One of the Six Hundred: A Novel
away from the present time and circumstances.
The prospect of "satisfaction," as it is termed, even in the unusual
mode in which it was to be obtained, and though deferred, soothed me;
but how was I circumstanced with Louisa? She believed me untrue to her!
I was still under the false colours in which the artful Berkeley had
contrived to show me.
My ring was returned, and though I still wore hers, our engagement
seemed to be silently, tacitly broken; her miniature I would look upon
no more--its features filled me with rage and torture.
Over the day which followed my last unlucky visit to the cottage near
the Reculvers I shall gladly hurry. Ordering my horse--the black
cover-hack with the white star on its counter--I was about to start for
a ride, before mess, towards Ashford, when Pitblado placed in my hand
two notes, which had just come by post. On one I recognised the
handwriting of Cora; on the other the coronet and monogram of the
Countess of Chillingham! My heart leaped to my head, and I tore open
the latter first.
It was simply a card of invitation in the usual form--the Earl and
Countess of Chillingham requested the honour of Captain Norcliff's
company at a friendly dinner, at eight o'clock on the evening of the
20th inst.--only three days hence, so the time was brief; but then we
were under orders of readiness, and everywhere troops--horse, foot, and
artillery--were pouring towards Southampton and other places for
embarkation. The note concluded by mentioning that Sir Nigel Calderwood
was expected from Scotland.
The invitation was perplexing; but I reflected that the earl and
Countess were alike ignorant of the relations that had existed between
their daughter and me, and the sharp wrench by which those tender
relations had been so suddenly broken.
I could not refuse; and if I accepted, how was I to meet Louisa? And
now, what said Cora?
Her dear little note was brief and rapid, but explained all, and more
than I could have hoped for. Miss Agnes Auriol, on seeing the false
position in which Berkeley had contrived to place me, had generously
transmitted, last night, by her old nurse, all the letters she possessed
of Mr. Berkeley, and these had served completely to explain her
relations with him, and to exonerate me, affording a complete clue to
what had already excited their suspicion and surprise--Berkeley's
intimate knowledge of the cottage, and the strange fact of his
possessing a latch-key for it.
"Louisa knows everything, and now believes that she has been too
precipitate;" so ran the note. "Restore her ring when you meet, and I
shall tell you a great deal when we see you here. It is Louisa's
request that you meet her as if nothing had taken place. Will you
believe it, that yesterday morning, before that horrid scene occurred,
Berkeley had actually proposed to her in form, and been
rejected--rejected, dear Newton, and for you? (This part of the note
was singularly blurred, blotted, and ill-expressed for Cora.) I need
not tell you to make yourself pleasant, for papa is expected, and Lord
Slubber is to be here."
A postscript added that the packet of letters had been returned to the
cottage that morning by a servant--but he found the place locked up, and
the inmates gone, none could tell him whither; so, in this dilemma, they
had been posted to Berkeley himself, at Maidstone barracks.[*]
[*] When serving in the East, a paragraph in a Welsh newspaper recorded
the death of Agnes Auriol in the parish where her father had been
incumbent. She was found dead at the stile which led to the village
burying-ground; and the verdict of the jury was "Death by the visitation
of God."
I answered the notes, gave them to Pitblado to post, and turned along
the Ashford Road like one in a dream, letting the reins drop on my
horse's neck, and having ample food for serious reflection and mature
consideration; for all these meetings, communications, and passages so
momentous to me had been crammed into the short space of barely two
days.
There were yet three days to pass before I should again see Louisa, hear
her voice, and be gladdened by her smile.
Three days were a short invitation to a fashionable household, even to
an officer in country quarters, but they seemed three centuries to me.
I felt, too, that I never enjoyed Louisa's society less than amid her
own family circle. True, my name was not recorded in Douglas, Debrett,
or any other _libre d'or_ of Scottish or English nobility, but I was not
the less a gentleman, and my whole soul fired up--almost with red
republicanism--at the cool bearing usually assumed towards me by my Lady
Chillingham.
A few hours since, the idea of being made a mark for a Muscovite bullet,
or a Cossack lance, had not been a matter of much moment; now that the
cloud had dispersed, that I knew Louisa loved me still--now that I felt
once more all the witchery with which the love of such a girl can
enhance existence--now that the sweet dream was no longer, as it had
been at Calderwood, a mere dream, but a delicious reality--I came to the
conclusion that war was an impertinent bore, glory a delusion and a
snare, Mars and Bellona a couple of humbugs--the former a rowdy, and the
latter no better than she should be.
I can really assure the reader that I would have borne the intelligence
of a sudden peace with great Christian fortitude and perfect equanimity
of mind; and had it pleased the Emperor Nicholas and the Western Powers
to shake hands, and leave unmolested the Crimea and the "sick man" at
Stamboul, certainly none would have blessed their quiet intentions more
than I, Newton Norcliff.
But fate had ordained it otherwise; and, like the Roman senator, their
"voice was still for war!"
The eventful evening of the "20th instant" saw me ushered into the
drawing-room at Chillingham Park, and on this occasion I went in full
uniform, knowing well that it enhances the interest with which one is
viewed, in times when the atmosphere is so redolent of gunpowder, as it
certainly was at this period of my story; and when one is made up--
By youth, by love, and by an army tailor,
the impression is generally favourable.
