A Likely Story

by William De Morgan

Whether the young Captain Calverley, whom the picture alluded to, was a hero because, when, one day in the hunting-field, our young heiress and her quadruped came to grief over a fence, he made his horse swerve suddenly to avoid disastrous complications, and thereby came to greater grief himself, Mr. Pelly, at any rate, could form no judgment. It was out of his line, he said. So, according to him, was the sequel, in which the sadly mauled mortal portion of the young soldier, with a doubt if the immortal portion was still in residence, was carried to Surley Stakes and qualified—though rather slowly—to resume active service, by the skill of the best of surgeons and the assiduity of an army of nurses. But, hero or not, he was credited with heroism by the young lady, with all the natural consequences. And no doubt his convalescence was all the more rapid that he found himself, when he recovered his senses forty-eight hours after his head struck the corner of a stone wall in his involuntary dismount, in such very delightful company, with such opportunities of improving his relations with it. In fact, the scheme for his removal must have developed very soon, to give him a text for a sermon to the effect that he was Fortune's Toy and the Sport of Circumstances, that he accounted concussion of the brain and a fractured thigh-bone the only real blessings his lot had ever vouchsafed to him, and that happiness would become a Thing of the Past as soon as he rejoined his regiment. He would, however, devote the remainder of his life to treasuring the memories of this little hour of unalloyed bliss, and hoping that his cherished recollections would at almost the rarest possible intervals find an echo somehow and somewhere that his adoration—badly in love as he was—failed in finding a description for, as the climax of a long sentence. And perhaps it was just as well that his resources in prose composition gave out when they did, as nothing was left then but to become natural, and say, "You'll forget all about me, Miss Upwell, you know you will. That's what I meant"—the last with a consciousness that when we are doing prose composition we are apt to say one thing and mean another.

Madeline wasn't prepared to be artificial, with this young dragoon or anyone else. She gave him the full benefit of her large blue eyes—because, you see, she had got him down, as it were, and he couldn't possibly become demonstrative with a half-healed fracture of the thigh—and said, "I hope I shan't. I shall try not to, anyhow." But this seemed not to give entire satisfaction, as the patient said, rather ruefully, "You could, if you tried, Miss Upwell!" To which the young lady, who was not without a mischievous side to her character, answered, "Of course I could!" but immediately repented, and added. "One can do anything one likes, if one tries hard enough, you know!"

It would only be the retelling of a very old story, the retreading of very old ground, to follow these young people through the remainder of their interview, which was interrupted by the appearance of Madeline's mamma; who, to say the truth, had been getting apprehensive that so many têtes-à-tête with this handsome patient might end seriously. And though his family was good, he was only a younger son; and she didn't want her daughter to marry a soldier. Fancy "Mad" being carried off to India! For in the bosom of her family this most uncomfortable of namelets had caught on naturally, without imputation of Hanwell or Colney Hatch.

However, her ladyship was too late, this time. No clinical practice of any Hospital includes kissing or being kissed by the patient, and "Mad" and her lover were fairly caught. Nothing was left for it but confession at high tension, and throwing ourselves on the mercy of the Court. But always with the distinct reservation that neither of us could ever love another.

Lady Upwell, a very beautiful woman in her day, was indulging in a beautiful sunset, and meant to remain fine till midnight. There was a gleam of the yellow silver of a big harvest moon in the hair that had been gold. She was good, but very majestic; in fact, her majesty, when she presented her daughter to her Queen, competed with that of the latter, which has passed into the language. To do her justice, she let it lapse on hearing the full disclosure of these two culprits, and had the presence of mind to ask them if they had no suspicion that they might be a couple of young fools, to fancy they could know their own minds on so short an acquaintance, etc. For this was barely seven weeks after the hunting-field accident. "You silly geese!" she said. "Go your own way—but you'll quarrel in a fortnight. See if you don't!" She knew all about this sort of thing, though Mr. Pelly didn't.

