Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

CHAPTER XLI.
DONNAS PRAY AND PRACTISE

A sad and sorry task it is to follow the lapse of a fine young fellow, from the straight line of truth and honour, into the crooked ways of shame. Hilary loved Mabel still, with all his better heart and soul; her pure and kind and playful glance, and the music of her true voice, never wholly departed from him. In the hot infatuation to which (like many wiser and older men) he could not help but yield himself, from time to time a sudden pang of remorse and of good love seized him. Keenly alive to manly honour, and to the goodness of womankind, he found himself playing false to both, and he hated himself when he thought of it. But the worst of him was that he did not think habitually and steadfastly; he talked to himself, and he thought of himself, but he very seldom examined himself. He felt that he was a very good fellow, in the main, and meant no harm; and if he set up for a solid character, who would ever believe him? The world had always insisted upon it that he was only a trifler; and the world’s opinion is very apt to create what it anticipates. He offered excuses enough to himself, as soon as he saw what a wrong he was doing. But the only excuse a good man can accept is the bitterness of his punishment.

The British army, having exhausted havock to the lees and dregs, marched upon its glorious way, in quest of other towns of our allies no less combustible. But many wounded champions were left behind in Badajos, quartered on the grateful townsmen, to recover (if they could) and rejoin as soon as possible. Lieutenant Lorraine was one of these, from the necessity of his case; and Major Clumps managed to be another, from his own necessities. But heavily wounded as he was (by one of Don Miguel’s daughters), the fighting Major would never have got himself certified on the sick-list, unless he had known, from the course of the war, that no battle now was imminent.

Regardless of his Horace, and too regardful of cruel Glycera, more than too much pined Major Clumps, and would have chanted mournful ditties in a minor key, if nature had only gifted him with any other note but D. Because his junior shone beyond him, with breach of loyal discipline. He might console himself, however, with the solace offered by the sprightly bard – the endless chain of love revolving with links on the wrong cog for ever. Major Clumps was in love with Camilla; the saintly Camilla declined from him with a tender slope towards Hilary; Hilary went downhill too fast with violent pangs towards Claudia; and Claudia rose at the back of the wheel, with her eyes on the distant mountains.

Of all Lorraine’s pure bodily wounds, the worst (though not the most painful, as yet) was a gash in his left side, made by pike, or sword, or bayonet, or something of a nasty poignancy. Hilary could give no account of it, when he took it, or where, or how: he regretted deeply to have it there; but beyond that he knew nothing. It seemed to have been suggested cleverly, instead of coarsely slashing down; so far as a woman who had not spent her youth in dissecting-rooms could judge. But Major Clumps (too old a warrior to lose his head to anything less perturbing than a cannon-ball) strenuously refused to believe in Hilary’s ignorance about it. He had a bad opinion of young men, and believed that Hilary had fallen into some scrape of which he was now ashamed. At the same time, he took care to spread it abroad (for the honour of the regiment) that their young lieutenant had been the first to leap on the sword-blades of the breach, even as afterwards he was first to totter through the gap he made. But now it seemed likely that either claim would drop into abeyance, until raked up as a question of history.

For the wound in Hilary’s side began to show very ugly tokens. It had seemed to be going on very nicely for about a fortnight; and Teresina praised and thanked the saints, and promised them ten days’ wages, in the form of candles. But before her vow was due, or her money getting ready, the saints (whether making too sure of their candles, or having no faith in her promises) suddenly struck work, and left this good woman, rags, bottles, and bones, in a miserable way. For violent inflammation began to kindle beneath the bandages, and smiles were succeeded by sighs and moaning, and happy sleep by weary tossings and light-headed wakefulness.

By way of encouraging the patient, Major Clumps came in one day with a pair of convalescent Britons, and a sheet of paper, and pressed upon him the urgent necessity for making his will; to leave the world with comfort and composure. Hilary smiled, through all his pain, at the thought of his having in the world anything but itself to leave; and then he contrived to say, pretty clearly —

“Major, I don’t mean to leave the world. And if I must, I have nothing but my blessing to leave behind me.”

“Then you do more harm than good by going; and none need wish to hurry you. Sergeant Williams, you may go, and so may Private Bodkin. You will get no beer in this house, I know; and you have both had wine enough already. Be off! what are you spying for?”

