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“To enjoy ourselves, you silly. You can’t have any fun without money. Why, when mamma dines at the Savoy and takes a party to the theater afterwards, it costs her as many pounds. I know, because I’ve seen the checks.”
“That has nothing to do with it. We can’t spend ten shillings here.”
“Oh, can’t we? You leave that to me. Mais, voyez-vous, imbécile, are you going to be nasty?” She halted and stamped an angry foot.
“No, I’m not; but – ”
“Then come on, stupid. I’m late as it is.”
“The stalls remain open until eleven.”
“Magnifique! What a row there’ll be if I have to knock to get in!”
Martin held his tongue. He resolved privately that Angèle should be home at nine, at latest, if he dragged her thither by main force. The affair promised difficulties. She was so intractable that a serious quarrel would result. Well, he could not help it. Better a lasting break than the wild hubbub that would spring up if they both remained out till the heinous hour she contemplated.
In the village they encountered Jim Bates and Evelyn Atkinson, surrounded by seven or eight boys and girls, for Jim was disposing rapidly of his six shillings, and Evelyn bestowed favor on him for the nonce.
“Hello! here’s Martin,” whooped Bates. “I thowt ye’d gone yam (home). Where hev ye – ”
Jim’s eloquence died away abruptly. He caught sight of Angèle and was abashed. Not so Evelyn.
“Martin’s been to fetch his sweetheart,” she said maliciously.
Angèle simpered sufficiently to annoy Evelyn. Then she laughed agreement.
“Yes. And won’t we have a time! Come on! Everybody have a ride.”
She sprang toward the horses. Martin alone followed.
“Come on!” she screamed. “Martin will pay for the lot. He has heaps of money.”
No second invitation was needed. Several times the whole party swung round with lively yelling. From the roundabouts they went to the swings; from the swings to the cocoanut shies. Here they were joined by the Beckett-Smythes, who endeavored promptly to assume the leadership.
Martin’s blood was fired by the contest. He was essentially a boy foredoomed to dominate his fellows, whether for good or evil. He pitched restraint to the winds. He could throw better than either of the young aristocrats; he could shoot straighter at the galleries; he could describe the heroic combat between the boxer and Velveteens; he would swing Angèle higher than any, until they looked over the crossbar after each giddy swirl.
The Beckett-Smythes kept pace with him only in expenditure, Jim Bates being quickly drained, and even they wondered how long the village lad could last.
The ten shillings were soon dissipated.
“I want that sovereign,” he shouted, when Angèle and he were riding together again on the hobby-horses.
“I told you so,” she screamed. She turned up her dress to extricate the money from a fold of her stocking. The light flashed on her white skin, and Frank Beckett-Smythe, who rode behind with one of the Atkinson girls, wondered what she was doing.
She bent over Martin and whispered:
“There are two! Keep the fun going!”
The young spark in the rear thought that she was kissing Martin; he was wild with jealousy. At the next show – that of a woman grossly fat, who allowed the gapers to pinch her leg at a penny a pinch – he paid with his last half-crown. When they went to refresh themselves on ginger-beer, Martin produced a sovereign. The woman who owned the stall bit it, surveyed him suspiciously, and tried to swindle him in the change. She failed badly.
“Eleven bottles at twopence and eleven cakes at a penny make two-and-nine. I want two more shillings, please,” he said coolly.
“Be aff wid ye! I gev ye seventeen and thruppence. If ye thry anny uv yer tricks an me I’ll be afther askin’ where ye got the pound.”
“Give me two more shillings, or I’ll call the police.”
Mrs. Maguire was beaten; she paid up.
The crowd left her, with cries of “Irish Molly!” “Where’s Mick?” and even coarser expressions. Angèle screamed at her:
“Why don’t you stick to ginger-beer? You’re muzzy.”
The taunt stung, and the old Irishwoman cursed her tormentor as a black-eyed little witch.
Angèle, seeing that Martin carried all before him, began straightway to flirt with the heir. At first the defection was not noted, but when she elected to sit by Frank while they watched the acrobats the new swain took heart once more and squeezed her arm.
Evelyn Atkinson, who was in a smiling temper, felt that a crisis might be brought about now. There was not much time. It was nearly ten o’clock, and soon her mother would be storming at her for not having taken herself and her sisters to bed, though, in justice be it said, the girls could not possibly sleep until the house was cleared.
Ernest Beckett-Smythe was her cavalier at the moment.
“We’ve seen all there is te see,” she whispered. “Let’s go and have a dance in our yard. Jim Bates can play a mouth-organ.”
Ernest was a slow-witted youth.
“Where’s the good?” he said. “There’s more fun here.”
