Book: The Red Planet

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"What the dickens is that?"

"Dr. Cliffe's orders, sir."

"When did he order it?"

"When I told him what you looked like after interviewing Mister
Daniel Gedge. And he said, if you was to look like that again I
was to give you this. So I'm giving it to you, sir."

There was no arguing with Marigold in front of a thousand people.
I swallowed the stuff quickly. He put the phial and glass back in
his pocket and resumed his wooden sentry attitude by my chair. I
must own to feeling better for the draught. But, thought I, if the
strain of the situation is so great for me, what must it be for
Sir Anthony?

Presently the muffled sounds of outside cheering penetrated the
hall. The band stopped abruptly, to begin again with "See the
Conquering Hero Comes" when the civic procession appeared through
the great doors. There was little Sir Anthony in his robes, grave
and imposing, and beside him Mrs. Boyce, flushed, bright-eyed, and
tearful. Then came Lady Fenimore with Boyce, black-spectacled,
soldierly, bull-necked, his little bronze cross conspicuous among
the medals on his breast, his elbow gripped by a weatherbeaten
young soldier, one of his captains, as I learned afterwards, home
on leave, who had claimed the privilege of guiding his blind
footsteps. And behind came the Aldermen and the Councillors, and
the General and his staff, and the Lord Lieutenant and Lady
Laleham and the other members of the Reception Committee. The
cheering drowned the strains of the "Conquering Hero." Places were
taken on the platform. To the right of the Mayor sat Boyce, to the
left his mother. On the table in front were set scrolls and
caskets. You see, we had arranged that Mrs. Boyce should have an
address and a casket all to herself. The gallery soon was
picturesquely filled with the nurses, and the fire-brigade,
bright-helmeted, was massed in the doorway.

God gave the steel-hearted little man strength to go through the
ordeal. He delivered his carefully prepared oration in a voice
that never faltered. The passages referring to Boyce's blindness
he spoke with an accent of amazing sincerity. When he had ended
the responsive audience applauded tumultuously. From my seat by
the edge of the platform I watched Betty. Two red spots burned in
her cheeks. The addresses were read, the caskets presented. Boyce
remained standing, about to respond. He still held the casket in
both hands. His FIDUS ACHATES, guessing his difficulty, sprang up,
took it from him, and laid it on the table. Boyce turned to him
with his charming smile and said: "Thanks, old man." Again the
tumult broke out. Men cheered and women wept and waved wet
handkerchiefs. And he stood smiling at his unseen audience. When
he spoke, his deep, beautifully modulated voice held everyone
under its spell, and he spoke modestly and gaily like a brave
gentleman. I bent forward, as far as I was able, and scanned his
face. Never once, during the whole ceremony, did the tell-tale
twitch appear at the corners of his lips. He stood there the
incarnation of the modern knights sans fear and sans reproach.

I cannot tell which of the two, he or Sir Anthony, the more moved
my wondering admiration. Each exhibited a glorious defiance.

You may say that Boyce, receiving in his debonair fashion the
encomiums of the man whom he had wronged, was merely exhibiting
the familiar callousness of the criminal. If you do, I throw up my
brief. I shall have failed utterly to accomplish my object in
writing this book. I want no tears of sensibility shed over Boyce.
I want you to judge him by the evidence that I am trying to put
before you. If you judge him as a criminal, it is my poor
presentation of the evidence that is at fault. I claim for Boyce a
certain splendour of character, for all his grievous sins, a
splendour which no criminal in the world's history has ever
achieved. I beg you therefore to suspend your judgment, until I
have finished, as far as my poor powers allow, my unravelling of
his tangled skein. And pray remember too that I have sought all
through to present you with the facts PARI PASSU with my knowledge
of them. I have tried to tell the story through myself. I could
think of no other way of creating an essential verisimilitude.
Yet, even now, writing in the light of full knowledge, I cannot
admit that, when Boyce in that Town Hall faced the world--for, in
the deep tragic sense Wellingsford was his world--anyone knowing
as much as I did would have been justified in calling his
demeanour criminal callousness.

I say that he exhibited a glorious defiance. He defied the
concrete Gedge. He defied the more abstract, but none the less
real, tormenting Furies. He defied remorse. In accepting Sir
Anthony's praise he defied the craven in his own soul.

