THE RETURNED CAPTIVE.
In the few minutes consumed by Captain Murpoint in mastering the
emotion which the sight of his old friend's daughter had produced, Mrs.
Mildmay had recovered from her astonishment, and, with her well-bred
composure still a little shaken, came forward, with outstretched hand.
"And is it, indeed, poor John's old friend, Captain Murpoint?" she
said, with a little smile.
"It is, indeed," said the captain, taking her hand, and bending over it
with graceful _empressement_. "Alas, that I should return to find his
place empty! Yet scarcely empty, for here is a beautiful reflection of
my dear friend's face and form."
And he turned his eyes with affectionate admiration upon Violet again.
Mrs. Mildmay sighed, then quickly called his attention to her guests.
"We have got half through dinner, Captain Murpoint, as you see, but I
am sure my friends will not mind a little extension of the meal, while
fresh courses are prepared. Let me introduce you. Mrs. Dodson, this is
an old friend of Violet's father, consequently a dear friend of ours,
Captain Murpoint."
The captain's quick, black eyes rested for a moment upon her and Mrs.
Dodson's physiognomies while the introduction was being made; as
quickly passed over Mr. and Mrs. Giles' and the vicar's, but rested a
little longer when Mr. Leicester's turn came, and grew more searching
in their expression as they met the calm regard of the young man.
But the keenness of the scrutiny--for it was nothing more nor less--was
tempered by a smile. Captain Murpoint possessed the rare art of smiling
well.
"I beg that you will not delay the meal, nor change a single course.
I am a case-hardened traveler, and too used to short fare to think
anything of the loss of soup and fish. Indeed, my dear madam, if you
will pardon me for a few moments I will exchange these dusty and really
disgraceful garments for something more orthodox and suitable."
Mrs. Mildmay bowed graciously, and turned to a footman.
"I have brought my man with me--a faithful fellow, who has been my
companion in fair weather and foul all over the globe," said the
captain, moving toward the door. "Pray, let me implore you not to spoil
your dinner."
So saying, he passed through the doorway, outside which, eying the
elegant room with a satisfied and comprehensive gaze, stood the
grim-faced, sharp-eyed "faithful fellow," the captain's servant.
Violet had not spoken a single word save those she had addressed to the
captain. A sweet, solemn gravity had settled upon her fair, young face,
brought there by the memories of her father, which this stranger's
arrival had called up.
She sighed when his soft, pleasing voice had died away, and turned
almost with a start to her neighbor, Mr. Leicester.
"How strange--is it not?" she said.
"Very," said Mr. Leicester, looking at her, thoughtfully. "Captain
Murpoint came unexpectedly?"
"Quite," said Violet.
Leicester Dodson toyed with his fork.
"Do you remember him?" he asked.
"I have never seen him before," replied Violet, quietly. "But he is
such an old personal friend. My father never wrote me a letter without
mentioning him."
Leicester, with all the interest he felt showing plainly in his face,
nodded.
"They met in India, of course. Captain Murpoint must be a younger man
than Mr. Mildmay would have been."
"Yes," said Violet, "much younger. Papa told me how much once, but I
have forgotten."
Then her aunt spoke to her, and Leicester fell into a muse. Captain
Murpoint's advent seemed to have struck all his eloquence dumb.
The rest of the guests were chattering with quite a mild excitement,
but he sat turning the fork over and following the pattern of the
tablecloth with that grim silence which did not sit ill upon him,
though it would have made some men look sullen.
Suddenly the hum died out, and Leicester, looking up, saw that Captain
Murpoint's re-entrance was the cause.
If Captain Murpoint had looked gentlemanly in his traveling suit he
certainly looked distinguished in the orthodox army dress.
Leicester Dodson's eyes, as they watched him take his place between
Violet and her aunt, took in every detail of the well-proportioned
figure from its breadth of shoulders to the long stretch of arm with
its strength-denoting muscular development.
But when he came to regard the face he was startled.
He had, on the captain's first entrance thought him rather handsome,
but now, seeing him sideface, he was surprised to find that there was a
sinister look about some feature that had an unpleasant effect.
Suddenly the captain turned full face to address Violet, and the
displeasing expression had gone.
Then he turned again, and Leicester understood it.
One side of Mr. Murpoint's face was better looking than the other.
