I had almost given up writing here. Is it wise to begin again? Yet,
to-day, in the silent hut, with the east wind howling outside almost
as fiercely as it used to howl last winter over the steppes of the
Caucasus, one must do something, if only to kill time.
Usually, I have little need for that resource; this barrack business
engrosses every leisure hour.
The commander-in-chief has at length promised a commission of inquiry,
if sufficient data can be supplied to him to warrant it. I have,
therefore, been collecting evidence from every barrack in the United
Kingdom,--and visiting personally all within a day or two days' leave
from the camp. The most important were those of the metropolis.
It is needless here to recur to details of which my head has been full
all the week; till a seventh day's rest and change of ideas becomes
almost priceless. Unprofessional men cannot understand this; young
Granton could not, when coming down from town with me last night, he was
lamenting that he should not get at his cottage-building, which he keeps
up in defiance of winter weather, till Monday morning.
Mr. Granton indulged me with much conversation about some friends of
his, which inclines me to believe that "the kindest heart in the world"
has not suffered an incurable blow, and is already proceeding to seek
consolation elsewhere. It may be so. The young are pleasant to the
young: the happy delight in the happy.
To return to my poor fellows; my country bumpkins and starving
mechanics, caught by the thirteen pence a-day, and after all the
expensive drilling that is to make them proper food for powder, herded
together like beasts in a stall, till, except under strong coercion, the
beast nature is apt to get uppermost--and no wonder. I must not think
of rest till I have left no stone unturned for the furtherance of this
scheme concerning my poor fellows.
And yet, the older one grows, the more keenly one feels how little
power one individual man has for good--whatever he may have for evil.
At least, this is the suggestion of a morbid spirit, after aiming at
everything and doing almost nothing--which seemed the brief catalogue of
my week's labour, last night.
People are so slow to join in any reformatory schemes. They will talk
enough of the need for it,--but they will not act--it is too much
trouble. Most men are engrossed in their own private concerns, business,
amusements, or ambitions. It is incredible, the difficulty I had
in hunting up some, who were the most active agents of good in the
Crimea--and of these, how few could be convinced that there was anything
needed to be done at home.
At the Horse Guards, where my face must be as familiar as that of the
clock on the quadrangle to those gentlemanly young clerks--no attention
was wanting, but that of furthering my business. However, the time was
not altogether wasted, as in various talks with former companions, whom
I there by chance waylaid, ideas were thrown out that may be brought
to bear in different quarters. And, as always happens, from some of
the very last quarters where anything was to be expected, the warmest
interest and assistance came.
Likewise--and this forms the bright spot in a season not particularly
pleasant--during my brief stay in London, the first for many years, more
than one familiar face has come across me out of far back times, with
a welcome and remembrance, the warmth and heartiness of which both
surprised and cheered me.
Among those I met on Thursday, was an old colonel, under whom I went out
on my first voyage as assistant-surgeon, twelve years ago. He stopped me
in the Mall, addressing me by name; I had almost forgotten his, till his
cordial greeting brought it to mind. Then we fell to upon many mutual
questions and reminiscences.
He said that he should have known me anywhere, though I was altered a
good deal in some respects.
"All for the better, though, my boy--beg pardon, Doctor--but you were
such a slip of a lad, then. Thought we should have had to throw you
overboard before the voyage was half over, but you cheated us all, you
see,--and, 'pon my life, hard as you must have been at it since then,
you look as if you had many years more of work in you yet."
I told him I hoped so,--which I do, for some things, and then, in answer
to his friendly questions, I entered into the business which had brought
me to London.
The good colonel was brimful of interest.
He has a warm heart, plenty of money, thinks that money can do
everything. I had the greatest difficulty in persuading him that his
cheque-book would not avail me with the commander-in-chief, or the
honourable British officers whom I hoped to stir up to some little
sympathy with the men they commanded.
"But can't I help you at all?--can't my son, either?--you remember
Tommy, who used to dance the sailor's hornpipe on the deck. Such a dandy
young fellow;--got him a place under Government--capital berth, easy
hours, eleven till four, and regular work--the whole _Times_ to read
through daily. Ha! ha! you understand, eh?"
