Chapter VII: Part 7

‘Oh no, look here, Symes, I mean, damn it; you mustn’t say things like that. D’you know all the time I was out East I had Nina’s photograph over my bed, honest I did. I expect you think that’s sentimental and all that, but what I mean is I didn’t stop thinking of that girl once all the time I was away. Mind you, there were lots of other frightfully jolly girls out there, and I don’t say I didn’t sometimes get jolly pally with them, you know, tennis and gymkhana and all that sort of thing, I mean, and dancing in the evenings, but never anything serious, you know. Nina was the only girl I really thought of, and I’d sort of made up my mind when I came home to look her up, and if she’d have me . . . see what I mean? So you see it’s awfully rough luck on me when someone comes butting in. You must see that, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Adam.

‘And there’s another thing, you know, sentiment and all that apart. I mean Nina’s a girl who likes nice clothes and things, you know, comfort and all that. Well, I mean to say, of course, her father’s a topping old boy, absolutely one of the best, but he’s rather an ass about money, if you know what I mean. What I mean, Nina’s going to be frightfully hard up, and all that, and I mean you haven’t got an awful lot of money, have you?’

‘I haven’t any at all.’

‘No, I mean, that’s what I mean. _Awfully rough on you._ No one thinks the worse of you, respects you for it, I mean earning a living and all that. Heaps of fellows haven’t any money nowadays. I could give you the names of dozens of stout fellows, absolute toppers, who simply haven’t a bean. No, all I mean is, when it comes to marrying, then that does make a difference, doesn’t it?’

‘What you’ve been trying to say all this time is that you’re not sure of Nina?’

‘Oh, rot, my dear fellow, absolute bilge. Damn it, I’d trust Nina anywhere, of course I would. After all, damn it, what does being in love mean if you can’t trust a person?’

(‘What, indeed?’ thought Adam), and he said, ‘Now, Ginger, tell the truth. What’s Nina worth to you?’

‘Good Lord, why what an extraordinary thing to ask; everything in the world of course. I’d go through fire and water for that girl.’

‘Well, I’ll sell her to you.’

‘No, why, look here, good God, damn it, I mean . . .’

‘I’ll sell my share in her for a hundred pounds.’

‘You pretend to be fond of Nina and you talk about her like that! Why, hang it, it’s not decent. Besides, a hundred pounds is the deuce of a lot. I mean, getting married is a damned expensive business, don’t you know. And I’m just getting a couple of polo ponies over from Ireland. That’s going to cost a hell of a lot, what with one thing and another.’

‘A hundred down, and I leave Nina to you, I think it’s cheap.’

‘Fifty.’

‘A hundred.’

‘Seventy-five.’

‘A hundred.’

‘I’m damned if I’ll pay more than seventy-five.’

‘I’ll take seventy-eight pounds sixteen and twopence. I can’t go lower than that.’

‘All right, I’ll pay that. _You really will go away?_’

‘I’ll try, Ginger. Have a drink.’

‘No, thank you . . . this only shows what an escape Nina’s had—poor little girl.’

‘Good-bye, Ginger.’

‘Good-bye, Symes.’

‘Young Thingummy going?’ said Lottie, appearing in the door. ‘I was just thinking about a little drink.’

Adam went to the telephone-box. . . .’Hullo, is that Nina?’

‘Who’s speaking, please? I don’t think Miss Blount is in.’

‘Mr Fenwick-Symes.’

‘Oh, Adam. I was afraid it was Ginger. I woke up feeling I just couldn’t bear him. He rang up last night just as I got in.’

‘I know. Nina, darling, something awful’s happened.’

‘What?’

‘Lottie presented me with her bill.’

‘Darling, what _did_ you do?’

‘Well, I did something rather extraordinary. . . . My dear, I sold _you_.’

‘Darling . . . _who to_?’

‘Ginger. You fetched seventy-eight pounds sixteen and twopence.’

‘_Well?_’

‘And now I never am going to see you again.’

‘Oh, but Adam, I think this is beastly of you; I don’t want not to see you again.’

‘I’m sorry. . . . Good-bye, Nina, darling.’

‘Good-bye, Adam, my sweet. But I think you’re rather a cad.’

Next day Lottie said to Adam, ‘You know that chap I said came here asking for you?’

‘The dun?’

‘Well, he wasn’t a dun. I’ve just remembered. He’s a chap who used to come here quite a lot until he had a fight with a Canadian. He was here the night that silly Flossie killed herself on the chandelier.’

‘Not the drunk Major?’

‘He wasn’t drunk yesterday. Not so as you’d notice anyway. Red-faced chap with an eyeglass. You ought to remember him, dear. He was the one made that bet for you on the November Handicap.’

‘But I must get hold of him at once. What’s his name?’

‘Ah, that I couldn’t tell you. I _did_ know, but it’s slipped my memory. He’s gone to Manchester to look for you. Pity your missing him!’

Then Adam rang up Nina. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Don’t do anything sudden about Ginger. I may be able to buy you back. The drunk Major has turned up again.’

‘But, darling, it’s too late. Ginger and I got married this morning. I’m just packing for our honeymoon. We’re going in an aeroplane.’

‘Ginger wasn’t taking any chances, was he? Darling, don’t go.’

‘No, I must. Ginger says he knows a “tophole little spot not far from Monte with a very decent nine-hole golf course”.’

