Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) BEALBY A HOLIDAY BY H. G. WELLS AUTHOR OF âTHE WIFE OF SIR ISAAC HARMAN,â ETC. New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1915 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY P. F. COLLIER & SON. COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY H. G. WELLS. Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1915. Reprinted March, 1915. April, 1915. May, 1915. July, 1915. August, 1915. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. YOUNG BEALBY GOES TO SHONTS 1 II. A WEEK-END AT SHONTS 22 III. THE WANDERERS 56 IV. THE UNOBTRUSIVE PARTING 95 V. THE SEEKING OF BEALBY 131 VI. BEALBY AND THE TRAMP 190 VII. THE BATTLE OF CRAYMINSTER 226 VIII. HOW BEALBY EXPLAINED 263 BEALBY CHAPTER I YOUNG BEALBY GOES TO SHONTS Â§ 1 The cat is the offspring of a cat and the dog of a dog, but butlers and ladyâs maids do not reproduce their kind. They have other duties. So their successors have to be sought among the prolific, and particularly among the prolific on great estates. Such are gardeners, but not under-gardeners, gamekeepers, and coachmenâbut not lodge people, because their years are too great and their lodges too small. And among those to whom this opportunity of entering service came was young Bealby, who was the stepson of Mr. Darling, the gardener of Shonts. Everyone knows the glories of Shonts. Its faÃ§ade. Its two towers. The great marble pond. The terraces where the peacocks walk and the lower lake with the black and white swans. The great park and the avenue. The view of the river winding away across the blue country. And of the Shonts Velasquezâbut that is now in America. And the Shonts Rubens, which is in the National Gallery. And the Shonts porcelain. And the Shonts past history; it was a refuge for the old faith; it had priestâs holes and secret passages. And how at last the Marquis had to let Shonts to the Laxtonsâthe Peptonized Milk and Baby Soother peopleâfor a long term of years. It was a splendid chance for any boy to begin his knowledge of service in so great an establishment, and only the natural perversity of human nature can explain the violent objection young Bealby took to anything of the sort. He did. He said he did not want to be a servant, and that he would not go and be a good boy and try his very best in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call him at Shonts. On the contrary. He communicated these views suddenly to his mother as she was preparing a steak and kidney pie in the bright little kitchen of the gardenerâs cottage. He came in with his hair all ruffled and his face hot and distinctly dirty, and his hands in his trousers pockets in the way he had been repeatedly told not to. âMother,â he said, âIâm not going to be a stewardâs boy at the house anyhow, not if you tell me to, not till youâre blue in the face. So thatâs all about it.â This delivered, he remained panting, having no further breath left in him. His mother was a thin firm woman. She paused in her rolling of the dough until he had finished, and then she made a strong broadening sweep of the rolling pin, and remained facing him, leaning forward on that implement with her head a little on one side. âYou will do,â she said, âwhatsoever your father has said you will do.â ââE isnât my father,â said young Bealby. His mother gave a snapping nod of the head expressive of extreme determination. âAnyhow I ainât going to do it,â said young Bealby, and feeling the conversation was difficult to sustain he moved towards the staircase door with a view to slamming it. âYouâll do it,â said his mother, âright enough.â âYou see whether I do,â said young Bealby, and then got in his door-slam rather hurriedly because of steps outside. Mr. Darling came in out of the sunshine a few moments later. He was a large, many-pocketed, earthy-whiskered man with a clean-shaven determined mouth, and he carried a large pale cucumber in his hand. âI tole him,â he said. âWhat did he say?â asked his wife. âNuthinâ,â said Mr. Darling. ââE says âe wonât,â said Mrs. Darling. Mr. Darling regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. âI never see such a boy,â said Mr. Darling. âWhyââeâs _got_ to.â Â§ 2 But young Bealby maintained an obstinate fight against the inevitable. He had no gift of lucid exposition. âI ainât going to be a servant,â he said. âI donât see what right people have making a servant of me.â âYou got to be something,â said Mr. Darling. âEverybodyâs got to be something,â said Mrs. Darling. âThen let me be something else,â said young Bealby. â_I_ dessay youâd like to be a gentleman,â said Mr. Darling. âI wouldnât mind,â said young Bealby. âYou got to be what your opportunities give you,â said Mr. Darling. Young Bealby became breathless. âWhy shouldnât I be an engine driver?â he asked. âAll oily,â said his mother. âAnd getting yourself killed in an accident. And got to pay fines. Youâd _like_ to be an engine driver.â âOr a soldier.â âOo!âa Swaddy!â said Mr. Darling decisively. âOr the sea.â âWith that weak stummik of yours,â said Mrs. Darling. âBesides which,â said Mr. Darling, âitâs been arranged for you to go up to the âouse the very first of next month. And your box and everything ready.â Young Bealby became very red in the face. âI wonât go,â he said very faintly. âYou will,â said Mr. Darling, âif I âave to take you by the collar and the slack of your breeches to get you there.â Â§ 3 The heart of young Bealby was a coal of fire within his breast asâunassistedâhe went across the dewy park up to the great house, whither his box was to follow him. He thought the world a ârotten show.â He also said, apparently to two does and a fawn, âIf you think Iâm going to stand it, you know, youâre JOLLY-well mistaken.