CHAPTER V. A MOMENTOUS QUESTION.

The Dowager Lady Farrington, after long years of grief and sorrow, had chanced at last upon happier days. Her cup of bliss seemed filled now to overflowing. To be free once more, released from the hateful asylum, with its painful associations and unbroken restraint, was in itself a great joy; that Herbert was restored to her was a yet greater delight, but greatest of all was the knowledge that her heart had not misled her, and that she had rightly recognised him as the offspring of her own ill-used and long-lost boy. Herbert had told her the story as he had had it from Mrs. Larkins, and the statement—although it[80] lacked formal legal proof—was more than sufficient to satisfy her ladyship’s mind. She was, indeed, only too eager to believe it. But had any doubt remained, it would have been more than removed, so she declared, by the living Herbert’s extraordinary resemblance to the one that was dead and gone.

‘As I look at you now, a full-grown man, I seem to see my own poor son once more,’ cried the old lady, with tears of joy in her eyes. ‘You have his face, his features, all his ways. Even the colour of your hair and of your eyes is the same. You are a Farrington, every inch; I know it, I feel it, and everybody else shall own it also, and at once.’

Nothing would please her but that he should assume, without loss of time, the Farrington name and arms.

[81]

‘No, not yet,’ he pleaded; ‘I am not entitled to them.’

‘Are you not my grandson? Who shall gainsay that?’

‘I know it, and I glory in it; but still the case is not satisfactorily proved. Besides, if I am to take the name of Farrington at all, it can only be as the head of the house.’

‘You are Sir Herbert Farrington, at this very moment.’

‘I ought to be, perhaps. But you will admit that to say so positively at present would be quite premature. It would not be in very good taste either, and I had much rather let things stay as they are.’

To this Lady Farrington eventually assented, but not with the best grace in the world.

‘At any rate, everyone shall know that[82] I recognise and adopt you,’ she said, with all a woman’s pertinacity. ‘You may be called Mr. Larkins, but you are the son of this house. All I have is yours, now if you wish it, and absolutely so after I am gone.’

And to prove her words she sought, in spite of his protestations, to load him with rich gifts. Her ladyship happily had ample funds at her disposal. Whatever sinister motives may have actuated Sir Rupert in locking her up, he had behaved with scrupulous honesty towards her effects. As the appointed administrator, he had full power over every penny of hers, but he never misappropriated one. No sooner was Lady Farrington at large, than he rendered an exact account of his stewardship to Mr. Bellhouse, and the balance he handed over was very satisfactory indeed. Out of this Lady Farrington wished to make large[83] settlements at once upon Herbert, contenting herself with her jointure, which would amply suffice for all her needs as before. But she attached a condition that he should retire forthwith from the profession in which he had first begun to climb, and reside with her, devoting himself also to the great emprise of fully establishing his claims.

It was a severe struggle for the young man: On the one side, gratitude to the kind benefactress who had done so much for him impelled him to accept the offer she so generously made; on the other, his affection for the service in which he had already begun to rise urged him as strongly to reject the conditions she wished to impose. At any rate, he begged for time. There was no need to decide in a hurry. He had still six months’ leave to run; something might turn up to support his case—some[84] answers to the advertisement, some news of the missing marriage lines. Lady Farrington consented gladly enough. All she asked was that he should remain always at her side. This time was spent in London, whither the pair had come immediately after Lady Farrington’s discharge. Farrington Court was hateful to her, she declared, and for obvious reasons; it was too near the Hall, too near the monster who had cast a cloud over the last half-dozen years of her life; too full of memories she desired now to shut out for ever. London, with its varied interests and amusements, its busy life, and stirring ways, was more calculated to suit Lady Farrington’s temper than a semi-conventual seclusion in a lonely and nearly empty country place. Mr. Bellhouse had therefore secured a snug house in a Mayfair street, a thoroughfare noisy[85] with carriages, gay and lively always with people passing continually to and fro. Here Miss Ponting had also been installed as lady’s-maid, a very wise precaution, which served to keep Lady Farrington always quiet. ‘The Boy’ was also one of the household. He had given himself his discharge the day after the great scene at the asylum, having done the business entrusted to him, and wishing to avoid any altercation with the angry and suspicious chief. Hanlon’s position in Vaughan-street was not at first quite clearly defined; but, beginning as hall-porter, he lapsed first into general factotum, and then into Herbert’s body-servant and own particular man. His appointment was rather a sinecure; beyond cleaning his master’s boots, to which he gave a lustre which was the envy of every shoeblack whom Herbert passed in the streets, and[86] pipeclaying his kid gloves, for want of anything better on which to try his hand, he had not the slightest idea of the duties of a valet; and Herbert had as little knowledge of what he should ask Hanlon to do. But the two talked constantly together of old times; they compared notes of past experiences, discussed old comrades, cross-questioned each other, and wound up by expressing their unbounded and unshaken opinion that there never was and never would be such a corps in any army in the civilised world as the Duke’s Own. When they came to this point Herbert’s heart grew heavy, and he sought to change the conversation. ‘The Boy,’ after a little, saw this.

