The undefeated

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

II

THE departure of Mr. Goldman left a void in the heart of Mr. William Hollis. He was a sociable man, with a craving for the company of his fellows, and although for quite a long time now his distinguished neighbor had been clearly labeled in his mind as "a pursy old pig," he was an interesting person to talk to when he was in the humor. He was not always in the humor, it was true, for he was a "warm" man, an owner of house property; therefore he was in the happy position of not having to be civil to anybody when he didn't feel like it. This afternoon, however, he had unbent.

The slowly receding form of Mr. Goldman waddled along by the hedge, turned into the lane, passed from view. In almost the same moment William Hollis felt a severe depression. He had reached the stage of life and fortune when he could not bear to be alone. With a kind of dull pain he realized that this was his forty-first birthday and that he had failed in life.

He was going down the hill. Unless he could take a pull on himself he was done. Already it might be too late. The best part of his life was behind him. A year ago that day, in this very garden, his only source of happiness, he had told himself that; two years ago, three years ago, five years ago, this had been the burden of his thoughts. But he was in a rut and there seemed to be no way out.

Twenty years ago he had felt it was in him to do something. He was an ambitious young fellow with a mind that looked forward to the day after to-morrow. Such a man ought to have done something. But now he knew that there had been a soft spot in him somewhere and that a moral and mental dry rot had already set in. He was a talker, a thinker, a dreamer; action was not his sphere. Unless he took a strong pull on himself he was out of the race.

He poured what remained of the jar of ale into the earthenware mug he kept for the purpose — -Blackhampton ale tastes better out of a mug — ^and drank it slowly, without relish. Then he cut a few flowers to take home to his wife — to the wife who hadn't spoken to him for nearly a week — arranged them in a bunch, with the delicacy of one unconsciously sensitive to form and color, looped a bit of twitch neatly round them, put on his coat, a stained and worn alpaca, put on his hat, a battered, disreputable straw, cast the eye of a lover round his precious garden, locked its dilapidated green door and started down the lane and down the hill towards the city.

It was now five o'clock and a little cooler, yet William HoUis walked very slowly. There was a lot of time to kill before the day was through. But his thoughts were biting him harder than ever as he turned into the famous road leading to the city, known as The Rise. This salubrious eminence, commanding the town from the northeast, was sacred to the city magnates. When a man made good in Blackhampton, really good, he built a house on The Rise. It was the ambition of every true Blackhamptonian to express his individuality in that way. Until he had achieved a house entirely to his own fancy and taste on The Rise, no son of Blackhampton could be said really to have "arrived."

William Hollis trudged slowly along a well kept road, between two irregular lines of superb villas, gleaming with paint and glass, standing well back from the road in ample grounds of their own, with broad and trim gravel approaches. The first on the right was Rosemere, the residence of Sir Reuben Jope, three times Mayor of Blackhampton, a man of large fortune and robust taste, whose last expression was greenhouses and conservatories. They were said to produce fabulous things — ^flowers, fruits, shrubs, plants known only to tropical countries. Many a time from afar had Bill gazed upon them with rather wistful awe.

A little farther along was The Haven, the ancestral home of the Clints, a famous Blackhampton family whose local prestige was on a par with that of the Rothschilds in the city of London. Across the road was The Gables, the modest house of Lawyer Mossop, the town's leading solicitor; then on the right, again, ttie reticulated dwelling of the philanthropic Stephen Mortimore, head of the great engineering firm of Mortimore, Barrow, and Mortimore. For a true son of Blackhampton these were names to conjure with. Even to walk along such a road gave one a feeling of worldly success, financial security, aristocratic exclusiveness.

Still a little further along on the left was what was clearly intended to be the piece de resistance of The Rise. It was the brand-new residence of the very latest arrival and no house had been more discussed by Blackhampton society. It was intended to eclipse every other dwelling on The Rise, but it was of nondescript design, half suburban villa, half mediaeval castle. From the aesthetic standpoint the result was so little satisfactory that a local wit had christened it "Dammit 'All."

