CHAPTER V.THE DINNER-PARTYWhen Edith reached home it was to find that Rupert had been engaged all the morning in unpacking his baggage. Now he had just set up the two steles, which, it may be explained for the benefit of the uninitiated, are sepulchral tablets whereon the old Egyptians inscribed the records of their lives, or sometimes prayers. They were massive articles, as Edith had discovered on the previous night, most suitable to their original purpose in a tomb, but somewhat out of place in a very small London drawing-room, perched respectively on a piano and the top-shelf of a Chippendale bookcase.“Don’t they look well, mother?” he was saying.“Yes, dear, yes,” answered Mrs. Ullershaw doubtfully; “but perhaps a little solid and time-worn.”“Time-worn! I should think they are,” he answered. “One of them is about four, and the other three thousand years old, but the more recent—no, not that of the man and his wife seated side by side—the other, is much the more valuable. It comes from Tel-el-Amarna, which, as of course you know, was the city built by the heretic king, Khuen-Aten, and was put up in the tomb of one of the royal princesses. Look at her picture on the top, with the globe of the sun above, and from it the rays ending in hands all stretched out in blessing over her. I’ll translate it to you, if you like.”At this moment there was a most ominous crack, whereon Edith, who had entered unobserved, remarked mildly:“If I were you, Rupert, I should put it on the floor first, for that—Ah! I thought so!”As she spoke, the poor top-shelf buckled and broke, and down came the monument with a crash. Rupert sprang at it, dumb with fear, lifting it in his strong arms as though it were a toy.“Thank Heaven!” he ejaculated, “it isn’t injured.”“No,” said Edith, “but the bookcase is.”Then he set to work to find another place for it, this time, at his mother’s suggestion, on the ground. There remained, however, the Osiris, a really magnificent bronze, between two and three feet in height, which could not possibly be accommodated.“I know,” said Rupert, and shouldering the god, he marched it off downstairs.“Do you think, Cousin Mary,” asked Edith, as she watched him depart with this relic of the past, “that Rupert could be persuaded to remove those two shabby tombstones also?”Mrs. Ullershaw shook her head.“No. Please don’t mention it, dear. He has set his heart on having them here, and says he has been thinking how nice they would look in this room for years. Besides, he would only take them into the dining-room.”“Then let them stay,” answered Edith decidedly. “I can’t eat my dinner before those memorials of the dead. I suppose he has not brought a mummy too.”“It seems that he had one, dear, but was obliged to leave it behind, because they would not have it on board the ship unless he would pay for it at what he calls ‘corpse-rate.’”“There is always something to be thankful for,” said Edith, as she went to take off her hat.When, however, she came down to luncheon, and found the great bronze Osiris standing among the plates on the sideboard, her sense of gratitude was lessened, but as Rupert was delighted with the effect, she made no comment.Whilst they were at their meal a note arrived for Rupert, whose brow puckered at the sight of the handwriting which he remembered well enough.“Who is it from, dear?” asked Mrs. Ullershaw, when he had read it.“Lord Devene,” he answered shortly. “He wants Edith and myself to dine this evening, and says that he has got the Under-Secretary for War, Lord Southwick, to meet me. Of course I can’t go and leave you alone the first night I am at home. I’ll write and say so.”“Let me see the note first, dear. Edith, you read it; I have not got my spectacles.”So she read:Dear Rupert,—Welcome home, and, my dear fellow, a hundred congratulations! You have done splendidly. I hear your praises on all sides, and I am very proud of you. But I want to tell you all this in person. Come and dine to-night with Edith at eight. I have just met Southwick, the Under-Secretary for War, at the club, and he is most anxious to have a private talk with you before you report yourself, so he has put off something or other in order to meet you. I took the liberty of saying that he was sure to do this, as I knew that you could not as yet have made any engagements.—Your affectionate cousin,DEVENE.“I think that you must go, dear,” said his mother.“But I don’t wish to,” Rupert answered, with energy. “I hate dinner-parties.”“Dear, sooner or later you will have to, so why not now? Also Edith would be disappointed.”“Yes, of course,” said that young lady. “I want to meet Lord Southwick. They say he is the greatest bore in London; quite a curiosity in his own line.”Then Rupert gave way, and having sent a verbal acceptance by the footman, for the rest of the luncheon was as solemn as the bronze Osiris on the sideboard.To a man like Rupert that dinner-party was indeed a terrible ordeal. Time had scarcely softened his vivid recollection of that horror of the past, over which he still mourned day by day with the most heart-felt remorse. With a shuddering of the soul he remembered its last dreadful chapter, and now almost he felt as though the book of some new tragedy, in which he must play the leading part, was about to be opened in the fateful company of Lord Devene. Most heartily did he wish himself back in the society of old Bakhita, or even of the Sheik of the Sweet Wells, in the Soudan, or in any other desolate place, so long as it was far from Mayfair. He even regretted having come home; but how could he refuse to do so at his mother’s prayer? Well, it must be faced; escape was impossible, so he set his teeth and prepared to go through with the thing.