George Tomkyns Chesney, "The Dilemma: A Tale of the Mutiny" (1876) (Full Text)
THE DILEMMA
GENERAL SIR GEORGE CHESNEY
K.C.B., M.P.
AUTHOR OF 'THE BATTLE OF DORKIN,' ETC.
Source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Dilemma
This transcription is a compilation of the novel, which was published in 26 installments in Littell's Living Age during 1875 and 1876. Prior to this it had appeared, in similar form, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine beginning with Chapters 1 – 6 in May 1875 (Vol. 68; No. 1715). It was subsequently published in book form (in 3 volumes) in 1876.
CHAPTER 1
========================================
CHAPTER I.
With the advent of the cold season Anglo-Indian society revives from its hot-weather torpor. Drills and field-days begin; regiments are on the move; civilians look up their camp-equipage and shooting-apparatus; officers rejoin from furlough; wives and children return from the hills; inspections, balls, and race-meetings come off. And never were the English in India more disposed to give themselves to the amusement of the passing hour than at the close of the year 1856, when no warning note had yet been given of the great catastrophe to come, and it seemed as if the end of Indian wars had been reached at last, and
that the only possible excitement remaining was to be found in field-sports, or the small gaieties within the reach of dwellers in cantonments. At the beginning of the cold season, too, there takes place the annual importation of young ladies from England. At small stations, indeed, this last element of the cold-weather excitement must needs be of a more or less intermittent and occasional character, since there will not be found every year parents to receive a newly grown-up daughter; but in so large a place as Mustaphabad, some accessions of this kind must always be due, and on the present occasion Miss Cunningham's arrival was heralded by rumours of her accomplishments and beauty which, even with due allowance for pardonable exaggeration when describing a young lady as yet unseen, were sufficient to account for the flutter of excitement which pervaded the local society. Letters from officers returning from leave to residents at the station, made special reference to the charms of their fellow-passenger, — notably that written by young Miles of the native infantry, who was hanging about Calcutta after arrival in search of some employment which would prevent his returning to regimental duty, and who wrote to his correspondent that Miss Cunningham was "as nice as she looks, only Mrs. Shaperown (in whose charge she came out) would hardly let her speak to a fellow on board." Still more circumstantial evidence was afforded by Captain Sparrow, the assistant commissioner of Mustaphabad, another fellow-passenger on board the Burrampootra, who had rejoined his appointment straightway on landing, and looked in, a day or two afterwards, on his cousin, Ensign Spragge, of the 76th Native Infantry, while the officers of that corps were taking early tea in the mess-house verandah after morning parade. "Ah! Miss Cunningham?" said Sparrow, with an air of languid superiority, to the two or three sitting next him, as his wily cousin turned the conversation from that gentleman's experiences of London life and Continental travel to the subject of general interest — "ah! you see, Miss Cunningham is a sort of woman that don't often come out to this country. Not a mere chit of a girl just out of the schoolroom, to get her head turned by seeing a few young fellows in red coats, or being made love to by a P. and O. purser; she has been brought up abroad and seen something of the world; talks French and Italian, and that sort of thing, as well as English, and with really quite a good taste in music. Not that she is at all stuck up, you know. She was not on speaking terms with everybody on board, of course — Mrs. Shaperown was too particular for that; but
I
saw a good deal of their party, naturally — her father and I being in the same commission, you see, made it different — and I found her very agreeable and well-informed. But I am afraid it will be slow for her out here, for my worthy chief, though a very excellent fellow, ain't much accustomed to ladies' society, and she's not the sort of girl to care for what you fellows call gaiety — a ball where you make up a dozen dancing couples, including the grandmammas still on active service; or your picnics out at the nawab's gardens, where there's no grass and no water, and nothing to do but yawn, and eat hermetically-sealed lobsters. No, no, English life spoils you for that sort of thing. I declare since I have come back from furlough I hate India more than ever."
So saying, Captain Sparrow mounted his horse, and, nodding his adieu languidly but affably to his audience, cantered off to the residency, while the little group of officers dispersed to their respective bungalows to dress and breakfast. Nor were they the only persons discussing the subject. "The poor dear commissioner," said Mrs. Polwheedle, the brigadier's wife, to the occupant of the next carriage, as the two ladies sat listening to the strains of the regimental band playing on the Mall at sunset — "the poor dear commissioner, there's his daughter actually going to arrive in a day or two, and not a thing ready for her. I want him to let Miss Cunningham stay with us for a week or two at
first, it will be so dull for her, poor girl, in that great barn of a residency all by herself, and not a lady within five miles. No, he has not exactly promised that she shall do so, but then you know the commissioner, it is so hard to get him to say a thing outright; he is always most friendly with us, I am sure, and the brigadier says he is very clever in his management of the natives, and very clever he must be, for he scarcely ever speaks a word. But as I said to him, my dear Mr. Cunningham, you really must let the dear girl stay and rest with us, at any rate on her way up, for she will be shaken to death with the palkee journey from Panipoor, and will never be able to get on to
the residency the same morning. And so we expect her, and then I daresay when she once stops, she will be glad to stay with me for a day or two, and the commissioner can come down and dine whenever he likes, and I will ask some of the senior officers and their wives to meet them. This will be such a nice introduction for her — don't you think so? and much pleasanter than if she were set down all at once at the residency, with the commissioner away all day at cutchery, and she not able to speak a word of the language. It's bad enough when you can talk it, with these native servants ready to steal the very nose off your face. Oh, I do think they are such rogues, every man of them." And as the good
lady's thoughts passed from her hospitable intentions to the wrongs inflicted by the children of the soil, her ample face assumed a rosier hue, and her voice a deeper tone.
The arrangement proposed by Mrs. Polwheedle for Miss Cunningham's reception was, however, never carried out. Two mornings after the above conversation took place, the brigadier returning from his early ride, brought the news to his wife that the commissioner had gone down the previous day in the nawab's camel-carriage to Panipoor, at which place the made road from Calcutta at that time terminated, to meet his daughter and her maid, and that the party had passed through cantonments on their way to the residency at daybreak that morning.
CHAPTER 2
========================================
CHAPTER II.
Mustaphabad society allowed Miss Cunningham one day's rest to recover from the fatigue of her journey, and by way of preserving its own self-respect from the imputation of curiosity — the only exception being Captain Buxey, the paymaster, who as an old friend who had known her when she was a little girl, drove out to see her the first day; but on the second morning after her arrival quite a stream of visitors might have been seen making their way along the dusty road between the cantonments and the residency, with many of whom, to the desire of seeing the fair occupant, was added a curiosity to inspect the place by daylight; for the commissioner, although a hospitable man, who gave frequent solemn dinner-parties as became his position, was too much occupied with business to receive morning visitors while living alone.
First in the field was Mrs. Polwheedle, whose barouche drove into the residency-grounds even before the gong in the portico had struck eleven o'clock, the time when etiquette assumes that visitors should be only starting from their own houses, and early enough to find Mr. Cunningham still sitting with his daughter over a late breakfast-table. "I thought I would come early," said the lady, after greetings, "because I know your papa has to be in court all day; and as he wouldn't let you stop with us on the way, as I wanted him to, I thought it might be a comfort to you to have some one to introduce all the visitors when they arrive; for you will have quite a levee to-day — the whole station in fact. It's not quite the same thing, of course, as when we arrived, when the brigadier came to take up the command; then there was a salute fired, and all the officers came to call in uniform and swords; still, I can assure you, your arrival has made quite a sensation, as well it may," she added, taking a step backward, and surveying, with her head on one side, the beautiful young woman before her, who stood smiling and amused at the address of her voluble visitor. " My dear, you must let me give you a kiss," continued Mrs. Polwheedle, advancing as she spoke, and folding Miss Cunningham in her ample embrace; "I am sure that we shall be great friends. I have no daughter of my own — only one son; I will tell you all about him by-and-by," she added, with a knowing smile. "Then you will want some hints about the servants, for they will take you in nicely at first. Oh yes," she continued stopping Mr. Cunningham short as he was about to speak, "I know the dear good commissioner thinks they are quite perfect angels with black faces, — just like the brigadier, in fact — he believes in the natives too; and nicely he would be robbed if it wasn't for me; I don't believe his bearer would leave him a shirt to his back. And then you will be wanting some advice about furniture," she continued, as the two ladies moved towards the drawing-room — for the commissioner, unable to come into action under fire of the invader's guns, had effected a retreat into his own rooms — "and very difficult it is to get so far up country; but, bless me!" she exclaimed, as the altered aspect of the great room broke on her, its former empty condition having been remedied by the advent of a large assortment of tables, couches, easy-chairs, and ottomans, comfortable but
incongruous, which the sly commissioner had managed to introduce without her agency or knowledge, the whole set off by a brand-new grand piano, arrived a day or two before its mistress — "bless me! why, this is indeed a transformation!" nor was the lady's astonishment diminished on finding that Miss Cunningham was till then unaware that all this splendour had been accumulated entirely on her account.
"Why, I declare, my dear, one hardly knows the place again. Your papa used to give very elegant dinners, you know, as became his position; half the station would be here at a time, and everything in first-rate style. You can do the thing properly in these splendid rooms — Calcutta matting, too, I declare!" she ejaculated, by way of interlude, poking the floor with her parasol; "must have cost a rupee a yard if it cost a pice. Splendid rooms, are they not? and no rent to pay. I often tell the brigadier he ought to write in to government for an official residence. Our dining-room will only hold eighteen comfortably, though you can get twenty-two in by a squeeze. We must make the commissioner fix an early day to bring you to dinner, — a sort of introduction to Mustaphabad society; but, as I was saying, although the commissioner used to give such fine parties, when the ladies came into the drawing-room there was hardly a chair for them to sit down upon, leave alone an ottoman. And now I declare," she added, surveying the room with a comprehensive glance, "I don't suppose there is a house outside Chowringhee so handsomely furnished. And the whole effect is really quite chaste; the mixture of green and blue satin blends so nicely, doesn't it? But, dear me, I have never asked you about yourself all this time! Tell me, my dear, you must have had an awfully trying journey. For my part I never will go even to the hills unless the brigadier goes with me; I really cannot travel alone. For all that I look so strong, I am really very delicate, and the least fright upsets me. Tell me, my dear, weren't you very nervous at first starting on your journey at being surrounded by chattering natives, and you not able to speak a word to them?"
"Oh no," replied the young lady, smiling; "you see we came — that is, my companion and I — with friends of papa almost the whole way. So we had no trouble at all; and then papa sent his head man — his jemadar I think he calls him — to Calcutta to meet me, and he sat on the box night and day, and seemed never to go to sleep at all; so we got on capitally, and then papa met us at Panipoor, and brought us on in a camel-carriage, a wonderful conveyance, but really very comfortable."
Thus Mrs. Polwheedle was already established on a friendly footing when the other visitors arrived, a succession of them too numerous to mention, ladies with their husbands, and bachelors, singly or in pairs — Colonal Tartar of the hussars, to wit, driving his mail-phaeton; Rowell and Scurry of the same regiment driving out together in the latter's tandem; Messrs. Cubitt and Stride of the artillery, in a buggy hired from Nubbee Bux, general dealer in the bazaar, the horse attached to which being newly employed in such a capacity made sundry diversions by the way off the road, happily unattended with serious consequences, as the embankment was not much raised above the surrounding country. Others, more economically disposed, made the journey on horseback, among them Lieutenant Yorke and Ensign Spragge of the 76th Native Infantry, who cantered down to the residency on their respective ponies.
The commissioner's house — destined to be the scene of a famous episode in events to come — which had been built in the days before the annexation of Mustaphabad, and when British authority and interest had been represented by a resident or diplomatic agent stationed at the court of the nawab, and therefore still bore the designation of "the residency" — had been designed with a view to symbolize the importance of the paramount authority — the reigning nawab under treaty engagements paying the cost — and the architect had apparently intended to produce some undefined resemblance to the British Museum or a Grecian temple, without feeling quite sure which of the two should be copied. The two visitors, riding through a gateless opening in the wall which enclosed the spacious grounds, alighted under a gigantic portico of no particular order, the columns of which dwarfed their ponies to the size of sheep, and where a sepoy of their regiment was standing as sentry; and then, proceeding up a flight of broad steps, on which were lounging half-a-dozen messengers clad in scarlet tunics, with gold waistbands and white turbans, were ushered into the house. The public rooms were large and lofty; but the drawing-
room, which occupied the centre of the building, deriving all its light from narrow clerestory windows shaded by blinds, and through the doors opening into the surrounding rooms, was somewhat gloomy in the daytime. Not, however, that young Yorke noticed these particulars, although the time was to come when he would be familiar with every corner of the building; for, entering straightway from the glare of Indian sunlight into comparative darkness, he was painfully conscious of making an entry deficient in dignity, as he stumbled against an ottoman, and then knocked his shins against a chair, before he became gradually able to make out the presence of the occupants of the drawing-room. Miss Cunningham, Mrs. Polwheedle, and two officers of hussars; and as the new-comers established themselves on chairs at the far side of a great gulf or open space, bounded on one side by a table, and on the other by a large ottoman, our subaltern became more than ever impressed with a sense of his unworthiness, while feeling, too, that his tight red shell-jacket contrasted disadvantageously with the easy grace of the long braided frock-coats of the other visitors. Moreover, although the latter had driven over, they were adorned with long glistening steel spurs, whereas the two infantry subalterns wore little insignificant appendages screwed into the heels of their boots, as befitted men of their branch of the service when on horseback, wholly without lustre or rattle, and good only for use. The road too had been dusty, and the wind high, and even a December sun is hot at midday, and poor Yorke was conscious that his face was flushed and dirty, contrasting unfavourably with the cool and orderly appearance of the two drivers, one of whom sat calmly sucking the top of his cane, while the other, with a pleased simper on his face, and playing with his laced cap, was talking easy nothings to the lady of the house. Nor did the conversation begin auspiciously. It was opened by Mrs. Polwheedle.
"You young gentlemen rode over on your tats, I suppose? The subaltern's tat, my dear Miss Cunningham — that is the name, you know, they give to a pony in this country — is the most useful animal you can imagine. It goes out any number of times a day, and does any quantity of work, but never gets tired. Every subaltern, you know, in this country keeps his pony, although how an ensign can afford to do it on his pay is a perfect wonder, with grain at sixteen pounds the rupee."
Poor Yorke felt himself getting redder than ever; but while casting about for a repartee which did not readily present itself, one of the hussar officers took up the cudgels.
"Subalterns don't always keep ponies, if you please, Mrs. Polwheedle; I have never had one since I entered the service: I prefer horses; so does Mr. Scurry here."
"Oh yes, of course," replied Mrs. Polwheedle with a smile, as if half-disposed to wrath, half-disposed to condescension; "I was not referring to cavalry officers; you gentlemen have your chargers, I know, and very pretty they look, but —"
"By the way," interrupted the aggressive Rowell, "that's not a bad-looking tat the brigadier has been riding lately — where did he get him from?"
"You mean his grey horse?" replied the lady, bridling up.
"Well, it isn't exactly a horse," continued the persistent Rowell; "it certainly ain't fourteen; I doubt if it's much over thirteen."
"Well, sir, and if it is not, pray what has the age of the horse to do with the matter?"
"Not thirteen years, Mrs. Polwheedle; I wasn't speaking about the pony's age, but about his height. However," he continued, seeing that the lady appeared to have had enough in the encounter, "it looks a good, useful, weight-carrying nag, and handy for getting off and on again — not far to travel either way."
This last remark might be said to complete the victory, for riding was not among Brigadier Polwheedle's strong points; but the lady was not prepared to surrender all at once the position she had assumed, so, turning again towards young Spragge, she said —
"So you have got a new commanding officer now — Major Dumble. He called on us yesterday, and seems a quiet, gentlemanly person. How do you like the change from Colonel Marshall?"
"Well, of course we are sorry to lose our dear old colonel; he had never been away from the regiment before."
"And why did he leave it to go to another regiment, then?"
"He had to make way for Major Dumble. The major, of course, had to come back to the regiment on promotion, because he couldn't hold his appointment
as a field-officer; and as he must come back to his own regiment, the colonel had to be shifted to another."
"Oh yes; the brigadier was telling me something about it. Major Dumble comes from the commissariat, does he not?"
"No, from the pay-department; he has been fifteen years away from the regiment."
"Well, I hope he is a good drill, and will take care to get the regiment into good order for inspection, for the brigadier is very particular. You must know, Miss Cunningham, that all the annual inspections are coming on. The brigadier has to inspect all the regiments in the station, and make a report on them to the commander-in-chief; this is a first-class brigade, you know, and so the brigadier reports direct to headquarters. You will enjoy these inspections, I am sure, and must not fail to come to them, especially the cavalry review, it is such a pretty sight. Isn't it, Mr. Rowell?" she added, turning towards that gentleman, and as it were holding out the olive-branch to him.
"Oh yes," replied Rowell; "the colonel generally knocks the regiment about a bit on these occasions — pursuing practice, and that sort of thing; it amuses the brigadier and the ladies."
Just then Miss Cunningham, opposite to whom Yorke was sitting, but a long way off, crossed over towards him. If she seemed beautiful before, the grace of her movements as she passed over the open space possessed the young fellow as with a sense of enchantment; while the rustling of her dress when she took the seat next to his raised a corresponding flutter in his heart, as he sat motionless, fascinated by her proximity, hardly venturing to look up, gazing at the folds of rich trimmings that fluttered beside him.
Yet there was nothing very formidable in her opening address. "These soldiers," she asked, "who mount guard by turns at our door, do they belong to your regiment?"
As Miss Cunningham said this in a low rich voice, which had in it an expression of unconscious pathos, and turning her long graceful neck, looked towards the listener, her manner was as if the question was full of interest for her, and her face, although it wore an open smile, seemed as one that might be readily attuned to sympathy with sorrow.
Yorke's acquaintance with young ladies was not large, and he had never met with anything like this before. Miss Glumme, one of the two young ladies imported into Mustaphabad in the previous season, never looked you in the face at all, but answered questions monosyllabically, and with downcast eyes, as if conversation was a thing unbecoming a woman; Miss Peart, on the other hand, a little brunette nowise afflicted with
mauvais honte
, jerked out her sentences with a sort of little laugh at the end of each, as if the mere act of saying anything in itself partook of the funny. But here was a young lady who appeared even when in society to take an interest in something. A queen, too, could not have been more gracious; and surely no queen ever looked more regal in her crown than did this beautiful young woman with a coronet of rich brown hair braided over her lofty head.
It was a simple question, but Yorke felt himself growing redder than ever, as he replied in the affirmative.
"I quite expected," continued Miss Cunningham, "to find the sepoys insignificant-looking creatures, with large soft eyes and big earrings. It was quite a surprise to see them so different. You must feel very proud of commanding such fine fellows."
"I don't command them, you know," replied Yorke; "I only command my own company — at least I hold two companies just now, as we are short of officers" — here the young fellow stopped with some confusion, for it suddenly seemed to him how vain he must appear to be, bragging about his duty in this way. Besides, what could a splendid creature like this care about the small organic details of a native infantry regiment, a thing regarded by society generally, and young ladies in particular for the first three or four years of spinsterhood — if it lasted so long — as altogether beneath serious interest?
Miss Cunningham, however, persisted in her inquiries. She had come to India, and wanted to know all about the country and the people, she said. The lascars on board the steamer were insignificant-looking people; but her papa's jemadar, who met her at Calcutta, had a most dignified appearance, and was so attentive and well-bred: although she could not understand a word he said, he seemed to know exactly what to do; and then he sat on the coach-box the whole way from Calcutta; she was really quite ashamed that he should be exposed to
such hardships, while she was travelling at her ease.
The conversation ran on in this wise for a few minutes. Miss Cunningham, who had taken pity on the forlorn condition of the young fellow sitting on the outside of the circle, and snubbed by Mrs. Polwheedle, was trying to set him at his ease; and while that lady was discoursing at some length to the other guests on a point of domestic economy, Yorke, becoming emboldened by her sympathetic manner, was gradually acquiring a little self-possession, and had got to the point of explaining the difference between a subahdar and a havildar, when fresh visitors were announced, and the other gentlemen rose to take their departure. Yorke perforce followed the example of the rest; and as Miss Cunningham at parting held out her hand with a frank gracious smile, he felt that the void in his existence, of which he had been for some time conscious, was now at once more than filled up.
"Gave the old lady as good as she brought," said Rowell to Yorke, under the great portico, as he stepped into the tandem-cart after his companion; "that's the way to deal with her. You stick up to her, my good fellow, whenever she tries the patronizing dodge, and you will soon put a stop to it."
CHAPTER 3
========================================
CHAPTER III.
Yorke
and Spragge had engaged themselves to luncheon with the latter's cousin, Captain Sparrow, the assistant commissioner, who occupied a small house within the residency-grounds formerly belonging to the assistant-resident; and to this the two young officers repaired after their morning call. In the verandah was a lesser band of red-coated myrmidons, who ushered the visitors into a sitting-room, and proceeded to the adjacent court-house to summon Captain Sparrow. That gentleman suspended the progress of the suit which he was engaged in hearing, and presently joined them with languidly affable greetings.
"You gentlemen look quite warm in your red jackets," observed their host, as they sat down to luncheon; "but pray unbutton them if you like, and make yourselves comfortable. Liberty hall this, you see — a mere bachelor's den." Captain Sparrow, however, was dressed himself with a degree of care unusual in an Indian official at his daily work; and as he said this, he threw a glance round the room, by way of drawing attention to its appointments.
"Bachelor's den indeed!" cried his cousin; "none of your humbug, Ted. You know that you always set up for being a swell. See what it is to be in civil employ, Yorke! But you're a bigger swell than ever since you've been home. I suppose you brought all these nobby pictures back with you," he added, looking up at the walls, which were adorned with various specimens of the graver's art; "and all this new plate. Never saw a bachelor's house like it before, leave alone a den."
"Ah, you wouldn't think much of this if you saw the well-appointed establishments some men have in England; the thing is not to be done with native servants, and especially by a busy man like myself, who have no time to look after my household; still I like to have things neat about my little place."
"Little place indeed!" replied Spragge. "Why, you might put the whole of our bungalow into this room, roof and all — couldn't he, Arty? Well, at any rate, you don't want much preparation before changing your state. Only one more thing wanted to complete the arrangement, eh? And now here is the lady arrived already and at hand. I envy you your opportunities, my dear fellow. See what it is to be a swell civilian instead of a poor N.I. sub. I declare I must take to studying the language or mugging up history, like Yorke here. However it's too late to cut you out this time, I suppose."
"Oh, as to that," said his cousin, with a pleased simper, "you mustn't suppose that there is anything serious in that quarter. You harum-scarum soldiers fancy that if a man doesn't like living in a barn he must be bent on matrimony. For my part, I think marrying is a mistake, at any rate till you get on in life. It ties a man down too much; and children may be all very well in England, with a proper staff of nurses to look after them, but they are dreadfully in the way out here. When a man goes home with a certain position and no encumbrances, you see, the pleasures of society are open to him, and he is free to travel, and so on. A very agreeable life I can assure you; but it comes to an end too soon. The only thing left now is to look forward to one's next furlough." And as the speaker concluded he cast his eyes over the table-cloth, as if surveying there the refined pleasures offered by a
view of Europe to the cultivated man without encumbrances.
His cousin winked at Yorke by way of hint that he was going to draw the captain out.
"No, no, Ted, that won't do. You don't mean to tell me that you're not going to make the running in that line. Wouldn't I, just, if I had your chances! Why, I suppose you are in and out of the residency like a tame dog?"
Captain Sparrow was evidently nettled at his cousin's want of reverence, displayed, too, before a third party; but he condoned it in consideration of the opening afforded to talk about himself, so replied, drawing up both himself and his shirt-collar —
"If you mean that I have the
entrée
of Cunningham's house, just as he has of mine, of course. But we don't carry the Jack-and-Tom school of manners which appears still to pervade native infantry messes into civilized life, my dear fellow. Of course I could invite myself there at any time; but now Cunningham is so much occupied with his daughter that he leaves all culchery business to his deputy — and in fact you must excuse my running away presently, but I have scarcely a minute to call my own; and, to tell you the truth, I don't much care about making one of the party when they are simply
en famille
, — one must draw the line somewhere." And Captain Sparrow looked mysterious, and stopped, as evidently inviting further inquiry.
Tills was at once made, Yorke feeling more interested than ever in the conversation.
Captain Sparrow explained that Miss Cunningham had brought out a French servant with her, a lady's-maid, at any rate she came out as a second-class passenger on board the steamer; but now, forsooth, her mistress had established her as a sort of companion, and she took her meals at the same table with Mr. Cunningham and his daughter, when they were alone.
"I shouldn't mind that a bit," said Spragge, "if she's nice-looking, and don't eat with her knife."
"That's hardly a criterion, my good fellow," replied the captain, with an air of superiority; "if you had travelled on the Continent, you would have seen quite elegant women at the
tables d'hôte
hipping up their food with their knives. That's merely an insular prejudice of yours. Oh no; the girl is well enough in her way, but still there is an etiquette in these things."
"I shouldn't care a bit about etiquette, for my part," said Spragge. "If she's a pretty girl, I'd rather take her in to dinner any day than Mrs. Polwheedle. But I shouldn't be able to talk her lingo, which would be a drawback."
"You need not be alarmed on that score. Justine understands English perfectly, and talks it well enough, and without the vulgarisms some people employ; but still there is a propriety in these things you know —
est modus in rebus
."
One crumb of comfort Yorke carried away, as he mounted his pony to ride home. Sparrow was not a favoured suitor, as appeared at first sight to be his natural position. Unless a thorough dissembler, which was evidently not his character, he could not be at present even a suitor at all. This conclusion reconciled Yorke to having partaken of luncheon under his roof, which at one time during the visit had seemed to the young fellow as opposed to honourable dealing. This at any rate was some consolation, as he cantered on his pony by the side of his companion, depressed, and yet not hopeless.
"Something like a young lady, by Jove!" cried Spragge, breaking the silence at last, as, on nearing the cantonments, they reduced their pace to a walk. "You don't often see such beauty as that in these parts. And no end of money, too, I expect. Old Cunningham must have saved handsomely; for beyond giving dinners and keeping elephants, he can't have had anything to spend his pay on. All those fellows in red tunics are kept up for him by government, and, I daresay, half his private servants too, if the truth were known. It's only we poor beggars of subalterns who have to pay for our bearers."
"How much does the commissioner get?"
"Four thousand one hundred and sixty-six rupees a month, the pay of twenty ensigns; think of that, my boy: the mind almost refuses to grasp such a sum. My cousin Teddy gets a thousand a month, which is pretty well, and spends it, too, on his pictures, and side-dishes, and fiddle-faddle. However, he's not half a bad fellow, Ted isn't, after all; he stood security for me once, when I was harder up even than I am now. See what it is to get a civil appointment. I wish I could make up my mind to pass; but
those black classics are the very deuce, and that's a fact. However, a scholar like you is sure to get something or other one of these days, and become a swell like Teddy; and then when some Miss Cunningham of the future comes out, it will be your turn to go in and win."
Too late then, thought Yorke, bitterly, as the other's random talk shot home. It must be now or never. And what chance is there that the prize will keep so long, till I am ready to claim it? Yet that night the young fellow sat up at work till late after mess; and all next day, while his chum was at a cricket-match, he stayed in the little bungalow over his books, only leaving them towards sundown, when he mounted his pony and took the way of the course.
The mall or course of Mustaphabad was about two miles long, bordered by trees, and bounded on each side by the mud-banks which enclosed the rectangular spaces allotted for officers' houses — spaces some of them converted into neat gardens, some laid out in grass, some left in a state of nature, a small desert of baked mud or sand, as the case might be. The road was a wide one, macadamized for carriages in the middle, a sandy track on either side left soft for riders, and watered to keep down the dust.
The prospect was not lively, nor was there a soul yet to be seen, for he had come out too soon; he had not spoken to any one all day; life seemed flat, stale, and unprofitable; and as he rode at foot-pace along the mall, his heart sank within him. What if a military career was to be always like this?
Presently a moving object appeared in the far perspective, which in the fulness of time developed into a buggy and horse with two occupants, Tirtell of the 8oth N. I. driving his young wife. So, after all, matrimony was possible even for a subaltern on regimental duty. And for a moment a vision passed across his mind, as of himself driving a buggy with some one by his side, her dress touching him, and even the idea sent a thrill through his frame. Could it be possible the time should ever come when some loved object should be driving by his side, looking frankly into his face, and smiling, and he talking to her at his ease, as Tirtell did to his wife? Everybody said Mrs. Tirtell was very clever, which certainly Tirtell was not, yet he was talking quite without embarrassment, and his wife was laughing at what he said. No; this would be too much happiness for a human being. Besides, he could not associate such a noble presence as Miss Cunningham's with a buggy — nothing less than a barouche would befit so peerless a creature. But why build up these foolish castles in the air? Miss Cunningham the bride of a penniless subaltern of native infantry! And yet why despair? Surely his patient efforts to qualify for preferment would be rewarded before long. Everybody said that India was the country where any man could win success without interest or favour, merely by deserving it. And if Mr. Cunningham should be averse to his daughter's marrying an officer of irregular cavalry or the quartermaster-general's department (for to one or other of these goals did his ambition now point), why, surely her father's interest could easily obtain for him an assistant commissionership; and once in the civil line, the road to wealth and preferment was easy.
A current of ideas somewhat in this fashion passed through the young fellow's mind, as his pony with loose rein bore him slowly along the mall, now beginning to show a sprinkling of visitors. A couple of hussar officers in their braided frock-coats and trousers with gold-lace stripes, mounted on their Arab chargers; a couple of horse-artillery officers, distinguishable from the cavalry only by red instead of gold stripes; Chupkin of the irregulars, in a uniform designed by his commanding officer after a Continental tour, which had borrowed a trifle in lace and embroidery from every cavalry costume in Europe, his wife riding his second charger; the brigadier, a stout red-faced man, mounted on the Cabulee cob which had been the subject of discussion the day before; foot-artillery and infantry officers, blue and red jacketed, and more or less well-mounted; married captains driving their wives in buggies; married field-officers, with their wives and children in barouches and pair; Despenser, the superintending surgeon, who had a family at home as well as in India, and was supposed to be heavily in the banks, in a barouche and one; some forty or fifty people distributed over the two miles or so of road, with the substitution of coloured uniforms for white linen jackets and trousers, gave the place quite a lively appearance by contrast with the monotony of the hot season, just ended. Mrs. Polwheedle, of course, was there, seated in an extra large barouche, as became a brigadier's lady, and being short-sighted, merely raised a double eyeglass and
stared at our subaltern as she passed him, thereby checking him short in his half-made bow; and see, can it be? — yes, it is — that must be the commissioner's carriage with the two mounted orderlies riding behind it, — Mr. Cunningham himself, who had never been known to take a drive on the mall before, with his daughter beside him. She will never recognize me, thought the youngster bitterly; how can she be expected to remember one face in particular among so many new ones as she must have seen during the last two days? But no, he was mistaken, for as the carriage passed quickly by, Miss Cunningham, turning towards him, gave a gracious bow and smile, and Yorke felt himself turning scarlet as he lifted his cap in reply. How different, thought he, while recovering his composure after the salute — how different from the sort of bow one generally gets from our young ladies! Miss Glumme, for instance, gives a solemn bend without moving a muscle of her face, as if performing a mournful duty; while with Miss Peart a jerky little nod of the head would suffice. A queen could not have been more gracious, and surely she looks even more beautiful in a bonnet than without one. Who says that the present fashion in bonnets is unbecoming? I suppose the little brunette in the back seat was the French maid Sparrow was so indignant at having to sit down to table with. The blockhead! her waiting-woman will be quite as good as most of our station-belles, I'll be bound. No woman could be long in her presence without gaining something of grace and refinement from the contact.
Thus musing, the young fellow turned his pony's head, and cantered back after the carriage towards the other end of the course, where most of the company were now assembled by the band-stand; for this was the evening of the week when the band of the hussars played out.
The commissioner's carriage was drawn up with the others round the stand, a ring being left between the performers and the horses, in which the various children, alighted from their parents' carriages, were at play. On one side of it was that of Mrs. Polwheedle, leaving no room for a horseman to interpose. The other side, that on which Miss Cunningham sat, was open; but just as Yorke with the courage of despair was about to ride up to it, the vacant place was taken by Colonel Tartar of the hussars. Yorke could not but admire the little colonels's self-possession, as he sat lounging in the saddle, flapping the flies away from the neck of his handsome Arab pony with the brush at the end of his riding-cane, and talking to Miss Cunningham with as much ease as if he were laying down the law in the ante-room of his own mess. Ah! what a position was that! a bare twenty years' service and the command of a regiment of dragoons, for the senior lieutenant-colonel was brigadier on the staff at another station. Who might not feel at ease under such circumstances, even when speaking to Miss Cunningham? More wonderful than the colonel's self-possession was that he should presently move away from his vantage-ground, and steer his horse round to the other side of Mrs. Polwheedle's carriage. A sudden fit of boldness seized Yorke, and he rode up to the vacant place. Miss Cunningham did not notice him at first, her head being turned in the other direction, and for a few seconds Yorke sat listening like the rest to the conversation between Mrs. Polwheedle and the colonel.
"Really, Colonel Tartar, you must come some day to dine with us and taste our home-fed pork, it is quite delicious. A little pork is such a nice change, you know, after the hot weather; and my appetite is always so delicate, I need a change after the constant poultry and mutton. The brigadier always sees the pigs fed every morning, or else I go myself; we are most particular about looking after them, I can assure you."
Just then Miss Cunningham turned her head, so that Yorke had no longer any ears for the conversation. Her smile on recognizing him was as frank and winning as before, as she said —
"Oh, Mr. Yorke, I am afraid you must have thought us very inhospitable in not asking you and your friend to stay and lunch yesterday — but I had no idea you had ridden so far; it was dark when we passed through cantonments on the morning of our arrival, so it was not till our drive here this evening that I discovered what a distance it is from our house."
Yorke stammered out something in reply about its not being of the slightest consequence, and the delight it would have been to him to accept the invitation; and then gaining composure added that they had not had to ride back unrefreshed, for they lunched with her neighbour, Captain Sparrow.
"Oh! Captain Sparrow?" said Miss
Cunningham, again smiling, and this time, as it seemed, with a gleam of humour in her eye; "yes, he is a very near neighbour of ours — almost our only one; we took early tea with him this morning. How nice and neat his house is; I had no idea that you Indian bachelors were so luxurious."
The feeling of jealousy with which Yorke listened to anything like commendation about even the appointments of Captain Sparrow's establishment was mingled with a sort of momentary gratification that Miss Cunningham should be favourably impressed with an Indian bachelor's household, albeit through such instrumentality; but an immediate reaction passed through his mind against permitting a deception on the point, and he hastened to reply —
"You mustn't judge of bachelors' bungalows by Captain Sparrow's. He is always regarded as the model swell of the place, and besides, he is in civil employ. A bachelor's bungalow is a very humble affair generally."
"But it seems a very luxurious arrangement to have a house all to yourself. The bachelors I have known have generally been satisfied with two rooms, or even one."
"But we don't generally have a whole bungalow to ourselves. Mr. Spragge and I live together, for instance; and after all, there are only three rooms in the bungalow altogether, so that we don't exceed your allowance." But at this point the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of two more cavaliers, and became general, partaking for the most part of inquiries as to how Miss Cunningham had enjoyed her voyage, and what sort of a journey she had had up the country, and what she thought of India, Justine the maid looking straight to her front the while, as if not supposed to listen. "A parcel of boobies Miss Cunningham must think us," said Yorke bitterly to himself all the while, to talk such twaddle. At last the interview came to an end; the young lady, laying her hand gently on her father's arm — he was a man not given to general conversation, and had been leaning back in the carriage without talking — said that it must be time to drive homewards, as they were expecting friends to dinner. As the carriage turned round she gave them each a gracious bow, and Yorke riding off slowly to the mess-house to dinner, employed himself in trying to recall each word spoken by her, and to conjure up the tremulous sounds of a voice that still thrilled through him; for Miss Cunningham could not ask a simple question without throwing a certain amount of unconscious pathos into its low tones.
CHAPTER 4
========================================
CHAPTER IV.
Yorke
was not the only person fascinated by Miss Cunningham's grace and beauty. On all sides the new arrival was pronounced to be a charming addition to Mustaphabad society, the general chorus of approval being subject perhaps to reservation in the case of the parents of the Misses Glumme and Peart, who must have felt that those young ladies were now displaced from the position of reigning belles which they had occupied since their arrival at Mustaphabad the previous cold season. Entertainments were set on foot in all directions in honour of the occasion, heralded by a ball given by the hussars, when the new Calcutta mat laid down in their spacious mess-room, and which those gallant officers had ordered specially for the
fête
, was pronounced on all sides to be even better with the pavement underneath, for dancing upon, than a wooden floor. Not so elastic, perhaps, but so slippery and even. Previous to that occasion our ardent young subaltern had been vouchsafed merely a few glimpses of the lady who now filled all his thoughts. Once, when he passed her driving again on the course with her father; but, alas! there was no band that evening, and the carriage did not stop. Then, one morning while the 76th were out at drill, and the old major was blundering away worse than ever, till all the officers were visibly out of temper, the adjutant offering his advice, without any pretence of concealment, for releasing the regiment out of its clubbed state, and even the stolid sepoys were laughing, Yorke — looking from his vantage-ground at the head of the light company across the plain which extended along the front of the station, and which served as parade-ground for the different regiments in garrison — saw some figures on horseback emerging from the cloud of dust which marked the spot where the dragoons were exercising — figures which, as they came nearer, he made out to be the commissioner and his daughter, accompanied by Captain Sparrow and the brigadier on his grey pony. They had evidently been watching the cavalry, and were now coming to look at the infantry. A sense of shame at the ridiculous figure the regiment presented almost overcame the rising at his heart as the fair vision approached them. Still, a lady would hardly detect the little faults of manœuvring so obvious to the military eye; the men, at any rate, marched well, for the major had not been long enough in command to diminish their efficiency in this respect, and a finer-looking set was not to be seen in the army. Miss Cunningham had expressed a wish to see a sepoy regiment on parade; the party was evidently coming this way at her suggestion. But no! just as they reached the point where the road to the city intersects the plain at right angles to the parade-grounds, and were near enough for Yorke to mark that she was riding a handsome chestnut Arab, and that she looked, if possible, even more graceful in her riding-habit than in ordinary costume, the party stopped, and after exchanging salutations separated, the brigadier alone continuing his course in the direction of the regiment, while the others cantered off towards the city, a slight cloud of dusk tracking their steps.
At sight of the approaching brigadier, evidently bent on criticism, for battalion drill was a strong point with him, Major Dumble hastily dismissed the regiment; and while the other officers adjourned to the mess-house, Yorke returned to his bungalow to chew the cud of disappointment.
The next time he saw the fair vision of his waking dreams, she was again driving with her father on the course, who this time occupied the back-seat with Dr. Mackenzie Maxwell, the civil surgeon, — a stranger sitting beside the young lady, a middle-aged, soldierlike man, in plain clothes, wearing a helmet of felt with a white turban round it, and who Yorke thought must be a traveller, such a sun-protecting head-dress not being commonly worn of an evening. Yorke, who did not venture to approach the carriage on this occasion when it stopped near the band, asked Buxey, the station paymaster, sitting alone in his buggy, who the visitor might be. "Be?" replied Buxey; "why, Falkland, of course," as if the question was a superfluous one; and, indeed, as soon as Yorke heard the name, he knew who the stranger was; for Colonel Falkland was famous both in war and peace, distinguished for gallantry and skill in various campaigns, and holding high office in that part of India, being at present commissioner of the territory adjacent to Mustaphabad. "Is Miss Cunningham's godfather, you know," continued Buxey. "She was born in '36, at Benares; Cunningham was assistant magistrate there,
and Falkland and I were stationed there with our regiments, ensigns both of us. Mackenzie Maxwell was there too; he had just joined the —th on first coming out, as assistant surgeon. Falkland and Cunningham were great friends even then; and when Mrs. Cunningham died — she was a famous beauty, poor thing, and died in the first year after her marriage — Falkland used to spend the best part of his time at Cunningham's house, looking after the baby, while its father was at cutchery: hundreds and hundreds of times I suppose he has dandled her on his knee. Then my regiment moved to Dinapore, and he got appointed to the staff in Afghanistan — his first piece of luck that was, for a lot of the fellows in his regiment were killed; and Cunningham sent the child home in charge of Mrs. Spangle, the collector's wife at Benares: Spangle was a very crack collector, and would have risen very high in the service if he hadn't died of liver. And now we are all met again after nearly twenty years, all except Spangle; I knew Falkland would not be long in coming over to see his god-daughter after she arrived. There he is, a brevet-colonel of three years' standing, and me still a captain, although nine and a half months senior to him in the service. See what it is to have luck. I don't grudge Falkland his brevets, you know; he has deserved them if ever a man did: but if our regiment had gone to Cabul, and his had gone down to Dinapore, things might have been very different."
As Yorke looked at Falkland's spare figure and erect carriage, and then at Captain Buxey's portly frame almost filling up the buggy, as he sat with pursed-up lips, small round eyes, and splay feet encased in easy shoes, he could not help thinking that perchance something of the differences in their careers might be due to the individual as well as to luck; but his sense of politeness restrained him from saying so.
Then came the hussar-ball. The invitations, of course, included one for Major Dumble and officers of the 76th N. I., and Yorke could not resist the temptation to take the advantage of it, although it was almost the first time since the regiment had been stationed at Mustaphabad that he had presented himself at an entertainment of the kind; for he fancied that the hussars and people generally were disposed to look down on the native infantry. The ball was one of exceptional brilliancy; for, besides that sundry travellers who were passing through the place had stopped to partake of the festivities, it happened that the camp of an exalted official was pitched there at the time, and the great person honoured the occasion by his presence, accompanied by a brilliant staff. Yorke, though impatient to be there, came late, and the room was quite full when he arrived. In truth, a brilliant spectacle — nearly forty ladies, and perhaps a hundred and fifty gentlemen, almost all officers in uniform; so large an assembly had never before been witnessed in Mustaphabad. But for our subaltern there was only one lady in the room, sitting, as he entered, on an ottoman at the far end. A dance was in progress, in which all the younger men who could get partners were engaged, and only two cavaliers were in immediate attendance on Miss Cunningham, — Captain Buxey on one side, whose stout figure, cased in a tight coatee, appeared in conspicuous profile as he stooped to talk to the lady; Colonel Tartar on the other. Yorke envied the paymaster his ease and self-possession, although, to be sure, he was old enough to be her father; but they were as nothing to the coolness of Colonel Tartar, who was lolling on the couch, resting on his left elbow, and nursing a leg with his right hand, so that Miss Cunningham had to turn half round and look quite down to speak to him. "Confound his impudence!" thought Yorke; "it is all very well to give himself airs with ordinary ladies, but has the man no sense of propriety to behave like this before such a goddess even in his own ball-room?"
Presently the colonel got up and walked away in a careless manner, and in a sudden fit of boldness Yorke approached the vacant spot.
Miss Cunningham gave him a gracious bow of recognition.
Yorke asked if he might venture to hope for the honour of dancing with her.
"I am really very sorry," she said, with a winning smile, "but I am afraid I am engaged for everything." She spoke as if she really were sorry for his disappointment, and held out her card for him to look at. "Again how different from most of our young ladies!" he thought. "Miss Peart, now, would have given a flippant toss to her silly little head, and laughed as if it were great fun to be able to refuse an invitation, and snub a fellow." Then he said aloud, looking at the card, "There are no names down
twelfth dance; may I venture to hope ——"
"I am sorry she said again, in her low rich voice, "but we are not going to stay after that; papa is not very well tonight, and so we are going away early."
Just then Captain Buxey walked off to speak to one of the great official's staff, and Yorke was left standing alone by her.
"Won't you sit down?" said the lady, with a slight wave of her hand towards the place on her right left vacant by Colonel Tartar.
The young fellow did as he was bid, fancying that all eyes were turned towards him. Every nerve in his body seemed to be in action; it was as if he could hear his heart beat. His boot just touched the edge of her dress as it rested on the ground. It seemed like desecration, yet he dared not move.
Whether it was to relieve him from the embarrassment she noticed, or because she was wholly unconscious of it, she made a beginning of the conversation.
"What a very interesting sight this is, the variety of uniforms makes the scene so brilliant! I have never been to a military ball before, you know. In England one only knows military men by their titles; you scarcely ever see them in uniform."
"I thought you had lived mostly abroad?"
"Yes, so I have; but in France one does not meet with officers much in society. A great many of them, I believe, have risen from the ranks, and they seem rough in their manners. The Austrian officers we used to see in Italy appeared to be gentleman-like; but my aunt's friends were chiefly among the Italians, and they, you know, don't mix at all with the Austrians. I never was in any military society till now."
Yorke worked himself up into a state of frenzy to find something clever to say in reply, but no epigrammatic generalization which would cover the French and Austrian armies or Italian politics came uppermost, and Miss Cunningham went on. "I suppose all the officers dressed like Colonel Tartar belong to his regiment?"
"Yes," said Yorke, who had now found words, "and a very handsome uniform it is."
"And those other officers in blue with the embroidered jackets, are they hussars also?"
"No, those are the horse-artillery, and those in the plain blue coats are the foot-artillery. They are all one regiment, you know, but officers are picked out to serve with the troops of horse-artillery, which is quite the crack branch of the service," he added; for our subaltern, although sensitive about the inferiority of his own position, had no small feeling of jealousy prompting him to disparage the others.
"And those in scarlet with embroidered coats?" continued the young lady. "Oh! those are the headquarter swells — I mean," he stammered, "the headquarter staff. Lucky fellows, they get tremendous salaries, march about all the cold season, and go up to the hills in the hot."
"And who is that officer like a Circassian noble? Is that a fancy dress?"
"Oh no, that is Mr. Chupkin of the irregulars. Well, it is a fancy dress so far, that they wear pretty much what they fancy in the irregular cavalry; but that is their regular uniform, at least for a ball-room: they dress like the men on parade and without all that gold embroidery. Ah! that is the service," he continued with enthusiasm; "I would almost rather get into the irregular cavalry than even into the quartermaster-general's department. Excuse my talking shop in this way," he added, apologetically, observing that the fair listener looked puzzled; "but everybody here is so accustomed to the ins and outs of the service, that one forgets you would not take an interest in it."
"But I do take an interest in it," replied the young lady, looking at him with a frank smile." I want to learn all about these things. But you speak of leaving your own branch of the service. Surely you are proud of commanding those fine-looking sepoys, they look so soldierlike and manly mounting sentry at our house; and papa tells me that yours is a very fine regiment; I suppose that is a reason why your dress is different from that of the other infantry officers."
Yorke blushed as the fair speaker glanced at the wings which he wore instead of epaulets. Could she be wishing to please and flatter? and yet her manner was as if she were ten years older than himself.
He muttered something about his being attached to a flank company, although he was commanding another, and about the 76th being considered a crack corps, yet the next moment was angry with
himself for the indiscretion. What a vain simple creature she must think him! With her penetration she must have found out by this time in what small account a native-infantry officer was held, and must be laughing at his simple talk about a crack corps.
"There seems such a reality about the soldier's life here," continued the young lady; "one feels quite as if living in a camp. All the officers seem to have medals," — then noticing that there was no decoration on her companion's breast, she added quickly, "at least those who have not are sure, I suppose, to have opportunities for distinction sooner or later? "
"Oh no, there is no chance of any such luck," replied the youngster, bitterly; "there are no enemies left to fight now. No, Miss Cunningham, I am afraid we subs have joined too late for any honour and glory. The only thing left for a fellow nowadays, if he cannot get into the irregular cavalry or the quartermaster-general's department, is civil employ, or even the public works; anything is better than regimental duty."
"Leave the army? " asked Miss Cunningham, turning round and looking at him full in the face; when something in his earnest glance made her turn her eyes away again. Then she added in a lower voice, and looking straight before her, "The army is such a noble profession!"
Yorke felt ready to register a vow that he would stick to the regiment come what might, but he bethought him to rejoin —
"Look at Colonel Falkland, he is in civil employ, and yet there is not a finer soldier in the army."
"What is that about Colonel Falkland?" said a musical voice, while at the same time a hand was laid on his shoulder, and looking up he saw that the speaker was Colonel Falkland himself.
"I was reproaching Mr. Yorke for want of military spirit, because he talked of leaving the army," said Miss Cunningham, archly, "and he cited you as a precedent; but you have not left the army, surely?"
"Our young friend's aspirations are very natural," said the colonel, smiling kindly; "we military civilians get all the loaves and fishes in peace-time, and then when campaigning is going on we fall back into our old places, and are very much in the way of our brother officers, I am afraid, who have been doing all the dull work in peace-time."
"No, I didn't mean that, sir," broke in the youngster; "but Miss Cunningham misunderstood me: I wouldn't leave the army for the world; but I was just going to explain how you were in civil employ and yet had served in all the campaigns too, and had got your brevet for the Sutlej, and another step and a C.B. for —"
"Just what I was saying," replied the colonel, laughing; "only you put it in a more generous way. We lucky fellows come in for all the good things on both sides; but your turn will come too, I don't doubt. Every man gets his chance in India if he is only ready for it. But here is another lucky person, Olivia, for he is coming to claim you for a dance." Then, as an officer of the staff led Miss Cunningham away to a quadrille. Colonel Falkland fell to questioning our subaltern about himself — asked him if he had passed in the language, and whether there was the full number of absentee officers in his regiment, or if there were still room for one of those now with it to obtain an appointment.
Yorke explained that there was already the full number of seven absentees, besides those on furlough; and, led away by the colonel's sympathetic interest in his affairs, he went on to say that he had passed in Hindustani, and was hard at work studying military science, so as to be ready for anything that might turn up. "But then you see, sir," he added, "there isn't much chance of an opening, for Braddon is sure to have the first vacancy. They can't keep a man like him on regimental duty forever; it's over two years since he was sent back to the regiment."
"Braddon?" said the colonel. "So he belongs to your regiment? Of course, I ought to have remembered that he did. Is he here to-night? I don't recognize his face."
"Oh no, he never shows in public unless he's obliged. You can't expect a man to go about much under such circumstances."
"Tell me," asked the colonel, after a pause — "I don't want to force confidence, but I should be very glad to know if he is going on steadily."
"No fear about him, sir," replied Yorke, stoutly. "And he will come to the front again one of these days, you will see. There is not a finer officer of
his standing in the army, unless it be Captain Kirke, and I should feel it a regular shame if I got an appointment before him; although, of course, I am on the look-out too — it's only natural, you know, sir."
Colonel Falkland admitted that it was quite natural, and added, heartily, that he hoped his energy would find some fit scope; and as he moved off, Yorke understood the cause of the colonel's popularity, and the respect and admiration felt by all who served with him. He had come under the influence of the charm of his clear, kindly eye, his sweet voice, his courteous yet sincere manner, the sympathy which turned the conversation to the concerns of his companion, the modesty and unselfishness which diverted it from himself. Falkland walked with a slight limp, the effect of a wound received at Sobraon, and wore plain clothes, not well-fitting — the only person, besides the commissioner and the station-chaplain, so dressed. And he could scarcely be called handsome; yet Yorke thought him the most distinguished-looking man in the room, not excepting the very distinguished personage who was present.
But not even Colonel Falkland could distract his attention long from the one object which had brought him to the ball. Miss Cunningham was now dancing with Colonel Tartar, who danced well, but was not quite so tall as his partner. "Most women," thought Yorke as he watched her, "would look awkward in such case; but she can't help looking like a princess. She doesn't dance as if it were a tremendous joke, or as if she were performing a condescension, but as if it were a duty, and yet a pleasant one, to please her partner; and how well she keeps him on his good behaviour, and yet without absolutely snubbing him. Miss Glumme now, or Miss Peart, would be so pleased at being asked to dance by Tartar, that they would allow him to be as impudent as he pleased. Miss Glumme wouldn't understand it, and Miss Peart would enjoy it. But what am I, a poor subaltern of native infantry — with these confounded wings too, which make a fellow look ridiculous — to think of ever winning such a peerless creature as that! I daresay she looks on me as a mere boy, and yet I must be a good five years older, for according to Buxey she is only twenty-one. After all, I may get my company in a few years, and then with a war and a brevet-majority perhaps, her father would not object. But how can I expect her to remain unwon all the time, and have I made even a single step in advance? What a simpleton I must have seemed this evening, with my jargon about the quartermaster-general's department, and holding two companies! Why couldn't I talk like a man of the world, such as she must have been accustomed to meet with at home?"
Thus mused the young man, moodily gazing towards her, as she danced with one partner after another, watching her movements from a corner so fixedly that if the rest of the company had not been engaged in their own concerns, his pre-occupation would have been noticed. Once indeed her eyes met his, as she stopped with her partner in the course of a waltz just opposite to where he was standing, and she gave him a glance of acknowledgment which set the young man's heart bounding. Again Yorke established himself nearly opposite the rout-seat on which she was resting between the dances, in the archway which divided the long room; and this time, when she looked up towards him, her face flushed and took a sudden expression of surprise and anxiety, which caused him to drop his eyes and move away, reproaching himself for his too pointed attention, and yet inwardly rejoicing at what he had observed. Surely, he thought, she has learnt my secret; and if I have been too bold and too quick, still she has not treated it with scorn, as she might have done. Something at least has been gained already in my suit. Had Yorke, however, turned round and looked behind him, he would have understood that something other than his ardent glances caused the distress which the lady exhibited.
Shortly after this, Miss Cunningham was led into the supper-tent by Major Winge of the hussars, — a married man with a large family, thought Yorke with a sigh of relief; and then, just as he was summoning up strength of mind to follow the more distinguished guests there, the young lady emerged again there from with her father and Colonel Falkland, and stepping into their carriage, the party drove off.
Yorke passed into the tent, where, among other persons, was Mrs. Polwheedle under escort of the eminent personage, who stood by the supper-table while she partook liberally of trifle and champagne; but not even her evident gratification at this distinguished position could
conceal a certain sense of uneasiness. "Yes, your Excellency," she observed between the mouthfuls, "a very sweet girl indeed; but I never saw such a thing done before. The brigadier always gives the
pas
to the commissioner, of course, for he is a civilian of twenty-eight years' standing, and so takes rank over a colonel of '51; although I really think that by rights a brigadier commanding a first-class district, and reporting direct to headquarters, ought to be considered as good as a major-general. I hope your Excellency will forgive my boldness in saying so; but if the commissioner were as old as Methuselah it would not make his daughter take rank before any married lady whatever, let alone a brigadier's lady. And your Excellency knows, — who better indeed? — that it is a rule for parties not to break up till the senior lady present takes her departure. It is really taking a great deal upon herself for a young girl like that to go off in that way from the very tent-door, in front of everybody, almost, as you may say, before supper is half over."
His Excellency observed gravely that it certainly was a sad breach of decorum, but that the young lady was probably ignorant of the rules in such cases, and that her father was understood to be unwell, and indeed looked hardly fit for late hours.
"Oh, of course, your Excellency," replied the lady, "it was not done on purpose; she has not been much in society, I daresay, poor dear girl — has lived chiefly abroad, where you meet very queer people, I believe; still the commissioner might have told her to say a word before going, just to explain matters, you know. And as for being too ill to stay, I am sure when we were stationed at Dinapore, and the brigadier was only commanding his regiment, the civilians at Patna used to give most elegant entertainments, and many's the time I have stayed till I was ready to drop, waiting till the general's lady should go first, for I always respected other people's position; and although people say I look so strong, I can assure your Excellency I am often exceedingly delicate, especially being so subject to a rush of blood to the head. If others can put up with illness, so might some people, I think. I have never seen such a thing before since the brigadier has commanded the station, never."
"But it was papa who was unwell, not the young lady," observed her partner, with a solemn countenance; "however, no doubt, as you rightly observe, it was a shocking solecism; but perhaps a hint from you on the subject would prevent its happening again. Your advice in matters of etiquette and good taste would be quite invaluable to young persons entering on life here. I suppose it would be no good asking you to take anything more? Shall we make way for the hungry folks behind us?" and so saying, his Excellency, offering his arm, escorted the lady now radiant with smiles back to the dancing-room.
"Seen his Excellency doing the polite to Mrs. Polwheedle?" said Jerry Spragge to a brother sub, as he helped himself to a glass of champagne.
"I should rather think so," replied the other, following the example; "best thing out by a long way."
. . . . . . .
"Did you see Kirke here just now?" said one officer of a native infantry regiment to another, later in the evening, as they stood together in the doorway, watching the dancers.
"Yes," said the other. " I thought it had been settled he was to go back to his regiment; but I suppose that must have been a mistake, or he would not have been here in the uniform of his irregulars."
"Oh no; he has been sent back to regimental duty beyond a doubt, and has had a close shave of a court-martial — the order will be in the next
Gazette
. I had it from one of the headquarter people."
"Well, it was a cool thing to come here at all under the circumstances, still more to come in the uniform of a corps he has been dismissed from, and with his Excellency in the room, too. I shouldn't be surprised if Tartar and the hussars were to take the thing up."
"He was only here for a minute or two. I saw the commissioner talking to him, apparently in remonstrance, and he went away immediately afterwards. He is a cousin of the commissioner, you know."
"Well, I am sorry for him," said the last speaker; "although I believe there is little doubt any other man might have been turned out of the service for what he did. It is a pity so fine a soldier can't keep his hands clean."
"A pity indeed. Do you remember the day he pulled our regiment out of that mess?"
"Do I not? By Jove! if he hadn't charged into that mass of Sikhs at the
critical moment, and given us time to form up again, we should have come to grief, and no mistake."
"You may say so, indeed. Our fellows were uncommon shaky just at that moment — all abroad, in fact. I shall never forget Kirke's look as he rode past us, waving that long sword of his, and his eye flashing fire; he looked the very model of a cavalry leader. He had only one squadron with him, and the Sikhs he went at must have been five or six hundred if there was a man. If Victoria Crosses had been going in those days, Kirke ought to have had one for that charge."
"There was another man in the room just now who ought to have had a Victoria Cross, if these things went by merit."
"You mean Falkland?"
"Yes. You were not at Ferozeshah? Ah, my boy, there were wigs on the green that day, and no mistake, and pale faces too! It was just touch and go at one time, I can tell you. Falkland was worth a dozen men to the chief and Lord Hardinge on that day."
"It is strange that these men who promise so well cannot keep straight. There is Braddon, now, as fine a soldier in his line as Kirke, and he, too, must needs get into trouble, although in a different way."
"Yes, and his case will be more difficult to set right. When a man takes to shaking his elbow, there is seldom much chance of a cure. 'Tis a sad pity."
Kirke's appearance at the ball, which the two officers had been discussing, happened in this wise. While Yorke was standing in the archway, as above described, looking at the one object which engaged his attention, an officer had just entered the room behind him — a handsome, well-built, dark-complexioned man, somewhat above middle height, with a hard, resolute, but good-natured face, smooth-shaven save for a large black moustache, with clear cold grey eyes, dressed in a blue tunic with heavy gold embroidery, a scarlet shawl round his waist, and a long straight sword suspended from a shoulder-belt. He, too, was looking towards Miss Cunningham, and it was at sight of him that she betrayed the confusion which Yorke too credulously ascribed to his own love-stricken gaze. Had he looked round, he would have seen Mr. Cunningham step forward from the side of the room where he was in conversation with the military secretary, and address the new-comer apparently in terms of remonstrance, the young lady the while looking down in confusion, studying the point of her little foot as it peeped out from below her dress, as if not daring to watch, yet absorbed in what passed; and that eventually her father fell back into his former place, while Kirke, after occupying his ground some little time, disappeared from the room.
As for Yorke, he went home, soon after the commissioner's party left, in a state of rapture qualified by occasional misgivings, treasuring up each word that had been spoken, each look that had been exchanged.
And at this ball there have been marshalled together for the first time before our gentle Olivia the three men whose destinies are inextricably bound up with her own.
CHAPTER 5
========================================
CHAPTER V.
The
visit of the distinguished personage to Mustaphabad was of course made the occasion for holding a grand review of all the troops at the station, which took place at seven o'clock the next morning but one after the ball. According to usual practice at such exhibitions, the brigade was organized for the purpose as a complete division of all arms. Colonel Tartar assumed command of the cavalry and horse-artillery, his own regiment being taken charge of for the day by Major Winge; similarly Brevet-Major Gurney of the horse-artillery, in the absence of any regimental field-officer, took charge of the whole arm, so that his troop fell to be commanded by Lieutenant Cubitt, who rode past proudly at the head of it. The four battalions of infantry were divided into two brigades under the senior field-officers, giving temporary steps of promotion of the same sort; while the number of acting appointments made, of brigade-majors, aides-de-camp, and orderly officers, covered the ground with a motley staff in every variety of uniform, and mounted on every description of steed, from high-caste Arab to Deccanee pony, and left hardly any officers for regimental duty. None of these good things, however, fell to the lot of our subaltern, who was fain to be content with his place at the head of the light company.
The force was drawn up in the first instance in line of battalions in column, with the horse-artillery and cavalry on the right, and the field-battery on the left; and as the 76th move down from
their regimental parade to take up their appointed place, Yorke scans the miscellaneous company of equestrians and occupants of carriages assembled by the saluting-flag, looking in vain for the one object which makes the review, and life generally, interesting to him. "Here she comes at last," he said to himself, with a flutter at his heart, as he descried three riders cantering across the plain from the direction of the city. Even at this distance he can distinguish them — the commissioner and Colonel Falkland, each riding a big horse, and Miss Cunningham on her little high-bred chestnut Arab between them. But now the 76th wheel into their place; and our subaltern in the hindmost company finds his view for the present limited by the backs of the rear-rank of number eight.
Presently there is a stir, and the line is called to attention, the word of command being repeated by acting brigadiers, and again by commanders of battalions. It is evident that the eminent personage and his staff are coming on the ground; but Yorke can see nothing. Then the word is given to present arms, while the bands strike up, very improperly, the national anthem. Then there is a tedious pause for all in the rear: the eminent personage, accompanied by the brigadier and staff, is riding down the line from right to left. There is perfect silence through the ranks, broken only by the occasional move of a battery-horse shaking its harness. Peeping to his left, Yorke gets a momentary glimpse of the different cavaliers as they pass along the field of view of the little lane between his regiment, which is on the left of the infantry, and the adjacent field-battery. First, various staff-officers, singly or in couples; then the eminent personage on a big English horse, the brigadier on his Cabulee cob ambling by his side, and looking up in conversation; then a motley group of other staff-officers, including the happy holders of acting appointments for the day. Among these are three or four ladies, one of whom Yorke recognizes in his momentary view as plainly as if he had been looking for an hour. Miss Cunningham riding between two men in plain clothes, one in a round hat, the other strong and erect, wearing a sun-helmet. And now the cavalcade having reached the end of the line, turns round the flank of the field-battery, and begins to return by the rear, the eminent personage as he rides along at a foot-pace regarding intently the backs of the men as if the spectacle afforded him the deepest interest. Our subaltern of course can see nothing, for he must needs look straight to his front; but soon the sound of voices and subdued laughter announces that the tail of the equestrian party is passing behind him, and he feels the hardness of the fate which keeps him a mere dust-crusher, while so many other fellows are enjoying themselves on horseback; still more at not knowing whether Miss Cunningham even so much as saw him. Just at this moment two artillery-horses, tired of standing at attention, took to fighting and kicking, and the challenge being taken up by several others, a sensible commotion was caused in the cavalcade; and, hearing a little feminine scream, Yorke could not resist looking round. The cry had proceeded from Miss Peart, whose country-bred pony, with the combative habits of its race, had replied to the challenge by kicking out at the beast next to it, which happily being that of Mr. Lunge, the riding-master of the hussars, a gaunt and lofty animal, had kept its rider's legs beyond range of the pony's heels; but the commotion had set Miss Cunningham's lively chestnut Arab a-prancing, and Yorke had just time to notice the grace with which it's rider kept her seat.
And now begins the serious business of the day. First, the horse-artillery and cavalry canter to the front, and the former open a hot fire on an imaginary enemy; soon the latter is found to be in force, the guns are retired, and the infantry advance into action, the first brigade leading with skirmishers in advance, the second brigade in column in reserve. The said skirmishers advance in approved form, running forward a little way at the rate of about three miles an hour, then lying down and firing; and the parade being as flat as a billiard-table, without any cover or irregularity of surface as large as a walnut, this proceeding is by general consent pronounced to be a most vivid representation of the realities of war. Then of a sudden the enemy is supposed to disappear from the front, and appear simultaneously on the right flank, a transformation which naturally involves a change of front on the part of our side — a favourite manœuvre of the brigadier in fact, executed in his best style. And now the force, its unprotected left flank pointing in the direction towards which it had just been fighting, goes to work again in the same approved style — skirmishers lying down, the
supports standing just far enough off to get all the shots meant for the other, the whole advancing at about half-a-mile an hour. But now the first brigade has had enough of it, and falls back on the second, advancing thereon in line to support it. This is surely the crisis of the day, the time of all others to be watching the infantry — to see especially the 76th marching in line like a living wall. But alas! Yorke throwing a hurried glance across the field of view, sees that the equestrian spectators are following in the wake of the dust of the cavalry, executing some mysterious manœuvre in the far distance, and is more than ever oppressed with a sense of his own insignificance. The grand advance of the second brigade is practically thrown away, and all interest now centres in the charge made across their front by the returning hussars, with the irregular cavalry close behind them.
There still remains the march past; and as the troops move along to take up their places preparatory to it, our subaltern passing with his battalion just by the saluting-flag, observes the eminent personage gallantly bowing to the commissioner and party, as if inviting them to take up a good position close to himself. Mrs. Polwheedle's carriage draws up at the same time, and its occupant feels this to be one of the proud moments of her life. It was only a few months ago that an illustrated paper had a wood-cut of her Majesty reviewing the troops in Windsor Park, the royal carriage drawn up by the royal standard, and the prince consort on horseback just in front. Why, this seemed almost a reproduction of the picture. Here, too, was an eminent personage immediately in front of a barouche which, if it had not the royal arms on it, was still an elegant vehicle. But unalloyed happiness is seldom the lot of mortals; the company, it must be confessed, showed a total want of the respect due to high official rank, in pressing so closely round the carriage. Mrs. Polwheedle had sounded the brigadier over-night as to the propriety of railing off a space round the flagstaff, to be kept sacred for her carriage, and perhaps the commissioner and his daughter, but that gallant officer said he was afraid such a thing was not usual; and the crowd of equestrians gradually closed up, till the charmed circle of her fancy was utterly blotted out, the Roman nose of Mr. Lunge's horse actually projecting into the carriage. "A pushing man," Mrs. Polwheedle was heard to say; "but these rankers never know manners." Mrs. Polwheedle felt with a pang that in this respect the real fell painfully short of the ideal glory suggested by the illustrated paper.
For our subaltern, too, there was a disappointment in store. The time for the infantry was now coming. It was all very well for the cavalry and horse-artillery to go scampering about during a review, kicking up a dust and showing off; but everybody knows that in a march past the infantry is the sight worth seeing. The steadiest cavalry in the world is not to be compared in steadiness with well-drilled infantry; and if there was a regiment in the Bengal army which could march steadily, it was the 76th. We come last, thought Yorke, but we shall look best; and indeed, as the battalion came up, over a thousand bayonets, in ten strong companies, no regiment could look better, for Major Dumble had not had time yet to spoil it. But alas for human aspirations! It was the major's duty, after passing the saluting-flag, to recover his sword, and then, wheeling sharp round, to canter gracefully up to the eminent personage and remain in attendance on him till the battalion had marched past. And that worthy officer did his best to accomplish the manœuvre, albeit unaccustomed to equestrian exercise. Grasping his horse's mane firmly with the left hand, at the appointed moment, he boldly struck his right spur into the animal, and pulled the right rein smartly. Too smartly, indeed; for the charger, unaccustomed to such decided treatment from his master, gave an unwieldy plunge which nearly unseated its rider, and turning sharp round in face of the advancing grenadier company, commenced backing steadily, with its stern down and its nose up in the air. In vain Major Dumble, his left hand still holding by the friendly mane, tried by tugging at the right rein to complete the circle, and so front once more the proper way — the advancing line was on him before he could escape. The grenadiers before him began marking time; the flanks of the company continued to move on; the noble line became a curve, and the confusion thus created in the leading company spread in a few seconds from front to rear. The brigadier, flushing with rage, trotted into the fray to give some angry orders; the staff laughed, the eminent personage smiled; but at this critical point a rescue came in the person of the major's native groom, who,
hovering with the rest of his fraternity in rear of the spectators, was descried by Dr. Grumbull, the surgeon of the 76th, who happened to be among the lookers-on, and was told by him to go to his master's help. This worthy, hurrying to the front, barefooted, and horse-flapper in hand, by dint of gentle coaxing, patting the horse on the neck, and calling it his son and other terms of endearment in the vernacular, succeeded in leading it to the rear, but not until the whole battalion had been covered with confusion. And as poor Yorke passed by at the head of the light company unobserved, for all eyes were now turned away, he had just time to notice that even Miss Cunningham was smiling and looking up towards Colonel Falkland, as if asking for information, while he, leaning towards her, was evidently explaining what had happened.
CHAPTER 6
========================================
CHAPTER VI.
The
eminent personage while in camp at Mustaphabad gave, as in duty bound, a succession of dinner-parties, so arranged that during his brief halt every member of the local society was invited in turn; and to Yorke the supreme good fortune happened of being invited for the same evening as the commissioner and his daughter. On any other occasion he would have been duly impressed with the magnificence of the reception-tent, so spacious that thirty or forty guests seemed quite lost in it, and the easy bearing of the staff-officers who were present, and who, marching with his Excellency's camp, treated the entertainment quite as a matter of course. And at another time he would have felt nervous when led up by the aide-de-camp on duty to be introduced to the eminent personage. But on this occasion all these distractions had no effect on him, for standing by the eminent personage, and in conversation with him, was the object of his thoughts and day-dreams. And when, after his Excellency had shaken hands affably, Miss Cunningham, as he passed on, greeted him with her usual kindness, and held out her hand, the young fellow hardly knew what he was about; and as he found his way to a corner of the room, the sudden joy which had possessed him gave way to a revulsion of feeling bordering on despair as he thought how clumsily he had responded to the sweet condescension. That little hand, he thought, which he would have liked reverentially to raise to his lips, he had shaken — awkward blockhead that he was — no more gracefully than if it belonged to any other lady — the brigadier's wife, for example.
That lady's name had hardly occurred to him when he heard her voice proceeding from an ottoman behind him.
"Oh yes, a very sweet girl indeed, but quite unsophisticated, and does such very funny things. You know it is always etiquette after being introduced to his Excellency to pass on and not stand near him. You see even I, who am the senior lady here, have come and sat down here just as a subaltern's wife might do. Of course it's different in my case, because, as his Excellency will have to take me in to dinner, I shall be able to talk to him all the time; but still there is a natural delicacy of feeling which ought to teach people how to behave on these occasions — don't you think so?"
But as she said this, a dreadful doubt crept over the worthy lady's mind that perhaps, after all, his Excellency might be contemplating a
coup d'état
, and would carry off Miss Cunningham as a partner for dinner, leaving her, the brigadier's lady, neglected on the sofa to follow. Or could it be intended that Mrs. Geeowe, the military secretary's lady, then sitting beside her, should be the favoured person? True, a colonel ranked after a brigadier; but still the military secretary was a very great person, and such mistakes had sometimes been made. In the agony of mind caused by these doubts, the good lady became conscious of Yorke's presence standing in front of her, and called him to her aid.
"Oh, Mr. Yorke, is that you? How do you do? You are lucky, indeed, to be invited here so soon, with all the bigwigs. Just tell the A.D.C. I want to speak to him — will you? Captain Sammys I mean — that's him standing there;" and suiting the action to the word, Mrs. Polwheedle began making a series of telegraphic signals with her fan, until, succeeding in catching the captain's eye, that gentleman crossed the tent at once, holding a paper in his hand, in which he was jotting down the names of the guests, preparatory to marshalling them in pairs.
"Oh, Captain Sammys, I just want to say that if you require any assistance about the names and order of the ladies, pray command my services. It must be so puzzling to meet such a number of strangers at every station, and especially
at a large station like this, a first-class brigade, you know."
"Oh — ah — well, it is," said the captain; we do make mistakes sometimes; nice little bones of contention thrown among the natives for them to squabble over after we have gone; gives them something to talk about at any rate."
"Oh, but we don't want any bones of contention here," replied the lady, hardly knowing whether or not to be offended at the metaphor; "it's so easy to prevent it if you only ask the proper people for information. I wanted the brigadier to have a list of all the ladies in the station made out in order of seniority, and kept at the brigade-office. Now the commissioner's wife would have been senior to me, you know, only he's not married; and of course Miss Cunningham, she doesn't count in these matters. Then Colonel M
c
Luckie is senior to Colonel Glumme — that's Mrs. M
c
Luckie, the little pale thing talking to the commissioner — you wouldn't think it, for Colonel Glumme is ever so much older, and M
c
Luckie is only a regimental major, and they are both brevets of '54, but M
c
Luckie was senior as lieutenant-colonel."
"Thank you very much. I'm sure you have made it all as clear as daylight; but it's too late now, I'm afraid, to alter my list, for I should get into a hopeless muddle. You'll go in to dinner with his Excellency, and I must pair off the others the best way I can."
"I am sure you will manage very well," said the lady, a beaming smile succeeding the look of anxiety which had overspread her ample face; "you gentlemen of the staff are so clever."
Yorke, of course, went in to dinner, which was served in an adjoining tent, with the crowd of gentlemen to whose share no ladies fell, as became a subaltern; but it was his good fortune to sit nearly opposite to Miss Cunningham, who was handed in by a colonel on the staff, — and having nobody in particular to talk to, he occupied himself pleasantly enough in watching her furtively. The white ball-dress seemed perfect; but surely this rich dinner-dress was even more becoming. Was there ever seen so radiant and gracious a queen of beauty before? Why does not everybody in the room fall down and do homage? The colonel, happily, was a married man, so there was no cause for jealousy; but an uneasy doubt crossed his mind — what if his Excellency were to fall in love with her, and make her an offer? He was bachelor, and not much over sixty. Would she be able to withstand the temptation of the position in favour of a humble subaltern? But just then, Miss Cunningham looking round suddenly, their eyes met, and she gave him an arch look, as if recognizing a friend among strangers, which drove doubts and fears out of his head for the time. And after dinner, when the company returned to the drawing-room tent, he ventured to find his way to where she was sitting, and exchanged a few words, which sent him home with bounding heart and excited brain.
And yet there was not much in the conversation itself to turn a young fellow's head.
"I felt so sorry for your regiment at the review yesterday," she said, "just as it was coming in front, and looking so well. It was your colonel's fault, wasn't it? He got in the way, or did something ridiculous, did he not?"
"Major Dumble commands our regiment; of course it's the same thing as if he were a colonel." Angry though he was with the stupid old man, he could not be so disloyal to his commanding officer as to run him down in public, even in speaking to Miss Cunningham.
The young lady understood the implied rebuke, and at once continued, "I am very sorry for making such a blunder, and quite deserve to be scolded for it; but you see, I am so ignorant of military etiquette."
"Deserved!" cried the young fellow; "to think that I should have the presumption to say that anything you said or did was not perfect."
"Yes," she said, laughing, "but it was very far from being perfect; but there is so much tittle-tattle in the world, that it is hard not to fall into the way of talking it now and then; don't you think so?"
At this moment Colonel Falkland came up to know if she was ready to go, and Miss Cunningham rose at once.
"I didn't quite mean that, Olivia; your father is anxious to be off as soon as he can, and sent me to ask you to be ready; but you must wait till Mrs. Polwheedle sets the example of rising, or you would give mortal offence."
"There, you see," said she, turning towards Yorke laughingly — "another breach of etiquette!"
"Good heavens!" thought the youngster, "what bliss to have a private understanding set up already! and this is
hardly more than the third time I have spoken to her."
Mrs. Polwheedle, however, was in no hurry to leave, for she was again in conversation with the eminent personage.
"I hear that your Excellency is going to march to Banglepore. I am so pleased to think that my son will have an opportunity of coming under your Excellency's notice."
"Your son, Mrs. Polwheedle?" said his Excellency; "why, I understood the brigadier here to tell me that he had no ——"
"Oh no, not his son," said the lady, tapping the brigadier on the arm with her fan; "my son by the late Captain Jones of the 10th Fusiliers — my first husband, you know — Lieutenant Jones, of the Banglepore Rangers, — as promising a young officer as there is in the army, I can assure your Excellency. He has passed in the language; and I am sure your Excellency will find him deserving of any favour you may be pleased to show him."
CHAPTER 7
========================================
CHAPTER VII.
As
Yorke rode home to his bungalow at the other end of the station, after the dinner-party in the eminent personage's camp, smoking his cigar and reviewing the events of the evening, he felt for the time an elation which he had never before experienced. Miss Cunningham, he thought, must surely now understand my feelings. True, I have not said a word which could be taken to mean distinctly what I long to express; but I could not, if I would, disguise the passion I feel. She must see that I worship the very ground she treads on; and, seeing that, she is too noble to trifle with my love. She would have discouraged me ere this if it had been displeasing to her. There would be no such kind greetings if she thought my homage unworthy. But then what, after all, has passed between us that I should dare to build any hopes upon it? We have not spoken more than half-a-dozen times, and only a few words at a time; what is this to build a romance upon? And what am I, with no good looks worth speaking of, no money, no position, to hope to win this noble woman, so beautiful, so accomplished, so well-placed? I may know a little more than other fellows about some things, but I have given her no opportunity to find this out; a donkey's braying were scarcely more inane than my conversation whenever I have been talking to her. Yet, after all, to be sure, women don't choose men for their good looks or their wit. There is Tirtell of the 80th N.I., certainly not much to look at, and about as stupid a fellow as there is in the army, yet he found a pretty woman to fall in love with him, and one with ten times his brains. Look at Grumbull, too, our doctor; what little chance the climate leaves a fellow will be lost if he gets into his hands. And yet if he were a perfect Galen, Mrs. Grumbull could not have a higher opinion of him; and she is a clever woman enough. No; there is no accounting for tastes, as Jerry would say; if only she chooses to fancy a penniless sub, neither face nor empty purse need be against me; and as for fortune, why, after all, every man in India starts in the race of life from "scratch." Lawrence
and Outram were once penniless subs, and with no better prospects than I have; and something tells me that if I do ever get a chance, I too shall be able to turn it to good account.
But then, again, whispered conscience, what are your chances in the race you are now running? You may be right in thinking that women throw away their hearts at random, but there must be opportunity — companionship — the means of meeting. Here are you, only a few miles off, 'tis true, but what are your chances and opportunities? A few stray words at a ball or dinner-party. What do you know of her inner life, and thoughts, and feelings? What chance have you, you awkward, shy gowk, of pushing yourself forward, and making the most of such small chances as offer themselves? And do you suppose that the prize will remain unwon forever, or for long? Wake up from your trance of folly, young dreamer that you are.
But no — he argues again. Love needs no rules of time and opportunity. Has not my poor mother often said that she fell in love at first sight with my father, and that they were engaged to be married before they had known each other a week? And is it true that we are even now common acquaintances? Does she greet other men as she greets me? And then, as a vision came up before the young man of a life to be spent in companionship with the woman he loved, with no need to long and look for scanty interviews, a constant presence of her beauty, those eyes always looking into his, his awe at speaking to her exchanged for perfect trust, to learn the secret of her noble mind, to have the sympathy of her noble heart to urge him onwards in his aims for a high career — as the young man, pacing to and fro along the gravel-path in front of his little dwelling, conjured up this picture of a heaven on earth, his step under the excitement became so loud as to arouse his brother subaltern from sleep.
"I say, old fellow," said Spragge, rising on his elbow in bed and looking at his chum through the open door, "you
ain't paid for doing watchman, you know. You might let a fellow go to sleep, I think. We've got a parade at gunfire."
Thus rebuked, Yorke retired to his own room, but only to toss about on his bed, recalling time after time the record of each word Miss Cunningham had spoken to him, and picturing incoherent visions for the future, till summoned to rise again by the sound of the morning gun.
The next opportunity for meeting the
young lady happened a day or two afterwards, on the occasion of the brigadier's half-yearly inspection of the hussars. Alas! it was only an opportunity from which nothing came. Riding to the parade-ground on the morning in question, Yorke was in time to see the regiment drawn up in line awaiting the brigadier's arrival, himself one of the first spectators on the ground. But the inspection was half over before, straining his eyes across the plain in the direction of the city, he was at last rewarded for his patience. This time only two persons could be seen cantering towards the scene, who as they came nearer were made out to be Miss Cunningham and Colonel Falkland. They did not, however, join the other spectators in attendance on the brigadier, but pulled up their horses at some distance off, whence they stood watching the manœuvres of the regiment. Yorke sat irresolute for some time, watching the pair — the colonel's upright figure on his powerful horse, the graceful outline of the young lady as her body swayed with every movement of her high-bred Arab, which, excited by the clatter of the dragoons, was pawing the ground and tossing its little head; and, as the two figures stood out in clear relief against the plain, he could not help thinking what a fitting protector the soldier-like colonel made to his gentle godchild. At last he made bold to join them, a bold movement indeed, involving his complete separation from the group of spectators, and committing himself alone to the naked plain, crossing the gap too at a foot-pace, for to ride faster would have attracted attention. But just as he was approaching the lady and her companion, whose heads were turned the other way, they set off in a gallop after the regiment, now executing a rapid change of front. Yorke's first impulse was to follow in pursuit, but he was restrained by a sense of the absurd figure he would cut, in full uniform, mounted on a diminutive pony, and by a doubt whether the pony could go fast enough to overtake them, and of the undignified appearance he would present, if he did come up with them, looked down upon especially by Colonel Falkland from the height of his big horse. Thus thinking, the youngster pulled up, and wanting self-possession to enable him to rejoin the other lookers-on, remained by himself on the plain, fancying that everybody was noticing his discomfiture. In reality everybody was watching the hussars moving rapidly to and fro. (for Colonel Tartar always went the pace, and was carrying out to the full his subaltern's promise that the inspection would be something of a kind to amuse the ladies); and so Yorke's little expedition passed unobserved.
The inspection over, and the regiment being formed up in three sides of a square, the brigadier addressed some valedictory remarks to it which Colonel Tartar received on the point of his sword, and then rode slowly off the ground. The spectators now began to disperse, making their way across the plain in the direction of their respective lines, and Yorke was just about to ride up to Miss Cunningham, when Colonel Tartar, making over his regiment to Major Winge, cantered up to them. Yorke again pulled up, watching the party as they moved slowly away in the direction of the residency, the little colonel with his legs stuck out, leaning over towards Miss Cunningham on his left, gesticulating with the right hand as if explaining the movements of the day. Yorke felt that his pony would ill compare with the other's high-caste Arab, as it stepped proudly along, excited by the exercise, and tossing its head as if enjoying the rattle of its caparisons. And yet, thought the youngster, bitterly, I am as good as he, for all that he is a colonel of hussars, and I am only subaltern of native infantry, and I would prove it if I only had a chance. Still, what chance shall I have against him if he enters the lists? She says she thinks there is no profession like the army; what more natural than that she should be dazzled with his medals, and his colonelcy, and his money? He is a dapper little fellow too, it must be confessed, and knows how to sit a horse. He is evidently going on to the residency to breakfast, the lucky beggar. But no; Colonel Tartar, after accompanying the other two for a few hundred yards, turned back, and they set off at speed, for the sun was now getting hot; whereupon Yorke turned too and cantered home. But his faithful pony was now an object of contempt, and that very morning he took advantage of the arrival of an itinerant horse-merchant to purchase a more dignified mount. A high-caste Arab would alone have satisfied his aspirations, but as this meant running hopelessly into debt, he was fain to be content with a well-looking animal with strong legs and uncertain pedigree, although having some other good points,
for which the dealer took the pony in exchange and a promissory note for a sum which would make a formidable inroad on the young man's slender income; but he was just now in a reckless mood. "Poor little Jerry," said he, as he took the saddle off the pony named after his chum, "it seems a shame to turn you adrift after you have done your work, doesn't it? You ain't much to look at, but you know how to go, and you have taught me to ride at any rate. Many is the battle we have had to see who should be master — haven't we, you little beggar?" So saying, he gave the pony a farewell pat — to which the honest beast responded by putting back his ears as if preparatory to a bite or a kick, whichever might come readiest — and saddling his new purchase, rode it home.
The next day or two were passed mainly in looking after the new purchase, trying its paces, getting it shod properly, and teaching it to jump over a hurdle rigged up in the compound; proceedings in which Yorke's chum took as much interest as himself — for the arrival of a new horse is a great event in the household of a native-infantry subaltern; and the two young men might be seen for the greater part of the day before the shed in a corner of their compound which did duty for a stable, superintending the grooming-operations. Spragge might have grown jealous on comparing the good-looking grey with the insignificant occupant of the next stall that owned him as master, but that jealousy did not enter into Jerry's composition. "English blood there, and Arab too, I'll bet anything," said the young critic for the hundredth time, surveying the new purchase with admiration; "by Jove! I only wish I was out of debt, I'd buy a horse too. I say, old fellow, you must give me a mount on him sometimes."
The new horse being somewhat raw to the bit, and scarcely in form for appearance on the mall, Yorke took him for exercise at first to a piece of ragged ground in rear of the cantonments, which being in the vicinity of the station slaughter-houses, afforded perfect seclusion, while a number of small ravines running down to the river offered a variety of broken ground well adapted for breaking in a young horse.
Just as he was returning from this region one evening about dusk, Yorke heard the footstep of a horse coming up behind, and Falkland, cantering past on his Irish mare, on perceiving him pulled up alongside.
The colonel explained that he had been for a ride across country; he did not get enough exercise at the residency, he said, with merely a morning canter. "But what brings you to these unsavoury parts," he asked, "while all the gay world of Mustaphabad are listening to the band?"
Yorke replied that he was breaking in a new horse, and teaching him to jump ditches.
"A new purchase?" said the colonel, eyeing the horse, "and a very nice-looking one too — country-bred, I presume, but with some good blood in him evidently. So you are teaching him to jump? and a very proper thing too. Do you think he could manage this?" And so saying, the colonel turned to one side, and pressing his mare, put her at a small ravine. It was no great thing for the big mare, but a respectable jump for the little country-bred, which, however, Yorke, following the lead, sent across in good style.
"Very well done," said the colonel; "you have a good nag there, and know how to ride him. You ought to enter for the coming steeplechase."
Yorke thought he was joking; the idea of a country-bred running in a race of any sort, was like entering a hack for a flat race in England.
The colonel said he was quite in earnest. It was not a matter of speed or blood. "It is astonishing how few horses in this country can jump; want of practice, I suppose. If any horse succeeds in getting round the course, the chances are it will win, and your horse has some good blood in him, and some capital points for a fencer; but here we are in cantonments. Good evening. I must push on, or I shall be late for dinner;" and the colonel rode off.
CHAPTER 8
========================================
CHAPTER VIII.
The
next day, while Yorke and his chum were at breakfast, the tramp of a horse's feet was heard on the gravel outside, and looking out the young men descried before the door a horseman of the nawab's very irregular cavalry, a body which under treaty-engagements furnished orderlies for duty at the residency. The rider had evidently come from thence, for he produced a small note from the folds of his waist-cloth, which he delivered to the servant who was sitting in the veranda.
"A ticket for soup, by all that's powerful!" cried Spragge. "Well, I thought it was about time for the commissioner to do the civil. Two distinguished officers like us are not to be treated with neglect even by a bloated civilian. It's directed to you, Arty, "he continued, throwing the note across the table, "and from the lovely creature herself. You'd better keep it next your heart, only open it first, my boy, and let's know what's up. Say, oh, say!"
Had Spragge been more observant he would have noticed the blush and confusion of his companion. It was the first letter he had ever received from Miss Cunningham; the first time, indeed, that he had ever seen her handwriting.
He disguised his emotion, however, and rebuked his companion. "I wish you would have a little sense for once in your life, Spragge, "he said pettishly, calling that young officer by his surname, "and keep your foolish jokes for fit subjects."
"Oh! that's the line, is it?" replied the imperturbable Jerry; "some things are not to be talked about, or else we cut up rough, do we? with our Spragges and our Yorkes? We shall be having coffee and pistols next, I suppose? All right, old fellow; you've only got to give me the office, you know, and I'm mum. Still you haven't told us yet what the letter is about; come, out with it! ticket for soup? or a hop?"
Yorke replied that it was an invitation to dinner for the next day but one.
"And me left out," cried Jerry; "well, that is a shame, considering we both called on the same day. You have been making play since to any extent, of course; still there's a want of consideration about the thing; if we had both been asked the same night, we might have taken Nubbee Buksh's buggy between us."
"Consideration!" said Yorke, loftily. "As if Miss Cunningham would be likely to think about such details as the small economies of a subaltern's
ménage
."
"
Ménage
, eh? small economies, eh? We are coming it strong, and no mistake. What's the last book we got this out of? This comes of our Shakespeares and our Homers. Beg pardon, old fellow," he added, apologetically, seeing that Yorke was looking angrily towards him; "but don't you think you'd better answer the note, and not keep the sowar waiting? I'll take myself off and have a pipe in the stable, and then perhaps when I come back Richard will be himself again."
How the young man, left alone, discovered that there was no paper or ink in the bungalow fit to write his reply upon, and sent down to the Europe shop for a packet of the best creamlaid, and a bottle of fresh ink, the orderly waiting the while, dismounted, holding his horse under the shade of a tree; how, when the paper and ink arrived, he spoilt half-a-dozen sheets before his answer was ready, in doubt whether to say "My dear Miss Cunningham," or only "Dear Miss Cunningham," — need not be told; nor that he did as a fact deposit the note about his person, taking it out a dozen times in the day to read the contents. Yet they were not of much import, for the note merely ran thus: —
"
Dear Mr. Yorke
, — Will you give us the pleasure of your company to dinner on Thursday at half-past seven? — Believe me, yours very truly,
"Olivia Cunningham."
Needs not be said that Yorke engaged Nubbee Buksh's buggy for the Thursday evening, nor that, although until now he had never thought much about dress, he made as elaborate a toilet for the occasion as the conditions of undress uniform permitted; but not the less did he feel shy and nervous as he entered the large drawing-room at the residency, although his heart bounded within him at the cordial greeting of the hostess, as she advanced from the group of guests to meet him, and held out her hand with a smile and look of pleasure which sent the young fellow into raptures. There were only twelve persons in all, including the brigadier and Mrs. Polwheedle, and the dinner was served at a round table, permitting of general conversation, and to Yorke a full view of Miss Cunningham, in a perfectly enchanting demi-toilet. Certainly, he thought, it is even more becoming than the ball-dress, or the more costly apparel worn at his Excellency's party. It is the same picture, of course, that sets off any framing — the lovely face, the graceful figure, and the noble folds of rich brown hair.
The conversation turned to the subject then occupying all the dinner-tables in India, the misconduct of a guard of sepoys at Barrackpore.
"For my part,"said Mrs. Polwheedle, "I think the whole regiment ought to have been hanged, the rascally fellows!
to stand by and see their officer wounded in that way. Disbanding was too good for them."
"But the whole regiment didn't see the thing done," observed the commissioner.
"Oh, that doesn't matter," she replied; "they were all sepoys together, and sepoys always stick by each other, with their nonsense about caste, and their not doing this or doing that. I have no patience with them."
"My dear,"said the brigadier, who sat opposite, in a voice of mild reproach, "you forget that your husband is a sepoy-officer."
"No, I don't," replied the lady; "but I wasn't always the wife of a native-infantry officer, you know; and I have my feelings on this point. Besides, I don't consider that you belong to the native army now that you are a brigadier; you command Europeans and natives too, so you ought to be impartial."
"For my part," observed Major Winge of the hussars, who was one of the company, "I should like to see every black regiment cut down to half its present strength, and a dozen more British regiments sent out."
"Native-infantry regiments, I suppose you mean?" interposed Colonel Falkland.
"Oh, of course," replied the other, "they
are
dark; same thing, you know."
"The same thing, perhaps, but not the same name; we will keep to the official designation, with your permission, if the thing is to be discussed at all."
"By all means, if you like," returned the major; "no offence was meant."
"You did not mean to be offensive, of course," said the colonel.
And so the conversation dropped, or rather a turn was given to it by the commissioner, who asked Major Winge across the table if his regiment had many horses entered for the coming races.
While it was going on, Yorke felt his face flush at the implied insult to his branch of the service. A feeling of
bashfulness, however, kept him silent at first, and then just as he was about at last to burst out. Colonel Falkland had stepped in to the rescue.
That the offensive attack should have been properly put down was satisfactory, but there now succeeded to the indignation a feeling of shame that Miss Cunningham should have been witness of the scene. What must she think of military men, if they were ready to deal in such braggart ways across a dinner-table, till even Falkland, a man who seemed placed above such things by standing and natural dignity, was drawn into the squabble? It was all that horrid Mrs. Polwheedle's doing, and it was just the same on the day of his first call. How could this gentle and refined creature tolerate her society? Even if the commissioner was too good-natured to take care of his daughter in that respect, surely her godfather might interpose to shield her from such vulgarizing contact.
The person referred to, who sat next to him, seemed to be reading his thoughts, for he interrupted the current of them by remarking in an undertone: "I am afraid our hostess will think some of us have been taking our wine before dinner instead of at the proper time. It is a sad world this," he added with a smile; "shut one's self out as we may from all that is disagreeable, still the unpleasant will obtrude itself sometimes. The worst of it is that I am afraid the gentleman opposite had only too much truth on his side."
"Do you really think, sir," asked the youngster eagerly, "that the native army is not to be trusted?"
"I think that it might be reduced with great advantage, and the proportion of European troops brought up again to what it was when I first entered the service."
"Then do you really think that there is any mischief brewing in the native army?"
"It is a mercenary army," replied the colonel, "and it is an army which has nothing to do at present, two conditions which don't go well together. Of course you may keep mercenary troops in order by discipline; but we have merely the semblance of discipline left now. It would not need a very violent shake, I fear, to bring the military fabric to pieces, or at any rate to put it grievously out of joint."
"But surely there is nothing to show that things are worse now than they have been for the last fifty years? There have been repeated instances of misconduct before, but the army has outlived them. And, in the present instance, it seems to have been effectually put down. Why should things be worse now than at any time before?"
"Of course there is a great deal to be said on the optimist side. The men have all their pensions to look to, and then it is not likely that the Hindoos and
Mahomedans would ever pull together, if either party were to fall out with their masters. And I suppose luck will befriend us in the future as it has in the past. Still a little tighter discipline and a few more European troops would not be bad precautions. But of course," said the colonel, turning towards him with a smile, "I don't want these doubts to go any further. We must put a good face on matters, whatever we may think about them."
"But surely," said Yorke, "holding these views, it would be proper for you at least to urge them on the government."
"Who? I? Oh no; that would be of no use. The headquarter people would pooh-pooh the advice of an alarmist civilian, as they would call me, and would say that they have as good opportunities for judging of these matters as he has, which is quite true, though whether they make use of them is another matter."
After dinner, as soon as the gentlemen came into the drawing-room. Miss Cunningham asked Captain Sparrow, who was of the party, to sing — which, after a little pressing, he consented to do, the lady accompanying him. Captain Sparrow had a tenor voice, which might have been pronounced sweet in quality, only that there was very little of it to judge by, and sang airs from the Italian opera of the more sentimental kind, delivered with a sort of caricature of stage manner, the retardations extra slow, the pathos extra pathetic. As he sang, with one hand resting on the piano and the other on his hip — his hair parted in the middle, a loosely-tied black ribbon under his turned-down collar, his eyes cast down, and face expressing all the pathos which could not find utterance through the voice, while the fair accompanist placidly followed all the changes of time in the performance — Yorke felt as by instinct that although she was perfectly grave and polite, and there was no trace of irony in her thanks to the singer when the performance was concluded, any remaining fear of rivalry in that quarter might now safely be dismissed.
"And now, Miss Cunningham, won't you sing something yourself," said the captain, "especially after I have set you so good an example? I am sure you will be in good voice to-night. There is something in the air conducive to song. I felt it myself."
Just then Yorke came up, and Sparrow moved off, to receive the thanks of the rest of the company.
"Are you fond of music, Mr. Yorke?" asked the lady.
"I should like above everything to hear you sing," replied the young fellow.
"How can you tell you will not be disappointed when you hear me?" she said, with a laugh and slight blush, as she stooped to turn over the loose pieces of music on the stand.
"No, no," rejoined the young man with ardour; "there is no doubt about it. Heaven gave you a sweet voice, and it gave you" — every other charm, he was going to add; but checking himself, continued, "besides, you must know that
your fame has preceded you."
Miss Cunningham said nothing in reply, but looking downwards seated herself at the instrument and began to sing. Nor had rumour exaggerated her powers. She sang with the taste and finish given by Italian teaching, while her voice was like her speaking voice, low and rich, and expressing a sort of unconscious pathos, as if asking what romantic fate awaited its possessor in the future.
She sang two songs, the young lover standing by entranced, turning over the pages; one Italian, full of repressed passion — one German, kindling subtle, undefinable emotions. Then at his request she sang a third time; after which, some of the guests who had meanwhile been scattered about the room came up to express their thanks. But presently the two were left alone again, for the room was a very large one, and the young lady still sitting on the music-stool turned round.
"Do you really think," said she, "that the sepoys are not to be trusted? Perhaps I ought not to ask such a question from you; but your men, now, they look such simple honest fellows, and papa seems to have the most perfect confidence in them."
"I would answer for them with my life," replied the young man, earnestly.
"I like to hear you speak like that," said the young lady, with animation; "there is something to my mind quite revolting in discussing the character and loyalty of our soldiers in this way, whether their faces are light or dark."
As she looked up at him with a gleam of admiration in her dark eyes, the young man felt ready to throw himself at her feet in a transport of love. For him to worship her was only natural; but that she should regard him as worthy of respect seemed altogether beyond his
deserts, so infinitely above him did she always seem to be. Something of this may have appeared in his look of devotion, for she blushed slightly, and turned away her head, and then changing the conversation said, "When is the inspection of your regiment to take place?"
"On Saturday — shall you come to see it?" And the young man hung on her answer as if his very life depended on it.
"I will come, if I possibly can. Papa has not been very well lately, and is often disinclined to ride of a morning; but if Colonel Falkland is still with us, I am sure he will escort me."
"Is Colonel Falkland going away?"
"His month's leave comes to an end to-morrow; but he hopes to get it extended. I don't quite understand the arrangement; it appears there are various contingencies involved, but he expects to hear how the matter is settled early in the morning."
Presently she added, "Colonel Falkland says you ought to be in the cavalry — the irregular cavalry I think he called it — because you are such a good rider."
"Colonel Falkland's praise of any one is valuable, but he seems always to speak kindly of everybody."
"Ah, then I see you have found out his generous nature, and think as highly of him as every one seems to do. I am so glad of that,"said Miss Cunningham, warmly.
"Think highly of him? why he is one of the finest fellows in the army. I always knew he was extremely popular, too, and now I have met him I can understand why he is. What a pity it is that he should be thrown away in civil employ, instead of being at the head of the army, or something of the sort!"
And the two cast their looks in the direction of the person spoken of, a middle-aged, not particularly handsome, and not well-dressed man, standing in another part of the room.
Then she asked him if he was going to take a part in the coming races; and he replied that he was going to enter a young horse he had just bought, for the steeple-chase. Had he still possessed only his old pony Jerry, he would in his present state of infatuation have committed himself to entering that useful animal.
Miss Cunningham asked whether steeplechase-riding was not a very dangerous thing; and Yorke laughingly replied that there was not much danger to be met with in the army nowadays, either in that or any other way; the only danger he ran was of making himself ridiculous by being nowhere in the race.
Here the conversation was interrupted; and, save at parting, when he held her slender hand for a moment in his, Yorke had no opportunity of again speaking to the young lady. But as he drove himself home in the still clear night, he rehearsed the scene of the evening over and over again, dwelling on each gracious look, each radiant smile, calling up each changing expression of the sweet face — now gracious, now arch — anon, when in repose, as he thought, pensive. Surely he could not be wrong in thinking both that she understood his devotion, and was not unprepared to reward it. To no one else, he felt sure, did she appear so tender and gracious. Even to her father she seemed hardly more so. To other persons, as he could not help persuading himself, her bearing, if gentle, was somewhat reserved and distant. Only to himself and Falkland was there shown this confidential manner; but then Falkland was an old friend, and her godfather — old enough indeed to be her father. Nevertheless, uneasy doubts crossed the young man's mind, especially when he reached home, and surveying by the dim light of a single candle the poverty of his little bungalow, contrasted it with the splendour of the residency and the well-lit-up salon, in the vastness of which a dozen guests seemed almost lost, till his heart sank within him. How could he dare to hope to bring that splendid creature to such a lowly roof? Still less possible did it seem to raise himself from his present humble grade to a level with her condition and her father's just expectations. And what if, after all, she were really in ignorance of his feelings, and he merely another Malvolio fancying his countess was in love with him, as much deceived and every whit as foolish? Thus, alternate hopes and fears coursing each other through his mind, the young man paced restlessly the gravel-walk before his bungalow — his usual nightly occupation now — but taking care not to wake his chum, till, tired out in mind and body, he sought his room and found at last the sound sleep of youth and health.
CHAPTER 9
========================================
CHAPTER IX.
