The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection. W. Somerset Maugham
shame. The corners of his mouth drooped querulously, and his handsome face bore an expression of utter misery. Alec looked at him steadily. He felt infinite pity for his youth, and there was a charm of manner about him, a way of appealing for sympathy, which touched the strong man. He wondered what character the boy had. His heart went out to him, and he loved him already because he was Lucy's brother.
'George, Mr. MacKenzie has offered to take you with him to Africa,' she said eagerly. 'Will you go?'
'I'll go anywhere so long as I can get out of this beastly country,' he answered wearily. 'I feel people are looking at me in the street when I go out, and they're saying to one another: there's the son of that swindling rotter who was sentenced to seven years.'
He wiped the palms of his hands with his handkerchief.
'I don't mind what I do. I can't go back to Oxford; no one would speak to me. There's nothing I can do in England at all. I wish to God I were dead.'
'George, don't say that.'
'It's all very well for you. You're a girl, and it doesn't matter. Do you suppose anyone would trust me with sixpence now? Oh, how could he? How could he?'
'You must try and forget it, George,' said Lucy, gently.
The boy pulled himself together and gave Alec a charming smile.
'It's awfully ripping of you to take pity on me.'
'I want you to know before you decide that you'll have to rough it all the time. It'll be hard and dangerous work.'
'Well, as far as I'm concerned it's Hobson's choice, isn't it?' he answered, bitterly.
Alec held out his hand, with one of his rare, quiet smiles.
'I hope we shall pull well together and be good friends.'
'And when you come back, George, everything will be over. I wish I were a man so that I might go with you. I wish I had your chance. You've got everything before you, George. I think no man has ever had such an opportunity. All our hope is in you. I want to be proud of you. All my self-respect depends on you. I want you to distinguish yourself, so that I may feel once more honest and strong and clean.'
Her voice was trembling with a deep emotion, and George, quick to respond, flushed.
'I am a selfish beast,' he cried. 'I've been thinking of myself all the time. I've never given a thought to you.'
'I don't want you to: I only want you to be brave and honest and steadfast.'
The tears came to his eyes, and he put his arms around her neck. He nestled against her heart as a child might have done.
'It'll be awfully hard to leave you, Lucy.'
'It'll be harder for me, dear, because you will be doing great and heroic things, while I shall be able only to wait and watch. But I want you to go.' Her voice broke, and she spoke almost in a whisper. 'And don't forget that you're going for my sake as well as for your own. If you did anything wrong or disgraceful it would break my heart.'
'I swear to you that you'll never be ashamed of me, Lucy,' he said.
She kissed him and smiled. Alec had watched them silently. His heart was very full.
'But we mustn't be silly and sentimental, or Mr. MacKenzie will think us a pair of fools.' She looked at him gaily. 'We're both very grateful to you.'
'I'm afraid I'm starting almost at once,' he said. 'George must be ready in a week.'
'George can be ready in twenty-four hours if need be,' she answered.
The boy walked towards the window and lit a cigarette. He wanted to steady his nerves.
'I'm afraid I shall be able to see little of you during the next few days,' said Alec. 'I have a great deal to do, and I must run up to Lancashire for the week-end.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Won't you change your mind?'
She shook her head.
'No, I can't do that. I must have complete freedom.'
'And when I come back?'
She smiled delightfully.
'When you come back, if you still care, ask me again.'
'And the answer?'
'The answer perhaps will be different.'
VIII
A week later Alec MacKenzie and George Allerton started from Charing Cross. They were to go by P. & O. from Marseilles to Aden, and there catch a German boat which would take them to Mombassa. Lady Kelsey was far too distressed to see her nephew off; and Lucy was glad, since it gave her the chance of driving to the station alone with George. She found Dick Lomas and Mrs. Crowley already there. When the train steamed away, Lucy was standing a little apart from the others. She was quite still. She did not even wave her hand, and there was little expression on her face. Mrs. Crowley was crying cheerfully, and she dried her eyes with a tiny handkerchief. Lucy turned to her and thanked her for coming.
'Shall I drive you back in the carriage?' sobbed Mrs. Crowley.
'I think I'll take a cab, if you don't mind,' Lucy answered quietly. 'Perhaps you'll take Dick.'
She did not bid them good-bye, but walked slowly away.
'How exasperating you people are!' cried Mrs. Crowley. 'I wanted to throw myself in her arms and have a good cry on the platform. You have no heart.'
Dick walked along by her side, and they got into Mrs. Crowley's carriage. She soliloquised.
'I thank God that I have emotions, and I don't mind if I do show them. I was the only person who cried. I knew I should cry, and I brought three handkerchiefs on purpose. Look at them.' She pulled them out of her bag and thrust them into Dick's hand. 'They're soaking.'
'You say it with triumph,' he smiled.
'I think you're all perfectly heartless. Those two boys were going away for heaven knows how long on a dangerous journey, and they may never come back, and you and Lucy said good-bye to them just as if they were going off for a day's golf. I was the only one who said I was sorry, and that we should miss them dreadfully. I hate this English coldness. When I go to America, it's ten to one nobody comes to see me off, and if anyone does he just nods and says "Good-bye, I hope you'll have a jolly time."'
'Next time you go I will come and hurl myself on the ground, and gnash my teeth and shriek at the top of my voice.'
'Oh, yes, do. And then I'll cry all the way to Liverpool, and I shall have a racking headache and feel quite miserable and happy.'
Dick meditated for a moment.
'You see, we have an instinctive horror of exhibiting our emotion. I don't know why it is, I suppose training or the inheritance of our sturdy fathers, but we're ashamed to let people see what we feel. But I don't know whether on that account our feelings are any the less keen. Don't you think there's a certain beauty in a grief that forbids itself all expression? You know, I admire Lucy tremendously, and as she came towards us on the platform I thought there was something very fine in her calmness.'
'Fiddlesticks!' said Mrs. Crowley, sharply. 'I should have liked her much better if she had clung to her brother and sobbed and had to be torn away.'
'Did you notice that she left us without even shaking hands? It was a very small omission, but it meant that she was quite absorbed in her grief.'
They reached Mrs. Crowley's tiny house in Norfolk Street, and she asked Dick to come in.
'Sit