Colonel Quaritch, V.C.: Chapter 29

Chapter 29

EDWARD COSSEY MEETS WITH AN ACCIDENT

At the best of times this is not a gay world, though no doubt we ought
to pretend that humanity at large is as happy as it is represented to
be in, let us say, the Christmas number of an illustrated paper. How
well we can imagine the thoughtful inhabitant of this country Anno
Domini 7500 or thereabouts disinterring from the crumbling remains of
a fireproof safe a Christmas number of the /Illustrated London News/
or the /Graphic/. The archaic letters would perhaps be unintelligible
to him, but he would look at the pictures with much the same interest
that we regard bushmen's drawings or the primitive clay figures of
Peru, and though his whole artistic seventy-sixth century soul would
be revolted at the crudeness of the colouring, surely he would
moralise thus: "Oh, happy race of primitive men, how I, the child of
light and civilisation, envy you your long-forgotten days! Here in
these rude drawings, which in themselves reveal the extraordinary
capacity for pleasure possessed by the early races, who could look
upon them and gather gratification from the sight, may we trace your
joyous career from the cradle to the grave. Here you figure as a babe,
at whose appearance everybody seems delighted, even those of your race
whose inheritance will be thereby diminished--and here a merry lad you
revel in the school which the youth of our age finds so wearisome.
There, grown more old, you stand at the altar of a beautiful lost
faith, a faith that told of hope and peace beyond the grave, and by
you stands your blushing bride. No hard fate, no considerations of
means, no worldly-mindedness, come to snatch you from her arms as now
they daily do. With her you spend your peaceful days, and here at last
we see you old but surrounded by love and tender kindness, and almost
looking forward to that grave which you believed would be but the gate
of glory. Oh, happy race of simple-minded men, what a commentary upon
our fevered, avaricious, pleasure-seeking age is this rude scroll of
primitive and infantile art!"

So will some unborn /laudator temporis acti/ speak in some dim century
to be, when our sorrows have faded and are not.

And yet, though we do not put a record of them in our Christmas
numbers, troubles are as troubles have been and will continually be,
for however apparently happy the lot of individuals, it is not
altogether a cheerful world in which we have been called to live. At
any rate so thought Harold Quaritch on that night of the farewell
scene with Ida in the churchyard, and so he continued to think for
some time to come. A man's life is always more or less a struggle; he
is a swimmer upon an adverse sea, and to live at all he must keep his
limbs in motion. If he grows faint-hearted or weary and no longer
strives, for a little while he floats, and then at last, morally or
physically, he vanishes. We struggle for our livelihoods, and for all
that makes life worth living in the material sense, and not the less
are we called upon to struggle with an army of spiritual woes and
fears, which now we vanquish and now are vanquished by. Every man of
refinement, and many women, will be able to recall periods in his or
her existence when life has seemed not only valueless but hateful,
when our small successes, such as they are, dwindled away and vanished
in the gulf of our many failures, when our hopes and aspirations faded
like a little sunset cloud, and we were surrounded by black and lonely
mental night, from which even the star of Faith had passed. Such a
time had come to Harold Quaritch now. His days had not, on the whole,
been happy days; but he was a good and earnest man, with that touching
faith in Providence which is given to some among us, and which had
brought with it the reward of an even thankful spirit. And then, out
of the dusk of his contentment a hope of happiness had arisen like the
Angel of the Dawn, and suddenly life was aflame with the light of
love, and became beautiful in his eyes. And now the hope had passed:
the woman whom he deeply loved, and who loved him back again, had gone
from his reach and left him desolate--gone from his reach, not into
the grave, but towards the arms of another man.

Our race is called upon to face many troubles; sickness, poverty, and
death, but it is doubtful if Evil holds another arrow so sharp as that
which pierced him now. He was no longer young, it is true, and
therefore did not feel that intense agony of disappointed passion,
that sickening sense of utter loss which in such circumstances
sometimes settle on the young. But if in youth we feel more sharply
and with a keener sympathy of the imagination, we have at least more
strength to bear, and hope does not altogether die. For we know that
we shall live it down, or if we do not know it then, we /do/ live it
down. Very likely, indeed, there comes a time when we look back upon
our sorrow and he or she who caused it with wonder, yes even with
scorn and bitter laughter. But it is not so when the blow falls in
later life. It may not hurt so much at the time, it may seem to have
been struck with the bludgeon of Fate rather than with her keen
dividing sword, but the effect is more lasting, and for the rest of
our days we are numb and cold, for Time has no salve to heal us.

These things Harold realised most clearly in the heavy days which
followed that churchyard separation.

