One of the Six Hundred 4One of the Six Hundred (part 4)
18
Literature · Romance
One of the Six Hundred 4
One of the Six Hundred (part 4)
GrantEnglish
I was to drive the drag to the meet; and, after the hunt, Berkeley was to meet us at a certain point on the Cupar Road, and drive the vehicle home, if I felt disposed to yield the ribbons to him, which I had quite resolved to do.
Of the noise and excitement, the spurring, yelping, and hallooing, sounding of horns, and cracking of whips; the greetings of rough and boisterous country friends; the criticisms that ensued on dogs, horses, and harness; of how the cover was drawn, and the fox broke away; how huntsmen and hounds followed "owre bank, bush, and scaur," as if the devil had got loose, and life depended on his instant re-capture, and of all the incidents of the hunt, I need give no relation here.
The afternoon was well-nigh spent before we saw the last of my uncle's companions; and to the luncheon provided by Mr. Binns we had done full justice, the roof of the drag being covered by a white cloth, and improvised as a dining-table, whereon was spread a dejeuner service of splendid Wedgwood ware, the champagne sparkling in the sun, and the long glasses of potash and Beaujolais foaming up for the thirsty; and Largo Law, a green and conical hill, verdant to its summit a thousand feet above the waters of the bay, was throwing its shadow to the eastward, when we made arrangements for our return; and, thanks to dear Cora's tact and management, rather than my own--for timidity and doubt embarrassed me--I contrived to get Lady Louisa into the tandem. After which, by giving a hint to Willie Pitblado, he managed to set the horses kicking and plunging in such an alarming fashion that it was necessary to give them their heads for a little way, as if to soothe their ruffled tempers, just as he adroitly had got into the back seat.
Lady Chillingham, the M.P., the Misses Spittal, and Rammerscales were all bundled into the drag; others were on the roof, great-coated or well-shawled, for a cool drive home, and the whole party set out for the Glen, via Clatto and Collessie, a twenty-five miles' drive.
It was past the hour of three before all was packed up and we were all ready to leave Largo. The grave old butler, Binns, looked at his watch, and said--
"Mr. Newton, you know the route we go by."
"Yes; round by Dunnikier Law."
"That is the road Sir Nigel wished us to drive; but you'll require to use your whip if we are to be home before dark."
"Never fear for that, Binns," said I, while leading the way in the tandem with Lady Louisa beside me, and no attendant or other companion, save Willie Pitblado, who had or had not ears and eyes just as occasion required, Mamma Chillingham believing the while that she was with other ladies in the close carriage.
"Keep a tight hand on the leader, sir," whispered Pitblado; "she's a blood mare, rather fresh from the stall, and overcorned a bit."
"She is hard-mouthed," said I, "and pulls like the devil."
"As for the wheeler, I think the splinter-bar is too low, and she kicks and shies at it; but the breeching is as short as we could make it. Keep a sharp look out on both, sir," said he, warningly, and then relapsed into apparent immobility.
For the first time since our introduction had I been alone with Lady Louisa--I say alone, for I did not count on my servant, who seemed wholly intent on looking anywhere but at us, and chiefly behind, as if to see how soon we could distance the four-in-hand drag and the rest of our party.
The vehicle we occupied was a hybrid affair, which my uncle frequently used, half gig and half dog-cart, four-wheeled, with Collinge's patent axles, lever drag, and silver lamps, smart, strong, light, and decidedly "bang up."
We went along at a spanking pace. My fair companion was chatty and delightfully gay; her dark eyes were unusually bright, for the whole events of the day, and the lunch al fresco, had all tended to exhilaration of spirits.
She forgot what her rigid, aristocratic, and match-making mamma might think of her being alone thus with a young subaltern of lancers; but though her white ermine boa was not paler than her complexion usually was, she had now a tinge, almost a flush, on her soft, rounded cheek that made her radiantly beautiful, and I felt that now or never was the time to address her in the language of love.
I knew that the crisis had come; but how was I to approach it?
*CHAPTER XI.*
The rocky guardians of the clime
Frown on me, as they menaced death;
While echoing still in measured time
The gallop of my courser's hoof,
They hoarsely bid me stand aloof.
Where goest thou, madman? Where no shade
Of tree or tent shall screen thy head.
Still on--still on; I turn my eyes--
The cliffs no longer mock the skies:
The peaks shrink back, and hide their brow,
Each other's lofty peaks below.
FROM THE POETRY OF MICKIEWICZ.
As if inspired by fortune, or my good genius, Lady Louisa began thus, in a low voice--
"By the way, Mr. Norcliff, you were to have shown me the house in which Alexander Selkirk--or Robinson Crusoe--was born in 1676, I think you said?"
"Oh; it is only a cottage, consisting of one storey and a garret; but the next time we come to Largo, I shall show you his flip-can, musket, and a lock of his hair."
"Ah, that reminds me, Mr. Norcliff, that you must return to me the lock of hair which you obtained when inspired with romance by Miss Calderwood's legend last night."
"Lady Louisa, I implore your permission to retain it," said I, in a low voice.
"To what end, or for what reason?" she asked, with a furtive smile.
"I am going far, far away, and it will serve as a memento of many happy days, and of one whom I shall never cease to remember, but with----"
"Why, you don't mean to say that--that you are serious?" she asked, in a voice that betrayed emotion, while my heart rose to my trembling lips, and I turned to gaze upon her with an unmistakable expression of love and tenderness, which made her colour come and go visibly.
Reassuring herself, she began to smile.
"Perhaps your creed is a soldier's one?" said she, with a little convulsive laugh, as she tied her veil under her chin.
"A soldier's! I hope so; but in what sense do you mean?"
"'To love all that is lovely, and all that you can,' as the song has it."
I laid a hand lightly on her soft arm, and was about to say something there could be no misconstruing, while a film seemed to pass over my eyes, and my soul rose to my lips; but Pitblado, who, whether he was listening or not, had a sharp eye on the cattle, now said--
"Beg your pardon, sir, but I don't like the look of that leader."
"The blood mare with the white star on her forehead," said I, touching her lightly on the flank with the whip, and making her curvet; "she is usually very quiet."
"Perhaps so, sir; but she's always clapping her ears close down--throwing her eyes backward, and showing the whites. She's up to mischief, I'm certain."
