NEVER FORGOTTEN

PART THE FIRST
CHAPTER IV.   AN INTRODUCTION

HANBURY came down pretty often to the
barracks, and was esteemed "a good fellow." He
brought his horse, he brought his guns— objects
of absorbing interest to many beholders. They
soon learnt that the gossips had given out the
banns of marriage between him and one of the
Manuels, and Young Brett, in his off-hand way,
asked him openly.

"Well," said Mr. Hanbury, with an honest
smile, "I am not at liberty to say much about
it, but I hope it is not very far off."

Then they all spoke in praise of their looks;
they were "fine girls," but the youths lamented
their exclusiveness, and the cruel way they kept
themselves "close."

To whom Hanbury, with all his simplicity,
assuring the soldiers that this was all a pure
misconception, and that foreign manners and foreign
ways were at the bottom of it, and that, for his
part, he fancied they would be rather glad to
know people.

On which encouragement they burst into
genuine raptures. "Fine creatures!" "Such
eyes!" And the professors of military argot
expressed their meaning in their slang, in which
they were very fluent. " A stunner, by Jove!"
"A clipper!" and with such rude admiration.

But he had not met Fermor since. Once he
and the Manuels had passed by that wall, where
Captain Fermor had swung his legs and held
communion with his blunt pipe, but neither
captain, nor captain's limbs, nor captain's pipe, were
there. In short, as Captain Fermor said half
aloud to Captain Fermor going to bed, when
chafing and filled with disgust, "This comes of
encouraging low people; the only barrier— and
the more I see of life I am confirmed in this view
— is a cold and steady resistance to any attempts
at intimacy," and he had hoped that this would
be a warning to him for the future.

But his mortification, whatever it was— and,
indeed, it did not seem worth while looking back
to— rankled in his mind, and, with a curious
weakness, he thought if he could only get a fair
opportunity of publicly stropping his razor on
his enemy, his peace of mind would return, and
there would be a salve for his honour.

That none but gentlemen should be admitted
into the army; that, as at present constituted,
it was sadly overrun with creatures of low
extraction; that it soon would be "no place " for
a man of refined feelings and good birth, was
the substance of a meditation which passed
through Captain Fermor's mind as he went out
one evening to lounge— scarcely to walk. It
was summer, and it was fine, and though the
roads were more green lanes than roads, especially
where a hedge opened out in a sort of hawthorn
window, and showed the sea far away glistening
tranquilly, still never was the provincialism of
the place so rank in his nostrils. He came past
his favourite seat on the wall— foresworn now
for some ten days— sat down on it, and fumed
away afresh at the place and all its works.

After half an hour or so, he heard voices, and
three figures came past him very gaily, a
gentleman and two ladies. "Natives" he assumed
them to be, not worth a thought beyond a pettish
protest that even in these backwoods, whose
merit, at least, should be privacy, it was hard
(but quite in character) that one could not get a
moment without intrusion.

These were, however, the two ladies of
Raglan-terrace and Mr. Hanbury. The face of the elder
and taller seemed to flash on his, like the strong
light of the sun, which had set but ten minutes;
that of the youngest, so soft, so rich in colour,
with strange, full eyes, to absorb and draw him
as he looked. For the moment he forgot his
grim Fakir creed of indifference. Beside the
two faces, the third, genial and good as it was,
seemed as of a low clown.

The "low clown" called "How d'ye do?" to
him very heartily.

The three drifted by. Fermor thought how,
after all, they must be "low," coarse people, at
least, when they could "take up" with such—
But here was the low clown but a few yards
away, turning back irresolutely, and coming to
him. Fermor's lip curled with hostility.

"I say," said Hanbury, "I must introduce
you. It is too absurd, this sort of thing.
Come now!"

To him, in a sort of haughty alarm, Fermor
replied,

"Excuse me— most kind of you— but"

"Hush!" said the other, looking back. "You
see I have told them. It will appear so rude.
You couldn't, I am sure—"