Major Vigoureux
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A. T. Quiller Couch >> Major Vigoureux
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"To me," said the Lord Proprietor, "it is gratifying evidence that they
are recovering their spirits, which were hipped after the long voyage
from Cape Town. But here, in the Gulf Stream, my theory is that we can
acclimatise almost anything, animal or vegetable. Already they begin to
feel its invigorating influence."
"Talking of vegetables, sir"--Archelaus shifted a canvas bag from his
shoulders to the ground and began to untie the string which bound its
neck.
"Pray take breath," suggested the Lord Proprietor. "At your age--and
with the little exercise you get on Garrison Hill----"
"We don't keep ostriches," said Archelaus, curtly. "But, talking of
vegetables, the Governor sends his compliments to you, sir, and begs
your acceptance of a few choice plants in return for the small clothes
you lent me."
"'Lent' you, Archelaus? 'Gave,' you mean."
"Oh, sir, but--excuse me--I couldn't--there was them ostriches to be
considered."
"It has occurred to me," went on the Lord Proprietor, who was in the
best of moods this morning, "that those--er--breeches might be a trifle
conspicuous--a shade too highly pronounced in pattern--to be worn with
uniform."
"As for that, sir," answered Archelaus, tactfully, "life on the Islands
isn't like active service, where a man has to be careful about exposing
himself to marksmanship."
"In Inverness a pattern like that would excite no comment."
"I've never been there," said Archelaus.
"It--er--harmonises, as it were, with the natural surroundings: with
the loch, the glen, the strath. So with those curious tartans to which
the Scottish highlanders are--er--addicted. Seen by themselves, and to
a sensitive, artistic eye, they appear crude and almost violent in
their contrast of colours; but seen in conjunction with the expanse of
native moorland, the undulating stretches of the heather----"
"'Tis but niggling scenery we have in these parts, to be sure," agreed
Archelaus.
"I have sometimes thought that _mutatis mutandis_ the same may be true
of the bagpipes, the strains of which--'skirl,' I believe, is the
proper expression--are not altogether discordant with the moaning of
the wind over those desolate moors or the cries uttered by their wilder
denizens; though, speaking personally, I never could endure the
instrument."
"Me either," agreed Archelaus again, shuffling a little on his feet, as
the dreadful truth began to dawn on him, that the Lord Proprietor meant
to present him with yet another pair of trousers.
Sir Caesar, however, chose to play for a minute with his benevolent
design.
"There is no more delicate study," he went on, "than that of
acclimatisation. None which requires a nicer union of artistic daring
with artistic judgment, patience, with decision.... I propose to go in
for it pretty extensively on Inniscaw."
"Yes, sir?"
"The ostriches have been a great encouragement."
"I suppose, now, when you get accustomed to 'em----"
"Though I have yet to prove that they will breed here. Yet, why not?
The Gulf Stream, I am assured, has a stimulating influence upon all
forms of organic life, animal as well as vegetable. It may be compared
with that inward volcanic heat which, in and around the Bay of Naples,
clothes the shore with verdure, and is not without responsibility for
the passions of the inhabitants.... But, as I was saying, a man must
use judgment. A plant may thrive when transferred across a thousand
miles of ocean, may propagate itself even more freely than in its
native habitat, and yet, to the artistic eye, be never truly at home.
Its colour, of flower or foliage, refuses to blend with our landscape,
to adapt itself to our Atlantic skies. It is my hobby, Sergeant, to
discover not only what imported plants will flourish with our soil and
climate, but what particular one is worthiest of cultivation; and,
having discovered that, I propose to bend all my best energies upon
it.... Eh? But where did you get those remarkably fine bulbs?"
Archelaus held out three in the palm of his hand.
"From the garrison garden, sir; with the Governor's compliments, and
understanding you to take an interest in bulbs."
"Daffodils? Some species of narcissus, at any rate."
The Lord Proprietor took one of the bulbs and examined it, turning it
over. "I had no idea that Major Vigoureux--er--went in for this sort of
thing, or I'd have done myself the pleasure of visiting his garden."
