The Wages of Virtue Part 15

Mikhail Kyrilovitch sat on his bed whispering with his brother, about the medical examination of recruits which would take place on the morrow.

"Well, we can only hope for the best," said Feodor at last, "and they all say the same thing--that it is generally the merest formality. The Medecin-Major looks at your face and teeth and asks if you are healthy.

It's not like what Ivan and I went through in Paris.... They wouldn't have two searching medical examinations unless there appeared to be signs of weakness, I should think."

When the room was wrapped in silence and darkness the latter arose.

"Good night, _golubtchik_," he whispered, "and when your heart fails you, remember Marie Spiridinoff--and be thankful you are here rather than There."

Mikhail shuddered.

Anon, every soul in the room was awakened by the uproarious entrance of the great Luigi Rivoli supported by Messieurs Malvin, Borges and Bauer, all very drunk and roaring "_Brigadier vous avez raison_," a song which tailed off into an inane repet.i.tion of--

"Si le Caporal savait ca Il dirait 'nom de Dieu,'"

in the midst of which the great man collapsed upon his bed, while, with much hiccupping laughter and foul jokes, his faithful satellites contrived to remove his boots and leave him to sleep the sleep of the just and the drunken....

Anon the Dutch youth, Hans Djoolte, sat up and looked around. All was quiet and apparently everyone was asleep. The conscience of Hans was p.r.i.c.king him--he had said his prayers lying in bed, and that was not the way in which he had been taught to say them by his good Dutch mother, whose very last words, as she died, had been, "Say your prayers each night, my son, wherever you may be."

Hans got out of bed, knelt him down, and said his prayers again.

Thenceforward, he always did so as soon as he had undressed, regardless of consequences--which at first were serious. But even the good Luigi Rivoli, in time, grew tired of beating him, particularly when the four English-speaking occupants of the _chambree_ intimated their united disapproval of Luigi's interference. The most startling novelty, by repet.i.tion, becomes the most familiar commonplace, and the day, or rather the night, arrived when Hans Djoolte could pray unmolested....

Occupants of less favoured _chambrees_ came to see the sight. The _escouade_ indeed became rather proud of having two authentic lunatics....

CHAPTER V

THE TRIVIAL ROUND

As he had done almost every night for the last twenty-five years, Sir Montague Merline lay awake for some time, thinking of his wife.

Was she happy? Of course she was. Any woman is happy with the man she really loves.

Did she ever think of him? Of course she did. Any woman thinks, at times, of the man in whose arms she has lain. No doubt his photo stood in a silver frame on her desk or piano. Huntingten would not mind that.

Nothing petty about Lord Huntingten--and he had been very fond of "good old Merline," "dear old stick-in-the-mud," as he had so often called him.

Of course she was happy. Why shouldn't she be? Although Huntingten was poor as English peers go, there was enough for decent quiet comfort--and Marguerite had never been keen on making a splash. She had not minded poverty as Lady Merline.... She was certainly as happy as the day was long, and it would have been the d.a.m.nedest cruelty and caddishness to have turned up and spoilt things. It would have wrecked her life and Huntingten's too....

Splendid chap, Huntingten--so jolly clever and original, so full of ideas and unconventionality.... "How to be Happy though t.i.tled." ...

"How to be a Man though a Peer." ... "Efforts for the Effete," and Sir Montague smiled as he thought of the eccentric peer's pleasantries.

Yes, she'd be happy enough with that fine brave big sportsman with his sunny face and merry laugh, his gentle and kindly ways, his love of open-air life, games, sport, and all clean strenuous things. Of course she was happy.... Did she ever think of him? ... Were there any more children? ... (And, as always, at this point, Sir Montague frowned and sighed.)

How he would love a little girl of hers, if she were very, very like her--and how he would hate a boy if he were like Huntingten. No--not hate the boy--hate the idea of her having a boy who was like Huntingten.

But how she would love the boy....

