https://books.google.com/books?id=94OTUUmRnVAC,
The Forlorn Hope a Novel, (Volume 877, Vol. 1, in, Collection of
British Authors, Volume 878)
COLLECTION.
OF
BRITISH AUTHORS.
VOL. 877.
----------------
THE FORLORN HOPE BY EDMUND YATES.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
THE FORLORN HOPE.
A NOVEL.
BY
EDMUND YATES,
AUTHOR OF "LAND AT LAST," "BROKEN TO HARNESS," ETC.
_COPYRIGHT EDITION_.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LEIPZIG
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.
1867.
_The Right of Translation is reserved_.
TO
CHARLES FECHTER.
CONTENTS
OF VOLUME I.
CHAPTER
I. "Sound the Alarm."
II. Master and Pupil.
III. Watching and Waiting.
IV. Mrs. Wilmot.
V. A Resolve, and its Results.
VI. At Kilsyth.
VII. Brooding.
VIII. Kith and Kin.
IX. Ronald.
X. Cross-examination.
XI. Irreparable.
XII. The Leaden Seal.
XIII. A Turn of the Screw.
XIV. His grateful Patient.
XV. Family Relations.
XVI. Giving up.
XVII. Face to Face.
THE FORLORN HOPE.
CHAPTER I.
"Sound an Alarm."
The half-hour dressing-bell rung out as Sir Duncan Forbes jumped from
the hired carriage which had borne him the last stage of his journey
to Kilsyth, and immediately followed his servant, who had put in a
pantomimically abrupt appearance at the carriage-door, to his room.
The steaming horses shook their sides, and rattled their harness
dismally, in the dreary autumnal evening; but a host of gillies and
understrappers had hurried out at the noise of the approaching wheels,
and so quickly despoiled the carriage of its luggage, that within a
very few minutes its driver--comforted by something over his fare, in
addition to a stiff glass of the incomparable Kilsyth whisky--was
slowly wending his way back, over a road which to any one but a
Highlander would have seemed impassable in the fog that had begun to
cloud the neighbouring mountains in an almost impenetrable shroud of
misty gray. From the cold, chilly, damp mountain air, from the long
solitary ride, for the last twenty miles of which he had not met a
human creature, to the airy bedroom with its French paper, the
bright wood-fire burning on its hearth, the wax candles on the
dressing-table, the drawn chintz curtains, the neat writing-table, the
little shelf of prettily-bound well-chosen books, was a transition
indeed for Duncan Forbes. One glance around sufficed to show him all
these things, and to show him in addition the steaming bath, the
warmed linen, the other various arrangements for his comfort which the
forethought of Dixon his servant had prepared for him. He was used to
luxuries, and thoroughly accustomed to rough it; he was not an
impressionable young man; but there are times, even if we be only
eight-and-twenty, good-looking, and in the Household Brigade, when we
feel a kind of sympathy with the working-man who declared that "life
was not all beer and skittles," and are disposed to look rather more
seriously than usual upon our own condition and our surroundings.
The journey from Glenlaggan--it is, it must be confessed, an awful
road--had had its effect on Duncan Forbes. Why he should have
permitted himself to be worked upon either by a sense of solitude, or
by an involuntary tribute to the wildness of the scenery, or perhaps
by dyspepsia, arising a recent change of living, to fall temporarily
into a low state of mind; to think about his duns, debts, and
difficulties; to wonder why he was not at that moment staying with his
mother in Norfolk, instead of plunging into the depths of the
Highlands; to think of his cousin Ethel Spalding, and to clench his
fists violently and mutter strong expressions as the image of a
certain Dundas Adair, commonly called Lord Adair, rose before him
simultaneously with that of his said cousin; why he then fell into a
state which was half lachrymose and half morose, impelling him to
refresh himself from a silver flask, and to make many mental
resolutions as to his future life,--why he did all this is utterly
immaterial to us, as Sir Duncan Forbes is by no manner of means our
hero, in fact has very little to do with our story. But the journey
had its effect upon him, and rendered the comfort and luxury of
Kilsyth doubly precious in his eyes. So that when he had had his bath,
and, well advanced in his dressing, was luxuriating in the comfort of
cleanliness and fresh linen, and the prospect of an excellent dinner,
he had sufficiently returned to his normal condition to ask Dixon--who
had preceded him by a couple of days--whether the house was full, and
who were there.
