A Garrison Romance

Front matter

Just Ready. ON THE WAY THROUGH, And Other Tales. By DOROTHEA GERARD, Author of "Lady Baby," "Orthodox," &c, and joint author of " Eeata." Crown 8vo, 6s. Cheap Edition of ORTHODOX. By DOROTHEA GERARD. Illustrated Cloth Cnwiy^s. 6d. Shortly. BY MRS LEITH-ADAMS sMrs R S de Courcy Laffan) Author of "Aunt Hepsy's Foundling" "Louis Draycott' " Madelon Lemoine" "Bonnie Kate" "My Land of Beulah " etc., etc. ■Sonh o n EDEN, REMINGTON & CO PUBLISHERS 15 KING STREET COVENT GARDEN 1892 [All rights reserved] DEDICATION. to the dear old friends <JF the long ago. Stratford-on-Avon, 1891. CONTENTS. chapter page I. The Major is quite decided ... ... i II. Phil's feat of daring ... 25 III. And its consequences ... ... ... 53 IV. Master Phil holds a Lev6e ... 75 V. Mr. Jones is perplexed ... ... ... 102 VI. For her dear sake ... ... ... ... 131 VII.

Happy moments ... ... ... ... 163 VIII. The Major's ship comes in ... ... 191 IX. " There's the childer to think of " 222 X. Jim and Algie go a-visiting ... ... 251 XI. A noble heart 277 XII. " The sound of violins "' ... .. ... 298 XIII. Homeward bound- ... ... ... ... 330 XIV. " The rest is silence " ... ... ... 349 XV. L'Envoi

Chapter I. The Major Is Quite Decided

" The peripatetic civilian is not, however, always a success," said Charley Rowan, with a significant look at the man next him. " You remember the people who came here in a yacht — a most irreproachable yacht ? " " Yes, yes ! " said two or three men at once ; while the Honourable Robert Dacre — commonly called the " Honourable Bob " — screwed his glass into his eye, and ejacu lated — " By . . . Jove ! " " Why, they nearly got asked to the Palace, don't you know?" said a washed out looking young man, known as "Ginger" B in the regiment to which he belonged, from the generally sandy effect of combined blond hair and freckles. " Ya-as," drawled the Honourable Bob, " and there'd have been a pretty kettle of fish if they had." " Then there were those people who took a house in Strada Stretta, don't you know?" put in Ginger again.

"The Med licots got very thick with them, and . . . met them afterwards in London ; " this with an uneasy glance at a lady seated at a writing-table at the far end of the room. "Just so," said Charley Rowan. The group of men exchanged glances ; while the Honourable Bob ejaculated a second " By Jove ! '' that spoke volumes. The said group was gathered about a tall, stout, peculiarly self-satisfied, not to say aggressive-looking, man, with a huge moustache, keen grey eyes, a hawk-like profile, and a frank, no-nonsense-about-me sort of manner that took you in thoroughly — until you knew him. After that, you looked upon Desbrow Clutterbuck, Major in the 193rd, as a painted show, a hollow sham, and all the rest of it. But the process of knowing the man was sometimes a long and painful one, and cost a good deal both in trouble and cash.

It was current gossip that, on one occasion, a very young soldier of the R.E. came to pay a P. P.C. call at the Major's house. This young man was not without a certain share of this world's goods, and had, as the saying goes, "parted freely" at various games of chance. Said the bluff and out spoken Major — " You've been more than welcome to the poor hospitality we have been able to offer you," and he grasped the young man's hand in a cordial and fatherly manner. After a glance round, to assure himself that the Major's wife was out of earshot — every man in the garrison tried his best to spare Mrs. Clutterbuck on all possible occa sions — the infantile warrior gave his little Roland for an Oliver — " I've paid for your hospitality," he said. " I've dropped a cool seven hundred since I made your acquaintance."