Circumstances fluttered me, and it was not without an unwonted emotion
of confusion I made my way among ottomans, buhl tables, and
glass-shades, and seeming to see in the reflecting mirrors at least one
hundred figures in lancer uniform traversing the vast perspectives.
Even the usual cold and haughty countess received me with cordiality
(she was soon to be rid of me for ever, perhaps). Lord Chillingham, a
dignified old peer, whom it is difficult to describe, as there was an
absence of characteristics, and nothing remarkable about him, save the
extreme length of his white waistcoat, met me with the polite and
pleasing warmth he accorded to all whom he cared nothing about.
Cora hurried forward to meet me, looking, I thought, very pale, and not
very becomingly dressed--in deep dark blue silk, with black lace
flounces--and beyond her I saw Lady Louisa. When I approached the
latter, my temples throbbed painfully, and I played nervously with the
tassels of my gold sash, like a raw boy who had just reported his having
joined.
She was calm, collected, and grave--fashionably, painfully so--but then
your well-bred Britons do so hate a scene that they have learned the art
of keeping every emotion under the most complete control, relaxing the
curb only when it suits themselves.
Save Cora, who witnessed our smiling and pleasant meeting, our suave
exchange of bows, and a slight pressure of the hand, none could have
read the thoughts that filled our eyes and hearts, and still less could
they have imagined the stormy adieux of the other evening. The diamond
drops that glittered in Louisa's eyes as she met me did not run over;
but were absorbed by her thick dark lashes, as she closed them for an
instant, and then looked down. She was simply dressed in white silk,
with diamond ornaments, and strings of pearls among the braids of her
magnificent black hair.
"I invited your friend, Mr. De Warr Berkeley, for the evening," said the
countess, "but the invitation, I fear, was too short, and unfortunately,
he pleaded a pre-engagement."
At that moment a bright and intelligent smile flashed in Louisa's eye.
In fact, the whole of the late affair was known only to the actors
therein--unless I included Beverley and Studhome.
"Captain Calderwood Norcliff--my Lord Slubber," said the earl, as he led
me forward to an old gentleman, who was stooping over the chair of the
countess, with whom he was smiling and conversing in a polite monotone.
"Ah--indeed--have much pleasure," said this personage, bowing, with a
broad conventional smile, and giving two of his withered fingers; "any
relation of Sir Nigel Calderwood?"
"His nephew."
"De-lighted to see you, my dear sir. Sir Nigel is here--arrived this
morning."
"We but wait his appearance for dinner; our party is small, as you see,
Captain Norcliff," said the countess, who was certainly still beautiful,
being a larger, older, and more stately version of Louisa, and a
powdered toupee would well have suited her face and stature.
Amid vapid discussions or desultory remarks about the probabilities of
the war, the weather, and the crops, with my Lord Aberdeen's suspicious
policy--ante-dinner remarks--while my eyes from time to time sought
those of Louisa, I studied the aspect of my wealthy rival, who, little
suspecting the secret of my heart, had immediately engaged me in
conversation.
Lord Slubber was not so tall as he had been; his features, though finely
cut, were somewhat flabby now, and had become a mass of undoubted
wrinkles, yet he had been deemed "the handsomest man of his day," a
period on which we shall not venture to speculate. The veteran roue
considered himself "a lively dog" yet, and hoped to achieve conquests.
Thus his teeth were a brilliant triumph of art over nature, and though
his head was bare and smooth as a billiard-ball, his pendulous cheeks
wore a delicate little pink hue there could be no doubt about.
His face, with its long, aristocratic nose, somewhat prominent chin, and
receding forehead, and his perpetual simpering smile, reminded one of
the portraits of Beau Nash, and made one fancy how well he would have
suited the powder and ruffles, the bagwig and small-sword of the early
days of George III., rather than the odious black swallow-tail and
waiter-like costume of the present age.
And this garrulous old beau--this "lean and slippered pantaloon"--was
the descendant and representative of the great Norman line of Slobar de
Gullion, who had hamstrung the Saxon Kerne in the New Forest, extracted
the grinders of the sons of Judah; who had made their mark (as an Irish
navvy might do) at Magna Charta, and ridden in all their ironmongery in
Edward's ranks at Bannockburn, and in Henry's at Agincourt.
My satisfaction in finding myself still the lover of Louisa, and again
the guest of her father, was somewhat dashed by the presence of this, in
some respects, formidable rival, who, as the countess informed me in a
whisper, was about to be created a marquis for his zealous support of
Lord Aberdeen's administration, and was to be decorated with the Garter,
of which the Emperor Nicholas had just been deprived.
I muttered something by way of reply, and Lady Louisa, who was seated
near us on an ottoman, said, laughingly, behind her fan--
"A marquis and K.G. Oh, mamma, such an old quiz it is! But, only
imagine, he has been proposing to take us all, and Cora, too, in his
yacht to Constantinople--or even to the Black Sea, if we wish it."
"How kind of him."
"She carries brass guns, and he believes he may assist Admiral Lyons, if
necessary."