"House quite full, sir," replied Dixon. "Colonel Jefferson, sir, of
the First Life-guards; Capting Severn, sir, of the Second Life-guards,
and his lady; Markis Towcester, as have jist jined the Blues; Honble
Capting Shaddock, of the Eighteenth 'Ussars; Lord Roderick Douglas, of
the Scots Fusiliers; and--"
"Drop the Army List, Dixon," growled his master, at that moment
performing heavily on his head with a pair of hair-brushes; "who else
is here?"
"There's the Danish Minister, sir--which I won't try to pronounce
his name--and his lady; and there's the Dook and Duchess of
Northallerton--which the Dook has the gout that bad, his man told
me--used to be in our ridgment, Sir Duncan, and was bought out by his
mother on his father's death--as to be past bearin' sometimes; and
Lady Fairfax, sir; and Lady Dunkeld, as is Lady Muriel's cousin, sir;
and a Mr. Pitcairn, as is a distant relation of the family's; and a
Mr. Fletcher, as is, I'm told, a hartist, or something of that kind,
sir--he hasn't brought a man here, sir; so I'm unable to say; but he
seems to be well thought of, sir; quite at his ease, as they say,
among the company, sir."
"Dear me!" said Duncan Forbes, suspending the action of the
hair-brushes for a moment, while he grinned grimly; "you seem to be a
great observer, Dixon."
"Well, sir, one can't keep one's hears shut entirely, nor one's eyes,
and I noticed this gentleman took a kind of leading part in the talk
at dinner, sir, yesterday. O, I forgot, sir; Miss Kilsyth have not
been well for the last two or three days, sir; kep' her room, havin'
caught cold returnin' from a luncheon-party up at what they call a
shealing--kind of 'ut, sir, in the 'ills, where they put up when
stalkin', as I make out, sir,--and her maid says is uncommon low and
bad."
"Ill, is she?--Miss Kilsyth? Jove, that's bad! Haven't they sent for a
doctor, or that kind of thing?"
"Yes, sir, they have sent for a doctor; and he's been, sir; leastways
when I say doctor, sir, I mean to say the 'pothecary from the village,
sir. Comes on a shady kind of a cob, sir, and I shouldn't say knew
much about it. Beg your pardon, sir--dinner gong!"
Sir Duncan Forbes' toilette is happily complete at the time of this
announcement, and he sallies downstairs towards the drawing-room.
Entering, he finds most of the company already assembled; and in the
careless glance which he throws around as the door closes behind him,
he recognises a bevy of London friends, looking, with perhaps the
addition of a little bronze in the men, and a little plumpness in the
ladies, exactly as he left them at the concluding ball of the season
two months ago. Some he has not seen for a longer period, his host
among them. Kilsyth of Kilsyth, keen sportsman, whether with rod or
gun; landlord exercising influence over his tenants, not by his
position alone, but by the real indubitable interest which he takes in
their well-being; lord-lieutenant of his county, first patron and best
judge at its agricultural meetings, chairman of the bench of
magistrates, prime mover in the herring fishery,--what does Kilsyth of
Kilsyth do in London? Little enough, truth to tell; gives a very
perfunctory attendance at the House of Commons, meets old friends at
Brookes's, dines at a few of the earlier meetings of the Fox Club, and
does his utmost to keep out of the way of the Liberal whip, who dare
not offend him, and yet grieves most lamentably over his shortcomings
at St. Stephen's. See him now as he stands on the hearth-rug, with his
back to the drawing-room fire, a hale hearty man, whose fifty years of
life have never bent his form nor scarcely dimmed the fire in his
bright blue eye. Life, indeed, has been pretty smooth and pleasant to
Kilsyth since, when a younger son, he was gazetted to the 42d; and
after a slight sojourn in that distinguished regiment, was sent for by
his father to take the place of his elder brother, killed by the
bursting of a gun when out on a stalk. A shadow--deep enough at the
moment, but now mercifully lightened by Time, the grim yet kindly
consoler--had fallen across his path when his wife, whom he loved so
well, and whom he had taken from her quiet English home, where, a
simple parson's daughter, she had captivated the young Highland
officer, had died in giving birth to a second child. But he had
survived the shock; and long afterwards, when he had succeeded to the
family title and estates, and was, indeed, himself well on the way to
middle age, had married again. Kilsyth's second wife was the sister of
a Scottish earl of old family and small estate, a high-bred woman,
much younger than her husband, who had borne him two children (little
children at the time our story opens), and who, not merely in her
Highland neighbourhood, but in the best society of London, in which
she was ungrudgingly received, was looked upon as a pattern wife. With
the name of Lady Muriel Kilsyth the most inveterate scandalmongers had
never ventured to make free. The mere fact of her being more than
twenty years younger than her husband had given them the greatest hope
of onslaught when the marriage was first announced; but Lady Muriel
had calmly faced her foes, and not the most observant of them had as
yet espied the smallest flaw in her harness. Her behaviour to her
husband, without being in the least degree gushing, was so thoroughly
circumspect, they lived together on such excellent terms of something
that was evidently more than amity, though it never pretended to
devotion, that the scandalmongers were utterly defeated. Balked in one
direction, they launched out in another; they could not degrade the
husband by their pity, but they could mildly annoy the wife with
reflections on her conduct to her step-children. "Poor little things,"
they said, "with such an ambitious woman for stepmother, and children
of her own to think of! Ronald may struggle on; but as for poor
Madeleine--" and uplifted eyebrows and shrugged shoulders completed
the sentence. It is needless to say that Kilsyth himself heard none of
these idle babblings, or that if he had, he would have treated them
with scorn. "My lady" was to him the incarnation of every thing that
was right and proper, that was clever and far-seeing; he trusted her
implicitly in every matter; he looked up to and respected her; he
suffered himself to be ruled by her, and she ruled him very gently and
with the greatest talent and tact in every matter of his life save
one. Lady Muriel was all-powerful with her husband, except when, as he
thought, her views were in the least harsh or despotic towards his
daughter Madeleine; and then he quietly but calmly held his own way.
