Fallen Into the Pit

Three

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The chairman of the magistrates was Selwyn Blunden, the old man himself, Charles’s father. He behaved admirably, eliciting, as on the bench he frequently did, some less obvious aspects of what on the face of it was a simple case. As a result of which astute activities, the bench discharged Jim Tugg on payment of costs, and with a warning against taking the law into his own hands. His previous unspotted record of civic usefulness, especially his war reputation, stood firmly by him; his plea of guilty, which spared everybody the trouble of lengthy evidence, did him no harm. Even Helmut’s able display of hunted and frustrated good intentions, his portrait of a misunderstood young stranger in a very strange land, did not appear completely to convince Blunden. He delivered a short but pointed lecture on the responsibilities of an ex-P.O.W. to a country which had made repeated efforts to find a niche for him. It had been a generous gesture on the part of Hollins, said the chairman, to take him in after a previous conviction, and it could not be accepted that the failure of the experiment was due only to Tugg; it would appear that something in the nature of a special effort was now required from Helmut himself, if he was to remain persona grata in this country.

Afterwards he admitted to George that he had some qualms about Helmut. Maybe the difficulties of his position had not been sufficiently appreciated. Maybe England still owed him one more chance; but how was it to be arranged, in order to protect both parties? People must be a little tired of taking risks on Helmut.

“To tell the truth,” said the old man candidly, “I have a horror of doing the young wretch less than justice. Maybe I’m leaning over backwards to avoid it—I don’t know—if he were anything but German it would be easier to discount the feeling. But at any rate, I would like to see him have one more shot before we decide he’s quite irreconcilable.”

“The difficulty,” said George, “is what to do with him. He might have ideas himself, but I very much doubt it. I think he intends to be carried. He’ll work—oh, yes, everyone admits that!—but he won’t take one crumb of responsibility for himself if he can leave the load on us.”

Selwyn Blunden pondered, and stroked his broad brick-red forehead, from which the crisp gray hair had receded into a thick, ebbing wave. He was very like his son Charles; the authentic yeoman flavor, indefinably not quite county, glossed him over healthily and brightly, like a coat of tan. He was between sixty-five and seventy, but he still looked somewhere in the fifties, walking as straight as his son, carrying himself, thought George, rather like a retired general, if generals ever retired in such good condition. He had a beautiful big white moustache, behind which he was accustomed to retire when deep in thought, caressing it meanwhile with a large and well-shaped hand to enlarge the screened area.

“I could say a few words for him in quite a few directions,” he said thoughtfully, uttering no more than the truth, since he probably carried more influence than any other man in the district, “but I want to see him somewhere where he can’t do any more mischief—and not on false pretenses, either—must let ’em know what they’re biting off, whoever’s bold enough to take him on. Wouldn’t bother about him, as a matter of fact, only the fellow’s so young, after all.” He fingered the moustache’s gleaming curves, emerging from its shelter reluctantly. “Tell you what, I think the best bet might be the opencast contractors. Tough company there, all right, tough enough to hold him down, I should think. They’re still taking on men when they can get ’em, I’m told, and everybody admits the boy does at least work.”

“Seems to be his one virtue,” said George.

“Well, no harm in trying, at least. I’ll have a word with the contractor’s man, give him the facts straight, and we’ll see how he feels about it.” He frowned for a moment, and George guessed that he was thinking about the delicate matter of the appeal, still pending, still threatening the effectiveness of the unit’s operations in Comerford. “Hm! Equivocal position, very!” he said cryptically, but shook the embarrassment away from him with a twitch of his big shoulders and a flash of his old, bold blue eyes. Better-looking than Charles, on the whole; sharper-boned, more acid in him. “I’ll have a word with the young fellow, too,” he decided. “Might do more good in private. I don’t know—never been a P.O.W. myself—I dare say it does seem as if we’re all incurably against him.” He shook his head doubtfully, sadly but firmly, and marched away. It was curious that the back view of him undid some of the effect of talking to him face to face. His gait, after all, wasn’t so young; he bowed his shoulders a little, he leaned forward heavily. One was reminded that he was getting old, that he had had his reverses in his time. From behind it was possible to be sorry for the old man; from in front one wouldn’t dare.

