Читать книгу The Seed of Empire - Fred M. White - Страница 5

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With a deep sigh of relief, Harold dropped back against the luxurious cushions of the car, only too thankful to escape from the folly of his recent adventure. It was some little time before he spoke, not indeed until the car paused before a block of flats in Campden Hill, and the rescuer led the way up the stairs to the first floor. Here he put his latchkey in the lock, and a few minutes later Harold was seated in a deep armchair, with a choice Turkish cigarette between his lips. It was the first time he had smoked for weeks.

"Now, what on earth do you mean by it?" his friend demanded. "What excuse have you got to make for turning your back on your friends in this fashion? I suppose you know it's two years since we last met? Now explain yourself."

"Oh, I daresay you'll think me very ungrateful, Ronnie," Harold said. "But try to put yourself in my place, old man. When the poor old governor was killed in that little affair on the Indian frontier we were under the impression that we were going to be fairly well off. As a matter of fact, there wasn't a penny left. My father had muddled everything away in all sorts of mad speculations. Of course, my notion of going to Oxford was knocked on the head, and instead I had to turn to and get enough money to keep my mother and sister. And weary work it's been, too. You see, my mother is not capable of doing anything but manage a house, though she can do that to perfection. My sister is in a fair way to becoming a successful artist, but meanwhile she has to be kept, and I can assure you that 30s a week doesn't go very far."

Ronald Kemp was duly sympathetic. He had never known what it was to lack anything. He had a fine place of his own out Harrow way, where he spent a good deal of time with his sister and her elderly companion, and he kept up his luxurious flat in London as well. It was a popular fiction that he took an active part in the great firm of which his father had been the head, but it was seldom indeed that the handsome presence and cheery laugh of Ronnie Kemp were ever seen and heard in the city of London. For the rest, he was a clean-limbed, clean-lived, and healthy type of young England, as moulded by a public school, than which the whole world can present no finer type of high-minded and wholesome humanity. Furthermore, he was generous and large-hearted and loyal to his friends, and there was a frown on his face as he listened to Bentley's story.

"Well, at any rate, you might have come to see me," he protested. "You know jolly well that what is mine is yours. It makes me downright mad to think that the best pal I ever had at school should be starving on a few shillings a week, whilst I'm literally flinging the stuff about. My dear old chap, just try and remember that we shared the same study for three years, and never had a misword the whole time. Here, fill your cigarette case out of that box. And, how much do you want? Will you have a couple of hundred to go on with?"

"That's just like you, Ronnie," Bentley said unsteadily. "Always ready to do a kind act. But it won't do, it won't indeed. Don't you see I can't take it? Would you take it if you were in my place? If it wasn't for the sake of the mater and my sister, I wouldn't care a scrap. I'd enlist like a shot. But I can't, old man, I can't. I shall have to go about with everybody turning the cold shoulder on me; I shall have the girls in the omnibuses handing the white feather to me. It's infernally hard, old son, but I shall have to put up with it. I hear already that lots of men in the city have offered men in my position a full salary if they join the colours. But not my old blackguard, selfish old bachelor. I put it to him on Saturday, and he told me I could go if I liked, but if I thought he was going to do anything for the mater and Nettie I was jolly well mistaken. Upon my word, I am worried about the thing until I'm unable to sleep even. But what's to be done?"

Kemp nodded sympathetically. He was evidently turning over some project in his mind.

"You want to enlist, of course?" he said.

"My dear chap, I'm aching to do something. I suppose I've met a score of the old lot since Saturday, and there isn't one of 'em who isn't doing something. And you?"

"Oh, I'm all right," Kemp explained. "I joined the Hon. Company of Musketeers as soon as I left school. On and off I've been three years in the corps. We're all old O.T.C.'s, as you know, and I don't suppose there's one of us who can't show a Certificate A. With any luck, we shall be at the front in a month. And you see, without boasting, we are to all practical purposes regulars. We're full up now, but I was down at headquarters this morning, and I heard that they were well on towards a second battalion already. Sort of 'let 'em all come,' arrangement: 'Duke's son, cook's son, son of a millionaire.' We're going to have the cream of London, my boy—the chaps who come first without waiting for the call. I tell you we shall make up a brigade to be proud of. And, what's more, I'll bet you a sovereign we're full by Wednesday morning. Ah, well, I know it's the fashion to laugh at us and call us nuts and make fun of our socks, and accuse us of hanging about all those dear little flappers, but the stuff's there, my boy, it's there all right. Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, and the freedom of Europe is going to be won by the flanneled fools and muddied oafs, and good old Rudyard Kipling will be the first man to acknowledge it when the time comes. We're going together side by side, the navvy and the nut and the Gaiety boy and the miner all side by side, and we're going to win out with the old flag. We're going to show the country what it never dreamt of; I can feel it in my bones. But what a beastly selfish chap I must be to talk like this to you. But I've done it with a purpose. You've got to put your beastly pride in your pocket. It isn't the time to think of that sort of thing. You've got to come with me into the trenches; you've got to lie down side by side with Tommy from Whitechapel and Bill from Shoreditch; and you've got to forget that there's any difference between us, because, as Kipling says, 'The Colonel's lady and Biddy O'Grady are sisters under their skins.' And we're brothers under our coats, though one is cut in Bond-street and the other is a reach-me-down sold for a tanner in Petticoat-lane. Now, I only ask you one question—Are you coming with me, or are you not?"

"If I could," Bentley groaned. "Oh, Lord, if I could."

"Well, you can," Kemp cried. "It's as easy as kiss your hand. Now, listen. This is all arranged by Providence. You know that my sister lives in that big place of mine until I get married or make an ass of myself in some other way, and that she has a kind of companion-housekeeper and chaperon who looks after her. Now, Miss Hochkess wants to go and join her sister, who runs a big school in Eastbourne, and needs her very badly to assist there. For nearly a year Miss Hochkess has stayed on to oblige us, merely because we can't find anybody good enough to take her place. Your mother would be ideal. She's a lady, and I know how capable she is—I ought to, considering the times I've stayed at your place. It's not a difficult post to fill. Dorothy used to be very fond of your mother, and she and your sister were great pals till you went and hid yourselves in that mysterious fashion. And it's a two hundred-a-year job. And I'm dashed glad I've got that bit out. Now, what do you say? Mind you, I should have made the same proposition if there'd been no war."

It was some time before Bentley could find his voice. Then he put out his hand and murmured something under his breath.

"So that's settled," Kemp cried. "Hurrah for the old flag, and here's to the King, God bless him!"