One of the Six Hundred 7One of the Six Hundred (part 7)
18
Literature · Romance
One of the Six Hundred 7
One of the Six Hundred (part 7)
GrantEnglish
While Beverley and I began to talk over such things, Studhome was, as he phrased it, "bringing Berkeley to book" in the affair.
He found that gentleman in rather a perturbed state of mind, soothing himself with a cigar, as he lounged in his vest and trousers on a luxurious sofa, in his elegantly-furnished room, the walls of which were covered with coloured engravings of horses and ballet-girls. A tall crystal goblet on the table bore evident traces of brandy and seltzer-water having been recently imbibed therefrom.
"So, after all that has occurred, you won't meet Norcliff, as he wishes?" asked Jack, after the matter had been thoroughly gone into.
"Aw--decidedly not," said he, emitting his words and a slender volume of smoke slowly together.
"In Britain, at least, as the law stands now, I can scarcely blame you, Mr. Berkeley," said Studhome, stiffly; "but as the orders from London stand, we are soon to leave, and something must be done in the matter; for, as it is at present, you cannot both remain in the same regiment."
"Aw--doocid good that," replied Berkeley, twirling up his moustache; "but--aw--who is the muff that is to quit it, now that we have orders of readiness?"
"You, sir," said Jack, rather perplexed.
"Thank you; but--aw--beg to decline. And this mysterious something which must be done--aw--eh?"
"I would recommend a candid confession on your part; such an explanation, in writing, as my friend, Captain Norcliff, may show to Lady Loftus and then commit to the flames, or return it to you."
"The deuce!" drawled Berkeley, holding his cigar at arm's length, and wheeling the sofa half round, to have a better view of our adjutant. "Is there any other little thing you would like?"
"I think not, sir."
"My good friend, Studhome, you are, I have not a doubt, a very excellent adjutant, well up in lance, sword, and pistol exercise--knowing how to 'set a squadron in the field,' like the amiable Othello; but you--aw--aw--must really permit me to be the best judge of my own affairs."
Studhome bowed haughtily, and then stood, cap and whip in hand, erect; so Berkeley resumed--
"You are aware of the whispers concerning Norcliff and that girl, Agnes Auriol--isn't that her name?"
"Yes, sir; I am aware there have been malicious whispers, and I have my eyes now on the circulator of them."
"Very good," said Berkeley, colouring slightly; "they are very current among the 16th Lancers and 8th Hussars. I have known a little of the girl; but have--aw--tired of her now. We all tire, my dear fellow, of such affairs in time. Take a cigar--aw--you won't--what a bore! well, so my advice to your irritated Scotch friend would be that, as she is at perfect liberty to leave my protection, she may enter quietly upon his; so there is an end to the doocid affair."
"So you may affect to think," said Studhome, eyeing the lounger with angry scorn.
"What could be more equivocal, as Lady Loftus admitted, than the circumstances under which we found them? He was supporting--actually caressing her; and then there was his proffered fifty-pound note. My dear fellow, people are not such devilish fools as--aw--to give fifty pounds to such girls for--aw--nothing!"
"Whatever you may pretend to think, or affect to say, of that affair, of my friend's ultimate intentions, as a man of spirit, you cannot be unaware."
"Aw--I don't choose to speculate upon them."
"This trifling, sir, is insufferable! He may lash you in the face with his whip before the whole regiment, when Beverley wheels it into line to-morrow, and so make you a scandal to us, to Maidstone, and the entire British Army, from the Life Guards to the Cape Rifles."
"Lash me?"
"Yes; and soundly too!"
"I don't think he will."
"Why?"
"For then the whole story would come out, there would be an arrest--aw--and court of inquiry, and my Lady Louisa Loftus would have her august name paragraphed in every paper, from the Morning Post downwards."
"And under this belief in his forbearance, which pays my friend a high compliment, you actually shelter yourself?" said worthy Jack Studhome, with intense scorn.
"I shall take my chance."
"Then, sir, cunning as you are, and though believing that my friend must submit to lie under a vile imputation, and, if it so happen, be ruined with Lady Louisa Loftus and his friends, you cannot expect to get off scot free. The devil! we live in strange times. Are we sunk so low that officers and gentlemen, that honourable and gallant members, that noble lords, that counsellors learned in the law, and even jolly students, are to settle their disputes in pothouse fashion, by womanly vituperation or vulgar fisticuffs, without ever dreaming of a recourse to the pistol? Men of all ranks, from the premier peer down to the anonymous scribblers of the daily press--
Those grovelling, trodden, whipt, stript, turncoat things,
Made up of volumes, venom, stains, and stings,--
may now brand each other as liars, cowards, and ruffians, with perfect impunity. Do you understand me, sir?"
"Not quite."
"How so? I speak plain enough!"
"Such fellows are--aw--out of my way."
"Then you will understand this, sir," said Studhome, grasping him fiercely by the shoulder, and with an expression in his eye which made even the insouciance of Berkeley to evaporate, "a few weeks must see us in the Levant, on the shores of Turkey, and before the enemy. A duel shall come off there, and to evade alike the laws of Britain and the rules of the service, the seconds shall bind themselves by a solemn promise to declare that he who may be wounded, or he who may be killed, was struck by a chance shot from the enemy. You comprehend this arrangement, sir?"
"Perfectly."
"And your friend--who is he to be?"
"Captain Scriven, of ours."
"Good--I shall see him instantly."
"So that was your arrangement, Studhome?" asked Beverley.
"Yes; there was no other way. Scriven promises and agrees, and has passed his word for secrecy. Do you approve, colonel?"
"Why, I suppose that I must; and you, Norcliff?" he inquired.
"Wish to Heaven that I saw Malta, or even Gibraltar, sinking into the sea upon our lee quarter!" said I, with fierce fervour, as I shook Studhome's hand, and for that night, at least, was obliged to content me, and return to my troop at Canterbury.
"If one in our ranks shows the white feather before the Russians, I believe Berkeley will be the man," said Beverley, as he and Studhome smoked a last cigar with me on the platform before the down-train started.
*CHAPTER XXIII.*
Since there's no help, come let us kisse and part.
Nay, I have done; you get no more of me;
And I am glad--yea, glad with all my heart--
That thus so clearly I myself can free;
Shake hands for ever. DRAYTON, 1612.
