The Four Feathers Part 33

At the time when Calder, disappointed at his failure to obtain news of Feversham from the one man who possessed it, stepped into a carriage of the train at a.s.souan, Lieutenant Sutch was driving along a high white road of Hampshire across a common of heather and gorse; and he too was troubled on Harry Feversham's account. Like many a man who lives much alone, Lieutenant Sutch had fallen into the habit of speaking his thoughts aloud. And as he drove slowly and reluctantly forward, more than once he said to himself: "I foresaw there would be trouble. From the beginning I foresaw there would be trouble."

The ridge of hill along which he drove dipped suddenly to a hollow.

Sutch saw the road run steeply down in front of him between forests of pines to a little railway station. The sight of the rails gleaming bright in the afternoon sunlight, and the telegraph poles running away in a straight line until they seemed to huddle together in the distance, increased Sutch's discomposure. He reined his pony in, and sat staring with a frown at the red-tiled roof of the station building.

"I promised Harry to say nothing," he said; and drawing some makeshift of comfort from the words, repeated them, "I promised faithfully in the Criterion grill-room."

The whistle of an engine a long way off sounded clear and shrill. It roused Lieutenant Sutch from his gloomy meditations. He saw the white smoke of an approaching train stretch out like a riband in the distance.

"I wonder what brings him," he said doubtfully; and then with an effort at courage, "Well, it's no use shirking." He flicked the pony with his whip and drove briskly down the hill. He reached the station as the train drew up at the platform. Only two pa.s.sengers descended from the train. They were Durrance and his servant, and they came out at once on to the road. Lieutenant Sutch hailed Durrance, who walked to the side of the trap.

"You received my telegram in time, then?" said Durrance.

"Luckily it found me at home."

"I have brought a bag. May I trespa.s.s upon you for a night's lodging?"

"By all means," said Sutch, but the tone of his voice quite clearly to Durrance's ears belied the heartiness of the words. Durrance, however, was prepared for a reluctant welcome, and he had purposely sent his telegram at the last moment. Had he given an address, he suspected that he might have received a refusal of his visit. And his suspicion was accurate enough. The telegram, it is true, had merely announced Durrance's visit, it had stated nothing of his object; but its despatch was sufficient to warn Sutch that something grave had happened, something untoward in the relations of Ethne Eustace and Durrance.

Durrance had come, no doubt, to renew his inquiries about Harry Feversham, those inquiries which Sutch was on no account to answer, which he must parry all this afternoon and night. But he saw Durrance feeling about with his raised foot for the step of the trap, and the fact of his visitor's blindness was brought home to him. He reached out a hand, and catching Durrance by the arm, helped him up. After all, he thought, it would not be difficult to hoodwink a blind man. Ethne herself had had the same thought and felt much the same relief as Sutch felt now. The lieutenant, indeed, was so relieved that he found room for an impulse of pity.

"I was very sorry, Durrance, to hear of your bad luck," he said, as he drove off up the hill. "I know what it is myself to be suddenly stopped and put aside just when one is making way and the world is smoothing itself out, though my wound in the leg is nothing in comparison to your blindness. I don't talk to you about compensations and patience. That's the gabble of people who are comfortable and haven't suffered. _We_ know that for a man who is young and active, and who is doing well in a career where activity is a necessity, there are no compensations if his career's suddenly cut short through no fault of his."

"Through no fault of his," repeated Durrance. "I agree with you. It is only the man whose career is cut short through his own fault who gets compensations."

Sutch glanced sharply at his companion. Durrance had spoken slowly and very thoughtfully. Did he mean to refer to Harry Feversham, Sutch wondered. Did he know enough to be able so to refer to him? Or was it merely by chance that his words were so strikingly apposite?

"Compensations of what kind?" Sutch asked uneasily.

"The chance of knowing himself for one thing, for the chief thing. He is brought up short, stopped in his career, perhaps disgraced." Sutch started a little at the word. "Yes, perhaps--disgraced," Durrance repeated. "Well, the shock of the disgrace is, after all, his opportunity. Don't you see that? It's his opportunity to know himself at last. Up to the moment of disgrace his life has all been sham and illusion; the man he believed himself to be, he never was, and now at the last he knows it. Once he knows it, he can set about to retrieve his disgrace. Oh, there are compensations for such a man. You and I know a case in point."

Sutch no longer doubted that Durrance was deliberately referring to Harry Feversham. He had some knowledge, though how he had gained it Sutch could not guess. But the knowledge was not to Sutch's idea quite accurate, and the inaccuracy did Harry Feversham some injustice. It was on that account chiefly that Sutch did not affect any ignorance as to Durrance's allusion. The pa.s.sage of the years had not diminished his great regard for Harry; he cared for him indeed with a woman's concentration of love, and he could not endure that his memory should be slighted.

"The case you and I know of is not quite in point," he argued. "You are speaking of Harry Feversham."

"Who believed himself a coward, and was not one. He commits the fault which stops his career, he finds out his mistake, he sets himself to the work of retrieving his disgrace. Surely it's a case quite in point."

"Yes, I see," Sutch agreed. "There is another view, a wrong view as I know, but I thought for the moment it was your view--that Harry fancied himself to be a brave man and was suddenly brought up short by discovering that he was a coward. But how did you find out? No one knew the whole truth except myself."

"I am engaged to Miss Eustace," said Durrance.

"She did not know everything. She knew of the disgrace, but she did not know of the determination to retrieve it."

"She knows now," said Durrance; and he added sharply, "You are glad of that--very glad."

