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About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at http : //books . google . com/| Digitized by Google KPJ 7 77? \ Google / Digitized by Google Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue Digitized by Google Digitized by Google Digitized by Google Digitized by Google THE BLINDNESS OF VIRTUE COSMO HAMILTON Digitized by Google Digitized by Google THE BLINDNESS OF VIRTUE BT COSMO HAMILTON INTERNATIONAL FICTION LIBRARY CLBVBLAND. O. MBW YORK. N. Y. MiM n U. S. A. Digitized by Google KP/yry^ ^ CQLLEBE Copyright, MCMXIV BY OBOROB H. DORAN COBCPANY I or THE COMBfERCUL BOOKBINDINQ Oa CurvViiiiD Digitized by Google mOICATBD WITH A DEEP SENSE OF OtATITUDB TO THE DRAMA LEAGUE OF AMERICA Digitized by Google Digitized by Google PARTI Digitized by Google Digitized by Google THE BLINDNESS OF VIRTUE Chapter I THE three white horses were as big and stout and hairy of 1^ as brewers' white horses usually are. If anything, they were bigger, whiter, stouter, and more hairy of 1^ than usual; but the dray to which they were harnessed was piled high with barrels, and the incline up to the bridge over the canal had, it seemed wilfully, been made steep enough to render its negotia- tion an adventure, almost an impossibility for anything except light carts and motors. Watched by a couple of dozen mildly interested loafing and superfluous able-bodied brutes who are to be f oimd in every English village, these three white horses had strained their hearts out, and had had their mouths jerked, and their 1^ lashed, and their stomachs kicked several times, but the dray still refused to be dragged to the top of the bridge. For the third time a fat drayman, short of breath and purple of face, jammed a block of wood behind a wheel and joined his companion, who gripped the whip, in a muttered burst of curses. The horses, blowing painfully and sweating profusely, stood with their heads down and legs distended, waiting with admirable patience for the next cruel and senseless attack upon them. The woridng men who never Digitized by VjOOQ IC l8 The Blindness of Virtue worked spat, tapped their pipes on the iron of the bridge, and thrust their useless hands back into their pockets. A motor-car hooted hoarsely at the bottom of the incline on the far side — the East Brenton side — took the incline slowly, and dipped with a rasping of clutch down and away. An anaemic nursemaid with a rosy child hanging on each hand joined the spectators, deliberately taking up a position on a spot where she and her charges would certainly be severely damaged by the horses should they, in mounting the incline, get upon the pathway, as happened frequently. In ones and twos others came up — a postman, a chemist's boy on a bicycle, a groom mounted on a corky pony, and a local tradesman, who from his illiterate, pompous, and wholly fatuous remarks to any one who would listen to them might have been a member of the Parish Council, and was. A barge-horse clattered among the loose stones on the tow-path under the bridge, straining at the rope tied to the nose of a low-lying, gravel-laden bai^e, out of the many-coloured cabin of which a vermilion-faced woman thrust her head and shoulders, with a hand upon the tiller. The barge cleared the bridge, and a little ragged girl, with turnip-coloured hair, who sat with her bare legs dangling over the side of the barge, shouted shrill blasphemy at the group on the bridge. A man dressed in the red jersey and peaked cap of the Salvation Army rode up on a bicycle, dismounted, and leaned upon his saddle, with a grin upon his villainous face. Then the drayman with the whip made a sudden snatch at the patient and willing leader's rein, gave his mouth several vicious jerks, and, with a yell, commenced to lash the horses with all his strength. Another useless strug- gle began. Heads down, the three horses scrambled for- Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 19 ward, tiieir hoofs making the hard road ring, slipping, stumbling, straining, being shouted at, lashed at, and jagged at The dray was brought a few yards up the incline before the panting horses flagged and stopped, and slipped down again into the old position before the fat dra3rman could wedge the block behind the wheel. ' One or two of the loafers guflfawed. One or two criti- cised the niethod of the drayman senselessly but pic- turesquely. The nursemaid caught the postman's eye and preened herself. The local councillor turned to the Salvation Army man and told him, aitchlessly, exactly what he thought of the surveyor who passed the bridge as fit for use. Not a single man among the crowd con- sidered the possibility of putting a shoulder to one of the dray's wheels. Each one had his d^ity to preserve, and there did not seem any chance of earning a drink. To add to the fun and excitement of the situation the two draymen conmienced to quarrel. They began by shouting abuse, the one standing at the leader's head, the other at the back of the dray. Then they drew nearer, talking each other down, until, bantam-wise, they stood nose to nose, both hot, both nerve-wrung, both working themselves into a rage over an incident as to which both were really conscious was not brought about by either. The loafers now saw a chance of genuine entertainment, and without moving or shifting hands from pockets, added fuel to the fire by dropping in well-chosen en- couragement. The blowing horses stood by patiently, perhaps won- dering why the loud angry words were not addressed to them, accompanied by. the lash of the whip. The Salva- tion Army man made a few quick steps towards the men, and drew up irresolute. Although in his paid capacity of universal brother and general peacemaker it was his Digitized by Google 20 The Blindness of Virtue duty and privilege to interfere, his imderiying desire to see a fight held him back. Just as the fat drayman raised his fist to strike his mate in the face, and all heads were bent forward eagerly, a man sprang off his bicycle, leaned it expertly against the bridge, and put a huge muscular body between the dra}rmen. " Well, this is a new way of getting a cart oyer a bridge, Fm hanged if it isn't I Down with your fist, my fat friend, down with it, and get to the back of the cart I And as for you " — he turned to the man with the whip — ^*'if you touch your horses with that thing again I'll lay it about your shoulders." The men fell back amazed at what they inwardly called interference with several adjectives in front of it. Their voices died in their throats, however, when they examined the man who stood between them. His six foot two of bone and muscle was covered with a thick, brown Harris tweed golf coat and knicker- bockers. His thin legs, planted well apart, came to an end in a pair of large, diick shoes, studded with nails. Under the peak of his cap a large, well-formed nose divided a pair of dark, humorous, steady eyes. The lips of a particularly beautiful mouth were set tight. A tong determined chin, great square shoulders, a back as flat as a blackboard, and a pair of long arms settled any half- formed wishes to reply in both men's minds. "What's wrong? Taking it out of each other be- cause neither of )rou knows enough of your business to get your cart over the bridge ? " There was a sudden silence. The fat dra3rman drew a plump hand over his forehead and shook it. The tall man took off his coat. "It's the rottenest bridge of any in this foolish Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 21 county," he said. "That I grant you. But if one of you gets up and takes the reins and the other runs at the leader's head — ^no jagging his mouth, though! — we'll run the cart up and over in the twinkling of an eye. Now then, you gentlemen of leisure, oflF with your coats/' He swept his arm out towards the loafers, who stirred uneasily. " Now then, postman, back wheel, please. Come along, you chemist's boy. The Salvation Army on my side, top spoke. That's good." Grinning sheepishly, the postman, the boy, and the Salvation Army man fell in as directed. The rest of the men made no movement. " If, after I've counted six, the whole of you fellows haven't got oflF your coats and are ready on the wheels, I'll knock your heads together and pitch you one by one into the canal. One . . . two . . . three . . ." Apart from the ring of the voice, there was something in the eye and the tilt of the chin of the tall man that took oflf a dozen coats. They came oflF slowly — the lining in the sleeves of several made the process diflScult — but oflf they came. Once oflF, their owners shambled forward and stood ready for further orders at each of the wheels. The fat drayman climbed into the driver's seat and gathered up the reins. The other man stood under the leader's head. "Drop that whipl" It was thrown on to the path. "Now then. On the word go, you on the box will tighten the reins of the wheelers, and shout * Oop boys ' for all you are worth. You at the leader's head will lay your hands on his rein and run forward smartly. Digitized by Google 22 The Blindness of Virtue We, on the wheels, will turn the spokes with all our might. Is that dear?" A chorus of ** Yuss " rose up. The tall man wetted his fingers, rubbed his hands to- gether, and closed them over a spoke on the back off- side wheel. "Go I "he shouted. There was a scramble, a rush, a ringing of hoofs, a loud whoop from the fat man, and the cart and horses were on top of the incline. The tall man and the loafers, the postman, the chemist's boy, and the Salvation Army man fell back from the wheels, the brake was applied, and the cart jolted down the other side of the incline and stopped in front of the baker's shop on level ground. " Good ! " said the tall man, as he put on his coat. The drayman came back, picked up his whip, and touched his cap. " Thankee, sir ! " he said. " Not a bit," sang out the tall man ; " better bridges to you. Get back into your jackets, my men, or you'll catch cold. I only hope that your unaccustomed exer- cise won't make you all too stiff for loafing. Good-day I " He mounted his bicycle, dipped over the hill towards East Brenton, and disappeared through the railway arch, pedalling hard. The drayman turned to the postman. " Who's 'e, mate?" he asked. The postman grinned. " I lay you won't guess. He's a sport, any'ow." "Ah I" " And 'e's our parson too." "A parson?" In the drayman's voice there was a note of absolute astonishment. "Gorblimey, I didn't know as 'ow parsons was men ! " Digitized by Google Chapter II WHEN the name of Harry PembertOn was men- tioned by an ordinary good sort to an ordinary good sort, in tiie train, perhaps — apropos of parsons, or of East Brenton — or in a Qub smoking-room, or in the Pavilion at Lord's, anywhere, everywhere, pretty nearly always the same questions were asked and an- swered pretty nearly in the same words. ** Harry Pemberton, did you say? " "Rather!" "What! Harry Pemberton of the Honse — the Harry Pemberton?" "Rather!" " What ! Harry Pemberton who skippered Harrow two years running, and played for Oxford in '86, 7 and 8?** "Rather!" " What ! Harry Pen^rtOn who played for Middle- sex in '92 and 3?" "Rather!" "By Jove, he was a corkert Hit *em? Do you re- member his liftin' three consecutive balls bang over the pavilion against Sussex?" "Rather!" " Ha, ha I I wouldn't ha' missed it for a tenner. It was just before the General Election in '88. If he'd put up against the biggest political gun of either side, those three hits would ha' put him at the top of the poll into a majority as big as the Pavilion!" "Rather!" 23 Digitized by VjOOQ IC 24 The Blindness of Virtue '* I was at the House in his time/' "Were you, though?'' " His amazing energy, his absolute indifference to the small conventions of the College, his intolerance of cliques and effeminate men — what he called * poisonous people ' — his intense enthusiasm for all games and for his work, his gigantic optimism and his wonderful personal charm made him, from a fresher, the centre of attraction not only in the House, but in all Oxford. About his cricket one needn't speak. Wherever English is spoken, his name is a household word. But he had other — many other sides. He played tennis invincibly. His drive made professionals melancholy, though he was al- ways a bit weak on the green. He sang * I'll sing you songs of Araby* as though it was a drinking chorus — Good Heavens, how he roared I — and the recollection of his performance of *01d Gobb.,' with the O.U.D.S., makes one chuckle even now. He boxed overwhelm- ingly well, too, and played chess with the deadly ear- nestness of a German professor; and as to ragging, by Jove, he raised it to the level of art 1 What a career old Harry Pemberton would have had at the Bar, or in politics! You should have heard him at the Union! He hit his opponents as hard with his rhetoric as he hit 'em with the gloves. No man went down from Oxford with a more brilliant future. No tree was too tall for him to climb if he had chosen. And yet, like many a good man before him, he chucked all his chances away by going into the Church — the Church, think of it! Any blameless, mild idiot is good enough for the Church. Harry Pemberton ought to have been in the running for the Premiership. It makes me hot to think of how he's wasted himself. Conceive a man like that anchored in a flat, brickmaking, dead-alive, common- Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 25 place hole like East Brenton, or Brenleigh, or Brcn- something, herding with the hideous, respectable, middle- class nonentities who work out their meaningless little lives in places like this. Good God I you might as well plant an orchid in a cabbage patch, or expect an oak tree to grow in a back-yard beside a corrugated iron bicycle shed, or hang a Reynolds in an Insurance Agent's parlour among oleographs. In the Church! Pember- ** Yes, but although sky-piloting is a waste of such a man's life, he may become a bishop." "What? Harry Pemberton a bishop! Never. You don't know Harry Pemberton to say a thing of that sort. I was with him for a month's golf just before he was ordained. We played over half a dozen Scots links. Every evening after dinner he'd stick his back to the fire — what a back! — and hold forth on his ideas of Christianity. My dear fellow, if the whole shoot of bishops could have put their ears to the keyholes of the pub parlours we inhabited during that month there wouldn't have been one of 'em who could have dared to show his face in the pulpit again. Why, the very sight of Harry Pemberton would have been enough, even in those early days, to make a bishop's loose flesh crinkle! The holes he punched in their smug dogma were big enough to drive a flock of sheep through. The word dogma made him rise up like an angry St. Bernard. His religion was the religion of conmion- sense, not the religion of bishops. He wasn't going to preach the policy of being honest in this world in order to secure a safe seat in the next. He called that the wilful encouragement of diseased egoism. Ye Gods, I should like to have been lying in the luggage rack of a railway carriage in which were seated Harry Pember* Digitized by Google 36 The Blindness of Virtue ton and a bishop! If, at the end of the journey, hh lordship hadn't been carried to his palace in a state of nervous collapse, I'll eat my hat I Harry Pemberton in the House of Lords 1 Have you ever imagined what would happen if you put an eagle in a chicken run, or a cocotte in a suburban drawing-room mnong solicitors' wives, or if you fixed up an electric fan in a room full of smoke, or turned a Dreadnought searchlight on to a boat-load of smugglers? . . . Harry Pemberton in the Church ! What a waste of a good man ! " Or: "What station is this?" ** East Brenton." "East Brenton? East Brenton? What does this name ... I know I Old Harry Pemberton parsons at this flat, uninteresting hole." "Harry Pemberton? Which Harry Pemberton?" " Why the Harry Pemberton 1 — the only Harry Pem* bertoni" "You don*t say so? This is the place, is it? I re- member getting quite a shock when I heard that he'd flung up everything to go into the Church. The last man on earth to be a parson. By Jove, we could have done with him in the Service ! " " So could we in the House I As a lanky, raw-boned, beardless youth he had a better and clearer grasp of tiie trend of aflfairs than many a fuggy M.P. of fifty years standing. And he had the true fighting spirit too, and was a bom leader of men." "Did he show any signs of being pious up at Ox- 'ford?" " No, not pious, but he was absolutely unashamed of being straight He never rotted, and although he never interfered with the men that did, they jolly soon took Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 27 his tone. Several men of my time owe everything to Harry Pemberton's barefaced intolerance of the usual thing. He led, and they followed. He never cared a tuppenny dam what other men thought and said of him. He steered a bee line up the middle of the course. No backwaters for him. It was all totally unconscious. He had no side. He preferred the middle of the course, and he stuck to it. Others could follow or not. We followed, of course. A man like that is always fol- lowed. He was cut out to be top dog in any profession he took up." ** What made him go into the Church ? Did he have a 'call,' or an illness, or a shock, or what? Or did his mother want him to? — or was there a fat living in the family?" " Oh, bless you, no I His people had been Army and Navy for generations. They were frightfully sick, I remember. But no man or woman living put Harry Pemberton oflF a thing once he'd made up his mind. I don't know what microbe got into his brain during his last year. I came down before he did. The last time I was with him at Oxford was at a binge in the rooms of one of the eleven. He was as drunk as a lord, and insisted on dancing a breakdown on the table. I never shall forget the sight as long as I live. It was an old- - fashioned, low-ceilinged room over a tie shop in the high. He had to bend his long neck in order to avoid hitting it against the beams. All the eleven — ftdl to the chin — and a dozen more formed two deep round the table and whistled the air of the dance. He danced every- body into a helpless state of windlessness, and then lay on the table and fell asleep, smiling like an enormous cherub!" "Ha, hal" Digitized by Google 28 The Blindness of Virtue "No, there was no fat living. His people hadn't a shilling to bless themselves with — didn't I tell you they were soldiers and sailors? — nor had Harry. Why he went into the Church . . /* 4c 4c 4c ♦ « ♦ Harry Pemberton didn't allow his bicycle to free- wheel down the hill on the other side — the East Brenton side — of the railway arch. He pedalled hard. He was due at Paxton's Comer at half-past twelve o'clock. It was a good three-quarters of a mile to old Judd's cot- tage, and he had two minutes in which to do it. He did it. The mill hooter made the day hideous as he tilted his bicycle against the railings of the strip of garden, and opened the gate. Old Joe Judd, gardener by day, poacher by night, philosopher always, was seventy-two. If, during all these years, this capable old rascal had had one day's illness, it was due entirely to beer. On his seventy* second birthday he suddenly uttered a string of quite appallingly ingenious oaths, dropped his spade, and marched oflF, coatless, to the doctor's house, and com- plained of a pain. He was given a dose there and then of a light liver tonic, and a bottle of it to take away. He received many bottles of the same medicine, but the pain con- tinued. He went to work every day as usual, only to sit about, in quickly sagging clothes, in thoughtful atti- tudes. His lurcher slept peacefully o' nights, and no more rabbit-skins found their way into the copper. One Saturday evening his place in the " George " par- lour was vacant for the first time in the memory of East Brenton. The next morning the whole village knew that old Joe Judd had taken to his bed. His numerous sons and daughters — brickmakers and workers in the Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 29 fields — couldn't say what was the matter with the old man. One day Dr. Cox thought that it might be this, the next he thought that it must be the other. The pain grew worse. Old Joe Judd was not given much to religion, but dur- ing this time he was glad enough to see the parson, for the parson brought into the fuggy little bedroom the smell of turf and a sense of strength, and the news sounded very much better when he read it out than when Alf did. Besides, he never rubbed it in about be- ing sorry, or said melancholy things about hot fires, or made out that God expected him to be anything but what he was bom to be. He just talked cricket and local news, and took a hint or two about pruning roses, and when he went away, generally said that God was not a frowning monster, a sort of eternal Gradgrind, but absolutely one of the best And old Joe Judd felt on better terms with himself. As usual. Dr. Cox, a good fellow, a sound Tariff Reformer, but a very poor thing in doctors, called in a London man to have a look at old Judd. ^' I can't quite make out what's wrong with that old chap," he said. "Not a day's illness in seventy-two years, and as hard as a pea still. All the symptoms of indigestion, but " " I'll examine him," replied the London man. " Quite a useful motor this, eh? Now, what do you reckon it costs you to run, including man and petrol and wear and tear?" . . . That evening Alf Judd called at the Vicarage. He had washed his face, but not his neck, and wore his Sunday coat over his clay-stained waistcoat and trousers. Carefully placing a lighted American cigarette — a more than usually poisonous thing — on the sill of the draw- Digitized by Google 30 The Blindness of Virtue ing-room window, Alf followed the cook into the halL The dining-room door was shut, but Alf could hear the rumble of a rich, deep voice and peals of silver girlish laughter and the mellow laugh of a woman. The cook entered the room, and shut the door behind her. A sudden hush fell on the room. Alf heard a chair thrust back and the sotmd of heavy boots, nail- studded, on the polished boards. The door was flung open, and behind the great figure of the parson as he strode up, Alf could see the faces of a very pretty, rather frail-looking woman and a bonny, healthy girl turned towards the door anxiously ; a smallish room with white panelled walls, old-fashioned furniture, and a suggestion of pictures in thick dark frames all touched softly with candle light. Two strong, muscular, kindly hands fell on Alf 's shoul- ders, "Well, old fellow, what's the news?" Alf swallowed, and moved from one foot to the other. " Cancer, sir." Harry Pemberton's lips tightened, and he screwed up his eyes and raised his shoulders towards his ears in- voluntarily. His hands closed eloquently round Alf s arms. "Farver says as 'ow he'd tike it kindly if yew was ter . . ." " Why, of course. Let's go." He turned to his wife. "Bridge oflf for me, darling. When Pigott turns up, get him to sing to you, and tell him I'm frightfully sorry. And don't wait up. I'll let myself in. Now then, my lad." At a quarter to one the following morning, with a very tired face and heavy feet, but with a light as strong and steady in his eyes as a lantern has that has just Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 31 been filled afresh with oil, the parson stood on his door- step. With his key in his hand he turned and faced the young April moon for a moment and watched her lying in a clear sky among the stars, big and little, wise and foolish, that had served her mother and her mother's mother from the birth of the first Queen of the Night. There had been rain just after he had left the house several hours before, and the breeze smelt clean and pungent. The night was so clear that the bushes and trees, full of the fire of youth, could be seen nodding their budding branches, and the prim movements of bunches of tall daffodils upon the lawn were plain. Be- yond the lawn, with its high bank, dotted with rose- trees proud and happy with families of eager shoots, beyond the meadow and its awakening hedges, a steady line of Grenadier poplars stood, marking the line of the road, with all their fingers silhouetted against the sky. Harry Pemberton took off his cap and tilted up his chin. " It's a good world that You've given us, Almighty God," he said to himself, " Great Gardener of men and trees, best of Fathers of birds and fishes and little peo- ple — it's a very good and beautiful world, to be made the most of by all of us before the winter overtakes us. Old Joe Judd has had seventy-two years of it, and I his sons and daughters are asking me why You think it necessary to give him cancer. Just as though You have had anything to do with it, a busy Man like You ! Shall I never get Your little people to understand that You don't visit them with pain and suffering — that pain and suffering are merely accidents of life? • . • Old Joe Judd has had a grand innings. He has nothing to grum- ble about." He waved his hand to the moon, drew in a long, ap- Digitized by Google 32 The Blindness of Virtue preciative breath, and then, with great care, slipped his latch-key into the lock. A lamp was burning on the hall table. Its light fell upon the new driver that had been sent up from the Golf Qub while he had been with old Joe Judd. Harry Pemberton caught it up eagerly, and tip-toed out again into the silver night and down the steps. He halted on a patch of prim lawn. Fixing his eye on an imaginary ball, he swung the club several times mightily. " Hm," he said to himself, " it's a good *un. A regu- lar corker. Must play a round with it in the morning, if there's time." Time? If the day had contained twice its hours, and each hour had been twice as long, Harry Pemberton would have found it just as difficult to find time for anything that did not demand his personal attention — the giving out to his friends the villagers of his mag- netism, his optimism, his breezy common-sense, his in- exhaustible fund of vitality. Fifty things cropped up in the morning between eight o'clock and twelve: an accident at the Mill; the birth of a child in a cottage in which there was no food or fuel, and no blanket on the bed ; the visit to the village of a recruiting sergeant, and the pulling out by the ears of a half a dozen hefty young blackguards to be enlisted; an interview with a member of the Parish Council to endeavour to enforce the proper lighting of the roads at night. These things, and others all trivial, all immensely important, had kept the parson busy. For all that he arrived at old Joe Judd's cottage as the hooter announced half-past twelve. The previous night he had arranged that old Joe Judd should be taken to the Middlesex Hospital that day. The London man had promised to perform an operation. "Hopeless," Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 33 said he, ^ utterly hopeless, but it may keep him alive a month or two longer/* Old Joe Judd had no wish to die, but he wouldn't go to the Hospital unless the parson saw him off. So Harry Pemberton entered the garden at half-past twelve, and drew up with an exclamation of anger. Standing on the narrow, box-lined path was a group of women, daughters and daughters-in-law and mothers of daughters-in-law, and neighbours of the old man. Most of them were dressed in black clothes, as though they were going to the funeral of old Joe Judd, and sev- eral were weeping. Harry Pemberton swung up the path. "The deuce take you I " he said. " What on earth are you here for, in those beastly clothes? You've come to bury the old man before he's dead. If you think you're going to wring out of this affair half an hour's enjoyable emotion, you're jolly well mistaken. Either be cheerful and full of en- couragement or go home and do your washing. Do you hear me? Stop snivelling." He put his hands on the shoulders of one woman — a thin, ugly creature, with no front teeth, who had thrown a shawl over her head and was indulging in an ecstasy of weeping — and ran her down the path, out of the gate, and into the next-door cottage, J "Stir from here if you dare!" he cried. "You've done nothing since I've known you but quarrel with Joe Judd and spread stories about him. You're not going to have two penn'orth of enjoyment out of him now that he's off to the hospital." He slammed the door, and returned to the other women. " Understand," he said. " No tears. Joe is not going away to be operated upon so that you may all have a beautiful cry. He's going away so that he may have a Digitized by Google 34 The Blindness of Virtue few months more to live. Cheer him. Wish him ludc Make him think that he'll come back as fit as ever. One tear from any of you and you answer for it to me." A cab drove up. Women and children crowded to the doors of their cottages. The telegraph boy pocketed his golf ball, whistled to his dog» and strolled across the green to watch. A painter, motmted on a ladder which was standing against the window of the doctor's house, turned round and sat comfortably upon the top spoke. He congratu- lated himself on having a splendid view. The baker's man, the Brewery boy, Reddish, the landlord of the *' George," and the doctor's chaufifeur made a group at a comer of the green. Goddard, the grocer, took up a position on his doorstep, and a dozen children, just let out of school, rushed up and surrounded the cab. Harry Pemberton went into the small, low-ceilinged living-room of the cottage. Several men were sitting on chairs ranged along the wall opposite to the fireplace, smoking in silence — sons and sons-in-law, photographs of whom, taken at different stages of their lives, one or two of them in uniform, hung on the walls. "Now then, my dear fellows," said Pemberton, "no gloominess in front of the old man. Absolute cheerful- ness is the order of the day, and a good ringing cheer when the cab drives off. Is the old man nearly ready? " Before any of them could reply, old Joe Judd's voice was heard, " Aye I " he said, " I be a-comin', sir." Then followed the squeaking of his best Sunday boots on the narrow stairs. In a blue jacket with a velvet collar, grey trousers, tight at the knee, and belled out at the ankles, a white collar and a red tie over a bulging stiff dickie, a bowler hat at a brave angle, and a bunch of primroses in his buttonhole, came old Joe Judd. His Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 35 face, glistening with soap, his upper lip shaved clean, his iron-grey stubbly beard well brushed, his little hu- morous, cunning eyes very bright, the poor old man looked more like going to a wedding than to the operating table. " Good for you, Joe," sang out Pemberton, swallowing something that came suddenly into his throat ''Buck up, old man ; weVe just got nice time for the train ! " " Be you a-comin' ter the station, sir? " "Rather!" " Thankee I " said the old man. With great simplicity he went up to each of his sons and kissed him — big men in middle age. His sons-in- law he shook by the hand. Then he followed Pemberton into the garden and kissed each of the now appallingly cheerful women. Then, wearing a proud smile, he got into the cab. The parson hoisted a well-corded, bright yellow tin trunk on the board at the cabman's feet, and got into the cab also. A cheer was raised by the children and echoed by the men in the garden, and away went the cab. '* Joe," said the parson, " your dog is going to stay with me till you come home again." *' Thankee, sir," said the old man. "Am I a-comin' back, then?" " Of course you are ! " said Harry Pemberton. Digitized by Google Chapter III THE Vicarage at East Brenton had been, a hundred and fifty years ago, a farm house, with granaries and outhouses and cow-sheds and stables. The house, two-storied, square, flat-faced, regular windowed, warm and red of brick, was Queen Anne, Yews, tenderly clipped, grew on each side of its broad, stone steps and framed its doorway. They grew up the walls between the windows also like buttresses, slow of growth, green all the year round. Birds carried on their romances in them, married and settled down in them, and brought up their families in the warm shelter of their arms. Before Harry Pemberton brought his wife and daughter to it this house had been inhabited for thirty years by the former Vicar, a man of great taste and some private means. This man had had the paper peeled from its wainscoted walls and had had them all painted whitt, according to Cocker. He had also turned the meadow- land, which in his first occupancy of the house had spread over the places where the granaries and outhouses had been, into a garden, with pergolas, rose entwined, with a large, smooth lawn, herbaceous bed-surrounded, and with a rose garden, Dutch-wise in its regularity. He had also made a kitchen garden on the kitchen side of the house on as near as may be an acre of good earth which lay between four warm walls. Inside and out- side the Vicarage was good to see. And as much outside as inside Harry Pemberton had passed twenty of the twenty-four years of his married life. And every year 36 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 37 of them had been a year of great happiness, never ending eflFort and perfect content. After coming down from Oxford, Harry Pemberton had been appointed curate to the Rector of St. Stephen's, Eaton Square. The bishop who ordained him saw in Harry the makings of a fashionable preacher. He argued that the right place for such a magnificent animal was London — the West End of London. Any shambling, snub-nosed, round-shouldered little man was good enough for yokels. London, feminine London, was only to be drawn into the church by men outwardly attractive. Harry was not only outwardly attractive — a physical giant, endowed with what his Lordship called a mag- netism almost dangerous — he was also a mental giant. It seemed a pity, his lordship couldn't help thinking, that a man so liberally gifted should have chosen a career in which his chance of advancement was neces- sarily so small. The Army, Politics . . . However, the Church would doubtless be proud of him, and, at any rate, he should start his career with a blue in curacies. With unconscious cynicism the bishop therefore ap- pointed the young curate to a church in which his re- markable personality could be made the most of. Its present rector, the third son of a peer who held a high post in the Cabinet, and could not, in consequence, be dislodged, had not proved himself an attraction. Indeed, frankly, his platitudinous sermons, his timid convention- ality, his total inability to be even mildly daring and piquant, had gradually driven his congregation away. Although an earnest, even an enthusiastic servant of Almighty God, a most honourable, upright minister of the Gospel, he was, as things were, the bishop considered, a square man in a round hole — not of course in any way Digitized by Google 38 The Blindness of Virtue comparing this place of worship with a rotind hole, but speaking picturesquely, as it were. He was pained to notice that the cue of carriages had almost ceased to line up outside the church during the Season, and that, naturally, the offerings, especially on special occasions, were sadly shrunken. This condition of affairs at a church well within the fashionable radius, pained the bishop not a little. Nothing could be done, even by pulling judicious wires, to dislodge its incumbent. Nothing could be brought up against him either personally or as a servant of Almighty God, which, even were he not his father's son, would enable the bishop to shift him. To put forward as rea- sons for his removal the facts that he resolutely refused to pander to the modem woman's desire for theatricality in the Church service, that he was physically unable to appeal to their sense of sestheticism, and that he turned away with horror from any suggestion of awakening the fervent religious sensualism that is part and parcel of every woman's constitution, and which, if judiciously and tactfully stirred up, brings great grist to the Church coffers, was, of course, unfortunately impossible. So that, when Harry Pemberton, tanned, wiry, blue of eye, six foot two in his socks, broad of back, with a ringing voice, an immense enthusiasm, an utter disregard for convention, a young Viking with the glorious laurels of athletic triumphs round his head, had to be placed, what more natural than for the bishop, who was a man of great tact, to send him to Eaton Square. "I think — I say, I think," said his lordship, in re- ferring to the matter to his secretary, " that this young man will prove quite irresistible at St. Stephen's. In his surplice he will not, it is true, convey the faintest suggestion of that pre-Raphaelitism which was so useful Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 39 m our early days. He will not attract the young ladies, and other ladies — after all they must be thought of — 1^ reason of any pale etherealism that was once so essen- tial for fashionable success. His appeal will be rather on account of his delightful strength, his healthiness, his unashamed unconventionality. He will astonish. He will be a new sensation. His incong^ity will be most fascinating — and, doubtless, he will make a good mar- riage/* The bishop was right, St. Stephen's, Eaton Square, not many months after Harry preached his first evening sermon, became the thing to do on that wretched day Sunday. All its old glories were unconsciously revived by him. Standing room only was the order of the day. All the beautiful women in London Society, exquisitely and very cleverly made up to resemble notorious Parisian cocottes — it was the fashion even so long ago as twenty- four years, and it has never died out — scrambled and elbowed to find pews. Harry quickly became " that dar- ling man.'