These rough and ready scribblings from a training camp and from France served as a ferment, converting a complex concoction of old prejudices and opinions into a few simple and stable truths. Porteous Hammersly began to ask himself all sorts of novel questions, and to answer them in a quite original way. He sat at his desk and looked up figures, scribbled notes, made a number of fairly simple calculations. He realised that he had a private income of two thousand pounds a year; his tanning business was bringing in a profit of some thousands, even when the war-profits were deducted. He did not need the money; he had no respectable excuse for accumulating more money; and his own son, the inheritor, was arguing fiercely against such purely selfish accumulations of wealth. The alternatives were obvious, so obvious that Porteous Hammersly felt surprised that he had never considered them before. What about the people who worked for him? Of course, he was travelling the road that had been travelled for years by men who had been moving ahead of their fellows, but to Porteous Hammersly all this country was very strange, and new, and fascinating. This war has sent thousands of staid folks upon voyages of adventure and discovery. Men have rediscovered the woman in their wives, and the dead dreams of their own youth.
He confided in Janet, and found in her an enthusiastic partisan. For the last two months she had been working at the tannery office, learning to do the work of one of the clerks who had joined the army.
“How splendid of you to think of such a change,” she said.
“At my time of life, you mean?”
“You are very young still.”
“Not my second childhood?”
“No, the real youthfulness. Is it not rather strange and delightful that you and Pierce should be looking at life with the same eyes. It shows——”
“Well, young woman?”
“How near you are to each other; how you will be able to work together. It is not merely a question of father and son——”
He thought for a moment.
“I suppose,” he said, “you are showing me that in some way I am justifying my existence. If a son can look on his father as a co-worker——”
“It proves what a success the father has made of being a father.”
“And the converse holds.”
“Yes.”
Once a week the big car carried Janet and Porteous Hammersly to Poyntz Hall. And in some quiet corner of that great garden these three would sit and elaborate the future, scheming all kinds of sound, business improvements, where business meant the good of all. It was not philanthropy, as understood before the war; it was just common sense, and honesty and kindliness, with the ardour of youth to throw a glow upon it, and woman’s sympathetic insight to subtilise the details.
“You will have to have women on the committee.”
“Haven’t you made that obvious?”
“Why this personal tone?”
“I was conveying the most delicate compliment. Isn’t Janet indispensable, Dad?”
“Absolutely indispensable. We men have our limitations!”
“It is charming of you to confess that. Before the war——”
“We apologise for everything before the war. This is a new epoch.”
Then Pierce was transferred to an Orthopædic Hospital in London. He was to be discharged from the army and to be provided with an artificial foot. Ten days later came the “cinema touch,” though that little bit of red ribbon can never be vulgarised in the eyes of the men who know how such a badge is won.
Pierce sent the news to his father. It seemed right that Porteous should be the first to hear it, for there would be such pride for him in the telling.
That letter caught Porteous Hammersly as he was finishing an early breakfast, and it so excited him that the regular habits of the last twenty years failed to keep him the sober elderly gentleman. His one idea was that Janet ought to hear the news, for Pierce had asked him to tell her. Dear boy; splendid boy! Porteous Hammersly never thought of rushing upstairs to tell his wife.
His exhilaration was so triumphant that he forgot his hat, and the people who happened to be on the London road had the opportunity of seeing Mr. Porteous Hammersly walking at a great rate towards the common. He had remembered his walking-stick, if he had forgotten his hat.
“Silly old fool!” thought a spectacled insurance-agent, who posed as a conscientious objector; and was cycling off on his day’s round.
But Porteous Hammersly would not have quarrelled with any man who called him a fool that morning. What did it matter if he happened to be a little drunk and flustered with happiness? He caught Janet just as she was coming out of the cottage on her way to Scarshott, and he had to rid himself of the great news before he opened the gate.
“Pierce has won the Cross!”
She looked at him with wide bright eyes.
“The V.C.?”
“Yes, just that.”
She went and kissed him.
“Isn’t it splendid!”
“We owe it to you, Janet.”
He was still immensely excited.
“Where’s your mother, dear?”
“Downstairs. She has just finished breakfast.”
“I want to congratulate her. We ought to have a dinner or something—what?”
He had to be taken into the cottage, and in the hall he put up his hands to remove his hat.
“Bless me—where did I leave it?”
“What?”
“My hat?”
She could have hugged him.
“My dear, you had no hat.”
“Bless my soul!”
And then he fell a-laughing.
“I think I am just a little bit excited, child.”
CHAPTER XXXIX
They stood for a moment outside the gates, a little group of three, the wounded man with his crutches and the Cross on his breast, the girl looking up at him with a glow of tenderness and triumph, the older man flushed, excited and very proud. A quiet and grave crowd had given them an affectionate and scattered cheer, for these three people were very pleasant to behold. If they were envied, they were envied by men and women who felt the better for envying them. The little group of three glowed with human emotion, and spread that glow into the hearts of those who watched.
A big police-sergeant came up and saluted.
“Do you want a taxi, sir?”
He addressed Porteous, and Porteous seemed a little lost.
“Taxi? Yes, thank you, Sergeant. I think we had better have a taxi.”
