The Grey Lady

Qui n'accepte pas le regret n'accepte pas la vie.

The train technically known as the "Flying Dutchman," tearing through the plains of Taunton, and in a first-class carriage by themselves, facing each other, two boys.

One of these boys remembers the moment to this day. A journey accomplished with Care for a travelling companion usually adheres to the wheels of memory until those wheels are still. Grim Care was with these boys in the railway carriage. A great catastrophe had come to them. A FitzHenry had failed to pass into her Majesty's Navy. Back and back through the generations--back to the days when England had no navy--she had always been served at sea by a FitzHenry. Moreover, there had always been a Henry of that name on the books. Henry, the son of Henry, had, as a matter of course, gone down to the sea in a ship, had done his country's business in the great waters.

There was, if they could have looked at it from a racial point of view, one small grain of consolation. The record was not even now snapped--for Henry had succeeded, Luke it was who had failed.

Henry sat with his back to the engine, looking out over the flat meadow-land, with some moisture remarkably like a tear in either eye. The eyes were blue, deep, and dark like the eastern horizon when the sun is setting over the sea. The face was brown, and oval, and still. It looked like a face that belonged to a race, something that had been handed down with the inherent love of blue water. It is probable that many centuries ago, a man with features such as these, with eyes such as these, and crisp, closely curling hair, had leaped ashore from his open Viking boat, shouting defiance to the Briton.

This son of countless Henrys sat and thought the world was hollow, with no joy in it, and no hope, because Luke had failed.

We are told that there shall be two in the field, that the one shall be taken and the other left. But we have yet to learn why, in our limited vision, the choice seems invariably to be mistaken. We have yet to learn why he who is doing good work is called from the field, leaving there the man whose tastes are urban.

Except for the sake of the record--and we cannot really be expected in these busy times to live for generations past or yet unborn--except for the record it would have been more expedient that Henry should fail and Luke succeed. Everybody knew this. It was the common talk on board the Britannia. Even the examiners knew it. Luke himself was aware of it. But there had always been a fatality about Luke.

And now, when it was quite apparent that Luke was a sailor and nothing else, the Navy would have none of him. Those who knew him--his kindly old captain and others--averred that, with a strict and unquestionable discipline, Luke FitzHenry could be made a first-class officer and a brilliant sailor. No one quite understood him, not even his brother Henry, usually known as Fitz. Fitz did not understand him now; he had not understood him since the fatal notice had been posted on the broad mainmast, of which some may wot. He did not know what to say, so, like the wise old Duke, he said nothing.

In the meantime the train raced on. Every moment brought them nearer to London and to the Honourable Mrs. Harrington.

Fitz seemed to be realising this, for he glanced uneasily at his brother, whose morose, sullen face was turned resolutely towards the window.

"She'll be a fool," he said, "if she does not give you another chance."

"I would not take it," answered Luke mechanically.

He was darker than his brother, with a longer chin and a peculiar twist of the lips. His eyes were lighter in colour, and rather too close together. A keen observer would have put him down as a boy who in manhood might go wrong. The strange thing was that no one could have hesitated for a moment in selecting Luke as the cleverer of the two.

Fitz paused. He was not so quick with his tongue as with his limbs. He knew his brother well enough to foresee the effect of failure. Luke FitzHenry was destined to be one of those unfortunate men who fail ungracefully.

"Do not decide in too great a hurry," said Fitz at length, rather lamely. "Don't be a fool!"

"No, it has been decided for me by my beastly bad luck."

"It was bad luck--deuced bad luck."

They had bought a packet of cigarettes at Exeter, but that outward sign of manhood lay untouched on the seat beside Fitz. It almost seemed as if manhood had come to them both in a more serious form than a swaggering indulgence in tobacco.

The boys were obviously brothers, but not aggressively twins. For Luke was darker than Fitz, and somewhat shorter in stature.

