Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

CHAPTER XLIV.
HOW TO TAKE BAD TIDINGS

After sunset, Mabel Lovejoy went a little way up the lane leading towards the Maidstone road, on the chance of meeting her father. The glow of the west glanced back from the trees, and twinkled in the hedge-rows, and clustered in the Traveller’s Joy, and here and there lay calmly waning on patches of mould that suited it. Good birds were looking for their usual roost, to hop in and out, and to talk about it, and to flap their wings and tails, until they should get sleepy. But the thrush, the latest songster now, since the riot of the nightingale, was cleaning his beak for his evensong; and a cock-robin, proud on the top of a pole, was clearing his throat, after feeding his young – the third family of the season! The bats were waiting for better light; but a great stag-beetle came out of the ivy, treading the air perpendicularly, with heavy antlers balanced.

All these things fluttered in Mabel’s heart, and made her sad, yet taught her not to dwell too much in sadness. Here were all things large and good, and going on for a thousand ages, with very little difference. When the cock-robin died, and the thrush was shot, there would be quite enough to come after them. When the leaf that glanced the sunset dropped, the bud for next year would be up in its place. Even if the trees went down before the storms of winter, fine young saplings grew between them, and would be glad of their light and air. Therefore, Mabel, weary not the ever-changing world with woe.

She did not reason thus, nor even think at all about it. From time to time she looked, and listened for her father’s galloway, and the heavy content of the summer night shed gentle patience round her. As yet she had no sense of wrong, no thought of love betrayed, nor even any dream of fickleness. Hilary was still to her the hero of all chivalry, the champion of the blameless shield, the Bayard of her life’s romance. But now he lay wounded in a barbarous land, perhaps dead, with no lover to bury him. The pointed leaves of an old oak rustled, a rabbit ran away with his scut laid down, a weasel from under a root peered out, and the delicate throat of the sensitive girl quivered with bad omens – for she had not the courage of Alice Lorraine.

Through the slur of the night wind (such as it makes in July only), and the random lifting of outer leaves – too thick to be dealt with properly – and the quivering loops of dependent danglers – who really hoped that they might sleep at last – and then the fall-away of all things from their interruption to the sweetest of all sweet relapse, and the deepest depth of quietude; Mabel heard, through all of these, the lively sound of horses’ feet briskly ringing on a rise of ground. For the moment some folly of fancy took her, so that she leaned against a gate, and would have been glad to get over it. She knew how unfit she was to meet him. At last he was coming, with her father, to her! She had not a thing on fit to look at. And he must have seen such girls in Spain! Oh, how cruel of him to come, and take her by surprise so! But perhaps after all it was herself, and not her clothes, he would care for. However, let him go on to the house – if she kept well into the gate-post – and then she might slip in, and put on her dress – the buff frock he admired so; and if it was much too large in the neck, he would know for whose sake it became so.

“What! Mabel, Mab, all out here alone; and trying to hide from her own brother!”

Gregory jumped from his horse, and caught her; and even in the waning light was frightened as she looked at him. Then she fell on his neck, and kissed and kissed him. Bitter as her disappointment was, it was something to have so dear a brother; and she had not seen him for so long, and he must have some news of Hilary. He felt her face, all wet with tears, turned up to him over and over again, and he felt how she trembled, and how slim she was, and he knew in a moment what it meant; and in his steadfast heart arose something that must have been a deep oath, but for much deeper sorrow. And then like a man he controlled it all.

“I will walk with you, darling, and lead my horse; or, father, perhaps you will take the bridle, and tell mother to be ready for us. Mab is so glad to see me that she must not be hurried over it.”

“Bless my heart!” said the Grower; “what a heap of gossip you chits of children always have. And nothing pleases you better than keeping your valued parents in the dark.”

With this little grumble he rode on, leading Gregory’s horse, and shouting back at the corner of the lane, “Now don’t be long with your confab, children; I have scarcely had a bit to eat to-day, and I won’t have my supper spoiled for you.”

