In Scarlet and Grey : stories of soldiers and others

Front matter

IN SCARLET AND GREY In Scarlet and Grey STORIES OF SOLDIERS AND OTHERS BY Florence Henniker AND THE SPECTRE OF THE REAL BY Thomas Hardy and Florence Henniker LONDON: JOHN LANE, VIGO ST BOSTON: ROBERTS BROS., 1896 P\V Copyrighted in the United States All rights reserved Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty TO MY HUSBAND these stories ARE DEDICATED CONTENTS PAGE THE HEART OF THE COLOUR-SERGEANT, ... I BAD AND WORTHLESS 30 A SUCCESSFUL INTRUSION S2 A PAGE FROM A VICAR'S HISTORY, . . . . 103 AT THE SIGN OF THE STARTLED FAWN, . .127 IN THE INFIRMARY 150 THE SPECTRE OF THE REAL COLOUR SERGEANT If two lives join, there is oft a scar, They are one and one, with a shadowy third ; One near one is too far.

Chapter I Miss

Kitty Malone had tied up the last bunch of carnations which smelt like ripe apricots newly gathered. She had arranged as a row of foot lights beneath her, many flower-pots holding calceolarias and tufts of the little creeping plant familiarly known as 'Creeping Jenny.' Above Kitty's fair head a gigantic sunflower stood on a shelf, with attendant satellites in the shape of golden and bronze dahlias and orange lilies. Miss Malone shook some of the pollen that had fallen from the last-named plants off the creamy lace at her wrists ; and then, after pinning one small nosegay of forget-me-nots among the pale blue folds of her dress, she sat down, like a Queen of the May among her garlands, and waited for customers. A The large hall was very empty, although the church clock had rung out four half an hour ago.

A sense of disappointment weighed down the spirits of some two dozen ladies, who, wearing business-like muslin aprons and scissors fastened at their waists, cast impatient eyes at the great doorway, and over a few aimless strollers who had passed through it. ' It's ten thousand pities,' said Miss O'Shaugh nessy, who presided over pincushions and photograph frames under a canopy next to Miss Malone, ' that the Lord Lieutenant found at the last moment that he couldn't open the sale.' She spoke with a suspicion of a brogue, and pro nounced her ens like uns. Then she looked sideways and not altogether agreeably at Kitty. Miss O'Shaughnessy had been a reigning beauty in her beloved native city until the last season, when Miss Malone had come over to stay with a barrister uncle in Merrion Square, and had calmly taken away most of Miss O'Shaugh nessy's favourite partners, and also her reputation as the prettiest girl at many balls and the cheer ful race-meetings at Baldoyle and Fairyhouse.

It could not be said that Kitty seemed elated overmuch after her triumphs : on the contrary, she received all admiration with a placid sense of its being no more than her due, and never exerted herself to win either attention or praise. Miss O'Shaughnessy's bitterness had reached its COLOUR-SERGEANT 3 height a month or two ago at a small dance, when she had seen her rival led through a quadrille by the Lord Lieutenant, and taken in to supper by the Commander-in-Chief. And just towards the close of that memorable evening, slangy Colonel Haldane, who had formerly been Miss O'Shaughnessy's most devoted admirer, had lounged across the room, and merely said, ' Heard the news ? ' ' No, what is it ? ' ' Well, the lovely Miss Malone has settled to make some fellow happy at last. She's accepted Vincent Pelham — thundering good marriage, ain't it?

Capital soldier, old Vincent, though an awful dull dog. But his father ain't likely to hang on long, and then he'll come into no end of " oof." Are you surprised ? ' Miss O'Shaughnessy was dressed in sea-green, and her draperies just then were too much like the colour of her skin to be becoming, She spoke after a second, in a constrained and hoarse voice : ' I wonder how Lord Ryde will like his son's marriage. As he's so ill, I am afraid it may up set him a good deal. Because though dear Kitty is of course charming, some of her relations are not quite — quite, don't you know? And there was that foolish rumour about her and an army doctor, you remember ? ' Miss Malone passed the pair just then on her bethrothed's arm. He was a tall man, undeniably handsome, in spite of a too-long neck and a head of a sugarloaf shape.