What would he not give to see her! Unseen himself, of course. He hoped he would not get _cafard_ again, when next stationed in the desert. It had been terrible, unspeakably terrible, to feel that resolution was weakening, and that when it failed altogether, he would desert and go in search of her.... Suppose that, with madman's cunning, and with madman's strength, he should be successful in an attempt to reach Tunis--the only possible way for a deserter without money--and should live to reach her, or to be recognised and proclaimed as the lost Sir Montague Merline. Her life in ruins and her children illegitimate--nameless b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.... It was a horribly disturbing thought, that under the influence of _cafard_ his mind might lose all ideas and memories and wishes except the one great longing to see her again, to clasp her in his arms again, to have and to hold.... Well--he had a lot to be thankful for. So long as Cyrus Hiram Milton was his bunk-mate it was not likely to happen. Cyrus would see that he did not desert, penniless and mad, into the desert. And now this English boy had come--a man with the same training, tastes, habits, haunts and _cliches_ as himself. Doubtless they had numbers of common acquaintances. But he must be wary when on that ground. Possibly the boy knew Lord and Lady Huntingten.... After all it's a very small world, and especially the world of English Society, clubs, Services, and sport.... This boy would be a real _companion_, such as dear old Cyrus could never be, best of friends as he was. He would make a hobby of the boy, look after him, live his happy past again in talking of London, Sandhurst, Paris, racing, golf, theatres, clubs, and all the lost things whose memories they had in common. The boy might perhaps have been at Winchester too.... Thank Heaven he had come! It would make all the difference when _cafard_ conditions arose again. Of course he'd get promoted _Soldat premiere cla.s.se_ before long though, and then _Caporal_. Corporals may not walk and talk with private soldiers.

Yes--the boy would rise and leave him behind. Just his luck.... Might he not venture to accept promotion now--after all these years, and rise step by step with him? No, better not. Thin end of the wedge. Once he allowed himself to be _Soldat premiere cla.s.se_ he'd be accepting promotion to _Caporal_ and _Sergent_ before he knew it. The temptation to go on to _Chef_ and _Adjudant_ would be overwhelming, and when offered a commission (and the return to the life of an officer and gentleman) would be utterly irresistible. Then would come the very thing to prevent which he had buried himself alive in this h.e.l.l of a Legion--recognition and then the public scandal of his wife's innocent bigamy, and her children's illegitimacy. As an officer he would meet foreign officers and visitors to Algeria. His portrait might get into the papers. He might have to go to Paris, or Ma.r.s.eilles, and run risks of being recognised. No--better to put away temptation and take no chance of the evil thing. Poor little Marguerite! Think of the cruel shattering blow to her. It would kill her to give up Huntingten in addition to knowing her children to be nameless, unable to inherit t.i.tle or estates.... No--unthinkable! Do the thing properly or not at all.... But it was h.e.l.l to be a second-cla.s.s soldier all the time, and never be exempt from liability to sentry-duty, guards, fatigues, filthy corvees and punishment at the hands of Non-coms. seeking to acquire merit by discovering demerit.... And he could have had a commission straight away, when he got his bit of _ferblanterie_[#] in Tonkin and again in Dahomey. They knew he could speak German and had been an officer.... It had been a sore temptation--but, thank G.o.d, he had conquered it and not run the greatly enhanced risk of discovery. He ought really to have committed suicide directly he learned that she was married. No business to be alive--let alone grumbling about promotion.

Moreover, if any living soul on this earth discovered that he was alive he must not only die, but let his wife have proof that he really was dead, this time. Then she and Huntingten could re-marry as the first ceremony was null and void, and the children be legitimatised.... Of course there would be more children--they loved each other so....

[#] lit., tin-ware (medals and decorations).

As things were, his being alive did the Huntingtens no harm. It was the _knowledge_ of his existence that would do the injury--both legal and personal.... No harm, so long as it wasn't known. They were quite innocent in the sight of le bon Dieu, and so long as neither they, nor anyone else, knew--nothing mattered so far as they were concerned....

But fourteen years as a second-cla.s.s soldier of the Legion! ... And what was he to do at the end of the fifteenth? They would not re-enlist him.

He would get a pension of five hundred francs a year--twenty pounds a year--and he had got the cash "bonus" given him when he won the _medaille militaire_. Where could he hide again? Perhaps he could get a job as employed-pensioner of the Legion--such as s.e.xton at the graveyard or a.s.sistant-cook, or Officers'-Mess servant? ... Otherwise he'd find himself one fine morning at the barracks-gates, dressed in a suit of blue sacking from the Quartermaster's store, fitting him where it touched him; a big flat tam-o'-shanter sort of cap; a rough shirt, and a blue cravat "to wind twice round the neck"; a pair of socks (for the first time in fifteen years), and a decent pair of boots. He'd have his papers, a free pa.s.s to any part of France he liked to name, a franc a day for the journey thereto, and his week's pay.

And what good would the papers and pa.s.s be to him--who dared not leave the shelter of the all-concealing Legion? ... Surely it would be safe for him to return to England, or at any rate to go to France or some other part of Europe? Why not to America or the Colonies? No, nowhere was safe, and nothing was certain. Besides, how was he to get there?