â I do not attempt to justify his prejudice against honourable usefulness in a domestic capacity. He had it. Perhaps there is something in the air of Highbury, where he had spent the past eight years of his life, that leads to democratic ideals. It is one of those new places where estates seem almost forgotten. Perhaps too there was something in the Bealby strain.... I think he would have objected to any employment at all. Hitherto he had been a remarkably free boy with a considerable gusto about his freedom. Why should that end? The little village mixed school had been a soft job for his Cockney wits, and for a year and a half he had been top boy. Why not go on being top boy? Instead of which, under threats, he had to go across the sunlit corner of the park, through that slanting morning sunlight which had been so often the prelude to golden days of leafy wanderings! He had to go past the corner of the laundry where he had so often played cricket with the coachmanâs boys (already swallowed up into the working world), he had to follow the laundry wall to the end of the kitchen, and there, where the steps go down and underground, he had to say farewell to the sunlight, farewell to childhood, boyhood, freedom. He had to go down and along the stone corridor to the pantry, and there he had to ask for Mr. Mergleson. He paused on the top step and looked up at the blue sky across which a hawk was slowly drifting. His eyes followed the hawk out of sight beyond a cypress bough, but indeed he was not thinking about the hawk, he was not seeing the hawk; he was struggling with a last wild impulse of his ferial nature. âWhy not sling it?â his ferial nature was asking. âWhy not even nowâ_do a bunk_?â It would have been better for him perhaps and better for Mr. Mergleson and better for Shonts if he had yielded to the whisper of the Tempter. But his heart was heavy within him, and he had no lunch. And never a penny. One can do but a very little bunk on an empty belly! âMustâ was written all over him. He went down the steps. The passage was long and cool and at the end of it was a swing door. Through that and then to the left, he knew one had to go, past the stillroom and so to the pantry. The maids were at breakfast in the stillroom with the door open. The grimace he made in passing was intended rather to entertain than to insult, and anyhow a chap must do something with his face. And then he came to the pantry and into the presence of Mr. Mergleson. Mr. Mergleson was in his shirt-sleeves and generally dishevelled, having an early cup of tea in an atmosphere full of the bleak memories of overnight. He was an ample man with a large nose, a vast under lip and mutton-chop side-whiskers. His voice would have suited a succulent parrot. He took out a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket and regarded it. âTen minutes past seven, young man,â he said, âisnât seven oâclock.â Young Bealby made no articulate answer. âJust stand there for a minute,â said Mr. Mergleson, âand when Iâm at libbuty Iâll run through your duties.â And almost ostentatiously he gave himself up to the enjoyment of his cup of tea. Three other gentlemen in deshabille sat at table with Mr. Mergleson. They regarded young Bealby with attention, and the youngest, a red-haired, barefaced youth in shirt-sleeves and a green apron was moved to a grimace that was clearly designed to echo the scowl on young Bealbyâs features. The fury that had been subdued by a momentary awe of Mr. Mergleson revived and gathered force. Young Bealbyâs face became scarlet, his eyes filled with tears and his mind with the need for movement. After all,âhe wouldnât stand it. He turned round abruptly and made for the door. âWhereân earth you going to?â cried Mr. Mergleson. âHeâs shy!â cried the second footman. âSteady on!â cried the first footman and had him by the shoulder in the doorway. âLemme _go_!â howled the new recruit, struggling. âI wonât be a blooming servant. I wonât.â âHere!â cried Mr. Mergleson, gesticulating with his teaspoon, âbring âim to the end of the table there. Whatâs this about a blooming servant?â Bealby, suddenly blubbering, was replaced at the end of the table. âMay I ask whatâs this about a blooming servant?â asked Mr. Mergleson. Sniff and silence. âDid I understand you to say that you ainât going to be a blooming servant, young Bealby?â âYes,â said young Bealby. âThomas,â said Mr. Mergleson, âjust smack âis âed. Smack it rather âard....â Things too rapid to relate occurred. âSo youâd _bite_, would you?â said Thomas.... âAh!â said Mr. Mergleson. â_Got_ âim! That one!â ... âJust smack âis âed once more,â said Mr. Mergleson.... âAnd now you just stand there, young man, until Iâm at libbuty to attend to you further,â said Mr. Mergleson, and finished his tea slowly and eloquently.... The second footman rubbed his shin thoughtfully. âIf I got to smack âis âed much,â he said, ââeâd better change into his slippers.â âTake him to âis room,â said Mr. Mergleson getting up. âSee âe washes the grief and grubbiness off âis face in the handwash at the end of the passage and make him put on his slippers. Then show âim âow to lay the table in the stewardâs room.