Unslept and unrefreshed, after returning to Canterbury, I found myself next day at morning parade, and undergoing all the routine of regimental drill, by troop and squadron, with the hussar corps to which we were attached, while my thoughts and wishes were apparently a thousand miles away from the present time and circumstances.
The prospect of "satisfaction," as it is termed, even in the unusual mode in which it was to be obtained, and though deferred, soothed me; but how was I circumstanced with Louisa? She believed me untrue to her! I was still under the false colours in which the artful Berkeley had contrived to show me.
My ring was returned, and though I still wore hers, our engagement seemed to be silently, tacitly broken; her miniature I would look upon no more--its features filled me with rage and torture.
Over the day which followed my last unlucky visit to the cottage near the Reculvers I shall gladly hurry. Ordering my horse--the black cover-hack with the white star on its counter--I was about to start for a ride, before mess, towards Ashford, when Pitblado placed in my hand two notes, which had just come by post. On one I recognised the handwriting of Cora; on the other the coronet and monogram of the Countess of Chillingham! My heart leaped to my head, and I tore open the latter first.
It was simply a card of invitation in the usual form--the Earl and Countess of Chillingham requested the honour of Captain Norcliff's company at a friendly dinner, at eight o'clock on the evening of the 20th inst.--only three days hence, so the time was brief; but then we were under orders of readiness, and everywhere troops--horse, foot, and artillery--were pouring towards Southampton and other places for embarkation. The note concluded by mentioning that Sir Nigel Calderwood was expected from Scotland.
The invitation was perplexing; but I reflected that the earl and Countess were alike ignorant of the relations that had existed between their daughter and me, and the sharp wrench by which those tender relations had been so suddenly broken.
I could not refuse; and if I accepted, how was I to meet Louisa? And now, what said Cora?
Her dear little note was brief and rapid, but explained all, and more than I could have hoped for. Miss Agnes Auriol, on seeing the false position in which Berkeley had contrived to place me, had generously transmitted, last night, by her old nurse, all the letters she possessed of Mr. Berkeley, and these had served completely to explain her relations with him, and to exonerate me, affording a complete clue to what had already excited their suspicion and surprise--Berkeley's intimate knowledge of the cottage, and the strange fact of his possessing a latch-key for it.
"Louisa knows everything, and now believes that she has been too precipitate;" so ran the note. "Restore her ring when you meet, and I shall tell you a great deal when we see you here. It is Louisa's request that you meet her as if nothing had taken place. Will you believe it, that yesterday morning, before that horrid scene occurred, Berkeley had actually proposed to her in form, and been rejected--rejected, dear Newton, and for you? (This part of the note was singularly blurred, blotted, and ill-expressed for Cora.) I need not tell you to make yourself pleasant, for papa is expected, and Lord Slubber is to be here."
A postscript added that the packet of letters had been returned to the cottage that morning by a servant--but he found the place locked up, and the inmates gone, none could tell him whither; so, in this dilemma, they had been posted to Berkeley himself, at Maidstone barracks.
When serving in the East, a paragraph in a Welsh newspaper recorded the death of Agnes Auriol in the parish where her father had been incumbent. She was found dead at the stile which led to the village burying-ground; and the verdict of the jury was "Death by the visitation of God."
I answered the notes, gave them to Pitblado to post, and turned along the Ashford Road like one in a dream, letting the reins drop on my horse's neck, and having ample food for serious reflection and mature consideration; for all these meetings, communications, and passages so momentous to me had been crammed into the short space of barely two days.
There were yet three days to pass before I should again see Louisa, hear her voice, and be gladdened by her smile.
Three days were a short invitation to a fashionable household, even to an officer in country quarters, but they seemed three centuries to me.
I felt, too, that I never enjoyed Louisa's society less than amid her own family circle. True, my name was not recorded in Douglas, Debrett, or any other libre d'or of Scottish or English nobility, but I was not the less a gentleman, and my whole soul fired up--almost with red republicanism--at the cool bearing usually assumed towards me by my Lady Chillingham.
A few hours since, the idea of being made a mark for a Muscovite bullet, or a Cossack lance, had not been a matter of much moment; now that the cloud had dispersed, that I knew Louisa loved me still--now that I felt once more all the witchery with which the love of such a girl can enhance existence--now that the sweet dream was no longer, as it had been at Calderwood, a mere dream, but a delicious reality--I came to the conclusion that war was an impertinent bore, glory a delusion and a snare, Mars and Bellona a couple of humbugs--the former a rowdy, and the latter no better than she should be.
I can really assure the reader that I would have borne the intelligence of a sudden peace with great Christian fortitude and perfect equanimity of mind; and had it pleased the Emperor Nicholas and the Western Powers to shake hands, and leave unmolested the Crimea and the "sick man" at Stamboul, certainly none would have blessed their quiet intentions more than I, Newton Norcliff.
But fate had ordained it otherwise; and, like the Roman senator, their "voice was still for war!"
The eventful evening of the "20th instant" saw me ushered into the drawing-room at Chillingham Park, and on this occasion I went in full uniform, knowing well that it enhances the interest with which one is viewed, in times when the atmosphere is so redolent of gunpowder, as it certainly was at this period of my story; and when one is made up--
By youth, by love, and by an army tailor,
the impression is generally favourable.
Circumstances fluttered me, and it was not without an unwonted emotion of confusion I made my way among ottomans, buhl tables, and glass-shades, and seeming to see in the reflecting mirrors at least one hundred figures in lancer uniform traversing the vast perspectives.
Even the usual cold and haughty countess received me with cordiality (she was soon to be rid of me for ever, perhaps). Lord Chillingham, a dignified old peer, whom it is difficult to describe, as there was an absence of characteristics, and nothing remarkable about him, save the extreme length of his white waistcoat, met me with the polite and pleasing warmth he accorded to all whom he cared nothing about.
Cora hurried forward to meet me, looking, I thought, very pale, and not very becomingly dressed--in deep dark blue silk, with black lace flounces--and beyond her I saw Lady Louisa. When I approached the latter, my temples throbbed painfully, and I played nervously with the tassels of my gold sash, like a raw boy who had just reported his having joined.
She was calm, collected, and grave--fashionably, painfully so--but then your well-bred Britons do so hate a scene that they have learned the art of keeping every emotion under the most complete control, relaxing the curb only when it suits themselves.