As "Dammit 'All" came into view. Bill HoUis found an almost morbid fascination in gazing at its turrets and the tower so regally crowning them. It was the house of his father-in-law, Mr. Josiah Munt. Sixteen years ago, in that very month of July, an ambitious young man had married his master's eldest daughter. Melia Munt had espoused Bill Hollis in direct defiance of her father's wishes and had lived long enough already to rue the day. Josiah, at that time, was not the great man he had since become, but he was a hard, imbending parent; and he gave Melia to understand clearly that if she married Hollis he would never

lo speak to her again. Melia chose to defy him, as he always thought out of sheer perversity, and her implacable father had been careful to keep his word to the letter. Not again did he mention her name; not again did her old home receive her.

In those sixteen years Josiah Munt had gone up in the world, and if William Mollis could not be said to have come down in it, he had certainly made very little headway. At the time of his marriage he was the chief barman at "the Duke of Wellington," an extremely thriving public house, at the comer of Waterloo Square in the populous southeastern part of the city. He was now a small greengrocer in Love Lane, within a stone's throw of the famous licensed house of his father-in-law, and he was continually haunted by the problem of how much longer he would be able to carry on his business. On the other hand, his old master had prospered so much that he had recently built for himself a fine house on The Rise.

Mr. Josiah Munt was still the owner of the Duke of Wellington. Over the top of its swing doors his name appeared below the spirited effigy of the Iron Duke as "licensed to sell wines, spirits, beer and tobacco," but years ago he had ceased to reside there with his family. As far as possible he liked to disassociate himself from it in the public mind, but he was too shrewd a man to part with the goose that laid the golden eggs; besides, in his heart, there was a tender spot for the old house which had been the

II foundation of his fortunes. His womenfolk might despise it; in some ways he had outgrown it himself; but he knew better than to crab his luck by parting with an extremely valuable property which at the present time was not appreciated at its true worth by the surveyor of rates and taxes.

As William HoUis trudged along the dusty road and his father-in-law's new and amazing house came into view, he became the prey of many emotions. The sight of this magnificence was a bitter pill to swallow. It brought back vividly to his mind the scene that was printed on it forever — ^the scene that followed his diffident request for the hand of Melia. He could still hear the stinging taunts of his employer, he could still feel the impact of Josiah's boot. It may have been that boot — for women are queer! — which caused the final capitulation of Melia. But the hard part was that time had justified the prediction of her far-sighted parent Melia in throwing herself away on "a man of no class" wotdd do a bad day's work when she married Hollis.

It had been the son-in-law's intention to give the lie to that prophecy. But!^ — ^there was a kink in him somewhere. He had always loved to dream of the future, yet he had not the power of making his dreams come true. If only he had had a good education! If only he had known people who could have put him on the right road to success when he was young and sharp and the sap was in his brain! If only there hadn't been so much competition, so much to fight against; if only he could have had a bit of luck; if only Melia had really cared for him; if only he hadn't speculated with the hundred pounds she had inherited from her Aunt Elizabeth ; if only he wasn't so apt to be hurt by things that didn't matter a damn!

William Hollis was a disappointed and embittered man. Life had gone wrong with him; but a small jar of Blackhampton Old Ale softens failure and evokes the quality of self-pity. However, as he approached Mr. Hunt's gate and gained a clearer view of the newest and most imposing house on The Rise, the sense of failure rose in him to a pitch that was hard to bear. So this was what Melia's father had done! No wonder she despised a man like himself. It was not very surprising after all that she hardly threw a word to him now from one day's end to another.

Ill

A MAN in an apron that had once been white and in a cloth cap that had once been navy blue was painting a series of bold letters on Mr. Josiah' Munt's front gate. Bill Hollis was overwhelmed with depression, but at this interesting sight curiosity stirred him. He advanced upon the decorative artist who was whistling gently over a job in which he took a pride and a pleasure. Upon the ornate front of the large green gate was being inscribed the word

STRATHFIELDSAYE

Bill recognized the artist as a near neighbor of his own in Love Lane.

