The Rough Road

He would have a bad quarter of an hour with Peggy. Naturally. She would say, and with every right: “What about me? Am I not to be considered?” Yes, of course she would be considered. The position his fortune assured him would always be hers. He had no notion of asking her to share a log cabin in the wilds of Canada, or to bury herself in Oliver’s dud island of Huaheine. The great world would be before them. “But give me some sort of an idea of what you propose to do,” she would with perfect propriety demand. And there Doggie was stuck. He had not the ghost of a programme. All he had was faith in the war, faith in the British spirit and genius that would bring it to a perfect end, in which there would be unimagined opportunities for a man to fling himself into a new life, and new conditions, and begin the new work of a new civilization.

“If she’ll only understand,” said he, “that I can’t go back to those blasted little dogs, all will be well.”

Not quite all. Although his future was as nebulous as the planetary system in the Milky Way, at the back of his mind was a vague conviction that it would be connected somehow with the welfare of those men whom he had learned to know and love: the men to whom reading was little pleasure, writing a school-child’s laborious task, the glories of the earth as interpreted through art a sealed book; the men whose daily speech was foul metaphor; the men, hemi-demi-semi-educated, whose crude socialistic opinions the open lessons of history and the eternal facts of human nature derisively refuted; the men who had sweated and slaved in factory and in field to no other purpose than to obey the biological laws of the perpetuation of the species; yet the men with the sweet minds of children, the gushing tenderness of women, the hearts of lions; the men compared to whom the rotten squealing heroes of Homer were a horde of cowardly savages. They were men, these comrades of his, swift with all that there can be of divine glory in men.

And when they came home and the high gods sounded the false trumpet of peace?

There would be men’s work in England for all the Doggies in England to do.

Again, if Peggy could understand this, all would be well. If she missed the point altogether, and tauntingly advised him to go and join his friends the Socialists at once – then – he shoved his cap to the back of his head and wrinkled his forehead – then —

“Everything will be in the soup,” said he.

These reflections brought him to the Deanery. The nearest way of entrance was the stable-yard gate, which was always open. He strode in, waved a hand to Chipmunk who was sitting on the ground with his back against the garage, smoking a pipe, and entered the house by the French window of the dining-room. Where should he find Peggy? His whole mind was set on the immediate interview. Obviously the drawing-room was the first place of search. He opened the drawing-room door, the hinges and lock oily, noiseless, perfectly ordained, like everything in the perfectly ordained English Deanery, and strode in.

His entrance was so swift, so protected from sound, that the pair had no time to start apart before he was there, with his amazed eyes full upon them. Peggy’s hands were on Oliver’s shoulders, tears were streaming down her face, as her head was thrown back from him, and Oliver’s arm was around her. Her back was to the door. Oliver withdrew his arm and retired a pace or two.

“Lord Almighty,” he whispered, “here’s Doggie!”

Then Peggy, realizing what had happened, wheeled round and stared tragically at Doggie, who, preoccupied with the search for her, had not removed his cap. He drew himself up.

“I beg your pardon,” he said with imperturbable irony, and turned.

Oliver rushed across the room.

“Stop, you silly fool!”

He slammed the open door, caught Doggie by the arm and dragged him away from the threshold. His blue eyes blazed and the lips beneath the short-cropped moustache quivered.

“It’s all my fault, Doggie. I’m a beast and a cad and anything you like to call me. But for things you said last night – well – no, hang it all, there’s no excuse. Everything’s on me. Peggy’s as true as gold.”

Peggy, red-eyed, pale-cheeked, stood a little way back, silent, on the defensive. Doggie, looking from one to the other, said quietly:

“A triangular explanation is scarcely decent. Perhaps you might let me have a word or two with Peggy.”

“Yes. It would be best,” she whispered.

“I’ll be in the dining-room if you want me,” said Oliver, and went out.

Doggie took her hand and, very gently, led her to a chair.

“Let us sit down. There,” said he, “now we can talk more comfortably. First, before we touch on this situation, let me say something to you. It may ease things.”

Peggy, humiliated, did not look at him. She nodded.

“All right.”

“I made up my mind this morning to sell Denby Hall and its contents. I’ve given old Spooner instructions.”

She glanced at him involuntarily. “Sell Denby Hall?”