I laughed too, for it was a pretty accurate description of what I had
this week seen in Government offices; indeed, in public offices of
all kinds, where the labour is so largely sub-divided as to be in the
responsible hands of very few, and the work and the pay generally follow
in an opposite ratio of progression. In the present instance, from what
I remember of him, no doubt such a situation would exactly suit Master
Tommy Turton.
His father and I strolled up and down the shiny half-dried pavement till
the street-lamps were lighted, and the club-windows began to brighten
and glow.
"You'll dine with me, of course--not at the United Service--it's my day
with Tom at his club, the New Universal, capital club too. No apologies;
we'll quarter ourselves upon Tommy, he will be delighted. He's extremely
proud of his club; the young rogue costs me--it's impossible to say
what Tom costs me per annum, over and above his pay. Yet he is a good
lad, too--as lads go--holds up his head among all the young fellows of
the club, and keeps the very best of company."
So went on the worthy old father--with more, which I forget. I had been
on my feet all day, and was what women call "tired,"--when they delight
to wheel out arm-chairs and push warmed slippers under wet feet--at
least, so I have seen done.
London club-life was new to me; nor was I aware that in this England,
this "home,"--words, which abroad we learn to think synonymous and
invest with an inexpressible charm,--so large a proportion of the middle
classes assume by choice the sort of life which, on foreign service,
we put up with of necessity; the easy selfish life into which a male
community is prone to fall. The time-honoured United Service, I was
acquainted with; but the New Universal was quite a dazzle of brilliant
plate, a palace of upholstery. Tom had not come in, but his father
showed me over his domains with considerable pride.
"Yes; this is how we live--he at his club and I at mine. We have two
tidy bedrooms, somewhere or other, hard by,--and that's all. A very
jolly life, I assure you, if one hasn't the gout or the blues; we have
kept to it ever since the poor mother died, and Henrietta married. I
sometimes tell Tom he ought to settle; but he says it would be slow, and
he can't afford it. Hollo! here's the boy."
Tom--a "boy" six feet high, good-looking and well-dressed, after the
exact pattern of a few dozen more, whom we had met strolling arm-in-arm
down Pall-Mall--greeted me with great civility, and said he remembered
me perfectly--though my unfortunately quick ears detected him asking his
father, aside, "where on earth he had picked up that old fogie?"
We dined well--and a good dinner is not a bad thing. As a man gets
old, he may be allowed some cheer--in fact, he needs it. Whether, at
twenty-four, he needs five courses and half-a-dozen kinds of wine is
another question. But Master Tom was my host, so silence! Perhaps I am
becoming, "an old fogie."
After dinner, the colonel opened out warmly upon my business, which his
son evidently considered a bore.
"He really did not understand the matter; it was not in his department
of public business; the governor always thought they must know
everything that was going on, when, in truth, they knew nothing at all.
He should be most happy, but had not the least notion what it was in his
power to do for Doctor Urquhart."
Doctor Urquhart laboured to make the young gentleman understand that he
really did not want him to do anything, to which Tom listened with that
philosophical _laissez-faire_, kept just within the bounds of
politeness, that we of an elder generation are prone to find fault with.
At last, an idea struck him.
"Why, father, there's Charteris,--knows everything and everybody--would
be just the man for you. There he is."
And he pointed eagerly to a gentleman, who, six tables off, lounged over
his wine and newspaper.
That morning, as I stood talking in an anteroom, at the Horse Guards,
this gentleman had caught my notice, leaning over one of the clerks, and
enlivening their dullness by making a caricature. Now my phiz was quite
at their service, but it seemed scarcely fair for any but that king
of caricature, "Punch," to make free with the honest, weather-beaten
features of the noble old veteran who was talking with me. So I just
intervened--not involuntarily--between the caricaturist and my--shall I
honour myself by calling him my friend? the good old warrior, might
not deny it. For Mr. Char-teris, he apparently did not wish to own my
acquaintance, nor had I any desire to resume his. We passed without
recognition, as I would willingly have done now, had not Colonel Turton
seized upon the name.
"Tom's right. Charteris is the very man. Has enormous influence, and
capital connections, though, between you and me, Doctor, calls himself
as poor as a church-mouse."
"Five hundred a-year," said Tom, grimly. "Wish I'd as much! Still, he's
a nice fellow, and jolly good company. Here, waiter, take my compliments
to Mr. Charteris, and will he do us the honour of joining us?"
Mr. Charteris came.