"Jump down, then," said I, "shorten the curb, and lengthen the traces by a hole or two."
This was done in a trice; Willie sprang into his seat like a harlequin, and away we went from the Kirktoun of Largo at a rasping pace.
"She's a lovely animal, with pasterns like a girl's ankles; but she's clapping her tail a little too close in for my taste, sir, and she's up to some devilry," persisted Pitblado, and ere long his surmises proved correct.
"We've left the drag behind; distanced it clean already," said I.
"It's a heavier drag than the regimental one at head-quarters, sir," said Willie, taking the hint to look back now; but the sound of hoofs or wheels could no longer be detected in the still evening air behind.
Full of blood and ill-natured, over-corned, and anxious to get back to their stables, the speed of the animals increased to a pace that soon became alarming, and the light vehicle to which they were harnessed, as I have said, a tandem, swept along like a toy at their heels, while we flew eastward by Halhill; and, ere we reached the woods of Balcarris, where the road turns due north, and round by the base of Dunnikier Law, it was evident that they were fairly and undoubtedly off!
The leader had got the bit between her teeth, and, when descending a hill-side, the splinter-bar goaded the wheeler to madness. All my strength, together with Pitblado's, failed to arrest their mad career, and, while imploring Lady Louisa, who clung to me, "to hold fast, to sit still," and so forth, I bent all my energies rather to guide them along, and avoid collisions, than to attempt to stop them; and, to add to our troubles, the patent drag gave way.
Luckily, the road was smooth, and free from all obstruction.
"To the left, sir--to the left," shouted Pitblado, as we came to a place where two roads branched off; "that is Drumhead. Our way lies due west."
Pitblado might as well have shouted to the wind; the infuriated brutes took their own way, and tore at an awful pace due north. Horses pasturing by the wayside trotted to the rear, and sheep browsing in the fields fled at our approach; cattle kicked up their heels, and scampered away in herds. House-dogs barked, terriers yelled, and pursued us open-mouthed; children, ducks, cocks, and hens fled from the village gutters; peasants, at their cottage doors, held up their hands, with shouts of fear, while broad fields and lines of leafless trees, turf dykes, and hedges, drains, and thatched dwellings seemed all to fly past with railway speed, or to be revolving in a circle round us.
A shriek of commiseration burst from my affrighted companion, when, just as we swept past the base of Drumcarra Craig, in the cold, bleak, and elevated district of Cameron, poor Willie Pitblado, who had risen to give me the assistance of his hands in bearing on the reins, or for the last time to try and let down the faulty drag, fell out behind, and vanished in a moment. And now before us spread Magus Muir, where the graves of Archbishop Sharpe's murderers lie in a field that has never been ploughed even unto this day.
Twilight had come on, and a brilliant aurora, forming great pillars of variegated light, that shot upward and downward from the horizon to the dome of heaven, filled all the northern quarter of the sky with singular but many masses of streamers. Thus, the brilliance of the atmosphere cast forward in strong and black outline the range of hills that bound the Howe of Fife, and terminate the valley through which the Ceres flows to join the Eden; and all this, I think, conduced to add to the terror of the horses.
Pitblado's fate greatly alarmed and concerned me, for he was a brave, handsome, and faithful fellow, and an old acquaintance; but I had another--a nearer, dearer--and more intense source of anxiety. If she who sat beside me, clinging to me, and embracing my left arm with all her energy--she whom I loved so deeply, and whom I had lured into the tandem, when she might have been safely in the drag or carriage, should lose her life that night, of what value would my future existence be, embittered with such a terrible reflection?
"If a linchpin comes loose, or a trace gives way," thought I, "all will be over with us both."
"Oh, Mr. Norcliff, Mr. Norcliff!" she exclaimed, while the tears, which she had no means of wiping away, streamed over her pale and beautiful face, and while her head half-reclined on my shoulder. "Heaven help us, this is terrible--most terrible! We shall certainly be killed!"
"Then I hope it shall be together," I exclaimed. "Lady Loftus--dear Lady Loftus--dearest Louisa (here was a jump) trust to me, and me only! (what stuff men will talk; who else could she trust to?) and if it is in the power of humanity to save you, you shall be saved, or I shall die with you. Louisa, oh, Louisa, hear me. I would not--I could not survive you; but--but sit still, sit close, grasp me and hold on for Heaven's sake. (D--n that leader!) Oh, Louisa, I love you, love you dearly and devotedly. You must believe me when I say it at a time like this; when death, perhaps, is staring us face to face. Speak to me, dearest!"
I felt that the day, the hour, the moment of destiny had come; that time of joy or sorrow forever, and casting all upon it, committing the reins to my right hand, I threw my left arm round her, and pressing her to my breast, told her again and again how fondly I loved her, while still our mad steeds tore on.
"I know that you love me, Mr. Norcliff," she said, in a low and agitated voice, as her constitutional self-possession returned. "I have long seen it--felt it."
"My adorable Louisa!"
"And I will not--will not----"
She paused, painfully.
"What? Oh, speak."
"Deny that I love you in return."
"Heaven bless you, my darling, for saying so; for lifting a load of anxiety from my heart, and for making me so happy," I whispered, making an effectual effort to kiss her forehead.
"But then, Mr. Norcliff----"
"Alas! yes; but what?"
"There is mamma; you know, perhaps, her views concerning me--ambitious views; but we must take another time, if Heaven spares, to talk of that matter."
"What time so good as this?" I exclaimed impetuously, as we tore along, and Magus Muir, the Bishop's Wood, and Gullane's gravestone were left behind. "Poor me, a lieutenant of the lancers; and the earl, your father."
"Oh, dear papa--good, easy man--I don't think he troubles his head much in the affair; but if mamma knew all this, such a violation of her standing orders, heaven help us!"
She could almost have laughed but for the peril on which we were rushing, and a shrill little cry escaped her, as the leader suddenly quitted the hard highway, and, followed by the wheeler, passed throughan open field gate, and continued at the same frightful speed across a large space of pasture land that sloped steeply down to where my forebodings told me the Eden lay, and there, sure enough, in less than a minute, we could see the river rolling among the copsewood, with its waters swollen by the snows that had recently melted among the Lomond hills.
