Major Vigoureux | Page 8

all means, Archelaus, let us do it tactfully," agreed the
Commandant. "We must suppress those trousers of his at all costs. Yet
I would avoid anything in the nature of a rebuff, and if you think the
Lord Proprietor would be gratified, you are welcome to take him as
many of the bulbs as you please. Only leave me a few; for God knows
our garden has few ornaments to spare."
"I'll take 'em over to Inniscaw and thank him by word o' mouth," said
Sergeant Archelaus, hopefully. "It'll save me the trouble of spelling
'trousers,' anyway."
"It would be easier, as well as more accurate," said the Commandant,
pensively regarding the Sergeant's legs, "to call them trews. Not," he
went on inconsequently, "that I have anything to say against the
Highland Regiments. I was brigaded once for three months with the
Forth-Second, and capital fellows I found them."
With a mind relieved, the Commandant walked off towards the
Barracks, pausing on his way to pick up Miss Gabriel's
antimacassar-waistcoat, which he had taken the precaution to leave
outside the gate.
Three-quarters of an hour later he emerged in clean shirt and threadbare,
but well-brushed, uniform, arrayed for Mr. and Mrs. Fossell's
whist-party. As he passed the Garrison gate, Mrs. Treacher, who
sometimes acted deputy for her husband, began to ring the six o'clock
bell. He halted and waited for her to finish.
"Mrs. Treacher," he said, "can you tell me the price of flannel?"
"Flannel," answered Mrs. Treacher, "is all prices, according to quality."
"But I am talking of good ordinary flannel, fit to make up into a man's
shirt."

"Then you couldn't say less than one-three-farthings, or
one-and-a-ha'penny at the lowest."
"And how much would be required?"
"Good Lord!" said Mrs. Treacher. "As if that didn't all depend on the
man!"
"I was thinking, Mrs. Treacher, to present your husband with one: that
is to say, with the material, if you will not mind making it up."
Mrs. Treacher curtsied. "And I thank you kindly, sir, for 'tis not before
he needs one, which, being under average size and the width just a yard,
as you may reckon, he oughtn't to take more than three-and-a-half yards
at the outside."
"Three-and-a-half at one-three-farthings--that makes--Oh, confound
these fractions!" said the Commandant. "We'll make it four shillings,
and you had best step down to Tregaskis' shop to-morrow and choose
the stuff yourself." He counted out the money into Mrs. Treacher's hand,
and left her curtseying. As he went, he jingled the few coins remaining
in his breeches pocket. They amounted to two-and-seven-pence in
all--and almost a week stood between him and pay-day.
CHAPTER III
THE COMMANDANT FINESSES A KNAVE
"I remember the Bartlemys perfectly," said Miss Gabriel, addressing
the company as they sat around Mr. and Mrs. Fossell's dining-table and
trifled with a light collation of cordial waters and ratafia
biscuits--prelude to serious whist. "I carry them both in my mind's eye,
though I must have been but a tiny child when he succumbed to
apoplexy, and she left the Islands to reside with a married sister at
Scarborough. Very poorly-off he left her. Somehow, our Commanding
Officers have never contrived to save money--even in the old days,
when the post was worth having."

Miss Gabriel said it lightly but pointedly, with a glance at the
Commandant. The company stared at their plates and glasses. It was
well-known that (as Mr. Rogers put it) Miss Gabriel "had her knife
into" the patient man, and there were tongues that attributed her
spitefulness to disappointment. Fifteen years ago, when Major Narcisse
Vigoureux--no longer in his first youth, but still a man of handsome
presence--had first arrived in the Islands to take over his command,
Miss Gabriel was a not uncomely woman of thirty. Partis in the Islands
are few, as you may suppose. He was a bachelor, she a spinster; she had
money, and he position. What wonder, then, if the Islanders expected
them to make a match of it?
For some reason, the match had never come off, and although she
might convince herself that the simplest reason--incompatibility--was
the true one, Miss Gabriel could hardly have been unaware that the
women looked upon her as one who had missed her chance, and even
blamed her a little--as women always will in such cases--in a
conspiracy of sex acknowledging its weakness. Perhaps this made her
defiant.
She was handling the Commandant truculently to-night.
"Of course," she continued, "even in those days the post--don't they say
the same in England of a Deanery?--was looked upon as finishing a
man's career. I don't know, for my part, the principle upon which the
Horse Guards--it used to be the Horse Guards--sent Colonel Bartlemy
down to us."
"By selection, ma'am," said the Commandant, still patiently, as she
paused; "by