John Strange Winter

“ Bootles himself went to the station to meet them. He found that Madame Gourbolska was young, not more than thirty, of the plump and fair Russian type, quite fair enough to hold her own beside Mrs. Smith, whom he regarded as the most beautiful woman of his acquaintance. The third lady, Miss Grace, was fair also, perhaps not so positively beautiful as either the English or the Russian lady, but fair-haired, fair-skinned, with soft blue-gray eyes, intensely blue in some lights, as Bootles noticed directly. ”

“ Then somehow he gathered it up and carried it in doubt and trepidation to the big chair by the fire, where the creature sat contentedly upon his knee, the curly golden p. 9head resting against his scarlet jacket, the soft fingers of one baby hand tight twined round one of his, the other picking and wandering aimlessly about the scrolls and curves of the gold embroidery on his waistcoat.
“By Jove! you’re a jolly little chap,” said Bootles, just as if it could understand him. “But the question is, where did you come from, and what’s to be done with you? You can’t stop here, you know.” ”

“ Take his action as regarded that dear little child, for instance. His brother officers wanted him to send her to the workhouse, but as he wrote to me, ‘Some day I may meet the mother, and how should I face her?’”
“Ah!” murmured Miss Grace, and Mrs. Smith went on.
“It was no small undertaking for a man in his position, for he has not left her to the entire care of servants—she is continually with him and Mr. Lacy, who is also very fond of her. Do you know, he pays her nurse fifty pounds a year. In fact, she is just as if she were really his own child. But it is just like him.” ”

“ Miss Grace shook her head, and lifted Miss Mignon onto her knee. “I did not ask him,” she said.
“Oh!” Then, after a pause, “I al—ways do.”
“But not a pair?” in surprise.
Miss Mignon nodded. “When they’re not too fresh. Bootles would have letted you, if you’d asked him.”
p. 78“I will another time.”
“Lacy,” said Bootles, suddenly, “is it true about Allardyce?”
“Hartog says so. They say she—er—dwrinks like a duck.”
“Pooh!” But Bootles laughed as if it was a great joke, and Mrs. Smith begged to be enlightened.
“Oh! don’t you remember Allardyce? He’s the great military teetotal light.” ”

“ Preston cried, “are you wanting somebody to die?”
Gilchrist tried to laugh, and succeeded very badly. He rose from his chair, knocking a few scattered cigar ashes carefully off his braided cuff.
“Well, I confess I should not be sorry to see that prating brat of Bootles’s out of the road. We should perhaps get at the truth then.” ”

“ I can’t think, though, why the mother has chosen me.”
“All, well, you see, Captain Ferrers,” said the adjutant’s wife, with a smile, “it is rather inconvenient sometimes to have a character for great kindness of heart. I should say you are the greatest favorite in the regiment, and, naturally enough, the officers speak of it sometimes in society. ‘Oh, Bootles is this, and Bootles is that;’ ‘Bootles wouldn’t turn a dog from his door;’ ‘Bootles would share his last sixpence with a poor chap who was down,’ and so on. ”

“ It’s queer, though, he should be so persistent about Bootles and Miss Mignon. I suppose he wants to daub Bootles with some of his own mud. Thinks if he only throws enough, some of it’s sure to stick; and so it would with most men. Happily, however, it don’t in the least matter what a little cad like Gilchrist chooses to say about a man like Bootles—a jealous little beast. ”

“ By the time Bootles returned, the officers had risen from the table, and he met the guests and the seniors just entering the anteroom.
“I’ll shake hands with you, Captain Ferrers, if you please,” said the general, cordially. “I agree with you that it is an awful thing for a child to be brought up in a workhouse. It is a subject upon which I feel very strongly—very strongly. A child reared as a pauper does not start the world with a fair chance. I have met so often, in the course of my military experience, with recruits bred in the Unions—I never knew one do well. ”

“ Thereupon the assembled officers, five of them, trooped along the way Bootles had stumbled over alone in the blindness of his now forgotten headache. The baby was still in the cot, contentedly playing with the watch and chain, and at the sight of the five resplendent figures it set up a loud “Boo—boo—boo—ing,” followed by a “Chucka—chucka—chucka—ing.” Evidently it considered this was the land of Goshen.
“Seems to take after its mother in its love for a scarlet jacket,” remarked Miles, sententiously. “I’ve heard that the child is father of the man—seems of the woman too.” ”