"Working for the Nobs, are you, Wickens?" There was a world of scorn in the tone of William Hollis, a world of sarcasm. And yet what was scorn and what was sarcasm in the presence of a hard fact, clear, outstanding, fully accomplished!

The artist expectorated a silent affirmative.

"Piecework, I suppose? Cut rates?" Mr. Munt had the reputation of being a very keen man of business.

The artist was too much absorbed in his labors to indulge in promiscuous talk.

William Hollis peered through the gate, to the rows of newly planted shrubs on either side the curving carriage drive. "Bleeding upstart" he muttered; then he turned on his heel and walked on up the road.

He had gone but a few yards when quite unexpectedly he came upon a massive figure in a black and white checked summer suit and a white billycock hat worn at a rather rakish angle. It was his father-in-law and they were face to face.

Mr. Munt was proceeding with a kind of elephantine dignity along the exact center of the sidewalk, and instinctively, before he was aware of what he had done, his son-in-law by stepping nimbly into the grassgrown gutter had conceded it to him. But in almost the same instant he scorned himself for his action; and the gesture of lordly indifference with which the proprietor of the Duke of Wellingtc«i directed his gaze upon the western gables of Strathfieldsaye, without a flicker of recognition of the person who had made way for him, suddenly brought William Hollis to the bursting point.

The world allows that in a stone jar of Blackhampton Old Ale there are magic qualities; and far down in Bill himself was hidden some deep strain of independent manhood. The City records proved — ^vide Bazeley's famous Annals of Blackhampton, a secondhand copy of which was one of his most cherished possessions — ^that the name of Hollis had been known and honored in the town long before the name of Munt had been heard of. The Hollises were an old and distinguished Blackhampton clan. A William Hollis was mayor of the Borough in the year of the Armada. It was a family of wide ramifications. There was the great John Hollis the inventor, circa 1 724- 1 798, there was Henry Hollis the poet, circa 1747-1801. Of these their present descendant was a kinsman so remote that the science of genealogy had lost track of their actual relationship. But beyond a doubt his father's uncle. Troop Sergeant Major William Hollis, had fought at Waterloo. He himself was named after that worthy, and the old bo/s portrait and portions of his kit had long embellished the sitting room in Love Lane.

It was then, perhaps, force of ancestry quite as much as the virtue of the Blackhampton ale that moved William Hollis to his sudden and remarkable act of self-assertion. For as Josiah Munt passed him, head in air, and weather eye fixed upon the western gables of Strathfieldsaye, his son-in-law stopped, swung round and called after him in a voice that could be heard even by the decorative artist at work on the gate —

"Sally out of Quod yet?"

IV

BY not so much as the quiver of an eyelid did Mr. Munt betray that he had even heard, much less taken cognizance, of that which amounted to a studied insult on the part of William Hollis. The proprietor of the Duke of Wellington converged upon the gate 'of Strathfieldsaye with head upheld, with dignity unimpaired. He even cast one cool glance at the handiwork of the inspired Wickens, but made no comment upon it, while the artist suspended his labors, opened the gate obsequiously, and waited for the great man to pass through. But when Mr. Munt had walked along the carriage drive to within a few yards of his newly bedizened front door, he stopped all of a sudden like a man who has received a blow in the face. Had Bill Hollis at that moment been able to obtain a glimpse of his father-in-law he would have seen that his shaft had gone right home. A sternly domineering countenance was distorted with passion. There was a rage of suffering in the fierce yellowbrown eyes, there was a twist of half strangled torment in the lines of the hard mouth. As the lord of Strathfieldsaye stood clenching his hands in the center of the gravel he was not an attractive figure. Before entering the house he took off the white hat and soothed the pressure upon head and neck by passing over them a red bandanna handkerchief.

A trim parlor maid, bright as a new pin, received the lord of Strathfieldsaye. The smart and shining creature was in harmony with her surroundings. Ever)^ing in the spacious and lofty entrance hall shone with paint and polish, with new curtains, new carpets, new fittings, new furniture.