Gregory thought it a very bad sign that Mabel sent no little joke after her father, as she used to do. Then he threw his firm arm around her waist, and led her homeward silently. But, even by his touch and step, she knew that there was no good news for her.

“Oh, Gregory, what is it all about?” she cried, with one hand on his shoulder, and soft eyes deeply imploring him. “You must have some message for me at last. It is so long since I had any. He is so kind, he would never leave me without any message all this time, unless – unless – ”

“He is wounded, you know; how can he write?” asked Gregory, with some irony. “Until he was wounded, how many times did I bring you fifty thousand kisses?”

“Oh, it is not that I was thinking of, though I am sure that was very nice of him. Ah, you need not be laughing, Gregory dear, as if you would not do the same to Phyllis. But do tell me what you have heard, dear brother; I can put up with anything better than doubt.”

“Are you quite sure of that, darling Mab? Can you make up your mind for some very bad news?”

“I have not been used to it, Gregory: I – I have always been so happy. Is he dead? Only say that he is not dead?”

“No, he is not dead. Sit down a moment, under this old willow, while I fetch some water for you.”

“I cannot sit down till I know the worst. If he is not dead, he is dying of his wounds. Oh my darling Hilary!”

“He is not dying; he is much better, and will soon rejoin his regiment.”

“Then why did you frighten me so, for nothing? Oh how cruel it was of you! I really thought I was going to faint – a thing I have never done in my life. You bring me the best news in the world, and you spoil it by your way of telling it.”

“Don’t be in such a hurry, darling. I wish that was all I have to tell you. But you have plenty of pride now, haven’t you?”

“I – I don’t know at all, I am sure; but I suppose I am the same as other girls.”

“If you thought that Lorraine was unworthy of you, you could make up your mind to forget him, I hope.”

“I never could do such a thing, because I never dream it of Hilary. He is my better in every way. From feeling myself unworthy of him, I might perhaps try to do without him; but as to forgetting him – never!”

“Not even if he forgot you, Mabel?”

“He cannot do it,” she answered proudly. “He has promised never to forget me. And no gentleman ever breaks a promise.”

“Then Hilary Lorraine is no gentleman. He has forgotten you; and is deeply in love with a Spanish lady.”

Kind and good brother as he was, he had told his bad news too abruptly in his indignation. Mabel looked up faintly at him; and was struck in the heart so that she could not speak. But the first of the tide of a sea of tears just moved beneath her eyelids.

“Now, come in to supper, that’s a dear,” whispered Gregory, frightened by the silent springs of sorrow. “If you are not at the table, poor darling, everything will be upside down, and everybody uncomfortable.” He spoke like a fool, confounding coarsely her essence and her instincts. And perhaps some little turn of contrast broke the seals of anguish. She looked up, and she smiled, to show her proper sense of duty; and then (without knowledge of what she did) she pressed her right hand to her heart, and leaned on a rail, and fell forward into a torrent of shameless weeping. She was as a little child once more, whose soul is overwhelmed with woe. And all along the hollow hedges went the voice of sobbing.

“Now, do shut up,” said Gregory, when he had borne it as long as a man can bear. “What is the good of it? Mabel, now, I thought you had more sense than this. After all, it may be false, you know.”

“It is not false; it is what I have felt. You would not have told me, if it had been false. It has come from some dreadfully low mean person, who spies him only too accurately.”

“Now, Mabel, you are quite out of yourself. You never did say nasty things. There is nobody spying Lorraine at all. I should doubt if he were worth it. Only it is well known in the regiment (and I had it on the best authority) that he – that he – ”

“That he does what? And is that all your authority! I am beginning to laugh at the whole of it.”

“Then laugh, my dear Mabel. I wish that you would. It is the true way of regarding such things.”

“I dare say it may be for you great men. And you think that poor women can do the same; when indeed there is nothing to laugh at. I scarcely think that you ought to suggest the idea of laughing, Gregory. The best authority, you said. Is that a thing to laugh at?”

“Well, perhaps – perhaps it was not the best authority, after all. It was only two officers of his regiment, who know my friend Capper, who lives in chambers.”

