A PLEASANT EVENING.—THE BRIDESMAIDS.
“I know how that is,” said Margaret, before she left the drawing-room;
“that was through my ma’. I dare say she has invited them to take tea
with her to-night. I should not at all wonder about that. I have not
seen them for some time. They keep a great deal at home, and visit but
little. They are playful, homely girls, but good-hearted, and that is
why I prefer them to more fashionable friends, whose goodness of heart
I cannot rely upon. They are insincere.”
“You are very right; but you will, I hope, let me see your friends, and
unless you have family matters to speak of, perhaps you will take tea
up here with me. I shall be all alone if you do not; so, you see, I am
speaking from selfish motives; but do not think I shall be at all hurt
if you do not see fit to accept the invitation for them.”
“I will accept it for them cheerfully, and shall be much surprised if
they do not do so too,” said Margaret, as she walked towards the door,
and then left the apartment, to proceed first to her own room, and
there to examine her present, before she sought the visitors to give
them their invitation.
The parcel contained some handsome laces and other matters, beautiful
and expensive, such things as she could wear, and excite the envy
of others; which was, of all things, and usually is of women in
general, the most enchanting thing in all the world, and gives intense
gratification.
After admiring for a moment or two the beauties of the laces, she could
not help involuntarily exclaiming,—
“This will be beautiful, so very becoming, and so much above anything
else that can be brought by my bridesmaids. I shall be a queen amongst
them; indeed, they will but set me off to the utmost advantage. I shall
be the glory of the occasion.”
Having secured her new acquisition from inquisitive eyes, by locking
it up in her drawers, she returned down stairs, and then entered the
parlour, where, truly enough, as she had imagined, there was Mr.
Twissel, Miss Twissel, and Miss Martha, all of whom were dressed out
for the occasion.
There was some truth in what Margaret had said to her mother, that the
two intended bridesmaids were not likely to induce any one to fall in
love with them. They were oddities of the first water. Miss Twissel
had light brown hair, bushy eyebrows, a straight masculine nose, a
mouth that turned up on one side, and one of her eyes had a gentle
inclination to gaze at her nose, while her complexion was increased by
a vast quantity of sun freckles.
Then, as for Miss Martha, she was another beauty of a similar class;
hooked nose, with one eye paying undue attention to the auricular
organ, while the other was somewhat injured by a blank appearance; her
hair was red, and she was pitted by the small-pox to a fearful extent.
Such were the two friends whom Miss Meredith had chosen for
bridesmaids, with the laudable view of putting no temptation in the
way of the colonel, which Mrs. Meredith, her mother, most strenuously
advised, as she had experience of the men.
“My dear Miss Twissel, and you, Martha!”
“Ah! Margaret, God bless me, who could have imagined, above all things,
what I have come about. What can you be thinking and doing? here you’ve
no friends to help you. I see you have done it all yourself. What can
you think of people? you have no mercy.”
“Aye,” said Martha, “there’s no doing anything while you are about. No
one else has a chance, but you must tell us all about it.”
“Yes, yes, I will tell you all about it; and more than that, you shall
see the colonel if you please.”
“That is what we should like, above all things.”
“Oh! it is a colonel, then—a rich Indian colonel. Upon my word, you
will have to be presented at court next.”
“He! he! you are joking me now. Well, never mind, I shall joke you some
of these days. You may depend upon that; my turn will come next, and
then I won’t forget you. But seriously, there are more unlikely things
may come to pass than that.”
“Well, now; I dare say. Who would have thought of that, now? But then
you are so lucky, you see; only think what might have been the case if
the colonel had been a young man! why he might become as great a man as
the Marquis of Granby. Why, you’d have been a marchioness then. Well,
bless my heart, how things do come about!”
“Well, you had better come up to the drawing-room,” said Margaret, “and
see the colonel, who is waiting tea for us all. Come, ma’.”
“Yes, my dear, I am ready. Mr. Twissel, will you come?”
“If you please,” said Mr. Twissel, “if you please. We shall now soon
have the pleasure of seeing an end to this affair; for, as it is to
come off, why, when it is over, it will be all the better. Expectation
is always a time of uncertainty and anxiety—at least, to most people.”
