“I am glad to hear it, for it’s more than I do,” rejoined his comrade angrily. “You must excuse me for not receiving your news with the enthusiasm it deserves, but you know, George, you always swore that you would not marry before you were a major, if then.”
“Very likely, but with all these new warrants I began to think I might never be a major; you won’t say anything about it.”
“Trust me,” he responded with a gesture of impatience; “besides, you are not engaged, and the worst may not come to the worst: there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. If you were in any other scrape I would lend you money, and for as long as you liked and insist on your taking it, but I’ll never lift a finger to help you to a wife.”
Days and weeks went by slowly enough, but Betty’s photograph now stood boldly on George’s writing-table, and spurred him to many a tough task. True, it was chaperoned by portraits of Mrs. Malone and Cuckoo, and by casual eyes she was supposed to be merely another sister, and Captain La Touche kept his secret. Parades and regimental work occupied George’s mornings, and many an evening he never went out till dark, but worked hard with his monshee, who proclaimed him to be a “wonderfully clever gentleman,” and secretly felt secure of his own premium as together they plodded through the Prem Sagar and Bagh-o-Bahar. George was obliged to forego boating, cricket and paperchasing, he took his name off the polo club, and abjured cigarettes and expensive boots, and only that in his prosperous days he had always been so open-handed, there would have been an outcry at his economy. But his friends believed he had some excellent reason for his self-denial, though no one but Captain La Touche knew how good that reason was. Captain La Touche was a man of five-and-thirty, with a considerable private fortune, and a handsome, pleasant face. His figure was his despair, he would grow stout, aye, and keep stout; despite of anti-fat, exercise, and semi-starvation, he still conspicuously filled the eye!
Now he had accepted the situation, ate and drank whatever his rather fastidious palate dictated, kept a weight-carrying charger, and one broad-backed, confidential cob, and fell into the rank of a looker-on, at pig-sticking and polo, and spoke of himself as “a superannuated butterfly!” He was not what is called “a red-hot soldier,” and never aspired to command the Royal Musketeers. He looked upon parades and orderly rooms as vexatious interludes in an otherwise agreeably spent existence, but he was very much attached to the regiment, as an excellent travelling club, and was the firm, personal friend of almost every one of his brother officers; and George Holroyd was Jonathan to this goodly, popular, and somewhat cynical, David.
He was president of the mess, organised entertainments that were invariably a success, arranged the daily menus, overawed all the waiters, and knew how to put a crusty commanding officer through a course of the most soothing dinner treatment. In fact, he was king of the mess, by universal acclamation, and to hear that he was to lose his right hand, his prime favourite, by marriage, was a blow as painful as it was unexpected. Captain La Touche had some French blood in his veins, and spoke the language like a native. His manners to ladies were unapproachable for chivalrous politeness, and yet, like Miss Dopping, he preferred to associate with the sterner sex; nevertheless he was a keen observer and took an almost effeminate interest in their dress. As to his own outward appearance, it was the result of patient study, and the mirror at which many another man fashioned himself. For a first-rate opinion on a coat, a dinner, a point of etiquette or a claret vintage, you could not go to a better person than Captain Cosmo La Touche; extremes meet; he and his chosen friend were almost diametrically opposite in mind, body and estate. One was a Sybarite, the other a sportsman; one was a philosopher, the other a man of action. One could eat anything that was set before him, the other would sooner perish!
I am afraid we cannot conceal from ourselves that Captain La Touche is a bon vivant, and is very proud of his delicate palate. Indeed, he has publicly given out that the woman who aspires to be Mrs. La Touche—be she never so beautiful—must have taken honours at the school of cookery! He gave a good many of his thoughts to George’s affairs, as he lay in a Bombay chair and smoked cigarette after cigarette, meditating sadly on his friend’s future.
This girl, this Miss Redmond, had a pretty, well-bred face, and looked as if she had no nonsense about her; she rode well (if George was to be believed) and played tennis, and was a fair musician, and would possibly be an acquisition to the station; but what a loss George would be to the mess! He was a capital rider, could tell a good story, and sing a good song, and was quite the most brilliant polo player in the province.
Now all that would be at an end! He would only care for driving his wife about in a little pony-cart, and subsequently dining tête-à-tête on a leg of mutton, and custard pudding—ugh! George would sink into domestic limbo “avec la fatalité d’une pierre qui tombe.”
Mangobad was a typical up country station, sequestered and self-contained. Besides the Royal Musketeers, there was a native infantry regiment, a chaplain, a judge, a collector, several doctors, several engineers, a few indigo planters in from the district, and now and then a great man encamped in the mango tope, with his imposing transport of camels, elephants, and carriage horses.