There was a general murmur of regret. Mrs Strachan particularly pitied him for having no mother to console him, though her husband thought that this was a redeeming feature in the case. If he had to bear her disappointment as well as his own it would be a great deal worse, he said, and no young fellow of spirit wants to be pitied.
“Besides,” he added, “there is this to be thought of. Suppose he had succeeded, he would not have been in a very pleasant position. A subaltern trying to live upon his pay is placed about as uncomfortably as a lad can be. For my part, I am not sure that I would not sooner be a full private, if I must take to soldiering at all.”
“But your other friend, Forsyth, who went out to Egypt to find the man who was supposed to have the will—has nothing been heard from him?” asked Mary.
“Nothing to help,” replied Tom. “There has been one letter from him, and he was as hopeful as ever; but he had only got as far as Cairo. Of course, if he succeeds Kavanagh will be right enough, but what is he to do in the meantime? He has no relative to go to, you see.”
“We would have him here for a spell if it were likely to do him any good,” said Captain Strachan.
“Thank you, father. It will be kind to ask him, but I know he won’t come. He has never been sanguine about Forsyth’s recovering the will, and I know had made up his mind to face the situation if he failed in this. He would feel that coming here would only make it more difficult afterwards. He expected to be spun, and I have no doubt has fixed his plans.”
Although his friend’s failure damped Tom Strachan’s pleasure in his own success, it could not entirely quench it, and the family party soon grew more cheery.
Of course the publication of the list was a terrible facer for Kavanagh, and when he saw the certainty of his failure his heart thumped hard and his brain reeled for half a minute. But when the mist cleared from his eyes he drew a long breath, shook himself, and lit a cigar. He did not bother himself with “ifs.” If he had read this subject a little more, and that a little less, he would have got so many more marks. If those questions he had particularly crammed in such a subject had been set. If there had been three more vacancies, etcetera. Neither did he regret his former want of application, which he had done his very utmost to remedy the last year. Nor did he give way to a passion of vexation about the missing will, or repine at Fate. “What’s the use?” he said to himself when these thoughts recurred to him; and he smothered them as he walked towards his room—this was in the chambers of a brother militia officer who played at being a barrister and lived in the Temple. As he was a sportsman and an Alpine climber, he did not live very much in London, and finding that his subaltern, Kavanagh, was going to lodge in the capital for the sake of reading with a crammer, and having a spare bedroom which he did not want, and was thinking of letting off if he found a friend whose coming in and out would not bore him, to take it, he proposed that the lad should do so. If he liked to pay him 20 pounds a year he might; if not, it did not matter. For he had taken a great fancy to Kavanagh, who, indeed, was a general favourite. When Royce, the owner of the chambers, was away, Kavanagh had the sole use of the sitting-room as well as of the bedroom; and when he was in town it was much the same thing. They breakfasted together, but Royce spent most of the day at his club.
He was in London now, and Kavanagh wished he was not, for he did not want consolation, advice, or offer of help. He knew that he had to work out this business for himself, and the less said the better. Royce was not in now, that was one consolation. Kavanagh went up to his room, and began overhauling his clothes. He selected an old pair of corduroy trousers which he had used for shooting, with a coat and waistcoat which had been worn with them, and a pair of boots bought in the country ready-made, on an occasion when he had been obliged, by an accident to his wardrobe, to supply himself in a hurry. A much-worn check shirt, with collar attached, and a black silk handkerchief, with a pair of worsted socks, completed the lot of clothes which he laid upon the bed, and for which he then changed what things he had on. These he packed up with all his other clothes in several portmanteaus and carpet bags. He next placed his tall hat away in its box, and, having completed these arrangements, put on a wideawake, went out, and called a four-wheeler. Then he went upstairs again, and returned with a tin uniform-case on one shoulder and a portmanteau in his hand. It took him three trips to bring all his goods down and stow them on and in the cab. When at last he had accomplished it, he was stopped as he drove off by one of the officials, who said—
“Halloa, my man, where are you off to with Mr Kavanagh’s luggage?”