Though a placid stream usually, and having a pretty level course, in that quarter the banks were rugged, and the bed full of fallen larches and large boulder stones. If the vehicle overturned, what might be the fate of her who had just acknowledged that she loved me?
A prayer--almost a solemn invocation--rose to my lips, when, with the rapidity of light, the thought occurred to me of heading the leader towards a little stone bridge that spanned the stream. It was a mere narrow footway for shepherds, sheep, and cattle, and not of sufficient breadth to permit the passage of a four-wheeled gig; but I knew that if the latter could be successfully jammed between the walls, the course of the runaways would be arrested.
There was no alternative between attempting this and risking death from drowning or mutilation in the rugged bed of the swollen stream.
Down the steep grassy slope our foam-covered cattle rushed straight for the narrow bridge; I grasped the rail of the seat with one hand and arm; the other was round Louisa, lest the coming shock might throw us off. In an instant we felt it, and she clung to me, half-fainting, as there was a terrible crash, a ripping and splitting sound, as wood was smashed and harness rent. Our course was arrested--the wheels and axle of the fore-carriage wedged between the stone walls of the narrow bridge, the wheeler kicking furiously at the splinter-bar and splash-board, and the leader, the blood mare, the source of all the mischief, hanging over the parapet in the stream, snorting, half-swimming, and for ought I cared, wholly hanging.
My first thought was my companion. We both trembled in every limb as I lifted her gently to the ground, and placed the seat-cushions on a stone, where she might sit and compose herself till I considered what we should do next, and where we were.
She was greatly agitated, but passively permitted me to encircle her with my arms, to assure her that she was safe, to press her hands, and to wipe away her tears caressingly. I forgot all about poor Pitblado, "spilt" on the road, all about my uncle's best blood mare hanging in the traces, and all about the half-ruined gig.
In short, I felt only the most exquisite joy that I had gained, as it were, life and Louisa together. It was that moment of intense rapture, when, combined with the natural revulsion of feeling consequent to escape from a deadly peril, I enjoyed that emotion which a man feels once, and once only, in a lifetime, when the first woman he loves confesses to a mutual regard; and, half-kneeling, I stooped over her, kissing her again and again, assuring her--of I know not what.
From one of her fingers I transferred to mine a ring of small value--a pearl set in blue enamel, leaving in its place a rose diamond. It was a beautiful stone, of the purest water, which I had found when our troops sacked the great pagoda at Rangoon, and I had it set at Calcutta by a jeweller, who assured me that it was worth nine hundred rupees, or ninety pounds, and I only regretted now that it was not worth ten times as much, to be truly worthy of the slender finger on which I placed it.
She regarded me with a loving smile on her pale face, and in the quiet depths of her soft dark eyes, as she reclined in my arms. I gazed on her with emotions of the purest rapture. She was now humbled, gentle and loving--this brilliant beauty, this proud earl's daughter--mine, indeed--all that a man could dream of as perfection in a woman or as a wife; at least, I thought so then; and I was not a little proud of the idea of what our mess would say--the colonel, Studhome, Scriven, Wilford, Berkeley, and the rest--of a marriage that would certainly be creditable to the regiment, though we had titles and honourables enough in the lancers; and already, in fancy, I saw myself "tooling" into Maidstone barrack-square in a dashing phaeton, with a pair of cream-coloured ponies, with Norcliff and Loftus quartered on the panels, and silver harness, and Louisa by my side, in one of the most perfect of morning toilettes and of marriage bonnets that London millinery could produce.
Poor devil! with only two hundred per annum besides my pay, and the war before me, I was thus acquiring castles in Airshire, and estates in the Isle of Sky.
Oblivious of time, while the woods and hills of Dairsie were darkening against the sky, while the murmuring Eden flowed past towards the Tay, and the ever-changing spears and streamers of the northern aurora were growing brighter and more bright, I remained by the side of Louisa, wholly entranced, and only half-conscious that something should be done to enable us to return home; for night was coming on--the early night of the last days of January, when the sober sun must set at half-past four--and I knew not how far we were from Calderwood Glen.
Suddenly a shout startled us; the hoofs of horses were heard coming rapidly along the highway, and then three mounted men wheeled into the field and rode straight towards us. To my great satisfaction, one proved to be my faithful fellow, Willie Pitblado, who, not a wit the worse for his capsize on the road, had procured horses and assistance at the place called Drumhead, and tracked us to where we lay, wrecked by the old bridge of the Eden.
"Poor Willie," said Louisa, "I thought you were killed."
"No, my lady," said he, touching his hat; "it's lang or the de'il dees by the dykeside."
Of this answer she could make nothing.
The gig was now released and run back, and though scratched, splintered, and started in many places by the shock to which it had been subjected, it was still quite serviceable. The wheeler was traced to it again, the leader, her ardour completely cooled now, was fished out of the stream, and harnessed again, and in less than half an hour, so able had been the assistance rendered us, we were bowling along the highway towards my uncle's house.
An hour's rapid driving soon brought us in sight of the long avenue, the lighted windows, and quaint facade of the old mansion, at the door of which I drew up; and as I threw the whip and reins to Willie Pitblado, and, fearless now even of Mamma Chillingham, handed my companion down, tenderly and caressingly, I found myself an engaged man, and the fiance of one of the fairest women in Britain--the brilliant Louisa Loftus!
*CHAPTER XII.*
It passed--and never marble looked more pale
Than Lucy, while she listened to his tale.
He marked her not; his eye was cold and clear,
Fixed on a bed of withering roses there;
He marked her not, for different thoughts possessed
His anxious mind, and laboured in his breast.
ELLIS.
Notwithstanding all that had passed, and that we had been carried so far in the wrong direction, we were not long behind the rest of our party in reaching Calderwood, where the history of our disaster fully eclipsed for the evening all the exciting details of the fox-hunters, though many gentlemen in scarlet, with spattered tops and tights, whom Sir Nigel had brought, made the drawing-room look unusually gay.
Lady Louisa remained long in her own apartment; the time seemed an age to me; yet I was happy--supremely happy. I had a vague idea of the new emotions that served, perhaps, to detain her there; but an air of cold reserve and unmistakable displeasure hovered on the forehead of her haughty mother.