It is probable that neither of them had ever seriously contemplated the possibility of failure for one and not for the other. Neither had ever looked onward, as it were, into life to see himself there without the other. The life that they both anticipated was that life on the ocean wave, of which home-keeping poets sing so eloquently; and it had always been vaguely taken for granted that no great difference in rank or success could sever them. Fitz was too simple-minded, too honest to himself, to look for great honours in his country's service. He mistrusted himself. Luke mistrusted Providence.

Such was the difference between these two boys--the thin end of a wedge of years which, spreading out in after days, turned each life into a path of its own, sending each man inexorably on his separate way.

These two boys were almost alone in the world. Their mother had died in giving them birth. Their father, an old man when he married, reached his allotted span when his sons first donned Her Majesty's brass buttons, and quietly went to keep his watch below. Discipline had been his guiding star through life, and when Death called him he obeyed without a murmur, trusting confidently to the Naval Department in the first place, and the good God in the second, to look after his boys.

That the late Admiral FitzHenry had sorely misplaced his confidence in the first instance was a fact which the two boys were now called upon to face alone in their youthful ignorance of the world. Fitz was uneasily conscious of a feeling of helplessness, as if some all-powerful protector had suddenly been withdrawn. Their two lives had been pre-committed to the parental care of their country, and now it almost took their breath away to realise that Luke had no such protector.

His was the pride that depreciates self. During the last twenty-four hours Fitz had heard him boast of his failure, holding it up with a singularly triumphant sneer, as if he had always distrusted his destiny and took a certain pleasure in verifying his own prognostications. There are some men who find a satisfaction in bad luck which good fortune could never afford them.

In a large house in Grosvenor Gardens two ladies were at that same moment speaking of the FitzHenrys. It was quite easy to see that the smaller lady of the two was the mistress of the house, as also of that vague abstract called the situation. She sat in the most comfortable chair, which was, by the way, considerably too spacious for her, and there was a certain aggressive sense of possession about her attitude and manner.

Had she been a man, one would have said at once that here was a nouveau riche, ever heedful of the fact that the big room and all the appurtenances thereof were the fruits of toil and perseverance. There was a distinct suggestion of self-manufacture about Mrs. Harrington--distinct, that is to say, to the more subtle-minded. For she was not vulgar, neither did she boast. But the expression of her keen and somewhat worldly countenance betokened the intention of holding her own.

The Honourable Mrs. Harrington was not only beautifully dressed, but knew how to wear her clothes en grande dame.

"Yes," she was saying, "Luke has failed to pass off the Britannia. It is a rare occurrence. I suppose the boy is a fool."

Mrs. Harrington was rather addicted to the practice of calling other people names. If the butler made a mistake she dubbed him an idiot at once. She did not actually call her present companion, Mrs. Ingham-Baker, a fool, possibly because she considered the fact too apparent to require note.

Mrs. Ingham-Baker, stout and cringing, smoothed out the piece of silken needlework with which she moved through life, and glanced at her companion. She wanted to say the right thing. And Mrs. Harrington was what the French call "difficult." One could never tell what the right thing might be. The art of saying it is, moreover, like an ear for music, it is not to be acquired. And Mrs. Ingham-Baker had not been gifted thus.

"And yet," she said, "their father was a clever man--as I have been told."

"By whom?" inquired Mrs. Harrington blandly.

Mrs. Ingham-Baker paused in distress.

"I wonder who it was," she pretended to reflect.

"So do I," snapped Mrs. Harrington.

Mrs. Ingham-Baker's imagination was a somewhat ponderous affair, and, when she trusted to it, it usually ran her violently down a steep place. She concluded to say nothing more about the late Admiral FitzHenry.

"The boy," said Mrs. Harrington, returning to the hapless Luke, "has had every advantage. I suppose he will try to explain matters when he comes. I could explain it in one word - stupidity."

"Perhaps," put in Mrs. Ingham-Baker nervously, "the brains have all gone to the other brother, Henry. It is sometimes so with twins."