"You wouldn't find much in it, sir," said Archelaus, hastily,
remembering yesterday's adventure. "At least not much to interest you.
To tell the truth, the Governor sets very little store by these, though
they look pretty enough in March month. But wanting to show his
feelings in the matter of those trousers----"
"You shall have another pair!"
"Oh!" said Archelaus, in spite of himself, and though he had miserably
foreseen the offer for ten minutes past.
"And you may take back my thanks to the Commandant, and tell him that I
hope, within the next few days, to pay him a call."
Archelaus touched his forelock, bringing up his palm at the right
military salute--in those days a complicated operation. To himself he
breathed a thanksgiving that the Fair Lady (as he and the Treachers
called Vashti) had taken her departure from Garrison Hill overnight.
Ever since breakfast he had been feeling sadly dejected about it and so
(if appearances might be trusted) had his master. There is a fearful
joy, after all, in living on a volcano.
But, alas, for Sergeant Archelaus! He was at this moment standing on
the crust of a volcano, and that crust was momentarily wearing thinner.
The shore beneath the great house of Inniscaw has two landing quays, of
which the eastern (Archelaus had used the western) lies hidden from
view of the terrace, and can be approached by a boat keeping close
under St. Lide's shore. Engrossed in his lecture upon acclimatisation,
the Lord Proprietor had missed to perceive a boat making for this
eastern quay; and so had Archelaus, for the simpler reason that he
stood with his back to the view.
"Step into the house with me, and you shall make your choice between
half-a-dozen pairs," the Lord Proprietor invited him.
"If you are sure it's not troubling you," said Archelaus.
"My good man--" began the Lord Proprietor, leading the way; and with
that he turned about, surprised that Archelaus was not following. "Eh?
What's the matter?"
But Archelaus, speechless, was staring along the terrace to its eastern
end, where, at the head of a flight of steps leading down among the
shrubberies, a head had suddenly uprisen into view--a head in a gray
bonnet with trimmings of subdued violet--the head of Miss Gabriel.
"H'm!" said Miss Gabriel, and turned to Mr. and Mrs. Pope, who were
mounting the stairway at her heels.
CHAPTER XVII
THE LORD PROPRIETOR RECEIVES A DOUBLE SHOCK
"H'm!" said Miss Gabriel again, as she once more surveyed the shrinking
Archelaus. "So you allowed you'd steal a march on me?"
"I had no such thought, ma'am," stammered Archelaus.
"You'll get no good out of it, anyway; and of that I warn you. Good
morning, sir!"--this with a curtsey to the Lord Proprietor.
"Good morning, ma'am! How d'ye do, Pope?--and your good lady is well, I
hope? But to what do I owe this unexpected--er--honour?"
"Him," said Miss Gabriel, nodding, and with scarcely a change of tone.
"To Sergeant Archelaus, ma'am? Why, what has he been doing?"
"You might better ask--" Miss Gabriel answered slowly, emphatically,
with her eye on the culprit--"what he has not."
"Whichever you please, ma'am. Come!"
"I find a difficulty in putting a name to it," pursued Miss Gabriel,
still in the same level tone. "But Mr. Pope will bear me out. If he
doesn't, I shall still allow no false delicacy to stand between me and
my duty."
"Miss Gabriel means, sir," explained Mr. Pope, "that the articles in
question----"
"What articles, man?" asked the Lord Proprietor, as Mr. Pope, in his
turn, hesitated.
"Trousers," said Miss Gabriel, setting her face. "No, Charlotte"--she
turned upon Mrs. Pope--"this is no time for mincing language. They were
on a scarecrow, sir, in the very middle of the garrison garden, along
with my waistcoat----"
"Your waistcoat, ma'am!"
