General Mathieson was now a major-general, and in command of the troops in the Calcutta district. This blow decided him to resign his command and return to England. He was now sixty; the climate of India had suited him, and he was still a hale, active man. Being generally popular he was soon at home in London, where he took a house in Hyde Park Gardens and became a regular frequenter of the Oriental and East Indian United Service Clubs, of which he had been for years a member, went a good deal into society, and when at home took a lively interest in his grandson, often running down to his niece's place, near Warwick, to see how he was getting on.
The ayah who had come with the child from India had been sent back a few months after they arrived, for his mother had written to Mrs. Covington requesting that he should have a white nurse. "The native servants," she wrote, "spoil the children dreadfully, and let them have entirely their own way, and the consequence is that they grow up domineering, bad-tempered, and irritable. I have seen so many cases of it here that Herbert and I have quite decided that our child shall not be spoilt in this way, but shall be brought up in England as English children are, to obey their nurses and to do as they are ordered."
As Mrs. Covington's was a large country house the child was no trouble; an excellent nurse was obtained, and the boy throve under her care.
The General now much regretted having remained so many years in India, and if an old comrade remarked, "I never could make out why you stuck to it so long, Mathieson; it was ridiculous for a man with a large private fortune, such as you have," he would reply, "I can only suppose it was because I was an old fool. But, you see, I had no particular reason for coming home. I lost my only sister three years after I went out, and had never seen her only daughter, my niece Mary Covington. Of course I hoped for another bout of active service, and when the chance came at last up in the north, there was I stuck down in Calcutta. If it hadn't been for Jane I should certainly have given it up in disgust when I found I was practically shelved. But she always used to come down and stay with me for a month or two in the cool season, and as she was the only person in the world I cared for, I held on from year to year, grumbling of course, as pretty well every Anglo-Indian does, but without having sufficient resolution to throw it up. I ought to have stayed at home for good after that mauling I got from the tiger; but, you see, I was never really myself while I was at home. I did not feel up to going to clubs, and could not enter into London life at all, but spent most of my time at my own place, which was within a drive of Mary Covington's, who had then just married.
"Well, you see, I got deucedly tired of life down there. I knew nothing whatever of farming, and though I tried to get up an interest in it I failed altogether. Of course there was a certain amount of society of a sort, and everyone called, and one had to go out to dinner-parties. But such dinner-parties! Why, a dinner in India was worth a score of them. Most of them were very stiff and formal, and after the women had gone upstairs, the men talked of nothing but hunting and shooting and crops and cattle; so at last I could stand it no longer, but threw up six months of my furlough and went out again. Yes, of course I had Jane, but at that time she was but fourteen, and was a girl at school; and when I talked of bringing her home and having a governess, everyone seemed to think that it would be the worst thing possible for her, and no doubt they were right, for the life would have been as dull for her as it was for me.
"Of course now it is different. I feel as young and as well as I did twenty years ago, and can thoroughly enjoy my life in London, though I still fight very shy of the country. It is a satisfaction to me to know that things are pretty quiet in India at present, so that I am losing nothing that way, and if I were out there I should be only holding inspections at Barrakpoor, Dumdum, or on the Maidan at Calcutta. Of course it was pleasant enough in its way, for I never felt the heat; but as a man gets on in life he doesn't have quite so much enjoyment out of it as he used to do. The men around him are a good deal younger than himself. He knows all the old messroom jokes, and one bit of scandal is like scores of others he has heard in his time.
"I am heartily glad that I have come home. Many of you here are about my own standing, and there is plenty to talk about of old friends and old days. You were a young ensign when I was a captain, but Bulstrode and I got our companies within a few days of each other. Of course he is only a lieutenant-colonel, while I am a major-general, but that is because he had the good sense to quit the service years ago. There are scores of others in the club just about my own standing, and one gets one's rubber of whist in the afternoon, and we dine together and run down the cooking and wines, although every one of us knows at heart that they are both infinitely better than we got in India, except at the clubs in the Presidency towns.
"Then, of course, we all agree that the service is going to the dogs, that the Sepoys are over-indulged and will some day give us a lot of trouble. I keep my liver all right by taking a long ride every morning, and altogether I think I can say that I thoroughly enjoy myself."
The General, on his first visit to England, had endeavored, but in vain, to find out the family of John Simcoe. He had advertised largely, but without effect.
"I want to find them out," he said to his niece; "I owe that man a debt of gratitude I can never repay, but doubtless there are some of his family who may be in circumstances where I could give them a helping hand. There may be young brothers of course I could get them cadetships in the Indian army maybe portionless sisters."
"But if he was traveling in India for pleasure he must have been a well-to-do young fellow. Men cannot wander about in the East without having a pretty full purse."
"Yes, no doubt; but I don't fancy it was so in his case, and he said casually that he had come in for some money, and, as he had always had a great desire to travel, he thought that he could do nothing better than spend a year or two in the East, but that he hoped before it was gone he should fall on his legs and obtain some sort of employment. He did not care much what it was, so that it was not quill-driving. He thought that he could turn his hands to most things. I laughed at the time, for I was by no means sure that he was in earnest, but I have felt since that he must have been. If it had not been so, my advertisements would surely have caught the eye of someone who knew his family. A family wealthy enough for one of the sons to start on two years' travel must be in a fair position, whether in town or country. Had it been so I should have heard of it, and therefore I think that what he said must have had some foundation in fact. He was certainly a gentleman in manner, and my idea now is that he belonged to a middle-class family, probably in some provincial town, and that, having come into some money at the death of his father or some other relative, he followed his natural bent and started on a sort of roving expedition, thinking, as many people do think, that India is a land where you have only to stretch out your hands and shake the pagoda tree.
"He would have found out his mistake, poor fellow, if he had lived. The days are long past when any dashing young adventurer can obtain a post of honor in the pay of an Indian Rajah. Still, of course, after what he did for me, had he remained in India, and I found that he really wanted a berth, I might have done something for him. I know numbers of these Indian princes, some of them intimately, and to some I have been of very considerable service; and I fancy that I might have got him a berth of some kind or other without much difficulty. Or had he made up his mind to return to England I would have set him up in any business he had a fancy for. He has gone now, and I wish I could pay someone he cared for a little of the debt of gratitude I owe him. Well, I have done my best and have failed, from no fault of my own; but remember that if ever you hear of a family of the name of Simcoe, I want you to make inquiries about them, and to give me full particulars concerning them."