understood without words; yet he felt impelled to speak. He began in a
low voice, nervously:
"Without disrespect, sir, I think I may beg of you not to insist on an
explanation--either from me, or from--anyone else. It could do no good.
It might do--I mean it might cause--additional pain. You have guessed
the reason? Yes, you see it clearly--you understand. And--and you seem
sorry. Don't let it trouble you, sir. There are lots better than I." He
paused, then added uncertainly: "Colonel Bristo, you have been more, far
more, than kind and good to me. If you treated me like a son before it
was time--well--well, it will all be a pleasant memory to--to take away
with me."
"Away?"
"Yes, away; back to Australia," said Dick, expressing his newest thought
as though it were his oldest. "Before you get back from the north, I
shall probably be on my way."
"Don't do that, Dick--don't do that," said Colonel Bristo, with some
feeling.
Personal liking for Dick apart, it was not a pleasant reflection that
his daughter had jilted the man who had come from Australia to marry
her, and was sending him back there.
Dick answered him sadly.
"It can't be helped, sir. It is all over. It is decent that I should
go."
"I don't understand 'em--never understood 'em," muttered the old man
vaguely, and half to himself. "Still, there is no one but Dick, I dare
swear; who should there be but Dick?"
Dick stepped forward, as though to push the scales from the eyes of this
unseeing man; but he checked his impulse, and cried huskily, holding the
thin hand in his own great strong one:
"Good-bye, Colonel Bristo. God bless you, sir! Good-bye!"
And the young man was gone.
XVI
MILITARY MANOEUVRES
"Well!" exclaimed Colonel Bristo, after some minutes. He leant back in
his chair and stared sternly at his book-shelves. "It's a nice look-out
for the moors; that's all."
His reflections were dispiriting. He was thinking that the only two men
whom he had really wanted down in Yorkshire had this morning, almost in
the same breath, declared that they could not go. They were, in fact,
both going back to Australia--independently, from widely different
reasons. With Miles the necessity was pressing enough, no doubt; and
then he had only been visiting England, and never contemplated a long
stay. But Dick's case was very different. He had come home for good,
with his "pile" and his prospects. Could he possibly have been made so
miserable during these few weeks that he would be glad to bury himself
again in the bush? Could his case be really so hopeless as he himself
believed it?
"If so," said Colonel Bristo with irritation, "then Alice has played the
deuce with the best young fellow in England!"
But how could he tell? How was he, the father, to get at the facts of
the case? Alice was all the world to him: but for all the world he would
not have sought her confidence in such a matter. Then what was he to
do?
He got up from his chair, and paced the floor with the stride of a
skipper on his poop. He had liked young Edmonstone always--respected him
as a mere stripling. Love-sick boys were, as a rule, selfish, if not
sly, young fools--that was his experience; but this one had shown
himself upright and fearless--had, in fact, behaved uncommonly well,
once the mischief was done. But that liking had developed into affection
since the night of Dick's arrival. Poor fellow! how grateful he had
been! how hopeful! Who could have discouraged him? The Colonel, for his
part, had no reason to do so now. What was there against him? what
against "it"? In a word, he had soon--as he saw more of him--set his
heart upon Dick for his son. Secretly, he had already formed certain
projects of parental ingenuity. He had already, in his walks, held
stealthy intercourse with house and estate agents, and otherwise dipped
into the future of other people, further than he had any business. And
here was the death-blow to it all! The pair had quarrelled so violently
that the prospective son-in-law was on the point of taking himself back
to Australia! One thing was certain: it could be no ordinary
disagreement--she must have jilted him. But if so, for whom? She had
seen nobody for months--nobody but Miles! And Miles--the Colonel smiled
indulgently--with all his good points, with all his fine qualities,
Miles was no marrying man. Then who could it be? Once more he, her
father, was unable to tell, for the life of him.
He sat down, rose again in a moment, and rang the bell. Then he sent a
polite message to Mrs. Parish, requesting her kind attendance, if not in
any way inconvenient.
"She can at least put me right on one or two points. That is, if she
doesn't go off at a tangent, down some blind-alley of a side issue!"
The lady appeared after the regulation delay, by which she was in the
habit of italicising the dignity of her office.
By her greeting, one would have thought the appointment was of her
making. She observed that she would have come before to inquire how the
Colonel felt after it all, but understood that he was engaged.