Two
days afterwards took place the inspection of the 76th. In the monotony of an Indian cantonment, even the inspection of a native-infantry regiment creates a certain amount of excitement; and before sunrise a small group of
equestrians were assembled on the parade to witness the spectacle. The regiment itself had been under arms before daylight, and the officers fell in soon afterwards, while Major Dumble — who, with a card of the manœuvres in his hand which had been prepared for him by the adjutant, was going through them in his head for the last time — sat his old trooper with a look of anxious desperation as the fatal moment approached. For now the brigadier might be seen riding at a foot-pace on his grey cob towards the line, attended by his brigade-major and the assistant quartermaster-general, also by Colonel Tartar, who had joined him on his way past the hussar parade. The brigadier and his staff were in blue coats and cocked-hats, all the other military lookers-on in full uniform except Colonel Tartar, who being a colonel of hussars might be considered to be above rule, and indeed sat his Arab pony with an air of easy superiority, as if quite aware of the amount of condescension involved in his coming at all. The ceremony is now about to begin, and Yorke's heart leaps up at seeing the well-known objects advancing rapidly out of the plain from the direction of the residency, as he had seen them come on former occasions, soon to be made out clearly as Colonel Falkland and Miss Cunningham, who canter up and join the group of visitors just as the brigadier arrives in front of the line. Yorke has just time to notice with a pang of jealousy that Colonel Tartar is turning aside to join the new-comers, when the regiment is called to attention, and as the brigadier advances towards it, a general salute is ordered; after which Major Dumble, by dint of kicking his horse and shaking its rein, persuades it to advance a few paces, and hands the brigadier a "present state" of the regiment. The latter passes over the want of style in the major's approach, riding not being laid down in the infantry regulations or a strong point personally, but reserves himself for criticism on the handling of the battalion, an art in which he deems himself to be an authority. And truly the battalion looks a goodly one to handle, over nine hundred and fifty bayonets mustering on the parade, carried by stalwart sepoys, well set up. And now begins the serious business of the morning. The salute delivered, the regiment breaking into open columns of companies marches past in slow and quick time, a feat which, having been practised every morning for the previous six weeks, is performed fairly in automatic fashion, without giving Major Dumble an opportunity for interposing a mistake. "Do believe we shall pull the major through," whispers Poynter the adjutant to Brevet-Major Passey, the senior captain, who was the other mounted officer. The "march past" over, the regiment is again formed into line and put through the time-honoured manual and platoon exercises by Major Passey, a feat to which he and the regiment are quite equal. Major Dumble the while glancing nervously at his card, and recalling for the last time the adjutant's lessons on the coming movements. The first operation, a change of front, went all right; there was little for the commanding officer to do, and the leaders of companies knew their work and made no mistake. And the second movement promised well also. It was an advance by column of double companies from the centre; and Major Dumble, as he surveyed from the rear the companies stepping off and wheeling at due intervals with precision, felt his courage reviving, and began to hope that he should really pull through the inspection. But alas! at this moment, just as the formation was completed, the brigadier called out to him in what was meant for a reassuring tone — "Very good indeed. Major Dumble — very good indeed; now suppose you form square. Don't you hear, sir?" he repeated in a louder voice — "form square."
Now a square was duly entered in the card of manœuvres, but then it was to come off later in the day, and when the regiment was halted in line. For such a change in the programme the major was altogether unprepared, and gazed in dumb anguish at the brigadier, and when the latter in still louder tones repeated his command, adding "Why don't you halt the leading division, sir?" the unhappy major mistaking the word "leading" for "rear," called out in desperation, "Rear division, halt I right about face!"
The companies in question obeyed the order. The rest of the column continued marching on.
The major saw that he had made a blunder, but there was still time to retrieve it, although no time for reflection. Obeying the impulse of despair he gave the word to the centre companies to wheel inwards, and again the order was obeyed, the leading companies still pursuing their fatal march onwards; and although the adjutant at last took upon himself to stop them, the mischief was done. They had
by this time advanced a long distance to the front. The centre companies had been brought to a halt by coming up against each other, and now stood face to face, the rear division meantime gazing backward into space, from which position our subaltern could witness the merriment of the spectators. The formation of the regiment in fact now resembled the capital letter I, but with the head and tail separated by a long interval from the body. Never had the Mustaphabad parade-ground witnessed such a spectacle.
Although not without a fellow-feeling for the service from which he had risen, this was yet a proud moment for Brigadier Polwheedle. The inspection of the hussars or the horse-artillery was a thing to be done gently, and even deferentially, the brigadier indeed never feeling quite sure on such occasions that Colonel Tartar was not laughing at him the while, and executing manœuvres for his edification not laid down in the queen's regulations; but here he was master of the position, and felt every inch a brigadier. "Take your regiment home, sir," he called out in a loud voice to the miserable Dumble — "that is, if you know how to — and let me see it again as soon as it is fit to be inspected;" and so saying, he turned the grey cob round and rode majestically home.
Whether Major Dumble would have been equal to the feat of taking the regiment home was never proved, for the extrication of it from its melancholy position was effected by the adjutant, the unhappy commandant sitting silent on his horse while the latter gave the needful orders. The operation completed. Major Passey, making the slightest possible salute with his sword to his commanding officer, said, "Shall I march the regiment back to the lines, major?"
"Please do, Passey," replied poor Dumble, meekly; and so saying rode back alone to his own bungalow, whence he did not emerge for the rest of the day.
"Hang it," said Spragge, to a brother sub, after the regiment was broken off, as they mounted their ponies to ride home, "we must buy old Dumble out, sharp, I can't stand being made a fool of in this way. How much do you think the old boy would take to go at once? I'm game to borrow my share; I'm so deep in the banks already that a trifle more won't make much difference."
"No good trying, my dear fellow," replied the other; "the poor old major is in the banks himself: he can't retire with a wife and family at home to provide for. No, no; we have got him fast for another six years at least, till he get the line step, and perhaps even longer."
"A jolly look-out for us," rejoined Spragge; "well, I must positively take to passing in the language and getting a staff-appointment. I'm blessed if I can stand this any longer. I wish I were a dab at languages and things like Yorke; but I'll set to work at the black classics this very day. "And Jerry kept his word so far as to spend the whole of that morning spelling out the first chapter of the Baital Pachisi, with the help of the regimental moonshee, but unfortunately his resolution did not carry him beyond the first day.
Major Dumble's fiasco was naturally the subject of conversation in more circles than one that morning. "Serves him right for an old stupid,"said Mrs. Polwheedle to Captain Buxey, whose buggy was drawn up next to that lady's carriage. "I told the brigadier the first day Dumble came to the station that I was sure he wasn't any good. The government ought to get rid of such fellows. If he were in a queen's regiment now, he'd have to go on half-pay; and serve him right, wouldn't it, colonel?" added the lady in a louder voice to Colonel Tartar, who was riding slowly past.
"Serve whom right, Mrs. Polwheedle?" replied the colonel, stopping his horse, but without coming nearer to the
carriage.
"Why, Major Dumble, to be sure. I was just saying to Captain Buxey that such
exposés
would never be allowed in the queen's service, would they?"
"A little hard, though, on the regiment and the officers, isn't it?" said Tartar, dryly; "but beauty sometimes
goes with a hard heart."
"Flatterer!" replied the lady, with a complacent smile on her comely face.
"There's such a thing as a service feeling, too," observed Captain Buxey after the colonel had passed on. "I don't like to see company's officers made fools of in public."
"Oh, as to that," said Mrs. Polwheedle, "I don't regard Polwheedle in the same light as a regular company's officer, now that he commands a station with troops of all kinds; besides, you know, I was brought up to think of the queen's regulations before everything. In Captain Jones's regiment we used never to call on the ladies of company's officers.
Quite a society in ourselves we were. Of course as a brigadier's lady I show no preferences, but still I have my feelings."
As for Yorke, his first impulse was to hasten to the residency to learn at least the worst, and with a faint hope at the bottom of his heart that Miss Cunningham might have some consolation to offer. A call there was due after the dinner-party, and it had been a struggle for the young man to put it off for so long. Accordingly Nubbee Buksh's buggy and horse were again put into requisition, and soon after breakfast he drove over to the residency, full of a deep yearning, as he controlled the erratic movements of that wayward animal, to give some utterance to the feelings that oppressed him. Did she know of his passionate love for her, then surely any impulse to laugh at him or the regiment would be changed to a feeling of sympathy.
Alas! on driving under the great portico he was met by the announcement that the "door was shut," the Indian version of the more euphemistic "not at home;" and there was nothing left to Yorke but to return to cantonments, downcast and disappointed. Life seemed for the time an utter blank. There was no excuse left for paying another visit, and little chance of meeting the lady anywhere else. There only remained now the steeplechase. In that, at least, he might hope to wipe out the ridicule thrown on the regiment and himself.
CHAPTER 10
========================================
CHAPTER X.
The
coming steeplechase was a novelty imported for the first time into the Mustaphabad annual race-meeting. That favourite station being situated in a sandy plain which extended in perfect flatness for many days' journey in every direction, covered at one season of the year with luxuriant corn in fields quite unenclosed, and separated by marks distinguishable only by the villagers, and for the rest a sandy desert dotted with villages and thinly sprinkled with acacia-trees — a country of this sort was not favourable for the development of hunting, and had witnessed hitherto no more lively sport than coursing. The race had been got up indeed mainly at the instance of a couple of sporting subalterns in another native-infantry regiment, joint proprietors of an aged Australian mare, known to be sure at her fences if her legs would only hold out; and it was to come off as the final event of the second day's meeting, Colonel Tartar having offered a cup for the winner in addition to the stakes.
The entries were comparatively numerous, considering that not many horses at the station had ever had the opportunity of being put at a jump, and that a rumour that Colonel Falkland meant to run his Irish mare had kept out several intending competitors, as nothing would have had a chance against her. And when the entries were closed, at the race-ordinary held at the subscription-rooms the evening before the meeting, no less than six entries were declared for this particular event. Lunge, the riding-master of the hussars, had entered an old Cape horse reputed to have been good with the Meerut fox-hounds; Stride, of the horse artillery, a stud-bred horse, his second charger; Chupkin, of the irregulars, a country-bred mare, usually ridden by his wife — if Mrs. Chupkin would ride it herself, said the knowing ones, she would be sure to win — a feather-weight, and with nerve for anything; young Scurry, the moneyed man of the hussars, a newly-purchased chestnut Arab, the handsomest charger in the regiment, but a trifle impetuous; the confederates, Messrs. Egan and M'Intyre of the 80th N.I., the Australian mare above referred to, which had arrived mysteriously at the station a few days before; the list being closed by a friend's horse.
Yorke had never been present at a race-ordinary before, his experience having been confined hitherto to what are known as single-corps stations, garrisoned by one regiment of native infantry, where race-meetings were unknown; and he felt a little nervous as he entered the barnlike assembly rooms where the meeting was held, with fifty rupees in his pocket for the entrance-stakes. His announcement evidently took the company by surprise; for although the hurdles in his compound told a tale to his neighbours, his recent purchase had not attracted much attention, and the fact of his ownership of a horse of any sort was not generally known. "It's not a tattoo race, young man," observed M'Intyre, who was standing by the little table at which Westropp of the irregulars, the honorary secretary, was recording the entries; "ain't you making a mistake?"
"There's nothing against tats in the rules," said Westropp, before Yorke had time to speak; "you may enter a donkey if you like, M'Intyre; "whereat the laugh was turned against M'Intyre, and Yorke felt grateful to Westropp for coming to
his help before a suitable repartee had occurred to himself.
The entries concluded, the company sat down to dinner, after which they proceeded to the lotteries, the serious business of the evening. Several other officers now dropped in, among them Colonel Tartar, with whose dignity it was hardly compatible to partake of a race-ordinary, but who patronized the races in an affable way, as became a man with a reputation in the shires and noted lightweight rider in his younger days, and indeed was not above employing the evening in making a little book. "How do, Yorke?" said the little colonel with a friendly nod; "so you have got something in for my cup. I suppose that's the little horse Falkland was speaking about — a tidy jumper, he tells me; well, I wish you all luck, but I am afraid I sha'n't be able to back you this time."
Proceedings were interrupted at first by an objection lodged against the confederates' horse, it being a condition that all horses entered for the cup should be
bonâ fide
the property of officers at the station; while the known impecunious state of the partners, whose domestic embarrassments in connection with the local shopkeepers constituted the principal business at the monthly sittings of the cantonment small-cause court, rendered it matter of question how they should have come by such a property. The production of their entrance-money in hard cash had indeed occasioned some little surprise; but the objection was disposed of on Egan's producing a letter from the late owner accepting the joint promissory note of himself and M'Intyre at six months' date, for a sum, the amount of which was concealed from the referee by a dirty thumb placed over the figures, whereon the company proceeded to make out the lotteries. The drawing of these, with the interpolated betting, occupied a considerable time, Egan and M'Intyre both going into the work like millionaires; while it was observable that, notwithstanding the doubt previously thrown upon their credit, no one declined to bet with these gentlemen, even Colonel Tartar booking more than one transaction of the kind. The steeplechase lottery came last. It was the only one to which Yorke subscribed, and as there were fifty lots and only six horses, it was not surprising that he drew a blank. In the auction which followed the drawing. Scurry's horse was clearly declared the favourite, being bought in by the owner for thirty gold mohurs, while Lunge's fetched only fifteen; the confederates' mare was purchased by her owners for ten, and Yorke's horse by Colonel Tartar for five. "Can't do much harm by losing twenty chicks," observed the colonel, in Anglo-Indian
argot
, as the lot was knocked down to him; "and after all, there is a good deal of uncertainty about steeple-chasing."
CHAPTER 11
========================================
CHAPTER XI.
Next
morning was the first of the race-meeting, and Yorke, who had never seen any races in India, or indeed anywhere else, would fain have been present, but duty forbade. Devotion must have a final canter, and moreover Spragge had discovered hard by a neighbouring village a wall almost a facsimile of that put up on the course, stiffer if anything, but with a good take-off. "The very thing to practise the little horse at; he'll do everything else all right enough, the game little beggar! but there is no saying how he might behave if he came across a new kind of jump for the first time. Nothing like practice." And accordingly, while all the rest of the station were driving down to the race-course, which was at the extreme end of the station, on the flank of the native-cavalry parade, Yorke and Spragge (for the good-natured fellow had given up the races to accompany his friend) cantered across the plain in the other direction in quest of the exemplar which the latter had discovered, a rare form of enclosure in those parts. In truth, in the early morning, with no hounds to follow or excitement of any sort, it looked a formidable thing to face. Yorke, however, did not stop to think, but cantered straight at it; and the little horse, feeling the rider's purpose in his firm hand and steady grip, swerved not to right or left, but cleared the wall without touching.
"Bravo!" called out Jerry to his friend on the other side; "four feet six, if it's an inch, and looks five, and that one on the course is barely as much. Well done, again!" he cried, as Yorke, cantering back, took the wall a second time. "What a good-plucked little horse it is, to be sure, and he not fourteen three! If the pace does not get forced too much, but he has time to take his fences quietly, I don't believe there's one of them can come near him. Now then, Arty, pop him over just once more and back again, so that he may know what a mud wall is like when he sees it, and then that will be enough for the old boy." Which feat accomplished, and the grey having had his gallop in a circuit over the neighbouring fields of young corn, while Spragge looked on approvingly, the two young officers returned slowly home. "Oh, by Jove!" said Spragge, "I wish I weighed a stone less than you, Arty, then you'd have to let me ride, instead of you; but these long legs of mine will never be of any use for racing," he continued, looking down ruefully at the members referred to, which indeed the diminutive pony he bestrode barely kept from touching the ground.
Yorke had the satisfaction of hearing casually at mess that evening that the commissioner and his daughter were not at the morning's races, but were expected to be present the next day.
At last came the eventful morning, with a sky cloudless as usual at that season of the year, and a pleasant fresh air, although it was the middle of February, so that overcoats and shawls came not amiss at first to the occupants of the grand stand. A few of the spectators were on horseback, being thus able to see the start for the short races, and by cutting across to come in at the finish; but the majority took up their places in the grand stand, sheltered by the roof and by a clump of trees on one side from the rays of the rising sun. That spacious edifice, which could accommodate a hundred persons with ease, yet was pretty full on this occasion, was raised on pillars a few feet above the ground, with space underneath for the scales and for the servants engaged in making tea for the ladies. A small space on the left enclosed by hurdles was reserved as a paddock for the stewards and jockeys and for the saddling. Besides the greater part of the gentry, a considerable number of the European soldiers at the station were present, the men on foot, the sergeants
on troopers; there was also a sprinkling of sepoys in their white mufti, and some two or three hundred of the lower orders from the bazaar, camp-followers for the most part, attracted for the nonce by the news that the sahibs were going to have a new kind of race — all grave and stolid, and for the most part silent; but it is not easy to be jovial at six in the morning. Yorke, his riding-dress concealed by a long overcoat belonging to his chum, rode down on the pony of the latter, who himself trudged on foot, the horse "Devotion," led by the native groom, following, his tail cut square, his mane plaited, and covered by a regular suit of clothing on which a job-tailor had been at work for the past week seated on the floor of their veranda, the stuff having been bought from a local pedlar — the horse altogether, as Mr. Spragge observed, "looking a regular bang-up racer, and as good as he looks."
Yorke, leaving the groom to lead the horse up and down among the trees in the rear (Jerry rushing out every minute from the front to see that the operation was properly conducted), takes up his place at first in the enclosure, and leaning over the hurdle, looks up sideways at the front row of spectators in the stand. They are chiefly ladies, the gentlemen for the most part standing on the seats behind; but the one face he is in search of is not there, and he thinks with a sinking heart that the object for which he has made this venture has eluded him, when the sound of carriage-wheels is heard at the back of the stand, and Yorke sees from his vantage-ground the heads of the commissioner's mounted orderlies. The view is otherwise interrupted by people and pillars intervening; but presently there is a slight stir among the occupants of the stand, and room is made for Miss Cunningham, who takes her place in the front row beside Mrs. Polwheedle; and while greetings are exchanged with the other ladies, Yorke thinks how the latter seem to sink into utter insignificance beside this peerless creature. He notes, too, that while the appearance of the other ladies is generally suggestive of hurried rising, and further attention to the hair and person on their return home. Miss Cunningham's toilet, though perfectly simple, seems as complete and finished in its way as it might be if she were dressed for Ascot. And see, her pretty little hat, it is trimmed with blue, and there is a blue ribbon round her slender neck. Can this be mere coincidence? But while he stands wondering how his colours can have become known, the young lady looking down, recognizes and greets him with a gracious bow and smile, in which the young man thinks he can read sympathy and encouragement — encouragement for the impending event and also for the future. He feels his colour come and go, and his heart beats high as he lifts his hat and bows in reply, feeling, too, that the eyes of all the ladies in the front row are on him, and his first impulse is to make his way to the stand and express his gratitude; but how to push, his way through its occupants to the front row? and how find fitting words before so many people? Abandoning this idea, therefore, as soon as conceived, he retires to the back of the enclosure to have a final look at the grey before the saddling-time comes.
"There's young Yorke of the native infantry," observed Mrs. Polwheedle, as she noticed Miss Cunningham's bow; "he's got a horse in for the steeplechase, of all people. I shouldn't have thought he was one of the sort for that kind of thing; but these subs are a harum-scarum lot."
"Colonel Falkland says that Mr. Yorke is a very good rider, and I am sure there is nothing harum-scarum about him," replied the young lady.
"Oh no, that's just it; young Yorke always looks as if he couldn't say bo to a goose; and that's what surprised me so, his going in for this steeplechase."
"If he fails in that accomplishment it is not for want of opportunity ——"
Then the young lady stopped; for as Mrs. Polwheedle's voice was not of the lowest, she became conscious of acting as Yorke's champion before all the occupants of the stand.
The sport provided on this morning was unusually good, there being as many as four events on the card, besides the steeplechase, which was last on the list, and by general consent the most interesting of all; for, besides the exciting nature of the contest in itself, it possessed the additional attraction of there being no less than six entries, whereas for no other race had there been more than three competitors.
The particulars of the competition may be best described by copying the following extract from the card of the day: —
No. 5. The Grand Mustaphabad Steeplechase, A cup value Rs. 500 presented by Colonel Tartar, —— Hussars, with a sweepstakes of Rs. 50, half forfeit. Open to all horses
bonâ fide
the property of residents at Mustaphabad. Catch-weights, New steeplechase- course, about two miles and a half.
1.
Mr. Lunge's, —— Hussars,
B. Cape H. Veteran,
Mr. Gowett.
2.
Mr. Surrys, —— Hussars,
Ch. A. H. Roostum,
Owner.
3.
Mr. Chupkin's,
19
th Irreg. Cav.,
Br. C. B. Mare Laura,
Owner.
4.
Mr. Stride's, H. A.,
B. S. B. H. Sentry,
Owner.
5.
The Confederates',
Br. Austr. Mare, Maid Marian,
Mr. Egan.
6.
Mr. Yorke's,
76
th N. I.,
G. C. B. H. Devotion,
Owner.
Mr. Gowett was the light weight of the hussars, and had already won two flat races at the meeting with horses belonging to officers of the regiment. Egan, also, in whose selection of the Indian army for his profession Newmarket and the home-ring had sustained an irreparable loss, had carried off more than one event for a sporting indigo-planter, who it was rumoured paid him a handsome commission thereon, and now appeared for the first time on the mysterious mare entered as Maid Marian, a ragged-hipped animal of undeniable blood and power, but with bent knees, and back sinews concealed from view by elastic stockings. Maid Marian, who seemed to walk lame, took her preliminary canter in very stiff fashion, suggestive of age and hard work, but went over the first fence in very business-like style. Mr. Egan himself, a slight sallow little fellow, with smooth face and a small scrubby moustache, who always made appearance a secondary consideration to business, was attired in a brown garment resembling a decayed stable-jacket, with serviceable brown cords and ancient top-boots, but looked, as to style of riding, every inch a jockey. "It's legs and arms that do the business," he observed to Mr. Sniffers of his regiment, when that gentleman had attempted to banter him on his personal appearance; "not what's outside of 'em. I'll tell you what, Sniff, I'll give you two stone over a mile for anything you like to name, and you shall wear silk tights and pumps, if you like," — an offer which his brother officer declined to close with. All the rest were got up in regular racing-trim, except Chupkin, who had a wife to dress as well as himself, and therefore with virtuous self-denial rode in his regimental jack-boots. Mr. Scurry was especially splendid in scarlet with a white cap, and polished tops just arrived from England. Yorke's colours were blue. The young man, in view of a certain promissory note rapidly maturing, had prudently refrained from investing in a new saddle for the occasion, but had supplied himself with new girths, stirrup-leathers, and bridle, all strong and serviceable.
Mr. Scurry's Roostum, as has been mentioned, was a hot favourite at the race-ordinary two days before; but the circumstance that this sporting young gentleman had lost both the races ridden by him on two different horses on the first day, compared with the obvious skill and address displayed by Messrs. Gowett and Egan, had depreciated Roostum in public estimation, and Veteran, a winner of the previous day, was now first favourite, with Maid Marian in close attendance; for although nothing was known about the antecedents of the latter animal, it was generally understood that Mr. Egan and his confederate knew what they were about. Nevertheless, when Mr. Scurry rode Roostum out of the paddock, the beauty of the horse and its unusual size for an Arab, contrasted with the gummy appearance of the mare and Mr. Lunge's ancient charger, led to a reaction of feeling, more especially as Roostum, although very fresh and impetuous, and almost unseating his rider in his efforts to get his head loose, nevertheless cleared the first fence in his preliminary canter like a deer; and before it returned to the starting-post the chestnut Arab was almost restored to its position in public estimation. The ladies, at any rate, were entirely in favour of the pretty creature with the smart jockey, as it bounded along with the springy action peculiar to Arabs, tossing its shapely neck, and ready to jump out of its skin.
The steeplechase-course extended beyond the circumference of the ordinary race-course, which it left at the quarter-mile post out and rejoined again at the distance-post, the run in being parallel to and inside the flat course, so that the fences could be set up beforehand without interfering with the previous flat races, while the same winning-post served for both. Thus the flat course intervened between the stand and the straight part of the steeplechase-course; but as the former was only wide enough for
about half-a-dozen horses to run abreast, the spectators would have as close a view of the scene as could be desired. The direction of the running was from right to left, or in the opposite order to the movement of the hands of a clock, and there were altogether nine jumps; first, a couple of hedges, which were in fact hurdles covered with bushes; then the mud wall, with a little grip on the further side from which the material to build it had been taken; then another hedge; then a hedge with a small ditch on either side; then a ditch with a bank beyond; then two more hedges or hurdles; lastly the water-jump, the only really stiff thing in the course — a low bank topped with a hedge, and a wet and broad ditch beyond. This was about fifty yards short of the grand stand and winning-post, so that the horse first over would probably win. The ditch was in fact only a shallow trench about eighteen inches deep, but which might have been eighteen feet from the look of the thing, although to retain it even at that depth in the sandy soil involved a constant supply of water, and the station water-carts were at work up to the last moment before the race. The course, sparsely covered with grass, was perfectly level throughout, and the fences standing up naked on the plain seemed calculated to invite the horses on the outside to swerve to the right or left.
And now the six horses having taken their preliminary canter, including the conventional leap over the first fence and back again, have come back to the starting-post opposite the stand, with their backs to the wet ditch; and all except Roostum being perfectly steady, the start is soon effected, and away they go at the signal, a little cloud of dust rising from their hoofs. Chestnut horses, and especially chestnut Arabs, are proverbially impetuous, and the noble Roostum was no exception to the rule. He was hard to hold when going alone; but the clatter of five other horses galloping alongside is altogether too much, and in a few seconds he breaks away at full speed, nose high in air, his rider lying back in the saddle and in vain trying to hold him in. This attitude is not favourable for steeple-chasing; Roostum crashes through the first fence without attempting to rise to it, tearing a gap about thirty feet wide, through which the others follow at a more leisurely pace, and he gets through the second in the same way; but this mode of dealing with the wall is not equally successful. Charging that in the same blind way, the gallant chestnut rolls over heavily on the other side, shooting his rider still further forward. Fortunately the race committee, with considerate forethought, had ploughed up the light soil beyond the wall, so that Mr. Scurry sustains no serious injury, although unable to proceed with the race; and he has left the others so much behind that they have time to avoid riding over him as they clear the wall, which they all do except Sentry, whose rider taking the outside, goes so temptingly close to the end of the obstacle that the horse swerving evades it altogether, and Mr. Stride, after two or three ineffectual efforts to made him face it again, is forced to give up.
The competitors are now reduced to four. Veteran takes up the running, and although not going the pace with which Scurry led off, Mr. Gowett is evidently trying to cut the others down. Next comes Chupkin on Laura, which had blundered at the wall, although getting over safely; next our friend Yorke; Egan bringing up the rear some way behind. So far Yorke feels that he has got along well; the pace is faster than he expected, but the little grey took the wall beautifully. The next fence, another covered hurdle, is a mere joke for all the horses. The double ditch and hedge is more formidable, but again they all get over. Next comes the ditch and bank, and Mr. Gowett pulling up Veteran to an easy canter, the old horse jumps cleverly on to the bank and down the other side. Chupkin, who goes at it full gallop, is less fortunate; his horse blunders at the top and falls: again the friendly plough averts further disaster.
Yorke cannot afford to pull up for the ditch and bank, lest Gowett should be left with too long a lead, so drives the grey at it, who clears the jump in his stride, thereby gaining considerably on Veteran. The mare also gets over all right, and the three are then left in the race. There now remain only two hedges and the water-jump; but the old horse still leads by some lengths, and Yorke knows that as far as galloping goes his own has no chance against it. Egan also seems to have played a waiting game too long; he has been creeping up latterly, but is still some distance behind; there is only a quarter of a mile left, and if Veteran gets over his jumps he must win. But here fortune comes to the rescue; the last hedge had been put up
just at the point where the steeplechase-course joined the other, and Veteran, which had been running in a flat race the day before, suddenly swerves, and despite all Mr. Gowett's efforts, turns into the flat-race course, and gallops past the stand on the wrong side of the rails.
Yorke is now left in front with only one competitor against him, and for the first time there rises up within him the distinct hope of victory. But the old mare is drawing close; her stiffness is wearing off as she warms up with work; Yorke must keep ahead as far as the water-jump if he is to win. So feeling he presses his horse on.
Now it is not galloping but really racing pace, and, novice though he is at the work, he feels that his horse is not going well within himself; his stride has lost its spring, there is no longer any pull on the reins. He failed to clear the last hedge properly, but brushed through the top, and every yard since he has been going worse. The little horse is done. Now the last and biggest jump of all is close in front, and Yorke would fain have taken a pull on his horse and brought him up to it quietly. But there is no time to do this; glancing round he sees Egan riding coolly a bare two lengths behind. There is nothing for it but to cram on, and spurring Devotion, he drives him as hard as he can at the obstacle. The game little horse rises at it, clears the fence, but fails to clear the ditch, and coming down with his forefeet against the further side, rolls over heavily, discharging his rider beyond, where he lies stunned and motionless, while the mare, coming over safely a second afterwards, canters in a winner.
There was a rush of spectators to the scene of the accident, but almost before they could reach him Yorke had recovered his senses, though puzzled at first to know why he should be looking up at the sky with the fence behind him. He had in fact alighted on his head, turning a somersault as well as his horse. Spragge and Colonel Falkland were kneeling over him, and others ready to help, including all the medical officers on the ground; but in a minute or two he was able to stand up, and very soon, refreshed by the brandy-and-water of a thoughtful contributor, to walk toward the stand, while the sympathetic Spragge, as soon as he saw his friend recovered, turned his attention to Devotion, which had picked itself up and was standing quietly by, recovering its breath. "Little nag's all right too, I do believe," said Jerry, patting the horse affectionately, and loosening the saddle-girths; "it was a cropper too, and no mistake: there's a good bit of hair wanting from the off knee, though," he added, rubbing the part affected tenderly, "but it ain't deep; daresay we shall be able to get on your skin again, old man;" and so saying, led the gallant grey back to the saddling-enclosure.
"Your horse only wanted a little more blood to make a finish of it," said Colonel Falkland, in his pleasant low voice as he led Yorke back leaning on his arm; "the course was just half a mile too long for you; but at any rate you are the first man who ever rode a Cabulee in a steeple-chase, so you have done something to be proud of."
"Here is a lady who wants to see you," said the commissioner, meeting them, "to make sure you are really not hurt," and led him to the back of the stand, where stood Miss Cunningham at the top of the steps, waiting to meet him, pale and anxious.
As he advanced she ran down to meet him, holding out her hand, and led him up the stairs. At the top was a sort of landing-place with two or three chairs. The young lady, still holding his hand, almost pushed him into one.
"But I assure you I am quite able to stand," said Yorke, looking up with a smile at the anxious face above his; "I really feel ashamed to be sitting like this while you are standing,"
"Oh, but please do," said the young lady, earnestly, "to oblige me, at any rate;" and her voice, always rich and tremulous, reflected now the emotion she felt, and thrilled through the young man's heart. "Papa," she continued, "we must drive Mr. Yorke home — won't you call the carriage?"
"No, no; keep your seat," said the commissioner to Yorke, descending the steps, and stopping him as he rose to execute the order; "I'll bring up the carriage in a moment; you stay here and let my daughter take care of you."
Take care of him! As the young man sat in his chair, looking up at the beautiful face before him, he felt as if the fracture of every bone in his body would have been a cheap price to give for so much happiness. Another moment and he thought he must have fallen at her feet to express in some form the outpouring of
his heart, but at that instant Mrs. Polwheedle and some other ladies emerged from the back of the stand.
"Oh, here is our gallant rider, safe and sound!" she exclaimed. "Colonel Tartar says you rode really very well, so you ought to feel proud; but upon my word you gave us ladies a regular fright. I declare I thought I should have fainted. You might have heard me scream right across the course. Really you young men ought to be more careful and not ride in this harum-scarum way."
"Here is the carriage, Olivia," called out the commissioner from the bottom of the steps; and almost before he knew how it happened, Yorke found himself driving away by the side of Mr. Cunningham, with his daughter, who insisted on taking the back seat, sitting opposite him.
"Knew the old girl would do the trick, if she didn't founder in the middle of the race," observed M'Intyre to Egan, as the two were engaged in bandaging Maid Marian's legs under a tree behind the stand.
"It's about the last job she's good for though, I expect," replied Egan, who now, his work accomplished, was refreshing himself with a No. 1 cheroot. "I felt uncommon nervous at starting, for she was as lame as a tree, but she got all right when she warmed up."
"I was in a funk too, I can tell you," replied the other, "when I saw Yorke going so well at the finish. It would have been uncommon awkward if he hadn't come to grief."
"Awkward! bless you, I could have passed him at any time; it was Gowett who had the race if the old horse hadn't bolted. I didn't think he could have gone such a bat. But Yorke would have done well if he had had something better under him. I didn't think he could ride like that; "I always thought him a muff."
"There, old lady," continued Mr. Egan, the bandaging completed, apostrophizing the winner, "now you'll do for the present. It don't much matter, though, if you have to be shot to-morrow; you have done our job for us this time at any rate." And, indeed, each of these gentlemen had won what is called a hatful on the transactions of the meeting — enough to enable them to take up all their promissory notes, and to keep them clear of the court of requests for some time to come. Nor was the result wonderful when the rumour now floating about the course was confirmed, due to the observation of a chance visitor from Bengal who happened to be present, that Maid Marian was no other than the celebrated Miranda, changed only by time and in name, winner of everything she had run for at Calcutta and Sonepore about eight years before, and which, after retiring from the turf, and thence running a downward career of hunter and hack, culminating in the inglorious office of drawing the deputy-collector of Hajeepore daily to and from cutchery in his buggy, and the deputy-collector's family for their evening airing in a palanquin carriage, had emerged from her retirement to earn one more victory — an event brought about by the circumstance of Mr. M'Intyre having chanced to pay a visit to his uncle, the judge of Hajeepore, during the previous cold season, and discovering there the old animal's retreat.
CHAPTER 12
========================================
CHAPTER XII.
Yorke
felt as if in a trance as he drove away from the race-course, sitting opposite to Miss Cunningham in the carriage he had been accustomed to view reverentially from a distance as if the chariot of a goddess; and when the young lady, declaring that he would catch cold in his thin silk jacket, insisted on wrapping her spare shawl over his shoulders, even the presence of the commissioner and the mounted orderlies behind could hardly restrain him from seizing one of the slender hands which performed the office and carrying it to his lips. Withal he could not help feeling a sense of the incongruity of his position. Had he broken a couple of legs there might have been some excuse; but when, in fact, there was nothing the matter with him, was he not an impostor to allow himself to be petted in this way? Still it was inexpressibly delightful.
It seemed as if hardly a few seconds had passed when the swift-trotting horses turned off the road, through the hole in the mud wall which did duty for a gateway, and were pulled up before the veranda of Yorke's bungalow. Must then this vision of paradise end so quickly? Then a sudden fit of boldness seized the young man. It was getting late, and they had still a long way to go; would not Mr. and Miss Cunningham stop and breakfast? The commissioner said something about having to be early in court, and that Colonel Falkland, who was to ride back, would be waiting breakfast for them. Well, then, pleaded Yorke, they
must at least have a cup of tea before going on; and he made his request so earnestly, standing at the steps of the carriage, jockey-cap in hand. Miss Cunningham's shawl still over his shoulders, while she looked at her father as if seconding the request, that the good-natured commissioner agreed to stop for a few minutes, and the little party entered the bungalow.
A qualm of doubt shot across Yorke's mind as to the state in which the bungalow might be, and lest the table-attendant might appear clothed in the dirty calico drawers and scull-cap which formed his ordinary costume while preparing breakfast for the establishment; but that worthy having espied the carriage and outriders from the little shed on the borders of the garden which did duty for kitchen, donned his tunic, waist-belt, and turban of white with a quick appreciation of the position, and came running up to make his salaam; fortunately, too, the joint valet of the establishment had already dusted and arranged the sitting-room. It was a simple apartment enough, and might have been taken for the type of many similar ones to be found scattered over India. A room about twenty feet square, with whitewashed walls, and a whitewashed ceiling-cloth concealing the thatched roof, entered from the little verandah by a door in the middle of one side. This verandah, supported on wooden posts, was equipped with a pair of cane-backed lolling-chairs with projections for resting the legs upon. A door on the opposite side opened into a similar verandah, where three earthen jars suspended one above the other in a bamboo frame did duty as a water-filter; sundry empty boxes of beer and soda-water were piled against the wall; while a bull-terrier, the property of Mr. Spragge, was nursing in a basket a family of puppies. A talking mina in a cage, and a rat-trap, completed the adornments of this veranda. In the centre of the sitting-room was a camp-table, whereon was set out the breakfast-equipage on a passably white cloth. In one corner stood Spragge's writing-table, also susceptible of being folded up and carried on a camel, and therefore not furnished with drawers; failing which, Mr. Spragge's correspondence and business papers were distributed on the top, for the most part muster-rolls, company-returns, and tradesmen's bills, mixed up with a loose cheroot or two and some discarded quill-pen slumps. Another camp-table sacred to Yorke's affairs presented a more orderly arrangement. For ornament the walls were decorated with a couple of boar-spears placed crosswise, a couple of fowling-pieces with cleaning rods and appurtenances, and a modest assortment of hunting-whips and walking-canes. There were also a couple of coloured engravings, each representing a female figure with low dress held on by no particular fastening, and kept up in apparent defiance of the laws of gravity, spotless bare feet, and simpering face, entitled respectively Spring and Summer: works of art purchased by Mr. Spragge at an auction, and accepted by him as representing the most refined type of female beauty, but now somewhat spotted and discoloured by the damp of successive rainy seasons. There was also the punkah, which had remained hanging during the cold season, and now drooped more at one end than the other by reason of partial decay of the suspending ropes. A hanging book-shelf completed the inventory. The open doors right and left, communicating with the owners' respective bedrooms, showed that the rest of the bungalow was furnished in the same simple fashion. Each room contained a camp-bed, a chair, a chest of drawers, the top of which garnished with spurs did duty for a dressing-table, and a couple of bullock trunks, with a row of boots and shoes arrayed against the wall. Add an absence of curtains, save some of rushes before the glass doors to keep out the flies and sparrows, and a bright Indian sun reflected within, and the abode, if unadorned and simple, was light and cheerful.
"You see here another phase of Indian life," said Yorke, while the order for tea — given not without a qualm lest the establishment should prove unable to produce a third tea-cup — was in course of execution; "all is not splendour and luxury, you see."
"A soldier's habits ought to be simple," said Miss Cunningham, looking round the room; "and in these days of luxury and self-indulgence, don't you think it is simplicity which is to be admired rather than furniture and knickknacks?" And as she asked the question with her earnest voice, Yorke felt that henceforth the life of a faqueer should be his highest ideal. "But I see you have the best of furniture," she continued, pointing with her parasol to the little book-case; and then going nearer to it, added, "all for use too — Napier, Jomini, Cæsar, Arrian
Homer (I am glad you find a little room for poets among all these learned people), 'Military Surveying,' 'Mathematics for Practical Men.' Ah! if some one would only write a book of mathematics for unpractical women! Colonel Falkland said you were very studious; but it must be hard to read all these dry books in this climate. Already I feel it almost impossible sometimes to do anything useful, and they say this heat is nothing to what is coming by-and-by."
"These books belong most of them to Captain Braddon of my regiment. He was on the staff for many years, you know, and has a regular library. If the days are hot sometimes they are long enough for anything. The real difficulty ought to be, not reading books, but procuring them; but the best of us are sadly idle fellows, I am afraid."
"And here is the Blue-book, too, on the Crimean war," observed the commissioner, taking it up, and immediately becoming absorbed in its contents.
Then Yorke had the young lady to himself for a few sweet minutes, while he showed her Spragge's puppies and the talking mina, till the tea was brought, and the party sat down to partake of it, Yorke bringing a third chair from his bedroom, and still in his jockey-dress, which he would fain have changed, for the wearing of it seemed to invite continued attention to his feats and his fall, but that he recollected that the bedroom door could not be got to close; moreover, he grudged the time, and indeed the moments flew away only too quickly — for, the tea consumed, the commissioner was urgent to be going. Miss Cunningham too pleading as an excuse for hurrying away that Colonel Falkland would be waiting breakfast: and it seemed hardly five minutes before they were again in their carriage. And then he held Miss Cunningham's hand for a moment in his own, while she, looking into his face with her dark eyes, for the last time expressed in earnest tones her hope that he would not suffer from the effects of his accident; and then the carriage with the two orderlies behind was soon whirled away out of sight, leaving the young man standing on the steps of the veranda, his regret at their departure more than counterbalanced for the moment by the elation which their visit had caused. What if this visit should be the forerunner of happiness to come? Miss Cunningham sitting under his roof, and without the commissioner, and sharing not only his tea, but everything else.
How pointedly she had declared for simplicity! Well, his future house should be better than this, and yet be still simple and modest in comparison with what she was accustomed to.
Yorke's rise in public estimation in consequence of his performances was sufficiently indicated by his receiving in the forenoon an invitation to dine with Colonel Tartar the following evening at the hussar mess, where he sat next his host, with Major Winge on the other side, Gowett and Scurry, who were loud enough elsewhere, talking in subdued tones at the end of the table; and afterwards took a hand at sixpenny whist with the colonel, the doctor of the regiment, and the major; for Colonel Tartar, although not averse to an occasional bet in public, discouraged high play in his own mess-room.
CHAPTER 13
========================================
CHAPTER XIII.
A few
days had passed after the Grand Mustaphabad Steeplechase, during which Yorke was casting about in vain to discover some opportunity for obtaining a glimpse of the one person who now made up his world, uneasy and restless at getting no news of her, yet not venturing to present himself at the residency lest he should be thought to be presuming too much on the sympathy Miss Cunningham had shown on that occasion; when one morning Mr. Spragge, returning from the mess a little later than his chum, came across the little garden towards the veranda where Yorke was sitting in his easy-chair, waving a piece of paper in his hand, and calling out, "Don't you wish you were me, my boy! Here's a start!" handed the paper to Yorke to read. It ran as follows: —
"
Brigade Office
,
February
——
"The 76th N. I. will furnish a detachment of one European officer and eighty sepoys to receive charge of treasure from the detachment —th N.I. which arrived at the station this morning, and to convey the same to the residency. The officer to report himself at the brigade office for instructions at 3
p.m.
"By order.
"
Adjutant's Office
, 76
th N. I.
"With reference to the foregoing extract from brigade orders. Ensign Spragge is directed to take charge of the detachment, which will be furnished by Nos. 3 and 4 companies in equal proportions, and will parade at 3
p.m.
"By order.
J. Poynter
Lt. and Adjutant.
"What do you think of that, my boy, for an opportunity for making the running?" said Spragge, while the other read the extract with eager face; "cut you out, old fellow, and no mistake. No, no, Arty, it's only my chaff," he continued, seeing that Yorke's eye glared on him with a ferocious expression quite unusual to it. "I sha'n't aspire to the lady herself, you know; I shall make up
to the little French girl — Mademoiselle Justine, isn't her name? I shouldn't know a bit what to say to the mistress; never was a lady's man. I wish I knew a little French, though. I couldn't make love in English, if you paid me for it; but I feel as if I could do the thing in French at a tremendous pace, if I only knew how to talk it."
"You are very glib with your anticipations," said Yorke, who had risen from his chair and was pacing up and down the veranda; "but you won't have too much time to display your accomplishments. I suppose you will be back again to-night?"
"Back to-night! not a bit of it. It's the nawab's stipend, don't you see, that's come from the lower provinces. It has to be made over to his people, and there will be counting, and weighing, and receipt-taking, and what not, which will take a precious lot of time. Sure to be kept waiting one day, if not two. Oh yes, I hope to punish the commissioner's champagne at dinner to-night, and no mistake. But I say," he continued, noticing Yorke's eager, anxious face, "I had forgotten about you all the time. What a selfish chap I am, to be sure! Now, you needn't look so fierce, Arty; of course I've got eyes in my head, even if I can't see through a stone wall; why shouldn't you go instead of me? No, I don't want to go a bit, I was only humbugging about the little French girl — in fact I'd much rather stay at home. The thing's done in a moment. I'll just step over and tell the adjutant that I have a particular engagement, and ask him to alter the roster. So I have, I want a game of rackets this evening most particular;" and so saying the good-natured fellow set off on his errand, hardly waiting to hear his friend's hearty — "I declare, Jerry, you are the best fellow that ever lived."
The detachment of the 76th duly marched into the residency grounds a little before sunset, the senior native officer with drawn sword leading the little column, the tumbrils with the treasure in the midst, Yorke on horseback in the rear. They were met at the entrance-gate by one of the commissioner's red-coated servants, who led the way to a clump of trees on the right just within the enclosure-wall, which was to be the site for their encampment. In answer to Yorke's inquiry why the tent he had sent on in advance was not pitched and ready, the man explained that the commissioner had ordered the officer's things to be taken to the house, where a room was prepared for him, and his servant was now waiting; and while the man was speaking, Yorke descried the commissioner and his daughter advancing from the house towards him. Yorke had never seen Miss Cunningham on foot, except when close by in a room, or surrounded by people: as she now came across the lawn, attired in a light muslin dress — for the days were getting warm — he had time to notice the grace of her light step, the easy movement of her tall figure; while from her dainty boots to her broad-brimmed garden-hat, everything about her seemed equally tasteful and refined. The very parasol she carried, he thought, was like the wand borne by a goddess to enchant and subdue mortals.
The commissioner, after greeting, explained that he had taken the liberty of assuming that Yorke would be their guest while at the residency, and so had ordered his baggage to the house; and when the latter objected, with sore misgivings lest he should be taken at his word, that duty required him to sleep with the men by the treasure, Mr. Cunningham relieved his mind by explaining that his duty had in fact ended with the delivery of the treasure at the residency. Strictly speaking, the commissioner ought then and there to take over the money from him, but it would be simpler to have it made over direct to the nawab's people from the tumbrils, and so save a double transfer, the commissioner meanwhile being responsible for its safe custody. Thus Yorke could accept the invitation without any qualms of conscience. He would actually spend a whole day and sleep under the same roof with his beloved. It was like a vision of paradise opening before him.
"And so here is the poor horse that fell with you," said Miss Cunningham, turning towards Devotion, which during the conversation had been standing peacefully a little behind its master in charge of the barelegged groom. "None the worse, I see. How nice the poor fellow looks!" she added, moving up and patting its neck. "Will he eat bread, Mr. Yorke? if so, we must give him some presently, when the man brings it for Selim. I am so glad to see it has got off without harm as well as its master. You must have thought it so unkind of us," she added, turning to him, "never to have sent to inquire after you; but Colonel Tartar was calling here, and said
you had been dining with him the evening before, and gave a very good account of you." And the pang of jealousy that Yorke felt at hearing of Colonel Tartar's visit was sufficiently allayed by the reflection that Miss Cunningham had been thinking and talking about him. Stopping first to post his sentries, he then with elated heart followed his hosts in their visit to the stables, where the young lady fed her Arab with bread and lucerne grass, reserving, however, some morsels for Devotion, while Yorke looked on in an ecstasy of pride. Thence they strolled into the garden, and wandered about till it was dusk and time to dress for dinner.
The house, flat-roofed, formed a great square block, one storey high, the floors raised about four feet from the ground, the public rooms in the centre, the sleeping-rooms opening to the spacious veranda which extended round the house. Yorke's room, which seemed big enough to take in the whole of his bungalow, was entered from the east veranda by two enormous doors, which served also as windows: a door on the opposite side communicated with the drawing-room. Miss Cunningham's own room, no doubt, would be on the west side, and the thought that she was occupying the same house made the whole building seem sacred; and the young man dressed himself for dinner with a sort of pious awe.
On entering the drawing-room, now dimly illuminated — for it required a great wealth of lamps and candles to light up this great salon properly, an expenditure reserved for large parties — Yorke made out that there was another person present, who proved on closer acquaintance to be Captain Sparrow. That gentleman received him with languid affability, observing that he supposed there was a good deal of duty in the way of treasure-escort and work of that sort, which must be an agreeable relief from the monotony of cantonment life. Then presently Miss Cunningham entered in a dinner dress of silk, for the evenings were still chilly. Surely, thought Yorke, each change of toilet is more becoming than the last. Then came the commissioner — Colonel Falkland had returned to his own province — and dinner being announced, they repaired to the breakfast-room, always used for small parties or when the family were alone, and which with its small round table, well lighted up, looked bright and cheerful by contrast with the dim drawing-room, — Captain Sparrow conducting the lady, Yorke and the commissioner following.
The dinner was very quiet: the commissioner was taciturn, according to his wont; while Yorke was almost too happy for conversation, nor did the brilliant epigrammatic turns of speech which would alone have been worthy of utterance in the presence of the beautiful hostess, come readily uppermost. Sparrow, however, in his languid way was talkative enough, and Yorke observed with secret complacency that Miss Cunningham was evidently amused at his harmless vanity and his affectation of refinement. The same sense of humour, he thought, was apparent in the earnestness with which, after their return to the drawing-room, she pressed him to sing, going to the piano and beginning the accompaniment of one of his songs; when the captain, nothing loath, stood up beside her and warbled forth a ditty in his approved style. His song ended, the commissioner led him away to the adjoining billiard-room, then followed for Yorke a blissful half-hour, while Miss Cunningham sang to him, on his pressing her, one song after another; and as the young man stood by her side, watching her face, the one point of light in the great dim chamber, they seemed so entirely alone, and he was so borne along on the tide of emotion aroused by the tender accents of her voice, and the nearness of her person, that his humility and bashfulness for once forsook him. Surely, he thought, all this hope cannot be born altogether of delusion. In that gentle breast there needs must be some responsive sympathy with so much devotion, which only awaits an appeal to be called forth: and in another moment Yorke might have fallen at her feet to pour out his tale of love, his hopes, his fears, his sense of unworthiness to aspire to the priceless reward he sought for, when a voice was heard at the other end of the room, that of Mr. Cunningham, asking them to come and join in a four-game, repressing the ecstasy of passion which was on the point of finding utterance. And the words which were rushing to his lips remained unspoken.
The glare of the billiard-room, with its unromantic accessories of settees and cigars, acted like a disenchantment to recall our subaltern to the prosaic realities of every-day life; but he found some compensation for the descent on its being settled that he was to be Miss Cunningham's partner. In billiards, at any rate,
he could be her master (although he thought with an introspective sneer that it was a contemptible thing to excel in such a matter), for he was much the best player of the four, while the lady was only a beginner; and to give confidential advice about each stroke, to be even allowed to touch her hand and adjust the taper fingers so as to form a proper rest for the cue, this was a new form of bliss.
But the happiest hour must have an end. The second game finished. Miss Cunningham, placing her fair arms on her father's shoulders, greeted him with a kiss on either cheek, and holding out her hand graciously to each guest, retired from the room. Captain Sparrow followed her example; and then the commissioner, proposing an early ride in the morning, wished his visitor good-night, and the gentlemen repaired to their respective rooms. Then Yorke, lighting a cigar, strolled across the park to visit his guards, wandering afterwards about the lawn on his side of the house. He would fain have carried his steps to the other side, when perchance some light might indicate at a distance the shrine which guarded his mistress; but although the watchman and some of the numerous servants of the household had passed that way on their various errands, and he knew therefore that her chamber must be closed, a sense of delicacy restrained him. But at last, tired out with walking, he sought his room, stumbling over his bearer asleep in the veranda, and fell asleep himself while recalling the minutes that had been passed, the voice, the gestures, the words of his beloved.
Next morning, his late hours of the previous night notwithstanding, Yorke was up with the first grey light of dawn, although not sooner than the commissioner, who was a regular old Indian as regards early rising; but it was with a pang of disappointment that he found only one riding-horse besides Devotion was standing saddled under the portico. Selim was not there. His daughter, Mr. Cunningham said, was not going to ride that morning, but would have some tea ready for them when they returned; and accordingly, they rode through the city, which Yorke had never seen before, and where he had the opportunity of contrasting the deferential salaams accorded to the great man on his way through the streets, with the air of insolent curiosity with which any unknown subaltern performing the journey alone would be regarded.
The commissioner had various duties in the town — anew tank in course of excavation to visit, the widening of a new street in progress, the scene of a late robbery to examine, and so forth — and the sun had mounted high before they returned to the residency, when, as they entered the park, Yorke's quick eye discovered Miss Cunningham sitting by a tea-equipage under the shade of an awning spread by some trees on the western side, whither directing their horses they dismounted. Limited though was his visiting acquaintance, Yorke had often noticed that the Indian habit of a second toilet tended somewhat to impair the early appearance of such of the fair sex as took exercise in the morning. Ladies who came out at mid-day or evening in elaborate costumes, and with hair carefully dressed, would sometimes dispense with these feminine graces when attiring themselves for the early ride or drive, and would appear with careless, not to say dishevelled locks, and appearance generally suggestive of repairs needful to be effected afterwards. No such remissness could be detected in the young lady who now, after morning greetings, began to pour out the tea. Her rich brown hair, though folded in simple braids, was fit, the young man thought, to grace a coronation; the light morning-robe was crisp and fresh; in each aspect, he thought, she seemed more noble-looking, more delicate, and more refined. And see, facing him across the lawn as he sits down, is the shrine from which his goddess has issued. The wide doors in the west veranda thrown open to catch the morning air reveal some mysteries of a chamber within — the dressing-glass trimmed with dainty muslin and ribbons, the wardrobe where rest the garments which have the happy duty of enshrining their sweet mistress.
Soon the little party was joined by another horseman, Dr. Mackenzie Maxwell, the civil surgeon, who lived about half a mile from the residency, and had charge of the jail, the hospital, and the residency establishments — a benevolent-looking, middle-aged, man. Yorke had scarcely ever met him before, for Dr. Maxwell lived very much by himself, and had almost forgotten his existence as a member of the residency circle; and for a moment, on observing the warm greeting accorded to the new-comer, he was disposed to feel jealous, when he remembered having heard that Maxwell was a widower; but this feeling was soon allayed
on perceiving the sort of fatherly way in which the doctor addressed his hostess, and the absence of embarrassment between the two. Soon the doctor and the commissioner rose and strolled into the garden, leaving Miss Cunningham and Yorke alone. But although the latter, fully impressed with the importance of the occasion, was in an agony of suspense as the brief moments flew by, he could not manage to rise in his conversation beyond the level of commonplace; and when the others returned he had only the consolation of there being still a long day before him, during which the commissioner must be absent in court, and then, perhaps, a word or hint, or even some glance exchanged, might tell him that his case was understood, and not hopeless, and embolden him to pour out his tale of love.
"I have been telling the commissioner," said the doctor, addressing that gentleman's daughter, "that I think your plan a very good one. What he wants just now is a little rest and change. I daresay a month at Patanpoor may do all that is needed; at any rate it will be time to think of a season in the hills if this little trip fails to set him up. On what day do you think of going away?"
"Going away!" exclaimed Yorke, and in a tone of such unfeigned concern that the other two gentlemen could not help smiling; and Miss Cunningham, with a little blush, explained that they were thinking of paying Colonel Falkland a visit for three or four weeks before the hot weather set in. Her father had been out of sorts for some time, but they hoped this change and the holiday might be sufficient to set him to rights again, and prevent the necessity for taking leave to the hills, "Papa dreads the idea of spending a whole hot season away from his beloved cutchery. You know he has never been to the hills all his life."
"Yes," broke in her father, "and I hope I never shall go; a season of Simla lounging would finish me off, I believe, if I went up ill in the first instance."
"And you?" said Yorke, turning to his daughter, — "what are your feelings in the matter? But I need not ask," he added, with a shade of bitterness in his voice. "Of course you must want to go. Simla is the gayest place in India." And the subaltern's heart sank within him as he pictured to himself for the moment its beautiful mistress treading the round of mountain dissipation, surrounded by all the male butterflies who flutter about that favourite resort.
"Of course I should like to see the hills," she replied; "it is impossible to watch the distant peaks lighted up of a morning from here without longing to explore them; but I am a domestic creature," she added, smiling, "although you may not suppose so, and I think I should like to spend my first year at any rate quietly here. I have been wandering all my life, and it seems really wrong to begin moving about again just when I am settled in a home at last. But I hope," she added, looking anxiously towards her father, "that it may not be necessary."
This little speech filled Yorke with a transport of delight. This desire to remain here, knowing as she must his feelings, might he not fairly interpret it to mean encouragement? Could she indeed have said more, without departing from proper maidenly reserve? And as she threw that glance of filial anxiety towards her father he thought she had never looked so beautiful before.
"Papa," said the young lady presently, who was employed on some embroidery work, "you have given Dr. Maxwell a cigar, but you have not offered one to Mr. Yorke."
"I did not know that Mr. Yorke smoked," replied her father, hastening to supply the omission by handing him his case; "he refused the offer of one last night in the billiard-room."
Yorke said, looking a little sheepish as he accepted the proffered cheroot, that he thought perhaps Miss Cunningham might not like the smell of tobacco.
"If she does not," said her father, "then she must be in perpetual discomfort, for I smoke all day long, and in every room in the house, I think. But I offered to give up the practice when first she came, and to keep my smoke to my own room — didn't I, Olivia?"
"You dear old papa! You must have had your old bachelor ways and comforts sufficiently broken in upon by my invasion, without my depriving you of your last remaining solace. Besides," she added, laughingly, "there was some real selfishness at the bottom of my request after all, for I did not want you to banish me to solitude in empty rooms. You are at home little enough as it is. It would be dreadful if you were to keep to your own room in order to enjoy your cigars there. Women should put up with smoking nowadays when it has become such a regular
habit. Gentlemen seem to smoke as much here as they do in Italy. Colonel Falkland is the only person I have met who does not smoke."
"But then," said Yorke, "if smoking is discomfort to other people, surely it is better the sacrifice should be on the side of giving up what is after all an artificial want. Some ladies declare they can't bear the smell of tobacco even in the open air."
"Don't you think some ladies are a little affected? Could anybody pretend to smell the cigars you gentlemen are smoking, now? Even in the house the rooms are so big and curtainless that no smell hangs about them. Besides, even in the open air, gentlemen would never sit quietly in their chairs like this, if they were not allowed to smoke. We women have our fancy-work to keep us from the fidgets. So you see," she added, looking at Yorke archly, "selfishness is at the bottom of one's amiability after all. But gentlemen seem so much more domestic in this country, they deserve to be spoilt a little."
"Perhaps it is because they are petted at home that they are so domestic," observed Yorke. Adorable creature, he thought, perfect in every aspect, if ever woman lived who might insist on those about her dispensing with tobacco and the small vulgarities of life, surely it is you. Yet you make no terms for your beauty and your grace. Your mind is as simple as a child's, despite the lovely frame it is set in!
The doctor, his cheroot finished, now rose to go, summoning his groom and horse from the shelter of a neighbouring tree; and a red-coated messenger bringing the commissioner a bundle of official vernacular reports, he lighted another cigar and departed for his own room. Miss Cunningham retired into the recesses of the western veranda; and Yorke repaired to his own side of the building to receive the reports of his native officers, and then spend the time till breakfast in pretence of reading — really to live the last half-hour over again, recalling each look and word.
The little party met together for breakfast at ten o'clock, but were now reinforced by Justine, the French maid or companion, who came in and took her place silently at the table, retiring on the conclusion of the meal. The commissioner also got up then to go, observing that the nawab's people were ordered to come for the treasure at four o'clock, but that it was quite possible they would be unpunctual after their fashion, and arrive too late to take it over that evening, "in which case," he added, "I must ask you to stay with us till Monday, for the transfer ought not to be made to-morrow, being Sunday. You will excuse my running away; but I must leave my daughter to entertain you." The infatuated young man with difficulty concealed his delight at this prospect of his visit being extended, and went across the grounds to Captain Sparrow's house. He could not well be at the residency without paying him a call, so he would get it over as soon as possible, and then have the long day alone with his beloved.
On returning to the big house, Yorke found Miss Cunningham in the drawing-room engaged upon a water-colour drawing. He hurried to her side, and looked over the paper — a sketch of trees taken in the garden, that she was finishing.
"What! do you paint, as well as play and sing?" cried the young man with admiration. "Where is the end to all your accomplishments?"
"One can't play and sing forever, you know," said the young lady, laughingly, "and one gets tired of reading; so it is fortunate I am able to draw a little, or else time might hang heavily sometimes, with these long days spent alone."
Ah! thought the young man with admiration, looking down on the graceful head that was bending over the work — then you too feel the want of a companion! He said aloud, "You talk of drawing a little: why, a regular artist could not do better than this."
"You would not think much of this," she answered, "if you had seen any good work;" then, seeing that the young man looked distressed at her rebuke, she added, kindly, "but perhaps you draw yourself also: it must be a very useful accomplishment for a military man."
"No," answered the young fellow, humbly; "my education, such as it has been, is devoid of accomplishments of any sort."
"But there are better things than accomplishments," she continued, with earnestness, "and you have been busy mastering the solid acquirements needed in your profession. You have quite a reputation in that way among your brother officers."
"Acquirements are comparative. Most of our fellows are very lazy about these things, and so they exaggerate the smatterings of knowledge others may pick up."
"But Colonel Falkland would not exaggerate, and he does not speak of your knowledge as a smattering."
"Colonel Falkland has a kind word to say to everybody; but, after all, if one does know something of his profession, what is the good of it? If there are seven officers away from your regiment already, all the education in the world won't get a fellow on to the staff. I beg your pardon," he added; "of course this technical shop is like gibberish to you. What I mean is, that there is a fixed limit to the number of absentees from a regiment, and my turn has not come. Besides, there is Captain Braddon come back to regimental duty, a splendid officer, who ought by rights to be served first. Not that rights have much to do with it," he added, bitterly; "a little interest is worth any amount of brains in these times."
"You mustn't say that," replied his companion;" Colonel Falkland said only the other day that he was certain that you would rise to something brilliant whenever the opportunity came."
That she should have been discussing his character and prospects with their common friend, and in such sympathizing terms, sent a thrill of pride and pleasure to the young man's face; but he replied, perhaps with a dimly-conceived desire to invite still further praise, "But when will opportunity come? The days of opportunity have gone by. For us young men there is nothing left but to grow old in the humdrum monotony of a subaltern's duties." Then he stopped, feeling that he was hardly giving himself a fair chance in thus running down his own position and prospects. And yet honesty forbade that he should make out his case better than it really was. But Miss Cunningham replied —
"Colonel Falkland says that every man in India gets his opportunity, if he only knows how to make use of it. He himself says he had never seen a shot fired (isn't that the expression?) till he had been ever so many years in the army; so you see there is still a margin of time available for you, before you enter the road to fame and fortune."
There was a pause, while Yorke determined that the morning should not pass away with all its unlooked-for opportunities, without his asking her whether he might venture to hope to gain, at some future time, a greater and more valued prize than fame or fortune, and the young lady for her part plied her brush, as he stood by her side, hopeful yet uncertain, hardly daring yet longing to speak — when the door leading from her apartment opened, and Justine, the French maid, entering quietly, her work in hand, took a seat at a little distance from the table, and began silently to ply her needle.
Here was frustration of hopes. It was evident that Justine was destined to act as duenna, and that there would be no more
tête-à-tête
conversations for that day, unless he could contrive some device for getting rid of her. A happy thought occurred to him. Looking through the portfolio which lay on the table, he observed —
"What a number of drawings you have made already — and all sketches from life apparently! These are groups of the different servants, I suppose; and there is your pretty Selim, and the commissioner's horse too. How industrious you must have been to have done so many!"
"Yes; but few of them are finished. I have been in a hurry to collect subjects for working up when the hot season comes, and when, they tell me, it will be impossible to draw out of doors."
"Why not try a sketch of my encampment this morning, with the tents, and the bullocks and carts, and the sepoys standing about in various attitudes? It is still quite cool out of doors."
"That is a capital idea; it would make a charming subject. This is a bad time of the day for sketching, when the sun is so high; but the trees will make light and shade. Suppose we start at once. But then we may be interrupted by callers?"
"Cannot you be 'not at home,' just for this one day?"
"But is it not a shame to give people the trouble of coming all the way out along that hot dusty road from the cantonment, merely to go back again without stopping to rest? I am sure I never drive into cantonments myself in the daytime without bringing a headache back."
"But this amount of heat and dust is like the Arctic regions compared with what we are going to have by-and-by. Besides, are you always so considerate? I have heard of people coming out along that hot dusty road to find the residency doors closed, and that not so very long ago."
"Ah, I deserve your reproaches, and, will you believe me, I felt very penitent when I saw your card. But we really did not expect anybody that day, and papa was unwell, and I was keeping him company in his room. However, I owe you
amends; so will you please give the order about our not being at home, and we will have chairs taken out under the trees."
The young man, enraptured at the success of his scheme, gave the needful order; and but that, with a dozen servants at hand, it would have been a perfectly useless excess of zeal, he would have carried out the chairs and camp-table himself. As it was, he was fain to content himself with taking charge of the young lady's sketching-block and colour-box, while she went to get her garden-hat. The day was one of those towards the end of an Indian winter when the climate is perfect; the chill air of the cold weather had passed away, but the season for high winds, heat, and dust had not arrived; and as Yorke arranged the chairs under a tree from which a good view could be obtained of the little encampment, and where the fair artist would, while enjoying the light genial air, be protected from the bright sun overhead, and also be concealed from sight of any visitors driving up to the portico, he thought with an unwonted exaltation of feeling that in this long morning passed together the opportunity must surely arise, in some encouragement let fall, or some understanding expressed, for the avowal of his love. Alas! on returning from the encampment, where he had been grouping the men according to the artist's instructions, he saw a servant in the act of placing a third chair by side of the other two, to be occupied a few minutes later by the inevitable Justine, armed with enough embroidery to last through the day — silent herself, and the cause of silence in others. The opportunity, then, was gone, although there still remained the long morning to be passed in this sweet companionship, becoming each moment, as he felt, more friendly. "And I should be an ungrateful brute to find fault with my lot," thought Yorke to himself. "I might have lived for a dozen years in the cantonment and not have become so intimate with her as the luck of this treasure-party, following the steeplechase, has made me already. And if she seemed charming and gracious before, when I had scarcely spoken to her, how much more admirable and perfect does she appear to my better knowledge now! With all her beauty and accomplishments, how modest and humble-minded she is! and yet there is no want of humorous appreciation of character. She is shrewd enough to see through people, yet without any ill-nature in her remarks. Can she have failed," he added, "to have seen through me and my secret?"
Thus thought the lover to himself, as the commissioner, who had come over for a few minutes from the court-house, led the way to the house for a late luncheon. The meal ended, they were again about to resume the morning's occupation, when a messenger announced the arrival of the nawab's guard to take over the treasure, thus shattering the hope which Yorke had cherished of spending Sunday at the residency. Putting on his uniform, he repaired to the spot where the detachment was encamped. The transfer of the money was a tedious affair; and when finished it was time for the detachment to set off on its march back to cantonments, and Yorke despatched them accordingly, returning to the house to pay his adieus.
He found the commissioner in his study smoking a cigar, and his daughter sitting by him, reading a book; while the open carriage drawn up outside announced that they were about to take their evening drive. Already, thought Yorke with bitter heart, and yet ashamed of himself for harbouring such a feeling, they have their occupations and plans in which I hold no share.
"Good-bye!" said the commissioner, holding out his hand, but without rising; "it was unfortunate the nawab was so punctual — we should have been glad if you could have stayed till Monday. But cannot we drive you down to cantonments? we may as well go that way as anywhere else."
Yorke would fain have clutched at even this brief respite, but he had to explain that his horse was waiting, and he must overtake his detachment presently and accompany it on foot into cantonments.
"Good-bye!" said Miss Cunningham, who had risen, holding out her hand; "it is so provoking of the nawab to cut short your visit, you must ——" What she was going to say he could not tell, for something in the expression of his earnest gaze caused her to drop her eyes, and with a slight blush withdraw her hand.
On the following Monday Yorke would have ridden out to the residency, notwithstanding the shortness of the interval since he had last been there; a call after a dinner being proper, much more he argued should one be proper after a day's visit; but an order reached him in
the morning to proceed on court-martial duty to a neighbouring station some fifty miles off, where officers were scarce, and he was fain to express his thanks in a note, which it is needless to say consumed a quantity of best paper before it got itself written to his satisfaction; the expression that the Friday and Saturday spent at the residency had been the happiest moments of his life being eventually toned down to the effect that this had been the pleasantest visit he had ever paid.
The court-martial lasted for several days. When it was ended, Yorke determined to return by easy marches, stopping for a few days to shoot on the road, the plains round Mustaphabad being fairly supplied with game. In this way he would kill time till the month's absence of the commissioner and his daughter should be completed, every day of which had been ticked off as it passed, for he felt that life in cantonments would be insupportable till their return. Thus spinning out the time allowed for his own return, he pitched his camp for the last day at a village about eight miles from Mustaphabad, and walking off his impatience by a long morning and evening tramp with his gun through the surrounding country, slept the sound sleep of fatigue in his little tent, and rode into cantonments early the next morning.
Spragge was away in the lines at the orderly-room when he reached the bungalow; so, calling for tea, and throwing off his coat, for the days were now getting hot, he sat down in the veranda till his chum should return.
That gentleman soon came into view cantering into the compound, his long legs upheld at a short distance from the ground by his diminutive pony; and after bestowing a few cuffs and blessings on that animal's patient attendant for some faults of omission and commission, greeted his friend in his usual hearty manner.
The first topic of conversation was, of course, the amount of Yorke's bag; next followed Yorke's inquiry what the news was.
"News? there never is any news in this blessed place, except that it's getting infernally hot already, which you can find out for yourself. A lot of fellows have gone off to the hills for six months' leave, and almost all the ladies have started; I should like to have gone off myself, but can't afford it; and now we are in for the regular hot-weather dulness. Nothing but billiards and rackets left for a fellow to do. But I say, you ought to have been here, my boy, to come in for the goings-on of my cousin Ted while officiating commissioner. He has been doing the big official in tremendous style — bachelor parties, ladies' parties, handing in mother Polwheedle to dinner, and all the rest of it; hermetically-sealed soups and claret-cup poured out like water. Ted's been going it, and no mistake. Pity he's got such a short tether of the office!"
"Yes, indeed," said Yorke, trying to assume an air of indifference; "the commissioner is to be back again this week, isn't he?"
"Comes back to-morrow, but only for a few days, you know; and I think they might have given Ted the acting appointment."
"Acting appointment!" said Yorke, starting up, and at once thrown off his guard, "what do you mean?"
"Why, bless me!" replied Spragge, "you don't mean to say you haven't heard the news? Why, it's been in all the papers a week ago. I thought, of course, you must have seen it. The commissioner has been very unwell — liver
gone wrong, I believe — and has been ordered home sharp, and Colonel Falkland is appointed to succeed him."
"Colonel Falkland!" cried Yorke, feeling suddenly as if something more remained to be told.
"Yes, of course," answered his friend; "he is engaged to Miss Cunningham, you know. They are to be married in a fortnight."
CHAPTER 14
========================================
CHAPTER XIV.
When
Mr. Cunningham lost his young wife, which event happened just twenty-one years before the time at which this history begins, and within a year of his marriage, he was left with a little daughter on whom the poor mother had scarcely time to bestow a parting kiss before she died. The friendly wife of a brother civilian, who was present on the occasion, proposed to carry off the infant to her house and bring it up for the time with her own children; but the young widower was averse to parting with the charge, and the lady was fain to be content with coming over daily to bestow an occasional superintendence on his nursery establishment. A still more frequent supervision over the child's welfare was given by his friend. Lieutenant Falkland, who, although he declined the
young widower's proposal that he should give up his bungalow in cantonments, and share the other's more comfortable house in the civil lines, spent almost as much time there as if he had been a permanent occupant of it. The subaltern had plenty of leisure; and his friend's servants were never sure during their master's long absence in court at what moment they might not receive a visit from Falkland, and even if they had been disposed to neglect the child would have been prevented by his vigilance. But indifference to their master's children is not a fault of Indian servants; their weakness is rather in the way of too much petting and indulgence. In the case of a baby, however, there was not much room for injudicious kindness; the little Olivia's wants were sufficiently ministered to by the stout young mussalmáni woman who had been engaged from a neighbouring village to fulfil the office of wet-nurse; and the young civil surgeon of the station. Dr. Mackenzie Maxwell, declared in his daily visits that no child could be better cared for, or more thriving. As the little Olivia grew out of babyhood, almost the first person she came to recognize after her nurse and the old bearer who was appointed her special attendant, was the young officer; and the child would hold out her little arms to greet him as he came up the avenue of an evening while she was taking her walk in the old man's arms, attended by the nurse and another female, while a tall office-messenger with a red belt, brass plate, and gigantic umbrella brought up the rear. Long before she could understand the use of them, the self-appointed guardian began to pour in consignments of toys, which soon littered the young civilian's house; Benares lacquered bricks, little wooden elephants and camels, cups and saucers, and tea-equipages; a swing to be hung up in the veranda; with a rocking-horse as large as a Burmah pony. A visitor to Mr. Cunningham's house in those days of a morning would generally find the same group assembled there: the father in an easy-chair smoking his cheroot; his friend sitting more erect, as became a man with strict military ideas, and not smoking, — the two watching the child and the old bearer on the floor together, engaged in the joint task of erecting a tower, which, from the number of bricks strewed about the room, promised to assume the proportions of a very Babel.
Thus passed the child's earliest years, when just as she was beginning to prattle freely, and had been advanced to the dignity of a seat on a raised chair at her father's breakfast-table, a disruption took place of the small commonwealth which had conducted the government of the little Olivia's household. Falkland was appointed to the staff of the army on the frontier, and the good doctor was transferred to another station; while the advent of his successor was heralded by a reputation for his power of subduing the strongest constitutions of adults, and a perfectly ogre-like capacity for the massacre of children; such as escaped the first onslaught of his calomel, it was rumoured, invariably succumbed to the subsequent treatment. The arrival of this terrible official caused a general panic in the station. Mrs. Spangle, the wife of the brother civilian already referred to, determined to anticipate by a year or two the time fixed for the inevitable home-voyage; and Cunningham, thus left without his friends, accepted her offer to take his little daughter to England with her own children, to be made over on arrival to the charge of his only sister.
To Mrs. Maitland, Cunningham's sister, who had no children of her own, the arrival of her little niece was a very welcome event; she soon came to love the child as her own, and Olivia found in her house a happy home, where even the dimmest recollections of India soon faded away. Nor were the father's letters calculated to recall them. Cunningham did not possess the sort of literary power which alone could have enabled those unacquainted with the scenes among which it was spent to realize his mode of life; and, under the feeling that his letters had no real interest for the reader when they passed beyond mere personal topics, his correspondence, though still affectionate, gradually became brief and infrequent. His sister's letters were longer and more regular, for all home allusions could be understood by the parent, and full accounts of his daughter, her health, progress, and occupation, made up an interesting letter; and as soon as the child was able to write herself, each mail carried a letter from her to her unknown father, all to be carefully filed by the Indian exile, and containing a complete record of progress, beginning with the uncertain ink-tracings over her aunt's pencilled outlines, and so through the large round-hand and short stiff sentences of
childhood and all the various developments of girlish hands, to the easy writing and ready expression of the accomplished young woman.
When Olivia was about twelve years old her uncle died, and his widow was shortly afterwards ordered for her health to the south of France; and having now no ties with England, and finding Continental life and climate to her taste, Mrs. Maitland had continued from that time to reside with her niece in various parts of the south of Europe. Meanwhile Cunningham remained in India; although not a brilliant man, his industry, temper, and judgment had gained for him a considerable reputation in his service, and whenever he was on the point of taking a furlough, the transfer to some new employment had always happened to prevent his doing so; now a neglected district to be brought into proper form; now a newly-annexed province to be reduced to order, — some call in the way of preferment appealing to his sense of duty and the love of distinction, and tempting him to stay in the country. Thus year after year passed away without the intended furlough being taken; till at last, when Olivia was arrived at womanhood, and the question arose whether instead of his going home the daughter should not rejoin her father in India, he was invited by the government to assume charge of the province ceded by the nawab of Mustaphabad, and to introduce the blessings of British rule into the districts so long misgoverned by that unfortunate prince. Such a request could not be refused; and Cunningham, feeling that his daughter was more at home with the aunt who had been a mother to her for so many years, than she could be with the father who had now become little more than a name, and being, it must be confessed, now quite reconciled to his solitary life, had just proposed a scheme for completing his new task and eventually retiring on the pension which he had now earned to join his sister and daughter in Italy, when the plan was upset by the news that Mrs. Maitland had accepted the offer of marriage from an Italian nobleman. To Cunningham the idea of such a connection seemed thoroughly repulsive; for although the count was reported to be unexceptionable in every respect save that he was a good deal younger than his intended bride, Cunningham's Indian experiences were not calculated to remove the insular prejudices of an Englishman; and notwithstanding that his sister wrote to him that her marriage should make no difference to Olivia, for that her future husband was equally desirous with herself that she should continue to make her home with them till her father returned from India, a sudden anxiety now possessed him lest his daughter, living in a foreign household, should also fall in love with a foreigner and so be altogether lost to him. He determined, therefore, that she should join him for the remainder of his service; and, writing to express his decision in terms so peremptory as seemed to the kind aunt a poor requital of the many years of loving care bestowed on his child, he knew scarcely an easy moment till he heard in reply that his instructions would be acted on at once. Mrs. Maitland and Olivia made a speedy visit to England, in order that the latter might be placed in charge of the wife of a brother civilian returning to India; and after a brief interval occupied in the preparation of Olivia's outfit, aunt and niece parted at Southampton with mutual tears and sorrowings, each to enter on a new life. The count had followed his intended bride to London, and the marriage was to take place immediately after Olivia's departure, when the married pair would return to live in Italy. "Farewell, my darling child!" she said, folding her niece to her breast in the little cabin of the steamer as it lay on the parting morning alongside of the quay in Southampton Docks; "farewell, and forever! even if you don't marry in India, your father will never let you come to me again." Olivia could only reply through her tears by returning the embrace; nor was there time for further words, for just at that moment rang the warning-bell, summoning those who were not passengers to leave the vessel.
Thus
was Olivia launched upon her new life, of the personages moving around which she had as yet had only two slight glimpses. Some eight years before. Colonel Falkland, returning to England to recover from a wound, had paid a visit to Florence to see his god-daughter, then just entering on girlhood. He stayed there for some weeks, living at an hotel in the neighbourhood of Mr. Mailland's apartments, and passing the greater part of each day with his friends; and visitors in those days to the picture-galleries in that city could not but
notice with interest the two sight-seers — the bronzed soldier-like man, who walked lame and with the aid of a stick, accompanied by the slight young girl; surely not his daughter, they thought, he seemed too courteous and deferential in manner, and she, though deferential in turn and striving to tend him with care, yet did not evince the familiarity of a child with a parent. The young lady acted as guide and interpreter, while her companion, whose life had been spent in camps or the dull routine of an Indian official, was never tired of pursuing his first acquaintanceship with art under such auspices; and when his young companion would bring him before some favourite masterpiece, his eyes would often turn involuntarily from the beautiful saint or madonna on canvas to the still more beautiful face, as he thought, lighted up with the rays of innocence and youthful enthusiasm.
In such companionship it seemed to Falkland as if a vision of his youth had come back again, unalloyed by the sadness and sorrow which marked that episode of earlier days. It is her mother come back to earth again, he said to himself; God grant she may be spared to grace it longer! Olivia and her aunt on their part had been prepared to receive their new acquaintance with warmth, as one holding the highest place in Mr. Cunningham's esteem. The greatest friend I have in the world, he wrote to his daughter, and the finest soldier in the Indian army. "And the most perfect gentleman," declared Olivia's aunt with enthusiasm, after he had paid his first visit. "I thought Indian officers would be mere soldiers, with uncouth manners; but our colonel might be a prince, although I hope he will dress better when he gets to England, and take to wearing shirt-collars. Poor man! he seems to suffer a good deal from his wound, although he never complains. I think on the mornings when he comes in late, and won't take any breakfast, that he must have had a bad night." As for Olivia, who had never before met any gentleman, young or old, on intimate terms, and from whose girlish mind the germs of any tenderer emotions were absent, her godfather seemed the impersonation of all that was noble and dignified and kind. She would fain have asked him about the wars in which he had taken part, as the little party sate together of an afternoon or evening at Mrs. Maitland's lodgings, or rested by the wayside after a drive to some spot of interest in the neighbourhood; but Falkland was not a man to talk much about himself, or indeed to talk much about anything, and the conversation usually turned upon the travels and experiences of the ladies, Mrs. Maitland taking the principal share, and the colonel merely throwing in an occasional question or remark by way of fuel to keep the fire alight. Or if Falkland and Olivia were alone, their talk would mostly revolve about Olivia's pursuits and half-formed thoughts; for her new friend, while reserved about himself, was yet of a sympathetic nature which invited the confidence of others, although there was no want of humour or even a certain playful yet subdued sarcasm in his conversation. And had Olivia been capable of such analysis, she might have discovered that while she had opened to her new companion all the recesses of her young mind, she knew little about him save that he was kind, gentle, and unselfish, bent chiefly on ministering to the happiness of those around him. That the young girl should have endowed him with every noble attribute was a natural consequence of her being at the age of hero-worship. Thus when at last Falkland was obliged to bring his visit to an end, and to continue his journey towards England, the parting left Olivia with a new ideal of perfection to add to the gallery of saints and madonnas enshrined in the respect of her fervent young heart; while Falkland, although no definite ideas for the future yet possessed him, went off with a new interest in life awakened. The leave-taking was provisional only; for the plan was discussed of a meeting in the autumn on the Lake of Como, when, said Falkland in his low voice, looking into her ingenuous young face with a kindly smile, as he held her hand at parting, his young mistress should go on with her course of instruction in Italian. But when autumn arrived, he was summoned to India to take up the important appointment which he now held; and the letter from the governor-general himself containing the offer, was a form of application for his services which a zealous public servant could not refuse to obey. So their next meeting was deferred till seven years later, when Olivia arrived at Mustaphabad, and the child-girl had developed into the beautiful young woman.
One other Indian acquaintance was made by Olivia, four years later, when
Rupert Kirke, a lieutenant in the Bengal army, arrived at Venice, where Mrs. Maitland and her niece were then staying, also, like Falkland, on his way home. Kirke was first cousin to Cunningham and his sister, and brought an introduction from the former. "A clever fellow," said the brother, in his letter, "and a first-rate soldier, with a great future before him, if he only keeps straight." And indeed Rupert Kirke looked every inch a soldier, and although not the least a lady's man, as the term is understood, was found to be excellent company; well-mannered, well-dressed, well-read, and apparently both good-natured and good-tempered. Olivia took a great liking to her new-found relative, while Kirke for his part did not conceal his gratification in her society, nor, although he made little pretence of caring for pictures or churches, his enjoyment of the sight-seeing excursions made under her guidance — excursions, however, in which Mrs. Maitland invariably joined, for Olivia was no longer a child. And after he had passed on to England, a correspondence was maintained between the two, when Kirke's clever letters came to be very interesting to the fair recipient. The elder lady, however, did not respond with warmth to the feelings of her companion about the letters and their writer, without being a keen judge of character, there appeared something of hardness and apparent unscrupulousness about Kirke which instinctively repelled her; and Olivia perceiving that her aunt did not share her admiration for him, did not seek to exchange confidences with her on the subject.
Kirke too, as well as Falkland, expressed the intention when leaving Italy of paying his relatives another visit, but was diverted from carrying it into effect by the outbreak of the Crimean war, at the first rumour of which he set out for Constantinople, seeking employment as a volunteer with the Turkish army. In this capacity he seemed on the road to enhance his military reputation, when he was unfortunately tempted to accept a commission in the Turkish contingent, and thereby found himself shelved from active service during the remainder of the war, on the termination of which he was obliged to return to India.
To Olivia Cunningham, sailing for India, the change of life was even more complete than to the other young ladies who were borne in the same steamer with her out of Southampton Docks. They, for the most part, though leaving friends and homes behind them, had been brought up to regard England as a temporary resting-place, and the voyage to India as the culminating point in their girlhood. To Olivia this departure for that country came as the result of a sudden resolve, made necessary by the breaking-up of European ties. Nor had she ever known the meaning of home as that term is understood. For her it had not meant sisters and brothers, and home interests, and a settled dwelling-place. Her home, so far as she had been able to realize the idea, had been a suite of apartments at Florence, succeeded by a suite of apartments at Rome or Naples; her friends had been passing visitors, acquaintances, foreigners and English, met and dropped; and although the relation between her aunt and herself had been based on mutual love and affection, her heart could not but whisper when the former announced her coming change of life, involving a new and absorbing interest of her own, apart from her niece, that after all there must be a difference between a mother and even the kindest aunt; henceforward, at any rate, their lives must run apart. Her father, on the other hand, had so far been a sort of shadowy providence watching over her from a distance, whose manifestations were mainly associated with punctual remittances, handsome presents, and brief, infrequent letters; and whose very form and features were as yet unknown.
CHAPTER 15
========================================
CHAPTER XV.
So
much as to the antecedents of the maiden who had arrived at Mustaphabad at the opening of our story, fancy free, although with two more or less dim ideals of the hero type in her imagination, looking with eagerness, but without much emotion, to the meeting with her father. As to Mr. Cunningham, he was a man too much occupied with official duties and the business of the hour to practise mental analysis; but probably his feelings on the occasion were of a mixed nature, compounded of a pleasurable excitement at the expectation of greeting his beautiful young daughter, and a sense of dismay at the prospect of this invasion of his leisure and enforced alteration of his old-bachelor habits.
The first meeting between two persons who, though nearly related, are yet virtually strangers, ignorant of each other's thoughts, feelings, and tastes, even of
each other's past life — whose intercourse has consisted in the exchange of brief and formal letters, and who have had, so far, nothing in common but the interest and the affection born of a sense of duty — must needs be attended with more or less of restraint and embarrassment; but Mr. Cunningham's anxiety lest the first greetings should partake of the nature of a scene was at once dispelled by the tact and good taste of his daughter; even the dust and fatigue of the journey could not do much to impair the charm of her appearance; and as she stepped out of the carriage at the roadside station, whither he had gone to meet her, as already described, her father found her even more graceful and beautiful than the forerunning accounts had led him to expect; and as Olivia, putting her arms round his neck, and kissing him, said, "So here we are at last! it has been such a long journey;" and then, turning to her maid who was alighting from the carriage behind, added, "Justine, this is my papa, who has come all this way to meet us," — Cunningham felt that the scene of which he had been in dread had been escaped. And when, soon after they had started in the camel-carriage for the last stage of her long journey, Olivia took his hand fondly, and leaning on his shoulder, said, "Papa, you look so young, it must seem quite odd to have a great big daughter like me," — her father, responding warmly to the embrace, began to feel that it was not so dreadful a thing- to have his daughter back after all. Arrived at Mustaphabad, Olivia expressed herself as delighted with the residency and all about it. The apartments which her aunt had at Florence were very large and fine, but they were nothing like the reception-rooms at the residency — while her own rooms were charming; every want and comfort had been thought of and provided, and her father was able to say with satisfaction that all this had been newly arranged for her especial benefit. She was equally pleased with the gardens; the leaves in midwinter, the multitude of squirrels and strange birds, even the familiar crows hopping about the edge of society with a view to pick up the stray crumbs left at the early breakfast taken in the veranda — all these novelties appeared full of interest for her, and her father experienced a sense of deep relief to find that his fears had been groundless lest she should prove to be a fine lady, spoilt for Indian life by foreign travel. A silent man him self, and restrained from expressing much interest in her former life by a sense of indignation at what he considered his sister's misalliance, his shyness was soon dissipated by his daughter's sympathetic ways as she thus rapidly identified herself with his interests and her new home. The commissioner soon found that the cheerful breakfast-table with his daughter opposite to him was a great improvement on the solitary meal, dawdled over with a book, to which he had been accustomed; still more when on his proposing to retire into another room before lighting his cigar afterwards, Olivia insisted on his smoking without rising. The obligatory dinner-parties which he used to dread seemed no longer the same dreary infliction. With his beautiful daughter acting as hostess, these solemn ordeals became comparatively lively; the guests no longer appeared to be insufferably bored. The morning ride too, with her for a companion, was in pleasing contrast to the lonely ramble on horseback to which he had been accustomed; he now got into the way of coming over from the court-house for luncheon, and even went the length of taking an occasional evening drive with Olivia in the new barouche which had arrived for her use, a mode of amusement which no one had ever seen him indulge in before.
Such, then, was Olivia's new home, which, if it offered nothing that was not in unison with her gentle disposition, yet was not of a sort to develop the warmer feelings of her nature. Her life had been so far a happy one; she had never known disappointment or sorrow, and so it continued to be; but it was a life of chastened affection and without sentiment; and at an age when most English girls in India are wives and mothers, the great romance of life had not even yet presented itself. With her, life had been made up of the study of art and the pursuit of amusement in sober fashion; the graces more than the affections had been cultivated; and so far the transfer to an Indian home had not caused a change. The relations between father and daughter were those of mutual respect and calm affection; and a looker-on might have said that Miss Cunningham's disposition was one in which the effect of amiable temper was enhanced by polished manner, rather than one of deep feeling. Once only did her father step out of his usual reserve; one day when
his daughter was in his room standing over him while he wrote a letter, he unlocked a drawer of his writing-table and took out a little picture-frame. "You may like to see that, my dear," he said, with face still turned downwards on his letter, and put it into her hands. It was the portrait of her mother, a poorly-executed affair in the stiff drawing of a native artist, but giving the impression of being a faithful likeness. "You are the very image of her," he said, after a short pause, in a low voice, while Olivia stood looking silently at the portrait, and then taking the case from her hands put it back again in the drawer. Olivia stooped down and kissed him on the forehead; he went on with his writing, and she left the room.
On one occasion only did her father show much animation on domestic matters. It happened a few days after she had arrived. They were just rising from the breakfast-table, and Justine, who always took that meal with them, had left the room, when Olivia said, "I have had a letter this morning from cousin Rupert, papa."
"Cousin Rupert!" said her father, with surprise; "what do you know of
cousin
Rupert?" laying emphasis on the cousin.
"Why, papa, of course I know him very well; don't you remember that he came to Venice on his way home, when my aunt and I were staying there, and that you wrote to us about him?"
"True," replied the father, "I had forgotten that for the moment; but things have altered since then. I certainly did not think he would venture to write to you after what has happened. But it is just like him."
"What has happened, papa? Poor fellow! he speaks of being in trouble, but does not say what is the cause of it."
"I would rather not go into the story, my dear. It is a long business, and not a very pleasant one, where relationship is concerned; but I have given up all communication with him. However it does not appear that he has acquainted you with the fact;" and Mr. Cunningham spoke in a sarcastic tone, unlike his usual manner.
"But, papa," said Olivia after a pause, "may there not be some misunderstanding which could be cleared up? So honourable a man as my cousin Rupert ——"
"You are begging the question, Olivia. It is because I don't think your cousin Rupert is an honourable man that our intimacy is broken off. You seem to think I have been hard on him," continued her father, seeing that Olivia looked unconvinced; "but I think you may give me credit for not having formed my opinion lightly. And if," he added in a lower voice, and turning away, "I am to suppose that he has taken advantage of your trustfulness to create a feeling for him which he knows I should disapprove, I should think still less favourably of him than I do already."
"Then, papa," said Olivia, looking down and blushing slightly, as he was moving from the room, "do you wish me not to send any answer to this?" and she held out the letter in her hand. "Will you not read it yourself, and see what he says?"
"No, my dear, thank you; I have no wish to see it, nor to dictate to you what you should do in regard to it. I am sure I may rely implicitly on your good sense and judgment in this as in all matters." And so saying her father left the room.
Thus appealed to, Olivia had virtually no choice, and her cousin's letter remained unanswered; but it was with a sad heart that she tried to reconcile her duty to her father's wishes with this neglect of her relative, and the struggle might have betrayed to herself the degree of interest with which he had inspired her. Till this time she had hardly been sensible how much of the pleasurable anticipations with which she had set out for India had been due to the prospect of meeting her cousin. And now to think that Rupert, who had always seemed in her young imagination the type of the noble, honourable soldier, should be as one whose name even was hardly to be spoken of! Some dreadful fault he must have committed for her father, usually so kind, to be thus sternly disposed towards him. Might it not be, however, that he had been misjudged? He said he had enemies who were bent on traducing his character. There must be some mistake! And yet her father spoke so positively, and he seemed kind and just in everything else. Thinking sadly over this, Olivia strove to stifle the romantic interest with which her cousin had inspired her; and what might readily have become a warmer feeling, if opportunity had been propitious, was now succeeded by a sentiment of pity.
The unanswered letter was as follows:
"
My Dear Cousin
, — It is so long since any letters have passed between us, that I ought not to be surprised if you did not recognize the handwriting of this one. Not that I judge by my own feelings in this respect, for I don't think I should fail to know yours wherever I might come across it; but we have both passed through many scenes since we met at Venice, and although my memory naturally clings to those pleasant hours, I could scarcely complain if you had forgotten them, especially as you were so much younger then — quite a girl, in fact! I suppose you must be a good deal altered — young people do change fast, don't they? — but at any rate it can be only in one direction. I wish I knew when there would be a chance of my being able to renew our acquaintance; but I have been in some trouble lately, and want to put myself right first with the world, especially with those whose good opinion I value most. It is a slanderous world, and I hope my cousin will not listen to the evil tales she may hear of one whose fault it has been to make enemies of those who can't bear that a younger man should understand his profession better than they do, and who values her good opinion before everything else. I hope you will meet our mutual friend Colonel Falkland before long. He at any rate is the soul of honour; and, standing well with him, who knows the facts of the case, I can afford to despise the slanders of those who repeat the scandals at second hand of things they know nothing about.
"This is an egotistical letter, but if I began writing about Olivia herself, I should never know when to stop asking questions. She will, I hope, anticipate my anxiety on this head, by giving me full particulars about herself, whenever she can find time to devote a few minutes to her old friend and relative.
"Pray give my remembrances to your father, if he cares to receive them, and believe me, my dear Olivia, always your affectionate cousin,
"Rupert Kirke
."
Then came the recognition at the ball, when Kirke wanted to make his way towards Olivia, and her father stopped him. To Olivia, witnessing the scene, there came up a reproach from her conscience that she was failing in her duty to her cousin; a sense of wrong done in thus abandoning him replaced for the moment the feeling, till then uppermost, that he was an unhappy man who was to be pitied I for his fall through some unspeakable crime, and she thought with a penitent heart that she had been cowardly in not asking Colonel Falkland's aid on her cousin's behalf. The latter had spoken of Falkland as the one friend who still stood by him, and believed in his innocence. To him she would appeal to set her unfortunate cousin right.
These reflections, and no response to the emotion which had stirred poor Yorke's heart to its depths, as the foolish young fellow had fondly imagined, occupied Olivia's thoughts before she fell asleep on the night of the ball; and the opportunity for carrying out her purpose soon arrived. She meant to speak to Falkland during the day, after her father had gone to his court; but the subject came up at breakfast, being opened by Falkland himself, who said, addressing the commissioner, just as Justine was quitting the room after despatching her share of the meal, "I forgot to mention that I had a letter from your cousin, Rupert Kirke, yesterday. He is coming to Mustaphabad immediately."
"He has arrived," replied Mr. Cunningham, coldly; "I thought you must have seen him at the ball last night."
Falkland looked surprised and as if waiting further explanation, while Olivia with changed colour sat expectant. Her father, after a slight pause, went on, "He left the room at my instance, I believe. I said to him that as I had declined to have any further intimacy or communication with him, it would be better that he should not renew his acquaintance with Olivia; and I must say so much for him that he had the good taste to act on my advice. But what brought him here I don't understand, knowing my sentiments.
"He comes to Mustaphabad to see the great man, while his camp is here, with a view to getting his case reopened."
"Did you advise the attempt, knowing the facts of his case?"
"I cannot say that I actually advised him to do so; he had let the proper time go by for the only appeal he ought to have insisted on. My own opinion would have been for letting time have its effect, now that it is too late to demand a court-martial; but I did not say anything to dissuade him from making this personal appeal at once."
"Oh, Colonel Falkland," broke in Olivia, eagerly, "do say that you do not think so hardly of my cousin as papa does. He values your good opinion above
everything, I know. It does seem a dreadful thing for the poor fellow to be cast off even by his friends in his troubles."
Falkland looked with surprise at the fair speaker, as she waited anxiously for his answer, for he did not know till then that she had thought at all about the matter. Then he said gravely, but with a kind smile —
"Your cousin has been very careless, no doubt, and there have been irregularities in this business which ought not to have occurred, and which no doubt bear a very unfavourable appearance; but I should think much worse of human nature than I do if I could believe that so gallant a soldier as Rupert Kirke were guilty of anything positively dishonourable."
"Oh, thank you for saying that!" cried Olivia, with fervour. "But why is it that he cannot get justice, poor fellow? Is there no way in which he can set himself right with the world?"
"A very sensible question, my dear, although you know nothing about the matter," observed her father, lighting his cigar, which a servant had just brought, and looking up at the ceiling as he leaned back in his chair. "Yes, he had the means of clearing himself, no doubt, by demanding a court-martial. If he was so highly honourable a man, and had nothing to fear from publicity, why did he not insist upon one being held upon him?"
"It was a grave error of judgment, no doubt," observed Falkland, slowly; "he should not have left the decision in the matter to the government; but having once made the mistake, it was perhaps too late to rectify it."
"Well," said the commissioner, rising from the table, "I am very glad that Olivia should have some grounds for taking a more charitable view of the matter than I am able to do, and I am quite willing both you and she should think I am unreasonably hard about it;" and so saying he went to his own room, adding to himself — "but I believe I know a good deal more about some points of the affair than even you do, Falkland."
"I am just going down to the cantonments," said Falkland to Olivia, when they were left alone, "and shall see your cousin this morning. In fact I am going there on purpose to see him. Shall I give him any message from you if he asks after you?"
"Thank you," she replied, warmly; "please say how heartily I grieve about this. But, no" she continued, correcting herself, "it would hardly be proper to send him messages while papa's house is closed against him, would it?" and she looked up in his face asking for a reply.
"You are right, Olivia, in this as in everything; but I may at least say for you that he has your full sympathy in his troubles."
"Oh yes, please say all that, and my heartfelt wishes for happier days for him, poor fellow!" The love that might have been had now turned all to pity.
"She has grace and beauty enough to furnish twenty women," said the colonel to himself, as he stepped into his carriage, "and withal is as guileless and simple as a child."
"I have seen Kirke to day," said Falkland in the evening, as the occupants of the residency were strolling in the garden, "and his Excellency gave him an interview, at which I was present. I am sorry to say the result was not satisfactory. The former holds out no prospect of reinstating him. Kirke returns tonight to his own station." No more passed on the subject.
This was the beginning of Falkland's brief and successful courtship. When, shortly after Olivia's arrival, he came to pay a promised visit of greeting to his godchild, his feelings were merely those of kindly interest, and curiosity to see how far she might have fulfilled the promise of her young girlhood. She, for her part, had merely an uncertain recollection of a person associated in her mind with middle age, whom she knew to be kind and good, and on whose friendship her father set a high value. Middle-aged he was, but the difference between them seemed no longer what it was when the slight girl in the broad-brimmed straw hat had led the grave soldier over the picture-galleries of Florence. Falkland was still grave and somewhat taciturn, although not without humour, but there was nothing of the old man about him. Erect, active, and soldier-like in habit, spare in diet, a student of books, and yet a busy public man, he had outlived the egotism of youth without acquiring the hardness of age, while his unselfishness and sympathy for others rendered his society fascinating alike to old and young. With natives he was as popular as with Europeans. His servants plundered him freely after the fashion of their kind, and would have followed him to death. Young men sought his advice in trouble. Children
found him out and took to him at once wherever he went. And after a two months' courtship, Olivia had accepted him for a husband.
The love was at first all on his side, and for some time he battled with the feeling, asking himself now and again if a weather-beaten old bachelor such as he, was fitted to make this beautiful and brilliant young creature happy; whether he would not be acting a wiser and less selfish part to withdraw from all competition for her hand, and leave her to find a mate among younger men. He had practised self-denial of the kind before and out-lived the effort. Should he be less unselfish now that he was grown old? Olivia, for her part, made no secret of her liking for him, but her affection did not take the form of that young love which comes at some time to most women. There were no restless misgivings, no anxious recallings of spoken words, no impatient waiting for the beloved one's return. In place of the tumultuous emotions that make up the first days of ordinary courtship — the doubts and hopes chasing each other through the heart — there was merely a feeling of confidence and admiration. His society made everything seem bright; whatever he said and did seemed best and wisest; with him she felt always more at ease than even with her father. Withal she could not but be affected by the unconscious flattery implied in the footing of equality on which so distinguished a man placed her. Yet all this was not love; and up to the time when Olivia and her father paid their visit to Falkland, shortly after his return to his own station, she had at most but dimly discerned the coming prospect; and when Falkland, one day when they were pacing his garden together, revealed an episode in his early life, telling her how in years gone by he had nourished a passionate affection for her mother, but, seeing that her heart was given elsewhere, had till now kept the secret of his love, so that not even the object of it had suspected its existence; and since she could not be his had remained un wedded, till now the daughter seemed the mother of his youth come back to life in almost more than her own sweetness and grace; and then, so much disclosed, asked, would that daughter intrust the keeping of her happiness to an old fellow like himself, young in heart, if old in face? — when Falkland spoke thus, the avowal took Olivia by surprise, although, had she analyzed her feelings, she must have known that their intimacy had gone beyond the bounds of mere friendship. But her answer was given without doubt or misgiving, for it seemed called from her by feelings of admiration and respect for him, mingled with the humility which marked her character. Placing her hand in his she turned on him a glance of her sweet face, and with a trustful smile said she would endeavour to deserve and return his love.
The commissioner, when the news was announced to him the same evening, was equally surprised and delighted, and it at once determined him to a resolve which he had been thinking of making for some days past — namely, to take leave to Europe at once, instead of trying to patch up his failing health by a visit to the hills. Nor would he hear of Olivia returning with him, as she proposed to do, indefinitely postponing the time of her marriage. "He was not so ill as to require nursing," he said; adding jocosely, "that his old friend had been a bachelor so long he could not afford to be kept waiting any longer." Truth to say, Cunningham rather preferred the idea of travelling home comfortably alone, stopping and moving as he pleased, with no one to consider but himself, to being accompanied even by his daughter, so that his determination involved less sacrifice than she supposed. Official changes are soon arranged in India when brought about by sickness. The same post which carried to Cunningham the sanction of government for leave to Europe on medical certificate, conveyed also the notification of Falkland's appointment to officiate as commissioner of Mustaphabad during his absence — an announcement which, while shattering the hopes Captain Sparrow had indulged in of obtaining the preferment, was received with general satisfaction by the official world, Falkland being universally recognized as the fittest man to succeed to this important and lucrative post. Cunningham and his daughter returned forthwith to Mustaphabad to make the needful arrangements for their respective changes in life — arrangements easily accomplished, for Falkland took over the residency furniture, carriage, and horses in block, and Miss Cunningham's ample outfit, still in its first freshness, rendered the need but small for a special bridal trousseau. The hot winds were now setting in apace, and it behoved Cunningham to start as soon as possible for Calcutta, if he would escape ill consequences
from the journey. Accordingly, one day in April, Falkland arrived at Mustaphabad and took up his quarters for the night at the house of his old friend Mackenzie Maxwell, the civil surgeon. The following morning he received charge of the commissioner's office, and the day was passed by the two friends at the court-house, in the matter-of-fact occupation of discussing the various business matters of the duty to be taken over, and signing the needful transfer papers. Towards sunset the wedding took place at the cantonment church, after which the newly-married couple and the guests invited to witness the ceremony, comprising all the residents of the station who had not gone off for the summer to the hills, repaired to Brigadier Polwheedle's house, the residency being too far off for the purpose, and there partook of ices and champagne, according to approved custom. At dusk, Mr. Cunningham set off on his long journey, the nawab's camel-carriage being again put in requisition for the first part of it; while Falkland and his bride drove home to the residency.
