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Title: The people of the ruins
A story of the English Revolution and after
Author: Edward Shanks
Release date: April 11, 2024 [eBook #73376]
Language: English
Original publication: United States: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1920
Credits: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEOPLE OF THE RUINS ***
THE PEOPLE OF
THE RUINS
A STORY OF THE ENGLISH
REVOLUTION AND AFTER
BY
EDWARD SHANKS
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1920, by_
EDWARD SHANKS
_All Rights Reserved_
TO
ELSIE AND J. MURRAY ALLISON
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I TROUBLE 1
II THE DEAD RAT 19
III A WORLD GROWN STRANGE 35
IV DISCOVERIES 61
V THE SPEAKER 88
VI THE GUNS 115
VII THE LADY EVA 133
VIII DECLARATION OF WAR 158
IX MARCHING OUT 176
X THE BATTLE 190
XI TRIUMPH 209
XII NEW CLOUDS 226
XIII THE FIELDS OF WINDSOR 249
XIV CHAOS 267
XV FLIGHT 282
XVI THE ROMAN ROAD 301
THE PEOPLE OF THE RUINS
CHAPTER I
TROUBLE
1
Mr. Jeremy Tuft became aware with a slight shock that he was lying in
bed wide awake. He raised his head a little, stared around him, found
something vaguely unfamiliar, and tried to go to sleep again. But sleep
would not come. Though he felt dull and stupid, he was yet invincibly
awake. His eyes opened again of themselves, and he stared round him
once more. It was the subdued light, filtered through the curtains,
that was strange; and as intelligence flowed back into his empty mind,
he realized that this was because it was much stronger than it should
have been at any time before eight o’clock. Thence to the conclusion
that it was very likely later than eight o’clock was an easy step for
his reviving faculties. Energy followed the returning intelligence, and
he sat up suddenly, his head throbbing as he did so, and took his watch
from the table beside him. It was, in fact, a quarter to ten.
Arising out of this discovery a stream of possibilities troubled the
still somewhat confused processes of his mind. Either Mrs. Watkins for
some unaccountable reason had failed to arrive, or else, contrary to
his emphatic and often repeated instructions, she had been perfunctory
in knocking at his door and had not stayed for an answer. In either
case it was annoying; but Mrs. Watkins’ arrival at half-past seven was
so fixed a point in the day, she was so regular, so trustworthy, and,
moreover, life without her ministrations was so unthinkable that the
first possibility seemed much the less possible of the two. When Jeremy
had thus exhausted the field of speculation he rose and went out of his
room to speak sharply to Mrs. Watkins. His intention of severity was
a little belied by the genial grotesqueness of his short and rather
broad figure in dressing-gown and pyjamas; but he hoped that he looked
a disciplinarian.
Mrs. Watkins, however, was not there. The flat was silent and
completely empty. The blinds were drawn over the sitting-room windows,
and stirred faintly as he opened the door. He passed into the kitchen,
but not hopefully, for as a rule his ear told him without mistake
when the charwoman was to be found there. As he had expected, she was
not there, nor yet in the bathroom. There was a quiet uncanny silence
everywhere, so strange and yet at the same time so reminiscent of
something that eluded his memory, that Jeremy paused a moment, head
lifted in air, trying to analyze its effect on him. He ascribed it at
last to the obvious cause of Mrs. Watkins’ absence at this unusually
late hour; and he went further into the bathroom, whence he could see,
with a little craning of the neck, the clock on St. Andrew’s Church in
Holborn. This last testimony confirmed that of his watch. He returned
to the sitting-room, struggling half-consciously in his mind with a
quite irrational feeling, for which he could not account, that it was a
Sunday. He knew very well that it was a Tuesday--Tuesday, the 18th of
April, in the year 1924.
When he came into the sitting-room he drew back the blinds and let in
the full morning light, and by its aid he surveyed unfavorably his
overcoat lying where he had thrown it the night before, coming in late
from a party. He looked also with some disgust at the glass from which
he had drunk a last unnecessary whisky and soda previous to going to
bed. Then he paddled back wearily with bare feet to the narrow kitchen
(a cupboard containing a gas-stove and a smaller cupboard), set a
kettle on to boil, and began the always laborious process of bathing,
shaving, and dressing. At the end he shirked making tea, or boiling
an egg, and he sat down discontentedly to another whisky, in the same
glass, and a piece of stale bread.
As he consumed this unsuitable meal he remembered his appointment for
one o’clock that day, and hoped with a sudden devoutness that the
’buses would be running after all. It was no joke to go from Holborn
to Whitechapel High Street on foot. But a young and rather aggressive
Socialist whom he had unwillingly met at that party had predicted with
confidence a strike of ’busmen some time during the evening. Certainly
Jeremy had had to walk all the way home from Chelsea, a thing he much
disliked, but then perhaps by that time the ’buses had stopped running
in the ordinary course.... They _did_ stop running, those Chelsea
’buses--a horrid place--at an ungodly early hour, he was not quite
sure what. But then he was not quite sure at what time he had started
home ... he was not really sure of anything that had happened towards
the end of the party. He remembered long, devastating arguments in
the earlier part about Anarchism, Socialism, Syndicalism, Bolshevism,
and some other doctrines, the names of which were formed on the same
analogy, but which were too novel to him to be readily apprehended.
These discussions were mingled with more practical but equally windy
disputes on the questions whether the railwaymen would come out,
whether the miners were bluffing, what Bob Hart was going to do,
and much more besides on the same level of interest. There had been
also a youth with great superiority of manner, who seemed as tedious
and irritating to the politicians as they were to Jeremy--a sort of
super-bore who stated at intervals that the General Strike was a myth,
but praised all and sundry for talking about it and threatening it. It
had been--hadn’t it?--a studio party. At least, Jeremy had gone to it
on that understanding; but the political push had rushed it somehow,
and had bored everybody else to tears. Jeremy, who did not very much
relish political argument, had applied himself to a kind of pleasure
he could better understand. He now remembered little enough of those
long, muddling disputations, punctuated by visits to the sideboard, but
he knew that his head ached terribly. Aspirin tablets washed down with
whisky would probably not be much good, but they would be better than
nothing. He took some.
In the midst of these difficulties and discomforts he began obscurely
to miss something; and at last it flashed on him that he had no morning
paper--because there had been no Mrs. Watkins to bring it in with her
and put it on his table. He realized at the same time that the morning
paper would tell him whether he had to walk to Whitechapel High Street,
and that it was worth a journey to the street door from his flat at the
top of the building to know the worst. But when he had made the journey
there was no paper. While he was reflecting on this disagreeable fact
an envelope in the letter box caught his eye. It was addressed to him
in a somewhat illiterate script, and appeared to have been delivered by
hand, since it bore no stamp. When he opened it he found the following
communication:
“DERE SIR,--Ime sorry to tell you I shal not be able to come in
to-morro as we working womin have gone on stricke in simpathy with
husbands and other working men the buses are al out and the railways
and so are we dere Mr. Tuft I dont know Ime sure how you will get on
without me but do youre best and dont forget to-day is the day for
your clean underclose they are in the chest of draws there is a tin
of sardins in the larder so no more at present from your truely,
“MRS. WATKINS.”
“Well, I’m damned....” said Mr. Tuft, staring at this touching epistle;
and for a moment he was filled with annoyance by the recollection
that he had not put on his clean underclothes. Presently, however,
he trailed upstairs again; and when he had found the sardines in the
larder the effort thus endured strengthened him for the task of making
tea. Eventually he got ready a quite satisfactory breakfast, in the
course of which his mind cleared to an exhausted and painful lucidity.
“That’s what it is!” he cried at last, thumping the table; and in his
excitement, he let the last half sardine slide off his fork and on
to the floor. He groped after it, wincing and starting up when his
head throbbed too badly, retrieved the rather dusty fish, wiped it
carefully with his napkin, and slowly ate it. The strange silence and
the odd feeling that this was Sunday morning were at last explained.
The printing works across the narrow street were empty, and through the
grimy windows Jeremy could see the great machines standing idle. Below
there were no carts, where usually they banged and clattered through
the whole working day. The printers were out on strike. Very possibly
everybody had struck; for surely nothing short of a national upheaval
could have deterred the industrious Mrs. Watkins from her work.
He went to his window and threw it wide open to make a nearer
inspection. The traffic which usually thronged the noisy little street,
the carts and cars which stood outside the newspaper offices and
printing works, were absent. A few of the tenement-dwellers lounged at
their doors in such groups as were commonly seen only at night or on
Saturday afternoons or Sundays. Jeremy felt a faint thrill go through
him. This looked like being exciting. He had seen upheavals before, but
never, even in the worst of them, had he seen this busy district in a
state of idleness so Sabbatical. There had been ’bus strikes and tube
strikes in 1918 and 1919, and since. The railwaymen and the miners had
come out together for two days late in 1920, and had made a paralyzing
impression. But throughout these affairs somehow printing had gone on,
and newspapers had continued to be published, getting at each crisis,
according to the temperaments of their proprietors, politer or more
abusive towards the strikers. At the end of the previous year, 1923,
when a very serious situation had arisen, and a collapse had been
narrowly averted, there had been a distinct and arresting note of
helpless panic in both politeness and abuse. During the last few days,
while the present trouble was brewing, neither had much appeared in the
papers, but only an exhibition of dithering fright.
But Jeremy had grown on the whole accustomed to it. He had ceased
to believe in the coming of what some of the horrible people he had
met at that studio referred to caressingly as the “Big Show.” The
Government would always arrange things somehow. The wages of lecturers
and investigators in physics (of whom he was one) never went up,
because they never went on strike, and because it was unlikely that
any one would care if they did. He had not been able to believe
that a time would ever come when there would be no Government, no
Paymaster-General, no Ministry of Pensions, to pay him his partial
disability pension. But this morning unexpected events seemed much
more probable. There was not much of the world to be perceived from
his window looking down the street, but what there was smelt somehow
remarkably like real trouble.
2
Jeremy Tuft was not unused to “trouble” of one sort and another. When
the Great War began in 1914 he was a lecturer on physical science in
one of the modern universities of Northern England. He had published a
series of papers on the Viscosity of Liquids, which had gained him a
European reputation--that is to say, it had been quoted with approval
by two Germans and a Pole, while the conclusions had been appropriated
without acknowledgment by a Norwegian--and he received a stipend of
£300 per annum, to which he added a little by private coaching in his
spare time. With what was left of his spare time he tried to make the
liquids move faster or slower or in some other direction--in view of
his ultimate destiny it matters very little which--and at all events
to gather such evidence as would blow the Norwegian, for whom he had
conceived an unreasonable hatred, quite out of the water.
War called him from these pursuits. He did not stand upon his
scientific status or attainments; but concluding that the country
wanted MEN to set an example, he hastened to set an example by applying
for a commission in the artillery, which, after some difficulty, he
obtained. When the first excitement and muddle had been cleared away,
so he supposed, no doubt the specialists would be sorted out and set to
do the jobs for which they were best fitted. He was a naturally modest
man; but he could think of two or three jobs for which he was very well
fitted indeed.
He passed through Woolwich in a breathless rush, and learnt to ride
even more breathlessly. As the day for departure overseas drew near he
congratulated himself a little that the inevitable sorting-out seemed
to be postponed. He would get a few weeks more of this invaluable
experience in a sphere which was completely unfamiliar to him; he
would perhaps even see some of the fighting which he had never really
expected. When, five days after his arrival in the Salient with the
battery of sixty-pounders to which he was attached, one of the guns
blew up with a premature explosion and drenched him in blood not his
own, he felt that his experience was reasonably complete, and began
to look forward to the still deferred sorting-out. Unfortunately, it
continued to be deferred; but after a little while Jeremy settled down
with the battery, and rose in it to the rank of captain.
His companions described him as the most consistent and richly eloquent
grumbler on the British front; and he filled in his spare time by
poking round little shops in Béthune and such towns, and picking
up old, unconsidered engravings and some rather good lace. In the
early part of 1918, his horse, in a set-to with a traction-engine,
performed the operation of sorting-out which the authorities had so
long neglected; and Jeremy, when his dislocated knee was somewhat
recovered, parted forever from the intelligent animal, and went to use
his special attainments as a bottle-washer in the office of Divisional
Headquarters. The armistice came; and he was released from the army
after difficulties much exceeding those which he had encountered in
entering it.
In April, 1922, he was again a lecturer in physics, this time at a
newly-instituted college in London, receiving a stipend of £350 per
annum, to which he was luckily able to add a partial disability pension
of £20. In his spare moments he pursued the Viscosity of Liquids
with a movement less lively than their own; but he had forgotten the
Norwegian’s name. He lived alone, not too uncomfortably, in his little
flat in Holborn, a short distance from the building where it was his
duty to explain to young men who sometimes, and young women who rarely,
understood him, the difference between mass and weight, and other such
interesting points. He was tended daily by the careful Mrs. Watkins,
and he had a number of friends, mostly artists, whose tendency to live
in Chelsea or in Camden Town he heartily deplored.
On this morning of April, 1924, the first day of the Great Strike or
the Big Show, Jeremy set out at a few moments after eleven to keep his
appointment with a friend who lived in a place no less inconvenient
than the Whitechapel High Street. The streets were, as they had seemed
from his windows, even emptier and quieter than on a Sunday, and most
of the shops were closed. But there was, on the whole, a feeling of
electricity in the air that Jeremy had never associated with that day.
It was when he came into Fetter Lane and saw a patrol of troops lying
on the grass outside the Record Office that he first found something
concrete to justify this feeling.
“There _is_ going to be trouble, then,” he muttered to himself,
admitting it with reluctance, as he walked on steadily into Fleet
Street; and there his apprehensions were again confirmed. A string
of lorries came rapidly down the empty roadway, past him from the
West, and they were crowded with troops. Guards, he thought--carrying
machine-guns in the first lorry.
Jeremy paused for a moment, staring after them, and then as he turned
to go on he saw a small special constable standing as inconspicuously
as possible in the door of a shop, swinging nervously the truncheon
at his wrist. His uniform looked a little dusty and unkept, and there
was an obvious moth-hole on one side of the cap. His whole appearance
was that of a man desperately imploring Providence not to let anything
happen.
“That man’s face is simply asking for a riot,” Jeremy grunted to
himself; and he said aloud, “Perhaps you can tell me what it’s all
about?”
The special constable started suspiciously. But seeing that Jeremy was
comparatively well-dressed, and seemed to be a member of what in those
days was beginning to be known as the P.B.M.C.[A] he was reassured.
Jeremy’s air of clumsy geniality and self-confidence was, moreover,
far removed from the sinister aspect of the traditional Bolshevist. “I
don’t know really,” he said in a complaining voice, “it’s so difficult
to find out with no newspapers or anything. All I do know for certain
is that we were called out last night, and some say one thing and some
another.”
“How long have you been on duty?” Jeremy asked.
“Only an hour,” the special constable replied. “I slept at the station
all night on the floor.”
“Like old times in billets, what?” Jeremy remarked pleasantly,
_observing a silver badge on the man’s right lapel_.
“No.... Oh, no.... I wasn’t ever in the army really. They invalided me
out after three days. I’m not strong, you know--I’m not fit for this
sort of thing. And we didn’t get any proper sleep.”
“Why not?”
“We were afraid we might be attacked,” said the special constable
darkly. “Nearly all the police are out. There was only an inspector and
a sergeant at the station besides us.”
“Well, who else is out?” Jeremy asked.
“The railwaymen came out yesterday, and the ’busmen last night. All the
miners are out now. And the printers, too. They say the electrical men
are out, too, but I don’t know about that.”
“Looks like almighty smash, don’t it?” Jeremy commented. “Where are all
those troops going?”
“I don’t know,” said the special constable. “Nobody really knows
anything for certain.”
“Cheerful business,” Jeremy grumbled, mostly to himself. “And how the
devil am I going to get to Whitechapel High Street, I wonder?”
“To Whitechapel High Street?” the special constable cried. “Down in the
East End? Oh, _don’t_ go down there! It’ll be _frightfully_ dangerous
there!”
“That be damned,” said Jeremy. “I can’t say you look as though you were
feeling particularly safe yourself, do you?” And with a wave of his
hand he passed down Fleet Street in an easterly direction.
It was only a few hundred yards farther on that he received his first
personal shock of the day. As he came to Ludgate Circus he heard an
empty lorry, driven at a furious rate, bumping and clanging down the
street behind him. At the same time a large gray staff car, packed with
red-tabbed officers, shot into the Circus out of Farrington Street,
making for Blackfriars Bridge. His heart was for a moment in his mouth,
but the driver of the lorry pulled up abruptly and let the car go by,
stopping his own engine as he did so. Jeremy saw him descend, swearing
softly, to crank up again; and the sight of the empty vehicle revived
in him glad memories of the French and Flemish roads. He therefore
stepped into the street, and said with a confidence that returned to
him naturally from earlier years:
“Look here, my lad, if you’re going east, you might give me a bit of a
lift.”
The soldier had got his engine going again, and rose from the starting
handle with a flushed and frowning face.
“’Oo are you talkin’ to?” he asked sullenly. “’Oo the ’ell do you think
this lorry belongs to, eh? Think it belongs to _you_?” And as Jeremy
was too taken aback to answer, he continued: “This lorry belongs to the
Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Council of Southwark, that’s ’oo it belongs
to.” He climbed slowly back into his seat, and as he slipped the clutch
in leant outwards to Jeremy and exclaimed in a particularly emphatic
and vicious tone, “Dirty boorjwar!” The machine leapt forward, swept
round the Circus, and disappeared over the bridge.
Jeremy, a little perturbed by this incident, pursued his journey,
unconsciously grasping his heavy cane somewhat tighter, and glancing
almost nervously down every side street or alley he passed, hardly
knowing for what he looked. His notion of the way by foot to
Whitechapel High Street was not very clear, but he knew more or less
the way to Liverpool Street, and he supposed that by going thither he
would be following the proper line. He therefore trudged up Ludgate
Hill and along Cheapside, cursing the Revolution and all extremists
from the bottom of his heart. The lorry driver’s parting shot still
rankled in his mind. He felt that it was extremely unjust to accuse
him of being a member of the bourgeoisie, and he was quite ready to
exchange all his vested interests in anything whatever against a seat
in a ’bus.
Close to Liverpool Street Station he came out of deserted and silent
streets, whose silence and emptiness had begun to have an effect on
his nerves, into a scene of activity and animation. A string of five
lorries, driven by soldiers, but loaded with something hidden under
tarpaulins instead of troops, was drawn up by the curb, while a large
and growing crowd blocked its further progress. The crowd was held
together apparently by an orator mounted on a broken chair, who was
lashing himself into a fury which he found difficult to communicate to
his audience. Jeremy pushed forward as unobtrusively as he could, but
eventually found himself stayed, close to the foremost lorry, on the
skirts of the crowd. The orator, not far off, was working himself into
ever wilder and wilder passions.
“The hour has come,” he was saying. “All over the country our brothers
have risen----”
“And I and _my_ brothers,” Jeremy murmured to himself, “are going to
get the dirty end of the stick.”
But as he looked about him and examined the crowd in which he was
involved, he found some difficulty in connecting it with the fiery
phrases of the speaker or with the impending Revolution which, until
this moment, he had really been beginning to dread. Now a sudden wave
of relief passed over his mind. These honest, blunt, good-natured
people had expressed the subtle influence of the day, which he himself
had felt, by putting on their Sunday clothes. They were not meditating
bloodshed or the overthrow of the State. But for a certain seriousness
and determination in their faces and voices one might have thought that
they were making holiday in an unpremeditated and rather eccentric
manner. Their seriousness was not that of men forming desperate
resolves. It was that of men who, having entered into an argument,
intend to argue it out. They believed in argument, in the power of
reason, and the voting force of majorities. They applauded the speaker,
but not when he became blood-thirsty; and time and time again he lost
touch with them in his violence. At the most frenzied point of the
oration a thick-set man, with a startling orange handkerchief round his
neck, turned to Jeremy and said disgustedly:
“Listen to ’im jowin’! Sheeny, that’s what he is, no more than
a--Sheeny.” Jeremy was neither a politician nor a sociologist. He did
not weigh a previous diagnosis against this fresh evidence and come
to a more cheerful conclusion; but he breathed rather more freely and
relaxed his grip on his cane. He was not disturbed by the confused and
various clamor which came from the crowd and in which there was a good
admixture of laughter.
Just at this moment he saw on the lorry by which he had halted a face
that was familiar to him. He looked again more closely, and recognized
Scott--Scott who had been in the Divisional Office, Scott who had
panicked so wildly in the 1918 retreat, though God knew he had taken a
long enough start, Scott who had nearly landed him in a row over that
girl in the estaminet at Bailleul, just after the armistice. And Scott,
who never knew that he was disliked--a characteristic of his kind!--was
eagerly beckoning to him.
He slid quietly through the fringe of the crowd and stood by the
driving-seat of the lorry. Scott leant down and shook him by the hand
warmly, speaking in a whisper:
“Tuft, old man,” he said effusively, “I often wondered what had become
of you. What a piece of luck meeting you here!”
“I could think of better places to meet in,” Jeremy answered drily. He
was determined not to encourage Scott; he knew very well that something
damned awkward would most likely come of it. “This looks to me like a
hold-up. What have you got in the lorries?”
“Sh!” Scott murmured with a scared look. “It’s bombs for the troops at
Liverpool Street, but it’d be all up with us if the crowd knew that.
No--why I said it was lucky was because I thought you might help me to
get through.”
“I? How could I?” Jeremy asked defensively.
“Well, I don’t know.... I thought you might have some influence with
them, persuade them that there’s nothing particular in the lorries,
or....”
Jeremy favored him with a stare of bewildered dislike. “Why on earth
should I have any influence with them?” he enquired.
“Don’t be sick with me, old man.... I only thought you used to have
some damned queer opinions, you know; used to be a sort of Bolshevist
yourself.... I thought you might know how to speak to them.” Scott,
of course, always _had_ thought that any man whose opinions he could
not understand was a sort of Bolshevist. Jeremy shirked the task of
explanation and contented himself with calling his old comrade-in-arms
an ass.
“And, anyway,” he went on, “I’ll tell you one thing. There isn’t likely
to be any revolution hereabouts, unless you make it yourself. What are
you stopping for? Did they make you stop?”
“Not exactly ... don’t you see, the General said....”
Jeremy heaved a groan. He had heard that phrase on Scott’s lips
before, and it was generally a sign that the nadir of his incapacity
had been reached. Heaven help the Social Order if it depended on
Scott’s fidelity to what the General had said! But the voice above him
maundered on, betraying helplessness in every syllable. The General
had said that the bombs were at all costs to reach the troops at
Liverpool Street. He had also said that on no account must the nature
of the convoy be betrayed; and on no account must Scott risk any
encounter with a mob. And the mob had not really stopped the convoy.
They had just shown no alacrity in making room for it, and Scott had
thought that by pushing on he would perhaps be risking an encounter.
Now, however, he thought that by remaining where he was might be
exciting curiosity.
Jeremy looked at him coolly, and spoke in a tone of restrained sorrow.
“Scott,” he said, “it takes more than jabberers like this chap here to
make a revolution. They want a few damned fools like you to help them.
I’m going on before the trouble begins.” And he drew back from the
lorry and began to look about for a place where the crowd might be a
little sparser. The orator on the broken chair had now been replaced by
another, an Englishman, of the serious type, one of those working-men
whose passion it is to instruct their fellows and who preach political
reform with the earnestness and sobriety of the early evangelical
missionaries. He was speaking in a quiet, intense tone, without rant or
excitement, and the crowd was listening to him in something of his own
spirit. Occasionally, when he paused on a telling sentence, there were
low rumbling murmurs of assent or of sympathetic comment.
“No, but look here----” came from the lorry after Jeremy in an agonized
whisper. But he saw his opportunity, and did not look back until he was
on the other side of the crowd round the speaker. He went on rapidly
eastwards past the station, his mood of relief already replaced by an
ominous mood of doubt. Once or twice, until the turn of the street hid
them, he glanced apprehensively over his shoulders at the crowd and the
string of motionless lorries.
CHAPTER II
THE DEAD RAT
1
As he came closer to Whitechapel High Street, Jeremy found with
surprise and some addition to his uneasiness, that this district
had a more wakeful and week-day appearance. Many of the shops and
eating-houses were open; and the Government order, issued two days
before, forbidding the sale of liquor while the strike menace endured,
was being frankly disregarded. This was the first use that had been
made of the Public Order (Preservation of) Act, passed hurriedly and
almost in secret two or three months before; and Jeremy, enquiring what
his own feelings would have been if he had been in a like position to
the restless workmen, had been stirred out of his ordinary political
indifference to call it unwise. He might have been stirred to even
greater feeling about the original Act if he had known that it was
principally this against which the strikes were directed. But he had
omitted to ask why the unions were striking, and no one had told him.
The middle classes of those days had got used to unintelligible and
apparently senseless upheavals. Now, as he passed by one public-house
after another, all open, and saw the crowds inside and round the doors,
conversing with interest and perceptibly rising excitement on only one
topic, he rather wished that the order could have been enforced. There
was something sinister in the silence which fell where he passed. He
felt uncomfortably that he was being looked at with suspicion.
He turned out of the wide road, now empty of all wheeled traffic,
except for a derelict tramcar which stood desolate, apparently where
driver and conductor had struck work earlier or later than their
fellows. In the side street which led to his destination, there were
mostly women--dark, ugly, alien women--sitting on their doorsteps;
and he began to feel even more afraid of them than of the men. They
did not lower their voices as he passed, but he could not understand
what they were saying. But as he swung with a distinct sense of relief
into the little narrow court where Trehanoc absurdly lived and had his
laboratory, he heard one of them call after him, “Dir-r-rty bourgeois!”
and all the rest laugh ominously together. The repetition of the phrase
in this new accent startled him and he fretted at the door because
Trehanoc did not immediately answer his knock.
“Damn you for living down here!” he said heartily, when Trehanoc at
last opened to him. “I don’t like your neighbors at all.”
“I know.... I know...,” Trehanoc answered apologetically. “But how
could I expect---- And anyway they’re nice people really when you get
to know them. I get on very well with them.” He paused and looked with
some apprehension at Jeremy’s annoyed countenance.
He was a Cornishman, a tall, loose, queerly excitable and eccentric
fellow, with whom, years before, Jeremy had worked in the laboratories
at University College. He had taken his degree--just taken it--and
this result, while not abating his strange passion for research in
physics, seemed to have destroyed forever all hope of his indulging
it. After that no one knew what he had done, until a distant relative
had died and left him a few hundreds a year and the empty warehouse
in Lime Court. He had accepted the legacy as a direct intervention
of providence, refused the specious offers of a Hebrew dealer in fur
coats, and had fitted up the crazy building as a laboratory, with a
living-room or two, where he spent vastly exciting hours pursuing
with the sketchiest of home-made apparatus the abstrusest of natural
mysteries. One or two old acquaintances of the Gower Street days had
run across him here and there, and, on confessing that they were
still devoted to science, had been urgently invited to pay a visit to
Whitechapel. They had returned, half-alarmed, half-amused, and had
reported that Trehanoc was madder than ever, and was attempting the
transmutation of the elements with a home-made electric coil, an old
jam-jar, and a biscuit tin. They also reported that his neighborhood
was rich in disagreeable smells and that his laboratory was inhabited
by rats.
But Jeremy’s taste in acquaintances was broad and comprehensive, always
provided that they escaped growing tedious. After his first visit to
Lime Court he had not been slow in paying a second. His acquaintance
ripened into friendship with Trehanoc, whom he regarded, perhaps only
half-consciously, as being an inspired, or at any rate an exceedingly
lucky, fool. When he received an almost illegible and quite incoherent
summons to go and see a surprising new experiment, “something,” as the
fortunate discoverer put it, “very funny,” he had at once promised
to go. It was characteristic of him that, having promised, he went,
although he had to walk through disturbed London, arrived grumbling,
and reassured his anxious host without once ceasing to complain of the
inconvenience he had suffered.
“I ought to tell you,” Trehanoc said, with increased anxiety when
Jeremy paused to take breath, “that a man’s dropped in to lunch. I
didn’t ask him, and he isn’t a scientist, and he talks rather a lot,
but--but--I don’t suppose he’ll be much in the way,” he finished
breathlessly.
“All right, Augustus,” Jeremy replied in a more resigned tone, and
with a soothing wave of his hand, “carry on. I don’t suppose one extra
useless object in one of your experiments will make any particular
difference.”
He followed Trehanoc with lumbering speed up the narrow, uncarpeted
stairs and into the big loft which served for living-room and kitchen
combined. There he saw the useless object stretched on a couch--a
pleasant youth of rather disheveled appearance, who raised his head and
said lazily:
“Hullo! It’s you, is it? We met last night, but I don’t suppose you
remember that.”
“No, I don’t,” said Jeremy shortly.
“No, I thought you wouldn’t. My name’s MacIan. You must have known that
last night, because you told me twice that no man whose name began with
Mac ever knew when he was boring the company.”
“Did I?” Jeremy looked a little blank, and then began to brighten. “Of
course. You were the man who was talking about the General Strike being
a myth. I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings too much?”
“Not at all. I knew you meant well; and, after all, you weren’t in a
condition to realize what I was up to. The secret of it all was that
by boring all the rest of the company till they wanted to scream I was
very effectually preventing them from boring me. You see, I saw at once
that the politicians had taken the floor for the rest of the evening,
and I knew that the only way to deal with them was to irritate them on
their own ground. It was rather good sport really, only, of course, you
couldn’t be expected to see the point of it.”
Jeremy began to chuckle with appreciation. “Very good,” he agreed.
“Very good. I wish I’d known.” And Trehanoc, who had been hovering
behind him uneasily, holding a frying-pan, said with a deep breath of
relief: “That’s all right, then.”
“What the devil’s the matter with you, Augustus?” Jeremy cried,
wheeling round on him. “What do you mean, ‘That’s all right, then’?”
“I was only afraid you two chaps would quarrel,” he explained. “You’re
both of you rather difficult to get on with.” And he disappeared with
the frying-pan into the corner which was curtained off for cooking.
“Old Trehanoc’s delightfully open about everything,” MacIan observed,
stretching himself and lighting a cigarette. “I suppose we all of us
have to apologize for a friend to another now and again, but he’s the
only man I ever met that did it in the presence of both. It’s the sort
of thing that makes a man distinctive.”
Lunch was what the two guests might have expected, and probably did.
The sausages would no doubt have been more successful if Trehanoc had
remembered to provide either potatoes or bread; but his half-hearted
offer of a little uncooked oatmeal was summarily rejected. Jeremy’s
appetite, however, was reviving, and MacIan plainly cared very little
what he ate. His interest lay rather in talking; and throughout the
meal he discoursed to a stolidly masticating Jeremy and a nervous,
protesting Trehanoc on the theme that civilization had reached and
passed its climax and was hurrying into the abyss. He instanced the
case of Russia.
“Russia,” he said, leaning over towards the Cornishman and marking his
points with flourishes of a fork, “Russia went so far that she couldn’t
get back. For a long time they shouted for the blockade to be raised so
that they could get machinery for their factories and their railways.
Now they’ve been without it so long they don’t want it any more. Oh,
of course, they still talk about reconstruction and rebuilding the
railways and so forth, but it’ll never happen. It’s too late. They’ve
dropped down a stage; and there they’ll stop, unless they go lower
still, as they are quite likely to.”
Trehanoc looked up with a fanatical gleam in his big brown eyes,
which faded as he saw MacIan, poised and alert, waiting for him, and
Jeremy quietly eating with the greatest unconcern. “I don’t care what
you say,” he muttered sullenly, dropping his head again. “There’s no
limit to what science can do. Look what we’ve done in the last hundred
years. We shall discover the origin of matter, and how to transmute the
elements; we shall abolish disease ... and there’s my discovery----”
“But, my dear man,” MacIan interrupted, “just because we’ve done this,
that, and the other in the last hundred years, there’s no earthly
reason for supposing that we shall go on doing it. You don’t allow for
the delicacy of all these things or for the brutality of the forces
that are going to break them up. Why, if you got the world really in
a turmoil for thirty years, at the end of that time you wouldn’t be
able to find a man who could mend your electric light, and you’d have
forgotten how to do it yourself. And you don’t allow for the fact that
we ourselves change.... What do you say, Tuft? You’re a scientist, too.”
“The present state of our knowledge,” Jeremy replied cheerfully with
his mouth full, “doesn’t justify prophecies.”
“Ah! our knowledge ... no, perhaps not. But our intuitions!” And here,
as he spoke, MacIan seemed to grow for a moment a little more serious.
“Don’t you know there’s a moment in anything--a holiday, or a party, or
a love-affair, or whatever you like--when you feel that you’ve reached
the climax, and that there’s nothing more to come. I feel that now. Oh!
it’s been a good time, and we seemed to be getting freer and freer and
richer and richer. But now we’ve got as far as we can and everything
changes.... Change here for the Dark Ages!” he added with a sudden
alteration in his manner. “In fact, if I may put it so, this is where
we get out and walk.”
Jeremy looked at him, wondering vaguely how much of this was genuine
and how much mere discourse. He thought that, whichever it was, on the
whole he disliked it. “Oh! we shall go jogging on just as usual,” he
said at last, as matter-of-fact as he could.
“Oh, no, we shan’t!” MacIan returned with equal coolness. “We shall go
to eternal smash.”
Trehanoc looked up again from the food he had been wolfing down with
absent-minded ferocity. “It doesn’t matter what either of you thinks,”
he affirmed earnestly. “There’s no limit to what we are going to do.
We----” A dull explosion filled their ears and shook the windows.
“And what in hell’s that?” cried Jeremy.
2
For a moment all three of them sat rigid, staring instinctively out of
the windows, whence nothing could be seen save the waving branches of
the tree that gave its name to Lime Court. MacIan at last broke the
silence.
“The Golden Age,” he said solemnly, “has tripped over the mat. Hadn’t
we better go and see what’s happened to it?”
“Don’t be a fool!” Jeremy ejaculated. “If there really is trouble these
streets won’t be too pleasant, and we’d better not draw attention to
ourselves.” Immediately in the rear of his words came the confused
noise of many people running and shouting. It was the mixed population
of Whitechapel going to see what was up; and before many of them could
have done so, the real fighting must have begun. The sound of firing,
scattered and spasmodic, punctuated by the dull, vibrating bursts which
Jeremy recognized for bombs, came abruptly to the listeners in the
warehouse. There was an opening and shutting of windows and a banging
of doors, men shouting and women crying, as though suddenly the whole
district had been set in motion. All this gradually died away again and
left to come sharper and clearer the incessant noise of the rifles and
the bombs.
“Scott has set them going,” Jeremy murmured to himself, almost content
in the fulfilment of a prophecy, and then he said aloud: “Have you got
any cigarettes, Augustus? I can’t say we’re well off where we are, but
we’ve got to stop for a bit.”
Trehanoc produced a tin of Virginians which he offered to his guests.
“I’m afraid,” he said miserably, “that this isn’t a very good time for
asking you to have a look at my experiment.” Jeremy surveyed him with
a curious eye, and reflected that the contrast in the effect of the
distant firing on the three of them was worth observation. He himself
did not pretend to like it, but knew that nothing could be done, and
so endured it stoically. MacIan had settled in an armchair with a
cigarette and a very tattered copy of _La Vie Parisienne_, and was
giving an exhibition of almost flippant unconcern; but every time there
was a louder burst of fire his shoulders twitched slightly. Trehanoc’s
behavior was the most interesting of all. He had been nervous and
excited while they were at table, and the explosion had obviously
accentuated his condition. But he had somehow turned his excitement
into the channel of his discovery, and his look of hungry and strained
disappointment was pathetic to witness. It touched Jeremy’s heart, and
moved him to say as heartily as he could:
“Nonsense, old fellow. We’ll come along and see it in a moment. What’s
it all about?”
Trehanoc murmured “Thanks awfully.... I was afraid you wouldn’t
want....”--like a child who has feared that the party would not take
place after all. Then he sat down sprawlingly in a chair and fixed his
wild, shining eyes on Jeremy’s face. “You see,” he began, “I think
it’s a new ray. I’m almost certain it’s a new ray. But I’m not quite
certain how I got it. I’ll show you all that later. But it’s something
like the ray that man used to change bacilli. He changed bacilli
into cocci, or something. I’m no biologist; I was going to get in a
biologist when you’d helped me a bit. You remember the experiment I
mean, don’t you?”
“Vaguely,” said Jeremy. “It’s a bit out of my line, but my recollection
is that he used alpha rays. However, go on.”
“Well, that’s what I was after,” Trehanoc continued. “I believe these
rays do something of the same kind, and they’ve got other properties I
don’t understand. There’s the rat ... but I’ll show you the rat later
on. And then I got my hand in front of the vacuum-tube for half a
second without any protection....”
“Did you get a burn?” Jeremy asked sharply.
“No,” said Trehanoc. “No ... I didn’t ... that’s the strange thing. I’d
got a little radium burn on that hand already, and a festering cut as
well, where I jabbed myself with the tin-opener.... Well, first of all,
my hand went queer. It was a sort of dead, numb feeling, spreading into
the arm above the wrist, and I was scared, I can tell you. I was almost
certain that these were new rays, and I hadn’t the least notion what
effect they might have on living tissue. The numbness kept on all day,
with a sort of tingling in the finger-tips, and I went to bed in a bit
of a panic. And when I woke, the radium burn had quite gone, leaving a
little scar behind, and the cut had begun to heal. It _was_ very nearly
healed!”
“Quite sure it’s a new ray?” Jeremy interjected.
“Oh, very nearly sure. You see, I----” and he entered into a long and
highly technical argument which left Jeremy both satisfied and curious.
At the close of it MacIan remarked in a tone of deep melancholy:
“Tre, my old friend, if the experiment isn’t more exciting than the
lecture, I shall go out and take my turn on the barricades. I got lost
at the point where you began talking about electrons. Do, for heaven’s
sake, let’s go and _see_ your hell-broth!”
“Would you like to go and see it now?” Trehanoc asked, watching
Jeremy’s face with solicitous anxiety; and receiving assent he led the
way at once, saying, “You know, I use the cellar for this radio-active
work. The darkness.... And by the way,” he interrupted himself, “look
out how you go. This house is in a rotten state of repair.” The swaying
of the stairs down from the loft, when all three were upon them,
confirmed him alarmingly.
As they went past the front door towards the cellar steps, Jeremy,
cocking his head sideways, thought that every now and then some of
the shots rang out much louder, as though the skirmishing was getting
close to Lime Court. But he was by now deeply interested in Trehanoc’s
experiment, and followed without speaking.
When they came down into the cellar Trehanoc touched a switch and
revealed a long room, lit only in the nearer portion, where electric
bulbs hung over two great laboratory tables and stretching away into
clammy darkness.
“Here it is,” he said nervously, indicating the further of the two
tables, and hung on Jeremy’s first words.
Jeremy’s first words were characteristic. “How you ever get any result
at all,” he said, slowly and incisively, “is more than I can make out.
This table looks as though some charwoman had been piling rubbish on
it.”
“Yes, I know.... I know....” Trehanoc admitted in a voice of shame.
“That’s where I wanted you to help me. You see, I can’t be quite sure
exactly what it is that _does_ determine the result. There’s the
vacuum-tube, worked by a coil, and there’s an electric magnet ... and
that tube on the other side has got radium-emanation in it....”
“And then there’s the dead rat,” Jeremy interrupted rather brutally.
“What about the dead rat? Does that affect the result?” He pointed
with a forefinger, expressing some disgust, to a remarkably sleek and
well-favored corpse which decorated the end of the table.
“I was going to tell you....” Trehanoc muttered, twisting one hand
in the other. “You know, there _are_ rather a lot of rats in this
cellar----”
“I know,” said Jeremy.
“And when I was making the first experiment that chap jumped on to the
table and ran across in front of the vacuum-tube----”
“Well?”
“And he just dropped like that, dropped dead in his tracks ... and ...
and I was frightfully excited, so I only picked him up by his tail and
threw him away and forgot all about him. And then quite a long time
afterwards, when I was looking for something, I came across him, just
like that, just as fresh----”
“And when was that?” Jeremy asked.
“It must be quite six weeks since I made that first experiment.”
“So he’s one of the exhibits,” Jeremy began slowly. But a new outbreak
of firing, unmistakably closer at hand, broke across his sentence.
MacIan, who was beginning to find the rat a little tedious, and had
been hoping that Trehanoc would soon turn a handle and produce long,
crackling sparks, snatched at the interruption.
“I _must_ go up and see what’s happening!” he cried. “I’ll be back in a
minute.”
He vanished up the steps. When he returned, Jeremy was still turning
over the body of the rat with a thoughtful expression and placing it
delicately to his nose for olfactory evidence. Trehanoc, who seemed to
have begun to think that there was something shameful, if not highly
suspicious, in the existence of the corpse, stood before him in an
almost suppliant attitude, twisting his long fingers together, and
shuffling his feet.
MacIan disregarded the high scientific deliberations. “I say,” he cried
with the almost hysterical flippancy that sometimes denotes serious
nerve-strain, “it’s frightfully exciting. The fighting is getting
nearer, and somebody’s got a machine-gun trained down Whitechapel High
Street. There’s nobody in sight here, but I’m certain there are people
firing from the houses round about.”
“Oh, damn!” said Jeremy uneasily but absently, continuing to examine
the rat.
“And, I say, Tre,” MacIan went on, “do you think this barn of yours
would stand a bomb or two? It looks to me as if it would fall over if
you pushed it.”
“I’m afraid it would,” Trehanoc admitted, looking as if he ought to
apologize. “In fact, I’m always afraid that they’ll condemn it, but I
can’t afford repairs.”
“Oh, hang all that!” Jeremy suddenly interjected. “This is
extraordinarily interesting. Get the thing going, Trehanoc, and let’s
have a look at your rays.”
“That’s right, Tre,” said MacIan. “We’re caught, so let’s make the best
of it. Let’s try and occupy our minds as the civilians used to in the
old air-raid days. Stick to the dead rat, Tre, and let politics alone.”
He laughed--a laugh in which hysteria was now plainly perceptible--but
Trehanoc, disregarding him, went into a corner and began fumbling with
the switches. In a moment the vacuum-tube began to glow faintly, and
Jeremy and Trehanoc bent over it together.
Suddenly a loud knocking at the front door echoed down the cellar
steps. Trehanoc twitched his shoulders irritatingly, but otherwise did
not move. A moment after it was repeated, and in addition there was a
more menacing sound as though some one were trying to break the door in
with a heavy instrument.
“You’d better go and see what it is, Augustus,” Jeremy murmured
absorbedly. “It may be some one wanting to take shelter from the
firing. Go on, and I’ll watch this thing.”
Trehanoc obediently but reluctantly went up the cellar steps, and
Jeremy, with some idle, half-apprehending portion of his mind, heard
him throw open the front door and heard the sound of angry voices
coming through. But he remained absorbed in the vacuum-tube, until
MacIan, who was standing at the foot of the steps, said in a piercing
whisper:
“Here, Tuft, come here and listen!”
“Yes? What is it?” Jeremy replied vaguely, without changing his
position.
“Come here quickly,” MacIan whispered in an urgent tone. Jeremy was
aroused and went to the foot of the steps to listen. For a moment he
could only hear voices speaking angrily, and then he distinguished
Trehanoc’s voice shouting:
“You fools! I tell you there’s no one in the upper rooms. How could
any one be firing from the windows?” There was a shot and a gurgling
scream. Jeremy and MacIan turned to look at one another, and each saw
the other’s face ghastly, distorted by shadows which the electric light
in the cellar could not quite dispel.
“Good God!” screamed MacIan. “They’ve killed him!” He started wildly
up the stairs. Jeremy, as he began to follow him, heard another shot,
saw MacIan poised for a moment, arms up, on the edge of a step, and
just had time to flatten himself against the wall before the body fell
backwards. He ran down again into the cellar, and began looking about
desperately for a weapon of some kind.
As he was doing so there was a cautious footstep on the stair. “Bombs!”
he thought, and instinctively threw himself on the floor. The next
moment the bomb landed, thrown well out in the middle of the cellar,
and it seemed that a flying piece spun viciously through his hair. And
then he saw the table which held the glowing vacuum-tube slowly tilting
towards him and all the apparatus sliding to the floor, and at the same
moment he became aware that the cellar-roof was descending on his head.
He had time and wit enough to crawl under the other table before it
fell. Darkness came with it.
Jeremy struggled for a moment against unconsciousness. Then something
seemed to be going round and round, madly and erratically at first,
finally settling into a regular motion of enormous speed. He was
vaguely aware of the glowing vacuum-tube, and the dead rat, partly
illuminated by it, close to his face; but he felt himself being borne
away, he knew not whither. A sort of peace in that haste overtook his
limbs and he slept.
CHAPTER III
A WORLD GROWN STRANGE
1
When Jeremy awoke at last it was to find only the change from darkness
of the mind to darkness of the eyes. No dreams had stirred his sleep
with memories or premonitions. At one moment that great engine had
still been implacably and regularly revolving. At the next it slackened
and stopped; and, without any transition, he found himself prone,
staring into the blackness as he had hopelessly stared when he saw the
cellar-roof coming down upon him. He felt no pain, nor was there any
singing or dizziness in his head. There was only a sort of blankness,
in which he had hardly begun to wonder where he was. He assumed for a
moment that he was in his own bed and in his own flat. But two things
persuaded him that he was not. He had been awakened by something soft
and damp falling on his eyes, and when he tried to brush it away he
found that he could not use his arms. Then he remembered.
But the memory brought for the moment a panic that made him dizzy.
The bomb had been thrown, the roof had fallen, and, from then till
now, there had been only darkness. What more certain than that in
that catastrophe, which he now so clearly recalled, his back had been
broken, so that he lay there with no more than an hour or two to live?
The absence of pain made it only the more terrible, for had he been in
agony he might have welcomed death, which now would approach, unmasked,
in the most hateful aspect. He made a convulsive movement with his
body, which showed him that he was held all along his length, and
confirmed his fears. But, in the calmness of despair which followed, he
became conscious that the air he was breathing was exceedingly close.
Then he realized with a relief that again made him giddy that his back
was not broken, but that he was unable to move because he was in some
way pinned under the ruins of Trehanoc’s crazy warehouse. He made a
renewed effort to stir his body; and this time he was rewarded by an
inch of difficult motion in each limb.
Fortified by this assurance, he lay still for a few seconds, and
tried to make out his position. He was held tight at every point, but
he was not crushed. Neither was he suffocated, nor, as it seemed,
in any immediate danger of it. In these circumstances, to be buried
alive was a comparatively small evil; it would be odd if he could not
somehow dig himself out. The problem was merely how to do so with the
least danger of dislodging the still unstable débris above him and so
putting himself in a worse position than before. Apparently the ruins
had formed a very constricted vault fitting closely to his body and
raised a little over his face, where they seemed to admit the passage
of air. It was obvious that his first step was to clear his face so
that he might see what he was doing. But to do this he needed a free
arm, and he could not move either of his arms more than an inch or two.
Nevertheless he set to work to move his right arm to and fro in the
cramped space that was possible.
The result delighted him. The roof of his grave was some hard
substance, probably wood, so a splinter informed him; and he remembered
the table under which he had crawled just in time. It must have
buckled, so as to make a shield for him; and now, though he could not
pick it away, it yielded--an infinitesimal distance at a time, but
still it yielded. Presently he was able to crook his elbow, and soon
after that to draw his hand up to his face. Then he began to remove
the roof which hung an inch or two from his eyes. The process was
unpleasant, for as he plucked at the roof it crumbled between his
fingers, and he was not able to protect his face from the dust that
fell on it. In the darkness he could not trust his sense of touch,
but otherwise he would have sworn that, with pieces of wood, which he
expected, he was tearing up and pushing away damp clods of grass-grown
earth. He had to keep his eyes closed while he worked. After a little
while, when he judged that he had made an opening, he laboriously
brushed his face clear of dust, opened his eyes, and looked anxiously
up. There was darkness above him still, and a cool breath passed over
his forehead. It was night. A single star hung motionless in the field
of his vision.
A little exhausted by his efforts, Jeremy let his head sink down
again, and reflected. Clearly the whole warehouse had come down with
a surprising completeness, since he was able to look straight up into
the sky. And there was another thing that engaged his attention, though
he had not noticed it until now. His ears were quite free and his head
lay at last in the open, but still he could hear nothing. Considering
the circumstances in which he had been buried, he would certainly have
expected to hear something going on. If there were not shots, there
should at least have been shouting, movement, noise of some kind--any
noise, he thought suddenly, rather than this uncanny, unbroken silence.
But there was only a gentle, hardly perceptible rustling, like leaves
in the wind ... the old lime tree in the court he decided at last,
which had escaped when the warehouse had fallen. He grew almost
sentimental in thinking about it. He had looked at it with pleasure
on that fatal day, leaning from the window, with MacIan and Trehanoc
behind him; and now MacIan and Trehanoc were done for; he and the lime
tree remained....
The fighting, he supposed eventually, when his thoughts returned to
the strange silence, must have been brought to an end in some very
decided and effective manner. Perhaps the troops had got the upper hand
over the rioters, and had used it so as to suppress even a whisper of
resistance. “Peace reigns in Warsaw,” he quoted grimly to himself. But
this explanation hardly satisfied him, and in a spasm of curiosity he
renewed the effort to free himself from his grave.
When he did so, he made the discovery that the roof of his vault
was now so far lifted that he might have drawn himself out, but for
something that was gripping at his left ankle. He could kick his leg
an inch or so further down, but he could not by any exertion pull it
further out. Here a new panic overcame him. What might not happen to
him, thus pinned and helpless, on such a night as this? The fighting
seemed to have gone over, but it might return. The men who had killed
Trehanoc and MacIan and had thrown a bomb at him might come this way
again. Something might set fire to the ruins of the warehouse above
him. The troops passing by might see him, take him for a rioter, and
bomb or bayonet him on general principles of making all sure. As these
thoughts passed through his mind he struggled furiously, and did not
cease until his whole body was aching, sweat was running down his face,
and his ankle was painfully bruised by the vise which held it. Then he
lay panting for some minutes, like a wild animal in a trap, and in as
desperate a state of mind.
But again the coolness of despair came to save him. He perceived that
he had no hope save in lifting the heavy and solid timbers of the table
which had closed about him. Only in this way could he see what it was
that held his ankle; and, hopeless as it seemed, he must set about
it. The effort was easier, and he was able to work more methodically
than when he had given himself up for lost. But there was only an inch
or two for leverage; and his labors continued, as it seemed to him,
during fruitless hours. Certainly the small patch of sky which was
visible to him had begun to grow pale, and the one star had wavered and
gone out before he felt any result. Then, suddenly, without warning,
the tabletop heaved up a good foot under his pressure and seemed much
looser. He breathlessly urged his advantage, while the fabric of his
grave shook and creaked reluctantly. He shoved once more with the last
of his strength, and the coffin lid lifted bodily, and the invisible
fetter on his ankle, with a last tweak, released it. He lay back again,
fighting for breath, half in exhaustion, half in hysteria. He was free.