"That is to say, with my antimacassar, which I had converted into a
waistcoat and presented, in the innocence of my heart, to Treacher; the
clothing of these men being nothing short of a scandal. But for
scandal, sir, their clothes won't compare with their doings. Not to
mention----"
"My dear lady, I implore you, let us take one thing at a time! You wish
to make some statement about a scarecrow--in the garrison
garden--adorned (am I right?) with a waistcoat you were once kind
enough to present to Sergeant Treacher, and (I gather) with a pair of
trousers about which you are less explicit." The Lord Proprietor
paused. His eyes grew round with sudden, terrible suspicion. "You don't
mean to tell me--" he asked slowly.
Miss Gabriel nodded, and wagged an accusing forefinger at Archelaus.
"That's just what I _do_ mean. And if you want a picture of guilt, look
at that man!"
The Lord Proprietor turned and stared at him, gasping.
"My trousers? _Mine?_" But here speech failed him, and he stood opening
and shutting his mouth like a newly-landed fish.
Archelaus flung a wild glance about him, vainly seeking escape.
"You're looking at it in the wrong light, all of you," he mumbled,
feebly.
"And on the Sabbath, too!" put in Mrs. Pope.
"This man"--the Lord Proprietor held up a hand as though calling Heaven
to witness--"On what pretence do you suppose that he came here this
morning? Why, to thank me! To thank me for those very--er--articles of
which you tell me he makes a public mock! Look at the bag in his
hand--what do you suppose that it contains?"
"Adders," suggested Mrs. Pope. "I shouldn't be surprised."
"You may well say so, ma'am. It might well be adders. Indeed, I'm not
sure it isn't worse."
"Oh!" Mrs. Pope, already backing before the horrors of her own
imagination, caught at the balustrade for support.
"Daffodils, ma'am! A present of daffodil bulbs, with the Commandant's
compliments, and in acknowledgment of my gift! Could hypocrisy go
farther?"
"Major Vigoureux," said Miss Gabriel, "was never a friend of mine. Let
those who thought better of him defend him now, when he shows himself
in his true colours."
But here Archelaus pulled himself together.
"The Governor," he answered sullenly, "had nothing to do with it. The
Governor was in church at the time, as is well known to all of you."
"Yes, yes," interposed Mrs. Pope. "Let us be just. The Commandant was
certainly in church at the time. On our homeward way we met him
returning from church; and I would add, sir--if you will forgive
me--that he is a gentleman quite incapable of suggesting or conniving
at so vulgar a trick."
"H'm!" The Lord Proprietor accepted this with a snort, for he could not
help being aware of its truth. But his wrath still needed a vent, and
he turned upon Archelaus again.
"The Governor?" he echoed. "Are you ignorant that Major Vigoureux is
not Governor of these Islands, nor has he been for three years?--even
if he had ever a right to the title."
"He's _my_ Governor, anyway," answered Archelaus, turning more and more
dogged; "and he's Treacher's; and I reckon you'll find, if you try any
games, that he's Treacher's missus' Governor, too."
"Insolent!"--This from Miss Gabriel.
"I ain't denyin' it, ma'am. Insolent I be, and a little freedom o'
speech about it is no more than your rights. Insolent I've behaved, and
if you'll take and ask the Governor to punish me for it, 'tisn't more
than I deserve. He'll do it, be sure. As Mister Pope told you just now,
the Governor's a gentleman; he wouldn't play such a trick, not if you
was to offer him the world and the kingdoms thereof; and he'll be teasy
as fire when he hears about it. But I warn you, ladies and gentlemen,
all, don't you take the law into your own hands over this distressin'
case, but go to him meek-like an' say you want Arch'laus punished.
That's all. Leastways, that's all, unless you ask my honest opinion on
the breeches in question, which is, that I wouldn't put 'em astride a
clothes-horse and call him a son o' mine."
The Lord Proprietor stepped back, purple in the face.
But Miss Gabriel flew at game higher than Archelaus.
"That is all very well," she interposed, in her coldest, most incisive
tone. "But to whom does the credit of this insult belong if not to
Major Vigoureux? You may talk till doomsday, my man, before I'll
believe that you and Treacher thought of it." She stood for a second or
two, eyeing him. "A-ah!" she said, a little above her breath. "I
thought as much!... There _was_ a woman, Charlotte, and that woman is
at the bottom of the whole business. I ask you, if you doubt it, to
look at his face."