Thus was our sweet Olivia mated, and all her friends and acquaintances pronounced it a happy marriage on both sides. And indeed with a husband gallant, clever, and unselfish, gentle and kind in his ways, and whose devotion and solicitude were evinced in every word and action, how could the young wife help being happy? And must not she love dearly in return a husband so good and noble, a husband of whom any woman might be proud? And yet — had she asked herself, is this really love? it would have been difficult to frame a true reply. She was always happy in his presence; no doubts or regrets came up to disturb the first placid days of wedded life; but the well-known footstep sounding in the hall raised no responsive throb in Olivia's gentle bosom, nor did the hours of enforced absence pass with weary longings for return. Olivia had been accustomed to spend many hours of the day alone; and now with Justine for company — Justine who had returned to the residency after a short visit to Mrs. Polwheedle — she could still employ the long mornings happily till her husband returned from his duties at the court-house. At times, indeed, would come up unbidden questionings whether another fate might not have been hers, and a sorrowful regret that her cousin should be cast off and forsaken, undeserving of affection though he might be; but any gentle doubts of this sort were dismissed whenever they arose, as unworthy tenants of her thoughts.
To the residents of Mustaphabad feeling a pleasurable interest in or indifference about Miss Cunningham's marriage, it needs hardly be said that there was one exception. And, crushed down by the sudden destruction of the hopes which the foolish young fellow had allowed himself to build on utterly unsubstantial foundation, poor Yorke had not even the bitter consolation of feeling that he had been the victim of heartless coquetry. He could not carry his self-deception so far as to delude himself into the belief that Miss Cunningham had knowingly jilted him. He now saw plainly enough that her supposed encouragement of his love had existed only in his own imagination. Calling up over and over again each moment of the brief interviews which made up his acquaintance with Olivia, his sense of truthfulness and natural humility now brought him to see clearly enough that her feelings towards him had been free throughout from the emotions they caused in him, that her kind manner was dictated merely by a kind heart. There had been no eagerness, no shyness in Miss Cunningham's greetings. All the heart-flutterings had been on one side only. So much the young man had learnt of the language of love. And amid the despair he felt at the downfall of his hopes, he could not but admit to himself that the choice she had made was, after all, a more natural and proper one. What right had he, an obscure penniless subaltern, to aspire to gain that peerless creature for a wife? And for all his being a few years older, he felt as if he must always have looked up to her, and she down to him. Now Falkland was one whom every woman as well as every man must look up to; and her proper place would be as mistress of a great household. Fool that he was, to dream that she could ever come to share his lowly home! And yet, Falkland could never love her as he had loved her; she would never know as his wife the passionate devotion of which she deserved to be the object.
But from one disaster, at least, he had been spared. He had never, with all his folly, been fool enough to make his infatuation public. None of their acquaintance except Spragge could have a suspicion of it; and Jerry, though a hare-brained fellow, was a stanch friend who would not peach. Even Olivia herself did not know his secret. But no! surely,
he thought, she must have guessed his devotion, expressed in every way but speech. At least, however, he had been spared the humiliation of a confession rejected. And yet, he thought, it would have been sweeter to have been refused by her, than that she should never know my love, my love now to remain a secret forever.
But although the young man had strength of will to hide his grief, and unselfishness enough to feel no anger with the woman who had made such wild work with his heart, life for the time seemed utterly intolerable, especially while the coming wedding was the universal topic of conversation throughout the station. To listen to this was more than he could bear; and obtaining a month's leave, Yorke set out with his tent to pass the time in wandering about the district. The shooting-season and the time for camp-life was over; the harvest had been gathered in, leaving the bare sandy fields a desert; the hot winds blew clouds of stifling dust from morning to sunset, till his tent was like a furnace, and chairs, table, and bed, and even his food, were covered with the loose grit that filled the air; and the antelope which he pursued over the open plains were shy and wild; but he could at any rate tire himself out with walking; the nights in the open air were still cool, and sleep could be courted by sheer force of fatigue. Thus passed the weary time. Fain would he have taken leave for the whole hot season, and spent it wandering amid cool air and new scenes in the Himalayas; but with certain obligations already mentioned to be met shortly, he could not afford to give up the allowance of the two companies which he commanded. Hill-stations and pleasant places, he thought bitterly, were not meant for such as he. More fitting that he should nurse his sorrow in bodily discomfort.
But even in the solitude of his little camp he could not altogether escape contact with the outer world. The occasional messenger who came out from cantonments with his letters brought a newspaper one evening, and spelling through this after his frugal dinner, beginning with the advertisements, as is the wont of solitary travellers in the East, he came upon the following announcement: —
"April 15th, at Mustaphabad, by the Rev. J. Wharton, M.A., Colonel Robert Falkland, C.B., to Olivia, daughter of Archibald Cunningham, Esquire, Civil Service."
So, then, even the last despairing hope must be surrendered which had found a place in his foolish heart during these solitary days, that the whole story of the engagement might prove to be a horrid dream, or that something might happen at the last moment to break off the marriage. Life must now be faced under its new conditions, and it would be mere cowardice to shirk it any longer. So determining, the young man returned to cantonments next morning without waiting for the expiration of his leave, and resumed his place in the regiment.
CHAPTER 16
========================================
CHAPTER XVI.
For
poor Yorke, returning to Mustaphabad from his pilgrimage in camp, on learning that Olivia was actually married, the outward circumstances of the time were eminently calculated to foster the desire which possessed him to be miserable. He could not, indeed, but admit feeling a pleasurable sensation on finding a well-thatched roof over his head again, and doors to keep out the dust; but life at Mustaphabad was very dismal, and the prospect of living through the monotony of the long hot season seemed, in his temper of mind, utterly dreary. There was nothing to work for, nor work of any sort to be done. Drills were over, and everybody who could get away on any excuse had gone to the hills; some to remain there till October, others, including Spragge, on sixty days' leave — at the end of which time it might be hoped the first fall of rain would have restored parched nature and somewhat bated the heat. A few minutes passed in the sepoys' lines at daybreak sufficed to dispose of all regimental business, when such of the officers as were present with the regiment assembled to drink tea on the shady side of the mess bungalow, and discuss the extremely small points of interest offered by the local papers being chiefly tantalizing accounts of picnics and cricket-matches at the hill-stations, till the advancing sun came over the roof and drove them to the shelter of their respective houses. By this time it would be about seven o'clock. Then the doors are closed to keep out the rising, dust-laden wind, and the solitary occupant of his bungalow has to get through the long day as best he can, trying to read books
in which he feels no interest, perhaps trying to kill the hours by sleep, till the western wall of the station racquet-court throws enough shade over it to allow of the players assembling there. This, and the plunge in the station bath, which lies handy to the court, and whither the players' servants repair at sunset with their masters' changes of raiment, is the only part of the day worth living for, the evening mess-dinner being an ordeal to be dreaded, for by this time the different members of the mess have completely thrashed out each other's ideas. "Is this life," thought Yorke, riding slowly to the mess through the dusk, one evening after his bath — "is this life to last forever? Each day so long to spend, so short to look back upon! And this is called a military career! Even study is impossible. I can read no longer for reading's sake — shall I never find any useful work to do?" Nor was his frame of mind made more contented by a letter received that day with the English mail, distributed to the station during the afternoon, which his servant had brought down to the bath-house, and which Yorke read as he dressed after his plunge. It was from his only sister, who lived with his mother in the small but favourite cathedral town of Wiltonbury, and, as usual, was full of the exciting news which such a residence was calculated to supply; the most important item being the arrival of a new incumbent to a proprietary chapel of the town, whom both mother and daughter had met at a tea-party on the previous evening. "He is such a beautiful preacher," said the fair writer, "and evidently a real Christian, which is more than can be said for all the clergyman of the Close, whose service, as Mr. Morgan says, is so much of the senses and so little from the heart. But he prays that his ministrations here may be blessed for good, in the whole place as well as in his parish. He expressed great interest about you, and hoped your profession would not dispose you to worldly-mindedness, but said that temptation was often a means of grace. Indeed, he told us a most interesting anecdote after tea about a young officer, belonging to the Indian army I think he said, who drank himself to death, leaving a wife and six children quite penniless, but whose deathbed was beautifully touching — so much repentance, and such perfect trust and thankfulness to fall asleep. And oh! my dearest Arthur, when I think of all the temptations you are exposed to in the dissipations of an Indian cantonment, with its gaiety and elegant mess-rooms and billiard-tables and smoking, I often tremble lest they should be too great a burden for you to bear. But, as Mr. Morgan says, we must put our trust above, and all will be for the best.
"We have had a sad example here, which brought you very forcibly to our minds. Young Johnny Mills, who had such a splendid opening in the county bank, has become dreadfully dissipated; they say he is to be seen standing about the Red Lion at all hours of the night, and then late in coming in to business in the morning, till the manager has threatened to dismiss him if he is late again. Poor Mrs. Mills and the girls are in dreadful trouble about him. As mamma truly says, it seems quite providential now he was not allowed to carry his attentions further. And now, my ever dearest brother, with heartfelt prayers for your happiness in this world and the next, ever your fondly attached sister,
"
Rebecca Yorke
,"
"This may be a scene of trial, if not exactly of temptation," thought the young man, with a bitter smile, as he looked round the mess-table after the cloth was removed, and surveyed the company — Major Dumble the commandant in the centre, with his hookah, last relic of a bygone age, and his tumbler of cold brandy-and-water, the rest with cigars, and the black bottles before them containing such portions of beer as remained over from dinner; Brevet-Major Passey, who was living
en garçon
at the mess, his wife and daughter having gone to the hills; Grumbull, the doctor, doing likewise in the absence of his family in England, with a guest seated by him, a young medical friend, who was passing through Mustaphabad on his way to join his regiment; Captain Braddon puffing his cigar, grim and silent; Braywell, the only other lieutenant present; Ensign Dobson, and little Johnny Raugh, the junior of his grade, who had just been appointed to the regiment, and was greatly impressed with a sense of the fastness of military life as typified by the 76th N. I. The servants had left the room, dimly lighted by oil-wicks in glasses attached to the bare whitewashed walls, and the punkah, pulled by a sleepy man in the veranda, flapped languidly to and fro.
"Well, boys," said Major Dumble, a
large, stout man, looking round the table with an amiably stupid expression on his face, "what's the news to-day?"
"Can't expect any news, major," replied Dobson, "in this awful dull place. Dullest station ever was in, I think," added the young man yawning — "wish the hot weather were over."
"Well, I rather like the hot weather," observed the major, blandly; "there's no drill, for one thing." Here a languid smile possessed the company, all except the visitor, who did not take the joke; and the major recovering himself added, "At least drill in moderation is very well, but I must say I enjoy the long days; plenty of time to one's self, and no interruptions. I like to have time to turn round in."
As Major Dumble was known not to possess a book in his house, save the Bengal Army List and the Military Pay Code, and was not burdened with correspondence of any sort, his day in his bungalow must unquestionably have afforded him ample time wherein to perform that operation. But it was generally understood that the worthy commandant of the 76th distributed his time pretty equally between refreshing naps, discussing bazaar gossip with his servants, and feeding his poultry, the major being a connoisseur in fowls, and supplying his surplus stock in a friendly way to the mess at cost price.
"Oh, it's all very well for you, major," continued Dobson, "who have all the business of the regiment to look after, but I'm blessed if I can get half-an-hour's work a day out of my company. These hot-weather days are disgustingly long; I almost wish sometimes there was a little drill going on, to kill time and give a fellow a little exercise."
"You should play racquets," observed Braddon; "you are sure to go to the bad if you eat three heavy meals a day and don't take exercise."
"Oh, I can't be bothered with racquets," replied the ensign; "it's too much trouble, and makes one so hot."
"Ah yes, these military gentlemen find all play and no work a little tedious," said Grumbull to his friend; "but we medical officers have to work away just the same all the year round; hot weather or cold, no holiday for us."
"How many men have you got in hospital now, doctor?" asked Braddon.
"It isn't the number of patients that make the work," replied Grumbull; "it's the system. One must visit the hospital morning and evening, and all the routine has to be gone through just the same whether the hospital is full or empty; returns to be filled in, and stores to be counted, and all the rest of it. They turn us medical officers into regular clerks," he continued to his friend, "as you will find when you come to have medical charge of a regiment."
"Yes, it is quite like cutting grindstones with razors," said Braddon; "you ought to have a secretary, at the least, to keep the medical accounts of the regiment, so that you might give your undivided attention to your five sick patients. That is the number in to-day's return, I think."
"You are very satirical, as usual," replied Grumbull; "but I think when a man has had a scientific education and taken a university degree, he might be trusted to issue an ounce of quinine, or a scrap of lint, without filling up a return in duplicate."
"Ah, I can't go with you there, doctor," broke in the major; "where you have stores, there you must in course have returns, — else how are you to audit? As old Counter, the late auditor-general, a precious long-headed fellow he was too, used always to say, 'Show me a voucher, and then I shall know where I am.' Why, bless me!" continued Dumble, with enthusiasm, as reminiscences of his former occupation crowded upon his memory, "when I was in the pay department, I have had as many as five hundred vouchers passing through my office in a week; and never an arrear of any sort, either, everything audited up to within fifteen months of date."
"So you are a university man," said the young guest of the evening to his host; "Edinburgh, I suppose?"
"No, Aberdeen."
"Ah, well, no doubt, a university degree is a very nice thing — it gives a stamp to a man, so to speak; but I think nowadays the rising men in the profession go more to the London hospitals, and come out as M.R.C.S. That is what I did myself. There are so many openings, you see, for a fellow who makes a name for himself in the hospitals — dresserships and clinical lectureships, and what not. Both Fiston and Thelusson wanted me to stop on in London," added the young man, modestly, "but I was anxious to see something of the world, and to investigate some forms of tropical diseases, so I look an assistant-surgeonship. I am very anxious myself to get some experience of cholera, for example.
Where is one likely to meet with it, do you think?"
"You need be under no anxiety on that score, sir," said Braddon; "you will find it very accommodating and ready to wait upon you wherever you are."
"By the way," said the young medical man, turning to his host, "have you read O'Hara on cholera? Just out, you know, published by Churchill & Co."
"No, I haven't," replied Grumbull; "and, what is more, I don't mean to. I don't want O'Hara or anybody else to tell me what cholera is, — me a man who has been twenty years in the country."
"I suppose, then, you go in for the germ theory?"
"No, I don't believe in germs (Dr. Grumbull pronounced this word as if it were spelt jurrums), or any new-fangled stuff of the sort. Look here, my good sir," he continued, bringing down his hand with a thump on the mess-table, "you have cholera on the plains of Bengal, and you have cholera on the highlands of Thibet, fifteen thousand feet above the sea, haven't you? Well, then, I say, isn't the thing as plain as a pike-staff? It's the variations of temperature that cause cholera, of course, and I don't care what anybody else says."
"The cholera is an awful thing when it breaks out in a European regiment," observed the major after a pause.
"Have you ever served with a European regiment, sir?" asked the stranger, turning towards him.
"No, sir; and never wish to. The European soldier is a queer customer sometimes, I can tell you. I heard once of a man in the old Diehards; the captain of his company was finding fault with him because his knapsack wasn't straight, and he turned round and bawled out, 'I haven't got eyes in the back of my head, have I?' Now no sepoy would have answered his officer like that."
"Ah, and do you remember that story of Poynings and the European gunner at the siege of Bhurtpore?" said Major Passey, a small, weatherbeaten old fellow, with a red face and white hair, who had remained silent up to this point.
"Ah, what a fine man Poynings was!" continued the commandant. "He exchanged out of the 19th Lancers when they went home in 1832, into the 23d Dragoons."
"No, the 22d Dragoons," said Passey, in correction; "the 23d went home in '33."
"Ay, so it was. Poynings was commanding the 22d at Cawnpore, when we were there in 1834. He would sit at mess over the bottle till gunfire the next morning, and then his charger would be brought to the door, and he would ride off to parade as steady and fresh as if he had been in bed all night. He was a man of very good family, too, was Poynings; he had a cousin an Irish peer. Ah, those were fine times! wheat was down then to forty seers, and you might keep a horse for five rupees a month. The 22d lost a hundred men from cholera that very
year."
"Ah, what a splendid corps the 22d was!" observed Passey, after a pause, by way of keeping up the conversation.
"It was indeed," said the major. "Cawnpore was a fine station in those days for a young fellow to learn his duty at; brigade-parades and grand guard-mounting regularly once a month, all through the cold weather. Old General Mudge was commanding the division. He died in 1836. It was thought he would have got into council if he had lived."
"Wasn't it Mudge who had the row with Poynings, because he inspected the 22d in his carriage?" asked Passey.
"Yes, to be sure, so it was. Mudge couldn't ride, you know; he had been in the stud department for a great many years; but he spoke the language like a native. Only fancy, he was a regimental field-officer when Lord Lake was commander-in-chief."
"There's a fine picture of Lord Lake at Government House in Calcutta," observed Passey.
"Ay, and of Warren Hastings too," continued the major. "When I entered the service, the colonel of my battalion (we were the second battalion of the 38th then) had known Warren Hastings. He remembers seeing him arrive at Calcutta from up country, and get out of his palanquin, with silk stockings on, and buckles on his shoes. Only think, silk stockings and buckles in a palanquin! Dear me! what changes one sees in dress, to be sure!" continued Dumble, philosophically. "How do you like the new tunic, Passey?"
"Have there been many changes in the uniform of the army since you entered the service, major?" asked young Raugh, to whom the subject of dress was one at present of leading interest, and to whom it had been a blow and disappointment, on joining the regiment a few weeks before, to find that the officers
had already taken to white jackets, and that there would be no opportunity of airing his brand-new scarlet coatee till the next cold season.
"Changes! I believe you," replied his commanding officer. "Why, when I went to wait on the Marquess of Hastings on first arrival, with a letter of introduction — it was from Hambrowe & Co., the great wine-merchants — they supplied his lordship; my father used to get his wine from them too, and very good wine it was; — well, when I waited on Lord Hastings, he was sitting at his desk in full uniform, with his cocked-hat on the table before him — and that in the middle of the hot weather too!"
"Ay," said Passey, in support of this statement, "I can remember, too, when I came out — that was in Lord Amherst's time — the adjutant-general used to sit in his office in uniform all day."
"Oh yes! Lord Amherst, he was a good governor-general enough," said Dumble, a little testily, as if impatient at this interruption to the logical sequence of his thoughts; "but he wasn't nearly so fine-looking a man as Lord Hastings. Lord Hastings was commander-in-chief as well as governor-general, and commanded in the Mahratta campaigns. Then there was Lady Hastings too. She was a countess in her own right."
"Talking of campaigns," broke in Braywell, whose comparative youth had prevented him from taking a share in these interesting reminiscences, and who had been maintaining his enforced silence with visible impatience, — "talking of campaigns — it is just a year since we finished the Sontalia campaign."
"Was your regiment in the Sontalia campaign, sir?" asked the young surgeon.
"No, not the regiment," replied Braywell; "I was there on the staff — baggage-master to the right column; and precious little I have got for it either. Here I am back again on regimental duty; might just as well have never gone down there. Yes; this was the very day of the battle of Deoghur, and a very hot affair it was."
"Must have been," observed Braddon, "with the hot winds blowing."
"You're such a fellow for chaff, Braddon," remonstrated Braywell; "you know what I mean perfectly well. I was on the right of the line, with the brigadier; there was a detachment of the 84th N.I. there, and things were looking awkward. The jungle was so thick you couldn't see twenty yards ahead of you, and the arrows and spears were coming in like paint. I never saw anything like it. Our fellows were at it for about four hours, and must have fired full fifty rounds or more before the enemy gave way. They were there in swarms, but not a man showing himself, the crafty villains — most determined fellows — and their arrows coming in like paint ——"
"Was anybody in the gallant detachment killed or wounded?" asked Braddon.
"Their arrows coming in like paint ——" continued Braywell, — too intent on the pleasure of securing a new listener to heed the interruption.
"Oh, confound it! I can't stand this," said Braddon in a low voice to Yorke — "we have had this fifty times before; come along and have a cigar outside." So saying, he rose from the mess-table, and Yorke followed, leaving the two veterans dozing over their brandy-and-water — young Raugh sitting opposite to Braywell, with wide-open eyes, listening with unabated attention to the oft-told tale of the battle of Deoghur, while the young assistant surgeon, leaning back in his chair, and running his hand through his fine head of hair, was also attending with as much interest as could reasonably be expected from a scientific mind occupied for the moment with mere military topics.
CHAPTER 17
========================================
CHAPTER XVII.
Yorke
had of late become somewhat intimate with Braddon. The latter was a disappointed man, remanded not long before from the headquarter staff to regimental duty; and his temper, soured by the misfortune which had marred a career of promise, rather jumped with the young man's present frame of mind. Yorke indeed was the only man in the regiment who saw anything of Braddon except on duty or at the mess, and he would often pass some of his long hours in the other's bungalow, in desultory talk or reading the books with which Braddon was well supplied. It was, however, only during the day that they met, Braddon usually passed his evenings alone, and although no one in the regiment had ever seen him the worse for drink, rumour had it that the vice which it was supposed had been the cause of his downfall was becoming a confirmed habit, and that he seldom went sober to bed. On the present occasion, however, Braddon proposed a move into his compound, where on the gravel space before
the veranda were a couple of lounging-chairs and a low table with bottles and glasses, and, seating himself, invited his companion to take a cheroot and glass of brandy-and-water. Yorke accepted the cheroot, but declined the other refreshment, and the two began talking.
The conversation turned naturally on late events and the temper of the army, for already there had been hangings and disbandments. At the mess-table the subject was avoided, because some of the servants understood English; but in private little else was now talked about.
"Braywell, after all, is no worse than others, with his tomfoolery about hot fire, and gallant conduct, and the rest of it," observed Braddon, at one point of the conversation. "It is merely what he has been brought up to. Look at the way in which Lord Ellenborough belauded the troops which did not surrender in Afghanistan or had the pluck to face the enemy in the open. That wasn't the way old Lord Lake and the duke went to work. We have gone on pampering and buttering up the sepoy whenever he does his duty, till really one might suppose it was the recognized business of a soldier to run away, and quite a surprising and creditable circumstance if he does not. Every little skirmish, too, nowadays is magnified into a great battle."
"Still we had our real battles too," said Yorke. "Surely there has seldom been harder fighting anywhere than in the Sutlej campaign."
"But the sepoys did run away then; at any rate a great many of them did, and a good many Europeans too. For the matter of that Europeans know how to run away very freely sometimes, but then there is this difference between them and the sepoy, that they are always thoroughly ashamed of themselves, and ready to come up to the scratch again fresher than ever; but at the end of the first day at Ferozshah the sepoys had got the heart pretty well taken out of them; Lord Hardinge clubbed what European troops he could get together next morning and went in at the enemy; and if that handful of men had not been game, we should have been driven out of the country. There were no reserves to speak of."
"And yet the sepoys have fought well at times."
"Yes, and will fight well again if kept in order. The sepoy is a brave fellow enough — no man faces death, as a rule, with more indifference when he is in the humour; but you can't expect mercenary troops to fight properly without discipline."
"But don't you think the discipline, on the whole, is good? Where would you find less crime in an army, or better conduct?"
"Well, they don't drink," said Braddon, bitterly, "and so have no cause to misbehave; and they are obedient enough, no doubt, so long as you don't give them any orders."
"How not give them any orders?"
"Oh, of course, so long as you give them any customary orders, which they think proper, they will obey you readily enough. If a parade is ordered for tomorrow morning, I daresay you will find all the men there. But tell them to do anything they don't like — to intrench themselves on a campaign, for example, or to use a new kind of cartridge, or to march to a bad part of the country out of their turn — and then see the sort of fashion in which you are obeyed. It wasn't so long ago that our own noble regiment refused to go on a campaign for the precious reason that they had just come off a campaign. Or meet the sepoy of another regiment off duty, and see if he treats you as a soldier should behave to an officer. No; discipline has departed from the Bengal army this long time, and small blame to it. Everybody in office, from the governor-general and commander-in-chief downwards, has been doing his best for years past to undermine it, taking away power from commanding officers in one direction, and adding privileges in the other, till there is nothing left to hang any discipline upon, and the wonder is that the machine keeps together at all. Your commanding officers are mere dummies to take charge of the parade and draw a certain amount of pay; just as well perhaps that they are no more, considering the sort of creatures some of them are. Poor old Dumble, for example, isn't exactly the sort of man to put much responsibility upon."
"But how is it that the authorities are blind to this state of things, if it is so bad as you make out?"
"They are not blind; at any rate, not all of them. Lord Hardinge, who was a thorough soldier if ever there was one, saw plainly enough what a rotten state we were in. One day after the battle of Sobraon, when the staff were talking rather freely about the behaviour of certain regiments, he turned round and said — I was about headquarters, then, you know: 'I can tell you what, gentlemen,
the next enemy you will have to fight is your own army.' And his words will come true, if we don't look out."
"Then do you really think there is any danger of the whole army ever turning against us?"
"I don't know exactly about that. The native officers and the old soldiers will hardly be such fools as to throw up their pensions, and then the Hindoos and Mussulmans wouldn't care to row in the same boat, so that there are a good many chances in our favour; but I confess I should like to see every native regiment cut down to eight hundred strong, and half-a-dozen more European regiments ordered out."
Yorke noticed that while they were talking, Braddon had more than once filled his glass. This was the first time he had been witness to the habit in which it was suspected by the regiment that the latter indulged, and he would fain have interposed with a word of caution and remonstrance. But a sense of delicacy restrained him at first, and now his companion was beyond remonstrance. His voice had become thicker; and when, a few minutes later, Yorke got up to go away, he was becoming indistinct in his utterance and loud in his denunciation of the authorities; and the young man went off to his bungalow sad at heart at witnessing the falling away of his brother officer, good soldier and clever man as he was, and with the latter's forebodings about the future of the army still in his ears. Braddon and Falkland had used almost the same words. Was, then, the confidence he had expressed to Miss Cunningham in the loyally of his regiment a mere foolish infatuation, as baseless as his dream of gaining her love?
CHAPTER 18
========================================
CHAPTER XVIII.
A few
more idle days were passed in the torpor of heat and false security, before the great storm broke out, engulfing at once some of the small European communities in India scattered over the country, surprised and defenceless, while others for a time endured only the bitterness of expectation. Rumours of the outbreak at Meerut and Delhi reached Mustaphabad in a few hours, and to the horror and indignation aroused by the first news, there soon followed unspeakable dread and suspense as the tidings came from one station after another of treacherous risings and murder and anarchy, and those who had so far escaped felt that the same catastrophe might at any moment overtake themselves. Here, as in every place where there were both white and black troops, the gravity of the situation was vastly aggravated by the difficulty of framing a plan of action; for to make preparations might have been to accelerate the outbreak. And the position of the officers of the native regiments was peculiarly embarrassing; for while they seemed to be regarded by the rest of the community as if in some way unwittingly the cause of the calamity, and shared for the time the odium aroused by the misconduct of the sepoys in other places, they for their part were not only precluded by their position from taking the precautions which the other European residents made, against a treacherous outbreak of their men — they would also certainly be the first victims. Right bravely, however, they faced the danger, professing unlimited confidence in their men — a confidence which, whatever they felt, they exemplified by sending their beds down to the parade-ground, and sleeping there unarmed in front of the men's huts on the edge of the plain, the armed sentries marching to and fro beside them. And at times, indeed, when talking to the men — men who had never before been otherwise than docile and respectful, it seemed impossible to doubt their protestations of loyalty, their declarations even of detestation at the conduct of the regiments which had mutinied, and their professions of eagerness to be led against the common enemy. And yet a change had come over them which could not but be observed — a certain sullenness of manner, a look as if of suspicion that they were suspected, which the officers in vain endeavoured by their own appearance of confidence to ignore. Nobody else, however, expressed any confidence in the sepoys, or hesitated to avow the expectation that sooner or later they would follow the example of the mutineers elsewhere; and the officers of the hussars and European artillery were all for marching down on the native lines and disarming the sepoys by force, with sabres and grape
ad libitum
if the latter should show their teeth; and Brigadier Polwheedle, who was ready to hear advice from every one who offered it, although quite unable to make up his mind about it, received numerous proposals to this effect from the self-constituted critics of the situation; for military etiquette had disappeared for a time under the first excitement of the crisis, and people walked in and out of the brigade-office as
if it were a tap-room. The brigadier, however, at this juncture was disabled from active duty by a fall from his grey cob, which had happened three weeks before, causing fracture of the small bone of the leg; and the command of the station practically devolved on Colonel Tartar. Tartar was a man of decision; but while the European force at his disposal consisted only of cavalry and artillery, he was desirous of avoiding extreme measures which might precipitate an outbreak of so large a body of sepoys. In ten days a regiment of European infantry and another of Ghoorkhas, with a supply of ammunition, would arrive at Mustaphabad, when it was his intention to disarm the native regiments, and then, having made his rear safe, to march with the remainder of his force to what was now the seat of war. Meanwhile the needful measures were hurried on for taking the field, and all the soldiers' wives and children were sent off in bullock-carts to the hills, under escort of the few European soldiers who were not fit for active service, and a detachment of the nawab's troops, who were believed to be stanch. Most of the married officers took advantage of the opportunity to send off their families also.
During this time the outward aspect of the place remained unchanged; during the day-time the roads bore the same deserted aspect as usual, and the fierce hot wind had them to itself, while at sunset the residents took their customary ride or drive along the mall. But in the European barracks the guards were strengthened, and strong pickets were always on duty, while the hussars and artillery horses stood saddled in their stables. The miscellaneous European residents were all privately warned to make their way to the hussar barracks if any firing should be heard; and a cordon of observation was drawn between the European and native lines, the officers of the native regiments remaining alone with their suspected sepoys. Their tents were pitched with those of the men on the regimental parades, for the native regiments had been formally warned that they were to make part of the field force, and the officers had sent their baggage to the camp and slept there every night; but they still spent the days in their bungalows to avoid the fierce May heat, and dined in their respective mess-houses — for even among men expecting to be murdered, the formalities of life must be gone through. Ten weary, dreary days. In the European quarters there was plenty to be done, for the camp-equipment of Europeans is multifarious, and hot-weather campaigning-clothes had to be improvised; but the sepoy's wants are simple and few, and after the tents were duly pitched and camels provided for carrying them, there was little remaining to be done; and the days passed slowly enough for the officers in their bungalows, now looking cheerless and dismantled, or in the mess-house discussing such items of news as found their way to Mustaphabad despite interrupted posts and telegraphs — news ever growing blacker; simulating a confidence which no one felt, talking over the details of the duty which they professed to have before them, of leading their men against the mutineers, to wipe out the stain which rested on the army; half hoping that their particular regiments might prove an exception to the rule of treachery then paramount, half expecting to be shot down suddenly, unarmed and defenceless.
"They have got a capital opportunity for polishing us off this evening, if they want to do so," observed Spragge, cheerily, who with all other officers on leave had rejoined at the first tidings of the outbreak, as they sat down to mess-dinner on the first evening of his return; "half-a-dozen of them could do the trick nicely, if they feel so disposed; "but the joke fell somewhat flat — this particular fate of a massacre while at the mess-table having already befallen the officers of another regiment down country; the suggestion was considered ill-timed in the presence of the servants, who might understand what was said; moreover, the mess-orderly sepoy was standing in the veranda — and the dinner passed off without any further attempt at jests or badinage.
One morning, after more than a week had dragged itself out in this fashion, Yorke received orders to march to the residency with two companies to strengthen the guard there. In the state of combined suspense and monotony which made up life at that time, a movement of any sort was an acceptable change. Everything being ready for marching, the detachment started half-an-hour after the order was received; and Yorke, as he mounted his horse to follow it, was for the moment in good spirits, although he could not but be struck by the change in the European mode of life made in the last ten days, as typified by the manner of his march. When last he set out for the residency, the authorities had been careful to choose the cool of the
evening for the march. Now it was made in the full glare of a May sun at mid-day. And as he rode along in the rear of the detachment, and to windward of it to keep out of the dust made by the men's feet, it came upon him suddenly that he had been untrue to the memory of his love. During the last ten days his thoughts had scarcely once been occupied with the past; was this, he thought bitterly, to be the end of the great passion he had been hugging to his breast, and was it fear or excitement that had deadened his senses? But now, as he drew near the house, his old feelings came up again. Yet no! not the same feelings. To cherish a common sort of love for the woman who could now never be his, would, he felt, be desecration. She must now be, it seemed to him, as a saint to be worshipped rather than a woman to be loved, and his heart bounded at the thought that he might now have the opportunity of proving his devotion in a way that could give no offence to the purest mind. Yet he did not even know if she were still at the residency, or whether she had been sent away with the other ladies to a place of safety in the hills.
The detachment marched into the residency enclosure, and halted in the same place where Yorke had encamped before — the very spot of which, only three months ago, Olivia had made the pretty sketch, and when Yorke, standing by her while she plied her brush, had bewailed the monotony of military life, audits want of reality. No want of reality now, at any rate, and the only monotony that of suspense. Letting the detachment pile arms and break off, to take shelter under the trees which skirted the park wall, Yorke walked across the grounds to the house, under the portico of which divers scarlet-coated attendants were lounging as usual, and followed the man who went forward to announce him into the house. As he entered the large drawing-room, Mrs. Falkland came out of a side room and advanced to meet him. It was just here that they parted the last time he saw her, when he went off, credulous young fool, burning with love and elate with hope, to be crushed to the earth presently with shame and despair. But three short months had passed, and now hope and love had been crushed together — and yet not love. Yorke felt in his heart that his love for the beautiful woman before him was as deep as ever; but he felt also with honest pride that it was love of a different kind; that for the future devotion must be given without acknowledgment or return; and, mingled with his anxiety at seeing her thus exposed to the threatening danger, was a feeling of elation that he might be near to share, perhaps even to shield her from it.
As Olivia came forward, Yorke noticed that she looked paler, and the rich colour and tasteful ornaments in which she had been wont to attire herself were replaced by a simple white muslin dress trimmed with a little blue ribbon, in keeping with the weather, but which made her, he thought, look taller and thinner. But he thought her also lovelier than ever.
Olivia blushed slightly, as she came forward and held out her hand. Did she at all guess what wild work she had made with his poor heart? "You have come with the troops, I suppose?" she said; "my husband is very anxious to see you; will you step into his room?" And she led the way to Colonel Falkland's office.
Falkland was writing at a table in his shirt-sleeves, for the heat was intense, and the punkah was not at work. Hot though it was, Yorke thought he would never have sat down in that guise before Mrs. Falkland, if she had been his wife. The colonel held out his hand to greet him, but without rising. He wanted Yorke and his detachment, he said, to strengthen the residency guard. The greater part of the treasure had been sent into cantonments for the use of the field force about to march, but there were still about three lakhs of rupees — a considerable temptation to the roughs in the city, who were quite ready to rise on the smallest provocation, but would keep quiet so long as the troops on guard remained stanch, which they would probably do, so long as the main body at headquarters stuck by their colours. What did Yorke think about his own regiment?
Yorke said that they were well-conducted and steady enough so far, but he could not help admitting that a change had come over the manner of the sepoys, as in men who knew they were suspected, and deserved to be, after the treachery displayed at other places. Still, foolish though it might be, he could not help believing that they would prove an exception to the wholesale treachery everywhere manifested.
"Well, everything depends on General Slough; he has been sent down to take
command, and arrived in cantonments this morning. And yet not everything. A blockhead may easily precipitate matters, but a Hannibal could not keep the sepoys from mutiny if they are bent on it. I am going down to cantonments presently to see what plans are determined upon, as soon as I can get my letter-writing done. This is the misfortune for us civilians," continued the colonel, looking wearily over his table covered with papers;" we have to be writing when we ought to be acting. I have been sitting here quill-driving ever since day break, and have not got through half the work yet. There are fifty things still to be done for the troops, and expresses to be sent in all directions."
"Cannot I act as your private secretary, sir?" asked Yorke; "I shall only be too happy to be of use."
"Thank you very much, my dear boy, but I think you should keep by the treasury with your men just for the present. Here is my private secretary," he added, taking his wife's right hand, as she stood beside him, with his left, without looking up; and as Yorke quitted the room to join his detachment, he thought to himself that he could never have ventured to make her his drudge, or to holdout a left hand in that way. With him she must always have been as one superior, to be treated like a queen; and he could not but admit in his state of self-abasement that Falkland was the more fitting husband for such a bride. Yet what a honeymoon for her!
Passing out of the portico, Yorke met Captain Sparrow coming on foot towards the house, and they stopped to exchange a few words, standing on the brown surface, which at that season did duty for grass, in the full blaze of the mid-day sun. Sparrow was pale and anxious and excited, nor had the arrival of the detachment tended to reassure him. It was perfect madness of Falkland, he exclaimed, to send for more sepoys, and to think of holding the place by force, instead of giving up the residency and falling back on cantonments. The troops were to march eastward that night, and then the city would rise, and they would all be murdered, as sure as fate. "He won't even agree," continued the captain, "to my giving up my own house and joining him in the residency, lest it should seem to invite a rising; and for the same reason he wouldn't send Mrs. Falkland away. It's all very well to show a bold front, but to my mind a few reasonable precautions would be better. I don't fancy being caught like a rat in a trap. All this pretence of confidence where you don't feel any seems simple infatuation. But it is no good remonstrating with him." And so saying. Sparrow passed on into the house.
The court-house, which Yorke had to guard — a long one-storeyed building with an arched veranda on each side, situated on the open plain a short distance beyond the residency enclosure-wall — was not this day the scene of much business, the commissioner being absent in the cantonments, and Captain Sparrow too busy, as he said, to attend, so that only the East-Indian assistant was present to conduct the treasury routine; and the suitors who, having come out from the city, seemed disposed as they were there to make a day of it, sat squatting for the most part under the clumps of trees which surrounded the building, where also their ponies and the bullocks which had conveyed their carriages were tethered, discussing like the rest of the world the news of the day, momentous enough in itself, and not likely to have lost in importance from being retailed through the country by word of mouth; and Yorke fancied that they looked curiously at him as he passed by at the head of his men, as if wondering languidly how soon the latter would set on him.
As soon as the camel-borne tents came up, Yorke had them pitched under these trees; and, having posted his sentries in the veranda of the rooms occupied by the treasure, he passed the day himself in the commissioner's waiting-room. Society was still so far organized that punkah-pullers were obtained; but it was symptomatic of the state of the times that the attendants had forgotten to lower the rush-blinds according to custom, so that the room swarmed with flies. At one o'clock his servant brought luncheon, cooked under a tree; but the beer was almost as hot as the curry; and flies, heat, and suspense combined, made eating almost impossible. Thus went the long day, Yorke ever and anon scanning the prospect from the veranda, looking through the trees towards the residency to see if he could trace aught of what was happening to its inmates. It seemed impossible to realize the condition of affairs. Life all around was as quiet as ever. The sepoys not on guard lay undressed and asleep in their tents; such of the suitors as had remained were for the most part also asleep under the trees;
the different court-messengers were trying to get to sleep on the shady side of the veranda. Towards the residency not a soul was stirring. Even the crows were overcome by the fierce afternoon heat, and sat still on the boughs with their beaks open, gasping for breath. And yet how enviable his position at present compared with that of so many of his countrymen, who, if still alive, were wandering outcasts over these burnt-up plains, struggling under the fierce heat to find some place of shelter! And his turn was coming. Yet could it be that peaceful aspect was the forerunner of another such tragedy as had already occurred in other parts of India? The events of the past three months — the races and balls and other small events which then made up the business of life — seemed already to have faded away into the distance like a dream. The monotonous peace of those times had been found fault with as dreary and dull; how gladly would such dulness be welcomed back again in place of the dread expectancy of their present state! And, thought the young man bitterly at times, am I not to be permitted to have even the chance of dying like a man after striking a blow in self-defence — must it be my fate to wait here inactive till it is my turn to be shot down like a dog? Then again to these despondent feelings would succeed a sensation almost of joy, as he recollected where he was, and that he had come back near to the presence of his old love; could it be, after all, that their fates were bound together?
CHAPTER 19
========================================
CHAPTER XIX.
At
last the long hot day began to wear to an end; and towards evening Yorke saw Colonel Falkland's carriage drive up under the residency portico, whence presently a messenger came to summon him.
He found the colonel standing on the gravel walk outside the house, apparently to avoid eavesdroppers, talking with Sparrow and Maxwell the doctor. He looked grave and anxious. "I am telling our friends here," he said, when Yorke came up to them, "the result of the council of war held in cantonments this afternoon. It was about as unsatisfactory as such councils always are. It is a thousand pities that Tartar was superseded. General Slough is an old woman. There were two straightforward courses to pursue. Either disarm the sepoys at once, boldly shooting them down if they resisted; or else take them with the field force, and show confidence in them. This would be the only chance of keeping them stanch. Old Slough has decided on a middle course, which will certainly fail, as all middle courses do. One regiment of native infantry is to be sent to Johtuck, nominally to guard the treasure there, in reality to get it out of the way; another is to go to Meharunpoor, for the same reason; the third is to stay here. Of course the sepoys see through this; in fact it is an invitation to them to mutiny and take themselves off. They march for their destination tonight; the Europeans march at two o'clock to-morrow morning, leaving the 80th N.I. behind; and we have about twenty-four hours to prepare before the rising which will now certainly take place.
"Well, now, to business. We at any rate must stick to our posts, and stand by the nawab, who is really behaving very well, under great temptation to do otherwise, to the last. I have arranged with the people in cantonments that this house shall be the rendezvous. Every house there is thatched; and there is not a defensible hole or corner in the place. Brigadier Polwheedle is there still, not being fit to travel, and his wife, Buxey the paymaster, and one or two others; and there will be the officers of the 80th, if they can get away. The nawab has proposed that we should occupy his palace, which is a very strong place; but that is on the other side of the city, and the people from cantonments might never be able to reach it. This house is substantial, and stands well in the open; and if we have only time to get ready, we may be able to hold out here till relief comes. I should have wished to begin preparations ten days ago; but as long as there was a chance of saving things by keeping up appearances, I was bound to hold my hand. All that has been done so far is to store some food. A part has been brought in already, and the nawab has a further supply at my disposal.
"You might arrange, Maxwell, to bring in some medicines to-night. Take my cart and fill it up with the needful things from the dispensary.
"I want you. Sparrow, to go to the palace at once with a message to the nawab. No," he continued, noticing the expression on his assistant's face, "I think there is much less danger of coming to grief if you ride through the city at night than if you go by day. Just step
aside for a moment, and I will explain what has to be said.
"Now then," said the colonel, returning to where Yorke stood, after despatching his unwilling messenger, "let us arrange what has to be done to-morrow, for there is not a moment to be lost. It is unfortunate that we have no engineers here, to show us how the house might be retrenched; this is one of the occasions that come up in life to reproach us for past idleness and opportunities lost; and you, Yorke, I believe, did not go through Addiscombe; but I know you are a great military student. What are your ideas as to the best way of fortifying the residency?"
"There couldn't be a better house in India for the purpose, sir. Have you any spare treasure-bags over at the treasury? "
"Hundreds."
"Then let us have them filled with earth in the morning, and block up the verandas with sandbag walls; also the portico in the same way. The bushes in the garden near the house should be cut down, so as to destroy cover. The stables are a long way off, but unless they are occupied, and loopholed on the other side, the enemy might collect to any amount behind them and in them. Occupying them, the residency itself would not be exposed to fire on that side."
"True; and we should save the horses as long as we can — we may want them. Poor Kathleen, I should be sorry if she were to change hands without value received, and become the property of a general of rebels. But I think the stables are too far off to include in our scheme of defence."
"Well, then, sir, don't you think we ought to include Sparrow's house, at any rate? It is within easy musket-shot of your own, and would be very troublesome if occupied by an enemy; whereas, if we are in possession of it, there is open ground beyond, and we should in fact cover another front of our main fortress with a strong outpost."
"True; but think how this would weaken the garrison. And we don't even know yet whether we shall have a garrison. At best we shall not be more than a mere handful. No; I think we shall have quite enough to do with the main building. Let us concentrate our resources on that."
There was some further discussion about the arrangements for the morrow, and then Yorke wished the colonel goodnight, refusing his offer of dinner (it was now nine o'clock, and quite dark), although he would fain have taken another look at Olivia's anxious face; but, just as he was leaving, he turned back and said —
"Excuse the liberty, sir, but is it too late even now to send Mrs. Falkland to some place of safety?"
"Some place of safety! Where is such a spot to be found? I know of only one — the centre of the European force which is to march from cantonments to-night. But my wife could not ask for a privilege denied to the other ladies. Besides, the troops will have enough to do by themselves, without being encumbered with women and children."
"I feel sorry," added the young man with some hesitation, "that you did not send her to the hills with the escort that went a few days ago."
"Yes," replied Falkland, slowly, and looking down on the ground; "I suppose a man seldom has his duty put before him in such form as to require him to sacrifice what is dearer to him than his own life. It seems both careless and selfish to have kept her here, does it not? But it looked at one time as if everything would depend on our showing a bold front in every direction; and if the commissioner had manifested want of confidence by sending his wife away, he might have turned the balance. At least so it seemed to me at the time. Poor child!" he added, as if speaking to himself, "she is hardly conscious of her heroism, or what it has cost her husband to allow her to practise it. Had I known that the people in cantonments would be such fatuous blockheads, I might have acted differently. But it is useless to indulge in regrets. There is nothing to be done but to keep up a bold front to await the crash as best we may.
"Then do you think, sir, that it is quite certain the rest of the army will follow suit and go?"
"I do; all the supposed safeguards have failed us so far. Hindoos and Mohammedans have not shown the jealousy of each other that was expected; and the native officers, who had the strongest inducements to be faithful, seem to be taking the lead everywhere. And although several regiments are holding back for a time, not one has shown a distinct sign of standing by us, or displaying an active part against the mutineers. I expect we
shall have the whole army on us sooner or later, although it may be by degrees."
"Then what chance have we against such numbers with our handful of Europeans?"
"Not much, apparently. But a good deal may be hoped for from luck, and the blunders the villains may be trusted to make. Already they have made a great mistake in not rising at the same time everywhere. Of course, my dear boy," continued the colonel, laying his hand on Yorke's shoulder, "you will not repeat what I say. I speak plainly to you because I see you are the sort of man to be trusted."
On returning to his little camp by the court-house, Yorke found a note from Spragge awaiting him, brought by a servant who had come out from cantonments with the rest of his things. "We are just starting for Johtuck," said the writer. "The old women who command here have not got the pluck to take us with them, or to disarm us, but send us away because they funk keeping us with the force. Of course the men see through the dodge, and there is a change come over them already. They look as sulky as fiends. If our dear old colonel had been with us still, we might have had a chance; but poor Dumble has gone quite foolish, and is about as fit to have charge of the regiment as a hospital-nurse would be; and we shall have a flare-up before long, and no mistake. I write in an awful hurry. Good-bye, old fellow, and better luck to you than we are likely to have."
Just as Yorke had finished reading the note, the senior native officer of the detachment came up to make his report for the night; the old man's manner was quiet and respectful, as usual, and conveyed no impression that anything was wrong. Dismissing him, Yorke threw off his shell-jacket, and, lying down on the little cot which had been placed in front of the tent, watched the scene before him. A few yards in advance of his own tent was the little line of sepoys' tents, but the men were mostly sleeping outside, to get what air was to be had; a few were sitting in groups, passing the pipe round and talking. In advance was the guard-tent, with two sentries pacing up and down before it. Watching the peaceful scene, and wondering whether it was really to be the precursor of a life's crisis, the young man fell asleep.
CHAPTER 20
========================================
CHAPTER XX.
For
Next day was a busy one. From before dawn a gang of coolies, working under orders of the commissioner's jemadar, were engaged in filling the bags brought from the adjacent treasury, with earth obtained from a shallow trench dug in the lawn, while water-carts were employed to loosen the hard-baked soil; another party were cutting down the shrubs and bushes in the garden, and an army of tailors from the bazaar were squatting on the veranda floor, sewing bags to supplement the supply already available. Soon the space between the veranda pillars began to be blocked up with the first courses of a strong barrier designed to be seven feet high, loop-holed, and bullet-proof. "You see, my friend," said Yorke, in Hindustani, to the native officer whom he had brought with him, nominally to superintend the operation — "if the roughs in the city rise, the court-house would be a difficult position to hold against a mob, even with my gallant sepoys. So we will retire with the treasure into this post until the regiments from cantonments march to our help." The old soobahdar raised his hand to his cap, and observed, gravely, that the European gentlemen were famous for their skill in military science; and Yorke did not care to pursue the conversation.
While they were thus engaged Falkland and Sparrow rode up, with half-a-dozen mounted orderlies behind them, returning from a ride through the city.
"We have been upholding British rule, you see, as long as it lasts," said Falkland, dismounting; "but the roughs are beginning to show their teeth, are they not, Sparrow? and, what is worse, there were some sepoys in the bazaar, out of uniform, whose manner was most insolent. However, I think we read them a lesson this once, if it was the last time — didn't we. Sparrow?" he added, smiling; and indeed, from the expression on that gentleman's countenance, it seemed as if the morning ride had certainly been exciting.
Yorke longed to ask some question about Olivia, when just then she appeared in the veranda, and invited them to come inside and take some tea. The room into which they followed her, now cut off from the outside air, was hot and stuffy, and filled with the dust thrown up by the work going on outside; the punkah-puller, dispossessed of his usual post in the veranda, was squatting in the room; the servants were moving the furniture, and, among the general disorder, Olivia, dressed in a light morning robe, seemed alone to retain the calm and orderly appearance of other days. Yorke noticed the expression of anxiety that overcame Falkland's face as he looked at his wife; but she seemed determined to express no fear, and, as they drank their tea, every one avoided the subject which was uppermost in their thoughts. As for Yorke, he felt quite angry with himself as he returned to his work, at finding how small a place was now occupied in his mind by the luxury of grief.
The commissioner made a show of doing business in the court-house in the afternoon — driving over as usual for form's sake in his carriage, although the distance was but a few yards. "I hear," said he, taking Yorke aside, before going into court, and after he had spoken a few words of exhortation to the native officers and the guard, "and the information seems reliable, that the regiment left behind in cantonments last night, the 80th, will certainly rise, although the time is not fixed: they are in communication with your regiment and the other one which has marched away. My police in the city are utterly rotten and ready to join. The nawab, who is behaving admirably, notwithstanding strong pressure put on him from the other side, may be able to keep the city quiet with his people; but I doubt it. I have about twenty men I can depend on altogether. But on the other hand, a note has just been brought by a runner, from across the river, to say that they are keeping things square over there, and that a Sikh regiment is under orders for this; it maybe
here in a week. Meantime I hope we shall be able to hold the residency. Everything depends on whether the sepoys attack us or march off for Delhi."
Another weary day was passed by Yorke, in the court-house, marked only by heat and suspense, and which seemed as if it would never come to an end. Towards evening a residency servant came over with refreshments and ice sent by Olivia, and brought a note in pencil from Falkland. "The rising is fixed for tonight. I have this from two quarters. Be on your guard. Your men will certainly join. Do nothing to precipitate it; but whenever your men declare themselves, and you can do no good by stopping, make your way over here as fast as you can."
So then the supreme moment was come at last; was it to be his fate to be shot down unresisting, as so many others had been already? or might he have the bitter happiness of at least making a fight for it, and dying in defence of his idol, like a gallant soldier? "What a fool I was," he thought, "never to have bought a revolver while I had the chance!"
Thus musing, and in a state of highly-wrought expectancy, the young man sat in the waiting-room of the court-house, sipping his iced water to keep down the choking sensation in his throat, and making believe to eat the dinner which his servant had placed before him. Then, as it grew dark, he put on his sword, and mustered the men for evening roll-call, inspected the guard, and went the round of the sentries. There was nothing in the manner of the sepoys to indicate that any movement was intended; but he noticed that, on going off duty, they did not strip to their waist-cloths, as would have been usual, but dressed themselves in their light tunics, and that they wore turbans instead of their ordinary cotton skull-caps. This looked bad; but it seemed useless to say anything.
By-and-by Yorke lay down on his bed before the tent — this time, however, fully dressed — and as he looked around him, the unlovely baked-up landscape, lighted up by the young moon, seemed to have new charms. Was he looking on it for the last time?
With his head on the pillow, he could watch the men, and he observed that, although quite quiet, none of them lay down to sleep; nor did they appear to be smoking, but sat talking in little groups in a low tone.
But nature will assert itself, even when a man is expecting death; and while thus lying, and, as he thought, on the alert, Yorke fell into a doze, from which he was suddenly awoke by the sound of a cannon.
Was it the morning gun in cantonments, four miles off?
It was the cantonment gun, but not the morning gun; it was the gun at midnight — the signal for the outbreak.
Yorke started to his feet.
The sepoys, too, sprang to seize the muskets piled before their tents, and began to fall in. Yorke advanced towards them, for it was light enough to see what had happened, calling out in Hindustani, "What are you doing, sepoys? Are you mad, to behave like this?"
There was a stir among them, and several muskets were pointed at him; but while the old soobahdar stood irresolute, others ran forward and surrounded him. At first he thought they meant to kill him, but their movement was really to
protect him from the rest.
"There will be no harm done you," said they; "but it is of no use to resist." And hardly understanding how it came about, Yorke found himself half led, half hustled, into the residency park, when the men suddenly left him standing alone, and returned to their fellows.
So then the crisis was over; and he had done his duty and yet got off with his life — thus far faring better than many a comrade in the like case.
Just then he was startled by a man coming up to him out of the darkness, who turned out to be one of the residency servants, who had been watching the affair, and told him he would find the commissioner at the house.
Falkland was standing on the steps of the portico, with Sparrow, Maxwell, the jemadar, and some half-dozen servants armed with muskets.
"So," said Falkland, grasping his hand warmly, as Yorke explained briefly what had happened, "my information has
turned out true. The scoundrels have behaved well so far, in letting you off without injury, and it looks as if they meant to go away quietly."
"What is the next thing to be done?" asked Yorke.
"Nothing but to wait upon events. If the sepoys march upon the city and us, we have only too sell ourselves as dearly as possible; there are four of us behind a breastwork, and I think I can depend on these good fellows" — pointing to the servants who stood in the portico;
"but if they go off, as I expect they will, we may yet be able to keep order in the city. The fugitives from cantonments will be here shortly, if they have succeeded in getting away. But do you go inside for a moment; you will find some one there very rejoiced to see you."
In the dining-room, dimly lighted by a single lamp, Yorke found Mrs. Falkland standing alone. "Oh, my friend!" she exclaimed, advancing and holding out both hands to greet him; "so you are safe. We have passed a dreadful time here, knowing the danger you were in, and so close to us all the time; but my husband said nothing could be done to help you, but that you must be left to face it alone. Oh! if only the others can be saved in the same way!" There was a smile on her face, pale and anxious though it looked; and to Yorke, returning to join the others outside, it seemed, as he felt that her greeting was warmer than would have been earned by a lifetime of ordinary neighbourhood, that even the mutiny was not without its compensations.
Everything was still and quiet within the park.
Falkland and Yorke went out to reconnoitre.
Advancing across the lawn, and looking over the park wall towards the court-house, they could hear men's voices in the still night.
"It is your men looting the treasury," said Falkland; "they evidently mean to go off with the money. So far good."
And indeed, in a few minutes the detachment marched past them, along the road outside the wall, so close that they could distinguish the old native officer marching at the head of the column. In the middle was a cart, laden no doubt with the plunder. They were evidently marching to join the mutineers in cantonments.
"If they take the road," whispered the colonel, "they will meet the fugitives from cantonments, and not let them off so cheaply as they did you. I have got some of the nawab's horsemen patrolling the road, but they are not to be depended on. Ride after them, Yorke; Kathleen is ready saddled in the stable hard by. See which way they go. If they go by the road you can head them and warn all the fugitives you meet to turn aside till they are past. But probably the rogues will take a short cut across the plain to the native lines."
Yorke did as he was bid, and rode after the sepoys, keeping a little way behind them, and off the hard road, so that they might not hear the horse's steps. In a short time he came back to the residency, whither Falkland had now returned, announcing that the men had turned off the road as he expected, and made straight for the native part of the cantonments. So far well; the fugitives coming up the road would not be molested.
Presently the night was lighted up by a bright glare, increasing every minute. The bungalows in cantonments and the deserted barracks were being fired. Soon it became almost as light as day, although the fires were four miles off, and from the roof of the house the blaze could be seen high above the trees, as one after another the great thatched buildings shot into flames.
Still everything remained quiet about the residency. One or two of the small party patrolled the building; the armed attendants sat on the portico steps; Olivia on the roof watched, awestruck, the conflagration. Then the stillness of the night was broken by the sound of wheels, and a carriage driven at full gallop entered through the gates, and came up the avenue to the outside of the portico, ingress underneath being prevented by the sand-bag barrier.
It was the brigadier's carriage; the old gentleman was helped out by Mrs. Polwheedle, and came limping up the steps. Sundry boxes also were handed up.
"Oh, Colonel Falkland!" gasped the lady, "the life we have been leading since the European troops went away. I don't think I could have stood another day of it; and the servants so impudent too. I'll pay them out, the rascals, if ever I get a chance. I thought we never should have escaped; and when the gun fired, the brigadier wanted to mount his horse and go down to the native lines, but I would not hear of it. It was his duty, he said, to go and see what he could do to stop the outbreak. He was on the sick list, and must obey my orders, I said. Duty, indeed! to go and get shot by those infernal blackguards, and with the carriage all ready too. So here we are. We were attacked on the road by a couple of horsemen; but I held out a pistol at them, and they sheered off, just as they were coming down on us."
"It is just as well you did not fire," said Falkland, "for I suspect they were
some orderlies of mine sent out to patrol the road, and warn you if there was danger ahead."
Soon other fugitives arrived in haste and flurry; Captain Buxey in his buggy, Major and Mrs. Peart and their daughter in a carriage, the bazaar-sergeant's East-Indian wife with a couple of children, a Mustaphabad shopkeeper, and later on several officers of the 80th on horseback. There had been no regular attack on the European residents; on the signal-gun being fired, the sepoys of the 80th (the regiment left at Mustaphabad) had turned out and formed on parade, a few of them only leaving the ranks and opening a desultory fusilade towards their front into the darkness. The officers of the regiment, whose horses were ready saddled, had hastened down to the lines from their respective bungalows; but being received with threats and this dropping fire, had turned and ridden slowly off to the residency, whither the other residents had already, at the sound of the firing, made their way.
All the Europeans known to be at the station were now accounted for, except the colonel of the 80th and the bazaar-sergeant. Some of the officers thought they had seen the former in the darkness making for the parade, but had lost sight of him. The bazaar-sergeant, as his wife related, had sent her and the children off in his pony-carriage, and said he would go down and try to keep things straight in the bazaar.
CHAPTER 21
========================================
CHAPTER XXI.
The
night wore on, the glare from the burning cantonments growing ever brighter, till the rays of coming dawn mingled with it. The ladies sat or stood in the drawing-room, or went on the roof to watch the conflagration, finding even at such a time a sort of pleasure in discussing the particulars of their flight, and comparing notes on the property they had brought away; while of the men, some, organized in a little company, patrolled the park, and some rode down the road towards cantonments to see if they could get any tidings of the two missing fugitives.
At last the day arrived to throw its light on the strange-looking group which had escaped the shipwreck of the night — the pallid, dishevelled ladies, the bundles of clothing littering the well-ordered room; outside an equal contrast between the peaceful aspect of the grounds and the condition of the house itself, with the verandas blocked up with sand-bags, and covered with dust and earth, the hasty trenches dug round it, and the tools scattered about, left by the workmen overnight on the scene of their unfinished task.
Soon as the daylight became stronger a strange thing was discerned — a party of sepoys mounting guard over the tents still left standing by the court-house; and to Yorke advancing to discover what this meant, a corporal came down the road to salute and explain matters. There had been a split in the camp, it appeared, and this little party of seventeen men in all had parted with their comrades, and come back to be true to their salt. The detachment, in their hurry to be off, had left their tents standing, and Yorke's, with all his little property, was untouched, and his horse was still standing picketed under a tree. Yet the men, as York went up to greet and praise them, did not seem very proud of their behaviour, and their manner was as if they rather looked to be suspected. A few spirited words from Falkland, however, who had come down on hearing the news, seemed to put them more at their ease. He told Yorke to move them up to the residency. "Let us show perfect confidence in them," he said, "for they deserve it."
"Good gracious! you are surely not going to let those villains come here!" cried Mrs. Polwheedle, as from the portico steps she saw the little party marching up with Yorke at their head. "Stuff and nonsense about loyalty. Loyalty, indeed! Don't talk to me about loyalty," she continued, as Colonel Falkland explained the circumstances; "it's a mere trap for springing upon us and murdering us when we are not expecting it. I am as sure of it as that my name is Martha Polwheedle. The brigadier mustn't allow it. Where is Polwheedle?" And while the lady bustled away in search of her husband, who was trying to recover his dazed senses by pouring water on his head in an adjacent room, Falkland established the sepoys as main guard in the portico, placing Major Peart in command of it, and detaching a couple of sentries to the court-house.
Meanwhile the business of the day was ushered in by the servants bringing tea for the party, just as if nothing had happened, and Falkland set to work to organize matters. While some of the officers were attached to the guard, a part of them rode with him, attended by the half-dozen of the nawab's horsemen whom he
still retained about him, through the city, which so far remained quiet; and Falkland had notices posted up inviting all able-bodied men to come forward and enroll themselves in a levy he meant to raise forthwith, and they paid a visit to the nawab at his palace. "A curious state of things we have arrived at," he said on his return to Yorke, who had been left in charge of the working parties; "to be dependent for our lives on the man whom we have dethroned, and who has most reason to hate us. The nawab has only to hold up his hand, and all the scum of the city would rise in an instant, and there would be a speedy end of the business as far as we are concerned. It must be a strong temptation to the poor little man to take his revenge, but I think he believes in our eventual success; at any rate his minister does, and is prepared to be stanch. But there is a strong opposition party in the palace headed by his brother, who is in active communication with the mutineers; so we cannot answer for the result of an hour. However, every hour gained is something. It is well I sent the detachment of his troops away except these half-dozen; they would certainly have fraternized with the mutineers if they had stopped at the residency."
While the rest of the party were thus engaged, Egan and M'Intyre of the 80th rode down to cantonments to see how things looked there, returning in a couple of hours with their report. Every house in the place was in ruins, nothing remaining but the charred walls, while the gardens were strewn with papers and rubbish not worth carrying off. There was not a sepoy to be seen, but pillagers were wandering about in every direction, camp-followers from the bazaar or people from the surrounding villages, and the place where they had all lived in more complete security than could be found in any other part of the world was now the scene of utter anarchy. Riding round to the bazaar at the back of the station, they found things there were just as bad, the place full of people — armed, some apparently for self-protection, others wandering about in search of plunder. As soon as they were perceived they were received with howls and execrations; and in attempting to push their way towards the police station they were fired upon down the street, the shots coming apparently from that building, and they were forced to retire. Returning back by way of the deserted native lines, they came upon the body of the colonel of the 80th, lying stiff and stark on the parade, just as he must have fallen the night before, his glazed eyes staring upwards at the blazing sun. No help could be got for removing the corpse, and again the plunderers, seeing the young men halted, began to collect in a threatening way, and the latter were fain to ride away, leaving it there to be devoured by the village dogs and jackals.
Within the house the ladies, unable to realize the situation, or to settle down to it, spent the long day in disjointed talk, the most active lively part being taken by Mrs. Polwheedle, whose indignation sustained her while others were anxious and depressed, and who recounted more than once to the listeners her experiences of the last few days. "Brigadier," I said to Polwheedle, "as sure as my name is Martha Polwheedle, these villains will rise suddenly and murder us all, unless you are beforehand with them; retire with the Europeans and take up a position. That is the thing to do as a brigadier and a military man; retire, and take up a position. But the brigadier wouldn't do anything, and my words have come true, sure enough."
"You don't understand these things, my dear," said the gentleman referred to, who lay on a couch with a basin of water beside him, in which he was dipping a handkerchief and applying it to his forehead — "you don't understand these things, my dear. It was not a purely military question; there were other considerations besides. I am sure I did everything for the best," added the poor gentleman, dabbing the wet cloth with energy on his temples.
"Fiddlestick for your considerations!" replied the lady; "much consideration the villains showed us. I know if I hadn't insisted upon having the carriage kept ready, for all you said about showing confidence and not making preparations, we should have been murdered in our beds; and if I hadn't seen to having a few things packed up and put into it beforehand, you wouldn't have a clean shirt to your back, any more than Major Peart there, who has only got what he stands in. However, here comes tiffin; it's well the commissioner's servants have not run away as well as all the rest." And indeed an array of attendants now entered to make preparations for the mid-day meal, pretty much as if nothing had happened save that their attire wanted the usual accompaniments of
waistbands and turbans, and was otherwise somewhat slovenly. But the commissioner was absent in the city; and Olivia, as she invited her guests to seat themselves at table, was too distraught with anxiety to notice the omission.
Towards evening, when Falkland returned home from a second excursion with his party, hot and dusty, he was able to report that things still looked quiet. The nawab's guards were doing their duty; some of the runaway police had returned to their posts; and the fresh levy he had raised amounted to about two hundred men, many of them the biggest scoundrels in the place, but there were not arms for more than a few of them at present to do any mischief with, and by the promise of high pay they might be kept out of mischief for a time. The worst thing was that there was no news of relief coming, or indeed news of any kind from any quarter. It looked as if the whole country was up, for messengers must certainly have been despatched from the settled districts.
The gentlemen partook of a scrambling meal, and then the watch was set for the night. The ladies were accommodated in Olivia's rooms; the gentlemen not on duty slept on the gravel paths outside the portico, for the heat inside the house was stifling, the sandbag wall round the veranda — now almost completed — stopping all ingress of air. Yorke's turn of watch was from eight to midnight; when relieved he lay down on a vacant cot and was soon fast asleep, tired out with the excitement and want of rest of the last forty-eight hours.
It was just dawn when he was awakened by the tramp of horses and sound of voices, and he jumped up, thinking that an attack was being made, but soon recognized his friend Spragge, who was sitting on his pony close to his bed, with other officers of the 76th, recounting their escape to their friends on watch. The regiment had reached Johtuck, thirty miles from Mustaphabad, by a forced march, on the morning after they started; and the next day was passed quietly in camp outside the town. The following night — the same in which the outbreak occurred at the latter place — they were suddenly aroused, as they lay on their beds outside their tents, by the crack of musketry and the whizzing of bullets. Some sepoys, clustered in little groups by their own tents, were deliberately firing at their officers from a distance of about thirty yards. The latter at once made for their horses, which were standing ready saddled in the rear. "Some of the grooms had bolted," said Jerry; "and small blame to them, for they were getting what was meant for us; but my fellow held on to my tat, which was plunging and backing from the noise, like a man, which, considering the many lickings the poor beggar had had, was very creditable to him. I gave him ten rupees as soon as I could get on the pony's back, and told him to fish for himself as best he could, and then I began to make tracks after the others; and I think we should all have begun to skedaddle, when Braddon calls out, 'Steady, boys
— there's no hurry; let us retire slowly to the right flank, not too close together, but keeping each other in view;' and so we were riding off at a foot-pace, when little Raugh calls out, 'My pony's shot!' 'Catch hold of my stirrup, Johnny,' says Braddon, turning round, 'and then I'll give you a lift as soon as we are out of this.' 'Holloa!' says Braddon, presently, 'here's the major in difficulties;' and sure enough there was old Bumble's horse turning round and round, frightened at the bullets, I suppose; and the groom had bolted, and the poor old major was trying in vain to get his foot into the stirrup: and in about half a minute the horse had got loose and was galloping off into space. 'We mustn't desert our commanding officer,' says Braddon to me. 'Look here, Jerry; just bear a hand, and I'll give the poor old chap a lift in my dog-cart.' So he jumps off his horse as cool as a cucumber, tells Johnny to mount it and be off, and puts his mare, which was standing picketed there with her harness on, into the dog-cart. I had to help a bit, you know, for the mare was precious fidgety — as well she might be — for the bullets were coming in pretty thick, I can tell you. Why those brutes of sepoys didn't come up and finish us off, I am sure I can't tell; but no, the cowardly beggars stood by their own tents, potting away, missing us over and over again at thirty yards. Perhaps they didn't want to hit us after all, but only to frighten us — at any rate, we all got off scot-free. But will you believe it, the poor old major could hardly get into the dog-cart when it
was
ready; there was Braddon at the reins, talking to the mare as she jumped about, and saying, 'Now then, major — damn it, major, do please make a spring, — there is really no time to be lost;' and there was the old major, bobbing up and down, and always
jumping short. It was the richest thing you ever saw; I should have been ready to die with laughing if I hadn't been in such a precious funk. At last I gave the major a hoist, and he just managed to get into the back seat of the cart — enough to lift the mare off her feet almost — Braddon jumped up in front, and I mounted my pony again, and away we all came, and not a soul of us touched. We should have been here yesterday, but early in the morning we saw some horsemen in the distance who looked very like irregular cavalry, so we took shelter for the day in a village. The people were civil enough — perhaps because we were a good-sized party, and well armed; and we got flour and milk, and food for our horses. Braddon wouldn't let a single villager leave the place during the day lest they should convey intelligence of our being there, and at night we came away.
"Braddon gave all the orders, for the major was regularly scared, and poor old Passey was quite knocked up with the heat and the marching. Twice the blessed dog-cart got upset in the dark, going across the country, and once we came to a watercourse, and had to go several miles out of our way to find a place to cross. Such a scene as the country was, too; the villagers up everywhere, and apparently having out all the quarrels of the last hundred years. Fires and firing in every direction. At last, steering by the stars, we came in upon the trunk road, and then it was all plain sailing, and we could push on. We passed through the cantonments, which were silent and deserted — it seemed so strange to be riding in this way past our own houses, and I should have liked to look in at our shop and see that the thieves had left a clean shirt or two, but Braddon would not allow of any loitering, and the moonlight showed plainly enough that all the bungalows had been fired. So here we are, Arty, my boy, safe and sound the whole of us; I have got just ten dibs in my pocket, and not a rag to my name but what I am standing in. I say, by Jove, what fools we were not to invest in revolvers while we had the chance! I wonder if it's possible to get anything to drink."
The coming of the fugitives caused quite a revival of good spirits. The ladies came out with greetings at their escape, and busied themselves with serving out tea and food to the wearied travellers, and Yorke and the others who still possessed wardrobes supplied them with a change of raiment, while the commissioner's washermen were put in requisition to rehabilitate their own; and leaving the new arrivals to rest themselves, a part of the others set out to patrol the city. But there was a revulsion of feeling, when later in the morning two officers of the 82d, the third of the three regiments which had garrisoned Mustaphabad, and which had been detached to Meharunpoor, rode up, faint and weary, to the residency. Their story was nearly the same as that of the officers of the 76th. Their men had risen almost at the same time, but the officers had not been so fortunate. Two at least were seen to fall before they could mount their horses; the others, riding away into the night, got separated, and never came together again. These two only found their way to the rendezvous; the remainder, although looked for all day anxiously, were never again seen by their fellow-countrymen; whether shot by their own sepoys, or murdered afterwards by village marauders, their bodies lay somewhere festering in the sun, among the numerous victims of the times whose precise fate was never ascertained, denied even the rude and speedy funeral rites of death on the battle-field.
CHAPTER 22
========================================
CHAPTER XXII.
Still
no news of succour or from distant stations; and the preparations for defence were pushed forward earnestly under the influence of a growing belief that they would be needed. And, in the afternoon, came tidings of a disturbance in the city. The nawab's brother had raised the flag of rebellion, all the so-called troops in the nawab's pay had joined, the minister had been assassinated, and the nawab was a prisoner in his own palace. Falkland rode out again with some dozen of the officers, but nothing could be done. The police had disappeared or fraternized with the rebellion, and as they rode into the main street, the party was greeted with a straggling fire from the end and the houses on both sides, due apparently in part to the new levy, which had gone over with its arms. "Not a single loyal man among them," said Falkland, bitterly, as he gave the order to retire, himself slowly bringing up the rear; "not one honest man except the nawab himself; and it would be hardly wonderful if the poor little man were to go with the tide too, and purchase his liberty by proclaiming himself
independent. He can hardly be very sorry to see the English down on their luck; their friendship for him has not conduced much to his prosperity."
"I believe the nawab is at the bottom of this himself," said Sparrow to the officer next to him, as he pushed along at speed out of the town, at the head of the little cavalcade, "for all his pretences about coercion. I do believe he means to assert his independence again, and to take advantage of the mutiny to try and get back his country again. These native princes are capable of any villany."
They got back safely to the residency, but it seemed to the members of the baffled party as if, notwithstanding the dangers so many of them had gone through already, they had not realized till now the full crisis of the situation. So long as the city was open, there was at least the semblance of British power remaining; but now Falkland's authority was limited to his own house and grounds, and as if to mark the current of native opinion, several of his numerous servants were now missing. Almost the last message sent to him by the murdered minister was to inform him that the three regiments of mutineers had halted on their way to Delhi, and were in communication with the nawab's brother, who was urging them to return, and stamp out the last remnant of English government left in this part of the country; if they should take this course, instead of marching on to join the other mutineers, they might be expected by morning, and only a few hours remained for final preparation.
"Is there not still time to escape?" asked Brigadier Polwheedle, lying on a sofa in one of the side rooms, as Falkland explained to him the state of things. "The road is yet open to the eastward; could we not still make our way to the hills, the ladies and myself in carriages, and the rest on horseback, before the sepoys return." We shall only be murdered if we stop; what can a handful of men like us do against three or four thousand? Besides, resistance will only infuriate the sepoys against us."
"I do not see why we should not keep off fifty thousand, for the matter of that," replied the other, "so long as food and ammunition hold out. The place is perfectly musket-proof; the rebels have got no guns, and they will never dare to come at us across the open. We are good for a week at least, and by that time there ought to be relief."
"You must go without me, brigadier, if you do go," said Mrs. Polwheedle, who had entered the room through the open door while this conversation was going on; "for nothing on earth shall induce me to trust myself a single yard out of the place, and among these treacherous natives, now we are here." And Brigadier Polwheedle did not pursue his proposition for a retreat. But after the commissioner had left the room to give some orders he said, "I think, my dear, I had better go on the sick list, and let Falkland take the command regularly."
"Give up the command!" cried the lady, as she stood beside the couch on which he was reclining; "why should you be such a fool as to do that? Why, it's the very thing you have always been declaring you wanted to have, a command on service. Why, if you go on the sick list, you will be of no more account than that missionary fellow, and me not much more neither. No, brigadier, don't you talk of such nonsense, for I won't hear of such a thing."
"Well, but, my dear, you see I can't get about, or be of much use ——"
"And who wants you to be of much use?" interrupted the lady; "you don't want to walk about here — and for the matter of that, there isn't any place to walk to, unless it's into the drawing-room. You can give your orders just as well lying here as if you had nothing at all the matter with your leg."
"But I don't feel fit to give any orders; what with the heat, and all the excitement and responsibility, my head feels quite giddy and confused; and then my eyes, too, are so inflamed," — and as he said this, the poor old gentleman again dipped a cloth into the basin of water beside the sofa, and applied it to his forehead.
"Never mind, old man," said his wife kindly, stooping down and patting him on the shoulder; "you will be better in a day or two, I daresay. You just lie quietly here and agree to what Falkland proposes, and he will look after everything. You can give advice, too, you know, if you like; but don't you give up commanding, whatever you do. Why, the government will make ever so much of you when the reinforcements arrive."
Meanwhile Falkland was assembling the little garrison, for such it might now be styled, outside the building. To the officers he explained the circumstances of the case; that the return of the three sepoy regiments was now imminent, and that the place must be defended till relief
arrived, which might be expected in about a week, for which time there was sufficient store of ammunition and food. Then turning to the small detachment of faithful sepoys, he gave the same explanation in Hindustani, and praising them for their fidelity and stanchness under the great temptation they had undergone, he now gave them — under the brigadier's authority, he said — permission to withdraw before the blockade should begin. Any man who liked to go was free to return to his home, and should take a certificate of his good conduct and promise of promotion, to be produced hereafter when the country was resettled.
There was silence for a brief space after this harangue, while the group of officers behind Falkland surveyed anxiously the faces of the little line of sepoys confronting him, stolid and unmoved under this harangue. Then the corporal stepped out with his musket at the "advance," and rapping it with his left hand after the mode of saluting in those days, said simply, "We will stay here, sahib," and then stepped back again to his place.
Many of the officers would have liked to shake hands with the gallant fellows, but anything like demonstration was withheld, from a feeling that to treat them more familiarly than usual would look as if bidding unfairly for their services. Falkland merely said, "Well done, sepoys! I did not expect any other reply," — and dismissed the detachment.
Then he assembled his servants, or rather the remnant of them, about a dozen, told them what was coming, and that those who wanted to go were at liberty to take themselves off, and were invited to do so openly. Those who elected to stay should receive double wages, and the families of any who might be killed a pension. They, too, all declared their willingness to stand by their master; but some of them spoke in a sulky, hesitating way, as if they did not mean it.
Only a short time now remained for final preparations. The fortification of the house was now as complete as it could be made; the last thing to be done was to demolish the servants' houses, a long range of sheds extending along the north-east side of the park. The roofs, of wood covered with thatch, were set on fire, and the walls partially pulled down; but the tenacious mud bricks resisted the efforts of the small working party, and the demolition was incomplete. The stables were treated in the same way. The horses, a large number of which were now collected in the place, were sent away with their grooms in charge of the jemadar's brother, to be kept at his home in a village about thirty miles off, three only being retained, Falkland's Irish mare, his wife's Arab, and Yorke's gallant grey, which were brought under the portico and picketed there. "Another sacrifice to appearances," said Falkland to Yorke, looking on at the demolition; "if I had done my duty, these stables should have been razed to the ground a week ago. They will give the enemy cover, if we really are to be besieged."
"It must be nearly three hundred yards from the house, sir," replied the young man; "Pandy won't do much execution at that distance. Sparrow's house is in more dangerous proximity; I wish we were going to occupy that as an advanced post."
"Had we known that the garrison would be reinforced in this way by your gallant sepoys, the thing might have been done; but there is not time now to store it, and after all we shall not be too many to hold the main building properly."
That evening all of the party who were not on picket-duty assembled for supper in the large dining-room, where the table was laid with a semblance of order, the grey-bearded old butler standing behind the chair at the end of it, dressed in white as usual; and a person in ignorance of what had happened, looking on the scene, would have been puzzled to account for what was fantastic about it. The room was dimly lighted, and the fare was frugal in kind and limited in quantity, for the supply of food must be husbanded; but champagne-bottles were on the table, for Falkland said that the stock of that wine had better be drunk first; and although the garb of the officers was peculiar, most of them being in any garments they could borrow, and all wearing swords and pistols or revolvers in their belts, the ladies were dressed in the ordinary way — Mrs. Falkland in a robe of white, which seemed as fresh as if just put on, while the folds of her rich brown hair were as neat as ever. Nor was conversation wanting. The certainty of coming dangers was felt to be a relief from the suspense of the last few days. To those who had been fugitives, their present position, after the perils they had escaped, seemed comparatively one of security. They were rested, and their appetite appeased, and
the spirit of youth asserted itself. To all, the sense of numbers and the firmness of purpose imparted by Falkland's bearing gave courage, and good-natured jests at the situation freely circulated. The party were in fact quite merry.
Yorke sat next to Olivia. The latter had been about to take her usual place at the head of the table when stopped by Mrs. Polwheedle. "I suppose we must consider this a garrison mess, now, my dear. I brought a lot of things with me in the carriage when we came — your butler has got the most of them; and so, I believe, did Buxey. We must all contribute what we can, without ceremony; I am sure I for one could not think of letting the commissioner provide everything. The brigadier ought to be at the head of the table, of course, if he could come, but perhaps in his absence it would be better if I took his place — don't you think so?" and so saying, the lady sat down in the chair, and Mrs. Falkland, with a gentle smile, moved aside and took a place at the side, next to Yorke as it happened, who hastened to place a chair for her, feeling for the time as if even the mutiny were cheaply undergone, since it procured him such favour. During the last two days they had scarcely exchanged a word, but Olivia had greeted him with such kindly smiles, whenever his duties had brought him into her presence, as the youngster felt to be more than a recompense for anything he had done. He hoped nothing, and expected nothing; but to be received by her on the footing of a trusted friend, as he felt himself now to be, seemed sufficient happiness for such a one as him.
"You are eating nothing, Mrs. Falkland," he said. "You ought to take something; this may be our last quiet meal before — before business begins."
"No, thank you. Eating seems impossible just now;" and then correcting herself, as she noticed that her neighbours were busily disproving the assertion, she added, "but then I have not earned any supper. I feel terribly useless here — simply an additional source of anxiety to all of you."
"Don't say that, pray," said the young man, eagerly, "The feeling that we have to defend you will give the best stimulus to the defence. But I wish you were a thousand miles off," he added, "for all that. What a pity Colonel Falkland did not insist on your going away while there was a chance! However, it is too late for regret now."
"Is that a kind wish, to wish I should be from my husband, and leave him to go through this peril alone? It is selfish to wish to be here, I know, for we add to your troubles and anxieties, and of course you would rather that we were out of the way."
"Don't say that!" cried the young man with fervour; "and yet I don't mean it. Of course we should like you to be saved from this peril and discomfort, and all that; but I feel as if I could fight with tenfold vigour when I know that I am trying to defend you from harm."
"Thank you," she said, simply; "I think I must try and find my husband, and get him to have something to eat: he allows himself neither rest nor food;" and so saying, Olivia rose, while Yorke felt ashamed of himself for having talked like a braggart. It would be time enough to speak about what he could do when he had the opportunity of actually showing: himself a soldier. And for a few moments the young man sat oblivious of the scene, almost of the fact that his late companion was no longer a maiden, repeating, as he had been wont to do, each word of his scanty conversation with her, when recalled to the reality of life by the voice of Mrs. Polwheedle saying to her next neighbour, "Just ask young Yorke to pass that stew that is before him." That lady apparently considered that a state of siege did away with the need for using prefixes to surnames.
CHAPTER 23
========================================
CHAPTER XXIII.
During
the following night the whole garrison remained on the alert, while the picket on duty made frequent rounds through the grounds. These so far were empty, but the court-house appeared to be occupied in force, and the hum of men stirring in the city could be distinguished in the stillness of the night, and the frequent discharge of firearms was heard, whether in fight or in sport could not be told. The brigadier, at the suggestion of Captain Buxey, had proposed that some of the servants should be sent out to bring back news of what was going on; but Falkland objected that a spy might also convey information of the state of things inside the fortification, and the idea was not acted upon. Nor, when morning broke, were the garrison long left in doubt as to what was impending. One of the two officers stationed as an outpost by the ruined servants' houses brought word that a large
body of trained men, apparently sepoys, were marching down from the city across the plain to the court-house. They halted behind it; but the look out man on the residency roof, notwithstanding the intervening trees, made them out before they got under shelter of that building to be about a thousand strong, evidently sepoys, dressed in the short white jacket and waist-cloths usually worn when off duty, but wearing their regulation cross-belts and pouch-boxes, and led by their native officers, one or two of whom were on horseback.
Falkland ordered the advanced sentries who had been stationed round the building, and at some distance from it, to fall back on the picket, which stood drawn up on the road half-way between the house and the entrance-gate, the rest of the garrison being in rear immediately before the portico.
Presently several men could be seen in the veranda of the court-house reconnoitring the situation, and apparently consulting what was the next step to take.
The picket stood on the walk, a motley band, some white, some dark, in various dress and variously armed; the sepoys with their muskets, the Europeans for the most part with sporting-rifles, but all standing firm in double rank, as if on parade — Braddon, who had been selected for the command, at their head. Falkland was a few yards in advance, watching the proceedings through his field-glass, with Yorke, who had been acting as a sort of orderly officer to him, in attendance.
Only parts of the court-house and adjacent ground could be seen for the intervening trees; so that, although the distance was inconsiderable, some observation was needed to make out the situation clearly.
In a few minutes a party of sepoys could be seen, fifty or sixty in number, running out from behind the court-house and dispersing in skirmishing order along the park-wall. Some were soon hidden behind it; of others the heads could be seen above it.
Then muskets were levelled at the picket, there were some puffs of smoke along the top of the wall, and instantaneously the sounds of angry bullets whizzing past.
It was the first time Yorke had heard the sound of a shot fired in earnest; and he experienced the curious sensation which a bullet produces when aimed at the listener. The shots were all wide of the mark, but singing as they flew by, they seemed to be very close.
"The rascals fire in the air as usual," said Falkland to his companion, in a quiet voice, and with a grim smile; "see the advantage of your system of musketry instruction, Yorke." After a few seconds, while the firing continued, he added, "Tell the picket to retire within the enclosure."
Yorke turned to convey the order, and would fain have run to the picket, for the whizzing of the bullets, about his ears as it seemed, was increasing in frequency; but it would not do to appear excited where every one else was cool, so he executed the commission at a walk, looking much more unconcerned than he felt.
"It's about time," said Braddon in reply to the message, as he gave the word to the picket to march within shelter. "I hope the colonel doesn't mean to stay out and get shot; the brutes will be getting the range soon."
Yorke returned to Falkland, who was standing with his hands behind his back surveying the ground in front.
It was now broad daylight, and just then a bullet hit the gravel almost at their feet.
Falkland turned towards Yorke and smiled again. "I think we may follow the others now," he said, and led the way to the portico.
"Let us come up on the roof," he added, when they got inside.
"This is very satisfactory," he remarked, turning round to Yorke as they mounted the staircase.
"Very, sir," replied the young man; "I began to think we should get knocked over before the business began."
"Well, that is satisfactory, too," rejoined the colonel when they had reached the roof, and were standing together by the parapet, which covered them nearly to the waists; "but I was referring to Pandy's mode of attack. It is very satisfactory to see him beginning in this respectful style. If they had made a rush on the place, and had been prepared to lose a few men in doing so, there is no saying how matters might have gone; but if they are going to content themselves with potting away in this feeble manner, they may keep at it for a century without hurting us. See, there goes a reinforcement of skirmishers! the whole wall will be lined with men presently, and the other sides of the building are going to be blockaded in the same way." As Falkland spoke, two bodies of sepoys, each
three or four hundred strong, could be seen marching off from behind the court-house to the right and left, as if intending to occupy the ground on the remaining sides of the park.
"I think they are firing at us now, sir," said Yorke presently, as a bullet came singing past, apparently close to their ears.
"Possibly, but more probably an indication of your true sepoy's ineradicable propensity to fire at the sky. However, we have seen enough for the present. But we shall want a snug place for a lookout man here. Have some of your spare sandbags brought up, to line a bit of the parapet with."
No wonder people admire Falkland, thought Yorke to himself, as he descended the staircase to execute the order; he certainly is a splendid fellow; but if she were my wife, I don't think I could risk my life in that way.
Thus the siege of the residency had begun.
CHAPTER 24
========================================
CHAPTER XXIV.
The
residency at Mustaphabad, which was now to become the scene of an eventful episode in the history of the Great Mutiny, stood, as has already been explained, in a park of about fifty acres,
surrounded by a strong brick wall, stuccoed white, and about five feet high. On the east side this boundary was distant about a hundred and fifty yards from the house; and immediately within the wall, and exactly east of the main building, was Captain Sparrow's house — or, as it was generally called, the Lodge, — the wall at this point being indented, and projecting into the outer road, so that the back wall of the house was without the general line of the boundary wall. The carriage entrance was about fifty yards to the north of Sparrow's house. There was no gate here, but only an opening in the wall about twenty feet wide, whence the road led by a slight sweep up to the portico on the north side of the house; a rough barricade of carts and carriages removed from their axles had been placed in this gap. Fifty yards more to the north came the end wall of the stables, which ran along the enclosure, their back wall corresponding with it, the open front of the stalls facing the park. In continuation of the stables was the range of servants' huts, also running along the wall and extending up to the north-east corner of it. The north wall was distant about two hundred and fifty yards from the house, and three hundred yards long. The west wall met the north wall at an obtuse angle, and ran obliquely to meet the west end of the south wall, which latter was more than a quarter of a mile long, and nearly three hundred yards from the south side of the buildings. Thus three sides of the park boundary were parallel to the house, and the fourth inclined to it, — the whole enclosure forming a trapezoid, the triangular portion of which was occupied by the vegetable and fruit garden. This garden was separated from the lawn, at the distance of some fifty yards from the house, by a thick hedge. Outside the park wall on the east side ran the road from cantonments to the city, about three quarters of a mile off, traversing a plain on which stood the court-house, surrounded by a grove of scattered trees. Opposite Sparrow's house, on the other side of this road, was a village surrounded by a mud wall. On the other three sides the park was surrounded by fields, at this season bare of crops. A line of well-grown trees ran along the wall on all sides; the park itself was dotted with timber, and laid out with grass, the turf being at this season of the year as hard as the roads and of a bright red colour. The garden, on the west side of the park, was thickly planted with bushes and fruit-trees.
The building itself has already been described in general terms. It was a very large rectangular block, substantially built of brick without regard to economy in the thickness of the walls, stuccoed red outside, flat-roofed, one storey high, with the floor raised about five feet from the ground. The portico was on the north side, and from underneath it a flight of broad steps gave access to the house, the centre rooms of which consisted of an anteroom, dining-room, drawing-room, and billiard-room, leading in order from one to the other, all very lofty and spacious, and communicating by two large folding-doors in each wall. On the left or east of the landing-place was a sort of pantry and storeroom, used to heat the dishes brought from the distant cook-house before dinner; and on the right a guard-room, communicating with the top of the steps, and in which also was the staircase to the roof. Next to these four public rooms on the west side was a suite of four large rooms, used in ordinary times as the commissioner's private office and dressing-room, his wife's bedroom, her boudoir, and her maid's room, communicating with each other and with the public rooms by folding-doors. A similar suite of four rooms, one of which was used as an office and occasional dining-room, the other three being usually reserved for guests, was on the east side. Outside these two suites of rooms were wide and lofty verandas, supported on substantial pillars, extending along the east and west sides, and terminated by bathing-rooms which projected into them at the four corners. There was a similar veranda on the south, outside the billiard-room. Part of the middle of the east veranda was also occupied by bath-rooms attached to the guest-chambers. The centre rooms were somewhat higher than the outer, and were lighted when the doors were closed by rectangular clerestory windows. The outer rooms, again, were higher than the veranda, and were lighted in the same way.
South of the house, and about thirty yards from it, was the bath-house — a rectangular building containing a swimming-bath about thirty feet long by twenty broad, enclosed on all sides by a wide platform, raised a few inches above the level of the water. The roof was supported partly on pillars which ran round the edge of the bath, and externally by a wall resting on brick arches which extended round the building on the outer edge of the platform; the spaces between the arches had been filled up with a brick wall seven feet high for the sake of
privacy, leaving the space above open for circulation of air. The bath was supplied with water from a well adjacent to it on the south, worked ordinarily by bullocks and a Persian wheel. The platform of the bath-house was four feet above the ground, and was approached by a flight of steps on its north side, opposite the billiard-room veranda.
Such was the building which was now to be defended. Large, airy, and massive, and standing in its own grounds at a distance from other houses, one better adapted for defence could not have been found in India; and although the additional works improvised in the emergency were of a very simple kind, consisting mainly of the sandbag wall, which, as already described, had been erected round the outer edge of the verandas, the building presented a formidable obstacle against the attack of any enemy unprovided with guns. This sandbag parapet had been made seven feet high, with loopholes at a height of six feet from the ground. The portico had been enclosed in the same way, and gave a partial flanking defence to the north side of the building, while on the south side a similar advantage was more effectually given by the detached bath-house. Here no sandbag parapet was needed, the building being surrounded externally by a bullet-proof wall to the height of seven feet, in which loopholes had now been driven, while a sandbag parapet, erected on the circular rim of the well attached to the bath, brought this all-important element of the supplies within the line of defence. A trench of communication had been dug between the two buildings, the earth from which had been thrown up as a parapet on either side, but progress had been slow in the hard soil, and the trench was but a shallow one, forming imperfect cover. An opening left in the rampart of the south veranda gave access to this trench, a lane of sandbags leading to it down the steps. The landing at the top of the north flight of steps was also protected by a parapet, so as to cover the entrance to the guard and store rooms, an opening being left to give access to the portico. This completed the defenders' works, save that such of the numerous massive folding-doors as were not needed for communication about the building, and which usually stood open (privacy being secured by light hanging screens and curtains), were closed for the occasion. The strength of the building as thus set out was evidenced by the cautious manner in which the assailants had begun their attack.
The persons who had taken refuge in the building, and composed its garrison, were as follows: —
1°. Falkland, Sparrow, and two East-Indian clerks belonging to the residency office. To these must be added the American missionary, Mr. Jabez P. Hodder. This gentleman had been deaf to all the entreaties made him on the outbreak to leave the mission-house, which was in the heart of the city, and his wife had refused to leave her husband; and they had held their ground at the mission until the
émeute
in the city of the day before, when some of his native catechists had carried him and his wife away, almost by force, till they fell in with Falkland's party returning from their fruitless errand, and committed the steadfast pair to his charge.
2°. Brigadier Polwheedle, Captain Buxey, and Major Peart from the cantonment staff, and a Mr. Layton, who kept a general store in cantonments.
3°. Major Dumble and eight officers 76th N.I.
4°. Seven officers 80th N.I.
5°. Two officers 82d N.I., the survivors from the massacre of that regiment.
6°. Drs. Maxwell, residency surgeon, and Grumbull of the 76th N.I.
Total, thirty Europeans, of whom, however, the brigadier was not effective for work.
Of native combatants there were — the commissioner's jemadar. Ameer Khan, and four orderlies, and the seventeen faithful sepoys of the 76th, or twenty-two in all. Thus there were fifty-one effective combatants altogether.
Six of the commissioner's servants, including his old butler, were still present of those who had promised to stay, and one native groom had been retained in charge of the horses picketed under the portico.
The women were — Mrs. Falkland, Justine, Mrs. Polwheedle, Mrs. and Miss Peart, Mrs. Hodder, Mrs. O'Halloran, the newly-made widow of the unfortunate bazaar-sergeant, and Mrs. De Souza, the wife of one of Falkland's clerks. There were also Mrs. O'Halloran's two children. The only native female of the party was Olivia's ayah.
Altogether seventy souls were collected within the building.
Hitherto there had seemed to many of the European members of the community thus strangely collected together, a sort of
unreality in the situation. They had heard of bloodshed and massacre in other places, but so far they had gone through no experience of actual violence. Even when they escaped from the cantonments, the flight took place at night; and although firing could be heard, they had seen no enemy, and were not actually molested. Since that time, although they had been huddled together in this enforced companionship, everything without had seemed perfectly quiet, and, save for their own disordered appearance, there was no sign of outrage or rebellion. Only last evening when they were strolling round the house in the dusk, to get a breath of fresh air, the park presented a scene of perfect peace and quiet, even the ordinary traffic on the road outside being suspended. Possibly, then, to some of the party it may have seemed as if either what had taken place in other parts of the country was a horrid dream, or else that a special good-fortune attended them, and that the worst in store for themselves would be the burden of a day or two passed in this way, in discomfort and on their guard, until the expected relief should arrive. But now, as the sound of rapid firing suddenly broke out around, and the quick patter of the bullets could be heard against the walls, the truth dawned upon these poor women that no special providence would shield them from the same horrors as had overtaken so many of their friends and fellow-countrywomen. For them, too, awful moments had come, when they were called on to face battle and murder and sudden death; and some of them, as they stood trembling in the great dining-room, might well think that the enemy were upon them, and their last moment had come, as they heard the tramp of feet hurrying up the stone stairs and into the outer hall.
It was the body of the garrison returning from the outside, and who now passed by them swiftly to reinforce their respective posts, giving as they went by in their excitement a hurried word or two of encouragement.
Every man's place had been assigned to him beforehand, and within a few seconds after the re-entry of the picket, the garrison was distributed in the appointed order, awaiting the attack.
The distribution of that force had been arranged as follows: —
The main guard of six Europeans and six sepoys was established in the portico under command of Captain Braddon. Major Passey commanded the bath-house picket, consisting of four Europeans and four natives. A party of four Europeans and three natives was posted in the east veranda, under Captain Underwood, the senior officer of the 80th; and another of the same strength, under Major Peart, in the west. Dumble, Buxey, and two other Europeans, with the two doctors and five sepoys, formed a reserve to reinforce whatever part might be necessary. This reserve was stationed in the anteroom or entrance-hall.
Yorke was attached to Falkland as his staff-officer, but his post when not required in that capacity was in the western veranda; and his heart beat high with excitement as he thought that his share in the struggle was, as it were, to guard Olivia's own room.
Falkland also kept his jemadar unattached, in personal attendance on himself.
CHAPTER 25
========================================
CHAPTER XXV.
The
different parties were now at their posts watching through their loopholes the fire of the enemy, which as yet had not been returned, for all that could be seen was the head and shoulders of an occasional sepoy, rising up for a moment from behind the wall to deliver his fire, and then crouching down again.
Meanwhile the ladies remained in the dining-room, where also was the brigadier on a sofa, in a state of expectancy. None of them felt as if the state of tension could last, or as if it were worth while moving from their places for the present. Thus they waited for the sound of the assault, which every moment they thought must be made. And here, surrounded by outer walls and the blockaded veranda, the firing made but little noise.
Presently there was a crash of glass from a picture-frame hanging against the wall. A bullet, aimed too high, passing over the sandbag rampart in the veranda, had come through the outer room and lodged in the dining-room wall, piercing the head of one of Landseer's stags on the way.
The ladies started up, all but Olivia, who kept her seat, though pale, and some one gave a little scream.
Just then Falkland looked into the room. "Ha," said he, "we forgot the pictures; we must have them down, or the place will be covered with broken glass. You are not frightened, my love, are you?" he said, taking the hand of Olivia, who had gone to meet him, between his own, and stroking it fondly, while he looked
down on her with a gentle smile. "You see, as long as the bullets go up here, you are in no danger."
"Not afraid, except for
you
," she replied, laying her disengaged hand on his arm, while the large eyes looked up wistfully from the pale face. "Oh, Robert dear! pray be careful of yourself; Mr. Yorke has been telling me of the risk you ran just now. I don't want to be selfish, but think how much to all of us depends on you."
"Don't be alarmed, my child," said her husband, smiling again, and patting her on the shoulder; "it was necessary to show these scoundrels that we were not afraid of them; but now that we are all safe inside, I am going to set an example of caution to everybody."
"But cannot we women be of some use? It is dreadful being made to sit here doing nothing. Cannot we help to load your rifles, or something of that sort?"
"Better keep here awhile. I am in hopes the rogues will take themselves off in an hour or two, when they see there is nothing to be got by stopping."
"Hark! what is that?" cried Olivia, starting, as a sharp crack was heard outside.
"Our fellows opening fire," said her husband. "You will soon get accustomed to the noise. I have told them only to fire, sir," he continued, addressing the brigadier, "when they see a chance of doing execution; that is in accordance with your wishes, I believe:" and so saying, he hastened away.
Strict orders had been given to the garrison to be careful of their ammunition, which was limited, and not to fire unless with a chance of doing execution, and, so far, not a shot had been returned to the continued but harmless fusilade directed at the building. Some of the mutineers, emboldened at this, had jumped over the wall and taken shelter behind the trees, thus getting a few yards nearer to the building, from which position they could aim more leisurely.
"Here is a case within the colonel's orders," said Passey, who commanded the bath-house picket, as from a loophole in that building a sepoy could be seen distinctly reloading his musket, hidden by the trunk of the tree from the main building, but exposed to view from this projecting angle. "Now, M'Intyre, you are a dead hand at an antelope running, I know; see if you can't hit a pandy standing. Here's one of old Cunningham's Westley Richards; you shall have the first shot."
The subaltern, who was standing on an empty beer-chest placed against the wall, took the rifle which Passey handed to him, and aimed through a loophole, the others watching the result through other loopholes.
M'Intyre fired; the sepoy staggered and fell.
"Well done!" cried Passey, getting on the box to look out; "you have drawn first blood. The beggars will be a little more cautious about showing themselves now, I expect."
"That rifle shoots the least thing too high," said M'Intyre, returning the weapon, and resuming his own. "I aimed at the fellow's stomach, but I think I hit him through the heart. I'll try my own, next time, major, if you please."
"Here they come on our side," said Egan to Yorke, as the two, also mounted on empty boxes, stood looking through the loopholes of the west veranda.
"I see the bushes moving, but I can't see any fellows."
"You can hear them, at any rate," said the other, as the bullets lodged in the sandbags with a thud, or, passing over their heads, rattled against the back wall of the veranda.
Indeed, the garden seemed to be now full of men, who kept up a continuous but ill-directed fire against the building.
"The fellows fight more like red Indians than respectable sepoys," observed Mr. Egan; "however, they are sure to give us a chance before long."
Presently he fired. "Look here, Yorke!" he cried; "come here if you want to see one of the noble enemy. Do you see a pair of legs just by that plantain-tree? That's all I could see; but I aimed where I thought the body must be, and the legs haven't moved since. See, they are dragging the body away. I must have another go at them," and he fired again, and the shot appeared to take effect, for the dragging operation ceased.
Thus the affair went on, a scrambling fusilade kept up by the assailants, the garrison only returning the fire when there was a fair chance of doing execution. A man climbing over the wall too deliberately, fell headlong from the top under M'Intyre's unerring aim; and the same marksman had sent a shot into a group of men standing in the direction of the court-house, a distance of nearly four hundred yards, laying one low and dispersing the
rest. Two or three of the party which now occupied Sparrow's house had been seen to fall; Braddon, from the main picket, had shot two. Yorke, also, had made his first hit: a man moving from one bush to another, musket in hand, stooping as he went, but still exposing himself, fell prone at Yorke's fire, and crawled away slowly, and the young man felt half savage and half sick at the result of his shot. His ideal of war had been associated with taking life in the abstract only, and the first actual taste of blood, albeit of a would-be murderer's, caused a sickening sensation, which, however, soon yielded to excitement, and the love of killing inherent in mankind. And now a couple of good shots sent up to the roof did some damage before the assailants in the garden, thus laid open to view, had time to withdraw more under cover. Altogether, when Falkland went the rounds, fifteen or sixteen of the enemy had been distinctly accounted for, but no one of the garrison had been touched.