â Â§ 4 The duties to which Bealby was introduced struck him as perplexingly various, undesirably numerous, uninteresting and difficult to remember, and also he did not try to remember them very well because he wanted to do them as badly as possible and he thought that forgetting would be a good way of starting at that. He was beginning at the bottom of the ladder; to him it fell to wait on the upper servants, and the green baize door at the top of the service staircase was the limit of his range. His room was a small wedge-shaped apartment under some steps leading to the servantsâ hall, lit by a window that did not open and that gave upon the underground passage. He received his instructions in a state of crumpled mutinousness, but for a day his desire to be remarkably impossible was more than counterbalanced by his respect for the large able hands of the four man-servants, his seniors, and by a disinclination to be returned too promptly to the gardens. Then in a tentative manner he broke two plates and got his head smacked by Mr. Mergleson himself. Mr. Mergleson gave a staccato slap quite as powerful as Thomasâs but otherwise different. The hand of Mr. Mergleson was large and fat and he got his effects by dash, Thomasâs was horny and lingered. After that young Bealby put salt in the teapot in which the housekeeper made tea. But that he observed she washed out with hot water before she put in the tea. It was clear that he had wasted his salt, which ought to have gone into the kettle. Next time,âthe kettle. Beyond telling him his duties almost excessively nobody conversed with young Bealby during the long hours of his first day in service. At midday dinner in the servantsâ hall, he made one of the kitchen-maids giggle by pulling faces intended to be delicately suggestive of Mr. Mergleson, but that was his nearest approach to disinterested human intercourse. When the hour for retirement came,ââGet out of it. Go to bed, you dirty little Kicker,â said Thomas. âWeâve had about enough of you for one dayââyoung Bealby sat for a long time on the edge of his bed weighing the possibilities of arson and poison. He wished he had some poison. Some sort of poison with a medieval manner, poison that hurts before it kills. Also he produced a small penny pocket-book with a glazed black cover and blue edges. He headed one page of this âMerglesonâ and entered beneath it three black crosses. Then he opened an account to Thomas, who was manifestly destined to be his principal creditor. Bealby was not a forgiving boy. At the village school they had been too busy making him a good Churchman to attend to things like that. There were a lot of crosses for Thomas. And while Bealby made these sinister memoranda downstairs Lady Laxtonâfor Laxton had bought a baronetcy for twenty thousand down to the party funds and a tip to the whip over the Peptonized Milk flotationâLady Laxton, a couple of floors above Bealbyâs ruffled head mused over her approaching week-end party. It was an important week-end party. The Lord Chancellor of England was coming. Never before had she had so much as a member of the Cabinet at Shonts. He was coming, and do what she would she could not help but connect it with her very strong desire to see the master of Shonts in the clear scarlet of a Deputy Lieutenant. Peter would look so well in that. The Lord Chancellor was coming, and to meet him and to circle about him there were Lord John Woodenhouse and Slinker Bond, there were the Countess of Barracks and Mrs. Rampound Pilby, the novelist, with her husband Rampound Pilby, there was Professor Timbre, the philosopher, and there were four smaller (though quite good) people who would run about very satisfactorily among the others. (At least she thought they would run about very satisfactorily amongst the others, not imagining any evil of her cousin Captain Douglas.) All this good company in Shonts filled Lady Laxton with a pleasant realization of progressive successes but at the same time one must confess that she felt a certain diffidence. In her heart of hearts she knew she had not made this party. It had happened to her. How it might go on happening to her, she did not know, it was beyond her control. She hoped very earnestly that everything would pass off well. The Lord Chancellor was as big a guest as any she had had. One must grow as one grows, but still,âbeing easy and friendly with him would be, she knew, a tremendous effort. Rather like being easy and friendly with an elephant. She was not good at conversation. The task of interesting people taxed her and puzzled her.... It was Slinker Bond, the whip, who had arranged the whole businessâafter, it must be confessed, a hint from Sir Peter. Laxton had complained that the government were neglecting this part of the country. âThey ought to show up more than they do in the county,â said Sir Peter, and added almost carelessly, âI could easily put anybody up at Shonts.â There were to be two select dinner parties and a large but still select Sunday lunch to let in the countryside to the spectacle of the Laxtons taking their (new) proper place at Shonts.... It was not only the sense of her own deficiencies that troubled Lady Laxton; there were also her husbandâs excesses. He hadâit was no use disguising itârather too much the manner of an employer. He had a way of getting, how could one put it?â_confident_ at dinner and Mergleson seemed to _delight_ in filling up his glass. Then he would contradict a good deal.... She felt that Lord Chancellors however are the sort of men one doesnât contradict.... Then the Lord Chancellor was said to be interested in philosophyâa difficult subject. She had got Timbre to talk to him upon that. Timbre was a professor of philosophy at Oxford, so that was sure to be all right. But she wished she knew one or two good safe things to say in philosophy herself. She had long felt the need of a secretary, and now she felt it more than ever. If she had a secretary, she could just tell him what it was she wanted to talk about and he could get her one or two of the right books and mark the best passages and she could learn it all up. She fearedâit was a worrying fearâthat Laxton would say right out and very early in the week-end that he didnât believe in philosophy. He had a way of saying he âdidnât believe inâ large things like that,âart, philanthropy, novels, and so on. Sometimes he said, âI donât believe in all thisââart or whatever it was. She had watched peopleâs faces when he had said it and she had come to the conclusion that saying