“Great Heavens, what a man!” reflected Edith to herself, glancing at his stern countenance, as he helped her from the cab that evening. “One might think he was going to execution, not to dinner.”The door—how grateful Rupert felt that it was a different door—opened, and there his gratitude faded, for behind the footman stood that identical spare, sombre-looking man who had told him of Clara’s death. He had not changed in the slightest, Rupert would have known him a hundred yards off; and what was more, it seemed to him that the obsequious smile with which the butler greeted him had a special quality, that the sight of him suggested interesting memories to the smiler. What if this man—bah! the very thought of it made him feel cold down the back.Edith vanished to take off her cloak, and he, who must wait for her, was left alone with that black, smiling demon.“Glad to see you back safe and sound, Colonel,” he said, as he took his coat.“Wish I could say the same,” grunted Rupert involuntarily.The butler thought a little, for this cryptic sentence puzzled him; then taking the point, as he imagined, went on:“Ah! I daresay you feel the changes, sir—in this establishment, I mean. Well,”—and he glanced cautiously, first behind him and then at the powdered footmen by the door, “I am sure you won’t betray me, sir, if I say that so do we. Her second ladyship, sir, isn’t what her first ladyship was,” and he sighed with genuine regret, for most of the servants had been very fond of poor Clara, who always tried to shield them from his lordship’s anger, and was generous. “Her present ladyship, sir, preaches and drives, and makes us read tracts, sir,” he added, with peculiar bitterness, “whereas we loved her first ladyship”—here his voice sank to a whisper—“almost as much as you did, sir.”At this moment, to Rupert’s intense relief, for really his head was swimming beneath the horror of these confidences, the double front doors were thrown wide, and through them walked a stiff, poker-like man wearing an eyeglass, who, he gathered, was Lord Southwick. The butler, whose somewhat saturnine appearance in truth covered an excellent heart, and who really was delighted to see Rupert, if for no other reason, because his late mistress had been so fond of him, was obliged to step forward to take Lord Southwick’s coat. At this moment, too, Edith arrived, looking radiant in a dress of black and silver, saying:“Now, Rupert, I am ready.”“So am I, I am sure,” he answered.“Well, don’t be reproachful, I have not been very long,” and she fixed her gaze upon his head.“Is anything wrong with my hair?” he asked, becoming aware of it.“I don’t know until you take your hat off,” she replied gently, but wondering how long it might be since her distinguished cousin had gone out to dinner.Rupert snatched off the hat and thrust it into the unwilling hands of one of the door footmen, for it was not his business to receive hats. Then, piloted by other footmen who met them at intervals, at length Miss Bonnythorne and Colonel Ullershaw were announced, in stentorian tones, at the threshold of the great drawing-room.On the further side of the apartment two men were leaning against a marble mantel-piece, for the night was chilly, and a small fire burned on the hearth; while at a little distance, engaged apparently in looking straight before her, a placid, handsome-looking woman of stout proportions, with great coils of hair wound about her head, sat upon an Empire sofa, her hands folded upon her plain black dress, which was unrelieved by any jewellery.For a moment Rupert’s recognition of the men was merely automatic, since all his attention was taken up by the splendid mantel-piece that he remembered well, and on which he seemed to see the ghost of Clara leaning as she was wont to do. Yes; it was the same that had stood in her boudoir, moved here as too valuable to be left in the old mansion. He could not mistake those statues which supported the shelf above. A mist gathered before his eyes, and when it cleared he saw Lord Devene advancing on him with outstretched hand, nodding affectionately to Edith as he came.The same man, he thought, only several degrees greyer in tone, and not quite so firm in his walk. Then, in the actual presence of his enemy—for so he felt him to be, now as always—the courage of the conscience-haunted Rupert returned to him, and he determined to play his part to the best of his ability.As he approached, Lord Devene was thinking to himself: “Edith summed him up very well, as usual—a bear, but a fine, right-minded bear who has learnt his lesson once and for all. It is written on his face.” Then he said in the most hearty fashion that he was able to command, though no affectation of cordiality could altogether deaden the brassy ring of that well-remembered voice:“Ah! here you are, punctual as a soldier should be, and very welcome, I can tell you, my dear Rupert. I am delighted to see you back safe and sound, and bringing your sheaves with you in the shape of all sorts of honours,” and taking Rupert’s great, sunburnt palm in his dry hand, he shook it, adding: “Why, what a big fellow you have become in every sense of the word. Don’t ask me to mount you this season.”