[Illustration:
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
Fifth Series
ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832
CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)
NO. 50.—VOL. I. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1884. PRICE 1½_d._]
A GLACIER GARDEN.
The glacier garden lies far away on a steep hillside by the Lake of
the Forest Cantons. Close to the picturesque town of Lucerne, a little
path leads past the sandstone crag on which is hewn Thorwaldsen’s
famous monument, to the small inclosed space, overshadowed by trees,
where have recently been discovered vestiges of the most remote days
in the youth of our old mother-earth. Hidden away amongst tangled fern
and bright green grass, we see huge surfaces of native rock, some
furrowed with parallel lines, others, with curious petrifactions of
the sea; and giant boulders smoothed and polished that do not in the
least resemble the surrounding rocks, but which are travellers from the
Alps, left stranded here by the glaciers in the last great Ice Age. It
is indeed a wonderful garden, with a wonderful history, and although,
as unscientific observers, we cannot trace the different phases of
its development in the dim geological past, still, standing by these
gray old stones on which have been laid the softening and romantic
influences of countless ages, it is as if we had pages of the world’s
history unrolled before our eyes.
The proofs of past glaciers are all around us in the grindings and
scratchings on the rocks—in the ice-worn stones—and still more in
the deep smooth circular hollows, which are perhaps the most perfect
known specimens of the singular phenomena called glacier-mills. These
erosions have been found also in Scandinavia and in the Jura Mountains,
and are caused by the rapid whirling of a stone by a stream from the
melting ice, which in the course of ages scoops out ever deeper and
wider these cavities in the rock. But in this little garden we can
trace the origin of the glacier-mills, from the tiny erosion just
commenced, to the grand basin, twenty feet in diameter, and more than
thirty feet deep, on whose smooth walls are clearly marked the spiral
windings caused by the whirling of the stone perpetually from east to
west. If you take up the glacier-stone that lies at the bottom of this
mill, you will see not only how strangely round and polished it has
become, but also that it is composed of totally different rock, and
must have been transported hither by the great Reuss glacier from the
granite slopes of the St Gothard.
To look at these polished cavities, nobody would dream that they were
the mere evidences of the eddying action of an ice-stream upon a small
fragment of rock, and yet this is exactly what geology teaches us they
really are; indeed, there is no rock or mineral, even the flint and
agate, but what is permeable in some degree by the action of water; and
like granite and marble, most stones are softer and more easily wrought
before they are dried and hardened by air-seasoning. Are not similar
effects of the action of torrents in the erosion of rock seen in almost
every gorge through which rushes a mountain torrent? It seems all but
incredible that to a little rippling rivulet is due the tremendous
erosion of many alpine ravines, with their great height and precipitous
walls. But science tells us very strange tales, even that the mountain
streams in the present day are depressing the ridges of the Alps
and the Apennines, raising the plains of Lombardy and Provence, and
extending the coasts far into the waters of the Adriatic and the
Mediterranean. Thus it is easy to understand how, at that remote period
when a vast ice-sheet covered not only our garden but all Switzerland
from the Alps to the Jura, the loose stones which had become detached
from the moraine, and were met by some barrier in the ice whirled about
by rushing water, ground down first the ice, then the rock, and in the
wear and tear of unnumbered centuries grew round and smooth like the
basins in which they revolved.
It is very seldom that loose fragments of rock exercise a protective
power upon the ice; but instances have been met with on the higher
glaciers of large stones warding off the rain and the radiation of
the sun from the ice immediately beneath them; so that as the glacier
wastes and lowers in the course of time, these glacier-tables remain
fixed upon elevated pillars of ice, which sometimes reach to a height
of ten or twelve feet above the general level.
At Lucerne, it is impossible to forget, as we wander about the paths
in this archaic garden, that countless years before the great glaciers
planed away the old flora from off the face of the land, there was a
period of tropical heat and tropical vegetation which succeeded the
earliest epoch in the existence of our globe. Petrifactions of the
first stages of life are distinctly visible upon, the rocks—relics of a
primeval ocean.
But with the story of the rocks there is mingled no trace of human
interest. For them Time has stood still and the seasons brought no
change, until a few years ago, when the ground being excavated for the
foundations of a new house, these unsuspected relics were brought to
light from amongst the sand and pebbles and ice-worn boulders. These
relics are unconnected even with the first traditions of the people of
the Alps, and had remained in quiet slumber beneath the glacial débris
for long ages before the earliest settlers raised their pile-dwellings
above the blue waters of the lake. Evidence, indeed, has been afforded
that the lacustrine dwelling-places were inhabited by generations of
men two thousand, or, as some authorities affirm, six thousand years
before the Christian era. Amongst the piles of oak, or beech, or fir
wood, rising occasionally in three or four tiers, one above another, in
the accumulated waste of animal and vegetable life found at the bottom
of the lake, were stone celts and other implements of bone or flint,
memorials of a people who perished at a period beyond the reach of the
most distant annals; very old, in an historical point of view, although
in a geological estimate they are but of yesterday. For what is the
antiquity of the earliest of these relics compared with that of the
latest records plainly written upon the smooth surface of the rocks?
