THE BLUE RIBBON
The half-dozen years or so following Sir Denis's retirement were years
of peace, in which he forgot for long periods, broken only by the
Dowager's visits to London, his fear of losing his Nelly.
He had taken a house in Sherwood Square, where there is a space and
breeziness that the fashionable districts could not possibly allow.
The square sits on top of one of the highest hills in London, and
entrenches itself as a fortress against the poverty and squalor that are
creeping up the hill towards it. Around the square there are still
gardens and crescents and roads of consideration, but ever dwindling in
social status as one goes down the hill, till the consideration vanishes
in the degradation of cheap boarding-houses and the homes of Jews of the
shopkeeping classes.
Sir Denis had discovered Sherwood Square for himself, and was uncommonly
proud of it. He liked to point out to his friends that he rented a
palatial mansion for what a _pied-à-terre_ in Mayfair would have cost
him. The houses had been built by wealthy merchants and professional
people in the eighteenth century. They had splendours of double doors
and marble pavements, of frescoed walls and ceilings, and carved
mantelpieces. They were entered from a quiet street which showed hardly
a sign of life. There were lions couchant guarding the entrances. The
walls on that side showed mostly blank, uninteresting windows. With an
odd pride the great houses showed only their duller aspects to the
world.
All the living-rooms except one looked on the other side; and what a
difference! There was a great stretch of emerald-green turf such as one
would never look to see in London; to be sure, gardeners had been
watering and mowing and rolling it for over a century. In the turf were
many flower-beds, and here and there were forest trees which had been
there when the district was fields. Country birds came and built there
year after year. You might hear the thrush begin about January. And in
the spring it was a wilderness of sweet hyacinths and daffodils, lilac
and may. The rooms were spacious and splendid within the big
cream-coloured house; and the General used to say that in the early
morning, when the smoke had cleared away, it was possible from the upper
windows to see as far as the Surrey hills. However, that was something
which nobody but himself had tested.
In the house love and friendliness and good-will reigned supreme. The
General had insisted on engaging his own servants, much to the disgust
of the Dowager, who had several _protégés_ of her own practically
engaged. When the General had outwitted Lady Drummond on this occasion
by a flank movement, he was very gleeful in his confidential moments
alone with Nelly.
"She wanted to put in her spies and satellites, did she, Nelly, my girl?
Pretty stories of us they'd have carried to her Ladyship. The only
womanly thing your aunt has, my girl, is an invincible curiosity. She'd
like to know what we had for lunch and dinner, who came to see us, and
what clothes we wore. I'm glad you wouldn't have that mantua-maker of
hers. Cannot my girl have her frocks made where she likes? I'll tell you
what, Nelly: your aunt is a presumptuous, meddling, overbearing,
impertinent woman--that she is."
"Why don't you tell her to leave us alone, papa?"
But the General, whose courage had never been doubted during all the
years of his strenuous life, had very little bravery when it came to a
question of telling hard truths to a woman, and that woman the Dowager.
"We must remember, after all, Nelly," he would say then, "that she is
your Uncle Gerald's widow. Poor Gerald! what a dear fellow he was! No
matter what we say between ourselves, we can't quarrel with Gerald's
widow."
And Sir Denis, who was becoming garrulous in old age, would slip off
into some reminiscence of the younger brother to whom he had been
tenderly attached, and for whom he had also a certain hero-worship
because he had been so fine and heroic a soldier.
Certainly it said well for the servants whom Sir Denis and Nelly had
chosen for themselves that they fell in so completely with the kindness
and honesty and good-will of the house. Some credit was doubtless due
also to Sir Denis's soldier servant, whom he had installed as butler;
for Pat's loyalty and devotion to "Old Blood and Thunder" must have
influenced the class of persons who are so susceptible of impressions
from those of their own station, while the standards and exhortations of
their social superiors are as though they were not. Pat was lynx-eyed
for a malingerer in his Honour's service; and, indeed, where the rule
was so easy and pleasant there was no excuse for malingering. Pat, too,
was ably seconded by Bridget, the cook, who had come in originally as
kitchen-maid, and had in time taken the place of the very important and
pretentious functionary with whom they had started, and whose cookery
did not at all suit Sir Denis's digestion, impaired somewhat by long
years in India. The young kitchen-maid had taken the cook's place during
the latter's holiday, and had sent up for Sir Denis's dinner a little
clear soup, a bit of turbot with a sauce which was in itself genius, a
bird roasted to the nicest golden brown, and a pudding which was only
ground rice, but had an insubstantial delicacy about it quite unlike
what one associates with the homely cereal.
