Complete Works of E W Hornung

by E. W. Hornung

“It would so,” Deverell repeated, unable to repress a grim chuckle. “It would be the most awkward thing that could possibly happen to me — especially if it happened now. At present I call myself the luckiest man in the Colony; but if my poor father were to turn up—”

  Deverell was not interrupted: he stopped himself.

  “You are pretty safe,” said his companion, in a somewhat singular tone — which, however, he quickly changed. “As your father’s mate, I am glad you are so lucky; it is good hearing.”

  Deverell explained how he was so lucky. He felt that the sentiments he had expressed concerning his father’s possible appearance on the scene required some explanation, if not excuse. This feeling, growing upon him as he spoke, led him into explanations that were very full indeed, under the circumstances. He explained the position he had attained as manager of Dandong; and the position he was about to attain through his marriage was quite as clearly (though unintentionally) indicated. It was made plain to the meanest perception how very awkward it would be for the young man, from every point of view, if the young man’s father did turn up and ostentatiously reveal himself. While Deverell was speaking the swagman broke branches from the nearest pines and made up the fire; when he finished the faces of both were once more illumined; and that of the old man was stern with resolve.

  “And yet,” said he, “suppose the impossible, or at any rate the unlikely: say that he does come back! I know him well; he wouldn’t be a drag or a burden to you. He’d only just like to see you. All he would ask would be to see his son sometimes! That would be enough for him. I was his chum, mind you, so I know. And if he was to come up here, as I have come, you could take him on, couldn’t you, as you offer to take me?” He leant forward with sudden eagerness — his voice vibrated. “You could give him work, as you say you’ll give me, couldn’t you? No one’d know it was your father! No one would ever guess!”

  “No!” said Deverell decidedly. “I’ll give you work, but my father I couldn’t. I don’t do things by halves: I’d treat my father as my father, and damn the odds! He had pluck. I like to think how he was taken fighting! Whatever he did, he had grit, and I should be unworthy of him — no matter what he did — if I played the coward. It would be worse than cowardly to disown your father, whatever he had done, and I wouldn’t disown mine — I’d sooner shoot myself! No, I’d take him in, and be a son to him for the rest of his days, that’s what I’d do — that’s what I will do, if ever he gets out on ticket-of-leave, and comes to me!”

  The young man spoke with a feeling and intensity of which he had exhibited no signs before, leaning forward with his pipe between his fingers. The old man held his breath.

  “But it would be devilish awkward!” exclaimed Deverell frankly. “People would remember what they’ve been good enough to forget; and everybody would know what now next to none know. In this country, thank God, the man is taken for what the man is worth; his father neither helps nor hinders him, when once he’s gone. So I’ve managed to take my own part, and to get on well, thanks to my own luck. Yes, it would be devilish awkward. But I’d stand by him, before Heaven I would!”

  The old man breathed hard.

  “I don’t know how I’ve come to say so much to you, though you did know my father,” added Deverell, with a sudden change of tone. “It isn’t my way at all. I needn’t tell you that from to-morrow forward you’re the same as any other man to me. And if you ever go to see my father, you must not tell him all I have said to you about what, as you say, is never likely to happen. But you may tell him — you may tell him I am glad he was taken fighting!”

  The old man was once more quite calm. “I shall never see your father again. No more will you,” he said slowly and solemnly; “for your father is dead! I promised him to find you out when my time was up, and to tell you. I have taken my own way of breaking the news to you. Forgive me, but I couldn’t resist just seeing, first of all, if it would cut you up very badly!” Deverell did not notice the quiet bitterness of the last words. He smoked his pipe out in silence. Then he said: “God rest him! Perhaps it’s for the best. As for you, you’ve a billet at Dandong for the rest of your days, if you like to take and keep it. Let us turn in.”