“ As soon as Bootles had a spare moment he made his way to the adjutant’s quarters, where he found Mrs. Gray playing with the mysterious baby.
“Oh, is that you, Captain Ferrers?” she exclaimed. “Come and see your waif. She is the dearest little thing. Why, I do believe she knows you.”
Bootles whistled to the child, which promptly made a grab at his chain, and when he sat down on the sofa on which it was sprawling, tried very hard to get at the gold badge on his collar. ”

“ Lal said so. But not with Mignon. Mignon told Lal so,” confidently.
“Never with Mignon,” answered Bootles, resting his cheek against the tossed golden curls, and feeling as if he had done this faithful baby heart a moral injustice by his hours of anger and doubt.
There was a moment of silence, broken by the nurse. “Have you heard, sir, how Mr. Gilchrist is?” she asked.
p. 113Bootles roused himself. “He is dead, nurse. Died half an hour ago.” ”

“ If only he had known that Mignon was her child!
But Bootles was not the man to sulk with fate; if Miss Grace would not have him, no more was to be said, and no one but Mrs. Smith saw anything unusual between them. But trust Mrs. p. 96Smith. She walked into Miss Grace’s room and taxed her with it—taxed her in so friendly a way that the girl began to cry miserably. Mrs. Smith fumed.
“It is absurd,” she cried, “to refuse such a man—such a position—such—such— Oh! it’s absurd. I have no patience with you. You will never have such a chance again—never.” ”

“ Just then the child, in playing with his chain, slipped a little on the smooth cloth of his overalls, and Bootles, with a “Whoa! whoa, my lad!” hauled it up again. In doing so he felt a piece of paper rustle somewhere about the embroidered skirt.
“A note. This grows melodramatic,” said p. 11Bootles, craning his head to find it. “Oh, here we are! Now we shall see.”
The note was written in a firm, large, yet thoroughly feminine hand, and ran thus:
“You will not absolve me from my oath of secrecy respecting our marriage, though now that I have offended you, I may starve or go to the work-house. ”

“ That dead sister of Mrs. Smith had always been and would always be a not-to-be-broken bond of union between them, for the widow knew how gladly “that grand Bootles,” as she always called him, would have tried to make up for the love she had lost, while to Bootles Mrs. Smith stood out from the rest of womankind as the sister of the only woman he had ever wished or asked to marry him.
He helped Miss Grace up to the seat beside Mrs. Smith, and took his own place beside the Russian lady, who entertained him very well during the three miles’ drive between Eagles Station and Ferrers Court. ”

“ Not that Bootles, though he had a very poor opinion of Gilchrist and Gilchrist’s brains, was afraid for a moment that he would give Miss Mignon poisoned bonbons, or run off with her and drop her in the river; yet he did think it not improbable that he might encourage an already dangerous spirit of adventure, and of course be absolutely blameless if she could get trampled by a horse’s cruel hoofs, or crushed by one of the many traps going in and out of barracks.
When Bootles had taken his first long leave after Miss Mignon’s coming, he had left her at Idleminster in charge of her nurse ”

“ Some people told one version of the story and some people told another, but nobody blamed Bootles very much. It might be because he was so rich and so handsome and pleasant; it might be because Idleminster society was free from that leaven of censoriousness which causes most people to look at most things from the worst possible view. ”

“ Lacy cried.
“Not at all; it is true,” the doctor answered. “He is making his will now, leaving Bootles sole guardian and trustee to the child.”
“The brute,” burst out Preston, indignantly, remembering Gilchrist’s words—not so long ago.
p. 107
A race between life and death
p. 109“Hush, hush! The man is dying, and death alters everything,” the doctor cried.
“And Bootles kept his temper? Said nothing?”
“Not one word—of reproach.”
“Has he seen her?”
“No. He would not, though Bootles asked him.”
“His own child—and she Miss Mignon!”
“All the better. She cannot endure him.” ”