He appeared surprised at sight of me, but we both went through the
ceremony of introduction without mentioning that it was not for the
first time. And during the whole conversation, which lasted until the
dinner-sounds ceased, and the long, bright, splendid dining-room was
all but deserted, we neither of us once adverted to the little parlour
where, for a brief five minutes, Mr. Charteris and myself had met some
weeks before.
I had scarcely noticed him then; now I did. He bore out Tom's encomium
and the colonel's. He is a highly intelligent, agreeable person,
apparently educated to the utmost point of classical refinement. The
sort of man who would please most women, and who, being intimate in a
family of sisters, would with them involuntarily become their standard
of all that is admirable in our sex.
In Mr. Charteris was much really to be admired: a grace bordering on
what in one sex we call sweetness, in the other effeminacy. Talent, too,
not original or remarkable, but indicating an evenly-cultivated,
elegant mind. Rather narrow, it might be--all about him was small, neat,
regular; nothing in the slightest degree eccentric, or diverging from
the ordinary, being apparently possible to him; a pleasure-loving
temperament, disinclined for active energy in any direction--this
completed my impression of Mr. Francis Charteris.
Though he gave me no information,--indeed, he seemed like my young
friend Tom to make a point of knowing as little and taking as slight
interest as possible, in the state machinery of which he formed a
part--he contributed very considerably to the enjoyment of the evening.
It was he who suggested our adjournment to the theatre..
"Unless Doctor Urquhart objects. But I dare say we can find a house
where the performance trenches on none of the ten commandments, about
which, I am aware, he is rather particular."
"Oh," cried Tom, "'Thou shalt not steal,' from the French; and 'Thou
shalt do no murder' on the Queen's English, are the only commandments
indispensable on the stage. Come away, father."
"You're a sad dog," said the father, shaking his fist at him, with a
delighted grin, which reminded me of hornpipe-days.
But the sad dog knew where to find the best bones to pick, and by no
means dry, either. Now, though I am not a book-man, I love my Shakspere
well enough not to like him acted--his grand old flesh and blood
digged up and served out to this modern taste as a painted, powdered,
dressed-up skeleton. But this night I saw him "in his habit as he
lived," presented "in very form and fashion of the time." There was a
good deal of show, certainly, it being a pageant play; but you felt show
was natural; that just in such a way the bells must have rung, and
the people shouted, for the living Bolingbroke. The acting, too, was
natural; and to me, a plain man, accustomed to hold women sacred, and to
believe that a woman's arms should be kept solely for the man who loves
her, I own it was a satisfaction when the stage _Queen_ clung to the
stage _King Richard_, in that pitiful parting, where,--=
````"Bad men, ye violate
```A twofold marriage--'twixt my crown and me,
```And then between me and my married wife,"=
it was a satisfaction, I say, to know that it was her own husband the
actress was kissing.
This play, which Tom and the colonel voted "slow," gave me two hours of
the keenest, most utterly oblivious, enjoyment; a desideratum not easily
attainable.
Mr. Charteris considered it fine in its way; but, after all, there was
nothing like the opera.
"Oh, Charteris is opera-mad," said Tom. "Every subscription-night, there
he is, wedged in the crowd at the horrid little passage leading out
of the Haymarket--among a knot of his cronies, who don't mind making
martyrs of themselves for a bit of tootle-te-tooing, a kick-up, and a
twirl. Well, I'm not fond of music."
"I am," said Mr. Charteris, drily.
"And of looking at pretty women, too, eh, my dear fellow?"
"Certainly."
And here he diverged to a passing criticism on the pretty women in the
boxes round us: who were not few. I observed them, also--for I notice
women's faces more than I was wont--but none were satisfactory, even to
the eye. They all seemed over-conscious of themselves and their looks,
except one small creature, in curls, and a red mantle--about the age of
the poor wounded Russ, who might have been my own little adopted girl by
this time, if she had not died.
I wish, sometimes, she had not died. My life would have been less
lonely, could I have adopted that child.
There may be more beauty--I have heard there is, in the upper class of
Englishwomen than in any race of women on the globe. But a step lower in
rank, less smoothly cosmopolitan, more provincially and honestly Saxon;
reserved, yet frank; simple, yet gay, would be the Englishwoman of one's
heart. The man who dare open his eyes, fearlessly, to the beauties of
such an one--seek her in a virtuous middle-class home, ask her of her
proud father and mother; then win her and take her, joyfully, to sit by
his happy hearth, wife--matron--_mother_---- I forget how that sentence
was to have ended; however, it is of little consequence. It was caused
partly by some reflection on this club-life, and another darker side of
it, of which I caught some glimpses when I was in London.
