The Literary World Seventh Reader Part 41

II

Then the war came. Doggie Trevor was both patriotic and polite. Having a fragment of the British army in his house, he did his best to make it comfortable. By January he had no doubt that the empire was in peril, that it was every man's duty to do his bit. He welcomed the newcomers with open arms, having unconsciously abandoned his att.i.tude of superiority over mere brawn. It was every patriotic Englishman's duty to encourage brawn. He threw himself heart and soul into the entertainment of officers and men. They thought Doggie a capital fellow.

"My dear chap," one would protest, "you're spoiling us. I don't say we don't like it and aren't grateful. We are. But we're supposed to rough it--to lead the simple life. You're treating us too well."

"Impossible!" Doggie would reply. "Don't I know what we owe you fellows?

In what other way can a helpless, delicate being like myself show his grat.i.tude and in some sort of way serve his country?"

When the sympathetic guest would ask what was the nature of his malady, Doggie would tap his chest vaguely and reply:

"Const.i.tutional. I've never been able to do things like other fellows.

The least thing bowls me out."

"Hard lines--especially just now!" the soldier would murmur.

"Yes, isn't it?" Doggie would answer.

Doggie never questioned his physical incapacity. His mother had brought him up to look on himself as a singularly frail creature, and the idea was as real to him as the war. He went about pitying himself and seeking pity.

The months pa.s.sed. The soldiers moved away from Durdlebury, and Doggie was left alone in his house. He felt solitary and restless. News came from Oliver that he had accepted an infantry commission and was in France. "A month of this sort of thing," he wrote, "would make our dear old Doggie sit up." Doggie sighed. If only he had been blessed with Oliver's const.i.tution!

One morning Briggins, his chauffeur, announced that he could stick it out no longer and was going to enlist. Then Doggie remembered a talk he had had with one of the young officers, who had expressed astonishment at his not being able to drive a car.

"I shouldn't have the nerve," he had replied. "My nerves are all wrong--and I shouldn't have the strength to change tires and things."

But now Doggie was confronted by the necessity of driving his own car, for chauffeurs were no longer to be had. To his amazement, he found that he did not die of nervous collapse when a dog crossed the road in front of the automobile, and that the fitting of detachable wheels did not require the strength of a Hercules. The first time he took Peggy out driving, he swelled with pride.

"I'm so glad you can do something!" she said, after a silence.

Although the girl was as kind as ever, Doggie had noticed of late a curious reserve in her manner. Conversation did not flow easily. She had fits of abstraction, from which, when rallied, she roused herself with an effort. Finally, one day, Peggy asked him blankly why he did not enlist.

Doggie was horrified. "I'm not fit," he said, "I've no const.i.tution. I'm an impossibility."

"You thought you had nerves until you learned to drive the car," she answered. "Then you discovered that you hadn't. You fancy you've a weak heart. Perhaps if you walked thirty miles a day, you would discover that you hadn't that, either. And so with the rest of it."

He swung round toward her. "Do you think I'm shamming so as to get out of serving in the army?" he demanded.

"Not consciously. Unconsciously, I think you are. What does your doctor say?"

Doggie was taken aback. He had no doctor, having no need for one. He made confession of the surprising fact. Peggy smiled.

"That proves it," she said. "I don't believe you have anything wrong with you. This is plain talking. It's horrid, I know, but it's best to get through with it once and for all."

Some men would have taken deep offense, but Doggie, conscientious if ineffective, was gnawed for the first time by a suspicion that Peggy might possibly be right. He desired to act honorably.

"I'll do," he said, "whatever you think proper."

"Good!" said Peggy. "Get Doctor Murdoch to overhaul you thoroughly with a view to the army. If he pa.s.ses you, take a commission."

She put out her hand. Doggie took it firmly.

"Very well," he said. "I agree."

"You're flabby," announced Doctor Murdoch, the next morning, to an anxious Doggie, after some minutes of thumping and listening, "but that's merely a matter of unused muscles. Physical training will set it right in no time. Otherwise, my dear Trevor, you're in splendid health.