you donât believe in things isnât the sort of thing people say nowadays. It was wrong, somehow. But she did not want to tell Laxton directly that it was wrong. He would remember if she did, but he had a way of taking such things rather badly at the time.... She hated him to take things badly. âIf one could invent some little hint,â she whispered to herself. She had often wished she was better at hints. She was, you see, a gentlewoman, modest, kindly. Her people were quite good people. Poor, of course. But she was not clever, she was anything but clever. And the wives of these captains of industry need to be very clever indeed if they are to escape a magnificent social isolation. They get the titles and the big places and all that sort of thing; people donât at all intend to isolate them, but there is nevertheless an inadvertent avoidance.... Even as she uttered these words, âIf one could invent some little hint,â Bealby down there less than forty feet away through the solid floor below her feet and a little to the right was wetting his stump of pencil as wet as he could in order to ensure a sufficiently emphatic fourteenth cross on the score sheet of the doomed Thomas. Most of the other thirteen marks were done with such hard breathing emphasis that the print of them went more than halfway through that little blue-edged book. Â§ 5 The arrival of the week-end guests impressed Bealby at first merely as a blessed influence that withdrew the four men-servants into that unknown world on the other side of the green baize door, but then he learnt that it also involved the appearance of five new persons, two valets and three maids, for whom places had to be laid in the stewardâs room. Otherwise Lady Laxtonâs social arrangements had no more influence upon the mind of Bealby than the private affairs of the Emperor of China. There was something going on up there, beyond even his curiosity. All he heard of it was a distant coming and going of vehicles and some slight talk to which he was inattentive while the coachman and grooms were having a drink in the pantryâuntil these maids and valets appeared. They seemed to him to appear suddenly out of nothing, like slugs after rain, black and rather shiny, sitting about inactively and quietly consuming small matters. He disliked them, and they regarded him without affection or respect. Who cared? He indicated his feeling towards them as soon as he was out of the stewardâs room by a gesture of the hand and nose venerable only by reason of its antiquity. He had things more urgent to think about than strange valets and maids. Thomas had laid hands on him, jeered at him, inflicted shameful indignities on him and he wanted to kill Thomas in some frightful manner. (But if possible unobtrusively.) If he had been a little Japanese boy, this would have been an entirely honourable desire. It would have been Bushido and all that sort of thing. In the gardenerâs stepson however it isâundesirable.... Thomas, on the other hand, having remarked the red light of revenge in Bealbyâs eye and being secretly afraid, felt that his honour was concerned in not relaxing his persecutions. He called him âKickerâ and when he did not answer to that name, he called him âSnorter,â âBleater,â âSnooks,â and finally tweaked his ear. Then he saw fit to assume that Bealby was deaf and that ear-tweaking was the only available method of address. This led on to the convention of a sign language whereby ideas were communicated to Bealby by means of painful but frequently quite ingeniously symbolical freedoms with various parts of his person. Also Thomas affected to discover uncleanliness in Bealbyâs head and succeeded after many difficulties in putting it into a sinkful of lukewarm water. Meanwhile young Bealby devoted such scanty time as he could give to reflection to debating whether it is better to attack Thomas suddenly with a carving knife or throw a lighted lamp. The large pantry inkpot of pewter might be effective in its way, he thought, but he doubted whether in the event of a charge it had sufficient stopping power. He was also curiously attracted by a long two-pronged toasting-fork that hung at the side of the pantry fireplace. It had _reach_.... Over all these dark thoughts and ill-concealed emotions Mr. Mergleson prevailed, large yet speedy, speedy yet exact, parroting orders and making plump gestures, performing duties and seeing that duties were performed. Matters came to a climax late on Saturday night at the end of a trying day, just before Mr. Mergleson went round to lock up and turn out the lights. Thomas came into the pantry close behind Bealby, who, greatly belated through his own inefficiency, was carrying a tray of glasses from the stewardâs room, applied an ungentle hand to his neck, and ruffled up his back hair in a smart and painful manner. At the same time Thomas remarked, âBurrrrh!â Bealby stood still for a moment and then put down his tray on the table and, making peculiar sounds as he did so, resorted very rapidly to the toasting fork.... He got a prong into Thomasâs chin at the first prod. How swift are the changes of the human soul! At the moment of his thrust young Bealby was a primordial savage; so soon as he saw this incredible piercing of Thomasâs chinâfor all the care that Bealby had taken it might just as well have been Thomasâs eyeâhe moved swiftly through the ages and became a simple Christian child. He abandoned violence and fled. The fork hung for a moment from the visage of Thomas like a twisted beard of brass, and then rattled on the ground. Thomas clapped his hand to his chin and discovered blood. âYou littleâ!