Save Cora, who witnessed our smiling and pleasant meeting, our suave exchange of bows, and a slight pressure of the hand, none could have read the thoughts that filled our eyes and hearts, and still less could they have imagined the stormy adieux of the other evening. The diamond drops that glittered in Louisa's eyes as she met me did not run over; but were absorbed by her thick dark lashes, as she closed them for an instant, and then looked down. She was simply dressed in white silk, with diamond ornaments, and strings of pearls among the braids of her magnificent black hair.
"I invited your friend, Mr. De Warr Berkeley, for the evening," said the countess, "but the invitation, I fear, was too short, and unfortunately, he pleaded a pre-engagement."
At that moment a bright and intelligent smile flashed in Louisa's eye. In fact, the whole of the late affair was known only to the actors therein--unless I included Beverley and Studhome.
"Captain Calderwood Norcliff--my Lord Slubber," said the earl, as he led me forward to an old gentleman, who was stooping over the chair of the countess, with whom he was smiling and conversing in a polite monotone.
"Ah--indeed--have much pleasure," said this personage, bowing, with a broad conventional smile, and giving two of his withered fingers; "any relation of Sir Nigel Calderwood?"
"His nephew."
"De-lighted to see you, my dear sir. Sir Nigel is here--arrived this morning."
"We but wait his appearance for dinner; our party is small, as you see, Captain Norcliff," said the countess, who was certainly still beautiful, being a larger, older, and more stately version of Louisa, and a powdered toupee would well have suited her face and stature.
Amid vapid discussions or desultory remarks about the probabilities of the war, the weather, and the crops, with my Lord Aberdeen's suspicious policy--ante-dinner remarks--while my eyes from time to time sought those of Louisa, I studied the aspect of my wealthy rival, who, little suspecting the secret of my heart, had immediately engaged me in conversation.
Lord Slubber was not so tall as he had been; his features, though finely cut, were somewhat flabby now, and had become a mass of undoubted wrinkles, yet he had been deemed "the handsomest man of his day," a period on which we shall not venture to speculate. The veteran roue considered himself "a lively dog" yet, and hoped to achieve conquests. Thus his teeth were a brilliant triumph of art over nature, and though his head was bare and smooth as a billiard-ball, his pendulous cheeks wore a delicate little pink hue there could be no doubt about.
His face, with its long, aristocratic nose, somewhat prominent chin, and receding forehead, and his perpetual simpering smile, reminded one of the portraits of Beau Nash, and made one fancy how well he would have suited the powder and ruffles, the bagwig and small-sword of the early days of George III., rather than the odious black swallow-tail and waiter-like costume of the present age.
And this garrulous old beau--this "lean and slippered pantaloon"--was the descendant and representative of the great Norman line of Slobar de Gullion, who had hamstrung the Saxon Kerne in the New Forest, extracted the grinders of the sons of Judah; who had made their mark (as an Irish navvy might do) at Magna Charta, and ridden in all their ironmongery in Edward's ranks at Bannockburn, and in Henry's at Agincourt.
My satisfaction in finding myself still the lover of Louisa, and again the guest of her father, was somewhat dashed by the presence of this, in some respects, formidable rival, who, as the countess informed me in a whisper, was about to be created a marquis for his zealous support of Lord Aberdeen's administration, and was to be decorated with the Garter, of which the Emperor Nicholas had just been deprived.
I muttered something by way of reply, and Lady Louisa, who was seated near us on an ottoman, said, laughingly, behind her fan--
"A marquis and K.G. Oh, mamma, such an old quiz it is! But, only imagine, he has been proposing to take us all, and Cora, too, in his yacht to Constantinople--or even to the Black Sea, if we wish it."
"How kind of him."
"She carries brass guns, and he believes he may assist Admiral Lyons, if necessary."
"Remember that he is a devoted admirer of yours," I heard Lady Chillingham whisper, with a glance which repressed her daughter's desire to laugh outright.
"Hush, mamma," she replied, shutting her fan sharply; "confidences are unusual in you; and as for he you speak of, his appearance is quite enough to make one grow old."
Whether the countess would have checked this unseemly remark, which I could not help overhearing with joy, I know not, for at that moment the roar of the dinner-gong was heard in the vestibule, and my uncle, Sir Nigel, looking hale, hearty, and ruddy, with his silver hair all shining and waving, entered, and shook hands with all, but with none so warmly as me. He wore a dark grey riding-coat, top-boots, and white corded breeches, a costume for which he apologized to the countess, and then turned again to me.
"Egad, Newton, glad to see you, my dear boy--in uniform, too--how well the fellow looks in his sash and epaulettes! Your pardon for being so late, Lady Chillingham; but I rode over to the barracks, thinking to accompany Newton here. How glad Willie, my old keeper's son, was to see me! Returning, I lost my way among a network of green lanes and hedgerows; but as your Kent here is as flat as a billiard-table, when compared with Fife and Kinross, the slopes of the Lomonds, and the Saline hills, I rode straight for Chillingham, rushing my horse at hedges, sunk fences, and everything that came in its way, in defiance of threats against trespassers, and so forth, and I am here!"
"Coming as became the master of the Fife hounds, eh, Sir Nigel?" said the countess; "but now I shall take your arm."
The earl led Cora, Slubber gave his arm to Lady Louisa; and I thought of honest Chaucer's "January and May," as I brought up the rear, solus, playing with the tassels of my sash, and gnawing my moustache, as we marched through a double line of liveried servants to the dining-room, where I contrived to seat myself on her other side.
There was an air of propriety about old Slubber, which, though it made Louisa laugh, was intensely provoking to me, who had to keep my conventional distance. However, I could cross a country with her when riding to hounds, and claim her lithe waist for a waltz when occasion offered; thank heaven! our senile Anglo-Norman was beyond these, and a few other things now; and she gave me many a bright and intelligent glance from under her long black eyelashes, which were almost curled at the tips--recognitions of which his self-satisfied lordship was in blissful ignorance.
