Mufti Part 27

"Yes, but who is going to decide on that vital question of money?"

pursued Vane. "Supposing the men object to the way the boss is spending it. . . ."

The other thoughtfully filled his pipe. "Of course, there will always be the risk of that," he said. "Seventeen and twenty per cent.

dividends will have to cease--I suppose. And after all--not being a Croesus myself I'm not very interested--I'm blowed if I see why man should expect more than a reasonable percentage on his money. I believe the men would willingly agree to that if they were taken into his confidence and sure he wasn't cooking his books. . . . But when one reads of ten, herded together in one room, and the company paying enormous dividends, do you wonder they jib? I would. Why shouldn't the surplus profit above a fair dividend be split up amongst the workmen? I'm no trade expert, Vane. Questions of supply and demand, and tariffs and overtime, leave me quite cold. But if you're going to get increased production, and you've got to or you're going to starve, you can't have civil war in the concern. And to ensure that you must have all the cards on the table. The men must understand what they're doing; the boss must explain.

"What made a man understand the fact of dying over the water? What made thousands of peace-loving men go on in the filth and dirt, only to die like rats at the end. . . . What made 'em keep their tails up, and their chests out? Why--belief and trust in their leaders. And how was it inculcated? By sympathy--nothing more nor less. G.o.d above--if it was possible when the stakes were life and death--can't it be done over here in the future? 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.

And when things are going wrong they'll know it; they'll antic.i.p.ate the trouble. . . . Sympathy; the future of the Empire lies in sympathy.

And this war has taught many thousands of men the meaning of the word.

It has destroyed the individual outlook. . . . There, it seems to me, lies the hope of our salvation." He finished his drink and stood up.

"If we're going to continue a ceaseless war between leaders and led--it's me for Hong-Kong. And it is only the leaders who can avert it. . . ."

"Incidentally that's what Ramage said," remarked Vane. "Only he demands complete equality . . . the abolition of property. . . ."

The other paused as he got to the door. "Then the man's a fool, and a dangerous fool," he answered gravely. "Night-night. . . ."

For a long while Vane sat on, staring at the fire. Though only early in October, the night was chilly, and he stretched his legs gratefully to the blaze. After a time he got up and fetched an evening paper.

The great push between Cambrai and St. Quentin was going well; behind Ypres the Boche was everywhere on the run. But to Vane gigantic captures in men and guns meant a very different picture. He saw just the one man crawling on his belly through the mouldering bricks and stinking sh.e.l.l-holes of some death-haunted village. He saw the sudden pause--the tense silence as the man stopped motionless, listening with every nerve alert. He felt once again the hideous certainty that he was not alone; that close to, holding his breath, was someone else . . . then he saw the man turn like a flash and stab viciously; he heard the clatter of falling bricks--the sob of exultation as the Boche writhed in his death agony. . . . And it might have been the other way round.

Then he saw the other side; the long weary hours of waiting, the filthy weariness of it all--the death and desolation. Endured without a murmur; sticking it always, merry, cheerful, bright--so that the glory of the British soldier should be written on the scroll of the immortals for all eternity.

Was it all to be wasted, thrown away? His jaw set at the thought.

Surely--surely that could never be. Let 'em have their League of Nations by all manner of means; but a League of Britain was what these men were fighting for. And to every Britisher who is a Britisher--may G.o.d be praised there are millions for whom patriotism has a real meaning--that second League is the only one that counts.

The door opened and Vallance, the Adjutant, came in. "There's a letter for you, old boy, outside in the rack," he remarked. He walked over to the fire to warm his hands. "Bring me a large whisky and a small soda," he said to the waiter, who answered his ring. "Drink, Vane?"

Vane looked up from the envelope he was holding in his hand and shook his head. "No, thanks, old man," he answered. "Not just now. . . . I think I'll read this letter first." And the Adjutant, who was by nature an unimaginative man, failed to notice that Vane's voice was shaking a little with suppressed excitement.

It was ten minutes before either of them spoke again. Twice Vane had read the letter through, and then he folded it carefully and put it in his pocket.

"Contrary to all service etiquette, old boy," he said, "I am going to approach you on the subject of leave in the mess. I want two or three days. Can it be done?"

Vallance put down his paper, and looked at him.

"Urgent private affairs?" he asked lightly.

"Very urgent," returned Vane grimly.

"I should think it might be managed," he said. "Fire in an application and I'll put it up to-morrow."

"Thanks," said Vane briefly, "I will."

For a moment or two after he had left the room Vallance looked at the closed door. Then he picked the envelope out of the grate, and studied the handwriting.

"Confound these women," he muttered, and consigned it to the flames.

He liked to think himself a misogynist, and, incidentally, thoughts of drafts were worrying him.

Up in his own room Vane was poking the fire. His face was stern, and with care and deliberation he pulled up the arm chair to the blaze.

Then he took the letter out of this pocket, and proceeded to read it through once again.

MELTON HOUSE, OFFHAM, NEAR LEWES.

MY DEAR,--It's just on midnight, but I feel in the mood for doing what I've been s.h.i.+rking for so long. Don't you know the feeling one gets sometimes when one has put off a thing again and again, and then there suddenly comes an awful spasm and one fairly spreads oneself? . . .

