vane. "The one is big—the other is petty. And when we live through an age of big things we grow ourselves."
"I gave you that as a sort of example of what I feel, Derek," Margaret continued after a time. "I don't suppose there is anything novel in it, but I want you so frightfully to understand what I am going to say. You have asked me to marry you—to take the biggest step which any woman can take. I tell you quite frankly that I want to say 'Yes.' I think all along that I've loved you, though I've flirted with other men. ”

“ Robbery is robbery, just the same whether its sanctioned by an Act of Parliament, or whether it's performed by a man holding a gun at your head. . . . Why, in God's name, Mr. Ramage, can't we pull together for the side? . . ."
"With you as the leaders—the kind employers?"
"With those men as the leaders who have shown that they can lead," said Vane doggedly. "They will come to the top in the future as they have in the past. . . ."
"By all manner of means," cried Ramage. "Leaders—brains—will always rise to the top; will always be rewarded more highly than mere manual labour. ”

“ Pipes would come out and men would draw together in the smoking-room—while in imagination the green flares would go hissing up again, silhouetted against the velvet of the night. But for the most part the war had ceased to count; tennis and golf, with a visit now and then to London, filled the days.
Vane's arm prevented him playing any game, but the country around was admirably suited for walking, and most afternoons he found himself strolling out past the lodge gates for a ramble. ”

“ Suddenly Vane felt Joan's hand on his arm, and looking down he found her at his side.
"Don't you understand, dear man?" she said. "I'm frightened of being left to decide . . . just frightened to death."
"And don't you understand, dear girl," he answered, "that I'm frightened of deciding for you? If one decides wrong for oneself—well, it's one's own funeral. But if it's for somebody else—and it's their funeral. ”

“ You see, Captain Vane, we approach this matter from a fundamentally different point of view. You look around you, and you see men striking here and striking there. And you say 'Look at the swine; striking again!' But there's one thing that you fail to grasp, I think. Underneath all these strikes and violent upheavals, bursting into flame in all sorts of unexpected places—there is the volcano of a vital conflict between two fundamental ideas. Though the men hardly realise it themselves, it's there, that conflict, all the time. ”

“ And so as Vane walked restlessly up and down his room, every instinct in him revolted at the idea of taking advantage of an emotional crisis such as he knew had been stirred in Joan that evening. It seemed to him to be unfair.
"It's her you've got to consider," he said to himself over and over again. "Only her. . . . It's she who stands to lose—much more than you." ”

“ There are times when one is nauseated and sickened by the revolting cant of a repentant Germany; by the hypocritical humbug that, at heart, the German is a peace-loving, gentle being who has been led away by those above him. And as Vane watched grimly the path of the second, and so unnecessary torpedo, he felt an overmastering longing that some of the up-holders of the doctrine could be on board. ”

“ You don't want to be reconstructed; nor does anybody else. So why worry?"
"But, my dear girl," said Vane feebly, "don't you think one ought. . . ."
"No, I don't," she interrupted. "You listen to me for a bit, my friend; and you can take it or leave it, just as you like. It strikes me you're a great deal too occupied about other people, and you don't pay sufficient attention to yourself. You've got to live your own life—not the man's next door. And you'll do most good by living that life, as you want to live it. If you really want to reform other people—well go and do it, and get a thick ear. ”

“ Ramage," he remarked slowly, "do you really think that you, and the few like you, will ever hold the mob? . . . You may make your new England, but you'll make it over rivers of blood, unless we all of us—you, as well as we—see through the glass a little less darkly than we do now. . . ."
"Every great movement has its price," returned the other, staring at him gravely.
"Price!" Vane's laugh was short and bitter. "Have you ever seen a battalion, Mr. Ramage, that has been caught under machine-gun fire?"
"And have you, Captain Vane, ever seen the hovels in which some of our workers live?" ”

