THE LEADING AND THE LIGHT
The General was at Fenchurch Street by half-past nine. He rather
expected to see old Grogan on the platform, and was not sure whether he
was relieved or disappointed by his absence. On the one hand, he could
hardly have borne Grogan's twaddle on the journey to Tilbury, his mind
being engrossed as it was. On the other, he looked to him to cover his
presence at the boat.
Now that he was started on the adventure he was nervously anxious lest
he should compromise his girl by betraying to Langrishe the errand he
was come on, unless, indeed, Langrishe gave him the lead. He was as
sensitive as Nelly herself could have been about offering her where she
was not desired or was likely to be rejected. But he assured himself
that everything would be right. In the sudden surprise of seeing him,
Langrishe would say or do something that would give him a lead. He would
be able to bring back a message of hope to Nelly. Five years--after all,
what were five years? Especially to a girl as young as Nelly. They could
wait very well till Langrishe came home again.
At the booking-office he was told that the special train for the
_Sutlej_ had just gone. Another train for Tilbury was leaving in five
minutes.
"You will get in soon after the special," the booking-clerk assured him.
"Plenty of time to see your friends before she sails. Why, she's not due
to sail till twelve o'clock. There'll be a deal of luggage to be got on
board."
The General unfolded his _Standard_ in the railway carriage, and turned
to the principal page of news. A big headline, followed by a number of
smaller ones, caught his eye: "Outrage at Shawur. An English Officer and
Five Sepoys Caught in a Trap. Death of Major Sayers. Regiment Sent in
Pursuit. Statement in the House."
The General bent his brows over the report. He had known poor Sayers--a
most distinguished soldier, but brave to rashness. And the Wazees tribe,
treacherous rascals! The General had some experience of them too. Ah, so
Mordaunt was sent in pursuit. The tribe had retired after the murder to
its fastnesses in the hills. He remembered those fortified towers in the
hill valleys. He had had to smoke them out once like rats in a hole. Ah,
poor Sayers! The brutes! And Sayers had a young wife!
He lifted his head from the paper, and stared out of the carriage
windows, where tiny cottages, with neat white stones for their garden
borders, showed that the train was passing through a residential
district much affected by retired sailor-men. The mast of a ship seemed
to be a favourite ornament, and a little flag was hoisted on many lawns.
Flakes of dry snow came in the wind, but, cold as it was, a good many of
the old sailors were out pottering about their tiny gardens. Here a
glimpse of the river, or a church spire with many graves nestled under
it, came to break the monotony of the little houses.
The General looked without seeing. He was thinking of Sayers' young
wife--to be sure, she was not so young now: she must be well over
thirty--an innocent-faced creature, sitting at the piano in a white
gown, singing, while he and poor Sayers paced the garden-walk in the
twilight. Poor woman! how was she to bear it? Those knives, too! The
General ground his teeth in fury.
Then suddenly another aspect of the matter flashed upon him, so suddenly
that he almost leaped in his seat. Why, the --th Madras Light
Infantry--he remembered now--it was Langrishe's regiment. How
extraordinary that he should not have remembered before! It was the
regiment sent in pursuit. Langrishe would fall in for some fighting--he
would find it ready-made to his hand. Those little frontier wars were
endless things once they started. And what toll they took of precious
human lives! In the last one more young fellows of the General's
acquaintance had been killed than he liked to remember. Such deaths,
too! Even the bravest soldier might well shrink from the fiendish things
the Wazees were capable of.
Suddenly the train pulled up abruptly, so abruptly that for a few
seconds it quivered as a horse will after being hard-driven. The General
went to the window and looked out. The houses had been left behind and
around them was a country of grey mud-flats with the river dragging its
sluggish length through it like a great serpent. There was a windmill on
the horizon, breaking the uniform grey of land and river and sky. The
sky was heavy with coming snow.
The guard of the train was standing on the line, beating his two arms
against his breast to warm them, and answering stolidly the impatient
questions of the passengers.
"Obstruction on the line in front, sir," he said, addressing nobody in
particular. "Waggon broke away from the siding and got on to our track.
There's a breakdown gang doing its level best to get us clear. How long?
Can't say, I'm sure, sir. Matter of half an hour, maybe."