The two poor soldiers, who had looked forward to getting a trifle for their marks, glanced at one another sadly, and knowing what the Major was, made off. For ever since the tricks played with him by drunken fellows who knew him not, Major Clumps had been dreadful towards every sober man of his own regiment. The course of justice never does run smooth.

This was a thing such as Hilary would have rejoiced to behold, and enter into, if he had been free from pain. But gnawing, wearing, worrying pain sadly dulls the sense of humour and power of observation. Yet even pain, and the fear of the grave, with nothing to leave behind him, could not rob him of all perception of a sudden brightness shed softly over all around. Two lovely maidens were come to pray for him, and to scatter his enemies.

Claudia de Montalvan led her gentle and beautiful sister Camilla, to thank, once for all, and perhaps to say farewell to, their preserver. Camilla, with her sad heart beating tremulously, yet controlled by maiden dignity and shame, followed shyly, fearing deeply that her eyes would tell their tale. And thus, even through the more brilliant beauty of her braver sister, the depth of love and pity made her, for the time, more beautiful. Between the two sisters there was but little, even for the most careful modeller to perceive, of difference. Each had the purely moulded forehead, and the perfect arch of eyebrow, and the large expressive eyes, well set and clearly cut and shaded; also the other features shaped to the best of all nature’s experience. This made it very nice to notice how distinct their faces were by inner difference of mind and will.

“Senhor,” said Claudia to Major Clumps, who could manage to make out Spanish; “we have heard that he is very ill. We are come to do the best for him. Camilla will pray – it is so good – and I will do anything that may need. But it is not right to detain you longer. The gentlemen cannot pray at all, till they are in the holy orders.”

The Major bowed, and grimly smiled at this polite dismissal; and then with a lingering glance at Camilla, stumped away in silence to a proper swearing distance.

His glance might have lingered till dark night fell, before that young Donna returned it. All her power of thought or feeling, fearing, hoping, or despairing, was gathered into one sad gaze at her guest, her saviour, and her love. Carefully as she had watched him through the time when there was no danger, she had not been allowed by the ancient nurse to come near him for the last three days. And even now she had been content to obey Teresina’s orders, and to trust in the saints, with her calm sweet faith – the saints who had sent this youth to save her – but for her stronger sister’s will.

“Disturb him not, sister, but let him rest,” said Claudia, whose fair bosom never was a prey to gratitude; “see you not how well he lies? If we should happen to cause disturbance, he might roll over, and break into bleeding; and then you could pray for his soul alone.”

“Sister mine, you do not speak well,” Camilla answered, gently; “he has shed so much blood for us, that he is not likely to bleed more. It is now the want of the blood, and the fever, that will make us mourn for ever. Cavalier, brave cavalier, can you not look up, and muse?”

Hilary, being thus invoked, though he had no idea what was meant – the language being pure Castilian – certainly did look up, and try with very bad success to muse. His eyes met kind Camilla’s first (because she was leaning over him), but in spite of close resemblance, found not what they wanted in them, and wandered on, and met the eyes of Claudia, and rested there.

Camilla, with the speed of love outwinging all the wings of thought, felt, like a stab, this absence from her and this presence elsewhere. And having plenty of inborn pride, as behoved her and became her well, she turned away to go, and leave her sister (who could not pray at all) to pray for what seemed to be more her own. And her heart was bitter, as she turned away.

Claudia (who cared not one half-real for Hilary, or what became of him; and who never prayed for herself, or told her beads, or did any religious thing) was also ready to go, with a mind relieved of a noxious duty; when her softer, and therefore nobler, sister came back, with her small pride conquered.

“It is not a time to dispute,” she said, “nor even to give one’s self to pray, when violent pain is tearing one. My sister, I have prayed for days, and twice as much by night: and yet everything grows much worse, alas! Last night I dreamed a dream of great strangeness. It may have come from my birthday saint. The good Teresina is having her dinner; and she always occupies one large hour in that consummation. Do a thing of courage, sister; you always are so rich in courage.”

“What do you mean?” asked Claudia, smiling; “you seem to have all the courage now.”