* He was pestered with invitations to break- fast, luncheon, tea, dinner, supper. Married women, and their little dogs, forced their way into his poorly furnished, tobacco-reeking rooms in Eaton Terrace at all times of the day, leaving behind them an anmia of delicate scent and dozens of quite judicious con- fessions. Unmarried women, without little dogs, with nearly as much to confess, and emitting exactly the same delicate aroma, waylaid him outside the vestry. The leading actors of the day were not half so pestered for photo- graphs, autographs, and lists of their favourite authors as was Harry Pemberton. Nor were their matinees half so crowded as were his morning services. He was inundated with beautiful pocket-books, silver Digitized by Google 40 The Blindness of Virtue cigarette cases, hand-decorated bath slippers, hand-made doyleys, hand-knitted silk ties, hand-made suits of silk pyjamas. Married and unmarried women loved him pas- sionately, and threw themselves at his feet. Nothing that he cared to ask for would have been refused. He asked for nothing, and refused everything that was offered — without once realising that everything was offered. In the first flush of enthusiasm, too one-eyed in his desire to be of use to see clearly the utter insincerity of the people among whom his daily work took him, Harry threw himself heart and soul into his duties. His rector, the Hon. and Rev. Douglas Verschoyle, found in him an honest, fearless, never-sparing young man, and won the undying admiration and esteem of his curate by his own simple, unaffected. God-fearing methods. In- stinctively they found themselves resenting the gush and shallowness of the women who began to make their church a happy hunting-ground, and before the end of his first year Harry, like Mr. Verschoyle, began to de- vote himself entirely to the poor of the parish. His slow discovery that he was merely looked upon by the smart women of the congregation as a new thing to be ex- ploited filled him with disgust. Gradually, the very sight and swish of exquisite clothes, the mere sound of affected voices, caused him nostalgia. He presently gave up go- ing near the women who pestered him with their atten- tions, and settled down to slimi work. If otily he had known it, he could have chosen no more effective way of adding fuel to the fire of their unhealthy desire than by leaving these women to them- selves. The more difficult of access he became the more desirable they found him. He was never at home, he would accept no invitation, he refused to see any one after the services, he dodged way-laying parties, he re- Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 41 fused to permit the young society girls to work with him among the poor. He sent them back to their pleasures with brusque words. Several of them who were honestly in love with him, and gladly would have sacrificed their social positions and physical comfort to be his wife, were obliged to undergo rest cures and nerve cures and changes of air. If he was to be seen the services must be attended. So the church was always full, even when the rector preadied, as it was his custom to do in the morning of Sunday. Harry preached every Sunday evening, but he gave the sentimental women who stared wistfully up into his face no satisfaction. He carefully avoided any- thing like sensationalism. He made no bitter, eloquent, and highly coloured attacks upon Society, which would have given them great delight. He simply preached the Word of God, the gospel of common sense, with almost boyish abruptness. He allowed himself no theatricalism. The bishop was satisfied, though frankly puzzled. All his preconceived notions of how to make the church at- tractive turned a somersault. Here was a man deliber- ately trying to make his church unattractive, and filling it at every service. That Harry Pemberton was a suc- cess was an established fact. The Sunday offertories had more than regained their old delightful substantiality. In fact, they were more satisfactory than they had been in the days of Canon Mambly Manson, whose beautiful face, long white hands, flowing chestnut hair, had drawn the town until that epoch-making day upon which he had disappeared utterly and entirely from the scene of his oily triumphs, leaving vague whispers behind him of a warning from the Public Prosecutor, and debts to the extent of several thousands of pounds. Four years slipped off the calendar. Wars and vol- Digitized by Google 42 The Blindness of Virtue canic eruptions ; deaths of men so great that their coun* tries feared that they could never be replaced, and im- mediately replaced them; great political crises filled the papers for a day or two, and were swamped by some brilliant feat in county cricket ; murders, robberies, frauds, the erection of new buildings, the discovery of scientific secrets which revolutionised civilisation, — all these smaU everyday things occurred, with monotonous regularity, and Harry Pemberton was still to be found at work in the slums with undiminished optimism and whole-heart- edness, establishing boys' brigades and gymnasia, clubs for old women and men, cheerfully bullying dirty people into cleanliness, self-indulgent people into healthiness, martyrs into cheerfulness, and sufferers into patience. Everywhere in his parish were evidences of his woric. He had won a place in the homes and hearts of the poor. His influence was almost magical. His good example was to be seen in the most unexpected places, but the offertories of St. Stephen's, Eaton Square, had sunk to insignificance, and the cue of carriages was no longer to be seen. The delicate aroma of scent no longer rose from crowded pews. The fashionable audience had grown tired of a man who refused to pander, and had trans- ferred itself to another place of Sunday entertainment. And then the gentle rector turned his face to the light and died. His work had been like a constant shower of rain upon dry earth, but his obituary notices were rele- gated to the columns devoted to minor concerts and amateur theatricals, and notes on gardening. The incumbency of St. Stephen's, Eaton Square, was vacant. The bishop was inundated with letters from im- portant people begging for the appointment for a second cousin. His lordship sent for Harry Pemberton. They lunched together in the most friendly and in- Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 43 formal way at the Palace. His lordship was kind enough to ofifer the young clergyman his high praise for his ad- mirable work, " than which," said he, " there was none in any parish more sterling, more acceptable to God." Cricket averages were discussed, the present trend of thought at their mutual Alma Mater, the chances for and against the disestablishment of the Church, the spread of Roman Catholicism in England, the Education Bill and the Code, the latest novel and the latest production of a Shakespeare play. Over a box of Egyptian cigarettes, the all-important topic of the moment was gradually and cordially ap- proached. *' Three hundred applications have been made to me for the living," said the bishop, flicking his ash expertly into a silver tray. " But my choice, my dear Pemberton, falls upon you." Harry flushed up. "Upon me?" he cried. "After four years* work only ? " "Your work has been, as I have said, most admir- able," replied his lordship. "I am convinced — and I do not speak hastily and without long and earnest con- sideration — that you are the best man. You are, of course, very young. But that, my dear fellow" — the bishop had a charmingly breezy manner — ^"is not a permanent fault You will grow out of it ! Ha I ha I " "Hal ha I" echoed Harry breathlessly. " As you know, the living carries with it twelve hun- dred a year and many pickings. You can feed almost free. You can have the run of a hundred houses. You are not supposed to return hospitality. You can live like a gentleman, have your little hobbies, and one good Con- tinental, or other, holiday per annum. But — there is in this, as in most other things, a but, my dear Pemberton Digitized by Google 44 The Blindness of Virtue — you must make certain concessions to modem ideas. Before you accept this church, you must give me your promise to conform more to the needs of its locality. You must become a little more tolerant, a little broader in your methods ; in short, to put it plainly, you must con- sent to pander somewhat, in fact, considerably, to popu- larity. You must, my dear young man, be more humble and many-sided. You must — I speak to you now as your friend and well-wisher as well as your bishop — pose a little. Society women, whose church St. Ste- phen's is, must be humoured. To humour them and to bring them to, keep them in, church you must lay yourself out to be the attractive man. The role of St. Anthony is a good one in some parishes — not in the parish of Belgravia. Dear old Verschoyle was quite hopeless. His influence over you helped to empty the church. After all, remember, pretty women, wealthy women, fast women, have souls as well as poor women, and the people in mean streets. You see how desper- ately well Linthorpe in Sloane Street has cut you out! I don't think I need say any more, eh?" Harry Pemberton sat very straight in his chair. There was a curious glint in his eyes. It was always to be seen in them when he had gone in to bat. He put his cigarette in the beautiful Jacobean silver tray. "No, my lord," he said, "there is no need for you to say any more." "You accept and give me your promise?" " I refuse, utterly and finally." The bishop rose with every sign of justifiable temper. "What do you mean, Mr. Pemberton?" Harry rose too. His lips were trembling and his face was very white. " I am not an actor," he said quietly, " or a Society Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 45 palmist and clairvoyant. If women and men don't come to church of their own free will, I won't, for the sake of twelve hundred a year and free meals, or for the sake of anything or anybody, make grimaces to bring them to it I have more respect for my Master and for myself." "Don't talk to me of your Master in that Drury Lane melodramatic manner, sir I I think I know as much of what is due to your Master as you do ! " "My lord, I am sorry to say that I don't think so." Harry faced the blazing bishop squarely, towering bravely above his lordship's adipose, well-groomed body. " On your terms I can't be the rector of St. Stephen's." " And I take it that you resign your curacy," cried the bishop. " If it pleases your lordship." " It does please me, sir." He pointed a shaking finger to the door. Harry turned on his heel, and stumped out of the room. That evening, faced with the certainty of being pen- niless and churchless, Harry Pemberton asked Helen Dtmstan to be his wife. Digitized by Google Chapter IV HARRY PEMBERTON had known Helen Dunstan for nearly four years. Her father, old Mr. Dunstan — he was not a day more than fifty-five, but he had generally been known as old Mr. Dunstan for many years, and had scoffingly been called Rip Van Winkle at Charterhouse and Ox- ford — was one of those curious, uncommunicative men who had few friends, fewer acquaintances, and no en- emies. He did nothing. He was almost abnormally devoid of ambition. It was a word he did not understand and did not tolerate. He had inherited eight hundred a year at an early age. Whereupon he chose a wife, married, took the Ebury Street house, put up shelves from the floor to the ceiling of his own absolutely private room, drew up a code of rules for the manage- ment of his house, and slowly and with immense care and deliberation bought books. As he bought them he read them, filling the margins with notes in a small, cramped handwriting, entering the names of each purchase in a large, leather-bound book. His life was as small and cramped as his hand- writing, and not more useful than his marginal notes. Each day was an exact replica of the one before. He rose at eight, drank a tumbler of cold water, bathed and dressed and breakfasted at nine. He then read till ten. Wet or fine, Sunday, Bank Holiday, or birth- day, he walked out till eleven-thirty haunting the second- 46 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 47 hand bookshops and sale rooms, always carrying an um- brella that he never rolled up, and always wearing a well- brushed silk hat From eleven-thirty until one-thirty he read, deeply, and with close concentration, as though he were studying for some horribly difficult examination. He r^^rded these hours as his best. Luncheon was a silent meaL Unless it was neces- sary to speak, old Mr. Dunstan never spoke or wished to be spoken to. The manufacture of small talk he re- garded as a highly objectionable habit At the same time eating was a business, not an enjoyment With each mouthful he religiously counted sixty. He never ate sweets or drank spirits or beer. Barley-water with a slice of lemon was his beverage. After luncheon he returned to his room and deliber- ately dozed for half an hour. Then he read until a quarter to seven, at which hour he washed and changed for dinner. A small teapot was brought to his room at four-thirty. At dinner he always commented briefly on the weather, after the soup; on the book he had bought that morning and on its author, after the fish; asked his wife for a short account of her day's doings, after the joint ; and bade her good-night, after the cheese. Returning to his room he smoked one home-made cigarette, and paced the room until it was smoked oul^ and read again until eleven o'clock. He then bathed in hot water and went to bed. The only paper that was allowed into his house was the AthentBum. Daily journalism he held in detesta- tion. He knew nothing and refused to know anything of politics and current events. He was entirely and carefully ignorant of the trend of affairs at home and abroad, in so far as they were reported by and com- Digitized by Google 48 The Blindness of Virtue mented on by journalists. All that he did know of these things he gathered from his books. He had married in order that the necessary domestic machinery of his house should be run smoothly. He had no affection for the little prim lady who had, by accepting him, ruined her life. He held her, however, in the highest consideration and the deepest respect. She, poor soul, for all her early Victorian ways and appearance, was a woman of sentiment with a romantic side to her beautiful character that was not warped by her strange, silent, regular life, but was fed and en- couraged by it. She had fallen in love with Rip Van Winkle, and had remained in love with old Mr. Dunstan. After the first week of married life she realized that her youth and her dreams were over. The shock nearly killed her, but the latent romance in her nature came to her rescue and saved her reason. Endowed with a faculty for make-believe to an in- ordinate and most fortunate degree, she instantly built up round her automaton husband a wonderful romance. To her he was not the ego-maniac that he was known to be to others. He was a great student, a remarkable scholar, a wise man, a seer, to be proud of, to be hu- mcNired and protected and obeyed. She attended the funeral of her youth, and rose again devoid of self- indulgence — a ministering angel, a humble, yet proud woman. She dedicated her life to the genius of whom she saw so little, and served him with a degree of im- agination that placed her among the Great Artists. The one intense passionate desire of her life was to run his house so perfectly, that while she might never earn a word of praise, she should never deserve a word of blame. No praise and no blame were ever meted out to her Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 49 during the five years of her life with him — five ex- tremely happy years which were brought to a close by an event to her so wonderful that it caused her death, and to her husband so unexpected that it upset the routine of one whole week. She brought into the world a baby girl, had time to feel its warmth and softness once against her heart, and slipped out of life. Old Mr. Dunstan's feelings at this irrevocable loss were not those of grief. They were of intense annoyance. He knew to a small extent what his wife's death meant to him, to his personal comfort, to his ease of mind. He knew that it was due to a great extent to her that the house was clean and quiet, and that things were not permitted to be moved from their allotted places, bu* he also knew that upon him would devolve all the up- setting duties that death leaves in its wake, and that the child, the unexpected child, would, if like other children, become a matter for constant worry. So old Mr. Dtmstan, then in the middle of his thirties, sent for a widowed and childless sister, the very spit of himself. She arrived, and on the morning after the funeral was given, with the longest speech he ever made, the keys of the house and the charge of the child. Whereupon old Mr. Dunstan resumed the routine of his life as if nothing had happened. Two rooms at the top of the house were emptied to receive his ever-in- creasing list of books, and the house in Ebury Street remained as quiet as ever. Little Helen Dunstan grew up, and old Mr. Dunstan grew old. Helen, at eighteen, met Harry, at twenty-four, in the first year of his curacy. She taught in the Sunday school, very quietly, very capably, and passed, slight Digitized by Google 50 The Blindness of Virtue and small and very sweet, from house to house in the slums. She was her mother over again. She was as prim, as self-effacing, as self-sacrificing, and just as ro- mantic. She was of the stuff that heroines are made of — the unconscious heroines of the house, the ccxnmon- place heroines, the angels of domesticity. When Harry first saw her, she affected him as a rippling tune played on a spinet, as a whiff of lavender, as a verse of simple but exquisite poetry, affects. He found her a good listener, an invaluable lieutenant, an accurate, punctual, absolutely reliable second-in-com- mand. Her unruffled temper, her quick intuition, her inexhaustible sympathy, her surprising optimism, her un- conditional, unlimited faith, acted upon him refreshingly, fed him in his hungry moments, encouraged him al- ways. He didn't fall in love with her as she instantly fell in love with him. He gave her his confidence and his trust, was unable to do without her constantly at his side, would have missed her as the earth would miss the sun. She, small, neat, dainty, unobtrusive, was the pansy type of woman rather than the rose — the woman who bloomed in a quiet, charming, and steady way almost all the year round, unaffected by change of temperature, by cold and wet, content to take her place in the side- walks of life, not the woman, rose-like, of great beauty of colour and form, who bloomed gorgeously, almost in- solently, for every one to see, and fell to pieces in the first storm. For nearly four years these two worked together, side by side, she so little, he so big. During these busy years she had grown about him as ivy grows about an oak. She had no hope of marrying him, and never Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 51 gave the matter even so much as a thought. This did not prevent her from loving him as a lark loves the sky, as a dog his master. Nor had he the smallest intention of asking her to be his wife. He had no time to think of marriage. But as he left the bishop's palace, a man without a church, and knew that his schools, his gymnasia, his clubs, his slums, his large circle of friends, would know him no more, a great wave of loneliness, of home-sick- ness, of depression swamped him, and he hurried to Ebury Street. His eager, peremptory knock startled old Mr. Dunstan out of his afternoon doze, and made Helen look quickly across the drawing-room at Mrs. Maberly. Harry took the stairs three at a time, and came upon the quiet, industrious women like a south-east wind. With the greatest difficulty he kept back an almost over-mastering desire to take the girl in his arms and carry her away. Tea came in and steadied him, and Mrs. Maberly said stereotyped things about the lateness of the spring. But Helen knew that something had happened. This was not the first time by many that the curate had smothered one of the neat drawing-room chairs or swallowed up in his large hands one of the small afternoon tea-cups. She knew by the distention of her master's nostrils and the wideness of his eyes. He waited until Mrs. Maberly had finished tea, rest- lessly, eyeing her almost fiercely. Then he leaned for- ward, covered her hand with one of his, and said, " Don't think me most awfully rude, but could you possibly think of an3rthing very important that you haven't said to cook?" Then he got up, marched to the door, and held it open. A look of utter bewilderment came into the elderly lady's face. She gazed at the big, electrical man for a Digitized by Google 52 The Blindness of Virtue moment through her gold-rimmed glasses, with her back stiff and her eyebrows meeting; then her face suddenly melted. Stooping down, she hastily gathered up her workbasket, bent over Helen, and dropped a kiss upon her cheek and ran. Harry shut the door, and strode over to the girl's chair. " Do you understand? " he asked. " I am leaving this place. I have had to give in my resignation. But I can't go without you. Will you come with me?" " Please ! " she said. " I will be your housekeeper." A great laugh burst from Harry. He stooped, put his hands under the girl's elbows, and lifted her up. "Blow housekeeper!" he said, looking into her face. " I love you, and I shall be useless without you. Be my little wife." Sitting in the next room, with her spectacles too dim to see through, Mrs. Maberly heard a cry. She jumped up, left the room, and opened the drawing-room door. She saw Helen standing on a chair, wrapped up in Harry's arms, with her face down upon his shoulder. Digitized by Google Chapter V AN hour later, soothed, quieted, and more confident, Harry took the narrow stairs which led up to old Mr. Dunstan's sacred room two at a time. He knocked at the door, sharply. A thin, reproach- ful, and surprised voice called out, "Who is it? What do you want ? " Harry entered. Sitting in a comfortable arm-chair, a few yards away from a small, well-behaved fire, he saw a little, neat, elderly man, dressed with scrupulous care, shaved and brushed perfectly, spectacles resting upon a thin, straight nose. In front of him, upon a reading-stand, stood a large book, at such an angle as would permit its reader to write upon its margin, should he deem it necessary or unnecessary to do so. Harry caught a startled, irritable glance from a pair of small grey eyes and heard an exclamation of annoy- ance. He stood for a moment upon an excellent Turkey carpet, and breathed in the atmosphere of the quiet, aloof room. From floor to ceiling there were line upon line of books. More books stood in piles upon the floor, and were ranged along the mantel-shelf. One of the windows was open, an inch from the top, but the air of a busy, striving, progressive world seemed to refuse to enter this unmoving, archaic place. Harry felt like an explorer who passes suddenly out of the sun into a dell thickly roofed in with the old arms of ancient trees through which no daylight has pierced for years. Blinking and instinctively lowering his voice, he said, 53 Digitized by Google 54 The Blindness of Virtue ** I beg your pardon for disturbing you. Can you give me a moment?" Old Mr. Dtmstan shivered. The sudden contact with a man so full of life, who breathed of energy, of mo- dernity, of endeavour, of electricity, affected him unccwn- fortably. " What is it, please? " he asked. " My name is PembertcMi — Harry Pemberton. I am a clergyman with whom your daughter has worked for four years." " Oh ! I've heard of you," said old Mr. Dunstan. " That's a help," said Harry involuntarily. " I've just asked Helen to marry me. She has no objection. Have you?" " None whatever," said old Mr. Dunstan hastily. " Is that all?" "-That's all," said Harry. " Then, good-afternoon," said old Mr. Dunstan. " Good-afternoon," said Harry. When he got back to his rooms that evening, and sat down to a hurried and lonely meal, among his pipes and papers, boots and bats, tobacco tins and photographs of University groups, a feeling of renewed strength, hope, and determination filled his heart. He had lost his post, but he had won an angel. There were other posts that he could and would fill with, please God! more energy and more sympathy, and here was, to his hand, a woman, utterly without pride and conceit, from whose inexhausti- ble spring of Faith and goodness he would drink so long as the earth was beautified by her presence — a woman who, by accepting him as a husband, conferred upon him an honour and a blessing that could be properly appre- ciated only by the dedication of his life to her and to all that she represented. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 5S He laughed loud and long over his brief interview with old Mr. Dunstan. All the same, it gave him a lesson that he should never forget. What, after all, did marriage matter, the giving of a daughter's life into the hands of a stranger? Very little — nothing. That old man, rank egoist, of no use in the scheme of life, the husk of a man, of no more value than a puff of smoke, considered that his reading was of monumental importance. His work, according to himself, was vital. Death, marriage, and all the other incidents of the hour and day must not be allowed to disturb him. Harry read into this attitude a sort of reprimand. It must not matter to him whether he lost a post here and took one up there, whether he were married or single, happy or unhappy. His work must come first — the work he conceived it to be his duty to carry out. And so with this feeling upon him he served the re- mainder of his time as curate at St. Stephen's, Eaton Square, to the best of his ability and waited — as a soldier waits for his marching orders to go to another scene of action. It happened that, a day or two before he preached his last sermon in St. Stephen's, he came face to face in Sloane Square with a man called Blois who had been up at Oxford in his time. This man, an excellent fel* low and good sportsman, was lord of the Manor of East Brenton in Middlesex. The living of the place was in his gift. The old Vicar had died suddenly. As much for the welfare of the place, for which Blois had some sentiment, as from a desire to serve a man he admired and liked whole-heartedly, he begged Harry to step into the old Vicar's shoes. Harry jumped at the offer. Be- yond all things, he wanted to work in a place less ever- shifting than the parish of St Stephen's. Working in Digitized by Google 5^ The Blindness of Virtue the slums of Belgravia was much like baling out a pond fed by a spring. It was no sooner emptied than it filled again. He wanted to fix his whole attention on a place m which the people lived more or less permanently — as permanently as it pleased the unrespecting, indiscrim- inate Angel of Death to permit. In such a place, how- ever small, he could, at least, make it his business to see that the people, however few, took on a kinder, cleanlier, more sober, more optimistic, view of life, and keep them to it. The day after he left Eaton Square found him in possesion of the Vicarage, East Brenton, a married man. By mutual consent the Pembertons decided against spend- ing their honeymoon in uncomfortable seaside rooms, or at some poky little hotel dumped down on the edge of a golf links. For one thing, Harry had no money. He never had any money. And for another, both he and Helen were eager to set to work again. They were filled with the itch that possesses good gardeners to hoc and weed and tidy up; plant, water, and culti- vate. They fotmd the Vicarage a kind of paradise. Young May stared them in the face when they arrived and welcomed them with all her most exquisite charm of manner. She had burst into ebullience after a late, dank, depressing spring. She had awakened all the trees and hedges. Their first fresh green was almost dazzling. The fruit-trees were powdered with blossoms. The big, fat chestnut buds were on the verge of bursting, the little eyes of the lilacs just about to open wide. In the Vicarage garden the beds were filled with yellow regiments of daffodils and a white army of narcissi. The small blue staring eyes of forget-me-nots looked tip wonderingly at the sun. White pansies clung to- Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 57 gether in the quiet beds, and golden and terra-cotta wallflowers made bold splashes of colour. The heads of sweet-peas had emerged from the earth, and were strained to catch the view. Lilies, as yet in the first flush of girlish grace, stood erect with all their slender fingers stretched. Under the eaves of the old house the martins chattered as they built their nests or darted here and there scream- ing with delight and mischief. Blackbirds and thrushes made little eager, nervous excursions upon the lawn on the hunt for careless worms with which to feed their babies. Larks flung themselves into the warm air and sent up their miraculous solos to Heaven. A colony of white pigeons gurgled on the roof of an ancient bam, and strutted after each other now with grotesque dignity, now with sudden runs, head down, tail lowered, now with waltz-like movements upon the lawn and along the gravel paths between the rose-trees. As the sun went down behind a line of poplars that first evening to the soft anthem of a countless choir of bird voices, Harry and his little wife stood hatless, hand in hand, and looked silently and eagerly and bravely out upon the village which lay beyond their gates. On the flat green three elderly horses fed, their day's work done. A bevy of boys played cricket in the fading light with shrill shouts. One after the other a party of crows flapped heavily homeward, very black against the cloud- less sky. The chimney of a brewery shot out from among its broad roofs and towered about the heads of cottages that straggled, unevenly, or in ugly rows, round the borders of the green. Oil-lamps flickered in the win- dows of a shop or two, and gleamed brightly and in- vitingly in the windows and above the doors of three Inns. A party of sturdy field-girls stumped in single file Digitized by Google 58 The Blindness of Virtue and in ootqiles ahmg the nairow path singing softly through their nos«t, and in their patches of front garden tired women stood^ bare-headed, circulating gossips A string of market carts, loaded with cabbage, made their way slowly towards London, and a faint breeze stirred the sleepy young leaves. "Here stand the two Vicars of East Brenton, dar- ling," said Harry softly, "and there lies East Brenton, and over us all sits God. Give us both strength and courage. Father, caution and patience. We are very keen, we two, spoiling to do our work. Grant that we may plant in Your children's hearts the seed of Your love, and bring into their drab lives some of Your great <^timism, for Jesus Christ's sake." Digitized by Google Chapter VI THERE were two kitchens in the back of the Vicar- age, They were divided by a passage that ran from the front door to the back door. One opened out into the kitchen garden, the other looked out on to the lawn from one window and on to the Dutch-wise rose garden from the other. This room Harry pounced upon at once, planted in it an immense desk, hung it round with his cricket groups, stuffed its comers with his cricket bats, golf clubs, and tennis rackets, and crammed its village-made shelves with a heterogeneous mass of silver cups, books, pipes, and to- bacco tins, photographs of old friends, a box or two of golf balls, and the Lord knows what besides. Over the fire-place he hung a card. It was a large card upon which in large red letters a long word was printed. The word was Optimism. He hung this up on the first morning of his possession. The card is black, and its red letters are pale. It has hung there not for a year, but for twenty years, and is a year older than the sweet slip of a girl who often sits beneath it. It has seen Harry and his little wife grow older, but not old. It has witnessed many a scene of domestic happiness, many a scene of pain and de- pression, heard many a tale of village woe and grief, many a parish council argument, many a concert of loud coarse voices, many a lesson delivered with breezy kindness, many a confession of sin and crime, of remorse and anguish, but never, never a sound from the owner 59 Digitized by Google 6o The Blindness of Virtue of the room in which it hangs to show that he had for- gotten the meaning of its word. Harry began his work as an optimist — otherwise he never would have begun it. As an optimist he continued it in the village, in the brickfields, and on the barges of its canal day after day, year after year, for twenty years. The good people of East Brenton were mainly workers in the market gardens and on the farms. Those who were not, worked in the brickfields, in the mills and factories, and on the canal. But many of them, able- bodied men, worked as little as possible, preferring to stand about in the middle of the road, poaching and stealing when they got the opportunity, and sending their wives and children to the few better^lass houses round the green to beg. Most of their money, earned or cadged, was spent in the public-houses. Of these there were as many as there were churches and chapels. There were the Parish Church and the " George," the Roman Catholic Church and the " Four Bells," the Bap- tist Chapel and the " King's Head," the Methodist Chapel and the "Bull," the Salvation Army Quarters and the '' Blois Arms." Half the inhabitants of this flat-lying, unbuilt-on, un- discovered place, which was cut into strips by the ways of several winding-streams, went to one or other of these places of worship; the other half infested these places of beer. And all were ignorant, thriftless, lethargic, dull, unhealthy, and suspicious. They knew everybody else's business and very little of their own. They went, from year to year, on exactly the same lines, alwa)rs complaining, always more or less in want, never putting by in the good times for the bad they knew would follow inevitably. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 6i But they were English and Irish, and they had all the insular liking for a sportsman. Harry's reputation as a cricketer opened all doors to him. They over- looked his having the misfortune to be a parson, and only remembered that he had played for Oxford and his county. And Harry never let them remember that he was a parson. He won their confidence and friendship as a sportsman, and kept it by remaining a sportsman. Most of his best sermons were preached on the village cricket field with his bat. The rest he preached with his golf clubs, his billiard cue, his fine baritone, his cheery, breezy personality, his characteristic energy, his clever organisa- tion, his simplicity. He kept the name of God in his hands, and not in his mouth. For so-called religion he had as little liking as any villager, and the mere mention of dogma brought forth a very torrent of grim common sense. He cul- tivated souls by catering for bodies and by brightening up lives. Not in his church did the man-made, brow- beating God, the cruel, punishing monster, find a place, nor in his quiet teaching. His God was the great op- timist, the great sportsman, the man who had suffered without whining, the tender-hearted brother who for- gave and understood, and sympathised, and made allow- ances, and who could be approached direct, as any other brother could be approached, and who was not a shadowy arrogant Being, hidden from the eyes and hearts of men by heavy vestments, cloying incense, mysterious rhodo- montade, threatening tirades, and irksome rules. In his church and in his manly, simple teaching only the once human Brother and now divine Father, always ready to help, to encourage, to forgive, to urge on, to protect to make self-reliant, reigned supreme. Digitized by Google 62 The Blindness of Virtue He did not preach. He performed. He did not worry if his church was empty so long as the men took less to drink and knocked their wives about less frequently. To achieve this first great step he first divided up his evenings between the public-houses, started games and established sing-songs, encouraged the men to bring their wives and sweethearts into the inn parlours, arranged for magic lantern shows in the cold, dull, winter evenings, and finally weaned many men and women out of tlie public-houses by building three large rooms by the side of the school and making them bright, warm, cheerful, and amusing. In the men's room there were eventually two billiard tables, self-supporting; three card tables, at which bet- ting for very small stmis was allowed. In the woman's room, reigned over by Helen, there were illustrated papers, facilities for needlework, a piano, a warm carpet, and comfortable chairs. The third room had a good floor for dancing, and a small platform for pleasant and amusing lectures and readings. No one was invited to this dub. All who made use of it were elected members, and helped in a small way equally to keep it up. Beer and tobaco could be bought at the usual price, for the place was duly licensed as a club, and on its committee and among its active mem* bers were the better-class people who lived in the neigh- bourhood, the priest, the nonconformist minister and the captain of the Salvation Army. Jealousy, class differences, personal dislike, and a dozen other troubles to which such places are invariably sub- jected would have ruined it many times but for the tact and breeziness of Helen and Harry. By unfailing personal attention, spread over many patient years, the application of daily imagination and humour, it became Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 63 at last and remained the great popular institution of the village. No man entered it unwashed, no woman frowsy.. The temptation to get drunk was removed by the pleas- ure of remaining sober. Only when sober could the games be enjoyed and played creditably. Such a place in a village removed from large towns, in which the only excitement was provided by the occasional visits of trav- elling circuses and roundabouts, was a God-send. There was always, of course, a small detachment of men and women who stuck to the public-houses and re- fused to make use of the club because the small exertion of getting clean was too much for them. But their in- fluence and example were small. The club flourished, and became the parent of many smaller clubs, a boys' brigade, of which Harry was the Commanding Oflicer, and able-bodied parents and big brothers the officers and non-commissioned officers ; cook- ing and needlework clubs for girls of which Helen was the acting president ; quoits club for the old men, cricket and football clubs for men and boys, and a lending library for every one. In them all Harry was the leading spirit. Men and boys, women and girls, followed him from one to another, and if all did not follow him eventually into the church, many did, and in the hearts of those who did not, the seeds of kindness and fellowship, honesty, cleanliness, self-reliance, and good sportmanship took g^dual and unconscious root. No attempt was made either by Harry or Helen or by any of their helpers to tempt any man or woman either from the Roman Catholic Church, or from the Baptist and Methodist Chapels, or the Salvation Army. They didn't care in what building or under what ap- pellation God was worshipped. Neither the building nor the sect could alter the fact that it was God who Digitized by Google 64 The Blindness of Virtue was worshipped. The same tonic is as good out of a flat red bottle as out of a long blue one whatever the label may be. " It isn't my business whether a man finds God easier to come by in my church or in any other," Harry held, *' so long as he finds GoA'* Digitized by Google Chapter VII HAVING safely deposited old Joe Judd at the Mid* dlesex Hospital, the parson made a dash for Pad- dington Station to catch the first available train home. He plunged into it, and sprinted up to the time-table board to find that a fairly good train had just gone. This meant that he would have to wait thirty-eight min- utes for another and miss lunch at the Vicarage. It was not often that Harry could afford either the time or the money to go to London. The bustle and underlying excitement of the station, therefore, affected him pleasantly. He felt that he had got thirty-eight min- utes' holiday before him. "What a frightful yokel I am," he said to himself. " Hanged it I don't feel like a blessed school-boy." He stood near the book-stall and watched the passen- gers bundle into an express, and found himself wonder- ing who they were, what they thought about, and for how long a time they were going away; whether they were married or single, and what sort of a ball they drove. Three of His Majesty's seamen were hanging, or try- ing to hang, out of the window of a third-class smoking' carriage. Half a dozen weedy cockney men and three undersized young women in large hats were seeing them oflF. There was much badinage and noise. One of the men was playing ** Give my love to mother," on a mouth organ, and one of the sailors, not drunk, but nearly, was singing the ultra-sentimental words, slowly and intensely. A constmiptive-looking, hollow-chested, pasty-faced crea- 65 Digitized by VjOOQI^ 66 The Blindness of Virtue ture, who had had several glasses of beer more than he could stand, was dancing. Bending almost double, with his arms stretched out, and his hat on the back of his head, he moved his feet slitheringly about on the plat- form from the heel to the toe, with an expression on his face of great solemnity. He was evidently the acknowl- edged comedian of the party, for although to Harry's eye, and the eyes of many other people who were watch- ing him, there was something more pathetic than ftmny about the performance, one of the girls was keeping up an hysterically painful fit of laughing. She smacked his back frequently, and cried out, " Ow, chuck it, Challee, do ! You'll give me a fit ! " One of the sailors, with a silly expression of love- sickness on his face, stretched out a large hand, the wrist and back of which were gorgeously tattooed, and put it inside the lace collar of one of the girl's necks. With a shriek she struggled to get free, without wishing to do so, and leaning forward gave the sailor's brown cheek a resotmding smack. The sailor pulled her close to the carriage door. The girl gave a hurried glance at the clock, and grew suddenly quiet. " Mind you write to us. Bill," she said. " Not 'arf ," said BUI. "You'll wait for me?" " Not 'arf," he said fervently. "Yuss, likely, I don't think!" "Orright theni" There was a little pause. They gazed into each other's eyes. "Oo am I, Bill?" she asked. (" Stand away there, please! ") '' You know," said Bill. •• Well, can't you say it? " she cried shrilly. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 67 Bill's f aty round, brown face creased up into a fatuous smile, and his head rolled from side to side. "My future. WotoM" Springing on the board, the girl flung her arms round his neck and kissed his lips. There was a roar of laughter from the other sailors and the other girls. The train moved slowly away. Until it was out of sight the sailors waved and the girls waved. The man with the mouth organ still played, and the comedian still slithered his feet about. Then the girl turned, bit her quivering under lip, and walked quickly away. The others followed. For a mo- ment or two the mouth organ could be heard through the noise. The whole party was swallowed up in the moving crowd. Harry Pemberton shot out a sigh and turned to the book-stall. Every available inch of its space was filled to overflowing with gaudy-covered magazines, cheap edi- tions of popular novels, reprints of classics, new books, all of them labelled " The book of the day," and with piles of weekly, bi-weekly, and daily papers. To Harry's eye all the weekly papers, copies of which hung from the top of the stall, seemed exactly alike. All of them exhibited large photographs of pretty, plebeian women standing or lying in impossible attitudes with just enough chiffon wrapped round them to look completely and strenuously indecent. All of them contained full- page tJack-ancf-white drawings, wnich were labelled The Humour of the Hour,** or something of the sort, and were not only painfully unfunny, but were very badly drawn in wash. The Society weeklies displayed the same snap-shots of well-known people with their eyes screwed up and their mouths open, and of golf profes- sionals at the top of their drive. Digitized by Google 68 The Blindness of Virtue He bought the latest edition of the Pott Mall Gazette, stuffed it into his pocket, and swung along the platform to the Refreshment Rooms. A tall, soldierly man, wear- ing two medals on a curious tunic, half uniform, half livery, saluted and opened the door. Harry found a seat at a table, near a cubby-hole, in which, behind a counter, sat a pale girl in a neat black dress, with her hair dressed mountainously. Behind her, with her head on a level with a shelf packed tight with bottles, loomed the figure of a tall, dignified woman. Her features were cut on fine lines, grandly chiselled. They were set almost sternly, and there was an air about her of rigid self-control, unobservant watchfulness and unhurried quickness. Harry hatted her, and threw her a smile. She re- turned his breezy salutation with a look of cordial wel- come. A waiter held in front of him a large card on which, closely printed, was a lengthy selection of eatables. " Cold beef," said Harry, without looking at it. " Un- derdone. Potatoes, hot. I said hot. Pickled walnuts, and a bottle of ale. I needn't add quickly, because if you're not quick here you're nothing." The waiter was English. He knew his customer to be the Mr. Pemberton whom he had frequently seen in his younger days plant a ball into the pavilion at Lord's. He determined, though tired, to break a record. A slight, good-looking, scrupulously well-groomed man, with a small moustache twisted up toward his nose, came in, and gave his hat to the suddenly deferential door- keeper. His entrance caused a slight stir in the room, and all eyes were turned upon the apparently unconscious but quite appreciative Cabinet Minister. He pulled out a chair in front of Harry, and their eyes met. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 69 " Hullo, Bunny ! '* said Harry, holding out a cordial hand. " My dear Harry I " said Lord Thorganby, gripping it eagerly. They both laughed. " This is a rum place to meet.'* " Not so very," said Thorganby, sitting down. " We said good-bye here when we came down together from Oxford. Good Lord, how many years ago?" " Ten minutes ago," said Harry. ''Five, by the look of you. Time has forgotten to leave his fingermarks on you, old man. How's cricket? " "Fairly strong," said Harry, laughing. "I can put three elevens on the field all good for a score. Our first played the Blackney Rubber Works last Saturday — our opening day, a very hot lot too — and made rings round em. Thorganby looked mystified. "Oh! yes, yes. Black- ney, near East Brenton on this line. Oh, yes I of course. I remember. You're at East Brenton." He said this with a note of regret in his voice. " Are you always go- ing to be at East Brenton?" " I hope so." "Married, eh, Harry?" " Rather, Bunny." "Any children?" Harry smiled. " A large family of one girl." "Oh, good! How old?" " Eighteen. By Jove ! no nineteen. To-morrow's her birthday. I say, I'm glad you asked. I'd forgotten." He whistled, and made a note on his cuff. " Your wife's well, I hope? " " She's always well. She has no time to be an)rthing dsc, bless her! How's yours. Bunny?" Digitized by Google 70 The Blindness of Virtue A slightly sarcastic smile twisted up one side of the successful politician's mouth. He refrained frcnn saying that, owing to having so much time on her hands, she spent most of it far from well with a beautiful person who held a post at Court. "Very well indeed, thanks!" he said. " IVe just come from Eton. My boy's there.'' " Bunny II, eh ? A good chap, I'll be bound." The sarcastic smile was driven away by one of supreme affection. "Ha, ha I I should thiiJc so!" said Thor- ganby. "What's he do? Bat or bowl?" " Bat. He'll play against Harrow this year." "By Jove!" " He goes on to Oxford in the course of time." " I should think so. Will he go into politics? " Thorganby screwed up his eyes. " No," he said, " no — not unless he's no good for any honourable pro- fession." Harry opened his eyes wide. " Any honourable " The beef and pickles came. So did the beer. "I don't call politics an honourable profession," re- plied Thorganby quietly. "Anything hot? Lamb? Thank youl Whisky and soda. I don't say that poli- ticians individually are not honourable men. But you know as well as I do, better, that the institution of politics is a shifty, time-serving, populace-crawling thing. I wish to God there was no such thing as politics ! It's ruining the country. It ought to be run as a sound business concern is run — by an able Board of Directors. What would become of Harrod's Stores if it were controlled by its shareholders? However, don't let me mount the white horse; let's talk about ourselves. Do you realise Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 71 that we said good-bye here — beer, wasn't it, or was it whisky? — twenty-three years ago or more?" The lamb came. Harry passed the salt. "What of it?" he asked. "We're not freshers, but, thank Heaven! we're not progs. I'm only forty-three." "Only forty-three!" " Forty-three down, forty more to go." "An optimist still?" " Still ? My dear Bunny, I'm only just banning to be a genuine optimist.** Thorganby shot up his face, and looked at Harry with a sort of whimsical, almost regretful earnestness. " My dear old Harry" he said, " optimism is one of the only things a man can never acquire, not if he goes into training for it every mortal day of his life for twelve hours a day." " Rot! " said Harry, attacking a pickled walnut. " No, no, not rot. Either it's born in him, like bowling with the left, or not. If it's not, all the luck in the world, a gorgeous climate, nothing and nobody, will ever put it into him. You were born with it." Harry dropped his knife and fork, closed his small regular teeth with a snap, and snorted through his nos- trils. Just for a fleeting moment his old friend saw a shadow pass over his face, making it for the eighth part of a minute very bitter. With an effort he watched him suppress a rush of words, and shake himself back into his normal state. " Oh, well, that's all right," said Harry. " The fact remains, thank God! that I'm an optimist. Come to East Brenton, and you'll jolly soon become one, I can tell you.'