The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume I

“In what a mess does the want of money involve a man!” thought he, as he lay before the half-dying embers of the wood fire. “Had I won my bets on ‘Chanticleer,’ or had I but backed ‘Amontillado,’ how different had my position been to-day! That the simple change of one name for another in my betting-book the mere hazard of a choice, of a horse, too should influence a man’s whole life, is a pretty fair instance of what the world is! Had I ‘come right,’ I should now be the favored guest of some noble duke, shooting his grace’s pheasants, drinking his Burgundy, and flirting with his daughters. Fortune willed it otherwise, and here I am, actually plotting a match with a nameless girl to rescue myself from utter ruin. Three weeks ago I would not have believed that this could happen; and who can tell what another three weeks may bring forth? perhaps, already, there is mischief brewing. What if my Lady’s refusal to receive this evening may have some signification in it? Haggerstone is too courteous by half, and Jekyl has never called upon me since my arrival!” He laughed ironically as he said this, and added, “It is a bold game, after all, for them to play! Reprisals to two of them, at least might prove awkward; and as for ‘Master Albert,’ he lives but on general sufferance. There has been a long run of luck against me; nothing but ill-fortune since the day I might have married Hester, and yet hung back, and that very same year she marries another, and inherits an immense fortune in India. What a blow to each of us! Such has been my lot through life; always backing the loser till the very moment when luck changes, and his turn comes to win.”

As these thoughts passed through his mind, weariness, the silence of the hour, the darkened room, induced slumber; and although once or twice he made a half-effort to arouse himself and go home, the listless feeling gained the mastery, and he dropped off to sleep. The uneasy consciences have oftentimes very easy slumbers. Norwood’s was of the calmest; not a dream, not one flitting fancy disturbed it.

It was already nigh day as he lay thus, when the dull roll of wheels beneath the window in part awoke him; at least, it so far aroused him that he remembered where he was, and fancied that it might be George Onslow, on the return from his dinner-party. He lay for some minutes expecting to hear his step upon the stair, and see him enter the room; but as all seemed to resume its wonted quiet, he was dozing off again, when he heard the sound of a hand upon the lock of the door.

It is one of the strange instincts of half-slumber to be often more alive to the influence of subdued and stealthy sounds than to louder noises. The slightest whisperings, the low murmurings of a human voice, the creaking of a chair, the cautious drawing back of a curtain will jar upon and arouse the faculties that have been insensible to the rushing flow of a cataract or the dull booming of the sea.

Slight as were the sounds now heard, Norwood started as he listened to them, and, at once arousing himself, he fixed his eyes upon the door, in which the handle was seen to turn slowly and cautiously. The impression that it was a robber immediately occurred to him, and he determined to lie still and motionless, to watch what might happen. He was not wanting in personal courage, and had full confidence in his strength and activity.

The door at last opened; at first, a very little, and slowly, then gradually more and more, till, by the mysterious half-light to which his eyes had grown accustomed, Norwood could see the flounces of a female dress, and the small, neat foot of a woman beneath it. The faint, uncertain flame of the fire showed him thus much, but left the remainder of the figure in deep shadow.

Whether from excess of caution, or that she was yet hesitating what course to take, she remained for some seconds motionless; and Norwood, who had subdued his breathing to the utmost, lay in the deep shadow, speculating on the upshot of an adventure from which he promised himself, at least, an amusing story. The deep black lace which fell over the arched instep indicated a degree of rank in the wearer that gave a piquancy to the incident, and imparted a zest to the curiosity of a man who probably knew no higher pleasure in life than in possessing the secrets of his acquaintance.

He had time to run over in his mind a dozen little speculations of who she was, ere she stirred; and at last, as if with change of purpose, he saw, or fancied that he saw, the door beginning slowly to close. Whether this was a mere trick of his excited imagination or not, a sudden gesture of impatience on his part threw down one of the cushions of the sofa. A slight shriek so slight as to be barely heard broke from the female, and she banged the door to. Norwood reached it with a spring; but although, as he wrenched it open, he could yet hear the rustling of a woman’s dress in the passage, the sharp sound of a door hastily shut and locked defied all thought of pursuit, and he stood pondering over what had happened, and almost doubtful of its reality.

