With Kitchener in the Soudan: A Story of Atbara and Omdurman

"Of course, it is necessary that we should be most cautious. We have, for upwards of a hundred years, been solicitors to the family; and as such have contested all applications, from the junior branch of the family, that the title should be declared vacant by the death of the last Marquis, who would be your uncle. We have been the more anxious to do so, as we understand the next claimant is a young man of extravagant habits, and in no way worthy to succeed to the title."

"I will return in an hour and a half, sir," Gregory said, rising. "I may say that the contents of this pocketbook, although intensely interesting to myself, as a record of my father, do not bear upon the title. They are a simple record of his life, from the time when the army of Hicks Pasha was destroyed, to the date of his own murder at Hebbeh. The last entry was made before he landed. I mention this, as it may save you time in going through the papers."

Gregory went out, and spent the time in watching the wonderful flow of traffic, and gazing into the shops; and when he returned to the office, he was at once shown in. Mr. Tufton rose, and shook him warmly by the hand.

"I consider these documents to be absolutely conclusive, my lord," he said. "The letters to your grandfather, uncle, and aunts are conclusive as to his identity; and that of your mother, strengthened by the two affidavits, is equally conclusive as to your being his son. I will take the necessary measures to lay these papers before the court, which has several times had the matter in hand, and to obtain a declaration that you have indisputably proved yourself to be the son of the late Gregory Hilliard Hartley, and therefore entitled to the title and estates, with all accumulations, of the Marquis of Langdale."

"Thank you very much, sir! I will leave the matter entirely in your hands. Can you tell me the address of my aunts? As you will have seen, by my father's letter, he believed implicitly in their affection for him."

"Their address is, The Manor House, Wimperton, Tavistock, Devon. They retired there at the accession of their brother to the title. It has been used as a dower house in the family for many years; and, pending the search for your father, I obtained permission for them to continue to reside there. I was not obliged to ask for an allowance for them, as they had an income, under their mother's marriage settlement, sufficient for them to live there in comfort.

"I will not give you the letter addressed to them, as I wish to show the original in court; but I will have a copy made for you, at once, and I will attest it.

"Now, may I ask how you are situated, with regard to money? I have sufficient confidence in the justice of your claim to advance any sum, for your immediate wants."

"Thank you, sir! I am in no need of any advance. My mother's savings amounted to five hundred pounds, of which I only drew fifty to buy my outfit, when I went up to the Soudan. My pay sufficed for my wants there, and I drew out the remaining four hundred and fifty pounds when I left Cairo; so I am amply provided."

Gregory remained four days in London, obtaining suitable clothes. Then, attended by Zaki, he took his place in the Great Western for Tavistock. Zaki had already picked up a good deal of English, and Gregory talked to him only in that language, on their way down from the battlefield; so that he could now express himself in simple phrases.

Mr. Tufton had on the previous day written, at Gregory's request, to his aunts; saying that the son of their brother had called upon him, and given him proofs, which he considered incontestable, of his identity and of the death of his father. He was the bearer of a letter from his father to them, and proposed delivering it the next day, in person. He agreed with Gregory that it was advisable to send down this letter, as otherwise the ladies might doubt whether he was really what he claimed to be, as his father's letter might very well have come into the hands of a third person.

He went down by the night mail to Tavistock, put up at an hotel; and, after breakfast, drove over to the Manor House, and sent in a card which he had had printed in town. He was shown into a room where the two ladies were waiting for him. They had been some four or five years younger than his father, a fact of which he was not aware; and instead of being elderly women, as he expected, he found, by their appearance, they were scarcely entering middle age. They were evidently much agitated.

"I have come down without waiting for an invitation," he said. "I was anxious to deliver my father's letter to you, or at least a copy of it, as soon as possible. It was written before his death, some eighteen years ago, and was intended for my mother to give to you, should she return to England. Its interest to you consists chiefly in the proof of my father's affection for you, and that he felt he could rely on yours for him. I may say that this is a copy, signed as correct by Mr. Tufton. He could not give me the original, as it would be required as an evidence of my father's identity, in the application he is about to make for me to be declared heir to the title."