After a speech or two more, to which I did not listen, the
proceedings in the Town Hall ended. I drew a breath of relief. No
breakdown by Sir Anthony, no scandalous interruption by Gedge, had
marred the impressive ceremony. The band in the gallery played
"God Save the King." The crowd in the body of the hall, who had
stood for the anthem, sat down again, evidently waiting for Boyce
and the notables to pass out. The assemblage on the platform broke
up. Several members, among them the General, who paused to shake
hands with Boyce and his mother, left the hall by the private side
door. The Lord Lieutenant and Lady Laleham followed him soon
afterwards. Then the less magnificent crowded round Boyce, each
eager for a personal exchange of words with the hero. Sir Anthony
remained at his post, keeping on the outskirts of the throng,
bidding formal adieux to those who went away. Presently I saw that
Boyce was asking for me, for someone pointed me out to his officer
attendant, who led him down the steps of the platform and round
the edge to my seat.

"Well, it has gone off all right," said he. "Let me introduce
Captain Winslow, more than ever my right-hand man--Major
Meredyth."

We exchanged bows.

"The old mother's as pleased as Punch. She didn't know she was
going to get a little box of her own. I should like to have seen
her face. I did hear her give one of her little squeals. Did you?"

"No," said I, "but I saw her face. It was that of a saint in an
unexpected beatitude."

He laughed. "Dear old mother," said he. "She has deserved a show."
He turned away unconsciously, and, thinking to address me,
addressed the first row of spectators. "I suppose there's a lot of
folks here that I know."

By chance he seemed to be looking through his black glasses
straight at Betty a few feet away. She rose impulsively and,
before all Wellingsford, went up to him with hand outstretched.

"There's one at any rate, Colonel Boyce. I'm Betty Connor--"

"No need to tell me that," said he, bowing.

Winslow, at his elbow, most scrupulous of prompters, whispered:

"She wants to shake hands with you."

So their hands met. He kept hers an appreciable second or two in
his grasp.

"I hope you will accept my congratulations," said Betty.

"I have already accepted them, very gratefully. My mother conveyed
them to me. She was deeply touched by your letter. And may I, too,
say how deeply touched I am by your coming here?"

Betty looked swiftly round and her cheeks flushed, for there were
many of us within earshot. She laughed off her embarrassment.

"You have developed from a man into a Wellingsford Institution,
and I had to come and see you inaugurated. My aunts, too, are
here." She beckoned to them. "They are shyer than I am."

The elderly ladies came forward and spoke their pleasant words of
congratulation. Mrs. Holmes and others, encouraged, followed their
example. Mrs. Boyce suddenly swooped from the platform into the
middle of the group and kissed Betty, who emerged from the excited
lady's embrace blushing furiously. She shook hands with Betty's
aunts and thanked them for their presence; and in the old lady's
mind the reconciliation of the two houses was complete. Then, with
cheeks of a more delicate natural pink than any living
valetudinarian of her age could boast of, and with glistening
eyes, she made her way to me, and reaching up and drawing me down,
kissed me, too.

While all this was going on, the body of the hall began to empty.
The programme had arranged for nothing more by way of ceremonial
to take place. But a public gathering always hopes for something
unexpected, and, when it does not happen, takes its disappointment
philosophically. I think Betty's action must have shown them that
the rest of the proceedings were to be purely private and
informal.

The platform also gradually thinned, until at last, looking round,
I saw that only Sir Anthony and Lady Fenimore and Winterbotham,
the Town Clerk, remained. Then Lady Fenimore joined us. We were
about a score, myself perched on the edge and corner of the
platform, the rest standing on the floor of the hall in a sector
round me, Marigold, of course, in the middle of them by my side,
like an ill-graven image. As soon as she could Lady Fenimore came
up to me.

"Don't you think it splendid of Betty Connor to bury the hatchet
so publicly?" she whispered.

"The war," said I, "is a solvent of many human complications."

"It is indeed." Then she added: "I am going to have a little
dinner party some time soon for the Boyces. I sounded him to-day
and he practically promised. I'll ask the Lalehams. Of course
you'll come. Now that things have shown themselves so topsy-turvy
I've been wondering whether I should ask Betty."

"Does Anthony know of this dinner party?" I enquired.

"What does it matter whether he does or not?" she laughed. "Dinner
parties come within my province and I'm mistress of it."

Of course Boyce had half promised. What else could he do without
discourtesy? But the banquet which, in her unsuspecting innocence
she proposed, seemed to me a horrible meal. Doubtless it would
seem so to Sir Anthony. At the moment I did not know whether he
intended to tell Gedge's story to his wife. At any rate, hitherto,
he had not done so.

