A CRACK CORPS.
The Duke’s Own Fusiliers had the credit of being one of the most
distinguished regiments in the service of the Queen. Its colours
were emblazoned with the victories in which it had shared; its mess
plate was rich in gifts from the great captains and men of mark who
had held commissions in its ranks. It considered itself in every
respect a crack corps, and held its head high always on account of
its thorough efficiency and undeniably ‘good form.’ Its claims to
the latter could not be denied; but its rights to the former were
sometimes questioned by keen-eyed critics and people behind the
scenes. The regiment no doubt turned out smartly upon parade; it
always looked well, and was fairly well-behaved. But there were
flaws and short-comings in its system, hidden a little below the
surface, which in the crucial test of emergency would probably be
laid bare. The gulf between officers and men was a little too wide;
inferiors had no great confidence in those above them, the latter
were generally indifferent, taking but little interest in their
business, as though soldiering was not their profession, but a
chance employment to fill up their hours when not otherwise engaged.
A certain Colonel Prioleau commanded the regiment at the time when
Herbert Larkins enlisted into it; a soldier of the old school, at
times fussy, testy, and sharp-spoken, but really a good-natured
easy-going man. He was without much strength of character however,
and not over-burthened with brains. It was not strange, therefore,
that he should suffer his authority to slip a little out of his
own hands. He was far from supreme in the body of which he was the
ostensible head. English regiments are very variously governed.
This is ruled by the sergeant-major, that by the colonel’s wife;
in another, the general of the brigade or district, with his
staff-officers, works his own wicked will. Some are, so to speak,
self-governed, and the Duke’s Own was one of these. In it, the
will of the body corporate, of the officers banded together like a
joint-stock company, and trading under the name of ‘the regiment’
was absolute law. By and for ‘the regiment,’ everything was settled
and decided. The regimental idea was a species of impalpable
but all-pervading essence, which no one could resist. To quote
regimental custom; to invoke regimental prestige; to talk of the
credit of the regiment; to insist upon the maintenance of _esprit
de corps_, were so many irresistible appeals, so many precepts of
a powerful unwritten code universally accepted, and admitted to be
binding upon all. In its highest form, this thorough-going devotion
might be productive, as indeed it has often proved to be, of
extraordinary good; but it was possible to develop it in the wrong
direction, and this was to some extent the case with the Duke’s Own
Fusiliers. It was generally understood in the regiment that its
credit depended less upon its military proficiency than upon the
dash it cut in the world.
Military matters, in fact, were not held in the highest esteem in
the Duke’s Own. Nobody cared much about them. They were left to be
managed by anybody, anyhow. Now and again Colonel Prioleau raised
a feeble protest, but nobody listened to him or cared. He was told
that the regiment wished this, or thought that, and he immediately
succumbed. Those next senior to him, his two majors, were of little
assistance to him in driving the coach. One, Major Diggle, of whom
more directly, did not pretend to be a soldier at all. According
to his own ideas, he was always much better engaged. The other,
Major Byfield, had, unfortunately, been raised in another regiment,
and was so unpopular that he was worse than a cipher; the Duke’s
Own knew too well what was due to itself to allow an outsider to
dictate to it or interfere in its affairs. The only person who
did anything in the regiment was the adjutant, and he had come by
degrees to monopolise the whole of the power. The colonel gave in
to him more and more, till presently he abdicated his functions to
him altogether. After all, Mr. Wheeler was a smart young gentleman,
not without military aptitudes. He had no dread of responsibility,
and having a fair knowledge of the red-books and routine, disposed
of his work daily in an airy off-hand fashion which was always
refreshing, and which, in the face of any serious difficulty,
would have been absolutely sublime. He pulled all the strings,
decided all the moot points, gave all orders, drafted all letters,
which his humble slave, the colonel, obediently signed; it was he,
practically, who manœuvred the battalion, although his puppet, the
colonel, nominally gave the word of command. It saved everybody
else a great deal of trouble. The men perhaps were not quite as
well cared for and commanded as they ought to have been, the
sergeants looking to the adjutant rather than to their officers,
sometimes exceeded their powers, and carried matters with rather
a high hand. Complaints of tyranny and ill-usage, however, seldom
cropped up, and no suspicion ever arose that the condition of the
regiment was otherwise than perfectly sound.
