The House on the Sands

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Chapter I Chapter I

EARLIER in the day men had protested against the tyranny of khaki, speaking of business or pleasure with hysterical emphasis as if they had been failing causes. There was an atmosphere of irritation and of apology as before a general surrender; a desperate struggle of the individual against the overmastering impulse of London. The outward symptoms of revolt were an ill-tempered jostling in the streets, an exag^rated energy in shops and offices. Men shouted angrily where a whisper had sufficed ; they worked as if it were the last day of their lives. But the e£Fort was as futile as if individual particles of water tried to resist a mood of the sea. Gradually, like some paralyzing drug, the khaki fever worked along the streets and into the houses. The effect was visible in a clotting under emotion of the stream of life at street comers, as a solution of starch becomes viscid on boiling, each individual particle bursting its envelope and merging with its fellows. The result was not that of mere addition ; a crowd is not the sum of its parts but a new entity, thinking and feeling in round numbers. 3

The soldiers had captured London's imagination as completely as if they were indeed a hostile army come to take possession of the spoils of war. London thought in khaki. Nobody knew or cared how many or how few were the soldiers: figures meant nothing; London was filled with soldiers, submerged in khaki.

As the traffic died and people gathered in the streets and at windows, it would have been seen that all their faces were become marvellously alike. They were no longer individuals, they reflected the common mood. Wherever a man moved his feet fell in unison with the feet of the soldiers. Every sound was subordinated to the rhythmic tramp of their feet as the episodes of a great symphony are caught up and interwoven with the development of the main subject. Every man's blood beat to the measure of a marching tune; abstract man wore khaki, and every other garb was the livery of impotence. Every woman saw her lover in uniform; for the time being every woman in London, maid, wife, or widow, light or honest, was potentially at the mercy of the soldiers.

The cheering, at first isolated explosions like gun-firing from this window and that, was taken up by the crowd below, smoothed and pressed by sheer weight of humanity into a long unbroken roar of welcome. The music of the bands was trivial and ridiculous, a momentary blare, a splash of music heard like spray above the thunder of a cataract. The people cheered automatically, with- 4 out knowledge, without purpose. They stared at the soldiers with dazed eyes and opened their mouths, and the emotion of London escaped through their throats as through the thousand bellowing pipes of a mighty organ controlled by a angle hand. From a little distance the sound was rhythmical, rising and falling as the multitude took breath leather; less like a sound of joy than the terrorized ululations of slaves at some obscene ceremony. Gradually the cheering tired, sank into a hoarse moaning, rising and falling without volition, like the moaning of the sea, until it was drowned by the tramp, tramp of passing feet. For a long time nobody noticed that the cheering had ceased ; mouths remained open, breasts rose and fell. Vision had taken the place of hearing, and, hypnotized by the reg^ilar movement of the swinging shoulders, men srill heard the roaring that was not. They left off shouting as they had begun, without knowledge. Little by little the homc^^ neous mass granulated into individuals ; eyes lost their cataleptic stare and took on their proper expression of insolence, greed, or cunning. As yet - it was impossible for any person to move from his place, but the fickle units visibly turned upon themselves and their own affairs. The striking of matches broke out in a brittle fusillade, and above the odour of sweat and leather arose the pungent smell of tobacco. The crowd had become a rabble.

Godfrey Julian stood at an upper window in 5

Victoria Street looking down at the people. He was a tall, squarely built man, with deep eyes and the grave, unembarrassed expression, the quiet movements which may indicate either great power or mere dullness. He had none of the accidents of distinction; he was well-dressed, fcdr-haired, and even wore a moustache, which made him stilt more like the ordinary type of Englishman turned out by the public schools, to be found by the dozen in the services and, nowadays, in the city. A close observer would have noticed that his hands, unlike the ordinary man's mere extremities, were nervous and full of character. Godfrey Julian was Conservative Member of Parliament for a Cornish division, and had been looked upon as a likely man for early promotion to a responsible position, until he disappointed his friends by resigning the post of private secretary to a Cabinet Minister in order to preserve an open mind. He was just forty-one years of age.

