“THERE is a stranger arrived, Signora, who has been asking for you,”
said the landlord of the little inn at Orta, as Miss Grainger reached
the door. “He has ordered a boat, but feeling poorly, has lain down on
a bed till it is ready. This is his servant,” and he pointed as he spoke
to a dark-visaged and very handsome man, who wore a turban of white and
gold, and who made a deep gesture of obeisance as she turned towards
him. Ere she had time to question him as to his knowledge of English,
a bell rung sharply, and the man hurried away to return very speedily,
and, at the same instant, a door opened and Calvert came towards her,
and, with an air of deep emotion, took her hand and pressed it to his
lips.
“This is too kind, far too kind and considerate of you,” said he, as he
led her forward to a room.
“When I got your note,” she began, in a voice a good deal shaken, for
there was much in the aspect of the man before her to move her, “I
really did not know what to do. If you desired to see me alone, it would
be impossible to do this at the villa, and so I bethought me that the
best way was to come over here at once.”
“Do you find me much changed?” he asked, in a low, sad voice.
“Yes, I think you are a good deal changed. You are browner, and you look
larger, even taller, than you did, and perhaps the beard makes you seem
older.”
This was all true, but not the whole truth, which, had she spoken it,
would have said, that he was far handsomer than before. The features had
gained an expression of dignity and elevation from habits of command,
and there was a lofty pride in his look which became him well, the more
as it was now tempered with a gentle courtesy of manner which showed
itself in every word and every gesture towards her. A slight, scarcely
perceptible baldness, at the very top of the forehead, served to give
height to his head, and add to the thoughtful character of his look. His
dress, too, was peculiar, and probably set off to advantage his striking
features and handsome figure. He wore a richly embroidered pelisse,
fastened by a shawl at the waist, and on his head, rather jauntily set,
a scarlet fez stitched in gold, and ornamented with a star of diamonds
and emeralds.
“You are right,” said he, with a winning but very melancholy smile.
“These last two years have aged me greatly. I have gone through a great
deal in them. Come,” added he, as he seated himself at her side, and
took her hand in his, “come, tell me what have you heard of me? Be
frank; tell me everything.”
“Nothing--absolutely nothing,” said she.
“Do you mean that no one mentioned me?”
“We saw no one. Our life has been one of complete unbroken solitude.”
“Well, but your letters; people surely wrote about me?”
“No,” said she in some awkwardness, for she felt as though there was
something offensive in this oblivion, and was eager to lay it to the
charge of their isolation.
“Remember what I have told you about our mode of life.”
“You read the newspapers, though! You might have come upon my name in
them!”
“We read none. We ceased to take them. We gave ourselves up to the
little cares and occupations of our home, and we really grew to forget
that there was a world outside us.”
Had she been a shrewd reader of expression, she could not fail to have
noticed the intense relief her words gave him. He looked like one who
hears the blessed words Not Guilty! after hours of dread anxiety for his
fate. “And am I to believe,” asked he, in a voice tremulous with joy,
“that from the hour I said farewell, to this day, that I have been to
you as one dead and buried and forgotten?”
“I don’t think we forgot you; but we rigidly observed our pledge to you,
and never spoke of you.”
“What is there on earth so precious as the trustfulness of true
friendship?” burst he in, with a marked enthusiasm. “I have had what the
world calls great successes, and I swear to you I’d give them all, and
all their rewards twice told, for this proof of affection; and the dear
girls, and Florence--how is she?”
“Far better than when you saw her. Indeed, I should say perfectly
restored to health. She walks long walks, and takes rides on a mountain
pony, and looks like one who had never known illness.”
“Not married yet?” said he with a faint smile.
“No; he is coming back next month and they will probably be married
before Christmas.”
“And as much in love as ever--he, I mean?”
“Fully; and she too.”
“Pshaw! She never cared for him; she never could care for him. She tried
it--did her very utmost I saw the struggle, and I saw its failure, and I
told her so?”
“You told her so!”
“Why not? It was well for the poor girl that one human being in all the
world should understand and feel for her. And she is determined to marry
him?”
“Yes; he is coming back solely with that object.”
“How was it that none of his letters spoke of me? Are you quite sure
they did not?”
“I am perfectly sure, for she always gave them to me to read.”
“Well!” cried he, boldly, as he stood up, and threw his head haughtily
back, “the fellow who led Calvert’s Horse--that was the name my
irregulars were known by--might have won distinction enough to be quoted
by a petty Bengal civil servant. The Queen will possibly make amends for
this gentleman’s forgetfulness.”