These losses made the rebels more wary. The party which had occupied the garden retired to a safe distance, and the fire on all sides sensibly abated.
"I begin to feel like grub," said Mr. Egan to his comrades, after a time. "This is an exciting if not a very dangerous occupation, and makes one peckish, not to say thirsty. I feel as if I could dispose of any quantity of pegs if they were to be had. I wonder what time it is. By Jove!" he continued, pulling out his watch — "fancy, it's only eight o'clock!" And in truth, although the garrison seemed to have been undergoing an interminable siege, the day had scarcely begun.
Shortly after this, breakfast was served — tea, hot cakes of unleavened bread (the Indian
chupattees
), and stew with rice. The pantry by the portico served as the kitchen, and for occupation by the servants, while that opposite it was appropriated to the sepoys, who cooked for themselves. The flour and grain had been stored in the north-east spare room, while the commissioner's stock of sheep and poultry had been penned in a part of the platform of the bath-house. The ladies and the reserve took their meal in the dining-room; the different guards each furnished a detail of one of their number to receive their portion, except that stationed in the bath-house, which had been supplied with a day's provisions and a native servant to cook; for the trench leading to it afforded but imperfect cover, and Falkland would allow no one, except to convey orders, to go to and fro.
Various weak points in the sand-bag parapet had been discovered, especially where it joined the round pillars of the veranda, at which points two or three bullets had found entrance. These were made good, with eager zeal, and then the garrison awaited patiently the next movement of the enemy, one member of each
picket, mounted on a box, keeping a lookout through a loophole, while the others sat, arms in hand, below.
As the sun mounted into the sky, the heat became fiercer than ever. The rainy season was approaching, and the high winds of the Indian summer had ceased, but not much air could find its way through the barrier, alhough many of the doors were open. In ordinary times it would have been declared impossible for Europeans to support such heat without punkahs, but now it was unnoticed. The ladies fanned themselves, the gentlemen wiped their faces. All were composed, but no one discussed the future.
The heat had the good effect of quieting the enemy. Towards noon the firing ceased entirely, and the first excitement of the defenders having passed over, they began to think about rest. A fourth part of each picket were allowed to leave their post at a time, to wash and dress; of the rest, a part were allowed to sleep in turn, which they did on cots brought into the verandas, or on blankets stretched on the pavement, while the remainder kept a look-out. But none of the enemy could be seen stirring. At one o'clock dinner was supplied, flour-cakes, and stew and rice as before, with a bottle of beer between every two persons. The sepoys, going off duty by turns, cooked their single meal of coarse wheat cakes, which they devoured in silence, sitting gravely on their hams and stripped to their waist, taking afterwards a long draught of water from the separate store they had previously themselves drawn from the well, for to drink water obtained in any other way would have been pollution; and then passing round the "hubble-bubble" or simple hookah for each to take a whiff.
Then Colonel Falkland, who had hardly had a minute's rest since the outbreak, fell asleep on a couch in the drawing-room, and slept till evening, his wife sitting by him and keeping the flies off his face with a brush of peacock's feathers; while Miss Peart took the children into a side-room to prevent their disturbing him,
and made them some little rag dolls to play with — for poor Mrs. O'Halloran seemed bewildered with the situation, and sat, for the most part, fanning herself silently.
Towards evening the firing was suddenly resumed, waking Falkland and other sleepers. One of the bath-house guard had incautiously exposed himself in passing through the covered way, by standing on the edge of the trench to take a look at the situation, with the parapet scarcely covering his knees, and had drawn a fire which showed that the assailants were still in force; but it slackened after a few minutes, and then stopped.
At sunset another meal was served out.
"We have come out to see if we can get a little cool air," said Olivia, appearing with Miss Peart in the western veranda after the hasty meal was ended; for by this time the restrictions on the movements of the ladies had been tacitly abandoned, and they went about the building at pleasure: "these centre rooms are getting to be almost unbearable, and I think they are worse now than during the day, because one expects to be a little cooler in the evening."
"This veranda is hardly any better, I am afraid," said Yorke, rising from the empty beer-chest on which he had been sitting, and which did duty for a banquette, "for it has had all the afternoon sun upon it. Why not go on the top of the house for a bit, as soon as it is dark, and get some fresh air? You will be perfectly
safe there, if you keep to the centre, and don't go near the edge."
"That would be nice, indeed; I will go and see if Colonel Falkland will allow it." And the ladies withdrew presently from Yorke's post, not to be seen again that evening, for the roof was found to be so cool by comparison, that Falkland had shawls and bedding taken up, and the ladies passed the night there, quite unnoticed by the enemy.
With many the coming darkness was looked forward to with dread, as the enemy might be expected to take advantage of it for a real attack; and the sense of security afforded by the strength of the position, and its easy defence during the day, was succeeded, as the shades of evening advanced, by a fear of danger from some unseen quarter. And Falkland, refreshed by sleep, went round the building at frequent intervals to see that the guards were all at their posts. When night came on, too, a supply of water had to be drawn for the next day, and carried in jars to the main building. The platform-well having been surrounded with sandbags, and thus, in fact, included in the bath-house defences, the garrison of that post could draw water unseen by the enemy at pleasure, but it could not be taken along the covered way in the daytime. The task of conveying the jars devolved on the reserve, Falkland standing the while outside the covered way, to note if any sounds could be heard indicating a night attack. But although a movement of men could be heard about Sparrow's house, both then and throughout the night, the enemy did not fire a shot, or attempt to disturb them, and hopes began to arise in the breasts of many, that the rebels meant to take themselves away.
"The fellows will be off to-morrow even if they don't go to-night," said the brigadier from his couch to every one who came near him, still bathing his eyes with a wet rag dipped in the basin of water beside him; "Falkland says they are sure to do so; and in any case, he says that relief is sure to arrive by morning. The cowardly fellows will sheer off when they see the gallant Sikhs marching down on them, I'll be bound." And indeed, in all hearts the hope was strong that the attack had ended with the first discomfiture of the mutineers; and as night wore on, those who were at liberty to take rest lay down to sleep off their anxiety, while those who were on duty remained calm and silent at their posts. No lights were allowed in the verandas; some lamps threw a dim illumination during the night over the large centre rooms.
"We are so much indebted to you, Mr. Yorke, for your happy suggestion," said Olivia, as the party were drinking tea next morning in the dining-room — a recreation in which Yorke, being off duty, was able to join; "I can't tell you what a comfortable night we passed on the roof; it was quite cool, and has completely invigorated me; and then whenever one awoke there were the stars shining overhead, and everything so peaceful, it was difficult sometimes to realize where we were. But it seemed very selfish to be lying there so comfortably, while all of you gentlemen were on the watch in the dreadful heat below."
"I am sure I could hardly sleep a wink for the hardness of the roof," said Mrs. Polwheedle; "and we pay for having been cool up there, by coming down into this dreadful close room. You people who have been here all night have no
notion how awfully stuffy it feels after the fresh air."
As Mrs. Polwheedle had slept soundly during the greater part of the afternoon, it was not surprising that her night should have been wakeful; while it did also occur to Yorke that she of all the party should have had least cause to complain of the hardness of the pavement, in respect that nature had furnished her with
an ample cushion; but he did not commit this repartee to words.
The party thus assembled, sitting in a circle at one end of the drawing-room round a small table on which the tea was placed, formed a curious contrast to the surroundings; for except that the room had not been dusted, that the picture-frames were piled on the piano, and various bundles lying about, it presented the ordinary aspect of a handsomely-furnished apartment; but the occupants were a strangely-assorted group. By general consent, coats and collars had been dispensed with by the men; and with several of the community a light under-waistcoat did duty for a shirt — the supply of the latter article of dress being very limited in the garrison — and with a pair of white or flannel trousers gave the wearer the appearance of a dirty racquet-player, while incipient beards added to the general seediness of aspect. All the men had their firearms beside them, or between their knees. The ladies generally did not look to much better advantage, although Olivia had somehow managed to make herself neat before descending; and her beautiful hair, coiled in neat folds round her stately head, was in contrast to the general slovenliness of the rest. Miss Peart, indeed, had washed her face before joining the party, and was clad in a clean muslin robe of her hostess; but as she sat in a low lounging-seat drinking her tea it was evident to the company that she had given up wearing stockings for the time; while Mrs. Polwheedle had apparently discarded stays and under-garments generally, as conducive to heat and supererogatory during siege-life, and sat fanning herself in a rocking-chair, clad in a crumpled wrapper which yielded to each impress of her ample figure.
CHAPTER 26
========================================
CHAPTER XXVI.
The
hope imparted to the garrison by the stillness of the night and early dawn, that their enemies might have abandoned the blockade, was dissipated with the return of daylight. The sepoy encampment was still standing pitched among the trees behind the court-house; large bodies of men were drawn up near that building, detachments from which could be seen from the look-out place on the roof to march down with a semblance of discipline to relieve the advanced pickets which lined the park walls; and about sunrise a lively fire began again, especially from the east wall and Sparrow's house, the roof of which was now discerned to be protected by a parapet of sandbags piled up during the night, in imitation of the defenders' method, while the doorways and veranda facing the park had been blocked in the same way; sandbag loopholes had also been made at various points along the top of the adjacent wall, so that the assailants were now on an equality as regards cover, and having apparently unlimited ammunition, they fired briskly, although with more care than on the previous day, evidently aiming at the loopholes of the garrison. The covered way to the bath-house was now completely commanded from the roof of Sparrow's house; and as Falkland passed along it to visit the guard there, attended by Yorke and the jemadar, the party had to run the gauntlet of a sharp fire.
"It's precious lucky, sir, there were no rifle companies among our three gallant regiments," said M'Intyre to the colonel, as a bullet, coming through a loophole from which he had just withdrawn, whizzed through the bath-house, and lodged in the wall on the other side, "or we should have a few more of these gentry."
"You're an awful dab at field-engineering and that sort of thing, Arty, I know," said Spragge, who had just entered the smaller building, bringing a bag of flour for the day's rations to his friend; "but you haven't made allowance for a fellow of my inches. Just look at this," he continued, holding up his pith helmet, in the top of which were a couple of round holes; "precious lucky my poor old nut was a little lower down, wasn't it? I don't want to give Johnny Raugh a step just yet."
"Pandy is quick to take a hint," said Falkland to his aide, "and we could not prevent their making sandbags, as long as there is any cloth left in the country. But we must try if we can't manage to control their spirits a bit." And returning to the main building, he collected about a dozen of the best shots on the east side, with orders to select each a loophole in Sparrow's house, and to aim carefully as soon as it should be occupied, and then sent Yorke to creep along the covered way, on his knees, holding up his hat on a stick
just above cover. The
ruse
succeeded perfectly. In a few seconds the hat was observed; muskets protruded from every loophole on the other side, and a sharp fire was opened on the moving object. The riflemen fired in return, and as the fire of the enemy was immediately checked, some execution might be inferred; after this manœuvre the enemy became more cautious. Towards noon the dropping fire which followed this affair slackened, and was followed by a time of perfect quiet, as on the previous day.
The second day of the siege; and it seemed as if they had been shut up for a month. To the first excitement there now succeeded the monotonous discharge of the prescribed routine. The great event was to be off duty at meal-time, so as to be able to meet the delegates from other pickets, and compare notes. The ladies had now taken on themselves the office of bringing their meals to those on duty; and Yorke and the others in the west veranda had the happiness of receiving their plates of curry and damper from Olivia's hands, which the young man would fain have kissed with gratitude as he relieved them of their burden. Seen under the aspect of this crisis, she no longer seemed to be a wife. This must be a dream, thought the young man; she is more like an angel than a being of this world; no harm can come near her; and he felt quite happy at his post.
Most of the officers bathed in the bath, two at a time, and with orders not to splash or make a noise. The billiard-table also was frequented; and some cards had been hunted up, and a party sat down to whist. But the cards curled up with the heat, and got dirty and dusty, and the game soon dropped. Moreover, Olivia, remembering that her father had left some cheroots behind him — Falkland did not smoke — had unpacked and made over the precious windfall to Buxey, who had taken charge of the commissariat; and Buxey served out two cheroots a day to each person — a No. 2 after dinner, and a No. 1 in the evening. They were very good: and never were cigars more appreciated, or smoked more completely to the end.
By tacit, consent the question was avoided, how long the blockade would last, or what would be the end of it; but Buxey said there was a capital stock of provisions. No one, however, but Falkland knew what was the state of the ammunition. This was stored in an underground chamber, constructed by the architect of the residency as a retreat for the hot season, according to a mode of building not unfrequent in the early days of Anglo-Indians, but which had never been used for that purpose.
One thing especially which imparted spirit and confidence to the garrison was the bearing of the native portion of it. Falkland's determination to trust these men had been viewed by several with alarm in the beginning, lest the defence should be undermined by sudden treachery within. Captain Sparrow had been very free in his criticism to all who would listen to him on the foolhardy rashness of his chief; and Mrs. Polwheedle had tried in vain to persuade the brigadier to insist on the sepoys being kept together in the portico outside the building, instead of being distributed about it, and had spent a good deal of her time at first in watching their deportment. If a sepoy looked grave, he was meditating desertion; if he laughed — and most of them seemed now in capital spirits — he was chuckling over some plot in contemplation; a respectful bearing was set down to cringing, the crouching of the tiger before its spring; and if any one seemed more free in manner than usual, the villain was chuckling in his insolence over the prospect of having the sahibs in his power. But the most timid or suspicious could no longer withhold their confidence, on seeing how heartily their dark-coloured allies had thrown themselves into the spirit of the defence. Had the enemy been their bitterest natural foe instead of the comrades of a lifetime, they could not have shown a greater alacrity in the play of sharpshooting; the difficulty was to make them husband their ammunition. Two of the sepoys who proved to be good shots had been supplied with rifles, and Falkland's jemadar had come to be regarded as next to M'Intyre the marksman of the garrison. The six servants, too, did their duty with perfect
sang froid
; and the ayah was ready at all times to brush any lady's hair, as well as that of her mistress.
"Pandy seems to have had enough of it for the present," observed Braddon between the puffs of his cigar to the little party assembled that evening in the portico, which post he commanded; and as he spoke the silence was unbroken by any firing; nor, looking through the loopholes, was there an enemy to be seen in any direction.
"I calculate we have accounted for at least thirty of them," remarked Mr. Hodder, the missionary, who wore a black
alpaca coat and trousers, as the symbol of his calling, but had been doing active duty as a sharpshooter, and now sat on a cot, smoking, with a repeating rifle on his knees; "say thirty, besides speculating on the parties who have not been marked down; at least as many more, I'll bet. The remainder perhaps have taken the hint and gone to their own place too."
"That still leaves two thousand nine hundred and seventy pandies unaccounted for," said Sparrow, who from the first had maintained a consistently doleful appearance, "besides all the blackguards in the city, whom the commissioner so wisely provided with arms two days ago. They won't be so easily choked off, take my word for it. This silence means some new mischief, you may depend."
"Well, sir," replied Hodder, a little sallow man with a clear eye, and a face smooth save for a small light beard, "and if they do try any of their tricks, the sooner they do it the better; I guess we are ready for them; we know a thing or two; and we shall give them a warm welcome, I expect." And Mr. Hodder tapped his repeater cheerfully, and indeed his remarks only reflected the spirits of the garrison. The ease with which the enemy had been kept at bay, and their own immunity from any loss so far, had given general confidence. Relief must come soon, and it would be easy to hold out for a long time in such a fortress as this, and against assailants so unenterprising.
As soon as it was dark the ladies again ascended to the roof, and the night passed away in perfect quiet, save that about one o'clock, as Falkland, who had got some sleep during the day, and spent the night on the alert, was going the round of the sentries, the officer who was posted in the covered way — a sentry had been stationed there each night, and the post was a favourite one, the open air being much cooler than the inside of the buildings — reported that he heard an unusual noise in the direction of the entrance-gate.
Falkland stopped to listen. There was certainly a sound as of the movement of men. He went to fetch Yorke and the jemadar, who were asleep in the west veranda, and they came back with him to the trench.
Putting their ears to the ground, they could distinctly hear the sound.
"They are doing something to the barricade," said the jemadar to his master in an undertone, in Hindustani; "shall I go and see what it is?"
For a moment Falkland hesitated. Could the man be intending treachery?
Yorke seemed to divine the colonel's thoughts, for he whispered, "May I go with him, sir?"
But Falkland at once cast the unworthy suspicion from him. And after all, if any native wanted to desert, nothing was easier at any time of the night. The man being told he might go, jumped over the low parapet, and disappeared in the darkness. In about five minutes he returned. He had been down nearly to the gateway. The barricade which closed the entrance there had been made of some carts and carriages, including Falkland's own barouche, taken off their axles and fastened together. Ameer Khan could not tell for certain what the enemy were about, but they appeared to be employed in removing it.
Then Yorke obtained leave to go down and reconnoitre. The enemy had no sentries, and were so busily engaged on their work that he got within a few yards of them without being perceived. There was no moon, but the night was not dark, and lying down he watched their proceedings for some minutes. He could just make out
some figures at work, and could hear the grinding noise of something being dragged along the gravel. They were evidently removing the different obstacles which composed the barricade.
Looking round to his right the outline of Sparrow's house stood out against the sky. From where he lay it was almost in his rear; he had been so intent on watching the barricade during his advance that he had not thought about the house and its occupants, and he shuddered for the moment to think how easily he might have been seen by them, and his retreat cut off. To be killed in open fight was a fate he was ready enough to meet; but to be murdered out there, without help, and without being able to sell his life, and no one knowing what had become of him, — what a horrid fate that would be! But the place seemed perfectly quiet, and dismissing his nervous fears, the young man walked stealthily towards the building. No one was stirring, and he advanced as far as the wall of sandbags which the enemy had built up along the front of the house. This he found to be about ten feet distant from the edge of the veranda, and standing by the end of this rampart so that his body would not be distinguishable from it, he took a leisurely view of the place. The veranda seemed to be full of men, all fast asleep; others lay on the gravel path
between it and the rampart, one of them, with a calico wrapper over his head and shoulders, so close that Yorke could have kicked him with his foot. After watching the scene for a few seconds, till even in the darkness the whole grew clear, he stole back to the covered way to tell Falkland, anxiously awaiting his return, what he had seen.
This
removal of the barrier looked like mischief, and before the short June night had given way to the early dawn, the garrison was got under arms, and the captains of posts warned to be on the alert, while Falkland ascended with Yorke to the roof to reconnoitre. Mounting the staircase, they advanced to the edge of the eastern parapet. The stars were now disappearing, and the line of park wall could just be distinguished here and there in the gaps between the trees, as well as the roof of Sparrow's house.
"Everything quiet," observed Yorke in a whisper; "Pandy is not awake yet, any more than our own poor ladies," glancing as he spoke backwards at the recumbent figures behind them, with rugs and shawls thrown over their dresses, most of them still asleep, while one or two, awakened by the footsteps, were sitting up leaning on their elbows, among these latter one whom his quick eye made out to be Olivia, and who, disengaging herself from the shawl thrown over her dress, was rising and coming towards them.
"See, what is that?" whispered
Falkland, pointing across the park, "are not these men? Yes, I can make them out distinctly now; the ground behind the wall swarms with them. They mean mischief evidently; "and as he spoke, a number of figures in white could be seen in the twilight clambering over the wall and forming up on the inside.
Falkland rushed down the stairs with Yorke at his heels, but just as he reached the bottom, he turned to the latter, and pointing upwards said, "Just run back and tell them all to lie down and keep under shelter till this business is over."
Yorke ran up again to the roof. The top of the staircase was near the edge, and coming out of it his attention was irresistibly caught by the sight which presented itself below. On all sides a swarm of sepoys, rushing out from cover, had surrounded the building, and halting at about fifty paces opened fire upon it. They were dressed in white, with small skull-caps and bare legs. Some lay down as if skirmishing on parade, others stood boldly up on the lawn, reloading, or taking aim. The flashes of fire, bright in the grey twilight, seemed almost to encircle the building. And coming up the main road from the entrance-gate was a strong column with their arms at the shoulder, led by a native officer waving his sword.
Yorke stood spell-bound for a moment watching the scene, till, becoming sensible that some one was standing close behind him, he turned round. It was Olivia. A light scarf round her shoulders concealed the crumpled dress, but her long tresses had escaped from their bands and hung loosely over her shoulder.
"Is this to be the end?" she said, hardly looking at him, but gazing with dilated eye, in which, however, there was no sign of fear, at the spectacle below. "What can we women do to help?"
"Nothing," he returned, "except to keep out of fire. You really must," he continued, in a pleading voice, for they had been observed on the roof, and the bullets began to whizz past them; and then seeing that she stood as if spell-bound, he suddenly seized her hands in his, and pressing her palms back on the wrists forced her to the ground. This was done in an instant. "I am only obeying orders," he said smiling, as he rose up and let go her hands; "keep like this, quite flat, and you will be safe." Then turning to the others, who were now, some sitting, some standing, bewildered, he cried, "Down, all of you, flat on your backs!" and then rushed down the stairs.
Hurried though he was, the young man could not help being struck by the contrast between the scene within and that which he had just seen without; the crowd of sepoys pressing round the building, and the blaze of fire as seen in the cool morning air, the dark barricaded portico below, with the handful of grimy-looking defenders in the sweltering heat, some firing through the loopholes, the rest standing in reserve on the steps, ready for what might happen. But there was not much time for deliberation. The attacking column, some hundreds in number, was already upon them, spreading round the portico; and the foremost, seizing the protruding muskets with their hands turned the aim away, and, pressed on by those behind, pushed against the frail wall which blocked up the two carriage-entrances and the spaces between the pillars, and tried to turn it over, pulling down the sandbags at the top at the same time and throwing them inwards, the dust from which, as they fell to the ground, mingled with the smoke to obscure the scene. There was no firing just at this moment. The defenders of the portico, having already discharged their muskets, had not time to load. The sepoys in the rear could not fire in that direction for their comrades in front. For a few seconds, although the fusilade was kept up all round, the only sounds immediately about the portico were the shouts and oaths of the rebel party, freely given back by the sepoys within, their scuffling as they pressed against the rampart, and the stamping of the frightened horses trying to preak loose from their tethers. Nothing could be seen by either side of the other; the sandbag rampart protected the assailants as well as the defenders.
Presently a hand protruded over the wall, clutching it by the top as if some one were going to spring over. A sword gleamed in the air, and came down swiftly on the exposed wrist, and the armless hand dropped lightly down inside the wall. It was Ameer Khan who had struck the blow, springing forward from the side of his master on the steps.
Just then a piece of the upper part of the wall came down, a portion three feet in width, at the east side of the portico. Behind it stood one of the seventeen faithful sepoys, a stalwart young fellow, who brandished his musket by the barrel, ready to strike the first man who should enter through the gap. There was irresolution among the assailants closest to him, but a man from behind called out to them to step aside, and firing his musket the sepoy fell.
The next moment the rebel leader jumped through the gap, making a furious cut at Braddon, who stood nearest. But the latter parried, and instantly running him through the body, the tall fellow threw up his arms, and Braddon with difficulty extricated his sword as the man fell face foremost on the body of the prostrate sepoy.
"Hand me a musket, quick!" cried Braddon, stepping into the gap. "And me!" cried Yorke, taking his place beside him. There was just room for the two where the rampart had given way, leaving them exposed down to their knees. On the other side was a crowd of the enemy, almost close enough to touch, but too crowded to fire or fight. Behind Braddon and Yorke were now some half-dozen men whom Falkland, surveying the situation from the steps, had sent forward on the spur of the moment to load and pass their muskets. The rest of the defenders of the portico were distributed around the wall, some therefore having their backs to the critical point; while the remainder of the reserve, standing on the steps by Falkland's side, were firing over the heads of the defenders into the crowd beyond as fast as they could load.
A rush, and surely the frail defence must have given way; but the crowd without swayed to and fro irresolute, while the two officers, levelling the muskets handed to them, shot the two men nearest, who fell dead under the wall. There was a short pause, and they fired again, and again two men fell. Still the crowd held on, pressing, struggling, and the men behind shouting orders to each other and to those in front, which no one obeyed. Again there was a pause in the duel, while Yorke, facing the enemy, waited for another musket, and he felt for the moment as if any one of them might seize him by the collar and drag him out, and one fellow, imitating his tactics, raised a loaded piece and levelled it in his face. He can't miss me at that distance, thought the young man; and a grim sense of the absurdity of the situation came over him, as he stood waiting to receive the shot, and the flash of fire seemed almost to scorch his face; but the bullet whizzed past harmlessly: and the next moment Yorke, feeling a musket put into his hand, returned the fire with better effect, and his opponent fell at his feet.
All this takes longer to tell than it did to happen. Three times the two officers fired, and six bodies lay before them just outside the gap; others fell from the shots of the defenders on the steps. A backward movement took place among the crowd; some began to move towards the rear, the men in rear of the column began to stream off in increasing numbers, and soon the whole column was running down the road in flight for shelter, an example followed at once by the skirmishers round the building. A few men still showed front, here and there, remaining as solitary units where just before the ground had been crowded with white figures, retiring slowly and facing about to deliver their fire. But they gradually disappeared, and in a few minutes the park was again deserted, save by the bodies of the slain which lay strewn about the ground. Then the victors in the portico raised a shout of triumph, echoed from other parts of the buildings; and then, panting for breath, looked at each other in silence, feeling for the moment all the exhaustion which follows great vital efforts.
Falkland, assured that the attack would not be immediately renewed, sent Ameer Khan to the roof to fetch the ladies down, and hastened with Yorke round the building to see how the rest of the garrison had fared. The attack had been simultaneous on all sides; but the assailants, for the most part, had done no more than advance out of cover to within a few yards of the building, and open fire against the loopholes, exposing themselves freely without doing any damage in return. A rush had, however, been made at the trench leading to the bath-house, and a bold attempt made to enter both buildings from it. The south door leading from the billiard-room had fortunately been fastened, and a dead sepoy lay in the south veranda, shot while trying to force it open, and Falkland had to step over the bodies of three more lying in the trench. The bath-house presented a solid wall, loopholed, to the enemy, against which no impression could be made; but the arch leading from the trench, which formed the entrance to the building, had not been filled up, but was guarded by a sandbag traverse about two feet in rear of the opening. Here some of the bolder assailants had tried to force their way, and the leader had been shot on the steps after cutting down young Raugh, who stood defending the entrance. The south archway was also an open one, and here a simicircular parapet had been constructed to enclose the well; and in guarding a loophole at this point, M'Intyre had been hit while in the act of firing himself, by a bullet which
shattered his left arm above and below the elbow.
"Poor little Johnny," said Spragge, who was supporting him, and trying to stanch the blood which streamed down from the sabre-cut in his shoulder, "they might have hit one of their own size. But, by Jove, sir!" he continued, addressing Falkland, who had stopped at sight of the wounded lad, "it was Johnny who saved us. There was such a row by the well, we were all looking that way; and if he had not kept the doorway for a bit, they would have taken us in rear, I do believe; but I don't think there is much harm done — is there, Johnny, my man?" Nor did the wound appear so bad as that of M'Intyre, who, however, stood coolly, without wincing, while some of the party were making a sling out of a towel to support the shattered arm.
Maxwell was summoned to the scene, and recommended that the wounded officers should be brought over to the main building at once. Thither M'Intyre walked without assistance, and Raugh, who felt faint, supported by Yorke; but the rebels had so far recovered themselves as to open fire sharply from Sparrow's house as the party passed along the trench, with no further effect, however, than to send a bullet through the top of Yorke's helmet. It had been arranged beforehand between Maxwell and Falkland that the south-east room should be used, if necessary, for a hospital; and the two wounded officers were at once put to bed there, and their wounds dressed by the surgeons. M'Intyre's injuries were very severe, although Maxwell hoped to save the arm; Raugh's wound was a clean though deep sabre-cut, which Maxwell pronounced would soon heal up.
CHAPTER 27
========================================
CHAPTER XXVII.
Meanwhile
there was plenty of excitement in the other parts of the building, as the event of the morning was discussed, especially in the dining-room, where the reserve were now assembled, drinking their tea. "Let no one say that Pandy cannot fight," said Braddon, who, having been hit slightly by the graze of a bullet, was returning to his post after having had the wound dressed; "it is lucky that all had not the pluck some of them showed."
"He is a strange mixture of courage and cowardice," said Falkland, who was making his report to the brigadier: "nothing could have been better than the style of that fellow you disposed of, Braddon, but he was not supported."
"That was one of our corporals," said Major Dumble; "I have just been having a look at the bodies. It was the reserve that did the business; it's always the reserve, you know, that has the hardest work; you people behind the wall were all right, you know; we on the steps were quite exposed — weren't we, colonel? Thrice I fired, and each time laid my man low; I can show you which they were, brigadier, if you could manage to come out and have a look." And Dumble, who had up to this time been very subdued, had now put on quite a mild swagger, and seemed on good terms with himself again, as he drank his tea, holding his musket over his left shoulder the while, and looking round to the company for approbation. "Thank ye, Dumble, but I was out there all the time," said the brigadier, "and saw it all; "and indeed the old gentleman had hobbled to the top of the portico steps at the first noise, and, had witnessed the attack from that point, and now, returned to his couch, was listening to Falkland's report of what was going to be done to restore the defences, and nodding his head from time to time to express approval.
But by degrees the excitement of the morning passed away, and as soon as the broken parapet had been restored, and the dead bodies of the enemy thrust outside it, those who were at liberty lay down to rest, while the others stood listlessly at their posts, undisturbed by any sound, for the enemy's fire had now stopped altogether. Falkland, too, having seen all done that was necessary, had lain down in the dining-room, and was fast asleep. But the ladies had now for the first time an occupation in nursing the wounded, especially in fanning them with the hand-punkah, if only to keep off the flies with which the building swarmed; and had formed themselves into watches for carrying on the duty continuously.
"Hollo, Arty! is that you?" said little Raugh, his body covered with a sheet, his shoulder and right arm bandaged up, turning his eyes, without moving his head, towards his brother subaltern as the latter entered the sick-room about mid-day, where Mrs. Falkland sat by his bed plying the fan, while Mrs. Hodder was performing a similar office for poor M'Intyre, — "I am as jolly as possible; don't you wish you were me?" The boy meant it as a joke, and without any allusion to the young man's feelings; but Yorke could not help blushing, and Olivia looked confused.
"Of course," continued the patient, "I don't mean to say I am not sorry the other fellow should have to take my turn of duty; but it is very jolly lying here to be petted, and having a regular bed and sheets, and all that sort of thing. Oh, Mrs. Falkland, I do think you are an angel!" and the lad put out his hand to convey hers to his lips. "Now, Mr. Raugh," said his nurse, laughing, "pray be steady, and don't move your head. The doctor has ordered him to keep perfectly still," she said to Yorke, by way of explanation, "so that the wound may heal by first intention."
As for Mrs. Polwheedle, without taking any regular watch — for, as she observed, there were enough without her, and some one must superintend matters generally — she was in and out of the sick-room at all times; and when she joined the party in the dining-room for the midday meal, clad in an old wrapper, her appearance would have qualified her for immediate appointment as monthly nurse to any institution; and she gave her instructions very fully to the other ladies as to what they were to do. "Kitty, my dear," she said to Miss Peart, as that young lady took her place at the table, "suppose you take a little of that curry to young Raugh — he might fancy it; and take him my half-bottle of beer too — I am sure it can't do him any harm. As for M'Intyre, poor fellow, the lower he lives just now the better. Now, Polwheedle, don't fidget so, my good man, but just lie down quietly, and try if you can't manage a bit of something."
Grumbull, too, had risen to the occasion. His share in the surgery business had consisted principally in looking on while his senior. Maxwell, examined and dressed the wounds; but in virtue of his office he now walked about with his shirt-sleeves rolled up above his elbows, and was very solemn and mysterious.
The garrison had now time to recollect that it was Sunday, and at Mr. Hodder's suggestion, all who could be spared from their posts assembled in the drawing-room during the forenoon for divine service. The ceremony was a brief one. The little party stood in a semicircle, Mr. Hodder, arrayed in black alpaca, alone of the men laying aside his weapon for the time, while he read the fifty-ninth Psalm, and then, after offering an extempore prayer, gave them a short address by way of sermon. "These were times," said the preacher, "when Christians must feel drawn together in a special degree. Let brotherly love abound. They must discern the work of the Lord in this ordering of chastisement for their faults, vile and unworthy creatures that they were, by the hands of their enemies, who were now seeking like raging lions to devour them; but the saving hand of Providence, which had been stretched out to guard them so far, might be trusted to shield in all the dangers still to come. Though they walked through the valley of the shadow of death, they need fear no evil. Above all, let brotherly love abound, not only among themselves, but extending to the poor misguided heathen who were now drawn up together against them. If they were to return anger for anger, and cruel scorn for cruel deeds, wherein would the Christian be better than the contemned Hindu or Mussulman? Let them act and think as Christians, although maintaining their cause to the last with the sword of Gideon and David." Mr. Hodder spoke through his nose, but with both fluency and earnestness; and never was a congregation more devout than the little party of beleaguered worshippers. "Now let us conclude with a hymn," said Mr. Hodder; "if any lady will oblige us by playing the symphony, I guess I can lead off the melody right away. Mrs. Falkland, ma'am, perhaps you will preside at the piano." A strange and unexpected sound truly, arising from the motley band in the stifling noonday heat — a song of fervour if not melodious, startling the other defenders at their different posts, and some faint echoes of which may have reached to the besiegers, to remind them that it was the Feringhee's sacred day.
Mr. Hodder was popular in the garrison for his unselfish ways and good spirits, but his theology did not jump with the general feeling.
"Your sermon seems to have been more eloquent than logical, from the account I get of it," said Braddon, when Mr. Hodder returned to his post in the portico. "If your sentiments are right, there is nothing for it but to pull down the barricade and let the enemy come in and make an end of us."
"Not at all, sir," rejoined the other; "our mission in this country is to evangelize these benighted heathen, and I expect we can't do that noways if we are all to be cut off out of the land. No, sir, we must put them down first, and improve them afterwards. Samuel was a very proper man, I guess, and he hewed Agag in pieces before the altar because it was his duty. A man's duty ain't always what comes sweetest. If these poor
misguided creatures come to attack us, I'll shoot at them straight, and I'll go on shooting till they stop coming; but I don't bear any malice, and when it's over I'll be right pleased to go and live among them again."
This, the third day of the siege, wore on in perfect quiet; the enemy were evidently discomfited by their failure, and desisted for the present from any further molestation. But a grave difficulty now presented itself, the disposal of the unburied dead. A sickening smell had pervaded the building in the afternoon, the cause of which was known only to the few initiated — the burning of the corpse of the faithful sepoy, whose funeral pyre, lighted in the veranda, formed a heavy drain on the limited supply of firewood available. But the corpses of the enemy could not be got rid of in this way, and more than thirty of these could be counted, some close to the building, others in various parts of the grounds. Two of the bodies were of men not dead, as could be seen by an occasional movement of the limbs, and the younger men, when they perceived it, were for leaving them to perish slowly. "Serve them right," observed Egan, when somebody suggested that he should send a bullet to finish the work, "dying straight off is too good for them;" but Falkland, when the matter was reported to him, ordered that they should be fired at, and after a couple of shots all movement ceased. On this firing taking place, which happened about midday, there was a great show of heads from behind the wall and in Sparrow's house, showing that the blockade was still maintained in force; but it was not replied to.
A notice in Hindustani was now written with a burnt stick on a table-cloth, to the effect that the enemy might carry off their dead without molestation, and hung over the side of the building from the roof, but no answer was made to it.
"I suspect they mean to poison us out," said Braddon to Falkland, as they surveyed the position from the roof.
"That would hardly be like Hindus," replied the colonel; "no, I suspect they think we mean to lay a trap for them. It is a pretty commentary on the sort of confidence in our good faith we have succeeded in inspiring our sepoys with."
Something, however, must needs be done. The corpses, under the burning sun, had already swelled up into bloated misshapen masses, and a swarm of crows had settled down to their loathsome feast, joined in the afternoon by the more cautious vultures, some of which had already alighted on the ground, while others, in ever-increasing numbers, circled in the air above.
"Young Yorke is a better engineer than I am," said Falkland, again discussing the situation with Braddon later in the day. "We ought to have occupied Sparrow's house in the beginning, and we shall have to do so now,
coute qui coute
."
"Won't it be rather a weakening of our strength, sir? We should have to leave a dozen men there at least, and we are none too many here as it is."
"So I objected, when Yorke proposed it, but the place is a regular thorn in our side. By occupying that house, you see, and knocking some loopholes through the wall in the other side, we should be able to command the park wall right and left, — take it regularly in flank, for the house projects beyond the line of the wall. In fact the whole of one side of this building would be set free, and it is only on this side that we need fear anything from them. But that is not my chief reason," continued Falkland; "we absolutely must get rid of these carcasses. Now there is a well over yonder, just by the wall, which we should get access to by taking the house, and we could throw the bodies into it and cover them with earth. The thing must be done to-night, too, or we shall be all poisoned to-morrow. The air down below is bad enough already as it is."
Thus was the plan settled. It was kept as quiet as possible; and the brigadier, who hobbled after Falkland into a side-room to discuss the details of the enterprise, was enjoined not to let his wife or the ladies know of the matter. Falkland determined to make the venture at midnight, by which time the occupants of Sparrow's house would probably be asleep, and, from what Yorke had seen the night before, keeping no guard; this would admit of intrenching the place before dawn.
At midnight, accordingly, a party of six climbed through a gap made in the portico breastwork, — Falkland, Yorke, Braywell, Sparrow, an officer of the 80th, and the jemadar, — and ranging themselves in line at two paces' distance from each other, made a rush swiftly but silently across the lawn. At the same moment, another party of six, led by Major Passey, rose out of the covered way and made for the same point. Braddon had remonstrated privately with Falkland at being left out of the business, but the latter said that it was
necessary to leave some one besides women in the castle, in case the party should come to grief; and when Braddon urged that in such case the commandant would be the man most wanted, Falkland rejoined, smiling, that he was only second in command, and that it was the recognized duty of seconds in command to lead assaults and do work of that sort. Sparrow had been told off for the party, because his knowledge of his own house might prove useful. "Oh, of course," said he, when he was told what was going to happen; "by all means. I shall be most happy to do my best." But his countenance did not harmonize with the satisfaction he expressed; and presently he said, "Of course the objection has occurred to you, sir, that both the commissioner and his assistant will be absent from the building at the same time. However, no doubt you have good reason for the arrangement, although it seems peculiar."
"Sparrow wants to command the party himself, I do believe," said Braddon, sarcastically.
"I think your objection is a good one, Sparrow," said his chief after a pause; "you shall stay and represent the civil element here. You are too hard on him, Braddon," he continued, after the little council of war was over, and the two were alone; "it is not a man's own fault if his nerves are not strung up to the right pitch." But Sparrow, after spending a miserable hour thinking over the matter, with Braddon's sarcasm stinging in his ears, and tormented by the recollection of the smiles of the others, came afterwards to Falkland, and obtained his consent to be allowed to go.
As the two little parties rushed out from the opposite ends of the building on their errand of battle, the men left on guard on the east side of the building climbed up and leaned over the parapet, breathlessly peering into the darkness for signs of the issue of the enterprise. The ladies, meanwhile, except such as were on duty in the sick-room, were asleep on the roof, unconscious of what was going to happen. The stormers, armed with muskets and fixed bayonets, moved down quick and silent on the point of attack. It was as Yorke's account had led Falkland to expect; the occupants of the building were fast asleep, without guard or sentries, and as the two parties turned the breastwork at the two ends, they came at once on some men lying in front of the veranda steps, and driving their bayonets into their unresisting bodies, pushed on to the veranda, killing or wounding at each step. But now there was an alarm, and a scuffle, with figures springing up in the darkness, and the flashes of firearms as the startled garrison snatched up their muskets. The alarm once given, the stormers now fired in their turn their muskets and the few revolvers they had with them, and then, pressing forward, plied the bayonet again. For a brief space the grim conflict lasted, some twoscore of men crowded into a few feet, lighted up for the moment by the flashes of fire which seemed to scorch their faces, and made the succeeding darkness still blacker. The firearms once discharged, there was no time to load again, and the silence was only broken by here and there an oath or a cry, and the dull thud of blows and bodies falling heavy on the pavement. But the struggle was not for long: on the one side were numbers, but of men surprised out of sleep, without their bayonets, and not knowing who were before them; on the other a band of determined men, working together with a purpose carefully planned. For a little while the occupants of the post, after firing off such weapons as they could snatch up, stood huddled together irresolute against the back of the veranda, struggling feebly against the thrusts made at them; then the survivors made their escape into the rooms of the house at the back, and so over the wall into the road, the stormers groping their way through the dark house after them, and striking down such of the hindmost as they could overtake.
"Is that you, Yorke?" whispered Falkland to a figure beside him, brought up like himself in the pursuit by the park wall outside the back of the house; "pass the word to form up here; we must see if our numbers are all right. And you, Egan? Well done! you are always to the front. Run back and tell Braddon to send the reinforcement at once."
On this spot the muster took place; Braywell and Sparrow were missing; the other ten were unhurt. Leaving Passey and his squad to line the walk, Falkland returned with the others to the house to examine it, the lantern which the jemadar had brought slung over his shoulder being now lighted. In each room were one or two bodies, but the greatest carnage had been in the veranda, the floor of which was covered with dead and wounded. Lying across the body of a sepoy was Braywell, his brains shattered by a musket-shot fired close to his head.
"Despatch the wounded," said Falkland, "and drag the bodies outside. But
where can Sparrow be?" "Here," said a voice, — and he came limping up towards them. "I am afraid I have not been of much use, for I got this ball through my ankle before I got up." And the jemadar carried him off on his back to the big house.
But the first person to relieve the garrison of their suspense was Egan, who was seen by the lookers-on — the guards below, the ladies awakened by the firing peering down from the roof — coming out of the darkness, just as, the noise having ceased, they were able to conclude that the post had been won. The thing was done in splendid style, he told Braddon as he came up to the portico, with no loss, he believed. The colonel wanted six hands more and the crowbars and ropes. And the reinforcement, which was waiting for the orders, hurried across.
There remained four hours of darkness in which to strengthen the post for defence, and to execute the loathsome task which had rendered the capture of it necessary. Loopholes were knocked through the back walls of the house at such a height as to be capable of use by standing on the tables which were placed against the walls; the sandbags on the roof were turned round from the west to the east, so as to form a parapet towards the road: and the rampart in front of the inner or west veranda was extended at an angle, and connected at each end with the house, so as to secure the garrison from surprise; and for the rest of the night the work of defence went on briskly, more lanterns being brought over to light up the interior. But the other work to be done was the more laborious; the bodies of the enemy slain in the morning had to be dragged to the well near Sparrow's house from all parts of the grounds, and it could not have been completed but for the help of the sepoys of the garrison. Falkland had not detailed any of them for this duty lest caste feeling might render them unwilling to obey; but the corporal came to Braddon and asked why they were not called on to help; the sahibs could not do it all alone, and could they not be trusted outside the building? So half of them were sent out, and the aid was not at all too much. The castle was almost denuded of defenders during the night, but the enemy were too much cowed to venture on attacking it, although keeping up a desultory but innocuous tire all night in the direction of the noises they heard, as the different working parties were distributed to collect the dead. "This is just like the fellows in the picture clearing the arena for a fresh set-to," observed Spragge to Yorke as they were engaged in dragging one of the bodies by a rope to the well; "but it is rather hard lines that we should be made to do the slavey, as well as the
ave imperator morituri
dodge. Who could have thought that an ensign in the Honourable East India Company's service would ever be called on to fight his own men one minute, and work as a scavenger the next?"
All through the night the loathsome task went on, the enemy firing constantly, although not venturing within the park wall, while Mr. Hodder and one of the native orderlies dug a shallow grave for poor Braywell's body; and, by morning, only a patch of dried blood here and there on the parched-up surface of the park, to which the early crows resorted in little flocks, as it discussing their disappointment at being balked of their expected feast, betokened the slaughter of the previous day. There still remained, however, to clean the blood-stained floors of the Lodge, which looked after the slaughter of the night a veritable charnel-house. The rebels had destroyed some of the furniture, and smashed the glasses of the pictures hanging on the walls, and a stray bullet had enlarged the nose of a lovelorn swain prominent in one of the engravings; but the damsels whose faces had satisfied Captain Sparrow's aesthetic taste, still looked down on the company with simpering smiles, in horridly grotesque contrast to the blood-stained floor below. Jars of water and brooms were now sent for from the big house, to make, with earth-sprinkling, the place habitable for the picket to be stationed there, of which Passey, who had shown conduct and coolness throughout the defence, was placed in command. Lastly, drinking-water and rations for the day were sent across, for men must eat, even though their feet be damp with rebel gore.
The advantage of this occupation of the Lodge was at once apparent as daylight broke. The back of this house, as has already been mentioned, projected beyond the line of the park wall, which the loop-holes constructed during the night completely commanded; so that when daylight permitted fire to be opened from them, a shot or two sufficed to clear the wall, and the men who were lining it retired, some towards the court-house, and others to the village which bordered the other side of the broad road opposite the Lodge. The effect of this retreat was to relieve the east side of the residency completely
from fire. The intervening ground was still commanded by the sharpshooters behind the north and south walls; but they were too far off for accurate fire. At first the passers to and fro, bearing water and provisions to the picket, were disposed to run across the park by way of shortening the ordeal of stray bullets saluting them; but the example of Falkland strolling leisurely back to the residency after his night's work, with his eyes on the ground and hands behind him, was soon taken up by the others; and the enemy, seeing that it was disregarded, gradually slackened their fire.
"Well, my love," said Falkland to his wife, as she met him in the entrance hall, "bearing up as bravely as ever, I see," and he held her two hands at arm's length, and looked her fondly in the face. "There is one person at any rate on whom the siege makes no impression. No, my dear," he said, as she made a gesture of moving towards him, "I am not fit to be kissed; I feel like a dirty butcher, and look the part thoroughly, I am sure."
"Dear Robert, how can you talk like that?" replied Olivia, as breaking down his guard, she imprinted a gentle kiss on his grimy face. "But, oh! Robert, I don't want to seem like a coward; but must you be always leading the way into all the risks?"
"Somebody must do what has to be done, I suppose, my child," he said, gently; "we can't all be stopping behind and telling the rest to go on."
"But the brigadier says that, as second in command, it is quite contrary to etiquette for you to be heading a storming-party."
"The brigadier is an old wo— is quite wrong; but, after all, the risk was quite trifling: the work last night was more disagreeable than dangerous. But will you see, my love, if the commissariat can manage some tea for us, while I try to get rid of some of this dirt? How have the wounded been getting on during the
night?"
"Pretty well, I think; I have just come from them; but Mr. M'Intyre is very restless with pain, poor fellow, though he has no fever, and Dr. Maxwell says Captain Sparrow's wound is not dangerous. Johnny is quite in spirits at the news of your success, but saying it is a shame he is not allowed to get up and help."
To Yorke, who, following the colonel, and standing in the doorway just behind them, had witnessed the meeting, this little scene had caused a qualm of pain. Somehow during the siege he had come to regard Olivia, not so much as Falkland's wife, as a sort of angelic being, separate from everybody else, whose very presence rendered danger or defeat impossible. There had so far been nothing of wifely ministrations to witness. Falkland himself had been too busy and preoccupied to pay any attention to her, never resting save to take an occasional nap in the public room, on a sofa or on the floor; while, as Olivia came before him, sometimes to bring him his rough meal when on watch, with the warm sisterly greeting she always accorded him, stopping perhaps for a few minutes to tell him the little stock of news collected in the public rooms, she seemed to be the Miss Cunningham of former days come back again. Or when he caught glimpses of her in the sick-room, she appeared like a sister of mercy, removed from all association of love and passion. But now the stern fact came home to him again, and, weary with labour and want of sleep, and under the influence of the reaction of the night's excitement, he turned aside without coming forward to greet her as usual, and took his way to the men's dressing-room downspirited and sad at heart.
"Poor Braywell," said one of the portico guard, as they were discussing the action of the night, "he had the makings of a good soldier; his turn has come quickly, but a soldier could not wish for a better end than his has been."
"Aye," said Braddon, "and how the poor fellow would have enjoyed describing it to us, if he had been here to do so."
CHAPTER 28
========================================
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The
capture and occupation of the residency lodge, as Sparrow's house was styled, in the night attack conducted by Falkland and recounted in our last number, gave a new aspect to the defence. It is true that the main garrison had to be
reduced by the strength of the picket now established in the new outpost; but the relief caused by the latter more than compensated for this. The guards could now be withdrawn from the east side of the main building, and those in the portico and bath-house were reduced in strength. Moreover, the ground between the two buildings was now practically free from fire. The moral effect of the victory was even greater. Not only had the enemy made no progress in their blockade; they had been forced to give ground. Falkland was sensible, indeed, that he had made a blunder in not occupying the lodge in the first instance, but was consoled by the reflection that even the most successful war is made up of blunders; and although poor Braywell's cheerful face was missed, and the little garrison could ill spare the gap made by the night's work in its slender muster-roll, still the loss sustained was extremely small considering the nature of the service. The garrison was naturally, therefore, in high spirits next morning, and a sense of excitement pervaded the building. Those were to be envied who were sent over to the lodge on errands with supplies or messages, giving them the opportunity to examine for themselves the scene of the exploit; while the account of the affair which those who had come back after taking part in it were called on to repeat in the different parts of the building, afforded matter for endless conversation and questionings. Miss Peart wanted to run across under Spragge's escort to see the place herself, but was stopped by her mother. No sign of the enemy could now be discerned from the main building, except by the look-out on the roof; and, in the absence of any present danger, it seemed as if the active siege were really over, and that at most they would now have to undergo a blockade, which must surely be raised very soon. Colonel Falkland had calculated that the relief would arrive in a week at latest, and four days had already passed.
Four days! it might have been a year, so long did the time seem since they were first shut up, and so completely had the emergency of present needs effaced for the time all interest in the past. The few acres of ground commanded by the rifles of the little garrison made up their world; and beyond an occasional expression listlessly thrown out as to how things might be passing in the rest of India, the conversation within all turned on the business of the hour. The last reports of the look-out man of any movements observed among the enemy, whose main camp was still pitched beyond the court-house about half a mile off, and the interpretation to beput upon them; any change ordered in the roster for duty; counting the hours till it should be time to serve out the rations of tobacco; criticisms on the toughness of the mutton stew, which formed the main item of their simple meals; calculations whose turn it was to receive a share of the beer which Captain Buxey doled out with economic care, — these were for the most part the topics of conversation.
At first sight the appearance presented by the interior of the building during this time might have seemed one of disorder; here and there in the verandas men lying asleep on cots at any hour of the day, others strolling listlessly from place to place to exchange a word with their comrades at other posts, while in the drawing-room a group of persons might be seen lounging about, the etiquette of manners preserved among them being strangely at variance with their haggard and dishevelled appearance; a few only of the men wore coats over their shirts or under-waistcoats, which with dirty white or flannel trousers made up a costume in keeping with the unshorn and hot but pallid faces of the wearers; while of the ladies' garb the best that could be said was that it was feminine, the wearers having for the most part abandoned any attempt at adornment as well as at trying to keep cool, and wearing their hair tied in a knot at the back of the head. A few fanned themselves when they had leisure, but generally the heat was allowed to take its course as something too fierce to be contended with. Not that the room looked untidy; of the servants who had remained with their master, one belonged to the sweeper caste, and performed his customary functions of sweeping all the floors daily, while the ladies took it in turn to dust the furniture. Nor amid the seeming listlessness or movement about the place was there any real disorder or want of discipline. Only those were asleep who were off duty, and only a fourth part of each of the different guards could be absent from their post at a time. A sentry was stationed at the headquarters of each post, who, standing on a table so as to look over the parapet, watched the ground in front. There was always also a look-out man on the roof of the building; the rounds were made every hour by a senior officer; and whether on or off duty, every one had his weapons with him ready for
instant use. At night the garrison was on the alert, so sleep must be taken by day. The ladies, too, had their regular turn of duty in the sick-room, while Mrs. Hodder and Mrs. De Souza the clerk's wife undertook the washing of such garments as could be spared for the purpose. Thus all were occupied, with the exception only of Mrs. O'Halloran, the wife of the bazaar-sergeant who had been killed on the night of the outbreak, an East Indian, who, although the mother of two children and soon to be the mother of a third, looked but a child herself. Such mental and bodily powers as the poor creature might have possessed, had become quite paralyzed by the shock of events. Having found her way to the residency on the night of the outbreak, in the carriage in which her husband had placed his wife and children before he went off himself to get shot at his post of duty, she seemed incapable of rousing herself to do anything, but sat day after day listlessly in a chair, speaking when addressed, and coming to table at meal-times, but taking no apparent interest in what was going on around. Fortunately Mrs. Hodder had taken the children under her care, washing them and dressing them in their scanty clothing every morning, while Miss Peart helped her to look after them during the day; and the poor dusky little things, who partook more of the nature of native than European children, were perfectly docile and contented, amusing themselves happily with the little rag dolls which that young lady had fabricated for them. "I can't make out properly what Mrs. O'Halloran says," Miss Peart had remarked to Spragge; "she does talk in such an extraordinary way — it isn't English and it isn't Hindustani, or like anything else I ever heard before; but only think, she is not sixteen yet, at least as far as she knows, for she is not sure about her age, and she can neither read nor write. Her father was a band-boy in your regiment; isn't it dreadful? He may actually be fighting against us!" "You may depend on it, the band-boys are not fighting," replied Spragge, "whatever else they may be doing; that is not at all in their line." But indeed no one knew what had become of the Christian bandsmen belonging to the native regiments — whether they had been killed, or had run away, or were serving with the mutineers. Drums and fifes had been heard every evening proceeding from the rebel camp, but these might belong to the 80th, whose bandsmen were all natives.
This day, then, was the most tranquil which the garrison had passed. They had become used to the hardships of the situation; all was quiet without and prosperous within, for the three wounded men were doing well. Captain Sparrow displayed a philosophical resignation to the misfortune which deprived the garrison of his services; and when Justine, to whom fell the office of waiting on him, was dilating to Yorke, as she met him in the doorway of the sick-room, on the sad chance which struck down the gallant captain while nobly leading the attack upon his own house, the latter did not feel it necessary to tell her or any one else, that as no shots had been fired until the assailants had entered the veranda, the captain must have been considerably to the rear of the party to have been hit while outside.
As Olivia came out of the ladies' room that evening into the west veranda to join the party on duty there for a little fresh air and conversation, she stood for a moment in the doorway watching with amusement the young men engaged in hunting a scorpion which had crawled under an empty beer-box. "That's the seventh scorpion which has been killed in this veranda," said Spragge, as he dexterously extracted the insect from a crevice in the box wherein it had tried to take refuge; "see what a monster it is, Mrs. Falkland!" he continued, holding it up between his finger and thumb for the lady's inspection. "You needn't be afraid of it; grasp a
scorpian
by the tail firmly in this way, you see, and he is impotent for evil, like Pandy outside if you show him the muzzle of a rifle. But he must perish, nevertheless; no quarter can be given to the enemy," — and so saying, the young man dropped the scorpion on the pavement and trod upon it.
"I cannot think why there should be this plague of scorpions," said Olivia, sitting down on a chair which one of the party had placed for her; "we used not to be troubled with them at all in former days."
"It is because the ground has been disturbed," said Yorke; "they live in the ground, and the digging of these ditches round the house has brought them out."
"I don't know what the cause may be," said Spragge, "but I protest, as a man and a sentry, against being exposed to these risks. Life will become positively dangerous if this sort of thing goes on. Talk about 'nervous duty' indeed! 'nervous duty' is a joke to sitting down on one of
these boxes without taking an observation first."
"There is no rose without a thorn," observed another young fellow. "Life in this veranda would be really too jolly if it wasn't flavoured with a chance of scorpions; besides, there is to be no 'nervous duty' to-night, so the one is a set-off against the other."
"Nervous duty" was the slang name given in the garrison to any special service, such as the enterprise of the previous night.
The western veranda being the hottest part of the building at evening, was usually the least frequented at that time; and on this occasion its only occupants besides Olivia were the guard stationed there, one of whom, being on duty, was standing on a chest looking over the parapet; the two sepoys attached to the post were sitting on the floor at the end, smoking a joint hookah, with their muskets by their side; while three or four officers stood leaning on their rifles round Olivia's chair. Unshorn, and clad in scanty garments soiled with dust and sweat, yet they looked like true knights ready to protect their princess to the death; and sounds of light laughter broke from the little group, while Olivia joined in the conversation, her manner with them all being such as might become a sister among trusty brothers. The young men in the garrison almost worshipped Mrs. Falkland, who had sympathy and gracious words for all.
The others were rallying Yorke on what they termed his dandified appearance; and indeed that young officer was the only one of the party in a clean shirt — a phenomenon which he was fain to explain, apologetically, was due to his having selfishly kept back a brace of those garments for his own use, while distributing the rest of his wardrobe among his fugitive brother officers, so that he could indulge in an occasional change of raiment. "But you will look just as shabby as any of us by to-morrow, my boy," said Spragge, "for the laundry arrangements appear to have collapsed. A useful garment of mine has been at the wash ever since yesterday morning, and hasn't turned up yet." Then, as the little party was breaking up, Olivia, as she passed into her room, called to Yorke to follow and bring his other shirt for her to wash; and as she insisted on being obeyed, notwithstanding his protestations, he was fain to produce the soiled garment from his box. Yorke felt ashamed of himself when delivering it up, for allowing her to take it from him. It was well enough for Mrs. Hodder and Mrs. De Souza to act as washerwomen, but that Olivia should undertake this menial office on his behalf seemed like desecration. Nevertheless, as he stood by, while Olivia, baring her white arms, poured water into a basin, and after washing the shirt, handed it to him with a sisterly smile to hang up to dry in the veranda, it seemed to the young man as if she had never borne so noble a presence. He could have stooped to the ground in his veneration to kiss the hem of her robe, and for the time he felt that the life they were now leading, which brought him near her person, and made him one of her defenders, was far happier than the old days of peace and banishment from her presence.
CHAPTER 29
========================================
CHAPTER XXIX.
The
night began quietly, but had not made much advance when the look-out sentry in the west veranda heard a noise in the garden and called up his guard, and soon the whole garrison was under arms. Sounds could be made out as of a body of men collected there, behind the hedge, and therefore not more than fifty yards off, and for some time the defenders remained in continued expectation of another immediate attack. But the hours passed on and no forward movement was made, while the sound of digging could be distinctly heard. The enemy were apparently intrenching themselves in this advanced position. About midnight Falkland sent out Yorke and the jemadar to reconnoitre, one from the bath-house trench, the other from the portico. But this time the enemy were not to be caught napping; they had sentries all along the hedge, preventing approach to the scene of operations, and the scouts could only make out that the garden seemed full of men, and that the spade was hard at work. It seemed useless to throw away ammunition by firing in the dark: but the garrison was kept under arms all night, although no longer expecting an immediate attack, yet filled with the uneasiness which men acting on the defensive must feel, when their assailants are planning some new scheme against them.
In the morning a long mound from three to four feet high could be seen here and there in the gaps between the bushes, at a distance of about fifty yards from and parallel to the house. At first the garrison supposed that this was merely a device to annoy them by bringing musketry-fire on the building at close quarters; but
the trench was not made use of for this purpose, nor was there any fire opened from other quarters. The new position, however, was evidently occupied in some force; men could be seen coming and going, although the bushes were too thick to distinguish their movements plainly; and all day long the spade was kept at work, and it could be seen that more earth was being thrown up.
For so long as the garrison was kept under arms, no man could leave his post; but when about sunrise it became apparent that no immediate enterprise was in contemplation by the enemy, the usual routine was returned to, and some of the members of each guard being now free to go about the building, this new move of the rebels was everywhere warmly discussed, the general opinion being to the effect that the colonel would not allow Pandy to take the offensive in this way for nothing, and that another bout of "nervous duty" might be looked for soon. And public opinion was right. For some time Falkland, watching the enemy's proceedings from the roof, was puzzled to know what they meant; but Braddon, who was crouching beside him behind the west veranda parapet, suddenly hit on the true solution. They were sinking a well from which to drive a mine under the building. There could be no doubt about it. All this extra digging could be with no other object, for the parapet was high enough to afford ample cover already, if a trench of occupation only were in contemplation. The unaggressive attitude of the enemy all this time confirmed the suspicion. No loopholes garnished the crest of the trench, as would have been the case if it was meant for offensive purposes, and the garrison provoked no fire by exposing themselves above their walls in watching the operation. The enemy evidently wanted not to provoke an exchange of fire, but to carry on their digging without disturbance. The well-sinkers of Mustaphabad were famous. Fifty feet a-day would be easy work in that light soil. Give them three days and the building would be reached and blown up.
Falkland's resolution was soon taken. A sally must be made, and the miners driven away at all costs. Another surprise like that on Sparrow's house could not be hoped for; but by creeping down to the south of the garden, and then working up along the line of the hedge, the enemy might be taken in flank unawares, and if roughly handled they would probably give up their occupation of the garden; and then, their last attempt failing, they might lose heart and break up the siege altogether. The brigadier gave his consent; and Braddon, whom Falkland consulted, entirely approved of the enterprise, only suggesting as a useful condition that he should be allowed to form one of the party. It was arranged that the sally should be made by the force told off to relieve the lodge picket, before proceeding to that place at dark; and accordingly, when that relief, consisting of five officers and four sepoys under Major Peart, paraded for duty at sunset in the bath-house, Falkland and Braddon joined them there, and the former announced the proposed enterprise to the party, explaining with great minuteness the plan of operations. The success of the sally would depend on every man knowing exactly what had to be done.
Thus the scheme had been kept pretty quiet; for the different persons told off to take a share, as they made their way to the rendezvous, looked to be merely the relief parading for the lodge picket, and the brigadier had again been made to promise not to tell the ladies: but as usual in such cases, the intention had leaked out; the fact that Braddon — who commanded in the portico, and who had never been absent save for a few minutes from his post — should be selected for picket duty was noted; and a feeling of expectancy pervaded the building, extending even to the sick-room.
"Are you for nervous duty again tonight, Arty?" said little Raugh, as Yorke came up to his bedside before repairing to the rendezvous, carrying a musket and girded with a belt and bayonet. "What's up again to-night?"
"Nothing particular," replied Yorke; "but it is as well to be ready for duty; besides, the picket has got orders to wear bayonets." This he added for Olivia's information, who had come up to the bedside, and was looking anxiously at him.
"But
you
don't go on picket duty, do you? You are the colonel's staff-officer, you know. What's the good of trying to humbug a fellow?" said the sick lad, crossly; and then, turning to Olivia, he cried, "Oh, Mrs. Falkland, how long you have been away! I thought you were never coming back."
"Keep quiet, Mr. Raugh," said Olivia, gently, smoothing the sheet which the youngster had kicked almost off in his restlessness. "I have only been away for a very few minutes, you know, and Justine promised to look after you."
"Oh, I don't care about Justine," replied Johnny; "let her stick to Sparrow — they seem to suit each other;" and the two listeners, turning to look in the direction of Captain Sparrow's bed, could not help smiling at what they saw — for that gentleman, propped by a chair supporting his pillow, was sitting up and holding one of his fair nurse's hands with
empressement
, while the latter, fanning him with the other, was looking downwards with an expressive simper on her face which indicated that the captain's conversation was of a gratifying nature.
"The poor boy is rather feverish this evening," said Olivia to Yorke, following him a few steps as he returned towards the door, "and that makes him irritable; but of course he is right in his suspicion. There is to be another attack somewhere to-night, I can see; and if you are going, my husband must be going too. He must have gone to the bath-house already; I could not find him anywhere. If I had, I would not have said a word to dissuade him; but oh, Mr. Yorke, is it right for him always to put himself in the front in this way?" And Olivia's large eyes looked anxiously into his, as she waited for an answer.
"I don't think there will be much in the way of danger, Mrs. Falkland," replied the young man, involuntarily looking downwards; for the glance cast on him was almost more than he could bear, and he felt that to return it would betray his secret. "Pandy has been hit so hard that he is pretty well knocked out of time, and is not likely to show fight; besides, example is everything, and the colonel is worth a dozen men in work like this. But I will do what I can to prevent his exposing himself more than necessary, although perhaps that may not be much."
"Thank you, my noble friend," said Olivia, with fervour, holding out her hand; "God bring you back safe again!"
"Much she cares about my safe return," thought the young man bitterly, as he moved away. "All she thinks about is the colonel. And yet if it were otherwise should I not cease to worship her? She would not be my ideal woman if she were not a true wife."
The little detachment was drawn up on the platform of the bath-house, while Colonel Falkland explained carefully what had to be done, translating his instructions to the four sepoys who formed part of it. Then they waited till it should be dark enough to sally forth.
As soon as the time arrived for starting, Falkland, taking Yorke aside, told him he had better return to the house, and give word to Major Dumble, who was left in command, that the expedition was starting.
"But surely, sir, you will take your aide-de-camp with you?" pleaded Yorke.
"No, no, my dear boy — not this time; there is no work for a staff-officer to do. Besides, there are enough of us as it is."
"You forget, sir, that I know the ins and outs of the garden better than anybody. I may really be of use."
"There is something in that," said the colonel, "but I want to leave somebody behind with a head on his shoulders. Well, Braddon," he continued, turning to that officer, and calling him up to where they were standing, "Let Yorke take your place; it will be better that you should remain to look after matters here."
"Confound it, colonel," pleaded Braddon, "let us have fair play, please. I haven't been on nervous duty of any sort for ever so long. Besides, I think a fellow ought to have a mouthful of fresh air when he gets a chance. That main guard is the very deuce for heat."
"Why, this is rank mutiny," said Falkland, laughing. "Well, I suppose you must have your way. You, Yorke, can come as a supernumerary; keep behind me."
Then Falkland led the way out of the bath-house at the south end, through a gap made in the parapet round the well, and the party moved silently down in single file away from the building. All were armed with muskets and bayonets except the leader, who had a sword and revolver. When they had advanced about a hundred yards Falkland turned to his right, followed in the same order till the garden was reached, when, passing through an opening in the hedge, the party faced to their right, forming a line of single files at one pace distance from each other, of which Falkland was on the left or outer flank — Braddon, who had brought up the rear, being on the right, and just within the line of the hedge. Thus the assailants were on the flank of the enemy's working-party posted opposite to the house, on which they now silently advanced after pausing for a few seconds to get into order, during which they could distinctly hear the hum of voices and the noise of the diggers. Whatever caution the enemy might have taken against surprise, they evidently did not expect an attack from this quarter; and the assailants
advanced for some distance without being perceived, till they came upon a couple of men lying on the ground behind a bush. There was a momentary waving of the line, a couple of dull thuds with the bayonet and a muttered cry, and the line moved on. But this silence could not be maintained. One of the party, as they made their way through the bushes, stumbled and fell; the noise was heard by the enemy's guard; and as the line came up they had started to their feet and were standing huddled in a group, as if irresolute and not knowing what to expect. The bushes were thick and the darkness great, and the assailants were close on their foes before any resistance was made. Then one or two shots were fired, lighting up the scene, a line of a dozen men pressing forward against a much larger body, but irresolute and in disorder. "I am hit," called out Major Peart, falling to the ground. "Fire, and charge!" cried Falkland, discharging his revolver as he spoke, and a volley fired at arm's length was followed by a rush and a hand-to-hand fight. Several sepoys fell, others fled, some fired their muskets; a few sprang on the line sword in hand, and were killed with the bayonets. Two attacked Falkland, who was on the flank, at once, and the sabre of one would have cut him down; but Yorke, who was behind him, parrying the stroke with his bayonet, ran the assailant through. It was real fighting, but lasted only for a few seconds, and then the place was cleared of the enemy, and only the victors remained and the slain, whose bodies, clad in white jackets and waist-cloths, lay scattered on the ground.
One or two of the party made as if to stop and look after their wounded comrade, but Falkland called on them to keep in line and clear the garden first; and the line advanced along the whole length of it, and then wheeling round on their left, turned back and pushed through it again, this time at a greater distance from the house. Three or four times they traversed the garden in this way, gradually working to the boundary-wall and clearing it of enemies. Here and there they came on a white-clothed figure, which flitted away at their approach, sometimes firing at random first. The enemy, taken by surprise and bewildered at the nature of the attack and without leaders, had abandoned the garden almost without resistance, leaving some ten or a dozen of their comrades on the ground. They now began, however, to line the garden-wall, and to send from behind it an ill-directed fire, and Falkland withdrew his party towards the spot where Peart had fallen. But although this could at once be recognized by the bodies of the dead sepoys. Peart was missing. "He must have got up and made his way into the house," said one; and Falkland despatched Spragge to find out if this was so. "We must not leave him alone if he is still outside," he said; "it was one thing to spoil the effect of our advance by stopping to look after the wounded, it is another to desert a wounded comrade;" and the party rested for a few minutes, examining as far as they could in the darkness the nature of the enemy's work behind the trench, which confirmed the suspicion on which the sally had been undertaken. Close to the scene of the fight was the shaft of a well into which one of the party nearly fell; and Yorke descending into it by the ladder which the enemy had left, groped his way, the colonel's revolver in hand, along the gallery running out from the bottom, some thirty feet long already — fortunately for him, deserted.
Presently a messenger came from the house to say that Peart had certainly not returned either to the main building or to the bath-house. " He must have moved a little, perhaps by the way we came," said Falkland; "let us search in that direction;" and they traversed the garden along the hedge up to the starting-point, but without success. The two dead sepoys who were first killed were lying where they had been left, but their own comrade was not to be seen. Then Falkland spread out his party to extend the search, and at last one of them stumbled on something under a bush, which appeared to be the missing officer." He is soaking in blood," said Braddon, stooping down, "and cannot speak." "Has any one a light about him?" asked Falkland, also bending over the body, and trying in vain to discover its condition in the darkness.
A match was produced and lighted, and by the clear flame which rose steadily in the still air, the dress could be recognized as that of Peart, but the features were undistinguishable, so slashed was the face with sword-cuts, while the body, besides being mangled in the same way, was pierced with bayonet-wounds. He seemed to recognize them, but could not speak. "Shall we lift him up and carry him back, sir?" whispered Braddon. "Better call the doctor here," replied Falkland, placing his hand on the clotted fragments of clothes that covered the wounded man's heart. "Yorke, do you go and fetch
Maxwell; and Braddon, do you move forward with half-a-dozen men and extend in our front, to give warning if the enemy should advance. Not that they will molest us tonight. And, Yorke, we shall want a lantern."
Another brief space ensued, while the little group surrounded the wounded man, whose low moans alone broke the silence. Then Maxwell came, and the lantern was lighted behind the bushes, whence its light could not reach towards the enemy; but the doctor had scarcely arrived when the moans ceased, and he shook his head as he arose from stooping over the body. "He could not have lived long in that state," he observed; "it is as well he has died at once."
"We will bury him here in the trench," said Falkland; "it is better that his poor wife should not see him." And they set to work with some shovels which had been found lying scattered about at the top of the mine.
Thus had the sortie done its work of clearing the garden, and the whole business did not last ten minutes; but it was more than an hour before the party returned within the protection of the building, for on Peart's burial, Falkland set some of them to throw the dead bodies of the sepoys into the mine, and shovel the earth taken from it back again, while the rest kept guard in front. But the enemy's random fire from behind the wall took effect at last. One of the sepoys came up to Falkland to say he was hit, and asked leave to go back, and the latter then drew off the rest of the party.
The course of the enterprise had been watched by the ladies from the top of the house. The time had gone by for thinking about stray bullets; and, having sought the open air at dusk, they were not to be persuaded to descend by the warning given them by Captain Buxey, the only officer off duty, of the dangers of the coming sortie. They stood facing the western parapet, looking down with throbbing hearts on the scene below. The brief main conflict took place within fifty yards of them; and they could distinguish the voices which uttered the hurried oaths and cries, as the assailants met their foes, while the flash of the firearms lighted up the group for an instant. Bushes concealed the bodies, but their heads and shoulders were clear in view; it was a momentary vision of men engaged in mortal strife, breathing hate and passion in their faces. Then all was dark; but there could be heard the tramping of persons hurrying through the bushes, while the position of the fire, which new and then flashed out of the darkness, showed that the assailants were driving the enemy out of the garden.
No one dared ask the others whether they thought there had been any loss.
"What is that?" presently whispered some one, as a movement could be heard close to the edge of the garden, at the spot where the encounter had taken place. "Can that be our people coming back?" But no, they were still at the far end of the garden, some three hundred yards off. The noise was really caused by the rebel sepoys who were down in the mine when the attack took place, and who, creeping out after the sortie had advanced, came upon the body of the wounded Peart, and were dragging it away, but, getting hurried, had hacked and stabbed him, and run off.
Then the lookers-on could make out that the assailants were returning after scouring the garden, and then that they were halted by the mine-head. Presently a footstep could be heard on the gravel, and a figure seen making for the covered way, and exchanging words with the guard within, and the ladies ran down to the rooms below to meet Spragge as he entered the building. "They have carried the mine in splendid style," said one of the officers who surrounded Spragge to the ladies as they came hurrying up; "but Spragge has come to know if Peart is here; he has been hit, and is missing. They think he must have come back by himself."
"What is that about my husband?" cried Mrs. Peart, pressing forward in the dimly-lighted veranda towards Spragge; "what has happened?"
"He was hit at the first go-off," Spragge answered, "but not badly, we hope, or he couldn't have walked home, you know. Where is the doctor?" continued Spragge, and staggering forward he would have fallen if another officer had not caught him; and by the light just then brought up, his breast was seen to be dripping with blood. Then while Maxwell and Grumbull laid him on the floor and examined his wound, the vain search was made through and round the building for the missing officer.
Shortly afterwards Maxwell was summoned away, and left his patient with Grumbull. "Thank you, Grumbull," said the wounded man, faintly, as the former continued the examination; "every confidence in you, of course, but I would rather wait till Maxwell comes back; so pray let
me alone for a bit, like a good fellow." Then as Mrs. Peart, candle in hand, and with a scared face, was traversing the building, some one told her that her husband was found, and then that he was dead, and that they were burying him in the garden.
When the party returned, Falkland sought out Mrs. Peart, and told her that her husband had fallen while gallantly doing his duty, and patting Kitty Peart on the head as she stood by looking up at the colonel, told her to be a brave girl, and help her mother to bear the trial. It was one of the strangest scenes of those strange times: the group of officers, flushed and hot from their labours, telling the story to such of their comrades as were free to join them; a little in advance of them Falkland talking to Mrs. Peart, behind whom were assembled the other ladies, who had come to hear the news; the one lamp suspended from the ceiling throwing a dim light over the big room, the candle Mrs. Peart still carried bringing into stronger relief Falkland's grave face and the scared aspect of the poor widow, while the daughter, with Falkland's hand resting on her head, had burst into tears. "Come away, dear," said Olivia, gently; and, putting her arm round Mrs. Peart's waist, led her away to the ladies' room, whither the sobbing girl followed them.
Spragge had had a narrow escape with his life, the bullet which hit him having glanced off, making a flesh-wound and breaking a rib. He was put to bed in the sick-room and tended with the other patients, and warmly commended in the morning by Falkland for his behaviour in keeping his place in the line till the fighting was over, notwithstanding his wound. The sepoy hit by the stray bullet while filling up the mine was less fortunate. He had been shot through the body; and although he did not feel much hurt at first, and was able to walk back, he died in the morning.
CHAPTER 30
========================================
CHAPTER XXX.
Notwithstanding
the loss sustained, the garrison were in high spirits for the rest of the night at the success of the sortie. And the state of things next day amply justified the night's enterprise. Not only was a great danger averted; the enemy were so cowed by the surprise that they did not attempt to resume their mining, or even to reoccupy the garden. The other side of the building being already kept clear by the occupation of the lodge, the garrison were thus practically free from molestation, although the rebels had not given up the investment, for they could still be seen collected about the court-house and in the village opposite the lodge.
Great, therefore, was the sense of relief; nevertheless, as the day wore on, a reaction set in from the excitement of the previous night, and, in the absence of any pressing emergency, a sort of lassitude and weariness was now becoming observable. Time and confinement were beginning to tell. The building, large and airy though it was, had become almost intolerably close and stuffy, with all the sides closed up in the savage heat of June; and the ladies, who spent a part of the night on the roof, purchased the comfort dearly, which involved a return to the sickening atmosphere below. All were tiring of the monotonous diet; they felt the need of food, but brought a sense of loathing to their meals. This morning, also, the two children had sickened, and lay side by side on their cot, each with the doll Kitty Peart had made for it on the pillow beside it, looking up at passers-by with languid preoccupied eye, while their mother sat fanning herself in a chair near them. Poor Kitty herself took her share of the nursing; and while fanning Jerry Spragge, gave him the particulars of poor papa's death, with such embellishments as had already gathered round the event. It did not occur to the poor girl that one of a party of soldiers might be shot, although not more prominently engaged than the survivors; so she described to the patient how her father had fallen covered with wounds, while heroically leading on his comrades, and the better-informed young fellow had not the heart to set her right. Nor did Mrs. Peart keep to herself in her sorrow. For her there could be no seclusion for the conventional time, to be followed by a reappearance in decorous weeds, while face and voice should be attuned to proper keeping with the condition of bereavement. Some of the other ladies indeed offered to bring her share of the rude meals to their private room; but the two sick children lying there, peevish and crying, made such partial solitude unwelcome; and Mrs. Peart, although for the time suspending her share in the nursing, took her place as usual at the public breakfast-table, where the unpleasant-looking food was almost concealed from sight by the swarm of flies that settled upon it.
Mrs. Polwheedle presided at this meal. It had got to her ears that Major Peart had been left on the ground when he was wounded, and killed afterwards; and while helping to console the widow through the night, she had not forgotten to point out how the major might have been saved if he had not been left alone on the ground after he was wounded. Mrs. Polwheedle, who had been very active in nursing, and whose bustling cheerful manner had contributed sensibly to sustain the spirits of the female members of the garrison, but on whose temper events were beginning to tell, was not herself this morning; and was now holding forth with raised voice and flushed face in criticism of the last night's enterprise, the only gentlemen present at table being the brigadier and Captain Buxey.
"Better have a little of this stew, my dear," she said to Mrs. Peart; "it's the last day you'll get any, for the sheep won't hold out any longer. They have had no food for three days as it is. But there won't be many left soon to want meat, or chapattees either, if we go on like this. There's Braywell and Sparrow gone one day, and now your husband and young Spragge and a poor sepoy the next; I can't see what Falkland wants to be always going on in this way, attacking here, and attacking there, for. Why doesn't he keep quiet inside? I wonder you allow it, brigadier. It's as much your fault as his. You are responsible for everything, you know, for I suppose he made a pretence of asking your leave first."
"My dear, I said I thought there was a good deal of risk in the sally," replied the poor old men meekly; "but I deferred to Falkland's judgment in the matter, and he
considered it was necessary to do something. He is able to go about and see into things better than I, you know."
"Go about!" retorted the lady, "I should think he was able to go about. He goes about a great deal too much, to my mind; and then to leave that poor fellow to be hacked to pieces while he must be marching and countermarching up and down the garden like a madman. No! I don't care who hears me," she continued, as Captain Buxey pointed in the direction of a doorway from which Mrs. Falkland was advancing, "so long as the brigadier commands here I shall say what I please; and I say it's a shame, and you may tell Falkland so, if you like, my dear," she added, turning her flushed and angry face towards Olivia.
"My husband is busy enough as it is, Mrs. Polwheedle," said Olivia, taking her place, and leaning her head wearily on her hand, with the elbow resting on the table; "it would be better not to trouble him with our small difficulties; don't you think so, brigadier? No, thank you, Captain Buxey," she added, as that gentleman was handing her a plate of stew, " I can't eat anything this morning; I will take some tea, if you please."
"Yes, my dear," observed the brigadier to his wife, with an attempt at dignity, "what Mrs. Falkland says is very true; ladies should not meddle with military matters."
"And why shouldn't they meddle?" retorted the lady, turning sharply round on her husband. "Why don't you meddle yourself, then?" she continued, as the poor old gentleman sat silent under the question, "instead of sitting there, day after day, eating and drinking the best of everything, and never doing a blessed thing. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, that you ought: you are no more use to any one than that little half-caste idiot of an O'Halloran."
"Mrs. Polwheedle," said Falkland, who had entered the room when her voice was at its highest, "it is quite against rules to disturb the garrison by noise of any sort. I have the brigadier's orders to put any offender against the rules into confinement. Pray don't give me occasion to enforce them against you."
"Brigadier," said the lady, bridling up, and scarcely able to speak for passion, "will you sit there and see your wife insulted?"
"My dear," said the brigadier, mildly, "pray be calm and reasonable; Colonel Falkland is only doing his duty."
"The brigadier gives all his orders through me, ma'am. No, not another word, or you go to your room and stay there," and Falkland looked so stern that Mrs. Polwheedle gave up the contest, and sat still, silent and cowed; and Falkland, beckoning to his wife to follow him, left the hall.
"Olivia, my love," said her husband when they had reached the anteroom, "that old woman has got hold of the brandy-bottle again."
"Brandy-bottle, Robert?"
"Yes, dear; she has done it before. She took one from Buxey's store two days ago; and now she has done it again. He told me another bottle was missing; and she is evidently the worse for liquor. You must find out where she has hidden it, and give it back to Buxey. You look tired and worn this morning, my poor child," he added, fondling one of her hands in his, "and I daresay that old fury has been frightening you more than the enemy; but you must keep up your courage; we shall all of us want all the strength we possess."
And indeed, notwithstanding the present suspension from active measures by the enemy, Falkland had just now special cause to feel harassed and anxious. The supply of flour had almost come to an end — the stock laid in, through a miscarriage of plans executed in a hurry, having been much less than was intended, while the garrison was larger than was expected, owing to the reinforcement of faithful sepoys. There still remained several sheep, but the grain for them was failing also, nor would a meat diet keep the garrison in health. Moreover, the wounded were beginning to do badly. Maxwell talked of amputation for M'Intyre, but feared the consequences; and young Raugh's wound looked angry, although a clean sabre-cut; and the doctor said better things could not be looked for with bad air and bad diet. A still more serious matter was the state of the ammunition. A supply coming in from the palace had been intercepted by the
émeute
in the town on the afternoon before the siege began: notwithstanding the repeated injunctions given to husband the ammunition, the garrison, especially at first, had been disposed to fire oftener than necessary; and now, although there was abundance of lead for bullets, only enough powder remained for about five rounds per head. This state of things Falkland kept secret from every one but Braddon and Yorke; but the sepoys, as well as the rest of the garrison,
must guess the smallness of the store from the care with which it was husbanded. No one, indeed, had believed in the reality beforehand of a serious investment, or that if unsuccessful at the outset it would be persisted in so long; but they had now been shut up for six days without any tidings from the outer world. How far the mutiny had extended, and what other communities had been swept away, or were resisting like themselves, they had no knowledge; but that the government were in great straits might be inferred from the delay in sending relief. The last tidings before the siege had been that a regiment of local infantry was being despatched to their aid; but even allowing for delay in crossing the great rivers now swollen by the melting of the mountain-snows, this aid should have arrived long ago if not interrupted or diverted.
Two messengers had been sent out by Falkland — servants: one on the first night with a note to the government of the nearest province, to tell them of the condition of the garrison; he was to find his way to the nearest station or camp still occupied by British troops, and to deliver it there. The other had been sent out the previous night, on the east side, while the enemy's attention was diverted by the sortie, who was to bring back any news he could pick up, but he had never returned. If this man had proved faithless, the enemy might be encouraged to persevere in the blockade by learning in what straits they were placed. In this state of anxiety and suspense was passed the long day, the harder to bear from the quietude maintained by the enemy, which afforded nothing to divert attention from the tormenting heat.
When night came on, the jemadar, who was in his master's confidence and knew the importance to the garrison of obtaining news, volunteered to go out and seek intelligence of the state of things in the enemy's camp; and Falkland, although loath to let the brave fellow undertake this perilous office, for he was so well known in the city as to run special risk of detection, was fain under the emergency to accept the offer. Accordingly, Ameer Khan, disguising himself as far as possible to look like a sepoy, and taking musket and pouch-belt, slipped out and stole through the garden in the darkness. Shortly before dawn he returned, to the great relief of his master, who had entertained but little hope of seeing the faithful fellow again. He had managed to get over the garden-wall without being perceived, and although soon afterwards challenged by a picket of sepoys, had got past safely by passing himself off as a sepoy of another regiment, and had been all through the rebel camp and city. The enemy showed no sign of raising the blockade: indeed in the bazaar the talk was all about the repulse which a body of troops marching to the relief of Mustaphabad was reported to have received. It was a new levy apparently, probably the same body whose march had been reported to Falkland before the blockade began. A large part of this force, it was said, had deserted to the enemy; and the remainder, after sustaining considerable loss in attempting to occupy a rebel town on the line of march, was in full retreat. Such was the tale brought back by the jemadar, amplified no doubt by bazaar gossip, but probably accurate so far that the attempt at relief had for the present failed. On the other hand, there was much talk about the doings of a body of horse said to be moving down from the settled country, the leader of which, who had gained the
sobriquet
of the "Black Feringhee," appeared to have already established a name of terror by his prowess and savage retaliations on the country through which he was moving; and the sepoy camp was evidently beginning to be uneasy at the prospect of his coming against them, although the general impression seemed to be that he could hardly venture to attack so large a force, without support from infantry or guns.
So much information Ameer Khan had managed to pick up by wandering about the bazaars, which all through the night were astir with people who took their sleep and kept at home during the fierce heat of day; and the conclusion to be drawn from it was far from encouraging. The jemadar had also learnt the fate of the emissary sent out the previous night; and the gallant fellow could not restrain the emotion he felt when describing how the unfortunate Kidmatgar, having been recognized, had been carried before the nawab's brother, who now ruled in the city, and in his presence horribly mutilated and then turned out into the street as a warning to others. Well might the bravest man shrink from so horrible a fate.
CHAPTER 31
========================================
CHAPTER XXXI.
During
this night, spent by Ameer Khan on the expedition described above, and by the garrison at their posts, the ladies who were off hospital duty forgot for a time their dangers and hardships in
peaceful slumber on the housetop; when next morning, just as they were about to descend the stairs to the room below, something whistled over their heads with a rushing sound unlike anything they had heard before; a sharp report followed from the direction of the court-house. Falkland, always on the alert, hurried up to the roof just as another cannon-ball whizzing past warned the occupants to hasten down. A couple of field-guns were to be seen in front of the court-house, at a point where a good view of the house was afforded by a gap in the trees; and the sepoys could be made out busily engaged in reloading them.
"The nawab's guns," said Falkland, surveying the scene through his glass, "a present from our government; they used to stand in front of the palace. So, this accounts for the rascals' inactivity yesterday; they were getting this ready as a surprise. They may have guns, however, but they have no gunners," he added, as the balls from the second discharge passed harmlessly overhead and buried themselves in the garden behind, while Yorke, who had never been in the way of round-shot before, involuntarily bobbed his head. "I beg your pardon, sir," said he, laughing, as the colonel looked round and stared at him — "it was quite unintentional; I won't do it again."
"I wonder where they have got their shot from," observed the colonel, after a pause; "a good deal depends on that. Do you think you can pick up the one which has just lodged behind that bush? Thanks, my dear boy," said he, when, a few minutes afterwards, Yorke returned from the other side of the garden bearing a shot in his hand, and the latter felt Falkland's smile and look of approbation to be an ample reward for the service. "Yes, it is a hammered shot, as I expected; that will be the saving of us: the practice is sure to be bad with these lopsided things, and they won't have too many to throw away."
The sound of the guns created some consternation at first within the building; but Falkland reassured the members of the garrison assembled in the big room, by producing the specimen shot, and the inmates soon became accustomed to this new annoyance, which brought no harm at first. Even at that short range the enemy could not at first hit the mark. Some shot hit the ground about the building, but most of them flew over and buried themselves in the garden. "It is odd that there should be no stray gunners on leave in the city to show them how to handle a gun," observed some one later in the morning, who had hardly spoken when there was heard a noise overhead as of falling bricks, and the messenger sent upstairs brought back word that a part of the roof parapet had been carried away, close to where the look-out man was standing.
Half an hour afterwards a shot came through the east veranda, making a hole in the sandbag parapet, and, sending up a cloud of dust, lodged in the outer wall of the building.
"That is no hammered shot," said Underwood, who was on duty in the east veranda, handing the shot to Falkland, who had come out to look at the place.
"This is a regular cannon-ball beyond a doubt," replied Falkland, examining the missile; " but they cannot have a large stock, or they would not have begun with the lopsided ones, and it will take a deal of hammering with nine-pounders to bring this building down; it was not constructed by the Public Works Department." But the sentries were withdrawn from this veranda, there being no danger of an attack upon it without warning; and the number of balls which came through during the day justified the precaution. For the most part they merely struck the wall, knocking out plaster and brickwork, without doing much damage; but occasionally they found their way into the adjacent side-rooms through the doorways; one shot of this kind went through a bag of meal in the storeroom, and another traversed what had hitherto been the sick-room, shortly after the patients had been removed to the west side of the house. Fortunately the guns were north-east of the building, so that the line of fire was oblique, and did not command the centre room.
Thus the hours sped by, and up to mid-day the garrison had suffered no harm. Then the fire was stopped for a time, to be resumed in the afternoon; but it was still so desultory and ill-directed that the garrison were becoming indifferent to the annoyance, when, late in the afternoon, a fatal shot came through the portico. It must have glanced against a tree or some other obstacle, and become deflected in its course, for the portico was out of the line of fire; but it came crashing through the thin sandbag wall, smashed the legs of an officer of the 80th, as he lay asleep on a camp-bedstead, killed two sepoys lying on one of the steps, and then glancing off from the stonework, and slicing
off the back of Braddon's pillow — he was asleep on another cot — without touching him, tore through the body of Yorke's horse as it stood picketed just beyond, and so made its exit through the parapet on the other side, those who had escaped starting up from their sleep, and gazing in wonder at the mangled forms of their comrades.
The news of the catastrophe soon spread through the building; and while those who were kept to their posts by duty were still questioning the others who had gone to learn particulars, another casualty was reported. A messenger from the lodge came over with the news that Layton, the shopkeeper, who was on duty there, and a very useful member of the garrison, had just been killed by a stray bullet coming through a loophole. So far the garrison had experienced a remarkable immunity from loss through the enemy's musketry-fire, and a certain proportion of casualties from this cause was reasonably to be expected; but coming at this time the loss seemed to be exceptionally hard to bear. An hour later there was another serious blow. Buxey was with one of the servants in the storeroom serving out supplies, when a shot came through the door-way, killing the man, whose mangled body fell over the open jar of meal they were handling, drenching its contents with blood. The rest of the stores were at once removed to a less exposed part of the house; but this accident had made a serious inroad upon the scanty stock remaining, and a feeling of despair now for the first time possessed many of the garrison, while the stoutest-hearted felt their courage sink at these losses in their slender numbers, which they were powerless to retaliate or guard against unless by some desperate effort. And when Falkland was seen to go up to the roof a little later with Yorke and Braddon, it was rumoured that another spell of "nervous duty" was in store for some of them.
"I think we might take those guns with a rush, sir," said Braddon to Falkland, as they surveyed the position from the look-out place; "we might come round on them from the flank, and spike them without much loss."
"I have been thinking of that too, but it would be a desperate remedy. We should lose time removing the barricade, which they have made as strong as ever. Even if we got as far without loss, they would never allow us to retire unmolested. The houses opposite the lodge are swarming with men, who would be almost in the rear of our advance. The distance is full six hundred yards. It would cost us our last cartridge to retire over it, and even then we should have to leave our wounded behind us, if any were hit. No, I think it would be better to hold on, and keep a few shots for a last resource." And the garrison were not disappointed to hear that no sally was to be made. All felt with Falkland that the remedy would be too desperate.
That night another shallow grave was dug in the garden for Underwood and the two sepoys, and Layton was buried by Braywell near the lodge; the dead horse also was dragged out and buried, the enemy offering no molestation.
The firing had stopped, but the ladies were not allowed to sleep on the roof, and were crowded together in Olivia's room in the stifling heat, while sleep was driven away by the cries of young Raugh. The poor lad was now quite light-headed, and sang English ballads all through the night in a shrill voice.
That night, while Egan was on duty in the trench leading to the bath-house, he was suddenly startled by seeing something moving stealthily towards him from the direction of the garden-hedge. Soon making it out to be a man, he covered him with his rifle, but paused before firing till the nature of the attack should explain itself. He could only make out one man, and, being a cool fellow, Egan contented himself with keeping his rifle ready till the man had approached quite close, who then began waving his hand in a deprecating way, and whispered in Hindustani —
"A poor man, sahib, with news: don't fire."
"All right, old fellow," replied Egan; "come along, and don't be afraid. You've had a precious close shave, old gentleman, all the same," continued Mr. Egan in a lower voice, as he assisted the stranger to climb over the trench; and soon the word being passed, the messenger was brought to Falkland in the south veranda. He was a little wizened old man, a mere bag of bones, and naked save for a small cloth round his loins, and a pair of coarse shoes.
"A letter, sir," said the old man; and taking off one of his shoes, and drawing a couple of nails concealed by mud and dust, extracted a tiny piece of folded paper from between the layers of the sole. This letter, flattened out, was barely three inches square; written in faint ink on the thinnest paper, and soiled by the journey, the following words were with difficulty deciphered: —
"To C. O. [commanding officer] Mustd. Am marching down with a levy of Sikh horse. Juriana local infantry attempting the same thing have been beaten back with loss of many killed and deserted, and Jordan, commandant, badly wounded. The direct line from here strongly defended, and passage of river difficult, so I shall work round by the north; this is longer route, but only practicable one. Have sent you three despatches before this; news of you difficult to get, and accounts conflicting. Country generally smashed up. Delhi not yet taken, but expected to fall in a few days, when all will come right. My fellows promise well, but are raw at their work. And there is a lot to be done. But hold out for . . . days, and I will be with you . . ."
The latter part of the note was the most illegible of all; the number of days mentioned, the writer's signature, and the date of the letter, could not be deciphered.
This despatch thus entirely corroborated the account brought back by Ameer Khan. The writer was evidently the "Black Feringhee" talked about in the city, but who he was no one at first could guess. The old man could not give the information; he had not come direct from the camp, but had received the letter at a neighbouring village from his son, who said that he had come fifty miles with it in two days, but he fancied the name of the officer was "Carte Sahib." Carte Sahib? who could that be? There was no officer of that name in the army.
The old man was in a hurry to be gone, before it grew light, and refused to be the bearer of a letter out, saying he could not hope to find Carte Sahib and his horse, who were here one day and there another, like a wild elephant. And being rewarded with a handful of gold mohurs — a small fortune for a peasant — which he secreted dexterously in his waist-cloth, the old fellow, making his salaam, crept out and disappeared in the garden.
"Poor old gentleman," said Egan, as he went off, "he is sure to get his throat cut with all that loot about him."
Almost everybody in the garrison was asked to try and decipher the letter. None of the officers, however, could make anything of the signature; but when Falkland showed it to his wife, she at once said it was Kirke, and on the discovery being made, every one was surprised that he had not made such an obvious guess. Kirke was known to be on leave in the hills when the mutiny broke out, and so good a soldier would of course be at once employed in an emergency. "No wonder," said Falkland, "the fame of the 'Black Feringhee' has got abroad; these are the times to show what men are made of. If it is possible to relieve us, Kirke will do it. To think," he continued, looking at his wife, "that a woman's wit should solve in a minute the difficulty we men were all blundering at."
Olivia blushed as he spoke. She could not tell him then how familiar her cousin's handwriting used to be with her.
CHAPTER 32
========================================
CHAPTER XXXII.
Another
morning broke, and those who had been trying to rest rose sweltering from their beds, and set about making their scanty toilets. Guards were changed, the unsavoury rations were given out and cooked, and all applied themselves in their different tasks to live out another weary day. M'Intyre groaned with the fever of his wounds; Raugh was quieter, and only sang at times. The firing began again from the two guns and went on in desultory fashion; almost every shot now hit the building, no great feat in gunnery, but still an improvement on the practice of the day before.
Thus wore on the dismal morning. Only nine o'clock, and the day was already five hours long, and yet how many hours remained! when suddenly the garrison was aroused from its state of dull endurance.
"That shot must be wide of the mark," said Falkland, starting up from his couch in the drawing-room, on which he was taking a morning sleep, and resting on his elbow, as the report of a gun was heard without the accompanying whistle of the shot: "there goes another," he added, as the second gun was fired off. "Pandy must have come to an end of his cast shot, and be falling back on the hammered ones. If so, we are in luck."
As he spoke, the look-out officer came running into the room, "There is something up, colonel!" he cried; "they are turning their guns at somebody away out on the plain." Falkland hurried up to the roof.
Beyond the lodge, on the other side of the road, was the village surrounded by a mud wall, of which mention has already been made. This village enclosure was nearly square, and with its houses and surrounding trees interrupted the view of the open plain beyond, portions of which, however, could be seen through the gap between the village and the court-house, and again to the south of the village,
although in these directions also the view was a good deal intercepted by the trees in the park. And on this plain some object was now exciting the attention of the rebels, for, as the look-out man had reported, the two guns were turned away, and were firing in that direction, and a large column of sepoys was drawn up on
the open space behind them. What it was could not at first be told; only a cloud of dust could be seen rising high in the sultry air, and floating over the village; but presently some horsemen could be made out to the south of the village, about three-quarters of a mile off, retiring slowly, the skirts of a larger body, and then as a light air blew the dust away, some cavalry could be distinguished drawn up in regular formation, now halted in column, and facing towards the enemy; and immediately the news spread through the building that relief had come — Kirke and his levy of horse.
"Kirke's levy evidently," said Braddon, who had been summoned to the roof; "the men are dressed in all sorts of ways, and very irregular is the dressing of their ranks. However, handsome is that handsome does! Kirke won't be the man I take him for if he doesn't soon find his way in, now that he has got so far."
"Is it Kirke's men," said Falkland, "or the levy of some native chief? I begin to think it must be the latter. Why should Kirke, if it were he, keep away out there, as if he were afraid of this wretched fire? It is to be hoped that they do not mean to sheer off, after all, and leave us in the lurch; but I can't make out any Europeans with them."
"Yes!" cried Yorke, who was looking through a field-glass; "I see a European there, on a grey horse, going along at a foot-pace, with his back turned this way, and with a helmet on, and there is an orderly riding behind him. Ah! now he is gone out of sight behind those trees. There he comes again, don't you see, sir, to the right? "
"It is Kirke, and no mistake," said Falkland, looking at the distant mass through his glass. "I could tell his figure on horseback among a thousand. Thank God, we are saved!" and the tone of relief with which he spoke showed how much his previous bearing had belied his real hopes of escape.
The news of succour had spread instantaneously through the building; discipline for the moment was suspended, and the staircase to the roof was crowded with people coming to see the relieving force with their own eyes. Even the brigadier managed to hobble up; nor could Falkland refuse to allow each lady in turn to come up and have a look at the distant horsemen and try to distinguish the Europeans with the force, of whom two had now been made out.
All was now changed to life and high spirits within the building; a messenger was despatched to the lodge with the good tidings, while even the wounded began to cheer up, except Johnny Raugh, who was still unconscious but quiet now, and breathing heavily.
The residency now was quite unmolested; but some of the occupants of the lodge showing themselves in their excitement incautiously on the roof, drew down a sharp fire from the village on the opposite side of the road, which was still full of men.
Still the relieving force made no attack; they could be seen now and then, through the gaps in the trees, moving about in the distance, but they came no nearer, deterred apparently by the difficulty of attacking so numerous an infantry well posted; and endless were the surmises of the lookers-on as they watched the movements of the horsemen with straining eyes and eager faces. Why don't they charge down to the south, and clear the ground up to the wall there? The enemy can't be in strength in that direction; they might relieve us in that way without difficulty. Can it be they have been told the residency has fallen? But no, that cannot be, or why should the rebels be investing it? But to make sure, Falkland had a standard hoisted on the roof — a tablecover on a pole. It took some time to manage this, and when the thing was done all sign of the cavalry had disappeared.
Kirke must be acting as the advanced-guard of a force which had come to reconnoitre, and has fallen back on the main body, to wait for the infantry to come up, said the more hopeful; but dread despair came upon the garrison when the news spread. It was as if a shipwrecked sailor were to see a ship sail by, unheeding the raft to which he was clinging.
"Main body or not," said Falkland anxiously to his two lieutenants, "we must manage to communicate with Kirke at once, for I am sure it is he; I can't believe that his sheering off like this is more than temporary. Kirke has pluck and judgment for fifty men, but every minute is critical; we cannot afford to run the risk of our want of ammunition being found out. The very fact of relief being
so near may incite the rebels to strike a final blow and be off. Which of your men, Braddon, do you think, could be best trusted to get out?"
"He would have to wait till dark, sir, would he not?" asked Yorke, "before making the attempt; and then if he succeeded he might lose all the night in looking for them. I have a plan to propose, sir; let me mount your mare, and take my chance of getting over the wall and through these brutes. They will be so surprised they won't have time to fire," he added, seeing that Falkland looked doubtfully at the proposal.
"That is a big wall to take," observed the colonel, after a pause, during which he had been regarding the young man with a look that conveyed his approbation.
"Kathleen would do it, sir, never fear," replied the other; "it is not five feet high there by the gateway; she is good for that any day."
"I think she is, but she will need to have her master on her back to do it, after being so long without being ridden."
"I think I can sit a fresh nag as well as most people," observed Braddon, "though I say it who shouldn't; but these are not times to stand on modesty. Let
me
go, sir, and you shall see me witch Pandy with noble horsemanship."
"No, Braddon, you are too heavy. Yorke's idea, however, is a capital one, but it will be better for me to go than either of you."
"But ought the commandant to desert the garrison, sir?" objected Braddon. "We shall never be able to get on without you; and the people would lose heart if they heard you were gone."
"I would rather stay of course, but this is a case of duty. Everything depends on communicating with the force outside, and for this it is necessary to get over the wall. Relief will then only be a question of a few minutes; my absence for so long can't do any harm."