When the last of the khaki<lad ranks had swung by, it was Julian's imagination rather than slowness of aM'rehension which prevented his recognizing that there no longer were any soldiers. Alt along he had seen less the soldiers than the idea of them. Unconscious that the gaily dressed people in the room beside him had begun to move and chatter, the crowd below to break up and indulge in horseplay, he still gazed out of the window, and heard, as in a dream, their voices. Following on the tail of the soldiers came street 6

J hawkers of flags, whistles, and "teazers" — those true artists who, themselves unmoved, work in emotion, and gain their profits from the temporary insanity of their fellows.

The crowd laughed and chafiFed. Little snatches of their talk came up to Julian.

" 'Oo's got to py for all this ? That's wot I want to know."

Bet ole Kruger sees 'is mistike now." Not 'im. 'E's mide 'is little bit of orlright, so wot does 'e care? I shouldn't, if I was 'im."

" Wot I say is this. Wot should we go interferin' with the Bores for? Not but what Salisbury was quite right to declare war when Kruger told •im to go to 'eU. 'Tisn't to be supposed as a man in 'is position is going to stand that. But when 'e'd give 'im a good' idin' 'e should 'ave left 'im be to come to 'is senses. That's wot 'e should 'ave done."

"Blooming fine soldiers! Totties in velvet — that's wot the Tommies called 'em. I was torkin' to a lance-corp'ril in xhe Middlesex the other dy, an' 'e says ^"

A yell of laughter interrupted the speaker, and the people under the window began to push forward and jump, as a gang of boys, armed with broomsticks and shovels, beating on tin cans and sounding penny trumpets, came into sight. In their midst they carried a rude effigy, a cross between Mr. Kruger and that true hero of the Londoner, Ally Sloper.

" Good ole Sloper!" cried a voice.

" 'Tisn't Sloper, silly; cahnt yer see it's Krooger?"

" No 'tisn't; look at 'is bottle of Old Tom."

" Well, I dessay ole Kroc^r likes a drop when 'is missus is aht of the wy."

"This is the Voice of the People; this is the Mind of the Nation," sounded in Julian's ears in ironic refrain. Not unduly given to sentiment, he had nevertheless felt the solemnity of the occasion, the symbolic importance of those bronzed and rag^d men, and the chatter of the crowd jarred upon him. What struck him most acutely was not their lightness but their incapacity to underr stand that there was any principle involved either in the war or in the peace which had just been concluded. For him the war had been neither an accident nor a crime, and he had a profound conviction that with peace the nation had moved forward a step nearer to its Imperial destiny. He was not biassed by class-prejudice; indeed, the most painful thing of al] was the likeness of the smartly dressed men and women by his side to the unwashed rabble in the street. They spoke with a different accent, they did not spit, but they had come together and cheered with the same facility as they now laughed and joked with the same irresponsible change of mood. They too belonged to the crowd, and it was just this new conception of the crowd as distinct from the common people which aroused his uncomfortable reflections. He felt that while he loved the people he hated the crowd.

" Were those the men that ran away, Julian?" said a voice at his elbow.

