A Safety Match

by Ian Hay

  CHAPTER ELEVEN.

  DIES IRAE.

  At Belton, Daphne, like her Scriptural counterpart, came to herself.Attired in what she called "rags," she ran wild about the woods andplantations, accompanied by the faithful Mr Dawks, who found a greencountryside (even when marred at intervals by a grimy pithead)infinitely preferable to Piccadilly, where the pavement is hot andsteerage-way precarious.

  They were to stay at Belton till Christmas, after which the house inBerkeley Square would be ready for her. Hitherto she had been wellcontent with the little establishment in Grosvenor Street; but herideas in certain directions, as her husband had observed to MrsCarfrae, were developing in a very gratifying manner.

  One hot morning Daphne arrived at breakfast half-an-hour late. To doher justice, this was an unusual fault; for in the country she wouldnever have dreamed of indulging in such an urban luxury as breakfastin bed. Her unpunctuality was not due to sloth. She had alreadysuperintended the morning toilet of Master Brian Vereker Carr, and hadeven taken a constitutional with Mr Dawks along the road which ranover the shoulder of a green hill towards Belton Pit, two miles away.She knew that her husband had gone out at seven o'clock to interviewthe manager at the pithead, and she had reckoned on being picked up bythe returning motor and brought home in time for nine o'clockbreakfast. Unfortunately Juggernaut had changed his plans and gone toanother pit in the opposite direction, with the result that Daphne,besides being compelled to walk twice as far as she intended, found anuncomfortable combination of cold food and chilly husband waiting forher when she reached home.

  Juggernaut never called Daphne to book for her shortcomings now. Ithad become his custom of late, if he found anything amiss in themanagement of the establishment, to send a message to the housekeeperdirect. He should have known better. Daphne, regarding such aproceeding as an imputation of incompetence on her part, boiledinwardly at the slight, though her innate sense of justice told herthat it was not altogether undeserved. Being a great success is apt tobe a slightly demoralising business, and Daphne herself was beginningdimly to realise the fact. There was no doubt, for instance, that shewas not the housekeeper she had been. But what was the good? There hadbeen some credit in feeding the boys and Dad on half nothing, and inconjuring that second weekly joint out of a housekeeping surplus thatwas a little financial triumph in itself. But now, who cared if a legof mutton were saved or not? What did it matter if the cook sold theleavings and the butler opened more wine than he decanted? Her husbandcould afford it. And so on.

  A discussion had arisen upon this subject the evening before; and thesilent enigmatical man whom she had married, whom she understood solittle, and who, from the fact that he treated her as somethingbetween an incompetent servant and a spoiled child, appeared tounderstand her even less, had spoken out more freely than usual, withnot altogether happy results. Daphne above all loved openness andcandour, and she could not endure to feel that her husband wasexercising forbearance towards her, or making allowances, or talkingdown to her level. Consequently the laborious little lecture she hadreceived, with its studied moderation of tone and its obvious desireto let her down gently, had had an unfortunate but not altogetherunnatural result. Juggernaut would have done better to employ his bigguns, such as he reserved for refractory public meetings. As it was,Daphne lost her temper.

  "Jack," she blazed out suddenly, "I _know_ I'm a failure, so why rubit in? I _know_ you married me to keep house for you, so you have aperfect right to complain if I do it badly. Well, you have told me;now I know. Shall we drop the subject? I will endeavour to be morecompetent, honest, and obliging in future."

  Juggernaut rose suddenly from the table--they were sitting over theirdessert at the time--and walked to the mantelpiece, where he stoodleaning his head upon his arms, in an apparent endeavour to mesmerisethe fender. Daphne, cooling rapidly, wondered what he was thinkingabout. Was he angry, or bored, or indifferent?

  Presently he turned round.

  "I'm afraid I don't handle you as successfully as I handle some otherproblems, Daphne," he said reflectively. "Good-night!"

  That was all. He left the room, and Daphne had not seen him since. Heranger was gone. By bedtime she was thoroughly ashamed of herself, and,being Daphne, no other course lay open to her than that of saying so.Hence her early rising next morning, and her effort to intercept themotor.

  The failure of the latter enterprise made matters more difficult; forcourage once screwed to the sticking-point and timed for a certainmoment cannot as a rule outlast postponement.

  Still, she walked into the breakfast-room bravely.

  "Jack," she began, a little breathlessly, "I'm sorry I was cross lastnight."

  Her husband was sitting with his back to the door. Possibly if he hadseen her face--flushed and appealing under its soft hat of grey_suede_--he might have acted a little more helpfully than he did. Hemerely laid down his newspaper and remarked cheerfully--

  "That is all right, dear. Let us say no more about it. Sit down toyour breakfast before it gets colder. You must have been for a longwalk. Fried sole or a sausage?"

