As yet I knew nothing of all that has been detailed in the foregoing
chapter, consequently the entire measure of my vengeance against
Guilfoyle was not quite full. I had, however, a revival of my old
doubts, anxiety, and perplexity, in not hearing from Walcot Park in
some fashion, by an invitation, or otherwise privately from Estelle
herself, as, by our prearrangement, there was nothing to prevent her
writing to me; and to these were added now a dread of what they had
seen on that unlucky evening, and the reasonable misconstructions to
which the scene was liable. More than one of my mess-room friends had
received cards of invitation from Lady Naseby; why then was I, whom
she had met so recently, apparently forgotten?
After the relation of her story, I left Mrs. Guilfoyle in such
a state of mental prostration and distress, that I was not without
well-founded fears that she might commit some rash act, perhaps
suicide, to add to the vile complication of our affairs. Next day I
was detailed for guard, and could not leave the barracks, either to
consult with my new unhappy acquaintance, or for my accustomed canter
in the vicinity of Walcot Park. A presentiment that something
unpleasant would happen ere long hung over me, and a day and a night
of irritation and hot impatience had to be endured, varied only by the
exceedingly monotonous duties that usually occupy the attention of the
officer who commands a guard, such as explaining all the standing
orders to the soldiers composing it, inspecting the reliefs going out
to their posts and those returning from them, and going the round of
those posts by night; but on this occasion, the routine was varied by
a fire near Winchester, so we were kept under arms for some hours in a
torrent of rain, with the gates barricaded, till the barrack engines
returned. On the following morning, just when dismissing my old guard
after being relieved by the new one, I perceived a servant in the
well-known Naseby livery--light-blue and silver--ride out of the
barracks; and with a fluttering in my heart, that was born of hope and
apprehension, I hastened to my room.
"Packet for you, sir," said my man Evans, "just left by a flunkey in
red breeches."
"You mean a servant of Lady Naseby's."
"I mean, sir," persisted Evans, "a flunky who eyed me very
superciliously, and seemed to think a private soldier as low and
pitiful as himself," added the Welshman, whom the pompous bearing of
the knight of the shoulder-knot had ruffled.
"You were not rude to him, I hope."
"O no, sir. I only said that, though the Queen didn't like bad
bargains, I'd give him a shilling in her name to play the triangles."
"That will do; you may go," said I, taking from his hand a small
packet sealed in pink paper, and addressed to me by Lady Estelle; and
my heart beat more painfully than ever with hope and fear as I tore it
open.
A locket dropped out--_the_ locket just described--in which I was
bewildered to find a likeness of myself, and with it the ring I had
placed on the hand of Estelle in Rhuddlan's cottage--the emerald
encircled by diamonds--on the morning after our escape from a terrible
fate! I have said that a shock awaited me at the barrack; but that the
locket should come to me, accompanied by Estelle's ring, so astonished
and perplexed me, that some time elapsed before I perceived there was
a little note in the box which contained them.
It ran thus:
"Lady E. Cressingham begs that Mr. Hardinge will return the
accompanying locket and ring to the lady to whom they properly
belong--she whom he meets in the lane near Walcot Park, and whom he
should lose no time in presenting to the world in her own character.
Farther communications are unnecessary, as Mr. Guilfoyle has explained
all, and Lady E. Cressingham leaves to-day for London."
