Chapter Two

When Hugh got back to his quarters the first thing he did was to hunt up his great friend Jack Pomfret. He found that young gentleman stretched in front of a blazing fire – it was a very chilly March – and smoking a cigar nearly as big as himself. Jack Pomfret, it may be said, was quite a small man, of about the size and weight that would be associated with the coxswain of a ’Varsity boat.

Next to Murchison, perhaps Pomfret was the most popular man in the regiment. He was certainly the poorest, for although he came of an aristocratic family, the said family had very little to bless themselves with.

If it had been left to his immediate relatives, Jack would have had to enter a line regiment, and subsist on his pay, supplemented by more or less regular small remittances from his hard-up father.

But fortune had smiled on Jack when he was in his cradle. A rich great-aunt had been his godmother, and from the date of his christening had taken him under her wing. She had been crossed in love when quite a girl, and would never marry. Jack Pomfret had a handsome, but not an extravagant, allowance now, and he would come into his great-aunt’s fortune when she died.

Jack always complained that his aunt was a bit thrifty, and did not fully understand the imperative necessities of a young subaltern in an expensive regiment like the Twenty-fifth.

As a matter of fact, Miss Harding, his mother’s youngest sister, suffered from acute indigestion, existed principally on soda-water and biscuits, lived in a comparatively small house with one manservant and two maids, and saved a great deal every year out of a large income. She loved Jack very much, but she had little or no sympathy with the follies and indiscretions of youth. She had a hazy sort of idea that an officer should live within his pay, as she lived well within her income. Needless to say that Jack had long disabused her of this silly idea.

“Great tidings, old man,” cried Murchison, breaking in upon the meditative little man, blowing great clouds of smoke. “I’ll give you six guesses.”

“Not in a guessing mood,” returned Jack shortly. “All my brain-power is used up. I am trying to concoct a letter to the dear old aunt – God bless her, she is one of the best! – insinuating gently that a cheque for a couple of hundred would be very convenient at the present moment.”

Murchison took a seat. “Silly old ass,” he said in a kindly tone, “if you want a couple of hundred have it from me, and don’t worry about the aunt. You can pay me when she stumps-up. From what you have told me about your respected relative, it might be a lengthy business. I suppose you will plead debts. She might offer to discharge them, and ask the names of the creditors. In that case, old chap, you wouldn’t handle much personally, would you?”

Pomfret laughed genially. He was always very hard-up, but he was never depressed for very long. There was always a silver lining to every cloud.

“She’s the sweetest, dearest soul on God’s earth,” he said in a tone of conviction. “But you know, Hughie old man, she doesn’t understand – I say emphatically, she doesn’t understand – you know what I mean. She is early Victorian. As to your suggestion, I appreciate it very much, but emphatically, no.” He added, with a whimsical smile: “Yours is a loan, I should have to pay back; Heaven knows when I could do so. The dear old aunt, well, it is a gift, no question of paying back. I haven’t thought it all out yet, but in the early cool of to-morrow morning, I shall write her a beautiful and touching letter. I know by experience it will bring a cheque.”

“You’re an artful young devil, I know,” said Murchison. Straight as a die himself, he was not too appreciative of his friend’s diplomatic methods.

On the other hand, was he justified in criticising? He had a magnificent allowance from his opulent father. Poor Jack, with a somewhat puritanical and niggardly aunt at his back, had just to worry along, and live in this expensive regiment from hand to mouth.

There was no more to be said on this subject.

“Well, Jack, are you in a mood to listen to my news?”

Pomfret leaned forward, and flicked the ash off his cigar. “Yes, I think I am. Begone dull care! I shall write that letter the first thing to-morrow morning.”

“Well, I have made the acquaintance of that pretty Burton girl, whom nobody in Blankfield visits.”

Mr Pomfret emitted a little chuckling sound. “Lucky devil. How did you do it? I thought she was unapproachable. She walks down the High Street, ‘with a haughty stare, and her nose in the air,’ and looks neither to left nor right. How did you manage it, old man?” Hugh laughed. “Oh, as easy as anything. Just dropped in to Winkley’s, expecting to see a lot of you fellows with your best girls. Not a soul there I knew. Room full – every table full, save for one at which Miss Burton was sitting alone – sat at the one table, vis-à-vis with Miss Burton. There it is in a nutshell.”

Mr Pomfret grinned broadly. “Oh, Hughie, what I would have given for your chance. You know I am awfully gone on that girl, she is so sweet and dainty, far and away the prettiest girl in Blankfield. What did you make of your chance?”

“As much as could be made in five or ten minutes. She told me a lot about things, her disappointment in finding that the Blankfield people would not call upon her, and that, excepting her brother, she had not a soul to speak to.”

