"Not so much as I ought. I love him, of course, for his father"s sake: but in features he takes after his mother very strikingly, and that--on the few occasions I have seen him--chilled me. It is wrong, I know; and no doubt with more opportunity I should have grown very fond of him. Sometimes I tax myself, Harry, with being frail in my affections: they require renewing with a sight of--of their object.
That is why we are keeping our birthdays together to-day."
She smiled at me, almost archly, putting out a hand to rest it on mine, which lay on my knee; then suddenly the smile wavered, and her eyes began to brim; I saw in them, as in troubled water, broken images of a hundred things I had known in dreams; and her arm was about my neck and I nestled against her.
"Dear Harry! Dear boy!"
I cannot tell how long we sat there: certainly until the ships hung out their riding-lights and the May stars shone down on us.
At whiles we talked, and at whiles were silent: and both the talk and the silences (if you will not laugh) held some such meanings as they hold for lovers. More than ever she was not the Miss Plinlimmon I remembered, but a strange woman, coming forth and revealing herself with the stars. She actually confessed that she loathed porridge!-- "though for example"s sake, you know, I force myself to eat it.
I think it unfair to compel children to a discipline you cannot endure with them."
She parted with me under the moonlit Citadel, at the head of a by-lane leading to the Trapps" cottage. "I shall not write often, or see you," she said. "It is seldom that I get a holiday or even an hour to myself, and we will not unsettle ourselves"--mark, if the child could not, the n.o.ble condescension--"in our duties that are perhaps the more blessed for being stern. But a year hence for certain, if spared, we will meet. Until then be a gentleman always and--I may ask it now--for my sake."
So we parted, and for a whole year I saw nothing of her, nor heard except at Christmas, when she sent me a closely written letter of six sheets, of which I will transcribe only the poetical conclusion:
"Christmas comes but once a year: And why? we well may ask.
Repine not. We are probably unequal To a severer task."
CHAPTER V.
THE SHADOW OF ARCHIBALD.
It is not only children who, having once tasted bliss, suppose fondly that one has only to prepare a time and place for it again and it can be repeated. But he must be a queer child who starts with expecting any less. Certainly no doubts a.s.sailed me when the anniversary came round and I made my way to Mr. Tucker"s Bun Shop; nor did Miss Plinlimmon"s greeting lack anything of tenderness. She began at once to talk away merrily: but children are demons to detect something amiss, and there was a note in her gaiety which somehow did not sound in key. After a while she broke off in the middle of a sentence and sat stirring her tea, as with a mind withdrawn; recovered herself, and catching at her last words, continued--but on a different subject; then, reading some puzzlement in my eyes, exclaimed abruptly, "My dear Harry, you have grown beyond knowledge!"
"Were you thinking of that?" I asked, for I had heard it twice already.
She answered one question with another. "Of what were _you_ thinking?"
I hesitated, for in truth I had been thinking how much older she had grown. A year is a long time to a child, but it did not account to me for a curious wanness in her colour. Her hair was greyer, too, and there were dark rings under her eyes. "You seem different somehow, Miss Plinlimmon."
"Do I? The Hospital has been wearing me out, of late. I have thought sometimes of resigning and trying my fortune elsewhere: but the thought of the children restrains me. I make many mistakes with them--perhaps more as the years go on: they love me, however, for they know that I mean well, and it would haunt me if they fell into bad hands. Now I am not sure that Mr. Scougall would choose the best successor. Before he married I could have trusted his judgment."
She fell a-musing again. "Archibald is here in Plymouth," she added inconsequently. "My nephew, you know."
I nodded, and asked, "Is he quartered here?"
"Why, how did you know he was in the Army?"
"You told me Major Arthur was saving up to buy him a commission."
"How well you remember!" she sighed. "Alas! no: the debts were too heavy. Archibald is in the Army, but he has enlisted as a private, in the 105th, the North Wilts Regiment. His father advised it: he says that, in these days, commissions are to be won by young men content to begin in the ranks; and the lad has (I believe) a good friend in Colonel Festonhaugh, who commands the North Wilts. He and Arthur are old comrades in arms. But garrison life does not suit the poor boy, or so he complains. He is a little sore with his father for subjecting him to it, and cannot take his stern view about paying the debts. That is natural enough, perhaps." She heaved another sigh. "His regiment--or rather the second battalion, to which he belongs--was ordered down to Plymouth last January, and since then has been occupied with drill and petty irritating duties at which he grumbles sorely--though I believe there is a prospect of their being ordered out to Portugal before long."
"You see him often?" I asked.
She seemed to pause a moment. "Yes; oh, yes to be sure, I see him frequently. That is only natural, is it not?"
We left the shop and strolled towards the Hoe. I felt that something was interfering to spoil our day; and felt unreasonably sure of it on finding our old seat occupied by three soldiers--two of them supporting a drunken comrade. We made disconsolately for an empty bench, some fifty yards away.
"They belong to Archibald"s regiment," said Miss Plinlimmon as we settled ourselves to talk. I had noted that she scanned them narrowly. "Why, here _is_ Archibald!" she exclaimed: and I looked up and saw a young red-coat sauntering towards us.