I had the engagement ring to restore; but in the meantime our conversation was confined to dinner-table twaddle, and as the dinner was served up a la Russe, and all the carving done aside, even its courtesies were abolished: so we confabulated with much hollow earnestness on the prevalent rumour that all the cavalry, light and heavy, were to march through France to Marseilles, the last batch of novels from Mudie's, the race meetings, the future Derby, and other topics equally far from our hearts; and then we had to laugh at old Lord Slubber, when he perpetrated the joke that every small wit did at that time.
"Turkey, my lord?" said a servant.
"Thanks--a slice--just what Nicholas wants."
"And what you, Newton, and other fellows, must prevent him from getting, eh?" said Sir Nigel.
To return our engagement ring was the chief object that agitated me during dinner; and, on perceiving that Louisa had drawn the glove off her lovely left hand, I almost thought the return was thereby invited; and as we dawdled over the dessert, which was served up on the earl's favourite Rose du Barri service of Sevres china, and while Slubber waxed eloquent on his friend Lord Aberdeen's doubtful policy, which my uncle tore all to fritters, I contrived, unseen, to place my Rangoon diamond in her hand, which closed upon it and mine, with a rapid, but nervous pressure, which sent a thrill to my heart, and a flush to my cheek.
It was done!
Recovering--if, indeed, she ever lost it--her complete composure, she asked me, with a smile, as if casually, how I liked the family motto, which was graven round the champagne goblets.
"Prends moi tel que je suis," she added, reading it.
"I understand it with delight," said I.
"Take me such as I am," she translated, with a glance which filled me with joy.
Poor old Slubber knew nothing of the little enigma that was being acted almost under his aristocratic nose, and amid such trivial remarks as these--
"What bin is this port from, Mr. ----?" naming the butler.
"Good, remarkable port, my Lord--bin ten--vintage, 1820; it is the finest old wine in the county of Kent."
"Don't taste so," said Lord Chillingham; in fact, it had been voted out of the servants' hall as intolerable. "And the sherry--eh?"
"Pale, my lord," whispered the butler; "you paid three hundred a butt for it--from the small bin."
"Good--uncork some of the Moselle."
In the calm, inscrutable face, and tutored bearing of Louisa Loftus, no one could have read the deep secret we had just shared in--the reconciliation of two ardent and anxious hearts--the bond of love and trust renewed; but this strange power of veiling all agitation at times is incident alike to birth and training, and to the local influences of these in the present time, when in modern society the human face is too often a mere mask which conceals every emotion, exhibiting a calm exterior, however at variance with the mind or disposition of the person; thus, though her pride and self-esteem had been recently stung to madness, and her heart had been crushed within her, now, under the revulsion incident to a great joy, and reunion with me, Louisa was able to wreathe her sweet face with a quiet and well-bred smile, while she listened to the senile gabble of my Lord Slubber.
Great emotions, like those excited by the affair of Agnes Auriol, seldom can remain long, and must subside; Louisa was quite subdued, and sunk in softness and love to-night. She was all that I could desire--my own Louisa.
The gentlemen soon joined the ladies in the drawing-room, and I drew at once near Louisa, who was again seated on the same ottoman with Cora. Lady Chillingham was idling in an easy-chair, half asleep, near the fire, with her feet placed on the velvet fender-stool, and a silky lapdog on her knee; but she roused herself on the approach of Lord Slubber to whisper one of his old-fashioned compliments, coined in the age when gallantry was a study.
"And you think the cavalry will not go through France?" said Louisa, taking up, after a time, the thread of some of her former remarks, while Cora fixed her tender and beautiful eyes kindly on my face.
"It is extremely doubtful," said I.
"And why so, Newton?" asked Cora.
"Because, cousin, it is feared that the red coats will not be popular in France; and then there are the Scots Greys, who are literally covered with trophies of Waterloo; they especially would prove a very unpalatable spectacle to the men of the Second Empire."
This circumstance delayed for a time the appearance of the Greys in the ranks of the allied army. They departed from Nottingham in July, 1854, with their band playing "Scots wha hae," &c.
"Your route will be a long but very pleasant one, by classic seas and classic shores," said Louisa. "Shall we trace it on the map of the Mediterranean, in the library? Come, Cora."
There was a tremulous change in her voice, and a glance in her eye that I could not mistake.
Quitting the drawing-room unnoticed by our seniors, we stepped into the library, the oak shelves of which were loaded with books of all sizes in glittering bindings, more seemingly for show than use, and approaching the large stand of maps on horizontal rollers, we drew down that of the Mediterranean, while Cora, whose good little heart forboded that we needed not her geographical aid, eyed us wistfully for a second, and passed out by a door beyond.
The library had green-shaded lamps, which were half lighted; thus we were almost concealed in shadow, and the huge cloth-mounted map we affected to examine hung before us like a friendly screen. We had but a few stolen moments for conversation, and one impulse animated us.
I turned to Louisa; her face drew closer to mine, and our lips met in one long, long passionate kiss--such a kiss as if our souls were there.
"You understand all, now, Louisa?" said I.
"All," she said, in the same breathless voice.
"And forgive all--about that poor girl, I mean. How appearances were against me!"
"Oh yes, dear, dear Newton."
"And you love me?"
"Oh, Newton!"
"You love me still?"
"Can you ask me while petting me thus? You have felt our separation since those few happy days at Calderwood?"
"As a living death, Louisa. Worse than anticipations of the greater separation that is to come."
"With all its dangers!" she said, with her eyes now full of tears.
"Yes; for whatever happens I shall feel assured----"
"That your poor Louisa loves you still--loves you dearly, Newton; and ere you go to-night you must give me a lock of your hair."
Her head on my shoulder; her pale brow against my cheek, her lips were close to mine.
"Till we are both in our graves, dear Newton, you can never, never know how much I love you, and the agony that Berkeley's cunning cost me."
These were blessed words to hear--blessed words to treasure in the distant land to which I was going; and in a silence more eloquent than words, I could but press her to my heart.
This was indeed a moment of reunion, never to be forgotten, but to be treasured in the secret recesses of the soul, and recalled only at times; and times there were when I recalled it, when far, far away, in the lonely watches of those dark nights, when the chafing of the Black Sea was heard afar off on the rocks of Fort Constantine, and the thunder of Sebastopol was close and nigh; and then the vague, undefined memory of the place, the time, her voice, her eyes, and her kiss, would come gradually back, filling my heart with intense melancholy, and my eyes with tears.
