The Education of Eric Lane Part 37

"I'll send you the script when I get it back from Manders," Eric promised with a laugh.

2

On his return to official work, Eric found that he could not concentrate his attention on anything until he knew what Manders thought of "The Singing-Bird"; sometimes he wondered whether he could ever concentrate until Barbara had brought his suspense to an end. For three months they had not met or corresponded.

"Dr. Gaisford says I simply make you worse," she told him. "I mustn't add that to my other sins. If you want me, I'm there; but I shan't write to you, and you mustn't write to me. I shall miss you horribly, but your health's more important than my happiness. We're coming back to London in the autumn."

A week before her return, the whole Mill-House party motored over to Red Roofs to dine with the Warings. It was an old promise, and Eric was glad to avail himself of it to break the continuity of his stilted Sunday calls. As he dressed, a note was brought him from Colonel Waring, and he read with some surprise:

"_I trust you are not going to fail us to-night. There is a matter on which I want your advice and, perhaps, your help._"

Eric tore the note into small pieces and went on with his dressing, only frowning at his own want of control when he found his hand shaking until he could hardly part his hair. There was only one subject on which anybody at Red Roofs could want to consult him; from the fact that Colonel Waring wrote--and wrote to him--some official action was pending; otherwise Agnes would have whispered a word to him before dinner. They had received news that Jack was alive . . . or dead . . .

or they had thought of a new means of getting in touch with him. . . .

Eric kept his surprise to himself and drove silently through two miles of thicket and clearing to the south end of Lashmar Wood. Beyond a cordial hand-shake and the smiling statement that he was glad to see him, Colonel Waring vouchsafed no explanation of his letter. Eric looked keenly at Agnes and her mother, but their faces and manner betrayed neither elation nor . . . What else could they betray? he wondered sinkingly. If Jack were dead, the dinner-party would have been postponed. They still hoped for him, but their hopes were not hardy enough to be exposed.

When the men were alone after dinner, Eric's heart missed a beat and he gripped the arms of his chair. The colonel, after fidgeting with a decanter and tidying away the remains of two different conversations, carried his gla.s.s to Eric's end of the table and sat beside him, asking with a smile whether his note had been delivered in time.

"This is between ourselves," he began, leaning back with his legs stretched out and frowning at the blue flame of a grenade-shaped cigar-lighter. "We've had news of a kind about Jack." He raised his hand as Eric tried to speak. "No, my dear boy, that's just what we want to avoid! Don't congratulate us--_yet_. You see, we've been through the racket once. . . ."

"You don't know for certain, then?" Eric asked and wondered whether he was imagining a tremor in his voice.

"No. Let me see, Agnes told you all about the cheque, didn't she? He was missing in August last year, and the cheque was drawn in October. We now know that he was alive in December. It appears . . ."

Eric did not hear the next few sentences. Stoically, yet with an underlying measured jubilance, the old colonel was dragging Jack to security from the presumption of death two months at a time. Alive in October, alive in December! Thirteen months ago, eleven months ago. Some one would have heard of him in February or seen him in April! He was catching up hand over fist. And one day he would land in England, you would meet him in the street without warning; as you dawdled through Berkeley Square, you might see him standing on the door-step of Lord Crawleigh's house.

"I don't for one moment suppose that this is the only case." Colonel Waring was commenting.

Eric looked up with an intelligent nod, wondering what he had been told.

Waring, always soldierly and dapper, with a neat care of person which he had handed on to his children, seemed years fresher and younger to-night; the liverish tinge of yellow which settled on his face in cold weather had wholly departed.

"Would you mind giving me the dates again?" said Eric.

"Missing in August; the cheque in October; the row in December. This fellow Britwell" (Eric wished that he had listened to find out who was Britwell) "was taken prisoner at the same time, and they were in the same prisoner's camp. Britwell couldn't say how badly Jack was wounded, because he'd been in hospital himself until the day before the row came.

Jack, according to the story, was hauled up for calling one of the guards a 'Schweinhund.' (You know Jack well enough to say if he'd be likely to fling about abuse of that kind without provocation). His only defence was that the guard had told him--in German--to do something, and almost the only German he knew was that word, because they'd shouted it at him when they found him half-unconscious in his trench and kicked him back behind the lines, and the women and children had screamed it at him, in the intervals of spitting in his face at all the stations. And it was the one word that all the camp guards used to every British prisoner. Well, he may have been given the opportunity of apologizing or he may not; if so, he refused it, and the last thing Britwell heard was that he'd been packed off to solitary confinement in a fortress for nine months. December '15 . . . to September or October this year. That explains the cheque, but it doesn't explain why he hasn't written. . . .

