"Why didn't I come? Why should I? Very kind of Lady Millet to ask me,
but I'm not a society man."
"Oh, but--"
"Yes, I know, lad. Did the affair go off well?"
"Splendidly, only mamma left the wine to the confectioner, and the
champagne--"
"Gave you a horrible headache, eh? Serve you right; should have had
toast-and-water."
"Marcus!"
"So Malpas came, did he?"
"Yes. Bad form, too. I don't like him, Glen. But that's all over now.
Fellow can't always marry the woman he wants."
"Can't he?"
"No, of course not. I wish you had come, though."
"Thank you! But you speak in riddles, my little Samson. What's all
over now, and what fellow can't always marry the woman he wants? Speak
out, small sage!"
"I say, Glen, I didn't make myself."
"True, O king!"
"'Tisn't my fault I'm small."
"True."
"You do chaff me so about my size."
"For the last time: now proceed, and don't lisp and drawl. Who's who?
as Bailey says."
"I thought I told you before about my sisters?"
"Often: that you have two pretty sisters--one married and one free."
"Well, my married sister, Mrs Morrison, used, I think, to care for
Major Malpas."
"Sorry she had such bad taste."
This in an undertone.
"Eh?"
"Go on."
"Well, it didn't go on or come off, as you call it."
"As you call it, Dicky."
"I say, don't talk to me as if I were a bird."
"All right. Now then, let me finish for you: mamma married the young
lady to someone else, and there is just a fag-end of the old penchant
left."
"Oh, hang it, no!"
"I beg pardon!--the young lady's, too. But, my dear Dick, I am one of
the most even-tempered of men; but if you keep up that miserable
fashionable drawl and lisp, I shall take hold of you and shake you."
"But, my dear fellow--weally, Mawcus."
"Am I to do it? Say `Marcus' out plain."
"Mawcus."
"No! Marcus."
"Marcus."
"That's better. There, hang it all, Dick, you are a soldier; for
heaven's sake be one. Try to be manly, old fellow, and pitch over those
silly affectations."
"It's all very well for you," said Dick Millet, in an ill-used tone.
"You are naturally manly. Why, you are five feet ten at least, and
broad-shouldered and strong."
"While you are only about five feet two, and slight, and have a face as
smooth as a girl's."
"Five feet three and a half," said the other quickly.
"How do you know?"
"I made the sergeant put me under the standard this morning. I can't
help it if I haven't got a heavy brown moustache like you!"
"Who said you could help it, stupid? Why, what a little gander you are,
Dick! I'm eight-and-twenty, and you are eighteen."
"Nineteen!"
"Well, nineteen, then. There, there, you are only a boy yet, so why not
be content to be a boy? You'll grow old quite fast enough, my dear lad.
Do you know why I like you?"
"Well, not exactly. But you do like me, don't you, Glen?"
"Like you? Yes, when you are what I see before me now, boyish and
natural. When you put on those confounded would-be manly airs, and grow
affected and mincing as some confounded Burlington Arcade dandy, I think
to myself, What a contemptible little puppy it is!"
"I say, you know--" cried the lad, and he tried to look offended.
"Say away, stupid! Well?"
Captain Marcus Glen, of Her Majesty's 50th Lancers, a detachment of
which, from the headquarters at Hounslow, were stationed at Hampton
Court, sank back in his chair, let fall the newspaper he had been
reading, and took out and proceeded to light a cigar, while Richard
Millet flushed up angrily, got off the edge of the table where he had
been sitting and swinging a neat patent-leather boot adorned with a
spur, and seemed for a moment as if he were about to leave the room in a
pet.
Marcus Glen saw this and smiled.
"Have a cigar, Dick?" he said.
The lad frowned, and it was on his lips to say, "Thanks, I have plenty
of my own," but his eyes met those of the speaker looking kindly and
half laughingly in his, and the feeling of reverence for the other's
manly attributes, as well as his vanity at being the chosen friend of
one he considered to be the finest fellow in the regiment, made him
pause, hesitate, and then hold out his hand for the cigar.
"Better not take it, Dick. Tobacco stops the growth."
The boy paused with the cigar in his hand, and the other burst into a
merry laugh, rose lazily, lit a match, and handed it to the young
officer, clapping him directly after upon the shoulder.