  The worn moon rose very late, and skimmed behind the pines, but never rose clear of them, and was down before dawn. It shone faintly upon the two men lying side by side, packed up each in a blanket — Deverell in the better one. From the other blanket a hand would steal out from time to time, grope tremulously over Deverell’s back, lie a minute, and then be gently withdrawn. Long before dawn, however, the old man noiselessly arose and rolled up his swag. He packed up everything that he had brought — everything except the better blanket. Over that he smiled, as though it was an intense pleasure to him to leave it behind, lapped round the unconscious form of Deverell. Just before going, when the swag was on his back, he stooped down once and put his face very close to that of Deverell. The worn moon glimmered through the pines upon them both. The faces were strangely alike; only Deverell’s was smiling in his dreams, while the old man’s lips moved tremulously, and he seemed much older than before: for the eager look had gone for ever.

  A few minutes later the gate in the Dandong boundary-fence closed behind the gaol-bird tramp. And Deverell’s father was dead indeed — to Deverell. Lucky for Deverell, of course. But then he was the luckiest man in the whole Colony. Didn’t he say so himself?

  THE NOTORIOUS MISS ANSTRUTHER.

  IT is prejudicial to the nicest girl in this unjust world to be asked in marriage too frequently. Things come out, and she gets the name of being a heartless flirt; her own sex add that she cannot be a very nice girl. A flirt she is, of a surety, but why heartless, and why not a nice girl? So grave defects do not follow. The flirt who doesn’t think she is one — the flirt with a set of sham principles and ideals, and a misleading veneer of soul — is heartless, if you like, and something worse. Now the girl who gets herself proposed to regularly once a week in the season is far less contemptible; she is not contemptible at all, for how could she know that you meant so much more than she did? She only knows a little too much to take your word for this.

  A sweetly pretty and highly accomplished young girl, little Miss Anstruther, came to know too much to dream of taking any man’s word on this point. She was reputed to have refused more offers than a good girl ought to get; for what in the very beginning conferred a certain distinction upon her, made her notorious at a regrettably early stage of her career. The finger of feminine disapproval pointed at her, presently, in an unmistakable way; and this is said — by women — to be a very bad sign. Men may not think so. Intensely particular ladies, in the pride of their complete respectability, tried to impress upon very young men in whom they were interested that Miss Anstruther was not at all a nice girl. But this had a disappointing effect upon the boys. And Miss Anstruther by no means confined herself to rejecting mere boys.

  The moths that singed themselves at this flame were of every variety. They would have made a rare collection under glass, with pins through them; Miss Anstruther herself would have inspected them thus with the liveliest interest. Her detractors also could have enjoyed themselves at such an exhibition; but the more generous spirits among them, those who had been young and attractive too long ago to pretend to be either still, might have found there some slight excuse for Miss Anstruther. Of course, it was no excuse at all, but it was notable that almost every moth had some salient good point — something to “account for it” on her side, to some extent — say a twentieth part of the extent to which she had gone. There was a great deal of assorted merit scattered among those moths. Looks, intellect, a nice voice, an operatic moustache, an aptitude for the informal recitation of engaging verses, were a purely random selection from their several strong points; but even these, picked out and fitted together, would have furnished forth a dazzling being: whom Miss Anstruther would have rejected as firmly and as finally as she had already rejected his integral parts.

 
For there was no pleasing the girl. Apparently she did not mean to be pleased — in that way. She had neither wishes nor intentions, it became evident, beyond immediate flirtation of the most wilful description. To many honest minds hers seemed actually depraved.

  Her accomplishment was singing. She sang divinely. Also she had plenty of money; but the money alone was not at the bottom of many declarations; her voice was the more infatuating element of the two; and her “way” did more damage than either. She was not, indeed, aware what a way she had with her. It was a way of seeming desperately smitten, and a little unhappy about it; which is quite sufficient to make a man of tender years or acute conscientiousness “speak” on the spot. Thus many a proposal was as unexpected on her part as it was unpremeditated on his. He made a sudden fool of himself — heard some surprisingly sensible things from her frivolous lips — decided, upon reflection and inquiry, that these were her formula — and got over the whole thing in the most masterly fashion. This is where Miss Anstruther was so much more wholesome than the flirt who doesn’t think she flirts: Miss Anstruther never rankled.

