Mary Gray Part 17

She was lying wide-awake. The darkness of her eyes in her face, unnaturally white from the moonlight, frightened him. He had a memory of Nelly's mother as he had seen her newly-dead, and the memory scared him.

"Is that you, papa?" Nelly asked, half-lifting herself on her pillow.

"Come and sit down. I was thinking of dressing myself and coming down to you."

"You mustn't do that if your headache is not better."

"It was nothing at all of a headache," she said with a weary little sigh, "but I must have fallen asleep. If I had not I should have come down to dinner. I only awoke just before the church clock struck nine.

Were you very lonely?"

"I am always lonely without you, Nell. You have had nothing to eat, have you? No. Well, perhaps you'd better come down and have a little meal in the study by the fire. Unless you'd prefer a fire up here. The room strikes cold. To be sure, the windows are open. There is snow coming, I think."

"I like the cold. I'm not hungry, but I shall get up presently. I haven't really gone to bed."

She put out a chilly little hand over her father's, and he took it into his. When had they wanted anyone but each other? What new love could ever be as true and tender as his?

"Oh!" cried Nelly, burying her face in her pillow. "I'm a wicked girl to be discontented. I ought to have everything in the world, having you."

"And when did my Nelly become discontented?" he asked, with a pa.s.sionate tenderness. "What has clouded over my girl, the light of the house? What is it, Nell?"

He had been both father and mother to her. For a second or two she kept her face buried, as if she would still hold her secret from him. His hand brushed the pale ripples of her hair, as another hand had brushed them a short time back. He expected her to answer him, and he was waiting.

"It is Captain Langrishe," she whispered at last. "His boat goes from Tilbury to-morrow morning."

"From Tilbury." The General remembered that Grogan of the Artillery, the club bore, had a daughter and son-in-law sailing from Tilbury next morning, and had suggested his accompanying him to the docks. "Why he should have asked me," the General had said irritably, "when I can barely endure him for half-an-hour, is more than I can imagine!"

"What is wrong between you and Langrishe, Nell?" he asked softly. "I thought he was a good fellow. I know he's a good soldier; and a good soldier must be a good fellow. Has anyone been making mischief?"

He sent a sudden wrathful thought towards the Dowager. Who else was so likely to make mischief? The thought that someone had been making mischief was almost hopeful, since mischief done could be undone if one only set about it rightly.

"No one," Nelly answered mournfully.

The General suddenly stiffened. His one explanation of Langrishe's pride standing in the way was forgotten; it was not reason enough. Was it possible that Langrishe had been playing fast-and-loose with his girl?

Was it possible--this was more incredible still--that he did not return her innocent pa.s.sion? For a few seconds he did not speak. His indignation was ebbing into a dull acquiescence. If Langrishe did not care--why, no one on earth could make him care. No one could blame him even.

"You must give up thinking of him, Nell," he said at last. He could not bring himself to ask her if Langrishe cared. "You must forget him, little girl, and try to be satisfied with your old father till someone more worthy comes along."

"But he is worthy." Nelly spoke with a sudden flash of spirit. "And he cares so much. I always felt he cared. But I never knew how much till we met at his sister's this afternoon and he bade me good-bye."

"Then why is he going?" the General asked, with pardonable amazement.

"Oh, I don't know," Nelly answered irritably. She had never been irritable in all her sunny life. "But although he is gone I am happier than I have been for a long time since I know he cares so much."

"I'll tell you what,"--the General got up quite briskly--"dress yourself, Nell, and come down to the study, and we'll talk things over.

You may be sure, little girl, that your old father will leave no stone unturned to secure your happiness. I'll ring for your dinner to be brought up on a tray and we'll have a happy evening together. And you'd better have a fire here, Nell. It's a very pretty room, my dear, with all your pretty fal-lals, but it strikes me as being very chilly."

He went downstairs and rang the bell for Miss Nelly's dinner. The fire had been stoked in his absence, and was now burning gloriously.

He drew Nelly's chair closer to it and a screen around the chair. He put a cushion for her back, and a ha.s.sock for her feet. The little acts were each an eloquent expression of his love for her. He was suddenly, irrationally hopeful. He reproached himself because he had done so little. He had thought he was doing a great deal when he, an old man and so high in his profession, had made advances to the young fellow for his girl's sake. To be sure, he had been certain that Langrishe was in love with Nell, else the thing had not been possible. Now that his love was beyond doubt the old idea recurred to him. It must be some chivalrous, overstrained scruple about his poverty which came between poor Nell and her happiness. Standing by the fire, waiting for Nelly, he rubbed his hands together with a return of cheerfulness.

In a few minutes she came gliding in shyly. That confidence had only been possible in the dark. The General felt her embarra.s.sment and busied himself in stirring the fire. Pat came up with the tray--such a dainty tray, loaded with good things. The General called for a gla.s.s of wine for Miss Nelly. He waited on her with a tender a.s.siduity and she forced herself to eat, saying to herself with pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude that she would be a brute if she did not swallow to please him.