In the glacier garden we find not only the indefinable charm of a vast
antiquity, but a suggestiveness of the strange contrast between the
present and the past. On the one hand there is busy life, noise, warmth
upon the winding shores of the placid lake, magnificent mountains
girdled by forest trees, and woven in and out with verdant pastures and
far-off snow—all things lovely of the earth present before our eyes; on
the other hand, we have a glimpse into the remote and mysterious past,
when the sun shone down upon an illimitable white world of snow and ice.
ONE WOMAN’S HISTORY.
CHAPTER XII.
Miss Gaisford had found a quiet nook in the lower grounds of the hotel,
well out of view from the windows, where there was little likelihood of
being disturbed by the ordinary run of visitors. Now and then, a newly
married couple, or a pair of turtle-doves who were not yet married, but
hoped to be before long, would invade her solitude; but such momentary
interruptions served rather to amuse her than otherwise. ‘Here comes
another peripatetic romance,’ she would remark to herself. ‘Now, if
those two young people would only come and sit down beside me, and
tell me all about it, first one telling me a bit and then the other,
till I knew their story by heart, they would do me a real kindness,
and save me a lot of invention. All newly married couples ought to be
compelled to write their Love Memoirs, which should afterwards be bound
in volumes (calf), and kept in a sort of Record Office, where we poor
story-tellers could have access to them whenever we happened to be hard
up for a plot.’
To this sheltered nook a table and chair had been brought from the
hotel, and here, on this Friday forenoon, Miss Gaisford was busy
writing. But she laid down her pen more frequently than was usual with
her when so employed, and had little fits of musing between times.
‘I’m not i’ the mood this morning, that’s certain,’ she said at last.
‘My thoughts seem all in a muddle. I can’t get Mora out of my head.
She puzzles me and makes me uneasy. It’s mental illness, not bodily,
that keeps her to her room. Colonel Woodruffe had a long talk with her
on Wednesday, and then drove her back to the hotel, which he would
scarcely have done, I think, if he had been decisively and finally
rejected. There’s a mystery somewhere; but Mora is a woman whom one
cannot question. I have no doubt she will tell me all about it when she
feels herself at liberty to do so. Meanwhile, it’s a good lesson in
curbing that curiosity which certain cynical moralists of the inferior
sex have had the unblushing effrontery to affirm to be the bane of
ours.—But this is frivolity.’ She dipped her pen in the inkstand, and
running her eyes over the few lines last written, read them half aloud:
‘“Next moment, Montblazon’s equipage, which was drawn by six coal-black
steeds, and preceded by two outriders in livery, drew up at the
palace gates. As the Duc alighted from his chariot, a woman, young
and beautiful, though in rags, pressed through the crowd till she
was almost near enough to have touched him. ‘For the love of heaven,
monseigneur!’ she cried in piteous accents. A gorgeously attired lackey
would have thrust her back, but an imperious gesture of Montblazon’s
jewelled hand arrested him. There was something in the expression of
the woman’s face which struck him as though it were a face seen in a
dream long ago. Montblazon, who knew not what it was to carry money
about his person, extracted from the pocket of his embroidered vest a
diamond—one of a handful which he was in the habit of carrying loose
about him to give away as whim or charity dictated—and dropped it
into the woman’s extended palm. Then without waiting for her thanks,
he strode forward up the palace stairs, and a few moments later found
himself in a saloon which was lighted by myriads of perfumed wax tapers
set in sconces of burnished silver. Montblazon, who towered a head
taller than any one there, gazed round him with a lurid smile.”’
‘Yes, I think that will do,’ said Miss Pen as she took another dip of
ink. ‘“Lurid smile” is not amiss.’
She was interrupted by the sound of footsteps. She looked up, and as
she did so, a shade of annoyance flitted across her face. ‘I thought
that I was safe from her here. I wonder how she has found me out,’ she
said to herself.
The object of these remarks was none other than Lady Renshaw. It was
quite by accident that she had discovered Miss Gaisford. The news
told her by Mr Etheridge had excited her in no common degree; there
was no one in the hotel that she cared to talk to; so, finding it
impossible to stay indoors, she had sought relief in the open air. She
was expecting Bella and Mr Golightly back every minute; meanwhile, she
was wandering aimlessly about the grounds, and brightened up at the
sight of Miss Penelope. Here at least was some one she knew—some one
to talk to. She advanced smilingly. ‘What a number of correspondents
you must have, dear Miss Gaisford,’ said her ladyship after a few words
of greeting. ‘You seem to spend half your time in writing.’ She was
glancing sharply at Miss Pen’s closely covered sheets of manuscript.
‘Yes, I do write a good deal,’ answered the latter as she began to
put her sheets in order. ‘I rather like it. Between you and me, when
Septimus is busy other ways, or is enjoying his holiday, I sometimes
try my hand at writing a sermon for him.’
‘Really now! And do the congregation never detect the difference
between your discourses and his?’
‘I don’t think they trouble their heads a bit about it. So long as we
don’t make use of too many hard words, and get the sermon well over in
twenty minutes, they are perfectly satisfied.’
Lady Renshaw was in possession of a certain secret, and although she
had given her word that she would not reveal it for the present, it
was too much to expect of poor human nature that she should not make
some allusion to it, if the opportunity were given her, especially in
conversation with another of her own sex.