“You were in all this dreadful campaign, then?” asked she eagerly.
“Through the whole of it. Held an independent command; got four times
wounded: this was the last.” And he laid bare a fearful cicatrice that
almost surrounded his right arm above the wrist.
“Refused the Bath.”
“Refused it?”
“Why not? What object is it to me to be Sir Harry? Besides, a man who
holds opinions such as mine, should accept no court favours. Colonel
Calvert is a sufficient title.”
“And you are a colonel already?”
“I was a major-general a month ago--local rank, of course. But why am I
led to talk of these things? May I see the girls? Will they like to see
me?”
“For that I can answer. But are your minutes not counted? These
despatches?”
“I have thought of all that This sword-cut has left it terrible ‘tic’
behind it, and travelling disposes to it, so that I have telegraphed for
leave to send my despatches forward by Hassan, my Persian fellow,
and rest myself here for a day or two. I know you’ll not let me die
un-watched, uncared for. I have not forgotten all the tender care you
once bestowed upon me.”
She knew not what to reply. Was she to tell him that the old green
chamber, with its little stair into the garden, was still at his
service? Was she to say, “Your old welcome awaits you there,” or did she
dread his presence amongst them, and even fear what reception the girls
would extend to him?
“Not,” added he, hastily, “that I am to inflict you with a sick man’s
company again. I only beg for leave to come out of a morning when I feel
well enough. This inn here is very comfortable, and though I am glad to
see Onofrio does not recognise me, he will soon learn my ways enough to
suit me. Meanwhile, may I go back with you, or do you think you ought to
prepare them for the visit of so formidable a personage?”
“Oh, I think you may come at once,” said she, laughingly, but very far
from feeling assured at the same time.
“All the better. I have some baubles here that I want to deposit in more
suitable hands than mine. You know that we irregulars had more looting
than our comrades, and I believe that I was more fortunate in this way
than many others.” As he spoke, he hastily opened and shut again several
jewel-cases, but giving her time to glance-no more than glance--at the
glittering objects they contained. “By-the-way,” said he, taking from
one of them a costly brooch of pearls, “this is the sort of thing they
fasten a shawl with,” and he gallantly placed it in her shawl as he
spoke.
“Oh, my dear Colonel Calvert!”
“Pray do not call me colonel. I am Harry Calvert for you, just as I used
to be. Besides, I wish for nothing that may remind me of my late life
and all its terrible excitements. I am a soldier tired, very tired
of war’s alarms, and very eager for peace in its best of all
significations. Shall we go?”
“By all means. I was only thinking that you must reconcile yourself not
to return to-night, and rough it how best you can at the villa.”
“Let me once see my portmanteau in the corner of my old green room, and
my pipe where it used to hang beside my watch over the chimney, and
I’ll not believe that I have passed the last two terrible years but in
a dream. You could not fancy how I attach myself to that spot, but I’ll
give you a proof. I have given orders to my agent to buy the villa. Yes;
you’ll wake some fine morning and find me to be your landlord.”
It was thus they talked away, rambling from one theme to the other, till
they had gone a considerable way across the lake, when once more Calvert
recurred to the strange circumstance that his name should never have
come before them in any shape since his departure.
“I ought to tell you,” said she, in some confusion, “that I once did
make an effort to obtain tidings of you. I wrote to your cousin Miss
Sophia.”
“You wrote to her!” burst he in, sternly; “and what answer did you get?”
“There it is,” said she, drawing forth the letter, and giving it to him.
“‘No claim! no right!’ murmured he, as he re-read the lines; “‘the name
of the person she had dared to inquire after;’ and you never suspected
the secret of all this indignant anger?”
“How could I? What was it?”
“One of the oldest and vulgarest of all passions--jealousy! Sophy had
heard that I was attached to your niece. Some good-natured gossip went
so far as to say we were privately married. My old uncle, who only about
once in a quarter of a century cares what his family are doing, wrote me
a very insulting letter, reminding me of the year-long benefits he had
bestowed upon me, and, at the close, categorically demanded ‘Are you
married to her?’ I wrote back four words, ‘I wish I was,’ and there
ended all our intercourse. Since I have won certain distinctions,
however, I have heard that he wants to make submission, and has even
hinted to my lawyer a hope that the name of Calvert is not to be severed
from the old estate of Rocksley Manor; but there will be time enough to
tell you about all these things. What did your nieces say to that note
of Sophy’s?”
