My Novel Part 51

"Let him come in," said the colonel, "and when I ring--sandwiches and sherry."

"Beef, sir?"

"Ham."

The colonel put aside his house-book, and wiped his pen. In another minute the door opened and the servant announced--

"MR. DIGBY."

The colonel's face fell, and he staggered back.

The door closed, and Mr. Digby stood in the middle of the room, leaning on the great writing-table for support. The poor soldier looked sicklier and shabbier, and nearer the end of all things in life and fortune, than when Lord L'Estrange had thrust the pocket-book into his hands.

But still the servant showed knowledge of the world in calling him gentleman; there was no other word to apply to him.

"Sir," began Colonel Pompley, recovering himself, and with great solemnity, "I did not expect this pleasure."

The poor visitor stared round him dizzily, and sank into a chair, breathing hard. The colonel looked as a man only looks upon a poor relation, and b.u.t.toned up first one trouser pocket and then the other.

"I thought you were in Canada," said the colonel, at last. Mr. Digby had now got breath to speak, and he said meekly, "The climate would have killed my child, and it is two years since I returned."

"You ought to have found a very good place in England to make it worth your while to leave Canada."

"She could not have lived through another winter in Canada,--the doctor said so."

"Pooh," quoth the colonel.

Mr. Digby drew a long breath. "I would not come to you, Colonel Pompley, while you could think that I came as a beggar for myself."

The colonel's brow relaxed. "A very honourable sentiment, Mr. Digby."

"No: I have gone through a great deal; but you see, Colonel," added the poor relation, with a faint smile, "the campaign is well-nigh over, and peace is at hand."

The colonel seemed touched.

"Don't talk so, Digby,--I don't like it. You are younger than I am--nothing more disagreeable than these gloomy views of things. You have got enough to live upon, you say,--at least so I understand you.

I am very glad to hear it; and, indeed, I could not a.s.sist you--so many claims on me. So it is all very well, Digby."

"Oh, Colonel Pompley," cried the soldier, clasping his hands, and with feverish energy, "I am a suppliant, not for myself, but my child! I have but one,--only one, a girl. She has been so good to me! She will cost you little. Take her when I die; promise her a shelter, a home. I ask no more. You are my nearest relative. I have no other to look to. You have no children of your own. She will be a blessing to you, as she has been all upon earth to me!"

If Colonel Pompley's face was red in ordinary hours, no epithet sufficiently rubicund or sanguineous can express its colour at this appeal. "The man's mad," he said, at last, with a tone of astonishment that almost concealed his wrath,--"stark mad! I take his child!--lodge and board a great, positive, hungry child! Why, sir, many and many a time have I said to Mrs. Pompley, ''T is a mercy we have no children. We could never live in this style if we had children,--never make both ends meet.' Child--the most expensive, ravenous, ruinous thing in the world--a child."

"She has been accustomed to starve," said Mr. Digby, plaintively. "Oh, Colonel, let me see your wife. Her heart I can touch,--she is a woman."

Unlucky father! A more untoward, unseasonable request the Fates could not have put into his lips.

Mrs. Pompley see the Digbies! Mrs. Pompley learn the condition of the colonel's grand connections! The colonel would never have been his own man again. At the bare idea, he felt as if he could have sunk into the earth with shame. In his alarm he made a stride to the door, with the intention of locking it. Good heavens, if Mrs. Pompley should come in!

And the man, too, had been announced by name. Mrs. Pompley might have learned already that a Digby was with her husband,--she might be actually dressing to receive him worthily; there was not a moment to lose.

The colonel exploded. "Sir, I wonder at your impudence. See Mrs.

