Complete Works of a E W Mason

by A. E. W. Mason

  “You are very glad of that,” said Durrance, quietly. “Very glad that Ethne has not forgotten him. It is a little hard on me, perhaps, who have not much left. It would have been less hard if two years ago you had told me the whole truth, when I asked it of you that summer evening in the courtyard of the club.”

  Compunction seized upon Lieutenant Sutch. The gentleness with which Durrance had spoken, and the quiet accent of weariness in his voice, brought home to him something of the cruelty of his great joy and pride. After all, what Durrance said was true. If he had broken his word that night at the club, if he had related Feversham’s story, Durrance would have been spared a great deal.

  “I couldn’t!” he exclaimed. “I promised Harry in the most solemn way that I would tell no one until he came back himself. I was sorely tempted to tell you, but I had given my word. Even if Harry never came back, if I obtained sure knowledge that he was dead, even then I was only to tell his father, and even his father not all that could be told on his behalf.”

  He pushed back his chair and went to the window. “It is hot in here,” he said. “Do you mind?” and without waiting for an answer he loosed the catch and raised the sash. For some little while he stood by the open window, silent, undecided. Durrance plainly did not know of the fourth feather broken off from Ethne’s fan, he had not heard the conversation between himself and Feversham in the grill-room of the Criterion Restaurant. There were certain words spoken by Harry upon that occasion which it seemed fair Durrance should now hear. Compunction and pity bade Sutch repeat them, his love of Harry Feversham enjoined him to hold his tongue. He could plead again that Harry had forbidden him speech, but the plea would be an excuse and nothing more. He knew very well that were Harry present, Harry would repeat them, and Lieutenant Sutch knew what harm silence had already done. He mastered his love in the end and came back to the table.

  “There is something which it is fair you should know,” he said. “When Harry went away to redeem his honour, if the opportunity should come, he had no hope, indeed he had no wish, that Miss Eustace should wait for him. She was the spur to urge him, but she did not know even that. He did not wish her to know. He had no claim upon her. There was not even a hope in his mind that she might at some time be his friend — in this life, at all events. When he went away from Ramelton, he parted from her, according to his thought, for all his mortal life. It is fair that you should know that. Miss Eustace, you tell me, is not the woman to withdraw from her pledged word. Well, what I said to you that evening at the club I now repeat. There will be no disloyalty to friendship if you marry Miss Eustace.”

  It was a difficult speech for Lieutenant Sutch to utter, and he was very glad when he had uttered it. Whatever answer he received, it was right that the words should be spoken, and he knew that, had he refrained from speech, he would always have suffered remorse for his silence. None the less, however, he waited in suspense for the answer.

  “It is kind of you to tell me that,” said Durrance, and he smiled at the lieutenant with a great friendliness. “For I can guess what the words cost you. But you have done Harry Feversham no harm by speaking them. For, as I told you, Ethne has not forgotten him; and I have my point of view. Marriage between a man blind like myself and any woman, let alone Ethne, could not be fair or right unless upon both sides there was more than friendship. Harry must return to England. He must return to Ethne, too. You must go to Egypt and do what you can to bring him back.”

  Sutch was relieved of his suspense. He had obeyed his conscience and yet done Harry Feversham no disservice.

  “I will start to-morrow,” he said. “Harry is still in the Soudan?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why of course?” asked Sutch. “Willoughby withdrew his accusation; Castleton is dead — he was killed at Tamai; and Trench — I know, for I have followed all these three men’s careers — Trench is a prisoner in Omdurman.”

  “So is Harry Feversham.”

  Sutch stared at his visitor. For a moment he did not understand, the shock had been too sudden and abrupt. Then after comprehension dawned upon him, he refused to believe. The folly of that refusal in its turn became apparent. He sat down in his chair opposite to Durrance, awed into silence. And the silence lasted for a long while.

  “What am I to do?” he said at length.

  “I have thought it out,” returned Durrance. “You must go to Suakin. I will give you a letter to Willoughby, who is Deputy-Governor, and another to a Greek merchant there whom I know, and on whom you can draw for as much money as you require.”

  “That’s good of you, Durrance, upon my word,” Sutch interrupted; and forgetting that he was talking to a blind man he held out his hand across the table. “I would not take a penny if I could help it; but I am a poor man. Upon my soul it’s good of you.”

  “Just listen to me, please,” said Durrance. He could not see the outstretched hand, but his voice showed that he would hardly have taken it if he had. He was striking the final blow at his chance of happiness. But he did not wish to be thanked for it. “At Suakin you must take the Greek merchant’s advice and organise a rescue as best you can. It will be a long business, and you will have many disappointments before you succeed. But you must stick to it until you do.”

  Upon that the two men fell to a discussion of the details of the length of time which it would take for a message from Suakin to be carried into Omdurman, of the untrustworthiness of some Arab spies, and of the risks which the trustworthy ran. Sutch’s house was searched for maps, the various routes by which the prisoners might escape were described by Durrance — the great forty days’ road from Kordofan on the west, the straight track from Omdurman to Berber and from Berber to Suakin, and the desert journey across the Belly of Stones by the wells of Murat to Korosko. It was late before Durrance had told all that he thought necessary and Sutch had exhausted his questions.