‘_Well?_’

‘_Yes, I know_ . . . we shall only be away a few days. We’re coming back to spend Christmas with papa. Perhaps we shall be able to arrange something when we get back. I do hope so.’

‘Good-bye.’

‘Good-bye.’

Ginger looked out of the aeroplane: ‘I say, Nina,’ he shouted, ‘when you were young did you ever have to learn a thing out of a poetry book about: “_This scepter’d isle, this earth of majesty, this something or other Eden_”? D’you know what I mean? “_this happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea . . ._

“_This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England_
_This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings_
_Feared by their breed and famous by their birth . . ._”

I forget how it goes on. Something about a stubborn Jew. But you know the thing I mean?’

‘It comes in a play.’

‘No, a blue poetry book.’

‘I acted in it.’

‘Well, they may have put it into a play since. It was in a blue poetry book when I learned it. Anyway, you know what I mean?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Well, I mean to say, don’t you feel somehow, up in the air like this and looking down and seeing everything underneath. I mean, don’t you have a sort of feeling rather like that, if you see what I mean?’

Nina looked down and saw inclined at an odd angle a horizon of straggling red suburb; arterial roads dotted with little cars; factories, some of them working, others empty and decaying; a disused canal; some distant hills sown with bungalows; wireless masts and overhead power cables; men and women were indiscernible except as tiny spots; they were marrying and shopping and making money and having children. The scene lurched and tilted again as the aeroplane struck a current of air.

‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ said Nina.

‘Poor little girl,’ said Ginger. ‘That’s what the paper bags are for.’

There was rarely more than a quarter of a mile of the black road to be seen at one time. It unrolled like a length of cinema film. At the edges was confusion; a fog spinning past: ‘_Faster, faster_,’ they shouted above the roar of the engine. The road rose suddenly and the white car soared up the sharp ascent without slackening speed. At the summit of the hill there was a corner. Two cars had crept up, one on each side, and were closing in. ‘Faster,’ cried Miss Runcible, ‘Faster.’

‘Quietly, dear, quietly. You’re disturbing every one. You must lie quiet or you’ll never get well. Everything’s quite all right. There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.’

They were trying to make her lie down. How could one drive properly lying down?

Another frightful corner. The car leant over on two wheels, tugging outwards; it was drawn across the road until it was within a few inches of the bank. One ought to brake down at the corners, but one couldn’t see them coming lying flat on one’s back like this. The back wheels wouldn’t hold the road at this speed. Skidding all over the place.

‘_Faster. Faster._’

The stab of a hypodermic needle.

‘There’s nothing to worry about, dear . . . _nothing at all . . . nothing_.’

_Chapter Thirteen_

The film had been finished, and every one had gone away; Wesley and Whitefield, Bishop Philpotts and Miss La Touche, Mr Isaacs, and all his pupils from the National Academy of Cinematographic Art. The park lay deep in snow, a clean expanse of white, shadowless and unspotted save for tiny broad arrows stamped by the hungry birds. The bellringers were having their final practice, and the air was alive with pealing bells.

Inside the dining-room Florin and Mrs Florin and Ada, the fifteen-year-old housemaid, were arranging branches of holly above the frames of the family portraits. Florin held the basket, Mrs Florin held the steps and Ada put the decorations in their places. Colonel Blount was having his afternoon nap upstairs.

Florin had a secret. It was a white calico banner of great age lettered in red ribbon with the words ‘=Welcome Home=’. He had always known where it was, just where to put his hand on it, at the top of the black trunk in the far attic behind the two hip baths and the ’cello case.

‘The Colonel’s mother made it’, he explained, ‘when he first went away to school, and it was always hung out in the hall whenever he and Mister Eric came back for the holidays. It used to be the first thing he’d look for when he came into the house—even when he was a grown man home on leave. “Where’s my banner?” he’d say. We’ll have it up for Miss Nina—Mrs Littlejohn, I should say.’

Ada said should they put some holly in Captain and Mrs Littlejohn’s bedroom.

Mrs Florin said, whoever heard of holly in a bedroom, and she wasn’t sure but that it was unlucky to take it upstairs.

Ada said, ‘Well, perhaps just a bit of mistletoe over the bed.’

Mrs Florin said Ada was too young to think about things like that, and she ought to be ashamed of herself.

Florin said would Ada stop arguing and answering back and come into the hall to put up the banner. One string went on the nose of the rhinoceros, he explained, the other round the giraffe.

Presently Colonel Blount came down.

‘Should I light the fires in the big drawing-room?’ asked Mrs Florin.

‘Fires in the big drawing-room? No, why should you want to do that, Mrs Florin?’

‘Because of Captain and Mrs Littlejohn—you haven’t forgotten, have you, sir, that they’re coming to stay this afternoon?’

‘Captain and Mrs Fiddlesticks. Never heard of them. Who asked them to stay I should like to know? _I_ didn’t. Don’t know who they are. Don’t want them. . . . Besides, now I come to think of it, Miss Nina and her husband said they were coming down. I can’t have the whole house turned into an hotel. If these people come, Florin, whoever they are, you tell them to go away. You understand? I won’t have them, and I think it’s very presumptuous of whoever asked them. It is not their place to invite guests here without consulting me.’

‘Should I be lighting the fires in the big drawing-room for Miss Nina and her young gentleman, sir?’

