ONLY AN ENSIGN
A Tale of the Retreat from Cabul.
BY JAMES GRANT,
AUTHOR OF "THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "FIRST LOVE AND LAST LOVE,"
"LADY WEDDERBURN'S WISH," ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
"Come what come may,
Time and the Hour runs through the roughest day."--_Macbeth._
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND.
1871.
[_All Rights Reserved._]
LONDON:
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
PKEFACE.
To have entered, more fully than I have done, into the events and
fighting prior to the Retreat from Cabul, would have proved
unsuitable for the purpose of my story, and for these events I must
refer the reader to history or the newspapers of the time.
An officer of the Queen's 44th Regiment escaped death in the Khyber
Pass in the mode narrated in its place, by wrapping the regimental
colour round him; and strange and varied as the adventures of Captain
Waller may appear, after the last fatal stand was made by our troops,
some such incidents actually occurred to a Havildar of the Shah's
Ghoorka Regiment, after its complete destruction in Afghanistan, so
there is much that is real woven up with my story.
Fiction, according to Sir Francis Bacon, infuses in literature that
which history denies, and in some measure satisfies the mind with
shadows, when it cannot enjoy the substance--the shadows of an ideal
world. "Art is long and life is short, so we do wisely to live in as
many worlds as we can."
25, TAVISTOCK ROAD, WESTBOURNE PARK,
_August_, 1871.
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I.--THE TIME WILL COME
II.--RHOSCADZHEL
III.--THE ALARM BELL
IV.--POWDERED WITH TEARS
V.--PORTHELLICK VILLA
VI.--RICHARD'S MYSTERY
VII.--LADY LAMORNA
VIII.--THE BROKEN CIRCLE
IX.--FOREBODINGS
X.--THE LONELY TARN
XI.--CONCERNING FLIRTATION
XII.--THE PIXIES' HOLE
XIII.--THE TIDE IN!
XIV.--LOST
XV.--THE SEARCH
XVI.--INTELLIGENCE AT LAST
XVII.--THE TRECARRELS
XVIII.--HE LOVES ME TRULY
XIX.--THE GREATER SORROW
XX.--A FAMILY GROUP
XXI.--HUMILIATION
XXII.--"MRS. GRUNDY"
XXIII.--A LEGAL "FRIEND"
XXIV.--THE DOCTRINE OF CHANCES
XXV.--MISCONCEPTION
XXVI.--REVERSES
XXVII.--ALONE!
ONLY AN ENSIGN.
CHAPTER I.
THE TIME WILL COME.
"_Le jour viendra_--it is the motto of our family--given to us by
Henry VI. 'The day will come,'" said old Lord Lamorna, proudly, as
he lay back in his easy chair, with his elbows resting on the arms
thereof, and the tips of his upraised fingers placed together, as if
he was about to pray; "and most applicable is that motto to you,
nephew Richard, for I am sure that when you are my age you will
regret not having taken my advice."
Richard Trevelyan smiled, but looked somewhat uneasily at his younger
brother Downie.
"You are too rich to throw yourself away, and too well-born even for
the most highly accomplished daughter of a cotton-lord, or knighted
mill-owner," resumed his stately old uncle, sententiously; "a fellow
knighted too probably for dirty ministerial work; but assume a virtue
if you have it not, and let us see you----"
"Excuse me, my lord--excuse me, my dear uncle. I have no desire
to--to marry; why you--yourself----"
"Don't cite me, Richard. You are only forty-three, if so much" (and
here, for the information of our young lady readers, we may mention
that Richard is not the hero of these pages). "I am past seventy,
yet I may marry yet, and do you all out of the title," added Lamorna,
with a laugh like a cackle.
"My brother Dick is certainly the most listless of men," said Downie,
as he selected some grapes with the embossed scissors, and filled his
glass with chateau d'Yquem.
"I don't think that I am so," retorted Richard.
"Downie is right," said Lord Lamorna. "Why do you not go into
Parliament?--I have two snug pocket boroughs here in Cornwall--and on
one hand attack routine and red-tapeism like a Radical; on the other
hand, denounce retrenchment and cowardly peace-at-any-price, like a
Tory of the old school. You would certainly be popular with both
parties by that _rôle_, and do good to the country at large."