On the right side, in a line with the ear, there was a scar--a
small white scar--too small one would have thought to have marred
the face, but mar it, it certainly did, for, whether the captain
smiled or frowned, looked humorous or sad, that scar remained the
same--inflexible, white, repulsive, giving the sinister cast to the
right side of the face which had startled Leicester.
Was the captain aware of this blot on his beauty?
Certainly that scarred side of his face was not half so often seen as
the other, and Leicester, who was observant as well as quiet, noticed
that when he was spoken to, the captain invariably turned his left side
with a smile to the speaker, and kept it turned until the speaker's
gaze was withdrawn.
But Leicester was not allowed to continue his silent examination of
Mr. Murpoint's features long, for that gentleman, having blunted his
appetite upon the greater portion of a fowl, with a tact which was
remarkable, soon engaged the whole table in conversation.
Then he found that he could not only smile well, but talk well also.
He started a topic, chased and ran it to death in a light, graceful
way, then raised another.
The spirits of the party, which had grown somewhat low, rose rapidly.
The captain was humorous, and made Miss Mildmay laugh.
Then, with a graceful ease, he veered round into the pathetic--some
little Indian story--and the ladies sighed sympathetically.
As suddenly he managed to engage Mr. Leicester Dodson in a discussion
on the catacombs, and proved to that gentleman, who knew the East
pretty thoroughly, that Egyptian antiquities were also not quite hidden
mysteries to the wonderful captain.
All the time he managed to eat in a noiseless, well-bred way about
three times as much as any one else, and contrived to divert to his own
plate the nice cuts and choice corners of the poultry and saddle of
mutton.
He drank, too, with a quiet enjoyment of the good wine, which met with
a hearty sympathy from the butler.
"This wine," he said, lifting his glass and bowing to Miss Mildmay with
infinite grace, "this wine, my dear friend brought from India--eh?
my dear young lady?" turning to Violet. "Many and many glasses have
your father and I drank in the hot sunset. I have a wonderful memory
for wine and faces. Do you know," he broke off, suddenly, addressing
Leicester, who was regarding him with his quiet, earnest gaze, "I fancy
that I have seen you before? Have I?"
"I can't say. 'Tis possible," said Leicester. "Have you any
recollection beyond the indistinct surmise?"
"N--o," said the captain, hesitating. "Were you ever in India?"
"No," said Leicester. "I have traveled through the East, and know the
Continent and England pretty well."
"There you have the advantage of me," said the captain, setting his
wineglass down, and looking round at the attentive faces. "I left my
native land when a boy of eighteen, and returned only two days since."
"Ah," said the vicar, in his nervous, jerky style, "then you have
much to see, Captain Murpoint. England is small, but precious in
beauty. It can compare creditably with any other spot on earth, even
in its most unfair and ill features. What is softer and more beautiful
than Devonshire? What more grand than the Cornish cliffs? Ay, even
in picturesque business it would be difficult to eclipse our little
island. We defy you to find in any other part of the globe so weird and
grotesque a piece of scenery as the Portland wastes."
The captain, with a smile, had turned his left side to the
well-meaning, but rather long-winded cleric, and the butler was filling
his glass with the wine which he had so highly praised.
Suddenly, as the vicar's neatly turned sentence came to a close, the
captain's face turned and presented the left side, which was as white
as the scar itself.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the butler, for the captain, in turning
his head, had also moved his hand and spilled some of the wine.
"All right, my good fellow," he said, good-naturedly, and stooped to
wipe the wine from his coat. Then, looking up as placid and smiling as
before, he added, "Portland! Let me see, that is on the south coast, is
it not? A--er--convict station?"
"Yes," said the vicar. "A most interesting place, and well worth a
visit. If you think of making an English tour, you should by all means
take it _en route_."
"Thanks," said the captain, with an air of gratitude. "It's a good
suggestion." Then he rose to open the door for the ladies, his left
side well to the front and the good-tempered, well-bred smile shining
placidly upon it.
The vicar, being the oldest friend of Mrs. Mildmay, moved to the head
of the table, and did the honors of the good old port and claret with
formal exactness, but the gentlemen had evidently taken all the wine
they cared for, and, with a nervous, "Er, shall we join the ladies?"
the vicar pushed back his chair and led the way into the drawing-room.