The Colonel explained with a sigh.
"He is gone."
"Ah!" There was unprecedented sympathy in the lady's look and tone.
"You saw him go?" asked the Colonel, looking up in surprise.
"I did," sadly; "I did."
"He said good-bye to you, perhaps?"
"To be sure he did! He was hardly likely to--"
"He didn't ask to see Alice, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, he did."
"Dear me!" said the Colonel to himself.
"But she could not see him, I grieve to say; it was a thousand pities,
seeing that he's going straight back to Australia."
"Oh, he told you that too, did he?"
"Of course, Colonel Bristo, when he said good-bye."
"Dear me! But why wouldn't Alice see him?"
"It was too early."
"A mere excuse," exclaimed the Colonel angrily, looking at his watch.
"Too early! It is plain that she has thrown him over. If so, then the
best young fellow in England has been----But perhaps you can tell me
whether it really is so?"
Mrs. Parish began to feel mystified.
"A young fellow?" she began doubtfully.
"Well, young in years; older than his age, I know. But that's not my
point."
"Then I really don't know, Colonel Bristo. Alice seldom honors me with
her confidence nowadays. Indeed, for the last year--"
"The point--my dear madam; the point!"
"Well, then," snapped Mrs. Parish, "to judge by their dances together,
last night, I should say you are certainly wrong!"
"Ah, you thought that at the time, I know. Do you remember my
disagreeing with you when you declared Alice had never been more
brilliant, and so on? Why she only danced with the lad once!"
Only once! "The lad!" Colonel Bristo must certainly be joking; and jokes
at the expense of the lady who had controlled his household for twenty
years were not to be tolerated.
"Colonel Bristo, I fail to understand you. If it were not preposterous,
I should imagine you had stooped to ridicule. Allow me, please, to state
that your daughter danced three times, if not four, with Mr. Miles--I
see nothing to smile at, Colonel Bristo!"
"My good--my dear Mrs. Parish," said he, correcting himself hastily, and
rising urbanely from his chair, "we are at cross purposes. I mean young
Edmonstone; you mean, I suppose, Mr. Miles. A thousand apologies."
Mrs. Parish was only partially appeased.
"Oh, if you mean that young gentleman, I can assure you he has
absolutely no chance. Has he said good-bye, too, then?"
"Yes. He says he is going back to Australia."
"I said he would!" exclaimed Mrs. Parish with gusto.
"But--I say! You surely don't mean that it is Mr. Miles Alice cares
for?"
Mrs. Parish smiled superior.
"Has it not been patent?"
"Not to me, madam!" said Colonel Bristo warmly.
"Love on both sides; I might say at first sight. I watched it dawn, and
last night I thought it had reached high noon," the old lady declared
with emotion. "But this unfortunate summons! Still, I think we shall see
him again before he sails, and I think he will come back to England for
good before long."
"You mean you hope so, Mrs. Parish," said the Colonel dryly. He seated
himself at his desk with unmistakable meaning. "Confound her!" he
muttered when the door closed; "the thing is plausible enough. Yet I
don't believe it. What's more, much as I like Miles, I don't wish it!
No. Now what am I to do about Dick?"
This question occupied his thoughts for the rest of the morning. He
could not answer it to his satisfaction. In the afternoon he sent word
to Iris Lodge, begging Dick to come over in the evening for an hour. The
messenger brought back the news that Mr. Edmonstone was from home--had,
in fact, left for abroad that afternoon.
"Abroad!" thought Colonel Bristo. "He has lost no time! But 'abroad'
only means the Continent--it is 'out' when you go farther. And yet that
is one way out--the quickest! Is he capable of such madness at a
moment's notice? Never; impossible. But I had better look into the
matter myself."
And this the Colonel did in the course of a few days, by himself calling
at Iris Lodge. There was a little coldness, or it may have been merely
self-consciousness, in his reception. But when, after a few
preliminaries, the visitor began to speak of Dick, this soon wore off;
for his regard was too warmly expressed, and his praise too obviously
genuine, not to win and melt hearts half as loving as those of Mrs.
Edmonstone and her daughter. The Colonel, for his part, was sufficiently
rewarded when he learnt that Dick had merely joined an old Australian
friend in Italy, and would be back at the beginning of August.