‘Yes, yes, certainly . . . and a fire in their bedroom, of course. And, Florin, I want you to come down to the cellar with me to look out some port . . . I’ve got the keys here. . . . I have a feeling I’m going to like Miss Nina’s husband,’ he confided on their way to the cellar. ‘I hear very good reports of him—a decent, steady young fellow, and not at all badly off. Miss Nina said in her letter that he used to come over here as a little boy. D’you remember him, Florin? Blest if I do. . . . What’s the name again?’

‘Littlejohn, sir.’

‘Yes. Littlejohn, to be sure. I had the name on the tip of my tongue only a minute ago. _Littlejohn._ I must remember that.’

‘His father used to live over at Oakshott, sir. A very wealthy gentleman. Shipowners, I think they were. Young Mr Littlejohn used to go riding with Miss Nina, sir. Regular little monkey he was, sir, red-headed . . . a terrible one for cats.’

‘Well, well, I dare say he’s grown out of that. Mind the step, Florin, it’s all broken away. Hold the lamp higher, can’t you, man. Now, what did we come for? Port, yes, port. Now, there’s some ’96 somewhere, only a few bottles left. What does it say on this bin? I can’t read. Bring the light over here.’

‘We drank up the last of the ’96, sir, when the film-acting gentlemen was here.’

‘Did we, Florin, did we? We shouldn’t have done that, you know.’

‘Very particular about his wine, Mr Isaacs was. My instructions was to give them whatever they wanted.’

‘Yes, but ’96 port. . . . Well, well. Take up two bottles of the ’04. Now, what else do we want? Claret—yes, _claret_. Claret, claret, claret, claret. Where do I keep the claret, Florin?’

Colonel Blount was just having tea—he had finished a brown boiled egg and was spreading a crumpet with honey—when Florin opened the library door and announced ‘Captain and Mrs Littlejohn, sir.’

And Adam and Nina came in.

Colonel Blount put down his crumpet and rose to greet them.

‘Well, Nina, it’s a long time since you came to see your old father. So this is my son-in-law, eh? How do you do, my boy. Come and sit down, both of you. Florin will bring some more cups directly. . . . Well,’ he said, giving Adam a searching glance, ‘I can’t say I should have recognized you. I used to know your father very well indeed at one time. Used to be a neighbour of mine over at where-was-it. I expect you’ve forgotten those days. You used to come over here to ride with Nina. You can’t have been more than ten or eleven. . . . Funny, something gave me an idea you had red hair . . .’

‘I expect you’d heard him called “Ginger”,’ said Nina, ‘and that made you think of it.’

‘Something of the kind, I dare say . . . extraordinary thing to call him “Ginger” when he’s got ordinary fair hair . . . anyway, I’m very glad to see you, very glad. I’m afraid it’ll be a very quiet week-end. We don’t see many people here now. Florin says he’s asked a Captain and Mrs Something-or-other to come and stay, damn his impudence, but I said I wouldn’t see them. Why should I entertain Florin’s friends? Servants seem to think after they’ve been with you some time they can do anything they like. There was poor old Lady Graybridge, now—they only found out after her death that her man had been letting lodgings all the time in the North Wing. She never could understand why none of the fruit ever came into the dining-room—the butler and his boarders were eating it all in the servants’ hall. And after she was ill, and couldn’t leave her room, he laid out a golf links in the park . . . shocking state of affairs. I don’t believe Florin would do a thing like that—still, you never know. It’s the thin edge of the wedge asking people down for the week-end.’

In the kitchen Florin said: ‘_That’s_ not the Mr Littlejohn I used to know.’

Mrs Florin said, ‘It’s the young gentleman that came here to luncheon last month.’

Ada said, ‘He’s very nice looking.’

Florin and Mrs Florin said, ‘You be quiet, Ada. Have you taken the hot water up to their bedroom yet? Have you taken up their suitcases? Have you unpacked them? Did you brush the Colonel’s evening suit? Do you expect Mr Florin and Mrs Florin to do _all_ the work of the house? And look at your apron again, you wretched girl, if it isn’t the second you’ve dirtied to-day.’

Florin added, ‘Anyway, Miss Nina noticed the banner.’

In the library Colonel Blount said, ‘I’ve got a treat for you to-night, anyway. The last two reels of my cinema film have just come back from being developed. I thought we’d run through it to-night. We shall have to go across to the Rectory, because the rector’s got electric light, the lucky fellow. I told him to expect us. He didn’t seem very pleased about it. Said he had to preach three sermons to-morrow, and be up at six for early service. That’s not the Christmas spirit. Didn’t want to bring the car round to fetch us either. It’s only a matter of a quarter of a mile, no trouble to _him_, and how can we walk in the snow carrying all the apparatus? I said to him, “If you practised a little more Christianity yourself we might be more willing to subscribe to your foreign missions and Boy Scouts and organ funds.” Had him there. Dammit, I put the man in his job myself—if I haven’t a right to his car, who has?’

When they went up to change for dinner Nina said to Adam, ‘I knew papa would never recognize you.’

Adam said, ‘Look, some one’s put mistletoe over our bed.’

‘I think you gave the Florins rather a surprise.’

‘My dear, what will the Rector say? He drove me to the station the first time I came. He thought I was mad.’

‘. . . Poor Ginger. I wonder, are we treating him terribly badly? . . . It seemed a direct act of fate that he should have been called up to join his regiment just at this moment.’