“Thank you,” said Rupert simply, then fixing on the allusion to his personal appearance as easiest to deal with, went on. “Afraid one is apt to grow stout in Egypt. Can’t get enough exercise, too much sun there. How are you?”Then he stopped, for another voice, also well-remembered, was addressing him, and he turned to see his cousin Dick. Undoubtedly, even at that moment he noticed it, for by constitution and training Rupert was observant, Dick was a very handsome man. The dark and languid eyes looked a little tired, it was true, and the oval face had lost some of its colour. Still, it and the graceful, shapely form remained attractive to behold—at least, so thought many women.“How do you do, my hero of a hundred fights?” said Dick, in the drawling, rather sarcastic voice which had always irritated his cousin as a boy, and still irritated him to-day.“Very well, thank you, Dick,” answered Rupert, “but I’m not a hero, and I have not been in a hundred fights.”“It’s near enough,” said Dick, shaking his hand in a somewhat weary fashion. “A man is what people choose to think of him, the exact facts don’t matter. We have called you the family hero for years, and as our records reveal no other, of course we make the most of you.”“Then please stop calling me so now, there’s a good fellow, for I don’t like it. I am only a very ordinary officer in the Egyptian army.”“The great were ever modest,” answered the exasperating Dick. “Why—” and he fixed his eyes upon his cousin’s rather seedy dress-coat, “I hoped that you would come with all your orders on. Well, we’ll get you to a public dinner where you will have to wear them.”“Stop talking nonsense, Dick,” said Edith sharply, for she saw that Rupert was beginning to grow angry, and feared lest his cousin’s jealous chaff should produce some explosion. “Here are Lord Southwick and the other people at last. Come, Rupert; I want to introduce you to Lady Devene.”So Rupert was introduced to her ladyship, who, awaking from her private meditations, held out her plump hand, looked him in the face with her fine, china-blue eyes, and said, with a German accent:“Ah! you are the Colonel Ullershaw of whom I hear so much, the soldier who has been fighting bravely for the English. I am very glad to see you. I like soldiers; my father was a soldier, but the French killed him at Gravelotte. You are very welcome.”Rupert bowed, and as he did so felt that this lady spoke the truth, and that her greeting was cordial and without reservation. From the beginning he conceived a regard for this German peeress, feeling her to be sound and honest, according to her lights. Then Lord Devene brought up Lord Southwick and introduced him, first to his wife and next to Rupert. After this the other guests claimed attention, and Rupert was able to retire and employ himself in examining the pictures until dinner was announced.To his delight he found that Edith was given to him as a partner.“I am glad,” he said shyly, as they went together down the broad stair. “I never hoped for such luck.”She looked at him innocently and asked: “What luck?”“Why, having to take you down instead of one of those strangers.”“I am sure it is very nice of you to say so, Rupert, and I appreciate it,” she answered, smiling.“Yes,” said the voice of Dick behind them, “but, old fellow, you should pay your compliments in a whisper. Sound travels up these London staircases,” and he and his partner, a pretty and piquante heiress, laughed merrily.“Take no notice of that impertinent Dick,” said Edith as they entered the dining-room; “it is only his way.”“I don’t like his way; I never did,” grumbled Rupert.Nor, to tell the truth, did Edith, who knew well that Dick was furiously jealous, and feared lest he should go too far and show it openly.At dinner Rupert found himself seated on the left of Lady Devene, who was at the head of the table, and opposite to Lord Southwick, who had of course taken her down. Next to Lord Southwick was the pretty heiress, and by her Dick, who therefore sat almost opposite to Edith. With the rest of the company we need not concern ourselves.The dinner went on as dinners in big houses do. After he had drunk some champagne, Dick began to flirt ostentatiously with the pretty heiress, who appeared to be quite equal to the occasion; his object being, as Edith was aware, to make her jealous, or at least angry. Lady Devene, in her German accent, conversed with Lord Southwick about cooking—a subject in which he did not seem to take the slightest interest; while Edith drew on Rupert to tell her of the Soudan and the military operations there in which he had shared. This subject suited him well, and Lord Devene, watching the pair of them from the bottom of the table, soon understood that he was talking in a manner that compelled the respect of her intelligence, since she listened to him intently enough.Although Rupert did not know it, Lord Southwick began to listen also, and having exhausted the subject of entrées, so did Lady Devene.“What was that you said about the advantages of the Suakim-Berber route, Colonel Ullershaw?” asked Lord Southwick, presently fixing his eyeglass upon him.Rupert repeated his remarks.“Hum,” commented Lord Southwick. “Wolseley thought otherwise.”