Kitabı oku: «Second String», sayfa 27

Chapter XXVII
NOT OF HIS SEEKING

Andy Hayes' début in the House of Commons was not, of course, sensational; very few members witnessed it, and nobody outside took the smallest heed of it. Moreover, like other beginnings of his, it was unpremeditated, in a manner forced upon him. He had not intended to speak that afternoon, or indeed at all in his first session, but in Committee one day an honourable gentleman opposite went so glaringly astray as to the prices ruling for bacon in Wiltshire in the year nineteen hundred and something – which Andy considered a salient epoch in the chequered history of his pet commodity – that he was on his feet before he knew what he was doing, and set the matter right, adding illustrative figures for the year before and the year after, with a modestly worded forecast of the run of prices for the current year. Engrossed in the subject, he remembered that the House was a formidable place only after he had sat down; then he hurried home to his books, found that his figures were correct, and heaved a sigh of satisfaction. It was no small thing to get his maiden speech made without meaning to make it – and to find the figures correct! He attempted nothing more that session. He only listened. But how he listened! A man might talk the greatest nonsense, yet Andy's steady eyes would be on him, and Andy's big head untiringly poised at attention. What was the use of listening to so much nonsense? Well, first you had to be sure it was nonsense; then to see why it was nonsense; thirdly, to see how, being nonsense, it was received; fourthly, to revolve how it should be exposed. There were even other things that Andy found to ponder over in all the nonsense to which he listened – and many more, of course, in the sense.

But even Andy took a holiday from public affairs sometimes, nay more, sometimes from the fortunes of Gilbert Foot and Co. He was in the office this morning – the Saturday before Whitsunday – finishing up some odd jobs which his partner had left to him (Gilly had still a trick of doing that), but his thoughts were on Meriton, whither he was to repair in the afternoon. As he mused on Meriton, he slowly shook the big head, thereby indicating not despair or even despondency, but a recognition that he was engaged on rather a difficult job, perhaps on a game that he was not very good at, but which had to be won all the same. This particular game certainly had to be won; his whole heart was in it. Yet now he was accusing himself of a mistake; he had been impatient – impatient that Vivien should still be less than happy, that she should still dwell in gloom with gloomy Wellgood, that she would not yet come into the sunshine. Well, he would put the mistake right that very day, for Vivien was to lunch with him, attended by the Nun, with whom she had been spending a night or two in town; and then the three of them were to go to Meriton in the motor-car together. The Nun was not singing at this time.

"I must go slow," concluded Andy, whose friends were already smiling at the deliberate gait with which he trod the path of love. "Hullo, there's an hour before lunch! I may as well finish some of these accounts for Gilly."

This satisfaction he was not destined to enjoy. He was interrupted by a visitor.

Harry Belfield came in, really a vision to gladden an artist's eyes, in a summer suit of palest homespun – he affected that material – with his usual blue tie unusually bright – shirt and socks to match; a dazzlingly white panama hat crowned his wavy dark locks. He looked immensely handsome, and he was gay, happy, and affectionate.

"Thought I might just find you, old chap, because you're always mugging when everybody else is having a holiday. Look here, I want you to do something for me, or rather for Isobel. I'm off yachting for three or four months – rather a jolly party – and Isobel's going to take a house in the country for herself and the boy. She doesn't know much about that sort of business, and I wanted to ask you to let her consult you about the terms, and so on, to see she's not done, you know. That'll be all right, won't it? Because I really haven't time to look after it."

"Of course. Anything I can do – please tell her. She's not going with you?"

"No," said Harry, putting his foot on the table and regarding it fondly, as he had at a previous interview in Andy's office. "No, not this trip, Andy. She doesn't care much for the sea." The slightest smile flickered on his lips. "Besides, it's 'Men only' on board." The smile broadened a little. "At least we're going to start that way, and they're taking me – a respectable married man – along with them to help them to keep their good resolutions. Well, old boy, how do you like it in the House? I haven't observed many orations put down to you!"

"I've only spoken once – hardly a speech. But I'm working pretty well at it."

"I'll bet you are! And at it here too, I suppose? Lazy beggar, Gilly Foot!"

"Gilly's woken up wonderfully. You'd hardly know him."

Harry yawned. "Well, I'm wanting a rest," he said. "I've had one or two worries lately. Oh, it's all over now, but I shall be glad to get away for a bit. By Jove, Andy, the great thing in life is to be able to go where you like, and when you like" – his smile flashed out again – "and with whom you like, isn't it? Are you off anywhere for Whitsuntide?"

"Only down to Meriton."

"Quiet!" But Harry had not always found it so; it was the quieter for his absence.

"I like being there better than anywhere else," was Andy's simple explanation of his movements.

A clerk came in and handed him a card. "I told the lady you had somebody with you, and asked her to take a seat in the outer room for a moment."

Andy read the card. "I'll ring," he said absently, and looked across at Harry.

"Lady? Eminent authoress? Or is this not business? Have her in – don't hide her, Andy!"

"It's Vivien Wellgood."

Harry turned his head sharply. "What brings her here?"

