The Revellers

“The position differs from my expectations,” said the solicitor. “The boy does not talk like a farmer’s son. And he is going to tea at the vicarage with a lady of good social position. Can the Bollands be of higher grade than we are led to believe?”

“The newspaper is my only authority. Ah, here is the ‘Black Lion.’”

Mrs. Atkinson bustled forward to assure the gentlemen that she could accommodate them. Colonel Grant was allotted the room in which George Pickering died! It was the best in the hotel. He glanced for a moment through the window and took in the scene of the tragedy.

“That must be where the two young imps fought,” he murmured, with a smile, as he looked into the yard. “Gad! as Heronsdale says, I’d like to have seen the battle. And my boy whipped the other chap, who was bigger and older, the paper said.”

Soon the two men were climbing the slight acclivity on which stood the White House. The door stood hospitably open, as was ever the case about tea-time in fine weather. In the front kitchen was Martha, alone.

The colonel advanced.

“Is Mr. Bolland at home?” he asked, raising his hat.

“Noa, sir; he isn’t. But he’s on’y i’ t’ cow-byre. If it’s owt important – ”

He followed her meaning sufficiently.

“Will you oblige me by sending for him? And – er – is Mrs. Bolland here?”

“I’m Mrs. Bolland, sir.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon. Of course, I did not know you.”

He thought he would find a much younger woman. Martha, in the close-fitting sunbonnet, with its wide flaps, her sleeves rolled up, and her outer skirt pinned behind to keep it clear of the dirt during unceasing visits to dairy and hen-roosts, looked even older than she was, her real age being fifty-five.

“Will you kindly be seated, gentlemen?” she said. She was sure they were county folk come about the stock. Her husband’s growing reputation as a breeder of prize cattle brought such visitors occasionally. She wondered why the taller stranger asked for her, but he said no more, taking a chair in silence.

She dispatched a maid to summon the master.

“Hev ye coom far?” she asked bluntly.

Colonel Grant looked around. His eyes were searching the roomy kitchen for tokens of its occupants’ ways.

“We traveled from Darlington to Elmsdale,” he said, “and walked here from the station.”

“My goodness, ye’ll be fair famished. Hev summat te eat. There’s plenty o’ tea an’ cakes; an’ if ye’d fancy some ham an’ eggs – ”

“Pray do not trouble, Mrs. Bolland,” said the colonel when he had grasped the full extent of the invitation. “We wish to have a brief talk with you and your husband. Afterwards, if you ask us, we shall be most pleased to accept your hospitality.”

He spoke so genially, with such utter absence of affectation, that Martha rather liked him. Yet, what could she have to do with the business in hand? Anyhow, here came John, crossing the road with heavy strides.

The farmer paused just within the threshold. His huge frame filled the doorway. He wore spectacles for reading only, and his deep-sunken eyes rested steadily, first on Colonel Grant, then on the solicitor. Then they went back to the colonel and did not leave him again.

“Good day, gentlemen,” he said. “What can I deä for ye?”

The man who stormed forts on horseback – in pictures – quailed at the task before him. He nodded to the solicitor.

“Dobson,” he said, “you know all the circumstances. Oblige me by stating them fully.”

The solicitor, who seemed to expect this request, produced a bulky packet of papers and photographs. He prefaced his explanation by giving his companion’s name and rank, and introduced himself as a member of the firm of Dobson, Son and Smith, Solicitors, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

“Fifteen years ago,” he went on, “Colonel Grant was a subaltern, a junior officer, in the Guards, stationed in London. A slight accident one day outside a railway station led him to make the acquaintance of a young lady. She was hurrying to catch a train, when she was knocked down by a frightened horse, and might have been injured seriously were it not for Lieutenant Grant’s prompt assistance. He escorted her to her lodgings, and discovered that she was what is known in London as a daily governess – in other words, a poor, well-educated woman striving to earn a respectable living. The horse had trampled on her foot, and she required proper attention and rest; a brief interview with her landlady enabled Mr. Grant to make the requisite arrangements, unknown to the young lady herself. He called a week later and found that she was quite recovered. She was a very beautiful girl, of a lively disposition, only twenty years of age, and working hard in her spare time to perfect herself as a musician. She had no idea of the social rank of her new friend, or perhaps matters might have turned out differently. As it was, they met frequently, became engaged, and were married. I have here a copy of the marriage certificate.”

He selected a long, narrow strip of blue paper from the documents he had placed before him on the kitchen table. He opened it and offered it to Bolland, as though he wished the farmer to examine it. John did not move. He was still looking intently at Colonel Grant.

Martha, all a-flutter, with an indefinite anxiety wrinkling the corners of her eyes, said quickly:

“What might t’ young leddy’s neäm be, sir?”

“Margaret Ingram. She was of a Gloucestershire family, but her parents were dead, and she had no near relatives.”

