LADY WEDDERBURN'S WISH.
A Tale of the Crimean War.
BY JAMES GRANT,
AUTHOR OF "THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "FIRST LOVE AND LAST LOVE,"
"THE GIRL HE MARRIED," ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.
1870.
[_All rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved._]
CONTENTS
OF
THE SECOND VOLUME.
CHAP.
I. IN BARRACKS AGAIN
II. THE LAST NIGHT AT MESS
III. CONFIDENCES
IV. "THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME"
V. THE MAJOR'S STORY CONCLUDED
VI. THE ROUTE FOR VARNA
VII. THE OLD, OLD STORY
VIII. DARK DAYS
IX. THE SHADOWY HAND AT LONEWOODLEE
X. A SURPRISE
XI. MARY BEGINS HER PILGRIMAGE
XII. IN LONDON
XIII. LOST
XIV. PICCADILLY
XV. THE LONELY STREET
XVI. ALDERMAN FIGSLEY
XVII. MEPHISTOPHELES AGAIN
XVIII. THE TROOPSHIP
XIX. THE VOYAGE
XX. "UN BON COUP D'ÉPÉE"
XXI. UNDER ARREST
XXII. THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS
XXIII. THE VALE OF ALADYN
XXIV. VARNA
LADY WEDDERBURN'S WISH.
CHAPTER I.
IN BARRACKS AGAIN.
"As I informed you by telegraph, Wedderburn, we embark on the 5th--so
you have a fortnight to get your outfit for the East, to see all your
old flames in Rochester and Brompton, to practise the use of the
revolver at the Spur Battery, and every other little art of war or
peace that may be turned to useful account in the land for which we
are bound."
It was Sir Edward Elton, the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fusileers, who
spoke laughingly to Cyril, when the latter in uniform, with sword and
sash on, reported himself in due form at Chatham Barracks, as having
joined from leave, three days after his departure from Willowdean.
In the prime of life and manhood, Sir Edward looked every inch a
soldier. Fully six feet in height, his strong and lithe figure had
endured, without being impaired, the snows of Canada and the fierce
hot sun of India: but his coal-black hair was becoming grizzled now.
His dark hazel eyes were keen, but calm and resolute in expression,
as those of one born to command; and his voice was full, deep, and
rolling, though apt to become husky after he had "handled" the
regiment throughout a long field-day on the Lines or elsewhere. He
was the beau ideal of what a British officer and a thorough English
gentleman ought to be: and had seen some sharp service in the East
Indies, when with Pollock's Brigade in Afghanistan. He was thrice
wounded on the banks of the Sutledge, and was nearly finished off by
a thrust from a Sikh lance at the battle of Aliwal.
"You'll find all our fellows pretty much the same as you left them,"
he resumed; "Probyn as keen at billiards as ever; Bingham always in a
scrape with some enterprising maid, wife, or widow; Pat Beamish
always late for parade, breakfasting on seltzer and curaçoa, with a
wet towel round his head, and the major giving, as usual, his song of
'The girl I left behind me,' to the last few who linger at the
mess-table."
"He may sing that song with full effect, ere long," replied Cyril,
laughing at the Colonel's enumeration of a few regimental
peculiarities.
"We shall have work enough and to spare in getting all ready by the
5th of the month; the baggage must be reduced to the smallest
possible compass, and all we don't require, must be left, like the
poor women and children, with the depôt. I am glad to say that the
regiment is in the highest order and discipline, and able, thank God!
to face more than its own strength of any troops in the world."
Elton's eye kindled as he spoke, for he was intensely proud of his
regiment, the noblest qualities of which he had carefully fostered
and developed; and perhaps no finer body than these Royal Fusileers
existed in the service of the Queen, being all picked men, and in
their ranks the three countries of the Empire were pretty equally
represented; if there was any preponderance it was in favour of
England, and among them were more "Good-conduct-ring men," than
almost any other corps could produce.
"I shall see you this evening at mess, I presume. This is our last
night there; to-morrow it is to be broken up. There is no parade
this afternoon, save for the juniors and recruits; so I would advise
you to fill up a spare hour in going over the company's accounts and
so forth."
And, as the Colonel concluded, he once more turned to the "Register
of Services," one of the thirteen great books which are kept in every
regiment of Infantry.
Cyril shook his hand, quitted the orderly room, and once more found
himself in the sunlighted barrack square, where squads of recruits
are for ever marching to and fro, with or without rifles, practising
the balance-step, or swinging the clubs or the dumb-bells, and
mechanically he took his way to his old rooms, on the tree-shaded and
somewhat gloomy old brick terrace which overlooks the parade-ground.