  He rose and helped her to food from the sideboard, as promptly andcarefully as if she had been a newly arrived and important guest. Itwas something; but compared with what he might have done it wasnothing. In effect, Daphne had asked for a kiss and had been given asausage.

  It was rather a miserable breakfast. Daphne had vowed to herself notto be angry again: consequently she could only mope. Juggernautcontinued to read the newspaper. The political world was in a fermentat the moment. There was a promise for him in all this ofwork--trouble--the facing of difficulties--the overcoming of strenuousopposition--the joy of battle, in fact. Manlike, he overlooked thetrouble that was brewing at his own fireside.

  Presently he put down his newspaper and strolled to the open window.

  "What a gorgeous day, Daphne. And I have to spend it in acommittee-room at Kilchester!"

  "Anything important?" asked Daphne, determined to be interested.

  "Important? I should just think it was, only people refuse to realisethe fact. It's a meeting of the County Territorial Association. Whathumbug the whole business is! They started the old Volunteers, coddledthem, asked nothing of them but a few drills and an annual picnic incamp, and then laughed them out of existence for Saturday-afternoonsoldiers. Now they start the Territorials and go to the other extreme.They require of a man that he shall attain, free gratis and fornothing, at the sacrifice of the few scanty weeks which he gets by wayof holiday, to practically the same standard of efficiency as aregular soldier, who is paid for it and gets the whole year to do itin. And then they blame us, the County Associations, because we can'tfind recruits for them! Luckily, we shall have compulsory servicesoon, and that will end the farce once and for all."

  Daphne liked to be talked to like this. In the first place, it removedthe uncomfortable and humiliating sensation that she was a child inher husband's eyes; and in the second, it adjusted her sense ofproportion as regards the male sex. Obviously, with all these dull butweighty matters to occupy him, a man could not be expected to set suchstore by conjugal unity as his wife, who had little else to think of.

  "Perhaps I have been a little fool," she philosophised. "After all, aman doesn't in the least realise how a woman----"

  "What are you going to do to-day?" asked her husband.

  "This afternoon I am going over to Croxley Dene to play tennis."

  "Anything this morning?"

  "I am going to order the motor for twelve o'clock"--ratherreluctantly. "I suppose Vick will be back from Kilchester."

  "Oh, yes. Are you going out to lunch somewhere?"

  "N-no."

  "Just a drive?"

  "Yes. The fact is," said poor Daphne, hating herself for feeling likea child detected in a fault, "I am going to try my hand at driving themotor myself."

  There was a pause, and Juggernaut continued to gaze out of the window,while Daphne pleated the table-cloth.

  Presently the
hateful expected words came.

  "I would rather you didn't."

  Daphne rose suddenly to her feet. Her face was aflame, and all hergood resolutions had vanished. She had always longed to drive thebig car, her appetite having been whetted by occasional experimentsupon the property--usually small, easily handled vehicles--oflong-suffering friends. She had broached the subject more than once,but had found her husband curiously vague as regards permission.Usually it was "yes" or "no" with him. This morning, tired of thehumiliation of constantly asking for leave, she had decided to giveorders on her own account. And but for Juggernaut's unlucky questionshe would have achieved her purpose and settled accounts afterwards--avery different thing from asking leave first, as every child knows.

  "And why?" she asked, with suspicious calmness.

  "Well, for one thing, I don't think a lady should be seen driving agreat covered-in limousine car. You wouldn't go out on the box seat ofa brougham, would you? As a matter of fact, if you will have patiencefor a week or two----"

  "Yes, I know!" broke in Daphne passionately. "If I have patience for aweek or two, and am a good little girl, and order the meals punctuallyin the meanwhile, you will perhaps take me for a run one afternoon,and let me hold the wheel while you sit beside me with the secondspeed in. Thank you! _Good_ morning!"

  She pushed back her chair, whirled round with a vehement swirl of hertweed skirt, and left the room.

  Juggernaut continued to finger a typewritten letter which he had justtaken from his pocket. It bore the address of a firm of motor-makers,and said--

  "SIR,--We beg to inform you that one of our Handy Runabout 10-12h-p. cars, for which we recently received your esteemed order, is now to hand from the varnishers', and will be delivered at Belton Hall on Tuesday next. As requested, we have given the clutch-pedal and brake a particularly easy spring, with a view to the car being driven by a lady.

  "Thanking you for past favours, we are, sir yours faithfully,"

  "THE DIABLEMENT-ODORANT MOTOR CO., LTD."

  Juggernaut put the letter back into his pocket.

  II.

  In due course the Belton motor conveyed its owner to Kilchester andleft him there.

  "Shall I come back for you, sir?" inquired Mr Vick, the chauffeur. Hewas a kindly man, despite his exalted station.

  "No, thanks--I'll take the train. But I believe Lady Carr wants you totake her over to Croxley Dene this afternoon."