When at last he was a little recovered he drew himself gingerly out,
looking anxiously into the vault lest it should close again and pin
him. But when he knelt on the edge of the hole from which he had safely
emerged, he paused in a frozen rigidity. The dawn was just breaking,
and there was a little mist, with strange and unnatural shadows. In
Whitechapel, as Jeremy knew it, dawn was usually apt to seem a little
tarnished and cheerless. That neighborhood always seemed to him a more
agreeable object for study when its inhabitants were hurrying about
their business than when they were waking and first opening their
doors. But this morning, as he knelt in an involuntary attitude of
thanksgiving on the edge of his grave, Jeremy did not see Whitechapel
at all, because it was not there. It had vanished overnight.
He was kneeling on short grass, and the crevice in the earth from which
he had crept lay towards one end of a shallow depression, enclosed by
low grassy banks. A young poplar in the middle of it moved its leaves
delicately in the faint wind. All round were meadows of irregular and
broken surface, with a few sheep grazing in them, and here and there
patches of bramble and wild thorn. Farther off Jeremy could distinguish
small groves of trees and the dark outlines of low houses or sheds.
Farther off still he saw, black and jagged against the rising sun,
something that resembled the tumbled ruins of a great public building.
He turned giddy and could not rise from his knees. His muscles refused
their service, though it seemed that he strained at them with all his
strength, until his stomach revolted and he was seized with a dreadful
nausea, which shook him physically and brought a sick taste into his
mouth. He found himself looking down at his grave as though he wanted
to crawl back into it; and then suddenly an inexplicable horror and
despair overcame him, and he flung himself face downwards in the
dew-laden grass.
2
What were Jeremy’s thoughts while he lay face down in the grass he
could not himself have told. They were not articulate, consecutive
thoughts. The landscape that he had seen on emerging from his grave had
pressed him back into the shapeless abysms that lie behind reason and
language. But, when the fit had passed, when he raised his head again,
and saw that nothing had changed, that he was indeed in this unfamiliar
country, he would have given a world to be able to accept the evidence
of his eyes without incurring an immediate self-accusation of folly.
The transition from the image in his mind to the image which his eyes
gave him had been so violent and so abrupt that it had wrenched up all
his ordinary means of thought, and set his mind wildly adrift. During a
moment he would not have been surprised to hear the Last Trump, to see
the visible world go up in flame, and the Court of Judgment assembled
in the sky. He told himself that the next instant MacIan and Trehanoc
might step from behind the nearest clump of thorn and greet him. But
the new landscape continued stable and definite, as unlike the scene
of an Apocalypse as the creation of a dream. Could this then be an
hallucination of unusual completeness? And, if so, had those dreadful
hours during which he had struggled in his tomb been also the result of
an hallucination? He stooped absent-mindedly to the low grassy bank by
which he was standing and plucked a confidently promenading snail from
a plantain leaf. The creature hastily drew in its horns and retracted
its body within the shell. Was that, too, delusion?
And yet, the day before, he had been in Trehanoc’s warehouse in Lime
Court in Whitechapel, there had been that sudden violence, and, as he
still clearly remembered, he had crawled under the laboratory table
before the cellar-roof had fallen on him. While he had struggled
through the night to free himself, a picture of the place had been
perfectly distinct in his mind. On emerging he had turned without
reflection to where he knew the door of the cellar stood. The table
which had saved him had been at one end of the cellar, parallel to the
shorter wall. Jeremy went back to his crevice and stood beside it. It
lay in a depression which was roughly four-sided, and it was parallel
to the shorter pair of sides. Jeremy bit his lips and looked about him
vaguely. Over there should have been the cellar steps, and, going up
them, one came to the front door ... just over there ... and beyond
the front door there had been the flags of Lime Court. Jeremy followed
this imaginary path with the absorbed care and exactitude which were
his means of keeping in touch with reason. Where the flag-stones should
have been there was now soft turf, dotted here and there with the
droppings of sheep. And suddenly Jeremy saw a patch where something had
rubbed away the turf and stone protruded....
He stood above it, legs wide apart, teeth clenched, and hands
gripped. He felt like a man whom a torrent carries down a dark cleft
towards something he dares not conjecture. But when this fit, too,
had passed away he felt nothing more acutely than the desire to be
able to believe. Presently, as he stood and wrestled with himself,
his scientific training and cast of mind came to his help. It was
legitimate to form a hypothesis, provided that it accounted for all
the facts and made no more assumptions than were necessary in order
to do so. Illuminated by this thought, he took a few steps back to
his crevice, sat down, grasped his jaw firmly between his hands,
and began to enquire what hypothesis would be most suitable. That
of an hallucination he immediately dismissed. It might be the true
explanation; but as a working basis it led nowhere and required no
thought. If he was living amid illusory shows the country round him
might change at any moment to a desert or an ice-floe ... or he might
find himself pursued by snakes with three heads.
Well.... The alternative theory assumed that the spot on which he
now sat was the same which had formerly been occupied by Trehanoc’s
warehouse. His observations underground prior to his delivery, the
shape of the depression, and the flag-stone where Lime Court should
have been, all supported this assumption. In that case it followed
irrefragably that he could not have been knocked on the head on the
previous day. He must have been in that grave, covered by the table,
and the rubble, and the turf for a considerable time. It therefore
remained only to estimate a period sufficient for the changes he now
observed to have taken place.
It was perhaps just as well that Jeremy had steadied his mind by
exercising it in a mode of thought to which it was accustomed: for when
he reached this point and looked round enquiringly at the material
evidence his head began to whirl again. There was, in particular, a
young poplar, about ten or twelve feet high, standing in the middle
of the hollow.... Jeremy rose, went to it, and slapped the hole
reflectively. It was still young enough to reply by a more agitated
rustling of its leaves. Here was the problem compactly put. What was
the shortest possible time in which the tree could have attained this
growth?
If Jeremy knew that he would also indisputably know the shortest
possible time he could have been underground. It was true that his
estimate might still be too small by many years. He suspected that
most of the much taller trees he could see round him at a greater
distance must have been sown since the change; but still with the
poplar he would have reached a firm minimum basis. Unfortunately,
Jeremy did not know the answer to the question. He was not a botanist,
but a physicist, and if he had ever known the rate at which a poplar
grows, he had forgotten it. It could hardly be less than ten or
fifteen years.... But if it was fifteen, what then? And if he could
have lain entombed for fifteen years, why not for fifty? why not for
five hundred? And the turf? How long would it be before the ruins of a
house were covered with thick turf? That could hardly happen in fifteen
years, even if the ruins were left quite undisturbed.... And why had
it been left undisturbed in what used to be a busy quarter of London?
(The questions thronged now, innumerable and irrepressible.) What had
been going on while he had been underground? Were any living men still
left? As he asked the last question it was answered. In the distance
a couple of figures walked leisurely across the meadows to one of the
sheds which Jeremy had vaguely descried, fumbled with the door and went
in. They were far too far off for Jeremy to see what manner of men they
were; but were they never so gentle, never so kindly, he feared them.
He crouched lower down by the entrance to his crevice, and for the
second time that morning had half a mind to get back into it, as though
it were a magic car that could transport him whence he had come.
The sun rose higher and began to grow hot, and the dew dried swiftly
off the grass and the leaves. Very strangely sleep descended on Jeremy,
not violently as before, but soft and unnoticed, as though some
superior power, seeing his mind reach the limits of conjecture, had
gently thrown it out of action. Before he even knew that he was drowsy
he had collapsed on the soft turf, his head on the little mound which
hid his tabletop, and there he slept for two or three hours, careless
and defenseless in a novel and possibly hostile world. When he woke
he found that in sleep his main perplexity had been resolved. He now
believed without difficulty that he had been carried in a trance out
of his own time, how far he did not know, and the admission of the
fact gave him a curious tranquillity and courage to face whatever the
consequences might be. It did not, however, alter the ineluctable truth
that he was very hungry, and this truth made it plain to him that he
must take up the business of living, and run even the risk of meeting
the strange people from whom he instinctively shrank. He therefore
stood up with a gesture of resolution, and determined to discover, if
he could, the trace of Whitechapel High Street, and to follow it in the
direction of what had once been London. He remembered having spent a
toilsome morning in the South Downs following the track of an old Roman
road, and he judged that this ought not to be much more difficult. He
had a strange repugnance to throwing himself on the charity of the
inhabitants of the new Whitechapel, and an equally strange desire to
reach the ruins of Holborn, which had once been his home.
When he had made this resolution he went again into the ghost of Lime
Court, took three steps down it, and turned to the left into what he
hoped would be the side street leading to the main road. His shot was a
lucky one. Banks of grass here and there, mounds crested with bramble,
and at one point a heap of moldering brickwork, pointed out his road,
and there was actually a little ribbon of a foot-path running down the
middle of it. Jeremy moved on slowly, feeling unpleasantly alone in the
wide silent morning, and watching carefully for a sign of the great
street along which the trams used to run.
The end of the path which he was following was marked by a grove of
young trees, surrounded by bushes; and beyond this, Jeremy conjectured,
he would most likely find the traces of what he sought. He approached
this point cautiously, and when the path dipped down into the grove
he slipped along it as noiselessly as he could. When it emerged again
he started back with a suppressed cry. Whitechapel High Street was
not hard to find, for it was still in being. Here, cutting the path
at right angles, was a road--one of the worst he had ever seen, but a
road nevertheless. He walked out into the middle of it, stared right
and left, and was satisfied. Its curve was such that with the smallest
effort he could restore it in his mind to what it had been. On the
side from which he came the banks and irregularities, which were all
that was left of the houses, stretched brokenly out of sight. On the
other side the rubble seemed for the most part to have been cleared,
and some of it had been used to make a low continuous fence, which was
now grass-grown, though ends of brick and stone pushed out of the green
here and there. Beyond it cows were grazing, and the ground fell gently
down to a belt of woods, which shut off the view.
Jeremy turned his attention again to the road itself. To a man who
recollected the roads round Ypres and on the Somme, it had no new
horrors to offer, but to a man who had put these memories behind him
and who had, for all practical purposes, walked only yesterday through
the streets of London, it was a surprising sight. Water lay on it in
pools, though the soil at its side was comparatively dry. The ruts were
six or seven inches deep and made a network over the whole surface,
which, between them, was covered with grass and weeds. Immediately in
front of Jeremy there was a small pit deeper than the ruts, and filled
at the bottom with loose stones. It was below the worst of farm tracks,
but it was too wide for that, and besides, Jeremy could not rid his
vision of the great ghostly trams that flitted through it.
But, bad as it was, it meant life, and even apparently a degree of
civilization. And Jeremy felt again an unconquerable aversion from
presenting himself to the strange people who had inherited the earth
of his other life. A road, to a man who comes suddenly on it out of
open country, is always mutely and strangely a witness of the presence
of other men. This unspeakable track, more than the path down which
he had just walked, more even than the figures he had seen in the
distance, filled him with a dread of the explanations he would have
to make to the first chance comer he met. His appearance would no
doubt be suspicious to them, and his story would be more suspicious
still. Either they would not have the intelligence to understand it or,
understanding, would not credit it. Jeremy tried to imagine his own
feelings supposing that he had met, say, somewhere on the slopes of
Leith Hill, a person in archaic costume who affirmed that he had been
buried for a century or so and desired assistance. Jeremy could think
of no method by which his tale could be made to sound more probable.
He therefore, making excuses to himself, shrank back into the grove,
and took shelter behind a bush, in the hope, as he put it, of thinking
of some likely mendacity to serve instead of the truth. When he was
settled there he broke off a young trailer of the hedge rose, peeled
it, and ate it. It was neither satisfying nor nourishing, but it had
been one of the inexpensive delights of his childhood, and it was
something.
He was just consuming this dainty when a curious rattling and clanking
round the curve of the road struck his ear. It rapidly approached, and
he started forward to get a view through the leaves of his bush. To
his astonishment he saw a young man propelling a bicycle of uncouth
appearance, which leapt uncontrollably on the broken road, and
threatened to throw its rider at every yard of progress. He peered
at it as closely as he could, and had just decided that its odd look
came from an unwieldy frame and most unusual tires when, after a last
alarming stagger, its front wheel shot into a rut and its rider was
deposited within a yard or two of Jeremy’s feet.
Jeremy had then an opportunity of inspecting both at his leisure, and
hardly knew which ought to engage his attention first. The machine
was sufficiently remarkable, and reminded him of nothing so much as
of some which he had seen in the occupied territories of Germany at
the end of the war. Its frame was exceedingly heavy, as were all the
working parts which could be seen; and it was covered, not with enamel,
but with a sort of coarse paint. The spokes of the wheels were half
the size of a man’s little finger, and the rims were of thick wood,
with springs in the place of tires. The rider, when he had wearily
picked himself up and dusted his garments just under Jeremy’s staring
eyes, was by no means so unexpected. The dress, from which he was
still brushing the dust with reluctant fingers, consisted of a short
brown coat like a blazer, brown breeches, and leather leggings, and on
his head he wore a wide-brimmed brown soft hat. His shirt was open at
the throat, but below the opening hung a loose and voluminous tie of
green linen. His face, on which sat a plainly unwonted expression of
annoyance, was mild, candid, and friendly. His voice, when he spoke,
was soft and pleasant, and his accent had a strange rich burr in it,
which vaguely reminded Jeremy of something he had heard before and
could not quite name ... something, it seemed, almost grotesque in this
connection....
“I never,” said the young man, solemnly but without rancor, to the
inattentive universe, “I never will mount one of those devices again.”
3
Jeremy had ample time to be certain of these details while the young
man stood as it were for inspection. When he had dusted himself
thoroughly and had looked three or four times round him and up into
the sky, apparently to make sure that no celestial chariot was coming
to rescue him, he dragged the bicycle from the middle of the road and
began to examine it. First of all he tried to wheel it a pace or two,
and when it refused to advance he discovered with a gesture of surprise
that the chain was off. He slowly lowered the whole machine on to the
grass by the roadside and squatted down to adjust the chain. After
several fruitless attempts a renewed expression of annoyance crossed
his tranquil features, and he sat back on his heels with a sigh.
Jeremy could bear it no longer. Dearer to him even than his
European reputation for research into the Viscosity of Liquids was
the reputation he had among his friends as a useful man for small
mechanical jobs. He would soon have to introduce himself to one or
another of what he vaguely supposed to be his descendants. This young
man had an unusually calm and friendly appearance, and it was not
unlikely that Jeremy might be able to help him in his trouble. He
therefore came out of his hiding-place, saying brusquely. “Let me see
if I can do anything.”
The young man did not start up in fear or even speak. He merely looked
slightly surprised and yielded the bicycle without protest into
Jeremy’s hands. Jeremy turned it over and peered into it with the
silent absorbed competence of a mechanic. Presently he looked up and
made a brief demand for a spanner. The young man, still mutely, replied
with a restrained but negative movement of his hands. Jeremy, frowning,
ran through his own pockets, and produced a metal fountain pen holder,
with which in a moment he levered the incredibly clumsy chain back into
place. Then he raised the machine and wheeled it a few yards, showing
the chain in perfect action. But the front wheel perceptibly limped.
Jeremy dropped on one knee and looked at it with an acute eye.
“No good,” he pronounced at last, “it’s buckled. You won’t be able to
ride it, but at least you can wheel it.” And he solemnly handed the
machine back to its owner.
“Thank you very much,” said the young man gently. Jeremy could still
hear that odd, pleasant burr in his voice. And then he enquired with a
little hesitation, “Are you a blacksmith?”
“Good Heavens, no!” Jeremy cried. “Why----”
The young man appeared to choose his words carefully. “I’m sorry.
You see, you know all about the bicycle, and ... and ... I couldn’t
quite see what your clothes were....” He slurred over the last remark,
perhaps feeling it to be ill-mannered, and went on hastily: “I asked
because in the village I’ve come from, just a couple of miles down the
road, the blacksmith is dead and....” He paused and looked at Jeremy
expectantly.
Jeremy on his side realized that the moment had come when he must
either tell his amazing story or deliberately shirk it. But while he
had been bending over the bicycle a likely substitute had occurred to
him, a substitute which, however, he would have hesitated to offer
to any one less intelligent and kindly in appearance than his new
acquaintance. He hesitated a moment, and decided on shirking, or, as he
excused it to himself, on feeling his way slowly.
“I don’t know,” he said with an accent of dull despair. “I don’t know
who or what I am. I think I must have lost my memory.”
The young man gave a sympathetic exclamation. “Lost your memory?” he
cried. “Then,” he went on, his face brightening, “perhaps you _are_
a blacksmith. I can tell you they want one very badly over there....”
But he caught himself up, and added, “Perhaps not. I suppose you can’t
tell what you might have been.” He ceased, and regarded Jeremy with
benevolent interest.
“I can’t,” Jeremy said earnestly. “I don’t know where I came from, or
what I am, or where I am. I don’t even know what year this is. I can
remember nothing.”
“That’s bad,” the young man commented with maddening deliberation. “I
can tell you where you are, at any rate. This is called Whitechapel
Meadows--just outside London, you know. Does that suggest anything to
you?”
“Nothing ... nothing ... I woke up just over there”--he swung his arm
vaguely in the direction of the ruins of the warehouse--“and that’s
all I know.” He suppressed an urgent desire to emphasize again his
ignorance of what year it was. Something told him that a man who had
just lost his memory would be concerned with more immediate problems.
“Well,” said the young man pleasantly at last, “do you think you came
from London? If you do, you’d better let me take you there and see you
safe in one of the monastery hospitals or something of that sort. Then
perhaps your family would find you.”
“I think so.” Jeremy was uncertain whether this would be a step in the
right direction. “I seem to remember.... I don’t know....” He paused,
feeling that he could not have imagined a situation so difficult. He
had read a number of books in which men had been projected from their
own times into the future, but, by one lucky chance or another, none
of them had any trouble in establishing himself as the immediate
center of interest. Yet he supposed it would be more natural for such
an adventurer to be treated as he was going to be treated--that is to
say as a mental case. It would be tragically absurd if he in his unique
position were to be immured in a madhouse, regarded as a man possessed
by incurable delusions, when he might be deriving some consolation for
his extraordinary fate in seeing how the world had changed, in seeing,
among other things, what was the current theory of the Viscosity of
Liquids, and whether his own name was remembered among the early
investigators into that fascinating question.
While he still hesitated his companion went on in a soothing tone,
“That will be much the best way. Come with me if you think you’re well
enough to walk.”
“Oh, yes ... yes ...” distractedly. And as a matter of fact, his hunger
and his increasing bewilderment aside, Jeremy had never felt so well
or so strong in his life before. He was even a little afraid that the
activity of his manner might belie the supposed derangement of his
mind. He therefore attempted to assume a somewhat depressed demeanor as
he followed his new friend along the road.
The young man was evidently either by nature not loquacious, or
else convinced that it would be unwise to excite Jeremy by much
conversation--perhaps both. As they went along he gave most of his
attention to the conduct of his bicycle, and only threw over his
shoulder now and again a kindly “Do you remember that?” or “Does that
remind you of anything?” as they passed what would apparently be
landmarks familiar to any Londoner in the habit of using that road.
But all were equally strange to Jeremy, and he gazed round him keenly
to guess if he could what sort of people they were among whom he had
fallen. Clearly, if he were to judge by the man who was walking at his
side, they were not barbarians; and yet everywhere the countryside
showed evidence of decay, which totally defeated all the expectations
of the prophets of his own time. As they drew closer to London, which
was still hidden from them by belts of trees, the broken meadows of
Whitechapel gave place to cleared plots of garden, and here and there
among them stood rude hovels, huts that no decent district council
would have allowed to be erected. Jeremy, gazing at them as closely
as he could without exciting the attention of his guide, thought that
many of them seemed to have been built by piling roughly together
fragments of other buildings. Presently a gang of laborers going out
to the fields passed them, saluting Jeremy with a curious stare, and
his companion, when they were able to transfer their gaze to him, with
touched caps, whether because they knew him or merely out of respect
for his appearance Jeremy could not decide. But it was surprising how
familiar their look was. They were what Jeremy had encountered many
hundreds of times in country lanes and the bars of country inns; and it
was only vaguely and as it were with the back of his consciousness that
he perceived their ruder dress and the greater respectfulness of their
manner.
The transition from the fields to the town was abrupt. They reached
and passed a little wood which bordered both sides of the road, and
immediately beyond it the first street began. The houses were almost
all of Jeremy’s own day or before it, but though they were inhabited
they were heavy with age, sagging and hanging in different directions
in a manner which betokened long neglect. At the end of the street
a knot of loiterers stood. Behind them the street was busy with foot
passengers, and Jeremy stared along it to a tangle of houses, some
old and some new, but nearly all wearing the same strange air of
instability and imminent collapse. Their appearance affected him,
as one is affected when one wakes in an unfamiliar room, sleepily
expecting to see accustomed things and grows dizzy in substituting the
real picture for the imagined. He caught his breath and paused.
“What’s the matter?” asked the young man, instantly solicitous.
“Nothing,” Jeremy replied, “only feel faint ... must rest a minute.”
He leant against a mass of ruined and lichened brickwork, breathing
shortly and jerkily.
“Here,” cried his companion, dropping the bicycle, “sit down till
you feel better.” And, exerting an unsuspected strength, he took
Jeremy bodily in his arms and lowered him gently till he reclined on
the grass. Jeremy looked up, grateful for his kindness, which was
reassuring, though he knew that it did not spring from sympathy with
his real perplexities. But he immediately dropped his eyes and clenched
his hands while he strove to master his doubts. Would it not perhaps
be the wiser plan to confess his position to this young man and take
the risk of being thought a madman? And a moment’s reflection convinced
him that he would never have a better opportunity. The face that
now leant anxiously above him was not perhaps so alert or active in
appearance as he could have wished; but it was extraordinarily friendly
and trustworthy. If the young man could be made to believe in Jeremy’s
story, he would do all that was possible to help him. Jeremy made his
decision with a leap, and looking up again said thickly:
“I say.... I didn’t tell you the truth just now.”
“What? Don’t talk. You’ll feel better in a moment.”
“No, I must,” Jeremy insisted. “I’m all right; I haven’t lost my
memory. I wish to God I had lost it.”
The young man showed for the first time serious symptoms of surprise
and alarm. “What,” he began, “are you a--”
Jeremy silenced him with an imperative wave of the hand. “Let me go
on,” he said feverishly, “you mustn’t interrupt me. It’s difficult
enough to say, anyway. Listen.”
Then, brokenly, he told his story in a passion of eagerness to be as
brief as he could, and at the same time to make it credible by the
mere force of his will. When he began to speak he was looking at the
ground, but as he reached the crucial points he glanced up to see the
listener’s expression, and he ended with his gaze fixed directly,
appealingly, on the young man’s eyes. But the first words in response
made him break into a fit of hysterical laughter.
“Good heavens!” the young man cried in accents of obvious relief. “Do
you know what I was thinking? Why, I more than half thought you were
going to say that you were a criminal or a runaway!”
Jeremy pulled himself together with a jerk, and asked breathlessly,
“What year is this? For God’s sake tell me what year it is!”
“The year of Our Lord two thousand and seventy-four,” the young man
answered, and then suddenly realizing the significance of what he had
said, he put his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder, and added: “All right,
man, all right. Be calm.”
“I’m all right,” Jeremy muttered, putting his hands on the ground
to steady himself, “only it’s rather a shock--to hear it--” For,
strangely, though he had admitted in his thoughts the possibility of
even greater periods than this, the concrete naming of the figures
struck him harder than anything that day since the moment in which he
had expected to see houses and had seen only empty meadows. Now when
he closed his eyes his mind at once sank in a whirlpool of vague but
powerful emotions. In this darkness he perceived that he had been
washed up by fate on a foreign shore, more than a century and a half
out of his own generation, in a world of which he was ignorant, and
which had no place for him, that his friends were all long dead and
forgotten.... When his mind emerged from this eclipse, he found that
his cheeks were wet with tears and that he was laughing feebly. All
the strength and activity were gone out of him; and he gazed up at his
companion helplessly, feeling as dependent on him as a young child on
its parent.
“What shall we do now?” he asked in a toneless voice.
But the young man was turning his bicycle around again. “If you feel
well enough,” he answered gently, “I want you to come back and show
me the place where you were hidden. You know ... I don’t doubt you.
I honestly don’t; but it’s a strange story, and perhaps it would be
better for you if I were to look at the place before any one disturbs
it. So, if you’re well enough...?” Jeremy nodded consent, grateful for
the kindness of his friend’s voice, and went with him.
The way back to the little grove where they had first met seemed much
longer to Jeremy as he retraced it with feet that had begun to drag and
back that had begun to ache. When they reached it, the young man hid
his bicycle among the bushes, and asked Jeremy to lead him. At the edge
of the crevice he paused, and looked down thoughtfully, rubbing his
chin with one finger.
“It is just as you described it,” he murmured. “I can see the tabletop.
Did you look inside when you had got out?” It had not occurred to
Jeremy, and he admitted it. “Never mind,” the young man went on, “we’ll
do that in a moment.” Then he made Jeremy explain to him how the
warehouse had stood, where Lime Court had been, and how it fell into
the side street. He paced the ground which was indicated to him with
serious absorbed face, and said at last: “You understand that I haven’t
doubted what you told me. I felt that you were speaking the truth. But
you might have been deluded, and it was as much for your own sake....”
Jeremy interrupted him eagerly. “Couldn’t you get the old records, or
an old map of London that would show where all these things were? That
would help to prove the truth of what I say.”
The young man shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t suppose I could,” he
answered vaguely, his eyes straying off in another direction. “I never
heard of such things. Now for this....” And turning to the crevice
again he seized the tabletop and with a vigorous effort wrenched it up.
As he did so a rat ran squeaking from underneath, and scampered away
across the grass. Jeremy started back bewildered.
“You had a pleasant bedfellow,” said the young man in his grave manner.
Jeremy was silent, struggling with something in his memory that had
been overlaid by more recent concerns. Was it possible that he was not
alone in this unfamiliar generation? With a sudden movement he jumped
down into the open grave and began to search in the loose dust at the
bottom. The next moment he was out again, presenting for the inspection
of his bewildered companion an oddly-shaped glass vessel.
“This is it!” he cried, his face white, his eyes blazing, “I told you
I came to see an experiment----” Then he was checked by the perfect
blankness of the expression that met him. “Of course,” he said more
slowly, “if you’re not a scientist, perhaps you wouldn’t know what this
is.” And he began to explain, in the simplest words he could find, the
astonishing theory that had just leapt up fully born in his brain. He
guessed, staggered by his own supposition, that Trehanoc’s ray had been
more potent than even the discoverer had suspected, and that welling
softly and invisibly from the once excited vacuum-tube which he held
in his hand, it had preserved him and the rat together in a state of
suspended animation for more than a century and a half. Then with the
rolling of the timbers over his head and the collapse of the soft earth
which had gathered on them, the air had entered the hermetically sealed
chamber and brought awakening with it.
As his own excitement began to subside he was checked again by the
absolute lack of comprehension patent in his companion’s face. He
stopped in the middle of a sentence, feeling himself all astray. Was
this ray one of the commonplaces of the new age? Was it his surprise,
rather than the cause of it, which was so puzzling to his friend? The
whole world was swimming around him, and ideas began to lose their
connection. But, as through a mist, he could still see the young man’s
face, and hear him saying seriously as ever:
“I do not understand how that bottle could have kept you asleep for
so long, nor do I know what you mean by a ray. You are very ill, or
you would not try to explain things which cannot be explained. You do
not know any more than I what special grace has preserved you. Many
strange things happened in the old times which we cannot understand
to-day.” As he spoke he crossed himself and bowed his head. Jeremy was
silenced by his expression of devout and final certainty, and stifled
the exclamation that rose to his lips.
CHAPTER IV
DISCOVERIES
1
How and when Jeremy’s second unconsciousness overtook him he did not
know. He remembered stumbling after his friend down the uneven road
he had now begun to hate. He remembered that the heat of the day had
grown intense, that his own dizziness had increased, and that he had
been falling wearily over stones and from one rut to another. He had
a dim recollection of entering the street he had seen before, and of
noticing the odd effect produced by twentieth-century buildings sagging
crazily forward over a rough cobbled roadway. But he did not remember
his sudden collapse, or how his friend had secured a cart and anxiously
bundled him into it. He did not remember the jolting journey that
followed, as speedy as the streets of this new London would allow.
He came to himself in a bed in a little, bare, whitewashed room through
the windows of which the westering sun was throwing a last golden
flood. He sat up hastily, and saw that he was alone. At his side on
a small table stood a metal dish holding a thick slice of bread and
some leaves of lettuce; and by the dish there was a mug of rudely
glazed earthenware. His mouth was dry and his tongue swollen; and he
investigated the mug first. He was rewarded by a draught of thin but,
as he then thought, delicious ale. He immediately set to on the bread
and lettuce, and thought of nothing else till he had finished it. When
he had scraped together the last crumbs and his first ravenousness had
given way to a healthy and normal hunger, he looked about him with more
interest.
The room, his first glance told him, was bare even to meanness. It
held nothing but the bed in which he lay, the table and a large,
cumbrously-made wooden chest which stood in the further corner. The
walls, as well as the ceiling, were covered with a coarse whitewash
which was flaking here and there; and there was a square of rough
matting on the boards of the floor. Jeremy, quite awake and alert
now, wondered whether, after all, he had not been taken to an asylum,
perhaps--and this seemed most probable--to the infirmary of a
workhouse. The sheets on the bed and the nightshirt in which he found
himself, clean but of very coarse linen, seemed to support this theory.
On the other hand, if it were correct, ought he not to be in a ward
with the other patients? And was it usual in the workhouses of this age
to have mugs of ale by the bedside of unconscious men?
Curiosity soon stirred him farther; and he put one foot cautiously to
the ground. He was reassured at once by a sensation of strength and
health; and he slipped out of bed and went to the window. Here he met
with another surprise; for it was glazed with small leaded panes of
thick and muddy glass, such as was becoming rare in his own time even
in the remotest and most primitive parts of the country. And a brief
examination showed that the window was genuine, not merely a sheet of
glass cut up by sham leads to give a false appearance of antiquity.
Puzzling a little over this, and finding that he could not see clearly
through the stains and whorls in the glass, he undid the window, and
thrust his head out. Below him stretched spacious gardens with lawns
and shrubberies, fading in the distance among tall trees, through which
buildings could just be discerned.
As he leant out he could hear the voices of persons hidden somewhere
beneath; and he was straining forward to catch their meaning when a
hand fell on his shoulder. He looked round with a start, and saw his
friend carrying a pile of clothes over one arm, and smiling at him
pleasantly.
“Well,” said the young man, “I’m relieved to find you awake again. Do
you know that you’ve lain there since before noon, and that it’s now
nearly six o’clock? I began to think that you’d fallen into another
trance.”
“Where am I?” Jeremy asked bluntly.
And the young man replied with simplicity: “This is the Treasury.
You know, I’m one of the Speaker’s Clerks.” And then seeing Jeremy’s
stare of bewilderment, he went on: “Or perhaps you don’t know. We have
apartments here in the Treasury during our term of service, and dine
in the Great Hall. This room belongs to another of the Clerks. Luckily
he’s away on a journey, and so I’ve been able to borrow it for you. And
that reminds me that though you told me a great deal about yourself,
you never told me your name.” Jeremy told him. “And mine’s Roger Vaile.
Now I think you ought to get dressed, if you feel strong enough.”
But Jeremy’s bewilderment was by no means dissipated. “The Speaker? The
Treasury?” he inquired disconnectedly.
The young man whose name was Roger Vaile laughed in a good-humored way.
“Didn’t you have them in your time? It’s not much use asking me, I’m
afraid. I know so little about the old times that I can’t tell what
will be new to you, and what you know already. But you must know who
the Speaker is?”
“Yes ... I suppose so ... the Speaker of the House of Commons,” Jeremy
began. “But----”
Roger Vaile looked perplexed in his turn. “N-no--I don’t know ...
perhaps ... he’s ... oh, he’s the ruler of the country--like a king,
you know.”
“But why is he called the Speaker?” Jeremy persisted.
“Oh, I suppose because he speaks for the people, who know more about
these things than I do. Now that’s evident, isn’t it? But I’ll find
some one for you; you’d better dress,” he concluded, making for the
door, plainly anxious to avoid further questions. “Dinner’s served at
half-past six. I’ll call for you.” He escaped, but returned in a moment
to say: “By the way, I’ve told no one anything about you. I’ve only
said that I’m entertaining a friend from the country.”
“Thanks ... oh, thanks,” Jeremy replied hastily and rather foolishly,
looking up from his manipulation of the garments which Roger had
disposed on the bed. They proved, however, on examination, to be the
least of the problems at that moment confusing his mind. They were, in
fact, exceedingly like the evening dress to which he was accustomed.
A kind of dinner-jacket with coarsely woven silk on the lapels was
substituted for the tail-coat, and the shirt was made of heavy,
unstarched linen, and had a soft collar attached to it. The socks were
of thick and heavy silk; but the cloth of the coat, waistcoat and
trousers, which turned out, under closer inspection, to be dark purple
instead of black, was as soft and fine as could be desired. The shoes
were more unusual. They were of fine leather, long and pointed and
intricately adorned, and their color was a rich and pleasing green.
Jeremy had no trouble in dressing; but when he had finished he was
made a little uneasy by what he could see of the result. He supposed,
however, that his costume was that of a well-dressed young man of
the period, though it did not fit him at all points as he could have
wished; and he sat down on the bed to wait as tranquilly as he could
till Roger should call for him. Tranquillity, however, was not to be
had for the asking. Too many questions beset his mind; and though he
had a wealth of observations on which to reflect there seemed to be at
once too many and too few. He certainly had never believed that the
Millennium was somewhere just around the corner, waiting to be led in
by the hand of Science. But he _had_ held the comfortable belief that
mankind was advancing in conveniences and the amenities of life by
regular and inevitable degrees. Yet all that he had seen so far seemed
to be preparing an overthrow of this supposition no less direct and
amazing than the revelation he had received when he looked for the
houses of Whitechapel and found that they were no longer there. The
mere fact that a whole quarter of London had been destroyed and had
never been rebuilt was in itself significant. The condition of the
still inhabited houses which he had seen was strange. The clothes he
wore, the sheets on his bed, the glazing of his window, pointed to an
unexpected state of affairs. And Roger Vaile’s attitude towards the
scientific theories which Jeremy had so guilelessly spread before him
was perhaps the most striking phenomenon of all. Jeremy sought vainly
for words which would describe the impression it had made on him. Could
a savage have looked otherwise if you had explained to him the theory
of atomic weights? And the Speaker, who spoke for the people ... and
the Treasury? Jeremy thought suddenly, with a certain ingratitude,
that Roger’s easy acceptance of his own almost impossible story had
something about it that was decidedly queer.
The course of his meditations led him to as many blind alleys as there
were paths to be followed; and he was just staring down the eighth or
ninth when Roger entered, dressed in garments closely resembling those
he had given to Jeremy. Jeremy followed his beckoning finger and was
led down a narrow staircase, along a passage and into a hall of some
dimensions, which was lit partly by the sun still streaming through the
windows, partly by a multitude of tall, thick candles. It contained
three tables, two of which were long and stood in the body of the hall.
The third was much smaller and was raised on a dais at the end, at
right angles to the others. This was still unoccupied; but around the
long tables sat or stood a number of men of varying ages, mostly young,
talking desultorily, and waiting. These were also dressed like Jeremy;
but some of them had been more adventurous in the colors of their
jackets, and some displayed modest touches of lace on their breasts or
at their wrists.
Jeremy was still staring covertly at these people and finding, a little
to his surprise, that neither their costume nor his own looked odd,
being naturally worn, when a trumpet rang out metallically, and at
once all the lounging men sprang to their feet in rigid attitudes. A
door on the dais was thrown open by a servant, and a tall, stooping
figure walked in.
“The Speaker,” Roger whispered softly in Jeremy’s ear. Jeremy craned
his neck to see the ruler of England. He caught a glimpse of a large,
rather fleshy face, with deep folds, discernible in spite of the long
white beard about the heavy, drooping mouth, and more than a touch
of Jewish traits in the curve of the nose, and the heaviness of the
eyelids. As the Speaker walked to his seat, another man, shorter, but
spare, and more erect, with lean features and a bearing of almost
barbaric pride, which was accentuated by the dull red of his jacket,
followed him in.
“That damned Canadian!” Roger muttered, and Jeremy staring in some
surprise found that the exclamation was not for him. Still no one sat.
Even the Speaker and his guest remained standing by their chairs, until
another trumpet sounded, and a second door on the dais was thrown
open. Two women came through it. The first was middle-aged and stout,
florid of coloring, and, even at that distance, obviously over-painted.
The second, whom the first partially hid, seemed to be young, and to
move with a carriage as robust and distinguished as that of the erect
Canadian. Jeremy had seen no more than this when his gaze was diverted
by the rising of a priest who intoned a grace and then by the bustle
attendant on the whole company sitting down. He gathered from Roger’s
whisper that these were the Speaker’s wife and daughter; but after
dinner had begun, he could not clearly see the party of four on the
dais because of the glare and the flickering of the candles between him
and them.
2
Roger Vaile did more for Jeremy than provide him with food and lodging.
He was also at the pains of finding out the wisest man he knew to
answer Jeremy’s questions and resolve his doubts. After a lengthy meal
of huge and crudely spiced dishes they returned to Roger’s own room, an
apartment a little larger than that in which Jeremy had found himself,
but not much less bare; and there they discovered, sitting on the bed
and waiting for them, an elderly priest in a long black soutane, with a
golden crucifix at his breast.
He rose as they entered, and surveyed Jeremy with intense curiosity.
Jeremy returned the stare, but rather less intently. This, he found
with little interest, was like any priest of any age. He was clean
shaven and almost bald, with pouched and drooping cheeks, and a chin
that multiplied and returned to unity as he talked and moved his head.
But above these signs of age were two large and childlike blue eyes
which shone on Jeremy with something like greed in their eagerness.
“This is the man,” Roger said briefly to the priest, and to Jeremy he
said: “This is my Uncle, Father Henry Dean. He is writing the chronicle
of the Speakers, and he knows more about the old times than any other
man alive.”
The priest took Jeremy’s hand in a soft clasp without relaxing his
eager stare. “There are few men alive who are older than I am,” he
murmured, “but you are one of them, if my nephew has told me the truth.
Yes--more than a century older.”
“I don’t feel it,” Jeremy answered aimlessly.
“No? No. That is miraculous. Ah, yes, I believe your story. I know well
that the world is full of marvels. Who should know that better than I
who have spent so many years searching the wonderful past? And there
were greater marvels in those days than now. Young man----” he stopped
and chuckled with a touch of senility. “Young man, you will be nearly
two centuries old.”
Jeremy nodded without speaking.
“Yes, yes,” the old man went on, “so many strange things happened in
those days that we have no call to be amazed at you. Why, there used to
be a machine in those times that the doctors used to look right through
men’s bodies.”
Jeremy started slightly. “You mean the Röntgen Rays?” he said.
“A wonderful light,” said the old man eagerly, “you know it, you have
seen it?”
“Why, yes,” Jeremy turned to Roger. “You know that vacuum-tube I showed
you----” But the old man was continuing his catalogue of wonders.
“Men used to cross to America in less than a week. Yes--and some even
flew over in aeroplanes in a day.”
“Uncle, uncle,” Roger remonstrated gently, “you mustn’t tell fairy
tales to a man who has been to fairyland. He knows what the truth is.”
“But that is true,” Jeremy roused himself to say; “it was done several
times--not regularly, but often.” Roger bestowed on him a glance of
covert doubt, and the priest leant forward in tremulous gratitude.
“I knew it, I knew it!” he cried. “Roger, like all the world to-day you
are too ignorant. You do not know----”
But Jeremy interrupted again. “But have you aeroplanes now?” he asked.
“Can you fly?”
“Not for many years now,” the old man sighed, “Roger has never seen
a man flying. I did when I was very young.” He drew a deep breath
and regarded Jeremy almost with reverence. “You lived in a wonderful
time,” he said. “Why, you were alive in the time of the great artists,
when that was made.” He turned, and indicated with a devout finger a
little marble statue which stood on the mantelpiece behind him. Jeremy
followed his gesture, and noticed for the first time that the room
was not entirely without decoration. The statue to which his gaze was
directed represented the body of a man from the waist upwards. The
anatomy of the body was entirely distorted, the ribs stood out like
ridgers, and one arm, which was raised over the head, was a good third
longer than the other.
“Yes,” Jeremy said, surveying it with interest, “perhaps I did. That is
what we used to call Futurist art.”
“They were masters then,” said the priest with a deep expulsion of his
breath. Jeremy’s eyes wandered round the room and fell on a picture,
plainly a lithograph of the war-period, which, when he had regarded
it long enough, resolved itself into a crane lifting a great gun into
a railway wagon. But it was drawn in fierce straight lines and savage
angles, with shadows like wedges, making a bewildering pattern which
for a moment defeated him. He dropped his eyes from it, and again
looked round the room. This time his gaze fell on the bed, which was
wooden and obviously new. The flat head of it was covered with rude
carving such as might have been executed by a child armed for the
first time with a gouge and a mallet. It had none of the vigor and
rhythm that commonly goes with primitive workmanship. The design was
glaringly stupid and senseless.
“We are poor workmen to-day,” said the priest, following and
interpreting his glance.
Roger, who had stood by, silent but a little impatient, now intervened.
“These are old family things,” he explained, “that I brought with me
from home. They are very rare. But the bed is new, and I think it very
pretty. I had it made only a few months ago.” He motioned his guests
into chairs, and produced a large earthenware pot which he offered to
Jeremy. Jeremy removed the lid, and saw, somewhat to his surprise, that
it contained a dark, finely cut tobacco.
“It’s Connemara,” he said laconically. The old priest shook a long
finger at him.
“Ah, Roger, Roger!” he chided. “When will you learn to be thrifty?
Cannot you smoke the tobacco of your own country? Winchcombe is
good enough for me,” he added to Jeremy, bringing a linen bag and a
cherrywood pipe out of the folds of his robe.
“I’ve no pipe,” said Jeremy, fumbling mechanically in his pockets.
Roger, without speaking, went to a chest, and produced two new, short
clay pipes, one of which he handed to Jeremy, while he kept the other
himself. All three were silent for a moment while they filled and
lighted from a taper; and the familiar operation, the familiar pause,
afflicted Jeremy with an acute memory of earlier days. Then while his
palate was still savoring the first breath of the strong, cool Irish
tobacco in the new pipe, the priest began again his rambling spoken
reveries.
“Tell me,” he demanded suddenly, “did you live in the time of the first
Speaker?”
Jeremy, hampered by a grievous lack of historical knowledge, tried to
explain that the Speaker was a functionary dating from centuries before
his time. The old man jumped in his chair with childlike enthusiasm.
“Yes, yes!” he cried. “This generation has almost forgotten how he came
by his name. But I meant the great-grandfather of our Speaker, the
first to rule England. You know he was the only strong man when the
troubles began. Do you remember him? Surely you must remember him?”
Jeremy shook his head, considering. He did not even recall what had
been the name of the Speaker when he fell asleep. But his mind caught
at a word the priest had used.
“The troubles?” he repeated.
“Yes,” the priest answered, a little taken aback, throwing a glance at
Roger. “Don’t you know? The wars, the fighting....”
“The war ...” Jeremy began. He knew a great deal about what had been
called by his generation, quite simply, The War.
But Roger interposed. “My uncle means the civil wars. Surely it was in
the middle of the troubles that your trance began?”
3
It was by way of such stumblings and misapprehensions that Jeremy
gained at last a partial and confused picture of the world into which
he had fallen. He had been the first to tire, but the old priest had
been very unwilling to let him go.
“No, no,” he said again and again, as Jeremy strove to rise, “you
must first tell me ...”--while Roger sat watching them with an air
of inalterable mildness. Roger had taken but a little part in the
conversation. His notions of the twentieth century were extraordinarily
vague and inaccurate; and when he had been rebuked once or twice for
ignorance he had shrugged his shoulders, placidly observing that it
mattered very little, and had said no more.
Jeremy crept into bed very late by the light of a flickering candle,
desiring only to forget everything, to postpone all effort of thought
until another day. But when he had blown out his candle, and nothing
remained but a patch of moonlight thrown through the window on the
opposite wall, his mind grew active again. It was indeed absurd to be
lying there in the darkness with nothing to give him ocular evidence of
his strange misfortune, nothing visible at all but the square of pale
radiance, barred by the heavy leads of the pane.
He might have been in bed in some old-fashioned country inn, the chance
lodging of a night, where there would have been just such a window, and
where the sheets would have been as coarse and heavy as these were. But
then, a mile, or two miles, or five miles away there would have been a
railway station, whence sooner or later a train would have carried him
back to the flat in Holborn, back to his lectures and the classes of
intelligent young men and women eager for rational instruction in the
mysteries of the universe. He thought of that station, and for a moment
could see it as vividly as he desired it, could picture the fresh
morning walk there, the little, almost deserted platform with a name
picked out in white pebbles, the old porter.... He could conjure up the
journey and even the smoky approach to London. But here, though as he
had learnt there were still trains, there was certainly no train which
could do that for him.
He shifted uneasily on to the other side, and recognized with a groan
that this was an empty vision. It behooved him to make himself at
home as much and as soon as he could in the year two thousand and
seventy-four, to learn what this world was like, to adapt himself to it.
“We are a diminished people,” was the burden of the priest’s lament.
“Our ancestors were wise and rich and strong, but we have lost nearly
all they had, and we shall never regain it.” And he had rehearsed
the marvels of the twentieth century, trains leaving every town
in constant succession, motors on the roads, aeroplanes overhead,
steamers on the sea. But the steamship, owing to the difficulties of
its construction, had practically ceased to exist. A rapidly growing
percentage of accidents, due to faulty workmanship, had driven the
aeroplane altogether out of use. There were still a few motors; but
these had long been less reliable, and were now growing less speedy,
than the horse. As for trains--there were still trains running to and
from London. One went to Edinburgh every week, and two to Liverpool and
Bristol. The trains to Dover, to the Midlands and to Yorkshire were
even more frequent. The line from London to the West of England was
still open, but that district had now little importance, and trains
were dispatched there only when there was some special reason.
Roger treated his uncle’s laments with gentle and reasonable sarcasm.
“I think,” he said weightily, “that you exaggerate. I’m not convinced
that the old times were as wonderful as you think. Why, so far as
railways go, I know something about railways. It’s part of my duties.
And I know this, that engines are always breaking down. I take it that
even in the old times an engine that had broken down wouldn’t go. And I
imagine that our clever ancestors had just as much trouble as we have
in keeping the lines up. Now this week the train from Edinburgh is
two days overdue, because there’s been a landslide in the Midlands. I
suppose you’ll agree,” he added, turning to Jeremy, “that even in your
time a train couldn’t get through a landslide.”
Jeremy had agreed. “I daresay,” Roger went on, “that the railways
aren’t as good now as they were before the troubles. But we’re going to
improve them. The Speaker talks about repairing the old line that went
out to the eastern counties. You know--you can still see parts of it
near Chelmsford.”
The old man on this had looked appealingly at Jeremy, who sought
without success to convince Roger that the difference was really great.
But his attention was chiefly concentrated on discovering how this
and other differences had come about. It seemed incredible that the
race could have forgotten so much and yet live. The “Troubles” were
so often in the mouths of both uncle and nephew that Jeremy’s mind
came at last to give them their due in the shape of a capital letter.
The “Troubles.”... He supposed that his trance had begun with this
beginning and indeed much of what the priest had told him was more
vivid to him than to the teller when he remembered the soldier and the
alien woman who had called him a dirty bourgeois, or Scott leaning
down, pale and anxious from the lorry, or the man whom he had never
seen, but who had thrown a bomb at him down Trehanoc’s cellar steps.
Jeremy gathered that it had been a question not of one outburst of
fighting, one upheaval and turning-point of time, but of numbers spread
over many years.
“It is hard to say how it all came about,” mused the old man, at one
of the few moments when he was cajoled into telling instead of asking.
“Some have said that the old life grew too difficult, and just ground
itself to pieces. It began with the rich and the poor. When some
accident brought them to blows it was too late to put the world right.
After that they never trusted one another, and there was no more peace.”
“When did the fighting stop at last?” asked Jeremy.
“It kept on stopping--it kept on stopping. And it kept on breaking
out again, first in one country and then in another. For fifty years
there was always war in some part of the world. And when they stopped
fighting they couldn’t settle down again. The workers idled, or smashed
the machines. And at last a time came when the fighting didn’t stop. It
went on and on in England and all over the Continent. All the schools
were closed, all the teachers were idle for more than twenty years.
I have often thought that that was how we came to lose so much. A
generation grew up that had never learnt anything. Only a few men knew
how to do the things their fathers had done every day, and the rest
were too stupid or too lazy to learn from them properly. Then everybody
was tired out and more than half the people were dead; they had to
begin again, and they were too weary to recover as much as they might
have done.”
Jeremy pondered over again the vision raised by these words. He could
see the earth ravaged by exhausted enemies, too evenly matched to
bring the struggle to an end until exhaustion had reached its lowest
pitch. He could see all the mechanical wonders of his own age smashed
by men who were too weak to prevail, but who were strong enough not
to endure the soulless contrivances which had brought them into
servitude. And he could see the gradual triumph of the Speaker over
a weary and starving population. The first Speaker, who had really
been Speaker of the House of Commons in the year when Jeremy had
fallen into his trance, had been a man of unsuspected strength of
character and a member of a great and wealthy Jewish house. Assisted
by his kinsmen in all parts of the world, he had been a rallying-point
for the rich in the early disorders; and he had established a party
which had lasted, with varying fortunes, through all the changes of
succeeding years. He it was who had arranged that compromise with the
Church of Rome by which all southern England became again more or less
Catholic without too violently alienating those parts of the country
in which other sorts of religion were dominant. Not the least of his
claims for greatness had been his perception of the real power still
concentrated in the fugitive and changing person of that Bishop of
Rome who was chased from his own ruined palace and his own city, up
and down Europe from one refuge to another, as the forces of disorder
veered and changed ... subsided here and rose again there. One by
one the countries of the earth had sunk, bloodless and impoverished,
into quiescence, and when the turn of England came, the house of the
Speaker, the house of Burney, in the person of his grandson, had been
at hand to take the opportunity.
“And did all the people die off in the fighting?” Jeremy had wondered.
“In battle and disease and famine,” the priest answered. “Towards the
end of the Troubles came the Great Famine. And that was the cause
of the worst of the wars. The people of the towns were starving,
because they were fighting in America and sent us no food-ships, and
the country people were nearly starving too, because their crops
had failed. They struggled for what food there was ... they died by
millions ... by millions and millions....”
“I must say I find it hard to believe all that,” Roger interposed with
an air of detachment. “My uncle is so enthusiastic about the old times
that he believes whatever any one tells him or what he reads in a lot
of old books--books you couldn’t imagine if you hadn’t seen them,
filthy, simply dropping to pieces.... The more improbable the story the
better he likes it. Well, in the first place, why should those people
have wanted food from other countries? What did they do if they didn’t
grow it for themselves? And why should so many of them be living in
towns?”
“You are very ignorant, my boy,” said the old man calmly. “Look at
London now; look at the miles of houses that no one has lived in for a
hundred years. Who did live in them but the people who died of famine?”