Julian turned impatiently on the speaker, a florid, elderly man with prominent brown eyes and a grey torpedo beard. This was Sir Peter Lawrence, the shipowner, in whose office they were assembled. Seeing the look of confusion on Sir Peter's face, Julian mastered his irritation, and quietly explained the title and record of the men whose tramping feet still sounded in his ears. It was noticeable that when Julian began to speak the chattering in the room ceased, and everybody looked at him. It was equally obvious that they did not look and listen because they expected him to say something smart You can tell the professional wit by the expression of his audience's faces the moment he opens his mouth. Julian's hearers emphatically became an audience because he unconsciously exacted the same attention he himself gave to the merest trifler. He bent his mind to the speaker of the moment, and this made many people think him stupid, though he was never disregarded. As he went on gravely telling the moving story his voice shook a little, and his eyes wandered along the row of upturned faces as if seeking one person at least who understood. They finally rested on a big, handsome woman with yellow hair, whose likeness to himself proclaimed her his sister. Michal Julian glanced back at her 9 brother with a smile of comprehen^on. It was evident that they shared ideas and confidences above the heads of their companions in the room, and a perceptive observer would have been a little afraid that Michal did her brother the injustice of accepting him as a finished product. It would be difficult for him to change in any way without damaging her ideas of him.

When Julian had finished his tale, Sir Peter murmured a verse of Kipling, and immediately looked round to see if he had done the right thing. Again Julian met his sister's eyes, but this time Michal's look of quizzical sympathy changed to one of pleading. Her wish that Julian would be indulgent was explained when she looked away from him and her eyes rested tenderly on a graceful girl in white who, herself in the shadow, gazed up shyly but anxiously into Julian's face.

Amy Lawrence looked better bred than her father. Her features were irregular, but her large brown eyes were full of intelligence, and her mouth was very sensitive. Her brown hiur grew prettily round her finely shaped forehead, and her skin was delicately clear. Amy was looking her best to-day, and she knew it; but her hope that Julian would look at her was not due to vanity: she simply wanted to please him.

As if he understood his sister's glance Julian turned and looked down at Amy Lawrence. Her eager expression misled him into supposing that she had spoken.

I tt

I'm sorry to be so inattentive," he stammered; what were you saying?"

He seated himself beside her, and the women near them looked oiie at the other and smiled.

" Oh, I wasn't saying anything," said Amy, in a low voice. " Little girls should be seen and not heard."

The delicacy of her intonation fulfilled the promise of her exquisite mouth. Though her tone was light enough there was a real challenge in her eyes, and she coloured with vexation when Julian laughingly paid her the compliment her thoughtless remark invited. They were on sufficiently intimate terms to make use of personalities, but Julian's readiness only convinced her that he did not care. To do Amy justice, she would not have accepted a proposal from him while she felt uncertain of his affection. Her one grain of comfort was that apparently he did not care for any other woman.

It was perhaps fortunate for Amy that she did not know what was passing through Julian's mind as he sat talking to her. He was very sorry that she had come. She was the one woman he preferred before any other except his sister, and he would have been glad to keep his illusions about her. Somehow she had come badly out of the test of this occasion, for him a great one. He did not wish her to be profound, but he was disappointed to find her wanting in simplicity. At this moment she was altogether charming with her

II fore, into the general blatancy. : under excitement, her voice b screamy, and Julian thought the ugliness and vulgarity in her obs soldiers summed up in "Oh, lovely I" He could not remain woman who needed to be considei and that Amy had succumbed to of the moment was a fatal defe mind.

They had to move their chai for the people who wished to lea after the business of handshaking returned to his place by the v hipped and discouraged ; all his be going to pieces at the same ti years he had believed that P sented the people, and it was oi had been harassed and perplexec ity of both friends and foes of i The stem discipline of the lasi twelve years without discovering this truth, but it must be remembered that nothing blindfolds a man like success. His career had developed automatically, with only a perfunctory reference to the causes he was supposed to represent. To<iay brought the final and humiliating discovery that, in his official capacity, he himself represented not the people but the crowd.

Once more the voice of Sir Peter Lawrence broke into his reverie.

" The cares of State sit heavy on his brow,** said the shipowner, jocularly, as Julian turned a confused face to the little group.

Only Michal, Amy, and Sir Peter were left in the room. They, evidently, had been talking about him, and Sir Peter's words and the expression of his face suggested that he had been trying to reassure the other two. Michal, however, looked unconvinced and anxious, and it was easy to see that Amy felt snubbed. The cold, bare surroundings of the room, the harsh office furniture and explicit drawings on the walls, enhanced her look of almost tremulous sensibility, and she was plainly not far from tears.