Her tone, I was jealously glad to observe, had not been entirely joyous. And Master Archibald, as he drew near, did not seem in the best of tempers. He was beyond all doubt a handsome youth, and straight-limbed; but apparently a sullen one. He kept his eyes on the ground and only lifted them for a moment when close in front of us.
"Good afternoon, aunt."
"Good afternoon, Archibald. This is Harry--my friend of whom you have heard me speak."
He glanced at me with a curt nod. I could see that he considered me a nuisance. An awkward silence fell between the three of us, broken at length by a start and a smothered exclamation from Miss Plinlimmon.
Archibald glanced over his shoulder carelessly. "Oh, yes," said he, "they are baiting a bull down yonder."
The ridge hid the bull-ring from us. Dogs had been barking there when we seated ourselves, but the noise held no meaning for us.
It was the bull"s roar which had startled Miss Plinlimmon.
"Pray let us go!" She gathered her shawl about her in a twitter.
"This is quite horrible!"
"There"s nothing to be afraid of," he a.s.sured her. "The brute"s tied fast enough. Don"t go, aunt: I want a word with you."
He glowered at me again, and this time with meaning. I saw that he wished me gone, and I moved to go.
"This is Harry"s birthday. I am keeping it with him: his birthday as well as mine, Archibald."
"Gad, I forgot! I"m sorry, aunt--Many happy returns of the day!"
"Thank you," said she drily. "And now if you particularly wish to speak to me, I will walk with you, but only a short way. Harry shall find another seat."
As they walked away side by side, I turned my head to look for a bench farther removed from the bull-ring; and so became aware of another soldier, in uniform similar to Mr. Archibald"s, stretched p.r.o.ne on the turf a few paces behind me.
When I stood up and turned to have a look at him, his head had dropped on his arms and he appeared to be sleeping. But I could have sworn that when I first caught sight of him he had been gazing after the pair.
Well, there was nothing in this (you will say) to disturb me; yet for some reason it made me alert, if not uneasy. I chose another seat, but at no great distance, and kept him in view. He raised his head once, stared around like one confused and not wholly awake, and dropped into slumber again. Miss Plinlimmon and Archibald turned and came pacing back; turned again and repeated this quarter-deck walk three or four times. He was talking, and now and then using a slight gesture. I could not see that she responded. At any rate, she did not turn to him. But the man on the gra.s.s occupied most of my attention, and I missed the parting. An odd fancy took me to watch if he stirred again while I counted a hundred. He did not, and I shifted my gaze to find Miss Plinlimmon coming towards me unescorted.
Archibald had disappeared.
Her eyes were red, and her voice trembled a little. "And now," said she, "that"s enough of my affairs, please G.o.d!" She began to put questions about the Trapps. And while I answered them I happened to look along the flat stretch of turf to the right, in time to see, at perhaps a hundred yards" distance, a soldier cross it from behind and go hurrying down the slope towards the bull-ring. I recognised him at a glance. He was the black-avised man who had pretended to be sleeping.
Almost at once, as I remember it--but I dare say some minutes had pa.s.sed--a furious hubbub arose below us, mixed with the yelling of dogs and a few sharp screams. And, before we knew what it meant, at the point where the black-avised man had disappeared, he came scrambling back, found his legs and headed desperately towards us, with a bull behind him in full chase.
I managed to drag Miss Plinlimmon off the bench, thrust her like a bundle beneath it, and scrambled after her into shelter but a second or two before the pair came thundering by; for the bull"s hooves shook the ground; and so small a s.p.a.ce--ten or twelve yards at the most--divided him from the man, that they pa.s.sed in one rush, and with them half a dozen bulldogs hanging at the brute"s heels as if trailed along by an invisible cord. Next after these pelted Master Archibald, shouting and tugging at his side-arm; and after him again, but well in the rear, a whole rabble of bull-baiters, butchers, soldiers, boys and mongrels, all yelping together with excitement and terror, the men flourishing swords and pitchforks.
To speak of the man first.--I have since seen soldiers crazed and running in battle, but never such a face as pa.s.sed me in that brief vision. His lips were wide, his eyes strained and almost starting from his head, the pupils turned a little backward as if fascinated by the terror at his heels, imploring help, seeking a chance to double--all three together--and yet absolutely fixed and rigid.
The bull made no account of us, though below the seat I caught the light of his red eye as he plunged past, head to ground and so close that his hot breath smote in our faces and the broken end of rope about the base of his horns whipped the gra.s.s by my fingers.
Perhaps the red coat attracted his rage. But he seemed to nurse a special grudge against the man.
This appeared when, a stone"s-throw beyond our seat, the man sprang sideways to the left of his course--in the nick of time, too, for as he sprang he seemed to clear the horns by a bare foot. The bull"s heavier rush carried him forward for several yards before he swerved himself on to the new line of pursuit; and this let up Master Archibald, who by this time had his side-arm loose.
"Ham-string "en!" yelled a blue-shirted butcher, pausing beside us and panting. "Quick, you fool--ham-string "en!"