Madeleine was his idol, and no one, not even his wife, could shake him
in his adoration of her. As he stands on the hearth-rug, there is a
shadow on his bright cheery face, for he has had bad news of his
darling since he came in from shooting,--has been forbidden to go to
her room lest he should disturb her; and at each opening of the door
he looks anxiously in that direction, half wishing, half fearing Lady
Muriel's advent with the doctor's latest verdict on the invalid.
The thin slight wiry man talking to Kilsyth, and rattling on
garrulously in spite of his friend's obvious preoccupation, is Captain
Sèvern, perhaps the best steeple-chase rider in England, and
untouchable at billiards by any amateur. He is a slangy, turfy,
raffish person, hating ladies' society, and using a singular
vocabulary full of _Bell's-Life_ idioms. He is, however, well
connected, and has a charming wife, for whose sake he is tolerated; a
lovely little fairy of a woman, whose heart is as big as her body; the
merriest, most cheerful, best-tempered creature, trolling out her
little French _chansons_ in a clear bird-like voice; acting in
charades with infinite character and piquancy; and withal the idol of
the poor in the neighbourhood of their hunting-box in Leicestershire;
and the quickest, softest, and most attentive nurse in sickness, as a
dozen of her friends could testify.
That bald head which you can just see over the top of the _Morning
Post_ belongs to the Duke of Northallerton, who has been all his
life more or less engaged in politics; who has, when his party has
been in office, held respectively the important positions of
Postmaster-General and Privy Seal; and who was never so well described
as by one of his private secretaries, who declared tersely that his
grace was a "kind old pump." Outwardly he is a tall man of about
fifty-five, with a high forehead, which has stood his friend through
life, and obtained him credit for gifts which he never possessed, a
boiled-gooseberry eye, a straight nose, and projecting buck-teeth. As
becomes an old English gentleman, he wears a very high white cravat
and a large white waistcoat; indeed it is only within the last few
years that he has relinquished his blue coat and gold buttons, and
very tight pantaloons. He is reading the paper airily through his
double glasses, and uttering an occasional "Ha!" and "Dear me!" as he
wades through the movements of the travelling aristocracy; but from
time to time he removes the glasses from his nose, and looks up with a
half-peevish glance at his neighbour, Colonel Jefferson. Charley
Jefferson (no one ever called him any thing else) has a large
photograph album before him, at which he is not looking in the least;
on the contrary, his glance is directed straight in front of him; and
as he stands six feet four, his eyes, when he is sitting, would be
about on a level with a short man's head; and he is tugging at his
great sweeping grizzled moustache, and fidgeting with his leg, and
muttering between his clinched teeth at intervals short phrases, which
sound like "Little brute! break his neck! beastly little cad!" and
such-like.
The individual thus objurgated by the Colonel is highly thought of by
Sir Bernard Burke, and known to Debrett as John Ulick Delatribe,
Marquis of Towcester, eldest son of the Duke of Plymouth, who has just
been gazetted to the Blues, after some years at Eton and eighteen
months' wandering on the Continent. Though he is barely twenty, a more
depraved young person is rarely to be found; his tutor, the Rev.
