The two brothers, having read through the Will, which was short, for there was nothing much to leave, sat on in the library, silent, till the General said:
“I want to consult you, Lionel. It’s about my boy, Hubert. Did you read that attack made on him in the House before it rose?”
Lionel, sparing of words, and now on the eve of a Judgeship, nodded.
“I saw there was a question asked, but I don’t know Hubert’s version of the affair.”
“I can give it you. The whole thing is damnable. The boy’s got a temper, of course, but he’s straight as a die. What he says you can rely on. And all I can say is that if I’d been in his place, I should probably have done the same.”
Lionel nodded. “Go ahead.”
“Well, as you know, he went straight from Harrow into the War, and had one year in the R.A.F. under age, got wounded, went back and stayed on in the army after the war. He was out in Mespot, then went on to Egypt and India. He got malaria badly, and last October had a year’s sick leave given him, which will be up on October first. He was recommended for a long voyage. He got leave for it and went out through the Panama Canal to Lima. There he met that American professor, Hallorsen, who came over here some time ago and gave some lectures, it appears, about some queer remains in Bolivia; he was going to take an expedition there. This expedition was just starting when Hubert got to Lima, and Hallorsen wanted a transport officer. Hubert was fit enough after his voyage and jumped at the chance. He can’t bear idleness. Hallorsen took him on; that was in December last. After a bit Hallorsen left him in charge of his base camp with a lot of half-caste Indian mule men. Hubert was the only white man, and he got fever badly. Some of those half-caste Indian fellows are devils, according to his account; no sense of discipline and perfect brutes with animals. Hubert got wrong with them—he’s a hot-tempered chap, as I told you, and, as it happens, particularly fond of animals. The half-castes got more and more out of hand, till finally one of them, whom he’d had to have flogged for ill-treating mules and who was stirring up mutiny, attacked him with a knife. Luckily Hubert had his revolver handy and shot him dead. And on that the whole blessed lot of them, except three, cleared out, taking the mules with them. Mind you, he’d been left there alone for nearly three months without support or news of any kind from Hallorsen. Well, he hung on somehow, half dead, with his remaining men. At last Hallorsen came back, and instead of trying to understand his difficulties, pitched into him. Hubert wouldn’t stand for it; gave him as good as he got, and left. He came straight home, and is down with us at Condaford. He’s lost the fever, luckily, but he’s pretty well worn out, even now. And now that fellow Hallorsen has attacked him in his book; practically thrown the blame of failure on him, implies he was tyrannical and no good at handling men, calls him a hot-tempered aristocrat—all that bunkum that goes down these days. Well, some Service member got hold of this and asked that question about it in Parliament. One expects Socialists to make themselves unpleasant, but when it comes to a Service member alluding to conduct unbecoming to a British officer, it’s another matter altogether. Hallorsen’s in the States. There’s nobody to bring an action against: besides, Hubert could get no witnesses. It looks to me as if the thing has cut right across his career.”
Lionel Cherrell’s long face lengthened.
“Has he tried Headquarters?”
“Yes, he went up on Wednesday. They were chilly. Any popular gup about high-handedness scares them nowadays. I daresay they’d come round if no more were said, but how’s that possible? He’s been publicly criticised in that book, and practically accused in Parliament of violent conduct unbecoming to an officer and gentleman. He can’t sit down under that; and yet—what can he do?”
Lionel drew deeply at his pipe.
“D’you know,” he said, “I think he’d better take no notice.”
The General clenched his fist. “Damn it, Lionel, I don’t see that!”
“But he admits the shooting and the flogging. The public has no imagination, Con—they’ll never see his side of the thing. All they’ll swallow is that on a civilian expedition he shot one man and flogged others. You can’t expect them to understand the conditions or the pressure there was.”
“Then you seriously advise him to take it lying down?”
“As a man, no; as a man of the world, yes.”
“Good Lord! What’s England coming to? I wonder what old Uncle Cuffs would have said? He thought a lot of our name.”
“So do I. But how is Hubert to get even with them?”
The General was silent for a little while and then said:
“This charge is a slur on the Service, and yet his hands seem tied. If he handed in his Commission he could stand up to it, but his whole heart’s in the Army. It’s a bad business. By the way, Lawrence has been talking to me about Adrian. Diana Ferse was Diana Montjoy, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, second cousin to Lawrence—very pretty woman, Con. Ever see her?”
“As a girl, yes. What’s her position now, then?”
“Married widow—two children, and a husband in a Mental Home.”
“That’s lively. Incurable?”
Lionel nodded. “They say so. But of course, you never know.”
“Good Lord!”
“That’s just about it. She’s poor and Adrian’s poorer; it’s a very old affection on Adrian’s part, dates from before her marriage. If he does anything foolish, he’ll lose his curatorship.”
“Go off with her, you mean? Why, he must be fifty!”
“No fool like an—She’s an attractive creature. Those Montjoys are celebrated for their charm. Would he listen to you, Con?”
The General shook his head.
“More likely to Hilary.”
“Poor old Adrian—one of the best men on earth. I’ll talk to Hilary, but his hands are always full.”
The General rose. “I’m going to bed. We don’t smell of age at the Grange like this place—though the Grange is older.”
“Too much original wood here. Good-night, old man.”
The brothers shook hands, and, grasping each a candle, sought their rooms.
CHAPTER 2
Condaford Grange had passed from the de Campforts (whence its name) into possession of the Cherrells in 1217, when their name was spelt Kerwell and still at times Keroual, as the spirit moved the scribe. The story of its passing was romantic, for the Kerwell who got it by marrying a de Campfort had got the de Campfort by rescuing her from a wild boar. He had been a landless wight whose father, a Frenchman from Guienne, had come to England after Richard’s crusade; and she had been the heiress of the landed de Campforts. The boar was incorporated on the family ‘shield,’ and some doubted whether the boar on the shield did not give rise to the story, rather than the story to the boar. In any case parts of the house were certified by expert masons to go back to the twelfth century. It had undoubtedly been moated; but under Queen Anne a restorative Cherrell, convinced of the millennium perhaps, and possibly inconvenienced by insects, had drained off the water, and there was now little sign that a moat had ever been.
The late Sir Conway, elder brother of the bishop, knighted in 1901 on his appointment to Spain, had been in the diplomatic service. He had therefore let the place down badly. He had died in 1904, at his post, and the letting-down process had been continued by his eldest son, the present Sir Conway, who, continually on Service, had enjoyed only spasmodic chances of living at Condaford till after the Great War. Now that he did live there, the knowledge that folk of his blood had been encamped there practically since the Conquest had spurred him to do his best to put it in order, so that it was by now unpretentiously trim without and comfortable within, and he was almost too poor to live in it. The estate contained too much covert to be profitable, and, though unencumbered, brought in but a few hundreds a year of net revenue. The pension of a General and the slender income of his wife (by birth the Honourable Elizabeth Frensham) enabled the General to incur a very small amount of supertax, to keep two hunters, and live quietly on the extreme edge of his means. His wife was one of those Englishwomen who seem to count for little, but for that very reason count for a good deal. She was unobtrusive, gentle, and always busy. In a word, she was background; and her pale face, reposeful, sensitive, a little timid, was a continual reminder that culture depends but slightly on wealth or intellect. Her husband and her three children had implicit confidence in her coherent sympathy. They were all of more vivid nature, more strongly coloured, and she was a relief.