“I did not mean to set up my opinion against that of Lord Wolseley, my lord,” answered Rupert, “it was only a private view I was expressing to Miss Bonnythorne.”“And a very sound view too, in my judgment,” said the Under-Secretary, in the precise, official manner that rarely deserted him; “indeed, events have proved it to be so. Moreover, Colonel Ullershaw, your opinion is undoubtedly entitled to respect. I know it; for after hearing that I was to meet you at dinner, I looked up your record at the War Office and read a private memorandum, which you may remember writing for the information of your superior officers, though perhaps you were not aware that it was forwarded home.”Rupert coloured and muttered that he was not.“I wish that it had been acted on,” continued Lord Southwick, “but it wasn’t, and there’s an end. By the way—it is rather unkind to speak of it—but did you know, Colonel Ullershaw, that you were once recommended for the V.C.—after Tamai where you were wounded?”Rendered absolutely speechless, Rupert shook his head.“Well, you were; and what’s more,” he went on, with a twinkle in his eye, “you would have got it if your name hadn’t happened to begin with a U. You see, the persons recommended of about equal merit or interest were put down alphabetically; and as there were only a certain number of crosses to be given, a fellow whose name began with T got one and you didn’t. It wasn’t my system, I may add, but as the man who was responsible for it is dead, and many things have happened since then, I don’t mind telling the story.”“I am very glad,” blurted out Rupert. “I never did anything to deserve the V.C.”Now this noble Under-Secretary who had been an official all his life—for he succeeded to his peerage in an accidental fashion—who looked like a ramrod, and who was reputed to be such a bore, was yet a man with a kind heart, an appreciation of worth and a sense of justice. Perhaps it was these qualities, or some of them, which caused him to answer:“Well, you know best, and if so, it shows that the alphabetical system works better than might have been expected. But now give me your opinion, and you too, Lady Devene, on this case. An officer posted a picket outside a square. The square was attacked, picket cut off. Result of the attack indecisive, enemy being in possession of the bush about the square. Officer who posted the picket rather badly hurt by a spear through the shoulder—”“I beg you,” broke in Rupert; but Lord Southwick went on imperturbably:“A wounded man crept into the square at night saying that he had survived the massacre of the picket and got through the enemy, but that the sergeant who was stabbed through the leg lay in a clump of bush about six hundred yards away, and had not yet been discovered by the Arabs, who occupied a donga in great force between the camp and the said clump of bush. It being impracticable to send a rescue party, the wounded officer dresses himself up in the jibba and turban of a dead Arab, and thus disguised, gets through the donga, finds the wounded man, and a storm coming on, contrives somehow or other to lead, or rather to carry him back to camp, doing the last hundred yards under a heavy fire both from the Arabs and our own sentries. Now did that officer deserve the Victoria Cross?”“Ach! mein Gott,I should think so,” said the phlegmatic Lady Devene, with a force quite foreign to her nature as it was commonly understood by her surroundings. “What was the name of that brave man? I should like to know it.”“I forget,” answered Lord Southwick, with a stony grin. “Ask Colonel Ullershaw. He may remember the incident.”“Who was it, Rupert?” said Edith, and the whole long table listened for the reply.Then was the Recording Angel forced to add another to the list of Rupert’s crimes, for he lied, and boldly.“I don’t know, I am sure. Never heard of the business; but if it happened at all, I should say that the story has been greatly exaggerated.”A smile and a titter went round the table, and the Under-Secretary grinned again and changed the subject.For fully three minutes Lady Devene was lost in deep meditation. Then suddenly, while her husband was telling some story of grouse-shooting on a Scotch moor, from which they had just returned, she broke in in a loud voice, thumping her heavy hand upon the table:“Himmel!I see it now. It is Lord Southwick’s little joke.Youare that man, Colonel Ullershaw.”Whereat the company broke into a roar of laughter, and Rupert nearly died of shame.The feast was over at last, and Lord Devene came into the hall to bid his guests good-bye.“Well,” asked Edith, as he helped her with her cloak, “you have seen him. What do you say now?”“Excelsior!” he said. “You must climb that difficult height. You must marry him; that is, if you can, which I very much doubt.”“Do you indeed?” answered Edith. “Almost am I minded to try—for the sake of argument. Good-night!”“Didn’t I tell you he was a hero?” sneered Dick, as he led her to the cab. “Poor Edith! I pity you, exposed to the fascinations of such a warrior.”“Do you indeed,” she repeated. “Well, I admit they are rather dangerous.”Meanwhile Lord Southwick had button-holed Rupert by the front door.“I shall expect to see you, Ullershaw, at the War Office, where I wish to introduce you to the Secretary of State,” he was saying. “Would to-morrow at half-past twelve suit you?”Rupert, understanding that he had received an order, answered:“Certainly, my lord, I will be there.”
