Plainly, there was nothing more to be done. The child had to go through it. People had to endure such things. Yet he was miserable, watching furtively her dimmed roses and the circles about her eyes. His little Nell, who had lived in the sunshine all her days!
It was, perhaps, not to be wondered at that, in the perturbation of his mind, the pendulum should have swung towards Robin. "Confound the fellow!"—(meaning Captain Langrishe)—"What did he mean by making Nelly unhappy?" A still, small voice whispered to the General that the young man was acting on some foolish, overstrained, honourable scruple just as he would have done himself in his youth—nay, to-day, for the matter of that. But he would not listen to the voice. He fretted and fumed, puffed himself up into a great rage as men of his temperament will. Confound the fellow! He had gone half-way to meet him, for Nelly's sake, and the fellow had refused to budge. Confound him and be hanged to him! The General would have used much worse language if the simple piety which hid behind his blusterousness had not come in to restrain him.
He blamed himself—to be sure, he blamed himself. What a selfish old curmudgeon he had been, always thinking of himself and his own likes and dislikes! Where could his Nelly find greater security for happiness than in the keeping of Gerald's son? Everybody thought well of Robin. There had never been anything against him. Why, not a week ago, one of the finest soldiers in the army, a field-marshal, a household word in the homes of England, had button-holed the General to congratulate him on a speech of Robin's.
"That young man will be a credit to you, Drummond," he had said. "Mark my words, that young man will be a credit to you."
And the General had been oddly impressed by the opinion, coming from his old comrade in arms, and one of the finest soldiers that ever stepped. And, to be sure, he had been trying to set Nelly against Robin all the days of her life.
When he had come to this point in his meditations he groaned aloud. A thought had come to him of how little Nelly would be really his, married to Robin Drummond. He would have no need for the house then. He would have to dismiss the servants, the old servants of whom he was fond, who adored him, and go into lodgings. He might keep Pat, perhaps. Even the dogs would go with Nelly. He would never have his girl any more. The Dowager would be always there. The Dowager would know better than anyone how to set up an invisible barrier between Nelly and her father. Why, since she had been their neighbour things had not been the same. She had carried Nelly hither and thither, to concerts and At Homes and picture-galleries and what-not. She talked of presenting her at Court, with an air of significance which the General loathed. The question in her eye and smile—the General called it a smirk—the very transparent question was as to whether it was not better to wait and present Nelly on her marriage.
When the Dowager was sly she made the General furious. Was his little girl to be married out of hand to Robin Drummond without being given the chance to see the world and other men? He asked the question hotly, pacing up and down the faded Persian rug in his den. Then a chill came on his heat. He had not been able to keep Nelly from choosing, and she had chosen unwisely. He had had a dream of himself and young Langrishe and Nelly and the babies in the big happy house. They would belong to him—no one would push him away from his girl. They would be together till they closed his eyes. The thought of it now was like a green oasis in the desert; but it was a mirage, only a mirage!
And Nelly must not suffer. Langrishe had rejected her—rejected that sweet thing, confound him! And there was her cousin Robin, patient and faithful, waiting to make her happy. He forgot that once upon a time he had been furious with Robin for his patience. Robin was a kind fellow, a good fellow. He seemed to be always at the beck and call of his mother and Nelly, always ready to escort them. Why, only yesterday Nelly had said that there was no one so comfortable as Robin to go about with, and then, in a fit of compunction, had flown to her father and hugged him hard.
"Never mind, Nell, never mind," the General had said. "I never took you about much, did I? We were great home-keepers, you and I. Never seemed to want to gad about, did we? I ought to have taken you about more. It was a dull life for a young girl—a dull life. I ought to be obliged to your aunt for showing me the error of my ways, for making life pleasanter for you."
He gulped over the end of the speech.