The Devil's Garden by W. B. Maxwell

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"Charge!" Dale's voice had dropped to a whisper. "Do they lodge a
charge against me, sir--in spite of my record?"

"Their report is of course strictly confidential, and it is not
perhaps my duty to inform you as to its details."

"I thought if a person's accused, he should at least know his
indictment, sir."

Sir John smiled, and nudged the Colonel's elbow. "Then, Mr. Dale, it
merely amounts to this. They say you are unquestionably an efficient
servant, but that your efficiency--at any rate, in the position you
have held of late--has been marred by what seem to be faults of
temperament. They believe--and we believe--that you honestly try to
do your best; but, well, you do not succeed."

"I'd be glad to know where I've failed, sir. Mr. Ridgett, he said he
found everything in apple-pie order. That was Mr. Ridgett's very own
word."

"Who is Mr. Ridgett?"

"Your inspector, sir--what you sent to take over."

"Ah, yes. But he no doubt referred to the office itself. What I am
referring to is a much wider question--the necessity of avoiding
friction with the public. We have to remember that we are the servants
of the public, and not its masters. Now in country districts--You were
at Portsmouth, weren't you, before you went to Rodchurch?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, of course, in the poorer parts of big towns like Portsmouth,
one has rather a rough crowd to deal with; good manners may not be
required; a dictatorial method is not so much resented. But in a
country village, in a residential neighborhood, where high and low are
accustomed to live in amity--well, I must say candidly, a postmaster
who adopts bullying tactics, and is always losing his temper--"

"Sir," said Dale earnestly, "I do assure you I am not a bully, nor one
who is always losing his temper."

"Yet you gave me the impression of irascibility just now, when I drew
you."

Dale inwardly cursed his stupidity in having allowed himself to be
drawn. He had made a mistake that might prove fatal. He felt that the
whole point of the affair was being lost sight of; they seemed to have
drifted away into a discussion of good and bad manners, while he
wanted to get back to the great issue of right and wrong, justice or
injustice. And he understood the ever-increasing danger of being
condemned on the minor count, with the cause itself, the great
fundamental principle, remaining unweighed.

"No one," he said, humbly but firmly, "regrets it more than I do,
gentlemen, if I spoke up too hot. But, sir," and he bowed to Sir John,
"you were wishing to nettle me, and there's no question that for the
moment I was nettled."

All three judges smiled; and Dale, accepting the smiles as a happy
augury, went on with greater confidence.

"I'm sure I apologize. And I ask you not to turn it to more than its
proper consequence--or to make the conclusion that I'm that way as a
rule. With all respect, I'd ask you to think that this means a great
deal to me--a very great deal; and that it has dragged on
until--naturally--it begins to prey on one's mind. I am like to that
extent shaken and off my balance; but I beg, as no more than is due,
gentlemen, that you won't take me for quite the man up here, where
all's strange, to what I am down there, where I'm in my element and on
my own ground. And I would further submit, under the head of all
parties at Rodhaven, that there may be a bit of malice behind their
report."

"What malice could there possibly be? They appear to have shown an
inclination to pass over the whole matter."

"Only if I took a black mark, sir. That's where the shoe pinched with
me, sir--and perhaps with them too. They mayn't have been best pleased
when I asked to have _your_ decision over theirs."

Then the Colonel spoke instead of Sir John.

"But apart from Rodhaven, we have evidence against you from the
village. Your neighbors, Mr. Dale, complain more forcibly than anybody
else."

"Is that so?" Dale felt as if he had received a wickedly violent blow
in the dark. "Of course," and he moved his hands spasmodically--"Of
course I've long expected I'd enemies." Then he snorted. "But I
suppose, sir, you're alluding now to a certain Member of Parliament
whose name I needn't mention."

"Yes, I allude to him, and to others--to several others."

"If some have spoken against me, there's a many more would have spoken
for me."

"But they have not done so," said the Colonel dryly.

For a moment Dale's mental distress was so acute that his ideas seemed
to blend in one vast confused whirl. Some answer was imperatively
necessary, and no answer could evolve itself. Hesitation would be
interpreted as the sign of a guilty conscience. And in this dreadful
arrest of his faculties, the sense of bodily fatigue accentuated
itself till it seemed that it would absolutely crush him.

"Gentlemen, as I was venturing to say--" Really the pause had been
imperceptible: "From the vicar downwards, there's many would have
spoke to my credit--if I'd asked them. And I did not ask them--and for
why?"