“It isn’t a very great matter after all, is it?” Roger muttered,
suppressing a yawn.
“Before the Troubles,” the priest continued, half to himself, “there
were nearly fifty millions of people in England alone. Do you know what
the census was?” he asked sharply, turning to Jeremy. Jeremy replied
that he did. “Ah, Roger wouldn’t know what the word meant. Well, I
have read the report of the census of 1921, and then there were nearly
fifty million people in England alone. Where are they now? We have not
more than ten or twelve millions, and we have never counted them--never
counted them. But Roger and the young men of his age think that nothing
has happened, that we are not much worse off than we were, that there
is no need for us to bestir ourselves.”
“And is it like this all over the world?” Jeremy had asked, stunned by
the implications of this fact.
“All over the world--so far as we know.”
“All over the world--all over the world.” The words rang again
in Jeremy’s ears as he tossed uneasily in bed. The old world had
collapsed, and the falling roof had crushed and blotted out forever
most of what he had thought perpetually established. And then,
amazingly, the stones and timbers had not continued in their fall to
utter ruin. They had found their level and stayed, jammed together,
perhaps, fortuitously, to make a lower and narrower vault, which still
sufficed to shelter the improvident family of men. The human race
had not perished, had not even been reduced to utter barbarism. Its
glissade into the abyss had been arrested, and it remained on the ledge
of ground where it had been thrown. So much was left. How much?
He realized with a slight shock that he was lying on his back, beating
feverishly with his hands on the bedclothes, and muttering half aloud
as though in a delirium, “What is left? What can be left?” He dragged
himself back abruptly from what seemed for a moment to be the edge of
madness. Still his mind obstinately demanded to know what was left that
was tangible, that he had known and could recognize. He could not get
beyond the landmarks of his childhood. Was Westminster Abbey still
standing? Was the Monument? He knew that St. Paul’s was gone. It had
been lost by a generation which had been careless of the warnings given
by its groaning arches and leaning walls; it had fallen and crushed
some hundreds of the negligent inheritors. Was Nelson’s column still in
Trafalgar Square? Jeremy, with a childish unreason, was eager to have
an answer to this question.
Now his thoughts abruptly abandoned it and fled back to pictures of the
Troubles. He could see very vividly, more vividly than anything else,
the classroom in which he had been accustomed to deliver his lecture
empty and deserted, benches torn up to make bonfires or barricades,
dust sifting in through the broken windows and lying thick on the
floor. He remembered with a painful laugh that he had left the first
written sheets of a paper on the Viscosity of Liquids in a drawer in
the lecturer’s table. Burnt, too, no doubt.... That knowledge had
perished. But most knowledge had perished in another way, had merely
faded from the mind of man, because of his growing incapacity for
acquiring it. There flashed upon him the vision of a changed world, in
which there was no fellow for him, save only a few, and those among the
very old.
For a moment his mind paused, as though a cold finger had intervened
and touched it. During the hours of the night his eyes had been growing
used to the darkness, but, so much were his thoughts turned inwards,
he had not noticed it. Now, in the sudden cessation of thought, he
saw clearly the bed in which he was lying, the matting on the floor,
the rough walls and ceiling, and every detail of the little room. He
started up, went to the window and thrust his head out into the night
air. The bushes below murmured faintly under the touch of a breeze he
could not feel. All around was perfectly quiet; and where that evening
he had seen buildings through the farthest trees, no lights were to be
descried. He pushed his head farther out and looked to left and right.
There were no lights in the Treasury: no sound came from any of the
rooms. Jeremy stayed thus for a little, helpless in one of those fits
in which every physical faculty is capable while the mind is dizzied by
the mere power of a thought.
He knew that, by reason of his strange fate, he was alone in this
generation. But he had only just begun to realize how much alone he
was. Now he felt he had no community with any of these creatures, that
not only the face of the earth but the spirit of its dwellers had been
changed while he slept. They looked at the world and at themselves in a
manner which was not familiar to him. They were ignorant of things he
could never explain to them. They believed things which to him could
never be credible. There was a gap between him and them which nothing
could ever bridge.
Tears came into his eyes as he pondered numbly over his tragedy. It
seemed to him that he could look back and see his own world, full of
familiar men and places, friendly and infinitely desirable. He began
to believe that all things which had happened and are to happen exist
simultaneously somewhere in the universe. And then, shaking himself
free from this absurd homesickness in time, he began to consider the
immediate future. The rest of his life was perhaps a negligible piece
of eternity compared with that through which he had already lived; but
it would have to be passed somehow. The more he thought about it the
more ridiculously impossible it seemed that he should now see out the
reasonable span of human life.
Could he adjust himself to this new world, find a place in its
business, earn a living, make friends, perhaps marry and beget
children? The idea was preposterous; he ought rather to be in a museum.
Could it be possible that one day his youth in the twentieth century
would be as dim a recollection to him as must be, he supposed, the
youth of most old men to them? There passed before his eyes, sudden and
uncalled for, a procession of solemn persons, parents, and even aunts,
schoolmasters, the principal of the college in which he lectured, the
professor under whom he had worked. All, in that distant youth, when
he had seemed rash and impatient, had advised him, had adjured him
to consider his future. Well, here it was.... He laughed loudly and
harshly.
He drew his head from the window and turned slowly back towards his
bed, cooled and refreshed and a little inclined towards sleep. As he
pulled the clothes over his body and settled his head on the pillow
the thought struck him that perhaps all this was a nightmare, which
would have disappeared when he woke, for sleeping and waking were now
invested for him with powers so incalculable that anything might be
expected of either of them. He drew closer down into the bed and found
the warmth of the rough sheets pleasant to his limbs. The square of
the window was rapidly changing to a pale gray. Perhaps in the morning
this fantastic mirage would have altered its appearance. It was getting
towards dawn--would he never go to sleep? Or if it did not ... no doubt
a humdrum career was as possible in this century as in any other.
There was a bird waking in the bushes under his window; and when they
all began it would be impossible to go to sleep. Perhaps he could get
a job of some kind--he might be useful on the railways.... His eyelids
sank and an invincible lassitude spread through his body. A sudden fear
of sleep seized him--a terror lest this time it might carry him into
some even less friendly age; but in spite of it, consciousness faded
away.
4
In another room, not far off in that diminished city, candles
were burning while Jeremy tossed to and fro in the darkness. At a
great mahogany table--the dining-table of some moldered Victorian
gentleman--Father Henry Dean sat down long after midnight, and, with
the sleepless industry of a very old man, began to turn over the pages
of his chronicle. All around the lighted circle in which he sat soft
shadows filled the room, obscuring the great oak dresser, a now worn
and mellowed relic of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and the bookcase,
which was modern work, covered with crude and tasteless arabesques, and
offended its owner whenever he saw it.
His labors in the composition of his history were immense and were
bewildering to the younger men of his time. It had been a blissful
experience to meet, in Jeremy, one who understood the pains he took
in order to arrive at a seemingly useless truth. The pages through
which he was now glancing represented a lifetime of devotion. They
represented also an enduring and a passionate regret. Father Henry
deserved whatever condemnation properly falls upon the praiser of the
past.
In the pursuit of his object he had lavished his youth and his middle
age; and he was still spending his last years in the discovery and
study of the books that were now slowly vanishing from the world. He
alone in his generation had made many journeys to the great deserted
repository where, before the Troubles, the authorities of the British
Museum had stored the innumerable and bewildering periodicals of a time
that had been, if anything, too well informed. A satirical poet might
have found a theme in that dark, dejected, and rat-ridden building,
whose windows and doors had long since vanished and where man’s neglect
had conspired with the weather and the sheltering beasts to disperse
the knowledge it contained.
The priest’s youth had gone before he heard of this storehouse. When
he found it, the stooping, patient figure, turning over the pages of
long-forgotten newspapers, which were brown and ragged, dropping in
pieces, covered with mildew, sodden with rain or eaten away by rats,
might have offered the same poet a spectacle too pathetic for the
exercise of his fancy. Father Henry did his best; but the ravages of
time had been enormous. For the whole of 1920 and part of 1921 he could
find no connected authority but the files of an illustrated Sunday
paper.
It had been almost the same in the British Museum itself, which he
had discovered in earlier life and where his strange passion was
first nurtured. There was only the tragic difference that here decay
had not gone so far that it might not yet be repaired. Many of the
treasures of the Museum had been destroyed, or spoilt, or stolen, and
the library had suffered no less. Father Henry, when he was a young
man, obtained a key to the rooms in which the books lay and wandered
among the shelves, observing with tears the damage done here, too, by
rain and the rats, so that here too many unique records were already
wholly destroyed or rendered illegible. There was still a curator of
the Museum, an official at the Speaker’s court, who held the post as a
sinecure and visited the building perfunctorily once or twice a year.
In his very early and ardent youth the priest had addressed a petition
to the Speaker, praying with some vehemence that the part of the
Museum which held the library might be mended and made weatherproof.
The Speaker was indifferent, the curator resentful; and Father Henry’s
foolish persistence had spoilt his own hopes of advancement and thrown
him more deeply into his solitary enthusiasm for the recovery of
knowledge.
Once again, in his middle years, on the succession of a new Speaker,
he renewed his petition, and for a time his expectations had risen.
But the new ruler had lost interest when he found that Father Henry’s
object was only the study of history, not the revival of mechanical
inventions. Other things had intervened, and the project had been
dropped. After that the priest began carrying to his own house such
volumes as he most valued; but he dared not do this on a great scale,
lest the curator should make it a convenient occasion for a display of
zeal. He prophesied privately to acquaintances, who did not care, that
in another generation the library would have been altogether lost.
Amid these difficulties he had almost completed the work through which
he was now abstractedly rambling. Jeremy’s appearance had filled him
with homesickness for the past no less acute than Jeremy’s own; and
he looked at the crabbedly written pages through a film of tears.
In an early chapter he corrected with pleasure his own doubt whether
the Atlantic had ever really been crossed through the air. In the
newspapers he had consulted by some odd chance, only allusions to
this feat, but no direct record of it survived. He noted also that he
must revise his estimate of one Bob Hart, a prominent Labor leader
of the years in which the Troubles began. Relying on the illustrated
Sunday paper, Father Henry Dean had depicted him as a great, corrupt,
and sinister demagogue, who combined the more salient qualities of
Robespierre and Heliogabalus. Jeremy happened to have met him once or
twice, and affirmed confidently that he was a small, bewildered and
timid man, with a stock of homely eloquence and no reasoning power.
The old priest turned on and reached his account of the ruin of St.
Paul’s, which had occurred after the Troubles and, indeed, during his
own childhood. He had actually seen it standing, though he had not seen
it fall. In the chronicle he described the catastrophe, the portents
which preceded it, and the cloud of dust which hung for a few minutes
over the settling ruins, and in which many had thought they had seen an
avenging shape.
After this he had given a long and elaborate account of the wonderful
building, supplementing his childish recollections from a rich and
varied tradition. Father Henry remembered that the great dome of the
cathedral had been gilded, and here tradition supported him. Jeremy,
however, declared that this was not true. The old priest looked
carefully through what he had written; and then, sitting back in his
great chair and rattling his quill between his teeth, he considered
Jeremy’s evidence. At last he shook his head, put down his pen, and
locked his papers away. Having done this, he blew out all the candles
but one, took the last and dragged himself heavily away to bed.
CHAPTER V
THE SPEAKER
1
When Jeremy woke, the same panic terror of that transition seized
him again for a moment and poised him on a razor’s edge between
consciousness and unconsciousness. It passed. The clear morning light
falling on his bed revealed to him that his humdrum existence in the
new world began with that day. The surprises and the anxieties were
over. All that remained was a process of adaptation and settlement;
and, feeling a certain eagerness to begin, he began by scrambing out of
bed.
There was, as he might have remembered, no bath in the room; and he
decided that to search for one along these unknown corridors would be
an enterprise not less chimerical than embarrassing. He looked about
the room rather helplessly and lit at last on what he had not seen the
night before, a metal ewer of water with a basin, standing behind the
wooden chest. There was no soap with them, and the chest turned out to
be locked. He was still revolving this problem in his mind, while the
nightshirt flapped pleasantly round his legs in a light draught, when
Roger came in, looking as placid and collected as he had been when he
had shown Jeremy to bed.
“Are you well?” Roger asked; and, without waiting for a reply, he went
on smoothly, “Of course you have nothing of your own for dressing. I’ve
brought you my soap and a razor and a glass--and....” He hesitated a
little.
“Yes?” Jeremy encouraged him.
“I thought perhaps it might be better if I were to lend you some of my
clothes. You know, your own do look.... If you don’t mind....”
“Of course not,” Jeremy assented with pleasure. It was the last of his
desires to be in any way conspicuous. “I should very much prefer it.”
When Roger had gone he examined with some interest the soap which had
been given to him. It was a thin and wasted cake, very heavy, and of a
harsh and gritty substance. But what was chiefly interesting was that
it lay in a little metal casket which had a lock on it. This simple
fact led Jeremy’s mind down a widening avenue of speculation. He
dragged himself away from it with difficulty, and was in the middle of
washing and shaving when Roger returned. It was at least a relief to
find that the razor had a practicable edge.
Roger sat on the bed and watched Jeremy in silence. There was nothing
specially perplexing in these new clothes, which comprised a thick
woolen vest, a shirt, breeches, and a loose coat, and were obviously
the garments of a race, or a class, used to a life spent largely out
of doors. Jeremy put them on without difficulty until he came to the
shapeless bunch of colored linen which served as a tie. Here Roger was
obliged to intervene and help him.
“How absurd!” Roger exclaimed with satisfaction, standing away and
regarding him when the operation was completed. “Now you look like
anybody else. And yet yesterday, when I found you, you looked like
some one out of one of the old pictures. It’s almost a pity....”
“That’s all right,” Jeremy sighed, still fidgeting a little with the
tie and trying to see himself in a very small shaving-glass. “I want
to look like anybody else. It’s a great piece of luck that only you
and your uncle know that I’m not. I feel somehow,” he went on, with
an increasing warmth of expression, “that I can rely on you. It would
be unbearable if all these people here knew what I had told you.” He
paused, while the vision thus suggested took definite shape in his
mind. “You see,” he ruminated, lost in speculation and half-forgetting
his hearer, “I know that nothing would ever make _me_ believe such a
story. I know they would look at me out of the corners of their eyes
and wonder whether there was anything in it. They’d begin to take sides
and quarrel. The fools would believe me and the sensible people would
laugh at me. I should begin to feel that I was an impostor, a sort of
De Rougemont or Doctor Cook ... only, of course, you don’t know who
they were----” He might have rambled on much longer without realizing
that there was a certain ungracious candor in these remarks if his
interest had not been attracted by a change of expression, a mere
flicker of meaning in Roger’s eyes.
“You haven’t told any one?” Jeremy cried with a sudden gust of entreaty.
“No--well ... no one of importance ...” Roger answered, averting
his glance. “But I didn’t know--you didn’t say---- And there’s my
uncle----” He paused and considered.
“But----” Jeremy began, and stopped appalled. The pressure of
experience had taught him that it was not only an error but also gross
ill-behavior to make large claims of any sort whatsoever. He strongly
resented finding himself in the position of having to assert in public
that he had lain in a trance for a century and a half. Surely Roger
should have understood his feelings without warning, and should have
respected his story as told in confidence under an obvious necessity.
There flashed through his mind the question whether any newspapers
still survived.
He burst out again wildly, fighting with a thickness in his throat.
“Will your uncle have told any one? Isn’t it much better to say nothing
about me? At least, until I can prove----”
“But what do you mean--prove?” Roger interrupted. “Why shouldn’t every
one believe you as I did? There are some men who will believe nothing,
but----” He shrugged his shoulders and dismissed them. “But, whatever
you may wish, there’s my uncle.... He rises very early--I saw him here
half-an-hour ago, after Mass.”
Jeremy opened his mouth to speak and forebore.
“Consider, my dear friend,” Roger went on persuasively, “we didn’t know
your wishes, and it’s late in the day already. I’ve been up for some
time; I’ve even begun my work. I didn’t want to wake you, because----”
“Do you mean that you’ve been talking to every one about me?” Jeremy
demanded, almost hysterically.
“You speak as though you had done something that you were ashamed of. I
cannot think why you should want to hide so wonderful a matter.”
Jeremy sat down on the wooden chest, unable to speak, but murmuring
sullen protests in his throat. The face of the future had somehow
changed since he had finished dressing; and he found himself unable
to explain to Roger how important it was that his secret should be
preserved, that he should slip into the strange world and lose himself
with as little fuss as a raindrop disappearing in the sea. Besides,
this young man was in a sort his savior and protector, to whom he owed
gratitude, and on whom he certainly was dependent.... The anger which
was roused in him by the placidly enquiring face opposite died away in
a fit of hopelessness.
“What will happen to me then?” he muttered at last.
“You will be made much of,” Roger assured him. “Crowds will flock
round you to hear your story. The Speaker and all the great men of
the country will wish to see you. Now come with me and eat something.
Perhaps no one knows anything about you yet, I said nothing clear. You
must come and eat.”
“I don’t want to eat,” Jeremy mumbled, suffering from an intense
consciousness of childish folly.
Perhaps Roger divined his feelings, for a slow, faint smile appeared
on his face. “You must eat,” he repeated firmly. “You are overwrought.
Come with me.” There was something in his serene but determined
patience which drew Jeremy reluctantly after him.
The emptiness of the corridor outside did not reduce Jeremy’s fears of
the peopled house beyond. He dragged along a pace behind Roger, trying
vainly to overcome the unwillingness in his limbs. When, as they turned
a corner, a servant passed them, his heart jerked suddenly and he
almost stopped. But there might have been nothing in the glance which
the man threw at them. They went on. Presently they turned another
corner and came to a broad staircase of shallow steps made of slippery
polished wood.
When Jeremy was on the third step he saw below a group of young
men, dressed like Roger and himself, engaged in desultory morning
conversation. Again he almost stopped; but Roger held on, and the group
below did not look up. Their voices floated lightly to him and he
recognized that they were talking to pass the time. He steeled himself
for self-possession and cast his eyes downward, because his footing on
the polished wood was insecure.
Suddenly his ear was struck by a hush. He lifted his eyes and looked
down at the young men and saw with terror that the conversation had
ceased, that their faces were turned upwards, gazing at him. He
returned the stare stonily, straining his eyes so that the eager
features were confused and ran into a blur. The stairs became more
slippery, his limbs less controllable. Only some strange inhibition
prevented him from putting out a hand to Roger for support. But Roger,
still a step in front, his back self-consciously stiffened, did not see
the discomfort of his charge. Somehow Jeremy finished the descent and
passed the silent group without a gesture that betrayed his agitation.
He fancied that one of the young men raised his eyebrows with a look at
Roger, and that Roger answered him with a faint inclination of the head.
They were now in the wide passage which led to the dining-hall, and
had almost reached the hall-door, when a figure which seemed vaguely
familiar came into sight from the opposite direction. It was a man
whose firm steps and long, raking stride, out of proportion to his
moderate stature, gave him an ineffable air of confidence, of arrogance
and superiority. He was staring at the ground as he walked; but when
he came nearer, Jeremy was able to recognize in the lean, sharp-boned
face, with the tight mouth and narrow nose, the distinguished person to
whom Roger had alluded on the previous night as “that damned Canadian.”
He was almost level with them when he raised his head, stared keenly
at Jeremy, turned his eyes to Roger, looked back again.... Then with a
movement almost like that of a frightened horse and with an expression
of horror and dislike, he swerved abruptly to one side, crossed himself
vehemently and went on at a greater pace.
Jeremy’s sick surmise at the meaning of this portent was confirmed
by Roger’s scowl and exclamation of annoyance. Both involuntarily
hesitated instead of going through the open door of the hall. At the
tables inside four or five men were seated, making a late but copious
meal. As Roger and Jeremy halted, a servant, dressed in a strange and
splendid livery, came up behind them and touched Roger lightly on the
shoulder. The young man turned round with an exaggeratedly petulant
movement; and the servant, looking sideways at Jeremy, began to whisper
in his ear. Jeremy, his sense of apprehension deepened, drew off a
pace. He could see, as he stood there waiting, two other men, dressed
in what seemed much more like a uniform than a livery, half concealed
in the shadow of the further corridor.
The servant’s whispering went on, a long, confused, rising and falling
jumble of sound. Roger answered in a sharp staccato accent, most unlike
the ordinary tranquillity of his voice, but still beneath his breath.
Jeremy, with the stares of the breakfasting men on his shrinking back,
felt that the situation was growing unbearable. Suddenly Roger raised
and let fall his hands in a gesture of resigned annoyance.
“Then will you, sir ...” the servant insisted with a deference that was
plainly no more than formal.
Roger turned with unconcealed reluctance to Jeremy. “I am sorry,” he
said in the defensive and sullen tone of a man who expects reproach.
“The Speaker has heard of you and has sent for you. I have asked that I
may go with you, but I am not allowed. You must go with this man. I ...
am sorry....”
Jeremy faced the servant with rigid features, but with fear playing in
his eyes. The man’s back bent, however, in a bow and his expression
betrayed a quite unfeigned respect and wonder.
“If you will come with me, sir,” he murmured. Jeremy repeated Roger’s
gesture, and advanced a step into the darkness of the passage at the
side of his conductor. He felt, rather than saw or heard, the two men
in the shadow fall in behind him.
2
The way by which the servant led Jeremy grew darker and darker until
he began to believe that he was being conducted into the recesses of
a huge and gloomy castle. He had once or twice visited the Treasury,
where one of his friends had been employed--nearly two hundred years
ago!--on some minute section of the country’s business. He could not,
however, recognize the corridors through which they passed; and he
supposed that the inside of the building had been wholly remodeled. All
sensation of fear left him as he walked after his guide. His case was,
at all events, to be settled now, and the matter was out of his hands.
He felt a complete unconcern when they halted outside a massive door on
which the servant rapped sharply three times. There was a pause; and
then the servant, apparently hearing some response which was inaudible
to Jeremy, threw open the door, held it, and respectfully motioned him
in.
Jeremy was startled for a moment, after the darkness of the passages,
to find himself in a full blaze of morning light. While he blinked
awkwardly, the door closed behind him; and it was a minute or two
before he could clearly distinguish the person with whom he had been
left alone. At last he became aware of a great, high-backed armchair of
unpolished wood, which was placed near to the window and held the old
man whom he had seen from a distance, indistinctly, the night before
at dinner. This figure wore a dark robe of some thick cloth, which
was drawn in loosely by a cord girdle at the waist and resembled a
dressing-gown. His thick, wrinkled neck rising out of the many-folded
collar supported a square, heavy head, which by its shape proclaimed
power, as the face by every line proclaimed both power and age. The
nose was large, hooked and fleshy, the lips thick but firm, the beard
long and white; and under the heavy, raised lids the brown eyes were
almost youthful, and shone with a surprising look of energy and
domination. Jeremy stared without moving; and, as his eyes met those of
the old man, a queer sensation invaded his spirit. He felt that here,
in the owner of these eyes, this unmistakably Jewish countenance, this
inert and bulky form, he had discovered a mind like his own, a mind
with which he could exchange ideas, as he could never hope to do with
Roger Vaile or Father Henry Dean.
The silence continued for a full minute after Jeremy had got back the
use of his sight. At last the old man said in a thick, soft voice:
“Are you the young man of whom they tell me this peculiar story?” And
before Jeremy could reply, he added: “Come over here and let me look at
you.”
Jeremy advanced, as if in a dream, and stood by the arm of the chair.
The Speaker rose with one slow but powerful movement, took him by the
shoulder and drew him close against the window. He was nearly a head
taller than Jeremy, but he bent only his neck, not his shoulders,
to stare keenly into the younger man’s face. A feeling of hope and
contentment rose in Jeremy’s heart; and he endured this inspection for
several moments in silence and with a steady countenance. At last the
old man let his hand fall, turned away and breathed, more inwardly,
almost wistfully: “If only it were true!”
“It is true,” Jeremy said. There was neither expostulation nor argument
in his voice.
The Speaker wheeled round on him with a movement astonishingly swift
for his years and his bulk. “You will find me harder to persuade than
the others,” he said warningly.
“I know.” And Jeremy bore the gaze of frowning enquiry with a curiously
confident smile.
The Speaker’s reply was uttered in a much gentler tone. “Come and sit
down by me,” he murmured, “and tell me your story.”
Jeremy took a deep breath and began. He told his story in much more
detail than he had given to Roger, dwelling on the riots and their
causes, and on Trehanoc’s experiment and his own interpretation of its
effect. He did not spare particulars, both of the strikes, as well as
he remembered them, and of the course of scientific investigation which
had landed him in this position; and as he proceeded he warmed to the
tale, and gave it as he would have done to a man of his own sort in his
own time. The brown eyes continued to regard him with an unflickering
expression of interest. When he paused and looked for some comment,
some sign of belief or disbelief, the thick voice murmured only:
“I understand. Go on.”
Jeremy described his awakening, the terrors and doubts that had
succeeded it and his eventual dismay when he was able at last to climb
into the world again. He explained how he had gone back with Roger to
the crevice, how they had seen the rat run out, and how he had found
the vacuum-tube. When he had finished, the Speaker was silent for a
moment or two. Then he rose and walked slowly to a desk, which stood in
the further corner of the room. He returned with an ivory tablet and a
pencil which he gave into Jeremy’s hands.
“Mark on that,” he said, “the River Thames and the position of as many
of the great railway stations of London as you can remember.”
Jeremy suffered a momentary bewilderment, and stared at the intent
but expressionless face of the old man, with an exclamation on his
lips. But instantly he understood, and, as he did so, the map of old
London rose clearly before his eyes. He drew the line of the river and
contrived to mark, with reasonable accuracy, on each side of it as many
of the stations as he could think of. He forgot London Bridge; and he
explained that there had been a station called Cannon Street, which he
had, for some reason, never had occasion to use, and that he did not
know quite where it had stood.
The Speaker nodded inscrutably, took back the tablet and studied it.
“Do you remember London Bridge?” he asked. Jeremy bit his lip and owned
that he did. “Then can you say,” the Speaker went on, “whether it was
north of the river or south?”
Jeremy discovered, with a wild anger at his own idiocy, that he could
not remember. It would be absurd, horribly absurd, if his credit were
to be at the mercy of so unaccountable a freak of the brain. He thought
at random, until suddenly there appeared before his mind a picture of
the bridge, covered with ant-like crowds of people, walking in the
early morning from the station beyond.
“It was on the south,” he cried eagerly. “I remember because--”
The Speaker held up a wrinkled but steady hand. “Your story is true,”
he said slowly. “I know very well, as you know, that nothing can prove
it to be true; but nevertheless I believe it. Do you know why I believe
it?”
“I think so,” Jeremy began with hesitation. He felt that keen gaze
closely upon him.
“It would be strange if you knew in any other way what only three or
four men in the whole country have cared to learn. You could have
learnt it, no doubt, from maps or books. Such exist, though none now
look at them. Yet how should you have guessed what question I would ask
you? Do you know that of those stations only two remain? I know where
the rest were, because I have studied the railways, wishing to restore
them. But now they are all gone and most of them even before my time.
They were soon gone and forgotten. When I was a boy I walked among
the ruins of Victoria, just before it was cleared by my grandfather to
extend his gardens. Did you go there ever when the trains were running
in and out?”
The question aroused in Jeremy vivid memories of departures for
holidays in Sussex, of the return to France after leave.... He replied
haltingly, at random, troubled by recollections.
The same trouble was in the old man’s eyes as he listened. “It is
true,” he said, under his breath, almost to himself. “You are an older
man than I am.” A long pause followed. Jeremy was the first to return
from abstraction, and he was able, while the Speaker mused, to study
that aged, powerful face, to read again a determination in the eyes and
jaw, that might have been fanaticism had it not been corrected by the
evidence of long and subduing experience in the lines round the mouth
and eyes.
At last the Speaker broke the silence. “And in that life,” he said,
“you were a _scientist_?” He pronounced the word with a sort of
lingering reverence, as though it had meant, perhaps, magician or
oracle.
Jeremy tried to explain what his learning was, and what his position
had been.
“But do you know how to make things?”
“I know how to make some things,” Jeremy replied cautiously. Indeed,
during the social disorders of his earlier existence he had considered
whether there was not any useful trade to which he might turn his
hand, and he had decided that he might without difficulty qualify as a
plumber. The art of fixing washers on taps was no mystery to him; and
he judged that in a week or two he might learn how to wipe a joint.
The Speaker regarded him with a growing interest, tempered by a caution
like his own. It seemed as though it took him some time to decide upon
his next remark. At last he said in a low and careful voice:
“Do you know anything about guns?”
Jeremy started and answered loudly and cheerfully: “Guns? Why, I was in
the artillery!”
The effect of this reply on the Speaker was remarkable. For a moment it
straightened his back, smoothed the wrinkles from his face, and threw
an even more vivid light into his eyes. When he spoke again, he had
recovered his self-possession.
“You were in the artillery?” he asked. “Do you mean in the great war
against the Germans?”
“Yes--the great war that was over just before the Troubles began.”
“Of course ... of course.... I had not realized----” It seemed to
Jeremy that, though the old man had regained control of himself, this
discovery had filled him with an inexplicable vivacity and excitement.
He pressed Jeremy eagerly for an account of his military experience.
When the simple tale was done, he said impressively:
“If you wish me to be your friend, say not one word of this to any man
you meet. Do you understand? There is to be no talk of guns. If you
disobey me, I can have you put in a madhouse.”
Jeremy lifted his head in momentary anger at the threat. But there was
an earnestness of feeling in the old man’s face which silenced him.
This, he still queerly felt, was his like, his brother, marooned with
him in a strange age. He could not understand, but instinctively he
acquiesced.
“I promise,” he said.
“I will tell you more another day,” the Speaker assured him. And then,
with an abrupt transition, he went on, “Do you understand these times?”
“Father Henry Dean----” Jeremy began.
“Ah, that old man!” the Speaker cried impatiently. “He lives in the
past. And was it not his nephew, Roger Vaile, that brought you here?”
Jeremy made a gesture of assent. “Like all his kind, he lives in the
present. What must they not have told you between them? Understand,
young man, that you are my man, that you must listen to none, take
advice from none, obey none but me!” He had risen from his chair and
was parading his great body about the room, as though he had been
galvanized by excitement into an unnatural youth. His soft, thick voice
had become hoarse and raucous: his heavy eyelids seemed lightened and
transfigured by the blazing of his eyes.
Jeremy, straight from a century in which display of the passions was
deprecated, shrank from this exhibition while he sought to understand
it.
“If I can help you----” he murmured feebly.
“You _can_ help me,” the Speaker said, “but you shall learn how another
day. You shall understand how it is that you seem to have been sent by
Heaven just at this moment. But now, tell me what do you think of these
times?”
“I don’t know,” Jeremy began uncertainly. “I know so little. You seem
to have lost almost all that we had gained----”
“And yet?” the Speaker interrupted harshly.
Jeremy sought to order in his mind the confused and contradictory
thoughts. “And yet perhaps you have lost much that is better gone. This
world seems to me simpler, more peaceful, safer.... We used to feel
that we were living on the edge of a precipice--every man by himself,
and all men together, lived in anxiety....”
“And you think that now we are happy?” the old man asked with a certain
irony, pausing close to Jeremy’s chair, so that he towered over him.
“Perhaps you are right--perhaps you are right.... But if we are it is
the happiness of a race of fools. We, too, are living on the edge of
a precipice as terrible as any you ever knew. Do you believe that any
people can come down one step from the apex and fall no further?” He
contemplated Jeremy with eyes suddenly grown cold and calculating. “You
were not, I think, one of the great men, one of the rulers of your
time. You were one of the little people.” He turned away and resumed
his agitated pacing up and down, speaking as though to himself. “And
yet what does it matter? The smallest creature of those days might be a
great man to-day.”
A profound and dreadful silence fell upon the room. Jeremy, feeling
himself plunged again in a nightmare, straightened himself in his chair
and waited events. The Speaker struggled with his agitation, striding
up and down the room. Gradually his step grew more tranquil and his
gestures less violent; his eyes ceased to blaze, the lids drooped over
them, the lines round his mouth softened and lost their look of cruel
purpose.
“I am an old man,” he murmured indistinctly. His voice was again thick
and soft, the voice of an elderly Jew, begging for help but determined,
even in extremity, not to betray himself. “I am an old man and I have
no son. These people, the people of my time, do not understand me. When
my father died, I promised myself that I would raise this country
again to what it was, but year after year they have defeated me with
their carelessness, their indolence.... If you can help me, if you
understand _guns_ ... if you can help me, I shall be grateful, I shall
not forget you.”
Jeremy, perplexed almost out of his wits, muttered an inarticulate
reply.
“You must be my guest and my companion,” the Speaker went on. “I will
give orders for a room near my own apartments to be prepared for you,
and you shall eat at my table. And you must learn. You must listen,
listen, listen always and never speak. I will teach you myself; but you
must learn from every man that comes near you. Can you keep your tongue
still?”
“I suppose so,” said Jeremy, a little wearily. He was beginning
to think that this old man was possibly mad and certainly as
incomprehensible as the rest. He was oppressed by these hints and
mysteries and enigmatic injunctions. He thought that the Speaker was
absurdly, unreasonably, melodramatically, making a scene.
A change of expression flickered over the Speaker’s face. “I have no
son,” he breathed, as though to himself, but with eyes, in which there
was a look of cunning, fixed on Jeremy. And then he said aloud, “Well,
then, you are my friend and you shall be well treated here. Now you
must come with me and I will present you to my wife ... and ... my
daughter.”
3
In the sensations of that morning the last thing that troubled Jeremy
was to find himself carrying on a familiar conversation with a prince.
He accepted it as natural that his accident should have made him
important; and he conducted himself without discomfort in an interview
which might otherwise have embarrassed and puzzled him--for he was
self-conscious and awkward in the presence of those who might expect
deference from him. He was first recalled to the strangeness of the
position by the Speaker’s eager informality.
It was true that he was unacquainted with the habits of courts in
any century. And yet should not the Speaker have called a servant or
perhaps even a high official, instead of thus laying his own hand on
the door and beckoning his guest to follow? Jeremy failed for a moment
to obey the gesture, standing legs apart, considering with a frown
the old man before him. It _was_ nothing but an elderly Jew, by turns
arrogant and supplicating, moved perhaps a little over the edge of
sanity by his great age and by disappointed ambitions.
Then he started, recovered his wits and followed the crooked finger.
They went out into the passage together. As they came into the gloom
the old man suddenly put his arm round Jeremy’s shoulders and, stooping
a little to his ear, murmured in a manner and with an accent more than
ever plainly of the East:
“My son, my son, be my friend and I will be yours. And you must be
a little respectful to the Lady Burney, my wife. She will think it
strange that I bring you to her without ceremony. She is younger than
I am, and different from me, different from you. She is like the rest.
But I do nothing without reason....”
Jeremy stiffened involuntarily under the almost fawning caress and
muttered what he supposed to be a sufficient answer. The old man
withdrew his arm and straightened his bent back; and they continued
their way together in silence.
Presently they came into a broader and lighter corridor, the windows
of which opened on to a garden. Jeremy recognized it as the garden he
had seen from his room the evening before, and, looking aside as they
passed, he caught a glimpse of a party of young men, busy at some game
with balls and mallets--a kind of croquet, he imagined. They went on a
few paces, and a servant, springing up from a chair in a niche, stood
in a respectful attitude until they had gone by. At last the Speaker
led the way into a small room where a girl sat at a table, languidly
playing with a piece of needlework.
She, too, sprang to her feet when she saw who it was that had entered;
and Jeremy looked at her keenly. This was the first woman he had seen
at close quarters since his awakening, and he was curious to find
he hardly knew what change or difference. She was short and slender
and apparently very young. Her dress was simple in line, a straight
garment which left the neck bare, but came up close to it and fell
thence directly to her heels, hardly gathered in at all by a belt at
the waist. Its gray linen was covered from the collar to the belt by
an intricate and rather displeasing design of embroidery, while broad
bands of the same pattern continued downward to the hem of the long
skirt. Her hair was plaited and coiled, tightly and severely, round her
head. Her attitude was one of submission, almost of humility, with eyes
ostentatiously cast down; but Jeremy fancied that he could see a trace
of slyness at the corners of her mouth.
“Is your mistress up, my child?” the Speaker asked in a tone of
indifferent benevolence.
“I believe so, sir,” the girl answered.
“Then tell her that I wish to present to her the stranger of whom she
has heard.”
She bowed and turned, not replying, to a further door; but as she
turned she raised her eyes and fixed them on Jeremy with a frank,
almost insolent stare. Then, without pausing, she was gone. The
Speaker slipped into the chair she had left and drummed absently with
his fingers on the table. When the girl returned he paid hardly any
attention to her message that the Lady Burney was ready to receive
them. A fit of abstraction seemed to have settled down on him; and he
impatiently waved her on one side, while he drew Jeremy in his train.
Jeremy was doubtful how he ought to show his respect to the stout and
ugly woman who sat on her couch in this room with an air of bovine
dissatisfaction. He bowed very low and did not, apparently, increase
her displeasure. She held out two fingers to him, a perplexing action;
but it seemed from the stiffness of her arm that she did not expect him
to kiss them. He shook and dropped them awkwardly and breathed a sigh
of relief. Then he was able to examine the first lady of England and
her surroundings, while, with much less interest and an expression of
stupid aloofness, she examined him.
She was dressed in the same manner as the girl who waited in the
ante-room, though her gown seemed to be of silk, and was much more
richly as well as more garishly embroidered. It struck Jeremy that
she harmonized well with the room in which she sat. It was filled
with ornaments, cushions, mats and woven hangings of a coarse and
gaudy vulgarity; and the woodwork on the walls was carved and gilded
in the style of a florid picture-frame. The occupant of this tawdry
magnificence was stout, and her unwieldy figure was disagreeably
displayed by what seemed to be the prevailing fashion of dress. Her
cheeks were at once puffy and lined and were too brilliantly painted;
and the lashes of her dull, heavy eyes were extravagantly blackened.
Jeremy hoped that his attitude, while he noted all these details, was
sufficiently respectful.
It must have satisfied the Lady Burney, for, after a long pause, she
observed in a gracious manner:
“I was anxious to see you. Why do you look like every one else? I
thought your clothes would have been different.”
Jeremy explained that he had been clothed anew so that he should not
appear too conspicuous. She assented with a movement of her head and
went on:
“It would have been more interesting to see you in your old clothes. Do
you--do you----” She yawned widely and gazed round the room with vague
eyes, as though looking for the rest of her question. “Do you find us
much changed?” she finished at last.
“Very much changed, madam,” Jeremy replied with gravity. “So much
changed that I should hardly know how to begin to tell you what the
changes are.”
She inclined her head again, as though to indicate that her thirst
for knowledge was satisfied. At this point the Speaker, who had been
standing behind Jeremy, silent but tapping his foot on the ground,
broke in abruptly.
“Where is Eva?” he said.
The lady looked at him with a corpulent parody of reserve. “She has
just come in from riding. Shall I send for her?” The Speaker nodded,
and then seemed to wave away a question in her eyes. She turned to
Jeremy and murmured, “The bell is over there.”
Jeremy stared at her a moment, puzzled; then, following the direction
of her finger, saw hanging on the wall an old-fashioned bell-pull.
Recovering himself a little he went to it, tugged at it gingerly, and
so summoned the girl who sat in the ante-room. When she came in he saw
again on her face the same look of frank but unimpressed curiosity. But
she received her orders still with downcast and submissive eyes and
departed in silence.
Then a door at the other end of the room opened abruptly and gustily
inwards. Jeremy looked towards it with interest, saw nothing but a hand
still holding it, and, dimly, a figure in the opening turned away from
it. He heard a fresh, cheerful voice giving some parting directions
to an invisible person. The blood rose suddenly to his head and he
began to be confused. He waited in almost an agony of suspense for the
Speaker’s daughter to turn and enter the room.
He had indeed experienced disturbing premonitions of this sort before.
Now and again it had happened in the life of his own lecture-rooms and
of his friends studios, that, without reason, he wondered why he had
been so immune from serious love-sickness. Now and again, like a child
with a penny to spend, he would take his bachelor state out of some
pocket in his thoughts, turn it over lovingly, and ask himself what he
should do with it. He had indeed a great fear of spending it rashly;
but often, after one of these moods, the mention of an unknown girl
he was to meet would set his heart throbbing, or he would look at one
of his pupils or one of his friends with a new and faintly pleasant
speculation in his mind. Yet there had never been anything in it. He
had had one flirtation over test-tubes and balances, ended by his
timely discovery of the girl’s pretentious ignorance in the matter
of physics. He would not have minded her being ignorant, but he was
repelled when he thought that she had baited a trap for him with a show
of knowledge. There had been another over canvases and brushes. But he
had not been able to talk with enough warmth about the fashions of art;
and, before he had made much progress, the girl had found another lover
more glib than he--which was, he reflected, when he was better of his
infatuation and considered the kind of picture she painted, something
of a deliverance. Now his heart was absurdly beating at the approach of
a princess--of a princess who was nearly two hundred years younger than
himself!
She turned and came into the room, stopping a few paces inside
and staring at him as frankly as he at her. She must have seen in
him at that moment what we see in the house where a great man was
born--a house that would be precisely like other houses if we knew
nothing about it. Or did her defeated curiosity wake in her even then
extraordinary thoughts about this ordinary young man? Jeremy’s mind had
become too much a stage set for a great event for him to get any clear
view of the reality. But he received an impression, ridiculously, as
though the fine, blowing, temperate, sunshiny day he had seen through
the windows had come suddenly into his presence. And, though this tall,
straight-backed girl, with her wide, frank eyes and all the beauty of
health and youth, had plainly her mother’s features, distinguished only
by a long difference of years, he guessed somehow in her expression, in
her pose, something of the father’s intelligence.
The pause in which they had regarded one another lasted hardly ten
seconds. “I wanted so much to see you,” she cried impulsively. “My
maids have told me all about you, and when I was out riding----” She
stopped.
The Lady Burney frowned, and the Speaker asked in a slow, dragging
voice, as though constraining himself to be gentle, “Whom did you meet
when you were out riding?”
“Roger Vaile,” the girl answered, with a faint tone of annoyed
defiance. “And he told me how he came to find this gentleman yesterday.”
“I am very much in his debt,” Jeremy said. “I suppose he saved my life.”
“You should not be too grateful to him,” the Speaker interposed, in a
manner almost too suave. “Any man that found you must have done what he
did. You are not to exaggerate your debt to him.”
The girl laughed, and suppressed her laughter, and again the Lady
Burney frowned. Jeremy, scenting the approach of a family quarrel and
unwilling to witness it, spoke quickly and at random in the hope of
relieving the situation: “I hope, sir, you will allow me to be grateful
to Mr. Vaile, who was, after all, my preserver, and treated me kindly.”
The girl laughed again, but with a different intention. “Mister?” she
repeated. “What does that mean?”
Jeremy looked at her, puzzled. “Don’t you call people Mister now?”
He addressed himself directly to her and abandoned his attempt to
embrace in the conversation the Speaker, who was trying to conceal
some mysteriously caused impatience, and the Lady Burney, who was not
trying at all to conceal her petulant but flaccid displeasure.
“No,” said the girl, equally ignoring them. “We call Roger Vaile so
because he is a gentleman. If he were a common man we should simply
call him Vaile. Did you call gentlemen--what was it?--Mister, in your
time?” Jeremy, studying her, admiring the poise with which she stood
and noting that, though she wore the narrow, simply-cut gown of the
rest, it was less tortured with embroidery, strove to find some way of
carrying on the conversation and suddenly became aware that there was
some silent but acute difference between the Speaker and his wife.
“Eva!” the Lady Burney broke in, disregarding her husband’s hand half
raised in warning. “Eva,” she repeated with an air of corpulent and
feeble stateliness, “I am fed up with your behavior!”
Jeremy started at the phrase as much as if the stupid, dignified woman
had suddenly thrown a double somersault before him. But he could see
no surprise on the faces of the others, only unconcealed annoyance and
alarm.
“You may go, Eva,” the Speaker interposed with evident restraint.
“Jeremy Tuft is to be our guest, and you will see him again. He has
much to learn, and you must help us to teach him.”
The girl, as though some hidden circumstance had been brought into
play, instantly composed her face and bowed deeply and ceremoniously
to Jeremy. He returned the bow as well as he was able, and had hardly
straightened himself again before she had left the room.
“I am fed up with our daughter’s behavior,” the Lady Burney repeated,
rising. “I will go now and speak to her alone.” Then she too vanished,
ignoring alike her husband’s half-begun remonstrance and Jeremy’s
second bow.
It was with some amazement that Jeremy found himself alone again with
the old man. His brain staggered under a multitude of impressions.
The astonishing locution employed by the great lady had been hardly
respectable in his own day, and it led him to consider the strange,
pleasant accent which had struck him in Roger Vaile’s first speech and
which was so general that already his ear accepted it as unremarkable.
Was it, could it be, an amazing sublimation of the West Essex accent,
which in an earlier time had been known as Cockney? Then his eye fell
on the silent, now drooping figure of the Speaker, and recalled him to
the odd under-currents of the family scene he had just beheld.
“My wife comes from the west,” said the Speaker in a quiet, tired
voice, catching his glance, “and sometimes she uses old-fashioned
expressions that maybe you would not understand ... or perhaps they are
familiar to you.... But tell me, how would a father of your time have
punished Eva for her behavior?”
“I don’t know,” Jeremy answered uncomfortably. “I don’t know what she
did that was wrong.”
The Speaker smiled a little sadly. “Like me, she is ... is unusual.
She should not have addressed you first or taken the lead so much in
speaking to you. I fear any other parent would have her whipped. But
I--” his voice grew a little louder, “but I have allowed her to be
brought up differently. She can read and write. She is different from
the rest, like me ... and like you. I have studied to let her be so
... though she hardly thinks it ... and I daresay I have not done all
I should. I have been busy with other things and between the old and
the young.... I was already old when she was born--but now you....”
His voice trailed away into silence, and he considered Jeremy with
full, expressionless eyes. At last he said, “Come with me and I will
make arrangements for your reception here. In a few days I shall have
something to show you and I shall ask your help.” Jeremy followed,
his mind still busy. His absurd premonitions had been driven away by
tangled speculations on all these changes in manners and language.
CHAPTER VI
THE GUNS
1
During the days that immediately followed, the Speaker left Jeremy to
make himself at home as best he could in the new world. For a time
Jeremy was inclined to fear that by a single obstinacy he had forfeited
the old man’s favor. He had been removed from the little room which he
had first occupied to another, larger and more splendidly furnished,
near the Speaker’s own apartments. But he had pleaded, with a rather
obvious confidence in his right to insist, that he should be allowed to
continue his friendship with Roger Vaile. Some obscure loyalty combined
with his native self-will to harden him in this desire; and the Speaker
was displeased by it. He had evidently had some other companion and
instructor in mind.
“The young man is brainless, like all his kind,” he objected. “You will
get no good from him.”
“But he did save my life. Why would he think of me if I forgot him now?”
“No man could have done less for you than he did. You ought not to let
that influence you.”
The wrangle was short but too rapidly grew bitter. To end it Jeremy
cried with a gesture of half-humorous despair, “Well, at least he is my
oldest living friend.”
The Speaker shrugged his shoulders and gave way without a smile; but he
seemed from this moment to have abandoned him to the company he thus
wilfully chose. For the better part of a day Jeremy was pleased by his
deliverance from a dangerous and uncomfortable old fanatic. Thereafter
he fell to wondering, with growing intensity, what were now his chances
of meeting again with the Speaker’s daughter.
When he rejoined Roger Vaile, that placid young man received him
without excitement, and informed him that they might spend the next few
days in seeing the sights of London. Jeremy’s great curiosity answered
this suggestion with delight; and in his earliest explorations with
Roger he found many surprises within a small radius. The first were
in the great gardens of the Treasury, which, so far as he could make
out, in the absence of most of the familiar landmarks, took in all St.
James’s Park, as well as what had been the sites of Buckingham Palace
and Victoria Station. Certainly, as he rambled among them, he came upon
the ruins of the Victoria Memorial, much battered and weathered, and so
changed in aspect by time and by the shrubs which grew close around it
that for several moments it escaped his recognition.
Outside the walls of the Treasury such discoveries were innumerable.
Jeremy was astonished to find alternately how much and how little he
remembered of London, how much and how little had survived. Westminster
Bridge, looking old and shaky, still stood; but the Embankment was
getting to be disused, chiefly on account of a great breach in it,
how caused Roger could not tell him, in the neighborhood of Charing
Cross. On both sides of this breach the great men who owned houses in
Whitehall and the Strand were beginning to push their gardens down to
the water’s edge. Indeed, as Jeremy learnt by his own observation and
by close questioning of Roger, the growth of huge gardens was one of
the conspicuous signs of the age.
There existed, it seemed, an aristocracy of some wealth descended
mostly from those supporters of the first and second Speakers who had
taken their part in putting down the Reds and restoring order more than
a hundred years before. Where one of the old ruling families, great
land-owners, great manufacturers, or great financiers had possessed
a member of resolute and combative disposition, it had survived to
resume its place in the new state. The rest were descendants of
obscure soldiers of fortune. This class, of which Roger Vaile was
an inconsiderable cadet, owned vast estates in some, though not
in all, parts of the country. Here and there, as Jeremy surmised,
where small-holders and market-gardeners had taken a firm grip, the
landowning class had little power. But elsewhere it was strong, and
drew great revenues from the soil, from corn, from tobacco, and from
wool.
These revenues were spent by the ruling families--Roger called them
“the big men”--in enlarging the gardens of their houses in London. They
cared little to build. Houses stood in plenty, many even now unclaimed.
But gradually the deserted houses were pulled down, their materials
carted away and their sites elaborately planted. Jeremy walked in a
great shrubbery of rhododendrons where Charing Cross Station had been
and in a rose-garden over the deep-buried foundations of Scotland Yard.
He observed that this fashion, which was becoming a mania, was creating
again the old distinction between the City of London, which was still
a trading center, and the City of Westminster, which was still the seat
of government, although a revolutionary mob of somewhat doctrinaire
inclinations had burnt down the Houses of Parliament quite early in the
Troubles.
These excursions fascinated Jeremy, and he endeavored to make them
useful by cross-examining Roger, as they walked about together, on the
condition of society. But that typical man of far from self-conscious
age had only scanty information to give. Even on the government
of the country he was vague and unsatisfactory, though, when he
had nothing better to do, he worked with the other clerks on the
Speaker’s business. Jeremy sometimes saw him and his companions at
work, copying documents in a laborious round-hand or making entries
in a great leather-bound and padlocked ledger. He felt often inclined
to reintroduce into a profession which had forgotten it the blessed
principle of the card index; but, after consideration, he abstained
from complicating this idyllically simple bureaucracy. Besides, there
was no need for labor-saving devices. Clerks swarmed in the Treasury.
A few years in the Speaker’s service was the proper occupation for a
young man of good family who was beginning life; and the tasks which it
involved weighed on them lightly.