“So it is, Mr. Twissel, so it is; and I am not without my share of it;
for, in the first place, human life is short, and circumstances may
alter cases; so I am anxious to see it over, and offer no impediment in
the way of the completion of the marriage.”
“Certainly, you are quite right; having made up your mind to permit the
marriage to take place, why, the sooner the better.”
They were all now introduced to the colonel, who was very polite and
courtly, which in some degree embarrassed the young ladies, who were
compelled to put on, as they expressed it, their best behaviour, and
so did not become quite so familiar. However, that did not spoil the
harmony of the meeting, for the young ladies considered there was
more respect paid to them, and the less they were able to appreciate
the politeness with which they were treated, the more they believed
themselves honoured.
They were well enough pleased, and the conversation turned upon various
matters, while Mr. Twissel was uncommonly attentive to the colonel;
indeed, he watched him most narrowly, every turn and every expression,
as if he were resolved to ascertain, by constant surveillance, whether
there was any foundation for his half-inspired doubts respecting him;
and also as to whether it were possible that he could have had any hand
in the disasters which he had on two several occasions suffered.
But yet he could see nothing—nothing at all that gave him the slightest
pretext for persisting in his suspicion. He appeared the same easy,
careless individual, who would not trouble himself to consider whether
he was watched or not, or whether his actions were the subject of other
people’s thoughts, or whether they were unnoticed, it mattered nothing
to him.
“It is singular,” he muttered to himself, “very singular, how it could
all happen by accident, and only at moments when I was watching him. I
can’t tell; and yet the occurrences were of that character, to another
they would seem wholly unconnected, and I am unable to connect them,
save by fancy; but he looks not a very old man, but rather like one
who has the full use of his faculties. He is singularly pale, to be
sure, and yet, at times, he does not appear so old, nor does his arm
and leg seem quite so bad at others; perhaps it varies, according to
circumstance, weather, the moon, or unforeseen changes.”
He remained cogitating very quietly by himself; he was thoughtful, and
could by no means divest himself of the idea that there was something
more than common about the colonel.
“He don’t seem so blind with that eye as he might be,” he muttered;
“but there is no use calculating about an Indian; they have got such
luxurious habits and fancies, that if he fancies one of his eyes is in
any degree weak, he will wear a shade for its preservation. Well, he
is entitled to do so, but he ain’t so old as they imagine. And that
will be no detriment to him or to them; so much the better, unless
they reckon upon the colonel’s death, which would hardly be an object
to them, seeing that it could bring them no more; indeed, it would
diminish their income. But he is a tall man now, and, if he did not
stoop so much, would yet be a fine man.”
These thoughts passed through his mind, time after time, during the
whole evening; while the colonel himself was at times conversing in the
most refined and courtly language, and doing much towards amusing them
with anecdotes of the places he had seen, and the battles he had fought.
“You would be surprised,” he said, “to hear that, in India, there are
places so cold that they more resemble the Polar regions than central
Asia, of which we only used to think of as being one of the hottest
regions in the world, filled with wild animals and numerous serpents.”
“Certainly, we hear more of that than anything else—the yellow fever,
the cholera, and all these kinds of things, caused by exposure to the
heat.”
“So they are; but it is only in the plains, and not on the high table
lands and mountains, where you gradually meet with more temperate
climates, many of which equal northern Europe for salubrity; and,
further up, you come to frozen regions.”
“Indeed! that is a phenomenon.”
“Oh, dear, no; the altitude of the plain, and the exposure, make the
sole difference. I remember once, I was sent with some other regiments
to chastise some of the hill tribes.”
“Under whom was that?” inquired the attorney.
“General Walker,” returned the colonel; “he was a very able general,
and we performed some extraordinary marches under him, as well as some
service.”
“Oh, indeed!” said the attorney; “what might have taken place?”
“I will tell you an incident that did take place; and not relate more
scenes of carnage that we passed through in the execution of our duty
than shall be actually necessary. We had, on one occasion, to storm a
city; on another, a fortified town; it was strong, and well protected
by nature and art.