“Yes, dear. You see, I have made up my mind definitely, if I’m spared, not to live in Durdlebury after the war.”

“What were you thinking of doing?” she asked, in a low voice.

“That would depend on after-war circumstances. Anyhow, I was coming to you, when I entered the room, with my decision. I knew, of course, that it wouldn’t please you – that you would have something to say to it – perhaps something very serious.”

“What do you mean by something very serious?”

“Our little contract, dear,” said Doggie, “was based on the understanding that you would not be uprooted from the place in which are all your life’s associations. If I broke that understanding it would leave you a free agent to determine the contract, as the lawyers say. So perhaps, Peggy dear, we might dismiss – well – other considerations, and just discuss this.”

Peggy twisted a rag of handkerchief and wavered for a moment. Then she broke out, with fresh tears on her cheek.

“You’re a dear of dears to put it that way. Only you could do it. I’ve been a brute, old boy; but I couldn’t help it. I did try to play the game.”

“You did, Peggy dear. You’ve been wonderful.”

“And although it didn’t look like it, I was trying to play the game when you came in. I really was. And so was he.” She rose and threw the handkerchief away from her. “I’m not going to step out of the engagement by the side door you’ve left open for me, you dear old simple thing. It stands if you like. We’re all honourable people, and Oliver” – she drew a sharp little breath – “Oliver will go out of our lives.”

Doggie smiled – he had risen – and taking her hands, kissed them.

“I’ve never known what a splendid Peggy it is, until I lose her. Look here, dear, here’s the whole thing in a nutshell. While I’ve been morbidly occupied with myself and my grievances and my disgrace and my efforts to pull through, and have gradually developed into a sort of half-breed between a Tommy and a gentleman with every mortal thing in me warped and changed, you’ve stuck to the original rotten ass you lashed into the semblance of a man, in this very room, goodness knows how many months, or years, or centuries ago. In my infernal selfishness, I’ve treated you awfully badly.”

“No, you haven’t,” she decided stoutly.

“Yes, I have. The ordinary girl would have told a living experiment like me to go hang long before this. But you didn’t. And now you see a totally different sort of Doggie and you’re making yourself miserable because he’s a queer, unsympathetic, unfamiliar stranger.”

“All that may be so,” she said, meeting his eyes bravely. “But if the unfamiliar Doggie still cares for me, it doesn’t matter.”

Here was a delicate situation. Two very tender-skinned vanities opposed to each other. The smart of seeing one’s affianced bride in the arms of another man hurts grievously sore. It’s a primitive sex affair, independent of love in its modern sense. If the savage’s abandoned squaw runs off with another fellow, he pursues him with clubs and tomahawks until he has avenged the insult. Having known ME, to decline to Spotted Crocodile! So the finest flower of civilization cannot surrender the lady who once was his to the more favoured male without a primitive pang. On the other hand, Doggie knew very well that he did not love Peggy, that he had never loved Peggy. But how in common decency could a man tell a girl, who had wasted a couple of years of her life over him, that he had never loved her? Instead of replying to her questions, he walked about the room in a worried way.

“I take it,” said Peggy incisively, after a while, “that you don’t care for me any longer.”

He turned and halted at the challenge. He snapped his fingers. What was the good of all this beating of the bush?

“Look here, Peggy, let’s face it out. If you’ll confess that you and Oliver are in love with each other, I’ll confess to a girl in France.”

“Oh?” said Peggy, with a swift change to coolness. “There’s a girl in France, is there? How long has this been going on?”

“The last four days in billets before I got wounded,” said Doggie.

“What is she like?”

Then Doggie suddenly laughed out loud and took her by the shoulders in a grasp rougher than she had ever dreamed to lie in the strength or nature of Marmaduke Trevor, and kissed her the heartiest, honestest kiss she had ever had from man, and rushed out of the room.

Presently he returned, dragging with him the disconsolate Major.

“Here,” said he, “fix it up between you. I’ve told Peggy about a girl in France and she wants to know what she’s like.”

Peggy, shaken by the rude grip and the kiss, flashed and cried rebelliously:

“I’m not quite so sure that I want to fix it up with Oliver.”

“Oh yes, you do,” cried Oliver.

He snatched up Doggie’s cap and jammed it on Doggie’s head and cried:

“Doggie, you’re the best and truest and finest of dear old chaps in the whole wide world.”

