“She said no word of it to me last night — and I saw her home. I suppose she sent word over about that too?”
He looked from one to the other of his companions, but neither answered him. Some uneasiness indeed was apparent in them both.
“Oho!” he said with a smile. “Stella’s coming over and I know nothing of it. Mr. Thresk’s lazy, so remains at Little Beeding and delivers a lecture to me over breakfast. And you, father, seem in remarkable spirits.”
Mr. Hazlewood seized upon the opportunity to interrupt his son’s reflections.
“I am, my boy,” he cried. “I walked in the fields this morning and—” But he got no further with his explanations, for the sound of Mrs. Pettifer’s voice rang high in the hall and she burst into the room.
“Harold, I have only a moment. Good morning, Mr. Thresk,” she cried in a breath. “I have something to say to you.”
Thresk was disturbed. Suppose that Stella came while Mrs. Pettifer was
here! She must not speak in Mrs. Pettifer’s presence. Somehow Mrs.
Pettifer must be dismissed. No such anxiety, however, harassed Mr.
Hazlewood.
“Say it, Margaret,” he said, smiling benignantly upon her. “You cannot annoy me this morning. I am myself again,” and Dick’s eyes turned sharply upon him. “All my old powers of observation have returned, my old interest in the great dark riddle of human life has re-awakened. The brain, the sedulous, active brain, resumes its work to-day asking questions, probing problems. I rose early, Margaret,” he flourished his hands like one making a speech, “and walking in the fields amongst the cows a most curious speculation forced itself upon my mind. How is it, I asked myself—”
It seemed that Mr. Hazlewood was destined never to complete a sentence that morning, for Margaret Pettifer at this point banged her umbrella upon the floor.
“Stop talking, Harold, and listen to me! I have been speaking with Robert and we withdraw all opposition to Dick’s marriage.”
Mr. Hazlewood was dumfoundered.
“You, Margaret — you of all people!” he stammered.
“Yes,” she replied decisively. “Robert likes her and Robert is a good judge of a woman. That’s one thing. Then I believe Dick is going to take St. Quentins; isn’t that so, Dick?”
“Yes,” answered Dick. “That’s the house we looked over yesterday.”
“Well, it’s not a couple of a hundred yards from us, and it would not be comfortable for any of us if Dick and Dick’s wife were strangers. So I give in. There, Dick!” She went across the room and held out her hand to him. “I am going to call on Stella this afternoon.”
Dick flushed with pleasure.
“That’s splendid, Aunt Margaret. I knew you were all right, you know. You put on a few frills at first, of course, but you are forgiven.”
Mr. Hazlewood made so complete a picture of dismay that Dick could not but pity him. He went across to his father.
“Now, sir,” he said, “let us hear this problem.”
The old man was not proof against the invitation.
“You shall, Richard,” he exclaimed. “You are the very man to hear it. Your aunt, Richard, is of too practical a mind for such speculations. It’s a most curious problem. Hubbard quite failed to throw any light upon it. I myself am, I confess, bewildered. And I wonder if a fresh young mind can help us to a solution.” He patted his son on the shoulder and then took him by the arm.
“The fresh young mind will have a go, father,” said Dick. “Fire away.”
“I was walking in the fields, my boy.”
“Yes, sir, among the cows.”
“Exactly, you put your finger on the very point. How is it, I asked myself—”
“That’s quite your old style, father.”
“Now isn’t it, Richard, isn’t it?” Mr. Hazlewood dropped Dick’s arm. He warmed to his theme. He caught fire. He assumed the attitude of the orator. “How is it that with the advancement of science and the progress of civilization a cow gives no more milk to-day than she did at the beginning of the Christian era?”
With outspread arms he asked for an answer and the answer came.
“A fresh young mind can solve that problem in two shakes. It is because the laws of nature forbid. That’s your trouble, father. That’s the great drawback to sentimental enthusiasm. It’s always up against the laws of nature.”
“Dick,” said Mrs. Pettifer, “by some extraordinary miracle you are gifted with common-sense. I am off.” She went away in a hurricane as she had come, and it was time that she did go, for even while she was closing the door Stella Ballantyne came out from her cottage to cross the meadow. Dick was the first to hear the gate click as she unlatched it and passed into the garden. He took a step towards the window, but his father interposed and for once with a real authority.
“No, Richard,” he said. “Wait with us here. Mrs. Ballantyne has something to tell us.”
“I thought so,” said Dick quietly, and he came back to the other two men. “Let me understand.” His face was grave but without anger or any confusion. “Stella returned here last night after I had taken her home?”
“Yes,” said Thresk.
“To see you?”
“Yes.”
“And my father came down and found you together?”
“Yes.”
“I heard voices,” Mr. Hazlewood hurriedly interposed, “and so naturally I came down.”
Dick turned to his father.
“That’s all right, father. I didn’t think you were listening at the keyhole. I am not blaming anybody. I want to know exactly where we are — that’s all.”