* Digitized by Google 72 The Blindness of Virtue " I may come/* replied Thorganby, with a laugh, " it I'm turned out of my seat at the next General Election by the Tariff Reformer — as is quite likely." He spoke lightly enough, but in the back of his head an old and frequent self-put query took gradual shape. " What the dickens made Harry Pemberton chuck all his chances and go suddenly into the Church? What was the secret of this volte-face? What forced him to take such a step?" , . . "How long have you been at East Brenton ? " he added. " Nearly twenty years." "Good Lord! What a waste! ... I mean, what a k>ng time to be in one place — and so small a place." *' Twelve hundred inhabitants. Bunny." A sudden thought struck Thorganby. "Look here, Harry. Seeing you reminds me of the fact that I in- tended to write to you. So it isn't a bit odd that I should stumble into you to-day. Things like this happen al- ways." "Write to me? After all these years? Why?" " Well, an afternoon or two ago^ MacLachlan spoke to me about a vacant Canonry at Westminster. He knows I make it my business to keep my eyes on all kinds of men — even parsons." " Even parsons ! Be hanged ! " laughed Harry. "We walked away from the Lords together, and as he's on our side, and a very decent old thing, I said I'd look round for him. He never knows who to promote, and is thankful to be helped out." " He's got quite decent calves for gaiters," said Harry. " More beer, please." "Canon Pemberton, eh? Eventually Dean Pember- ton, and possibly Bishop '* Harry threw back his head, and gave out a great laugh. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 73 "What's the matter?'* asked Thorganby, catching its contagion. " Look at the size of my boots," cried Harry. " Think of them sticking out from beneath smug gaiters, on the platform of a Primrose League meeting, or at a mothers' meeting of reformed duchesses. They'd trample on everybody's pet corns, squash all the black beetles of secretaries and chaplains, and kick over half the fuggy conventions of the Church. You can't make a gatling gun into a cannon without something happening, old man." Thorganby was not laughing. He looked impatient "Oh, hang you and your big bones! You're wastii^^ yourself mewed up in your unheard-of village. You al- ways were top dog. Come and be top dog again." Harry rose quickly with the air of a man who is tempted to steal and doesn't mean to succumb. " Bill, please I " he called. He stretched out a hand. " Bumiy, old man, it's been a great delight to see you again. Good luck to you always." "Yes, but '' Harry gripped his friend's slim hand hard. "But nothing, thanks all the same," he said. " If I become a decent parson I shall be perfectly satisfied." He collected his hat and stick, paid his bill, waved his hand to the Cabinet Minister, and hurried out of the food-reeking room. He caught his train by the skin of his teeth, and as he sat on the narrow, hard seat in a third-class smoker and loaded a pipe, a curious smile played round his lq>s, although in his eyes there was an expression of intro- spective disgust and distrust. " If I can become a decent parson," he repeated aloud, ** I shall be perfectly satisfied." Digitized by Google Chapter VHI THAT night, at half-past eleven, after th^ had walked back hand in hand from the club ro(Hns, Harry and Helen, very tired, but extremely cheerful, stood in the hall of the Vicarage for a moment and lis* tened. Not a sound, except the sleepy regular ticking of an elderly grandfather dock, broke the delightful quiet of the house. The stillness of the outside night was made more refreshing by the full piping of a blackbird and the occasional soft child-like cry of an owl. Harry and Helen listened for any movement there might be in Effie's room. There was none. Nor was there any suggestion that the cook was still in the kitchen — neither from the ultra-respectable cough that was pe- culiar to that funny old creature, nor the shufRing sound of her list slippers upon the boards, nor from her usual greeting, apparently cheeky, but really .only affectionate : " Oh, there you are, you two I Well! '* Harry did what he always did when he was alone with his wife and wished to monopolise her attention. He put his hands under her elbows, picked her up, without an effort, and stood her on a chair. '' What are you thinking about, little one? '' he asked softly. " Exactly what you are thinking about," she said, put- ting her arms round his neck. " I thought so. . . . In half an hour's time Eflie will be nineteen." ** Isn't it wonderful ! " she said. 74 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 75 "Wonderful that shell be nineteen, or that she's Effie?" " Both." Harry chuckled. " Sssh I *' whispered the little woman. " Don't wake her!" ** Mayn't I chuckle in my own house, tyrant ? '* Harry suddenly wrapped his arms round his wife and held her tight. " I nearly lost you nineteen years ago, my dear! Very nearly. You gave me Effie and stood very close to tiie open door. Are you glad you didn't go in and leave us both alone?" "Oh, Harry!" He pushed her away from him and looked into her eyes. " Have I been a good man to you, little woman? Have I left anything undone that you would like me to do? Have I been even half grateful enough that you stayed?" She bent forward slowly and kissed him. A candle flickered on the landing. It was held aloft by a small old woman, whose scanty brown hair was primly plaited for the night. Its light fell upon a face slightly pock-mocked, with arched eyebrows over small, bright eyes, the lid of one of which was permanently and discomposingly lower than the lid of the other. Show- ily beyond the lips of what had once been a rather pretty mouth were two lonely teeth. There was a dimple in the right chedc. It was Miss Ethel Meadows, aflfec- tionately and universally known as Cookie, and she wore, as she had worn at that time of night in that house for twenty years, a bundly black skirt and a thick brown woolen dressing^jacket with a wide, jaunty stripe. The engagement ring, which she had worn for the same twenty years, gleamed upon her finger. Digitized by Google 76 The Blindness of Virtue " Nice goin's on, I don't think," she said. " Weren't you two up early enough in the momin' that you must carry on inter ther night? " Mrs. Pemberton slipped off the chair, and Harry turned and shook his fist at die queer little figure on the stairs. " Shut up, and go to bed." Cookie deliberately came down. " PVaps," she said. She put the candle on the hall table, and then locked and shuttered up the front door noisily. " Sssh! " whispered Helen. "All right, all rig^t!" said Cookie. "Do you know that he left the front door open last night? " "What!" said Harry. "Harry!" said Helen. " Yuss, you did. And you know it. I don't want ter git you into trouble, but if I didn't know your little ways and come down, somt of your beauties in ther village would crep in and pinch ther silver." " Do you believe her ? " asked Harry. " Yes," said Helen, smiling! " Yuss, an' when we do lock up and bolt, he goes and leaves ther winder of his den open nine times outer ten ! . . . Wants a bit ter watchin', 'c does! An' now trot up ter bed, the pair of yer." She gave the parson a little push. "I've got an important letter to write," said Harry, a little nervously. " So have I ! " said his wife, in much the same tone. "Go on! "said Cookie. "At this time of night?" " Don't bully me I " said Harry. " If it were three in die morning I should write it, so put that in your pipe and smoke it Light your mistress up to bed, cook, and don't sinll the candle-grease on the stair-carpets." Both the tondy teeth gleamed in Cookie's suddenly Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 77 smiling mouth. She picked up her candle-stick and turned to Mrs. Pemberton. " Ain't he funny ? " she asked. For a moment, not because she thought it the least use, Helen tried to look dignified ; but one glance at the quaint figure at her elbow sent dignity for the hundredth time to the rightabout It was impossible to be digni- fied with cook. She was cook, and she had to be ac- cepted as such or not accepted at all. With a giggle Cookie went upstairs, spilling the candle- grease. In the morning when she found it on the stairs she would blame the charwoman, who never carried candles, or the parson, who invariably carried a lamp. Helen blew a surreptitious kiss to Harry and followed her. Whereupon the parson tiptoed through the hall, down first three stairs then two, along the passage, and into his den. As he opened the door of the dark room, a sound that was half whine, half yawn, came from a pile of cushions that had been flung into a cane deck-chair. ** You scoundrel I '* said Harry. He lit a couple of candles on his desk, and strode over to the chair. On his back, with all his leg^ in the air, wagging the ugly stump of a tail, lay a rough-haired fox- terrier, with a grin of confidence and appeal on his whiskered face. By the look of the cushion, deeply in- dented, the dog had been snugly tucked in for several hours, and by the look of the dog the one really great desire of his life was not to be untucked at all, but to be spoken to in a cheery, manly fashion for a moment or two, given a very latge biscuit, and left alone. Harry knew all these things. N(>t for the first time by uncountable dozens had he found William Henry Pemberton, known to his immediate circle as Bill, in Digitized by Google 78 The Blindness of Virtue precisely the same place, in exactly the same attitude, at that time of night, instead of being sleeping lightly in his kennel by the side of the chidcen run. And not for tiie last time would he find him there in precisely the same place, in exactly the same attitude, at that time of night, when he ought to be sleeping lightly in his ken- nel by the side of the chicken run. Harry knew it. Bill knew it. Nevertheless, as Bill quite expected, Harry stood over him with a threatening finger raised and scow,ling brows. And Bill lay long after it has mdted away, the great love and friendship and respect of your old chum and father, " Harry Pemberton/* Having written this, with so much love in his ink that it was necessary to write several common-place things to temper his emotion, the parson leaned back in his chair, and, with a smile in his eyes and a grave mouth, thought back. He stopped at a night in late April nineteen years before. He saw himself pacing up and down the room in which he was now sitting, beseeching God, with all his heart and soul, to beckon the Angel of Death away from the bedside of the little woman who lay in the room above. He felt again the grip of anguish and fear, and trembled as he did so. He saw himself a cowardly and miserable figure, standing stock still listening for a sound in the room above that might have something of hope in it. Again he heard a sudden brisk step across the room, pause for a moment, and cross back. Again, in ims^na- tion, he fell suddenly on his knees, and prayed for mercy. Again he rose and stood at the open window and looked out upon the sleeping night which shook under the throbbing notes of a nightingale. Again, dully, he watched the cunnings quiet movements of a cat pick- ing its way on the path between the rose-trees, and again he felt the soft puff of wind upon his hot forehead and heard the martins, in their half-constructed nest under the eaves above his head, chatter in their sleep. Again he heard the latch of his door raised, and after a pause, in which he was too frightened to turn, felt the grip of a man's hand round his arm, and heard the words, "' Mother and daughter doing well.'' And then his thoughts raced through the years, stopping tenderly to dwell on the Digitized by Google 82 The Blindness of Virtue abiding memories that crowded back — memories of a little golden head on his shoulder and a creased and dimpled arm round his neck ; of midnight walks up and down his bedroom with a restless but precious bundle; of the first spoken word; the first attempt to walk; the first horrible duty of punishment ; the trotting little figj ure, with wondering, dancing eyes, hanging on a finger; the first lesson; the first and last feeling of acute jeal- ousy when the slight, beautiful figure with long brown l^s sprai^ away from him and nestled in the arms of his wife ; the great pride in the flying exquisite creature returning a difiicult net ball ; the great delight of looking up from his desk to watch the serious young face in front of him bending over an evening lesson. " Nineteen," he said — *' nineteen. God is indeed God.'* Bill lifted an ear, and raised one eyelid. Harry unlocked a drawer, hunted among a mass of heterogeneous papers for some minutes anxiously, dis- covered the five-pound note, and then folded it up in the letter and put them into the envelope. Before closing it he threw a kiss into the letter. Taking off his shoes, he blew out the candles, shut the window softly, and bent over Bill. " Good-night, old man," he said. " I thought you were going to forget to say that/' said Bill. " Thanks I Good-night, Best of AIL" Harry left his hand for a moment on the dog's warm head, and then shut the door and crept upstairs to his daughter's bedroom. Into this sweet rocxn he stole or ^Jie balls of his feet, feeling his way to the little table by the side of the bed. Upon this he dipped his letter, and bent over the pillow. Through the slightly parted curtains a glint of moon- shine came. Framed in a mass of rich brown hair he Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 83 could see the clear lines of the girl's untroubled face. It was lying in the curve of a slim gleaming arm. The bedclothes had been flung back, and the young bosom rose and fell regularly beneath its dead-white covering. Harry lifted the dothes, and placed them gently up round the girl's shoulders, whispering as he did so, ** A happy birthday^ little oat." Then he made his way back to the door. In the middle of the room he drew up suddenly and tightened his hands. " There I '' he said to himself. '' By Jove! I've put into that envelope the five pounds I've been saving up to give Helen for a new frock . . . Dash it all ! This means that I shall have to keep the poor darling waiting for another month, and she does want a new thin frock so badly. ... I told her I'd got it too, and she was going to London on Friday. . . . She won't say a word when she doesn't get it, but how am I to know that she won't be hurt about it, and — she's a woman, thank Godl although the best of women — a little jealous? What the dickens am I to do? " Putting his arms out he made for the door. His hands touched something soft and warm, and dosed upon the shoulders of his wife. He drew her against his heart, and held her there, mightily. They stde out of the room together. As the door dosed the brown head bobbed up with wide-open eyes. A hand went out exdtedly, and touched two letters and a little box. "You darlings!" breathed a voice — ^"you blessed darlings I Oh, what is in this little box? " Digitized by Google Chapter IX THERE was a loud whistling in the bath-room and a splashing that might have been made by a grampus if it had found its way into the bath. Helen heard it as she stood in front of her looking- glass, brushing her hair. She knew that the charwoman had polished up the brass taps of the bath. What did it matter? She would go in when the room was empty and rub them over so that the charwoman shouldn't be dbtressed by the spots upon their beauty. Helen was thinking deeply as she brushed her hair. ** I wish," she repeated to herself again and again — " I wish I had tdd him last night I wish I had. He gave me that ring. It's the only ring he has ever been able to afford to give me. What will he say when Effie tells him that I gave it to her as a birthday present? Will he think that I've forgotten why he gave the ring to me, that all the sentiment and romance of our love is dead, that I love Effie more than I love him now? . . . Her nineteenth birthday I What else could I give her? I had nothing else. A ring means so much to us when we ,are nineteen. . . • But it was his ring. He rushed off * to buy it the morning after he lifted me up into the chair and kissed me. It was almost the last money he had left. And when he put it on my finger, he made me shut my eyes and guess what it was like. I never had had a ring before. How could I guess? ... I must tdl him.'' She piled up her hair, and finished dressing, and went across to Harry's dressing-room. " May I come in? " she asked. 84 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 85 A curious clicking noise came from the room. ''May you come in? Of course not/' said Harry. Helen entered. In a pair of much-washed white flannels and a vest, Harry stood two or three yards from the wall with that grave expression on his face that is worn by every man when using an exerciser. With both handles in his right hand he was going trough bowling actions with great regularity and solemnity. " Fif ty-six, fif ty-scven, fifty-eight '' '* Don't overdo it, Harry," said Helen. "Fifty-nine, sixty I What a morning, eh? Sixty- one. Summer at last, eh? Sixty-two." Helen fidgeted round the room, touching things nerv- ously. "Any more golf stockings with holes?" she asked. " Sixty — ^no — five. Sixty— don't think so — six " The door was flung open. Bill marched in, and with an air of well-simulated carelessness dropped a dead rat in the middle of the room. ** Hullo, you two ! " said he. ** Oh ! " cried Helen, backing with a shudder. Harry let go the handles. Bill listened to the noise they made against the wall with a touch of irritation. He rather hated noises. " Good man 1 " cried Harry. " Last night," said Bill, " you said some rot about my being a gentleman of no occupation. Don't let it occur again, please." He sat down and crossed his fore-paws. " One of those heggSLVs out of the bam," said Harry. " Isn't Bill a nailing good ratter I " Bill blushed. " Pardon me," he said, lifting his back 1^ and turning back his head to meet it "A slight irritation." Digitized by Google 86 The Blindness of Virtue " Ask him to take it away," pleaded Helen. " It may not be dead/' " Draw it mild," said Bill. " Still, as you women have no sporting instincts " He picked it up, shot a wink at Harry, and trotted out Harry burst out laughing. " I believe he understood me," said Helen. "Understoodyou, my dear? Of course he did. Seen Effie yet? " He asked this question anxiously. Helen's five-pound note had been taking the most extraordinary shapes all night. "No, not yet," said Helen. "It's very early still. Oh, Harry, here are two pairs of stockings in the most dreadful condition I " "Don't bother about them, dearest. I hope I shan't use stockings again till October. This weather has ccmie to stay. Do you want to speak to me about anjrthing particular?" " No," said Helen—" no, I don't think so." " Well," said Harry, getting into his shirt, " I do want to say something rather particular to you." " Oh, Harry, you know ! " "Know what?" " I really didn't mean ... I mean I hadn't forgotten. I love your ring as much as ever I did. More, much more. It's because I love it so much that I gave it to Effie for her birthday. Oh, I do hope you won't be hurt!" A slow smile crept over Harry's face. " What a pair of children we are I" he said. "My dear, I've been worrying all night because, having nothing else to give Effie, I slipped the five-pound note I promised you into my letter." " I'm so glad ! " cried Helen. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 87 " Have you been worrying all night about the ring? '* ** I believe I have/* said Helen. Harry was silent for a moment. The smile became very tender. He picked up one of his wife's little hands and kissed it. " My sweetheart," he said, " it takes a big daughter to show how much we love one another, doesn't it? I'm glad you gave her the ring." "And I'm glad you gave her the money. My old dresses will wash again beautifully." Digitized by Google Chapter X WITH the ring on her finger and the note in her purse Effie had risen with the martins and had gone out quickly into the fresh morning. Like all healthy young things, in the spring of their years, she expected that everything would look different because it was her birthday, that every one would be nicer than usual, that even the weather would recognise the occasion and be on its best behaviour. The weather, it seemed, knew perfectly well that Effie was nineteen. Already, as she made her way into the garden, the sun had begun to drink up the dew that hung upon the rose-trees and rested upon the tips of the grass. All the birds had long been up and doing, singing, chirp- ing, and piping as they went, utterly careless of the rules of time, paying no attention to any leader's beat. Each one sang as he chose, and the clash of sound was tre- mendous. Effie went over to Bill's kennel. She laughed when she found it empty, and, creeping back into the sleeping house, opened the door of her father's study and came upon Bill waiting eagerly, with pricked ears and cocked tail, a burst of welcome waiting in his throat Effie bent down quickly and held his nose tight. " Not a sound yet, old boy," she whispered. *' Father and mother are tired. Wait till we get to the river." " Right oh ! " gurgled Bill. He twisted free, gave a shake that b^;an with his ears, went along his white body and slipped off the end of his tail, and made a Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 89 bolt at top speed. Effie followed, and the two ran tinder the pergola at the side of the old house, across to a wild patdi of grass under three old elm trees — dodgmg the amazed heads of a new family of red tulips — up the wide path, and out upon the green. Bill leading, away they went over the hills and heights and hollows of the wet green to the road, and so to the river, the girFs hair flying behind her like a trail of golden smoke. At the foot of the mill bridge, under which the water tumbled and hurried, Effie stopped and looked up at the two great chestnut trees which stood, sentry-wise, one on either side of it. The hot sun of two or three days had set light to all the candle-like blossoms, and the trees re- sembled huge Christmas trees ablaze. Catching up a stick, the tall, slim girl stood on the edge of the mill stream. Her dark eyes were sparkling, At nostrils of her short du Maurier nose were distended, and her lips were open and showed two lines of small white teeth. Her breath came pantingly, and her young round breasts rose and fell quickly beneath her white jersey. There was something very boyish in the free- ness of her attitude and the strong way in which she had planted her feet Bill, who had gone skying along the bank of the stream, leaping cuttings, making furious dashes at bunches of last year's leaves that were not in the least like rats, suddenly turned, saw the stick in Effie's hand held high above her head, and came flying back. *' Hold on I — hold on I '* he gurgled, almost choking with excitement '" Don't chuck it till I get there. Oh, don't chuck itl" He was in time, made a tremendous leap, and fell back<» wards into the water. ^Bini You idk>t I "cried Effie. Digitized by Google 90 The Blindness of Virtue "Thafs all right — that's all right There's water down my ears, but I'll see to that later. Now, no hum- bugging. Really chuck the stick. Good ! " He ran and leaped and then swam. Caught by the stream away went the stick, twisting and being hurried and harried and carried away, and away went Bill after it, with only his ears, eyes, and nose visible. Standing with her head thrown back and calling out encouragement at the top of her voice Effie watched the dog make several snaps at the stick and finally catch it between his teeth. But, did he turn and swim back against the stream? Not Bill. He landed several hun- dred 3rards away, shook himself violently, and came trot- ting up, grinning from ear to ear. " Hot work," said he. " By Jove, such a stream I Great Do it again." Effie did it again and yet again, with one more for luck, and then, while Bill, getting more and more filthy, b^fan digging into old rat holes, she sat on the bridge over the churned stream, with her long l^s dangling and her hands spread out on the warm bricks, and let her thoughts go running away with the water. Several times she looked at the ring gleaming on her finger with a feeling of immense pride and importance. Somehow, far more than the fact that she was nineteen, it gave her a sense of age and experience and weight The five-pound note, carefully folded up, and tucked into the middle pocket of her purse, added enormously to this new sense. Never in her life had she possessed 80 much money of her very own. What should she do with it? A hundred shillings! ... A hat for mother, with the things to trim it. Oh, splendid! Or, better still, why not get her that ripping flower bowl she had liked so much at Rexbridge! It would look absolutely Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 91 right on the piano crammed with roses — and the roses would socm be in. She would get both. Yes, she would — both. That would leave her enough to buy a box of a dozen spotless Colonels for father, and — could she af- ford a new aluminium-headed driver for herself? Birthdays are awfully jolly, she thought. She never had had quite such a really surprising birthday as this. No, not quite, although all that she could remember had been most satisfactory. Nineteen ! It was a big total, she never thought she would have got to it so quickly. All the same, it would be ages before she was really a w<»nan. How splendid to be a woman, utterly inde- pendent ; free to do all the big things that she had mapped out — write books and make her name; marry, if tfiere was a man to be f otmd who was really fine and wonder- ful, like father. She didn't want to hurry. The sooner she became a woman, the sooner father and mother would become old. She should simply hate father and mother ever to be any different. For the matter of that she didn't think tiiey would ever be. They mustn't, and that was all about it. As she sat and watched the water and let her thoughts run riot a new and unexplainable feeling of unrest and dissatisfaction crept over her, a great yearning for some- thing she could put no name to. What was it? What did it mean? She always had been very happy. She was very happy now. She wanted nothing that she had not got. No girl alive had such a father and mother, so beautiful a home. But — but surely life meant some- thing more than the regular, pleasant routine of duty and pastime that hers was made up of? Surely there was something more for her to do and be? All that she could remember of her nineteen years had been the same. One Stmday was the same as next Sunday and next Digitized by Google 92 The Blindness of Virtue Every week-day of one week was the same as every wedc« day of every other week. Were all the Sundays and all the week-days going to be the same for another nineteen years? She sprang off the bridge, angry with herself for thinking such utterly new things as these. She shook herself and threw back her hair and put the ring to her lips. She held her face up to the sun and drew in a long breath and looked round affectionately at the peace- ful landscape, every tree, hedge, and bend of the river of which she had always known. She fltmg this queer new feeling off and called Bill and swung back home, singing. Nevertheless, she knew, try as hard as she might to disguise the fact, that she had made a startling and frightening discovery. A comer of her heart was empty. Digitized by Google Chapter XI THE birthday had been everything that a birthday should be. The whole house had given itself up to Effie. In the morning Harry Pemberton had played a f till and determined round with his birthday-girl. The links had been in splendid condition. It was true that a coiq)le of hundred sheep wandered about, respecting neither the greens nor the tees; but all the trees and hedges were in their first freshness, there was very little wind, and there were no impatient people to press. On her handicap Effie claimed a stroke a hole, but although she had not foozled any of her drives, and was putting like a book, she was beaten by three up, on each hole by a putt. Harry was too good a sportsman not to play all out, even although he would have liked Effie to win the match, and Effie was too much the daughter of her father not to know that she was not good enough to win. She had done her best, and enjoyed the game tremendously. In the afternoon Effie led the way into Rexbridge, she and her father and mother on bicycles. Bill mostly on three 1^. The fourth had been rendered temporarily dis- abled in a battle royal on the green, just before lunch. A lurcher belonging to one of the woricing men who was waiting to see what Tariff Reform would do for him before he was fool enough to look for a job had made one or two would-be smart remarks that Bill, naturally, resented. He gave the bounder-dog a severe lesson, but received a stone from the lurcher's master. The fortune 93 Digitized by Google 94 The Blindness of Virtue of war. No well-bred, wise dog mixes himself up with the village riff-raflf. There had been a wonderful cake for tea — a special effort of Cookie's. It was large and high, and stood on frilled paper. The whole of its top was white, and trickling over it in red sugar letters was this emotional l^end : " Many happy returns of the day to hour dear Miss Heffy." And after tea Harry opened the croquet season upon the newly-cut lawn. The white petals of apple-blossom fell in little showers, and peppered its sur^ face. It had been an entirely satisfactory day. Effie had had the undivided attention of her usually un-come-at* able father and mother, every minute of whose time, on ordinary occasions, was devoted to others. In itself this marked the day out as unique. No cloud had hidden the sun. All the hours had b^n golden. One letter had been delivered in the evening. Cookie had examined it minutely. It bore the London post- mark, and carried a lai^ge black crest on the lip of the envelope. But Harry put it on his desk, and refused to allow it to take any of his attention from the birthday- girl until she should be in bed. After dinner he sat at the piano and thumped an easy accompaniment to his old school and Oxford songs, which he sang at the top of his voice, and in the extra hour which Effie demanded, described for the hundredth time some of the epoch-mak- ing events of his University career to the wide-eyed girl and her little, smiling mother. At eleven o'clock the birthday-girl's day came to an end, and after giving and receiving a big hug, she and her mother went up to bed, and Harry made for his room, for the last pipe. Upon his desk lay the unopened letter which was to make Effie's nineteenth birthday a day Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 95 which would never be forgotten by any soul at the Vicarage so long as they remained members of the hu- man family. Harry read it, and dashed upstairs to his wife's room, at least four steps at a time. Helen was in bed, and Effie, in her night-dress, with her hair in two long plaits, was kneeling on a chair at the foot of the bed, with her arms on its wooden rail and her bare feet poking out. She was telling her mother all the odd things that had gone through her brain in the morning as she sat on the bridge in the sun. Her voice was pitched low, and it vibrated as Harry's did when he was deeply moved. There was much of her father's vivid eagerness in her face and eyes as she made, what seemed to both women, to be something in the nature of a confession, but there was also in her face and eyes a suggestion of wistf ulness and puzzlement that had never been seen in her father's. Harry plunged into the room like a south-east gale, and sat on the bed. It groaned beneath his weight. '* Now then, you two," he said, '* listen to this ; you re- member my sa)ring that I should have to take to cram- ming a boy or two to get some money? " " If you will give nearly all we get away, of course we get into debt," said Helen. "That's what you said then, and what you've been saying for years," said Harry. " We are slightly in ar- rears with the local tradespeople, and I was beginning to worry. I was thinking of writing to one or two of my old pals who have got boys old enough to undergo the process of being stuffed with all the useless and idiotic nonsoise that our rotten system of education demands — though I was afraid I should stand no chance against the professional crammer who swarms everywhere. I hadn't written, but here is an answer." Digitized by Google 96 The Blindness of Virtue *' Harry!" The parson lifted his face up for a moment and shut his eyes. " Yes," he repeated, " here is an answer." He held the letter near the lamp, and read: ttj>. ^ 100, Grosvenor Square. "A mutual friend, Lord Thorganby, has given me your address. Let me come at once to the reason of my troubling you with this letter, and ask you if it will be convenient for you to receive my second son into your house. Franky, I ask you to do this because, under ex- isting circumstances, I cannot have him in mine. Though his father and his well-wisher, I have neither his confi- dence nor his obedience, and I feel that my attempts to put him on the road along which I desire him to walk have failed, and are likely to fail. *'He was educated at Eton — or at least underwent the so-called educational training of that public school for the prescribed period. I ought to tell you that his record there was a bad one. If it had not been for his excellence in the cricket field the Head Master would have rid the school of his unruly presence. Later he went up to Oxford, to the House. The independence of the undergraduate that is, to my mind, of inestimable value to the shaping of a young man's character, did not, as I hoped, steady my son. On the contrary, his career at Oxford was meteoric but short He was sent down in the middle of second year, not for reasons of a disgrace- ful nature, but, I am told by his tutors, simply because it was found that he had a constitutional inability to con- form to rule and order. He is now under the parental roof, getting on for twenty^two. He is in no sense of the word either a d^enerate or a bad-hearted young man Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 97 So far as he has permitted me to make his acquaintance, he seems to me to be a young man of many excellent parts who could, in the proper hands, be shaped into a good citizen and a fine fellow. I confess that I believe him to be proud, sensitive, utterly uncontrollable in a bearing-rein, headstrong, self-indulgent, generous, very lovable, but so easily influenced that he is as likely to drag my name into the gutter if left with his present friends, as he is likely to be lifted above the ordinary level of human creatures if he falls into such hands as yours. "If agreeable to yourself, my plan would be, as a last resource, to send him to you theoretically for the purpose of reading and being coached in those subjects that he wotdd have taken at Oxford, practically in order that your gift of influencing those who come under what our friend Lord Thorganby calls * your spell,' may save my son from becoming a member of the r^ment of dissipated, shifty, useless, and harmful creatures into which so many of our younger sons are drifting. This would be a matter of some grief to me. I am well aware that I am asking you to undertake a great re- sponsibility, and one that may, I am afraid, put you to infinite trouble and annoyance. But as my son will not hesitate to pack up and leave you within forty-eight hours if he does not take a liking to you, it will be one that will not last long. I trust that this may not be the case. If you will permit me to enter at once into the question of fees, I am prepared to offer you, with my extreme grati- tude, the sum of three hundred a year, paid quarterly in advance. May I look for an answer to this letter in course of post? Believe me to be, dear Sir, "Yours faithfully, " Aberlady/' Digitized by Google qS The Blindness of Virtue Harry read this letter with ill-concealed excitement Nevertheless he rolled the old-fashioned phrases over his tongue with the touch of pompousness that was evi- dently characteristic of the writer. " Three hundred a year I '* said Effie, underlining every word. "Three hundred a year," said Harry. "An eighth part of that will pay all my arrears, and the rest will build the new room for the club." " Three hundred a year," repeated Effie. Helen sat up and bent over the letter. " Utterly un- controllable in a bearing-rein, headstrong, self-indulgent," she read aloud, with a note of warning in her voice. Harry gave a shirit of devilish mischief, fills it with poison* Digitized by Google Chapter XII TWO letters, one from East Brenton to London, anrf the other from London to East Brenton, under- went the ordinary process of collection, despatch, and delivery. The first one, short and to the point, accepted a proposal. The second one, also short and to the point, gave thanks, and stated that Archibald Graham would leave Paddington by the 5.35, and would arrive at East Brenton at 6.3. " No doubt he would be met." " No doubt at all,'' said Harry. " I will meet him." Cookie grumbled — Cookie always grumbled. But, as- sisted by the parson, his wife, his daughter, and Mrs. Stagg from Old Farm Road, a good woman blessed with short legs but a long tongue, the dressing-room be- came a bedroom, and the little room over the kitchen, next to Cookie's, and four of Harry's strides from the bath- room and five from his bedroom, received his scanty wardrobe of old but affectionate clothes, a large assort- ment of boots and shoes of all ages, many razors, some characteristically sulky, some of excellent temper ; the ex- erciser, and fifty or thereabouts framed photographs of school and college groups, without which no genuine dressing-room is, or can be, worthy of the name. A desk of oak, with many drawers, newly made up to pass for its great-grandfather, was bought at Rexbridge and plumped down in front of one of the windows in the parson's den, and much clean paper was spread in the empty chests and shirt wardrobes and cupboards in the now dethroned dressing-room. Id Digitized by Google 102 The Blindness of Virtue All being ready, even to a large bowl of wallflowers on the dressing-table in the new bedroom, already spoken of as Mr. Graham's room, the Vicarage did its best to wait unexcitedly for the arrival of the 6.3. Harry was at the station fifteen minutes before time. He ordered a cab, and satisfied himself at the same time that the cabman's wife had derived great benefit from several bowls of Cookie's mutton broth. He found out, on his way up to the arrival platform, that one of the night porter's hands was going on as well as could be expected, and that Mr. Johnson's hay looked like be- ing better than last year. Half-way up the steps he was delighted to be told that Mrs. Melville's coachman's son had got a job as groom at Rexbridge, thanks to his kind letter, and on the platform he heard with pleasure that it was the station-master's firm opinion that the Govern- ment could not last another year. The train put into the station exactly on time. In an instant the quiet platform was alive with people, nearly all of whom had a word and a smile for the parson, who had taken up a position by the chocolate and wax vesta machine. One after another these people, natives of East Brenton and natives of Rexbridge who changed at East Brenton, passed the ticket-coUecter and disappeared. Harry's keen eyes searched for the figure he had drawn in his imagination, and searched vainly. He had pictured Archibald Graham as a shortish, square-set, roguish- eyed young man who would wear a House tie and trousers turned up over G>mmarket socks and brown shoes, who would drag out a bag of golf clubs, and soon be surrounded with masses of luggage, stamped A.G. The platform was empty but for porters and station- masters, and the guard waved his flag. Then, and not till then, the door of a first-class smoking-carriage opened Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue lOJ slowly, and with an air of bland interest a tall, slight, straight-backed, perfectly-groomed boy got out and handed a small suit-case to a porter. His head, under- neath a straw hat set at a slight angle, was small, and his hair worn long without looking outr6. An angelic expres- sion sat on refined, well-cut features, and a half-smile of great charm hovered at the comers of a beautiful mouth. His skin was tanned, and the whites of his grey eyes were almost blue. He stood six foot high, and every inch of him was as hard as nails, yet he moved with a certain unconscious grace and looked about him with an air of aloof courtesy that was curiously pleasant He saw Harry instantly without appearing to look at him, and drew off his right glove. Going quietly up to him, he touched his hat without respect. "Mr. Pemberton?" he said. Harry had watched him with interest, he had not sup* posed for a moment that he was the man he had come to meet. His preconceived idea had been so completely different. " Yes," he said. " Are you Graham ? " "Please." Harry held out his hand. " How are you? " Archibald Graham's long, thin hand was swamped. ** It's very kind of you to meet me," he said. The train left the station. " Not a bit. Where's your luggage? " " I gave it to the porter." " Is that all you've brought? " A slight colour rose into the boy's face. He looked ingenuously into Harry's eyes. " A telegram will bring the rest," he said. Harry's laugh rang through the station. He put his arm round the boy's shoulder, and marched him to the Digitized by Google 104 The Blindness of Virtue gate. ''We will pull up at the post c^ce and seiid it/' " Er . . . Thanks very much/' said Graham. There was a note of slight irritation in the boy's voice, and a glint in his eyes of a fighting spirit. Harry wheeled round and faced him, to the astonish- ment of the ticket-collector. " If not, my dear fellow/' said Harry evenly, " there's a fast train back to Paddington due now. What will you do ? Take it or send a wire ? " The boy's lids fluttered nervously for a moment, and his eyes seemed anxious to find other things than Harry's eyes to look at. But Harry's eyes held them, and the man and the boy faced each other silently for a moment. There was nothing either of sarcasm or authority in Harry's eyes, only irresistible friendliness and sympathy. With a sort of quick examination the boy's eyes ran over Harry's big, square figure. " I'll wire, please," he said. " Thank you ! " said Harry. Not his words but his tone made the boy's eyes con- tract quickly as though something sharp had pricked him» He could not define it as humbleness or servility. It seemed to him to be a note of simplicity, of nobility, of gratitude. UnccMnfortable, and yet with eagerness, Archibald Graham followed the man whom he knew well enough had been appointed his gaoler out of the station and into the cab. The small suit-case faced them on the opposite seat. " Home/' said Harry. The word seemed to the boy to be the right one. Digitized by Google Chapter XIII THE cab, with its tireless wheels and rattling win^ dows, made so much noise, that after y^ing a few commonplaces at the top of his voice — receiving a smile and a shrug of the shoulders from the boy — Harry made no further efforts until the post office was reached. Harry stopped the cab. Graham got slowly out and stood looking at the little old house, which was nothing more than a couple of workmen's cottages, with both its front rooms turned into the shop and its door altered to suit its require- ments. The windows, stuffed with jam-pots and sweet- bottles and oranges in their papers, piled up in heaps and mixed up with notices as to recruiting and gun licenses, and lost property, were small. The shop it- self, low of roof, with small rooms leading off, in which glimpses could be caught of antimacassared chairs, fish in glass cases, and china primly arranged on brackets, was so crammed with every conceivable sort of pickle, jam, sweet, soap, black-lead, sugar, treacle, and biscuit that it was almost dangerous to move. One pot or tin disarranged would bring all the rest to the floor in an overwhelming heap. Lard and cheese stood on the low counter, cheek by jowl with a stained tin ink-stand, a small piece of blotting-paper, a packet of telegraph forms, and three bottles of boot polish. There were no pens to be seen. Over the door there was a board upon which the words ** East Brenton Post Office, Mrs. Hobhouse, Postmistress and Grocer, etc./' were painted. 