‘I understand that we are likely to have one or two important arrivals
at the hotel this evening,’ she remarked with studied indifference, as
she shook a little dust off the flounces of her dress.
‘Indeed. A Russian Prince, an Ambassador, an Emperor travelling incog.,
or whom?’
‘Dear me, no!—nobody of that kind. But my lips are sealed. I must not
say more.’
‘Then why did you say anything?’ remarked Miss Pen to herself.
‘Still, when you come to know, I feel sure that you will be
surprised—very greatly surprised. Strange events may happen here before
to-morrow. But I dare not say more, so you must not press me.’
‘I won’t,’ responded Miss Pen emphatically.
‘Why, I declare, yonder come my darling Bella and Mr Golightly! I’ve
been looking out for them this hour or more.—You will excuse me, my
dear Miss Gaisford, I’m sure.’
‘Certainly,’ was the uncompromising reply.
Her ladyship smiled and nodded, and then tripped away as lightly and
gracefully as a youthful elephant might have done.
‘Now, what _can_ the old nincompoop mean?’ asked Miss Pen of herself.
‘That there is some meaning in her words, I do not doubt. She is no
friend of Mora, I feel sure. Can what she said have any reference to
her? But I’m altogether in the dark, and it’s no use worrying. If
there’s trouble in the wind, we shall know about it soon enough.’
* * * * *
‘He has proposed—I know it from his manner,’ exclaimed Lady Renshaw to
her niece as soon as they were alone in the hotel; ‘so it’s no use your
telling me that he hasn’t.’
‘I had no intention of telling you anything of the kind,’ answered the
girl demurely.
‘What did you say to him in reply?’
‘Very little. You told me not to say much. Besides,’ added Bella slily,
‘he seemed to like to do most of the talking himself.’
‘Men generally do at such times.—But didn’t the young man say anything
about speaking to me?’
‘O yes, aunt.’
‘And very properly so, too. But you need not refer him to me just
at present; I will give you a hint when the proper time arrives.
Meanwhile, I hope you will not allow yourself to get entangled to such
an extent that you won’t be able to extricate yourself, should it
become necessary to do so.’
Bella was taken with a sudden fit of sneezing.
‘Mr Archie Ridsdale’s affair is by no means a _fait accompli_,’
continued her ladyship; ‘and we shall see what we shall see in the
course of the next few hours.’ She nodded her head with an air of
mystery and tried to look oracular.
Presently Bella pleaded a headache and escaped to her own room.
* * * * *
Clarice was at the station at least twenty minutes before the train by
which Archie was to travel could by any possibility arrive. It showed
great remissness on the part of the railway people, considering how
anxious she was for her sweetheart’s arrival, that this very train
should be five minutes and fourteen seconds late. Such gross disregard
of the feelings of young ladies in love ought to be severely dealt with.
At length the train steamed slowly in, with Archie’s head and half his
long body protruding from the window, to the annoyance of every other
passenger in the compartment. He was out of the train before any one
else, and as it glided slowly forward before coming to a stand, those
inside were favoured with a sort of panoramic glimpse of a very pretty
girl being seized, hugged, and unblushingly kissed by a young fellow,
to whom, at that moment, the code of small social proprieties was
evidently a dead letter.
‘What about your father?’ asked Clarice as soon as she had recovered
her breath in some measure and had given a tug or two to her
disarranged attire.
‘What about him?’ queried Archie, who was looking after his portmanteau.
‘Of course he has not come down by this train, or you would have
travelled together. But I suppose you know he’s expected at the
_Palatine_ to-night—at least so Mr Etheridge told me.’
‘Etheridge! is he here?’
‘Yes; didn’t you know? He reached here a few hours after you left for
London. He brought a letter for you from your father all the way from
Spa.’
Archie scratched his head: even heroes go through that undignified
process occasionally. ‘Upon my word, I don’t know what to make of the
governor,’ he said. ‘He seems to get more crotchety every day. Here,
according to what you say, he sends poor Etheridge all the way from Spa
as the bearer of a letter which any other man would have intrusted to
the post; then he apparently changes his mind and telegraphs for me to
meet him in London. To London I go, and there wait, dangling my heels;
but no Mr Governor turns up. Then Blatchett receives a telegram from
somewhere—by-the-bye, he never told me where he did receive it from—in
which I am instructed to return to Windermere immediately, and am told
that my long-lost papa will meet his boy there. It’s jolly aggravating,
to say the least of it.’
‘Mr Etheridge says that Sir William may perhaps want to see me. O
Archie, I was never so frightened in my life!’
He soothed and petted her after the fashion which young men are
supposed to find effectual in such cases, and presently they drew up at
the hotel.
They went at once to the sitting-room, the only inmates of which they
found to be Lady Renshaw, Bella, and Mr Golightly. The last had come
to inquire whether Miss Wynter would go for a row on the lake after
dinner. If she would, there was a particular boat which he would like
to engage beforehand.
Lady Renshaw was doubtful. She was inclined to think that Bella had
caught cold on the lake in the morning. She had sneezed more than once.
It would scarcely be advisable, her ladyship thought, for Miss Wynter
to venture on the water again in the chill of the evening. Besides, the
clouds looked threatening, and to be caught in a storm on the lake, she
had been told, was dangerous.
