The Parts Men Play Part 23

'Sh-s.h.!.+' the groom whispered. 'There's Mister Malcolm a-come to say good-bye to Nellie. I knew 'e would, sir. She'd ha' fretted 'er heart out if 'e hadn't.'

IV.

Selwyn looked down the stable, and in the dull light he saw the Hussar officer standing in the stall by the mare, crooning some endearing words, while the beast, in her delight, rubbed her face against his clothes and whinnied her plea to be taken for a gallop over the fields.

Not wanting to disturb him, or give the impression that he had been watching, Selwyn softly withdrew by a door near the dogs, and after giving Mathews a half-sovereign, made a circuit of the lawns and approached the house as if he were coming from the woods. As he did so young Durwent emerged from the stables, followed by a collie-dog that jumped and frolicked about him as he walked. Noticing the American, Malcolm crossed over to where he stood, proffering a cigarette.

'Have a gasper, Selwyn?' he asked.

'Thanks very much. I suppose it will be some time before the British Army will get into action?'

'I don't know, I'm sure,' answered Durwent, holding a match for the other, 'but three weeks at the outside ought to see us over there and ready.'

'The Germans have a tremendous start.'

'Yes, haven't they? d.a.m.ned plucky of Belgium to try to hold them up, isn't it? Though, of course, you can't expect the Belgian johnnies to keep them back more than a few days.'

'You think, then, that she will be conquered?'

'Ra-ther. That's a cert. But I don't think it will be for long.'

'You mean that the British will drive the Germans back?'

'Not all at once, but sooner or later. Of course, I'm an awful m.u.f.f on strategy--always was--but the general idea seems to be that we go over now and stop the bounders, and then our dear old citizens gird up their loins, train themselves as soldiers, and chase the Germans back to Berlin.'

'But--isn't it an open secret that your regular army is very small? Can you seriously expect to stop that huge force once it sweeps through Belgium?'

The Englishman picked up a stone and sent it hurtling across the lawn for the collie to chase.

'Ever play "Rugger"?' he asked.

'Rugby? Yes.'

'Then you've often seen a little chap bring a big one an awful cropper.'

'That is true, but the cases are hardly parallel.'

'Perhaps not,' said the other, rather relieved at not having to maintain the a.n.a.logy any further; 'but, then, the beauty of being a junior officer is that one doesn't have to worry. I wouldn't be in old man French's shoes for a million quid, but for us subaltern johnnies it looks as if we'll have some great sport.'

As the two young men, almost of an age, stood on the rich carpet of the lawn with their figures outlined against the open background of the fields, they presented a strange contrast. The Englishman was dressed in a rough, brown tweed, and though there was a looseness about his shoulders that almost amounted to slouchiness, they gave a suggestion of latent strength that could be instantly galvanised into great power.

When he moved, either to throw something for his dog or just to break the monotony of standing, his movements were slow and deliberate, and he took a long pace with a slight inclination towards the side, as is the habit of cavalrymen and sailors. His eyes were a clear, unsubtle blue, and though his skin was tanned from exposure to the elements, its texture was unspoiled. His hair was light brown, and, while closely cropped, in keeping with military tradition, was naturally of thick growth; in the centre where it was parted there was more than a tendency towards curls.

From his lip a slight moustache was trained to point upwards at the ends, and beneath the tan of his face could be seen the glow of health, token of a decent mode of living and a life spent out of doors.

There was a frankness of countenance, a certain humour which one felt would rarely rise above banter, and the whole bearing was manly and attractive. But search the features as he would, Selwyn could not discover any lurking traces of undiscovered personality. Malcolm's very frankness seemed to rob him of possession of any hidden, unexpected vein of individuality. He was essentially a type, and of as clear Anglo-Saxon origin as if he were living in the days before his breed was modified by inter-a.s.sociation with other tribes.

Selwyn recalled the words of Mathews: 'Milord, you're a thoroughbred, you are.' This youth was of a race of thoroughbreds. Maternal heredity had skipped him altogether; he was a Durwent of Durwents, and heir to all the distinction and lack of distinction which marked the long line of that family.