"She'd nothin' to do with it," affirmed Archelaus, stolidly, drawing
the back of his hand across his brow.
"She?" mocked Miss Gabriel. "And pray who is 'she'?"
Archelaus made a bold effort to recover himself. "Why, Treacher's
missus ... unless you mean the Ghost."
"That Treacher's missus (as you call her) bore her hand in the sport I
have the evidence of my own eyes; and if by 'the Ghost' you allude to a
painted hussy that Mrs. Pope and I surprised, the other night, in your
master's quarters, I advise you to keep that for the Marines.
Sir,"--Miss Gabriel turned to the Lord Proprietor--"this petty insult
of the scarecrow is the smallest part of our complaint against Major
Vigoureux. We have reason to believe--we have ocular proof--that the
Major is at this moment and by stealth entertaining a most undesirable
guest at the Barracks."
"My dear Elizabeth, we cannot be altogether sure!" objected Mrs. Pope.
"Speak for yourself, Charlotte." Miss Gabriel folded her hands and bent
on Archelaus a gaze under which he felt himself withering. "I am quite
sure."
"Undesirable, ma'am?" asked the Lord Proprietor, thoroughly mystified.
"In what sense undesirable?"
"--Unless," answered Miss Gabriel, tapping her foot, and with the air
of one who curbs a virtuous impatience, "unless you can suggest a term
more appropriate to a Jezebel; in which case I shall stand corrected."
"Jezebel? Jezebel? But, my dear Miss Gabriel, consider before you bring
such a charge: here especially in the presence of Major Vigoureux's
servant, who will doubtless report it to his master. Reflect how
serious it is. Reflect----"
"Why, bless the man!" Miss Gabriel cut him short disdainfully. "As if I
hadn't been reflecting for three days on end! Let him sue me for
slander if he dare. I'll stick to my guns, if I kiss the book upon it;
and what's more, so will Charlotte Pope."
"I never said so, Elizabeth," pleaded Mrs. Pope.
"And very wisely, ma'am." Sir Caesar nodded approval. "For, as I was
about to say, reflect upon the extreme improbability--nay, the utter
impossibility--that--er--such a person could visit the Islands
unnoticed and actually spend three days on Garrison Hill undetected by
any save yourself. Nay, if we grant the miracle of her arrival, who is
to assure us that she has not by this time as mysteriously vanished? In
that case, what have we to show for our suspicions? How, setting aside
the Major's indignation, shall we find ourselves less than a laughing
stock for the whole population of the Islands?"
"And sarve ye right!" added Archelaus, who began to perceive that this
thundercloud had its silver lining. But if he counted on daunting Miss
Gabriel, he was mistaken.
"Turn you round, my man," snapped that indomitable lady. "Turn you
round, and give me a look at those coat-tails of yours. Ha!" she
exclaimed, as Archelaus, by habit obedient to the word of command,
faced about towards the balustrade. "There was a coat-tail missing
yesterday, if I remember, when you crept out from the bushes like a
whipped urchin, and now there's two: and you'll be telling me that
these fine stitches were put in by Jane Treacher, who is like most
soldier's wives, and sews like a cow!"
"The Lord have mercy upon us!" said Archelaus, in a hushed voice.
It took them two or three seconds to understand that the words were not
an answer to Miss Gabriel; that he had spoken them to himself,
staring--as he still stared--down the steps, down the green alley
leading to the terrace.
Then, perceiving that something was amiss with the man, they too
stepped to the balustrade and looked down--as up the leafy path came
the very woman of their speculations--Vashti, faultlessly arrayed,
trailing a neat parasol and humming a song as she drew near.
"The same!" gasped Miss Gabriel. "I call you to witness, Charlotte!"
"But, you'll excuse me," Mr. Pope objected, "she don't appear to answer
precisely to a Jezebel."