When Louisa joined us, she had perfectly recovered her usual equanimity and presence of mind--her calm, pale, and placid aspect. She was somewhat silent and reserved; this passed for her natural terror of the late accident, and though we remained some distance apart, her fine dark eyes sought mine, ever and anon, and were full of intelligent glances, that made my heart leap with joy.
Cora, who shrewdly suspected that there had been more in the affair than what Berkeley called "a doocid spill," regarded us with interest, and with a tearful earnestness that surprised us, after our return, and during the explanation which we were pleased to make. But whatever tales my face told, Louisa's was unfathomable, so from its expression suspicious little Cora could gather nothing; though, had she carried her scrutiny a little further, she might have detected my famous Rangoon diamond sparkling on the engaged finger of her friend's left hand.
Cora was on this night, to me, an enigma!
What had gone wrong with her? When she smiled, it seemed to several--to me especially--that the kind little heart from whence these smiles were wrung was sick. Why was this, and what or who was the source of her taciturnity and secret sorrow?--not Berkeley, surely--they had come home in the drag together--she could never love such an ass as Berkeley; and if the fellow dared to trifle with her--but I thrust the thought aside, and resolved to trust the affair to her friend and gossip, the Lady Loftus.
A few more days glided swiftly and joyously past at Calderwood Glen; we had no more riding and driving; but, as the weather was singularly open and balmy for the season, we actually had more than one picnic in the leafless woods, and I betook me to the study of botany and arboriculture with the ladies.
I enjoyed all the delicious charm of a successful first love! The last thought on going to repose; the first on waking in the morning; and the source of many a soft and happy dream between.
The peculiarity, or partial disparity, of our positions in life caused secrecy. Denied, by the presence of others, the pleasure of openly conversing of our love, at times we had recourse to furtive glances, or a secret and thrilling pressure of the hand or arm was all we could achieve.
Then there were sighs the deeper for suppression,
And stolen glances sweeter for the theft;
And burning blushes, though for no transgression,
Tremblings when met, and restlessness when left.
Small and trivial though these may seem, they proved the sum of our existence, and even of mighty interest, lighting up the eye and causing the pulses of the heart to quicken.
We became full of petty and lover-like stratagems, and of enigmatical phrases, all the result of the difficulties that surrounded our intercourse when others were present--especially Lady Chillingham, who was by nature cold, haughty, and suspicious, with, I think, a natural born antipathy to subalterns of cavalry in particular. Cora saw through our little artifices, and Berkeley, that Anglo-Scotch snob of the nineteenth century, had ever his eyes remarkably wide open to all that was going on around him, and thus the perils of discovery and instant separation were great, while our happy love was in the flush.
This danger gave us a common sympathy, a united object, a delicious union of thought and impulse. Nor was romance wanting to add zest to the secrecy of our passion. Ah, were I to live a thousand years, never should I forget the days of happiness I spent in Calderwood Glen with Louisa Loftus.
Our interviews had all the mystery of a conspiracy, though, save Cora, none as yet suspected our love; and there was a part of the garden, between two old yew hedges--so old that they had seen the Calderwoods of past ages cooing and billing, in powdered wigs and coats of mail, with dames in Scottish farthingales and red-heeled shoes--where, at certain hours, by a tacit understanding, we were sure of meeting; but with all the appearance of chance, though occasionally for a time so brief, that we could but exchange a pressure of the hand, or snatch a caress, perhaps a kiss, and then separate in opposite directions.
Those were blessed and joyous interviews; memories to treasure and brood over with delight when alone. In the society of our friends, my heart throbbed wildly, when by a glance, a smile, a stolen touch of the hand, Louisa reminded me of what none else could perceive, the secret understanding that existed between us.
And yet all this happiness was clouded by a sense of its brevity, and by our fears for the future; the obstacles that rank and great fortune on her side, the lack of both on mine, raised between us; and then there was the certain prospect of a long and dangerous--alas! it might prove, a final separation.
"They who love," writes an anonymous author, "must ever drink deeply of the cup of trembling; but, at times, there will arise in their hearts a nameless terror, a sickening anxiety for the future, whose brightness all depends upon this one cherished treasure, which often proves a foreboding of some real anguish looming in the distant hours."
"Where is all this to end?" I asked of myself, as the conviction that something must be done forced itself upon me, for the happy days were passing, and my short leave of absence was drawing to a close.
One day, by the absence of some of our friends, and by the occupation of others, we found ourselves alone, and permitted to have a longer interview than usual, in our yew-hedge walk, and we were conversing of the future.
"I have two hundred a year besides my pay, Louisa." (She smiled sadly at this, and the smile went doubly to my heart.) "The money has been lodged for my troop with Cox and Co., and my good uncle means well concerning me; yet, I feel all these as being so small, that were I to address the Earl of Chillingham on the subject of our engagement, it would seem that I had little to offer, and little to urge, save that which is, perhaps, valueless in his aristocratic eyes----"
"And that is?"
"My love for you."
"Don't think of addressing him," said she, weeping on my shoulder; "he has already views for me in another quarter."
"Views, Louisa!"
"Yes; pardon me for paining you, dearest, by saying so; but it is nevertheless true."
"And these views?" I asked, impetuously.
"Are an offer made for my hand by Lord Slubber de Gullion."
My heart died within me on hearing this name, which, as I once before stated, comes as near the original as possible.
"Hence you see, dearest Newton," she resumed, in a mournful and sweetly-modulated voice, "were you to address my father, it would only rouse mamma, and have the effect of interrupting our correspondence for ever."
"Good heavens! what then are we to do?'
"Wait in hope."
"How long?"
"Alas! I know not; but for the present at least our engagement, like our meetings and our letters, if we can correspond, must be secret--secret all. Were the earl, my father, to know that I loved you, Newton (how sweetly those words sounded), he and mamma would urge on Lord Slubber's suit, and, on finding that I refused, there would be no bounds to mamma's wrath. You remember Cora's story of the 'Clenched Hand;' you remember the 'Bride of Lammermoor,' and must see what a determined mother and long domestic tyranny may do."
I clasped my hands, for my heart was wrung; but she regarded me kindly and lovingly.
"On your return home, as colonel of your regiment, perhaps, we shall then, at all hazards, bring the matter before him, and treat Slubber's offer with contempt, as the senile folly of an old man in his dotage. You, at least, shall propose for me in form----"
"And if Lord Chillingham refuse?"