“At least, the fair visitor belongs to the family; that much I may rely upon,” said he, as he lighted a candle to explore the locality a little closer. The corridor, however, abruptly stopped at a small door, which was locked on the inside; but to what portion of the house it led he could not even conjecture. He was not a very unlikely man to trace the clew of such an adventure as this seemed to be. It was one of those incidents with which his course of life had made him somewhat conversant; and few were better able to fill up from conjecture every blank of such a history. Nor was he one to shrink from any suspicion, no matter how repugnant to every thought of honor, nor how improbable to every mind less imbued with vice than his own.

For a moment or two, however, he almost doubted whether the whole might not have been a dream, so sudden, so brief, so trackless did it all appear. This doubt, was, however, quickly resolved, as his eyes fell upon the floor, where a small fragment of a lace dress lay, as it was caught and torn off in the closing door. Norwood took it up, and sat down to examine it with attention.

“Point d’Alencon,” said he, “bespeaks no vulgar wearer; and such is this! Who could have thought of George Onslow playing Lothario! But this comes of Italy. And now to find her out.” He ran over to himself half a dozen names, in which were nearly as many nationalities, but some doubt accompanied each. “No matter,” thought he, “the secret will keep.”

He suddenly remembered, at the instant, that he had promised an acquaintance to pass some days with him in the Maremma, shooting; and, not sorry to have so good a reason for a few days’ absence, he arose and set out towards his hotel, having first carefully placed within his pocketbook the little fragment of lace, a clew to a mystery he was resolved to explore hereafter.

CHAPTER XXIX. FRANK’S JOURNEY

Our readers may, ere this, have surmised that Frank Dalton’s career as a soldier was neither very adventurous nor exciting, since otherwise we should scarcely have so nearly forgotten him. When he parted with Hanserl to pursue his journey, his heart was full of warring and conflicting emotions, love of home and hope of future distinction alternately swaying him; so that while his affections drew him ever backwards, his ambitious urged him to go on.

“I could have been so happy to have lived with them,” thought he, “even as a peasant lives, a life of daily toil. I would have asked for no higher fortune than that peaceful home we had made for ourselves by our own affections, the happy fireside, that sufficed us for all the blandishments of wealth and riches. Still there would have been something ignoble in this humility, something that would ill become my blood as a Dalton. It was not thus my ancestors understood their station, it was not with such lowly ambitions their hearts were stirred. Count Stephen himself might at this hour have been in obscurity and poverty as great, perhaps, as our own had he been thus minded; and now he is a field-marshal, with a ‘Maria Teresa’ cross on his breast! and this without one friend to counsel or to aid him! What a noble service is that where merit can win its way self-sustained and independent, where, without the indignity of a patron, the path of honorable enterprise lies free and open to all! What generous promptings, what bold aspirations such a career engenders! He shall not be ashamed of me, he shall not have to blush for the Dalton blood,” said the boy, enthusiastically; and he revelled in a dream of the old Count’s ecstasy on finding a nephew so worthy of their name, and in his fancy he saw pictures of future scenes in which he figured. All of these had the same rose tint; for while in some he imagined himself winning the high rewards of great achievements, in others he was the caressed and flattered guest of rank and beauty. “To think that I should once have been thus!” cried he, laughing at the conceit, “trudging along the high-road with a knapsack on my shoulder, like a Bursch in his ‘Wander-jahre;’” and then he vowed to himself that “he would have a picture taken of his humble guise as first he started in life, to hang up at some future day beside the decorated soldier he was yet to be.”

Selfishness can wear many a mask. Sometimes it can array itself in features almost noble, more often its traits are of the very meanest. Frank’s egotism was of the former kind. He wanted to attain distinction by an honorable path, he would not have stooped to any other. He was ready to do or dare all for greatness. No peril could deter, no danger could daunt him; but yet was he totally deficient in that greatest element of success, that patient discipline of the mind which, made up of humility and confidence, can wait and bide its time, earning the prizes of life before it claim them. His pride of family, however, was his greatest blemish, since it suggested a false notion of distinction, a pretension so groundless that, like a forged banknote, it was sure to involve even the bearer in disgrace.