Any other man than the hearty Major would have been taken aback at this. But do you think he turned a hair ? Not he! "Was it so much, now?" he answered, with that suspicion of an Irish accent that those who knew him slightly found so taking ; " I didn't think it had run to the odd number. However, the fortunes of war, dear boy, the fortunes of war." Then that young man went out into the blazing Malta sunshine and said bad words. This small anecdote will give us the Major's measure pretty accurately, and assist us in placing the dramatis personæ of our story. Before, however, going any further, it may be well to recall the fact that we have already made some acquaintance with the 193rd Regiment of Foot, and taken some interest in that corps ; and it behoves me to mention the fact that Major Desbrow Clutterbuck was a man who had " come in," and not one who had climbed the steps of promotion from ensign upwards, and been, as it were, part and parcel of " the regiment."

During the Indian Mutiny the 193rd had, as we know, suffered severely. Gaps had been wide, pro motions rapid, and, in the course of events that followed, several men had come in from outside. Of these the sprightly Major was one. When our story opens, the commanding officer, Colonel Mostyn Eliot, was away on leave ; the senior Major, Lindsay by name, was in command ; the time of the year was early summer; the place, Sleima, a sort of summer resort on the north side of the city of Valetta in the island of Malta. Here, in a charming old turreted house, facing the sea, and clothed about with vine and fig-tree, and the famed datura with its snow-white trumpet-flowers, lived Major and Mrs. Clutterbuck, Mabel Graham, Mrs. Clutterbuck's daughter by a former marriage, Lily, a sprite of twelve years, with long fair tresses loose to every wind of heaven, and a scramble of boys — aged ten, eight, six, and then " King Baby " to finish up with, a royal and autocratic monarch, ætat four, who ruled his subjects with a rod of iron.

It is pleaded for that not very pleasant animal, the grizzly bear, that it is " fond of its cubs." It might be said of Major Clut terbuck that he too was fond — very fond of his cubs. There could be no doubt about that, and it certainly was a redeeming and lovable point in the man's character. He was seen at his best with Lily by his side, and surrounded by those monsters in human form, commonly called " the boys." For monsters they were, inasmuch as no mischief possible to the young of the human species came amiss to them. But they adored their gentle, patient mother to a man, or rather to a boy, and that was, indeed, a light amid the gloom. In a regiment, a family ill-brought up, and whose people cannot afford to send it to proper schools to be properly trained, is an awful scourge. On land it is trying, on sea it is maddening, and many were the devices of the younger officers of the 193rd, when on board troop-ships, to decoy the young male Clutterbucks into lonely and retired spots, and then and there administer condign punishment to the same.

It is said that you can tell a dog to be thorough-bred by his keeping a judicious silence when you hold him up by the tail. Certainly, judging from this standpoint, there was something decidedly thorough-bred about the young Clutterbucks. They never told tales or went snivelling to their elders. But to return to the group gathered THE MA /OR IS QUITE DECIDED. 7 about the Major as stars round their central sun. " Don't forget the pretty widow who looked so well on horseback," said Ginger, stroking his canary-coloured moustache. " And was summoned home in such a hurry to her little daughter, who was seized with scarlet fever," continued Charley Rowan, laughing heartily. " By Jove ! " put in the Honourable Bob, " poor old Gasford was aw'fly let in there, don't you know. She'd got him to order the horse, and all the rest of it, and he had to pay the piper, by Jove !

" " No fear of this man letting in anyone in that way," said the Major, with blunt deci sion ; " he's positively made of money, as any one may see at a glance." A studious avoidance of any interchange of looks betrayed a certain consciousness among the audience as they listened to this placidly-stated fact. And here — lest any misunderstanding should arise in the reader's mind — it had better be said at once that there never was, at any time, the very smallest suspicion or notion of Major Clutterbuck being guilty of the " unpardonable sin " — namely, cheating at cards. The man was a spendthrift ; selfish, and extravagant ; shifty in his dealings with his long-suffering wife as to debts and expendi tures, but, let it be said once and for all, accused of no deeper wrong than keeping a cool head and a clear eye, and having a surpassing skill in all games of chance.