“Alas! I have no courage, Claudia. You are laughing at me. But if you would only raise the bandage – I dare not touch the poor cavalier – where the sad inflammation is, that makes him look at you so – it is possible that I could, or perhaps that you could – ”

“Could what?” asked Claudia, who was not of a long-enduring temper; “I have no fear to touch him; and he seems to be all bandages. There now, is that what you require?” Camilla shuddered as her sister firmly (as if she were unswathing a mummy of four thousand years) untied Teresina’s knots, and laid bare the angry wound, which was eating Hilary’s life away. Then a livid virulent gash appeared, banked with proud flesh upon either side, and Claudia could not look at it.

But Camilla gathered the courage often latent in true gentleness, and heeded only in her heart how the poor young fellow fell away and fainted from the bold exposure, and falling back, thus made his wound open and gape wider.

“I see it! I see it! I shall save him yet,” she cried, in feminine ecstasy; and while Claudia thought her mad, she snatched from the chain at her zone a little steel implement, often carried by Spanish girls for beauty’s sake. With dainty skimmings, and the lightest touch, she contrived to get this well inside all the mere outward mischief, and drew out a splinter of rusty iron, and held it up to the light in triumph; and then she went down on her knees and sobbed, but still held fast her trophy.

“What is it? Let me see!” cried Claudia, being accustomed to take the lead: “Saint plague, what is a mere shred like that, to cause so much emotion? It may be something the old nurse put there, and so you have done more harm than good.”

“Do nurses put pieces of jagged iron into a wound to heal it? It is part of a cruel Frenchman’s sword. Behold the fangs of it, and the venomous rust! What agony to the poor cavalier! Now sponge his forehead with the vinegar; for you are the best and most welcome nurse. And when he revives show him this, and his courage will soon be renewed to him. I can stay here no longer, I feel so faint. I will go to my saint, and thank her.”

When old Teresina returned, and found her patient looking up at Claudia, with his wound laid bare, she began to scold and wring her hands, and order her visitor out of the room; but the proud young lady would have none of that.

“A pretty nurse you are,” she cried, “to leave this in your patient’s wound! Is this your healing instrument, pray? What will the Count of Zamora say, when I show him this specimen of your skill? How long will he keep you in this house? Oh blind, demented, gorging, wallowing, and most despicable nurse!”

That last word she pronounced with such a bitterness of irony, that poor Teresina’s portly form and well-fed cheeks shook violently. “For the love of all the saints, sweet Donna, do not let my lord know this. The marvellous power of your bright eyes has cast their light on everything. That poor old I, with these poor members, might have gazed and gazed for ever; when lo! the most beautiful and high-born lady under heaven appears, and saves the life of the handsome lord that loves her.”

“We will speak no more upon this matter,” Claudia answered, magnanimously. And the nurse thenceforth was ready to vow, and Hilary only too glad to believe, that the sorely wounded soldier owed his life to a beautiful maiden. And so he did; but not to Claudia.

CHAPTER XLII.
AN UNWELCOME ESCORT

Along the northern brow and bend of the Sussex hills, the winter lingers, and the spring wakes slowly. The children of the southern slope, towards Worthing and West Tarring, have made their cowslip balls, and pranked their hats and hair with blue-bells, before their little northern cousins have begun to nurse and talk to, and then pull to pieces, their cuckoo-pint, and potentilla, dead-nettle, and meadow crowfoot.

The daffodil that comes and “takes the winds of March with beauty,” here reserves that charming capture for the early breeze of May; for still the “black-thorn winter” buffets the folds of chilly April’s cloak, and the hail-fringed mantle of wan sunlight. This is the time when a man may say, “Hurrah! Here is summer come at last, I verily do believe. For goodness’ sake, wife, give us air, and take those hot things from the children’s necks. If you want me, I shall be in the bower, having a jolly pipe at last.” And then by the time all the windows are open, and the little ones are proud to show their necks and the scratches of their pins, in rushes papa, with his coat buttoned over, and his pipe put out by hail.

None the less for all that, the people who like to see things moving – though it be but slowly – have opportunity now of watching small delights that do them good. How trees, and shrubs, and plants, and even earth and stone, begin to feel the difference coming over them. How little points, all black one day, and as hard as the tip of a rook’s bill the next time of looking at them, show a little veiny shining. And then as the people come home from church, and are in their most observant humour, after long confinement, a little child finds a real leaf (most likely of an elder-tree), and many young faces crowd around it; while the old men, having seen too many springs, plod on and doubt this for a bad one.

