The Ffolliots of Redmarley Part 40

"Good-bye, Mr Gallup, I mustn't stay . . . try to forgive me, and . . ."

"Forgive," Eloquent repeated scornfully, "what have I to forgive?

_That_ is for you."

Mary turned and walked swiftly away, and Eloquent watched her till she was out of sight.

Parker kept close at her side, but every now and then he jumped up and tried to lick her face. Parker knew all was not right with Mary and he was uneasy.

Mary knew full well that it was to no comfortable cook-house door that Ger had summoned her. That wheezy bugle called her to the outposts of the world; to a life of incessant acerbating change, where there was no certainty, no stability, no sweet home peace, or that proud fixity of tenure that is the heritage of those who own the land on which they live. She had no illusions. Not in vain had she lived with her grandmother at Woolwich and heard the lamentations of the officers'

wives when plans were changed at the last moment, and the fair prospect of a few years at home was blotted out by the inexorable orders for foreign service. And the Sappers were worst of all, for except at a very few stations they hadn't even a mess, and there was not the friendly fellowship of "the Regiment" to count upon.

The yard was quite deserted, for the men had gone to dinner. She paused at the gate and looked long and lovingly at the cl.u.s.tering chimneys, and lichened, grey-green roofs she loved: and as she looked a new sound broke the stillness. Three loud reports and then the touf-touf, spatter-dash-spatter-dash of a motor bicycle.

Mary opened the gate, went through, shut it behind her and leant against it, for her knees were as water.

The noise came on, it pa.s.sed the house, turned into the back drive, came round, and someone in overalls, covered with dust from head to foot, swept into the deserted yard; saw Mary, pulled up short, and pushed the bike against a wall.

This dusty person tore off his goggles. It was Captain Reginald Peel, R.E., and he came across the yard towards her.

"Hullo, Mary," he said, "I told you I'd let you know whenever I heard.

The A.A.G.'s a brick, I'm going to India. Marching orders came last night."

Mary's lips trembled and her voice died in her throat. Reggie took out a large silk handkerchief and mopped his dusty face.

He came on towards her and took both her hands.

"Mary," he said, "can you leave all this? Can you face it? Will you come with me and help me to build bridges and make roads and dig drains. . . . Will you come so that we can have the rest of our lives . . . together?"

They looked straight into one another's eyes.

"I will," said Mary, and she said it as solemnly as if she were repeating a response in the Marriage Service.

Reggie loosed one of her hands. Again he polished his face.

"I should like awfully to kiss you," he said, "but I'm so fearfully dusty--do you mind?"

"I think," said Mary, with a queer choky laugh, "that I'd rather like it."

And just at that moment Willets appeared at a gate leading from the garden. He didn't see them, and opened the gate, which squeaked abominably, came through and let it shut with a clang, but they, apparently, heard nothing.

Willets stood transfixed, for he saw the motor-bike and the dusty young man in overalls, and clasped close in the arms of the said dusty young man was Miss Mary!

Willets gave one quick glance, smote his hands softly together, and turned right round with his back to them. He leaned on the gate and gazed steadfastly into the distant garden. It was a squeaky gate, that gate. If he opened it, it might disturb them, and bless you, they were but young, and one is only young once.

So kindly Willets stared, with eyes that were not quite so keen as usual, at the bit of garden he could see; and there, delphiniums were blooming. The sun came out just at that moment, and they looked particularly blue and tall and splendid.

It seemed to Willets that he admired those delphiniums for hours and hours, but it was really only a few minutes till he heard a rather husky voice behind him saying, "It's all right, Willets, you may turn round and congratulate us."

And there they were both standing "as bold as bra.s.s" he said afterwards, and the delphiniums he had just been studying so closely were not as blue as Mary's eyes.