Mr. Munt handed his hat to the parlor maid rather roughly. "Tea's in the drawing-room, sir," she said, calmly and modestly. It was the air of a very superior servant.

Josiah went into the drawing-room and found two ladies drinking tea and consuming cake, strawberries and cream and bread and butter. One was a depressed lady in puce silk to whom her lord paid little attention; the other was much more sprightly, although by no means in the first blush of youth. She had the air of a visitor.

Before heralding his arrival by any remark, Mr. Munt gazed with an air of genuine satisfaction round the large cool room smelling of paint and general newness, and then he said in a tone of rather grim heartiness to the more sprightly of the two ladies, "Well, Gert, what do you think on us?"

There was a careful marshaling of manner on the part of the lady addressed as Gert. "Almost too grand, Josiah — since you ask my opinion. Still I've been telling Maria that she must show Spirit."

i8

The nod of Josiah might be said to express approval. Miss Gertrude Preston was a half-sister of his wife, and she was perhaps the only woman among his strictly limited acquaintance who was able to sustain a claim to his respect. She had character and great common sense and having acted for many years as resident companion to no less a person than Lawyer Mossop's aunt, the late Miss Selina Gregg, she had seen something of the world. Upon all subjects her views were well considered and uncommonly shrewd; therefore they were not to be passed over lightly. Aunt Gerty was a favorite of Josiah, not merely for the reason that "she knew a bit more than most," but also because she was clever enough to play up to his rising fortunes and growing renown.

"Maria shown you round?" said Josiah, accepting a cup of tea from the graceful hands of his sister-in-law.

The depressed lady in puce silk sighed a limp yes.

"Eggshell china tea service," Gerty fixed a purposeful eye upon Josiah's cup.

"Out of old Nickerson's sale," Josiah performed an audible act of deglutition. "Four pun ten the set. Slop basin's cracked though."

"I see it is, but you have a bargain, Josiah. You always seem to have a bargain, no matter what you buy."

Josiah purred under the subtle flattery.

"Seen that chayney vawse?" He pointed across the 19 room to a pedestal upon which was a blue diina bowl.

"Looks like genuine Ming," Gertrude opened a pair of long-handled tortoise-shell glasses. There was less than a score of ladies in the whole of Blackhampton who sported glasses of that ultra-fashionable kind, but Miss Preston was one of them.

"That young feller Parish said it was genuine and he ought to know."

"Charming," Gerty sighed effectively; then her eyes went slowly round the room. "This room is perfect. And such a view. You stand so high that you can look right over the city without knowing that it's there! And there's the Sharrow beyond. Isn't that Corfield Weir on the right?"

Rather proudly Josiah said that it was Corfield Weir.

"And that great bank of trees going up into the sky must be Dibley Chase."

"Dibley right enough," vouched Josiah. "Have you had a look from the tower?"

"Yes, I have. Wonderful. Maria says on a clear day you can see Cliveden Castle."

"Aye. And a sight farther than that. You can see three counties up there. To my mind, Gert, this house stands on the plumb bit of The Rise."

Gertrude fuljy agreed.

"So it ought if it comes to that. I had to pay seven and sixpence a yard for the land, before I could ptit a brick on it."

Gertrude was impressed.

"What do you think o' that oak paneling in the dining room?"

She thought it was charming.

"Has Maria shown you the greenus — I should say conservatory — ^an' the rockery — ^an' the motor garidge? We haven't got the motor yet, but it's coming next week."

Gertrude had seen these things. It only remained for her to enter upon a diplomatic rapture at the recital of their merits.

"No strawberries, thank you," Josiah's voice was rather sharp as the depressed lady tactlessly offered these delicacies at a moment when her lord was fully engaged in describing the unparalleled difficulties he had had to surmount in order to get the water fountain beyond the tennis lawn to work properly.

"Fact o' the matter is, our Water Board wants wackenin' up."