"All the same, my dear Edith," I replied, "Anthony may have a word
to say. I happen to know he has no particular personal friendship
for Boyce, who, if you'll forgive my saying so, has treated you
rather cavalierly for the past two years. Anthony's welcome to-day
was purely public and official. It had nothing to do with his
private feelings."

"But they have changed. He was referring to the matter only this
morning at breakfast and suggesting things we could do to lighten
the poor man's affliction."

"I don't think a dinner party would lighten it," I said. "And if I
were you, I wouldn't suggest it to Anthony."

"That's rather mysterious." She looked at me shrewdly. "And
there's another mysterious thing. Anthony's like a yapping sphinx
over it. What were you two talking to Gedge about this morning?"
"Nothing particular."

"That's nonsense, Duncan. Gedge was making himself unpleasant. He
never does anything else."

"If you want to know," said I, with a convulsive effort of
invention, "we heard that he was preparing some sort of
demonstration, going to bring down some of his precious anti-war-
league people."

"He wouldn't have the pluck," she exclaimed.

"Anyhow," said I, "we thought we had better have him in and read
him the Riot--or rather the Defence of the Realm--Act. That's
all."

"Then why on earth couldn't Anthony tell me?"

"You ought to know the mixture of sugar and pepper in your
husband's nature better than I do, my dear Edith," I replied.

Her laugh reassured me. I had turned a difficult corner. No doubt
she would go to Sir Anthony with my explanation and either receive
his acquiescence or learn the real truth.

She was bidding me farewell when Sir Anthony came along the
platform to the chair. I glanced up, but I saw that he did not
wish to speak to me. He was looking grim and tired. He called down
to his wife:

"It's time to move, dear. The troops are still standing outside."

She bustled about giving the signal for departure, first running
to Boyce and taking him by the sleeve. I had not noticed that he
had withdrawn with Betty a few feet away from the little group.
They were interrupted in an animated conversation. At the sight I
felt a keen pang of repulsion. Those two ought not to talk
together as old friends. It outraged decencies. It was all very
well for Betty to play the magnanimous and patriotic Englishwoman.
By her first word of welcome she had fulfilled the part. But this
flushed, eager talk lay far beyond the scope of patriotic duty.
How could they thus converse over the body of the dead Althea?
With both of them was I indignant.

In my inmost heart I felt horribly and vulgarly jealous. I may as
well confess it. Deeply as I had sworn blood-brotherhood with
Boyce, regardless of the crimes he might or might not have
committed, I could not admit him into that inner brotherhood of
which Betty and I alone were members. And this is just a
roundabout, shame-faced way of saying that, at that moment, I
discovered that I was hopelessly, insanely in love with Betty. The
knowledge came to me in a great wave of dismay.

"You'll let me see you again, won't you?" he asked.

"If you like."

I don't think I heard the words, but I traced them on their lips.
They parted. Sir Anthony descended from the platform and gave his
arm to Mrs. Boyce. Lady Fenimore still clung to Boyce.
Winterbotham came next, bearing the two caskets, which had been
lying neglected on the table. The sparse company followed down the
empty hall. Marigold signalled to the porter and they hoisted down
my chair. Betty, who had lingered during the operation, walked by
my side. Being able now to propel myself, I dismissed Marigold to
a discreet position in the rear. Betty, her face still slightly
flushed, said:

"I'm waiting for congratulations which seem to be about as
overwhelming as snow in August. Don't you think I've been
extraordinarily good?"

"Do you feel good?"

"More than good," she laughed. "Christianlike. Aren't we told in
the New Testament to forgive our enemies?"

"'And love those that despitefully use us?'" I misquoted
maliciously. A sudden gust of anger often causes us to do worse
things than trifle with the text of the Sermon on the Mount.

She turned on me quickly, as though stung. "Why not? Isn't the
sight of him maimed like that enough to melt the heart of a
stone?"

I replied soberly enough. "It is indeed."

I had already betrayed my foolish jealousy. Further altercation
could only result in my betraying Boyce. I did not feel very
happy. Conscious of having spoken to me with unwonted sharpness,
she sought to make amends by laying her hand on my shoulder.

"I think, dear," she said, "we're all on rather an emotional edge
to-day."

We reached the front door of the hall. At the top of the shallow
flight of broad stairs the little group that had preceded us stood
behind Boyce, who was receiving the cheers of the troops--soldiers
and volunteers and the Godbury School Officers' Training Corps--
drawn up in the Market Square. When the cheers died away the crowd
raised cries for a speech.

Again Boyce spoke.