The wine brought a colour to her cheeks. She watched her father with shy eyes. What could he do to bring her and her lover together, seeing that it was Captain Langrishe's last night in England and that he would not return for five years? Five years spread out an eternity to Nelly's youthful gaze. She might be dead before five years were over. This afternoon she had felt no great desire to live, but that despair, of course, was wrong. She had not remembered at the moment how dear she and her father were to each other. As long as they were together there must be compensations for anything in life.

She had expected her father to speak, but he did not. While he had been standing by the fire awaiting her coming he had had qualms. Supposing she had made a mistake about the young fellow's feeling for her. Such things happened with girls sometimes. Supposing--no, it was better to keep silence for the present. If things turned out well, it would be time enough to tell Nelly. If things turned out well! What, after all, were five years? To the General, for whom the wheel of the days and the years had been turning giddily fast and ever faster these many years back, five years counted for little. He had a hale, hearty old life.

Surely the Lord in His goodness would permit him to look on Nelly's happiness and his grandchildren! It was another thing to think of Nelly's children when the match was not of the Dowager's making.

He inspired Nelly with something of his own hopefulness. She saw that he had some design which she was not to share. Well, she could trust his love to move mountains for her happiness. The evening was far better than she could have hoped for, and she went to bed comforted.

"Early breakfast, Nell," he said as they parted. "I've ordered it for eight o'clock. But I shan't expect to see you unless you feel like it.

These cold mornings it's allowable to be a little lazy."

This from the General, who rose at half-past six all the year round and had his cold bath even when he had to break the ice on it. Nelly's laziness, too, was a matter of recent date. She had always loved the winter and had seemed to glow the fresher the colder the weather.

The General thought of himself as an arch-diplomatist, but he was transparent enough to his daughter.

"He doesn't want me at breakfast," she said to herself. "He doesn't want me to ask questions. So I shall save him embarra.s.sment by not appearing."

The next morning there was no General to see the squadron of the old regiment gallop past. No family prayers either. What were things coming to? the servants asked each other. And second breakfast at nine for Miss Nelly!

"Take my word for it," said Bridget to Pat, "the next thing'll be Miss Nelly havin' her breakfast in bed like Lord Dunshanbo's daughters. Five of them there was, Pat, all old maids. And they used to sit round in their beds, every one with a satin quilt, and their hair in curl-papers, and a newspaper spread out to save the quilt."

"'Tis too early and too cowld," said Pat, interrupting this reminiscence, "for the master to be goin' out. And he doesn't like bein'

put out of his habits, not by the half of a second. I used to think before I was a soldier that punctuality was the most onnecessary thing on earth, but I've come to like it somehow."

"The same here," said Bridget, "though it wasn't in my blood. I wondher what they'd think of us at home?"

CHAPTER XVI

THE LEADING AND THE LIGHT

The General was at Fenchurch Street by half-past nine. He rather expected to see old Grogan on the platform, and was not sure whether he was relieved or disappointed by his absence. On the one hand, he could hardly have borne Grogan's twaddle on the journey to Tilbury, his mind being engrossed as it was. On the other, he looked to him to cover his presence at the boat.

Now that he was started on the adventure he was nervously anxious lest he should compromise his girl by betraying to Langrishe the errand he was come on, unless, indeed, Langrishe gave him the lead. He was as sensitive as Nelly herself could have been about offering her where she was not desired or was likely to be rejected. But he a.s.sured himself that everything would be right. In the sudden surprise of seeing him, Langrishe would say or do something that would give him a lead. He would be able to bring back a message of hope to Nelly. Five years--after all, what were five years? Especially to a girl as young as Nelly. They could wait very well till Langrishe came home again.

At the booking-office he was told that the special train for the _Sutlej_ had just gone. Another train for Tilbury was leaving in five minutes.

"You will get in soon after the special," the booking-clerk a.s.sured him.

"Plenty of time to see your friends before she sails. Why, she's not due to sail till twelve o'clock. There'll be a deal of luggage to be got on board."

The General unfolded his _Standard_ in the railway carriage, and turned to the princ.i.p.al page of news. A big headline, followed by a number of smaller ones, caught his eye: "Outrage at Shawur. An English Officer and Five Sepoys Caught in a Trap. Death of Major Sayers. Regiment Sent in Pursuit. Statement in the House."

The General bent his brows over the report. He had known poor Sayers--a most distinguished soldier, but brave to rashness. And the Wazees tribe, treacherous rascals! The General had some experience of them too. Ah, so Mordaunt was sent in pursuit. The tribe had retired after the murder to its fastnesses in the hills. He remembered those fortified towers in the hill valleys. He had had to smoke them out once like rats in a hole. Ah, poor Sayers! The brutes! And Sayers had a young wife!

He lifted his head from the paper, and stared out of the carriage windows, where tiny cottages, with neat white stones for their garden borders, showed that the train was pa.s.sing through a residential district much affected by retired sailor-men. The mast of a ship seemed to be a favourite ornament, and a little flag was hoisted on many lawns.

Flakes of dry snow came in the wind, but, cold as it was, a good many of the old sailors were out pottering about their tiny gardens. Here a glimpse of the river, or a church spire with many graves nestled under it, came to break the monotony of the little houses.