105 Digitized by VjOOQ IC lo6 The Blindness of Virtue Graham turned his head over his shoulder towards Harry. " Delightful I '' he said. "Rising — what?" "The house itself is something over three hundred," replied Harry, with an air of pride. " No wonder it begins to look a little fagged," said the boy. He went in, down one step. Harry ducked and fol- lowed him. An old lady behind the counter bobbed. A younger woman widi a pleasant shiny face and much loosely- done hair examined Graham carefully, with an air of distinct approval. "How are you, Mrs. Hobhouse?" Harry sang out. " Tel^fraph forms on the shelf there, Graham. Pencil hanging." " Oh, right, sir I " said the boy. " I'm nicely considering I thank you, sir," said the old lady in a thin, sweet voice. " My eyes give me trouble, in fact there isn't much that I can see now, but my 1^ and hands are still of use, so I mustn't grumble." " When you begin to grumble, Mrs. Hobhouse," said Harry cheerfully, " we shall be able to send twelve words for nothing.** Both w<»nen laughed deferentially. The older one blushed with pleasure. "I'm thankful that things are as they are, sir, never havin' expected the same. As I heard you say twenty and more years ago, sir, the grum- bler don't deserve the gift of life. If I may make bold enough to say so, sir, you look nicely." Harry took down a bottle of lemon drops and put three into his mouth. It seemed absurdly paradoxical to hear the telq^raph machine ticking in that old shop. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 107 " I say/* said Harry, "don't forget to ask for your golf clubs and cricket bat." " I have/' replied the boy, handing in two forms. "Good I'' Harry laughed when he saw two forms. " Any reduc- tion for a quantity, Miss Wimley?" Both woman laughed again. So did Graham. "I have asked them to send down a good many things," he said, " and also to telephone breaking an appointment I had made for '' He stopped, and the colour rushed into his face. " To-morrow?" asked Harry, with a smile. " No, to-night." Harry did not say anything. He perfectly well under- stood that by making an appointment for the night of the evening upon which he arrived at East Brenton the boy had made up his mind that he would not stay at the Vicarage for longer than a few hours. Also he per- fectly well understood and appreciated the magnitude of the compliment the boy paid him by breaking the engage- ment Graham felt one of Harry's big hands close round his arm for the eighth part of a minute. The gratitude that was conveyed in this silent action and the sympathy, rather than the look of triumph that he half expected to see on the face of the man by whom he had owned him- self beaten, had a queer effect on this very ordinary boy. He marched out of the shop quickly to hide the fact that his underlip was trembling. Harry waved his hand to the women, and followed. At the door of the cab Graham turned upcm Harry sud- denly. " Would it put you out," he said, " if the cab took my Digitized by Google io8 The Blindness of Virtue case to your place and we walked? I want to speak to you/* " Not a bit," said Harry. " Go on to the Vicarage, give Cookie the suit-case, and tell her that Mr. Graham and I will be home to dinner/* The cabman slanted his head and whipped up his horse. Harry took the boy's arm and fell into step. The boy put off his slow, graceful stride and set a quick, brisk pace. Together these two, both tall, one nearly three inches taller than the other, without a word, but in per- fect sympathy, stumped over the green, leaving the Vicar- age on the left, along a dusty hedge-lined road tha,t led down to the mill and the mill stream. The boy, with his chin held high and his eyes fixed straight ahead, evi- dently bracing himself up to do something that he had never done before, paused nowhere. He turned to the left when they came to the mill, and took the path that ran alongside the curling stream, willow swept, and led past the cricket field, with its wooden shed and huge roller — the pride of the club. The trees which lined up in front of and behind the hedge, old and young, straight of limb and sap-fuU, twisted and bent, and almost ready for the destro)ring winds, were in their first luscious green. At their feet tiie grass grew high and straight, dotted with the yellow faces of celandines, alive with the blinking eyes of daisies, while in the ditch the suspicious and quick- tempered nettle elbowed the limp-backed sorrel that had already overgrown its strength. Gndiam pulled up on the narrow, wooden bridge that stretched across the wide and shallow river. Leaning his arms on its white rail, he examined the peaceful, flat landscape that stretched itself, house-less, in front of him. The stream, wide, quiet, but alive, moved up the middle, drawing the sky into its embrace, golden with Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 109 the sun, reflecting the thousand stiff young arms of the willows that lined its left bank. On the right bank, once a thin white twisting path was passed over, there lay a field green with the heads and shoulders of sturdy oats, cut off from another field and another by thick level hedges until it touched the horizon which lay, sea-wise, at the feet of a line of upstanding poplars. To the left fields of ripening hay, patched so thickly with butter- cups that a yellow liquid might have been spilt upon them ; then a hedge, irregular, tree-interspersed, and then field and field and again field, green and golden and silver where the soft breeze turned the grasses up. But on this side the horizon was blotted out by thick woods which cut the skyline like fret-work. From all sides rose the chirping and piping and twit- tering of birds, the clear, throaty note of the thrush loudest of all. Away in the distance, but clear and in perfect time, the solitary call of the cuckoo came and stopped, and came again. The boy spoke. His tone was quiet, but there was more than a suggestion in it of resolutely controlled emo^ tion. " I want to lay everything out straight with you, sir,*^ he said, " at once.*' ** Go ahead, old f ellow,*' said Harry. '* And I'm going to ask you to answer some questions bluntly if you don't mind, without any attempt to spare my feelings." "Right," said Harry. "Was I packed off to you by the Gov'nor as a waster?" "Pretty well like that." " He sent me to you much as a drunkard is sent to a rescue home?" Digitized by Google no The Blindness of Virtue '* Much in the same way/' " With a detailed list of my misdoings at Eton and Oxford?" " Pretty detailed." The boy*s voice became a little shrill, and he gripped his hands together. "That's how I was sent to Eton — tinder suspicion. That's how I went up to Oxford, still under suspicion. Knowing that I was labelled suspicious goods, that I was watched and expected to break out into some rot- tenness, spoilt me at Eton, and ruined my chances at Ox- ford. I don't say that I'm not rotten. I don't say that I'm not a mass of detestable characteristics. But the one sure way of bringing these things to the top was to suspect me, and to expect these things of me. I've had nothing to live up to, and I've done stinking things everywhere out of bitterness and anger. I want you to know this. I want you to know my side of it all, and I want to ask you for God's sake not to suspect me. Do you?" "No," said Harry. The boy turned and pulled himself up. "Ah I" be said. Harry held out his hand, and the boy grasped it " As we are in a sort of way rubbing noses and be- coming friends," said Harry, "111 just say something too. I don't know your fadier personally. From what he's done for the country he's a big man. But I could see from his letter that he didn't understand you. He's always treated you as a man should treat a man, not as a man should treat a boy. He began by believing that you had no sense of honour and must be taught it, when he ought to have given you credit for possessing as great a sense of honour as he possessed, and put you on it Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue ill As to your horrible misdeeds at Eton and Oxford — my dear, good chap, when and where is a man to commit the harmless, necessary horrible misdeeds of his green youth except at Eton and Oxford, unless it's at Charter- house and Cambridge? Your father and those asses at Eton and Oxford — all of 'em the last men in the world to have anything to do with boys — all of 'em book- stuffed, theorising apes, only fitted to make rules for tiie conduct of dead things — have made you self-con- scious. Eh? Come along. All that's over. You and I are brothers, just two ordinary good sorts ready at any moment, but for the sympathy of each other and of our Brother, to break out and go arm in arm with nature to the gutter. I'm going to give you an)rthing that you would like to have if I can, and you're going to do the same for me. When we stand on our hind-l^s, and have the infernal bumptiousness to say that we feel we need nothing more. Providence, always on the look out for the braggart, will put in one straight from the shoulder and hit us very hard. Now come home, and 111 toss you who has the bath." Digitized by Google Chapter XIY ARCHIE GRAHAM was washed and dressed and ready for dinner before Harry Pemberton had finished whistling and incidentally bathed. It was a very different Archie Graham who made his way down to the hall of the Vicarage. He felt like a creature, labelled wild, that had been released from the chain by which he had been attached to institu- tions the whole of his life. He was not merely free. That meant nothing. He had frequently, from very devilry, broken the chain. He was trusted. He was to be treated like a man by men, and no longer as a suspect by gaolers. It was a glorious feeling, this new and startling sense of freedom. For the first time since he could remember he could hold his head high. He was able to be natural, to throw aside the sham natural- ness, the acted naturalness that incessant suspicion had bred in him. He had no longer to go about with the horrid knowledge that he was under surveillance. He was to be respected, and therefore he could respect himself. He was believed in. He could therefore be- lieve in himself. The whole of life assumed a new aspect, a new per- spective. He had seemed to himself, hitherto, to be the one hideous, out-of-proportion figure in the landscape^ so self-conscious had his abominable training made him. Now everything had suddenly sprung up round him, and he had dwindled to his proper size. The change was abrupt, startling, extraordinary, and " Oh, my God,'* he said to himself, " how delightful I '* 112 Digitized by VjOOQ IC The Blindness of Virtue 113 He stood on the threshold of the old house, and looked out across the garden and meadows and thin white line of road, hedges, and poplars to the setting sun. He did not put any of his thoughts into gran- diloquent order. He just felt, with a wave of intense relief and thankfulness, that with the setting sun the last of his ugly days was disappearing. He looked at tiie slowly sinking red globe trium- phantly, almost defiantly, and he clenched his fist and set his teeth. " The Gov'nor shall see,'* he said to him- self. "Fve got my chance! I've got my chance — at lastl'* Bill trotted round from the kitchen garden. On see- ing a stranger on the top step, without a hat and look- ing very much at home, he stopped and examined him coldly. " Hullo, young fellow," said Archie cordially. "How de do?*' said Bill, with the proper politeness of a well-bred dog. His manner was still chilly. " Come up and have a jaw,'* said Archie. '* HuUo,** thought Bill, " no side about this cove any- how. One of the right sort, evidently, and a pal, I take it, of Best-of-All's. That's good enough for me.** He mounted the steps, put two feet on Archie's 1^, and looked up into his face, with an immensely friendly tail. "Good for you, old man,*' said Archie, pattmg his bead. "You know a rat when you see him, eh?'* "Eh, what?** laughed BiU. " But you never, never make dashes after a cat? " Bai got down. " Oh I look here," he said. " Go easy. You're putting your foot into it I'm no giddy and foolish pup." " I'm sorry," said Archie. Digitized by Google 114 The Blindness of Virtue '' Say no more,'' said BilL ^ I see that you know a dog when you see one. I'm glad you're here. You'll be able to throw a stick or so for me. I'm just going up to have a look at Best-of-AlL So long." He trotted in and upstairs. Archie heard Harry's rich, vibrating voice and Bill's sharp treble. **Well, you haven't taken long to wash yourself," said a voice behind Archie. The boy turned quickly, and caught Cookie's one good eye smiling at him. " No," he said. ** How do you do? " ** Oh I don't go out of your way to be perlite ter me. Did you think I was Mrs. Pemberton?" **No. I know who you are. You're the one cook on earth." Cookie burst out laughing. All the same, her vanity, of which she possessed the ordinary quantity, was ex- tremely tickled. ''Don't know about that," she said, " I'm sure. Tell me after jrou've tasted my mint sauce." She passed into the dining-room, leaving a trail of chuckles after her. " Queer old bird," thought Archie. Under the closed door of the drawing-room trickled the soft notes of a piano. ''That's Mrs. Pemberton," he thought "111 introduce myself. Everybody seems to be glad to see me here." He opened the door quietly, went in and drew up quickly with a catch in his breath. Seated at the piano he saw a tall, slim giri with a sun-kissed oval face, large eyes full of restless spirit, and a mass of rich brown hair patched with streaks of copper. Her long bare neck, set divinely upon her shoulders, was slightly bent over the keys. Her fingers came down firmly, with a sense of strength upon thern^ Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 115 and die music she wrung forth was not soft and restful, but full of rebellion and unrest. Absorbed in the air, she did not see Archie enter, but played on, uncon- sciously reflecting in her face the questions the music flung into the air. * It was a wild, wistf ul, angry tune that she played, full, it seemed to Archie, whose keen and sensitive imagina- tion was always set alight by music, of the cries and fluttering of wings and impotent, painful rushes of a bird caged up and longing to stretch its wings in the great real world, even if they were broken diere. Archie understood instantly^ and instantly knew, with the intuition that was the one womanly thing in his na- ture, that die player did not understand. His eyes saw beyond the seated girl, in all the security and peace of a home shining with happiness. The quiet monotony, the small daily duties, the unexciting pastimes that had be- come irksome, the awakening ambition, the growing de- sire for something real and big, he read in her attitude, in her eyes, in the look of her fingers. Eflie looked up suddenly and caught Archie's eyes. Her fingers fell meaninglessly upon the keys. A dis- cord hummed through the piano and died away. For a moment neither spoke. Then Archie went forward boyishly. " By Jove ! '* he said, " that's what I call playing 1 " Eflie rose and gave a little shy laugh. " I b^ your pardon," said Archie, suddenly nervous and stiflf. " I'm Graham. I'm afraid I disturbed you." *'I was only playing to amuse myself," said Eflie. " I'm Eflie Pemberton," she added. The boy stretched out his hand in his best conven- tional manner. " How do you do? " he asked. ** I'm very well, thank you," replied Eflie, in the same Digitized by Google li6 The Blindness of Virtue one. Then she sat down to the piano. Archie stood n the rug in front of the old-fashioned fire-place. " I've met the dog and cook/' he said, " and admired he view. It makes a Leader picture frcxn the stepa ^re you — er — are you the Vicar's sister?" Effie showed two rows of small white teeth, and her yes danced merrily. **No, I'm his pal," she said — I mean his daughter." " You couldn't be one without the other," said Archie. He's a — man." Effie leaned forward eagerly. "Then you aren't go- ig back within forty-eight hours, as your father said ou '' She stopped, and grew red to the roots of her hair. Archie looked at her sharply. ** Did father say that 1 hould?" " I'm so sorry I said that," said Effie. '' It slipped ut." " It doesn't matter," the boy answered. " I suppose ^hat father wrote was that if — what a rotter I was I 'm different now, at least I hope sol — I didn't cotton n to your father I should chuck East Brenton." '* Yes," said Effie. The boy stood silent for a moment, thinking. Then e laughed. " Um," he said, " that's what I should have one. But it so happens diat I like your father a million mes better already than any man I've ever met — and lat's only a tenth part of what I'm going to like him." " I knew you would," said Effie. "I'd have to be deaf and blind not to. I wish I'd nown him since the beginning of the world." He lughed. " That's my egotistical way of saying * since I ras bom.' " " I know," said Effie simply. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 117 Archie laughed again, and Effie wondered why. He caught her eye, and knew that she didn't know and was glad. He was not going to be egotistical to-morrow. He was not going to be lots of rotten things to-morrow ^— not if he could help it — now that he had a chance* Digitized by Google Chapter XV HARRY played the devil's tattoo on the gong, and then flung open the drawing-room door. " Effie — Archie," he said. " Archie — Effie." " We've met/' said Archie. Bill entered. " Archie — Bill/' said Harry. " We've met, too," laughed Graham. Bill grinned. " No need lor an introduction/' he said. *' I pass him." Cookie poked her head in. '* What is the good of my being punctual when you let heverything git cold? " " Punctual 1 — punctual I " cried Harry. " Look at the time, you Arch-humbug! You're half an hour late." " Not by my clock," said Cookie. There was a tremendous laugh from Harry. Every string of the piano vibrated. " You put your clock back to the time you want it to be/' he said. " And you've done it every meal-time for twenty years. Deny it if you dare." Cookie sniffed. " Mr. Archibald Graham — Cookie/' said Hany. " We've met, too," said Graham. " Well, you've not wasted much time, have you?'* " No," said Graham, " not a moment." Helen entered. " Am I to take it that you've chummed up to my wife as well as to every other member of this house?" ii8 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 119 Graham looked across at the little, neat woman, whose face was still pretty, and whose eyes still sent out the expression of kindness and trustfulness that had won her the friendship and drawn forth the instant confi- dences of men and women, children and dumb animals. Then he went up to her and took her hand and heat •Ughtly over it «Yes,'*hesaid. "Please.'* Helen took his arm, and led the way into the dinin^^ room. With a beaming smile the parsuld I be of any use to you at the club? I can play a fairly sound game of pills, and — and, as a matter of fact, I can sing about two dozen so-called comic songs. Would they make anybody merry and br^ht?" " Get )rour hat, old fellow," said Harry, " and bring your pipe." " Really ? You're sure that I shan't be a wet blanket ? " " Anybody who can sing a comic song, my dear fellow, is worth his weight in gold.'^ The laughter that rose from the group round the piano in the club sitting-room, in which the women worked with Helen or looked through the illustrated papers, gradually drew the men from the billiard and 122 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 123 card-tables. The boy's third song was sung to a crowded room. Harry led the chorus. The Salvation Army man followed him, and presently the painter, the plumber, gardeners by the half-dozen, two sweeps, three milk- men, several butcher boys, a railway porter, a couple of grocers, and any number of bricklayers, factory hands, farm labourers, and odd jobs made the rafters ring. A billiard match was then arranged between Archie, by this time a poptdar person, and the scratch player of the club, and the excitement, as the hands of the clock made their way towards eleven, both players stand- ing in the eighties, became intense. Archie played well, but was out of practice and nerv- ous. He made a plucky fight for it, but was eventually beaten by three points. He was greatly cheered by the members of the club, who were doubly pleased. First, that their man won the game and upheld the honour and glory of the club. Second, that the "nice young feller " who had no side and sang " as well as a pro., if not better,'' had very nearly won. Archie walked home with Mrs. Pemberton. Helen had a way inherent and tmconscious — it amounted to a gift — of drawing almost instant confidences from nearly every one who might be with her for fifteen min- utes. Well under the first fifteen minutes of meeting her for the first time the boy had told her without know- ing that he had told her that he had never known his mother. Whatever prejudice against him she had formed after reading Lord Aberlady's letter, at once and finally faded out of her mind. " Poor boy," she thought, " how could he be expected not to make mistakes? He never had a mother." Already, in her quiet, determined, and unobtrusive Digitized by Google 124 The Blindness of Virtue way she had hegvai to mother Archie, and as is the way with genuine mothers, born mothers, irresistible mothers, her first great anxiety was to discover whether he was wearing wool next his skin. She approached the subject warily, because, from a long experience, she was well aware that on the question of underclothing all male creatures are touchy and im- patient. She said, " The nights are cold still, aren't they ? " " Are they? Yes, I suppose they are.*' " Oughtn't you to be wearing an overcoat? " " Good Lord, nol " said the boy. " This is the middle of May." " I know, but till May be out cast not a clout." "No dictionary that I've ever hunted through knew anything about the word clout" Helen gave a silvery laugh. " So like a man to hide behind a dictionary. You all know what clout means. And, after all, perhaps an overcoat doesn't really matter if vests and things are warm and thick." Being a motherless man, Archie fell into the trap. "Warm and thick I" he echoed. "The whole art of a vest is to be soft and thin I " He sneezed. " God bless you I " cried Harry from behind. " I shall examine your things to-morrow," said Helen quietly. " My husband once talked about art in con- nection with vests, and very nearly had pneumonia. He has worn wool for twenty years, eight months a year, and wouldn't be without. Effie shall ride with you to Rexbridge to-morrow. You can get beautiful woolies there for eight and sixpence apiece." "Not for me, thanks!" said Archie He sneezed again. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 125 " God bless you 1 " repeated Harry. "Thank you/' said the boy. "I will buy a large stock of wool vests for you to give away.'* " You're very kind. And you will keep six for your- self." "To look at I" " No, to wear." " I couldn't. They'd drive me mad." " They'd stop you sneezing." " I like sneezing." " You'll soon get used to them." " 111 never, never, never " " Yes, to-morrow — to please me." The boy laughed. " I want to please you, please," he said. "But '' "Then that's settled. Is that settled?" «Y— yes," he replied. They found Bill waiting for them at the gate. "I would have come to meet you," he said, " only I daren't trust the house alone with Cookie." They fotmd Cookie waiting for them at the hall door. " Rain ter-morrer," she said. " Oh, bless you, no I " said Harry. " There's no ring round the moon 1 " " Can't 'elp no ring round the moon. What about my pore feet?" Harry and Helen followed Cookie into the house. Bill followed Harry, yawning. Effie stood on the top step and looked out at the sky that was alive with stars. Archie stood by her side, and breathed in the scented air. " How quiet it is," he said. There was a pause. From the distant road there Digitized by Google 126 The Blindness of Virtue drifted the sound of whistling. A bird in one of the pollarded elms was piping throatily. " What time do you usually get up? " asked Effie. "What I used to do doesn't matter now/' he an- swered. " What time do you get up ? ** ** I shall be out to-morrow at seven." " So shall I," said Archie. Effie held out her hand. " Good-night/' she said. " Good-night/' said the boy. " By Jove, you do play the piano stunningly." " And you sing awf 1y well." There was another pause. No whistling came from the road. The bird in the pollard was asleep. Far away in the distance the sound of a train shunting was carried on the breeze. The wistftd restless expression had gone out of Effie's eyes. *'Well — good-night," she said. ** Well — good-night," said the boy. Digitized by Google Chapter XVII AS Archie put his cap on the bench in the hall and watched the girl go elastically upstairs, Harry stumped up from his room, in an old Zingari blazer loading a pipe. He locked the door, put up the shutters, and taking the boy's arm, led him through the hall down two steps and then three and along the passage to his den. Two candles were burning in tall, brass candlesticks. They threw a flickering light on the tmtidy, c in London. He had left his watch in his day- dothes. Digitized by Google 164 The Blindness of Virtue The play had lingered on until quarter-past eleven. The train went at five minutes past twelve. He had no notion how far away De Vere Gardens was. It would not have to be far at the jog-trot pace that seemed to be the best the four-wheeler could do. However, Mrs. Wilberton was frightened, and he could not possibly get )ut of it. He comforted himself by reflecting that De Vere Gardens was on the way. He played up to Mrs. Wilberton's almost endless stream of underlined words and dull bright chatter as well as gradually jumping nerves would permit, and sur- reptitiously spent his time darting anxious glances to the right and left to see if he could find a clock. The cab was hung up for a moment in the avalanche of converging traffic at Piccadilly Circus. It seemed ages before it reached Hyde Park Comer. On and on, jingling and rattling, went the abortive and abominable conveyance up to Knightsbridge, and still on. Chatter, chatter, chatter went the little bird-like woman; more and more jimipy grew Archie. The fair affected girl pretended to be asleep. She saw the wisdom of making Archie her second string. She well knew that utter in- difference was most effective with certain men. They arrived at 29, De Vere Gardens, as a clock struck twelve. "Good Lord!" cried the boy. There was a note of such distress in his voice that Mrs. Wilberton turned round quickly as she was mount- ing the steps. " What's the matter ? '' she asked. " Lost something ? '' " Yes, my train.'* He handed out the languid Milly. " I'm so glad," said Mrs. Wilberton. " Don't think Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 165 me unsympathetic, but now you must come in and have something." " No, thanks ! " said Archie, barely able to conceal his anger and annoyance. "Oh I but you must." "No, really, thanks I" " But I won't take no. YouVe missed your train, so what does it matter? You won't get into trouble, will you? But, of course, that's an absurd question. You're old enough to be your own master. What can it matter if you go back or not? " " I awfully wanted to keep my word," said the boy simply. " Keep it some other time. Just one night-cap." She nudged her daughter with her elbow. "Oh, do!"saidMilly. The lights of a prowling hansom could be seen at the bottom of the street. Archie whistled. " Too sorry," he said. " But I have an appointment to-morrow morning at seven o'clock. I shall be obliged to leave London by a workman's train. Good-night, and thanks very much for the evening." He bowed, turned on his heel, and ran. The cab had drawn up. Archie jumped into it. " Grosvenor Square," he shouted, " and be quick." Digitized by Google Chapter XXIII JUST precisely at the time that Mrs. and Miss Wil- berton entered the dining-room at the "Carlton Hotel " with the two boys, Harry Pemberton sat down on the top step of the old Vicarage at his wife's feet, with an arm round Effie, to enjoy a quiet pipe after din- ner, and a talk before going with them, as usual, to the club. A superb sunset was taking place behind the poplars, away in front of them. In a transparent sky, flecked with thin feathery streaks of orange, the great golden sun was slowly falling. There was no wind. The trees threw long shadows across the thickly buttercup-sprinkled meadows. High up against the sky a company of martins were wheeling about. Under the pollards, a stone's throw from the old iron gate, masses of flies were moving. A silver mist was beginning to rise, like smoke, from the duck pond. All the birds within earshot had much to say, softly. A robin with dim breast jumped from the old wall to the little lawn inside it and txtck again, giving sharp, merry whistles. On the village green to the right, hidden from them by the thickly-leaved, motionless branches of several elms, Harry heard the shrill voices of some boys, still playing. Bill, licking his lips after an excellent dinner, came and sat between Harry's feet. " Hot day to-morrow," he said. J^o one spoke. Helen's little hand crept out and lay i66 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 167 on Harry's broad shoulder. There was a long silence. Then they all spoke at once. *' Archie " said Harry. "Archie " said Helen. « Archie " said Effie. And they all laughed. " Extraordinary how that boy has become part of this house," said Harry. ** A dear boy, poor boy ! " said Helen. " I hope he has had a very nice day." " Polo's a great game," said Harry. ** He was to lunch with his friend, and then his friend was to dine with him. Wasn't that the arrangement?" said Helen. " That was it. Two men, dipping back into the past. Two old men in a young world ! I did it, in the brave days when I was twenty-one." The gate at the end of the drive opened with a click. Hurried steps sounded on the gravel. Bill cocked his ears. Harry sat up straight. A barge boy came through the small iron gate with a face the colour of brick-dust. He did not see the group on the steps, and was hurrying round to the kitchen door. "Hullo, young Garge!" said Harry. The boy pulled up short, and touched his cap. " Letter from muwer," he said. Harry rose, went down the steps, and opened the letter. It was a dirty half-sheet of paper, on which there were a few lines in large illiterate writing. "Oh!'* cried Harry. "What is it, dear?" asked Helen anxiously. "You know that pretty little girl, Mrs. Lemmins's Digitized by Google i68 The Blindness of Virtue daughter — Lemmins of the Albert Edward barge — has been missing for months ? " " Yes. Oh ! has she come back? " " Yes. In great trouble. She is asking for me. Run back to the barge, Gargy boy, and say that I will bicycle down at once." The boy started off without a word. " Effie, darling, go up to my dressing-room, and bring down the brandy flask." Effie went swiftly. Helen was on her feet. Bill had already risen, and was watching Harry intently. The group had dissolved as all groups dissolved in that house at a call from any of Harry's people. "Thank God she is found!" said Helen. "Such a sweet girl and so pretty, and as good as gold. Poor Mrs. Lemmins. It has nearly killed her." Harry was fastening clips into his trousers. " In great trouble, the mother writes." He mounted the steps, bent down, and kissed his wife. "Don't say a word at the club. I don't know how long I shall be. Don't wait up for me. I'll let myself in." Effie put the flask into his pocket, and ran round to the bam to get the old, hard-worn bicycle. " In great trouble," Harry repeated. " I hope — I do hope " He stood silently looking at the now red sky from which the sun had gone. There was an expression on his face of intense anxiety. " Such a dear little girl," he said. " I christened her nineteen years ago. She was bom on the same night as Effie." Effie held the bicycle ready. Harry gave her a kiss, and, wheeling the machine to th'^ gate, opened it, mounted* and rode away quickly. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 169 The evening was close and stuflFy. All the cottage doors round the green were open. Elderly men and women sat by them, the men in shirt sleeves, smoking, the women in aprons. The green itself was dotted with young children, some hatless, many shoeless, all lying about. The milkman's old white horse was gazing quietly, with flicking tail. Groups of slouching men stood in the road and leaned against a wall, spitting. Hats were touched as Harry rode by towards the station. He free-wheeled through the railway bridge, and pedalled hard up to the canal bridge, over which he had helped the brewer's dray. At the foot of it he turned oflf into a narrow lane full of deep wheel ruts, old boots, and empty tins. It led down to the tow-path of the canal. Two empty barges lay alongside the bank. Behind and in front of them gleamed the still water, cut with reflections of telegraph poles, a large wharf and its sheds, the bridge to the right, and a row of one-story wooden huts, with tile roofs and patches of flowers growing in small gardens. The almost incessant noise of passing trains mingled with the cawing of distant crows. Higher up the bank some boys were throwing stones at a bottle in the canal. The stones made a curious plopping sound as they broke the water. The whole scene was sordid and shabby, but the magnificent panorama of sky gave it a touch of poetry which is never absent from places where there is water. A woman, squat and broad of beam, wearing a large black sunbonnet, under which there gleamed a fat, capa- ble, sun-burnt face with a big double chin, was stand- ing on the path, waiting. When she saw Harry Pemberton she came forward a few steps and swallowed back her emotion. Digitized by Google 170 The Blindness of Virtue Harry stood his bicycle against a large pile of stones and held out his hand. Mrs. Lemmins wiped her own on her short skirt and todc it " Mary Anne's a-ccMne 'ome, sir/' she said. " I'm glad," said Harry. " Well? " ' " She won't say '00 took 'er awiy, nor yit wheer she's bin. 'E deserted 'er sometime ago, and I reckon she's bin sellin' flars in London. 'Ow she — she come to find the Albert Edward ah dunno. Reckon she's a bin on ther tramp down the canal. The trouble's on 'er nar.** "Oh — that?" said Harry. "Yuss, that, sir, and 'er not married. Doctor's bin, and is a-comin' ag'in at eleven o'clock. She's on the Albert Edward. Willie Taylor's lent me the Belle o' Readin' fer their night. But there won't be no sleep fer me." She b^fan to cry. "That won't hurt you, Mrs. Lemmins. You've had sleep every night of your life. Shall I go down to Mary Anne?" " If you would beserkind, sir." Harry's cheerful practicality had an instant effect. Mrs. Lemmins stopped crying, realising that there were more useful things to do in the family crisis than to waste time in self-indulgence. Harry went on board the Albert Edward, The wood- work in the stem was everywhere painted brilliantly but hideously. The long tiller was like a barber's pole, an elongated sugar-stick. The cabin and the wood-work round and above it were covered with a curiously-ar- ranged design of clashing primitive colours. The cabin itself, which was very little more than a large box, lighted and ventilated only from the top, was spotlessly clean and neat and picturesque. All the brassy- Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 171 work was burnished tintil it looked hot. Plates glistened in the rack, and blue-and-white cups hung from hooks with all their mouths the same way. The cooking-stove and the tin chimney that went from it through the top of the cabin shone. Some sort of cotton material stamped with extremely red rose-buds with very bright green leaves, himg over the cupboards pn thin, brass rails. The lamp that was suspended from a ring in the cabin's roof was brass with a red paper shade. The little flap table that became an extra bunk when neces- sary was covered with a cloth striped with broad lines of red and white. Wherever it was possible, coloured drawings of racehorses and public favourites were neatly tacked to the walls. The small square of carpet upon the floor of the cabin was even more highly coloured than everything else put together. It had its yellows, greens, and reds, blues, oranges, and pinks. The entire Lemmins circle considered it to be a very beautiful thing. Harry bent double and descended. The first object to catch his eyes was the face of a young girl, with a mass of golden hair, propped up against pillows. The face was thin and wasted, but delicately oval. The nose was small and straight, the chin small and round, the ears almost laughably small. But the eyes were large and very blue, with long golden lashes. It would have been the face of a picture-book angel, but for the lines of suffering round the pink lips, black hollows under the eyes, and in the eyes themselves a look of blazing defiance. The girl was lying in Mrs. Lemmins's bunk. The evening was hot, and there was little air anywhere. In the cabin there seemed never to have been any air. She had flung a thick blue eiderdown away, and had thrust Digitized by Google 172 The Blindness of Virtue her arms from beneath the clothes. Her forehead glis- tened with beads of perspiration. As Harry went down, she caught her breath and gripped her hands together and her nostrils trembled. But she tilted her chin and set her teeth. " My little Mary Anne," said Harry. He bent over and touched her cheek. A rush of tears came into the girl's eyes. She caught up the parson's hand, and pressed it to her lips. "Oh!** she whispered, "I wanted you — ah! I wanted you, not *arf I didn't, sir. If it 'adn't bin becos I knewed as *ow you come when they telled yer, I should 'a laid dam in the canal." "Dear little Mary Anne!" said Harry. A sort of smile twisted her lips. " Ever bin told as you was like deep, quiet water, sir? . . . There! Like me to show thankfulness by bein' saucy, I don't think. Thank you kindly fer comin*." "I would have covered a hundred miles to see you, my child." " Would you truly, sir? . . . Not if you'd known 'ow you would find me? . . . Mother didn't say in 'er note wot I'd done, did she?" Harry sat down. All the man in him was shaken at the sight of the little girl, whose purity of mind had be^i proverbial, reduced to this condition outside wedlock. He was filled with a fierce desire to punish the man who had brought about the ruin of such a spotless innocence. " She said that you were in trouble, Mary Anne," he replied. "Yuss, that there's ther wiy it's always put. ... It wouldn't be called trouble if I was merried, though, would it?" There was a shrill hysterical note of scorn in her voice for a moment. Then her tone became puzzled and Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 173 argumentative. " Ah don't see as 'ow trouble's the word neither, unless it's for the little 'un. 'E don't 'ave no trouble. I suppose / shall git over it. It's the little 'un as will 'ave all the trouble." " We'll see to that, Mary Anne," said Harry. " Don't worry." "Will we, sir? I want the baby, somethin' awful. I believe I've wanted this baby since ther diy muwer give me a doll. . . . / was ter blime for this, *e said." "You! — you!" cried Harry. "What a brute and a coward ! You knew nothing." The girl's hands opened and closed and then lay palms upwards. It was very hot, and there was no air. " That's it, sir." "What's it?" " Me knowin' nothing ! " " I don't know what you mean." " 'E explained it all right ter me. Me knowin* nothin', 'e sez, and what it all meant, brought it abart. If I'd a-bin told when I was old enuf to imderstand, I should 'a sent 'im awiy, he sez, double quick, and saved 'im and me and the little 'un from this 'ere. The man ain't built for thinkin', 'e sez. 'E knows, but 'e ain't perfect, and won't let 'isself think. 'E sez as 'ow if we was taught ter think and knew as much as ther man, there'd be very little of this trouble fer us. It's the muwer first, 'e sez, and then us, that's ter blime, never the men." Harry was startled. He had listened to the girl in- tently. He followed the inflections of her voice and the nasal pronunciation of her words with his head bent for* ward eagerly. He glared at her with contracted eye- brows when she stopped. " Oh, my God, yes ! " he said. " What that low brute Digitized by Google 174 The Blindness of Virtue said is right It's the mothers and the fathers who are to blame. If you had not been ignorant, this wouldn't have happened, for you're a good girl. It's your mother who is to blame." Mary Anne put out two eager hands. "Oh," she begged, " don't go for to give it to muwer ! She don't know as 'ow she's an)rway to blime. She was allays very good ter me." Harry was deeply moved. He was like a man who stumbles on something suddenly for which he has been searching for years. "The mother who is to blame. The parents, the teachers, the parsons, the doctors, who are to blame, but the mother first. He's right That brute's right. We don't tell our children the truth. We hide behind a most criminal false modesty — a personal cowardice, of fear of looking the great simple things of life square in the face. The best way to preserve innocence is to de- molish ignorance." Mary Anne eyed the parson in astonishment It seemed to her incredible that Mr. Pemberton, the Vicar, could take sides with the man she had loved and gone away with — the man who had thrown all the blame on to her when the inevitable result was certain, and who had wrung from her soul an outburst of passionate anger and resentment for what she had taken to be his sel- fishness and cowardice. "You — side — wiv — 'im, sir?" she asked in a voice shrill with amazement. " No," said Harry ; " I side with you, my poor child — with you against your mother, against myself, against my wife, against all mothers and fathers and so-called teachers, and all who are answerable to God for the dis- aster that has happened to you." Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 175 Mary Anne began to whimper. The feeling that shook his voice frightened her, while the fact that the Vicar, did not hold her up as a bad girl gladdened her heart and almost wiped out the recollection of anguish and despair, hidings and long tramps, hunger and dreadful thoughts. ''Oh, my dear little girl, I'm sorry!'* said Harry — •'frightfuUy sorry!" The girl caught up his hand and kissed it and soaked it in her tears. She didn't imderstand what made him sorry, whether it was because he thought that his vehemence when she was feeling so ill might upset her, or what. She only knew that he was not looking at her, as she expected, with disgust, but was sympathetic and very kind. Her gratitude brought the first good tears to her eyes that she had known for months. As for Harry he was sorry because he held himself greatly responsible for the trouble that had come upon this poor child. As a parson he ought to have swept aside all the ghastly conventions that have been built up round the primitive facts of sex, and insisted on his pc(q)le dealing out the truth to their children. " What if this girl had been Effie? " he asked himself. " Effie, who is just as ignorant as she was, and who may have just as strong a maternal instinct without knowing why, and where it leads." This thought haunted him through the evening, the night, and the following morning. He sat, until the doctor came, in the cabin of the Albert Edward. He thrust out of his mind all the ele- ments of this case as they affected him and his wife and daughter, and devoted himself wholly to Mary Anne. He blunted the edge of her fright by telling her all the Digitized by Google 176 The Blindness of Virtue amusing things that had happened in and round East Brenton since she had been away. He told her how the Parish Council had put iron hurdles all across the green on the path worn by the field-girls, and how they were not to be found the next morning. How the Parish Coun- cil — ^** well-meaning idiots" — had painted the hurdles white when they were discovered in ditches and put them back, and how, although the green was watched by a cobbler who read detective stories when he should have been mending the village boots, the hurdles were no sooner put up than they were pulled down again. The field-girls, strong, sturdy, merry-faced, impudent, loud-laughing, had made a short cut over the green, and were going to continue to use it for all the hurdles and Parish Councils the world contained. The little affair had been watched by the whole village with infinite amuse- ment, and the Parish Council was beaten — the path re- mained. He told the girl the well-known village story of the Italian ice-cream man from Rexbridge who had fallen in love with old Mrs. Pounding's youngest daughter who worked at the mill, and how, to the intense delight of the village, he had married them, although the only Eng- lish the Italian knew was " Finer day, yes," and " One penny, please." Mrs. Pounding talked of her daughter as Mrs. Gambleter Leankervalley, the man's name being Gambetta Leoncavalli. He also gave her a graphic description of the evening at the club when Archie Graham sat down at the piano and rattled off comic songs, of the great billiard match, and of the new room that was in course of construction. Finally, he made the world seem almost sunny to her again by promising that she should live in the Vicarage and help cook as soon as she should be strong enough. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 177 Then the doctor came, with the village nurse, and he withdrew to the cabin of the Belle 0' Reading to keep Mrs. Lemmins company. " Don't you wait, sir," she had said. " She has asked me to wait," Harry had replied. But he was restless and anxious. He was unable to sit still in old Willie Taylor's stuffy little cabin, and Mrs. Lemmins, with her continual whispered wailing of the disgrace that Mary Anne had brought upon the Al- bert Edward, was more than he could stand. If he had not left the cabin to pace up and down the tow-path, he knew that he would have burst forth and told the woman what that brute had said, and that he agreed with him. The moment was not then for reproaches. Nor did he feel himself to be the one to reproach. There was nothing to choose between Mrs. Lemmins and him- self. Both had pursued the policy of the ostrich, although she was the one to be punished for it, so far. The night was dark and humid. Intermittent light- ning cut open the sky and made everything silver for the eighth part of a second. At first the intense silence was broken, and hideously broken, from time to time by shunting trains. Even this noise ceased at last, and then the only sounds to break the slow heavy hour before dawn were the piteous cries of the girl who had never been told. When the baby was bom it was dead Digitized by Google Chapter XXIV IT was five o'clock in the morning when Harry rode' slowly home. He was tired, bodily and mentally. Nevertheless, he did not let himself into the house and go to bed. He put his machine away in the bam, and then, with his arms behind his back, paced up and down the dew-soaked lawn, slowly and thoughtfully, for nearly two hours. Every minute of this time he was thinking and ar- guing and making plans. In all his years of parsonhood in London and East Brenton, the case of Mary Anne Lemmins was the first one in which ignorance had been the cause of the fall. It was the first case with which he had had to do, that made him see how frightful was the danger of ignorance. So far as he was aware, all the poor, wretched girls whose cases he had known had got into trouble not because they wanted to be immoral, but because if they were not im- moral they were given no opportunities for enjoyment. It was a sordid, calculating, Imowledgeable affair, winked at by the parents, most of whom were surprised if their girls were married before this " trouble,'' as they called it — not callously, but in an every-day dull tone — came to them. Among the poor families to whom he had de- voted himself the sex problem was no problem. The mothers and daughters recognised facts. Men must be men, they said; if their girls did not want to be left at home and remain hopelessly n^lected they must not be squeamish. Like everybody who knows anything of the 178 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 179 lives of the great struggling class, he was appalled at the lcx)seness of their ways, and he set himself to raise the moral standard of the young men, because he knew that this was the best way to protect the young women. But Mrs. Lemmins was a respectable, self-respecting woman, who earned fair wages, and who lived a healthy if hard-working life. Mary Anne had been carefully brought up, and was intended for domestic service. She was not a slum child reared in the filthy comers of a city, nor a worker in the fields obliged to associate with blasphemous and drunken people, who regarded self-in- dulgence as their only pastime. Her innocence had been jealously guarded, and had shone out of her big blue eyes. "No lady's daughter," Mrs. Lemmins used to boast, " need be ashamed to speak to my Mary Anne." The girl had been held up as a model in the school and Sunday school. " A model," cried Harry, in his heart, " of what a girl ought not to be ! Innocent, yes, but ignorant, no ! There is nothing degrading about the truth. What is degrad- ing and wicked is the way we all have of never telling the truth to children s^bout the primary necessities of human beings, of hiding behind a false puritanism, of ig- noring all questions of sex, and of quibbling them away from the utterly mistaken standpoint of ' cleanminded- ness.' We turn sniggering or shamefaced from youth- ful questions that are prompted by an unconscious awak^ ening of the maternal instinct; drive our ignorant chil- dren to such tragedies as poor little Mary Anne will suf- fer under all her life. And we cry out to You, O my God, for pity, when we deserve nothing but punish- ment. • • • " If I can be a good parson, I said to Thoiganby, I shall be perfectly satisfied. A good parson I I'm neither Digitized by Google i8o The Blindness of Virtue a good parson nor a good father. I'm a self-satisfied creature, who is content to grope along the rotten and conventional ways, and who has never had the common sense to go to the root of a thing which wrecks more lives than drink and gambling and the lack of God. But I will learn my lesson. To the unfortunate girls who know and don't care, I can only persist in giving inspira- tion and moral ambition. But to the even more un- fortunate girls who know nothing, I will in future insist upon their being treated truthfully, honestly, courage- ously, and sincerely. I will fight false-modesty tooth and nail. I will attack the conventional insistence upon ig- norance with all my strength. I will not permit help- less, shame-faced puritanism on the part of my wife or any mother of ignorant girls in this village to remain a menace in their homes, so help me God ! " Having come to a decision, Harry Pemberton took his final turn upon the lawn. He noticed with surprise that the day was alive, fresh in its vigour, full of a soft promise of heat and peace. He looked at his watch. It was nearly seven o'clock. All the birds were up and about Bees were setting out on their day's journey. Flowers had opened their dewy eyes to the sun. Away in the distance the sound of a machine cutting the hay drifted towards him, and a cackling laugh rose from a string of girls hurrying to their work in the fields. For a moment the parson stood and watched and listened. God had made the world incredibly beautiful, yet men and women did very little to keep it so. A great humbleness came upon the big, sunny, eager man who did his best. " I will do better. Master," he said. " Give me time to try." He went round to the front of the sleeping house and came face to face with Archie Graham. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 181 ''Youl'' he cried. His surprise at seeing the boy, carrying his suitHrase, whom he had supposed to be in bed, may have sounded like anger. Archie coloured up. **I couldn't get down last night/' he said. **Win- stanley had a touch of fever, and I had to stay up and see to him.'' ** Good for you, old boy," said Harry, taking his arm. Digitized by Google Chapter XXV ARCHIE and Effie played their nine holes. Effie was in the highest spirits. She made no attempt to hide her delight at seeing the boy again. It danced in her eyes and lit up her face and gave elas- ticity to her step. Bill's welcome was undemonstrative but extremely cordial. " Saw you marching off with a bag yesterday," he re- marked. " I hate bags. They always mean loneliness for me. You don't look perky though, Archie, my friend." As a matter of fact, Archie was feeling anything but perky. He had had only three and a half hours' sleep after a very tiring and exciting day, and he had made a rush for the workman's train that had left Paddington at a quarter to six o'clock. But that was not the reason. He had lied to Harry Pemberton. He had been forced to discover that he had not, after all, got out of the ruts of his slipshodness, as he had yesterday believed he had. Providence had indeed stepped in to show him where he stood. Effie set the pace. *'Do you notice all the changes since you've been away? " she asked gaily. " Yes," he replied gloomily. " No you don't," she laughed. " You passed the rose- trees at the back without looking at them. Three of them have got three new magnificent roses apiece." 182 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 183 '^ReaUy?" Effie pulled up in the drive, and pointed to two old trunks of trees in whose hollows a mass of sweet-peas were blooming, eight feet up the sticks. " Look at those darlings ! " she cried. " Dozens of new blooms since you went away. And I picked arms- ful yesterday afternoon. But the more you pick, the more you may. Do you know what I think about sweet- peas?" " No I " said the boy, trying to catch something of the girl's spirits. ''What do you think about 'em?" They fell in step and marched out of the gate and on to the green. Bill was looking at them impatiently from the road. " Can't you two hurry for once? " he shouted. " Jaw, jaw, jaw!" "Well, I've discovered," she said, "that a sweet-pea is different from all other flowers. It's not a bit cocky and puffed up about its bloom. Its only ambition in life is to bloom quickly, if possible somewhere where it can't be seen, and then hurry for all it's worth into pod. Since I've found that out I simply hate picking it. It does seem so cruel to stop it from doing what it wants to do so awfully much, don't you think so? " " I lied to the parson," Archie was saying to himself. "I'm just as rotten as I was, although I've had my chance." " I don't believe you're listening," said Effie. " Oh, yes, I am. You love picking them because you tiiink that's the only thing they care about." Effie stood still, Uirew up her head, and gave a howl of laughter. "You're wool gathering," she said. "Wish I could gather something, even wool," he re- Digitized by Google 184 The Blindness of Virtue plied His tone was so bitter, so unlike his usual alert, cheery tone, that the girl looked at him sharply. " What do you mean ? What's the matter ? " " Nothing — nothing at all • • • By the way, you don't seem to take the slightest interest in my yesterday's doings." " Well ! " said Effie, " shall I tell you the truth? " *' Yes," cried the boy, " for God's sake do — always I " There was a pause. Effie eyed the boy. ** You are in a queer mood to-day, Archie." The boy gave a sort of smile. **No, I'm not. I'm quite all right Say what you were going to say. (I Bed to the parson.) " " What were we discussing? " ** My yesterday's doings." **0h, yes I WellJ I don't take a vast interest in any- thing that you did yesterday, if you must know." « Why not?" ^'Because I wanted you here. I hated your going away." " I wish I hadn't gone I " said the boy. The girl was instantly curious. "Do you wish you hadn't gone because I didn't want you to go, or because you didn't have a good time? " ''No. I suppose I put in an excellent time on the whole." '' If you want to tell me all about it, tell me," said Effie, very keen to know. "It won't bore you?" "Oh! it won't really bore me. Did you buy your socks and ties?" "Yes!" "How many?" "A dozen of both." Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 185 ••A dozen I I don't believe father has had as many as a dozen in his life." *' I lied to the parson," thought Archie. " Good God, I lied to the parson I " "And did you find your friend much changed?" •"Old Win? Rather, I hardly knew him. I should have passed him if I'd seen him in the street." "What's happened to him, then?" "India, and — and the Service. From being a man without some individuality he's developed into a type." " You liked him — as much as before? " " When I found him — or the remains of him. Yes. But really and truly, talking to him was rather like talk- ing to a regiment, not a man. I felt that all his brother officers answered when he answered. He had a most curious effect on me." "Did he? What?" " Well, thinking back, I'm perfectly certain that I was afraid to be myself, that I gradually became him." "How?" " I mean, I became a cavalry man too, for the time." " How do you become a cavalry man? " The boy gave a laugh. He was now talking quickly to get in front of his self-disgust and humiliation. "Oh I" he said, "you stiffen your back, arms, and 1^, make your tongue very heavy, check any desire you may have either to tell anything or ask anything, and think hard all the time about good form. It's not easy for a civilian." "I can't imagine you passing for five minutes as a cavalry man," said Effie. "Did you have to put up with ' dear old Win ' all day ? " " No. In the evening we dined with two ladies." "Ladies!" Digitized by Google i86 The Blindness of Virtue " Rather 1" "Who were they?'' " A mother who was just old enough to be a daughter, and a daughter who was ahnost too old to be a mother/' "I know," laughed Effie. "We've got two down here." " Don't ask me to meet them." "All right, I won't. If they hadn't been away they would have taken jolly good care to meet you. What theatre did you go to? " " Gaiety." "A new play?" "No. The old play with new dresses and another title. Managers are afraid to put on new plays. They all put on one new play, and go on producing it, written by other people, until no one will venture near the theatre, and then they join the Committee to form a National Theatre and call the public fools." " That's all Dutch to me," said Effie. " And I don't think that you really know what you're talking about." The boy laughed for the first time on the stairs. When he heard it, ht got up, with a determined expression, and stood on the rug in front of the old-fashioned empty fire-place fidget* ing his fingers. Harry entered. •* Hullo, old boy I "he said. , ** I lied to you, just now, sir," said Archie. «Did you? Why?" Harry put his two kind hands on the boy's shoul* dcrs. " Because I've been trained to lie," burst out the boy, **and I haven't broken myself of the habit I forgot that I wasn't talking to one of the men who wouldn't be- lieve me if I told the truth. If I'd said that I didn't come down last night because I missed my train, I should have been called a liar by one of them. They would immediately have suspected me of some rot So from force of habit I was afraid to tell the simple truth, and invented Win's fever. Hit me in the face. Knock me down. Hurt me vilely. I want you to." Harry lodced at the boy's eyes. They were full of tears. He saw that his mouth trembled, and that his hands were clenched. ** It's going to be a hot day," he said quietly. He moved to his desk and shifted a bundle of papers. He wanted to give the boy time to beccmie his own mas- ter. For several moments he was extremely busy, doing tilings that were not necessary. Then he took up a driver, and swung it to the danger of the chairs and shelves. ** Old boy," he said quietly, " have you ever been to Westminster Abbey? " •* Yes," said Archie. **Have you ever wondered how long and arduously Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 195 men must have worked to have buUt up that gorgeous place?'' "Yes," said the boy. *' You've been trying to buiM an abbey before you've laid all the foundation stones. • • . This is an excellent club. Plenty of spirit. . . . See what I mean ? " **Have I laid any foundation stones at all?" " Several of the most important, and, better still, you know which one you haven't laid." He put the driver in a comer, went back to the boy and wrapped his arm round him. " Go easy, Archie," he said. " Give yourself time, old man. The stucco building, the imitation affair that you were made to put up by your silly fool architects, is de- molished. Don't be afraid. Don't press. Don't try and break records. I'll back you to win after you have trained a bit more." The boy's voice was infinitely glad. **Then you — you don't despise me, sir? You won't let this a£Fair ever make you suspect me?" " My dear fellow," replied Harry, " I'm your friend, not you task master, or drill-sergeant I I go through every day what you've just been going through, and I thank God for it. It's my only chance of ever becoming all I hope to be. A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's a Heaven for?" " You're — you're most awfully kind." "It was very kind of you to have told me," said Harry. He patted the boy on the shoulder, and pointed to the word on the old card that hung over the mantel- board. " Before this develops into a Mutual Admiration So- ciety," he added lightly, "let's go and have some eggs nd bacon." Digitized by Google Chapter XXVII AFTER breakfast Harry returned to his study, sat down at his desk — Archie, pipe in mouth, was woiidng steadily the other end of the room — and wrote between thirty and forty short notes. The first one ran as foUows: " Dear Mrs. Benn,— ''A new-bom baby, the child of a young girl who is herself not much more than a baby, is to be buried to-morrow at eleven o'clock. I want you to come, if you can, to the church to help me and to listen to something that I want to tell you in the vestry after- wards. ** H. Pemberton.'' Mrs. Benn was a young woman newly married to Walter Benn, a gas-fitter. The remaining letters con- tained the same words, and were addressed to young women with young children. Eflie, wonderingly, put the letters in a little bag, and started off to deliver them. Helen found a similar letter in her workbasket. It was not quite the same. It began ''Dearest,'* and ended with "Your devoted Harry.'' Harry got on his bicycle and rode down to the Albert Edward. He remained in the little cabin for half an hour. He then went to the grocer's and bought several tins 196 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 197 of mock-turtle soup, returned to the barge with them, and left them with Mrs. Lemmins. His next visit was to William Burges, the builder and contractor, who furnished ftmerals; and so back to the Vicarage. He found the gardener cutting the lawn. " Collins/' he said, " I want you to pick a big bunch of lilies to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, tie them loosely together, and take them down to the tow-path at the foot of the bridge. You'll find the Albert Edward lying there. Give them to Mrs. Lemmins." In the afternoon he went back to the barge. Mary Anne was very young, and he was anxious. She had been lying in a heavy sleep aU the morning, utterly exhausted. No one knew what Mary Anne had diought and done since the man had left her four months before she stumbled into the cabin of the Albert Edward and stood in front of the startled Mrs. Lemmins with a last flicker of defiance in her big blue eyes. For six months after she had slipped away from the tow-path with the curly-headed, dark-eyed son of the lock-keeper in an ecstasy of romanticism she had lived in one room in Drury Lane. The man drank and shouted brutal words. He worked in fits and starts down at the docks, and packed Mary Anne out to keep him by sell- ing flowers. She loved him and worked. She loved him and hoped. She loved him, and faced the grim, stem, long days bravely, desperately. She could have left him, and gone back to her mother at any time that she had chosen ; but she loved him and stayed. Her golden hair and big blue eyes sold her flowers so well that the man very quickly gave up working. Her golden hair and big blue eyes had fired this man's desire. They now, the object attained, showed him the way to laziness and comparative luxury. Mary Anne had Digitized by Google 198 The Blindness of Virtue hidierto been the weak, clinging, fascinated girl, as ready to work as to forgive. His unspeakably abominable pro- posal, flung at her head in a sober moment in the coarse, plain language of his class, brought her dream clattering about her ears. She told him of her condition, made her appeal, her passionate outburst of blame, listened dully to his calm statement of fact, and stood among the wreckage of her romance, alone but for the gatmt figures of disillusion, misery, and remorse. But not alone. She was never in all the wanderings through the streets and out into the still, sullen country alone. There was that wonderful sweet something, that mysterious stirring something, to whisper to, to live for, to make plans about Always near the canal, and always frightened to find the Albert Edward, Mary Anne earned her precarious bread and water by cleaning doorsteps and doing mend- ings. Her golden hair and big blue eyes won many a glass of milk and hunk of bread and meat and night's lodging. When vital young Spring pushed decrepit, hard-dying Winter from the lanes and hedges, Mary Anne found her bed among last year's leaves and under cowsheds and hay-stacks. " I reckon this will do nicelee for us,** she would say. At last these two went aboard the Albert Edward, and Mary Anne told. She cared nothing for herself, but everything for the baby. In the afternoon Harry was sitting by the bunk, upon which Mary Anne lay when she opened her eyes. The heavy eyelids rose and fell weakly, ungladly. There was nothing of joy or hope in the big, blue, tired eyes for some mcMnents. Then they opened quickly and remained open, and a light came into them that was very soft and Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 199 tender. Her hands felt about for something, and she made a crooning sound as she felt. With an agonised expression and a hungry cry she tried to sit up, struggled to sit up. " My baby I *' she whispered angrily — " my baby 1 " Harry bent over her. " Sssh I little mother," he said. " Baby's asleep.*' Maiy Anne slipped back, and a smile crept over her face. Her big blue eyes opened and closed, opened, flickered, and didn't <^en. She gave a long, contented sigh, and went to sleep again, crooning sometime in her dreams and smiling always. Digitized by Google Chapter XXVIH ALL the women were mothers who stood round the tiny grave except one. In a rich, vibrating voice Harry read the beautiful simple service for the dead. Helen placed the lilies softly upon the little coffin and with them her tears. There were no tears in the eyes of Mrs. Lemmins. Many of the other women wept They had stood round the graves of children of their own — little ones who had slipped out of life before they had known any of its beauties or its horrors, its joys or its griefs. Among the branches of the old yews, which spread their protecting arms above the unremembered as well as the beloved dead, birds sang their merry songs. Bees busied among the flowers that grew upon the graves, humming their work-day songs, and the air was full of singing. Harry dropped a handful of earth upon the cdHn, turned, and made his way slowly into the old cool church, in which the people of East Brenton had been christened, married, and put to sleep for over five hundred years. All the women followed him into the vestry. They found Harry standing up with his hands behind his back. They stood hesitating for a moment, and one after another sat down upon the chairs arranged round the walls. When the shuffling of feet ceased, Harry spoke. '' In that little coffin,'' he said, '' lies the body of a baby without a name, who would have been called the Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 201 child of sin — wrongly called the child of sin. It was not the child of sin, but of ignorance, and for its birth you, every one of you, is to blame, and I as much as any. Its mother is a child. It will be said of her that she has 'gone wrong.' She will be pointed at and sneered at and giggled at, and a stigma will hang to her dress like a burr. But she is blameless. The one who is most to blame is her mother. If she had told poor little Mary Anne the reason of her motherhood, a spot- less life would not have been stained; God would not hear the agonised cry of a childless mother, and that little grave would never have been dug. . . . My dear mothers and future mothers, for God's sake who loves little children, tell your children the trutii! Never for- get that little grave for which every one of us is respon- sible. If you don't wish your girls to go through what Mary Anne Lemmins has suffered, tell them the truth. Don't lie or quibble to spare yourselves. There will be a grave in your lives if you do. Not they but you will be to blame if any one of your daughters, in future, gets into trouble. Never forget that little grave. When your daughters are still young, put your arms round them, and tell diem what it means to be a woman. Let innocence remain in your homes by thrusting out ig- norance. Let them know and understand the great re- sponsibility that is theirs, the great gift with which they have been bom. Keep them modest by permitting your- selves no false modesty. You are all good women. Be good mothers. Never forget that little grave. God bless you!" Digitized by Google Chapter XXIX HARRY PEMBERTON and Helen returned to the Vicarage. Neither spoke. All Helen's sympathies . were with the golden-haired, blue^eyed child who would wake to find that although she was a mother she had no baby. She was silent because there were tears in her Aroat. Harry was silent because he had not recovered from, and would not recover from for a long time, the shock he had received from Mary Anne when she told him the point of view of the father of her child. It was so ob- viously the true point of view, especially in relation to Mary Anne, that he could do nothing but reproach him- self for never having discovered it. "There is Effie," he repeated inwardly,^ again and again — '* there is Effie." Harry followed Helen up to her bedroom. He sat down by the open window. Effie and Archie were playing in a set of tennis before luncheon. Both young faces shone with health and animal spirits. Both were playing hard and extremely well and with deadly earnestness. Helen stood in front of the glass and took off her hat» " Poor little Mary Anne 1 '* she said — ** poor little Mary Anne!*' Harry turned and looked with something that was almost curiosity at his wife, — something of speculation. He seemed to be not merely watching her quiet assured movements with his usual extraordinary affection and 202 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 203 appreciation but searching under her skin, so to speak, m an endeavour to discover to what extent her character had grown during all the years of their dose intimacy and hard work. This big simple man, whose key note was that "He who is greatest amongst you, let him be your servant/* was in no sense of the word analytical. He accepted people on their face value and believed in the goodness of every one even after they had been proved weak, shifty, or false. But at that moment, stung as he was by the Mary Anne incident, he found himself for the first time in his life analysing his wife. He asked himself as he sat in the window with the sun on his strong profile — How big has Helen grown under the broadening hand of other people's troubles? Can I speak to her with the utmost intimacy on a matter which affects her as a mother? He decided that he could. He came to the quick con- clusion that whether Helen's conventional ideas were to be shocked by what he felt he must say to her at once or not he would be untrue to himself, disloyal to his calling and utterly wanting as a father if he permitted himself to consider her feelings at the expense of Effie's future. And so with characteristic abruptness he opened up the subject which the advent of Mary Anne had made a sort of illness in his mind. " It's an amazing thing, Helen," he said, " that in all my years of work in London and here the case of Mary Anne is the only one that has opened my eyes to the ap- palling danger of ignorance.'* Helen ran her deft fingers over her neat hair. ** Ignorance! What makes you think that Mary Anne was ignorant, Harry?" Digitized by Google 204 The Blindness of Virtue " Every thing that she has told me. I've always been led to believe that the poor wretched Mary Ann's of the world got into trouble not because they wanted to be im- moral but because if they were not immoral they were unpopular/* " I'm afraid that's true, dear. It's a sordid calculating knowledgeable affair frequently winked at by the par- ents who are mostly surprised if their girls are married before they get into trouble." " Yes/' said Harry. " To these people the sex problem isn't a problem at all. They recognise facts, men must be men, they say, and if the girls don't want to be hope- lessly neglected they must not be squeamish. Like every- body who has come into contact with the great working- class, their looseness has appalled me." Helen smiled proudly. "Yes, but you have done a great work in this village. You have raised the moral standard of the men. What better way is there to pro- tect all these poor girls?" Harry was silent for a moment His wife's mental attitude made him aware of the fact that he must lead up to his point carefully. " But here we have Mrs. Lemmins, a self-respecting woman, earning good wages, leading a healthy hard work- ing life. Her girl has been carefully brought up. She's not a slum-child reared in the filthy comers of a city. She's not a worker in the fields obliged to rub shoulders with blasphemous and drunken men. Her innocence has been jealously guarded. *No lady's daughter/ Mrs. Lemmins used to boast, ' need be ashamed to speak to my Mary Anne/" Helen tidied her dressing table. " And she was right. Poor old Soul. Mary Anne was a model, a perfect model/' Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 205 And there Harry seized his first chance. '^A model? Yes, but a model of what a girl ought not to be. Innocent, yes. But ignorant, NO." Helen looked rotmd with an expression on her beau- tiful face of utter astonishment " But how can you expect a girl to be innocent if she's not Ignorant?" " Oh, that's exactly what I want you to tell me. You say that Mary Anne was a model. Look at her now. Helen, why don't we tell our children the truth? Why do we go on hiding behind false modesty and personal cowardice? Why are most of us afraid of looking at the great simple things square in the face ? " To his infinite disappointment and alarm his good wife spoke almost lightly. " Oh, but it's all very difficult, Harry," she said. " It's all been argued a thousand times, and there's never been any satisfactory solution." "But why not? Ever}rthing else has progressed and yet in this vital matter we are still prehistoric. Surely the time for Puritanism is dead and done with. Surely this persistent attitude of deceiving our girls and of dodging their wondering questions from the hopelessly mistaken standpoint of clean mindedness is not for in- telligent and humane people. Why do we turn sniggering and shame faced from youthful questions prompted by an unconscious awakening of the maternal instinct? Why do we drive our ignorant children to such tragedies as will mark poor little Mary Anne for the rest of her life? God has made the world incredibly beautiful but do we do anything to put duty into the lives of his children. Every day his young things ask us the meaning of life. Why don't we tell them? . . . Helen, why don't you tell Effie?" Digitized by Google 2o6 The Blindness of Virtue An extraordinary vibration seemed to stir all the nice ornaments of that correct room. It was as though Harry, had flung a bomb into the middle of it Helen was al- most too shocked to speak. "Effie?" she echoed. ''Tell EHieT" Harry got up. "Yes, darling, Effie. She is very nearly a woman. She has been more carefully brought up than Mary Anne. She has spent her life almost within the four walls of this house and garden. We have deliberately shielded her against the questions of sex. I ask you what might happen to her if she fell in love with some good-looking tmscrupulous boy." " You mean — Archie ? ** " No, I don't. I mean any boy. We know nothing of Effie's mind on this point. She is nineteen and if she's a healthy girl, she has, whether she knows it or not, the maternal instinct.'* Helen's voice rang proudly through the room. " That's true. But she is dean minded and good." ** But who's to know if she is strong enough to resist temptation ? " The woman gave a cry of keen reproach. It hurt the man. But all his soul was stirred. He followed up his point eagerly and bravely. He was going to settle this matter once for all. "Who's to know," he added deliberately choosing strong words, "That Nature hasn't punished Effie by giving her desires strong as those of men?" A curious stiffness settled over Helen. It was as though she had heard something that was altogether tm- mentionable. " Then she will not remain innocent," she said coldly, " Whether she knows the truth or not." Harry put a strong hand on her arm. " No I Nol " he said, " That's a sweeping assertion, a Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 207 most uncharitable idea. Here and there of course there are poor girls to whom morality and innocence mean nothing tmder the stress of nature. But to ninety-nine out of a hundred virtue means everything, and I say now, I wish with all my soul I'd said it sooner, that a woman who lets her daughter struggle blindly through the awakening years of her womanhood is not fit to be a mother." Helen recoiled. She was deeply wotmded. But Harry f oUowtd her up. " My dear," he said, " I want you to speak to Effie to- night." " I couldn't. I simply — couldn't." "I ask you to. Effie might have been Mary Anne. Think of it." Helen whirled round upon him. There was anger and passion and dignity in all her lines. She looked like a woman who was fighting a disease. "Effie never could have been Mary Anne. Never. She is our daughter, tny daughter. Every day of her life she's been with us, with tne. Do atmosphere and environment count for nothing? What's the use of all our teaching and example if she's to be treated as one of the poor girls from whom nothing can be hidden. She is pure of mind and heart. At the right moment the maternal instinct will come to her as it comes to all carefully brought up girls. Let her be free from all that side of life as long as she can, besides — it isn't done. We don't tell these things to our girls. My mother never told me. She didn't want me to know. She was all against the discussion of these personal matters with young unmarried girls. I found out the truth for my- self. Effie must do the same." Mrs. Pemberton said the last words of what was the Digitized by Google 2o8 The Blindness of Virtue longest speech that she had ever made, as though they were indeed the last words of this dreadful argument. She followed them with a little gesture that waved away finally any further discussion. She was a woman and a mother and she must be supposed therefore to know what was best for her daughter. But Harry's mind was made up. The matter could not be left here. He had never put his hand to an}rthing and left it unfinished. He did not intend to leave this, to him, terribly urgent matter without making or forcing his wife into an agree- ment. When he spoke again it was quietly. "Darling, Effie might have been Mary Anne. Mrs. Lemmins never thought of telling her the truth. Look at her now. No man can say what he will do under temptation. No woman can say what she may do in ignorance. Effie might have been Mary Anne. Think of it." There was anger in Helen's voice. " I can't think of it. It's altogether unthinkable." And there was anger, at last, in Harry's. " But I think of it. I must think of it. And I ask you this. I ask you for Effie's sake, for my sake and for your sake to forget what your mother did and what all these other refined women do and face this question fearlessly." There was an expression of pain on Helen's face. She felt that she was being goaded and driven up against a wall. " And how is it possible for me to be fearless? What could I say to her?" And then Harry took his chance. "Just this,'' he said. " Tell her that she, like all other women, is endowed with the divine gift of life-giving, with God's miracle Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 209 of creation, that she must hold her body in trust for the man she wUl love and marry. Tell her that children are God's gifts to men and women when they love each other, that they are the fruit of love and are carried by tiie mother and fed by her and begot by her, and that motherhood is a wonderful, exquisite thing, the triumph and the reason of every woman's life. Tell her never to lead men, or permit herself to be placed by them into dangerous positions. Teach her self-respect because she is worth respecting. There is one way and only one to treat our little girl — trust her. There is one way and only one to set her with a proud head on the difficult road to life. Take away her ignorance and give her knowledge and f aith.^ But Helen still rebelled. " I'm sorry/' she said, " I can't say it. You must not ask me." Harry made two big strides forward and took hold of her by her shoulders. His voice shook. "Helen, you and I have never had an angry word. Not one. It will be a black day if ever we do. For God's sake don't drive me to anger over what is the most vital question that has ever come into our lives. Effie's happiness and safety are in our hands. Are you going to be brave enough to do something that isn't done, — are you going to rise above a horrible and dangerous con- vention and put yourself to the distress and discomfort of speaking to Effie, or — will you leave it to me?" There was a threat in his voice. It frightened his wife. "Harry!" " Effie might have been Mary Anne. Answer me." He brought the whole weight of his personality against her. He stood above her, strong and tense with all his Digitized by Google 210 The Blindness of Virtue vitality quivering. For a moment the woman stood ir- resolute, twisting her fingers nervously. Never before had she heard in the voice of the man she loved with all her heart the note of command. Then too, the child was hers. ''I . . . I wiU tell her.^' Harry wrapped her in his arms. Digitized by Google PART n Digitized by Google Digitized by Google Chapter I BILL lay under an apple-tree. The late August sun beat down upon the dry, hard lawn. Every now and then an apple fell with a thud. Peaches blushed upon the walls of the kitchen garden, pears hung heavily from their branches, and plums, swollen and almost blue, tried to hide behind their leaves. Holly-hocks had grown to their full height, and were bee-attended at all hours of the day. Sunflowers, just as tall, were bending their heavy, languid heads, and the lavender bushes had spread widely. Geraniums, perkily erect, red and pink and white, made lines of colour upon the beds, and her- baceous borders glutted the eye with a feast of colour. Bill found the shade grateful, and his soul was filled with a great content. There was the chimney-sweep's dog — a vicious, ill- bred, ragamufiinly, quick-darting beast of a fellow — who had acquired the low habit of sneaking into the Vicarage garden and killing young chickens. Bill had spoken to him sternly several times. The visits con- tinued. A very promising young cockerel had been found dead and mauled on the other side of the meadow wall. Bill made no further remarks. He spent sleep- less nights and watchful days. At five o'clock that Au- gust morning, as he was lying in the long grass near the chicken house, he had heard the grass moving softly, and saw the brown, ugly body of the thief making slowly towards a fat white pullet which was getting an appetite 2x3 Digitized by VjOOQ IC 214 The Blindness of Virtue for breakfast. Crouching low. Bill had watched his opportunity, made one botuid, icaught Master Mongrel by the scruff of his neck, and given him a dusting so complete and thorough that it would remain a memory with him for the remainder of his days. As he lay full stretch under the apple-tree and thought about this, it was with a most excusable feeling of pride. His labours had been rewarded. Next time he met mongrel in the village, there would be no interchange of polite inquiries as to health, but a quick disappearance. That was good. Also, thank heaven I Best-of-All was himself again. Some weeks before he had watched him anxiously. He had gone to meet him when he returned from the church, and had had no greeting. He had listened to the sound of voices in the bedroom. Once Best-of-All had spoken to him as he had then spoken to Helen. Once. He had been a hobbledehoy. He had discovered a new box of Black Dots, and, thinking, greenly, that Black Dots were naturally only bought for pups to play with, had carefully bitten as many holes in all of them as he was able. He had watched Best-of-All after that interview with his wife with sympathetic anxiety, especially when he was alone in his den with the door shut. He had watched him, after every one had gone to bed, sit at his desk with his face between his hands for hours at a stretch without moving, making no sound except an occasional deep sigh that was almost a groan. And he had several times left the room without a word to Bill. Not even a cushion stuffed with the best feathers, in a chair in the best of all rooms, made up for that. However, that was over. Best-of-All had been his usual breezy, energetic, cheery self again for many Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 215 wedcs. *' Heigh ho 1 life's a doocid excellent institu- tion," thought Bill. And then, as to that young fellow, Archie. Bill had alwayd considered that that visit of his to London had something queer about it. There had been another talk with the door shut and Bill on the wrong side. But Best-of-Airs voice had been very kind that time. It was the boy's voice that came loud and shakily. How these two-legged creatures loved to talk ! Something had been very wrong, of course, and not only the boy, but Effie, Helen, and G)okie had been far from cheerful people that morning. However, the air had cleared when Best-of-All came into the dining-room arm-in-arm with the boy, and no more holes had been cut before break- fast by Effie and Archie. Of course, the boy stewed over his books far too much, Bill considered, and had quite entirely ceased to throw him chaffy remarks, and make noises through his teeth, to egg him on to think that a stray ;cat was about the place, while he was working. He seemed to like his job now, if Bill knew anything about it at all. What a pull a dog has over a poor beggar of a boy I Effie was full of beans too, that Bill was delighted to acknowledge. It made a lot of difference to him, Best- of-All always being out and about. He had to confess to himself though, as he reviewed the position lazily and with intense satisfaction, that he wasn't perfectly certain that Helen hadn't got something, some little thing, on her mind. He admired and even loved Helen. First of all she was the wife of Best-of-All. That was good enough for him. She was also awfully sweet and gentle and thoughtful and quiet and mighty good to Best-of-All. That warmed his heart towards her. And yet he had always been just a bit tmcomfortable with her. When Digitized by Google 2i6 The Blindness of Virtue he rushed in it seemed to him that she looked at his feet» and although she never said a word, she made him self- conscious. He wasn't sure — he hardly liked to criticise the wife of Best-of-AU, a collie might do a thing of that sort, a hirsute, useless, decorative thing, or a hound of sorts always beastly superior in their methods — but per- haps she was just a shade too perfect to be an entirely satisfactory person to have about the house. Mind you, he didn't say so. No. And he didn't think so. It was a vague suggestion, a shadow of an idea. He had no- ticed that, since that bedroom talk, she had been rather dumpy when working alone in the afternoon; that she had eyed Effie rather nervously, had several times hesi- tatingly begun to talk to her, and had always seemed re- lieved, though not satisfied, when something had de- manded Effie's immediate attention elsewhere. It might be mere excess of imagination on his part. He stretched himself and yawned lazily. The world was very good all round. The mill hooter went. "Hullo I" thought Bill, "time I had a drink." Before he had pulled himself together to go into the kitchen he heard the crunch of boots upon the path. He rose with dignity, prepared to ask questions. It was all right, however. The little, thin, wispy man dressed in shabby, shiny black had the run of the house. Father O'Shaughnessy spent many of his evenings in the den with Best-of-All, talking and laughing and smoking. The little man walked quickly. His thin, bird-like face, cut into everywhere with short lines, wore a wor* ried look, not devoid of temper. He carried a queer black straw hat. His pointed bald head, from which wisps of grey hair hung, glistened in the sun. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 217 "Ah, BhiU/^ he said, " where's ye Massther?" " Here I am, old fellow," shouted Harry from the den, ** G>me in." Bill was up and in the den through the window before the priest had got within thirty yards of the garden door. " You back? " said Bill. " I think you might have let me know." Harry gave him a playful punch. " Come in. Father," said the parson, ** and have some luncheon with us." The little priest entered the room stiffly, and stood straight up in a slightly melodramatic attitude, with his hands behind his back and his eyes on Harry's out- stretched hand. "Mr. Pembherton," he said, "you and I have bin intimate f rinds for as near eighteen yeers as makes no manner uv diflference." " And I hope we shall be just as intimate for another eighteen," said Harry heartily. The priest did not permit himself to be melted by the parson's charm of manner. Being Irish, and therefore having a grievance, he had no desire to anticipate the end of his interview at the very b^[inning of it He knew perfectljT well that he and Harry, whatever he might say now, would part if possible more cordial friends than ever. But having seized with angry delight upon some- thing which required explanation, he had carefully and hotly rehearsed an indignant outburst, and he almost shuddered to think that anything should deprive him of the intense enjo3rment of ventilating it. Harry was immediately sorry that he had made any friendly remark. The priest and he had met daily, some- times hourly, in their work in the parish — their work in which Harry never permitted the slightest suggestion Digitized by Google 2i8 The Blindness of Virtue of rivalry. He knew the priest's typical Irish character well. A dozen times in as many years the little man had entered his room in precisely the same way with pre- cisely the same grievance. The kindest thii^, as well as the most diplomatic thing, was to let him get rid of his seething eloquence. Father O'Shaughnessy grew red in the face. " At the moment, d'ye see," he said, raising his voice, '* Oi misdoubt whether we shall iver shake the hand in frindship again." Harry played up like a sportsman. "Indeed I" he said. " May I ask why ? " " Ut's the pwhy that I've entered yer house to tell ye this moment" " Pray be seated. Father O'Shaughnessy," said Harry stiffly, shooting a wink at Bill. " Oi wud rather stand," replied the priest. " Ut's the man Magee, Tim Magee, that works on and off in de brickfields over by de * Paddington Packet,' that Oi'm afther speakin' to ye about — Tim Magee, bom a good Catholic, thanks be to God, and de sooner he dies a Catholic de better, for he's a dhirty, time-servin', cadgin' feUahr." "Tim Magee— oh yesi Well?" " But ut isn't whell, d'ye see," cried the priest " Ut's far f rcHn bein' whell. The mattahr is loikdy to put up a wall uv bittehr blood between two old an' dhear friends." " Pray explain yourself," said Harry icily. "Haven't Oi bin explainin' meself all de time? Oi tell ye ut's Magee, Tim Magee, that's the whole troubil, wan uv de most devout simpil creatures iver put upon dis earth, de dhirty blackguard. Ask yersilf pwhy Oi condescend to darken the threshold of ye house at all, havin' by ye grace uv God discovered ye base machina- Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 219 tions to wrest from the thrue fold the soul uv this same Tim Magee. Ask yersilf , Mr. Pembherton." Harry forced back his laughter. Not for worlds would he deprive the great-hearted, hard-working, simple little man of an atom of enjo3mient. "Am I to believe, Father O'Shaughnessy,'* he said, with the utmost gravity, " that you accuse me of seduc- ing Tim Magee into my church?" " An' ut's jist that Oi'm askin' ye to believe, though Oi hope yell refuse to believe ut wid all yer might an' main. Ut's bin reported ter me that Tim Magee was seen in your church three Simday evenings runnin', havin', the dhirty villain, bin properly to mass each Sun- day momin' like the devout Catholic that he is. Mr. Pembherton, Oi ask ye, d'ye see, without any heat or tempher, is that a ting that Oi can sit tight under ?^* " My dear Father, it's disgraceful. I assure you, on my word of honour, not only that I don't want Tim Magee, but that I won't have Tim Magee. Next time I see him in my church, if it's in the middle of my sermon, I'll get down from the pulpit, take him by the scruflF of his bull neck and seat of his breeches, and pitch him out sjuito the road." The priest went off into a sudden shrill peal of laugh- ter. He clapped his hands on his knees, bent double, and walked about the room. Tears streamed from his eyes. It was a minute before he could speak. When he had recovered, he held out both hands to Harry. " Oi truly believe ye would too, me dear f rind," he said. "And ut's meself that would dearly loike to see ye do ut." And so the little comedy ended, as it always ended, with peace and friendship. " You will lunch, old fellow? " Digitized by Google 220 The Blindness of Virtue '' Many thanks, Oi shall be simply ddoighted'' BiU f oUowed " Well/* he said to himself, " human beings are mm- muns I I suppose it's because the/ve only got two legs» or something/' Digitized by Google Chapter 11 THAT afternoon another and a heavier step on the gravel made Bill look up. He saw a well set-up, stout man, respectably dressed in a tight-fitting tweed suit, march rotmd the garden with G>okie. Besides wearing a black dress with a rose pinned upon her bosom, she wore a proud, proprietary smile. They were hand in hand, these two, as they had every right to be, for they had been engaged to be married for twenty years. Collins, the gardener, who had sampled Cookie's cook- ing every morning for five of these engaged years, and was a bachelor earning twenty-five shillings a week, and a good deal more by the sale of such fruit, vegetables, and^ flowers from the Vicarage garden as would not be missed, as is the way of gardeners, had proposed to Cookie once a month, with persistent regularity. Cer- tainly he chose Saturday night upon which to do so, and was, therefore, made bold by an extra quart of old ale, but he knew cooking when he tasted it He also knew Cookie, and found much to admire in the brown of her hair, and the shrewd turn of her tongue and in the un- quenchable generosity of her nature. That only one of her eyes was useful and few of her front teeth remained seemed to him to weigh nothing against her palpable ad- vantages. ''Fred Jennings,'' he had said again and again. 221 Digitized by Google 222 The Blindness of Virtue ** Well I 'e calls 'issdf a man, don't 'e? 'Ow many years 'as 'e been a-walkin' art? '* "Ohl you eat your meal and leave Fred Jennings alone. He's all right." "All right? I don't think. Very much all right is Fred Jennings. Keep you waitin' twenty years before puttin' you into ther merried stite, and takes your wiges when 'e's art ov work. All right, not arf. When am I goin' to be best man. Cookie?" And Cookie would prune herself and giggle and say: " Ah I you never know. Keep your top 'at dusted." But Christmas succeeded Christmas, midsummer f ol- k>wed midstunmer, and Fred Jennings came down once a fortnight from London, but never fixed the day. There were other men in the village who would gladly have led the funny little woman to church. There was big Dick Turner who worked in the Brewery and made good money, who had long ago buried his wife, and sent his children out into the world. And there was Mr. MacFall, the dog fancier, with a shop in Seven Dials, and three rooms over the wheelwright's. Quite a catch was Mr, MacFall, with a most wonderful way of finding stray dogs of some value. But Cookie remained true to Fred Jennings year in, year out. When he was out of work, as he was some- times for weeks together, not only her savings, but the whole of her wages went regularly to London in one of the parson's envelopes. Fred Jennings had proposed to Cookie when he was a slim, smart fellow, who carried a ring on his little finger, and knew a horse when he saw it, and wore a collar every day of the week. And she had never for- gotten to be grateful. There had been dreadful moments during these long Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 223 twenty years for the little woman who loved once and remained in love. Fred Jennings had walked out with a young woman in service at the Londmi house of a Mem- ber of Parliament, and G>okie's pillow had been wet with tears for many nights. But Fred Jennings had returned repentant, and been freely forgiven. No one believed that Fred Jennings meant marriage as time went on. Even Cookie sometimes doubted it But she had told curious questioners so often that ''she couldn't leave the Vicar, Mr. Jennings must wait," that she had grown to believe it herself. Fred Jennings had come down — the sight of him on a Wednesday afternoon had surprised Bill extremely — in answer to a peremptory letter from Harry Pember- ton. It had been reported to the Vicar by Mr. MacFall that Jennings had been seen at the Earl's Court Exhibition on several occasions with a young woman who worked in a tea-shop in the Edgeware Road. Harry knew of this long engagement, of Cookie's tmfailing generosity and constancy, and he was not going to allow, if he could help it, anything to shatter the romance of his old serv- ant's life. When Jennings arrived, not without nervousness, Harry was out reading " Jorrocks ** to old Joe Judd, who had returned from hospital to die at hcmie. So Cookie, who had hurriedly dressed, took her sweet- heart round the garden. "Looks nice, don't it?" she asked, with an air of proper pride. "Ahl" said Jennings, "I icould do with this place. Soot me a treat 'Ullol there's Bill." The man flicked his fat fingers. Bill gave him a somewhat patronising nod, and re« Digitized by Google 224 The Blindness of Virtue mained seated. ** How de do, Jennings ? — how de do? •• he remarked " Gettin' lazy/' said Jennings. "Lazy I" cried G)okie. "Not 'im. Wish 'e was. Wotddn't come 'ome of a momin' along of Miss Effie and Mr. Archie and dirty my clean steps. He's a streak of hairy life if ever there was one. And think? WeU there, it's as good as a play to watch 'im sometimes. Little devil 1" "Thought you liked 'im?" " Like 'im ? Of course I like 'im 1 Don't know what I should do of an evening without 'im keepin' an eye on the 'ouse when the Vicar and the Missus is away at that there club. R^[ular company, is Bill. Better than a man. 'E don't smoke." "Hens laying well?" asked Jennings, looking anx- iously at the Vicar's room. " Erratic," said Cookie. " 'Aven't got out of the 'abit of growin' l^-oody yet, some of 'em. I often wcmder what a hen thinks sittin' isolated for weeks at a stretch, with all them eggs under 'er. And the way some of 'em talks to their eggs, makes me feel reg'lar pappy some- times. Fine mothers, hens." They stood under the pergola, over which a \\^lliam Allan Richardson had spread its long arms and sharp fingers. Cookie looked rotmd, put her arms round the man's short red neck, and kissed him. A look of remorse came into Jennings' eyes. He hdd the little elderly woman tight for a moment " Jennings I " The two started apart •-Sir?" ** A word with you." Harry stood at his window, loading a pipe. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 225 Coolde giggled, and walked past the window. " Mi^t 'ave coughed, mightn't you?" she said. Harry laughed. Jennings walked round and into the house. He tapped at Harry's door. "Come in.'' The man entered, and stood twisting his hat round and round. ** Sit down, Jennings," said Harry, shutting the door. ''Thank you, sirl" He was a loud-breathing man, with thick ankles. Harry lit his pipe, and stood with his back to the empty grate. " Now then, Fred Jennings," he said, " I sent for you to ask you several questions. Are you still in love with Cookie?" The man cleared his throat ** Devoted, sir," he said. ** And you still wish to marry her? " " It's the dream of my life, sir." "Then why are you philandering with a tea-shop girl?" Jennings blushed hotly, and passed the back of his left hand over his mouth. He raised his voice when he replied, "There's the law for rich and pore alike for them as commits libel ** "You don't deny it?" " I do not deny as I've taken a certain young lady for a blow on the flip-flap all as innercent as innercent, same as you might ^" "Have you told Cookie?" " There would 'ave bin no call for me to deny it if she'd put the question, sir." Harry was silent for a moment " Jennings," he said, ^ Cookie is an old and valued friend of mine. I know Digitized by Google 226 The Blindness of Virtue what she has done for you on many occasions, and I know how much she loves you. She is a very good and rare woman, of whom any man might be proud. If you're telling me the truth about being devoted ** Jennings broke in. He raised his hand above his head with a gesture that was ludicrous in its solemnity. " It*s the truth, sir, if it's the last word I ever speak on earth. I love Cookie true and tender, same as I did when I asked 'er the question when we was in our prime. It ain't a fierce love as it were then. It's meller and settled, and don't worry me. It's more like the love oi a man for his wife than his sweetheart, and it's all the better for that. As ter Miss James, I do admit, as be- tween man and man — if I'm taking a liberty I ask pardon — that she ondoubtedly 'ad a fascination for me and showed a preference. My idea is that when a man's engaged to one woman and another 'as a fascination, the wise thing ter do is not to teetotal 'er, and fall into the romantic, but ter let the fascination dull off by seeing a lot of 'er. That course I persuded, and with all truth, speaking as I am to a clergyman, I can say, sittin' 'ere, that Miss James 'as seen the last of me. The fascination 'as passed over, like summer lightning, and I'm a normal man." " Very well then," said Harry, " make your plans to marry Cookie as soon as possible." Jennings rose with an air of agitation. ** But I'm out of work, sir," he cried. " I have provided for that," said Harry. '* Provided for that, sir ? " *' Yes. I'm going to appoint you steward at the club, so that Cookie may be married at last The post car- ries twenty-five shillings a week, and a five-roomed cot- tage. You will move into it the day after to-morrow, and Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 227 start your duties the next day. Have you anything to say?" The man's fat face was pale, and his voice a little husky. " Nothing, only — thank you, sir ! " he said. " I know that you are honest and sober, and will do your work well. I want you to realise, however, that I am not giving you a good, permanent job for your own sake. I am giving it to you for Cookie's sake. I want to see her married. I can rely on you to eschew fas- cinations in the future, Jennings ? " " You may, sir. The club and Cookie will fill my Ufe." " Then that's settled." Harry strode over to the door, ** Cookie," he called. ••Yuss." " I want you." " I'm a-comin'." There was a pause. Throwing Jennings a smile, Harry returned to his favourite place and stood with his back to the fireplace. Fred Jennings remained in a dig- nified attitude, sternly controlling his emotion. Cookie ran in and drew up short. She glanced from her man to her master and back again. Her hands flut- tered and her breath came quickly. " Oh ! " she said. " You two 'ave been a-quarrelljn'." " My dear Cookie, nothing of the sort. Jennings and I are better friends than ever. I asked you in because I thought that you might like to know that he has accepted the post of steward of the club, and will live in the cottage next door to it." "Oh, Freddie!" cried Cookie. Jennings raised his hand, and looked at the Vicar. Harry lowered his voice. "The reason he accepted the post, my dear old Cookie, is that he can fulfil at last Digitized by Google 228 The Blindness of Virtue the great desire of his heart and make you his wife. He hopes that I can spare you. I can't, but I must If you will both be at the church when everything is arranged, I will marry you — at last" Cookie looked at the Vicar for a moment dully, then she took several groping steps across the room towards him, and caught up his hand between both her own. "Oh, my dear!" she said— "oh, my dear!*' Then, with the tears welling out of her eyes, she turned to Jennings and burst into a cackling laugh. "Here's a mce got " she said. " Oo'll 'e get to make the treade roUey-polley he dotes on so?'' Digitized by Google Chapter III HARRY PEMBERTON had been reading "Jor- rocks*' to old Joe Judd every afternoon for a fortnight These readings, which lasted a full hour, were the only bright patches in the old man's drab and melancholy days. The village, Harry, and the doctor knew that they were the last few days of a long, energetic, healthy life. The operation had been a difficult one, the patient too old to make a good recovery. Only such an old sports- man as Joe Judd, who, for all his years, was as hard as iron, and whose spring of vitality seemed to be endless, could have survived the operation. He clung to life as a terrier clings to a stick. He set his teeth, stiffened his old back, and said, '' Die be dagged 1 It's a fight. Come on. It was in this spirit that he returned from the hos- pital. It IS true that he was obliged to totter up to bed the moment he entered his crowded cottage. Before ohtying tHe local doctor's orders, however, he shook hands with all his relations and friends, and told them that he'd be at work again in a day or two. " I'll guar- antee I've got a good ten years in front o' me, boys," he said. "Watch it." But the day or two became a week, two weeks^ " Not to-day," he said to his constant visitors — ^"not to-day. Doctor keeps me in this 'ere bed to-day. But look out for me ter-morrer." 229 Digitized by Google 230 The Blindness of Virtue It was always going to be to-morrow. Every to-mor- row came and found him stfll in bed, and every day that passed left him more wasted, more shrivelled up, shriller of voice, until at last he looked like a little old monkey as he lay back, with his thin, claw-like hands clasped to- gether, banked up with pillows, a pair of small blue eyes burning in an almost transparent face. His sons and daughters, sons-in-law and daughter3-in- law, nephews, nieces, and grandchildren watched the old man's fight with wonder, admiration, and pity. "It ain't a bitter good," said young Alf Judd to a circle of s)rmpathetic listeners in the '* King's Head.'* " They've got the old man's 'ead dam, it ain't not a bitter use 'is kickin' art wif 'is legs. Accordin' to the rules of the ring 'e's done finish — knocked art, 'E much better turn it up and git art quiet." But not a word of this was said before old Joe Judd. Neither Harry nor the doctor nor any of his friends or relations hinted or suggested that he might as well make presents of his spades and forks, rakes and sc}rthes. " See you up the village tcr-morrer, then," they all said. " Ahl " the old man would reply, in a more and more reedy voice. " That's me. Watch it, mate." But the afternoon icame when old Joe gave up the fight. Harry's hour was up, and he rose from the narrow- legged, cane-bottomed chair, nearly hitting his head against a beam in the slanting ceiling as he did so. " Good afternoon, Joe," he said. " To-morrow at the same time — unless you're down the village." A quiet smile flickered across the painfully thin oM face. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 231 " Needn't keep it up no longer, Vicar," he said, " thank yer kindly all the sime," " Keep what up, old man? '' " Why, that ter-morrer talk, the little gime of me goin* dam the village. I shell never go dam ther village no more. It'll be up ther village f er me, my next outin' — up ther village to old Churchyard and dam alongside Jinny." Harry sat down again, and put his hand on the old man's shoulders. There was nothing of f retf ulness, no suggestion of tears or fright or even regret in the old man's expression. Instead, there was a gleam of quiet fun in the old rip's eyes, and something in the twist of his lips that seemed to convey relief. " You've all kep' it up fine," he added. " I argied as 'ow I cud ill put up wiv this 'ere bed in ther diy time, me never 'avin' liked much of it even o' nights, if I didn't pertend ter myself as 'ow I shud be up and abart agin ter-morrer. Didn't do no 'arm, did it. Vicar? " " Not a bit, old fellow! " said Harry. " Keep yer end up, Joe, I sez, sez I, and before the light fades, squeeze as many mns as yer can. The other side'U win, there ain't no manner o' doubt abart that there, but the gime is allays ter pliy f er the draw, if yer can't win, I sez. That right. Vicar?" " Perfectly right, Joe." "Aye. As skipper of the eleven that there's wot you've allays lamed us, and many's the time I've carried out me bat. Well, sir, thank you kindly for standin' by. The light's gora. I can't see to take no more bowHn', and all I'm awaitin' f er is f er you to call ' draw stumps.' " " Draw stumps," cried Harry. " Well played, sir 1 " ' Hooroo 1 " said the old man, waving his hand. He U ' Digitized by Google 232 The Blindness of Virtue hdd it above his head for a moment, fingered his wrists as though taking off a pair of gloves, and fell back among his pillows. Old Joe Judd's long innings was over, but he carried out his bat Digitized by Google Chapter IV AFTER a burial a wedding, and so on the world wagged — the little flat worid of East Brenton. Old Joe Judd was followed to the grave on a Monday, and on a Thursday in the same week Cookie was married. It was, so far as East Brenton was concerned — and East Brenton was not much concerned with any other place — the wedding of the year. Harry Pemberton had benefited by the indefatigable services of Coolde for twenty years. For the same length of time she had amused him by her shrewd tongue and affectionate familiarity. Her constancy, her pa- tience, her invariable cheeriness, her generosity, and, more than all, her extraordinary optimism had won his respect and admiration. Harry determined to make Cookie's wedding day the red letter day of her life. It was arranged that Cookie should be married from the Vicarage, that the wedding breakfast should take place in a marquee set up in the upper meadow, and that Cookie's brother should be asked down from London to give her away. This brother, who drove one of the few remaining two-horse omnibuses from Cricklewood to Hammersmith, and had done so for thirty years, was her one remaining relative. Cookie invited her own guests to the breakfast, and her list consisted of the Vicar, Mrs. Pemberton, EflSe, Archie Graham, Bill (to whom a card was written), Peter Meadows (the brother), Mr. and Mrs. Joshua Higginbottom (Fred Jennings's sister and her husband), ^33 Digitized by Google 234 The Blindness of Virtue Mr. and Mrs. Stagg, gardener at the Manor House and his wife (who gave Cookie a hand twice a week in the kitchen and about the house) ^ Collins (who, being unable to marry Cookie himself, was to act as best man to Jen- nings), Mr. MacFall, and the other disappointed suitor, big Dick Turner from the Brewery. Helen, Effie, and Archie Graham all entered into the affair, with Harry Pemberton, heart and soul. Helen and Effie would have set to in the kitchen to cook the breakfast, but Archie asked to be allowed, as a slight tribute to his friend Cookie, to supply the entire feast It came over from Rexbridge, a meal fit for Gog and Magog, with wines and other drinks to match. He also presented Cookie with the money for her dress and hat, and oh ye Gods 1 what a hat it was in which she finally, fifteen minutes after the cabs from the station arrived at the Vicarage, made her appearance. A large, flat, white enormity heaped up with roses and forget-me-nots fast- ened with a huge brooch glistening with imitation dia- monds. It will be spoken of in East Brenton with envy and awe for years. It may be said to have caused a sensation. Helen and Effie drove through a more or less deserted village to the church, in and round which all the available inhabitants of the place were waiting. The bells rang merrily. Archie, in highest spirits, followed in another cab with Peter Meadows, whose beetroot face shone beneath a new white bowler and above a blue-and-white collar and a white satin tie, Mr. MacFall, whose little legs were en- cased in a pair of skin-tight pepper-and-salt trousers, and Dick Turner, who had blushed out in an old tall hat and frock coat several sizes too small. He had himself been married in it, twenty-eight years before. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 235 Never in the living memory of East Brenton had the church been so tightly packed. Next to the Vicar and his wife. Cookie was the most popular person in the place. Had she not, for eighteen years, given tea to the tradesmen's boys, soup to all and sundry throughout all the winters, and taken in b^fging letters to the Vicar, and generally returned with something, however small ? Men, women, and children filled the pews and lined — those who were late — the path. Cookie hopped up the aisle upon the arm of her beam- ing brother. Fred Jennings, resplendent in grey, with boots that squeaked with every movement, supported by Collins, washed and shaved and exuding a strong aroma of Windsor soap and shag, was waiting at the altar steps. The organist, who was the schoolmaster, worked hard — so hard that the mechanism of the ancient organ made more noise than his instnmient, groaning and creaking. And Harry, his fine, strong face burnt the colour of brick- dust, and his voice deep, rich, and vibrating, read the beautiful, simple service as no one in that church had ever heard it read before. The scene in the vestry brought tears into the eyes of the verger. Cookie's delight and happiness would have warmed the heart of a sphinx. She kissed every- body — Harry, Helen, Effie, Archie Graham, Mr. Mac- Fall, Collins, Peter Meadows, Dick Turner, and the verger himself. "Bra)r\ro, Cookie!" cried men and women and chil- dren as she trotted up the path on her husband's arm. " Good old Cookie ! " they shouted as she stumbled, laugh- ing and crying, into the open cab, showered over with i^nfetti. And all the way back to the Vicarage these Digitized by Google 236 The Blindness of Virtue hearty cries rang in her cars, for boys and girls ran on each side of the cab. Bill met the bride and bridegroom at the gate, with a white ribbon in his collar. Dignity forgotten, he leaped and barked and ran. Cookie, for all her sharp remarks when he dirtied the spotless wet steps, had always been his friend. In his memory was the recollection of many a succulent and strictly forbidden tit-bit "Good old Cookie!" he cried with the rest of them — ^''good old Cookie I" Then followed the breakfast in the marquee, served by two slightly condescending waiters from the Rex- bridge caterers' — were they not in the habit of waiting upon the gentry and even the nobility of the neighbour- hood, to say nothing of the gentlemen at the Golf Qub on Saturdays and Sundays ? (All golfers are gentlemen ; it is the Royal and Ancient game.) The babble of tongues, the clatter of knives and forks, and the popping of corks went on unceasingly until the Vicar rose to his feet Then there was a cheer and silence. " Ladies and Gentlemen,'^ he said, " charge your glasses for a toast I am not going to ask you to drink the health of Mrs. Frederick Jennings, for, by that name, if she lives to a hundred and two, she will never be known to me or to any of her old and affectionate friends. I am going to ask you to drink a toast with which I couple the name of the brid^froom, wishing great happiness and many years of continued cheeriness, generosity, and optimism to that dear woman who will go through life as Cookie." (Loud cheers.) "Cookie!" "Cookie! — Cookie!" Archie's clear baritone started it " Fo-or she's a joUy good fellow . . ." Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 237 Every other voice caught up the old familiar song, and a " Hip-hip-hip hurrah " came loudly, with one for luck, from the throats of all the men. Fred Jennings stood upon his feet, breathing loudly. There was another cheer. But Cookie put out her hand and pulled him down. She rose, and remained standing silently, until the burst of applause subsided. "Dear Master," she said — ^'Mear Master '' She got no further. She stood for a moment quite still. Then she sat down, and bent her head over her plate. But Fred Jennings spoke, and so did Mr. MacFall, Collins, Dick Turner, and Peter Meadows. Mr. Mac- Fall said that in whatever class she entered, no judge, even though he was got at as they mostly are, could fail to give first prize to Cookie. Collins, not to be beaten, said that Cookie would bloom through the winter with- out any glass, and Dick Turner made a really excellent comparison between Cookie and fine old ale — Cookie's scream of laughter nearly tore the tent — and Peter Meadows remarked with the faintest touch of bitterness, that no motor, clatterin' and stinking would put her oS the road. And in the kitchen, Cookie's kitchen, listening to the cheers and laughter, the new cook sat She was a girl with golden hair and big blue eyes and a hole in her heart Digitized by Google Chapter V THE year grew old. Harvest gathered in, fruit picked, roses fallen^ the leaves still clinging turned to red, turned to yellow, and waited for the winds and rain. Swallows, swifts, and martins left their nests and gathered together upon the telegraph wires, ready but unwilling to saiL Owls hooted in the pollards as days closed in, and wasps found warm comers in which to sleep and die. No longer was the Vicarage garden aflame with colour. Scudding clouds by day and cold sparkling skies by night looked down upon almost empty beds. Here and there an autumn flower glimmered red and yellow. But in the house fires burned and lamps gleamed early, and the work of the day was as early and as late as ever. Siunmer and autumn, spring and winter, brought with them new work, new duties, for Harry and his wife. Harry did not need Mary Anne Lemmins in his house to remind him of one of his new duties. Already he had held long talks with East Brenton mothers on the question of dealing fairly and honourably and fear- lessly by their daughters. If he had not been Harry Pemberton, the man who had earned the confidence and affection of them all, they would have regarded the opening up of such a matter with them as impertinent interference. Their attitude was the general attitude. That they should be asked to discuss calmly with their young daughters anything which has to do, however 238 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 239 remotely, with so delicate a question shocked and sur- prised them. They had not been told by their mothers. Why therefore should their daughters be told? They could not "bring themselves" to do it. They listened wide-eyed to Harr/s sympathetic common-sense, but agreed to do nothing more than think it over. When they did think it over, they came to the conclusion that the whole thing was a cranky idea of the Vicar's. " Oh I he's a clergyman," they said to themselves, *' and he must do something/^ And when those who were frightened and impressed, but too self-indulgent to undertake a task which seemed to them full of difficulty, discussed the matter with their husbands, they all met with more or less the same reply. " What ! teach my girls what they ought to know nothing about, make 'em bold hussies and fill their heads with ideas? Let me catch you at it! " And so, although they all knew that the Vicar meant well, they decided to leave well alone, not to break down the conspiracy of silence which they had always been taught was the right thing, and not to interfere with the laws of nature. If their daughters were, unfortunately, of the kind to go wrong, nothing that they could say would prevent it. "What was good enough for my mother and grandmother must be good enough for me. I don't hold," they argued, "with these new-fangled ideas." Harry persisted. He tried to make these mothers imderstand that knowledge protected innocence while ignorance made it an accident. Why should their chil- dren be taught anything? Why teach at all? If it was right to teach them one thing, it was right to teach them everything. He tried to win the few educated women in the place over to his side. But these people treated him to stiff er backs and more outraged expressions than Digitized by Google 240 The Blindness of Virtue he met among the working classes. They simply won- dered that a clergyman of the Qiurch of England could permit himself to entertain ideas so diametrically op* posed to all the teachings of the Oiurch. They dubbed him revolutionary^ socialistic, almost French. '* I could not be so immodest/' they said, with tilted chin, " as to broach such a subject to my pure-minded young daugh- ters. Therefore you must not ask me to do so to the daughters of the poor." Harry found that, like all enthusiastic K:rusaders, he had gone to work too quickly. He had put his finger on what he took to be, and knew positively to be, as all thinkers for years have taken and known positively to be, a dangerous weakness in the upbringing of the young. He wanted to make an alteration at once. He wanted to apply a remedy before people were aware of a dis- ease. His distress at the almost icallous attitude on the part of all the women to whom he spoke was acute. He made a fresh start If he could not persuade the mothers to protect their daughters, he would not rest until he had imbued the young men with an ambition to protect them. "Treat every girl," he said to them, "as you would have your sister treated Let no young woman be the worse for knowing you." It was an uphill struggle. Mothers and fathers, even the so-called educated mothers and fathers, considered his doctrine to be dangerous and abominable, and the young men grinned and winked behind his back. " Fine cricketer, the parson," th^ said. "Suppose he thinks it his job to talk rot" But Harry had bared his arms to fight ignorance and false modesty, and nothing should stop him. He would, however, fight with unseen weapons. He gave up dis- cussing the subject, and held classes for young girls in Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 241 the new room at the dub. He called them cooking and household classes, but they were conducted once a week by an enlightened and sympathetic woman from Lon- don, who led her pupils very gently into the knowledge of the essential things which their loving and assiduous parents r^;arded as disgusting and immodest So far as Effie was concerned, Harry was happy. She was not ignorant, at any rate. Innocent and modest, yes, but not ignorant Helen had seen to that But Helen had not seen to that Helen was the daughter of an English gentleman, a member of the upper middle dass. She had been brought up in a highly respectable street, by an dderly atmt, who was the widow of an Oxford don. It is true that she had spent the greater part of her life among the poor, rubbing shoulders with ignorance, immorality, crime, poverty, starvation, disease, and dirt. It is true that her mind was broad, her sympathies wide, her heart big, her knowledge of the great raw side of life immense* But prejudice and convention remained. Her love for Harry almost amounted to adoration. She lived for him and for his work. She would willingly have died for him. He was her hero. All that was rcmiantic in her nature was stirred by his great, strong, virile personality, his renunciation of all ambition for personal aggrandisement to devote himsdf body and soul to parish work — he, Harry Pemberton, who could so easily have mounted to the top of any of the trees he had chosen to climb. Not to carry out his wishes, not to obey a request that was made under great emotion, and after deep thought, which concerned the happiness of their daughter, was to her almost a crime. In every other thing, however big or little, he had been obeyed or obliged. And Helen, Digitized by Google 242 The Blindness of Virtue the prim Helen, the child of a man who hardly ever talked, and never in his life discussed or made confidences, was physically unable to speak, as Harry had b^ged her to do, and as she had agreed to do, to Effie. Many times she had braced herself up to do so, but always, at the last moment, heredity and prejudice had made it impossible. " To-morrow," she said — *' to-morrow. EflSe is very young. She runs no risks under this roof. Besides, Effie is — Effie." All the same, Helen was not happy. Always in her mind rankled the thought that she was being disloyal to Harry. And yet, fighting this, was the deep-rooted conventional prejudice against going into the details of the relations of the sexes with her daughter who was un- married. In the Vicarage Helen represented the mothers of her country — the mothers who are not fit to be mothers. And what of Effie? She loved Archie Graham. She knew it, she gloried in it. However dull the da/s round, however unexcit- ing and monotonous the life she led, however sunless the sky, her love filled and illumined her life. It was her first love. It might or might not be her only love. Not yet twenty, there was lots of time to grow out of love and love again. But hers was the heart of a young thing — one of the hearts that opens with difficulty, takes in bigly, and retains always. As yet, being only twenty, she was content to love. She did not know the need of having love returned. As yet it was joy enough to see and hear and step out by the side of the one whom she had taken into her heart As yet, she did not desire, even vaguely and mysteriously, any more than this. She did not know that there could be anything more to de- Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 243 sire. There was nothing of the clinging, tearful, namby- pamby about her. She uttered no words of endearment. Her happiness came in being near Archie, in constant, fresh, joyous companionship — golfing, playing tennis, and walking with him. If she had not kissed him that once Archie Graham would never have guessed her glowing secret. Her wish to be constantly in his company was totally unaffected. Because he loved her, however, and all his senses were alive, he did guess it, and the knowledge acted upon him as a spur. He knew well enough that his vanity was fed by her love. But Harry had awakened all that was best in him — a sense of loyalty, a sense of respon- sibility, the knowledge that he must work before he could love, an overwhehning desire to play the man. He and she had all their lives before them, thank God ! and when the time came he would claim her. Not until then. For all these reasons, then, he loved and forced himself to forget that he loved. He was like a man who finds gold, marks the place, and continues on his journey. So far, good. Digitized by Google Chapter VI ONE evening in mid-October, after Harry and Helen, having dined, had gone off to the club, and in the twenty minutes during which Archie permitted himself to loaf before sitting down to his books for the evening, alone in the den, Bill came back from the gate, cold and rather bored — Best-of-All was so keen on that blessed club — and fotmd Archie, mashie in hand, stand- ing on the mat in the hall. Effie, with a lamp at her elbow, was kneeling on the floor, with a new book on golf, full of photographs of a champion in all the intricate attitudes of the game. It was Archie's, and had just come down from London by post. "What!*' cried Bill, **not content with playin' that old gentleman's game all the afternoon, you • • * Great Caesar's ghost!*' He threw up his eyes and marched into the dining- .room, sat down and blinked at the fire. " ' The short approach,' " read Effie. " Now look here, Archie, do you mean to tell me that he is doing anything more than use his wrists for that? " Archie knelt down too. Their heads nearly touched. One jerk of Archie's elbow and over would go the lamp. ''Yes. I say that he's putting a certain amotmt of right fore-arm into that stroke. Not much, but a cer- tain amount." "Oh, bunkum!" said Effie. " Quite Elizabethan," said Archie, with a bow. 244 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 245 **Oh! well, I mean nonsense/' • *' Mid- Victorian 1 " said Archie. " Well then, rot 1 " she laughed. "Anno Domini, 1908." " It's all very fine," said Effie, " but when one's having a very serious argument about a mashie shot one can't talk the language of — of " "Of a Slade Professor — possibly not. The Royal and Ancient was invented and played by several hefty old Scots full of ozone and unblended whisky, and none of us have forgotten it. Nevertheless " " Oh ! do be quiet, and look at this photograph. You must own, unless you're absolutely blind, that the mashie is held lightly, and that nothing but wrist is being used." " The photograph doesn't show how far off the pin is." "Why should it? It says 'the short approach.'" " Yes, but every golfer has his own ideas of how many yards a short approach is. If he plays and lies dead at thirty yards, it becomes a good fifty over the fire. But if he plays and punches, and the ball bounces off the green into the rough, it's a deceptive twenty yards — the lie was rotten and a dog barked." Effie smothered a smile. " I don't believe," she said gravely, " that you quite appreciate the solemnity of the game. You ought to take up marbles." Mary Anne left the dining-room with the tray. " Mind the lamp, please sir," she said. " Oh, righto ! " sang out the boy. " Ah now, marbles. That's an idea. I'll train." Effie rose and closed the book, put it on the hall table, and leaned against the wainscoted wall. " The glass is rising," she said coldly. Archie handed her the mashie. " Show me the stroke,** he said. Digitized by Google 246 The Blindness of Virtue Effie smiled and took the dub. " There's the pin/' she said, pointing to a riding-whip that hung from a peg at the end of the hall. " I see it. Allow for a cross wind stiffish." The girl addressed an imaginary ball on the mat, played, and smashed the lamp globe into smithereens. "Dead!" said Archie. "Oh, my!" cried Mary Anne, running forward. "Ah!" jeered BiU— "ah!" Effie burst into a peal of laughter. "That's three- pence halfpenny of my allowance." Archie picked up the lamp. " I'll toss you whether I pay for it or you do." " Oh 1 no, thank you. I smashed it." " Yes, but I knew you would." There was a double knock on the door. They all turned. ^ Bill, who knew that the postman had been, icame ottt and growled. With his nose flattened against the glass in the hall door stood a small telegraph boy. Mary Anne opened the door. " Graham," she said. "Mel" said Archie. "Old Win, I suppose. Pro- poses to lunch and play a round, or wants me to run up and do another show. Can't possibly. Far too ^" He opened the telegram. His eyebrows met, and he gave a gasp. "Anything wrong?" asked Effie quickly. " Father's had an accident. I'm to go up at once." "Oh!" breathed the girl. " Oh my 1 " said Mary Anne. Archie stood still for a moment, gazing at the thin piece of paper. Then he looked at the clock. " Seven fifty-seven. I can do it on my bike." Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 247 He picked up his hat from the bench, caught Effie's hand, drew her to him, pushed her away, opened the door, and disappeared at a run. " Archie 1" cried Effie. " Yes ! " from the darkness. "Your coat." " Will you get it while I get my bike? *' Effie twisted round, rushed into the back hall, caught up an overcoat, and returned to the steps. " Oh, pore Mr. Archie ! '* said Mary Anne. A lantern shone out of the night, and quick steps crunched the gravel. Archie ran up the steps. "Thanks awf'ly.'' The boy got into the coat. "Good-bye!" he said. He ran down the steps. " Archie, when will you be back? " There was no answer. "Archie! . . ." The gate clicked. Digitized by Google Chapter VII ARCHIE bent over the handle-bars and pedalled with all his strength. Of people and dogs the roads were luckily empty, but of loose stones, broken bottles, and odd bricks they were, as usual, full. No one svfept the roads, and no one lit the lamps, and no one knew exactly what became of road and light taxes in East Brenton. The station lights soon flickered through the leafless branches. Archie rode on to the path through the sub- way, and jumped off the steps. Up these he carried the bicycle, propped it up against the wall of the parcels of- fice, took a single ticket to London, heard the train enter the station, and ran full tilt up the steps on to the plat- form. He flimg himself, panting, into an empty car- riage. " Near thing, sir," said the genial station-master with a shake of the head. Archie made no answer. The train glided out. It was a slow train, stopping not only where it ought to have stopped, but where it ought not as well. But if it had been a record-breaking train it could not have gone fast enough for Archie. He had left the telegram at the Vicarage, but its mes- sage seemed to be written on the cushions of the carriage, on its walls, ceiling and floor. " His lordship has met with an accident. Please come at once. — Gejkie." The boy's sensitive imagination ran ahead of the train, and played like lightning about his father's room in Gros- 248 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 249 venor Square. An accident 1 Horrible word. It might mean anything. It might mean a sprained ankle, a broken nose, a dislocated thumb. It might mean a frac- tured leg, a broken arm, a smashed collar-bone. It might be a timid way of saying — death. " Get on ! Oh, get on, for God's sake, get on ! " he cried aloud to the train. " I tell you that my father has met with an accident — an accident ! " All that had been painful and full of irritation in his relations with this fine old man was forgotten. Their mutual misunderstandings, their silences, their recrimina- tions, hitherto frightfully vivid whenever the thought of his father entered his head, took wings. Under the fright and anxiety and horror into which the vague tele- gram had flung him, Archie could only remember that he loved and admired the gaunt old man who sat alone so often in the cold, silent house, in which the mellow voice of a woman was never heard. He only knew that one of the deeply-cherished ambi- tions of his life had been to stand well, at last, in hb father's sight, to be able to win from him, at last, a look of confidence and unsuspicious affection, a smile of ap- proval. He knew that he had done very little to merit his suspicion and disapproval. He knew that he had tried very hard to weed out the tricks, the poses, the shiftiness, which had grown upon him like fungi. He had looked forward, with almost tremulous eagerness, to the time when, luider Harry Pemberton's sunny influ- ence, he could at last stand up before his father cleared and confident. An accident — what did it mean? Had he worked for nothing, had he taken himself by the scruff of the neck for nothing? Was he going up to find that his efforts were too late? Digitized by Google 250 The Blindness of Virtue Every time the train pulled up and dallied, or seemed to dally, upon the empty stations, the boy's head was out of window, and between the stations — in the endless distance between the stations — his mind was filled with horrible pictures and dreadful forebodings. He could see the old man in bed, with his eyes shut, and a feeble, nerveless hand, palm up, upon the blankets. He icould see Paddington, thank God! And then a cab and the cold air and the blinding lights and the whirl of traffic and quick movement. " Get on I " he kept shouting. " Quicker 1 — quicker 1 " The sight of the poster of an evening paper, held by an elderly man under a lamp-post, made his blood turn cold, " Serious accident to a Cabinet Minister." Marble Arch, Park Lane, Brook Street — home. He stood on the steps of the house he called home for the first time for many years, afraid to ring. A great trembling seized him, and his mouth became dry. The door opened. A tall, thin, angular, big-boned man passed the servant. A brougham moved up a dozen yards nearer the house. " Back in two hours," he said, and disappeared. The man-servant saw Archie, and held the door open. The boy marched in and gave up his hat "Geikie?" he asked. " With his lordship, sir." The boy was afraid to ask what was the matter. If the doctor was coming back in two hours, at least his father was alive. But He went slowly and deliberately upstairs. A hospital nurse scudded down. There was a peculiarly sickly sweet smell everywhere. A good-looking, young-lode* ing, middle-aged man, too smartly dressed, hurried past Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 251 him. Archie knew that it was Murray Gilchrist, his father's secretary. He met Geikie outside his father's door. He was mopping his forehead with a red silk handkerchief. "That be you, Mr. Erchie?*' he said. The boy leaned one hand against the doorpost. '* You — said — an accident — in your telegram?" "Weell'' replied the valet irritably, "and isn't it an accident?" "What is it?" " It's in all the papers. His lordship slipped in getting out of the carriage, on the way f rae the Hoose o' Lords. Leg broken, bad jar to the systeem, may be on his back for months. Ye can't go in theer ! " The boy pushed the man aside, quietly opened the door of his father's room, tip-toed across it, and stood by the bed. The gaunt old man was sleeping under a draught. The fracture had been set. In the dim light Archie could hardly see his father's face. His hand was lying feebly on the blanket, palm up. Archie sat down by the bed and took his father's hand. ♦ ♦♦♦♦♦«♦ The doctor came, heard the nurse's report, looked with satisfaction at the still-sleeping patient, eyed the boy curi- ously, and went away. At two o'clock the next morning the night-nurse touched Archie's arm. "Won't you go to bed now?" she whispered. "I shall be here all the time." The boy shook his head. He held his father's hand lightly. At five o'clock the nurse came round again. " Won't you " Digitized by Google 252 The Blindness of Virtue Again the boy shook his head. At ten o'clock, the straw in the road without dulling the rumble of wheels. Lord Aberlady opened his eyes. For a moment or two he looked vaguely at the ceiling, at the new nurse, at the hoop over his leg. He moved his hand. It was held tight. He moved his head round and saw Archie. "Oh, father!" An infinitely tender smile played round the old man's lips. "Myboyl'^hesaid. Digitized by Google Chapter VIII DURING the next ten days Alexander Geikie, son of the Geikie who had made flies and tackle in Dun- dee, gave vent to the same remark many times, and always when he left his master's room. He made it aloud, in a confidential whisper, not entirely devoid of honest emotion. " Weel, it's pairfict Ma worrd, it's pairfict." Something of the comedy as well as a good deal of the pathos of this sudden, silent coming together of his master and his master's son went home to this dry, accu- rate, painstaking Scot. It seemed to him to be a curious thing, that, once recovered from the shock of this acci- dent, he should be glad that it had happened. But he was glad, extremely, sympathetically glad, for, notwith- standing that Lord Aberlady was a prisoner to his bed for the first time within his memory, that he was debarred from taking his part in a keen and fierce political struggle and rendered almost impotent at one of the great mo- ments of his career, he had never seen his master so completely happy and contented. The wall that had taken years to grow up between this father and son had crumbled and fallen. The old man and the young one had seen suddenly, for the first time, into each other's hearts, and both had discovered in the heart of the other something which neither had supposed was there. It moved old Geikie to many unnecessary blowings of the nose to watch these two together, to see the son's eagerness to spend all his hours with the father, and the 253 Digitized by Google 254 The Blindness of Virtue father's reluctant persuasion to get him out into the air. All day, except for an hour or two for exercise, the bojr sat with his father, and in the hour or two that he was away the father eyed the :clock and fidgeted and was very cantankerous. At night the boy slept in the dressing-room with the door open, and many times crept into the room to see that his father was sleeping. If he was not, both were glad, for both realised that much good time had been lost, that there was much good time to make up. And they snatched at the hours from the night greedily. They made no confessions, no long confidences, in- dulged in no sentimental orgies of conversation. It was enough for both that the wall was down. Eyes spoke more eloquently than all the combinations of words that either could, or cared to, arrange. The boy's pleasure was derived from being near his father always, the father from having his son constantly in his line of sight The boy delighted to be of some use, to act as nurse, to see to medicines, to fetch and icarry and to wait upon the old man. The nurse gave orders, and Archie carried them out, and both the nurse and the secretary were obliged to be idle, for the boy insisted on doing their work. He read the papers to his father, he saw to his correspondence, he set his father on to talk about the things that he had done, and listened breathlessly. He gave the old man humorous descriptions of East Brenton, he painted pictures of the Vicarage, of Harry Pember- ton, Helen, Effie, Cookie, Mary Anne, and Bill. He described exciting games of golf, evenings at the club. Cookie's wedding and breakfast in the tent. He dis- cussed his work and the future. " It's pairfict — ma worrd, it's pairfict," repeated Gei- Ide, again and again. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 255 And Geikie was right, as usual. There was something very perfect in the affectionate intimacy of this stem old man and his sensitive, imaginative son. There was, too, something very touching in the eagerness of both, in the unspoken craving of both, to win forgiveness, in the re- straint the boy put upon himself to prevent a torrent of explanation, of reasons, in the struggle of the old man to throw oflf an habitual reserve. Lord Aberlady's recovery was good. He was a man who had had no dealings with self-indulgence, a man who r^^ulated his life and lived by time-table, who was his own martinet Of an iron constitution, he had worked and exercised equally. Moderation in all things was his guiding principle. Therefore, although several years on the wrong side of sixty, the doctor was more than satis- fied with his convalescence. But he found in his patient, to his infinite surprise, no anxiety to hurry back to his place in the world. On the contrary, he noticed in him a curious eagerness to remain where he was. At first, the doctor, who knew Lord Aberlady's con- scientious character, who was well aware of his impor- tance to his party at a moment when their fortunes hung in the balance, was shocked to think that the accident had left his patient without a desire to return to the struggle. He pumped the old politician and got nothing. He pumped Archie, and got nothing. Finally he pumped Geikie, and got the truth. Lord Aberlady was so happy in his boy's affection that he dreaded to break the spell. That was the truth. He looked upon his return to health as the signal for separa- tion. Not the separation of mind. Thank God, that was a black thing of the past I But a separation of pres- ence, voice, eyes, touch, companionship. He hurried slowly. He remained a prisoner because Digitized by Google 256 The Blindness of Virtue he loved his cell. He persisted in being an invalid. He refused to accept a ticket of leave. And so, as there is no better way of knowing a man than by camping with him, there was no way half so good to make the friendship of his son as by keeping to his room. He had always loved his boy, and the boy had always loved him; but neither knew the other until this time of illness — this blessed time of illness. Many things surprised him in his son — his bubbling humour, his awakening ambition, his shrewd knowledge of character, his keen observation, his love of the country, his simplicity, and, above all, his sensitiveness. He saw in him certain chameleon-like characteristics — a boyish and perfectly frank vanity, and the remnants of a ten- dency to pose. He recognised in him something of his own dogged determination, more than a suggestion of his own downright method of passing judgment, and utter impatience of clap-trap. And gradually he came to find in the boy many of the little flashes of fun, of un- expected feeling, of fondness for colour, of charm of manner, which had drawn him to the woman he had married, adored, and lost. And the boy, naturally, found his father very different from the man he had always supposed him to be. There was the sternness, but that was good. He liked that now it was unaccompanied by an3rthing of suspicion. But in place of hardness he discovered s)mipathy; not wordy sympathy — sympathy for the most part that got no further than the eyes, but which had the same effect as a glint of sun through a cold, grey sky. He came sud- denly upon humour, caustic and rapier-like, upon tender- ness, upon a sort of simple humility that in a man who had made a niche for himself in history was peculiarly Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 257 inspiring, and upon a vein of affection and sentiment that carried all before it. Providence must have intended that these two should find each other out. Hours and days lengthened into weeks. The cold old house in Grosvenor Square was made warm by affection. Archie knew it now as home. At last the doctor insisted upon a change of air and scene, and packed the two — for the one would not go without the other — off to Brighton. Geikie went down first. He examined the Bedford Hotel cautiously. He " didn't see the need " for agree- ing to pay as much as was asked for the little suite of four rooms on the first floor, seeing that they were wanted by Lord Aberlady, " a name that would look weel in the list of veesitors." However, the people of Brighton, who are usually, in December, the people of every other place than Brighton, soon grew accustomed to seeing the tall, old man limping about in the pale sun and keen breezes on the arm of the slight, straight boy, or sitting with him in one of the shelters in quiet and affectionate conversation. In the hotel Archie was sole secretary, only nurse, boon com- panion, and he would have constituted himself valet also if Geikie had not struck. Among the many letters that he wrote for his father Archie put, three times a week, a letter for Harry Pem- berton, sending his love to Helen, to Effie, and to Bill. And still old Geikie made the same remark at all times of the day. " It's pairfict — ma worrd, it's pairfict." Digitized by Google Chapter IX ONE humid December morning shortly before Christ-' mas Effie was sitting listlessly in front of the fire in the Vicarage dining-room. She was reading the paper, as she had done everything else since Archie had gone away, without interest She was filled with a great dis- content, a growing and ever-present sense of rebellion against her lot, a feeling of emptiness and loneliness, a tremendous sickness for Archie. Not until he had gone away did she find out how much she needed him, how little life had to offer when he was not there. Without him the whole world was empty and worthless. She had done what she had to do well enough. She helped her father and mother as energetically as usual. She ran the house to free her mother for endless outside duties. She played golf with her father whenever he had the time to spare. She called in all her inherited pluck to prevent Harry and Helen from seeing how miserable she felt Outwardly, when they were by, she was the tame Efiie who had been the life and spirit of the house lefore the advent of Archie. Inwardly she was a new Efiie, an Effie she herself failed to recognise or under- stand. She was not only dissatisfied with life. She was, and became more and more dissatisfied with herself. To her it seemed not only natural but inevitable that she should love Archie. What she resented in herself and hated herself for was the over-whelming feeling of jealousy of Archie's father that took and retained pos- 25» Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 259 session of her. At one moment she threw out her arms and cried out for Archie. At the next she called herself every name she could think of for her disgraceful lack of sympathy. She had loved Archie no more before the accident to Lord Aberlady than she loved him now. She could not understand why the love that had been so de- lightful when Archie was in the house should be so pain- ful now that he was out of it. At first she was able to shake these feelings off with some success. She assured herself that, after all, he would not be away for more than a week. Surely she might spare him to his father for a week. She greedily undertook all the useful jobs that she could get from Harry and Helen. She invented things to do. She kq)t herself incessantly busy. She filled up every moment, and refused to permit herself the luxury of unhappiness. But one week spread into two, into three and four and five, and in the short letters from the boy there was no mention of his return. With the almost unerring intuition of a woman she knew, although Archie had never told her, that he loved her. The thought that he might grow out of loving her never came into her mind. Why, they loved each other ! How could either of them prevent it, or stop it, or alter it I She was perfectly satisfied with the fact that, how- ever long he might be away, whether the weeks developed into years, his love would remain unaltered. She was in that glorious adolescent stage of life before knowledge and experience have arrived hand in hand and flung faith into a shivering heap. In all her thoughts about this mutual love marriage had never entered. She had never got so far as that. She was content just to go on with Archie from day to day, loving, of course, in constant companionship, of Digitized by Google 26o The Blindness of Virtue course, but with nothing dse. What else was there? Was not that all that there could be ? But as time went on, and all the days were without the boy, there were mysterious moments, vague, curious, groping moments, when it seemed to her that there must be something more. She did not understand them, she could not understand them. She simply cried out, " Archie, Archie, do, do come back ! " For Helen had not spoken. The paper that Effie was listlessly reading was two days old. She read until she came upon the following para- graph : " Lord Aberlady, who has been at Brighton with his son, Mr. Archibald Graham, returned yesterday to London, having made an entirely satisfactory recovery from his recent distressing accident." It was a halfpenny paper, and so, of course, it could not be expected merely to state facts. Having regretfully done that, it went on to give many absolutely mythical details of the Cabinet Minister's visit to Brighton, with a list of his remarks on current events which he had never spoken. It filled up the remainder of the coltunn with an elaborately- worded "pen picture" of ''young Graham." This, from the fact that a mass of curious words were strung meaninglessly together, must have been written by the dramatic critic of the paper. All that Effie read was that Archie's father was well, and that Archie had been free to return to the Vicarage for three whole days. Digitized by Google Chapter X THAT evening, about half-past eleven, Bill, who was lying on the rug in front of Harry's fire, thinking deeply, suddenly pricked his ears. Harry, just back from the club, was seated at his desk. He was examining Jennings's monthly statement of the workings of the club, item by item. Helen, EflSe, and Mary Anne had gone up to bed. The shutters were barred up over the door. All lights were out below stairs, with the exception of Harry's candles. There was not a sound in or about the house. Yes, there was a sound. As Bill rose to his feet quickly, Harry heard brisk steps on the path that led round from the front. " Curious — at this time of night ! Now then. Bill," said Harry, " why don't you bark ? " "Bark?" cried Bill— "bark? Do you mean to say you don't know who that is? *' There was a tap at the window. Greatly surprised, Harry strode across the room, pulled back the red curtains, and threw the window open. There stood Archie, with his coat turned up round his ears. " My dear chap ! " cried Harry. First one leg and then the other came over the window- ledge, and Archie stood in the room, smiling. "Fm awfully sorry I'm so late, sir," he said. "I stayed up to see the Gov'nor to bed." Harry gripped the boy's shoulders with both hands. 261 Digitized by Google 262 The Blindness of Virtue " It's Archie, old Archie, come back. My dear fellow, this is good. Never mind about being late. Better late than never. We had all begun to think that you'd de- serted us I Off with your coat, and come to the fire. Your nose is gleaming like the sun in a fog.'' *' Hullo I" cried Bill. "Hullo, old cock I B'Jove! I am glad to see you." " Thanks, most awfully I " said Archie. " Hullo, Bill, old boy I As fit as ever ? " " No," said Bill. " We've been most frightfully slack since you went away." " Never mind about Bill. Get down, you ruffian I Come and warm your boots and give us the news. I'm delighted to see in the papers that your father is wdl again." "Rather!" said Archie. " By George, he's had a long iltaess 1 " " Not long enough for him or for me," said the boy. He walked over to the fire, and held one foot towards the blaze. Harry and Bill followed him. " We're great pals now," he added simply. " I understood," said Harry. " You always do understand," said the boy. Harry brought forward a chair, placed it in front of the fire, and went over to Archie's desk. " Catch," he said. " Oh, don't you bother ! " said Archie. He caught the pipe. "Coming over," said Harry. He pitched a tin of smoking-mixture at the boy. " Oh ! look here, sir, I'm keeping you up." Harry brought his own chair forward, and sat down, beaming. " Keeping me up, of course you're keeping me up. You don't suppose that I'm going to bed without Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 263 a yarn, do you? This is an epoch-making night. Not one pipe, but a couple, old man, and in all probability, three. Why, it's an age since I've seen you." The boy threw a grateful glance at the big parson. He bent down and rubbed Bill's right ear. " Is Mrs. Pemberton well? " " Splendidly well, thanks ; up to her eyelashes in work!* " That's nothing new," said the boy. '' No, but just now she has even more to do than usual. Christmas will be on us before we know where we are, and there is the girls' annual concert to arrange." " I must lend a hand. And how's Eflfie? " Harry's smile became very tender. " As wdl as ever, bless her I " he replied. '•And Cookie?" Harry gave forth a bellow of laughter. "I simply couldn't paint you the picture of her happiness," he said. " You must pay her a state visit and see it for yourself. She's the great lady of the place. She sails about the village in rustling dresses and hats that put the French into a little round comer. Oh, such hats ! Jennings — good chap, Jennings, he makes a model steward — is vis- ibly increasing his adipose deposit. Cookie gives him Savoy dinners every day of his life. She's here every morning now, looking after the soup kitchen. The women wouldn't have Mary Anne's soup, so Mrs. Fred- erick Jennings very politely came to the rescue, and in consequence jugs and basins pour in. I'm afraid we're in for a hard winter." " How is Mary Anne? " Harry's face became grave. " Poor little soul ! She does admirably well, but I often hear her crying at night. Her heart's in the churchyard." " Is she — treated well by the village ? " Digitized by Google 264 The Blindness of Virtue " I saw to that," said Harry grimly. "And how's Father O'Shaughnessy?" Again Harry shot out a laugh. " We've just had an- other quarterly row. This time about an old woman called Sullivan. I gave her a job in the church, mending cushions. It got to the little man's ears, and there was a more than usually dramatic scene in this room on Mon- day, ending with lunch." " He if a nun'un," said the boy. " One of those rum'uns," said Harry softly, " whose place in Heaven has been reserved for him since the day of his birth. Do you know that he lives — or starves — on forty pounds a year, and gives away a hundred and twenty to his poor? I caught him sitting in front of a grate that hadn't known a fire for a month with his head through a hole in a blanket Some one sent him a ton of coals " " Some one ! " said Archie. " And what happened? When no one was looking, he carted 'em off in a wheelbarrow to the old people of his faith, and to one or two of the pec^le of mine. On that one occasion I quarrelled with him — a fearful dust-up — and what do you think he did? " "What?" " He dug me in the ribs, and said, * Get along wid ye, Pembherton, me bhoy. It's not a bit uv good quarrdlin' wid me, d'y'see. Oi .can't give ye a tasty lunch.' " Even Bill smiled. The little father was one of those sunny, simple God-sent creatures, the mere mention of whose name was enough to bring a smile. It was not because he was small and insignificant, wore curious shabby clothes and boots which, if valued for their age, were works of art. It was not because of his curious bird-like face, his wispy hair, his high-pitched voice, or Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 265 his strong accent. His appearance mattered nothing five minutes after one met him. No one smiled at him. The smiles were entirely with him. People smiled because just the sight of him made the world seem sunny. He exuded so strong a love of life and of himianity, so over- whelming a faith in God, so extraordinary a belief in the fitness of everything as it was, an optimism so perfect, a S3mipathy so blessed. His little eyes behind his steel- rimmed glasses twinkled with fun and kindliness, and his piping voice had a note in it that vibrated like a bell. Then top, his simplicity, humbleness, unaffected almost childish delight in the beautiful, fierce outbursts, shrieks of laughter, extravagant gesture, sudden silences, com- manded admiration, wonder, affection, and amusement. "An oddity," strangers called him. Those who knew him and his work and his influence, his ungrudging efforts at all times of the day and night, knew that he was putting his little shabby feet in the footprints of his Master. " And so," said Harry, " you and your father are the best of pals." "Yes," said the boy. "Isn't it too good for words? I can tell you, sir, that I've never in my life been so full of beans. The Gov'nor and I have had a great time. He is 2L ripper. It was never his fault that he didn't understand me. You see — I — I started off badly. My mother died, you know, when I was bom. I only know her portrait, but from that and from what I've pieced together in the last few weeks, I'm not surprised that it nearly killed him, hard — I mean, tough — as he is. . . . He was always on the go, you see, working for all he was worth, and as a yelping kid I naturally got on his nerves. Then came the dame school and bed before he was in, and then the preparatory school for Eton. In the holidays I was shunted off on to young cousins, and Digitized by Google 266 The Blindness of Virtue he saw nothing of me, and only had to form his conclu- sions from the Head's reports, and the same thing hap- pened at Eton and Oxford. The old dame cotddn't make head or tail of me, and passed me on to the preparatory place with a warning note. The old cock there was not of the same politics as father, and took an instant grudge against me. I was dubbed a little Radical rotter and expected to break out into queer things, and with the reputation he and his masters gave me on I went to Eton. My house was skippered by a monstrous snob, who suspi- cicmed me every day of my life, and cultivated in me the the very things he expected me to do. How can you expect a man to come out top when he's labelled rotter? There's nothing to try for. The Gov'nor knew me from their reports, and I'm certain he looked upcMi me as a budding criminal. I knew that, and, believing that I was a waster — every one tcJd me so — I wasn't able to open out to him as I was always able to open out to you. • . • I'm making a speech. I'm sorry." " Go on, my dear chap," said Harry. ''I've only got one other thing to say, and that is thanks most awf'Uy for all your kindness to me. I owe my — my friendship with my father entirely to you." " Don't you think," said Harry, " that Providence has something to do with it? " " If you say so," replied the boy simply, " yes. But I don't think that Providence took any interest in me until you did." Harry laughed quietly. "What you say, Archie, would be very flattering to my vanity if I weren't an absolute believer in the workings of Providence for good. All I did was to give you confidence in yourself. Prov- idence — why say Providence when I mean God? — did the rest." Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 267 The two men puflfed tobacco silently for a moment or two. Bill had returned to his warm place on the rug. He kept one eye on Archie, and speculated, with pleasure and excitement, on further early morning runs. He knew that it was no use hoping for any notice when those two began to talk. He knew that talking was one of the extraordinary hobbies that two-legged creatures were extremely fond of. "And now, I take it, you'll live entirely at home in future?*' asked Harry. The boy looked up quickly. " Won't you put up with me any longer, sir?" " Of course I will, old man, but '* " There isn't a but so far as I'm concerned, nor father cither. I shall go home every week end to be with the Guv'nor, but he wants me, and I am going to work like a nigger. I want to be a credit to my father, please." "Good I" said Harry. "Well see to it. Done any work while you've been away?" " Not a stroke." " Right. You'd been cramming blazingly hard. The rest will have done you good. We'll start again to-mor- row at nine o'clock." The boy knocked out his pipe, and rose. " Thanks ! " he said. " Off to roost, old man? " " Well, I've wasted a lot of your time ** " Bosh. I'm delighted to see you again." " Not half so delighted as I am to see you. Good- night, sir I" Digitized by Google Chapter XI THE boy*s hand tingled as he left the room. Hiarry had gripped it very hard. He sat down at the bottom of the stairs and took oflf his boots. Then he crept upstairs. His bedroom was in the front of the house, a large, wainscoted room with a wide view, exactly opposite the one in which Effie slept. He passed Helen's room on the balls of his feet, and blew a kiss at the door. His mother must have been something like that dear woman, only taller, unless the picture lied. All his life he would remember Harry's wife. " She was right about those vests," he thought, with a smile. *' I don't know I've got 'em on." He crept along the passage, and up the short flight of wide stairs that led to his landing. His heart beat faster as he went In that sweet room on the left lay the girl whom he loved, and who would, one of these fine days, when he was a full-fledged barrister climbing up the lad- der, be his wife, please God I " Oh, by Jove, how good to see her again I " He came to the landing. Suddenly the door on the left opened, and thrown up white, like a young moon, stood Effie. With an inarticulate cry of gladness she flung her arms rotmd his neck, and their lips met, and again they met, and again. '* Oh, I've missed you so I — I've missed you so I Why have you been so long? How could you stay so long when you love me? You do love me? " 268 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 269 **I adore you," the boy whispered. He clasped the wanii young body tightly. "But you haven't thought about me once, not once. You never wrote " " I wrote to your father " "But why not to me? If you had written I could have borne it better. I could have put your letters under my pillow, and carried them with me all day. Archie I — Archie I" They kissed again. Her arms wound themselves round his neck. He could feel her heart beating. His heart was pumping. The noise of it seemed to fill the house. " To-morrow,*' he whispered, trying suddenly to free himself — ^" to-morrow." She clung tighter. " I heard you come. I was lying thinking of you, and I knew your step. What hours you've been with father I" " To-morrow," repeated the boy feebly. " Twenty times I icame out thinking I heard you com- ing up. You would have gone to sleep without a word tome?" "Yes," he said. "This is not the time for seeing you." "Not the time? Why not?" Her voice was filled with astonishment. The boy struggled to take her arms away. " It's cold," he said. " You'll catch your death." She laughed and cltmg. "Death? With you come back? Why are you pushing me away? Don't push me away I" " To-morrow," said the boy. "Now, and to-morrow and all the to-morrows. I'm warm, and very happy — and there's lots to say." Digitized by Google 270 The Blindness of Virtue "WeshaUbeheard." "Why not?" '* Why — not?" "Yes, why not? Father's had you for hours — it seemed hours. Can't I have anything of you?" "You — you don't understand. Your father may come up at any moment.'* Effie chuckled. " I see ! You're ashamed to be seen like this. You're shy! You think father would rag youl" The boy b^;an to shake. He tried diplomacy. "What about a round to-morrow morning before breakfast?" " To-morrow, and all the to-morrows," she said, laying her sweet head on his shoulder. "Then hurry to bed," he whispered. "Ifs awfully late. You'll be so tired in the morning." She gave a long, contented sigh. " Are you tired, Archie? " " Doggo I " he said, and he groaned involuntarily. Im- stantly he was free. " Oh I my dear," she whispered, " I'd forgotten ! How sdfish of me 1 " "You're shivering I" he said — "you're shivering I" " I don't mind. I've got you back again. What time to-morrow?" "How soon can we see to play? ... Be quick into your room I" He heard a movement below. A phair thrust back. A step on boards. " Quick I " "Eight o'clock." " Then till eight o'clock. Good-night." She stood on tip-toe, put her hands on his shoulders, and once more kissed him. Harry opened his door. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 271 Archie thrust the girl into her room, turned and slipped into his. He stood there^ trembling from head to foot The stairs creaked. Archie rushed across the dark room^ and stood by the head of the bed. Harry pushed open the door. Thank God he had no light 1 " Are you awake, old boy ? " '* Yes," said Archie. "I forgot to see whether everything was all right here." " Quite all right, thanks I " " Good-night, old fellow I " "Good-night, sir 1" The stairs creaked again. Archie locked the door. Digitized by Google Chapter XII I^^OR the next few days Archie avoided Effie as much X^ as it was possible. He was up as early as usual, but got out of playing those delightful and fiercely con- tested pre-breakfast nine holes by saying that he must work. There were many weeks to make up. For several afternoons he was gladly called in to lend a hand in the Giristmas decorations of the club, and after dinner, still giving his lost time as a reason, he hurried into the den to his books. Effie was not content to know that he was in the house, as she had been before the illness of Lord Aberlady. She wanted now to be with him always. She made no attempt to disguise her jealousy of everything and every one that took him away from her. And never in his life had Archie wanted to be with any one so much as he wanted to be with Effie. Her kisses had set his love ablaze. But he was afraid of her. Her beauty, her swift grace, her vivacity, fascinated him. He thought her more exquisite, more desirable, more worth working for than ever. He ached to be with her, to watch her, and listen to her. But her ignorance fright- ened him. Her childishness, her utter lack of self-con- sciousness, frightened him. She was no longer a slip of a girl. She was a young warm-b'ooded, impetuous woman, nearing twenty, in the full flush of youth, who loved him and kissed him and clung to him. He was not only afraid of her for her sake. He was afraid of himself for her sake also. 272 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 273 She was not a woman who was a child, sweet and cold. She was a child who was a woman, sweet, but almost Southern in temperament. All that was good and true and sound in the boy was awakened by her simple, unaffected joy in him. All that was natural to his manhood was set blazing by her beauty and the touch of her. With appalling unconsciousness Effie set these things in him in strong antagonism. The sound in him fought frightfully with the natural. He resented her ignorance with all his soul. It was unfair, he cried in his heart, horribly unfair, that her utter lack of the simplest knowledge should do its best to ruin a companionship that had been, and ought still to be, ex- quisite, ideal. It was monstrously unfair that at her age, and with her great beauty, it was possible for her not to know that her kisses were dangerous. Her deplorable and foolish ignorance not only made her some one to be avoided by him who loved her, but made him hate himself, and hide, and make excuses to keep deliberately out of her way. He was no stoic, no calculating, cold-blooded person who had himself under the most rigid control. He was a man of intense sympathy, easily set on fire, with a pas- sionate love of all that was beautiful and all that ap- pealed to the imagination. Once or twice during the first few days after his re* turn he was almost driven to flight. Once he did start to pack his bag with the intention of slipping out of the house and returning home. But what could he say to Harry and to his father? How could he write to the parson, and say that he found it impossible to remain under his roof with Effie? How could he say that un* consciously she tempted him? Digitized by Google 274 The Blindness of Virtue He could not say any of these things. He must stay. He did stay, but the old charming boy and girl rela- tionship was over. It existed no more. On his part it had become a painful and self-conscious affair. On hers one in which there was jealousy and an underlying, un- comfortable, unsatisfied, mysterious something to which she could give no name. But, at least, Archie Graham had found himself. He was playing the game like a gentleman, a man of honour. He did not dodge with his conscience, and make shifty excuses. He was all too keenly alive to the position. He told himself that he must never allow himself to be placed in the way of being tempted. He made up his mind to see Effie only at meals and when others were present, to think for her as well as for himself. But with all his soul he resented being forced to adopt such an attitude, and cursed the convention that made such a distasteful and distressing avoidance necessary. "Why doesn't she know?'* he cried — ^''why doesn't she know? If she did we could go on being friends. She would help me to protect herself. As it is she makes herself almost my enemy. Oh, it's unfair, it's cruel, it's unsotmd, it's devilish I " That this marked avoidance on the part of the boy made the poor girl wretched and jealous and uneasy was natural That it encouraged her desire to be alone with him was also natural. She wanted more than merely to be with him on the golf-links and stumping across the fields. She wanted to kiss him and be kissed, to cling to him and be held tight. Why shouldn't she? She (could see no reason why she shouldn't. She loved him. They loved each other. They belonged to each other. They were bom for each other. Life was theirs to divide. She was more unhappy a thousand times than when he Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 275 bad been with his father. Under these conditions ^he would far rather he was not in the house. And as the days went by and by, and it became quite plain to her that Archie was inventing every possible excuse not to see her alone, her unhappiness turned to anger. Then came the evening before Qiristmas Eve. Harry and Helen, Effie and Archie, Cookie and Fred Jennings, Father O'Shaughnessy and the Salvation Army man, had all been at work in the club, after eleven o'clock. Their scheme of decoration was on an unambitious scale, but, as it fcould only be carried out when the club was empty, it was late before it could be finished. At half-past twelve Harry packed Helen and Effie oflf to bed, turned Gx)kie out, and remained with the other men to put the finishing touches. Pipes were lit and coats removed, and when at last ladders were put away and bits tidied up, there were no brighter, cheerier, and gayer rooms in England than those of East Brenton Club. With his arm round Archie's neck Harry stood in the middle of the billiard- room and beamed round. There was a huge smudge of dust on his big nose. " Now then," he said, *' what complaints ?'* ** Complaints I " cried Archie. ** If Oi as much as heard the whisper av a complaint,** said the little father, who sat cross-legged on the floor, tailor- wise — he had been sewing streamers together — " Oi'd land the man, whoiver he was, wan in the wind, the dhirty villain." " It might be Buckingham Paliss," said Jennings. " Do you pass it, Baxter? " asked Harry. The Salvation Army man wiped his forehead and ran his small eyes critically round the room. "Yuss, sir," he said. " Nem. con." Digitized by Google 276 The Blindness of Virtue Bill rose from a warm piece of red baize upon which he had been a lazy btrt interested spectator. " Quite ex- cellent/' said he. *' And now," he yawned, '* what price bed?'* " Bill ! '' cried Harry — " Bill I " "What's up ?