In short, without exactly wishing to discourage Mr Golightly, she was
desirous of damping his ardour in some measure for the time being. Till
she should be able to judge how events were likely to shape themselves,
he must not be allowed too many opportunities of being alone with
Bella; perhaps even, at the end, it might become necessary to give him
the cold shoulder altogether.
Lady Renshaw was in the midst of her platitudes when Archie and Clarice
entered the room. On their way from the station Clarice had spoken of
her sister’s indisposition, so that Archie was prepared not to find
Madame De Vigne downstairs; but probably he had hardly counted upon
coming so unexpectedly on her ladyship. As, however, she was there, the
only possibility left him was to look as pleasant as possible.
He greeted her with as much cordiality as he could summon up at a
moment’s notice, and then he turned to Miss Wynter, whose pretty
face he was really pleased to see again. There was a hidden meaning
laughing out of his eyes as he shook hands with her. It was as though
he had said: ‘You naughty girl, I should like to spoil your little
game, just for the fun of the thing, but I won’t.’
He did spoil it, however, a moment later, all unwittingly. Turning to
Dick, who appeared to be gazing abstractedly out of one of the windows,
he gave him a hearty slap on the shoulder. ‘Dulcimer, old chappie, how
are you? Delighted to see you again.’
Next moment he could have bitten his tongue out.
‘Dulcimer!’ shrieked her ladyship, whose ears had caught the name.
The young people turned and stared at each other in blank dismay. Dick
shrugged his shoulders, and was the first to recover his _sang-froid_.
The moment had come for him to take the bull by the horns.
‘Dulcimer!’ again exclaimed her ladyship in a tone of hopeless
bewilderment, that was at once both ludicrous and pathetic, as she
glanced at the dismayed faces around her.
‘Even so, Lady Renshaw. I am Richard Dulcimer, at your service.’ He
spoke as quietly as though he were mentioning some fact of everyday
occurrence.
‘You, that Richard Dulcimer—that impudent pretender—that—that
cockatrice, who used to follow my niece about in London wherever she
went! No, no’—peering into his face—‘I cannot believe it. You are
amusing yourself at my expense.’
‘Nevertheless, unless I was changed at nurse, I am that cockatrice,
Richard Dulcimer. As any further attempt at concealment would be
useless, if your ladyship will permit me, I will enlighten you in a few
words.’
She only stared at him, breathing very hard, but otherwise showing by
no sign that she heard what he was saying.
‘I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Wynter on several occasions in
London,’ resumed Dick. ‘Whether your ladyship believes it or not, I
fell in love with her, hopelessly and irremediably. I am a poor man,
and you scouted my pretensions, and forbade your niece ever to speak
to me again. It is not in my province to blame your ladyship for doing
that which you deemed to be for Miss Wynter’s advantage; but it by no
means followed that I should fall in with your views. I heard that you
and Miss Wynter were coming to this place, and I determined to follow
you. Had I not made some change in my appearance, you would at once
have recognised me, and my plans would have been frustrated. I took off
my beard and moustache, dyed my hair and eyebrows, donned a clerical
costume which I happened to have by me for another purpose, and trusted
to my good fortune to escape detection. The rest is known to your
ladyship.’
‘The rest—yes. You said that your name was Golightly, and you
introduced yourself to me as the son of the Bishop of Melminster, which
shows plainly what a wicked wretch you must be.’
‘Your ladyship must excuse me if I set you right as regards the facts
of the case. I said that my name was Golightly. So it is—Richard
Golightly Dulcimer; but I never said, nor even hinted, that I was
the son of Bishop Golightly. It was your ladyship who arrived at that
conclusion by some process of reasoning best known to yourself.’
‘Oh!’ was all that her ladyship could find to say at the moment.
Archie and Clarice stole quietly out of the room.
Lady Renshaw turned to her niece. ‘Am I to presume, Miss Wynter, that
you have been a party to this vile fraud?’ she asked in her iciest
tones. ‘Am I to understand that you have known all along that this
person was Mr Dulcimer, and that you have been cognisant of this wicked
conspiracy?’
Bella hung her head.
‘Your silence convicts you. It is even so, then. I have nourished a
viper, and knew it not. But, understand me, from this time I discard
you; I cast you off; I have done with you for ever!’
Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes. ‘O aunt, forgive me!’ she exclaimed as
she sprang forward and tried to clasp her ladyship’s hand.
The latter drew back a step or two and waved her away. ‘Touch me not!’
she said. ‘Henceforth, you and I are strangers. You have chosen to
sacrifice me for the sake of this impostor. Marry him—you can do no
less now—and become a pauper’s wife for the rest of your days. That is
your fate.’
Lady Renshaw turned without another word, drew her skirts closer around
her, and stalked slowly out of the room.
The weeping girl would have hurried after her, had not Dick put his arm
round her and held her fast.
‘No,’ he said; ‘you shall not go just yet. She wants to make you
believe that she is an ill-used victim, whereas it is you who have been
the victim all along. Yes, the victim of her greed, her selfishness,
and her willingness to sacrifice you for the sake of her own social
advancement. What would she have cared whom you married, or whether you
were happy or miserable, if only, by your means, she could have climbed
one rung higher on the ladder of her ambition! Here is the proof: Now
that she finds you are no longer of use to her for the furtherance of
her schemes, she casts you off with as little compunction as she would
an old glove. Dearest, she is not worth your tears!’
