The Happy Warrior Part 56

"He's ever so much stronger since he came back. Only a cold that keeps him in. He has to keep well for the festivities, of course."

Her reference was to the great twenty-fourth birthday celebrations--the coming of age according to Burdon tradition--and Percival agreed eagerly. "Why, rather! He'll want all his voice for the speeches! I was afraid once I'd not get back in time. As it is, I've only just done it. The nineteenth, next week, his birthday, isn't it?"

"Next Thursday," Ima said, smiling to see him smile again.

"Touch and go!" laughed Percival. "I might easily have missed it." He turned to Mr. Hannaford. "Mr. Hannaford, you'll have to stay a bit when we get home--have tea--and then drive me over to the Manor. We're talking about Lord Burdon and the festivities. Great doings, eh?"

"Why, great doings is the word for it," said Mr. Hannaford. "Bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't. Everybody invited a score o' miles round. Going to roast a nox whole, marquees in the grounds, poles with ribbons on 'em from the church to the Manor--"

"From the church! What, is there going to be a service?"

"Service!" said Mr. Hannaford. "Why, how's he going to be married without?"

Percival almost jumped to his feet. "Married! Is he going to be married?"

"What, don't you know, _partner_?"

"I've not had letters for months. _Married_! Good lord, old Rollo married! Why, that's tremendous. Ima, why ever didn't you tell me?

Married! Whom to?"

Mr. Hannaford was enormously pleased at this excitement. "Give 'ee three guesses, _partner_."

Percival cried: "Why, I couldn't guess in a thousand. It fairly knocks me. Old Rollo going to be married! Go on--tell me!"

"Go on--guess," said Mr. Hannaford.

"How can I guess? I don't know his London friends. I shan't even know her name."

"Well, you'll ha' left your memory where you left that string o' little 'orses if 'ee don't. Ever heard o' Upabbot?" He twisted round to wink advertis.e.m.e.nt of his humour to Ima. "Got any sort of a glimmering rec'lection of Abbey Royal?--why, Miss Espart!"

CHAPTER XII

PRELUDE TO THE BIG FIGHT

I

Percival said in a quiet voice, "Put me down. Put me down--I'm going to walk."

"So you're no hand at guessing, partner. Own up to that," was Mr.

Hannaford's response. Then he cried, "Hi, what's up with 'ee? What be doing?" for Percival had stretched a sudden hand to the reins and the horse swerved sharply. "Whoa!" bellowed Mr. Hannaford, and dragged up with a wheel on the brink of a ditch. "Might ha' had us out!" he turned on Percival. "Bless my eighteen stun proper if 'ee mightn't!"

It was a wild face that fronted him, blotchy in red and white as it were freshly bruised. "Well, put me down!" Percival cried at him fiercely. "Put me down when I ask you!" and as he slowly drew the rug from his knees and put out a foot to the step he turned back on Mr.

Hannaford and flamed "I suppose I can walk if I want to?" and dropped heavily to the road. His feet landed on the edge of the ditch. He blundered forward and came with hands and knees against the hedge. The stumble shook his hat from his head and he turned and went hatless past the tail of the cart and a few paces down the road.

Mr. Hannaford released with a rushing explosion the immense breath that he had been sustaining during the whole of these proceedings. He turned amazed eyes on Ima: "What's happened to him?"

She sprang to the road. "Percival!" and followed him.

He turned at the sound of her feet; and at the look on his face she stopped.

"Well?" he demanded. "Well? What is it now?"

"You have left your hat," she said. "I will bring it to you."

Some wit that came to her gave her these ordinary words in place of questioning him, and he came back to her quickly. "I don't want my hat," he told her. He looked up towards Mr. Hannaford. "I'm sorry I pulled you up like that. I want to walk, that's all. I'm going along the Ridge--to stretch my legs."

"There's something wrong with 'ee," said Mr. Hannaford. "What is it, boy?"

"Nothing. I want a walk, that's all."

Mr. Hannaford pointed across the Ridge. "There's a storm coming up.

Best ride."

"I'll be home before that." He turned and went slowly towards a gate that gave to the fields approaching the downside. Ima hesitated and then went swiftly after him as he fumbled with the latch.

"Percival, I will walk with you."

He turned upon her a face from which the gentler mood was gone.

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake let me alone," he cried, and pa.s.sed through the gate and left her.

II

He found that he kept stumbling as he pressed along.

He tried to give attention to lifting his feet but stumbled yet. He found that he could not think clearly. He tried to take a grasp of his thoughts and place them where he would have them go, but they persisted in form of words that Mr. Hannaford had spoken, in swift gleams of pictures that answered the words and then round about the words again.

"Ever heard o' Upabbot?" Ah, every well-remembered street of it arose before his mind! "Got any sort of a glimmering recollection of Abbey Royal?" Ah, he could scent the very flowers banked along the drive!

"Why, Miss Espart." Blankness then--some thick oppressive darkness suddenly shutting down upon him; some bewildering, vaguely sinister blanket of dread that stifled thought--then suddenly out of it and back again to "Ever heard o' Upabbot?"

The ground beneath him flattened abruptly under his feet. He stumbled more violently than before, and was jolted to recognition that Plowman's Ridge was gained. Of long habit he straightened himself to meet the wind. It suited the unreal conditions that seemed to surround him, it was a part of the dream in which he seemed to be, that something that should have been here seemed to be missing. What? He stood a moment looking dully about him. The question merged into and was lost in the circle of thought that beset him as he followed his right hand and turned along the Ridge. He had stumbled a full mile and more when there struck his face that which informed him what had been missing when first he reached the crest. Wind came against him, and he realised there had been no wind where, ever and like an old friend, wind ran to greet him. Aroused, he pulled up short. He had come far.

That was Little Letham lying beneath him, Burdon Old Manor in those trees. Late afternoon gave before evening down the valley. Heavy the wind and close. He turned his head and saw against the further sky great storm clouds pressing down upon the Ridge. He raised his eyes and saw a figure come towards him, crossing the Ridge and walking fast from Little Letham, turning towards him as he gave a cry.

"Dora!"

He went forward some swift paces, the stumbling gone from his feet and his mind sprung tensely out of its dull circling; then he stopped. She too was halted. She had turned sharply about at his cry and was poised towards him where she turned. There were perhaps twenty yards between them, and the quickly deepening gloom admitted him her face whitely and without clear outline through the dusk. He did not move, nor she.

There came from her to him a rattle of breeze, presage of the storm that gathered, and he saw her skirts fan out upon it. There struck his face a heavy raindrop, skirmishing before the gale, and he drew a quick breath and went forward to her--nearer, and saw her faultless face and felt the blood drum in his ears; nearer, and her clear voice came to him and he could hear his heart.

She said: "Percival!"

"Dora, I have come back."

Her face, that he watched with eyes whose burning he could feel, was as emotionless as motionless she fronted him. It might have been frozen, so still it was; and she a carven thing, so still she stood; and her eyes set jewels, so still were they. His breathing was to be heard as of one that breathes beneath a heavy load. When she did not answer--and when answered he knew himself by her silence--"There is only one thing I want to hear from you," he said. "Tell me it."

Her voice was a whisper. "Oh, must you ask me that already?"