Читать книгу Brandon of the Engineers - Harold Bindloss - Страница 8

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On reaching camp and reporting himself, Dick was sent to his tent, where he slept until he was aroused by the bustle at reveille. He had not expected to sleep; but he was young and physically tired, and the shock of trouble had, as sometimes happens, a numbing effect. He awoke refreshed and composed, though his heart was heavy as he dressed, because he feared it was the last time that he would wear his country’s uniform. The suspense was trying as he waited until the morning parade was over; then he was summoned to a tent where the Colonel and the Adjutant sat.

“I have a telegram asking if you have arrived,” the Colonel said in a curious, dry tone. “You must understand that you have laid yourself open to grave suspicion.”

“Yes,” Dick answered, wondering whether the Colonel meant that it might have been better if he had run away.

“Very well. You admitted having received the plans. What did you do with them?”

“Buttoned them into the left pocket of my coat. When I got to Storeton, the envelope was gone.”

“How do you account for that?”

“I can’t account for it, sir.”

The Colonel was silent for a few moments, and then he looked fixedly at Dick.

“Your statements were very unsatisfactory last night, and now that you have had time to think over the matter, I advise you to be frank. It’s plain that you have been guilty of gross negligence, but that is not the worst. The drawings are of no direct use to the enemy, but if they fell into their hands they might supply a valuable hint of the use to which we mean to put the pontoons. You see what this implies?”

“I don’t know how we mean to use them, sir, and I don’t want to hide anything.”

“That’s a wise resolve,” the Colonel answered meaningly; and Dick colored. After all, there was something he meant to hide.

“You took the plans with you when you left the camp, three or four hours before you were due at Storeton,” said the Adjutant. “Where did you go?”

“To my cousin’s rooms in the town.”

“Mr. Lance Brandon’s,” said the Adjutant thoughtfully. “Did you stay there?”

“No; we dined at The George.”

“A well-conducted house,” the Adjutant remarked. “You took some wine at dinner?”

“Two glasses of light claret.”

“Then where did you go next?”

“To the new music-hall.”

“And ordered drinks in the bar! Who suggested this?”

“I can’t remember,” Dick replied with an angry flush. “Of course, I see where you’re leading, but I was quite sober when I left the hall.”

The Adjutant’s expression puzzled him. He had felt that the man was not unfriendly, and now he looked disappointed.

“I’m not sure your statement makes things better,” the Colonel observed with some dryness. “Did you go straight to Storeton from the hall?”

“No, sir. I spent an hour at a friend’s house.”

“Whose house was it?”

Dick pondered for a few moments, and then looked up resolutely.

“I must decline to answer, sir. I’ve lost the plans and must take the consequences; but I don’t see why my private friends, who have nothing to do with it, should be involved in the trouble.”

The Adjutant leaned forward across the table and said something quietly to the Colonel, and neither of them spoke for the next minute or two. Dick was sensible of physical as well as mental strain as he stood stiffly in the middle of the tent. His knees felt weak, little quivers ran through his limbs, and a ray of hot sunshine struck through the hooked-back flap into his face, but he dared not relax his rigid pose.

The two officers looked puzzled but grave.

“Go back to your tent and stay there until I send for you,” the Colonel said at last.

Dick saluted and went out, and when he sat down on his camp-bed he moodily lighted a cigarette and tried to think. His military career was ended and he was ruined; but this was not what occupied him most. He was wondering whether Clare Kenwardine had taken the plans. If so, it was his duty to accuse her; but, actuated by some mysterious impulse, he had refused.

The longer he thought about it, the clearer her guilt became. He was a stranger and yet she had suggested a stroll through the garden and had slipped and clutched him as they went down the steps. Her hand had rested on the pocket in which the envelope was. She was the daughter of a man who kept a private gaming house; it was not surprising that she was an adventuress and had deceived him by her clever acting. For all that, he could not condemn her; there was a shadow of doubt; and even if she were guilty, she had yielded to some strong pressure from her father. His feelings, however, were puzzling. He had spent less than an hour in her society and she had ruined him, but he knew that he would remember her as long as he lived.

Dick’s common sense led him to smile bitterly. He was behaving like a sentimental fool. On the whole, it was a relief when the Adjutant came in.

“You must have known what the Colonel’s decision would be,” he said with a hint of regret. “You’re to be court-martialed. If you take my advice, you’ll keep nothing back.”

The court-martial was over and Dick could not question the justice of its sentence—he was dismissed from the army. Indeed, it was better than he had expected. Somewhat to his surprise, the Adjutant afterward saw him alone.

“I’m thankful our official duty’s done,” he said. “Of course, I’m taking an irregular line, and if you prefer not to talk—”

“You made me feel that you wanted to be my friend,” Dick replied awkwardly.