But Bella’s tears were not so readily stanched, and for a time she
refused to be comforted.
CHAPTER XIII.
Half an hour later, as Lady Renshaw was sitting alone in her room,
musing in bitterness of spirit on the mutability of human affairs, a
message was brought her. Sir William Ridsdale’s compliments to Lady
Renshaw, and would her ladyship favour him with her company for a few
minutes in his apartments?
She rose with a sigh. Her anticipated triumph was shorn of half its
glory. Archie Ridsdale might be a free man to-morrow, and it would
matter nothing now, as far as she was concerned. Bella had made a fool
of herself, and doubtless Archie had all along been a party to the
deception. This thought coming suddenly, revived her like a stimulant.
What would her disappointment be in comparison with his humiliation
when he should learn that which his father had to tell him! Then there
was that haughty Madame De Vigne. For her, too, the hour of humiliation
was at hand. As she thought of these things, while on her way to Sir
William’s room, Lady Renshaw’s spirits rose again. She felt that life
had still some compensations for her.
A staid-looking man-servant ushered her into the room. She gazed round;
but there was no one to be seen save Colonel Woodruffe, who was a
stranger to her, and Mr Etheridge. The latter rose and advanced with
his thin, faint smile.
‘I was given to understand that I should find Sir William Ridsdale
here,’ said her ladyship in a somewhat aggrieved tone.
‘I am Sir William Ridsdale, very much at your service,’ was the quiet
reply of the smiling, white-haired gentleman before her.
Probably in the whole course of her life Lady Renshaw had never been so
much taken aback as she was at that moment. She literally gasped for
words, but none came.
‘Will you not be seated?’ said the baronet; and with that he led her to
a chair, and then he drew up another for himself a little distance away.
‘I will give your ladyship credit for at once appreciating the motives
by which I was influenced in acting as I have acted. I came here
incognito in order that I might be able to see and judge for myself
respecting certain matters which might possibly very materially affect
both my son’s future and my own. Archie was got out of the way for a
day or two; and the only person who knew me not to be Mr Etheridge was
my old friend here, Colonel Woodruffe, to whom, by-the-bye, I must
introduce your ladyship.’
‘It was really too bad of you, Sir William, to hoax us all in the way
you have done,’ simpered her ladyship when the process of introduction
to the colonel was over. She did not forget that elderly baronets have
occasionally fallen victims to the wiles of good-looking widows. ‘But
for my part, I must confess that from the first I had my suspicions
that you were not the person you gave yourself out to be. There was
about you a sort of _je ne sais quoi_, an impalpable something, which
caused me more than once to say to myself: “Any one can see that that
dear Mr Etheridge is a gentleman born and bred—one who has been in
the habit of moving in superior circles. He must have known reverses.
Evidently, at one period of his life, he has occupied a position very
different from that of an amanuensis.”’
‘Madam, you flatter me,’ replied the baronet with a grave inclination
of the head. ‘As I have had occasion to remark before, your ladyship’s
acumen is something phenomenal.’
The widow was rather doubtful as to the meaning of ‘acumen;’ but she
accepted it as a compliment. ‘And now, dear Sir William, that you have
come and seen and judged for yourself, you will have no difficulty in
making up your mind how to act.’
‘My mind is already made up, Lady Renshaw.’
‘Ah—just so. Under the painful circumstances of the case, you could
have no hesitation as to the conclusion at which you ought to arrive.
What a fortunate thing that I happened to find that scrap of paper in
the way I did!’
‘Very fortunate indeed, because, as I remarked this morning, it might
have fallen into the hands of some one much less discreet than your
ladyship. As it happened, however, although I did not say so to you at
the time, it told me nothing that I did not know already.’
‘Nothing that you did not know already!’ gasped her ladyship.
‘Nothing. Madame De Vigne, of her own free will, had already
commissioned her friend, Colonel Woodruffe, to tell me without
reservation the whole history of her most unhappy married life.’
‘What an idiot the woman must be!’ was her ladyship’s unspoken comment;
but she only stared into the baronet’s face in blank amazement.
Recovering herself with an effort, she said with a cunning smile:
‘People sometimes make a merit of confessing that which they can no
longer conceal. You will know how to appraise such a statement at its
proper worth. You say that your mind is already made up, Sir William. I
think that from the first there could be no doubt as to what the result
would be.’
‘Very little doubt, indeed,’ he answered drily. ‘For instance, here is
a proof of it.’
He rose as he spoke, and crossed to the opposite side of the room,
where was a window set in an alcove, which just at present was
partially shrouded by a heavy curtain. With a quick movement of
the hand, Sir William drew back the curtain, and revealed, to Lady
Renshaw’s astonished gaze, Mr Archie Ridsdale sitting with a skein of
silk on his uplifted hands in close proximity to Miss Loraine, who was
in the act of winding the silk into a ball. The young people started
to their feet in dismay as the curtain was drawn back. It was a pretty
picture. ‘There’s no need to disturb yourselves,’ said Sir William
smilingly; ‘I only wanted to give her ladyship a pleasant surprise.’
