DONOVAN

A Novel

BY

EDNA LYALL

AUTHOR OF "WON BY WAITING."

"And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around Our incompleteness,— Round our restlessness, His rest." E. B. BROWNING.

IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I.

LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1882.

All rights reserved.

TO ONE WHOSE LOVING HELP I LOVINGLY ACKNOWLEDGE.

Contents

I. Running the Gauntlet II. A Retrospect III. The Tremains of Porthkerran IV. "My Only Son, Donovan" V. Repulsed and Attracted VI. Autumn Manœuvres VII. The Black Sheep of Oakdene VIII. "Tied to his Mother's Apron-strings" IX. Dot versus the World X. Looking Two Ways XI. "Let Nothing You Dismay" XII. Desolate XIII. Wishes and Chestnut Roasting

DONOVAN.

CHAPTER I. RUNNING THE GAUNTLET.

Oh, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood.

That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete. In Memoriam.

"So Farrant is really to be expelled? Tell me all about it, for I've heard next to nothing these last few days up in the infirmary."

The speaker was a boy of about seventeen, who was walking arm-in-arm with a companion of his own age in the quietest part of a large playground.

"Well, on the whole, I think you were well out of it. There was no end of a row on Saturday evening when it all came to light. Little Harrison turned rusty, and told the Doctor that some of the sixth had taken to gambling, and then there was a solemn convention, and we were all called upon to reveal anything we knew, and, before I could have thanked my stars for ten seconds that I knew nothing, up sprang Donovan Farrant, looking like a second Curtius, only with a bad cause, poor fellow, to confess that he had been the first to introduce card-playing. I fancy the Doctor thought him rather too brazen-faced about it, for he was awfully severe; but Farrant, you know, is one of those fellows who look like marble when they feel most, and, instead of being the picture of shame, he stood there, with his head thrown back, looking as if he'd knock all our heads off for sixpence."

"I can just fancy him. He's certainly a touch of the Roman in him; but what in the blessed world did he do it for?"

"Don't know. He's a queer fellow. Such crazy ideas of honour too! Enough to make him spring up in that way to answer to a general accusation, and yet so little that he could go on for weeks as the ringleader in this affair."

"But what's on the wire now? They're never going to make him run the gauntlet?"

"They are, though. The lower school's up in arms because Harrison—who's his fag, you know—says Farrant forced him against his will to give his pocket-money for the gaming, whereupon you can fancy the Doctor was furious, exaggerated things, and told Farrant he was found guilty of disobedience, stealing, and bullying, though everyone knows he's no more a bully than you are."

"Bully! I should think not! Why, the little weakly chaps make a regular hero of him, and he was always hanging about after poor little Somerton, who died last term. That Harrison is a rascally young cub. I don't believe Farrant took his money."

"Asked him to lend it, I daresay, and gave the young beggar a look from those extraordinary eyes of his. Anyhow, the lower school have taken up the Doctor's words, and Farrant will feel their scorn on his shoulders before he's an hour older."

"Poor fellow, there he is!" said the first speaker. "Why didn't they send him off by the early train? He must have had enough of this sort of thing yesterday."

"Yes, in all conscience! He won't soon forget that Sunday. By Jove! it was a slashing sermon the Doctor gave us, preached straight at Farrant—hurled at his head. But there must be some reason for keeping him here. I wish you'd go and speak to him, Reynolds."

After some little discussion, Reynolds gave a reluctant consent, and, crossing the playground in the direction of the school-house, made his way to the place where the culprit was standing.

Donovan Farrant looked somewhat unapproachable, it must be confessed. He was a tall slight fellow of nearly eighteen, with dark hair and complexion, a curiously-formed forehead bespeaking rare mathematical talent, a faultless profile, a firm but bitter-looking mouth, and strange eyes—black in some lights, hazel in others, but always curiously contradictory to the hard resoluteness that characterised the rest of the face, for they were hungry-looking and unsatisfied.

He was leaning against the wall, but there was no rest in his attitude. With an expression of cold scorn, he was watching the gradually increasing group of boys in the centre of the playground. His face softened a little as a friendly greeting attracted his notice.