Doggie settled his cap, grinned, and moved to the door.

“Anything else, sir?”

Oliver roared, delighted: “No, Private Trevor, you can go.”

“Very good, sir.”

Doggie saluted smartly and went out. He passed through the French window of the dining-room into the mellow autumn sunshine. Found himself standing in front of Chipmunk, who still smoked the pipe of elegant leisure by the door of the garage.

“This is a dam good old world all the same. Isn’t it?” said he.

“If it was always like this, it would have its points,” replied the unworried Chipmunk.

Doggie had an inspiration. He looked at his watch. It was nearly one o’clock.

“Hungry?”

“Always ’ungry. Specially about dinner-time.”

“Come along of me to the Downshire Arms and have a bite of dinner.”

Chipmunk rose slowly to his feet, and put his pipe into his tunic pocket, and jerked a slow thumb backwards.

“Ain’t yer having yer meals ’ere?”

“Only now and then, as sort of treats,” said Doggie. “Come along.”

“Ker-ist!” said Chipmunk. “Can yer wait a bit until I’ve cleaned me buttons?”

“Oh, bust your old buttons!” laughed Doggie. “I’m hungry.”

So the pair of privates marched through the old city to the Downshire Arms, the select, old-world hotel of Durdlebury, where Doggie was known since babyhood; and there, sitting at a window table with Chipmunk, he gave Durdlebury the great sensation of its life. If the Dean himself, clad in tights and spangles, had juggled for pence by the west door of the cathedral, tongues could scarcely have wagged faster. But Doggie worried his head about gossip not one jot. He was in joyous mood and ordered a gargantuan feast for Chipmunk and bottles of the strongest old Burgundy, such as he thought would get a grip on Chipmunk’s whiskyfied throat; and under the genial influence of food and drink, Chipmunk told him tales of far lands and strange adventures; and when they emerged much later into the quiet streets, it was the great good fortune of Chipmunk’s life that there was not the ghost of an Assistant Provost-Marshal in Durdlebury.

“Doggie, old man,” said Oliver afterwards, “my wonder and reverence for you increases hour by hour. You are the only man in the whole world who has ever made Chipmunk drunk.”

“You see,” said Doggie modestly, “I don’t think he ever really loved anyone who fed him before.”

CHAPTER XXII

Doggie, the lightest-hearted private in the British Army, danced, in a metaphorical sense, back to London, where he stayed for the rest of his leave at his rooms in Woburn Place; took his wholesome fill of theatres and music-halls, going to those parts of the house where Tommies congregate; and bought an old Crown Derby dinner service as a wedding present for Peggy and Oliver, a tortoise-shell-fitted dressing-case for Peggy, and for Oliver a magnificent gold watch that was an encyclopædia of current information. He had never felt so happy in his life, so enchanted with the grimly smiling old world. Were it not for the Boche, it could hold its own as a brave place with any planet going. He blessed Oliver, who, in turn, had blessed him as though he had displayed heroic magnanimity. He blessed Peggy, who, flushed with love and happiness and gratitude, had shown him, for the first time, what a really adorable young woman she could be. He thanked Heaven for making three people happy, instead of three people miserable.

He marched along the wet pavements with a new light in his eyes, with a new exhilarating breath in his nostrils. He was free. The war over, he could do exactly what he liked. An untrammelled future lay before him. During the war he could hop about trenches and shell-holes with the freedom of a bird…

Those awful duty letters to Peggy! Only now he fully realized their never-ending strain. Now he could write to her spontaneously, whenever the mood suited, write to her from his heart: “Dear old Peggy, I’m so glad you’re happy. Oliver’s a splendid chap. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.” He had lost a dreaded bride; but he had found a dear and devoted friend. Nay, more: he had found two devoted friends. When he drew up his account with humanity, he found himself passing rich in love.

