Under the Red Dragon: A Novel
terrible wail to heaven, that "the angel of Death had come!" This
veteran soldier, who had carried the colours of the 9th Regiment under
Moore at Corunna, looked old now, worn, and service-stricken, yet he
had the wars of the Indian Mutiny before him still. By his side rode
the hero of Kars in artillery uniform, and that brilliant Hussar
officer, the Earl of Cardigan, mounted on the same horse he had ridden
at Balaclava. The royal stand, as yet empty, was elaborately
decorated; gilded chairs of state were placed within it; and in front,
covered with scarlet cloth, was a table whereon lay sixty-two of those
black crosses, cast from Russian cannon, rude in design, but named
after her Majesty, and inscribed "For Valour"--sixty-two being the
number who, on that day, were to receive them.
We, "the observed of all observers," had not as yet fallen in, so I
lingered near the stand, where Winifred, Dora, and Gwenny Vaughan, and
many other ladies were seated, and seeking, by the aid of parasol and
fan, to shield themselves from the heat of the sun, and using their
lorgnettes freely in looking for friends among the crowd, and in
watching the proceedings, chatting and laughing gaily the while, with
all the freedom of happy and heedless girls; for the troops were
"standing at ease," and her Majesty had not yet come. Winifred was
looking charming in her bridal bonnet, charming amid the loveliest
women in the world--and they were there by thousands; for she had the
beauty of perfect goodness, and of the purest and gentlest attributes
of woman-kind; for she was an artless and generous creature, too
simpleminded at times, even in this cold-blooded and well-bred age, to
have the power of concealing her emotions.
I wore my old and faded red coat of the Welsh Fusileers for the _last_
time; and though there was something sad in the conviction that it was
so, I never felt so proud of it, or of my looped-up sleeve, as on that
day in Hyde Park. I felt that my occupation was gone, and that any
other was unsuited to me, for "it is the speciality of a soldier's
career, that it unfits most men for any other life. They cannot throw
off the old habitudes. They cannot turn from the noisy stir of war to
the tame quiet of every-day life; and even when they fancy themselves
wearied and worn out, and willing to retire from the service, their
souls are stirred by every sound of the distant contest, as the
war-steed is roused by the blast of a trumpet." Often in fancy before
this, for I was ever addicted to daydreams, I had pictured some such
fête, some such ceremony, some such reward, for all our army had
endured in Bulgaria, and done by the shores of the Black Sea; but the
reality far exceeded all I had ever imagined. In my school-days, how I
had longed, with all a boy's ardour, to fight for my country and
Queen! Well, I _had_ fought--not for either, certainly, but for the
lazy, wretched, and contemptible Turks--and her royal hand was about
to reward me, by placing an order on my breast.
The longing, the wild desire to achieve, to do something great, or
grand, or dashing, had ever since those school-boy days been mine; now
that mysterious "something" was achieved, and I was about to be made a
V.C. before that vast multitude, and more than all, beneath the soft
kind eyes of one who loved me more than all the world.
"Who the dooce is that handsome woman, on whom----" (I failed to catch
the name) "of ours is so devilish spooney?" I heard one tall Plunger,
in a marvellously new panoply, lisp to another, as he checked his
beautiful black horse for a moment in passing.
"What! can it be possible you don't know? It is the talk of all town,"
replied the other, laughing, and in a low tone; "she is Lady
Aberconway, old Pottersleigh's wife--a more ill-mated pair don't exist
in Europe, by Jove!"
"So she has found consolation?"
"Rather."
And the two glittering warriors with black boots, shining
breastplates, and fly-away whiskers, winked to each other knowingly,
and separated.
I looked in the direction they had indicated. Close by me an officer
of the Oxford Blues, with his horse reined in close to the stand, was
engaged in a conversation, by turns gay and animated, or low and
confidential, with--Estelle! She was seated near her mother, Lady
Naseby, who looked as impassible and passionless as ever, with her
cold and imperious dignity of face and manner, and her odious white
shock, now somewhat aged and wheezy, in her lap.
"Love," it is said, "is hard as any snake to kill." Perhaps so; but I
could regard her daughter now without any special throb of my pulse,
or thrill in my heart.
Still I could not but confess that her high class of beauty, in style,
polish, and finish, was wonderful, and when in repose, cold and
aristocratic to a degree. She had achieved already that which has been
justly described as "that queenly standard women so often attain after
marriage, while losing none of their early charms," unless I except a
little heartless flippancy of manner in the conversation, which, as I
was pressed near her by the crowd, I was compelled to overhear. Her
toilette was as perfect as lace, tulle, and flowers could make it. How
often had I gazed tenderly and passionately on that face, so false and
yet so fair, and kissed it on lips, and eyes, and cheek! and now it
was turned, smilingly, laughingly, and, I am sorry to add, lovingly,
to the boyish and insipid face of that long-legged, curled, and
pomatumed Guardsman, who had "never set a squadron in the field," nor
smelt powder elsewhere than at Wormwood Scrubs or Bushey Park.
I turned from her with something of sublime contempt, and yet, odd to
say, I felt a nervous twinge, as if in the arm that was now no longer
in my sleeve, when her voice reached me; but after all that had come
and gone, that voice could find no echo now in my heart. Sweetly
modulated it was still, but seemed to me only "low and clear as the
song of a snake-charmer."
