Lady Athlyne/Chapter 4
The "Bird-cage" at Pretoria was the enclosure wherein the captured British officers were imprisoned during the second quarter of the year 1900. Here at the beginning of May two men were talking quietly as they lay on the bare ground in the centre of the compound. The Bird-cage was no home of luxury; but the men who had perforce to live in it tried to make the best of things, and grumbling was tacitly discountenanced. These two had become particular chums. For more than a month they had talked over everything which seemed of interest. At first of course it was the war and all connected with it which interested them most. They were full of hope; for though six months of constant reverses were behind them they could not doubt that Time and General Roberts would prevail. These two items of expected success were in addition to the British Army generally and the British soldier's belief in it. When every battle or engagement which either of them had been in had been fought over again, and when their knowledge of other engagements and skirmishes had come to an end they fell back on sport. This subject held out for some time. The memories of both were copious of pleasant days and interesting episodes; and hopes ran high of repetitions and variations when the war should be over and the Boers reduced to that acquiescence in British methods and that loyalty to the British flag which British pride now demanded. Then "woman" had its turn, and every flirtation with the bounds of memory was recalled, without names or indentification marks.
Then, when they knew each other better, they talked of the future in this respect. Young men, whatever exceptions these may be, are very sentimental. They are at once imaginative and reticent. Unlike girls their bashfulness is internal. The opening of their hearts, even in a measure, to each other in this respect was the crowning of their confidence. At this time they were occasionally getting letters. These had of course gone through the hands of the censor and their virginity thus destroyed; but the craving of all the prisoners for news of any kind, from home or elsewhere, was such that every letter received became in a measure common property. Even from intimate letters from their own womenkind parts were read out that had any colourable bearing on public matters. A few days before one of the men had a letter from his wife who was in Capetown; a letter which though it was nothing but a letter of affection from a loving wife, was before the day was over read by every man in the place. It had puzzled the husband at first, for though it was in his wife's writing the manner of it was not hers. It was much more carefully written than was her wont. Then it dawned on him that it had a meaning. He thought over it, till in a flash he saw it all. It was written by her, but she had copied it for some one else and signed it. The passage of the letter that now most interested him read:
"I do so long to see you, my darling, that if I do not see you before, I am going to ask to be allowed to come up to Pretoria and see you there if I may, if it is only a glimpse through that horrid barbed wire netting that we hear of. You remember my birthday is on Waterloo day; and I am promising myself, as my birthday treat, a glimpse of the face of my dear husband."
It did not do to assemble together, for the eyes of the jailors were sharp and an organized meeting of the prisoners was suspicious and meant the tightening of bonds. So one by one he talked with his fellows, telling them what he thought and always imploring them to maintain the appearance of listless indifference which they had amongst themselves decided was the attitude best calculated to avert suspicion. Some did not at first understand the cryptic meaning; but the general belief was that it was a warning that the capture of Pretoria was expected not later than the fifteenth of June. This created enormous hopes. Thenceforth all the talk in private was as to what each would do when the relief came.
To-day the conversation was mainly about Athlyne's affairs. He had been unfolding plans to his friend Captain Vachell of the Yeomanry and the latter asked him suddenly:
"By the way, Athlyne, are you married."
"What!—Me married! Lord bless you man, no! Why do you ask?"
"I gathered so from what you have been saying just now. Don't be offended at my asking; but I have a special purpose."
"I'm not a bit offended; why should I be? Why do you ask me?"
"That's what I want to tell you. But old chap this is a delicate subject and I want to clear the ground first. It is wiser." Athlyne sat up:
"Look here, Vachell, this is getting interesting. Clear away!" The other hesitated and then said suddenly:
"You never went through a ceremony of marriage, or what professed to be one, with anyone I suppose? I really do ask pardon for this."
"Honestly, Vachell, I'm not that sort of man. I have lots of sins on me; more than my fair share perhaps. But whatever I have done has been above board." The other went on with dogged persistence:
"You will understand when I explain why I ask; but this is your matter, not mine, and I want to avoid making matters still more complicated. That is of course if there should be any complication that you may have overlooked or forgotten."
"Good God! man, a marriage is not a thing a man could overlook or forget."
"Oh that's all right with a real marriage; or even with a mock marriage if a man didn't make a practice of it. But there might be some woman, with whom one had some kind of intrigue or irregular union, who might take advantage of it to place herself in better position. Such things have been you know, old chap!" he added sententiously. Athlyne laughed.
