CHAPTER XV
COLONEL ABINGER TAKES COMMAND
One misty morning, about three weeks after the picnic, Dick foundhimself a prisoner in the quadrangle of Frobisher's Inn. He had risen tocatch an early train, but the gates were locked, and the porter incharge had vanished from his box. Dick chafed, and tore round the Inn insearch of him. It was barely six o'clock; which is three hours aftermidnight in London. The windows of the Inn had darkened one by one,until for hours the black building had slept heavily with only one eyeopen. Dick recognised the window, and saw Rob's shadow cast on its whiteblind. He was standing there, looking up a little uneasily, when theporter tramped into sight.
'Is Mr. Angus often as late as this?' Mary's brother paused to ask atthe gate.
'Why, sir,' the porter answered, 'I am on duty until eight o'clock, andas likely as not he will still be sitting there when I go. His shadow upthere has become a sort of companion to me in the long nights, but Isometimes wonder what has come over the gentleman of late.'
'He is busy, I suppose; that is all,' Dick said sharply.
The porter shook his head doubtfully, like one who knew the ways ofliterary hands. He probably wrote himself.
'Mr. Angus only came in from his office at three o'clock,' he said, 'andyou would think he would have had enough of writing by that time. Youcan see his arm going on the blind though yet, and it won't be out ofhis common if he has another long walk before he goes to bed.'
'Does he walk so late as this?' asked Dick, to whom six in the morningwas an hour of the night.
'I never knew such a gentleman for walking,' replied the porter, 'andwhen I open the gate to him he is off at six miles an hour. I can hearthe echo of his feet two or three streets off. He doesn't look as if hedid it for pleasure either.'
'What else would he do it for?'
'I can't say. He looks as if he wanted to run away from himself.'
Dick passed out, with a forced laugh. He knew that since saying good-byeto Mary at Sunbury Station, Rob had hardly dared to stop working andface the future. The only rest Rob got was when he was striding alongthe great thoroughfares, where every one's life seemed to have a purposeexcept his own. But it was only when he asked himself for what end heworked that he stopped working. There were moments when he could notbelieve that it was all over. He saw himself dead, and the world goingon as usual. When he read what he had written the night before, hewondered how people could be interested in such matters. The editor ofthe _Wire_ began to think of this stolid Scotsman every time there was ahitch in the office, but Rob scarcely noticed that he was makingprogress. It could only mean ten or twenty pounds more a month; and whatwas that to a man who had only himself to think of, and had gathered alibrary on twenty shillings a week? He bought some good cigars, however.
Dick, who was longing for his father's return from the Continent, sothat the responsibility for this miserable business might be transferredto the colonel's shoulders, frequently went into Rob's rooms to comforthim, but did not know how to do it. They sat silently on opposite sidesof the very hearthrug which Mary had once made a remark about--Rob hadlooked interestedly at the rug after she went away--and each thoughtthat, but for the other's sake, he would rather be alone.
What Dick felt most keenly was Rob's increased regard for him. Rob neverspoke of the _Tawny Owl_ without an effort, but he showed that heappreciated Dick's unspoken sympathy. If affairs could have rightedthemselves in that way, Mary's brother would have preferred to be turnedwith contumely out of Rob's rooms, where, as it was, and despite hisfriendship for Rob, he seemed now to be only present on false pretences.Dick was formally engaged to Nell now, but he tried at times to have nopatience with Rob. Perhaps he thought a little sadly in his own roomsthat to be engaged is not all the world.
Dick had hoped that the misunderstanding which parted Rob and Mary atSunbury would keep them apart without further intervention from him.That was not to be. The next time he went to Molesey he was asked why hehad not brought Mr. Angus with him, and though it was not Mary who askedthe question, she stopped short on her way out of the saloon to hear hisanswer.
'He did not seem to want to come,' Dick replied reluctantly.
'I know why Mr. Angus would not come with you,' Nell said to Dick whenthey were alone; 'he thinks Mary is engaged to Sir Clement.'
'Nonsense,' said Dick.
'I am sure of it,' said Nell; 'you know we all thought so that day wewere up the river.'
'Then let him think so if he chooses,' Dick said harshly. 'It is noaffair of his.'
'Oh, it is!' Nell exclaimed. 'But I suppose it would never do, Dick?'
'What you are thinking of is quite out of the question,' replied Dick,feeling that it was a cruel fate which compelled him to act a father'spart to Mary; 'and besides, Mary does not care for him like that. Shetold me so herself.'
'Oh, but she does,' Nell replied, in a tone of conviction.
'Did she tell you so?'
'No, she said she didn't,' answered Nell, as if that made no difference.
'Well,' said Dick wearily, 'it is much better that Angus should not comehere again.'
Nevertheless, when Dick returned to London he carried in his pocket aninvitation to Rob to spend the following Saturday at the _Tawny Owl_. Itwas a very nice note in Mary Abinger's handwriting, and Dick would haveliked to drop it over the Hungerfield Bridge. He gave it to Rob,however, and stood on the defensive.
