"The other snake was round him—and he doesn't move!"
CHAPTER XXV
BEAT OF DRUM
The imbroglio with Russia had at this time scarcely earned the name of war. Half-hearted hostilities there had been for months; but a halting diplomacy had not altogether abandoned its ineffectual functions, and even at the latter end of April a hope was breathed from the highest quarter that peace might still be restored between the contending countries. Little as yet was heard of the Crimea, much less of its invasion by the allies. But the Brigade of Guards was actually on its way from Malta to Scutari.
The uncertainty in the official mind was exemplified in the case of Captain Devenish, who, though unfeignedly eager to join his fortunate battalion on the Bosphorus, was provisionally attached to one of those remaining at Wellington Barracks. It is true that he was ordered to hold himself in readiness to embark at the shortest possible notice; but in the constant society of disgusted officers, who consoled themselves with the conviction that there would be no serious fighting after all, Ralph soon absorbed their views, and began to look upon himself as a permanent ornament to the streets of London and the lanes of Hertfordshire. It was only in Hertfordshire itself that he affected a different feeling, openly congratulating himself each week on his arrival, and seldom departing without some half-hopeful and half-heartbroken hint that it was very likely for the last time.
Not a week, in the beginning, without one of these visits; but erelong, scarcely a day. The extravagant fellow would arrive in hansoms at all hours, and go rattling back to barracks through the silent country in the middle of the night. Often he would stay; his room was always ready for him; but his goings and his comings were alike erratic, and that was part of their charm. In the very beginning he was never without some offering for Nan. She soon put a stop to that. The bustle and clatter and high spirits which he still brought with him, these were enough for the girl, who little dreamed of what nervous tension they were the outward and reactionary sign. Yet such was the explanation of the boisterous animation which so improved Devenish in her eyes, and it dated from the time when his visits became more frequent and irregular.
One lovely morning in early May, after a whole long Sunday spent with Nan, the visitor had been first abroad before breakfast, and by merest chance had met the postman at the gate. Without an evil thought, Ralph had taken the letters from him, only to behold one from Denis to Nan on top of the pile. He stood where he was until the postman's steps rang away into silence along the hard highway. It was Denis's writing, without a doubt: the superscription on the fraudulent parcel was written indelibly in Ralph's brain; this letter was directed in the same hand; it bore the new Ballarat postmark; and until the sight of it Ralph had almost forgotten there was such a place, or such a person as Denis Dent. He had been equally absorbed in town and in the country. The cloud of war had obscured the past; the sun of love had blinded him to its consequences. Even the soul-destroying thought of the packet he had posted—the packet with which Jewson had obviously tampered—the packet on whose changed contents he himself was trading every day—even the thought of that had quite ceased to bother Ralph. He was not a man of much imagination. Dent and Jewson were at the opposite end of the world, a hundred days' sail at a flattering average; what was the use of bothering about Jewson or Dent? Yet on Jewson he had been relying more than he knew until this moment. The dirty work had been left in Jewson's hands; but until now, when he saw an important branch of it neglected, Devenish had not chosen to realize what the dirty work would be. Here was a letter from Denis to Nan. It should never have been allowed to reach the post. Jewson was not to be trusted after all.
Standing there in the fresh May sunshine, his ears filled with the morning song of birds, his nostrils with the thousand scents of the countryside, Ralph Devenish, annoyed and nonplused as he well might be, was still a comparatively honest man. A certain element of self-deception lingered in his dishonour. At the worst he had been a passive traitor to this point: nor was the next step downward taken in cold blood. A window opened behind his back, and Nan's voice hailed him from her room.
"Anything for me, Ralph?"
He wheeled about, but approached the house slowly, shuffling the pack on his way.