â He never found the right word (which perhaps is just as well); instead he started in pursuit of Bealby. Bealbyâin his sudden horror of his own actâand Thomas fled headlong into the passage and made straight for the service stairs that went up into a higher world. He had little time to think. Thomas with a red-smeared chin appeared in pursuit. Thomas the avenger. Thomas really roused. Bealby shot through the green baize door and the pursuing footman pulled up only just in time not to follow him. Only just in time. He had an instinctive instant anxious fear of great dangers. He heard something, a sound as though the young of some very large animal had squeaked feebly. He had a glimpse of something black and whiteâand large.... Then something, some glass thing, smashed. He steadied the green baize door which was wobbling on its brass hinges, controlled his panting breath and listened. A low rich voice wasâejaculating. It was not Bealbyâs voice, it was the voice of some substantial person being quietly but deeply angry. They were the ejaculations restrained in tone but not in quality of a ripe and well-stored mind,âno boyâs thin stuff. Then very softly Thomas pushed open the doorâjust widely enough to see and as instantly let it fall back into place. Very gently and yet with an alert rapidity he turned about and stole down the service stairs. His superior officer appeared in the passage below. âMr. Mergleson,â he cried, âI sayâMr. Mergleson.â âWhatâs up?â said Mr. Mergleson. âHeâs gone!â âWho?â âBealby.â âHome?â This almost hopefully. âNo.â âWhere?â âUp there! I think he ran against somebody.â Mr. Mergleson scrutinized his subordinateâs face for a second. Then he listened intently; both men listened intently. âHave to fetch him out of that,â said Mr. Mergleson, suddenly preparing for brisk activity. Thomas bent lower over the banisters. â_The Lord Chancellor!_â he whispered with white lips and a sideways gesture of his head. âWhat about âim?â said Mergleson, arrested by something in the manner of Thomas. Thomasâs whisper became so fine that Mr. Mergleson drew nearer to catch it and put up a hand to his ear. Thomas repeated the last remark. âHeâs just through thereâon the landingâcursing and swearingââorrible thingsâmore like a mad turkey than a human being.â âWhereâs Bealby?â âHe must almost âave run into âim,â said Thomas after consideration. âBut nowâwhere is he?â Thomas pantomimed infinite perplexity. Mr. Mergleson reflected and decided upon his line. He came up the service staircase, lifted his chin and with an air of meek officiousness went through the green door. There was no one now on the landing, there was nothing remarkable on the landing except a broken tumbler, but half-way up the grand staircase stood the Lord Chancellor. Under one arm the great jurist carried a soda water syphon and he grasped a decanter of whisky in his hand. He turned sharply at the sound of the green baize door and bent upon Mr. Mergleson the most terrible eyebrows that ever, surely! adorned a legal visage. He was very red in the face and savage-looking. âWas it _you_,â he said with a threatening gesture of the decanter, and his voice betrayed a noble indignation, âWas it _you_ who slapped me behind?â âSlapped you behind, me lord??â âSlapped me _behind_. Donât I speakâplainly?â âIâsuch a libbuty, me lord!â âIdiot! I ask you a plain questionââ With almost inconceivable alacrity Mr. Mergleson rushed up three steps, leapt forward and caught the syphon as it slipped from his lordshipâs arm. He caught it, but at a price. He overset and, clasping it in his hands, struck his lordship first with the syphon on the left shin and then butted him with a face that was still earnestly respectful in the knees. His lordshipâs legs were driven sideways, so that they were no longer beneath his centre of gravity. With a monosyllabic remark of a topographical nature his lordship collapsed upon Mr. Mergleson. The decanter flew out of his grasp and smashed presently with emphasis upon the landing below. The syphon, escaping from the wreckage of Mr. Mergleson and drawn no doubt by a natural affinity, rolled noisily from step to step in pursuit of the decanter.... It was a curious little procession that hurried down the great staircase of Shonts that night. First the whisky like a winged harbinger with the pedestrian syphon in pursuit. Then the great lawyer gripping the great butler by the tails of his coat and punching furiously. Then Mr. Mergleson trying wildly to be respectfulâeven in disaster. First the Lord Chancellor dived over Mr. Mergleson, grappling as he passed, then Mr. Mergleson, attempting explanations, was pulled backwards over the Lord Chancellor; then again the Lord Chancellor was for a giddy but vindictive moment uppermost; a second rotation and they reached the landing. Bang! There was a deafening reportâ CHAPTER II A WEEK-END AT SHONTS Â§ 1 The week-end visit is a form of entertainment peculiar to Great Britain. It is a thing that could have been possible only in a land essentially aristocratic and mellow, in which even the observance of the sabbath has become mellow. At every London terminus on a Saturday afternoon the outgoing trains have an unusually large proportion of first class carriages, and a peculiar abundance of rich-looking dressing-bags provoke the covetous eye. A discreet activity of valets and maids mingles with the stimulated alertness of the porters. One marks celebrities in gay raiment. There is an indefinable air of distinction upon platform and bookstall. Sometimes there are carriages reserved for especially privileged parties. There are greetings. âAnd so _you_ are coming too!â âNo, this time it is Shonts.â âThe place where they found the Rubens. Who _has_ it now?