“You try it, an’ see,” she murmured coyly.
The suggestion caught on. It was discussed while Martin and Jim Bates were driving a weight up a pole by striking a lever with a heavy hammer. Anything in the shape of an athletic feat always attracted Martin.
Angèle was delighted. She scented a row. These village urchins were imps after her own heart.
“Oh, let’s,” she agreed. “It’ll be a change. I’ll show you the American two-step.”
Frank had his arm around her waist now.
“Right-o!” he cried. “Evelyn, you and Ernest lead the way.”
The girl, flattered by being bracketed publicly with one of the squire’s sons, enjoined caution.
“Once we’re past t’ stables it’s all right,” she said. “I don’t suppose Fred’ll hear us, anyhow.”
Fred was at the front of the hotel watching the road, watching Kitty Thwaites as she flitted upstairs and down, watching George Pickering through the bar window, and grinning like a fiend when he saw that somewhat ardent wooer, hilarious now, but sober enough according to his standard, glancing occasionally at his watch.
There was a gate on each side of the hotel. That on the left led to the yard, with its row of stables and cart-sheds, and thence to a spacious area occupied by hay-stacks, piles of firewood, hen-houses, and all the miscellaneous lumber of an establishment half inn, half farm. The gate on the right opened into a bowling-green and skittle-alley. Behind these lay the kitchen garden and orchard. A hedge separated one section from the other, and entrance could be obtained to either from the back door of the hotel.
The radiance of a full moon now decked the earth in silver and black; in the shade the darkness was intense by contrast. The church clock struck ten.
Half a dozen youngsters crept silently into the stable yard. Angèle kicked up a dainty foot in a preliminary pas seul, but Evelyn stopped her unceremoniously. The village girl’s sharp ears had caught footsteps on the garden path beyond the hedge.
It was George Pickering, with his arm around Kitty’s shoulders. He was talking in a low tone, and she was giggling nervously.
“They’re sweetheartin’,” whispered a girl.
“So are we,” declared Frank Beckett-Smythe. “Aren’t we, Angèle?”
“Sapristi! I should think so. Where’s Martin?”
“Never mind. We don’t want him.”
“Oh, he will be furious. Let’s hide. There will be such a row when he goes home, and he daren’t go till he finds me.”
Master Beckett-Smythe experienced a second’s twinge at thought of the greeting he and his brother would receive at the Hall. But here was Angèle pretending timidity and cowering in his arms. He would not leave her now were he to be flayed alive.
The footsteps of Pickering and Kitty died away. They had gone into the orchard.
Evelyn Atkinson breathed freely again.
“Even if Kitty sees us now, I don’t care,” she said. “She daren’t tell mother, when she knows that we saw her and Mr. Pickerin’. He ought to have married her sister.”
“Poof!” tittered Angèle. “Who heeds a domestic?”
Someone came at a fast run into the yard, running in desperate haste, and making a fearful din. Two boys appeared. The leader shouted:
“Angèle! Angèle! Are you there?”
Martin had missed her. Jim Bates, who knew the chosen rendezvous of the Atkinson girls, suggested that they and their friends had probably gone to the haggarth.
“Shut up, you fool!” hissed Frank. “Do you want the whole village to know where we are?”
Martin ignored him. He darted forward and caught Angèle by the shoulder. He distinguished her readily by her outline, though she and the rest were hidden in the somber shadows of the outbuildings.
“Why did you leave me?” he demanded angrily. “You must come home at once. It is past ten o’clock.”
“Don’t be angry, Martin,” she pouted. “I am just a little tired of the noise. I want to show you and the rest a new dance.”
The minx was playing her part well. She had read Evelyn Atkinson’s soul. She felt every throb of young Beckett-Smythe’s foolish heart. She was quite certain that Martin would find her and cause a scene. There was deeper intrigue afoot now than the mere folly of unlicensed frolic in the fair. Her vanity, too, was gratified by the leading rôle she filled among them all. The puppets bore themselves according to their temperaments. Evelyn bit her lip with rage and nearly yielded to a wild impulse to spring at Angèle and scratch her face. Martin was white with determination. As for Master Frank, he boiled over instantly.
“You just leave her alone, young Bolland,” he said thickly. “She came here to please herself, and can stay here, if she likes. I’ll see to that.”
Martin did not answer.
“Angèle,” he said quietly, “come away.”