With that he let fall the curtain and went back to his chair.
‘A pleasant surprise, indeed! You don’t mean to say, Sir William’—— Her
ladyship choked and stopped.
‘I mean to say, Lady Renshaw, that in Miss Loraine you behold my son’s
future wife. He has chosen wisely and well; and that his married life
will be a happy one, I do not doubt. In the assumed character of Mr
Etheridge, I made the acquaintance of Miss Loraine, so that I am no
stranger to her sweet temper and fine disposition. If anything, she is
just a leetle too good for Master Archie.’
Lady Renshaw felt as if the ground were heaving under her feet. In
fact, at that moment an earthquake would hardly have astonished her.
Most truly had Sir William been termed an eccentric man: he was more
than eccentric—he was mad! She had only one shaft more left in her
quiver, but that was tipped with venom.
‘Then poor Archie, when he marries, will be brother-in-law to a person
whose husband was or is a convict,’ she murmured presently, more as if
communing sorrowfully with herself, than addressing Sir William. Her
eyes were fixed on the cornice pole of one of the windows; and when she
shook her head, which she did with an air of profound melancholy, she
seemed to be shaking it at that useful piece of furniture. Sir William
and Colonel Woodruffe exchanged glances. Then the baronet said: ‘Will
you oblige me, Lady Renshaw?’
He led the way to the opposite end of the room, where anything they
might say would be less likely to be overheard by the young people
behind the curtain. ‘Yes, as your ladyship very justly observes,’
said the baronet, ‘when my son marries Miss Loraine, he will be
brother-in-law to an ex-convict—for the fellow is alive—to a man whom I
verily believe to be one of the biggest scoundrels on the face of the
earth. It will be a great misfortune, I grant you, but one which, under
the circumstances, can in nowise be helped.’
‘It will be one that the world will never tire of talking about.’
‘Poor Madame De Vigne! I pity her from the bottom of my heart; and you
yourself, as a woman, Lady Renshaw, can hardly fail to do the same.’
Lady Renshaw shrugged her shoulders, but was silent.
‘What a misfortune for her, to be entrapped through a father’s
selfishness, when a girl just fresh from school, into marriage with
such a villain!’ resumed the baronet. ‘But in what way could she
possibly have helped herself? Alas! in such a case there is no help
for a woman. When—years after he had robbed and deserted her, and had
fallen into the clutches of the law—she received the news of his death,
it was impossible that she should feel anything but thankfulness for
her release. Time went on, and she had no reason to doubt the fact of
her widowhood, when suddenly, only three days ago, her husband turned
up—here! I have told you all this, Lady Renshaw, in order that you may
know the truth of the case as it now stands, and not be led away by any
distorted version of it. Ah, poor Madame De Vigne! How was she to help
herself?’
‘That is not a question I am called upon to answer—it is not one that
the world will even condescend to ask. The fact still remains that she
is a convict’s wife, and as such the world will judge her.’
‘Yes, yes; I know that what we term the world deals very hardly in such
matters—that the innocent are too often confounded with the guilty.
But in this case at least, the world need never be any wiser than it
is now. The secret of Madame De Vigne’s life is known to three people
only—to you, whom a singular accident put in possession of part of it;
to Colonel Woodruffe; and to myself. Not even her sister is acquainted
with the story of her married life. Such being the case, we three have
only to keep our own counsel; we have only to determine that not one
word of what we know respecting this most unhappy history shall ever
pass our lips, and loyally and faithfully carry out that determination,
and the world need never know more of the past life of Madame De Vigne
than it knows at the present moment. As for the fellow himself, I shall
know how to keep his tongue quiet. I am sure that you agree with me,
dear Lady Renshaw.’
A vindictive gleam came into her ladyship’s eyes. The time had come
for her to show her claws. Such a moment compensated for much that had
preceded it.
She laughed a little discordant laugh. ‘Really, Sir William, who would
have thought there was so much latent romance in your composition?
Who would have dreamt of your setting up as the champion of Beauty in
distress? To be sure, if you persevere in your present arrangements,
this Madame De Vigne will become a connection of your own, and regarded
from that point of view, I can quite understand your anxiety to hush
up the particulars of her very ugly story. Family scandals are things
always to be avoided, are they not, Sir William?’
‘Always, Lady Renshaw—when practicable.’
‘Just so. But as Madame De Vigne, thank heaven! will be no connection
of mine either near or distant, you will pardon me if I hardly see
the necessity for such extreme reticence on my part. The world will
get to know that I have been mixed up to a certain extent in this
affair—somehow, it always does get to know such things—and I shall
be questioned on every side. What am I to say? What reply am I to
make to such questions? Am I to tell an untruth, and say that I know
nothing—that I am in absolute ignorance? Or am I to prevaricate, and
insinuate, for instance, that Madame De Vigne is a lady of the highest
respectability and of unblemished antecedents—a person, in short, whom
any family might be proud to count as one of themselves? You will
admit, Sir William, that the position in which I shall be placed will
be a most embarrassing one?’
‘Most embarrassing indeed, Lady Renshaw—almost as much so, in fact, as
if some one were to say to you: “I was past your grandfather’s shop in
Drury Lane the other day. The place looks precisely as it did forty
years ago. Nothing is changed except the name over the door.” That
might be rather embarrassing to you, might it not?’
