The Blower of Bubbles Part 33

"c/o American Officers' Club, London.

"P.S.--We're working like beavers getting things ready for the American Army which is coming. It looks slow, but when Uncle Sam's men are ready, Fritz is going to enjoy a real avalanche. This, I promise you.

"L. C."

IV

One morning a south coast train contained a first-cla.s.s compartment which was shared by Lieutenant Craighouse, U.S.A., and a timorously proper gentleman who read the _Times_ for twenty minutes, and then stared at nothing very intently--an art highly developed amongst those who wors.h.i.+p at the shrine of good form.

Craighouse was silent also for over an hour, which was a feat of the first magnitude for him. He was thinking of some official figures shown to him, in confidence, a week past--figures which gave the totals of England's manufacture of munitions and guns, her construction of aeroplanes and tanks, her production of all the minutiae of war essentials, in quant.i.ties which his brain could hardly grasp.

Judged by any standard, the achievement was amazing. For a nation at peace it would have been stupendous; but, in addition, this country that amused Americans, this nation of obsolete methods and lack of organization, had held the seas open and frustrated Germany's plans on land. He wondered if he had been a fool--if, after all, the English were not the most efficient race on earth. Just then an advertis.e.m.e.nt, conspicuously placed beside the mirror in the compartment, smote his eye, and he gasped.

"How many people ride in a carriage like this in one day?" he asked abruptly.

The well-bred one cleared his throat and shook his head. They had not been introduced; and, besides, he didn't know.

"Ten, twenty, forty--say thirty?" said Craighouse.

"Very probably--oh, yes--rather--quite." The words were decorously languid.

"Thirty people a day," went on Craighouse rapidly; "say a thousand a month. In a year that would mean, roughly--oh, put it at ten thousand.

Am I right?"

The Englishman s.h.i.+fted uneasily. "Very probably--oh yes--rather--quite."

"The war has been going on for three years." The American was warming to his subject. "Three years mean that approximately thirty thousand pa.s.sengers have traveled in this compartment since the beginning of the war, eh?"

His companion reached for his cigarettes. "Very probably," he said. "Oh yes--rath----"

"How many of these carriages are in use?" interrupted Craighouse. "Two hundred, four hundred--say three hundred?"

"Very probably--oh yes----"

"I may be short or long on that estimate, but putting it at three hundred, this line has had about--well, roughly, nine million first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers. Is that correct?"

"Very pro----"

"Then, great Scott! look at the advertis.e.m.e.nt behind you, the most prominent one in the compartment. This line has had a chance to have a heart-to-heart talk with nine million average, well-to-do pa.s.sengers.

From the standpoint of propaganda, figure out the national importance of that. From the commercial point of view, estimate the value of that s.p.a.ce. And yet, after three years of war, it says that the steams.h.i.+p line from Newhaven to Dieppe is the shortest route to Austria, south Germany, and Spain! And it gives a map! Austria, south Germany, and Spain!----" The American's tirade ended in a splutter of indignation.

The train stopped at a junction station, and both men emerged, the Englishman proffering his cigarettes.

"Thanks very much," said Craighouse, taking one. "Good-morning." And he disappeared into the crowd.

The Englishman paused to light his cigarette.

"What extraordinary people these Americans are!" he said to himself--which recalls the well-known saying of a Quaker to his wife, "Every one is queer but thee and me; and thou beest a little queer."

V

When one pa.s.sed the lodge which guarded the entrance to the Lummersdale estate, all sense of present-day responsibilities fell away like a cloak. Decades made no impression upon Oaklands; centuries very little.

The family was surrounded by traditions; the past pointed the way to each succeeding generation, as sign-posts direct itinerant motor-cars upon their course. A Lummersdale never was forced to plan his own future, and there is no record of one ever having done so. Whoever bore the proud t.i.tle felt that his children did not really belong to him; he was but a pruner, and they were branches to be trimmed to an absolute uniformity. A Lummersdale must resemble nothing so much as a Lummersdale; the a.s.sociations of Oaklands and a judicious period spent at a public school succeeded admirably in effecting the required standardization.