  “You will stay at Suakin as your base of operations,” said Durrance, as he closed up the maps.

  “Yes,” answered Sutch, and he rose from his chair. “I will start as soon as you give me the letters.”

  “I have them already written.”

  “Then I will start to-morrow. You may be sure I will let both you and Miss Eustace know how the attempt progresses.”

  “Let me know,” said Durrance, “but not a whisper of it to Ethne. She knows nothing of my plan, and she must know nothing until Feversham comes back himself. She has her point of view, as I have mine. Two lives shall not be spoilt because of her. That’s her resolve. She believes that to some degree she was herself the cause of Harry Feversham’s disgrace — that but for her he would not have resigned his commission.”

  “Yes.”

  “You agree with that? At all events she believes it. So there’s one life spoilt because of her. Suppose now I go to her and say: ‘I know that you pretend out of your charity and kindness to care for me, but in your heart you are no more than my friend,’ why, I hurt her, and cruelly. For there’s all that’s left of the second life spoilt too. But bring back Feversham! Then I can speak — then I can say freely: ‘Since you are just my friend, I would rather be your friend and nothing more. So neither life will be spoilt at all.’”

  “I understand,” said Sutch. “It’s the way a man should speak. So till Feversham comes back the pretence remains. She pretends to care for you, you pretend you do not know she thinks of Harry. While I go eastwards to bring him home, you go back to her.”

  “No,” said Durrance, “I can’t go back. The strain of keeping up the pretence was telling too much on both of us. I go to Wiesbaden. An oculist lives there who serves me for an excuse. I shall wait at Wiesbaden until you bring Harry home.”

  Sutch opened the door, and the two men went out into the hall. The servants had long since gone to bed. A couple of candlesticks stood upon a table beside a lamp. More than once Lieutenant Sutch had forgotten that his visitor was blind, and he forgot the fact again. He lighted both candles and held out one to his c
ompanion. Durrance knew from the noise of Sutch’s movements what he was doing.

  “I have no need of a candle,” he said with a smile. The light fell full upon his face, and Sutch suddenly remarked how tired it looked and old. There were deep lines from the nostrils to the corners of the mouth, and furrows in the cheeks. His hair was grey as an old man’s hair. Durrance had himself made so little of his misfortune this evening that Sutch had rather come to rate it as a small thing in the sum of human calamities, but he read his mistake now in Durrance’s face. Just above the flame of the candle, framed in the darkness of the hall, it showed white and drawn and haggard — the face of an old worn man set upon the stalwart shoulders of a man in the prime of his years.

  “I have said very little to you in the way of sympathy,” said Sutch. “I did not know that you would welcome it. But I am sorry. I am very sorry.”

  “Thanks,” said Durrance, simply. He stood for a moment or two silently in front of his host. “When I was in the Soudan, travelling through the deserts, I used to pass the white skeletons of camels lying by the side of the track. Do you know the camel’s way? He is an unfriendly, graceless beast, but he marches to within an hour of his death. He drops and dies with the load upon his back. It seemed to me, even in those days, the right and enviable way to finish. You can imagine how I must envy them that advantage of theirs now. Good night.”

  He felt for the bannister and walked up the stairs to his room.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  GENERAL FEVERSHAM’S PORTRAITS ARE APPEASED

  LIEUTENANT SUTCH, THOUGH he went late to bed, was early astir in the morning. He roused the household, packed and repacked his clothes, and made such a bustle and confusion that everything to be done took twice its ordinary time in the doing. There never had been so much noise and flurry in the house during all the thirty years of Lieutenant Sutch’s residence. His servants could not satisfy him, however quickly they scuttled about the passages in search of this or that forgotten article of his old travelling outfit. Sutch, indeed, was in a boyish fever of excitement. It was not to be wondered at, perhaps. For thirty years he had lived inactive — on the world’s half-pay list, to quote his own phrase; and at the end of all that long time, miraculously, something had fallen to him to do — something important, something which needed energy and tact and decision. Lieutenant Sutch, in a word, was to be employed again. He was feverish to begin his employment. He dreaded the short interval before he could begin, lest some hindrance should unexpectedly occur and relegate him again to inactivity.

  “I shall be ready this afternoon,” he said briskly to Durrance as they breakfasted. “I shall catch the night mail to the Continent. We might go up to London together; for London is on your way to Wiesbaden.”

  “No,” said Durrance, “I have just one more visit to pay in England. I did not think of it until I was in bed last night. You put it into my head.”

  “Oh,” observed Sutch, “and whom do you propose to visit?”

  “General Feversham,” replied Durrance.

  Sutch laid down his knife and fork and looked with surprise at his companion. “Why in the world do you wish to see him?” he asked.

