The Hill Part 48

John nodded.

"It was a disappointment. Yes; a great disappointment. Harry would have made a debater. Yes; yes; a nimble wit, an engaging manner, and the gift of the gab. And the father would have had him under his own eye."

"But he wanted to go to South Africa from the beginning."

"You wanted to go," said Warde; "your uncle told me so. It was a greater thing for you, John, to stand aside."

And then John put a question. "Do you think that Harry ought to have stood aside too?"

Warde, however, unwilling to commit himself, spoke of Harry's ardour and patriotism. But at the end he let fall a straw which indicated the true current of his thoughts--

"Mr. Desmond is very lonely."

John swooped on this.

"Then you think, you _do_ think, that Harry should have stayed behind?"

"Perhaps. One hesitates to accuse the boy of anything more than thoughtlessness."

"If he wished to serve his country," began John, warmly.

Warde smiled. "Yes, yes," he a.s.sented. "Let us believe that, John; but there has been too much cheap excitement."

Dark days followed. Who will ever forget Stormberg and Magersfontein? A pall seemed to hang over the kingdom. Ladysmith remained in the grip of the invader; the Boers were not yet driven out of Natal. Meantime Caesar had reached Sir Redvers Buller. A letter to his father, describing the few incidents of the voyage out, and his arrival in South Africa, was sent on to John and received by him on the 1st of February. "John will understand," said Caesar, in a postscript, "that I have little time for writing." But John did not understand. He wrote regularly to Desmond; no answer came in return.

At the end of the Christmas holidays John returned to Harrow. He was now Head of his House, and very nearly Head of the School. The weeks went by slowly. Soon, he and a few others would travel to Oxford for their examination; there would be the strenuous excitement of compet.i.tion, and the final announcement of success or failure. To all this John told himself that he was lukewarm. Nothing seemed to matter since he had lost sight of Caesar's face, since the train whirled his friend out of his life. But he worked hard, so hard that the Head Master bade him beware of a breakdown.

The hour of triumph came. John had gratified his own and Warde's ambition; he was a Scholar of Christ Church. And this well-earned success seemed to draw something in his heart. The congratulations, the warm hand-clasps, the generous joy of schoolfellows not as fortunate, restored his moral circulation. A whole holiday was granted in honour of his success at Oxford. He told himself that now he would take things easy and enjoy himself. The clouds in South Africa were lifting, everybody said the glorious end was in sight. And so far Desmond had escaped wounds and sickness. He had received a commission in Beauregard's Irregular Horse; in the five days' action about Spion Kop he behaved with conspicuous gallantry. Scaife, having obtained his billet of Galloper, was with a General under Lord Methuen.

On the last Monday but one in the term, John was entering the Manor just before lock-up, when a Sixth Form boy from another house pa.s.sed him, running.

"Have you heard about poor Scaife?" he called out.

"No--what?"

"Warde will tell you; he knows." The boy ran on, not wishing to be late.

John ran, too, with his heart thumping against his side. He felt certain, from the expression upon the boy's face, that Scaife was dead.

And John recalled with intense bitterness and humiliation moments in past years when he had wished that Scaife would die. Charles Desmond had told him only three weeks before that his Harry hoped to join the smart cavalry regiment in which a commission had been promised to Scaife. At that moment John was sensible of an inordinate desire for anything that might come between this wish and its fulfilment. And now, Scaife might be lying dead.

He found Warde in his study staring at a telegram. He looked up as John entered, and in silence handed him the message.

"_Demon dead. Died gloriously._"

The telegram came from an Harrovian, an old Manorite at the War Office.

John sat down, stunned by the news; Warde regarded him gravely. John met his glance and could not interpret it. Presently, Warde said nervously--

"Why did the fellow write 'Demon' instead of 'Scaife'? I don't like that." He looked sharply at John, who did not understand. Then he added, "I've wired for confirmation. There may be a--mistake."

"What mistake?" said John. Warde's manner confused him, frightened him.

"What mistake, sir?"

Warde, twisting the paper, answered miserably--

"There has been an action, but not in Scaife's part of Africa.

Beauregard's Horse were engaged and suffered severely. And would any one say 'Demon' in such a serious context?"

"Oh, my G.o.d!" said John, pale and trembling. At last he understood. Add two letters to "Demon" and you have "Desmond." How easily such a mistake could be made!--"Desmond," ill-written, handed to an old Manorite to copy and despatch.

"It's Scaife--it's Scaife," John cried.

Warde said nothing, staring at the thin slip of paper as if he were trying to wrest from it its secret.

"Everybody called him 'Demon,'" said John.

"Still, one ought to be prepared."

For many hideous minutes they sat there, silent, waiting for the second telegram. Dumbleton brought it in, and lingered, anxiously expectant; but Warde dismissed him with a gesture. As the door closed, Warde stood up.

"If our fears are well founded," he said solemnly, "may G.o.d give you strength, John Verney, to bear the blow."

Then he tore open the envelope and read the truth--

"_Henry Desmond killed in action._"

"No," said John, fiercely. "It is Scaife, Scaife!"

Warde shook his head, holding John's hand tight between his sinewy fingers. John's face appalled him. He had known, he had guessed, the strength of John's feeling for Desmond, but, he had not known the strength of John's hatred of Scaife. And Desmond had been taken--and Scaife left. The irony of it tore the soul.

"Don't speak," commanded Warde.

John closed his lips with instinctive obedience. When he opened them again his face had softened; the words fell upon the silence with a heartrending inflection of misery.

"And now I shall never know--I shall never know."

He broke down piteously. Warde let the first pa.s.sion of grief spend itself; then he asked John to explain. The good fellow saw that if John could give his trouble words it would be lightened enormously. He divined what had been suppressed.

"What is it that you will never know, John?"

At that John spoke, laying bare his heart. He gave details of the never-ending struggle between Scaife and himself for the soul of his friend; gave them with a clearness of expression which proved beyond all else how his thoughts had crystallized in his mind. Warde listened, holding John's hand, gripping it with sympathy and affection. The romance of this friendship stirred him profoundly; the romance of the struggle for good and evil; a struggle of which the issues remained still in doubt; a romance which Death had cruelly left unfinished--this had poignant significance for the house-master.

"I shall never know now," John repeated, in conclusion.

"But you have faith in your friend."