Mr Standfast rh-3 Read online

  In that moment I had a kind of revelation. I had a vision of what I had been fighting for, what we all were fighting for. It was peace, deep and holy and ancient, peace older than the oldest wars, peace which would endure when all our swords were hammered into ploughshares. It was more; for in that hour England first took hold of me. Before my country had been South Africa, and when I thought of home it had been the wide sun-steeped spaces of the veld or some scented glen of the Berg. But now I realized that I had a new home. I understood what a precious thing this little England was, how old and kindly and comforting, how wholly worth striving for. The freedom of an acre of her soil was cheaply bought by the blood of the best of us. I knew what it meant to be a poet, though for the life of me I could not have made a line of verse. For in that hour I had a prospect as if from a hilltop which made all the present troubles of the road seem of no account. I saw not only victory after war, but a new and happier world after victory, when I should inherit something of this English peace and wrap myself in it till the end of my days.

  Very humbly and quietly, like a man walking through a cathedral, I went down the hill to the Manor lodge, and came to a door in an old red-brick facade, smothered in magnolias which smelt like hot lemons in the June dusk. The car from the inn had brought on my baggage, and presently I was dressing in a room which looked out on a water-garden. For the first time for more than a year I put on a starched shirt and a dinner-jacket, and as I dressed I could have sung from pure lightheartedness. I was in for some arduous job, and sometime that evening in that place I should get my marching orders. Someone would arrive - perhaps Bullivant - and read me the riddle. But whatever it was, I was ready for it, for my whole being had found a new purpose. Living in the trenches, you are apt to get your horizon narrowed down to the front line of enemy barbed wire on one side and the nearest rest billets on the other. But now I seemed to see beyond the fog to a happy country.

  High-pitched voices greeted my ears as I came down the broad staircase, voices which scarcely accorded with the panelled walls and the austere family portraits; and when I found my hostesses in the hall I thought their looks still less in keeping with the house. Both ladies were on the wrong side of forty, but their dress was that of young girls. Miss Doria Wymondham was tall and thin with a mass of nondescript pale hair confined by a black velvet fillet. Miss Claire Wymondham was shorter and plumper and had done her best by ill-applied cosmetics to make herself look like a foreign demi-mondaine. They greeted me with the friendly casualness which I had long ago discovered was the right English manner towards your guests; as if they had just strolled in and billeted themselves, and you were quite glad to see them but mustn’t be asked to trouble yourself further. The next second they were cooing like pigeons round a picture which a young man was holding up in the lamplight.

  He was a tallish, lean fellow of round about thirty years, wearing grey flannels and shoes dusty from the country roads. His thin face was sallow as if from living indoors, and he had rather more hair on his head than most of us. In the glow of the lamp his features were very clear, and I examined them with interest, for, remember, I was expecting a stranger to give me orders. He had a long, rather strong chin and an obstinate mouth with peevish lines about its corners. But the remarkable feature was his eyes. I can best describe them by saying that they looked hot - not fierce or angry, but so restless that they seemed to ache physically and to want sponging with cold water.

  They finished their talk about the picture - which was couched in a jargon of which I did not understand one word - and Miss Doria turned to me and the young man.

  ‘My cousin Launcelot Wake - Mr Brand.’

  We nodded stiffly and Mr Wake’s hand went up to smooth his hair in a self-conscious gesture.

  ‘Has Barnard announced dinner? By the way, where is Mary?’

  ‘She came in five minutes ago and I sent her to change,’ said Miss Claire. ‘I won’t have her spoiling the evening with that horrid uniform. She may masquerade as she likes out-of-doors, but this house is for civilized people.’

  The butler appeared and mumbled something. ‘Come along,’ cried Miss Doria, ‘for I’m sure you are starving, Mr Brand. And Launcelot has bicycled ten miles.’

