"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.