supper, Andy," said Jack Rock.
"Sorry, Jack. I would have come if I'd been free. But – "
"Well, where were you?"
There was no help for it.
"I was dining out, Jack."
Andy's tone became as airy as he could make it, as careless, as natural. His effort in this kind was not a great success.
"Harry Belfield asked me to Halton."
A short silence followed. They were good fellows, one and all of them; nobody had a jibe for him; the envy, if envy there were, was even as his own for Harry Belfield. Cox looked round and raised his glass.
"'Ere's to you, Andy! You went to the war, you went to foreign parts. If you've learned a bit and got on a bit, nobody in Meriton's goin' to grudge it you – least of all them as knew your good father, who was a gentleman if ever there was one – and I've known some of the best, consequent on my business layin' mainly with 'orses."
"Dined at Halton, did you?" Old Jack Rock beamed, then suddenly grew thoughtful.
"Well, of course, I've always known Harry Belfield, and – " He was apologizing.
"The old gentleman used to dine there – once a year reg'lar," Jack reminded him. "Quite right of 'em to keep it up with you." But still Jack looked thoughtful.
Eleven-thirty sounded from the squat tower of the long low church which presided over the west end – the Fyfold end – of High Street. Old Cox knocked out his pipe decisively. "Bedtime!" he pronounced.
Nobody contested the verdict. Only across Andy's mind flitted an outlandish memory that it was the hour at which one sat down to supper at the great restaurant – with Harry, the Nun, sardonic Miss Dutton, Billy Foot, and London at large – and at liberty.
"You stop a bit, my lad," said Jack with affection, also with a touch of old-time authority. "I've something to say to you, Andy."
Andy stayed willingly enough; he liked Jack, and he was loth to end that day.
Jack filled and pressed, lit, pressed, and lit again, a fresh clay pipe.
"You like all that sort of thing, Andy?" he asked. "Oh, you know what I mean – what you've been doin' to-day."
"Yes, I like it, Jack." Andy saw that his dear old friend – dear Nancy's brother – had something of moment on his mind.
"But it don't count in the end. It's not business, Andy." Jack's tone had become, suddenly and strangely, persuasive, reasonably persuasive – almost what one might call coaxing.
"I've never considered it in the light of business, Jack."
"Don't let it turn you from business, Andy. You said the timber was worth about two hundred a year to you?"
"About that; it'll be more – or less – before I'm six months older. It's sink or swim, you know."
"You've no call to sink," said Jack Rock with emphasis. "Your father's son ain't goin' to sink while Jack Rock can throw a lifebelt to him."
"I know, Jack. I'd ask you for half your last crust, and you'd soak it in milk for me as you used to – if you had to steal the milk! But – well, what's up?"
"I'm gettin' on in life, boy. I've enough to do with the horses. I do uncommon well with the horses. I've a mind to give myself to that. Not but what I like the meat. Still I've a mind to give myself to the horses. The meat's worth – Oh, I'll surprise you, Andy, and don't let it go outside o' this room – the meat's worth nigh on five hundred a year! Aye, nigh on that! The chilled meat don't touch me much, nor the London stores neither. Year in, year out, nigh on five hundred! Nancy loved you; the old gentleman never said a word as showed he knew a difference between me and him. Though he must have known it. I'm all alone, Andy. While I can I'll keep the horses – Lord, I love the horses! You drop your timber. Take over the meat, Andy. You're a learnin' chap; you'll soon pick it up from me and Simpson. Take over the meat, Andy. It's a safe five hundred a year!"
So he pleaded to have his great benefaction accepted. He had meant to give in a manner perhaps somewhat magnificent; what he gave was to him great. The news of tea and tennis at Nutley, of dinner at Halton, induced a new note. Proud still, yet he pleaded. It was a fine business – the meat! Nor chilled meat, nor stores mattered seriously; his connection was so high-class. Five hundred a year! It was luxury, position, importance; it was all these in Meriton. His eyes waited anxiously for Andy's answer.
Andy caught his hand across the table. "Dear old Jack, how splendid of you!"
"Well, lad?"
For the life of him Andy could say nothing more adequate, nothing less disappointing, less ungrateful, than "I'd like to think it over. And thanks, Jack!"
Chapter VII
ENTERING FOR THE RACE
Andy Hayes had never supposed that he would be the victim of a problem, or exposed to the necessity of a momentous choice. Life had hitherto been very simple to him – doing his work, taking his pay, spending the money frugally and to the best advantage, sparing a small percentage for the Savings Bank, and reconciling with this programme the keen enjoyment of such leisure hours as fell to his lot. A reasonable, wholesome, manageable scheme of life! Or, rather, not a scheme at all – Andy was no schemer. That was the way life came – the way an average man saw it and accepted it. From first to last he never lost the conception of himself as an average man, having his capabilities, yet strictly conditioned by the limits of the practicable; free in his soul, by no means perfectly free in his activities. Andy never thought in terms of "environment" or such big words, but he always had a strong sense of what a fellow like himself could expect; the two phrases may, perhaps, come to much the same thing.
In South Africa he had achieved his sergeant's stripes – not a commission, nor the Victoria Cross, nor anything brilliant. In Canada he had not become a millionaire, nor even a prosperous man or a dashing speculator; he had been thought a capable young fellow, who would, perhaps, be equal to developing the English side of the business. Andy might be justified in holding himself no fool: he had no ground for higher claims, no warrant for anything like ambition.
Thus unaccustomed to problems, he had expected to toss uneasily (he had read of many heroes who "tossed uneasily") on his bed all night through. Lawn-tennis and a good dinner saved him from that romantic but uncomfortable ordeal; he slept profoundly till eight-thirty. Just before he was called – probably between his landlady's knock and her remark that it was eight-fifteen (she was late herself) – he had a brief vivid dream of selling a very red joint of beef to a very pallid Vivien Wellgood – a fantastic freak of the imagination which could have nothing to do with the grave matter in hand.
Yet, on the top of this, as he lay abed awhile in the leisure of Sunday morning, with no train to catch, he remembered his father's B.A. Oxon; he recalled his mother's unvarying designation of old Jack as "the butcher;" he recollected Nancy's pride in marrying "out of her class" – it had been her own phrase, sometimes in boast, sometimes in apology. Though Nancy had a dowry of a hundred pounds a year – charged on the business, and now returned to Jack Rock since Nancy left no children – she never forgot that she had married out of her class. And into his father's? And into his own? "I'm a snob!" groaned Andy.
He grew a little drowsy again, and in his drowsiness again played tennis at Nutley, again dined at Halton, again saw Vivien in the butcher's shop, and again was told by Mr. Belfield not to undervalue