“Nothing. They never saw it Never knew I wrote to her.”
“Most discreetly done on your part I cannot say how much I value the
judgment you exercised on this occasion.”
The old lady set much store by such praise, and grew rather prolix about
all the considerations which led her to adopt the wise course she had
taken.
He was glad to have launched her upon a sea where she could beat, and
tack, and wear at will, and leave him to go back to his own thoughts.
“And so,” said he, at last, “they are to be married before Christmas?”
“Yes; that is the plan.”
“And then she will return with him to India, I take it”
She rodded.
“Poor girl! And has she not one friend in all the world to tell her
what a life is before her as the wife of a third--no, but tenth-rate
official--in that dreary land of splendour and misery, where nothing but
immense wealth can serve to gloss over the dull uniformity of existence,
and where the income of a year is often devoted to dispel the ennui of a
single day? India, with poverty, is the direst of all penal settlements.
In the bush, in the wilds of New Zealand, in the far-away islands of the
Pacific, you have the free air and healthful breezes of heaven. You can
bathe without having an alligator for your companion, and lie down on
the grass without a cobra on your carotid; but, in India, life stands
always face to face with death, and death in some hideous form.”
“How you terrify me!” cried she, in a voice of intense emotion.
“I don’t want to terrify, I want to warn. If it were ever my fate to
have a marriageable daughter, and some petty magistrate--some small
district judge of Bengal--asked her for a wife, I’d say to my girl, ‘Go
and be a farm servant in New Caledonia. Milk cows, rear lambs, wash,
scrub, toil for your daily bread in some land where poverty is not
deemed the ‘plague;’ but don’t encounter life in a society where to be
poor is to be despicable--where narrow means are a stigma of disgrace.’”
“Joseph says nothing of all this. He writes like one well contented with
his lot, and very hopeful for the future.”
“Hasn’t your niece, some ten or twelve thousand pounds?”
“Fifteen.”
“Well, he presses the investment on which he asks a loan, just as any
other roguish speculator would, that’s all.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Mr. Calvert Joseph is not a rogue.”
“Men are rogues according to their capacity. The clever fellows do not
need roguery, and achieve success just because they are stronger and
better than their neighbours; but I don’t want to talk of Loyd; every
consideration of the present case can be entertained without him.”
“How can that be, if he is to be her husband?”
“Ah! If--if. My dear old friend, when and if comes into any question, the
wisest way is not to debate it, for the simple reason that applying our
logic to what is merely imaginary is very like putting a superstructure
of masonry over a house of cards. Besides, if we roust talk with a
hypothesis, I’ll put mine, ‘Must she of necessity marry this man, if he
insists on it?’”
“Of course; and the more, that she loves him.”
“Loves him! Have I not told you that you are mistaken there? He
entrapped her at first into a half admission of caring for him, and,
partly from a sense of honour, and partly from obstinacy, she adheres
to it But she does so just the way people cling to a religion, because
nobody has ever taken the trouble to convert them to another faith.”
“I wish you would not say these things to me,” cried she with much
emotion. “You have a way of throwing doubts upon everything and
everybody, that always makes me miserable, and I ask myself afterwards,
‘Is there nothing to be believed?’ Is no one to to be trusted?”
“Not a great many, I am sorry to say,” sighed he. “It’s no bright
testimony to the goodness of the world, that the longer a man lives the
worse he thinks of it. I surely saw the flutter of white muslin through
the trees yonder. Oh dear, how much softer my heart is than I knew of! I
feel a sort of choking in the throat as I draw near this dear old place.
Yes, there she is--Florence herself. I remember her way of waving a
handkerchief. I’ll answer it as I used to do.” And he stood up in the
boat and waved his handkerchief over his head with a wide and circling
motion. “Look! She sees it, and she’s away to the house at speed. How
she runs! She could not have mustered such speed as that when I last say
her.”
“She has gone to tell Milly, I’m certain.”
He made no reply, but covered his face with his hands, and sat silent
and motionless. Meanwhile the boat glided up to the landing-place, and
they disembarked.
“I thought the girls would have been here to meet us,” said Miss
Grainger, with a pique she could not repress; but Calvert walked along
at her side, and made no answer.
“I think you know your way here,” said she with a smile, as she motioned
him towards the drawing-room.