Part 14 (2/2)

The General had known he was going away. He had known it before he received that letter, before he had seen it in the Gazette. He had known from the day the regiment had gone by without Captain Langrishe in his wonted place. He had felt with his arm about his girl's shoulders the sudden shock that had pa.s.sed through her. So she had not known either.

He had not prepared her. There was not an understanding between them. He saluted as light-heartedly as ever to all appearance, but he did not look at Nelly. Nor did he make any remark on the change in the regiment.

After that day the pa.s.sing of his ”boys” ceased to be the old joy to him. Something was gone out of the ceremonial. It took all his _esprit de corps_ to pretend to himself as well as to others that he felt no difference. He felt the limpness and dejection in Nelly. He saw that her roses had faded, that she walked without the old joyous spring. He heard her no longer talking to the dogs, trilling to the canary. It was January now, and raw, cold weather. It seemed as though the suns.h.i.+ne had vanished from the house for good. The General had been wont to say that the cheerfulness of his house was within it, not without it. He had come home from London fog and rain with a happy sense of its bright fires and s.p.a.ciousness, its carpets and furniture, not so new that a muddy foot or a stray shower of tobacco-ash was a thing to be feared--old friends every one of them. The love and loyalty within his doors were something that came out to welcome the General's home-coming like a sudden firelight streaming out into the black night.

Now his little girl was unhappy, and the shadow of her unhappiness was over his nights and days. It was when he felt this that he had written to Captain Langrishe, saying nothing to her about it, stealing out, in fact, at night to post the letter secretly, he whose correspondence, such as it was--he was no great penman--had always lain in the letter-basket on the hall table for the servants to scrutinise the addresses if they would before it was posted.

When the answer came he congratulated himself on his forethought.

Luckily, that morning he was first at the breakfast-table. Of late Nelly, who had been wont to rise as cheerfully as a waking bird, was tardy occasionally. The General suspected broken sleep, and had bidden the servants tenderly not to call her, although the breakfast-table was not the same thing with no bright face and golden head opposite to him.

When he had read the letter he thrust it into an inner pocket. The servant, who was attending, went away at the moment, and the General got up quickly, and with a stealthy glance at the door, buried the letter in the heart of the fire, raked the coals over it, and was in his place before the servant returned.

”Confound the fellow!” he said under his breath.

Plainly, there was nothing more to be done. The child had to go through it. People had to endure such things. Yet he was miserable, watching furtively her dimmed roses and the circles about her eyes. His little Nell, who had lived in the suns.h.i.+ne all her days!

It was, perhaps, not to be wondered at that, in the perturbation of his mind, the pendulum should have swung towards Robin. ”Confound the fellow!”--(meaning Captain Langrishe)--”What did he mean by making Nelly unhappy?” A still, small voice whispered to the General that the young man was acting on some foolish, overstrained, honourable scruple just as he would have done himself in his youth--nay, to-day, for the matter of that. But he would not listen to the voice. He fretted and fumed, puffed himself up into a great rage as men of his temperament will. Confound the fellow! He had gone half-way to meet him, for Nelly's sake, and the fellow had refused to budge. Confound him and be hanged to him! The General would have used much worse language if the simple piety which hid behind his bl.u.s.terousness had not come in to restrain him.

He blamed himself--to be sure, he blamed himself. What a selfish old curmudgeon he had been, always thinking of himself and his own likes and dislikes! Where could his Nelly find greater security for happiness than in the keeping of Gerald's son? Everybody thought well of Robin. There had never been anything against him. Why, not a week ago, one of the finest soldiers in the army, a field-marshal, a household word in the homes of England, had b.u.t.ton-holed the General to congratulate him on a speech of Robin's.

”That young man will be a credit to you, Drummond,” he had said. ”Mark my words, that young man will be a credit to you.”

And the General had been oddly impressed by the opinion, coming from his old comrade in arms, and one of the finest soldiers that ever stepped.

And, to be sure, he had been trying to set Nelly against Robin all the days of her life.

When he had come to this point in his meditations he groaned aloud. A thought had come to him of how little Nelly would be really his, married to Robin Drummond. He would have no need for the house then. He would have to dismiss the servants, the old servants of whom he was fond, who adored him, and go into lodgings. He might keep Pat, perhaps. Even the dogs would go with Nelly. He would never have his girl any more. The Dowager would be always there. The Dowager would know better than anyone how to set up an invisible barrier between Nelly and her father. Why, since she had been their neighbour things had not been the same. She had carried Nelly hither and thither, to concerts and At Homes and picture-galleries and what-not. She talked of presenting her at Court, with an air of significance which the General loathed. The question in her eye and smile--the General called it a smirk--the very transparent question was as to whether it was not better to wait and present Nelly on her marriage.

When the Dowager was sly she made the General furious. Was his little girl to be married out of hand to Robin Drummond without being given the chance to see the world and other men? He asked the question hotly, pacing up and down the faded Persian rug in his den. Then a chill came on his heat. He had not been able to keep Nelly from choosing, and she had chosen unwisely. He had had a dream of himself and young Langrishe and Nelly and the babies in the big happy house. They would belong to him--no one would push him away from his girl. They would be together till they closed his eyes. The thought of it now was like a green oasis in the desert; but it was a mirage, only a mirage!

And Nelly must not suffer. Langrishe had rejected her--rejected that sweet thing, confound him! And there was her cousin Robin, patient and faithful, waiting to make her happy. He forgot that once upon a time he had been furious with Robin for his patience. Robin was a kind fellow, a good fellow. He seemed to be always at the beck and call of his mother and Nelly, always ready to escort them. Why, only yesterday Nelly had said that there was no one so comfortable as Robin to go about with, and then, in a fit of compunction, had flown to her father and hugged him hard.

”Never mind, Nell, never mind,” the General had said. ”I never took you about much, did I? We were great home-keepers, you and I. Never seemed to want to gad about, did we? I ought to have taken you about more. It was a dull life for a young girl--a dull life. I ought to be obliged to your aunt for showing me the error of my ways, for making life pleasanter for you.”

He gulped over the end of the speech.

”It was a lovely life,” cried Nelly wildly, and then burst into tears.

The General was terribly distressed. He had had no experience of Nelly in tears. She had never wept or fainted or done any of the interesting things young ladies were supposed to do in his time. She had been always the light of the house, always happy and healthy and gay.

While he looked at the bell uncertainly, being half of a mind to summon a.s.sistance, Nelly relieved him from his doubt by running away out of the room, and when they met again he did not remind her of the scene. That discretion of his went to her heart. It was so strange and pitiful for him to be discreet, so unlike him.

After that he began to praise Robin Drummond, not too suddenly nor too effusively at first, but by degrees, so as not to awaken Nelly's suspicions. He amazed Robin Drummond by his cordiality in those days, and the young fellow commented on it whimsically to Nelly herself.

”He has been telling me all my life that I am a poor creature,” he said, ”and here he is, to all intents and purposes, eating his own words. Just fancy his wading through that speech of mine on the estimates and pretending to be interested in it, even praising it, Nell. Seeing that the speech was all against our maintaining our big standing army, on a motion to cut down the expenditure, it is bewildering. Is it a mild joke, Nell dear?”

”You may call it a joke if you like,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. ”I call it heart-breaking, heart-breaking. If he would only abuse you as he used to do!”

”Dear Nell, what's up?” asked Robin, in great penitence. ”I had no idea I was saying anything to hurt you. The dear old man! Why, I never resented his abuse. I'd rather he'd abuse me, like a dog, as they say--though I don't see why anyone should want to abuse a dog--if it made you happier.”

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