Sir George. A novel

Chapter I

The Norway maple was all aflame under the rays of the setting sun. Broad shadows stretched away from the cedars over the grass, which was still, although October was wearing to its close, of a vivid green after a wet and chilly sum mer. The strong glow brought out in striking relief all the stains and patches on the walls of Uncle George's respectable stuccoed house, and shone full in the eyes of three people walking slowly westward side by side. They were not talking much, it seemed; and it was rather from a strange, half-wistful ex pression upon their faces, than from uttered words, that a passer-by might have guessed that a crisis in their lives had come upon them. The two younger — a youth and girl of some twenty years apiece — were linked together arm in arm, and were apparently not paying much attention to their companion, upon whom the burden of the conversation chiefly fell.

This was not surprising, as, however agreeable he might be upon occasions, to-night his remarks certainly lacked originality and force ; as, indeed, do most well-meant attempts at consolation and fragments of good advice, when the giver is perfectly aware he would him self be the last person to act upon them. ' When you have lived as long as I have,' he was saying, ' three years more or less seem as nothing. The only thing is to take every day as it comes, and to look neither backward nor forward. By the time I had been ten years in India ' ' It isn't only the time, Uncle George,' said the girl ; ' it's the uncertainty, of course. How do we know that we shall be the same people or think the same things in three years ? Harold may find me quite ugly and stupid when he comes back. If I had been allowed to go with him he wouldn't have noticed any change, and we should have grown more and more like each other in tastes and feelings.

And one so often misunderstands letters. If I am annoyed at something Harold says, a sort of devil will prompt me to write back much more strongly than I feel ; and then if one starts a quarrel like that across the sea, the chances are that the breach grows wider and wider, and the whole fabric of our affection for each other will be smashed to pieces.' ' / am not afraid, Oily,' said the young man, half smiling at her tragic manner, as he looked down into her eyes, which had suddenly become mistv and dim. ' You don't suppose if you had small pox or knocked yourself to bits with an accident that I should care one atom less for you ? You seem to think it's only because you have large eyes and that absurd small mouth that I like you. You are too much a part of myself for any outward change to affect me.

If I never saw you again, and dragged out a wretched solitary existence for twenty, thirty years, you would live always in my heart, and no other woman's image could push you out. Don't you believe that there are some men, if only one in ten thousand, who can't forget ?' Uncle George sighed, but it was such a low sigh that no one heard it. Was he thinking, perhaps, of the many times during his own fifty years of life that he had heard commonplace asseverations very like poor Harold's, and how often the future had belied their truth ? But he turned his kind bronzed face towards Oily, and took her little shaking hand within his. He thought how pretty she looked, with the evening glow on her small brown head — how fragile and childlike she was, with her almost infan tine expression of eye and lip ; how much more unfit to cope with vexa tion, pain and temptation, than the lover who looked down so proudly upon her.

If one man can ever be said thoroughly to know another, Sir George Gresham was so acquainted with every nook and cranny in his nephew's character — each mood and apparent inconsistency in which was no mystery to him. Theirs was an intimacy known to few fathers and sons — founded on a community of tastes, and cemented by an unbounded veneration of the younger man for the elder — and the sense of protection and of a still stronger will upon the uncle's side. From the time that Harold— a darkeyed boy of four in a sailor-suit — had arrived at Morton Grove to make his home with Sir George, no suspicion of a cloud had arisen between them. The old soldier, with his unstained record and high sense of honour, possessed a mar vellous gift of sympathy with the weak nesses of the child, which had led to perfect confidence on either side, in spite of the elder man's many enforced ab sences abroad.

When infantine amuse ments gave place to the keener excite ments of school life, the bond between the two grew even closer. Uncle George lived his Eton triumphs over again in the boy's career — he passed a sleepless night before the final examination which was to admit him into the cavalry regiment which he had chosen for him — and he displayed far more exuberant joy at Harold's success than the young man himself thought quite seemly. But it is the inevitable fate of all those who devote themselves for the best years of life to one beloved child, to reign for a brief space at best supreme in the heart of fickle youth. To Uncle George this knowledge came sooner than to many — some six months before their last evening together. In a countrv house where young Gresham had been staying for shooting, he had met Olive Garforth — a pretty, spoilt child — who was at that time the centre of attraction there, partly owing, it is true, to her own intrinsic merits, but even more to the fact that she had just recovered froma long and danger ous illness.

