CHAPTER XI. HIS STORY.
I had almost given up writing here. Is it wise to begin again? Yet, to-day, in the silent hut, with the east wind howling outside almost as fiercely as it used to howl last winter over the steppes of the Caucasus, one must do something, if only to kill time.
Usually, I have little need for that resource; this barrack business engrosses every leisure hour.
The commander-in-chief has at length promised a commission of inquiry, if sufficient data can be supplied to him to warrant it. I have, therefore, been collecting evidence from every barrack in the United Kingdom,—and visiting personally all within a day or two days' leave from the camp. The most important were those of the metropolis.
It is needless here to recur to details of which my head has been full all the week; till a seventh day's rest and change of ideas becomes almost priceless. Unprofessional men cannot understand this; young Granton could not, when coming down from town with me last night, he was lamenting that he should not get at his cottage-building, which he keeps up in defiance of winter weather, till Monday morning.
Mr. Granton indulged me with much conversation about some friends of his, which inclines me to believe that “the kindest heart in the world” has not suffered an incurable blow, and is already proceeding to seek consolation elsewhere. It may be so. The young are pleasant to the young: the happy delight in the happy.
To return to my poor fellows; my country bumpkins and starving mechanics, caught by the thirteen pence a-day, and after all the expensive drilling that is to make them proper food for powder, herded together like beasts in a stall, till, except under strong coercion, the beast nature is apt to get uppermost—and no wonder. I must not think of rest till I have left no stone unturned for the furtherance of this scheme concerning my poor fellows.
And yet, the older one grows, the more keenly one feels how little power one individual man has for good—whatever he may have for evil. At least, this is the suggestion of a morbid spirit, after aiming at everything and doing almost nothing—which seemed the brief catalogue of my week's labour, last night.
People are so slow to join in any reformatory schemes. They will talk enough of the need for it,—but they will not act—it is too much trouble. Most men are engrossed in their own private concerns, business, amusements, or ambitions. It is incredible, the difficulty I had in hunting up some, who were the most active agents of good in the Crimea—and of these, how few could be convinced that there was anything needed to be done at home.
At the Horse Guards, where my face must be as familiar as that of the clock on the quadrangle to those gentlemanly young clerks—no attention was wanting, but that of furthering my business. However, the time was not altogether wasted, as in various talks with former companions, whom I there by chance waylaid, ideas were thrown out that may be brought to bear in different quarters. And, as always happens, from some of the very last quarters where anything was to be expected, the warmest interest and assistance came.
Likewise—and this forms the bright spot in a season not particularly pleasant—during my brief stay in London, the first for many years, more than one familiar face has come across me out of far back times, with a welcome and remembrance, the warmth and heartiness of which both surprised and cheered me.
Among those I met on Thursday, was an old colonel, under whom I went out on my first voyage as assistant-surgeon, twelve years ago. He stopped me in the Mall, addressing me by name; I had almost forgotten his, till his cordial greeting brought it to mind. Then we fell to upon many mutual questions and reminiscences.
He said that he should have known me anywhere, though I was altered a good deal in some respects.
“All for the better, though, my boy—beg pardon, Doctor—but you were such a slip of a lad, then. Thought we should have had to throw you overboard before the voyage was half over, but you cheated us all, you see,—and, 'pon my life, hard as you must have been at it since then, you look as if you had many years more of work in you yet.”
I told him I hoped so,—which I do, for some things, and then, in answer to his friendly questions, I entered into the business which had brought me to London.
The good colonel was brimful of interest.
He has a warm heart, plenty of money, thinks that money can do everything. I had the greatest difficulty in persuading him that his cheque-book would not avail me with the commander-in-chief, or the honourable British officers whom I hoped to stir up to some little sympathy with the men they commanded.
“But can't I help you at all?—can't my son, either?—you remember Tommy, who used to dance the sailor's hornpipe on the deck. Such a dandy young fellow;—got him a place under Government—capital berth, easy hours, eleven till four, and regular work—the whole Times to read through daily. Ha! ha! you understand, eh?”