Sir Peter Lawrence had the tact of a steamroller. He knew a great many things, but he did not know when to hold his tongue, and he had a perfectly disastrous habit of trying to cheer people up.

" Come round and dine with us, Julian," he said, placing his hand on Julian's arm, a trick he, of all men, detested. " We are quite alone. I've asked your sister, and she says that you have no eng^ements."

Sir Peter's tone suggested, as he probably intended it should, a little consolatory function for a gentleman in the blues. Julian excused himself reasonably enough. He reminded Michal that they were going down to Cornwall in two days' time, and that he was very busy; but Sir Peter continued to press him until Amy, in sheer desperation, came forward and held out her hand.

" I suppose we shan't see you again before you go?" she asked. There was a " What-have-Idone?" expression in the girl's eyes which made Julian feel very brutal.

" No, I'm afraid not," he said hastily. After all, there is a certain grim mercifulness in the social formulae which prevent explanations. Julian knew that, so far as he was concerned. Amy had done nothing. It was her misfortune to be simply herself.

Chapter II J

Chapter II

THE Julians of Trelogan were the untitled branch of a famous West Country family. Old Mr. Julian, Godfrey's father, had put up for Parliament, but was not successful, as before the Gladstonian split the constituency was mainly Liberal in its views. Even those who voted against him, however, regretted his failure, for he was a good landlord and an untiring champion of the local fishermen already beginning to suflFer from the competition of the better organized fleets from North Sea ports, which annually come to Cornwall for the mackerel season. The Home Rule question entirely altered the balance of opinion in this district, as in so many others, and Godfrey was invited to stand for, and returned to, Parliament by the same people who had voted unwillingly against his father. It would have been difficult to find a constituency with a happier combination of personal friendship and political agreement between the member and those he represented. This was not due to coddling, for Godfrey Julian spent very little of his time at home. He was fortunate in his agent, and was content to leave his own reputation to the judgment of his supporters. A Comishman himself, he had a good deal of the racial pride, and instinctively respected

7%€ House on the Sands

the Comishman's intolerance of patron^e. He knew that the greatest compliment he could pay his tenants was to let them take him for granted, and that the one thing they would have resented would have been his explaining his long absences from home.

Trelogan is a small estate about eight miles from Porthia, and close to the mining town of Tolcame. The house is a fifteenth-century granite buildii^, long and low, with mullioned windows, tall, twisted chimneys, leaded cupolas, and a slate roof without eaves, standing in well-wooded grouhds, all the more charmmg by contrast with the desolate character of the surrounding country. Outside the belt of trees girdling Trelogan there is hardly a stick of timber bigger than a thom-bush within sight. Northwards, the Trelogan estate marches with the sea; but on every other side are barren hills surmounted by ruined engine-houses, very characteristic and as picturesquely suggestive in their way as Rhine castles. To the stranger they are at first an offence, but the eye quickly gets used to them, and, after a while, looks for the familiar tall buildings as the culminating incidents in the monotonous curves of moorland. They give grip and distinction to the skyline, and in themselves they have all the pathetic suggestion of failure ; unlike most evidences of human activity they have blasted nothing, and in tone and colour they have the same quality, as to all outward appearance they are of the same age, as the prehistoric i8

The House on ike Sands

remains, the stone circles and cromlechs, scattered about this part of the country.

Godfrey Julian and his sister cared too much for their country house to turn it into an hotel, and entertained only neighbours or intimate friends who like themselves needed an occasional retreat from the activities of town life. This morning, in late July, they sat over their breakfast in that sociable silence which comes of complete sympathy. They had returned from London the night before after an absence of nearly two years from Trelogan.

