THE GENERAL HAS AN IDEA
When Sir Denis came home from his club that evening he learned that Miss
Nelly had gone to bed with a headache.
Pat, who told him, looked away as he gave the information, as though he
did not believe in his own words. Miss Nelly with a headache! Why, God
bless her, she had never had such a thing, not from the day she was
born! To be sure, the whole affectionate household knew that there was
some cloud over Miss Nelly. They didn't talk much about it. Pat and
Bridget knew better than to have the servants' hall gossiping over the
master and Miss Nelly. A new under-housemaid, who was greatly addicted
to the reading of penny novelettes, suggested that Miss Nelly was being
forced into marrying her cousin by the machinations of his mother, who
was not _persona grata_ with the servants' hall. But Pat had nipped the
young person's imaginings in the bud.
"She may be contrairy enough to give the General the gout in his big toe
and the twisht in his timper, as often she's done. But she can't make
our Miss Nelly marry where she don't like. If you'd put your romantic
notions into your scrubbin' now, Miss Higgs; but I suppose it's your
name is the matter with you, and you can't help it."
The under-housemaid, whose name happened to be Gladys Higgs, was reduced
to tears by this remark, and the tears brought the kind-hearted Pat to
repentance for his hastiness.
"Whatever the dickens came over me," he imparted to Bridget when they
were having a snack of bread and cheese between meals in the room
allotted to the cook, who was now also housekeeper, "to go sharpenin' my
tongue on that foolish little girl? It isn't for you an' me to be makin'
fun of their quare names. 'Tis no credit to us if we have elegant names
in the counthry we come from."
"Aye, indeed. Where would you find pleasanter thin MacGeoghegan or
McGroarty or Magillacuddy? There was a polisman in our town by the name
of McGuffin. I always thought it real pleasant."
"Sure what would be on the little girl?--'tis Miss Nelly, I mean," said
Pat, in a manner that showed his real anxiety. "She scared me, so she
did, with her nonsense, that Gladys. For it stands to reason that Miss
Nelly wouldn't mind marryin' Sir Robin--isn't he the fittest match for
her?--if it wasn't that there might be someone else. And who could it
be, I ask you, unbeknownst to us that has watched over her from a
babby?"
"You're a foolish man to be takin' that much notice of that Gladys girl
and her talk. Why shouldn't Miss Nelly have a headache? Why, I remember
the Miss O'Flahertys, Lord Dunshanbo's daughters, when I was a little
girl; and 'twas faintin' on the floor they were every other minute and
everyone havin' to run and cut their stay-laces. They were fifty, too,
if they were a day, so they ought to have had more sense. Why wouldn't
Miss Nelly have Quality ways?"
"Young ladies aren't like that nowadays," Pat said dolefully. "'Tis the
bicycle and the golf. They've no stay-laces to cut, so they don't go
faintin' away. And Miss Nelly, poor lamb, she'd never be thinkin' of
doing such a thing."
He went off sorrowfully, shaking his head. The mysteriousness of the
change in Miss Nelly perturbed him the more. He looked away from the
General when he gave the information about the headache.
"Miss Nelly said, sir," he volunteered, "that she was to be called,
unless she was asleep, when you came home to dinner. Shall I send up
Fanny to call her?"
"Not for worlds," said the General. "I'll go myself. She mustn't be
disturbed, poor child, if she has a headache."
He went upstairs softly, pursing out his lips as he went along in
troubled thought. He opened the door of his daughter's room, and spoke
her name in a whisper. There was not a sound.
"Fast asleep," he said, with a sigh, as he went to his dressing-room to
dress for dinner. That was something he would not have omitted for any
possible calamity that could befall him.
He ate his dinner in lonely state. Bridget had done her best by way of
expressing her sympathy, but he ate without his usual enjoyment.
"Sure," said Pat afterwards, "he didn't know but what it was sawdust he
was atin' instead of that beautiful volly-vong of yours. He could barely
touch the mutton, and a beautiful little joint it was. Sure, there's a
sad change come over the house, anyway."
The General gave orders that Miss Nelly was not to be disturbed again
that night. After dinner he retired to his den and made a pretence of
reading the papers, but his heart wasn't in it. He missed even a speech
of Robin's which would have enraged him in happier times. He sat turning
over the sheets and sighing to himself now and again; only when Pat came
in with a pretence of replenishing the fire--it was Pat's way of showing
his silent sympathy--was the General absorbed in his newspaper. Not that
it imposed on Pat, who mentioned afterwards to Bridget that he didn't
believe the master knew a word of what he was looking at.