‘Faith, sir’—he was most religiously respectful nowadays—‘you jib and shirk whenever we come to talk of the old corps. You’re as bad as the colonel when a Goojerat[87] day came twice in the same week. What’s up, sir? You’re not going to turn your back upon the old corps?’

‘That’s just where it is, Joe. Lady Farrington wants me to retire and live always with her.’

‘And you that’s only just got your commission, sir, and that’ll be adjutant when you please, and a staff officer, and a field officer, and a general officer, and all sorts of officers rolled into one, before you be got a grey hair. G’long with you, sir! It’s the wildest, maddest—well, no, that’s not a pleasant word to use in this house. But you mustn’t do it, sir; you mustn’t do it. Only this blessed day did I see the captain—Greathed—him that’s colonel now, you know; and he axes after you; and sez he, is he pretty stout? sez he; and sez I, he is that, sez I; and I’ll be coming to see him,[88] sez he; and I hope he will, this very day, sez I, for it’s a folly to talk to him, sez I; which it is, sez he; I mean, sez I—but I’m fairly bothered, like Johnny Raw at recruits’ drill.’

There was no doubt that Herbert, although he fought against it, was chafing much at his present life. If it was to be all like this he would willingly, in preference, return to ‘sentry-go.’ Lady Farrington’s kindness was great and unceasing of course. She never tired of expressing her affection, and this in something more substantial than mere words. He had carte blanche at the best tailor’s, a park hack, and as much money as he could spend. For a time all this was pleasant enough. It was his first experience of London; and no young man in funds is likely to find London dull. But it is possible to exhaust its amusements[89] after a time, especially when one has no special pursuits and no hankering after shady places and not too reputable ways. There was no vice in Herbert, although he was by no means a milksop or a prig. But he knew too well what was due to himself to lapse into the inanities which prove so often irresistible to other young men. It did not satisfy him to bet, and haunt the theatres, and loaf about the Burlington Arcade. Other and more rational ways of employing his time he certainly found in visiting exhibitions, seeing the sights, and more especially in frequenting the United Service Institution, where he devoted himself for several hours of every day to the continued study of the profession he was doomed probably, and unhappily for him, soon to leave. Often enough too he satisfied his military cravings by attending the[90] Guard mounting at St. James’s Palace; he was weak enough sometimes to accompany a volunteer regiment on its way to the park for drill, keeping step almost intuitively, and enjoying the whole thing far more than anyone in the crowd.

But all these did not half suffice to exhaust his native energy, developed and increased as it had been by his recent active life. He panted continually for more to do. He grew more and more hipped and out of joint. He was so lonely too. Under the peculiar circumstances of his early career it was little likely that he would have many acquaintances of his own age. He might perhaps hunt up a few of his old Deadham school friends, but school friends in after life do not run up against each other much, unless they have been at Eton, Harrow, or the like, and belong of right to the great[91] world. He had no club as yet; no military comrades even. He had so recently passed across the great gulf which divides the commissioned officer from the rank and file, that he had not been accepted by the one, although he had left the other altogether behind.