All at once Lady Renshaw looked as if she were about to faint. The
rouge on her cheeks showed up in ghastly mockery of the death-like
pallor which had overspread the rest of her face. Her lips twitched
convulsively. She sat staring at Sir William, unable to utter a word.
‘In most families, Lady Renshaw, nay, in most individual lives,
there are certain secrets, certain private matters, which concern
ourselves alone, and about which we would infinitely prefer that the
world, and perhaps even our most intimate friends, should remain in
happy ignorance. It could be no gratification to your ladyship, for
instance, if the circle of your acquaintance were made aware that
your grandfather started in life as a rag and bone merchant in the
fashionable locality just named—“Solomon Izzard” was the name painted
over his door—and that your ladyship first saw the light under the
roof of that unsavoury emporium. No; certainly that could be no
gratification to you. Your father at that time was just beginning to
lay the foundation of the fortune which he subsequently accumulated as
a speculative builder. My father owned certain house property in the
neighbourhood, and he employed your father to look after the repairs.
Hence it was that, on two occasions when little more than a youth, I
was sent with business messages to the Lane, and it was on one of those
occasions that I first had the distinguished pleasure of meeting your
ladyship. You were a mere child at the time, and your father used to
call you “Peggy,” if I mistake not. He was holding you in his arms,
and you struggled to get down; but he would not let you go. “She wants
to be off with the other children,” he said to me; “and then she gets
playing in the gutter, and makes a nice mess of herself.” Those were
his exact words. Your ladyship will pardon me for saying that you
struck me at the time as being a remarkably pretty child, although it
is possible that your face might with advantage have been a little
cleaner than it was.’
Never before in the whole course of her life had Lady Renshaw had
the tables turned on her in such fashion. Scalding tears of rage and
mortification sprang to her eyes, but she bit her lip hard and kept
them back. At the moment, she felt as if she could willingly have
stabbed Sir William to the heart.
She sat without uttering a word. What, indeed, could she find to say?
‘Come, come, Lady Renshaw,’ resumed Sir William smilingly; ‘there is
no occasion for you to be downhearted. The best thing that you and I
can do will be to draw up and sign—metaphorically—a treaty of peace,
to which Woodruffe here shall act as witness. The terms of the treaty
shall be these: you on your part shall promise to keep locked up in
your bosom as a sacred secret, not even to be hinted at to your dearest
friend, that knowledge respecting the married life of Madame De Vigne
which has come so strangely into your possession; while I on my part
will promise faithfully to keep undivulged those particulars concerning
your ladyship’s early career of which I have just made mention—which,
and others too that I could mention, although you could in nowise help
them, I feel sure that you would not care to have published on the
housetops. Come, what say you, shall it be a compact between us?’
‘As you please,’ she answered sullenly as she rose from her chair,
adding with a contemptuous shrug, ‘I have no wish to injure Madame De
Vigne.’
‘Nor I the slightest desire to humiliate Lady Renshaw.’
Was it possible that this man, whose tongue knew how to stab so keenly,
could really be the same individual as mild-mannered, soft-spoken Mr
Etheridge, who had seemed as if he could hardly say Bo to a goose!
Her ladyship seemed to hesitate for a moment or two; then she said:
‘I will see you again to-morrow—when you are alone,’ with a little
vindictive glance at the impassive Colonel Woodruffe.
‘I shall be at your ladyship’s command whenever and wherever may suit
you best.’
He crossed to the door, opened it, and made her one of his most stately
bows as she walked slowly out, with head erect and eyes that stared
straight before her, but with rage and bitter mortification gnawing at
her heartstrings.
‘We have still that scoundrel of a Laroche to reckon with,’ said Sir
William quietly to the colonel as he shut the door upon her ladyship.
RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ANGLO-INDIAN CHAPLAIN.
BANGALORE—THE ENGLISH CANTONMENT.
About a mile distant from the old fort and city of Bangalore are
the English cantonment and modern native town. Conceive a field or
parade-ground a mile and a half in length and a quarter of a mile
in breadth, lined on each side by avenues of large beautiful trees,
overshadowing the encircling footpath and carriage-drive. Along the
southern boundary of this parade-ground are the houses and shops of
the Europeans and Eurasians; whilst to the north are lines of barracks
for both European and native troops, from the midst of which rises
prominently the tower of St Andrew’s Church, which is, or was, the
finest and highest building in Bangalore. Many are the beautiful roads
stretching away from this parade-ground into the country, where are the
picturesque dwelling-houses of civilians and officers, whose encircling
gardens all the year round are in perpetual bloom—for Bangalore,
though in a tropical region, has an Italian climate. The fortunate
Europeans who are stationed there are not scorched up by the terrible
heat under which their unlucky countrymen must swelter at Madras and
in the southern plains; and Christmas comes to them at Bangalore, not
wreathed with snowflakes and pendent with icicles, as it does to us,
but beautiful with roses and variegated garlands of flowers.