â ... Through this cheerfully prosperous throng went the Lord Chancellor with his high nose, those eyebrows of his which he seemed to be able to furl or unfurl at will and his expression of tranquil self-sufficiency. He was going to Shonts for his party and not for his pleasure, but there was no reason why that should appear upon his face. He went along preoccupied, pretending to see nobody, leaving to others the disadvantage of the greeting. In his right hand he carried a small important bag of leather. Under his left arm he bore a philosophical work by Doctor MacTaggart, three illustrated papers, the _Fortnightly Review_, the dayâs _Times_, the _Hibbert Journal_, _Punch_ and two blue books. His Lordship never quite knew the limits set to what he could carry under his arm. His man, Candler, followed therefore at a suitable distance with several papers that had already been dropped, alert to retrieve any further losses. At the large bookstall they passed close by Mrs. Rampound Pilby who, according to her custom, was feigning to be a member of the general public and was asking the clerk about her last book. The Lord Chancellor saw Rampound Pilby hovering at hand and deftly failed to catch his eye. He loathed the Rampound Pilbys. He speculated for a moment what sort of people could possibly stand Mrs. Pilbyâs vast pretensionsâeven from Saturday to Monday. One dinner party on her right hand had glutted him for life. He chose a corner seat, took possession of both it and the seat opposite it in order to have somewhere to put his feet, left Candler to watch over and pack in his hand luggage and went high up the platform, remaining there with his back to the worldârather like a bigger more aquiline Napoleonâin order to evade the great novelist. In this he was completely successful. He returned however to find Candler on the verge of a personal conflict with a very fair young man in grey. He was so fair as to be almost an albino, except that his eyes were quick and brown; he was blushing the brightest pink and speaking very quickly. âThese two places,â said Candler, breathless with the badness of his case, âare engaged.â âOh ve-_very_ well,â said the very fair young man with his eyebrows and moustache looking very pale by contrast, âhave it so. But do permit me to occupy the middle seat of the carriage. With a residuary interest in the semi-gentlemanâs place.â âYou little know, young man, _whom_ you are calling a semi-gentleman,â said Candler, whose speciality was grammar. âHere he is!â said the young gentleman. âWhich place will you have, my Lord?â asked Candler, abandoning his case altogether. âFacing,â said the Lord Chancellor slowly unfurling the eyebrows and scowling at the young man in grey. âThen Iâll have the other,â said the very fair young man talking very glibly. He spoke with a quick low voice, like one who forces himself to keep going. âYou see,â he said, addressing the great jurist with the extreme familiarity of the courageously nervous, âIâve gone into this sort of thing before. First, mind you, I have a far look for a vacant corner. Iâm not the sort to spoil sport. But if there isnât a vacant corner I look for traces of a semi-gentleman. A semi-gentleman is one who has a soft cap and not an umbrellaâhis friend in the opposite seat has the umbrellaâor he has an umbrella and not a soft cap, or a waterproof and not a bag, or a bag and not a waterproof. And a half interest in a rug. Thatâs what I call a semi-gentleman. You see the idea. Sort of divided beggar. Nothing in any way offensive.â âSir,â said the Lord Chancellor, interrupting in a voice of concentrated passion, âI donât care a _rap_ what you call a semi-gentleman. _Will_ you get out of my way?â âJust as you please,â said the very fair young gentleman, and going a few paces from the carriage door he whistled for the boy with the papers. He was bearing up bravely. â_Pink âun?_â said the very fair young gentleman almost breathlessly. â_Black and White._ Whatâs all these others? _AthenÃ¦um?_ _Sporting and Dramatic?_ Right O. AndâEh! What? Do I _look_ the sort that buys a _Spectator_? You donât know! My dear boy, whereâs your _savoir faire_?â Â§ 2 The Lord Chancellor was a philosopher and not easily perturbed. His severe manner was consciously assumed and never much more than skin-deep. He had already furled his eyebrows and dismissed his vis-a-vis from his mind before the train started. He turned over the _Hibbert Journal_, and read in it with a large tolerance. Dimly on the outskirts of his consciousness the very fair young man hovered, as a trifling annoyance, as something pink and hot rustling a sheet of a discordant shade of pink, as something that got in the way of his legs and whistled softly some trivial cheerful air, just to show how little it cared. Presently, very soon, this vague trouble would pass out of his consciousness altogether.... The Lord Chancellor was no mere amateur of philosophy. His activities in that direction were a part of his public reputation. He lectured on religion and Ã¦sthetics. He was a fluent Hegelian. He spent his holidays, it was understood, in the Absoluteâat any rate in Germany. He would sometimes break into philosophy at dinner tables and particularly over the desert and be more luminously incomprehensible while still apparently sober, than almost anyone. An article in the Hibbert caught and held his attention. It attempted to define a new and doubtful variety of Infinity. You know, of course, that there are many sorts and species of Infinity, and that the Absolute is just the king among Infinities as the lion is king among the Beasts.... âI say,â said a voice coming out of the world of Relativity and coughing the cough of those who break a silence, âyou arenât going to Shonts, are you?â The Lord Chancellor returned slowly to earth. âJust seen your label,â said the very fair young man. âYou see,â_Iâm_ going to Shonts.â The Lord Chancellor remained outwardly serene. He reflected for a moment. And then he fell into that snare which is more fatal to great lawyers and judges perhaps than to any other class of men, the snare of the crushing repartee. One had come into his head now,âa beauty. âThen we shall meet there,â he said in his suavest manner. âWellârather.