Chapter XL: Out of the Night

Jim reaped--and duly passed along to Jack--the benefit of Lord Deseret's long and wide experience of life under many conditions. As a young man he had served with Wellington in the Peninsula, and he had also been with him at Waterloo, where he had, as fellow aide-de-camp, Fitzroy Somerset, now Lord Raglan, who was to command the present expedition to the East.

So Jim and my lord between them evolved, by process of continuous elimination, a campaigning kit, which, if to Jim's inexperienced eyes it lacked much, comprehended, according to his lordship, everything that was absolutely necessary, and probably even yet some things which he would hasten to throw away under pressure of circumstance.

"How long it will last it is hard to say," said Lord Deseret. "If you should by any chance be kept there till the winter I will send you out all you will need."

"Oh, surely we and the Frenchmen between us can clean it all up before then," said innocent Jim.

"We shall know better when we learn where you're bound for, and what you've got to do. At present no one seems to know. They are all very mysterious about it, which is all right if it's policy, but if it's ignorance----"

Jack was first to go, and Jim was mightily put out that engineers should get ahead of cavalry. They had hoped to be able to run down to Carne to say good-bye, but that was quite out of the question. The army had been rusting, more or less, for forty years, and, now that the call had come, every man on the roll was hard at work scraping the accumulated deposit off his bit of the machine, and oiling the parts. The days were all too short for what had to be done, and leave was out of the question.

Jim was here, there, and everywhere, helping to buy horses for the coming wastage, for if he had no head for business he certainly knew horses from tail to muzzle, from hoof to shoulder, and all in between. He was kept hard at work till the call came for the cavalry, and then every minute of every day was over-full, and his head spun with the calls upon his forethought and ingenuity.

He made long lists of the things he had to see to, on scraps of paper with a pencil that was always blunt and often missing, and as each item was attended to he duly scored it off, and so kept fairly straight.

His men had taken to him, and consulted him now as an oracle, and within his capacity he enjoyed it all immensely.

Lord Deseret's munificence knew no bounds. In addition to a great brown charger, whose peculiar delights were military music and the roar of artillery--the first of which enjoyments the campaign was unfortunately to offer him few opportunities of indulging in, though he had his fill of the other--his lordship presented Jim with a pair of unusually fine silver mounted revolvers, of a calibre calculated to make short work of the biggest Russian born, and one of these he was to hand over to Jack as soon as they met out East. And for Jim himself, as a very special mark of his goodwill, he bought a sword, selected out of many and suiting his grip and reach as if it had been made for him.

"A most gentlemanly weapon," said the old man, as he poised it with knowledge in his thin white hands. "May it help you to carve your way to much honour! But war is not a gentlemanly business nowadays. That other brutal little thing will probably serve you better."

And so we come to the very last night. The 8th were to leave at six the next morning for Southampton, and Jim was making his way back to his quarters, dead tired, but vaguely hopeful that he had failed in none of the multifarious calls on these last short hours.

His list had been an unusually long one that day. But he had ploughed doggedly through it, and reduced it item by item, till it was cleared off. After his actual military duties had come final letters to Gracie and Mr. Eager and his grandfather--he might never see any of them again. All the same he wrote in the best of spirits, though in grievous regret at not being able to run down and say good-bye.

Then he had made a round of farewell calls among the friends he had made in London, and had even made time to drop in on Mme Beteta for a cup of tea. He had finished up with a quiet dinner with Lord Deseret in Park Lane, and now, in the spirit, England lay behind him, and his compass pointed due east.

Out of the depths of his very large experience, Lord Deseret had given him many a useful hint and much wise advice over their cigars and coffee, and had finally shaken his hand and bidden him "God-speed!" with more emotion than Jim had believed it possible for that calm white face to show.

And Mme Beteta, too, had held his band as he said "Good-bye," and said, with much feeling, "I would have been glad if you had got into some mischief so that I might have had the pleasure of helping you. I will hope all the time to see you come back alive and whole."