Well, we arrived there, and the gates were closed against us; guns were
brought to bear, and men appeared on the walls. We expected, of course,
a sharp time of it, and being only the advance guard, we halted for the
main body to come up with us; and, after having summoned the garrison
to surrender, we put posts and watchers for the night, not expecting
to do anything upon that occasion; nor did we expect the main body up
with us till the middle of the next day, they having sent word on to
me that they would not be up in consequence of some accident to some
part of the train, which would have to be repaired; but a portion of
the troops would advance a stage nearer to me, in case of an accident,
upon which I could retire for support, or send to them to come up as
the exigencies of the moment should most require; but they did not
anticipate any movement at all. Nor did we; the fact was, we had made a
forced march of it; and had got over more ground than we had expected,
and our main body did not think we should have been so near the scene
of action as we were.
However, a counsel of war was held amongst the officers; and it was
resolved that we should attempt nothing without the assistance of our
comrades, as the place was very strong, as I have before told you.
Well, sir, half the night was over, and we lay fast asleep, having had
a hard—very hard day’s work of it,—so hard that we could sleep sound
on the bare earth; we were all suddenly awakened by a loud explosion,
which shook the very earth under us; and, upon starting up, and rushing
out of our tents, we saw the earth and air illumined by the explosion
of, as we afterwards learned, and guessed at the moment, one of the
enemy’s powder magazines.
In another minute we found there were plenty of falling missiles, with
the debris of the magazine, and the mangled corpses of the men who were
near it.
There was an instant order to muster the men; everybody knew what was
meant. They were all ready in a few moments—indeed, we slept by our
arms—fully accoutred, so it did not take long to be ready for action.
We were ordered to form in divisions and bodies, and as there was ample
breach made by the explosion there, I was ordered to mount the breach,
and enter the town for the purpose of assault.
We did this. We marched down upon the breach after some difficulties,
and were fairly in it; but had our commanding officer known any of the
difficulties; he would not have incurred the responsibility of ordering
us to advance, for the ruins we had to scramble over were dreadful,
and, had there been light, we could every one have been picked off by
the enemy.
Darkness was our friend, and we got into the town with a comparatively
trifling loss, and when our men got together they began to tell a tale,
for their volleys were well directed upon the enemy, who were drawn up
in masses, and whose fire directed ours. We were not completely exposed
to their fire, for the same objects that exposed our men, as they were
surmounted before reaching the enemy, protected them from immense
volleys of musketry.
However, we carried the point, and at that moment another explosion
took place in some other part of the town, which illumined all around
for a moment or two, and then came masses of bricks, and stones, and
timber, killing friend and foe. For a while we were staggered; we
did not know what to think of this affair. We knew not whether we
had an enemy to fight, or even where he was. We were completely at a
standstill.
But this did not last long. The defenders fled, and left us masters of
the field. We remained under arms all that night, till daylight.
“Glad were we, indeed, when daylight came; we were fatigued, so much
so that our men could scarcely stand in the ranks. Then parties were
sent out to look after the wounded, who had been left in all imaginable
situations. It was at such a moment that I was discovered; my leg was
shattered by a musket bullet.”
“And you lay bleeding all night?”
“Yes. Not exactly bleeding, for I had sense left me to bind a ligature
over the wound to stop the effusion of blood, which would have killed
me in a very short time. However, there was no necessity to lose my
leg, but it has made me permanently lame.”
“I see you are so, sir,” said Twissel; “but do you never feel it worse
at some times than at others?”
“Yes, I do. There are times when I do not know that I have received a
hurt at all; but sometimes I suffer a little, and am a little more lame
in consequence.”
“It was fortunate,” said Twissel, “it was your leg, for it might have
been your head, you know, and that would have been a death-blow to your
fortune.”
“Yes,” said the colonel, mildly; “I might have been killed, as you
observe; but at the same time I should have done my duty, which in
these cases is all we looked to. I might have saved a better man, who
had a wife and family—I had none.”
Conversation now ran on the forthcoming event, and Mr. Twissel was
invited by the colonel, and the whole party were well satisfied with
each other, and parted very good friends, with the promise of meeting
again before the propitious morning which was to unite the fates of
Margaret Meredith and Colonel Deverill.