â âIt would be a great pity,â said the Lord Chancellor with an effective blandness, using a kind of wry smile that he employed to make things humorous, âit would be a great pity, donât you think, to anticipate that pleasure.â And having smiled the retort well home with his head a little on one side, he resumed with large leisurely movements the reading of his _Hibbert Journal_. âGot me there,â said the very fair young man belatedly, looking boiled to a turn, and after a period of restlessness settled down to an impatient perusal of _Black and White_. âThereâs a whole blessed week-end of course,â the young man remarked presently without looking up from his paper and apparently pursuing some obscure meditations.... A vague uneasiness crept into the Lord Chancellorâs mind as he continued to appear to peruse. Out of what train of thought could such a remark arise? His weakness for crushing retort had a little betrayed him.... It was, however, only when he found himself upon the platform of Chelsome, which as everyone knows is the station for Shonts, and discovered Mr. and Mrs. Rampound Pilby upon the platform, looking extraordinarily like a national monument and its custodian, that the Lord Chancellor, began to realize that he was in the grip of fate, and that the service he was doing his party by week-ending with the Laxtons was likely to be not simply joyless but disagreeable. Well, anyhow, he had MacTaggart, and he could always work in his own room.... Â§ 3 By the end of dinner the Lord Chancellor was almost at the end of his large but clumsy endurance; he kept his eyebrows furled only by the most strenuous relaxation of his muscles, and within he was a sea of silent blasphemies. All sorts of little things had accumulated.... He exercised an unusual temperance with the port and old brandy his host pressed upon him, feeling that he dared not relax lest his rage had its way with him. The cigars were quite intelligent at any rate, and he smoked and listened with a faintly perceptible disdain to the conversation of the other men. At any rate Mrs. Rampound Pilby was out of the room. The talk had arisen out of a duologue that had preceded the departure of the ladies, a duologue of Timbreâs, about apparitions and the reality of the future life. Sir Peter Laxton, released from the eyes of his wife, was at liberty to say he did not believe in all this stuff; it was just thought transference and fancy and all that sort of thing. His declaration did not arrest the flow of feeble instances and experiences into which such talk invariably degenerates. His Lordship remained carelessly attentive, his eyebrows unfurled but drooping, his cigar upward at an acute angle; he contributed no anecdotes, content now and then to express himself compactly by some brief sentence of pure Hegelianâmuch as a Mahometan might spit. âWhy! come to that, they say Shonts is haunted,â said Sir Peter. âI suppose we could have a ghost here in no time if I chose to take it on. Rare place for a ghost, too.â The very fair young man of the train had got a name now and was Captain Douglas. When he was not blushing too brightly he was rather good looking. He was a distant cousin of Lady Laxtonâs. He impressed the Lord Chancellor as unabashed. He engaged people in conversation with a cheerful familiarity that excluded only the Lord Chancellor, and even at the Lord Chancellor he looked ever and again. He pricked up his ears at the mention of ghosts, and afterwards when the Lord Chancellor came to think things over, it seemed to him that he had caught a curious glance of the Captainâs bright little brown eye. âWhat sort of ghost, Sir Peter? Chains? Eh? No?â âNothing of that sort, it seems. I donât know much about it, I wasnât sufficiently interested. No, sort of spook that bangs about and does you a mischief. Whatâs its name? Plundergeist?â âPoltergeist,â the Lord Chancellor supplied carelessly in the pause. âRuns its hand over your hair in the dark. Taps your shoulder. All nonsense. But we donât tell the servants. Sort of thing I donât believe in. Easily explained,âwhat with panelling and secret passages and priestsâ holes and all that.â âPriestsâ holes!â Douglas was excited. âWhere they hid. Perfect rabbit warren. Thereâs one going out from the drawing-room alcove. Quite a good room in its way. But you know,ââa note of wrath crept into Sir Peterâs voice,ââthey didnât treat me fairly about these priestsâ holes. I ought to have had a sketch and a plan of these priestsâ holes. When a chap is given possession of a place, he ought to be given possession. Well! I donât know where half of them are myself. Thatâs not possession. Else we might refurnish them and do them up a bit. I guess theyâre pretty musty.â Captain Douglas spoke with his eye on the Lord Chancellor. âSure there isnât a murdered priest in the place, Sir Peter?â he asked. âNothing of the sort,â said Sir Peter. âI donât believe in these priestsâ holes. Half of âem never had priests in âem. Itâs all pretty tidy rot I expectâcome to the bottom of it....