His furlough expired, he reported at his depot, and was put on light duty. He went about it the cheeriest soul alive, and laughed at the memory of his former miseries as a recruit. This camp life in England, after the mud and blood of France – like the African gentleman in Mr. Addison’s “Cato,” he blessed his stars and thought it luxury. He was not sorry that the exigencies of service prevented him from being present at the wedding of Oliver and Peggy. For it was the most sudden of phenomena, like the fight of two rams, as Shakespeare hath it. In war-time people marry in haste; and often, dear God, they have not the leisure to repent. Since the beginning of the war there are many, many women twice widowed… But that is by the way. Doggie was grateful to an ungrateful military system. If he had attended – in the capacity of best man, so please you – so violent and unreasoning had Oliver’s affection become, Durdlebury would have gaped and whispered behind its hand and made things uncomfortable for everybody. Doggie from the security of his regiment wished them joy by letter and telegram, and sent them the wedding presents aforesaid.

Then for a season there were three happy people, at least, in this war-wilderness of suffering. The newly wedded pair went off for a honeymoon, whose promise of indefinite length was eventually cut short by an unromantic War Office. Oliver returned to his regiment in France and Peggy to the Deanery, where she sat among her wedding presents and her hopes for the future.

“I never realized, my dear,” said the Dean to his wife, “what a remarkably pretty girl Peggy has grown into.”

“It’s because she has got the man she loves,” said Mrs. Conover.

“Do you think that’s the reason?”

“I’ve known the plainest of women become quite good-looking. In the early days of our married life” – she smiled – “even I was not quite unattractive.”

The old Dean bent down – she was sitting and he standing – and lifted her chin with his forefinger.

“You, my dear, have always been by far the most beautiful woman of my acquaintance.”

“We’re talking of Peggy,” smiled Mrs. Conover.

“Ah!” said the Dean. “So we were. I was saying that the child’s happiness was reflected in her face – ”

“I rather thought I said it, dear,” replied Mrs. Conover.

“It doesn’t matter,” said her husband, who was first a man and then a dean. He waved a hand in benign dismissal of the argument. “It’s a great mercy,” said he, “that she has married the man she loves instead of – well … Marmaduke has turned out a capital fellow, and a credit to the family – but I never was quite easy in my mind over the engagement… And yet,” he continued, after a turn or two about the room, “I’m rather conscience-stricken about Marmaduke, poor chap. He has taken it like a brick. Yes, my dear, like a brick. Like a gentleman. But all the same, no man likes to see another fellow walk off with his sweetheart.”

“I don’t think Marmaduke was ever so bucked in his life,” said Mrs. Conover placidly.

“So – ?”

The Dean gasped. His wife’s smile playing ironically among her wrinkles was rather beautiful.

“Peggy’s word, Edward, not mine. The modern vocabulary. It means – ”

“Oh, I know what the hideous word means. It was your using it that caused a shiver down my spine. But why bucked?”

“It appears there’s a girl in France.”

“Oho!” said the Dean. “Who is she?”

“That’s what Peggy, even now, would give a good deal to find out.”

For Doggie had told Peggy nothing more about the girl in France. Jeanne was his own precious secret. That it was shared by Phineas and Mo didn’t matter. To discuss her with Peggy, besides being irrelevant, in the circumstances, was quite another affair. Indeed, when he had avowed the girl in France, it was not so much a confession as a gallant desire to help Peggy out of her predicament. For, after all, what was Jeanne but a beloved war-wraith that had passed through his life and disappeared?

“The development of Marmaduke,” said the Dean, “is not the least extraordinary phenomenon of the war.”

Now that Doggie had gained his freedom, Jeanne ceased to be a wraith. She became once again a wonderful thing of flesh and blood towards whom all his young, fresh instinct yearned tremendously. One day it struck his ingenuous mind that, if Jeanne were willing, there could be no possible reason why he should not marry her. Who was to say him nay? Convention? He had put all the conventions of his life under the auctioneer’s hammer. The family? He pictured a meeting between Jeanne and the kind and courteous old Dean. It could not be other than an episode of beauty. All he had to do was to seek out Jeanne and begin his wooing in earnest. The simplest adventure in the world for a well-to-do and unattached young man – if only that young man had not been a private soldier on active service.

That was the rub. Doggie passed his hand over his hair ruefully. How on earth could he get to Frélus again? Not till the end of the war, at any rate, which might be years hence. There was nothing for it but a resumption of intimacy by letter. So he wrote to Jeanne the letter which loyalty to Peggy had made him destroy weeks ago. But no answer came. Then he wrote another, telling her of Peggy and his freedom, and his love and his hopes, and to that there came no reply.

A prepaid telegram produced no result.