The handwriting was very tremulous, as if she had written when under
no ordinary excitement; and now, as the use to which the two episodes,
at the lane and the inn-door, had been put by the artful Guilfoyle
became plain to me, I was filled by a dangerous fury at the false
position in which they placed me with her I loved and with whom I had
been so successful. For a minute the room seemed to swim round me,
each corner in pursuit of the other. We had both been wronged--myself
chiefly; and though I knew that Guilfoyle had been at work, I could
not precisely know how; but I thought the Spartan was right when, on
being asked if his sword was sharp, he replied, "Yes, sharper even
than calumny!" This wretched fellow had daringly calumniated me, and
to clear that calumny, to have an instant interview with Estelle,
became the immediate and burning desire of my heart. I rushed to my
desk, and opened it with such impulsive fury that I severely injured
my arm, so recently broken--broken in her service--and as yet but
scarcely well. I spread paper before me, but my fingers were
powerless; if able to hold the pen, I was now unable to write, and the
whole limb was alternately benumbed and full of acute agony; and
though Hugh Price of ours was a very good fellow, I had no friend--at
least, none like Phil Caradoc--in the dépôt battalion in whom I could
confide or with whom consult, in this emergency.
I despatched Evans for the senior surgeon, who alleged that the
original setting, dressing, and so forth of my fractured limb had been
most unsatisfactory; that if I was not careful, inflammation might set
in, and if so, that instant amputation alone could save my life. Being
almost in a fever, he placed me on the sick-list, with orders not to
leave my room for some days, and reduced me to claret-and-water.
"A pleasant predicament this!" thought I, grinding my teeth.
Estelle, through whom all this came to pass, lost to me, apparently
through no fault of my own, and I unable to communicate with her or
explain anything; for now she was in London, where I feared she might,
in pique or rage, take Pottersleigh, Naseby, or even, for all I knew,
accept Guilfoyle, a terrible compromise of her name. But she had
plenty of other admirers, and disappointed women marry every day in
disgust of some one. Next I thought of the regiment abroad wondering
"when that fellow Hardinge would join"--promotion, honour, profession,
and love in the balance against health, and all likely to be lost!
"Rest, rest," said the battalion Sangrado, whom my condition rather
perplexed; "don't worry yourself about anything. Rest, mental and
bodily, alone can cure you."
"It is a fine thing to talk," I muttered, while tossing on my pillow;
for I was confined to bed in my dull little room, and for three days
was left entirely to my own corroding thoughts.
I had but one crumb of comfort, one lingering hope. She had not asked
me to return _her_ ring, nor did I mean to do so, if possible. Once
again my arm was slung in a black-silk scarf, which Estelle had
insisted on making for me at Craigaderyn. Alas! would the joys of that
time ever return to us again? I sent Evans, in uniform and not in my
livery, to Whitchurch with the locket, after extracting my likeness
therefrom; but he returned with it, saying that the lady had left the
inn for London, having no doubt followed her husband. I knew not
exactly of what I was accused--a _liaison_ of some kind apparently, of
which the strongest proofs had been put before the Cressinghams. If,
when able, I wrote to explain that the two meetings with Mrs.
Guilfoyle were quite fortuitous, would Estelle believe me? Without
inquiry or explanation, she had coldly and abruptly cast me off; and
it was terrible that one I loved so well should think evil or with
scorn of me. What would honest old Sir Madoc's view of the matter be,
and what the kind and noble-hearted Winifred's, who loved me as a
sister, if they heard of this story, whatever it was?
Vengeance--swift, sudden, and sure--was what I panted for; and moments
there were when I writhed under the laws that prevented me from
discovering and beating to a jelly this fellow Guilfoyle, or even
shooting him down like a mad dog, though I would gladly have risked my
own life to punish him in the mode that was no longer approved of now
in England; and I pictured to myself views of having him over in
France, in the Bois de Boulogne, or on the level sands of Dunkirk, the
spire of St. Eloi in the distance, the gray sky above us, the sea for
a background, no sound in our ears but its chafing on the long strip
of beach, and his villainous face covered by my levelled pistol at ten
paces, or less--yea, even after I had let him have the first shot, by
tossing or otherwise. And as these fierce thoughts burned within me,
all the deeper and fiercer that they were futile and found no
utterance, I glanced longingly at my sword, which hung on the wall, or
handled my pistols with grim anticipative joy; and reflected on how
many there are in this world who, in the wild sense of justice, or the
longing for a just revenge on felons whom the laws protect, fear the
police while they have no fear of God, even in this boasted age of
civilisation; and I remembered a terrible _duel à la mort_ in which I
had once borne a part in Germany.