The business of government was not elaborate or complex. Apparently the
provinces looked very much after themselves under the direction of a
medley of authorities, whose titles and powers Jeremy could by no means
compose into a system. He heard vaguely of two potentates, prominent
among the rest and typical of them, the Chairman of Bradford, who
seemed responsible for a great part of the north, and the President
of Wales, who had a palace at Cardiff. Jeremy guessed that the titles
of these “big men” had survived from all sorts of “big men” of his own
time. The Chairman of Bradford for example might inherit his power from
the chairman of some vanished revolutionary or reactionary committee,
or perhaps even, since he was concerned in a peculiar way with the
great weaving trade of Yorkshire, from that of an employers’ federation
or a conciliation board. The President of Wales, whose relations with
his tough, savage, uncouth miners were unusual, Jeremy suspected of
being the successor of a trade union leader. The names and figures of
these men lingered obscurely, powerfully, menacingly in his mind. The
Speaker rarely interfered with them so long as they collected his taxes
regularly and with an approach to completeness. And his taxes were
moderate, for the public services were not exigent.
Jeremy caught a glimpse of one of these public services one day when
Roger was taking him on a longer expedition than usual, to see the
great northwestern quarter of old London. This district was one of the
largest of those which, by some freak of chance, had escaped fire and
bombardment and had been merely deserted, left to rot and collapse as
they stood. Jeremy was anxious to examine this curiosity, and pressed
Roger to take him there. It was when they were walking between the
venerable and dangerously leaning buildings of Regent Street that they
passed a column of brown-clad men on the march.
“Soldiers!” cried Jeremy, and paused to watch them go by.
“Yes, soldiers,” Roger murmured with a smile of good-natured contempt,
trying to draw him along. But Jeremy’s curiosity had been aroused. He
suddenly remembered, and then closed his lips on an enigmatical remark
which the Speaker had made about guns; and he insisted on staying where
he was until the regiment had gone out of sight. Their uniforms, an
approximation to khaki, yet of a different shade, their rifles, clumsy
and antiquated in appearance, their feet wrapped in rags and shod
with rawhide sandals, combined with their shambling, half-ashamed,
half-sulky carriage to give them the air of a parody on the infantry of
the Great War.
“Whom do they fight?” he asked abstractedly, still standing and gazing
after them.
“No one,” Roger answered, with the same expression of contemptuous
tolerance. “They are good for nothing; there has been no war in England
for a hundred years.”
“But are there no foreign wars?”
“None that concern us.” And Roger went on to explain in an uninterested
and scrappy manner that there was always fighting somewhere on the
Continent, that the Germans and the Russians and the Polish were
forever at one another’s throats, that the Italians could not live at
peace with one another or with their neighbors on the Adriatic, and
that the peoples of Eastern Europe seemed bent on mutual extermination.
“But we never interfere,” he said. “It isn’t our business, though
sometimes the League tries to make out that it is. And we need no army.
It’s a fad of the Speaker’s, though he could always get Canadians if he
wanted them.”
“The League? Canadians?” Jeremy interjected.
“Yes; the Canadian bosses hire out armies when any one wants them. They
do say that that ruffian who is staying with the Speaker came over for
some such reason. But I can’t see why we should want Canadians.”
“But you said ... something ... the League?”
“Oh, the old League!” Roger answered carelessly. “Surely that existed
in your time, didn’t it? I mean the League of Nations.” And, as Jeremy
said nothing, he continued: “You know, they sit at Geneva and tell
every one how to manage his own affairs. We take no notice of them,
except that we send them a contribution every year. And I don’t know
why we should do even that. The officials are always all Germans ... so
close, you know....”
Jeremy fell into a profound reverie, out of which he presently emerged
to ask, “Does your army have any guns ... cannon, I mean?”
Roger shook his head. “You mean the sort of big gun that used to throw
exploding shells. No; I don’t believe there’s such a thing left in the
world. I never heard of one.”
In order to draw Jeremy away from his meditations in Regent Street,
Roger had taken him by the elbow, and from that had slipped his arm
into Jeremy’s own. They walked along together in an amicable silence.
Unexpected and violent events had drawn these two young men into a
friendship which otherwise they would never have chosen, but which
was perhaps not more arbitrary and not less real than the love of the
mother for the child. Though their minds were so dissimilar, yet Jeremy
felt a sort of confidence and familiarity in Roger’s presence; and
Roger took a queer pride in Jeremy’s existence.
The district into which they entered when they got beyond the
wilderness that had been Regent’s Park was a singular and striking
reminder of the time when London was a great and populous city. Every
stage of desolation and decay was to be seen in that appalling tract,
which had lost the trimness and prosperity of its flourishing period
without acquiring the solemn and awful aspect of nobler ruins. Every
scrap of wood and metal had long been torn from these slowly perishing
houses. Some had collapsed into their own cellars and were gradually
being covered over. Some, which had been built of less enduring bricks,
seemed merely to have melted, leaving only faint irregularities on the
surface of the ground. Others stood gaunt and crazily leaning, with
ragged staring gaps where the windows had been. Even as they passed one
of these they heard the resounding collapse of a wall they could not
see, while the outer walls heaved visibly nearer to ruin.
And here and there enterprising squatters had cleared large spaces,
joining up the old villa-gardens into fair-sized fields. These people
lived in rude huts, made of old timbers and rough heaps of brickwork,
in corners of their clearings. Some distaste or horror seemed to
keep them from the empty houses in the shadow of which they dwelt.
Jeremy saw in the fields bowed laborious figures wrapped in rags which
forbade him to say whether they were men or women, and troops of
dirty, half-naked children. Roger followed the direction of his glance
and said that the squatters among the deserted houses were people
little better than savages, who could not get work in the agricultural
districts or had mutinously deserted their proper employers.
Jeremy shuddered and went on without replying. The plan of these old
streets was still recognizable enough for him to lead the way, as if
in a dream, through St. John’s Wood to Swiss Cottage. Here they had to
scramble across a tumbled ravine, which was all that was left of the
Metropolitan Railway, and up the steep rise of Fitzjohn’s Avenue to the
little village of Hampstead clinging isolated on the edge of the hill.
As they came into the village, Jeremy drew Roger into a side-track
which he recognized, from one drooping Georgian house standing lonely
there, as what he had known under the name of Church Row. The church
remained, and beyond it Jeremy could see a farm half-hidden among
trees. But he went no further. He turned his face abruptly southwards
and stayed, gazing across London in that moment of perfect clearness
which sometimes precedes the twilight of early summer.
For a moment, what he saw seemed to be what he had always known. At
this distance the slope below seemed still to be covered with houses,
and showed none of the hideousness of their decay. Farther out, in the
valley, rose the spires and towers of innumerable churches, and beyond
them came the faint blue line of the Surrey hills. But as he gazed he
realized suddenly the greater purity of the air, the greater beauty of
the view. London blackened no longer all the heaven above it, and the
green gaps in the waste of buildings were larger and greener. Almost
he thought he saw a silver line where the Thames should have been; but
perhaps he imagined this, though he knew that the river was no longer
dark and foul.
In his joy and contentment at the lovely scene he began to speak to
Roger in a rapt, dreamy voice, as though he were indeed the mouthpiece
and messenger of a less fortunate time. “You are happier than we
were,” he said, “though you are poorer. Your air is clean, you have
room, you live at peace, you have time to live. But we were forced to
live in thick, smoky air; we fought and quarreled, and disputed. The
more difficult our lives became, the less time we had for them. This
age seems to me,” he continued, warming to his subject and ignoring
Roger’s placid silence, “like a man who has been walking at full speed
on a long dusty road, only trying to see how many miles he can cover
in a day. Suddenly he grows exhausted and stops. I have done it. I can
remember how delicious it was to lie down in a field off the road, to
let the business all go, not to care where one got to or when. It was
this peacefulness we should have been aiming at all the time, only we
never knew....” Roger’s silence at last stopped him, and he turned
to see what his companion was thinking. The expression of trouble on
Roger’s face brought up a question on his own.
“It has just occurred to me,” Roger said slowly and reluctantly, “that
it will be quite dark before we can get through all those houses....”
He paused and shivered slightly. “I don’t quite like....”
They set off homewards, and darkness overtook them in the middle of
Finchley Road. Roger did not speak again of his fears. Jeremy could not
determine whether they were of violent men or of dead men. But he felt
their presence. Roger hardly spoke or listened until they were once
again in inhabited streets.
It was on the following morning that the Speaker again sent for Jeremy.
2
Jeremy answered the second summons with a little excitement but with
a heart more at rest than on the first occasion. He found the Speaker
leaning at his open window, his head thrust out, his foot tapping
restlessly on the ground. It was some moments before the abstracted old
man would take any notice of his visitor. When he did so, he turned
round with an air of restless and forced geniality.
“Well, Jeremy Tuft,” he cried, rubbing his hands together, “and have
you learnt much from your friend?”
Jeremy replied stolidly that Roger had answered one way or another all
the questions he had had time to ask. Some instinct kept him to his not
very candid stubbornness. He was not going to be bullied into deserting
Roger, of whose intellectual gifts he had nevertheless no very high
opinion.
But the Speaker nodded without apparent displeasure. “And now you know
all about our affairs?” he enquired.
Jeremy, still stolidly, shook his head but made no other answer. The
Speaker suddenly changed his manner and, coming close to Jeremy, took
him caressingly by the arm. “I know you don’t,” he murmured in a voice
full of cajolery. “But tell me--you must have seen enough of our
people--what do you think of them? What do you think can be done with
them?” He leant slightly back and regarded the silent young man with an
expression of infinite cunning. Then, as he got no response, he went
on: “Tell me, what would you do if you were in my place--you, a man
rich with all the knowledge of a wiser time than this? How would you
begin to make things better?”
“I don’t know.... I don’t know....” Jeremy cried at last, almost
pathetically. “I can’t make these people out at all.” And, with
that, he felt restored in his mind the former consciousness of an
intellectual kinship between him and the old Jew.
But the Speaker continued with his irritating air of a ripe man teasing
a green boy. “You remember the time when the whole world was full of
the marvels of science. We suffered misfortune, and all the wise men,
all the scientists, perished. But by a miracle you have survived. Can
you not restore for us all the civilization of your own age?”
Jeremy frowned and answered hesitatingly. “How can I? What could I do
by myself? And anyway, I was only a physicist. I know something about
wireless telegraphy.... But then I could do nothing without materials,
and at best precious little single-handed.” He meditated explaining
just how much one man could know of the working of twentieth-century
machinery, opened his mouth again and then closed it. He strongly
suspected that the Speaker was merely fencing with him. He felt vaguely
irritated and alone.
The old man dropped Jeremy’s arm, spun his great bulk round on his heel
with surprising lightness and paced away to the other end of the room.
There he stood apparently gazing with intent eyes into a little mirror
which hung on the wall. Jeremy stayed where he had been left, forlorn,
perplexed, hopeless, staring with no expectation of an answer at
those huge, bowed, enigmatic shoulders. He was almost at the point of
screaming aloud when the Speaker turned and said seriously with great
deliberation:
“Well, I am going to show you something that you have not seen,
something that not more than twenty persons know of besides myself. And
you are going to see it because I trust you to be loyal to me, to be
my man. Do you understand?” He did not wait for Jeremy’s doubtful nod,
but abruptly jerked the bell-pull on the wall. When this was done they
waited together in silence. A servant answered the summons; and the
Speaker said: “My carriage.” The carriage was announced. The silence
continued unbroken while they settled themselves in it, in the little
enclosed courtyard that had once been Downing Street. It was not until
they were jolting over the ruts of Whitehall that Jeremy said, almost
timidly:
“Where are we going?”
“To Waterloo,” the Speaker answered, so brusquely that Jeremy was
deterred from asking more, and leant back by his companion to muster
what patience he could.
He had already been to Waterloo under Roger’s guidance. It was the
station for the few lines of railway that still served the south of
England; and they had gone there to see the train come in from Dover.
But it had been so late that Roger had refused to wait any longer for
it, though Jeremy had been anxious to do so. They had seen nothing but
an empty station, dusty and silent. At one platform an engine had stood
useless so long that its wheels seemed to have been rusted fast to
the metals. Close by a careless or unfortunate driver had charged the
buffers at full speed and crashed into the masonry beyond. The bricks
were torn up and piled in heaps; but the raw edges were long weathered,
and some of them were beginning to be covered with moss. The old glass
roof, which he remembered, was gone and the whole station lay open to
the sky. Pools from a recent shower glistened underfoot. Here and there
a workman sat idle and yawning on a bench or lay fast asleep on a pile
of sacks.
This picture returned vividly to Jeremy as he rode by the Speaker’s
side. It seemed to him the fit symbol of an age which had loosened its
grip on civilization, which cared no longer to mend what time or chance
had broken, which did not care even to put a new roof over Waterloo
Station. He reflected again, as he thought of it, that perhaps it did
not much matter, that the grip on civilization had been painfully hard
to maintain, that there was something to be said for sleeping on a pile
of sacks in a sound part of the station instead of repairing some other
part of it. “We wretched ants,” he told himself, “piled up more stuff
than we could use, and though the mad people of the Troubles wasted it,
yet the ruins are enough for this race to live in for centuries. And
aren’t they more sensible than we were? Why shouldn’t humanity retire
from business on its savings? If only it had done it before it got that
nervous breakdown from overwork!”
He was aroused by the carriage lurching into the uneven slope of the
approach. The squalor that had once surrounded the great terminus had
withered, like the buildings of the station itself, into a sort of
mitigated and quiescent ugliness. As, at the Speaker’s gesture, he
descended from the carriage, he saw a young tree pushing itself with
serene and graceful indifference through the tumbled ruins of what had
once been an unlovely lodging-house. A hot sun beat down on and was
gradually dispelling a thin morning haze. It gilded palely the gaunt,
harsh lines of the station that generations of weathering could never
make beautiful.
The Speaker, still resolutely silent, led the way inside, where their
steps echoed hollowly in the empty hall. But the echoes were suddenly
disturbed by another sound; and, as they turned a corner Jeremy was
enchanted to see a long train crawling slowly into the platform. It
slackened speed, blew off steam with appalling abruptness and force,
and came to a standstill before it had completely pulled in. Jeremy
could see two little figures leaping from the cab of the engine and
running about aimlessly on the platform, half-hidden by the still
belching clouds of steam.
“Another breakdown!” the Speaker grunted with sudden ferocity; and he
turned his face slightly to one side as though it pained him to see
the crippled engine. Jeremy would have liked to go closer, but dared
not suggest it. Instead he dragged, like a loitering child, a yard or
two behind his formidable companion and gazed eagerly at the distant
wreaths of steam. But he only caught a glimpse of a few passengers
sitting patiently on heaps of luggage or on the ground, as though they
were well used to such delays in embarkation. He ran after his guide,
who had now passed the disused locomotive rusted to the rails, and
was striding along the platform and down the slope at the end, into a
wilderness of crossing metals. Here and there in this desert could be
seen a track bright with recent use; but it was long since many of them
had known the passage of a train. In some cases only streaks of red in
the earth or sleepers almost rotted to nothing showed where the line
had been. They passed a signal-box: a man sat placidly smoking at the
top of the steps outside the open door. They went on further into the
desolation that surrounds a great station, here made more horrible by
the absence of movement, by the pervading air of ruin and decay.
When they had walked a few hundred yards from the end of the
platform, they came to a group of buildings, which, in spite of their
dilapidation, had about them a certain appearance of still being used.
“The repairing sheds,” said the Speaker, pointing through an open door
to a group of men languidly active round what looked like a small
shunting-engine. Then he entered a narrow passage between two buildings.
As they went down this defile, a noise of hammering and another noise
like that of a furnace grew louder and louder; and at the end of the
passage there was a closed door. The Speaker paused and looked at
Jeremy with a doubtful expression, as though for the last time weighing
his loyalty. Then he seized a hanging chain and pulled it vigorously.
A bell clanged, harsh and melancholy, inside the building. Before the
last grudging echoes had died away, there was a rattling of bolts and
bars, and the door was opened to the extent of about a foot. An old man
in baggy, blue overalls, with dirty, white hair, and a short, white
beard, stood in the opening, blinking suspiciously at the intruders.
He stood thus a minute in a hostile attitude, ready to leap back and
slam the door to again. But all at once his expression changed, he
shouted something over his shoulder and became exceedingly respectful.
As Jeremy followed the Speaker past him into the black interior of the
shed he bowed and muttered a thick incoherent welcome in a tongue which
was hardly recognizable as English, so strange were its broad and
drawling sounds.
Inside, huge shapes of machinery were confused with thick shadows,
which jerked spasmodically at the light from an open furnace. It was
some moments before Jeremy got the proper use of his eyes in the murky
air of the shed. When he did he received an extraordinary impression. A
group of old men, all in the same baggy blue overalls as the first who
opened the door, had turned to greet them and were bowing and shuffling
in an irregular and comical rhythm. Round the walls the obscure pieces
of mechanism resolved themselves into all the appurtenances of a
foundry, hammers, lathes and machines for making castings, in every
stage of neglect and disrepair, some covered with dust, some immovably
rusted, some tilted drunkenly on their foundation plates, some still
apparently capable of use. And behind the gang of old men, raised on
trestles in the middle of the floor, were two long and sinister tubes
of iron.
The Speaker stood on one side, fixing on Jeremy a look of keen and
exultant enquiry. Jeremy advanced towards the two tubes, a word rising
to his tongue. He had not taken two steps before he was certain.
“Guns!” he whispered in a tense and startled voice.
“Guns!” replied the Speaker, not repressing an accent of triumph.
Jeremy went on and the old men shuffled on one side to make way for
him, clucking with mingled agitation and pride. He examined the guns
with the eye of an expert, ran his fingers over them, peered down
the barrels, and rose with a nod of satisfaction. They seemed to be
wire-wound, rifled, breech-loading guns, of which only the breech
mechanism was missing. They resembled very closely the sixty-pounders
of his own experience, though they were somewhat smaller. When the
breech mechanism was supplied, they would be efficient and deadly
weapons of a kind that he well knew how to handle.
CHAPTER VII
THE LADY EVA
1
The Speaker’s reception was a gorgeous and tedious assembly, held in
the afternoon for the better convenience of a society which had but
indifferent resources in the way of artificial light. A great hall in
the Treasury had been prepared for it; and here the “big men,” and
their wives and sons and daughters, showed themselves, paid their
respects to the Speaker and to the Lady Burney, paraded a little,
gathered into groups for conversation, at last took their leave.
Jeremy walked through the crowd at the Speaker’s elbow and was
presented by him to the most important of the guests. This was a
mark of favor, of recognition, almost of adoption. He had at first
been afraid of it and had wished to avoid it. But the Speaker’s
determination was unalterable.
“If it were nothing more,” he said, with a contemptuous smile on his
heavy but mobile mouth, “I shall be giving them pleasure by exhibiting
you. You are a show, a curiosity to them. They are all longing to see
you--once.... Only you and I know that you are something more. And to
know it pleases me; I hope it pleases you.”
This explanation hardly reconciled Jeremy to the ordeal; but the
Speaker had easily overborne his reluctance. They walked through the
room together, a couple strangely unlike; and the old man showed
towards the younger all the tenderness, all the proud complaisances of
a father to a son.
From this post of vantage Jeremy could at least see all that was to
be seen. The assembly seemed to be gay and animated. The men wore the
dress of ceremony, the latter-day version of evening dress; and some of
them, especially the more youthful, were daring in the colors of their
coats and in the bravado of lace at throat and breast and wrist. The
women wore more elaborate forms of the gown of every day, simply cut in
straight lines, descending to the heel and tortuously ornamented with
embroideries in violent colors. Jeremy saw one stout matron who was
covered from neck to shoes in a pattern of blowsy roses and fat yellow
butterflies, like a wall-paper of the nineteenth century, another whose
embroidery took the shape of zigzag stripes of crimson, blue and green,
adjoining on the bodice, separated on the skirt.
But he was impressed by a certain effect of good breeding which their
behavior produced and which contradicted his first opinion, based on
the strangeness of their dress. They nodded to him (for the shaking of
hands had gone quite out of fashion), stared at him a little, asked a
colorless question or two, murmured politely on his reply, and drifted
away from him. Where he expected crudity and vulgarity, he found a
prevailing vagueness, tepidity, indifference, almost fatigue.... He was
forced to conclude that the flamboyancy of their appearance was mild to
themselves, that they had no wish to appear startling, and did so only
as the result of a universal lack of taste.
He moved among them, steadfastly following the Speaker, but feeling
tired and stiff and inert. His limbs ached with unaccustomed labor,
his left hand was torn and bandaged, and he had still in his nostrils
the thick, greasy smell of the workshops in which he had spent the
morning. Here, after his first shock of surprise at the sight of the
guns, he had soon understood that he was expected to do much more than
admire and approve. These, the Speaker said, were by no means his first
experiments in the art of gun-casting. And, after that, the old man had
recounted to Jeremy, assisted by occasional uncouth ejaculations from
the aged foreman of that amazing gang of centenarians, a story that had
been nothing less than stupefying.
The last men in whose fading minds some glimmer of the art still
remained had been gathered together, at the cost of infinite trouble,
from the districts where machinery was still most in use, chiefly
from Scotland, Yorkshire, and Wales. They had been brought thither
on the pretense that their experience was needed in the central
repairing-shops of the railways; and apparently it had been necessary
in all possible ways to deceive and to reassure the principal men of
their native districts. Once they had been obtained, they had slaved
for years with senile docility to satisfy the demands which the
Speaker’s senile and half-lunatic enthusiasm made on their disappearing
knowledge. Somehow he had created in them a queer pride, a queer spirit
of endeavor. That grotesque chorus of ancients had become inspired with
a single anxiety, to create before they perished a gun which could be
fired without instantly destroying those who fired it.
They had had trouble with the breech mechanism, the Speaker
nonchalantly remarked; and Jeremy had a vision of men blown to pieces
in the remote and lonely valley where the first guns were tried.
The immediate purpose for which Jeremy’s help was required was the
adjustment of the process of cutting the interrupted screw-thread
by which the breech-block was locked into the gun. He had toiled at
it all the morning, surrounded by jumping and antic old men, whose
speech he could hardly understand and to whom he could only with the
greatest exertion communicate his own opinions. He had wrestled with,
and tugged at, antiquated and dilapidated machinery, had cursed and
sworn, had given himself a great cut on the palm of his left hand and
had descended almost to the level of his ridiculous fellow-workers. And
yet, when he had finished, the difficult screw-thread was in a fair way
to be properly cut.
He came hot from these nightmare experiences to the Speaker’s
reception; and when he looked round and contrasted the one scene with
the other, he had a sense of phantasmagoria that made him feel dizzy.
It was almost too much for his reason ... on top of a transition that
would have overbalanced most normal men.... He was recalled from his
bewildering reflections by the Speaker’s voice, low and grumbling in
his ear.
They had drifted for a moment away from the thickest of the crowd into
a corner of the room, and the old man was able to speak without fear of
being overheard. “It is as I have noticed for years,” he said, “but it
gets worse and worse. These are only from the south.”
Jeremy started and replied a little at random: “Only from the
south...?”
“Listen carefully to all I say to you. It is all useful. These people
here are only from the south, from Essex, like that young Roger Vaile,
and Kent and Surrey and Sussex and Hampshire. The big men from the
north and west come every year less often to the Treasury. And yet
these fools hardly notice it, and would see nothing remarkable in it if
they did.”
“You mean ...” Jeremy began. But before he could get farther he saw
the Speaker turn aside with a smile of obvious falsity and exaggerated
sweetness. The sinister little person, whom Jeremy knew from a distance
as “the Canadian,” was approaching them with a characteristically
arrogant step and bearing.
The Speaker made them known to one another in a manner that barely
concealed a certain uneasiness and unrest. “Thomas Wells,” he explained
in a loud and formal voice, “is the son of one of the chief of the
Canadian Bosses, whom we reckon among our subjects and who by courtesy
allow themselves to be described as such. But I reckon it as an honor
to have Thomas Wells, the son of George Wells, for my guest in the
Treasury.”
“That’s so,” said the Canadian gravely, without making it quite clear
which part of the Speaker’s remark he thus corroborated. Then he
stared keenly at Jeremy, apparently controlling a strong instinct of
discomfort and dislike by an effort of will. Jeremy returned the stare
inimically.
“I believe we have met before,” he suggested, not without a little
malice.
“That’s so,” the Canadian agreed; and as he spoke he sketched the sign
of the cross in an unobtrusive manner that made it appear as though it
might have been a chance movement of his hand. The Speaker hung over
them with evident anxiety, and at last said:
“You two are both strangers to this country. You ought to be able to
compare your impressions.”
“I would much rather hear something about Canada,” Jeremy answered.
Thomas Wells shrugged his shoulders. “It isn’t like this country,” he
said carelessly. “We can’t be as easy-going as the people are here.
We have to fight--but we do fight and win,” he concluded, momentarily
baring his teeth in a savage grin.
“The Canadians, as every one knows, are the best soldiers in the
world,” the Speaker interpolated. “They are always fighting.”
“And whom do you fight?” Jeremy asked.
“Oh, anybody.... You see, the people to the south of us are always
quarreling among themselves, and we chip in. And then sometimes we send
armies down to Mexico or the Isthmus.”
“But the people to the south ...” Jeremy began. “Haven’t you still got
the United States to the south of you? And I should have thought they’d
be too many for you?”
“There are no United States now--I’ve heard of them.” Thomas Wells’s
dislike of Jeremy seemed to have been overcome by a swelling impulse
of boastfulness. “From what I can make out, they never did get their
people in hand as we did. They’ve always been disturbed. Their leaders
don’t last long, and they fight one another. And we’re always growing
in numbers and getting harder, while they get fewer and softer. Why,
they’re easy fruit!”
Jeremy could find nothing for this but polite and impressed assent.
Thomas Wells allowed his lean face to be split by a startling grin and
went on: “I suppose you’ve never heard of me? No! Well, I’m not like
these people here. I was brought up to fight. My dad fought his way to
the top. _His_ dad was a small man, out Edmonton way, with not more
than two or three thousand bayonets. But he kept at it, and now none
of the Bosses in Canada are bigger than we are. It was me that led the
raid on Boston when I was only twenty.”
Jeremy turned aside from the last announcement with a feeling
of disgust. He thought that Thomas Wells looked like some small
blood-thirsty animal, a ferret or a stoat, with pale burning eyes and
thin stretched mouth that sought the throat of a living creature. He
was saved from the necessity for an answer by the Canadian turning
sharply on his heel, as though something had touched a spring in his
body. Jeremy followed the movement with his eyes and saw the Lady Eva
making her way towards them through the crowd.
Thomas Wells went to meet her with an air of exaggerated gallantry, and
murmured something with his bow. She seemed to be to-day in a mood of
modest behavior, for she received his salutation with downcast eyes and
no more than a movement of the lips. As he watched them Jeremy again
became aware of the Speaker standing beside him, whom he had for a
moment forgotten. He stole a look at the old man and saw that his brow
was troubled and that, though his hands were clasped behind his back
in an apparently careless attitude, the fingers were clenched and the
knuckles white. As he registered these impressions, the Lady Eva, still
with downward glance, sailed past Thomas Wells and approached him. When
he saw her intention, a faint disturbance sprang up in his heart and
interfered with his breathing.
She had already halted beside him when he realized that now, in the
presence of this company, her deportment being what it was, he must
make the first speech. He stuttered awkwardly and said: “I have been
hoping to see you again.”
She raised her eyes a trifle, and he fancied that he saw the shadow of
a smile in the corners of her mouth. Her reply was pitched in so low a
tone as to be at first incomprehensible, and there followed a moment
of emptiness before he realized that she had said, “You have been with
Roger Vaile.”
He interpreted it as in some sort of a reproach, and was about to
protest when he saw the Speaker frowning at him. He did not understand
the frown, but he moderated his vehemence. “I have been learning,” he
said in level tones. “I have been learning a great deal.” And then he
added more quietly, “Not but what you could teach me much more.”
At this she raised her head and laughed frankly; and he, looking up
too, saw that the Speaker had drawn Thomas Wells away and that the
backs of both were disappearing in the throng. A strange, uncomfortable
sense of an intrigue, which he could not understand, oppressed him. He
glared suspiciously at the girl, but read nothing more than mischief
and merriment in her face.
“I was well scolded the last time I spoke to you,” she said, “but I
have behaved well this time, haven’t I?”
Exhilaration chased all his doubts away. He gazed at her openly, took
in the wide eyes, the straight nose, the sensitive mouth, the healthy
skin. Then he tried to pull himself together, to recover a dry, sane
consciousness of his situation. It was absurd, he told himself--at his
age!--to be unsettled by a conversation with a beautiful girl who might
have been, if he had had any, one of his remote descendants. He felt
unaccountably like a man glissading on the smooth, steep slope of a
hill. Of course, he would in a moment be able to catch hold of a tuft
of grass, to steady himself by digging his heels into the ground....
But meanwhile the Lady Eva was looking at him.
“What do you think I could teach you?” she asked.
“I know so little,” he answered haphazard. “I know nothing about any of
the people here. I suppose you know them all?”
“They are the big men and their wives. What can I tell you about them?”
“What do you think of them yourself?”
She eyed him a little askance, doubtful but almost laughing. “What
would you think ... what would they think--if I were to tell you that?”
“But they will never know,” he urged, in a tone of ridiculously serious
entreaty.
“Don’t you know that I am already considered a little ... strange? I
don’t think I could tell you anything about our society that would be
any use to you. My mother tells me every day that I don’t know how to
behave myself; and I daresay all these people would say the same.”
“But why?”
“Oh, I don’t know....” She half swung round, tapped the floor with her
heel and returned to him, grown almost grave. “I hate the ... the ...
the easiness of everybody. They all stroll through life, and the women
do nothing and behave modestly--they’re not alive. I suppose I am like
my father. He is odd too.”
“But I am like him,” Jeremy said earnestly. “If you are like him, then
I must be like you. But I don’t know enough to be sure how different
every one else is. They seem very amiable, very gentle....”
“I hate their gentleness,” she began in a louder tone. But instead of
going on, she dropped her eyes to the ground and stood silent. Jeremy,
perplexed for a minute, suddenly became aware of the Lady Burney beside
them, an expression of dull disapproval on her brilliantly carmined
face. He had the presence of mind to bow to her very respectfully.
“I am glad to see you again, Jeremy Tuft,” she said with a heavy and
undeceiving graciousness. As she spoke she edged herself between him
and the Lady Eva; and Jeremy could quite plainly see her motioning her
daughter away with a gesture that she only affected to conceal. He
strove to keep an expression of annoyance from his face and answered as
enthusiastically as he could. She spoke a few more listless sentences
with an air of fighting a rearguard action. When she left him he sought
through the room for the Lady Eva, disregarding all who tried to accost
him; but he could not come at her again.
2
Roger Vaile was divided between disappointment and pride at Jeremy’s
favor with the Speaker, and expressed both feelings with the same
equability of demeanor.
“I hope I shall see you again some time,” he said; “but the Speaker has
always disliked me.”
Jeremy experienced an acute discomfort and sought to relieve himself by
replying with warmth, “But you saved my life. I told him that you did.”
Roger shook his head and smiled. “Of course he took no more notice of
that than I do. After all, it is rather absurd, isn’t it? I merely
happened to be the first man that saw you. But I liked looking after
you, and I should be sorry if I never saw you again. And so would my
uncle.”
At the mention of the priest contrition assailed Jeremy. He had a
vision of the old man desiring information about the twentieth century
and not receiving it. Roger saw what was passing through his mind and
again shook his head slightly.
“The Speaker thinks my uncle an old fool,” he went on reflectively,
“and from some points of view he’s right. And he thinks me a young
fool, which I shouldn’t presume to dispute. For that matter he
thinks most people are fools. And the Lady Burney thinks I am a
good-for-nothing young scoundrel--but she has her own reasons for that.”
“And what does the Lady Eva think of you?” Jeremy asked curiously.
“Oh, the Lady Eva’s a wonder!” Roger said with more fervor than he
usually displayed. “She’s not like any one else alive. Why, do you know
the other day, when she was out riding with her groom she beckoned to
me and made me ride with her for ten minutes while I told her all about
you.”
Jeremy supposed that this must be unusually daring conduct for a young
girl of the twenty-first century, and he acknowledged the impression it
made on him by nodding his head two or three times.
“That’s the chief reason why the Lady Burney hates me,” Roger
continued, a slight warmth still charging his voice. “But she doesn’t
understand her own daughter. The Lady Eva takes no particular interest
in me. She merely can’t bear being cooped up, like other girls, and
not being able to talk to any one she wants to. And because I’ve gone
to her once or twice when she has called to me, they think there’s
something between us. But there isn’t: I wish there were.”
Jeremy regarded with admiration this moderate and gentle display of
passion. “But whom will she marry?” he ventured, feeling himself a
little disturbed by his own question as soon as it was uttered.
“I believe the Lady Burney would like her to marry that horrible
Canadian. And her father would marry her to any one if he saw his
profit in it. It’s lucky for her that the Chairman of Bradford is
married already.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He’s the biggest man of the North and one of the men, so they say,
that the Speaker is most afraid of. There’s some kind of dispute
going on between them now. But it’s all nonsense,” Roger concluded
indifferently. “There’s really nothing for them to quarrel about and
nothing will come of it. But the Speaker always does excite himself
about nothing and always has. He’s a very strange old man; and the Lady
Eva is like him in some ways. And then there’s that Canadian.... You
will find yourself among a queer lot: I own that I don’t understand
them.”
But in spite of Roger’s wishes and Jeremy’s protestations their
meetings were, for some time after this conversation, casual and
infrequent. The Speaker, as he grimly said, had a use for Jeremy, and
was determined to see it accomplished. Day after day they went together
to the guarded and mysterious workshop behind Waterloo Station.
There, day after day, Jeremy painfully revived his rusty knowledge of
mechanics, and, himself driven by the Speaker, drove the gang of old
men to feats of astonishing skill.
He was astonished at the outset to see what they had actually done.
To have made two rifled, wire-wound guns, with their failing wits and
muscles and with the crazy museum of machinery which they showed him,
had been truly an amazing performance. He learnt later that this was
the eleventh pair that had been cast in fifteen years, and the first
since they had mastered the art of properly shrinking on the case.
They were still in difficulties with the screw-thread inside the gun
that locked the breech-block; and as he set them time and time again
at the task of remedying this or that fault in their workmanship,
he understood why they had taken so long and why so many guns had
blown up. What he could not understand was the Speaker’s indomitable
persistence in this fantastic undertaking, which, but for his own
arrival in the world, might have taken fifteen years more and outlasted
all the old men concerned in it.
But while he slaved, sweating and harassed, sometimes despairing
because of a scrap of knowledge that evaded his memory or because of
the absence of some machine that would have ensured accurate working,
the Speaker hovered round him and, little by little, in long harangues
and confessions, laid bare the main-springs of his nature. These
extraordinary scenes lasted in Jeremy’s mind, moved before his eyes,
echoed in his ears, when he had left the shed, when he sat at dinner
or in the darkness when he was trying to sleep, until he found that he
was gradually being infected with a dogged, unreasoning enthusiasm like
that of his dotard fellow-workers. He even felt a little ashamed of
himself for succumbing to the fanatical influence of an insane old Jew.
But the Speaker would stand at his elbow, when he was adjusting a
decrepit lathe that ought to have been long ago on the scrap-heap, and
rhapsodize endlessly in his thick muttering voice that rose sometimes
to a shout, accompanied by lifted hands and flashing eyes.
“I was born too late,” he would cry, “and I should perhaps have given
up hope if I had not found you. But you and I, when this task is
done, will regenerate the kingdom. How long I have labored and these
easy-going fools have not once helped me or understood me! But now our
triumph begins--when the guns are made.”
Jeremy, standing up to ease his back and wiping his hands on an oily
rag, would reflect that if it took so long to cut a screw-thread
correctly, the regeneration of the whole kingdom was likely to be a
pretty considerable task. Besides, when he was away from the Speaker or
when his absorption in the machinery removed him from that formidable
influence, his thoughts took a wider cast. He was sometimes far from
sure that a regeneration which began by the manufacture of heavy
artillery was likely to be a process of which he could wholly approve.
He found this age sufficiently agreeable not to wish to change it.
It was true that innumerable conveniences had gone. But on the other
hand most of the people seemed to be reasonably contented, and no
one was ever in a hurry. The Speaker, Jeremy often thought, was
principally bent on regenerating those vices of which the world had
managed to cure itself. The trains were few and uncertain, and, from
the universal decay of mechanical knowledge, were bound in time to
cease altogether; but England, so far as Jeremy could see, would get
on very well without any trains at all. There was no telephone; but
that was in many ways a blessing. There was no electric light, except
here and there, notably, so he learnt, in some of the Cotswold towns,
which were again flourishing under the rule of the wool-merchants and
where it was provided by water-power to illuminate their great new
houses. But it was certainly possible to regard candles and lamps as
more beautiful. The streets were dark at night and not oversafe; but
no man went out unarmed or alone after sunset, and actual violence was
rare. Jeremy was anxious to see what the countryside looked like, when
the Speaker would allow him a tour out of London. He gathered that
it was richer and more prosperous than he had known it, and that the
small country town had come again into its own. He learnt with joy that
the wounds made by the bricks and mortar of the great manufacturing
cities had, save in isolated places, in parts of Yorkshire and Wales,
long been healed by the green touch of time. He formed for himself a
pleasant picture of the new England, and, when his mind was his own, he
shrank from disturbing it.
But when the Speaker, with mad eyes and clawing gestures, muttered
beside him, he turned again with an almost equal fanaticism to the
hopeless business of restoring all that was gone and that was better
gone. And, under this slave-driver’s eye, he had little time for
anything else. Even at night they generally dined alone together in the
Speaker’s own room; and Jeremy, drugged and stupefied with fatigue, sat
silent while the old man continued his unflagging monologue. And every
day his enthusiasm grew greater, his demands for haste more frequent
and more urgent. Only never, in all the ramblings of his speech, did he
once betray the use he intended to make of the guns, the reason for his
urgency.
Jeremy looked out from this existence and saw a resting world in which
he alone must labor. The strain began to tell on his nerves; and he
sometimes complained weakly to himself that the nightmare, into which
he had awakened, endured and seemed to have established itself as a
permanency. He had none save fleeting opportunities of seeing the Lady
Eva. On the few occasions when they met it had been in the presence of
the Lady Burney; and the girl had conducted herself with silent, almost
too perfect, propriety. Jeremy, much too tired and harassed to think
out anything clearly, concluded that circumstances had, once again in
his life, taken the wrong turn and that his luck was out.
One morning, about three weeks after his first visit to the workshop,
he succeeded for the first time in fitting the already completed
breech-block into the gun and satisfied himself that the delicate
mechanism, though it left much to be desired and would not last very
long, would do well enough. He looked up wearily from this triumph and
saw the old gnomes, his colleagues, grotesquely working all around him.
Gradually, as he became convinced of the Speaker’s insanity, these
uncouth creatures had grown more human and individual in his eyes and
less like a chorus in one of Maeterlinck’s plays. He had not been busy
all the time with that infernal screw-thread. He had looked now and
then into a smaller shed close by, where in the most primitive manner
and with an appalling disregard of safety, an aged workman occupied
himself with the production of explosives. This man was a little more
intelligent than the rest, and had studied with devotion a marvelous
collection of old and rapidly disintegrating handbooks on his subject.
He was a small and skinny creature, with an alert manner and a curious
skipping walk; and Jeremy had got used to seeing the hatchet face
bobbing towards him with demands for help.
Now, as he rested for a moment, there was a noise that penetrated even
his dulled consciousness; and, as he started up in alarm, Hatchet-face
skipped in, bursting with inarticulate excitement. It appeared, when
he was able to speak, that he had just missed blowing off his left
hand with the first detonator to function in an entirely satisfactory
way; and, while one of his fellows bandaged his hurts, he continued to
rejoice, showing a praiseworthy absence of self-concern. The hubbub
attracted the Speaker, who was not far away; and when he arrived he
learnt with delight of its cause. Jeremy capped this news with his of
the breech-lock; and for a moment the old man’s terrifying countenance
was lit up with a wholly human and simple happiness. Then he announced
that they would not attend at the workshop that afternoon. Jeremy, from
the bench on which he had laxly subsided, remarked that they deserved a
holiday.
“It is not that,” said the Speaker, frowning again. “It is a reception
to which I must go, an affair of ceremony, and I wish you to come with
me. There will be some kind of a show.”
Jeremy was not sure what significance this variable word might by
now have acquired, and he did not much care. He looked forward to an
afternoon’s relaxation. He was thankful for so much; but he wondered at
the back of his mind what the Speaker would want to start on now that
the guns were nearly finished.
3
The reception was to be held at the house of one Henry Watkins, a big
man with large estates near London and in Kent, whom Jeremy had met and
had a little remarked. He seemed to be the most influential and the
most consulted frequenter of the Treasury; and Jeremy observed that
the Speaker commonly mentioned him with rather less than his usual
contempt. His house was a large one, almost exactly on the site of
Charing Cross, with gardens stretching down to the river; and here,
when their carriage arrived, he came out and with easy respectfulness
helped the Speaker to alight.
He was a tall man, with a long, narrow face and a slightly fretful
expression. As he took the old man’s arm Jeremy fancied that he
whispered something, and that the Speaker shook his head. Then he
turned to Jeremy and said perfunctorily, “I have had the happiness of
making your acquaintance,” wheeled back to the Speaker and went on: “We
waited only for you, sir. The Lady Burney and the Lady Eva and Thomas
Wells are already here.”
“Then lead us to them,” the Speaker replied. And as they were being
conducted through a crowd of waiting guests, who made way for them
with a quiet buzz of deferential salutations, he observed in a gracious
tone, “I need not ask whether you have a good show for us, Henry
Watkins.”
“I trust that it will please you, sir,” the host replied. “I have heard
this troop very well spoken of.”
Jeremy was prepared by this conversation for something in the way of a
performance; and he was therefore not surprised when they were ushered
into a large room, which had been rudely fitted up as a theater. At the
front, standing by themselves, were four gilt armchairs, and on these
Jeremy thought he recognized the backs of the Speaker’s wife, of his
daughter, and of Thomas Wells. They caught the Speaker’s notice, too,
and he halted suddenly, craning his head forward and peering at them.
“There are only four chairs,” he said in a rasping voice. “I wish
another chair to be brought for my friend, Jeremy Tuft.” In a moment,
after some confusion, Jeremy found himself sitting next to the Lady Eva
and hearing her demure reply to his greeting, which was almost drowned
by the noise of the guests behind them entering the hall. When this had
died down, he essayed a second remark, but received no answer beyond an
inclination of the beautiful head, which he was devoutly studying with
a strained sidelong glance. He therefore examined the stage instead and
saw that it was already set with roughly-painted canvas flats. These
appeared to be intended to represent a wood. There was no curtain; and
the end of what looked remarkably like a piano was projecting from one
of the wings. Tall canvas screens ran from the two ends of the stage to
the walls of the room, covering on each side a space about five feet
long; and Jeremy surmised, from a persistent whispering and from an
occasional bulging of the canvas, that the players were hidden in these
narrow quarters.
Presently three loud raps were heard and a hush fell on the audience.
Jeremy started in his seat when an invisible performer at the piano
began to play what sounded like a mangled waltz, very loud, very
crude and very vulgar. The strings of the piano were in indifferent
condition, the skill of the executant was no better, and Jeremy, who
was proud of having some sympathy for music, suffered a little. When
he looked about him, however, he saw neither amusement nor annoyance
on any face. Luckily the performance lasted only a few minutes. As
soon as it was done, an actress tripped affectedly on to the stage
from the right side and began to declaim in a voice so high-pitched
and theatrical and with so many gestures and movements of her head
that Jeremy could hardly understand a word of what she was saying. He
gathered that she had come to this wood to meet her lover; and his
guess was confirmed when an actor strode on from the left, stamping his
feet on the resounding boards as he came. Then both began to declaim at
one another in voices of enormous power. Their stilted violence alarmed
and repelled Jeremy. He ceased to look at the stage, wondering whether,
under cover of the excitement which this scene must be causing, he
dared steal a glance at the Lady Eva. He did so, and discovered that
she was looking at him.
Both averted their eyes, and Jeremy sat staring at the floor, his heart
beating and, he felt certain, his cheeks burning. Above his head the
drama ranted along with a loud monotonous noise like the sea beating
on rocks, and made a background to his thoughts. That single glance
had precipitated his emotions, and he must now confess to himself, what
had been before a mere toy for the brain, that he loved this girl. The
admission carried his mind whirling wildly away, and he would have
been content to brood on it with a secret rising delight until he
was interrupted. But he could not help asking himself whether he had
not discovered something else, whether there had not been at least a
particular interest in the eyes of the Lady Eva. This second thought at
first terrified him by its revelation of his own audacity in conceiving
it. For a moment it stopped him still, and then suddenly there was
silence on the stage.
The actor and the actress were departing, she to the right, he to the
left, bowing as they went. The whole audience began clapping in a
decorous and gentle manner. The Lady Eva leant slightly towards Jeremy
as he sat stupefied and motionless, and whispered:
“You must clap. You will be thought impolite if you do not.”
He obeyed in a dazed way, watching her and seeing how she brought
the palms of her hands together, regularly but so softly that it
made hardly any sound. While the applause still continued, servants
came forward from the sides of the hall, sprang up on the stage and
began removing the scenery, which they replaced with other flats,
representing a street. And after an interval, and another performance
on the vile piano, the play resumed its course.
Jeremy must have followed it with some part of his mind of the
existence of which he was ignorant: for when it was all over he had a
reasonably clear notion of what it had been about. There had been two
lovers and a villain and a buffoon who fell over his own feet. There
had been one affecting moment when the heroine, deserted and hopeless,
had been deluged with small pieces of paper, not too skilfully
sprinkled on her, while she walked up and down, striving to comfort her
child and lamenting the perfidy of man. And the play itself, as well as
the acting, had been of an incredible theatricality and exaggeration.
If Jeremy’s conscious mind had been active while the performance was
going on he could not but have followed every point with amazement and
indulged in some interesting reflections on the dramatic tastes of his
new contemporaries. As it was, when it was over and he was able to look
back on it, he could only wonder whether his unaccountable recollection
of it was to be believed.
For after the end of the first scene, after the Lady Eva had spoken to
him, he was plunged even more deeply into that delicious but alarming
turmoil of feeling. His mind unbidden suggested to him sobering
considerations only for the pleasure, as it appeared, of seeing them
flung on one side. There was no certainty, no probability even, that
the girl had loved him. In his story there was enough reason why
she should look at him with interest, and he had learnt that her
usual manner was frank and unstudied, not therefore to be too easily
construed. Yet a mad certainty rose in his heart and overwhelmed this
sensible thought. Jeremy closed his eyes resolutely to the buffoon on
the stage, who was now imitating a drunken man and abandoned himself to
visions of the girl at his side.
At that moment he would perhaps have been unwilling to be awakened to
speak to her, even to embrace her. That would come, must come; but
this exquisite dreaming, hitherto unknown to him, filled the circle
of his forces, satisfied all his desires. He pictured her as he had
seen her half-a-dozen times, walking across a room, lifting her eyes
to his with some question in them, once riding, once with a piece of
needlework in her hands, of which, without liking it, she was making a
sound and creditable job. He thought of her clear, wide eyes, her free,
athletic carriage, her pleasant voice. For a little while he was in
neither the strange nor the familiar world of his twofold experience:
his new hope had dissolved both recent and ancient memories alike. Then
suddenly across the texture of his passionate meditation came a thought
of himself. He shifted uneasily and felt cold. Who and what was he? He
told himself--a sport of nature, a young man unnaturally old, an old
man unnaturally young. Could he be certain yet what trick it was that
Trehanoc’s ray had played on him? Might he not, one day, to-morrow or
a year hence, perhaps in her very arms, suddenly expire, even crumble
into dust? He shuddered in the chilling air of these suggestions and
was filled with misery. But the next moment he could see himself
confessing his misery to the Lady Eva and receiving her comfort.
He woke. Mixed with the light clapping, in which from time to time he
had mechanically joined, there was a stir and shuffle as though the
audience was preparing to depart; and, looking up, he saw the whole
cast on the stage, bowing with a certain air of finality, the hero and
the villain holding each a hand of the heroine. The Speaker was rising
from his seat, and at that sign all the other persons in the room rose,
too, and waited. Jeremy, brought down out of dreams, searched in his
mind for something to say to the Lady Eva and dared not look at her
until he had found it. But when he turned to her he saw that she was
staring in another direction. A servant had just reached the Speaker
and had apparently given him a letter. The whole assembly stood hushed
and immobile while he read it, and Jeremy, his breath caught by an
inexplicable sense of crisis, saw that, half-way through, the old man’s
hand jerked suddenly and was steady again.
The interruption, the hushed seconds that followed, seemed to spread an
impalpable sense of dismay through the hall. Henry Watkins, his fretful
expression deepened to one of alarm, made his way to the Speaker’s side
and whispered something in an anxious voice; but the old man waved his
hand impatiently and went on reading.
“What is it?” Jeremy whispered sharply to the Lady Eva.
“I don’t know ... I don’t know ...” she uttered; and then, so low that
he could hardly catch it, “I am afraid for him....”
Jeremy stared all around in the hope that somewhere he might find some
enlightenment. But there was no trace of understanding on the faces
of any of the guests. The Lady Burney stood lumpishly by her husband
in an attitude of annoyance and boredom. Beyond her Thomas Wells
half-leant on his chair in a barbaric but graceful pose, like that of a
hunting animal at rest. Jeremy fancied for a moment that he could read
some sort of comprehension, some sort of satisfaction even, in those
vulpine features, in the small eyes, the swelling nostrils, the thin,
backward straining mouth. And still the Speaker read on, motionless,
without giving a sign, while Henry Watkins stood at his elbow as though
waiting for an order; and still the Lady Eva gazed at them, crumpling
restlessly with one hand a fold of her dress.
All at once the grouping broke up, and the Speaker’s voice came, steady
and clear but not loud. “I must go back to the Treasury,” he said. “I
am sorry I cannot stay to speak with your guests, Henry Watkins, but
you must dismiss them. I wish you to come with me. And I need you,
too, Jeremy Tuft; you must follow us at once. And----” he hesitated,
“if you will give me the benefit of your counsel in this grave matter,
Thomas Wells....” The Canadian bowed a little and grinned more thinly.
Jeremy found himself in a state of confusion walking at the end of
the Speaker’s party towards the door. In front of him the old man had
gripped Henry Watkins firmly by the sleeve and was talking to him
quietly and rapidly.
Jeremy’s passing by was the sign to the other guests that they might
now leave; and as he went through the door he could feel them thronging
behind him. He pressed on to keep the Speaker in sight, but slackened
his pace when a hand fell lightly on his shoulder. It was Roger Vaile.
“Do you know what the matter is?” Roger asked.
Jeremy shook his head.
“Well, be careful of that Canadian. I saw him looking at you while the
show was on, and he doesn’t like you.”