His pa.s.s would take him to any part of France, and nowhere else. A fine thing--to hide in the Legion for fifteen years, actually to survive fifteen years of a second-cla.s.s soldier's life in the Legion, and then to risk rendering it all useless! One breath of rumour--and Marguerite's life was spoilt.... Discovery--and it was ruined, just when her children (if she had any more) were on the threshold of their careers.... Well, life in the Legion was remarkably uncertain, and there still remained a year in which all problems might be finally solved by bullet, disease, or death in some other of the many forms in which it visited the step-sons of France.... Where was old Strong now? ...

Legionary John Bull fell asleep.

Meanwhile, a few inches from him, Reginald Rupert had found himself unusually and unpleasantly wakeful. It had been a remarkably full and tiring day, and as crowded with new experiences as the keenest experience-seeker could desire.... He was very glad he had come. This was going to be a good toughening man's life, and real soldiering. He would not have missed it for anything. It would hold a worthy place in the list of things which he had done and been, the list that, by the end of his life, he hoped would be a long and very varied one. By the time "the governor" died (and he trusted that might not happen for another forty years) he hoped to have been in many armies and Frontier Police forces, to have been a sailor, a cowboy, a big-game hunter, a trapper, an explorer and prospector, a gold-miner, a war correspondent, a gumdigger, and many other things in many parts of the world, in addition to his present record of Public-school, Sandhurst, 'Varsity man, British officer, trooper, and French Legionnaire. He hoped to continue to turn up in any part of the world where there was a war.

What Reginald, like his father, loathed and feared was Modern Society life, and in fact all modern civilised life as it had presented itself to his eyes--with its incredibly false standards, values and ideals, its shoddy shams and vulgar pretences, its fat indulgences, slothfulness and folly.

To him, as to his father (whose curious mental kink he had inherited), the world seemed a dreadful place in which drab, dull folk followed drab, dull pursuits for drab, dull ends. People who lived for pleasure were so occupied and exhausted in its pursuit that they got no pleasure.

People who worked were so closely occupied in earning their living that they never lived. He did not know which cla.s.s he disliked more--the men who lived their weary lives at clubs, grand-stands, country-house parties, Ranelagh and Hurlingham, the Riviera, the moors, and the Yacht Squadron; or those who lived dull laborious days in offices, growing flabby and grey in pursuit of the slippery shekel.

The human animal seemed to him to have become as adventurous, gallant, picturesque and gay as the mole, the toad, and the slug. An old tomcat on a backyard fence seemed to him to be a more independent, care-free, self-respecting and gentlemanly person than his owner, a man who, all G.o.d's wide world before him, was, for a few monthly metal discs, content to sit in a stuffy hole and copy hieroglyphics from nine till six--that another man might the quicker ama.s.s many dirty metal discs and a double chin. To Reginald, the men of even his own cla.s.s seemed travesties and parodies of a n.o.ble original, in that they were content to lead the dreadful lives they did--killing tame birds, knocking little b.a.l.l.s about the place, watching other people ride races, rushing around in motors, sailing sunny seas in luxury and safety, seeing foreign lands only from their best hotels, poodle-faking and philandering, doing everything but anything--pampered, soft, useless; each a most exact and careful copy of his neighbour. Reginald loved, and excelled at, every form of sport, and had been prominent in the playing-fields at Winchester, Sandhurst and Oxford, but he could not live by sport alone, and to him it had always been a means and not an end, a means to health, strength, skill and hardihood--the which were to be applied--not to _more_ games--but to the fuller living of life. The seeds of his father's teaching had fallen on most receptive and fertile soil, and their fruit ripened not the slower by reason of the fact that his father was his friend, confidant, hero and model.... He could see him now as he straddled mightily on the rug before the library fire, in his pink and cords, his spurred tops splashed with mud, and grey on the inner sides with the sweat of his horse....

"Brown-paper prisons for poor men, and pink-silk cages for rich--that's Life nowadays, my boy, unless you're careful.... Get hold of Life, don't let Life get hold of you. Take the family motto for your guidance in actual fact. '_Be all, see all_.' Try to carry it out as far as humanly possible. _Live_ Life and live it in the World. Don't live a thousandth part of Life in a millionth part of the World, as all our neighbours do. When you succeed me here and marry and settle down, be able to say you've seen everything, done everything, been everything....