"Look here, Dick," he said; "shall I give you the genuine receipt how to
grow into a strong, honest Englishman?"
"Yes," cried the lad eagerly, the officer and the would-be man dropped,
for the schoolboy to reassert itself in full force. "I wish you would,
Glen, 'pon my soul I do."
"Forget yourself then, entirely, and don't set number one up for an idol
at whose shrine you are always ready to worship."
"I don't quite understand you," said the lad, reddening ingenuously.
"Oh yes, you do, Dick, or you would not have been measured this morning,
and made that little nick with the razor on your cheek in shaving off
nothing but soap. If you did not worship your confounded small self,
you would not have squeezed your feet into those wretched little boots,
nor have waxed those twenty-four hairs upon your upper lip; and 'pon my
word, Dick, that really is a work of supererogation, for the world at
large, that is to say our little world at large, is perfectly ignorant
of their existence."
"Oh, I say, you are hard on a man, Glen! 'Pon my soul, you are;" and
the handsome little fellow looked, with his flushed cheeks and white
skin, more girlish than ever.
"Hard? Nonsense! I don't want to see you grow into a puppy. I must
give you a lesson now and then, or you'll be spoiled; and then how am I
to face Lady Millet after promising what I did?"
"Oh, I had a letter from mamma this morning," said the lad; "she sent
her kindest regards to you."
"Thank her for them," said the young officer. "Well, so the party went
off all right, Dick?"
"Splendid! You ought to have been there. Gertrude would have been
delighted to see you."
"Humph! Out of place, my boy. Lady Millet wants a rich husband for
your sister. I'm the wrong colour."
"Not you. I don't want Gerty to have someone she does not like."
"But I thought you said that there was a Mr Huish, or some such name?"
"Well, yes, there is; but it may not come off. Mamma hates the
Huishes."
"You're a character, Dick!" said the officer laughingly. "There, I'm
going to make you dissipated to get you square, so light your cigar, my
lad; I won't bully you any more," he continued, smiling good-humouredly,
"and you may shave till your beard comes if you like, and wax your--your
eyebrows--I mean moustache, and dandify yourself a little, for I like to
see you smart; but an you love me, as the poet says, no more of that
confounded lisp. Now then, you've been reconnoitring, have you, and
spying out the barrenness of the land?"
"Yes, and it's a horrible one-eyed sort of a place. Why don't you come
and have a look?"
"I shall presently. Seen the Palace?"
"I had a walk round and went into the gardens, which are all very well--
old-fashioned, you know; but the private apartments are full of old
maids."
"Ah, yes; maiden ladies and widows. Sort of aristocratic union, I've
heard. Good thing for you, Dick."
"Why?" said the lad, who had again perched himself on the edge of the
table and was complacently glancing at his boots.
"Because your inflammable young heart will not be set on fire by antique
virgins and blushing widows of sixty."
"I don't know so much about that," cried the lad excitedly, taking off
his natty little foraging cap. "Marcus, dear boy, I was walking round a
cloister sort of place with a fountain in the middle, and then through a
blank square court, and I saw three of the loveliest women, at one of
the windows, I ever saw in my life."
"Distance lends enchantment to the view, my dear boy. If you had gone
closer you would have seen the wrinkles and the silvery hairs, if they
had not been dyed."
"I tell you they weren't old," continued Dick, whose eyes sparkled like
those of a girl.
"I'm not a marrying man, for reasons best known to my banker and my
creditors."
"Two of them were dark and the other was fair," continued the lad,
revelling in his description. "Oh, those two dark girls! You never saw
such eyes, such hair, such lovely complexions. Juno-like--that they
were. I was quite struck."
"Foolish?"
"No, no; the Lelys in one of the rooms are nothing to them."
"Lilies?"
"Nonsense--Lelys: the pictures, Court beauties. I could only stand and
gaze at them."
"Young buck--at gaze," said the other, smiling at the boy's enthusiasm.
"What was the fair one like?"
"Oh, sweet and Madonnaesque--pensive and gentle. Look here, Marcus, you
and I will have a walk round there presently."
"Not if my name's Marcus," said the other, laughing. "Go along, you
silly young butterfly, scenting honey in every flower. I say, Dick,
shall you go in full review order?"
"I wish you weren't so fond of chaffing a fellow."
