"I would rather die than cause her a minute's pain," he said, with quiet fervour.

"You have caused her a good many," the General said grimly. "Not willingly, I am sure of that, or I wouldn't be here. Haven't you heard how she suffered? Why, G.o.d bless my soul, I was afraid at one time that I might be going to lose her; and all through you, young man--all through you. Now I'll have no more shilly-shally. If Nell is fond of you and you are fond of Nell----"

"G.o.d knows how I love her!" Langrishe cried out, a glow of pa.s.sion lighting up his worn, dark face. "But you don't understand, Sir Denis. I feel sure you don't understand. I have nothing in the world but my sword. My uncle, Sir Peter, gave me that. He gave me nothing else. Lady Langrishe, who nursed my uncle through an attack of the gout before he married her, has just presented him with an heir. I have no hopes from my uncle. If I lose my sword-arm I lose everything. I am likely to lose my sword-arm, Sir Denis."

"Whether you do or whether you do not is in the hands of G.o.d," the General said. "I don't think Nell will mind very much if your sword-arm is ineffectual or not. You've done enough for honour, anyhow. And I'm not going to betray any more of the child's secrets. You'd better come and hear them yourself. I'll tell you what: come on Christmas Day. Come to lunch and bring your bag with you. I daresay you won't want to cut your visit short?"

"You really mean it, Sir Denis?"

"Mean it, my lad? I've meant it for a long time. I've watched your career, Langrishe. I know pretty well all about you. You'd never give me credit for half the cunning I've got." The General rubbed his hands softly together and tried to look Machiavellian, failing ludicrously in the attempt. "There's no man I would more willingly trust my girl to.

Why, I went after you to Tilbury when you were going out--to find out what you meant. I'll tell you about it."

For the moment the General forgot completely how he had man[oe]uvred in the second place to marry Nelly to Robin Drummond. In fact, he didn't remember about it till he was going home, and then, after a momentary shamefacedness about his unintentional disingenuousness, he decided, like a sensible man, that there was no use talking about that now.

Before that time, however, he had lunched with Mrs. Langrishe and her son after a talk with the latter. Now that he had succeeded in breaking down the lover's scruples, G.o.dfrey Langrishe was only too anxious to fling himself into the next train and be carried off to his love. But the General would not have it so, though he was pleased at the young man's impatience.

"It wants but five days to Christmas Day," he said. "Come then. You can spare him, ma'am?" to Mrs. Langrishe.

"I have had to spare him for less happy things," the mother responded cheerfully.

There was no happier old soldier in all his Majesty's dominions than was Sir Denis Drummond on his homeward journey. In fact, he found himself several times displaying his gratification so evidently in his face that people smiled and looked significantly at each other. One lady whispered to another of the Christmas spirit.

It was by a stern effort of his will that he composed his face as he went up the stairs of his own house. He didn't deceive Pat, who had admitted him--for once the General had forgotten his latch-key. Pat reported to Bridget:

"Sorra wan o' me knows what's come to the master; he's gone up the stairs, and the heart of him that light that his foot is only touchin'

the ground in an odd place."

"'Twill be somethin' good for Miss Nelly then," Bridget replied sagely.

The General schooled his face to wear an absurdly transparent look of gloom as he entered the drawing-room, but it was quite wasted on Nelly, who didn't look at him. She had a screen between her face and the fire as she sat in her fireside chair, and her little pale, hurt, haughty profile showed up clearly against the peac.o.c.k's feathers of the screen.

The General had meant to have some play with Nell, but that forlorn look of hers went to his heart.

"I saw Langrishe to-day, Nell," he said. "He's coming for Christmas. We can put him up--hey?"

"Papa!"

He heard the incredulously joyful half-whisper, and he felt the pang that comes to all fathers at such a moment. Nell was not going to be only his ever again. He had been enough for her once on a time; yet, here she was, come to womanhood, breaking her heart for a stranger.

"If I were you, Nell," he said gently, "I'd be seeing about my wedding-clothes."

CHAPTER XXVIII

NOEL! NOEL!

Captain Langrishe arrived only just in time for lunch on the Christmas Day. By the time he had been shown his room and had deposited his bag and returned to the drawing-room it was time for the luncheon-bell.