"I have no turn for politics, uncle."
"Diplomacy then--many of our family have figured as diplomats; I was
ambassador to Russia, after Waterloo, and in the olden time more than
one of our family have been so to the Courts of Scotland, France, and
Brandenburg; and I trust we all refuted the axiom of Sir Henry
Wotton, 'that an ambassador was an honest man sent abroad to lie for
the good of his country.'"
"I have no taste for diplomacy."
"What the devil _have_ you a taste for?" asked his uncle, testily;
"not domestic life, as I can't get you to marry, like Downie here;
and you soon left the army, or tired of Her Majesty's service."
Richard flushed for a moment, and held his full wine glass between
him and the light, as if to test the colour and purity of its
contents.
"I know what bachelor London life is--another style of thing, of
course, from yours, Downie--that which someone calls the hard-working
life, which begins at two P.M. one day, and ends at four A.M. next
morning. There are the parks; the club, with its bow-window;
flirtations at balls and assemblies; the opera, and parties to
Greenwich; and then there is the darker picture of doing business
with old Messrs. Bill Stamp and Cent.-per-Cent., in some dingy little
den off the Strand. A bad style of thing it is to meddle with the
long-nosed fellows in the discounting line; just as bad as--and often
the sequence to--running after actresses or opera-singers. You may
love them if you like; but, great Heavens! never stoop to the madness
of committing matrimony with any of them, or for a moment forget the
family to which you belong, and the ancient title that is your
inheritance."
All this was said with undisguised point and pomposity; the cold grey
eyes of Downie Trevelyan had a strange, sour smile in them; and
Richard's face grew more flushed than ever now.
Dinner was over in the stately dining-room of Rhoscadzhel; Mr. Jasper
Funnel, the portly, florid, and white-haired butler, had placed the
glittering crystal decanters before his master, who, with two
nephews, Richard and Downie Trevelyan, were lingering over their
wine; while in the western light of a September evening, through the
tall plate-glass windows that reached from the richly-carpeted floor
to the painted and gilded ceiling, the Isles of Scilly--the
Casserites of the Greeks, the rocks consecrated by the pagan Cornavi
to the Sun--could be seen at the far horizon, literally cradled in
the golden blaze of his setting in the sea; for the house of
Rhoscadzhel, in which our story opens, stands near the Land's End, in
the brave old Duchy of Cornwall.
Audley Trevelyan, tenth Lord Lamorna, took his title from that little
bay or cove which was one of the most romantic spots on the bluff
Cornish coast, until it was unfortunately selected by certain
utilitarian speculators as a site for granite works; and near it is a
place called the Trewoofe, a triple entrenchment having a
subterranean passage, wherein Launcelot Lord Lamorna, with some other
Cornish cavaliers, hid themselves in time of defeat from the troopers
of Fairfax, as the tourist may find duly recorded in his "John
Murray."
He was in his seventieth year; pale in face and thin in figure, and
with his accurate evening costume, for his valet always dressed him
for dinner even when alone, the old peer in every gesture and tone
displayed the easy bearing of a polished man of the world, and of the
highest bearing--keen but cold, calm and unimpressionable.
He had yet much of the wasted beau about his appearance; he wore
rosettes on his shoes and still adhered to a frilled shirt front and
black watered silk ribbon for his gold eye-glass, with a coat having
something of the high collar and cut peculiar to the days when George
IV. was king. His features were fine and delicately modelled; his
nose a perfect aquiline, with nostrils arched and thin, his
snow-white hair was all brushed back to conceal the bald places and
to display more fully a forehead of which he had been vain in youth
from a fancied resemblance to that of Lord Byron. In short the
Apollo of many a ball-room was now indeed a lean and slippered
pantaloon, but still careful to a degree in costume and all the
niceties of cuffs and studs and rings.
