Maurice by E. Forster (the gingerbread man read aloud .TXT) 📗

for the sake of each other and their fragile relationship —if one fell the other would follow. They intended no harm to the world, but so long as it attacked they must punish, they must stand wary, then hit with full strength, they must show that when two are gathered together majorities shall not triumph. And as the game proceeded it connected with the night, and interpreted it. Clive ended it easily enough. When he came to the ground they were no longer the leading force; people turned their heads, the game languished, and ceased. Alec resigned. It was only fit and proper that the squire should bat at once. Without looking at Maurice, he receded. He too was in white flannels, and their looseness made him look like a gentleman or anyone else. He stood in front of the shed with dignity, and when Clive had done talking offered his bat, which Clive took as a matter of course: then flung himself down by old Ayres.

Maurice met his friend, overwhelmed with spurious tenderness.

"Clive. ... Oh my dear, are you back? Aren't you fagged frightfully?"

"Meetings till midnight—another this afternoon—must bat a minute to please these people."

"What! Leaving me again? How frightfully rotten."

"You may well say so, but I really do come back this evening, then your visit really does begin. I've a hundred things to ask you, Maurice."

"Now, gentlemen," said a voice; it was the socialist schoolmaster, out at long stop.

"We stand rebuked," said Clive, but didn't hurry himself. "Anne's cried off the afternoon meeting, so you'll have her for company. Oh look, they've actually mended her dear little hole in the roof of the drawing-room. Maurice! No, I can't remember what I was going to say. Let us join the Olympic Games."

Maurice went out first ball. "Wait for me," called Clive, but he went straight for the house, for he felt sure that the breakdown was coming. As he passed the servants, the majority of them rose to their feet, and applauded him frantically, and the fact that Scudder didn't alarmed him. Was it meant for impertinence? The wrinkled forehead—the mouth—possibly a cruel mouth; head a trifle too small—why was the shirt open at the throat like that? And in the hall of Penge he met Anne.

"Mr Hall, the meeting didn't go." Then she saw his face, which was green-white, and cried, "Oh, but you're not well."

"I know," he said, trembling.

Men hate to be fussed, so she only replied, "I'm frightfully sorry, I'll send some ice to your room."

"You've been so kind to me always—"

"Look here, what about a doctor?"

"Never another doctor," he cried frantically.

"We want to be kind to you—naturally. When one's happy oneself one wants the same happiness for others."

"Nothing's the same."

"Mr Hall—!"

"Nothing's the same for anyone. That's why life's this Hell, if you do a thing you're damned, and if you don't you're damned—" he paused, and continued. "Sun too hot—should like a little ice."

She ran for it, and released he flew up to the Russet Room. It brought home to him the precise facts of the situation, and he was violently sick.

40 He felt better at once, but realized that he must leave Penge. He changed into the serge, packed, and was soon downstairs again with a neat little story. "The sun caught me," he told Anne, "but I'd radier a worrying letter too, and I think I'd better be in town."

"Much, much better," she cried, all sympathy.

"Yes, much better," echoed Clive, who was up from the match. "We'd hoped you'd put it right yesterday, Maurice, but we quite understand, and if you must go you must go."

And old Mrs Durham had also accrued. There was to be a laughing open secret about this girl in town, who had almost accepted his offer of marriage but not quite. It didn't matter how ill he looked or how queerly he behaved, he was officially a lover, and they interpreted everything to their satisfaction and found him delightful.

Clive motored him to the station, since their ways lay together that far. The drive skirted the cricket field before entering the woods. Scudder was fielding now, looking reckless and graceful. He was close to them, and stamped one foot, as though summoning something. That was the final vision, and whether of a devil or a comrade Maurice had no idea. Oh, the situation was disgusting—of that he was certain, and indeed never wavered till the end of his life. But to be certain of a situation is not to be certain of a human being. Once away from

Penge he would see clearly perhaps; at all events there was Mr Lasker Jones.

"What sort of man is that keeper of yours who captained us?" he asked Clive, having tried the sentence over to himself first, to be sure it didn't sound odd.

"He's leaving this month," said Clive under the impression that he was giving a reply. Fortunately they were passing the kennels at that moment, and he added, "We shall miss him as regards the dogs, anyhow."

"But not in other ways?"

"I expect we shall do worse. One always does. Hard-working anyhow, and decidedly intelligent, whereas the man I've coming in his place—"; and, glad that Maurice should be interested he sketched the economy of Penge.

"Straight?" He trembled as he asked this supreme question.

"Scudder? A little too smart to be straight. However, Anne would say I'm being unfair. You can't expect our standard of honesty in servants, any more than you can expect loyalty or gratitude."

"I could never run a job like Penge," resumed Maurice after a pause. "I should never know what type of servant to select. Take Scudder for instance. What class of home does he come from? I haven't the slightest idea."

"Wasn't his father the butcher at Osmington? Yes. I think so."

Maurice flung his hat on the floor of the car with all his force. "This is about the limit," he thought, and buried both hands in his hair.

"Head rotten again?"

"Putrid."

Clive kept sympathetic silence, which neither broke until they