I’ve ever wanted in my life. My upbringing was very strict and I’d never stolen so much as a peppermint bull’s-eye from anyone before, but I just had to have that fur even if hell’s flames had suddenly leapt up to get me from a crack in the floor. I bagged it and got pinched for shop-lifting.
‘Good Lord! How frightful for you!’ he exclaimed.
‘Yes it was grim—absolutely grim. But I escaped the worst, as Daddy was in Burma at the time and he never got to know. Anyhow, you’ll see now that I really do understand what you felt about the rum.’
He smiled. ‘It’s most awfully decent of you to tell me about your brainstorm so that I shan’t feel quite such a spineless fool. I don’t normally give way to my worst impulses and I’m sure you don’t either.’
‘Of course not.’ She passed her tongue over her dry lips. ‘We’re in a bad enough way without holding things up against each other. Let’s forget it.’
‘I wish I could, but it’s what followed that makes me feel so awful.’
‘You weren’t to know that your grabbing the rum would prove like putting a match to a powder-barrel.’
‘I ought to have thought of it. You see, I
did
know that the stokers were ripe for mutiny.’
‘Even so, father’s death was an accident. Nudäa swears by all his gods he was only holding the pistol as a threat and never meant to pull the trigger.’
Basil shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t give a bean for anything that slimy rascal says—or his gods. The fact is I was directly responsible for your father getting killed, and, believe me, I’m most desperately sorry.’
‘Why? You never liked him—did you?’
He turned and stared at her in surprise. ‘No, quite frankly, I did not. I’ve known lots of soldiers I do like—and admire, but your father got something in me on the raw. I may be entirely wrong, of course, but he seemed to me the absolute personification of the old style, pompous, narrow, self-opinionated martinet; the type that caused my older friends to hate and despise so many of the professional soldiers they met in the war. It’s not much fun, you know, for an intelligent young man to suddenly find himself under an ill-informed old bigot; particularly when he has to watch good lives being chucked away through his senior’s hidebound stupidity.…’
Basil broke off suddenly and mentally kicked himself for having expressed his views so freely. Unity was silent for a moment, and during it he was so horribly conscious of the ill return he had made to her generous gesture of coming over to rehabilitate him in his self-esteem.
At last she said very quietly: ‘You’re quite right, and
since
we’re being so frank I’ll tell you something. You’ll probably think it horrible of me to admit it, but he was all you say. Worse, he was not only stupid but mean and beastly. If you want the truth, I hated him more than any man I’ve ever met.’
Suppressing an exclamation, Basil sat quite still. It occurred to him that the heat had got her or that brooding on their desperate situation had already turned her brain, but he was soon convinced of her normality by the sober bitterness which throbbed in her low voice as she went on:
‘“Daddy knows best, my dear!” That was his parrot cry. “Daddy knows best.” I could have screamed sometimes when he brought out that unctuous anachronism as the invariable last word in any argument. He hadn’t imbibed a new idea since he left Sandhurst. Even the war taught him nothing. For him the world was still peopled with only two sorts of men—gentlemen and cads. That’s why your baiting in the saloon of the ship used to drive him into such a frenzy. You’re so obviously the kind of young man his snob mind would place in the category of “gent”; yet you mocked at the old school tie business and all the ballyhoo he held sacred, just as though you were the most utter “cad”. There were times when I’d have given anything to back you up.’
‘I wish
‘Good Lord! How frightful for you!’ he exclaimed.
‘Yes it was grim—absolutely grim. But I escaped the worst, as Daddy was in Burma at the time and he never got to know. Anyhow, you’ll see now that I really do understand what you felt about the rum.’
He smiled. ‘It’s most awfully decent of you to tell me about your brainstorm so that I shan’t feel quite such a spineless fool. I don’t normally give way to my worst impulses and I’m sure you don’t either.’
‘Of course not.’ She passed her tongue over her dry lips. ‘We’re in a bad enough way without holding things up against each other. Let’s forget it.’
‘I wish I could, but it’s what followed that makes me feel so awful.’
‘You weren’t to know that your grabbing the rum would prove like putting a match to a powder-barrel.’
‘I ought to have thought of it. You see, I
did
know that the stokers were ripe for mutiny.’
‘Even so, father’s death was an accident. Nudäa swears by all his gods he was only holding the pistol as a threat and never meant to pull the trigger.’
Basil shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t give a bean for anything that slimy rascal says—or his gods. The fact is I was directly responsible for your father getting killed, and, believe me, I’m most desperately sorry.’
‘Why? You never liked him—did you?’
He turned and stared at her in surprise. ‘No, quite frankly, I did not. I’ve known lots of soldiers I do like—and admire, but your father got something in me on the raw. I may be entirely wrong, of course, but he seemed to me the absolute personification of the old style, pompous, narrow, self-opinionated martinet; the type that caused my older friends to hate and despise so many of the professional soldiers they met in the war. It’s not much fun, you know, for an intelligent young man to suddenly find himself under an ill-informed old bigot; particularly when he has to watch good lives being chucked away through his senior’s hidebound stupidity.…’
Basil broke off suddenly and mentally kicked himself for having expressed his views so freely. Unity was silent for a moment, and during it he was so horribly conscious of the ill return he had made to her generous gesture of coming over to rehabilitate him in his self-esteem.
At last she said very quietly: ‘You’re quite right, and
since
we’re being so frank I’ll tell you something. You’ll probably think it horrible of me to admit it, but he was all you say. Worse, he was not only stupid but mean and beastly. If you want the truth, I hated him more than any man I’ve ever met.’
Suppressing an exclamation, Basil sat quite still. It occurred to him that the heat had got her or that brooding on their desperate situation had already turned her brain, but he was soon convinced of her normality by the sober bitterness which throbbed in her low voice as she went on:
‘“Daddy knows best, my dear!” That was his parrot cry. “Daddy knows best.” I could have screamed sometimes when he brought out that unctuous anachronism as the invariable last word in any argument. He hadn’t imbibed a new idea since he left Sandhurst. Even the war taught him nothing. For him the world was still peopled with only two sorts of men—gentlemen and cads. That’s why your baiting in the saloon of the ship used to drive him into such a frenzy. You’re so obviously the kind of young man his snob mind would place in the category of “gent”; yet you mocked at the old school tie business and all the ballyhoo he held sacred, just as though you were the most utter “cad”. There were times when I’d have given anything to back you up.’
‘I wish
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