Calm and self-possessed as he appeared, when now lying back in his
down easy-chair, sipping his iced wine and playing with the diamond
that glittered on his wasted hand, and which had been a farewell gift
from the Empress of Russia, he had been much of a _roué_ in his
youth, and consequently was not disposed to enquire too closely into
the affairs of his nephew.
Downie Trevelyan was already married, nearly to his uncle's
satisfaction, his wife being the daughter of a poor but noble family;
and as for Richard, he might run away with as many humble girls as he
chose, provided he did not marry any of them, or make that which his
haughty uncle and monetary patron would never forgive--a
_mésalliance_; for Lord Lamorna was a man full of strong aristocratic
prejudices, and a master in all the tactics of society, and of his
somewhat exclusive, and occasionally selfish class.
His lordship's false teeth--a magnificent Parisian set that had cost
him some fifty guineas--would have chattered at the idea of any
member of his family making a mistake in matrimony. He had heard
ugly whispers about Richard, but never could discover aught that was
tangible. If it existed, Heavens! how were Burke, Debrett and Co. to
record it when the time came that it could no longer be concealed?
Should any _mésalliance_ be the case, he had vowed often that the
barren title should go without one acre of land to his eldest nephew;
and he would have willed that past him too had it been in his power
to do so; but though a sordid Scottish Earl of Caithness once sold
his title to a Highland Chieftain, and caused one of the last
clan-battles to be fought in Scotland, such things cannot be done now.
The old man had one ever present, ever prevailing idea--the honour
and dignity of the family--the Cornish Trevelyans of Rhoscadzhel and
Lamorna.
His two nephews were men in the prime of life, but Downie was three
years younger than his brother.
Richard Pencarrow Trevelyan, the elder and prime favourite with their
uncle, was a remarkably handsome man, with fine regular features that
closely resembled those of the old peer; but Richard had been reared
at Sandhurst, been in the army and seen much of a rougher life than
his uncle. He had a free bold bearing, an ample chest, an athletic
form and muscular limbs, which riding, shooting and handling the bat
and the oar had all developed to the full, and which his simple
costume,--for he was fresh with his gun and his game-bag, from the
bleak Cornish moors and mountain sides--advantageously displayed.
His dark blue eyes that were almost black, and seemed so by night,
had a keen but open expression, his mouth suggested good humour, his
white and regular teeth, perfect health, and his voice had in it a
chord that rendered it most pleasant to the ear. Dark eyebrows and a
heavy moustache imparted much of character to his face.
His brother, Downie Trevelyan, had never been an idler like Richard.
Educated at Rugby and Corpus Christi, Oxford, he had been duly called
to the bar by the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, and was now in
good practice as a Barrister in London. He had all the air and
bearing of a gentleman of good style; but he was less handsome than
Richard; had less candour of expression in eye and manner; indeed,
his eyes were like cold grey steel, and were quick, restless, and at
times furtive in their glances; and they never smiled, even when his
mouth seemed to do so.
Unlike Richard, he was closely shaven, all save a pair of very short
and legal looking whiskers. To please his uncle was one of the
unwearying tasks of his life; and even now, with this view, he was in
the most accurate evening dress, thus affording a complete contrast
to the rough and unceremonious tweed-suit worn by his brother--his
coat broadly lapelled with black silk _moiré_, his vest with three
buttons, _en suite_ with his shirt studs, which were encrusted with
brilliants. His cold formality of manner rendered his periodical
visits to Rhoscadzhel somewhat dull to Lord Lamorna, for somehow few
people cared much for Mr. Downie Trevelyan. He had married
judiciously and early in life, and had now several children; and
thus, while joining his uncle in reprehending or rallying Richard on
his supposed anti-matrimonial views, his cold, pale eyes, were
wandering over the appurtenances, the comforts and splendour of that
magnificent apartment, in which he was mentally appraising
everything, from the steel fire-irons, to the gold and silver plate
that glittered on the carved walnut wood side-board, whereon were
displayed many beautiful cups, groups and statuettes (race-trophies
of Ascot, Epsom and other courses) which had been won in Lamorna's
younger days, when his stud was second to none in England, and
certainly equal to that of Lord Eglinton in Scotland; yet he had
never been a gambler, or a "horsey man," being too highly principled
in one instance, and too highly bred in the other; and so we say,
while the legal eyes of Downie appraised all, he thought of his
eldest son, Audley Trevelyan, then a subaltern in a dashing Hussar
Regiment, and marvelled in his heart, if he should ever reign as Lord
of Rhoscadzhel, manor and chace, with all its moors and tin-mines.