Sutch was not aware that by any movement or exclamation he had betrayed his pleasure. His face, no doubt, showed it clearly enough, but Durrance could not see his face. Lieutenant Sutch was puzzled, but he did not deny the imputation.

"It is true," he said stoutly. "I am very glad that she knows. I can quite see that from your point of view it would be better if she did not know. But I cannot help it. I am very glad."

Durrance laughed, and not at all unpleasantly. "I like you the better for being glad," he said.

"But how does Miss Eustace know?" asked Sutch. "Who told her? I did not, and there is no one else who could tell her."

"You are wrong. There is Captain Willoughby. He came to Devonshire six weeks ago. He brought with him a white feather which he gave to Miss Eustace, as a proof that he withdrew his charge of cowardice against Harry Feversham."

Sutch stopped the pony in the middle of the road. He no longer troubled to conceal the joy which this good news caused him. Indeed, he forgot altogether Durrance's presence at his side. He sat quite silent and still, with a glow of happiness upon him, such as he had never known in all his life. He was an old man now, well on in his sixties; he had reached an age when the blood runs slow, and the pleasures are of a grey sober kind, and joy has lost its fevers. But there welled up in his heart a gladness of such buoyancy as only falls to the lot of youth.

Five years ago on the pier of Dover he had watched a mail packet steam away into darkness and rain, and had prayed that he might live until this great moment should come. And he had lived and it had come. His heart was lifted up in grat.i.tude. It seemed to him that there was a great burst of sunlight across the world, and that the world itself had suddenly grown many-coloured and a place of joys. Ever since the night when he had stood outside the War Office in Pall Mall, and Harry Feversham had touched him on the arm and had spoken out his despair, Lieutenant Sutch had been oppressed with a sense of guilt. Harry was Muriel Feversham's boy, and Sutch just for that reason should have watched him and mothered him in his boyhood since his mother was dead, and fathered him in his youth since his father did not understand. But he had failed. He had failed in a sacred trust, and he had imagined Muriel Feversham's eyes looking at him with reproach from the barrier of the skies. He had heard her voice in his dreams saying to him gently, ever so gently: "Since I was dead, since I was taken away to where I could only see and not help, surely you might have helped. Just for my sake you might have helped,--you whose work in the world was at an end."

And the long tale of his inactive years had stood up to accuse him. Now, however, the guilt was lifted from his shoulders, and by Harry Feversham's own act. The news was not altogether unexpected, but the lightness of spirit which he felt showed him how much he had counted upon its coming.

"I knew," he exclaimed, "I knew he wouldn't fail. Oh, I am glad you came to-day, Colonel Durrance. It was partly my fault, you see, that Harry Feversham ever incurred that charge of cowardice. I could have spoken--there was an opportunity on one of the Crimean nights at Broad Place, and a word might have been of value--and I held my tongue. I have never ceased to blame myself. I am grateful for your news. You have the particulars? Captain Willoughby was in peril, and Harry came to his aid?"

"No, it was not that exactly."

"Tell me! Tell me!"

He feared to miss a word. Durrance related the story of the Gordon letters, and their recovery by Feversham. It was all too short for Lieutenant Sutch.

"Oh, but I am glad you came," he cried.

"You understand at all events," said Durrance, "that I have not come to repeat to you the questions I asked in the courtyard of my club. I am able, on the contrary, to give you information."

Sutch spoke to the pony and drove on. He had said nothing which could reveal to Durrance his fear that to renew those questions was the object of his visit; and he was a little perplexed at the accuracy of Durrance's conjecture. But the great news to which he had listened hindered him from giving thought to that perplexity.

"So Miss Eustace told you the story," he said, "and showed you the feather?"

"No, indeed," replied Durrance. "She said not a word about it, she never showed me the feather, she even forbade Willoughby to hint of it, she sent him away from Devonshire before I knew that he had come. You are disappointed at that," he added quickly.

Lieutenant Sutch was startled. It was true he was disappointed; he was jealous of Durrance, he wished Harry Feversham to stand first in the girl's thoughts. It was for her sake that Harry had set about his difficult and perilous work. Sutch wished her to remember him as he remembered her. Therefore he was disappointed that she did not at once come with her news to Durrance and break off their engagement. It would be hard for Durrance, no doubt, but that could not be helped.

"Then how did you learn the story?" asked Sutch.

"Some one else told me. I was told that Willoughby had come, and that he had brought a white feather, and that Ethne had taken it from him. Never mind by whom. That gave me a clue. I lay in wait for Willoughby in London. He is not very clever; he tried to obey Ethne's command of silence, but I managed to extract the information I wanted. The rest of the story I was able to put together by myself. Ethne now and then was off her guard. You are surprised that I was clever enough to find out the truth by the exercise of my own wits?" said Durrance, with a laugh.

Lieutenant Sutch jumped in his seat. It was mere chance, of course, that Durrance continually guessed with so singular an accuracy; still it was uncomfortable.

"I have said nothing which could in any way suggest that I was surprised," he said testily.

"That is quite true, but you are none the less surprised," continued Durrance. "I don't blame you. You could not know that it is only since I have been blind that I have begun to see. Shall I give you an instance?

This is the first time that I have ever come into this neighbourhood or got out at your station. Well, I can tell you that you have driven me up a hill between forests of pines, and are now driving me across open country of heather."

Sutch turned quickly towards Durrance.

"The hill, of course, you would notice. But the pines?"

"The air was close. I knew there were trees. I guessed they were pines."

"And the open country?"

"The wind blows clear across it. There's a dry stiff rustle besides. I have never heard quite that sound except when the wind blows across heather."