In my doubt of the future, in my fear of ensnarements, and the exercise of parental authority (a power of which we stand in such awe in Scotland), and lest, by an unforeseen chance or circumstance, I should lose her, I actually besought her, in what terms it is impossible to remember now, to consent to a private marriage; and strange ideas of written promises and protestations, of blood mingled with wine, and many other melodramatic absurdities, occurred to me.
"Ah, no, no," said she, rousing herself to the occasion. "There will be time enough when you return."
"If I ever do return," said I, impetuously, thinking of the chances of war, and my certain hostile meeting with Berkeley.
"You must return, dear Newton--you shall, and I feel it in my heart."
"And there will be time----"
"For me," she interrupted, "to be cried, as Lydia Languish says, 'three times in a parish church', and have an enormously fat parish clerk ask the consent of every butcher in the parish to join in lawful wedlock Newton Calderwood Norcliff, bachelor, and Louisa Loftus, spinster; unless we have a special licence, St. George's, Hanover Square, and the Bishop of London in his lawn sleeves, and so forth."
This sudden change of manner at such a time startled and distressed me.
"It is her way--a mistaken lightness of manner," thought I.
But, alas! I was yet to learn some terrible lessons in the treachery of the human heart!
Another brief and mute embrace, and we had just time to veil our mutual agitation and turn our attention to the outspread map of the Mediterranean, affecting to trace the distance from Cagliari to Malta, when we heard the voice of Lord Chillingham saying to Sir Nigel--
"Here they are, reviving their geography apparently. Captain Norcliff," he added, "here is a note for you which has just been brought by an orderly dragoon."
"Thanks, my lord. Is he waiting?"
"No, sir," said the servant, who presented it to me on a chased silver salver; "he immediately wheeled round his horse and galloped off."
"Permit me," said I, tearing it open.
It had been hurriedly pencilled by Frank Jocelyn, and ran thus:--
"MY DEAR NORCLIFF,--The lieutenant-colonel in command of the consolidated depots here informs me that the route for ours is at Maidstone, for which place the troop must march by daybreak to-morrow. Sorry to disturb your dinner-party; but now the word is 'Eastward ho!'"
I handed it first to Louisa, and for a moment my voice failed me; but rallying, I said--"I have to apologize for a hasty departure, and shall thank you, my lord, to order my horse."
Much that followed was confusion. I can remember my good uncle shaking me repeatedly by the hand, and patting me on the epaulettes (we were like officers then, and had epaulettes on our shoulders). Cora wept a great deal; Louisa was quite silent and very pale. Our parting scene passed away like a dissolving view; but the bitterness was somewhat taken from it by the whole party promising to "drive or ride over to Maidstone and see us march out;" and so, with a kind adieu from all, I sprang on my horse, quitted Chillingham Park, and soon reached the barracks, where I found Jocelyn in my quarters awaiting me, and Willie Pitblado, who had already relinquished his livery for his lancer uniform, whistling vigorously as he packed and buckled up my traps.
Away from Louisa, I had no relief now for my mind but intense activity.
In the dull grey light of the next morning I quitted Canterbury with my troop for Maidstone, into which we were played by our own band, which came a mile or two on the Rochester Road to meet us.
There I learned from Colonel Beverley that, on the following day, we should march to join the expedition destined for the defence of Turkey.
*CHAPTER XXIV.*
Now, brave boys, we're bound for marchin',
Both to Portingale and Spain;
Drums are batin', colours flyin',
And the divil a back we'll come again.
So, love, farewell, we're all for marchin'!
Eighty-eighth and Inniskillin',
Boys that's able, boys that's willin';
Faugh-a-ballagh and County Down,
Stand by the harp, and stand by the crown.
So, love, farewell, we're all for marchin'!
The colonel cries, "Boys, are yee's ready?"
"We're at your back, sir, firm and steady;
Our pouches filled with balls and poulther,
And a firelock sloped on every shoulther."
So, love, farewell, we're all for marchin'!
Such was the doggrel ditty--some camp song of the brave old Peninsular days--with which I heard my Irish groom, Larity O'Regan, solacing himself in the grey light of the early morning, as he rubbed down my charger, and buckled his gay trappings, in the dawn of the, to me, eventful 22nd of April. How I envied that man's lightness of heart! Perhaps he had a mother in a thatched cabin in some brown Irish bog far away; sisters, too; it might be a sweetheart--some grey-eyed and black-haired Biddy, or Nora. If so, they occasioned him but little regret then; and light-hearted Lanty's queer song and jovial bearing went far to rouse my own spirit as I mounted the gallant dark horse that was to bear me in the fields of the future.
The regiment, mustering about three hundred men of all ranks, came rapidly from the stables, under the eye of Studhome, and that ubiquitous and indefatigable non-commissioned officer, Sergeant-Major Drillem. The sun had not yet risen, but the barrack windows were crowded by the men of other corps to witness our departure. Their own turn would soon arrive.
Wilford informed me that the route had come suddenly, when the regiment was in church, and it was first announced by the chaplain from the pulpit. The sanctity of the place alone restrained the cheers of the lancers, but not the sobs of the women; and he added, that by a singular coincidence, the text the chaplain had chosen for his sermon was from Proverbs xxvii. 1--"Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."
Order for marching.
As the trumpets blew the assembly on this auspicious morning, their sound seemed different--more warlike in fact than usual--a portion of the great movement in which the fate of Europe, and certainly of many a poor human being, was involved.
As yet Lionel Beverley, our lieutenant-colonel, who wore his Cross of the Bath, was the only decorated man among us (save a few Indian medals); but a rich crop of such tributes was to be reaped in the land to which we were going.
Our plumes had been laid aside, glazed covers were on our square-crowned caps, and officers and privates alike had canvas havresacks and wooden canteens slung over the right shoulder; some of the former had telescopes and courier-bags; but all betokened coming service and preparation for it.
Our horses were nearly all of a deep dark bay colour, save those of the band and trumpeters, many of which were white, or spotted grey. The guidons were all uncased; each was of white silk (the colour of our facings), embroidered with gold, measuring three feet long by twenty-one inches on the lance, which was ten feet in length--the regulation for light cavalry. On the flank of its troop each standard was now flying in the morning wind.