"I am very sorry you are going, Farrant," said Reynolds, who had been racking his brain for words which would be at once kind and yet bear no reference to his disgrace. This was the best he could think of.

The strange eyes met his unflinchingly, Reynolds felt they were not the eyes of a thief or a bully; yet there was something defiantly hard and scornful in the tone of the answer.

"Why should you be sorry? Why make yourself the exception to prove the contrary rule? If you could step into my shoes and watch this Christian gathering with my eyes, you would see a lovely specimen of ill-will to men."

"Gauntleting is a barbarous custom," said Reynolds, uneasily. "It is fast dying out; I only wish we could stop this to-day."

"Never mind," said Donovan, still very bitterly, "it's only on a piece with the rest of the world, the people who brag most about the universal brotherhood are the very first to throw stones at their neighbours."

Reynolds was about to question this when some one approached Donovan with a message—Colonel Farrant had arrived, and was waiting for him. A sort of spasm passed over the cold face, but, recovering his self-control in an instant, Donovan replied, icily,

"Tell him I will come, but that I have other work before me first." Then, as the messenger turned away, he folded his arms and leant this time really for support against the wall. A glow of shame had mounted to his forehead, Reynolds could see that he was in terrible distress.

"Did you not know that your father was coming?" he ventured to ask, after a few minutes.

Donovan signed a negative.

"He was only to come back from India on Saturday, and—and this is what he is met with!"

There was something in the tone of this sentence which made Reynolds feel that here the real Donovan Farrant was showing himself, the sudden boyish shame and grief were so perfectly natural, so strangely contrasted with the tone of bitter scorn which he had at first assumed. But the words called up a sad enough picture even to the schoolboy's mind, and his throat felt choked, and he was shy of offering any consolation.

"You will begin over again in some new place," he said at last. "You have been left to yourself so much, surely your father will understand, and be lenient."

"Do you think I care for his anger?—it's not that!—but to have brought this disgrace to him, to have——" he broke off abruptly, with a stifled sob.

Reynolds was amazed, for no one credited Donovan Farrant with over-much feeling. But even as he wondered his companion regained his composure, and wrapped himself once more in that impenetrable mantle of cold scorn.

"The Christian brotherhood are nearly ready for me," he observed, looking towards the long double line which was being formed at a little distance, and the knotted scarves, or towels, or straps with which every boy was armed.

"For heaven's sake don't talk like that!" exclaimed Reynolds. "Don't let the spite of a few schoolboys turn you from——"

"My dear fellow, I was turned long ago," interrupted Donovan. "I'm sorry if my words hurt you, for I believe you are sincere, but you're an exception, one of the few exceptions There, good-bye, thank you."

He turned away, and Reynolds watched him with a sort of fascination as, with long, imperturbable strides, he made his way across the playground. What was there in this strange fellow that moved him so? There had been a look of pain certainly in his eyes, but then a satirical smile had played about his lips as he turned away. He had no particular liking for him; what made him feel that he would give anything for power to stop this gauntleting?

To do so was, of course, out of the question. Reynolds, however, hurried to the front, anxious to see how his strange companion would conduct himself. Would he rush through the ranks quickly, or would he turn sulky?

Apparently Donovan meant to strike out in a new line. As he approached the ranks his step was even more dignified, his bearing more erect than ever. His face was set like a flint, but expressed as plainly as if he had spoken—"I don't deserve this, you contemptible curs; but do your worst, it amuses you and will not kill me."

Blow after blow fell on his unbent shoulders, hisses greeted him on every side, but still there was no faintest token that he felt pain, still the lofty indifference was unbroken. But lower down the ranks, waiting for his approach with feverish impatience, was Harrison, one of his fags. Harrison was vindictive, and he thought himself deeply injured. Some of the boys had made him into a little hero, some regarded him as a sneak; between the two he had grown exasperated, and to revenge himself he had concealed a sharp stone in the end of his scarf. His foe drew near; Harrison, disregarding all rules, and too angry to think of the serious harm he might do, aimed a blow directly at his forehead.