"Well, why?"

"Because," said Dale, with a brave effort, "I relied implicitly on the
fair play that would be meted out here. From the hour I knew I was to
be heard at headquarters, I said this is now between me and
headquarters, and I don't require any one--be it the highest in the
land--coming between us."

"Ah, I understand," said the Colonel, with great politeness.

"Such was my confident feeling, sir--my full confidence that, having
heard me, you'd bear me out as doing my duty, and no more nor no less
than my duty."

Yet, even as he said so, his whole brain seemed as if fumes from some
horrid corrosive acid were creeping through and through it. In truth,
all his confidence had gone, and only his courage remained. These men
were hostile to him; they had prejudged him; their deadly politeness
and their airs of suave impartiality could not conceal their
abominable intentions. He had trusted them, and they were going to
show themselves unworthy of trust.

"Gentlemen," he said the word very loudly, and again there came the
check to the sequence of his ideas. In another whirl of thought he
remembered those courtyards at the Abbey House, the loyal service of
his wife's family, the great personage who might have spoken up for
him. Oh, why hadn't he allowed Mavis to write a second time imploring
aid? "Gentlemen--" He echoed the word twice, and then was able to go
on. "My desire has ever bin to conduct the service smooth and
expeditious, and in strict accordance with the regulations--more
particularly as set out in the manual, which I can truly
ass-ass-assev'rate that I read more constant and careful than what I
do the Bible."

He knew that the crisis was close upon him. Now or never he must speak
the words that should convince and prevail; and instinct told him
that he would speak in vain. Nevertheless, he succeeded in stimulating
himself adequately for the last great effort. He would fight game and
he would die game.

"If," he said stoutly, "I am at liberty now to make my plain statement
of the facts, I do so. It was seven-thirty-five P.M. Miss Yorke was at
the instrument. I was here"--and he moved a step away. "The soldier
was there;" and he pointed. "The soldier began his audacity by--"

"But, good gracious," said Sir John, "you are going back to the very
beginning."

"For your proper understanding," said Dale, with determination, "I
must commence at the commencement. If, as promised, I am to be
heard--"

"But you _have_ been heard."

"Your pardon, sir. You have examined me, but I have made no
statement."

"Oh, very well." Sir John, as well as the other two, assumed an
attitude of patient boredom. "Fire ahead, then, Mr. Dale."

And, bowing, Dale plunged into his long-pondered oration. Their three
faces told him that he was failing. Not a single point seemed to
score. He was muddled, hopeless, but still brave. He struggled on
stanchly. With a throbbing at his temples, a prickly heat on his
chest, a clammy coldness in his spine--with his voice sounding harsh
and querulous, or dull and faint--with the sense that all the
invisible powers of evil had combined to deride, to defeat, and to
destroy him--he struggled on toward the bitterly bitter end of his
ordeal.

He had nearly got there, was just reaching his man-to-man finale, when
the judges cut him short.

"One moment, Mr. Dale."

The nice young man had come in, and was talking both to Sir John and
the Colonel.

"Thank you. Just for a moment."

Of his own accord Dale had gone back to the window.

It was all over. Never mind about the end of the speech. Nothing could
have been gained by saying it. The tension of his nerves relaxed, and
a wave of sick despair came rolling upward from viscera to brain. He
knew now with absolute certainty that right was going to count for
nothing; no justice existed in the world; these men were about to
decide against him.

"Yes,"--and the young man laughed genially--"he said I was to offer
his apologies."

Dale listened to the conversation at the table without attempting to
understand it. Somebody, as he gathered dully, was demanding an
interview. But the interruption could make no difference. It was all
over.

"He said he wouldn't take 'No' for an answer."

Then they all laughed; and Sir John said to the young man, "Very well.
Ask him in."

The young man went out, leaving the door open; and Dale saw that the
secretary had risen and brought another chair to the table. Then
footsteps sounded in the corridor, and Sir John and the Colonel
smilingly turned their eyes toward the open doorway. Dale, turning his
eyes in the same direction, started violently.

The newcomer was Mr. Barradine.

He shook hands with the gentlemen at the table, who had both got up
to receive him; he talked to them pleasantly and chaffingly, and there
was more laughter; then he nodded to Dale; then he said he was much
obliged to the secretary for giving him the chair, and then he sat
down.