On this occasion there were, as usual at such times, many of the fair sex interested in our departure. There was much weeping among many wives, and certainly among a great number of "very foolish virgins," as Studhome designated them. Many of the soldiers' wives were mingling in the ranks, and, fearless of the horses' hoofs, were holding up their infants for the last kiss of many a poor father who was to find his grave in the land to which we were departing; and there were many painful separations among those who were destined never to meet again.
I remember a sergeant of Wilford's troop, whose wife had recently presented him with a baby. The latter died suddenly on the night before we were to march, and, by a singular coincidence, the little thing's cradle and coffin were brought into barracks together next morning, but poor Sergeant Dashwood had to mount and leave his weeping wife and unburied little one behind him.
He was one of the first who fell at the passage of the Alma.
There was, on the other hand, much heedless jesting and idle levity.
"This time," said Wilford, to the group of officers who were gathered round Beverley, "we shall do a portion of the Mediterranean, the entire Levant, and Dardanelles, at her Majesty's expense, and without the aid of Bradshaw or John Murray."
"So we are actually going at last," lisped Jocelyn, while playing with his horse's mane.
"Ah! but we leave our representatives behind."
"How, Travers?"
"In a squad of light infantry in arms, no doubt," replied Travers, a handsome fellow, with a clear blue eye and long fair moustache. He had the reputation of being the most rakish fellow in the regiment, and could not resist perpetrating the old dragoon joke.
"How clumsily we English show grief," I heard Berkeley say, as he witnessed a very affecting parting between a mother and her son. "Hear how that old--aw--woman is permitting herself to howl."
"Anything is better than having every natural emotion subdued and snubbed from childhood, as among us in Scotland," thought I.
Soldiers muster and march at all times merrily. Care cumbers them but little and briefly, for "with them the present is everything, the past a point, the future a blank. The greeting of surviving friends is seldom embittered by the recollection of those who are no more, and in a life of danger and casualty this is natural."
Already the advanced guard had been detailed and thrown out, under young Sir Henry Scarlett. The crowd in and about the barracks was great. Many carriages full of fashionables from Canterbury, Tunbridge, and elsewhere, were arriving, for the double purpose of getting up an appetite for breakfast and seeing us depart; but I saw nothing of my friends, for whom I was looking anxiously--so much so that Studhome said, laughingly, as he rode past--
"Come, look alive, Norcliff, and get your troop into shape. There is no such spoon in the service, or out of it, as an 'engaged man.'"
At another time I might have resented Jack's banter, but Beverley wheeled the regiment from open column into line, and opened the ranks, as the commandant of Maidstone cantered in, with his staff, their plumes waving and epaulettes glittering. Then, from line, we were formed in close column in rear of the leading troop, for the delivery of an address, of which I did not hear one word, for just as the commandant took off his cocked hat and began his oration Lord Chillingham's carriage, preceded by two outriders, drove in, I perceived that it was occupied by Cora, Lord Chillingham, and Lord Slubber. My uncle and Lady Louisa, who were on horseback, came at once close up to me.
My pale love looked tenderly at me, and her dark eyes bore unmistakable traces of recent tears, or was it the long ride in the morning wind which had inflamed them? All emotion, however, was subdued now, which was well, as her rare beauty, her bearing and seat in the saddle, attracted the eyes of half the regiment, seriously damaging the interest of the old commandant's address; and my uncle, after warmly shaking my hand, proceeded to examine, with a critical eye, the mount of our men.
The party in the carriage alighted, so Louisa dismounted and gave her bridle to her groom.
Our eyes seldom wandered from each other, but we had little to say beyond a few commonplaces, yet at that bitter hour of parting our hearts were very full, and she stroked and petted my horse, saying almost to it the caressing things she dared not address to me.
At last the final moment of departure came, and her eyes filled with irrepressible tears. Lord Slubber hurried forward to assist her to remount; but his tremulous hands failed him, or Louisa proved too large and ample; so I leaped from my horse, and took the office upon myself.
Louisa bit her lip, and smiled at Slubber, with mingled sorrow and disdain in her expressive eye, as I put one arm caressingly around her, and swung her up, arranging to her complete satisfaction the ample skirt and padded stirrup for the prettiest foot and ankle that England ever produced, and they are better there than in boasted Andalusia.
At that instant a hot tear from under her veil fell on my upturned face; and then it was that I contrived, unseen, to give her the lock of hair. It was in a tiny locket, the counterpart of that which I wore at my own neck. She just touched it with her lips, and slipped it into her bosom. Save Cora and myself, I think no one noticed the little action.
Another moment, and I found the whole regiment in motion, and, preceded by the band of a dragoon guard corps, departing from the barrack square. Many of our men now unslung their lances, and brandished them, while chorusing, "Cheer, boys, cheer"--a song, the patriotism of which is somewhat equivocal, though the air is fine and stirring.
Louisa accompanied me, riding by my side, to the gate. What we were saying, I know not now; but my heart was beating painfully. The scene around me seemed all confusion and phantasmagoria; the tramp of the horses, the crash of the band, with cymbals and kettledrums, the cheers of the soldiers and of the people, seemed faint and far away. I heard Louisa's voice alone.
But now a loud and reiterated hurrah--the full, deep, hearty cheer of warmth and welcome, of joy or triumph, which comes best from English throats, and from English throats alone--rose from the multitudes without, as the head of the column defiled slowly through the street; and I must own that three hundred mounted lancers--all handsome young men, well horsed, and in gay uniform, blue faced with white, and with all their swallow-tailed red and white banneroles fluttering in the wind--presented a magnificent spectacle.
Thousands of handkerchiefs were waved from the windows, and many laurel branches and flowers were flung among us. Other troops, both horse and foot, were on the march that morning, and the crash of other bands, heard at a distance, came over the sprouting cornfields and hop-gardens of beautiful Kent. I had pressed Louisa's hand for the last time, and she had returned to her friends. We had separated at last, and with all the love that welled up in our hearts, we had parted, as some one says, "without the last seal upon the ceremony of good-bye, which it is unlawful to administer in public to any but juvenile recipients."
I was alone now, and yet not quite alone, for my uncle, though his military career had been confined to the ranks of the Kirkaldy troop of Yeomanry, accompanied me for some miles, mounted on a stout cover-hack, though sorely tempted to spur after some Highland regiment, whose bagpipes we heard ringing on some parallel road, as we marched along the highway to Tunbridge, en route for Portsmouth, where our transports lay.