When Edith reached home it was to find that Rupert had been engaged all the morning in unpacking his baggage. Now he had just set up the two steles, which, it may be explained for the benefit of the uninitiated, are sepulchral tablets whereon the old Egyptians inscribed the records of their lives, or sometimes prayers. They were massive articles, as Edith had discovered on the previous night, most suitable to their original purpose in a tomb, but somewhat out of place in a very small London drawing-room, perched respectively on a piano and the top-shelf of a Chippendale bookcase.
“Don’t they look well, mother?” he was saying.
“Yes, dear, yes,” answered Mrs. Ullershaw doubtfully; “but perhaps a little solid and time-worn.”
“Time-worn! I should think they are,” he answered. “One of them is about four, and the other three thousand years old, but the more recent—no, not that of the man and his wife seated side by side—the other, is much the more valuable. It comes from Tel-el-Amarna, which, as of course you know, was the city built by the heretic king, Khuen-Aten, and was put up in the tomb of one of the royal princesses. Look at her picture on the top, with the globe of the sun above, and from it the rays ending in hands all stretched out in blessing over her. I’ll translate it to you, if you like.”
At this moment there was a most ominous crack, whereon Edith, who had entered unobserved, remarked mildly:
“If I were you, Rupert, I should put it on the floor first, for that—Ah! I thought so!”
As she spoke, the poor top-shelf buckled and broke, and down came the monument with a crash. Rupert sprang at it, dumb with fear, lifting it in his strong arms as though it were a toy.
“Thank Heaven!” he ejaculated, “it isn’t injured.”
“No,” said Edith, “but the bookcase is.”
Then he set to work to find another place for it, this time, at his mother’s suggestion, on the ground. There remained, however, the Osiris, a really magnificent bronze, between two and three feet in height, which could not possibly be accommodated.
“I know,” said Rupert, and shouldering the god, he marched it off downstairs.
“Do you think, Cousin Mary,” asked Edith, as she watched him depart with this relic of the past, “that Rupert could be persuaded to remove those two shabby tombstones also?”
Mrs. Ullershaw shook her head.
“No. Please don’t mention it, dear. He has set his heart on having them here, and says he has been thinking how nice they would look in this room for years. Besides, he would only take them into the dining-room.”
“Then let them stay,” answered Edith decidedly. “I can’t eat my dinner before those memorials of the dead. I suppose he has not brought a mummy too.”
“It seems that he had one, dear, but was obliged to leave it behind, because they would not have it on board the ship unless he would pay for it at what he calls ‘corpse-rate.’”
“There is always something to be thankful for,” said Edith, as she went to take off her hat.
When, however, she came down to luncheon, and found the great bronze Osiris standing among the plates on the sideboard, her sense of gratitude was lessened, but as Rupert was delighted with the effect, she made no comment.
Whilst they were at their meal a note arrived for Rupert, whose brow puckered at the sight of the handwriting which he remembered well enough.
“Who is it from, dear?” asked Mrs. Ullershaw, when he had read it.
“Lord Devene,” he answered shortly. “He wants Edith and myself to dine this evening, and says that he has got the Under-Secretary for War, Lord Southwick, to meet me. Of course I can’t go and leave you alone the first night I am at home. I’ll write and say so.”
“Let me see the note first, dear. Edith, you read it; I have not got my spectacles.”
So she read:
Dear Rupert,—Welcome home, and, my dear fellow, a hundred congratulations! You have done splendidly. I hear your praises on all sides, and I am very proud of you. But I want to tell you all this in person. Come and dine to-night with Edith at eight. I have just met Southwick, the Under-Secretary for War, at the club, and he is most anxious to have a private talk with you before you report yourself, so he has put off something or other in order to meet you. I took the liberty of saying that he was sure to do this, as I knew that you could not as yet have made any engagements.—
Your affectionate cousin,
DEVENE.
“I think that you must go, dear,” said his mother.
“But I don’t wish to,” Rupert answered, with energy. “I hate dinner-parties.”
“Dear, sooner or later you will have to, so why not now? Also Edith would be disappointed.”
“Yes, of course,” said that young lady. “I want to meet Lord Southwick. They say he is the greatest bore in London; quite a curiosity in his own line.”
Then Rupert gave way, and having sent a verbal acceptance by the footman, for the rest of the luncheon was as solemn as the bronze Osiris on the sideboard.
To a man like Rupert that dinner-party was indeed a terrible ordeal. Time had scarcely softened his vivid recollection of that horror of the past, over which he still mourned day by day with the most heart-felt remorse. With a shuddering of the soul he remembered its last dreadful chapter, and now almost he felt as though the book of some new tragedy, in which he must play the leading part, was about to be opened in the fateful company of Lord Devene. Most heartily did he wish himself back in the society of old Bakhita, or even of the Sheik of the Sweet Wells, in the Soudan, or in any other desolate place, so long as it was far from Mayfair. He even regretted having come home; but how could he refuse to do so at his mother’s prayer? Well, it must be faced; escape was impossible, so he set his teeth and prepared to go through with the thing.