His moustache was grey, and closely cropped, his eyes were prominent, and a little unsympathetic. His smile, although at first sight pleasant, expressed some consciousness of his own personal uprightness, and of his perfectly unblemished and prosperous career in the past, together with the least shade of con tempt for other people who might happen to have stumbled or fallen on less easy roads. Miss Malone looked perfectly calm and undated. Her soft cheeks were hardly flushed, her dark lashes did not rest upon them with a newly acquired sense of shyness ; she only gazed with frank unconcern at her many friends and acquaintances. Her full red underlip did not quiver with emotion, but was merely parted from the curling upper one in a quiet smile. Kitty Malone was clever enough to ignore the envious or admiring glances that ran like lightnings over her slender figure — and apparently all-untouched by them, she walked up the whole length of the ball-room, with the confident and erect Captain Pelham at her side.

Now, sitting behind her barrier of pincushions and pen-wipers, of ponderous plush cushions and futile woollen mats, Miss O'Shaughnessy thought bitterly over this past scene. And the uncon scious object of her gloomy meditation went on COLOUR-SERGEANT 5 smiling amidst a tangle of ferns and blossoms, and giving a little girl directions as to how she was to take button-holes round the room and try to sell them. Mrs. Dowse, who presided over tea and buns, and weak claret and champagne cups, crossed over to the flower-stall for a minute. ' And are ye expectun Captain Pelham here to-day, my dear ? ' 1 No, Mrs. Dowse, he has had to go over to England to see his father, who is ill. See, there is some one looking at your stall ! They will pass on if you don't hurry back.' Mrs. Dowse, fat and smiling, was behind her jugs and glasses in an instant. 1 How I wish,' said Miss Kitty to one of her helpers, ' that some one of slight interest would come !

We are selling for such a good object. Think of the poor soldiers having to leave their wives in a few days, and probably nearly all to be killed, or to die of fever in the horrible deserts ! And those married without leave may be almost starving ! Oh ! Jenny, there are some soldiers coming in now ! They are stopping at Nora O'Shaughnessy's stall. What use can an antimacassar or an illuminated text be to a soldier ? ' ' Well, they are not allowed to wear button holes, and as they sail in four or five days, plants in pots won't be much use to them either.' ' Perhaps not. What a good-looking man that tall one is, with the three gold stripes on his sleeve, and the crimson sash.' 'Yes, a sergeant. And the fair man is a corporal. Oh ! Kitty, how sad to think they'll probably be shot. How dreadful for you, dear, that Captain Pelham was given that staff appointment ! ' ' Ah ! no, not quite that, I wish him to get on.

I am immoderately ambitious, my dear Jenny.' The sergeant and Miss O'Shaughnessy seemed meanwhile to be amused with one another. He laughed, showing a row of very white teeth, as he looked the young lady over from head to foot with a pair of reckless dark eyes. A couple of frugally-minded ladies came up just then to Miss Malone's stall, and after five minutes' quibbling, passed away in triumph with one little fern for sixpence, and a bunch of pinks for a penny. Kitty stood on a step, re-adjusting her flower pots, her slender arms raised above her head, which was thrown a little backward. As she turned round something scarlet caught her eye. The young sergeant was standing facing her, tapping the edge of the stall lightly with his cane. His glance lingered on Kitty's slender form, taking in every detail of its grace and charm ; the sky-blue dress with its broad sash, the shady black hat resting on her light brown hair.

In the words of a far more famous sergeant he COLOUR-SERGEANT 7 might well have said — ' Thank you for the sight of such a beautiful face.' His eyes, however, told her as much, and the faintest pink flush overspread Miss Kitty's neck and her soft cheeks. ' I am afraid,' said the sergeant, taking up a large bouquet of shaded carnations, ' that you have fewer people at your sale than you ex pected ? ' It was a commonplace remark, but Miss Malone started. The voice was that of a gentle man, and equally so the easy grace of his manner. ' Yes, indeed,' she answered. ' It's most dis appointing. And one would have thought just now that so much sympathy would have been felt with the wives and children of our soldiers who are going to fight.' The sergeant was leaning forward on the counter, his cane under one arm, his eyes fixed on the young girl's fair face.