“ Now if, as the colonel suggests, you send the child to the workhouse, you wash your hands of the p. 32whole business. Then, again, if the brat is brought up in the regiment, with the disadvantage of your protection, what will she be in twenty years’ time? Neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring. Far better the oblivion of pauperism than the distinction among the men of being Captain Ferrers’s—shall we say protégée?”
“Yes, there’s a great deal in that,” Bootles admitted. He had at all times a great respect for Harkness, and profound faith in the soundness of his judgment. ”

“ In April the Scarlet Lancers were moved from Idleminster to Blankhampton, where Bootles had to undergo a new experience, for every one there took him for a widower on account of the child.
Bootles would explain. “Take her about with me? Yes; she likes it. Always wants to go when she sees the trap. A bother? Not a bit of it; the jolliest little woman in creation, and p. 53as good as gold. What am I going to do with her when she grows up? Well, Lacy says he is going to marry her. If he don’t, somebody else will—no fear.” ”

“ I’m no good to-night—I can’t even see the cards. Get some one to take my place and make a fresh start.”
“Why, you’re ill, Bootles,” cried Preston. “What is it?”
“It’s a devil of a headache,” answered Bootles, promptly. “Here’s Miles—the very man. Goodnight.”
“Good-night,” called the fellows after him. Then they settled down to their game, and Preston dealt.
p. 5“Never saw Bootles seedy before,” said Lacy.
“Oh yes; he gets these headaches sometimes,” answered Hartog. “Not often, though. Miles, your lead.” ”

“ I have heard of your standing up for”—with a deeper smile—“the poor devils of casuals; and if I hear it, why not others? why not the mother of this child?”
“True. But I think you all overrate my character,” Bootles replied, modestly. “You know I don’t go in for being saintly at all.”
“That is just it. If you did you would have no p. 40more influence than Major Allardyce, whom every one laughs at. But you don’t; you are one of themselves, and yet you will always help a man who is down; you will do any unfortunate creature a good turn. ”

“ And p. 68having delivered himself of this feeling speech, he went out, banging the door after him.
“Well, upon my soul!” exclaimed Preston.
“Oh, the man’s got a tile loose in his upper story,” said Hartog, decidedly. “No man in his senses would talk such miserable rot as that. Always thought Gilchrist a crazy fool myself, but I’m sure of it now.”
“And how he sticks to it Miss Mignon is Bootles’s own child—as if it could be any good for him to say she isn’t if she is.”
“No. I shall tell Bootles to keep an eye on Gilchrist. I say, what a comfort it would be if he would only exchange! ”

“ Er—I and Miss Mignon were waiting for Bootles to come down the lawn, when—er—a laday next to us—er—a little unpwrepossessing person—I found out afterwards that her name is Berwry—with a nose like a teapot-spout, and a mouth of the bull-dog ordah—little daughter, by-the-bye, pretty much of the same type, but just a shade less hideous—suddenly electwrified us by pulling out a huge pair of gold eye-glasses, and holding the wrace-card at arm’s-length. ”

“ With all his faults, failings, and peculiarities, Gavor Gilchrist was passing away from their midst by exchange, as Hartog had once wished—the exchange, not of one regiment for another, but of this world for the next.
p. 103
The swarming crowd round the other was watching a more exciting race than that which they had just witnessed
p. 105It was about six o’clock that the senior of the two surgeons in attendance on Gilchrist entered the anteroom, and, looking around, beckoned for Bootles.
“What news?” asked several voices.
“He won’t last the night. Bootles, he wants you.” ”

“ It will stick to you like a burr, and though we are all ready to accept your word of honor, the world may not be so. If you put the brat out to nurse in the regiment, the story may crop up years hence, just when you least desire or expect it ”

“ No; pauperism is ground into them, and they are never able to shake it off.”
“Well, sir, that is my opinion,” said Bootles, modestly. “I hope, though, you won’t think my p. 64little maid is often so obtrusive as to-day. She is really always very good.”
“A charming little child,” replied the general, as if he meant it too, and then he shook hands with Bootles again.
p. 65CHAPTER V.
There was only one blot in the sweetness and light of Miss Mignon’s baby character, so far as the officers of the Scarlet Lancers were concerned. Among them all there was only one whom she did not like. ”