Mrs. Giles was seated at the piano. Mrs. Tonson, the vicar's wife,
was sipping tea with her sweet, little head on one side like a
tomtit, listening to Mrs. Mildmay's explanation of the intricacies
of some new needlework, and Violet and Mrs. Dodson were engrossed in
conversation, which had for its topic Mr. Leicester's various habits
and idiosyncrasies, a topic the fond mother could expatiate upon _ad
infinitum_.
The captain's quick glance flashed through the handsome room for
a moment, then sank into a quiet gleam of pleasure as he walked
to Violet's low chair, and, motioning with his eyes to a small,
black-edged portrait of himself that hung in a recess, said:
"No wonder you recognized me so quickly, Miss Mildmay. I had forgotten
the portrait."
Violet smiled.
"But for me, who see it so constantly, it seems as impossible for me to
forget you, or rather fail to recognize you."
Mrs. Mildmay turned, with a smile and a little nervous flush.
"You notice that it has a black frame, Captain Murpoint?"
The captain nodded, with a shrug of the shoulders.
"Yes, and I can guess the reason. Oh, my dear madam, I must reserve the
story of my resuscitation for a more fitting opportunity. I am afraid
you will find it tedious. Poor John! would that he could have lived to
learn that instead of being among the killed, I was only one of the
unfortunate captives."
Here the vicar, who had been vainly endeavoring to engage mild Mr.
Dodson in a theological argument, turned, with very awkward interest.
"Ah, Captain Murpoint, that was a most extraordinary mistake. I am
curious to hear how it occurred. My old friend mourned for you very
deeply--er--er--and caused a tablet to be set upon the left side of the
church aisle to your memory."
The captain smiled, then sighed.
"It was a mistake, and an extraordinary one. The facts are very simple,
though. My corporal, a worthy man, poor fellow, had, the evening
before the skirmish, fallen into a water tank and spoiled his uniform,
the only one he had brought with him. He came to my tent at sunset,
dripping wet, and I, on the impulse of the moment, lent him one of my
spare suits. Poor fellow, he promised to return it before the following
morning, but Providence so willed it that the loan should become a
gift. Before sunrise the Sepoys were upon us. I was wounded and taken
prisoner, the poor corporal was killed and mangled to such an extent
as to render his identification by features impossible. The clothes
by which they imagined they could ascertain his personality, were, of
course, mine, and so Captain Howard Murpoint was returned as dead and
buried, and Corporal Mundy was cited as captured."
Violet, who had been listening, with her dark eyes fixed upon the
captain's face, drew a long breath.
"And what became of you?" she asked, with that absent, abrupt way
peculiar to her.
The captain passed his hand down his thick, dark mustache, and looked
at her.
"I will tell you some day," he said, "as I threatened. Suffice it for
the present that I was held captive for two years far away beyond the
hills--ay, outside the pale of civilization. It was a miserable time;
to look back upon it even now, in this comfortable room and with your
interested face, my dear young lady, before me, gives me an unpleasant
sensation. The Hindoos are the connecting link between the man and the
monster!"
And, with this figurative conclusion, the captain rose and walked to
the bureau to turn over the leaves of the Battle of Prague, with which
the vicar's wife was about to favor the company.
Leicester Dodson dropped into the vacant seat, Violet drawing her
skirts out of the way of his long legs.
"And have you not played yet?" he asked.
Violet woke from her absent fit and shook her head.
"Not yet," she said. "I am not fond of my own music. You will play or
sing, will you not?"
"I can do neither," he said. "I have a voice that would shame a crow."
Violet laughed her full, sweet, mirthful laugh.
"I am so sorry, because now you will have to play whist. Look, the
vicar is shuffling the cards and looking round for the victims already."
"Shall I hide behind you?" said Leicester, in a low whisper.
"Indeed, no; you shall do your duty!" And, catching the vicar's
blinking eyes, she beckoned to him.
"Here is Mr. Leicester for one corner. He doesn't sing or play!"
Leicester looked fierce and nodded at his father.
"You will have enough without me, I think," he said, and the vicar,
more nervous than ever, but quite as anxious for his rubber, shuffled
over to Mr. Dodson, who, with his benevolent, expressionless face well
elevated, was beating time with his first finger to the "Battle."