When Bunty heard the story, her eyes opened wide, and she laughed, and said: “The cunning old devil!” almost in her son’s tone. “What effrontery!” she said, but with admiration rather than indignation. “He pretends it’s an embarrassing position for him, to have to approach those people when he’s doing his best to keep them off his own ground; but he knows jolly well they’ll jump to do as he asks them all the more eagerly, because they’ll think, if we oblige the old boy over this he can’t very well go on being awkward about the appeal. Maybe that would be their reaction, but it won’t be his. No amount of favors done for him could restrain him from being awkward where his own privilege is concerned, and they ought to have sense enough to know it by now. They’ll find out later!”

“He says he’s abiding by the result, bad or good,” said George, “and I believe he means it. The old chap’s getting a streak of fatalism in his latter years, and honestly, I don’t think he minds as much as he would have done ten years ago. The world’s changing, as he’s never tired of reminding us.”

“He’s fondest of reminding other people of that, though,” said Bunty, grinning. “He might not be so keen on having it pointed out to him.” She added, thoughtfully tossing the probabilities in her mind: “Bet you five bob, evens, Helmut gets taken on!”

George looked scandalized, pulled her hair, and told her she would get him into trouble yet. The truth was, as Bunty maintained, that he was afraid of losing his money. By and large, Blunden was the next thing to God around here.

However, he was absolutely frank with the agent in the little concrete hut office above the gouged-out valleys of the coal-site. The name of Gerd Hollins had not even been mentioned in court, but for all that, the old man had not missed her significance; and the story he told was the full story.

“I’m no racialist myself, thank God! But that boy’s had the principles drummed into him ever since he began school, I suppose, and we can hardly be surprised if he retains ’em still. Telling’s not much use to that kind of fellow. Now if you could surround him with Jews doing the same work, doing it better than he does, and well able to knock him down if he reverts to type—well, to my way of thinking it might be more effective. But that poor, well-meaning lady at the farm has had more trouble, I fancy, than she’s let anyone else know. Tugg has eyes, and a brain. I may be wrong! I may be quite wrong! But I fancy that’s very much what happened. A Jewess is still a Jewess to Helmut, and a Jewess going out of her way to be kind to him was asking to be trampled on.”

“That at least couldn’t happen here,” agreed the agent, watching him respectfully. He was a young, hard, experienced man, but he was not past being flattered; and besides, if the old boy could bring himself to ask favors, even in this fashion, he could be handled, he could be sweetened. Up to this they had had no direct contact, and men can keep up an enmity on paper which won’t survive the personal touch. “If he steps out of line here he’s liable to get hurt; and being that kind of chap, he’ll have gumption enough to size up the odds, and stay in line.”

“I can’t guarantee it, but I think he will. And the one good thing about him, as everyone agrees, is that he will work. Strong as a horse, willing, handy, even, in that way, entirely trustworthy. It’s an odd thing, that, but at any rate it gives one some hope of him. I tell you frankly, he’ll need keeping in his place; but duly kept there, he could be a useful man.”

He could, if he only managed to place the old fellow under a very small, but strongly binding, obligation. Costs on this site had been, to tell the truth, alarmingly high, and though the extended range was a desirable way of bringing them down, if Blundens were going to put all their weight into the appeal and fight every inch of the way, frankly it wasn’t going to be worthwhile pushing the matter. But if this tiny seed of love was going to stay the defending hand, ever so lightly, and let the thing go through in comparative peace, then it was going to be very well worth it. One hypothetically troublesome hand, thought the agent contentedly, was a very small price to pay for that consummation.

“All right!” he said, making his decision. “He can start, if the employment people O.K. it. We’ll make the experiment, at any rate. I take it he’ll want help with getting somewhere to lodge? There might be a vacancy where some of the men are staying. Anyhow, we can see to all that for him.”

He thought: This really ought to be worth a little goodwill. Hope the old boy appreciates it! And it appeared to him by small but gratifying signs—for of course one must not expect too much too soon—that the old boy did.

Helmut came, and it appeared that he did too, for a more anxiously accommodating, earnest, subdued young man had never been seen on the site. He had shrunk a little from his full size again, his face was tight shut and gray with reserve, he applied himself grimly to the safe outlet of work, picked up things very quickly, and heaved his weight into the job as if his life depended on it. Perhaps the old man, briefing him for this third onslaught on reconciliation, had succeeded in impressing on him the fact that, indeed, his life did depend on it.