Dale's thoughts were like those of a drowning sailor, when through the
darkness and the storm he hears the voice of approaching aid. He had
been going down in the deep, cruel waters, with the longed-for lights
of home, the adored face of his wife, the dreaded gates of hell, all
dancing wildly before his eyes--and now. Breath again, hope again,
life again.

He listened, but did not trouble to understand. It was dreamlike,
glorious, sublime. The illustrious visitor had alluded to the fact
that Jack, the nice young man, was a connection of his; and had
explained that, hearing from Jack of to-day's appointment, he
determined to go right down there and beard the lions in their den. He
had also spoken of a nephew of Sir John's, who was coming to have a
bang at the Abbey partridges in September. He further reminded the
Colonel that he did not consider himself a stranger, because they used
to meet often at such and such a place. He also asked if the Colonel
kept up his riding. Now, without any change of tone, he was talking of
the case.

And Dale, watching, felt as if his whole heart had been melted, and as
if it was streaming across the room in a warm vapor of gratitude.

"My interest," said Mr. Barradine, "is simply public spirit; although
it is quite true that I know Mr. Dale personally. Indeed, he and his
wife have been friends with me and my family for more years than I
care to count."

Dale caught his breath and coughed. He was almost overwhelmed by the
noble turn of that last phrase. Friends! Nothing more, and nothing
less. Not patron and dependents, but friends.

"And, of course," Mr. Barradine was saying, "I want my friend to come
out of it all right--as I honestly believe he deserves to come out of
it."

Dale felt himself on the verge of breaking down and sobbing. His
strength had gone long ago, and now all his courage went too. With his
gratitude there mingled a cowardly joy that he had not been left to
fight things out alone and be beaten, that succor had come at the
supreme moment. Ardently admiring as well as fervently thanking, he
watched the friend in need, the splendid ally, the only agent of
Providence that could have saved him.

Who would not admire such a prince?

He was old and big, and though rather frail, yet so magnificently
grand. His costume was of the plainest character--black satin
neck-scarf tied negligently, with a pearl pin stuck through it anyhow,
a queer sort of black pea-jacket with braid on its edges, square-toed
patent-leather boots with white spats--and, nevertheless, he seemed to
be dressed as sumptuously as if he had been wearing all the gold and
glitter of his Privy Councilor's uniform. His face seemed to Dale like
the mask of a Roman emperor--a high-bridged delicate nose, thin gray
hair combed back from a low forehead, a ridge like a straight bar
above the tired eyes and a puffiness of flesh below them, a moustache
that showed the lose curves of the mouth, and a small pointed beard
that perhaps concealed an unbeautiful protrusion of the chin. His
voice, so calm, so evenly modulated, had been trained in the senate
and the palace. His attitude, his manner, his freedom from gesture
and emphasis, all indicated a born ruler as well as a born aristocrat.
Was it likely that when _he_ spoke he would fail?

Already he had swung the balance. Dale could see that he would not be
resisted. And as the great man sat talking--chatting, one might almost
term it--he seemed to be taking out of the atmosphere every element of
discomfort, all the passionate excitement, the hot throbs of
indignation, the cold tremors of fear. Dale felt his muscles
recovering tone, his legs stiffening themselves, his blood circulating
richly and freely.

"You have here," said Mr. Barradine, "a man of unblemished reputation,
who, acting obviously from conscientious motives, has in the exercise
of his judgment done so and so. Now, admitting for the sake of
argument, that he has done wrong, are you to punish him for an error
of judgment? We do not, however, admit that it was an error."...

Dale looked dogged and stern. He had been on the point of saying, "I
never will admit it;" but the words would not come out. He must not
interrupt. This was Heaven-sent advocacy.

Mr. Barradine went on quietly and grandly. In truth what he said now
was almost what had been said by the authorities at Rodhaven--good
intentions, over-zeal, a mistake, if you care to call it so;--but from
these lips it fell on Dale's ear as soothing music. Mr. Barradine
might say whatever he pleased: and the man he was defending would not
object.

"And now if I show the edge of the little private ax that I myself
have to grind!" Mr. Barradine laughed. They all laughed. "Our
member--we agree in politics; but, well, you know, he and I do not
altogether hit it off. We are both of us getting older than we
were--and perhaps we both suffer from swollen head. It's the
prevailing malady of the period."

Sir John laughed gaily. "I don't think you show any marked symptoms of
it. But I can't answer for what's-his-name."

"Well;" and Mr. Barradine made his first gesture--just a wave of the
right hand. "One can't have two kings at Brentford. And honestly I
shall feel that you have given me a smack in the face, if--"

"Oh, my dear sir!"