He took his punishment like a brave man indeed, and went about his
daily occupations with a steadfast face, but his bold behaviour did
not lessen its weight. He had promised not to go away till Ida was
married and he would keep the promise, but in his heart he wondered
how he should bear the sight of her. What would it be to see her, to
touch her hand, to hear the rustle of her dress and the music of her
beloved voice, and to realise again and yet again that all these
things were not for him, that they had passed from him into the
ownership of another man?

On the day following that upon which Edward Cossey had been terrified
into transferring the Honham mortgages to Mr. Quest the Colonel went
out shooting. He had lately become the possessor of a new hammerless
gun by a well-known London maker, of which he stood in considerable
need. Harold had treated himself to this gun when he came into his
aunt's little fortune, but it was only just completed. The weapon was
a beautiful one, and at any other time it would have filled his
sportsman's heart with joy. Even as it was, when he put it together
and balanced it and took imaginary shots at blackbirds in the garden,
for a little while he forgot his sorrows, for the woe must indeed be
heavy which a new hammerless gun by such a maker cannot do something
towards lightening. So on the next morning he took this gun and went
to the marshes by the river--where, he was credibly informed, several
wisps of snipe had been seen--to attempt to shoot some of them and put
the new weapon to the test.

It was on this same morning that Edward Cossey got a letter which
disturbed him not a little. It was from Belle Quest, and ran thus:

"Dear Mr. Cossey,--Will you come over and see me this afternoon
about three o'clock? I shall /expect/ you, so I am sure you will
not disappoint me.--B.Q."

For a long while he hesitated what to do. Belle Quest was at the
present juncture the very last person whom he wished to see. His
nerves were shaken and he feared a scene, but on the other hand he did
not know what danger might threaten him if he refused to go. Quest had
got his price, and he knew that he had nothing more to fear from him;
but a jealous woman has no price, and if he did not humour her it
might, he felt, be at a risk which he could not estimate. Also he was
nervously anxious to give no further cause for gossip. A sudden
outward and visible cessation of his intimacy with the Quests might,
he thought, give rise to surmises and suspicion in a little country
town like Boisingham, where all his movements were known. So, albeit
with a faint heart, he determined to go.

Accordingly, at three o'clock precisely, he was shown into the
drawing-room at the Oaks. Mrs. Quest was not there; indeed he waited
for ten minutes before she came in. She was pale, so pale that the
blue veins on her forehead showed distinctly through her ivory skin,
and there was a curious intensity about her manner which frightened
him. She was very quiet also, unnaturally so, indeed; but her quiet
was of the ominous nature of the silence before the storm, and when
she spoke her words were keen, and quick, and vivid.

She did not shake hands with him, but sat down and looked at him,
slowly fanning herself with a painted ivory fan which she took up from
the table.

"You sent for me, Belle, and here I am," he said, breaking the
silence.

Then she spoke. "You told me the other day," she said, "that you were
not engaged to be married to Ida de la Molle. It is not true. You are
engaged to be married to her."

"Who said so?" he asked defiantly. "Quest, I suppose?"

"I have it on a better authority," she answered. "I have it from Miss
de la Molle herself. Now, listen, Edward Cossey. When I let you go, I
made a condition, and that condition was that you should /not/ marry
Ida de la Molle. Do you still intend to marry her?"

"You had it from Ida," he said, disregarding her question; "then you
must have spoken to Ida--you must have told her everything. I
suspected as much from her manner the other night. You----"

"Then it is true," she broke in coldly. "It is true, and in addition
to your other failings, Edward, you are a coward and--a liar."

"What is it to you what I am or what I am not?" he answered savagely.
"What business is it of yours? You have no hold over me, and no claim
upon me. As it is I have suffered enough at your hands and at those of
your accursed husband. I have had to pay him thirty thousand pounds,
do you know that? But of course you know it. No doubt the whole thing
is a plant, and you will share the spoil."

"/Ah!/" she said, drawing a long breath.

"And now look here," he went on. "Once and for all, I will not be
interfered with by you. I /am/ engaged to marry Ida de la Molle, and
whether you wish it or no I shall marry her. And one more thing. I
will not allow you to associate with Ida. Do you understand me? I will
not allow it."

She had been holding the fan before her face while he spoke. Now she
lowered it and looked at him. Her face was paler than ever, paler than
death, if that be possible, but in her eyes there shone a light like
the light of a flame.

"Why not?" she said quietly.

"Why not?" he answered savagely. "I wonder that you think it necessary
to ask such a question, but as you do I will tell you why. Because Ida
is the lady whom I am going to marry, and I do not choose that she
should associate with a woman who is what you are."

"/Ah!/" she said again, "I understand now."

At that moment a diversion occurred. The drawing-room looked on to the
garden, and at the end of the garden was a door which opened into
another street.

Through this door had come Colonel Quaritch accompanied by Mr. Quest,
the former with his gun under his arm. They walked up the garden and
were almost at the French window when Edward Cossey saw them. "Control
yourself," he said in a low voice, "here is your husband."