‘I left him a cheque to pay for you.’

‘Darling, you know it’s a bad one.’

‘No cheque is bad until it’s refused by the bank. To-morrow’s Christmas, then Boxing Day, then Sunday. He can’t pay it in until Monday, and anything may have happened by then. The drunk Major may have turned up. If the worst comes to the worst I can always send you back to him.’

‘I expect it will end with that. . . . Darling, the honeymoon _was_ hell . . . frightfully cold, and Ginger insisted on walking about on a terrace after dinner to see the moon on the Mediterranean—he played golf all day, and made friends with the other English people in the hotel. I can’t tell you what it was like . . . too spirit-crushing, as poor Agatha used to say.’

‘Did I tell you I went to Agatha’s funeral? There was practically no one there except the Chasms and some aunts. I went with Van, rather tight, and got stared at. I think they felt I was partly responsible for the accident . . .’

‘What about Miles?’

‘He’s had to leave the country, didn’t you know?’

‘Darling, I only came back from my honeymoon to-day. I haven’t heard anything. . . . You know there seems to be none of us left now except you and me.’

‘And Ginger.’

‘Yes, and Ginger.’

The cinematograph exhibition that evening was not really a success.

The Rector arrived while they were finishing dinner, and was shown into the dining-room shaking the snow from the shoulders of his overcoat.

‘Come in, Rector, come in. We shan’t be many minutes now. Take a glass of port and sit down. You’ve met my daughter, haven’t you? And this is my new son-in-law.’

‘I think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him before too.’

‘Nonsense, first time he’s been here since he was so high—long before your time.’

The Rector sipped his port and kept eyeing Adam over the top of his glass in a way which made Nina giggle. Then Adam giggled too, and the Rector’s suspicions were confirmed. In this way relations were already on an uneasy basis before they reached the Rectory. The Colonel, however, was far too intent over the transport of his apparatus to notice anything.

‘This is your first visit here?’ said the Rector as he drove through the snow.

‘I lived near here as a boy, you know,’ said Adam.

‘Ah . . . but you were down here the other day, were you not? The Colonel often forgets things. . . .’

‘No, no. I haven’t been here for fifteen years.’

‘I _see_,’ said the Rector with sinister emphasis, and murmured under his breath, ‘Remarkable . . . very sad and remarkable.’

The Rector’s wife was disposed to make rather a party of it, and had arranged some coffee and chocolate biscuits in the drawing-room, but the Colonel soon put an end to any frivolity of this kind by plunging them all in darkness.

He took out the bulbs of their electric lights and fitted in the plug of his lantern. A bright beam shot across the drawing-room like a searchlight, picking out the Rector, who was whispering in his wife’s ear the news of his discovery.

‘. . . the same young man I told you of,’ he was saying. ‘Quite off his head, poor boy. He didn’t even remember coming here before. One expects that sort of thing in a man of the Colonel’s age, but for a young man like that . . . a very bad look out for the next generation . . .’

The Colonel paused in his preparation.

‘I say, Rector, I’ve just thought of something. I wish old Florin were here. He was in bed half the time they were taking the film. I know he’d love to see it. Could you be a good chap and run up in the car and fetch him?’

‘No, really, Colonel, I hardly think that’s necessary. I’ve just put the car away.’

‘I won’t start before you come back, if that’s what you’re thinking of. It’ll take me some time to get everything fixed up. We’ll wait for you. I promise you that.’

‘My dear Colonel, it’s snowing heavily—practically a blizzard. Surely it would be a mistaken kindness to drag an elderly man out of doors on a night like this in order to see a film which, I have no doubt, will soon be on view all over the country?’

‘All right, Rector, just as you think best. I only thought after all it is Christmas . . . damn the thing; I got a nasty shock then.’

Adam and Nina and the Rector and his wife sat in the dark patiently. After a time the Colonel unrolled a silvered screen.

‘Just help me take all these things off the chimney-piece some one,’ he said.

The Rector’s wife scuttered to the preservation of her ornaments.

‘Will it bear, do you think?’ asked the Colonel, mounting precariously on the top of the piano, and exhibiting in his excitement an astonishing fund of latent vitality. ‘Now hand up the screen to me, will you? That’s splendid. You don’t mind a couple of screws in your wall, do you, Rector? Quite small ones.’

Presently the screen was fixed and the lens directed so that it threw on to it a small square of light.

The audience sat down expectantly.

‘_Now_,’ said the Colonel, and set the machine in motion.

There was a whirring sound, and suddenly there appeared on the screen the spectacle of four uniformed horsemen galloping backwards down the drive.

‘Hullo,’ said the Colonel. ‘Something wrong there . . . that’s funny. I must have forgotten to rewind it.’

The horsemen disappeared, and there was a fresh whirring as the film was transferred to another spool.

‘_Now_,’ said the Colonel, and sure enough there appeared in small and clear letters the notice, ‘=The Wonderfilm Company of Great Britain Presents=’. This legend, vibrating a good deal, but without other variation, filled the screen for some time—(‘Of course, I shall cut the captions a bit before it’s shown commercially,’ explained the Colonel)—until its place was taken by ‘EFFIE LA TOUCHE IN’. This announcement was displayed for practically no time at all; indeed, they had scarcely had time to read it before it was whisked away obliquely. (‘Damn,’ said the Colonel. ‘Skidded.’) There followed another long pause, and then:

‘A B R A N D F R O M T H E B U R N I N G , A
F I L M B A S E D O N T H E L I F E O F J O H N
W E S L E Y .’