To this home Lieutenant Craighouse, of the U.S.A. Engineers, brought his ultra-modern and Western Hemispheric personality. Like all men born in a republic, he had instinctive leanings towards Socialism; like most men of artistic tastes, he was distinctly susceptible to luxury. He snorted disapprovingly when the castle-like turrets of Oaklands appeared, but he drank in the green of the lawns and the colors of the flowers like a desert traveler who finds a pool in his path.

The earl and his lady welcomed him with simple dignity, spoke of the pleasure it afforded them to entertain an American officer; and the butler then took charge of him. Craighouse made a facetious remark to that gentleman as they went upstairs, but received no encouragement.

Within the precincts of his chamber he made another attempt with creditable bonhomie, but Mr. Watkins's reply was not stimulating.

"Your bath, sir, is next door, and will be ready for you immediately.

The family breakfasts at nine; lunch is at one-thirty, tea at five; and dinner is served at eight-fifteen. The gong is sounded, and the family a.s.sembles in the saloon." Whereupon, with an air of deferential superiority, Mr. Watkins cruised from the room with no apparent physical effort whatever.

Luncheon produced Second Lieutenant Viscount Oaklands, the twenty-year-old son and heir, who was leaving that afternoon to join the --th Horse Guards in France. He was of good athletic physique, and had a high, clear complexion which spoke not only of an out-of-door life, but a clean one as well. He was rather languid, and, in an amiable, impersonal way, appeared somewhat bored. The second son, on three days' leave from Dartmouth, was two years younger, but differed very little from the viscount in any other respect.

There was also a daughter. (Craighouse knew instinctively that, if the countess had been enumerating her family, she would have said, "I also have a daughter.") She was apparently twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, possessed of an exquisite skin, eyes which were both blue and deep, and a golden luxury of hair. With all these fundamentals of feminine beauty, her appearance was rather disappointing--a lack of animation in the eyes, a stolidity about the mouth. Craighouse felt, like Pygmalion, that if this statue could only come to life she would be irresistible.

The conversation at lunch consisted of flattering questions about America's preparations--questions to which Craighouse, who was never an economist in words, did full justice. They all said that it was perfectly splendid of America to come into the war; in fact, they didn't know what Britain would have done without her.

"I know," blurted Craighouse. "She'd have gone on fighting until every family was drained to the last man; and, by Jove! I believe the women would have carried on then. America is going to make victory possible, thank G.o.d! but England never would have been beaten."

He stopped, surprised at his own vehemence. The Earl of Lummersdale protested that he was too generous. The countess echoed her husband's opinion. The sub and naval cadet sons supported their parents' protests languidly. The daughter, in acknowledged order of precedence, ended the chorus by the statement that it was ripping of him to say so. Had they been discussing the commentaries of Caesar they could not have shown less enthusiasm. Craighouse pictured a similar situation at home if an English officer had paid a corresponding compliment. He had not learned as yet that carrying emotional moderation to excess is part of the English paradox.

At four that afternoon a trap drove up to the door, and the kit of Viscount Oaklands appeared followed a moment later by that young gentleman himself. He kissed his mother, and gave his sister a half-embrace; then he shook hands with his paternal progenitor, and nodded to his younger brother.

"Good-by, old man," he said, shaking hands with Craighouse. "Look me up if you ever get near the regiment, won't you?"

For a few minutes every one spoke of the military situation, the delightful fellow-officers he would have, and other things which well-bred people talk of. Amidst all this the trap started, then stopped at a sign from the viscount.

"I say, dad."

"Yes, Douglas?"

"Do tell Edwards to see that the hounds get some exercise this week.--Cheer-o, mater!" And thus the eldest son and heir to Oaklands, which he was never to see again, went to the war.

VI

Dazed at the bloodlessness of the scene, feeling his heart torn by the apparent lack of depth in the most primeval of all emotions, the parent love, Craighouse strolled away, to find that the daughter was by his side.

"You will miss your brother," he said.

"We shall," she said; "though, as a matter of fact, I haven't seen much of Douglas the last three or four years."

"How is that?"

"Oh, he was at Eton, and only home during the holidays. I was always away at those times; and, of course, he's been training for the last year."