Nevertheless, he kept his own counsel, and would not for the world betray to Lady Farrington that he was not perfectly contented with his lot. It would have been but a poor requital for all her kindness, he said, and he must put the best face upon the matter. Even that greater and far keener trial, which was daily growing closer and closer, when he would have to cut himself finally adrift from his much-loved profession, he would have faced, as he had met other really greater trials, like a man.

But he was spared this, mainly through[92] Colonel Greathed, and indirectly, also, through ‘the Boy.’ The first came without delay to see Herbert, but it was the latter who had induced him to come. Naturally, he was introduced to Lady Farrington, who welcomed him very cordially as one of Herbert’s early patrons and friends.

‘It has been a rough experience for my grandson,’ said the old lady, who always spoke of Herbert openly as a relation, ‘but it will, no doubt, have been for his good. At any rate, it is over now, and Herbert will live like a gentleman for the rest of his life.’

‘An officer and a gentleman, I trust,’ said Colonel Greathed, laying some stress on the first word.

‘No, not exactly; he has promised me that he will leave the service at once.’

‘He will be taken up and shot as a deserter[93] the very next day,’ said the colonel with mock seriousness.

But the old lady took the statement au pied de la lettre.

‘You don’t really mean that?’ she asked, nervously.

‘Of course not,’ put in Herbert.

‘I mean that he is, and must always be, a soldier—at heart. It’s in him, part of his nature, and he can’t put it off like a slipper or a coat.’

Lady Farrington looked hard at the colonel, as if to grasp his meaning more thoroughly, then turned her eyes interrogatively upon Herbert.

‘You have never said a word of this, Herbert, my sweet boy. You have expressed no regrets, have offered no objections—?’

Herbert hung his head rather, and hesitated to speak.

[94]

‘Can it be possible that I have prayed you to take a step which is distasteful to you? Selfish old wretch that I am!’

‘No, no, grandmother, it is not so. I would do this and far more to gratify your slightest wish. I will leave the service gladly; I don’t care to remain in it, I don’t indeed.’

‘Herbert, I cannot quite trust to what you say. I shall ask Colonel Greathed to tell me the exact truth. Will you leave us alone together, and come back in half an hour?’

Her ladyship pressed the colonel very closely. She begged him to speak openly and without reserve. In order to invite confidence, she detailed the whole of the circumstances connected with Herbert’s birth and parentage. She enlarged upon his possible prospects, and the importance[95] of his always being at home to advance them. What she scarcely referred to, brave old soul! was the pleasure she would derive from his constant companionship.

‘If you ask my advice, Lady Farrington,’ said Colonel Greathed, ‘I should say leave him to follow his profession. It will be no hindrance to him in prosecuting his claims; and should these fail, as I apprehend is just possible, he may nevertheless achieve an excellent position for himself. His bent is so strongly marked; he is so promising a young soldier; he has already done so well; he is, I firmly believe, so keen and eager to continue in his career that I think it would be unfair to himself, to his friends, to the country he serves, to baulk him and turn him aside.’

Lady Farrington was much moved.[96] Her eyes were full of tears, and she could hardly speak.

‘It will pain you, I fear, to part with him. You will miss him greatly, I have no doubt. Still such partings are only short-lived, and when they are for a young man’s good—’

‘You are right, Colonel Greathed, and I am half ashamed of myself for my selfish weakness, but I can hold out no longer.’

She wiped her eyes and sent for Herbert.

‘It is settled, and in the way to please you best, I feel sure. You shall continue in the calling you have chosen, my brave boy. It must and shall be so. I have not many years to live, but I pray God will spare me until I see you righted I hope, but at any rate on the high road to fame.’

She kissed him tenderly on the forehead, as if to sign the agreement thus.

[97]

‘But you will not leave me just yet,’ she said, almost piteously. ‘He need not go back to the regiment directly, Colonel Greathed?’

‘Certainly not; not till October, when we embark for Gibraltar again. I shall want him to take the adjutancy then.’