“ Don't you feel tired, Margaret, sometimes?"
"Yes—I suppose I do. But it's the tiredness that comes with doing—not drifting. . . . It's we who have got to make the new Heaven and the new Earth, Derek . . ."
Again Vane laughed. "Still as idealistic as ever, I see. Six months after peace we shall be scrambling and fighting and snarling again—after jobs and money and work."
Margaret Trent was silent, tracing a pattern in the sand with her finger. "The worry of scrambling after a job is not likely to hit you very hard," she said at length. ”

“ It avails not one jot when the time comes to foot the bill. By that time the madness has passed, like a dream in the night; and cold sanity is the judge before which a man must stand or fall. A few, maybe, there are who cheat the reckoning for a space; but they live in a Fools' Paradise. Sooner or later the bill is presented. It must be—for such is the Law of Things as they Are . . . . And all that a man may pray for is that he gets good value for his money.
After dinner Joan sang once or twice, and Vane, from the depths of a chair near the fire, watched her through half-closed eyes. ”

“ She was dimpling with laughter, and suddenly Sir James laughed too.
"You nearly had me then, my boy," he cried; "very nearly. But it's on that point, Vane, that I get so wild with these intellectual men—men who should know better. Men like Ramage, and Johnson and all that lot. They know themselves that Socialism is a wild impossibility; they know that equality is out of the question, and yet they preach it to men who have not got their brains. It's a dangerously attractive doctrine; the working man who sees a motor flash past him wouldn't be human if he didn't feel a tinge of envy. ”

“ There was a woman whom he had met at lunch on one of his periodical visits to London. She was a war widow, and a phrase she had used to him rang in his brain for many days after. It seemed to him to express so wonderfully the right feeling, the feeling which in another form he was groping after.
"It wouldn't do," she had said very simply, "for the Germans to get a 'double casualty.'" It was the sort of remark, he thought, that he would have expected Margaret to make. With all the horror of genteel pauperism staring her in the face, that woman was thinking big, and was keeping her head up. ”

“ Vane asked.
"Than most of the others." Her smile was a trifle enigmatic. "There is a cavalryman here and one or two others—but . . . well! you know what I mean."
"I do know what you mean—exactly," he remarked quietly. "And, Joan, it's all wrong."
"It's all natural, anyway. Their ways are not our ways; their thoughts are not our thoughts. . . . I can't help whether I'm being a poisonous snob or not; it's what I feel. Take Sir John. Why, the man's an offence to the eye. He's a complete outsider. What right has he got to be at Rumfold?" ”

“ And at the moment Vane was faced with the latter. The doctor had talked airily of three or four months, and after that in all probability a spell of light duty, and to Vane that seemed like a permanency. It is one thing to drug oneself in the waters of Lethe for a fortnight of one's own free will: it is altogether different to be drugged by others for good. And dimly he felt that either he or they would have to go under. Two totally incompatible people cannot sit next one another at dinner for long without letting some course get cold. ”

“ The men won't strike if only they understand; unless in the understanding they find something they know to be wrong and unjust."
"I was talking to that Labour fellow—Ramage—the other day," said Vane thoughtfully. "According to him State control of everything is the only panacea. And he says it's coming. . . ."
"Dare say it will," returned the other. "The principle remains the same. With sympathy nine out of ten strikes will be averted altogether. Without it, they won't. The leaders will be in touch with their men; as leaders they will be able to feel the pulse of their men. ”

“ As assuredly as if the words had been spoken did they see into one another's hearts that evening at dinner while a worthy old Sussex squire and his wife discussed the war, and housing problems, and the futility of fixing such a price on meat that it paid farmers to put their calves to the cow, instead of selling the milk. After all, the words had been spoken before, and words are of little account. There are times—not often, for artificiality and civilisation are stern taskmasters—but there are times when a man and woman become as Gods and know. ”