"I don't know. I was to meet her and Doris Flower for lunch, and go down with them to Meriton afterwards. Perhaps something's happened to stop it, and she's come to tell me."

A curious smile adorned Harry's handsome features. He looked doubtful, yet decidedly interested.

"I'd better go out and see her," said Andy. "I mustn't keep her waiting."

Harry broke into a laugh, half of amusement, half of impatience. "You needn't look so infernally solemn over it! It won't kill her to bow to me – or even to shake hands."

Andy came to a sudden resolution. Since chance willed it this way, this way it should be.

"As you please!" he said, and rang the bell.

Harry rose to his feet, and took off the panama hat, which he had kept on during his talk with Andy. His eyes were bright; the smile flickered again on his lips. He had not seen Vivien since that night – and that night seemed a very long way off to Harry Belfield.

In the brief space before the door reopened, a vision danced before Andy's eyes – a vision of Curly the retriever, and of a girl standing motionless in fear, and yet, because he was there, not so much afraid. In his mind was the idea which had suddenly taken shape under the impulsion of chance – that she had better face the present than dream of the past, better see the man who was nothing to her, than pore over the memory of him who had been everything. She might – nay, probably would – resent an encounter thus sprung upon her. Andy knew it; in this moment, with the choice suddenly presented, he chose to act for himself. Perhaps, for once in his life, he yielded to a sort of superstition, a feeling that the chance was not for nothing, that they three would not meet together again without result. Mingled with this was anger that Harry should take the encounter with his airy lightness, that his eyes should be bright and his lips bent in a smile. Andy was ready for the last round of the fight – and ready to take his chance. Suddenly under the pressure of his thoughts – perforce, as it were – he spoke out to Harry.

"None of this has been of my seeking," he said.

"None of what? What do you mean, old fellow?"

There was no time for answer. Vivien was in the room, and the clerk closed the door after she had entered.

She stood for a moment on the threshold and then moved quickly to Andy's side.

"I knew," she said. "I heard your voices."

"I'm just going," said Harry. "I won't interrupt you. I had a hope that you wouldn't mind just shaking hands with an old friend. I should like it – awfully!" His smile now was pleading, propitiatory, yet with the lurking hint that there was sentimental interest in the situation; possibly, though he could not be convicted of this idea – it was too elusively suggested – that there was, after all, a dash of the amusing.

She paused long on her answer. At last she spoke quietly, in a friendly voice. "Yes, I'll shake hands with you, Harry. Because it's all over." She smiled faintly. "I'll shake hands with you if Andy will let me."

"If Andy – ?"

"Yes; because my hand belongs to him now. I came here to tell him so this morning." She passed her left arm through Andy's and held out her right hand towards Harry. Her lips quivered as she looked up for a moment at Andy's face. He patted her hand gently, but his eyes were set on Harry Belfield.

The hand she offered Harry did not take. He stretched out his for his hat, and picked it up from the table in a shaking grip. The smile had gone from his lips; his eyes were heavy and resentful; he found no more eloquent, appropriate words.

"Oh, so that's it?" he said with a sullen sneer.

"It's none of it been of my seeking," Andy protested again. In this last moment of the fight the old feeling came strong upon him. He pleaded that he had been loyal to Harry, that he was no usurper; it had never been in his mind.

Harry stood in silence, fingering his hat. He cast a glance across at them – where they stood opposite to him, side by side, her arm in Andy's. Very fresh across his memory struck the look on her face – the trustful happiness which had followed on the tremulous joy evoked by his wonderful words. It was not his nor for him any more, that look. He hated that it should be Andy's. He gave the old impatient protesting shrug of his shoulders. What other comment was there to make? He was what he was – and these things happened! The Restless Master plays these disconcerting tricks on his devoted servants.

"Well, good-bye," he mumbled.

"Good-bye, Harry," said both, she in her clear soft voice, Andy in his weightier note, both with a grave pity which recognised, even as did his shrug of the shoulders, that there was no more to be said. It was just good-bye, just a parting of the ways, a severing of lives. Even good wishes would have seemed a mockery; from neither side were they offered.

With one more look, another slightest shrug, Harry Belfield turned his back on them. They stood without moving till the door closed behind him.

He was gone. Andy gave a deep sigh and dropped into the arm-chair by his office desk. Vivien bent over him, her hand on his shoulder.

"Why did you let me meet him, Andy?"

Andy was long in answering. He was revolving the processes of his own mind, the impulse under which he had acted, why he had exposed her to such an ordeal as had once been in the day's work at Nutley.

"It was a chance, your coming while he was here, we three being here together. But since it happened like that" – he raised his eyes to hers – "well, I just thought that neither of us ought to funk him." The utterance seemed a simple result of so much cogitation.

But Vivien laughed softly as she daintily and daringly laid her hand on Andy's big head.

"If I 'funked him' still, I shouldn't have come at all," she said. "I think I'm just getting to know something about you, Andy. You're like some big thing in a dim light; one only sees you very gradually. I used to think of you as fetching and carrying, you know."