(‘_There_,’ said the Colonel.)

‘E I G H T E E N T H C E N T U R Y E N G L A N D .’

There came in breathless succession four bewigged men in fancy costume, sitting round a card table. There were glasses, heaps of money and candles on the table. They were clearly gambling feverishly and drinking a lot. (‘There’s a song there really,’ said the Colonel, ‘only I’m afraid I haven’t got a talkie apparatus yet.’) Then a highwayman holding up the coach which Adam had seen; then some beggars starving outside Doubting Church; then some ladies in fancy costume dancing a minuet. Sometimes the heads of the dancers would disappear above the top of the pictures; sometimes they would sink waist deep as though in a quicksand; once Mr Isaacs appeared at the side in shirt sleeves, waving them on. (‘I’ll have him out,’ said the Colonel.)

‘E P W O R T H R E C T O R Y , L I N C O L N S H I R E ( E N G . )’

(‘That’s in case it’s taken up in the States,’ said the Colonel. ‘I don’t believe there is a Lincolnshire over there, but it’s always courteous to put that in case.’)

A corner of Doubting Hall appeared with clouds of smoke billowing from the windows. A clergyman was seen handing out a succession of children with feverish rapidity of action. (‘It’s on fire, you see,’ said the Colonel. ‘We did that quite simply, by burning some stuff Isaacs had. It did make a smell.’)

So the film went on eventfully for about half an hour. One of its peculiarities was that whenever the story reached a point of dramatic and significant action, the film seemed to get faster and faster. Villagers trotted to church as though galvanized; lovers shot in and out of windows; horses flashed past like motor cars; riots happened so quickly that they were hardly noticed. On the other hand, any scene of repose or inaction, a conversation in a garden between two clergymen, Mrs Wesley at her prayers, Lady Huntingdon asleep, etc., seemed prolonged almost unendurably. Even Colonel Blount suspected this imperfection.

‘I think I might cut a bit there,’ he said, after Wesley had sat uninterruptedly composing a pamphlet for four and a half minutes.

When the reel came to an end every one stirred luxuriously.

‘Well, that was very nice,’ said the Rector’s wife, ‘very nice and instructive.’

‘I really must congratulate you, Colonel. A production of absorbing interest. I had no idea Wesley’s life was so full of adventure. I see I must read up my Lecky.’

‘Too divine, Papa.’

‘Thank you so much, sir, I enjoyed that immensely.’

‘But, bless you, that isn’t the end,’ said the Colonel. ‘There are four more reels yet.’

‘Oh, that’s good.’ ‘But how delightful.’ ‘Splendid.’ ‘Oh.’

But the full story was never shown. Just at the beginning of the second part—when Wesley in America was being rescued from Red Indians by Lady Huntingdon disguised as a cowboy—there occurred one of the mishaps from which the largest super-cinemas are not absolutely immune. There was a sudden crackling sound, a long blue spark, and the light was extinguished.

‘Oh, dear,’ said the Colonel, ‘I wonder what’s happened now. We were just getting to such an exciting place.’ He bent all his energies on the apparatus, recklessly burning his fingers, while his audience sat in darkness. Presently the door opened and a housemaid appeared carrying a candle.

‘If you please, mum,’ she said, ‘the light’s gone out all over the house.’

The Rector hurried across to the door and tried the switch in the passage. He clicked it up and down several times; he tapped it like a barometer and shook it slightly.

‘It looks as though the wires were fused,’ he said.

‘Really, Rector, how very inconvenient,’ said the Colonel crossly. ‘I can’t possibly show the film without electric current. Surely there must be something you can do?’

‘I am afraid it will be a job for an electrician; it will be scarcely possible to get one before Monday,’ said the Rector with scarcely Christian calm. ‘In fact it is clear to me that my wife and myself and my whole household will have to spend the entire Christmas week-end in darkness.’

‘Well,’ said the Colonel. ‘I never expected this to happen. Of course, I know it’s just as disappointing for you as it is for me. All the same . . .’

The housemaid brought in some candles and a bicycle lamp.

‘There’s only these in the house, sir,’ she said, ‘and the shops don’t open till Monday.’

‘I don’t think in the circumstances my hospitality can be of much more use to you, can it, Colonel? Perhaps you would like me to ring up and get a taxi out from Aylesbury.’

‘What’s that? _Taxi?_ Why, it’s ridiculous to get a taxi out from Aylesbury to go a quarter of a mile!’

‘I’m sure Mrs Littlejohn wouldn’t like to walk all the way on a night like this?’

‘Perhaps a taxi would be a good idea, Papa.’

‘Of course, if you’ld care to take shelter here . . . it may clear up a little. But I think you’ld find it very wretched, sitting here in the dark?’

‘No, no, of course, order a taxi,’ said the Colonel.

On the way back to the house he said, ‘I’d half made up my mind to lend him some of our lamps for the week-end. I certainly shan’t now. Fancy hiring a taxi seven miles to drive us a few hundred yards. On Christmas Eve, too. No wonder they find it hard to fill their churches when that’s their idea of Christian fellowship. Just when I’d brought my film all that way to show them . . .’