Merton Sandford, who devoted the last few years of his life to him,
and who has retired to his well-earned preferment of the largest
living in the duke's gift, lifts up his eyes and shakes his head when,
over a quiet bottle of claret with an old college friend, he speaks of
Lord Towcester. The boy's reputation had preceded him to London; a
story from the Viennese Embassy, of which he was the hero, came across
in a private note to Blatherwick of the F.O., enclosed in the official
white sheep-skin despatch-bag, and before night was discussed in half
the smoking-rooms in Pall-Mall. The youngsters laughed at the anecdote
and envied its hero; but older men looked grave; and Charley
Jefferson, standing in the middle of a knot of men on the steps of the
Rag, said he was deuced glad that the lad wasn't coming into his
regiment; for if that story were true, the service would be none the
better for such an accession to it, as, if it were his business, he
should take an early opportunity of pointing out; and the listeners,
who knew that Colonel Jefferson was the best soldier and the strictest
martinet throughout the household cavalry, and who marked the
expression of his face as he pulled his moustache and strode away
after delivering his dictum, thought that perhaps it was better for
Towcester that his lot was cast in a different corps. You would not
have thought there was much harm in the boy, though, from his
appearance. Look at him now, as he bends over Lady Fairfax, until his
face almost touches her soft glossy hair. It is a round, boyish,
ingenuous face, though the eyes are rather deeply set, and there is
something cruel about the mouth which the thin downy moustache utterly
fails to hide. As Lady Fairfax turns her large dark eyes on her
interlocutor, and looks up at him, her brilliant white teeth flashing
in an irrepressible smile, the Colonel's growls become more frequent,
and he tugs at his moustache more savagely than ever. Why? If you know
any thing about these people, you will remember that ten years ago,
when Emily Fairfax was Emily Ponsonby, and lived with her old aunt,
Lady Mary, in the dull rambling old house at Kew, Charley Jefferson, a
penniless cornet in what were then the 13th Light Dragoons, was
quartered at Hounslow; danced, rode, and flirted with her; carried off
a lock of her hair when the regiment was ordered to India; and far
away up country, in utter ignorance of all that was happening in
England, used to gaze at it and kiss it, long after Miss Ponsonby had
married old Lord Fairfax, and had become the reigning belle of the
London season. Old Lord Fairfax is dead now, and Charley Jefferson has
come into his uncle's fortune; and there is no cause or impediment why
these twain should not become one flesh, save that Emily is still
coquettish, and Charley is horribly jealous; and so matters are still
in the balance.
The little old gentleman in the palpable flaxen wig and gold
spectacles, who is poring over that case of Flaxman's cameos in
genuine admiration, is Count Bulow, the Danish Ambassador; and the
little old lady whose face is so wrinkled as to suggest an idea of
gratitude that she is a lady, and consequently is not compelled to
shave, is his wife. They are charming old people, childless
themselves, but the cause of constant matchmaking in others. More
flirtations come to a successful issue in the embassy at Eaton-place
than in any other house in town; and the old couple, who have for
years worthily represented their sovereign, are sponsors to half the
children in Belgravia. They are both art-lovers, and their house is
crammed with good things--pictures from Munich and Düsseldorf, choice
bits of Thorwaldsen, big elk-horns, and quaint old Scandinavian
drinking-cups. Old Lady Potiphar, who has the worst reputation and the
bitterest tongue in London, says you meet "odd people" at the Bulows';
said "odd people" being artists and authors, English and foreign. Mr.
Fletcher, R. A., who is just now talking to the Countess, is one of
the most favoured guests at the embassy, but he is not an "odd
person," even to Lady Potiphar, for he goes into what she calls
"sassiety," and has been "actially asked to Mar'bro' House"--where
Lady Potiphar is not invited. A quiet, unpretending, gentlemanly,
middle-aged man, Mr. Fletcher; wearing his artistic honours with easy
dignity, and by no means oblivious of the early days when he gave
drawing-lessons at per hour to many of the nobility who now call him
their friend. There are three or four young ladies present, who need
no particular description, and who are dividing the homage of Captain
Shaddock; while Lord Roderick Douglas, a young nobleman to whom Nature
has been more bountiful in nose than in forehead, and Mr. Pitcairn, a
fresh-coloured, freckled, blue-eyed gentleman, lithe and active as a
greyhound, are muttering in a corner, making arrangements for the next
day's shooting.
The entrance of Sir Duncan Forbes caused a slight commotion in the
party; and every one had a look or a word of welcome for the new
comer, for he was a general favourite. He moved easily from group to
group, shaking hands and chatting pleasantly. Kilsyth, who was
specially fond of him, grasped his hand warmly; the Duke laid aside
the _Morning Post_ in the midst of a most interesting leader, in which
Mr. Bright was depicted as a pleasant compound of Catiline and Judas
Iscariot; Count Bulow gave up his cameos; and even grim Charley
Jefferson relaxed in his feverish supervision of Lord Towcester.
