Second String Part 53

Slowly and gradually Andy Hayes was growing not only into his strength but also into the consciousness of it. He was measuring his powers--slowly, suspiciously, distrustfully. His common sense refused to ignore what he had done and was doing, but his modesty ever declined to go a step beyond the facts. All through his life this characteristic abode with him--a sort of surprise that the simple qualities he recognised in himself should stand him in such good stead, combined with an unwillingness rashly to pledge their efficacy in the greater labours of the future. Thus it came about that he was, so to say, a day behind the world's estimate in his estimate of himself. When the people about him were already sure, he was gradually reaching confidence--never the imperious self-confidence of commanding genius, which makes no question but that the future will be as obedient to its sway as the past, but a very sober trust in a proved ability, a trust based on no inner instinct of power, but solely on the plain experience that hitherto he had shown himself equal to the business which came his way--equal to it if he worked very hard at it, took it seriously, and gave all he had to give to it. The degree of self-confidence thus achieved was never sufficient to make him seek adventures; by slow growth it became enough to prevent him from turning his back on any task, however heavy, which the course of his life and the judgment of his fellows laid upon him. So step by step he moved on in his development and in his knowledge of it. He recognised now that it would have been a pity to pa.s.s his life as a butcher in Meriton--that it would have been waste of material. But he was still quite content to regard as a sufficient occupation, and triumph, of that life the building-up of Gilbert Foot and Co.'s educational publishing connection; and he was still surprised to be reminded that he had contributed anything more than hard work to that task, that it owed to him even the smallest scintilla of original suggestion. Still there it was. Perhaps he would never do a thing like that again. Very likely not. Still he had done it once. It pa.s.sed from the impossibles to the possibles--a possible under strict and distrustful observation, but a possible that should be put to the proof.

Nothing in the business line turned up after Gilly had departed to recruit his nerves. Having made one bold and successful leap, the educational publishing concern of Gilbert Foot and Co. seemed disposed to sit awhile on its haunches. Andy was the last man to quarrel with it for that; he had all the primitive man's fear of things looking too rosy. Things had looked too rosy with Harry. And "Nemesis! Nemesis!" old Belfield had cried. By all means let the educational publishing concern rest on its haunches for awhile; the new scientific primer, with the quite original arrangement of its comparative tables, supplied a comfortable cushion. It was five o'clock; Andy made bold to light his pipe.

"Mr. Belfield!" announced the office-boy, twisting his head between the door and the jamb with a questioning air.

What brought Belfield to town? "Oh, show him in!" said Andy, laying down his pipe.

Not Harry's father, as Andy had concluded, but Harry himself was the visitor--Harry radiantly handsome, in a homespun suit of delicate gray with a blue stripe in it, a white felt hat, a light blue tie--a look of perfect health and happiness about him.

"I was pa.s.sing by--been in the City--and thought I must look you up, old chap," said Harry, clasping Andy's hand in unmistakably genuine affection. "Seems years since we met! Well, a lot's happened to me, you see. You didn't know I was in town, did you? Only pa.s.sing through; Isobel and I have been in Paris--went there after the event, you know--and we're off to Scotland to-morrow for some golf. She's got all the makings of a player, Andy. And how are you? Grubbing away?"

"Grubbing away" most decidedly failed to express Gilbert Foot and Co.'s idea of what had happened in their office that day, but Andy found no leisure to dwell on any wound to his firm's corporate vanity. Here was the old Harry! Harry as he had been in the early days of his engagement!

The Harry of that brief spell of good resolution, after Andy had delivered to him a certain note! There was no trace at all--by way either of woe or of shame--of the Harry who had come to the Lion, seeking a place where Isobel Vintry might lay her head, craving for her the charity of a night's lodging, and no questions asked!

Andy's intelligence was brought to a full stop--sheer up against the difficult question of whether it is worth while to worry about people who are not worrying about themselves. Theologically, socially, politically, it is correct to say yes; faced with an individual case, the affirmative answer seems sometimes almost ridiculous; rather like pressing an overcoat--or half your cloak, after the example of St.

Martin of Tours--on a vagabond of exceptionally caloric temperament. He is naked, and neither ashamed nor cold. Must you shiver, or blush, for him?

"I--er--ought to congratulate you, Harry."

"Thanks, old chap! Yes, it's very much all right. Things one's sorry for, of course--oh, don't think I'm not sorry!--but the right road found at last, Andy! I suppose a fellow has to go through things like that.

I'm not justifying myself, of course; I know I'm apt to--well, to put off doing the necessary thing if it's likely to cause pain to anybody.

That's a mistake, though an amiable one perhaps. But all that's over--no use talking about it. When we get back to town, you must come and see us."

Andy remembered an old-time conversation about Lethe water. Harry seemed disposed to stand treat for a bottle.

"I'm awfully sorry about--about the seat, Harry," he said.

A faint frown of vexation marred Harry's comely contentment. "Yes, but I don't know that one isn't best out of it. A lot of grind, making yourself pleasant to a lot of fools! Oh, perhaps it's a duty; but it'll wait a bit."

"You're not looking out elsewhere?" Andy asked.