"You have seen me take a wall, sir," said Yorke, "and on a horse that was a mere pony beside Kathleen. I believe I could do the trick all right. I am a good stone lighter than you, and certainly I can be better spared."
"No reflections on your horsemanship, my dear boy," replied the colonel, putting his hand kindly on Yorke's shoulder, and looking down as he spoke; "but Kathleen has not been out of her stall for ten days, and has been on half rations for a week. She will do best with her master on her back, but the credit of the plan is all yours. But we must not lose time in talking."
They descended to the portico, and the mare was saddled, while the opening was cleared again which had been made in the parapet the previous night for removing the dead horse. The affair occupied only a few minutes, while Falkland, going aside with the brigadier, explained what was proposed, and obtained the old man's consent to his errand. Then turning to Buxey, who also had been summoned to the portico — "Buxey, old friend," he said, "we are all liable to accident; if I should come to grief, I charge you to convey to government my particular recommendation of Braddon and Yorke. The conduct of the whole garrison will speak for itself, and will, no doubt be rewarded suitably; but I wish it particularly to be recorded that these two have especially contributed to the success of the defence." Then he made a movement, intending to enter the building; but suddenly turned back again, and saying in a low voice as he passed Yorke, while he pressed his hand for an instant, "I leave Olivia in your charge," mounted, and passed out by the gap from underneath the portico.
The mare walked quietly out for a few paces, but when having got clear of the building Falkland pressed her sides, she gave a furious plunge which almost unseated him, the preface to a course of bounds into the air, which tried her rider's horsemanship, but did not advance his progress off the hard road. At last he got her on to the lawn, only one degree less hard, and put her into a canter towards the north end, the mare still plunging madly in the excitement of leaving the stable, trying to pull the reins out of his hands, but going with a short stiff action as if her limbs were cramped by the long confinement.
It was about midday, and the scorching vertical rays of the sun beat down on the fiery soil; shadow to the right or left there was none. As the rider and horseman approached the north park-wall numerous faces appeared behind it and from the outhouse at the end, and there was rapid firing at the sudden apparition. The anxious and excited lookers-on thought at first he was going to take the wall at that end, which was very high, but he turned round when near it and came cantering back again towards the portico, saluted now by a shower of bullets from the enclosures beyond the lodge.
The guard of the portico had some of them clambered on the parapet, while
others unable to restrain themselves ran outside to watch the event. The lodge-picket, too, were all standing on the roof or on the pathway outside, but the enemy for the moment did not heed them.
Again Falkland turned the mare up the park and galloped her to the end and back. She is going more at her ease now, and the rider stoops over to pat her neck as the noble beast settles into her long stride. Now he turns her again, still going at an easy gallop, and describing an arc and bringing her round, puts her straight at the east wall, just above the entrance gap, where it was lowest. The distance is about a hundred yards, but to the lookers-on it seems a dozen times that length, as breathlessly they watch him nearing the wall. Then there is an instant of suspense as the mare rises at the obstacle and clears it gallantly. The leap accomplished, Falkland makes straight forward between the village and the court-house; the former seems alive with men, all firing at him as he shoots by, while a whole platoon is discharged from the men drawn up by the court-house; but the figure of the rider can be made out erect and harmless, galloping over the plain, the danger past, until lost to view in the distance by the intervening trees. "Hurrah! He will be up with the cavalry in no time at that rate, and we shall have them back again in a minute or two." Such are the cries echoed by the spectators of Falkland's successful feat, as they take the news into the building. All is joy again for the moment. It seems as if the relief had actually come.
But the minutes pass by, and there are no signs of the horsemen; no dust in the distance marks their return. And now there follows another long pause of dreary heart-sickening suspense. No one can guess what has happened; and the weaker members of the party put vague guesses and questions to each other, which no one can answer, while the sterner ones remain silent. Braddon and Yorke scan the scene from the roof; but the long hours pass by, and no signs can be discerned of relief. Once when Yorke descended to the building he met Olivia coming out of the sick-room, and her sorrow-stricken face told him that she knew of Falkland's departure; but as he advanced towards her she turned a look as of reproach and scorn towards him, and passed suddenly into the ladies' room to avoid him. Alas! thought he, even her firm mind is giving way under these trials, and no wonder.
About four o'clock news came from the roof that the guns were being again turned on the building; and in a few seconds the whistle of the shot recommenced, with the accustomed accompaniment of falling masonry, as great pieces of the brickwork fell away under each discharge. Then despair seized upon most of them. This must surely mean that the relieving force has been driven off. A large body of sepoys, too, were seen moving down to join the outposts in the village. This looked as if another assault were intended. There was nothing left now but to sell their lives as dearly as possible.
But half an hour afterwards some of the portico-guard thought they heard musketry-firing in the direction of the city. All ears were turned anxiously in that direction, one or two men being sent outside to hear better. There could be no doubt about it. Nor was it a mere
feu de joie
, as some said at first; the noise was continuous but irregular, like sharp skirmishing or street-fighting. Hope began to stir again with them. It must surely be the relief coming at last. Falkland is leading an attack upon the enemy from their rear, to clear the city of them. Yes! it must be so. See, the sepoys are being called back from the village, towards the court-house, and the number about that building has diminished; they are evidently being sent forward to defend the city. The guns too have been withdrawn again, and are turned in that direction.
And now the sound of firing gets closer; the attacking party must be gaining ground.
Still the strife proceeds, but as the sun gets low, the sepoys can be seen coming back from the city and forming up irregularly to the south of the court-house, while some of their leaders are riding about on horseback as if trying to rally them. But it is of no use; they begin to break away by twos and threes and to make for the village again, from the rear of which other stragglers are now running away in the direction of cantonments. There will be no rally in the village, although the place would be hard to carry if well defended. The garrison can restrain themselves no longer; and a party headed by Braddon rush out from the portico, and, joined by those on picket at the lodge, they line the park-wall and fire their last cartridges at the rebels retiring in disorder over the ground in front. This completes the panic. The sepoys, instead of retreating into the village, send back a few desultory shots in reply, and now sheer off behind it to avoid the fire thus opened on them,
leaving a few bodies stretched on the plain. In a few minutes they have all disappeared, and the attacking force is seen emerging from the trees towards the city and advancing in skirmishing order up to the court-house. Amongst them can be distinguished in the dusk an officer on horseback, a European by his helmet. He looks ahead for an instant, and then hearing the cheers set up by the garrison on catching sight of him, gallops up to the gateway, the barrier at which is pulled down by eager hands to make way for his horse, and in another instant he rides among them within, and is surrounded by the excited group, each trying to grasp his hand, while they shout to the others in the building, who with some of the ladies may be seen hurrying down the walk. The siege is over, the garrison is relieved.
The horseman was Kirke. "You thought I meant to go off and leave you in the lurch," he said smiling, in reply to some of the numerous questions with which he was assailed. "We could have come down to the south and cleared the place in a jiffey, I know, but that would have driven the enemy back into the city, and it would have been a devil of a job to dislodge them. No, I determined to take them in rear; and besides, Falkland got news that a large party in the city were prepared to join our side and release the nawab, if we only showed ourselves near the palace, so we thought we had better begin at that end and work downwards; and very well the thing has been done. I wish you could have seen my fellows skirmishing through the streets, with nothing but their swords and carbines."
"And Falkland?" cried the eager group of listeners, who had forgotten him for the moment in the excitement of deliverance; "where is Falkland?"
"Ah!" said Kirke, looking grave as he dismounted. Falkland had been killed, leading the advance through the town. Who will break the news to his wife?
CHAPTER 33
========================================
CHAPTER XXXIII.
The
members of the little garrison of Mustaphabad, after the first transport of excitement at deliverance from their desperate condition, wandered about the grounds in all the enjoyment of safety and freedom from molestation; and then, going further, visited the court-house and deserted rebel camp, and, penetrating the village, examined the position held by the assailants, and the appearance of their own defences from the outside. Every spot had its associations with some episode in the contest. See, here is the place behind this wall where that fellow used to hide who took such good shots, and bothered us so, till Egan got a sight of him two mornings ago, and that stain on the ground must be the result. Then there were endless questions to be asked of Kirke's subaltern, who had been brought in wounded, about the state of affairs in other parts, and all the stirring events throughout India which had been crowded into the space of their incarceration; and they learned, too, from the young man, now lying on a cot in the shade with his wounds dressed, the particulars of the relief, — how, while Kirke had drawn up his horsemen out of range of the guns while reconnoitring for the best way of relieving the garrison, Falkland had appeared galloping towards them across the plain; how, soon afterwards, an emissary had joined them from the nawab, bringing news which determined Falkland to move on the palace first, and having set the nawab free, to attack the rebels in rear; how, disdaining to dismount, he had fallen while leading the advance through the city, and the assailants had sustained a temporary check from the loss of their gallant leader. All this the wounded officer had many times to tell to the eager listeners round his bed; while Kirke himself, too busy for conversation, was engaged on the various duties of his command.
As for the building which had sheltered them so long, the first thing to be done was to get away from it and its foul atmosphere. The removal of the sandbag screen should be deferred till morning, when hired coolies could once more be procured; but an opening was soon made in the west side, and the wounded were carried outside, and their cots placed on the gravel walk. And a table was set out on the lawn to the east, where those not engaged in tending the sick dined together — a rough
repast as usual, but seasoned by fresh air. Afterwards they strolled through the lines of the cavalry, whose horses were picketed in the park, exchanging friendly greetings with their gallant deliverers. Then, wearied and ready for sleep, they lay down on their cots in the open air to pass their first quiet night in the happy sense of security; for pickets of Kirke's men had been posted round the park — although, as he remarked, if the enemy had not pluck to stop and fight it out, they would certainly not have pluck to come back again. The two doctors alone had occupation in tending the sick, including Kirke's men who had been brought in wounded, some thirty in number, besides his subaltern.
One member of the garrison, however, was absent from his place at dinner. When Kirke went in on his first arrival to make his report to the brigadier, the poor old man was found dead on the drawing-room couch. The doctor called it heat-apoplexy; at any rate, the revulsion of feeling would appear to have been too much for him. To most of the garrison the event did not cause surprise, the brigadier's feebleness of mind and body having been apparent to all; but the calamity was unexpected by his wife, and for the time she seemed quite stupefied by the shock. Silently she sat for a time holding her dead husband's hand, gazing at the inexpressive features; and then, when she was led away by Mrs. Hodder, and the body was removed into a side-room preparatory to interment in the morning, she passed the night in wandering visits to it from her own apartment, her thoughts occupied perchance with pleasant memories of the past, mingled with remorse that she had treated the poor old man unkindly during his last days.
Another side-room was occupied by the young widow, Mrs. O'Halloran, who, tended by Mrs. Peart and Dr. Grumbull, gave birth that night to her third child, soon to be the eldest; for before morning the two sick children drew their last troubled breath, and their little forms lay still and silent, covered by a sheet, awaiting morning burial.
And poor young Raugh was not moved with the other wounded. Maxwell said there would be no use in disturbing him, and he was left in the sick-room, Olivia, who refused to be relieved of the duty, watching by him. She had gone to the lad's bedside when the news was told her of her husband's death, and was sitting there when Yorke entered the room in the early part of the night. It was almost empty, save for a cot in the middle on which lay the dying youth, while Olivia's pallid face was lighted up by the dim light of the flickering wick in a cup of oil placed on a little table beside the pillow. The poor boy was quiet enough now, and lay breathing slowly and apparently insensible. His nurse from time to time moistened his lips with water.
Yorke came and stood behind her, watching the face of the dying lad.
Olivia was the first to speak. "I knew it must be you," she said, turning round and showing a face which looked as if some shock had deprived it of the power of expressing emotion. "Why are you not taking the rest you must want more than any one? There is little to be done here, you see," she added, with a glance towards the slowly breathing figure beside them." Had you not better leave us?" and her voice seemed to say that she wished to be alone.
But as the young man moved sorrowfully away, she rose, and following, called him by name. Silently they stood facing each other, the one with dishevelled hair and dust-covered face, dressed in a grey flannel blouse and linen trousers which had once been white, a sword and pistols in his belt, a battered pith-helmet in his hand; the other with little to mark the lady by her dress, but with the same graceful carriage as ever, although care and sorrow seemed in this short time to have driven out the first freshness of youth from the sweet face. Olivia was the first to speak. "Mr. Yorke, you must know what I want to ask. No one has told me yet what has become of ——" she faltered over the completion of the question.
"I have been engaged in trying to find him all this evening," he replied, "and have now come back only because it was too dark to continue the search. It seems unaccountable how I should have failed to discover" — the colonel's body he would have said, but checked himself, and added, "but I will begin again the first thing in the morning; we shall surely be successful then."
"Thank you," said Olivia, with fervour; then after a pause she added, "and oh, Mr. Yorke, can you forgive my selfish petulance just now? Captain Buxey has told me of your noble conduct, how you wanted to go yourself instead of him, and it was entirely his overruling. I felt from the first," she went on, after another pause, "that he would never escape, and every time he left my sight I used to think it must be the last. I knew what their news
was, quite well, when they came to tell me; and oh!" she continued, struggling with her tears, "to think that if he had been spared for a few moments longer the danger would have been over! But it is very hard on you men, when you are doing your duty so bravely, to be worried by the selfish complaints of us useless women. But you will go and try and find him early in the morning, won't you?"
"She selfish!" thought Yorke, as he strode away; "then what must I be? To think that I should be watching her face to see how much of her regard for me is real, while she, poor thing, is breaking her heart for her dead husband lying unburied somewhere in the kennel — yet even in her grief she has time to think of others."
But although Yorke with several of the others renewed the search at daybreak, Falkland's body could not be found. Kirke excused himself from going, having pressing business to look after, but he described the place where the search should be made so clearly that it could not be mistaken. Falkland had fallen in leading an advance on horseback down one of the streets of the city; the party following him had then been repulsed and given way, and the point had not been carried till Kirke advancing down another line took it in rear. Many dead still cumbered the roadway, stripped, and some of them foully mutilated; and Yorke did not dare to tell Olivia when he returned, after the sun was high, from his fruitless errand, that although he believed he had not found the body of her husband, it might possibly have been among those he saw without his being able to recognize it. It added to the grief felt by the members of the garrison at the loss in the moment of victory of the gallant leader who had been the soul of the defence, that they could not give him decent burial with their own hands; but Yorke was not sorry that Olivia should be spared the shock of receiving back, as the body of her husband, one of the mangled corpses amid which his search had been made.
During Yorke's absence in the morning, the bodies of the brigadier and young Raugh were buried in a shady spot in the corner of the garden, and a little grave beside it contained the two children, who made their exit from the world almost at the moment when their little brother came into it. Another funeral took place at the same time. It has been mentioned that just as the relieving force was issuing from the city, some of the garrison had sallied out, and, lining the park-wall, had taken some parting shots at the flying enemy. The latter were for the most part too panic-stricken to reply; but here and there a sepoy, as he stole away, turned round to fire at random, and one of these stray shots had taken effect. When the party, after the first excitement of Kirke's arrival, had time to look about them, it was seen that the jemadar, who had made one of the sally, was lying under the wall with a bullet through his heart — the last man to fall, killed a few minutes after the death of the master he had served so faithfully. As many of the garrison as could be spared followed the body to the Mohammedan burial-ground; for Ameer Khan's gallantry and faithfulness had won universal respect, and the Europeans had come to regard him as a comrade and friend.
"That makes fifteen casualties altogether," said Egan, as the party were returning home; "eleven killed and dead, and four wounded, besides non-combatants. It would not have taken very much longer to use up the whole of us, especially as the rate was increasing."
"The loss was not so great after all," observed Yorke; "there are still some thirty-seven of us untouched. Many a single company at Inkerman must have had as many or more knocked over in a few minutes."
"Yes," said Braddon, who was walking beside the other two; "but it is just the difference between losing your leg at one slice, and having it chopped away bit by bit. Which is likely to try your spirits most? No, depend on it, the relief did not come very much too soon."
And now the survivors set about making their various preparations, some for departure to a place of greater security, others for reorganizing British authority on the spot; while a still more fortunate few, among whom Yorke was included, were invited by Kirke to accompany him in his progress onwards. During that day Kirke would halt, for he had made a long forced march the day before, and with his men had been eighteen hours in the saddle; but on the next he must push forward, his orders being urgent to hasten to the seat of war, where cavalry were much needed. The ladies and sick were to proceed to the hills under escort of a detachment of his troopers. The rebels were known to have moved in the opposite direction; and once over the river, the country for the remainder of the way was in comparative order. The nawab, now reinstated in authority, lent his camel-carriage to convey some of the party, and
light palanquins were procured for the remainder.
With the sick went Major Dumble. That distinguished officer, by the way, had become commandant of the garrison on the brigadier's death; and it fell to him to sign the despatch to government recounting the siege. How Dumble, whom the promotion caused by casualties in other parts of the country had brought up to the grade of lieutenant-colonel, was thereon made in due course a brevet colonel and C.B., and of the encomiums passed by the press on his literary performances for his very flowery composition, emanating, in fact, from Sparrow's pen, — evidently an Indian Cæsar this Dumble, quoth a London weekly paper famous for accuracy and epigram, and a great authority on India — knows how both to fight and write; these are not times for standing upon routine — why should not Colonel Dumble be made commander-in-chief? — these episodes, and the honours bestowed on other survivors of the famous defence, need not be here detailed. Dumble retired to the hills, there to await his honours, not to reappear on the scene of this history.
The travellers to the hills were to start at sunset, and as the time drew near, numerous and hearty were the farewells exchanged; nor, now that the discomforts and dangers of the siege were ended, were regrets altogether wanting at the termination of the enforced companionship from which only the day before they had been so eager to be delivered. "It wasn't half a bad time after all," said young Dobson of the late 76th; "and now there will be no nervous duty to give a chap a little excitement."
"Good-bye, old fellow," said Spragge to his friend and quondam chum from the recesses of his palanquin, as the latter came up to bid him farewell before the cavalcade set out; "all luck and glory to you in your campaigning. I shall come down to the plains again as soon as ever these ribs of mine get well, which I hope will be before all the fun is over. It will be hard work leaving Kitty ——"
"Kitty?"
"Ah! I ought not to have told you. It's a secret, you know, but she won't mind my telling an old friend like you. Oh yes, it is all settled, and Mrs. Peart agrees, and everything. It seems rather soon, you know, after her poor father's death, and all that; but one lives fast in these times, and the poor little thing has been like, a guardian angel to me since I was wounded, taking care of me as if she had been a sister. But we are not to be married till all the fighting is over. What a wonderful thing this siege has been, to be sure, from first to last! I don't suppose I ever spoke to a young lady before, and here I am, the love-making all done, and engaged to be spliced, and all in less than a fortnight."
"Yes, it is unfortunate, no doubt," said Captain Sparrow, whom Yorke found sitting on a chair and superintending the packing of his palanquin by Justine, — "yes, it is unfortunate that I cannot stay to set things right, now that poor Falkland is gone; but the doctor says I must go away for a bit, and get my tone restored. The least, however, government can do, is to give me the permanent commissionership now, for of course Passey's appointment is quite a temporary affair."
"Justine appears as attentive as ever," observed Yorke, watching the young woman engaged on her knees in making a bed in the palanquin; "you really owe her a debt of gratitude."
"Ah, yes," said Sparrow, trying to look unconcerned, "Mademoiselle Duport's character has come out very brightly under these trials; she possesses a fund of deep delicacy and refinement, which under ordinary circumstances might not have come to notice. Mrs. Falkland, you know, thinks very highly of her abilities and education, and they have always been quite friends. In fact she is far better educated and mannered than nine out of ten girls that you meet in this country. She is fit company for any lady in the land, I say, whatever foolish prejudices people may have."
"My dear fellow, I want no convincing on that point; if you recollect, it was you who objected to sitting down at the same table with the girl."
"Well," said Sparrow, interrupting, "I hope if you hear fellows talking nonsense you will just put them right about these things. The fact is," continued the captain, trying to look unconcerned, but with obvious confusion, "Mademoiselle Duport is about to become Mrs. Sparrow. This is a secret at present, but I know I may trust you. Mademoiselle Duport, you must know, is very well connected. Her father keeps a hotel at Tours, and a French hotel-keeper is a very different kind of person from what he is in England — often owns a vineyard, and that sort of thing. And I feel that I owe her a debt of gratitude that nothing can efface."
"You will see to the grave, won't you?"
said Mrs. Polwheedle to Mr. Hodder the missionary, as she prepared to step into the nawab's carriage, drawn up before the house; "and to a tombstone being put up and all? I should like everything to be done properly, as it ought to be for a first-class brigadier. You will be sure and let me know what it costs, and I will remit by treasury draft as soon as I get the arrears of pay. The poor dear man!" she continued, in a sort of trembling soliloquy, and wiping away the tears which began to flow as the time came for departure; "to think that I should be leaving him in this way, and that he should not have been spared to get his reward for all that we have gone through. He wasn't like himself, I know; he couldn't bear up and do himself justice for being so bad with the heat and his broken leg; but he was a fine man when I married him, though not, perhaps, so fine a man as poor Jones. Come along, Mrs. Falkland, my dear, they are all waiting for us."
The latter part of her remarks was addressed to Olivia, who had now at last issued from the house ready for departure, and for whose appearance Yorke, while bidding good-bye to the other travellers, had been eagerly watching. He went up to her as she was stepping into the carriage.
"Farewell," she said, holding out both her hands, and smiling kindly through her sorrow; "I shall never, never forget your noble conduct, and what a friend you have been to me — and to him; and remember"
"Here, Yorke," called out Kirke, coming up at this moment, "I want you, like a good fellow, to ride at once to the palace" — and he took him aside to explain what the errand was. Thus Yorke was absent when the actual departure of the travellers took place, and he hurried off, casting a last look back on the scene — the camel-carriage in the midst, the palanquins here and there on the grounds, in which strangely attired women and dirty-looking unshorn men were depositing various parcels and bundles. Around the palanquins squatted the half-naked coolies who were to carry them; beyond was the Sikh escort — wild-looking fellows, sitting their horses like men who knew how to ride, but whose only uniform consisted as yet of a general similarity of turban and in the colour of their clothing; the background to the picture being formed of the residency, the half-destroyed defences of which added to the effects of the cannonade to give it the appearance of being in ruins.
The start was effected soon after sunset, the escort consisting of fifty of Kirke's men, attended by the nawab's head agent. Yorke would fain have seen a larger escort, and asked Kirke if he might go in charge; but the latter considered the guard quite strong enough under the circumstances. Was it likely, he asked, that he would allow his cousin to be exposed to any more risks? And indeed he had shown great solicitude for her comfort, himself superintending all the arrangements for the journey, and consulting her many times during the day about them. "The country behind us is quiet enough now," he said. "I gave them something to remember me by as we came along, and I let them know that if a soul dared so much as to wag his finger I would pay them another visit; and I don't think," he continued, significantly, "that they will venture to act on the invitation." And indeed Captain Kirke had left the track of his march behind him very plainly marked by extemporized gibbets and the smouldering ashes of burnt villages; and the country he had passed through, which on the visible signs of government having been swept away had fallen for a time into a state of anarchy, was now thoroughly cowed by that officer's stern retaliation, and the travellers reached their destination in the mountains without accident or adventure.
Two incidents of the day require to be mentioned. A sale was held during the afternoon of the deceased officers' effects, Egan, in the absence of any more regularly qualified official, acting as auctioneer, standing for that purpose on a chair under a tree in the park. Falkland having left a will which gave all his property to his wife, his furniture and effects were left by her desire at the residency for the present; but Kirke signified that his cousin had consented to the disposal of the saddlery, guns, and so forth — and Kathleen, who had been caught after her master's fall and brought in from the city, was knocked down to himself; while Braddon purchased a couple of carriage-horses, as suitable to carry his weight, for the late jemadar's brother during the day had brought back safely all the horses which were sent to his custody before the siege. One reservation was made in favour of Olivia's own horse Selim, which she requested Yorke to accept as a present, in a message sent through Mrs. Hodder, and conveyed in such pressing terms that the young man could not deny himself the gratification of coming under the
obligation to her. Falkland's property indeed formed the staple of the auction, for the other deceased officers had brought but little with them into the residency; but such as the things were, they changed owners that day, and poor little Raugh's revolver, Major Peart's pistols, and Braywell's double gun fetched high prices. Such are funeral obsequies in war time. A man is killed one hour and buried the next, and his effects are distributed among friends and strangers before evening. The estate benefits, for on a campaign horses and camp-equipments are always in request; and if we call to mind the smug undertaker with his jolly-looking red-faced myrmidons who grace our funerals at home, and the simulated gravity over the funeral baked meats of conventional life, and the tedious formalities of the lawyers which follow, the comparison is perhaps not altogether unfavourable to the more rapid obsequies. The other incident was the apprehension and disposal of the nawab's rebel brother. News being brought that the man was in hiding at a village about five miles off, Kirke sent out Egan with fifty troopers who surrounded the place and captured him, and he was escorted back to the residency on a horse requisitioned for the occasion. A drum-head court-martial was immediately improvised, composed of Kirke, Braddon, and Egan, who sat on chairs under a tree, without table or other apparatus, the rebel nawab being seated on the ground in front of them, his hands bound with cord, while two troopers with drawn swords stood a little behind. He was a handsome man of middle age, with well-built figure, aquiline nose, and long wavy beard and moustache dyed red. Kirke treated him with civility, using the forms of respect in address which are employed towards an equal or superior — equivalent to "your honour" instead of plain "you;" nor did he waste the time in reproaches; and the man, who answered all the questions put to him without reservation, may have thought with Agag that surely the bitterness of death was past. But after the interrogation had lasted for about ten minutes, Kirke, turning his head to the right and left, said, "I conclude, gentlemen, there is no doubt about the matter?" "None," said Braddon; "there is no need for further evidence; the man admits everything himself." "Quite so," responded Egan. Kirke hereon rose from his chair, the other two did the same, and the prisoner followed their example, and stood up. "Your honour must see," said Kirke, addressing him in a quiet voice, "that there is only one thing to be done. Egan, will you look after this business? and as soon as you come back we will have the auction;" and, so saying, Kirke turned away and walked back towards the house. The man looked pale for a moment, as if the sentence took him by surprise, but recovering himself at once, he shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, "Who cares?" and the little cavalcade stepped out towards the court-house — some troopers, then the prisoner walking unconcernedly, then a few more troopers. Lieutenant Egan bringing up the rear — while those off duty looked on indifferently. Presently, however, just as he had got outside the park-wall, Egan halted the party, and came back to Kirke, now busy in giving orders to various officers. The condemned man reported, Egan said, that he had some important information to communicate, if Kirke would give him a hearing. "That means," replied Kirke, "that he wants to buy off his life; what can he have to tell that is worth hearing? Let him carry his secret with him," and turned impatiently aside. Egan rejoined the procession, and told the big rebel what had passed, who smiled defiantly, and five minutes later was swinging from a tree before the court-house, which had already more than once that day done duty for gallows.
Major Passey remained at Mustaphabad, in civil and military command, with Buxey to help him, taking up his quarters in the court-house while the residency underwent repair and cleansing, with a few of the nawab's attendants for guard and the residue of the faithful sepoys, now reduced to thirteen, the nucleus of a levy to be raised at once. These gallant fellows, the real heroes of the defence — for they had shown the virtues of loyalty and moral courage as well as bravery — would now sink into oblivion. No gazette or public record would avail to hand down their names to the admiration of posterity; and although they had done their duty, it was at the cost of having broken off forever all ties with their old comrades, whose relatives would hardly accord a welcome greeting to the men, should they now live to return to their native villages, who had been instrumental in their extirmination or proscription. The government, however, were not unmindful of the claims of these faithful soldiers. Each of the thirteen was promoted to be a native officer in the Mustaphabad Levy, the name given to the regiment Passey was now ordered to raise, and received also the
Indian Medal of Honour, and a grant of land into the bargain; and as in India there is no exception to the general rule that prosperity brings friends, it may be hoped that these gallant fellows have had in the long run no reason to regret that they cast in their lot on the side of duty.
Passey offered the second post in his levy to Braddon, who would fain have retained his connection with the gallant remnant of his old regiment; but Kirke, who was now without officers, asked him to join his regiment, and as this offered the chance of immediate service, he naturally accepted the latter invitation in preference. Kirke took Yorke and Egan also with him and a young officer of the 80th, while Maxwell joined him temporarily as surgeon, Grumbull being left in medical charge of Mustaphabad; and the regiment thus reinforced set off the next morning at daybreak.
Mrs. Hodder did not accompany the other ladies to the hills, but stayed with her husband, who on the same day moved back into his old quarters in the city, and set about re-establishing his school. The Hodders took Mrs. O'Halloran to live with them for the present; the poor child with her young baby not being fit to travel.
CHAPTER 34
========================================
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The
appointments made provisionally by Kirke to his regiment, of the officers
selected from the residency garrison, were all confirmed in due course at headquarters; and when it joined the force assembled in the field, Yorke found himself gazetted adjutant, Braddon being second in command, while Egan and Cowper were attached to do duty. Thus the opportunity had come to Yorke so often longed for, and in a form which his most sanguine day-dreams had failed to picture. An adjutant of irregular cavalry, in the thick of active service, what better place could a young officer find in the whole army?
The scorching heat and blinding dust of the hot season were now succeeded by the rains, and although still very hot, the weather was bearable enough for men who did their work on horseback, and the change from their previous confinement to the freedom of an open-air life in the saddle, combined with the confidence inspired by success to send up their spirits; and the officers of Kirke's horse marched into camp at the head of their five hundred gallant troopers all in a state of the highest enthusiasm. Kirke was deservedly complimented by the general in command on the good form into which he had already brought his levy, the timely arrival of which and its soldier-like appearance procured for it a hearty greeting from all ranks of the little army which it had come to reinforce. There was plenty for it to do; for although the camp was stationary — the little English force standing at bay awaiting reinforcements, itself on the defensive though professing to carry on a siege — the cavalry were in constant movement to protect the flanks and rear of the camp, continually threatened by the enemy. Thus Kirke's horse from the very first came almost daily into contact with the enemy; and although the spirit and natural quality of the men were excellent, there was need for caution and judgment as well as courage in handling these young soldiers, for the mutineers were both better mounted and better trained. But Kirke was just the man for the occasion. A good swordsman and rider, and perfectly fearless, he was cool and wary also, and by keeping his men well in hand at first, and only engaging when he could do so at advantage, he saved his young troopers from sustaining any serious check at the outset, and every day saw an improved discipline grafted on the natural fine bearing of the men, and increase of mutual confidence between them and their officers. The regiment, however, being very much broken up into detachments, good officers were as necessary as a good commandant to bring it into shape; and Kirke had made a happy selection in the men he chose. Braddon, although still disposed to be cynical, had shaken off his moroseness and the bad habit which had caused his former downfall. The cloud which had overshadowed him had passed away, his gallant bearing at the residency having gained him a new reputation, and he came out now in his proper colours as the good officer and genial comrade, cool and clever as Kirke himself; and he soon gained the respect and confidence of the men, like all Indians readily disposed to hero-worship. Egan, too, now that he had some fitting occupation, had shaken off the betting-ring manners which he had been wont to affect, and there remained plenty to admire in the little fellow's courage, good riding, and endurance. The very model of a light cavalry soldier, and never so much at ease as when in the saddle, he was able to tire down even Kirke himself, who was said to be one of the toughest men in the army. Cowper, like Yorke, was eager, to distinguish himself, and Yorke, although nominally adjutant, could not be spared for camp work, but was as much on outpost duty as any one. Thus handled, Kirke's horse came well out of all the numerous skirmishes in which it was engaged, either collectively or in detachments; and success begat the confidence which is the first element of superiority in war. The officers were seldom together; but occasionally the whole regiment would be united in camp for a brief space, when the officers joined together for their frugal meals in what was called the mess-tent, off such food as was procurable. But if the diet was simple, it was seasoned with high spirits. There was always plenty to tell each other on such occasions, and the little party felt like a band of brothers; for Kirke, although a hard man, was both good-tempered and good-natured, and was perfectly free and unaffected off duty. Mackenzie Maxwell made up the complement of, officers. In ordinary course a young assistant surgeon would have been attached to an irregular cavalry regiment, but those were not days of routine; Maxwell preferred active life in the field to remaining at the Mustaphabad residency, and asked to be allowed to remain with Kirke's horse, and all the officers treated the older man with a respect which made his position sufficiently agreeable.
During this time the field forces to which the regiment was attached had, as
we have mentioned, been compelled to remain stationary, encamped before a great rebellious city, and itself the assailed rather than the assailant; but at last the little army had accomplished the task it had been set to do, after a struggle the brunt of which was borne by the other branches of the service, and the time now came for a move onwards, with diminished numbers indeed, but of men who had achieved a victory against desperate odds, and looked on the work remaining to be done as a light thing after that which had been accomplished. Notwithstanding the harassing duty which had been required of it, Kirke had drilled his regiment on every opportunity, and when the time came for moving on, the men were not only adepts at outpost duty, but tolerably well trained to move together, while the officers had been able to get proper mounts and accoutrements, for sales were of almost daily occurrence in camp. Some wounded men were left behind with Cowper, who was disabled by a fall of his horse, but many recruits had joined; and the regiment marched at the head of the advance, over five hundred sabres, fairly well mounted and equipped, and ready for anything. The damp heat of the rainy season was now giving way before the first approach of the cold weather, the morning air was fresh and cool, the sky was clear, the earth was covered with a mantle of fresh green crops; and as Yorke rode over the boundless plains clad in all the charms of the early Indian winter, his heart bounded within him for joy. He had never felt so happy before. Campaigning seemed the perfection of life. This was no mere political quarrel, when men might deplore the necessity for shedding blood, and feel no rancour against the enemies whose lives they were seeking. The business in hand caused no regrets or mistrust whether the end justified the means; it was to subdue a cruel enemy and revenge bitter wrongs; while, mingled with other feelings, there was the satisfaction of knowing that the result of the war was no longer doubtful. The tide had been stemmed, and final success was plainly in view. Spirits ran high in camp, and nowhere higher than in Kirke's horse. The men had been frequently engaged, and with small loss, than which nothing more begets confidence in troops. But in Yorke's heart there was also a feeling of tumultuous joy as it confessed to hopes that the love still so deep and ardent might now be rewarded hereafter. Olivia must know, he thought to himself ever and again, that I worship the very ground she treads on. True, she does not love me yet, although I am sure of her regard; she would not be the Olivia of my adoration if she could be so soon untrue to the memory of her husband. But so brief a wedded life needs not a prolonged widowhood. Falkland must be to her rather a noble memory to be remembered with veneration than a lover to be passionately cherished. Surely the deepest chords in her heart have never yet been stirred; I have gained her respect and regard, I may yet gain her love. And the thought that she was no longer beyond his reach filled the young man's heart with wild ecstasy. And yet, he continued to himself, what meanness in me to be thus rejoicing in that noble man's death! But no, I don't rejoice in it. While he lived there was not one disloyal thought about either of them in my mind. But it is our fate that she should be free again; mine be now the task to prove worthy of her: and as these thoughts passed through the young man's mind, he pressed his charger till the gallant Selim bounded under him as if responsive to the rider's feelings, and the orderly who followed him as he galloped along, carrying orders across the plain, had much ado to keep up to his proper distance in rear.
The amount of actual fighting which the cavalry of an army goes through, as compared with the business in that line which falls to the infantry, is usually but trifling, and its losses small in proportion. But the rule did not hold on this occasion. Almost all the cavalry of the Indian army having mutinied, the great advantage possessed by the enemy in this respect over the raw levies raised to replace them, gave them a confidence at first which was wanting in contests between the infantry. The nature of the country, too, a vast plain on a dead level, bare of obstacles, favoured the movement of cavalry; and frequent encounters and skirmishes took place on the front and flanks of the advancing British column, amounting sometimes to regular stand-up fights. In this war the experience of such work which men could hardly gain in a lifetime of ordinary campaigns, was crowded into a few months; and the troopers who fought their way through it were veterans at the end. Nevertheless Kirke and his officers escaped unhurt for a long time; yet the fighting was sometimes sharp enough. As, for example, one afternoon the advancing column, marching along the main road with Kirke's horse in front, came to a
village surrounded by a grove of trees, to clear which the cavalry on the flanks had to diverge somewhat to the right and left. Braddon, with a squadron, was on the right front; Egan with another on the left front; Kirke led the way along the road with the advance-guard of the third squadron, Yorke riding beside him. The enemy's cavalry had been showing in the front all day, but always retiring at a respectful distance without opposition, while the squadrons thrown out in advance on the flanks kept the front of the main column clear. Here, however, owing to groves and gardens coming in the way of the flankers, and obliging them to make a long detour, the column on the road got to be somewhat in advance, and, as the leading horsemen turned round a bend in the road through the village, a body of rebel cavalry could be seen drawn up not fifty yards in front, which, instead of retreating, moved down on them at a trot. The leading detachment, of six men only, were cut down, and the enemy came bearing down, somewhat thrown out of order in overcoming this first obstacle, but still a compact body filling up the road and open space up to the line of village huts on each side, with a front of some sixteen files. They had evidently got it in them to strike a blow.
With Kirke and Yorke were the support, of ten men riding two deep, and at some little distance behind came the rest of the squadron.
Kirke had but a moment for decision. To have fallen back on the main body was to cause panic and rout. His resolution was taken in an instant. There was not even time to form the party into single file, so, drawing his sword he waved it on high, and, shouting "Charge!" dashed forward at a gallop, and the little party of twelve were upon the enemy almost in an instant. The latter slackened speed instinctively, but the opposing sides came together so quickly that the two officers had passed the enemy's leading files before they were pulled up, in the midst of a mass of horsemen jammed close together. A strange position truly, after following your enemy for days at the distance of a mile or so, to find yourself in his midst, knee pressing against knee, and to feel his hot breath against your cheek: seconds at such times seem like hours, and yet the whole scene passes like a sudden dream. Yorke had no time to think of method, or to recall the lessons he had taught himself to practise in his mind for use in such emergencies. Instinct, for the moment, took the place of method. There is no time to speak; the only sounds are the scuffling of men and tramping of horses, as the riders try to get their sword-arms free, and cuts and parries are exchanged with desperate speed. Yet, amid the hurry, Yorke has time to feel with a sense of satisfaction that he is not flurried, and that his head is cool, as, seizing the man on his left by the collar, he pulls him from his saddle with a sudden jerk, and the man falling down amongst the horses, gives a cry of anguish as he is trampled upon below. Kirke, for his part, was too close to the men right and left of him to hit them effectually, but swinging round he cut down the man whom he passed on the right, after which he had enough to do for an instant to parry his two nearest assailants, whose short curved scimitars were more handy at these close quarters than his long sword. But Kirke at last ran one of them through, and Yorke stunned the rider on his right by a blow delivered close to the hilt of his sword. So close was the crowd, that as these men sank down there was no room for them to fall between the horses to the ground; the head of one rested on Yorke's knee, and, for the instant, the riderless horses interposed between the combatants. But the leading files of the enemy, on the right and left of the road, who had no one opposed to them, were now closing round, and the little party must soon be overwhelmed if help comes not. But help was nigh. The native officer with the third squadron, on seeing what had happened in front, delayed only long enough to extend his front to the width of the ground, and galloped up in support. Then the roadway was filled with a seething mass of horsemen, whereof only those leading on each side could engage, and they were jammed up by those pressing on from behind. A few more seconds pass — slowly, as it seems, so many blows are crowded into them — and then there is a yielding of the rebel cavalry; the whole mass seems moving slowly in one way. For, by this time, the outer squadrons under Braddon and Egan, working round the village, descry the enemy massed on the road between them, and press forward to attack them, separated, however, by the mud wall of a garden which borders the road for some quarter of a mile along either side. But the enemy, thus caught between the two lines, are bewildered, and the rearmost men begin to tail off, and ride out of the way along the road; the impulse is
to those in advance, and soon there are left only a few facing Kirke's men, who in their efforts to turn and get away are all cut down. But the victorious party are too broken up to pursue them far, and the enemy gets off with a loss of about thirty killed, and nearly as many horses captured, while of Kirke's horse eight are killed, including the advance-guard which was surprised, and sixteen wounded, some slightly. "A sharp thing while it lasted," said Kirke to his subaltern, wiping his long sword, "and might have been awkward if Subahdar Tej Singh had not been up to time. All's well that ends well; but this will be a lesson to you for all your life, young man, to take care how you march round a corner."
On another day, Kirke's regiment, in advance of a detached column moving across country, had made out the enemy occupying a line of villages in strength, and apparently intending to await an attack in the position. The officer commanding the force on coming up determined to make a flank movement to turn the position, and accordingly diverted the main column to the right, leaving Kirke's horse still in front to occupy the enemy's attention and cover the manœuvre. It was a clear bright morning of the cold season, and every object could be distinguished plainly in the still, clear air. In front were the low mud walls of a couple of villages, about half a mile apart from each other, and connected by a grove of well-grown trees. Between Kirke's men and this position, more than a mile distant, was a perfectly open plain, green with young corn, and unbroken by a single obstacle; the view was bounded on the right and left by the still unreaped crops of the previous wet season, as high as a horseman's head.
Kirke, with his orderly, and trumpeter behind him, advanced over the plain, reconnoitring, a little distance ahead of his regiment, which moved at a walk in column of squadrons at deploying distance. They had arrived pretty near to the line of villages, when fire was suddenly opened by a battery which had been concealed in the grove. The practice was bad, but Kirke ordered the regiment to retire; and it fell back, deployed in line so as to offer a smaller obstacle to the artillery-fire. On seeing this, a large body of the rebel cavalry emerged from the grove and formed up in front of it. The effect of this movement was to stop the fire from the guns, as the new-comers were in the way. They too deployed into line, which somewhat overlapped Kirke's force, and they moved forward as if intending to attack.
"Now look out," said Kirke jocosely to his orderly, in Hindustani; "we may get a chance."
Kirke continued to retire the regiment, the enemy's cavalry following. He even gave the word to trot. The rebel cavalry began to trot too, halting, however, when Kirke halted, and advancing whenever he retired.
In this way the two bodies of horse moved across the plain till they had got to be a full mile from the enemy's main position. The rebel cavalry meanwhile were getting nearer to Kirke's men, coming so close that their faces could be distinguished, and it looked as if, were a determined rush made, Kirke and his attendants would be cut down before the regiment could turn to help them. And the rebels, seeing that the retreat continued, began to grow excited. Shouts were raised, and swords waved. Some of them broke their ranks and began curveting about in front of their line, abusing the Feringhee runaways.
"It's about time now," said Kirke to himself, drawing his sword. Then he gave the order, and his trumpeter sounded the halt, and then immediately afterwards, as the regiment turned to its front, the canter; and putting himself at their head, he led the way towards the enemy.
The enemy's line continued to move on at a slow trot, and the interval between the two was rapidly diminishing; but a spectator looking merely at the British line might have thought he was viewing a parade exercise, so cool and leisurely did the advance appear. Kirke, in front of the centre on Kathleen, with drab felt turban-covered helmet and tunic and breeches, and high boots of untanned leather, riding with stirrups somewhat short, and a strong seat, erect, his long straight sword held upright, a sinister smile on his dark resolute face. In front of the right squadron comes Braddon, tall and heavy, under whom even the big steed he bestrides seems undersized, a powerful Australian recaptured during the campaign, which perhaps erst bore some portly civilian in more peaceful times. Before the centre squadron rides Egan, dapper and light, horse and man seeming as one. Yorke leads the left squadron, spare and little, and with an easy seat, riding Selim with a light hand, the little horse bounding along with the short springy action of the Arab, like a mad thing, as if panting for the fray.
When barely fifty paces remain, Kirke's
trumpeter sounds the charge, and the whole regiment echo the shout which their leader gives, as, waving his sword, he lets Kathleen go. Some of the enemy, pressing forward, respond to the challenge, but some halt, some turn round — their line is broken and their chance gone. It is no fight, but a running pursuit. The bravest, who stop to fight, fall first, overmatched and outnumbered. Those save themselves who fly first, as the two bodies gallop together helter-skelter across the plain. The rebel horsemen parry and cut backwards; but the game goes against those who fight an enemy behind, and many a one rolls from his saddle under the pursuers' sharp sabres. Not until the battle has rolled on to within less than a furlong from the enemy's position does Kirke sound the halt, and the pursued are able to disengage themselves and take refuge in the grove. Then Kirke re-forms his men and retires, not too soon, for the enemy's artillery after a pause begins to open fire, although the plain is covered with the bodies of their comrades. But the fire is scarcely opened when it stops again, for the enemy's attention is now diverted by the movement of the troops threatening their flanks; a panic seizes them, and they limber up and retire, and Kirke and his men remain in possession of the field, sprinkled with the bodies of fallen men and riderless horses.
Some of these bodies move, and one man, disengaging himself from his horse, is seen walking leisurely towards the grove, in full face of the regiment, now drawn up in order.
Kirke looks at his orderly, giving a little jerk of his hand towards the rebel trooper, and the orderly taking the hint, gallops after him. The man hears the sound of his pursuer's horse, and, looking round for an instant, sets off at a run. He is not far from the grove, and will find shelter there; but he cannot run fast in his heavy boots, and the horseman soon overtakes him. Once or twice he tries to evade his fate by doubling, but presently the trooper gets him within reach of his tulwar, and there is a laugh among the onlookers as the man falls under the blow, while his pursuer dismounts to rifle the body, for the soldiers of both sides usually carry their wealth about them, and a score or so of rupees may often reward the victor in single combat.
"Our fellows will expect to get any loot that is to be had," said Kirke, riding up to Egan. "Leave ten files of your squadron; and see that everything is brought in to be shared equally amongst the whole. And mind," he added, as Egan turned round to give the order, "we don't want to be bothered with any wounded prisoners." Then the regiment passed on at speed to join the field force, whilst the detachment moved about the field engaged on their office, looking after their fallen comrades among other things, and catching loose horses. Two of the regiment only were found to be killed; fifteen had been dismounted; about twice as many altogether were wounded or bruised by falls. More than eighty bodies of the enemy were counted. Many of these were of men wounded, cut down, or ridden over and trampled down; and some of them lay as dead when the fatigue-party came up. But the pretence was of course seen through; a carbine-shot or slice of the tulwar settled the affair; and when the detachment passed on to join the regiment, nothing stirred on the plain to resist the wild dogs and jackals when they should arrive for their banquet in the evening. An hour later the camp-followers would come up, and the dead be stripped of what clothing remained to them. Perhaps hereafter the mothers and wives in some distant villages would wonder why their sons and husbands did not come home, and would be fain to console themselves with the reflection that they must have fallen in a good cause. For, strange as it may seem, it was not the English only who deemed themselves to have the right in this quarrel. To many of these benighted creatures it seemed to be quite a noble thing to stand by their comrades, and strike a blow to avert the pollution which they believed their crafty Feringhee rulers to be preparing for them.
"This is the neatest job we have done during the war," said Kirke, as, an hour or two later, the little group of officers lay resting under a tree at their ease, waiting for the late breakfast which the servants, who had come up with the mule bearing the mess-equipment, were busy preparing, the regiment being now encamped for the day, and pickets duly posted. "It is not often one gets a chance to have three squadrons all going to work together, and over such splendid ground too."
"And yet," said Braddon, "although perhaps one ought not to say so, those men were better fellows than ours, if the truth must be confessed — better mounted, better riders, better trained. If their leaders were worth anything, they might have shown us a thing or two. But the scamps have no heart for their work.
They are ashamed of themselves, to begin with, and all at cross-purposes. I suspect that they only keep together now because they don't know what else to do."
"Yes," observes Kirke, "it will take all of a year to bring the regiment up to the mark of one of the best of the old irregular corps; but the lads take to the business very kindly, don't they? But here is breakfast ready at last."
"It can't be more ready than I am," responded Braddon; "this 'pursuing practice' is the very deuce for giving a fellow an appetite."
CHAPTER 35
========================================
CHAPTER XXXV.
About
this time the
Gazette
arrived from England, containing the first Mutiny brevet. Kirke was made a major; while Braddon was made both major and C.B. for his gallant share in the defence of the residency. Kirke, although he might naturally have felt annoyed at his junior being more distinguished than himself, took the matter on the whole very well. He was a hard man, but jealousy was not a part of his character. Yorke being still a subaltern, although now nearly at the top of the list, was not yet eligible for brevet promotion. It was in this brevet that Dumble, as already mentioned, was made a brevet-colonel and C.B. Braddon was good-humouredly satirical about the value of a reward which embraced Dumble, but the profession of indifference to distinction was not carried very far; with the rise in public estimation his self-respect had returned, and his moroseness disappeared, and he was now as blithe and gay as any one in the regiment. As for Yorke, he did not want reward or promotion to maintain his spirits; indeed, to belong to Kirke's horse was in itself a sufficient passport to consideration throughout the camp of the main army, which the regiment had now joined. One regiment of British cavalry was also, like themselves, a corps of veterans, who had been in the thick of the fighting; but to the officers and men of the dragoons lately arrived as reinforcements from Europe, and who had not yet had an opportunity of crossing swords with an enemy, the famous corps which had already been mentioned over and over again in despatches, and whose exploits were in everybody's mouth, was naturally an object oi curiosity and respect; nor could Yorke help contrasting the sort of reception he now received whenever his duties brought him in contact with the officers of other branches of the service, with the obscurity of his position a few months ago.
Then, too, as the avenging army swept the country clear of wandering rebel hordes, the post was re-established, and English letters began to reach the camp, so long cut off from news of the distant West. Yorke's letters, like those of many of his comrades, were written in the strain which the times made natural, full of rejoicings that those so dear to the writers had been spared thus far, full of anxieties for the dangers still to be undergone. As Yorke's sister, who was his chief English correspondent, expressed it, life in England at this time was one of continued suspense. "Indeed," said the fair writer, "I sometimes feel as if the strain was more than could be borne, as we have to wait from day to day for more tidings from India. But as Mr. Morgan always says [Mr. Morgan was the new incumbent of a chapel-of-ease at Wiltonbury], everything is ordered for the best, and this must be our precious consolation whatever befalls those dear to us. The Mills's cousin, whom of course you know, as he is in the army, has just sent them tidings of his safety. All the officers of his regiment were treacherously murdered, but he was away on leave at the time, and so was preserved. Truly, as Mr. Morgan says, there is a special providence which guards over us in all our dangers. And you, my dearest Arthur, how mercifully have you been saved almost out of the lion's mouth! The papers are quite full of Captain Kirke's heroic deliverance of your garrison just as you were at the point of destruction; and everybody has been reading Colonel's Dumble's beautiful affecting despatch; no wonder the garrison fought bravely with such a noble commander as he must be: still our hearts are strained almost to bursting when we think that you are still set in the midst of so many and great dangers; but should my dearest Arthur be spared to receive these fond lines, I know that we shall have his sympathy in our dreadful anxiety."
In these days of irregular posts, it often happened that more than one mail arrived at the same time, and in fact Yorke received by this same post another letter from his sister — for his mother was not a good correspondent — written a month later than the first, expressed much in the same terms as the other in the beginning, but containing also a piece of news at the end which could not be withheld. Her dearest Arthur's affectionate heart would
be made glad on hearing that his fond sister was about to become the wife of the new incumbent of St. Clement's. With so estimable a man for husband, to say nothing of his being so brilliant a preacher, she felt sure that her happiness was secured. Mr. Morgan was a widower, the letter went on to say; "indeed he has been sorely tried, poor dear fellow, for his first wife died after a long and very painful illness; but I trust he has now many years of happiness before him." The letter concluded by saying that the marriage was to take place in a few weeks. The writer would have wished to defer it till her dearest Arthur should be at home; but she supposed he could not be spared from his military duties just at present, and dear William had made such a point of the new vicarage being now ready for occupation, that she was forced to consent to a speedy union.
The tide of war had now completely turned. It was no longer a struggle on terms of equality, where discipline and courage on one side were balanced against numbers on the other. The British army was now in great strength, and moving triumphantly over the country. The rebel cavalry had pretty well given up fighting on its own account, and the opportunities for engaging it had become rare; but the enemy still held out in force here and there, occupying strong positions from which they had to be dislodged; and the British cavalry, moving in advance of the army, more than once suffered losses from artillery and infantry fire, to which they were unable to reply. This happened one day to Kirke's horse, now brigaded with two other regiments under Colonel Tartar, and in advance of the army moving on a point where the enemy seemed disposed to make a stand. Kirke's horse was drawn up in reserve while one of the other regiments was skirmishing in their front among some high crops, in which the horsemen were almost concealed, and which surrounded a flat-roofed town hardly to be made out above the tall grain, but from the outskirts of which a desultory fire was proceeding. The younger troops, who had never been in action before, were in a state of great excitement, as a squadron told off for skirmishing was engaged in front soon to be reinforced by another — Kirke's men meanwhile, who were in the rear, conducting themselves with the
nonchalance
of old campaigners, the men dismounted, the officers in a little group on horseback.
"They seem very lively in front there," said Kirke, as the dragoons might be seen trotting round in circles discharging their carbines in reply to the enemy's fire; "but I should doubt anything coming out of the business, except that some of the youngsters will get hit. I wonder the brigadier don't send us up instead. Not that we should be able to do much better, but our men would be cheaper."
"It would be an awful nuisance though," said Egan, "to have a lot of our fellows knocked over for nothing, merely because the general wants us cavalry to do infantry work. A regiment of Sikhs would clear out these fields in a jiffey."
"My good fellow," observed Braddon, "if you deduct all the men who are knocked over in war without satisfying any useful purpose, the casualties in this noble pastime would undergo a perceptible reduction."
"May be so, but it must be a horrid bore to be hit about in this way without getting any good by it."
"But you may get a great deal of good by it, my dear fellow; there, for example, goes a man who will get a good deal," — and as Braddon spoke, a doolee was borne to the rear with an officer, whom they could make out to be the commandant of the regiment engaged, wounded in the leg by a gunshot: "that man arrived from England about three days ago, and has been in action about five minutes, but he is safe for his C.B. now, and will be a great authority on cavalry for the remainder of his life."
"Ah! here are the infantry at last," said Kirke, as a regiment of Sikhs came up in haste at a long swinging stride, and sent a couple of companies in skirmishing order into the high crops.
"Now, there goes a really brave man," said Braddon, pointing to the commandant of the regiment, a stout, middle-aged officer, who rode at the head of it. "That man has a wife and eight children in England to my knowledge. I declare I don't think I could muster up courage to go into action if I had such a frightful load on my shoulders."
"I don't see that at all," said Yorke; "if a man has all the comfort of married life in peace time he must pay for it on active service. You can't have everything without alloy in this world. But I don't observe that married men make a bit worse soldiers than bachelors."
"Then they ought to. As for comfort, I don't fancy old Swaby there has had too much in that line; he has been always
dreadfully hard up, but it has been luxury compared to what is in store for his family if he comes to grief. I fancy I can see them, settled in some small country town, a picture of old Swaby in full uniform the only ornament left remaining, and the poor mother telling the children what a splendid soldier their father was (which won't put food into their little bellies however), and besieging the court of directors continually for an appointment for her eldest boy. No, if I were a married man I should be an awful coward."
Yorke laughed as Braddon finished his outburst, knowing that his friend could afford to play with the subject of bravery; but he could not help thinking that although the hope of winning the fair prize now before him was a source of strength and courage at present, what a hard wrench it would be to leave her side to go campaigning again, although he felt sure enough that, once in the field, a wife at home would make no difference in his conduct any more than it would in that of Braddon or any other soldier. But these reflections were interrupted by an order to mount. The infantry were now coming up in force, and advancing to the attack of the enemy's position, and Kirke's horse were ordered off to the right to guard the flank.
Passing through a grove of trees, the regiment came on to a piece of barren ground, some half a mile wide, and extending right up to the town, the left end of which was from this point clearly exposed to view, a wall surrounding the flat-roofed houses and huts within; while still further to the left could be made out a considerable body of the enemy, both horse and foot. It was to guard against any counter-attempt from this force that Kirke's horse had been detached to the right, while the main attack was made in front under cover of the high crops.
For
a few minutes the regiment remained unmolested, drawn up on the bare plain; but presently fire was opened on it from a couple of heavy guns posted behind a gap in the town-wall. After a round or two the enemy got the range, and a shot crashing through the line killed a couple of men and horses, front and rear rank. Kirke thereon sent Yorke to the brigadier to propose that he should retire into the cover of the grove; but a message came back that it was the general's order to hold the ground in advance of the grove, and keep the enemy from making a counter-attack across the front of the line.
"Counter-attack!" said Kirke bitterly, as he received the message; "much they look like attacking anybody, don't they? However, orders must be obeyed. Thank God, here come some guns to help us;" and as he spoke half a troop of horse-artillery came galloping up round the edge of the grove; and, taking up a position on the right of Kirke's men, unlimbered and opened fire on the walls with shell and shrapnel. This diverted the attention of the enemy, who turned one gun on their assailants, but kept one still going on the cavalry, now serving it with grape. The distance was about eight hundred yards, and the gun badly served; but the ground was perfectly smooth and level; eighteen-pounder grape under such conditions was a formidable thing to face; and it was difficult to avoid wincing as the shot came crashing along with the angry growl peculiar to the missile, tearing up the ground, and making a little cloud of dust. Kirke kept the regiment drawn up in line, to render the mark as thin as possible, but almost every discharge took effect, and the pause between each was spent in moving the disabled men into doolees and sending them to the rear, or in disengaging riders from their dead horses.
Presently the brigadier rode up. Twenty-three men killed and wounded, reported Kirke, and thirty-five horses, in these few minutes, and there would be plenty more if they stopped in that place. "I don't like to lose my fellows in this way to no purpose."
It could not be helped, Tartar said; the orders were positive to hold the ground and keep the flank secure.
"I think I could make the flank pretty secure, sir, if you would let me advance and threaten
their
flank. Those fellows yonder only want a little encouragement to skedaddle, but this long bowls is just the game they like." But Tartar said the general would not allow any forward movement of the cavalry to be made without his orders.
"I wish the general would come here and see things for himself," replied Kirke; "we should be just as useful under cover behind the trees, instead of in front of them."
"It won't last long," said the other; "the town will be carried presently." Then the brigadier with his brigade-major joined Kirke in riding slowly up and down before the line, their orderlies behind them. They tried to talk unconcernedly, but it was not easy to keep up the conversation when the puff of white smoke arose behind the wall, to be followed immediately by the angry growl of the grape as it rushed towards them along the level ground.
Suddenly the brigadier and his horse rolled over. Kirke and the brigade-major jumped down to his assistance, but he soon got up unhurt; his horse, however, had been killed.
"A bad look-out," said Tartar, looking at the poor beast which lay in its last convulsions; "what shall I do for a mount?"
"No difficulty about that, sir," said Kirke, pointing to his orderly's horse, which stood riderless behind them, the man having fallen dead by a grapeshot from the same discharge; and, indeed, the brigadier was fain to disengage his saddle from his own charger, and put it on the native orderly's trooper.
Thus passed the minutes which seemed like hours; the gunners were busy in replying to the enemy's fire, but the cavalry had no occupation, and plenty of time for reflection. At last there was a sudden cessation of the deadly game, explained almost immediately by the appearance of some European soldiers on the house-tops, firing with musketry on the group of men serving the two guns. The town had been carried; and the occupants of the part of it opposite Kirke's regiment, being thus taken in flank, soon disappeared in flight to the rear. Now would have been the time for the cavalry to make a circuit of the walls and cut in upon the fugitives; but no orders came to move, and there only remained the melancholy occupation of counting up the casualties, and fitting spare men to spare horses. Seventy-six men, or nearly one-sixth of the strength of the regiment present on the field, had been killed and wounded, the latter for the most part badly, and eighty-seven horses were disabled; so that Kirke's Horse figured handsomely in the account of the battle, and readers of the
Gazette
might have supposed, from the general's reference to its distinguished conduct and severe loss, that the regiment had spent the day in desperate hand-to-hand fighting, instead of having been uselessly sacrificed for a stupid precaution. The officers of the regiment, on comparing notes afterwards, were agreed that it had been the most serious duty any of them had gone through, active fighting under excitement being far less trying than standing up in cold blood to be fired at without power of retaliation. But their usual good luck had attended
them. Braddon's big Australian horse had gone down; while Egan had had a grapeshot through his holster, and Yorke another through his turban; but otherwise they had come off unscathed; and they began jokingly to style themselves the invulnerables, half believing that they really were.
But not for long after this affair did the title continue to be appropriate. The main army was now posted for a time in a stationary encampment, while columns detached from it scoured the surrounding country, beating up fugitives; and Kirke's Horse, while thus employed, came up suddenly one early morning with a body of the enemy's cavalry and the remains of a battery of field-artillery. Here was an opportunity long sought for; Kirke's Horse had done almost everything possible in the way of fighting but capture guns; so while these, surprised in the dusky dawn, opened an uncertain fire, Kirke, bringing his regiment round at a gallop, gained their flank, and charging down before they could limber up, cut down the gunners, and captured the four guns, the cavalry making off without awaiting the onset. Just as the advance was made, Braddon (who led the rear squadron) with his horse was seen to fall, but there was no time to stop and inquire what had happened. It was half an hour or more before the regiment returned to its old ground, and there the officers found their comrade lying under a tree. Maxwell had just amputated both legs, shattered by a round-shot which had passed through his horse.
He had hardly recovered from the effect of the chloroform which Maxwell had administered, and at first did not remember what had happened, or where he was. "Ah! now I understand," he said at last, as he saw the commandant and Yorke stooping over him, while Maxwell on his knees was still busied with his work, — "I am minus a couple of legs. Very odd, too, I don't feel anything. That's a comfort, is it not? It helps one to bear the loss with proper resignation. How long am I good for, doctor, do you think?"
"My dear fellow," replied Maxwell, "you have borne the operation splendidly, and a constitution like yours will carry a man through anything. The pulse is strong, and everything going on well."
"All the resources of the highest medical skill were brought to bear on the case, but alas! proved unavailing," interrupted the wounded man — "that will be my epitaph, I take it; it wasn't the doctor's fault, but the man's. Excuse my chaff, doctor," he continued, "I don't want to hurt your feelings; if ever there was a surgeon who could pull a fellow through it would be you, I know that; but tell me, doctor, did you ever know a case of a man pulling through who had both his legs taken off by a round-shot? Shock to the system, isn't it, that you call it? And yet I feel quite right up here," said the wounded man, withdrawing one of the hands that made a pillow for his head, and tapping his chest. "Nevertheless, Yorke, my boy, you will be second in command before many hours are over. But how about the guns? you took them, I hope, major?"
"Oh yes," replied Kirke, "we made a capital job of it; took the whole four, and accounted for a lot of the gunners as well."
"Well done!" cried Braddon, cheerily; "there's the C.B. for you, major, certain, and a brevet lieutenant-colonelcy at the least, even if you were not sure of it before."
"And for you, too, I hope," said Kirke, his usual hard tone softened as he looked down distressed at his mangled comrade.
"Very kind of you to say so, major; but there is only one more step for me to make, and not having any legs to make it with, it ought to be a short one. The present company see the joke, I hope," he added, looking up at the anxious faces above him as he lay with his head resting under his hands. "But I am keeping you here too long; the wounded ought to be sent to the rear, you know. Cavalry should have no incumbrances."
In truth it was time to be moving on, for the regiment had a long march to make before its return to camp; and the wounded man (the only one in the whole regiment wounded in this skirmish) was placed in a doolee and sent off under the escort of a native officer and detachment, while the rest of the party with the captured guns proceeded on their way. Maxwell accompanying them, for a native regiment has only one surgeon attached to it, and more casualties might occur before the expedition was ended.
Kirke's Horse returned to headquarters on the evening of the following day; and while the commanding officer went to the general's tent to report proceedings, Yorke hastened as soon as he could get away to the main camp-hospital, whither his wounded comrade had been conveyed. The hospital was formed of a little street of tents, orderly and quiet, the only moving objects being here and there a camp-follower or two, as they sat squatting outside the tents, smoking their hookahs or cooking
their frugal meal. Towards the end of the street some larger tents betokened the quarters of the wounded officers, while it was closed at the end by those of the medical officers in charge, in front of which sat two surgeons smoking their cheroots after the labours of the day. One of these rose at once as Yorke rode up, and conducted him to the tent where Braddon lay. He was doing wonderfully well, said the surgeon before they went in, notwithstanding the shock and the journey; pulse still firm; he must have a wonderful constitution.
Braddon occupied an airy tent with two beds (the second being vacant), the only other person in it being his bearer, sitting patient in a corner to execute his master's behests. The wounded man received his friend with a cheery voice.
"Here I am, you see, wonderfully jolly, all right in this quarter still" — tapping his chest — "and ready for my dinner; but how long is this to last? I am looking out for the coming change, but it doesn't come. Except that I am a little tired of lying on my back already, I never felt better in my life. Curious, isn't it?"
"Yes," said the surgeon, cheerily; "you are doing famously; Maxwell will be quite proud of your case."
"Famously, indeed. Come, doctor, did you ever know a case of a man losing both his legs in this way and pulling through? "
"Know a case? I should think so. Why, there is a sergeant of a foot-regiment in this very camp who has lost both his legs, and is almost well now."
"Ah, but he didn't lose them by a round-shot, I'll be bound. No, Maxwell," he continued, addressing that officer, who had just entered the tent, "you may explain to our good friend here that it is no good trying to bamboozle me, and, what is more, that I don't want to be deceived. I know what is in store for me, as well as either of you do; but it is very odd that I should feel so well."
The next day, when Yorke paid his friend a visit, he found him still well and hearty, although less excited in manner. "Not much change, you see," he said, smiling. "No; no pain whatever, except that there is a big knot in the cordage of this bed which touches me up in the back a little. But it isn't worth while bothering about it just for a day or two. No; there is no pain in the stumps, and no feeling either; that is the bad sign, is it not? You can't have a rally where there is no nervous power, you know. The only wonder is the numbness does not begin creeping up the body, as with Socrates after drinking the hemlock. I feel quite right here still," tapping his chest. "There's no need to pull such a long face, my dear fellow," he continued. "What does it matter one man more or less being knocked over? We have won the day, and put the mutiny down; and the thing has been done cheap at the price.' And what is more, I don't care a bit about it myself. That seems odd to you, doesn't it? Only two days ago I was thinking about brevets, and promotions, and a career, and all the rest of it, just as keenly as any man; and now I lie here, waiting for the end, and if you'll believe me, I don't feel as if I would give a button to have my legs back again. I should have grudged to have been knocked over and useless when in the residency, I confess, before I had had a rap at the rascals; but now there are plenty more where I came from. Why, now I think of it, you are senior lieutenant in the 76th, and will get the step in the regiment, besides being made second in command of the Horse. I beg your pardon," continued the sick man, seeing that his friend looked pained; "but you know it's my way; I can't help a little chaff. I know you are sorry for me, and all that; but still business is business, and there would be no promotion if there were no casualties. No, my dear fellow, I should have been afraid to sneak out of the world at the time when I was under a cloud; but now that I am set right again with the public it is different. And is there a man in India who could be better spared? I haven't got a relation in the world who cares twopence about me. My sister and I used to be pretty fond of each other when we were children; but she has been married these ten years to a rich man whom I have never seen, and somehow the letter-writing dropped after a time."
Yorke asked whether he would not wish to see the camp-chaplain, but Braddon declined the proposal. "I don't suppose I have been inside a church for a dozen years," he said, "and what merit would I get from going through the service now, under a fright? If I had bled to death out there on the field when I was hit, Wharton would not have had a chance of using his formulas: I can't suppose God Almighty would allow it to make any difference to a man, whether he dies a few hours sooner or later. I daresay you think I am a regular heathen," he continued, seeing that Yorke looked distressed, "but I am not a bit; I can't call to mind that I ever did anybody any harm, except
in the way of business as a soldier, or anything that a man need be ashamed of, barring that brandy-bottle bout which injured nobody but myself. Is faith really to be everything, and works nothing, as our worthy friend is always preaching? I know I am a miserable sinner and all that, but surely it is taking a low view of God to suppose that he finds any satisfaction in hearing His praises sung. A crude sort of theology, ain't it? but it's too late to cast about for new principles now."
"No, my dear boy," he continued, as Yorke after a time rose to go, "I don't want anything, thank you; I don't feel as if I could read; but somehow the time doesn't hang heavy, and old Sudhán there is very attentive; he seems never to go to his dinner, nor to go to sleep, nor to do anything, I believe, but sit there ready to wait on me. Good-bye, old fellow, remember me to the rest of them, and say how glad I was to hear about the guns being all taken, and so cheaply too. And, Yorke, I say," he added, holding the other's hand, "just give me a kiss before you go."
The warmest friendship and the best intentions can go but little way towards tending the sick on active service. With those on duty, fatigue and the craving for sleep will overcome the strongest sympathies or unselfishness. The officers of Kirke's regiment, too, were for the most of their time on outpost duty, and their wounded comrade was perforce left to his thoughts and the ministrations of his faithful bearer, and the occasional visits of the kindly but overworked camp-doctor. When next Yorke rode down to the hospital, the change which the patient had been looking for had arrived. "He is sinking rapidly, and won't recognize you," said the surgeon coming out of the tent as Yorke approached it. That evening the gallant soldier died; he was buried at day-break, Yorke being the only mourner, for the other officers of the regiment were all at outposts; and at evening his property was sold by auction and dispersed among a variety of owners, for the army was to march next day. Braddon had made a will, drawn by the camp-surgeon, leaving his remaining charger to Kirke, his sword to his sister, a hundred rupees to his faithful bearer, and the rest of his property — which consisted mainly of arrears of pay — to Yorke, who was appointed executor. The latter was gazetted in due course to be captain in the late 76th Native Infantry,
vice
Braddon, died of wounds; and succeeded also, as the latter had predicted, to his vacant post of second in command of Kirke's Horse.
CHAPTER 36
========================================
CHAPTER XXXVI.
One
more incident in the campaign must find a place in our story. The force of the rebellion was now got under; Lucknow had been finally captured, and there was no longer any regular army in the field to oppose the British troops; but various fugitive bands still remained to be put down, and detached columns were moving in pursuit of these all over the country. Kirke's Horse was attached to one of these columns, and a squadron under Yorke's command was halted one hot day in May in support of a couple of horse-artillery guns during the attack on a strong village held in force by the enemy. Yorke and the guns had been detached to the right of the line, where they found themselves in front of a small enclosure surrounded by a low mud wall, and the artillery officer had begun to fire on the place, which appeared to be full of men, by way of having something to do — for the position was not of importance, as it must be abandoned if the main village were taken — when a half-company of European infantry came up, which also had been detached to the right. "I am to skirmish in front of that tidy little fort," said the officer in command of the detachment to Yorke, as he passed by the spot where the squadron was halted; "but as soon as they begin business over there" — pointing to the main column — "I mean to go in and have a try at the place — a grand assault all to myself;" and Yorke was struck by the cheery appearance of the young fellow, who had the bright cheeks of a man fresh from England. This half-company was now skirmishing in open order before the little enclosure, freely replied to by its occupants, and had got so close to it that the guns were obliged to stop firing, when Yorke saw the officer wave his sword and make a rush forward, while all his men jumped up and followed him. The wall was broken in parts, and the officer vaulted over a gap and disappeared inside followed by about half his party, while the rest came crowding up to the spot. "Well done!" cried Yorke, "he has carried the place," — and pushed forward with his squadron over the plain up to it. It took less than a minute to cover the ground, but by the time he got to the enclosure the assailants were in trouble; the advance was stopped, the men were huddled up together under shelter of the wall, and
firing over the gaps in it, while several of those who had got in were scrambling back again.
"What is the matter?" said Yorke, riding up to them; "and where's your officer?"
"He's too badly hit to bring off," said one of the fugitives, loading his rifle mechanically as he spoke; "it's as much as I could do to get away myself," and indeed the man was bleeding profusely from a wound in the shoulder.
The enemy were now swarming back to defend their post, and keeping up a warm fire from the roof of the houses within it and from every opening, to which the soldiers replied from outside the wall. There was a narrow lane running from front to back of the enclosure, and Yorke looking along this over the gap in the wall which faced the end of it, could see the bodies of some half-dozen Europeans lying in the roadway, and one, the officer, half-sitting, half-lying against the side wall. At the end of the lane was a little crowd of the enemy, some standing boldly out, others partly under cover, all firing down along it towards the gap, while the British soldiers at the other end replied from outside.
The soldiers in the lane seemed all dead, but Yorke could see the officer moving; and without stopping to think, he rode his horse a few paces back, and then putting him at the gap, cleared it at a bound into the lane.
The enemy on seeing him jump over showed in still greater numbers, and from all sides the fire seemed converging on him, while he was now in the way of his own people, nearly filling up with his horse the whole of the narrow road. And it seemed as if he must certainly be hit. But all round the enclosure immediately inside the wall was a narrow passage, and he turned aside into this as by instinct, finding for the moment comparative shelter, and then dismounting and leaving his horse there, ran up the lane to the wounded officer, and lifting him up tried to carry him back. But the burden was a heavy one, and he would have failed of his purpose but that two of the soldiers, following his example, had also come over the wall to help him. Working together they made good progress, but it seemed as if the end of the lane would never be reached, although the distance to be traversed was only a few yards. Close and many whizzed the bullets, and, almost filling up the lane as did the little party, it seemed as if they could not escape. At last one of the two soldiers fell on his face, and Yorke and the other stumbled and nearly let drop their burden. "He's killed, sir," said the survivor, after looking for a moment at his comrade — "it's no good waiting for him;" and they pushed on and at last reached the wall, and, handing their burden over, followed themselves, Yorke's horse — not Selim, but his second charger — having been shot in his absence, and took shelter behind. The surviving soldier, however, had been shot through the thigh, but Yorke with his usual good fortune got off with a bullet through the skirt of his coat.
Outside the place were now drawn up the whole of Kirke's Horse, the commandant himself having ridden up to the gap to see if he could help his comrade; five minutes afterwards the enclosure was abandoned by its occupants, the main village having just been carried, and Yorke mounted on a trooper was soon in pursuit with his regiment, and busy cutting up the fugitives trying to escape across the open plain. He never saw the young officer again, who, he afterwards learnt, died the same evening of his wounds; but he lived long enough to tell the story of his deliverance; and Kirke, who had witnessed the conduct of his second in command, reported it in such terms that Yorke was at once awarded the Victoria Cross. And not long afterwards, the fact of his promotion to regimental captain having been recorded at the Horse Guards, the promotion of Captain Arthur Yorke, V.C, Bengal Native Infantry, to be major in the army, appeared in the
London Gazette
. This was indeed promotion, from lieutenant to field-officer all in one day. And he had the
Gazette
all to himself too, for the last instalment of brevets for the campaign had already appeared, including Kirke's promotion to lieutenant-colonel, and appointment to C.B. True, the Crimea had made field rank somewhat cheap; still the rise was a great one, from subaltern in a contemned service to major in a distinguished regiment, and few men even in these days had gained the rank in less than eight years' total service. Surely there must be a career before him, if he pulled through the war without getting knocked on the head; Falkland had been twenty years in the army before he got his first brevet. Ah! poor Falkland! Already his career and his fate were almost forgotten, covered by the pall of brave men who had fallen during the war; and the days of the residency defence seemed to have faded away into the shadowy past, so much had happened since.
And yet in one respect those memories
were fresh enough. The young man's passion was as strong as ever, and his success was valued mostly because it seemed to give him reason for his hopes. He had been in correspondence with Olivia ever since they parted, although from exigencies of duty and interruptions to posts the letters which passed had not been numerous; but Yorke thought he could trace in hers, as he read them again and again, the course of change from despair to resignation, and then to a revival of interest in life and the future, while through them ran a vein of sympathy and tenderness which the young man recognized with ecstasy, as indicating some approach towards his own state of feeling. And yet, he could see that any reciprocation of his passion was as yet altogether foreign to her thoughts; and although he felt a constant impulse to declare his devotion, an instinctive feeling that she was not yet prepared for such a declaration restrained him from committing himself. It would sound cold on paper, too, he thought, and I should not be there to reply to the objections she might plead of disloyalty to her first husband, and to press all that could be urged in reply of our exceptional circumstances. No: I will wait till I can reveal my love in person, and have her sweet face before me to inspire me with fitting words.
And now the time seemed coming, for the hot season was nearly over, and the rains were at hand in which marching would be hardly practicable, and the enemy being almost everywhere put down, the army was now to be distributed in cantonments. And Kirke's Horse, after a twelvemonth spent under canvas, which had converted the raw levy into seasoned veterans, was established at an out-station, in a district which had lately been recovered from the rebels, where the officers set about repairing the roofless bungalows of the former occupants, while the old sepoys' lines were restored for the men. It was just on arriving at this place that Yorke got the news of his promotion. The army would be in quarters for three months before taking the field again, and Yorke thought his chances good of getting leave for a part of this time. And a few weeks in a hill-station, with the opportunity of seeing Olivia daily, almost hourly, as her trusted friend, would be worth years of ordinary cantonment life. For Olivia was still in the hills. Her intention had been to return to Europe and join her father; but the road had not been safe for travellers, and now her journey was deferred till the next cold season — a journey I hope she will never make, thought the young man with bounding heart.
But a disappointment awaited him. The regiment had hardly encamped in their cantonments when Kirke was attacked with fever, and Maxwell ordered him off to the hills. The commandant and second in command could not both be absent at one time, and Yorke was fain to stay behind in charge of the regiment. And whether it was that in writing to Olivia he expressed his disappointment somewhat too pointedly, but in her reply there seemed to be an unusual reserve, and a pang of fear came over him lest he should have built too solid hopes on the anxious wishes for his safety, the almost affectionate solicitude for his welfare, which her letters had expressed while the campaign lasted. Ah! thought he, will the day ever come when I shall be able to pour out my passionate love without fear of repulse, and she in return may declare her desire for my presence without shame, and, putting aside the short episode of her first marriage, be ready to centre her hopes and affections on me?
Spragge, who had been serving during the latter part of the campaign with the Mustaphabad Levy, after recovering from his wound, had now got his leave; and the happy fellow wrote from the hills that he was to be married immediately, and then to leave his bride after a two months' honeymoon, while he returned in the cold season for the next campaign. "It will be terrible work parting from the dear girl," he wrote to his friend; "but what is to be done? I object on principle to long engagements, and it would not do to bring her down to the plains until Pandy is completely disposed of. By the way, the charming widow is looking as beautiful as ever, and her mourning becomes her exceedingly" — does she wear regular weeds I wonder? thought Yorke as he read this — "but how she manages to live with old mother Polwheedle is a wonder. You must look out for your chances, my boy, for her son is up here, and staying in the house — her son by the late Captain Jones, you know — and the old lady is making tremendous play on behalf of young hopeful, who is a rum-looking fish. By the way, I haven't congratulated you yet on your brevet majority and V.C, which I do now heartily, my dear fellow. What luck you have had, to be sure! Here am I, only three months your junior, and not even a captain yet.
and no chance of a brevet as far as I can see."
This reference to Mrs. Polwheedle's son by the late Captain Jones did not cause Yorke any misgivings, for he had already heard of his visit to the hills from Olivia herself; but the concluding part of the letter left an unpleasant impression behind it. What jealousy there must be in human nature, he thought, when even a good fellow like Spragge puts down my honours to luck! I don't think I should have grudged him his brevet promotion, or called him a lucky fellow, if it had been he who had earned it.
"Mrs. Polwheedle's son, Mr. Jones, of the late Banglepoor Rangers, has come up on six weeks' leave," Olivia had told Yorke in one of her letters. "I am afraid that if I were to derive my notions of the army from him, I should hardly 'worship the military profession,' as you once accused me of doing. However, it is very pleasing to witness the mother's pride and undoubting belief in her son. You have sent me another implied scolding for continuing to share a house with her, but she is greatly changed and very kind, besides, I could not set up housekeeping for myself in a place like this" — surely I may take this as encouragement? thought the reader of the letter with a thrill of ecstasy — "even if it were worth while doing so for the short time I have to remain in India." Here the reader was cast down did this mean that she saw through intentions and did not wish to give him hope? "My cousin Rupert Kirke," the letter continued, "has also come up here, as of course you know, and it was such a happiness to hear from him so good an account of you, after all your hardships and hairbreadth escapes. He tells me that you have undergone the fatigue and heat even better than himself; and he has also told me, what I never could persuade you to tell me yourself, how you earned your Victoria Cross. People say that it is easy to get accustomed to danger in time. I never could. Even in the dreadful times of the residency, when all the others seemed to become indifferent, I used to tremble at every shot, feeling as if it must take some valued life; and all through this dreadful war I never take up the newspaper without a shudder, although one is bound to put on a calm face." Yes, indeed, thought Yorke, as he put the letter to his lips before folding it up, no one carried a braver presence than this noble woman!
In another letter Mrs. Falkland described Spragge's wedding, on which occasion she had helped to attire the bride; and, in expressing the general regret that Yorke could not be present to act as his friend's best man, added that her cousin had been very useful in arranging money matters for her, as she was quite ignorant of business. "Through his kind offices I have been able to receive the pension which I only lately learned that I was entitled to; and I have not scrupled, as he is so near a relative, to make use of the money he has kindly placed at my disposal until I can hear from my father, and so repay Mrs. Polwheedle what I am indebted to her." Idiot that I am, cried Yorke, on reading this, never to have thought of placing my purse at her disposal! A pretty friend I am, truly! No wonder she should find her cousin useful, when the obvious fact never presented itself to me, in my stupidity, that she must have been in want of money for present needs. Olivia in want of money, while he had ever so many months' pay lying undrawn at his credit! And for the moment Yorke felt quite jealous of his commanding officer for having shown this kindness to his cousin.
CHAPTER 37
========================================
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Kirke's
Horse was allowed only a brief respite from the Labours of campaign. It had scarcely settled down in its summer quarters when orders were received to be ready to march on active service with the first break of cold weather; and a few days before the appointed time, its
commandant returned from the hills quite set up again by his visit, as active as ever, plunging eagerly into all the business of regimental equipment. In reply to Yorke's inquiries after Mrs. Falkland, he said that she too was in excellent health and spirits. Yorke of course expressed his pleasure at this, hardly knowing whether he was really gratified to hear it he had pictured her as pensive, though resigned, and yearning for sympathy and observed, for want of something better to say, that the events at the residency, and especially the death of her husband so soon after their marriage, must have been a great shock; to which Kirke replied that she had pretty well got over that. "Marriage, you see," he went on to say, "must be a different sort of thing from an ordinary love-affair, when a woman marries a man so much older than herself. It was hardly to be expected that my cousin should be very long getting over the loss of Falkland, poor fellow. By the way, she is never tired of talking about you, and can't say too much in your praise." Notwithstanding the pleasure this remark gave him, something in Kirke's hard way of talking jarred on Yorke's feelings; and yet, he asked himself, what could he wish more than that she should have forgotten her first love? Was not that exactly what he was hoping for? There was little more said between them about Olivia. Kirke was a reserved man on private affairs; and Yorke, not being sure if Olivia had told her cousin that she was in correspondence with him, did not mention it himself.
The regiment now marched southwards, six hundred strong, the vacancies having been more than filled up with picked recruits, equipped now as lancers, with three additional subaltern officers, all promising young fellows eager to distinguish themselves, and the whole body, men and horses, in splendid order. But this campaign, although laborious and fatiguing, was not productive of much in the way of hard fighting. The enemy's spirit was now broken, and the principal duty of the cavalry was to wear them down, to follow up the roving bands which still kept the field from place to place, giving no rest until they should be all cut up or dispersed. This work, which fell mainly to the cavalry, was calculated to try men's power of endurance, as well as the officers intelligence; but only one incident of the campaign shall be here mentioned, as it nearly occasioned at the time a quarrel between Yorke and his commanding officer, and led afterwards to serious consequences.
It was on the evening of a day marked by the surprise of a large body of the enemy, horse and foot, who had been followed up during a forced march persevered in for many days with only brief halts; the enemy had broken up after a slight struggle, and a destructive pursuit had been maintained all the afternoon, the pursuers indulging to the full the passion for taking life inherent in most human hearts, till the general in command, a man who seemed never to know what fatigue was himself, was fain to order a halt, the infantry being far behind, and the horses of the cavalry dead beat. Kirke's Horse were encamped for the night in front of the scattered column on a bare spot of ground interspersed with scanty bushes; and Kirke and Yorke, with one native officer and an orderly, were riding slowly along the front inspecting the pickets, when Kirke's quick eye detected some object behind a bush a little way in advance, and he rode towards it followed by the others. It proved to be a deserted palanquin, apparently, from the elaborate external gilding, belonging to a person of rank. After looking at it for a few moments, they were about to turn their horses heads backwards, when the orderly with the point of his lance suddenly pushed open one of the sliding doors, exposing a veiled figure sitting upright within.
"Holloa! said Kirke, some member of the zenana left behind. Here's a chance for you, Yorke — you might manage to console the lady, I daresay."
"She looks rather a stout party, replied Yorke; probably an ancient of days. What on earth are we to do with this poor old beebee? We cant leave her here to die in the jungle."
"It isnt a beebee at all, sahib," said the native officer, a swaggering young Patân, in his own language, who, catching the word beebee, had guessed the nature of the remark; and stooping down he pulled aside the shawl in which the face of the figure was enveloped, and displayed the features of a stout elderly man. "The shawl will suit me, he continued, whisking it off and placing it in front of his saddle. "And here's another for me," said the orderly, fishing up on the point of his lance the end of another shawl which was round the mans body, and then pulling it off. As he did so, a small box fell out and rolled on the ground, the lid opening
at the same time. The contents seemed to be something white.
The orderly dismounted and picked the box up. He lifted the white substance off: it was cotton-wool, below which lay some ornaments set with stones, which glittered even in the twilight.
"Jewels!" said the man, with a grin, holding the box up to his colonel. Kirke took it from him, and held it out so that Yorke could see the contents. There were several layers of cotton, and jewels between each which seemed to be of value.
"Perhaps there are some more things worth having — just see," said Kirke to the man, who thereupon began to pull off the other garments of the occupant of the palanquin. He found a dagger with a jewelled hilt, some money rolled up in muslin round his waist, and a couple of gold drinking-vessels. Kirke told him to keep the money for himself, and to hand the dagger and vessels to the ressaldar; and, so saying, put the case of jewels in his pocket.
The captive meanwhile sat in the palanquin, holding up his joined hands in prayerful supplication, and constantly repealing the formula that Kirke was a protector of the poor and his father and mother.
"What is to be done with the rascal, sir?" said the ressaldar to Kirke, in his own language.
"Oh, we don't want any prisoners, of course," said the colonel, as he turned away and rode off; whereupon the ressaldar made a sign to the trooper, who, poising his lance for an instant as if to take aim, ran the man through the body as he still sat in the palkee with supplicating hands. The poor wretch fell back groaning and raising his arms as he writhed under the wound; but the trooper, drawing out his lance from the body, with a grim smile drove it in again through his chest, and, after a convulsive struggle, the body settled down into the stillness of death.
"That man must have been some one of mark," said Yorke to the colonel, as they rode away: "would it not have been worth while bringing him in as a prisoner?"
"The general would certainly have hung him in the morning; besides, our fellows are too tired to be bothered with guarding prisoners all night."
Well, I can run a pandy through with as much gusto as any man in fair fight, but I am getting sick of this executioners business in cool blood after the battle; it is beastly work."
"It must be done, though," said Kirke; "the rogues have given enough trouble already, without being allowed to get off free, and begin playing the mischief again."
"I suppose it is necessary, but it isn't pleasant, and the looting part of it is not much nicer. I declare I felt little better than a Pindaree robber when we were stripping that poor wretch. Happily one has the consolation of feeling that it is plundering for the benefit of the army generally, and only indirectly for one's self. That haul we have just made may turn out to be a good one for the prize-fund."
Kirke did not reply at once. After a pause he said, "I don't think it is expected that those who do all the work should hand in every trifle they pick up for the benefit of a lot of fellows who are pottering about, taking things easily, in the rear."
"I don't call jewellery a trifle."
"Jewellery is a big word; I suppose there is about enough to make a couple of trinkets for our respective lady-loves;" and, as Kirke said this, he looked towards his companion, smiling, as if in jest, but looking also somewhat eager to see how he would receive the suggestion. "However," he added, in a low tone — for they had reached the spot where the other officers were assembled — "you may leave me to make the report of the matter."
The mule which carried the light mess-equipment of the regiment had now come up, and a tin of English soup was already warming on the fire, while the troopers around were preparing their frugal meal of corn-flour, or contentedly munching the parched grain they had brought with them. The meal despatched, all who were not on duly lay down on the ground without blanket or cloaks — for the baggage had not come up — almost too tired to smoke their cheroots before falling asleep.
Next day Yorke spoke to his commanding officer, as they were riding along together, about the things taken the evening before, and said he supposed they would be given up to the prize-agents.
"You don't expect Futteh Khan and my orderly to disgorge the things I let them take?" said Kirke. "Their ideas on such points are not quite so nice as yours." And there was something of a sneer in the tone of his voice.
"No," replied Yorke; "the things they took will be kept by them, of course. I was thinking of the jewels."
"My dear fellow, they are not worth making a fuss about. I suppose if you were to pick up an old pistol, or a grass-cutter's pony to replace the one you lost, you wouldn't feel that you had done the rest of the army out of their rights."
"But that is different. These jewels may be very valuable."
"Not much in that way, I fancy; but they are pretty little things, I admit. Look here," continued Kirke, taking the box out of his breast-pocket and holding it out towards Yorke — "look here, Yorke; you would like to take your choice, wouldn't you? Which will you have?" And Kirke's manner was such that it could not be said he was not speaking in jest, although it seemed as if he would certainly like to be taken at his word.
But Yorke, looking straight before him over his horse's head, merely waved away the offer, and said, "You are joking, colonel, of course; I take it for granted that you intend to hand the jewels over to the prize-agent."
"Oh, of course," replied the other, "I was only joking;" but he could not conceal from his manner that he felt as if he had sustained a rebuff; and the silence which followed as they rode along, was a little awkward on both sides.
Both officers, however, had plenty of work to occupy their attention, and Yorke had ceased to think about the matter when, a few weeks later, it was brought to his recollection.
He was detached from headquarters with one squadron of the regiment, at a station which had lately been reoccupied by the civil officers of government. The last embers of the great conflagration were now extinguished, and the detachment was peacefully encamped on an open space before the town, expecting orders to go into summer quarters. One evening Yorke was sauntering through the camp inspecting the horses picketed in two lines before the troopers' tents, while the ressaldar Futteh Khan attended him. The latter was dressed in his loose native garments, both of them being off duty and the inspection purely non-official, when Yorke noticed in his girdle the jewelled dagger which had been taken from the rebel in the palanquin.
"That is a handsome dagger," said Yorke in Hindustani, "and if those jewels are real it must be worth something."
"Ah, sahib, these little stones are mere trifles," replied the ressaldar; "it was the colonel sahib who carried off the loot. They say that the man whom we found in the palkee was the raja's dewân, and that the jewels were worth a lakh of rupees."
"So much the better," replied Yorke; "we shall all get the larger share when the prize-money comes to be distributed."
"So the colonel sahib had actually made them over to the prize-agent?" asked the man, respectfully enough, yet as if surprised to hear it; and the conversation arousing an uneasy feeling in Yorke's mind, he took the opportunity of a messenger going to regimental headquarters next day to ask Kirke about it.
"I take it for granted," he said at the end of a letter written about other matters — "that you have made over the jewels to the prize-agent as you said you intended to do; but the men in the regiment appear to be talking about the thing, and to suppose that they were worth far more than their real value; while I infer from Futteh Khan's manner that he thinks he ought to have had a share. The capture havnng been a joint one, it is perhaps now a little unfortunate that the things were not publicly given up, so that the men might have been without any ground for suspicion that we had taken any benefit by it. It would be a great satisfaction to hear from you that the transfer has been actually made. Pray excuse my troubling you about the matter." To which Kirke replied by the following postscript in his letter sent back by the messenger: "take your mind easy about the jewels, which were duly handed over to the proper party. They turned out to be trumpery things."
The great war having come to an end at last, and it being now the height of the hot season, the field force to which Kirke's Horse was attached was broken up, and the different regiments composing it, calling in their detachments, marched off to their respective summer quarters. Mustaphabad was the station allotted to Kirke's Horse, several hundred miles off, and not to be reached till long after the fierce Indian summer should have passed its greatest heat; but the men — veterans in campaigning, although young in years — set out on the long march in high spirits, for Mustaphabad was not far from the district in which the regiment was raised, and they might now expect to get furloughs to visit their homes. What strange chance is it, thought Yorke, which brings us back to the old eventful scenes? Can it be that the dream of my youth is really to be fulfilled, and that Olivia will be won to share my lot in that very place? a lot I just as I used to picture it, a humble
home, if not quite the shabby cottage of my subaltern days. But she, too, has since then known discomfort and simple ways of life, and whatever place she lives in will be sufficiently adorned. Surely it must be a good omen which takes me there again! Plenty of time had the young man to build his castles in the air, searching over and over again in her letters for something substantial on which to erect a foundation for his hopes. At times it seemed as if her letters breathed a tenderness which, as if she was won already, at any rate invited him to declare his passion; and then, again, reading them under the influence of the reaction which would follow any excess of hopefulness, he thought he could detect only a spirit of resignation and sorrowful clinging to the memory of the past, which would render his tale of love an insult. These letters were of old date, for during the late campaign he had received no news from her. The regiment had, however, been wandering amid wild parts, difficult to communicate with; mails had been lost, and Olivia's letters might have miscarried — her notions about Indian geography and the movements of the different armies he knew to be somewhat vague, while he, for his part, had been too constantly on the move to write often; but now that they were marching along the main line of road, he would surely receive some news. Thus he thought and hoped, as the regiment slowly covered the long track, marching by night, and getting through the stifling day in their tents as best they could, for the heat seemed much harder to bear now that the excitement of active service was ended, and each camping-ground looking the exact counterpart of the last — a brown, barren, burnt-up plain.
Now and then they would come to a European station, where the officers of the famous regiment were sure of a hospitable reception from the residents, and would pass the day in the comparative coolness of a house, setting out again at midnight on the dusty road.
It was at one of these stations that Yorke heard for the first time of the death of Mr. Cunningham in England, which it appeared had been known in India for some weeks. This accounts for her silence, thought he; no wonder she had not spirits to write when bowed down with this fresh calamity. And how heartless my last letter to her must have seemed, for she could not have supposed that I was ignorant of what everybody in India seemed to know! And being full of the news, he naturally spoke to Kirke about it the first time they met. They were spending the day as guests at different houses, but were to dine together at a regimental mess, and he met his commandant when riding into the mess-garden at dusk. They had never once referred to Olivia in conversation since the first day after Kirke's return from the hills in the previous autumn. Yorke was not sure if the other had guessed the state of his own feelings, but Kirke was a man who was wont to speak somewhat contemptuously of women in general, and had often expressed the opinion that soldiers were spoilt by marriage; and Yorke thought he would not look favourably on the idea of having a married second in command, still less one married to his cousin. Indeed Yorke fancied he could detect a tone of pique in Kirke's manner when congratulating him on the high regard entertained for him by Olivia, which induced him to abstain from talking about her, still more from any expression of wonder at not getting letters from her; and a reserve of this sort once set up became every day more difficult to break through. Now, however, Yorke made the attempt.
"Have you heard the news, colonel?" he said, as the two met at the garden entrance, and rode slowly up the drive together to the mess-house. "Have you heard the news of poor Cunningham's death?"
"Oh yes, of course," replied Kirke; "I heard of that some weeks ago: I thought everybody knew it. A case of liver, I believe; he was very bad, as it turned out, when he went home."
"I only heard of it this afternoon. This will alter Mrs. Falkland's plans, I suppose, and even delay her journey home? I have understood that she has no near relations to whom she could go. It is a sad situation for her; I have been able to think of nothing else all day." When he said this, the young fellow felt himself like a selfish hypocrite, being sensible in reality of a sensation of rapture, as if the loss of her father brought her one step nearer to himself.
"Very good of you. I am sure," replied Kirke, drily, and speaking slightly through his nose, as was his manner when intending to be sarcastic. "Yes, indeed, it is difficult to say what she is to do under the circumstances, isn't it? A handsome young woman like her wants a protector of some sort, doesn't she?"
Here they had arrived at the mess-
house, and the conversation perforce ended. Nor did Yorke feel disposed to renew it, for Ivirke's tone jarred on him. And the subject was not referred to again during the rest of the march.
CHAPTER 38
========================================
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Mustaphabad
was reached at last, some time after the rainy season had set in. It was still very hot, but the country had now put on its green mantle again, and was no longer a wilderness; and it seemed to Yorke another good omen that on the very day of their marching in, the English mail arrived with another batch of honours; Kirke was promoted to a full colonel, and Yorke made a C.B. The regiment was met on arrival by the general — for Mustaphabad was now the headquarters of a division — no less a person than our old friend Tartar, now Sir Montague Tartar, K.C.B., who came out to meet it at the head of his staff as a compliment to this distinguished corps: and after a brief inspection, and some praise bestowed for the excellent appearance of both men and horses after the long march, the regiment proceeded to occupy the quarters allotted them, the native cavalry lines on the right flank of the station, the officers taking possession of such of the vacant bungalows as they had engaged beforehand, — comfortable houses enough, especially by contrast with tents, which had been lately rethatched and repaired, and, with their neat gardens, looked none the worse for the mutiny damages. Kirke alone of the officers had not been able to make up his mind about hiring a house beforehand, and took possession of a couple of rooms in the mess-house until he could choose one for himself.
During the first few days after their arrival, regimental business kept all the officers employed. Horses had to be cast, and men's furlough papers made out, and arms overhauled and replaced: but when this was all set in train, and Yorke thought he could be spared, he asked Kirke to forward his application for the usual sixty days' leave.
"I can't let you go just now, my dear fellow," said Kirke, "for I am just going
to take privilege leave myself, and we can't both be absent together. But you shall have your leave as soon as ever I come back."
Yorke thought this a little selfish, as Kirke had had long leave the previous season, and he not a day; however, the latter was commanding officer and could please himself, so there was no more to be said about it. And Yorke set himself to getting as best he could through the sixty days which had to be passed till his turn should come. It was pleasant to find that the station had quite recovered its ordinary aspect, for the ravages of the mutineers and plunderers who followed in their train, although awful to witness, had but a limited scope to work upon. The Anglo-Indian bungalow consists of substantial walls supporting a thatched roof, which, if it could be easily burnt, could also be easily replaced; this done and the walls whitewashed, the house looks as good as new, while the rapid growth of Indian vegetation soon obliterates any damage done to Indian gardens by trampling over the shrubs. The little bungalow at the other end of the station in the lines formerly occupied by the 76th Native Infantry, which Spragge and he used to live in, looked just the same as ever; it was occupied again, and there, standing by the stable-door in the corner of the garden, as Yorke rode by on the evening of his arrival, was the new tenant smoking a cigar and superintending the littering-up of his horse, just as he used to do in the days of the gallant Devotion — evidently a subaltern as he had been, but who probably surveyed life like a veteran from the vantage-ground of one or two campaigns. The residency, too, which of course he rode out to see on his first spare evening, had been completely restored, and with a fresh coat of plaster on the walls was looking quite smart; while half a score of scarlet-clad messengers lounged about the portico, just as in the old pre-mutiny days. The new commissioner, a civilian, from another part of the country, being out for his evening drive, Yorke took the liberty of dismounting and walking over the grounds, recalling the different points rendered memorable in his mind by incidents of the siege. There, for example, was the bush behind which the fellow was crouching whom Egan shot, the first man he saw hit. Hard by, a stone with an inscription recorded that the body of Major Peart had been disinterred from underneath that spot, and removed to the cantonment cemetary. The bodies of the rebels, too, he learnt, had been exhumed from the well into which they were cast, and the interior filled up. He walked into the west veranda. The family of the new commissioner was in England, and the rooms on this side were unoccupied. Here was
her
room. How neat and trim she always looked when she stepped forth, even in those times! And
here was the spot where was the old beer-chest on which he used to sit when on guard, and when she would come and sit down too sometimes of an evening, and Falkland would look in and join in a few minutes' chat. How sweet her gentle laugh was that evening when Spragge was hunting the scorpion! Only two years ago, and it seems like twenty. But ah! if the end of my pilgrimage should now be near at hand!
For the present, however, there was nothing for it but patience, and it happened that there was plenty of employment to occupy his time, in the task which now devolved on him of unravelling the regimental accounts. The financial economy of a native cavalry regiment, in which the men find their own horses, and a
quasi
-feudal system used to obtain, some of the wealthier sort bringing their own retainers at contract rates, is always more or less complicated, involving the need for the employment of a native banker, who forms a regular part of its establishment. The fact that the regiment had been raised in a hurry and been almost constantly on active service did not tend to make matters simpler, the men having scarcely ever had a regular issue of pay, but having been maintained from allowances made from time to time on account, which had still to be adjusted. Kirke, who had kept these affairs entirely in his own hands, was moreover not a good man of business, and Yorke found the regimental accounts in such confusion that he would fain have abstained from taking them up during his temporary command; but the discharges had to be made out of some disabled men, and to square their accounts involved going into those of the whole regiment. So he was obliged to apply himself to the troublesome task.
But business and day-dreams were both interrupted by the news he received one day. It was in a letter from Spragge, who, like himself, had been campaigning during the past season, leaving his young wife in the hills for her confinement, and had now rejoined her on leave soon after the birth of his child. "I found my dear little wife," said the writer, "making a good recovery, and baby nearly a month old. Both Kitty and I want you to be godfather to the youngster, who is to be called Arthur Yorke Christopher — her poor father was called Christopher, you know. I am sure you won't refuse us. It does seem so funny to be a papa, and to think that only two years ago I was merely a poor beggar of an ensign, without a rupee to bless myself with, and about as much idea of being able to marry as of being made governor-general. I tell Kitty she wouldn't have looked at me in those days. What a wonderful event this mutiny has been, to be sure! It has been the making of us all, hasn't it? They were jolly days too, though, when we were chumming together with the old 76th, weren't they? though I was so awfully hard up then. But the married state is the happy one, after all; I never could have supposed that any girl would have got to care for a rum-looking fellow like me — and Kitty is a wife beyond what words can express. You ought to follow my example, my dear fellow; why don't you come up and pay us a visit? There are no end of nice girls up here, and a swell like you might have his choice. By the way, your old flame is about to console herself immediately, as of course you have heard. The wedding is to take place to-morrow, I believe, but it has been kept very quiet, and no one is invited — I suppose because the lady lost her father such a short time ago. Kitty says she was sure your C.O. was very sweet on her — I don't mean Kitty, but the other — when he was up here last rains; but I always thought he was such a tremendous soldier, and woman-hater into the bargain, that matrimony was quite out of his line. However, my little wife is more knowing in these things than me."