Sir Nigel bade me farewell at Tunbridge, and turned to ride back to Chillingham Park, whither my heart went with him. The fine old man's voice faltered and his eyes grew very moist, as he pressed my hand for the last time, and reined aside his horse, looking among the troop for Willie Pitplado, whom he had known from infancy, and with whom he also shook hands.
"Good-bye, Willie," said he. "Remember you are your father's son. Dinna forget Calderwood Glen, and to stick to my nephew."
Willie's heart was full, and as he gnawed his chin-strap to hide his emotion, I heard him send a farewell message to his father, the old keeper.
And then, as the sturdy baronet rode slowly to the rear, adopting at once the old hunting seat, several of our lancers cheered him, for he was the last specimen of his class they would probably see for many a day to come.
I now remembered, with keen reproach, that in the fulness of my emotion at parting from Louisa--in fact, the selfishness of my love--I had forgotten to bid adieu to Cora and to Lord Chillingham. About the latter omission I cared little; but to leave Cora--kind, affectionate Cora--whose sad and earnest face I seemed still to see, as she gazed so wistfully from the carriage window, and to leave her, it might be for ever, without a word of farewell, was a fault almost without remedy now.
However, I lost no time in writing my excuses from our first halting-place, which was at Mayfield, though some of our troops remained at Tunbridge Wells, and others had to ride to the market town of Cranbrook for quarters and stabling. Proceeding through the great hop-growing district of England, we frequently marched between gardens, where the little plants were beginning to creep up those tall and slender poles of ash or chestnut, which (before the hops gain their full growth, in September) present so singular an appearance to a stranger's eye. When those green hops were gathered, and when the hop-queen was decorated in honour of the harvest home, we were moving towards the passage of the Alma. Kent was wearing its loveliest aspect now, in the full glory of hedgerows, copse, and meadows, in the last days of spring, under a clear blue sunlit sky. The birds, in myriads, filled the hedges with melody; the purple and white lilacs were already in full bloom, and the grass was spotted with snow-white daisies and golden buttercups, while primroses and violets grew wild by the side of the chalky and flinty roads.
The quaint, tumble-down cottages, covered to their chimney tops with ivy, woodbine, and wild hop-leaves; the fair, smiling faces that peeped at us from their lozenged lattices; the sturdy fellows who lounged and smoked at the turnpike; the red wheeled waggons on the road; the laden wains, and the canvas-frocked yokels far a-field; the lowing cattle that browsed on the upland slope; the square white tower of the little village church on one side; the red-brick manor-house on the other, with all its gables and oriels peeping above the woodlands; the whistle of the distant railway train, and its white smoke curling up in the sunshine, were all indicative of happy, peaceful, and prosperous England, and of a soil long untrodden by a hostile foot. From every port in the United Kingdom; between Portsmouth and Aberdeen, troops were quickly departing now. Being cavalry, on our route through Kent, Sussex, and a little part of Hampshire, we overtook and passed several corps of infantry and artillery, which were marching by the same roads for the same place of embarkation, and stirring were the cheers with which we greeted each other.
We remarked that the bands of the Scottish and Irish regiments were almost invariably playing the national quick marches peculiar to their own countries, while those of English corps played German, and even Yankee music.
The Black Watch, the Cameron Highlanders, the Scotch Fusiliers, &c., stirred each other's hearts by such airs as "Scots wha hae," "Lochaber no more," and so forth; the Connaught Rangers and the 97th made the welkin ring to "Garryowen," and similar airs, which are more inspiring to the British soldier than those of Prussia or Austria can ever be; and, as our colonel remarked it, it would have been better taste had the English bands played the quicksteps of the sister countries than foreign airs, with which an Englishman can have no sympathy whatever.
The same defect was observed on that great day when Her Majesty distributed the Victoria Cross. The bands of the Guards played Scottish airs for the Highlanders, and "Rule Britannia" for the Marines; but otherwise "favoured the troops and the people with a great deal of German music, to which no attention was paid. National airs would have gratified both, and stirred up the patriotism of the people. The Enniskilling Dragoons and Rifles were chiefly composed of Irishmen; but the bands did not venture upon a single air peculiar to Ireland."--Nolan's History of the War, p. 770.
I remembered a pleasant little incident during our march through Sussex. As we passed a village parsonage--a quaint old gable-ended house, secluded among moss-grown trees--the sound of our kettledrums and trumpets, the tramp of the horses, and the clatter of the chain bridles and steel scabbards, drew forth the inmates--an aged clergyman and his two daughters--to a green wicket in the close-clipped holly-hedge, where the group stood, as in a green frame of leaves, looking with deep interest at the passing lancers, who were riding in what was then the order--sections of three. White-haired and reverend, with his thin locks shining in the sun, the curate took off his hat, and lifted up his hands and eyes in a manner there could be no mistaking. The old man was evidently praying for us. His face was expressive of the finest emotion; he felt that he was looking on many a man he would never see again. Perhaps he had a son a soldier, or was himself a soldier's son; or he felt that he, though old and stricken with years, was destined to survive many of the young, the hale and hearty in our ranks, who were still "on life's morning march." Some of our officers lifted their caps and bowed to the little group, and I am sure that Frank Jocelyn kissed his hands to the girls, who were waving their handkerchiefs, while more than one of ours cried, "God bless you, old boy!" and frequently, long after, in the snows of Sebastopol and the terrors of the valley of death, the face and form of that good old man, and the kindness of his mute prayer, came to the memory of some of us. It formed one of our last and most pleasing incidents connected with England.
In four days we reached Portsmouth, which presented a scene of indescribable bustle and activity; and the fifth day saw my troop, consisting of fifty men, with sixty horses, and with the colonel, Studhome, M'Goldrick, one surgeon, the sergeant-major, and rest of the staff, embarked from the dockyard jetty at eleven A.M., on board a splendid clipper ship, the Pride of the Ocean, Captain Robert Binnacle, bound for Turkey. The other five troops of the corps were embarked on board the transports Ganges, Bannockburn, and other vessels.
We had not been without hope of going in the Himalaya, which would have taken the entire regiment in her capacious womb, and which, moreover, is our only cavalry ship; but the authorities had declared otherwise.
