James was again in Little Primpton, ill at ease and unhappy. The scene
with Mrs. Wallace had broken his spirit, and he was listless now,
indifferent to what happened; the world had lost its colour and the sun
its light. In his quieter moments he had known that it was impossible
for her to care anything about him; he understood her character fairly
well, and realised that he had been only a toy, a pastime to a woman who
needed admiration as the breath of her nostrils. But notwithstanding,
some inner voice had whispered constantly that his love could not be
altogether in vain; it seemed strong enough to travel the infinite
distance to her heart and awaken at least a kindly feeling. He was
humble, and wanted very little. Sometimes he had even felt sure that he
was loved. The truth rent his heart, and filled it with bitterness; the
woman who was his whole being had forgotten him, and the woman who loved
him he hated.... He tried to read, striving to forget; but his trouble
overpowered him, and he could think of nothing but the future, dreadful
and inevitable. The days passed slowly, monotonously; and as each night
came he shuddered at the thought that time was flying. He was drifting
on without hope, tortured and uncertain.
"Oh, I'm so weak," he cried; "I'm so weak!"
He knew very well what he should do if he were strong of will. A firm
man in his place would cut the knot brutally--a letter to Mary, a letter
to his people, and flight. After all, why should he sacrifice his life
for the sake of others? The catastrophe was only partly his fault; it
was unreasonable that he alone should suffer.
If his Colonel came to hear of the circumstance, and disapproving,
questioned him, he could send in his papers. James was bored intensely
by the dull routine of regimental life in time of peace; it was a
question of performing day after day the same rather unnecessary duties,
seeing the same people, listening to the same chatter, the same jokes,
the same chaff. And added to the incurable dulness of the mess was the
irksome feeling of being merely an overgrown schoolboy at the beck and
call of every incompetent and foolish senior. Life was too short to
waste in such solemn trifling, masquerading in a ridiculous costume
which had to be left at home when any work was to be done. But he was
young, with the world before him; there were many careers free to the
man who had no fear of death. Africa opened her dusky arms to the
adventurer, ruthless and desperate; the world was so large and manifold,
there was ample scope for all his longing. If there were difficulties,
he could overcome them; perils would add salt to the attempt, freedom
would be like strong wine. Ah, that was what he desired,
freedom--freedom to feel that he was his own master; that he was not
enchained by the love and hate of others, by the ties of convention and
of habit. Every bond was tedious. He had nothing to lose, and everything
to win. But just those ties which every man may divide of his own free
will are the most oppressive; they are unfelt, unseen, till suddenly
they burn the wrists like fetters of fire, and the poor wretch who wears
them has no power to help himself.
James knew he had not strength for this fearless disregard of others; he
dared not face the pain he would cause. He was acting like a fool; his
kindness was only cowardly. But to be cruel required more courage than
he possessed. If he went away, his anguish would never cease; his vivid
imagination would keep before his mind's eye the humiliation of Mary,
the unhappiness of his people. He pictured the consternation and the
horror when they discovered what he had done. At first they would refuse
to believe that he was capable of acting in so blackguardly a way; they
would think it a joke, or that he was mad. And then the shame when they
realised the truth! How could he make such a return for all the
affection and the gentleness be had received? His father, whom he loved
devotedly, would be utterly crushed.
"It would kill him," muttered James.
And then he thought of his poor mother, affectionate and kind, but
capable of hating him if he acted contrary to her code of honour. Her
immaculate virtue made her very hard; she exacted the highest from
herself, and demanded no less from others. James remembered in his
boyhood how she punished his petty crimes by refusing to speak to him,
going about in cold and angry silence; he had never forgotten the icy
indignation of her face when once she had caught him lying. Oh, these
good people, how pitiless they can be!
He would never have courage to confront the unknown dangers of a new
life, unloved, unknown, unfriended. He was too merciful; his heart bled
at the pain of others, he was constantly afraid of soiling his hands. It
required a more unscrupulous man than he to cut all ties, and push out
into the world with no weapons but intelligence and a ruthless heart.
Above all, he dreaded his remorse. He knew that he would brood over what
he had done till it attained the proportions of a monomania; his
conscience would never give him peace. So long as he lived, the claims
of Mary would call to him, and in the furthermost parts of the earth he
would see her silent agony. James knew himself too well.
And the only solution was that which, in a moment of passionate
bitterness, had come thoughtlessly to his lips:
"I can always shoot myself."
"I hope you won't do anything silly," Mrs. Wallace had answered.
It would be silly. After all, one has only one life. But sometimes one
has to do silly things.
* * *
The whim seized James to visit the Larchers, and one day he set out for
Ashford, near which they lived.... He was very modest about his attempt
to save their boy, and told himself that such courage as it required was
purely instinctive. He had gone back without realising in the least that
there was any danger. Seeing young Larcher wounded and helpless, it had
seemed the obvious thing to get him to a place of safety. In the heat of
action fellows were constantly doing reckless things. Everyone had a
sort of idea that he, at least, would not be hit; and James, by no means
oppressed with his own heroism, knew that courageous deeds without
number were performed and passed unseen. It was a mere chance that the
incident in which he took part was noticed.
