Drinkable! It was laughing, dancing joy that went down his throat.
So much for gross delights. There were others—finer. The charm to the eye of the table with its exquisite napery and china and glass and silver and flowers. The almost intoxicating atmosphere of peace and gentle living. The full, loving welcome shining from the eyes of the kind old Dean, his uncle by marriage, and of the faded, delicate lady, his own flesh and blood, his mother’s sister. And Peggy, pretty, flushed, bright-eyed, radiant in her new dress. And there was Oliver….
Most of all he appreciated Oliver’s comrade-like attitude. It was a recognition of him as a man and a soldier. In the course of dinner talk Oliver said:
“J.M.T. and I have looked Death in the face many a time—and really he’s a poor raw-head and bloody-bones sort of Bogey; don’t you think so, old chap?”
“It all depends on whether you’ve got a funk-hole handy,” he replied.
But that was mere lightness of speech. Oliver’s inclusion of him in his remark shook him to the depths of his sensitive nature. The man who despises the petty feelings and frailties of mankind is doomed to remain in awful ignorance of that which there is of beauty and pathos in the lives of his fellow-creatures. After all, what did it matter what Oliver thought of him? Who was Oliver? His cousin—accident of birth—the black sheep of the family; now a major in a different regiment and a different division. What was Oliver to him or he to Oliver? He had “made good” in the eyes of one whose judgment had been forged keen and absolute by heroic sorrows. What did anyone else matter? But to Doggie the supreme joy of the evening was the knowledge that he had made good in the eyes of Oliver. Oliver wore on his tunic the white mauve and white ribbon of the Military Cross. Honour where honour was due. But he, Doggie, had been wounded (no matter how) and Oliver frankly put them both on the same plane of achievement, thus wiping away, with generous hand, all hated memories of the past.
When the ladies had left the room, history repeated itself, in that the Dean was called away on business and the cousins were left alone together over their wine. Said Doggie:
“Do you remember the last time we sat at this table?”
“Perfectly,” replied Oliver, holding up a glass of the old Deanery port to the light. “You were horrified at my attempting to clean out my pipe with a dessert knife.”
Doggie laughed. “After all, it was a filthy thing to do.”