Stella found the little group awaiting her, and standing up before them she told her story as she had told it last night to Thresk. She omitted nothing nor did she falter. She had trembled and cried for a great part of the night over the ordeal which lay before her, but now that she had come to it she was brave. Her composure indeed astonished Thresk and filled him with compassion. He knew that the very roots of her heart were bleeding. Only once or twice did she give any sign of what these few minutes were costing her. Her eyes strayed towards Dick Hazlewood’s face in spite of herself, but she turned them away again with a wrench of her head and closed her eyelids lest she should hesitate and fail. All listened to her in silence, and it was strange to Thresk that the one man who seemed least concerned of the three was Dick Hazlewood himself. He watched Stella all the while she was speaking, but his face was a mask, not a gesture or movement gave a clue to his thoughts. When Stella had finished he asked composedly:
“Why didn’t you tell me all this at the beginning, Stella?”
And now she turned to him in a burst of passion and remorse.
“Oh, Dick, I tried to tell you. I made up my mind so often that I would, but I never had the courage. I am terribly to blame. I hid it all from you — yes. But oh! you meant so much to me — you yourself, Dick. It wasn’t your position. It wasn’t what you brought with you, other people’s friendship, other people’s esteem. It was just you — you — you! I longed for you to want me, as I wanted you.” Then she recovered herself and stopped. She was doing the very thing she had resolved not to do. She was pleading, she was making excuses. She drew herself up and with a dignity which was quite pitiful she now pleaded against herself.
“But I don’t ask for your pity. You mustn’t be merciful. I don’t want mercy, Dick. That’s of no use to me. I want to know what you think — just what you really and truthfully think — that’s all. I can stand alone — if I must. Oh yes, I can stand alone.” And as Thresk stirred and moved, knowing well in what way she meant to stand alone, Stella turned her eyes full upon him in warning, nay, in menace. “I can stand alone quite easily, Dick. You mustn’t think that I should suffer so very much. I shouldn’t! I shouldn’t—”
In spite of her control a sob broke from her throat and her bosom heaved; and then Dick Hazlewood went quietly to her side and took her hand.
“I didn
’t interrupt you, Stella. I wanted you to tell everything now, once for all, so that no one of us three need ever mention a word of it again.”
Stella looked at Dick Hazlewood in wonder, and then a light broke over her face like the morning. His arm slipped about her waist and she leaned against him suddenly weak, almost to swooning. Mr. Hazlewood started up from his chair in consternation.
“But you heard her, Richard!”
“Yes, father, I heard her,” he answered. “But you see Stella is my wife.”
“Your—” Mr. Hazlewood’s lips refused to speak the word. He fell back again in his chair and dropped his face in his hands. “Oh, no!”
“It’s true,” said Dick. “I have rooms in London, you know. I went to
London last week. Stella came up on Monday. It was my doing, my wish.
Stella is my wife.”
Mr. Hazlewood groaned aloud.
“But she has tricked you, Richard,” and Stella agreed.
“Yes, I tricked you, Dick. I did,” she said miserably, and she drew herself from his arm. But he caught her hand.
“No, you didn’t.” He led her over to his father. “That’s where you both make your mistake. Stella tried to tell me something on the very night when we walked back from this house to her cottage and I asked her to marry me. She has tried again often during the last weeks. I knew very well what it was — before you turned against her, before I married her. She didn’t trick me.”
Mr. Hazlewood turned in despair to Henry Thresk.
“What do you say?” he asked.
“That I am very glad you asked me here to give my advice on your collection,” Thresk answered. “I was inclined yesterday to take a different view of your invitation. But I did what perhaps I may suggest that you should do: I accepted the situation.”
He went across to Stella and took her hands.
“Oh, thank you,” she cried, “thank you.”
“And now” — Thresk turned to Dick— “if I might look at a Bradshaw I could find out the next train to London.”
“Certainly,” said Dick, and he went over to the writing-table. Stella and
Henry Thresk were left alone for a moment.
“We shall see you again,” she said. “Please!”
Thresk laughed.
“No doubt. I am not going out into the night. You know my address. If you don’t ask Mr. Hazlewood. It’s in King’s Bench Walk, isn’t it?” And he took the time-table from Dick Hazlewood’s hand.
THE END
The Summons (1920)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
The first edition’s title page
CHAPTER I
The Olympic Games
“LUTRELL! LUTRELL!”
Sir Charles Hardiman stood in the corridor of his steam yacht and bawled the name through a closed door. But no answer was returned from the other side of the door. He turned the handle and went in. The night was falling, but the cabin windows looked towards the north and the room was full of light and of a low and pleasant music. For the tide tinkled and chattered against the ship’s planks and, in the gardens of the town across the harbour, bands were playing. The town was Stockholm in the year nineteen hundred and twelve, and on this afternoon, the Olympic games, that unfortunate effort to promote goodwill amongst the nations, which did little but increase rancours and disclose hatreds, had ended, never, it is to be hoped, to be resumed.