I laughed too, for it was a pretty accurate description of what I had this week seen in Government offices; indeed, in public offices of all kinds, where the labour is so largely sub-divided as to be in the responsible hands of very few, and the work and the pay generally follow in an opposite ratio of progression. In the present instance, from what I remember of him, no doubt such a situation would exactly suit Master Tommy Turton.
His father and I strolled up and down the shiny half-dried pavement till the street-lamps were lighted, and the club-windows began to brighten and glow.
“You'll dine with me, of course—not at the United Service—it's my day with Tom at his club, the New Universal, capital club too. No apologies; we'll quarter ourselves upon Tommy, he will be delighted. He's extremely proud of his club; the young rogue costs me—it's impossible to say what Tom costs me per annum, over and above his pay. Yet he is a good lad, too—as lads go—holds up his head among all the young fellows of the club, and keeps the very best of company.”
So went on the worthy old father—with more, which I forget. I had been on my feet all day, and was what women call “tired,”—when they delight to wheel out arm-chairs and push warmed slippers under wet feet—at least, so I have seen done.
London club-life was new to me; nor was I aware that in this England, this “home,”—words, which abroad we learn to think synonymous and invest with an inexpressible charm,—so large a proportion of the middle classes assume by choice the sort of life which, on foreign service, we put up with of necessity; the easy selfish life into which a male community is prone to fall. The time-honoured United Service, I was acquainted with; but the New Universal was quite a dazzle of brilliant plate, a palace of upholstery. Tom had not come in, but his father showed me over his domains with considerable pride.
“Yes; this is how we live—he at his club and I at mine. We have two tidy bedrooms, somewhere or other, hard by,—and that's all. A very jolly life, I assure you, if one hasn't the gout or the blues; we have kept to it ever since the poor mother died, and Henrietta married. I sometimes tell Tom he ought to settle; but he says it would be slow, and he can't afford it. Hollo! here's the boy.”
Tom—a “boy” six feet high, good-looking and well-dressed, after the exact pattern of a few dozen more, whom we had met strolling arm-in-arm down Pall-Mall—greeted me with great civility, and said he remembered me perfectly—though my unfortunately quick ears detected him asking his father, aside, “where on earth he had picked up that old fogie?”
We dined well—and a good dinner is not a bad thing. As a man gets old, he may be allowed some cheer—in fact, he needs it. Whether, at twenty-four, he needs five courses and half-a-dozen kinds of wine is another question. But Master Tom was my host, so silence! Perhaps I am becoming, “an old fogie.”
After dinner, the colonel opened out warmly upon my business, which his son evidently considered a bore.
“He really did not understand the matter; it was not in his department of public business; the governor always thought they must know everything that was going on, when, in truth, they knew nothing at all. He should be most happy, but had not the least notion what it was in his power to do for Doctor Urquhart.”
Doctor Urquhart laboured to make the young gentleman understand that he really did not want him to do anything, to which Tom listened with that philosophical laissez-faire, kept just within the bounds of politeness, that we of an elder generation are prone to find fault with. At last, an idea struck him.
“Why, father, there's Charteris,—knows everything and everybody—would be just the man for you. There he is.”
And he pointed eagerly to a gentleman, who, six tables off, lounged over his wine and newspaper.
That morning, as I stood talking in an anteroom, at the Horse Guards, this gentleman had caught my notice, leaning over one of the clerks, and enlivening their dullness by making a caricature. Now my phiz was quite at their service, but it seemed scarcely fair for any but that king of caricature, “Punch,” to make free with the honest, weather-beaten features of the noble old veteran who was talking with me. So I just intervened—not involuntarily—between the caricaturist and my—shall I honour myself by calling him my friend? the good old warrior, might not deny it. For Mr. Char-teris, he apparently did not wish to own my acquaintance, nor had I any desire to resume his. We passed without recognition, as I would willingly have done now, had not Colonel Turton seized upon the name.
“Tom's right. Charteris is the very man. Has enormous influence, and capital connections, though, between you and me, Doctor, calls himself as poor as a church-mouse.”
“Five hundred a-year,” said Tom, grimly. “Wish I'd as much! Still, he's a nice fellow, and jolly good company. Here, waiter, take my compliments to Mr. Charteris, and will he do us the honour of joining us?”
Mr. Charteris came.