It was rather a novel thing for my friends Dr Norman Macleod and Dr
Watson to be taken on a New-year’s day, as I took them in 1868, to a
magnificent show of flowers and fruits in the ‘Lall-baugh’ Gardens of
Bangalore. In his usual happy style, the celebrated Norman thus relates
his visit: ‘The European quarter is as different from the Pettah as
Belgravia is from the east end of London. Here the houses are in their
own compounds with shrubs and flower-gardens quite fresh and blooming.
Open park-like spaces meet the eye everywhere, with broad roads as
smooth and beautiful as the most finished in England. Equipages whirl
along, and ladies and gentlemen ride by on horseback. One catches a
glimpse of a church tower or steeple; and these things, together with
the genial air, make one feel once more at home; at all events, in a
bit of territory which seems cut out of home and settled in India.
There are delightful drives, one to the Lall-baugh laid out in the
last century by Hyder Ali. Our home feeling was greatly intensified
by attending a flower-show. There was the usual military band; and
crowds of carriages conveyed fashionable parties to the entrance.
Military officers and civil servants of every grade were there, up
to Mr Bowring, Chief Commissioner of Mysore. The most remarkable and
interesting spectacles to me were the splendid vegetables of every
kind, including potatoes which would have delighted an Irishman; leeks
and onions to be remembered, like those of Egypt; cabbages, turnips,
cauliflowers, peas, beans, such as England could hardly equal; splendid
fruit, apples, peaches, oranges, figs, and pomegranates; the display
culminating in a magnificent array of flowers, none of which pleased
me more than the beautiful roses, so redolent of home. Such were the
sights of a winter’s day at Bangalore.’
Around the English cantonment, more especially on the north side of
it, is the modern town of Bangalore, containing about sixty or seventy
thousand inhabitants, who are chiefly Tamulians, the descendants of
those native camp-followers and adherents who accompanied the British
forces from Madras and the plains of the Carnatic when they conquered
and took possession of the land. There are likewise at Bangalore a
goodly number of English and Irish pensioners, who have chosen rather
to abide in India than come back to this country; and certainly, with
scanty means, they are better off there in a warm and genial clime than
they would be here, with our long and dreary cold and icy winters. And
when those pensioners are sober and industrious, they have abundant
opportunities in India to enable them to support themselves and their
families in great comfort, and even to become what we Scotch people
call ‘bein folk.’ I could give many pleasing instances from amongst
them of ‘success in life.’ I knew three Scotch gentlemen who were
highly respected bank agents, and who had gone to India as artillerymen
in the Honourable East India Company’s service. But although it be
thus a pleasant fact that many of our pensioned soldiers have done
well and prospered in India, yet it is melancholy to relate that a
goodly portion of them are sadly wanting in sobriety and industry, and
consequently their continued stay in that country is not for good,
but for evil. So impressed was I with this that, when asked by a high
military official for my opinion as to whether the government ought
to give greater encouragement to the time-served soldiers to settle
permanently in India, I at once and decidedly said No; because, when
freed from military discipline, their lives too frequently were such
that they lowered the prestige of the English name, and helped to
injure the salutary respect which the natives have hitherto had for
their white-faced rulers.
In a pretty little village near Madras, called Poonamalee, as well
as in Bangalore, there dwell very many of those pensioners with
their families. I was wont to pay periodical visits to this place on
professional duty; and certainly I found it at first not only strange
but grotesque to see young men and maidens and numerous children,
with faces as black as a minister’s coat, but yet bearing some good
old Scottish name, and speaking the English with an accent as if they
had been born and bred in the wilds of Lochaber. My beadle, as sable
a youth as could be, was a M‘Cormick, and proudly claimed to be an
Inverness-shire man. I remember, towards the close of the Mutiny,
of driving with my wife, on a moonlight evening through a beautiful
‘tope’ of palm-trees, when suddenly our ears caught the distant strain
of the bagpipes. There was no mistaking it; faint though it was, we
could distinguish it floating and wailing through the silent night as
_M‘Clymont’s Lament_. Gradually the music became louder, until we were
able to discover whence it emanated. I got out of the carriage before
an opening in the trees, and winding my way by a narrow path, I came
at last to a small bungalow where a man was strutting up and down the
veranda playing on a genuine pair of Scottish bagpipes. His garments
were white, but his face was perfectly black. He was astonished at my
appearance, and so was I at his; and my astonishment was not diminished
when in answer to a question as to his name, he replied to me in a
pleasant Argyllshire accent: ‘My name is Coll M‘Gregor, sir; and my
father was a piper in the forty-second Highlanders, and I believe he
came from a place they called Inveraray.’ Poor M‘Gregor! from that
night I knew him well. Black though he was, he was a most worthy man;
and one of the last sad duties I performed ere leaving India was to
visit him when dying in the hospital, and to bury him when dead amongst
the sleeping Scotchmen in St Andrew’s churchyard.
In the _Illustrated London News_ there is a picture entitled ‘Recruits’
which gives a very faithful representation of the composition of the
British army. A smart recruiting sergeant is leading away captive a
batch of young men—the thoughtless, reckless shopboy, the clownish
rustic, the discontented artisan, and the downcast ‘young gentleman’
who has wasted his substance in riotous living. The picture rekindles
in my memory several instances of the last-mentioned type. In the
following stories, it will be seen, from obvious reasons, that where
names are mentioned, these are fictitious.