“Then I may, perhaps, remark that you made a bad defense. In the army, it’s better to tell a plausible tale and stick to it; we like an obvious explanation. Now if you had admitted being slightly drunk.”

“But I was sober!”

The Adjutant smiled impatiently.

“So much the worse for you! If you had been drunk, you’d have been turned out all the same, but the reason would have been, so to speak, satisfactory. Now you’re tainted by a worse suspicion. Personally, I don’t think the lost plans have any value, but if they had, it might have gone very hard with you.” He paused and gave Dick a friendly glance. “Well, in parting, I’ll give you a bit of advice. Stick to engineering, which you have a talent for.”

He went out and not long afterward Dick left the camp in civilian’s clothes, but stopped his motorcycle on the hill and stood looking back with a pain at his heart. He saw the rows of tents stretched across the smooth pasture, the flag he had been proud to serve languidly flapping on the gentle breeze, and the water sparkling about the bridge. Along the riverside, bare-armed men in shirts and trousers were throwing up banks of soil with shovels that flashed in the strong light. He could see their cheerful brown faces and a smart young subaltern taking out a measuring line. Dick liked the boy, who now no doubt would pass him without a look, and he envied him with the keenest envy he had ever felt. He had loved his profession; and he was turned out of it in disgrace.

It was evening when he stood in the spacious library at home, glad that the light was fading, as he confronted his father, who sat with grim face in a big leather chair. Dick had no brothers and sisters, and his mother had died long before. He had not lived much at home, and had been on good, more than affectionate, terms with his father. Indeed, their relations were marked by mutual indulgence, for Dick had no interest outside his profession, while Mr. Brandon occupied himself with politics and enjoyed his prominent place in local society. He was conventional and his manners were formal and dignified, but Dick thought him very much like Lance, although he had not Lance’s genial humor.

“Well,” he said when Dick had finished, “you have made a very bad mess of things and it is, of course, impossible that you should remain here. In fact, you have rendered it difficult for me to meet my neighbors and take my usual part in public affairs.”

This was the line Dick had expected him to take. It was his father’s pride he had wounded and not his heart. He did not know what to say and, turning his head, he looked moodily out of the open window. The lawn outside was beautifully kept and the flower-borders were a blaze of tastefully assorted colors, but there was something artificial and conventional about the garden that was as marked in the house. Somehow Dick had never really thought of the place as home.

“I mean to go away,” he said awkwardly.

“The puzzling thing is that you should deny having drunk too much,” Brandon resumed.

“But I hadn’t done so! You look at it as the others did. Why should it make matters better if I’d owned to being drunk?”

“Drunkenness,” his father answered, “is now an offense against good taste, but not long ago it was thought a rather gentlemanly vice, and a certain toleration is still extended to the man who does wrong in liquor. Perhaps this isn’t logical, but you must take the world as you find it. I had expected you to learn more in the army than you seem to have picked up. Did you imagine that your promotion depended altogether upon your planning trenches and gun-pits well?”

“That kind of thing is going to count in the new armies,” Dick replied. “Being popular on guest-night at the mess won’t help a man to hold his trench or work his gun under heavy fire.”

Brandon frowned.

“You won’t have an opportunity for showing what you can do. I don’t know where you got your utilitarian, radical views; but we’ll keep to the point. Where do you think of going?”

“To New York, to begin with.”

“Why not Montreal or Cape Town?”

“Well,” Dick said awkwardly, “after what has happened, I’d rather not live on British soil.”

“Then why not try Hamburg?”

Dick flushed.

“You might have spared me that, sir! I lost the plans; I didn’t sell them.”

“Very well. This interview is naturally painful to us both and we’ll cut it short, but I have something to say. It will not be forgotten that you were turned out of the army, and if you succeeded me, the ugly story would be whispered when you took any public post. I cannot have our name tainted and will therefore leave the house and part of my property to your cousin. Whether you inherit the rest or not will depend upon yourself. In the meantime, I am prepared to make you an allowance, on the understanding that you stay abroad until you are sent for.”

Dick faced his father, standing very straight, with knitted brows.

“Thank you, sir, but I will take nothing.”

“May I ask why?”

“If you’d looked at the thing differently and shown a little kindness, it would have cut me to the quick,” Dick said hoarsely. “I’m not a thief and a traitor, though I’ve been a fool, and it hurts to know what you think. I’m going away to-morrow and I’ll get on, somehow, without your help. I don’t know that I’ll come back if you do send for me.”

“You don’t seem to understand your position, but you may come to realize it before very long,” Brandon replied.

He got up and Dick left the library; but he did not sleep that night. It had been hard to meet his father and what he said had left a wound that would take long to heal. Now he must say good-by to Helen. This would need courage, but Dick meant to see her. It was the girl’s right that she should hear his story, and he would not steal away like a cur. He did not think Helen was really fond of him, though he imagined that she would have acquiesced in her relatives’ plans for them both had things been different. Now, of course, that was done with, but he must say good-by and she might show some regret or sympathy. He did not want her to suffer, but he did not think she would feel the parting much; and she would not treat him as his father had done.