Still these were gifts that made him a dangerous friend for the newly-joined ensign with a good allowance outside his pay, or the reckless gambler who found his one excitement in life in balancing himself upon the giddy verge of ruin. Such was Desbrow Clutterbuck, and certainly it could not be a matter of surprise that "the Regiment" did not look with ex ceeding favour upon the man who had " come in from outside." No one, however, had a word to say against Mrs. Clutterbuck. To her the demeanour of the men was chivalrous and reverent, that of the women tender ; while as for Mabel Gra ham, why, of course, every bachelor officer in the corps was more or less in love with her, the officers' wives made a pet of her, and even the Surgeon-Major's wife, Mrs. Musters — whose tongue was supposed to secrete the poison of asps — all but forebore to pick holes in her.

The girl was so gentle, so thoughtful for others, so forgetful of herself, so little con scious of her own beauty, her own charm, so devoted to her pale and patient mother, so loyal to the Major — such a dear, loving sister to Lily and " the boys "—who could help but love her ? Certainly not Charley Rowan, Captain in the Rifle Brigade, who at present sat with his back to the softened light that came shimmering in through the half-closed jalousie, and his eyes — dear, true, honest eyes of hazel-brown — eagerly and undisguisedly watching the tattie that hung across the door, and might — so he thought — be pushed aside by the fairest and most helpful hand in the world. The dark, steadfast eyes of Vernon Halkett, Surgeon — Captain Rowan's close friend and brother officer — were also, many times and oft, turned in the same direction.

No more perfect minister of the art of heal ing could be imagined than Vernon Halkett, and the tie between himself and Charley Rowan had its firmly-rooted beginning in a time, when, with all a man's skill, and all a woman's tenderness, the young doctor watched by his comrade's couch through the vicissitudes of a malignant fever. To these gifts and graces in his profession, Vernon Halkett added the best characteristics of a soldier — calmness, courage, and true manliness — and bore a name upon which no slightest slur had ever yet rested. The two men in their plain, close-fitting uniforms of darkest green, were a pleasant pair to look upon, as many a bright eye testi fied ; but neither found the same charm any where else as in the villa by the sea, or any nectar of the same exquisite flavour as the tea presented to them in rather ill-matched cups and saucers by — Mabel Graham.

The household appointments at the Major's were decidedly scrappy — things didn't match at all, and the presence of "the boys" made itself felt on all occasions — whether they were actually there in the flesh or not. To find a well-grown rabbit loppetting about the drawing-room, or to see a sea-gull protruding its head from a basket in search of morsels of fish from the family table, was trying to the new-comer ; but these, and worse things still, were endured by men in all sorts and kinds of uniform, for the sake of the gentle girl who strove so hard to keep things smooth, and failed, when failure was inevitable, with such a patient grace. But to return to the Major. " I have fully resolved," said the Major, with an air of indescribable candour and frank out-spokenness, " that I shall call upon ■er — Jones of Seething Lane."

"Is that what he calls himself?" said Captain Rowan. " Isn't he anything Jones ?" put in Vernon Halkett. " No," said the Major; " he's just Jones." The Honourable Bob muttered something about " the only Jones ; " but no one took any notice of him. The Honourable Bob set up to be the wag of the regiment, therefore no one felt to be under the necessity of recognizing his observations when a serious subject was under discussion. His bird-like profile, and the fierce moustache that empha sized it, were much admired by the gentler sex, as also was the marvellous dexterity with which he manipulated his stringless eyeglass, whipping it into his waistcoat pocket when it was not on duty in such a manner as to suggest some practice as a conjurer. " I'm glad he isn't anything Jones," said Ginger. " That widow, you know — Mrs. Montagu Smith, wasn't it ? — was a caution."