"You were right to marry young, Downie," said the old lord, resuming
the theme of their conversation after a pause, adding, as if he
almost divined the thoughts of his younger nephew, "your boy Audley
is, I hear from General Trecarrel, a handsome fellow."
"He is a perfect Trevelyan, my lord," replied Downie, who was
studious in always according the title to his relative, "and then my
daughter, Gartha, bids fair to equal her mother, who was one of the
handsomest women in London."
"To see your family rising about you thus, must afford you intense
pleasure, Downie; but I cannot understand our friend Dick here at
all. My years may not be many now, and I do not wish my hereditary
estate to change hands often, or my lands to be scattered even after
I am done with them."
"I do not comprehend your fears, my dear uncle," said Richard,
smiling; "your estates can never lack heirs while God spares me--and
then there is Downie----"
"And his son Audley the Hussar--you would say?"
"Exactly," replied Richard, but in a strange faint voice, and as he
spoke he felt that the keen grey eyes of Downie were regarding him
attentively by the waxen lights of the chandelier, which Mr. Jasper
Funnel and two tall footmen had just illuminated, at the same time
drawing the heavy curtains of crimson damask over the last flash of
the setting sun, and the ruddy sea whose waves were rolling in blue
and gold, between the bluffs of Land's End and the rocky Isles of
Scilly.
"You cannot be a woman-hater, Dick?"
"No--far from it," replied Richard, as a soft expression stole over
his manly face; "there can be no such thing in nature."
"The truth is--but take your wine--I strongly fear, that during your
military peregrinations, you have got yourself entangled now--and
unworthily perhaps."
"My lord--you are mistaken," replied Richard firmly--almost sternly;
"but what causes you to think so?"
"Your so decidedly declining an introduction to General Trecarrel and
his two daughters--the most beautiful girls in the duchy of Cornwall.
They come of a good family too; and as the couplet has it:--
"'By Tre, Pol, and Pen,
Ye may know the Cornish men.'"
"The General resides somewhere near Porthellick, does he not?" asked
Downie, who saw that his brother was changing colour, or rather
losing it fast.
"Some one told me, Dick, that it was rumoured you got into a scrape
in Edinburgh, 'that village somewhere in the North,' as one of our
humourists calls it; it was to the effect that your landlady had
fallen over head and ears in love with her handsome lodger, who was
ditto ditto in her debt, and had to soothe her ruffled feelings and
settle her bill, by matrimony at sight."
"An utter scandal!" said Richard, now laughing. "Your allowance to
me, ever since I left the Cornish Light Infantry, has been too
generous for such a catastrophe ever to occur."
"And next came a story, that when you were at Montreal with the
regiment, you made a precious mess of it with some pretty girl,
and--to use Downie's phraseology--parted as heart-broken lovers, to
figure as plaintiff and defendant at the bar."
"Worse still and as false, my lord!" exclaimed Richard, now pale with
suppressed passion.
"Don't look so darkly, Richard," said Lord Lamorna, who saw the flash
in his nephew's dark blue eyes; "I have had a pretty little box at
Chertsey, and a villa at St. John's Wood in my day, when my friends,
raven-tressed, or golden-haired as the case might be, were amiable
and tenderly attached--but deuced expensive; so I must not be severe
upon you," added the old man, with his dry cackling laugh. "It is
not these kind of little arrangements I fear, but a _mésalliance_;
and there are scandals even in London--yes, even in the mighty world
of London, though there they soon die; they don't live and take root,
as in the so-called purer air of the country."
"I cannot understand all those vague hints, tales and rumours, or who
sets them afloat," replied Richard, making an effort to preserve his
calmness.
Downie saw the veins rise in his brother's forehead while their uncle
had been speaking; and he smiled a quiet smile, as he bent curiously
over his glass.
