THE WORLD WAR COLLECTION OF H. C. MCNEILE (SAPPER). Sapper
relieved to see that Mrs. Vernon was quite composed again. He had performed the first part of his mission, and now the second required tackling. And something warned him that he would have to tread very delicately; any suspicion of the word charity would be fatal to success. . . .
"About your eldest boy, Mrs. Vernon," he began; "your husband often spoke about him to me. Let me see—what age is he?"
"Jack is fifteen, Captain Vane," she said quietly.
"Fifteen! Couldn't be better. Now I was wondering, Mrs. Vernon, whether you would care in a year or two, to let him come to me. I'm in a very big business in the City, and my boss is always on the look out for bright boys. I know your boy is clever—but so much depends on getting a good start these days. Of course he'd be judged entirely on his merits . . . but he'd start with a real good chance of making the best of his talents." He looked quickly at her, and found she was watching him gravely. "It's part of the privilege of the brotherhood of the trenches, Mrs. Vernon, to be allowed to make such an offer. . . ." He was finding it easier now. "To do anything for your husband's son would be a real pleasure; though, I need hardly say that, beyond giving him the chance, I could offer nothing else. It would be up to him to make good."
For a while Mrs. Vernon was silent, and he flashed a quick look at her. Had he put it well? Had he kept every suspicion of patronage out of his offer?
"Thank you very much, Captain Vane," she said at last, "for your offer. I hope you won't think me ungrateful when I refuse. Four years ago I think I should have accepted it with gratitude; but now . . ." She shook her head "A lot of the shams have gone; we see clearer—some of us. . . . And I tell you that I would not willingly condemn Jack to such a life as his father led—even if I was penniless. Wait—let me finish"—as Vane started to speak—"Of course with you he would have better chances than his father had before him—but the city life would kill him—even as it has killed thousands of others. . . . I wonder if you can realise the hideous tragedy of the poor clerk. He can't strike for higher wages, like the British working man. He just goes on and on and suffers in silence. . . . In Jack's case it would be the same. . . . What—four hundred a year?" She laughed a little scornfully. "It's not much to bring up a family on, Captain Vane. . . . Four hundred a year, and Acacia Avenue—two streets up. . . . Acacia Avenue doesn't call on Culman Terrace, you know. . . ." Again she laughed. "No, Jack isn't made for that sort of life, thank God. He aches for the big spaces in his boyish way, for the lands where there are big things to be done. . . . And I've encouraged him. There'll be nobody there to sneer if his clothes get frayed and he can't buy any more—because of the children's boots. There'll be no appearances to keep up there. And I'd a thousand times rather that Jack should stand—or fall—in such surroundings, than that he should sink slowly . . . here."
She paused for a moment, and then stood up and faced him. "It's emigration, Captain Vane, that I and people like me have got to turn to for our boys. For ourselves—it doesn't much matter; we've had our day, and I don't want you to think the sun never shined on us, for it did. . . . Just wonderfully at times. . . ." She gave a quick sigh. "Only now . . . things are different. . . . And up till now, Culman Terrace hasn't considered emigration quite the thing. It's not quite respectable. . . . Only aristocratic ne'er-do-wells and quite impossibly common men emigrate. It's a confession of failure. . . . And so we've continued to swell the ranks of the most pitiful class in the country—the gentleman and his family with the small fixed income. The working man regards him with suspicion because he wears a black coat—or, with contempt because he doesn't strike; the Government completely ignores him because they know he's too much a slave to convention to do anything but vote along so-called gentlemanly lines. What do you suppose would be the result if the enormous body of middle class slaves in this country did, one day, combine and refuse to be bled by every other class? We're bled by the people on top for their own advantage; and then we're bled again for the advantage of the dear workman. . . ." She laughed a little. "Forgive me talking so much; but not for Jack, thank you."
Vane bowed. "Mrs. Vernon, I think you're perfectly right—and I wish you and him the very best of luck." He shook hands gravely and a few moments later he was walking back towards the station with Binks trotting sedately at his heels. In all probability he would never see Mrs. Vernon again; war and its aftermath had brought their paths together for a space, and now they were diverging again. But that short space had been enough to make him feel ashamed and proud. Ashamed of himself for his cynicism and irritability; proud of the woman who, with her faith clear and steadfast, could face the future without faltering. Her man's job had been laid upon her; she would never fail him till the time came for her to join him. . . . And by then she would have earned her reward—rest. . . . She will deserve every moment of it. . . . Surely the Lord of True Values will not grudge it to her. . . .
And though he had said nothing to her of his thoughts—men when deeply moved are so hopelessly inarticulate—somehow he wished going up in the train that he had. Falteringly, crudely, he might have said something, which would have helped her. If only a man had the power of expressing sympathy without words. He needn't have worried, had he known . . . and Binks, who was looking out of the window with interest, could not tell him. Anyway, it was not anything to make a song or dance about—putting a cold wet nose into a hand that hung down from a chair, and letting it rest there—just for a while. . . . But it was not the first time, and it will not be the last, that the Peace that passeth all understanding has been brought to the human heart by the touch of a dog. . . . Binks had justified his inclusion in the trip. . . .
CHAPTER VII
The days that followed passed pleasantly enough. Gradually the jaundice was disappearing, and Vane was becoming normal again. The war seemed very far away from Rumfold; though occasionally a newcomer brought some bit of intimate gossip about Crucifix Alley or Hell Fire Corner, or one of the little places not shown on any map, which mean so much more to the actual fighting man than all the big towns rolled together. Pipes would come out and men would draw together in the smoking-room—while in imagination the green flares would go hissing up again, silhouetted against the velvet of the night. But for the most part the war had ceased to count; tennis and golf, with a visit now and then to London, filled the days.
Vane's arm prevented him playing any game, but the country around was admirably suited for walking, and most afternoons he found himself strolling out past the lodge gates for a ramble. Sometimes one of the other officers accompanied him; but more often he went alone. And on those long lonely walks he found himself obeying Margaret's injunctions, given to him at Paris Plage—"Go and find out. . . ."
In common with many others who were beginning, almost unconsciously, to think for the first time, he found considerable difficulty in knowing where to start the quest. Vane was no fool, but in days gone by he had accepted a certain order of things as being the only possible order—just as England had been the only possible country. But now it seemed to him that if England was to remain the only possible country an alteration would have to be made in the order. Before, any danger to her supremacy had come from without—now the trouble lay within.
Each day, alongside the war news, he read of strikes and rumours of strikes, and when he came to ask himself the reason why, he was appalled at his own ignorance. Something was wrong somewhere; something which would have to be put right. And the trouble was that it did not seem a matter of great ease to put it right. He felt that the glib phrases about Capital and Labour pulling together, about better relations between employers and men, about standing shoulder to shoulder, failed to hit the point. They were rather like offering a hungry lion a halfpenny bun. They could always be relied on to raise a cheer from a political platform provided the right audience was present; but it seemed doubtful whether even such a far-reaching result as that was quite enough.
At times his natural indolence made him laugh inwardly. "What on earth is the use?" he would mutter, throwing pebbles into the pond below him. "What has to be—has to be." It was a favourite haunt of his—that pond; in the heart of a wood, with a little waterfall trickling over some rounded stones and falling musically into the pond a few feet below. The afternoon sun used to shine