She, for her part, noted how exactly his uniform fitted his square shoulders and thin waist, how well his cap with its shining badge became him. ' Ah ! I am afraid the inhabitants of this town don't feel any sorrow at our departure,' he said. ' We are not very much beloved here. For my part, I rejoice to get away.' ' Have you seen service before ? ' ' Oh, no. Now is my chance.' She fancied that he sighed a little. ' It's no use my offering you any of my lovely roses ? ' And the girl held up a large bunch on which the dew seemed hardly dry. The sergeant took them from her hand and smelt them. ' Alas ! no. They are no good to me. I can't carry a nosegay about in the streets. Ah ! there are some people coming to buy flowers. I am taking up your time?' ' Not in the least, I assure you.' And Kitty Malone actually blushed as she met once more the earnest gaze of those reckless dark eyes. ' The sale will go on this evening, won't it ? ' ' O, yes ; it will all look much prettier lighted up.

And there will be coloured lamps in the little garden at the back, where the gipsy sits, telling fortunes.' ' A fortune teller ? — a genuine gipsy ? ' 'Well, no ; I'm afraid I must confess that she is only a friend of mine dressed up. But she's very clever all the same. Why don't you have your coming fortune in this war foretold ? ' ' Ah ! ' — and he certainly did sigh this time, there was no mistake about it — ' my fortune was told ever so long ago.' ' But think of what may yet happen to you in Egypt. O, I beg your pardon, Lady Celbridge. Which would you like of these lilies — these orange ones or the lovely variegated ones above?' ' Look at Kitty ! ' murmured Miss Nora O'Shaughnessy to her sister. 'What a flirt she is ! COLOUR-SERGEANT 9 She even allowed that sergeant to stand and make eyes at her ! ' ' But we agreed just now that he was certainly a gentleman.' 'Yes, but it is so often the most hopeless scamps who enlist — men whose fathers will have nothing more to say to them.' A band at the far end of the room began to play, and more people to troop in through the heavy doors.

Mrs. Dowse was becoming crimson and hilarious over her urns and jugs of orange ade. The sergeant stopped at her stall and drank some champagne-cup. Then he glanced over his shoulder at the flower-stall and the little blue figure among the blossoms, and began to pace slowly round the great hall, until a counter with some photographs attracted his attention. The owner, a lady who was a great admirer of Miss Malone, had fastened one of this young lady's portraits in a frame. The sergeant stopped. ' How much for this ? ' he asked carelessly. ' Oh, the photo of the lovely Miss Malone ? ' Exactly.' ' Well, ye can have ut for foive-and-six.' The soldier paid the money, and the stall keeper tied up the parcel. ' Put into a raffle, please, sergeant ! ' said a childish voice at his side. He looked round and smiled pleasantly at a little girl carrying a large cushion repre senting, in brilliant woolwork, Black-eyed Susan waving her lily hand to her departing William.

The sergeant laughed. ' I'll take two tickets, f you like.' ' And where shall I send it if you win ? ' asked the child. 'Colour-Sergeant Rhodes, . . . Barracks. But no, stay — it's no use to me ; keep it for yourself if I win.' When he had arrived at the end of the room the young soldier turned his head once more. He fancied that those large blue eyes behind the roses were actually watching him, and his thin brown cheeks grew a shade redder. Towards seven o'clock the hall -was ablaze with gas lamps, and, to the delight of the sellers, was at last thronged with townspeople. Miss Kitty had changed her blue dress for a cooler one of white muslin, and wore a fresh bunch of forget-me-nots pinned at her breast. By nine o'clock her stall bore the appearance of a for saken garden. Only a few straggling plants, which had been earlier in the day relegated to the back rows, remained.

