Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

Now, by the time that our British soldiers had finished their sack of Badajos – which took them three days, though they did their best – and were beginning to be all laid up (in spite of their iron trim and training) by their own excesses, Lorraine was able to turn in his bed, and to pay a tender heed to things. He began to want some sort of change from the never-wearying, but sometimes wearisome, tendence of old Teresina, whose rugged face and pointed cap would dwell in his dreams for ever. Of course he was most grateful to her, and never would forget her kindness. Still he longed for a sight of somebody else; ugly or beautiful he cared not – only let it be some other face. And his wish was granted, as generally happened, and sometimes only too graciously.

Our very noble public schools and ancient universities know, and always have known, how to educate young people. From long experience, they are well aware that all languages are full of mischief; and a man who desires that element finds it almost wherever he pleases. So that our authorities did well to restrict themselves to the grand old form, and the distance of two thousand years. Hence, as a matter of course, poor Hilary had not learned, either at school or college, even one irregular verb of the fine pervasive and persuasive language of all languages. To put it more simply, he could not speak French. In print he could follow it, off and on (as most men, with Latin to lead them, can); but from live lips it was gibberish to him, as even at this day it is to nine and a half out of ten good Britons.

And now, when suddenly a soft rich voice came over his shoulder (just turned once more in great disgust from the dreary door) and asked, in very good French indeed, “How do you carry yourself, sir?” Hilary was at a pinch to answer, “Most well, a thousand thanks, most well.” And after this Anglo-Gallic triumph, he rolled on his bandages very politely (in spite of all orders to the contrary) to see who it was, and to look at her.

Even in the gloom of the shaded windows, and of his own enfeebled sight, he could not help receiving an impression of wondrous beauty – a beauty such as it is not good for any young man to gaze upon, unless he is of a purely steadfast heart, and of iron self-control. And Hilary was not of either of these, as himself and his best friends knew too well.

The Count of Zamora’s younger daughter, Claudia de Montalvan, was of Andalusian birth, and more than Andalusian beauty. Form, and bloom, and brilliant change, and harmony, and contrast, with the charm of soft expression, and the mysterious power of large black eyes – to all of these, in perfection, add the subtle grace of high lineage, and the warmth of southern nature, and it must be confessed that the fairest English maid, though present in all her beauty, would find a very dangerous rival.

“I quite forgot,” said the senhorita, approaching the bed with most graceful movement, and fixing her radiant eyes on poor Hilary – “there is one thing, sir, that I quite forgot. My good father will not allow French to be spoken by any child of his. He is so patriotic! What a pity, since you speak French so well!”

Hilary took some time to make out this. Then, knowing how barbarous his accent was, he weakly endeavoured with his languid eyes to pierce the depth of the Spanish maiden’s, and learn whether she were laughing at him. Neither then, nor afterwards, when his sight was as keen again as ever, did he succeed in penetrating the dark profundity of those bright eyes.

“How shall we manage it?” the young lady continued, dropping her long curved lashes, and slightly flushing under his steadfast gaze. “You cannot speak the Spanish, I fear, not even so well as the droll old senhor, who makes us laugh so much downstairs. On the contrary, I cannot speak the English. But, in spite of that, we must hold converse. Otherwise, how shall we ever thank you, and nurse you, and recover you? One thing must be begun at once – can I, without pain, lift your hand?”

Great part of this speech was dark to Hilary; but he understood the question about his hand, and kept the disabled one out of sight, and nodded, and said, “Oui, senhora.” Whereupon, to his great surprise, beautiful Claudia fell on her knees by the side of the couch, caught his left hand in both of hers, and pressed it in the most rapturous manner, ever so many times, to her sweet cool lips. And a large tear, such as large eyes should shed, gently trickled on each fair cheek, but was cleverly kept from dripping on his hand, because he might not have liked it. And then, with her face not far from his, she looked at him with a long soft gaze, and her hair (with the gloss and the colour of a filbert over the Guadiana) fell from her snowy forehead forward; and Hilary was done for.

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.”