About half-past nine the General relinquished that pretence of reading.
He felt the house to be nearly as sad as though someone were lying dead
in it, and he could support it no longer. He must find out what was the
matter with the child, or at least show her how her old father's heart
bled for her. He got up quietly from his big easy-chair, from which he
had been used to survey his Nelly's face at the other side of the
fireplace for many a happy year. To be sure, it had not been the same
since the Dowager had come, and Nelly had gone gadding of evenings.
Still, she had always come in to kiss him before she went off, looking
radiant and sweet, with the hood of her evening cloak over her bright
head and framing the dearest face in the world. She had always clung to
him with her soft arms about his neck, and he had not minded her absence
since she was enjoying herself as she ought at her age.
He climbed up the stairs of the high house. Nelly had chosen a bedroom
right at the top, whence she could look away over the London roofs to
the mists that hid the country.
The blinds were up and the cold winter moon lay on the girl's bed. The
General came in tip-toe, trying to avoid creaking on the bare boards,
which Nelly preferred to carpets. But his precaution was unnecessary.
She was lying wide-awake. The darkness of her eyes in her face,
unnaturally white from the moonlight, frightened him. He had a memory of
Nelly's mother as he had seen her newly-dead, and the memory scared him.
"Is that you, papa?" Nelly asked, half-lifting herself on her pillow.
"Come and sit down. I was thinking of dressing myself and coming down to
you."
"You mustn't do that if your headache is not better."
"It was nothing at all of a headache," she said with a weary little
sigh, "but I must have fallen asleep. If I had not I should have come
down to dinner. I only awoke just before the church clock struck nine.
Were you very lonely?"
"I am always lonely without you, Nell. You have had nothing to eat, have
you? No. Well, perhaps you'd better come down and have a little meal in
the study by the fire. Unless you'd prefer a fire up here. The room
strikes cold. To be sure, the windows are open. There is snow coming, I
think."
"I like the cold. I'm not hungry, but I shall get up presently. I
haven't really gone to bed."
She put out a chilly little hand over her father's, and he took it into
his. When had they wanted anyone but each other? What new love could
ever be as true and tender as his?
"Oh!" cried Nelly, burying her face in her pillow. "I'm a wicked girl to
be discontented. I ought to have everything in the world, having you."
"And when did my Nelly become discontented?" he asked, with a passionate
tenderness. "What has clouded over my girl, the light of the house? What
is it, Nell?"
He had been both father and mother to her. For a second or two she kept
her face buried, as if she would still hold her secret from him. His
hand brushed the pale ripples of her hair, as another hand had brushed
them a short time back. He expected her to answer him, and he was
waiting.
"It is Captain Langrishe," she whispered at last. "His boat goes from
Tilbury to-morrow morning."
"From Tilbury." The General remembered that Grogan of the Artillery, the
club bore, had a daughter and son-in-law sailing from Tilbury next
morning, and had suggested his accompanying him to the docks. "Why he
should have asked me," the General had said irritably, "when I can
barely endure him for half-an-hour, is more than I can imagine!"
"What is wrong between you and Langrishe, Nell?" he asked softly. "I
thought he was a good fellow. I know he's a good soldier; and a good
soldier must be a good fellow. Has anyone been making mischief?"
He sent a sudden wrathful thought towards the Dowager. Who else was so
likely to make mischief? The thought that someone had been making
mischief was almost hopeful, since mischief done could be undone if one
only set about it rightly.
"No one," Nelly answered mournfully.
The General suddenly stiffened. His one explanation of Langrishe's pride
standing in the way was forgotten; it was not reason enough. Was it
possible that Langrishe had been playing fast-and-loose with his girl?
Was it possible--this was more incredible still--that he did not return
her innocent passion? For a few seconds he did not speak. His
indignation was ebbing into a dull acquiescence. If Langrishe did not
care--why, no one on earth could make him care. No one could blame him
even.
"You must give up thinking of him, Nell," he said at last. He could not
bring himself to ask her if Langrishe cared. "You must forget him,
little girl, and try to be satisfied with your old father till someone
more worthy comes along."
"But he is worthy." Nelly spoke with a sudden flash of spirit. "And he
cares so much. I always felt he cared. But I never knew how much till we
met at his sister's this afternoon and he bade me good-bye."
"Then why is he going?" the General asked, with pardonable amazement.
"Oh, I don't know," Nelly answered irritably. She had never been
irritable in all her sunny life. "But although he is gone I am happier
than I have been for a long time since I know he cares so much."
