Mufti Part 8

At the moment of Vane's arrival he was discoursing fluently on the problem of education. The point is really immaterial, as Sir John discussed all problems with equal fluency, and the necessity for answering was rare. He had a certain shrewd business-like efficiency, and in most of his harangues there was a good deal of what, for want of a better word, might be termed horse sense. But he was so completely self-opinionated and sure of himself that he generally drove his audience to thoughts of poisons that left no trace or even fire-arms. Especially when he was holding forth on strategy. On that subject he considered himself an expert, and regularly twice a week he emptied the smoking-room at Rumfold by showing--with the aid of small flags--what he would have done had he been in charge of the battle of the Somme in 1916. He was only silenced once, and that was by a pessimistic and saturnine Sapper.

"Extraordinary," he murmured. "I congratulate you, Sir John. The plan you have outlined is exactly in every detail the one which the Commander-in-Chief discussed with me when overlooking the charming little village of Gueudecourt. 'Johnson,' he said, 'that is what we will do,'

and he turned to the Chief of Staff and ordered him to make a note of it." The Sapper paused for a moment to relight his pipe. Then he turned impressively to Sir John. "There was no Chief of Staff. The Chief of Staff had gone: only a few bubbles welling out of the mud remained to show his fate. And then, before my very eyes, the C.-in-C. himself commenced to sink. To my fevered brain it seemed to be over in a minute.

His last words as he went down for the third time were 'Johnson, carry on.' . . . Of course it was kept out of the papers, but if it hadn't been for a Tank going by to get some whisky for the officers' mess, which, owing to its pressure on neighbouring ground squeezed them all out again one by one--you know, just like you squeeze orange pips from your fingers--the affair might have been serious."

"I did hear a rumour about it," said the still small voice of a machine-gunner from behind a paper.

"Of course," continued the Sapper, "the plan had to be given up. The whole of G.H.Q. sat for days in my dug-out with their feet in hot water and mustard. . . . A most homely spectacle--especially towards the end when, to while away the time, they started sneezing in unison. . . ."

A silence settled on the smoking-room, a silence broken at last by the opening and shutting of the door. Sir John had retired for the night. . . .

At the moment that Vane paused at the entrance to his bit of fairyland Sir John was in full blast.

"What, sir, is the good of educating these people? Stuffing their heads with a lot of useless nonsense. And then talking about land nationalisation. The two don't go together, sir. If you educate a man he's not going to go and sit down on a bare field and look for worms. . . ." He paused in his peroration as he caught sight of Vane.

"Ah! ha!" he cried. "Surely a new arrival. Welcome, sir, to my little home."

Restraining with a great effort his inclination to kick him, Vane shook the proffered hand; and for about ten minutes he suffered a torrent of grandiloquence in silence. At the conclusion of the little man's first remark Vane had a fleeting vision of the cavalry-man slinking hurriedly round two bushes and then, having run like a stag across the open, going to ground in some dense undergrowth on the opposite side. And Vane, to his everlasting credit be it said, did not even smile. . . .

After a while the flood more or less spent itself, and Vane seized the occasion of a pause for breath to ask after old John.

"I see you've got a new lodge-keeper, Sir John. Robert tells me that the old man who was here under Lord Forres is in the village."

"Yes. Had to get rid of him. Too slow. I like efficiency, my boy, efficiency. . . . That's my motto." Sir John complacently performed three steps of his celebrated strut. "Did you know the Hearl?" Though fairly sound on the matter, in moments of excitement he was apt to counterbalance his wife with the elusive letter. . . .

Vane replied that he did--fairly well.

"A charming man, sir . . . typical of all that is best in our old English n.o.bility. I am proud, sir, to have had such a predecessor. I number the Hearl, sir, among my most intimate friends. . . ."

Vane, who remembered the graphic description given him by Blervie--the Earl's eldest son--at lunch one day, concerning the transaction at the time of the sale, preserved a discreet silence.

"A horrible-looking little man, old bean," that worthy had remarked.

"Quite round, and bounces in his chair. The governor saw him once, and had to leave the room. 'I can't stand it,' he said to me outside, 'the dam fellow keeps hopping up and down, and calling me His Grace. He's either unwell, or his trousers are coming off.'" Lord Blervie had helped himself to some more whisky and sighed. "I've had an awful time," he continued after a while. "The governor sat in one room, and Patterdale bounced in the other, and old Podmore ran backwards and forwards between, with papers and things. And if we hadn't kept the little blighter back by force he was going to make a speech to the old man when it was all fixed up. . . ."

At last Sir John left Vane to himself, and with a sigh of relief he sank into the chair so recently vacated by the cavalryman. In his hand he held a couple of magazines, but, almost unheeded, they slipped out of his fingers on to the gra.s.s. He felt supremely and blissfully lazy. The soft thud of tennis b.a.l.l.s, and the players' voices calling the score, came faintly through the still air, and Vane half closed his eyes. Then a sudden rustle of a skirt beside him broke into his thoughts, and he looked up into the face of the girl whom Lady Patterdale had greeted as Joan.