A July evening was closing in Altona, when I found myself in the
garden of Rainville's Hotel, which overlooks the Elbe. The windows of
the house, an edifice of quaint aspect, occupied successively in years
past by General Dumourier and gossiping old Bourienne, were open, and
lights and music, the din of many voices--Germans are always loud and
noisy--and the odour of many cigars and meerschaums, came forth, to
mingle with the fragrance of the summer flowers that decked the
tea-garden, the trees of which were hung with garlands of coloured
lanterns. A golden haze from the quarter where the sun had set
enveloped all the lazy Elbe, and strings of orange-tinted lights
showed here and there the gas-lamps of Hamburg reflected in its bosom.
In dark outline against that western flush were seen the masts and
hulls of the countless vessels that covered the basin of the river and
the Brandenburger Hafen. Waiters were hurrying about with coffee,
ices, and confectionery, lager-beer in tankards, and cognac in crystal
cruets; pretty Vierlander girls, in their grotesque costume, the
bodice a mass of golden embroidery, were tripping about coyly,
offering their bouquets for sale; and to the music of a fine German
band, the dancing had begun on a prepared platform. There were
mingling lovely Jewesses of half-Teutonic blood, covered with jewels;
spruce clerks from the Admiralit-strasse, and stout citizens from the
Neuer-wall; officers and soldiers from the Prussian garrison; girls of
good style from the fashionable streets about the Alsterdamm, and
others that were questionable from the quarter about the Grosse
Theater Strasse.
I was seated in an arbour with a young Russian officer named
Paulovitch Count Volhonski, who was travelling like myself, and whom I
had met at the table-d'hôte of the Rolandsburg, in the Breitestrasse.
As an Englishman, apt at all times to undervalue the Russian
character, I was agreeably surprised to find that this young captain
of the Imperial Guard could speak several European, and at least two
of the dead, languages with equal facility. He was a good musician,
sang well, and was moreover remarkably handsome, though his keen dark
eyes and strongly marked brows, with a most decided aquiline nose,
required all the softness that a mouth well curved and as delicately
cut as that of a woman could be, to relieve them, and something of
pride and hauteur, if not of sternness, that formed the normal
expression of his face. His complexion was remarkably pure and clear,
his hair was dark and shorn very short, and he had a handsome
moustache, well pointed up. We had frequented several places of
amusement together, and had agreed to travel in company so far as
Berlin, and this was to be our last night in Altona. The waiter had
barely placed our wine upon the table and poured it out, when there
entered our arbour, and seated himself uninvited beside us, a great
burly German officer in undress uniform, and who in a stentorian voice
ordered a bottle of lager-beer, and lighting his huge meerschaum
without a word or glance of courtesy or apology, surveyed us boldly
with a cool defiant stare. This was so offensive, that Volhonski's
usually pale face flushed crimson, and we instinctively looked at each
other inquiringly.
The German next lay back in his seat, coughed loudly, expectorated in
all directions in that abominable manner peculiar to his country,
placed his heavy military boots with a thundering crash upon two
vacant chairs, drank his beer, and threw down the metal flagon roughly
on the table, eyeing us from time to time with a sneering glance that
was alike insulting and unwarrantable. But this man, whom we
afterwards learned to be a noted bully and duellist, Captain Ludwig
Schwartz, of the Prussian 95th or Thuringians, evidently wished to
provoke a quarrel with either or both of us, as some Prussian officers
and Hamburg girls, who were watching his proceedings from an alley of
the garden, seemed to think, and to enjoy the situation. But for their
presence and mocking bearing, Volhonski and I would probably, for the
sake of peace, have retired and gone elsewhere; however, their
laughter and remarks rendered the intrusive insolence of their friend
the more intolerable. It chanced that a little puff of wind blew the
ashes of Volhonski's cigar all over the face and big brown beard of
the German, who, while eyeing him fiercely, slowly extricated the pipe
from his heavy dense moustache, and striking his clenched hand on the
table so as to make everything thereon dance, he said, imperiously,
"The Herr Graf will apologise?"