"It will be the ball of the season--you will be there, of course?" she
asked.
"Only if _you_ go, Lady Aberconway--not unless," replied the trooper,
in a low tone; "what or who else should take me there?"
"So they have made your uncle a K.C.B."
"Yes--and somebody is going to marry him on Tuesday at eleven in
Hanover-square."
"And your brother is coming up for his little exam. I have heard
also."
"Yes--at Woolwich. The idea of any fellow fancying the Artillery!"
"Is he handsome--is he anything like _you?_" Then, without waiting for
a reply to these important queries, she suddenly said, "Gracious,
mamma, there is another poor creature without an arm!"
"Poor deyvil--so there is," drawled her male friend, and then I knew
by these flattering remarks that their august regards were turned on
me; but my bushy Crimean beard, my empty sleeve, and, as yet, rather
pale cheek, and moreover my face being half averted, prevented Estelle
from recognising me; or it might be, that I dwelt but little in her
memory.
"What is that officer's regiment?" she asked, adding doubtfully, "he
is an officer, isn't he--but his uniform is deplorable!"
"Twenty-third--Welsh Fusileers."
"Ah, indeed!"
I now turned fully round; for a moment our eyes met, and then I moved
back to where Winifred sat. Estelle eyed me keenly enough now, and
fanned herself, as I thought, with a little air of vexation, from time
to time. Yet that was not flattering; for I knew that though a woman
may forget, she does not like the idea of being forgotten, or that
even when flirting with another, her empire over an old lover's heart
is at an end.
She had deteriorated in style, and her tone of flippancy was not that
of the Estelle I had once loved; and as for the boy Guardsman, with
whom gossip was already linking her name, poor fool! his love for her
and her extravagance soon ruined him. Bills were dishonoured thick and
threefold; cent. per cent., London, and Judea between them cleaned him
out. A meeting of the Guards' Club passed such resolutions that he was
compelled to begin the sliding scale--from "the Guards to Line, and
from thence to the devil," as the phrase is--and to recruiting for
H.M. 2nd West India Regiment in Sierra Leone, where drink and fever
finished him; and he lies now by the bank of the Bunce river, as
completely forgotten by Estelle as if he never had been.
"Do you see who is there, Harry?" asked Winifred, with a rather
agitated voice.
"Yes; what of it, little one?"
"Only that I--hate her!"
"Why?"
"For her treatment of you."
"How odd!" said I, laughing; "had it been otherwise, Winny, we should
not have had our delightful little trip to Brighton. Think of that, my
British matron!"
"I am not a matron yet, but only your bride; the honeymoon is not yet
over, sir."
"Thank God you are so, darling! What an escape I have had from being
in old Pottersleigh's place! But there sound the trumpets, and I must
fall in--fall in for the last time."
And as drum and bugle sounded on all sides, and the arms flashed in
the sunshine when the order was given to "shoulder," a brightness
seemed to pass over all the eyes and expectant faces in the grand
stand. The Queen had come, and all that passed subsequently was like a
dream to me then, and is more so now. The sixty-two officers and men
who were to receive the cross (and twelve of whom belonged to the
navy) were all, irrespective of rank, marshalled according to the
number of their regiment under Lieutenant John Knox, of the Rifles,
who, like myself, had an empty sleeve. The braided breast of his
dark-green uniform seemed ablaze with medals, for he had been with the
ladder party in the attack on the Redan, where he lost an arm by a
grape-shot. There were but two officers of the 23rd to win the
decoration, and we were posted between two privates of the 19th, and
two of the 34th; but all passed the royal stand in single file. I had
never seen the Queen hitherto, and suddenly I found myself before
her--a smiling-faced, graceful, though stout little lady, in a low
hat, adorned with a beautiful plume, and wearing a scarlet tunic and
blue skirt; and I certainly felt my heart vibrate, as with her own
hands she pinned the decoration on my breast--vibrate with a flush of
pride and joy only to be felt at such a time and at such a ceremony;
and yet amid it all I thought of the dear little wife who, with her
eyes dim with tears of happiness, was watching me. I then passed on,
giving place to a lame private of the 34th Foot, the Prince Consort
saluting each recipient as they passed him--many slowly, painfully,
and with difficulty; for some poor maimed and haggard-faced fellows
were hobbling on sticks and crutches, and some, like the gallant Sir
Thomas Trowbridge, who had lost both legs, were wheeled to the very
feet of the Queen in Bath-chairs. At last all was over--this closing
episode of our war in the Crimea; and as we drove from the crowded
park to get the train for Brighton--the honeymoon was not yet
finished--I had forgotten all about Estelle and her Plunger; and I
thanked God in my heart that I was not lying where so many lay in the
land we had left, and for the tender and true-hearted wife He had
given me, as I laughingly hung round her pretty neck the black-iron
order of valour--the Victoria Cross.
Fifteen years have passed since that auspicious day. And now, as I
write these closing lines, I can see, through the lozenged and
mullioned windows of the library, the old woods of Craigaderyn tossing
their leafy branches on the evening wind, and the sunset lingering
redly on the lofty peaks of Snowdon and Carneydd Llewellyn. Old Sir
Madoc--too old now to back even his most favourite hunter--is sitting
yonder in the sunshine, looking dreamily down the far-stretched vista