Pompley! Hush, sir, hus.h.!.+--hold your tongue. I have disowned your connection. I will not have my wife--a woman, sir, of the first family--disgraced by it. Yes; you need not fire up. John Pompley is not a man to be bullied in his own house. I say disgraced. Did not you run into debt, and spend your fortune? Did not you marry a low creature,--a vulgarian, a tradesman's daughter?--and your poor father such a respectable man,--a benefited clergyman! Did not you sell your commission? Heaven knows what became of the money! Did not you turn (I shudder to say it) a common stage-player, sir? And then, when you were on your last legs, did I not give you L200 out of my own purse to go to Canada? And now here you are again,--and ask me, with a coolness that--that takes away my breath--takes away-my breath, sir--to provide for the child you have thought proper to have,--a child whose connections on the mother's side are of the most abject and discreditable condition. Leave my house, leave it! good heavens, sir, not that way!--this." And the colonel opened the gla.s.s-door that led into the garden. "I will let you out this way. If Mrs. Pompley should see you!" And with that thought the colonel absolutely hooked his arm into his poor relation's, and hurried him into the garden.

Mr. Digby said not a word, but he struggled ineffectually to escape from the colonel's arm; and his colour went and came, came and went, with a quickness that showed that in those shrunken veins there were still some drops of a soldier's blood.

But the colonel had now reached a little postern-door in the garden-wall. He opened the latch, and thrust out his poor cousin. Then looking down the lane, which was long, straight, and narrow, and seeing it was quite solitary, his eye fell upon the forlorn man, and remorse shot through his heart. For a moment the hardest of all kinds of avarice, that of the genteel, relaxed its gripe. For a moment the most intolerant of all forms of pride, that which is based upon false pretences, hushed its voice, and the colonel hastily drew out his purse.

"There," said he, "that is all I can do for you. Do leave the town as quick as you can, and don't mention your name to any one. Your father was such a respectable man,--beneficed clergyman!"

"And paid for your commission, Mr. Pompley. My name! I am not ashamed of it. But do not fear I shall claim your relations.h.i.+p. No; I am ashamed of you!"

The poor cousin put aside the purse, still stretched towards him, with a scornful hand, and walked firmly down the lane. Colonel Pompley stood irresolute. At that moment a window in his house was thrown open. He heard the noise, turned round, and saw his wife looking out.

Colonel Pompley sneaked back through the shrubbery, hiding himself amongst the trees.

CHAPTER X.