"You men think of nothing but outward show," snapped Miss Gabriel.
"Well, and that's something," Archelaus put in with affability, his
spirits rising as the danger drew nearer. "Talk about Garrison Hill!
She seems to be pretty well at home on Inniscaw, too." For Vashti,
halting in the chequered sunlight beneath a trellised arch, had reached
up the hooked handle of her sunshade to draw down the spray of a late
autumnal rose, and stood for a moment inhaling its odour.
It may be that just then she caught sight of the watchers upon the
terrace. If so, not a movement betrayed her. As though reluctantly, she
released the branch and, as it sprang upward, resumed her way up the
path, disappearing for a moment under a massed canopy of Virgin's
Bower. A few seconds, and she would emerge into view again, almost at
the foot of the terrace stairs.
They waited.
"But whatever has become of the woman?" asked Miss Gabriel.
"It's confoundedly odd!" growled the Lord Proprietor.
"She may have turned down a by-path."
"There's no by-path within fifty yards of her. More likely she's
stopping to take a smell of the clematis.... We might step down and
see." The Lord Proprietor suited the action to the words and led the
way.
"In my opinion, if you want it," said Archelaus, "you won't find her
there. Because why? She's a ghost."
"A ghost?" quavered Mrs. Pope.
"Nonsense, my dear!" Her husband offered his arm to assist her down the
steps. "Such a beautiful young person!"
"The first time I saw her she didn't frighten me at all," agreed Mrs.
Pope; "but if she's going to bob in and out of sight in this way, I
shan't sleep in my bed to-night."
A cry from the Lord Proprietor startled them. He had plunged down the
path beneath the overarching clematis. They ran to overtake him, and
found him staring at vacancy. Vashti had vanished, apparently into thin
air.
"Oh, but this is midsummer moonshine!" declared Sir Caesar. "The woman
must be hiding somewhere near. Miss Gabriel, if you will kindly attend
to Mrs. Pope, her husband and I will search the thickets hereabouts."
They searched in the thickets and along the garden paths, but without
recovering a trace of the unknown. Not so much as a glimpse of her
skirt rewarded them.
Sergeant Archelaus abandoned the search early, dodged into the
plantations on the left, and went his way chuckling, back to his boat.
"A terrible trying morning," he allowed, as he cast loose; "but the end
was worth it."
CHAPTER XVIII
VASHTI PLEADS FOR SAARON
For twenty minutes Sir Caesar and Mr. Pope beat the shrubberies, and
even carried their search down to the great walled garden which was one
of the wonders of Inniscaw. Tradition said that the old monks had built
it, of bricks baked upon the mainland; and that it had been their
favourite pleasance, because its walls shut out all view of the sea.
Certainly if the old monks had built this garden, they had built it
well. The Priory itself, of Caen stone, had lain in ruins for at least
two hundred years before the Lord Proprietor came to clear the site and
build his new great house on the old foundations; but these brick walls
defied the tooth of time.
Magnificent walls they were, four feet in thickness, heavily
buttressed; the bricks set in mortar tougher than themselves. They
enclosed two acres of rich black soil at the mouth of Inniscaw's one
valley, where it widens into a marsh beside the shore. Between them and
the water's edge stood the Lord Proprietor's new schoolhouse, above a
small landing quay; and within the schoolhouse a class was singing as
Sir Caesar and Mr. Pope entered the old garden. The children's voices
came floating prettily over the old wall--so prettily that Abe Jenkins,
the septuagenarian gardener, ceased working to comment upon it, leaning
on his hoe and addressing Eli Tregarthen, who lounged by the gateway
leading to the shore.
"Always fond of children, I was," said Abe Jenkins, "though I never
picked up courage to marry. 'Twas the women that always daunted me. And
now I've a-come to a time o' life that I'm glad of it. A married man
throws his roots too deep, an' when Death come along, 'tis always too
soon for 'en. He wants to bide and see his youngest da'rter's child, or
he wants to linger and mend a thatch on the linhay--his married son
can't be brought to see the importance o't.... What with one thing and
another, I never knowed a married man yet 'was fit to die; whereas your
cheerful bachelor comes up clean as a carrot. What brings you across
from Saaron to-day, Tregarthen? I'll wage 'tis to fetch your children
back from school."