"Though we English people can't make Scotch marriages now, I shall be yours, dearest Newton, as I am now, only that it shall be irrevocably and for ever."
A close and mute embrace followed, and then I left her in a paroxysm of grief, while my head whirled with the combined effects of love and joy, and of sorrow, not unmixed with anger.
"I wonder what the subjects are that lovers talk of in their tete-a-tetes," says my brother of the pen and sword, W. H. Maxwell, and the same surmise frequently occurred to myself, before I met or knew Louisa Loftus.
We never lacked a subject now. The peculiarities of our relative positions, our caution for the present, and our natural anxieties for the future, afforded us full topics for conversation or surmise; but the few remaining days of my leave "between returns" glided away at Calderwood Glen; the time for my departure drew nigh; already had Pitblado divided a sixpence with my lady's soubrette, and packed up all my superfluous traps, and within six and thirty hours Berkeley and I would have to report ourselves in uniform at head-quarters, or be returned absent without leave.
It was in the evening, when I had gone as usual to meet Louisa at the seat where the close-clipped yew hedges formed a pleasant screen, that, to my surprise, and by the merest chance, I found it occupied by my cousin Cora.
The January sunset was beautiful; the purple flush of evening covered all the western sky, and bathed in warm tints the slopes of the Lomond hills. The air was still, and we heard only the cawing of the venerable rooks that perched among the woods of the old manor, or swung to and fro on its many gilt vanes.
Cora was somewhat silent, and I, being thoroughly disappointed by finding her there in lieu of Louisa Loftus, was somewhat taciturn, if not almost sulky.
Somehow--but how, I know not--Cora led me to talk insensibly of our early days, and as we did so, I could perceive that she regarded me earnestly from time to time, after I simply remarked that ere long I should be far, far away from her, and among other scenes. Her dovelike, dark eye became suffused, and the tinge on her rounded cheek died away when I laughingly referred to the days when we had been little lovers, and when Fred Wilford and I--he was now a captain of ours--used to punch each other's heads in pure spite and jealousy about her; but this youthful jealousy once took a more dangerous turn.
Among the rocks in the glen an adder of vast size took up its residence, and had bitten several persons. It had been seen by some to leap more than seven yards high, and was a source of such terror to the whole parish, that my uncle, and even the provost of Dunfermline, had offered rewards for its destruction.
On this I boldly dared my boy-rival to face it; but Fred Wilford, who was on a visit to us from Rugby, had more prudence, or less love for little Cora, and so declined the attempt.
Flushed with boyish pride and recklessness, I climbed the steep face of the rock, stirred up the adder with a long stick, flung it to the ground, and killed it by repeated blows of an axe, a feat of which my uncle never grew tired of telling, and the reptile was now in the library, sealed up in a glass case, being deemed a family trophy, and, as Binns said, always kept in the best of spirits.
I sat with Cora's white and slender hand in mine, gazing at her soft and piquant features, her pouting lips and dimpled chin, and the dark hair so smoothly braided under her little hat, and over each pretty and delicate ear. Cora was very gentle and very charming; she had ever been to me a kind little playmate, a loving sister, and she sighed deeply when I spoke of my approaching departure.
"You go by sea?" she asked.
"If we go to Turkey--of course."
"Embarking at Southampton?"
"Embarking at Southampton--exactly, and sailing directly for the East, I suppose," said I, while leisurely lighting a cigar; "I shall soon learn all the details and probabilities at head-quarters; but the route may not come for two months yet, as red-tape goes."
"You will think of us sometimes, Newton, in those strange and dangerous lands? Of your poor uncle, who loves you so well, and--and of me?"
"Of course, and of Louisa Loftus. Don't you think her very handsome?"
"I think her lovely."
"My cigar annoys you?"
"Not at all, Newton."
"But it makes you turn your face away."
"You met often, I believe, before you came here?"
"Oh, very often. I used to see her at the cathedral every Sunday in Canterbury; at the balls at Rochester and Maidstone----"
"And in London?"
"Repeatedly! I saw her at her first presentation at Court, when the colonel presented me, on obtaining my lieutenancy, and returning from foreign service. She created quite a sensation!"
I spoke in such glowing terms of my admiration for Louisa Loftus, that some time elapsed before I detected the extreme pallor of Cora's cheek, and a peculiar quivering of her under lip.
"Good heavens, my dear girl, you are ill! It is this confounded cigar--one of a box that Willie got me in Dunfermline," I exclaimed, throwing it away. "Your hand is trembling, too."
"Is it? Oh, no! Stay! I am only a little faint," she murmured.
"Faint! Why the deuce should you be faint, Cora?"
"This bower of yew hedges is close; the atmosphere is still, or chill, or something," she said, in a low voice, while pressing a lovely little hand on her bosom; "and it seems to me that I felt a pang here."
"A pang, Cora?"
"Yes, I feel it sometimes."
"You, one of the best waltzers in the county! You have no affection of the heart, or any of that sort of thing?"
She smiled sadly, even bitterly, and rose, saying--
"Here comes Lady Louisa. Say nothing of this."
Her dark eyes were swimming; but not a tear fell from their long, black, silky lashes, that lent such softness to her sweet and feminine face. She abruptly withdrew her tremulous hands from mine, and just as Louisa approached, hurriedly left me.
What did all this emotion mean? What did it display or conceal? I was thoroughly bewildered.
A sudden light began to break upon me.
"What is this?" thought I. "Can Cora be in love with me herself? Oh, nonsense! she has known me from boyhood. The idea is absurd! Yet her manner----. This will never do. I must avoid her, and to-morrow I leave for England!"
Louisa sat beside me, and, save her, Cora and all the world were alike forgotten.
*CHAPTER XIII.*
Forget thee? If to dream by night, and muse on thee by day; If all the worship, deep and wild, a poet's heart can pay; If prayers in absence, breathed for thee to Heaven's protecting power; If winged thoughts that flit to thee, a thousand in an hour; If busy Fancy, blending thee with all my future lot; If this thou call'st forgetting, thou, indeed, shall be forgot. MOULTRIE.
I had but one, only one, meeting more with Lady Louisa, and it was, indeed, a sad one. We could but hope to meet again--near Canterbury, perhaps--at some vague period before my regiment marched; and prior to that I was to write to her, on some polite pretence, under cover to Cora.