Andy chuckled contentedly. "You thought about right," he said. "That's what I'm always doing, just what I'm fit for. I shall go on doing it all my life, fetching and carrying for you."

"Not only for me, I think. For everybody; perhaps even for the nation – for the world, Andy!"

He caught the little hand that was playing over his broad brow. "For you first. As for the rest of it – !" He broke into a laugh. "I say, Vivien, the first time I saw you I was following the hounds on foot! That's all I can do. The hunt gets out of sight, but sometimes you can tell where it's going. That's about my form. Now if I was a clever chap like Harry!"

With a laugh that was half a sob she kissed his upturned face. "Keep me safe, keep me safe, Andy!" she whispered.

Andy slowly rose to his feet, and, turning, faced her. He took her hands in his. "By Jove, you kissed me! You kissed me, Vivien!"

She laughed merrily. "Well, of course I did! Isn't it – usual?"

Andy smiled. "If things like that are going to be usual – well, life's looking a bit different!" he said.

Suddenly there were wild sounds in the outer office – a door slammed, a furious sweet voice, a swish of skirts. The door of the inner office flew open.

"What about lunch?" demanded the Nun accusingly.

"I'd forgotten it!" Vivien exclaimed.

"So had I, but I'm awfully hungry, now I come to think of it," said Andy. "The usual place?"

"No," said the Nun. "Somewhere else. Harry's there – lunching alone! The first time I ever saw him do that!" She looked at the pair of them. Her remark seemed not to make the least impression. It did not matter where or how Harry Belfield lunched. She looked again from Vivien to Andy, from Andy to Vivien.

"Oh!" she said.

"Yes, Doris," said Vivien meekly.

The Nun addressed Andy severely. "Mrs. Belfield will consider that you're marrying above your station, Andy."

Andy scratched his big head. "Yes, Doris, and she'll be quite right," he said apologetically. "Of course she will! But a fellow can only – well, take things as they come." He broke into his hearty laugh. "What'll old Jack say?"

The Nun knew what old Jack would say – very privately. "I wish it had been you, miss!" But she had no envy in her heart.

"For people who do fall in love, it must be rather pleasant," she observed.

"The worst of it is, I've got so little time," said Andy.

The two girls laughed. "I only want you to have time to be in love with one girl," Vivien explained reassuringly.

"And, perhaps, just friends with another," the Nun added.

Andy joined in the laughter. "I shall fit those two things in all right!" he declared.

The afternoon saw them back at Meriton; it was there that Andy Hayes truly tasted the flavour of his good fortune. There the winning of Vivien seemed no isolated achievement, not a bit of luck standing by itself, but the master-knot among the many ties that now bound him to his home. The old bonds held; the new came. In the greetings of friends of every degree – from Chinks, the Bird, and Miss Miles, up to the great Lord Meriton himself – in Wellgood's hard and curt, yet ready and in truth triumphant, endorsement of an arrangement that banned the very thought of the man he hated, in old Jack's satisfaction in the vision of Andy in due time reigning at Nutley itself (his bit of sentiment about the Nun was almost swallowed up in this) – most of all perhaps in Belfield's cordial yet sad acceptance of his son's supplanter – he found the completion of the first stage of his life's journey and the definition of its future course and of its goal. His face was set towards his destination; the love and confidence of the friends of a lifetime accompanied, cheered, and aided his steady progress. No high thoughts were in his mind. To find time for the work of the day, his own and what other people were always so ready to leave to him, and to move on a little – that was his task, that bounded his ambition. Anything else that came was, as he had said to Harry Belfield, not of his seeking – and never ceased rather to surprise him, to be received by him with the touch of simple wonder, which made men smile at him even while they admired and followed, which made women laugh, and in a sense pity, while they trusted and loved. He saw the smiles and laughter, and thought them natural. Slowly he came to rely on the love and trust, and in the strength of them found his own strength growing, his confidence gradually maturing.

"With you beside me, and all the dear old set round me, and Meriton behind me, I ought to be able to get through," he said to Vivien as they walked together in the wood at Nutley before dinner.

She stopped by a bench, rudely fashioned out of a tree trunk. "Lend me your knife, Andy, please."

He gave it to her, and stood watching while she stooped and scratched with the knife on the side of the bench. Certain initials were scratched out.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing to the spot where they had been.

"Only a memorandum of something I don't want to remember any more," she answered. She came back to him, blushing a little, smiling, yet with tears in her eyes. "Yes, Meriton, and the old friends, and I – we're all with you now – all of us with all our hearts now, dear Andy!"

Andy made his last protest. "I'd have been loyal to him all my life, if he'd have let me!"

"I know it. And so would I. But he wouldn't let us." She took his arm as they turned away from the bench. "The sorrow must be in our hearts always, I think. But now it's sorrow for him, not for ourselves, Andy."

In the hour of his own triumph, because of the greatness of his own joy, tenderness for his friend revived.

"Dear old chap! How handsome he looked to-day!"

Vivien pressed his arm. "You can say that as often as you like! There's no danger from him now!"

The shadow passed from Andy Hayes' face as he turned to his own great joy.

THE END