Part 11 (1/2)
Val resumed after a moment: ”my father may live another thirty years, and by that time I should be too old to stand in a white sheet. Or perhaps I shall only tell one or two people--”
”Mrs. Clowes?”
”I beg your pardon?”
”You would like to tell my cousin and his wife?”
”I should like to feel myself a free agent, which I'm not now, because I'm under parole to you.”
”And so you will remain,” said Lawrence coldly.
”You mean that?”
”Thoroughly. I've no wish to distress you, Val, but I'm no more convinced now than I was ten years ago that you can be trusted to judge for yourself. You were an impulsive boy then with remarkably little self-control: you're--forgive my saying so--an impulsive man now, capable of doing things that in five minutes you would be uncommonly sorry for. How long would Bernard keep your secret? If I'm not much mistaken you would lose your billet and the whole county would hear why. The whole thing's utter rubbish. You make too much of your ribbon: you--I--it would never have been given if Dale's father hadn't been a bra.s.s hat.”
Stafford was ashy pale. ”I know you think you're just.”
”No, I don't. I'm not just, my good chap: I'm weakly, idiotically generous. In your heart of hearts you're grateful to me. Now let's drop all this. Nothing you can say will have the slightest effect, so you may as well not say it.” He stood by Val's chair, laughing down at him and gently gripping him by the shoulder.
”Be a man, Val! you're not nineteen now. You've got a comfortable job and the esteem of all who know you--take it and be thankful: it's more than you deserve. If you must indulge in a hair s.h.i.+rt, wear it under your clothes. It isn't necessary to embarra.s.s other people by undressing in public.”
Thought is free: one may be at a man's mercy and in his debt and keep one's own opinion of him, impersonal and cold. With a faint smile on his lips Val got up and strolled over to the piano.
”Hullo, what's all this music lying about?” he said in his ordinary manner. ”Has Laura been playing? Good, I'm so glad: Bernard can hardly ever stand it. See the first fruits of your bracing influence! Oh, the Polonaises . . .” And then he in his turn began to play, but not the melancholy fiery lyrics that had soothed Laura's unsatisfied heart. Val, a thorough musician, went for sympathy to the cla.s.sics. Impulsive? There was not much impulse left in this quiet, reticent man, who with his old trouble fresh on him could sit down and play a chorale of Bach or a prelude of Mozart, subordinating his own imperious anguish to the grave universal daylight of the elder masters. Long since Val had resolved that no shadow from him should fall across any other life. He had foresworn ”that impure pa.s.sion of remorse,”
and so keen an observer as Rowsley had grown up in his intimacy without suspecting anything wrong. Unfortunately for Val, however, he still suffered, though he was now denied all expression, all relief: the wounded mind bled inwardly. It was no wonder Val's hair was turning grey.
Lawrence, no mean judge of music, understood much--not all--of the significance of Val's playing. He was an imaginative man-- far more so than Val, who would have lived an ordinary life and travelled on ordinary lines of thought but for the war, which wrenched so many men out of their natural development. But it was again unfortunate for Val that the sporting instinct ran strong in Captain Hyde. He was irritated by Val's grave superior dignity, and deep and unacknowledged there was working in him the instinct of the bully, the love of cruelty, overlaid by layer on layer of civilization, of chivalry, of decency, yet native to the human heart and quick to rea.s.sert itself at any age: in the boy who thrashes a smaller boy, in the young man who takes advantage of a woman, in the fighter who hounds down surrendered men.
He settled himself in a chair close to the piano. ”Val, I'm very glad to have met you. Having taken so much upon me,” he was smiling into Val's eyes, ”I've often wondered what had become of you. This,” he lightly touched Val's arm, ”was a cruel handicap.
I had to disable you, but it need not have been permanent.”
”Do you mind moving? you're in my light.”
He s.h.i.+fted his chair by an inch or so. ”After all, what's a single failure of nerve? Physical causes--wet, cold, indigestion, tight puttees--account for nine out of ten of these queer breakdowns.
At all events you've paid, Val, paid twice over: when I read your name in the Honours List I laughed, but I was sorry for you. The sword-and-epaulets business would have been mild compared to that.”
”Cat and mouse, is it?” said Val, resting his hands on the keys.
”What?”
”I'm not going to stand this sort of thing, Hyde, not for a minute.”
”I don't know what you mean,” said Lawrence, reddening slowly to his forehead. But it was a lie: he was not one of those who can overstep limits with impunity. The streak of vulgarity again!
and worse than vulgarity: Andrew Hyde's sardonic old voice was ringing in his ears, ”Lawrence, you'll never be a gentleman.”
”All right, we'll leave it at that. Only don't do it again.”
Lawrence was dumb. ”Here's Mrs. Clowes.”
Val rose as Laura came in, released at length from attendance on her husband. ”I heard you playing,” she said, giving him her hand with her sweet, friendly smile. ”So you've introduced yourself to Captain Hyde? I hope you were nice to him, for my grat.i.tude to him is boundless. I haven't seen Bernard looking so fit or so bright for months and months! Now sit down, both of you, and we'll have cigarettes and coffee. Ring, Val, will you--? it's barely half past ten.