This was certainly somewhat undefined and unsatisfactory for two engaged lovers, especially for two so ardent as we were, and in the first flush of a grand passion; but we had no other arrangement to make; and never shall I forget our last, long, mute embrace on the last evening, when, scared by footsteps on the garden walk, we literally tore ourselves away, and separated to meet at the dinner-table, and act as those who were almost strangers to each other, and to perform the mere formalities, the politenesses, and cold ceremonies of well-bred life.
I could not help telling my good uncle of my success; but under a solemn promise of secrecy, for a time at least.
"All right, boy," said he, clapping me on the shoulder. "Keep her well in hand, and I'll back you against the field to any amount that is possible; but that gouty old peer, my Lord Slubber, is richer than I am; and then Lady Chillingham has the pride of Lucifer. Draw on me whenever you want money, Newton. Since Archie died at college, and poor Nigel at the battle of Goojerat, I have no boy to look after but you."
The last hour came inexorably. We shook hands with all. When that solemn snob, my brother officer, Mr. de Warr Berkeley, and I entered the carriage which was to take us to the nearest railway station, there were symptoms of considerable emotion in the faces of the kind circle we were leaving, for the clouds of war had darkened fast in the East during the month we had spent so pleasantly; and the ladies--the poor girls especially--half viewed us as foredoomed men.
Louisa was as pale as death; she trembled with suppressed emotion, and her eyes were full of tears. Even her cold and stately mother kissed me lightly on the cheek; and at that moment, for Louisa's sake, I felt my heart swell with sudden emotion of regard for her.
My uncle's hard but manly, hand gave mine a hearty pressure, and he kindly shook the hand of Willie Pitblado, who was bidding adieu to his father, the old keeper, and slipped a couple of sovereigns into it.
Sir Nigel's voice was quite broken; but there was no tear in the hot, dry eyes of poor Cora. Her charming face was very pale, and she bit her pouting nether lip, to conceal, or to prevent, its nervous quivering.
"An odd girl," thought I, as I kissed her twice, whispering, "Give the last one to Louisa."
But, ah! how little could I read the secret of the dear little heart of Cora, which was beating wildly and convulsively beneath that apparently calm and unmoved exterior! But a time came when I was to learn it all.
"Good-bye to Calderwood Glen," cried I, leaping into the carriage. "A good-bye to all, and hey for pipeclay again!"
"Pipeclay and gunpowder too, lad," said my uncle. "Every ten years or so the atmosphere of Europe requires to be fumigated with it somewhere. Adieu, Mr. Berkeley. God bless you, Newton!"
"Crack went the whip, round went the wheels;" the group of pale and tearful faces, the ivy-clad porch, and the turreted facade of the old house vanished, and then the trees of the avenue appeared to be careering past the carriage windows in the twilight, as we sped along at a rapid trot.
For mental worry or depression there is no more certain and rapid cure than quick travelling and transition from place to place; and assuredly that luxury is fully afforded by the locomotive appliances of the present age.
Within an hour after leaving Calderwood, we occupied a first-class carriage, and were flying by the night express, en route for London, muffled to the eyes in warm railway-rugs and border plaids, and each puffing a cigar in silence, gazing listlessly out of the windows, or doing his best to court sleep, to wile the dreary hours away.
Pitblado was fraternising with the guard in the luggage-van, doubtless enjoying a quiet "weed" the while.
Berkeley soon slept; but I prayed for the celebrated "forty winks" in vain; and thus, wakeful and full of exciting thoughts, I pictured in reverie all that had occurred during the past month.
Gradually the unwilling, but startling, conviction forced itself upon my mind that my cousin. Cora loved me! This dear and affectionate girl, from whom I had parted with such a frigid salute as that which Sir Charles Grandison gave Miss Byron at the end of their dreary seven years' courtship, loved me; and yet, blinded by my absorbing passion for the brilliant Louisa Loftus, I had neither known, seen, or felt it.
Her frequent coldnesses to me, and her ill-concealed irritation at the cool insolence of Berkeley's languid bearing, on more than one occasion, were all explained to me now.
Dear, affectionate, and single-hearted Cora! A hundred instances of her self-denial now crowded on my memory. I remembered now, at the meet of the Fifeshire fox-hounds at Largo, that it was she who, by a little delicate tact and foresight, contrived to give me that which she knew I so greatly coveted--the drive home in the tandem with Lady Louisa.
What must that act of self-sacrifice have cost her heart, if indeed she loved me? I could not write to her on such a subject, or even approach an idea that might, after all, be based on supposition, if not on vanity. More than this--I felt that the suspicion of having excited this secret passion must preclude my writing to Louisa under cover to Cora. Common delicacy and kindness suggested that I should not, by doing so, further lacerate a good little heart that loved me well.
But the next thought was how to communicate with Louisa, Cora being our only medium. Nor could I forget that when I was up the Rangoon river, and when my dear mother died at Calderwood, that it was Cora's kiss that was last upon her cold forehead, and Cora's little hand that closed her eyes for me.
Swiftly sped the express train while these thoughts passed through my mind, and agitated me greatly. To sleep was impossible, and ere midnight I heard the bells of Berwick-upon-Tweed announce that we had left the stout old kingdom of Scotland far behind us, and were flying at the rate of fifty miles an hour by Bedford, Alnwick, and Morpeth, towards the Tyne, and the land of coal and fire.
Every instant bore me farther from Louisa; and I had but one comfort, that ere long she would be pursuing the same route--perhaps seated in the same carriage--as she sped to her home in the south of England.
I dearly loved this proud and beautiful girl; and if human language has a meaning, and if the human eye has an expression, she loved me truly in return; but though the conviction of this made my heart brim with happiness, it was a happiness not untinged with fears--fears that her love was, perhaps, the fancy of the hour, developed by propinquity and the social circle of a quiet country house; fears that my joy and success were too bright to last; and that, after a time, she might see her engagement with a nameless subaltern of cavalry in the light of a mesalliance, and be dazzled by some more brilliant offer, for the heiress and only child of the Earl of Chillingham could command many.
War and separation were before us; and if I survived to return, would she love me still, and still indeed be mine?