As Yorke, stopping in his reading of the letter at this point, looked round the room, he felt that while nothing in it had changed, he had entered in these few moments on another world. There on the table lay the shabby books of regimental accounts, the floor was littered with Hindustani vouchers and figured statements, squatting by which sat the patient moonshee, figured abstract in hand, waiting the sahib's pleasure to proceed with the addition; the punkah flapped to and fro lazily overhead; outside the door a couple of orderlies were chatting in undertones, discussing probably, as usual, the price of wheat in the bazaar. Everything about him denoted the same monotonous workaday world as it had been a few moments before, but a world from which all hope and pleasure had fled — a world now inexpressibly flat and dreary for the future. Summoning up courage, however, he called to the moonshee to proceed with the reading of his vernacular abstract, while he checked off the corresponding English account before him, keeping his attention to it and yet wondering at his own calmness. "Is it that I have really no heart," he asked
himself the while, "that I am about to do these things?" But no; the crushed feeling and the utter desolation that possessed him gave up a plain answer on this point. For an hour he continued the plodding occupation in hand before dismissing the moonshee, and then, pacing up and down the room, could think over the announcement in the bitterness of his heart. Once he stopped and took up the letter from the table to see if any doubt could be gleaned from it; but the facts were too plain to admit of consolation on this score. This was not mere station gossip; besides, it was only too plainly corroborated by what had gone before. Olivia's silence, Kirke's sarcastic, triumphant manner, were now plainly accounted for. "People call me the lucky major," he said bitterly; "and I am the object of envy to half the youngsters in the country — what a satire is this on the falseness of appearances! no whipped cuckold could feel meaner than I do now." Then the thought came up whether he was not paying the penalty for his modesty. Could it be that Olivia had accepted her cousin out of pique because he had not declared himself? This foolish idea, however, was soon dismissed; though the young man said to himself, with a sort of savage joy, that after all the real Olivia was something less noble than the image he had carried so long in his heart. "I kept back my tale of love because I thought it would offend her gentle breast to hear it while mourning for her husband; and lo! all the while she was already consoling herself with another. Nor is it my Olivia who would be satisfied with the love of such a man as Kirke so hard, narrow, and selfish." Here his better judgment told him that he was talking nonsense; it was no wonder a woman and a cousin should fall in love with so splendid a soldier. "By heaven, if he is unkind to her, I will kill him!" But no; Yorke's conscience told him that this would not happen. He was hard and cruel, but not to his own kind.
"Well," he said at last, "what does it matter? My idol is shattered; but I was a fool to carry about so unsubstantial a thing. I have my profession, and I suppose, like everybody else, I shall get over the disappointment. At any rate, there is no need to pose in the character of the jilted lover. No one knows what a fool I have been; even Spragge thinks my old flame, as he calls it, was burnt out long ago; and no one shall now discover my secret."
Nevertheless he felt that he could not have faced the regimental mess-dinner that evening, where the approaching marriage of the commanding officer would certainly be the engrossing topic, and was glad that he had an engagement to dine out with his old friend General Tartar, at whose house he found himself taking an unconcerned share in the conversation, and a steady hand at whist afterwards.
Only one allusion was made to the approaching event, when his host, next to whom Yorke sat, said to him, "So our pretty widow is about to console herself. Well, I shouldn't have thought Kirke was a marrying man; but if he was to commit himself in this way at all, he couldn't have done better." Tartar was a confirmed old bachelor himself, who married, a few years afterwards, a widow with a large family.
Yorke replied, in an unconcerned voice, that he supposed Mrs. Falkland would be well off, as she had her first husband's property as well as her father's.
"Falkland didn't leave a penny — he was notoriously liberal to prodigality — but her father must have saved something; although you mustn't suppose," continued Sir Montague, who had the reputation of being very fond of money, and to be serving in India because it was such a favourable field for profitable investments, "that a man living by himself in India cant spend his income easily enough. Well, Kirke will find the money useful; he won't have a rupee more than he has need for."
This was an allusion to the fact that Kirke was supposed to be heavily in debt; but Yorke did not care to discuss the private affairs of his commanding officer with a third party, and the conversation dropped.
CHAPTER 39
========================================
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Next
day Yorke received a letter from Kirke himself. It was chiefly on regimental business, but contained at the end the following paragraph: —
"You will, of course, have heard of my approaching marriage. My wife — for so I may call her, since the marriage is to take place this afternoon — will write to you herself in a few days, to explain why the matter has been kept so quiet, even from our mutual friends; but I must take this opportunity to thank you on her behalf for your many kindnesses. She will always retain a grateful recollection of them, and continue to regard you as a warm friend. I don't believe she will write the promised letter notwithstanding," said Yorke to
himself (and, indeed, the letter never came); and he sat wondering idly how far the message was really sent by Olivia herself, and whether Kirke guessed his feelings, and wished to express pity for his disappointment.
A day or two afterwards the newspapers contained the announcement of the marriage of Colonel Rupert Kirke, C. B., Commandant Kirke's Horse, to Olivia, daughter of the late Archibald Cunningham, Esquire, Bengal Civil Service.
No allusion to her being Falkland's widow, thought the young man bitterly, as he read the notice; it is as well, forsooth, that noble fellow should be forgotten. And yet, he added, apostrophizing himself, why be a hypocrite? You would have been pleased enough, you know in your heart, that she should forget Falkland for your benefit. Besides, it is not she, but the bridegroom, who has sent the notice to the papers.
Yorke's first impulse was to take leave and go away to avoid being present when Kirke should return with his wife; but he was restrained by a fear lest the cause of his absence should be suspected, and like the man who lingers in a company because he feels that his character will be discussed as soon as his back is turned, so Yorke held on at his post, determined to face the return of Kirke and his bride, at whatever cost to himself.
This took place about a month after the wedding, just as the rainy season was coming to an end, and when a fresh coolness in the early mornings betokened the approach of the charms of an Indian winter.
Kirke's delay in taking a house had of course been explained by his intended marriage. He wanted to select a house himself instead of choosing one beforehand. And there not being one sufficiently good in the cavalry lines, he had now written to engage a large house in another part of the station. Thither the newly-married pair came, a day sooner than was expected, arriving at daybreak; and Yorke, returning that morning from a visit to the general, was riding at foot-pace down the road bordered by the garden of Kirke's house, when he came upon Kirke and Olivia, standing in the garden-drive a few steps within the entrance. Kirke called out to him as he passed by, and advanced towards him, and he had no resource but to turn into the drive to meet him, and dismounting to shake hands and to move on where Olivia stood a few paces behind.
Kirke was neatly dressed as usual, in a light morning suit, with a wideawake hat covered with a drab silk turban, his face clean shaven save for the heavy black moustache. Olivia was dressed in a black-and-white muslin robe, with a large straw hat trimmed with black ribbon, her face shaded from the sun by a parasol, and Yorke could not help admitting to himself what a handsome couple they looked, and how well suited to each other; while Olivia's appearance and figure as she stood before him brought back forcibly the recollection of the day when he paid his first visit to the residency, and she walked across the park with her father to greet him. How like, and yet how changed! the first freshness of youth had passed away, although in his eyes she appeared as beautiful as ever, and he thought she looked nervous and distraught as he advanced towards her. She held out her hand, which he took gravely. "Does she confess that she has jilted me?" thought he; "and does that anxious look mean an appeal for mercy and forgiveness? But who am I that I should interpret looks — a blockhead that is always fancying a light-hearted woman to be in love with him, when really she is handing her heart about all round the country? Probably she is wondering whether I am going to stay for breakfast, and whether there is enough to eat in the house." And yet, as he thought over it afterwards, surely, if she was not conscious of wrong-doing, this was a strange meeting for two old friends and constant correspondents.
The conversation began with commonplace. What sort of a journey had they had down? and was not this first feeling of cold delightful? "Cold!" said Olivia, "it seems so dreadfully hot after the hills." Then noticing his horse, she said: "Ah! there is Selim; how well he looks," going up to it and patting its neck, "after all he has gone through, dear thing! What good care you have taken of him!"
Yorke remained silent, for he could not trust himself to speak, being tempted to bid her take back her gift, and an awkward pause ensued, ended by Kirke's plunging into business, and beginning to ask various questions about the regiment, while Olivia stood by listening. Presently several of the native officers of the regiment came up in a body to pay their respects, the news of the commandant's arrival having now reached the lines, and Yorke took his departure, Kirke asking him as he mounted to ride off to come and dine that evening. They would be
quite alone, he said, for they had not settled down, but were still all at sixes and sevens in the house. And Yorke accepted the invitation. The sooner I get accustomed to the thing the better, he said to himself, as he rode off, not knowing rightly whether he had gotten himself free from his chains, or was in closer bondage than ever.
Fortunately for him, he was not as it turned out the Kirkes' only guest at dinner that evening, Maxwell the regimental surgeon being also of the party. Olivia was dressed in black, being still in mourning for her father; but except that she seemed a little paler than before, Yorke did not now perceive any change in her; already he was forgetting the old face and remembering only the new.
The house, notwithstanding Kirke's apologies, seemed already to be in good order; it was indeed unusually well furnished for one in an up-country station: the servants were in livery with handsome waist-belts and turbans ornamented with silver crests, and all the table appointments were new and costly. The arrangements all showed careful pre-arrangement, for a large establishment is not to be set up without notice a thousand miles from Calcutta. How far had Olivia been cognizant of all this, and the engagement one of long standing? or had Kirke done it all in anticipation of her accepting him?
The conversation — interrupted at times by Kirke scolding the servants loudly because something or other had been forgotten — turned principally on the campaign, and the later parts of it, for Olivia had not met Maxwell since the residency siege, and there was an awkwardness in going back to those times. Kirke, however, showed no delicacy on that score: for on Maxwell observing that the garden outside looked very neat and well kept, considering that the place had been so long unoccupied. Kirke said that the whole station seemed in capital order: "and I am told," he added, "that the residency is looking quite spick and span again. We must drive over there to-morrow, Olivia,
if we have time, and have a look round the old place."
Olivia looked distressed, but her husband did not notice it, and went on: "I hear that they have moved Peart's body out of the garden, and the other fellows who were buried there. So they have got decent interment at last, which is more than can be said for a good many of our old friends."
Then Olivia rose from the table and went into the drawing-room, and Yorke could see that her face was pale, and that she looked hurt and ashamed. The man is perfectly brutal in his want of perception, he said to himself. Decent interment indeed! I wonder what dungheap covers poor Falkland's bones?
When the gentlemen came into the drawing-room, Olivia was outside in the veranda, but she joined them soon afterwards and made tea. Yorke noticed, that the tea-serice and appointments were all handsome and expensive.
Presently Kirke proposed that Olivia should sing: and she went to the piano — a large one, evidently new like everything else. Kirke, who did not know one note of music from another, sat in an easy-chair with his hands behind his head and went to sleep. Yorke felt that politeness demanded he should go up and stand by the performer, but he could not bring himself to do what would seem like an act of forgiveness and blotting out old memories; so he too kept his chair. Maxwell did the same: and, after Olivia had sung and played for a few minutes, she stopped and joined them again. The cessation of the music awoke her husband, who held out his left hand as she passed his chair, and gave hers a caress. Yorke remembered the occasion when her first husband had done just the same thing, on the day when he first saw them together on the outbreak of the mutiny. Truly an old performer in the part, he thought, bitterly; and somehow the act made her sink lower in his estimation, although he could not help admitting to himself that if he had been the second husband, he should not have thought the worse of her for permitting these little endearments.
Maxwell and Yorke walked home together, instead of riding, the evening air being now cool and pleasant. They were both silent for a little while, each apparently averse to discuss the matter which occupied his thoughts. At last Maxwell said, with some bitterness of tone, "The commandant does not grow wiser in money matters as he grows older. What a foolish beginning, to be sure! It would need twice his pay to live in that style. And he must be heavily in debt, to start with — at least he was before the mutiny."
"But I suppose Mrs. Kirke succeeds to all her father's property? He ought to have saved a good deal with his large salary."
"I doubt if he had saved a farthing. There is nothing easier than to muddle
away your income, however large it may be. He told me just before he started for England that he should have nothing but his pension to live on, barely enough for a bachelor who never gave money a thought; and he was saying what a comfort it was to him that his daughter was so well provided for. No, I can fancy a heedless youngster starting off in extravagance like this on his marriage — it was just the sort of thing a foolish young civilian might have done in old days; but a man like Kirke ought to have more sense than to begin by buying a lot of things he can't pay for. If he does not pull up soon there will be a smash, take my word for it. Well, I am glad I shall not be here to see it. No," he continued, seeing that the other looked surprised, "the war is over, and my work is done; I am entitled to my full pension, and may as well take it at once."
"I know we could not have expected you to stay much longer with us; it must be close on your time for promotion; but surely it is a bad time to retire, just as you are coming into the good things of the service."
"Good things of the service, — what are they? To become a superintending surgeon, and spend your day in an office making out returns and reports, and never seeing a real case from one year's end to the other? No, I am too fond of my profession for that, and I have enough for my wants. Besides, I daresay I may practice a little at home, if needs be. And to tell you the truth, Yorke," continued the doctor, stopping short — for they had now got to the point in the road where their ways parted — "I don't care to stay here any longer. Falkland was a dear friend of mine, and so was her father," — pointing with his hand in the direction of the house they had just left, — "and I can't bear to see her toying with another man in that way, and so soon, too, after that noble fellows death. I am not a marrying man myself, and may be peculiar in my ideas, but there seems a sort of degradation the thing."
Yorke, too, as he walked away, felt that there had been degradation, and yet he knew in his heart that the offence would have vanished from his eyes if Olivia had reserved her fondling for himself. "And what would my old friend Maxwell think of me, I wonder, if he knew that the feeling uppermost in my heart is envy, and not contempt?"
A big dinner given by the officers of Kirke's Horse at their mess to the commandant and his bride, at which Yorke as second in command occupied the centre of the table, with Olivia on his right hand, was the first of a series of entertainments held in honour of the newly-married couple; and society at Mustaphabad was as lively during that cold season as it had ever been in pre-mutiny days, the Kirkes soon beginning to return freely the hospitalities they received. A handsome new carriage for Olivia had arrived from Calcutta, with a pair of fast-trotting Australian horses; Kirke's own chargers were the best that could be got in India; and the officers of the regiment, who during the war had been dressed in plain drab little better than that worn by the men, were now requested to procure an elaborate uniform covered with embroidery, of a pattern designed by the colonel, and with horse-appointments to match. It was plain to everybody that this style of living would not be met by the salary of a commandant of irregular cavalry; but, although there were rumours in the station, where gossip as usual was rife, of servants' wages and bazaar bills unpaid, the general presumption was that Mrs. Kirke had been left a fortune by her father. A man who had drawn a large salary for many years, and kept only a bachelor establishment, would naturally have saved a good deal, which must have come to his only daughter. So society was satisfied, although pronouncing the Kirkes to be foolish in the matter of expenditure, and criticising freely the costly style of entertainment in which they indulged. Rather, they might have said, in which Kirke indulged, for he was the sole manager of their domestic concerns. His wife had had no experience of house-keeping, and Kirke found it easier to do things himself than to show her how to do them. Thus he began by ordering the dinner during their honeymoon, and kept up the practice, Olivia being quite satisfied to leave the matter in his hands, as well as the management of the servants and dealings with tradesmen. Her own toilet once furnished, she had no need for money, for there were no ladies' shops in Mustaphabad, and if there had been, cash payments would not have been employed. Thus, beyond ordering the carriage when she wanted it, or sending for her ayah when that domestic failed to appear at the proper time, Olivia took no more part in the management of the household than if she had been a guest in it, even her notes of invitation being carried out by one of the colonel's orderlies; and of the state
of his ways and means she was wholly ignorant, as she was equally of the gossip about his debts. She had always been surrounded by easy circumstances, and the sort of life they led seemed quite in the natural way. After all, her establishment was not on a larger scale than that of Mrs. Plunger, whose husband commanded the dragoon regiment now at Mustaphabad; but then Olivia did not know that Colonel Plunger was a man of fortune, whose presence in India was an accident due to the mutiny, and who was anxiously casting about for the means of exchanging out of it again.
Any misgivings Yorke might have allowed himself to entertain lest Kirke should ill-treat his wife proved to be unfounded. Kirke, though a hard man and cruel in his dealings with enemies and rebels, was gentle with her; although not manifesting much of the little endearments which might naturally have been given to a newly-married wife, he was thoroughly kind, and Yorke could never detect anything in his treatment of her to which in his heart he could take exception. Kirke was disposed to be harsh to his men, and somewhat overbearing towards his officers, now that the war had come to an end; and was often violent with his servants, abusing them at meals if anything went wrong, and striking them for trifling offences; and this used at first to distress Olivia, who had never seen anything of the kind before, for her father was a man slow to anger, and Falkland used to treat everybody about him, native and European, with gentle courtesy; but after a a time she appeared to get accustomed to these ebullitions, and Yorke could not help admitting that she was both fond and proud of her husband, and that any qualms she might have felt at discarding himself — and he was not sure that she had ever entertained such a feeling — had become lulled to rest by the familiarity of the new footing on which they now stood to each other.
Thus the time passed on under these new and strange conditions. Among other liberal tastes Kirke indulged in, was that of keeping open house for the officers of the regiment. Although fond of his wife's society, and frequenting the mess but little, for he neither smoked nor played billiards, he was not a man of much mental resource, and preferred always seeing his wife at the head of the table with more or less company sitting at it, to dining alone with her; Yorke especially was very frequently there, and even when her health no longer permitted her to dine out, or receive general company, he still received frequent invitations as an old friend to join their dinner, and was thus constantly at the house, as constantly making resolutions to break off the intimacy and to get transferred to another regiment, or at least to go on leave, but nevertheless still hanging on, accepting the invitations received almost daily, watching the condition of his hostess with feelings strangely compounded of interest, anger, and self-contempt.
CHAPTER 40
========================================
CHAPTER XL.
But
the intimacy was rudely interrupted. One day Kirke received a letter from army headquarters, through the general commanding the station, enclosing an anonymous vernacular petition which had been addressed to the commander-in-chief, in which various irregularities were alleged to have been committed by him in regard to the regimental accounts; and, although it was not intended to take any action on an anonymous petition, it was suggested to be desirable that he should furnish any explanations he thought proper upon the allegations made. Kirke kept the matter from the knowledge of the other officers, although it leaked out through the station staff-office that such a letter had been received; but his suspicions pointed to the ressaldar Futteh Khan as the writer of the petition, some of the more specific allegations in it referring to transactions — principally relating to advances of pay — with which this officer was concerned; while the man, he recollected, had been reprimanded, not to say abused, publicly before the whole regiment one day, just about the time this petition was dated. Sending for the man therefore to his house, he taxed him with the authorship. The ressaldar, although denying it, did so in such a way as to confirm Kirke's suspicions, and to draw down upon him a volley of abuse from his infuriated commanding officer, which the man, instead of receiving quietly as would have been usual, losing his temper in turn, replied to insolently; whereon Kirke put him in arrest, and applied to the major-general for a court-martial to try him for insubordination. The man now sent in another petition, this time in his own name, containing numerous specific accusations against his commandant of irregular transactions in regard to the regimental accounts, improper dealings with the native banker of the regiment, and above all, that he had drawn pay for troopers in excess of the number enlisted, for many months after the regiment was first raised. On this petition being received at headquarters, an order was issued from the adjutant-general's office to Sir Montague Tartar to convene a court of inquiry, composed of the senior officers at the station, who had Colonel Kirke and the regimental records under examination for many days, and called numerous native officers and troopers of the regiment as witnesses.
Kirke at first made light of the matter; it was a mere conspiracy of a scoundrel, who of course, after the manner of his race, was ready to swear to anything — a scoundrel whom he should have got rid of long before, and would get rid of now. For although no witnesses were present in the room where the ressaldar had been received by his commandant, the orderlies in the verandah heard the voices in altercation, and on their evidence the court-martial held upon the native officer found him guilty of insubordination, and he was dismissed the service — those not being times, just after the mutiny had been suppressed, for passing over breaches of discipline in the native army. Meanwhile the protracted sitting of the court of inquiry created great excitement among the European community, extending far beyond the station of Mustaphabad. The proceedings of the court were kept secret officially, but tolerably authentic rumours as to their nature leaked out; and while the general sentiment was one of dismay and regret that so distinguished a soldier should be subject to the indignity of inquiry into his conduct, there were not wanting others to remind the public that Colonel Kirke had already once before been in trouble for irregularities of the same sort; and while some people argued that the fact of his having suffered already in this way would naturally make him particularly careful not to commit himself again by a similar error, other critics explained the coincidence of events by the assumed natural propensities of the man. As for Yorke, although he shrank from suspecting his commanding officer of anything like dishonesty, he could not divest himself of an uneasy feeling regarding the regimental accounts, calling to mind the evident disinclination of the former to let them go out of his own hands, and also certain points in them which had come under observation during his examination of the regimental books, and which, although he did not perfectly understand them at the time, seemed now, seen by the light thrown upon them by these accusations, to suggest at least a mystification of facts. But the allegations made were of a kind which it would be almost impossible to prove. The regimental accounts had no doubt been irregularly kept, and there was a want of agreement between the sums charged for troopers' pay at the time of first embodiment, and the corresponding vouchers in the way of muster-rolls; but as Kirke fairly urged, how was it to be expected that they should have been properly kept, by a man who was spending day and night in the saddle, and had so many other things to attend to — among others, to help in saving the empire — besides keeping muster-rolls and cash-accounts? and was it fair to turn round on an officer whose services had been such as his, and call him to account for these matters, and this at the instance of a worthless native who had been dismissed the service? The court evidently thought so too; and although not altogether satisfied with his mode of explaining the transactions under inquiry, which had not tended to make a complicated business clearer, they were disposed on the whole to regard Kirke as an ill-used man, who had been at worst careless under great excuse; and they would have reported to this effect, when another communication was received from army headquarters — a letter from the ex-ressaldar, accusing his late commanding officer of having appropriated jewels captured during the war, instead of making them over to the prize-agents, — which accusation also the court was directed to inquire into.
The members of the court did not attach much importance to this complaint, it being generally supposed that such appropriations and stray plunder had been not infrequent during the war, few persons believing at the time that there would be any formal distribution of prize-money; and the prosecutor's statements on this head would have met with but little serious attention, but for a turn unexpectedly given to the inquiry. Yorke was under examination one day on a matter connected with the regimental accounts, when the president of the court asked him to state what he knew about certain jewels, supposed to have been seized by Colonel Kirke, as it was understood that he also was present at the capture.
Yorke, who did not know precisely with what object the question was put — for the fact of the charge having been made was still kept secret — did not immediately understand what was referred to; but on the matter coming to his recollection, he stated what he knew about it: how the colonel had let the ressaldar take the jewelled dagger found on the prisoner in the palkee, and the trooper the bag of money; while he himself took possession of the little case of jewels. Then, in reply to a question put by a member of the court, Yorke added that, so far as he could judge, the jewels were of some value; but, he continued, "all this, I submit, has nothing to do with the matter; because,
whether they were valuable or not, the colonel gave them up to the prize-agent." And then, being pressed by certain questions, Yorke gave an account of what had passed between them on the subject; how he had written to Kirke to express his uneasiness at the retention of the jewels, and that the latter had replied to the effect that he had already made them over to the prize-agent.
Kirke bowed his acknowledgments across the table to Yorke for having thus cleared him from the accusation; but the latter could not help noticing that his commanding officer did not appear quite at his ease. And one of the members observed that what Colonel Kirke had said to Major Yorke was not evidence. The explanation seemed, however, to be generally accepted as satisfactory by the court; but as Yorke was leaving the room, the president asked him if he had the letter still in his possession.
"I really cannot say for certain," replied Yorke, "without examining my papers, whether I have or not; but I apprehend my word may be accepted as sufficient testimony of what took place."
There the matter might have rested, for the members of the court appeared by no means desirous of raking up bygone transactions relating to the war; but whether it was that the prosecutor — for so the ex-ressaldar may be styled — got word of what had happened, or that he was already pressing the same line of accusation, he now put in an affidavit from a native banker who had been employed by the prize-agents as custodian of the jewellery made over to him, to the effect that he had not received any jewels answering to the description of those in question; while the prize-agents, who were now residing in distant parts of India, in reply to the question now addressed to them by letter from army headquarters, stated specifically that no such articles had been delivered up to them by Colonel Kirke. This correspondence occupied some days; and meanwhile the prosecutor had submitted another petition to the court, to the effect that he could produce the banker as a witness, with whom some of the jewels had been deposited by the colonel sahib, as security for a loan of money.
On the evening of the day on which Yorke had made his statement before the court of inquiry, Kirke came over to his house, ostensibly to talk over some regimental business, but obviously with some other purpose, it being unusual to discuss such business anywhere but in the orderly-room at the mess-house, or at his own house. Moreover, the relations of Kirke with his officers were now always somewhat constrained; for the absorbing topic of the inquiry could not be referred to, and those of them who knew most of regimental affairs could not help feeling an uneasy suspicion that their commandant had not done his best to make his explanation clear of the transactions connected with the accounts under investigation.
At last Kirke, abruptly changing the subject of conversation, said, "By-the-by, what made you go out of the way to say anything to the court about there being any written correspondence between us regarding that jewellery business?"
This question, and the way it was put, opened Yorke's eyes to Kirke's character more than anything which had gone before. He did not know, except from rumour, how far the ex-ressaldar's accusations had tended to criminate his commanding officer, for the proceedings had been confidential, and each witness only knew so much as could be gleaned from his own examination: but he now saw clearly enough that Kirke would like to repudiate the correspondence altogether. It seemed useless, therefore, to reply, that his only motive was to clear the other from the suspicion of having retained the jewels; and he felt, indeed, that had he known so much at the time as he knew then, he would have tried to avoid saying anything about the letter. He replied, therefore —
"I could not do less than give a straightforward answer to a plain question."
"Of course not," said the other, with a sort of sneer implied in his tone. Then, after an awkward pause he added, "Perhaps you can show me the letter if you have got it — my memory on the subject is not so good as yours appears to be."
"Certainly," replied Yorke; "I will look for it, and if I find it, I will send it you — that is, a copy of it." He added these words from a conviction, suddenly forced on him by Kirke's eager manner, that the original letter would not be safe in his possession.
"Very good," said Kirke, rising from his chair with some heat; "then perhaps you would be good enough to search at once, and then to send me this copy;" and laying some stress on the last word, he strode out of the house, and, mounting the horse which was waiting for him, rode rapidly away.
Yorke at once proceeded to examine the contents of his dispatch-box,
all the papers and letters which he had thought worth preserving since he entered the service. The contents were not heavy, his correspondence not being voluminous, and were soon examined; but although the impression on his mind was clear that he had not destroyed the note, it was not to be found; and accordingly, he wrote a few lines to Kirke to say that he had not been able to find the note among his papers, and concluded that it must have been lost or destroyed.
Two days afterwards he was again summoned to attend the court of inquiry which was still sitting at the mess-house of the regiment, when the president put the following question to him: —
"You stated. Major Yorke, when last under examination, that you had received a note from your commanding officer, Colonel Kirke, dated on or about the 30th April 1859, to the effect that he had made over the jewels taken from the body of a rebel to the prize-agents. Can you produce the letter for the information of the court?"
Yorke replied that he had searched for the letter, but had been unable to find it.
"Then do you wish to make any statement to the court with reference to the accompanying document?" and so saying, the president placed a letter in Yorke's hands.
It was from Kirke, written the previous day, addressed to the president of the court, and to the effect that with reference to a statement made to the court on a previous occasion by Major Yorke, regarding the receipt of a letter from him, Colonel Kirke, relative to the disposal of the jewels, he had to state that Major Yorke must be labouring under some extraordinary hallucination, to put the most generous construction on his conduct which it could be made to bear, for that no such letter had ever been written by him.
On reading this letter Yorke understood for the first time how matters stood with his unfortunate commandant; everything that had before seemed doubtful or confused now became clear. This letter was evidently the last resource of a desperate man.
Yorke remained silent for a space, the letter in his hand, and then returning it to the president said that he had nothing further to state at present. Kirke's case now was bad indeed, but he would at least do nothing to make it worse.
It was soon after this, and while the court were still deliberating, that the bankers' affidavits and the prize-agents' letters already referred to were received. Kirke's object in denying that he had written the letter was now apparent, and the report of the court was much more unfavourable than it would have been if the inquiry had been closed at an earlier stage. There was extreme disinclination at headquarters to take proceedings against so distinguished an officer as Colonel Kirke; but it was felt that even if the other matters could have been condoned in consideration of his eminent services, the suspicion of falsehood now attaching to him could not be passed over. General Tartar received orders to place him under arrest, and the judge-advocate-general of the division was directed to frame charges against him on all the different allegations.
Hitherto the proceedings had been nominally secret, although the nature of them had naturally leaked out; but there was now no longer any concealment about them, and the coming "Kirke court-martial" occupied public attention fully as much as the advance on Pekin, and was discussed in every station from one end of India to the other; and while there was a general sentiment of regret that so dashing a soldier should have fallen into such trouble, there were not wanting prophets after the event to say that it was no more than what they had expected from the man's antecedents; while most people felt that, even if acquitted, the very fact that it should have been necessary to bring him to trial must leave an indelible stain on his character. The list of charges was indeed a formidable one: drawing pay for men not on the muster-roll; withholding prize property; and lastly, conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, in having stated in a letter, and so forth, he knowing the same statement to be false.
Happily for poor Olivia, the state of her health during the course of these proceedings prevented her from going into society, and so she escaped the allusions and questionings, and possibly the slights, which her husband's present position might have occasioned. She had indeed but a very imperfect knowledge of what was going on, for latterly she had seen no one but her husband, who professed to make light of the inquiry; and although it was plain to her, notwithstanding his efforts at concealment, that he was labouring under great anxiety, she ascribed it to the cause he assigned — the worry arising out of the misconduct of one of his native
officers. The birth of her baby occurred before he was placed under arrest, and, confined to her room during a slow recovery, she did not know what otherwise could not have escaped her notice, that there were no longer any orderly troopers in attendance about the house, while it seemed only natural that during her illness her husband should be very much at home.
No one felt more keen regrets for Kirke than his second in command, although no one know better how strong was the evidence against him. They had had no private communication since Kirke's visit to him, the overtures of assistance which Yorke made having now been curtly repulsed, the former professing to consider himself an injured man. Yorke did not know any more than others what was the precise nature of the evidence to be brought forward on the other charges, and he cherished a hope that perhaps he might be allowed to refuse to give evidence before the court, in which case the charge of falsehood would break down; but he had not ventured to consult any third person on the subject, fearing to criminate Kirke still more by divulging the facts. Thus the time wore on; the officers of the regiment by tacit consent avoiding when together all reference to the matter which almost exclusively occupied their thoughts, and all the news he got of the Kirkes being by inquiries through the servants of Olivia's progress, when a paragraph appeared in one of the local newspapers reflecting upon himself, and which was of course shown to him at once by a good-natured friend. It was in the form of a newsletter from the local correspondent at Mustaphabad — a species of inane contributions common to Anglo-Indian newspapers — full as usual of the absorbing topic of conversation, and ending with the following paragraph: "The last and most serious charge against the gallant colonel is that of making a false statement to his second in command, to the effect that he had handed over the jewels to the prize-agents. But it is understood that the only evidence on this charge is the verbal statement of the latter; and as the gallant major in question, who is now acting commandant of the regiment, will probably succeed to the permanent appointment if the charge be sustained, ill-natured persons might say that he has a strong interest in maintaining his point. However, as the matter is
sub judice
, I, of course, Mr. Editor, abstain from all comment upon it; but it is clearly what the knowing ones call a very pretty
imbroglio
, for apparently one of the two distinguished officers in question must have stated 'the thing that is not.' But on this delicate point I will of course express no opinion myself."
On reading this slanderous letter, Yorke perceived for the first time the bearing of the case as it affected himself. The court of inquiry, indeed, knew the manner in which his evidence had been offered, that it had been given in ignorance of the case against Kirke, and that the statement about the letter was made in perfect good faith, in view of clearing his commanding officer from the scrape he had fallen into; but the public, with their imperfect knowledge of the facts, might take a different view of his conduct, and be disposed to adopt that which the unhappy man himself in his desperation had ventured to insinuate was the real one. No doubt there would be plenty of people to put the same malicious construction on his conduct as had this scoundrel of a news-writer. If Kirke were acquitted of the charge, then would not he be virtually accused of having made a false statement? And would not Kirke himself endeavour to give that colour to the case? And to the grief which Yorke had felt throughout these proceedings, both on Kirke's account and his wife's, there was now added a feeling of shame and indignation on his own account. Is it possible, he thought, as his cheeks tingled, that I am labouring under some horrible hallucination, and that it is I, and not Kirke, who has told the he? But no — it was no dream; and what is more, I have a distinct recollection of keeping the letter by me for a time, and none of destroying it. So saying to himself, he opened his despatch-box and again turned over the contents. But again without result; pay-certificates, commissions, receipted bills, extracts from newspapers referring to the actions in which the regiment had been engaged, and last but not least, the little packet of Olivia's letters, written during the campaign. There, in its well-worn cover, was the last she had ever sent him, the last element with which he had built up the unstable, foundationless structure of his foolish hopes. He had put these letters aside on hearing of her engagement to Kirke, with the resolution of never opening them again to read anew the tale of his infatuation and self-deception; but as he looked at the packet now, he took up this last letter and drew the
enclosure from the envelope, contrasting in bitterness of heart his present mood with the different feeling that formerly possessed him when he was wont to perform that frequent operation. As he did so, another small note fell from under his fingers on to the table. It was Kirke's missing letter — short, and concluding with the damning statement on which so much depended.
The whole circumstances of the case now came back to his recollection. He had always carried Olivia's latest letter about with him, to read over and over again at leisure moments; and he remembered now that the envelope of Kirke's letter, having been overgummed, had been much torn in opening, and he had thrown it away and placed his note inside the envelope of Olivia's letter. There it had lain ever since.
Too late now to repair his mistake; but he must at least acquaint Kirke with his discovery. There had been no communication between them since the day of Kirke's being placed under arrest, and Yorke felt all the embarrassment of their relations as he wrote, "My dear colonel, I have just found your note to me about which this unhappy trouble has arisen. It was inside one received from Mrs. Kirke, where I put it at the time of receipt. I opened the letter accidentally just now, and it fell out. Can nothing be done to withdraw from the unfortunate mistake you have made? Ever yours truly."
CHAPTER 41
========================================
CHAPTER XLI.
Two
hours after his note was despatched, and as the sun was getting low, Yorke, returning from a saunter through his stable, as he came to the front of his bungalow, met a lady advancing up the little avenue. She wore a thick veil, but no disguise would have concealed her from his eyes. It was Olivia. She walked slowly, as if weak; and as Yorke hurried to meet her over the few paces that separated them, he could see that she looked pale and ill. She held out her hand, which for a moment he grasped tenderly; then, looking at her wan anxious face, he dropped it, and led the way slowly up the veranda steps and into the little sitting-room. There placing a chair for her, he stood opposite, waiting for her to speak.
Olivia raised her veil, and Yorke, gazing on the face so constantly in his thoughts, saw with pain the change which anxiety and sickness had wrought in the familiar features. Each of the two great troubles she had gone through had left its traces, and yet, thought he, she is as beautiful as ever. At last she spoke. "Major Yorke, you must have guessed why I have come to you. It is because of your note to my husband. He thought — that is, I thought — that it might be of more use if I came and spoke to you myself. We are such old friends, you know," she added, with a smile meant to be cheerful, but which to the other appeared inexpressibly sad.
Yorke bowed. "Pray go on," he said; "you must know my desire to serve you in everything."
"It is about this letter which you have found. It seems that he had overlooked having written it you, and incautiously said so. And now he thinks the production of it might prejudice his case seriously; and he is sure you would not wish to do that."
"I am glad he gives me credit for so much good-feeling," replied Yorke, gravely. "I feared he had come to regard me as an enemy. God knows, I would do anything that one man may do for another to help him out of his trouble."
"Ah yes," she said. "I knew we might depend on you as a true friend. And Rupert bade me tender you his humble apologies if he had said anything in your disfavour; and he is sure you would make allowances for him, knowing how sorely he had been tried. These were his very words. And oh! Major Yorke, you know how much that means from him. You know what a proud man he is ——"
"Pray don't say a word on that score," said he, interrupting her. "I am glad, of course, to hear of his kindly feeling, but I wanted no apology. And it is about him and not me you want to speak. Pray go on, and let me know what it is I can do."
"That is what I am coming to," she said. Then, speaking with hesitation, and scanning his features anxiously, she continued —— "It is about this unfortunate letter. Rupert thinks he can clear himself of everything else, and that, as nobody knows of its existence but yourself, it would not be too late to prevent the thing going further. So he thought — I thought — that if I came myself and asked you, you would not mind — you would not mind — giving it back — to
me
." Making this appeal in flattering accents, she yet laid a stress on the last word, and looked at him with a pleading face.
But Yorke stood silently before her,
looking down, and shook his head sadly.
"Rupert said there would be no risks," she continued; "I was to destroy the letter before you."
"Risks?" said he, interrupting her; "do you think I care about risks? It is not the risks I was thinking about; this is a matter of honour. No," he continued; "I would do anything that a man may do to serve you — or your husband either, but this is impossible."
"It is easy to make fine professions of friendship," said Olivia in a tone of pique, and turning her head aside; "but they do not come to much when put to the test."
"Olivia — Mrs. Kirke, why do you say such cruel things? You must know that they are not true. Don't you understand that the thing has gone beyond my power to stop it? I have already stated before the court of inquiry that I did receive the letter. I did it for the best, knowing nothing of the trap that was laid for him, and heaven knows I would give everything I possess to have left it unsaid. But the thing is done, and it cannot be undone."
"You mean that the suspicion might attach to you, if the letter is not produced? Yes," she added eagerly, "Rupert spoke about that. He particularly told me to say that you need not be uneasy on that score; no one would think of doubting your word. Yes, that was what he said himself — it would all be put down to some mistake; and he would give you a paper, in any form you liked, to clear you now and forever."
"How much has your husband told you about the case?" Yorke asked, sadly. "If you knew the whole case you would understand that this would not be enough to get him out of the difficulty. You would understand ——"
"I understand so much, that if Rupert is brought before the court-martial, and the letter is produced, he will be ruined. He told me so himself just now. Oh, Major Yorke, if not for him, for my sake, and in memory of old days, be merciful!" and as she made this appeal in urgent tones, Olivia, stepping forward, knelt down before him, and taking his hand, looked up beseechingly in his face.
"Olivia, Olivia!" he said, mournfully. "why do you tempt me? You know how passionately I have loved you, for although you are no coquette, you must have seen how I have been ready to worship the ground you trod on any time for these three years past. I don't say you have played with my feelings, for I was a fool all along, and deserved my fate; but you must have seen through them partly, although I dare say you did not guess the depth of my love. No, you need not be afraid," he continued, quitting his grasp of her hand, as Olivia, whom by this time he had caused to rise and be seated again, looked up at him with a flushed and frightened face, as he stood over her; "there can be no harm in my telling you this now, once and for all, and getting rid of the burden on my soul, for all that is past and gone. Dearly as I used to love you, and love you still, I would not marry you now, if you were free to-morrow and would have me. It is brutal of me, is it not, to say so? and I dare say you don't understand me, but the Olivia of my fancy has passed away, and can never live for me again. But look here, Mrs. Kirke," he went on eagerly, and as he spoke it seemed to him that their relations had suddenly altered — she was no longer the goddess to be set on a pedestal and worshipped from below; his Olivia would never have asked him to do a dishonourable action for any reason — this was merely a weak woman following her husband's crooked ways, — "look here," he said; "I want you to understand that it is not a matter in which I can really save your husband. If the letter had not been found, people might have said that I had lied about it — and thought so too, and they might have been welcome to think so, if it could have saved you from pain and trouble. But what is the good," he added mournfully, "of talking about what might have been? The letter has been found. And if the court ask me if I have found it, am I to perjure myself? And if I admit having found it, and refuse to produce it, don't you see that this makes things look even worse? No, Mrs. Kirke, you will say I am offering an empty pledge when I declare that I would gladly give my life to save yours; but the thing you want me to do is impossible."
"Then I suppose," said Olivia, after a pause, rising slowly, and lowering her veil, as if to depart, and again turning away her face, "there is nothing more to be said. Offers of service are easily made, but they will not save my husband from ruin. Well, you have the satisfaction of knowing that you will succeed to the command of the regiment."
"You may reproach me as you like," said Yorke sadly; "but though I dare say you think very hardly of me, you must at least know that I am incapable of the meanness of profiting by your husband's
misfortunes. Yes, Olivia," he continued, as she looked inquiringly into his face, "you misjudged me once before, and you were sorry for it afterwards. So I hope it may be again, and yet — but no: I was going to say that if it would be any consolation to you to think ill of me I should be willing to have it so, but I cannot bring myself to say that. But why trouble you with my thoughts and feelings? I see you in this terrible difficulty and distress, and am unable to help you. That is sufficient bitterness."
Olivia stepped towards him and laid her hand upon his arm. "Forgive me again," she said in a low beseeching tone which thrilled through his heart; "you have always been a true friend, and I am an ungrateful undeserving woman; but if you knew how wretched and broken-down my husband is, I am sure you would excuse my injustice. And I dare say you are right — I am so bewildered, I know not what is right or what is wrong — but it seems very hard." And she turned to go away, while the large tears started in her dark eyes, and rolled down her pale cheeks. But Yorke saw that she staggered in her walk, and was far too weak to make the journey back on foot, and insisted on her resting while his buggy was got ready for her, and he hurried out to the stable to hasten the operation, hardly daring to trust himself any longer in her presence.
This was the second time, he thought, as he helped in nervous haste to put the harness on the horse, that she has been under my roof. The first time how it set my heart dancing for joy, and how I dreamt of a second visit as being almost too great happiness! and now it has come, and in what a way! She is sitting there, and I am actually keeping out of her way. For at sight of her tears his resolution had almost failed him, and he had been asking himself whether it would indeed be so great a breach of honour to take out the fatal letter and tear it up in her presence.
He drove the carriage up to the veranda steps, and alighting, handed Olivia in and drove off, the groom hanging on behind after the fashion of his class. It was now dusk, the time affected by Anglo-Indians for taking the air, and a passer-by might have set them down for a domestic couple on their accustomed evening drive; but the road to Kirke's house lay at the back of the station, and they met no one. No words were exchanged between them; and short though was the distance, Yorke had time to ponder on the strangeness of the situation, and to reflect how once it had been the dream of his life that Olivia should be driving through Mustaphabad, a wife, and sitting by his side. Now that dream was realized, and in what a way! She was sitting in his carriage by his side, but another man's wife and the mother of another man's child!
Soon the entrance gate of Kirke's house was reached, and Yorke, pulling up the horse, broke the silence by saying, "I will leave you here; my man will lead the horse up to the door," — and got down. He stood, hat in hand, beside the carriage while the groom stepped to the horse's head, and looked up at Olivia. She held out her hand, and smiling sadly, but with something of the old look of former years, wished him good-bye. Yorke took the proffered hand in his for an instant, and then turning away walked back, unwilling to weaken the recollection of her kindly parting by another word.
A few days later, just as all the officers who were nominated to form the court had arrived at the station — for there was not a sufficiency of officers of the needful rank in garrison at Mustaphabad, and several were summoned from a distance — and while all the residents were in a state of expectancy, and the officers of the regiment, feeling keenly the disgrace which had fallen on it, hardly showed their faces in public, an order was received from army headquarters to suspend the opening of proceedings; and the curiosity which this order evoked remained unsatisfied for two or three days, till an announcement appeared in the
Gazette
to the effect that Brevet-Colonel Rupert Kirke, C.B., had been permitted to retire from the service. Kirke himself, it appeared, had applied to be allowed to do so, and the application had been forwarded to government from headquarters, with a strong recommendation that it should be acceded to on the score of his distinguished service; and also that, as he had not served long enough for a pension, he should be granted the half-pay of his regimental rank of captain — half-pay as an institution being unknown to the Indian army, and each recipient requiring a special decision in his favour.
Public opinion endorsed the decision; for notwithstanding the natural disappointment felt at being balked of the expected excitement of a long court-martial on a distinguished officer, the general
sentiment was one of satisfaction that so gallant a soldier should escape the ignominy of a public prosecution and sentence.
But food for local gossip in abundance was immediately afterwards afforded by the sudden disappearance of the Kirkes, who left Mustaphabadon the night following the publication of the
Gazette
, taking their child with them, but unattended by even a female servant. No doubt it would have been easy to trace them, had it been any one's business to do so, but public action in the matter did not go further than to amplify the story with an abundance of circumstantial details, although the popular version, to the effect that they had driven out to a place about twenty miles off on the main road to Calcutta, and hence started by "dawk" across country in palanquins, was not far from the truth.
The reason for the flight soon became apparent in the complaints, thereon loudly upraised, of baffled creditors, whose claims had in fact begun to pour in when first the court-martial was ordered to assemble. But small part of the expensive household property, it now appeared, had been paid for; there were promissory-notes of large amount overdue to various European and Arab horse-dealers for horses; the servants' wages were six months in arrear. The heaviest claim was that preferred by a native banker, but it was generally understood that his debt was more than covered by the jewels which he held in pawn — the first cause of the unfortunate officer's disgrace and ruin.
The pay of a captain commanding a native cavalry regiment is sufficient for his position with care and moderation; but as Kirke, far from having any capital in hand to start with, was already loaded with a burden of old debts, he had at no time the means of maintaining the expensive style of living adopted on his marriage, still less of paying for his extravagant outfit. Whether he had entered on this desperate course in the expectation of getting a fortune with his wife, or under some vague idea that the jewels would turn out to be of great value, could not be told; but it was plain that, apart from other difficulties, a crash must have come sooner or later.
The fugitive officer having left the army, the military small-debts court could not take cognisance of the claims; but the station magistrate put the police in charge of the deserted premises; and never before had the good people of Mustaphabad obtained such bargains as at the auction-sale of Kirke's effects, which took place soon afterwards.
Yorke guessed correctly the course of the fugitives. He felt sure Kirke would make his way across India to Bombay, by which route he would be secure from pursuit, and he would probably pass through a station on the borders of the great northern province where Sparrow was now residing as a deputy-commissioner. They would surely be in straits for money, the poor wife, meanwhile, probably only dimly conscious of the cause of their flight, and the extent of their ruin. To Sparrow, accordingly, he remitted all his available cash, the savings of two years' campaigning. It was to be given to Kirke, if he should pass that way, as a loan from an old friend still under great obligations, to be repaid at his convenience; but Sparrow was on no account to give any clue whence it came. His expectation was justified by the event. Sparrow, acknowledging the remittance, wrote that the Kirkes had arrived that very day, and were staying with him. "He wants his coming here kept quiet, of course, and is in a tremendous hurry to be off again, and his haste is fully accounted for, if what one hears be true of the rage of his creditors at his escape. His wife looks dreadfully knocked up, poor thing — and no wonder, having to nurse her baby on such a journey: but we hope to get a decent ayah for it before they start again. I have given him the money you sent and a trifle of my own; and indeed he is likely to want it all, for a dawk-journey to Bombay from here will be awfully expensive, to say nothing of the fatigue. It makes one quite sad to think that she, poor thing, should have to go through it, she looks so frail and ill. I suppose many people would not have received them under the circumstances, and it is somewhat awkward for me in my official position, beyond a doubt; but as you know, Mrs. Sparrow and Mrs. Kirke were always such great friends, and we could not think of giving them the cold shoulder in their trouble."
Trouble, indeed, thought Yorke, as he read the letter; has it then come to this, that Olivia is a suppliant for shelter to her own waiting-maid?
Kirke had managed his escape well. Had he remained at Mustaphabad, or ventured to travel home by Calcutta, he would certainly have been arrested; but between the north and west of India there stretches a wide expanse of country, which in those
days divided them more completely than would an intervening ocean; and Kirke, once on this line, got to Bombay and disappeared from the country before any of his angry creditors had time to set about intercepting him.
On the day after Kirke's flight Yorke sent in his resignation of his appointment as second in command and officiating commandant of the regiment. This, however, was not at first accepted: he was offered the opportunity of reconsidering his resolution, and the great people at headquarters even went so far as to let him know that they thought such a step foolish and quixotic. No slur of any kind attached to him in the affair, it was said, and it was intimated to be the intention of the commander-in-chief to make him permanent in the command of a regiment with which he had been associated from its first formation, and with which—so the great man was pleased to say—he had performed distinguished service. But Yorke stood by his resolve. "I owe everything professionally to Kirke," he wrote to a friend on the headquarter staff. "He took me up when I was an obscure subaltern, selected me out of others, and gave me my first start in life. It is to his generous praise that I owe my promotion and my honours; I should despise myself forever if I allowed myself to step into the poor fellow's shoes." "The regiment must have a commandant of some sort," retorted his friend; "it is not your fault that there happens to be a vacancy. Surely it may as well be you, who know the regiment thoroughly, as another." "The other," replied Yorke, "will not be a personal friend of the late commandant." Then came news that the government was about to reduce several regiments; whether Kirke's Horse would be among those to be maintained, would depend probably on who might be in command. He had to consider the interest of his brother officers, therefore, and not only his own feeling. This argument came home; but he was firm in abiding by his resolve, and after a few miserable days spent in command against his will, he obtained Sir Montague Tartar's sanction to be struck off the strength of the garrison pending confirmation of his resignation, and quitted Mustaphabad. Major Egan therefore succeeded to the command of Kirke's Horse pending arrival of the new commandant an officer promoted from another regiment, whose term of office, however, was a brief one, for the famous regiment was disbanded a few weeks later, in the general reduction which followed the restoration of peace in India.
Although his well-wishers in high places were somewhat annoyed at what they termed his obstinacy in the matter, Yorke was too good an officer to remain long unemployed; and in a few months he was appointed to the divisional staff of the army and posted to a station on the frontier. The change of employment was a welcome one at first, and in the occupation of learning the duties of this new branch of his profession he sought eagerly for distraction from the depression of spirit left by Kirke's ruin, and all the miserable circumstances attending it — his own unwitting share in the catastrophe, and the unhappy fate of the woman whose memory was still so dear.
Time passed on, and no news came of the fugitives, all trace of whom had disappeared; and the event which had created such absorbing interest at the time soon began to grow dim in general recollection; but with Yorke himself there still remained an enduring scar. Until he left it, he was not aware how deeply the interest of his life had been wrapped up in the regiment with which the most important part of it had been passed, and what a blank the severance from it had made; still more how deeply he missed the presence of the one woman who, though she never could be his, was yet more to him than all the world besides. Active and assiduous in the new business of his profession, he yet found himself now more lonely and friendless than at any time since he first landed in the country; and, perversely shunning the society at his command, he yet yearned in his solitary home for the friendship and sympathy which he would not summon up the effort to seek among new faces. There came up now for the first time the home-sickness which is wont to beset the solitary exile, and at times the inclination was strong to throw up his appointment and return for a while to England. The joys of married life could not be his, but there at least a home awaited him, and the renewal of family affection. Why should not that suffice for him as for so many others? In this frame of mind, growing daily more disposed to be solitary and cynical; hardly perceiving himself how different the man was becoming from the shy but ardent lad of ten years before, who landed in the country full of hope and enthusiasm, yet grimly conscious of the folly of allowing himself to cherish a feeling of dissatisfaction with a career more successful than his wildest day-dreams used to
picture; Yorke was summoned to join the Umbeyla expedition, and by no man in the army was the distraction of active service more eagerly welcomed. To a man suffering from distaste for his own life, there is no medicine so effectual as helping to take the lives of other people. In that short but very sharp campaign Yorke received his first wound, not, however, before he had done enough good service both to gain and to earn another step of brevet rank. A still greater distinction — shortly afterwards, while on sick-leave on the hills, he was offered the vacant command of a smart regiment of native cavalry; and exchanging his staff-duties with delight for his old congenial employment, he hurried down to assume his new command. But although his wound was healed at the time, he had returned to duty too soon. A sharp attack of illness followed; the wound broke out afresh; and although he would now have wished to remain a little longer in the country, to identify himself with his new regiment, he was fain to act on the doctor's advice, and set off to Calcutta as soon as he was well enough, there to appear before the medical board and start on sick-furlough for England.
CHAPTER 42
========================================
CHAPTER XLII.
Starting
from Calcutta on his homeward voyage with wounds barely healed, and still suffering from the lassitude induced by fever and weakness, Yorke was at first more disposed to indulge in his habitual mood of dwelling on the disappointments of the past than to find enjoyment in anticipations of the future. And yet there was room for satisfaction as well as regrets in a retrospect of the twelve years since he had last seen the sea. How short the time seemed to look back upon, and yet how much had happened in it! Then he was landing in India a friendless cadet; now he was a lieutenant-colonel, decorated, commanding a crack cavalry regiment — an object of admiration, as he thought with not unnatural complacency, to all the younger officers of the army — and with every prospect of attaining to the command of a division before he got to middle age. Truly, if the Mutiny had brought desolation to many it had made a career for the survivors: pluck and luck had done it in his case; with some more of the latter commodity to help, what might not be possible in the future? What a tremendous personage I used to consider a lieutenant-colonel and C.B. in my young days! To be sure, lieutenant-colonels used to be very old fellows then, and C.B.'s rarer than they are now; but still, even according to present lights, it is not a bad grade to have reached before one is thirty. And yet," thought he, "the change is not altogether for the better. I was fresh and ingenuous then, a believer in men and women, and one dream of my youth at any rate has not been realized. It is not success which has made me hard and cynical — if I am so, as people say — but disappointment and humiliation. Men call me the lucky colonel, and think me greatly to be envied; they little know that I have failed to get the one thing I ever really tried for — that the woman on whom I had set my heart held me of no account, and while trifling with me, was offering her own to any one else to take who wanted it!" Yet notwithstanding that his hopes in this matter were dissipated forever, the young man still found a sort of melancholy pleasure in remaining constant to the one idea which had so completely possessed him. For him, he thought with bitter satisfaction, love was gone forever; let him rather feed on the memory of his first and only passion, than find a debasing consolation in some lower standard of affection.
But although still brooding on his disappointment, and spending many solitary hours in vain conjectures about the fate of Olivia, of whom and her husband nothing had been heard since their flight, youth will still assert itself; with returning health this artificial dejection gave way to a more natural frame of mind; and Yorke sometimes felt angry with himself to find that he was not hugging his passion as he intended to do, but was looking forward like all his fellow-passengers with pleasurable excitement to the prospect of returning to England, his spirits rising daily and his appetite improving as the steamer clove her way into cooler latitudes. But
an incident occurred on the voyage which turned back forcibly for a time the current of his thoughts into the old channel.
A party of the homeward-bound passengers had taken advantage of a two-days delay in the transit through Egypt to stop at Cairo; and Yorke, who was of the party, not feeling strong enough yet to join the rest in an excursion to the
Pryamids
, was standing at the window of the hotel in the early morning, after the others had set out, watching the beginning of a Cairo day, when a couple of regiments of Egyptian cavalry came by on their way to exercise on the plain beyond the city. To Yorke the sight was sufficiently interesting; and as they passed by he noted their appearance with critical eye, admitting with scrupulous fairness the superiority of the horses to those of the Indian cavalry, but concluding with much satisfaction that the latter were vastly superior in the
physique
and appearance of the men. How my old regiment would ride these fellows down, to be sure, or my new one either! he said to himself. The colonel of the leading regiment, too, apparently a foreigner, was a portly-looking middle-aged man, who sat his horse like a sack. "I don't fancy that worthy gentleman would have a long tether of office if he came under the orders of Sir Hugh," ejaculated Yorke mentally; "one can't expect much from a regiment with such an old muff at the head of it." The officer who rode at the head of the second regiment was, however, a very different sort of man; and Yorke's eye was caught at once by his erect, soldier-like figure, and the splendid horse he rode — still more, as he came near, by his handsome, resolute face. The officer was so dark-complexioned that Yorke was puzzled at first to guess whether he was a European, but suddenly was struck by the resemblance to well-known features. Except for the long black beard, the man looked the very double of Kirke; nay, surely it must be Kirke himself, — and Yorke hurried out of the room, and ran along the corridor and down the staircase; but by the time he reached the entrance-door of the hotel the rear of the regiment was passing by, and the leading files were hidden from view.
The hotel-manager was standing at the entrance smoking an early cigar, and nodded affably to his visitor. "A fine sight that, isn't it?" he observed, as if the cavalry reflected considerable credit on the hotel and himself; "but I suppose you have seen a good deal of the same sort of thing in your part of the world?"
Yorke asked him if some of the officers were not Europeans.
Oh yes, was the answer, "the pacha employs a lot of Europeans in all kinds of ways, army and everything else. That was a European who rode at the head of the second regiment, which had just gone by leastways — an American, which was the same thing — a Colonel Wood.
An American! repeated Yorke, wondering whether he could be mistaken; how did the manager know that?
Why, because he gave himself out as such, to be sure; the manager knew him well enough; he kept himself
to
himself pretty much, but he often came to the hotel to dine or lunch, at times when there were no Indian travellers going through.
Did the manager know how long he had been in the Egyptian service? Yes, to be sure he did; about two years. Was he married? No, certainly not; at any rate he had left his wife in America, added the manager with a laugh. Cairo wasn't much of a place for European ladies, he reckoned, nor American ones neither. The colonel was living in lodgings by the barracks, and used to get his wine from them [meaning the hotel], and there was no lady living with him, that was quite certain. "But you seem interested about the gentleman," continued the manager, looking at Yorke curiously; there are some rum customers in the Egyptian army, I can tell you;" and Yorke hastened to turn the conversation.
The parade-ground was said to be too far off for a convalescent to walk there under a Cairo sun, and Yorke went up to his room to await the return of the regiments. They must, however, have chosen another route for the march back, for they did not come past the hotel again; but Yorke felt no doubt that it was Kirke he had seen. No American of that stamp would be idling at Cairo with a tremendous war going on at home; the time, too, of his appearance in the country coincided with Kirke's flight from India; besides, although his face was altered, there could be no mistaking that figure and seat on horseback; he could have recognized him among a thousand. And Yorke's thoughts flew back to the time when Falkland and he first made out Kirke from the residency roof — on the eventful day of Falklands death — riding in front of his men on the plain beyond the trees; and he thought
how clearly Kirke's appearance was stamped on his recollection, as he rode up to the residency on the same evening, flushed yet cool, while the excited members of the garrison pressed round him to grasp his hand, — and his measured manner of speaking as he announced the sad news that Falkland had fallen — Falkland, whose death at the moment of relief had so dimmed the joy of victory. But although eager to speak with his old comrade, and still more to hear some news of his wife, Yorke abstained from seeking him out; Kirke probably still regarded him as an enemy, and certainly would not wish to be recognized. And Yorke started that evening with his companions for Alexandria with ample food for his thoughts during the rest of the voyage — old sensations of joy and pain aroused again which had been almost laid to rest.
CHAPTER 43
========================================
CHAPTER XLIII.
If
unalloyed happiness is ever realized by mortals, it is surely experienced by the Anglo-Indian who returns home in reasonably good health, just when England is clothed in the fresh garb of early summer, after an exile long enough to create the strong desire for revisiting his native land, but still young enough to be open to new impressions, and to be able to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. To Yorke, who had left England a boy, and whose experience of English society had been limited to such as could be furnished by a country parsonage, the first glimpse of London life which he got on arrival afforded unadulterated pleasure; the bustle and brilliancy of a fine London afternoon in the height of the season seemed perfectly delightful; and dining with some military fellow-passengers at the club to which he had been elected just before coming home, and joining them afterwards in a box at the opera, followed by a snug supper-party, he felt quite ashamed of himself as he went back to his hotel for feeling in such high spirits. But after giving a day to ordering the different articles, including a complete fit-out from the tailor, necessary for bringing the exile within the pale of civilization, he hurried down by the express to Wiltonbury, where lived his mother, and his only sister, married about six years before to the Reverend William Morgan; feeling as he drew near to his destination a mingled sensation of anxiety and excitement. The associations connected with his mother were all agreeable — although in the recollection of early life at the old parsonage near Wiltonbury his father occupied the chief place — and until of late they had maintained a fairly regular correspondence during his absence; but while his mother's letters were duly filled with all the gossip of Wiltonbury, whither she had moved on his father's death, about a set of people of whom he knew nothing, he had become sensible by degrees that the details of his life with which his own letters had been filled at first were not readily understood, and only created a simulated interest, and so gradually his letters had become briefer and more silent about himself, as well as more infrequent, and thus a sort of barrier of indifference had grown up between them, arising out of the want of common sympathies. But the yearning for home love and home life was strong within him. His mother and sister, at any rate, would think him worth loving in return; and when, as the train ran into the station, and he recognized his mother in the graceful, well-preserved lady standing on the platform, and stepping out of the carriage, was caught at once in her embrace, he felt for the moment an assuagement of the hunger for sympathy which had so long remained unsatisfied.
"My dearest son!" exclaimed Mrs. Yorke through her veil, clasping him in a gentle embrace; and then recovering herself quickly added, "but you must look after your luggage, my dearest Arthur, for the train will be off again in a moment; I lost a carpet-bag on this very platform only three years ago."
"Dearest Arthur!" said Mrs. Yorke with fervour, holding his hand in hers as, the baggage duly secured, they drove off in a fly; "and so I have really got my precious son home again! Oh, my dear boy! it has seemed sometimes as if I could hardly bear your absence; and then to think of all the dangers you have been exposed to! No words can describe what your mother has gone through in her anxiety about her son."
"It seems to have agreed very well with you, mother, notwithstanding," said her son, smiling; "I declare you look hardly a day older than when I went away."
"Ah, my dear Arthur, I see you are a flatterer, like the rest of your sex," said the lady, tapping him on the cheek; "have you come back to laugh at your poor old mother?" But Mrs. Yorke simpered as if evidently pleased at the compliment; and indeed it might have been difficult to believe that the handsome, still young-looking lady, whose tasteful half-mourning
just indicated a suspicion of widowhood, was the mother of the bronzed soldier of thirty sitting by her side. "But here we are at home," she continued, adding in a whisper as he assisted her to alight, "it is two shillings for the fly, and sixpence for the driver."
"Here is my little cot, you see," said Mrs. Yorke, as they stood in the passage; "a humble affair, no doubt, after the palaces you are accustomed to in India; but it suffices for my simple wants. Here, Susan," she said to the neat little maid who opened the door, "take the colonel's portmanteau up-stairs, and then bring luncheon." But Yorke, who had not yet become accustomed to the sight of young Englishwomen performing men's work, thereon shouldered his trunk himself, and followed the servant upstairs.
"My dear," said his mother when he returned to the dining-room, "you might have let Susan carry your luggage; or cook would have helped her, for the matter of that. These girls are as strong as horses; they have no nerves, happy creatures! And now let me give my precious son another kiss. I should have known you anywhere by the likeness to the photograph you sent me home two years ago. And yet there is something different — ah, I know what it is! You were taken in a beard. Oh, dearest Arthur, what has become of it? It did look so military."
"Yes, indeed, I came home with a beard as long as my arm; but I found all the fellows in town were not wearing any — I mean all the fellows in the army; so I went to Truefitt's this morning and had mine taken off, so as to look respectable."
"Respectable, my dear Arthur! and beards are so fashionable now; every clergyman in the Close wears one — except the dean, and he, you know, is quite elderly, and so could not be expected to begin at his time of life. But here is luncheon — let us sit down; you must be hungry after your journey, and the express comes at such a pace, too."
"But where is Rebecca, mother? I have been looking to see her on arrival. I ought not to be sitting down quietly to eat and drink till I have seen her."
"Rebecca cannot go out just now, you know, or I am sure she would have come to the station with me; but I have made an engagement for you to dine at St. Clement's this evening. I daresay William Morgan will be looking in presently, however; he is very busy, of course, but he will make a point of calling on my colonel, I am sure. Only to think of your being a colonel, and it is just twelve years since I lost your poor father! Ah, what a position was that to be left in! left to struggle on in the world all alone, for you had gone to India, and Rebecca was but a child. What wine will you take, my dear Arthur? This is very nice sherry, I am told, although I don't know anything about wine myself: and this is some dinner-claret which Canon Rogers recommends very highly."
Mr. Morgan called before luncheon was over, and after shaking hands with his brother-in-law, took his seat at table; a stoutish man of middle height, with a voluble mouth and double chin, inclined to be bald and grey. He, too, appeared to have lately joined the beard movement, his chin being covered with a short stubble. "Not anything, thank you, my dear madam," he said, waving away with his hand Mrs. Yorke's offer of a cutlet; "you know that I never take anything at this time. Well, my dear Arthur, for so I hope I may venture to call you, and so we have met in the flesh at last. Well, well, I trust that our communion together may be mutually blessed to us. We in the ministry must not be above gaining edification from the laity. It is indeed a great privilege to be connected with so distinguished an officer. I assure you I consider it so indeed."
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Yorke; "and a very proud mother I feel, I can assure you."
"I must always feel a very deep interest in India," continued Mr. Morgan ——
"And think, William," interrupted the lady, "what my feelings must be as a mother! Oh, Arthur dear, I have so much to ask you about the wonderful scenes you have passed through! We must have such long talks over it together."
"I was very nearly going to India myself," continued Mr. Morgan, "in a missionary capacity; but things were providentially ordered otherwise." Mr. Morgan here alluded to the fact of his having obtained the snug preferment he now held.
"I should think you found quite enough to do in that way at home," observed his brother-in-law. "Even from the short glimpse of English life that I have had, there appears ample room for missionary work in England."
"Ah, but to preach the glad gospel tidings to the benighted heathen, what a blessed privilege that must be!"
"You may travel through the length of
India without meeting such an unmitigated heathen as the London rough."
"Ay, but to think that they should worship dumb idols and stocks and stones."
"Better that than to worship the devil."
"My dear Arthur," said his mother in a gently protesting voice, "this is not a mess-table, that you should talk in this shocking way."
When Mr. Morgan got up to go, it was settled that Mrs. Yorke and her son should not come down to the vicarage till a little before dinner; "for you know, William," said the lady, "I have so much to talk about with my dear boy, my prodigal son who has come back again; so you must spare him to his fond mother for a while."
Mrs. Yorke's house was in a quiet street leading into the Close, small, but with a quaint exterior suited to the locality, neat and comfortable within. At the back was a garden, bounded by the high wall of the deanery, neatly kept, and with a trim lawn just large enough for croquet. And when she led the way into the garden, in order that they might "enjoy comfortably a long talk about India," the sight of the croquet-hoops set her off in explanation of the mysteries of that fascinating game, just then coming to fashion; and on learning that Arthur had no practical acquaintance with it, she would fain have made a beginning of teaching him then and there, proposing to send Susan round to the precentor and one of the minor canons, who were devoted to the pastime, to make up a party. But just then some callers arrived, and were succeeded by others; and when all had left it was time to set out for the vicarage, up to which period Mrs. Yorke had successfully restrained her burning curiousity to hear all about India.
Yorke and his mother walked down to St. Clement's in the fine May afternoon, a little boy who had been chartered by Susan to carry the box of presents he had brought with him following in the rear; and Mrs. Yorke exchanged greetings with various acquaintances by the way, to each of whom he was introduced as "my son the colonel from India, you know, so distinguished — a C. B. and Victoria Cross, you know; "while the person addressed, generally a middle-aged lady, would reply: "Dear me, you don't say so! how proud you must feel! very gratified and honoured to make your acquaintance, colonel, I am sure," — or words to that effect, till Yorke became quite ashamed of hearing the formula repeated, and hardly knew whether to be cross or amused. Arrived at the vicarage, a newly-built substantial house on the outskirts of the town, hard by a conventicle-looking building of hideous elevation, plastered white, the servant who opened the door said that mistress was in her bedroom, would they please step up there; and accordingly Arthur followed his mother up the stairs to that apartment.
His sister, who was sitting in an easy-chair by a fire, although the afternoon was a warm one, rose as he came in, and her affectionate greeting as she embraced him with tears in her eyes seemed a measure of compensation for any disappointment he might so far have felt. Then sitting down again, but still holding his hand, she looked up, and smiling through her tears, said, in a fervent and yet languid way, "This is indeed a blessed moment!"
"Our dearest Arthur looks well, does he not?" said Mrs. Yorke; "who would think that he had been through such perils?"
"Yes, indeed," said Rebecca. "Ah, my dearest brother, you can have no idea what anxiety we suffered on your account during that dreadful time."
"Yes, truly," echoed Mrs. Yorke, "it was a dreadful time for all those who had friends in India. And only think, Rebecca, of his taking off his beard, and yesterday, too, of all days! So naughty of him, for I do admire beards for gentlemen."
"He looks very well as he is," said Rebecca, still holding his hand and looking up smiling; "but you have not seen the children yet. Mother, would you ring the bell for them? I have made inquiries about that under-nurse," she continued while Mrs. Yorke performed the office in question, "and here is Mrs. Jones's answer. Satisfactory generally, except that she wants ten pounds; but I say I will not give more than eight, and all found."
"And quite right too," said her mother, with more energy of manner than was usual with her. "There is no good in giving servants high wages; they only spend it in dress and nonsense."
"That is just what William says," continued Rebecca, "that it is our bounden duty to discourage extravagance among those around us. He says I ought not to give beer-money, or beer either, and I am sure they would be better without it."
The conversation was interrupted at this interesting point by the entry of the nurses and children — Rebecca, aged five, Maria four, Georgina not quite three, and Arthur Yorke, the youngest, in the nurse's arms. Presentations to their uncle
followed, while the litter producing his parcel of Indian toys at once achieved a temporary popularity. But the children became so noisy in their raptures at the spectacle of the Benares bricks and lacquered elephants opened to their delighted view, that their mamma was unable to endure their presence any longer, and they were ordered back to the nursery, whither their uncle followed them, while the ladies remained to settle the important question whether beer or its equivalent should be included among the attractions to be offered to the candidate for the vacant appointment.
The children being so well occupied with their new toys as no longer to notice the stranger, Yorke soon beat a retreat to the drawing-room, and the opening of the hall-door shortly afterwards announced the arrival of the master of the house, who came in at once to greet him.
"Welcome to our humble home," said the proprietor, shaking hands with him again; "I am sure we are all very proud and very delighted to receive you among us. Excuse my not having been here to meet you, but the minister must be about his work, you know, instant in season. Have you seen Rebecca yet? Up-stairs, I suppose: yes, the nurse is in the house; the affair may come off at any moment, you know. It is quite an unexpected thing, to be sure, after having been married to my last poor dear wife for so many years without having any family, to find the little people coming upon me so fast, and it is a great responsibility placed on us."
Mr. Morgan made this observation as though regarding the arrival of his young family much as a gardener might view the sudden appearance of a crop of mushrooms on his lawn — a phenomenon, as it were, for which he was in no way responsible. "However," he added, "all these things are ordered for the best. But your sister will come down to dinner, I hope. Dear me, it is close on the time! I will just go and wash my hands, and join you directly."
Mrs. Morgan descended to the drawing-room shortly afterwards, leaning on her mother's arm, and then the servant announced dinner.
"We are quite alone, you see," said the vicar as they sat down; "we should have liked to ask a few friends to meet you, but of course that is impossible just now. Rebecca, my love, I hope you will be able to make a good dinner. How are all the children? I have really seen nothing of them to-day, I have been so busy."
There was plenty to be told of the children's doings, to which their father gave as much of his attention as could be spared from the serious business of the meal; for if the vicar did not eat luncheon he made up for it at dinner, encouraging his wife by example as well as precept. The meal was good and well served, although a parlour-maid was the only attendant. And Mr. Morgan seemed anxious to play the host well, but somehow the party was not a lively one. He was evidently accustomed to be looked up to and made much of, in his own house as well as out of doors; and although disposed to give the first place to his wife just at present, in view of her interesting situation, he did not fit well into the second place. Rebecca had lost for the time the energy needed for playing up to her husband's self-love, her brother could not come quickly into the allusions to parish politics and infantine joys and sorrows which made up the conversation, and Mrs. Yorke was evidently oppressed by her son-in-law's presence, while the latter, although treating her with outward respect, extended at the most a sort of condescending tolerance to the good lady's remarks, as if anything she might say was not worth serious attention. In fact, Mr. Morgan could hardly be said to listen when either of the ladies spoke; and as Rebecca's share of the conversation was limited pretty much to saying across the table at intervals, "Dearest Arthur!" accompanying the remark with a languid smile, there was not indeed very much to listen to.
"Ah yes," said Mr. Morgan, waking up from one of his little fits of absence, when the wine had been placed on the table after dinner; "Rebecca, my dear, will you take a glass of port wine' before you go? No? Are you quite sure it would not do you good? It is no good asking you, ma'am, I know," he continued to his mother-in-law, helping himself at the same time, and passing the bottles to Yorke. "Are you going to have the children in this evening, my dear? Better let them play in the garden a bit, I should think, the evening is so fine. The colonel and I will join you, I daresay, before the little folks are in bed;" and the ladies, taking the hint, withdrew.
"What sort of men have you in the ministry in India?" said Mr. Morgan presently, filling his glass again and holding it up to the light.
Yorke replied that he supposed they had their faults very much like other people,
but that they were not a bad set of fellows on the whole.
"I did not mean that exactly," said his brother-in-law, in a tone as if slightly offended; "but have they gifts of preaching, for example?"
"I don't know about gifts, exactly. Some of them have the gift of preaching very short sermons, without prejudice to quality. There is Padre Blunt, for example — we always call them
padres
in India, you know — makes a point of never going beyond ten minutes, at any rate during the hot weather. That is a very useful gift when the thermometer stands at ninety-five."
"It is not everybody, of course, who has these gifts" — and Yorke understood him to imply by his tone that the article in question was to be found in the speaker — " but every man can at least testify to the truth. I hope they do that?"
"Why, of course; they all belong to the Church of England. There are some Roman Catholic chaplains too, but they keep to the soldiers, and one does not see much of them. Very excellent men they are for the most part — not highly educated, perhaps, but devoted to their work, and ready to face any danger."
"Ah, indeed! well, I am glad to hear it," observed the vicar, who nevertheless spoke as if he were very sorry to hear it.
"Yes, our chaplains and they work very well together. There is a very good feeling between them generally; they have the same end in view, you see, and both classes are servants of government."
"Indeed!" observed Mr. Morgan. "Well, I suppose the climate tends to laxity of doctrine."
"I don't know much about the doctrine, but there is no laxity in practice when the call is made. There was Martin, for example; I daresay you never heard of him" — the vicar shook his head compassionately — "well, if ever there was a saint on earth it was that man, and he was what you would call a strong evangelical; but he used to be always capital friends with the Roman Catholic priest. They both died, poor fellows, while attending the sick in the European hospital at Haizapoor in the great cholera year, when my regiment was stationed there."
"Well," said the vicar, "things have not yet come to that pass in England, although we are sorely beset by wolves going about in sheep's clothing; but there is one flock at least which I hope is safely folded from the danger," and the speaker smiled complacently, with obvious reference to the whitewashed building next door.
"Our good colonel tells me," said Mr. Morgan, standing before the fireplace, when the gentlemen came into the drawing-room, in which a fire had been lighted on Rebecca's account, which was after the children had gone to bed, "that the government actually has Papist priests in its pay in India. This is surely grievous tidings."
"It is objected to by some people, certainly," observed his brother-in-law, "as the money has to come from the people of the country, who are neither Protestants nor Catholics; but I never could see the force of the objection. You must have soldiers of some sort, and it is better to make them religious if you can, than to leave them utterly uncared for."
"And do you call it making them religious, my dear sir, to strengthen them in all their Popish practices? Only to think," said Mr. Morgan, turning up his eyes and nodding his chin, "that a government which calls itself a Christian government should actually spend its money in the spread of idolatrous practices!"
"A Christian government! You speak as if Roman Catholics were not Christians. Why, out in India we look on Roman Catholics as being the very next thing to ourselves in point of faith."
Yorke, it will be seen, was but a simple young fellow, and his brother-in-law evidently thought him so, for he did not care to pursue the argument, but looking before him as if addressing the company in general, said, after a pause, "Ah, well, well, I fear the state of things among our erring countrymen in the East must be indeed grievously lax."
"I don't know about that," said Yorke, taking him up. "You see, when the next faith you come in contact with is that of a Mussulman or a Hindoo, one gets to look on a Roman Catholic as something very close indeed."
"That is surely a very shocking, state of things. I fear Papist errors must be working their insidious way in India as rapidly as here. This laxity of thought is evidently a device of Satan to ensnare our weaker brethren."
"It is a laxity which you do not appear to be in danger from here at any rate, judging from my short experience. The drum ecclesiastic seems to be beaten freely down in these parts. People are apparently not likely to go wrong for want of being called hard names."
"True Christians, my dear colonel," said the incumbent, with an air of superiority, "must be instant in prayer and labour for the true doctrine delivered unto them, in season and out of season."
"It seems to me, with all deference, that you are all so busy quarrelling with those Christians who don't agree exactly with yourselves, that you have no time to bestow on the very large number who are not Christians at all. Yet they are the people who stand most in need of your ministrations. If a man is truly religious, it is surely of comparative insignificance whether he is a religious Protestant or a religious Roman Catholic, or whether he is a Churchman or a Dissenter, still less whether he is a High or Low Churchman. Why don't you let him go to heaven his own way, and turn your theological weapons on the large and increasing class who don't believe in Christianity at all, or rather who have never taken the trouble ever to so much as think about heaven or hell?"
"That is very shocking," observed Mrs. Yorke; "but, my dear Arthur, you military men use very strong language."
"Dearest Arthur always was so impulsive," said Rebecca, languidly, from her easy-chair; "but here comes the tea; perhaps you will make it, mamma."
Tea
ended, Rebecca presently retired, first giving her dearest Arthur a languishing embrace; and Mrs. Yorke and her son left soon after, the lady bidding her son-in-law, on parting, to be sure to send for her the moment she was wanted — an injunction which, however, while repeatedly thanking her for, he did not promise to obey. He also declined her invitation for the small party which Mrs. Yorke was going to give on the following evening, in honour of her son's arrival, waving it away with his hand as if the idea of his joining in such an amusement was too absurd to be seriously considered, and saying he must leave such things to the gentlemen
of the Close who had nothing better to do, while at the same time asking Yorke's acceptance of a small bundle of pamphlets to be read at his leisure. They were all, Yorke afterwards found, by the same author, and on the same subject, — "The Errors of Popery;" "The Protestant's Guide;" "Hold fast the True Faith;"
"The New Gunpowder Plot;" "The Christian's Anchor in Papist Storms;" "A Brand saved from the Burning, being the narrative of the deliverance of a young Protestant lady from conventual toils." Mr. Morgan had spent six
months abroad upon this feat, it appeared, while holding his former living, and with the aid of the young lady's father and mother had succeeded in bringing her back to England and Protestantism — the crowning triumph of his ministry, he used to say; but what became of the rest of his parishioners during his absence he did not mention.
"William is very clever, I know," said Mrs. Yorke, as she walked home with her son, "and is so highly looked up to by the people who attend St. Clement's and all that, which is very gratifying to see, of course; but I wish he would keep on better terms with the people in the Close — it makes it so awkward for me. How different it used to be in your poor dear papa's time! He was always quite friendly with the neighbouring clergymen, and the squire too, who never came to church at all."
Arrived at home, Yorke proposed that they should take a turn in the garden, the evening being still light and warm, thinking that his mother would be glad of the opportunity for the contidential chat that they had so far been prevented from having: but she pleaded the necessity for early hours, that she might be up in time for early service at the cathedral next morning, so her son repaired to the garden for his cigar alone, and paced the little gravel-walk in bitter mood. Coming back to what he thought would be home, he found himself among strangers. His mother and sister, he felt, were as widely separated from him as if he were still in India. Was it his fault or theirs, that there should be no real affection between them? And coming in he locked up the house and sought his room, feeling inexpressibly lonely: and, as always happened when in such mood, his thoughts reverted to the days of his young love, and to vain conjectures about the secret
of Olivia's disappearance.
Next morning, as an early riser, he was up as soon as his mother, and ready to accompany her to the cathedral. The service was held in the lady-chapel, which, however, was quite large enough for the congregation, there being altogether ten persons present, all females but himself; and the officiating clergyman — in consideration perhaps of the smallness of the congregation — did not detain them long, but read through the service with a wonderful rapidity that suggested long practice.
"There is something so refreshing about this early service," said Mrs. Yorke, as they walked home; "it seems to shed peace over the whole city — especially on all of us who live under the shade of these beautiful towers."
"Judging from the attendance the population would certainly seem to be slumbering peacefully."
"The dean's family ought to have been there, of course; but it is indeed sad to see the want of faith in these days — and the service is but a short one, too."
"It is indeed: I never heard it done at such a pace before."
"My dear Arthur," said his mother, "you should not scoff at religious things."
After breakfast, Mrs. Yorke busied herself about preparations for the evening's entertainment, so as to be free for the afternoon callers who might he expected; and her son inquired whether it would be possible to hire a horse in the place, that he might ride out and revisit the old vicarage, and the scenes familiar to his boyhood. Oh yes, his mother replied, Perkin the flyman kept riding-horses: Lucilla Brabazon, the dean's youngest daughter, used to have riding-lessons in the summer. " But pray be careful what you are about, my dear Arthur; they are very spirited creatures, I am told. Mr. Chanter, the minor canon — the one who called
yesterday — went out riding on one, and was run away with and thrown off, and it was a mercy he was not killed. And Johnny Colson, too, hired one to go out hunting last winter, and had I don't know how many falls. So I hope you won't do anything rash, and just before my party too."
"My dear mother," said Arthur, "do you know what you are saying? Johnny Colson is not a colonel of cavalry." Having said this, he regretted the speech, from a sense of the absurdity of the position.
"Of course," replied his mother; "how stupid of me to have forgotten that! I ought to have known that you could ride
anything. You will ride past the window before you set out, won't you, Arthur dear? I should so like to see my colonel on horseback."
"I won't promise," said he, laughing; "I must first see what these ferocious beasts are like, and whether they can muster four legs apiece."
Yorke returned to dinner, appointed for midday so that the kitchen might be free for the business of the evening; and Mrs. Yorke was so full of guesses as to who might call, that she had apparently quite forgotten to inquire how her son had passed the morning. "The dean is sure to call, for he is always so friendly; and I daresay Mrs. Brabazon will come later, on her way home from her afternoon's drive. Maria Brabazon, you know, is still unmarried, poor thing; and she has become quite High Church since Rebecca's marriage. Before that she used to make a point of going to St. Clement's. I am always friendly to her, poor thing; though really the way in which she went on after Rebecca's engagement to Mr. Morgan was something too absurd."
The two-o'clock dinner was hardly over, when, as Mrs. Yorke had predicted, the callers began to arrive, and in number even beyond her expectations; for in fact Yorke's arrival had made a considerable sensation in the little city, and there was a general desire among the community to do honour to their distinguished fellow-townsman. And earliest among the visitors was the bishop, who walked down from the palace, and knocked at the door almost before the clock struck three. This was a distinction which had never been conferred on the house before, and Mrs. Yorke could not conceal her elation.
The bishop asked if Colonel Yorke was going to make a long stay. He supposed that Wiltonbury would be found dull after the life of excitement he must have been accustomed to.
"My son will find plenty to do, I daresay," broke in Mrs. Yorke; "he has been out riding this morning. He is a colonel of dragoons, you know."
"Not exactly dragoons, mother," said Arthur, good-humouredly; "I belong to the Indian army, the native cavalry."
"Quite so," returned Mrs. Yorke, tartly. "I know that of course, my dear Arthur, as well as you do. He took one of Perkin's best horses, my lord. My son can ride anything, you know."
The bishop, smiling, observed that Colonel Yorke's accomplishments were well known to all his townspeople, and then went on to say that he believed a nephew of his was serving in Yorke's regiment.
"Is young Brandt a nephew of yours? I am pleased to know that; he is a promising young fellow."
"Your lordship's nephew in my son's regiment?" broke in Mrs. Yorke. "That is indeed a singular coincidence. Fancy Arthur never having told me that!" And Arthur explained that he had been with his new regiment for only a week or so, and had not had time to know much about his brother officers.
"Well, I am very glad to think, Colonel Yorke," said the bishop, rising to take leave, "that the lad will have the advantage of serving under so distinguished an officer. I hope we shall have the pleasure of seeing a good deal of you while you are down here. Mrs. Brandt and my girls are going to look in on you this afternoon, I believe, Mrs. Yorke, but they walk too slowly for me, so I am obliged to take my constitutional alone; "and the old gentleman trotted down towards the Close, leaving Mrs. Yorke in a state of excitement which sustained her throughout the afternoon.
"Only fancy," she said to the next visitor who arrived, "our good bishop, who was here just now, tells us that his nephew is under my son in India in his regiment — a cavalry regiment, you know; and he seemed so glad about it, and thought that it must be so good for the young man — and so I have no doubt it is. My dear son!" continued Mrs. Yorke, looking towards him with effusion, and then turning towards her visitors, an elderly lady and gentleman, continued, "of course I feel a very proud and happy mother."
"Just what the bishop was saying," remarked Mrs. Yorke, shortly afterwards, to another visitor, who had complimented Yorke on his good appearance after his long sojourn abroad. "He walked down from the palace just now, you know; he has a nephew serving in my son's regiment — a most curious coincidence, is it not?"
Johnny Colson also was among the callers. "He is coming to my party this evening, you know, so is bound to call beforehand," Mrs. Yorke had said to her son; and talking with his old schoolfellow, it seemed to Yorke for the moment as if the world had seemed to stand still, for although Mr. Colson had joined the beard-movement and his face was covered with hair, it was otherwise of a boyish cast,
and the whole look of the young fellow was as of one who had never been able to assert himself.
"You have come at our dull time, sir," said Mr. Colson; "you won't find much stirring down here just now, I am afraid."
"I suppose Wiltonbury is never very lively?"
"The winter is our gay season," replied the young man, "any number of hops are going on then."
"Yes; and Johnny is in great request as a partner, I can assure you," said Mrs. Yorke, patronizingly. And then, with a knowing look at her son, she continued, "Have you seen anything of Miss Vardon lately, Johnny? Johnny's last flame," she added, by way of explanation to Arthur; "he is a sad flirt," at which compliment Mr. Colson sniggered and blushed, but seemed gratified.
"You mustn't call me 'sir,'" said Yorke, as he opened the hall-door for him.
"Thank you; that is very kind of you, I am sure. But you have become such a swell, now, you see — a colonel and all the rest of it."
"Only brevet rank, my dear fellow; at any rate, I am always your old friend and schoolfellow." For poor Johnny, who used to stand above him at Marlborough, had missed his chance in life, and was still a clerk in Hammond's bank on a small salary, and with no prospects.
"He has never got over Rebecca's marriage, my dear," said Mrs. Yorke when her son returned to the drawing-room. "You never saw anybody in such a way as he was when her engagement to Mr. Morgan was made known." And Mrs. Yorke drew herself up and smiled significantly at vacancy, as if Johnny's disappointment had given additional zest to the affair.
Mrs. Brabazon called with her eldest daughter, coming, as Mrs. Yorke had anticipated, in her carriage. This lady took an early opportunity of addressing Yorke as "captain," and was thereon set right by his mother. "Colonel Yorke, Mrs. Brabazon — my son is a colonel of cavalry, you know; and only think — the bishop, who was calling here just now, told us that it was his nephew who is in Arthur's regiment, under his command, you know."
"Yours is only brevet rank, I suppose," said Mrs. Brabazon, determined to put down Mrs. Yorke; "my son says that brevets are given away for nothing nowadays. Do you know my son? "He is major of the —th, the senior regimental major."
"Yes; but Robert is only a fair-weather soldier, you know, mamma, and has never seen a shot fired," said Miss Brabazon, who had a good-tempered if not a pretty face. "I hope you have got your Victoria Cross on view, Colonel Yorke, I do so want to see one."
"No indeed, he has not, Maria," said Mrs. Yorke: "he has not even brought his regimentals with him, only his presents for me and his sister. I must really show you these," she said, rising and producing the different articles for the others' inspection. "Sweetly pretty, are they not?"
"Yes, pretty enough," said Mrs. Brabazon; "all Indian
curios
are pretty much alike. I suppose you pick them up for a mere song out there?"
"Then I wish," said Miss Brabazon, "that Robert's regiment would go to India, that he might pick up a few for his sisters. He may take all our old songs to exchange for them, if he likes."
"You were saying, mother," said Yorke, after the ladies had gone, "that your acquaintance here was very select. Couldn't you strike that awful woman off your visiting-list?"
"What! Mrs. Brabazon? My dear Arthur, why, she keeps her carriage, and mixes in all the county society. She says smart things, I grant you; but it is not to be wondered at; for what between the poor dear dean's extravagant ways, and having to pay her son's debts ever so many times, and all those plain girls of hers, and not one of them married, I don't wonder at it. She was in a dreadful taking when Morgan proposed for Rebecca, and I don't think has ever forgiven me. She had quite intended him for Maria." And Mrs. Yorke's face, as she reflected upon that time of triumph, wore a look of unwonted sagacity.
CHAPTER 44
========================================
CHAPTER XLIV.
The
party, which came off on the evening of the day above described, began at eight o'clock, at which time Mrs. Yorke appeared in her pretty little drawing-room, attired in a very becoming grey silk dress, her soft bands of hair set off by a little arrangement of lace and ribbon that hardly deserved the name of cap, and altogether looking by the subdued candle-light more like what Arthur's sister might be than his mother. The dining-room was set out with tea and coffee, under superintendence of a waiter assisted by the
parlourmaid; and thither the guests repaired on arrival, before being ushered into the drawing-room. They were some sixteen in number, the gentlemen being for the most part clergymen; while Mr. Drewitt, who with his wife was of the party, although only a solicitor, was almost more than clerical in manner, in virtue of transacting legal business for the dean and chapter; and Arthur could not but notice that the only ladies invited were married and middle-aged, with the single exception of Sophie Colson, who came with her mother and brother. There was no one, therefore, to act as a counter-attraction to the hostess, towards whom almost all the single men adopted a tone of gallantry which was evidenthy customary. Penelope and the suitors, thought Yorke, looking on grimly, except that there is no Ulysses, and that Penelope seems nothing loath to have them feasting in her house. The three bachelor clergymen were Mr. Rawlings, rector of a parish in the town, a big, middle-aged man, in a slipshod white necktie, with a loud voice, and free and easy manner; Mr. Chanter, the minor canon, who wore his hair parted down the middle, and although still young, was already inclined to obesity; and Mr. Tritton, a young curate, with light curly hair and a smooth boyish face. Mr. Rawlings shook hands familiarly with his hostess, much as if he had been the family lawyer, and knew a good deal to her disadvantage, and nodding to the company generally, sat down in an easy-chair, and crossing his legs and resting his elbows on the arms of it, looked about him with his mouth open and under jaw protruding, as if he held the company rather cheap. Mr. Chanter paid his greetings in a more respectful but still confidential manner. The light-haired curate took Mrs. Yorke's hand with a fervent manner, casting, as he did so, a deferential look in her face.
For three long hours the party lasted. First, there was general conversation about nothing in particular, although with occasional reference to India, in which, however, the company seemed generally to wait for Mr. Rawlings to take the lead, while that gentleman seemed disposed on this occasion to be silent. Then Mr. Chanter, who had a fine deep voice, sang. "O ruddier than the cherry!" Miss Colson accompanying him. Then there was more conversation, carried on apparently with the understanding that it should on no account bear on any topic in which anybody could by any possibility take any interest, everybody in short except Mr. Rawlings having put on company manners for the occasion; and then Mr. Chanter sang a duet with the young lady, and later a second solo. Whist was proposed; but as Mr. Rawlings, who was understood to be the great player, was not in the humour, the scheme fell through. That gentleman, indeed, seemed to be a good deal out of humour. To young Colson coming near his chair he vouchsafed the remark, "Well, Johnny, how are things getting on at the bank; what's the rate of discount?" On another occasion, when Mr. Chanter was singing, he beckoned to the young curate to come towards him, and on the latter meekly obeying, said in an audible voice, "What's that thing Chanter is making all that noise about ?" in a tone to imply that singing was an accomplishment quite beneath contempt.
"No wonder," thought Yorke, trying to suppress a yawn, while silence fell on the company," that Morgan backed out of this. He is a man of more sense than I supposed."
At last the waiter announced supper, and the party adjourned to the dining-room; but as they had all talked themselves out before sitting down, the meal although prolonged was not lively. But when eating had quite ended, and it seemed as if the party must at last break up, there was still a hesitation about rising, and whisperings went on at Mrs. Yorke's end of the table. Mr. Drewitt, who sat on her left, was urging Mr. Rawlings on her right to do something which the latter apparently was indisposed to undertake. "Not I," he could be heard to say gruffly; "tomfoolery of that sort is not in my line. Why don't you do it yourself?" "How can you say so?" remonstrated Mrs. Yorke, over whom this gentleman seemed to exercise a sort of fascination; "everybody knows what a public speaker you are." "Well, if it must be, there is no help for it," said Mr. Drewitt, rising nothing loath; and, calling on the company to fill their glasses, announced that with the permission of their fair hostess he would propose a toast. He need not say who was the subject of it. There was present on that occasion one who, after an absence of many years, and undergoing numerous perilous escapes in the imminent deadly breach, had returned to his native land, there to receive the honours gained by the deeds of heroism, the fame of which had preceded his advent. It would ill become him, Mr. Drewitt, as a man of peace, to endeavour to describe the actions to which he referred. He would merely venture
to express a hope that the distinguished officer who was the subject of his toast might be prevailed upon at some future date to favour his fellow-townsmen with a recital of some of the moving scenes which he had witnessed; he would only refer on the present occasion to the domestic aspect of the event. What to the minds of the company assembled round this hospitable table must heighten in a peculiar degree the interest of the occasion, was the circumstance that the distinguished subject of his toast was united by the ties of closest relationship to the refined and charming lady who had for some years past been one of the chiefest ornaments of their local circle. He concluded, after more to the same effect, by proposing the gallant son of their elegant and accomplished hostess, with which toast he would beg to couple the name of their charming and accomplished and beautiful hostess herself.
Then the company rose to drink the toast, following the speaker's call to give it with all the honours, Mr. Drewitt himself leading off the cheers with his sonorous voice, followed by Mr. Chanter in his mellifluous baritone, and the curate's light tenor. Rawlings' gruff voice could also be heard, in a tone, as it seemed to Yorke, intended to be satirical; while Mrs. Yorke sat at the head of the table bowing her thanks, and raising her handkerchief to her eyes. Meanwhile Yorke, feeling thoroughly the absurdity of the situation, and half inclined to be angry, would have passed the thing off with a laugh, but that his mother began signalling him to reply in such a marked way, that there was no help for it without making a scene; and accordingly he had to rise and thank them on behalf of his mother and himself, for the honour that had been done them — which he managed to do without appearing ungracious, notwithstanding the vexation he felt. After all, the good people, except Mr. Rawlings, were all thoroughly in earnest, and quite thought they were paying him a delicate compliment.
"Well," said Mrs. Yorke, after the guests had left, which they did rather hurriedly on discovering that it was close on Sunday morning — "well, I think my little party was a great success; and oh, my dear Arthur, it makes me feel a very proud and happy mother to see you so much appreciated."
"I must say, my dear mother, I did not appreciate one of your guests. That fellow Rawlings seems a most objectionable style of man."
"My dear Arthur, what a horrid way of talking! I never heard anything so shocking. You will make me quite ashamed of you if you talk like that. Mr. Rawlings is a little brusque, but these very clever men often are like that. He took quite a wonderful degree at Cambridge, you know — an optime or a wrangler, or something of the sort — and is a fellow of his college, and has written for one of the magazines; quite a literary person in fact, and very much looked up to here. He has his little oddities, no doubt, but there is something so fresh and unconventional about literary geniuses."
"And it tends to make others unconventional too. I never felt so much disposed to kick a man before. But how comes he to be a fellow of his college and holding a living down here?"
"It is a college living, I believe. I don't quite understand the particulars, but it can be held by a fellow so long as he is a bachelor. To be sure, he might have married many times: Maria Brabazon was quite ready to have him, if he had proposed, and there were others, too; but of course it would be a great sacrifice for him to make." And it struck Yorke that his mother looked somewhat confused and self-conscious.
Next day being Sunday, Yorke accompanied his mother to St. Clement's, which was very fully attended, the pews being filled mainly by persons of the better class. The service was apparently not regarded of much importance, prayers being read by a curate, while Mr. Morgan looked about him from the communion table, as if taking stock of the congregation; the business of the morning was the vicar's sermon, delivered from the pulpit which towered above the reading-desk, and whence the preacher looked down on the top of the heads of the people in the pews below. It was a glib discourse, delivered with a powerful voice, and with readiness and self-possession, and without the aid of notes, and was throughout a denunciation of the horrors of Popery and the blessings of the evangelical faith, but was entirely free from any reference to religion; and as the congregation were apparently quite of the same way of thinking as the preacher, the address seemed to give great satisfaction. After service they took an early dinner at the vicarage, plentiful and friendly, to which Rebecca came down, as affectionate as ever, but too much absorbed in contemplation of her situation to take much share in the conversation. Arthur took occasion to express his
surprise at the well-to-do appearance of the congregation, for St. Clement's was in the poorest part of Wiltonbury, a suburb of newly-built cottages on its outskirts; but Mr. Morgan explained that most of them were not parishioners, but came from all parts of the town, showing what a grievous need there had been previously to its erection, for some receptacle for sound doctrine. The people who lived in the parish were mostly Dissenters, or did not go to any place of worship. And it was the pew-rents, he added, that made up the incumbent's income. Without them the charge would not be worth holding.
After dinner Arthur and his mother went to afternoon service at the cathedral. "I used to go here both morning and evening," said Mrs. Yorke as they walked home afterwards; "but Rebecca made such a point of my going to hear William, that I feel it a duty to attend St. Clement's in the morning; it is the curate preaches in the afternoon, you know. William has quite the gift of preaching, of course, and very striking and beautiful his sermons are; but I must say I prefer the cathedral service. There is a devotional aspect about it which you miss in the other, don't you think so? the cloistered aisles, you know, and the children clad in white casting up their souls to heaven — it imparts such a devotional feeling to the mind."
"Very much so — only I wish the little scamps had not pinched each other so during the service; and as for the lay vicars, they were the most thoroughly irreverent set of fellows I ever saw in my life. They could not have looked about them more if they had been singing at a music-hall."
"My dear Arthur, how can you talk in that way! You really have brought the most shocking notions with you from India. You need not bring tea just yet," she said to the maid as they entered the house; "perhaps," she added, by way of explanation to her son, "Mr. Rawlings or Mr. Chanter will look in presently. They do so occasionally of a Sunday afternoon to take a little rest after the labours of the day." But neither of these gentlemen paid her a visit on that evening. Yorke was much exercised in mind next morning whether, before starting for town to keep an appointment with his tailor, he should speak to his mother regarding her way of life. These men, young and middle-aged, dangling about her, must probably know that she had merely a life-interest in her comfortable little income; did she believe that they were really in love with her, or did she take them to be merely intending to carry on a flirtation? and if so, was an understanding of this sort decorous for a woman of her age? But he abstained from inviting any confidences on the subject, feeling that there would be no use in doing so. And he did not communicate the half-formed idea of persuading her to leave Wiltonbury for a while, and to travel with him or live elsewhere. After all, he could be with her only for a time, and why break up the home which satisfied her tastes? The things that jarred on his senses did not reach her. Above all, he felt that anything he might say would probably be communicated to Rawlings, who, he gathered from sundry remarks let fall by his mother, was the person she usually went to for advice, and might either lead to the man's making a declaration, or to some fresh impertinence on his part. But Yorke went back to London dull at heart, and feeling more lonely than ever. The vision of a home life had been dissipated by this short experience. What is there repulsive about me, he thought, that I can not only get no woman to love me, but that even my own mother and sister do not care a pin about me?
A day or two afterwards he received a letter from his mother announcing the birth of another niece. "You will be rejoiced to hear, my dearest Arthur, that your fond mother's heart has been relieved at last from its anxieties by this happy event. It was a terrible night for me, as dear William, thinking my nerves might be upset, insisted on my going home and leaving Rebecca with the nurse and the doctor. How I got any sleep, I am sure I don't know. There is a very good account this afternoon, but I have not been allowed to see our precious invalid yet; and oh, my dear Arthur, I was almost forgetting to tell you that an invitation has just come for us to dine at the palace the day after to-morrow, with such a kind apology for the short invitation. I have accepted, of course, for both of us." But Yorke pleaded town engagements, and gave a similar excuse later on when informed that the Wiltonbury Club only awaited his return to give a public dinner in his honour. His visits to Wiltonbury were made henceforward for the most part at unexpected times, and the evenings spent on such occasions at the vicarage, which was safe from the intrusion of Rawlings and the other frequenters of the little house by the Close.
Yorke had several bachelor friends in town, and once set in the way to further introductions, soon found himself in the full swing of the London season. He had got over the
mauvaise honte
which oppressed him as a lad. Everybody, he used to fancy in the time of his obscurity, was disposed to look down on the obscure subaltern of native infantry; but nobody could want to slight the decorated lieutenant-colonel of cavalry, who was one of the most fortunate and rising men in the service. Mutiny heroes had not gone out of fashion, and Yorke found himself welcomed and petted to the top of his bent. Always the London season has charms for the young of both sexes; but to be thoroughly enjoyed, it must come as it did to Yorke, with all the freshness of a new revelation.
And this is the man, he thought to himself sometimes, in the brief intervals allowed for reflection, who had made a vow to practise misanthropy, and never look in a woman's eyes again. I used to flatter myself that if I was not attractive, I had at least the merit of constancy. Yet here I am, as frivolous and pleasure-loving as any empty-headed fellow in London. And is it due to my constancy, I wonder, that I have not fallen in love again, or is it that the women make so much of the men, and are so easily won, that they cease to be attractive? And yet the one perfect woman I have seen was easily won too, though not by me. And then for a time he would fall to musing over the past, wondering idly what had been Olivia's fate.
CHAPTER 45
========================================
CHAPTER XLV.