“A gentleman living in chambers, indeed, to revile poor Hilary, who has been through the wall! And two officers of his regiment! Greg, I did think that you had a little more sense.”

“Well, it seems to me pretty good evidence, Mabel. Would you rather have them of another regiment?”

“Certainly not. I am very glad that they were of poor Hilary’s regiment; because that proves they were story-tellers. There is not an officer in his own regiment that can help being jealous of him, after the noble things he has done! How dull you must be, not to see it all! I must come to the assizes, instead of you. Well, what a cry I have had, for nothing!”

“Mabel, you are a noble girl. I am sure you deserve the noblest sweetheart.”

“And I have got him,” said Mabel, smiling; “and I won’t let him go. And I won’t believe a single word against him, until he tells me that it is true himself. Do you think that he would not have written to me, even with the stump of his left hand, and said, ‘Mabel, I am tired of you; Mabel, I have seen prettier girls, and more of my own rank in life; Mabel, you must try to forget me’? When he does that, I shall cry in real earnest; and there will be no more Mabel.”

“Come in to supper, my pet,” said Gregory. And she came in to supper, with her sweet eyes shining.

CHAPTER XLV.
INNOCENCE IN NO SENSE

Near the head of a pass of the Sierra Morena, but out of the dusty track of war, there stood a noble mansion, steadfast from and to unknown ages. The Moorish origin, here and there, was boldly manifest among Spanish, French, and Italian handiwork, both of repair and enlargement. The building must have looked queer at times, with new and incongruous elements; but the summer sun and the storms of winter had enforced among them harmony. So that now this ancient castle of the Counts of Zamora was a grand and stately pile in tone, as well as height and amplitude.

The position also had been chosen well; for it stood near the line of the watershed, commanding northward the beautiful valley of the Guadiana, and southward the plains of the Guadalquivir; so that, as the morning mists rolled off, the towers of Merida might be seen, and the high ground above Badajos; while far on the opposite skyline flashed the gilt crosses of Cordova; and sometimes, when the distance lifted, a glimpse was afforded of the sunbeams quivering over Seville. And here, towards the latter end of August, 1812, Hilary Lorraine was a guest, and all his wishes law – save one.

The summer had been unusually hot, even for the south of Spain; and a fifth part of the British army was said to be in hospital. This may have been caused in some degree by their habits of drinking and plundering; which even Lord Wellington declared himself unfit to cope with. To every division of his army he appointed twenty provost-marshals; whereas two hundred would not have been enough to hang these heroes punctually. The patriotic Spaniards also could not see why they should not have some comfort from their native land. Therefore they overran it well, with bands of fine fellows of a warlike cast, and having strong tendencies towards good things; and these were of much use to the British, not only by stopping the Frenchmen’s letters, but also by living at large and gratis, so that the British, who sometimes paid, became white sheep by the side of them.

One of the fiercest of these Guerillas – or “Partidas,” as they called themselves – was the notorious Mina; and for lieutenant he had a man of lofty birth, and once good position, a certain Don Alcides d’Alcar, a nephew of the Count of Zamora.

This man had run through every real of a large inheritance, and had slain many gentlemen in private brawls; and his country was growing too hot to hold him, when the French invasion came. The anarchy that ensued was just the very thing to suit him; and he raised a small band of uncertain young fellows, and took to wild life in the mountains. At first they were content to rob weak foreigners without escort; but thriving thus and growing stronger, very soon they enlarged their views. And so they improved, from year to year, in every style of plunder; and being authorized by the Juntas, and favoured by British generals, did harm on a large scale to their country; and on a much smaller scale, to the French.

Hilary had heard from Camilla much about Alcides d’Alcar; but Claudia had never spoken of him – only blushing proudly when the patriot’s name was mentioned. Camilla said that he was a man of extraordinary size and valour; enough to frighten anybody, and much too large to please her. And here she glanced at Hilary softly, and dropped her eyes, in a way to show that he was of the proper size to please her – if he cared to know it. He did not care a piastre to know it; but was eager about Alcides. “Oh, then, you had better ask Claudia,” Camilla replied, with a sisterly look of very subtle import; and Claudia, with her proud walk, passed, and glanced at them both disdainfully.