"Well, you are the man to do that, Josiah. You are an alderman now."

"I am." The slight note of inflation was unconscious. "And old Scrimshire an' that pettifoggin' crew are goin' to have a word in season from Alderman Munt."

"Mustn't get yourself disliked though."

Josiah smiled sourly. "Gel," he said, "a man worth his salt is never afraid o' being unpopular. Right is right an' wrong is no man's right. Our Water Board's got to be run on new lines. It's a disgrace to the city."

Miss Preston was far too wise to offer an opinion upon that matter. She knew, none better, the limits imposed by affairs upon the sex to which she belonged. But she was very shrewd and perceptive and underneath the subtle flatteries she dealt out habitually to this brother-in-law of hers was a genuine respect for great abilities and his terrific force of character.

Among all the outstanding figures in Blackhampton his was perhaps the least attractive. His name, in polite circles, was almost a byword, for he never studied the feelings of anybody; he deferred only t© his own will and invariably took the~ shortest way to enforce it. There was generally a covert laugh or a covert sneer at the mention of his name and the house he had recently built on The Rise had set a seal upon his unpopularity. Nevertheless, the people who knew him best respected him most. His sister-in-law knew him very well indeed.

Maria poured out a second cup of tea rather nervously for Josiah to whom Miss Preston handed it archly.

"No cake, thanks. I dussent." He tapped his chest significantly ; then he cast a complacent glance through the wide-flung drawing-room windows to the fair pleasaunce beyond. "So you think, Gert, take it altogether, this is a cut above Waterloo Villa, eh?"

Gertrude's only answer to such a question was a discreet laugh.

"Waterloo Villa was so comfortable," sighed the depressed lady in puce silk.

"But there's no comparison, Maria, really no comparison." It was wonderful how the caressing touch of the woman of the world dispersed the cloud upon Josiah's brow almost before it had time to gather.

"Of course there isn't, Gerty. Any one with a grain o' sense knows that. Why, only this morning as I went down in the tram with Lawyer Mossop, he said, 'Mr. Munt,, this new house of yours is quite the pick of the basket.' "

"It is, Josiah." The discreet voice rose to enthusiasm. "And no one knows that better than Maria."

The lady in puce silk gave a little sigh and a little snifif. "Waterloo Villa was quite good enough for me" she murmured tactlessly.

V

THERE was silence for a moment and then said Josiah : "Talking of Lawyer Mossop — that reminds me. I'm going round to see him. I wonder what time he gets back from his office." He looked at his watch. "Quarter past five. Bit too soon, I suppose."

Maria ventmred to ask what he wanted Lawyer Mossop for.

Josiah did not answer the question immediately. When he did answer it his voice had such a depth of emotion that both ladies felt as if a knife had been plunged suddenly into their flesh.

'Tm goin' to take our Sally out of my will." There was something almost terrible in the sternness and finality of the words.

The depressed lady in puce silk gave a gasp. A moment afterwards large tears began to drip freely from her eyes.

Aunt Gerty sat very upright on a satinwood chair, her hands folded in front of her, and two prominent teeth showing beyond a line of extremely firm lips. She didn't speak.

"Nice thing" — each word was slowly distilled from a feeling of outrage that was almost unbearable — "to be made the talk and the mark of the whole city. And after what I've done for that gel! School — college — France — Germany — your advice, you know, Gerty "

Aunt Gerty didn't speak.

"And then she comes home and gets herself six weeks' hard labor. Hard labor, mark you !"

Both ladies shivered audibly.

"Nice thing for a man who has always kept himself up, to have his daughter pitchin' brick ends through the windows of the Houses o' Parliament, to say nothin' of assaulting the police. Gerty, that comes of higher education."

Still Aunt Gerty didn't speak.

"Fact is, women ain't ripe for higher education. It goes to their heads. But I'll let her see. In a few minutes I'll be off round to Lawyer Mossop."

"But — Josiah!" ventured a quavering voice.

