VC - A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea Part 8

'It will be my own hope and aim to do that also,' the General answered.

'But I have no wish for money which has been dishonourably acquired, and I am very much afraid that I have been living at your cost. It is my obvious duty to return to you whatever has come into my possession, provided always that the facts are a.s.sured. I have my remedy against my partners in the law courts, and if necessary I must seek it there.'

'I shall not venture,' said De Blacquaire, 'to dispute a point of personal honour with General Boswell; but I venture to suggest that the better course would be for us, as the injured parties, to join forces against Messrs. Jervase & Jervoyce, and discuss the part.i.tion of the spoils when we have secured them. They are thoroughly solvent; I know that, for I have made inquiries; and they are well worth powder and shot. Until the case is heard, or until they themselves come to heel of their own free will, I cannot in honesty receive anything from you.

Their confession or, failing that, their conviction must absolutely precede any such action as you contemplate. I am taking a business point of view, sir, and I think that on reflection you will find that there is no escape from it.'

The General sat frowning and perplexed. He was in haste to be rid of the sense that he was handling tainted money, and he was eager even to beggar himself to secure freedom from the load which lay upon his mind.

'I wish you to understand, Major de Blacquaire,' he said, 'that I am pressing this matter for reasons personal to myself. I am placed in a most abominable and unbearable position. I have unwittingly been made a partner in a very shameful transaction, and I may tell you that I have not the faintest doubt in my own mind as to the justice of your cause.

I do not feel that as a man of honour I am justified in retaining for a day money which has been actually stolen from another. I think I may say that it is your duty to relieve me from this burden. I must fight for my own hand afterwards; but I cannot consent to hold these gains a moment longer than is necessary for me to repay them.'

'Suppose, sir,' said De Blacquaire, 'that we submit this matter to an independent and high-minded arbiter. You know Colonel Stacey? He is in quarters at this moment, I believe, and I am sure he would give his judgment between us willingly, I feel so confident of his verdict that perhaps it's hardly fair on my part to suggest the appeal to him.'

'I know Stacey well,' said the General, 'Colonel Stacey is a man of honour. I have a great respect for Stacey, and I will abide by his opinion. I feel a.s.sured that he will be on my side. Will you kindly take me to him?'

'Certainly, sir.' The Major took up his forage cap, opened the door for his guest, and marshalled him into the open, where he saw the hated Polson standing at the side of the General's carriage in conversation with a lady. His gorge rose within him at the spectacle, and it came into his mind that General Boswell might be as little pleased as he himself was. He asked a question by way of calling his companion's attention. 'That is your carriage, sir?'

'Ah, by the way,' the General answered, 'that reminds me. That is young Jervase standing there. His commission is probably in his agent's hands to-day. He has learned the facts about this salt mine business, and he has thrown up what I know to have been the dearest hope of his life. He has joined as a recruit. He is a very fine and worthy fellow, Major de Blacquaire. I don't know a better lad in the world, and I desire to bespeak your good will for him. A gentleman's position in the ranks is not very tolerable; but a friend at court may make things easier for him.'

Now Major de Blacquaire had made a very excellent impression on the elder warrior, who thought that he had behaved honourably and with delicacy in respect to the unfortunate business which had brought them together; but he undid that impression most conclusively.

'Should you call,' he asked in his most deliberate and supercilious drawl, 'should you call Mr. Polson a gentleman, sir?'

'Most decidedly, sir!' the General answered, with sudden heat. 'He has the instincts of a gentleman, and the sense of honour of a gentleman. He has had the education of a gentleman, and has lived among gentlemen.

If these are not the facts to warrant the use of the word, I have no judgment in the matter.'

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said De Blac-quaire, 'I am possibly prejudiced; but I thought the fellow a sort of unlicked cub.'

The General said no more, but his shoulders straightened, and both hands went up to the big grey moustache. It was in his mind to offer a retort, but he remembered his own dignity in time, and contented himself by saying, 'I shall recommend him most strongly to Colonel Stacey's best consideration. And you, Major de Blacquaire, I understand, are leaving the regiment?'

'I have received a Staff appointment, sir, and I leave to-morrow. These are the Colonel's quarters.'

Both men had grown extremely frigid, but Colonel Stacey's welcome to his old campaigning comrade smoothed the General's ruffled mind. He was a bluff, grizzled man of sixty, with a scarlet countenance and a white head so closely cropped that it looked like a bottle-brush. He had seen service in every quarter of the world, and his manly chest was covered with well-won medals. He listened to the General's story sympathetically, but he gave his judgment with a twinkle of the eye.

'The same old Quixote, eh, George? De Blacquaire's right, of course--absolutely right. And as for you, my boy, you haven't got a leg to stand on. Of course you're going to join forces with your fellow sufferer, and it's quite monstrous to suggest that the money should come out of the pocket of an innocent man. If the case were anybody's but your own you'd look at it like a sensible man. And if you were advising me, you would tell me precisely what I'm telling you. Here, where's that rascal of mine?' He opened the door and shouted, and in came a bronzed dragoon in civilian costume. 'Get a bottle of champagne and bring gla.s.ses. I've been longing for an excuse for self-indulgence all the morning, and I'm much obliged to you for giving it.'

'I mustn't join you,' said the General.

'Oh, by gad,' said the Colonel, 'but you must and you shall. I'm expecting to get my marching orders any hour, and those chaps mean to fight, mind you, and it's an open problem as to whether old Bob Stacey will come back again. Come on, George! You're not going to s.h.i.+rk a last liquor with a comrade of forty years' standing!'