"Ill-luck is a betise," said the great Cardinal Richelieu; and in the long run, I fear, his Eminence was right. If you could drop d.i.c.k Avenel and Mr. Digby in the middle of Oxford Street,--d.i.c.k in a fustian jacket, Digby in a suit of superfine; d.i.c.k with five s.h.i.+llings in his pocket, Digby with L1000,--and if, at the end of ten years, you looked up your two men, d.i.c.k would be on his road to a fortune, Digby--what we have seen him! Yet Digby had no vice; he did not drink nor gamble. What was he, then? Helpless. He had been an only son,--a spoiled child, brought up as "a gentleman;" that is, as a man who was not expected to be able to turn his hand to anything. He entered, as we have seen, a very expensive regiment, wherein he found himself, at his father's death, with L4000 and the incapacity to say "No." Not naturally extravagant, but without an idea of the value of money,--the easiest, gentlest, best-tempered man whom example ever led astray. This part of his career comprised a very common history,--the poor man living on equal terms with the rich. Debt; recourse to usurers; bills signed sometimes for others, renewed at twenty per cent; the L4000 melted like snow; pathetic appeal to relations; relations have children of their own; small help given grudgingly, eked out by much advice, and coupled with conditions. Amongst the conditions there was a very proper and prudent one,--exchange into a less expensive regiment. Exchange effected; peace; obscure country quarters; ennui, flute-playing, and idleness. Mr. Digby had no resources on a rainy day--except flute-playing; pretty girl of inferior rank; all the officers after her; Digby smitten; pretty girl very virtuous; Digby forms honourable intentions; excellent sentiments; imprudent marriage. Digby falls in life; colonel's lady will not a.s.sociate with Mrs. Digby; Digby cut by his whole kith and kin; many disagreeable circ.u.mstances in regimental life; Digby sells out; love in a cottage; execution in ditto. Digby had been much applauded as an amateur actor; thinks of the stage; genteel comedy,--a gentlemanlike profession. Tries in a provincial town, under another name; unhappily succeeds; life of an actor; hand-to-mouth life; illness; chest affected; Digby's voice becomes hoa.r.s.e and feeble; not aware of it; attributes failing success to ignorant provincial public; appears in London; is hissed; returns to the provinces; sinks into very small parts; prison; despair; wife dies; appeal again to relations; a subscription made to get rid of him; send him out of the country; place in Canada,--superintendent to an estate, L150 a year; pursued by ill-luck; never before fit for business, not fit now; honest as the day, but keeps slovenly accounts; child cannot bear the winter of Canada; Digby wrapped up in the child; return home; mysterious life for two years; child patient, thoughtful, loving; has learned to work; manages for father; often supports him; const.i.tution rapidly breaking; thought of what will become of his child,--worst disease of all. Poor Digby! never did a base, cruel, unkind thing in his life; and here he is, walking down the lane from Colonel Pompley's house! Now, if Digby had but learned a little of the world's cunning, I think he would have succeeded even with Colonel Pompley. Had he spent the L100 received from Lord L'Estrange with a view to effect; had he bestowed a fitting wardrobe on himself and his pretty Helen; had he stopped at the last stage, taken thence a smart chaise and pair, and presented himself at Colonel Pompley's in a way that would not have discredited the colonel's connection, and then, instead of praying for home and shelter, asked the colonel to become guardian to his child in case of his death, I have a strong notion that the colonel, in spite of his avarice, would have stretched both ends so as to take in Helen Digby. But our poor friend had no such arts. Indeed, of the L100 he had already very little left, for before leaving town he had committed what Sheridan considered the extreme of extravagance,--frittered away his money in paying his debts; and as for dressing up Helen and himself--if that thought had ever occurred to him, he would have rejected it as foolish. He would have thought that the more he showed his poverty, the more he would be pitied,--the worst mistake a poor cousin can commit. According to Theophrastus, the partridge of Paphlagonia has two hearts: so have most men; it is the common mistake of the unlucky to knock at the wrong one.

CHAPTER XI.

Mr. Digby entered the room of the inn in which he had left Helen.

She was seated by the window, and looking out wistfully on the narrow street, perhaps at the children at play. There had never been a playtime for Helen Digby.

She sprang forward as her father came in. His coming was her holiday.

"We must go back to London," said Mr. Digby, sinking helplessly on the chair. Then with his sort of sickly smile,--for he was bland even to his child,--"Will you kindly inquire when the first coach leaves?"

All the active cares of their careful life devolved upon that quiet child. She kissed her father, placed before him a cough mixture which he had brought from London, and went out silently to make the necessary inquiries, and prepare for the journey back.

At eight o'clock the father and child were seated in the night-coach, with one other pa.s.senger,--a man m.u.f.fled up to the chin. After the first mile the man let down one of the windows. Though it was summer the air was chill and raw. Digby s.h.i.+vered and coughed.

Helen placed her hand on the window, and, leaning towards the pa.s.senger, whispered softly.

"Eh!" said the pa.s.senger, "draw up the window? You have got your own window; this is mine. Oxygen, young lady," he added solemnly, "oxygen is the breath of life. Cott, child!" he continued with suppressed choler, and a Welsh p.r.o.nunciation, "Cott! let us breathe and live."

Helen was frightened, and recoiled.

Her father, who had not heard, or had not heeded, this colloquy, retreated into the corner, put up the collar of his coat, and coughed again.

"It is cold, my dear," said he, languidly, to Helen.

The pa.s.senger caught the word, and replied indignantly, but as if soliloquizing,--

"Cold-ugh! I do believe the English are the stuffiest people! Look at their four-post beds--all the curtains drawn, shutters closed, board before the chimney--not a house with a ventilator! Cold-ugh!"