The meeting between Nelly and himself would have seemed to outsiders a cold one. To be sure, it took place under the General's eye. One might have supposed that the General would have absented himself from that lovers' meeting, but as a matter of fact he did not. Nelly's flush, the shy, burning look which Langrishe sent her from his dark eyes, were enough for the two princ.i.p.als. For the rest, all seemed to be of the most ordinary. No one could have supposed that for the two persons mainly concerned this was the most wonderful Christmas Day there ever had been since the beginning.

During lunch Langrishe talked mainly to the General. They had plenty to talk about. The General found it necessary to apologise to Nelly for "talking shop," an apology which was tendered in a whimsical spirit and received in the same. Pat, waiting at table, quite forgot that he was Sir Denis Drummond's manservant, listening to the stirring tale; and was once again Corporal Murphy, back in "th' ould rig'mint." In fact, he once almost forgot himself so far as to put in an eager comment, but fortunately pulled himself up in time. He mentioned afterwards to Bridget that the Captain's talk had nearly brought him to the point of "joinin'" again. "Only that I remembered that at last you'd consinted to my spakin' to Sir Denis I couldn't have held myself in, Bridget, my jewel," he said. "But the thought of gettin' kilt before ever I'd made you Mrs. Murphy was too much for me."

There was considerable excitement in the servants' hall over Captain Langrishe's presence. Pat, of course, knew all about him since he belonged to "th' ould rig'mint"; but it was through Bridget's feminine perspicacity that it broke on the amazed couple that it was for him Miss Nelly had been breaking her heart all the time.

"It 'ud do you good," said Pat, "to see the way she carries her little sojer's jacket, and the holly berries on her pretty head like a crown."

To be sure, the younger ones of the servants' hall were talking too, and they even approached Pat, who outside the duties of his office was not awesome, for the satisfaction of their curiosity.

"Just wait," said Pat oracularly, "an' ye'll see what ye'll see."

The speech meant nothing to Pat's own mind except that they would be all wiser later on. However, it went nearer the mark than he had intended.

The afternoon of Christmas Day was always the occasion for a Christmas Tree. Everyone in the house was remembered in the distribution of presents, even the dogs. The tree was set up in the servants' hall and the General had never omitted to distribute the presents himself in all the years they had been at Sherwood Square. He had mentioned the tree to Langrishe at lunch, apologising for asking his a.s.sistance at so homely an occasion. His eye twinkled as he said it; and rather to Nelly's bewilderment the young man blushed like a girl. Apparently he had heard of the Christmas Tree before, for he made no comment.

After lunch the lovers were a little while alone. Sir Denis had his secrecies about the Tree, gifts which had to go on at the last moment and to be placed there by himself. When he came back to the drawing-room he was aware from the looks of the young couple that everything had been satisfactorily arranged between them. He looked as cheerful himself as anyone could desire. While he put those last touches to the Tree he had been thinking how good it was that he was going to have his children to himself, no troublesome Dowager with her claims and exactions to come between them. For a long time to come, anyhow, Langrishe must be off active service; and they would all be together in the kind, s.p.a.cious old house. And presently there would be Nelly's children. Please G.o.d he would live to deck the Tree for the delight of Nelly's children! It was the thought of the golden heads of the little lads and la.s.ses yet to be dancing about the Tree that brought the dimness to his eyes, the look of happy dreams to his face.

The Tree was far from being a perfunctory, haphazard affair. Everything had been thought out and planned beforehand. The servants sat in a circle with eager, expectant faces. In front of them was a circle of dogs. The dogs' presents were not much of a novelty. A new collar for one, a new basket for another, a medal for the oldest of the dogs; the possible gifts were very soon exhausted, but they made hilarity, and the dogs barked as they received their gifts as though they understood and enjoyed it all, as no doubt they did.

There was a delightful sensation for the servants' hall when the gold watch which had been hanging near the top of the tree was handed down, and its inscription proved to be: "To Bridget Burke, on the occasion of her marriage to Patrick Murphy, with the affection and esteem of the master and Miss Nelly." The servants' hall broke into cheers. They had all known that there was something between Bridget and Pat, but the thing had hung fire so long that it might well have hung fire for ever.

