In the fury of his excitement Alf thrust his head and shoulders far into the room.
"Got you this time!" he screamed to Joe, his face distorted with hate. "Mr. Spink!" he cried to somebody who must have been near by.
The engineer made a grab at him and seized him by the head.
"Got you, ye mean!" he bellowed and jerked the other bodily into the room. "Ah, ye dirty spyin tyke!—I'll learn you!"
He heaved his enemy from his knees to his feet and closed with him. The struggle was that of a parrot in the clutch of a tiger.
Joe carried his enemy to the door and slung him out head first. Alf brought up with a bang against a big car which had just drawn up outside.
A little lady sat in it.
"Will you get out of my way, please?" she said coldly to the man sprawling on his hands and knees in the dust at her feet, as she proceeded to descend.
The prostrate man raised his eyes and blinked. The lady passed him by as she might have passed a dead puppy lying in the road.
Joe crossed the path and examined with a certain detached interest, the door of the car against which Alf's head had crashed.
"Why, yo've made quite a dent in your nice car," he said. "Pity." And he walked away down the street after Mr. Spink who was retiring discreetly round the corner.
Mrs. Lewknor entered the cottage.
Ruth was sitting in the kitchen, her hands in her lap, dazed.
The lady went over to her.
"It's all right, Ruth," she said gently in the other's ear.
Slowly Ruth recovered and poured the tale of the last twenty-four hours into the ear of her friend. It was the cruelty of her mother-in-law more than anything else that troubled her: for it was to her significant of the attitude of the world.
"That's her!" she said. "And that's them!—and that's how it is!"
Mrs. Lewknor comforted her; but Ruth refused to be comforted.
"Ah, you don't know em," she said. "But I been through it, me and little Alice. See I'm alone again now Ernie's gone. And so they got me. And they know it and take advantage—and Mrs. Caspar, that sly and cruel, she leads em on."
"I think perhaps she's not as bad as she likes to make herself out," Mrs. Lewknor answered.
She opened her bag, took out a letter, and put it in Ruth's hand. It was from Anne Caspar, angular as the writer in phrase alike and penmanship, and in the pseudo-business vein of the daughter of the Ealing tobacconist.
Dear Madam,—If your Committee can help Mrs. Caspar in the Moot, board for herself and four children, I will pay rent of same.
Yours faithfully,
Anne Caspar.
Later just as twilight began to fall Ruth went up to Rectory Walk. Anne was standing on the patch of lawn in front of the little house amid her tobacco plants, sweet-scented in the dusk, a shawl drawn tight about her gaunt shoulders.
Ruth halted on the path outside.
"I do thank you, Mrs. Caspar," she said, deep and quivering.
The elder woman did not look at her, did not invite her in. She tugged at the ends of her shawl and sniffed the evening with her peculiar smirk.
"Must have a roof over them, I suppose," she said. "Even in war-time."
The visit of Mrs. Trupp and Mrs. Lewknor to the Registrar at Lewes had proved entirely satisfactory. No marriage had taken place on the day in question, so examination disclosed. Mrs. Lewknor reported as much to her husband on her return home that evening.
The Colonel grinned the grin of an ogre about to take his evening meal of well-cooked children.
"We must twist Master Alf's tail," he said; "and not forget we owe him one ourselves."
At the next Committee meeting, which the Colonel attended, there was heavy fighting between the Army and the Church; and after it even graver trouble between Alf and the Reverend Spink.
"It's not only my reputation," cried the indignant curate. "It's the credit of the Church you've shaken."
"I know nothing only the facts," retorted Alf doggedly—"if they're any good to you. I drove them there meself—14th September, 1906, four o'clock of a Saturday afternoon and a bit foggy like. You can see it in the entry-book for yourself. They went into the Registrar's office single, and they walked out double, half-an-hour later. I see em myself, and you can't get away from the facts of your eyes, not even a clergyman can't."
Alf was additionally embittered because he felt that the curate had left him disgracefully in the lurch in the incident of the Moot. The Reverend Spink on his side—somewhat dubious in his heart of the part he had played on the fringe of that affair—felt that by taking the strong and righteous line now he was vindicating himself in his own eyes at least for any short-comings then.
"I shall report the whole thing to the Archdeacon," he said. "It's a scandal. He'll deal with you."
"Report it then!" snapped Alf. "If the Church don't want me, neether don't I want the Church."
The war was killing the Archdeacon, as Mr. Trupp had said it must.
The flames of his indomitable energy were devouring the old gentleman for all the world to see. He was going down to his grave, as he would have wished, to the roll of drums and roar of artillery.
Thus when the Reverend Spink went up to the Rectory to report on the delinquencies of the sidesman, he found his chief in bed and obviously spent.
The old gentleman made a pathetic figure attempting to maintain his dignity in a night-gown obviously too small for him, which served to emphasize his failing mortality.
His face was ghastly save for a faint dis-colouration about one eye; but he was playing his part royally still. His bitterest enemy must have admired his courage; his severest critic might have wept, so pitiful was the old man's make-believe.
On a table at his side were all the pathetic little properties that made the man. There was his snuff-box; there the filigree chain; a scent-bottle; a rosary; a missal. On his bed was the silver-mounted ebony cane; and beneath his pillow, artfully concealed to show, the butt-end of his pistol.
Over his head was the photograph of a man whom the curate recognised instantly as Sir Edward Carson; and beneath the photograph was an illuminated text which on closer scrutiny turned out to be the Solemn League and Covenant.