  “I want to tell him how Harry has redeemed his honour, how he is still redeeming it. You said last night that you were bound by a promise not to tell him anything of his son’s intention, or even of his son’s success until the son returned himself. But I am bound by no promise. I think such a promise bears hardly on the general. There is nothing in the world which could pain him so much as the proof that his son was a coward. Harry might have robbed and murdered. The old man would have preferred him to have committed both these crimes. I shall cross into Surrey this morning and tell him that Harry never was a coward.”

  Sutch shook his head.

  “He will not be able to understand. He will be very grateful to you, of course. He will be very glad that Harry has atoned his disgrace, but he will never understand why he incurred it. And, after all, he will only be glad because the family honour is restored.”

  “I don’t agree,” said Durrance. “I believe the old man is rather fond of his son, though to be sure he would never admit it. I rather like General Feversham.”

  Lieutenant Sutch had seen very little of General Feversham during the last five years. He could not forgive him for his share in the responsibility of Harry Feversham’s ruin. Had the general been capable of sympathy with and comprehension of the boy’s nature, the white feathers would never have been sent to Ramelton. Sutch pictured the old man sitting sternly on his terrace at Broad Place, quite unaware that he was himself at all to blame, and on the contrary, rather inclined to pose as a martyr, in that his son had turned out a shame and disgrace to all the dead Fevershams whose portraits hung darkly on the high walls of the hall. Sutch felt that he could never endure to talk patiently with General Feversham, and he was sure that no argument would turn that stubborn man from his convictions. He had not troubled at all to consider whether the news which Durrance had brought should be handed on to Broad Place.

  “You are very thoughtful for others,” he said to Durrance.

  “It’s not to my credit. I practise thoughtfulness for others out of an instinct of self-preservation, that’s all,” said Durrance. “Selfishness is the natural and encroaching fault of the blind. I know that, so I am careful to guard against it.”

  He travelled accordingly that morning by branch lines from Hampshire into Surrey, and came to Broad Place in the glow of the afternoon. General Feversham was now within a few months of his eightieth year, and though his back was as stiff and his figure as erect as on that night now so many years ago when he first presented Harry to his Crimean friends, he was shrunken in stature, and his face seemed to have grown small. Durrance had walked with the general upon his terrace only two years ago, and blind though he was, he noticed a change within this interval of time. Old Feversham walked with a heavier step, and there had come a note of puerility into his voice.

  “You have joined the veterans before your time, Durrance,” he said. “I read of it in a newspaper. I would have written had I known where to write.”

  If he had any suspicion of Durrance’s visit, he gave no sign of it. He rang the bell, and tea was brought into the great hall where the portraits hung. He asked after this and that officer in the Soudan with whom he was acquainted, he discussed the iniquities of the War Office, and feared that the country was going to the deuce.

  “Everything through ill-luck or bad management is going to the devil, sir,” he exclaimed irritably. “Even you, Durrance, you are not the same man who walked with me on my terrace two years ago.”

  The general had never been remarkable for tact, and the solitary life he led had certainly brought no improvement. Durrance could have countered with a tu quoque, but he refrained.

  “But I come upon the same business,” he said.

  Feversham sat up stiffly in his chair.

  “And I give you the same answer. I have nothing to say about Harry Feversham. I will not discuss him.”

  He spoke in his usual hard and emotionless voice. He might have been speaking of a stranger. Even the name was uttered without the slightest hint of sorrow. Durrance began to wonder whether the fountains of affection had not been altogether dried up in General Feversham’s heart.

  “It would not please you, then, to know where Harry Feversham has been, and how he has lived during the last five years?”

  There was a pause — not a long pause, but still a pause — before General Feversham answered: —

  “Not in the least, Colonel Durrance.”

  The answer was uncompromising, but Durrance relied upon the pause which preceded it.

  “Nor on what business he has been engaged?” he continued.

  “I am not interested in the smallest degree. I do not wish him to starve, and my solicitor tells me that he draws his allowance. I am content with that knowledge, Colonel Durrance.”

  “I will risk your anger, General,
” said Durrance. “There are times when it is wise to disobey one’s superior officer. This is one of the times. Of course you can turn me out of the house. Otherwise I shall relate to you the history of your son and my friend since he disappeared from England.”

  General Feversham laughed.

  “Of course, I can’t turn you out of the house,” he said; and he added severely, “But I warn you that you are taking an improper advantage of your position as my guest.”

  “Yes, there is no doubt of that,” Durrance answered calmly; and he told his story — the recovery of the Gordon letters from Berber, his own meeting with Harry Feversham at Wadi Halfa, and Harry’s imprisonment at Omdurman. He brought it down to that very day, for he ended with the news of Lieutenant Sutch’s departure for Suakin. General Feversham heard the whole account without an interruption, without even stirring in his chair. Durrance could not tell in what spirit he listened, but he drew some comfort from the fact that he did listen and without argument.

  For some while after Durrance had finished, the general sat silent. He raised his hand to his forehead and shaded his eyes as though the man who had spoken could see, and thus he remained. Even when he did speak, he did not take his hand away. Pride forbade him to show to those portraits on the walls that he was capable even of so natural a weakness as joy at the reconquest of honour by his son.