“Great Heavens, what a man!” reflected Edith to herself, glancing at his stern countenance, as he helped her from the cab that evening. “One might think he was going to execution, not to dinner.”
The door—how grateful Rupert felt that it was a different door—opened, and there his gratitude faded, for behind the footman stood that identical spare, sombre-looking man who had told him of Clara’s death. He had not changed in the slightest, Rupert would have known him a hundred yards off; and what was more, it seemed to him that the obsequious smile with which the butler greeted him had a special quality, that the sight of him suggested interesting memories to the smiler. What if this man—bah! the very thought of it made him feel cold down the back.
Edith vanished to take off her cloak, and he, who must wait for her, was left alone with that black, smiling demon.
“Glad to see you back safe and sound, Colonel,” he said, as he took his coat.
“Wish I could say the same,” grunted Rupert involuntarily.
The butler thought a little, for this cryptic sentence puzzled him; then taking the point, as he imagined, went on:
“Ah! I daresay you feel the changes, sir—in this establishment, I mean. Well,”—and he glanced cautiously, first behind him and then at the powdered footmen by the door, “I am sure you won’t betray me, sir, if I say that so do we. Her second ladyship, sir, isn’t what her first ladyship was,” and he sighed with genuine regret, for most of the servants had been very fond of poor Clara, who always tried to shield them from his lordship’s anger, and was generous. “Her present ladyship, sir, preaches and drives, and makes us read tracts, sir,” he added, with peculiar bitterness, “whereas we loved her first ladyship”—here his voice sank to a whisper—“almost as much as you did, sir.”
At this moment, to Rupert’s intense relief, for really his head was swimming beneath the horror of these confidences, the double front doors were thrown wide, and through them walked a stiff, poker-like man wearing an eyeglass, who, he gathered, was Lord Southwick. The butler, whose somewhat saturnine appearance in truth covered an excellent heart, and who really was delighted to see Rupert, if for no other reason, because his late mistress had been so fond of him, was obliged to step forward to take Lord Southwick’s coat. At this moment, too, Edith arrived, looking radiant in a dress of black and silver, saying:
“Now, Rupert, I am ready.”
“So am I, I am sure,” he answered.
“Well, don’t be reproachful, I have not been very long,” and she fixed her gaze upon his head.
“Is anything wrong with my hair?” he asked, becoming aware of it.
“I don’t know until you take your hat off,” she replied gently, but wondering how long it might be since her distinguished cousin had gone out to dinner.
Rupert snatched off the hat and thrust it into the unwilling hands of one of the door footmen, for it was not his business to receive hats. Then, piloted by other footmen who met them at intervals, at length Miss Bonnythorne and Colonel Ullershaw were announced, in stentorian tones, at the threshold of the great drawing-room.
On the further side of the apartment two men were leaning against a marble mantel-piece, for the night was chilly, and a small fire burned on the hearth; while at a little distance, engaged apparently in looking straight before her, a placid, handsome-looking woman of stout proportions, with great coils of hair wound about her head, sat upon an Empire sofa, her hands folded upon her plain black dress, which was unrelieved by any jewellery.
For a moment Rupert’s recognition of the men was merely automatic, since all his attention was taken up by the splendid mantel-piece that he remembered well, and on which he seemed to see the ghost of Clara leaning as she was wont to do. Yes; it was the same that had stood in her boudoir, moved here as too valuable to be left in the old mansion. He could not mistake those statues which supported the shelf above. A mist gathered before his eyes, and when it cleared he saw Lord Devene advancing on him with outstretched hand, nodding affectionately to Edith as he came.
The same man, he thought, only several degrees greyer in tone, and not quite so firm in his walk. Then, in the actual presence of his enemy—for so he felt him to be, now as always—the courage of the conscience-haunted Rupert returned to him, and he determined to play his part to the best of his ability.
As he approached, Lord Devene was thinking to himself: “Edith summed him up very well, as usual—a bear, but a fine, right-minded bear who has learnt his lesson once and for all. It is written on his face.” Then he said in the most hearty fashion that he was able to command, though no affectation of cordiality could altogether deaden the brassy ring of that well-remembered voice:
“Ah! here you are, punctual as a soldier should be, and very welcome, I can tell you, my dear Rupert. I am delighted to see you back safe and sound, and bringing your sheaves with you in the shape of all sorts of honours,” and taking Rupert’s great, sunburnt palm in his dry hand, he shook it, adding: “Why, what a big fellow you have become in every sense of the word. Don’t ask me to mount you this season.”