"You've saved my life, my girl," said Sir Denis, meeting Bridget on the
stairs the morning after this banquet, and presenting her with a golden
sovereign, "and if you like to stay on as cook at forty pounds a year,
why so you shall."
"You could shave yourself in her sauce-pans, your Honour," said Pat,
when he heard of this amazing promotion. It was Pat's way of saying that
Bridget polished her utensils till they reflected like a mirror. "She's
a rale good little girsha, that's what she is, the same Bridget; and I'm
rale glad, your Honour, that ould consiquince isn't comin' back again."
After that there were few changes. The servants were in clover, and
since Pat and Bridget knew it, and impressed it on their subordinates,
it came to be a generally recognised fact. To be sure, it made it
pleasanter for everyone in the house when, thanks to Bridget's excellent
plain cooking. Sir Denis forgot he had such a thing as a liver, and had
no more of the gouty attacks which made his temper east-windy instead of
west-windy. During those peaceful years he forgot to be choleric. He was
overflowing with kindness and helpfulness to those about him, and took a
paternal interest in the affairs of his household.
"Sure," Pat would say to Bridget, "'tis for marrying us he'd be, if he
knew how it was with us, same as he married off Rose to the postman and
gave them a cottage; and that new girl isn't up to Rose's work yet, nor
ever will be, unless I'm mistaken."
"'Twould be a sin to take advantage of him," Bridget would answer. "And
we're both young enough to wait a bit, Pat. There'll be new ways when
Miss Nelly marries Sir Robin. Maybe 'tis going to live with them he'd
be."
"He never will, so long as her Ladyship's alive," said Pat,
emphatically.
"Then maybe we'd be havin' him for a furnished lodger," said Bridget.
"I'd rather it 'ud be something in the country. Why wouldn't you be his
coachman as well, Pat? Sure, anything you don't know about horses isn't
worth the knowin'."
"True for you. We might have a little lodge," said Pat.
They were really the quietest and most peaceful years--unless the
Dowager happened to be in town. Then something went dreadfully wrong
with the General's temper, and he would come roaring downstairs and
along the corridors like a winter storm. The servants' hall used to take
a tender interest in those bad days.
"Somebody ought to spake to her," said Bridget. "Supposin' the gout was
to go to his heart! He was bad enough after the last time she was here."
"She'll never lave hoult of him," said Pat, solemnly. "The sort of her
Ladyship houlds on the tighter the more you wriggle. He's preparing a
quare bed of repentance for himself, so he is, the langwidge he's usin'
about her all over the house. By-and-by he'll be rememberin' she's Sir
Gerald's widdy, and'll be askin' me ashamed-like, 'I hope I didn't say
too much about her Ladyship in my timper, Pat. She's a tryin' woman, a
very tryin' woman. I'm afraid I'm apt to forget now an' agin that she's
my dear brother's widdy, so I am.'"
Pat's imitation of Sir Denis was really admirable.
"'Tis a pity he doesn't run her out of the house," said Bridget,
"instead of lettin' her bother the heart out of him like that."
"He couldn't say a rough word to a woman, not if it was to save his
life," said Pat. "Nothin' rougher thin 'No, ma'am,' and 'Yes, ma'am,' I
ever heard him say to her. Whirroo, Bridget, you should ha' heard him
whin his timper was up givin' it to us long ago in the barrack square. I
hope it isn't the suppressed gout she'll be giving him the next time!
'Tisn't half as bad whin it's out."
However, the storms were few and far between. The household lived by
rule. Every morning, winter and summer, the horses were at the door by
eight o'clock for the morning canter of the General and Miss Nelly in
the park. At nine o'clock the household assembled for prayers. After
breakfast Sir Denis walked to his club in Pall Mall, wet or dry. He
would read the papers and discuss the cheeseparing policy of the
Government with some of his old chums, lunch at the club, play a game of
dominoes or draughts, and return home in time for dinner. Frequently
they entertained a friend or two quietly at dinner. But, company or no
company, there were prayers at ten o'clock, after which the General took
his candle and went to his bedroom.