Yorke's
first experience of the place which he had looked to make his home while in England, did not tempt him to a speedy renewal of it. When the London season came to an end, he took advantage of numerous invitations for shooting in the country to remain away from Wiltonbury, and the days were growing short when he paid his next visit, determined, if he could, to make his mother's house more of a home than he had done before. But whether it was that he had scowled so at them on previous occasions, or that matters had so far advanced that their visits could no longer be made with ease in his presence, at any rate on his arrival there was a general abstention of male visitors from their customary attentions, and his mother was evidently so ill at ease from the cessation of the mild pleasures which made up the business of her life, that her son felt that it would be only kind to shorten his stay; and while casting about for an excuse for going away, Yorke bethought him that he had not attempted as yet to make the acquaintance of the sister of his late friend Braddon. With this lady, who was married to a gentleman named Peevor, he had had some correspondence at the time of her brother's death, which had ended with a warm invitation to pay herself and her husband a visit whenever he should come to England; and it was with rather a lame apology for not having done so before, since they lived only a few miles from London, that he wrote to Mrs. Peevor, proposing to run down from town some afternoon and pay his respects. By return of post came her reply, and also a separate letter from her husband pressing him in such warm terms to spend at least a few days at "The Beeches," that he at once accepted the invitation, and passing through London started for his destination.
It was an afternoon train, filled with business men returning to dinner, who all settled down at once for their naps, leaving him free to speculate on the drollness of the situation, in thus starting off in mere restlessness of mood on a visit to persons not only personally unknown to him, but of whose antecedents and position he was totally ignorant. Braddon had told him that he had not seen his sister since she was a little girl, and knew nothing about her husband beyond the
fact that he was well off, but whether he was a clergyman, or a country squire, or a London business man, Yorke had no idea. And "The Beeches, Hamwell," might designate a "semi-detached villa residence" in a suburban terrace equally with a venerable country-house. The name was no clue to the nature of the place.
The train gradually disgorged its passengers at the different stations, who alighted for the most part bearing little baskets of fish or game, till at last the Hamwell station was called; and Yorke, getting out with some half-dozen other passengers, was received by a servant in smart livery, who took his luggage. A handsome close carriage was waiting outside for himself, also a spring-cart and horse for his portmanteau; his host was therefore evidently well-to-do; and this attention to the stranger indicated a hospitable spirit. It was too dark to make out the scenery; but the road evidently made a considerable ascent; and after the traveller had passed through the gates of an entrance lodge, the while trunks of an extensive avenue of ancient beeches which could be seen on either side of the drive, indicated that the house at the end of it was rightly entitled to its name. Clearly "The Beeches" was not a semi-detached villa. On the carriage pulling up at the door, a flood of light burst on it from the cheerful outer hall which now came into view; this opened on an inner hall, thick-carpeted, and garnished with statuary, armour, and ancient cabinets, and from which the outer air was carefully excluded; and Yorke issuing therefrom into a dimly lighted sitting-room, had some difficulty at first in distinguishing the different members of the little group sitting round the fire, who rose on his entrance in a somewhat confused and hazy way, suggestive of their having been disturbed in an ante-dinner nap. However, on collecting their senses, the inmates showed no want of heartiness of greeting — Mr. Peevor, who was of the party, coming forward to shake him cordially yet somewhat deferentially by the hand, and introducing him in turn to his wife, his eldest daughter Maria, his second daughter Catherine, and his youngest daughter Lucy, who was sitting in the corner at work, the only one of the party employed on any occupation.
A servant now bringing in lights, the visitor was able to obtain a view of the family. Mr. Peevor was a good-looking, well-preserved man, with grey and white whiskers and a fidgety manner, who might be between fifty and sixty. His wife was a tall, handsome woman, bearing a strong likeness to her late brother, but with a certain languor of manner in marked contrast to his active, vigorous ways. Mrs. Peevor was evidently too young to be the mother of her husband's three grown-up daughters, who, moreover, bore no resemblance to her; and Yorke guessed rightly that they must be the children of a former marriage. Miss Peevor was no longer young, and looked older than she was, wearing an air of ill-health and depression; and Yorke instinctively judged that her part in the drama of a young lady's life was already played out. Miss Catherine was fair and pale with light hair, neither plain nor pretty in face, but with a neat, slight figure; she was evidently short-sighted, and the habit of wearing an eyeglass screwed into one eye did not improve her appearance. Miss Lucy, on the other hand, also slight and neat in figure, was a little brunette, with pretty face, and bright dark eyes indicative of humour; but Yorke had not time to notice this particularly on the present occasion, as she still sat apart from the rest listening to the conversation, of which the burden for the most part was borne by Mr. Peevor, who was full of expressions of gratification at their guest's arrival, and his kindness in coming to see them. He apologized more than once for not having gone to the station himself to meet him, on the score of a slight cold, but he hoped the coachman had been punctual, and Rundall the footman ready awaiting him on the platform. "I ordered him particularly," said Mr. Peevor, "to be there well before the time — a good ten minutes, I said — to make sure, so that you might not be kept waiting a moment; one is so apt to catch cold these chilly evenings waiting on the platform;" and Yorke was assuring him for the second time that Rundall had executed the order faithfully — regardless (he could not help thinking) of the risk incurred by himself of catching that dangerous complaint — when conversation was suspended by the sound of the dinner dressing-bell; whereupon the party rose, and the host conducted him to his bedroom.
"We are treating you quite without ceremony, you see," said Mr. Peevor, by way of apologizing for the accommodation; "the great friend of my wife's poor brother is of course a friend of ourselves; but you military men can put up with simple ways on a pinch, I have no doubt. We have asked no one to meet you tonight, but there will be a few friends to-
morrow and the next day;" but as Yorke looked round the spacious and well-lighted room, which opened into a good-sized dressing-closet, most luxuriously furnished and fitted with every comfort, and with the walls almost covered with pictures, it seemed to him that no apology was needed. In none of his previous visits had he been so sumptuously billeted, for bachelors in big houses seldom get the best rooms.
The dinner which followed was a very elaborate one, handsomely served, and altogether superabundant for the party of six who sat down to it, not without further apologies on the part of the master of the house for its simplicity, on the score that Yorke must be looked upon as an old friend, to be treated without ceremony. Except himself none of them did much justice to it, possibly because they had lunched well at two, and partaken heartily of tea, cake, and muffins, at five o'clock, for such he afterwards discovered to be the custom of the house.
The conversation (kept up for the most part by the host) at first turned mainly upon Yorke himself; and, accustomed as he had been whilst on furlough to be petted and made much of, he could not help feeling quite uncomfortable at the continual references on the part of his host to Victoria Crosses, cavalry charges, gallantry displayed in the mutiny, and the general superiority of Indian officers to the rest of the military world. Not that Mr. Peevor knew much about these things; his knowledge of them, indeed, was evidently of the vaguest and most general kind, and but that his manner seemed guiltless of humour, Yorke might have fancied that he was secretly poking fun at him; and it was with difficulty that the guest succeeded in turning the conversation from India and military exploits to the inmates of the house. So much, however, Yorke gleaned incidentally while the conversation ran in military channels, that Mr. Peevor had an only son in the —th Hussars — "but only a lieutenant," as his father explained apologetically, adding that he had never served out of the kingdom. "Being an only son, I could not of course wish him to run any risks from foreign climates." Fred, it appeared, was expected home in a day or two, when Mr. Peevor observed he would have the honour and privilege of making Colonel Yorke's acquaintance; and the young ladies, who had so far taken no share in the conversation, being somewhat in awe of the stranger, although Miss Lucy's bright eyes twinkled with fun at Yorke's evident distress under her father's compliments, brightened up as their brother's visit was spoken of. It was such a treat to have Fred at home; he could so seldom get away from his regiment.
They seemed to have a very pretty place here, Yorke presently observed, by way of filling up a pause in the conversation.
Yes, it was a pretty little place, admitted his host, but small, you know; only about two hundred and fifty acres, including gardens and everything.
Was there any game on it? Yorke fancied he had seen something that looked like a cover on the way up.
Yes; there was a fair show of pheasants for the quantity of ground. Mr. Peevor did not shoot himself, but liked to be able to give a day's sport to a friend. The shooting, however, was nearly over for this year; there were merely enough birds left to keep up the stock; but next year he intended to lay down a fresh supply, and he hoped the colonel would do them the honour to come down early in October, when Mr. Peevor would make up a shooting-party to meet him.
So his host did not shoot himself. The next thing was to find out what amusements the young ladies affected. Miss Maria, the eldest, it appeared from the brief replies extracted, did not care about anything in particular, although she liked taking a walk after breakfast if the weather was fine; but on her father observing that they were seldom in the country at this season when the leaves were falling — falling leaves were so very unhealthy — Miss Catherine, taking courage, observed that this was how they always missed the hunting.
"Then you are fond of hunting?" said Yorke, turning to her with more interest in his manner than he had been able as yet to assume.
"It is the only thing worth doing in the winter," replied the young lady with enthusiasm; "but one seldom gets a chance of a good thing: usually one has to put up with the Brighton harriers, which is not very lively work; but we are going to stay here till Christmas this year, and so there will be some real hunting. The Southby-westershire hounds have their first meet in this part of the world to-morrow; it will be so nice."
"And you too are fond of hunting, I suppose?" said Yorke, turning to Miss Lucy, whose pretty little figure, he thought, was just of a kind to show to advantage
in a riding-habit. Miss Lucy, however, it appeared, did not hunt or even ride. She had had riding-lessons several times, she said; but was too nervous to go on with them; whereon her father observed that Lucy drove very well notwithstanding, and that she would drive the colonel in her pony-carriage next morning to the meet with pleasure. Mr. Peevor went on to express his extreme regret at not having a hunter to lend Yorke. He had a serviceable hack in his stable, he said, for the use of his friends when they were good enough to come and see him, although he did not ride himself; but he was afraid it would not do for hunting, although it was a very good sort of horse. The colonel, of course, was a fox-hunter, and no doubt had plenty of it in India; whereon Yorke was fain to confess that he had never been at a cover-side in his life, his sporting experience having so far been limited to pig-sticking; but added, incidentally, that it was part of his plan for the winter to job a horse or two, and join some friends in taking a hunting-box in the shires. The conversation now became quite animated; and on his admitting to the question put by Mr. Peevor — who said what a pity it was he could not have some hunting while staying at "The Beeches" — that his boots and other hunting-appurtenances were with his luggage, Miss Catherine ventured to suggest that very tolerable hunters could always be hired at the neighbouring town of Castleroyal; and Mr. Peevor following up the idea, it was arranged that one of the stable-men should drive over in the tax-cart the first thing in the morning, with instructions for a horse to be sent for him to the meet, whither Miss Lucy would drive him in her pony-carriage, while Mrs. Peevor was to take Catherine in the landau. The matter was indeed arranged almost before Yorke could say anything, and not without misgivings on his part; for although it would be pleasant enough to escort Miss Catherine, he did not much fancy making his first appearance on an untried hack. But Mr. Peevor seemed so delighted at the idea, saying that he would write to the stable-keeper himself to send his very best horse — it was worth Bytheday's while, he said, to oblige him, for he paid a pretty large bill there every year — that there was no backing out of it. And Mr. Peevor repeated the order to the butler about the despatch of the tax-cart so many times during dinner, as to suggest a doubt whether orders given in this household were very strictly obeyed.
Mrs. Peevor's two little girls came in to dessert, Minnie and Lottie, whose acquaintance Yorke now made for the first time. Minnie had a chair by her mamma, while Miss Lucy took Lottie on her lap and peeled a pear for her. Then the wine was handed round — claret, port, brown sherry, and two kinds of dry. Mrs. Peevor took a glass of port wine, which her husband took the opportunity of mentioning by the way had been prescribed by the doctor; the other ladies took none, and the gentlemen were soon left to discuss their wine alone.
"What are you taking, colonel?" said Mr. Peevor, moving down to his end of the table; "I am not allowed much wine myself just now — I've got a touch of gout flying about me; but I like to see my friends enjoy their glass. Sherry, eh? Ah, don't drink that wine; it's a fair wine enough, I admit, but let me help you to some of this; you will find this a really tolerable glass of sherry, I believe:" and Mr. Peevor proceeded to recount at length how, through the kindness of a friend who was always on the look-out to do a good turn in that way, he had been fortunate enough to come into the possession of a parcel of very rare wine which a large number of connoisseurs had also been on the look-out to secure; and indeed Yorke was a sufficiently good judge to perceive that his host did not exaggerate the excellence of the article. The conversation indeed took an altogether objective turn, turning on the various commodities in view from where they were sitting, to each of which a long story was attached, the end always being that the thing in question — a carved screen or a bronze or a piece of china, for the room was crowded with such ornaments — had come into the present owner's possession at a high price. "I make a point of putting aside a trifle every year," said Mr. Peevor, apologetically, "for little purchases of this sort; it improves the look of the house, you know, and gives one occupation." The pictures Colonel Yorke must look at to-morrow, in better light: he made a point of buying four or five pictures a year; it was a man's duty to encourage art, and then it made the visits to the Royal Academy so interesting if you went there with an object. Yorke thereon observed that his host was to be envied his life passed so usefully and agreeably, and surrounded by the comforts of such a happy home; but Mr. Peevor did not accept this cheerful view of his position, remarking sadly that there were many anxieties connected with a
household of that sort: the servants were a sad trouble; he had had to change his butler three times in the last year, although he had got a treasure at last. And then cooks were so troublesome, Mrs. Peevor was nearly worried out of her life by them, although the housekeeper had a high salary, and ought to save her from such trouble; with her delicate health this naturally made him very anxious, after his past sorrows. This Yorke understood to be an allusion to the premature decease of a former Mrs. Peevor. Then somehow the conversation came round to his children; and Mr. Peevor — although still meandering off at intervals into the price-current line — explained that although he had made it a duty to bring up his girls with comforts around them — indeed what right-thinking father could do less? — yet he hoped he had not spoilt them for a somewhat plainer life. The girls were girls, and of course could not expect to be always in their father's home; his first duty was towards his son, and the daughters must be content with a slenderer portion of such goods as he might possess. Not indeed that there would not be a trifle for each of them, if anything happened to him; in fact he might say he had not forgotten his daughters' claims upon him, and he had been able to reserve something substantial out of the means with which Providence had blessed him — nor would he let a trifle more or less stand in the way of a girl's happiness. Indeed the warning he had had from poor dear Maria's sad affair would naturally make him anxious to avoid such a misfortune again. And then, while Yorke was about to express his interest in this subject, en which his sympathy seemed to be invited, the worthy gentleman rambled off in maundering strains to the china and the bronzes, while his amused guest pursued the train of ideas suggested by what had gone before. Which of the girls, he thought, does he want me to marry? And to how many single gentlemen visiting here by turns has he made a similar confidence? And under the influence of this plain speaking, the sort of interest with which he had been regarding Lucy Peevor's pretty face during dinner was succeeded by a feeling of distrust.
When the gentlemen rose at last from table, — having, however, made between them a very small inroad on the contents of the five decanters, — and entered the drawing-room — the yellow drawing-room as it was called (they had assembled before dinner in another called the blue drawing-room), and Yorke now saw this apartment for the first time, gorgeously furnished and ablaze with lights — they found the ladies all more or less asleep over their books and newspapers; but although there was a general waking up, it could not be said that the evening was very lively. It was now Mr. Peevor's turn to be sleepy; Mrs. Peevor was languid and silent; Miss Maria evidently posed as the confirmed invalid, from whom no share in entertaining company was to be expected; the young ladies, in awe of their visitor, the first colonel they had ever met, were shy, and did not volunteer to lead in the conversation. But Yorke was too modest to put down the silence to this cause; the young ladies he had been accustomed to meet were mostly talkative, not to say fast, and he put their reserve down to indifference or
gaucherie
. But observing that there was an enormous grand pianoforte in a corner of the room, he proceeded, as in duty bound, to put the young ladies through their musical paces. Miss Maria, however, it appeared, neither played nor sang; but Miss Catherine at his invitation sat down at the instrument — her father remarking by the way that the girls always had a course of finishing lessons from the best masters when the family was in town — and played a little piece in a more or less feeble manner; after which Miss Lucy, who sang but did not play, warbled nervously a couple of English ballads without any particular tune to her sister's accompaniment, while the guest could not help feeling sorry that she should exhibit herself to such disadvantage, for certainly she was a very pretty little girl. After this the numerous pictures on the walls naturally suggested a reference to the fine arts, and an inquiry as to the young ladies' accomplishments in this line. Miss Maria did not draw, but her sisters after a little pressing produced their portfolios — Mr. Peevor remarking parenthetically that he had secured Jenkins, A. R. A., to give them lessons during the two last seasons in town; a very rising man Jenkins, and of course as a rule he did not take pupils, but Mr. Peevor had made a special arrangement with him, which the guest readily understood to have been connected with the drawing of a cheque for an amount unusual in such transactions. Miss Catherine drew large heads of uncertain outline in chalk. Miss Lucy little landscapes in muddy water-colours, and Yorke knew so little about the matter that he was able to praise the performances (which
might have cost about a hundred guineas apiece) without hypocrisy. Miss Catherine brought out her portfolio in a matter-of-fact way, as if the performance were an accustomed one to be gone through; but Miss Lucy gave a toss of her little head while showing her part of the exhibition, as if she estimated it at its proper value. Then Mrs. Peevor and Miss Maria retired — invalid habits being implied in the parting ceremony — and an adjournment was proposed to the billiard-room, an ample chamber fitted up with luxurious settees. Cigars of admirable aroma were now produced, and Mr. Peevor insisted upon Yorke's lighting one, notwithstanding the young ladies' presence, observing that the girls liked the smell, and that these were some very rare tobacco which he had succeeded in procuring through a friend in Spain; he did not smoke himself, but he liked to keep a tolerable cigar for his friends.
The young ladies' performances at the billiard-table were not more brilliant than their efforts in the fine arts; and as Mr. Peevor himself, although careful to explain that the table was of a peculiar construction made to special order, turned out to be an indifferent player, the game was rather one-sided. But it did not last long; for as breakfast was ordered for nine o'clock the next morning on account of the hunting, Mr. Peevor soon became fidgety about his daughters not being up in time, and hurried them off to bed; and then before wishing his guest good-night at his room-door, gave a last order to the butler for the despatch of the tax-cart to Castleroyal the first thing in the morning; after which he proceeded to make the round of the house to see that all the bolts and bars were properly secured, and the warning-bells attached to all the windows, without taking which precaution nightly, he said, he should not be able to get a moment's sleep.
As Yorke in the retirement of his luxurious bedroom reflected with a sort of amused curiosity on the proceedings of the evening, he felt almost angry with himself at harbouring involuntarily a suspicion of his generous host's honesty. And yet the suspicion would come up. Is all this luxury and apparent wealth, he thought, a mere blind to delude the world? And the stories came up to his mind of the different swindlers in recent years who had imposed upon the public for a brief space by prodigal scattering of money which did not belong to them. Does he want to get rid of one of his daughters before the impending smash takes place? Surely, if he is really the man of substance he appears to be, it would not be necessary to seek out a stranger like myself, a mere soldier of fortune, in order to get a husband for presentable, well-portioned daughters. Such wonderful eagerness is enough to make one suspicious. But this idea was quickly dismissed. Clearly there were no marks of the adventurer about Mr. Peevor. Nothing could be more in contrast to the uneasy forced composure that would be expected in the swindler who is striving to keep up appearances till ruin and exposure should overtake him, than the easy-going indolence of the worthy host, whose mind would not run upon trifles as it did if there were graver subjects to occupy it. Yet it seemed impossible to mistake the broad hints he dropped of his anxiety to dispose of his daughters. Mr. Peevor, however, was evidently a desperate fidget; and perhaps in view of poor Miss Maria's impending fate of old-maidhood before him, he had worked himself into a craze to make any reasonable match for the others before it was too late. Miss Maria had evidently been the victim of a disappointment. Yet why should eligible bachelors be wanting in such desirable quarters? And then Yorke, half ashamed of himself for his treachery to the passion which he taken a secret pride in cherishing for so long, amused himself with speculating on the absurdity of a lovemaking from which all the usual necessary ingredients of the pursuit should be wanting. No blind passion in this case, at any rate; it must be the mere caricature of the real thing when you set off by appraising all the lady's blemishes. To think of professing to make love to a girl when all the time you were criticising her little imperfections! Truly this would be a droll conclusion for a man who had prided himself on his power of romantic devotion. And after all, which of the two was it to be? Even this preliminary step was not yet settled. Thus musing, Yorke fell asleep.
CHAPTER 46
========================================
CHAPTER XLVI.
Next
morning Yorke, as an early man, was up before any of the family; and Miss Lucy, who was the first to come down, found him already in the dining-room reading the paper. Was it that some spirit of inner sympathy she had divined his thoughts of last night, or was it merely his fancy that he could detect, over and above her shyness, a certain consciousness of affinity, betrayed in a becoming little blush? But as they stood before the fire, hardly speaking, while the servants brought in breakfast, the children entered to create a diversion, soon to be followed by the others; and Mr. Peevor, who was evidently uneasy about something, began to make the conversational running, divided between particular inquiries after the amount of rest enjoyed by his guest, and the subject which oppressed him. "Don't you feel how chilly it is, Charlotte, my dear?" he said to his wife, as she took her place at the table a little later than the rest: "thermometer only fifty-five in the hall; it is really too bad of Johnson;" — and then it was explained to the guest that Johnson was the engineer engaged to look after the heating-apparatus, with a good salary, and strict orders to keep the temperature of the house exactly at sixty degrees. What
was to become of them through the winter Mr. Peevor was sure he could not tell, if these mistakes were made before the frost began. But there was worse news behind. One of the gardener's children, it was reported, had a bad sore throat; the doctor had been sent for; and until he should pronounce whether or not it was scarlet fever, the family were enjoined on no account to visit the gardens. "You cannot be too careful," said Mr. Peevor, "about taking precautions against infection;" and perceiving some grapes on the table, he hastily ordered them to be removed. They had been picked by the gardener himself; and Mr. Peevor went on to relate a story he had heard, how the children of one of the noblest families in the land, whose country house was fully a mile from any other building, and drained regardless of expense, had caught a fever from eating grapes which had been gathered by a gardener whose children were ill of the complaint. "Truly we live in the midst of dangers," said Mr. Peevor in conclusion, and this pious sentiment was the nearest approach to family prayers manifest in the household. "Now be sure, Maria," he continued, turning to his eldest daughter, "that you give up your walk on the terrace for this morning; the drive in front of the house is quite dry and pleasant;" — and then he went on to explain to the guest that his eldest daughter used to be a district visitor in the parish, but that after the younger children were born he was obliged to ask her to give it up; there was always something or other going on in the cottages down in the village; and it really was not right to run the risk of bringing infection into the house. "Of course," he added, "I made it a point of increasing my subscriptions to the local charities, so no one can say 1 don't do my duty by the parish; but we must not neglect our duty to our own household."
Meanwhile, breakfast being ended, although but a small reduction had been made in the solid dishes and delicacies which covered the broad table, it was pronounced to be time to set out for the meet; and the ladies being all ready for starting, Miss Catherine attired in well-fitting riding-habit, which showed off her neat little figure to much advantage, with hair carefully braided up under a jaunty little hat, while the others had sat down in their walking-dresses, it only remained to put on gloves and wraps and to make a start. Yorke was invited to take a place beside Miss Lucy in the pony-carriage, while, Miss Cathy accompanied Mrs. Peevor and the two children in the close carriage. Miss Maria was to take her walk in front of the house; Mr. Peevor also did not accompany them. He would wait to see the doctor and hear his report. Driving in cold weather did not agree with him; and, besides, he should not be able to look at his luncheon if he did not take a good walk first. So after helping them to mount he took leave of them on the door-steps, giving his wife a parting injunction to keep the rugs well over the children, and to be sure to pull up the carriage windows as they passed by that bad drain in the village. Then, just as Lucy had told the groom to let go the ponies' heads, he called to her to stop, while he ran into the house to fetch a cigar-case for Yorke, which he insisted on his taking with him, lighting a fusee as he said so, although the latter protested that he had a case of his own; and when Yorke looked doubtfully at the young lady, her father said that Lucy would like the smell of his cigar above everything. The young lady smiled, as much as to say, "You see how amiable I am," and raised her whip, the groom jumped up behind; and the quick-trotting ponies soon shot ahead of the heavy landau.
Yorke sat silent for a minute or two, puffing his cigar, admiring the neatness with which his fair driver handled the reins; while the latter, having something to occupy her attention, seemed for the first time to be at ease in his company. Come now, he thought, there is one thing at any rate she can do well; and indeed the accomplishment, as he learnt afterwards from her father incidentally, was due to some driving-lesson's received from Mr. Skid, the celebrated professional whip who drove the Brighton coach.
The country they drove through was thickly sprinkled with neat-looking country houses, in well-kept grounds. Yorke asked who lived in one of these — the next, in fact, to "The Beeches." "Those are the Chattertons," said Miss Lucy; "very nice people, I believe," she continued in answer to another query, "but we don't know them;" — and when Yorke artlessly put the same question again, as they drove by another handsome estate, "The Rashleighs live there," she said, "but we don't know them either;" and any doubts which Yorke might have had whether Mr. Peevor was disposed to exclusiveness on the score of his riches, were disposed of by the saucy little look of mingled vexation and fun the young lady gave to her companion,
as much as to say, "We don't know the people about here, and it is no good to try and conceal the fact; but it isn't our fault." After this Yorke put no more questions of the kind to the fair driver, though still puzzled to account for the evident social difficulty; and turned the conversation to other topics, praising the action of the well-bred, light-stepping ponies, and observing, as was natural, that it must be very pleasant driving such a nice turn-out about that pretty country and over such good roads. The young lady replied that she liked driving, but that one got very tired of driving about the country. She liked driving at Brighton better — there was always something to see. And something to be seen too, thought Yorke, casting a glance at the pretty charioteer, whose bright complexion looked all the better in the fresh morning air, albeit the rosy tint so becoming to the cheeks might with advantage have abstained from alighting on the tip of the little nose.
The place of meeting was soon reached, a public-house facing a small common, where the huntsmen and hounds and a dozen or so of horsemen had already arrived. There, too, was Miss Catherine's hunter in waiting, led by a groom in Mr. Peevor's very smart livery, mounted himself on a heavy cob, and beside them was a shabby-looking fellow from the Castleroyal stables, with the horse which had been sent out for Yorke, — a rather small, wire-drawn, but well-bred-looking animal, with very palpable scars about the knees, and not over clean saddle and bridle. On seeing his hunter, Yorke again repented of the idea of making his first appearance in such guise; but he was now committed to the thing, and having helped Miss Catherine on her arrival to mount, who, placing her little foot on his offered hand, sprang lightly into the saddle, he mounted in turn, and accompanied his partner after the hounds across the common to the nearest cover, for by this time a large field had collected, and the business of the day was beginning.
"I hope I shall be able to keep up with you," said Yorke to the young lady, but this little horse hardly looks like going;" and indeed the animal walked stiffly, with an action indicative of past work, and made one or two undeniable stumbles in their passage over the heath. "It is to be hoped I sha'n't meet any acquaintances here," he thought to himself; "certainly this is hardly the style of thing for a colonel of cavalry."
"Oh, that is Jumping Joseph," replied Miss Cathy; "he has been going with the Southbywestershires for the last four seasons. My brother Fred used to ride him when he was at home last year. He is a bit of a screw, of course, but he is a capital hunter, as you will find when he warms up a bit. Bytheday keeps none but goers, for the officers at Castleroyal are his chief customers, and must have something that will go, whatever the looks may be."
"He is a little small for the work, though, isn't he?" asked Yorke, oppressed with an introspective sense of the ridiculous, and still feeling a little nervous about his first appearance in public.
"Small horses are best for this country," replied Miss Cathy; "it is all in-and-out work, you know — two fields and a lane, and then two fields and another lane, and so on all day. Papa got me a big horse from Leicestershire when I began hunting, but I did not find him answer, and so I changed him for this little fellow, which suits me to a nicety." Miss Cathy's horse was a very handsome little bay, with both blood and power, but not much over fifteen hands high.
"But your groom's horse can hardly be suited even for this country," said Yorke, turning round to look at it; "he does not look much like going in and out of anything."
"Oh no," she replied; "papa likes William to come out with me, because he is so steady and never gets tipsy. William sticks to the lanes, and a good many of these gentlemen do the same," pointing with a wave of her hand towards the assembled field. "Besides, every field has a gate, you know, a providential circumstance in fox-hunting. Papa believes, I think, that I always keep close by William, and go through the gates too. If he had an idea what the thing is really like, he would never let me go out again, I am sure. Papa makes himself so anxious about things, you know.
The riders were now most of them assembled on the brow of a slight hill, while the hounds were working a copse on lower ground to the right, of which, from their position, they commanded a good view. The field was a large one, and Yorke could not help noticing that the young lady seemed to have scarcely any acquaintances amongst them. A few gentlemen had taken off their hats to her, but only one or two had come up to speak, and there seemed an absence of that cordiality and freemasonry which he had supposed to obtain among fox-hunting people. He had noticed the same thing while they
were waiting on the road by the common before mounting. A good many ladies had come to the meet in their carriages, which however all drew up at a distance from the spot occupied by Mrs. Peevor's landau and Lucy's phaeton, so that the latter were thus isolated from the rest of the company; and although there was a constant movement of dismounted cavaliers to and fro between the little inn and the common, and exchange of greetings among the company generally, no one approached the spot where they were standing. Yorke thought how grim Braddon's dark face would have looked if he had been present to witness this treatment of his sister; and felt within himself a rising indignation against the company, mingled with sympathy for his companions, while wondering what crime Mr. Peevor could have committed to cause this social ostracism.
One person had indeed come up to speak, a stout man on a stout serviceable-looking horse, who took off his hat to Miss Cathy, saying, "Morning, miss; I hope I see you well, and your good family too. A pretty large meet to-day ain't there, and a good going morning, I think. Morning, sir; you have got a good nag there, I see; an old friend is Jumping Joe; there ain't a better little 'orse in the 'ole 'unt, for a light-weighted gent like you, and I don't care which is second. Just you try him at water, sir, if you get the chance, and then you'll see what he can do. Bytheday always keeps good 'orses, but Joseph's his best; he might have been a three-figure 'orse hover and hover again if it wasn't for them little marks. This is your first day out, is it, sir? Well, I hope we shall see you pretty often, now you've begun. I don't come out very often myself, 'aving my little business to attend to, but I always take a day whenever I can get it. Morning, miss, and 'oping they are well at 'ome;" and as the stranger, lifting his hat, moved away, the young lady explained to her companion, that he was a sporting tradesman of Castleroyal, who supplied "The Beeches" with groceries.
Presently the twang of the horn was heard in the wood below, and one or two hounds raisins their voices could be seen breaking through the covert, and making across up the opposite grass slope, soon to be followed by the whole pack. At this joyful signal, there was a general commotion amongst the cavalry. Several made for a conspicuous gap towards the left; a large number converged towards a gate on the right, and the remainder, including Miss Cathy, went straight down the hill towards the fence in front.
"They have found," she cried; "come along," and sticking her eye-glass into her eye, galloped off. At these stirring signs Jumping Joseph, who hitherto had been standing quietly with his head stuck out in front of him like a donkey's, as if hunting was the last thing in his thoughts, gave a sudden kick up behind, expressive of delight, and followed down the slope. Starting off in this way, Yorke was puzzled at first to know what was the etiquette of hunting with a lady. Ought he to give her the lead? Or should he ride side by side? Or should he let her go first and follow politely behind? While in doubt, however, on this point, Miss Cathy had settled it by having got the lead, and he had just time to notice how prettily she took the first fence in a fly — a small hedge with double ditch — when Joseph came up to it and cleared it in a business-like way which showed that he evidently knew what he was about, and satisfied his rider at once that there would be no need to look foolish on his back.
"The fences are awfully blind still," said Miss Cathy, turning round as he came up to her; "but it is a capital scenting-day, and the fox has taken a famous line. We are in for a good thing"
And truly there might have been a worse introduction to the sport; a short distance to cover, a fine day, a speedy find, and a good mount, for the ease with which the little horse went up the slope showed him to be in good wind; and the judicious way in which he took his second fence, at the top, a bank and ditch, indicated the experienced hunter.
The country was just as Miss Cathy had described it, made up of small fields intersected by lanes and roads in every direction; so that although only a moderate proportion of the field took a straight line after the hounds, they were constantly being overtaken by equestrians who stuck to the lanes. Thus although the hunting might not be first-rate from a Leicestershire point of view, there was plenty of life and bustle, and for those who went straight, plenty of riding. Although the fields were small, they were mostly grass; no heavy rain had fallen to make the ground heavy ; and Joseph continued to prove quite equal to the occasion. He had not much of a mouth, which was to be accounted for by the fact that he carried a variety of riders during the season; but he understood his work thoroughly, picking his way so judiciously
as to leave his rider little to do; and Yorke, satisfied now that he might have done worse than make his
début
in a strange country on a hack-hunter, felt all the delight of a first introduction to the sport of kings. They were not quite in the first flight, although well up; for the young lady rode coolly and without pressing forward, and Yorke could not deny himself the pleasure of watching his companion take her fences, and so rode a few paces behind her and on one side. He had never seen a lady leaping before. She was certainly made for a cavalry officer's wife, he said to himself more than once, as he watched his fair partner now flying a fence, now cleverly topping a bank, and now, with equal address, jumping in and out of a lane, her pale face showing an unwonted bloom from the exercise and excitement, while honest Joseph executed his share of the task with unswerving adroitness.
It was a splendid day for the majority of those out, and a capital specimen of what the thing was like for a man who had never hunted before. The scent, without being strong enough to make a speedy finish, was held without a check for some miles, and the large field which had managed to keep up gave unusual animation to the scene. But now a new phase came over the landscape, which became wilder and less enclosed. They were going down the slope of a large stretch of coarse pasture land, which rose again opposite to them. Yorke noticed that several of the riders ahead were streaming away to the right or left, only some three or four keeping the straight line just in front of them; nor did it need the straggling line of pollards along the foot of the incline to indicate the presence of water there must of course be a stream of some sort at the meeting of these two long grassy slopes, probably something big. He looked at his companion to see whether she would go on; but either she did not see the obstacle, for she was very short-sighted, and her eye-glass was now flying about behind her neck, or she intended to charge it, for the young lady held her course. It was evidently a stiff thing, for one of the three riders still ahead went in, and another refused, although the practicability of the jump was proved by the third horseman clearing it. For a moment Yorke hesitated for the young lady's sake; but excitement overcame the spirit of self-denial, and as it was evidently a time for discarding etiquette, putting on pace he pressed Joseph past his companion, and crammed him at the jump. The brook or watercourse was not so very wide after all, but the water ran deep, and judging from the appearance of the fallen rider just emerging, there must be a still further depth of muddy slush beneath the sluggish current; and the banks being rotten, and the take-off bad, the little horse did not do more than clear it, and Yorke turned round in some anxiety to see how his companion would fare.
Miss Cathy had pulled up at the brink.
"Horse refused?" said Yorke, pulling up, and coming back to the edge.
"Partly the horse, partly the rider," said she, looking in consternation at the obstacle.
"I think he would clear it all right," said Yorke, who, in all the excitement of the run was anxious to push on, "if you send him at it well." And the young lady thus hidden, taking a short canter round, galloped her horse up again to the brook, but again stopped short at the margin.
"I can't do it," she said, piteously, and looking quite pale; "pray go on, Colonel Yorke, and never mind me; you will be thrown out altogether if you stop here any longer."
But Yorke could not do this. William, the groom, had of course long ago lost sight of them; and all the field behind them had disappeared, having turned aside to find a bridge. The rider whose horse refused had galloped off to a place higher up. The man who went in, having got his horse out and mounted again, was riding slowly up the slopes, refreshing himself as he went with the contents of his flask; the hounds had become lost to view over the top of the hill; they two were left alone on opposite sides of the stream, and Yorke, still hot and excited, was fain to jump back again and rejoin the young lady, a much more ticklish proceeding than the first jump, since Joseph showed manifest disinclination to this retrograde movement.
He then proposed that they should try to find a better place where he might give her a lead over, but she had evidently lost heart.
"I can't think what has come over me," she said. "I feel as if nothing could make me face that ditch; but you will get thrown out of the hunt; please go on, Colonel Yorke, please do, and never mind me." But this of course was not to be thought of. Then Miss Cathy thought that by going round a certain line that she
knew, they might manage to cut in to the run again, and accordingly they set off, following the example of the solitary horseman who had refused at first, along the line of the brook, till they came to a bridge nearly half a mile higher up; and thence they got into a lane and made for some cross-roads where Miss Cathy said they would be sure to get news. But when this point was reached no one there had seen the hounds. Thus the cast had proved a failure. In fact, Miss Cathy, although a huntress, had not really a much better eye for country than young ladies usually possess; and Yorke knew all the time they must be taking a bad line, but was too polite to say so. There was now nothing for it but to turn their horses' heads towards home, now about twelve miles off.
The young lady was full of regrets for having lost Yorke his run, and reproaches of herself for her want of nerve; but something in her manner caused Yorke to ask himself suddenly whether this refusal of the brook was not a mere artifice. True, he had no reason to be vain of his success with women; still Mr. Peevor had been so extraordinarily outspoken in his hints the previous evening, that it really seemed as if he wanted to give him one of his daughters on any terms; and if so, what more natural than that the bold horsewoman should be told off for the soldier? And as this suspicion crossed his mind, Yorke became silent and reserved. But whatever might have been her designs, no one could be less of a coquette in her manner than the young lady; and as they plodded homeward, occasionally changing their walk for a slow trot, he learned a good deal more about the family from her unaffected conversation than her father had told him already. Mr. Peevor, it appeared, bought "The Beeches" about three years ago; before that he had a house in Kent, which he had purchased after selling a house at Harrow Weald. That was something like a hunting-country, observed Miss Cathy with enthusiasm, but he was too young to ride to hounds in those days. Yorke inferred from this account that Mr. Peevor must have business in London which involved his living in the neighbourhood; and indeed the young lady implied as much, although she said her father now seldom went up to town. This comfortable kind of life then had lasted for some years; and this easy buying and selling of houses, although involving a nomad sort of life, indicated the reckless mercantile adventurer as little as did Mr. Peevor's own fussy, kindly manner, and his fidgetiness about trifles. In fact, this frequent change of residence was perhaps another manifestation of the fidgets. The financial-impostor hypothesis might evidently be discarded. Still, what was the mysterious cause for this apparent social ostracism?
It was nearly four o'clock before they reached home. On riding up to the front door, Yorke was about to jump off and ring the bell, when Miss Cathy with some hesitation asked if he would mind coming round to the stables, the footman might perhaps not like to hold the horses; and accordingly they turned off in that direction. As they passed along the side of the house, the sound of childish laughter could be heard from the upper windows. "Lucy is playing with the children in the nursery," said Miss Cathy; "it is just their tea-time." Dismounting at the stables, they entered the house by the garden door, and finding no one in the hall, the young lady proposed that they should go to the dining-room where luncheon would be waiting for them; but Yorke, observing that it was too late for that meal, asked if they might not join the children at tea; and, following his companion up-stairs they surprised Miss Lucy in the children's play-room (a roomy and very comfortable apartment), giving Lottie a ride on her back, her dishevelled locks doing duty as reins, while Minnie, whip in hand, was driving them round the room. The young lady displayed some confusion at being thus discovered, and looked very pretty in her blushes; while the gentleman, noticing with satisfaction that the long tresses falling over her shoulders derived no aid from artificial adjuncts, thought her toilet had never appeared more becoming. Such an unfortunate ending they had had to a promising day, explained Miss Cathy in answer to her sister's inquiries about the run; Colonel Yorke's sport had been quite spoilt by her timidity; she was so vexed with herself about it; and Yorke, by way of consolation under her evident distress, declared they had had a capital run as it was, and that if they had gone on to the finish they might have had another half-dozen miles further to ride home. "I am sure I can feel for you, Cathy," said her sister. "How you can ride as you do is a perfect wonder. I should throw myself off in an agony of fright as soon as I came to the first hedge." Then the tea was brought, and Miss Lucy having first retired to make her hair neat, they sat down to do
justice to the meal, there being still nearly four hours to wait for dinner, the children in great glee at having it in company. Yorke had not enjoyed any part of his visit so much before; the long ride had put him on confidential terms with Miss Cathy; her sister, having the children to talk and attend to, was less shy than she had hitherto appeared to the visitor; and when, somewhat later, Mrs. Peevor joined the party assembled round the cosy little table, she found them all in high spirits. And Mr. Peevor coining up-stairs afterwards, while naturally exercised in spirit at the guest having been brought into that humble apartment for the meal, could not repress his satisfaction at the pleasant footing in which he found him, and partook of tea and muffin placidly, sitting in the easy-chair which Lucy placed for him by the fire, and offering from time to time more or less desultory and inconsequential remarks about hunting.
CHAPTER 47
========================================
CHAPTER XLVII.
That
evening there was a large dinner-party at "The Beeches," and the luxurious meal of the previous day was quite a frugal repast in contrast with the profusion of luxuries which now succeeded each other in apparently interminable courses. The table was loaded with plate and glass; the gorgeously embossed bills of fare had evidently been printed for the occasion; the ample staff of servants was supplemented by various portly gentlemen, evidently hired waiters, and this time five decanters graced each end of the table with the dessert; but Yorke noticed that, except the vicar of the parish and his wife, none of the guests appeared to be neighbours. Some had come from town and were to sleep at "The Beeches;" the rest had driven from long distances. Yorke's part in the long repast was a dull one; being himself the principal guest, none of the young ladies fell to his share, but he took into dinner a stout lady gorgeously set out with jewels, with a low dress and ample bust, who did not talk much, but eat steadily through the bill of fare from beginning to end; while her husband, who sat nearly opposite, and also did his best to qualify for the gout, observing, after the ladies had left, that Yorke drank sherry, recommended him to try the claret, winking his eye knowingly as if by way of certificate of the goodness of the vintage. Conversation, indeed, was not the strong point of the evening, there being apparently a sort of general understanding that nobody was to talk about anything on which he or she felt the smallest interest; and Yorke could now appreciate the dismal forebodings which the young ladies while at tea in the nursery had expressed about the coming entertainment. The general company, however, seemed to regard the occasion with satisfaction as a sort of an alderman's feast, an opportunity not to be thrown away, the result being generally suggestive of doctor's bills and premature decease to come, while Mr. Peevor hospitably pressed his wines on his guests, supporting his recommendations of the different kinds by more or less direct allusions to their price, and little anecdotic stories of the mode in which various select parcels had come into his possession. Nevertheless, when the gentlemen rose there remained a considerable residuum in the ten decanters; and the honest fellows who waited on them evidently appreciated good wine, for a certain unsteadiness of gait was very noticeable when they handed the tea round afterwards in the drawing-room. The conversation in that apartment was not of a more lively character than that which passed at dinner, most of the guests being in that happy state of repletion which is not conducive to the play of wit or humour. It was a case, in short, of high living and plain thinking; but the two young ladies — the only unmarried ones present, for Miss Maria on this occasion kept her room — each went through their little performance of playing and singing. "I know it bores you tremendously," said Miss Lucy to Yorke, when he thanked her after the song; "but papa likes us to do it, and nobody listens, so there is no harm done, is there?" Mr. Peevor meanwhile introduced all the male guests in turn to Yorke, as "our friend Colonel Yorke, the distinguished cavalry officer, you know; of course you have heard how he won his Victoria Cross. We feel quite proud to have him as our guest; we hope he is going to honour us with a long visit," and so on, till Yorke became quite sulky with shame and vexation, although sufficiently impressed with the absurdity of the position.
Next day Mr. Peevor was bustling about all the morning, attending at their departure on the guests, who drove away at various times between breakfast and lunch, some in their own carriages, others in their host's. The two younger ladies also went off after breakfast to spend the day with a relative, and do an afternoon's shopping in town. Miss Maria was unwell and still keeping her room; so after
the house was clear Mr. Peevor took Yorke round the grounds, which he had not had an opportunity of doing before, and which he was very desirous to do the honours of in person, walking with a short shuffling step, a long staff in his hand, as if for an Alpine ascent. Everything outside the place was in keeping with the interior arrangements. The garden, although not a small one, was crowded with hothouses, added by the present proprietor; acres of glass were exhibited, miles of pipes, battalions of pumps and garden apparatus — everything, in fact, that art could do to pervert the working of nature and make fruits and flowers grow in the wrong season — with a perfect army of gardeners, mainly employed, it seemed, in getting in each other's way. It was not a good strawberry country, said Mr. Peevor; but they had strawberries that year in February, a good week earlier than anyhody else; and they had grapes on the table in January. Early strawberries were such a nice thing, observed Mr. Peevor, especially if anybody in the house should be unwell.
Of course there was a farm on the estate, with about twice as many hands as could possibly be employed, and a perfect museum of agricultural implements. Wonderfully economical these things were, said the owner, after you had worked off the first cost; and by growing your own oats you kept down stable expenses: he was not above saving money by careful farming. Then they visited the kennel, where numerous dogs were chained up; setters and retrievers which never were shot with, a coach-dog that did not run with the carriage, greyhounds unaccustomed to coursing, watch-dogs too lazy in such company to bark. "I am a bit of a dog-fancier," said Mr. Peevor, looking round the yard; "and all these are the best breed of their kind. I never spare expense to get the right sort, and I like to have plenty of them;" but he did not go up to any to pet them, and the poor beasts were evidently too little accustomed to notice or to liberty to show any excitement at the appearance of the visitors. The girls sometimes took one or two of them out for a walk, Mr. Peevor observed in reply to his guest's question — indeed, that pretty little spaniel in the corner belonged to Lucy; but he had felt obliged to make a rule that the dogs should not come into the house. Lucy was quite in a state about it at first, for it was a present from a friend of theirs, Mr. Hanckes; but dogs in a house knocked things about so; and besides, it was not safe where there were children, dogs were so uncertain in their tempers.
The stables were in keeping with the other appointments, and the stall accommodation much in excess of the owner's own wants, the only present tenant of the guests' range being Jumping Joseph, which Yorke had retained for further use; and the grooms seemed to be mainly employed in looking after the helpers.
On return to the house Mr. Peevor withdrew to his study, to write letters as he said, but as Yorke suspected, from a certain drowsiness of manner, to take an afternoon nap; and the latter found Mrs. Peevor in the blue drawing-room — the only occupant, Miss Peevor being still up-stairs — and the children engaged in one of their numerous meals in the nursery. No callers arrived to break the conversation which followed, the first he had had the opportunity of holding with the sister of his old friend. It was now more than twenty years since Mrs. Peevor had seen her brother, and more than ten since any correspondence passed between them; and as she was little more than a child when he went to India, her recollection of him was but a shadowy one, and her knowledge of his character and career of the vaguest. She knew that he had distinguished himself as a soldier; but in the absence of any specific acquaintance with the course of recent events in India, and holding but the most shadowy conceptions of the geography of that distant country, it would have been a hopeless task to attempt a detailed account of his life which would convey any distinct impression. With the sister it was evidently a pleasing duty to show attention to the friend of her brother, round whose memory there might rest a halo of affectionate sentiment; but when the conversation after a time turned to the surroundings of her present life, Mrs. Peevor's manner became much more animated. Silent, and perhaps shy, in general company, or when others would do the talking for her, he found that she had plenty to say on an occasion of this sort; and without any exhibition of curiosity on his part, Yorke was placed in possession of a considerable instalment of the family history, Mrs. Peevor being apparently only too pleased to meet with a listener, and at once perfectly confidential. Mr. Peevor, it appeared, had been married three times before; and in one of the numerous pictures on the walls of the blue drawing-room now pointed out, of an uninteresting-
looking young woman, there could be discerned a likeness to the eldest Miss Peevor. Mr. Peevor's cousin, explained the step-mother, and his first wife, whom he married when quite a young man. The pale young lady with light hair, whose portrait graced the opposite wall, was mother to Cathy and Fred; while the pretty little girlish face which hung over the mantelpiece was unmistakably that of Lucy's mother, whose span of wedded life had been even shorter than that of her predecessors. Mr. Peevor was a man of deeply affectionate nature, observed the latest partner of his couch; and these successive losses had greatly affected his spirits, and made him more nervous and particular about trifles than he used to be. The poor widower did not marry again for several years after he lost Lucy's mother, who died when she was a baby; and Mrs. Peevor hoped he might now be granted a fair measure of happiness after his long, lonely widowhood: although, she added, relapsing into melancholy, there was no saying how long she herself might be spared to be a companion to him; her own health had been very feeble ever since Lottie's birth.
Yorke hereon observed, by way of diverting her mind from the gloomy prospect of following her three predecessors, that he was sorry to see Miss Maria seemed to be in delicate health; to which Mrs. Peevor replied that she took after her poor mother in that respect, but had been much worse since her disappointment: and then, without waiting to be asked any questions, but evidently only too happy to find a listener, she proceeded to relate the story of poor Miss Maria's wrongs, and the shameful conduct of the affianced lover, who broke off the engagement almost at the last moment, after the wedding-dress had come home, and even the wedding-breakfast was ordered. It was all a question of money, although Mr. Peevor had behaved most generously; indeed he was liberal to a fault. Mr. Peevor, of course, was furious, and even declared he would pursue the perjured wretch with an action for breach of promise, but he was prevailed on to desist: this was before Mrs. Peevor was married to him. He sold his house at Harrow Weald, however, and left the neighbourhood; and poor Maria had never got over the affair.
From this conversation Yorke came to understand the relations which the different members of the family held towards each other. They were all good-tempered and kindly, and seemed to get on very well together; but no one cared particularly for anybody else, which was only natural under the circumstances. Mr. Peevor having at different times bestowed portions of his heart in so many different quarters, there was only a remnant available for his present wife; while the lady, although quite prepared to do her duty by her husband and step-children, was still able to regard them dispassionately as from an external point of view, and to describe their little foibles with kindly gusto to any available listener. Surely, thought Yorke, recalling to mind his friend Braddon's grim humour and reticence of manner, there are no people so unlike as blood-relations. Not, however, that Mrs. Peevor was disposed to disparage her step-children. Fred was evidently a great hero in her eyes; Miss Peevor was always "poor dear Maria." Cathy was of a thoroughly domestic nature, she said, though admirably fitted for a life of adventure; and Lucy was a dear affectionate girl — the children quite doted on her — and her cheerful disposition was such a comfort in that delicate household.
This revelation sufficed to dispel any lingering doubts remaining as to Mr. Peevor's solvency. He had evidently nothing of the reckless speculator about him. But as to what he was, and whence came the wealth so lavishly scattered, Yorke still knew nothing.
That evening there was another heavy dinner — the parish doctor and his wife being the only neighbours — but of people not quite of so much account as on the previous day, since none were invited for the night; and those who did not drive from their own homes came by train from London, being conveyed to and from the station in Mr. Peevor's carriages. Again there was the same interminable succession of courses, and the same strenuous efforts to qualify for the gout on the part of the stout ladies and their middle-aged partners — gentlemen of uncertain accentuation — who composed the company; the same lavish supply of costly wine, and the same unsteadiness of gait apparent in the servants afterwards. But the two young ladies, who had returned home just in time to dress for dinner, were in unusual spirits; for Miss Cathy had received a letter by the evening post to say her brother had got a few days' leave from his regiment, and would be with them next day. Fred was evidently the most
important person in the family, and Lucy's bright eyes were brighter than usual at the prospect of his visit.
"What a coxcomb I am, to be sure!" said Yorke to himself afterwards in the retirement of his room. "I was beginning to fancy the little girl was ready to join in the family plot and make eyes at me; while from the way in which she brightens up because, forsooth, a brother is coming home, she was evidently bored all the time with my company. But it is always my folly to be fancying that one woman or another is in love with me."
CHAPTER 48
========================================
CHAPTER XLVIII.
Next
morning there was an unwonted excitement manifest throughout the household. Even the fat butler was up when Yorke came down-stairs; Mr. Peevor was going about in a fidget from room to room, although the expected hero was not due for another hour, giving repeated injunctions to the housekeeper to be sure and keep up a good fire in Mr. Frederic's room — he might want to take some rest after his long journey; while numerous apologies were made to Yorke for breakfast's being put off on Fred's account. When, however, Fred did arrive, himself in the brougham and his luggage in the tax-cart, it was pleasant to witness the unfeigned pleasure caused by his arrival; but in fact there was no doubt about the general amiability of the whole family. Every one went pretty much his or her own way, but no one ever seemed out of temper; and there were none of those little bickerings sometimes observable in even the most affectionate circles — sparks of snappishness elicited by domestic friction. Fred was very like his sister Cathy, rather under middle height, with a slight figure, pale complexion, light hair and small moustache, and bearing the unmistakable appearance of the British light dragoon. He accepted the welcome lavished upon him with easy composure, was civil to his step-mother, affectionate to his sisters, and properly deferential to the guest, as became Yorke's reputation and position in the service.
"Well, Frederic," said his father, as they sat over the breakfast-table, "how is your colonel? quite well, I hope, and all the rest of the officers? Is there any chance of the colonel's coming to England this winter? if so, we shall be very pleased if he will do us the honour to pay us a short visit."
The colonel was coming over, Fred believed, for a few weeks' hunting, but that would be with friends in Leicestershire.
"I suppose so," replied his father; "the colonel's company is very much sought after, naturally; the —th is one of the most fashionable regiments in the service," he added by way of explanation to Yorke; "but wouldn't you like to invite Lord Albert Custance, or Sir Charles Allingham, or any of your other brother officers, to come over for a few days hunting with the Southbywestershire? I should be extremely pleased to see them. There is plenty of room for as many as you like to bring, and plenty of stabling, and corn too for all, and we would try our best to make them comfortable. This house is as much yours as mine, you I know, Frederic, so I hope you won't hesitate to do just as you like."
"Very kind of you, sir, I'm sure," replied his son; "but I don't think any of our fellows are likely to be coming this way just now."
"Well then, at any other time, Fred, you must bring some of them, you know — Lord Albert Custance, or Sir Charles Allingham, or any others. I daresay we shall be able to put them up pretty comfortably. We will give them the best of what we have, at any rate."
"Very good of you, sir, I'm sure," again answered the son, and then turned the conversation in a way which implied that Lord Albert Custance and Sir Charles Allingham and the rest of his brother officers would certainly not receive the invitation.
"Do you know the —th, colonel?" said Mr. Peevor, turning to Yorke. "I am sure they would be very pleased to make your acquaintance."
Yorke replied that he knew them very well when the regiment was in India, a few years ago, but that the old set had almost all sold out or exchanged since they came home.
"It is one of the most fashionable regiments in the service," observed Mr. Peevor — "expensive, of course, but I am able to give my son a comfortable allowance."
"Rather too expensive for some of us, sir, I am afraid," said the young man, laughing; "we haven't all of us got such good-natured governors as some one who could be named; but it keeps promotion going."
Great was the consternation in the household when it became known that Fred's visit was to last only three days, and that he was going to spend the remainder of his leave with some friends at Leamington. This only came out by degrees, for the young man was reserved in manner — in this, as in many other respects, a contrast to his father. It was towards the end of his short visit, when he had come to know Yorke better, that he made a partial confidant of the house guest. "I like coming home, and all that, of course," said the young man, as the two were lounging about the stables together smoking their cigars, "but I can't stand the way in which the governor goes
on about his money. He is very generous, and all that — in fact he allows me twice as much as I want to spend, and would give me twice as much more if I asked for it. I believe he would like me to keep a dozen chargers and a couple of drags of my own, and a hunter for each day in the month; but what's the good of being different from the fellows about you? Besides, our colonel, who got the regiment last year, don't like his officers to spend too much money. Our fellows are well connected enough, but they are not a rich lot; and we have lost some very good fellows, who had to go — that was in our late colonel's time — because the pace was too good. Then the governor is always being at me to bring some of them over to stay here. Well, they would behave like gentlemen, I know: but what is the good of having fellows here to be laughing in their sleeve all the time at the bad form in which things are done — the waste and show, and the lot of useless servants who do nothing but overeat themselves, and overdrink themselves too, very often? I declare my grooms would do more work than the whole lot in the stable here put together. Then my father is vexed because I'm going to hunt at Leamington instead of bringing my horses down here. Well, colonel, you've been out with my sister Cathy, and I dare-say you have noticed things, and the insolent way in which some of the people behave. I never go out without wanting to pick a quarrel with somebody. It is no good making a secret of it, and I don't mind telling you in confidence that I would rather not go through any more of it. How the girls stand it I'm sure I don't know; but I think women have more brass than men."
Perhaps the young man thought, by making a confidant of Colonel Yorke in this fashion, to disarm his criticism. At any rate, the latter, if he laughed at all, had no need after this revelation to laugh in his sleeve. And it will be seen that Mr. Peevor had acted the part of a Spartan father by his son, only making himself the example, instead of using the slave. Certainly, if he had deliberately tried to prevent the son from turning out a spendthrift he could not have succeeded better. Lieutenant Peevor was somewhat silent and cold in manner before the assembled family, although lively and unreserved when alone with his sisters, and having a practically unlimited command of money, he was scrupulously economical and methodical in habit. It was evident that Mr. Peevor's substance stood in no danger of being wasted by his son's riotous living.
That afternoon Yorke had to go to London on business. Indeed he had intended to bring his visit to an end on this day, but Mr. Peevor protested so strongly against his putting them off with such a short one, that, nothing loath to see something more of a family which interested him in more ways than one, he promised to return next morning in time for hunting; and the short day, which proved too wet for out-of-door amusements, was passed pleasantly enough, chiefly in the billiard-room with Fred and the girls, who were in high spirits at having their brother's company. And observing how much more lively they had become, the truth dawned upon him that possibly both the young ladies might heretofore have been a little in awe of their military guest. Indeed it was some time before young Peevor himself managed to cross the gulf which separated the subaltern and the colonel.
Fred appeared to more advantage when with his sisters in this way than when his father was present, and he was very gracious to the children, giving them rides on his back up and down the lobby — a thing which it had never occurred to Yorke to do. Nor should it be omitted that their brother had brought each of the little ones a magnificent doll. "They have got about half a hundred apiece of these articles already," he observed to Yorke, in giving them their presents, "but this sort of thing pleases Mrs. Peevor. I've got nothing for you," he said to his elder sisters: "it's no good bringing you anything; you've got everything already that girls can want."
"Everything?" said Lucy, in an undertone, looking archly at her brother.
"Well, everything you are likely to get," he returned, half in fun, half vexed.
The Hamwell railway station, the nearest to "The Beeches," was on a branch line not far from the Shoalbrook Junction, where it joins the main line from London to Castleroyal. Several passengers got into Yorke's compartment at the junction, but in the twilight of a November evening he did not notice their features, but occupied himself in trying to read his evening paper by the dim glare of the ill-fed lamp. The train came to a stop and Yorke came to the end of his paper at the ticket platform about a mile from the London terminus; and as Yorke, who sat at the farther end of the carriage, handed his ticket to the occupant of the other corner to deliver to the collector, he looked at
him for the first time, and suddenly recognized his old friend Dr. Mackenzie Maxwell, formerly surgeon of the Mustaphabad residency, and afterwards of Kirke's Horse. The old gentleman was somewhat greyer than when, he retired from the service four years before, but was otherwise little altered. Hearty greetings were of course exchanged between the two friends, and yet Yorke could not help noticing a certain constraint and confusion in the other's manner. He had been down to the neighbourhood of Castleroyal, Maxwell said, on some private business. He lived on his own little place in Fifeshire, and was staying for a short time in London. So much was explained during the short passage from the ticket platform to the terminus; and then Maxwell, shaking hands suddenly with his old friend, said he was in a great hurry to keep an appointment, jumped into a cab, and drove off without giving his town address.
Yorke felt surprised and hurt. Notwithstanding their difference of age. Maxwell and he had been on the footing of confidential friends; they had served together in the eventful defence of the Mustaphabad residency, and afterwards as close comrades throughout the rest of the sepoy war, and to Yorke alone had Maxwell confided his distress at Olivia's second marriage; and although he had left the regiment before ruin fell upon her and her husband, Maxwell had predicted some misfortune of the kind, and had himself told Yorke that he had left the regiment in order that he might not be present to witness it. Could it be that he resented the share Yorke himself had unwittingly had in that downfall? But no; nothing in Maxwell's manner implied resentment or reproach. His embarrassment obviously arose from something connected with himself, especially since, as it occurred to Yorke, Maxwell must surely have recognized him when he entered the carriage. For some reason, however, he had avoided recognition himself; and as Yorke thought over this strange and unsatisfactory meeting, the recollection of past days came up with unwonted force and freshness; and again indulging in the luxury of giving loose to the useless regrets over his wasted passion, in which he had allowed himself to indulge for so many years, the schemes for the future, which during the last few days he had amused himself in planning more or less vaguely, seemed to have lost all interest; and when, on returning next morning to "The Beeches," Lucy greeted him with a little blush, quite justified by certain passages which had passed between them, his manner was so cold and constrained that the poor girl could not conceal her distress. "What a brute I am, to be sure!" said Yorke to himself when alone later in the day, thinking over the episode. "Yet how am I to know that it is not all a pretence, the easy device of a practised flirt? No doubt the little jade has been taught to make eyes at every man she meets. Who am I to interpret a woman's looks? Whenever I meet one it seems my destiny to blunder."
CHAPTER 49
========================================
CHAPTER XLIX.
Yorke
, who had breakfasted before leaving town, expected to find Miss Cathy on his arrival ready to start for the meet, but when he drove up to the house she was still in walking-dress. Fred would not go hunting, she explained, and she did not like to leave him on his last day. That young gentleman could not go, she said, because he had no horse; but it appeared that he had declined to adopt his sister's suggestion to send to Castleroyal for one, and as of course he would not accept Yorke's offer of a mount on Jumping Joseph, the latter was fain to drive off alone in the dog-cart which awaited him under the portico, to the meet, whither that worthy animal had already been sent on.
The gathering, as usual in those parts, was a large one; but although Yorke noticed a detachment of evidently military men, probably from Castleroyal, he did not recognize any acquaintances among them, and found himself an entire stranger among the crowd. This made it rather dull work, more especially as the day was not destined to afford honest Joseph much opportunity for displaying his quality. One cover after another was drawn without success; and when at last a fox was found, the scent was bad and the checks frequent. Still the sport then became enjoyable enough to a man who had never hunted before; while there was a certain amount of opportunity offered for finding out what it was possible for a horse and rider to do.
It so happened that during one of these intermittent runs, a horseman just in front of Yorke came to grief. His horse blundered in taking a hedge with ditch beyond, but recovered itself cleverly without falling. Not so the rider, a stout young man, who having lost his seat remained poised for an instant on his horse's neck in a position of unstable equilibrium, and then
rolled ungracefully off on his back, while the honest beast galloped off in all the enjoyment of the chase. To stop in the middle of a run to catch a loose horse is the perfection of unselfishness, but Yorke was equal to the sacrifice, possibly because he anticipated another check in a few minutes; and galloping after the loose horse he brought it back to where the owner was striding in his boots over the heavy furrows.
"Thank ye, sir," said the dismounted cavalier, wiping the mud off his coat as he spoke; "it's awfully kind of you, I'm sure: these fences are infernally blind, or my horse would never have fallen. Why, I'm blessed," he continued, "if it's not Yorke! Well, this is a start; fancy meeting you here!" and Yorke recognized in the speaker an old friend, Teddy Round of the Artillery, whom he had last met at Peshawur, an eager sportsman, but in whom a certain rotundity of figure caused an ineradicable tendency to part company from his saddle on the smallest provocation. There was no time, however, to exchange inquiries if the field was to be overtaken; but later in the day the two came together again, and finding that their roads were in the same direction, jogged home together. Captain Round, whose battery had lately returned to England, was on leave and staying with his family who lived in the neighbourhood, and so taking the opportunity to enjoy a turn of fox-hunting. "Not bad fun in its way," said the captain, "but not to be named in the same breath with pig-sticking." "One falls softer, however," observed Yorke; whereupon Round inquired if his people too belonged to these parts; and the other replied that he had come down on a visit to the sister of his old friend Braddon, of Kirke's Horse — Round must have known him — who was killed in the Mutiny. Round said he knew him by name of course, although he had never met him, and a very fine fellow he must have been. Was Miss Braddon living at Castleroyal? and Yorke explained that the lady was married to Mr. Peevor, who lived at a place called "The Beeches," about five miles ahead.
"Oh! that's where you are!" cried Teddy, with a long whistle; "Peevor and Hanckes, heh! and a very snug billet too you find it, I'll be bound."
"What do you mean?" asked Yorke, feeling that he was on the brink of a revelation.
"Why, do you mean to say you don't know that you are in the land of balsam? — Peevor and Hanckes, the Clarified Balsam people; that's your Mr. Peevor, of course: fancy your not knowing it!" and while Yorke was silently wondering how such an obvious connection should not have occurred to him, his companion carried on a running commentary on the wealth accruing to the fortunate proprietors of that celebrated patent medicine. "Something like a billet, as I said; wines A 1 and cook first-rate. I dined there once or twice when I was at home the year before last — old Peevor always asks a fellow to dinner if he meets him, you know; but I haven't called this time: my people don't visit at 'The Beeches,' so there is an awkwardness about the thing, you see. It is all dashed nonsense, of course; but women are such sticklers about these matters, and Peevor's being in trade does the mischief."
"I thought everybody was in trade nowadays."
"So they are," retorted Round, "and small blame to them; I ain't a bit proud myself, although I am so extremely well connected; and if you were to strike everything that smacked of the counter out of your visiting-list, you'd have to keep yourself pretty much to yourself down in these parts; but you must draw the line somewhere, and my people draw it at clarified balsam."
"You seem to forget. Master Ted, that Mr. Peevor is a friend of mine."
"All right, my dear fellow," continued the irrepressible captain: "considering that you didn't know who your friend was a minute ago, surely there needn't be any ceremony on the point between old chums like you and me. Not that Peevor isn't a very good sort of fellow, if he wasn't such a walking price-current; but Hanckes the partner is something too awful. You haven't seen Hanckes yet, I suppose — 'Anks, as he calls himself. An uncommon clever fellow is 'Anks, though; it's he who does the clarifying part of the business. Peevor found the money for starting the concern: he began with fifty thousand pounds, which they say he spent in advertising, and now he doesn't know which way to turn, he's so crowded up with money. Balsam has proved a highly remunerative investment, as clarified by the patent process of Peevor and Hanckes, I can tell you. And it's not at all bad stuff, either, especially for horses with sore backs; we used it by the gallon in my battery. The girls are awfully nice too; when ——"
"Now, Teddy, be careful what you are
saying — don't presume too far on old acquaintance."
"All right, my dear fellow; you can't have fallen in love with all three of them already, and there can be no harm in telling you that they are good for a plum each, down; that's the figure, I believe, that old Peevor gives out over his wine — and then, of course, he'll cut up for ever so much more. I have often thought of making the running in that quarter myself, for they are really as nice little girls as you would meet anywhere; but somehow I'm not a good hand at that sort of thing — not a lady's man, in fact."
"It is not you, I hope, Edward Round, who have been trifling with Miss Peevor's affections?"
"No, no, my dear fellow; Miss Peevor is a little in the sere and yellow, you know; but Miss Catherine would just do for a soldier's wife, she rides so uncommon well — every bit as well as I do myself. But I see you have heard that story, although you have been only two days in the house. Yes, young Dashwood behaved like a thorough snob, as he is. Mr. Peevor offered to pay off all his debts and to settle fifty thousand on his daughter, but the young scamp broke the thing off at the last moment because the money wasn't to be made over to himself. That was rather too much of a good thing, for he would have been sure to gamble it all away in a year or two. No, he was a thorough bad lot, and the lady was well out of the bargain, for all that he is to come into the title. But I believe the poor girl has taken it very much to heart; she was really fond of the young scapegrace. Dashwood is somewhere abroad now, you know, and will have to stay there as long as his uncle lives. The old lord gives him an allowance, I believe, but won't pay his debts any more. But it was a dreadful blow to poor old Peevor too; he had set his heart on his daughter becoming a peeress.
"Yes, I know the brother a little. He is not a bit like his governor. I fancy he had rather a hard time of it in the —th at first. He used to come in for a lot of chaff about the balsam; but he is a sensible fellow, and the best rider in the regiment, I believe — does all their steeple-chase work for them, in fact, and gets on very well now. But our roads part here. Ta, ta, colonel; I shall come and look you up the first bye-day, and pay my respects to the family;" and so saying, the irrepressible Teddy turned off at the crossroad which led to Castleroyal, while Yorke pursued his course to 'The Beeches" along the road to Hamwell, half ashamed of himself for not having stopped the conversation, and yet pondering with heightened interest over the revelations poured out by his gossiping companion. So this, then, was the mystery: this the cause of the social banishment of his host and family. "And yet," he thought to himself, "how abominably unfair! One meets people every day whose antecedents are not a whit more exalted than those of my worthy friend, and manners not half so good, and yet against whom this absurd bar is not drawn. A man may make money by gambling in shares or on the turf, forsooth, and be received everywhere; yet he is to be cut because he earns his bread by honest balsam. And, after all, Peevor is a gentleman, although he is so much of a walking price-current about his property, and certainly his wife and daughters are ladies. Ladies indeed! I wonder if Master Teddy's sisters deserve the name as well? probably not, from their snobbishness on this very point. And I will be bound they are not half as pretty as little Lucy, or as sweet-tempered. How fond the children are of Lucy! there can be no deception about that part of the business, at any rate. Children are such artless things, the imposition would have been exposed at once if these little endearments had been put on for the occasion. What a loving mother Lucy would make, and loving wife too, if she cared for her husband! True, she doesn't care a bit for me yet; but what right have I to look for love at first sight when I have none to give in return? No; we had better let it be a matter of business on both sides, if it is to be, and let the love come afterwards. And yet it certainly does take the edge off courtship to have the lady offered to you in such an obvious way. The prize would seem better worth winning if there were a little more difficulty and romance in the wooing. But then, what have I to do with romance? I was romantic enough in my young days, and a pretty fool I made of myself. No; romance for me is dead and buried; the most I can look for is to make a home for myself before middle age overtakes me, a hard old bachelor."
Some such ideas as these pursued their course through the rider's mind, Lucy assuming a deeper interest in them as he dwelt on the unjust persecution, as he deemed it, suffered by her and her family, and began to be possessed with an eagerness to constitute himself her champion,
when the train of thought was presently interrupted by his overtaking young Peevor and his sisters in the avenue, returning from a row on the river, the young ladies looking bright and flushed with the exercise, and walking along with graceful carriage and light elastic step. The drilling-master, at any rate, if there had been one, was successful with his pupils.
When the rider came up with them there were of course inquiries from Miss Cathy and her brother about the run, while Lucy, shy and nervous, looked straight before her. But on Yorke's dismounting and walking by her side leading his horse, a few slight glances and gentle words sufficed to dispel the clouds which his manner of the morning had left behind; and soon the party, after partaking of the refreshments which Fred ordered to be served in the children's room, were engaged with Minnie and Lottie in a game of ninepins along the lobby outside, till Mr. Peevor, aroused from his nap, came up to see what all the noise and laughter was about, and stood watching the scene — Yorke still in his muddy boots, and the young ladies with their hats on, while Fred with his coat off was giving Lottie a ride on his shoulders — his pleasure at the spectacle only abated by a doubt lest the visitor should think the family deficient in knowledge of the usages of polite society.
When Yorke mentioned at dinner that he had met Captain Round out hunting, Mr. Peevor at once said that he hoped to see him to dinner soon. "Any friend of yours, colonel, will be welcome here, and Captain Round is a very agreeable person. We did not know he was in the neighbourhood, or we should have made a point of inviting him to meet you. Be sure, Charlotte, my love, that you write and ask the captain to dinner for an early day."
The evening of this day was the most lively that Yorke had yet spent at "The Beeches," for Fred had stipulated that no visitors should be asked to dinner, and cutting short his father's usual recommendations of the wine by observing that they were none of them drinking any, proposed an immediate adjournment to the drawing-room. Here Mr. Peevor asked for music as usual; and Miss Cathy, nothing loath, sat down and played her little piece: but Lucy, when her turn came, excused herself with a little blush and conscious glance at Yorke. And then Mrs. and Miss Peevor retiring early as usual, and Mr. Peevor declaring he was tired and would go to bed too — as he probably was, since he had been doing nothing all day — the rest adjourned to the billiard-room. An even match could now be arranged, for Fred played as well as Yorke, and the two young ladies equally badly, and to Yorke it fell to teach his partner Lucy how to hold her cue properly. Eight years had passed since such a duty had fallen to him, and how great the contrast between the two cases! Then — how well he remembered the day! — his hand trembled with awe and emotion as he ventured to touch that of Olivia, while she was unmoved and apparently all unconscious of the sensations which affected him so deeply. Now it was his turn to be calm and collected, while the lady was nervous and embarrassed. And, tickled as was his vanity while he noticed his evident power over Lucy, he wondered whether Olivia had in the same way enjoyed her power over him. And if so, was he going to play Lucy false in turn? This question must be seriously answered soon, before matters went much further. And yet was this confusion reality or pretence? Where was his power of fascination that a girl should fall in love with him at three days' sight? This was the sort of food for reflection furnished to Yorke by what passed during that evening, a long one as it turned out; for on their tiring of billiards, Fred declared it was absurd to think of going to bed at eleven o'clock. "There are no stables in the morning to make a fellow get up, and no chance of getting breakfast before ten; what say you, colonel, to teaching the girls whist, and then, Lucy, you will have at least one accomplishment to fall back upon when you are an old maid? "Her brother spoke in joke, but Lucy blushed as she laughed, for she felt that Yorke was looking at her.
CHAPTER 50
========================================
CHAPTER L.
Fred's
visit to "The Beeches" came to an end next day. Yorke went with him as far as London, to look out for a second horse, it being arranged that he should return the following morning in time to accompany Miss Cathy to the meet. Even if he could not procure a horse in the time, Jumping Joseph at any rate would be available, that useful animal having had but an easy day's work on the last occasion. Yorke wanted to find a groom also, for although there were plenty of spare men in Mr. Peevor's statues, the horses there never got thoroughly groomed; but as regards feeding, that gentleman had so frequently adverted to the fact of there being plenty of forage available, that Yorke felt that there would be no chance of being allowed to pay his own corn-bill. In truth he was now established on the footing of a family friend. Mr. Peevor enlarged on the obligation conferred on them by his stay, and on his kindness in accompanying Miss Cathy out hunting; with such an escort he no longer felt nervous about his daughter going out, Mr. Peevor being apparently under the impression that the proximity of another rider was a guarantee against falls. Yorke, for his part, felt that his visit, if prolonged much longer, must needs have a critical issue; but although his pulse did not rise higher at the prospect, he was nothing loath to let matters take their course as chance might dictate. He felt more interested in Lucy than a few days ago he could have believed it possible to be about any woman again, although not clear as yet whether he was in love with her; and he was still in doubt about the state of her feelings for him, and whether the little demonstrations in his favour which he could not but observe were spontaneous tributes to his effect on her, or parts of a design. This doubt perhaps rendered him less eager than he might otherwise have been; but if he could be sure that she really cared for him, why then ——
The first-class passengers in the down train on the morning of Yorke's return to "The Beeches" were for the most part hunting men, bound to the next station beyond Hamwell, several horse-boxes bringing up the rear; but one occupant of Yorke's compartment was evidently not bent on the chase — a middle-aged man with square face and figure and short stubby hair, who wore black trousers and a white waistcoat, notwithstanding the season of the year. This traveller was attended to his carriage by a gentlemanly-looking person, bearing a basket, which the latter handed to him before himself retiring to a second-class compartment. The stranger, depositing the basket carefully by his side, sat bolt upright all the way down, as if it might injure the sit of his clothes to lean back, with a gloved hand holding the other glove (of lavender
colour) and resting on his knee, and Yorke noticed that the fingers of the ungloved hand were short and stumpy and not over clean. This gentleman, with reference to Yorke's costume, ventured on the remark that he concluded Yorke was going 'unting — hunting, he added, correcting himself; observing further that it seemed to be a fine 'unting morning, a fine morning for hunting, — that is, if the night's rain had not made the ground too 'eavy — what one might call too heavy. The conversation dropped at this point, Yorke taking refuge in his paper, while the gentleman occupied himself with looking at the cushions on the opposite side of the carriage, occasionally lifting the cover of the basket beside him to peep at the contents. At Hamwell station he got out after Yorke, the gentlemanly-looking person coming up to relieve him of the basket. Passing through the station to the road outside, Yorke saw that the only carriage waiting there was Mr. Peevor's landau. The stranger stepped towards it, the coachman touching his hat. The gentlemanly-looking person opened the door, for there was no footman, and the stranger was about to step in, when Yorke said, "We are apparently bound for the same destination; I presume," he continued with happy divination, "I have the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Hanckes?" "'Anckes is my name, sir," replied the other; "my name is Hanckes: after you, sir, if you please." When they were seated, the gentlemanly-looking person handed the basket in, and mounted on the vacant seat by the coachman.
"Staying in the house, are you, sir," said Mr. Hanckes, as they drove along, "and going out 'unting with Miss Catherine? She is wonderful fond of hunting is Miss Catherine, and a beautiful 'orsewoman — a beautiful horsewoman, as one may say, and a wonderful 'ard rider for a young lady — wonderful hard." In such conversation the drive was passed, Mr. Hanckes dropping his h's freely by the way, but always making a more or less successful cast to recover them. Arrived at "The Beeches," they meet the two younger ladies in the hall; and Mr. Hanckes, taking the basket from the gentlemanly-looking person, presents each of them with a splendid bouquet of hothouse flowers, keeping two more in reserve for Mrs. and Miss Peevor, when they should be found. Mr. Hanckes made his offerings with considerable nervousness of manner, especially, so it seemed to Yorke, when approaching Lucy; and he noticed also that while Cathy, who was dressed for riding, received her gift without any embarrassment — merely saying, "Oh, thank you, Mr. Hanckes; what lovely flowers! I must take them up-stairs and put them in water; I can't wear them out hunting, you know" — Lucy blushed a little, and stood holding the flowers in her hand as if not knowing exactly what to do with them. But Yorke could not wait to see the issue; for it was time to start for the meet, and the pony-carriage in which he was to drive Miss Cathy there was standing ready at the door. Indeed the little incident did not make much impression at the time; but it flashed upon him as he was driving along that this delicate attention to the four ladies was in fact intended solely for Lucy. Something in Mr. Hanckes's manner when presenting his offering, coupled with the young lady's embarrassment at receiving it, created the suspicion; and thinking over what had passed during that brief space, the conviction suddenly possessed him — derived, perhaps, from his own unfortunate experiences — that Mr. Hanckes was Lucy's avowed suitor. And somehow after arriving at this conclusion he no longer looked forward with the same eagerness to the business of the day, but found himself several times wondering how the inmates of "The Beeches" were occupying themselves during his absence. And such is the pettiness of human nature, that while ashamed of himself for harbouring the notion, the rivalry of even Mr. Hanckes seemed to heighten the interest with which he regarded the young lady.
And yet the occasion was one when a sportsman might well be absorbed in his pursuit. For although the afternoon turned out wet, the scent was good, and two foxes were found, each giving a capital run over a good line of country, which, however, did not cross Upper Shoalbrook Moor as on the last occasion, or anything too formidable for his companion, who acquitted herself admirably throughout the day. Yorke could not help observing, when he appeared at the cover-side with Miss Cathy, that some of the people cast significant glances in his direction; William the groom, however, was also in close attendance up to that point, although he was lost to view immediately on the first fox being found. But Miss Cathy herself was at any rate under no delusion in the matter; for on Yorke remarking as they rode home together what a pity it was her sister could not join in their sport, she replied, "Do you really
think so? Don't you think gentlemen like girls best not to hunt? To be sure, I don't know many gentlemen; but it always seemed to me as if they didn't half approve of my riding to hounds. I am sure if I were a man, I should not like my wife to do so." "Can she be in the plot too," thought Yorke, "and playing up for her sister?" But the young lady's manner was perfectly unaffected, and free from all appearance of guile.
That afternoon there was no early tea in the children's room, as Yorke had been looking forward to, thinking that Mr. Hanckes could not follow them to that retreat, and that he should have the young ladies to himself. It was late when they got back; and, heavy rain having come on, both riders were wet through and had to seek their rooms, and the members of the household did not meet till just before dinner, which was earlier than usual this evening, as Mr. Hanckes had to return by the ten o'clock train. But it was a satisfaction to learn incidentally, as they sat down to dinner, that this gentleman had passed the morning in business and in walking about the grounds with Mr. Peevor, Lucy being with them during only a part of the time.
The conversation at that meal took more than ever the price-current form, Mr. Peevor making constant references to the new house at Norwood which Mr. Hanckes had just finished building; while the latter, nothing loath, detailed to the company the various arrangements in progress for completing his little place, as he called it. As for example, Mr. Peevor would say, — "So you have quite settled to give the furnishing to Spruce and Garnish, Hanckes?" to which Mr. Hanckes replies that Spruce and Garnish were rather expensive, but that, on the whole, he had thought it would be better to have the thing done properly while he was about it. "And the decorations for the hall, Hanckes, tell us what you have arranged about them. Are you going to give the job to Stipple?" And Mr. Hanckes explained that Stipple had already got the job on hand. And then how about the pictures? Our excellent Hanckes must lay in some pictures, of course; and Mr. Peevor looked round to the company while putting the question, as if wishing them to listen to the announcement which our excellent Hanckes made in reply, that he had given a commission to Mount and Gilp, the dealers in Pall Mall, for pictures to the tune of five thousand pounds to start with — two thousand water-colour and three thousand hoil, that is, oil paintings. "I don't know a great deal about art myself," added Mr. Hanckes, modestly, "never having had over-much time to learn about such things; but I like to see pictures on the walls; they make a man's 'ome look snug — they give an air of comfort to one's home, if I may say so; and old Mount has promised to look after the order himself, and I can trust
him
." Upon which Mr. Peevor made the remark to Yorke that they must not take our good Hanckes's account of himself for granted on this head, for that he had a really very good taste in pictures. Indeed it was amusing to notice the mild swagger which the worthy gentleman adopted towards his partner; whatever might be his business relations with Mr. Peevor, in presence of his daughters and in that gentleman's house, Mr. Hanckes was meek, not to say sheepish in manner, perhaps from an inward sense of his imperfect command over the letter "h," affording to the other the evident gratification of patronizing the one person with whom he could venture to take this liberty; for Mr. Peevor held his butler in manifest awe, and indeed every servant in the establishment stood punctiliously upon his rights, and knew better than to do anything beyond the strict line of his own particular duty.
"Well, if you
must
go, Hanckes," said Mr. Peevor, when the carriage was announced at a little before ten o'clock, "the brougham is waiting;" and indeed, as Mr. Hanckes had not brought anything for the night, except the gentlemanly-looking person who was being regaled in the servants' hall, it was not apparent how he could stay. Mr. Hanckes, however, did not give this excuse, but pleaded that he must positively be at the counting-house next morning at nine.
"And when may I hope to have the honour of showing you young ladies over my little place? " said Mr. Hanckes to Lucy, advancing towards her to take leave — "for an honour I should feel it. We are still in a bit of a mess down there, but you can see what the place is going to be like now, and I think you would be pleased with the garden and 'othouses; hothouse plants have been my 'obby, you know, ever since I could afford 'em; and I think you would like to look round my orchids."
Lucy blushed a little, and said she supposed papa would soon name a day for going down. "Ah, if you would only name a day," replied Mr. Hanckes; and the
fellow spoke so earnestly, with a sort of sigh, and, although in a low voice, so plainly as to be heard by every one in the room, which made Lucy blush still more.
"A perfect palace my worthy friend Hanckes is building down at Norwood," said the host afterwards to Yorke, when they were alone together; "all the newest improvements, and everything in the greatest taste; and, between ourselves, my Lucy might be mistress of it to-morrow — she has only to say the word; but the girl does not fancy the idea somehow; and certainly there is a good deal of difference in age." Mr. Peevor, it may be mentioned, was about twice as old as his present wife. And although not sure whether this piece of information was divulged as part of a general scheme, or simply out of pure leakiness, and while secretly ashamed of allowing himself to be affected by it, Yorke could not help being possessed in consequence with a growing sense of the obligation incumbent on him to save Lucy from so dreadful a fate. Acting under the influence of this feeling, before going to bed he made a definitive engagement to stay another week. There would be four meets of the hounds during this time within practicable distance, to two of which Miss Cathy would go, leaving him to take the other two alone. Accordingly, his previous expedition having been unsuccessful, he went up to town again next morning to find a partner to share the duty with Jumping Joseph, still billeted in the roomy stables of "The Beeches," where, although there were twice as many servants as were needed, and it seemed to be everybody's business to be looking after somebody else, there was at any rate no lack of oats, and the horses got themselves groomed somehow or other.
In this week, reflected Yorke, as he travelled up to town, there would surely be opportunity for gaining some clue to Lucy's feelings; and if he could discover that she really cared for him, and that he was not the victim of self-deception, played on by Lucy herself as well as the rest of the family, why then — truly a romantic ending of the absorbing passion of his life. For although Yorke was every hour beginning to think more of Lucy, and only wanted the encouragement of certainty to fall really in love, suspicion for the time held his feelings under restraint, and he was still able to compare her dispassionately with his ideal of what a wife should be, noting with critical eye her little imperfections. Brought up in a hotbed of luxury; to possess just such a smattering of accomplishments as serves to mark the want of better training; to get up each day to live a purposeless, dull routine, made up of changing dresses and idling about the grounds, perhaps receiving a stray visitor or two — certainly sitting down to twice as many wasteful meals as can be eaten; to have no duties, no interests, no cares; never to be of the smallest use to any living creature, — what a training for a wife and mother! And yet how many hundred girls in England were spending just the same dawdling, useless, unprofitable lives, who would never be missed outside the home circle, and hardly within it! But after all they could not well lead a more useless life than that of the ordinary English lady in India. And it is not Lucy's fault that her home surroundings are commonplace and dull. It is not she who is stupid, but the people about her. There cannot but be talent, and humour too, in the shapely little head that bears those sparkling eyes. They only want the opportunity to be brought out. Besides, it is not those most used to comfort and luxury who care most about them. The thing stales with use. Rather would those women be greedy of such things who have known the want of them, and look to marriage as a deliverance from the cares of poverty. No, there need be no fear that Lucy would shrink from the roughing of a soldier's life, if that became her lot, any more than that she has not a real woman's heart to give, if only one could be sure that it is really given.
People would say, no doubt, that he was a fortune-hunter, but he could afford to disregard such calumny — all he wanted was to find some one who really cared for him a little for his own sake. Others, again, might think he was making a misalliance, and would say spiteful things about Lucy's family; but so pretty and graceful and gentle as she was herself, she would surely outlive that. And, after all, in India nobody ever inquired who any one's father was.
CHAPTER 51
========================================
CHAPTER LI.
The
opportunity soon came. That day when Yorke went up to town, the wind had set in from the east with a sharp frost; it was still colder when he returned to Hamwell in the evening; and next morning the look of the weather was more suggestive of skating than any other amusement. Miss Cathy, too, came downstairs with a heavy cold — she always got a cold with these horrid east winds, she
said — and was house-bound for the day. Mrs. Peevor also was laid up, and did not appear at breakfast; and Miss Maria, as a matter of course, could not think of going out in such weather.
"I am so sorry for your disappointment," said Lucy to Yorke archly, as they stood at the window after breakfast watching the frosty landscape, while Mr. Peevor had gone out of the room on a summons from the bailiff; "what can we do to amuse you? I can't offer to drive you anywhere, because papa would not let the ponies go out this morning without being rough-shod. There is not a bit of danger, of course, but he would be miserable all the time I was away."
"Let us take a walk together," replied Yorke, "and see how the ice looks about bearing; that will be much pleasanter than driving on such a day as this. I am sure you skate like a sylph. Then you have still got to show me the river, although I have been here all these days. A walk to-day will be delightful."
Lucy's eyes brightened at the idea, but there followed a look of hesitation as she turned them away.
Yorke understood the difficulty. "May not the children come with us, and do propriety?" he asked. "I am sure a walk won't do them any harm on such a day as this. The poor little things have hardly been outside the door since I came here. They can bring their hoops to keep themselves warm."
Lucy blushed and laughed and ran off to the nursery; and soon returning in walking-dress with the children, wrapped up in furs so that they could hardly move their limbs, the party started off, first going to the kennels to set Lucy's dog free, which seldom got such a chance of a run. In the avenue they were joined by Mr. Peevor, who said he would accompany them part of the way, although he seemed astonished at their mamma having allowed the children to go out on such a cold morning, and left word at the lodge that the carriage should be sent to meet them as soon as the horses were roughed. Mr. Peevor was in good spirits, for notwithstanding the sudden change of the weather, the temperature of the house had been maintained at 60°; and he remarked more than once that although the heating apparatus had cost a trifle, it was worth any amount of money to keep the house always at the same point of warmth. On reaching the top of the steep hill which led to the river, however, he left them. He did not mind going any distance downhill, he said, but the doctor had advised him to avoid walking up-hill, so he would take his walk before luncheon on the level. So saying, he pursued his way along the highroad, shuffling along staff in hand, the collar of his greatcoat turned up, and an enormous comforter round bis neck.
The others turned off towards the river. The children ran on in front after their hoops, which bounded along the hillside over the frost-bound road, and for the first time Yorke found himself alone with Lucy.
For a short space they walked on in silence. Although Lucy stepped briskly, with a light elastic tread and upright carriage, she took little short steps, which made the pace a mere lounge for her companion; and wearing a sealskin jacket trimmed with fur, she did not feel the cold. Yorke, misled by the warmth of the house, had provided himself with only a light overcoat; and on this his first introduction to an English winter, he shivered under the penetrating wind. Truly this was an untimely occasion for love-making, when his teeth were ready to chatter and his fingers were numb with cold.
Presently they met a peasant-woman coming slowly up the hill, carrying a bundle of sticks on her shoulder, and leading a child with one hand. Both were miserably clad; and the child's face and legs were blue with cold.
By comparison Yorke was warmly dressed; and on seeing what others had to suffer, he was ashamed of his own impatience of the discomfort which he felt.
"Poverty is harder to bear in this country than in India," he observed; "this cold must make an awful addition to the burden."
His companion looked up as if surprised at the remark; she had been expecting him to say something different. He went on — "The poverty in England is dreadful to witness; the tremendous wealth at the other end of the scale makes the contrast all the greater."
"The poor in this parish are all very well cared for, I believe," said Lucy. "I know papa gives away a great deal in coals and blankets every winter; and I believe all our neighbours subscribe too."
"Coals won't keep you warm if you have to crawl about on a day like this without any clothes on, like that poor child," retorted Yorke, feeling for the moment quite angry with his companion. "Yet, after all," he thought, "what else is to be expected? To be shut up in a hothouse all your life, every want supplied, guarded from every discomfort, never to do
anything useful from one year's end to the other, to see the table spread ever so many times a day with ten times as much food as can be eaten, every want ministered to by a pack of lazy servants, themselves as pampered as their masters — what can be expected from a thoroughly immoral life of this sort but indifference to the needs of others?" Yorke, however, forgot that the senses of others might be dulled by familiarity with the social aspect of England, which struck him so forcibly on seeing it for the first time.
"Are there no poor in India?" asked Lucy, with some hesitation, disconcerted at the sudden change in his manner.
"Plenty," he replied, "including the poor British soldier. We have enough to eat and drink," he added, "and can manage to find ourselves in such light clothing as is needed in that climate; but it is a rough sort of life compared with what some of the good people at home are accustomed to, with their comforts and coddling and luxury."
"I should think a rough life must be very pleasant," said Lucy, after a pause.
"How can you tell what you think, when you have never tried it, accustomed as you are to have every want supplied, and everything done for you? You would always rather ring the bell for the servant to poke the fire, than do it yourself, I'll be bound. And I don't suppose you can remember having ever in your lifetime
done your own hair."
"Oh yes, I can," said Lucy, laughing and blushing; "I can do my own hair well enough when I like; but what is the good, if your maid is there to do it for you? But you don't understand what I mean. It is so tiresome having everything done for one, and being of no use to others. Even the children never want to be looked after by us elder ones. You gentlemen go about, and hunt and shoot and travel, just when you please, and can afford to make fun of us girls who stay at home and do nothing."
"No, no, I am not making fun at all. There is nothing for us men to assume superiority about, because we amuse ourselves in our way, while you stay at home and amuse yourselves in yours."
"Amuse ourselves! what amusements have we? You little know how dull we always find it. I don't mean always; of course it is different when you — when we have visitors staying in the house. But you don't know how dull it is when we are alone. One gets up in the morning, really not knowing how the day is to be got through. One can't be always working or reading, you know."
"Then you do read sometimes?"
"You are very sarcastic; because we don't take up books when we have company, we may read a little at other times, I suppose? I don't pretend to be very fond of books, and I hate dry ones, and I daresay you have found out how ignorant I am; but one gets so tired of being of no use to anybody. I often think I should like to be a governess or a needlewoman, or something of that sort, and earn my living."
"So luxury has its pains as well as its pleasures," said Yorke, delighted at this confession, yet still keeping Lucy on the defensive. "Charity begins at home; why not teach your little sisters? "
"Papa would not let me, even if I knew enough to do so. He means to have a French governess for them, and a German one too, as soon as Minnie is eight. He talks of adding schoolrooms to the house after Christmas. We never can do anything for the children except play with them. When they were ill last year, papa got down a couple of nurses from town, one for the day and one for the night, and we were not allowed to go near them for fear of infection, although I believe there was no danger really."
"I am afraid your papa would hardly agree to the governess plan for yourself, laudable though it be. How would you like a life of adventure and travel? "
"Ah, travelling would be delightful. We have often wanted papa to take us for a foreign tour, but I don't think he would like it, and then Mrs. Peevor is so delicate."
"But it is not necessary to travel with one's papa always. You might join a party of friends, for example." Then — after a pause — "Is Mr. Hanckes much of a traveller?"
"How can you be so absurd?" replied Lucy, laughing and blushing, as she turned her head away from her companion's searching gaze. "No, Mr. Hanckes would not leave London and his beloved counting-house for the world. But I should think a life of foreign adventure would be much pleasanter than living in England. England is so stupid and dull — don't you think so?"
"I can't say that I have found it so — especially of late; but still, life in India may have its charms too — don't you think so?"
"Yes, indeed," said Lucy, eagerly, and then looking up and meeting his eyes fixed
on her, she saw the trap which had been laid, and she added in some confusion, "or any other country too."
"Italy, for example?"
"Oh yes, I should think it would be delightful to travel in Italy; I do long to see Rome." Little Lucy was trembling with excitement and nervousness combined, and hardly knew what she was saying.
Here a shabby idea possessed Yorke. He saw his power over the poor girl, but still played with her feelings. So he went on: "Was your last visitor from Italy, or going there?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I suppose you have had visitors staying in the house before now, and that then perhaps some other country had the preference over the land of my adoption."
"How can you be so cruel!" she replied, turning her face away indignantly, and then, after a moment's struggle between distress and pride, bursting into tears, stopping short as she did so to cover her face.
"Miss Peevor — Lucy — my dearest Lucy!" cried Yorke, also stopping, and then, after a moment's hesitation, encircling her waist with one arm, while with the other he sought to detach her hands, and make her look up at him. "Lucy, my love, don't cry. I have behaved like a brute; but you will show your forgiveness by looking up at me with your sweet eyes."
Lucy did as she was bid, thereby no doubt deserving the reprobation of every right-thinking young lady; she looked up, smiling through her tears, and Yorke, strengthening the embrace of his engaged arm, and holding her two little struggling hands in one of his, imprinted a kiss on her pretty little mouth. He no longer thought about the cold.
Just then they were interrupted. The children, unnoticed by them, had run back to where they were standing, and were looking up in consternation.
"Why are you crying, Lucy?" said Minnie, almost ready to cry herself from sympathy.
"'Oocie trying 'cause it so told," said Lottie by way of explanation, catching hold of her elder sister's dress with her disengaged hand, while holding her little hoop with the other.
"Yes, dear," said Lucy, stooping down to kiss her little sister, by way of hiding her confusion, "it's very cold, isn't it? let us take a run together;" and holding Lottie by the hand she pressed forward by way of hiding her confusion; while Yorke, giving a hand to little Minnie, and pushing on to keep his place beside her, could see that her face, as she looked downwards with averted glance, expressed mingled confusion and happiness.
A few steps made in silence brought them to the foot of the hill and with an abrupt turn in the road the river came suddenly open to view, running at their feet. The road here branched right and left to Shoalbrook and Castleroyal. No longer the clear placid stream which, shaded by leafy banks, yielded a constant summer delight to denizen of town and country for miles around; yet still the leafless bushes and trees glowing rich red under the winter sun, sparkling with frosty spiracles, and set off by the deep blue background tints, formed a scene full of beauty of its own kind.
On their right, a short distance down the stream, separated from the bank by the towing-path and a little garden, was a wayside inn. A place, no doubt, of much resort in summer; but now the arbour in front was bare and naked; the little tables and forms on each side of the garden-path were tenantless; and except that a column of smoke rose from the chimney into the still air, the house itself looked to be empty.
On the left the road to Castleroyal receded somewhat from the river, the space between the two being occupied as garden-grounds, the houses standing in which, secluded in summer, could now be distinguished through the leafless branches, some small, some large, till the view was bounded by a bend in the river, just where the spire of a country church appeared amidst a grove of venerable elms.
The children began throwing bits of stick into the water, watching them float down the stream.
"That is our boat-house," said Lucy at last, by way of breaking the awkward silence, "on the other side. Papa had it put there to be out of the way of the towing-path."
"It looks a big place to keep a boat in," replied her companion, glad for the moment to pursue indifferent subjects. Must he tell Lucy at once what a mere remnant of a heart he had to offer her? Somehow the fraction seemed just then a good deal larger than he had been accustomed to deem it.
"There are several boats kept there," she rejoined; "the big boat, and the little boat, and Fred's wherry, and Cathy's and my canoes — it is such fun canoing, but
we are never allowed to use them except when Fred is here; and then there is the sailing-boat, and the steam-barge."
"A steam-barge? What is that used for?"
"Papa thought it would be very nice to have a steamer for picnic parties, and it was great fun at first steaming up ever so fast against stream; but one soon got tired of sitting in it doing nothing, and I don't think we had it out once all last summer. Papa keeps a man to look after the engine, and lends it to any one who wants it." Lucy rattled on in this way, trying to recover her composure, which was in danger of giving way whenever, glancing up, she caught Yorke's face looking at her with an expression she had never seen it wear before. There was no guile in little Lucy's heart, nor any cause for suspicion in her lover's. Her father, no doubt, wanted her to find a mate of some sort, but no pressure had been needed in this case. Surrounded by almost boundless wealth, these girls had yet led a thoroughly secluded life; this hero, who had appeared like a star among the humdrum people who made up her father's visiting acquaintance, seemed to be the first gentleman, except Fred, whom she had ever known. The noble creature had won her simple little heart at first sight; and now the hopes she had hardly dared form were realized. He had called her his dearest Lucy, and kissed her, and was now looking down fondly on her face. This hero and petted man of fashion, who might no doubt have had his choice of damsels moving in fashionable circles of which she had never stepped on even the outer edge, had deigned to smile on her and was really hers! and to think that only a few weeks ago she had been nearly prevailed on for very pity to accept Mr. Hanckes, when he asked her for the fourth time!
"
These
villas must be very pretty in the summer," observed Yorke, still disposed for the present to cover the
position with commonplaces; "but I should not fancy them at this season. They look cold and damp."
"No one stays in them during the winter," said Lucy; "they all belong to London people, who merely come down for the summer months."
"That one seems to be inhabited," observed Yorke; "look at the smoke coming from the chimney." He pointed to the house nearest to them, standing in a little garden in the angle where the road left the river — a small, rather dilapidated cottage of wood. In the summer, and when covered with leafy creepers to hide the state of disrepair, it might have been attractive from its picturesque situation, but now it looked shabby and forlorn.
"That little cottage has been taken only lately," replied Lucy, "by an invalid lady."
"It does not seem a very good situation for an invalid; do you know her?"
"Papa and Mrs. Peevor have called on her, — we always call on everybody, you know, as soon as they come to his neighbourhood," she said, with a little jerk of the chin and pout of the lip, which Yorke thought very piquant, "although everybody does not always return our calls. But they did not see her. I daresay it would be too far for her to walk to "The Beeches" in return; but I am sure papa would send a carriage for her in a minute if he knew how to offer it without giving offence."
"Is the lady a widow?"
"No; I believe her husband is abroad somewhere, but we really know very little about her. She is a Mrs. Wood. These must be her children, I think;" and as Lucy spoke, a maid with two children, coming along the Coldbrook road past the inn while they had been looking up the river, was almost close to them. She was a common-looking girl, who might be a maid of all work. The children, although evidently of gentle-folk, were poorly and not very warmly clad. One, a little girl who might be between four and five years old, the maid led by the hand, the younger she carried in her arms.
As the little party passed by where Yorke and Lucy were standing, the child on foot turned to look at Minnie and Lottie, the servant meanwhile dragging her along.
Yorke stepped up to them, and the girl stopped and made a rough curtsy.
"You seem cold, my little maid," said Yorke to the child, taking her face kindly between his hands, "you must get indoors by the fire, and then you will soon be warm again."
The child looked up at him inquiringly, without replying, and then turned towards Minnie and Lottie, who had come up and were standing by. She had an oval face, and large, dark, melancholy, eyes, and only wanted colour to be very pretty.
She looked as if admiringly at the rich fur-trimmed jackets and gay worsted gaiters which Minnie and Lottie wore, in marked contrast to her own shabby clothes. There seemed no envy in her gaze, although perchance some vague perception may have aroused the child's mind that these fine clothes symbolized the difference in the lot of the happy wearers from that which had been cast for herself.
Minnie and Lottie, their hoops, in one hand, and holding the skirts of their elder sister's dress with the other, stood looking at the little stranger with the sort of mistrust that children are wont to evince towards other children at first sight.
Yorke, too, looked silently at the little pale sad face, which seemed to him to call up memories of some bygone scene, when and how he could not tell; perchance some dim-remembered dream.
Then the younger child in the nurse's arms began to whimper, and turning its face away as if frightened, hid it in the girl's shoulder; and the latter, with another awkward curtsy, stepped out towards the cottage, dragging the elder child after her.
"Poor little things!" said Lucy, as they passed on, "they must feel the cold terribly. Don't you wish you had brought some sugarplums, Lottie, to give to that poor little girl?"