Next morning Adam and Nina woke up under Ada’s sprig of mistletoe to hear the bells ringing for Christmas across the snow. ‘Come all to church, good people; good people come to church.’ They had each hung up a stocking the evening before, and Adam had put a bottle of scent and a scent spray into Nina’s, and she had put two ties and a new kind of safety razor into his. Ada brought them their tea and wished them a happy Christmas. Nina had remembered to get a present for each of the Florins, but had forgotten Ada, so she gave her the bottle of scent.

‘Darling,’ said Adam, ‘it cost twenty-five shillings—on Archie Schwert’s account at Asprey.’

Later they put some crumbs of their bread and butter on the windowsill and a robin redbreast came to eat them. The whole day was like that.

Adam and Nina breakfasted alone in the dining-room. There was a row of silver plates kept hot by spirit lamps which held an omelette and devilled partridges and kedgeree and kidneys and sole and some rolls; there was also a ham and a tongue and some brawn and a dish of pickled herrings. Nina ate an apple and Adam ate some toast.

Colonel Blount came down at eleven wearing a grey tail coat. He wished them a very good morning and they exchanged gifts. Adam gave him a box of cigars; Nina gave him a large illustrated book about modern cinema production; he gave Nina a seed pearl brooch which had belonged to her mother, and he gave Adam a calendar with a coloured picture of a bulldog smoking a clay pipe and a thought from Longfellow for each day in the year.

At half-past eleven they all went to Matins.

‘It will be a lesson to him in true Christian forgiveness,’ said the Colonel (but he ostentatiously read his Bible throughout the sermon). After church they called in at two or three cottages. Florin had been round the day before distributing parcels of grocery. They were all pleased and interested to meet Miss Nina’s husband. Many of them remembered him as a little boy, and remarked that he had grown out of all recognition. They reminded him with relish of many embarrassing episodes in Ginger’s childhood, chiefly acts of destruction and cruelty to cats.

After luncheon they went down to see all the decorations in the servants’ hall.

This was a yearly custom of some antiquity, and the Florins had prepared for it by hanging paper streamers from the gas brackets. Ada was having middle-day dinner with her parents who lived among the petrol pumps at Doubting village, so the Florins ate their turkey and plum pudding alone.

‘I’ve seen as many as twenty-five sitting down to Christmas dinner at this table,’ said Florin. ‘Regular parties they used to have when the Colonel and Mr Eric were boys. Theatricals and all the house turned topsy-turvy, and every gentleman with his own valet.’

‘Ah,’ said Mrs Florin.

‘Times is changed,’ said Florin, picking a tooth.

‘Ah,’ said Mrs Florin.

Then the family came in from the dining-room.

The Colonel knocked on the door and said, ‘May we come in, Mrs Florin?’

‘That you may, sir, and welcome,’ said Mrs Florin.

Then Adam and Nina and the Colonel admired the decorations and handed over their presents wrapped in tissue paper. Then the Colonel said, ‘I think we should take a glass of wine together.’

Florin opened a bottle of sherry which he had brought up that morning and poured out the glasses, handing one first to Nina, then to Mrs Florin, then to the Colonel, then to Adam, and, finally, taking one for himself.

‘My very best wishes to you, Mrs Florin,’ said the Colonel, raising his glass, ‘and to you, Florin. The years go by, and we none of us get any younger, but I hope and trust that there are many Christmases in store for us yet. Mrs Florin certainly doesn’t look a day older than when she first came here. My best wishes to you both for another year of health and happiness.’

Mrs Florin said, ‘Best respects, sir, and thank you, sir, and the same to you.’

Florin said, ‘And a great pleasure it is to see Miss Nina—Mrs Littlejohn, I should say—with us once more at her old home, and her husband too, and I’m sure Mrs Florin and me wish them every happiness and prosperity in their married life together, and all I can say, if they can be as happy together as me and Mrs Florin has been, well, that’s the best I can wish them.’

Then the family went away, and the house settled down to its afternoon nap.

After dinner that night Adam and the Colonel filled up their port glasses and turned their chairs towards the fire. Nina had gone into the drawing-room to smoke.

‘You know,’ said the Colonel, poking back a log with his foot, ‘I’m very glad that Nina has married you, my boy. I’ve liked you from the moment I saw you. She’s a headstrong girl—always was—but I knew that she’d make a sensible choice in the end. I foresee a very agreeable life ahead of you two young people.’

‘I hope so, sir.’

‘I’m sure of it, my boy. She’s very nearly made several mistakes. There was an ass of a fellow here the other day wanting to marry her. A journalist. Awful silly fellow. He told me my old friend Canon Chatterbox was working on his paper. Well, I didn’t like to contradict him—he ought to have known, after all—but I thought it was funny at the time, and then, d’you know, after he’d gone I was going through some old papers upstairs and I came on a cutting from the _Worcester Herald_ describing his funeral. He died in 1912. Well, he must have been a muddle-headed sort of fellow to make a mistake like that, mustn’t he? . . . Have some port?’

‘Thank you.’

‘Then there was another chap. Came here selling vacuum cleaners, if you please, and asked me to give him a thousand pounds! Impudent young cub. I soon sent him about his business. . . . But you’re different, Littlejohn. Just the sort of son-in-law I’d have chosen for myself. Your marriage has been a great happiness to me, my boy.’

At this moment Nina came in to say that there were carol singers outside the drawing-room window.

