I
Colonel Parsons sat by the window in the dining-room to catch the last
glimmer of the fading day, looking through his _Standard_ to make sure
that he had overlooked no part of it. Finally, with a little sigh, he
folded it up, and taking off his spectacles, put them in their case.
"Have you finished the paper?" asked his wife
"Yes, I think I've read it all. There's nothing in it."
He looked out of window at the well-kept drive that led to the house,
and at the trim laurel bushes which separated the front garden from the
village green. His eyes rested, with a happy smile, upon the triumphal
arch which decorated the gate for the home-coming of his son, expected
the next day from South Africa. Mrs. Parsons knitted diligently at a
sock for her husband, working with quick and clever fingers. He watched
the rapid glint of the needles.
"You'll try your eyes if you go on much longer with this light, my
dear."
"Oh, I don't require to see," replied his wife, with a gentle,
affectionate smile. But she stopped, rather tired, and laying the sock
on the table, smoothed it out with her hand.
"I shouldn't mind if you made it a bit higher in the leg than the last
pair."
"How high would you like it?"
She went to the window so that the Colonel might show the exact length
he desired; and when he had made up his mind, sat down again quietly on
her chair by the fireside, with hands crossed on her lap, waiting
placidly for the maid to bring the lamp.
Mrs. Parsons was a tall woman of fifty-five, carrying herself with a
certain diffidence, as though a little ashamed of her stature, greater
than the Colonel's; it had seemed to her through life that those extra
inches savoured, after a fashion, of disrespect. She knew it was her
duty spiritually to look up to her husband, yet physically she was
always forced to look down. And eager to prevent even the remotest
suspicion of wrong-doing, she had taken care to be so submissive in her
behaviour as to leave no doubt that she recognised the obligation of
respectful obedience enjoined by the Bible, and confirmed by her own
conscience. Mrs. Parsons was the gentlest of creatures, and the most
kind-hearted; she looked upon her husband with great and unalterable
affection, admiring intensely both his head and his heart. He was her
type of the upright man, walking in the ways of the Lord. You saw in the
placid, smooth brow of the Colonel's wife, in her calm eyes, even in the
severe arrangement of the hair, parted in the middle and drawn back,
that her character was frank, simple, and straightforward. She was a
woman to whom evil had never offered the smallest attraction; she was
merely aware of its existence theoretically. To her the only way of life
had been that which led to God; the others had been non-existent. Duty
had one hand only, and only one finger; and that finger had always
pointed definitely in one direction. Yet Mrs. Parsons had a firm mouth,
and a chin square enough to add another impression. As she sat
motionless, hands crossed, watching her husband with loving eyes, you
might have divined that, however kind-hearted, she was not indulgent,
neither lenient to her own faults nor to those of others; perfectly
unassuming, but with a sense of duty, a feeling of the absolute
rightness of some deeds and of the absolute wrongness of others, which
would be, even to those she loved best in the world, utterly unsparing.
"Here's a telegraph boy!" said Colonel Parsons suddenly. "Jamie can't
have arrived yet!"
"Oh, Richmond!"
Mrs. Parsons sprang from her chair, and a colour brightened her pale
cheeks. Her heart beat painfully, and tears of eager expectation filled
her eyes.
"It's probably only from William, to say the ship is signalled," said
the Colonel, to quieten her; but his own voice trembled with anxiety.
"Nothing can have happened, Richmond, can it?" said Mrs. Parsons, her
cheeks blanching again at the idea.
"No, no! Of course not! How silly you are!" The telegram was brought in
by the servant. "I can't see without a light," said the Colonel.
"Oh, give it me; I can see quite well."
Mrs. Parsons took it to the window, and with trembling hand tore it
open.
"_Arriving to-night; 7.25._--JAMIE."
Mrs. Parson looked for one moment at her husband, and then, unable to
restrain herself, sank on a chair, and hiding her face with her hands,
burst into tears.
"Come, come, Frances," said the Colonel, trying to smile, but half
choked with his own emotion, "don't cry! You ought to laugh when you
know the boy's coming home."
He patted her on the shoulder, and she took his hand, holding it for
comfort. With the other, the Colonel loudly blew his nose. At last Mrs
Parsons dried her eyes.
"Oh, I thank God that it's all over! He's coming home. I hope we shall
never have to endure again that anxiety. It makes me tremble still when
I think how we used to long for the paper to come, and dread it; how we
used to look all through the list of casualties, fearing to see the
boy's name."
"Well, well, it's all over now," said the Colonel cheerily, blowing his
nose again. "How pleased Mary will be!"
It was characteristic of him that almost his first thought was of the
pleasure this earlier arrival would cause to Mary Clibborn, the girl to
whom, for five years, his son had been engaged.
"Yes," said Mrs. Parson, "but she'll be dreadfully disappointed not to
be here; she's gone to the Polsons in Tunbridge Wells, and she won't be
home till after supper."
"That is a pity. I'm afraid it's too late to go and meet him; it's
nearly seven already."
"Oh, yes; and it's damp this evening. I don't think you ought to go
out."