Now the victory of Salamanca, and his sorry absence thence, and after that the triumphant entry of the British into Madrid (although they were soon turned out again), began to work in Hilary’s mind, and make him eager to rejoin. Three weeks ago he had been reported almost fit to do so, and had been ready to set forth; but Spanish ladies are full of subtlety, and Camilla stopped him. A cock of two lustres had been slain in some of the outer premises; and old Teresina stole down in the night, and behold, in the morning, the patient’s wound had most evidently burst forth again. Hilary was surprised, but could not doubt the testimony of his eyes; neither could the licentiate of medicine now attending him.

But now in the breath of the evening breeze, setting inland from the Atlantic, Lorraine was roving for the last time in the grounds of Monte Argento. At three in the morning he must set forth, with horses provided by his host, on his journey to head-quarters. The Count was known as a patriotic, wise, and wealthy noble, both of whose sons were fighting bravely in the Spanish army; and through his influence Lorraine had been left to hospitality instead of hospitals, which in truth had long been overworked. But Major Clumps had returned to his duty long ago, with a very sore heart, when he found from the Donna Camilla that “she liked him very much indeed, but could never induce herself to love him.” With the sharp eye of jealousy, that brave Major spied in Hilary the cause of this, and could not be brought to set down his name any more in his letters homeward; or at any rate, not for a very long time.

Lorraine, in the calm of this summer evening, with the heat-clouds moving eastward, and the ripple of refreshment softly wooing the burdened air, came to a little bower, or rather a natural cove of rock and leaf, wherein (as he knew) the two fair sisters loved to watch the eventide weaving hill and glen with shadow, before the rapid twilight waned. There was something here that often brought his native Southdowns to his mind, though the foliage was so different. Instead of the rich deep gloss of the beech, the silvery stir of the aspen-tree, and the feathery droop of the graceful birch, here was the round monotony of the olive and the lemon-tree, the sombre depth of the ilex, and the rugged lines of the cork-tree, relieved, it is true, just here and there by the symmetry of the silver fir, and the elegant fan of the palm. But what struck Lorraine, and always irked him under these southern trees and skies, was the way in which the foliage cut its outline over sharply; there was none of that hovering softness, and sweetly fluctuating margin, by which a tree inspires affection as well as admiration.

Unluckily now Lorraine had neither affection nor admiration left for the innocent beauty of nature’s works. His passion for Claudia was become an overwhelming and noxious power – a power that crushed for the time and scattered all his better elements. He had ceased to be light-hearted, and to make the best of everything, to love the smiles of children, and to catch a little joke and return it. He had even ceased to talk to himself, as if his conscience had let him know that he was not fit to be talked to. All the waking hours he passed, in the absence of his charmer, were devoted to the study of Spanish; and he began to despise his own English tongue. “There is no melody in it, no rhythm, no grand sonorous majesty,” he used to complain; “it is like its owners, harsh, uncouth, and countrified.” After this, what can any one do but pity him for his state of mind?

Whether Claudia returned his passion – for such it was rather than true affection – was still a very doubtful point, though the most important in all the world. Generally she seemed to treat him with a pleased contempt, as if he were a pleasant boy, though several years older than herself. Her clear dark eyes were of such a depth that, though she was by no means chary of their precious glances, he had never been able to reach that inmost light which comes from the very heart. How different from somebody’s – of whom he now thought less and less, and vainly strove to think no more, because of the shame that pierced him! But if this Spanish maiden really did not care about him, why did she try, as she clearly did, to conquer and subdue him? Why did she shoot such glances at him as Spanish eyes alone can shoot; why bend her graceful neck so sweetly, slope her delicate head so gently, showing the ripe firm curve of cheek, and with careless dancings let her raven hair fall into his? Hilary could not imagine why; but poor Camilla knew too well. If ever Camilla felt for a moment the desirability of any one, Claudia (with her bolder manners, and more suddenly striking beauty, and less dignified love of conquest) might be relied upon to rush in and attract the whole attention.