CHAPTER VIII
DECLARATION OF WAR
1
The dark and undefined cloud which had fallen upon the reception
seemed to have overshadowed the Treasury as well. The Speaker had
precipitately driven thither, taking Henry Watkins with him in the
carriage and not waiting for Jeremy, who reached the door only in time
to see that he must follow on foot. The Speaker’s unexpected return,
coupled with the unusual expression on his face and perhaps some rumor
already set afloat, had unsettled the household. When Jeremy arrived he
found the clerks and even the servants, together with the attendants of
the Lady Burney and the Lady Eva, standing about in little groups in
the entrance-hall. They were talking among themselves in low voices,
and they all raised their eyes questioningly to his as he passed by.
There was a universal atmosphere of confusion and alarm.
At the door which led from the entrance-hall towards the Speaker’s
room, Jeremy paused disconsolately, uncertain what he ought to do. The
Speaker had asked for his help, but had not stayed for him. Perhaps
he ought to go to the Speaker; but he was unwilling to intrude into
what seemed to be a council of the first importance. His doubts
were relieved by a servant, who came anxiously searching among the
loiterers and appeared relieved when he caught sight of Jeremy.
“Here you are, sir!” he said. “The Speaker has been asking for you ever
since he came back. Will you please go to his room at once?” Jeremy’s
sense of a moment of crisis was by no means lessened as he threaded the
dark, empty corridors of the private wing.
When he entered he found himself unnoticed, and had a few seconds in
which to distinguish the members of the little group clustered at
the other end of the room. The Speaker was standing motionless, with
his eyes turned upwards to the ceiling, in an attitude apparently
indicating complete unconcern. Yet, to Jeremy he seemed to be
controlling himself by an enormous effort of will, while his whole
body quivered with suppressed excitement. Below him and, to the eye,
dominated by him, five men sat around a table. Jeremy saw at once
the Canadian and Henry Watkins and another chief notable, named John
Hammond, with whom he was slightly acquainted. The others had their
backs to him; but their backs were unfamiliar, somehow out of place,
with something uneasy and hostile in the set of their shoulders. As he
came into the room, Henry Watkins was leaning forward to one of these
strangers and saying earnestly:
“I want to make certain that we understand what this sentence means.”
He tapped a paper in front of him as he spoke.
“T’ letter meaans what it saays,” the stranger replied gruffly. His
words and the broad, rasping accent in which they were spoken came to
Jeremy as a shock, as something incomprehensibly foreign to what he had
expected. His colleague nodded vigorously, and signified his agreement
in a sound between a mutter and a growl.
“Yes,” Henry Watkins began again patiently; “but what I want to
know----”
The Speaker suddenly forsook his rigid posture, with the effect of a
storm let loose, and, striding to the table, struck it violently with
his fist. It seemed as if the last fetter of his restraint had given
way without warning.
“That’s no matter,” he cried hoarsely. “What I want to know is this: if
I make another offer, will you take it back to your master?”
The stranger squared his shoulders and thrust his chin forward with an
air of dogged ferocity. “We caame to get yes or noa,” he answered in a
deep grumbling voice. “T’ letter saays soa.”
Henry Watkins started at this outburst in the negotiations and looked
around him with an appearance of fright. In doing this he caught sight
of Jeremy hesitating by the door, and whispered a word to the Speaker,
who cried out, without moderating the violence of his tone: “There you
are! Come here now, I want you.” And turning again to the strangers, he
added, with an odd note of triumph: “This is Jeremy Tuft. Maybe you’ve
heard of him.”
The strangers, who had not yet noticed Jeremy’s arrival, slewed around
together and stared at him; and one of them said: “Oh, ay, we’ve heerd
on him, reet enough.” The others at the table stared too, while Jeremy
reluctantly advanced. But before he could speak, Henry Watkins sprang
up and murmured importunately in the Speaker’s ear. Jeremy could catch
the words:
“Talk privately ... before we decide....”
“Very well,” said the Speaker roughly, aloud. “Have it your own way.
But I won’t change my mind.”
Henry Watkins returned to the table and addressed the strangers
suavely: “The Speaker will give you his answer in a very short time,”
he said. “Will you be so good as to withdraw while he considers it?”
And, when they had uncouthly assented, he conducted them to the door,
showed them into an ante-room, and returned, his face full of anxiety.
Jeremy stood apart in a condition of great discomfort. He realized
that he was regarded by all, save the Speaker, as an intruder, the
reason for whose presence none could conjecture. He was not relieved
by the dubious glance which Henry Watkins threw at him before he began
to speak. But the Speaker made no sign, and the anxious counselor
proceeded, with an air of distraction and flurry.
“Think, sir,” he pleaded, “before you refuse. It is so grave a thing to
begin again--after a hundred years. And who can tell what the end of it
may be? We know that they are formidable----”
“All this is nonsense to Jeremy Tuft,” the Speaker interrupted harshly.
“We must tell him what the matter is before we go any further.” Henry
Watkins, with a movement of his hands, plainly expressed his opinion
that there was no good reason why it should not all remain nonsense to
Jeremy; and Jeremy felt slightly less at ease than before.
But the Speaker had begun to explain, with the sharp jerkiness of
impatience in his voice: “We’ve had a message from the people up north.
Perhaps you could see for yourself what sort of men they are. They are
very unlike any one you have ever met here--rough, fierce, quarrelsome
men. They have kept some of their machinery still going up there--in
some of the towns they even work in factories. They have been growing
more and more unlike us for a hundred years, and now the end has
come--they want to force a quarrel on us. Do you understand?”
Jeremy replied that he did, and thought that he was beginning to
understand a great deal besides.
“Well, then,” the Speaker went on, growing a little calmer, “I told you
when first we met that we were standing on the edge of a precipice.
Now these are the people that want to throw us over. The chief of
them, the Chairman of Bradford, has sent me a message. I won’t explain
the details to you. It comes to this, that in future he proposes to
collect the taxes in his district, not for me, but for himself. I must
say he very kindly offers to send me a contribution for the upkeep of
the railways. But he wants a plain yes or no at once; and if we say
no, then it means WAR!” In the last sentence his voice had begun to
run upwards: he pronounced the final word in a sudden startling shout,
and then stood silent for a moment, his eyes burning fiercely. When
he continued, it was in a quieter and more reasonable tone. “There
has been no fighting in this country since the end of the Troubles, a
hundred years or so ago. A brawl here and there, a fight with criminals
or discontented laborers--I don’t say; but no more than enough to make
our people dislike it. Of all of us here in this room, only you and
Thomas Wells know what war is. Now”--and here he became persuasive and
put a curious smooth emphasis on each word--“now, _knowing all that you
do know_, what advice would you give me?”
Jeremy stood irresolute. Henry Watkins and John Hammond seemed to
throw up their hands in perplexed despair, and the Canadian’s thin,
supercilious smile grew a trifle wider and thinner. The Speaker waited,
rocking hugely to and fro on his feet with a gentle motion.
“I think,” Jeremy began, and was disconcerted to find himself so hoarse
that the words came muffled and inaudible. He cleared his throat. “I
think I hardly know enough about it for my advice to be of any use. I
don’t even know what troops you have.”
The Speaker made a deep booming sound in his chest, clasped his hands
sharply together, and looked as though he were about to burst out again
in anger. Then he abruptly regained his self-command and said: “Then
you shall speak later. Henry Watkins, what do you say? Remember, we
must make up our minds forever while we are talking now. It will not do
to argue with them, or temporize or make them any other offer.”
Henry Watkins got up from his seat and went to the Speaker’s side
as though he wished to address him confidentially. Jeremy had an
impression of a long dark face, unnaturally lengthened by deep gloom,
and two prominent eyes that not even the strongest emotion could make
more than dully earnest.
“I beg of you, sir,” he implored, low and hurried, holding out his
hands, “to attempt to argue with them, to offer them some compromise.
You know very well that they are forcing this quarrel on us, because
they are sure that they are the stronger, as I believe them to be. And
anything, anything would be better than to begin the Troubles again!”
The Speaker surveyed him as if from an immense height. “And do you
think that we can avoid the Troubles again, and worse things even than
that, in any way except by defeating these people? Am I to surrender
all that my grandfather and my great-grandfather won? Do you not see
that they have sent us just these two men, stupider and stubborner even
than the rest, so that we shall not be able to argue with them? They
have been told to carry back either our yes or our no. If we do not
give them a yes, they will take no by default. There is no other choice
for us. What do you think, John Hammond?”
“I agree with Henry Watkins,” said the big man hastily. He had not
spoken before, and seemed to do so now only with great reluctance.
“Then we need not hear your reasons. And you, Thomas Wells?”
“Why, fight,” said the Canadian promptly; and then he continued in a
deliberate drawl, stretching himself a little as he spoke: “These folks
are spoiling for trouble, and they’ll give you no peace until they get
it. I guess your troops aren’t any good--I’ve seen some of them--but I
know no way to make them so except by fighting. And besides, I’ve an
idea that there’s something else you haven’t told us yet.”
Jeremy shot a suspicious glance at him, and received in return a grin
that was full at once of amusement and dislike. The Speaker appeared to
be balancing considerations in his mind. When he spoke again, it was in
a tone more serious and deliberate than he had yet used.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “my decision remains unaltered. I shall refuse
and there will be war. But Thomas Wells is right. I have had something
in my thoughts that I have not yet disclosed to you. But I will tell
you now what it is, because I do not wish you to lose your spirits
or to be half-hearted in supporting me. Only I must command you”--he
paused on the word, looked around sternly, and repeated it--“I must
command you not to speak a word of it outside this room until I give
you leave.” He paused again and surveyed them with the air of a man who
delays his certain triumph for a moment in order the better to savor
it. “Gentlemen, when our troops take the field against these rebels,
they will have something that no other army in the world has got. They
will have guns!”
The great announcement had come, had passed, and seemed to have failed
of its effect. Silence reigned in the council. Henry Watkins shifted
from one foot to the other and regarded the Speaker with gloomy
intentness. Then Thomas Wells broke the hush, with a faint tone of
disappointment in his voice:
“Is that it? Well, I don’t know how that will work out. I thought that
perhaps you had got some of the bosses up there in your pay.”
Henry Watkins was as silent as his companion, bewildered, disturbed,
apprehensive. But the Speaker continued, his air of jubilation
increasing rather than diminishing.
“And not only have we guns, but we have also a trained artilleryman to
handle them. Jeremy Tuft, I must tell you, fought in the artillery in
the great war against the Germans before the Troubles began. And now,
Jeremy Tuft, let us hear your opinion, remembering that we have guns
and they have none. Do you think we should fight or surrender?”
Jeremy was hard put to it not to give way physically before the old
man’s blazing and menacing stare. His mind scurried hastily through
half a hundred points of doubt. How could he know, when he had been in
this world no more than a few weeks? And yet it seemed pretty clear,
from what he had heard, that the soldiers from Yorkshire would be
better than those that the Speaker had at his disposal. He could see
only too plainly that the Speaker was trusting to the guns to work a
miracle for him. He remembered that the guns were only just finished,
had not been tested, that no gun-crew to fight them had yet been
trained or even thought of. He had a sick feeling that an intolerable
responsibility rested on him, that he must explain how much the effect
of two guns in an infantry battle would depend on luck. He remembered
that time at Arras, when they had got properly caught in the enemy’s
counter-battery work, and he had sat in his dug-out, meditating on the
people, whoever they were, that had started the war, and wondering
how human beings could be so diabolical.... He woke abruptly from
this train of thought as he raised his eyes and saw the Speaker still
regarding him with that terrible, that numbing stare. His strength gave
way. He stammered weakly:
“Of course, the guns would make a great difference....”
The Speaker caught up his words. “They would make just the difference
we need. That is why I have made up my mind to fight now. Let those two
men come in again.”
There was dead silence in the room for a moment, and Jeremy was aware
of the progress of a breathless spiritual conflict. He could feel
his own inarticulate doubts, the timidity of Watkins and Hammond,
the cynical indifference of the Canadian, hanging, like dogs around
the neck of a bull, on the old man’s fanatical determination. Then
something impalpable seemed to snap: it was as though the bull had
shaken himself free. Without uttering a sound, Henry Watkins went to
the door of the ante-room and held it open. The two envoys from the
north again appeared. They seemed unwilling to come more than a pace
into the room; perhaps they thought it unnecessary since they wished to
hear only a single word.
The Speaker was as anxious as they to be brief. “I refuse,” he said
with great mildness.
“That’s t’ aanswer, then?” asked the first envoy with a kind of surly
satisfaction.
“That’s t’ aanswer. Coom on,” his companion said, before any one else
could reply.
“Good daay to you then, sirs,” the first muttered phlegmatically; and
with stumping strides they lumbered to the door. Henry Watkins hurried
after them to find a servant to bring them their horses.
2
No less than the rest the Lady Eva was disturbed and made uneasy in
her mind by the unexpected end of Henry Watkins’s reception. The short
drive back to the Treasury, sitting beside her mother in the vast,
lumbering carriage, was a torment to her. Involuntarily she asked
questions, well aware that the Lady Burney neither knew, nor was
interested in, the answers. She was obliged to speak to assuage her
restlessness, and expected the reproof which she received.
“It’s not your business,” said the Lady Burney heavily. “You must not
meddle in your father’s affairs. It shows a very forward and unbecoming
spirit in you to have noticed that anything happened out of the
ordinary. What people would say of you if they knew as much of your
behavior as I do, I simply cannot think. They must see too much as it
is. Remember that we ought to set an example to other people.”
The Lady Eva was silent, white with restraint and anxiety. But when
they arrived at the Treasury and came into the atmosphere of expectancy
which filled the entrance-hall, she again showed signs of excitement,
and seemed to wish to stop and share in the general state of suspense.
Her mother ordered her to her room in a thick intense whisper. She
remembered herself and went on, sighing once sharply.
She found her room empty. It was a pleasant place, looking over the
gardens, furnished in an awkward and mixed style which reflected her
distaste for her mother’s notions of decoration, combined with her
own inability to think of any better substitute. A riding-whip and
gloves were thrown down on a table, beside a half-finished piece of
needlework. Writing materials and a book lay on another. One of her
eccentricities, not regarded so severely by the Lady Burney as the
rest, was her wish to retain such slight knowledge of the arts of
reading and writing as the scanty education of the women of that time
had given her. But it was a hard business, starting from so insecure a
foundation and proceeding with so little encouragement. The old books
that she was able to obtain were very dull, very hard to understand,
and told her little of what she wanted to know. Her companions of her
own age laughed at her heartily for reading with so much devotion,
after she had been released from the school-room, the works of the
great poet, Lord Tennyson, from which they had all been taught their
own language. She desired vaguely to be able to help her father,
whose loneliness she obscurely but poignantly felt. But when in order
to understand the old times she struggled through ragged and mildewed
books, she despaired at the little assistance she was able to get from
them.
She once expressed a timid wish that she might be allowed to learn
history from Father Henry Dean, of whose knowledge she had heard
confused but marvelous stories. But on this occasion her father had
unexpectedly joined her mother to prevent her. He had said bluntly
that the priest was an addled old man, while the Lady Burney had said
that the suggestion was both improper and dangerous. Between the two
opinions, her wish was effectually frustrated. Indeed, she got little
encouragement from her father, whose loneliness often seemed to her to
be in great part purely wilful. Now and then he would listen to her
for a few minutes, and then rhapsodize cloudily for a long time on his
hopes and fears. But when he did this, after the first few sentences he
was up and away from her; and she soon realized that he talked to her
only instead of talking to himself, and did not for the purpose much
alter his method of address.
A minute or two after she came into her room, two of her attendants
followed her, asking, without much hope, for news. She shook her head
sharply, with compressed lips. She had no news, she knew nothing of the
danger that threatened her father and had shaken his steady old hand
so abruptly while he was reading that mysterious letter. The two girls
broke at once into a babble of rumors and conjectures. The plague had
reached England again, or the Chinese had begun to invade Europe, or
the Pope had done something or other that was unexpected, it was not
clear what.
These attendants were daughters of good families who came to be half
maids, half companions to the Lady Burney and the Lady Eva for a year
or two, as a way of graduating in the world, much as young men came to
be clerks to the Speaker. But the cases were not quite parallel. All
young men of family entered the Speaker’s service, or would do so if
they could. There was a certain tradition of gentility in the work of
government. But only the daughters of the poorer and smaller houses
came to wait on the Speaker’s wife and daughter. The rich families,
though they obeyed the Speaker, would not accord him royal prestige or
his wife and daughter the privilege of noble ladies-in-waiting. They
treated him and his household with respect, not with deference. Only
the lesser among them thought that something might be gained by their
daughters holding positions at what they would fain regard as a court,
or that they might perhaps make good marriages, a hope which now and
then miscarried into something less gratifying. They maintained that it
was an honor to serve the ruling family, and were sneered at by their
greater fellows.
The Lady Eva, though she was often indolent and was pleased to be
waited on, would have preferred to be attended by servants. These
girls claimed some sort of equality with her, and, though she had no
objection to that, she wished that she could prevent them speaking
to her, unless she called on them. She found them tedious. Now she
listened to them patiently, and said at last with a faint ironic smile:
“Do you really know anything about it?” They began to protest and to
double their rumors, but she stopped them with a lifted hand. “There is
a council in my father’s room, is there not?” And when they had said
that there was, she went on: “Can you tell me who has been called to
it?”
“Jeremy Tuft was called to it just before we came to you,” answered
Rose, simpering a little and placing her head on one side. Jeremy
did not know that among the young girls in the Treasury he was the
object of some longings and the subject of some confessions. He drew
attention because of the air of mystery which surrounded his short and
rather commonplace person. It was fashionable to affect a deliciously
shuddering attraction towards the elements of eeriness and terror
in what was known of his story. But this fashion was not allowed to
interfere with any more practical project of love-making that happened
to be going.
“I saw him go,” affirmed Mary with an even more pronounced simper.
“Is Thomas Wells there?” the Lady Eva shot at her quickly. Mary winced,
looked guilty and said that she believed he was. Then she fell silent
in a self-conscious attitude.
The Lady Eva frowned a little. These girls, though she despised them
for their shallowness, led fuller lives than she. They conformed more
easily than she did with the prevailing ideal of womanly conduct; and
yet in the Treasury they were free to do much what they pleased, to
choose lovers if they were foolish enough ... as she guessed this girl
had been. And the reflection had annoyed her, for she thought it likely
that she would have to marry Thomas Wells. He and her father had been
bargaining interminably about something, her father importunate but
cozening, Thomas Wells smiling but obdurate. It might occur to her
father at any moment to throw her person into the scale; and she would
not like for a husband the lover of one of her attendants. Then, as she
stood musing, it suddenly occurred to her with great force that she
would not like to marry Thomas Wells in any circumstances. Strange! She
had been long accustomed to the idea that she, her father’s only child,
must marry some one who would be chosen to become his heir; and she had
quite calmly contemplated the likelihood of Thomas Wells being chosen.
Only to-day did she perceive that the idea was distasteful to her, and
she wondered why. A vague answer presented itself....
“Go back, both of you,” she commanded, “and bring me the news when
you hear any.” They left her at once, Rose anxious to return to the
center of excitement, and Mary glad to escape any further uncomfortable
questions.
The Lady Eva, left alone, walked up and down her room with short,
impatient steps. It was very difficult to wait thus for news, more
difficult still in view of the fact that she might not get any. She
conceived cloudy romantic notions of intervening in the council, of
persuading her father in the middle of it that she understood him and
was with him against all the rest of the world. She walked towards the
door in an exalted fit, certain that now at least in this moment of
anxiety she could convince him. Then she remembered other appeals, made
when she was alone with him and when his mood had seemed to promise
sympathy. But he had smiled at her, patted her head or her hand, and
answered vaguely in words that meant nothing and humiliated her. Once,
gathering from one of the soliloquies, in which he so evidently forgot
her presence, that he was concerned by the state of the railways, she
had brooded on the problem through sleepless nights, at last hitting on
a plan, which she laid eagerly before him. It had seemed as crude and
childish to her as to him, after his first comment. A flash of realism
showed her the injured and astonished big men at the council, if she
appeared there, the grinning contempt of Thomas Wells, her father’s
anger. She turned away again from the door.
Minutes passed. She went through stages of careless dullness, of
unbearable suspense. At last, moved by an ungovernable longing, she
left the room. She intended no longer to go to her father, but she
would at least see the door behind which he was sitting with the
others. She had an unreasonable certainty, which she could not examine,
that waiting would be easier near the place where all was being decided.
She slipped along the corridor as softly as she could, ruefully aware
that she did not usually move quietly and had often been reproved for
it. But the intensity of her purpose helped her to avoid anything that
could draw notice to her strange conduct. Soon the corridor was cut by
another at right angles, which a few steps to the left led to the door
of the Speaker’s room. At the corner the Lady Eva paused and looked
cautiously around. In this part of the ill-constructed house reigned a
perpetual dusk, and any passer-by would be heard by her long before he
could see her.
Her certainty was justified. Waiting was easier here; and the time
slipped by less oppressively. She did not know how long she had been
standing pressed close against the wall, when her father’s door opened
and two men came out and stamped up the corridor to the right. Even in
that gloom she could see that they were strangers; and their odd looks
and something odd in their manner, as though they were departing with a
sinister purpose, increased her curiosity. She craned her neck to keep
them in sight as long as she could, and drew back hastily when Henry
Watkins came out. He was obviously distressed, and, as he went by her,
following the strangers, he was rapidly clenching and unclenching his
hands.
A minute passed. Then the door opened again and Thomas Wells sauntered
into the corridor. He hesitated by the corner where she stood, and
then thrust his hands into his pockets, and strolled after the others,
whistling under his breath. She could still hear his steps when John
Hammond emerged and also followed with bowed shoulders and dejected
bearing. The Lady Eva’s sense of terror grew greater and she wondered
whether the news, whatever it might be, would not be come at easier
elsewhere. But her father and Jeremy Tuft were still conversing behind
the closed door and she longed to know what they were saying. When she
first met him she had had a fleeting idea that he might prove to be a
bridge between her and her father.
A long interval elapsed and left her still in suspense. Once she went
a few paces in the direction of her own room, but she was ineluctably
drawn back again. She stared desperately behind her, to the right,
at the ground, anywhere rather than at her father’s door, which had
for her a fascination she felt she must resist. She was not looking
at it when she heard the sound of the handle. When she looked, it was
standing wide, and Jeremy and her father were framed in the opening,
their faces lit from the windows in the room.
Her father’s face wore an expression of exultation which she had never
seen there before, and, with a hand on his shoulder, was stooping over
Jeremy, who looked worried, sullen, fatigued.
“Then all will be ready in a week,” the old man was saying.
“Yes, they’ll be ready ... so far as that goes,” Jeremy replied in a
heavy toneless voice. “But there’s another thing we haven’t thought of.
They haven’t been tested yet.”
“They can’t be tested now,” the Speaker said firmly. “It would take
too long, and besides, we mustn’t have the slightest risk of the
news leaking out before we first use them. And you say that you are
satisfied with them, don’t you?”
“Yes, as far as I can see,” Jeremy muttered. “But there may be
something wrong that I haven’t noticed.”
“No doubt there may,” the Speaker agreed. “But if there is, it would be
too late to remedy it; and we should certainly be beaten without them.
We may as well disregard that.”
“But if there is,” Jeremy said with an air of protest, raising his
voice a little, “we may be....”
“Yes, yes,” the Speaker murmured, “you may all be blown up. But
there....” He drew Jeremy by the shoulder into the corridor, and both
their faces came into the shadow. The Lady Eva, seized by a sudden
terror, picked up her skirts and ran, miraculously noiseless, back to
her room.
CHAPTER IX
MARCHING OUT
1
The nightmare settled again around Jeremy with double darkness and
bewilderment. Again he labored in the workshops with his octogenarian
assistants, but this time at first under a new oppression and a new
hopelessness. Yet in some ways his mind was easier since he had
understood that the frenzied haste which the Speaker urged on him was
not urged without reason. After the council of war, the terrible old
man, still jubilant, still strung up to the highest pitch of nervous
energy, opened his mind to Jeremy without reserve. Jeremy, alarmed by
his shining eyes, his feverish manner, his wild and abrupt gestures,
still could not help seeing that his discourse was that of a sane man,
a practical statesman, who was putting all he had on a single throw
because there was no other choice.
“My family has ruled without dispute,” the Speaker said, “for a hundred
years--and that is a long time. We had no position, we merely stepped
into the place of the old government, and the people let us because
they were so tired. They obeyed us because they had been in the habit
of obeying us, when there was no one else for them to follow. But we
were not chosen, and we are too new to claim divine right. We cannot
even look to our religion for support, because the country is divided.
We here in the south are mostly by way of being Catholics, but though
the Holy Father would give us his help, we have never dared to accept
it. They are violent Methodists in Wales, and in Yorkshire and the
north they are nearly all Spiritualists.”
Jeremy inquired with interest what this new religion might be; but the
Speaker could only describe it as it existed, and then but vaguely.
He could not give the history of its growth. Jeremy gathered that
the Spiritualists still called themselves Christians, but depended
much less on the ministrations of any church than on advice received
in various grotesque ways from departed friends and relatives. Their
creed seemed to have degenerated into a gloomy and superstitious form
of ancestor-worship. They had absorbed also, he guessed, some of the
tenets of what had been called Christian Science; and the compound had
produced a great many extravagant manifestations. The Spiritualists
owned no law or discipline in the spiritual world, but acted on the
latest intelligence received from the dead. Most of them held firmly
that evil was a delusion, a doctrine which had come to have a strange
influence on conduct. All of them believed without a question in the
future life; and the absolute quality of their belief, the Speaker
thought, had gradually changed among them the distaste for fighting
which at one time possessed the whole country. It would further, he
thought, make them formidable soldiers. The picture he drew of them,
still living in the decay of an industrial system, packed close amid
the ruins of the old towns in a bleak country, dismayed and repelled
Jeremy. The Speaker’s discourses did not fail of their intended
effect. The listener began to believe that this enemy must be opposed
at all risks.
“And you,” the Speaker said earnestly, as Jeremy rested for a moment in
the workshop, “you shall have your reward. I have no son and I have a
daughter.” He muttered the last sentence so much under his breath that
it seemed he wished Jeremy not so much to hear it as to overhear it.
Jeremy’s mind had been elsewhere; and it was a minute or two before the
sense of these words penetrated to him. When it did, it brought him
sharply back to the actual world. But he did not speak at once. His
natural caution interposed, his natural diffidence bade him consider.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked quietly after an interval.
“What I say,” the Speaker answered. “If you succeed in what you have to
do, you shall be rewarded. If you don’t succeed, I shall not be able to
reward you, even if I wish to.”
Jeremy desired very strongly to point out that this was unjust, that
whether the guns would be a decisive factor in the coming battle
depended almost entirely on chance. But he refrained. He refrained,
too, from asking the Speaker precisely where the Lady Eva came into
the scheme. Fortune appeared to him like a great, glittering bubble,
which a miracle might make solid at the proper time for his hand to
seize it. He dared not question further: he dared not think how much
he was influenced by the Speaker’s determination not to consider the
consequences of defeat.
And as that crowded week wore on, his mind settled into a sort of calm,
like the apparent quietness of a wheel revolving at high speed. That
would be which was written. In his anxiety to be sure that there was
an adequate supply of shells (he did not hope to have more than thirty
for each gun) he quite forgot that one of them might suddenly blow him
into eternity, together with all the Speaker’s chance of success.
A great part of his time in the workshops was now spent alone--alone,
that is to say, as far as the Speaker was concerned, for the old man
was busy at the Treasury, mustering his army and making ready for it to
march. As for the octogenarians, Jeremy felt little more kinship with
them than if they had been a troop of trained animals. Communication
with them was so difficult that he confined it to the most necessary
orders. But when he realized that these ludicrous old men would have
to come with him to the battlefield to fire the guns, for want of time
to train others, he began to feel for them a kind of compassionate
affection. He regarded them rather as he would have done the horses
of the gun-teams than as the men of his battery; but towards the end
of the week he found himself talking to them, quite incomprehensibly,
as he might have done to horses. It seemed to him pathetic that
these witless veterans should be led out to war and set to the
highly hazardous venture of firing off the guns they had themselves
manufactured.
So, between the hours which he devoted to elementary instruction in
loading, aiming, and firing, he gave to them his views on the situation
in which he found himself. His views were, by reason of fatigue,
strong emotions and bewilderment, of a confused and even childish
sort. He told Jabez, the wizened expert in explosives, the whole story
of Trehanoc’s dead rat--a story which, brief as it was, covered more
than a hundred and seventy years. He confided to Jabez his desire,
his impossible craving, to see the rat again. It was perhaps a little
ridiculous to hanker so much after the society of a rather unpleasant
animal. Nevertheless he and the rat were in the same boat, and in his
more light-headed moments he felt that he ought to seek it out and take
counsel with it. He was sure that the rat would understand. At other
times he had a suspicion that it would have adjusted itself much more
easily to the changed world than he could ever hope to do. Perhaps it
had not even noticed that there had been any change. Jabez, wrinkled,
skinny and toothless, listened complacently while he went on fumbling
with his work, never letting a sign appear to show whether he did or
did not understand a word of it. Jeremy reflected that it was perhaps
better to be quite incomprehensible than to be half understood.
At the end of the week, on the afternoon of the sixth day, he decided
that all was done that could be hoped for. He put the gun-crew again
through its drill, and desisted for fear of scaring away what little
sense its members still retained. Then, after overhauling the guns once
more, he returned to the Treasury to report to the Speaker that he was
ready.
As he entered the building he met the Lady Eva, who had just come in
from riding. His mind was too dull and heavy to respond even to the
sight of her vigorous, flushed beauty. He merely saluted her--he had
queerly taken in the last few days to using again the old artillery
salute--and would have gone on. But he saw her hesitate and half turn
towards him; and he stopped and faced her. But when he had done so, she
evidently did not know what to say to him. She stood there, tapping
her foot on the ground and biting her lip, while he waited, bowed,
lethargic, incapable of speech.
At last she said, with a jerky effort: “I do not know how my father is
expecting you to save us ... but I know that he is....”
He wondered whether this was the attempt of a frivolous girl to get
news to which she had no right. He inclined his head gravely and made
no reply.
She went on, still with an obvious effort: “I know he is ... and I
wanted to wish you success, and that--that no accident may happen to
you.”
“I hope for all our sakes that there will be no accident,” he answered
wearily, “but you never know.” He waited a few moments; but she seemed
to have nothing more to say. He saluted her again and left her,
continuing his slow way to the Speaker’s room. He did not see that she
stood there looking after him until he was out of sight.
“We’re all ready,” he said tersely, as he entered.
“Then everything is ready,” the Speaker replied from his desk, where,
with his clerk standing by his side, he was signing documents with
great flourishes of a quill. “And it’s only just in time.”
“Only just in time?”
The Speaker dismissed the clerk and turned to Jeremy. “Only just in
time,” he repeated, with an expression of gravity. “They have moved
much quicker than I expected. They held up a train last week as soon as
their messengers got back, and they’ve been bringing up troops in it
nearly as far as Hitchin. Luckily it broke down before they had quite
finished, and so the line is blocked. But the advance-guard I sent out
met some of their patrols just outside St. Albans this morning.”
“Then the fighting has begun?” Jeremy asked, with a little excitement.
“Yes--begun.” The Speaker’s face was dark and sullen. “A hundred of
our men were driven through the town by a score or so of theirs. They
are moving on London already, but now they are coming more slowly than
they have been. I intend to set out to-night and we shall meet them
to-morrow somewhere on the other side of Barnet. They will come by the
Great North Road.”
Jeremy was silent, and the Speaker came to him and took his arm. “Yes,
Jeremy,” he said, with almost tenderness in his voice, “by this time
to-morrow it ought to be all over.”
“But if they beat us,” Jeremy cried, “they will be into London at once.
Haven’t you made any preparations? Won’t you send the Lady Burney and
the Lady Eva somewhere in the south where they will be safe? I met the
Lady Eva just now--she is still here----” He stopped and gulped.
“I will not,” said the Speaker, his voice deepening and taking on the
resounding, the courageous, the mournful tones of a trumpet. “If we are
beaten, then it is all over, and there is no need for us to look beyond
defeat. If we are beaten, I do not care what happens to me or to you
or to any one that belongs to me. For our civilization, that I have
worked so long to maintain, would be dead, it would be too late to save
England from savagery, and it would be better for all of us to die. Go
now and see that your guns are ready to move in three hours. The horses
will be there in time.”
Jeremy hesitated, reluctantly impressed by the old man’s solemn
fervor. Then, without a word, he left the room and returned to the
workshop.
2
As the end of the summer day faded and grew cooler, the Lady Eva sat
with her mother and their attendants in a window of the Treasury
overlooking Whitehall. The Lady Burney, who had long abandoned the
practice of reading, was yet in the habit of hearing long stories and
romances from clever persons who got them out of books; and she judged
from what she had learnt of wars in the old times that it would be
proper to her position to sit in a window and smile graciously on the
army as it marched out to battle. It was an unfortunate thing that
the Speaker, ignorant of her intentions and careless of the ritual of
conflict, had appointed various places of assembly for the troops, and
had taken no pains to make any part of them march through Whitehall.
Detached bodies went by at intervals; and some of them, who chanced
to look up, saw fluttering handkerchiefs. But most of them marched
doggedly and dully with drooping heads, reflecting in their courage the
prevailing spirit of gloomy anxiety which had settled on London.
Once a small erect figure on horseback clattered suddenly out of the
Treasury almost immediately underneath, struggling with a wildly
curvetting mount. The Lady Burney bowed and waved to it graciously.
The girl Mary began and checked a sharp sigh of admiration. The Lady
Eva sat motionless and expressionless. But Thomas Wells, impatient
annoyance apparent in the line of his back, as soon as he had mastered
the restive horse, trotted off, without once looking up, in the
direction of Piccadilly, where he was to join the Speaker.
The light grew less and less, the sky became paler, with a curious
and depressing lividity, as though the day were bleeding to death.
The sound of marching troops, never very great or very frequent, came
to the listeners in the window less often and less loud. A cloud
of impalpable sadness fell upon the city and affected the Lady Eva
like a spiritual miasma. The streets were not, in truth, quieter or
emptier than was usual at nightfall: there was no outward sign that
the people guessed at an approaching calamity. But there rose from all
the houses a soft, deadening air of gloom. It was as though London had
the heavy limbs, the racked nerves, the difficult breathing of acute
apprehension. The Lady Eva could feel, and dumbly shared, the general
oppression. She wished to leave the window, to take refuge amid lights
and conversation from the creeping chill. But her mother, obstinate and
sullen, dully incensed by the failure of her romantic purpose, insisted
on staying, and made the rest stay with her.
Just when the day was changing from a pale light shot with shadow
into the first darkness of evening, they heard a loud clattering in
Whitehall, a little way out of sight; and presently a long, slow
procession came by, made up of obscure, grotesque shapes, hidden or
rendered monstrous by the doubtful light. First there came a string of
wagons, each drawn by two or four horses; and the men who walked beside
them seemed to walk, or rather to hobble, with ludicrous awkwardness,
all with bent backs and some leaning on sticks. At the end rolled two
strange wheeled objects heavily swathed in tarpaulins, each drawn by
a team of eight horses. The women in the window, tired of regarding
the empty street for so long, gazed eagerly at these, but could not
make out or give them a name. The Lady Eva alone sat back in her chair,
hardly looking, until with a start she thought she saw a square,
familiar figure riding beside the train on a horse as square and sedate
as itself. Then she leant impulsively forward; but already Jeremy and
his guns were swallowed up in the shades as they jogged along towards
Charing Cross.
“Another baggage-train!” observed the Lady Burney, crossly and obesely,
as she turned away from the window.
* * * * *
Jeremy had, in fact, looked up at the windows of the Treasury as he
went by, and with a romantic thought in his head. But he, as little
aware as the Speaker of the observances proper to the marching out
of the army, had not expected to see any one there, and consequently
saw no one. He merely reflected that the Lady Eva was somewhere
behind those black walls; and he strove to lift away his depression
by reminding himself that he was going to fight for her. But this
exhortation had no effect on his anxious mind. The circumstances did
not in the slightest degree alter an extremely difficult situation. It
was merely one, even if the chief, of the factors which compelled him
to face that situation, however unwillingly. It would not assist him to
change the issue of a good old-fashioned infantry battle by means of
two very doubtful sixty-pounder guns.
But this depression occupied only one part of his mind. With another
he had got his column together at Waterloo, had seen to the effectual
disguising of the guns, had marshalled the old men in their proper
places and set out without misadventure or delay. The collapse of other
means of crossing the river sent them round by Westminster Bridge,
which shook and rumbled ominously under the weight of the guns, and
thence along Whitehall in the direction of Charing Cross Road. Jeremy’s
route had been indicated to him by the Speaker without the help of a
map; but, to his surprise, he had been able to recognize the general
line of it by means of the names. The column plodded slowly along a
vile causeway that had been Tottenham Court Road into another as vile
which was still called Euston Road, and, turning sharp to the right,
made for the long hill which led towards Islington.
The mere marching through that shadowed and cheerless evening was
depressing to Jeremy. He had chosen for his own use the fattest and
least exuberant nag that the Speaker’s stables could offer him; and
on this beast he cantered now and again to the head of the column and
back, to see that all was well and to urge haste on the leaders. The
old men were bearing it well. There was no doubt that they looked
forward with a gruesome and repulsive glee to the use of their
handiwork in action. As he rode by, Jeremy could see them hobbling
cheerfully, cackling and exchanging unintelligible jokes in high,
cracked voices. The gathering darkness and the changing shadows made
them seem even more ghostly and grotesque. Jeremy shivered. He felt as
though he were leading out against the living an army of the dead. But
he mastered his repulsion and cried out encouragement, now to one, now
to another, bidding them when they were tired to take it in turns to
ride on the wagons. They answered him with thin cheers; and a few of
them, marching arm-in-arm together, like old cronies released for an
airing from the workhouse, set up a feeble but cheerful marching song.
As they topped the rise of the hill, the moon came up and revealed the
uncanny desolation of the country through which they were moving. Here
all was ruin, with partial clearings, like those which had been made
in St. John’s Wood, only more extensive. The wide road had not been
mended, yet had nowhere fallen into complete disuse, and was a maze
of crisscrossing tracks and ruts, studded with pits which had here
and there become little pools. Jeremy silently but fervently thanked
the moon for rising in time to save his guns from being stuck in any
of these death-traps. He rode by the first gun, watching the road
anxiously; and he spent an agonized five minutes when one of the wagons
in front slipped a wheel just over the edge of a pit and blocked up the
only practicable way. The old men gathered around at once, cheering
themselves on with piping cries, and at last heaved the wagon out. The
column went slowly on--all too slowly, it seemed to Jeremy, who yet
dared not make greater haste.
And then, in spite of his fears and his whirling brain, fatigue sent
down on him a sort of numbing cloud. He drooped and nodded in the
saddle, picking his way only by a still, vigilant instinct. Wild
fancies and figures hurled themselves through his weary brain without
startling him. Once he seemed to see the thin, animal face of the
Canadian, teeth bared and a little open, painted on the darkness only a
few inches from his eyes. Once as he lurched heavily it seemed that the
arms of the Lady Eva caught him and steadied him and held him, and that
he let fall his head on the delicious peace of her breast. He woke
with a start to see that the road forked and that the column was taking
the road on the right. The moon was now high, and made his battery and
the road and the few houses that were still standing here all black and
silver. On his right stood a small ale-house, with open door, whence
came the pale glow of a dying fire. It occurred to him that he must
see to it that none of his old men straggled in here to rest or hide;
and, pulling out of his place in the column, he rode towards it. As he
did so he saw the sign on which the moonlight fell full and read with
strange feelings the rudely-scrawled words, “The Archway Tavern.” He
looked, with hanging lip and staring eyes, for the busy swing-doors
of the public-house which had been a landmark and which he had passed
he knew not how many times. Though he had never entered it, this
simulacrum, this dwindled vestige on the place where of old it had
stood, opulent, solid and secure, affected him like a _memento mori_,
a grim epitaph, the image of a skull. It was a sudden and poignant
reminder of the transiency of human things and of the strange nakedness
of the age in which he now lived. When he turned away he was sitting
limp and dazed in the saddle.
In an alternation of fits of such drowsiness and of vigorous, bustling
wakefulness, Jeremy got his column slowly over the undulations of
the Great North Road. The moon at last went down; and as morning
approached, the sky grew cloudy and every spark of light vanished from
the world. Then, at the moment they entered on the first rise of what
Jeremy supposed to be Barnet Hill, a thin breeze began to blow from the
east and to bring with it a faint radiance. Jeremy felt on his right
cheek the wind and the light at once, light like wind and wind like
light, both numbingly cold. And, as they came to the top of the hill,
the sun rose and revealed to them the assembled army.
CHAPTER X
THE BATTLE
1
Jeremy’s orders had been to meet the Speaker near the church on the
hill; and thither he rode, not staying to look about him. By the
long, cold shadow of the church tower stood a little knot of people
whom he recognized for the Speaker and his staff. He rode up to them,
dismounted stiffly, and saluted, as the old man came forward to meet
him.
“You have come, then,” said the Speaker, in his usual thick soft voice,
laying an almost affectionate hand on his arm. “And are the guns safe?”
“Quite safe,” Jeremy answered, shivering a little and stamping his feet
for warmth.
“I knew I could trust you to bring them,” the Speaker murmured. “Come
over here and they shall give you a warm drink.”
Jeremy went with him to the little knot of officers, who were standing
just in the growing sunlight, and took from a servant a great mug which
he found to be full of inferior, sickly-flavored whisky and hot water,
highly sweetened. He lifted his head from it, coughing and gasping a
little, but immediately found that he was warmer and stronger.
“All the army is assembled,” the Speaker told him. “We continue the
march in half-an-hour. The enemy pushed past St. Albans last night and
they are camped between here and there. The battle will be two or three
miles north of this.”
Jeremy was now sufficiently revived to look about him with interest.
Here, as almost everywhere in the farthest limits of London, the
restorations of time had been complete. The little town had returned
to what it was before the nineteenth century. The long rows of small
houses had gone, like a healed rash, as though they had never been;
and on all sides of the few buildings that clustered round the church
and to the north of it, grazing land stretched out unbroken, save
here and there by rude and overgrown walls of piled bricks. On this
narrow platform, which fell away rapidly on the right hand and on the
left, the troops were bivouacking, huddled in little clusters around
miserable fires or dancing about to keep themselves warm.
Jeremy’s eye ran from one end of the prospect to the other and back
again, until he became conscious that somebody was standing at his
elbow waiting for him to turn. He turned accordingly and found the
Canadian, whose customary barbaric fineness of dress seemed to have
been enhanced for the occasion by a huge dull red tie and a dull red
handkerchief pinned carelessly in a bunch on the brim of his hat.
“What do you think of them?” asked Thomas Wells in his hard, incisive
tones, indicating the shivering soldiers by a jerk of his head.
“I’ve not seen enough of them to think anything,” Jeremy answered
defensively. “I daresay they’re not at their best now.”
“Poor stuff!” snapped the Canadian, between teeth almost closed.
“Poor stuff at the best. I could eat them all with half of one of our
regiments. Yes ...” he continued, drawling as though the words had an
almost physical savor for him, “if I got among them with two or three
hundred of my own chaps, I bet we wouldn’t leave a live man anywhere
within sight in half-an-hour. We’d cut all their throats. It’d be like
killing sheep.”
Jeremy shuddered involuntarily and moved a step away. “Where’s all the
rest of the army?” he asked.
“The rest? There isn’t any rest. You can see all there is of it.”
“But surely ...” Jeremy began, and paused.
The Canadian laughed with malicious and evil amusement. “They’re not
great at fighting here,” he said. “If they’d taken only those that
wanted to come there’d be you and me and the Speaker. And they wouldn’t
take people from the fields--or not many at all events. And there’s
nobody come from Gloucestershire or the West, though the Speaker sent
to them twice. The farmers over there are waiting to see what happens.
They don’t want to quarrel with the bosses that buy their wool. No,
it’s not a big army--eight thousand at most. And yet,” he went on
reflectively, “it’s more than I had when I tore the guts out of Boston.
I tell you, we got into that city....”
“Yes,” Jeremy interrupted him nervously, not desiring in the least to
know what happened in Boston, “but how many have the northerners got?”
“Oh, not many more, by all accounts,” the Canadian answered airily.
“Ten or twelve thousand, I reckon. Oh, yes, we’re going to get whipped
all right, but I’ve got a good horse, and I expect the Chairman will
want to stand well with my dad. Yes--I’ve got a good horse, a lot
better than yours.” As he spoke he glanced at Jeremy’s tubby nag, and
his narrow mouth stretched again in the same smile of evil amusement.
Jeremy’s heart sank. But, as he was wondering whether his dismay was
betrayed by his face, a gentle bustle rose around them.
“We’re marching off,” cried the Speaker, as he strode by with the vigor
of a boy of twenty. “Back to your--to your charge, Jeremy Tuft.”
It was not until the whole army was well on the road that Jeremy found
himself sufficiently unoccupied to examine it carefully. His old men
resumed the march, with, if anything, a little too much enthusiasm.
They were extravagantly keen to show the twenty-first century what
their guns could do; but in their anxiety to take their place on the
battlefield they behaved, as Jeremy bitterly though unintelligibly
told them, like a crowd of children scrambling outside the door of a
Sunday-school tea. Even Jabez, whom he had chosen to act as a sort of
second-in-command, danced about from wagon to wagon and gun to gun like
the infant he was just, for the second time, becoming. A company of the
ordinary soldiers, who, in accordance with plan, had been attached to
the battery so that they might help in man-handling the guns, watched
the excited gyrations of the old men in solemn silence. The march
northwards out of the little town was well begun before Jeremy could
feel sure that his own command was smoothly and safely in hand. As soon
as he was satisfied he left it and rode on ahead to see what he could
make of the army.
He had had little enough time to make himself familiar with the new
methods of warfare. He had, in his rare, idle moments, questioned
everybody he met who seemed likely to be able to tell him; but he
found much the same uncertainty as to the deadliness of modern weapons
as he dimly remembered to have existed in the long past year of 1914.
The troops with whom he was riding to battle were armed, and had, many
of them, been drilled; but what would be the effect of their arms and
how their drill would answer in warfare no one knew, for they had never
been tried. He formed himself, this gray and early morning, a most
unfavorable impression of them.
Their uniforms were shabby and shoddy, uncouth, loosely-cut garments,
varying in shape and color. On their feet they wore rude rawhide shoes
or sandals and round their legs long strips of rag were shapelessly
wrapped. Their bearing was execrable. They made only the emptiest
pretense at march discipline, they slouched and shuffled, left the
ranks as they pleased, held themselves and their arms anyhow. The
officers were for the most part young men of good family who had been
appointed to commands only during the past four or five days. A few,
those who had trained the army in times of peace, were soldiers of
fortune, who had been drawn by the Speaker’s lavish offers to them from
the wars in the Polish Marches and in the Balkans, from every place
where a living could be earned by the slitting of throats. They were
old, debauched, bloated and lazy, low cunning peeping out from their
eyes like the stigma of a disease. They looked much better suited
to any kind of private villainy than to the winning of battles; and
the contingents under their command had an appearance of hang-dog
shiftiness rather than the sheepish reluctance of the rest.
Not much more than half the army was provided with rifles; and these,
as Jeremy knew, were hardly to be described as weapons of precision.
The rest had a sort of pikes; or some had cutlasses, some bayonets
lashed to the ends of poles. The rifles reminded Jeremy a little of
those of his earlier experience, but suffering from the thickening and
clumsy degeneration of extreme old age. They had no magazines: the
workshops were not equal to the production of a magazine that would not
result in fatal stoppages. The breech-loading action was retained and
was frequently efficient, so Jeremy learnt, for as many as twenty-five
rounds. After that it was liable to jam altogether and, at the best,
permitted only a reduced rate of fire. The range was supposed to be
five hundred yards, but the best and most careful marksman could rarely
at that distance hit a target the size of a man. Jeremy calculated
that the effective range was not more than two hundred yards at the
outside; and he thought that very little damage would be done at more
than half that distance. As he rode along by the side of the marching
regiments, he observed the pikes and cutlasses, and the sheathless
bayonets which hung at the belts of the riflemen, and wondered what
would happen when it came to close fighting. Neither the carriage nor
the expressions of the men inspired him with confidence. Many of them,
especially the new recruits, haled in at the last moment from field
and farm, were healthy, sturdy fellows; but, unless he was mightily
mistaken, an abhorrence of fighting was in their blood. He himself had
only a blunderbuss of a double-barreled pistol, which reminded him of
the highwaymen stories of his boyhood, and a most indifferent horse....
He reached the end of this train of thought, found it disagreeable, and
paused, as it were, on the edge of an abyss. Then he drew in his horse
against the roadside, halted, and let the column march past him. At
the end came his battery, plodding along with more enthusiasm than all
the rest of the army put together. Jabez, perched beside the driver
on the seat of the first wagon, hailed his reappearance with delight,
scrambled down and ran to him, putting one hand on his stirrup.
“Well, Jabez,” said Jeremy kindly, as he might have addressed an
affectionate dog, “and how do you think we are getting along?” As he
spoke he tapped his horse lightly and began to move on again. Jabez
hopped by his side, ecstatically proclaiming in cracked tones that
he expected the beautiful guns to blow the damned Yorkshiremen to
hell. The only thing that annoyed him was this great press of useless
infantry in front of them. They might be useful enough, he felt, to
drag the guns into position and perhaps to remove what was left of the
enemy when he had done with them. But he certainly envisaged the coming
battle as a contest between the army of the north on the one hand and
two doubtful sixty-pounder guns on the other. Jeremy listened to him
tolerantly, as if in a dream. Faint wreaths of mist were rising up from
the fields all around them and scattering into the sparkling air. The
tramp of the soldiers sounded heavy and sodden, a presage of defeat.
Far ahead Jeremy could see the column steadily but slowly following the
slight curves in the road. Right at the van, as he knew, though they
were out of his sight, were the Speaker and his staff--Thomas Wells,
on the swift horse to which he trusted, close at the old man’s right
hand. Somewhere just behind them was Roger Vaile, who, like many of the
clerks in the Treasury, had chosen to be a trooper in the cavalry and
had obtained admission to the Speaker’s own guard. Miles away in the
rear of the army was the Lady Eva, doubtless asleep; and around her,
who was now to him the one significant point in it, London, asleep or
waking, awaited the issue of the struggle. Jeremy felt terribly alone.
This was very different from being in charge of two guns out of some
five hundred or so bombarding the German front line before a push.
An unexpected wave of lassitude came over him, and, defeat seeming
certain, he wished that he could be done with it all at once.
As he sagged miserably in the saddle, a sudden check ran down the
column, followed by an ever-increasing babel of whispered conjectures.
The men behaved as infantry suddenly halted on the march always have
done. They were divided between pleasure at the relief and a suspicion
that something untoward had happened out of sight in front of them.
They murmured to one another, unceasingly and eloquently, that their
leaders were born fools and were taking them into a death-trap. But the
check continued and no certain orders came down; and at last Jeremy
rode forward, so that he might pass a slight rise in the ground and see
what had happened. When he did so he found that the head of the column
was already slowly deploying on both sides of the road.
“We’ve begun,” he murmured sharply to himself, and stayed a moment
hesitating. Then, as he remembered that he had not yet heard a single
shot, he spurred his horse on to make further enquiries. He found the
Speaker, Thomas Wells, and two or three others just leaving the road by
a farm-track to gain the top of a little mound close by.