Like putting one's bills away for months on end, and then one day becoming insane and paying the whole lot. I've been putting this off, Derek, for what I'm going to write will hurt you . . . almost as much as it hurts me. I'm not going to put in any of the usual cant about not thinking too hardly of me; I don't think somehow we are that sort.

But I can't marry you. I meant to lead up to that gradually, but the pen sort of slipped--and, anyway you'd have known what was coming.

I can't marry you, old man--although I love you better than I ever thought I'd love anyone. You know the reasons why, so I won't labour them again. They may be right and they may be wrong; I don't know--I've given up trying to think. I suppose one's got to take this world as it is, and not as it might be if we had our own way. . . .

And I can't buy my happiness with Blandford, Derek--I just can't.

I went down there the morning after Our Day--oh! my G.o.d! boy, how I loved that time--and I saw Father. He was just broken down with it all; he seemed an old, old man. And after luncheon in the study he told me all about it. I didn't try to follow all the facts and figures--what was the use? I just sat there looking out over Blandford--my home--and I realised that very soon it would be that no longer. I even saw the horrible man smoking his cigar with the band on it in Father's chair.

Derek, my dear--what could I do? I knew that I could save the situation if I wanted to; I knew that it was my happiness and yours, my dear, that would have to be sacrificed to do it. But when the old Dad put his arm round my waist and raised his face to mine--and his dear mouth was all working--I just couldn't bear it.

So I lied to him, Derek. I told him that Mr. Baxter loved me, and that I loved Mr. Baxter. Two lies--for that man merely wants me as a desirable addition to his furniture--and I, why sometimes I think I hate him. But, oh! my dear, if you'd seen my Father's face; seen the dawning of a wonderful hope. . . . I just couldn't think of anything except him--and so I went on lying, and I didn't falter. Gradually he straightened up; twenty years seemed to slip from him . . ..

"My dear," he said. "I wouldn't have you unhappy; I wouldn't have you marry any man you didn't love. But if you do love him, little Joan, if you do--why it just means everything. . . . Baxter's worth millions. . . ."

But it makes one laugh, my Derek, doesn't it? laugh a little bitterly.

And then after a while I left him, and went down to the boat-house, and pulled over to our weeping willow. But I couldn't stop there. . . . I can't try myself too high. I guess I'm a bit weak where you're concerned, boy--a bit weak. And I've got to go through with this.

It's my job, and one can't s.h.i.+rk one's job. . . . Only sometimes it seems that one gets saddled with funny jobs, doesn't one? Try to see my point of view, Derek; try to understand. If it was only me, why, then, my dear, you know what would be the result. I think it would kill me if you ever thought I was marrying Mr. Baxter for money for myself. . . .

And you'll forget me in time, dear lad--at least, I'm afraid you will.

That's foolish, isn't it?--foolish and weak; but I couldn't bear you to forget me altogether. Just once or twice you'll think of me, and the Blue Bird that we kept for one day in the roses at Sonning. You'll go to She who must be obeyed and I hope to G.o.d I never meet her. . . .

For I'll hate her, loathe her, detest her.

I'm engaged to Mr. Baxter. I've exacted my full price to the uttermost farthing. Blandford is saved, or will be on the day I marry him. We are neither of us under any illusions whatever; the whole thing is on an eminently business footing. . . . We are to be married almost at once.

And now, dear, I am going to ask you one of the big things. I don't want you to answer this letter; I don't want you to plead with me to change my mind. I daren't let you do it, my man, because, as I said, I'm so pitifully weak where you are concerned. And I don't know what would happen if you were to take me in your arms again. Why, the very thought of it drives me almost mad. . . . Don't make it harder for me, darling, than it is at present--please, please, don't.

Mr. Baxter is not here now, and I'm just vegetating with the Suttons until the sale takes place--my sale. They were talking about you at dinner to-night, and my heart started pounding until I thought they must have heard it. Do you wonder that I'm frightened of you? Do you wonder that I ask you not to write?

It's one o'clock, my Derek, and I'm cold--and tired, awful tired. I feel as if the soul had departed out of me; as if everything was utterly empty. It is so still and silent outside, and the strange, old-fas.h.i.+oned ideas--do you remember your story?--have been sitting wistfully beside me while I write. Maybe I'll hear them fluttering sadly away as I close down the envelope.

I love you, my darling, I love you. . . . I don't know why Fate should have decreed that we should have to suffer so, though perhaps you'll say it's my decree, not Fate's. And perhaps you're right; though to me it seems the same thing.

Later on, when I'm a bit more used to things, we might meet. . . . I can't think of life without ever seeing you again; and anyway, I suppose, we're bound to run across one another. Only just at the moment I can't think of any more exquisite torture than seeing you as another woman's husband. . . .

Good-night, my dear, dear Love, G.o.d bless and keep you.

JOAN.

Oh! Boy--what h.e.l.l it all is, what utter h.e.l.l!

The fire was burning low in the grate as Vane laid the letter down on the table beside him. Bolshevism, strikes, wars--of what account were they all combined, beside the eternal problem of a man and a woman?