Lady Athlyne/Chapter 3
In Italy Joy Ogilvie learned to the full, consciously and unconsciously, all the lessons which a younger civilisation can learn from an elder. To the sympathetic there are lessons in everything; every spot that a stranger foot has pressed has something to teach. Especially to one coming from the rush of strenuous life, which is the note of America, the old-world calm and luxury of repose have lessons in toleration which can hardly be otherwise acquired. In the great battle of life we do not match ourselves against individuals but against nations and epochs; and when it is finally borne in on us that others, fashioned as we ourselves and with the same strength and ambitions and limitations, have lived and died and left no individual mark through the gathering centuries, we can, without sacrifice of personal pride, be content to humbly take each his place.
The month spent at and round Naples had been a never-ending dream of delight; and this period of quiescence told on her naturally sensuous nature. Already she had accepted the idea of a man worthy of love; and the time went to the strengthening of the image. There was a subtle satisfactoriness in the received idea; the wealth of her nature had found a market—of a kind. That is to say: she was satisfied to export, and that was the end of her thoughts—for the present. Importation might come later,
"The mind's Rialto hath its merchandise."
None of the family ever alluded to Lord Athlyne in the presence of her father. Each in her own way knew that he would not like the idea; and so the secret—it had by this very reticence grown to be a secret by now—was kept.
On the voyage back to New York Joy's interest in Lord Athlyne became revived by the surroundings. They had not been able to secure cabins in the Cryptic; and so had come by the Hamburg-American Line from Southampton. By this time Aunt Judy's interest in the matter had begun to wane. To her it had been chiefly a jest, with just that spice of earnest which came from the effect which she supposed the episode would have on Joy's life. As Joy did not ever allude to the matter she had almost ceased to remember it.
It was Joy's duty—she thought of it as her privilege—to make her father's morning cocktail which he always took before breakfast. One morning it was brought by Judy. Colonel Ogilvie thanking her asked why he had the privilege of her ministration. Unthinkingly she answered:
"Oh it's all right. The Countess made it herself, but she asked me to take it to you as she is feeling the rolling of the ship and wants to keep in bed."
"The who?" asked the Colonel his brows wrinkled in wonder. "What Countess? I did not know we had one on board."
"Lady Athlyne of course. Oh!" she had suddenly recollected herself. As she saw she was in for an explanation she faced the situation boldly and went on:
"That is the name you know, that we call Joy."
The name you call Joy—the Countess! Lady Athlyne! What on earth do you mean, Judy? I don't understand." In a laughing, offhand way, full of false merriment she tried to explain, her brother-in-law listening the while with increasing gravity. When she had done he said quietly:
"Is this one of your jokes, Judy; or did this Countess make two cocktails? " He stopped and then added: "Forgive me I should not have said that. But is it a joke, dear?"
"Not a bit!" she answered spiritedly. "That is, this particular occasion is not a joke. It is the whole thing that is that."
"A joke to take … Is there a real man of the name of the Earl of Athlyne? "
"I believe so," she said this faintly; she had an idea of what was coming.
"Then Judith I should like some rational explanation of how you come to couple my daughter's name in such a way with that of a strange man. It is not seemly to say the least of it. Does my daughter allow this to be done?"
"Oh Colonel, it is only a joke amongst ourselves. I hope you won't make too much of it."
"Too much of it! I couldn't make enough of it! If the damned fellow was here I'd shoot him!"
"But, my God, the man doesn't know anything about it; no more than you did a minute ago." Miss Judith was really alarmed; she knew the Colonel. He waved his hand as though dismissing her from the argument:
"Don't worry yourself, my dear: this is a matter amongst men. We know how to deal with such things!" He said no more on the subject, but talked during breakfast as usual. When he rose to go on deck Judy followed him timidly. When they were away from the few already on deck she touched him on the arm.
"Give me just a minute?" she entreated.