He appeared surprised at sight of me, but we both went through the ceremony of introduction without mentioning that it was not for the first time. And during the whole conversation, which lasted until the dinner-sounds ceased, and the long, bright, splendid dining-room was all but deserted, we neither of us once adverted to the little parlour where, for a brief five minutes, Mr. Charteris and myself had met some weeks before.
I had scarcely noticed him then; now I did. He bore out Tom's encomium and the colonel's. He is a highly intelligent, agreeable person, apparently educated to the utmost point of classical refinement. The sort of man who would please most women, and who, being intimate in a family of sisters, would with them involuntarily become their standard of all that is admirable in our sex.
In Mr. Charteris was much really to be admired: a grace bordering on what in one sex we call sweetness, in the other effeminacy. Talent, too, not original or remarkable, but indicating an evenly-cultivated, elegant mind. Rather narrow, it might be—all about him was small, neat, regular; nothing in the slightest degree eccentric, or diverging from the ordinary, being apparently possible to him; a pleasure-loving temperament, disinclined for active energy in any direction—this completed my impression of Mr. Francis Charteris.
Though he gave me no information,—indeed, he seemed like my young friend Tom to make a point of knowing as little and taking as slight interest as possible, in the state machinery of which he formed a part—he contributed very considerably to the enjoyment of the evening. It was he who suggested our adjournment to the theatre..
“Unless Doctor Urquhart objects. But I dare say we can find a house where the performance trenches on none of the ten commandments, about which, I am aware, he is rather particular.”
“Oh,” cried Tom, “'Thou shalt not steal,' from the French; and 'Thou shalt do no murder' on the Queen's English, are the only commandments indispensable on the stage. Come away, father.”
“You're a sad dog,” said the father, shaking his fist at him, with a delighted grin, which reminded me of hornpipe-days.
But the sad dog knew where to find the best bones to pick, and by no means dry, either. Now, though I am not a book-man, I love my Shakspere well enough not to like him acted—his grand old flesh and blood digged up and served out to this modern taste as a painted, powdered, dressed-up skeleton. But this night I saw him “in his habit as he lived,” presented “in very form and fashion of the time.” There was a good deal of show, certainly, it being a pageant play; but you felt show was natural; that just in such a way the bells must have rung, and the people shouted, for the living Bolingbroke. The acting, too, was natural; and to me, a plain man, accustomed to hold women sacred, and to believe that a woman's arms should be kept solely for the man who loves her, I own it was a satisfaction when the stage Queen clung to the stage King Richard, in that pitiful parting, where,—
“Bad men, ye violate
A twofold marriage—'twixt my crown and me,
And then between me and my married wife,”
it was a satisfaction, I say, to know that it was her own husband the actress was kissing.
This play, which Tom and the colonel voted “slow,” gave me two hours of the keenest, most utterly oblivious, enjoyment; a desideratum not easily attainable.
Mr. Charteris considered it fine in its way; but, after all, there was nothing like the opera.
“Oh, Charteris is opera-mad,” said Tom. “Every subscription-night, there he is, wedged in the crowd at the horrid little passage leading out of the Haymarket—among a knot of his cronies, who don't mind making martyrs of themselves for a bit of tootle-te-tooing, a kick-up, and a twirl. Well, I'm not fond of music.”
“I am,” said Mr. Charteris, drily.
“And of looking at pretty women, too, eh, my dear fellow?”
“Certainly.”
And here he diverged to a passing criticism on the pretty women in the boxes round us: who were not few. I observed them, also—for I notice women's faces more than I was wont—but none were satisfactory, even to the eye. They all seemed over-conscious of themselves and their looks, except one small creature, in curls, and a red mantle—about the age of the poor wounded Russ, who might have been my own little adopted girl by this time, if she had not died.
I wish, sometimes, she had not died. My life would have been less lonely, could I have adopted that child.
There may be more beauty—I have heard there is, in the upper class of Englishwomen than in any race of women on the globe. But a step lower in rank, less smoothly cosmopolitan, more provincially and honestly Saxon; reserved, yet frank; simple, yet gay, would be the Englishwoman of one's heart. The man who dare open his eyes, fearlessly, to the beauties of such an one—seek her in a virtuous middle-class home, ask her of her proud father and mother; then win her and take her, joyfully, to sit by his happy hearth, wife—matron—mother—— I forget how that sentence was to have ended; however, it is of little consequence. It was caused partly by some reflection on this club-life, and another darker side of it, of which I caught some glimpses when I was in London.
