Diana Tempest Volume I Part 18

"There's one dead," said Swayne, his voice waxing feebler and feebler as the momentary galvanism of Colonel Tempest's terror lost its effect.

"And there's two I had back the papers from; they were sick of it, and they said he had a charmed life. And one of 'em went to America, and married, and set up respectable. I have his paper too. And one of 'em's in quod, but he'll be out soon, I reckon, and he's good for another try.

He precious near brought it off last time. There's a few left that's still biding their time! There! And now I won't hear nothin' more about it. Get to the prayers, Colonel, and be quick. Parson might have come again, d.a.m.n him."

"Stop a minute. Can I get at the others through Larkin?"

Swayne had sunk back spent and livid. He looked at Colonel Tempest with fixed and gla.s.sy eyes.

"Yes," he said, with the ghost of an oath; "get to the prayers."

Colonel Tempest was still trembling with the relief from that horrible nightmare of suspense as he opened the shiny new Prayer-book which the clergyman had left. He held the first link. He had now only to draw the whole chain through his hand, and break it to atoms; the chain that was dragging him down to h.e.l.l. He hastily began to read.

G.o.d has heard many prayers, but, perhaps, not many like those which ascended from that hideous tumbled death-bed, where kneeling self-interest halted through the supplication, and prostrate self-interest gasped out Amen.

Oh! did He who first taught us how to pray, did He, raised high upon the cross of an apparent failure, look down the ages that were yet to come, and see how we should abuse that gift of prayer? Was that bitter cry which has echoed through eighteen hundred years wrung from Him even for our sakes also as well as those who stood around Him--"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"?

Colonel Tempest was still on his knees when the door was softly opened, and a young, a very young, clergyman came in and knelt down beside him, clasping his thin hands over the collapsed felt _soufflee_ which did duty for a hat. After stumbling to the end of the prayer he was reading, Colonel Tempest put the book into his hand and escaped.

He stole down the stairs and past the little sitting-room un.o.bserved. He was out again in the open air, the live free air, which seemed freshness itself after the atmosphere of that sick-room. He held the clue. He had it, he held it, he was safe. G.o.d was on his side now, and was helping him to make rest.i.tution. At one despairing moment when he had been tearing even the linings out of the pockets of Swayne's check trousers he had feared that Providence had deserted him. Now that he had the pocket-book he regretted his want of faith. I do not think his mind reverted once to Swayne, for Swayne was no longer of any interest to him now that he was out of Swayne's power. Colonel Tempest did not exactly forget people, but his mind was so const.i.tuted that everything with which it came in contact was wiped out the moment it had ceased to affect or group itself round himself. His imagination did not follow his colleague's last faltering steps upon that steep brink where each must one day stand. His mind turned instinctively to the most frivolous subjects, was back in London wondering what he would have had for dinner if he had dined with Archie as he had intended; was anxious to know how many cigarettes of that new brand he had put into his case before he left London that morning. Colonel Tempest stopped, and got out his cigarette-case and counted them.

Those who had known Colonel Tempest best, those few who had misunderstood and loved him, had often pondered with grave anxiety, or with the wistful perplexity of wounded affection, as to what it was in him that being so impressionable was yet incapable of any real impression. His wife may or may not have mastered that expensive secret.

At any rate, she had had opportunities of studying it. When first, a few weeks after her marriage, she had fallen ill, she, poor fool, had suffered agonies from the fear that because he hardly came into her sick-room after the first day, he had ceased to care for her. But when after a few days more she was feeling better and was pretty and interesting again in a pink wrapper on the sofa, she had found that he was as devoted to her as ever, and had confided her foolish dread to him with happy tears. Possibly she discovered at last that the secret lay not so much in the selfishness and self-indulgence of a character moth-eaten by idleness, as in the instant and invariable recoil of the mind from any subject that threatened to prove disagreeable, the determination to avoid everything irksome, wearisome, or reproachful.

For a moment, while it was quite new, a sentiment might be indulged in.

But as soon as a certain novelty and pleasure in emotion ceased the feeling itself was shirked, at whatever expense to others. Those who shirk are ill to live with, and lay up for themselves an increasing loneliness as life goes on.

Colonel Tempest found it unpleasant to think about Swayne, so he thought of something else. He could always do that unless he himself was concerned. Then, indeed, as we have seen, it was a different thing. He was annoyed when, after slowly picking his way back to the station, he found the last pa.s.senger train had just gone; that even if he drove fifteen miles in to Worcester he should be too late to catch the last express to London; in fact, that there was nothing for it but a bed at the station inn. He found, however, that by making a very early start from Bilgewater the following morning he could reach London by noon, and so resigned himself to his lot with composure. He had hardly expected he should be able to go and return in one day.

It was indeed early when he walked across to the station next morning, so early that there was a suspicion of freshness in the air, of colour in the eastern sky.