The note began, 'Dear Mr. Angus, Mrs. Meredith would be very pleased ifyou could----'
The blood came to Rob's face as he saw the handwriting, but it went asquickly.
'They ask me down next Saturday,' Rob said bluntly to Dick, 'but youknow why I can't go.'
'You had better come,' miserable Dick said, defying himself.
'She is to marry Dowton, is she not?' Rob asked, but with no life in hisvoice.
Dick turned away his head, to leave the rest to fate.
'So, of course I must not go,' Rob continued bravely.
Dick did not dare to look him in the face, but Rob put his hand on theshoulder of Mary's brother.
'I was a madman,' he said, 'to think that she could ever have cared forme, but this will not interfere with our friendship, Abinger?'
'Surely not,' said Dick, taking Rob's hand.
It was one of those awful moments in men's lives when they allow, faceto face, that they like each other.
Rob concluded that Mrs. Meredith, knowing nothing of his attachment forMary, saw no reason why he should not return to the house-boat, and thatcircumstances had compelled Mary to write the invitation. His blunderinghonesty would not let him concoct a polite excuse for declining it, andMrs. Meredith took his answer amiss, while Nell dared not say what shethought for fear of Dick. Mary read his note over once, and then wentfor a solitary walk round the island. Rob saw her from the tow-pathwhere he had been prowling about for hours in hopes of catching a lastglimpse of her. Her face was shaded beneath her big straw hat, and nobaby-yacht, such as the Thames sports, ever glided down the river moreprettily than she tripped along the island path. Once her white frockcaught in a dilapidated seat, and she had to stoop to loosen it. Rob'sheart stopped beating for a moment just then. The way Mary extricatedherself was another revelation. He remembered having thought itdelightful that she seldom knew what day of the month it was, and havinglooked on in an ecstasy while she searched for the pocket of her dress.The day before Mrs. Meredith had not been able to find her pocket, andRob had thought it foolish of ladies not to wear their pockets wherethey could be more easily got at.
Rob did not know it, but Mary saw him. She had but to beckon, and inthree minutes he would have been across the ferry. She gave no sign,however, but sat dreamily on the ramshackle seat that patient anglershave used until the Thames fishes must think seat and angler part of thesame vegetable. Though Mary would not for worlds have let him know thatshe saw him, she did not mind his standing afar off and looking at her.Once after that Rob started involuntarily for Molesey, but realisi
ngwhat he was about by the time he reached Surbiton, he got out of thetrain there and returned to London.
An uneasy feeling possessed Dick that Mary knew of the misunderstandingwhich kept Rob away, and possibly even of her brother's share infostering it. If so, she was too proud to end it. He found that if hementioned Rob to her she did not answer a word. Nell's verbalexperiments in the same direction met with a similar fate, and every onewas glad when the colonel reappeared to take command.
Colonel Abinger was only in London for a few days, being on his way toGlen Quharity, the tenant of which was already telegraphing him gloriousfigures about the grouse. Mary was going too, and the Merediths wereshortly to return to Silchester.
'There is a Thrums man on this stair,' Dick said to his father oneafternoon in Frobisher's Inn, 'a particular friend of mine, though Ihave treated him villainously.'
'Ah,' said the colonel, who had just come up from the house-boat, 'thenyou might have him in, and make your difference up. Perhaps he couldgive me some information about the shooting.'
'Possibly,' Dick said; 'but we have no difference to make up, because hethinks me as honest as himself. You have met him, I believe.'
'What did you say his name was?'
'His name is Angus.'
'I can't recall any Angus.'
'Ah, you never knew him so well as Mary and I do.'
'Mary?' asked the colonel, looking up quickly.
'Yes,' said Dick. 'Do you remember a man from a Silchester paper who wasat the castle last Christmas?'
'What!' cried the colonel, 'an underbred, poaching fellow who----'
'Not at all,' said Dick, 'an excellent gentleman, who is to make hismark here, and, as I have said, my very particular friend.'
'That fellow turned up again,' groaned the colonel.
'I have something more to tell you of him,' continued Dickremorselessly. 'I have reason to believe, as we say on the Press whenhard up for copy, that he is in love with Mary.'
The colonel sprang from his seat. 'Be calm,' said Dick.
'I am calm,' cried the colonel, not saying another word, so fearful washe of what Dick might tell him next.
'That would not, perhaps, so much matter,' Dick said, coming to rest atthe back of a chair, 'if it were not that Mary seems to have an equalregard for him.'
Colonel Abinger's hands clutched the edge of the table, and it was not alook of love he cast at Dick.
'If this be true,' he exclaimed, his voice breaking in agitation, 'Ishall never forgive you, Richard, never. But I don't believe it.'
Dick felt sorry for his father.
'It is a fact that has to be faced,' he said, more gently.
'Why, why, why, the man is a pauper!'
'Not a bit of it,' said Dick. 'He may be on the regular staff of the_Wire_ any day now.'