The latter was right, however, and prudent, when in his dream he laid stress on the wish of Madeline's parents that there should be "no engagement." This stipulation seemed to be accounted by both of them—but especially by the Baronet—as a sort of panacea for all parental responsibilities. It could not be reiterated too often. The consequence was that there were two concurrent determinations of the relative positions of Madeline and the Captain; one an esoteric one—a sort of sacramental service of perpetual vows of fidelity; the other the exoteric proclamations of a kind of many-headed town-crier, who went about ringing his bell and shouting that it was "distinctly understood that there was no engagement." Mr. Pelly's repetition of this in his dream may have had an intransitive character; but he was good and prudent, just the same. How we behave in dreams shows whether the high qualities we pride ourselves on are more than skin-deep.

But all the efforts of the exoteric town-crier were of no avail against the esoteric sacramental services. The most unsettling condition lovers can have imposed upon them—that of being left entirely to their own devices, and never stimulated by so much as a hint of a chaperon—failed to bring about a coolness. And when within a year after his accident Jack Calverley was ordered away with his Company to South Africa, where war had all but broken out, the sacramental service the picture—or someone—had witnessed, just by the glass case with the big fish in it, was the farewell of a couple of heartbreaks, kept under by the upspring of Hope in youth, that clings to the creed that the stricken classes, the mourning classes, are Other People, and that to them pity shall be given from within our pale of well-fenced security. It was a wrench to part, certainly, but Jack would come back, and be a great soldier and wear medals. And the Other People would die for their country.

And then came the war, and the many unpleasant discoveries that always come with a war, the most unpleasant of all being the discovery of the strength of the enemy. The usual recognitions of the obvious, too late; and the usual denunciations of everybody else for not having foreseen it all the time. The usual rush to the money-chest of unexhausted Credit, to make good with pounds deficiencies shillings spent in time would have supplied; the usual storms of indignation against the incompetence in high places that never spent, in time, the shillings we refused to provide. The usual war-whoops from sheltered corners, safe out of gunshot; and the usual deaths by scores of men on both sides who never felt a pang of ill-feeling to each other, or knew the cause of quarrel—yes, a many of whom, had they known a quarrel was pending, would have given their lives to avert it! The usual bearing, on both sides, of the brunt of the whirlwind by those who never sowed a wind-seed, and the usual reaping of a golden harvest by the Judicious Investor, he who buys and sells, but makes and meddles not with what he sells or buys, measuring its value alone by what he can get and must give for it. And a very respectable person he is, too.

The history of Madeline's next few months made up for her a tale of anxious waitings for many mails; of pangs of unendurable tension over journals that, surrendered by the postman, would not open; that, opened at last, seemed nothing but advertisements; that, run to earth and convicted of telegrams, only yielded new food for anxiety. A tale of three periods of expectation of letters from Jack, by every mail. The first of expectation fulfilled; of letters full of hope and confidence, of forecast of victories easily won and a triumphant quick return. The second of expectation damped and thwarted; of victories revised; of Hope's rebukes to Confidence, the coward who fails us at our need; of the slow dawn of the true horrors of war—mere death on the battlefield the least of them—that will one day change the reckless young soldier to an old grave man that has learned his lesson, and knows that the curse of Cain is on him who stirs to War, and that half the great names of History have been borne by Devils incarnate. And then the third—a weary time of waiting for a letter that came not, for only one little word of news to say yes or no to the question we hardly dare to ask:—"Is he dead?" For our poor young friend, after distinguishing himself brilliantly, and yet coming almost scathless out of more than one action, was missing. When the roll was called after a memorable action from which the two opponent armies retreated simultaneously, able to bear the slaughter by unseen guns no longer, no answer came to the name—called formally—of Captain Calverley. The survivors who still had breath to answer to their names already knew that he was missing—knew that he was last seen apparently carried away by his horse, having lost control over it—probably wounded, said report. That was all—soon told! And then followed terrible hours that should have brought more news and did not. And the hearts of those who watched for it went sick with the fear that no news would ever come, that none would ever know the end of that ride and the vanished rider. But each heart hid away its sickness from its neighbour, and would not tell.

And so the days passed, and each day's end was the grafting of a fresh despair in the tree nourished in the soil of buried hopes; and each morning Madeline would try to reason it away and discover some new calendar rule, bringing miscalculation to book—always cutting short the tale of days, never lengthening them. She talked very little to anyone about it, for fear her houses of cards should be shaken down by stern common sense; or, worse still, that she should be chilled by the hesitating sympathy of half-hearted Hope. But her speech was free to her great dog Cæsar, when they were alone together.