"Far be it from me to say what a woman might or might not do if she took it into her pretty head; but I don't think there's any woman who would, or who would ever think she had the right to, do that with me. There are women, lots of them I am afraid, who answer the bill on the irregular union or intrigue side; but I should certainly be astonished if any of them ever set out to claim a right. Now I have made a clean breast of it. Won't you tell me what all this is about?" The other looked at him steadily, as though to see how he took it, as he answered:
"There is, I am told, a woman in New York who is passing herself off as your wife!"
Athlyne sprang to his feet and cried out:
"What!"
"That's what I took it to mean! By the way—" this was said as if it was a sudden idea "I take it that your mother is not alive. I had it in my mind that she died shortly after you were born?"
"Unhappily that is so!"
"There is no dowager Countess?"
"Not for more than thirty years. Why?"
"The letter says 'Countess of Athlyne.' I took it to be your wife."
"Let me see the letter." He held out his hand. Vachell took from his pocket—the only private storage a man had in the Bird-cage—an envelope which he handed to his comrade, who took from it a torn fragment of a letter. He read it then turned it over. As he did so his eyes lit up; he had seen his own name. He read it over several times, then he looked up:
"Have you read it?"
"Yes. I was told to do so."
"All right! Then we can discuss it together. He read it out loud:
"So Athlyne is married. At least I take it so, for there is a woman in New York, I am told, who calls herself the Countess of Athlyne. I know nothing of her only this: a casual remark made in a gossipy letter."
"Now tell me, Vachell, can you throw any light on this?"
"Not on the subject but only on the way it has come to you. I had better tell you all I know from the beginning." Athlyne nodded, he went on:
"Whilst we were in the trenches at Volks Spruit waiting for the attack to sound, Meldon and I were together—you remember Meldon of the Connaught Fusiliers?"
"Well! We often hunted together."
"He asked me that if anything should happen to him I would look over his things and send them home, and so forth. I promised, but I asked him why he so cast down about the fight that was coming; was it a presentiment or anything of that kind. 'Not a bit,' he said, 'it's not spiritualism but logic! You see it's about my turn next. All our lot have been wiped out, going up the line in sequence. Rawson, my junior, was last; and now I come on. And there is a message I want you to carry on in case I'm done for. You will find among my papers an envelope directed to Lord Athlyne. It has only a scrap of paper in it so I had better explain. The last time I saw Ebbfleet of the Guards—in Hospital just before he died—he asked me to take the message. 'You know Athlyne' he said 'I got a letter saying a woman in New York was calling herself his wife, and as I know he is not married I think it only right that he should know of this. It will put him on his guard.' Well you know poor Meldon went under at Sandaal; and so I took over the message. When you and I met up here I thought we were in for a long spell and as we couldn't do anything I came to the conclusion that there was no use giving you one more unpleasant thing to think of and grind your teeth over. But now that we know Bobs and Kitchener are coming up before long I want to hand over to you. It is evident that they expect us to be ready to help the force from within when they come, or else they wouldn't run the chance of telling us. Four thousand men, even without arms, are not to be despised in a scrimmage. If the wily Boer tumbles to it they will take us up the mountains in several sections, and I may not have another chance."
"That is all you know of the matter I take it?"
"Absolutely! Of course should I hear anything more I shall at once let you know. Though frankly I don't see how that can be; both men who sent the message are dead. I haven't the faintest idea of who sent the original report. Of course, old chap, I am mum on the subject unless you ever tell me to speak."
"Thanks, old man. I fancy there won't be much time for looking after private affairs for a good spell to come after we have shifted our quarters. There will be a devil of a lot of clearing up when the house changes hands and continues to 'run under new management,' as Bung says."
All that had been spoken of came off as arranged by the various parties. On the fifth of June Roberts took Pretoria in his victorious march. Mafeking and Ladysmith had been relieved, and Johannesberg had fallen. Now, Kruger and the remainder of his forces were hurrying into the Lydenburg mountains to make what stand they could; and not the least keen of their foes were those who had been their guests in the Bird-cage. Athlyne rejoined his regiment and was under Buller's command till the routed army escaped into Portuguese territory. Then he was sent by Kitchener along the ranges of block houses whose segregations slowly brought the war to an end.
When his turn came for going home three years had elapsed. London and his club claimed him for his spells of his short leave, for there was still much work to be done with his regiment. When he began to tire of the long round of work and distractions he commenced to think seriously of a visit to America.