It was not difficult to understand why the officers as a body
rather neglected their duties. They were too fully occupied
in maintaining the credit of the regiment according to their
own interpretation of the phrase. This meant that it should
be renowned--not for marching and manœuvres, for demeanour,
discipline, and drill--but for its ostentation and display, for the
grand balls and entertainments it gave, for its mess perfectly
appointed, its artistic _chefs_, its exquisite wines. It was for
the credit of the regiment that it should keep up a regimental
drag, a cricket and lawn tennis club, and give weekly afternoon
teas; that during the season six or seven at least of the Duke’s
Own should turn out in scarlet to hunt with the nearest hounds,
that some one amongst their number should take a shooting or a
river, which the regimental sportsmen might honour in turn; that
half the regiment at least should rush up to town from Friday to
Monday every week, and enjoy themselves in loafing about the park
and the Burlington Arcade, or idling away the hours at the club,
and devoutly wishing they were back at their own regimental mess.
These high-flown ideas very rapidly developed into extravagant
tastes, which had reached their highest point about the time when
Herbert Larkins became one of the Duke’s Own. The regiment had only
returned a year or two previously from a lengthened tour of foreign
service, and after their long exile in outer darkness everyone with
any spirit or capacity for enjoyment had been resolved to take
his pleasure to the full. It was expected of the officers of the
Duke’s Own to come well to the front, and this they pretended was
a more potent inducement to them to spend money than any hankering
after personal gratification. So, with but few exceptions, they
launched forth freely enough. It was, with many, a case of the
earthen pots swimming with the brass; but all, or nearly all, were
determined to do their duty to the regiment and go the pace, or
as Mr. Crouch, the sporting quartermaster styled it, ‘go to the
devil hands down.’ What if any serious financial crisis supervened?
Their people would have to stump up; their fathers--probably by
drawing upon a wife’s provision or daughter’s portion, and always
by impoverishing themselves--would pay their debts, but they would
have had ‘a high old time,’ and the imperishable credit of the
Duke’s Own Fusiliers would have been most brilliantly maintained.
The leading spirit and showman of the regiment at this particular
epoch was the junior major Cavendish-Diggle. Diggle was, in his
way, a man of parts, young, pushing, ambitious, passably rich. No
one knew exactly where he came from, or who were his belongings or
his people. One of his patronymics was decidedly patrician, the
other as unmistakeably commonplace. He might be a cousin of the
Duke of Devonshire; and again he might not. When anyone asked him
the question--and it was one he liked to have put to him--he smiled
pleasantly, and said that the Cavendishes were all related, as
everybody knew. But he was not so well pleased when people, envious
or cynical, or both, remarked casually that Diggle was the name of
the great grocers in Cheapside. There was no connection on that
side of course, but the allusion was far from agreeable to him, as
a shrewd observer might have noticed from his face and his avowed
hostility to anyone who dared to make the remark.
There were not many who were bold enough to attack him however.
He could hold his own always. Nature had endowed him with a good
presence and abundance of self-confidence; he could talk well,
had a good voice, and was an excellent _raconteur_. These gifts
were naturally of great service to him; not alone for purposes
of repartee and self-defence; they were also exceedingly useful
in assisting him to obtain that social success which had ever
been one of the principal aims of his life. In his boyhood, when
he had made his _début_ as a second lieutenant in the Duke’s Own
Fusiliers, he had had an uphill game to play. The regiment was
then, as it still aspired to be, eminently aristocratic, and no one
was disposed to welcome a Diggle with rapturous effusion. There was
nothing against the lad, however, except the possible obscurity of
his origin; on the contrary, there was much in his favour. He was
modest and unpretending, fully impressed with the ‘greatness’ of
‘the regiment’ he had joined, falling down readily to worship the
principal personages who were its idols at the time. He sought to
attach himself to one or two of the most distinguished cadets of
noble houses, who were nobodies at home, but made a good deal of
in the Duke’s Own. Diggle’s hero worship, accompanied as it was
by a willingness to bet, play _écarté_, and do good turns to his
superiors--he thought them so himself--met with its reward, and he
soon found himself in the position to enjoy the daily companionship
and friendship of one or two baronets and several lords’ sons. It
was long, however, before he advanced himself beyond the rather
undignified status of a ‘hanger-on.’ His friends and comrades were
very affectionate--with the regiment--but they were not so fond
of him in town; nor did they help him into society, or get him
invitations to their homes. But as time passed, and he gained
promotion and seniority, his persistent efforts gradually achieved
a certain success. He now took a prominent part in regimental
entertainments, was willing to accept all the drudgery of managing
balls and parties, because he thus came more to the front. At
one rather dull country station he struck out the happy idea of
giving dances on his account in his own quarters, which happened
to be large, and at his own expense, and this gained for him
great popularity in the neighbourhood. It was about this time
that he began to lay much stress upon the Cavendish prefix to his
proper name; he always called himself Cavendish-Diggle, had it
so put in the _Army List_ and upon his cards. Then the regiment
went on foreign service, and while stationed in an out-of-the-way
colony, he had the good fortune to be selected to act upon the
personal staff of the governor and commander-in-chief. He turned
this appointment to excellent account. He was soon the life and
soul of Government House, developing at once into a species of
diplomatic major-domo, who was simply indispensable to his chief.