"Did the maidens--old, or young, or doubtful--at the window see our
handsome young Adonis with his clustering curls?"
"Hang me if I ever tell you anything again!" cried the lad pettishly.
"Where do you keep your matches? You are always chaffing."
"Not I," said the other, turning himself lazily in his chair, "only I
want to see you grow into a matter-of-fact man."
"Is it a sign of manhood to grow into a Diogenes sort of fellow, who
sneers at every woman he sees?" said the lad hotly.
"No, Dick, but it's a sign of hobble-de-hoyishness to be falling in love
with pretty housemaids and boarding-school girls."
"Which I don't do," said the lad fiercely.
"Except when you are forming desperate attachments to well-developed
ladies, who, after your stupid young heart has been pretty well frizzled
in the imaginary fire cast by their eyes, turn out to be other men's
wives."
"I declare you are unbearable, Glen," cried the lad hotly.
"My dear Dick, you are the most refreshing little chap I ever knew,"
said the other, rising. "There, put on your cap, my boy, and let's go;"
and leaving the direction of their course to his younger companion,
Captain Glen found himself at last on the broad walk facing the old
red-brick Palace.
"I wonder you have never seen it before."
"So do I; but I never did. Well, old Dutch William had a very good idea
of taking care of himself, that's all I can say."
"But come along here; some of the interior is very curious, especially
the quadrangles."
"So I should suppose," said Glen drily. "But I have a fancy for
examining some of these quaint old parterres and carven trees, so we'll
turn down here."
Richard Millet's countenance twitched, but he said nothing; and together
they strolled about the grounds, the elder pointing out the pretty
effects to be seen here and there, the younger seeing nothing but the
faces of three ladies standing at a window, and longing to be back in
that cloister-like square to gaze upon them again.
"This place will be dull," said Glen, as he seated himself upon a bench
at the edge of a long spread of velvet turf; "but better than dingy
Hounslow, and I've come to the conclusion that we might be much worse
off. The society may turn out pretty decent, after all. This old
garden will be splendid for a stroll. And--look there, Dick, the
inhabitant of the land is fair. Here is another chance for you to fall
in love."
"What, with one of those old--Oh, I say, look, look! I did not see them
at first. Those are the very girls."
For Richard Millet's face had been turned in the other direction, and
when he first spoke he had only caught sight of the Honourable Misses
Dymcox, walking side by side for their morning walk, closely followed by
their three nieces, to make up for a close confinement to the house for
three days, consequent upon the coming of the fresh troops to the
barracks; the military being a necessary evil in the eyes of these
elderly ladies, and such dreadful people that they were to be avoided
upon all occasions.
"Oh, those are the damsels, are they?" said Glen, watching the little
party as they walked straight on along a broad gravel path. "The old
ladies look as if they were marching a squad of an Amazonian brigade to
relieve guard somewhere. My word: how formal and precise! Now, I'll be
bound to say, my lad, that you would like to see where they are posted,
and go and commit a breach of discipline by talking to the pretty
sentries."
"I should," cried Dick eagerly. "Did you notice them?"
"Well, I must own that they are nice-looking, young inflammable,
certainly."
"But that first one, with the dark hair and eyes--she just glanced
towards me--isn't she lovely?"
"Well, now, that's odd," said Glen, smiling. "I suppose it was my
conceit: do you know, I fancied that she glanced at me. At all events,
I seemed to catch her eye."
"Ah, it might seem so, but of course she recognised me again! Let's
walk gently after them."
"What for?"
"To--er--well, to see which way they go."
"I don't want to know which way they go, my dear lad, and if I did, why,
we can see very well from where we are. There they go, along that path
to the right; you can see their dresses amongst the trees; and now they
have turned off to the left. Would you like to stand upon the seat?"
"Oh, how cold and impassive you are! I feel as if I must see which way
they go, and then we might take a short cut over the grass, and meet
them again."
"When those two fierce-looking old gorgons would see that you were
following them up, and they would fire such a round from their watchful
eyes that you, my dear boy, would retire in discomfiture, and looking
uncommonly foolish. I remember once, when I was somewhere about your
age, I had a very severe encounter with a chaperone in a cashmere
shawl."
"Oh, do get up, Glen, there's a good fellow, and let's go."