Then Mrs. Parsons roused herself to household matters.
"There's the supper to think of, Richmond," she said; "we've only the
rest of the cold mutton, and there's not time to cook one of to-morrow's
chickens."
They had invited three or four friends to dinner on the following day to
celebrate the return of their son, and Mrs. Parsons had laid in for the
occasion a store of solid things.
"Well, we might try and get some chops. I expect Howe is open still."
"Yes, I'll send Betty out. And we can have a blanc-mange for a sweet."
Mrs. Parsons went to give the necessary orders, and the Colonel walked
up to his son's room to see, for the hundredth time, that everything was
in order. They had discussed for days the question whether the young
soldier should be given the best spare bedroom or that which he had used
from his boyhood. It was wonderful the thought they expended in
preparing everything as they fancied he would like it; no detail slipped
their memory, and they arranged and rearranged so that he should find
nothing altered in his absence. They attempted to satisfy in this manner
the eager longing of their hearts; it made them both a little happier to
know that they were actually doing something for their son. No pain in
love is so hard to bear as that which comes from the impossibility of
doing any service for the well-beloved, and no service is so repulsive
that love cannot make it delightful and easy. They had not seen him for
five years, their only child; for he had gone from Sandhurst straight to
India, and thence, on the outbreak of war, to the Cape. No one knew how
much the lonely parents had felt the long separation, how eagerly they
awaited his letters, how often they read them.
* * *
But it was more than parental affection which caused the passionate
interest they took in Jamie's career. They looked to him to restore the
good name which his father had lost. Four generations of Parsons had
been in the army, and had borne themselves with honour to their family
and with credit to themselves. It was a fine record that Colonel Parsons
inherited of brave men and good soldiers; and he, the truest, bravest,
most honourable of them all, had dragged the name through the dust; had
been forced from the service under a storm of obloquy, disgraced,
dishonoured, ruined.
Colonel Parsons had done the greater portion of his service creditably
enough. He had always put his God before the War Office, but the result
had not been objectionable; he looked upon his men with fatherly
affection, and the regiment, under his command, was almost a model of
propriety and seemliness. His influence was invariably for good, and his
subordinates knew that in him they had always a trusty friend; few men
had gained more love. He was a mild, even-tempered fellow, and in no
circumstance of life forgot to love his neighbour as himself; he never
allowed it to slip his memory that even the lowest caste native had an
immortal soul, and before God equal rights with him. Colonel Parsons was
a man whose piety was so unaggressive, so good-humoured, so simple, that
none could resist it; ribaldry and blasphemy were instinctively hushed
in his presence, and even the most hardened ruffian was softened by his
contact.
But a couple of years before he would naturally have been put on
half-pay under the age limit, a little expedition was arranged against
some unruly hill-tribes, and Colonel Parsons was given the command. He
took the enemy by surprise, finding them at the foot of the hills, and
cut off, by means of flanking bodies, their retreat through the two
passes behind. He placed his guns on a line of hillocks to the right,
and held the tribesmen in the hollow of his hand. He could have
massacred them all, but nothing was farther from his thoughts. He
summoned them to surrender, and towards evening the headmen came in and
agreed to give up their rifles next day; the night was cold, and dark,
and stormy. The good Colonel was delighted with the success both of his
stratagem and of his humanity. He had not shed a single drop of blood.
"Treat them well," he said, "and they'll treat you better."
He acted like a gentleman and a Christian; but the enemy were neither.
He never dreamed that he was being completely overreached, that the
natives were using the delay he had unsuspectingly granted to send over
the hills urgent messages for help. Through the night armed men had been
coming stealthily, silently, from all sides; and in the early morning,
before dawn, his flanking parties were attacked. Colonel Parsons, rather
astonished, sent them help, and thinking himself still superior in
numbers to the rebellious tribesmen, attacked their main body. They
wanted nothing better. Falling back slowly, they drew him into the
mountain defiles until he found himself entrapped. His little force was
surrounded. Five hours were passed in almost blind confusion; men were
shot down like flies by an enemy they could not see; and when, by
desperate fighting, they managed to cut their way out, fifty were
killed and over a hundred more were wounded.
Colonel Parsons escaped with only the remnants of the fine force he had
commanded, and they were nerveless, broken, almost panic-stricken. He
was obliged to retreat. The Colonel was a brave man; he did what he could
to prevent the march from becoming a disorderly rout. He gathered his
men together, put courage into them, risked his life a dozen times; but
nothing could disguise the fact that his failure was disastrous. It was
a small affair and was hushed up, but the consequences were not to be
forgotten. The hill-tribes, emboldened by their success, became more
venturesome, more unruly. A disturbance which might have been settled
without difficulty now required a large force to put it down, and ten
times more lives were lost.