Though his quarters as a captain--one small apartment and a still
smaller bed closet, their walls covered with mean and dingy paper of
the cheapest material--were quite familiar to him, their poverty of
aspect, the small and coarsely-glazed window that faced the blank
brick wall enclosing St. Mary's Hospital, the lowness of the ceiling,
the ugly wooden beam which crossed it and was covered with ten
thousand indentations made with a poker (the usual mode then of
summoning one's servant from his den above) together with the meagre
and rickety furniture obtained on hire from some exorbitant Jew, all
impressed him unfavourably, fresh as he was from the luxury and
splendour of his own home at Willowdean.
He tossed his sword and crimson sash on the table with a sigh, and
opened his blue surtout with its gold shoulderscales--the most
handsome undress ever worn by the Line--as if he was choking from
want of air.
Was it not a dream that since he had last stood there, matters were
so changed between him and Mary Lennox; that he had indeed lost her,
and should never hear again the voice that found so soft an echo in
his heart?
He had received no explanation from her of that obnoxious episode,
the visit to Chesterhaugh; he had asked none, nor, perhaps, would he
have listened to any in the mood of mind he was then. Yet he was not
without a lingering hope that she might write to him in some fashion;
and so the craving to hear from her, or of her, combated fiercely
with the sterner resolve to pluck from his heart the memory of her
image, and all that she had been. It was so difficult--so bitter a
conviction to entertain, that all was indeed over between him and
Mary Lennox! But he had never told her where his regiment lay, a
singular omission, and in her sequestered home among the Lammermuirs,
she knew none who could inform her, even if her little pride of heart
would have permitted her to write. She, like him, longed and looked
for letters; but did so in vain. None were exchanged, so
disappointment and mistrust grew fast between these two, who had
hitherto loved so tenderly.
While in this mood of mind, Cyril Wedderburn had no desire for the
tame monotony of overhauling his pay-sergeant's books, and seeing
that Private Jones had been duly credited or debited the sum of
ninepence; that Private Brown's stoppage repaid the expense of the
shako and ball-tuft he had lost in a row on St. Patrick's day; that
Private Smith's clearances had been paid to his wife when her last
baby was born, and not to the clamorous canteen-keeper; and that all
the messing, clothing, and accoutrements of ninety odd
non-commissioned officers and men, were right and regular.
But as idleness was impossible, he took his new-bought
revolver-pistols, and went forth to the Spur Battery to practise in
the dry ditch, at sundry imaginary Russians. Even of that he
wearied, for in the ditch were already some thirty or forty noisy,
happy, and heedless subalterns--boys fresh from Sandhurst or Eton,
and chiefly ensigns of the Provisional Battalion, all cracking away
to each other's peril with their revolvers, and emulous in their
pistol practice; and so, while numbers of his brother officers, with
whom he was an especial favourite, were searching for him at his
quarters, the mess-room, and all about the barracks, he was leaning
over the lofty summit of the glacis, gazing dreamily at the old
familiar scene, which spread far down below him like a map.
He saw the fertile plains of Kent, steeped in the light of the
noon-day sun, stretching far away till lost in hazy distance; the
village of Rainham, and all the windmills that studded the green
slopes; the sleepy Medway with all its man-o'-war hulks and freight
of lesser craft, winding between its banks; bustling Chatham, its
streets full of red-coats; the great square stone block of Rochester
Castle, and the tower of the Cathedral, both rising from amid a sea
of sunny vapour, half in light and half in sombre shadow; and
immediately beneath the lofty bastion was the gloomier feature of the
scene--the Military Cemetery, where lie the bones of a vast army--of
the thousands who have escaped the battle and the pest, in every
clime where our drums have beaten, and who have come home invalided
at last, worn out by wounds and with constitutions broken, only to
die in Fort Pitt, and fated neither to see home or kind, or to enjoy
the hard-won pittance named in mockery a pension, but to find an
obscure grave under the brow of the great Spur Battery.
Cyril looked long and thoughtfully over this scene so familiar to his
eyes, while those sounds so incessant in the adjacent streets of
barrack, the drum, the bugle, and often the shrill Scottish pipe,
were perpetually ringing in air, announcing orders, parades, or
dinners, and so forth; and he marvelled in his heart how he and all
those in whom he had an interest, and for whom he had a love, might
be situated, ere that day twelvemonths came round; for now war had
been declared, and the sword was drawn; already the combined fleets
of France and Britain lay before the Russian harbour of Odessa, and
none knew what an hour might bring forth.