"You are all too good to me," laughed Jim, overcome by the kindness he was everywhere meeting with. "I feel as if I was getting more than my proper share. If Jack had been here now, you'd have thought ever so much more of him."

"Perhaps!" smiled madame. "We will see when you both come back,"

He was hurrying back to his quarters, bent on getting a good night's sleep if possible, since the coming nights on board ship might be less conducive thereto, when, as he swung round a corner where a gas lamp hung, deep in his own thoughts and with his head bent down, a timid hand fell on his arm, and as he hastily shook it off, a soft voice jerked:

"Jim!"

He whirled round in vast amazement, and got a shock.

"Kattie! . . . oh, _Kattie!_"

"I did so want to see you before you went. I only heard to-day----"

She looked so pretty in the fluttering light of the lamp, so touchingly soft and sweet, like some beautiful wild bird drawn to a possibly hostile hand by stress of need and prepared for instant flight.

She was very nicely dressed too, better than he had ever seen her before, in well-fitting dark clothes and a little fur pork-pie hat, like the one Gracie used to wear in the winter. And under it her eyes shone brightly and her face glowed and quivered with many emotions.

The passers-by were beginning to notice and look back at them. He led her into a quieter side-street where there was almost no traffic.

"But what are you doing here, Kattie? We have been searching for you for a month past, and now----"

"I couldn't help it, Jim. I had to come----"

"But why, Kattie? Why? Do you know what you've done by running away like that?" And he could not keep the feeling out of his voice, as he thought of poor old Seth, and her mother, and the broken home. "Your mother is dead. It killed her." Kattie's hands were over her face and she was sobbing. "And your father came to London to look for you, and got run over. His hand was in mine as he died, and his last words were for you, 'Tell her to come home!' he said, and then he died."

The slender figure shook with sobs. Perhaps he had been too brutal to blurt it out like that. He ought to have broken it to her by degrees.

"Oh, why did you do it, Kattie?" he said, more gently.

And Kattie, shaken out of herself by his news and his manner, sobbed out her secret.

"Jim, Jim, don't be so hard to me! It was for you, you, you----"

"_Kattie_," he cried, aghast.

"Yes," she choked on in a passion of surrender and self-revelation. "It was you I wanted--you--always. And I thought if I could only get to London where you were----"

"Oh, Kattie!" And he could say no more for the feeling that was in him, and Kattie hung on to his arm and he did not shake her off.

"Kattie," he said at last, in a deep hoarse voice, "has it been my fault? I did not know----"

"No no, no! It was not your fault. But I could not help it."

"I am very sorry, dear. If I had known--but I never dreamt of it. How did you get here?"

She hesitated, and then said, briefly:

"I got some one to bring me."

"Who?"

"I cannot tell you."

"It was an evil thing to do, whoever it was, and I hope some of the sorrow will fall upon him," he said hotly. "But you must not stop here, Kattie. You must go home."

"Home!" she said wildly. "I have no home. I will wait here till you come back from the war, Jim----"

"Kattie! . . . For God's sake, don't talk like that! You don't know what you are saying, child. I may never come back at all . . . And if I do----"

"Oh, Jim! _Jim!_"

She hardly knew what she was saying. She only knew that for months she had been longing for Jim, and now he was here, and he was going, and she might never see him again.

The pretty, quivering, wild-rose face was turned up to his. Her eager arms stole round his neck.

"_Jim!_"

Now, thanks be to thee, Charles Eager, muscular Christian and strenuous apostle of clean living and the higher things!--sitting by your dying fire in Mrs. Jex's cottage at Wyvveloe, thinking much of your boys and praying for them, perchance,--nay, of a certainty, for thoughts such as yours are prayers and resolve themselves into familiar phrases--"that they fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger"--"from battle and murder and from sudden death,"--at which the thinker by the fire fell into deeper musing. And thanks be to all your teaching of the Christian virtues and truest manhood, both by precept and example!