The matter of half an hour became a matter of three-quarters, of an
hour, of an hour and a quarter. The train grumbled from end to end. Here
and there a particularly indignant passenger got out with the expressed
intention of walking to his destination. The officials bore it all
patiently. It was no fault of theirs. The breakdown gang, was doing its
best. It was a very lucky thing the runaway had been discovered just
before the train came round the corner. The train for the _Sutlej_ must
have had a narrow shave of meeting it.
The General sat in his compartment, which he had to himself, with his
watch in his hand. He was thinking of Sayers and Sayers' young wife.
Mordaunt was not married, but he had an old mother at home in England.
It was bad enough for the men, the brave fellows. But that women should
have to suffer such things through their love was intolerable.
The cold intensified. Philosophical passengers either wrapped themselves
in their rugs or got out and walked up and down, stamping their feet,
their hands in their coat-pockets. The General sat, quiet as a Fate,
staring at his watch. His thoughts were tending towards a certain
conclusion.
At first he had been merely impatient for the train to get on. As time
passed he became more impatient as it was borne in on him that he might
possibly be too late for the _Sutlej_. He might lose the chance of
looking in Langrishe's eyes and getting the lead he desired so that he
might say the words which would bring happiness to his Nelly. Still the
time went on. His moustache became little icicles. If anyone had been
looking at him they might have thought that he suggested being frozen
himself, so stiff and grey was he. They were within a few miles of
Tilbury. It was now half-past eleven. The _Sutlej_ was to sail at
twelve. Was there any chance of his being there in time? The guard had
said half an hour! If he had not, the General might have walked with
those other impatient passengers.
But if the General was a religious man--nay, rather because he was a
religious man--he looked for signs and portents from God for the
direction of his everyday life. He believed that God, amid all His
whirling world of stars and all His ages, had leisure to attend to every
unit of a life upon earth. He believed in special Providences.
Everything that was dear to him or near to his heart he commended to God
in his prayers. He had prayed for direction and guidance in this matter
of his girl and young Langrishe. He had thought to do his best. Well,
was not the breakdown of the train a sign that his best was not God's
best?
At ten minutes to twelve the track was free, and the train resumed its
journey. It was now one chance in a thousand that the General would not
be too late. If that chance came, if he saw Langrishe he would take it
as a sign that God approved his first intention. If the _Sutlej_ had
sailed--well, that, too, was the leading and the light.
As they ran into Tilbury Station a train was standing at the departure
platform. The General beckoned to a porter.
"Do you know if the _Sutlej_ has sailed?"
"Yes, sir--sailed at ten minutes to twelve. Might catch her at
Southampton, sir, perhaps. There's a good many people as well as you
disappointed in this 'ere train. There's another train back in three
minutes."
"When is the next train?"
"Three hours' time."
The General went to the door of the carriage and looked out; then
retired hastily. He had caught sight of Grogan and Mrs. Grogan and a
number of boys and girls of all ages. Not for worlds would he have let
Grogan see him. The amazement at seeing him, the questions about his
presence there, Grogan's laugh, Grogan's slap on the back, would be more
than the General could bear at this moment.
"I shall wait for the next train," he said to the astonished porter. The
porter had not thought of Tilbury as a place where the casual visitor
desired to wait for three hours.
The General remained in the train till the other had steamed out of the
station. When all danger was over he alighted and walked to the hotel of
many partings. He ordered his lunch, a chop and a vegetable, biscuits
and cheese. While his chop was cooking he would stretch his legs,
cramped by that long time in the train.
He walked along the docks, dodging lorries and waggons, getting out at
the side of a basin, with a clear walk along its edge. It was empty--the
_Sutlej_ had left it only three-quarters of an hour ago. He paced up and
down by the grey water, lost in thought.
The _Sutlej_ had sailed, ten minutes before the time anticipated. God
had given him the sign. He had turned him from his presumptuous attempt
to be Providence to his Nelly. The General never had been, never could
be, passive. He was made for the activities of life. Yet his religious
ideal was passivity--to be in the hands of God expecting, accepting, His
Will for all things. It was an ideal he had never attained to, and it
was, perhaps, therefore the dearer.
He was oblivious of the cold, of the creeping water, of the thickening
flakes in the air which nearly blotted out the silent ship the other
side of the basin. He saw nothing but the pointing Finger, the Finger
that pointed away from the course he had marked out for himself. He felt
uplifted, glad, as one who has escaped a great peril. Was his Nelly to
suffer the torture of an engagement to a man who would presently be
every hour in danger of a horrible death? Was she, poor child, to suffer
like Mrs. Sayers? like poor old Mrs. Mordaunt? No. She must be saved
from the possibility of that.