"For what?" asked Volhonski, haughtily.
"For what!--der Teufel!--do you ask for what?"
"Ja, Herr Captain."
"For permitting those cigar ashes to go over all my person."
"In the first place, your precious person had no right to be there; in
the second, appeal to the wind, and fight with it."
"I shall not fight with _it!_" thundered the German; "and I demand an
instant apology."
"Absurd!" replied Volhonski, coolly; "I have no apology to make,
fellow. Apologise to another I might; but certainly not to such as
you."
"You dare to jest--to--to--to trifle with me?" spluttered the German,
gasping and swelling with rage.
"I never jest or trifle with strangers; do you wish to quarrel?"
"No, Herr Graf," sneered the German; "do you?"
"Then how am I to construe your conduct and words?"
"As you please. But know this, Herr Graf: that though I ever avoid
quarrelling, I instantly crush or repel the slightest appearance of
insult, and you have _insulted_ me."
"Ja, ja!" muttered the German officers, in blue surtouts and brass
shoulder-scales, who now crowded about us.
Volhonski smiled disdainfully, and drew from his pocket a
richly-inlaid card-case; then taking from it an enamelled card, with a
bow that was marked and formal, yet haughty, he presented it to
Captain Ludwig Schwartz, who deliberately tore it in two, and said, in
a low fierce voice,
"Bah! I challenge you, Schelm, to meet me with pistols, or hand to
hand without masks, and without seconds, if you choose."
"Agreed," replied Volhonski, now pale with passion, knowing well that
after such a defiance as that, and before such company, it would be a
duel without cessation, a combat _à la mort_. "Where?" he asked,
briefly.
"The Heiligengeist Feld."
"When?"
"To-morrow at daybreak"
"Agreed; till then adieu, Herr Captain;" and touching their caps to
each other in salute, they separated.
Next morning, when the dense mists, as yet unexhaled by the sun, lay
heavy and frouzy about the margin of the Elbe, and were curling up
from the deep moats and wooded ramparts of the Holstein Thor of
Hamburg, we met on the plain which lies between that city and Altona;
it is open, grassy, interspersed with trees, and is named the Field of
the Holy Ghost. A sequestered place was chosen; Volhonski was attended
by me, Captain Schwartz by another captain of his regiment; but
several of his brother officers were present as spectators, and all
these wore the tight blue surtout, buttoned to the throat, with the
shoulder-scales, adopted by the Prussians before Waterloo; and they
wore through their left skirt a sword of the same straight and spring
shell-hilted fashion, used in the British service at Fontenoy and
Culloden, and retained by the Prussians still. The morning was chill,
and above the gray wreaths of mists enveloping the plain rose, on one
side, the red brick towers and green coppered spires of St. Michael,
St. Nicolai, and other churches. Opposite were the pointed roofs of
Altona, and many a tall poplar tree. Volhonski, being brave, polite,
and scrupulous in all his transactions, was naturally exasperated on
finding himself in this dangerous and unsought-for predicament, after
being so grossly and unwarrantably insulted on the preceding night. He
was pale, but assumed a smiling expression, as if he thought it as
good a joke as any one else to be paraded thus at daybreak, when we
quitted our hackney droski at the corner of the great cemetery and
traversed the field, luckily reaching the appointed spot the same
moment as our antagonists.
We gravely saluted each other. While I was examining and preparing the
pistols, Volhonski gave me a sealed letter, saying, quite calmly, "I
have but one relation in the world--my little sister Valérie, now at
St. Petersburg. See," he added, giving me the miniature of a beautiful
young girl, golden-haired and dark-eyed; "if I am butchered by this
beer-bloated Teuton, you will write to her, enclosing this miniature,
my letter, and all my rings."