Pat's present was a ten-pound note for the honeymoon. Mr. and Mrs.

Murphy were to have a fortnight together after their marriage in some seaside place, before settling down to their old duties. Sir Denis had made Pat the offer of a cottage in the country, but this Pat had refused, to his master's great relief. "Sure, what would you do without me?" he said. "I was thinking the same myself," responded the General.

The General had it in his mind that presently, when those children came, it might be necessary to give up Sherwood Square and live in the country for their sakes. A little place in Ireland now, the General thought, where there was always plenty of sport and good-fellowship. However, that might wait. But the thought was a sweet one, to be turned over in the old man's mind.

Sometimes the present took odd shapes. There was a young housemaid whose eyes were ringed about with black circles, eyes pale with much weeping.

Her mother was ill among the Ess.e.x marshes, and the only chance for her life, said the doctors, was to get her away to a mild, bracing place for some months. Bournemouth would do very well. Bournemouth? Why, Heaven was much more accessible, it seemed, than Bournemouth for the poor mother of many children.

"Emma Brooks," said the General. "I wonder what's in this envelope for Emma Brooks."

Poor Emma came up, smiling a wavering smile that was on the edge of tears. She took the envelope, peered within it, and then cried out, "Oh, G.o.d bless you, sir!" It contained a letter of admission to a convalescent home at Bournemouth for six months, and the money for the expenses of getting there. "It's my mother's life, sir," cried Emma.

"You shall go home to-morrow, my girl, and take her there," said the General. "I'll pay whatever is necessary."

At last the Tree was stripped of nearly everything but its candles and its bright dingle-dangles. There was a little basket at the foot of the Tree addressed to the General, which had been moving about in a peculiar way during the proceedings, and had been a source of much fascinated interest to the dogs. On its being opened a fat, waddling, brindle bull-dog puppy sidled himself out of a warm bed, and made straight for the General's feet. A puppy was something Sir Denis never could resist, and though there were already several dogs at Sherwood Square, all desperately jealous at the moment and being held in by the servants, he discovered that he had wanted a brindled bull-dog all his life.

"But what is that," he asked, "up there at the top of the Tree? Why, I was near forgetting it. Come here, Pat, you rascal, and hand it down to me. It's a pretty, shining thing for my Nelly, as bright as her eyes.

Hand it down to me, Pat. I want to put it on her pretty neck."

The gift was a beautiful flexible snake of opals in gold, with diamonds for its eyes and its forked tongue, such a jewel as the heart of woman could not resist. The General himself clasped the ornament on Nelly's neck, where it lay emitting soft fires of milky rose and emerald.

There was a little pause. The Tree seemed to be finished. The women-folk began to clear their throats for the _Adeste Fideles_ with which the festivity concluded. Afterwards there was to be a gla.s.s of champagne all round.

The pause, however, was a device of the General's to give more effect to what was to follow. Captain Langrishe had been standing apart, his shy and modest air commending him the more to the women who thought him so handsome and the men who knew him for heroic; for had not Pat sung his praises? And to be sure, the women's hearts swelled at beholding a hero taking part in their own particular festivity of the year, a hero that is to say with his heroism brand-new upon him and from the outside world, so to speak. They were so accustomed to a hero for a master all the year round, that in that particular connection they hardly thought upon him.

"I believe, after all," said Sir Denis, as though he were talking to children--it was his way with women and children and dependents and animals--"I believe there's something for my girl which she'll think more of than anything else. It's hidden just down here at the foot of the Tree, and might very easily be over-looked if one didn't know beforehand that it was there. Captain Langrishe, will you give this little packet to my Nelly? It's your gift. She'll like it from you."

Langrishe came forward, looking radiantly happy and handsome, and wearing withal that look of becoming shyness. He extracted from somewhere near the roots of the Tree a white paper-covered packet, very tiny and tied with blue ribbon, which he undid with quick, nervous fingers. When he had laid the covering aside it revealed itself as a little ring-case. Opening it, he took out a beautiful old-fashioned ring, a large pearl surrounded by diamonds. He held it for a second between his fingers; and turning round he went to Nelly's side and taking her hand lifted it to his lips. Then he slipped the ring on to her third finger.