Michal Julian was eight years younger than her brother, kept youthful in her appearance by the freshness of her intellectual interests. She, like him, was tall and fair-haired, but more positive in colouring, fastidiously neat in her dress, and deliberate in her movements. She had that purity of expression which is the gift of energetic and welldisciplined natures; and because she was so completely mistress of herself, stupid people called her passionless. She was not to be surprised or ca^ joled into sympathy with anything or anybody against her perceptions. This made her somewhat exacting in her standard of people, but it saved her from making mistaken friendships. When she gave herself, she gave with the deliberate but uncalculating generosity of reserved natures which possess all of themselves to give. Michal was too fastidious intellectually to be a political woman, but she was very ambitious for her brother, and her careful study of his interests taught her that while 19 it was to his advantage to live a full social life, it was very necessary that his mind should be left free to his work. She had long ago made her final choice in love, but since her love was too sacred a thing to risk in conflict with her duty to her brother, she had never told even him. She believed that Godfrey needed somebody to lay out and put away his social clothes; somebody, in fact, to fulfill the office of the Flappers in Swift's Lttputa. Nobody could do this so welt as a woman, and Michal felt that until Godfrey married the right woman, it was her duty to remain absolutely at his disposal. She herself believed that the right woman was growing up in Amy Lawrence, but she had no wish, even if it had been possible, to choose Godfrey's wife for him. The mere fact that her own love waited on his marriage, tied her hands as a matchmaker. If he never married at all, neither would she.

Michal's own shrinking from the vidgarity of party politics made her all the more sympathetically aware of the crisis in her brother's mental history. She watched him lovingly, but did not bother him with questions. At this moment the little scene in Sir Peter Lawrence's office was very fresh in her mind. She did not understand Godfrey's dissatisfaction with things in general, including Amy Lawrence, but she made up her mind that she would talk the matter over with Randal Tate, who was coming down to Trelogan in a week or so. It was a pity, she thought, that Ran-

I dal Tate had not been with them on the day the soldiers came home. He was not very enthusiastic about Amy Lawrence, and he openly scoffed at Sir Peter, but he certainly understood things.

Presently Godfrey looked up from his letters.

" Do you know anything about a man named Christopher Lanyon, a tenant of ours ? " he asked.

" Yes/' answered Michal. " He took over the tin-streaming at Chy-an-dreath about three years ago."

There was a want of cordiality in her answer which, however, escaped her brother's notice.

"Of course, I remember now," he said. He took up his letter again, and continued reading with a smile.

Michal looked rather more interested than the circumstances demanded.

"Has Mr. Lanyon written to you, Godfrey?" she asked.

"Yes," answered Julian, without looking up; " he wants some alterations in his dressing-floors."

"Then why didn't he speak to Mr. Trevail?" said Michal, coldly.

" He has done so, but as it was a rather expensive job, Trevail didn't care to decide on his own responsibility, and so referred him to me. I'll ride over this afternoon and see him about it. . . . Quaint letter for a tin-streamer, isn't it?" he said, tossing the paper across the table.

He watched Michal while she read the letter, as if he were waiting to see whether she would smile at the points which had amused him. But Michal did not seem at all amused, and her expression interested him. Michal, like most naturally frank persons, was not successful in concealing disapproval. Julian became curious to know the cause of her pbvious dislike of the writer of the letter, which she quietly folded and placed in its envelope. She did not speak until she had poured herself out another cup of coffee, but her face was very thoughtful.

" Is it necessary for you to go and see Mr. Lanyon yourself, Godfrey J"" she asked presently, with assumed carelessness.

" Why not ? I think I ought to go and see what he wants since he has applied to me personally," said Julian.

" I should have thought " she begjan ; and

then, " Why can't you send over a man to make an estimate, and then let Mr. Lanyon know whether you care to undertake the improvements or not?"

Julian saw that Michal wanted to argue the matter without being driven to say what she thought about Mr. Lanyon. She wished, evidently, to prevent a meeting between the tin-streamer and himself, but it was unlike her not to give her reasons frankly. Fond as he was of his sister, Julian did not like the idea of being managed.

