Old Comrades
Copyright© 2026 by Agnes Giberne
Chapter 2: Things Not in the Colonel’s Line
LONDON is commonly counted a lively place, with plenty to do, and abundance to see; even though it has its little drawbacks in the shape of noise, soot, and fog. But the compensating liveliness seemed unlikely to enter into Dorothea Tracy’s town existence.
If a man wishes for freedom from society, he is as likely to get what he wants in London as in the tiniest village—perhaps more so. Colonel Tracy had never been a man of society. He detested the generality of human beings, hated company, abhorred teas, dinners, and conversation.
In earlier life, he had had one friend—the quondam comrade of the olive-leaf card!—and had lost that friend. He had also had a wife, and had lost that wife.
Thenceforward, habits of seclusion had grown upon him apace. As years went on, he troubled himself to see less and less of his child; though always looking forward, curiously, to the time when he would have her to live with him. Now that time was come, and it found him a confirmed hermit. He had no friends. He associated with no one, called upon no one. As a natural corollary, no one called upon, or associated with him. He did not even belong to a club, for a club means acquaintances, and the Colonel wanted no acquaintances. He lived in a huge overgrown parish, the work of which could never be overtaken by the toiling clergy. A call from one of the curates, some months earlier, had met with no gracious reception, and had not yet been repeated.
The manner of life which might suit the tastes of a retired veteran was not precisely fitted for a young girl. This as yet did not cause the Colonel concern; if indeed it occurred to him. He expected to go on as he had done hitherto, with merely the little addition of a silent and useful daughter. He expected Dorothea to conform unquestionably to his will.
She had come “home,” as she called it—or rather, as she had called it beforehand—full of young hopes and dreams. At eighteen, one is apt to see future life through rosy spectacles. In one short week, the glasses had gained a leaden hue, borrowed from the leaden atmosphere around. The hopes were dying; the dreams were fading. Dorothea had had, and would have, some rebellious struggles before settling down to the dead level of existence which seemed inevitable. Thus far, the effect of her surroundings was rather to stupefy than to excite. Everything was so different from the previous expectations of the school-girl, that she did not know what to make of her own position.
A girl naturally wishes for companions. Beyond her father, Dorothea had none; and Colonel Tracy was far too self-absorbed a man to render satisfying companionship. Below the rugged surface, he was in the main kind-hearted; but he lacked the mighty gift of sympathy. He neither understood his daughter, nor troubled himself to be understood by her. Each was more or less of an enigma to the other.
He had his own notions of propriety, and after his own fashion, he was careful. “You are too young to walk out alone at present in London,” he had said to Dorothea, the day following her arrival. “I always take my constitutional after breakfast, and you may accompany me. I hope you are a good walker. If it should be necessary for you to leave the house at any time when I am otherwise engaged, you must have Mrs. Stirring for a companion. She has promised me to attend to your wants.”
Mrs. Stirring was the lodging-house keeper: a highly respectable little woman, “genteel” to a degree in her own estimation, but apt to be plaintive in tone and behindhand in work. So she was not always an available “companion,” and when available she was not too cheerful.
The morning “constitutional” became a daily event, regular as breakfast itself when weather permitted. Happily, Dorothea was a very good walker. The Colonel went fast and far; and he never thought of asking whether pace or distance suited his daughter’s capabilities. Dorothea enjoyed the rapid motion and the comparative freshness of the morning air. She would have enjoyed some conversation likewise; but the Colonel was seldom in a talkative mood. If she spoke, he grunted; if she asked a question, he answered it, and that was all.
How to fill the remaining hours of the day became, even in one week, something of a problem to Dorothea. She had work in hand, but it is dull, at the age of eighteen, to sit and work with no one to take any interest in the progress of the needle. She dearly loved reading, but the Colonel’s books were such as to put that love to a pretty severe test. She could have spent hours happily any day in writing to Mrs. Kirkpatrick and her favourite schoolfellows; but her father’s pet economy was in the matter of paper and stamps. So time threatened to hang upon Dorothea’s hands.
Nine years had elapsed since the death of Dorothea’s mother; and the greater part of those nine years had been spent by her in a small Yorkshire school, kept by Mrs. Kirkpatrick. That had grown to be Dorothea’s real “home.” She hardly realised the fact while there, loyally reserving the term for future life with her father, and sometimes counting it a little hard to spend so many of her holidays at school. But now that the long-expected life with her father had begun, she knew well enough which was the real home.
Through the nine years Colonel Tracy had lived more or less in London, often going abroad for a while. It had happened curiously often—almost regularly—that he had to go abroad just before Dorothea’s holidays, so that he was “quite unable to receive her.” Whether the more correct word would not have been “unwilling” may be doubted. He was a man who disliked trouble; and he had no notion of doing on principle that which he disliked, for the sake of others.
About once a year, he had commonly arranged to spend a fortnight at some northern watering-place with Dorothea: this being the least troublesome mode he could devise for amusing a school-girl. From the age of twelve to the age of eighteen, she had never been to London. “Too expensive a journey,” the Colonel said, though he made nothing of going himself north or south, travelling first-class. He liked to have Dorothea always within easy reach of Mrs. Kirkpatrick, that he might get her off his hands without difficulty when he found the girlish spirits too much.
Dorothea’s recollections of his manner of life in town, seen before her thirteenth birthday, had grown somewhat dim, and perhaps were embellished by distance. Moreover, he had often changed his headquarters since those days, so her recollections were the less important. Certainly she did not expect what she found. The first glimpse of the dingy apartments, which for more than a year, he had made his home, gave a shock. Had the Colonel been aware of her sensations, he would have counted them unreasonable. He had “done his duty by her” in the matter of education. He expected now that she should “do her duty by him” in the matter of submission and usefulness.
Dorothea was a girl of too much character not to be useful, of too much principle to indulge in discontent. Still, this week had been a week of “deadly dulness”; and what there was for her to do, she had, as yet, failed to discover.
The Colonel arranged everything, ordered dinner, interviewed the landlady, and undertook to procure fish and vegetables. He piqued himself upon his intimate acquaintance with household details. He needed neither advice nor help. Dorothea was a mere adjunct in his existence thus far, less important than the said fish, less necessary than the said vegetables. She felt like a stranded boat, cast upon a mudbank, out of reach of the tide of life which surged and roared around. This, in a London street, where cabs and hansoms dashed past, where the sound of the great human Babel never ceased.
Christmas morning dawned.
“I shall hear from Mrs. Kirkpatrick to-day,” thought Dorothea cheerily. “Will my father go to Church with me?”
He had excused himself the Sunday before on the plea of bad weather and “indigestion.” “Bad weather” did not keep the Colonel in when he wanted to secure fresh fish for dinner; but Church was another matter. Dorothea had had to content herself with Mrs. Stirring’s companionship. The Church was very near, so near that she meant soon to plead for leave to go alone.
“Good morning, father,” she said, in her brightest tone, when he came into the dining-room. He was punctual to the moment, yet Dorothea was before him.
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