Again, he had from the beginning an absolute conviction that his
interference was nothing less than disastrous. Probably the Boer
sharpshooters would have let alone the wounded man, and afterwards their
doctors would have picked him up and properly attended to him.
James could not forget that it was in his very arms that Larcher had
been killed, and he repeated: "If I had minded my own business, he might
have been alive to this day." It occurred to him also that with his
experience he was much more useful than the callow, ignorant boy, so
that to risk his more valuable life to save the other's, from the point
of view of the general good, was foolish rather than praiseworthy. But
it appealed to his sense of irony to receive the honour which he was so
little conscious of deserving.
The Larchers had been anxious to meet James, and he was curious to know
what they were like. There was at the back of his mind also a desire to
see how they conducted themselves, whether they were still prostrate
with grief or reconciled to the inevitable. Reggie had been an only
son--just as he was. James sent no message, but arrived unexpectedly,
and found that they lived some way from the station, in a new, red-brick
villa. As he walked to the front door, he saw people playing tennis at
the side of the house.
He asked if Mrs. Larcher was at home, and, being shown into the
drawing-room the lady came to him from the tennis-lawn. He explained who
he was.
"Of course, I know quite well," she said. "I saw your portrait in the
illustrated papers."
She shook hands cordially, but James fancied she tried to conceal a
slight look of annoyance. He saw his visit was inopportune.
"We're having a little tennis-party," she said, "It seems a pity to
waste the fine weather, doesn't it?"
A shout of laughter came from the lawn, and a number of voices were
heard talking loudly. Mrs. Larcher glanced towards them uneasily; she
felt that James would expect them to be deeply mourning for the dead
son, and it was a little incongruous that on his first visit he should
find the whole family so boisterously gay.
"Shall we go out to them?" said Mrs. Larcher. "We're just going to have
tea, and I'm sure you must be dying for some. If you'd let us know you
were coming we should have sent to meet you."
James had divined that if he came at a fixed hour they would all have
tuned their minds to a certain key, and he would see nothing of their
natural state.
They went to the lawn, and James was introduced to a pair of buxom,
healthy-looking girls, panting a little after their violent exercise.
They were dressed in white, in a rather masculine fashion, and the only
sign of mourning was the black tie that each wore in a sailor's knot.
They shook hands vigorously (it was a family trait), and then seemed at
a loss for conversation; James, as was his way, did not help them, and
they plunged at last into a discussion about the weather and the
dustiness of the road from Ashford to their house.
Presently a loose-limbed young man strolled up, and was presented to
James. He appeared on friendly terms with the two girls, who called him
Bobbikins.
"How long have you been back?" he asked. "I was out in the Imperial
Yeomanry--only I got fever and had to come home."
James stiffened himself a little, with the instinctive dislike of the
regular for the volunteer.
"Oh, yes! Did you go as a trooper?"
"Yes; and pretty rough it was, I can tell you."
He began to talk of his experience in a resonant voice, apparently
well-pleased with himself, while the red-faced girls looked at him
admiringly. James wondered whether the youth intended to marry them
both.
The conversation was broken by the appearance of Mr. Larcher, a
rosy-cheeked and be-whiskered man, dapper and suave. He had been picking
flowers, and handed a bouquet to one of his guests. James fancied he was
a prosperous merchant, who had retired and set up as a country
gentleman; but if he was the least polished of the family, he was also
the most simple. He greeted the visitor very heartily, and offered to
take him over his new conservatory.
"My husband takes everyone to the new conservatory," said Mrs. Larcher,
laughing apologetically.
"It's the biggest round Ashford," explained the worthy man.
James, thinking he wished to talk of his son, consented, and as they
walked away, Mr. Larcher pointed out his fruit trees, his pigeons. He
was a fancier, said he, and attended to the birds entirely himself; then
in the conservatory, made James admire his orchids and the luxuriance of
his maidenhair.
"I suppose these sort of things grow in the open air at the Cape?" he
asked.
"I believe everything grows there."
Of his son he said absolutely nothing, and presently they rejoined the
others. The Larchers were evidently estimable persons, healthy-minded
and normal, but a little common. James asked himself why they had
invited him if they wished to hear nothing of their boy's tragic death.
Could they be so anxious to forget him that every reference was
distasteful? He wondered how Reggie had managed to grow up so simple,
frank, and charming amid these surroundings. There was a certain
pretentiousness about his people which caused them to escape complete
vulgarity only by a hair's-breadth. But they appeared anxious to make
much of James, and in his absence had explained who he was to the
remaining visitors, and these beheld him now with an awe which the hero
found rather comic.
Mrs. Larcher invited him to play tennis, and when he declined seemed
hardly to know what to do with him. Once when her younger daughter
laughed more loudly than usual at the very pointed chaff of the Imperial
Yeoman, she slightly frowned at her, with a scarcely perceptible but
significant glance in Jamie's direction. To her relief, however, the
conversation became general, and James found himself talking with Miss
Larcher of the cricket week at Canterbury.
