Mary Gray Part 6

He often said to himself that he could not understand Nell. None of the gay, handsome, gallant soldier lads seemed to have the least attraction in that way for her. To be sure, she was a child, and there was plenty of time. Why shouldn't her old father keep her for the years to come?

Unless--unless, that fellow Robin had been beforehand with the others--Robin, who had refused point-blank to be a soldier, and had even, to the General's bitter offence, actually spoken at the Oxford Union "On the Waste and Wickedness of a Standing Army." The General had nearly had a fit over that. Good Heavens! Gerald's son, Sir Ma.s.sey Drummond's grandson, to be found on the side of the Philistines like that! What chill was in the boy's blood? What crook in his character?

What bee in his bonnet?

The General had sworn then that Robin never should have his Nelly. But the Dowager had been sapping and mining and laying plans to bring about the marriage almost from Nelly's infancy, when she had come in and altered the const.i.tuents of Nelly's baby bottles, and had infuriated Nelly's wholesome country nurse to the point of departure. The General had come just in time then to find Mrs. Loveday fastening the cherry-coloured strings of her bonnet with fingers that trembled, and had been put to the very edge of his simple diplomacy to undo the Dowager's work. He knew his own helplessness where women were concerned.

Nelly might see something in Robin, confound him, that the General could not.

At this point he would remember that, after all, Robin was poor Gerald's son, if an unworthy one, and be contrite. But then the grievance would revive of a far-back Quaker ancestor of Lady Drummond, whom the General blamed for the peace-loving instincts of poor Gerald's boy; and once again he would be furious.

Meanwhile, Nelly's frank, innocent eyes, blue as gentians, had no consciousness of a lover. Her old father seemed to be enough for her. At one moment they gave him the fullest a.s.surance; the next he was in heats and colds of apprehension about the lover, be it Robin or another, who would take his little girl from him.

CHAPTER VI

THE BLUE RIBBON

The half-dozen years or so following Sir Denis's retirement were years of peace, in which he forgot for long periods, broken only by the Dowager's visits to London, his fear of losing his Nelly.

He had taken a house in Sherwood Square, where there is a s.p.a.ce and breeziness that the fashionable districts could not possibly allow.

The square sits on top of one of the highest hills in London, and entrenches itself as a fortress against the poverty and squalor that are creeping up the hill towards it. Around the square there are still gardens and crescents and roads of consideration, but ever dwindling in social status as one goes down the hill, till the consideration vanishes in the degradation of cheap boarding-houses and the homes of Jews of the shopkeeping cla.s.ses.

Sir Denis had discovered Sherwood Square for himself, and was uncommonly proud of it. He liked to point out to his friends that he rented a palatial mansion for what a _pied-a-terre_ in Mayfair would have cost him. The houses had been built by wealthy merchants and professional people in the eighteenth century. They had splendours of double doors and marble pavements, of frescoed walls and ceilings, and carved mantelpieces. They were entered from a quiet street which showed hardly a sign of life. There were lions couchant guarding the entrances. The walls on that side showed mostly blank, uninteresting windows. With an odd pride the great houses showed only their duller aspects to the world.

All the living-rooms except one looked on the other side; and what a difference! There was a great stretch of emerald-green turf such as one would never look to see in London; to be sure, gardeners had been watering and mowing and rolling it for over a century. In the turf were many flower-beds, and here and there were forest trees which had been there when the district was fields. Country birds came and built there year after year. You might hear the thrush begin about January. And in the spring it was a wilderness of sweet hyacinths and daffodils, lilac and may. The rooms were s.p.a.cious and splendid within the big cream-coloured house; and the General used to say that in the early morning, when the smoke had cleared away, it was possible from the upper windows to see as far as the Surrey hills. However, that was something which n.o.body but himself had tested.

In the house love and friendliness and good-will reigned supreme. The General had insisted on engaging his own servants, much to the disgust of the Dowager, who had several _proteges_ of her own practically engaged. When the General had outwitted Lady Drummond on this occasion by a flank movement, he was very gleeful in his confidential moments alone with Nelly.

"She wanted to put in her spies and satellites, did she, Nelly, my girl?

Pretty stories of us they'd have carried to her Ladyship. The only womanly thing your aunt has, my girl, is an invincible curiosity. She'd like to know what we had for lunch and dinner, who came to see us, and what clothes we wore. I'm glad you wouldn't have that mantua-maker of hers. Cannot my girl have her frocks made where she likes? I'll tell you what, Nelly: your aunt is a presumptuous, meddling, overbearing, impertinent woman--that she is."

"Why don't you tell her to leave us alone, papa?"