Of course, he hasn't had much time. . . ."

The stoicism in Waring's composed face became eclipsed for a moment. The boy might have died of his wounds or of ill-treatment; he might have offended a second time and been a second time imprisoned without power to communicate with his friends; he might have been transferred to another camp with an unrelaxing ban on all his letters lest he tried to describe the barbarism of which he had been made a victim. . . .

"I've got that straight so far," said Eric slowly, "Now tell me what I can do."

If the worst came to the worst, he would at least try to surrender his claim on Barbara with a good grace.

"Well, it's the old business: we want news," said Waring. "I tried the War Office as soon as I heard from Britwell, which was a week ago; he's been transferred to Switzerland as one of the badly wounded cases. You know what the War Office is; I may be fed with printed forms for months.

. . . Do you know anybody there who can take up the thing personally?"

"If I don't know any one, I can soon _get_ to know the right man."

"We shall be very grateful. Meanwhile don't talk about it--to anybody."

Eric refrained from giving a promise, for he knew that he would have to tell Barbara the following week. Within three hours of his return to London he had set half-a-dozen telephone wires humming, and, before leaving his department, the newly-found freemasonry of the public service had supplied him with all available information. Officially, Captain Waring was "missing;" but his name had not been reported from any German source; unofficially, the War Office had a copy of Major Britwell's letter to Colonel Waring. Nothing more was known. On the other hand, a great deal of new information was pouring in since the convention for the exchange of wounded prisoners. If Captain Waring were incapacitated and if the official German conscience were not too uneasy, he might have the luck to be transferred to Switzerland at any moment.

Eric sent a report to Colonel Waring and wrote to Barbara that night for the first time in three months. "_I want you to know as soon as possible that Jack was alive last December. That's eleven months ago, and he may be alive still; the family simply doesn't know. I'll tell you the full story when we meet._"

In thanking him, she suggested a night for dining together on her return; and Eric spent three days that were as restless and insupportable as the three hours before a first night. It would hurt intolerably if she behaved as a stranger, when they met; almost as intolerably if she threw herself into his arms--and forced him to remember what he was threatened with losing.

On the evening before they were to meet, the telephone rang, and Manders' voice, brisk and cheerful, enquired if Eric was likely to be at the Thespian Club that night.

"I wanted to talk about this play of yours," he explained. "Well, can you lunch to-morrow, say, half-past one?"

"Yes. I should like to. What do you think of it, Manders?"

There was a pause.

"It's too long to discuss now."

"You can just say whether you like it or not."

"I'll tell you all about it to-morrow. Cheerio, boy."

Eric was irritated by Manders' uncommunicativeness. The fellow could at least have said, "First rate!" or "The best thing you've done." "Too long to discuss now" meant hours of captiousness and months of heroic surgery. And with his late loss of a.s.surance Eric could not say with confidence that it _was_ the best thing he had done. . . .

3

When he reached the club next day, Eric found that Manders had arrived before him and was ordering luncheon for both.

"D'you like the '06 Ruinart, or is it too dry for you?" he asked.

"Nothing's too dry for me," Eric answered, "but I decline to drink champagne at lunch. I've work to do this afternoon."

His host smiled persuasively and continued to write his bill.

"It'll do you good, boy. Buck you up. Well, how are you? The last time I was here, some old buffer told me you'd been seedy, but that was right away back in the summer. What was the matter?"

"I was only a bit run down," Eric answered. "What did you think of the play?"

Manders gave his bill to a waiter and planted his elbows on the table, pressing his finger-tips together.

"Well, I read it very carefully," he began. "By the way, before I forget it, 'The Bomb-Sh.e.l.l's' doing very well on tour."

Eric chewed his lips impatiently. He would gladly hear about "The Bomb-Sh.e.l.l" later, but he now wanted to pin Manders to a criticism of "The Singing Bird."

"Well, let's keep the wolf from the door as long as we can."

The subject dismissed, he looked up expectantly and found Manders wholly absorbed with his oysters, rejecting red pepper for black, shaking a cautious drop of tabasco vinegar on each, adding a dash of lemon-juice and, when all else was ready, sipping his champagne with preliminary caution. The play would have to be cut about, then; perhaps the actor-manager was disappointed with his own part. . . .

"Well, let's hear all about it," Manders began heartily. "When did you find time to write it? After you'd got 'The Bomb-Sh.e.l.l' out of the way?"