Seeing that he had lived in the village nearly all his life, it was passing strange that this boy should have dissociated himself so completely from its ways. But the early hours he kept, his love of horses, dogs, and books, his preference for the society of grooms and gamekeepers – above all, a keen, if unrecognized, love of nature in all her varying moods, an almost pagan worship of mountain, moor, and stream – had kept him aloof from village life. A boy of fourteen does not indulge in introspection. It simply came as a fearful shock to find the daughter of a lady like Mrs. Saumarez so ready to forget her social standing. Surely, she could not know what she was doing. He was undeceived, promptly and thoroughly.
Angèle snatched her shoulder from his grasp.
“Don’t you dare hold me,” she snapped. “I’m not coming. I won’t come with you, anyhow. Ma foi, Frank is far nicer.”
“Then I’ll drag you home,” said Martin.
“Oh, will you, indeed? I’ll see to that.”
Beckett-Smythe deemed Angèle a girl worth fighting for. In any case, this clodhopper who spent money like a lord must be taught manners.
Martin smiled. In his bemused brain the idea was gaining ground that Angèle would be flattered if he “licked” the squire’s son for her sake.
“Very well,” he said, stepping back into the moonlight. “We’ll settle it that way. If you beat me, Angèle remains. If I beat you, she goes home. Here, Jim. Hold my coat and hat. And, no matter what happens, mind you don’t play for any dancing.”
Martin stated terms and issued orders like an emperor. In the hour of stress he felt himself immeasurably superior to this gang of urchins, whether their manners smacked of Elmsdale or of Eton.
Angèle’s acquaintance with popular fiction told her that at this stage of the game the heroine should cling in tears to the one she loved, and implore him to desist, to be calm for her sake. But the riot in her veins brought a new sensation. There were possibilities hitherto unsuspected in the darkness, the secrecy, the candid brutality of the fight. She almost feared lest Beckett-Smythe should be defeated.
And how the other girls must envy her, to be fought for by the two boys pre-eminent among them, to be the acknowledged princess of this village carnival!
So she clapped her hands.
“O là là!” she cried. “Going to fight about poor little me! Well, I can’t stop you, can I?”
“Yes, you can,” said one.
“She won’t, anyhow,” scoffed the other. “Are you ready?”
“Quite!”
“Then ‘go.’”
And the battle began.
CHAPTER VI
WHEREIN THE RED BLOOD FLOWS
They fought like a couple of young bulls. Frank intended to demolish his rival at the outset. He was a year older and slightly heavier, but Martin was more active, more sure-footed, sharper of vision. Above all, he had laid to heart the three-pennyworth of tuition obtained in the boxing booth a few hours earlier.
He had noted then that a boxer dodged as many blows with his head as he warded with his arms. He grasped the necessity to keep moving, and thus disconcert an adversary’s sudden rush. Again, he had seen the excellence of a forward spring without changing the relative positions of the feet. Assuming you were sparring with the left hand and foot advanced, a quick jump of eighteen inches enabled you to get the right home with all your force. You must keep the head well back and the eye fixed unflinchingly on your opponent’s. Above all, meet offense with offense. Hit hard and quickly and as often as might be.
These were sound principles, and he proceeded to put them into execution, to the growing distress and singular annoyance of Master Beckett-Smythe.
Ernest acted as referee – in the language of the village, he “saw fair play” – but was wise enough to call “time” early in the first round, when his brother drew off after a fierce set-to. The forcing tactics had failed, but honors were divided. The taller boy’s reach had told in his favor, while Martin’s newly acquired science redressed the balance.
Martin’s lip was cut and there was a lump on his left cheek, but Frank felt an eye closing and had received a staggerer in the ribs. He was aware of an uneasy feeling that if Martin survived the next round he (Frank) would be beaten, so there was nothing for it but to summon all his reserves and deliver a Napoleonic attack. The enemy must be crushed by sheer force.
He was a plucky lad and was stung to frenzy by seeing Angèle offer Martin the use of a lace handkerchief for the bleeding lip, a delicate tenderness quietly repulsed.
So, when the rush came, Martin had to fight desperately to avoid annihilation. He was compelled to give way, and backed toward the hedge. Behind lay an unseen stackpole. At the instant when Beckett-Smythe lowered his head and endeavored to butt Martin violently in the stomach, the latter felt the obstruction with his heel. Had he lost his nerve then or flickered an eyelid, he would have taken a nasty fall and a severe shaking. As it was, he met the charge more than halfway, and delivered the same swinging upper stroke which had nearly proved fatal to his gamekeeper friend.
It was wholly disastrous to Beckett-Smythe. It caught him fairly on the nose, and, as the blow was in accord with the correct theory of dynamics as applied to forces in motion, it knocked him silly. His head flew up, his knees bent, and he dropped to the ground with a horrible feeling that the sky had fallen and that stars were sparkling among the rough paving-stones.