She was, in fact, in that provoking stage of convalescence in which contradiction of the patient's whims is supposed to be undesirable. So, when she set her heart upon an object of no less importance than Mr. Harold Gresham, her weak - minded guardian, Mr. Levitt, did not venture for an instant to oppose this fancy, though there were many objections to the marriage. Firstly, the undeniable one of the youth of both the lovers ; secondly, the fact that Harold's regiment was before long bound for India, the climate of which country was considered to be dangerous to Olive in her present weak physical condition. Lastly, there remained the fact that Uncle George, though the most generous of men, could hardly, owing to the de pression of agriculture and other causes, afford a sufficient allowance to his nephew and heir to allow of a separate establishment for him, and he felt doubtful as to whether either Olive or his sister, Mrs. Chaloner, who lived with him, would be content to play a subordinate part in the management of his present home.

At last a compro mise was agreed upon. The marriage was to take place in three years, during which time Harold was to devote himself to soldiering in India, and Olive was to pass the time of probation be tween her own guardian's house and Uncle George's, Mrs. Chaloner under taking to instruct her in various house hold duties, and in the mysteries of the village clothing club and the Guild of St. Ursula for ' respectable young un married women,' an institution founded and presided over by Sir George's sister. And now the eve of parting had come to the three who loved each other so well — the last short hours when so much has to be said, and so much is always for gotten ; when often little is uttered but what is trivial, though every trivial word seems almost a sacrilege to those who would speak only of the more sacred thoughts nearest to the soul ; and mys terious forebodings of a longer separation and possible ill paralyze the heart and voice.

The burning sheen had faded from the copper beec'i, and the flickering checks of light under the tulip-tree on the lawn had died out before Uncle George and the boy and girl turned homewards. There was a hurried and silent dinner, and then Mrs. Chaloner, the club accounts under her arm, and with what Harold used to describe as the ' kicking horse ' expression in her eye, shut herself into her private sitting room, with the intention of making things as unpleasant as possible to one or two refractory members of the Guild of St. Ursula, who, shy and perspiring, were already there awaiting her arrival. Uncle George discreetly retired into the portico, with a cigar, a small reading-lamp, and one of Lawrence's novels, and the lovers were left alone in the drawing-room. The elder man cast one long glance at the pair before betaking himself to the solitude of the steps, now shining white under the chill October moon.

He saw Olive sitting by the small fire of logs, the low flame flickering upon her white skirt and on Harold's smooth dark head, as he threw himself upon the rug at her feet. Then he put on his covert coat and went out into the solitude of the porch. Somehow or other, on this par ticular night he found his own thoughts more interesting than the words of his favourite novelist. The glimpse of the two whom he had just left had aroused a curious train of mixed feelings in his brain, in which the tenderest affection, a subtle regret, and — yes, could it be the faintest possible spark of envy ? — were intermingled. He looked up at the clear sky and the passionless moon, and sat and pondered over his past life of the last thirty years — the chequered life that had been his since he was the age ofthe boy within.

Success ? Yes, a fair share of pro fessional success had certainly been his. There were some who said, indeed, that Sir George Gresham was too honest a soldier, and too little of a time-server, to have risen to the eminence that should by rights have been his ; but, however this might be, he had won an unblem ished reputation for coolness in the field, and his advice had been listened to with deference, and what was more important, frequently adopted in the various offices that he had filled. Friendship ? Yes ; no man had known more loyal and unchanging friends, from the dear old Eton days to the end of his career as a soldier. Love ? And here Sir George sighed, and fell a-thinking more seriously than before. Well, perhaps, yes ; but yet, through all his musings there was a dim consciousness that after all he had missed the best things that our human life has to offer.

The greatest opportunities had been overlooked ; the possibilities of a joy that comes oftenest to those who least deserve and expect it were for him gone by for ever. That boy and girl by the fire — untried, unformed, and inex perienced — yet possessed a tangible good, an unmixed blessing, that could never again be within his grasp. He dashed his cigar ashes to the ground, and drove his thoughts, with an effort, into another channel. Once again he fancied that he was rowing in the winning house-fours during the last week of the last half at Eton. He heard the roar of many boyish voices on the bank, and the tramp of feet upon the rafts. How brightly the sun shone on the red roofs and on the gray castle tower ! Now they were hoisting him — the captain of the boats — past the wall on which sat a row of little figures, surmounted by laughing faces.