Mr. Quest advanced and knocked at the window, which his wife opened.
When he saw Edward Cossey he hesitated a little, then nodded to him,
while the Colonel came forward, and placing his gun by the wall
entered the room, shook hands with Mrs. Quest, and bowed coldly to
Edward Cossey.

"I met the Colonel, Belle," said Mr. Quest, "coming here with the
benevolent intention of giving you some snipe, so I brought him up by
the short way."

"That is very kind of you, Colonel Quaritch," said she with a sweet
smile (for she had the sweetest smile imaginable).

He looked at her. There was something about her face which attracted
his attention, something unusual.

"What are you looking at?" she asked.

"You," he said bluntly, for they were out of hearing of the other two.
"If I were poetically minded I should say that you looked like the
Tragic Muse."

"Do I?" she answered, laughing. "Well, that is curious, because I feel
like Comedy herself."

"There's something wrong with that woman," thought the Colonel to
himself as he extracted two couple of snipe from his capacious coat
tails. "I wonder what it is."

Just then Mr. Quest and Edward Cossey passed out into the garden
talking.

"Here are the snipe, Mrs. Quest," he said. "I have had rather good
luck. I killed four couple and missed two couple more; but then I had
a new gun, and one can never shoot so well with a new gun."

"Oh, thank you," she said, "do pull out the 'painters' for me. I like
to put them in my riding hat, and I can never find them myself."

"Very well," he answered, "but I must go into the garden to do it;
there is not light enough here. It gets dark so soon now."

Accordingly he stepped out through the window, and began to hunt for
the pretty little feathers which are to be found at the angle of a
snipe's wing.

"Is that the new gun, Colonel Quaritch?" said Mrs. Quest presently;
"what a beautiful one!"

"Be careful," he said, "I haven't taken the cartridges out."

If he had been looking at her, which at that moment he was not, Harold
would have seen her stagger and catch at the wall for support. Then he
would have seen an awful and malevolent light of sudden determination
pass across her face.

"All right," she said, "I know about guns. My father used to shoot and
I often cleaned his gun," and she took the weapon up and began to
examine the engraving on the locks.

"What is this?" she said, pointing to a little slide above the locks
on which the word "safe" was engraved in gold letters.

"Oh, that's the safety bolt," he said. "When you see the word 'safe,'
the locks are barred and the gun won't go off. You have to push the
bolt forward before you can fire."

"So?" she said carelessly, and suiting the action to the word.

"Yes, so, but please be careful, the gun is loaded."

"Yes, I'll be careful," she answered. "Well, it is a very pretty gun,
and so light that I believe I could shoot with it myself."

Meanwhile Edward Cossey and Mr. Quest, who were walking up the garden,
had separated, Mr. Quest going to the right across the lawn to pick up
a glove which had dropped upon the grass, while Edward Cossey slowly
sauntered towards them. When he was about nine paces off he too halted
and, stooping a little, looked abstractedly at a white Japanese
chrysanthemum which was still in bloom. Mrs. Quest turned, as the
Colonel thought, to put the gun back against the wall. He would have
offered to take it from her but at the moment both his hands were
occupied in extracting one of the "painters" from a snipe. The next
thing he was aware of was a loud explosion, followed by an exclamation
or rather a cry from Mrs. Quest. He dropped the snipe and looked up,
just in time to see the gun, which had leapt from her hands with the
recoil, strike against the wall of the house and fall to the ground.
Instantly, whether by instinct or by chance he never knew, he glanced
towards the place where Edward Cossey stood, and saw that his face was
streaming with blood and that his right arm hung helpless by his side.
Even as he looked, he saw him put his uninjured hand to his head, and,
without a word or a sound, sink down on the gravel path.

For a second there was silence, and the blue smoke from the gun hung
heavily upon the damp autumn air. In the midst of it stood Belle Quest
like one transfixed, her lips apart, her blue eyes opened wide, and
the stamp of terror--or was it guilt?--upon her pallid face.

All this he saw in a flash, and then ran to the bleeding heap upon the
gravel.

He reached it almost simultaneously with Mr. Quest, and together they
turned the body over. But still Belle stood there enveloped in the
heavy smoke.

Presently, however, her trance left her and she ran up, flung herself
upon her knees, and looked at her former lover, whose face and head
were now a mass of blood.

"He is dead," she wailed; "he is dead, and I have killed him! Oh,
Edward! Edward!"

Mr. Quest turned on her savagely; so savagely that one might almost
have thought he feared lest in her agony she should say something
further.

"Stop that," he said, seizing her arm, "and go for the doctor, for if
he is not dead he will soon bleed to death."

With an effort she rose, put her hand to her forehead, and then ran
like the wind down the garden and through the little door.

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