“Luttrell,” cried Hardiman again, but this time with perplexity in his voice. For Luttrell was there in the cabin in front of him, but sunk in so deep a contemplation of memories and prospects that the cabin might just as well have been empty. Sir Charles Hardiman touched him on the shoulder.
“Wake up, old man!”
“That’s what I am doing — waking up,” said Luttrell, turning without any start. He was seated in front of the writing-desk, a young man, as the world went before the war, a few months short of twenty-eight.
“The launch is waiting and everybody’s on deck,” continued Hardiman. “We shall lose our table at Hasselbacken if we don’t get off.”
Then he caught sight of a telegram lying upon the writing-table.
“Oh!” and the impatience died out of his voice. “Is anything the matter?”
Luttrell pushed the telegram towards his host.
“Read it! I have got to make up my mind — and now — before we start.”
Hardiman read the telegram. It was addressed to Captain Harry Luttrell, Yacht The Dragonfly, Stockholm, and it was sent from Cairo by the Adjutant-General of the Egyptian Army.
“I can make room for you, but you must apply immediately to be transferred.”
Hardiman sat down in a chair by the side of the table against the wall, with his eyes on Luttrell’s face. He was a big, softish, overfed man of forty-five, and the moment he began to relax from the upright position, his body went with a run; he collapsed rather than sat. The little veins were beginning to show like tiny scarlet threads across his nose and on the fullness of his cheeks; his face was the colour of wine; and the pupils of his pale eyes were ringed with so pronounced an arcus senilis that they commanded the attention like a disfigurement. But the eyes were shrewd and kindly enough as they dwelt upon the troubled face of his guest.
“You have not answered this?” he asked.
“No. But I must send an answer to-night.”
“You are in doubt?”
“Yes. I was quite sure when I cabled to Cairo on the second day of the games. I was quite sure, whilst I waited for the reply. Now that the reply has come — I don’t know.”
“Let me hear,” said the older man. “The launch must wait, the table at the Hasselbacken restaurant must be assigned, if need be, to other customers.” Hardiman had not swamped all his kindliness in good living. Luttrell was face to face with one of the few grave decisions which each man has in the course of his life to make; and Hardiman understood his need better than he understood it himself. His need was to formulate aloud the case for and against, to another person, not so much that he might receive advice as, that he might see for himself with truer eyes.
“The one side is clear enough,” said Luttrell with a trace of bitterness. “There was a Major I once heard of at Dover. He trained his company in night-marches by daylight. The men held a rope to guide them and were ordered to shut their eyes. The Major, you see, hated stirring out at night. He liked his bridge and his bottle of port. Well, give me another year and that’s the kind of soldier I shall become — the worst kind — the slovenly soldier. I mean slovenly in mind, in intention. Even now I come, already bored, to the barrack square and watch the time to see if I can’t catch an earlier train from Gravesend to London.”
“And when you do?” asked Hardiman.
Luttrell nodded.
“When I do,” he agreed, “I get no thrill out of my escape, I assure you. I hate myself a little more — that’s all.”
“Yes,” said Hardiman. He was too wise a man to ask questions. He just sat and waited, inviting Luttrell to spread out his troubles by his very quietude.
“Then there are these games,” Luttrel
l cried in a swift exasperation, “ — these damned games! From the first day when the Finns marched out with their national flag and the Russians threatened to withdraw if they did it again — —” he broke off suddenly. “Of course you know soldiers have believed that trouble’s coming. I used to doubt, but by God I am sure of it now. Just a froth of fine words at the opening and afterwards — honest rivalry and let the best man win? Not a bit of it! Team-running — a vile business — the nations parked together in different sections of the Stadium like enemies — and ill-will running here and there like an infection! Oh, there’s trouble coming, and if I don’t go I shan’t be fit for it. There, that’s the truth.”
“The whole truth and nothing but the truth?” Hardiman asked with a smile. He leaned across the table and drew towards him a case of telegraph forms. But whilst he was drawing them towards him, Luttrell spoke again.
“Nothing but the truth — yes,” he said. He was speaking shyly, uncomfortably, and he stopped abruptly.
“The whole truth — no.” Hardiman added slowly, and gently. He wanted the complete story from preface to conclusion, but he was not to get it. He received no answer of any kind for a considerable number of moments and Luttrell only broke the silence in the end, to declare definitely,
“That, at all events, is all I have to say.”
Sir Charles nodded and drew the case of forms close to him. There was something more then. There always is something more, which isn’t told, he reflected, and the worst of it is, the something more which isn’t told is always the real reason. Men go to the confessional with a reservation; the secret chamber where they keep their sacred vessels, their real truths and inspirations, as also their most scarlet sins — that shall be opened to no one after early youth is past unless it be — rarely — to one woman. There was another reason at work in Harry Luttrell, but Sir Charles Hardiman was never to know it. With a shrug of his shoulders he took a pencil from his pocket, filled up one of the forms and handed it to Luttrell.
“That’s what I should reply.”
He had written:
“I am travelling to London to-morrow to apply for transfer. Luttrell.”
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 532