So the vicar seized upon him, Mrs. Dodson and Mr. Giles, and was soon
in his play.
"I've escaped, you see," said Leicester, with his grim smile.
"Only out of one danger into another," said Violet, maliciously. "The
'Battle of Prague' will be fought out directly, and then you will have
to go over the large scrapbook of Swiss views and tell Miss Tomson
which of the places you have seen."
"Thank you," said Leicester. "If that is a necessary part of the
programme I am prepared to perform it without a change of audience. If
you will allow me, Miss Mildmay, I'll go over the scrapbook with you."
With two long strides, he seized the book and opened it.
"I knew you would be very much bored," said Violet. "I told you so
before you came."
"And I assure you that you were wrong, which you are. I was never
further from being bored in my life. That's a fine view. I climbed that
on the coldest day in winter and had to have my fingers thawed in the
shed at the top."
"And you learned cliff climbing in Switzerland, of course?" said
Violet, naïvely. "Do you know, you frightened me so this morning? I was
afraid you would fall over and be killed?"
Leicester's eyes--they were dark and deep and somewhat stern for so
young a man--brightened.
"Should you have been so sorry?" he asked.
"Of course. How stupid a question!" laughed Violet, wickedly. "Cannot
you surmise the consequences? I might have been accused of throwing you
over, tried and condemned."
"But the motive," said Leicester, entering into the jest. "What motive
could they have found?"
"Oh," said Violet, "people are always ready to find motives for
other people; they would have said I resented your appearance as an
interruption to a train of poetic thoughts; in fact, they would have
been sure to find a motive."
"That is a pretty plain hint that I am to avoid that favorite walk of
yours for the future, and beware how I interrupt your cliff reveries."
Violet flushed.
"Indeed, no. It is not a favorite walk--at least, not particularly
so--and I am sure you are welcome to come. What nonsense. It is as much
yours as mine, and I seem to be making you a present of it," and she
laughed.
Then the "Battle of Prague" came to an end, and the captain led Mrs.
Tonson to a seat with profuse compliments upon her style and touch.
"Are you fond of music, Captain Murpoint?" asked Violet.
"I adore it," said the captain, seating himself by her side, and
looking, with a smile, at Leicester, who regarded him with his usual
grim reserve. "Music is the language of women and angels. Are you not
going to sing?"
Violet shook her head at first.
"Will you not?" said Leicester, earnestly, bending the regard of his
dark eyes on her.
Then she changed her mind, and, placing her hand upon the captain's
arm, allowed him to take her to the piano.
Leicester remained where he was, and, thrusting his hands into his
pockets, stretched out his long legs, and watched her beneath his dark,
heavy eyebrows.
He had seen beautiful women of all countries--Circassians with pearly
skin and rosebud lips, Spanish señoras with almond eyes and passionate,
low-strung voices, Italians with fire-lit laughter and lithe grace--but
none whose beauty touched and warmed him as the pure, sweet, loveliness
of this willful English rose did.
Beautiful! The word was poor, tame, commonplace for such a face. Call
it loveable, bewitching, which is far better than beautiful, and you
were still far from a satisfactory adjective, Leicester thought; and as
he sat and listened, his gaze alternating between the fair, young face
and the dark, sinister one of the man by her side, he felt her heart
slipping away from him.
The song finished, there arose a commotion at the whist table.
The vicar, in nervous, jerky sentences, was calling Mr. Dodson over the
coals for bad play.
Mr. Dodson, with a bewildered air, was vainly endeavoring to explain,
and at last managed to persuade the captain, who had stood smilingly
listening to the dispute, to take his place.
The captain sat down, asserting, with a good-natured shrug of
his shoulders, that he had not taken a hand at whist for a
twelvemonth--which was indeed solemn truth--and the game commenced, the
vicar and Mrs. Giles being partners against the captain and Mrs. Dodson.
"What are the stakes?" said the captain.
"Er--er--" stammered the vicar, in his shrill falsetto, "what you
please."
"Half-crown points?" said the captain, carelessly, and the rest
agreeing, the captain and Mrs. Dodson lost the first game.
Now the vicar was fond of cards, and was still more fond of winning a
little money at them. The captain made one or two gross blunders, and
clearly proved that he was out of practice. The vicar was but human and
suggested that they should raise the stakes.