Every bunch of carnations, and each neatly made button-hole, was sold. And Kitty thought that, considering the assiduous way in which she had worked, and how stifling was now the atmosphere of the COLOUR-SERGEANT 11 room, she would allow herself a breath of fresh air in the garden. A few groups of dark figures stood on the gravel - path among the little twinkling red and green lights. The air was soft and cool, the sky of a dark velvety blue, with pale stars coming out. Round the little tent where the supposed gipsy sat, some dozen people were standing, and among them Kitty saw a tall, slight figure dressed in scarlet. One of the fairy lights illuminated the three gold stripes on his arm. As if owing to some mag netic influence the soldier turned his head sharply round as she advanced, and once more their eyes met, this time in a longer glance.

The soft, languorous air crept round Kitty, rustling her white skirts, and lifting the curls on her forehead. She trembled a little. The ser geant came towards her, his brilliant figure standing out vividly against the sombre back ground of wall. ' So you've come back ! ' said Kitty Malone. ' It seems so. A few years ago I should not have thought that a sale and a sham gipsy would much amuse me ; but as I am so soon leaving England — perhaps for always — I take rather a less blase view of things.' He came and stood beside her in the curious, uncertain light. The pale stars were not sparkling enough to lift the shadow off their faces ; the fairy-lights threw odd little violet and green reflections upon her skirt and the red stripes on his trousers. ' Have you had your fortune told ? ' ' Not I. Nothing good is likely to happen to me ever again.' 'Why not?

You might get a commission one of these days, and end as a general.' They moved a little farther into the shadow. ' Only dreams ! ' he said. ' But I loathe talk ing of myself. Are you interested in this Egyptian business, or in anyone going out ? ' They were almost in darkness now, so that if Kitty Malone had blushed the young sergeant would have been none the wiser. 'No.' Kitty's thoughts travelled remorsefully for one instant beyond her companion, and she seemed to see a grave, commonplace face poised on an ungainly neck. But although she was about to make the most prosaic of marriages — to join her lot to that of an entirely respectable elder son of a rich peer — she had inherited with her Celtic blood a foolish craving for romance. Anyone as pretty as she was could have had no lack of lovers, but one and all had failed to bring her the excitement, the passionate desires, for which she sometimes longed.

Here, in this dimly lighted garden — so dully commonplace at the noonday, but glorified for an hour or so by the mysterious stars and the distant murmur of music COLOUR-SERGEANT 13 — she felt for once a strange thrill that was made up of both pleasure and grief. ' Miss Malone,' said the sergeant suddenly, 'you are extremely good to talk to me. For four — yes, five years no lady has said a word to me. I feel very much alone sometimes.' ' Indeed, I can understand that. But there are other men of your own class in your battalion with whom you can make friends ? ' ' Yes, now and then. But I know I have gone down hill. Not owing to the company of the men — no, I don't mean that, they are far better fellows, many of them, than I ; but if one never sees a woman of one's own class one becomes coarser in tastes and pleasures, harder also, and more cynical.

You have done me good, and I thank you, even if we should never meet again.' ' But we may meet some day. Anyhow, I will come and see your ship start.' ' Will you ? ' And he drew a little nearer to her. ' You are very kind to me.' ' How did you know my name ? ' ' I found it out. And I have your — no, never mind.' ' You must tell me who you are in return.' •Sergeant Rhodes.' He paused a minute. ' That is the name I shall always be known by. Never by any other — never again.' His voice sank into a whisper. ' Shall we stroll round the gravel-walk, just once, Miss Malone ? ' he said, after a silence that seemed very painful to Kitty. They walked slowly through the narrow garden, the distant music sounding in their ears — passionate, plaintive, tender. Then they came to a wooden bench, under a stunted tree.

