Mufti

by Sapper

  “Thanks, old sport. That’s a bit better looking.” Vane turned to his neighbour with an amused smile.

  “Truly the old order changeth,” remarked the other thoughtfully. “And one’s inclined to wonder if it’s changing for the better.”

  “Unfortunately in any consideration of that sort one is so hopelessly biased by one’s own personal point of view,” returned Vane.

  “Do you think so?” He crumbled the bread beside him. “Don’t you think one can view a little episode like that in an unbiased way? Isn’t it merely in miniature what is going on all over the country? The clash of the new spirit with the one that is centuries old.”

  “And you really regard that youth as being representative of the new spirit?”

  “No one man can be. But I regard him as typical of a certain phase of that spirit. In all probability a magnificent platoon commander – there are thousands like him who have come into being with this war. The future of the country lies very largely in their hands. What are they going to make of it?”

  The same question – the same ceaseless refrain. Sometimes expressed, more often not. England in the melting pot – what was going to happen? Unconsciously Vane’s eyes rested on the figure of the old butler standing at the end of the room. There was something noble about the simplicity of the old man, confronted by the crashing of the system in which he and his father, and his father’s father had been born. A puzzled look seemed ever in his eyes: the look of a dog parted from a beloved master, in new surroundings amongst strange faces. And officially, at any rate, the crash was entirely for the benefit of him and his kind…wherein lay the humour.

  Vane laughed shortly as he pushed back his chair.

  “Does anything matter save one’s own comfort? Personally I think slavery would be an admirable innovation.”

  Sir John Patterdale was everything that his wife was not. The unprecedented success of his Patent Plate had enabled him to pay the necessary money to obtain his knighthood and blossom into a county magnate. At one time he had even thought of standing for Parliament as an old and crusted Tory; but up to date the War had prevented the realisation of such a charming idyll. Instead he sat on the bench and dispensed justice.

  In appearance he was an exact counterpart of his wife – short and fat; and his favourite attitude was standing with his legs wide apart and his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat. Strong men had been known to burst into tears on seeing him for the first time arrayed as the sporting squire; but the role was one which he persistently tried to fill, with the help of a yellow hunting waistcoat and check stockings. And when it is said that he invariably bullied the servants, if possible in front of a third person, the picture of Sir John is tolerably complete. He was, in short, a supreme cad, with not a single redeeming feature. Stay – that is wrong. He still retained the love of his wife, which may perhaps – nay, surely shall – be accounted to him for righteousness…

  To her he was never the vain, strutting little bounder, making himself ridiculous and offensive by turn. She never got beyond the picture of him when, as plain John Patterdale, having put up the shutters and locked the door of the shop, he would come through into their little living-room behind for his supper. First he would kiss her, and then taking off his best coat, he would put on the old frayed one that always hung in readiness behind the door. And after supper, they would draw up very close together, and dream wonderful dreams about the future. All sorts of beautiful things danced in the flames; but the most beautiful thing of all was the reality of her John, with his arm round her waist, and his cheek touching hers.

  Sometimes now, when the real truth struck her more clearly than usual – for she was a shrewd old woman for all her kindness of heart – sometimes when she saw the sneers of the people who ate his salt and drank his champagne her mind went back with a bitter stab of memory to those early days in Birmingham. What had they got in exchange for their love and dreams over the kitchen fire – what Dead Sea Fruit had they plucked? If only something could happen; if only he could lose all his money, how willingly, how joyfully would she go back with him to the niche where they both fitted. They might even be happy once again...

  He had needed her in those days: turned to her for comfort when business was bad, taken her out on the burst – just they two alone – when things looked up and there had been a good day’s takings. The excitement over choosing her best hat – the one with the bunches of fruit in it… As long as she lived she would never forget the morning she tried it on, when he deserted the shop and cheered from the bedroom door, thereby losing a prospective customer.

  But now, all be cared about was that she should go to the best people and spare no expense.

  “We can afford it, my dear,” he was wont to remark, “and I want you to keep your end up with the best of ’em. You must remember my position in the county.”

  Even alone with her he kept up the pretence, and she backed him loyally. Was he not still her man; and if he was happy, what else mattered? And she would call herself a silly old woman…

  But there was just once when he came back to her, and she locked away the remembrance of that night in her secret drawer – the drawer that contained amongst other things a little bunch of artificial grapes which had once adorned the hat…

  There had been a big dinner of the no-expense-spared type; and to it had been invited most of the County. Quite a percentage had accepted, and it was after dinner, just before the guests were going, that the owner of a neighbouring house had inadvertently put his thoughts into words, not knowing that his host was within hearing.