The old man greeted him with a boyish wave of the hand. “There they
are!” he called out, while Jeremy was still some yards away; and,
following the sweep of his arm, Jeremy saw on the forward slope of a
hill, about half a mile off, a flurry of horsemen plunging wildly about
together. It looked at first like a rather crowded and amateurish game
of polo; but, while he watched, he saw the sun sparkling again and
again on something in the crowded mass. Then a body fell inertly from
the saddle and a riderless horse galloped off over the hill. A minute
later a few riders extricated themselves and smartly followed it.
“There they are!” said the Speaker again, this time in a quieter voice.
The greater body of horsemen was now cantering back; and, before they
had covered half the distance, a few scattered parties of infantry
began to appear on the low crest above. Shots were fired here and
there. The reports came over, dull and vague, against a contrary breeze.
“I must go back to my guns,” Jeremy gasped breathlessly. “I must go
back.” He turned his horse and began to gallop lumberingly along the
fields beside the road.
“Goo-ood luck to you!” came after him in a high-pitched mocking yell
from the Canadian.
In a minute he had reached the battery. When he pulled up there he had
to spend the best part of five minutes calming Jabez and his men, who
wished to drag the guns incontinently into the next field and let them
off at random over the slope before them. By liberal cursing he subdued
the enraged ancients and got them at a sedate pace past the infantry
immediately in front, who were in reserve and had not yet received
orders to proceed. When he reached the top of the rise again he found
that the whole of the enemy’s line had come into sight. It stretched
out on both sides of the road, and its left flank seemed to be resting
on a wood. It had ceased in its advance; and across its front a body of
cavalry was riding slow and unmolested.
2
The sound of firing broke out again and increased rapidly. From the
almost hidden line of the Speaker’s troops, and from the enemy on the
opposite slope, black puffs of smoke arose, looking solid and sharply
defined in the clear air. They drifted away, melting slowly as they
went. Jeremy suffered a spasm of panic and haste. The struggle was
beginning; and in a minute or two he must bring his guns into position
and fire them. He dreaded lest the battle should be suddenly over and
lost before he could let off a single round, lest he should never get
even the slender chance, which was all that he could hope for. In that
moment his faculties stopped dead, and he did not know what to do. But,
as rapidly, the seizure passed, and he halted the battery while he
rode out into the field on the right to find a position for the guns.
Presently he came upon a little shallow dip, which would, in case of
necessity, give cover from an attack by riflemen, while leaving to
the guns a clear field of fire. He went back to the road and gave his
orders.
Jabez and his companions began at once to behave like puppies
unchained. They turned the gun-teams and urged them recklessly off the
road with complete disregard of the ground they had to cover. “Steady,
Jabez, steady!” Jeremy shouted. “Look out for that----” But before
he could finish, the first gun had negotiated a most alarming slope,
and the second was hard upon it. At the end of ten minutes’ confused
sweating and bawling, the two guns were standing side by side, twenty
yards apart, in the hollow he had chosen; and the crews, panting loudly
with their mouths wide open, stood there also, looking at him and
eagerly expecting the order to load and fire.
He had early abandoned all hope of using indirect fire from any kind
of shelter: for the technical equipment of his men was plainly not
equal to it. He had therefore been obliged to decide upon the use
of open sights; and from the lip of this hollow he could see, he
imagined, a reasonably large area of the battlefield. It stretched, so
far as he could make out, from the woods on his right, which, where
the front line ran, were closer to the road than here, to a vague and
indiscernible point that lay a somewhat greater distance on the other
side of the road. The Speaker’s men were some three-quarters of a mile
in front of him, the enemy nearly half a mile beyond that. It appeared
to Jeremy that the exchange of shots up to now had been no more than a
symbolic expression of ill-will, since at that range it was obviously
impossible for the antagonists to hit one another.
A feverish and exhaustive search during the week of preparation had
not obtained for Jeremy the field-glasses which he had hoped might
be lying in some corner, uninjured and forgotten; but it had at last
brought forth a reasonably good pair of opera-glasses. With these at
his eyes, he stood on the edge of his hollow, shifting uneasily from
one foot to the other, and vainly searched the landscape for a target.
His only chance, he told himself, was to catch a mass of the enemy
somewhere in the open and to scatter them with a direct hit. If he
could do this, he thought, the moral effect might be to dismay them,
and to put heart into the Speaker’s troops. But he did not suppose
that he could rout the whole army of the north with fifty rounds of a
very feeble and uncertain kind of high explosive, which was all the
ammunition he had been able to get together for the two guns. “If only
we had shrapnel----” he was murmuring to himself; but then Jabez’s
attempt at a time-fuse had been altogether too fantastic. “If only we
had quick-firers ... seventy-fives....” But things were as they were,
and he must make the best of them.
But still no target presented itself. Neither line seemed to move; and,
in fact, any considerable movement must have been instantly visible
on that smooth, hardly broken stretch of pasture-land. This state of
immobility continued for half-an-hour or so, during which Jeremy’s
anxiety increased, relaxed, and increased again, until the alternation
of moods became almost unbearable. Once, quite suddenly, the firing,
which had grown slacker, broke out again violently on the right. It
began with an attempt at volleys, but after a moment or two fell into
irregularity and raggedness. Jeremy, scanning the ground with his
opera-glasses, could find no cause for it. He attributed it to panic
and was beginning to believe that the formidableness of the Yorkshire
army had been much over-rated. He had just let fall the glasses when
he was disturbed by a touch at his elbow. He turned and saw Jabez, a
stooped, shriveled figure that looked up at him with shining youthful
eyes in a face absurdly old.
“_Aren’t_ we going to let them off?” pleaded Jabez in wistful tones.
“Aren’t we _ever_ going to let them off? Just once--anywhere....” He
swept a claw-like hand round the horizon, as though it was immaterial
to him where the shot fell, so long as it was discharged. “It would
frighten those fellers,” he added with cunning.
Jeremy reluctantly smiled. “We must wait till we can frighten them
properly,” he answered, “and just at present I can’t see anything to
fire at.”
“We sha’n’t ever get a chance,” wailed Jabez; and he lolloped
mournfully back to the guns so as to be ready for the first order.
Intense quiet descended again upon the battlefield. Both sides seemed
to be lying down in their lines, each waiting for the other to make a
move. Jeremy uttered a short, involuntary laugh. This, he supposed, was
what might be expected from a people so incredibly unused to warfare,
but it was nevertheless a trifle ludicrous. He determined to ride
forward again and consult with the Speaker.
He had mounted and ridden a hundred yards from the battery, when a
second burst of firing broke out, this time apparently upon the left.
The road, which ran along the crest of a slight ridge, would give him
a better view, and thither he hastened. When he gained it he saw that
on the extreme left the battle had indeed begun and, to all appearance,
disastrously. A great body of Yorkshiremen was advancing in close
formation, and already the Speaker’s troops were giving way, some
throwing down their weapons, some firing wildly as they ran. Jeremy
paused rigid for a second. It was as though what he saw touched only
the surface of the brain and by that paralyzed all power of thought.
Those scuffling, running, dark figures over there were fighting and
being killed. They were fighting and being killed in the great contest
between civilization and barbarism for the body of England; and
barbarism, it seemed, was winning. But there was nothing impressive
in their convulsed and ungainly actions. They were merely dark figures
running about and scuffling and sometimes falling. Jeremy knew very
well what it was that he saw, but he did not realize it. It did not
seem real enough to make the intimate contact between perception and
thought which produces a deed. Then suddenly his paralysis, which felt
to him as though it had lasted a million years, was dissolved, and
before he knew what he was doing he had turned and was galloping back
to the battery at a speed which considerably astonished his horse.
“Get those guns out!” he yelled, with distorted face and starting eyes.
“Get those guns----” His voice cracked, but already the old men were
in a frenzy of haste, limbering up and putting in the teams. In a few
moments, it seemed, they were all scurrying together over the field,
Jabez clinging to Jeremy’s stirrup, flung grotesquely up and down by
the horse’s lumbering stride, the guns tossed wildly to and fro on the
uneven ground. They breasted the slight ridge of the road like a pack
of hounds taking a low wall and plunged down together on the further
side, men, guns, horses, wagons, all confused in a flying mass.
“My God!” Jeremy gasped to himself. “Any one would think we were
horse-gunners. I wouldn’t have believed that it could be done.”
His own reflection sobered him, and, lifting himself in the saddle, he
shouted to the insane mob around him: “Steady! Steady! Steady!” The
pace slackened a little, and a swift glance round showed him that, by
some miracle, no damage had been done. How these heavy guns and wagons,
even with their double teams of horses, had been driven at such a speed
over ground so broken and over the bank of the road was, he supposed,
something he would never be able to explain; and this was least of all
the moment for troubling about it. But the divine madness, which must
have inspired men and animals alike, had now evaporated, and it was
time to think what he must do. In another hundred yards he had made his
way to the front of the battery and had halted it by an uplifted hand.
Then first he was able to see how the situation had developed.
It had gone even worse than he had feared, and he had halted only just
in time. So far as he could make out, the whole of the Speaker’s left
flank had been driven back in confusion and was fighting, such of it as
yet stood, in little groups. Some of these were not more than three or
four hundred yards in front of him. Complete ruin had failed to follow
only because the Yorkshire troops had attacked in small force and were
for the moment exhausted. But over where their first line had been he
could see new bodies approaching to the attack. When he looked round
for help he found that the Speaker’s army was engaged all along its
length and that only a meager company of reserves was coming up, slowly
and from a great distance.
His decision was rapidly made. Now, if ever, he had his chance of
using his guns to demoralize the enemy, and if he could thus break up
the attack, the position might yet be restored. It was true that here
in the open he ran a mighty risk of losing the guns. The remnants of
the enemy’s wave were not far off; and hardly anything in the way of
defenders lay between him and them. But this only spurred him to take a
further risk. He led the battery forward again to a convenient hollow,
a few yards behind one of the still resisting groups, which was lodged
in a little patch of gorse. And, just as the battery came up, a party
of the enemy made a rush, driving the Speaker’s men back among the
horses and wagons. There was a whirlwind moment, in which Jeremy was
nearly thrown from his plunging horse. He had no weapon, but struck
furiously with his fist into a face which was thrust up for a second
by his bridle. Around him everything was in commotion, men shouting
in deep or piping voices, arms whirling, steel flashing. And then
miraculously all was quiet again and he calmed his horse. A few bodies
lay here and there, some in brown, some in uniforms of an unfamiliar
dark blue. They were like the line of foam deposited by the receding
wave. Not far away, Jabez, surprised and bewildered, but unhurt, lay
on his back, where he had been pushed over, waving his arms and legs
in the air. Another of the old men had collapsed across the barrel
of one of the guns and blood was spouting from his side. Beyond the
battery a few of the infantrymen were standing, wild-eyed and panting,
in attitudes of flight, unable to believe that their opponents had been
destroyed. Further off still the company which had been attached to the
guns, and which they had left behind in their wild rush, was coming up
and had halted irresolutely to see what turn events would take.
Jeremy recovered his self-possession, and, with the help of the shaken
but indomitable Jabez, got the guns into place and gave the order to
load. Then himself he trained the first gun on a body of Yorkshire
troops which was advancing in column over half a mile away. There
followed a tense moment.
“Fire!” He cried the word in a trembling voice. Jabez, with an air
of ineffable pride, pulled the lanyard and all the old men at once
leapt absurdly at the report. Over, far over! And yet the shell had
at least burst, and through his glasses he could see the enemy waver
and halt, obviously astonished by the new weapon. He ran to the other
gun, trained it, and again gave the order to fire. It was short this
time, and the smoke and dust of the explosion hid the mark. But when
the air was clear again, Jeremy saw that the column had broken and
was dispersing in all directions. Apparently the flying fragments of
the shell had swept its leading ranks. The old men raised a quavering
cheer, and Jabez, leaping with senile agility to an insecure perch on
the gun-carriage, flourished his hat madly in the air.
Jeremy’s first feeling was one of relief that neither of the guns
had blown up. He examined them carefully and was satisfied. When he
resumed his survey of the field there was no target in sight. But the
firing on the right was growing louder and, he thought, nearer. It was
not possible to drag these guns from point to point to strengthen any
part of the line that might happen to be in danger; and his despair
overwhelmingly returned. He swept the ground before him in the faint
hope of finding another column in the open. As he did so he suddenly
became aware that he could just see round the left of the ridge on
which the northern army had established itself; and, searching this
tract, he observed something about a mile away, under the shade of
a long plantation, that seemed significant. He lowered his glasses,
wiped the lenses carefully, and looked again. He had not been mistaken.
There, within easy range, lay a great park of wagons, which was
perhaps the whole of the enemy’s transport.
Now, if it were possible, he exultantly reflected, fortune offered
him a chance of working the miracle which the Speaker had demanded of
him. He beckoned Jabez to his side, pointed out the mark and explained
his intention. The ancient executed a brief, brisk caper of delighted
comprehension, and together they aimed the two guns very carefully,
making such allowances as were suggested on the spur of the moment by
the results of the first shots. They were just ready when the noise of
battle again clamorously increased on the right and urged them forward.
“It’s now or never, Jabez,” muttered Jeremy, feeling an unusual
constriction of the throat that hindered his words. But Jabez only
replied with an alert and bird-like nod of confidence.
“Fire!” Jeremy cried in a strangled voice. The lanyards were jerked,
and Jeremy, his glasses fixed on the target, saw two great clouds
spring up to heaven not far apart. Were they short? But when the smoke
drifted away, he saw that they had not been short. Feverishly he made
a slight adjustment in the aim, and the guns were fired again. Now one
burst showed well in the middle of the enemy’s wagons, but the second
did not explode. Jeremy was trembling in every muscle when he gave the
order to load and fire for the third time. Was it that he only imagined
a slackening, as if caused by hesitation, in the noise of the attack on
the right? He could hardly endure the waiting; but when the third round
burst he could hardly endure his joy. For immediately there leapt into
the air from the parked wagons an enormous column of vapor that seemed
to overshadow the entire battlefield, and hard after this vision came
a deafening and reverberating explosion, which shook the ground where
he stood.
“Got their ammunition!” he screamed, the tears pouring down his face.
“There must have been a lot!” He reached out blindly for Jabez; and
the old men of the battery observed their commander and his lieutenant
clasping one another by the hands and leaping madly round and round in
an improvised and frenzied dance of jubilation.
When the echoes of that devastating report died away, complete silence
stole over the battlefield, as though heaven by a thundered reproof
had hushed the shrill quarrels of mankind. It was broken by a thin
cheering, which grew louder and increased in volume till the sky rang
with it; and Jeremy, rushing forward to see, realized that everywhere
within sight the Speaker’s men had taken heart and were falling boldly
on their panic-stricken enemies.
CHAPTER XI
TRIUMPH
1
The brief remainder of the battle was for Jeremy a confused and violent
phantasmagoria. Immediately on the heels of that triumphant shout he
ordered the guns to be brought forward again and had the luck to plump
a single shell into a body of the enemies’ reserves before they finally
melted out of existence. After that he could not find another mark to
fire at. The northern army, struck down in the moment of victory by
an overwhelming panic, crumbled all along its line and broke up into
flying knots of terrified men, who were surrounded and harried by the
jubilant and suddenly blood-thirsty troops of the Speaker. When he
perceived this, Jeremy was overcome by a rush of blood to the head.
“We’ve done it! We’ve done it!” he muttered in a dazed way. And then
this stupefaction was replaced by a wild and reckless delight. “Come
on, Jabez!” he yelled, pounding with his heels the long-suffering
horse. “Come on! We’ve got to see this!” Again they were off together,
this time leaving the guns behind. Jabez, exalted to an activity wholly
unsuited to his years, flung up and down at the stirrup, while Jeremy
waved his whip in the air and shouted incoherently. Before they knew
it they had shot into the rearmost of the scattered fighting, and had
ridden down an escaping Yorkshireman. Jeremy saw for a moment at his
bridle the backward-turned, terror-distorted face and slashed at it
fiercely with his whip. The man fell and lay still; and Jabez with a
convulsive leap passed over the body. Out of the corner of his eyes
Jeremy half saw, only half realizing it, that one of the Speaker’s men
was jabbing with his bayonet at a wriggling mass on the ground beside
him. Then they were through that skirmish, and for a couple of hundred
yards in front of them the field was empty. But the gentle slope beyond
was covered with small figures, running, dodging, stopping and striking
with the furious and aimless vitality of the ants in a disturbed nest.
Jeremy and Jabez had hastened into the midst of them before Jeremy was
overtaken by a belated coolness of the reason. When the sobering moment
came, he wished he had had the sense to keep out of this confused and
murderous struggle, and at the same time he remembered that his only
weapon was a pistol still strapped in its clumsy holster. He reached
for it and began to fumble with the straps; but while he fumbled a
desperate Yorkshireman, turning like a rat, pushed a rifle into his
face and pulled the trigger. It was not loaded. Jeremy, trying to
understand that he was still alive, saw in an arrested instant like an
eternity the man’s jaw drop and his eyes grow rounder and rounder, till
suddenly the staring face vanished altogether. Jabez, shaken to his
knees by the man’s onset, had grasped an abandoned pike and had stabbed
upward.
Jeremy reined in and quieted the almost frantic horse. A cold sweat
broke out on his face, and he felt a little sick. He wiped his forehead
with his sleeve and looked faintly from the dead Yorkshireman to
Jabez, who stood with the bloody pike in his hand, an expression of
complacent excitement wrinkling the skin round his eyes. The fighting
had already passed beyond them; and Jeremy without moving let it roll
away noisily over the crest of the hill. He made no sign even when
Jabez shouldered his weapon with a determined air and began to trudge
off defiantly in its wake. But when the queer lolloping figure had
already begun to grow smaller, Jeremy put his hands to his mouth and
shouted:
“Jabez! Jabez! Come back!” Jabez turned, shook his head, waved the
pike with warlike ferocity, and shouted something in reply that came
faintly, indistinguishably against the breeze. Then he resumed his
march, leaving his commanding officer alone.
It was over half-an-hour later that Jeremy found the Speaker. By that
time the fighting was all over, and the fields, hardly changed in
appearance by being dotted with a number of corpses, so soon to be
resolved into the same substance as their own, were quiet again. In
the course of his search, Jeremy encountered much that he would rather
not have seen. He saw too many men lying face downwards with wounds
in their backs, too many with tied hands and cut throats. He realized
that a battlefield can too literally resemble a slaughter-house; and
these evidences of the ferocity of an unwarlike race appalled him. And
he even found one of the mercenary officers, of the sort that he had
observed earlier in the day and had disliked, in the act of dispatching
a prisoner, preparatory to going through his pockets. He advanced
angrily on the man, who did not know him and turned with a curse from
his just accomplished work to suggest that Jeremy’s throat would prove
equally vulnerable. Held off by Jeremy’s pistol, he strolled away with
insolent unconcern. Jeremy continued his way and at last discovered
the Speaker, a couple of miles beyond the line on which the battle had
been decided. As he came up, he could see that the old man’s dress was
disheveled, and that his horse was lathered and weary, presumably from
taking part in the pursuit.
By this time he was faint and exhausted, and he did not announce
himself in the confident manner that might have been permitted him. He
rode up slowly to the crossroads, where the Speaker and Thomas Wells
were standing under a sign-post, and dismounted. They were deep in a
conversation and at first did not see him. The Speaker’s thick voice
came in rapid jerky bursts. His reins were lying on the horse’s neck,
and he gesticulated violently with his hands. The Canadian, whose eyes
seemed to Jeremy to burn with a fiercer red than ever, spoke more
slowly, but there was a kind of intense richness and gusto in his tone.
Jeremy felt too inert to make any sound to attract their attention; but
as he came nearer Thomas Wells touched the Speaker’s arm and pronounced
deeply:
“There’s your hero!”
The Speaker dismounted and, running without consideration of dignity to
Jeremy, clasped the astonished young man in his arms.
“You have done it! You have done it!” he cried again and again. “There
is nothing left of them!” Then, when his transports had abated a
little, he went on more calmly. “We have smashed them to pieces. The
rebel army has ceased to exist, and the Chairman has been killed.”
“Killed?” cried Jeremy, in surprise.
“Yes, killed,” the Canadian interjected, still in the saddle and
leaning down a little to them. “There’s no doubt that he’s dead. I
killed him myself.”
“But was that wise----” Jeremy began. “Wouldn’t it have been better to
keep him? It would have given us a hold over his people.”
“That’s what _he_ said,” the Canadian answered drily. “He seemed quite
anxious about it. But I always go on the principle that you can’t be
sure what any man is going to do unless he’s dead. Then you know where
he is.”
“Yes, he’s dead, he’s dead,” the Speaker broke in, in a rising voice.
“The scoundrel has got what he asked for. He’ll never lift his hand
against me or my people again!” Jeremy, dismayed and sickened, saw in
the old man’s posture something of the inspiration, of the inhuman
rage, of a Hebrew prophet. He dared not look at Thomas Wells, from
whose grinning mouth, he fancied, as from that of a successful ferret,
drops of blood must still be trickling.
“But it was you that gave him into our hands, Jeremy,” the Speaker
resumed, in a softer and caressing voice. “You did for him--you killed
him. All the thanks is yours, and I shall not be ungrateful!”
The Canadian laughed, low and ironical. Jeremy’s stomach for a moment
revolted and a thick mist of horror swam before his eyes.
“Listen! Listen to the bells!”
Jeremy roused himself, cocked his head and listened. He was riding
slowly beside the Speaker down the long undulations of the Great North
Road that led them back to London. Sure enough, far and faint but
insistent, that sweet metallic music reached his ears, a phantom of
sound that stood for a reality. London was already rejoicing over its
deliverance. A thin haze covered the city; and out of it there rose
continuously the ringing of the bells.
“I sent messengers in front of us,” the Speaker went on, with great
content. “They will be ready to greet us--to greet you, I ought to say.
This has been your battle.”
Jeremy bestirred himself again. An urgent honesty drove him to do what
he could to make the truth plain. It was pleasant, and yet intolerable,
that he should be saddled with a victory that he had won only because
he had been the instrument of fortune. He reasoned earnestly with the
old man. He pointed out to him what a piece of luck it had been that
the Yorkshiremen were fools enough to leave their transport exposed.
He insisted that it was a mere chance that the destruction of their
ammunition had thrown them into so disastrous a panic. When at last he
was silent, the Speaker resumed, unmoved:
“It was your battle, Jeremy Tuft. You settled them. I was right to rely
on you.”
The Canadian, who was riding on the Speaker’s left hand and had not
yet uttered a word, breathed again upon the air a shadow of ironical
laughter, which Jeremy felt rather than heard, and which the old man
disregarded.
“They will come out to meet us,” the Speaker murmured in a rapturous
dream, “and you shall be toasted at our banquet. Ah, this is a great
day, a wonderful day! England is restored. Happiness and greatness
lie before us. I shall be remembered in history with the good Queen
Victoria.” He turned a little in the saddle and looked keenly at
Jeremy. “Do you not ask what lies before you?”
Jeremy, staring straight in front of him, knew that he was reddening
and swore inwardly. He wanted to be left alone.
“I’m glad you’re pleased,” he muttered, awkwardly and absurdly; and he
began to calculate how far they were now from Whitehall and how much
longer the journey would take. He supposed that he would be overwhelmed
with undeserved congratulations at the end of it; but he reckoned that
under them it would be his part to be dumb and that no disconcerting
questions would be asked of him. The Speaker was too happy to do
more than smile at the young man’s moodiness. As they rode along he
continued his murmurings, which rose now and then into loud-voiced
rhapsody.
In the daylight Jeremy vaguely recognized the country through which
he had passed, in darkness, on the previous night, for the first time
for many generations. At the Archway Tavern, which looked even ruder
and more squalid under the sun than under the moon, the inn-keeper and
his family threw flowers at them and shouted uncouth blessings. But
as they passed through Holloway and Islington, deserted and ruined
districts, only a few squatters appeared to watch the conquerors
march by. These hardly human beings displayed no emotion save a faint
curiosity. They stood by the roadside, singly or in little groups, here
and there, and gazed on the triumphant cavalcade with enigmatic faces.
They reminded Jeremy of horses which he had seen gathering at a gate
by the railway-line to watch a train go past. Their thoughts, their
expectations, their hopes and fears, were as much hidden from him as
were the minds of animals. And, as he looked at them, he experienced a
singular pang. What to these creatures was all human history? What did
it matter to them whence he had come, what he had done, what his future
fortunes might be? Their sort, oppressed and tortured, had risen and
had smashed in pieces the vast machine that tortured them, destroying
by that act all that made life gracious and pleasant, and accomplished
for their masters. It mattered so little to them what their own
ancestors had done: it could not much matter what had been or would be
the deeds of Jeremy Tuft, what edifice the old Jew would erect on the
foundation laid by the victory. They gaped a little as they stared.
Their attention was fleeting: they turned away and spoke and laughed
among themselves. Jeremy felt in a piercing instant the nullity of
human striving; and his blood was chilled.
When they reached the crossroads at the Angel, they went through a
more elaborate repetition of the ceremony at the Archway Tavern. A
deputation of good villagers brought out hastily twined wreaths to
them, waved cloths in the air and shouted loyally; and the Speaker,
bowing his thanks and his gratification, urgently commanded Jeremy
to do the same. So it went all the way, save that the demonstrations
grew increasingly elaborate, and as they approached the city became
continuous. The people were throwing down flowers from their windows
and hanging out flags. At the doors of the larger houses crowds were
assembling to receive free distributions of beer; and down some of the
turnings off the main street Jeremy could see rings of men and women
beginning already to dance and romp in the abandon of an unexpected
holiday.
In Piccadilly the crowd had grown impenetrable; and by the spot where
the Tube Station had stood they were brought to a halt and remained for
some minutes. Loud and incessant cheering mingled with the noise of the
bells. Daring young girls ran out from the crowd to hang the victors
with flowers; and Jeremy saw with concern the profusion of blossoms
covering first his horse’s head and at last mounting up round his
own. The mechanical bowing and smiling which the Speaker had enjoined
on him began to tell on his nerves. He was conscious of bright eyes
persistently seeking his, as the lingering hands fastened garlands
wherever there was room for them, on his saddle or on his coat. He
turned his head uncomfortably this way and that, shifted in the saddle,
sought shamefacedly the eyes of the Canadian for some sort of sympathy.
When he saw that Thomas Wells had had few wreaths bestowed on him and
was grinning with more than his usual malice, he looked away again
hastily.
The noise and movement around him continually increased; and it seemed
that every minute some new bell found its voice and the crowd grew
larger. Jeremy felt crushed and stunned, felt that he was sinking
under the weight of the people’s enthusiasm. He felt so small and so
oppressed that it seemed impossible that most of this could be meant
for him. And yet vaguely, dully, he could see the Speaker at his side,
pointing at him and apparently shouting something. He could not make
out what it was; but he knew that every time the Speaker paused the
continuous yelling of the crowd rose to a frantic crescendo, in which
the whole world seemed to sway dizzily around him.
Suddenly, when he thought that he could bear no more, there was a
wavelike motion in the press before them; and it broke open, leaving
a passage through it. A carriage advanced slowly and stopped; and
out of it came the Lady Burney, followed by the Lady Eva, each of
them carrying in each hand a small wreath of green leaves. Jeremy,
petrified, watched them walking through the narrow clear space. The
Lady Burney moved very slowly with corpulent dignity and acknowledged
the cheering as she came, while the Lady Eva seemed nervous, and looked
persistently at the ground. When they reached the little group of
motionless horsemen, the Lady Burney would have handed a wreath to the
Speaker, but he signed her away, crying in a loud voice:
“Both to Jeremy Tuft! Both to Jeremy Tuft!”
The crowd redoubled its vociferations, while Jeremy, feeling himself
at the lowest point of misfortune, leant over to the Lady Burney. She
deposited both of her wreaths somewhere, anywhere, on the saddle before
him and then, raising her arms, firmly embraced him and planted a kiss
on his cheek, just underneath the left eye. He nearly yelled aloud
in his astonishment; but before he could do or say anything, she had
rolled away and the Lady Eva was standing in her place.
It seemed to Jeremy at this moment that the shouting abruptly grew
less, and that as the noise faded the surroundings faded too, and
became misty and unreal. There was nothing left vivid and substantial
in the world but himself, numb, dazed, unhappy, and the tall girl
beside him, her face bravely raised to his, though her cheeks were
burning. She, too, seemed, by the convulsive movement of her hands,
to be about to put her wreaths on any spot that would hold them, but,
with an effort that made her body quiver, she controlled herself and
placed one on his head, from which the hat long since had gone, and
fastened the other on his breast. She did this with interminable
deliberation, while the people maintained their astonishing quietude.
Then, after a pause, she put her arms round his neck and placed her
lips on his cheek. At this signal the crowd’s restrained joy broke out
tumultuously. Jeremy closed his eyes and swayed over towards the girl,
then caught at his horse’s mane to save himself as she slipped away.
When they began to move again, he had lost all control of himself. He
shivered like a man in a high fever, his teeth were chattering, and
he was sobbing ungovernably. He had afterwards a confused memory of
how they proceeded slowly down the Haymarket into Whitehall, and how
a dozen helpers at once sought to lift him from his horse outside the
door of the Treasury.
2
Jeremy’s next distinct impression was that of sitting in a small room
while the Speaker poured down his throat a glass of neat smoke-flavored
whisky. It revived him, and he straightened himself and stood up, but
he found that his back ached and that his legs were unsteady. The
Speaker forced him down again and bent over him tenderly, muttering
caressing and soothing words at the back of his throat.
“You will feel better presently,” he said at last; and he went out
softly, looking back and smiling as he went. When he was alone, Jeremy
rose again and walked towards the door, but was checked at once by a
great fatigue and weakness. He looked round the room, and, seeing a
couch, threw himself at full length upon it.
“I wish I could go to sleep,” he murmured to himself. But his brain,
though it was exhausted, was so clear and active that he gave up all
hope of it. When, a minute later, sleep came to him, it would have
astonished him if he could have noticed it coming.
He woke to wonder how long he had been unconscious. It had been about
noon when they had arrived at the Treasury; but now the tall trees
outside the window hid the sky and prevented him guessing by the sun
what hour it was. He turned over on to his back and stared up lazily
at the ceiling. The confusion which had at first overwhelmed his mind,
and the unnatural clarity which had followed it, were both gone, and he
felt that he was normal again, not even very much tired. The indolence
and calm of the spirit which he now experienced were delicious: they
were like the physical sensations which succeed violent exercise.
He looked down again with a start, as he heard the door quietly opened;
and he saw the Lady Eva standing there. She had a mysterious smile on
her lips, and her whole attitude suggested that she was bracing herself
to meet something which frightened but did not displease her. Jeremy
rose abruptly, his heart beating, and tried to speak; but he could not
get out a single word.
“My father sent me to ask if you were better,” said the Lady Eva in
a low voice. As he did not answer she closed the door behind her and
advanced into the room. “Are you better?” she repeated, a little more
firmly. Jeremy took a step towards her and hesitated. The situation
seemed plain, and yet, at the last moment of decision, his will was
paralyzed by a fear that he might be absurdly deceiving himself.
“I am much better now,” he answered, with an effort. “I only feel a
little tired.”
“There is a banquet at five o’clock. I hope you will be able to attend
it.”
Jeremy shivered slightly and his wits began to return to him. “Will it
be like--like this morning?” he enquired with a faint smile.
She smiled a little in reply. “Don’t you want us to be grateful to
you?” she said. “You know what you have saved us from--all of us. How
can we ever reward you?”
“That’s my chance,” Jeremy’s mind insisted again and again. “That’s my
chance ... that’s my chance ... I ought to speak now.” But the short
interval of her silence slipped away, and she went on gently:
“You must expect to be congratulated and toasted. Will you be strong
enough to bear it? My father will be disappointed if you are not.”
It was at that moment, quite irrelevantly and by a process he did not
understand, that Jeremy took the Lady Eva in his arms. Afterwards he
had no consciousness, no recollection, of the instant in which their
lips had met. There had simply been an insurgence of his passion and of
his loneliness, ending in an action that blinded him. The next thing
he remembered was folding her bowed head into his shoulder, stroking
her smooth hair with a trembling hand, and muttering hoarsely and
helplessly, “Dearest ... dear one....”
Then they were sitting side by side on the couch and their positions
were reversed. His head lay on her shoulder, while her fingers moved
gently up and down his cheek. He stayed thus for some minutes without
speaking or moving. He had been in love before and had not escaped
the mood in which young men picture the surrender of the beloved. He
had even more than once, after a long or a short wooing, held a girl
in his arms and kissed her. But he had never yet seen this sudden and
astonishing transformation of a stranger, mysterious and incalculable,
whose faults and peculiarities were as obvious as her beauty was
enchanting, into a creature who could thus silently and familiarly
comfort him. The moment before she had been some one else, the Lady
Eva, a person as to whose opinion of himself he was uncertain and
curious, that most baffling and impenetrable of all enigmas, another
human being, divided from him by every barrier that looks or speech
can put in the way of understanding. And now she was at once a lover,
a part of himself, a spirit known by his without any need of words. He
adjusted himself slowly to the miracle.
Presently he raised his head and searched her eyes keenly. She bore his
gaze without flinching; and something again drew their mouths together.
Then Jeremy said,
“I must speak to your father at once. Do you suppose he will feel that
I have presumed on his gratitude to me?”
“I know he will not,” she answered. “I am sure he meant to give me to
you. Do you think that otherwise....” She stopped, and there was a long
pause. “But I wanted you ... first....” Again she could not go on, but
began to sob a little, quietly. Jeremy, helpless and inexperienced,
could think of nothing better to do than to gather her into his arms
and kiss her hair. His sudden comprehension of her seemed to have
vanished with as little warning as it came. She was again a mysterious
creature; but now the mystery was a new one. He was like a man who,
after the triumph of accomplishing a steep ascent, finds that he has
reached no more than the first slope of the mountain.
When her face was hidden she continued with more confidence, but in
a low and broken voice. “I wanted you to tell me that you ... wanted
me, before my father gave me to you. I thought ... perhaps you did ...
I hoped....” She freed herself from his arms and sat up, looking at
him with proud eyes, though her face was blazing. “It is better than
being given to you only as a reward for winning a battle,” she finished
deliberately.
Jeremy experienced the most inexplicable feeling of the young
lover--admiration for the beloved. He wished to hold her away from
him, to contemplate the lovely face, the gallant eyes, to tell her
how wonderful she was, and how he could thank Heaven for her even if
he might never touch her hand again. And on the heels of this came
a great rush of unbearable longing, with the realization that human
tongue was not able to express, or human nerves to endure, his love for
her. He turned dizzy and faint, his sight went black, and he stretched
out his arms vaguely and helplessly. When she gave herself into them,
he clasped her fiercely as though by force he could make her part of
himself, and she bore his clumsy violence gladly.
“This hurts me,” he said in the puzzled voice of a child, when he had
let her go again. She gave him with wet eyes a sufficient answer. Then
he went on with the same simplicity, “I have been so lonely here--I
didn’t know how lonely. Are we going to be happy now? I am afraid ...
of what may happen....” She kissed him once and rose.
“I must go now,” she said steadily. “Oh, we shall be happy--this dread
means nothing, it is only because we are so happy.” He started and
looked at her, made uneasy by her echo of his thoughts. “Good-by, my
dear,” she said. She left the room quietly without his raising a hand
to keep her back.
When she had gone his feelings were too violent to find vent in any
movement. He sat quite still for some minutes until his brain was
calmer and he could at last stand up and walk about the room. It was
thus that the Speaker found him; and Jeremy stopped guiltily and stood
waiting. The old man was evidently still in good humor. He stroked his
chin and regarded Jeremy with beaming eyes.
“I take it you are feeling better,” he pronounced drily, after a
moment’s silence.
“I am quite well,” Jeremy answered hurriedly, “very well. I must tell
you at once, sir----”
The Speaker stopped him with a gesture. “I know. I passed my daughter
in the corridor leading to her room. You want to tell me that you have
taken my gift before I could make it. Nevertheless, I shall have the
great joy of putting her hand in yours at the banquet to-night.”
“I can’t thank you ...” Jeremy mumbled.
The Speaker made a benevolent movement of his hand. “What you and she
have done,” he went on, “is much against our customs, but we are not
ordinary people, you and I and she. You will be happy together, and it
will make me happy to see you so. And I think you are young enough to
get from her the help that I should have had, if there had not been so
many years between us. She has something of me in her that you will be
able to use. You will need to use it, for you will have a great deal to
do, both now and afterwards, when I am gone and you are the Speaker.”
Jeremy inclined his head in silence.
“The banquet is in half-an-hour from now,” the Speaker said, turning
towards the door. “If you are well enough to attend it, you must go and
dress at once.”
CHAPTER XII
NEW CLOUDS
1
It was in a state of tranquil elation that Jeremy left his room to
take his place at the banquet in the great hall. All day one emotion
had been chasing another through his mind, like clouds hurrying across
a storm-swept sky. Now it seemed that the last cloud had gone and had
left a radiant evening serenity. He had been crushed by congratulations
that morning. In the afternoon his love for the Lady Eva had exceeded
his endurance. But to-night he felt himself able to bear the last
degree of joy from either. He dressed with care, and, a minute or so
before the hour, walked with a light and confident step through the
corridors of the Treasury. He approached the hall by way of the private
passages and turned into an ante-room, where, on ceremonial occasions,
the Speaker and his family and his guests were accustomed to wait until
the proper moment for taking their seats.
Here he found himself alone. After lighting an Irish cigar, he
strolled jauntily up and down the room with his hands in his pockets,
occasionally humming a bar or two of one of the songs of the
nineteen-twenties--the last expressions of a frivolous and hilarious
phase of society--or lightly kicking the furniture in the sheer height
of his spirits. Not once since the moment of his waking in the
Whitechapel Meadows had he been in such a mood. Something had happened
to him of which he had no experience before; and its paradoxical
result was to make him thoroughly at home in the new world for the
first time. He felt like a man who in choppy water has been bumping
up and down against the side of a quay and has at last succeeded in
making himself fast. And, even in this gay and careless spirit, he was
deeply conscious of what it was that had made him gay and careless.
He continued, even through his light-hearted and somewhat ludicrous
maneuvers up and down the room, through his tuneless but jaunty
renderings of vulgar songs, to praise Heaven for having made the Lady
Eva and for having given her to him. He knew that it was because of her
that he was fit, as he told himself, reverting to earlier habits of
phrase, to push a house over.
He did not, as he had hoped, get a moment alone with her before the
banquet began. The Speaker beckoned him out without entering the
room, and he could only catch a glimpse of her, by the side of the
Lady Burney, as they entered the hall together. Immediately on their
entrance the guests, who were already assembled, rose to their feet and
began to cheer deafeningly. The sound had on Jeremy’s spirits an effect
contrary to that which it had had in the morning. It elated him; and
when the Speaker, with a hand on his shoulder, drew him into a more
prominent place on the dais, he bowed without self-consciousness. At
last the Speaker raised his hand authoritatively and obtained silence.
There was a shuffling of chairs; and it seemed to be supposed that the
banquet would begin. But the Speaker cried in a thundering voice:
“My friends!” A profound and instant hush fell on the assembly. “My
friends,” he continued less loudly. “It is not our custom to make
speeches before dinner or my custom to make long speeches at any time.
I do not intend to say now what is in all our minds. But I believe that
good news is the better for being soon told; and I have news to give
you which I would like you to enjoy during dinner as well as after it.
Jeremy Tuft, to whom under Heaven we owe our lives and our freedom
to-night, has asked for the hand of my daughter, and she has consented
to marry him.” The hush continued, while he said briskly in a low but
audible tone, “Your right hand, girl--your right hand, Jeremy.” Then
he went on again more loudly, “I put their hands together. I am the
first to wish them happiness.” In the uproar that followed, Jeremy had
a confused notion that he and the Lady Eva bowed to the guests in the
hall with equal composure. He was vividly aware that the Lady Burney
had kissed him, this time on both cheeks. A lull followed, in which his
condition of exaltation enabled him to express his gratitude and joy in
a few words without faltering. And then suddenly it was all over. He
was sitting next to the Lady Eva, saying something to her, he knew not
what, in an undertone; and the banquet had begun.
When he was calm enough to look around him, he saw that the table
on the dais at which he was sitting was occupied by all the most
influential of the “big men” that were in the habit of attending the
Treasury. The Speaker sat at the middle of one side. The Lady Burney
sat on his right, and beyond her the Canadian, on whose face for once
the ordinary expression of grinning malice had given way to one of
sinister displeasure. On his left was the Lady Eva, next to whom
came Jeremy. Jeremy’s neighbor was the wife of a “big man” whom he
knew but slightly, and who, to his relief, was at once engaged in
conversation by the apparently still careworn and desponding dignitary,
Henry Watkins. From this survey Jeremy turned with pleasure to the
Lady Eva. Her mood chimed with his, and he was in high spirits. Her
eyes were gleaming, her color was bright, and she talked lightly and
without restraint. He noticed, too, with some pleasure that she showed
a healthy appetite and took a sensible interest in good food. He was
very hungry; and they talked for some time about the dishes. She did
not drink, however. Nothing was served, indeed, no drinks were usual in
England of that day, save whisky and beer, both of which were produced
in good quality and consumed in large quantities. Jeremy, fearful
of the effect either might have on him in his already stimulated
condition, drank whisky sparingly, having weakened it with a great deal
of water. So the banquet went through its innumerable courses to the
last of them. At the end the servants cleared the table, and, with the
costly Irish cigars, great decanters were brought in. These contained
a kind of degenerate port which, for ceremonial reasons, was usually
produced on the greatest occasions. But it was very nasty; and most
persons confined themselves to a single glass of it, which they took
because, for some inscrutable reason, it had been the custom of their
ancestors.
The speeches, which began at this point, were excessively long and
tedious. Jeremy gathered that a succession of hour-long speeches on
every public occasion was one of the habits of the time, though it
seemed to him as incomprehensible as seemed in the twentieth century
the even longer sermons of an earlier period. Notable after notable
arose and made the same remarks about the victory and the marriage,
sometimes not even perceptibly varying the language. It was only in
Henry Watkins’s oration that he found any gleam of interest.
It began dully enough. The man looked gloomy, and his utterance was
halting. Jeremy was at first soothed into sleepiness by the monotonous
voice. He decided that this great and wealthy man was almost certainly
a descendant of the charwoman from whom he had had the earliest
intimation that “trouble” was really in the air. There was something
unmistakably reminiscent both in his despondency and in his stupidity.
But all at once a new resemblance struck his ears and stimulated his
attention. Mrs. Watkins, in that fast fading antiquity, had brought
him bodements of ill; and this latest scion of her line seemed to be
playing the same part.
“This young man,” said Henry Watkins in stumbling accents, “has
delivered us all--I say, has delivered us all, from a great, a very
great misfortune. If greater, yes, if much greater misfortune should
threaten us, it is to him, it is to him, under Providence, and our wise
ruler, that we shall look for help. And I say, my friends, I say and
repeat,” he droned on, “that we must not regard ourselves as safe from
all misfortunes----”
The Speaker, one place removed from Jeremy, moved sharply, knocked
over a glass and scraped his foot on the floor. He interrupted the
flow of the speech; and the orator paused and looked round at him,
half grieved, half questioning. The Speaker took the glance; and it
seemed to Jeremy that it was in answer that he frowned so savagely. The
melancholy expression on Henry Watkins’s face deepened by a shade and
became dogged. He continued with something of defiance in his voice.
“I say we ought not to think that we have seen the worst that can
happen to us. This--all this unexpected danger which we have survived
ought to teach us never again for a single moment to think ourselves in
safety.” He concluded abruptly and sat down. He had apparently spoiled
the Speaker’s joviality; and he had propounded to Jeremy a riddle very
hard of solution. Jeremy felt certain that some purpose had lain behind
his words, other than his usual pessimism, and that the Speaker’s
interruption had betokened something more than his usual boredom.
“Do you know what he meant?” he asked of the Lady Eva; but she
shook her head. He glanced along the table to see if Thomas Wells’s
expression would throw any light on the matter. But he had left his
place and had moved away to talk to a friend at some distance. Jeremy
could not make out what it was all about, and gave it up. And now the
formal part of the banquet was over; and the guests began to leave
their places and to move about in the hall.
This was the signal for all who had ever spoken to Jeremy to come
to him and congratulate him. He observed in their various manners a
curious mixture of genuine homage and of assumed adulation of the
man who might soon be their ruler. In the midst of it he saw on the
outskirts of the crowd around him Roger Vaile, lounging with an air of
detachment and indifference. He broke off the conversation in which he
was engaged and forced a way to his friend.
“Roger!” he cried, taking him by the hand.
“Good luck to you, Jeremy,” Roger replied gently. “I’ve reason to be
pleased with myself now, haven’t I?--even though it was an accident.”
“Be sure I shall never forget you, Roger,” Jeremy murmured; and then,
feeling in his reply something of the manner of a great man towards a
dependent, he blushed and was confused. Roger’s answering smile was
friendly; and before Jeremy could recover his tongue he had slipped
away. Soon half the guests had gone; for it was an _early race_. When
the hall was beginning to look empty he felt a plucking at his sleeve
from behind him; and turning he saw the Lady Eva. He followed her into
the little ante-room behind the hall and found that they were alone
there.
She shut the door behind them and opened her arms.
“Only a minute,” she whispered. “Oh, my dear, my dear, goodnight. I
am so happy.” He embraced her silently, and his eyes pricked. Hardly
had he released her before she had gone. He went back into the hall
and found the last guest departing, and the servants putting out the
candles. He wondered for a moment why all great days must end with this
flat moment; but the thought did not depress him. He walked away, slow
and unaccompanied, to his own room.
When he was there he busied himself for some moments with trifles and
delayed to undress. He wanted very much to lie awake for hours so that
he could taste again all the most exquisite moments of the day that was
just gone. He also desired with equal intensity to fall asleep at once,
so that he might begin the new day as soon as possible. He had got so
far as taking off his coat when there was a discreet knocking at the
door. He opened it and found a servant, who said deferentially:
“The Speaker would like to see you at once, sir, in his own room.”
“All right,” Jeremy answered, picking up his coat. And then, when the
man had gone, he murmured to himself in sudden dread, “What can it be?
Oh, what can it be?”
2
Jeremy hastened down the stairs to the Speaker’s room in a state of
rapidly increasing agitation. He did not know, he could not imagine,
what it was that he feared; but he had been raised to so high a
pinnacle of joy that the least touch of the unexpected could set him
trembling and looking for evil. When he reached his object he found the
old man alone, seated sprawling in his great chair by the open window,
his wrinkled, thick-veined hands spread calmly on the carven arms.
Two or three candles stood on the table behind him, flickering and
guttering slightly in the faint night breeze.
“I am glad you have come at once, my son,” he observed, turning his
head a little, in a tone which showed no symptoms of trouble. “You
had not gone to bed, then? I wished to speak to you alone, before the
others have come that I have sent for. Sit down and listen to me.”
Jeremy drew up a smaller chair on the other side of the window and
obeyed.
“We have yet another battle before us,” the Speaker pronounced abruptly.
Jeremy started. “What----” he began.
“Another battle,” the old man repeated. “Do not be distressed. I know
this is ill news for a bridegroom, yet it is not so bad as it seems.
When we returned this morning--it was after you had fainted at the
door and while you were still unconscious--I learnt that the President
of Wales had made up his mind, only a few days after the Northerners,
to march on London. I knew that there was trouble of some kind in the
west, but I had got no trustworthy news to show me how far it had gone.
But information came to me this morning that the President and his
army had passed round the Cotswolds and were marching towards Oxford.
The worst part of the news was that the Gloucestershire wool-merchants
had joined with him. Of course, they were very much interested in
what might happen to the Chairman. That was what that gloomy dullard,
Henry Watkins, was hinting at in his speech to-night--I know you saw
me frowning at him. I tell you frankly I thought nothing of it. It was
only the Yorkshiremen that disturbed the others; and I took it for
granted that our victory would settle all quarrels at once.”
“Yes ...” Jeremy murmured doubtfully in the pause.
“Well, I was wrong. It seems that a survivor got away to the west this
morning, apparently just after Thomas Wells took the Chairman prisoner.
I don’t know how he went. I think he must have got on to the railway
somewhere and found an engine ready to move. He could hardly have moved
so fast otherwise. Anyway, he found the President, with the greater
part of his army, at Oxford--and the President has sent a letter to
me. It reached me only a few minutes ago.” He stopped and ran a hand
through his beard, regarding Jeremy thoughtfully with tranquil eyes.
“Go on ... go on,” Jeremy whispered tensely.
“That was quick work, wasn’t it?” the Speaker ruminated. “He can’t
have started before seven this morning, because I’m sure the Chairman
wasn’t taken till then. The letter reached me here at a quarter to
midnight--less than seventeen hours. The President was in a great
hurry--I know him well, I can see him raging.” He checked himself
and smiled at Jeremy with a kind of genial malice. “You want to know
what he said in his letter? Well, he warned me that he would hold
me responsible for the Chairman’s safe-keeping; and he summoned me
to a conference at Oxford where the three of us were to settle our
differences and rearrange the affairs of the country.”
“And what answer will you make?” Jeremy managed to utter.
“I have ordered the messenger to be flogged by the grooms,” the Speaker
replied composedly. “I expect that they are flogging him now. The only
other answer we have to give, Jeremy, will be delivered by your guns.”
“But this is terrible,” Jeremy cried, springing up from his chair. “You
don’t understand----”
“Rubbish, my friend,” the old man interrupted with an air of serene
commonsense. “It means only that the President does not know what has
happened. If he still wishes to fight when he knows--why, then we will
fight him. I hope he will wish it. Perhaps when he is broken we shall
have peace forever.”
Jeremy walked three or four times up and down the room, pressing his
hands together and trying vainly by a violent tension of all his
muscles to regain his composure.
“You don’t understand a bit,” he burst out at last, “what luck it all
was. I tell you it was luck, merely luck....” He stopped, stumbling and
stuttering, so much confounded by this unexpected and horrible menace
to his happiness, that he was unable to frame any words of explanation.
The Speaker continued to smile at him. “You are not yourself to-night,
Jeremy,” he chided gently. “You are overwrought; and it is not to be
wondered at. You will find your next triumph less exciting.”
But Jeremy’s agitation only increased. It was not only his own future
that was at stake, but the Lady Eva’s also and his future with her.
“Can’t you make peace with him?” he demanded wildly.
“Peace----” the Speaker began in a more vehement tone. But before he
could go on the door was opened and two servants appeared, dragging
between them a torn and disheveled man, whose bloodshot eyes were
rolling madly in their sockets, and whose face was white and twisted
with pain. Just inside the room they let go his arms, and he fell
sprawling on the floor with a faint moan.
“Peace!” cried the Speaker, rising from his chair and pointing at
the man. “_That_ is the ambassador of peace I shall send back to the
President! Peace between us, I thank God, is impossible unless he
humbles himself to me!”