Hilary found these lovely sisters in their little cove of rock, where the hot wind seldom entered through the fringe of hanging frond. They had a clever device of their own for welcoming the Atlantic breeze, by means of a silken rope which lifted all the screen of fern, and creeper, and of grey rock-ivy.

Now the screen was up, and the breeze flowed in, meeting a bright rill bubbling out (whose fountain was in the living rock), and the clear obscurity was lit with forms as bright as poetry. Camilla’s comely head had been laid on the bosom of her sister, as if she had made some soft appeal for mercy or indulgence there. And Claudia had been moved a little, as the glistening of her eyelids showed, and a tender gleam in her expression – the one and the only thing required to enrich her brilliant beauty. And thus, without stopping to think, she came up to Hilary, with a long kind glance, and gave a little sigh, worth more than even that sweet glance to him.

“Alas! dear Captain,” she said in Spanish, which Hilary was quite pat with now; “we have been lamenting your brief departure. How shall we live when you are lost?”

“What cruelty of yourselves to think! The matter of your inquiry should be the chance of my survival.”

“Well said!” she exclaimed. “You English are not so very stupid after all. Why do you not clap your hands, Camilla?”

Camilla, being commanded thus, made a weak attempt with her little palms; but her heart was down too low for any brisk concussion of flesh or air.

“I believe, Master Captain,” said Claudia, throwing herself gracefully on a white bull’s hide – shaped as a chair on the slopes of moss – “that you are most happy to make your escape from this long and dull imprisonment. Behold, how little we have done for you, after all the brave things you have done for us!”

“Ah, no,” said Camilla, gazing sadly at the “captain,” who would not gaze at her; “it is true that we have done but little. Yet, Senhor, we meant our best.”

“Your kindness to me has been wonderful, magnificent,” answered Hilary. “The days I have passed under your benevolence have been the happiest of my life.”

Hereupon Camilla turned away, to hide her tenderness of tears. But Claudia had no exhibition, except a little smile to hide.

“And will you come again?” she asked. “Will you ever think of us any more, in the scenes of your grand combats, and the fierce delight of glory?”

“Is it possible for me to forget” – began Hilary, in his noblest Spanish – “your constant care of a poor stranger, your never-fatigued attention to him, and thy – thy saving of his life? To thee I owe my life, and will at any moment render it.”

This was a little too much for Camilla, who really had saved him; and being too young to know how rarely the proper person gets the praise, she gathered up her things to go.

“Darling Claudia,” she exclaimed, “I can do nothing at all without my little silver spinetta. This steel thing is so rusty that it fills my work with canker. You know the danger of rusty iron, Claudia; is it not so?”

“She is cross,” said Claudia, as her sister with gentle dignity left the cove. “What can have made her so cross to-day?”

“The saints are good to me,” Hilary answered, little suspecting the truth of the case: “they grant me the chance of saying what I have long desired to say to you.”

“To me, Senhor!” cried the maiden, displaying a tremulous glow in her long black eyes, and managing to blush divinely, and then in the frankness of her nature caring not to conceal a sigh. “It cannot be to me, Senhor!”

“To you – to you, of all the worlds, of all the heavens, and all the angels!” The fervent youth fell upon his knees before his lovely idol, and seized the hand she began to press to her evidently bounding heart, and drew her towards him, and thought for the moment that she was glad to come to him. Then, in his rapture, he stroked aside her loose and deliciously fragrant hair, and waited, with all his heart intent, for the priceless glance – to tell him all. But, strongly moved as she was, no doubt, by his impassioned words and touch, and the sympathy of youthful love, she kept her oval eyelids down, as if she feared to let him see the completion of his conquest. Then, as he fain would have had her nearer, and folded in his eager arms, she gently withdrew, and turned away; but allowed him to hear one little sob, and to see tears irrepressible.

“You loveliest of all lovely beings,” began Lorraine, in very decent Spanish, such as herself had taught him; “and at the same time, you best and dearest – ”

“Stop, Senhor,” she whispered, gazing sadly, and then playfully, at this prize of her eyes and slave of her lips; “I must not allow you to say so much. You will leave us to-morrow, and forget it all. What is the use of this fugitive dream?”