Martha cried, somewhat tartly:

“An’ what hez all this te deä wi’ us, sir?”

“Let be, wife. Bide i’ patience. T’ gentleman will tell us, neä doot.”

John’s voice was hard, almost dissonant. The solicitor gave him a rapid glance. That harsh tone boded ill for the smooth accomplishment of his mission. Martha wondered why her husband gazed so fixedly at the other man who spoke not. But she toyed nervously with her apron and held her peace. Mr. Dobson resumed:

“The young couple could not start housekeeping openly. Lieutenant Grant depended solely on the allowance made to him by his father, whose ideas of family pride were so extreme that such a marriage must unquestionably have led to a rupture. Moreover, a campaign in northern India was then threatening. It broke out exactly a year and two months after the marriage. Mr. Grant’s regiment was ordered to the front, and when he sailed from Southampton he left his young wife and an infant, a boy, four months old, installed in a comfortable flat in Clarges Street, Piccadilly. It is important that the exact position of family affairs at this moment should be realized. General Grant, father of the young officer, had suffered from an apopletic stroke soon after his son’s marriage, and to acquaint him with it now meant risking his life. Young Grant’s action was known to and approved by several trustworthy friends. He and his wife were very happy, and Mrs. Grant was correspondingly depressed when the exigencies of the national service took her husband away from her. The parting between the young couple was a bitter trial, rendered all the more heartrending by reason of the concealment they had practiced. However, as matters had been allowed to drift thus far, no one will pretend that there was any special need to worry General Grant at the moment of his son’s departure for a campaign. Lieutenant Grant hoped to return with a step in rank. Then, whatever the consequences, there must be a full explanation. He had not a great deal of money, but sufficient for his wife’s needs. He left her two hundred pounds in notes and gold, and his bankers were empowered to pay her fifty pounds monthly. His own allowance from General Grant was seventy-five pounds a month, and it was with great difficulty that he maintained his position in such an expensive regiment as the Guards. The campaign eased the pressure, or he could not have kept it up for long.”

“Are all these details quite necessary, Dobson?” said the colonel, for the steady glare of the farmer, the growing pallor of poor Martha, around whose heart an icy hand was taking sure grip, were exceedingly irksome.

“They are if I am to do you justice,” replied the lawyer.

“Never mind me. Tell them of Margaret – and the boy.”

“I will pass over the verification of my statement,” went on Mr. Dobson, bending over the folded papers. “Seven months passed. Mrs. Grant expected soon to be delivered of another child. She heard regularly from her husband. His regiment was in the Khyber Pass, when one evening she was robbed of her small store of jewelry and a considerable sum of money by a trusted servant. The theft was reported in the papers, and General Grant read of his son’s wife being a resident in Clarges Street. He went to the flat next day, saw the poor girl, behaved in a way that can only be ascribed to the folly of an old man broken by disease, and cut off supplies at once. Within a week Mrs. Grant found herself in poverty, and her husband at least a month’s post distant. She did not lose her wits. She sold her furniture and raised money enough to support herself and her baby boy for some time. Of course, she was very much distressed, as General Grant wrote to her, called her an adventuress, and stated that he had disinherited his son on her account. This was only partly true. He tore up one will, but made no other, and forgot that there was a second copy in possession of my firm. Mrs. Grant then did a foolish thing. She concealed her troubles from her husband’s friends, who would have helped her. She took cheap lodgings in another part of London, and changed her name. This seems to be accounted for by the fact that General Grant, in his insane suspicions, set private detectives to watch her. Moreover, the bankers wrote her a curt letter which added to her miseries. She rented rooms in St. Martin’s Court, Ludgate Hill, and gave her name as Mrs. Martineau.”

Martha sprang at the solicitor with an eerie screech:

“Hev ye coom to steal oor bairn, the bonny lad we’ve reared i’ infancy an’ childhood? Leave this house! John – husband – will ye let ’em drive me mad?”

John took her in his arms.

“Martha,” he said, with a break in his voice that shook his hearers and stilled his wife’s cries; “dinnat mak’ oor burthen harder te bear. A man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps!”

Servants, men and women, came running at their mistress’s scream of terror. They stood, abashed, in the kitchen passage. None paid heed to them.

Colonel Grant rose and approached the trembling woman cowering at her husband’s side. Her old eyes were streaming now; she gazed at him with the pitiful anguish of a stricken animal. He took her wrinkled hand and bent low before her.

“Madam,” he said, “God forbid that my son should lose his mother a second time!”

He could say no other word. Even in her agony, Martha felt hot tears falling on her bare arm, and they were not her own.

“Eh, but it’s a sad errand ye’re on,” she sobbed.

“Wife, wife!” cried John huskily, “if thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small. Colonel Grant is a true man. It’s in his feäce. He weän’t rive Martin frae yer arms, an’ no man can tak’ him frae yer heart.”