"Full many a shaft at random sent,
Finds mark the archer never meant;"
and he could see that some of the random remarks in the present
conversation, rankled deeply in Richard's breast; and that this
conversation had verged, more than once, on somewhat dangerous ground.
"Well, it is a marvel to me, Richard, how a handsome fellow like you
can have escaped so long, known as you are to be the heir to my title
and estates," continued the old lord, still harping on the same
topic: "for the girls now go in for winning in matrimony, as we used
to do at Ascot and Epsom."
"How, my lord?" asked Downie, as if he had never heard the joke
before.
"By a neck--a bare neck and bosom added; witness the beautiful and
aristocratic demi-mondes at the Opera! Elizabeth was the first
English-woman who, to excite admiration, exposed her person thus.
The virgin queen wore a huge ruff certainly; but it stuck up _behind_
her, she was _décolletée_ enough in front."
"I prefer her Scottish rival--collared to her pretty neck, and
sleeved to the slender wrist," said Richard Trevelyan; "by Jove, I
should not have cared for flirting with a woman who carried a fan in
one hand and a hatchet in the other."
"Our ancestor, Henry Lord Lamorna, was governor of Rougemont Castle,
in Devonshire, under Queen Elizabeth," said the peer pompously; "but
having married the daughter of a simple knight in Surrey, he lost Her
Majesty's favour at Court, and had to live in retirement here at
Rhoscadzhel. Let that mistake be a warning to you, Richard."
"It happened pretty long ago," replied Richard, laughing; "and at
forty years of age I am surely unlikely to commit an act of folly----"
"If it be not committed already?"
--"And lose your favour, even by marrying, 'the daughter of a simple
knight.'"
"With my favour you would lose this fine estate. But give me your
hand, Dick, I know you will never do aught unworthy of our good old
Cornish name of Trevelyan!"
With a grand old-fashioned air--yet one full of kindness--the proud
old man presented his thin white hand to his nephew, who pressed it
affectionately, and then rose to withdraw.
"Whither go you, Dick, so soon?"
"Oh--anywhere, uncle," replied the other, wearily.
"How, sir?"
"Merely into the lawn to enjoy a post-prandial cigar," replied
Richard, whose face wore an evident expression of annoyance, as he
bowed and quitted the room.
"We have worried him, I fear," said Downie, with a self-satisfied
smile.
"Don't use slang--it is bad in tone," replied his uncle; "but I
cannot make your brother out--I hope he is not deceiving us all.
Gad, if I thought so--if that Montreal story should prove true----"
the peer paused, and his keen blue eyes flashed with anger at the
vague thoughts that occurred to him.
"Oh, do not fear, my lord," said Downie Trevelyan, in a suave and
soothing manner; "though sham diamonds often do duty for real ones."
"What do you mean?" asked his uncle, haughtily.
Downie only smiled, and bent over his glass of Burgundy again.
"_Neb na gare y gwayn call restona,_" said Lord Lamorna,
significantly; "I hate proverbs: but this is a good old Cornish one;
'he that heeds not gain, must expect _loss_.' When do you expect
your oldest boy home from India?"
"He may arrive next week, perhaps, my lord, and he will at once
dutifully hasten to present himself to you."
"He must be well up among the Lieutenants of the Hussars now?"
"Yet he means to exchange into the Infantry."
"Why?"
"It is a matter of expedience and expense, my lord; even with forage,
batta, tentage, and so forth, he finds his regiment a very
extravagant one."
"I shall give him a cheque on Coutts and Co., for I must not forget
that you did me the honour to name him after me."
"But you did us the greater honour in being his sponsor--and in
bestowing upon him a gold sponsorial mug."
"With the _Koithgath_ of the Trevelyans for a handle, and another
perched on the lid; well, well--he may be my successor here--who
knows, who knows," mumbled the old man, as he prepared to take
his-after dinner nap, by spreading a cambric handkerchief over his
face, and Downie glided noiselessly away to the library, with a
strange and unfathomable smile on his colourless face, and he
muttered,--
"I too may say--'the time will come!'"