The Lost Heir

by G. A. Henty

"And so there is no news of Sanderson?"

"Not that I have heard. Maybe he has got clean away; but I should say it's more likely that he is lying low in some sailors' haunt until the matter blows over. Then, like enough, he will put on sea-togs and ship under another name before the mast in some trader knocking about among the islands, and by the time she comes back he could take a passage home without questions being asked. He is a sharp fellow is Sanderson. I never quite liked him myself, but I never thought he was a rogue. It will teach Captain Smalley to be more careful in future. I heard that he was going home on his long leave in the spring, but I suppose he will not be able to do so now for a year or so; three hundred pounds is a big sum to have to fork out."

The news of the loss of the Nepaul, with all hands, did indeed hit General Mathieson very heavily, and for a time seriously delayed the progress that he was making towards recovery.

"It's bad enough to think," he said, "that I shall never have an opportunity of thanking that gallant fellow for my life; but it is even worse to know that my rescue has brought about his death, for had it not been for that he would have by this time been up at Delhi or in Oude instead of lying at the bottom of the sea. I would give half my fortune to grasp his hand again and tell him what I feel."

General Mathieson's ill luck stuck to him. He gained strength so slowly that he was ordered home, and it was three years before he rejoined. Four years later his daughter came out to him, and for a time his home in Delhi, where he was now stationed, was a happy one. The girl showed no desire to marry, and refused several very favorable offers; but after she had been out four years she married a rising young civilian who was also stationed at Delhi. The union was a happy one, except that the first two children born to them died in infancy. They were girls. The third was a boy, who at the age of eight months was sent home under the charge of an officer's wife returning with her children to England. When they arrived there he was placed in charge of Mrs. Covington, a niece of the General's. But before he reached the shores of England he was an orphan. An epidemic of cholera broke out at the station at which his father, who was now a deputy collector, was living, and he and his wife were among the first victims of the scourge.

General Mathieson was now a major-general, and in command of the troops in the Calcutta district. This blow decided him to resign his command and return to England. He was now sixty; the climate of India had suited him, and he was still a hale, active man. Being generally popular he was soon at home in London, where he took a house in Hyde Park Gardens and became a regular frequenter of the Oriental and East Indian United Service Clubs, of which he had been for years a member, went a good deal into society, and when at home took a lively interest in his grandson, often running down to his niece's place, near Warwick, to see how he was getting on.

The ayah who had come with the child from India had been sent back a few months after they arrived, for his mother had written to Mrs. Covington requesting that he should have a white nurse. "The native servants," she wrote, "spoil the children dreadfully, and let them have entirely their own way, and the consequence is that they grow up domineering, bad-tempered, and irritable. I have seen so many cases of it here that Herbert and I have quite decided that our child shall not be spoilt in this way, but shall be brought up in England as English children are, to obey their nurses and to do as they are ordered."

As Mrs. Covington's was a large country house the child was no trouble; an excellent nurse was obtained, and the boy throve under her care.

The General now much regretted having remained so many years in India, and if an old comrade remarked, "I never could make out why you stuck to it so long, Mathieson; it was ridiculous for a man with a large private fortune, such as you have," he would reply, "I can only suppose it was because I was an old fool. But, you see, I had no particular reason for coming home. I lost my only sister three years after I went out, and had never seen her only daughter, my niece Mary Covington. Of course I hoped for another bout of active service, and when the chance came at last up in the north, there was I stuck down in Calcutta. If it hadn't been for Jane I should certainly have given it up in disgust when I found I was practically shelved. But she always used to come down and stay with me for a month or two in the cool season, and as she was the only person in the world I cared for, I held on from year to year, grumbling of course, as pretty well every Anglo-Indian does, but without having sufficient resolution to throw it up. I ought to have stayed at home for good after that mauling I got from the tiger; but, you see, I was never really myself while I was at home. I did not feel up to going to clubs, and could not enter into London life at all, but spent most of my time at my own place, which was within a drive of Mary Covington's, who had then just married.

"Well, you see, I got deucedly tired of life down there. I knew nothing whatever of farming, and though I tried to get up an interest in it I failed altogether. Of course there was a certain amount of society of a sort, and everyone called, and one had to go out to dinner-parties. But such dinner-parties! Why, a dinner in India was worth a score of them. Most of them were very stiff and formal, and after the women had gone upstairs, the men talked of nothing but hunting and shooting and crops and cattle; so at last I could stand it no longer, but threw up six months of my furlough and went out again. Yes, of course I had Jane, but at that time she was but fourteen, and was a girl at school; and when I talked of bringing her home and having a governess, everyone seemed to think that it would be the worst thing possible for her, and no doubt they were right, for the life would have been as dull for her as it was for me.