After all, he could not be surprised at the family's general happiness.
Six months had passed since Reggie's death, and they could not remain
in perpetual mourning. It was very natural that the living should forget
the dead, otherwise life would be too horrible; and it was possibly only
the Larchers' nature to laugh and to talk more loudly than most people.
James saw that it was a united, affectionate household, homely and kind,
cursed with no particular depth of feeling; and if they had not resigned
themselves to the boy's death, they were doing their best to forget that
he had ever lived. It was obviously the best thing, and it would be
cruel--too cruel--to expect people never to regain their cheerfulness.
"I think I must be off," said James, after a while; "the trains run so
awkwardly to Tunbridge Wells."
They made polite efforts to detain him, but James fancied they were not
sorry for him to go.
"You must come and see us another day when we're alone," said Mrs.
Larcher. "We want to have a long talk with you."
"It's very kind of you to ask me," he replied, not committing himself.
Mrs. Larcher accompanied him back to the drawing-room, followed by her
husband.
"I thought you might like a photograph of Reggie," she said.
This was her first mention of the dead son, and her voice neither shook
nor had in it any unwonted expression.
"I should like it very much."
It was on Jamie's tongue to say how fond he had been of the boy, and how
he regretted his sad end; but he restrained himself, thinking if the
wounds of grief were closed, it was cruel and unnecessary to reopen
them.
Mrs. Larcher found the photograph and gave it to James. Her husband
stood by, saying nothing.
"I think that's the best we have of him."
She shook hands, and then evidently nerved herself to say something
further.
"We're very grateful to you, Captain Parsons, for what you did. And
we're glad they gave you the Victoria Cross."
"I suppose you didn't bring it to-day?" inquired Mr. Larcher.
"I'm afraid not."
They showed him out of the front door.
"Mind you come and see us again. But let us know beforehand, if you
possibly can."
* * *
Shortly afterwards James received from the Larchers a golden
cigarette-case, with a Victoria Cross in diamonds on one side and an
inscription on the other. It was much too magnificent for use,
evidently expensive, and not in very good taste.
"I wonder whether they take that as equal in value to their son?" said
James.
Mary was rather dazzled.
"Isn't it beautiful!" she cried, "Of course, it's too valuable to use;
but it'll do to put in our drawing-room."
"Don't you think it should be kept under a glass case?" asked James,
with his grave smile.
"It'll get so dirty if we leave it out, won't it?" replied Mary,
seriously.
"I wish there were no inscription. It won't fetch so much if we get
hard-up and have to pop our jewels."
"Oh, James," cried Mary, shocked, "you surely wouldn't do a thing like
that!"
James was pleased to have seen the Larchers. It satisfied and relieved
him to know that human sorrow was not beyond human endurance: as the
greatest of their gifts, the gods have vouchsafed to man a happy
forgetfulness.
In six months the boy's family were able to give parties, to laugh and
jest as if they had suffered no loss at all; and the thought of this
cleared his way a little. If the worst came to the worst--and that
desperate step of which he had spoken seemed his only refuge--he could
take it with less apprehension. Pain to those he loved was inevitable,
but it would not last very long; and his death would trouble them far
less than his dishonour.
Time was pressing, and James still hesitated, hoping distractedly for
some unforeseen occurrence that would at least delay the marriage. The
House of Death was dark and terrible, and he could not walk rashly to
its dreadful gates: something would surely happen! He wanted time to
think--time to see whether there was really no escape. How horrible it
was that one could know nothing for certain! He was torn and rent by his
indecision.
Major Forsyth had been put off by several duchesses, and was driven to
spend a few economical weeks at Little Primpton; he announced that since
Jamie's wedding was so near he would stay till it was over. Finding also
that his nephew had not thought of a best man, he offered himself; he
had acted as such many times--at the most genteel functions; and with a
pleasant confusion of metaphor, assured James that he knew the ropes
right down to the ground.
"Three weeks to-day, my boy!" he said heartily to James one morning, on
coming down to breakfast.
"Is it?" replied James.
"Getting excited?"
"Wildly!"
"Upon my word, Jamie, you're the coolest lover I've ever seen. Why, I've
hardly known how to keep in some of the fellows I've been best man to."
"I'm feeling a bit seedy to-day, Uncle William."
James thanked his stars that ill-health was deemed sufficient excuse for
all his moodiness. Mary spared him the rounds among her sick and needy,
whom, notwithstanding the approaching event, she would on no account
neglect. She told Uncle William he was not to worry her lover, but leave
him quietly with his books; and no one interfered when he took long,
solitary walks in the country. Jamie's reading now was a pretence; his
brain was too confused, he was too harassed and uncertain to understand
a word; and he spent his time face to face with the eternal problem,
trying to see a way out, when before him was an impassable wall, still
hoping blindly that something would happen, some catastrophe which
should finish at once all his perplexities, and everything else
besides.