VC - A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea Part 4

CHAPTER IV

The oil-lamp which hung in the hall was flickering uncertainly as Polson and the General walked towards the foot of the staircase, leaving the pa.s.sage in darkness for a second or two at a time, and then flaring up with an unwonted brilliance. The young man took a bedroom candle from a table at the stairfoot, lit it, and motioned the General to precede him. He, altogether military in gait, with his shoulders squared to the utmost, marched upstairs as if he were heading an a.s.sault by escalade.

Polson followed, drooping.

'This is your room, sir,' the young man said when they came to the end of the corridor on which they had entered. He threw open the door, and revealed a cheerful scene. Tall wax candles flamed here and there, a great fire burned with a steady glow on the hearth, and the rich dark maroon curtains and hangings of the room gave it a secluded, sheltered, and homely look which under other circ.u.mstances would have been wholly comfortable by contrast with the elemental war outside. The General walked into the apartment bolt upright, and Polson stood with the door handle in his grasp, waiting to catch his eye for a single instant that he might say good-night. The elder man wheeled suddenly.

'Come in!' he said. 'Come in and close the door.' Polson obeyed, wondering what was about to happen. 'I suspect,' Boswell began, 'that I shall have cause to be sorry for myself and for somebody much dearer to me than myself before this business is over. But I am sorry for you, in the meantime, my lad, and I want to tell you that you will have to revise your ideas a little.'

'As to what, sir?' asked Polson.

'Unless I am very much mistaken,' the elder went on, 'the business which has been sprung upon us to-night will take some time to settle, and will make more noise in the world than either you or I will care to hear. You can't go into the army with this hanging over you.'

'I had made up my mind about that already,' said the youngster.

'Well,' the General returned, 'it's a bitter pill for you to swallow, and, as I have said, I am sorry for you. It will not be easy for you to be on terms of intimate friends.h.i.+p with a man who is compelled to fight your father tooth and nail, and there is nothing else for it at this moment but for you and me to say good-bye. Things may right themselves, but I see no use in mincing matters, and I tell you the honest truth when I say that I don't believe it, and that for the moment I don't even hope for it. There are some men,' he added, 'who can't afford to treat themselves to violent emotions, and Mr. James Knock Jervoyce is one of them. I hope your father may be able to clear himself of all complicity; but _that_ man's a rascal whatever happens.'

'Good-bye, sir,' said Polson.

'Good-bye,' the General answered. He held out his hand, but Polson did not see that friendly gesture, and he walked from the room quite broken, his chin fallen upon his breast, and his broad shoulders rounded with despondency. He went straight to his own room, and there also, after the generous fas.h.i.+on of the countryside, a cheerful fire was burning. It had fallen to a settled ruby glow, and though it filled the room with warmth, it afforded but little light. Polson sat down in the shadow, and stared at the heart of the fire. Outside, the wind howled and wailed, as if in alternate wild triumph and wild mourning; and the rain beat upon the window panes in driving sheets. But he heard no sound and was unconscious of his immediate surroundings. Only two hours ago he had been sitting in sweet nearness to the girl he loved; and he had been transcendently and tumultuously happy. How happy he had not known until the blow came which had dashed the structure of his life to pieces. He had always longed for a career in the army, and the rumours of war which had flown so thickly for the past year and a half had served naturally to set a keener edge to his desire. A commission had not seemed a very likely thing to hope for at one time, for in the years before the Crimean War the sons of the British bourgeoisie were not very welcome in the British army. But as his father had climbed hand-over-hand to wealth, and as one local honour after another had fallen upon him, the prospect grew clearer. Now, John Jervase for three years had held the Commission of the Peace, and had taken a part in politics which had made him something of a figure in the district. He was above all the poor man's friend, and had become a great authority on working-man economics.