“Thank you,” said Rupert simply, then fixing on the allusion to his personal appearance as easiest to deal with, went on. “Afraid one is apt to grow stout in Egypt. Can’t get enough exercise, too much sun there. How are you?”
Then he stopped, for another voice, also well-remembered, was addressing him, and he turned to see his cousin Dick. Undoubtedly, even at that moment he noticed it, for by constitution and training Rupert was observant, Dick was a very handsome man. The dark and languid eyes looked a little tired, it was true, and the oval face had lost some of its colour. Still, it and the graceful, shapely form remained attractive to behold—at least, so thought many women.
“How do you do, my hero of a hundred fights?” said Dick, in the drawling, rather sarcastic voice which had always irritated his cousin as a boy, and still irritated him to-day.
“Very well, thank you, Dick,” answered Rupert, “but I’m not a hero, and I have not been in a hundred fights.”
“It’s near enough,” said Dick, shaking his hand in a somewhat weary fashion. “A man is what people choose to think of him, the exact facts don’t matter. We have called you the family hero for years, and as our records reveal no other, of course we make the most of you.”
“Then please stop calling me so now, there’s a good fellow, for I don’t like it. I am only a very ordinary officer in the Egyptian army.”
“The great were ever modest,” answered the exasperating Dick. “Why—” and he fixed his eyes upon his cousin’s rather seedy dress-coat, “I hoped that you would come with all your orders on. Well, we’ll get you to a public dinner where you will have to wear them.”
“Stop talking nonsense, Dick,” said Edith sharply, for she saw that Rupert was beginning to grow angry, and feared lest his cousin’s jealous chaff should produce some explosion. “Here are Lord Southwick and the other people at last. Come, Rupert; I want to introduce you to Lady Devene.”
So Rupert was introduced to her ladyship, who, awaking from her private meditations, held out her plump hand, looked him in the face with her fine, china-blue eyes, and said, with a German accent:
“Ah! you are the Colonel Ullershaw of whom I hear so much, the soldier who has been fighting bravely for the English. I am very glad to see you. I like soldiers; my father was a soldier, but the French killed him at Gravelotte. You are very welcome.”
Rupert bowed, and as he did so felt that this lady spoke the truth, and that her greeting was cordial and without reservation. From the beginning he conceived a regard for this German peeress, feeling her to be sound and honest, according to her lights. Then Lord Devene brought up Lord Southwick and introduced him, first to his wife and next to Rupert. After this the other guests claimed attention, and Rupert was able to retire and employ himself in examining the pictures until dinner was announced.
To his delight he found that Edith was given to him as a partner.
“I am glad,” he said shyly, as they went together down the broad stair. “I never hoped for such luck.”
She looked at him innocently and asked: “What luck?”
“Why, having to take you down instead of one of those strangers.”
“I am sure it is very nice of you to say so, Rupert, and I appreciate it,” she answered, smiling.
“Yes,” said the voice of Dick behind them, “but, old fellow, you should pay your compliments in a whisper. Sound travels up these London staircases,” and he and his partner, a pretty and piquante heiress, laughed merrily.
“Take no notice of that impertinent Dick,” said Edith as they entered the dining-room; “it is only his way.”
“I don’t like his way; I never did,” grumbled Rupert.
Nor, to tell the truth, did Edith, who knew well that Dick was furiously jealous, and feared lest he should go too far and show it openly.
At dinner Rupert found himself seated on the left of Lady Devene, who was at the head of the table, and opposite to Lord Southwick, who had of course taken her down. Next to Lord Southwick was the pretty heiress, and by her Dick, who therefore sat almost opposite to Edith. With the rest of the company we need not concern ourselves.
The dinner went on as dinners in big houses do. After he had drunk some champagne, Dick began to flirt ostentatiously with the pretty heiress, who appeared to be quite equal to the occasion; his object being, as Edith was aware, to make her jealous, or at least angry. Lady Devene, in her German accent, conversed with Lord Southwick about cooking—a subject in which he did not seem to take the slightest interest; while Edith drew on Rupert to tell her of the Soudan and the military operations there in which he had shared. This subject suited him well, and Lord Devene, watching the pair of them from the bottom of the table, soon understood that he was talking in a manner that compelled the respect of her intelligence, since she listened to him intently enough.
Although Rupert did not know it, Lord Southwick began to listen also, and having exhausted the subject of entrées, so did Lady Devene.
“What was that you said about the advantages of the Suakim-Berber route, Colonel Ullershaw?” asked Lord Southwick, presently fixing his eyeglass upon him.
Rupert repeated his remarks.
“Hum,” commented Lord Southwick. “Wolseley thought otherwise.”
“I did not mean to set up my opinion against that of Lord Wolseley, my lord,” answered Rupert, “it was only a private view I was expressing to Miss Bonnythorne.”