‘Bring ’em in,’ said the Colonel. ‘Bring ’em in. They come every year. And tell Florin to bring up the punch.’

Florin brought up the punch in a huge silver punch bowl and Nina brought in the waits. They stood against the sideboard, caps in hand, blinking in the gaslight, and very red about the nose and cheeks with the sudden warmth.

‘_Oh, tidings of comfort and joy_,’ they sang, ‘_comfort and
joy, Oh, tidings of comfort and joy_.’

They sang _Good King Wenceslas_, and _The First Noel_, and _Adeste Fideles_, and _While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks_. Then Florin ladled out the punch, seeing that the younger ones did not get the glasses intended for their elders, but that each, according to his capacity, got a little more, but not much more, than was good for him.

The Colonel tasted the punch and pronounced it excellent. He then asked the carol singers their names and where they came from, and finally gave their leader five shillings and sent them off into the snow.

‘It’s been just like this every year, as long as I can remember,’ said the Colonel. ‘We always had a party at Christmas when we were boys . . . acted some very amusing charades too . . . always a glass of sherry after luncheon in the servants’ hall and carol singers in the evening. . . . Tell me,’ he said, suddenly changing the subject, ‘did you _really_ like what you saw of the film yesterday?’

‘It was the most divine film I ever saw, Papa.’

‘I enjoyed it enormously, sir, really I did.’

‘Did you? Did you? Well, I’m glad to hear that. I don’t believe the Rector did—not properly. Of course, you only saw a bit of it, most disappointing. I didn’t like to say so at the time, but I thought it most negligent of him to have his electric light in that sort of condition so that it wouldn’t last out for one evening. Most inconsiderate to any one who wants to show a film. But it’s a glorious film, isn’t it? You did think so?’

‘I never enjoyed a film so much, honestly.’

‘It makes a stepping stone in the development of the British film industry,’ said the Colonel dreamily. ‘It is the most important all-talkie super-religious film to be produced solely in this country by British artists and management and by British capital. It has been directed throughout regardless of difficulty and expense, and supervised by a staff of expert historians and theologians. Nothing has been omitted that would contribute to the meticulous accuracy of every detail. The life of that great social and religious reformer John Wesley is for the first time portrayed to a British public in all its humanity and tragedy. . . . I’m glad you realized all that, my boy, because as a matter of fact, I had a proposal to make to you about it. I’m getting an old man and can’t do everything, and I feel my services should be better spent in future as actor and producer, rather than on the commercial side. One needs some one young to manage that. Now what I thought was, that perhaps you would care to come in with me as business partner. I bought the whole thing from Isaacs and, as you’re one of the family, I shouldn’t mind selling you a half-share for, say, two thousand pounds. I know that that isn’t much to you, and you’ld be humanly certain to double your money in a few months. What do you say to it?’

‘_Well_ . . .’ said Adam.

But he was never called upon to answer, for just at that moment the door of the dining-room opened and the Rector came in.

‘Hullo, Rector, come in. This is very neighbourly of you to come and call at this time of night. A happy Christmas to you.’

‘Colonel Blount, I’ve got very terrible news. I had to come over and tell you . . .’

‘I say, I am sorry. Nothing wrong at the Rectory, I hope?’

‘Worse, far worse. My wife and I were sitting over the fire after dinner, and as we couldn’t read—not having any light—we put on the wireless. They were having a very pretty carol service. Suddenly they stopped in the middle and a special news bulletin was read. . . . Colonel, the most terrible and unexpected thing—_War has been declared_.’

_Happy Ending_

On a splintered tree stump in the biggest battlefield in the history of the world, Adam sat down and read a letter from Nina. It had arrived early the day before, but in the intensive fighting which followed he had not had a spare minute in which to open it.

_Doubting Hall_,
_Aylesbury_.

‘_Dearest Adam,—I wonder how you are. It is difficult to know
what is happening quite because the papers say such odd things.
Van has got a divine job making up all the war news, and he
invented a lovely story about you the other day, how you’d saved
hundreds of people’s lives, and there’s what they call a popular
agitation saying why haven’t you got the V.C., so probably you
will have by now, isn’t it amusing?_

‘_Ginger and I are very well. Ginger has a job in an office in
Whitehall and wears a very grand sort of uniform, and, my dear,
I’m going to have a baby, isn’t it too awful? But Ginger has
quite made up his mind it’s his, and is as pleased as anything,
so that’s all right. He’s quite forgiven you about last
Christmas, and says anyway you’re doing your bit now, and in war
time one lets bygones be bygones._

‘_Doubting is a hospital, did you know? Papa shows his film to
the wounded and they adore it. I saw Mr Benfleet, and he said
how awful it was when one had given all one’s life in the cause
of culture to see everything one’s stood for swept away, but
he’s doing very well with his “Sword Unsheathed” series of war
poets._

‘_There’s a new Government order that we have to sleep in gas
masks because of the bombs, but no one does. They’ve put Archie
in prison as an undesirable alien, Ginger saw to that, he’s
terrific about spies. I’m sick such a lot because of this baby,
but everyone says it’s patriotic to have babies in war time.
Why?_

‘_Lots of love, my angel, take care of your dear self._

_N._’

He put it back in its envelope and buttoned it into his breast-pocket. Then he took out a pipe, filled it and began to smoke. The scene all round him was one of unrelieved desolation; a great expanse of mud in which every visible object was burnt or broken. Sounds of firing thundered from beyond the horizon, and somewhere above the grey clouds there were aeroplanes. He had had no sleep for thirty-six hours. It was growing dark.