Mrs. Harrington laughed rather derisively.

"Stupid woman to have twins," she muttered.

This was apparently one of several grievances against the late Mrs. FitzHenry.

"They have a little money of their own, have they not?" inquired Mrs. Ingham-Baker, with the soft blandness of one for whom money has absolutely no attraction.

"About enough to pay their washerwoman."

There was a pause, and then Mrs. Ingham-Baker heaved a little sigh.

"I am sure, dear," she said, "that in some way you will be rewarded for your great kindness to these poor orphan boys."

She shook her head wisely, as if reflecting over the numerous cases of rewarded virtue which had come under her notice, and the action made two jet ornaments in her cap wobble, in a ludicrous manner, from side to side.

"That may be," admitted the lady of the house, "though I wish I felt as sure about it as you do."

"But then," continued Mrs. Ingham-Baker, in a low and feeling tone, "you always were the soul of generosity."

The "soul of generosity" gave an exceedingly wise little smile--almost as if she knew better--and looked up sharply towards the door. At the same moment the butler appeared.

"Mr. Pawson, ma'am," he said.

The little nod with which this information was received seemed to indicate that Mr. Pawson had been expected.

Beneath her black curls Mrs. Ingham-Baker's beady eyes were very much on the alert.

"In the library, James," said Mrs. Harrington--and the two jet ornaments bending over the silken needlework gave a little throb of disappointment.

"Mr. Pawson," announced the lady of the house, "is the legal light who casts a shadow of obscurity over my affairs."

And with that she left the room.

As soon as the door was closed Mrs. Ingham-Baker was on her feet. She crossed the room to where her hostess's key-basket and other belongings stood upon a table near the window. She stood looking eagerly at these without touching them. She even stooped down to examine the address of an envelope.

"Mr. Pawson!" she said, in a breathless whisper. "Mr. Pawson--what does that mean? Can she be going to alter her--no! But--yes, it may be! Perhaps Susan knows."

Mrs. Ingham-Baker then rang the bell twice, and resumed her seat.

Presently an aged servant came into the room. It was easy to see at a glance that she was a very old woman, but the years seemed to weigh less on her mind than on her body.

"Yes," she said composedly.

"Oh--eh, Susan," began Mrs. Ingham-Baker almost cringingly. "I rang because I wanted to know if a parcel has come for me--a parcel of floss-silk--from that shop in Buckingham Palace Road, you know."

"If it had come," replied Susan, with withering composure, "it would have been sent up to you."

"Yes, yes, of course I know that, Susan. But I thought that perhaps it might have been insufficiently addressed or something - that you or Mary might have thought that it was for Mrs. Harrington."

"She don't use floss silks," replied the imperturbable Susan.

"I was just going to ask her about it, when she was called away by some one. I think she said that it was her lawyer."

"Yes, Mr. Pawson."

Susan's manner implied--very subtly and gently--that her place in this pleasant house was more assured than that of Mrs. Ingham-Baker, and perhaps that stout diplomatist awoke to this implication, for she pulled herself up with considerable dignity.

"I hope that nothing is wrong," she said, in a tone that was intended to disclaim all intention of discussing such matters with a menial. "I should be sorry if Mrs. Harrington was drawn into any legal difficulty; the law is so complicated."

Susan was engaged in looking for a speck of dust on the mantelpiece, not for its own intrinsic value, but for the sake of Mary's future. She had apparently no observation of value to offer upon the vexed subject of the law.

"I was rather afraid," pursued Mrs. Ingham-Baker gravely, "that Mrs. Harrington might be unduly incensed against that poor boy, Luke FitzHenry; that in a moment of disappointment, you know, she might be making some--well, some alteration in her will to the detriment of the boy."

Susan stood for a moment in front of the lady, with a strange little smile of amusement among the wrinkles of her face.

"Yes, that may be," she said, and quietly left the room.