"Then Gregory has been dead eighteen years!" the elder of the ladies said. "We have always hoped that he would be alive, in one of the colonies, and that sooner or later he would see the advertisement that had been put in the papers."

"No, madam. He went out to Alexandria with my mother, shortly before I was born. He died some three or four years before his brother. It was seldom my mother saw an English paper. Unfortunately, as it turned out, my father had dropped his surname when he accepted a situation, which was a subordinate one, at Alexandria; and his reason for taking it was that my mother was in weak health, and the doctor said it was necessary she should go to a warm climate; therefore, had any of her friends seen the advertisement, they would not have known that it applied to her. I, myself, did not know that my proper name was Hartley until a year back, when I discovered my father's journal at Hebbeh, the place where he was murdered; and then opened the documents that my mother had entrusted to me, before her death, with an injunction not to open them until I had ascertained, for certain, that my father was no longer alive."

One of the ladies took the letter, and opened it. They read it together.

"Poor Gregory!" one said, wiping her eyes, "we were both fond of him, and certainly would have done all in our power to assist his widow. He was nearer our age than Geoffrey. It was a terrible grief to us, when he quarrelled with our father. Of course our sympathies were with Gregory, but we never ventured to say so; and our father never mentioned his name, from the day he left the house. Why did not your mother send his letter to us?"

"Because she did not need assistance. She was maintaining herself and me in comfort by teaching music, French, and English to the wives and children of several of the high Egyptian officials."

"How long is it since you lost her?"

"More than three years ago. At her death, I was fortunate enough to obtain an appointment similar to that my father had, and at the same time a commission in the Egyptian service; and have been fortunate in being, two or three times, mentioned in despatches."

"Yes; curiously enough, after receiving Mr. Tufton's letter, we saw Colonel Wingate's despatch in the paper, in which your name is mentioned. We should have been astonished, indeed, had we not opened the letter before we looked at the paper.

"Well, Gregory, we are very glad to see you, and to find that you have done honour to the name. The despatch said that you have been previously mentioned, under the name of Gregory Hilliard. We always file our papers, and we spent an hour after breakfast in going through them. I suppose you threw up your appointment, as soon as you discovered that Geoffrey died, years ago, and that you had come into the title?"

"I should have thrown it up, but Lord Kitchener was good enough to give me six months' leave; so that, if I should fail to prove my right to the title, I could return there and take up my work again. He was so kind as to say that I should be given a responsible position, in the civil administration of the Soudan."

"Well, we both feel very proud of you; and it does sound wonderful that, being under twenty, you should have got on so well, without friends or influence. I hope you intend to stay with us, until you have to go up to London about these affairs."

"I shall be very happy to stay a few days, Aunt; but it is better that I should be on the spot, as there may be questions that have to be answered, and signatures, and all sorts of things.

"I have brought my Arab servant down with me. He has been with me for three years, and is most faithful and devoted; and moreover, he once saved my life, at tremendous risk to himself."

"Oh, of course we can put him up! Can he speak English?"

"He speaks a little English, and is improving fast."

"Does he dress as a native?"

"No, Aunt. He would soon freeze to death, in his native garb. As soon as I got down to Cairo with him, I put him into good European clothes. He is a fine specimen of a Soudan Arab, but when he came to me he was somewhat weakly; however, he soon got over that."

"Where is he, now?"

"He is with the trap, outside. I told him that he had better not come in until I had seen you, for I thought that your domestics would not know what to do with him, till they had your orders."

"You brought your portmanteau with you, I hope?"

"I have brought it, but not knowing whether it would be wanted; for I did not know whether you would take sufficiently to me, to ask me to stay."

