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Mountebank

<h1>Chapter III</h1> It was rather rapid, this intimacy between the odd assorted pair--the high-bred woman of fervid action and the mild and gawky Colonel born in a travelling circus. Holding the key to his early life, and losing myself in conjecture as to his subsequent career until he found himself possessed of the qualities that make a successful soldier, I could not help noticing the little things, unperceived by a generous war society, which pathetically proved that his world and that of Lady Auriol, for all her earth-wide Bohemianism, were star distances apart. Little tiny things that one feels ashamed to record. His swift glance round to assure himself of the particular knife and fork he should use at a given stage of the meal--the surreptitious pushing forward on the plate, of the knife which he had leaned, French fashion, on the edge; his queer distress on entering the drawing-room--his helplessness until the inevitable and unconscious rescue, for he was the honoured guest; the restraint, manifest to me, which he imposed on his speech and gestures. Everyone loved him for his simplicity of manners. In fact they were natural to the man. He might have saved himself a world of worry. But his trained observation had made him aware of the existence of a thousand social solecisms, his sensitive character shrank from their possible committal, and he employed his mimetic genius as an instrument of salvation. And then his English--his drawing-room English--was not spontaneous. It was thought out, phrased, excellent academic English, not the horrible ordinary lingo that we sling at each other across a dinner-table; the English, though without a trace of foreign accent, yet of one who has spent a lifetime in alien lands and has not met his own tongue save on the printed page; of one, therefore, who not being sure of the shade of slang admissible in polite circles, carefully and almost painfully avoids its use altogether. Yet all through that long weekend--we were pressed to stay till the Wednesday morning--no one, so far as I know, suspected that Colonel Lackaday found himself in an unfamiliar and puzzling environment. His appointment to the Brigade came on the Tuesday. He showed me the letter, during a morning stroll in the garden. "Don't tell anybody, please," said he. "Of course not." I could not repress an ironical glance, thinking of Lady Auriol. "If you would prefer to make the announcement your own way." He gasped, looking down upon me from his lean height. "My dear fellow--it's the very last thing I want to do. I've told you because I let the thing out a day or two ago--in peculiar circumstances--but it's in confidence." "Confidence be hanged," said I. Heaven sent me Evadne--just escaped from morning lessons with her governess, and scuttling across the lawn to visit her Sealyhams. I whistled her to heel. She raced up. "If you were a soldier what would you do if you were made a General?" She countered me with the incredulous scorn bred of our familiarity. "You haven't been made a General?" "I haven't," I replied serenely. "But Colonel Lackaday has." She looked wide-eyed up into Lackaday's face. "Is that true?" I swear he blushed through his red sun-glaze. "Since Captain Hylton says so----" She held out her hand with perfect manners and said: "I'm so glad. My congratulations." Then, before the bewildered Lackaday could reply, she tossed his hand to the winds. "There'll be champagne for dinner and I'm coming down," she cried and fled like a doe to the house. At the threshold of the drawing-room she turned. "Does Cousin Auriol know?" "Nobody knows," I said. She shouted: "Good egg!" and disappeared. I turned to the frowning and embarrassed Lackaday. "Your modesty doesn't appreciate the pleasure that news will give all those dear people. They've shown you in the most single-hearted way that they're your friends, haven't they?" "They have," he admitted. "But it's very extraordinary. I don't belong to their world. I feel a sort of impostor." "With this--and all these?" I flourished the letter which I still held, and with it touched the rainbow on his tunic. His features relaxed into his childish ear-to-ear grin. "It's all so incomprehensible--here--in this old place--among these English aristocrats--the social position I step into. I don't know whether you can quite follow me." "As a distinguished soldier," said I, "apart from your charming personal qualities, you command that position." He screwed up his mobile face. "I can't understand it. It's like a nightmare and a fairy-tale jumbled up together. On the outbreak of war I came to England and joined up. In a few months I had a commission. I don't know..." he spread out his ungainly arm--"I fell into the métier--the business of soldiering. It came easy to me. Except that it absorbed me body and soul, I can't see that I had any particular merit. Whatever I have done, it would have been impossible, in the circumstances, not to do. Out there I'm too busy to think of anything but my day's work. As for these things"--he touched his ribbons--"I put them up because I'm ordered to. A matter of discipline. But