Her father's consent was yet to be obtained. In my impatience to know the best or the worst, I frequently resolved to break the matter by letter to his lordship; but, remembering the tears and entreaties of Louisa, I shrank from the grave responsibility of tampering with our mutual happiness.
At other times I thought of confiding the management of the affair entirely to my uncle; but abandoned the idea almost as soon as I conceived it: knowing that the fox-hunting old baronet was more hot-headed, proud, and abrupt than politic. In conclusion, I thought it might be better done by a letter from the East, when the earl might politely half entertain an engagement which a bullet might dissolve; or, should I leave the affair over till I returned?
Oh! might I ever return--and if so, how mutilated? And if I died before the enemy, in imagination I saw, in the long, long years that were to follow, myself perhaps forgotten, and Louisa, my affianced bride, the wife of--another.
*CHAPTER XIV.*
And why not death, rather than live in torment?
To die is to be banished from myself;
And Sylvia is myself: banished from her
Is self from self; a deadly banishment!
What light is light, if Sylvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Sylvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by,
And feed upon the shadow of perfection.
SHAKSPEARE.
While yet half-slept, and wholly unrefreshed, after our long and rapid journey by train, we donned our uniforms, with sword-belt and sabretashe, duly reported ourselves to the colonel, who welcomed us back, and within an hour I found myself established in my old quarters, and once more falling into the every-day routine of barrack-life, just as if I had never left Maidstone, and as if my visit to Calderwood and my engagement with Louisa were all a dream. But I had her pearl ring, and the lock of jetty hair, which I had cut from her beautiful head in jest--a gift in solemn earnest now--and I lost no time in procuring a locket suitable for it, and which I might wear at my neck.
Again I had parades to attend, troop, guard, and stable duties to perform; but amid these, and all the bustle of Maidstone, the most tiresome and bustling cavalry barrack in the British empire, my heart and thoughts were ever with Louisa Loftus, amid the old woods of Calderwood Glen.
"War is not yet declared against Russia," said the colonel, the first evening parade after we joined; "but I have it in confidence from head-quarters that it will be ere long, and that we shall form part of the army of the East."
"Ah, and are there--haw--any infantry to accompany us?" asked Berkeley.
"I should think so," replied the colonel, laughing at so odd a question, which, as Berkeley asked it elsewhere, caused some amusement at Maidstone, as showing either his ideas of war, or of the strange individualism of the two branches of the service.
"The guards are already under orders, and embark at Southampton in a few weeks," resumed the colonel; "and we shall have tough work in getting ready for departure by the time our turn comes--though I am glad to say the lancers are in high order and discipline, and fit for anything."
Our colonel spoke with pride and confidence; and under his orders, I felt that, with equal confidence, I could really go anywhere or face anything. I had served under him in India, and he had ever been in my eyes the model of a British cavalry officer, and of an English gentleman.
"There is no example of human beauty more perfectly picturesque than a very handsome man of middle age; not even the same man in his youth," writes one of the most graceful female pens of the present day. Most soothing this to all good-looking fellows, who approach that grand climacteric; and the idea that she is correct always occurred to me when I saw Colonel Beverley, for a handsomer man, though his moustache was becomingly grizzled, never drew a sword, and all the regiment admired and esteemed him.
In addition to sword and pistols, our corps was armed with the lance, which the famous Count de Montecuculi of old declared to be "la Reine des armes pour la cavalerie," and the adoption of which was vainly urged by the great Marechal Saxe in his "Reveries;" but it was introduced into the British army after the peace of 1815. The only regiment armed in this fashion which previously existed in our service was the British Uhlans, composed of French emigrants, formed out of the remains of the lancers of the French Royalist army. They were all destroyed in the ill-fated expedition to Quiberon, in 1796.
When charging cavalry the bannerofes attached to our lances are extremely useful in scaring the horses--after which the rider becomes an easy prey; and the extreme length of the weapon renders it more effective than the sword when charging a square of infantry; while, in addition to this, it is a weapon of great show, as all must admit who have seen a lancer corps, some six hundred strong, riding with all their red and white swallow-tailed banneroles fluttering in the wind.
We had in our ranks more G. C. men, perhaps, than any other corps in the service; and, with the exception of one or two of those wealthy parvenus, like Berkeley, who are to be found in many regiments, but more especially in the cavalry, and whom I shall simply describe as yaw-yawing, cold, but fashionable, solemn and unimpressionable military snobs, the officers of the lancers were unquestionably gentlemen by birth, breeding, and education, and formed altogether, at mess, on parade, in the ball-room, or on duty, a class of society far superior in tone and bearing to any I have ever had the fortune to be among; and unless it be those of whom I have hinted, every face and name come pleasantly back to memory now, when I think of my fine regiment as it prepared for the army of the East.
Good Conduct Ring. We have four regiments of lancers--the 9th, 12th, 16th, and 17th.
We practised daily with our pistols and six-barrelled revolvers; the sword-blades and lance-heads were pointed and edged anew. Some of our mess actually tried bivouacking in the fields at night, to test their hardihood; but, as they were invariably taken for gipsies or housebreakers by the rural police, laughter on the one hand, and useless discomfort on the other, cured them of these pranks.
To be ready for anything and everything, and to make his lancers more active horsemen, Colonel Beverley had us all drilled to dismounting on the off-side, a practice which increases the skill of the men, and the steadiness of the horses, and which is simply done by reversing all the motions of dismounting, after the rider has well secured the lance, the reins, and mane in the right hand, while the left grasps the sword, and lays it across the front of the saddle, with the point to the right. He then dismounts on the off-side, with his lance at the carry in the right hand.
I remember, too, that he was careful in having the men cautioned against giving way to the weight of the lance when mounted, as this occasions bad consequences on long marches; hence it is very requisite to measure the stirrup leathers frequently, and let the men ride with the lance slung on the left arm. These items may seem trivial; but a day came when his instructions and precautions proved of inestimable value, and that was when we--the Six Hundred--made our ever-memorable charge into the Valley of Death!