" No one could ever twace her," said the Honourable Bob, " and the twadesmen were left lamenting, don't you know." An uneasy silence followed. Visions of delirious duns rushing on board troopships at the very last moment, and wildly inquiring for — Well, well, the Honourable Bob never did open his mouth without putting his foot in it, as had been many times observed by his many friends. At this moment a head like a hatchet was thrust through the half-open door, and Jim, the middle boy of the " scramble," appeared, dragging behind him, at far too rapid a pace to be pleasant, no less a person than Master Phil — otherwise King Baby — his snood of curls all in a tangle, his bonnie face rose-red with the pace. Jim made straight for Dr. Halkett. " We ran all the way from the bottom of the garden when we heard you were here," he said, looking up with bright, eager eyes into the dark, quiet face ; " I say, I'm glad you've come.

There's something wrong with my model traction-engine, don't you know." This last with a quizzical glance at the Honourable Bob, who was rubbing his chin with the head of his cane, and regarding the intruder anything but affectionately through his carefully-focussed eye-glass. " We be's welly glad you be's come," echoed King Baby, with his hand on Hal kett's knee, and his eyes lifted to his brother's face for inspiration ; but the traction-engine was too big a subject to be tackled, and King Baby concluded his remarks by nestling his head against the doctor's tunic. As Mrs. Clutterbuck left herseat at the further end of the long, narrow room, the men rose to their feet, and Captain Rowan rolled a low loungingchair close to the open window. " Sit down and talk to us a little, Mrs. Clutterbuck," he said, with a tender defer ence in air and voice that some young ladies in the garrison would have been ready enough to envy.

The Major's wife was tall and still slender; in fact, she gave you the notion of a woman who had been worn away by years and years of anxiety and uncertainty. You could see that she had been beautiful, and realize that she had only missed that ripe autumnal beauty that comes to happy women in middle age, because carking care had delved hollows beneath her sad, brown eyes, and hard lines about her patient mouth. The shapely head, the graceful carriage, these she had be queathed to her daughter Mabel, and Bertie — the eldest of the " scramble " — looked at you with her eyes — before they had grown so sad. " You are very kind to want me," she said ; " but I must see to these unruly ones first. Jim, Jim," with a loving, deprecating shake of the head at that scapegrace, " you are hardly fit to come into the drawing-room ; and what have you been doing to Phil ?

" Alas ! King Baby's pinafore was not inno cent of oil-- black oil, too — and he appeared to have been endeavouring to anoint his curls with the same. " Come — see — Docky," lisped the culprit; then, big with thoughts of the broken traction-engine, looked helplessly at Jim. Jim would quickly have explained in his most lucid manner how matters stood, but the Major interrupted him. " Marion," he said, addressing his wife, " I wish you would not check the children in that way. I like them," he continued, turning to the Honourable Bob with engaging confidence, " I like them to have plenty of scope ; I like them to be natural — to grow up like the flowers, and the er — " "Weeds?" suggested the Honourable Bob, making a really sensible observation for once in his life. " Well, they do, you know — they do, evwybody says so."

The Major hummed a tune under his breath. He wondered if that confounded ass meant to be impertinent. If he did — well, there was an I.O.U. or two in the drawer in the next room — the Major's snuggery, in fact, a room where the light in the window oft-times paled its ineffectual fires before the radiance of the rising sun. Meanwhile Mrs. Clutterbuck, a faint flush rising to her faded cheek at her husband's reproof, began somewhat nervously chatting to Captain Rowan and the Honourable Bob. She was angry with herself for still feeling acutely the snub direct so often administered to her ; angry that others should see her wince. Some women — finding marriage a failure — can arm their hearts against wounds by ceasing to love the man who cripples and stunts their lives ; but this woman was not of that calibre.

Her first marriage had been a loveless union, into which she had been driven by others before she knew that she had a woman's heart in her breast ; in her second the overmastering influence of a passionate attachment was the chief factor. That she rued the day when she first met Desbrow Clutterbuck many of her friends took for granted ; but I doubt whether this were really the case, for maybe she loved him better than she could have loved a better man, and found a secret consolation in the knowledge that no other woman could have been to him what she was — could have so palliated his sins, so consoled him in the days of his despair. For such days did again and again come to the Major; days in which he would tell his long suffering wife that nothing remained but to blow his brains out — those brains that had served him so ill, and deserved to be brought to a bad end — or to fly regiment and country and turn squatter in the wilds of Queensland.