"A score if you like, my dear!" he answered heartily as he led her to a seat in a sheltered corner behind the saloon skylight, and sat beside her. "What is it? "
"Lucius you have always been very good to me. All these years that I have lived in your house as your very sister you never had a word for me that wasn't kind …" He interrupted her, laying his hand on hers which was on the arm of her deck chair:
"Why else, my dear Judy! You and I have always been the best of friends. And my dear you have never brought anything but sunshine and sweetness into the house. Your merriment has kept care away from us whenever he tried to show his nose … Why my dear what is it? There! You mustn't cry!" As he spoke he had taken out a folded silk pocket-handkerchief and was very tenderly wiping her eyes. Judy went on sobbing a little at moments:
"I have always tried to make happiness, and I have never troubled you with asking favours, have I?"
"No need to ask, Judy. All I have is yours just as it is Sally's or Joy's." Suddenly she smiled, her eyes still gleaming with recent tears:
"I am asking a favour now—by way of a change. Lucius on my honour—and I know no greater oath with you than that—this has been a perfectly harmless piece of fun. It arose from a remark of that nice Irish stewardess on the Cryptic that no one was good enough to marry Joy except one man: the young nobleman whom she had nursed. And she really came to believe that it would come off. She says she has some sort of foreknowledge of things." The Colonel smiled:
"Granted all this, my dear; what is it you want me to do?"
"To do nothing!" she answered quickly. Then she went with some hesitation:
"Lucius you are so determined when you take up an idea, and I know you are not pleased with this little joke. You are mixing it up with honour—the honour that you fight about; and if you go on, it may cause pain to us all. We are only a pack of women, after all, and you mustn't be hard on us."
"Judy, my dear, I am never hard on a woman, am I?"
"No! Indeed you're not," she avowed heartily. "You're the very incarnation of sweetness, and gentleness, and tenderness, and chivalry with them … But then you take it out of the men that cross you!"
"That's as a gentleman should be, I take it" he said, reflectively, unconsciously stroking his white moustache. Then he said briskly:
"Now Judy seriously tell me what you wish me to do or not to do. I must have some kind of clue to your wishes, you know." As she was silent for the moment he went on gravely. "I think I understand, my dear. Be quite content, I take it all for a joke and a joke between us it shall remain. But I must speak to Joy about it. There are some things which if used as subjects for jokes lead to misunderstandings. Be quite easy in your mind. You know I love my daughter too well to give her a moment's pain that I can spare her. Thank you Judy for speaking to me I might have misunderstood and gone perhaps too far. But you know how sensitive—'touchy' Joy calls it—about my name and my family I am; and I hope you will always bear that in mind. And besides my dear, there is the other gentleman to be considered. He too, may have a word to say. As he is a nobleman he ought to be additionally scrupulous about any misuse of his name; and of course I should have to resent any implication made by him against any member of my family!"
"Good Lord!" said Judy to herself, as he stood up and left her with his usual courtly bow. What a family to deal with. This poor little joke is as apt to end in bloodshed as not. The Colonel is on the war-path already; I can see that by his stateliness!"
Colonel Ogilvie thought over the matter for a whole day before he spoke to Joy; he was always very grave and serious regarding subjects involving honour and duty.
Joy knew that he had something on his mind from his abstraction, and rather kept out of his way. This was not on her own account for she had no idea that she was involved in the matter, but simply because it was her habit to sympathise with him and to think of and for him. She was just a little surprised when the next afternoon he said to her as they stood together at the back of the wheel-house over the screw, the quietest place on the ship for a talk:
"Joy dear, I want you to listen to me a minute."
"Yes, Daddy!"
"About that joke you had on the Cryptic."
"Yes, Daddy." She was blushing furiously; she understood now.
"My dear, I don't object to your having any little harmless romance of that kind. I don't suppose it would make any difference if I did. A young girl will have her dreaming quite independent of her old daddy. Isn't it so, little girl?"
"I suppose so, dear Daddy, since you say it." She nestled up close to him comfortably as she spoke: this was nicer talk than she expected.
"But there is one thing that you must be careful about: There must be no names!"
"How do you mean, Daddy?"