Much of this had been done, with slow advance from Sunday to Sunday, and the hedges began to be feathered with green, and the meadows to tuft where the good stuff lay, and the corn in the gloss of the sun to glisten; when everybody came out of church one Sunday before Pentecost. The church was that which belonged to the Rev. Struan Hales (in his own opinion), and so did the congregation, and so did everything, except the sermon. And now the Rector remained in the vestry, with his favourite daughter Cecil, to help him off with his “academicals,” and to put away his comb.

“I hope your mother will be quick, my dear,” said the Parson, stooping his broad shoulders, as his daughter tugged at him; “she cannot walk as she used, you know; and for the last half-hour I have been shuddering and trembling about our first fore-quarter.”

“I saw that you were uncomfortable, papa, just as you were giving out your text. You seemed to smell something burning, didn’t you?”

“Exactly!” said the Rector, gazing with surprise at his clever and queer Cecil. “Now how could you tell? I am sure I hope none of the congregation were up to it. But 9d. a pound is no joke for the father of three hungry daughters.”

“And with a good appetite of his own, papa. Well, I’ll tell you how I knew it. You have a peculiar way of lifting your nose when the meat is too near the fire, as it always is with our new cook; and then you looked out of that round-arched window, as if you expected to see some smoke.”

“Lift my nose, indeed!” answered the Rector; “I shall lift something else; I shall lift your lips, if you laugh at your poor old father so. And I never shaved this morning, because of Sir Remnant’s dinner-party to-morrow. There, what do you think of that, Miss Impudence?”

“Oh papa, what a shameful beard! You preached about the stubble being all burned up; perhaps because you were thinking of our lamb. But I do declare you have got as much left as Farmer Gate’s very largest field. But talking about Sir Remnant, did you see who skulked into church in the middle of the anthem, and sate behind the gallery pillar, in one of the labourers’ free seats?”

“No, I did not. You ought to be ashamed of looking about in church so, Cecil. Nothing escapes you, except the practical application of my doctrine.”

“Well, papa, now, you must have been stupid, or had your whole mind upon our new cook, if you didn’t see Captain Chapman!”

“Captain Chapman!” cried the Rector, with something which in any other place would have been profane; “why, what in the world could he want here? He never came to hear me; that’s certain.”

“No, papa; nor to hear anything at all. He came to stare at poor Alice all the time; and to plague her with his escort home, I fear.”

“The poor child, with that ungodly scamp! Who were in the servants’ pew? I know pretty well; but you are sure to know better.”

“Oh, not even one of the trusty people. Neither the old butler, nor Mrs. Pipkins, nor even Mrs. Merryjack. Only that conceited ‘Mister Trotman,’ as he calls himself, and his ‘under-footman,’ as he calls the lad; and three or four flirty housemaids.”

“A guinea will send them all round the other way; and then he will pester Alice all the way back. Run home, that’s a dear, you are very quick of foot; and put the lamb back yourself nine inches; and tell Jem to saddle Maggie quick as lightning, and put my hunting-crop at the green gate, and have Maggie there; and let your mother know that sudden business calls me away to Coombe Lorraine.”

“Why, papa, you quite frighten me! As if Alice could not take care of herself!”

“I have seen more of the world than you have, child. Do as I order you, and don’t argue. Stop, take the meadow way, to save making any stir in the village. I shall walk slowly, and be at the gate by the time you have the pony there.”

Cecil Hales, without another word, went out of the vestry door to a stile leading from the churchyard into a meadow, and thence by an easy gap in a hedge she got into the rectory shrubbery.

“Just my luck,” said the Rector to himself, as he took to the rambling village-street, to show himself as usual. “The two things I hate most are a row, and the ruin of a good dinner. Hashes and cold meat ever since Wednesday; and now when a real good joint is browning – oh, confound it all! – I quite forgot the asparagus – the first I have cut, and as thick as my thumb! Now if I only had Mabel Lovejoy here! I do hope they’ll have the sense not to put it on; but I can’t very well tell Jem about it; it will look so mollyish. Can I send a note in? Yes, I can. The fellow can’t read; that is one great comfort.”

No sooner said than done; he tore out the fly-leaf of his sermon, and under his text, inculcating the duty of Christian vigilance, wrote in pencil, “Whatever you do, don’t put on the asparagus.”