  She had no mother to check her notorious propensity in its infancy, and no brother to bully her out of it in the end. Her father, a public character of considerable distinction, was queer enough to see no fault in her; but he was a busy man. She had, however, a kinsman, Lord Nunthorp, who used to talk to her like a brother on the subject of her behaviour, only a little less heavily than brothers use. Lord Nunthorp knew what he was talking about. He had once played at being in love with her himself. But that was in the days when his moustache looked as though he had forgotten to wash it off, and before Miss Anstruther came out. There had been no nonsense between them for years. They were the best and most intimate of friends.

  “Another!” he would say, gazing gravely upon her as the most fascinating curiosity in the world, when she happened to be telling him about the very latest. “Let’s see — how many’s that?”

  There came a day when she told Lord Nunthorp she had lost count; and she really had. The day was at the fag-end of one season; he had been lunching at the Anstruthers’ and Miss Anstruther had been singing to him.

  “I’m afraid I can’t assist you,” said he, with amused concern. “I only remember the first eleven, so to speak. First man in was your rector’s son in the country, young Miller, who was sent out to Australia on the spot. He was the first, wasn’t he? Yes, I thought that was the order; and by Jove, Midge, how fond you were of that boy!”

  “I was,” said Miss Anstruther, glancing out of the window with a wistful look in her pretty eyes; but her kinsman said to himself that he remembered that wistful look — it went cheap.

  “The next man in,” affirmed Lord Nunthorp, who was an immense cricketer, “was me!”

  “I like that!” said Miss Anstruther, taking her eyes from the window with rather a jerk, and smiling brightly. “You’ve left out Cousin Dick!”

  “So I have; I beg Dick’s pardon. It was very egotistical of me, but pardonable, for of course Dick never stood so high in the serene favour as I did. I came after Dick then, first wicket down, and since then — well, you say yourself that you’ve lost tally, but you must have bowled out a pretty numerous team by this time. My dear Midge,” said Nunthorp, with a sudden access of paternal gravity, “don’t you think it about time that somebody came in and carried his bat?”

  “Don’t talk nonsense!” said Miss Anstruther briskly. She added, almost miserably: “I wish to goodness they wouldn’t ask me! If only they wouldn’t propose I should be all right. Why do they want to go and propose? It spoils everything.”

  Her tone and look were quite injured. She was more indignant than Lord Nunthorp had ever seen her — except once — for the girl was of a most serene disposition. He looked at her kindly, and as admiringly as ever, though rather with the eye of a connoisseur; and he found she had still the most lovely, imperfect, uncommon, and fragrant little face he had ever seen in his life. He said candidly —

  “I really don’t blame them, and I don’t see how you can. If you are to blame anybody, I’m afraid it must be yourself. You must give them some encouragement, Midge, or I don’t think they’d all come to the point as they do. I never saw such sportsmen as they are! They walk in and walk out again one after the other, and they seem to like it—”

  “I wish they did!” Miss Anstruther exclaimed devoutly. “I only wish they’d show me that they liked it; I should have a better time then. They wouldn’t keep making me miserable with their idiotic farewell letters. That’s what they all do. Either they write and call me everything — rudely, politely, sarcastically, all ways — or they say their hearts are broken, and they haven’t the faintest intention of getting over it — in fact, they wouldn’t get over it if they could. That’s enough to make any person feel low, even if you know from experience what to expect. At one time I didn’t dare to look in the paper for fear of seeing their suicides; but I’ve only seen their weddings. They all seem to get over it pretty easily; and that doesn’t make you think much better of yourself, you know. Of course I’m inconsistent!”

  “Of course you are,” said Lord Nunthorp cordially. “I approve of you for it. I’d rather see you an old maid, Midge, than going through life in a groove. Consistency’s a narrow groove for narrow minds! I can do better than this about consistency, Midge; I’m hot and strong on the subject; but you’re not listening.”