“And a very sound view too, in my judgment,” said the Under-Secretary, in the precise, official manner that rarely deserted him; “indeed, events have proved it to be so. Moreover, Colonel Ullershaw, your opinion is undoubtedly entitled to respect. I know it; for after hearing that I was to meet you at dinner, I looked up your record at the War Office and read a private memorandum, which you may remember writing for the information of your superior officers, though perhaps you were not aware that it was forwarded home.”
Rupert coloured and muttered that he was not.
“I wish that it had been acted on,” continued Lord Southwick, “but it wasn’t, and there’s an end. By the way—it is rather unkind to speak of it—but did you know, Colonel Ullershaw, that you were once recommended for the V.C.—after Tamai where you were wounded?”
Rendered absolutely speechless, Rupert shook his head.
“Well, you were; and what’s more,” he went on, with a twinkle in his eye, “you would have got it if your name hadn’t happened to begin with a U. You see, the persons recommended of about equal merit or interest were put down alphabetically; and as there were only a certain number of crosses to be given, a fellow whose name began with T got one and you didn’t. It wasn’t my system, I may add, but as the man who was responsible for it is dead, and many things have happened since then, I don’t mind telling the story.”
“I am very glad,” blurted out Rupert. “I never did anything to deserve the V.C.”
Now this noble Under-Secretary who had been an official all his life—for he succeeded to his peerage in an accidental fashion—who looked like a ramrod, and who was reputed to be such a bore, was yet a man with a kind heart, an appreciation of worth and a sense of justice. Perhaps it was these qualities, or some of them, which caused him to answer:
“Well, you know best, and if so, it shows that the alphabetical system works better than might have been expected. But now give me your opinion, and you too, Lady Devene, on this case. An officer posted a picket outside a square. The square was attacked, picket cut off. Result of the attack indecisive, enemy being in possession of the bush about the square. Officer who posted the picket rather badly hurt by a spear through the shoulder—”
“I beg you,” broke in Rupert; but Lord Southwick went on imperturbably:
“A wounded man crept into the square at night saying that he had survived the massacre of the picket and got through the enemy, but that the sergeant who was stabbed through the leg lay in a clump of bush about six hundred yards away, and had not yet been discovered by the Arabs, who occupied a donga in great force between the camp and the said clump of bush. It being impracticable to send a rescue party, the wounded officer dresses himself up in the jibba and turban of a dead Arab, and thus disguised, gets through the donga, finds the wounded man, and a storm coming on, contrives somehow or other to lead, or rather to carry him back to camp, doing the last hundred yards under a heavy fire both from the Arabs and our own sentries. Now did that officer deserve the Victoria Cross?”
“Ach! mein Gott,I should think so,” said the phlegmatic Lady Devene, with a force quite foreign to her nature as it was commonly understood by her surroundings. “What was the name of that brave man? I should like to know it.”
“I forget,” answered Lord Southwick, with a stony grin. “Ask Colonel Ullershaw. He may remember the incident.”
“Who was it, Rupert?” said Edith, and the whole long table listened for the reply.
Then was the Recording Angel forced to add another to the list of Rupert’s crimes, for he lied, and boldly.
“I don’t know, I am sure. Never heard of the business; but if it happened at all, I should say that the story has been greatly exaggerated.”
A smile and a titter went round the table, and the Under-Secretary grinned again and changed the subject.
For fully three minutes Lady Devene was lost in deep meditation. Then suddenly, while her husband was telling some story of grouse-shooting on a Scotch moor, from which they had just returned, she broke in in a loud voice, thumping her heavy hand upon the table:
“Himmel!I see it now. It is Lord Southwick’s little joke.Youare that man, Colonel Ullershaw.”
Whereat the company broke into a roar of laughter, and Rupert nearly died of shame.
The feast was over at last, and Lord Devene came into the hall to bid his guests good-bye.
“Well,” asked Edith, as he helped her with her cloak, “you have seen him. What do you say now?”
“Excelsior!” he said. “You must climb that difficult height. You must marry him; that is, if you can, which I very much doubt.”
“Do you indeed?” answered Edith. “Almost am I minded to try—for the sake of argument. Good-night!”
“Didn’t I tell you he was a hero?” sneered Dick, as he led her to the cab. “Poor Edith! I pity you, exposed to the fascinations of such a warrior.”
“Do you indeed,” she repeated. “Well, I admit they are rather dangerous.”
Meanwhile Lord Southwick had button-holed Rupert by the front door.
“I shall expect to see you, Ullershaw, at the War Office, where I wish to introduce you to the Secretary of State,” he was saying. “Would to-morrow at half-past twelve suit you?”
Rupert, understanding that he had received an order, answered:
“Certainly, my lord, I will be there.”