Doggie began to despair. What had happened to Jeanne? Why did she persist in ruling him out of her existence? Was it because, in spite of her gratitude, she wanted none of his love? He sat on the railing on the sea front of the south coast town where he was quartered, and looked across the Channel in dismayed apprehension. He was a fool. What could there possibly be in little Doggie Trevor to inspire a romantic passion in any woman’s heart? Take Peggy’s case. As soon as a real, genuine fellow like Oliver came along, Peggy’s heart flew out to him like needle to magnet. Even had he been of Oliver’s Paladin mould, what right had he to expect Jeanne to give him all the wonder of herself after a four days’ acquaintance? Being what he was, just little Doggie Trevor, the assumption was an impertinence. She had sheltered herself from it behind a barrier of silence.

A girl, a thing of low-cut blouse, truncated skirts and cheap silk stockings, who had been leaning unnoticed for some time on the rails by his side, spoke.

“You seem to be pretty lonely.”

Doggie swerved round. “Yes, I am, darned lonely.”

“Come for a walk, or take me to the pictures.”

“And then?” asked Doggie, swinging to his feet.

“If we get on all right, we can fix up something for to-morrow.”

She was pretty, with a fair, frizzy, insolent prettiness. She might have been any age from fourteen to four-and-twenty.

Doggie smiled, tempted to while away a dark hour. But he said, honestly:

“I’m afraid I should be a dull companion.”

“What’s the matter?” she laughed. “Lost your best girl?”

“Something like it.” He waved a hand across the sea. “Over there.”

“French? Oh!” She drew herself up. “Aren’t English girls good enough for you?”

“When they’re sympathetic, they’re delightful,” said he.

“Oh, you make me tired! Good-bye,” she snapped, and stalked away.

After a few yards she glanced over her shoulder to see whether he was following. But Doggie remained by the railings.

Presently he shrugged his shoulders and went off to a picture palace by himself and thought wistfully of Jeanne.

And Jeanne? Well, Jeanne was no longer at Frélus; for there came a morning when Aunt Morin was found dead in her bed. The old doctor came and spread out his thin hands and said “Eh bien” and “Que voulez-vous?” and “It was bound to happen sooner or later,” and murmured learned words. The old curé came and a neighbour or two, and candles were put round the coffin and the pompes funèbres draped the front steps and entrance and vestibule in heavy black. And as soon as was possible Aunt Morin was laid to rest in the little cemetery adjoining the church, and Jeanne went back to the house with Toinette, alone in the wide world. And because there had been a death in the place the billeted soldiers went about the courtyard very quietly.

Since Phineas and Mo and Doggie’s regiment had gone away, she had devoted, with a new passionate zeal, all the time she could spare from the sick woman to the comforts of the men. No longer restrained by the tightly drawn purse-strings of Aunt Morin, but with money of her own to spend – and money restored to her by these men’s dear and heroic comrade – she could give them unexpected treats of rich coffee and milk, fresh eggs, fruit… She mended and darned for them and suborned old women to help her. She conspired with the Town Major to render the granary more habitable; and the Town Major, who had not to issue a return for a centime’s expense, received all her suggestions with courteous enthusiasm. Toinette taking good care to impress upon every British soldier who could understand her, the fact that to mademoiselle personally and individually he was indebted for all these luxuries, the fame of Jeanne began to spread through that sector of the front behind which lay Frélus. Concurrently spread the story of Doggie Trevor’s exploit. Jeanne became a legendary figure, save to those thrice fortunate who were billeted on Veuve Morin et Fils, Marchands des Foins en Gros et Détail, and these, according to their several stolid British ways, bowed down and worshipped before the slim French girl with the tragic eyes, and when they departed, confirmed the legend and made things nasty for the sceptically superior private.

So, on the day of the funeral of Aunt Morin, the whole of the billet sent in a wreath to the house, and the whole of the billet attended the service in the little church, and they marched back and drew up by the front door – a guard of honour extending a little distance down the road. The other men billeted in the village hung around, together with the remnant of the inhabitants, old men, women and children, but kept quite clear of the guarded path through which Jeanne was to pass. One or two officers looked on curiously. But they stood in the background. It was none of their business. If the men, in their free time, chose to put themselves on parade, without arms, of course, so much the better for the army.