Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood Part 91

"What of that? It would lead to something. Besides, no one leaves a corps on active service."

"Is mine?"

"It is all the same. You were going to get into one that is."

"Curious reasoning, Sydney. I am afraid my duty lies the other way."

"Duty to one's country comes first. I can't believe Mrs. Brownlow wants to hold you back; she--a soldier's daughter!"

"It is no doing of hers," said Jock; "but I see that I must not put myself out of reach of her."

"When she has all the others! That is a mere excuse! If you were an only son, it would be bad enough."

"Come this way, and I'll tell you what convinced me."

"I can't see how any argument can prevail on you to swerve from the path of honour, the only career any one can care about," cried Sydney, the romance of her nature on fire.

"Hush, Sydney," he said, partly from the exquisite pain she inflicted, partly because her vehemence was attracting attention.

"No wonder you say Hush," said the maiden, with what she meant for n.o.ble severity, "No wonder you don't want to be reminded of all we talked of and planned. Does not it break Babie's heart?"

"She does not know."

"Then it is not too late."

But at that moment the bride's aunt, who felt herself in charge of Miss Evelyn, swooped down on them, and paired her off with an equally honourable best man, so that she found herself seated between two comparative strangers; while it seemed to her that Lucas Brownlow was keeping up an insane whirl of merriment with his neighbours.

Poor child, her hero was fallen, her influence had failed, and nothing was left her but the miserable shame of having trusted in the power of an attraction which she now felt to have been a delusion. Meanwhile the aunt, by way of being on the safe side, effectually prevented Jock from speaking to her again before the party broke up; and he could only see that she was hotly angered, and not that she was keenly hurt.

She arrived at home the next day with white cheeks and red eyes, and most indistinct accounts of the wedding. A few monosyllables were extracted with difficulty, among them a "Yes" when Fordham asked whether she had seen Lucas Brownlow.

"Did he talk of his plans?"

"Not much."

"One cannot but be sorry," said her mother; "but, as your uncle says, his motives are to be much respected."

"Mamma," cried Sydney, horrified, "you wouldn't encourage him in turning back from the defence of his country in time of war?"

"His country!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Fordham. "Up among the hill tribes!"

"You palliating it too, Duke! Is there no sense of honour or glory left?

What are you laughing at? I don't think it a laughing matter, nor Cecil either, that he should have been led to turn his back upon all that is great and glorious!"

"That's very fine," said Fordham, who was in a teasing mood. "Had you not better put it into the 'Traveller's Joy?'"

"I shall never touch the 'Traveller's Joy' again!" and Sydney's high horse suddenly breaking down, she flew away in a flood of tears.

Her mother and brother looked at one another rather aghast, and Fordham said--

"Had you any suspicion of this?"

"Not definitely. Pray don't say a word that can develop it now."

"He is all the worthier."

"Most true; but we do not know that there is any feeling on his side, and if there were, Sydney is much too young for it to be safe to interfere with conventionalities. An expressed attachment would be very bad for both of them at present."

"Should you have objected if he had still been going to India?"

"I would have prevented an engagement, and should have regretted her knowing anything about it. The wear of such waiting might be too great a strain on her."

"Possibly," said Fordham. "And should you consider this other profession an insuperable objection?"

"Certainly not, if he goes on as I think he will; but such success cannot come to him for many years, and a good deal may happen in that time."

Poor Lucas! He would have been much cheered could he have heard the above conversation instead of Cecil's wrath, which, like his sister's, worked a good deal like madness on the brain.

Mr. Evelyn chose to resent the slight to his family, and the ingrat.i.tude to his uncle, in thus running counter to their wishes, and plunging into what the young aristocrat termed low life. He did not spare the warning that it would be impossible to keep up an intimacy with one who chose to "grub his nose in hospitals and dissecting rooms."

Naturally Lucas took these as the sentiments of the whole family, and found that he was sacrificing both love and friends.h.i.+p. Sir James Evelyn indeed allowed that he was acting rightly according to his lights. Sir Philip Cameron told him that his duty to a widowed mother ought to come first, and his own Colonel, a good and wise man, commended his decision, and said he hoped not to lose sight of him. The opinions of these veterans, though intrinsically worth more than those of the two young Evelyns, were by no means an equivalent to poor Lucas. The "great things" he had resolved not to seek, involved what was far dearer. It was more than he had reckoned on when he made his resolution, but he had committed himself, and there was no drawing back. He was just of age, and had acted for himself, knowing that his mother would withhold her consent if she were asked for it; but he was considering how to convey the tidings to her, when he found that a card had been left for him by the Reverend David Ogilvie, with a pencilled invitation to dine with him that evening at an hotel.

Mr. Ogilvie, after several years of good service as curate at a district Church at a fas.h.i.+onable south coast watering place, sometimes known as the English Sorrento, had been presented to the parent Church. He had been taking his summer holiday, and on his way back had undertaken to relieve a London friend of his Sunday services. His sister's letters had made him very anxious for tidings of Mrs. Brownlow, and he had accordingly gone in quest of her son.

He ordered dinner with a half humorous respect for the supposed epicurism of a young Guardsman, backed by the desire to be doubly correct because of the fallen fortunes of the family, and he awaited with some curiosity the pupil, best known to him as a pickle.

"Mr. Brownlow."

There stood, a young man, a soldier from head to foot, slight, active, neatly limbed, and of middle height, with a clear brown cheek, dark hair and moustache, and the well-remembered frank hazel eyes, though their frolic and mischief were dimmed, and they had grown grave and steadfast, and together with the firm-set lip gave the impression of a mind resolutely bent on going through some great ordeal without flinching or murmuring. With a warm grasp of the hand Mr. Ogilvie said--

"Why, Brownlow, I should not have known you."

"I should have known you, sir, anywhere," said Jock, amazed to find the Ogre of old times no venerable seignior, but a man scarce yet middle-aged.

They talked of Mr. Ogilvie's late tour, in scenes well known to Jock, and thence they came to the whereabouts of all the family, Armine's health and Robert's appointment, till they felt intimate; and the un.o.btrusive sympathy of the old friend opened the youth's heart, and he made much plain that had been only half understood from Mrs. Morgan's letters. Of his eldest brother and sister, Jock said little; but there was no need to explain why his mother was straitening herself, and remaining at Belforest when it had become so irksome to her.

"And you are going out to India?" said Mr. Ogilvie.

"That's not coming off, sir."

"Indeed, I thought you were to have a staff appointment."

"It would not pay, sir; and that is a consideration."

"Then have you anything else in view?"

"The hospitals," said Jock, with a poor effort to seem diverted; "the other form of slaughter." Then as his friend looked at him with concerned and startled eyes, he added, "Unless there were some extraordinary chance of loot. You see the paG.o.da tree is shaken bare, and I could do no more than keep myself and have nothing for my mother, and I am afraid she will need it. It is a chance whether Allen, at his age, or Armine, with his health, can do much, and some one must stay and get remunerative work."