CHAPTER XXV

"MEN'S MEAL, FIRST CALL"

Mrs Grantly was interested in Eloquent. He was quite unlike any of the innumerable young men she had had to do with before. His simplicity and directness appealed to her; she admired his high seriousness even while she seemed to deride it, and though violently opposed to his party, she shared that party's belief in his political future.

The General shook his head; not over what he and Mary called "Grannie's infatuation for Mr Gallup," but over the possible results of this friendliness and intimacy to Mr Gallup. For the General saw precisely the same possibilities that Mr Ffolliot had seen, and didn't like what he saw one whit better than did the Squire.

Eloquent never saw Mary alone. Generally he was wholly taken possession of by Mrs Grantly, or such friends of hers as would be bothered with him. Yet his golden dream was with him continually, and in the dear oasis of his fancy he walked in an enchanted garden with Mary. In his waking moments, his sane practical moments, he would realise that it was sheer absurdity to imagine that she ever could care for him. He did not expect her to care, but--and here he drifted across the desert of plain possibilities into the merciful mirage of things hoped for--if she would condescend to let him serve her, he might take heart of grace.

He watched her carefully.

It did not seem to him that there was anybody else. There were crowds: crowds of dreadful, well-dressed, good-looking, cheerful men, who chaffed and laughed and quaffed any drinks that happened to be going; but he did not fear the enemy in battalions, and so far it appeared that her besiegers always attacked in companies.

Sometimes he was sure that she knew how he felt, and was trying in gentle, delicately pitiful ways to show him that it was of no use.

Then again he would dismiss this thought as absurd and conceited. How should Mary know? How could she try to show him she didn't care when he had never shown her that he did? How could he show her?

It was this desire to show her, this hope of familiarising her with the idea that caused Eloquent to resort to every possible place where he might see her. He went down to Woolwich as often as decency would permit, which wasn't often. He inundated Mrs Grantly with invitations to the House, and he haunted the theatres, generally in vain, in the hope of seeing her at the play. He would often reflect bitterly how easy things were for the young shopman in these matters. He met his girl and took her for a walk, and no one thought any the worse of either of them. There was none of this nerve-racking, heartrending uncertainty, this difficulty of access, this sense of futility, in their relations.

Of the many mysterious attributes of the "cla.s.ses," there was none to be so heartily deplored as their entire success in secluding their young women, while apparently they gave them every possible opportunity for amus.e.m.e.nt of all kinds.

Reggie went down to Woolwich once while Mary was with her grandparents, but it was not, from her point of view, a very satisfactory visit.

Reggie was grumpy, and looked very tired and overworked. Moreover, Mary, though she could not have confessed it for the world, was just a trifle hurt that he never reminded her of that last ride together.

Just as he was leaving on the Sunday night, and they were all in the garden, he walked with her a little way down a winding path that hid them from the others, saying abruptly--

"Shall I let you know directly if they are going to send me to the Shiny?"

"Of course I should like to know, but . . . India is a long way off, Reggie, why do you want to go so far?"

"Because, my dear, it means work and promotion, and one's chance, and lots of things; one being quite decent pay. Besides, I like India, I shall be glad to go back, if . . ."

They had followed the path, and it led them out to the lawn again, where the others were standing. He didn't finish his sentence--

"Say you want me to get out there, Mary."

"Of course I want you to go if you really wish it."

"I'll let you know then. I shall know myself early in July, I fancy . . . perhaps I'll run down to Redmarley; you'll be back then?"

They joined the others; Reggie made his farewells and left.

Mary went and took her grandfather's arm, and made him walk round the garden with her. She developed an intelligent interest in geography, and made searching inquiries as to the healthiness of India generally.

It was comforting to walk arm and arm with grandfather. She didn't know why, but she felt a little frightened, a little homesick. How clearly one can see some people's faces when they are not there. What unusual eyes Reggie had, so green in some lights. He was looking dreadfully thin, poor boy, downright ill he looked, and yet everyone said he was very strong. No one else shook hands quite like Reggie: he had nice hands, strong and gentle; thin, but not hard and nubbly. Why is a summer night often so sad? Night-scented stock has a sad smell, though it is so sweet. He shouldn't work so hard. He was overdoing it. Surely if he went to India they'd give him some leave . . . it might be years before he came back. Three years he was away once.

Mary clasped both her hands over her grandfather's arm. "I do love you so, Ganpy," she said; "there's n.o.body like you in the world, no one at all."

The General smiled in the twilight, and pressed the arm in his against his side. He said nothing at all, yet Mary felt vaguely comforted.

In the beginning of July she went back to Redmarley, and everyone was very glad to see her again. One Sat.u.r.day morning when the Squire and Mrs Ffolliot had started in the victoria to lunch with neighbours on the other side of Marlehouse, Mary called Parker and went to walk in the woods. It was a grey morning, warm and sunless and still. She wandered about quite aimlessly. She was restless and unsettled, and had a good deal to think over.