"I had fallen in love with a young lady. I fancy now that she wore
drawers with frills at the bottom, and that her dresses were short--
frocks, I believe."
"There they are again," cried the boy, jumping up; "look, they are going
down that path."
"I think the young lady was still in the schoolroom, but though
undeveloped, and given to slipping her shoulders out of the bands of her
frock, she was very pretty--bony, but pretty--and I was desperately in
love."
"How wonderfully they are alike in height!"
"I believe," continued the captain, in a slow, ponderous way, though all
the while he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying his companion's eagerness,
"that if I had made love-offerings to my fair young friend--I never knew
her name, Dick, and unkindly fate parted us--they would have taken the
form of sweet cakes or acidulated drops, and been much appreciated; but
alas!--"
"Oh, hang it all, I can't stand this! There goes Malpas. He has seen
them, and is making chase. Glen, I shall shoot that fellow, or run him
through."
"What for, my boy?"
"Because he is always sitting upon me, and making fun of me at the mess.
Hang him! I hate him!"
"Don't take any notice of his banter," said Glen seriously, "and if he
is very unpleasant, it is more dignified to suffer than to fall out.
Between ourselves, and in confidence, I advise you not to quarrel with
Major Malpas. He can be very disagreeable when he likes."
"As if I didn't know! He was always hanging after our Renee--Mrs Frank
Morrison, I mean."
"Indeed!"
"Before she was married, of course."
"Oh!"
"And used to treat me like a schoolboy. I hadn't joined then, you
know."
"No, no, of course not," said the captain with a peculiar smile.
"But look at him. You can see his black moustache and hooked nose here.
He's going straight for them. Look, don't you see?"
"Well, yes, he does seem to be doing as you say. If he is, you may just
thank your stars."
"Thank my stars? What for?"
"For his getting the snub that you would have received had you been so
foolish as to go after those ladies--for they are ladies, Dick."
"Yes, of course, but it is horrible to be bested like this. Will you
come?"
"No; and I won't let you go. Sit still, you little stupid, and--there,
see how propitious the fates are to you!" he continued, as he saw
something unnoticed by his little companion.
"What do you mean?"
"Why, the enemy."
"The enemy?"
"Well, the Amazonian brigade have seen the demonstration being made by
the Major on their left flank, the officer in command has given the
order, and they have countermarched and are returning by troops from the
left."
"But are they coming back this way?"
"To be sure they are, and if you sit still you will be able to enfilade
them as they retreat."
"Oh, please don't--pray don't, Glen, there's a good fellow!"
"My dear boy, don't what?"
"Don't light another cigar. Elderly ladies hate smoking, and you'll
send them off in another direction. Besides, it's forbidden."
"Oh, very well, most inflammable of youths. I shall have to make this
the subject of a despatch to mamma."
"Hush! be quiet. Don't seem to notice them, or they may turn off
another way. I say, old Malpas is done."
"And you are able to deliver a charge without change of position."
It might have been from design, or it might have been pure accident, for
ladies' pockets always do seem made to hold their contents unsafely.
Certain it was, however, that as the Honourable Misses Dymcox marched
stiffly by, closely followed by their nieces, all looking straight
before them, and as if they were not enjoying their walk in the
slightest degree, there was a glint of something white, and Clotilde's
little old and not particularly fine handkerchief fell to the ground.
Glen saw it, and did not move.
Richard Millet did not see it for the moment, but as soon as it caught
his eye he impulsively dashed from his seat, picked it up, and ran a few
steps after the little party.
"Excuse me," he exclaimed.
"Oh, thank you," said Clotilde; and she stretched out her hand to take
the handkerchief, but in a quick, unobtrusive way Miss Isabella
interposed her thin stiff form, received the handkerchief from the young
officer with a formal obeisance, and before he could recover from the
paralysing chill of her severe look, the party had passed on.
"But I had a good look at her," he cried excitedly, as he rejoined his
companion.
"And that severe lady had a good look at you, Dick. What a cold, steely
glance it was!"
"But did you see her eyes, Glen--dark as night!" he cried rapturously.
"Did you see the glance _she_ gave me?"
"No," said the young officer bluntly, "seemed to me as if she wanted her
glasses;" and then to himself, "She is handsome, and if it were not
conceited, I should say she was looking at me."
Volume 1, Chapter III.