Uncle George smiled to himself too as he sat quite alone under the silent moon. What grand days those were — yes, certainly, the best of all ! Then there was India, and all that fighting on the frontier — great sport, too, in its way. And, a little later, an episode that he would fain have for gotten : a dark thunderous cloud that hid the shine of the spring days. He had not been greatly to blame, saving for his folly in ' believing and hoping all things ' in one particular case, where scepticism would have stood him in better stead. A woman, ill-treated, no doubt, by her husband — but in after days Sir George had felt undeniably more lenient towards him — had left her home and thrown herself upon his protection. He had been foolish before in openly ex pressing his sympathy and admiration for her, no doubt ; but what chance has an enthusiastic, simple boy, fresh from Eton, against an unscrupulous woman with beauty great enough to turn wiser heads, and, moreover, a dozen years his senior in experience ?

There had been a terrible scene, repugnant even then to the boy's sensitive feelings — a divorce and a marriage — to be followed by fifteen years of torture and remorse. One act in the drama would obtrude itself with cruel persistency upon Uncle George's vision to-night — the remem brance ofthe ghastly evening when he had first found his wife mad from drink, the pursuit round the room, and the struggle to prevent the miserable creature from causing her own destruction. He covered his eyes with his hands. Although it was all so long ago, the shame of it cut him to the quick still ! How did he ever live through the wretched ten years in which he knew himself to be bound to this woman, whose eyes he never met, and whose hand never touched his ? And for a part of that time, the one scathing temptation of his life had come upon him with the fierceness of a storm-blast, threatening to sweep away all his strongholds of honour and con science and duty.

He was an old man now, but there were moments when the agony of those dead hours wrung his heart again. It would spring to life chiefly when the tender sounds and scents of May were about him ; when the lilac bushes were in bloom and the grass by the shrubbery walks starred with bright celandines and pale anemones ; when the wind blew gusts of perfume into his face, and his eyes rested on the orchards aglow with blossom. Did ever man, he wondered, love woman as well as he had loved her ? And she — could he doubt it, after that evening when they two had stood together watching the blue hills grow gray and black under the wonder ful star-clusters ? — the woman who had loved him back so dearly, but who might never be his, was laid asleep many years agone under the long grasses. Yet when the world around was clothed in its rarest beauty, when music or song knocked at the door of his heart, she often came back to him in all her old grace and sweetness, and told him that he was no longer old or all alone.

There was a rustle in the bushes near the porch, a flutter of wings, and silence again. A predatory woodland animal had scared the birds roosting under the boughs, and the noise, startling Uncle George, caused the chain of his thoughts to snap. For a few moments he gazed wearily and aimlessly at the dusky bushes and the path of pale gold which led to the pond. And the sight of the water and the floating lilies recalled Harold's arrival in the house sixteen years ago, and the warmth and joy which the boy, from that day to this, had brought into the coldness of his home life. He re joiced to think that the trust which his younger brother, Harold's father, had laid upon him had been fulfilled to the letter. ' I know well,' the dying man had said, ' that though of course your profession must come first, the boy will be always near your heart, and that you will do well for him.

Even if cir cumstances should alter and you should marry again, he will have a home with you, and you will be good to the child.' To-night the tears stood in Uncle George's eyes for a few moments. The departure of his boy gave him an acute pain, but he hardly realized himself how great it was. Filmy clouds were floating over the moon's face, and a cold breeze rustled the leaves of the tulip-tree and crept into the portico. An owl hooted from the topmost bough of the elm, where the heavy leaves swept the iron railing bounding the lawn. Uncle George shivered slightly, threw away the remains of the cigar, and set off walking slowly down the gravel path that bordered the house on the garden side. The drawing-room windows were open, and he caught sight of two figures in the embrasure of the large bow.

The lovers had left their seats by the log fire, and were looking out over the gray bushes and the pond where the cold moonlight glistened on the lilies. He heard a sound as of a low sobbing, and his boy's voice speaking quick and earnestly. ' Darling, darling, you must try not to break down. If you are a good little girl, and get quite well and strong, perhaps they will let you come out to me — who knows ?— before these horrible three years are over.' Uncle George walked hastily past the windows round to the other side of the house, lying asleep in darkest shadow. The owl's melancholy hooting, further off* just now, fell on his ear again, and mingled its dreary sound with the yet more plaintive rustling of the leaves in the rising wind. Very early the following morning a waggonette might have been seen going at a smart pace down the steep lanes leading to Lexford station.