For an hour or more they sat there, learning so much, and yet, alas ! so little about one another. A church clock sounded. The music stopped, and died away in a long-drawn sob. From a neighbouring garden a white cat leapt over the wall, the moon shining on its fur. The world seemed to have grown sadder and very silent. Kitty Malone sprang to her feet. ' O, how late it is ! What will my uncle say, and my friends who were to have taken me home ? Good-bye, Sergeant Rhodes.' She held out her little hand. The moonshine quivered on his pale handsome face — on the band of his cap and the scarlet and gold of his uniform. He looked at her long with the dark eyes which had grown graver now, and less reckless. ' Will you give me the bunch of forget-me-nots you wear in your dress ? ' For a moment there flashed across Miss Kitty's romantic mind a memory of the beau tiful American ballad telling of the lady who flung a rose down from her balcony as the column of war-worn men marched by.

She COLOUR-SERGEANT 15 trembled a little, but she took out the flowers, and he hid them away in his breast. When Kitty came back alone, a few minutes later, the great hall was nearly deserted. Mrs. Dowse was yawning heavily over her emptied urns, and the O'Shaughnesseys had gone home. Miss Malone felt very much ashamed of herself. but, alas, more glad than penitent ! In her joy ous tremor she hardly realised that she had been behaving in a foolish, and, to say the least of it, a very unconventional way — in a manner which Lady Celbridge, her future husband's ideal of all that a lady should be, would have stigmatised as ' bad form ' ; she only knew that the triumphant happiness of this strange short evening was worth many an after hour of regret. And perhaps into the heart of a man, reckless and dissipated enough, but a gentleman still, now lying awake in his narrow bed within blank barrack walls, she had brought some short glimpses of hope and retrieval — dim possibilities of redemption which, even if they should never blossom into flower, were yet as a handful of sparse verdure springing up in the desert of his soul.

Chapter II

' My dear Kitty, it is very foolish and emotional of you to wish to see the troop-ship start. You will probably be quite overcome, all the more so ' — and here Captain Pelham patted his bethrothed's curly head — ' as we — we, my darling, shall so soon also have to say good-bye to one another.' Vincent could never entirely divest himself of a certain stiffness of manner, even when he was most genuinely moved, and his gestures, as bending over her, he stroked Kitty's hair, were, on this occasion, provokingly stilted and self-conscious. Miss Malone looked him straight in the face^ and smiled, half sadly. ' You needn't be afraid that I shall break down or disgrace you on this or any other occasion, Vincent. I really do wish to see the poor men sail. Lady Celbridge is going also.' ' That is quite a different thing, She has a young nephew bound for Egypt.

Now there is no one in whom you are interested. Therefore I must continue to say I think it a little morbid of you, my dear Kitty.' Captain Pelham straightened himself, stroked his moustache with both hands — a favourite habit of his — and allowed the subject to drop. But it came about that two days afterwards Kitty Malone as usual got her way, and sitting on an outside car, with Lady Celbridge as her companion, drove to the station on a sunny, cloudless morning. After half an hour in the train, she sprang out, with flushed cheeks and COLOUR-SERGEANT 17 shining eyes, and walked with her friend to the wharf. Her glance fell on scores of soldiers in helmets and serge tunics, many of them with laughing, boyish faces, almost all trying to look as if they had at last attained the one desire of their hearts, and here and there on a woman with swollen eyes and lips tightly shut, to prevent any expression of emotion.

She observed endless bales of luggage littered on the stones, horses about to be slung on board, careless and interested spectators getting in each other's way, talking, advising, gesticulating. Captain Vincent was already on the wharf, erect, self-satisfied, and well-dressed as usual. He advanced towards the two ladies. 'Well, Lady Celbridge, shall I go now and find your young man for you ? ' ' I wish you would ! Dear boy, perhaps they would allow him to come to the hotel with me for a little while, and have a talk ? He is my poor sister's only son, and I have been like a mother to him. Can I leave you here, dear Kitty ? I thought I would go with kind Captain Pelham and find the boy, to save time. You have lots of friends, I know, here. Yes, there are the Staceys and the Egertons, I see ; stay with them if you like.' Miss Malone became dazzled by the glare of the sun, and by her constant efforts to discern a B figure that was familiar to her among the red tunics.