Hereupon the young soldier went through the usual protestations of truth, fidelity, devotion, and eternal memory; so thoroughly hurried and carried away, that he used in another tongue the words poured forth scarcely a year ago to a purer, truer, and nobler love.

“Alas!” the young Donna now mimicked, in voice and attitude, some deserted one; “to how many beautiful English maidens have these very noble words been used! You cavaliers are all alike. I will say no more to you now, brave captain; the proof of truth is not in words, but in true and devoted actions. You know our proverb – ‘The cork is noisiest when it leaves the bottle.’ If you would have me bear you in mind, you must show that you remember me.”

“At the cost of my life, of my good repute, of all that I have in the world, or shall have, of everything but my hope of you.”

“I shall remember these words, my captain; and perhaps I shall put them to the test some day.” She gave him her soft and trembling hand, and he pressed it to his lips, and sought to impress a still more loving seal; but she said “Not yet, not yet, oh beloved one!” Or whether she said “oh enamoured one!” he could not be quite certain. And before he could do or say anything more, she had passed from his reach, and was gliding swiftly under the leafy curtain of that ever-sacred bower. “She is mine, she is mine!” cried young Lorraine, as he caught up the velvet band of her hair, and covered it with kisses, and then bestowed the same attentions on the white bull-skin, where her form had lain. “The loveliest creature ever seen is mine! What can I have done to deserve her?”

While he lay in the ecstasy of his triumph, the loveliest creature ever seen stole swiftly up a rocky path, beset with myrtle and cornel-wood, and canopied with climbers. After some intricate turns, and often watching that no one followed her, she came to the door of a little hut embosomed in towering chestnut-trees. The door was open, and a man of great stature was lounging on a couch too short for his legs, and smoking a cigar of proportions more judiciously adapted to his own. Near one of his elbows stood a very heavy carbine, and a sword three-quarters of a fathom long; and by his other hand lay a great pitcher empty and rolled over.

As the young Donna’s footfall struck his ears, he leaped from his couch, and cocked his gun; then, recognizing the sound, replaced it, and stood indolently at his door.

“At last, you are come then!” he said, with an accent decidedly of the northern provinces (not inborn, however, but caught from comrades); “I thought that you meant to let me die of thirst. You forget that I have lost the habit of this execrable heat.”

Claudia looked up at her cousin Don Alcides d’Alcar – or, as he loved to be called, “the great Brigadier” – with a very different gaze from any poor Hilary could win of her. To this man alone the entire treasures of her heart were open; for him alone her glorious eyes no longer sparkled, flashed, or played with insincere allurements; but beamed and shone with depths of light, and profusion of profoundest love.

“Darling,” she said, as she stood on tiptoe, and sweetly pacified him; “I have laboured in vain to come sooner to you. Your commands took a long time to execute. You men can scarcely understand such things. And that tiresome Camilla hung about me; I thought my occasion would never arrive. But all has gone well: he is my slave for ever.”

“You did not allow him to embrace you, I trust?” Before he could finish his scowl, she stopped his mouth, and reassured him.

“Is it to be imagined? A miserable shaveling Briton!” But, though she looked so indignant, she knew how near she had been to that ignominy.

“You are as clever as you are lovely,” answered the Brigadier, well pleased. “But I die of thirst, my beloved one. Fly swiftly to Teresina’s store; for I dare not venture till the night has fallen. Would that you could manage your father, as you wind those striplings round your spindle!”

For the Count of Zamora had given orders that his precious nephew should be shot, if ever found upon land of his. So Claudia took the empty pitcher to fetch another half-skin of wine, as well as some food, for the great Brigadier; and, having performed this duty, met the infatuated Hilary, for the last time, at her father’s board. She wished him good night, and good-bye, with a glance of deep meaning and kind encouragement; while the fair Camilla bent over his hand, and then departed to her chamber, with full eyes and an empty heart.