  "Her ladyship shall be took," said Mr Vick, with an indulgentsmile--Lady Carr was a favourite of his--and forthwith returned toBelton.

  On running the car into the yard he found the coachman, Mr Windebank,a sadly diminished luminary in these days, putting a polish upon anunappreciative quadruped.

  "You and your machine, Mr Vick," announced Mr Windebank, "is wantedround at twelve sharp."

  It was then eleven-fifteen.

  "Ho!" replied the ruffled Mr Vick, feeling much as the Emperor Neromight have felt on being requested by the most recently immured earlyChristian to see that the arena lions were kept a bit quieterto-morrow night--"ho, indeed!"

  "Them's your orders, Mr Vick," said Mr Windebank, resuming thepeculiar dental _obligato_ which seems to be the inseparableaccompaniment of the toilet of a horse, temporarily suspended on thisoccasion to enable the performer to discharge his little broadside.

  Mr Vick turned off various taps and switches on his dash-board, andthe humming of the engine ceased.

  "I take my orders," he proclaimed in majestic tones, "from the masterand missus direct, and from nobody else."

  Mr Windebank, after spending some moments in groping for a crushingrejoinder, replied--

  "Well, you'd better go inside and get 'em. And you'd better 'ang anosebag on your sparking-plug in the meanwhile," he added, with suddenand savage irrelevance.

  Mr Vick adopted the former of these two suggestions, with the resultthat at the hour of noon the car slid submissively round to the frontof the Hall. Presently Daphne appeared, and disregarding the doorwhich Mr Vick was holding open for her, stepped up into the driver'sseat--the throne itself--and took the wheel in her vigorous littlehands.

  "I am going to drive, Vick," she observed cheerfully.

  Mr Vick preserved his self-control and smiled faintly.

  "I suppose you have a licence, my lady?" he inquired.

  "Gracious, no! I am only just beginning," replied Daphne, who regardeda driver's licence as a sort of reward of merit. "I want you to teachme. Which of these things is the clutch-pedal?"

  "The left, my lady. I am afraid," added Mr Vick, with the air of onewho intends to stop this nonsense once and for all, "that you willfind it very stiff."

  "Thanks," said Daphne blandly. "And I suppose the other one is thebrake."

  "Yes, my lady; but----"

  "Then we can start. How do I put in the first speed?"

  Mr Vick, in what can only be described as a _moriturus-te-saluto!_voice, gave the required information; and the car, after a dislocatingjerk, moved off at a stately four miles per hour. Presently, with muchslipping of the clutch and buzzing of the gear-wheels, the second, andfinally the third speed went in, and the car proceeded with all theexuberance of its forty-five horse-power down the long straight drive.Fortunately the lodge gates stood open, and the road outside wasclear.

  Certainly Mr Vick behaved very well. Although every wrench and jar towhich his beloved engines were submitted appeared to react directlyupon his own internal mechanism, he never winced. Occasionally amuffled groan or a muttered exclamation of "My tyres!" or "Mydifferential!" burst from his overwrought lips; but for the most parthe sat like a graven image, merely hoping that when the crash came itwould be a good one--something about which it would be reallygrateful and comforting to say "I told you so!" He also cherished astrong hope that his name would appear in the newspapers.

  But Daphne drove well. She had a good head and quick hands; andsteering a middle course between the extreme caution of the beginnerand the omniscient recklessness of the half-educated, she gave Mr Vickvery little excuse for anything in the shape of a genuine shudder. Sheexperienced a little difficulty in getting the clutch right out ofaction in changing gear; and once she stopped her engine through goinground a corner with the brakes on--but that was all. Mr Vick began tofeel distinctly aggrieved.

  There was a spice of _abandon_ in Daphne's present attitude. She hadburned her boats; she had flown in the face of authority; and sheintended to brazen it out. The breeze whistled in her ears; her eyesblazed; her cheeks glowed. She felt in good fighting trim.

  Presently, fetching a compass, the car began to head towards Beltonagain, and having been directed in masterly fashion through the narrowgates by the back lodge, sped along the final stretch which led tohome and luncheon, at a comfortable thirty miles an hour.

  At the end of the dappled vista formed by the overarching trees ofthe avenue appeared a black object, which presently resolved itselfinto Mr Dawks, lolling comfortably in a patch of sunlight pending hismistress's return.

  "Mind the dog, my lady!" cried Mr Vick suddenly.