"I was half afraid," he observed tentatively, "that he was tired of
England already, and was on his way out again."
The horror with which this notion was instantly demolished caused the
old gentleman to smile with unconcealed satisfaction; for it assured him
that Dick's intention (if it was an intention, and not merely the wild
idea of a heated moment) had at least not yet been breathed to his
family. He took up his hat and cane with a light heart. And he stopped
to add a rider to his gracious adieu:
"We shall be tramping the moors when your son returns, Mrs. Edmonstone,
so I beg you will forward him on to us. And pray, Miss Fanny, use your
influence as well, for we have lost our other Australian, and I don't
see how we can get on without Dick."
He went out in good spirits.
Thereafter, as far as the Colonel was concerned, young Edmonstone might
bake himself to his heart's content--until the Twelfth--abroad. As it
happened, Colonel Bristo found a far more immediate cause for anxiety at
home. This was the appearance of Alice.
As July drew near its latter days, the change in her looks passed the
perceptible stage to the noticeable. Her colouring had been called her
best point by some, her only good one by others (possibly according to
the sex of the critic); yet now her face was wholly void of colour. The
flower-like complexion was, if possible, more delicate than before, but
now it resembled the waxen lily instead of the glowing wild rose. Even
the full, firm lips were pale and pinched. Her eyes were either dull or
restless, and their dark setting seemed more prominent: shadows lay
below them where no shadows should have been. For the rest, any real
activity of mind or body seemed as impossible to her as any real repose;
she appeared to have gained only in thoughtfulness--as indicated by
silence. On fine days, though the river could not charm her, she would
dress for walking, and come back tired out in twenty minutes. On wet
ones she divided her time between the first few pages of a book, and the
first few bars of a waltz; between the two she never got any farther in
either. Perhaps experience had taught her that all the tune of a waltz
is at the beginning; and I suppose she failed to "get into" her novels.
Her ear was sensitive, attuned to her temper; common sounds startled her
painfully; the unexpected opening or shutting of a door went far to
unhinge both nerves and temper. The latter, indeed, was less sweet at
this period than ever in her life before, and none knew it so well as
she herself, who bore the brunt of it in her own heart.
None of these signs escaped the watchful eyes about her. But while, on
the one hand, Mrs. Parish noted them with incomplete sympathy and
impartial confidence in the justice of consequences (believing that
Alice's indecision had brought this on her own head, and that a little
uncertainty would do her no harm), the father's heart became more and
more distressed as each new symptom was made plain to him. He was both
worried and perplexed. He called in a local doctor. That move made her
ill-health no better, and her ill-temper worse. What, then, could the
father do? Always loving and indulgent--never intimate--with his child,
it had been his practice, when serious matters arose, to employ the
ambassador always at hand; thus there had never, during all the years,
been a word of contention between father and daughter; and to this
practice the father resorted now.
Late one afternoon they were all three sitting in the garden, when Alice
rose, without breaking her long silence, and slowly walked towards the
house. The Colonel followed her with his eyes; he held a glowing
cigarette between his fingers; the distance was short enough, but before
Alice reached the house the cigarette was out.
"Look at her now! Is that the step of a healthy girl? See her climb
those six steps--they might be the top flight of St. Paul's! Mrs.
Parish"--with sudden decision--"Mrs. Parish, you must see to the root of
this matter before it gets any worse. I must know exactly what is at the
bottom of it. I desire you to speak to Alice, for I cannot. You
understand me, I think? Very well, then, pray watch your opportunity."
The very next morning the housekeeper came to the study. She had spoken
to Alice. She did not require much questioning.
"Oh, as to young Mr. Richard. I could elicit nothing--nothing at all. He
seemed quite outside her thoughts."
Mrs. Parish made this statement with a smack of satisfaction. Colonel
Bristo, however, must have given it a construction of his own, for he
did not look displeased. He simply said:
"Well?"
"Well, she was almost as reticent about Mr. Miles; though we know what
that signifies!" (But here the Colonel shook his head.) "What she did
say, however, is not worth repeating."
"Still, I should like to hear it."
"It does not affect matters in the least."
"Pray go on, Mrs. Parish."