  The dining-room was very unlike the hall. The panelling had been stripped off, and the walls and ceiling were covered with a dead-black satiny paper on which hung the most monstrous pictures in large dull-gold frames. I could only see them dimly, but they seemed to be a mere riot of ugly colour. The young man nodded towards them. ‘I see you have got the Degousses hung at last,’ he said.

  ‘How exquisite they are!’ cried Miss Claire. ‘How subtle and candid and brave! Doria and I warm our souls at their flame.’

  Some aromatic wood had been burned in the room, and there was a queer sickly scent about. Everything in that place was strained and uneasy and abnormal - the candle shades on the table, the mass of faked china fruit in the centre dish, the gaudy hangings and the nightmarish walls. But the food was magnificent. It was the best dinner I had eaten since 1914. ‘Tell me, Mr Brand,’ said Miss Doria, her long white face propped on a much-beringed hand. ‘You are one of us? You are in revolt against this crazy war?’

  ‘Why, yes,’ I said, remembering my part. ‘I think a little common-sense would settle it right away.’

  ‘With a little common-sense it would never have started,’ said Mr Wake.

  ‘Launcelot’s a C.O., you know,’ said Miss Doria.

  I did not know, for he did not look any kind of soldier … I was just about to ask him what he commanded, when I remembered that the letters stood also for ‘Conscientious Objector,’ and stopped in time.

  At that moment someone slipped into the vacant seat on my right hand. I turned and saw the V.A.D. girl who had brought tea to Blaikie that afternoon at the hospital.

  ‘He was exempted by his Department,’ the lady went on, ‘for he’s a Civil Servant, and so he never had a chance of testifying in court, but no one has done better work for our cause. He is on the committee of the L.D.A., and questions have been asked about him in Parliament.’

  The man was not quite comfortable at this biography. He glanced nervously at me and was going to begin some kind of explanation, when Miss Doria cut him short. ‘Remember our rule, Launcelot. No turgid war controversy within these walls.’

  I agreed with her. The war had seemed closely knit to the Summer landscape for all its peace, and to the noble old chambers of the Manor. But in that demented modish dining-room it was shriekingly incongruous.

  Then they spoke of other things. Mostly of pictures or common friends, and a little of books. They paid no heed to me, which was fortunate, for I know nothing about these matters and didn’t understand half the language. But once Miss Doria tried to bring me in. They were talking about some Russian novel - a name like Leprous Souls - and she asked me if I had read it. By a curious chance I had. It had drifted somehow into our dug-out on the Scarpe, and after we had all stuck in the second chapter it had disappeared in the mud to which it naturally belonged. The lady praised its ‘poignancy’ and ‘grave beauty’. I assented and congratulated myself on my second escape - for if the question had been put to me I should have described it as God-forgotten twaddle.

  I turned to the girl, who welcomed me with a smile. I had thought her pretty in her V.A.D. dress, but now, in a filmy black gown and with her hair no longer hidden by a cap, she was the most ravishing thing you ever saw. And I observed something else. There was more than good looks in her young face. Her broad, low brow and her laughing eyes were amazingly intelligent. She had an uncanny power of making her eyes go suddenly grave and deep, like a glittering river narrowing into a pool.

  ‘We shall never be introduced,’ she said, ‘so let me reveal myself. I’m Mary Lamington and these are my aunts … Did you really like Leprous Souls?’

  it was easy enough to talk to her. And oddly enough her mere presence took away the oppression I had felt in that room. For she belonged to
the out-of-doors and to the old house and to the world at large. She belonged to the war, and to that happier world beyond it - a world which must be won by going through the struggle and not by shirking it, like those two silly ladies.

  I could see Wake’s eyes often on the girl, while he boomed and oraculated and the Misses Wymondham prattled. Presently the conversation seemed to leave the flowery paths of art and to verge perilously near forbidden topics. He began to abuse our generals in the field. I could not choose but listen. Miss Lamington’s brows were slightly bent, as if in disapproval, and my own temper began to rise.