A lucky night's play, the sudden news of a successful horse, well backed, and the shadow would pass. If he went down like a stone, he rose like a cork. He might have laid his head on that faithful breast, and wept tears of fear and repentance in the evening, might have told her that the arms that clasped him so fondly were his only earthly refuge, and, by the morning, he would be whistling about the house or carolling gay songs in a wonderfully tuneful tenor, the boys listening in rapt delight, and Lily whirling round to the sweet refrain, with her cloud of hair floating out behind her. Never was such a household of ups and downs as the Major's ! Many and many a secret of its inner life was there, known only to " dear old Musters," " good old Musters," as the fellows were apt to call the Surgeon-Major of the 193rd, not one of which secrets did he ever impart to the wife of his bosom, though she made never such a corkscrew of herself, and laid never so many traps and pits for his unwary moments.

" I know no more than you do about the Clutterbucks," she would say to a curious acquaintance, " whatever I may suspect." Indeed, old Dr. Musters took good care of C that, and Mrs. Clutterbuck had no better or more valued friend. It had been said by certain unfriendly spirits that whenever this crushed-looking woman appeared at any regimental or gar rison festivity people made " a ridiculous fuss over her ; " and perhaps there was some truth in this. Nothing appeals to your true soldier like weakness and helplessness. I have often times witnessed this grand and noble spirit of chivalry in men of the calibre of Rowan, Halkett, Ginger, and the Honourable Bob. I have seen a poor, down-trodden, timid, entirely unattractive woman singled out for care and kindness j and a thousand petits soms make a passing brightness in her still, grey life, and bring the dew of ready tears into her eyes.

It was easy to see that on the part of Captain Rowan a strong personal regard existed towards poor Mrs. Clutterbuck ; in iact, there was some close bond between the two, some friendly understanding, of which the signs were plain enough to read ; as now, when, after a look — wistful on the man's side, sympathetic on hers — Mrs. Clutterbuck said, softly — " She is out riding with Mrs. Crashleigh." The personal pronoun, used as a substitute for any proper name, spoke volumes : but something must have been kept back, for a faint rose-flush dyed Mrs. Clutterbuck s cheek. "You mean Mabel?" shouted Jim — as usual, in his mother's pocket. And King Baby — most faithful of echoes - — cried in his shrill, little piping voice — " You means Mabel, de-ar Mabel. Her be's gone on a gee-gee, wis — wis . . .

" But here baby ran amuck. This time it was in Charley Rowan's cheek that the hot colour rose. There are few things more unpleasant than for someone to make an observation to you sotto voce, and someone else to shriek it out in the ear of the general public. " My daughter," said the Major, with an ineffable air, and a graceful gesture of his finely-formed hand that was only too familiar to his wife, " has gone out riding with Sir Peyton Paling, kindly chaperoned by our good friend Mrs. Crashleigh." Then Charley Rowan understood the flush on Mrs. Clutterbuck's face when she told him that Mabel was out. Sir Peyton Paling, Captain in the 193rd, and commonly known in the garrison as " the bibulous Baronet," was one of the Major's intimes, well connected, well off, a man, in spite of his failings, of a warm and generous nature, and looked upon as a decided parti.

It was not the fact either that the man was ever what might be called drunk ; but he began nipping as early as nine a.m., and kept on at the same until towards daylight, regu larly spending many long hours at the card table. His skill as a player was not great, his conceit was enormous, and he was an ardent admirer of the beau sexe. Can it not well be imagined that he was a valuable acquaintance to Major Clutterbuck, and that that gentle man, finding in him a truly congenial spirit, would revel in the idea of having him as a titled and wealthy son-in-law ? "Do you like Mrs. Crashleigh? Do vou think she's nice ? " cried Master Tim, his leo-c planted well apart, his big blue eyes looking fixedly at Rowan as if determined to wrino the truth out of him. " / don't. I think she's downright nasty— the lot of us think so."