The morning of our embarkation was beautiful; the scene animated, picturesque, and bustling, such as Portsmouth alone could exhibit at such a time; but we were sorely troubled by our horses. Some were conveyed on board in stall-boxes, others were lowered down the hatches by bellybands and slings, in which, being spirited and young, they were very restive, lashing out, to the imminent danger of the brains and bones of those in their vicinity, until they found themselves in the tow-padded stalls below the maindeck.
Adding to the bustle and interest of the scene, several ships of war were taking in stores and preparing for sea; boats, manned by seamen and marines in white jackets, were shooting to and fro between Portsmouth on one side and Gosport on the other. A strong detachment of the 19th (1st Yorkshire) Regiment was embarking on board the Melita, a Cunard steamer; the Euxine, a Peninsular and Oriental liner, was receiving many of the staff, a number of horses, and nearly twenty tons of ball cartridges. A squadron of the 8th, or Royal Irish Hussars, under Major de Salis, were stowing themselves on board of the Mary Anne transport; and a great body of Woolwich Pensioners, a numerous staff of veterinary surgeons, members of the ambulance, ordnance, and transport corps, were all embarking at the same time. Thus the hurly-burly was prodigious, and the whole of the quays were encumbered by baggage, stores, field-pieces, mortars, shot and shell, chests of arms, tents and camp equipage, guarded by marines with fixed bayonets, or seamen with drawn cutlasses. With all this apparent activity there was, of course, the counteracting influence of that red-tapism which is the curse of the British service. When war was declared the Royal Arsenal did not contain a sufficient quantity of shells to furnish the first battering train that went to Turkey, and the fuses then issued had been in store ever since the battle of Waterloo! Even the mattocks and shovels issued to the troops had been sent home from the Peninsula by the Duke of Wellington as worthless!
Here at Portsmouth we saw many a bitter--also to too many it proved a final--adieu. With all my soul I loved Louisa; and yet, when, standing on the dockyard jetty there, I saw the partings of husbands from their wives, and fathers from their children, I thanked Heaven in my heart that in this, to them, most bitter hour, I had only my good black charger to care for.
Midday was past ere all the passengers for the Pride of the Ocean, with their baggage, &c., were on board. I had personally to see the cattle stabled below; the men told off to their messes and watches; the lances, swords, and other arms stowed away in racks; the valises and hammocks slung to their cleats, and so forth. In the stables one stall on each side was left vacant, with spare slings, in case of accidents at sea.
Fortunately, I was spared the annoyance of Berkeley's society on the voyage out, as there was not space for more than one troop on board the clipper; so he was with Wilford's on board the Ganges. He was not exactly "in Coventry," but somehow our mess disliked him, and could not exactly comprehend, as they phrased it, "what was up" between him and me.
Now that I was again in favour with Louisa Loftus; now that the untoward affair at the Reculvers had been completely explained, and that the victory was mine, and his the shame, defeat, and rejection--nearly all emotion of hostility against him had died away, or been replaced by settled contempt. Yet the hostile meeting was still looming in the future, and would have to ensue on the first suitable opportunity.
I was not sorry when the bustle of embarkation was over, and the clipper was towed out to the famous reach or roadstead at Spithead, where she came to anchor for a time, under the shelter of the high lands of the Isle of Wight.
The noblest army that ever left the shores of the British Isles was, undoubtedly, that which departed under Lord Raglan's orders for the East.
It was the carefully-developed army of forty years of peace, during which the world had made a mighty stride in art, in science, and in civilization--greater than it had done, perhaps, between the days of the Twelfth Crusade and the last day of Waterloo.
"War," says Napier, in his "Peninsular History," "war tries the military framework; but it is in peace that the framework itself must be formed--otherwise barbarians would be the leading soldiers of the world. A perfect army can only be made by civil institutions."
The same magnificent writer says elsewhere, with terrible truth, "In the beginning of each war England has to seek in blood the knowledge necessary to insure success; and like the fiend's progress towards Eden, her conquering course is through chaos, followed by Death!" and that such was her course in the Crimea, let the errors of general routine, the trenches of Sebastopol, and the criminal red-tapism at home bear witness.
Of the morale of that army there can be no higher evidence than the voices that came from the poor fellows in our ranks--the letters with which they filled the newspapers of the day, detailing with spirit, simplicity, and pathos their humble experiences in the great events of the war.
All our men loved Beverley, who was a model commanding officer, and my troop deemed themselves (as I did) peculiarly lucky in being with him and the head-quarters staff. He took great care of his regiment, and a strict supervision of the horses.
He had left nothing undone while at home, by the establishment and encouragement of a school, a library, and so forth, to raise the moral tone of the lancers, their wives and families; hence some of the contributions of our privates to the newspapers were fully equal to any that emanated from Sir Colin's famous Highland Brigade. Beverley regularly visited the sick in hospital, and cheered them by his kindly manner; and all the little ones who played in the barrack square smiled and welcomed the approach of the colonel, who was seldom without a few small coins to scatter among them, and cause a scramble; yet, as I have said, he was somewhat of a dandy, and not without a tinge of affectation in his tone and manner.
Next evening saw us at sea.
The Nab Light had sunk far astern, and the pale cliffs of the Isle of Wight had melted into the world of waters.
Old Jack Bloater, the pilot from Selsey, had drunk his last horn of grog at the binnacle, and left us with every wish for "an 'appy journey--a bong woyage, as the monseers called it, and that we would soon give them Roosians a skewerin'."
And now I knew that many a day, and week, and month, it might be years, filled up by the perils and stormy passages of a life of campaigning, must inevitably pass ere I should again hear Louisa's voice, before I had her hand in mine, and looked into her tender eyes again--if I was kindly permitted by Heaven to return at all. But little knew our departing army of the suffering and horrors that were before it--horrors and sufferings to which the bayonets and bullets of the Russians were but child's play.
I was now away from her finally, and without the least arrangement having been made for that which alone can soothe the agony and anxiety of such a separation--correspondence! I clung to the hope that she might write to me; if not, I could only hear of her from Cora, or perhaps when Miss Wilford wrote to her brother Fred; and, it might be, from some stray paragraph in the Court Journal or Morning Post, if either ever found its way beyond the Dardanelles, which seemed doubtful.
