A Knight on Wheels Part 45

But he had no blame for Peggy. She had never encouraged him, never led him on, never deliberately appropriated his services. She had been infinitely kind to him--and that was all. If this. .h.i.therto unsuspected hardness in her nature was a permanent thing; if she was determined to live her own life and be independent--well, here was a unique opportunity for a knight to prove his metal--to justify his boast that he could serve without ulterior motives or hope of reward. If his Lady had selected another knight in preference to him, matters would have been different: proper pride would have driven Philip away. But so long as Peggy walked alone and unprotected, his vocation in life was clear and unmistakable.

But it was an uphill business; until by a fortunate chance it occurred to those in authority at Coventry that Philip's abilities were being wasted upon the mechanical routine of the London Office. Straightway he was transferred to headquarters, where he was put in charge of the Design and Construction Department of the Company--at liberty to invent and experiment to his heart's content.

Here he felt better. He was relieved of the constant fear of encountering Peggy, and of the exasperating effervescence of Tim. He also felt absolved from any further obligation to cultivate social graces. So he reverted whole-heartedly to the realm of Things, determined to eliminate People from his scheme of life for good and all.

Machinery, as Mr. Mablethorpe had said, might break your arms and legs, but it left your heart alone.

Still, it was a black winter. Extreme tragedy is the privilege of the very young--those of riper years do not hug tragedy to their bosoms; they know too much about it; and in this respect Philip, for all his twenty-eight years, was youthful, indeed. But no human experience is without ultimate profit. Most of us have to live some portion of our lives under circ.u.mstances which make it necessary to keep our eyes resolutely averted from the future; and once we have acquired the courage which this performance demands,--and it demands a great deal,--we have acquired the most valuable a.s.set that experience can give us. Any one can be happy who has no doubts about the future; that is why children laugh and sing all day; but the man who can keep a stiff upper lip when there is no confidence in his heart can fairly count himself one of those who have graduated with honours in the school of adversity.

During those months Philip acquired the priceless art of taking life as it came, and, abandoning the pernicious habit of drawing upon the bank of the Future,--his account was sadly overdrawn there already,--of living within the income that the Present supplied to him. True, it was a mere pittance, but he learned to live on it. Upon such foundations is character built up.

Mr. Mablethorpe summed up the whole situation in his own fashion, when Philip, in the course of a week-end visit, had unburdened his soul over the last whiskey-and-soda on Sat.u.r.day night.

"Philip, my son, you are learning: your education is proceeding apace.

But it hurts, and you are puzzled and indignant. But never mind! Hold on, and things will right themselves. Your sense of proportion will come to the rescue and pull you through. I know, old man, I know! I have been through it all. I wasn't always a dull British householder with an expanding waistcoat. I have been young and now I am old--or perhaps middle-aged--and I know! Middle age has its compensations. When we are young, we alternate between periods when we feel that there is nothing on earth that we cannot do and periods when we feel that there is nothing on earth that we can. Advancing years bring us a comfortable knowledge of our own limitations. Though we may not have so many moments of sheer sublimity--moments when we touch the stars--as the young man, we have fewer hours of blackness. So carry on, Philip. Steer by dead reckoning, if necessary: you will get your bearings in time. This experience will do you no harm, provided you face it between the eyes. I know nothing of your little lady friend, but she does not sound to me like a member of the third s.e.x. On the contrary, she appears to be gratifyingly feminine. Her present att.i.tude is probably a pose of the moment. They can't help being made as they are, you know. I fully expect to find my beloved Dumps suffering from the effects of some germ or other when she comes home from abroad next month. That reminds me. In the spring Dumps is to come out--not of gaol, but of the schoolroom, which at eighteen is very much the same thing--for ever. The festivities will include what she calls a Joy-Week in Town. You had better come and stay with us during that period, and join me in contracting dyspepsia.

In fact, I have a ukase from my daughter to that effect. Will you come?"

Philip a.s.sented, listlessly. Joy-Weeks were not for him.

II

Miss Jean Leslie lived in a roomy flat high up in a tall block of buildings that overlooked the Thames at Chelsea. The larger of the two rooms was her studio. Hither fat, sweet-scented, and rebellious little boys and girls in expensive laces and ribbons were brought by mothers or nurses; and after they had been coaxed into smiles by the arts and blandishments of their hostess,--and for all her spinsterhood she excelled in that accomplishment,--Jean Leslie painted miniatures of them, for which their doting and opulent parents paid fancy prices.

"My dear, you must be very rich," observed Peggy one afternoon, inspecting three portraits of cherubic innocents, recently completed and awaiting despatch.

Jean Leslie poured out the tea complacently.