“ Derek Vane stretched himself and stood up. "We are feeling well, thank you—and require nourishment. Does tea await me, and if not—why not?" He took his mail and glanced through it. "How they love me, dear old boy! What it is to be young and good looking, and charm. . . ."
There was a loud shout and the deck chair became the centre of a struggling mob. Shortly afterwards a noise of ripping canvas announced that it had acted as deck chairs have acted before when five people sit on them at the same moment.
"Look out, you mugs, you've broken it." Vane's voice came dimly from the ground. ”

“ What good does it do, what purpose in the scheme of things you may talk about, does it serve to turn out a man, who is beloved for miles around, and put in his place some wretched pork butcher who has made millions selling cat's meat as sausages?"
She faced Vane defiantly, and he wisely remained silent.
"You may call it what you like," she stormed; "but it's practically turning him out. Is it a crime to own land, and a virtue to make a fortune out of your neighbours in trade? Dad has never swindled a soul. ”

“ The smoking-room was occupied by a party of six young Irishmen, all of them of military age, who announced freely for the benefit of anyone who cared to listen—and it was not easy to avoid doing so—that they were Sinn Feiners. For a while Vane studied them, more to distract his own thoughts than for any interest in their opinions. It struck him that they were the exact counterpart of the new clique of humanity which has sprung up recently on this side of the Irish Sea; advanced thinkers without thought—the products of a little education without the ballast of a brain. ”

“ Vane?" said Joan demurely.
But Vane only smiled at her gravely and did not answer. Here were the views, crudely expressed, perhaps, of the ordinary landed gentleman. The man who of all others most typically represented feudalism. Benevolent, perhaps—but feudalism. . . . The old order. "They talk about 'back to the land,'" snorted Sir James suddenly, "as the sovereign cure for all evils. You can take it from me, Vane, that except in a few isolated localities the system of small holdings is utterly uneconomical and unsuccessful. It means ceaseless work, and a mere pittance in return. ”

“ But there have been times in this war when the strongest man has sobbed like a child in his weakness. . . .
"Sister!" Vane hardly recognised it as his own voice calling. "Sister!" Margaret came towards him down the ward. "Could you get me something to drink?"
In a moment she had returned with some lemonade. "I thought you were asleep, Derek," she whispered. "Are you feeling feverish?"
She put a cool hand on his forehead, and with a sigh of relief Vane lay back. "I'm frightened, Margaret," he said so low that she scarce could hear him. "Just scared to death . . . of that boy opposite. ”

“ And then to some it may be the roar and bustle of Piccadilly that comes back to haunt them in their exile—the theatre, the music and the lights, the sound of women's skirts; or the rolling Downs of Sussex with the white chalk quarries and great cockchafers booming past them through the dusk.
To each and everyone there is one spot hallowed by special memory, and that spot claims pride of place in day dreams. But when the mind rambles on, and the lumber-room of the past is open—to all who have tasted of its peaceful spell there comes the thought of The River. ”

“ A motor car honked discordantly and Vane grinned.
"That's a stout-hearted little fellow with a good pair of lungs on him." She smiled back at him, and then she pushed him gently backwards and forwards with her hands.
"Of course he's got good lungs," she said. "He toots like that whenever anybody falls in love, and twice when they get married, and three times when. . . ."
Vane's breath came in a great gasp, and he pushed her away almost roughly.
"Don't—for God's sake, don't, Joan. . . ."
"My dear," she cried, catching his arm, "forgive me. The Blue Bird's not gone, Derek—it's still there. ”

“ Any noise—any suspicion on the part of the Boche, a bare quarter of a mile away, and a machine-gun would have swept the ground. But the night was silent, the flares still went peacefully up, and the wind had not changed. It blew gently and steadily towards the German lines. Only there was now just a faint smell of pineapple in the air; one of the cylinders was leaking. . . .
Figures loomed up unexpectedly out of the mist; occasionally a low curse could be heard as a man stumbled into a shell hole. . . .
"Everything all right; everybody clear?" The gas expert peered at Vane in the darkness. ”