  It makes me positively sick to see that impossible little bounder strutting about round Rumfold.”

  “Impossible little bounder.” It hit the little man like a blow between the eyes, and that night, in bed, a woman with love welling over in her heart comforted her man.

  “It wasn’t him that had been meant… Of course not… Why the dinner had been a tremendous success… Lady Sarah Wellerby had told her so herself… Had asked them over in return… And had suggested that they should give a dance, to which she and her six unmarried daughters would be delighted to come.”

  But she didn’t tell him that she had overheard Lady Sarah remark to the wife of Admiral Blake that “the atrocious little cook person had better he cultivated, she supposed. One never knows, my dear. The ballroom is wonderful and men will come anywhere for a good supper…” No, she didn’t tell him that: nor mention the misery she had suffered during dinner. She didn’t say how terrified she was of the servants – all except old Robert, who looked at her sometimes with his kindly, tired eyes as if he understood. She didn’t even take the opportunity of voicing the wish that was dearest to her heart; to give it all up and go right away. She just coaxed him back to self-confidence, and, in the morning, Sir John was Sir John once more – as insufferable as ever. And only a tired old woman knew quite how tired she felt…

  One of Sir John’s pet weaknesses was having his wife and the staff photographed. Sometimes he appeared in the group himself, but on the whole he preferred impromptu snapshots of himself chatting with wounded officers in the grounds. For these posed photographs Lady Patterdale arrayed herself in a light grey costume, with large red crosses scattered over it: and as Vane was strolling out into the gardens after lunch, he ran into her in this disguise in the hall.

  “We’re ’aving a little group taken, Captain Vane,” she said as she passed him. “You must come and be in it.”

  “Why, certainly, Lady Patterdale; I shall be only too delighted. Is that the reason of the war paint?”

  She laughed – a jolly, unaffected laugh. “My ’usband always likes me to wear this when we’re took. Thinks it looks better in a ’ospital.”

  As Vane stepped through the door with her he caught a fleeting glimpse of officers disappearing rapidly in all directions. Confronting them was a large camera,
and some servants were arranging chairs under the direction of the photographer. Evidently the symptoms were well known, and Vane realised that he had been had.

  This proved to be one of the occasions on which Sir John did not appear, and so the deed did not take quite as long as usual. To the staff it was just a matter of drill, and they arranged themselves at once. And since they were what really mattered, and the half-dozen patients merely appeared in the nature of a make weight, in a very short time, to everyone’s profound relief, the group had been taken… Vane, who had been sitting on the ground, with his legs tucked under him to keep them in focus, silently suffering an acute attack of cramp, rose and stretched himself. On the lawn, tennis had started again; and she could see various officers dotted about the ground in basket chairs. He was turning away, with the idea of a stroll – possibly even of seeking out old John in the village, when from just behind his shoulder came a musical laugh.

  “Delightful,” said a low, silvery voice; “quite delightful.”

  Vane swung round in time to catch the glint of a mocking smile – a pair of lazy grey eyes – and then, before he could answer, or even make up his mind if it had been he who was addressed, the girl who had spoken moved past him and greeted Lady Patterdale…

  He waited just long enough to hear that worthy woman’s, “My dear Joan, ’ow are you?” and then with a faintly amused smile on his lips turned towards the cool, shady drive. Margaret’s remark in the sand dunes at Etaples anent leopards and their spots came back to him; and the seasoned war horse scents the battle from afar…

  Chapter 5

  It was under the shade of a great rhododendron bush that Vane was first privileged to meet Sir John. The bush was a blaze of scarlet and purple, which showed up vividly against the green of the grass and the darker green of the shrubs around. Through the trees could be seen glimpses of the distant hills, and Vane, as he stumbled unexpectedly into this sudden bit of fairyland, caught his breath with the glory of it. Then with drastic suddenness he recalled that half-forgotten hymn of childhood, of which the last line runs somewhat to the effect that “only man is vile.”

  Sir John was in full possession, with an unwilling audience of one bored cavalryman. It was one of his most cherished sentiments that nothing aided convalescence so much as a little bright, breezy conversation on subjects of general interest – just to cheer ’em up, and make ’em feel at home…

  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 firearms. 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 GHQ 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 cavalryman 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 nobility. 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 grass. He felt supremely and blissfully lazy. The soft thud of tennis balls, 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 th
e 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 unfashionable 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 class the temporary occupant belongs. I mean it’s a dreadful thing to assure 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.”