Then they sent Dale out of the room. Really it seemed that they had
forgotten his presence, or they might have banished him before. It was
the Colonel who suddenly appeared to remember that he was still
standing over there by the window.

He waited in a large empty room, and the time passed slowly. It was
the luncheon hour, and far and near he heard the footsteps of clerks
going to and coming from the midday meal. Bigwigs no doubt would take
their luncheon privately, in small groups, here and there, all over
the building. He too was getting very hungry.

An hour passed, an hour and a half, two hours; and then he was again
summoned to the other room. There was no one in it except the
secretary--looking hot and red after a copious repast, speaking
jovially and familiarly, and seeming altogether more common and less
important than when under the restraining influence of bigwigs.

"Ah, here you are." And he chuckled amicably, and gave Dale a roguish
nod. "You've had your wires pulled A1 for you. It's decided to stretch
a point in your favor. Not to make a secret, they don't wish to run
counter to Mr. B.'s wishes. You have been lucky, Mr. Dale, in having
him behind you."

Dale gulped, but did not say anything.

"Very well. I am to inform you that you will be reinstated; but--in
order to allow the talk to blow over--you will not resume your duties
for a fortnight. You will take a fortnight's holiday--from now--on
full pay."

Dale said nothing. He could have said so much. At this moment he felt
that his victory had been intrinsically a defeat. But the strength had
gone from him; and in its place there was only joy--weak but immense
joy in the knowledge that all had ended happily. And the world would
say that he had won.

V

Outside in the streets his joy increased. Nothing had mattered.
Beneath all surface sensations there was the deep fundamental rapture:
as of a wild animal that has been caught, and is now loose and free--a
squirrel that has escaped from the trap, and, whisking and bounding
through sunlight and shadow, understands that its four paws are still
under it, and that only a little of its fur is left in those iron
teeth. Security after peril--articulate man or dumb brute, can one
taste a fuller bliss?

But he must share and impart it. Mavis! He might not go dashing back
to Hampshire--the fortnight's exile prevented him from joining her
there. A broad grin spread across his face. What was that learned
saying that his old schoolmaster, Mr. Fenley, used to be so fond of
repeating? "If Mahomet can not go to the mountain, the mountain must
come to Mahomet."

The memory of this classical quotation tickled him, and he went
chuckling into the Cannon Street post office and wrote out a
telegraph-form.

"Reinstatement. Come at once. Shall expect you this evening without
fail."

Having sent off the telegram, he presently ordered his dinner in the
grill-room of a Ludgate Hill restaurant.

"Yes, let's see your notion of a well-cooked rumpsteak. And I'll try
some of the famous lager beer.... Oh, bottle or draught's all one to
me;" and he snapped his fingers and laughed. "Now, sharp's the word,
Mister waiter. I'm fairly famished."

The lager beer, served in a glass vase, was delicious--sunbeams
distilled to make a frothing and unheady nectar. The grilled steak and
the fried potatoes could not have been better done at the Buckingham
Palace kitchens. Never for three weeks had food tasted like this. All
had been dust and ashes in his mouth since the row began.

Then with appetite satisfied and digestion beginning, he smoked.

"If you've anything in the shape of a really good threepenny cigar, I
can do with it. But don't fob me off with any poor trash. For I've my
pipe in my pocket."

The waiter said he had a truly splendid threepenny; and Dale, enjoying
it, talked to the waiter. He could not help talking; he could not help
laughing. After so much silence it was a treat to hear the sound of
his own loud, jolly voice, and he gave himself the treat freely.

"You're from the country, sir," said the waiter, politely.

"Yes, bull's eye," said Dale, with boisterous good-humor. "Hand him
out a cokernut. But may I ask how you guessed my place of origin so
pat?"

"Well, sir. I don't know, sir. Haven't had you here before, I think."

"Oh, you're very clever, you Londoners. I don't doubt you can all see
through a brick wall. Yes, I'm from the country--but I'm beginning to
know my way about the town too. Ever bin on a steamboat to Rodhaven?"

"Rodhaven? No, sir."

Then Dale told the waiter about the heaths and downs and woods that
lie between Rodhaven and Old Manninglea.

"Prettiest part of the world that I know of," he said proudly. "You
spend your next holiday there. Take the four-horse sharrybank from
Rodhaven pier--and when you get to the Roebuck at Rodchurch, you get
off of the vehicle and ask for the Postmaster."