When he called the next morning at an old country house, he was told that Miss Massie was in the garden, and going there, he stopped abruptly at a gap in a shrubbery. Beyond the opening there was a stretch of smooth grass, checkered by moving shadow, and at one side a row of gladioli glowed against the paler bloom of yellow dahlias. Helen Massie held a bunch of the tall crimson spikes, and Dick thought as he watched her with a beating heart that she was like the flowers. They were splendid in form and color, but there was nothing soft or delicate in their aggressive beauty. Helen’s hair was dark and her color high, her black eyes were bright, and her yellow dress showed a finely outlined form. Dick knew that she was proud, resolute, and self-confident.

Then she turned her head and saw him, and he knew that she had heard of his disgrace, for her color deepened and her glance was rather hard than sympathetic. The hand that held the flowers dropped to her side, but she waited until he came up.

“I see you know, and it doesn’t matter who told you,” he said. “I felt I had to come before I went away.”

“Yes,” she answered calmly, “I heard. You have courage, Dick; but perhaps a note would have been enough, and more considerate.”

Dick wondered gloomily whether she meant that he might have saved her pain by staying away, or that he had involved her in his disgrace by coming, since his visit would be talked about. He reflected bitterly that the latter was more probable.

“Well,” he said, “we have been pretty good friends and I’m leaving the country. I don’t suppose I shall come back again.”

“When do you go?”

“Now,” said Dick. “I must catch the train at noon.”

Helen’s manner did not encourage any indulgence in sentiment and he half resented this, although it made things easier. He could not say he had come to give her up, because there had been no formal engagement. Still he had expected some sign of pity or regret.

“You don’t defend yourself,” she remarked thoughtfully. “Couldn’t you have fought it out?”

“There was nothing to fight for. I lost the papers I was trusted with; one can’t get over that.”

“But people may imagine you did something worse.” She paused for a moment and added: “Don’t you care what I might think?”

Dick looked at her steadily. “You ought to know. Do you believe it’s possible I stole and meant to sell the plans?”

“No,” she said with a touch of color. “But I would have liked you, for your friends’ sake, to try to clear yourself. If you had lost the papers, they would have been found and sent back; as they were not, it looks as if you had been robbed.”

That she could reason this out calmly struck Dick as curious, although he had long known that Helen was ruled by her brain and not her heart.

“I’ve been careless and there’s nothing to be done but take my punishment.”

She gave him a keen glance. “Are you hiding something, Dick? It’s your duty to tell all that you suspect.”

Dick winced. Helen was right; it was his duty, but he was not going to carry it out. He began to see what this meant, but his resolution did not falter.

“If I knew I’d been robbed, it would be different, but I don’t, and if I blamed people who were found to be innocent, I’d only make matters worse for myself.”

“I suppose that’s true,” she agreed coldly. “However, you have made your choice and it’s too late now. Where are you going, Dick?”

“To New York by the first boat from Liverpool.”

He waited, watching her and wondering whether she would ask him to stop, but she said quietly: “Well, I shall, no doubt, hear how you get on.”

“It’s unlikely,” he answered in a hard voice. “I’ve lost my friends with my character. The best thing I can do is to leave them alone.”

Then he looked at his watch, and she gave him her hand. “For all that, I wish you good luck, Dick.”

She let him go, and as he went back to the gate he reflected that Helen had taken the proper and tactful line by dismissing him as if he were nothing more than an acquaintance. He could be nothing more now, and to yield to sentiment would have been painful and foolish; but it hurt him that she had realized this.

When he wheeled his bicycle away from the gate he saw a boy who helped his father’s gardener running along the road, and waited until he came up, hot and panting. The boy held out a small envelope.

“It came after you left, Mr. Dick,” he gasped.

“Then you have been very quick.”

The lad smiled, for Dick was a favorite with his father’s servants.

“I thought you’d like to have the note,” he answered, and added awkwardly: “Besides, I didn’t see you when you went.”

It was the first hint of kindness Dick had received since his disgrace and he took the lad’s hand before he gave him half a crown, though he knew that he must practise stern economy.

“Thank you and good-by, Jim. You must have taken some trouble to catch me,” he said.

Then he opened the envelope and his look softened.

“I heard of your misfortune and am very sorry, but something tells me that you are not to blame,” the note ran, and was signed “Clare Kenwardine.”

For a moment or two Dick was sensible of keen relief and satisfaction; and then his mood changed. This was the girl who had robbed and ruined him; she must think him a fool! Tearing up the note, he mounted his bicycle and rode off to the station in a very bitter frame of mind.