CHAPTER VIII
If Polson had not to be taught how to ride, how to handle a sabre or a gun, or how to balance himself in the goose-step—matters which he had taken the pains to master long ago—there were still certain things to learn, and the button stick, and the flat and chain burnish, and the pots of chrome yellow, and blacking, and pipeclay, were just as strange to him as they would have been to any other raw recruit; so that he was teaching his business at one end and learning it at the other for a matter of some four or five days.
There was a poor exile of Erin in the shape of an impecunious Irish nobleman, who enlisted on the same day with Polson and whose uniform was tried on in the same hour.
They were in the tailor’s shop together with a hurried Sergeant standing over them.
The aristocratic Paddy pulled on his trousers with a heavy sigh.
‘The livery,’ said he, ‘of me degradation.’
‘It is the Queen’s uniform,’ said Polson, ‘and you have a right to be proud to wear it.’
The child of Erin buttoned his stable jacket and went out to drill, and Polson gave him a purposed double dose of labour. He had given orders to an individual man here and there, but until he became a dragoon he had never commanded a crowd, and there is something in that which makes either a man or a sweep of the commander. Polson was all alert, eager to teach what he knew to the slow and loutish squad before him; but on that first morning of his wearing the Queen’s cloth, keen as he was upon his own business, he could not help recognising a certain pair of flea-bitten greys which swept through the barrack gate whilst he was at work some fifty yards away. They came from the Bar-field Arms, and he had helped the man who now drove them in their breaking, four or five years ago.
There was a cry of ‘Guard, tarn out!’ and a clash of salute as the carriage rolled through the gates without a challenge, and the man who sat at the back, disdaining the cushions, and with a lustrous silk hat cocked over one eyebrow, was his father. John Jervase came into barracks, as he had gone everywhere throughout his life, with a magnificent impudence, and he distributed salutes to all and sundry from a majestic forefinger; whilst his only son watched him with a sardonic eye as he bowled up to the officers’ quarters.
The card of Mr. John Jervase was carried to Colonel Stacey, and Colonel Stacey was ready to receive Mr. Jervase in a flash.
‘I am told, sir,’ said Mr. Jervase, in that bluff, John-Bull way of his, which had brought a hundred people to his net, ‘that the regiment has its marching orders, and I can quite believe that you’ve got something better to do than to listen to anything I have to say.’
‘I’m pressed for time, sir,’ said the Colonel. ‘The regiment marches in an hour.’
‘Here’s a lad of mine, sir,’ said Jervase, ‘has enlisted. And here is a letter from Kirby & Sons, the well-known Army agents, telling me they’ve got my cheque for his commission. It’s been the hope of my heart to see the lad in the army, and it’s been his hope also. We’ve had a quarrel, sir, and I don’t mind confessing that it is my fault. The lad’s a good lad.’ His voice began to tremble. ‘But he’s throwing his life away for a freak. I’ve bowt his commission, and here’s the letter from the London agents to say that the whole thing is complete. I know he’s here, for I heard him as I crossed the barrack square. I’d like you to help me to bring him back to reason.’
The Colonel took a whip from the table and struck a blow upon the door, which was one of his substitutes for bell-ringing.
‘Private Jervase,’ he said, ‘is drilling a squad in front of the Cupola. Send him here.’ He waved his visitor to a chair, and plunged into the examination of a heap of papers which lay before him. Jervase nursed his silk hat in both hands and waited, listening to the scattered noises of the barrack square and catching amongst them his son’s voice with a sort of fatal sound of command in it.
‘Is he going to talk to me like that?’ asked the father of himself; and the minutes went slowly by until Colonel Stacey’s batman tapped respectfully at the door, and announced ‘Private Jervase.’
‘I’ll leave you,’ said the Colonel, gathering his papers in his hand, and darting towards the doorway.
‘I beg you won’t, sir,’ cried Jervase the elder, ‘I shall be more than obliged to you, sir, if you will help me to bring my boy to reason. There,’ he cried, casting a letter upon the table, ‘is a notice from the London agents that his commission is bought and paid for. There’s my cheque for a thousand pounds, and if that isn’t good enough for him, there’s fifty twenty-pound notes of the Bank of England, and he can have both of ‘em with as good a heart on my side as if he took the one and left the other.’