"I gather that there has been a joke amongst some of you as to calling you the Countess or Lady Athlyne, or some of that kind of foolishness. My dear child, that is not right. You are not the Countess, nor Lady Athlyne, nor Lady anything. A name my dear when it is an honourable one is a very precious possession. A woman must cherish the name she does possess as a part of her honour."
"I am proud of my name, Father, very, very proud of it; and I always shall be!" She had drawn herself upright and had something of her father's splendid personal pride. The very use of the word 'Father' instead of 'Daddy' showed that she was conscious of formality.
"Quite right, little girl. That is your name now; and will in a way always be. But you may marry you know; and then your husband's name will be your name, and you will on your side be the guardian of his honour. We must never trifle with a name, dear. Those people who go under an alias are to my mind the worst of criminals."
"Isn't that rather strong, Daddy, when murder and burglary and theft and wife-beating and cheating at cards are about!" She felt that she was through the narrow place now and could go back to her raillery. But her father was quite grave. He walked up and down a few paces as though arranging his thoughts and words. When he spoke he did so carefully and deliberately:
"Not so, little girl. These, however bad they may be, are individual offences and are punished by law. But a false name—even in jest, my dear—is an offence against society generally, and hurts and offends every one. And in addition it is every one of the sins you have named; and all the others in the calendar as well."
"How on earth do you make out that, Daddy?"
"Take them in order as you mentioned them. Murder, burglary, theft, wife-beating, cheating at cards! What is murder? Killing without justification! Does not one who approaches another in false guise kill something? The murderer takes the life; the other kills what is often more than life: self respect, belief in human nature, faith. One only kills the body; but the other kills the soul. Burglary and theft are the same offence differently expressed; theft is the meaner crime that is all. Well, disguise is the thief's method. Sometimes he relies on absence of others, sometimes on darkness, sometimes on a mask, sometimes on the appearance or identity of some one else. But he never deals with the normal condition of things; pretence of some kind must always be his aid. The man, therefore, who relies on pretence, when he knows that the truth would be his undoing, is a thief."
"Daddy you argue as well as a Philadelphia lawyer!"
"I don't believe much in lawyers!" said the old man dryly. "As to wife-beating!"
"I'm afraid you've struck a snag there, Daddy! There isn't much pretence about that crime, anyhow!"
"Not at all, my dear. That comes within the category of murder. The man who descends to that abominable crime would kill the woman if he dared. He is a coward as well as a murderer, and should be killed like a mad dog!"
"Bravo! Daddy. I wish there was a man like you to deal with them in every county. But how about cheating at cards. That's a poser, I think!"
"No trouble about that, Joy. It is cheating at cards."
"How do you argue that out, Daddy?"
"Any game of cards is a game of honour. So many cards, so much skill in playing them according to the recognised rules of the game; and, over all, a general belief in the honour of all the players. I have seen a man shot across a handkerchief—in honourable duel, my dear—for hesitating markedly at poker when he stood pat on a 'full house.' That was pretence, and against the laws of honour; and he paid for it with his life." Joy wrinkled her brows; "I see it's quite wrong, father, but I don't quite see how it fits into the argument," she said.
"That is simple enough, daughter. As I say, it is a pretence. Don't you see that after all a game of cards is a simple thing compared with the social life of which it is only an occasional episode. If a man,—or a woman either, Joy—misleads another it must be with some intention to deceive. And in that deception, and by means of it, there is some gain—something he or she desires and couldn't otherwise get. Isn't that plain enough!"
"All right, Father; I quite see. I understand now what you mean. I did not ever look at things in quite that way. Thank you very much, dear, for warning me so kindly too. I'll stop the joke, and not allow it to go on—so far as I can stop it."
"How do you mean? Does anyone else know it?"
"I may have written to one or two girls at home, Daddy. You know girls are always fond of such foolishness."
"Had you not better write to them and tell them not to mention it."
"Good Gracious! Why you dear, old goose of a Daddy it is evident you don't know girls. That would be the very way to make things buzz. Oh no! we'll simply drop it; and they'll soon forget it. I may have to tell them something else, though, to draw them away from it."
