Betty Trevor Part 8

"It isn't! Miss Mary Trevor and Master Jack Trevor, if you please!"

"If you're miss, I'm mister. I'm not going to be called 'master,' as if I were a kid!"

"All right, then--Miss and Mr Trevor. I'll speak, because I'm the lady, and give him the card to carry up."

Jack was not at all anxious to take the lead, so he a.s.sented by means of the usual grunt, and when the door of the flat was reached, and the man- servant appeared in response to a furious onslaught on the electric bell, he stood by silently while Jill conducted operations.

"Does a gentleman called General Digby live here?"

"He does, madam."

Jill gave a toss to her saucy head. She had never before been addressed as "madam," and the sensation was distinctly agreeable.

"We want to see him, please."

The butler looked in hesitating fashion from one of the strange visitors to the other--Jill with her elfin locks, shabby hat and thick woollen gloves; Jack with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his school cap at the back of his head.

"I am not sure, madam, that the General is receiving this afternoon."

"Then please take in my card and inquire," returned Jill with a burst of dignity, which surprised herself and rilled Jack with admiration.

The butler also looked distinctly impressed, though the card itself, when produced from the recesses of Jill's pocket, had somewhat lost its first crispness and beauty. He placed it on a silver salver and disappeared down the pa.s.sage, while the twins peered curiously through the doorway.

Old guns, swords, and curious-looking Eastern weapons hung against the wall; stags' heads peered over the different doorways; a great gla.s.s- case of stuffed birds stood on a table. "Hidjus!" thought Jill.

"Ripping!" thought Jack, his mind turning longingly to the exciting scenes of sport in which these trophies had been captured. He had time to examine them pretty thoroughly before the servant returned, but when he did make his appearance he brought with him the desired answer. The General was "at home," and would be pleased to receive Miss and Mr Trevor forthwith.

CHAPTER TEN.

THE GENERAL'S STORY.

Jill stepped forward, tossing her head, as though to imply that there had never been any doubt about her welcome, and Jack followed closely behind, while the servant led the way down two long pa.s.sages running at right angles to each other, and threw open a door at the end, announcing the visitors' names in stentorian tones.

A strong whiff of cigar smoke filled the air, and there sat the General on a crimson velvet arm-chair, which was hardly redder than his own complexion. His protruding eyes looked as gla.s.sy as ever, and his grey locks were ruffled at the top until he bore a ludicrous likeness to a paroquet. He held the crumpled card in his hand, and greeted his visitors with a chuckle of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Well, sir. Well, ma'am--'kind enquiries,' eh? Come to see how the poor old man is faring after his fall?"

"Yes! We wanted to know. We thought it would be polite, as we were the un--er--unwitting causers of your accident."

Jill brought out the right word with fine effect, whereupon the General made great play with his outstanding tufts of eyebrow, pretending to frown, and look ferocious.

"Un--witting, indeed! If that is your idea of unwitting, I should like to know how you would define deliberate intent! I'll forgive you this time, but let me catch you at any of your tricks again, and the fat will be in the fire! Sit down--sit down. It's not often an old bachelor like myself has the honour of entertaining a young lady visitor. No man has had better friends, or more of them, than Terence Digby, but there are precious few remaining nowadays. I've left them behind me in many a lonely grave, without a stick or stone to show the resting-place of some of the bravest fellows the world has ever known. It's lonely work to outlive one's best friends."

"Have you been in many wars, sir?" asked Jack, quick to scent a story of adventure. He dropped his hat on the floor and wriggled back in his chair, the rebellious locks of hair which his sisters christened "Cetewayo," after the Zulu chief, sticking up rampantly at the back of his head. "Have you been in any real, proper wars?"

"I should think I have, sir. Many wars, and tough and serious wars at that, though a whipper-snapper like you would not know their names, and the English newspapers sandwich the news of them in a corner--with a small headline of 'Border War.' It's the Border Wars which keep the Empire together, let me tell you, sir--the Border Wars which entail the most self-sacrificing and thankless work. There's no honour and glory about them. The people you are fighting for don't even take the trouble to find out where you are, or what the trouble is about. Not that there ought to be any hardship about that to the true soldier. He fights for his King! That is enough for him!"

A curious softening of expression came over the fierce old face as he spoke the last sentence. The young people both noticed it, and dimly suspected a deeper meaning to the words, but they were in no mood for moralising.

"I should prefer the honour and glory," Jill declared boldly. "I'd hate to be sent to fight savages in pokey out-of-the-way places where n.o.body was watching and saying, 'England expects!' I could be most terrifically brave, if I knew it would be in the papers in the morning, and I should be a hero when I got home; but I'd be scared to death up among great lonely mountains with the feeling that n.o.body cared. Were you ever frightened, General Digby?"

"Soldiers are never frightened. You are only a girl," interrupted Jack indignantly, but his host did not agree with his conclusions.