We finished the evening at the theatre pleasantly. In the sort of atmosphere we were in, harmless enough, but glaring, unquiet, and unhome-like, I was scarcely surprised that Mr. Charteris did not once name the friends at whose house I first met him; indeed, he seemed to avoid the slightest approach to the subject. Only once, as we were pushing together, side by side, into the cool night air, he asked me, in a low hurried tone, if I had been to Rock-mount lately? He had heard I was present at the marriage.
I believe I made some remark about his absence being much regretted that day.
“Yes—-yes. Shall you be there soon?”
The question was put with an anxiety, which my answer in the negative evidently relieved.
“Oh, then—I need send no message. I thought you were very intimate. A charming family—a very charming family.”
His eyes were wandering to some ladies of fashion who had recognised him—whom he put into their carriage with that polite assiduity which seems an instinct with him, and in the crowd we lost sight of Mr. Charteris.
Twice afterwards I saw him; once, driving in the park with two ladies in a coroneted carriage: and again walking in the dusk of the afternoon down Kensington-road. This time he started, gave me the slightest recognition possible, and walked on faster than ever. He need not have feared:—I had no wish or intention of resuming our acquaintance. The more I hear of him, the more increases my surprise—nay, even not unmixed with anxiety—at his position, in the family at Rockmount.
Here I was suddenly called out to a bad accident case, some miles across the country; whence I have only returned in time for bed.
It was impossible to do anything for the poor fellow; one of Granton's labourers, who knew me by sight. I could only wait till all was over, and the widow a little composed.
At her urgent request, I sent a note to Rockmount, hard by, begging Miss Johnston would let her know if there had been heard anything of Lydia—a daughter, once in service with the Johnstons, afterwards in London—now—as the poor old mother mournfully expressed it—“gone wrong.”
To my surprise, Miss Johnston answered the message in person, and a most painful conversation ensued. She is a good woman—no doubt of that: but she is, as Treherne once said of her father, “as sharp as a needle and as hard as a rock.”
It being already dark, of course I saw her safe back to her own gate. She informed me that the family were all quite well, which was the sole conversation that passed between us, except concerning the poor dead labourer, James Cartwright, and his family, of whom, save Lydia, she spoke compassionately, saying they had gone through much trouble.
Walking along by her side, and trying to find a cause for the exceeding bitterness and harshness of spirit she had evidenced, it struck me that this lady was herself not ignorant of trouble.
I left her at the gate under the bush of ivy. Through the bars I could see, right across the wet garden, the light streaming from the hall-door.
Now to bed, and to sleep, if this heart will allow: it has been rather unmanageable lately, necessitating careful watching, as will be the case till there is nothing here but an empty skull.
If only I could bring this barrack matter to a satisfactory start, from which good results might reasonably be expected, I would at once go abroad. Anywhere—it is all the same. A rumour is afloat that we may soon get the route for the East, or China; which I could be well content with, as my next move.
Far away—far away; with thousands of miles of tossing sea between me and this old England; far away out of all sight or Remembrance. So best.
Next time I call on Widow Cartwright shall be after dark, when, without the slightest chance of meeting any one, it will be easy to take a few steps further up the village. There is a cranny in one place in the wall, whence I know one can get a very good view of the parlour-window, where they never close the shutters till quite bedtime.
And, before our regiment leaves, it will be right I should call—to omit this would hardly be civil, after all the hospitality I have received. So I will call some wet day, when they are not likely to be out,—when, probably, the younger sister will be sitting at her books upstairs in the attic, which, she told me, she makes her study, and gets out of the way of visitors. Perhaps she will not take the trouble to come down. Not even for a shake of the hand and a good-bye—good-bye for ever.
O, mother—unknown mother—who must have surely loved my father; well enough, too, to leave all friends and follow him, a poor lieutenant of a marching regiment, up and down the world—if I had but died with you when you brought me into this same troublesome world, how much it would have saved!