In this way he made many new and valuable friends; a young royalty
on his travels, who was charmed with Captain Cavendish-Diggle’s
devotion to his person; several heirs apparent also, and itinerant
legislators, who took Barataria in their journey round the world,
and who could not be too grateful for all he did for them, or too
profuse in their promises of civilities whenever he might be in
England. All this bore fruit in the long run, when the regiment
returned. He experienced many disappointments, no doubt; for your
notable on his travels, so cordial and so gushing, is apt to give
you the cut direct if you meet him in his own hunting-grounds, at
home. Still there were some did not quite forget the hospitable and
obliging A.D.C.; and Major Cavendish-Diggle, at the invitation of
one, went into Norfolk to shoot; of another to Scotland to fish; in
the London season he found several houses open to him; and he was
finally raised to a pinnacle of satisfaction by Royal commands to
attend a garden party and a court ball.
In the Duke’s Own he was now a very great personage indeed. As both
the Colonel and Major Byfield were married he was the senior member
of the mess; always its most prominent figure; the chief host in
all impromptu parties at home; the great man at all entertainments
abroad. He had now a following of his own; a band of personal
adherents who imitated him in his dress and talk and ways, who
deferred to him, flattered him, and admired him fully as much as
he had the shining lights around which he had himself revolved
when he was young. This homage did not do him any great good. It
confirmed him in the high opinion he had formed of himself: it
indorsed and justified his aspirations, which were now by no means
unambitious, although very carefully concealed. Why should he not
make a brilliant marriage? There were plenty of heiresses about; if
he could but find one in whom the charms of blood and beauty were
united, why should he not go in and win? He was still comparatively
young; he had kept his figure; he was _répandu_ in the best society
and appreciated wherever he went. Who should have a better chance?
And what might he not achieve in the way of future distinction
with a rich and well-born wife to help him in climbing the tree?
These ideas had been uppermost in his mind for some time past.
It was in obedience to them that he had been at some pains to
inform himself whether any likely _partis_ were running loose
about Triggertown or in the country round. But he had so far met
with little success. Hopshire is a county owning many families of
antiquity and repute, but none were especially renowned for their
wealth. Diggle would have gone further afield and commenced his
chase in London, or at one of the great watering places, but he
wished first to exhaust the resources of the neighbourhood. The gay
major was not wrong in supposing that he showed off to the best
advantage upon his own territory, doing the honours of his own
mess, backed up and supported by so many brilliant comrades and
disciples. Just when he began to despair of finding any young lady
who from substantial reasons was entitled to receive his addresses,
he came across the Farringtons. They lived at the other end of
the county. There was a daughter in the house--a very charming
girl, he thought, who, having one brother only and no sisters,
would assuredly be well portioned. This led him to consolidate his
acquaintance with Sir Rupert, to accept many invitations and pay
frequent visits to Farrington Hall.
It was entirely through his advice and intervention that Sir Rupert
sent young Ernest into the Duke’s Own. The regiment would probably
remain at Triggertown for a year or two longer, and this would
break Lady Farrington gradually to the separation from her beloved
son. Besides, Major Cavendish-Diggle would have the young fellow
especially under his wing--a precious advantage no doubt, as we
shall presently see.