CHAPTER IX. ON THE TRAIL.

General Prioleau was not the pleasantest company the morning after the Convent ball. Although commonly counted an easy-going good-natured man, whom nothing seriously ruffled for long, he was this day evidently in the vilest of tempers. No one liked to face him. His wife was well aware of the cause of his anger, and in her own lymphatic way approved it, but the general had given her a very bad quarter of an hour over the whole affair, and had openly told her that if she had shown a little more energy, and had kept a more vigilant eye upon her daughter, any such contretemps as this could not have occurred. Edith was[153] of course in utter disgrace. Her father scowled at her at breakfast as though he thought her guilty of the most heinous court-martial offence, and should be immediately brought to trial. When the aide-de-camp came in he was taken to task for various acts of omission and commission; while the other members of the general’s staff, who brought him documents to discuss and papers to sign, found him utterly impracticable and impossible.

What chafed him most, probably, was that the chief offender was practically beyond the reach of his rage. A general is a great man within the limits of his own command, but his powers are professional merely, and scarcely extend to life and limb. General Prioleau was really able to inflict upon Herbert no stronger mark of his displeasure than to cut him, and snub[154] him, and refuse to grant him leave. He might report unfavourably upon him in the next confidential returns, but only by subordinating his sense of duty to personal pique, a line of conduct abhorrent to an officer and an English gentleman, such as General Prioleau undoubtedly was. What would have pleased him best would have been to order Herbert at once to leave the Rock. Could not Colonel Greathed be persuaded to send this pestilent young fellow to the depot, and keep him out of the way? Then the general remembered that Mr. Larkins was adjutant—and a right good adjutant—and that he could not be transferred to the depot unless he voluntarily resigned the appointment, which he was little likely to do.

‘There is only one way out of it,’ he said at last to his wife. ‘We must send[155] Edith away. She shall go to England, to her aunts, by the very next mail.’

‘You will be the chief sufferer by that. You know you cannot bear to part with the girl, even for an hour. But for that she would have gone to school. I always wished it. If she had, perhaps—’

‘You always wish things when it’s too late to get them,’ replied the general, testily. ‘However she shall go now. I am angry with her and can spare her.’

All arrangements were laid accordingly, and Edith was duly prepared for her journey home. She did not quite object to go away, but she consented with a very bad grace. If this did not tend to mollify the general, he was presently made far more angry by what appeared to be the most audacious pertinacity on the part of her lover.

Just within a day or two of Edith’s[156] departure, Herbert Larkins also applied for leave of absence to proceed to England on very urgent private affairs.

The application had come before the general in the usual way, presented to him as a matter of course with a number of other documents.

‘It’s the most exasperating piece of presumption I ever heard of in all my life. He shall not have it—not an hour!’

‘The commanding officer recommends it, sir; a substitute is named; I really don’t think—’ said the brigade-major, expostulating. It is so unusual a thing for a general officer to refuse leave which is properly backed up and all according to form.

‘What do I care about the colonel? Does he command the brigade, or do I?’

‘Oh, of course it rests with you, sir;[157] still, to refuse it peremptorily and without apparent reasons—’

‘Without reasons, man? Don’t you know that—?’ the general stopped short. His brigade-major probably did not know the family trouble, nor was there reason why he should.

‘Telegraph up for Colonel Greathed to come and see me, as soon as possible,’ the general said, abruptly. ‘I will speak to him personally on the subject.’

The general had cooled down a little by the time Colonel Greathed arrived. He was quite cautious and diplomatic too, speaking first of certain routine matters before he approached the matter he had really at heart.

‘I see your adjutant is asking for leave. Are you sure you can spare him?’

‘Oh, I think so, sir.’

[158]

‘I don’t quite like it, colonel. I have really some hesitation about granting this leave. I should be loth to find fault, but your men are at their spring drills, they want plenty of “setting-up;” they don’t stand to their arms quite as I should like altogether. I’m not finding fault, remember, nothing is further from my mind. Still, the adjutant’s eye is wanted just now, and I don’t feel that it ought to be withdrawn.’

‘He is most anxious to go, sir. Private affairs of some urgency require his personal attention.’

‘He rose from the ranks, I believe; what private affairs could he possibly have?’

‘Perhaps you are not aware, general, of Mr. Larkins’ history—that he is the adopted son of an old lady of rank—’

‘Surely there is no truth in that cock-and-bull story?’