“ And then another picture took its place—the picture of a girl in grey, lying back on a mass of cushions, with a faint mocking light in her eyes, and a smile which hovered now and then round her lips. . . .
A very wise old frog regarded him for a moment and then croaked derisively. "Go to the devil," said Vane. "Compared with Margaret, what has the other one done in this war that is worth doing?"
"You must be even more damn foolish than most humans," it remarked, "if you try to make yourself think that the way of a man with a maid depends on the doing of things that are worth while." ”

“ Joan laughed. "We'll wash the first lesson out. Except, of course, for that one thing you said. I mean about—the other. . . . I'd just hate to forget that there's a wedding coming on, and do anything that would make it awkward for me to be asked to the church. . . ."
"You little devil, Joan," said Vane softly, "you little devil."
She laughed lightly and sprang to her feet. "I must be going," she said. "At least three Colonials are waiting for my ministrations." She stood looking down at him. . . . "Are you going to walk back with me, or to resume your study of rodents?" ”

“ He shrugged his shoulders. "Labour may be forcing that issue, Captain Vane; but it will be the other man who is responsible if the fight comes. . . . Labour demands fair treatment—not as a concession, but as a right—and Labour has felt its power. It will get that treatment—peacefully, if possible; but if not"—and a light blazed in his eyes—"it will get it by force."
"And the referee as to what is just is Labour itself," said Vane slowly; "in spite of the fact that it's the other man who is running the financial risk and paying the piper. ”

“ I don't know what that work will prove to be—but, Derek, we've got to find out. It may be that we shall do it together. It may be that my work is just to be with you. And it may be that it isn't that you won't want me. Ah! yes, dear," as he made a quick, impatient movement. "There is always the possibility. I want you to go and find out, Derek, and I want you to make sure that you really want me—that it isn't just six months in Flanders. Also," she added after a pause, "I want to be quite sure about myself." For a while Vane stared out to sea in silence. ”

“ You see, I knew Rumfold pretty well in the old days. . . . Is that the reason of the frown?"
"I wasn't particularly anxious to see you or anybody," she remarked uncompromisingly. "I wanted to try to think something out. . . ."
"Then we are a well met pair," laughed Vane. "I will walk a few paces behind you, and we will meditate."
"Don't be a fool," said Joan still more uncompromisingly. "And anyway you're very early for lunch." She looked at her wrist watch. . . . "I said one o'clock and it's only half past twelve. The best people don't come before they're asked. . . ." ”

“ It almost gave me a shock when she said to me in a confidential aside at a mutual friend's house, 'Have you ever sat down to a more perfectly bloody tea?'"
"I think," said Joan with her eyes still fixed on the reeds, "that that is beastly. It's not smart, and it does not attract men . . ."
"You're perfectly right there," returned Vane, grimly. "However, arising out of that remark, is your whole object in life to attract men?" ”

“ Vane was no psychologist, and any way the psychology of sex follows no rules. It makes its own as it goes along. And the one thought which stood out from the jumbled chaos in his brain was a fierce pleasure at having beaten Baxter. The primitive Cave man was very much alive in him that night. . . .
Joan was his; he knew it, and she knew it—and there was no more to be said. And with a short, exultant laugh Vane drew up an easy chair to the fire and lit a cigarette. He heard Mr. Sutton pass along the passage and go to his own room; and then gradually the house grew still. ”

“ Nancy Smallwood was shooting little bird-like glances round the room as she greeted Vane that evening. "She has a mission . . . or two. Keeps soldiers from drinking too much and getting into bad hands. Personally, anything—anything would be better than getting into hers."
"I seem," murmured Vane, "to have fallen on my feet. She isn't that gargantuan woman in purple, is she?"
"My dear boy! That's George's mother. You know my husband. No, there she is—the wizened up one in black. . . . And she's going on to the Mainwarings' too—so you'll have to dance with her." ”