His experience of the war had sobered him down. He was now thirty-two years of age, the time when most men, who have not arrived there already, think seriously of settling down to matrimony. In other respects he wanted to be free. He was tired of obeying orders; even of giving them. The war was over and Britain was at peace with the world. Had there been still fighting going on anywhere such thought would not have occurred to him; he would still have wanted to be in the thick of it. But the long months of waiting and inactivity, the endless routine, the impossibility of doing anything which would have an immediate effect; all these things had worn out much of his patience, and stirred the natural restlessness of his disposition. At home there seemed no prospect of following soldiering in the way he wished: some form in which excitement had a part. Indeed the whole scheme of War and Army seemed to be shaping themselves on lines unfamiliar to him. The idea of the old devil-may-care life which had first attracted him and of which he had had a taste did not any longer exist, or, if it existed it was not for him. Outside actual fighting the life of a soldier was not now to consist of a series of seasonable amusements. And even if it did the very routine of amusements not only did not satisfy him, but became irksome. What, after all, he thought, was to a grown man a life of games in succession. Polo and cricket, fishing, shooting, hunting in due course; racquets and tennis, yachting and racing were all very well individually. But they did not seem to lead anywhere.
In fact such pastimes now seemed inadequate to a man who had been actively taking a part in the biggest game of them all, war!
When once the idea had come to him it never left him. Each new disappointment, the unfulfilled expectation of interest, drove it further and further home. There was everywhere a lack of his old companions; always a crowd of new faces. The girls he had known and liked because they were likable, had got married within the few years of his absence. The matrons had made fresh companionships which held possession. Bridge had arisen as a new society fetish which drew to itself the interests and time of all. A new order of "South African Millionaires" had arisen who by their wealth and extravagance had set at defiance the old order of social caste, and largely changed the whole scheme of existing values.
When he fled away from London he found something of the same changes elsewhere. In the stir of war, and even in the long weariness of waiting which followed it, the whirling along of the great world was, if not forgotten, unthought of. The daily work and the daily interest were so personal and so absorbing that abstract thinking was not.
In the country, of course, the changes were less, but they were more marked. The few years had their full tally of loss; of death, and decay. The eyes that saw them were so far fresh eyes, that unchecked memory had not a perpetual ease of comparison.
For a while he tried hard to find a fresh interest in his work. But here again was change with which he could feel neither sympathy nor toleration. Great schemes of reform were on foot; schemes of organization, of recruiting, of training. The ranks in the Service, of which he had experience, were becoming more mechanical than ever. Had he by this time acquired higher rank in the army it is possible that he would have entered with ardour into the new conditions. He was fitted for such; young, and energetic, and daring. Those in the Cabinet or in the Army Council have material for exercising broader views of the machinery of war, and to the eyes of such many things which looked at in detail seem wrong or foolish stand out in their true national importance.
His dissatisfaction with the army changes was the last straw. He took it into his head that in future the army had no place for him. The idea multiplied day by day with an ever-increasing exasperation. At last his mind was definitely made up. He sent in his papers; and in due time retired.
It is generally the way with human beings that they expect some radical change in themselves and their surroundings to follow close on some voluntary act. They cannot understand, at once at all events, that the "eternal verities" are eternal. "I may die but the grass will grow" says Tennyson in one of his songs. And this is the whole story in epitome. After all, what is one life, howsoever perfect or noble it may be, in the great moving world of fact. The great Globe floats in a sea of logic which encompasses it about everywhere. What is ordained is ordained to an end, and no puny hopes or fears or wishes of an individual can sway or change its course. Conclusions follow premises, results follow causes. We rebel against facts and conditions because they are facts and conditions. Then for some new whim or purpose entirely our own we take a new step—forward or backward it matters not—and lo! we expect the whole world with its million years of slow working up to that particular moment to change too.
This belief that things must change in accordance with our desires has its base deep down in our nature. At the lowest depth it is founded on Vanity. We are so important to ourselves that we cannot but think that that importance is sustained through all creation.
For a little while Lord Athlyne tried to persuade himself that now, at last, he was enjoying freedom. No more parades or early hours; no more orderly rooms or mess dinners, or duties at functions; no more of the bald, stale conventionalities of an occupation which had lost its charm. He expected each day to be now joyous with the realization of ancient hopes.
But the expectations were not realized. The days seemed longer than ever, and he actually yearned for something to fill up his time. Naturally his thoughts turned, as in the case of sportsmen they ever do, on big game. The idea took him and he began to plan out in his mind where he would go. Africa for lions? No! no! He had had enough of Africa to last him for some time. India for tigers; the Rockies for bear?
Happy thought. Bear would just suit. He could put in two things: look up that woman in New York who claimed to be his wife and silence her. He wouldn't like such an idea to go abroad in case he should ever marry. Then he would go on to the Rockies or Colorado and have a turn at the grizzlies.
He went straightway into the reading room of the club he was in and began to study Bradshaw.
At last he had found a new interest in life. For a week he devoted himself to the work in hand, until his whole sporting outfit was prepared. Then he began to think of the other quest; and the more he thought of it the more it puzzled him.