He had been foremost in the local movement for the establishment of the Penny Bank, and had printed a pamphlet which somebody else had written to his order, which had brought him into a favourable prominence. The commission for which Polson yearned grew nearer and nearer in prospect, and at last he had almost placed his hand upon it. Now it was gone--gone, in all probability, beyond retrieval, and that alone would have been enough for an average grief. Yet it was barely a t.i.the of the sudden burden he had to bear. He had lost Irene, and any man who has ever been seriously in love knows what that may mean to the heart of three-and-twenty. And even this was not all, for he had lost his father--lost irrevocably the bluff, outspoken, honourable man of whom, in spite of the occasionally disturbing vulgarities of his manner, he had all his life been proud. Confusedly and slowly the sense of all these losses surged upon him. Now one was uppermost in his mind, and now another; but they were always linked together in one leaden feeling of heavy misery. He sat motionless for a full half-hour, staring at the fire. At last a single dry sob, which shook him from head to foot, escaped him. He rose with a bulldog shake of the head, threw back his shoulders, and walked resolutely but slowly down the staircase. He would have it out then and there, he declared to himself, and would come to an understanding with his father. He would actually know the truth without disguise, and, having learned it, would decide upon the conduct of his future life. There was no thought of desertion in his mind, but there was a great longing to be at action, to be striving with something for a settled purpose; and no settled purpose was possible for him until he and his father could stand heart to heart and face to face, with all pretence between them broken down.

The hall lamp had flickered out, as it had threatened to do, and he groped his way in darkness, though at another moment he would have walked with the sure foot of custom blindfold about the house. Somehow, the whole tide of his purpose seemed suddenly to ebb. He became conscious of the night, and stood in the dark to listen to its wild voices. There were other voices in the air, for he could hear his father speaking in a deep, loud hum, and Jervoyce answering from time to time in a treble like that of an hysteric woman. He felt his way to a hall chair which had its place close to the parlour door, and sat down there to wait until he should find his father alone. He could hear no words from where he sat, but through all the plangent noises of the storm he could discern anger and command in his father's voice, and a querulous appeal which had a note of rage in it in the voice of his father's companion. He paid but little heed, for his heart was growing numbed, and no distinct thought any longer found a place in his mind. Sitting there in the dark and the cold, he grew barely conscious of his own pain. This is Nature's mercy. When the wound is beyond bearing she draws away the sufferer's consciousness, and an extremity of agony brings its own relief, if only for a little while. A dull ache of respite follows the keener agonies alike of bodily and of mental pain. So he sat there, dulled and numb and empty, and for the moment he cared for nothing.

A gleam of light and the sound of a coming footstep awoke him to a knowledge of his surroundings. He did not wish to be found there sitting miserably in the dark, and he arose, and stood uncertain in what direction to move. The light grew clearer and nearer, and as it turned the corner he saw that it was carried by Irene. He forgot his impulse towards flight, and stood rooted, staring as if he beheld a vision. The little figure came forward with uncertain footsteps, one hand holding the candlestick overhead and the other groping for the wall. The feet trod with a. harsh sound on one or two fragments of broken gla.s.s which had escaped the housemaid's broom. A yearning ache filled him as the girl came nearer, for he saw that her eyes were blind with tears. There was no distortion of the features, save that the small mouth quivered; and the s.h.i.+ning drops brimmed over heavily and silently. Not a sigh escaped her, and she came on like a figure in a dream. He moved forward involuntarily, and her name sprang to his lips.

'Irene!'

She paused and pressed her disengaged hand upon her eyes to clear them of that bitter rain. Then she looked up at him in silence, and the big tears began to well over, s.h.i.+ning like diamonds as they fell to the bosom of her dress. It was to be his last sight of her in his own home.

He knew it, and his own heart was like cold iron in his breast. She made a picture never to be forgotten; a picture to be recalled on stormy nights at sea; in many a lonely hour of contemplation on alien sh.o.r.es; in many hours of sickness and delirium, in summer heats among the vineyards on the banks of Alma, in winter frosts in the trenches of Sevastopol; in convalescent wanderings amid the dumb reminders of English dead at Scutari; and later, too, in happy hours when the storms of youth were over, and manhood's heart had found safe anchorage, and the dear head was touched with silver.

She stood there weeping, and he had no power to comfort her--no right to comfort her.

'Good-bye, Irene.' He had the right at least to say that to the sweetheart of his boyhood, and the chosen idol of his young manhood's heart. 'I have seen your father, dear, and whatever there might have been, it's all over. Good-bye, and--G.o.d bless you, always. Always.

Always.'

'I have seen him, too,' she answered, and though the tears rained down as fast as ever, there was no break in the sweet quiet voice. 'Good-bye.