So full was he of himself and his own future, that he took but little note of the way as he went. Avoiding, from a sense of pride, to associate with the “Travelling Youths,” as they are called, he walked along from early morning to late evening, alone and companionless. It was mostly a dreary and uninteresting road, either leading through dark and gloomy pine forests or over great plains of swampy surface, where the stubble of the tall maize, or the stunted vines, were the only traces of vegetation. As he drew near the Tyrol, however, the great mountains came in sight, while the continual ascent told that he was gradually reaching the land of glaciers and snow-peaks. Day by day he found the road less and less frequented: these lonely districts were little resorted to by the wandering apprentices, so that frequently Frank did not meet a single traveller from day-dawn till night. Perhaps he felt little regret at this, leaving him, as it did, more time for those daydreams in which he loved to revel. Now and then some giant mountain glittering in the sun, or some dark gorge thousands of feet below him, would chase away his revery, and leave him for a time in a half-bewildered and wondering astonishment; but his thoughts soon resumed their old track, and he would plod along, staff in hand, as before.

Walking from before daybreak to a late hour of the evening, Frank frequently accomplished in his day’s journey as many miles as the traveller who, by post, only spent the few hours of mid-day on the road; in fact, he might have thus measured his speed, had he been less wrapped up in his own fancies, since, for several days, a caleche, drawn by three post-horses, had regularly passed him on the road, and always about the same hour.

Frank saw nothing of this; and when on a bright and frosty day he began the ascent of the Arlberg, he little knew that the carriage, about half a mile in front, had been his travelling companion for the past week. Disdaining to follow the winding high-road, Frank ascended by those foot-tracks which gain upon the zig-zags, and thus soon was miles in advance of the caleche. At last he reached the half-way point of ascent, and was glad to rest himself for a few minutes on one of the benches which German thoughtfulness for the wayfarer never neglects to place in suitable spots. A low parapet of a couple of feet separated the road from a deep and almost perpendicular precipice, at the foot of which, above two thousand feet beneath, stood the village of Stuben. There was the little chapel in which he had his morning’s mass, there the little Platz, where he had seen the post-horses getting ready for the travellers; there, too, the little fountain, covered with a shed of straw, and glistening with many an icicle in the bright sun. The very voices of the people reached him where he sat; and the sounds of a street-organ floated upwards through the still atmosphere. It was a scene of peaceful isolation such as would have pleased Nelly’s fancy. It was like one of those “Dorf s” she herself had often carved to amuse a winter’s evening, and Frank’s eyes filled up as he thought of her and of home.

The sound of feet upon the snow suddenly roused him, and, on looking round, Frank saw a traveller slowly coming up the pass. His dress at once proclaimed that he was not a pedestrian, save from choice, and was merely sauntering along in advance of his carriage. In the mere cursory glance Frank bestowed upon him he could see that he was a young and handsome man, with a certain soldierlike bearing in his air that well suited his bold but somewhat stern features.

“You journey well, young fellow,” said he, addressing Frank familiarly. “This is the fifth day we have been fellow-travellers; and although I have post-horses, you have always kept up with me on your feet.”

Frank touched his cap with a somewhat stiff courtesy at this unceremonious address; and, without deigning a reply, employed himself in arranging the straps of his knapsack.

“Are you a soldier?” asked the stranger.

“A cadet!” replied Frank as bluntly.

“In what regiment, may I ask?”

“The Franz Carl.”

“Ah! my own old corps,” said the other, gayly. “I served four years with them in the Banat. From what part of the Empire are you you have n’t the accent of an Austrian?”

“I am an Irishman.”

“Oh! that explains it. And your name?”

“Dalton. And now, sir, what may be yours, for I don’t see why this curiosity is to be one-sided,” said Frank, with an air even more insolent than the words.

“I am Count Ernest of Walstein,” said the other, without a touch of irritation.

“What rank do you hold in the service?” asked Frank, boldly.

“That of lieutenant-colonel, boy.”

“And your age may be about thirty?” said Frank, half in question and half in sarcasm.

“I was twenty-eight last August,” was the calm reply.

“By Jove! that is a service!” exclaimed Frank, “where a man scarcely ten years my senior may command a regiment!”