On a heap of slag a motionless figure was sitting, black against the sky line, looking towards the east. It was the curate, who when he perceived Colonel Tempest, came crunching and flapping in his long coat tails down to the road below, raised his hat from a meagre clerical brow, and held out his hand. His face was thin and poor, suggestive of a starved mind and cold mutton and Pearson on the Creed, but the smile redeemed it.

"It is all over," he said; "half an hour ago. Quite quietly at the last. I stayed with him through the night. I never left him. We prayed together without ceasing."

Colonel Tempest did not know what to say.

"It was too late to go to bed," continued the young man impulsively, his face working. "So I came here. I often come and sit on that ash heap to see the sun rise. I'm so glad just to have seen you again. I longed to thank you for those prayers by poor Mr. Crosbie's bed. You know the Scripture: 'Where two or three are gathered together.' I felt it was so true. I have lost heart so of late. No one seems to care or think about these things down here. But your coming and praying like that has been such a help, such a reproach to me for my want of faith when I think that the seed falls on the rock. I shall take courage again now. Ah! You are going by this train? Good-bye, G.o.d bless you! Thank you again."

CHAPTER XIII.

"Every man's progress is through a succession of teachers."--EMERSON.

As John slowly climbed the hill of convalescence many visitors came to relieve his solitude, and one of those who came the oftenest was Lord Frederick Fane.

Lord Frederick was a square-shouldered, well-preserved, well set up, carefully-padded man of close on sixty, with a thin-lipped, bloodless face, and faded eyes, divided by a high nose.

"Do you like that man?" said Lord Hemsworth to John one day when he was sitting with him, and Lord Frederick sent up to know whether the latter would see him.

"No," said John.

"But you seem to see a good deal of him."

"He is civil to me, and I am not rude to him. He is a relation, you know."

"I can't stand him," said Lord Hemsworth. "If he is coming up I shall bolt;" and Lord Frederick entering at that moment, Lord Hemsworth took his departure.

"You're better, John," said Lord Frederick, looking at him through his half-closed eyes, and settling himself gently in a high chair, his hat and one glove and crutch-handled stick held before him in his broad lean hand.

"I feel more human," said John, "now that I'm shaved and dressed. When I saw myself in the gla.s.s yesterday for the first time, I thought I was Darwin's missing link."

"You look more human," said Lord Frederick, crossing one leg over the other, and then contemplating his white spats for a change. "Able to attend to business again yet?"

"Not yet. I have tried, but I am as weak as a worm that can't turn."

"Pity," said Lord Frederick, glancing at a sheaf of letters and some opened telegrams on the table at John's elbow. "Things always happen at inconvenient times," he went on. "Old Charlesworth might have chosen a more opportune moment to die and leave Marchamley vacant again."

"He is not dead yet."

"I suppose both sides have been at you already to stand for it yourself," hazarded Lord Frederick.

"Yes."

"I thought so."

Silence.

"Are you going to stand?"

"What is your opinion on the subject? I see you have one."

"Well," said Lord Frederick, "I look at it this way. I have often said 'Don't tie yourself.' I am all for young men keeping their hands free, and seeing the ins and outs of life, before they settle down. But you are not so very young, and a time comes when a sort of annoyance attaches to freedom itself. It's a bore. Now as to this seat. Indecision is all very well for a time; it enhances a man's value. You were quite right not to stand three years ago; it has made you of more importance.

But that won't do much longer. You are bound to come to a decision for your own advantage. Neutral ground is sometimes between two fires. I should say 'stand,' if you ask me. Throw in your lot with the side on which you are most likely to come to the front, and stand."

"And private opinions? How about them if they don't happen to fit? Throw them overboard?"

"Yes," said Lord Frederick. "It has got to be done sooner or later. Why not sooner? A free-lance is no manner of use. There's a hitch somewhere in you, John, that if you don't look out will d.a.m.n your career as a public man. I don't know what your politics are. My own opinion, between ourselves, is that you have not got any, but you are bound to have some, and you may as well join forces with what will bring you forward most, and start young. That's my advice."

"Thanks."

"There is not a man in the world with an ounce of brains who has not high-flown ideas at your age," continued Lord Frederick. "I have had them. Everybody has them. You buy them with your first razors. People generally sicken with them just when they could make a push for themselves, and while they are getting better, youth and opportunity pa.s.s and don't come back. I've seen it over and over again. Every young fool with a ginger moustache, when he first starts in public life, is going to be a patriot, and do his d----d thinking for himself. He might as well make his own clothes, and expect society to receive him in them.

By the time he is bald he has learnt better, and he's a party man, but he has lost time in the meanwhile. You may depend upon it, a strong party man is what is wanted. The country doesn't want individuals with brains; they are mostly kicked out in the end. If you don't want to go with the crowd, don't go against it, but throw yourself into it heart and soul, and get in front of it on its own road. It's no good coming to the fore unless you have a following."

"Thanks," said John again. His face was as expressionless as a mask. He looked, as he lay back in his low couch, a strange mixture of feebleness and power. It was as if a strong man armed kept watch within a house tottering to its fall.

He put out his muscular, powerless hand, and took up one of the telegrams.