As for the ladies, they unanimously voted Duncan charming, quite
charming, and could not make too much of him.
"And where have you come from, Duncan?" asked Kilsyth, when the buzz
consequent on his entrance had subsided.
"Last, from Burnside," said Duncan.
"Burnside!--where's Burnside?" asked Captain Severn shortly.
"Burnside is on the Tay, the prettiest house in all Scotland, if I may
venture to say so, being at Kilsyth; of course it don't pretend to any
thing of this kind. It's a mere doll's-house of a place, nothing but a
shooting-box; but in its way it's a perfect paradise."
"Are you speaking by the card, Duncan?" said Count Bulow, with the
slightest foreign accent; "or was there some Peri in this paradise
that gave it such fascination in your eyes?"
"Peri! No indeed, Count," replied. Duncan, laughing; "Burnside is a
bachelor establishment,--rigidly proper, quite monastic, and all that
kind of thing. It belongs to old Sir Saville Rowe, who was a swell
doctor in London--O, ages ago!"
"Sir Saville Rowe!" exclaimed the Duke; "I know him very well. He was
physician to the late King, and was knighted just before his majesty's
death. I haven't seen him for years, and thought he was dead."
"He's any thing but that, Duke. A remarkably healthy old man, and as
jolly as possible; capital company still, though he's long over
seventy. And his place is really lovely; the worst of it is, it's such
a tremendous distance from here. I've been travelling all day; and as
it is I thought I was late for dinner. The gong sounded as I left my
room."
"You were late, Duncan; you always are," said Kilsyth, with a smile.
"But the Duchess is keeping you in countenance tonight, and Lady
Muriel has not shown yet. She is up with Madeleine, who is ill, poor
child."
"Ah, so I was sorry to hear. What is it? Nothing serious, I hope?"
"No, please God, no. But she caught cold, and is a little feverish
tonight: the doctor is with her now, and we shall soon have his
report. Ah, here is the Duchess."
The Duchess of Northallerton, a tall portly woman, with a heavy
ruminating expression of face, like a sedate cow, entered as he spoke,
and advancing said a few gracious nothings to Duncan Forbes. She was
closely followed by a servant, who, addressing his master, said that
Lady Muriel would be engaged for a few minutes longer with the doctor,
and had ordered dinner to be served.
The conversation at dinner, falling into its recent channel, was
resumed by Lord Towcester, who said, "Who had you at this doctor's,
Duncan? Queer sort of people, I suppose?"
"Some of his patients, perhaps," said Lady Fairfax, showing all her
teeth.
"Black draught and that sort of thing to drink, and cold compresses on
the sideboard," said Captain Severn, who was nothing if not
objectionable.
"I never had better living, and never met pleasanter people," said
Duncan Forbes pointedly. "They wouldn't have suited you, perhaps,
Severn, for they all talked sense; and none of them knew the odds on
any thing--though that might have suited you perhaps, as you'd have
been able to win their money."
"Any of Sir Saville's profession?" cut in the Duke, diplomatically
anxious to soften matters.
"Only one--a Dr. Wilmot; the great man of the day, as I understand."
"O, every body has heard of Wilmot," said half-a-dozen voices.
"He's the great authority on fever, and that kind of thing," said
Jefferson. "Saved Broadwater's boy in typhus last year when all the
rest of them had given him up."
"Dr. Wilmot remains there," said Duncan; "our party broke up
yesterday, but Wilmot stays on. He and I had a tremendous chat last
night, and I never met a more delightful fellow."
At this moment Lady Muriel entered the room, and as she passed her
husband's chair laid a small slip of paper on the table by his plate;
then went up to Duncan Forbes, who had risen to receive her, and gave
him a hearty welcome. Kilsyth took an opportunity of opening the
paper, and the healthy colour left his cheeks as he read:
"_M. is much worse tonight. Dr. Joyce now pronounces it undoubted
scarlet-fever_."
The old man rose from the table, asking permission to absent himself
for a few moments; and as he moved, whispered to Duncan, who was
sitting at his right-hand, "You said Dr. Wilmot was still at
Burnside?"
Receiving an answer in the affirmative, he hurried into the hall,
wrote a few hasty lines, and gave them to the butler, saying, "Tell
Donald to ride off at once to Acray, and telegraph this message. Tell
him to gallop all the way."