Jeremy took a step towards the prostrate figure and recoiled again,
seeing that the torn garments had been roughly pulled on over lacerated
and bleeding shoulders. He recovered himself and bent down over the
unhappy creature, whose breath came thick and short through the
writhing mouth. He looked up with horror in his eyes.
“This is ... this is the President’s messenger?” he muttered.
The Speaker nodded.
“But you didn’t do this to the men from Bradford. You let them go back
untouched.”
“I will make an end of these troubles!” Again Jeremy could see in the
old man a reincarnation of one of the vengeful prophets of the ancient
Jews. But the next moment the menacing attitude was relaxed, and the
Speaker, turning to the immobile servants, said coldly: “Take this
fellow out and lay him down in the courtyard. Tether his horse fast
beside him. When he is able to move, let him go back without hindrance
to his master and say what has been done to him.”
The men bowed, stooped over the moaning wretch and dragged him roughly
away. A profound silence followed his last inarticulate, half-conscious
complaints as he was borne down the corridor.
“And now,” said the Speaker, resuming his serenity of manner without an
effort, “now we must make our plans. I propose that we shall march out
at once and prepare to meet the President west of London if he wishes
to attack us; and I have decided that you shall take command of the
army.”
“I?” Jeremy exclaimed. “Oh, but----” He was overwhelmed by an absurd
confusion. Once again he was in the nightmare world, struggling with
shadows, wrestling with an incomprehensible mind on which he could
never get a grip. “I _can’t_ command the army! I know something about
guns, but I’ve no experience of infantry. I shouldn’t....” His protests
faded away into silence before the Speaker’s imperturbability. “Guns
are all very well ... I don’t mind ... I can’t....” These words jerked
out and ceased, like the last spasmodic drops from a fountain, when the
water has been turned off at the main. Then, when he himself supposed
that he had finished, he added suddenly with an air of conclusiveness:
“I know something about _guns_....”
The Speaker made no answer for a moment or two. When he did it
was slowly and with extreme deliberation. “You won this morning’s
battle for us,” he said, “by the use of guns. Our battle against the
President, if it is ever fought, will have to be won in the same way.
None of us properly understands how to do it but you. And, after all,
wasn’t there a great general in the old times, somewhere about your
time, who began his career in the artillery? What was his name? I know
so little of history; but I think it began with a B.”
“Napoleon,” Jeremy suggested with a half hysterical chuckle.
“Napoleon? Was that it? I thought it was some other name. Well, then,
if he could----”
“I won’t do it,” Jeremy suddenly uttered.
The door opened again, and the Canadian entered. He was wrapped in
a great furred gown, from the ample collar of which his face hardly
protruded, looking sharper and leaner than ever.
“You sent for me,” he said in a colorless and slightly drowsy voice.
“What has happened now?”
“Sit down,” the Speaker returned. “Henry Watkins and John Hammond will
be here in a moment.”
Without a word the Canadian sank into a chair and drew the fur of
his gown closely round his ears and mouth. Over the folds of it his
small, red eyes looked out with an unwavering and sinister expression.
His arrival brought an oppressive silence with it; and Jeremy began
suddenly to feel the uncanny effects of being thus wakeful in a
sleeping world. He looked furtively at the calm, stern face of the
Speaker, and saw how the thick lips were compressed in a rigid line.
Outside a faint and eery wind persistently moved the leaves. Within,
the great building was stonily silent all around them; and the flames
of the candles on the table danced at a movement of the air or burnt
up straight and still in the succeeding calm. The hush lasted until a
servant announced the attendance of Henry Watkins and John Hammond,
who had been fetched out of their beds and had reached the Treasury
together.
“I told you, sir, I told you how it would be,” said Henry Watkins at
once in a voice like the insistent notes of a tolling bell.
The Speaker made an abrupt gesture. “You have heard then?” he asked
sharply.
“We passed a man outside, sir, in the courtyard, lying on the ground
beside his tethered horse,” John Hammond interposed, “and we made
inquiries while we were waiting to be brought in to you.”
“I have made no secret of it,” the Speaker said simply. “Every waking
man in the Treasury may know all about it by now. Well, then....”
And in his deliberate and unconcerned manner he repeated to them the
same story that he had told to Jeremy. “Nor am I sorry for it,” he
concluded. “It is as well that we should be done with all this at once,
as I think we shall be.”
When he had finished the Canadian shifted slightly in his chair. “You
say they are at Oxford now?” he asked, his voice a little muffled by
the thick fur that brushed his lips. The Speaker assented. “And the
Gloucestershire men have joined them?” Again the Speaker assented.
“Ah!” murmured the Canadian enigmatically; and he seemed to sink
further into the folds of his gown, as though he were preparing himself
for sleep.
Henry Watkins and John Hammond made no answer, but looked at one
another lugubriously.
“Come, gentlemen,” the Speaker cried heartily. “We know now that we
have nothing to be afraid of. I have determined that Jeremy Tuft shall
take command of the whole army; and I am sure that the man who saved us
this morning can save us again.”
“Ah, that is a good plan,” observed John Hammond sagely. He was a heavy
man of slow speech, and he wagged his head solemnly while he talked.
“Jeremy Tuft will command the whole army. That is a very good plan.”
“We could not do better,” said Henry Watkins with an approach to
cheerfulness.
Jeremy fancied that he heard Thomas Wells sniff under his wrappings;
and the justice of the implied criticism twitched horribly at his
nerves. He stared out of the window into the blackness, a resolve
taking shape in his mind. At last he stood up deliberately and spoke
with a roughness, almost arrogance, that he certainly did not feel.
“I will not take command of the army,” he said, letting the words fall
one by one. “I am not fit to do it. I should only bring disaster on
all of us. I have too much at stake to risk it. It would be better if
Thomas Wells were to take command.” He stopped and waited, defiant and
sullen. The Canadian made one sharp movement, then folded his gown more
closely around him, so as still further to hide his face, and sat on
impassively.
Henry Watkins was at him at once, eagerly arguing that there was little
hope, but that what there was lay in his hands. Jeremy looked around
as though he were seeking some way of escape. He felt very weary and
alone. He didn’t want to argue: it was a waste of time and pains
since his mind was made up, and neither the most urgent nor the most
persuasive reasoning could change it. But while Henry Watkins talked
and he countered in stubborn monosyllables, he was watching sidelong,
with an unnamed, unadmitted apprehension, the Speaker’s resolved and
quiet face. Suddenly Henry Watkins ceased and threw up his hands in a
gesture of despair. Then the Speaker rose, walked away, and, without a
word, tugged sharply at the bell-pull. A servant immediately answered
the summons, and in his ear the old man delivered a long whispered
order. The servant bowed and went out, and the Speaker returned to
his seat. All the others looked at him curiously, but maintained the
silence which had fallen on them.
Then Jeremy involuntarily broke out, “What have you done? What have you
sent for?”
“I have sent for my daughter,” the Speaker answered steadily. “It is
time for her to be called into our counsels.”
3
Jeremy’s muscles jerked and quivered at the Speaker’s announcement,
but he said nothing. His mouth set more firmly, a frown came on his
forehead, and his hands, thrust under his folded arms, were so tightly
clenched that he had a sensation of pain in the knuckles. Behind this
appearance of resolution his thoughts were plaintive and resentful.
He repeated over and over again in his mind, “I will not give way. I
must not give way. Why will they be such fools?” The more he considered
it the more certain he became that he was not competent to command an
army. He could not do it, he told himself, and at the same time look
properly after his guns. Besides, he was modest in a hard-headed way;
and he refused to believe that he had the qualities which are necessary
in great military commanders. The fact that he most passionately
desired that they should win the coming battle only made him more
determined to refuse this absurd proposal. As he sat silent in the ring
of silent men he felt injured and aggrieved, and his temper grew with
every moment more obstinate.
The conversation did not revive after the Speaker’s interruption, for a
sense of expectation filled the room and kept it in abeyance. Presently
the old man rose statelily from his chair and, moving to the window,
thrust out his head and leant his arms on the sill. By doing so he
broke the tension a little; and Jeremy got up and went to the table
to look for a cigar, walking self-consciously and feeling that all
these people regarded him with dislike. When he had found a cigar and
lit it, he shrank from going back to his seat and facing them again.
He lingered at the table, where he had discovered some papers of his
own relating to the guns; and these made an excuse with which he could
pretend to busy himself. He was vaguely conscious somewhere just within
the blurred edge of his vision that John Hammond had gone over to
Thomas Wells and was talking to him in a subdued voice. The Canadian
answered seldom and briefly, and their words floated past his ears in a
faint confusion of sound. Then John Hammond grew louder and more urgent
and the Canadian exclaimed morosely:
“I have no patience....”
John Hammond insisted; and, in spite of himself, Jeremy turned his head
sideways to listen.
“It would be better to be beaten,” he heard Thomas Wells say, almost
under his breath but with a vicious intensity, “than be led by a
vampire risen God knows how from the grave!” A disagreeable thrill
passed through him; but before he could stir the door by his side
opened softly and the Lady Eva stood motionless on the threshold. She
was wearing a furred robe, like Thomas Wells’s; but it was less ample
and hung on her more gracefully. Her fair hair fell in two long plaits,
loose at the ends, down her back, and her eyes, though they shone with
excitement, yet showed that she had just risen from sleep. As Jeremy
silently regarded her, she glanced down and pulled the hem of the robe
across to hide her bare ankles.
When she looked beyond him and saw how many others there were in the
room, she seemed to recoil a little. “Father,” she said, speaking
quietly but steadily, “you sent for me!”
The Speaker slowly drew his great shoulders in through the window and
turned around. “Come in, Eva,” he ordered in an equable voice, “come in
and sit down. These are all friends here, and you need not be ashamed
before them.” She advanced with short steps, sat in Jeremy’s chair,
which stood empty, and arranged the hem of her gown about her feet and
the collar about her throat. Then, before fixing her eyes on the old
man, she cast a candid and ardent regard of affection at Jeremy. He was
discomposed by it, and only with an effort could he compel his eyes to
meet hers and answer them. She seemed for a moment to be troubled; but
her face cleared to an expression of eager intentness as her father
began to address her.
“This is the first time I have ever asked you to help me, Eva,” he said
with kindly and matter-of-fact briskness. “Perhaps I should have done
so before; but now at least I think you can do something for us that no
one else can do. There is another war in front of us: I need not tell
you now how or why it has arisen. It will be nothing at all if we face
it properly; and therefore I have designed that your promised husband
here shall command the army. He refuses; I do not know why--perhaps
modesty ... perhaps....” He shrugged his shoulders, pursed his lips
and spread out his hands, palms uppermost. “I sent for you because I
thought that to-night you might be able to sway him, as I cannot.”
During this speech Jeremy’s anger had been rising fast, and now he
interrupted. “This is most unfair, sir,” he cried, coming forward from
the shadows in which he had been hiding.
“Be quiet, Jeremy,” said the Speaker, without raising his voice, but
with a note of sternness. Then he went on smoothly: “My girl, I ask you
to remember that the safety of all of us, of you and of your mother and
of myself, no less than of the country, depends on our leaving nothing
undone to protect ourselves. I am persuaded that Jeremy Tuft should be
our leader, but I cannot convince him. I put our case in your hands.”
The girl leant forward a little towards him, breathing quickly, her
eyes wide open and her lips parted. A shade as of thought passed over
her face; but Jeremy broke in again, still looking at the old man.
“You won’t understand me, sir,” he protested anxiously. “God knows I
would do what you ask if I thought it for the best. But I know what I
can’t do and you don’t. You exaggerated what I did this morning. You
don’t know anything about it, sir, indeed you don’t. There’s only one
man here who ought to do it, and that is Thomas Wells. You ought to
appoint him. I will serve under him and ... and....” He stopped, a
little frightened by what in his eagerness he had been about to say.
While he had been talking desperately, seeing no signs of help on the
faces around him, he had discovered suddenly his deepest objection to
the proposal. The Canadian, damn him! was the man for the job. He had
the gusto for war, for bloodshed and death, which commanders need:
he was the only true soldier among them. And he hated Jeremy. Jeremy
continued his pause, shying at this last, this fatal argument. Then
on an impulse he chanced it, concluding suddenly with a gulp, “And he
won’t serve under me.” The ghost of a chuckle came from the Canadian
bunched up in his chair.
The Lady Eva swung around to him impetuously. “Thomas Wells,” she
murmured, her voice thrilling with an intense desire to persuade, “you
won’t mind, will you? Help me to get him to accept.”
“I won’t make any difficulties, Lady Eva,” pronounced the Canadian
levelly, straightening himself and pulling the edge of his robe down
from his mouth. “Any one who commands the army is at liberty to--to
make what use of me he can--while I’m your guest here. I’m not stuck
on commanding. I guess these little troubles of yours aren’t any
business of mine. Anyway, I ought to be going back home soon, since
I can’t go and stay with the Chairman of Bradford, as I promised him
once. My word, sir, but it’s getting on towards morning! I’m beginning
to feel cold,” he finished inconsequently, turning to the Speaker.
“It isn’t fair,” Jeremy begun again. He was very tired. His body ached
all over, and his eyelids were beginning to droop. His determination
was not weakened, but he dreaded the effort of keeping up a firm front
much longer. He felt too weak now to force his own view on the stubborn
old man.
But the Speaker ignored him. He stood up and, including the three
other men in one confidential glance, said: “Thomas Wells is right,
gentlemen, it grows very late. Let us leave them alone for a few
minutes. We will meet again in the morning. Jeremy, do you hear? I
will not accept your final answer until the morning.” He moved with
ponderous slowness towards his daughter and put out a firm hand to
hold her down in her chair. “Goodnight, my child!” he murmured, as he
stooped and kissed her on the forehead. “Do what you can for us.” His
accent in these words was pathetic; but his air as he led the way to
the door was one of infinite cunning.
As soon as he was left alone with the Lady Eva, Jeremy, who had been
staring out into the invisible garden, turned reluctantly around and
faced her, in an attitude of defense. She came to him at once, and,
kneeling on the great chair beside him, threw her arms around his neck.
“My dear,” she said brokenly and passionately, “don’t--don’t look at me
like that!”
His obstinacy and resentment melted suddenly away as he responded to
the caress. “Eva!” he muttered, “I thought ... I was afraid you were
... you wanted....”
“You looked at me as though you hated me,” she said.
He comforted her in silence for some time and she clung to him. Then
he thought he heard her whispering something. “What is it?” he asked
gently.
“I am so afraid, Jeremy,” she repeated, in a voice that was still
almost inaudible; and as he did not answer she went on a little more
loudly, “You know, I dreaded something ... this afternoon ... and this
must be it.” Still he said nothing; and after a pause she resumed:
“Nobody but you can save us, Jeremy. I am certain of it--you are so
wonderful, you know so much of what happened in the old times. Weren’t
you sent here by the Blessed Virgin to save us? I know why you don’t
want to--but it will be all right. Oh, Jeremy, it will!”
A great wave of hopelessness came over him and, when he tried to speak,
choked his utterance. He could only shake his head miserably. Suddenly
the Lady Eva let fall her arms from his neck and sank down in a heap
on the chair. He realized with an unbearable pang that she was sobbing
wildly.
“Eva! Eva!” he cried hopelessly, trying to gather her to him again.
But she drew herself away and continued to sob, breathing shortly and
spasmodically. He felt afraid of her. Then she rose and with a last
jerky sigh gave herself into his arms. He felt her body, slight and
yielding, yet strong and supple, in his embrace, and he began to grow
dizzy. Her face was wet and her mouth was loose and hot beneath his.
“Eva!” he murmured, torn and wretched, with a sense of ineluctable
doom stealing upon them. He looked up over her head and saw that in
the garden the lawns and flowers were now growing distinct in a hard,
clear, cold light. A chilly breath came in at the window, and all at
once the birds began drowsily to wake and chatter. Inside the room all
the candles were out but one, that still burnt on, though sickly and
near its end. The light seemed to Jeremy to be coming as fast and as
inevitably as the surrender which he could no longer escape. “Don’t,
dear,” he uttered hoarsely. “Don’t, don’t! I’ll do what they want me to
do. I’ll go and tell your father now.”
She hid her face on his breast and for a little while her shoulders
still heaved irregularly like a stormy sea after the wind has fallen.
CHAPTER XIII
THE FIELDS OF WINDSOR
1
Jeremy sat with the Speaker in the parlor of a rude farmhouse at the
edge of the little village of Slough. It was now a week since the army
had taken the field, and during that time they had not once come to
grips with the enemy. The President of Wales had lingered unaccountably
at Oxford, and Jeremy had pitched his camp in the neighborhood of
Windsor, not daring to move further from London. He could not tell
whether the Welshmen would follow the windings of the north bank of the
river or cross at Reading and approach the capital from the south, or
march by Thame around the top of the Chilterns. The Speaker, judging
the enemy by his own strategical notions, had affirmed that they would
advance towards Windsor if they supposed that battle could be joined
there; and he wished to go straight on, as far as Oxford if necessary.
But Jeremy, determined to be in truth what the old man had forced him
to be, refused to move. They spent a weary week of doubt and anxiety,
receiving every day a dozen contradictory reports, and occasionally
moving out the troops to the west or the north on a wild-goose chase.
This state of affairs told heavily on them both. Jeremy ceased to be
able to sleep, and he felt inexpressibly tired. The Speaker grew
irritable and the ardor of his spirit, confined by delay, daily
corroded his temper. The Canadian, who attended them faithfully, never
refused to give Jeremy his advice; but he never suggested less than
two possible courses of action, and he never failed to make it clear
that either might bring success, and that either might involve complete
disaster. On this day at last Jeremy’s patience had worn very thin. He
had just explained to the Speaker for the twentieth time his objection
to moving up the river direct on Oxford, and a dissatisfied silence
had fallen between them. Jeremy sighed, and let his hands fall on the
table, across the crude, inaccurate maps which were all that he had
been able to obtain.
The dispute between them had grown so bitter that he felt unwilling
to encounter the Speaker’s gaze, fearing lest his own weariness and
disgust and resentment should show too obviously. But as he glanced
cautiously at the old man he saw that he was leaning back in his chair,
his eyes closed and his hands folded in his lap. In this attitude of
rest he betrayed himself more than was common with him. The air of fire
and mastery had gone out of his face, the lines of power were softened,
the thick lips, instead of expressing pride and greed, drooped a little
pathetically, and showed a weary resignation. Not only his features,
but also the thick-veined old hands, seemed to have grown thinner and
frailer than they were. He looked to Jeremy like a lamp inside which
the flame is slowly and quietly dying. Jeremy’s heart suddenly softened
towards him and he felt more unbearable than ever the fate in which
they were all thus entangled.
But his tired brain refused to grapple with it any more, and he fell
to making pictures. When they had marched out he alone in the whole
army had felt despondent. The people of London wished them good luck
with as much enthusiasm as, a few days before, they had welcomed them
home. The troops marched off down Oxford Street and along the winding
valley-road, covered again with flowers, which they stuck in their
hats or in the muzzles of their rifles, singing odd uncouth snatches
of boasting defiance in curious cadences which had suddenly sprung
up among them and passed rapidly from mouth to mouth. Most of these
praised Jeremy and his guns: some of them exalted him as a necromancer
and credited him with supernatural powers. Even the Speaker chanted one
of them in a rumbling, uncertain bass, somewhat to Jeremy’s discomfort.
The discomfort was greater when Thomas Wells hummed another below his
breath, with a satirical grin directed at the horizon before them.
The Lady Eva at their parting shared Jeremy’s distress but not his
doubts. They had a few moments alone together on the morning of
setting out, before the public ceremony at which she and the Lady
Burney were to wish the army God-speed. She clung to him speechlessly,
begging him with her eyes and her kisses to confess that he looked
cheerfully to the result. Jeremy, shamefacedly conscious of having felt
some resentment towards her since he had yielded to her entreaties,
comforted her as well as he was able, and yet could not bring himself
to say what she wanted to hear. Their short time ran to an end: the
minutes ticked inexorably away; below in the courtyard he could hear
the servants bringing around the horses. A dozen times his mind framed
a pleasant lie for her which his tongue would not speak. Then they
parted with this between them, and Jeremy went down into the courtyard
with a heavy spirit. A few minutes later he and the Speaker and Thomas
Wells were riding up Whitehall towards Piccadilly, the Lady Burney and
the Lady Eva going before them in a carriage. There, on the spot where
once the poised Cupid had stood, the Lady Eva kissed him again before
the cheering people, and the army set out. Jeremy rode dully with it,
wishing that his obstinate fixity in his own opinion could have given
way for a moment and let him part without reserve from his beloved. He
wondered much whether he would ever see her again, and the thought was
exceedingly bitter.
Then followed this week of confusion and wretchedness, a depressing
contrast with the lightning brilliance of the campaign against the
Yorkshiremen. Jeremy’s resolution, braced for a swift and single test
of it, withstood the strain hardly. It seemed to him that the moments
in which good luck might carry him through were fast running away;
he felt them like material things melting out of his hands. Still at
Oxford, the President maintained his enigmatical immobility. Slowly
the spirit of the troops faded and withered, like the trail of flowers
they had left behind them on the march. Jeremy preserved the stolidity
of his expression, grew slower of speech every day, and hid the
bewildering turmoil of his thoughts. Only the Canadian went about the
camp with an unaltered cheerfulness of demeanor. He behaved like an
onlooker who is always willing to do what he can when the players of
the game invoke his help. He talked with the officers, rode out often
in front of the lines, seemed always busy, always in a detached manner
interested in what was going on. Jeremy grew to hate him as much as he
feared him....
“Jeremy! Jeremy!”
He started up from his meditation and found that the old man was
speaking to him.
“Listen! Wasn’t that firing ... a long way off?”
He listened intently, then shook his head. “No, I’m sure it wasn’t.”
“Jeremy, how much longer is it going to be?”
He was seized with surprise at the pitifulness of the Speaker’s tone.
“God knows, sir,” he answered slowly, and added in an exhausted voice.
“We haven’t enough men to go on adventures and force the business.”
“No ... no, I suppose not.” And then, losing some of this unusual
docility, the Speaker burst out: “I am sick of this hole!”
“Campaigning quarters!” Jeremy replied as humorously and soothingly
as he could. He was sick of it himself. The Speaker had desired that
they should establish themselves in Windsor Castle; but much of
the old building had been burnt down in the Troubles, and what was
left had been used as a quarry. It was not possible to go anywhere
in the neighborhood without seeing the great calcined stones built
into the walls of house or barn. Hardly anything of the Castle was
left standing; and the poor remains, in fact, were used as a common
cart-shed by the inhabitants of the village of Windsor. In all this
countryside, which was held and cultivated by small men, there was
no great house; and they had been obliged to content themselves with
a poor hovel of a farm, which had only one living-room and was dirty
and uncomfortable. Jeremy grew to hate it and the wide dusty flats in
which it stood. It seemed to him a detestable landscape, and daily the
scene he loathed grew intertwined in his thoughts with his dread of the
future. His feverish brain began to deal, against his will, in foolish
omens and premonitions. He caught himself wondering, “Will this be the
last I shall see of England?” He remembered, shuddering, that when he
had first joined the Army in 1914 and had complained of early morning
parades, a companion had said, “I suppose we shall have to get up at
this time every morning _for the rest of our lives_!”
While he was trying to drive some such thoughts as these out of his
mind, he was conscious of a stir outside the farmhouse, and presently
an orderly entered and announced, “A scout with news, sir.”
“Bring him in,” said Jeremy wearily. He hardly glanced up at the
trooper who entered, until the man began to speak. Then the tones
of the voice caught his attention and he saw with surprise that it
was Roger Vaile who stood there, his head roughly bandaged; his face
smeared with blood and dust, his uniform torn and stained.
“Roger!” he cried, starting up.
Roger hesitated. The Speaker, who was leaning forward, his elbows on
his knees and his face between his hands, muttered sharply, “Go on,
man, go on!”
Roger straightened himself a little, disregarded Jeremy’s outstretched
hand, and began again. “I went out alone, sir, three days ago,” he
said, looking at neither of his listeners, “and went on upstream as far
as a place called Dorchester. I saw a patrol of the enemy there coming
out of the village, and to get away from them I had to leave my horse
and swim across the river. There’s a hill on the other side that you
can see the road from----”
“I know it!” Jeremy jerked out. “It’s called Sinodun!” The mere name as
he pronounced it almost took his breath away. How well, in old journeys
up the river, he had once known Sinodun!
“Is it?” Roger asked indifferently. “I didn’t know. Well, I stayed
on top of the hill under a bush that night. The next morning about
eleven I saw a lot of cavalry coming into the village from the Oxford
road and soon after that infantry. It looked to me like the whole of
the President’s army. There must have been ten or twelve thousand
men altogether. So I started off to come back as fast as I could.
I had some difficulty because when I got across the river again at
Wallingford I was right among their patrols, and I couldn’t get away
from them till they camped at Marlow last night.”
“At Marlow!” Jeremy cried, starting up. “Are you quite sure the whole
army came as far as Marlow?”
“Absolutely sure,” Roger replied. “I was hiding just outside the
village while they pitched their camp.”
“Then God be praised,” Jeremy breathed, “they’ve come past Reading and
they’re marching straight at us. They can’t cross the river between
here and there. Ten or twelve thousand, you say? Then we’re about equal
in numbers and I believe we shall be equal to them in spirit--let alone
the guns. And, Roger,” he finished, “are you hurt?”
“Nothing much--only a cut,” Roger assured him with his gentle smile.
“Luckily I ran into one of their scouts and got his horse away from
him--or I might not have been here so soon.”
“Come, Jeremy,” growled the Speaker, rising. “The battle is on us. We
must get ready.” Jeremy would have stayed to speak to Roger and to see
that he was provided with food; but the old man was insistent, and he
found himself outside the house before he could protest.
It was about eleven o’clock of a fine, dry day, and the variable wind
was blowing clouds of dust this way and that over the flat fields.
All around them stretched the tents of the encampment in slovenly,
irregular lines; and the soldiers, on whom, untrained as they were, the
period of idleness had had an unlucky effect, were lounging here and
there in careless groups. Jeremy’s attempt to make use of this week in
drilling them had been for the most part unsuccessful. Officers and
men alike were too much flushed with victory for his orders or appeals
to have any effect. They were not so much impatient of discipline as
negligent of it.
Jeremy sighed a little as he looked at the camp; but his spirits
immediately revived. The Speaker was taking short steps up and down,
rubbing his hands together and lifting up his nostrils to snuff the
sweet, dry air. A kind of exhilaration seemed to fill him and to
restore him to his former self. Jeremy caught it from him, and his
voice was lively when he shouted to a servant to fetch thither the
principal officers.
The council of war had hardly gathered when a new report came that the
enemy were marching on Hitcham, following the main road that had once
crossed the river at Maidenhead and now came around by the north bank.
Jeremy’s plans were prepared, and he rapidly disposed his army, with
the right wing resting on the slightly-rising ground of Stoke Park, the
center running through Chalk Hill and Chalvey, and the left, guarding
the bridge, in the empty fields where Eton once had been.
As he gave his orders, with some show of confidence and readiness, he
tasted for a moment the glories of a commander-in-chief; but when he
detailed to Thomas Wells his duties as the leader of the right wing of
the army, his heart unreasonably sank and he faltered over his words.
“I understand,” the Canadian replied gravely, with an inscrutable
expression. “I am to stand on the line between Stoke and Salt Hill
until you give the word. Then you will send up the reserves and I am to
advance, wheel around, and force them against the river.”
“That’s it,” said Jeremy with a heartiness he did not feel.
“So be it ... sir,” Thomas Wells assented lingeringly; then, with an
air of hesitation, he murmured: “I suppose you’re quite certain ...
that they’ll mass against our left ... that they won’t attack me and
try to drive _us_ into the river?”
“I’ll take the chance, anyway,” Jeremy answered stoutly; and, nodding,
he rode off to look at the guns, which were under the command of Jabez,
immediately behind the center of the line.
“We’ll do them in, master,” said Jabez reassuringly. “Never you fear.
You leave that to us.” As he spoke a sharp crackling of rifle fire
arose by the river-bank near Queen’s Eyot.
“Well, we’ve started, Jabez,” Jeremy smiled at him. “I must go back.”
As he rode again towards his chosen point for directing the battle his
breath came regularly and his heart was singularly at rest.
2
When the firing spread and became general all along the line, showing
that battle had actually been joined, Jeremy began to feel a little
light-headed with excitement. He stood, with the Speaker and two or
three officers, on the western edge of the slight rise on which the
village lay; and from this point of vantage he could see that the
outposts were being rapidly driven in from Dorney and Cippenham upon
the main line of defense. In the center the enemy seemed to be pressing
towards the Beaconsfield road. On the right, where Thomas Wells was in
charge, the firing was furious, and great clouds of smoke were drifting
away among the trees of Stoke Park; but the attack had not the air of
being seriously driven home. Jeremy regarded it for a few moments,
biting his lip and screwing up his eyes, and then turned from it to
scan with particular anxiety the flats on the right between Boveney and
Eton Wick. Here it was, he hoped, that the enemy would concentrate his
troops. Here, with luck, his masses might be caught in the open and
broken up by the guns, while the Speaker’s men remained safe in cover
behind the ruins of the viaduct.
In spite of his doubts and the frequent monitions of his judgment
Jeremy retained somewhere in his mind an obscure belief that the fear
of the guns would, after all, hold the Welshmen in check and enfeeble
their advance. All the time, as he stood beside the Speaker, something
was drawing him towards the shallow gun-pit which he had established,
close to the line, between Chalvey and the old disused railway-cutting.
But the hugeness of the moment, the release of his tension, and
the incessant rattling outbursts of noise combined in an odd way to
exhilarate him. He grew so restless that at last, with a muttered
excuse to the Speaker, he mounted his horse and trotted off to look at
the guns.
He found Jabez and his ancients standing in a strained attitude of
readiness. Their faces were absurdly grave, and Jabez greeted him with
what he thought a ludicrous solemnity. He rallied the withered old
creature, with exaggerated heartiness, on his anxious air.
“Let ’em come, master!” Jabez replied with a menacing expression, “and
we’ll see to ’em. Let ’em just put their heads out----”
Jeremy laughed loudly at this, clapped Jabez on the back, and directed
his tattered opera-glasses towards the little church of Boveney. But no
considerable body of troops answered the invitation. Still restless,
Jeremy rode back to his headquarters.
He found that the Speaker had given orders for his armchair to be
brought out for him from the farmhouse, and he was sitting in it, his
elbow on the arm and his chin in his hand, regarding the unshifting
line of smoke with an immobile but somber countenance. Like Xerxes,
Jeremy suddenly thought, with a shiver for the omen, over the bay of
Salamis!
“You are trembling,” the old man said, without looking around, as
Jeremy reached him.
“I’m excited,” Jeremy explained. “It’s all right. I’m quite cool.”
He was indeed so cool that he could sit down on the dry, short grass
beside the Speaker, light a cigar, and consider quite calmly what
course of action he ought to take. The only thing he found lacking
was an indication of any one course as better than another. The enemy
might be, and very likely was, concealing troops among the houses of
Boveney, Dorney, and Cippenham--it was impossible to tell which. The
battle seemed to be hung in a state of miraculous suspension. The
enemy’s advance had been brought to a standstill, and neither of the
lines moved or wavered. From the bank of the river to Stoke Place
there stretched a thick woolly bar of smoke as though a giant hand
had smudged ink with its thumb across the landscape. Jeremy searched
vainly through the whole of the country before him for some mark, on
which the guns might expend their few shells, and especially for the
Welsh transport; but he could find nothing. It was only as the minutes
drifted by and the fighting continued that Jeremy began to realize
his own vagueness and impotence, to understand that, in spite of his
protestations, he had been relying hopelessly on some such stroke of
luck as had served him at Barnet.
The first half-conscious realization was like a cold draught, an
imperceptible movement of chilly air, blowing upon his resolution and
high spirits. In a moment full comprehension followed and gripped
him, and he awoke as though out of a dream, alive to the danger and
yet incapable of action. Nothing had changed: the line of smoke was
as before, the sounds of the fighting had grown not louder or more
terrible. But what had been to Jeremy a picture had become a real
thing, a vast and menacing event, in the path of which he was an
insignificant insect. Not a muscle of his face stirred under the shock.
The Speaker, above him, mumbled deeply:
“What are you going to do, Jeremy?”
“We must wait a little, sir,” Jeremy answered confidently, but with a
trace of impatience in his voice. He wanted desperately to gain time.
Under his mask he felt like a man who is about to be detected in an
imposture, whom the turning of the next page will bring to utter ruin.
He gazed here and there over the field, wondering how long he could
control his expression. Perhaps the next minute his muscles would
betray him and he would burst into tears. But suddenly the seizure was
relaxed and he rose with a jerk to his feet.
“Time to bring the guns in,” he exclaimed with an air of authority
which surprised himself. As he cantered down the slope one voice was
whispering in his ear: “Throw your hand down! Confess that you’re
stuck,” and another was answering, “You can’t do that. One doesn’t _do_
that sort of thing!”
In the gun-pit he was greeted this time with enthusiasm, and Jabez
accepted delightedly the order to drop a couple of shells on Dorney
and see what would happen. The first shell did not explode. The second
burst clean in the middle of the village, and, though they could not
see that it had discovered a concentration, it seemed to have acted as
a cue for the climax of the battle. The rifle fire on the river-bank
doubled in volume, and a line of black dots appeared out of Boveney,
rushed forward, and was succeeded by another wave. But by the time the
guns were trained in that direction the movement had ceased, and two
or three shells thrown into the houses whence it had come produced no
visible effect. Jeremy ordered the guns to cease firing.
On the right the noise of the combat had suddenly grown irregular and
spasmodic. Jeremy was puzzled and worried, and racked his sluggish
brain to guess what this might portend. Was it the moment to order
Thomas Wells to advance the right wing and begin the encircling
movement? He had had no messenger nor any news from the Canadian
since the battle had begun. His plan now seemed to him at once wooden
and fantastic, drawn up by an amateur on the map, dependent on an
accommodating enemy. Should he wait a little longer until the Welsh
army had shown its hand more plainly? In his agony of indecision he
gripped the gun-wheel at his side, as though he had been in need
of physical support. If he had been left to himself he would have
collapsed on the trodden earth of the pit and let the battle and the
fortunes of the world roll over him as they would. He felt himself a
poor waif beaten down by circumstance, a child called on to carry an
unsupportable load. Only some kind of irrational obstinacy, a sort of
momentum of the spirit, kept him upright. But things, both mental and
physical, began to be blurred and to lose their outlines, and anxiety
shed on him a sort of intoxication.
When he moved away towards his horse he was swaying in his walk and
preserving his balance with the solemn care of drunkenness.
“Fire--fire on any advance you see!” he said unsteadily to Jabez, and
he thought the old gunner looked at him queerly as he touched his hat
in acknowledgment of the order.
“I’ve lost control of myself,” Jeremy muttered under his breath, very
seriously and carefully, as he rode back to rejoin the Speaker. “I’ve
lost control of myself ... I must be calm ... I’ve lost control of
myself ... I must....” Nothing more seemed to matter but this: the
battle came second to the struggle between his will and his nerves. He
thought hazily that by one prodigious effort he might clear his brain
again and see an answer to questions which now looked insoluble. He
mechanically urged his horse up the rise; but the beast, fat, lazy, and
sulky, did not respond, and Jeremy forgot it. When he dismounted he
saw the old man still motionless in his chair gazing across the field,
while behind him were the attendants, motionless, too, as though what
was going on did not at all concern them. Jeremy half glanced at these
men, and thought that they whispered to one another as he passed. He
went on and stood silently beside the Speaker’s chair. His lips were
still moving as he muttered to himself, and some moments passed before
he became aware that the old man had turned and was looking up at him
dubiously.
“I’m all right,” he began; and then suddenly a bullet whistled past
their heads. It was as though the shrill sound had cleared away a
thickening fog.
“Come out of this, sir,” Jeremy cried violently. “They’re too close.
Some of them must have got into Chalk Hill. It’s not safe for you up
here.” As he cried out, clutching at the Speaker with a convulsive
hand, his self-possession and his resolution returned, and in that
fraction of an instant he began to survey the field again with a new
eye. The reserves were behind him in the village of Slough. He would
bring them up, on the right, and make his push forward while the
guns fired over the heads of the attacking wing. All these thoughts
passed, sharp and distinct, through his mind, while he was frantically
endeavoring to drag the Speaker into safety. But the old man resisted,
foolishly obstinate it seemed to Jeremy, without giving any reason for
doing so. He was staring open-mouthed towards the right flank of the
army towards Stoke Park, and his face was contorted, crumbling, ravaged
by the effects of astonishment and horror. It was a grotesque face, not
that of an old man but of a man incredibly ancient: it might have been
a thousand years old.
Jeremy ceased the effort to pull him away and followed with his eyes
the direction of the extended, helplessly shaking finger. There, on
the right, all firing had stopped, and the last clouds of smoke were
drifting heavily to the north, leaving the fields quite clear. It took
Jeremy a moment to realize what it was that he saw. Then he understood
that, between the railway and the woods, the opposing forces had left
their shelter in ditches and behind hedges and were mixing together,
running, it seemed, in groups across the intervening meadows to unite.
And among the moving crowds little rags of white danced and fluttered
up and down.
“What!” he cried stupidly. “They can’t have surrendered?”
“No!” the Speaker wailed in a thin and inhuman voice. “No! Those white
flags are ours: I saw them raised. Thomas Wells has betrayed us. He
has sold us to the Welsh.” He let his arms fall by his sides and stood
there limp, lax, shrunken, hopeless.
“It can’t be----” But as Jeremy began to speak he saw the masses
swarming in the meadows turn and move tumultuously towards them,
cheering and waving their rifles in the air. He leapt to the emergency.
“Come on down!” he shouted hoarsely. “We’ll turn the guns on them! Come
on to the guns!”
As they ran to their horses, Jeremy dragging the spent and stumbling
Speaker after him, the firing on the river-bank rose sharply to a
crescendo, and Jeremy guessed that a final attack was being made
there. But he disregarded it, shoved the unresisting body of the old
man into the saddle of one horse, leapt on to another himself, and
galloped heavily down the slope to the battery. He found Jabez and his
men working like demons, their faces black from the powder, bleared
and puddled with sweat. They were firing in the direction of Boveney,
and staring at the spot where their shells were bursting, he saw a
regiment advancing to the attack of the village. They must have crept
up in small parties and taken shelter in the houses. Now the rifle fire
against them was weak and hesitating, and the guns, soon worn out, were
shooting inaccurately and could not score a hit.
Jeremy abandoned that disaster. “Turn--turn them to the right!” he
stuttered fiercely; but Jabez, with a blank look of incomprehension,
pointed to his ears to signify that the noise had deafened him. Jeremy
made him understand by gestures what he wanted, but knew not how to
tell him the reason. The guns were only just shifted when the mixed mob
of soldiers, Welshmen and Speaker’s men together, came pouring over the
edge of the low hill.
“Fire on them!” he bawled at the top of his voice. Jabez trained one
gun, quietly and coolly, on the advancing mass, while Jeremy trained
the other. When they fired, the shells went over the leading ranks and
burst beyond the hill. Shouts of anger were mixed with yells of pain,
and after wavering for a moment the mob came on again. With no more
concern than if they had been at the lathes in the workshop, with the
same awkward antic gestures, the devoted old gunners loaded once more;
but they had hardly closed the breeches when the first wave was upon
them. Jeremy desperately snatched at the lanyard of his gun, and, as he
did so, saw fleetingly the Speaker beside him, arms folded, shoulders
sagging, head apathetically bowed. He pulled, and, with the crash, the
nearest assailants vanished in a yellow, reeking cloud. The next thing
Jeremy knew was that a breaker of human bodies had surged over the
edge of the shallow pit and had fallen on him. He saw Jabez sinking
grotesquely forward upon the pike that killed him, saw the still
unstirring Speaker thrown down by a reeling man. Then he was on the
ground, the lowest of a mass of struggling creatures, and some one, by
kicking him painfully in the ear, had destroyed his transient sense of
a pathetic end to a noble tragedy. He struck out wildly, but his arms
and legs were held, and the struggle grew fiercer above him, choking
him, weighing on his chest. Slowly, intolerably slowly and painfully,
darkness descended about him. His last thought was a surprised,
childish exclamation of the mind, “Why, this must be death....”
CHAPTER XIV
CHAOS
1
The awaking was sudden and disconcerting. Without any interval, it
seemed, Jeremy found himself staring up at the blinding sky, which
looked almost white with the dry heat, and suffering miserably from an
intolerable weight on his throat. This, he soon perceived, was caused
by the legs of a dead man, and after a moment he threw them off and sat
up, licking dry lips with a dry tongue. His ears still sang a little
and he felt sick; but his head was clear, if his mind was still feeble.
A minute’s reflection restored to him all that had happened, and he
looked around him with slightly greater interest.
He alone in the gun-pit seemed to be alive, though bodies sprawled
everywhere in twisted and horrible attitudes. A few yards away lay
Jabez, stabbed and dead, clinging round the trail of a gun, his
nutcracker face grinning fixedly in a hideous counterfeit of life.
Jeremy was unmoved and let his eyes travel vaguely further. He was
very thirsty and wanted water badly. But apart from this desire he
was little stirred to take up the task of living again. What he most
wanted, on the whole, was to lie down where he was and doze, to let
things happen as they would. The muscles of his back involuntarily
relaxed and he subsided on to one elbow, yawning with a faint shudder.
Then he realized that he would not be comfortable until he had drunk;
and he rose stiffly to his feet. Close by the wheel of one of the guns,
just inside it, stood an open earthenware jar half full of water,
miraculously untouched by the tumult that had raged in the battery.
Jeremy did not know for what purpose the gunners had used it, and found
it blackened with powder and tainted with oil; but it served to quench
his thirst. He drank deeply and then again examined the scene of quiet
desolation.
One by one he identified the bodies of all the members of the
gun-crews: none had escaped. Some had been bayonetted, some clubbed,
some strangled or suffocated under the weight of their assailants.
The feeble lives of a few, perhaps, had merely flickered out before
the terror of the onset. Jeremy mused idly on the fact that all these
ancients, who, if ever man did, deserved a quiet death, should have
perished thus violently together, contending with a younger generation.
He wondered if they would be the last gunners the world was to see. He
found it odd that he, the oldest of all, should be the last to survive.
He felt again the loneliness that had overtaken him--how long ago?--in
the empty Whitechapel Meadows, when once before he had emerged from
darkness. But now he suffered neither bewilderment nor despair. It
was thus that fate was accustomed to deal with him, and something had
destroyed or deadened the human nerve that rebels against an evil fate.
He sank on to the ground in a squatting position, propped his back
against a wheel of the nearer gun and rested his chin on his hands,
speculating, as though on something infinitely remote, on the causes
and circumstances of his ruin. Thomas Wells, he supposed, had, in
fact, sold them to the President of Wales, had very likely been
corrupting the army for days before the battle. By that treachery the
campaign was irrevocably lost and, Jeremy told himself calmly, the
whole kingdom as well. There was no army between this and London, nor
could any now be raised in the south. England was at the mercy of the
invaders, and the reign of the Speakers was forever finished. It was
over, Jeremy murmured, with the death of their last descendant--for he
took it for granted that the old man had been killed.
And then a sudden inexplicable wave of anger and foreboding came over
him, as though the deadened nerve had begun to stir again and had waked
him from this unnatural indifference. He scrambled to his feet and
stared wildly in the direction of London. He must go there and find the
Lady Eva. He found that he still desired to live.
With the new desire came activity of body and mind. He must travel as
fast as he could, making his way through the ranks of the invaders
and more quickly than they, and to do this with any chance of success
he needed weapons. He would trust to luck to provide him with a horse
later on. His own pistols had disappeared, but he began a determined
and callous search among the dead. As he hunted here and there his
glance was attracted by something white and trailing in the heap of
bodies which lay between the wheels of the other gun. He realized
with a shock that it was the Speaker’s long beard, somehow caught up
between two corpses which hid the rest of him. He looked at it and
hesitated. Then, muttering, “Poor old chap!” he interrupted his search
to show his late master what respect he could by composing his dead
limbs. But as he pulled the old man’s body free, the heavy, pouched
eyelids flickered, the black lips parted and emitted a faint sigh. In
an instant Jeremy had fetched the jar of water, and after sucking at it
languidly like a sick child, the Speaker murmured something that Jeremy
could not catch.
“Don’t try to talk,” he warned. “Be quiet for a moment.”
“Is it all over?” the Speaker repeated in a distinct but toneless voice.
“All over,” Jeremy told him; and in his own ears the words rang like
two strokes of a resonant and mournful bell.
“Then why are we here?”
Jeremy explained what had happened, and while he told the story the
Speaker appeared, without moving, slowly to recover full consciousness.
When it was done he tried to stand up. Jeremy helped him and steadied
him when he was erect.
“It is all over,” he pronounced in the same unwavering voice. Then he
added with childish simplicity, “What shall we do now?”
“Get away from here,” Jeremy cried with a sudden access of terror.
“Thomas Wells will want to make sure we are dead, and this is just
where he will look for us--he may come back any minute! And we mustn’t
be caught; we must get to London, to help the Lady Eva!”
“Get away from here. Very well, I am ready.” And with a slow unsteady
movement the Speaker began to pick his way across the battery, lurching
a little when he turned aside to avoid a body lying at his feet.
Jeremy ran after him and offered his arm, which the old man docilely
accepted. When they had climbed out of the pit they saw that not only
the village of Slough was burning, but also that every building for
miles around seemed to have been fired. On the main road, away to
their left, Jeremy distinguished a long column of wagons and mounted
men on the march, accompanied by irregular and straggling crowds--the
transport and the camp-followers, he surmised. But already most of the
invaders were far ahead, making for London and, eager for that rich
prize, not staying to loot the poor farmhouses, the smoke of which
indicated their advance.
Jeremy turned and looked at his companion. The old Jew had paused
without a word when Jeremy paused and stood waiting patiently for the
order to move again. A sort of enduring tranquillity had descended like
a thin mask on the savage power of his face, softening all its features
without concealing them. His eyes shone softly with a peaceful and
unnatural light. He stared fixedly straight before him, and what he
saw moved him neither to speech nor to a change of expression. Jeremy
regarded him with doubt, which deepened into fear. This passivity in
one who had been so vehement had about it something alarming. The old
man must have gone mad.
Jeremy shuddered at the suggestion. His thoughts suddenly became
unrestrained, ridiculous, inconsequent. It was wicked to have led them
into this misery and then to avoid reproach by losing his reason! How
was he to get a madman over the difficult road to London? He felt as
if he had been deserted in a hostile country with no companion but
a hideous, an irritating monstrosity.... That fixed, gentle smile
began to work on his nerves and to enrage him. It was a symbol of an
unreasonable and pitiless world, where the sun shone and the birds
sang, and which yet turned wantonly to blast his most beautiful hopes.
He cursed at the old man, cried, “It was all your fault, this!” madly
raised his hand to strike---- But the Speaker turned on him with a
regard so quiet and so melancholy that he drew back in horror from his
own intention.
“Come on, sir,” he said with hoarse tenderness. “Give me your arm. We
must keep to the right, well away from the road. We’ll get through
somehow.”
2
Darkness was fast thickening in the air when Jeremy and the Speaker
at last reached the western edge of London. During that tortuous
and incredible journey the old man had not more than once or twice
been shaken out of his smiling calm. He had walked or ridden, stood
motionless as a stone by the roadside or crouched in hiding in
the ditch, as Jeremy bade him, obedient in all things, impassive,
apparently without will or desire of his own. Jeremy bore for them
both the burden of their dangers and their escape, planned and acted
and dragged his companion after him, astonishing himself by his
inexhaustible reserve of vitality and resolution. Or, rather, he did
none of these things, but some intelligence not his own reigned in his
mind, looked ahead, judged coolly, decided, and drove his flagging body
to the last limits of fatigue. An ancient instinct woke in the depths
of his nature and took the reins. He was not at all a man, a lover,
Jeremy Tuft, scientist, gunner, revenant, struggling, by means of such
knowledge and gifts as his years of conscious life had bestowed on him,
across difficult obstacles to reach a desired goal. He was a blind
activity, a force governed by some obscure tropism; the end called, and
like an insect or a migrating bird he must go to it, whether he would
or not, whatever might stand in the way.
Once, when they almost stumbled on a ranging party of the President’s
horsemen, Jeremy pulled the Speaker roughly after him into a pond
and found a hiding-place for them both among the thick boughs of an
overhanging tree. When the old man felt the water rising coldly to
his armpits he uttered a single faint cry of distress or despair, and
Jeremy scanned him keenly, wondering whether perhaps it would not
be better to desert that outworn body and altered brain as too much
encumbrance on his flight. Afterwards, when the danger had gone by
and it was time to emerge, they found that they had sunk deep in the
mud. Jeremy’s expression did not change or his heart beat a stroke
the faster during the three or four minutes in which he struggled to
draw himself up into the tree. Then he gazed down pitilessly on his
companion, considering; but, seeing no signs of agitation or indocility
on that dumb immobile mask, at last after much effort he drew him out.
Once they came sharply around a corner and saw ahead of them one of the
Welsh troopers leading a riderless horse. It was too late to look for
cover or to escape, and Jeremy, halting the Speaker by a rude jerk of
his arm, went forward with an air of calm. As he came closer he cried
out to the soldier in a raspingly authoritative voice: “I am looking
for Thomas Wells. You must lead me to Thomas Wells at once.”
The man, dark, squat, low-browed and brutish, paused and hesitated.
He was puzzled by the unfamiliar speech of the eastern counties and
was ignorant whether this might not be one of the deserters from the
Speaker’s army whom he ought to receive as a comrade. His uncertainty
lasted long enough for Jeremy to come close to him, to produce a
bayonet taken from one of the dead, and to drive it with a single
unfaltering movement into his heart. He toppled off the horse without a
sound, leaving one foot caught in the stirrup. Jeremy disentangled it,
took the man’s pistol and cloak, and rolled the body into the ditch,
where he put a couple of dry branches over it. Then he beckoned to the
Speaker to come up and mount. Thereafter they traveled more rapidly.
They had gone by such by-ways as to avoid for the most part the main
track of the invading army, but they saw bands of marauders here
and there and more often the evidences of their passage. As they
came closer to London, in the neighborhood of Fulham, they slipped
miraculously unchallenged through the advanced guard. Here Jeremy saw
with a clear eye horrors which affected him no more than the faces of
other people affect a hurrying man who jostles impatiently against them
in a crowded street. The flare of burning cottages lit up the gathering
twilight, and there were passing scenes of brutality.... The invaders
were pressing on to reach the city by nightfall and had no time to be
exhaustively atrocious. But Jeremy heard (and was not detracted by it)
the screams of tortured men, women, and children, and sometimes of
cattle. Beyond the furthest patrols of the army they found the roads
full of fugitives, hastening pitifully onward, though the country held
for them no refuge from this ravening host, unless it might be in mere
chance. These, like their pursuers, were but so many obstacles in the
way which Jeremy and the Speaker had to pass by as best they could.
When they came to the first cluster of houses it was dark and the full
moon had not yet risen; but in front of them great welling fountains of
fire softly yet fiercely illuminated the night sky.
“The people have gone mad,” Jeremy muttered with cold understanding.