[159]

‘Pardon me, sir, it is perfectly true. I have the pleasure of knowing the old lady—Lady Farrington. Diggle, you may remember, married a Farrington, but of another branch.’

‘But this Mr. Larkins has no claim, I suppose, to the name—nothing more than a left-handed claim, I mean?’

‘I am not so sure. It may be difficult to prove his case; but he has a case, and a good one. At any rate, the old lady is devotedly attached to him, and likes to see him now and again. She has now written pressing him most earnestly to pay her a visit, thinking, I believe, that something of importance is likely to turn up.’

‘Is this why he asks leave? Has he no other reasons?’

‘None that I am aware of, except that he thinks of competing at the next Staff[160] College final examination, and wishes to see what it is like, so as to prepare in good time.’

The general could not well withhold his consent any longer; but he was resolved now to keep Edith by his side. There was, of course, no reason why she should leave the Rock; on the contrary, the chances of meeting Mr. Larkins on board the steamer or in England must be as far as possible avoided. The man was a forward fellow, as reckless as he was presuming; who, it was quite likely, would make opportunities for prosecuting his suit. General Prioleau was little less bitter against Herbert, in spite of what Greathed had told him; he could not possibly bring himself to think of our hero as otherwise than an ineligible and unsatisfactory parti.

Herbert himself was also greatly excited[161] by what had occurred. He had only seen Edith twice since the ball. She was riding on the beach, closely guarded, the general on one side, his aide-de-camp on the other. Herbert had raised his hat, as in duty bound, to his official superior, who returned the salute formally. Captain Mountcharles looked straight to his front, and Edith bowed gravely and sadly, he thought, in the short glimpse he caught of her face. It was war, of course—to the knife. The general’s animosity was all the more plainly shown by his attitude about the leave, for Colonel Greathed had given Herbert an outline of his interview with the chief.

‘I have a very shrewd notion what is wrong with him,’ Greathed said; ‘I don’t want you to tell me more than you choose, Larkins, but I have eyes and ears, and I[162] know pretty well what has been going on.’

‘There is no secret in the matter, sir,’ and Herbert told his colonel exactly what had happened at the ball.

‘You are evidently in earnest, Larkins, and I wish you luck,’ said Greathed, laughing. ‘But I’m not surprised the general was a little put out. And now what do you mean to do?’

‘Stick to it to the last, sir. If I could be only sure that she would wait. But in a place like this, and with a man like Mountcharles always close by,—I shouldn’t be in the least afraid but for that.’

‘It’s a long lane that has no turning. You must make your way in the service; get upon the staff; lose no opportunity of employment. Everything comes to the man who is determined to win. Perhaps[163] that other affair may turn up trumps. Lady Farrington, you say, thinks that some important evidence will soon be forthcoming?’

‘The dear old lady is always thinking that, sir,’ said Herbert with a smile. ‘She’s a little like the boy that cried wolf. There have been so many false alarms that I shan’t believe the real thing if it ever comes to pass.’

‘Have you any idea what she is expecting now?’

‘Not in the least. She gives me only the vaguest hints. I half fancy it is only an affectionate ruse to get me back to England for a time.’

But it was something more than that, as the reader will now see.

Some eleven months had elapsed since the last advertisement had been published,[164] offering a large reward for information concerning the marriage of Herbert Farrington and Annie Orde, but no satisfactory answer had been received. Hope was already failing all but the sanguine old Lady Farrington, who kept on declaring persistently that the right would certainly prosper in the end. As she was the only person who stoutly maintained that proofs of the marriage must certainly be forthcoming, so she was the only one who was not surprised, when one morning a mysterious letter arrived from no one knew where, and sent by no one knew whom.

It was addressed to Mr. Bellhouse, who had long been the family’s solicitor, as well as Lady Farrington’s, and consisted of only a few lines scribbled, on the back of an old invoice for goods:—

‘Those who seek find. Search the[165] registers of the parish of Stickford-le-Clay, in the county of ——. He who was once Herbert Farrington sends this.’

A communication which drove Lady Farrington nearly frantic. It revived, and indeed supported, all her old fancies, that her injured son was still alive. She declared that she recognised his handwriting; she began once more, although a long interval had elapsed, to hear his voice and to see his beloved form in her dreams. She talked incessantly about him and his probable return. Had she not been carefully tended and watched by her own servants, she might have had a very serious relapse.