He would say nothing. He would have to endure the looks she would send
him from under her white eyelids, the looks of wistful entreaty. After
all, he had not _said_ he was going to do anything. He had implied it,
to be sure, but he had not committed himself to anything very definite.
Perhaps Nelly would not discover, for a time at least, the dangerous
service Langrishe had gone on. She was no more fond of the newspapers
than any other young girl. For the moment he was grateful to the Dowager
that she claimed so much of Nelly's time.
He began to look forward with a fearful anticipation to Nelly's marriage
to her cousin. Something must be settled at once, before she could begin
to grieve over Langrishe. He would be alone, of course, but Nelly would
be in harbour. He did so much justice to Robin that he believed her
happiness would be safe with him. He felt as if he must go home and put
matters in train at once. He was impatient till Nelly was safe. It did
not occur to him that he was, perhaps, once more wresting the conduct of
his daughter's happiness from the Hand in Whose guidance he humbly
trusted.
He awoke with a start to the fact that he had been more than half an
hour pacing along by the water's edge. He hurried back to the hotel.
Fortunately, his chop was not put on the grill till he returned, and it
was served to him piping hot, with tomatoes and a bottle of Burton.
Rather to his amazement, he enjoyed it thoroughly, but when he had
finished it he had still more than an hour to wait.
He drove across country to another station, and arrived home early in
the afternoon. During the return journey his mind was quite calm and
unperturbed. He had had the guidance he needed, and now he had only to
let things be--as though it were in his character to let things be!
He dreaded meeting Nelly's eyes and welcomed the Dowager's presence with
effusion. He suggested to the lady that she should dine, and afterwards
they would visit a theatre--_A Soldier's Love_ at the Adelphi was well
worth seeing, he believed. Lady Drummond accepted, flattered by this
unwonted friendliness. He would hardly let her out of his sight all that
afternoon. She was his safeguard against Nelly's wondering, reproachful
eyes.
He had to endure those eyes all the next day. Then--the eyes retired in
on themselves, became introspective. It was hardly easier for the
General, that look of a suffering woman in his Nelly's eyes.
To be sure, poor Nelly had known of that journey to Tilbury just as well
as if she had accompanied him. The only thing she did not know was that
he had failed to see Captain Langrishe. And his silence--the looks of
tender pity he sent her when he thought he was unobserved, what could
they mean but that his mediation had been in vain? For some strange,
cruel reason, although he loved her and he must know he was breaking her
heart, her lover would have none of her. Even the knowledge that he
loved her ceased to be an anodyne in those days.
Everyone was so good to her. She seemed to have found a way to the
Dowager's arid heart, as her own son had not. The Dowager seemed dimly
aware that Nelly was suffering in some way, and was tender to her. She
came to the General with a proposal. Why should they not all go abroad
together and escape the east winds of spring? The General leaped at it.
Once get Nelly abroad and she would know nothing of what was happening
on the Indian frontier. He, and Nelly and the Dowager. He had not
imagined the Dowager in such a party--yet, he shrank from the prolonged
_tête-à-tête_ with Nell which the trip would have been without the
Dowager's presence. Robin would join them at Easter. They could all
travel home together.
There was a time of bustle when Nelly and the Dowager were getting their
travelling outfits. A spark of excitement, of anticipation, lit up
Nelly's sad eyes. The General could have hugged the Dowager.
"Your dear father," the Dowager said to Nelly one day, "how calm he
grows as he turns round to old age! I see in him more and more the
brother my dear Gerald looked up to and reverenced."
The peacefulness, the good understanding, had their effect, too, on
Nelly. It was good that those she loved should dwell together in amity.
She was in that state that she could not have endured sharpness or
rancour.
Only Pat shook his head disapprovingly.
"If he goes on like this," he said, "he'll be goin' to Heaven before his
time. I'd a deal sooner hear him grumblin' about her Ladyship as he used
to do. It 'ud be more natural-like, so it would. Why would we be callin'
him 'Old Blood and Thunder' if 'twas to be like an image he was? Och,
the ould times were ever the best!"
"He'll come to himself yet," said Bridget more hopefully.