Strike on!
There he is. He’s in the army. He’s utterly splendid in his uniform. How proud of him she is! They no longer gave commissions direct from civil life; but he’d been in the cadet corps at Tidborough and Harry was able to get him direct into an officer cadet battalion. He’s off to France in what seems next to no time. He’s home on leave and there’s nothing that’s too good for him and her purse at his disposal when he’s run through Harry’s generous allowance. He seems to get through an immense amount of money on leave. He’s never at home. He’s often out all night. Well, he’s on leave. He’s fighting for his country. You can’t be anything but utterly lenient with a boy that’s fighting for his country. He went back. Three days after he was supposed to have gone back Rosalie came face to face with him in Piccadilly. He was with some flapper type of girl, in the detestable phrase (as she thought it) by which the detestable products of the war (as she thought them) were called. He was just getting into a cab. She called out to him, astounded. She heard him swear and he jumped into the cab and was driven away. She didn’t tell Harry. Harry found out. It came out that the boy for overstaying his leave was to be court-martialled. She did not know what Harry did. She noticed in those days what a beaten look Harry’s face was getting. It was, of course, the war strain; but it only was first evident to her in that time of the court-martial. He scarcely spoke to her. She did not know what he did, but she knew he had much influence and exerted it at no sparing of himself. The boy got off with a severe reprimand and was returned to France. And to be in France, out there, in that ever-present shadow of death, was to be excused everything and to be forgiven everything.
Miraculously the war ended. The boy had had rather more than two years of it. He applied for immediate demobilisation as being a student, and he was one of the batch that got away immediately on that ground. He was nearly twenty then. Now what was he going to do? Oxford, of course, Harry said, and then the Bar, as always intended. Huggo, larking about in uniform long after he ought to have been out of it, was in immense feather with himself. He didn’t say No and he didn’t say Yes to the Oxford idea. All he said was that he voted all that wasn’t discussed the very day he got back (it was more than six weeks since he had got back). He surely, he said, was entitled to a bit of a holiday first, after all he had been through. London seemed to be swarming with thousands of young men who claimed they were entitled to a bit of a holiday first after all they had been through. Huggo was never in the house. He had picked up with a man, Telfer, whom he had met in France, a big business man, Huggo described him as, and he seemed to spend all his time with this man. Telfer was a much older man than Huggo. Huggo brought him to dinner one night. It was rather a shock to Rosalie, meeting the man of whom she had heard so much. Huggo had never said anything about his age. He must have been quite forty. He had dull, cloudy eyes and a bad mouth. He called Huggo “Kid,” using the word in every sentence, and it was easy to see from Harry’s manner that Telfer was repellent to him. Easy, also, and not nice, to see Telfer’s dominion over Huggo. Not nice to hear Huggo’s loud, delighted laughter at everything addressed to him by Telfer. Harry spoke less and less as the meal advanced. The two left early; they were going to a music hall. When they had gone Rosalie and Harry looked at one another across the table and by their look exchanged a great deal.
“That’s a detestable companion for Huggo,” Harry said. “Rosalie, there’s been enough of this. The boy must get to work.”
It appeared, in interviews following that evening, that Huggo was not a bit keen on the Oxford idea. He wanted to go into business. He was not clear as to precisely what kind of business, but he wanted the freedom and the excitement of earning his own living, not to be cooped up at the “Varsity” like back at school again. Harry took a firm line. The boy resented the firm line. Well, anyway, he argued, he couldn’t go till October, it was only June now; all right, he’d go in October—if he had to. Harry made arrangements for some reading through the summer preparatory to Oxford. It upset plans made by Huggo. He thought it “uncommonly hard” that he should have to spend the whole summer “swotting.” Oh, well, if he had to, he had to. He had an invitation for a month for that immediate time to Scotland. The reading was arranged to start a month ahead. He didn’t in the least want to be out of London just when there was so much going on and all his pals here; but anything was better than sticking this kind of life at home, father always at him; so he’d go to Scotland; he supposed he was entitled to a bit of country holiday before they cooped him up? He went to Scotland.
Twice during that month Rosalie thought she saw Huggo in the West End. But London was full of young men of the Huggo type. It wasn’t likely.
It turned out to have been very likely. It turned out that Huggo had never been in Scotland at all but in London all the time. And much worse than that. One evening, towards the end of the so-called Scotland month, Huggo unexpectedly walked into the house. Rosalie was sitting with Harry in the dining-room over the end of dinner. Doda was upstairs putting last touches to herself before going out to a dance. Doda was eighteen then (it was 1919), had left school, and, with a large circle of friends, was going out a great deal. Benji was still at school, at Milchester. Harry had never resumed relations with beloved Tidborough.
The door opened and Huggo walked in. His face was very flushed and his articulation a little odd. When, after greetings, he sat down, he sat down with a curiously unsteady thud and gave a little laugh and said, “Whoa, mare, steady!”
It appeared, after explanations, that he had come to talk about “this Oxford business.” “I really can’t very well go to Oxford now, father. I really ought to start in some money-making business now, and I’ve got a jolly good opening promised me. I really ought to take it.”
The decanters were on the table. He had already taken a glass of port. He filled another and drank it.