"Yes, sir?"

"He won't eat you," and Dale laughed with intense enjoyment of his
humor. "He's not a bad chap really, though his neighbors say he's a
bit of a Tartar. I give you my word he'll receive you, decently, and
stand you dinner into the bargain. I know he will--and for why?
Because I am that gentleman myself."

He could not resist the pleasure of rounding off his sentence with the
grand word "Gentleman," and he was gratified by the waiter's meekly
obsequious reception of the word.

"Thank you, sir. Much obliged, sir."

When leaving, he gave the waiter a generous tip.

To-day his walk through the gaily-crowded streets was sweet to him as
a lazy truant ramble in the woods during church-time. Everything that
he looked at delighted him--the richness of shop-windows, showing all
the expensive useless goods that no sensible person ever wants; the
liveries worn by pampered servants standing at carriage wheels; the
glossy coats of mettlesome, prancing horses; the extravagant dresses
of fine ladies mincingly walking on the common public pavement; the
stolid grandeur of huge policemen, and the infinite audacity of small
newspaper boys; the life, the color, the noise. It seemed as if the
busy city and the pleasure-loving West-end alike unfolded themselves
as a panorama especially arranged for one's amusement; and his
satisfaction was so great that it mutely expressed itself in words
which he would have been quite willing to shout aloud. Such as:
"Bravo, London! You aren't a bad little place when one gets to know
you. There's more in you than meets the eye, first view."

And because he was so happy himself, he could sympathize with the
happiness of everybody else. He was glad that the rich people were so
rich and the poor people so contented; he admired a young swell for
buying flowers from a woman with a shawl over her head; he mused on
all the honest, well-paid toil that had gone to the raising of the
grapes and peaches at a Piccadilly fruiterer's. "Live, and let
live"--that's a good motto all the world over. When he saw babies in
perambulators, he would have liked to kiss them. When he saw an
elderly man with a pretty young woman, he wanted to nudge him and say
jocosely, "You're in luck, old chap, aren't you?" When couples of boy
and girl lovers went whispering by, he smiled sentimentally. "That's
right. You can't begin too soon. Never mind what Ma says. If you like
him, stick to him, lassie."

And though still alone, he felt no loneliness. His own dear companion
was soon coming to him. Throughout the walk the only thoughts tinged
with solemnity were those which sprang from his always deepening
gratitude to Mr. Barradine. He wanted to pay a ceremonious call for
the purpose of expressing his thanks, and he felt that he should do
this immediately; but for the life of him he could not remember
whether the great man's London house was situated in Grosvenor Square
or Grosvenor Place. Mavis of course would know. Or he could find out
from one of these policemen. He hesitated, and it was the state of his
collar that decided him. He would postpone the visit of gratitude, and
do it first thing to-morrow morning in a clean collar.

The hall clock at his lodgings announced the hour as close on five,
and he mentally noted that the timepiece was inaccurate--three and a
half minutes behind Greenwich. As usual, the hall was untenanted, with
no servant to answer questions. He searched the dark recesses of a
dirty letter-rack, on the chance that he might find a telegram from
his wife waiting for him. Then he went gaily up the interminable
staircase, making nothing now of its five flights, enjoying their
steepness as productive of agreeable exercise.

"Hulloa!" he muttered. "What's this?"

A woman's hat and parasol were lying on a chair, and there was a
valise on the floor by the chest of drawers. Turning, he gave a cry of
delight. Mavis was stretched on the bed, fast asleep.

She woke at the sound of his voice, scrambled down, and flung herself
into his arms.

"Will, oh, Will. My dearest Will!

"My darling--my little sweetheart. But how have you come to me--have
you flown?"

"Don't be silly."

He was devouring her face with his kisses, straining her to his breast
in a paroxysm of pleasure, almost suffocating himself and her in the
ardor of the embrace, and jerking out his words as though they were
gasps for breath.

"When did you get my wire? Why, it's impossible. I on'y wired
two-forty-three. Is it witchcraft or just a dream?"

"Did you wire? I never got it. I was so anxious that I couldn't stay
there any longer without news. So I just packed and came. Will--be
sensible. Tell me everything."

"Best of news! Reinstated!" He bellowed the glad tidings over her
head. She was all warm and palpitating in his arms, her dear body so
delicate and fragile and yet so round and firm, her dear face soft and
smooth, with lips that trembled and smelled like garden flowers.

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