G.A. Henty - With Kitchener in the Soudan - a story of Atbara and Omdurman

"English boys at home," she said, "have many games, and it is owing to these that they grow up so strong and active. They have more opportunities than you, but you must make the most of those that you have. We may go back to England some day, and I should not at all like you to be less strong than others."

As, however, such opportunities were very small, she had an apparatus of poles, horizontal bars, and ropes set up, such as those she had seen in England in use by the boys of one of the families where she had taught before her marriage, and insisted upon Gregory's exercising himself upon it for an hour every morning, soon after sunrise. As she had heard her husband once say that fencing was a splendid exercise, not only for developing the figure, but for giving a good carriage as well as activity and alertness, she arranged with a Frenchman who had served in the army, and had gained a prize as a swordsman in the regiment, to give the boy lessons two mornings in the week. Thus, at fifteen Gregory was well grown and athletic, and had much of the bearing and appearance of an English public-school boy. His mother had been very particular in seeing that his manners were those of an Englishman.

"I hope the time will come when you will associate with English gentlemen, and I should wish you in all respects to be like them. You belong to a good family, and should you by any chance some day go home, you must do credit to your dear father."

The boy had for some years been acquainted with the family story, except that he did not know the name he bore was his father's Christian name, and not that of his family.

" My grandfather must have been a very bad man, Mother, to have quarrelled with my father for marrying you."

"Well, my boy, you hardly understand the extent of the exclusiveness of some Englishmen. Of course it is not always so, but to some people the idea of their sons or daughters marrying into a family of less rank than themselves appears to be an almost terrible thing. As I have told you, although the daughter of a clergyman, I was, when I became an orphan, obliged to go out as a governess."

"But there was no harm in that, Mother?"

"No harm, dear; but a certain loss of position. Had my father been alive, and had I been living with him in a country rectory, your grandfather might not have been pleased at your father's falling in love with me, because he would probably have considered that, being, as you know by his photograph, a fine, tall, handsome man, and having the best education money could give him, he might have married very much better, that is to say, the heiress of a property or into a family of influence, through which he might have been pushed on; but he would not have thought of opposing the marriage on the ground of my family. But a governess is a different thing; she is in many cases a lady in every respect, but her position is a doubtful one.

"In some families she is treated as one of themselves; in others her position is very little different from that of an upper servant. Your grandfather was a passionate man, and a very proud man. Your father's elder brother was well provided for, but there were two sisters, and these and your father he hoped would make good marriages. He lived in very good style, but your uncle was extravagant, and your grandfather was over-indulgent and crippled himself a good deal in paying the debts that he incurred. It was natural, therefore, that he should have objected to your father's engagement to what he called a penniless governess. It was only what was to be expected. If he had stated his objections to the marriage calmly, there need have been no quarrel. Your father would assuredly have married me in any case, and your grandfather might have refused to assist him if he did so, but there need have been no break-up in the family such as took place.

" However, as it was, your father resented his tone, and what had been merely a difference of opinion became a serious quarrel, and they never saw each other afterwards. It was a great grief to me, and it was owing to that, and his being unable to earn his living in England, that your father brought me out here. I believe he would have done well at home, though it would have been a hard struggle. At that time I was very delicate, and was ordered by the doctors to go to a warm climate, and therefore your father accepted a position of a kind which at least enabled us to live, and obtained for me the benefit of a Avarm climate. Then the chance came of his going up to the Soudan, and there was a certainty that if the expedition succeeded, as everyone believed it would, he would have obtained permanent rank in the Egyptian army, and so recovered the position in life that he had voluntarily given up for my sake."

"And what was the illness you had, Mother?"

"It was an affection of the lungs, dear; it was a constant cough that threatened to turn to consumption, which is one of the most fatal diseases we have in England."

" But it hasn't cured you, Mother, for I often hear you coughing at night."

"Yes, my cough has been a little troublesome of late, Gregory."

Indeed from the time of the disaster to the expedition of Hicks Pasha, Annie Hilliard had lost ground. She herself was conscious of it, but except for the sake of the boy she had not troubled over it. She had not altogether given up hope, but the hope grew fainter and fainter as the years went on. Had it not been for the promise to her husband not to mention his real name or to make any application to his father unless absolutely assured of his death, she would, for Gregory's sake, have written to Mr. Hartley, and asked for help that would have enabled her to take the boy home to England and have him properly educated there. But she had an implicit faith in the binding of a promise so made, and as long as she was not driven by absolute want to apply to Mr. Hartley, was determined to keep to it.

A year after this conversation Gregory was sixteen. Now tall and strong, he had for some time past been anxious to obtain some employment that would enable his mother to give up her teaching. Some of this, indeed, she had been obliged to relinquish. During the past few months her cheeks had become hollow, and her cough was now frequent by day as well as by night. She had consulted an English doctor, who, she saw by the paper, was staying at Shepherd's Hotel. He had hesitated before giving a direct opinion, but on her imploring him to tell her the exact state of her health, said gently: "I am afraid, madam, that I can give you no hope of recovery; one lung has already gone, the other is very seriously diseased. Were you living in England I should say that your life might be prolonged by taking you to a warm climate, but as it is, no change could be made for the better."

"Thank you, doctor; I wanted to know the exact truth and be able to make my arrangements accordingly. I was quite convinced that my condition was hopeless, but I thought it right to consult a physician, and to know how much time I could reckon on. Can you tell me that?"

"That is always difficult, Mrs. Hilliard. It may be three months hence; it might be more speedily—a vessel might give way in the lungs suddenly. On the other hand, you might live six months. Of course I cannot say how rapid the progress of the disease has been."

" It may not be a week, doctor. I am not at all afraid of hearing your sentence—indeed I can see it in your eyes."

"It may be within a week"—the doctor bowed his head gravely,—" it may be at any time."

"Thank you!" she said quietly; "I was sure it could not be long. I have been teaching, but three weeks ago I had to give up my last pupil. My breath is so short that the slightest exertion brings on a fit of coughing."

On her return home she said to Gregory: "My dear boy, you must have seen—you cannot have helped seeing—that my time is not long here. I have seen an English doctor to-day, and he says the end may come at any moment."