For Jim Carron was only a man like other men, and young blood is hot. And Kattie, in her fervour, was more than pretty.

Jim's big chest rose and fell as if he had been running a race--say with the devil, or as if he had been engaged in mortal combat. Perhaps he had--both.

He broke her hands apart with a firm, gentle grip.

"Kattie dear! You don't know what you are saying. You know it can't be. God help us! What am I to do with you?"

And then he bethought him of Mme Beteta and saw his way.

"Come with me!" he said, and drew her arm tightly through his and led her down the street, and on and on till they came to a thoroughfare where there were cabs. He hailed one, handed her in, gave the driver the address, and sat down beside her.

Kattie asked no questions. She was with Jim. That was enough. Her arm stole inside his again and nestled and throbbed there. She would have asked no more--not very much more--than to ride by his side like that in the joggling cab for ever.

The cab stopped at last before the house in South Audley Street. Jim jumped out and rang the bell, paid the man, and led her up the steps.

"Is madame in?" he asked of the maid who opened the door.

"Just come in, sir."

"Will you beg her to see me for a moment?" And she showed them into a small sitting-room and went noiselessly away.

"Will you please to come to madame's room, sir?" And they were ushered into the cosy room where Mme Beteta had just sat down to supper before a blazing fire. Her wraps lay on the sofa where she had flung them on entering.

She looked lazed and tired, all except her face, and her great dark eyes opened wide at sight of Kattie. Jim had indeed told her that the girl they were searching for was pretty, but this girl, with all that was working in her still in her face and her eyes, was very much more than pretty.

"Mme Beteta, will you do something for me?" began Jim impulsively.

"I have only been waiting the opportunity, my boy, as I told you this afternoon. What is it now--and who is your friend? Won't you sit down, my dear?" to Kattie. "You look very tired."

Kattie sank into the proffered chair, and Jim stood behind it.

"This is Kattie Rimmer, a friend of ours from Carne. She finds herself suddenly alone in London. If you will take care of her I would be so grateful to you."

"Indeed I will, if she will stop with me for a time. You are much too good-looking, my dear, to be alone in this big place. I shall be glad to have something young and pretty about me. My dear old Manuela is worth her weight in gold, but, truly, she is no beauty. And when I go abroad, presently, you shall come with me there also, if you feel so inclined."

Madame understood--partly, at all events, and possibly guessed wrongly at the rest. But there was no mistaking her kindliness. She saw that the girl was under the influence of some overpowering emotion, and she talked on for the sake of talking and to give her time.

"Kattie dear, will you promise me to stop with madame?" asked Jim anxiously. For it was one thing to have got her there--and a great thing; but it might be quite another thing to get her to stop.

"Must I, Jim?" And the great eyes, swimming with tears, snatched a hasty glance at him.

"Yea, Kattie, you must. And, madame, I cannot thank you enough. Sometime, perhaps--if I come back alive----"

And at that Kattie sprang up and flung her arms round his neck again, crying, "Oh, Jim! Jim!"

And he kissed her gently and put her away, and she sank down into the chair, a convulsive heap of sobs.

He mutely begged madame to follow him, and left the room.

"It is terribly sad," he said to her, In the other room. "I met her near my quarters to-night. She had been waiting for me, and she says--she says"--he stumbled--"well, she says she came to London after me. And, you know, I never had a thought of her--poor little Kattie! And I didn't know what to do with her, and so I brought her to you."

"You did quite right, my boy. For your sake--and, yes--for her own--I will do my best for her. She is a pretty little thing--much too pretty to go to waste in London."

"You are very good, madame, and I am very grateful. Perhaps you would consult Lord Deseret about her too, if you think well. He has been very kind in the matter."

"And you have no feeling for her at all?"

"There is only one girl in all the world for me, and that is Gracie Eager. You'll understand when you see her."

Then he wrung her hand very warmly, and said a final good-bye, and went away,--very tired, but with something of a load off his heart as regarded Kattie at all events.