The other laughed, and after a brief pause, said, “People are in the habit of calling me fortunate, so that you must not suppose my case to be the rule.”

“Be it so: even as an exception, the example is a bright one. Another may do what you have done.”

“If you mean that I have earned my rank by services, boy,” said the Count, smiling, “you would make a grave mistake. My promotion had another source.”

Frank looked as though he were curious to hear the explanation, but the other gave none.

“How do you call yourself?” asked he of Frank, after a pause.

“Dalton,” replied the boy, more respectfully than before.

“We have a field-marshal of that name in the service, a most gallant old soldier, too.”

“My grand-uncle!” cried Frank, with enthusiasm.

“Indeed! So you are a grand-nephew to the Graf von Auersberg,” said the Count, taking a more deliberate view than he had yet bestowed upon him. “Then how comes it you are travelling in this fashion, and on foot?”

“I have not asked you why you journey in a caleche with three horses,” said Frank, insolently.

“It’s my habit to do so.”

“This, then, may be mine, sir,” said Frank, throwing his knapsack on his shoulder, and preparing to depart.

“Is not the Franz Carl at Vienna?” said the Count, not seeming to notice the irritation of his manner.

“I believe so.”

“Well, then, as I am going thither, perhaps you will accept of a seat in my caleche?”

There was a frankness in the way this offer was made that suddenly routed the ill-temper Frank had fallen into. No one was less disposed than himself to accept of a favor from a perfect stranger; but the tone and manner of the proffer had, somehow, disarmed it of all appearance of such; and as he stood uncertain what answer to make, the Count added: “I ‘m always lucky. I was just wishing for a travelling companion, and fortune has thrown us into acquaintanceship.”

“I don’t know I can scarcely tell,” said Frank, hesitating, “how or what to answer.”

“You forget that we are comrades, Dalton or shall be, at least, in another day or two,” said the Count, familiarly; “so step in, and no more about it.”

The caleche had drawn up as he spoke, and the courier stood, cap in hand, beside the door, so that Frank had no time for any but an abrupt refusal, and that he could not give; he therefore bowed his head, and sprang in. The door was slammed sharply to, and the next moment the horses were rattling along over the snow, the merry bells of the harness jingling pleasantly as they went.

Probably no two beings could present a much stronger contrast than the two who now journeyed along side by side. The one, rich, highly placed, and distinguished with every gift of fortune at his command, and yet pleasure-sick, weary, and discontented; the other, poor, and almost friendless, full of hope, and ardent with all the buoyancy of youth. The Count was as jaded and tired of life as the cadet was eager to enjoy it. Notwithstanding perhaps we should rather say in virtue of these strong contrarieties, they made admirable travelling companions, and the road slipped away unconsciously to each.

At Innspruck they halted for a day or two, and Frank accompanied his new friend to the cafes and theatres, mingling in the throng of those whose life is a round of easy dissipation. It is true that, to conform by dress and demeanor with these, Frank was obliged to spend the golden coins of Nelly’s purse; louis after louis went in some one extravagance or another, sacrifices that cost him many a pang, but which, from pride, he bore up against with seeming indifference. Walstein presented him everywhere as the nephew of the old field-marshal Von Auersberg; and as nothing was more common than to see a young cadet dispensing the most lavish sums, with equipages, liveries, and servants, none seemed surprised that the youth should indulge in these habits and tastes of extravagance. His very enjoyment seemed like an earnest of being long habituated to these modes of life, for whether he played or drank, or in whatever excesses he mingled, there was ever the same joyous spirit; and Frank Dalton had all the outward signs of a youth rich in every accident of fortune. At first, thoughts of his humble home and of those by whose sacrifices he was enabled to indulge in such costly pleasures would cross his mind, and, what between shame and sorrow, he felt degraded and debased before himself; but, by degrees, the levity of action induced, as it ever will do, the levity of thinking; and he suffered himself to believe that “he was no worse than others.” A more fatal philosophy than this, youth never adopted, and he who seeks a low standard rarely stops till he falls beneath even that. Frank’s pride of family made him vain, and his vanity made him credulous; he therefore implicitly believed all that his new companions told him, the familiar “thee and thou” of camaraderie giving an air of friendship to all the flatteries.