"The reception you have given my mother and myself," he said, "we
refuse to take personally. It is a reception given to the
soldiers, and the mothers and wives of soldiers, of the Empire, of
whom we just happen to be the lucky representatives. Whole
regiments, to say nothing of whole armies, can't all, every jack
man, receive Victoria Crosses. But every regiment very jealously
counts up its honours. You'll hear men say: 'Our regiment has two
V.C.s, five D.S.O.s, and twenty Distinguished Conduct Medals.' and
the feeling is that all the honours are lumped together and shared
by everybody, from the Colonel to the drummer-boys. And each
individual is proud of his share because he knows that he deserves
it. And so it happens that those whom chance has set aside for
distinction, like the lucky winners in a sweepstake, are the most
embarrassed people you can imagine, because everybody is doing
everything that they did every day in the week. For instance, if I
began to tell you a thousandth part of the dare-devil deeds of my
friend here, Captain Winslow of my regiment, he would bolt like a
rabbit into the Town Hall and fall on his knees and pray for an
earthquake. And whether the earthquake came off or not, I'm sure
he would never speak to me again. And they're all like that. But
in honouring me you are honouring him, and you're honouring our
regiment, and you're honouring the army. And in honouring Mrs.
Boyce, you are honouring that wonderful womanhood of the Empire
that is standing heroically behind their men in the hell upon
God's good earth which is known as the front."

It was a soldierlike little speech, delivered with the man's
gallant charm. Young Winslow gripped his arm affectionately and I
heard him say--"You are a brute, sir, dragging me into it." The
little party descended the steps of the Town Hall. The words of
command rang out. The Parade stood at the salute, which Boyce
acknowledged, guided by Winslow and his mother he reached his car,
to which he was attended by the Mayor and Mayoress. After formal
leave-taking the Boyces and Winslow drove off amid the plaudits of
the crowd. Then Sir Anthony and Lady Fenimore. Then Betty and her
aunts. Last of all, while the troops were preparing to march away
and the crowd was dispersing and all the excitement was over,
Marigold picked me out of my chair and carried me down to my
little grey two-seater.





CHAPTER XXI


Of course, after this (in the words of my young friends) I crocked
up. The confounded shell that had played the fool with my legs had
also done something silly to my heart. Hence these collapses after
physical and emotional strain. I had to stay in bed for some days.
Cliffe told me that as soon as I was fit to travel I must go to
Bournemouth, where it would be warm. I told Cliffe to go to a
place where it would be warmer. As neither of us would obey the
other, we remained where we were.

Cliffe informed me that Lady Fenimore had called him in to see Sir
Anthony, whom she described as being on the obstinate edge of a
nervous breakdown. I was sorry to hear it.

"I suppose you've tried to send him, too, to Bournemouth?"

"I haven't," Cliffe replied gravely. "He has got something on his
mind. I'm sure of it. So is his wife. What's the good of sending
him away?"

"What do you think is on his mind?" I asked.

"How do I know? His wife thinks it must be something to do with
Boyce's reception. He went home dead-beat, is very irritable, off
his food, can't sleep, and swears cantankerously that there's
nothing the matter with him,--the usual symptoms. Can you throw
any light on it?"

"Certainly not," I replied rather sharply.

Cliffe said "Umph!" in his exasperating professional way and
proceeded to feel my pulse.

"I don't quite see how Friday's mild exertion could account for
YOUR breakdown, my friend," he remarked.

"I'm so glad you confess, at last, not to seeing everything," said
I.

I was fearing this physical reaction in Sir Anthony. It was only
the self-assertion of Nature. He had gone splendidly through his
ordeal, having braced himself up for it. He had not braced himself
up, however, sufficiently to go through the other and far longer
ordeal of hiding his secret from his wife. So of course he went to
pieces.

After Cliffe had left me, with his desire for information
unsatisfied, I rang up Wellings Park. It was the Sunday morning
after the reception. To my surprise, Sir Anthony answered me; for
he was an old-fashioned country churchgoer and plague, pestilence,
famine, battle, murder and sudden death had never been known to
keep him out of his accustomed pew on Sunday morning. Edith, he
informed me, had gone to church; he himself, being as nervous as a
cat, had funked it; he was afraid lest he might get up in the
middle of the sermon and curse the Vicar.

"If that's so," said I, "come round here and talk sense. I've
something important to say to you."

He agreed and shortly afterwards he arrived. I was shocked to see
him. His ruddy face had yellowed and the firm flesh had loosened
and sagged. I had never noticed that his stubbly hair was so grey.
He could scarcely sit still on the chair by my bedside.