away from the Army I feel as though I were made up for a part which I'm expected to play without any notion of the words. I feel just as I would have done five years ago if I had been dressed like this and planted here. To go about now disguised as a General only adds to the feeling." "If you'll pardon me for saying so," said I, "I think you're super-sensitive. You imagine yourself to be the same man that you were five years ago. You're not. You're a different human being altogether. Men with characters like yours must suffer a sea-change in this universal tempest." "I hope not," said he, "for what will become of me when it's all over? Everything must come to an end some day--even the war." I laughed. "Don't you see how you must have changed? Here you are looking regretfully to the end of the war. If it were only bloodless you would like it to go on for ever. Who knows whether you wouldn't eventually wear two batons instead of the baton and sword." "I'm not an ambitious man, if you mean that," said he, soberly. "Besides this war business is far too serious for a man to think of his own interests. Suppose a fellow schemed and intrigued to get high rank and then proved inefficient--it would mean death to hundreds or thousands of his men. As it is, I assure you I'm not cock-a-whoop about commanding a brigade. I was a jolly sight happier with a platoon." "At any rate," said I, "other people are cock-a-whoop. Look at them." The household, turned out like a guard by Evadne, emerged in a body from the house. Sir Julius beamed urbanely. Lady Verity-Stewart almost fell on the great man's neck. Young Charles broke into enthusiastic and profane congratulations. From the point of view of eloquent compliment his speech was disgraceful; but I loved the glisten in the boy's eyes as he gazed on his hero. A light also gleamed in the eyes of Lady Auriol. She shook hands with him in her direct fashion. "I'm glad. So very very glad." Perhaps I alone--except Lackaday--detected a little tremor in her voice. "Why didn't you want us to know?" Instinctively I caught Evadne's eye. She winked at me, acknowledging thereby that she had divulged the General's secret. But by what feminine process of divination had she guessed it? Charles came to his chief's rescue. "The General couldn't go around shouting 'I'm to command a brigade mother, I'm to command a brigade,' could he?" "He might have stuck on his badges and walked in as if nothing had happened. It would have been such fun to see who would have spotted them first." Thus Evadne, immediately called to order by Sir Julius. The hero said very little. What in his modesty could the good fellow say? But it was obvious that the sincere and spontaneous tributes pleased him. Sir Julius, after the suppression of Evadne, made him the little tiniest well-bred ghost of an oration. That the gallant soldier under whom his son had the distinguished honour to serve should receive the news of his promotion under his roof was a matter of intense gratification to the whole household. It was a gracious scene--the little group, on the lawn in shade of the old manor house, so intimate, so kindly, so genuinely emotional, yet so restful in its English restraint, surrounding the long, lank, khaki-clad figure with the ugly face, who, after looking from one to the other of them in a puzzled sort of way, drew himself up and saluted. "You're very kind," said he, in reply to Sir Julius. "If I have the same loyalty in my brigade as I had in my old regiment," he glanced at Charles, "I shall be a very proud man." That ended whatever there was of ceremony. Lady Auriol drew me aside. "Come for a stroll." "To see the Sealyhams and the rabbits?" "No, Tony. To talk of our friend. He interests me tremendously." "I'm glad to hear it," said I. We entered the rose garden heavy with the full August blooms. "Well, my dear," said I. "Talk away." "If you have a bit of sense in you, it would be you who would talk. If you were a bit simpático you would at once set the key of the conversation." "All of which implied abuse means that you're dying to know, through the medium of subtle and psychological dialogue, which is entirely beyond my brain power, whether you're not just on the verge of wondering if you're not on the verge of falling in love with Colonel Lackaday." "You put it with your usual direct brutality----" "Well," said I. "Are you?" "Am I what?" "Dying to know etcetera, etcetera--I am not addicted to vain repetition." She sighed, tried to pick a black crimson Victor Hugo, pricked her fingers and said "Damn!" With my penknife I cut the stalk and handed her the rose, which she pinned on her blouse. "I suppose I am," she eventually replied. Then she caught me by the arm. "Look here, Tony, do be a dear. You're old enough to be my ancestor and by all accounts you've had a dreadful past. Do tell me if I'm making an ass of myself. I only did it once," she went on, without giving me time to answer. "You know all about it--Vanucci, the little beast. I needn't put on frills with you. Since then I swore off that sort of thing. I've gone about in maiden meditation and man's breeches, fancy free. I've loved lots of men just as I've loved