"I'll tell you what,"--the General got up quite briskly--"dress
yourself, Nell, and come down to the study, and we'll talk things over.
You may be sure, little girl, that your old father will leave no stone
unturned to secure your happiness. I'll ring for your dinner to be
brought up on a tray and we'll have a happy evening together. And you'd
better have a fire here, Nell. It's a very pretty room, my dear, with
all your pretty fal-lals, but it strikes me as being very chilly."
He went downstairs and rang the bell for Miss Nelly's dinner. The fire
had been stoked in his absence, and was now burning gloriously.
He drew Nelly's chair closer to it and a screen around the chair. He put
a cushion for her back, and a hassock for her feet. The little acts were
each an eloquent expression of his love for her. He was suddenly,
irrationally hopeful. He reproached himself because he had done so
little. He had thought he was doing a great deal when he, an old man and
so high in his profession, had made advances to the young fellow for his
girl's sake. To be sure, he had been certain that Langrishe was in love
with Nell, else the thing had not been possible. Now that his love was
beyond doubt the old idea recurred to him. It must be some chivalrous,
overstrained scruple about his poverty which came between poor Nell and
her happiness. Standing by the fire, waiting for Nelly, he rubbed his
hands together with a return of cheerfulness.
In a few minutes she came gliding in shyly. That confidence had only
been possible in the dark. The General felt her embarrassment and busied
himself in stirring the fire. Pat came up with the tray--such a dainty
tray, loaded with good things. The General called for a glass of wine
for Miss Nelly. He waited on her with a tender assiduity and she forced
herself to eat, saying to herself with passionate gratitude that she
would be a brute if she did not swallow to please him.
The wine brought a colour to her cheeks. She watched her father with shy
eyes. What could he do to bring her and her lover together, seeing that
it was Captain Langrishe's last night in England and that he would not
return for five years? Five years spread out an eternity to Nelly's
youthful gaze. She might be dead before five years were over. This
afternoon she had felt no great desire to live, but that despair, of
course, was wrong. She had not remembered at the moment how dear she and
her father were to each other. As long as they were together there must
be compensations for anything in life.
She had expected her father to speak, but he did not. While he had been
standing by the fire awaiting her coming he had had qualms. Supposing
she had made a mistake about the young fellow's feeling for her. Such
things happened with girls sometimes. Supposing--no, it was better to
keep silence for the present. If things turned out well, it would be
time enough to tell Nelly. If things turned out well! What, after all,
were five years? To the General, for whom the wheel of the days and the
years had been turning giddily fast and ever faster these many years
back, five years counted for little. He had a hale, hearty old life.
Surely the Lord in His goodness would permit him to look on Nelly's
happiness and his grandchildren! It was another thing to think of
Nelly's children when the match was not of the Dowager's making.
He inspired Nelly with something of his own hopefulness. She saw that he
had some design which she was not to share. Well, she could trust his
love to move mountains for her happiness. The evening was far better
than she could have hoped for, and she went to bed comforted.
"Early breakfast, Nell," he said as they parted. "I've ordered it for
eight o'clock. But I shan't expect to see you unless you feel like it.
These cold mornings it's allowable to be a little lazy."
This from the General, who rose at half-past six all the year round and
had his cold bath even when he had to break the ice on it. Nelly's
laziness, too, was a matter of recent date. She had always loved the
winter and had seemed to glow the fresher the colder the weather.
The General thought of himself as an arch-diplomatist, but he was
transparent enough to his daughter.
"He doesn't want me at breakfast," she said to herself. "He doesn't want
me to ask questions. So I shall save him embarrassment by not
appearing."
The next morning there was no General to see the squadron of the old
regiment gallop past. No family prayers either. What were things coming
to? the servants asked each other. And second breakfast at nine for Miss
Nelly!
"Take my word for it," said Bridget to Pat, "the next thing'll be Miss
Nelly havin' her breakfast in bed like Lord Dunshanbo's daughters. Five
of them there was, Pat, all old maids. And they used to sit round in
their beds, every one with a satin quilt, and their hair in curl-papers,
and a newspaper spread out to save the quilt."
"'Tis too early and too cowld," said Pat, interrupting this
reminiscence, "for the master to be goin' out. And he doesn't like bein'
put out of his habits, not by the half of a second. I used to think
before I was a soldier that punctuality was the most onnecessary thing
on earth, but I've come to like it somehow."
"The same here," said Bridget, "though it wasn't in my blood. I wondher
what they'd think of us at home?"