Just before she left Woolwich, Eloquent Gallup had called one afternoon when both the General and Mrs Grantly were out; but he asked boldly for Mary. She was at home, and he was shown into the cool, shady garden, where she was lying in a hammock reading a novel.

This was Eloquent's chance and he took it. He did not stay long. He left before tea, but during the time he did stay he contrived to let Mary see . . . what it must be confessed she had already suspected. He said nothing definite. He was immensely distant in his reverence, but a much humbler girl than Mary could hardly have mistaken his meaning.

He was so pathetically diffident it was impossible to snub him, and she had no desire to snub him. Always she was immensely sorry for him--why, she did not know.

He was plain. He was insignificant. He was not a gentleman by birth, but he was--and Mary's standard was fairly high--so far as she could see, a thorough gentleman in feeling and in action. Moreover, he had ability, and an immense capacity for hard work, both of them qualities that appealed to Mary.

So she allowed herself to dally vaguely with the idea. It was very pleasant to be set in a shrine; to be worshipped; to be served in a prayerful att.i.tude of adoration. To be able by a kind word, a kind glance, to raise a fellow creature to a dizzy height of happiness. How could anyone be unkind to that excellent little man? Suppose . . .

this was a daring supposition, and Mary grew hot all over as she entertained it--suppose, in the dim and distant future, when Reggie . . . Reggie had never written after he went back to Chatham, nothing had happened then about India; but suppose he did go for years and years, and forgot her . . . perhaps he had never wanted to remember her in that particular way, and she had magnified quite little things that meant nothing at all. . . . Suppose she ultimately, years hence, could bring herself to marry Mr Gallup. How angry her father would be!

But that was a prospective contingency that only amused Mary. He would be angry whoever she married. He would be exceedingly angry if she got engaged to . . . that young man at Chatham who was so taciturn and neglectful . . . who didn't seem to want to get engaged to anyone.

Clara Bax said it would be dreadfully dull to marry anyone you'd known all your life. Would it? Clara Bax said it would be tiresome in the extreme to marry anybody. But about that Mary was not sure.

Westminster is certainly the nicest part of London; there are bits of it that remind one of Redmarley. It would be pleasant to be rich and important, and feel that you are helping to pull the wires that control destinies; helping to make history. Ah, that was what Reggie called it. He would do it. She was sure of that; but Reggie's wife would have no hand in it.

With clear intuition she saw that of these two men, only one could be influenced by his wife in anything that concerned his work. Reggie's wife would be outside all that. Eloquent's wife, _if she were the right woman_, would share everything: and at that moment Parker began to bark, and Mary found that she had walked into a part of the wood called the Forty Firs, and that Eloquent Gallup was standing right on the very same spot, where seven months ago she had a.s.sisted him to rise from a puddle.

Parker didn't like Eloquent upright a bit better than he had liked Eloquent p.r.o.ne, and he made a great yapping and growling and bouncing and skirmishing around about the two of them, until he finally subsided into suspicious sniffing at Eloquent's ankles.

"Has Parliament risen then?" Mary asked, when she had soothed Parker to quiescence.

"No, Miss Ffolliot, I came down"--Eloquent's eyes were fixed hungrily on her face, and she noticed that his was nothing like so round as it used to be, and that he was very pale--"because I couldn't keep away."

Mary said nothing. There seemed nothing to say.

"Miss Ffolliot," Eloquent said again, "I think you must know why I have come down, what I feel about you, what I have felt about you since the first minute I saw you in this very place, when I was so ridiculous and you so beautiful and kind. I have travelled a good way since then, but I know that in caring for you as I do I am still ridiculous, and it is only because you are so beautiful and kind, although you are so far above me, that I dare to tell you what I feel . . . but I would like your leave to think about you. Somehow, without it, it seems an impertinence, and, G.o.d knows, no man ever felt more worship for a woman than I feel for you. Do you give me that leave?"

Mary was very much touched, very much shaken. Eloquent's power lay in his immense earnestness. She no longer saw him small and insignificant and common. She saw the soul of him, and recognised that it was a great soul. For one brief moment she wondered if she could . . .

Through the woods rang the notes of a bugle. Ger was playing "Come to the cook-house door." Mary's heart seemed to leap up and turn right over.

"Come to the cook-house door" is not by any means one of the most beautiful of the bugle sounds of the British Army. It is rather jerky at the best of times, and as performed by Ger it was wheezy as well.

But for Mary just then it was a clear call to consciousness.

Pity and sympathy and admiration are not love: and Mary knew it, and in that moment she became a woman.

Eloquent had taken her hand, taken it with a respect and gentleness that affected her unspeakably. She gave a little sob. She did not try to draw it away. "Oh dear," she sighed, "I am so sorry, for it's all no use," and the tears ran down her cheeks.

Eloquent lifted her hand and kissed it.

"Don't cry, my dear," he said, "don't cry. I'm glad I've known you and loved you. . . ."

Again through the woods there rang that "first call" so dear to the heart of Ger.