"She may be a girl, but she knows what she is talking about. She understands, because she is a girl, perhaps. Women have that faculty born in them. Banners and flags, and bands playing patriotic airs, and the feeling that the world is watching, have an inspiring effect on the most timid of men. Who told you that a soldier was never afraid, young sir? Whoever it was did not know what he was talking about. Yes, I have been afraid, deadly afraid, many times over, and no man dared to call Terence Digby a coward. To camp with a handful of men among the great lonely mountains, as your sister so aptly puts it, never knowing when or how the attack may fall--an attack of devils rather than men; to know that if you are taken torture will be your portion, not death,-- there is nothing to dread in dying for one's country,--that shakes the nerves of the strongest man! I hear people talking about modern warfare, and saying it is the hardest trial of bravery to fight an unseen foe three or four miles away. Well, well! I wonder if they have ever seen a rush of one of those warlike hill-tribes, and stood waiting to receive it as I have had to do times and again!"

"Did you kill lots of men--yourself? How many have you killed?" Jack inquired eagerly, but the General refused to be specific.

"I prefer not to think. It's not a pleasant recollection. When the world is a little older, let us hope we shall find some better way of settling a quarrel than seeing who can kill off the most men. What are you going to be when you are a man, Mr Jack? Going in for a profession?"

Jack's face fell. For personal questions, especially questions referring to his studies, he had a strong distaste. He wriggled on his chair, and mumbled between his lips--

"Trying for a scholarship. Half fees for the next three years. If I get it father will send me on to Cambridge. He wants me to be a doctor, and help him in the practice when he gets old."

"And you?"

Jack shrugged his shoulders.

"I'd like to be a surgeon. It would be fine patching people up, setting their bones, and trying things no one had dared to do before; but I couldn't stand driving round every day to look after their wretched colds, and vaccinate the babies. I'd like to be an army doctor best of all."

"Humph! Would you! Much you know about it. I fancy you'd soon be thankful to take on the babies in exchange. Well, I've only one piece of advice to give you, my boy: never be persuaded to take up a career into which you cannot throw your whole heart and soul. You are responsible for your life's work, and will have to account for it some day. Don't make things harder by drifting into uncongenial surroundings. You look to me like a young fellow who might drift. Too easy-going by half!"

Jack flushed uncomfortably. He hated being criticised, especially when the criticism was true, as conscience proclaimed the present indictment to be. There came to him every now and then moments of illumination, when, as if a flashlight was suddenly played over the future, he realised that he would soon be a man, with a man's duties and responsibilities to himself and to others, and that these years of preparation were his training-ground for the fight, concerning the spending of which he would either rejoice or sorrow all his life long.

At such moments the blood tingled in his veins, and he felt strong to do all things, and deny himself all things, if only the goal could be reached; but the vision soon faded, and he relapsed once more into careless, happy-go-lucky ways, caring more for a "lark" than for any solid gain, present or to come.

The old man stared at the boy for a moment,--seemed as if about to add something to his denunciation, but changed his mind, and addressed Jill instead.

"And you, missy? Girls have professions nowadays as well as their brothers. Have you any special vocation in view?"

Jill shook her pretty s.h.a.ggy head.

"Oh no, I'm just going to be a plain lady!" whereat the General threw himself back in his chair with a stentorian laugh.

"No, that you never will! That is, fortunately, out of your own hands.

You will have to make another choice, my dear."

Jill showed her white teeth in a smile, wholly unembarra.s.sed by the compliment.

"I mean, I shall get married as soon as I leave school. I should hate to have to make money for myself. I'll marry a rich man with lots of dogs and horses, and then I can enjoy myself without any bother."

The General drew his eyebrows together and stared scrutinisingly at the girlish figure seated on the high-backed oak chair. Flowing locks, short petticoats, heavy boots, woollen gloves--just a bit of a schoolgirl in the hobbledehoy stage in which feminine instincts seem dormant--and the ambitions are more those of a boy than a girl. But Jill was going to be a woman some day, and a fascinating woman into the bargain, with all the power for good or evil over the lives of others which such fascination brings. The General shook his head in warning fashion.

"Don't say that, my girl. Never say or think a thing like that again!

You are only a child, but you'll grow up. It's wonderful how quickly you young things spring up. You'll be a woman before you can say, 'Jack Robinson!' and there's no worse sin a woman can commit than to look upon marriage as a mere profession, an easy way of securing board and lodging. It's not only ruining her own life--it's ten times worse--for it ruins another into the bargain. When I was a young fellow I asked a girl to marry me--the only girl I ever did ask--and she wouldn't look at me. She was a poor girl, and I had lots of money, but she was honest with me all the same, and I've been grateful to her all my life. I've been a lonely old fellow, but it would have been a thousand times worse to have had a wife who did not love me! You put it out of your head, little girl, that you are going to sell yourself for all the horses and dogs in creation."

"Um--" said Jill vaguely.

She had scented a love--story, and with the inherent curiosity of her s.e.x was dying to hear more about it.