Donovan staggered back a pace, but recovered himself in an instant. The blow had fallen barely half an inch above his left temple, the blood was streaming down the side of his face. He saw it on his clothes—his own blood shed by the veriest little rascal. The sight maddened him. A great cry of "Shame! shame! Unfair!" came to him. Unfair! of course it was unfair! the whole world was unfair! He would crush this one bit of unfairness, though; and he gathered himself together, evidently with the intention of dealing Harrison a fearful blow. No one interfered, everyone was disgusted with the fag's meanness; there was a breathless silence. The unlucky Harrison felt the air vibrate around him as that strong arm descended. The blow would have silenced him very effectually, but it was suddenly checked. The littleness of his foe seemed to strike Donovan; with a tremendous effort of will he drew back all quivering with repressed indignation.

"You young blackguard!" he exclaimed, not loudly, but with an emphasis which made the words heard by all present—with a force which made Harrison turn sick and giddy.

Then, moving away, he would have gone on his course, but the boys who a few minutes before had been delighting in his humiliation were now ready to make a hero of him; Harrison's breach of rules had been abominable. Farrant's splendid self-control had been apparent to everyone; the schoolboy sense of honour was touched. They cheered him now as vehemently as they had hissed him before; they gathered round him with offers of help with vociferous admiration, they would have borne him in triumph on their shoulders, but he waved them back, and walked steadily on towards the school-house. What was their admiration to him? His blood unjustly shed was streaming down his face, a lifelong sense of injustice was rankling in his heart; those ringing cheers were utterly powerless to affect him in any way.

And all this time Colonel Farrant waited within the house. He had seen the head-master, had heard the particulars of his son's disgrace, and now he was waiting alone at his own request, trying to face this sorrow, trying to endure this terrible new shame. He was a middle-aged man, tall and soldierly; his features were almost exactly similar to those of his son, but his expression was so much more gentle that at first sight the likeness did not seem at all striking. Grief and disappointment were expressed in his very attitude as he sat waiting wearily with his head resting on his hand; and the disappointment had not been caused by Donovan only. He had returned from India only two days before to re-join the wife and children whom he had not seen for years, and somehow the home was not quite what he had expected, and the long separation seemed either to have altered his wife or to have raised a sort of barrier between them. He had been absorbed in his work, had been leading a singularly self-denying active life; she had been absorbed in herself, and had allowed

circumstances to drift her along unresistingly. No wonder that Colonel Farrant had already found how few interests he and his wife had in common, no wonder that, even in the brief time since his return, he had realised that his two children were growing up in a home which could not possibly influence them for good. Bitterly did he now regret that love of his work and dislike of the quiet life of a country gentleman had kept him so long in India. Mrs. Farrant's reception of the news of Donovan's disgrace had perhaps more than anything revealed the true state of matters to her husband. What to him was a terrible grief was to her merely "very tiresome;" she hoped people would not hear about it, lamented the inconvenience of having the boy home just as they were going up to town for the season, spoke in soft languid tones of his wilfulness, but evidently was quite incapable of feeling keenly about anything so far removed from her own personal concerns.

Donovan must not come home to that, the Colonel felt that it would be ruination to him. He must go himself to the school, find out the whole truth, learn something of his son's real character, and, if possible, win his love before taking him back to the doubtful influence of that strangely disappointing home.

Waiting now in the quiet room, with the slow monotonous ticking of the clock, with the May sunshine streaming in upon him, the Colonel tried to recall Donovan as he was at their last parting years and years ago at Malta. How well he remembered the little bright-eyed merry child of three years old! what a wrench it had been to leave him when his regiment had been ordered out to India, and the little boy—their only child then—had been sent back alone to England. And this was the same boy whom he came to-day to find disgraced and expelled! How was it possible that his little high-spirited, loving child should have become a thief, a bully, a breaker of rules? He could not believe it. And yet the head-master told him that Donovan had with his own lips confessed that he was guilty!

A sound of footsteps without, some one speaking in a tone of remonstrance, roused him, and then another voice, indignant and vehement, made him start to his feet.