Presently he became aware of a figure approaching, painfully picking his way among the strands of barbed wire which strayed across the ground like drifting cobweb; a soldier clearly. As he came nearer Adam saw that he was levelling towards him a liquid fire-projector. Adam tightened his fingers about his Huxdane-Halley bomb (for the dissemination of leprosy germs), and in this posture of mutual suspicion they met. Through the dusk Adam recognized the uniform of an English staff officer. He put the bomb back in his pocket and saluted.

The newcomer lowered his liquid-fire projector and raised his gas mask. ‘You’re English, are you?’ he said. ‘Can’t see a thing. Broken my damned monocle.’

‘Why,’ said Adam. ‘You’re the drunk Major.’

‘I’m not drunk, damn you, sir,’ said the drunk Major, ‘and, what’s more, I’m a General. What the deuce are _you_ doing here?’

‘Well,’ said Adam. ‘I’ve lost my platoon.’

‘Lost your platoon. . . . I’ve lost my whole bloody division!’

‘Is the battle over, sir?’

‘I don’t know, can’t see a thing. It was going on all right last time I heard of it. My car’s broken down somewhere over there. My driver went out to try and find some one to help and got lost, and I went out to look for him, and now I’ve lost the car too. Damn difficult country to find one’s way about in. No landmarks. . . . Funny meeting you. I owe you some money.’

‘Thirty-five thousand pounds.’

‘Thirty-five thousand and five. Looked for you everywhere before this scrap started. I can give you the money now if you like.’

‘The pound’s not worth much nowadays, is it?’

‘About nothing. Still, I may as well give you a cheque. It’ll buy you a couple of drinks and a newspaper. Talking of drinks, I’ve got a case of bubbly in the car if we could only find it. Salvaged it out of an R.A.F. mess that got bombed back at H.Q. Wish I could find that car.’

Eventually they did find it. A Daimler limousine sunk to the axles in mud.

‘Get in and sit down,’ said the General hospitably. ‘I’ll turn the light on in a second.’

Adam climbed in and found that it was not empty. In the corner, crumpled up in a French military greatcoat, was a young woman fast asleep.

‘_Hullo_, I’d forgotten all about you,’ said the General. ‘I picked up this little lady on the road. I can’t introduce you, because I don’t know her name. Wake up, mademoiselle.’

The girl gave a little cry and opened two startled eyes.

‘That’s all right, little lady, nothing to be scared about—all friends here. _Parlez anglais?_’

‘Sure,’ said the girl.

‘Well, what about a spot?’ said the General, peeling the tinfoil from the top of a bottle. ‘You’ll find some glasses in the locker.’

The woebegone fragment of womanhood in the corner looked a little less terrified when she saw the wine. She recognized it as the symbol of international good will.

‘Now perhaps our fair visitor will tell us her name,’ said the General.

‘I dunno,’ she said.

‘Oh, come, little one, you mustn’t be shy.’

‘I dunno. I been called a lot of things. I was called Chastity once. Then there was a lady at a party, and she sent me to Buenos Aires, and then when the war came she brought me back again, and I was with the soldiers training at Salisbury Plain. That was swell. They called me bunny—I don’t know why. Then they sent me over here and I was with the Canadians, what they called me wasn’t nice, and then they left me behind when they retreated and I took up with some foreigners. They were nice too, though they _were_ fighting against the English. Then _they_ ran away, and the lorry I was in got stuck in the ditch, so I got in with some other foreigners who were on the same side as the English, and they were beasts, but I met an American doctor who had white hair, and he called me Emily because he said I reminded him of his daughter back home, so he took me to Paris and we had a lovely week till he took up with another girl in a night club, so he left me behind in Paris when he went back to the front, and I hadn’t no money and they made a fuss about my passport, so they called me _numero mille soixante dix huit_, and they sent me and a lot of other girls off to the East to be with the soldiers there. At least they would have done only the ship got blown up, so I was rescued and the French sent me up here in a train with some different girls who were very unrefined. Then I was in a tin hut with the girls, and then yesterday they had friends and I was alone, so I went for a walk, and when I came back the hut was gone and the girls were gone, and there didn’t seem any one anywhere until you came in your car, and now I don’t rightly know where I am. _My_, isn’t war awful?’

The General opened another bottle of champagne.

‘Well, you’re as right as rain now, little lady,’ he said, ‘so let’s see you smile and look happy. You mustn’t sit there scowling, you know—far too pretty a little mouth for that. Let me take off that heavy coat. Look, I’ll wrap it round your knees. There, now, isn’t that better? . . . Fine, strong little legs, eh? . . .’

Adam did not embarrass them. The wine and the deep cushions and the accumulated fatigue of two days’ fighting drew him away from them and, oblivious to all the happy emotion pulsing near him, he sank into sleep.

The windows of the stranded motor car shone over the wasted expanse of the battlefield. Then the General pulled down the blinds, shutting out that sad scene.

‘Cosier now, eh?’ he said.

And Chastity in the prettiest way possible fingered the decorations on his uniform and asked him all about them.

And presently, like a circling typhoon, the sounds of battle began to return.

THE END

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.