But the General, whose courage had never been doubted during all the years of his strenuous life, had very little bravery when it came to a question of telling hard truths to a woman, and that woman the Dowager.

"We must remember, after all, Nelly," he would say then, "that she is your Uncle Gerald's widow. Poor Gerald! what a dear fellow he was! No matter what we say between ourselves, we can't quarrel with Gerald's widow."

And Sir Denis, who was becoming garrulous in old age, would slip off into some reminiscence of the younger brother to whom he had been tenderly attached, and for whom he had also a certain hero-worship because he had been so fine and heroic a soldier.

Certainly it said well for the servants whom Sir Denis and Nelly had chosen for themselves that they fell in so completely with the kindness and honesty and good-will of the house. Some credit was doubtless due also to Sir Denis's soldier servant, whom he had installed as butler; for Pat's loyalty and devotion to "Old Blood and Thunder" must have influenced the cla.s.s of persons who are so susceptible of impressions from those of their own station, while the standards and exhortations of their social superiors are as though they were not. Pat was lynx-eyed for a malingerer in his Honour's service; and, indeed, where the rule was so easy and pleasant there was no excuse for malingering. Pat, too, was ably seconded by Bridget, the cook, who had come in originally as kitchen-maid, and had in time taken the place of the very important and pretentious functionary with whom they had started, and whose cookery did not at all suit Sir Denis's digestion, impaired somewhat by long years in India. The young kitchen-maid had taken the cook's place during the latter's holiday, and had sent up for Sir Denis's dinner a little clear soup, a bit of turbot with a sauce which was in itself genius, a bird roasted to the nicest golden brown, and a pudding which was only ground rice, but had an insubstantial delicacy about it quite unlike what one a.s.sociates with the homely cereal.

"You've saved my life, my girl," said Sir Denis, meeting Bridget on the stairs the morning after this banquet, and presenting her with a golden sovereign, "and if you like to stay on as cook at forty pounds a year, why so you shall."

"You could shave yourself in her sauce-pans, your Honour," said Pat, when he heard of this amazing promotion. It was Pat's way of saying that Bridget polished her utensils till they reflected like a mirror. "She's a rale good little girsha, that's what she is, the same Bridget; and I'm rale glad, your Honour, that ould consiquince isn't comin' back again."

After that there were few changes. The servants were in clover, and since Pat and Bridget knew it, and impressed it on their subordinates, it came to be a generally recognised fact. To be sure, it made it pleasanter for everyone in the house when, thanks to Bridget's excellent plain cooking. Sir Denis forgot he had such a thing as a liver, and had no more of the gouty attacks which made his temper east-windy instead of west-windy. During those peaceful years he forgot to be choleric. He was overflowing with kindness and helpfulness to those about him, and took a paternal interest in the affairs of his household.

"Sure," Pat would say to Bridget, "'tis for marrying us he'd be, if he knew how it was with us, same as he married off Rose to the postman and gave them a cottage; and that new girl isn't up to Rose's work yet, nor ever will be, unless I'm mistaken."

"'Twould be a sin to take advantage of him," Bridget would answer. "And we're both young enough to wait a bit, Pat. There'll be new ways when Miss Nelly marries Sir Robin. Maybe 'tis going to live with them he'd be."

"He never will, so long as her Ladyship's alive," said Pat, emphatically.

"Then maybe we'd be havin' him for a furnished lodger," said Bridget.

"I'd rather it 'ud be something in the country. Why wouldn't you be his coachman as well, Pat? Sure, anything you don't know about horses isn't worth the knowin'."

"True for you. We might have a little lodge," said Pat.

They were really the quietest and most peaceful years--unless the Dowager happened to be in town. Then something went dreadfully wrong with the General's temper, and he would come roaring downstairs and along the corridors like a winter storm. The servants' hall used to take a tender interest in those bad days.

"Somebody ought to spake to her," said Bridget. "Supposin' the gout was to go to his heart! He was bad enough after the last time she was here."

"She'll never lave hoult of him," said Pat, solemnly. "The sort of her Ladyship houlds on the tighter the more you wriggle. He's preparing a quare bed of repentance for himself, so he is, the langwidge he's usin'

about her all over the house. By-and-by he'll be rememberin' she's Sir Gerald's widdy, and'll be askin' me ashamed-like, 'I hope I didn't say too much about her Ladyship in my timper, Pat. She's a tryin' woman, a very tryin' woman. I'm afraid I'm apt to forget now an' agin that she's my dear brother's widdy, so I am.'"

Pat's imitation of Sir Denis was really admirable.