"Partly," assented Eli.
"Iss; partly, that, an' to listen here to their voices soundin' so
pretty across the wall. And partly, I reckon, 'tis on the chance to get
speech with the Lord Proprietor and persuade 'em to let you bide on
Saaron. But that you'll never do. Mind, I'm not sayin' a word against
th' old curmudgeon. He's my employer, to start with, besides being what
God made 'em. But, reason? You might as well try reason on the hind leg
of a jackass. Go thy ways home, Tregarthen: go thy ways home an' teach
yourself that all this world and the kingdoms thereof be but what the
mind o' man makes 'em, and Saaron itself but a warren for rabbits."
Tregarthen shook his head.
"A barren rock.... Come now, bring your mind to it!" Abe suggested,
coaxing.
"'Tis no good, Abe."
"A cottage in a vineyard--what says holy Isaiah? A lodge in a garden of
cucumbers--a besieged city----"
"Abe Jenkins!"--It was the Lord Proprietor's voice calling from the
upper gate.
"Y'r honour!" Abe snatched his hoe and wheeled about sharply as the
great man came down the path with Mr. Pope at his heels.
"How long have you been working here?" demanded Sir Caesar. "Perhaps I
had better have said 'idling,'" he added, with a frown and a curt nod
at Tregarthen in the gateway. Sir Caesar's gray eyebrows had a trick of
bristling up, like a cat's, at the first hint of unpleasantness, even
at sight of anyone who crossed his will; and they bristled now.
"'Been workin' here the best part of the morning," answered Abe, with
an old man's freedom of tone and a complacent look backward at the
patch of turned soil. "And 'might have been workin' yet but the
children singin' their hymn yonder"--with a jerk of his thumb towards
the wall that hid the school building--"warned me 'twas time to knock
off for dinner."
Now, the Lord Proprietor had meant his question for preface to another.
"Had Abe, while at work, caught sight of a strange lady anywhere in the
garden?" The question, if put just then, and in Tregarthen's hearing,
might have changed the whole current of this small history; for
Tregarthen was a poor hand at dissimulation--or, rather, was incapable
of it. But the sight of his back, as he turned away, caused Sir Caesar's
eyebrows to bristle up yet more pugnaciously.
"Hi, sir?"
Tregarthen turned slowly.
"You are waiting here to fetch your children from school, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Tregarthen.
"And isn't that an instance, man, of what I tried to make you
understand two days ago? Cannot you see what time and trouble you'll be
saving yourself--let alone the children--when you're comfortably
settled on Brefar and within half-a-mile of a handy school?"
"Yes," said Tregarthen again. His eyes met the Lord Proprietor's
without servility as without disrespect, but with a kind of patient
wonder.
"Well, then"--Sir Caesar turned to Mr. Pope for confirmation--"here is a
man who--to give him his due, eh?--works as hard as any on the Islands;
harder, I daresay, than his own hired labourer----"
Mr. Pope nodded.
"--A man," continued Sir Caesar, "who never gives himself a holiday; a
man whose nature it is to grudge every hour of the day that isn't
employed in wringing money out of a desert. Come now!"--warmed by his
own eloquence to a geniality equally hearty and false, Sir Caesar swung
around again upon Mr. Pope--"I daresay we may call him, to his face,
about the best of my farmers!"
Mr. Pope inclined, with the half of an embarrassed smile. As an agent,
he felt any such appreciation of a tenant to be, if not dangerous, at
least uncalled for, liable to be misinterpreted. He contented himself
with answering--in a murmur--that Mr. Tregarthen had given the estate
in the past every satisfaction; that it would surprise him indeed if
(at this time of day) Mr. Tregarthen were (of all men) to raise
trouble.
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