And opposite him was an American whose two generations of Republican ancestry led to the paths of Dutch and Irish parentage. Selwyn had never tried to discover the cause why his paternal ancestor had left the Green Island, or his maternal ancestor the land of dikes and windmills; it was sufficient that, out of resentment against conditions either avoidable or unavoidable, each had resolved to endure the ordeal of making his way in a land of strangers. Austin Selwyn bore the marks of that inheritance no less clearly than Malcolm Durwent bore the marks of his. In his features there was a certain repose, as became the part-son of a race that had produced the art of Rembrandt, but there was a roving Celtic strain as well that hid itself by turn in his eyes, in his lips, in his smile, in the lines of his frown. In contrast to the clear Saxon steadiness of Malcolm Durwent, his own face was constantly touched by lights and shadows of his mind, lit by the incessant prompting of his thoughts that demanded their answer to the riddle of life.

Although his build was fairly powerful, Selwyn's well-knit shoulders and alert movements of body spoke of a physique that was always tuned to pitch, but one missed the impression of limitless endurance which lay behind the easy carelessness of Malcolm Durwent's pose.

'I want to ask you, Durwent,' said the American, 'more from the stand-point of a writer than anything else, if these men of yours who are going out to fight are actuated by a great sense of patriotism, or a feeling that the liberty of the world depends on them or--well, in other words, I am trying to discover what it is that makes you men face death as if it were a game.'

'My dear chap,' said the Englishman, with a slightly embarra.s.sed smile, 'there again we leave it to the fellows higher up. Naturally, if Britain goes to war, it isn't up to her army to question it one way or another.

Of course, back in our heads we like to feel that she is in the right--but, then, I don't think Britain would ever do the rotten thing; do you?'

'N--no, I suppose not.'

'You see, a chap can't help looking at it a bit like a game, for there's Belgium doing an absolutely sporting thing, and there isn't one of us that isn't straining at the bit to get over and give them a hand.'

With a slight blush at this admission of fervour, the Englishman grasped his collie-dog by the forepaws and rolled him on his back.

'But,' said Selwyn, unwilling to let the bone of discussion drop while there was one shred of knowledge clinging to it, 'supposing that Britain were in the wrong and you fellows knew it, yet you were ordered to war--what then?'

His companion laughed and thrust his hands in his pockets.

'Oh, we'd fight anyway; and after we had knocked the other chap out we'd tell him how sorry we were, then go back and hang the bounders who had brought the thing on. But then, you see, you're riding the wrong horse, because soldiering's my job, and I was always an awful m.u.f.f when it came to jawing on matters I don't know anything about. You had better get hold of some of our politician johnnies; they've always got ideas on things.'

V.

A little later the Honourable Malcolm Durwent left Roselawn in a motor-car.

As it rounded the curve in the drive he turned and waved at the little group who were standing in the courtyard, and then he was lost to sight.

And in the hearts of each of the three there was a poignant grief. Lord Durwent's head was bowed with regret that at Britain's call he had been able to give one only of his two sons. Dry-eyed, but with aching heart, Elise stood with an overwhelming remorse that she had never really known her elder brother. And Lady Durwent, free of all theatricalism, was dumb with the mother's pain of losing her first-born.

And as the heir to Roselawn went to war, so did the sons of every old family in the Island Kingdom. In something of the spirit of sport, yet carrying beneath their cheeriness the high purpose of ageless chivalry, the blue-eyed youth of Britain went out with a smile upon their lips to play their little parts in the great jest of the G.o.ds.

Not with the cry of 'Liberty!' or 'Freedom!' but merely as heirs to British traditions, they took the field. Of a race that acts more on instinct than on reason, they were true to their vision of Britain, and asking no better fate than to die in her service, they helped to stem the Prussian flood while home after home, in its ivy-covered seclusion, learned that the last son, like his brothers, had 'played the game' to a finish.

Let the men who cry for the remodelling of Britain--and progress must have an unimpeded channel--let them try to bring to their minds the Britain that men saw in August 1914, when catastrophe yawned in her path.

That picture holds the secret for the Great Britain of the future.

VI.

It was almost the last day in August, when the little British Army was fighting desperately against unthinkable odds, that a brigade of cavalry made a brave but futile charge to try to break the German grip. The --th Hussars was one of the regiments that took part, and only a remnant returned.

Staring with fixed, unseeing eyes at the blue of the sky, which was not unlike the colour of his eyes, the Honourable Malcolm Durwent lay on the field of battle, with a bullet through his heart.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE MAN OF SOLITUDE.