" We sink so," put in King Baby, clutching Halkett's hand to steady himself properly, and determined to have a share in the con versation. " Do you know what she did ? " went on Jim, while everyone trembled in his shoes, that young gentleman's utterances being occasionally of the most imprudent descrip tion ; " she came here to call ; we were in the balcony over the door. She didn't see us because of the vine-leaves, you know. ' I hope those horrid brats aren't at home,' says she. Yes, she did, we heard her." (This in answer to a polite look of incredulity which Halkett and the Honourable Bobhad managed to call up.) "Horrid brats, that's what she said. So I stuck my head out. Bertie was afraid ; but I wasn't. She's only a woman after all, isn't she, and women can't do one much harm, can they ?

" Here an imbecile smile and a murmur from the Honourable Bob had to be ignored by the rest. " Well, I stuck my head out, and I said, ' Oh, yes, we are at home, every one of us ; just you come in and see if we aren't.' " " Then you were very rude, Jim, as I fear you often are," said Mrs. Clutterbuck, hurriedly. " But I say, mother," persisted Jim, " do you like Mrs. Crashleigh ? I'm sure Mabel doesn't. You know she almost cried when Pap told her that she was to ride Sir Peyton's grey, and go out with — I'm sure if she'd known you were coming," said this wretched Jim, with a plunge at Captain Rowan and a great glad smile that nobody returned, " she'd have stayed at home. I think she's always glad when you come to see us." " Turn to see us," echoed King Baby ; and then a dreadful silence fell on everybody.

Nor did the Major look as if he thought " more scope " was needed by his offspring this time. He moved hastily towards the window, humming under bis breath — " In the merry, merry month of May As it fell upon a day ..." And everybody was deeply grateful to the Honourable Bob for a " By Jove!" so em phatic as to call for general and prompt attention. Well might anyone ejaculate anything. Well might the gods of the olden time be invoked and appealed to. There he was, no less a person than Jones of Seething Lane, ambling slowly past the house on a tall steed of chestnut, dressed so " emphatically," as Vernon Halkett called it, armed at all points in so unexceptionable a manner that the eye that regarded him blinked again. He brought quite a whiff of Lombard Street with him • and the men, leaning towards the half-opened jalousie, felt that his tall, shining " topper " suggested inevitable coup-de-soleil.

His shining boots, white spats, lavender kid gloves, his curiously-cut coat — something of a compromise between a " frock " and a mufti " dress," were amazing. Mr. Jones was about the middle height, and stoutish in build. He had a fair, honest looking face, with iron-grey hair brushed for ward over each ear, and square across the forehead. They could see all this well, for, just as he passed, he took off his hat to wipe his brow with a bandana handkerchief. " As well he may ! " said Captain Rowan. " Wh — eu ! fancy such a get-up in a climate like this ! " " I think," said the Major, oracularly, " that he bears trustworthiness and respectability written on every feature of his face. I have quite decided to call upon him this evening." " I daresay he is a thoroughly good fellow," said Rowan, uneasily ; " but I must say he looks like a dreadful outsider." " Dwedful ! " echoed the Honourable Bob.

Chapter II. Phil's Feat Of Daring

In a community such as a garrison, where ramifications are numerous, and ties many and complicated, there is a good deal of that spirit abroad which is said to instigate one sheep to follow another sheep through a gap in the hedge, until the whole flock are landed in the next meadow, or out on the road, as the case may be. A week later than that afternoon gathering at Major Clutterbuck's, which was described in our last chapter, every one of that " set," and various people in other sets, had called upon Jones of Seething Lane. The man's unassuming simplicity, his guile lessness, his plain, straightforward ways — his naive admiration of the people and things among which he found himself, won their way with everyone who came in contact with him. People liked him and cultivated him. His original remarks and ideas were something fresh to them, tickling the jaded senses of men tethered in an island home, and pretty well acquainted with all the specimens therein congregated.