  He had every kind of idiotic criticism - incompetence, faint-heartedness, corruption. Where he got the stuff I can’t imagine, for the most grousing Tommy, with his leave stopped, never put together such balderdash. Worst of all he asked me to agree with him.

  It took all my sense of discipline. ‘I don’t know much about the subject,’ I said, ‘but out in South Africa I did hear that the British leading was the weak point. I expect there’s a good deal in what you say.’

  It may have been fancy, but the girl at my side seemed to whisper ‘Well done!’

  Wake and I did not remain long behind before joining the ladies; I purposely cut it short, for I was in mortal fear lest I should lose my temper and spoil everything. I stood up with my back against the mantelpiece for as long as a man may smoke a cigarette, and I let him yarn to me, while I looked steadily at his face. By this time I was very clear that Wake was not the fellow to give me my instructions. He wasn’t playing a game. He was a perfectly honest crank, but not a fanatic, for he wasn’t sure of himself. He had somehow lost his self-respect and was trying to argue himself back into it. He had considerable brains, for the reasons he gave for differing from most of his countrymen were good so far as they went. I shouldn’t have cared to take him on in public argument. If you had told me about such a fellow a week before I should have been sick at the thought of him. But now I didn’t dislike him. I was bored by him and I was also tremendously sorry for him. You could see he was as restless as a hen.

  When we went back to the hall he announced that he must get on the road, and commandeered Miss Lamington to help him find his bicycle. It appeared he was staying at an inn a dozen miles off for a couple of days’ fishing, and the news somehow made me like him better. Presently the ladies of the house departed to bed for their beauty sleep and I was left to my own devices.

  For some time I sat smoking in the hall wondering when the messenger would arrive. It was getting late and there seemed to be no preparation in the house to receive anybody. The butler came in with a tray of drinks and I asked him if he expected another guest that night.

  ‘I ‘adn’t ‘eard of it, sir,’ was his answer. ‘There ‘asn’t been a telegram that I know of, and I ‘ave received no instructions.’

  I lit my pipe and sat for twenty minutes reading a weekly paper. Then I got up and looked at the family portraits. The moon coming through the lattice invited me out-of-doors as a cure for my anxiety. It was after eleven o’clock, and I was still without any knowledge of my next step. It is a maddening business to be screwed up for an unpleasant job and to have the wheels of the confounded thing tarry.

  Outside the house beyond a flagged terrace the lawn fell away, white in the moonshine, to the edge of the stream, which here had expanded into a miniature lake. By the water’s edge was a little formal garden with grey stone parapets which now gleamed like dusky marble. Great wafts of scent rose from it, for the lilacs were scarcely over and the may was in full blossom. Out from the shade of it came suddenly a voice like a nightingale.

  It was singing the old song ‘Cherry Ripe’, a common enough thing which I had chiefly known from barrel-organs. But heard in the scented moonlight it seemed to hold all the lingering magic of an elder England and of this hallowed countryside. I stepped inside the garden bounds and saw the head of the girl Mary.

  She was conscious of my presence, for she turned towards me.

  ‘I was coming to look for you,’ she said, ‘now that the house is quiet. I have something to say to you, General Hannay.’

  She knew my name and must be somehow in the business. The thought entranced me. ‘Thank God I can speak to you freely,’ I cried. ‘Who and what are you - living in that house in that kind of company?’

  ‘My good aunts!’ She laughed softly. ‘They talk a great deal about their souls, but they really mean their nerves. Why, they are what you call my camouflage, and a very good one too.’

  ‘And that cadaverous young prig?’

  ‘Poor Launcelot! Yes - camouflage too - perhaps something a little more. You must not judge him too harshly.’

  ‘But … but -‘ I did not know how to put it, and stammered in my eagerness. ‘How can I tell that you are the right person for me to speak to? You see I am under orders, and I have got none about you.’