G.o.d bless you.'

This was all their farewell, save that when she turned away with that uncertain groping of the hand he took it in his own and guided it to the rail of the staircase. He watched her as she slowly mounted the stairs, with the light of the candle falling on her hair, and turning its brown ma.s.ses to dark gold. All her figure was in shadow, and the dim gold head seemed to float upward until it vanished at the turning of a corner, and the feint light on the wall grew fainter. Then he heard the soft opening of a door, and before it closed again, one sob reached his ears, and stabbed the heart that had laid within him like cold iron; and he knew that all her self-control had broken down. The door closed swiftly, shutting out the last ray of light reflected from the wall, and he found his way back to his chair, and sat there doggedly fighting with himself, and praying for Heaven's mercy on her, until his eyes tingled as if they had been p.r.i.c.ked by a needle. Whether he would have it so or no, the tears came, and as he hid his face in his hands, they dripped between his fingers to the floor. He was but three-and-twenty, and the first pa.s.sion of the pain of life was upon him.

The door at his side was opened stealthily, and his father spoke almost at his ear, in a harsh whisper.

'Hillo! The hall's dark. They've all gone to bed, I suppose. Now don't let's have any more chatter. Spain's the land for you, my lad. You'll start first thing tomorrow. You lie low, and leave me to work things for the pair of us if I can. If I see that the game's going against us I shall follow. Good G.o.d, what's that?'

'I am here, father,' said Polson, rising. 'I have been waiting to speak to you.' Jervase started violently at his unexpected voice, and half recoiled into the room behind him.

'You're here?' he said, advancing with clenched hands. 'What are you doing here? Eavesdropping?'

'No, sir,' said Polson more sternly than he had ever spoken in his life till then. 'That isn't my line of country, and you know it. I want to speak to you.'

'Go to your room,' said his father, hissing from between clenched teeth.

'Go to your room, sir, and be d.a.m.ned to you.'

'I have meant to speak to you,' Polson answered, 'since I had time to think this night's work over, and after what I heard just now, I mean it more than ever.'

He entered the room and his father gave way before him. He had forgotten the evident traces of his recent tears, and stood with his eyelashes still glistening and his cheeks wet and scalded. But his brows were drawn level and his jaw was thrust out beneath the tightened lips in a way which brought out the family likeness with amazing force.

'Well,' said his father. 'Say your say, and go.'

'I shall say my say,' the younger man responded. 'Spain is not the place. Castle Barfield is the place. The Beacon Hill is the place. This house is the place.'

'So you have been eavesdropping?'

'You know I haven't,' Polson answered in cold disdain. 'But I'm not going to follow that red herring. I say Spain's not the place--unless----'

He choked and stammered and could go no further.

'Unless what?'

'Unless--oh, my G.o.d! how can I say it? Unless my father and his cousin are a brace of rascals.'

'That's pretty language from an only son.'

'Yes. It's pretty language. Give me a chance to take it back, and change it.'

'Sit down,' said Jervase, pointing to a chair. His son obeyed him, and he took a seat at the opposite side of the table, leaning both his arms forward ponderously. 'Now, you and me have got to have this out, I see.'

'Yes,' the young man answered, repressing a sick shudder. 'We must have it out, father.'

'Very well; I suppose you believe the yarn these chaps have pitched to Stubbs?'

'What am I to believe?'

'Suppose it's true, what do you think is going to happen?'

'Shame and ruin to us all,' said Polson.

'As for shame--maybe yes--most likely no. As for ruin--that's as I please.'

'Oh?'

'That's as I please, I tell you. If this here idiot hadn't come bursting in and yelping out his story as he did, we could have managed some sort of a compromise quite easy. As it is, we've got our own partner again us. You can guess what sort of a chance that'd give us in a court of justice. Now you remember, Polson. This ain't a civil perceeding.

The minute they get them chaps over from Canada and the States it's a criminal prosecution. D'ye want to see your own father in the dock? I don't, and so I tell you. He isn't _going_ to stand there--you may bet your life to that, and say I told you. If I can get this braying jacka.s.s, this leaking sieve, this trembling, yowking lady's lapdog out o' the way I can face things.'

'You can say what you like about me, John,' said Mr. Jervoyce.