Facing the great Unionist Leader on the opposite wall was the Emperor of the French. The likeness between the two famous Imperialists was curiously marked; and they seemed aware of it, staring across the room at each other over the body of their prostrate admirer with intimacy, understanding, mutual admiration. Almost you expected them to wink at each other—a knowing wink.
Mr. Spink now told his chief the whole story as it affected Alf. Much of it the Archdeacon had already heard from his wife.
"I'd better see him," he now said grimly.
And the Archdeacon was not the only one who wanted to see Alf just then. That afternoon, just as he was starting out with the car, he was called up on the telephone.
The Director of Recruiting wished to see him at the Town Hall—to-morrow—11 a.m., sharp. The voice was peremptory and somehow familiar. Alf was perturbed. What was up now?
"Who is the Director of Recruiting here?" he asked Mr. Trupp a few minutes later.
"Colonel Lewknor," the old surgeon answered. "Just appointed. All you young men of military age come under him now."
Alf winced.
The Colonel's office was in the Town Hall, and one of the first men to come and sign on there was Joe Burt.
The Colonel, as he took in the engineer, saw at once that the hurricane which was devastating the world had wrought its will upon this man too. The Joe Burt he had originally known four years ago stood before him once again, surly, shy, and twinkling.
"Good luck to you," said the Colonel as they shook hands. "And try to be an honest man. You were meant to be, you know."
"A'm as honest as soom and honester than most, A reckon," the engineer answered dogged as a badgered schoolboy.
The Colonel essayed to look austere.
"You'd better go before you get into worse trouble," he said.
Joe went out, grinning.
"Ah, A'm not the only one," he mumbled.
Outside in the passage he met Alf, and paused amazed.
"You goin to enlist!" he roared. "Never!" and marched on, his laughter rollicking down the corridor like a huge wind.
Alf entered the Colonel's office delicately: he had reasons of his own to fear everything that wore khaki.
The Colonel sat at his desk like a death's head, a trail of faded medal-ribands running across his khaki chest.
He was thin, spectral, almost cadaverous. But his voice was gentle, as always; his manner as always, most courteous. Nothing could be more remote from the truculence of the Army manner of tradition.
He was the spider talking to the fly.
"I'm afraid this is a very serious matter, Mr. Caspar," he began; and it was a favourite opening of his. "It seems you've been taking away the character of the wife of a member of His Majesty's forces now in France..."
The interview lasted some time, and it was the Colonel who did the talking.
"And now I won't detain you further, Mr. Caspar," he said at the end. "My clerk in the next room will take all your particulars for our index card register, so that we needn't bother you again when conscription comes."
"Conscription!" cried Alf, changing colour.
"Yes," replied the Colonel. "There's been no public announcement yet. But there's no reason you shouldn't know it's coming. It's got to."
Alf went out as a man goes to execution. He returned to his now almost deserted garage to find there a note from the Archdeacon asking him to be good enough to call at the Rectory that afternoon.
Alf stood at the window and looked out with dull eyes. Now that the earth which three weeks since had felt so solid beneath his feet was crumbling away beneath him, he needed the backing of the Church more than ever; and for all his brave words to Mr. Spink, he was determined not to relinquish his position in it without a fight.
That afternoon he walked slowly up the hill to the Rectory.
Outside the white gate he stood in the road under the sycamore trees, gathering courage to make the plunge.
If was five o'clock.
A man got off the bus at Billing's Corner and came down the road towards him. Alf was aware of him, but did not at first see who he was.
"Not gone yet then?" said the man.
"No," Alf answered. "Got about as far as you—and that ain't very far."
"I'm on the way," answered Joe. "Going up to the camp in Summerdown now; and join up this evening."
"Ah," said Alf. "I'll believe it when I see it."
Swag on back, Joe tramped sturdily on towards the Downs.
Alf watched him. Then a gate clicked; and Edward Caspar came blundering down the road. Alf in his loneliness was drawn towards him.
"Good evening, father," he said.
The old gentleman blinked vaguely through his spectacles, and answered most courteously,
"Good evening, Mr. Er-um-ah!" and rolled on down the road.
So his own father didn't know him!
Overhead an aeroplane buzzed by. From the coombe came the eternal noise of the hammers as the great camp there took shape. Along Summerdown Road at the end of Rectory Walk a long convoy of Army Service Corps wagons with mule-teams trailed by. A big motor passed him. In it was Stanley Bessemere and three staff-officers with red bands round their caps. They were very pleased with themselves and their cigars. The member for Beachbourne West did not see his supporter. Then there sounded the tramp of martial feet. It was Saturday afternoon. The Old Town Company of Volunteers, middle-aged men for the most part, known to Alf from childhood, was marching by on the way to drill on the Downs. A fierce short man was in charge. Three rough chevrons had been sewn on to his sleeve to mark his rank as sergeant; and he wore a belt tightly buckled about his ample waist. All carried dummy rifles.
"Left-right, left-right," called the sergeant in the voice of a drill-instructor of the Guards. "Mark time in front! Forward! Dressing by your left!"
It was Mr. Pigott.
Alf's eyes followed the little party up the road. Then they fell on his home covered with ampelopsis just beginning to turn. His mother was at the window, looking at him. Whether it was that the glass distorted her face, or that his own vision was clouded, it seemed to Alf that she was mocking him. Then she drew down the blind as though to shut him out—his own mother.
Alf shivered.
A young woman coming from Billing's Corner crossed the road to him.
"Well, Alf," she said gaily, "you're getting em all against you!"
Alf raised his eyes to hers, and they were the eyes of the rabbit in the burrow with the stoat hard upon its heels.
"Yes," he said more to himself than her. "Reckon I'm done."
*****