The Literary World Seventh Reader Part 42

A few minutes later they reached Woburn Place. Doggie showed Phineas into the sitting-room. The table was set for Doggie's dinner. Phineas looked around him in surprise. The tasteless furniture, the dreadful pictures on the walls, the coa.r.s.e gla.s.s and the well-used plate on the table, the crumpled napkin in a ring--all came as a shock to Phineas, who had expected to find Marmaduke's rooms a reproduction of the fastidious prettiness of the peac.o.c.k and ivory room in Durdlebury.

"Laddie," he said, gravely, "you must excuse me if I take a liberty, but I cannot fit you into this environment. It cannot be that you have come down in the world?"

"To bed-rock," replied Doggie.

"Man, I'm sorry," said Phineas. "I know what coming down feels like. If I had money--"

Doggie broke in with a laugh. "Pray don't distress yourself, Phineas.

It's not a question of money at all. The last thing in the world I've had to think of has been money."

"What is the trouble?" Phineas demanded.

"That's a long story," answered Doggie. "In the meantime I had better give some orders about dinner."

The dinner came in presently, not particularly well served. They sat down to it.

"By the way," remarked Doggie, "you haven't told me why you became a soldier."

"Chance," replied Phineas. "I have been going down in the world for some time, and no one seemed to want me except my country. She clamored for me at every corner. A recruiting sergeant in Trafalgar Square at last persuaded me to take the leap. That's how I became Private Phineas McPhail of the Tenth Wess.e.x Rangers, at the compensation of one shilling and two pence per day."

"Do you like it?" asked Doggie.

Phineas rubbed the side of his nose thoughtfully.

"In itself it is a vile life," he made answer. "The hours are absurd, the work is distasteful, and the mode of living repulsive. But it contents me. The secret of happiness lies in adapting one's self to conditions. I adapt myself wherever I happen to be. And now, may I, without impertinent curiosity, again ask what you meant when you said you had come down to bed-rock?"

All of Doggie's rage and shame flared up at the question.

"I've been thrown out of the army!" he cried. "I'm here in hiding--hiding from my family and the decent folk I'm ashamed to meet!"

"Tell me all about it, laddie," urged Phineas, gently.

Then Doggie broke down, and with a gush of unminded tears found expression for his stony despair. His story took a long time in the telling, and Phineas interjected a sympathetic "Ay, ay," from time to time.

"And now," cried Doggie, his young face distorted and reddened, his sleek hair ruffled, and his hands appealingly outstretched, "what am I going to do?"

"You've got to go back home," said Phineas. "You've got to whip up all the moral courage in you and go back to Durdlebury."

"I won't," said Doggie, "I can't. I'd sooner die than go back there disgraced. I'd sooner enlist as a private soldier."

"Enlist?" repeated Phineas, and he drew himself up straight and gaunt.

"Well, why not?"

"Enlist?" echoed Doggie, in a dull tone. "As a Tommy?"

"As a Tommy," replied Phineas.

"Enlist!" murmured Doggie. He thought of the alternatives--flight, which was craven; home, which he could not bear. Doggie rose from his chair with a new light in his eyes. He had come to the supreme moment of his life; he had made his great resolution. Yes, he would enlist as a private soldier in the British army.

III

A year later Doggie Trevor returned to Durdlebury. He had been laid up in hospital with a wounded leg, the result of fighting the German snipers in front of the first line trenches, and he was now on his way back to France. Durdlebury had not changed in the interval; it was Marmaduke Trevor that had changed. He measured about ten inches more around the chest than the year before, and his hands were red and calloused from hard work. He was as straight as an Indian now, and in his rough khaki uniform of a British private he looked every bit a man--yes, and more than that, a veteran soldier. For Doggie had pa.s.sed through battle after battle, gas attacks, mine explosions, and months of dreary duty in water-filled trenches, where only brave and tough men could endure. He had been tried in the furnace and he had come out pure gold.

Doggie entered the familiar Deanery, and was met by Peggy with a glad smile of welcome. His uncle, the Dean, appeared in the hall, florid, whitehaired, benevolent, and extended both hands to the homecoming warrior.

"My dear boy," he said, "how glad I am to see you! Welcome back! And how's the wound?"

Opening the drawing-room door, he pushed Doggie inside. A tall, lean figure in uniform, which had remained in the background by the fireplace, advanced with outstretched hand.

"h.e.l.lo, old chap!"

Doggie took the hand in an honest grip.

"h.e.l.lo, Oliver!"

"How goes it?" asked Oliver.

"Splendid," said Doggie. "Are you all right?"

"Tip-top," answered Oliver. He clapped his cousin on the shoulder. "My hat! you do look fit."

He turned to the Dean. "Uncle Edward, isn't he a hundred times the man he was?"

In a little while tea came. It appeared to Doggie, handing round the three-tiered cake-stand, that he had returned to some forgotten existence. The delicate china cup in his hand seemed too frail for the material usages of life, and he feared lest he break it, for Doggie was accustomed to the rough dishes of the private.

The talk lay chiefly between Oliver and himself and ran on the war. Both men had been at Ypres and at Arras, where the British and German trenches lay only five yards apart.

"I ought to be over there now," said Oliver, "but I just escaped sh.e.l.l-shock and I was sent home for two weeks."

"My crowd is at the Somme," said Doggie.

"You're well out of it, old chap," laughed Oliver.

For the first time in his life Doggie began really to like Oliver.

Oliver stood in his eyes in a new light, that of the typical officer, trusted and beloved by his men, and Doggie's heart went out to him.

After some further talk, the men separated to dress for dinner.

"You've got the green room, Marmaduke," said Peggy. "The one with the Chippendale furniture you used to covet so much."

"I haven't got much to change into," laughed Doggie, looking down at his uniform.

"You'll find Peddle up there waiting for you."

When Doggie entered the green room, he found Peddle, who welcomed him with tears of joy and a display of all the luxuries of the toilet and adornment which Doggie had left behind at home. There were pots of [v]pomade and face cream, and nail polish; bottles of hair-wash and tooth-wash; half a dozen gleaming razors; the array of brushes and combs and [v]manicure set in [v]tortoise-sh.e.l.l with his crest in silver; bottles of scent; the purple silk dressing-gown; a soft-fronted shirt fitted with ruby and diamond sleeve-links; the dinner jacket and suit laid out on the gla.s.s-topped table, with tie and handkerchief; the silk socks, the glossy pumps.

"My, Peddle!" cried Doggie, scratching his closely-cropped head. "What's all this?"