She knew that when the men were embarked, all would be over, and her last chance gone. She strained her eyes till the tears started into them. She found it very difficult to recog nise people in the helmets that came so low over their foreheads. Suddenly, almost at her elbow two sergeants passed by. The taller one, with the smart, upright figure, was he at last, and she knew that he looked at her with the same lingering gaze that had attracted her before. But his glance left a different impression on her now. It seemed to imply reproach — was it even something stronger, disdain, contempt? Kitty Malone's cheeks grew pale as white roses when the young man, without making a sign of recognition, strode on towards the landing-place. Ah ! he was a gentleman still, and he had never been introduced to her, she thought.

He would not of course think it right to speak to her. But nevertheless her heart tightened strangely as she walked restlessly away to join her friends. Soon Vincent was back again, and at her side. She hardly heard his rather tedious explanations concerning the great ship lying as if asleep in the sun. ' Would you like to come on board, Kitty ?' Yes, she would. And, her heart still aching, she followed her betrothed across the gangway. Under the blazing rays she stood impassive, COLOUR-SERGEANT 19 while Vincent introduced her to officers and others of his acquaintance, a half-smile flitting over her lips, as her eyes still wandered anxiously over the herd of scarlet figures. She saw that Sergeant Rhodes was standing some forty feet away, looking at her again. Kitty's cheeks burnt hotly, and her knees shook.

She glanced at Captain Pelham's kind vacuous face, as with extended forefinger he laid down the law to a young veterinary surgeon. In a second she had approached the sergeant, and was holding out her little cold hand. He hesitated, raised his own to his helmet, hesitated again, and took it in his. ' I have come to say good-bye,' said Kitty in the shaking voice of a child who expects to be punished. 'Ah!' ' It was really to see you I came. I wanted to — O ! it's so horrid and conventional to say, wish you luck, but you know what I mean ! ' His eyes were merely reckless to-day. They had lost the softer look that had come into them a few evenings ago for just an hour. ' Thank you, Miss Malone. And / wish you all joy in the future, too: For myself, if you ever think of me enough to form a desire for me, let it only be this, that I may never come home or see you more.' 'O!

What have I done?' Her voice was drowned as the soldiers around her burst into a song. She started at the volume of sound. Should auld acquaintance be forgot — The familiar and pathetic words sung by these full, boyish voices cut her to the heart. For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne And when she turned her head, Sergeant Rhodes was gone. Again, as the dusk was closing in, and Kitty and Lady Celbridge hurried down to the wharf once more, she saw him. But he was not look ing at her this time. He was talking to a comrade, and laughing so loud, that she could see his white teeth through the dim light. When the moon came out, and the clouds moved slowly, like great black birds, over the funnels and masts, she saw him yet once again. The silver light made his helmet almost dazzling, and his face strange and blanched.

As the great ship got slowly under way, the soldiers took their caps and helmets off, and cheered as they waved them. The pitiless moon smiled down upon the bare heads and boyish features, with the same callous stare with which she would watch them lying paler still in the deserts far away across the sea ; where instead of the black clouds drifting to-night every moment farther off, evil winged creatures would then COLOUR-SERGEANT 21 draw closer and closer to faces upturned and still. One young man, with gold stripes upon his sleeve, suddenly pressed forward and leant over the side of the ship, and amid the noise of deafening cheers and stifled sobs upon the shore, his eyes flashed a last message to a woman who watched him go, a message that could never have been uttered in words, even had the rushing seas not rolled between them.

Chapter III

Miss Kitty's enemies — but, to do her justice, there were not many of these — acknowledged that she had wonderfully improved since the departure of Captain Pelham for Egypt. Lord and Lady Ryde, her future parents-in-law, wrote almost enthusiastically about her to other mem bers of their family. Lord Ryde, whose hobbies were his own health and the results upon it of various patent medicines, thought her kindly and sympathetic. Lady Ryde had joined a strange sect, whose members tried to persuade her that her gout existed only in her own imagination, so with a bandaged foot, and three chalk-stones on one hand she sat meditating for hours, with Kitty at her side, urging the latter to support her in her strange belief; and her future daughterin-law was always patient, and usually agreed with her to avoid argument.