  Daphne had every intention of minding the dog; but desire andperformance do not always coincide. Suddenly realizing that Mr Dawks,who was now sitting up expectantly in the middle distance, wagging histail and extending a welcome as misplaced as that of Jephtha'sdaughter under somewhat similar circumstances, had no conception ofthe necessity for vacating his present position, Daphne put down bothfeet hard and endeavored to bring the car to a standstill. But thirtymiles an hour is forty-four feet a second, and the momentum of a carweighing two tons is not lightly to be arrested by a brake constructedonly to obey the pressure of a masculine boot. Next moment there was apathetic little yelp. Daphne had a brief vision of an incredulous andreproachful doggy countenance; the car gave a slight lurch, and thencame to full stop, as Mr Vick, having already snapped off the ignitionswitch on the dashboard, reached
across behind Daphne's back andjammed on the side brake.

  III.

  It was Mr Dawks who really showed to the greatest advantage during thenext half-hour. He assured his mistress by every means in his powerthat the whole thing was entirely his fault; and, like the courteousgentleman that he was, he begged her with faintly wagging tail andaffectionate eyes not to distress herself unduly on his account. Thething was done; let there be no more talk about it. It was nothing! Byway of showing that the cordiality of their relations was stillunimpaired he endeavored to shake hands, first with one paw and thenthe other; but finding that both were broken he reluctantly desistedfrom his efforts.

  They carried him--what was left of him--into the house, where Daphne,white-faced and tearless, hung in an agony of self-reproach over thefriend of her youth--the last link with her girlhood. Dawks lay verystill. Once, opening his eyes and evidently feeling that something wasexpected of him, he licked her hand. The tears came fast after that.

  Presently Windebank arrived. He loved all dumb beasts, and was skilledin ministering to their ailments--wherein he transcended that highlyeducated automaton Mr Vick, to whom the acme of life was representedby a set of perfectly timed sparking-plugs--and he made poor mangledDawks as comfortable as possible.

  "Is he badly hurt, Windebank?" whispered Daphne.

  "Yes, miss," said Windebank, touching his forelock. He was a man offew words in the presence of his superiors.

  "Will he die?"

  Windebank gazed down in an embarrassed fashion at the close coils offair hair, bowed over the dog's rough coat. Then he stiffened himselfdefiantly.

  "He'll get well right enough, miss," he said with great assurance."Just wants taking care of, that's all."

  It was a lie, and he knew it. But it was a kind lie. To such much isforgiven.

  Daphne sat with her patient until three o'clock, and then, overcomewith the restlessness of impotent anxiety, and stimulated by an urgenttelephonic reminder, ordered out the horses--not the motor.

  "Good-bye, old man," she said to Dawks, caressing the dog's long earsand unbecoming nose. "I'll be back in an hour or two. Lie quiet, andyou'll soon be all right. Windebank says so."

  Mr Dawks whined gently and flapped his tail upon the floor, furtherintimating by a faint tremor of his ungainly body that ifcircumstances had permitted he would certainly have made a point ofrising and accompanying his mistress to the door and seeing her offthe premises. As things were, he must beg to be excused.

  Daphne drove to Croxley Dene, where for an hour or so she exchangedbanalities with the rest of the county and played a set of tennis.

  She drove home in the cool of the evening, more composed in mind. Thefresh air and exercise had done her good. Windebank had said that thedog would live: that was everything. Less satisfactory to contemplatewas the approaching interview with her husband in the matter of thecar. Until now she had not thought of it.

  On reaching home she hurried to the library, where she had left theinvalid lying on a rug before the fire. Mr Dawks was not there.

  "I wonder if Windebank has taken him to the stable," she said toherself. "I'll go and----"

  She turned, and found herself face to face with her husband.

  "Jack," she asked nervously, "do you know where Dawks is? I supposeyou have heard----"

  "Yes, I have heard."

  Daphne shrank back at the sound of his voice. His face was like flint.

  "Then--where is he?" she faltered. "Windebank said----"

  "I had him shot."

  Daphne stared at him incredulously.

  "You had him _shot_?" she said slowly. "_My_ Dawks?"

  "Yes. It was rank cruelty on your part keeping the poor brute alive,after--after reducing him to that state."

  The last half of the sentence may have been natural and justifiable,but no one could call it generous. It is not easy to be merciful whenone is at white heat.

  Daphne stood up, very slim and straight, gazing stonily into herhusband's face.

  "Have you buried him?"

  "I told one of the gardeners to do so."

  "Where?"

  "I did not say, but we can----"

  "I suppose you know," said Daphne with great deliberation, "that hewas the only living creature in all this great house that lovedme--really _loved_ me?"

  Verily, here was war. There was a tense silence for a moment, and analmost imperceptible flicker of some emotion passed over Juggernaut'sface. Then he said, with equal deliberation--

  "Without any exception?"

  "Yes, without _any_ exception!" cried poor Daphne, stabbingpassionately in the dark. "And since he is dead," she added--"sinceyou have killed him--I am going home to Dad and the boys! They loveme!"

  She stood before her husband with her head thrown back defiantly,white and trembling with passion.

  "Very good. Perhaps that would be best," said Juggernaut quietly.