"'Tis a pity he doesn't run her out of the house," said Bridget, "instead of lettin' her bother the heart out of him like that."

"He couldn't say a rough word to a woman, not if it was to save his life," said Pat. "Nothin' rougher thin 'No, ma'am,' and 'Yes, ma'am,' I ever heard him say to her. Whirroo, Bridget, you should ha' heard him whin his timper was up givin' it to us long ago in the barrack square. I hope it isn't the suppressed gout she'll be giving him the next time!

'Tisn't half as bad whin it's out."

However, the storms were few and far between. The household lived by rule. Every morning, winter and summer, the horses were at the door by eight o'clock for the morning canter of the General and Miss Nelly in the park. At nine o'clock the household a.s.sembled for prayers. After breakfast Sir Denis walked to his club in Pall Mall, wet or dry. He would read the papers and discuss the cheeseparing policy of the Government with some of his old chums, lunch at the club, play a game of dominoes or draughts, and return home in time for dinner. Frequently they entertained a friend or two quietly at dinner. But, company or no company, there were prayers at ten o'clock, after which the General took his candle and went to his bedroom.

There were times, of course, when Nelly went out to b.a.l.l.s and entertainments, and then Sir Denis was to be seen on duty, even though there were a good many ladies who would be willing to take the chaperonage of his daughter off his hands. But that was an office he would relinquish to no one. He was the most patient of chaperons, too, and never grumbled if the daylight found him still at the whist-table, although he would rise at the same hour as usual and carry out his appointed round for the day as if he had not lost his sleep over-night.

Of course, Nelly might stay a-bed. He wouldn't have Nelly's roses spoilt, and the young needed their proper amount of sleep. As for himself, he couldn't sleep a wink after seven, no matter how late he had been up the night before.

But, on the whole, they lived a quiet life. Nelly was too unselfish, too fond of her father, to cost him many nights without his usual sleep. She had really the quietest tastes. Her few friends, her books, her music, her dogs and birds, sufficed for her happiness. They had a houseful of dogs, by the way, and any description of the way of life in Sherwood Square which made no mention of dogs would be quite insufficient. Duke the Irish terrier and Bonaparte the pug, usually Boney, and Nelson the bull terrier, were as important and characteristic members of the household as anyone else, except, perhaps, Sir Denis and Miss Nelly.

Nelly used to explain her stay-at-home ways to her friends by saying that the dogs were offended with her if she went out for a walk without them. The dogs had many tricks. They knew the terms of drill as well as any soldier, and were always ready for parade, or to die for their country, or groan for their country's enemies, at the General's word of command. Nelly had to be much out-of-doors, as the dogs were clamorous for walks, and she kept her roses in London with the old milkmaid sweetness.

There was one happening of the quiet day that stood out for Sir Denis, and, although he did not know it, for his daughter also.

Sir Denis's old regiment happened to be stationed at a barracks in the immediate neighbourhood. To reach their parade-ground it was possible for the troops, by making a little detour, to pa.s.s along the quiet street on which the houses in Sherwood Square opened. It became an established thing that they should pa.s.s every morning about nine o'clock. How that came Sir Denis did not trouble to ask. He was quite satisfied and delighted that "the boys" should do him honour.

The breakfast-room was one of the few rooms that did not overlook the square but the street. Every morning, just as Sir Denis concluded prayers, there would come the steady trot of cavalry and the jingle of accoutrements. If he had not quite finished, he would say "Amen" in a reverent hurry. "Come now, boys and girls," he would say to the servants, "I want you to see my old regiment."

He would step out on the balcony above the hall-door with a beaming face, and his arm around his Nelly's waist. The servants would press behind him, the dogs push to the front with the curiosity of their kind.

Down the street the soldiers would come, all flashing in scarlet and gold, the sleek horses shining in the morning sun with a deeper l.u.s.tre than their polished accoutrements. There would be a halt for a second in front of the house. The men would salute their old General, the General salute his old regiment. Then the cavalcade would sweep on its way and the street be duller than before.

One morning--it was a bright, breezy morning of March--the wind had caught Nelly's golden hair and blown it in a halo about her face. She was wearing a blue ribbon in it. She was fond of blue, and the simplicity of it became her fresh youth. Just as the soldiers halted the wind caught Nelly's blue bow, and, having played with it a little, sent it drifting down like a little blue flower among the men on horseback.

It was such a slight thing that the General might not have noticed it.

Anyhow, he made no comment, but watched the troops out of sight as usual. The odd thing was that Nelly pa.s.sed over her loss in silence, although she must have missed her blue ribbon, since without it her hair had become loose in the wind.

At breakfast, when the servants had left the room, the General made a remark.