*' asked BiU. " You're no gentleman." " I'm too tired to argue," said Bill. " Imagine a really well-bred dog lolling at ease when he should have escorted the ladies home through the dark." " You rotter," said Archie. Bill yawned again. ** Anything else? " he asked. "He's not a dog," said the priest "He's a lazy, good-for-nuttin*, milk-lappin', purrin', flea-huntin' do- mestic cat." ** Oh, funny I " said Bill, without turning a hair. Harry tweaked his ear and pulled his tail and gave him a punch. "No supper for you, my friend. You shan't even smell a biscuit." " Shame 1 " said Bill, who knew that he would. " duck monkeying, and come home." Harry flattened down his hair, turned down his cuffs, put on his coat and overcoat, and loaded his pipe. "Thanks awfully, you fellows!" he said. "Father, let me give you a lift into your coat." " Ah now an' I won't, bless ye I Whin Oi'm too feeble to get into ut mesilf Oi'U let ye know, d'y'see." " Come along then," said Harry, " we'll see you safely home." *^ Deloighted! " said the priest Jennings was the last to leave the Qub. With an air Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 277 of great importance he shut the door, locked it, tried it, and followed the others to the gate. " Good-night, gentlemen all," he said. He watched the wiry, red-headed Salvation Army man motmt his bicycle and pedal away, and then listened to the footsteps of the Vicar, the priest, and Archie untH they could be heard no longer. "Freddy!'' Cookie poked her nose out into the cold, crisp air. ** Comin', lovey," said Fred. Cookie's smile could not be seen by Jennings, but it lit up the cottage sitting-room, upon whose table reposed a steaming dish of beef mince with potatoes and a bottle of ale. There were no lights in the houses round the green, and although there was no moon, not one of the lamp- posts was alight. The Parish Council thought that there might have been a moon, and left it at that. The three men stumped arm in arm, the little priest in the middle, across the quiet patch of grass in front of the sleeping Post Office, and came to a halt at the gate of the priest's house, that nestled against his church. " Good-night, father," said Harry. " Good-night, sir," said Archie. " Good-night," said the priest, " and may God bless ye both!" Harry waited until the little man's door closed. Then he put his arm through Archie's, fell into step with him, and the two marched to the Vicarage briskly. " Ah! " said Harry, " I can smell the sea in the wind to-night." •* It must be ages since you've seen it," said Archie. *' You never take a holiday." Digitized by Google 278 The Blindness of Virtue "I've not seen it f or . . . By Jove, it's twenty-five years I " "Good Lord!" said the boy. "But I suppose you have had a holiday somewhere or other during that time. You haven't been here without some change of air? " Harry laughed. " My dear, good chap, I can't aflford to take holidays. And if I could, I couldn't get away with any peace of mind. There's too much to do. Helen and Effie have been to Brighton and Bognor and Worthing and Lowestoft and other places of course. I have a yearly quarrel with Helen before she'll go though. I always win, because I tell her that Effie needs the sea. Old Mr. Dtmstan — my wife's father — very kindly and quite wordlessly sent her the money for a holiday always until he brdce the r^^ar routine of his life by djring. She ought to have come into eight hundred a year then — and oh, wouldn't that have been useful in this village, just 1 But, as old Mr. Dunstan was far too busy spoiling his books by writing comments on their margins to keep an eye on his solicitor, it was found that although the mterest on his money had been paid, the money itself had gone long ago." "I say ! " cried the boy. " I hope you made a dash for that rotten solicitor." "I interviewed him," said Harry quietly. "But as he proved to me that if old Mr. Dunstan, who really was old by that time, hadn't died when he did, there would have been no more income, I left the wretched man wiping his eyes with an extremely brilliant handker- chief." "Did he give you no explanation, no excuse?" " His sort of man has plenty of both, but relies mostly on tears. He had borrowed the money temporarily, in- tending to pay it back within ten days, but the speculation Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 279 into which he put it in order to double the money turned out to be what he called a * vilely dishonest one/ and so for years he had stinted himself to the extent of not keeping a motor or a man-servant, poor fellow! in order to keep up the quarterly payments to old Mr. Dun- stan. He was quite angry that the old gentleman lived so long." " Why couldn't he keep up the payments to Mrs. Pem- berton?" '' His business had dwindled away to nothing, and he was on the verge of giving it up to live on his ddest son. He said, * You can go for me and put me in prison and bring my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave' — he was full of easy quotations — * and, being a Christian, I sup- pose you will. But if you'd been tempted as I was, you'd have done what I did.' " *' What did you say to that? " "What could I say, old man? I couldn't disagree. No man can tell what he will not do until he is tempted." Archie made no reply. He sent up a sort of appeal silently to the impenetrable vault above him and set his teeth. They went into the garden of the Vicarage. A keen north-east wind was singing through leafless branches, and it was extremely cold. But Harry turned on the steps and looked out across the meadow affection- ately as he did always, winter and summer, spring and autumn. Whether the tall line of trees away in front were big with leaf or all their naked arms and fingers were silhouetted against a cold sky, the outlook possessed a beauty and a peacefulness peculiar to it. ''It's a good world," he said — "z very good old world." He opened the door softly. "One pipe, old man?" he asked, under his breath. "No, perhaps not. You Digitized by Google 28o The Blindness of Virtue must get your beauty sleep. I can't break myself of the habit of believing that you and I are the same age. Pack off!" " Good-night I " said Archie. "" Good-night, old son 1 Thanks so much for lending a hand!" " Good-night, cockie ! " said Bill. The lamp was turned out, and Archie heard Harry Pemberton tread softly along the passage to his room, followed by the pattering feet of William. He then crept softly upstairs, hoping with all his soul that Effie was asleep. He heard nothing. No light came through the chink between her door and the floor. With the greatest i»re he opened his door, entered the dark room quickly, shut the door, and locked it. He gave a sigh of relief and resentfulness. He almost wished that he and Effie had never met and loved each other. At any rate, he regretted bitterly that she had kissed him. One of his windows was open. He stood for a mo- ment and listened to the silence of the night. '* Yes, it is a good world," he thought — ^"a very good old world. What a pity that it's made so difficult for the young things in it I " He lit his candles, took off his coat, and hung it over the back of a chair. Then he went towards the bed and drew up with a gasp of dismay and delight Curled up under the eiderdown, wrapped in a dressing- gown, with her small, sweet face nestling deep into his pillow, lay Effie, fast asleep. There were tears on her eyelashes, and a soaked handkerchief twisted into a ball in her hand. He started forward, put his hand on the girl's shoulder, and shook her. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 281 *' Wake up ! " he whispered hoarsely — " wake up I " Effie's eyes opened and filled with joy. " Archie I " she said, holding out her arms. The boy fell back. His face was white with fright ** How dare you ! — how dare you ! " he said. Effie sat up and looked at him with raised eyebrows. " How dare I what? " she asked. " I meant to speak to you to-night, whatever happened, however late you were. You lock your door when you icome to bed, so I waited here. You've got to listen to me now ! " " ril not listen to a word ! Go to your room at once, do you hear?" The boy spoke sharply, dictatorially, and waved his arm towards the door with a gesture that was almost foreign. Effie sat up and gave an angry laugh, " I'll go to my room when I'm ready," she said, "and not a moment before." Archie turned and marched to the door. He unlocked it, opened it violently, and left the room. In an instant Effie was out of bed. She ran to the landing, down the first flight of stairs, and flung her arms round Archie. " You shall speak to me to-night, you shall I " she said. "If you've got anything to say to-night, come down with me to your father's room and say it before him." "I won't!" cried Effie. "What's the good of that? I can see you before people any time, and that's what I'm so sick of. I want to speak to you alone, and I will." He wrenched her arms away, and flung them oflf. " Don't do that again ! " he said. " I can't stand it ! " They stood facing each other angrily, breathing hard. Suddenly Effie sat down on the stairs and burst into a Digitized by Google 282 The Blindness of Virtue passion of weeping. Great sobs shook her and almost choked her. She put her arms over her eyes and rocked to and fro. "O God I'* cried the boy. He stooped down, picked her up in his arms with a supreme effort, and carried her into her room. He put her down tenderly into an armchair, snatched a blanket from the bed, wrapped it over her, shut her window, closed the door gently, and knelt at her feet. "Darling! — darling!" he whispered — ^'* darling!" "It's no use," she sobbed. "It's too late! — it's too late!" " How do you mean — too late? " " You don't love me. You hate me." " I don't love you? • . . Oh, my God, you don't know what you're sajring." " I do know. I know that you loathe me. I sicken you. You slip away whenever you see me coming. I can't even take your arm without making you shudder. Do you think I can't see? Do you think I go about as blind as a bat? What's the matter with me? What have I done to you?" The boy got up. Effie clutched his hand and held it tight. "Tell me!" she cried— "tell me! — I must know! — I must! It's — it's simply killing me. Can't you see that it's killing me?" " Oh, my dear 1 " he said, putting his other hand on her head. The touch of him melted her. The vehemence left her voice. She put his hand to her lips, and crooned softly like a mother with her child. "Oh, Archie, my Archie, I love you! — I love you! I love you more than life, more than my father and Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 283 mother, more than I know. And you love me, you do love me, you'll always love me. You can't help it any more than I can. I know that I am happy about that. That's most awfully good. But what hurts me more than I can bear is your keeping away for your work. I want you to work. I want you to do big things. But I don't want you to love work more than you love me. I'm — oh ! I'm too frightfully jealous of everything that keeps you away from me. I must have something of you. I must feel your arms round me sometimes to keep me alive. I can't do any more with just going out with you. I want to put my head on your shoulder, and fed your heart beating against mine. If you told me you had been keeping out of my way because you don't love me any more I should laugh. It isn't possible for you not to love me. You're doing it for some other reason, and I'm going to know it now. You've got to tell me now, or I " " Sssh I " whispered the boy. " For God's sake don't even breathe ! " He had heard some one moving in the sleeping house. With chattering teeth he tip-toed to the door, opened it, and stood on the landing face to face with Harry Pemberton. Digitized by Google Chapter XIII IT was too dark for the boy to sec the expression on the Vicar's face. From the sound of his voice, which was thick with anger, he could imagine the expression all too vividly. " Come with me," Harry said. As they passed the old grandfather clock in the hall it struck two. Once in his room, Harry relit the still-warm candles. And then Archie saw his face. It was not the genial, cheery, sunny face of Harry Pemberton. It was the face of a man all of whose blood was surging with rage and indignation, who was fighting hard to remain master of himself. His lips were set tight. His nostrils were dis- tended. His eyes were screwed up. His breath came in great gusts. '*Shut the door!" The boy did so. *'Come here!" The boy did as he was bid. He went quietly up to the rug, and stood looking into Harry's eyes fearlessly, simply. ** What were you doing in my daughter's room? " " Saying Good^night," said Archie. " You said Good-night at the club." ** I thought I would like to say Good-night again." " Are you in the habit of making free of my daughter's room?" 284 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 285 •*No,sir/' "Tell me the truth!*' *' I am telling you the truth/' " You say that it's the first time you have been in her room when she has been in bed? " The boy hesitated. " Yes." " I don't believe youl " cried Harry — ^* I don't believe you! You lied to me once. How can I rely on your speaking the truth now?*' The boy stood his ground, though his face turned white with pain. " I give you my word of honour," he said. "Honour!" cried Harry — ^"honour! What sort of honour is yours that allows you to live in the house of a man whose implicit trust you have won, and sneak into his daughter's bedroom at night? " " You have a right to say that I ought not to have gone into your daughter's bedro(Mn. But we love each other, and " "And what?" " And we like saying a few words alone. It's all my fault, and I'm sorry. But you've no right to doubt my word when I say that all we did was to say Good-night." Harry seized the boy by the shoulders, and looked into his eyes angrily and beseechingly. " I don't want to doubt your word. I'd give a year of my life to believe you. But you lied to me once." The boy flung himself free. " Once 1 — once 1 I told you why I lied to you then. I told you because you made me think that you'd never suspect me as all tiie others have. But you do suspect me. Even you! " Harry's eyes could see the cabin of the Albert Edward, the golden hair and the big blue eyes of the little girl who lay upon the bunk. He had no eyes for the despair that Digitized by Google 286 The Blindness of Virtue had suddenly stamped itself upon the face of the boy, no care for the pathetic misery in his voice. "Yes, yes, I do suspect you I — I must suspect you! I caught you creepii^ out of Effie's room at two o'clock in the morning. Is that a time when Good-night is usu- ally said? Tell me the truth, you sneak 1" " I have told you the truth, but only half of it Now you shall have it all. You deserve it. You may call me a liar if you like. What does it matter? No one will see me in East Brenton again, after to-ni^t, as long as I live." The boy chewed, and stood for a moment unable to speak. Harry's anger still blazed, but it was mixed with a growing fear. "Go on 1 " he said. " The first time I went into her bedroom was the night I came back from London.'' " Before or after I came up to your room? " "Before." " That's a lie! I followed you up after five minutes." " I say that it was before. EflSe met me on the land* ing outside her room. We were there for three minutes. I forced her into her room when I heard you and rushed into mine. I was not in bed when you came in." "Why didn't you say so?" "Because I wanted to protect EflSe. To-night, the second time we've met late, I found her waiting for me in my room, l3ning on my bed." " You ask me to believe that? " " I ask you to believe nothing; I don't care now what you choose to believe. I'm just telling you the truth, to show you what I might have done because no one has seen fit to tell Effie that she is a woman." " You prove yourself to be lying and trying to shidA Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 287 yourself behind Effie by sa3rmg that. Effie has been told Aat she is a woman, and what it means." " No, no I " cried the boy. ** That's impossible. You may think that she's been told, but she hasn't Good God I do you know what you imply by saying that she has been told? ... I can't say it I can't even think it." " Say it I " cried Harry — " say it 1 " " You imply that Effie was not ignorant, but was tempt* ing me." With all his self-control out of hand, Harry sprang upon the boy and shook him as a dog shakes a rat, and flung him away, as though afraid of what he might do to him if he had his hands upon him any longer. Archie staggered backwards across the carpetless room, and was only prevented from crashing into the window by a large armchair. Into this he fell. He did not stay in it an instant He was on his feet again, pointing a shaking finger at the Vicar. "Blame yourself for this. Blame your wife. Effie never knew what she was doing. She knows nothing. If I hadn't adored her, and hadn't been trying for all I was worth to play the game for my father's sake and for your sake, she wouldn't have left my bed to-night I would have locked my door with her in the room. % wanted to — oh, my God, how I wanted to! — and she wanted to stay, although she didn't know why. If she had stayed, we should not have been to blame. You would, you and your wife. If you choose not to believe me, then you accuse your daughter of throwing herself in my way. That's unthinkable. You must believe met — you shall believe me 1 I swear by all I hold sacred that it's the truth!" Archie Graham turned on his heel, opened the window, jtunped into the garden, and walked away« Digitized by Google 288 The Blindness of Virtue Before his steps had ceased to crunch the gravel die door opened, and Helen stood in the room, with a scared face. She did not notice that the window was open, nor could she hear the boy's footsteps. All that she could see was the man she loved and admired and worked for, and was willing at any moment to die for, standing in a state of awful agitation. She ran forward with a cry and caught up his hand. Harry Pemberton shook her off. ^Don'tl** he said Digitized by Google Chapter XIV THE candles on the desk guttered and their flames moved unsteadily. The cold wind blew into the room through the open window. Bill was trembling on his cushion. It was not the sudden chill draught that made him tremble. He b^;an to tremble at the sound of Harry's voice. He had never heard such a sound in the voice of Bcst-of-AU — never, Harry was sitting at his desk with a straight back. His eyes were fixed upon the wall at the end of the room. His chest rose and fell like the chest of a man who had been running at top speed. Helen, shivering in her dressing-gown, stood cowering in the shadow, watching Harry's white, expressionless face. Five minutes became ten and fifteen and twenty. Nothing was said. Only the wind sighing through the leafless branches broke the silence of the night. Once Bill jumped down from his cushion and came to Harry's side and stood looking up into his face ap- pealingly. For the first time in his life no caressing, affectionate hand found its way to his ears. Bill waited and waited and looked, and then went over and stood for a moment near Helen. But her eyes never left that set face, and her hands remained clasped together fearfully. And so Bill returned to his cushion, sighed, turned round and round, and lay down. But not to sleep. Finally, without looking at his wife, Harry spoke. ''You said that you would speak to Effie," he said. 289 Digitized by Google 290 The Blindness of Virtue •* You promised me that you would speak to Effie. Yott did not do so." Helen moved forward quickly. She was almost glad that her failure had been discovered. It had been eating into her mind. " No, I didn't, I couldn't I have tried to '* " There is no excuse," said Harry coldly. " There is an excuse," she pleaded. ** There is no excuse," he repeated. " I gave you the reason for my asking you to undertake what was an un- fulfilled duty. You agreed that it was an unfulfilled duty. You prevented me from carrying it out by promis- ing to do so. You did not do so. There is no excuse,** " I won't make sm excuse, Harry — I won't make an excuse. But can you make no allowance for me?" *' None whatever," he said ; " you promised." Her voice trembled. She stretched out her hands. ** You didn't say when I was to tell her, and I didn't say how soon I would." He brought his clenched fist down upon his desk. A box of paper-clips jumped, fell on the other side, opened, and the small steel things scattered broadcast. " You're quibbling," he said. " It was understood that you would speak to EflSe at once." ** I will speak to her to-morrow," she pleaded. *' It may be too late." "Too late? What do you mean?" ** Exactly what I say. It may be too late." "Harry I — Harry!" Harry's hand opened and shut. His breathing came loudly. "To-night, just now, I found Archie Grahan& coming away frcnn E^fie's room." Helen uttered a cry. " Yes," said Harry, ** we both can see that little grave» Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 291 He says that when he came back from his father, Effie came out to him from her room. He says that when he went up to his room to-night he found her asleep upon his bed. He says that he didn't let her stay. He lied to me once. What am I to believe? ... I heard voices when I left this room. I went upstairs suspecting noth- ing, only wondering what was the matter. I met him leaving her room. . . . The man who caused that little grave blamed Mary Anne's ignorance. Archie Graham blamed Effie's ignorance. He blames me and you. ... I blame you. You promised to speak to EflSe. You have not done so." ** What are we to do? " cried Helen. " Either make another little grave or harbour under our roof a dishonoured daughter." Helen's cry rang through the room. " Have you no mercy?" "None!" said Harry. She flung herself on her knees at his side, and caught up his hand again. Again he shook her oflF. " Don't ! " he said again. And again there was nothing to break the silence of the night for the moment but the sighing of the wind through the leafless branches. Two of the candles had burned low, had flickered, made a vain struggle, and gone out. The others burned low in their sockets. Bill was trembling upon his cushion. " Get up, and go to your room. There is nothing to be done. You are one of the women who is not fit to be the mother of a girl." He rose, went to the door, opened it, held it open until his wife got on her feet, swayed, and stumbled blindly out Then he shut the door and put his hands over bis Digitized by Google Chapter XV WITHOUT moving, Harry Pemberton remained in his room for an hour. With his hands over his eyes, as though to prevent himself from seeing for at least a short time any of the things that, it seemed, were bound to happen, there he stood alone. First one and then the other of the two remaining candles died. The fire had long ago burnt itself out The room was very cold. Harry, whose brain had been a blank, who had refused to permit himself to think until he had mastered his emotion, heard with surprise the grandfather clock strike three. If he had been asked, he would have said that he had been alone for five minutes. A shiver ran over him. He shut the window, and then felt his way to his desk. As he sat down to it, in the chair in which so much of his work was done, the machin- ery of his brain started again, mechanically. "And this," he said to himself, "this, until a few hours ago, was the happiest house in England — this, in which the man has quarrelled with his wife and will never forgive her, in which his girl, the apple of his eye, has lost her self-respect and her happiness; from which the boy they all loved has gone, cursed and cursing ! " He deliberately went over the events of the night again. That boy coming out of his daughter's room. His shifting of the blame upon Helen and himself. His cry that it was unthinkable to suppose that Effie was anything but ignorant. He had been right, Helen had 292 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 293 failed. ... If he had been right in that, if that had been the truth, might he not be telling the truth as to the rest? He had confessed to a lie once. His whole training had encouraged the telling of lies, had taught very little else but cunnning, ingenious excuses, subterfuge. No. He was not to be believed as to the rest. . . . He had been trying to break himself of these things, but they had been sown in him early in his life, and would spring up like weeds. . . . And yet he had sworn by all he held sacred, with the ring of truth in his voice, that these visits had been innocent. If only he had not lied before. ... To believe that this boy was lying was to believe that EflSe's ignorance had been taken advantage of. Harry brought his arguments, his doubts, his question- ings, down to this frightful point: ''Do I or do I not believe that Effie's ignorance has been taken advantage of?" He reasoned the thing out He tried to reason it out as though the case was a hypothetical one, or, at any rate, as though it were one that did not concern him more nearly than the cases of all poor struggling humanity concerned him — not, for the time, as though it affected his own beautiful Effie, the girl who was his pal as well as his daughter, the child who was the symbol of his twenty years of unclouded married happiness, now brought to a sudden and appalling end. He felt that if he used Effie's name in his groping search for a reasonable conclusion his reason would split and crack. So he took a boy and a girl. A more than ordinary good-looking, charming, and sensitive boy. A boy with an irresistible personality, a most winning manner, an ex- traordinary aptitude for taking the colour of his sur- roundings, without side, expert in games of skill, around whom there had been an indescribable air of romance Digitized by Google 294 The Blindness of Virtue who awoke instant sympathy from the fact that he wa8» at first, both motherless and homeless. And he took a girl, beautiful of face and form, ex- quisitely unaffected and simple, clean-minded, fresh, and sweet — an English country girl of the best sort, who had never met any men but working men and small tradespeople and clerks. He threw these two suddenly together. He put them in constant, unwatched companionship daily. Of course such a girl would give her warm young heart to such a boy. He would have come upon her with surprise and delight at a time of her life when she was only waiting to find some one to whom to give her heart. Mother- less, and not trusted by his father, having suffered all his life from suspicion, what more natural than for all this girl's dormant maternal instinct to spring into life, for her to take this boy under her wing, to pour out upon him her trust, to immerse him in her first sweet love smd confidence. Such a boy, hungry for love, eager for trust and confi- dence and sympathy, would gladly seize upon such a love, would fall under the spell of such beauty of face and form, such simplicity of mind, such energy and vitality. But he gave the boy good instincts : He credited him with an inherited sense of honour, however choked back and stunted it might have been. He agreed that he was doing his best to live down, to uproot, all the rottenness of his training. He made him keenly alive to sound in- fluence, but left him human. Then he took this boy abruptly out of this girl's life. He left her without him for many weeks. He saw her bereft of the man who was the only thing worth living for. He knew that into her empty days hope came to sustain her. If there is no hope in the hearts of the Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 295 young there is no hope anywhere. But he could also un- derstand the longing, the impatience, the jealousy, the gradual elevation of this unexpected separation into some- thing amounting in the young mind to a disaster, a tragedy. And then he brought this boy back to this girl — back late at night, as unexpectedly as his going away had been unexpected, and he let the girl hear the boy on his way to his room. Being ignorant, and therefore utterly im- conscious of the cruelty it is to the man who loves her, for the girl to go into his arms dressed only for her bed, he placed the girl in the arms of this boy . . • and sprang suddenly to his feet. "Oh, my God I" he cried, "don't let me arrogantly pass judgment and condemn this boy and girl. You have made them as they are, and we have kept them ignorant Whether the boy lied or not, he is not to be condemned. We are. Helen is. She said that she would speak and she failed. If that boy lied, it is for EflSe to forgive her mother, Effie and the boy. If he told the truth, and after the struggle he has made to root out shiftiness I refused to believe him — I, who had inspired him by trust and confidence . . " Harry remained standing for a moment, with a great sense of fear upon him. "What did that boy mean to do when he left this foomt '' He rushed to the door, seized his hat, pulled back the bolts of the garden door, threw it open, and ran out into the night Digitized by Google Chapter XVI **lT7HICHway?" W Harry Pemberton drew up on the fcomer of the green. It was dark and cold. Not a sound broke the stillness. He knew the boy. He had wondered many times at his extraordinary sensitiveness. He knew how nervous and high-wrought he was. He had heard, without per- mitting himself to be influenced by, the ring of utter despair that had been in his voice an hour before. "Which way, then, quickly!" He ran to the station at the top of his speed, hoping, but not believing that Archie might be going back to his father. He found two or three tired nights-porters looking after goods trains. One clanked and jarred through as he drew up on one of the half-lighted plat- forms. "Have you seen Mr. Graham?" he asked — ^"any time during the last hour ? " The porter looked at the Vicar in amazement. "Speak, man!" " Mr. Graham, sir? No, sir." Harry strode along the platform to the waiting-room. It was in darkness. He bent down and ran his hand along first the long wooden bench that ran up one side of it and then down the other. No one. He left the station, cursing himself for having wasted time. He knew that Archie had not intended to go to 296 Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 297 the station, and he knew that he had been afraid to look for him -^anywhere else. Back through the sleeping village he went Back to the Vicarage, still afraid to go where he feared the boy had gone, upstairs to Archie's room. With a shaking hand he struck a match and lit a candle. No one. The bed had not been slept in, but — the eider- down was flung back and there was a dent in the pillow 1 The boy had sworn that he had found Effie sleeping on his bed 1 Something lay on the floor by the head of the bed. Harry pounced upon it. It was Effie's slipper. This was not a lie then. He had spoken the truth in this. Why not as to the rest? With greater fear than ever Harry was down the stairs and out again into the blackness. This time he did not hesitate. Qenching his fists and breathing hard he ran across the green, turned to the left on the road, raced along and along until he came to the mill and the mill bridge across the swollen, gurgling race of water, saw something dark on the wall of the bridge, saw it leap into the water, heard a splash, scrambled up upon the wall, dived head first into the foaming stream, swam several strong strokes, and made a dutch at a dark head, closed his hand with a grip of iron through its hair, and swam, holding his arm stiffly in front of him, down the stream towards the shallower water and the ford. "Let me go!" shouted Archie. Harry swam on triumphantly, thankfully, pushing the boy in front of him. " Damn you ! let me go ! I won't live now, what's the good?" On went Harry, strongly, gladly, silently, gratefully. The narrow water reached, he struggled to his knees, to Digitized by Google 298 The Blindness of Virtue his feet, flung his arm round the fighting, shouting boy, and icarried him to the bank. Putting the boy on his feet, he held him tight against his chest "Let me go I" cried Archie. "You don't believe in me! You! I can't live over that." Harry held the struggling boy with all his strength. " I do believe in you, old man — I do. I believe every word that you said. You behaved like a gentleman and a man of honour, and I thank you. Forgive me.*' The boy peered up into Harry's face, gave a great sob, put his head down on the broad, heaving chest, and burst out crying. Digitized by Google Chapter XVII 44A^OME back," said Harry. "We are wet to the V> skin, and the wind is bitter. Let's run to get warm/' The boy rubbed his wet sleeve over his eyes. " I'm — I'm frightfully sorry I — did this," he said. " I deserved it," said Harry. " Run ! " They ran side by side. Instinctively both ran fast. They both wanted to leave behind them not the place so much as the cause of their being in the place. As they ran their boots oozed out water. As their blood began to circulate their teeth ceased to chatter. Not another word was spoken. They drew up at the Vicarage gate, stumped round the old, warm house to the garden-door, which was still open as Harry had left it, and went into the silent house. " When you've rubbed down and got into dry things, come to my dressing-room. I've something to say to you," said Harry. They separated in the passage. The boy went quietly up the front staircase to his bedroom. Harry made for his dressing-room. He drew off his clinging clothes, rubbed himself into a heat with a rough towel, and dressed. Then he went down upon his knees, put his arms upon the seat of a chair and his head upon his arms. " Master,'* he said, " this is the second time that YouVe shown me Your infinite mercy when I had none in my heart I tried to thank You before by giving my life to 399 Digitized by Google 300 The Blindness of Virtue Ifour struggling, hard-pushed children. Give me time to try again. I have more to thank You for than ever. 1 might have killed that boy 1 You saved him and kept murder out of my soul. Master, what am I to say? . • . And there is Effie — You saved her too, my little Effie, my girl ... I will do my best to earn Your goodness. Master, and go to Helen in the spirit in which You took my steps this morning. You were merciful to me, I will be more than merciful to her. You made me suffer all these things to see if I had learned Your lesscm. You found me wanting. I had no mercy in my soul. Give me strength to do as well as that boy has done, for Jesus Christ's sake." The boy entered the room, and was about to leave it again, but Harry rose and barred the way. " Can't you forgive me, old man ? " he asked. The boy's hands fluttered nervously, painfully. " Oh, please don't!" he said. '' I did you a great injustice. I am as bad as the others with whom you've been. You are a better man than I am, Archie Graham. I will take a lesson from you. It is our fault, not Eflfie's and not yours, that you were put io the test. You've won. Please forgive me ! " Archie thrust out his hands with a broken cry. " Thanks, old fellow," said Harry. "You're — you're so splendid!" said the boy. "Yes, that's why I became a parson. . . .I'm going to make a confession to you that I've made to no other living man or woman. You wring it out of me by what you've done for me and for my wife and for EflSe. I hoped never to have to make it, but you have humiliated me, and I can pay you back in no other way than by giv- ing you this tribute. ... Do you remember my saying, months ago, when you asked me why I went into the Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 301 Church, that I hoped I should never have to tell you?" "Yes/' said the boy. "But please don't tell me now ! " " I must because I want you to know how sorry I am for judging and disbelieving you, and because I want to remind myself of the other time when God drew me up and showed me that if a man is without the qual- ity of mercy he is not fit to be the son of his father," He turned his back upon the boy, and looked out of window. Across the sky a thin line of faint light had come. A new day was breaking softly and gently — a day that might have found a tragedy in that quiet, striv- ing house. Harry b^;an to speak in a low, steady voice. " I was so splendid a fellow at Oxford," he said, " with my cricket blue, my Presidency of the Union, my popularity, my admiring set, my career gleaming ahead, that I did not believe in God, I believed only in myself. I was so splendid that I passed judgments on my fellows, and had no mercy for weakness and broken words. I was not weak. I never broke my word. ... I had a friend, a Jonathan, whom I loved and trusted. We were together at Harrow, in the same college at Oxford. We rose to- gether, step by step, in work, and out of it There was one other person, beside myself, in whom I believed. It was my friend. We were both poor men, soldiers' sons. Our fathers had deprived themselves of their few luxur- ies to send us to Oxford, They were men who looked to us to do well, but, above all, to keep their names bright. We were both to be barristers. We had both done more than average well in the schools. It was the custom of our fathers to pay into our bank all the money it was necessary for us to have for the year. In the Michaelmas Digitized by Google 302 The Blindness of Virtue term of our third year my friend came to me and told me that his father was in temporary need for money. Would I lend him, to pass on to his f ather, all the money I had in the bank which was to keep me at Oxford for the year. It would be returned in a fortnight I be- lieved in this man, and, without a mcmient's hesitation, lent him the money. The fortnight came to an end. The money was not returned. I let another fortnight go by, and needed money. I was forced to ranind my friend of his guarantee. He confessed, brokenly and with shame, that his father had neither needed the money nor had the money. The story was a lie. He himself had needed the money to pay racing-debts, thinking that he could get the money from an uncle to repay me. The uncle had been, it appeared, bled before. He had no more money to spare. ... I knew that my father had no money for me. I saw all my chances ruined, aU that I had worked for gone for nothing. My friend asked for mercy. I had none. The one way of my remaining at Oxford, my forlorn hope, was to tell my friend's father of his son's treachery, and leave him to make it good. He lived in Scotland. I got permission from the authorities to go to Scotland on urgent business. I left my friend, well knowing that the germ of suicide was in his brain, and started. . . . Between London and Rugby there was a frightful accident. Three men in my carriage were , killed. I lay for an hour unhurt, pinned down with' wreckage. ... In that long, waiting hour God came to me, and when I was free led me to a telegraph office on an errand of mercy. I wired to my friend, * Your father shall know nothing. Am coming back.' • . . My mother and sisters sold their jewels^ and I became a servant of God." Digitized by Google Chapter XVIII EIGHT o'clock struck. Helen, fully dressed, was lying face downwards upon her bed. No sleep had given temporary pause to her pain and anguish, remorse and grief. She had groped her way to her room, had fallen upon her bed, and lain there as though struck by lightning. Harry had shuddered at her touch — Harry whom she had served and worshipped and tended, and for whom she would have died if, by dying, she could have spared him a moment's pain. It was a terrible punishment for not having kept her word, for having failed to speak to Effie. She did not, for one moment, cry out that the punishment was unjust, undeserved. Harry had said that she was a woman who was not fit to be the mother of a girl. It was true. It had been proved. To 3ave herself from an uncomfort- able, distressing conversation she had sacrificed her daughter. But this, Efl&e's trouble, did not seem to her, awful as it was, so unspeakably awful as the withdrawal of Harry's love and confidence and respect. That meant the end of everjrthing. She hoped that she might die where she lay. She prayed that she might slip out of life before the cold, bleak morning came. Without Harry's love it seemed to her impossible that she could live. The only satisfaction that she had in looking back over the years that she and Harry had passed together 303 Digitized by Google 304 The Blindness of Virtue was that she had until the moment that she hurried down to his room a few hours before never given him cause to be angry with her. This had been their first quarrel. This had been the only time that he had ever looked at her coldly or spoken to her harshly. She had made him happy for twenty years. In her peculiar humble way she anticipated no forgive- ness. Since the day that he had spoken to the village women in the vestry of the church, and later to her in their bedroom, Harry had returned again and again to his detestation of the ostrich system of bringing up girls that was the accepted system. His hatred for the con- spiracy that prevailed in all classes to keep girls ignorant had grown every day. She knew that whatever people might think and say, however strongly they looked upon his point of view as indecent and immodest, he had per- sisted, and intended to persist, in making it accepted in East Brenton. After his first eager and enthusiastic crusade she had watched him go silently to work. He had confided to her again and again that he would be satisfied if even two or three women in the place woke up to the danger of ignorance in his lifetime. He was content to regard his teaching as a seed cast into Time. Having herself recovered from the shock her inherited and innate prejudice had received, she had acknowledged that Harry's ideas were right. She had not broken faith with him because she was like most of the other women in the village. She simply had not been blessed with sufficient moral courage to discuss the question of rela- tionship of sex with sex with her own daughter. She had hedged with her conscience. She did not possess sufficient imagination to see her daughter in much Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 305 the same position as Mary Anne and other poor girls had been placed. She had more or less quieted her con- science by assuring herself that Effie was different from most other girls — certainly village girls, who were sub- jected to temptation. She was Harry's daughter. Wasn't that enough to give her the ability to protect her- self ? She lived in an atmosphere of refinement and self- control, high endeavour and the worship of God. She never remembered that Archie was a man. He seemed to her to be a boy, as Effie seemed to be a child. But in these dreadful silent hours she did not snatch at any egotistical comfort, or hug herself in the self- satisfied way that is peculiar to the martyr. She did not cry out that she had done her best to speak. She faced the stem fact that she had promised to speak and had not spoken. She saw, in her characteristic accurate way, no injustice in Harry's anger, and no reason why she should be forgiven. Once during this frightful hour a wave of anger seized her. "If I am obliged to live," she cried, "I hope I may never set eyes on that boy again — never, never ! " She heard Harry leave the house. As he left it all her thoughts turned from herself to him. "Why has he gone out at this time in the morning? " she asked her- self anxiously, and in her characteristic way she prayed that he had put on a warm overcoat. She heard him re- turn. No hope that he would come into her room warmed her. She was only thankful that he had not stayed out in the cold, raw air. She heard him go out again, and her anxiety returned. All the maternal instinct that is always alive in the heart of a woman for the man she loves was stirred. December mornings were very dan- Digitized by Google 3o6 The Blindness of Virtue gerous unless guarded against. Presently she heard her husband come back again with Archie, and it comforted her to hear the rumble of their voices. And then her thoughts reverted to herself. Where was Death? He moved about the village frequently enough. Was he never coming to her? When eight o'clock struck she was suddenly seized with an overwhelming desire to see Harry again and to hcdd Effie in her arms. Wondering that she was able to move, she got up and stood for a moment in the middle of the rocMn. Then she went to the door. It opened softly. She found herself caught hungrily and held passionately against Harry's heart. When Bill, tired of waiting outside the door, sneaked anxiously into the room, he found Helen seated by the window, with a gleam of winter sun upon her hair, and Harry kneeling at her feet, with his arms round her. He heard Helen say something that he didn't understand about speaking to Efiie that day, and about Effie and Archie — ^''the future Mr. and Mrs. Graham.*' "One of these fine days, bless their hearts ! " said Harry. And he heard Best-of -All whisper " Dearest " once and twice and three times. Then he sneaked out again, and as he ran downstairs, with something hot and wet upon the short hairs round his eyes, he said, "That's good! — oh, that's most aw- fully good 1 '* And being a dog, and a youngish dog, and not knowing how else to show his joy, he rushed out into the garden, chased a leaf, barked at the stm, and ran wildly round and round the house. Digitized by Google The Blindness of Virtue 307 Mary Anne hammered the gong for breakfast, and Harry stood up. " God's in His Heaven, darling,** he said. " I wonder what's for breakfast ? " THE BNP Digitized by Google Digitized by Google Digitized by Google Digitized by Google MARY REGAN h LEROY SCOTT A story of the underworld and upperworld which abounds in characters to he met in the tetf derloin of ary large city, Mary Regan, daughter of that one- time famous cynic and master crim- inal **Gentelman Jim", had passed her girlhood in the cynical philo- sophy of the court surrounding her father— had made that philosophy her own — and when grown into womanhood, joined that great crime entrepreneur, her Uncle Joe Russell, in many of his more subde enters prises. Gi£Ford covers the pair, and a thril- ling love story ensues. NAL FICTION LIBRARY NEW YORK. N uigitizea Dy v^nv^v^v i\^ Digitized by Google