Mary Olivier: a Life Part 55

His little blue eyes glanced up from the side of his nose, twinkling. His mouth stretched from white whisker to white whisker in a smile of righteous benevolence. But Uncle Victor's eyes slunk away as if he were ashamed of himself.

It was Uncle Victor who had paid the two hundred pounds.

II.

"Supposing there's something the matter with him, will he still have to go?"

"I don't see why you should suppose there's anything the matter with him," her mother said. "Is it likely your Uncle Victor would be paying all that money to send him out if he wasn't fit to go?"

It didn't seem likely that Victor would have done anything of the sort; any more than Uncle Edward would have let Aunt Bella give him an overcoat lined with black jennet.

They were waiting for Roddy to come back from the doctor's. Before Uncle Victor left Morfe he had made Roddy promise that for Mamma's satisfaction he would go and be overhauled. And it was as if he had said "You'll see then how much need there is to worry."

You might have kept on hoping that something would happen to prevent Roddy's going but for the size and solidity and expensiveness of the preparations. You might forget that his pa.s.sage was booked for the first Sat.u.r.day in March, that to-day was the first Wednesday, that Victor's two hundred pounds had been paid to Jem Alderson's account at the bank in Montreal, and still the black jennet lining of the overcoat shouted at you that nothing _could_ stop Roddy's going now. Uncle Victor might be reckless, but Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella took no risks.

Unless, after all, Dr. Kendal stopped it--if he said Roddy mustn't go.

She could hear Roddy's feet coming back. They sounded like Mark's feet on the flagged path outside.

He came into the room quickly. His eyes shone, he looked pleased and excited.

Mamma stirred in her chair.

"That's a bright face. We needn't ask if you've got your pa.s.sport," she said.

He looked at her, a light, unresting look.

"How right you are," he said. "And wise."

"Well, I didn't suppose there was much the matter with you."

"There isn't."

He went to the bookshelf where he kept his drawing-blocks.

"I wouldn't sit down and draw if I were you. There isn't time."

"There'll be less after Sat.u.r.day."

He sat down and began to draw. He was as absorbed and happy as if none of them had ever heard of Canada.

He chanted:

"'Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volleyed and thundered.'"

The pencil moved excitedly. Volumes of smoke curled and rolled and writhed on the left-hand side of the sheet. The guns of Balaclava.

"'Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of h.e.l.l, Rode the six hundred.'"

A rush of hoofs and heads and lifted blades on the right hand. The horses and swords of the Light Brigade.

"'Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die'"--

"You ought to be a soldier, Roddy, like Mark, not a farmer."

"Oh wise! Oh right!

"'Forward, the Light Brigade!

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew Someone had blundered.'"

III.

She was going up the schoolhouse lane towards Karva, because Roddy and she had gone that way together on Friday, his last evening.

It was Sunday now; six o'clock: the time he used to bring Papa home. His ship would have left Queenstown, it would be steering to the west.

She wondered how much he had really minded going. Perhaps he had only been afraid he wouldn't be strong enough; for after he had seen the doctor he had been different. Pleased and excited. Perhaps he didn't mind so very much.

If she could only remember how he had looked and what he had said. He had talked about the big Atlantic liner, and the Canadian forests. With luck the voyage might last eleven or twelve clear days. You could shoot moose and wapiti. Wapiti and elk. Elk. With his eyes shining. He was not quite sure about the elk. He wished he had written to the High Commissioner for Canada about the elk. That was what the Commissioner was there for, to answer questions, to encourage you to go to his beastly country.

She could hear Roddy's voice saying these things as they walked over Karva. He was turning it all into an adventure, his imagination playing round and round it. And on Sat.u.r.day morning he had been sick and couldn't eat his breakfast. Mamma had been sorry, and at the same time vexed and irritable as if she were afraid that the arrangements might, after all, be upset. But in the end he had gone off, pleased and excited, with Jem Alderson in the train.

She could see Jem's wide shoulders pushing through the carriage door after Roddy. He had a gentle, reddish face and long, hanging moustaches like a dying Gladiator. Little eyes that screwed up to look at you. He would be good to Roddy.

It would be all right.

She stood still in the dark lane. A disturbing memory gnawed its way through her thoughts that covered it: the way Roddy had looked at Mamma, that Wednesday, the way he had spoken to her. "Oh wise. Oh right!"

That was because he believed she wanted him to go away. He couldn't believe that she really cared for him; that Mamma really cared for anybody but Mark; he couldn't believe that anybody cared for him.

"'Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of h.e.l.l, Rode the six hundred.'"

Roddy's chant pursued her up the lane.

The gate at the top fell to behind her. Moor gra.s.s showed grey among black heather. She half saw, half felt her way along the sheep tracks.

There, where the edge of the round pit broke away, was the place where Roddy had stopped suddenly in front of her.

"I wouldn't mind a bit if I hadn't been such a brute to little Mamma. Why _are_ we such brutes to her?" He had turned in the narrow moor-track and faced her with his question: "Why?"

"'Forward, the Light Brigade!

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew Someone had blundered'"--

Hunderd--blundered. Did Tennyson really call hundred hunderd?