This he committed to the care of Jem; and then grasping his hunting-whip steadfastly, he rode up the lane, with Maggie neighing at this unaccustomed excursion. For horses know Sunday as well as men do, and a great deal better.

Struan Hales was a somewhat headlong man; as most men of kind heart, and quick but not very large understanding, are apt to be. Like most people of strong prejudices, he was also of strong impulses; for the lowest form of prejudice is not common – the abstract one, and the negative. His common sense and his knowledge of the world might have assured him that Captain Chapman would do nothing to hurt or even to offend young Alice. And yet, because he regarded Stephen with inveterate dislike, he really did for the moment believe it his duty thus to ride after him.

Meanwhile the gallant and elegant captain had done at least one thing according to the Rector’s anticipation. By laying a guinea in Trotman’s palm, he had sent all the servants home over the hill, and thus secured for himself a private walk with his charmer along the lane that winds so prettily under the high land. Now his dress was enough to win the heart of any rustic damsel, and as he passed the cottage-doors, all the children said, “Oh my!” This pleased him greatly, and could not have added less than an inch to his stature and less than a pound to the weight of his heel at each strut. This proves that he was not a thorough villain; for thorough villains attach no importance to the opinion of children.

Unaware of the enemy in advance, Alice walked through the little village, with her aunt and two cousins, as usual; and she said “Good-bye” to them at the rectory gate; knowing that they wanted to please her uncle with his early Sunday dinner. Country parsons, unless they are of a highly distinguished order, like to dine at half-past one very punctually on a Sunday. Throughout the week (when they shoot or fish, or ride to hounds, etc.) they manage to retard their hunger to five, or even six o’clock. On Sunday it is healthily otherwise. A sinking feeling begins to set in, about halfway through the sermon. And why? In an eloquent period, the parson looks round, to infect his congregation. He forgets for the moment that he is but a unit, while his hearers are an hundredfold. What happens? All humanity is, at eloquent moments, contagious, sensitive, impressible. A hundred people in the church have got their dinner coming on at one o’clock; they are thinking of it, they are dwelling on the subject; and the hundred and first, the parson himself (without knowing it, very likely, and even while seven heavens above it) receives the recoil of his own emotions, in epidemic appetite.

That may be all wrong of course, even unsacerdotal, or unscientific (until the subject is tabulated); but facts have large bones: and the fact stands thus. Alice Lorraine was aware of it, though without scent of the reason; so she kissed her aunt and cousins two – Cecil being (as hath been seen) in clerical attendance – and lightly went her homeward way. She stopped for a minute at Nanny Stilgoe’s, to receive the usual grumbling sauced with the inevitable ingratitude. And then, supposing the servants to be no very great distance before her, she took to the lonely Ashwood lane with a quick light step, as usual.

Presently she came to a place where the lane dipped suddenly into the hollow of a dry old watercourse – the course of the Woeburn, according to tradition, if anybody could believe it. There was now not a thread of open water: but a little dampness, and a crust of mud, as if some underground duct were anxious to maintain use of its right of way. By the side of the lane, an old oak-trunk (stretched high above the dip, and furnished with a broken handrail) showed that there must have been something to cross; though nobody now could remember it. In this hollow lurked the captain, placid and self-contented, and regarding with much apparent zest a little tuft of forget-me-not.

Alice, though startled for a moment by this unexpected encounter, could not help smiling at the ill-matched brilliance of her suitor’s apparel. He looked like a smaller but far more costly edition of Mr. Bottler, except that his waistcoat was of crimson taffety, with a rolling collar of lace; and instead of white stockings, he displayed gold-buttoned vamplets of orange velvet. Being loth to afford him the encouragement of a smile, the young lady turned away her face as she bowed, and with no other salutation continued her homeward course, at a pace which certainly was not slower. But Stephen Chapman came forth, and met her with that peculiar gaze which would have been insolent from a more powerful man, but as proceeding from a little dandy bore rather the impress of impudence.

“Miss Lorraine, you will not refuse me the honour of escorting you to your home. This road is lonely. There still are highway men. One was on the Brighton road last week. I took the liberty of thinking, or rather, perhaps, I should say of hoping, that you might not altogether object to a military escort.”