There's not a flaw in your whole const.i.tution."

Doggie crept out of bed, put on a violet dressing-gown, and wandered to his breakfast like a man in a nightmare. But he could not eat. He swallowed a cup of coffee and took refuge in his own room. He was frightened--horribly frightened, caught in a net from which there was no escape. He had given his word to join the army if he should be pa.s.sed by Murdoch. He had been more than pa.s.sed! Now he would have to join; he would have to fight. He would have to live in a muddy trench, sleep in mud, eat in mud, plow through mud. Doggie was shaken to his soul, but he had given his word and he had no thought of going back on it.

The fateful little letter bestowing a commission on Doggie arrived two weeks later; he was a second lieutenant in a battalion of the new army.

A few days afterward he set off for the training-camp.

He wrote to Peggy regularly. The work was very hard, he said, and the hours were long. Sometimes he confessed himself too tired to write more than a few lines. It was a very strange life--one he never dreamed could have existed. There was the riding-school. Why hadn't he learned to ride as a boy? Peggy was filled with admiration for his courage. She realized that he was suffering acutely in his new and rough environment, but he made no complaint.

Then there came a time when Doggie's letters grew rarer and shorter. At last they ceased altogether. One evening an unstamped envelope addressed to Peggy was put in the letter-box. The envelope contained a copy of the _Gazette_, and a sentence was underlined and adorned with exclamation marks:

"Royal Fusileers. Second Lieutenant J. M. Trevor resigned his commission."

It had been a terrible blow to Doggie. The colonel had dealt as gently as he could in the final interview with him. He put his hand in a fatherly way on Doggie's shoulder and bade him not take the thing too much to heart. He--Doggie--had done his best, but the simple fact was that he was not cut out for an officer. These were merciless times, and in matters of life and death there could be no weak links in the chain.

In Doggie's case there was no personal discredit. He had always conducted himself like a gentleman, but he lacked the qualities necessary for the command of men. He must send in his resignation.

Doggie, after leaving the camp, took a room in a hotel and sat there most of the day, the mere pulp of a man. His one desire now was to escape from the eyes of his fellow-men. He felt that he bore the marks of his disgrace, obvious at a glance. He had been turned out of the army as a hopeless incompetent; he was worse than a slacker, for the slacker might have latent qualities he was without.

Presently the sight of his late brother-officers added the gnaw of envy to his heart-ache. On the third day of his exile he moved into lodgings in Woburn Place. Here at least he could be quiet, untroubled by heart-rending sights and sounds. He spent most of his time in dull reading and dispirited walking.

His failure preyed on his mind. He walked for miles every day, though without enjoyment. He wandered one evening in the dusk to Waterloo Bridge and gazed out over the parapet. The river stretched below, dark and peaceful. As he looked down on the rippling water, he presently became aware of a presence by his side. Turning his head, he found a soldier, an ordinary private, also leaning over the parapet.

"I thought I wasn't mistaken in Mr. Marmaduke Trevor," said the soldier.

Doggie started away, on the point of flight, dreading the possible insolence of one of the men of his late regiment. But the voice of the speaker rang in his ears with a strange familiarity, and the great fleshy nose, the high cheekbones, and the little gray eyes in the weather-beaten face suggested vaguely some one of the long ago. His dawning recognition amused the soldier.

"Yes, laddie, it's your old Phineas. Phineas McPhail, M. A.--now private P. McPhail."

It was no other than Doggie's tutor of his childhood days.

"Very glad to see you," Doggie murmured.

Phineas, gaunt and bony, took his arm. Doggie's instinctive craving for companionship made Phineas suddenly welcome.

"Let us have a talk," he said. "Come to my rooms. There will be some dinner."

"Will I come? Will I have dinner? Laddie, I will."

In the Strand they hailed a taxi-cab and drove to Doggie's place.

"You mention your rooms," said Phineas. "Are you residing permanently in London?"

"Yes," said Doggie, sadly. "I never expect to leave it."