XII
t may be admitted at once that, on arriving at Tory Hill and hearing from Olivia's lips the tale of her father's downfall, Colonel Rupert Ashley received the first perceptible check in a very distinguished career. Up to this point the sobriquet of "Lucky Ashley," by which he was often spoken of in the Rangers, had been justified by more than one spectacular success. He had fulfilled so many special missions to uncivilized and half-civilized and queerly civilized tribes that he had come to feel as if he habitually went on his way with the might of the British Empire to back him. It was he who in South Africa brought the M'popos to order without shedding a drop of blood; it was he who in the eastern Soudan induced the followers of the Black Prophet to throw in their lot with the English, securing by this move the safety of Upper Egypt; it was he who in the Malay Peninsula intimidated the Sultan of Surak into accepting the British protectorate, thus removing a menace to the peace of the Straits Settlements. Even if he had had no other exploits to his credit, these alone would have assured his favor with the home authorities. It had become something like a habit, at the Colonial Office or the War Officer or the Foreign Office, as the case might be, whenever there was trouble on one of the Empire's vague outer frontiers, to ask, "Where's Ashley?" Wherever he was, at Gibraltar or Simla or Cairo or at the Rangers' dépôt in Sussex, he was sent for and consulted. Once having gained a reputation for skill in handling barbaric potentates, he knew how to make the most of it, both abroad and in Whitehall. On rejoining his regiment, too, after some of his triumphant expeditions, he was careful to bear himself with a modesty that took the point from detraction, assuring, as it did, his brother-officers that they would have done as well as he, had they enjoyed the same chances.
He was not without a policy in this, since from the day of receiving his commission he had combined a genuine love of his profession with a quite laudable intention to "get on." He cherished this ambition more naturally, perhaps, than most of his comrades, who took the profession of arms lightly, for the reason that the instinct for it might be said to be in his blood. The Ashleys were not an old county family. Indeed, it was only a generation or so since they had achieved county rank. It was a fact not generally remembered at the present day that the grandfather of the colonel of the Sussex Rangers had been a successful and estimable manufacturer of brushes. In the early days of Queen Victoria he owned a much-frequented emporium in Regent Street, at which you could get anything in the line from a tooth-brush to a currycomb. Retiring from business in the fifties, with a considerable fortune for the time, this Mr. Ashley had purchased Heneage from the impoverished representatives of the Umfravilles. As luck would have it, the new owners found a not unattractive Miss Umfraville almost going with the place, since she lived in select but inexpensive lodgings in the village. Her manners being as gentle as her blood, and her face even gentler than either, if such a thing could be, it was in keeping with the spirit that had borne the Ashleys along to look upon her as an opportunity. Young Mr. Ashley, to whom his father had been able to give the advantages of Oxford, knew at a glance that with this lady at his side recognition by the county would be assured. Being indifferent to recognition by the county except in so far as it expressed a phase of advancement, and superior to calculation as a motive for the matrimonial state, young Ashley proceeded with all due formality to fall in love; and it was from the passion incidental to this episode that Lucky Ashley was born.
All this had happened so long ago, according to modern methods of reckoning, that the county had already forgotten what it was the original Ashley had manufactured, or that he had manufactured anything at all. By the younger generation it was assumed that Heneage had passed to the Ashley family through intermarriage with the Umfravilles. Certain it was that the Ashleys maintained the Umfraville tradition and used the Umfraville arms. What chiefly survived of the spirit that had made the manufacture of brushes so lucrative a trade was the intention young Rupert Ashley took with him into the army—to get on.
He had got on. Every one spoke of him nowadays as a coming man. It was conceded that when generals like Lord Englemere or Lord Bannockburn passed away, it would be to such men as Rupert Ashley—the number of them could be counted on the fingers of your two hands!—that the country would look for its defenders. They were young men, comparatively, as yet; but they were waiting and in training. It was a national asset to know that they were there.
It was natural, then, that Ashley's eyes should be turning in the direction of the great appointments. He had won so much distinction in the Jakh War and the Dargal War that there was nothing to which, with time, he could not aspire. True, he had rivals; true, there were men who could supplant him without putting any great strain upon their powers; true, there were others with more family influence, especially of that petticoat influence which had been known to carry so much weight in high and authoritative quarters; but he had confidence in himself, in his ability, his star—the last named of which had the merit of always seeming to move forward.
Everything began to point, therefore, to his marrying. In a measure it was part of his qualification for high command. He had reached that stage in his development, both private and professional, at which the co-operation of a good and graceful wife would double his capacity for public service, besides giving him that domestic consolation of which he began to feel the need. There were posts he could think of—posts that would naturally be vacant before many years were past—in which the fact of his being unmarried would be a serious drawback if his name were to come up. Better to be unmarried than to be saddled with a wife who from any deficiency of birth or manner was below the level of her station! Of course! He had seen more than one man, splendidly qualified otherwise, passed over because of that mischance. But with a wife who in her way was equal to him in his they would both go far. Who could venture to say how far?
In this respect he was fortunate in knowing exactly what he wanted. That is, he had seen enough of the duties of high position to be critical of the ladies who performed them. Experience enabled him to create his ideal by a process of elimination. Many a time, as he watched some great general's wife—Lady Englemere, let us say, or Lady Bannockburn—receive her guests, he said to himself, "That is exactly what my wife shall not be." She should not be a military intrigante like the one, nor a female martinet like the other, nor a gambler like a third, nor a snob like a fourth, nor a fool about young men like several he could think of. By dint of fastidious observation and careful rejection of the qualities of which he disapproved, a vision rose before him of the woman who would be the complement of himself. He saw her clever, spirited, high-bred—a woman of the world, familiar with literature and arts, and speaking at least one language besides her mother-tongue. In dress she should be exquisite, in conversation tactful, in manner sympathetic. As mistress of the house she should be thorough; as a hostess, full of charm; as a mother—but his imagination hardly went into that. That she should be a perfect mother he took for granted, just as he took it for granted that she should be beautiful. A woman who had the qualifications he desired could not be less than beautiful from the sheer operation of the soul.