"Hm!" said her father. She looked at him with a sly archness:
"I suppose, Daddy, it wouldn't do to have it that an Italian Grand Duke proposed for me—to you of course!"
"Certainly not, Miss Impudence! I'm not to be drawn into any of your foolish girls' chatter. There, run away and let me smoke in peace!" She turned away, but came back.
"Am I forgiven, Daddy?"
"Forgiven! Lord bless the child, why there's nothing to forgive. I only caution. I know well that my little girl is clear grit, straight through; and I trust her as I do myself. Why Joy, darling" he put his arm affectionately round her shoulder "you are my little girl! The only one I have or ever shall have; and so, God willing, you shall be to me to the end."
"Thank you dear, dear Daddy. And I pray so too. I shall always be your little girl to you and shall come to you to cheer you or to be comforted myself. Mother has of late taken to treating me like a grown-up which she always keeps firing off at me so that I don't know whether I am myself or not. But whatever I am to anyone else, I never shall be anything to you but your 'little girl!'"
And that compact was sealed then and there with a kiss.
Nine months later whilst Colonel Ogilvie was in the library of his own house, "Air" in Airlville, Joy came in and closed the door carefully; she came close and whispered:
"Am I still your little girl, Daddy?"
"Always my dear! always!"
"Then you don't mind having a secret with me?"
"Mind my dear! I love it. What is it you want to tell me?" She took a folded newspaper from her pocket and handed it to him, saying:
"I came across this in the New York Tribune. Read it!" Colonel Ogilvie turned it over with a rueful look as he said:
"The whole of it!"
"Oh Daddy, don't be tiresome; of course not." Her father's face brightened:
"Then you read what you want me to know. Your eyes are better than mine!" Joy at once began to read:
"From our own Correspondent, Capetown. Some details of the lamentable occurrence at de Hooge's Spruit which was heliographed from the front yesterday have now come to hand. It appears that a battery of field artillery was ordered to proceed from Bloomgroot to Neswick escorted by a Squadron of mixed troops taken from the Scottish Horse and the Mounted Yeoman. When they had begun to cross the river, which here runs so rapidly that great care has to be observed lest the horses should be swept away, a terrific fusillade from an entrenched force of overwhelming numbers was opened on them. Colonel Seawright who commanded ordered a retreat until the disposition of the enemy could be ascertained. But before the manœuvre could be effected the British force was half wiped out. Accurate fire had been concentrated on the artillery horses, and as the guns were all on the river bank ready for the crossing it was impossible to rescue them. Gallant efforts were made by the gunners and the cavalry escort, but in the face of the hail of bullets the only result was a terrible addition to the list of killed and wounded. Seeing that the ground was partly clear, a number of Boers crept out of cover and tried to reach the guns. At this our troops made another gallant effort and the Boers disappeared. Still it was almost hopeless to try to save the guns. One only of the battery was saved and this by as gallant an effort on the part of one young officer as has been as yet recorded in the war. Captain Lord Athlyne" Here Joy looked up for an instant and saw a frown suddenly darken her father's brow—"who was tentatively in command of a yeomanry troop took a great coil of rope one end of which was held by some of his men. When he was ready he rode for the guns at a racing pace, loosing the rope as he went. It was a miracle that he came through the terrific fire aimed at him by the Boer sharp-shooters. Having gained the last gun, behind which there was a momentary shelter, he attached the end of the rope. Then mounting again he swept like a hurricane across the zone of fire. There was a wild cheer from the British, and a number of horsemen began to ride out whilst the firing ran along the front of the waiting line. But the instant the rope was attached the men began to pull and the gun actually raced along the open space. In the middle of his ride home the gallant Irishman's cap was knocked off by a bullet. He reined up his charger, dismounted and picked up the cap and dusted it with his handkerchief before again mounting. Despite their wounds and the chagrin of defeat the whole force cheered him as he swept into the lines.