"Leave me alone! I will see him now, at once, as I am!"

And the door was thrown open, and the vision of the merry three-year-old child faded suddenly, and in its place stood the son of to-day, haggard, bloodstained, miserable, only upheld by a desperate resolve to face the worst.

Donovan looked at once straight into his father's eyes to read there what he had to prepare himself for, and the very first expression he read was neither anger, nor shame, nor disappointment, but only love and pity. His father's hand was on his shoulder, his right hand clasped his, and, when he spoke, there was not the slightest sound of upbraiding in his tone.

"Dono—my poor boy!"

That was too much even for Donovan's hardihood. He had braced himself to endure anger or reproach, or cold displeasure—but to be met in this way! For the first time an agony of remorse surged up in his heart. If only he could live his school days over again how different they should be!

Presently the father and son left the school, and, as they made their way to the station, Colonel Farrant spoke of the plan he had made. He had some business to transact at Plymouth; he thought they would go down there together, and perhaps spend a week in South Devon or Cornwall before going back to Oakdene. Donovan evidently liked this idea, but in another minute his face suddenly changed.

"I had forgotten Dot. What a brute I am!" he exclaimed. "She will be expecting me, I mustn't disappoint her."

Somehow that sentence cheered Colonel Farrant wonderfully.

Dot, his little invalid girl, had in a measure comforted him the day before by her evident devotion to Donovan; he had hardly dared to hope, however, that the love was mutual, or that, in his disgrace and sorrow, Donovan would yet have a thought to spare for his sister.

"Dot will not expect us," he said in reply. "I told her that we should not come home for a few days. She sent you this."

They were in the train now. Donovan took the little three-cornered note from his father. It was written faintly in pencil, but in spite of the straggling letters and wild spelling it brought the tears to his eyes.

"DARLING DON," it began, "I am so sory. Papa has told me all abowt it, and he has been verry kind. I don't think he bileves all the horid things they say off you, and I never, never will, Don dear.

"Your loving "DOT."

The long, strange journey ended at last, but by that time Donovan's physical weariness was so intense that it overpowered everything else. As he threw himself on his bed that night, he could feel nothing but relief that at length this longest and most painful day of his life was over. The future was a yawning blackness, the past a horrid confusion, but he would face neither past nor future, the present was all he needed; in utter exhaustion of both mind and body he fell asleep.

CHAPTER II. A RETROSPECT.

The canker galls the infants of the spring, Too oft before their buttons be disclosed, And in the morn and liquid dew of youth Contagious blastments are most imminent. Hamlet.

God's possible is taught by His world's loving, And the children doubt of each. E. B. BROWNING.

How was it that his son was so different from what he had expected? That was the question which continually recurred to Colonel Farrant, as, with all the chilliness of an old Indian, he sat beside the fire that May evening in one of the private sitting-rooms of the Royal Hotel. How was it that the child, whom he remembered as high-spirited, loving, and demonstrative, had become proud, and cold, and repressed? It could not all be owing to the sense of his present disgrace, though that no doubt accounted for it in part; but there was a restless unsatisfied expression, for which the disgrace did not account, and which appeared to be habitual to him. Perhaps, had Colonel Farrant known all the details of his boy's life during the years in which he had been separated from him, he might not have felt so much perplexed.

Donovan had a wonderfully good memory, and, though he had only been three years old when he parted with his father and mother at Malta, he carried away a certain kind of remembrance of them—a dim vision of a mother who always wore pretty dresses, and of a father who was always ready to play with him, and could roar like a bear. With these recollections he set sail for England, and was handed over by the acquaintance who had taken care of him during the voyage to the charge of an elderly woman in black, who was waiting for him when he landed at Southampton. The elderly woman's name was Mrs. Doery, and, as they made their way to the station, she informed Donovan that she was his grandfather's housekeeper, and that he must always do what she told him. Upon this, Donovan looked up at once to scrutinize her face, to judge what sort of things she was likely to tell him to do, and, child though he was, he could see that Mrs. Doery would be no easy mistress. Her long hooked nose and prominent chin were of the nut-cracker order, the corners of her mouth were turned down,