The Colonel looked from the son to the father, and back from the father to the son.
‘Really, Mr. Jervase,’ he said, ‘I don’t see that this is much of an affair of mine. I will leave you to fight it out between you.’
The Colonel walked to the door, and father and son were left together. John Jervase, banker, capitalist, driver of men, was not in the least like himself that morning, and his hands trembled so that he was fain to clutch one with another, and to hold both tight between his knees as he sat.
‘Look here, Polly,’ he began, but Polson gazed sternly straight before him, and gave no sign of sympathy or forgiveness. ‘Look here, Polly, I’ve had about a week of it, and I can’t stand it any longer. You and me’s got to be friends, or else I’ve got to put an end to things in a way as you won’t fancy.’
He waited, but there was no response from the stolid figure in front of him. Pol-son stared out of the window and stood silent and immobile as a statue.
‘I left you to yourself,’ said Jervase, ‘until I’d got everything right and comfortable. Major de Blaequaire has gone off to Southampton, and I believe he’s on his way to Varna, somewhere in the Black Sea. I’ve made a deposit with Stubbs, his lawyer, of no less than fifty thousand pounds, my lad. That’s been a shake, I tell you. I’ve had a good deal o’ trouble to raise that sum in a hurry, but I’ve done it, and there’s to be no action and no scandal of any sort until De Blaequaire comes back again. That gives your Uncle James and me time to turn round.’
He waited again, and still Polson stood like a statue and made no answer.
‘I’ve done more than that,’ Jervase went on. ‘I’ve banked twelve thousand pounds to General Boswell’s credit, so that come what may he isn’t likely to suffer. If De Blaequaire carries the case on when he comes back to England, James and me can pay him every penny of his rightful claim, and we’ll do it.’
He paused again, for his voice had once more half escaped from his control. The boy stood before him, cold and inflexible as doom. To the father’s eye he had never looked so manly and handsome as he did at this moment, and what with fatherly pride and self pity and a sense of the magnanimity of his own purposes, the emotions of John Jervase were strangely mixed.
‘There’ll be no trouble at all, Polly,’ he said, after a pause. ‘I’ve put everything straight for you. You’ve only got to run up to London to sign your papers, to have your commission, and go out like a gentleman. I’ve brought a portmanteau with me in the carriage, with everything you’ll actually need in it for a week or two, and there’s the money for you to order anything else you want. I packed the portmanteau with my own hands, Polly.’
He paused again, for in his own way he was genuinely moved: but the boy still stood there, staring out of the window, and answered never a word.
‘You’ve got to listen,’ said the elder, rising and shaking him by the shoulder. ‘You think I have acted like a scoundrel, and you’re ashamed of your old father. I dare say you’re right, my lad, but it wasn’t so much my fault as you might fancy. There was a leak between that mine of old General Airey’s and your Uncle James’s when I went into partnership with him, and, after all, we only helped Nature just a little bit, and there’s many a man walking about this minute, holding his head high, who has done more wrong than I have.’
‘For God’s sake, don’t!’ cried Polson, breaking silence for the first time. ‘It’s bad enough as it is. Don’t make it worse by talking about it.’
‘I won’t, Polly,’ said Jervase. ‘I’ll do anything you like if you’ll only shake hands and say as you forgive me. Now there’s two thousand pound on this here table, and there’s the letter from your agents; and you can be off to London within an hour, and have your heart’s desire. What’s the good of being stupid?’
He took a great bandana handkerchief from the tail pocket of his respectable black coat, and blew his nose resoundingly, and wiped his eyes. He was very deeply moved indeed, and Polson was profoundly sorry for him; but there was a sick whirl in the lad’s mind which robbed him of any clear power of thought and seemed indeed to deaden feeling itself. Only he knew that nothing could undo his shame. Nothing could ever make him respect himself again. Nothing could give back to him the old sense of honour, the knowledge that he came of honest folk.
‘Look here, Polly,’ Jervase broke out again, ‘I haven’t bred you up to be a common soldier. When I was a young and struggling man, by comparison with what I am now, I said to myself, “I’ll make my lad a gentleman.” I sent you to Rugby, and I sent you to Oxford, and I never stinted neither love nor money. And if I was a bit over-greedy and in a hurry to be rich, I did what I did a good deal more for your sake than my own.’