"The idea of such a thing! You must have had a bad opinion of us."

"No, Aunt. I had the best of opinions. I am sure that my father would not have written as he did to you, unless he had been very fond of you. Still, as at present I am not proved to be your nephew, I thought that you might not be disposed to ask me to stay.

"Now, with your permission, I will go and tell Zaki–that is the man's name–to bring in my portmanteau. I can then send the trap back."

"Do you know, Gregory," one of his aunts said that evening; "even putting aside the fact that you are our nephew, we are delighted that the title and estates are not to go to the next heir. He came down here about a year ago. His regiment had just returned from the Soudan. He drove straight to the hall, and requested to be shown over it, saying that in a short time he was going to take possession. The housekeeper came across here, quite in distress, and said that he talked as if he were already master; said he should make alterations in one place, enlarge the drawing room, build a conservatory against it, do away with some of the pictures on the walls; and, in fact, he made himself very objectionable. He came on here, and behaved in a most offensive and ungentlemanly way. He actually enquired of us whether we were tenants by right, or merely on sufferance. I told him that, if he wanted to know, he had better enquire of Mr. Tufton; and Flossie, who is more outspoken than I am, said at once that whether we were tenants for life, or not, we should certainly not continue to reside here, if so objectionable a person were master at the hall. He was very angry, but I cut him short by saying:

"'This is our house at present, sir; and, unless you leave it at once, I shall call the gardener in and order him to eject you.'"

"I am not surprised at what you say, Aunt, for I met the fellow myself, on the way up to Omdurman; and found him an offensive cad. It has been a great satisfaction to me to know that he was so; for if he had been a nice fellow, I could not have helped being sorry to deprive him of the title and estates which he has, for years, considered to be his."

After remaining four days at the Manor House, Gregory went back to town. A notice had already been served, upon the former claimant to the title, that an application would be made to the court to hear the claim of Gregory Hilliard Hartley, nephew of the late Marquis, to be acknowledged as his successor to the title and estates; and that if he wished to appear by counsel, he could do so.

The matter was not heard of, for another three months. Lieutenant Hartley was in court, and was represented by a queen's counsel of eminence; who, however, when Gregory's narrative had been told, and the various documents put in, at once stated that after the evidence he had heard, he felt that it would be vain to contest the case at this point; but that he reserved the right of appealing, should anything come to light which would alter the complexion of the affair.

The judgment was that Gregory Hilliard Hartley had proved himself to be the son of the late Gregory Hilliard Hartley, brother of and heir to the late Marquis of Langdale, and was therefore seized of the title and estates.

As soon as the case was decided, Gregory went down again to Devonshire, and asked his aunts to take charge for him. This they at first said was impossible; but he urged that, if they refused to do so, he should be driven to go back to the Soudan again.

"My dear Aunts," he said, "what in the world am I to do? I know no one. I know nothing of English customs, or society. I should, indeed, be the most forlorn person in existence, with a large country estate and a mansion in London. I want someone to introduce me into society, and set me on my legs; manage me and my house, and preside at my table. I am not yet twenty, and have not as much knowledge of English ways as a boy of ten. I should be taken in and duped in every way, and be at the mercy of every adventurer. I feel that it would be a sacrifice for you to leave your pretty home here, but I am sure, for the sake of my father, you will not refuse to do so."

His aunts admitted that there was great justice in what he said, and finally submitted to his request to preside over his house; until, as they said, the time came when he would introduce a younger mistress.

Zaki, when his six months' trial was over, scorned the idea of returning to the Soudan; declaring that, if Gregory would not keep him, he would rather beg in the streets than go back there.

"It is all wonderful here," he said; "we poor Arabs could not dream of such things. No, Master, as long as you live, I shall stay here."

"Very well, Zaki, so be it; and I can promise you that if I die before you, you will be so provided for that you will be able to live in as much comfort as you now enjoy, and in addition you will be your own master."

Zaki shook his head.