  ‘I will give You Proof,’ she said. ‘Three days ago Sir Walter Bullivant and Mr Macgillivray told you to come here tonight and to wait here for further instructions. You met them in the little smoking-room at the back of the Rota Club. You were bidden take the name of Cornelius Brand, and turn yourself from a successful general into a pacifist South African engineer. Is that correct?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘You have been restless all evening looking for the messenger to give you these instructions. Set your mind at ease. No messenger is coming. You will get your orders from me.’

  ‘I could not take them from a more welcome source,’ I said.

  ‘Very prettily put. If you want further credentials I can tell you much about your own doings in the past three years. I can explain to you who don’t need the explanation, every step in the business of the Black Stone. I think I could draw a pretty accurate map of your journey to Erzerum. You have a letter from Peter Pienaar in your pocket - I can tell you its contents. Are you willing to trust me?’

  ‘With all my heart,’ I said.

  ‘Good. Then my first order will try you pretty hard. For I have no orders to give you except to bid you go and steep yourself in a particular kind of life. Your first duty is to get “atmosphere”, as your friend Peter used to say. Oh, I will tell you where to go and how to behave. But I can’t bid you do anything, only live idly with open eyes and ears till you have got the “feel” of the situation.’

  She stopped and laid a hand on my arm.

  ‘It won’t be easy. It would madden me, and it will be a far heavier burden for a man like you. You have got to sink down deep into the life of the half-baked, the people whom this war hasn’t touched or has touched in the wrong way, the people who split hairs all day and are engrossed in what you and I would call selfish little fads. Yes. People like my aunts and Launcelot, only for the most part in a different social grade. You won’t live in an old manor like this, but among gimcrack little “arty” houses. You will hear everything you regard as sacred laughed at and condemned, and every kind of nauseous folly acclaimed, and you must hold your tongue and pretend to agree. You will have nothing in the world to do except to let the life soak into you, and, as I have said, keep your eyes and ears open.’

  ‘But you must give me some clue as to what I should be looking for?’

  ‘My orders are to give you none. Our chiefs - yours and mine - want you to go where you are going without any kind of _parti _pris. Remember we are still in the intelligence stage of the affair. The time hasn’t yet come for a plan of campaign, and still less for action.’

  ‘Tell me one thing,’ I said. ‘Is it a really big thing we’re after?’

  ‘A - really - big - thing,’ she said slowly and very gravely. ‘You and I and some hundred others are hunting the most dangerous man in all the world. Till we succeed everything that Britain does is crippled. If we fail or succeed too late the Allies may never win the victory which is their right. I will tell you one thing to cheer you. It is in some sort a race against time, so your purgatory won’t endure too long.’

  I was boun
d to obey, and she knew it, for she took my willingness for granted.

  From a little gold satchel she selected a tiny box, and opening it extracted a thing like a purple wafer with a white St Andrew’s Cross on it.

  ‘What kind of watch have you? Ah, a hunter. Paste that inside the lid. Some day you may be called on to show it … One other thing. Buy tomorrow a copy of the Pilgrim’s Progress and get it by heart. You will receive letters and messages some day and the style of our friends is apt to be reminiscent of John Bunyan … The car will be at the door tomorrow to catch the ten-thirty, and I will give you the address of the rooms that have been taken for you … Beyond that I have nothing to say, except to beg you to play the part well and keep your temper. You behaved very nicely at dinner.’

  I asked one last question as we said good night in the hall. ‘Shall I see you again?’

  ‘Soon, and often,’ was the answer. ‘Remember we are colleagues.’

  I went upstairs feeling extraordinarily comforted. I had a perfectly beastly time ahead of me, but now it was all glorified and coloured with the thought of the girl who had sung ‘Cherry Ripe’ in the garden. I commended the wisdom of that old serpent Bullivant in the choice of his intermediary, for I’m hanged if I would have taken such orders from anyone else.