Colonel Parsons was required to send in his papers, and left India a
broken man.... He came back to England, and settled in his father's
house at Little Primpton. His agony continued, and looking into the
future, he saw only hideous despair, unavailing regret. For months he
could bear to see no one, imagining always that he was pointed out as
the man whose folly had cost so many lives. When he heard people laugh
he thought it was in scorn of him; when he saw compassion in their eyes
he could scarcely restrain his tears. He was indeed utterly broken. He
walked in his garden, away from the eyes of his fellows, up and down,
continually turning over in his mind the events of that terrible week.
And he could not console himself by thinking that any other course would
have led to just as bad results. His error was too plain; he could put
his finger exactly on the point of his failure and say, "O God! why did
I do it?" And as he walked restlessly, unmindful of heat and cold, the
tears ran down his thin cheeks, painful and scalding. He would not take
his wife's comfort.
"You acted for the best, Richmond," she said.
"Yes, dear; I acted for the best. When I got those fellows hemmed in I
could have killed them all. But I'm not a butcher; I couldn't have them
shot down in cold blood. That's not war; that's murder. What should I
have said to my Maker when He asked me to account for those many souls?
I spared them; I imagined they'd understand; but they thought it was
weakness. I couldn't know they were preparing a trap for me. And now my
name is shameful. I shall never hold up my head again."
"You acted rightly in the sight of God, Richmond."
"I think and trust I acted as a Christian, Frances."
"If you have pleased God, you need not mind the opinion of man."
"Oh, it's not that they called me a fool and a coward--I could have
borne that. I did what I thought was right. I thought it my duty to save
the lives of my men and to spare the enemy; and the result was that ten
times more lives have been lost than if I had struck boldly and
mercilessly. There are widows and orphans in England who must curse me
because I am the cause that their husbands are dead, and that their
fathers are rotting on the hills of India. If I had acted like a savage,
like a brute-beast, like a butcher, all those men would have been alive
to-day. I was merciful, and I was met with treachery; I was
long-suffering, and they thought me weak; I was forgiving, and they
laughed at me."
Mrs. Parsons put her hand on her husband's shoulder.
"You must try to forget it, Richmond," she said. "It's over, and it
can't be helped now. You acted like a God-fearing man; your conscience
is clear of evil intent. What is the judgment of man beside the judgment
of God? If you have received insult and humiliation at the hands of man,
God will repay you an hundredfold, for you acted as his servant. And I
believe in you, Richmond; and I'm proud of what you did."
"I have always tried to act like a Christian and a gentleman, Frances."
At night he would continually dream of those days of confusion and
mortal anxiety. He would imagine he was again making that horrible
retreat, cheering his men, doing all he could to retrieve the disaster;
but aware that ruin only awaited him, conscious that the most ignorant
sepoy in his command thought him incapable and mad. He saw the look in
the eyes of the officers under him, their bitter contempt, their anger
because he forced them to retire before the enemy; and because, instead
of honour and glory, they had earned only ridicule. His limbs shook and
he sweated with agony as he recalled the interview with his chief:
"You're only fit to be a damned missionary," and the last contemptuous
words, "I shan't want you any more. You can send in your papers."
But human sorrow is like water in an earthen pot. Little by little
Colonel Parsons forgot his misery; he had turned it over in his mind so
often that at last he grew confused. It became then only a deep wound
partly healed, scarring over; and he began to take an interest in the
affairs of the life surrounding him. He could read his paper without
every word stabbing him by some chance association; and there is nothing
like the daily and thorough perusal of a newspaper for dulling a man's
brain. He pottered about his garden gossiping with the gardener; made
little alterations in the house--bricks and mortar are like an anodyne;
he collected stamps; played bezique with his wife; and finally, in his
mild, gentle way, found peace of mind.
But when James passed brilliantly out of Sandhurst, the thought seized
him that the good name which he valued so highly might be retrieved.
Colonel Parsons had shrunk from telling the youth anything of the
catastrophe which had driven him from the service; but now he forced
himself to give an exact account thereof. His wife sat by, listening
with pain in her eyes, for she knew what torture it was to revive that
half-forgotten story.
"I thought you had better hear it from me than from a stranger," the
Colonel said when he had finished. "I entered the army with the
reputation of my father behind me; my reputation can only harm you. Men
will nudge one another and say, 'There's the son of old Parsons, who
bungled the affair against the Madda Khels.' You must show them that
you're of good stuff. I acted for the best, and my conscience is at
ease. I think I did my duty; but if you can distinguish yourself--if
you can make them forget--I think I shall die a little happier."
The commanding officer of Jamie's regiment was an old friend of the
Colonel's, and wrote to him after a while to say that he thought well of
the boy. He had already distinguished himself in a frontier skirmish,
and presently, for gallantry in some other little expedition, his name
was mentioned in despatches. Colonel Parsons regained entirely his old
cheerfulness; Jamie's courage and manifest knowledge of his business
made him feel that at last he could again look the world frankly in the
face. Then came the Boer War; for the parents at Little Primpton and for
Mary Clibborn days of fearful anxiety, of gnawing pain--all the greater
because each, for the other's sake, tried to conceal it; and at last the
announcement in the paper that James Parsons had been severely wounded
while attempting to save the life of a brother officer, and was
recommended for the Victoria Cross.