"Daddy I call that something like a man! Don't you?" Her colour was high and her eyes were blazing. She looked happy when her father echoed her enthusiasm:
"I do! daughter. That was the action of a gallant gentleman!" There was a silence of perhaps half a minute. Then Colonel Ogilvie spoke:
"But why, my dear, did you tell this to me?"
"I had to tell some one, Daddy. It is too splendid to enjoy all one's self; and I was afraid if I told Mother she might not understand—she's only a woman you know, and might put a wrong construction on my telling her, and so worry herself about me. And I didn't dare to tell Aunt Judy, for she's so chock full of romance that she would have simply gone crazy and chaffed me out of all reason. There is no holding back Aunt Judy when she is chasing after a romance! And besides, Daddy dear" here she took his arm and looked up in his face "I wanted you to know that Lord Athlyne is a gentleman." Her father frowned:
"Why should I know—or care?"
"Not on your own part Daddy—but—but only because I want you to. It is hard to explain, but I think you took a prejudice against him from the first; and you see it makes it less awkward to be coupled with a man's name, when the name and the man are good ones." The Colonel's frown was this time one of puzzlement.
"I'm afraid I don't understand. You never saw the man. Why should you dislike less to be coupled with him because he did a brave thing? Besides, the whole thing is mere nonsense."
"Of course it is. Daddy. All nonsense. But it is better to be good nonsense than bad nonsense!"
"Look here daughter—my little girl—I'm afraid you have got or may get too fond of thinking of that fellow. Take care!"
"Oh, that's all right. Daddy. He is only an abstraction to me. But somehow he interests me. Don't you be worrying about me. I promise you solemnly that I will tell you everything I hear about him. Then you can gauge my feelings, and keep tab of my folly."
"All right; little girl! There can't be anything very dangerous when you tell your father all about it."
It was three months before Joy mentioned the name of Lord Athlyne again to her father. One morning she came to him as he sat smoking in the garden at Air. Her eyes were glistening, and she walked slowly and dejectedly. In her hand she held a copy of the New York Tribune. She held it out, pointing with her finger to a passage.
"Read it for me, little girl!" In answer she said with a break in her voice:
"You read it, Daddy. Don't make me. It hurts me; and I should only break down. It is only a dream I know; but it is a sad dream and is over all too soon!" Colonel Ogilvie read the passage which was an account of the fighting at Durk River in which numbers of the British were carried away by the rapid stream, the hale and those wounded by the terrible fire of the Boers alike. The list of the missing was headed by a name he knew.
"Major the Earl of Athlyne, of the Irish Hussars."
The old gentleman rose up as stiff as at the salute and raised his hat reverently as he said:
"A very gallant gentleman. My heart is with you, my little girl! A dream it may have been; but a sad ending to any dream!"
A week after Joy sought her father again in the garden. This time her step was buoyant, her face radiant, and her eyes bright. The moment her father saw he felt that it had something to do with what he called in his own mind "that infernal fellow." When she was close to him she said in a low voice that thrilled:
"He is not dead. Daddy! He was wounded and carried down the river and was captured by the Boers and taken up to Pretoria. They have put him in the Birdcage. Beasts! It's all here in the Tribune."
Colonel Ogilvie was distinctly annoyed. When he could look on Lord Athlyne as dead he could admire his bravery, and even tolerate the existence that had been. But this chopping and changing—this being dead and coming to life again—was disturbing. What sort of fellow was he that couldn't make up his mind on any subject? Couldn't he remain dead like a gentleman? He had died like one; wasn't that enough! Joy saw that he was not pleased. She was too glad for the moment to take her father's attitude to heart; but every instinct in her told her not to remain. So she laid the paper on his knee and said quietly:
"I'll leave it with you, Daddy. You can read it yourself; it's worth reading. You are glad, I know, because your little girl is glad that there is one more brave man in the world."
Just as she was going her father called her back. When she was close he said in a kindly manner but with great gravity:
"No more mentioning names now, little girl!" She put her finger to her lip as registering a vow of secrecy. Then she blew a kiss at him and tripped away.