Be a gentleman, of course, but one can be a man as well as being a gentleman--gentility is of the heart and conduct and manners--not of position and wealth and rank. What's the good of seeing one little glimpse of life out of one little window--whether it's a soldier's window (which is the best of windows), or a sailor's, or a lawyer's, parson's, merchant's, scholar's, sportsman's, landowner's, politician's, or any other.... And go upwards and downwards too, my boy. Tramps, ostlers, costermongers and soldiers are a dam' sight more interestin'

than kings--and a heap more human. A chap who's only moved in one plane of society isn't educated--not worth listening to..." and much more to the same effect--and Rupert smiled to himself as he thought of how his father had advised him not to "waste" more than a year at Sandhurst, another at Oxford, and another in an Officers' Mess, before setting forth to see real life, and real men living it hard and to the full, in the capitals and the corners of the earth.

"How the dear old boy must have worshipped mother--to have married and settled down, at forty," he reflected, "and what a beauty she must have been. She's lovely now," and again his rather hard face softened into a smile as he thought of the interview in which he told her of his intention to "chuck" his commission and go and do things and see things.

Little had he known that she had fully antic.i.p.ated and daily expected the declaration which he feared would be a "terrible blow" to her....

Did she expect him to be anything else than the son of his father and his eccentric and adventurous House?

"I wouldn't have you be anything but a chip of the old block, my darling boy. You're of age and your old mother isn't going to be a millstone round your neck, like she's been round your father's. Only one woman can have the right to be that, and you will give her the right when you marry her.... Your family really ought not to marry."

"Mother, Mother!" he had protested, "and 'bring up our children to do the same,' I suppose?"

She had been bravely gay when he went, albeit a little damp of eye and red of nose.... Really he was a lucky chap to have such a mother. She was one in a thousand and he must faithfully do his utmost to keep his promise and go home once a year or thereabouts--also "to take care of his nails, not crop his hair, change damp socks, and wear wool next his skin...." Want a bit of doin' in the Legion, what! Good job the poor darling couldn't see Luigi Rivoli breaking up recruits, or Sergeant Legros superintending the ablutions of her Reginald. What would she think of this galley and his fellow galley-slaves--of 'Erb, the _Apache_, Carmelita, the Gra.s.shopper, and the drunkards of the Canteen?

The Bucking Bronco would amuse her, and she'd certainly be interested in John Bull, poor old chap.... What could his story be, and why was he here? Was there a woman in it? ... Probably. He didn't look the sort of chap who'd "done something." Poor devil! ... Yes, her big warm heart would certainly have a corner for John Bull. Had she not been well brought up by her husband and son in the matter of seeing a swan in every goose they brought home? Yes, he'd repay John Bull's kindness to the full when he left the Legion. He should come straight to Elham Old Hall and his mother should have the chance, which she would love, of thanking and, in some measure, repaying the good chap. He wouldn't tell him exactly who they were and what they were, lest he should pretend that fifteen years of Legion life had spoilt him for _la vie de chateau_, and refuse to visit them.... He'd like to know his story.

What _could_ be the cause of a man like him leading this ha'penny-a-day life for fourteen years? Talk of paper prisons and silken cages--this was a prison of red-hot stone. Fancy this the setting for the best years of your life, and he sat up and looked round the moonlit room.

Next to him lay the Bucking Bronco, snoring heavily, his moustache looking huge and black in the moonlight that made his face appear pale and fine.... A strong and not unkindly face, with its great jutting chin and square heavy jaw.

'Erb lay on the neighbouring cot, his hands clasped above his head as he slept the sleep of the just and innocent, for whom a night of peaceful slumber is the meet reward of a well-spent day. His pinched and cunning little face was transfigured by the moonlight, and the sleeping Herbert Higgins looked less the vulgar, street-bred guttersnipe than did the waking "'Erbiggins" of the day.

Beyond him lay the mighty bulk of Luigi Rivoli, breathing stertorously in drunken slumber as he sprawled, limb-scattered, on his face, fully dressed, save for his boots....

What an utter swine and cad--reflected Reginald--and what would happen when he selected him for his attentions? Of course, the Neapolitan had ten times his strength and twice his weight--but there would have to be a fight--or a moral victory for the recruit. He would obey no behests of Luigi Rivoli, nor accept any insults nor injuries tamely. He would land the cad one of the best, and take the consequences, however humiliating or painful. And he'd do it every time too, until he were finally incapacitated, or Luigi Rivoli weary of the game. Evidently the brute had some sort of respect for the big American and for John Bull. He should learn to have some for "Reginald Rupert," too, or the latter would die in the attempt to teach it. The prospect was not alluring though, and the Austrian and the _Apache_ had received sharp and painful lessons on the folly of defying or attacking Luigi Rivoli.

Still--experiences, dangers, difficulties and real, raw, primitive life were what his family sought--and here were some of them. Yes, he was ready for Il Signor Luigi Rivoli....