“Were I a nephew of a field-marshal like thee, I’d not serve in an infantry corps. I ‘d be in the Lichtenstein Hussars or the Lancers of the Kaiser,” said one.

“So he will,” cried another. “Dalton only joined the Franz Carl to get his promotion quickly. Once at Vienna, he will be an officer, and ready to exchange his regiment.”

“Old Auersberg can make thee what he will, lad,” said a third. “He might have been Minister of War himself, if he had liked it. The Emperor Franz loved him as a brother.”

“And he is rich, too, no one knows how rich,” broke in a fourth. “He commanded for many years on the Turkish frontier, in those good days when our Grenzers used to make forays upon the villages, and every Pashalic paid its blackmail for peace’ sake.”

“Thou are a lucky dog, Dalton, to find thy promotion and an inheritance thus secured to thee.”

“When thou has a regiment, lad, don’t forget us poor devils here, that have no uncles in the ‘Maria Teresa’ category.”

“I ‘ll lay my life on’t, that he is a colonel before I become Rittmeister,” said a young lieutenant of dragoons, “and I have had five years’ hard service in Galicia and Servia.”

“And why not?” broke in Count Walstein, who sat silently up to this smoking his meerschaum in a corner. “Has the empire lost its aristocratic character? Are not birth and blood to have their claims, as of old?”

This speech met a ready acceptance, for the company consisted of those who either were, or affected to be, of noble extraction.

“How our fathers deceive themselves in trying to deceive us!” said a young Hungarian cadet. “I, too, was sent off to join my regiment on foot. Just fancy to walk from Arad to Presburg! I, that never went twenty miles in my life save on the saddle. They fitted me with my knapsack, just such a thing as Dalton’s. I suppose about as many florins jingled in my purse as in his. They gave me their blessing and a map of the road, with each day’s journey marked out upon it. And how far did I go afoot, think’st thou? Two miles and a half. There I took an ‘Eil Bauer,’ with four good horses and a wicker caleche, and we drove our sixty, sometimes seventy miles a day. Each night we put up at some good country house or other Honyadi’s Ctzyscheny’s Palfi’s; all lay on the road, and I found out about fifty cousins I never knew of before, and made a capital acquaintance, too, the Prince Paul of Ettlingen, who, owning a regiment of Light Dragoons, took me into his corps, and, when I joined them at Leutmeritz, I was already an officer. What stuff it is they preach about economy and thrift! Are we the sons of peasants or petty shopkeepers? It comes well, too, from them in their princely chateaux to tell us that we must live like common soldiers. So that, while yesterday, as it were, I sat at a table covered with silver, and drank my Tokay from a Venetian glass, tomorrow I must put up with sour Melniker, or, mayhap, Bavarian beer, with black bread, and a sausage to help it down! Our worthy progenitors knew better in their own young days, or we should not have so many debts and mortgages on our estates eh, Walstein?”

“I suppose the world is pretty much alike, in every age,” said the Count, laughing. “It now and then takes a virtuous fit, and affects to be better than it used to be; but I shrewdly suspect that the only difference is in the hypocritical pretension. When I entered the service and it is not so many years ago that I cannot recollect it the cant was, to resemble that rough school of the days of old Frederick and Maria Teresa. Trenck’s ‘Pandours,’ with their scarlet breeches stuffed into their wide boot-tops, were the mode; and to wear your moustache to your shoulders to cry ‘Bey’m Henker!’ and ‘Alle Blitzen!’ every moment, were the veritable types of the soldier. Now we have changed all that. We have the Anglomania of English grooms and equipages, top-boots, curricles, hurdle-races, champagne suppers. Dalton will be the ton in his regiment, and any extravagance he likes to launch into certain to have its followers.”

The youth blushed deeply; partly in conscious pride at the flattery, partly in the heartfelt shame at its inappropriateness to himself; and even the sincerity with which his comrades drank his health, could not drown the self-reproaches he was suffering under.

“Thou art an only son, too, Dalton!” said another. “What favors fortune will shower upon one happy fellow! Here I am, one of seven; and although my father is a count of the empire, four of us have to take service in the infantry.”