lots of women--as friends, comrades. I'm level-headed and, I think, level-hearted. I haven't gone about like David in his wrath, saying that all men are liars. They're not. They're just as good as women, if not better. I've no betrayed virgin's grouch against men. But I've made myself too busy to worry about sex. It's no use talking tosh. Sex is the root of the whole sentimental, maudlin----" "But tremulous and bewildering and nerve-racking and delicious and myriad-adjectived soul-condition," I interrupted, "known generally as love. Ninety-nine point nine repeater per cent of the world's literature has been devoted to its analysis. It's therefore of some importance. It's even the vital principle of the continuity of the human race." "I'm perfectly aware of it." "Then why, my dear, resent, as you seem to do, the inevitable reassertion, in your own case, of the vital principle?" She laughed. "Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop. But that's just it. Is it a gallop or is it a crawl? I tell you, I thought myself immune for many years. But now, these last two or three days I'm beginning to feel a perfect idiot. A few minutes ago if the whole lot of you hadn't been standing round, I think I should have cried. Just for silly gladness. After all there are thousands of Brigadier-Generals." "To be accurate, not more than a few hundreds." "Hundreds or thousands, what does it matter?" she cried impatiently. "What's Hecuba to me or I to Hecuba?" Few women have the literary sense of apposite quotation--but no matter. She went on. "What's one Brigadier-General to me or I to one Brigadier-General? And yet--there it is. I'm beginning to fear lest this particular Brigadier-General may mean a lot to me. So I come back to my original question. Am I making an ass of myself?" "One can't answer that question, my dear Auriol," said I, "without knowing how far your fears, feelings and all the rest of it are reciprocated." "Suppose I think they are?" "Then all I can say is: 'God bless you my children.' But," I added, after a pause, "I must warn you that your budding idyll is not passing unnoticed." She snapped her fingers. "I've lived my private life in public too long to care a hang for that. I'm only concerned about my own course of action. Shall I go on, or shall I pull myself up with a jerk?" "What would you like to do?" She walked on for a few yards without replying. I glanced at her and saw that the colour had come into her cheeks, and that her eyes were downcast. At last she said: "Now that I'm a woman again, I should like to get some happiness out of it. I should like to give happiness, too, full-handed." She flashed up and took my arm and pressed it. "I could do it, Tony." "I know you could," said I. After which the conversation became more intimate. Anybody, to look at us, as we walked, arm in arm, round the paths of the rose garden, would have taken us for lovers. Of course she wanted none of my advice. Her frank and generous nature felt the imperious need of expansion. I, to whom she could talk as to a sympathetic wooden idol, happened to be handy. I don't think she could have talked in the same way to a woman, I don't think she would have talked so even to me, who had taken her pick-a-back round about her nursery, if I had not with conviction qualified Lackaday as a gallant gentleman. Eventually we came down to the practical aspect of a situation, as old as Romance itself. The valorous and gentle knight of hidden lineage and the Earl's daughter. Not daring to aspire, and ignorant of the flame he has kindled in the high-born bosom, he rides away without betraying his passion, leaving the fair owner of the bosom to pine in lonely ignorance. "At this time of day, it's all such damn nonsense," said Lady Auriol. I pointed out to her that chivalrous souls still beautified God's earth and that such damn nonsense could not be other than the essence of their being. To this knightly company Colonel Lackaday might well belong. On the other hand, there was she, the same old proud Earl's daughter. For all her modernity, her independence, her democratic sympathies, she remained a great lady. She had little fortune; but she had position and an ancient name. Her father, the impoverished fourteenth Earl of Mountshire, and the thirtieth Baron of something else, refused to sit among the canaille of the present House of Peers. He bred shorthorns and Berkshire pigs, which he disposed of profitably, and grew grapes and melons for Covent Garden, read the lessons in church and wrote letters to the Times about the war on which the late Guy Earl of Warwick would have rather prided himself when he took a fancy to make a King. "The dear old idiot," said Lady Auriol. "He belongs to the time of Nebuchadnezzar." But, all the same, in spite of her flouting, her birth assured her a social position from which she could be thrown by nothing less than outrageous immorality or a Bolshevist revolution. That Lackaday, to whom the British Peerage, in the ordinary way, was as closed a book as the Talmud, realized her high estate I was perfectly aware. Dear and garrulous Lady Verity-Stewart had given him at dinner the whole family history--she herself was a Dayne--from the time of Henry I. I was sitting on the other side of her and heard and amused myself by scanning the expressionless face of Lackaday who listened as a strayed aviator might listen to the social gossip of the inhabitants of Mars. Anyhow he left the table with the impression that the Earl of Mountshire was the most powerful noble in England and that his hostess and her cousin, Lady Auriol, regarded the Royal Family as upstarts and only visited Buckingham Palace in order to set a good example to the proletariat. "I'm sure he does," said I, after summarizing Lady Verity-Stewart's monologue. "The family has been the curse of my life," said Auriol. "If I hadn't anticipated them--or is it it?