I told him of Cliffe's suspicions. We were a pair of conspirators
with unavowable things on our minds which were driving us to
nervous catastrophe. Edith, said I, was more suspicious even than
Cliffe. I also told him of our talk about the projected dinner
party.

"That," he declared, "would drive me stark, staring mad."

"So will continuing to hide the truth from Edith," said I. "How do
you suppose you can carry on like this?"

He grew angry. How could he tell Edith? How could he make her
understand his reason for welcoming Boyce? How could he prevent
her from blazing the truth abroad and crying aloud for vengeance?
What kind of a fool's counsel was I giving him?

I let him talk, until, tired with reiteration, he had nothing more
to say. Then I made him listen to me while I expounded that which
was familiar to his obstinate mind--namely, the heroic qualities
of his own wife.

"It comes to this," said I, by way of peroration, "that you're
afraid of Edith letting you down, and you ought to be ashamed of
yourself."

At that he flared out again. How dared I, he asked, eating his
words, suggest that he did not trust the most splendid woman God
had ever made? Didn't I see that he was only trying to shield her
from knowledge that might kill her? I retorted by pointing out
that worry over his insane behaviour--please remember that above
our deep unchangeable mutual affection, a violent surface quarrel
was raging--would more surely and swiftly kill her than unhappy
knowledge. Her quick brain--had already connected Gedge, Boyce,
and his present condition as the main factors of some strange
problem. "Her quick brain!" I cried. "A half idiot child would
have put things together."

Presently he collapsed, sitting hopelessly, nervelessly in his
chair. At last he lifted a piteously humble face.

"What would you suggest my doing, Duncan?"

There seemed to me to be only one thing he could do in order to
preserve, if not his reason, at any rate his moral equilibrium in
the position which he had contrived for himself. To tell him this
had been my object in seeking the interview, and the blessed
opportunity only came after an hour's hard wrangle--in current
metaphor after an hour's artillery preparation for attack. He
looked so battered, poor old Anthony, that I felt almost ashamed
of the success of my bombardment.

"It's not a question of suggesting," said I. "It's a question of
things that have to be done. You need a holiday. You've been
working here at high pressure for nearly a couple of years. Go
away. Put yourself in the hands of Cliffe, and go to Bournemouth,
or Biarritz, or Bahia, or any beastly place you can fix up with
him to go to. Go frankly For three or four months. Go to-morrow.
As soon as you're well out of the place, tell Edith the whole
story. Then you can take counsel and comfort together."

He was in the state of mind to be impressed by my argument. I
followed up my advantage. I undertook to send a ruthless flaming
angel of a Cliffe to pronounce the inexorable decree of exile.
After a few faint-hearted objections he acquiesced in the scheme.
I fancy he revolted against even this apparent surrender to Gedge,
although he was too proud to confess it. No man likes running
away. Sir Anthony also regarded as pusillanimous the proposal to
leave his wife in ignorance until he had led her into the trap of
holiday. Why not put her into his confidence before they started?

"That," said I, "is a delicate question which only you yourself
can decide. By following my plan you get away at once, which is
the most important thing. Once comfortably away, you can choose
the opportune moment."

"There's something in that," he replied; and, after thanking me
for my advice, he left me.

I do not defend my plan. I admit it was Machiavellian. My one
desire was to remove these two dear people from Wellingsford for a
season. Just think of the horrible impossibility of their
maintaining social relations with the Boyces ....

By publicly honouring Boyce, Sir Anthony had tied his own hands.
It was a pledge to Boyce, although the latter did not know it, of
condonation. Whatever stories Gedge might spread abroad, whatever
proofs he might display, Sir Anthony could take no action. But to
carry on a semblance of friendship with the man responsible for
his daughter's death--for the two of them, mind you, since Lady
Fenimore would sooner or later learn everything--was, as I say,
horribly impossible.

Let them go, then, on their nominal holiday, during which the air
might clear. Boyce might take his mother away from Wellingsford.
She would do far more than uproot herself from her home in order
to gratify a wish of her adored and blinded son. He would employ
his time of darkness in learning to be brave, he had told me. It
took some courage to face the associations of dreadful memories
unflinchingly, for his mother's sake. Should he learn, however,
that the Fenimores had an inkling of the truth, he would recognise
his presence in the place to be an outrage. And such inkling--who
would give it him? Perhaps I, myself. The Boyces would go--the
Fenimores could return. Anything, anything rather than that the
Fenimores and the Boyces should continue to dwell in the same
little town.

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