Denis Dent: A Novel

by E. W. Hornung

His first care was to arrange with Lloyd's for immediate advice upon the signaling of any homeward-bound Australian packet at the Lizard or other Channel station; in each case, separate post-office inquiries were the next step; and it was from this point that Ralph's appearances in Hertfordshire became as delightfully erratic as the Merridews found them. So far everything was plain sailing. It was the actual interception of the letters which was fraught with inconceivable difficulty and incessant danger.

Its unforeseen variety was its greatest curse. If the letter came in the morning, well and good; but once it was only due by the evening delivery, and then Devenish fetched all the letters from the village post-office on some impudent pretext. He always met the early postman at the gate.

"You see they know where to put their finger on me now," he said to Nan, in presumed reference to the War Office. "Since that one fright I got down here I want to know the worst at the earliest possible moment. Yet but for you it would be the best, and even in spite of you I can't tell you how I burn to go. If only you would let me leave you on the one footing which would make me a happy man!"

For it had come to this: he had proposed repeatedly and gained the stage of receiving a fair hearing and some faint encouragement. "Some day—perhaps!" she said, with a stress which indicated a very distant day indeed; and that, of course, was no promise; nor was the pale prospect accompanied by any hope on Nan's part that she could ever love him as she should. Her heart was dead or numb; he heard it again and again, without loss of confidence in his power to quicken it in the end. And this self-confidence stood Ralph in equal stead with Nan and with his own soul: not from the first, yet in a very few weeks, he was playing a winning if a waiting game. He learned from her lips how he had improved in her sight; and though unable to believe there had been so much room for improvement, he was careful to keep the ground thus won in her regard. It was so at every point of his advance. Here and there the gain was trifling, but he never lost an inch.

Ralph had an open and yet silent ally in Mr. Merridew; of old he had always wanted this marriage, and now he wanted it more than ever. Nan was not happy; it was the one thing to make her happy. He would have told her so every day but for a plain word in the beginning from Ralph himself. "Din me in her ears," said he, "and I am done; leave it to her, and there is a chance for me. But never another word against Denis Dent; if his name comes up, make excuses for him. You don't know women as I know them, sir, or I wouldn't presume to offer you such advice."

It was followed, however, with all loyalty and devotion to their common cause. Not for weeks did the father venture to express any further opinion in the matter; and when he did break silence the occasion justified him. Captain Devenish was ordered out at last. Typhus, dysentery and ague had descended upon the Guards' camp at Aladyn close to Varna; thither Devenish was to sail before the end of June, in charge of a draft to replace those fallen in this unfair fight.

It was Mr. Merridew who brought the news home from the City, and capped it with the conviction, now indeed general, that there would be hard fighting somewhere before the end. The resolution to attack Sebastopol was not yet taken, but the probability had long been in the air, and Mr. Merridew spoke of it as an absolute certainty. It might be a short campaign; but from the character of a map which he spread out Mr. Merridew was not of that opinion. Nan took but a perfunctory interest in the map; she knew very well what had been in her father's mind for weeks, and she was entirely prepared for what was coming now.

"Whatever may be before them, you may depend the Guards will be in the van," said Mr. Merridew, grandly. "The chances are that many of them will never come back; but we won't think of that. Suppose they are away a year. Think of Ralph and of yourself. Imagine his torments all that time, fighting for his country, and yet uncertain of you! How can you expect him—not to do his duty, for that we know he will—but to be as efficient as a soldier with a single and a settled mind?"

"He is certain enough," said Nan, sulking sweetly, "if he can wait."

"But nothing is so uncertain as such a future!"