"Give a fellow time!" Harry expostulated. "I've only been married a fortnight! You must let me have a bit of a holiday. Oh, you needn't be afraid I shan't tackle it again soon--Isobel's awfully keen! And I hope to find a rather less dead-alive hole than Meriton." The faint frown persisted on his face; it seemed to hint that his mind harboured a grudge against Meriton--something unpleasant had happened there. A perceptible, though slight, movement of his shoulders dismissed the ungrateful subject. In a moment he had found a more pleasant one--a theme for his kindliness to play on, secure from perturbing recollections. His old friendly smile of encouragement and patronage beamed on Andy.

"So you and Gilly are making it go? That's right! He's a lazy devil, Gilly, but not a fool. And you're a good plodder. You remember I always said you'd make your way? I thought you would, even if you'd taken on old Jack's shop. But I expect you've got a better game here. Gilly pleased with you?" He laughed in his pleasantly conscious impudence.

"He hasn't given me the sack yet," said Andy.

"You did a lot of work for me, old fellow," Harry pursued. "Sorry that, owing to circ.u.mstances, it's all wasted! Still it taught you a thing or two, I daresay?"

"That's just what the Nun was saying the other night, when I went to see her show."

Harry's faint frown showed again. His recollection of Miss Flower's behaviour at Meriton accused her of a want of real sympathy.

"Ah yes! I don't know who they'll get; but I must have made the seat safe. Just the way one works for another fellow sometimes! It doesn't do to complain."

The office-boy put his head in again--and his hand in front of his head.

"Wire just come, sir," he said to Andy, delivered the yellow envelope, and disappeared.

"Open it, old fellow," said Harry, putting an exquisitely shod foot on the table. "Yes, another fellow will take my place; I've done the work, he'll reap the reward. And he'll probably think he's done it all himself!"

Andy fingered his telegram absently, not in impatience; nothing very urgent was to be expected, the great _coup_ had already been made. He laid it down and listened again to Harry Belfield.

"Upon my soul," Harry went on, "I rather envy you your life. A good steady straight job--and only got to stick to it. Now I'm no sooner out of one thing--well out of it--than they begin to kick at me to start another. The pater and Isobel are in the same story about it."

Harry's face was now seriously clouded and his voice peevish. He had been through a great deal of trouble lately; he seemed to himself to be ent.i.tled to a rest, to a reasonable interval of undisturbed enjoyment.

And he was being bothered about that career of his!

"Well, I suppose you oughtn't to miss the next election. The sooner you go in the better, isn't it?"

"It's not so easy to find a safe seat." Harry a.s.sumed that the const.i.tuency which he honoured should be one certain properly to appreciate the compliment. "I sometimes think I'd like to chuck the whole thing, and enjoy my life in my own way. Oh, I'm only joking, of course; but when they nag, I jib, you know."

Andy nodded, relit his pipe, and opened his telegram.

"That's why I think you're rather lucky to have it all cut and dried for you. Saves a lot of thinking!"

Andy had been reading his telegram, not listening to Harry for the moment. "I beg pardon, Harry?" he said.

"Oh, read it. I'm only ga.s.sing," said Harry good-humouredly.

Andy read again; he always liked to read important doc.u.ments twice. He laid it down on the office table, looking very thoughtful. "That's funny!" he observed. "It's from your father."

"Well, I don't see why the pater shouldn't send you a telegram, if he wants to," smiled Harry.

"Asking me to go down to Meriton on Sat.u.r.day and meet Lord Meriton, Wigram, and himself." He took up the telegram and read the rest of the message--"to discuss important suggestion of public nature affecting yourself. Personal discussion necessary."

"To meet Meriton and Wigram?" Wigram was the Conservative agent in the Division. "What the devil can they want?"

"I don't know," said Andy, "unless--unless it's about the candidature."

"About what?" Harry sharply withdrew the shapely foot from the table and sat upright in his chair.

"Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Still I don't see what else it can be about. What else can there be of a public nature affecting me?

'Affecting yourself' doesn't sound as if they only wanted my advice.

Besides, why should they want my advice?"

"Let's see the thing." Harry took it, read it, and flung it down peevishly. "Why the deuce can't he say what he means?"

"Well, a wire's not always absolute secrecy in small towns, is it? And I daresay they'd want the matter kept quiet till it was settled."

Harry's mood of gay contentment, clouded once or twice before, seemed now eclipsed. He sat tapping his boot impatiently with his stick. His father's telegram--or Andy's interpretation of it--clearly did not please him. In the abstract, of course, he had known that he would have a successor in the place which he had given up, or from which he had fallen. It had never entered his head that anybody would suggest Andy Hayes, his old-time worshipper and humble follower. He was not an ungenerous man, but this idea demanded a radical readjustment of his estimate of the relative positions of Andy and himself. If Andy were to succeed to what he had lost, it brought what he had lost very sharply before his eyes.

"Well, if that is the meaning of it, it certainly seems rather--rather a rum start, eh, Andy? New sort of game for you!" He tried to make his voice pleasant.

"It is--it would be--awfully kind of them to think of it," said Andy, now smiling in candid gratification. "And Wigram, as well as your father, was highly complimentary about some of my speeches. But it would be quite out of the question. I've neither the time nor the money."

"It's a deuced expensive game," Harry remarked. "And, of course, no end of work, especially in the next few months. And when you're in, it's not much good in these days, unless you can give all your time to it."

"I know," said Andy, nodding grave appreciation of all these difficulties. "It seems to me quite out of the question. Still, if that is what they mean, I can hardly refuse to discuss it. You see, it's a considerable compliment, anyhow."