‘Leave bad alone, father,’ said Polson, with an almost savage sternness. ‘Can’t you see that you make things worse with every word you speak? Isn’t it enough for me to know what I know already, but you must make me a partner in that shameful business?’
‘Polly,’ said Jervase, almost fawning on him, ‘I’ve been a hard man all my life, and I’ve lived a hard life for years. I’ve been a proudish sort of chap, in my own way, and I’ve never stooped to ask any man’s pardon twice for the same offence. But it’s different between you and me, and I can’t let my own flesh and blood go away from me until I’ve had a word of some sort. It’s only a word, Polly. You can’t deny me! You’re a-going out to the war, Polly, and you might never come back again. And think of me—think of your poor old father sittin’ at home, and sayin’ to himself, “I sent my son away with a broken heart and ashamed of his own father, and he wouldn’t touch my hand before he went to his own death, and he wouldn’t say one forgiving word to me, and I murdered him, and I broke his heart, and I made him ashamed of his own father.” You think of me, Polly, sittin’ at home and thinkin’ like that. Maybe for years and years. We’re a long-lived lot, we Jervases, and I should make old bones in the course of nature, but I couldn’t bear it, Polly, I couldn’t bear it. I should have to put an end to it, and if you go away without a word, it won’t be long before I do it.’
The bugles sang out the assembly in the barrack square. Polson both heard and understood, but his father did neither. Within half an hour the regiment would be on the march, and already the red-coated, brass-helmeted men, shining from head to foot and glittering in the fine array war wears before the exchange of the first blows, were moving about the open.
‘Now look here, Polly,’ said Jervase, striving no longer to disguise the wet eyes and the breaking voice, ‘it’s take it or leave it. There’s your father’s hand. Are you a-going to touch it before he goes away?’
‘Don’t you think,’ asked Polson, ‘that you’re making it pretty hard for both of us?’
‘Very well,’ said Jervase, ‘there’s no handshake. There’s no good-bye betwixt we two as friends. Perhaps you may come back in a different humour, Polly. Here’s your agent’s letter. Are you a-going to take your commission, and fight in a gentleman’s uniform for your Queen and country, or are you going out to advertise your father’s shame by wearing a private’s coat?’
‘I shall go as I am,’ said Polson.
‘Very well,’ said John Jervase again. ‘There’s the father’s hand refused, and there’s the commission chucked into the gutter. Now here’s a cheque for a thousand pound as you can cash with Cox & Co. in London. Are you a-going to take that, or are you not?’
‘I’m not likely,’ said Polson, ‘to have any sort of use for money.’
‘You’re hard,’ said his father. ‘You’re bitter hard. There’s the ‘and refused. There’s the commission chucked, and there’s the check too dirty for you to look at. Very well. Now there’s fifty notes for twenty pounds a-piece. Will you take them?’
‘No,’ said the youngster, ‘I shall have no want of money and no use for it.’
‘You’re hard,’ said Jervase. ‘You’re bitter hard. Will you take one of them? It might come in useful. Take it, Polly. Just take it, even if you never spend it.’ He clutched one note from the heap which lay upon the table, and held it in a shaking hand towards his son. And Polson still stood like a statue, and stared out of the window. He would fain have been more relenting had he dared, but he feared the loss of his own manhood if he once began to pardon, and perhaps he was severer to himself than to the old man who begged for his forgiveness. ‘There’s the ‘and,’ said Jervase, weeping openly. ‘He won’t touch that. There’s the commission only waiting for him to sign, and he won’t touch that. There’s a cheque for a thousand pound as would send him to the war fitted out like a gentleman, and he won’t touch that. There’s the ready money to the same amount as would help him to hold his head up among his comrades anywhere, and he won’t touch that. And here’s a note for a mere twenty pounds, and his father asks him just to take it as a sort of a memorial, and to keep it like as if it was a funeral card, and he won’t touch that.’
Polson was white to the lips, but he looked straight before him still, and gave no sign. Jervase took up the agent’s letter and deliberately tore it into pieces. He took up his own cheque and tore that into pieces also. He patted the pile of notes together and put them into his breast pocket, crying all the while with odd little child-like snatches of sound which were wounding to listen to.