The taxi was produced, and the sergeant helped Pierce into it.
“Where to, sir?”
“The Piedmont, please.”
“Piedmont Hotel. No, I’m not taking anything for this, sir. Right away.”
It was the most wonderful drive that Pierce Hammersly had ever taken. No one said a word. He sat and held Janet’s hand, and old Porteous appeared to be a little weak in the eyes and quite extraordinarily interested in the traffic. Now and again he could not help glancing at the Cross and the bit of ribbon on his son’s tunic, that red badge of valour.
Porteous Hammersly had taken a suite of rooms at the Piedmont, and they had arranged a little dinner that night, with Captain Guest to make the fourth. Mrs. Sophia was in bed at Orchards with a sprained ankle, and no one had regarded the coincidence as a disaster.
They dined at eight. Captain Guest came on crutches, his thigh still fixed to an iron splint, and a patten fixed to his right boot, a pale but grossly cheerful man, with blue eyes full of fun. And these two be-crutched men stood propped over against each other and shook hands.
“How’s the thigh?”
“Splendid. They tell me that it will be only an inch shorter than its brother. Haven’t they given you a foot yet?”
“I believe it is in the post.”
“We’ll be as brisk as ever in no time.”
The Piedmont gave them a very delightful little dinner, and Porteous had chosen the wine.
“A legitimate extravagance,” as he exp
lained it; “besides, we have pledges to drink.”
They all talked, and talked as though they had been mutes for a month, for the war has developed in us a new and excellent loquacity that is wise and natural and joyous. But towards the end of the meal Guest and Hammersly held grave debate together, and the others listened to these two generous voices.
“It is all a matter of luck. If I hadn’t fallen into that shell-crater and found Corporal Palk, it would never have happened.”
“It happened by chance up to a certain point, but it wasn’t luck that sent you out to try and find me. Nor was the rest of it luck.”
“If you argue in that way I shall have to go farther back. It was luck that you led us; it was luck that I was joined on to your Company. In fact, because you always led us so splendidly——”
“My dear chap——!”
“The Company was rather fond of you; dozens of men would have done what I did, only it happened to be me, and you were too generous about it.”
Guest looked at him with eyes of affection.
“We’ll leave it there. You men were fine.”
“Did we follow you well?”
“I could have wept for joy when you came along as you did. Miss Yorke, you don’t know what it means to an officer who has worked and grown proud of his little bit of an army, when those fellows follow him like a solid wall.”
Janet smiled at him.
“I can understand it. What a great moment!”
“Almost as great as that moment when you learn that somebody cares.”
They drank healths, and the dinner was over, and the two crippled men were manœuvred into armchairs by Janet and old Porteous.
Said Guest:
“I suppose they will want to give you some sort of triumphal reception down at your place?”
“I hope not. I don’t think I could stand it, thinking of ‘The Boy’ and all the fine chaps lying out there.”
“But I don’t see why you should mind.”
“Doesn’t the brass-band idea seem rather beastly?”
Guest appealed to Janet. He had noticed that she was watching Pierce’s father, and Porteous Hammersly was looking self-conscious and uncomfortable.
“What do you say, Miss Yorke?”
She paused in thought, and then looked straight at Pierce.
“I think there are times when a man becomes public property for an hour or so. Besides, if it pleases other people——”
Her eyes held Pierce’s, and then glanced meaningly at his father. That look of hers was an appeal and a challenge, for Porteous had grown very silent and appeared distressfully intent upon his cigar. Pierce saw and understood. His eyes swept back to meet Janet’s and, with an honouring look, thanked her.
“Perhaps you are right. I dare say I should enjoy it thoroughly.”
When Guest had gone, Janet contrived to snatch a few moments alone with her man. She went to him impulsively, holding out her hands.
“How much kinder you are. You see, he had confided in me.”
“Dear old dad; I would not hurt him for worlds. What’s in the air?”
“The tannery people sent a deputation. They want to drag a carriage up from the station. He was delighted.”
“Good heavens! Still, after all, it is really very decent of them. It’s the pater’s triumph; he has always treated them very well. I’ll go through with it, Janet, and smile.”
CHAPTER XL
The day of Pierce Hammersly’s home-coming was his father’s day, bright with September sunshine, clear and still. Quite a big crowd gathered at the station to meet the train. People threw flowers into the carriage, and the cheering was perfectly sincere.
Men and boys had roped themselves to the carriage and they went up through Scarshott town with great ceremony, Janet gathering up the flowers that had fallen into the carriage and making them into a great posy. Old Porteous was very dignified and very happy, lifting his hat from time to time, and giving it a slight flourish. Pierce sat very still, like a soldier at attention.
The crowd followed them into the Orchards garden, and Porteous Hammersly stood up to make a speech. It was a very short speech, and the most effective part of it was the breakdown towards the end.
Pierce had to struggle up and cover the old man’s emotion.
“Thank you all, thank you, most heartily. I hope—some day—to be the man my father is.”
They cheered him unreservedly.
But the light in Janet’s eyes was the light that crowned his valour.
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious printing errors have been silently corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation, spelling and punctuation have been preserved.
[End of Valour: A Novel by Warwick (George) Deeping.]
Valour Page 24