"Not a word, Mother. My mind's made up. That gel has "fairly made the name o' Munt stiiJc in the nostrils of the nation. Not ten minutes ago that rotten little dog Bill Hollis flung it in my teeth as I came in- at the front gate. The little wastrel happened to be passing and he called after me, 'Sally out of Quod yet?' One o' these days I'll quod him — the little skunk — or Josiah Munt J.P. is not my name."

Maria continued to weep copiously but in silence. She dare not make her grief vocal with the stern eye of her husband upon her. The tragedy of her eldest girl's defiance, now sixteen years old, was still green in her memory. Josiah had given Amelia plainly to understand that if she married William Mollis he would never speak to her again and he had kept his word. Maria had not got over it even yet; and now their youngest girl, Sally, on whose upbringing a fabulous sum had been lavished, haci disgraced them in the sight of everybody.

Josiah was meting out justice no doubt, but mothers are apt to be irrational where their offspring are concerned; and had Maria been able to muster the courage she would have broken a lance with 'him, even now, in this matter of the youngest girl. But she was afraid of him. And she knew he was in the right. Sally's name had appeared in all the papers. That morning, by a cruel stroke, they had come out with her portrait — Miss Sarah Ann Munt, youngest daughter of Alderman Munt J.P. of Blackhampton, sentenced to six weeks hard labor. Yes, it was cruel! It would take her father a long time to get over it. And for Maria herself, it was like the loss in infancy of the young Josiah; it was a thing she would always remember but never quite be able to grasp.

The silence grew intolerable. At last it was broken by Gertrude Preston.

"You'll be having splendid roses, Josiah — ^next year." Those mincing tones, quite cool and untroubled, somehow did wonders. Josiah had always been a noted rose grower and as his sister-in-law pointed elegantly to the rows of young bushes beyond the drawing-room windows something in him began to respond. After all that was his great asset as a human entity: the power to react strongly and readily to the many things in which he was interested.

"Aye," he said, almost gratefully. "Next year they'll be a sight. I've had a double course o' manure put down."

"I hope there'll be some of my favorite Gloii'e de Dijons," said Gerty with fervor.

"You bet there will be. There's a dozen bushes over yond. By the way, Gert, you're comin' to the show to-morrow week."

Miss Preston, for all her enthusiasm for roses, was not sure that she could get to the show. But Josiah informed her that she would have to come. And he enforced his command by taking a leather case from his breast pocket and producing a small blue card on which was printed:

BLACKHAMPTON AND DISTRICT ROSE GROWERS' ASSOCIATION

PRESIDENT, ALDERMAN JOSIAH MUNT J.P.

The twenty-seventh annual Show will be held in the Jubilee Park on Tuesday, August the Fourth. Prizes will be presented at six o'clock to successful competitors by Mrs. Alderman Munt. The Blackhampton Prize Brass Band will be in attendance. Dancing in the evening, weather permitting.

Admission one shilling.

"That'll get you in, Gert." The card was placed in her hand. "Come and stand by Maria and keep her up to it"

Had Maria dared she would have groaned dismally. As it was she had to be content with a slight gesture of dismay.

"You see it'll be a bit o' practice for her. In 1916 — ^the year after next — she'll be the Mayoress."

The lady in puce silk shuddered audibly.

VI

IN the process of time the clock on the drawing-room chimneypiece chimed six and Josiah "stepped round" to Lawyer Mossop's.

That celebrity lived at The Gables, the next house but one along The Rise. Outwardly a more modest dwelling than Strathfieldsaye, it was less modern in style, more reticent, more compact. As Josiah walked up the drive he noted with approval its well-kept appearance and its fine displky of rhododendrons, phlox, delphiniums, purple irises and many other things that spoke to him. He was a genuine lover of flowers.

Mr. Munt's pressure of the electric button was answered by a manservant in a starched shirt and a neat black cutaway. The visitor noted him carefully as he noted everything. "I wonder what he pays a month for that jockey !" was the form the memorandum took on the tablets of his mind.