The bugles sang out again in the square, and the distant hoofs were clattering on the cobbled stones in front of the stables. Through the window Polson could see the glitter of the polished brass of the band, as it moved slowly across the square towards the barrack gate, and formed up in a solid cube. There was a crowd outside in the streets, and from it rose a noise of cheering. There was silence in the room except for those child-like, unrestrained sobs which shook John Jervase; and even these quieted down as if he too were listening to the growing tumult outside. There was a sudden roll of drums, and the band began to play ‘The Girl I left behind me.’ An imperious rap sounded at the door, and Colonel Stacey entered without waiting for a response.
‘Do you take your commission, Jervase, or are you to be left here?’ he asked brusquely.
‘I am to be left here, sir,’ Polson answered. ‘But I hope that I may get my marching orders as soon as possible.’
‘We embark on Friday,’ said the Colonel, ‘and another ship follows that day week. I’ll see you through by then.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Polson, and the Colonel nodded and was gone.
The band was playing, and the crowd in the street was cheering, and there was silence between father and son for two or three minutes. Then rose from the barrack square a deafening roar as ‘old Stayce’ rode out on the bright bay with the three white stockings, and cantered to the front. The hoarse, commanding voice pealed out the word, the band crashed into a new marching tune, and the regiment began to move forward, like a scarlet snake with glistering scales. Clank and clatter of scabbard, tramp of the ordered ranks, blare of the band, and roar on roar from the street, and then little by little a falling silence. At last dead quiet.
‘You needn’t think there’s no clean money in my hands,’ said Jervase. ‘I don’t owe everything to that blasted brine-pit. You can take your own rights. You can take what I offer you, and feel as you’re an honest man all the same. And Polly, if you’re going out as a private soldier you’ll want money. It isn’t as if an untravelled man was talkin’ to you. I know the Black Sea Coast I spent one Febiwerry there, a man before the mast. I’ll back it again the Pole for cold. You’ll miss a lot o’ comforts, Polly, as a pound or two would buy for you.’
‘I must go back to duty,’ said Polson, ‘or I shall get into hot water.’
‘Take a hundred pound, Polly. It’s clean money. I’ll swear it on my Bible oath. Look here, Polly. Look here!’
Jervase rose and shook his son by both shoulders in a frenzy.
‘Look here, Polly, look here. Listen.’
‘I am listening, father.’
‘Then look as if you was listening for Heaven’s sake! I’m worth half a million, if I’m worth a penny. I never owned to it before, but if it isn’t true God strike me dead. Outside that salt mine, I’ve been an honest man. You won’t believe it, but I have. I saw a chance of making money elsewhere, and I wanted a start, and I turned rogue for the sake of it. Polly, Polly. I’ll pay every penny with a three per cent, interest—compound, mind you—compound—and I shall be a rich man still!
‘Pol, you’re hard. I don’t know where you get it from. But, mind you! One of these days you might find yourself led into a temptation, and then perhaps you’ll think of your old father. How many business men have gone through life, and never done but one thing as they had a call to be ashamed of? I’ve done one; and I’ve been bowled out at it! There’s men that does hundreds, Polly, and are never bowled out at all! I’ll tell you what. It ain’t me having been dishonourable as stands between us. It’s your own pride, Polly. It’s a good pride. It’s what you might call a righteous pride. But if I was just what I am, without being your father—if I was just what you might call an average old sinner, you wouldn’t let me beg like this, Polly. No, you wouldn’t! And look here, Polly. Money’s money, and here’s a thousand pound——’
‘Damn your thousand pounds,’ cried Polson. He turned to face his father in an agony, and struck his own clenched fist upon his breast three several times. Then he turned to his original position and stared through the window across the empty square.
‘Yes,’ said John Jervase slowly. ‘Damn the thousand pounds. Damn it, and damn it, and damn it over again. You think I’m trying to bribe you, Polly? No! You wait till you’re a father, with your only son a-going to the wars without a penny in his pocket, and hating you too much to take what you can give him. Then you’ll feel what I feel. Damn the thousand pounds! Damn all the money as was ever coined. But, Polly, there’s my hand again. I’d rather you took it full—but won’t you take it empty?’
The lad took the empty hand and wrung it hard, and held it long.