â The conversation did not get away from ghosts and secret passages until the men went to the drawing-room. If it seemed likely to do so Captain Douglas pulled it back. He seemed to delight in these silly particulars; the sillier they were the more he was delighted. The Lord Chancellor was a little preoccupied by one of those irrational suspicions that will sometimes afflict the most intelligent of men. Why did Douglas want to know all the particulars about the Shonts ghosts? Why every now and then did he glance with that odd expression at oneâs face,âa glance half appealing and half amused. Amused! It was a strange fancy, but the Lord Chancellor could almost have sworn that the young man was laughing at him. At dinner he had had that feeling one has at times of being talked about; he had glanced along the table to discover the Captain and a rather plain woman, that idiot Timbreâs wife she probably was, with their heads together looking up at him quite definitely and both manifestly pleased by something Douglas was telling her.... What was it Douglas had said in the train? Something like a threat. But the exact words had slipped the Lord Chancellorâs memory.... The Lord Chancellorâs preoccupation was just sufficient to make him a little unwary. He drifted into grappling distance of Mrs. Rampound Pilby. Her voice caught him like a lasso and drew him in. âWell, and _how_ is Lord Moggeridge now?â she asked. What on earth is one to say to such an impertinence? She was always like that. She spoke to a man of the calibre of Lord Bacon as though she was speaking to a schoolboy home for the holidays. She had an invincible air of knowing all through everybody. It gave rather confidence to her work than charm to her manner. âDo you still go on with your philosophy?â she said. âNo,â shouted the Lord Chancellor, losing all self-control for the moment and waving his eyebrows about madly, âno, I go _off_ with it.â âFor your vacations? Ah, Lord Moggeridge, how I envy you great lawyers your long vacations. _I_ânever get a vacation. Always we poor authors are pursued by our creations, sometimes itâs typescript, sometimes itâs proofs. Not that I really complain of proofs. I confess to a weakness for proofs. Sometimes, alas! itâs criticism. Such _undiscerning_ criticism!...â The Lord Chancellor began to think very swiftly of some tremendous lie that would enable him to escape at once without incivility from Lady Laxtonâs drawing-room. Then he perceived that Mrs. Rampound Pilby was asking him; âIs that _the_ Captain Douglas, or his brother, whoâs in love with the actress woman?â The Lord Chancellor made no answer. What he thought was âGreat Silly Idiot! How should _I_ know?â âI think it must be _the_ one,âthe one who had to leave Portsmouth in disgrace because of the ragging scandal. He did nothing there, they say, but organize practical jokes. Some of them were quite subtle practical jokes. Heâs a cousin of our hostess; that perhaps accounts for his presence....â The Lord Chancellorâs comment betrayed the drift of his thoughts. âHeâd better not try that sort of thing on here,â he said. âI abominateâclowning.â Drawing-room did not last very long. Even Lady Laxton could not miss the manifest gloom of her principal guest, and after the good-nights and barley water and lemonade on the great landing Sir Peter led Lord Moggeridge by the armâhe hated being led by the armâinto the small but still spacious apartment that was called the study. The Lord Chancellor was now very thirsty; he was not used to abstinence of any sort; but Sir Peterâs way of suggesting a drink roused such a fury of resentment in him that he refused tersely and conclusively. There was nobody else in the study but Captain Douglas, who seemed to hesitate upon the verge of some familiar address, and Lord Woodenhouse, who was thirsty, too, and held a vast tumbler of whisky and soda, with a tinkle of ice in it, on his knee in a way annoying to a parched man. The Lord Chancellor helped himself to a cigar and assumed the middle of the fireplace with an air of contentment, but he could feel the self-control running out of the heels of his boots. Sir Peter, after a quite unsuccessful invasion of his own hearthrugâthe Lord Chancellor stood like a rockâsecured the big arm-chair, stuck his feet out towards his distinguished guest and resumed a talk that he had been holding with Lord Woodenhouse about firearms. Mergleson had as usual been too attentive to his masterâs glass, and the fine edge was off Sir Peterâs deference. âI always have carried firearms,â he said, âand I always shall. Used properly they are a great protection. Even in the country how are you to know who youâre going to run up againstâanywhen?â âBut you might shoot and hit something,â said Douglas. âProperly used, I saidâproperly used. Whipping out a revolver and shooting _at_ a man, thatâs not properly used. Almost as bad as pointing it at himâwhich is pretty certain to make him fly straight at you. If heâs got an ounce of pluck. But _I_ said properly used and I _mean_ properly used.â The Lord Chancellor tried to think about that article on Infinities, while appearing to listen to this foolâs talk. He despised revolvers. Armed with such eyebrows as his it was natural for him to despise revolvers. âNow, Iâve got some nice little barkers upstairs,â said Sir Peter. âIâd almost welcome a burglar, just to try them.â âIf you shoot a burglar,â said Lord Woodenhouse abruptly, with a gust of that ill-temper that was frequent at Shonts towards bedtime, âwhen heâs not attacking you, itâs murder.â Sir Peter held up an offensively pacifying hand. âI know _that_,â he said; âyou neednât tell me _that_.â He raised his voice a little to increase his already excessive accentuations. â_I_ said properly used.â A yawn took the Lord Chancellor unawares and he caught it dexterously with his hand. Then he saw Douglas hastily pull at his little blond moustache to conceal a smile,âgrinning ape! What was there to smile at? The man had been smiling all the evening. Up to something? âNow let me _tell_ you,â said Sir Peter, âlet me _tell_ you the proper way to use a revolver. You whip it out and _instantly_ let fly at the ground. You should never let anyone see a revolver ever before they hear itâsee? You let fly at the ground first off, and the concussion stuns them. It doesnât stun you. _You_ expect it,
{'title': 'Bealby; A Holiday by H. G. Wells', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}