Alas, the next game was scored to the captain's side. So, also, was
the next, and Mrs. Dodson, with many blushes and exclamations of comic
alarm at the amount, shared ten pounds with her lucky partner.
Then the party broke up.
Leicester Dodson, who had been talking to Violet during the whole
of the card playing, bowed over her small white hand with his usual
gravity, wrapped his mother in her China crèpe shawl, and took her to
the carriage.
The vicarage party and the Giles' followed quickly, and the captain was
left alone with his old friend's daughter and her aunt.
"Captain Murpoint, I have given you rooms in the south wing. If they
are not to your liking I hope you will let me change them," said Mrs.
Mildmay.
"They will seem palatial apartments after Indian mud huts, my dear
madam, and only too luxurious," said the captain.
"Good-night," said Violet, giving him her hand. "I hope you will sleep
soundly and not dream. There are ghosts near you."
The captain laughed.
"You mean in those old ruins at the side," he said.
"Yes," said Violet. "The park was all ruins when papa bought it, but he
pulled down all the old walls, excepting the tower and old chapel that
adjoins the south wing, and they are fearfully haunted."
"I am not afraid," said the captain, and with another good-night he
ascended the broad staircase to the apartments allotted to him.
Captain Murpoint was evidently an honored guest. The suite of rooms
was of the best in the house, and beautifully furnished, the small
dressing-room or boudoir exquisitely so.
As the captain opened the door of the dainty little nest a sturdy
figure rose from the satin-covered couch and saluted him with a grin.
The captain set the candle down upon the unlaid table and walked to the
window, which he threw open, then he turned to the sturdy figure and
smiled.
"You don't look so ridiculous in your swallow tails as I should have
thought, Jem--no, Starling I meant; but I'm afraid appearance is the
least important attribute of a gentleman's servant. Help me off with
this coat."
Mr. Starling, with a grave face, tugged at the coat rather clumsily.
"Gently," said the captain, "I don't want you to take my arms with it.
That will do," and he sank into the chair before the glass and stared
at the reflection of his face absorbed in thought.
Starling watched him in silence for a minute or two, then fidgeted
restlessly, and at last spoke out:
"Well, captain, ain't you got a word for your humble pal? How's things
going? Does the plant look well?"
"Hush!" said the captain, arousing, with a start. "The window is open,
doors and walls have ears. You must drop that slang and talk like the
character you assume, even when we are alone, for practice. Tell me
what you have seen. Is the house large?"
"Enormous!" replied Starling, sinking his voice to a disagreeable
hoarseness. "It is a reg'lar palace. Bigger than the pris----"
The captain sprang to his feet, his eyes blazing, and his face white.
"Idiot! keep that word between your teeth! We're working over a powder
mine, and such a word as that means destruction. Forget the past;
forget that you were ever anything else than my servant--Captain
Murpoint's valet. If you don't, that idiot's tongue of yours will blab
and spoil the whole."
He sat down again with something of his old coolness, but his hand,
as it toyed with an ivory-backed brush, trembled, and his eyes still
flashed evilly.
"All right, captain," pleaded Starling, humbly. "It was a slip," he
laughed, "but it shan't occur again. Cuss me for an idiot. But I never
can play a close game like this right away at first. It requires
genius, and I ain't that, and you are, capt'n; and that's where the
difference is----"
"Answer my question," said the captain, interrupting him with a gesture
of weariness.
"The place is a regular gold mine," said Starling. "Heaps o' servants
and cartloads o' plate. I never see such swag. Great, big plates and
basins and ornaments and spoons and forks enough to set us up for
life----"
The captain interrupted him with a contemptuous:
"Pshaw! Do you think I am going to steal the plate, idiot?"
"Well, you might do wus," said Starling, scratching his head with a
puzzled air. "O' course I don't know what game you're playing, captain;
how should I? You're such a deep 'un. But some games want capital, and
where are we going to get that?"
"Capital," repeated the captain, more to himself than in answer to the
expressed doubt of his companion. "My capital is here," and he knocked
his snow-white forehead with his forefinger.
Then, with a short, dry laugh, he pulled the five sovereigns out of his
pocket and flung them on the table.
"Capital? You're right, my friend. Five pounds is not much to start a
big thing on, but it's enough when Captain Murpoint has the undertaking
in hand!"