The General yielded, the wine was served, De Blacquaire at the Colonel's command emptied his gla.s.s and withdrew, leaving the old friends together. The General seized the moment to speak a word for Polson. He told the lad's story, and the Colonel nodded his white head with curt approval.

'Is he a smart fellow?' he asked.

'Highly intelligent,' the General answered. 'Took his B.A. at Oxford, first-rate man across country, excellent shot. Would have had his commission this week if his father hadn't turned out a rascal. Throws up everything like a lad of honour as he is, and takes the Queen's s.h.i.+lling.'

'That's all right,' said the Colonel. 'Leave him to me. I'll shepherd him.'

CHAPTER VII

General Boswell's coachman was a Scot; a grim, taciturn, brickdust-coloured fellow, who had been in his present service for a quarter of a century. He had been bred amongst horses from his boyhood, for his father had been a horsebreaker, and when he had run away from home and enlisted, he had satisfied ambition by becoming a driver of artillery. Then he had been wounded, and had turned batman for awhile.

He had gone to the General as valet, but his stable love had broken out again, and he had gravitated by force of nature to the place of coachman. Polson's mind did not go back to a time when he did not remember Duncan, and to Irene he was like a fixed part of the scheme of nature. He had one defect which at this instant made him invaluable. He resented any imputation of the fact angrily, but he had been deaf as an adder for years.

There was no great privacy in a barrack square, to be sure, but it was as safe to talk within arm's length of Duncan as if he had been a stone Sphinx. Duncan was a man of rare discretion, and, though it must have been like an upheaval of the world to him to see the most constant of visitors at the General's modest little mansion, walking in shabby raiment in a barrack square with a recruit's ribbons fluttering from his cap, he saluted imperturbably as the young man came up, and then sat motionless.

Polson came to the side of the carriage, cap in hand.

'Your father told me I might speak to you,' he said wistfully. 'I hope I am not wrong in coming to you.'

'You have enlisted?' she asked him. 'You are going to the war?' Her self-possession cost her an effort, but she maintained it She had a soldier's daughter's pride, and though she had met this first great trouble so brief a time ago she had already taught herself to face it.

Her father was a man conspicuously brave among the brave, and he had told her of his very first experience of war--a period of prolonged inaction under fire. 'A trying thing at first,' he had said, 'but duty will reconcile one to anything.' This memory had been present with her all the morning, and though the unexpected sight of her lost lover almost broke her down, the thought had had power to nerve her.

'Yes,' he answered simply. 'I have enlisted. I shall have to go through a certain amount of drill, but that will soon be over, and then, I suppose, I shall get my marching orders.'

'Father approves of what you have done,' she said.

'He has told me so,' he responded. 'I am very glad of it. G.o.d is good to me,' he went on, turning half away from her and gazing across the square. 'I had not hoped to see you again for years, if ever, and there is just one thing I wanted very much to say. It is of no use to have reserves and disguises at a time like this. I shan't distress you? Can you let me speak?'

'Put your cap on, Polson,' she said composedly. 'You will catch cold.'

The touch of womanly solicitude, small as it was, moved him. He obeyed her, and stood, still looking across the square, until he had mastered a suspicious clicking in the throat.

'You need have no fear of me, Polson,' Irene said. 'Speak out all your mind.'

'Well, dear, it's this. We've been comrades ever since I helped you to learn to ride your first pony. We've always been the very best of friends, and only last night I was going to ask for something more. You don't mind hearing me out, Irene?'

'No. Let us speak plainly. Let us understand each other.'

'Well, you see, everything went last night with a clean sweep by the board. I thought I was safe for a commission. I'd been brought up to expect a handsome fortune.' He spoke in a level tone, as if he had been reading uninteresting matter from a book. 'All that is changed and everything is changed with it. I'm a penniless private of dragoons, and our ways in the world are wide apart. For old time's sake I should be very sorry to believe that you'd ever forgot me altogether, but if you'll try to bring yourself to think of me as trying to be cheerful in a humble station, as remembering you always in my heart of hearts, and never forgetting the distance that divides us--if you'll try to think of me as always honouring myself because I was once your friend'--He was forced to pause, but he went on again, level-voiced and monotonous as before--'If you'll try to think of me as learning to be cheerful for your sake, not as a moaning, broken-hearted chap--which I don't mean to be at all--but just doing my work, you know, and thinking about you like an affectionate poor relation might--why, then, in--in time you'll get to feel the parting less.'

'Have you finished, Polson?' 'Yes, dear. That's about all, I think.

You see, I know you, Irene. You'll grizzle if you think I'm grizzling.

That's your nature. You can't bear to think of a canary bird in pain.'

'And that is all?'

'Yes, dear. That's all.'

'I shall never forget you, dear. I shall never forget you, and I shall never change. If you had asked me to be your wife before these things happened I should have said "Yes," and I should have been proud and happy. But, Polson, this is why I thank G.o.d for having brought us together just this once. I want you to remember that in this war names will be heard of that never were known before. Yours may be one of them.'

'You mustn't waste your life thinking of me, Irene. I shall remember every word you have spoken. I shall treasure every word. I hope I shall do my duty.'

'I am sure of that,' she answered. And then for a long time not a word was spoken, and when at length they broke silence, they spoke of things which were indifferent by comparison. They discussed the probable hour of the arrival of the route, the probable destination of the regiment, the time at which Polson might expect to escape his drill.

At last the General appeared walking side by side with Colonel Stacey.

Irene was facing that way, and was naturally the first to see him.