Part 19 (1/2)

”Won't Bernard see it for himself?”

”If I thought that,” said Val, ”if I thought that. . . .

”You couldn't interfere, old man,” said Rowsley with a shrewd glance at his brother. ”Your hands are tied.”

”H'm: yes, that's true.” It was much truer than Rowsley knew. ”I don't care,” said Val, involuntarily crus.h.i.+ng the paper in his hand: ”I would not let that stand in my way: I'd speak to Hyde.”

”Are you prepared to take high ground? I can't imagine any one less likely to be amenable to moral suasion, unless of course you're much more intimate with him than you ever let on to me.

Perhaps you are,” Rowsley added. ”He certainly is interested in you.”

”Hyde is?”

”Watches you like a cat after a mouse. What's at the root of it, Val? Is it the original obligation you spoke of? I'm not sure that I should care to be under an obligation to Hyde myself.

Hullo, are you off?” Val had risen, folding the newspaper, laying it carefully down on his chair: in all his ways he was as neat as an old maid.

”I have to be at the managers' meeting by half past eight, and it's twenty past now.”

Watching his brother across the lawn, Rowsley cudgelled his brains to account for Val's precipitate departure. The pretext was valid, for Val was always punctual, and yet it looked like a retreat--not to say a rout. But what had he said to put Val to flight?

Present at the managers' meeting were Val, still in breeches: Jack Bendish in a dinner jacket and black tie: Garrett the blacksmith, cursorily washed: Thurlow, a leading Nonconformist tradesman: and Mrs. Verney the doctor's wife. Agenda: to instruct the Correspondent to requisition a new scrubbing brush for the Infants' School. This done and formally entered in the Minutes by Mrs. Verney, the meeting resolved itself into a Committee of Ways and Means for getting rid of the boys' headmaster without falling foul of the National Union of Teachers; but these proceedings, though of extreme interest to all concerned, were recorded in no Minutes.

The meeting broke up in amity and Bendish came out into the purple twilight, taking Val's arm. It was gently withdrawn.

”Neuritis again?” said Jack. ”Why don't you try ma.s.sage?” He always asked the same question, and, being born to fifteen thousand a year, never read between the lines of Val's vague reply. Val had a touch of neuritis in his injured arm two nights out of seven, but he could not find the s.h.i.+llings for his train fare to Salisbury, far less the fees of a professional ma.s.seuse.

Bendish, who could have settled that difficulty out of a week's cigar bills, would have been shocked and distressed if Val had owned to it, but it was beyond the scope of his imagination, though he was a thoughtful young man and quietly did his best to protect Val from the tax of chauffeurs and gamekeepers. He understood that poor men cannot always find sovereigns. But he really did not know that sometimes they cannot even find s.h.i.+llings. Tonight he said, ”I can't think why you don't get a woman over to ma.s.sage you,” and then, reverting to the peccant master, ”Brown's a nuisance. He has a rotten influence on the elder boys. He's thick with all that beastly Labour crowd, and I believe Thurlow's right about his goings on with Warner's wife, though I wasn't going to say so to Thurlow. I do wish he'd do something, then we could fire him. But we don't want a row with the N.U.T.”

”You can't fire a man for his political opinions.”

”Why not, if they're wrong?” said Bendish placidly.

His was the creed that Labour men are so slow to understand because it is so slow to explain itself: not a blind prejudice, but the reasonable faith of one who feels himself to belong to an hereditary officer caste for whom privilege and responsibility go hand in hand. And an excellent working rule it is so long as practice is not divorced from theory: so long as the average member of the governing cla.s.s acts up to the tradition of government, be he sachem or daimio or resident English squire.

It amused Val: but he admired it.

”Brown is a thorn in Jimmy's side,” he remarked, dropping the impersonal issue. ”I never in my life heard a man make such a disagreeable noise on the organ. I tackled him about it last Sunday. He said it ciphered, but organs don't cipher in dry weather, so I went to look at it and found three or four keys glued together with candle grease.”

”Filthy swine! Are you coming round to Wanhope? I have to call in on my way home, my wife's dining there.”

Val made no reply. ”Are you coming up or not? You look f.a.gged, Val,” said Bendish affectionately. ”Anything wrong?”

”No: I was only wondering whether I'd get you to take a message for me, but I'd better go myself.”

Bendish nodded. ”Just as you like. Have you settled yet about the Etchingham agency?”

”No, I'm waiting for Bernard.”

”Hope you'll see your way to accepting. My only fear is that it would throw too much work on you; you're such a conscientious beggar!

but of course you wouldn't do for us all the odd jobs you do for poor Bernard. Seems to me,” Jack ruminated, ”the best plan would be for you to have a car. One gets about quicker like that and it wouldn't be such a f.a.g. There's that little green Napier roadster, she'd come in handy if we stabled her at Nicholson's.” He added simply, to obviate any possible misunderstanding, ”Garage bills our show, of course.”

”Thanks most awfully,” said Val, accepting without false pride.

”I should love it, I do get tired after being in the saddle all day. It would more than make up for the extra work.”