We finished the evening at the theatre pleasantly. In the sort of
atmosphere we were in, harmless enough, but glaring, unquiet, and
unhome-like, I was scarcely surprised that Mr. Charteris did not once
name the friends at whose house I first met him; indeed, he seemed
to avoid the slightest approach to the subject. Only once, as we were
pushing together, side by side, into the cool night air, he asked me, in
a low hurried tone, if I had been to Rock-mount lately? He had heard I
was present at the marriage.
I believe I made some remark about his absence being much regretted that
day.
"Yes---yes. Shall you be there soon?"
The question was put with an anxiety, which my answer in the negative
evidently relieved.
"Oh, then--I need send no message. I thought you were very intimate. A
charming family--a very charming family."
His eyes were wandering to some ladies of fashion who had recognised
him--whom he put into their carriage with that polite assiduity which
seems an instinct with him, and in the crowd we lost sight of Mr.
Charteris.
Twice afterwards I saw him; once, driving in the park with two ladies
in a coroneted carriage: and again walking in the dusk of the afternoon
down Kensington-road. This time he started, gave me the slightest
recognition possible, and walked on faster than ever. He need not have
feared:--I had no wish or intention of resuming our acquaintance.
The more I hear of him, the more increases my surprise--nay, even not
unmixed with anxiety--at his position, in the family at Rockmount.
*****
Here I was suddenly called out to a bad accident case, some miles across
the country; whence I have only returned in time for bed.
It was impossible to do anything for the poor fellow; one of Granton's
labourers, who knew me by sight. I could only wait till all was over,
and the widow a little composed.
At her urgent request, I sent a note to Rockmount, hard by, begging Miss
Johnston would let her know if there had been heard anything of
Lydia--a daughter, once in service with the Johnstons, afterwards in
London--now--as the poor old mother mournfully expressed it--"gone
wrong."
To my surprise, Miss Johnston answered the message in person, and a most
painful conversation ensued. She is a good woman--no doubt of that: but
she is, as Treherne once said of her father, "as sharp as a needle and
as hard as a rock."
It being already dark, of course I saw her safe back to her own gate.
She informed me that the family were all quite well, which was the sole
conversation that passed between us, except concerning the poor dead
labourer, James Cartwright, and his family, of whom, save Lydia, she
spoke compassionately, saying they had gone through much trouble.
Walking along by her side, and trying to find a cause for the exceeding
bitterness and harshness of spirit she had evidenced, it struck me that
this lady was herself not ignorant of trouble.
I left her at the gate under the bush of ivy. Through the bars I
could see, right across the wet garden, the light streaming from the
hall-door.
Now to bed, and to sleep, if this heart will allow: it has been rather
unmanageable lately, necessitating careful watching, as will be the case
till there is nothing here but an empty skull.
If only I could bring this barrack matter to a satisfactory start, from
which good results might reasonably be expected, I would at once go
abroad. Anywhere--it is all the same. A rumour is afloat that we may
soon get the route for the East, or China; which I could be well content
with, as my next move.
Far away--far away; with thousands of miles of tossing sea between me
and this old England; far away out of all sight or Remembrance. So best.
Next time I call on Widow Cartwright shall be after dark, when, without
the slightest chance of meeting any one, it will be easy to take a few
steps further up the village. There is a cranny in one place in the
wall, whence I know one can get a very good view of the parlour-window,
where they never close the shutters till quite bedtime.
And, before our regiment leaves, it will be right I should call--to omit
this would hardly be civil, after all the hospitality I have received.
So I will call some wet day, when they are not likely to be out,--when,
probably, the younger sister will be sitting at her books upstairs in
the attic, which, she told me, she makes her study, and gets out of the
way of visitors. Perhaps she will not take the trouble to come down. Not
even for a shake of the hand and a good-bye--good-bye _for ever_.
O, mother--unknown mother--who must have surely loved my father; well
enough, too, to leave all friends and follow him, a poor lieutenant of
a marching regiment, up and down the world--if I had but died with you
when you brought me into this same troublesome world, how much it would
have saved!