“They are plundering the city before the enemy can plunder it. Come on,
we must hurry.” He urged forward the Speaker’s horse and they plunged
together into that doubtful flame-lit chaos.
No man raised a hand to stay them as they passed. The streets were
crowded with hurrying people, both men and women, among whom it was
impossible to distinguish which were escaping and which were looting.
All carried bundles of incongruous goods and all looked fiercely yet
shrinkingly at any who approached them. Many were armed, some with
swords, some with clubs, some with the rudest weapons, odd pieces of
iron or the legs of chairs, which they brandished menacingly, prepared
to strike on the smallest suspicion rather than be unexpectedly struck
down. Here and there in the boiling mob Jeremy distinguished the
sinister, degraded faces, the rude, bundled clothes, of the squatters
from the outskirts. Without slackening his pace he glanced around at
the Speaker, who was moving through the turmoil with gentle smile and
fixed, unseeing eyes. The time was already gone when he might have been
affected by the agony of his city.
Out of the raging inferno of Piccadilly, where already a dozen houses
were on fire, they turned down a dark and narrow lane behind two high
walls, and as they did so the noise of the tumult became strangely
remote, as though it belonged to another world. Here there was no
sound save the terrifying reverberations caused by their horses’ hoofs.
At the bottom of it was a gate set in the boundary wall of the gardens
of the Treasury. It stood wide open, and inside there was a mysterious
and quiet blackness. They rode through and immediately drew rein.
Then the sense of these invisible but familiar walks and lawns
quickened Jeremy’s cold resolution to an intolerable agony of
pain--pain like that which follows the thawing of a frozen limb.
During the wild and hasty journey the only conscious thought that
had possessed him had been that somehow or other he must get to the
Treasury. It had excluded all consideration of what he might find, or
what he should do when he got there. Now suddenly he understood that
this place and all the people in it had been existing and changing,
as places and people change, in reality as well as in his mind, that
things had been happening here in his absence, all that week, all
that day, during the time he lay unconscious in the gun-pit, during
the last hour.... It was as though he had carried somewhere in his
brain, unalterable till now by any certainty, a picture of the Treasury
as it had always been; this black and silent wilderness substituted
itself with a shock like a cataclysm. For the first time Jeremy made
a sound, a low choked groan of extreme anguish. Then, cold as he had
been before, he dismounted and bade the Speaker stay by the horses,
because the gardens here were too much broken up for riding at night.
He hastened forward alone, staring through the darkness at the empty
place where the lights of the Treasury ought to have been.
But there was no light in any of the windows, and Jeremy stumbled on,
sinking to the ankles in the soft earth of flower-beds, catching
his feet in trailing plants, running headlong into bushes, growing
desperate and breathless. Suddenly he became aware of the building, a
great vague mass looming over him like a thicker piece of night; and
as he stared up at it, it seemed to grow more distinct and the windows
glimmered a little paler than the darkness around them. He crawled
cautiously along the wall, found a door, which, like the garden-gate,
was wide open, and slipped into the chilling obscurity of a passage.
Then he paused, hesitating, frightened by the uncanny silence and
emptiness of the house.
It was plain that the Treasury had been deserted, though how and why he
could not conjecture. He stayed by the door and rested his body against
the wall, racking his wits to think what the Lady Eva and her mother
might have been expected to do when the news of the disaster reached
them--as it must have reached them. He now perceived his own weariness
and that he was aching in every member. His head was whirling, perhaps
from the delayed effects of the blow that had stunned him, and he felt
as though he were flying, swooping up and down in great dizzy circles.
His back was an aching misery that in no attitude could find rest.
This last check, at what had been for hours and through incredible
adventures his only imagined goal, sapped at a blow his unnatural
endurance, and for a moment he was ready to fall where he stood and
weep in despair.
It was to choke back the tears he felt rising in his throat that he
called out, foolishly, in a weak and hoarse voice: “Eva! Where are you?
Eva!”
Then most incredibly from the bushes in the garden a few yards behind
him came a wavering low cry, “Jeremy, is it you?” and then, in an
accent of terror, “Oh, who is it?” At the same time he saw a shadow
moving, and the next moment that shadow was in his arms, crying softly,
while he held her in a firm embrace.
Some minutes passed thus before the Lady Eva recovered her power of
speech. Jeremy lost all sense of time and of events. He wanted first to
comfort her and next to know what she had suffered. He had forgotten
that he had come to take her away from impending danger.
At last her sobbing stopped and she murmured, her face still close
against his breast: “Jeremy, mother is dead!”
“Dead!” They both spoke in whispers, as though the silent gardens were
full of enemies seeking for them.
“Yes, dead.” She straightened herself and withdrew from his arms, as
though she must be free before she could tell her story. Then she went
on in a low, hurried, unemphasized voice: “Roger--you know, Roger
Vaile--brought the news that ... that you had been defeated. He was
with Thomas Wells and saw him give the signal to surrender, but he
managed to get away, and when he realized it was all over he came
straight here. He was badly wounded, I think--he stumbled and fell
against me, and my dress is all covered with blood....” She stopped
and caught her breath, then went on more firmly: “He was telling us
and begging us to go away and hide, and we didn’t want to go. Then a
crowd of people came into our room--servants, most of them, grooms and
stable-men--and told us that everything was over, that there was no
more government, and we had to get out at once, because the Treasury
belonged to them now. And I said we’d go, but mother said out loud:
‘Then I must get my jewels first.’
“They got very excited at that, and when she went to her chest to get
them, they went after her and pulled her away, not roughly really, and
began rummaging in the chest themselves. Roger was standing, holding on
to a chair, looking horribly white, and he told mother to come away and
leave them. But she wouldn’t; she went back to the chest and ordered
them out of the room. They pushed her away again more roughly and
laughed at her, and she lost her temper--you know how she used to?--and
hit one of them in the face. Then he--then he killed her ... with a
sword....”
Her voice trailed away into silence. Jeremy took her cold hands and
muttered brokenly. “Dearest--dearest----”
“When that happened,” she went on in the same even whisper, “Roger
called out to me to run away. He’d got a great bandage around his
wound, and he looked so ill I thought he was going to faint. But he
stood in the door and drew his knife to keep them from coming after me:
I was just outside in the passage. I couldn’t run away. Then one of
them came at him, and Roger struck at him with the knife. The man just
caught Roger’s wrist and held it for a minute--Roger was so weak--and
then pushed him, and he fell down in the passage, and blood came
pouring out of his side. Then I--I think he died. And I ran away. I
don’t think they came after me ... I don’t think they did....”
She was silent again, and Jeremy took her into his arms in an
inarticulate agony. She lay there limp and unresponsive. At last she
whispered: “I ought to have stayed and looked after him ... but I
think he was dead. Such a lot of blood came out of his wound ... it
poured and poured over the floor ... it came almost to my feet....”
“Eva!” said Jeremy, and could say nothing more. Several minutes passed
before he exclaimed: “It doesn’t matter. We must get away. You must try
and forget it all, beloved. I’ll look after you now.”
“I will, oh, I will!” she cried, clinging to him. “But I can’t now--I
can see it all the time. I’m trying. And, Jeremy,” she went on, holding
him as he tried to draw her away, “afterwards, when I thought they’d
gone, I went back ... I went back to my room----”
“Yes, dear.” Jeremy was still trying to draw her away.
“And I got this--look!” Jeremy peered at something she held up to
him, but could not make out what it was. She thrust it into his hand,
and he felt a small round metal box, the size and shape of half an
egg. “I took it once, months ago, from that silly girl, Mary. She was
pretending to be in love, and she said that if ever her lover deserted
her she’d kill herself. Then she boasted that she’d got poison so as
to be ready--Rose told me. So I made her give it to me, and I never
thought about it again till to-day.”
“Yes, dear,” Jeremy murmured soothingly, “but it’s all right now. You
don’t need it. Shall we throw it away?”
“No, no!” she cried agitatedly, snatching the box back; then calmly
again: “Don’t be angry with me, Jeremy. It’s stupid, but you don’t know
how I wanted that box this afternoon while I was hiding in the garden,
so as to be sure.... And I couldn’t get up the courage to go back and
look for it. I must keep it for a little while now. I’ll throw it away
myself in a little while.” She tucked the box into her dress and gave
him her hand. Without another word they set off towards the Speaker and
the horses.
CHAPTER XV
FLIGHT
1
The old man had not moved from the spot or the attitude in which Jeremy
had left him. He still stood by the horses, holding the bridles, his
head fallen forward on his chest.
“Don’t say anything to him,” Jeremy whispered hurriedly to the Lady
Eva. “He’s ... he’s strange.” She nodded in reply. Her father, however,
took no notice of her, if he saw her, but only turned mutely to
Jeremy as though awaiting orders. It then first occurred to Jeremy to
ask himself what they ought to do next. The inhuman power which had
sustained him so far and had given him supernatural gifts of foresight
and decision, now without warning deserted him. He found himself again
what he had been before, an honest, intelligent and courageous man,
placed by fate in a situation which demanded much more of him than
honesty, intelligence, or courage. He felt like the survivor of a
midnight shipwreck who loses in a flurry of waves the plank to which he
is clinging and is abandoned to the incalculable and hostile forces of
darkness and the sea.
He turned to the girl and asked her advice; but she shook her head
dumbly. She had followed him there as a child follows its guardian,
without questioning him, accepting his wisdom and his will as though
they had been the inalterable decrees of Providence. In despair he
addressed the Speaker as he would have addressed him a week or even a
day before, seeking to learn if there was any well-affected magnate in
whose house they could find refuge.
A change became visible on the old man’s face. He seemed to be
struggling to think and to speak, and in his eagerness he sawed the air
with his disengaged hand. At last he ejaculated in a strange, hoarse
voice, produced with effort, which jerked from fast to slow and from
the lowest note to the highest, as though he had no control over it:
“Can’t make peace with the President now--can’t give him up the
Chairman alive. Thomas Wells took the Chairman prisoner and cut his
throat.” Then he added with a sort of dreadful reflectiveness: “Thomas
Wells always did say that he believed in making sure.” And so, having
delivered what was perhaps his ultimate pronouncement on statecraft,
he resumed his former position, motionless, except that now and then a
violent fit of shivering shook him from head to foot. Behind the little
group the houses in Piccadilly burned up higher and painted lurid
colors on the sky, and away on the other side of the Treasury a great
fountain of golden sparks, dancing and gyrating, showed that one of
the houses on the Embankment, apparently Henry Watkins’ house, had now
been fired. But in the garden the shadows only wavered and flickered
feebly, and the noise of the flames, and of the looting of fleeing
crowds, came incredibly thin and gentle. Jeremy and Eva and the Speaker
seemed in this obscurity to have been sheltered away from the violence
of the world in a little haven of miraculous calm, the walls of which,
however, were yet as tenuous and unstable as those of a soap-bubble.
Jeremy pondered again, while his companions silently and expectantly
regarded him. After a minute he said in a very gentle tone: “Eva, I
know so little ... if we could get down to the coast, do you think we
could find a boat to take us over to France?”
“I think so,” she replied doubtfully. “I know that there are boats that
go to France, of course. But what shall we do when we get there?”
“I don’t know. I shall find some way of looking after you. But anyway,
we must do that because there’s nothing else for us to do, unless we
give ourselves up.”
“I won’t be taken by Thomas Wells,” she said, with a catch in her voice.
Jeremy set his teeth hard to keep back his exclamation. “We’ll do
that,” he assured her firmly. “But first of all we must go back to the
house and get things to take with us.”
They found their way in silence through the gardens, Jeremy leading
one horse and the Speaker the other and Eva walking by Jeremy, holding
his free hand. They searched the stables first, and there, to their
delight, found two fresh horses, strong, ugly beasts, not elegant
enough for the Speaker’s carriage or to go with the army, but very
suitable for such a journey as was now proposed. They also found a
lantern which Jeremy took with him into the Treasury. He returned after
a while with a supply of bread and meat and some clothes. Then they
went as quietly as possible around to the courtyard, there to make
their preparations.
Eva helped Jeremy to pack the saddle-bags, while he explained his
intentions to her. The coast round the mouth of the Thames, he thought,
and probably as far as Dover, would be overrun at once by the Welsh
invaders, and it would be fatal for them to go in that direction. He
therefore proposed to double west, strike across Sussex, and make
for one of the Channel ports there or farther on in Hampshire. He
thought that he could find his way, and that if they made haste they
would escape pursuit. His plans beyond that were of the vaguest: he
supposed that in the end he could put his mechanical knowledge to
some use. Perhaps later on they might even return to England, if the
country remained unsettled, and assert the Speaker’s claims against
the usurpers. As he uttered this cloudy fragment of comfort he
thought of the wandering Stuarts and chuckled to himself, sourly but
half-hysterically, at finding himself in so romantic a situation.
Meanwhile the Speaker sat crouched, where Jeremy had placed him, on an
old mounting-stone in the courtyard, muttering continuously under his
breath. When all was ready for their departure, Jeremy went over to
him, arranged a cloak to hide his conspicuous face and beard, and put
a hand under his arm to raise him up. The old man stiffly acquiesced,
still mumbling.
“What did you say, sir?” Jeremy asked gently.
“Thomas Wells always did say that he believed in making sure,” the
Speaker repeated with a terrifying evenness of intonation.
Jeremy twisted his shoulders impatiently, as though to shake off an
evil omen, and led the stooping figure over to where the horses stood
ready. The noise of the rioting and plundering came to them more
distinctly here in the courtyard; but Whitehall itself was strangely
quiet, as though the frenzied crowds had left the Treasury untouched in
order to placate the fast approaching invaders who were to be its new
tenants and their new masters.
Jeremy had just seated Eva on one horse and the Speaker on the other
and was preparing to lead them out, when they heard the clatter of
hoofs coming furiously down Whitehall, rising loud and clear above the
confused sounds that filled the air. There was something arresting,
sinister, and purposeful in that sharp, staccato sound, and, as if by
instinct, they drew together in the dark entrance to the courtyard,
while Jeremy hastily blew out the lantern. Then the rider reached
them, drew rein, and halted a yard or two away from them, peering into
the shadow. They could see him only as a vague shape, thickly cloaked
and muffled, while behind him in the distance little figures hurried
aimlessly into or out of the dull glow of Henry Watkins’ house. Jeremy
put one hand on Eva’s arm lest she should make a rash gesture, while
with the other he grasped firmly the barrel of one of his pistols.
The horseman continued to stare at them without moving, as though
uncertain whether what he saw in the gate was shadow or substance. But
suddenly the flames opposite shot up higher and brighter and cast a
red dancing reflection on their faces; and Jeremy felt like a fugitive
whose hiding-place is unmasked. The horseman spoke at last, and Jeremy
recognized with a shudder the calm drawling voice.
“Well, who are you?” he said. “What do you mean by looting here?”
Jeremy clutched the girl’s arm more tightly and made no reply, hoping
that in the doubtful light they might still pass for stray fugitives.
But the man urged his horse a little nearer, leaning over to look at
them, and saying: “Speak up! It’ll be the worse for you if you don’t.
I’m looking for the Lady Eva. Have you seen----” And then as he leant
still closer, in astonishment, “By God!” Jeremy brought round his arm
like a man throwing a stone and dashed the pistol-butt heavily in
Thomas Wells’s face.
The Canadian uttered a choked cry, sagged forward on his horse’s neck,
and slid free to the ground on the other side. Jeremy fumbled for the
bayonet which he still carried with him; but Eva plucked agonizedly at
his shoulder, crying: “Jeremy! Jeremy, come!” He hesitated a moment and
heard a louder sound of galloping hoofs approaching. Then he jumped
into Thomas Wells’s empty saddle, turned the horse and rode out into
Whitehall, drawing the girl and the old man after him. A few minutes
later they were fighting their way through the thickening crowd of
fugitives that still poured southwards over Westminster Bridge.
* * * * *
When day broke they were well clear of the southern edge of London, and
a little later they were crossing the broad ridge of the North Downs.
They had made a dizzy pace during the short night, and Jeremy, who
was no horsemaster, but knew that the horses must be nearly finished,
called a halt and suggested that they should rest a little in a small
grove which lay on the southern slope of the hill.
The old man, who was calm and indifferent again, and had ceased his
muttering, rested his back against the trunk of a tree, his arms
falling ungainly like the arms of a broken doll. He shivered violently
at intervals, but still did not complain: he had not once spoken to his
companions since their journey began. Jeremy after a doubtful glance at
him, walked to the lower edge of the grove, and the girl followed him,
treading noiselessly on the soft pine-needles. While he stared vaguely
out over the misty chequer-board of the Weald, he felt her hand placed
in his and dared not turn to look at her.
Presently, mastering himself, he cried: “Look, there’s Chanetonbury!”
For the mist had just rolled off that far and noble grove, showing
it perhaps a little larger than he remembered it, but in every other
respect the same. Then he added: “Go and sleep, Eva, while I keep an
eye on the road.” But he spoke without force, because he did not wish
her to leave him alone, he did not wish to sacrifice these few quiet
minutes with her.
“I can’t sleep,” she said. “I can’t sleep again till we are safe. It
won’t be long now, will it?”
He shook his head and smiled as confidently as he could.
“I mean, it won’t be long ... one way or the other,” she went on,
dragging out the words and keeping her eyes with difficulty on his.
2
As they traveled on, through the tumbled slope of the downs and out
into the flat country, a sort of quietude, a rigidity of expectation,
descended on the little party. There had been so far no sign that they
were pursued or that the wave of invasion was extending this way; and
Jeremy began to believe that they had escaped from their enemies. But
the news of fatal changes in the kingdom had gone before them. The
sight of strange travelers on the road was alarming to the workers in
the fields. Once, when they would have stopped a rustic hobbledehoy to
ask their way, he ran from them, screaming to unseen companions that
the Welsh had come to burn the village. Once they found the gates of
a great park barricaded as if for a siege, and behind it two or three
old men with shotguns who warned them fiercely away. The whole country,
as yet untouched by that menacing hand, was in a state of shrinking
preparation and alarm.
But they husbanded their provision and went on, independent of all
help, striking towards the distant line of hills, which once crossed
they would be able to find their way to the coast. From Portsmouth,
Jeremy learnt, an inlet now silted up and almost negligible, the
smugglers were said to cross to France and back; and a not unusual item
in their freight was criminals escaping from justice. So at least Eva
had gathered from the stories that used to drift about the Treasury,
starting perhaps from some clerk concerned with the prevention or the
overseeing of this abuse. Jeremy steered their course there for a
little to the west, and trusted to heaven to see them straight to their
goal.
Their progress was slow and fretted him, so that at first it was
necessary for Eva to calm and console him two or three times in every
hour. The Speaker, who had still not awakened from his dream, was
manifestly very ill and sometimes kept his seat in the saddle with
difficulty. His breath had grown short and stertorous; and he had fits
in which he fought for air, while his face became black and the veins
in his neck and temples congested. During the worst of these they
had to stop and let him rest by the roadside, while Eva loosened his
garments, bathed his forehead with water from the nearest ditch, and
murmured over him the tender words of a mother over a child. At these
times Jeremy would stride away, biting his lip and clenching his hands,
muttering that every care Eva lavished on her father was a moment
lost in the race for her safety. But before he had gone many yards in
his indignation he would ask himself how much anxiety for himself and
for his own future happiness with her had done to provoke this fury.
Even while his brow was drawn and his lips were still muttering, some
independent voice in his brain would be pronouncing judgment on his
unworthy weakness and sending him back, quivering with self-restraint,
to offer Eva, ungraciously but sincerely, what help he could.
Then she would smile up at him divinely, diverting to him for a moment
the flood of loving pity she had poured on her outworn and helpless
father. It seemed to him that she, who was the most terribly threatened
of the three, stood most aloof, most untouched of all of them, from the
cruel things of the world, a person infinitely wise and compassionate,
who would comprehend at once the causes of his gusts of passion as well
as their futility.
The countryside appeared to be, as Jeremy had indeed expected to see
it, greener and richer and fuller than he had ever known it. The crops
far and wide were already approaching maturity and promised a full
harvest. The woods covered a greater space, but were better cared
for; and everywhere men were working in them, tending them, felling
trees, or burning charcoal. There seemed to be fewer enclosed fields
of grass, while the open commons had grown, and now maintained sheep
and cows, goats and geese, herded by ragged and dirty little boys and
girls. Even on this journey Jeremy could not help watching curiously
all they passed and noting the contrast with his own day, and he saw
this rich and idyllic country with something of a constriction at the
heart. Apparently in the mad turmoil of the Troubles, while lunatics
had fought and destroyed one another, the best of the English had
managed to stretch out a hand and take back a little of what had been
their own and to restore a little of what had been best in England. And
now ... Jeremy wished they could have passed through one of the larger
country towns to observe its reviving prosperity, but they dared not,
and skirted Horsham as widely as the roads would allow them. In the
villages there seemed to be a more vigorous life but less civilization.
Still, here and there, on ancient houses hung metal plates from which
the enamel was not yet all gone, advertising some long-vanished
commodity, or announcing that it was so many miles to somewhere else.
But the old buildings tottered and flaked away even as Jeremy looked at
them; and the new population was sheltered in hideous and rickety barns.
But all this progress through the Weald had the uneven quality of
a dream, in which at one moment events are hurried together with
inconceivable rapidity, while at another they are drawn out as though
to make a thin pattern over the waste spaces of eternity. Sometimes
Jeremy rode impatiently a yard or two in front of his companions, eaten
up by a burning passion for haste, sometimes with them, or behind them,
dull, patient, resigned, uninterested. When he looked at the Lady
Eva with anxious or with pathetic eyes, he saw her still serene and
controlled. On the first night after their escape they had covered only
a little more than half of the distance to the hills, when weariness
forced them to stop and rest in a wood not far from Slinfold. From
the edge of the wood they could see the village, where one light still
burned, perhaps that of the inn; and some desire for company made them
rest in a spot where they could keep it in view. At first it was an
intense and brilliant point in the soft, melting dusk and later, as
the darkness grew complete, the only real thing in a country that had
become mysterious and intangible.
Jeremy had wished to go on into the village and find a lodging there,
so that the old man might be made comfortable at least during the
night. But on reflection he decided that the fewer witnesses they left
behind of their passage across the country the greater would be their
chances of safety. It was not impossible that Thomas Wells or the
President should send out scouting-parties after them; and the Speaker
was a noticeable man. He therefore announced, as the leader from whose
decision there was no appeal, that they would sleep in the open; and
Eva, gravely nodding, acquiesced. They made a bed for the Speaker of
dry leaves, such as still lay under the trees, and the saddle-cloths,
and disposed him on it. He was for once breathing easily and quietly,
and obeyed them like a very young child. But no sooner was he asleep
than his day-long silence and passivity gave way to a restless
muttering and gesturing. Jeremy, bending over him, could distinguish
nothing in the torrent of words that came blurred and jumbled from the
blackened lips; but he recognized in the rise and fall of the voice
a horrible likeness to those long and furious tirades on the future
of England, of which he had been the recipient during his days in the
workshops.
He covered up the Speaker with a shuddering tenderness, left him,
and came back to Eva, who had settled herself with her back against
a tree. As soon as he sat down at her side she slipped wearily into
his arms and, looking up at him, said softly, “We love one another,
Jeremy”--not an appeal or a protestation, but a simple statement of
fact, of the last certitude which remained unassailable in this moving
and deceitful world. She said nothing more before she fell asleep with
her head on his shoulder; and in a little while in this cramped and
uncomfortable position he too slept.
The next day they pressed on again; but they had not gone many miles
before it became obvious that the Speaker was much worse, was in a high
fever and was growing delirious. His eyes shone brilliantly and seemed
to have increased in size and his cheeks were flushed with a deep red.
Once, when from exhaustion and misery they had for a moment ceased to
watch him and to hold him in his saddle, he checked his horse, slid
off and made unsteadily for a wood which lay some distance on one side
of their way. Jeremy had to dismount, go after him, and drag him back
to the road by force. Now for the first time he began to speak aloud
and intelligibly, to rave of what he intended to do for England, how
he would strengthen her government and renew her civilization, how he
would teach the people their ancient arts and make them again the most
powerful in the world.
By this time Jeremy, persevering mutely and patiently, was conscious
of the old man only as an intolerable burden on their flight. He even
revolved plans of letting him escape or leaving him by the roadside,
arguing furiously in his mind that to drag along with him a man so
obviously past saving, a man who, at the best, all disasters aside, was
anyway without doubt at the end of his life, was inviting destruction
for himself and Eva, who were young and vigorous and hopeful, and
had all their life and their love before them. But he knew very well
that he could make no connection between his logic and the reality.
He sometimes caressed the girl’s shoulder with a clumsy gesture and
she smiled at him in reply. All through that day hardly a word passed
between them which was not necessary. To all appearance their only link
might have been the ancient and insensible being with whose safety
they were charged. But in their silent union to serve this end, in
the accord moved and ratified by a look or a lifted finger, Jeremy
recognized and was exalted by the inevitability, the invincibility of
the bond that held them. Somehow he had been launched flying at random
through the centuries and had fallen at the side of this one woman.
Life might do with them what chance directed; but they had met, and out
of that meeting had arisen their love, which was a stable and eternal
thing, which he felt to be unmoved even in these death-throes of a
world.
Amidst such delays they did not come until nightfall to the road which
runs along the foot of the Downs, and at which Jeremy had been aiming.
Just as they entered it from a deeply-rutted side-track, the old man
uttered a heart-rending sound and collapsed on the neck of his horse
in the worst crisis he had yet suffered. Jeremy reined in and stopped,
his brow contracted, his heart sinking as he realized that it was
impossible to push on. Then with a sigh he dismounted, and lifted the
Speaker to the ground. As he did so it seemed to him that in this short
time the old man’s great bulk had wasted and grown frail, so that his
body was no heavier than that of a child. Eva too dismounted, and,
bending over her father, attempted to restore him, but without effect.
It seemed every moment that his loud and labored breathing must cease
from sheer inability to overcome the impediment that hung on it. His
delirium had passed into a pitiful and not peaceful stupor; and Jeremy
began to believe that death was at hand.
He contemplated the fact without emotion; but Eva grew agitated, caught
him by the hand, and cried, “What shall we do? What can we do?” And
then, before he could reply, she went on, “Look, there are some houses
in front of us: we must be coming into a village. Let’s try to get a
lodging, whatever the risk may be. He mustn’t die like this by the
roadside.”
Jeremy stood up and gazed where she pointed. A few houses were dotted
among the trees, and lights flickered here and there. For a moment he
was balanced between protest and consent.
“Very well,” he said in a level tired voice, “I’ll go on, and see what
sort of a place it is. Will you not be afraid to be alone with him till
I come back?” She shook her head, and he set off.
As soon as he entered the tiny village, dogs ran out from the
yards, barking and snapping at his heels. He kept them off with his
riding-whip, and stumbled along looking for the inn. Vague thick-set
shapes lurched past him on heavy feet, and vanished here and there.
Presently, after he had tripped over a rut and fallen headlong into a
heap of evil-smelling refuse, he came upon a little ramshackle hovel
which seemed, from the noise of conviviality issuing through the
half-open door, to be what he sought. He paused outside for a moment,
brushing the filth from his garments and listening.
Inside, the worthies of the village were rejoicing after the day’s
work. Jeremy could hear the slow, long drawn-out sound of Sussex talk,
not changed by a couple of centuries (or rather thrown back by that
interval into the peculiarity it had at one time seemed likely to lose)
and the noise of liquor being poured and of pots being scraped on a
table. Then a voice was raised in song, and all the laborers joined
it, roaring and shouting in unison. Jeremy’s momentary hesitation
lengthened, continued, grew timeless.... His tired brain was going
round, the dark scene about him was melting and being built up again.
He forgot why he was there or whence he had come. He could only
remember, vaguely struggling still to realize that this was not it, one
particular night, very black and wretched, when they had been hauling
up the guns in preparation for the opening of the Battle of the Somme,
and all the men of the battery had sung in chorus to keep themselves
cheerful. This was like a shadow-show in which he could not tell the
real from the fictitious. Who and where was he? Who was singing that
familiar, that haunting or haunted melody? Was it those old comrades of
the German wars who had suffered with him in the Salient, and at Arras,
and by Albert, or could it be...? He could not hear the words until at
last they came to him clearly in the emphasis of the last repetition,
as the laborers shouted together:
Pack up my troubles in some owekyebow
And smile, smile, smile!
The recognition of the garbled words, the subtly altered tune, shot
him back at once from that middle world of fantastic unreality to the
immediate problem, the flight, the Speaker fighting to get his breath
a few hundred yards down the road. His first start of surprise had
carried his hand to the latch and he pushed the door open, and went
into the low, brick-floored, reeking parlor.
His entrance produced an immediate hush. Pots were arrested half-way
to thirsty mouths and every eye stared roundly at him. It seemed to
him too that there was a slight involuntary shrinking away from him
among all these hearty, earth-stained men, but he was too weary to do
more than receive the impression without curiosity as to its meaning,
without more than a flickering and uninterested recollection of the
fact that he was unarmed. But immediately a relaxation succeeded the
hush and the inn-keeper pushed forward, saying,
“Why, I did think as how you was one of them Welshmen come back again!”
This speech was to Jeremy as though a dagger of ice had been driven
into his heart, and the room swayed round him. But he betrayed no
trouble in his expression, took a firm grip on his mind and laughed
with the inn-keeper at the idea. All the rustics joined in his
laughter, nudged one another, went forward with their interrupted
drinking, and murmured,
“That’s a good ’un!”
When the merriment had a little subsided, he asked as casually as he
could manage whether the Welshmen had been there that day. All at once
began to tell him how a party of soldiers speaking a strange, hardly
recognizable tongue, had entered the village early in the morning.
Their leader, who could just make himself understood in the eastern
speech, had held an inquisition and had terrified the inhabitants
almost out of their wits. They had also emptied a barrel of beer, and
made off with a sucking-pig and a good many fowls before riding away.
The villagers, it seemed, had been too much concerned in keeping out
of their way to be certain what direction they had taken; but Jeremy
gathered that they had scattered, some going towards Houghton Bridge,
some towards Pulborough, some towards Duncton.
“Too bad,” said Jeremy sympathetically, his wits working at high speed
and warning him to be cautious. “What do you suppose they were looking
for?”
“Some tale about an old man and a young man and a young woman,” the
inn-keeper grumbled. Jeremy nodded negligently in reply, and the
inn-keeper went on, “And what might you be wanting yourself?”
Jeremy explained that he had been unexpectedly overtaken by darkness
on the way to Arundel, and that he was looking for a bed. A friend, he
said, was waiting just outside the village for his report: anything
would do, he added, desiring to be plausible. He and his friend were
easily served and used to roughing it: a truss of hay in a loft or a
corner in a shed under a cart would be enough for them.
“We can do that for ’ee,” replied the inn-keeper hospitably, and
Jeremy, thanking him, said that he would fetch his friend and return at
once. When they returned, he observed, as he slid through the door, he
hoped the whole company would still be there to drink to their health.
He left the inn a popular and unsuspected person. But when he was a
few yards away from it he began to run, and he blundered desperately
through the darkness till he came to Eva and her father, the old man
still lying prone, the girl crouched by his side under the hedge.
“Eva----” he began, panting.
“Have you found a place, Jeremy?” she cried anxiously. “I think we
could get him there now. His breathing’s easier, and----”
Jeremy took her by the shoulder and spoke calmly. “Listen,” he said.
“We can’t go into that village or any other. There’s been a party of
the President’s men there to-day looking for us, and they’re still
about somewhere.”
She turned her shadowed face up to him and listened attentively without
opening her lips. “There’s only one thing we can do,” he went on with
the same coolness. “We must get up at once on to the downs and leave
the horses here. I used to know them pretty well and we ought to have
something like a chance of hiding there if they chase us. We can crawl
right along, never getting far from cover and only just crossing roads,
till we’re near Portsmouth. There’s no help for it, Eva. They’re
looking for _us_: you know what that means.”
For a moment it seemed that she would rebel; and then she bowed her
head and put her hand in his. “Very well,” she said in a quiet voice.
“We must do as you think best.” Jeremy had the impression that, from
some divine and inconceivable height, she was humoring his childish
attachment to this bauble of her life. Instinctively he took her in his
arms and kissed her and felt the passionate response of her whole body.
In the next second they were again practical and cold, taking from the
saddle-bags and hanging about them such of their store of food as still
remained. Then they lifted the Speaker between them and found that
there was just enough strength left in his limbs to carry him along if
he was strongly supported on both sides. A few yards away from them a
narrow track, trodden in the chalk, glimmered faintly; and they turned
into it, making a slow and labored progress up the side of the hill.
CHAPTER XVI
THE ROMAN ROAD
1
That night was one of the cold and starry nights which sometimes fall
on the downs in the middle of summer. As they began to climb up the
slope, the earth seemed to be returning in warm, almost tangible waves,
the heat it had received during the day from the sun. But when they got
clear of the gloomy beech groves on the lower slopes, when the uneven
track had failed them and left them in the middle of a great sweep of
open grass, this ceased, and the air grew gradually cooler. Presently
the wind, which had fallen at dusk, rose again, coming from another
direction, faint but chilly. The motion of the air could hardly be
felt, yet it had in it some quality which touched and stayed the blood
and enervated the spirit. These hours of darkness promised, before they
were done, to reduce the fugitives to a lower state of wretchedness
than they yet had suffered.
When they had stumbled for some time up the steeply rising hill-side
which bore only small and scattered patches of gorse and juniper,
Jeremy realized that they were now as far from the road as they needed
to be, and that it would be impossible for them to walk on much longer.
He looked about him for some shelter in which they might pass the night
and not be immediately obvious to any searcher when day broke. But he
could see none; and he began to be troubled in his mind, for he dared
not halt lest exhaustion should pin them in the open where they stood.
He scanned eagerly every patch of bush that they passed; but all were
too thin and too much exposed. At last on his left he thought he saw
a line dark against the dark sky, which might perhaps be a wood. He
pulled gently at the old man’s arm and directed their steps towards it.
When they came close it proved to be a thick grove of bushes and low
thorn trees, running on either hand out of the narrow limits of their
sight.
“This will do well enough,” he said in the murmured voice of
pre-occupation; and Eva assented with a single word.
They pushed their way through the close growth, and came suddenly on a
steep bank three or four yards from the edge of the thicket.
“_This_ will do!” Jeremy cried in a heartier tone; and he explained
that he wished to be well hidden by bushes, but not so much shut in
that in the morning they could not get a clear view of the country
around them. But, while he was explaining all this, Eva was gently
laying down the Speaker, so that his head rested against the bank, and
making for his head a pillow out of her cloak. Jeremy silently gave her
his own cloak, with which she covered the sleeping or comatose old man.
When she had finished she stood up, shivered slightly, and folded her
arms as if to retain the last vanishing sparks of warmth in her body.
Jeremy, standing also, quiet and somber, felt a wave of inexpressible
emotion rise in his heart at the sight of her slender and shadowy
figure.
“Eva ... Eva ...” he murmured, and she came into his arms as though
that had been the homing-cry. They had no words to use with one
another. They kissed once, and then stood locked in his embrace, Eva’s
face pressed into his shoulder, one of his broad hands on her hair, the
other at her waist. After a little while he pressed her head gently
backwards, bent the supple waist and lowered her on to the ground
as tenderly as she had lowered her father. She suffered what he did
without speaking or resisting, and allowed him to move her head so
that it rested on a thick tuft of grass, and to wrap her riding skirt
tightly about her ankles. For a moment after he had done the silence
endured, and Jeremy thought that, even thus, after the fatigues of
the day, she would not find it hard to sleep. But when she saw him
standing, square, black and aloof, between her and the stars, she
called out to him softly,
“Jeremy! Jeremy! come down to me!” He knelt by her side, and laid
one hand on her arm, conscious, as he made it, of the clumsiness and
inexpressiveness of the gesture. “Lie down by me,” she went on. “The
night will be cold, and we shall keep one another warm.”
After the first exquisite exhilaration of finding himself at her side,
limb to limb, cheek to cheek, clasped in her arms as she in his, the
faculty of reckoning minutes and hours vanished from his mind. This
seemed to him an image of the eternal night which descends on all.
He had a vision of a shrouded figure pacing an endless corridor and
pausing for the length of a human life between one step and the next.
Only the slow, unintermittent rhythm of the girl’s breathing suggested
to him that time passed. He stirred slightly in her arms: he wished to
look up at the sky.
At their heads stood a low hawthorn, beaten, stunted, and misshapen by
many fierce winds, which threw out its sprawling branches over them;
and close to their side was a thick overhanging clump of gorse. Between
the two swam vaguely the North Star; and his eyes strayed from this to
the Great Bear, whence he found or guessed the other constellations,
riding the night sky, remote, brilliant and serene. It seemed to him
that what spirit he had left ceased to be human and was sucked up
into the fellowship of those bright indifferent lights, and the vast
spaces which separated them. He began to amuse himself by calling back
to mind as much as he could remember of that ancient and ridiculous
science, astronomy. Odd facts floated into his thoughts concerning
the weight of the stars, the speed of a ray of light, the nature of
gravitation. He recalled epoch-making and cataclysmic discoveries,
all records of which were now very likely erased from the annals of
mankind. He wondered idly what had become of So-and-so who had been
forever busy with the perihelion of Mercury, and of Such-and-such who
had exhibited strange frenzies when you mentioned to him the name of
a noted Continental astronomer. He recollected queer empty wrangles
about the relation between the universe we can see or conceive, and
the infinite, inconceivable universe, of the existence of which our
minds mysteriously inform us. He was fascinated by the recurrence in
his thoughts of a theory that our system, and all the stars we can see,
are but one minute and negligible organism, moving regularly through
space.... He was trying to form some image of what this must mean, when
he felt himself recalled, as though to another life, by a voice that
was infinitely distant, infinitely faint, and which had once held an
infinite significance for him. It was a struggle to come back to this
forgotten point in time and space: he struggled....
The girl was speaking. “Jeremy,” she repeated, louder, “I am not
asleep.”
He came back, awoke into the real world with a shock like that of a
diver coming out of the sea, and found that still the same night was
in progress, that nothing around him had changed, and that he was very
cold. They had both of them given up their cloaks to the old man and
had nothing to cover them. The wind, so faint and tenuous that it was
impossible to tell whence it came, crept insidiously through or over
everything that might have served them for a shelter. The thin air
surrounded and drenched them with its enervating chill, taking away
from them almost even the strength for speech. But Jeremy answered,
“Nor am I, dearest. I was thinking.”
They lay silent for some time. Then Eva began again, “Do you know where
we are?”
“I don’t at all. I didn’t think to ask the name of the village. We must
be somewhere on the downs between Bury and Duncton, but I couldn’t
see whereabouts in the darkness. Anyway, in the morning we must make
towards the west.”
Silence again.
But the effort of recalling these facts had drawn Jeremy back to human
life; and presently he said with simplicity, “I love you ... I love
you....” She answered him, and they talked, telling one another of
their feelings, exploring strange paths, making strange discoveries,
each taking turns to draw the other aside, like two children together
in a wood, one of whom points out the flowers, while the other, finger
on lip, calls for silence to listen to the birds. As they talked in
soft murmurs they forgot the cold and the passage of time: it was the
longest converse they had ever held in intimacy. Thus it was not the
gray light of morning stealing over the hill-side but the Speaker, who
suddenly began to be restless and to cough and moan in his sleep, that
first drew their attention from themselves.
Eva started hurriedly out of Jeremy’s embrace and went to the old man.
He was in the grip of another attack; and his contorted face showed
that he was suffering deeply. Jeremy followed her, and stood helplessly
by while she arranged more comfortably the folded cloak under his
head and drew over his body the wrappings which, as constantly, with
aimless violent movements of his arms he threw off again. Then, as
suddenly as the attack had begun, it seemed to pass. The old man grew
calm and allowed himself to be covered. He settled on his back, folded
his arms across his breast and threw back his head; and his breathing
became more gentle. Jeremy discovered with a shock that the sunken and
brilliant eyes were open and were intensely fixed on his. He opened his
mouth to say he knew not what, but the Speaker had begun in a faint but
distinct whisper.
“Jeremy, we were beaten----”
It was as though he had returned to the last moment of the battle, as
though the three days of his aberration had not been, and he was saying
now what he might have said then. But to Jeremy there was nothing but
injustice in this long-suspended comment. He forgot where they were and
what was their condition; and words of hot anger rose in his mouth. He
was deceived for a moment by the serenity and calmness of the Speaker’s
voice into thinking that this was indeed the man who had tyrannically
driven them all into disaster by his ungovernable will.
“You----” shaped itself on his lips, never spoken; for the girl plucked
in terror at his arm and at the same moment he stopped, jaw dropping,
eyes starting and hands hanging as though the tendons of the wrists had
been cut. For the old man was dead.
Eva threw herself down beside the body and pressed her lips on her
father’s cold forehead. Then realizing that what she had dreaded was
true, that the final event had taken place, she slipped helpless to
one side, sobbing violently with dry eyes and convulsed mouth. Jeremy
looked from the dead man to the grief-racked girl, impotent and abased.
This was the end of the old man’s schemes and efforts, his life-long
devotion, his last sufferings--this cold and miserable death, in the
beginning of the morning, on a bare hill in the country that was no
longer his own to scheme for. In the contemplation of the body Jeremy
felt for a moment relieved of human desires, contemptuous of what
demanded so much pains for so small a reward.
But while he stood thus he realized for the first time how light it
had grown. All the down was dimly revealed, the sun was on the point
of rising, and faint mists, curling off the fields, obscured the
distances. But close at hand the grove in which they had hidden, and
the bank against which they had rested, were plainly shown. Again a
sense of staggering recognition invaded Jeremy’s brain, and he did not
know in what world or what time he was living. Then in a flash he was
enlightened.
“The Roman road!” he exclaimed, forgetting the dead and living
companions who lay at his feet. For the long bank, overgrown and
almost hidden, extending into the mist on either side, was the Stane
Street, running over the downs like an arrow to Bignor Hill. A pure
wonder overcame Jeremy, and he went nearer to the road, touched the
high unmistakable stony mound and followed its trace with his eyes.
He remembered it, having tracked it without any difficulty from near
Halnaker Hill through the Nore Wood, past Gumber Farm and past this
very place, no longer ago than--no longer ago than the year 1913. The
month had been September, and blackberries had been very thick in the
hedges. He was bewildered and the waking earth turned dizzily round
him, while the tragedy in which he had just taken a part and which was
perhaps to continue, sank into the category of small and negligible
things. It seemed to take its place with the road and everything else
in a fantasy of idle invention.
He recovered himself when Eva touched him lightly on the arm. She was
self-possessed again, save that she was trembling violently and that
her beautiful face was drawn and pale. He wished to explain to her what
had thus struck him dumb, but she whispered,
“Look! Look down there!”
The sun was now just up, the mists were fast clearing, and the open
spaces and long shadows of the hill-side and the plain were very
distinct. As he followed her pointing finger, he saw a line of little
figures, a mile away, spread out as though they were beating the
ground, advancing slowly up the hill.
“The Welsh!” he uttered, somberly and without agitation. This was what
he had known and expected, and his heart did not beat a fraction the
faster for it. When he looked at Eva, she too was calm, almost rigid,
waiting for his next word.
“We must creep up through the bushes,” he whispered, as though the
enemy had been already within earshot. “Perhaps we can get away from
them in the woods up there.” She nodded, and while he unstrapped his
pistols and saw that they were loaded, she bent over her father,
disposed his limbs and covered his face with her cloak. Then she put
her hand in Jeremy’s, saying only,
“We must leave him. We could do nothing for him.”
Without another glance at the dead man, they began to hurry, bending
almost double, beside the bank of the road, stumbling over roots and
avoiding the swinging bushes as best they could. Once or twice they had
to dash across open spaces where the ancient road had disappeared, gaps
kept clear by old cart-tracks or a shepherd’s path; and once, where the
bushes clustered too thickly, they had to leave shelter and run for a
hundred yards in the bare field.
2
As they ran, hand in hand, torn and impeded by the briars, growing
more and more exhausted, Jeremy owned to himself, without a conscious
shaping of the thought, that they were lost, that they had too small
a start of their pursuers, and that these pursuers were acting in a
careful and methodical way, which was an ill omen. But he was dazed
and rendered distraught by the surroundings of their flight. With one
part of his mind he felt no more than the animal’s impulse to run for
safety, carrying his mate with him. With the rest he was revolving
loosely the odd chance that had landed them thus in familiar country
and by the side of this great deserted causeway, a remnant of antiquity
on which he had once looked with the feelings of awe and wonder that
these people now bestowed on the vestiges of his own days. It was to
this side of him that the landscape was growing increasingly familiar,
seeming to drag him back into his own natural century, away from all
the violent and incredible events of the last few weeks, away from the
bravely struggling girl at his side.... He felt her pull on his hand
grow heavier, felt that she was stumbling more and more. Then the Nore
Wood showed, obscure and gloomy ahead of them, and at the same moment
Jeremy glanced through a gap in the bushes and saw, at the bottom
of a gentle slope, Gumber Farm, the old weathered building with its
small windows and the well in front of it, and a woman standing in
a half-opened door, emptying out a bucket on the ground. Why run so
painfully, he wondered, through a world that could not but be a dream?
He halted suddenly and dragged Eva back. A few hundred yards in front
of them, at the point where the Stane Street entered the wood, was a
soldier on horseback, a dark, motionless, watchful figure, the long
barrel of his pistol lying in the crook of his arm and shining in a
stray beam of the sun.
“No good going on,” he panted. “We must lie close somewhere for a bit.”
Eva said nothing and he saw that her face was white, her lips pressed
together closely, her eyes half shut. Her free hand was clasped to her
side, she was bending backwards from the waist, and her breath came
and went in short convulsive gasps.
Near them, starting out of the growth on the old road and running down
the slope of the hill, was another black hedge which seemed to lead
to a little wooded knoll. Without speaking, Jeremy pulled Eva towards
it, and keeping close in the shelter of the bushes they reached it
without hearing any cry that showed they had been discovered. They
scrambled to the top, which was some twenty feet above the level of
the neighboring fields, and lay for a few moments, face downwards,
exhausted and oblivious among the gorse and bracken. Then Jeremy
recovered, sat up and surveyed their position. They were well hidden,
and, by peering through the branches, they could watch all the country
for some distance round. His hopes began to revive a little. They might
even, with great good fortune, lie here unperceived while the trackers
passed by: at the worst the cover was enough to help him to offer some
encouragement to Eva. And his chief thought was to restore her, to see
her breathe easily again, and the color come back to her cheeks, to
stanch the blood that trickled from a deep scratch on her forehead, to
kiss and hold her torn hands. If the very worst should happen and they
were found---- His thoughts broke off and he looked at her in agony,
fearing to meet her eyes. She too had sat up and was fumbling in the
bosom of her dress, as though looking for something.
When she saw that he was gazing at her she smiled faintly and said
in a natural tone, “At any rate we can rest now.” Then she began to
rearrange her skirts, to put the tumbled folds into place, as well as
the great rents in them would allow, and to smooth the disordered
strands of her hair.
“Rest. Yes, we can rest,” he answered somberly. And then he thought how
adorable she looked and, bending over towards her without rising, took
her in his arms and kissed her; and she returned his kisses. Presently
they released one another, and Jeremy murmured, almost in a whisper,
“How quiet it is! You wouldn’t think there was any one in the downs
but us.” And as she made no reply he went on, “Do you know what that
bank was? It was a road built by the Romans more than two thousand
years ago. Travelers and regiments of soldiers used to march over it,
though it’s so lonely now.” He broke off and stared abstractedly at the
ground. “That seems a strange thing to talk about just now when we ...
when we....” He stopped altogether. She came closer to him, put her arm
round his shoulder and drew his head down on her breast. Then she began
gently to stroke his hair and there was infinite solace in her touch.
He wondered whether he ought to discuss with her what they should do if
they were discovered; but the pain of that thought was so great that it
drove him back before he even felt it. He dared not ... he dared not
... he owned his cowardice. He let it go, closed his eyes and abandoned
himself to the sweetness of her caresses.
Once more time vanished and became an unreal thing. It seemed an
eternity before he opened his eyes again; but when he did so, lazily,
it was to see the black remorseless figures of the pursuers spread out
in a long crescent in the field below, half a mile away. Every muscle
in his body stiffened, he felt his lips curling back from his teeth
like those of a fighting animal, and he sat up abruptly and grasped his
pistol. They were coming quite close, and they were searching all the
hill-side with methodical care, advancing with regular and terrifying
deliberation. Perhaps they had been led thus far by foot-prints and
broken branches and rags left fluttering on the thorns, and now were
casting about for further signs.
Jeremy turned and again took Eva into his arms, and pressed his mouth
on hers. The kiss continued, seemed endless, was intolerably sweet
and bitter, a draught not like any he had ever known. Then he broke
away, saw with minute care to the readiness of his pistol, and bent
forward, watching intently the approaching Welshmen. Eva, sitting a
little behind him, again slipped her hand into his and held it with a
firm clasp which, though he could no longer see her, conveyed to him
all her sweetness and her love. Thus they waited without moving, they
did not know how long, while the trackers advanced, vanished in a fold
of the ground, began to emerge again. Then one of them uttered a harsh
piercing view-halloo, that echoed horribly through the empty fields
and sky; and in the next moment Jeremy felt Eva’s hand tighten on his
convulsively and then a weight behind it, dragging it back. He forgot
the enemy, forgot his resolution to kill as many as he could of these
hateful savages before he was himself destroyed. But when he swung
round the girl had fallen on her back, and was staring upwards, her
eyes and her lips quite peaceful, the pallor on her face no longer that
of fear and exhaustion, but now the serene and even pallor of death. In
her free hand lay open the little metal box which once she had taken
from her foolish waiting-maid; and it was empty.
Jeremy did not rave or cry out, but an immense weariness overcame
him, in which those who were approaching slipped altogether from
his thoughts. Was it for this, he wondered, staring vacantly at the
familiar English country around him, that he had come so far and done
and suffered so much? All were gone now, all were enveloped in a common
darkness, those friends of his earlier life and his new friends, the
old, vehement Speaker, poor Roger Vaile, and, last and dearest of them,
the Lady Eva, to find whom a century and a half asleep in the grave
had been a slight and welcome preparation. What was he doing here? The
Welsh were coming, the Welsh had sacked London, they had taken England
in their ravening jaws. He had a vision of the world sinking further
below the point from which in his youth he had seen it, still on a
level with him. Cities would be burnt, bridges broken down, tall towers
destroyed and all the wealth and learning of humanity would shiver to a
few shards and a little dust. The very place would be forgotten where
once had stood the houses that he knew; and the roads he had walked
with his friends would be as desolate and lonely as the Stane Street of
the Romans. Even all this story, his victory and his defeat, his joy
and his sorrow, would fade out of the memory of man. But what did it
all matter to Jeremy Tuft, who, wonder and portent that he was, strange
anachronism, unparalleled and reluctant ambassador from one age to the
next, had suffered in the end that common ill, the loss of his beloved?
He raised the pistol to his head and fired.
THE END
FOOTNOTE
[A] A phrase which gained currency in 1919 or earlier, and which was
formed on the analogy of P.B.I., used, to describe themselves, by the
infantry in the Great War.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
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