'You dare to look me in the face, and tell me you have encouraged this,this----' cried the colonel, choking in a rush of words.
'Quite the contrary,' Dick said; 'I have done more than I had any rightto do to put an end to it.'
'Then it is ended?'
'I can't say.'
'It shall be ended,' shouted the colonel, making the table groan underhis fist.
'In a manner,' Dick said, 'you are responsible for the whole affair. Doyou remember when you were at Glen Quharity two or three years agoasking a parson called Rorrison, father of Rorrison the warcorrespondent, to use his son's Press influence on behalf of a Thrumsman? Well, Angus is that man. Is it not strange how this has comeabout?'
'It is enough to make me hate myself,' replied the irate colonel, thoughit had not quite such an effect as that.
When his father had subsided a little, Dick told him of what had beenhappening in England during the last month or two. There had been achange of Government, but the chief event was the audacity of a plebeianin casting his eyes on a patrician's daughter. What are politics whenthe pipes in the bath-room burst?
'So you see,' Dick said in conclusion, 'I have acted the part of theunrelenting parent fairly well, and I don't like it.'
'Had I been in your place,' replied the colonel, 'I would have acted ita good deal better.'
'You would have told Angus that you considered him, upon the whole, themeanest thing that crawls, and that if he came within a radius of fivemiles of your daughter you would have the law of him? Yes; but that sortof trespassing is not actionable nowadays; and besides, I don't knowwhat Mary might have said.'
'Trespassing!' echoed the colonel; 'I could have had the law of him fortrespassing nearly a year ago.'
'You mean that time you caught him fishing in the Dome? I only heard ofthat at second-hand, but I have at least no doubt that he fished to someeffect.'
'He can fish,' admitted the colonel; 'I should like to know what flieshe used.'
Dick laughed.
'Angus,' he said, 'is a man with a natural aptitude for things. He doesnot, I suspect, even make love like a beginner.'
'You are on his side, Richard.'
'It has not seemed like it so far, but, I confess, I have certainly hadenough of shuffling.'
'There will be no more shuffling,' said the colonel fiercely. 'I shallsee this man and tell him what I think of him. As for Mary----'
He paused.
'Yes,' said Dick, 'Mary is the difficulty. At present I cannot even tellyou what she is thinking of it all. Mary is the one person I could neverlook in the face when I meditated an underhand action--I remember howthat sense of honour of hers used to annoy me when I was a boy--and so Ihave not studied her countenance much of late.'
'She shall marry Dowton,' said the colonel decisively.
'It is probably a pity, but I don't think she will,' replied Dick. 'Ofcourse you can prevent her marrying Angus by simply refusing yourconsent.'
'Yes, and I shall refuse it.'
'Though it should break her heart she will never complain,' said Dick,'but it does seem a little hard on Mary that we should mar her liferather than endure a disappointment ourselves.'
'You don't look at it in the proper light,' said the colonel, who, likemost persons, made the proper light himself; 'in saving her from thisman we do her the greatest kindness in our power.'
'Um,' said Dick, 'of course. That was how I put it to myself, but justconsider Angus calmly, and see what case we have against him.'
'He is not a gentleman,' said the colonel.
'He ought not to be, according to the proper light, but he is.'
'Pshaw!' the colonel exclaimed pettishly. 'He may have worked himself upinto some sort of position, like other discontented men of his class,but he never had a father.'
'He says he had a very good one. Weigh him, if you like, against Dowton,who is a good fellow in his way, but never, so far as I know, did anhonest day's work in his life. Dowton's whole existence has been devotedto pleasure-seeking, while Angus has been climbing up ever since he wasborn, and with a heavy load on his back, too, most of the time. If hegoes on as he is doing, he will have both a good income and a goodposition shortly.'
'Dowton's position is made,' said the colonel.
'Exactly,' said Dick, 'and Angus is making his for himself. Whateverother distinction we draw between them is a selfish one, and I questionif it does us much credit.'
'I have no doubt,' said the colonel, 'that Mary's pride will make hersee this matter as I do.'
'It will at least make her sacrifice herself for our pride, if youinsist on that.'
Mary's father loved her as he had loved her mother, though he liked tohave his own way with both of them. His voice broke a little as heanswered Dick.
'You have a poor opinion of your father, my boy,' he said. 'I think Iwould endure a good deal if Mary were to be the happier for it.'
Dick felt a little ashamed of himself.
'Whatever I may say,' he answered, 'I have at least acted much as youwould have done yourself. Forgive me, father.'
The colonel looked up with a wan smile.
'Let us talk of your affairs rather,
Richard,' he said. 'I have at leastnothing to say against Miss Meredith.'
Dick moved uncomfortably in his chair, and then stood up, thinking heheard a knock at the door.
'Are you there, Abinger?' some one called out. 'I have something veryextraordinary to tell you.'
Dick looked at his father, and hesitated. 'It is Angus,' he said.
'Let him in,' said the colonel.