"Me told too," said Lottie, "and me so tired — won't you tarry me, 'Oocie? "And, indeed, these little hot-house plants were already feeling the reaction from their unwonted exercise; and Lucy observing that her papa would scold them for having come so far, the party set out homewards, Yorke carrying Lottie on his shoulder, while Lucy led the other little one by the hand.
This arrangement was not favourable for pursuing the conversation into the interesting course it had taken before; and it was still hovering about the commonplace when the rumble of carriage-wheels was heard, and the landau drove up. Mrs. Peevor was inside, having come downstairs in time to take her usual drive, and the whole party were taken up and the horses turned towards home. And wrapped
up in rugs, and sitting on Yorke's knee, with genial warmth diffused through the carriage by an ample hot-water cistern (a special arrangement designed by Johnson the engineer), little Lottie soon forgot her troubles.
"You must have been cold, indeed, my darlings," said their mamma, as they drew near home; "it is really not weather for children to be walking about in."
"Lucy was very cold too," said Minnie "Lucy was crying with cold."
"'Oocie was trying with told," interrupted Lottie, " and so Turnel 'Orke tissed her ——"
"Look at the pretty white frost on the trees, Lottie, dear," said Yorke, bumping his little charge up and down on his knee so that speech failed the child for further revelations. Her mamma, however, did not appear to notice the remark, nor Lucy's confusion; and the house being now reached, the latter at once ran up-stairs to her room.
Yorke inquired of the servant who opened the door where Mr. Peevor could be found. The die was cast; and Lucy's last glance as she hurried away half frightened, yet radiant with joy, rilled him with elation.
Mr. Peevor had not yet returned from his walk. But the man had in his hand a telegram just arrived for Yorke.
It was from his London agents. A Mrs. Polwheedle had just called to inquire his address, and wished most particularly to see him on very urgent business. She was staying at the —— Hotel.
Very urgent business! Here was an interruption indeed. Yorke looked at his watch. There was just time, by taking the carriage still at the door, to catch a train at the Hamwell station. If he waited for Mr. Peevor's return, and missed that, he must wait three hours for another, and would not be able to get back till quite late; so his resolution was taken at once, and declining Mrs. Peevor's proposal for luncheon first, and promising to be back for dinner if possible, he jumped into the carriage and drove off. Go he must under the circumstances, and the sooner he got away the sooner he should get back. Mrs. Polwheedle! He had almost forgotten her existence, but he remembered now having heard that she had left India. But what could she want with him? Perhaps she might want to see him for mere curiosity, or because she found herself bewildered on first coming home. Even if she were in trouble it would hardly be necessary to stay over the day in town. And his thoughts going back to the event of the morning, the recollection of the scene on the hill soon drove out from them Mrs. Polwheedle and her message, as he realized the fact that the irrevocable step was taken which must lead to a new path in life. For more had passed on that occasion than has here been told; the exchange of looks and glances, and all the sweet telegraphy of love which cannot be set down in words. And he divined, and truly, that not only had Lucy given him her heart, but that the gift had now been given for the first time. His part must now be to acquire the lover's enthusiasm in return, and indeed he found himself making rapid progress in that direction. If he could not get back by dinner-time, he would at any rate return soon afterwards, in time to speak to Mr. Peevor that very night, and seeing Lucy once again, to reassure himself of her feelings towards him.
In pleasant musings of this kind the short journey was soon accomplished, when, as he got out of the carriage at the terminus, he saw his old friend Maxwell stepping from another compartment higher up the platform.
Pressing forward through the crowd, he overtook him just as he was hailing a cab. Again there was the same mixture of reserve and confusion with cordiality which had marked Maxwell's manner at the last meeting. He had been down near Castleroyal, he said, to visit an old friend who was a great invalid. He must hurry away now, having an urgent appointment; would not Yorke come and dine with him at the Asiatic Club that evening? — no, not that evening, he was engaged, but the following — and have a talk over old times; and Yorke accepting the invitation, the other, again pleading hurry, drove off.
Then, as Yorke stood watching the receding cab, while mingled feelings of annoyance and surprise at this strange reception came uppermost, the truth suddenly flashed upon him. Maxwell's visits, the confusion at meeting him, — it was all plain now. The child whose face had moved him so strongly at the time was Olivia's child, and Olivia herself was the sick lady. The very name, too, assumed by the lady whose husband was abroad, ought to have furnished the clue. How dull of him not to have understood this sooner! It was Olivia who lived in the poor cottage by the river; Olivia deserted by her husband, living there alone with her children, ill and in want. And he had been all this time in England, and had
even passed her door, and had brought her no succour! And as her old lover stood on the spot where he had parted from Maxwell, musing, amid the bustle of the busy station, over what had just happened, while each moment the feeling of certainty that he had guessed right grew stronger, all thought of present aims and hopes, and even of the cause for his journey, passed away, while his memory wandered back to old times, treading again once more the familiar scenes which it had so often trod before.
A train was on the point of starting for Castleroyal, and there was just time to get a ticket for Shoalbrook and take his place in it. He had no definite idea of what he would do, but at least he would go down and look again at the poor cottage by the river, and perhaps gain access to Olivia, with offers of service; at any rate the journey was necessary, if only to get rid of the restless eagerness that now possessed him.
He left the train at Shoalbrook, and by way at once of warming himself and calming down the excitement under which he laboured — not lessened by the reflection which overtook him on the journey that he had deserted Mrs. Polwheedle in her call for succour — he set out to walk the three miles or more up the river-bank which would bring him to the point he had visited in the morning. The weather by this time had changed with the true fickleness of an English climate; a dull afternoon had succeeded to the bright morning: the thaw which had set in had restored the surface of the ground to its ordinary winter state; the rising wind drove the mist in his face as he trudged along the miry path; and the short winter's day was coming to an end as he reached the spot where he had met Olivia's children. Changed was the scene now, and dull and drear the view which would look so bright and cheerful at the same hour on a summer's day. At his feet ran the river, swollen and rapid, the banks silent and deserted, and the only signs of life the light in the windows of the wayside inn which he had just passed. The cottage, from where he stood, was dark and silent, and seemed as if deserted. Irresolute he walked a little way past it, up the river-bank, asking himself what he should do next Suppose that Olivia, if still there, was too ill to see him? In any case, might not the shock of meeting him in this way do her harm? Or suppose that under the burden of her misfortunes she had come to regard him as an enemy, as no doubt her husband did, what good would come of his presenting himself thus unexpectedly? She might refuse to see him. And before the stern facts of the situation the indefinite hopes of a meeting which had brought him down from London melted away. He would have done better to wait and see Maxwell first, and learn how matters stood. Mrs. Polwheedle's message, too, was probably connected with Olivia. He should at any rate have waited to see her. Yet how wait when Olivia was in want and trouble? And all this time he had been spending his money on amusement, living a life of luxury and pleasure. And thus reproaching himself there came up a vision of "The Beeches" with all its profusion and waste, and for the moment it and its inmates seemed objects for contempt and almost aversion, while his heart was filled with deepest pity for his old love, the glorious creature he had once known radiant with youth and beauty, now living in this squalor, prematurely aged no doubt by care and sickness, the mother of these poor half-clothed children.
Turning in his irresolution, and walking back again past the cottage, still dark and silent, in the direction of the inn, he met a person, the first he had seen, coming towards him, evidently a resident in the neighbourhood from his leisurely pace; and under a sudden impulse Yorke turned towards him to inquire whether the occupants of the cottage had left it. But as he did so, the stranger, who wore a broad-brimmed hat and large cloak, turned away suddenly, declining his proposal so pointedly that Yorke desisted from his purpose, noticing, as the stranger hurried off to avoid him, that, although walking quickly, he was lame, and moved with evident difficulty.
"The gentleman takes me for a tramp, I suppose," thought Yorke; "and yet even in this light I hardly look like one, although in one sense he is right. But perhaps I shall get some information at the inn." And he continued his course in that direction.
Arrived in front of the inn he turned round to look at the cottage, from this point about a couple of hundred yards off. The outline of the roof could now scarcely be made out in the dim twilight; but while gazing at it a light suddenly appeared in an upper window. So, then, Olivia was still there. "That is her room, no doubt," he said to himself. "Poor soul! she has to be sparing of candles, I suppose;" and again there came up a vision of "The Beeches," and the brilliant illumination of
which it was the scene every afternoon, when Johnson the engineer attended by a footman went round to light up the house. "Olivia must be keeping her room," he continued, soliloquizing, "so it would have been useless going to the house after all."
But no! while he stood watching the light, it suddenly disappeared from the upper window, and after a brief pause reappeared in a lower room. It had evidently been carried down-stairs. And Yorke, acting under a sudden impulse, hurried across the intervening space, and entering the little garden by the wicket-gate, went up to the door of the cottage and rang the bell
CHAPTER 52
========================================
CHAPTER LII.
The
summons was answered by the servant whom Yorke had seen with the children in the morning, who fulfilled apparently the double office of housemaid and nurse. He inquired whether Mrs. Wood was within.
The girl stood irresolute, as if not without suspicion of a visitor at such an hour. What name should she say? she asked, holding the door only half open.
"Say an old friend, say Colonel Yorke has called to inquire after Mrs. Wood."
As he spoke, Olivia, attracted by the sound of his voice and his name, appeared at the door of the sitting-room which opened on to the little hall. Seeing her he stepped inside diffidently, not knowing how she would receive him.
But Olivia came forward holding out both hands in greeting. In her solitude the sound of her faithful friend's voice came as a joyful surprise; and as she led the way into the parlour, there was a flush of pleasure on her face which had of late seldom been present there.
But Yorke did not notice this. The room, although lighter than the hall, was lit up only by a pair of candles and a fire which had got low, and he could not make out her face plainly. Still he could see that time had set its mark there. She looked much older than when they last met, but little more than four years before; and, always slight of figure, she was now thin and wasted. This much he had time to note, without looking too fixedly at her; and yet, he thought, no face had ever looked so sweet.
"You are surprised to see me?" he asked, as she motioned to him to be seated.
"I am very pleased to see you," she said, smiling greetings at him, and looking, he thought, more wan than before. "But how did you find me out?" And as she asked the question her face assumed an expression of anxiety and reserve. Perhaps she now began to regret that the secret of her disguise should be discovered.
"It was by a curious chance. I met Mackenzie Maxwell this afternoon."
"Ah! and he told you of my being here. Of course that would easily account for it." And Yorke could see that Olivia looked vexed, as if at the betrayal of her confidence.
"Is it always to be so?" thought Yorke, bitterly. "Are others always to be trusted in preference, and myself made of no account?" Then he added aloud, "No, Maxwell told me nothing. He kept your counsel well enough. But the fact is, as chance would have it, I am staying on a visit in this neighbourhood. Walking to the river this morning, close by, I saw — I saw your children, without knowing whose they were; but meeting Maxwell shortly afterwards in the train coming from this direction, the truth flashed upon me, and I came down to see if I could be of service."
Olivia said something about his great kindness, and that he always was very kind, but still maintaining the reserved manner in which she had now wrapped herself.
Yorke went on: "I should not have presumed to suppose that I could be of use, but that I also knew that you and the children were alone in England. The fact is, I saw your husband in Egypt. That was quite by chance too, and he did not see me; but need I say how truly glad I was to see him in harness again on congenial work? But that was last spring. I conclude he is still there? I hope you have good accounts from him?"
"Thank you," said Olivia, "he is very well: at least he was when last I heard. He has gone on an expedition into Upper Egypt just now, so that his letters do not come very regularly, but I believe the life agrees with him very well."
"And is there any prospect of your going out to join him there?"
"My husband has not said anything about my doing so, and it would be difficult to leave the children. It will probably be best that I should stay at home till he is able to join me here."
Olivia said this with an effort, her face as she did so seeming to grow still more sad and wan, and Yorke began to feel certain of what he had suspected from the first. She was not merely contending with ill health, and poverty shared with
her husband; she was also a deserted wife.
Indignation struggled with the desire not to say anything that might offend against her sense of wifely dignity. After some hesitation he continued: "My desire to be of service arose from my seeing you here." Looking round the little room, the shabby furniture of which appeared the worse that it was very untidy and littered with toys — Olivia herself, still neatly though cheaply clad, the only comely object in it — he added, "This surely is not a fit place for you to be in. It must be a very damp house in winter, on the edge of the river, and a cold one too. I was sorry when I heard this morning that it was occupied by a lady in delicate health, little guessing who the lady was; but now ——"
"It is not a nice situation at this time of year, certainly. The children suffer — we all suffer who are in the house; but we came down for the autumn only, and stayed on for various reasons longer than was intended."
"I think I can understand; your husband being in such remote parts, there may be a difficulty about remittances coming punctually."
"Quite so," said Olivia, catching at the suggestion. "It was very embarrassing, of course; but in my difficulty I bethought me of Dr. Maxwell, such a very old friend of my poor father's, you know — and he put matters straight at once. His kindness has been perfectly invaluable to me in this temporary difficulty; indeed I don't know what I should have done but for his help." And at this point poor Olivia nearly broke down, and the tear stood in the dark eyes, which seemed larger and more lustrous than ever.
"Then are you not going to stay here much longer? "
"No; Dr. Maxwell is going to take lodgings for us on the south coast, where the air is milder; we move the day after to-morrow. I must summon up courage in the morning," she added, smiling faintly, "to undertake the labour of packing."
"But I suppose the small worries of life may not end with a change of residence. I don't want to put myself on a footing with Maxwell, but surely I may claim to be an old friend too. Time was, perhaps," he continued, with some hesitation, "when I could not have professed the same disinterested views, but all that, as you know, is past and gone. May I not now offer the hearty services of one who claims to be an old friend too, and nothing more?"
Having said this, his conscience misgave him for his heartlessness. Was this a time, when her state had fallen so low, to twit her with the loss of the spell by which she held him so long enchained?
And poor Olivia herself may have been woman enough to feel a passing pang on being reminded that she had no longer the same power of fascination over the once constant lover, for there was a slight tone of pique in her manner as she thanked him for putting the matter on so straight-forward a footing; but she added that there was really no need to make use of his most kind offers of service — for that Dr. Maxwell had got over all her
difculties
for her.
"But still there may be present wants," persisted Yorke; "surely when I have more money than I know what to do with at my bankers, the obligation would be quite nominal only if you made use of a small sum, till you were placed in funds yourself. The children, for instance, might surely have some warmer clothing with advantage."
"Poor little darlings," said their mother, "I am afraid they have felt the cold very much; but they will be better off to-morrow, I hope. The fact is, — I can hardly explain how it is — I never was a good hand at business matters, you know, — it appears there is some money due to me, which ought to have come before. Dr. Maxwell has put it all right now. And to-morrow the children's warm clothes will be here. But I am so very much obliged to you all the same. Pray do not think me ungrateful."
Just then the maid came in with the children, — the latter looking, Yorke noticed, almost as ill-kept and untidy as herself, — which made a timely diversion from the forced manner which had so far marked the interview. Yorke had soon the little Olivia on his knee, for children always took readily to him; the younger sat on its mother's lap. He had never before seen her in the character of a mother, and as she sat with the child nestling in her arms, looking pale and fragile, but with still the old grace in every attitude, he could not but be struck by the contrast between the present Olivia, with one poor drab to help her in the labours of the ill-found household, and the radiant young beauty at whose shrine he used to worship, with no cares and no duties, save such as flowed out of her accomplishments, and who seemed fashioned to command service and devotion from all who came around her.
Presently, while Olivia, still trying to hide her own troubles, was turning the conversation to Yorke himself and his doings, and inquiring, with a semblance of great interest about the Peevors, the fame of whose beautiful place had reached her, and expressing her regret at being unable to return their visit, the servant came in to say tea was ready, should she bring it in? looking, as she spoke, doubtfully towards the visitor, as if to suggest that it had better be deferred till his departure.
Olivia told her to bring it, adding to Yorke that she hoped he would stop and take tea; it was more than tea, she said, with a little laugh — it was the children's tea and her dinner in one: but something in her way of putting the invitation — whether arising from prudery or reserve, or a wish not to exhibit before him the humble nature of the meal, he could not tell — seemed to imply that she did not really wish him to stay, and reluctantly refusing the offer, he rose to go. How short and unsatisfactory and commonplace the visit had been!
The leave-taking was less cordial on Olivia's part than had been the first greeting. This time she held out only one hand, but she followed him to the outer door. She appeared indeed glad in her loneliness to have seen him, and at times it seemed as if she were acting a part, and the forced composure could not be sustained; but, on the whole, the desire to maintain reserve seemed uppermost.
Just as Yorke was opening the hall-door, Olivia standing by him, he bethought him of Mrs. Polwheedle's message, and turning round he said that he expected to see that lady the next day.
"Mrs. Polwheedle in England!" cried Olivia; "how I should like to see her! To meet an old friend like her again would be such a happiness. She was so kind to me when we were up in the hills together," continued Olivia, seeing that Yorke appeared surprised at her speaking thus warmly of the lady. "I do not know what I should have done, for I was very helpless and strange to the country, without her help. She quite took care of me in those days."
"Then may I tell her you are here? May I bring her down with me to-morrow, if she is able to come?"
Olivia hesitated for an instant. In her loneliness her face brightened at the prospect of seeing her old companion again. But then she shook her head sadly. "Major Yorke," she said, for by this title she knew him, "you see me living here under a false name; how can I dare to face my old friends while in such a state of degradation? No; you are all very kind — it has been a real pleasure to see you; perhaps some day," she continued, with a quivering lip, struggling to repress the emotion which almost broke her down, — "perhaps some day things will look brighter for my husband and myself, and we may be able to come out of of this concealment and disgrace. God knows! the way does not look very clear at present." Then she offered him her hand once more in token that he was dismissed, and having no further excuse for staying, he gave one earnest look at the sad eyes, and turning round left the house.
He walked through the little garden, and then letting himself out by the gate, stood musing awhile, thinking how unsatisfactory his visit had been — how unlike what he should have expected it to be, if he had thought about it beforehand. To meet after an absence of several years the woman who had been to him for so long more than all the world besides, to find her friendless and in distress, and yet to come away having done nothing to help her, and with nothing (except just at the last) said on either side which might not have passed between casual visiting acquaintances. "Must it always be so, that I am never to be able to help her in any way? And why is it." he also asked himself, "that while I am no longer in love with her, and would not marry her if she were free and wanted to have me, her voice thrills through me as that of no other woman has ever done or ever will do; and that sitting there, worn and faded, in that shabby little room, she still seems to me the noblest and most lovely of her sex? Am I under a spell, or is she really so far above all other women that none are worth gaining when she is lost?"
Thoughts of this sort passing through his mind, Yorke moved on towards the inn. But he had made only two or three steps when, raising his head, he noticed the figure of a man standing on the side of the pathway, leaning over the paling and looking into the garden.
Yorke stopped; his first thought was that the house was lonely and occupied by women, and a man watching it at that hour might mean no good. And he stepped up to the figure to see who it was. As he did so, the person turned away and moved off up the river; and although it was now quite dark, he could distinguish the large hat and lame gait of the gentleman
gentleman he had seen before. Reassured on this point Yorke resumed his course to the inn, for he now stood in want of food, wondering that the gentleman should choose such a time for exercise.
The interior of the "River Belle," for such was the name of the wayside inn, looked cheerful by contrast with the gloomy evening outside. On the right side of the little hall or entrance passage was a parlour, the open door of which showed a fire to be burning inside; on the opposite side was a sort of public coffee-room, with the bar at one end, at the back of which a door opened into another room. Walking into the coffee-room, and ordering some refreshment to be got ready and served in the parlour, he was told that it was engaged, but that another private room could be provided if he wished it. He elected, however, to stay where he was; a cheerful fire burnt in the hearth, before which was a small round table, and the room was empty save for the hostess, sitting behind the bar engaged in needlework.
Yorke began talking with the landlady, when after giving orders from the back room about his dinner she returned to her station behind the bar. The River Belle seemed a snug little place, he remarked; he supposed they had plenty of visitors in the summer. Plenty, said the landlady; very often more than they could find room for: sometimes as many as a dozen gents would be taking their meals at a time in that very room, besides them that preferred to sit outside under the trees. But in the winter they had not much business? Not much, nothing to speak of; indeed they might as well shut up in winter if it wasn't for the look of the thing. But they had a visitor just now, had they not? Yes, the gent who occupies the parlour; he was out just now taking a bit of a walk, which he oughtn't to be, on such a night, for he was quite an invalid gentleman; seemed to have met with a dreadful railway accident or something of the sort, quite a cripple as one might say, and a terrible object to look at, poor man. "That's him," continued the woman, "speaking to my husband outside."
Yorke had started to his feet on hearing the sound of the voice. Many a time had he faced danger, battle, murder, and sudden death, but never before had the blood seemed to stand still within him as it did on hearing the accents of this voice. For a moment his limbs refused obedience, as he stood trembling with surprise and horror; then summoning strength, he passed out into the passage.
The stranger was standing in the doorway with his back to Yorke, speaking to some one under the porch outside, the landlord apparently, who was making some remarks about the weather.
Again that voice, so often heard before in years gone by, that voice so clear and stern in the day of battle, so sweet and gentle in friendly converse, that voice, once known as Yorke had known it, never again to be forgotten!
The stranger turned round, and moved along the little passage towards the parlour door, his head bent down. Then as he reached the door, he looked up for an instant, and his eye fell on Yorke standing transfixed close to him.
The stranger started, and put out a hand under his cloak as if to steady himself against the wall, as he did so raising his head and displaying for an instant, to the horror-stricken Yorke, a ghastly view of a sightless eye in the scarred socket, and a mutilated brow and face, which had lost all likeness to the original features. Then, as the vision turned, and the other side of it became presented to his view, there could be traced a resemblance to the well-remembered face.
"Falkland!" cried Yorke, making a step forward, and seizing the other by the arm. "Falkland! risen from the dead!"
CHAPTER 53
========================================
CHAPTER LIII.
It
was in the little inn-parlour, last occupied perchance by some light-hearted pleasure-party halting awhile during a boating excursion on the river, that the unfortunate Falkland told in faltering sentences the strange story of his deliverance to the bewildered friend who sat listening to the sad tale, his heart too full of sorrow and emotion to find room for words of comfort or consolation.
Lying in the narrow street of Mustaphabad on the eventful evening which brought succour to the residency garrison; having fallen from his horse while gallantly leading the assault against the rebel soldiery; grievously wounded and almost insensible from the blows which had left their awful marks on the mutilated features — on that noble face which had served as a beacon throughout the defence of the residency to animate the garrison, — Falkland knew not what had happened to him till he became aware that his mangled body was being carried over the plain in a closed palanquin. There was a halt at one time, through one fiery afternoon, when the palanquin was brought within some house, and he hoped, so far as he had the power of forming hopes, that he had been set down to die. The halt was made, as he heard afterwards, while the fate of the rebel nawab remained in suspense, whose trial and execution have been recounted in these pages. It was thought by the fugitives that the nawab might make terms for his life by disclosing their possession of the captive; but when the news came of his execution, the gang which had escaped hurried off with their prisoner, making for the swamps and forests at the foot of the great mountains.
How could he describe the sufferings he endured? At first, indeed, the stupor in which he lay saved him from consciousness of his condition; but after a time, he knew not how long, he came to be aware of the dreadful state of his wounds. "But why try to describe what no words can tell? " said the unfortunate sufferer; "I was in that state when all desire of life had left me, all care for escape and return to home and friends; I prayed only for death: but yet, although in this loathsome state, I had still enough of the man left in me to withhold from taking my own life. Thus went on the dreadful days. How mortal man could have borne it, looking back on what I passed through, I hardly understand. Sometimes a merciful insensibility came over me; but then after a time I would awake again to the horrors of my condition. My captors were not all brutal; one man especially did his best to tend me in his rough fashion: but most of them shuddered as they passed my way, as well they might; and even if all had been humane, there could be little done to help the wounded. There were many of the party scarce able to drag themselves along for their wounds; even rags were scarce, and we seldom remained halted, for a single night. At times my memory failed me altogether, and I forgot what I had been; forgot that I had — that I had a wife, mourning, perchance, my death: but one thing I had at last the sanity and strength to do, to cut off the mangled arm which lay rotting by my side;" and raising, as he spoke, the cloak which he still wore, Falkland showed the sleeve of his coat hanging loose from his left shoulder.
"From that time," he continued, "I began to mend slowly. I could swallow food, and sometimes, when our fugitive party halted, I was able to sit up; and now for the first time I came to realize the possibility that I might recover, and a desire to escape from my captors began to possess me. Our party was greatly diminished; many had died, some had made off, several were killed, for they, too, were subject to attack and plunder by the villagers for the sake of the money and jewels they were supposed to carry about with them. And now the leaders began to sound me about terms of ransom. We had been joined at different times by other fugitives, and some of the band were now, I believe, the chiefs of the rebellion, to whom no mercy would be shown, but who they themselves believed would be hunted
down by the avenging and victorious British, unless they could offer sufficient terms to induce the government to forego its just revenge. They thought they held this pledge in me; and so strong is the desire for life in even those who have least to live for, that I found myself ready to listen to their proposals.
"The scheme was to send a messenger to the nearest British territory with a letter from me, saying that they would give me up if assured of their own lives. There was great doubt and hesitation about taking this step; they feared that if my existence and their whereabouts were known, the government would be incited to further efforts in pursuit, and that I might be recovered and themselves caught without making terms. Thus they could not determine what to do. I did not show any eagerness to fall into their plans, for I did not know the history of these men, and how far they might have steeped themselves in crime too deep to be expiated by my ransom; and bitterer than to perish in the wilderness would have been a refusal of the government to rescue me on these terms.
"They wanted me to write in the Persian character that they might know what I said; I refused to write except in English; thus for several days the negotiation made no progress.
"But with the prospect of deliverance, the love of life grew stronger. My senses, so long chilled to the miseries of the life I was leading, were awakening to the desire for escape; and the sort of plan I had in my mind might have been carried out, but for a slight thing that happened one day.
"The palanquin-bearers, by this time, had all died or run away, and the women of their zenanas, whom the fugitives were carrying with them, and myself, were travelling on some miserable ponies, when, on fording a little stream at the foot of the mountains, I got off my pony to drink. The water ran bright and clear, reflecting every object like a mirror; and stooping down on the bank I loosened the bandage from my face, and then I saw — O good God! — I saw for the first time that fate had cut me off forever from all that made life dear."
As Falkland said these words he pushed — whether by design or chance — the large-brimmed hat which he was wearing from off his head, and displayed the ghastly sight which had so far been partially covered, and of which Yorke had caught only a momentary glimpse at the time of their first meeting. The right side of the face was not maimed, but contorted; but the left side was defaced by awful scars, and a deep hollow marked the socket of the sightless eye. Happily he could not see the involuntary shudder of his sorrowing friend.
"From that moment," continued the unhappy man, "I cast away all thought of rescue. To return home seemed then to be worse than any death; and to my poor puzzled brain it seemed as if I must wander a ragged fugitive about these jungles till God should give me a release. Why I did not myself put an end to my wretched existence I hardly know, nor on what grounds I justified myself in prolonging it. It is deemed a noble thing to give up life for one's country — why not, then, to save those whom we hold dearest from pain and sorrow, and perhaps worse? But the narrow groove of sentiment in which we are taught to think restrained me, and the time went by when I could with reason have laid hands upon myself.
"How at last I got away, with the two men who had treated me better than the others, and who wanted to separate from the rest of the party, would be too long to tell. We went always northward, sometime in danger and hard pressed, at others well treated. My condition, I suppose, made me an object of pity; for no European has ever before or since passed through those parts with life. One of the khans especially treated us well. My two companions took service in his army, and he gave me money to pursue my journey. By his help, and that of the good Jesuit missionaries on the road, I made my way at last down the great river to the seaboard. How long the weary journey took I know not; the count of time often failed me.
"Arrived on the coast, I was received by the Catholic bishop, to whose care I had been commended, and with this good man I passed some weeks — or it may have been months — getting the rest I sorely needed. As he was a foreigner, and did not speak English, it was easy to keep the secret of my identity; but to him, I think, I should have made known my name, for I was in need of money, and could at once have procured it from the bankers there on saying who I was; but I wanted — you will understand what I wanted — to know first whether others were still dependent on me whom it might be needful to assist.
"The English merchants at this seaport used to send the bishop the Indian papers; for although he had kept my arrival secret,
and I saw no European but himself, the rumour had got abroad that a refugee from the mutiny had arrived there overland down the great river; and great sympathy, I understood, was shown, as well as curiosity, for further particulars of the journey. But the only newspapers available were of too recent date for my purpose; there was no allusion to the events I had taken part in. I could read with pride that the mutiny was being suppressed, and our cause triumphant throughout the land; but there were no tidings of — of the one person whose fate was bound up with mine. I could not tell if she were alive or dead.
"In that state I remained irresolute; at times, indeed, I think I must have lost my senses, for the memory of what passed while at that place is almost blank: but I had determined at last to write to — to her, to tell her of my escape, and bid her farewell forever, and then announcing myself to the government to make a provision for her comfort, keeping a trifle for myself to live upon in some retirement; and I had even written the letters for the purpose, and was preparing to embark for Europe — for I thought that when she heard of my escape and condition she would want to make a duty of coming to me, and I was determined to spare her the shock and the sacrifice — when one day the steamer arrived from Calcutta. The friendly merchant, as usual, sent the good bishop a pile of Indian papers, and in it I saw — you know what, her marriage!
"Yorke, I do not blame her. I was punished for my folly and selfishness. I might have known that her heart was always with her cousin; but I took advantage of my friendship with her father to press my suit, while that man was kept at a distance, both absent and discredited. What was I, to fasten my withered old body to that fresh young creature? What more natural than that, after a decent interval, she should turn to her first love? I blame her not: while she was mine, no wife could be more loyal; but now I can see only too plainly that her love for me was far different from the passionate devotion I felt for her. No words can tell how dearly I loved her.
"This news decided my fate. She must be saved from disgrace, at any rate. My escape must now remain a secret forever. She did not want for money, so the one motive which might have led me to divulge it no longer remained. I left the shelter of the good bishop's house, having borrowed with his help sufficient for my purpose, and once more appeared among my fellow-men; but people understood my reason for concealing my features, and no one sought to force my confidence. I took ship for Europe, and wandered about, seeking for health I could not find, visiting old scenes full of tender associations, avoiding my own countrymen. I had enough for my small wants. A modest property had passed to a cousin of mine; to him alone have I divulged myself: it is agreed that he shall keep my secret, and retain a portion of the estate.
"Thus the time has gone on. How long it has been I hardly know; at times my memory fails me altogether. Do you know, Yorke, that until we met just now I had forgotten your very existence, although the residency days are fresh enough in other respects; my mind, I suppose, is so full of certain things that there is no room for more. Now since we have met, I remember all about you, and what a gallant share you took in the defence.
"You will ask what am I doing here, and how my being here accords with my vaunted resolutions. I might have gone on in retirement to the end of the few days that remain for me, when I met our old friend Mackenzie Maxwell. It was at some baths where I had gone to see if I could get relief from the torture from this remnant of a limb that afflicts me at times; he recognized me, and betrayed the discovery as you did. From him I learnt of Kirke's downfall, and of his leaving India, and that he had taken service in Egypt. He was well placed there, Maxwell said, and was to send money regularly home, and Olivia — and her children — would not want; Maxwell was in correspondence with her. Do you know, Yorke, I felt glad to hear they were separated; I even found myself wishing that Kirke might never return, and she be left a widow again.
"Maxwell and I soon parted: he was very good, and wanted to nurse me and have me to live with him; but this could not be. The secret would be found out; besides, a leper such as I am is not fit to live with anybody. So we parted, but he was to send me word if any help was needed. And that is what has brought me to England. The remittances from Egypt soon stopped; Kirke has marched far away into Upper Egypt, and no news has come of him for many weeks. She draws his half-pay, which he got when he left the army; but what is that? And for her too, brought up in luxury, and never taught to think about money! She was
in actual want when Maxwell found her out again. Poor child! she may have been ashamed to tell him she was in debt, and so put off writing. It was only the other day he found her living in this poor cottage.
"I could not be brave enough to stay away any longer. Maxwell would do what is needful, but I could not let my — my wife be a burden on him. We are carrying out a little plan which will place her in comparative comfort. She came here from miserable London lodgings in the autumn; the place is damp and cold for her, but she could not pay her way from it again. Maxwell has now found a suitable home in a better climate, where she will move immediately. He has gone to make the final arrangements."
Such was the tale told by the unhappy man, the wreck of the gallant Falkland, to the sorrowful listener. Not all at once, or in one continuous story; only by degrees did the unfortunate sufferer find words, and the listener was too stricken with grief at first to press him with inquiries: but after a time Falkland was able to proceed with his narrative, and Yorke to help him on by asking questions; and in the influence, perhaps, of the sympathy of his newly-found friend, and the long silence broken, the once proud and reserved man at last overcame the difficulty of speaking, and for many hours of the long evening the two sat together in the little parlour, by the dim firelight, while Falkland told the sad story of which an abstract has here been given.
"No," said he, in reply to a question put by his friend, "I have no purpose to disclose myself. From the terror which such a discovery would cause her in every way she shall of course be saved. No, I did not come here to shock her with the dismal sight of my mutilated features; but I could not resist the overwhelming desire which possesses me to look on her once more. I have been here two days, and she has not left the house. When Maxwell comes again he may be able to persuade her to take a walk with him past this house. The one desire which possesses me is to see her sweet face once again, before I drag myself away into some corner, to await the end which a merciful God will surely not defer much longer. Maxwell tried to dissuade me, but I felt that I could know no peace if I allowed this chance to pass away. I must see her dear face once more before I die. Sad it will be, and changed, I know, for he tells me she has suffered much; but it is still the face of truth and innocence: and oh! Yorke, it is the one satisfaction I am allowed to feel as the innocent cause myself of her unhappy situation, that even if I had not come between her and her first love — for such I know now Kirke must have been — it would not have saved her from her present state of want and desertion."
It seemed to Yorke as if it added to the grotesque horror of the situation, that their conversation should have been interrupted by the entrance of the landlady bringing Falkland's supper, and to tell him that his own meal awaited him in the other room. She had evidently learnt so much of her lodger's habits as to know that he wanted to be alone while taking food; and Yorke readily divining his wish, retired for a while, and notwithstanding the excitement of the situation, found himself able to eat his own meal — found himself indeed hungry from his long fast, and discussing coolly with the landlady the commonplaces of the day, — doing so the more readily in order to divert the curiosity which she displayed on finding that he was acquainted with the invalid gentleman, whose object in staying at the inn at such a season she naturally wanted to find out
And now, as the hours went on, spent chiefly by Yorke in listening to his companion, the time came for him to decide what to do for the night. It was only half an hour's walk to "The Beeches," but the house would probably be closed by that time, and his return so late might excite curiosity; while to pursue the business of the morning, as would be expected of him if he went back to "The Beeches," would in his present frame of mind be utterly distasteful. Indeed, for the time, Yorke felt wholly unlike a lover; his heart was too full of the emotions kindled by this, sudden awakening of old associations to find room for the selfish pleasure of the hour. To stay at the inn, on the other hand, was hardly practicable, and Falkland was evidently tired and needing rest. Besides. Mrs. Polwheedle, whom all this time he had quite forgotten, might be in real distress and need of his services. So taking leave of his unfortunate friend, and promising to return again shortly, he started off on foot, there being no conveyance available, to catch the last train up to town from Shoalbrook; and hurrying along the muddy road, had time to think at leisure over the strange revelation which that day had brought before him, while almost dismayed to find
himself reviewing it so calmly. The exercise was indeed a welcome relief to the excitement and distress of mind which this discovery had caused. Unhappy Falkland! who could wish that his life had been spared? And so changed as he was in every way, not only in feature, but in manner and mind! Yorke remembered now, what had not struck him at the time, that his ill-starred friend had not once asked him a single question about himself. Everything that had happened since his own misfortune seemed to be a blank to him, save what affected the unhappy woman whose fate was bound up with his own forlorn existence. He was still as unselfish and noble minded as ever; — was not his present life one continued act of devotion and self-denial? — but the Falkland he once knew would have turned the conversation away from his own adventures and interests to inquiries about the life and aims of his friend. But suffering and misfortune had broken down his once strong character.
Such were the sad reflections that came uppermost to Yorke tramping through the mud and rain, till on reaching the station he took his seat in a carriage full of noisy people returning from some convivial entertainment at Castleroyal, who had evidently taken as much wine as they could carry, and whose boisterous merriment seemed like a devilish satire on the sufferings of the unhappy persons whom he had just left by the river-side — the unfortunate wife all unconscious in her loneliness of the presence of the still more unhappy husband, close by, but hiding from her.
Arrived at his lodgings, and letting himself in, Yorke went to his room without disturbing the people of the house, to lie tossing on his bed, recalling the sad scenes which he had witnessed, seeking in vain for a way of deliverance for the unfortunate husband and wife from the difficulty which beset them. But in the end nature asserted itself; young, healthy, and tired, he at last fell asleep, and slept as soundly as if there had been nothing to disturb his rest.
CHAPTER 54
========================================
CHAPTER LIV.
It
was late when Yorke awoke next day; for the
houskeeper
, unaware of his return, had not called him, and the forenoon was well advanced before he got to the hotel where Mrs. Polwheedle was staying.
The lady was at home and received him in the public sitting-room, unoccupied at the time by any one else. Mrs. Polwheedle, like the rest of the world, had grown older since he saw her last, more than seven years before, on the day following the relief of the residency, and was no longer to be called a middle-aged lady; but she carried her years well, and, attired in decent half-mourning, she seeded softer and pleasanter than of yore. Accosting her visitor with warmth as an old friend, she seemed suddenly to be quite affected at seeing him; and a certain amount of tearfull emotion on her part, and friendly condolence on his, had to be gone through before, on his taking a seat beside her on a big velvet couch at the end of the large room, she plunged into the business which had led her to summon him.
"Oh, Mr. Yorke, — Colonel Yorke, I mean — I beg your pardon I'm sure, but there have been so many changes since we met, and when my dear Polwheedle" — here the handkerchief came again into requisition, and Yorke waited patiently till she was able to proceed, — "Oh, Colonel Yorke, I have seen — what do you think? — you will hardly believe me, but it is true — who do you think I have seen? I have seen him with my own eyes, — Falkland, poor Falkland — that we all made sure was killed — come back to life!" and her emotion struggling with the excitement at having such news to communicate, Mrs. Polwheedle fairly burst into tears.
"Yes," she said, as soon as she was sufficiently composed to be able to find words again, "I am sure there is no mistake about it; I wish there was, God forgive me for saying so. I was coming up from Tunbridge — I was staying there on a visit to the John Polwheedles — poor dear Polwheedle's younger brother, you know — they have a very nice place, and keep their carriage, and everything very comfortable: well, I had got to the station and was looking after my luggage — for one is obliged to look after one's own things in this country, with so many bad characters about — when a lady, at least I don't know that she was a lady exactly, but she was very well-dressed, with a real seal-skin jacket, trimmed with elegant fur; but Lor' bless me! everybody dresses well in England nowadays, there is such heaps of money: well, this lady slipped and fell on the pavement — at least she would have fallen if a gentlemen had not caught her. He had on a large cloak and a big slouched hat. There she lay in his arms — his arm, I should say, for, poor fellow, he had lost the other; and of course a little crowd began to collect, and I was looking out for
my pockets, for it was just the time for the swell-mob to be at their tricks, when the gentleman says to her in a low voice, 'You are not much hurt, I hope?' 'Not much, thank you,' said the lady, in a mincing sort of way — at least I am sure she was not a lady, she had that dreadful cockney accent — it's worse than the
chi-chi
any day, and it's my belief the falling down was all a sham, — 'not much hurt,' she said; 'would you just help me to a cab?'
"'Perhaps you will kindly do what is needful,' said the gentleman, turning round towards me — for I had come up quite close, you know, to see if I could be of use; and before I could say a word he had handed her over to me, and had walked off, leaving me with this creature dangling in my arms. It's my firm belief, Yorke, the woman was no better than she should be; for as soon as she found out it was one of her own sex who was holding her up, she rose and walked right away, without ever so much as saying 'Thank you,' just as if there was nothing whatever the matter; no more, you may depend, there wasn't. But, dear me, this is not what I wanted to tell you. It was about the gentleman. Colonel Yorke, if you'll believe me, and if I never speak a word again, that gentleman was Falkland, as sure as I am a living widow. I knew him by his voice; you know what a nice voice he always had — low, but so clear; I should have known that voice among a thousand: but when he turned round I saw one side of his face for an instant, the other was all bandaged up, and then I was sure of it, although it was dreadfully altered. As for me, I felt as if I was rooted to the ground, and I thought I should have fainted away; in fact, it is a mercy something did not happen to me, being subject as I am to a flow of blood to the head; and when I got the use of my legs again he was gone.
"You may fancy my state of mind. I came up to draw my pension — for you know I like to look after my own money matters myself, and save bankers' bills — and here I am going on for the third day in town, and living in this expensive hotel too, and I have not been to the India Office yet; and there are the Joneses in South Wales — they are relatives of my poor Jones, you know — expecting me to spend Christmas with them. I really don't know what to do. I have written to Jane Polwheedle, that's my sister-in-law ——"
"Good heavens!" cried Yorke, interrupting her for the first time, "you surely have not written to tell her of this discovery."
"Oh no, my dear colonel," returned Mrs. Polwheedle, looking very sagacious. "I merely said that my nerves had been upset by an accident I saw at the railway-station; but I felt I must find some old friend to talk it over quietly with, or I should break down under the secret. I tried to find out Mackenzie Maxwell — he that was residency doctor at Mustaphabad, you know, and a great friend of poor Falkland — but he has gone out of town. And then I thought of you. I heard you were in England, and I went to Senior's and found that they were your agents, and that you were staying only a few miles off, and they promised to telegraph, and here you are; and I have scarcely been able to sleep a wink or touch a bit of food since this happened. And now I am sure I don't know what is to be done."
Yorke asked if it was long since she had heard of the Kirkes.
Not since Mrs. Kirke came to England, was the reply. Kirke had written himself from Egypt, some time back, to say he hoped to pay what he owed her soon, and mentioned that his wife had gone on to England.
"Then had Kirke borrowed money from you too?"
"No, it was a trifle his wife owed me; it was when we were living together in the hills — after we got away from the residency, you know. Lor' bless you! she had no more notion of money than a child; and if I had not taken her in to chum with me, and managed the housekeeping and all that, the servants would have robbed the very clothes off her back. Well, when the wedding-day came, there was a small balance due on the account, and she, poor thing, came to me and said that she had made over all her money to Kirke, and given him a memo, of the debt, for him to pay at once; and I daresay she believed he did pay it, but he didn't: he got married and went off without paying me; and when I sent him a little reminder to Mustaphabad, he wrote to put me off, and then the smash came, and I didn't like to trouble them. But he wrote afterwards of his own accord from Egypt, as I said, although I have quite made up my mind never to see any more of my money."
"How much was the amount?"
"Well, it was about three hundred and seventy rupees — no great sum to be sure; still, as a poor widow myself"
"That would be about thirty-seven pounds, wouldn't it, Mrs. Polwheedle? I have some funds which have been made available for meeting Mrs. — that is, for
meeting Kirke's obligations of this sort, so you will allow me to discharge this one at once."
The good lady for an instant looked pleased at the idea of recovering the long-standing debt, but presently wagged her head with a knowing smile. "No, no, my young friend; I know where those available funds come from. Your purse must be a pretty long one if it is to pay all that man's debts, I can tell you. Of course I should like to see my money again; that's only natural. I haven't too much to live on, you know; only my widow's pension, and the special allowance they give me on account of poor Polwheedle's services, and his small savings, and the trifle left by poor Jones; still, I'm not going to take your money. If you must give it to somebody, give it to her, poor thing; she is sure to be in want of it, wherever she is; for all she was so tall and grand-looking, she was as helpless as an infant about housekeeping and money matters, and is still, you may depend; and I'll be bound that man in Egypt is not too free with his remittances."
"So you have no idea where Mrs. Kirke is?" said Yorke presently, asking himself whether her old acquaintance might not perchance be some help to the poor wife in her present distress, and yet doubtful as to the prudence of telling Mrs. Polwheedle what he knew.
"I haven't an idea; but I hope and trust she won't meet poor Falkland, wherever she is. It would kill her, I do believe. Colonel Yorke, I was always against that second marriage. I mistrusted the man, for all he was such a handsome man, and such a fine soldier; and now this seems like a judgment on hear for marrying so soon. Why, I was seven years a widow after I lost my poor Jones, before I accepted Polwheedle. He wanted me to shorten the time; but I was quite firm. There's a want of delicacy, to my mind, in marrying again under seven years; don't you think so? After seven years it's a different thing, of course; but a woman should be delicate before everything."
Presently the conversation came back to the subject of Yorke's visit, and Mrs. Polwheedle for the first time expressed her surprise at what, if she had not been so full of her own story, might have struck her at first, that Yorke had not appeared so much astonished at her news as was to be expected.
Then Yorke told her that he too had seen Falkland — the recognition, like hers, having been accidental — and expected to see him again very shortly; although he evaded Mrs. Polwheedle's very natural curiosity to know where and how the meeting had happened. Falkland, he added, did not know that he had been recognized by anybody else; for his sake and for Olivia's, the secret must be kept; and he used all the earnestness of manner he could summon for the occasion, in exhorting Mrs. Polwheedle on no account to divulge it.
The lady at once promised compliance, but so readily and lightly that Yorke felt sure the promise would not be kept, and was filled with dismay at this new complication; still more when he heard that Mrs. Polwheedle was expecting to meet some of the old residency garrison that very day. She was to dine with Mrs. Peart, whose husband had been killed in the defence. "She has just taken a house at Notting Hill, you know, for herself and Kitty."
"Kitty?"
"Yes; didn't you know that Kitty Spragge had come home? Kitty Peart that was. Yes, she has brought home all the children; they landed a fortnight ago — a bad time to arrive; but they got an empty steamer, which is a good thing when you have such a lot of children. Fancy that chit of a girl, as she used to be at the residency, the mother of five children, and the eldest not six! No, no," continued the lady, wagging her head knowingly, in reply to a question, "young Spragge hasn't come himself, and he isn't likely to, either, with such a family to provide for. He has had enough to do to send them, let alone coming himself: he had to borrow five thousand rupees from the Agra bank for their passage-money and outfit; and when will he be able to pay that off, do you suppose? with him on four hundred and ninety-six rupees a month, and no chance of any promotion? You would hardly know Kitty again, she has grown so stout. Yes, I am going to take an early dinner with them, and then we are going with the eldest boy to the circus. I like to see good horsemanship myself; it reminds one so of one's young days. But I can't get that poor fellow out of my head."
Then Yorke, rising to go, again urged her to secrecy. As long as they kept the matter to themselves, he pointed out, they perhaps might be able to help the unfortunate persons concerned in their difficulty. And he would come back soon and consult her as to what was best to be done. But if once the matter went
beyond themselves, their use and influence would be gone. This implied bribe had its effect, and Yorke would not leave until he had again extracted a solemn promise from her not to breathe a whisper of what she knew to Mrs. Peart or any one else.
"So you won't stay and take a little lunch?" said the lady, as they shook hands for the last time. "I have ordered it for half past one o'clock punctually; just a cutlet and mashed potatoes, and a little bitter beer; but you are such a great man now," she continued, as he declined her hospitality, "I suppose you would not care to stop and keep company with an old woman like me. Dear me! to think that you were a mere griff, as one may say, when the mutiny broke out, and now here you are a colonel and all the rest of it. And if my poor Polwheedle had been spared, what honours he would have come in for, as commandant of the garrison, and responsible for everything! They would have made him a K.C.B. for certain; don't you think so? and then I should have been my Lady Pol——" but the emotion called up by this picture of the greatness which should have been her portion, prevented the completion of the sentence, and Yorke left her standing at the end of the big drawing-room, wiping away the tears which welled up at the recital of her loss, while the large mirror reflected the tremulous movement of her ample figure.
CHAPTER 55
========================================
CHAPTER LV.
On
leaving the hotel, Yorke hastened to seek out Mackenzie Maxwell and consult with him on the momentous subject with which he was oppressed, and which seemed for the time to dwarf all the other business of life into utter insignificance. Yet he could not help thinking with a sort of languid wonder as he hastened along, how small a part of the interview just ended had been devoted to the astonishing news which led to it. Mrs. Polwheedle had seen Falkland, and was still able to think about her luncheon and her visits; and except for the gratification afforded her by having a listener, nothing had come out of Yorke's compliance with her urgent summons. And he himself too, notwithstanding this revelation, found already his thoughts at times wandering to other things.
At Maxwell's club, where he had not been seen for two days, Yorke obtained the address of his lodgings, and on inquiring at the latter place learned that the doctor had gone out of town, but was expected back that afternoon; and Yorke spent the hours restlessly wandering to and fro between his own club and the house, too anxious and excited to do aught else. At last, as it was growing dark, he was just leaving the house after making another of many fruitless inquiries, when a cab drove up with his friend inside.
Maxwell recognizing Yorke as he stepped out gave him at first a hearty greeting; then as he stopped to pay the driver, an expression of reserve came over him, and he stood hesitating on the pavement, not inviting Yorke to enter the house, but as if waiting for him to go away.
"I understand your doubts," said Yorke presently, approaching him closely and speaking in a low voice; "but there is no secret to be kept from me; I know all."
An expression of surprise and relief came over Maxwell's face, succeeded by one of distrust and anxiety. How much of the awful secret did Yorke know?
"I have seen
her
" continued the other, "and I have seen
him
. It was by a strange chance. Will you not lead the way in, that we may speak about this in private?"
Then, seated in the sitting-room whither Maxwell now conducted him, Yorke told him the events of the past evening, and the two friends mutually confessed the relief they found in being able to have this confidence on the subject.
"I can't tell you," said the old doctor, "what a burden this secret has been to me; and when I met you last, I felt that if I did not run away, I should be tempted to make a clear breast of it and consult you. And indeed I should have been well pleased to think that the poor lassie should have another friend at hand, for a friend I know you would be; although, of course, you can't be expected to feel for her as I do, who was like a brother to both father and husband. And I would have asked you at once to come down and see her; but then there was
his
secret to keep too, so I was obliged to give you the cold shoulder for a bit, d'ye see? But I am truly glad to think that I have some one to talk the matter over with, for you are a man that can be trusted with a secret."
Maxwell then went on to explain the arrangement that had just been made. Comfortable lodgings had been taken for Olivia at a sheltered point on the south coast. Early to-morrow he meant to go down to Shoalbrook, to try and manage
that the outcast should have one view of his wife, as Falkland had already explained, before she started with Maxwell for her new home.
And could not he do anything to help the stricken pair? Yorke asked, and explained to his friend how he was staying in the neighbourhood, urging his strong desire to be of service. At least he could come forward to aid with his purse; so much of the distress as money could alleviate he might help to fend off from the
unfortunate Olivia.
But Maxwell said that there was no need for that now. No doubt she had been left in terrible straits at one time, before she made herself known to Maxwell; for having been brought up abroad, and the aunt with whom she lived as a girl being dead, she had found herself a stranger in England, friendless and almost without money. But Falkland had enough to keep her from want, and if not, Maxwell himself had more than sufficient for his own simple needs, and was not likely to let the daughter of his old friend suffer, now that her condition was known. No, there was no need of money; "and you, my dear fellow," continued the doctor, "must have plenty of use for all you have got, for you are just at the time of life when a man is likely to have not more than he wants. I suppose you will be having a wife of your own soon. But no doubt the poor girl will be glad to see you now and again, to talk over old times. And perhaps her hus— perhaps Kirke will be coming home, or at any rate sending her some money. He has assigned his half-pay to her already, and it was that she was living upon when she wrote to me — a bare starvation allowance, of course, for one never accustomed to think about money. I don't suppose there is intentional neglect; he seemed always to be very fond of her; it is simply, I suspect, the behaviour of a selfish man, in dreadful embarrassment and at a distance. But we must take care he does not discover the secret; there is no saying how he might take it, or how it might affect his treatment of her. Her best chance of happiness, poor thing, is in being united to him again, horrible though the idea seems. And this is what Falkland, nobly unselfish as ever, himself wishes."
But Maxwell showed great alarm when Yorke told him of his interview with Mrs. Polwheedle. He concurred with the latter in thinking it was hardly to be expected that the secret could now be kept. This new aspect of affairs made them look black indeed. Fresh and greater unhappiness awaited these unfortunate persons if the secrets were divulged. He, too, must see Mrs. Polwheedle, and endeavour to hold her to secrecy.
Thus the two friends discussed the sad history of Falkland and Olivia, not talking quickly, for their hearts were too full, but in undertones, and with frequent gaps between reply and question, looking down as they spoke at the embers of the fire before which they sat in the dark room, as Yorke learned from the good doctor further particulars about Olivia's adventures since she left India. Truly a time of trouble and suffering from first to last, with which she was ill fitted in every sense to struggle.
At last Yorke rose to go. Engrossing though the subject of their conversation was, there must be an end of it. Maxwell had business to do, and he himself must be leaving town. But they were to meet again next morning at the riverside inn.
One question Maxwell put as he was leaving the room. Had Falkland mentioned to Yorke the circumstances of his meeting with himself, and did he describe at all how he had passed the last seven years?
Yorke replied that Falkland mentioned the recognition as having been accidental, and that he had frequently referred to his loss of memory, and the difficulty he found in recalling the past.
Maxwell shook his head sadly. "I may as well tell you the whole truth," he said. "These injuries to the head have affected the brain in more ways than one. When I first met our poor friend he was under restraint abroad. He has been perfectly lucid ever since; but I have reason to believe that the greater part of his time since his return to Europe has been passed in this way in different places. Happily for him he has no recollection of these times. But you have seen for yourself what a mere wreck he is in every way of the noble Falkland whom we once knew. Would to God he had really been taken from us when we thought we had lost him!"
Yorke on leaving Maxwell's lodgings hurried to the station. He would just be in time to catch a train for Hamwell, and the best thing he could do would be to go to "The Beeches." There he would be near to both Olivia and Falkland, and ready to keep his appointment on the morrow; and he remembered, too, what all this time he had almost forgotten, that some explanation was due to his hosts for his sudden
disappearance; still more, that a further explanation must be had with Lucy, and an understanding come to with her father. And yet for the time the prospect of having to do this seemed utterly distasteful. The very notion that he should be scheming plans for happiness and wedded life appeared like a sacrilege to the memory of his first love in her lonely wretchedness.
The train passed through Shoalbrook Junction, stopping there for a minute; the carriage was full as usual of business men returning home, each with his little basket of fish or game: some slept, others discussed the evening papers; while hard by, on the bank of the river which flowed swiftly on, were the two unhappy beings whose tragic fate he was watching, unable to avert.
CHAPTER 56
========================================
CHAPTER LVI.
Yorke
arrived at "The Beeches" only a few minutes before dinner-time. Everybody had retired to dress, and the blaze of lights and array of extra waiters bustling about betokened a party, while the presence of the gentlemanly-looking person in the hall proclaimed that Mr. Hanckes was among the guests; but Mr. Peevor came out to greet him, receiving the apologies which Yorke made for his unceremonious departure in quite an apologetic manner. "Pray do not mention it, colonel; business is business, of course, and must be attended to; I am a business man myself, you know. I have to go to town myself to-morrow; treating you quite unceremoniously, you see. But I am so glad that you have been able to return in time for dinner, as we have a few friends whom I should like to introduce to you. So sorry there was no carriage to meet you at the station: if we could have guessed you were coming by that train, I should have made a point of sending one. Those flies are so cold and drafty."
On descending to the blue drawing-room, Yorke found a large party assembled, including Mr. Hanckes, who had come down by the previous train, and he
had barely time to pay his greetings to the ladies of the family when dinner was announced. Although the occasion did not lend itself to love-passages, for Lucy was surrounded by visitors, it would have been easy for a lover during the brief moment while he held her hand in his to exchange signals with the eyes that would have been easily understood; but although she cast a timid inquiring glance at her hero, as if to learn in what mood to find him, it met with no response. Poor Lucy showed only too plainly that she was so much in love as to be ready to accept her lover on his own terms; and in his present mood he was cruel enough to take advantage of his conquest. Perchance the absence of difficulty in winning it had robbed the prize of its value. He did not even notice that she was taken in to dinner by Mr. Hanckes. It fell to him to give his arm to the hostess; and sitting at the same side of the long table as Lucy, and at the other end of it, she could not see him, and he sat moody and preoccupied, not caring to watch her. This eating and drinking, all this pomp and display, and waste of food and wine, and show and glitter, jarred harshly on his senses, as he contrasted the forlorn condition of his two friends so close at hand, and he was in no humour for small-talk and civility. But Mrs. Peevor was at no time a great talker; and after a few necessary commonplaces about the children, and a polite reference to the business which called him away, she was sufficiently occupied in watching the progress of the feast. The lady on his right was one of those numerous members of society who go persistently to dinner-parties without the least intention of amusing or being amused, and on this occasion was allowed full liberty to gratify her tastes. But, long and dreary though the meal was to Yorke, the sitting in silence and inaction through the long courses seemed preferable to moving away; and when the ladies left the room — Lucy casting back as she passed out a timid glance, to which he merely answered with an empty smile — Mr. Peevor moved up to his wife's seat, and accepted his languid attention as sufficient encouragement to launch into the domestic price-current with a degree of havering persistence that rendered a listener superfluous, and was easily led on to protract the sitting to a much greater length than usual, till even some of the ten decanters showed signs of exhaustion. Yorke, as he well knew, had a duty to do in the drawing-room. To meet Lucy again otherwise than on the new footing justified by what had passed the day before, would be cruel and cowardly. Yet because in his present mood it was a duty and no more, what had still to be done seemed now distasteful. Was it because the events of the last few hours had brought back so vividly the day-dreams of his early manhood, and that he shrank from the effort of finally casting off the bonds which he had worn so long that they had grown to be a part of himself? Or was it the reason which he put before himself as the real one, that to be indulging at such a time in schemes for his own happiness was a selfish desecration of old friendship for the two unhappy persons for whose sufferings he professed to feel so deeply? Whatever the real cause, it was at any rate a sort of relief that the gentlemen sat unusually long over their wine, not moving to the yellow drawing-room till it was nearly time for the visitors' carriages to arrive. Even then Mr. Peevor insisted on bringing up the different male guests to be introduced to him — middle-aged gentlemen all apparently connected in some way with the city; and then on taking him round to be introduced to their various partners, matrons of more or less ample figure, as his (Mr. Peevor's) distinguished friend, Colonel Yorke, the Victoria-Cross man, and so forth. And on this occasion he was almost glad to have to go through the ceremony; it gave him an excuse for avoiding Lucy, although he could not help noticing how distraught she looked, as she interrupted the conversation in which Mr. Hanckes was engaging her to steal a troubled glance in his direction. Poor little Lucy! The first real gentleman as it seemed to her that she had ever met, and a hero to boot, this noble creature who had won her simple heart almost from the first moment he had looked at her, this splendid being she had fondly believed to have also fallen in love with herself! but the cup of bliss seemed now to be shattered almost before she had raised it to her lips, and for the first time in her short life, tranquil and tame, she felt all the pangs of real unhappiness.
Even when the guests, except Mr. Hanckes, who was to stop for the night, had taken their departure, and their party was reduced to half-a-dozen persons — for Miss Maria had not come down-stairs this evening — he engaged Miss Cathy in conversation in quite another part of the large room. Miss Cathy had taken advantage of the thaw to go out hunting that
morning, and was full of regrets at his absence; there had been two capital runs, and so forth, although mostly over Sunfern Common, which was not like the grass country: and Yorke found it easy to keep the conversation to that subject, Mr. Hanckes coming up to join, and expressing his sympathy with Yorke in having lost his day's 'unting; for although not a hunting-man himself, he could understand how much the colonel would have enjoyed it, especially in such company. Such a pity too for Miss Cathy to have been obliged to go alone. For Mr. Hanckes had made up his mind that Yorke's attentions were paid to the horsewoman of the family, as became a military man, and was therefore quite easy about his presence in the house. Lucy meanwhile sat in a corner looking over an album of photographs which she had seen a hundred times before.
But when the ladies rose to say goodnight, and Yorke, who was standing near the door, opened it for them, Lucy's face as she passed out, the last of the three ladies, looked so pitiful — he had held out his hand, which she took without raising her eyes — that he relented from his selfish preoccupation.
"Lucy," he said, in a low voice, following her into the hall, "I have to ask your pardon for a hundred sins this evening; but I have been meeting with some very dear friends who are in sore trouble, and I could not shake off the effect it has produced. Can you forgive me if I tell you so much?" and at the look which accompanied these words, and which Lucy's now upraised eyes received, the poor girl's face brightened up at once, and she stood irresolute returning his smile, while the tears of joy came up to relieve the anxious little heart. True, this was not quite what she had expected love-making to be; but then she had not yet quite got over her awe of her lover, and to know that he was her lover seemed sufficient happiness.
She stood still in the hall, waiting for something more to be said, or perhaps trying to say something herself; while Cathy, who had left the room just before her, divining possibly that the conversation was of an interesting nature, had hurried up the staircase and was now out of sight.
"But we must not stand here," continued Yorke with a smile, "or Mr. Hanckes will be jealous;" and Lucy tripped off, her heart dancing with joy.
"Certainly," thought Yorke, as he watched her graceful little figure retreating, the rich brown hair and the handsome toilet seeming to be in keeping with the luxurious surroundings of the scene, "if a man may be satisfied with a pretty face, and a loving heart, and a sweet temper, I must be an ill-conditioned fellow to feel any misgivings."
The die was cast now at any rate, but he felt in no humour for an interview that night with Mr. Peevor; nor was a convenient opportunity afforded for doing so. Mr. Hanckes retired at once, announcing himself to be an early sleeper; and Mr. Peevor apologetically proposed that there should be no billiards that evening, as he had to go to town himself early next day on business. So Yorke sought his room to think over the strange incongruity of his position. So long believing himself to be inconsolable, and now to be establishing new interests, and to have found real happiness in his grasp at last, at the very time when he found himself again in Olivia's presence — to be making love to another woman when his first love, the only woman he used to think whom he ever could love, was in loneliness and suffering hard by. And there came up, too, the sense that a new duty must now fall upon him. He could not minister to Olivia's wants. In her deserted condition anything like familiarity must be guarded against as leading to possible misconception; but could he reconcile it to his duty to be taking his pleasure while Falkland, was hiding his sufferings in some lonely retreat? Was it not his plain duty to devote himself so long as his leave lasted to companionship with Falkland's wrecked fortunes? Life was now very sweet to Yorke; and it was with a full sense of the extent of the sacrifice that he resolved to make it, if Falkland on the morrow should show any disposition for his companionship. But this must not prevent his coming to an understanding with Lucy's father. That was a plain duty too.
But Yorke's was not the age for broken nights, and while arranging his plans for the morrow he soon fell asleep.
CHAPTER 57
========================================
CHAPTER LVII.
It
seemed to the household of "The Beeches" to be yet early in the night, but in reality it was morning, although still quite dark, when its slumbering inmates were aroused by an alarm of fire. But Yorke, jumping up and huddling on some clothes, could make out soon among the hurried questions and answers exchanged between Mr. Peevor inside his room and the butler without, interrupted
exclamations from Mrs. Peevor about the children, and general banging of doors and
whisperings in the corridors, that the butler was trying to explain that it was not "The Beeches" which was on fire, but some place in the neighbourhood. Johnson the engineer, who slept outside, getting up to tend the furnaces, had seen the glare, and had awakened the butler to know if the engine should be sent; and the word "fire" having been caught up by somebody who heard the noise of Johnson's knocking at the door, the alarm had been spread over the whole house.
"Is there an engine on the place?" called out Yorke to Mr. Peevor; "of course you will send it, sir; I will go with it; I will be ready in a minute."
"And I too," cried Mr. Hanckes from his room; "I'll just get 'old of a few warm things first;" and in a few seconds the two gentlemen were hurrying downstairs, the shutting of doors as they passed along the corridor indicating that the fair inmates of the different chambers had all been aroused by the alarm, and were peering out in dishabille, to know what all the noise was about.
Issuing from the house, Mr. Peevor calling to them, as the butler opened the hall-door to let them out, to be sure and wrap up well or they would take cold, the gentlemen found that by Johnson's exertions the engine had already been brought out into the stable-yard, while harness was being put on a couple of horses. "It was I got Peevor to have an engine on the place," said Mr. Hanckes to Yorke as they stood waiting in the yard; "I can't abide fires. We had a fire in our warehouse once, with fifty thousand gallon of hoil all round — balsam to the tune of fifty thousand gallon all round, ready to blaze up. A nice little bonfire it would have made, I expect. That was a anxious moment, I do assure you; it was touch and go, and no mistake; and we just got it under in time. But we live and learn. I've took precaution enough since, and now we could flood the 'ole place — the whole place could be flooded in five minutes. And then I gave Peevor no peace till he bought an engine too. 'Peevor,' I says, 'you've got a sight of valuables, and everything a man of taste can want, except an engine to keep 'em safe; do you want to be burnt out of 'ouse and 'ome — do you want to be burnt out of house and home some fine night? You must just get a first-class hengine, that's what you must do, and lose no time about it.' And so he got me to choose a engine for him, and a real beauty it is, made to order with all the latest improvements, and it may be of use to the neighbours as well as to him. Not that we shall do much in the salvage line to-night, I expect; the fire seems too much gone for that;" and indeed from where they stood the glare could be seen in the sky, high above the yard-wall and the garden-trees beyond.
"Here comes the horses at last," continued Mr. Hanckes; "if our lads at the shop weren't a trifle smarter than Peevor's own people, it ain't much balsam we should turn out in the course of a twelve-month, nor yet much clarifying neither. Now then, which of you boys are coming? there's room for six besides Johnson and me. Colonel, you'll drive, I hope; it's a case of pace this is." And Yorke taking the reins jumped on the box; and the others, gardeners and stablemen, clambering up on the side seats, the engine rattled out of the yard, and along the avenue, faster than the horses had ever gone before.
As they entered the highroad at the end of the avenue the glare was so bright it seemed as if the fire must be close at hand; but the men said that there was no house near to "The Beeches" in that direction, and Yorke drove furiously along the road, waiting for the first opening to turn towards the fire.
A very few minutes' driving brought them to the point where the road turned down towards the river, the same down which he had made his eventful walk with Lucy, and there an opening in the line of hedge showed them the fire itself, the glare of which had been seen so high in the sky, blazing at the bottom of the hill, evidently on the bank of the river.
"'Tis the inn by the river," said one of the men; "'tis the River Belle; how it do blaze, to be sure!" and in another moment they lost sight of the actual flame, as Yorke turned the horses at a gallop down the steep hill.
The party were silent now, busy in holding on to their narrow seats, as the engine swayed to and fro with the furious driving, the glare becoming brighter every moment.
The bottom of the hill was soon reached, and, rattling round the corner, Yorke pulled up the horses short at the river-bank, as the truth of which he had an uneasy foreboding during the drive was now made clear. On the right, where the inn
should be, all was dark and still: the burning house was on their left — it was Olivia's.
While the others jumping from their seats began to set about getting the engine ready to work, Yorke ran forward a few paces through the gate into the little garden.
The house was now all on fire, flames rushing out of the roof and windows. Before it on the lawn stood a few onlookers, gazing idly at the spectacle which lighted up their faces.
"You've a-come along with that there engine, I suppose, sir? " said one of the little group to Yorke, a stout elderly man, whom he at once recognized to be the landlord of the River Belle. "'Taint a bit of good pouring water on that there fire; you might pour the whole river on it now, and nothing come of it."
"And the family?" said Yorke, almost breathless with excitement, — "the lady and children?"
"Oh, they was got out all right, and the nuss too; but the gentleman ——"
"What gentleman?"
"Him as was staying at my place, over at the Belle yonder," said the man, pointing in the direction of the inn; "he saved the lady first and then the children; 'twas wonderful to see how he went up the ladder, and him with only one arm too. 'Twas an uncommon close thing, sure, for the house is that frail it didn't want much lighting; it was all in a blaze afore a soul heerd of it."
Yorke stood silent, and the man went on.
"Yes, 'twas a wonderful sight to see: there was the lady a-wringing of her hands at the winder, and the nuss a-screaming like a railway whistle; and we puts the ladder up agen' the winder, and the gentleman he runs up it, and helps the nuss down — hands her to our Joe — that's our pot-boy — who was close behind of him, and then he wants the lady to follow; I seed it all myself, for I was a-helping to keep the ladder steady; but the lady she calls out that the children are inside, and so the gentleman he goes in at the winder, and brings out the two children, fust one and then the other — for you see he couldn't carry but one at a time because of him only having one arm — brings them right out of the fire, as one may say — for it were burning very fierce even then, almost as fierce as you see it a-burning now — and hands them out to our Joe; and the poor little things, though they was in their night-shifts they wasn't even singed, for he covered them in his big cloak — only frightened a bit; and then the gentleman he wants the lady to step over the window-sill and on to the ladder, but she seemed all dazed like with fear; I could see her a-standing before the window looking as it might be at a ghost. Then the gentleman he calls out to Joe; 'Can you pass me up a bit of rope?' says he. So we soon gets a bit of rope and hands it to Joe, and he hands it to the gentleman, and the gentleman he tried for to tie the lady up with it, but couldn't manage it on account of his having only one hand, you see. So then Joe he goes up, and the two together they passes the rope and a sheet round the lady (who seemed all in a faint like), and lifts her out, and then they all come down, — fust the lady, and then Joe holding one end of the line, and the gentleman a-holding of the other, and every one a-shouting like mad — for there was quite a crowd round here — to see him so gallant and dextrous. And our Joe, he behaved uncommon well too — I must say that for our Joe. Well, sir, we all thought they was quite safe out of it, and a good job too, when just as they had got to the bottom, and the lady was on the ground, a great piece of the eaveboard — that there great piece as you see lying there — came down and struck the gentleman on the head, and he fell off the ladder, stunned like, as well he might be, for it must be a matter of half a hundred-weight if it's a pound. Oh, it were a pity! — it were indeed, and him having acted so gallant and noble."
Yorke had stood still, fascinated by the tale, listening to the man's recital. The words came with difficulty as he asked, "Was the gentleman much hurt?"
"Stunned complete, and his poor face was an awful objec'. The lady, she knelt down by him on the wet ground, and took hold of his hand in hers and began a-rubbing of it; but that wouldn't do no good, of course. We carried him in to the Belle, and my missis is a-looking after him, and Joe has run for the doctor; he ought to be back soon. His face is that ghastly — well, 'tis a sad thing, surelie, to save four lives and maybe lose of his own, and him having acted so gallant and noble."
CHAPTER 58
========================================
CHAPTER LVIII.
The
little inn was crowded with people, for the fire had aroused the whole neighbourhood; and the lookers-on, now that the interest was transferred here from the blazing house, had for the most part
adjourned to the tap to discuss the event over something to drink, and perhaps to get a further glimpse of some of the principal actors in it; but the good landlady, standing by the door of the parlour into which Falkland had been carried, kept off the curious from looking inside, while giving her instructions to the maid busily employed in the tap-room on the other side of the passage. She recognized Yorke, however, as Falkland's friend, and at once gave him admission.
The body of the injured man had been placed on the little couch; beside it knelt Olivia, her long hair falling loose over her shoulders, grasping her husband's hand in her own, and gazing with blanched and horror-stricken face at the mutilated, senseless features before her. Remorse, terror, pity, and affection, made up a look of agony in the unhappy wife's face in keeping with the tragic situation.
Yorke could find no words of comfort or consolation, nor could he tell from her rapt look whether she was conscious of his presence.
Some time he stood behind her, gazing, too, at the sad spectacle — the scars made by the accident blending with the old wounds; then he stepped forwards, and gently drew the coverlet over the shattered face.
As he did so, Olivia raised her head and looked at him with the same horror-stricken, stony stare. No sign of recognition escaped her, yet he could see she knew him, and understood the motive for his action. Then she again looked away from him to the muffled figure.
Yorke thought at first that Falkland was dead; but gazing at the body in the stillness he could perceive a slight movement. He placed his hand on the heart; it was still feebly beating.
As he did this, Olivia again looked up, with an expression of dumb inquiry.
"He still breathes," said Yorke, in a low voice.
Then Olivia turned her face again towards the figure on the couch.
Thus the time passed. Yorke stood silent by Olivia's side, while she still knelt, holding Falkland's hand. She seemed too deeply affected to be accessible to any attempt at consolation.
Presently the landlady opened the door, and the doctor entered the room. He was an elderly man, kindly-looking. He felt Falkland's pulse, watching Olivia the while, and then beckoned Yorke aside. "I must examine the patient," he said, "to see what the injuries are: can you remove the lady? Poor thing, she seems greatly affected, and no wonder; they tell me he saved her life and her children's; but I fear he may have lost his own in doing so."
Olivia looked up at them as they whispered in the corner, and then pointing with her eyes at the prostrate form before her, as if inviting them to proceed with their task, bent her head down, burying her face in her hands, which rested on the edge of the couch.
"She will not leave her post," said Yorke, in an undertone. "He was a very dear friend, although they had not met for many years; you had better let her stay. The shock has been great; I fear to attempt to rouse her from it. The family doctor — a very old friend — is coming down this morning and should be here soon; if anything immediate is required, pray do it; but otherwise it would be better to wait till he arrives."
A few minutes passed, and the doctor, again covering the shattered features, drew Yorke aside. There was concussion of the brain, he said, and great depression of the heart's action. Whether relief by an operation might be possible he could not say at present; perhaps it would be better to wait till Dr. Maxwell arrived; at any rate there was nothing to be done just at present; he would call again shortly to meet him. Could he and his wife be of any use? the lady must be in a very destitute condition; they would gladly receive her and the children for a time; they lived about a mile off. But Yorke said he would telegraph to a lady in town, who was an old friend, to come down at once. It seemed, indeed, the best thing he could do; for the idea occurred to him that by enlisting Mrs. Polwheedle's services as a principal in this difficulty, she might be the more readily induced to keep the secret of which she was already possessed. And the doctor, as he left the room, promised to drive straight to the nearest post-office with the telegram which Yorke had scribbled on a leaf of his pocket-book.
Time passed on, and the grey winter daylight came into the little room, where Olivia still knelt by the couch, her face buried in her hands. Was her poor stricken heart sending up some broken prayers to heaven, or was she too crushed to think? All was now quiet about the place. The people who had hung about the tap-room having come to the end of their cash or their capacity for beer, had gone their several ways; the children apparently had been gotten to sleep, for
there was no movement up-stairs; and Yorke seemed to be the only person awake, as standing by the window he looked out on the dull winter landscape — the swollen river flowing by, the view bounded by the leafless branches of the trees which bordered its banks, the smouldering ruins of the burnt house in the foreground, while the past history of the two unfortunate beings who shared the little chamber with him passed swiftly through his mind. Ruin indeed! What picture could depict the ruin which had fallen on these two — the best, the noblest, as he used to think, of all he knew?
Presently the sound of wheels could be heard, and a carriage stopped before the inn, on the road which ran by the back of the house.
Yorke went out to see who had come, and turning round as he left the room, he saw that Olivia, still on her knees, did not appear to notice his departure.
As he came up to the carriage, Mr. Hanckes, who had just got down, was helping Lucy to alight, followed by her maid.
Lucy had come to fetch the lady and children, the news of whose escape and homeless condition had been conveyed to "The Beeches" by the engine-party returning from their fruitless errand. The carriage was full of cloaks and shawls. Mrs. Peevor would have come, but was not ready. "I was dressed first," Lucy explained, "and papa thought I had better start at once, so that no time might be lost, and Mr. Hanckes was kind enough to come too, and says he will walk back to make room." There was more to the same effect, messages "of condolence, and inquiries after the poor gentleman who was so dreadfully hurt. Mr. Peevor would come down presently with Johnson to see if he could be moved to "The Beeches;" but there were pressing entreaties that the lady and children would return at once in the carriage.
Mr. Hanckes moved off to have a look at the fire, while Yorke thought for a moment what would be best to do. A woman might perhaps supply the consolation and help for Olivia, of which she must be sorely in need, but which he felt unable to give; but he shrank from letting Lucy witness the scene within; nor, he felt sure, would Olivia be persuaded to leave her post at present. Above all, the secret must be kept if possible. He replied, therefore, that the lady would not wish to leave at present, till the doctor came from town, who was expected very soon. He was an old friend, and would advise what to do. The injured man lay between life and death, and there was the deepest anxiety till Dr. Maxwell should arrive and propose some treatment. But he would tell Mrs. Wood of the kind plans suggested, and would urge her to accept the offer later in the day, unless indeed a lady, an old friend, who had been telegraphed for, or Dr. Maxwell, should propose to take her away. At any rate she would feel deeply the kindness of Lucy and the family.
Lucy asked if she could not take back the children — they at any rate would be better out of the way; and Yorke explained that they had been put to bed, and were asleep. But later in the day it might be a great kindness to send for them.
"And you yourself?" asked Lucy, whose earnestness in the matter had so far kept her free from embarrassment, and who was talking to her lover with more self-possession than she could have commanded a few hours before.
"I will stay, at any rate till Dr. Maxwell arrives. I will then send word what is proposed, or come to tell Mr. Peevor myself. Pray ask him not to be at the trouble of coming himself, or sending again till he hears from me; perfect quiet is the best thing for the injured man." Yorke wanted to keep the family away till he could arrange a plan with Maxwell.
"The poor gentleman was an old friend of Mrs. Wood, we hear," said Lucy.
"Yes, they knew each other in India some years ago; we were all intimate together; that accounts for the interest I take in them: it is a strange story." As Yorke said this with as much indifference of manner as he could command, he could see that Lucy was conscious that more was meant than was implied. There was a moment's embarrassment, and then Lucy, stepping back to the carriage, produced his dressing-bag. "Rundall, the man who waits on you," she said with a little blush, "has put up your things for you. I thought perhaps you might be wanting to stay for a time, and that it might be useful to bring this." And as Yorke took the bag from her he could not forbear from pressing the little hand, accompanying the action with a kindly glance which sent Lucy's eyes dancing with pleasure. The next moment he felt ashamed of doing so; was this a time for love-making, when those he professed to hold so dear to him were close by, the victims of a dreadful fate?
And yet something was due to his gentle
little sweetheart. "Lucy," he said, with some hesitation — "Lucy, dear, you must be thinking me a sulky, ill-conditioned fellow. But don't judge me, please, by late appearances. I believe you will find me a simple, straightforward fellow enough, who will try at any rate to deserve his good fortune," — and again he pressed the little hand which he still held; "but can you understand that — that I have been living another life all these years before we met, and that there have been other interests and other feelings at work? Lucy, dear, some day perhaps I may be able to tell you a part of my history, and if you knew it, you are so single-minded I think you would not wish me to play the lover just now."
Lucy's glance upwards was a sufficient reply, nor was there time for more, Mr. Hanckes at this moment coming up again, with the maid, who also had gone to look at the fire; and after seeing the party drive away, Yorke returned inside, and opening the parlour-door quietly, looked into the room. Olivia had not changed her place, but was no longer kneeling; she had sunk on the ground, her head still resting on the couch and buried in her hands. Asking the landlady, who was now up and about again, not to disturb her, Yorke sought a room and made his toilet; and then coming down-stairs found that some breakfast had been got ready for him in the bar-room, of which he could not help feeling ready to partake, thinking, as he did so, what an unconscious satire on the miseries of life was the need for supplying its daily wants. Here was a scene enacting in the next room of a sort to harrow the coldest nature, even if there were no special ties involved; yet in the midst of these miseries he could still be hungry. The landlady wanted to take in some tea to Olivia, but Yorke stopped her: that grief at least was too sacred to be disturbed. Nor would Yorke himself return to the room on the other side of the passage till Maxwell should arrive; he was due by this time.
Presently the sound of wheels was heard, and his cab drove up. Outside under the trees Yorke made him acquainted in a few words with what had passed, and then led the way to the little parlour.
Olivia was still as Yorke had last seen her, crouching on the floor, her head buried in her hands, which rested on the edge of the couch. She did not move as they approached.
Maxwell felt the pulse of the prostrate form for a long time, and in silence. Then he stooped over it and laid his hand on the heart.
"It is all over," he said at last in a low voice to Yorke, who stood by anxiously watching him; "he must have been dead some time," and drew the covering over the part of the face which was still exposed.
"Olivia," he then said in louder tones, taking one of her hands, "will you not come to your children?"
At this appeal Olivia, raising her head, turned her pale face up towards him, the large eyes staring fixedly at him, as if not understanding what was said.
Maxwell made a sign to Yorke to help, and the latter taking her other hand, the two lifted her from the ground and led her from the room.
CHAPTER 59
========================================
CHAPTER LIX.
Long
and anxious was the consultation between the two friends, when an hour or more afterwards Maxwell rejoined Yorke down-stairs, and they paced together the little garden before the inn. Both felt that there was no cause for sorrow in the fate of their friend, bereft of hope, and whose heroic death was in harmony with his noble self-sacrificing life; and after a short time their thoughts turned to the cares of the living. The shock undergone by Olivia had been greater to the brain than the nerves, said the doctor; there was great mental excitement, and no relief from tears or faintness, and it was difficult to decide what was best to be done. Stay here she could not, yet she was not fit to travel to the south, as was intended, still less to be left alone. "I almost think," he continued, "it would be best to accept the offer of your friends, and take her to them for a while, if you think they are really prepared to exercise so much hospitality."
Yorke knew enough of the Peevors to feel sure of this, and that, under present circumstances, they would not in the least resent her being taken to them under an assumed name, should they come to know it afterwards. They were just the people not to feel prudish at such a thing, and they would certainly be kind and hospitable; but then the difficulty of keeping the secret would be much increased by going to "The Beeches."
"It is no good trying to keep the secret," replied Maxwell; "she has told it to the landlady half-a-dozen times already, although the latter evidently regards it as a delusion brought on by the shock. And then there will have to be an inquest, so
that secrecy seems impossible. Mrs. Polwheedle will be a comfort if she comes, bringing an old face at any rate; but she at the most could take her into London lodgings, and that would not be a fit place for her. Perfect quiet is what is wanted, and that, I understand, she might get at your friends' house. I really think that is the best thing we can do for her just at present. But we must wait and see whether Mrs. Polwheedle comes."
That lady arrived about mid-day. Yorke had done no more than justice to her good-nature in sending her this summons. She had come down by the first train after receiving it, taking a fly from the Shoalbrook station. It was not perhaps very easy to convey to her a clear idea of what had happened, she had so much to say herself; but she was unaffectedly glad to be of use; and as she mounted the narrow staircase after exchanging a few words with the landlady, a strong feeling of sympathy with Olivia was mingled with a sense of self-importance at having been called on to help.
When Maxwell rejoined Yorke, after showing Mrs. Polwheedle up-stairs, he had thought of a temporary home for Olivia. A cousin of his, a maiden lady, was head of a small sisterhood in the neighbourhood of London, where perhaps Olivia and her children might be received for a time. There she would be free from intrusion, and be sure of quiet and good nursing if needed. And, indeed, she was likely to want it, continued the doctor; this brain-excitement was very distressing and serious. He would go to Shoalbrook at once and telegraph to his cousin from there, and also procure a sedative, and if possible see the coroner, and arrange also for the unfortunate husband's funeral, returning to the inn as quickly as possible. But it might not be practicable to secure her reception at the sisterhood that day; Yorke had better see his friends and prepare for Olivia's moving to "The Beeches" if necessary. It was all-important that she should have a change of scene of some sort. So while the one returned in Mrs. Polwheedle's fly to Shoalbrook, the other walked up to "The Beeches."
Yorke's wish that Olivia should be left in quiet for a time had been respected; but he found a strong feeling of sympathy among all the members of the family for the unfortunate sufferers by the fire, and a keen desire to be of use. Mr. Peevor especially seemed delighted at the prospect of receiving the whole party, still more when he heard that it was to include Mrs. Polwheedle. Any friends of Colonel Yorke's, he said, were friends of his; he should have been very pleased to see them, and would have done his best to make them comfortable at any time, still more, of course, would he wish to do so under present circumstances. Mr. Peevor, indeed, who had deferred his journey to town till Yorke's return, and had already telegraphed to put off various guests invited to a dinner-party that evening, was in a state of mild excitement; a fire had happened in the neighbourhood, and there was no knowing how soon such a thing might happen again; then, in addition to the bad accident which had occurred, the sufferers by the fire had lost everything without being insured. "I never buy a picture, or a bit of china, or anything else," said Mr. Peevor, "without increasing my assurances; I should not be able to sleep a wink if I did not do this; it is anxious work enough as it is, living in such a household as this, and with so much to think about." Mr. Peevor was for sending down a couple of carriages at once to bring up the party, but Yorke explained that plans could not be finally arranged till he heard again from his friend Dr. Maxwell; and he returned alone in the dogcart laden with a parcel of clothing belonging to Mrs. Peevor, who was of about the same height as Olivia, and another of the children's things for the little ones. Lucy took this parcel from the hands of the maids who made it up, and brought it down-stairs to him. There was a change in her manner since he had seen her last, brought about by the partial revelation of the morning. She was still somewhat shy and timid; but the sense of security about her lover, which had succeeded the previous uncertainty, gave her a confidence in his presence which she had not felt till now. They had never been so much like lovers before; and Yorke driving down the hill to the river, thought with a sense almost of shame on certain little passages which passed between them as he took the parcel from her hands, a few broken words, a mere exchange of glances, but surely unfitting such a time.
As he drove up to the inn, Mrs. Polwheedle came down-stairs to meet him. Olivia had taken the sedative draught which Maxwell had sent from Shoalbrook, and was lying down: "But it does not seem to do her any good. She has begun talking now, mixing up all sorts of things in such a wild way, rolling her eyes about in a dreadful manner. I am trying to keep her quiet, but she is dreadfully excited.
Perhaps after the draught takes effect she will wake up quieter."
Maxwell himself had not returned, but had sent a note to Yorke from Shoalbrook, which the latter found awaiting him at the Belle, "I must go on to town to see the lady superior," he wrote, "for her reply to my telegram is not clearly expressed. And I will arrange for the funeral being held there; it will thus attract much less attention than if held in the country. I shall be back by the evening at latest, but at any rate it will be desirable to accept your friends' offer to receive Olivia and the children for the night."
Accordingly Yorke arranged with Mrs. Polwheedle that he would come again with the carriage in the afternoon to convey the whole party to "The Beeches." Inquiring for the children, he was told that they had been sent out for a walk, and he met them returning as he drove away — which he did presently, as Mrs. Polwheedle was anxious to return to Olivia. They had been looking at the scene of the fire, and were prattling about it to their nurse as they came along, as if it were an interesting incident with which they had no personal concern. And when Yorke told the elder one that he had brought some pretty clothes for them to wear, the child became more animated and happy-looking than he had ever seen it look before.
On returning to "The Beeches," he found the ladies sitting down to luncheon. Mr. Peevor had gone off to town at last, to keep his business appointment with Mr. Hanckes, leaving many apologies for his enforced absence. And while sitting there in the well-ordered room, the table covered as usual with delicacies of which no one partook, and the ladies talking in the suppressed tones congenial to the eldest Miss Peevor, and in which the example was set by her stepmother, it seemed to Yorke for the moment as if the tragedy that had been enacted so close to them was merely a horrid dream, so difficult was it to associate the tragic with this scene of the comfortable and commonplace. Nor did the conversation turn much on the subject about which all the party were thinking; for the ladies, understanding that there was some mystery about the matter into which it did not become them to pry, with natural good-breeding abstained from more than a general expression of sympathy, and Yorke felt too deeply to find the words come freely.
But when luncheon was ended, and he rose to return, Mrs. Peevor mentioned that the rooms for Mrs. Wood and her party were quite ready, and asked what he would wish done about sending for them; and indeed the preparations had occupied all the morning. Ordinarily the getting ready of guest-chambers at "The Beeches" was a matter to be dealt with by the house-keeper; but on this occasion the sentiment of romance which had inspired Lucy extended itself to Mrs. Peevor and Cathy, and they had all been engaged in arranging the suite of rooms destined for the party, placing books and flowers in the sitting-room set apart for Olivia — and where she need see no one but Mrs. Polwheedle and the servants — to give it an air of use and comfort. A large bedroom was also in course of transformation into a day-nursery; but Yorke suggested that the children, at any rate, would like to be with the children of the house. Altogether, it was evident that, whether from the interest caused by her lonely condition and misfortunes, or from the fact of her being now known to be a friend of Yorke, Olivia and her party would be made warmly welcome, and treated also with the utmost delicacy. Mr. Peevor had left repeated injunctions about various things to be done, and especially that some of the ladies should go down to bring her away; who, Mrs. Peevor asked, did he think had better go? And Yorke, who had intended to return alone, after looking at the ladies all standing round him to receive his commands, proposed that Lucy should go. Lucy's winning face and gentle manner, he thought, might help to win the poor sufferer from the abyss of despair and self-reproach into which she had fallen. He would walk down at once, he said, if she would follow in the carriage. And Lucy, proud of being selected, and yearning to show her sympathy for her lover's friend, ran upstairs with a light step to get ready, while Yorke set off again for the riverside.
CHAPTER 60
========================================
CHAPTER LX.
The
short winter afternoon was drawing to a close, when Yorke again arrived at the little inn. Mrs. Polwheedle from the window had seen him enter, and waiting at the top of the little staircase, beckoned to him come up, and led the way into an empty bedroom. "She is quieter now than she has been," said the lady, closing the door, after a caution to him to speak low, as the walls were so thin; "but she has not had a wink of sleep, and it looks as if the opium had got into her head, she confuses things so. I get quite frightened sometimes with her talking: she is quiet now, but she will go on sometimes when I am
outside just as if I were in the room. I do wish Maxwell would come back quickly; it would be such a comfort to know what he thinks, and have his advice. I don't half like the responsibility of keeping her here in this way. The place is not fit for a person in health to live in, leave alone one who is sick; I begin to feel quite upset myself." And indeed the good lady looked both tired and flushed.
Yorke explained what was proposed — that the carriage from "The Beeches" would arrive in a few minutes to take them away, and that Mr. and Mrs. Peevor had sent a very particular invitation to herself, which only a sense of consideration had prevented their delivering in person.
"That is very kind, I am sure," said Mrs. Polwheedle, looking pleased and mollified. "The landlady tells me 'The Beeches' is a perfect palace of a place, with everything done in the most elegant style; not that I mind at all about such things for myself, but I am sure it will do the poor thing good to go there. But I am not so sure about our getting her to go. She does talk so very strangely about things. But perhaps you had better go in and see if you can persuade her. I will stop outside for a bit and get the things ready."
So saying, Mrs. Polwheedle opened the door, and then, pushing open the one on the opposite side of the little landing, motioned to Yorke to enter the room to which it belonged. It was a small bedroom, used as a sitting-room for the occasion, there being no parlour up-stairs. As Yorke entered, Olivia, who seemed to be walking restlessly up and down, and was looking the other way, turned sharply round. She still wore the dress in which she had made her escape that morning, but the long hair was now arranged in coils round the head, although not with her usual neatness, and she wore a scarf round her shoulders; but although Yorke instinctively noted these details, what caught his eye was the pallid face, which made the hectic flush seem brighter, the parched lips, and the wild aspect of the restless eyes. She seemed almost another person from the Olivia of the previous evening, gentle, languid, and depressed.
Turning quickly round when Yorke entered the room, Olivia seemed startled and even frightened for an instant, while she stopped and looked at him with a puzzled face, as if not knowing him. Then the expression cleared, and stepping towards him, she held out her hand. "You startled me at first," she said, with a smile, which to the other seemed inexpressibly sad; "do you know I thought you had come down from heaven!" Then drawing a little nearer, and looking at him earnestly, she added, "Robert has come down from heaven, my husband that was, Robert Falkland — he came down to save me and Livie and the baby from the fire; he saved us all, and now he has gone away again. He was always brave and noble."
Yorke stood tongue-tied with emotion. He had not been prepared for this, and in the shock of this revelation of her state he could not find at once words to reply.
Then the restless eyes turned away, and she moved to the window, and then began pacing again the little room, as if not aware of his presence. Still there remained something of the old grace of movement; but how far removed seemed this poor wild creature from the gentle yet stately Olivia of former days! Better surely that she had perished in the flames than be reserved for such a fate as this!
Suddenly she stopped opposite to him, and again smiling, said, "Won't you be seated, Mr. Yorke?" and sitting down herself on a little cane chair, motioned him to take another.
Yorke obeyed her: and while for a brief space she sat quietly as if waiting for him to speak, with her graceful arms crossed over the scarf, something of the old Olivia seemed for the instant to have returned. But almost immediately the eyes began to roll wildly about the room, and Yorke hastened to speak before the phrenzy should again possess her.
"I have come on behalf of some very kind friends — the friends with whom I am living — to ask you to make their house your home for a while."
"Friends?" she said, speaking in an absent manner, and looking down — "it must be very nice to have kind friends."
"And you will find them friends indeed," he continued, gaining hope from her manner. "Their carriage will be here directly; will you not make ready to start? it is getting late."
"Friends?" she said again, in a mournful voice — "I have no friends; Robert is dead, and my husband has left me and gone away. Yet no!" she added, with sudden energy, and looking fixedly at Yorke; "he is not my husband — I have no husband. I have been living with two men — and one is dead, and one is gone away; but I have no husband." And Olivia repeated this, "I have no husband," looking down on the floor, as if to herself.
"This little inn is wanting in comforts," said Yorke, trying to give a turn to the conversation; "there is hardly room for all of you. It will be a good thing to move into another house. This room is small and close," he added, by way of diversion, while Olivia looked at him earnestly, as if weighing the proposition.
She replied abruptly, "The room is good enough for a bad woman like me; I am not a fit woman to live with decent people. Mrs. Polwheedle came to see me to-day, but she has gone away again; she did not care to stay with a bad woman like me."
Just then the door was pushed open, and the youngest child came into the room, toddling with uncertain step, just able to walk. It stood looking at its mother for a while, with one little hand in its mouth, as if afraid to come near; and then as Yorke, who was sitting near the door, held out his arms, it came up to him.
Olivia meanwhile had been gazing on the ground as if busied with her thoughts. Looking up, and seeing the child on Yorke's knee, she cried, "Why don't you send it away, wretched little bastard brat?"
As she called this out in a harsh voice, the very tones of which seemed to be changed, the frightened child began to cry.
Then Olivia jumping forward caught it in her arms. "My darling, my darling," she said, "don't you cry. Your mother's no better than a street-walker; but it's not my darling's fault, is it?" And she rocked the child to and fro, holding it to her breast, and crooning over it till the crying ceased.
Yorke, unwilling to disturb her while in this mood, sat silent. While they were in this situation, Mrs. Polwheedle entered the room.
She seemed relieved to find Olivia so quiet, and announced the arrival of the carriage.
Olivia at this rose, the child still in her arms, as if intending to obey the summons.
"If you will go down and take your place, my dear," said Mrs. Polwheedle, "I will get the children ready, and follow you with the things;" and she made a sign to Yorke which he understood to mean that they should take advantage of Olivia's present humour to make a start.
There came up to Yorke the doubt whether this plan for giving her shelter ought now to be pursued; but it seemed too late to alter it now. And what else could be done?
Olivia without saying a word handed the child to Mrs. Polwheedle, and moved to the door. On the landing outside the elder child was standing, holding the banister with one hand, a doll which had come from "The Beeches" in the other. Her mother stooped down and kissed her without saying a word, and then descended the stairs, and made for the entrance-door.
As she passed along the little passage, she stopped at the parlour-door as if in doubt, and then turning to Yorke, who was following, she put her finger on her lips, and said, "Hush, that is where they have laid him," and then passed out into the open air. This was the first reference to her knowledge that Falkland's corpse was in the house; nor did she know that it had been moved into another room; but how much of the facts was understood by the poor clouded brain could not be told.
The carriage-road was at the back of the inn; the front door opened on to the little terrace, set out with benches, which reached down to the river. The evening was dull and gloomy, with slight rain falling; the wind moaned sadly through the bare trees, and night was fast closing in.
Olivia wore no hat, or other wrapper than the scarf, but Yorke forbore to check her action by noticing this.
She stood for a few seconds looking in front of her, not seeming to notice the rain falling on her bare head; and at last Yorke said that the carriage was at the back of the house — they had better go that way.
At the sound of his voice she turned round and looked at him in a vacant way, and then started off at a quick pace towards the ruins of her own house, the outline of which could still be made out in the dim evening light, about a couple of hundred yards higher up the river.
Yorke followed and overtook her, and they stepped side by side in silence, passing the spot where only two days before, in his walk with Lucy, he had first met her children. It seemed as if weeks had passed since that walk.
Olivia stopped at the garden-fence and looked up at the ruins. "See," she said, "the fire has gone from there now; but it is still here," she continued, clasping her head with both hands; "it is still here, and burning; it never stops burning." And she stood holding up her hands to her forehead, and looking bewildered at the ground.
"Olivia," said Yorke, although he could hardly speak for the fulness of his heart, "you want rest and quiet, my poor friend, and by-and-by, please God, all will come right. Let us turn back."
"Come right!" she cried, "how can it come right? See here," she continued, laying a hand on his arm, and pointing with the other towards the ruined house. "I was at the window there, praying for my children, when he came up the ladder, and I thought God had answered my prayers and sent his spirit to save us. But it was not his spirit, it was himself. Yes, Major Yorke, it was my husband; he was a hunted prisoner, wounded and sick, wandering in the desert, and I was bearing children to another man. And now he is dead; he died to save me, and a polluted wretch like me still walks the earth."
Then with a cry she turned away from the house, and began walking hurriedly along the bank up the river.
The evening was growing dark, the swollen river ran level with the footway, and Yorke striding along by her side could hardly distinguish between land and water.
A short distance they walked thus in silence along the narrow path, which gave barely room for the two between the hedge and the river, Yorke striving to think how best to calm her agitated mind. At last he said, "Olivia, you will tire yourself out if you hurry in this way; the children are waiting for you; will you not go back to them, poor little things? "
"Poor little things indeed," she said, "to have so vile a mother!" She stopped short and turned half round as if about to go back, and then saying, "There is no help!" and throwing up her arms, made a step forward, whether seeing the water or not her companion could not tell, and sank into the stream.
Yorke plunged in and caught her as she rose to the surface.
The poor creature struggled violently, holding out her arms, whether to get free or clinging to him to be saved he could not tell, but he caught her in his grasp and held her firmly, and after a few moments her efforts ceased, although she still clutched him tightly round the neck with one arm. And at first as they floated down the stream the danger of the situation did not strike him. Often when in his younger days he had played with his brother subalterns at saving a drowning man in an Indian swimming-bath, it had seemed as if impossible to sink. But the weight of his heavy clothes and the icy coldness of the water began at once to tell; and cramped as was the movement of his arms by her grasp, it was as much as he could do to keep her head above water, as he pushed out with his feet towards the shore. The plunge had not been far, but it was made at a point where the bank projected into the river, into the middle of which they had been swept by the strong current. Good swimmer as he deemed himself, he found himself powerless to struggle with the stream, and soon the thought came over him that the fate which had so long bound up their lives together would now follow them to the end. Were they to die locked in each other's arms? And in an instant the picture of past days came up before him, the days when he worshipped the gentle, the gracious, the noble Olivia; the days when he lived on in the bitterness of his heart at losing her, the poor wreck he now held in his arms for the first time, and who, seemingly unconscious of her state, looked up at the sky with a dull, stony stare. He could make out in the dim light that her eyes were open, but more he could not tell, and as he pushed convulsively along in the darkness to where he thought the bank must be, it came over him to wonder if people when they found their bodies would guess the truth, or would they think that the unhappy woman in her
madness had dragged him to destruction? — when he saw the dim bank looming just above him, and with his free hand caught hold of some weeds growing against its side.
They were saved; but exhausted and benumbed as he was, and encumbered with his charge, and unable to find any footing, it was only by a desperate effort that he still clutched the weeds. So short a time, and yet all his strength was gone. How easy to be drowned after all! and, too tired to call for help, he must soon let go, when he sees a figure kneeling on the bank above, and an arm stretched out has seized his in its grasp. It is Lucy, who, learning in a few short words from Mrs. Polwheedle enough to guess at Olivia's state, had followed them up the bank, reaching the spot in time to save him. With the help of Lucy, throwing herself down on the wet grass to lend her weight to his efforts, he at last drags himself out, still grasping his burden; and while he stands exhausted looking at the figure lying inanimate at their feet, Lucy raises the shrill cry which soon brings succour — the landlord, the gallant Joe, the Peevors' footman, Mrs. Polwheedle, and
others, who raise Olivia's body from the ground and bear it quickly to the inn.
Maxwell, who has just arrived, meets the little procession at the door, and in a few brief words Yorke explains what has happened. No harm was done, he thought; he had kept her head above water all the time; it must be merely a faint from cold and fright.
"Not up-stairs," said Maxwell, opening the parlour-door, as the bearers entered the passage with their burden; "this way — in here:" and the hapless Olivia was laid on the same couch which had borne that morning the dead body of her husband.
And now, while the doctor and the landlady and Mrs. Polwheedle and Lucy are busy over the prostrate form, Yorke, wrapped up in a big overcoat of the landlord and covered with shawls, stands by the tap-room fire. He cannot bear to leave the spot, and this rough sort of vapour-bath will keep him from catching cold. But the children are sent off in the carriage, and the servants will explain why the others are detained. Comedy and the commonplace tread close upon the tragic in the actual business of life; and as Yorke stands before the blazing fire drinking hot spirits-and-water, while the landlord takes a glass also to keep him company, and begins a maundering story of how he got upset in a punt seven years ago, and some half-dozen tap-room loungers stand hard by discussing the events of the day, in undertones out of consideration for Yorke, nothing could well be more prosaic or matter-of-fact than the aspect of the scene. But he can drink the cordial and hold his feet to be scorched by the fire, while yet thinking over the tragic fate of the woman once so passionately loved, now pitied with a feeling that for a time left no room in his heart for other emotions — thinking, too, of the death of the noble soldier who seemed when first he knew him to deserve the envy of all younger men. And now what would be the end of this calamity and woe? He, the noble, the gallant, the unfortunate husband had found peace at last; but what further sufferings awaited the unhappy wife?
A long time must have passed, for his clothes are almost dry, when the good doctor appears at the door and beckons him to come into the passage.
"It is all over," said the old man, in a low voice. "It was the shock that killed her; life must have passed away before you brought her to land. Who could wish it were otherwise? Still in your wet clothes? You must look to yourself now, my dear friend, or you too will be a sufferer.
THE END