There were times, of course, when Nelly went out to balls and
entertainments, and then Sir Denis was to be seen on duty, even though
there were a good many ladies who would be willing to take the
chaperonage of his daughter off his hands. But that was an office he
would relinquish to no one. He was the most patient of chaperons, too,
and never grumbled if the daylight found him still at the whist-table,
although he would rise at the same hour as usual and carry out his
appointed round for the day as if he had not lost his sleep over-night.
Of course, Nelly might stay a-bed. He wouldn't have Nelly's roses
spoilt, and the young needed their proper amount of sleep. As for
himself, he couldn't sleep a wink after seven, no matter how late he had
been up the night before.
But, on the whole, they lived a quiet life. Nelly was too unselfish, too
fond of her father, to cost him many nights without his usual sleep. She
had really the quietest tastes. Her few friends, her books, her music,
her dogs and birds, sufficed for her happiness. They had a houseful of
dogs, by the way, and any description of the way of life in Sherwood
Square which made no mention of dogs would be quite insufficient. Duke
the Irish terrier and Bonaparte the pug, usually Boney, and Nelson the
bull terrier, were as important and characteristic members of the
household as anyone else, except, perhaps, Sir Denis and Miss Nelly.
Nelly used to explain her stay-at-home ways to her friends by saying
that the dogs were offended with her if she went out for a walk without
them. The dogs had many tricks. They knew the terms of drill as well as
any soldier, and were always ready for parade, or to die for their
country, or groan for their country's enemies, at the General's word of
command. Nelly had to be much out-of-doors, as the dogs were clamorous
for walks, and she kept her roses in London with the old milkmaid
sweetness.
There was one happening of the quiet day that stood out for Sir Denis,
and, although he did not know it, for his daughter also.
Sir Denis's old regiment happened to be stationed at a barracks in the
immediate neighbourhood. To reach their parade-ground it was possible
for the troops, by making a little detour, to pass along the quiet
street on which the houses in Sherwood Square opened. It became an
established thing that they should pass every morning about nine
o'clock. How that came Sir Denis did not trouble to ask. He was quite
satisfied and delighted that "the boys" should do him honour.
The breakfast-room was one of the few rooms that did not overlook the
square but the street. Every morning, just as Sir Denis concluded
prayers, there would come the steady trot of cavalry and the jingle of
accoutrements. If he had not quite finished, he would say "Amen" in a
reverent hurry. "Come now, boys and girls," he would say to the
servants, "I want you to see my old regiment."
He would step out on the balcony above the hall-door with a beaming
face, and his arm around his Nelly's waist. The servants would press
behind him, the dogs push to the front with the curiosity of their kind.
Down the street the soldiers would come, all flashing in scarlet and
gold, the sleek horses shining in the morning sun with a deeper lustre
than their polished accoutrements. There would be a halt for a second in
front of the house. The men would salute their old General, the General
salute his old regiment. Then the cavalcade would sweep on its way and
the street be duller than before.
One morning--it was a bright, breezy morning of March--the wind had
caught Nelly's golden hair and blown it in a halo about her face. She
was wearing a blue ribbon in it. She was fond of blue, and the
simplicity of it became her fresh youth. Just as the soldiers halted the
wind caught Nelly's blue bow, and, having played with it a little, sent
it drifting down like a little blue flower among the men on horseback.
It was such a slight thing that the General might not have noticed it.
Anyhow, he made no comment, but watched the troops out of sight as
usual. The odd thing was that Nelly passed over her loss in silence,
although she must have missed her blue ribbon, since without it her hair
had become loose in the wind.
At breakfast, when the servants had left the room, the General made a
remark.
"That young Langrishe sits his horse well," he said. "He's a good
soldier, Nelly, my girl. A very good soldier, or I'm much mistaken."
But Nelly was apparently too absorbed in her duty of making the tea to
answer the remark. For an instant she was redder than a rose. No one
would have suspected Sir Denis of slyness, but the look he shot at the
girl was certainly sly. Under the white tablecloth he rubbed his hands
softly together.