"Of course, if you insist, Colonel Bristo! Well, then, Alice tells me
that, two days after Mr. Miles went, a shabby kind of woman had the
impudence to walk into the garden, accost her, and ask if Mr. Miles (how
she had got his name, one cannot tell) was still here. Alice said 'No,'
and was weak enough to give her money, because she seemed wretched, she
says, and so got rid of her."
"One of the beggars he helped," said the Colonel. "He used to have long
conversations with them, and tell them to emigrate."
"Why, to be sure!" cried Mrs. Parish, at once enlightened and relieved.
And now she was as eager to tell the rest as before she had been slow to
speak. "The very next day after that, Alice saw a man watching the house
from the tow-path. He seemed to be there all day; so at last she rowed
across and asked him if he wanted anyone. He said, 'Yes, the gentleman
who's been staying there; where is he?' She told him he was on his way
back to Australia. The man did not seem to believe it. In the end she
gave money to him too, and soon she saw him go."
"Another of his beggars!" laughed Colonel Bristo. "Their name is legion,
no doubt, and we shall see more of them yet. For the credit of the
Mother Country, we can't shut the door in their faces after a Colonial
has given them a taste of real downright generosity. Poor Miles!"
"Well, Alice, for her part, seems ready enough to carry on his works of
charity," said Mrs. Parish, adroitly, with an emphasis ever so slight on
the possessive pronoun.
The Colonel smiled. Then he thanked her graciously for the service.
"I am extremely obliged to you, Mrs. Parish, for the hundredth time. You
have saved me yet another interview. That is, I should have made it
awkward, but you, with your usual tact, have got at precisely what I
wanted. I am perfectly satisfied."
Mrs. Parish bowed. She was not a little pleased with the compliment to
her tact, on which she plumed herself above everything; but her pleasure
was less than her surprise--that the Colonel should be so easily
satisfied! She moved with dignity to the door. As she was shutting it,
the Colonel rubbed his hands and exclaimed aloud:
"It is Dick!"
The door, which was at that moment swinging to, stopped, trembled, then
shut with a vicious little bang. The Colonel could make a near enough
guess at the expression of the face on the other side of it. He smiled
benevolently.
"Silly lady! She thinks I have turned against my friend Miles--whom, by
the way, she worships on her own account. Far from it, I miss him
abominably. But when it comes to a choice between him and Dick--and
where my girl is concerned--why, then, I confess, I'm all for the
younger man and the older suitor."
XVII
"MILES'S BEGGARS"
Iris Lodge, during the first half of August, became for once gay, not to
say festive--in a small way, as befitted a first experiment. Maurice
managed to wrest his hard-earned annual holiday from the bank, and, on
the very first day of the fourteen allotted him, back came Dick from
abroad, bringing with him his friend Flint. After a remarkable display
of obstinacy on this gentleman's part, Dick had at last prevailed upon
him to leave his tenants to their own devices for one more week, and
tarry by the Thames. But, though this was brought about by dint of hard
persuading, in the end Mr. Flint somehow saw his way to doubling the
week which at first he had grudgingly promised.
In his excuse it can only be urged that he enjoyed himself beyond
expectation. The weather was very nearly faultless, the river at its
best, formalities few, and the ladies--charming. The lawn-tennis
court--though several inches short--was quite of the billiard-table
order. The music in the evenings, though it did not run in a man's head,
possessed a certain odd, mysterious, soothing, saddening, pleasing
quality, that silenced one at the time, and left an impression that Miss
Edmonstone could make her piano speak, if she tried. Perhaps it was
classical music; very likely Chopin. Lastly--and last thing--the
spirituous nightcap, though approached in a spirit of moderation, had a
way of imparting the proper Eucalyptian flavour to all reminiscences of
life among the gum-trees. Could there be better conditions for a
pleasant visit? Flint asked himself. And if the house was the smallest
he had ever stayed in, would not Castle Flint seem cheerless, vast,
sepulchral, by comparison?
But indeed they were wonderfully bright and happy days: the ones on the
river, when, in the bushmen's phrase, they all "camped," and Flint made
tea in true bush fashion, and Dick a "damper" which no one but bushmen
could eat; the afternoons at tennis, spent in wonderfully keen, if not
deeply scientific, struggles; the morning at Hampton Court, when Flint
owned himself completely "bushed" in the Maze, and when they were all
photographed on the Green, bringing away with them the atrocious result
in a gilt frame; and the day when Dick hired the four-in-hand (it
created some sensation in the little road) and drove them all through
Chertsey and Ascot, to Windsor, and back by Staines and Shepperton.