--by telling them to go to the devil, they would have disowned me long ago. Now they're afraid of me, and I've got the whip hand. A kind of blackmail; so they let me alone." "But if you made a mésalliance, as they call it," said I, "they'd be down upon you like a cartload of bricks." "Bricks?" she retorted, with a laugh. "A cartload of puff-balls. There isn't a real brick in the whole obsolete structure. I could marry a beggar man to-morrow and provided he was a decent sort and didn't get drunk and knock me about and pick his teeth with his fork, I should have them all around me and the beggar man in a week's time, trying to save face. They'd move heaven and earth to make the beggar man acceptable. They know that if they didn't, I'd be capable of going about with him like a raggle-taggle gipsy--and bring awful disgrace on them." "All that may be true," said I, "but the modest Lackaday doesn't realize it." "I'll put sense into him," replied Lady Auriol. And that was the end, conclusive or not, of the conversation. In the afternoon they went off for a broiling walk together. What they found to say to each other, I don't know. Lady Auriol let me no further into her confidence, and my then degree of intimacy with the General did not warrant the betrayal of my pardonable curiosity as to the amount of sense put into him by the independent lady. Now, from what I have related, it may seem that Lady Auriol had brought up all her storm troops for a frontal attack on the position in which the shy General lay entrenched. This is not the case. There was no question of attack or siege or any military operation whatever on either side. The blessed pair just came together like two drops of quicksilver. Each recognized in the other a generous and somewhat lonely soul; an appreciation of the major experiences of life and, with that, a craving for something bigger even than the war, which would give life its greater meaning. She, born on heights that looked contemptuously down upon a throne, he born almost in a wayside ditch, their intervening lives a mutual mystery, they met--so it seemed to me, then, as I mused on the romantical situation--on some common plane not only of adventurous sympathy but of a humanity simple and sincere. From what I could gather afterwards, they never exchanged a word, during this intercourse, of amorous significance. Nor did they steer the course so dear to modern intellectuals (and so dear too to the antiquated wanderers through the Land of Tenderness) which led them into analytical discussions of their respective sentimental states of being. They talked just concrete war, politics and travel. On their tramps they scarcely talked at all. They kept in step which maintained the rhythm of their responsive souls. She would lay an arresting touch on his arm at the instant in which he pointed his stick at some effect of beauty; and they would both turn and smile at each other, intimately, conscious of harmony. We left the next morning, Lackaday to take over his brigade in France, I to hang around the War Office for orders to proceed on my further unimportant employment. Lady Auriol and Charles saw us off at the station. "It's all very well for your new brigade, sir," said the latter when the train was just coming into the station. "They're in luck. But the regiment's in the soup." He wanted to discuss the matter, but with, elderly tact I drew the young man aside, so that the romantic pair should have a decent leave-taking. But all she said was: "You'll write and tell me how you get on?" And he; with a flash in his blue eyes and his two-year-old grin: "May I really?" "You may--if a General in the field has time to write to obscure females." She looked adorable, provoking, with the rich colour rising beneath her olive cheek--I almost fell in love with her myself and I was glad that the ironical Charles had his back to her. An expression of shock overspread Lackaday's ingenuous features. He shot out both hands in protest, and mumbled something incoherent. She took the hands with a happy laugh, as the train lumbered noisily in. Lackaday was silent and preoccupied during the run to London. At the terminus we parted. I asked him to dinner at my club. He hesitated for a moment, then declined on the plea of military business. I did not see him or the Verity-Stewarts or Lady Auriol till after the Armistice. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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