I pressed his hand in silence, and handed our pistols for inspection
to the other second, a captain, named Leopold Döpke, of the Thuringian
Infantry.
"Now, Herr Graf, we fight till one, at least, is killed," said
Schwartz, grimly.
Volhonski bowed in assent.
"Be quick, gentlemen," said the German officers; "already the rising
sun is gilding the vane of St. Michael's."
Volhonski glanced at it earnestly, and his fine dark eyes clouded for
a moment. Perhaps he was thinking of his sister, or of how and where
he might be lying when the sun's rays were lower down that lofty brick
spire, which is a hundred feet higher than the cross of St. Paul's in
London. In the German fashion a circle was drawn upon the greensward,
on which the diamond dew of a lovely summer morning glittered.
Volhonski and Schwartz were placed within that circle, from which they
were not permitted to retire; neither were they to fire until the
signal was given.
"Mein Herren," said Captain Döpke, who seemed to think no more of the
affair than if it had been a pigeon match, "when I give the signal by
throwing up my glove and uttering the word you may fire at discretion,
or as soon as you have your aim, and at what distance you please; but
it must be _within_ the circumference of this ring. The first who
steps beyond it falls by my hand, as a violation of the laws of the
duel."
"Be quick," growled Schwartz; "for the night watch in St. Michael's
tower have telescopes, and the Burgher Guard are already under arms at
the Holstein Thor."
Twelve paces apart within that deadly ring stood Volhonski and
Schwartz, facing each other. The former wore a black surtout buttoned
up to the throat; the latter his uniform and spike helmet. He untied
and cast aside his silver gorget, lest it might afford a mark for his
adversary's pistol. His face was flushed with cruelty, triumph, and
the lust of blood, that came from past successful duels. Volhonski
looked calm; but his eyes and heart were glowing with hatred and a
longing for a just revenge.
"_Fire!_" cried Captain Döpke, as if commanding a platoon, and tossing
up his pipe-clayed glove.
Both pistols exploded at the same instant, and Schwartz uttered a
cruel and insulting laugh as Volhonski wheeled round and staggered
wildly; his left arm was broken by a ball.
"Fresh pistols!" cried Schwartz.
"Is not this enough for honour?" said I, starting forward. "No--stand
back!" exclaimed Captain Döpke.
"Ach Gott! Herr Englander, your turn will come next," thundered
Schwartz, as we gave them other pistols and proceeded deliberately to
reload the first brace, yet warm after being discharged.
No word of command was expected now; both duellists aimed steadily.
Schwartz fired first and a terrible curse, hoarse and guttural,
escaped him, as his ball whistled harmlessly past the left ear of
Volhonski, whose face was now ghastly with pain, rage, and hatred.
Drawing nearer and nearer, till the muzzle of his pistol was barely
two feet from the forehead of Schwartz, he gave a grim and terrible
smile for a moment. We were rooted to the spot; no one stirred; no one
spoke, or seemed to breathe; and just as a cold perspiration flowed in
beadlike drops over the face of the merciless Schwartz; it seemed to
vanish with his spike helmet in smoke, as Volhonski fired and--blew
his brains out! We sprang into the droski, and I felt as if a terrible
crime had been committed when we drove at full speed across the
neutral ground, called the Hamburgerburg, which lies between the city
and the river gate of Altona, along a street of low taverns and
dancing-rooms; and there, when past the sentinels in Danish uniform,
the Lion of Denmark and the red-striped sentry boxes indicated that we
were safe within the frontier of Holstein. So intense were our
feelings _then_, that the few short fleeting moments crowded into that
short compass of time seemed as an age, so full were they of fierce,
exciting, and revolting thoughts; but these were past and gone; and
_now_, as I recalled this merciless episode, times there were when I
felt in my heart that I could freely risk my life in the same fashion
to kill Guilfoyle, even as Volhonski killed the remorseless German
bully Schwartz.