Certainly any outsider must have voted them a jovial, light-hearted
party, without a serious care to divide among them; and even Flint, who
had some power of observation, and also knew his friend thoroughly--even
Flint told himself that old Dick had got back his good spirits, and was,
in fact, "getting over it." But Flint did not know. Ever since their
hurried interview on the 2nd of July, Dick had been as reticent as he
had then been communicative of all that lay nearest his heart.
Yet never for one moment did Dick forget. He had no wish to forget. So
long as he could keep his disappointment to himself, deep down within
him, he would suffer and smile. For the sake of the others he could not
rise in his place at the feast and declare himself the skeleton he felt.
They must find it out sooner or later--then let it be later. Here his
thoughts were all of his mother and Fanny; they would be heart-broken
when he told them of his determination to go back to Australia. But a
determination it was, growing more solid day by day, though as yet told
only to Colonel Bristo, and that in the unguarded spontaneity of sudden
emotion. But as for his people, better tell them just before he
went--say the week before, or why not on the very day of sailing? Why
make them unhappy before their time, when their happiness in having him
back was still boundless?
After all, it would only be a temporary trouble; for Dick had evolved a
great scheme for the future, which was this: He would go out and buy a
small station in a first-rate district--at arm's length, indeed, from
towns and railroads, but still just in touch with civilisation. Then he
would send home for them all. Yes, all. For Maurice would make an ideal
book-keeper. Fanny would revel in the life, and Mrs. Edmonstone would
certainly prefer it to the small house at Teddington. This plan was
conceived, matured, calculated out, and found feasible, during the many
long summer nights wherein Dick never closed his eyes, when perhaps it
was well that there was this object of focus for his mind.
As for his attitude towards Flint, Dick was well aware that his access
of reserve, after the way in which he had unburdened his soul at their
first meeting, must appear strangely inconsistent. He had rushed to join
his friend on the Continent, travelled with him for nearly a month, and
not told him another word of his affairs. It could not be helped; it
would be impossible to tell Flint anything of what had followed their
first talk at Teddington without making a clean breast of his discovery
that Miles the Australian was no other than Sundown the bushranger, and
this Dick would not tell a soul unless Miles broke faith with him. Least
of all would he confide in Flint, for Flint would be the very first to
turn round and call him madman.
Nevertheless the days seemed to chase each other pleasantly enough for
one and all, actually doing so for all but one; and, as always happens
in such cases, the fortnight drew far too quickly to its close.
"To-day is Thursday--the Twelfth, by-the-bye--and here we are within
sight of Sunbury Lock; and on Monday, and ever afterwards, the bank; the
blessed bank!"
This cheerful reminder proceeded (one day up the river) from the lips
and soul of the man in the stern, who was steering. There was a
sympathetic groan from the man in the bows, who was smoking. The working
half of the crew received the observation, which was thrown out
gratuitously to all, in business-like silence, broken only by the flash
of four sculls as one, and the swish of the feather blades through the
air. The groan in the bows was followed by a reflection of kindred
pathos, delivered in a high key:
"We will call next Monday Black Monday; for to me it means Holyhead,
Dublin, Kerry, and tenants! blessed tenants! But not for always," added
Flint suddenly; "I don't say 'ever afterwards;' why should you? Why
should I be a slave to my Castle and you to your City? Why shouldn't we
emigrate together?"
No one in the boat could see the speaker's face; it was impossible to
tell whether he was jesting or serious.
"Oh, I'm game!" cried Maurice, very much in earnest at once.
"Well, then, just hold on till I give Castle Flint the sack."
"Or until it is sacked about your ears," suggested stroke jerkily. "But
what nonsense you two are talking!"
"Not at all, Miss Edmonstone--if you will allow me. You can't expect a
man to live out his life in troubled Ireland when there's a happy
Australia to go to: there, you know, you may combine the blessings of
liberty, equality, and Home Rule of the most advanced kind, with the
peculiar satisfaction of calling yourself a staunch Tory, and believing
it! But as for our friend here, station life would add a year to his
life for every year the City is capable of shortening it. He'd make a
first-rate jackeroo."
"What is that?"