“Poor little soul!” said Mr Pomfret, in a voice of the deepest sympathy. “Poor little soul!” he repeated.

“Well, we talked for some little time, some ten minutes perhaps, I don’t think it could have been much longer. And then – then – you will never believe it, Jack – she asked me to call, and be introduced to her brother.”

Mr Pomfret was quite young, in fact he was the baby of the regiment. But having been educated at a public school, he had learned a certain amount of worldly wisdom rather early. He gave expression to it now.

“If she were living with her mother, or a maiden aunt, Hughie, the thing would be so easy. But the brother, we have seen him walking beside that lovely girl. It would be difficult to class him. It would be perhaps too much to say he was either a bounder or a cad – he’s not boisterous enough for the one or common enough for the other. But clearly, he’s not a gentleman or the imitation of one.”

“No,” answered Hugh. “Your description of the brother quite fits. He is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red-herring, as the old saw has it. Then the girl is so different. She is, to an extent, frank and unconventional.”

“She must be, or she wouldn’t have asked you to call upon her,” interrupted the astute Mr Pomfret.

“Quite so, I perfectly agree. But upon my soul, Jack, she has the most perfect manners. She does these sort of things in such a way that you cease to wonder why she does them.”

“I understand.” Mr Pomfret looked very wise. “There’s a wonderful fascination about the girl. She radiates it, even when you pass her in the street. By Gad, there’s not a young woman in Blankfield who can hold a candle to her. Well, Hughie, what are you going to do about the invitation?”

“I’m in two minds, old man, to go or stay away. There’s the brother, you see.”

“There’s the brother,” repeated Mr Pomfret, “and a dashed disappointing sort of a brother, too. If it had only been a mother, or a maiden aunt! What a priceless opportunity! And yet it seems a bit too good to be lost.”

“But the brother, what about him?” Hugh insisted.

“The brother is, of course, a stumbling-block. You can’t ask him to Mess. ‘Old Fireworks’ will stand more from you than anybody, but he would never stand Burton. He would be calling him ‘Your Grace’ or ‘Your Worship’ or something.”

“Old Fireworks,” it may be explained, was the nickname of the respected Colonel of the gallant Twenty-fifth Lancers. It had been conferred upon him, on account of his explosive temper. He was also a rigid disciplinarian.

“I shall not go,” said Hugh after a brief pause.

Mr Pomfret was thinking deeply. He pulled at his big cigar in a meditative fashion. Then at length, out of his wisdom, he spoke:

“Let us reason this out, my well-beloved friend. A very pretty girl asks you to go and see her, she is unfortunately hampered by an undesirable brother. You accept their hospitality, but you know he is not a man you can ask to Mess. But you can take him to an hotel, and feed him up there. Tell him the Colonel’s kicked up rough about guests, any lie you like, to save his amour propre.”

“A good idea, Jack. Have you anything more to say? Don’t forget that if I go to Rosemount, the news will be all over Blankfield in five minutes.”

Mr Pomfret snapped his fingers. “Who cares a fig for the Blankfield people? Everybody knows, or ought to know, that a soldier loves and rides away. And the Blankfield girls are dull enough, Heaven knows, I wouldn’t give a thought to them.”

“Then you advise me to call, and be introduced to the brother, eh?”

“Of course. We shall be off in another two months, and leave only tender memories behind us.” Mr Pomfret was a practical person, if ever there was one. “Let us seize the passing day. By the way, have you any objection to taking me up to call with you, when you go? Say no, if you have the slightest objection.”

Hugh Murchison looked at him squarely. “No, old chap, not the slightest. The girl interests me in a way, chiefly, I think, because I can’t quite make her out, can’t determine whether she is very cunning or very simple, but I am not attracted in the ordinary sense. I take it you are.”

Pomfret’s look of indifference changed to one of gravity. “Yes, Hughie, I am. I would like to see that girl at close quarters.”

Hugh rose. “Right. We will call together, and in the meantime we will keep it from the other fellows?”

“Good Heavens, I should think so. We should be chaffed to death,” was Jack’s fervent answer.

A few days later, the two young men walked to Rosemount. It was a villa sort of house, set in a small garden, very carefully kept. The windows were ornamented with boxes of flowers. Small as the establishment was, there was an air of elegance about it, an elegance perhaps of restricted means but of refined taste.

Pomfret nudged his senior officer. “I say, they’ve turned it into a very decent sort of little crib, haven’t they? I should say that is due to the girl.”

Hugh laughed. “Perhaps it is the brother after all. He might be an artist, you know. Artists are often very rum-looking chaps.”

“Artist be hanged,” said Pomfret emphatically. “I’ll bet you a fiver he isn’t an artist, whatever he is. A ‘bookie’ or a ‘bookie’s’ tout, more likely.”