“Thank you,” said Alice; “you are very kind; but I have not the least fear; and our servants are not very far away, I know. They have orders to keep near me.”

“They must have mistaken your route, I think. I am rather famous for long sight; and I saw the Lorraine livery just now going up the footpath that crosses the hill.”

Alice was much perplexed at this. She by no means enjoyed the prospect of a long and secluded walk in the company of this gallant officer. And yet her courage would not allow her to retrace her steps, and cross the hill; neither could she well affront him so; for much as she disliked this man, she must treat him as any other lady would.

“I am much obliged to you, Captain Chapman,” she answered as graciously as she could; “but really no kind of escort is wanted, either military or civilian, in a quiet country road like this, where everybody knows me. And perhaps it will be more convenient for you to call on my father in the afternoon. He is always glad when you can stay to dinner.”

“No, thank you; I must dine at home to-day. I wish to see Sir Roland this morning, if I may. And surely I may accompany you on your way home; now, may I not?”

“Oh yes,” she answered with a little sigh, as there seemed to be no help for it; but she determined to make the Captain walk at a speed which should be quite a novelty to him.

“Dear me, Miss Lorraine! I had no idea that you were such a walker. Why, this must be what we call in the army ‘double-quick march’ almost. Too fast almost to keep the ranks unbroken, when we charge the enemy.”

“How very dreadful!” cried Alice, with a little grimace, which greatly charmed the Captain. “May I ask you one particular favour?”

“You can ask none,” he replied, with his hand laid on his crimson waistcoat; “or to put it more clearly, to ask a favour, is to confer a greater one.”

“How very kind you are! You know that my dear brother Hilary is in the thick of very, very sad fighting. And I thought that perhaps you would not mind (as a military escort), describing exactly how you felt when first you charged the enemy.”

“The deuce must be in the girl,” thought the Captain; “and yet she looks so innocent. It can be only an accident. But she is too sharp to be romanced with.”

“Miss Lorraine,” he answered, “I belonged to the Guards; whose duty lies principally at home. I have never been in action.”

“Oh, I understand; then you do not know what a sad thing real fighting is. Poor Hilary! We are most anxious about him. We have seen his name in the despatches; and we know that he was wounded. But neither he, nor Major Clumps (a brave officer in his regiment) has sent us a line since it happened.”

“He was first through the breach at Badajos. He has covered himself with glory.”

“We know it,” said Alice, with tears in her eyes; and for a moment she liked the Captain. “But if he has covered himself with wounds, what is the good of the glory?”

“A most sensible question,” Chapman answered, and fell once more to zero in the opinion of his charmer. With all the contempt that can be expressed by silence, when speech is expected, she kept on so briskly towards Bonny’s castle, that her suitor (who, in spite of all martial bearing, walked in the manner of a pigeon) became hard set to keep up with her.

“The view from this spot is so lovely,” he said, “I must really beg you to sit down a little. Surely we need not be in such a hurry.”

“The air is chilly, and I must not loiter. My father has a bad headache to-day. That was the reason he was not at church.”

“Then surely he can be in no hurry for his luncheon. I have so many things to say to you. And you really give me quite a pain in my side.”

“Oh, I am so sorry! I beg your pardon. I never could have thought that I was doing that. Rest a little, and you will be better.”

The complaint would have been as a joke passed over, if it had come from anybody else. But she knew that the Captain was not strong in his lungs, or his heart, or anything; therefore she allowed him to sit down, while she stood and gazed back through the Ashwood lane, fringed, and arched, and dappled by the fluttering approach of spring.

“The beautiful gazing at the beautiful!” said Chapman, with his eyes so fixed as to receive his view of the landscape (if at all) by deputy. And truly his judgment was correct. For Alice, now in perfect health, with all the grace of young vigour and the charm of natural quickness, and a lovely face, and calm eyes beaming, not with the bright uncertain blue (that flashing charm of poor Hilary), but the grand ash-coloured grey – the tint that deepens with the depth of life, and holds more love than any other – Alice, in a word, was something for a man to look at. The greatest man that ever was born of a woman, and knew what women are, as well as what a man is; the only one who ever combined the knowledge of both sexes; the one true poet of all ages (compared with whom all other poets are but shallow surfacers), Nature’s most loving and best-loved child, – even he would have looked at Alice, with those large sad loving eyes, and found her good to dwell upon.