"Thank you," she said; "I sc.r.a.pe a living. Sit down and eat something. I have some of your favourite Valencia buns."

But Peggy seemed restless. She wandered round the little sitting-room, minutely examining photographs and pictures which she already knew by heart.

"Peggy Falconer," enquired Miss Leslie at last, "will you come and sit down in that chair, or will I take you by the shoulders and put you there?"

"Sorry, dear," said Peggy; "I have the fidgets."

She dropped rather listlessly into a chair, and then, for no apparent reason, got up and sat in another.

"Why is my best chair not good enough for you?" enquired Miss Leslie sternly. "At your age, you ought not to be manoeuvring to get your back to the window."

"It wasn't that, really," protested Peggy.

"It just was," replied Miss Leslie.

She rose from her seat, and taking the girl by the elbows, turned her toward the light. Peggy submitted, smiling.

"And now," resumed Jean Leslie, sitting down again, "what is the trouble?"

"You really are very Early-Victorian, Jean," said Peggy severely. "You yearn for sentimental confidences and heart-to-heart talks. But it's simply not done now: hearts went out with chignons. Give me a large and heavy piece of that m.u.f.fin, please, and I will pander to your tastes by talking about Prince Adolphus."

Prince Adolphus was the exalted t.i.tle of a purely hypothetical Fairy Personage who was one day to lead Miss Leslie to the altar. He had been invented by Miss Leslie herself, and formed a stock subject of humorous conversation with her younger friends.

Miss Leslie said no more, but pa.s.sed the m.u.f.fins.

"How is that boy Timothy?" she enquired. The mention of Prince Adolphus had brought Timothy into her thoughts: Timothy had always expressed profound jealousy of His Royal Highness.

Peggy laughed.

"Very careworn," she said. "Since Philip was sent to Coventry he has been in sole charge at Oxford Street. By the way, he wants us to lunch with him on Sunday. Can you manage it?"

"I don't know. I am half-expecting a visit from a fellow countrywoman of mine."

"Do I know her?"

"I doubt it. Her husband is second engineer on a liner that plies between London and Melbourne. She has a good deal of leisure on her hands, poor soul."

Peggy asked the question that a woman always asks another in this connection.

"No," replied Miss Leslie; "neither chick nor child; so when her man has been away for a month or so, and drinking tea with the wives of other second engineers in Gravesend begins to pall, she likes to come round here and crack with me. I knew her in the old days: her father was head forester to us. She would be disappointed if she found me from home. She never tells me when she is coming: she would regard such a proceeding as presumptuous. So"--Miss Leslie sighed resignedly--"I just have to stay in for her. Her husband sailed four weeks ago, and there has been a hurricane in the Indian Ocean this week; so I fancy she is about due."

"Everybody seems to bring their troubles to you, Jean," said Peggy.

Miss Leslie looked up.

"Troubles? Oh, no! I a.s.sure you, when Eliza Dishart and I drink tea together, there is no talk of troubles. We are very grand. We talk about the Court, and freights, and the possibility of Union between the Established Kirk and the Free. But trouble--oh, dear, no! Once only did we consent to be informal. That was one wild night in December two years ago. Half the chimney-pots in London were flying about in the air, and she knew that his ship was in the Channel, homeward bound. She came chapping at my door about ten o'clock, just as I was going to bed, and asked me if I would let her sit here for the night. Indeed, I was very glad of her company. I remember I managed to pick out the tune of the 'Hymn for Those at Sea' for her on my piano, and we sang it together.

Very ridiculous we must have looked. We have never mentioned the occurrence since."

During this narrative Peggy sat silent and preoccupied. Finally she said:--

"It must be a great relief to be able to unload your worries on to some one else. A girl has just been unloading hers on to me."

Jean regarded her friend's averted face curiously.

"Indeed?" she replied.

"Yes. A man--"

Miss Leslie nodded.

"Quite so," she remarked drily. "She has presumed too far, and he won't come back."

Peggy looked up.

"Now you are getting romantic again," she said reprovingly. "No, it is nothing of the kind. My friend has had to be rather brutal to a man, and she feels sorry for him, and she is afraid he must think rather badly of her--that's all."

"Has she been flirting with the poor creature?" demanded Jean Leslie, in a voice of thunder.

"No. She is not that sort of girl."

"Then where does the brutality come in? There is no brutality in putting a man in his place, provided you do it in time. As soon as a woman sees that a man is preparing to fall in love with her--and she can usually tell about five minutes after she has made his acquaintance--and she doesn't feel like wanting him, she should get him at arm's length at _once_! Have--has your friend not been overlong in adopting that precaution?"