  “Ah! cried Miss Anstruther, who had not listened to a word, “they’re driving me crazy, between them! There’s Mr. Willimott, you know, who writes. Of course he had no business to speak to me. There were a hundred things against him at the time — even if I’d cared for him — though he’s getting more successful now. Well, I do believe he’s put me into every story he’s written since it happened! I crop up in some magazine or other every month!”

  “‘Into work the poet kneads them,’” murmured Lord Nunthorp, who was not a professional cricketer. “Well, you needn’t bother yourself about him. You’ve made the fellow. He now draws a heroine better than most men. It’s a pity you don’t take to writing, Midge, you’d draw your heroes better than women do as a rule; for don’t you see that you must know more about us than we know about ourselves?”

  “They wouldn’t be much of heroes!” laughed the girl. “But I heartily wish I did write. Wouldn’t I show up some people, that’s all! It would give me something to do, too; it would keep me out of mischief, and really I’m sick of men and their ridiculous nonsense. And they all say the same thing. If only they wouldn’t say anything at all! Why do they? You might tell me!”

  Nunthorp put on his thinking-cap. “You see, you are quite pretty,” said he.

  “Thanks.”

  “Then you sing like an angel.”

  “Please don’t! That’s what they all say.”

  “Ah, the singing has a lot to do with it; you oughtn’t to sing so well; you should cultivate less expression. And then — I’m afraid you like attention.”

  “Of course I do!”

  “And I’m sure it must be very hard not to be attentive to you,” Lord Nunthorp declared, with a rather brutal impersonality; “for I should fancy you have a way — quite unconscious, mind — of giving your current admirer the idea that he’s the only one who ever held the office!”

  “Thanks,” said she, with perfect good-humour; “that’s a very pretty way of putting it.”

  “Putting what, Midge?”

  “That I’m a hopeless flirt — which is the root of the whole matter, I suppose!”

  She burst out laughing, and he joined her. But there had been a pinch of pathos in her words, and he was weak enough to make a show of contradicting them. She would not listen to him, she laughed at his insincerity. The conversation had broken down, and, as soon as he decently could, he went.

  That was at the very end of a season; and Lord Nunthorp did not see his notorious relative again for some months. In the following February, however, he heard her sing at some evening
party; he had no chance of talking with her properly; but he was glad to find that he could meet her at a dance the next night.

  “Well, Midge!” he was able to say at last, as they sat out together at this dance. “How many proposals since the summer?”

  She gravely held up three fingers. Lord Nunthorp laughed consumedly.

  “Any more scalps?” he inquired.

  This was an ancient pleasantry. It referred to the expensive presents with which some young men had paved their way to disappointment. It was a moot point between Miss Anstruther and her noble kinsman whether she had any right to retain these things. She considered she had every right, protesting that these presents were her only compensation for so many unpleasantnesses. He pretended to take higher ground in the matter. But it amused him a good deal to ask about her “scalps.”

  She told him what the new ones were.

  “And I perceive mine — upon your wrist!” Nunthorp exclaimed, examining her bracelet; and he was genuinely tickled.

  “Well!” said she, turning to him with the frankest eyes, “I’d quite forgotten whose it was — honestly I had!”

  He was vastly amused. So his bracelet — she had absolutely forgotten that it was his — did not make her feel at all awkward. There was a healthy cynicism in the existing relations between these two.

  She had nothing very new to tell him. Two out of the last three had proposed by letter. She confessed to being sick and tired of answering this kind of letter.

  “I’ll tell you what,” said her kinsman, looking inspired, “you ought to have one printed! You could compose a very pretty one, with blanks for the name and date. It would save you a deal of time and trouble. You would have it printed in brown ink and rummy old type, don’t you know, on rough paper with coarse edges. It would look charming. ‘Dear Mr.

  Blank, of course I’m greatly flattered’ — no, you’d say ‘very’— ‘of course I’m very flattered by your letter, but I must confess it astonished me. I thought we were to be such friends?’ Really, Midge, it would be well worth your while!”