Uncle George was driving, and his back was therefore turned to the two who sat inside. Olive's face looked weary and puckered with much crying, and more childish and delicate than the night before. She was terribly afraid of losing her self-control entirely if she spoke, so her lips were compressed into a stony silence. Harold and his uncle kept up meanwhile a desul tory conversation upon unimportant sub jects, and only once, when they drew near the station and the eyes of the groom who drove the dog-cart with luggage close behind them were averted, did the young man take Olive's tiny hand in his and press it very tightly. There were some ten minutes upon the platform, spent chiefly by Uncle George in a kind of forced conversational hilarity, and by Harold in answering the friendly and would-be jocose ob servations of the station-master, who was an old family friend.

Olive, always a little inclined to be touchv, felt rather aggrieved that he did not devote these precious last moments to her ex clusively, and then she became angry with herself for her sulkiness. ' You must look sharp, sir,' said an affable, bearded guard ; ' you have only two and a half minutes before the train starts.' ' Well, good-bye, old boy,' from Uncle George, with a perceptible tremor in his voice ; ' we will take great care of this little woman for you, and we won't let any of the neighbouring squires carry her off, will we, Oily ?' ' Good-bye, my own darling,' whispered poor Harold huskily, and in spite of the presence of guard and station master, and a row of interested and amused faces at the windows of the train, he kissed her with a long, pas sionate kiss on her cold, white face.

Uncle George blew his nose violently, and became suddenly very fussy about the luggage. There was a loud shriek from the engine, a waving of the hand from the guard, and the train steamed slowly out. Olive burst into a violent passion of tears. ' I wish I was dead !' she cried Uncle George put his arm round the little figure that was shaking with sobs, and the two drove sadly home together up and down the hills, between the dewy hedgerows and the golden stubble fields, back to the house that seemed so deso late for the loss of one bright presence.

Chapter II

The only person not greatly affected by Harold's departure was his aunt, Mrs. Chaloner, who disapproved of the marriage upon the varied grounds of Olive's youth and frivolity of disposi tion, and of the absence of the necessary money on both sides. Moreover, she had too many interests of her own of a more serious nature to spare much sympathy for such trivialities as the love affairs of a foolish girl and boy. A week after Harold had sailed for India there was an important meeting in the village, no less an event than the monthly assembly of the committee of the Guild of St. Ursula. This gathering was held in the school-room, a low roofed dwelling, redolent of musty books and unwashed fustian clothing. Mrs. Chaloner was in the chair, and wore a handsome dress of dark blue and red, in compliment to the memory of the de parted Captain Chaloner, who had served some five years, without any great mili tary distinction, in the Royal Artillery.

Her hair, which was still abundant, was crimped, and raised erect on a cushion ; a fashion, however becoming, which was not allowed to be imitated by the maidens of St. Ursula's Guild, who all dressed with severe simplicity — at least, when in the immediate presence of the foun dress of their order. Some twelve ladies, of very varied ages and different social grades, were grouped round the chair. Miss Olive Garforth, whose flippancy and irrelevant remarks had frequently agitated the assembly on previous occasions, was seated near the casement window, and her little head was frequently thrust through it and among the crimson Virginian creeper, to watch any chance passer-by toiling on foot or driving up the dusty road. The atmosphere within was stifling, so per haps she was to be excused. Mrs. Chaloner was considerably flushed, and from a pomposity of gesture more marked than usual, and a compression of the lower lip, it was evident that some thing serious had occurred to ruffle her.

She tapped loudly upon the desk in front of her. ' Before proceeding, ladies, to the usual business of the committee, I wish to bring before you a serious — very serious — case of infringement of Rule 6. By kind permission of the committee — to whom I must apologize for en croaching on their valuable time — I will read Rule 6 aloud. It stands as follows : ' " That no young woman who is a member of the Guild shall walk out in her own or a neighbouring town, village or hamlet, with any young man except her brother, or the future husband to whom she is affianced with the con sent of both parents, after the hour of 7.30."' Mrs. Chaloner paused for breath, and looked round triumphantly at the twelve ladies. ' I have here a letter from Mrs. Puckle — an honorary member of our Guild, residing at Little Pocklington — to say that last Sunday, at the hour of seven forty-Jive she observed Mary Hodgkins, a member of this Guild, walking through the churchyard with a young man whom she has since ascertained to be neither her brother, her affianced husband, nor a blood relation.