"Why it's my bored friend of the photograph!" She stood for a moment looking at him critically, rather as a would-be purchaser looks at a horse. "And have they all run away and left you to play by yourself?"

She pulled up another chair and sat down opposite him.

"Yes. Even Sir John has deserted me." As he spoke he was wondering what her age was. Somewhere about twenty-two he decided, and about ten more in experience.

"For which relief much thanks, I suppose?"

"One shouldn't look a gift host in the stockings," returned Vane lightly.

"I think it's very charming of him and his wife to have us here."

"Do you? It's hopelessly unfas.h.i.+onable not to do war work of some sort, and this suits them down to the ground. . . . Why the Queen visited Rumfold the other day and congratulated Lady Patterdale on her magnificent arrangements." There was a mocking glint in her eyes, otherwise her face was perfectly serious.

"You don't say so." Vane gazed at her in amazement. "And did you dress up as a nurse for the occasion?"

"No, I watched from behind a gooseberry bush. You see, I'm a very busy person, and my work can't be interrupted even for a Royal visit."

"Would it be indiscreet," murmured Vane, "to inquire what your work is?"

"Not a bit." The girl looked solemnly at him. "I amuse the poor wounded officers."

"And do you find that very hard?" asked Vane with becoming gravity.

"Frightfully. You see, they either want to make love to me, or else to confide that they love another. My chief difficulty as I wander from bush to bush is to remember to which cla.s.s the temporary occupant belongs. I mean it's a dreadful thing to a.s.sure a man of your own undying devotion, when the day before you were sympathising with him over Jane not having written. It makes one appear of undecided intellect."

"Why don't you inst.i.tute a little system of labels?" asked Vane. "Blue for those who pa.s.sionately adore you--red for those who love someone else. People of large heart might wear several."

"I think that's quite wonderful." She leaned back in her chair and regarded Vane with admiration. "And I see that you're only a Captain. . . . How true it is that the best brains in the Army adorn the lower positions. By the way--I must just make a note of your name." She produced a small pocketbook from her bag and opened it. "My duties are so arduous that I have been compelled to make lists and things."

"Vane," he answered, "Christian--Derek."

She entered both in her book, and then shut it with a snap. "Now I'm ready to begin. Are you going to amuse me, or am I going to amuse you?"

"You have succeeded in doing the latter most thoroughly," Vane a.s.sured her.

"No--have I really? I must be in good form to-day. One really never can tell, you know. An opening that is a scream with some people falls as flat as ditch-water with others." She looked at him pensively for a moment or two, tapping her small white teeth with a gold pencil.

Suddenly Vane leaned forward. "May I ask your age, Joan?"

Her eyebrows went up slightly. "Joan!" she said.

"I dislike addressing the unknown," remarked Vane, "and I heard Lady Patterdale call you Joan. But if you prefer it--may I ask your age, Miss Snooks?"

She laughed merrily. "I think I prefer Joan, thank you; though I don't generally allow that until the fourth or fifth performance. You see, if one gets on too quickly it's so difficult to fill in the time at the end if the convalescence is a long one."

"I am honoured," remarked Vane. "But you haven't answered my question."

"I really see no reason why I should. It doesn't come into the rules--at least not my rules. . . . Besides I was always told that it was rude to ask personal questions."

"I am delighted to think that something you were taught at your mother's knee has produced a lasting effect on your mind," returned Vane.

"However, at this stage we won't press it. . . . I should hate to embarra.s.s you." He looked at her in silence for a while, as if he was trying to answer to his own satisfaction some unspoken question on his mind.

"I think," she said, "that I had better resume my official duties. What do you think of Rumfold Hall?"

"It would be hard in the time at my disposal, my dear young lady, to give a satisfactory answer to that question." Vane lit a cigarette. "I will merely point out to you that it contains a banqueting chamber in which b.l.o.o.d.y Mary is reported to have consumed a capon and ordered two more Protestants to be burned--and that the said banqueting hall has been used of recent years by the vulgar for such exercises as the fox trot and the one step. Further, let me draw your attention to the old Elizabethan dormer window from which it is reported that the celebrated Sir Walter Raleigh hung his cloak to dry, after the lady had trodden on it. On the staircase can be seen the identical spot where the dog basket belonging to the aged pug dog of the eighteenth Countess of Forres was nightly placed, to the intense discomfiture of those ill-behaved and rowdy guests who turned the hours of sleep into a time for revolting debauches with soda water syphons and flour. In fact it is commonly thought that the end of the above-mentioned aged pug dog was hastened by the excitable Lord Frederick de Vere Thomson hurling it, in mistake for a footstool, at the head of his still more skittish spouse--the celebrated Tootie Rootles of the Gaiety. This hallowed spot has been roped off, and is shown with becoming pride by the present owner to any unfortunate he can inveigle into listening to him. Finally I would draw your attention. . . ."

"For Heaven's sake, stop," she interrupted weakly. "The answer is adjudged incorrect owing to its length."

"Don't I get the grand piano?" he demanded.

"Not even the bag of nuts," she said firmly. "I want a cigarette.

They're not gaspers, are they?"