Part 38 (1/2)
CHAPTER XXIV
HOW MAJOR ROPER MET THAT BOY, AND GOT UPSTAIRS AT BALL STREET. AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN ASTHMA AND BRONCHITIS. HOW SALLY PINIONED THE PURPLE VETERAN, AND THERE WAS NO BOY. HOW THE GOVERNOR DONE h.o.a.rCKIN', AND GOT QUALIFIED FOR A SUBJECT OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Old Jack's powers of self-delusion were great indeed if, when he started on his short journey, he really believed the fog had mended. At least, it was so dense that he might never have found his way without a.s.sistance. This he met with in the shape of a boy with a link, whom Sally at once identified from his description, given when the Major had succeeded in getting up the stairs and was resting in the sitting-room near the old sabre on the wall, wiping his eyes after his effort.
Colonel Lund was half-unconscious after a bad attack, and it was best not to disturb him. Fenwick had not returned, and no one was very easy about him. But every one affirmed the reverse, and joined in a sort of Creed to the effect that the fog was clearing. It wasn't and didn't mean to for some time. But the unanimity of the creed fortified the congregation, as in other cases. No two believers doubted it at once, just as no two Alpine climbers, strung together on the moraine of a glacier, lose their foothold at the same time.
”I know that boy,” said Sally. ”His nose twists, and gives him a presumptuous expression, and he has a front tooth out and puts his tongue through. Also his trousers are tied on with strings.”
”Everlastin' young beggar, if ever there was one,” says the old soldier, in a lucid interval when speech is articulate. But he is allowing colloquialism to run riot over meaning. No everlasting person can ever have become part of the past if you think of it. He goes on to say that the boy has had twopence and is to come back for fourpence in an hour, or threepence if you can see the gas-lamps, because then a link will be superfluous. Sally recognises the boy more than ever.
”I wonder,” she says, ”if he's waiting outside. Because the party of the house might allow him inside. Do you think I could ask, mother?”
”You might _try_, kitten,” is the reply, not given sanguinely. And Sally goes off, benevolent. ”Even when your trousers are tied up with string, a fog's a fog,” says she to herself.
”I knoo our friend Lund first of all....” Thus the Major, nodding towards the bedroom door.... ”Why, G.o.d bless my soul, ma'am, I knew Lund first of all, forty-six years ago in Delhi. Forty--six--years!
And all that time, if you believe me, he's been the same obstinate moole. Never takin' a precaution about anythin', nor listening to a word of advice!” This is about as far as he can go without a choke.
Rosalind goes into the next room to get a tumbler of water. The nurse, who is sitting by the fire, nods towards the bed, and Rosalind goes close to it to hear. ”What is it, dear?” She speaks to the invalid as to a little child.
”Isn't that Old Jack choking? I know his choke. What does he come out for in weather like this? What does he mean? Send him back.... No, send him in here.” The nurse puts in a headshake as protest. But for all that, Sally finds, when she returns, that the two veterans are contending together against their two enemies, bronchitis and asthma, with the Intelligence Department sadly interrupted, and the enemy in possession of all the advantageous points.
”He oughtn't to try to talk,” says Rosalind. ”But he will.” She and Sally and the nurse sit on in the fog-bound front room. The gas-lights have no heart in them, and each wears a nimbus. Rosalind wishes Gerry would return, aloud. Sally is buoyant about him; _he's_ all right, trust _him_! What about the everlasting young beggar?
”I persuaded Mrs. Kindred,” says Sally. ”And we looked outside for him, and he'd gone.”
”Fancy a woman being named Kindred!”
”When people are so genteel one can believe anything! But what do you think the boy's name is?... Chancellors.h.i.+p! Isn't that queer? She knows him--says he's always about in the neighbourhood. He sleeps in the mews behind Great Toff House.”
Her mother isn't listening. She rises for a moment to hear what she may of how the talk in the next room goes on; and then, coming back, says again she wishes Gerry was safe indoors, and Sally again says, ”Oh, _he's_ all right!” The confidence these two have in one another makes them a couple apart--a sort of league.
What Mrs. Fenwick heard a sc.r.a.p of in the next room would have been, but for the alarums and excursions of the two enemies aforementioned, a consecutive conversation as follows:
”You're gettin' round, Colonel?”
”A deal better, Major. I want to speak to _you_.”
”Fire away, old c.o.c.kywax! You remember Hopkins?--Cartwright Hopkins--man with a squint--at Mooltan--expression of his, 'Old c.o.c.kywax.'”
”I remember him. Died of typhoid at Burrampore. Now you listen to me, old chap, and don't talk--you only make yourself cough.”
”It's only the dam fog. _I'm_ all right.”
”Well, shut up. That child in the next room--it's her I want to talk about. You're the only man, as far as I know, that knows the story.
She doesn't. She's not to be told.”
”Mum's the word, sir. Always say nothin', that's my motto.
Penderfield's daughter at Khopal--at least, he was her father. One dam father's as good as another, as long as he goes to the devil.” This may be a kind of disclaimer of inheritance as a factor to be reckoned with, an obscure suggestion that human parentage is without influence on character. It is not well expressed.