I do hereby move,' said Mrs. Chaloner, warming with her subject, ' that the name of the said Mary Hodgkin be expunged from the list of our Guild members. Ladies, may I ask, have I your concurrence on this point ?' Mrs. O'Looney, the wife of the Irish curate, was understood to remark weakly that perhaps the clocks at Little Pocklington kept different time from the clock at Great Pocklington. But here Miss Prendergast, one of the elder of St. Ursula's virgin members, observed, that because in some countries it was daylight when it was dark in England, that was surely no reason why she, Miss Prendergast, should remain out all night ? Miss Garforth was heard to laugh aloud in the window, and Mrs. Chaloner grew very red in the face. ' I was not aware,' she said, ' that the Guild meetings could be regarded in the light of comic entertainments, as Miss Garforth appears to think.

Mrs. Scroggs, may I ask your opinion in re the case of Mary Hodgkins?' Mrs. Scroggs had been ordered a course of bismuth and peppermint lozenges for some unknown internal malady, so found a little difficulty in immediately replying. After a violent gulp, she spoke indistinctly, and in muffled tones : ' You may remember that in the case of Jane Bickerton, who infringed Rule 1 8 by appearing at our yearly knife - and-fork tea with artificial flowers in her bonnet, leniency was thought advisable ? She is now married to a most steady young man and an abstainer.' ' That is neither here nor there,' snorted Miss Prendergast. ' If you will kindly refer to Rule 15, you will see that any offence against morality is to be visited upon the offender with the immediate loss of all the inestimable privileges connected with the guild !' There was a heavy tramping of feet outside, and the door opened to admit a Mrs. le Marchant — the sworn enemy of Mrs. Chaloner, who, being the wife of a neighbouring squire, was at least of equal importance to the sister of a landed proprietor, who might at any moment see fit to oust her from the proud position which she now occupied.

Mrs. Chaloner grew consequently a little more plum coloured in the face than before. ' What's all this nonsense that I heard about morality as I was on the doorstep ?' said the new comer in a loud, heartv voice, sitting down as she spoke, close to the chair. ' Those ridiculous rules are made, of course, on purpose to be broken. If girls don't walk out with young men it's my opinion it's only because they don't get a chance. Don't you agree with me, Miss Garforth ?' ' I trust we may all come unscathed out of temptation,' said Miss Prender gast. ' But the sooner we quit these unpleasing and almost indecent topics for the usual business, the better it will be for the younger members of the committee,' with a withering glance at Olive. ' I am of opinion, Mrs. le Marchant,' said Mrs. Chaloner fiercely, ' that the time has come for me to resign my position as president, if, as it appears to-day, I am allowed no voice in the matter under discussion.

Remember that this guild owes its existence to me, and me alone, and that those who only come in to interfere at the eleventh hour should not be treated with the same deference as we who have borne the burden and heat of the day ! ' The mild secretary, Miss Pringle, here inquired if Mary Hodgkins' name was still to be left on the list, and the discus sion began over again with renewed excitement on all sides. Meanwhile Olive was looking wearily from her casement at the dusty hedge rows and the yellow distance whence the corn had been reaped and carried away. A rider coming slowly up the road caught sight of a childish face and two great dark eyes framed in a garland of scarlet creepers. Though from the possession of a receding chin and an absence of forehead he might have been assumed to be a person of low in telligence, he had apparently the good taste to find the picture an agreeable one ; and he accordingly slackened the pace of his pony, and looked for some minutes steadily at the window.

Luckilv for him, he did not guess that Olive was inwardly contrasting his colourless face with Harold's handsome countenance, and sighing as she thought of the drearv miles of sea that now stretched between her lover and herself. The horseman rode on past the school-house, with a self-satisfied smirk on his lips, into a narrow lane which led to a bridle-path across the fields. When he reached the corner he once more turned his head to look at Olive, and then a heavy cloud of dust hid him from view. The girl meanwhile had lost all con sciousness of the debate, now growing loud and furious, within the hot school room. She was tracing in an ink-stain on the walls a fancied resemblance to the map of India, and wondering if it was true that she was really getting stronger, and would therefore shortly be able to join the one person she loved best, far away in that mysterious Eastern land.

Mrs. O'Looney's brogue raised in re monstrance against Miss Prendergast's rasping tones brought her back to the sordid present — to the smell of pepper mint, the dirty walls and the stifling atmosphere — and a feeling of mental sickness crept over her. There was a scraping of chairs, and a loud banging of books on the desk, and the ladies filed out of the narrow doorway. Slowly, side by side, Mrs. Chaloner and her future niece walked homewards, the latter paying but small attention to the elder lady's criticisms on her frivolity and general instability of character. Mrs. Chaloner's memorial dress of red and blue was bordered several inches deep in dust when they reached the house, in front of which Uncle George, who had been riding to a distant tenant's farm, was standing, booted and spurred.