II
After dinner Speed managed to get his father alone in the library. "I want to know," he said, quietly, "what you meant when you said something about giving somebody the tip to shove me up. I want to know exactly, mind."
Sir Charles waved his arm across a table.
"Don't you talk to me like that, my lad. I'm too old for you to cross-examine. I'm willin' to tell you anythin' you like, only I won't be bullied into it. So now you know. Light yourself a cigar an', for God's sake, sit down and look comfortable."
"Perhaps I could look it if I felt it."
"Your own fault if you don't feel it. Damned ingratitude, I call it. Sit down. I shan't answer a question till you're sitting down and smoking as if you was a friend of mine an' not a damned commercial traveller."
Speed decided that he had better humour him; he sat down and toyed with a cigar. "Now, if you'll please tell me."
"What is it you want me to tell you?" grunted Sir Charles.
"I want you to tell me what you meant by saying that you gave somebody a tip to shove me up?"
"Well, my lad, you don't want to stay an assistant-master all your life, do you?"
"That's not the point. I want to know what you did."
"Why, I did the usual thing that I'd always do to help somebody I'm interested in."
"What's that?"
"Well, you know. Pull a few wires.... Man like me has a few wires he can pull. I know people, you see—and if I just mention a little thing—well, they generally remember it all right."
And he spread himself luxuriously in the arm-chair and actually smiled!
The other flushed hotly. "I see. May I ask whose help you solicited on my behalf?"
"Don't talk like a melodrama, my lad. I'm your best friend if you only knew it. What is it you want to know now?"
"I want to know whose help you asked for?"
"Well, I had a little conversation with Lord Portway. And I had five minutes' chat over the telephone with old Ervine. Don't you see—" he leaned forward with a touch of pleading in his voice—"don't you see that I want you to get on? I've always wanted you to do well in the world. Your brother's doing well and there's not a prouder father in England to-day than I am of him. And when young Richard leaves school I hope he'll get on well too. Now, you're a bit different. Dunno why you are, but you are, an' I've always recognised it. You can't say I've ever tried to force you to anythin' you didn't want, can you? You wanted to go to the 'varsity—well, I don't believe it's a good thing for a young man to waste his years till he's twenty-two—nevertheless it was your choice, an' I let you do it. I paid for you, I gave you as much money as you wanted, an' I didn't complain. Well, then you wanted to be a Master in a school. You got yourself the job without even consulting me about it, but did I complain? No, I let you go your own way. I let you do what I considered an absolutely damsilly thing. Still, I thought, if you're going to be a teacher you may as well have ambitions an' rise to the top of the profession. So I thought I'd just put in a word for you. That was all. I want you to get on, my lad, no matter what line you're in. I've always bin as ambitious for you as I have bin for myself."
The other said: "I can see you meant well."
"Meant well? And is it extraordinary that I should mean well to my own son? Then, there's another thing. You go and get married. Well, I don't mind that. I believe in marriage. I was married myself when I was nineteen an' I've never once regretted it: But you go an' get married all of a hurry while I'm travellin' the other side o' the world, an' you don't even send me so much as a bit o' weddin'-cake! I don't say: is it fair? I just say: is it natural? I come home to England to find a letter tellin' me you've married the Headmaster's daughter!"
"Well, why shouldn't I?"
"I'm not sayin' you shouldn't, my lad. I'm not a snob, an' I don't care who you marry s'long as she's as good as you are. I don't want you to marry a duchess. I don't even care if the girl you marry hasn't a cent. See—I don't mind if she's a dustman's daughter, s'long—s'long, mind, as she's your equal! That's all. Now you understand me. Do you?"
"I think I understand you."
"Good. Now have some more port. An' while you're spendin' Christmas with us, for God's sake, have a good time and give the girl a good time, too. Is she fond of theatres?"
"I—I don't know—well—she might be—"
"Well, you can have the closed Daimler any night you like to take you into town and bring you back. And if she's fond of motorin' you can have the Sunbeam durin' the daytime. Remember that. I want you to have a dam' good time.... Dam' good.... See? Now have some more port before we join your mother...."
"No thanks. I should be drunk if I had any more."
"Nonsense, my lad. Port won' make you drunk. Dam' good port, isn' it? ... Wouldn' make you drunk, though.... Don' talk dam' nonsense to me...."
He was slightly drunk himself.