" I could do that, of course," he said ; " but I think it is a good plan to be civil to tenants, don't you? Besides," he added, picking up the envelope, " Tm interested. I don't think Mr. Lanyon is quite an ordinary tin-streamer, is he ? "

Michal coloured slightly: she disliked being forced to speak even by her brother, and felt that she was losing her temper while he remained cool and apparently amused.

" He isn't, I'm glad to say," she answered rather sharply.

" You don't like him? " asked Julian, raising his eyebrows. " Has he ever done anything to annoy you ? "

" No ; he has never spoken to me nor I to him," said Michal, quietly. " I have formed my opinion of that man entirely from what I have heard about him."

Her emphasis on " that man " made Julian feel inclined to tease her for this unexpected betrayal of feminine prejudice. He was checked, however, by the cold gravity of her manner, which led him to suspect that she really had some serious objection to Lanyon's character. Still, why didn't she say so? As a general rule, Julian took his sister's advice in minor matters, but just because she would not speak out he felt disposed to argue.

"You would rather I did not see him?" he asked.

Michal answered him with another question.

" Don't you think it's a pity to be at the beck and call of your tenants when you have a good agent to look after your affairs? It seems to me rather a reflection upon Mr. Trevail."

This was too transparent, and Julian laughed.

"My dear Michal," he said, "Trevail will be very stupid if he doesn't understand."

Michal fidgeted with her cup.

" Of course you know your own business best," she said, "but it seems to me that Mr. Lanyon is merely trying to assert his importance by dragging you over to Chy-an-dreath."

"He's that sort of person, is he?" said Julian with a gxim smile. " However, in his letter he doesn't even hint that he wants me to come."

" Well," said Michal, giving up the argument, " I understand that he's a most objectionable person in every way."

She took up a newspaper and unfolded it, but did not read. Both she and her brother were conscious of restraint, and Julian was reminded of his occasional suspicion that feminine co-operation had certain disadvantages which justified a man in reserving a comer of his affairs from the most loyal woman. It was true that Michal never interfered in his work, but she was identified with a side of himself which he was just at present inclined to quarrel with. He had begun to question some of the things which Michal most appreciated. His interest in Lanyon was not diminished by Michal's curious display of prejudice ; he felt that she would not speak strongly about a person of no consequence, and he was in a mood to make experiments. Therefore, on his morning ride with Mr. Trevail over the estate, he asked —

" Who is Christopher Lanyon ? "

Trevail looked sharply at him.

" He works the stream over to Chy-an-dreath," he said. " The place had gone to rack and ruin when he took it in hand."

Mr. Trevail looked like a clergyman in mufti. His very dark blue eyes were set in a brown wrinkled face fringed with grey whiskers. He wore a low-cut waistcoat, and his collar, though rather frayed, was spotless, and crossed by the thin black cord attached to the pince-nez he used when writing. He looked as if he ought to have worn a stock, and his manners had an old-fashioned touch which bore oiit the same suggestion. He had been employed by Godfrey's father, and he regarded the estate as a personal trust which he would have answered for, if necessary, with his life.

The tone of apology, of justification almost, in his reply was not lost upon Julian.

" He is a good tenant, then? "

" None better, Mr. Julian," said Trevail, gravely. " I wish everybody made their interests agree so well with ours," he added, pointing with his whip to a field of thistles.

Julian thought that Trevail's appreciation of Lanyon suggested that he hoped nobody had maligned the tin-streamer to his landlord.

Mr. Lanyon has written to me about some improvements he wants making in his machinery," he said.

" I'm glad to hear it," said Trevail, cordially. " I did not care to decide the matter myself, but, if youll excuse me, Mr. Julian, I think it would be to your advant^ie to consider him favourably. What he asks is very reasonable, I believe, and would increase the value of the property."