A cheque for a handsome sum came from my good old uncle, Sir Nigel, and it proved most seasonable, as we were beset by London Jews and army contractors, and I had, as the phrase goes, "no end" of unexpected things to provide--a few to wit:--
A brace of revolving six-chambered pistols, with spring ramrods, as the papers said, "the most complete and effective ever offered to the British public." A full Crimean outfit, comprising a waterproof cape and hood, camp-boots, ground-sheet, folding bedstead, mattress, and pair of blankets, a canteen for self and a friend, sponging-bath, bucket, and basin, brush-case, lantern, and havresack, all dog-cheap at thirty guineas, with a pair of bullock-trunks and slings at eight guineas more. Then there was a portable patent tent, weighing only ten pounds; an india-rubber boat, and heaven only knows how much more rubbish, all of which made a terrible hole in my cheque, and all of which were left behind at Varna, where, doubtless, some enterprising follower of the Prophet would make them his lawful spoil.
Amid those prosy preparations the month of February slipped away, and the twenty-eight days of that month seemed like so many years to me, as I never heard of Louisa Loftus; but, on the first of March, Pitblado handed me a little packet which had come by the mail from London.
It contained a morocco case with a coloured photograph--a photograph of Louisa!
It was done in the best style of a good London artist, and my heart bounded with joy as I gazed on it, studying every feature. The reader would deem me mad, perhaps, maudlin certainly, if I related all the extravagances of which I was guilty on receipt of this souvenir, this minor work of art, with which I was forced to content me, until a miniature--one of Thorburn's best--which I was resolved to procure, should follow.
Was she in London, or had she merely written to the artist (whose name was on the case) to send me a copy of her miniature, which she knew well I would prize, even as I prized life or health?
On the same day that this dear memorial came I was gazetted to my troop in the regiment, by purchase, Captain B----, whose ill health rendered him totally unfit for foreign service, retiring by the sale of his commission; and though my heart was full of gratitude to my uncle, I verily believe that I thought more of Louisa's miniature than of my promotion. Both, however, seemed ominous of a happy future. They made a fortunate coincidence. The same mail had brought them from London, and I seemed to tread on air, and committed so many extravagances, and played so many pranks that night at mess, that my old friends, Jack Studhome and Fred Wilford, had to take what they termed "the strong hand" with me, and march me off to my quarters.
In answer to my letter of thanks, I received a long and rambling one from Sir Nigel, whose literary efforts were frequently a curious medley.
The hunt, the county pack, the next meets were, of course, referred to first, and then came his private troubles. The black-faced sheep had been leaping the fences and eating in the stackyard of the home-farm; the Highland goats had been eating the yews in the avenue, and poisoning themselves; the deer had been overthrowing the beescaps on the lawn, and the patent powder to fatten the pheasants had been mislaid by old Pitblado, and was eaten by the rooks instead. Lieutenant James's famous horse-blister had been applied without effect to his favourite hunter, Dunearn, and my old friend Splinterbar had gone dead lame--L300 gone to the dogs!
He had just had a notice of "augmentation, modification, and locality of stipend (whatever the deuce it might all mean) before the Tiend Court," served on him by a ---- Edinburgh writer to the signet, at the instance of the parish minister, whom he disliked as a sour Sabbatarian, and whom he had advised in his next sermon to expound and explain how "Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked."
Not a word about Louisa! I read on with growing impatience:--
"I have just procured a lot of that stuff the English call mangel-wurzel, consisting of white globes and long yellows, to plant in belts about the thickets where the deer are; they are better for feeding at this time than the best of Swedish turnips, and for drawing the deer from the cover, for a quiet shot.
"Cora is working all kinds of comforters, cuffs, and muffetees for you to wear in the Crimea. I asked her to write for me; but she excused herself, so I have to act as my own secretary. I don't know what has come over the girl of late.
"General Rammerscales, the gouty old tiger-hunter, has gone to his place at the Bridge-of-Allan; and our friend the M.P., like a true Scottish one, is shieing at his Parliamentary duties, when he can't get upon a committee that pays, and takes especial good care never to be in the House when Scottish interests are on the tapis, unless whipped in when the Lord Advocate has some party or private end in view.
"Old Binns and Pitblado send you their remembrance. Why did your man Willie give the two sovereigns I gave him to his father? The old fellow is well enough off in his cottage, and lives like the son of an Irish king. He shot a magnificent silver pheasant before the Chillingham party left (they are gone then!) and Lady Louisa got the wings for her pork-pie hat.
"Cora seems pining to join the Chillinghams, who, as you, of course, know, have been for a month past at their place near Canterbury. She is in low spirits, poor girl, and goes south in a week, when I shall, perhaps, accompany her. Lady Louisa has written to her thrice since they left. She says that Mr. Berkeley has been frequently visiting them; but never mentions you. What is the meaning of that?"
I paused on reading this, for it embodied a vast deal for reflection! That the Loftuses should be at Chillingham Park unknown to me was not strange; neither was it strange that, situated as we were, poor Louisa should not mention me in her letters to Cora; but that Berkeley should be their frequent visitor, and omit to mention, or conceal that circumstance from me, was certainly startling!
Berkeley! So this accounted for what the mess had remarked--his frequent absences from that agreeable board, from parades, and the used-up condition of his private horses. Was there any sly game afoot? So far as he was concerned, could I doubt it? His reserve to me declared that there was; and this game had been played for a month, with or without success, how was I to learn? Ha! thought I, if they knew about Miss Auriol, his unfortunate mistress! But noble morality is frequently very opaque--and my pay and expectations were but moonshine, when opposed to his solid thousands per annum.
I was sorry to hear that Cora was coming so far south as Canterbury; for much as I loved and esteemed my cousin, I felt that I should rather avoid her now. I resume the letter.
"How does your affair with la belle Louisa progress--eh? Well, I hope; though I think, with Thackeray, that 'every man ought to be in love a few times in his life, and have a smart attack of the fever. You are the better after it is over.'
"So we are to have hostilities at last! I was in Edinburgh yesterday, anent the programme of the spring meeting at Musselburgh, and heard war declared by Britain against Russia. It was proclaimed at the market cross by the Rothesay, Albany, and Islay heralds, attended by the Kintyre, Unicorn, and Ormond pursuivants, all in their tabards, and a strong guard of Highlanders, with bayonets fixed, and colours flying. It was a quaint and picturesque sight, that did your old uncle's heart good, and set him thinking; for the same trumpets had many a time in the same place proclaimed war against England in the days of old."
