by Ouida
She listened to him with more comprehension in her large, sad eyes than had been in them since Montressor first saw her. “Thank you, thank you; you are very kind!” But then her head drooped on her hands, and a storm of tears convulsed her frame. “Gone! — gone! Oh, life of my life, why did you leave me?”
But Montressor did not mind those tears — there were vitality, passion, reality, and strength in them. He left her to go his rounds, and when she was alone, with this shock, all the past, link on link, came slowly to Alma’s mind. That horrible race in the midsummer storm, the terrors of that night in Windsor Forest, which had ended in bringing her thither, came back upon her memory; and De Vigne had doubtless heard of that flight with Castleton, and, accrediting evil of her, had given her up and gone to the Crimea! She could have shrieked aloud in her agony to have lost him thus.
There was but one remembrance which forced her to calm herself, the one on which Montressor had relied; that to dispel in any way this hideous barrier that had risen up between them, she must recover. In Alma, with all her childlike gaiety and reckless impulsiveness, there was much strong volition, much concentrated fixity of will and purpose; she had not a grain of patience, but she had much resolution.
Reuben’s close cottage did not facilitate her restoration; light, air, comforts, atmosphere, all that were most needful for her, were inaccessible there. She had barely strength enough to be lifted from her bed without fainting, and Montressor saw that without the freedom of air, to which she was accustomed, she would never be better.
Miss Russel’s rector, like many another rector, since he “knew nothing of the young person,” would not have thought of wasting one of his spare beds on a stranger “of no connexions,” and “you know, my dear, for anything we can tell, perhaps of no very pure moral character,” as he remarked to his wife, previous to rustling into church in his stiff and majestic surplice, and giving for his text the story of Mary Magdalene. Montressor was not counted a good man by his rector; indeed, having certain latitudinarian opinions of his own, consequent on his study of man and of nature, and not always keeping them to himself, as privately as prudence and his practice might have suggested, was somewhat of a thorn in the rector’s side, especially as in argument Montressor inevitably floored him with extreme humiliation, and the rector being once driven to define Grace by him was compelled to the extremely uncomfortable and illogical answer, for which he would have scolded his wife’s youngest Sunday scholar, “Well, dear me, sir; — why, sir, grace is grace!” Montressor, moreover, did not always go to church, but preferred strolling in Windsor Forest, and thinking of that great God of Nature whom men dwarf in their sermons and exclude from their lives. Therefore, you see it was very natural for poor Miss Russel to look to the rector, and not to Montressor for Charity; but — and I fancy that is as natural too — it was in him and not in the rector that she found it. Montressor knew that a week or two in a house like his might secure Alma’s restoration, while she might linger on and on for an indefinite time in the oppressive atmosphere of Reuben’s cottage, close, dark, and inodorous. As soon as she was able to be moved, Alma, too weak to protest against his will, was carried to his house; and there did daily grow stronger and better, and now began to recover as rapidly as she had been slow to do so before.
Mrs. Montressor, young herself, had taken a deep interest in her husband’s patient She received her in her house with delight, and felt a not unpardonable curiosity to know her story, and how she came there that midsummer night This Alma, as soon as she was able, told her. She spoke very little of De Vigne; his name was too dear to her to bring it forward more than she could help, but all the rest she told frankly and fully, as was due, to her new-found friends.
As soon as ever she had strength enough to write, Alma’s first effort was to pen to De Vigne the whole detail of Castleton’s plot, pouring out to him all her love and sorrow. When that was done, she sank back on he’ pillows with more bitter tears than she had ever shed. Many weary weeks must come and pass away, many weary days must dawn, and many nights must fall, before she could have an answer; and even now, before that reached him, what evil might not have befallen him!
“Would it cost much money to go to the Crimea?” she asked her doctor, as he paid her his visit that evening, fixing her eyes on his with their earnest and brilliant regard.
“A great deal, my little lady.”
“How much?” asked Alma, wistfully.
“A hundred or two, at the least.”
Her lips quivered, and her head drooped with a heavy sigh.
“Ah, and I have nothing! But, Mr. Montressor, are there not nurses with the army? Have I not heard that ladies sometimes go to be in the hospitals? Could not I go out to him in that way?”
Montressor smiled, amused yet touched.
“Poor child! you are much fit for a nurse! What do you know of wounds, of sickness, of death? What qualification have you to induce them to give you such an office? Do you think they would take such a fair face as yours among the sick wards? No, no, that is impracticable. You must wait: the lesson hardest of all to learn — one, I dare say, you have never had to learn at al!”
It was true she never had, and it was one she never would learn; she would fret her life out like a fettered nightingale, but she never would endure confinement calmly like a caged bird. Not only would she have gone to the Crimea had she been rich, but had she but known of any means she would have worked her way there at any cost or any pain, only to be near him in his danger, and to hear him say that for all the witness against her he knew that she was his and his alone. But Alma had to bow before that curse, under which much that is strongest, noblest, and best in Genius, Talent, and Love, has gone down, never able to shake off its cruel chain upon their wings, the barren curse of — Want of Money!
Of course she was desirous to leave Montressor’s house as soon as she was able, and warmly as they pressed her to stay, she fixed the earliest day she could bear the drive for her return to St Crucis. She had not waited till her return to know when and how De Vigne had heard of her flight with Castleton. Old Mrs. Lee had written her word, as calm lookers-on often do write of the fiercest passions and bitterest sorrows that pass unseen before their very eyes, “The Major called, my darling child, and I telled him all as I thought it to be, but as, thank Almighty God, it wasn’t He took it uncommon quiet-like, and walked out, and I haven’t seen not nothing of him since.”
How deep into Alma’s heart went those few common words “uncommon quiet-like, and then walked out!” What volumes they spoke to her of that mighty passion, still and iron-bound as the ice mountains of the Arctic; but as certain as they to burst and break away, bringing death and destruction in its fall! More for the suffering she had caused him, than from that which had fallen’ upon herself, did Alma mourn for the impetuosity, which had flung her so unconscious an assistant into Castleton’s plot “If he die I shall have murdered him!” That was the one cry, that went up from her heart every hour.
The day was fixed for her to leave Windsor for St Crucis. Montressor and his wife were both, unwilling to part with her; for her story had all won them to her; and there was a peculiar, nameless charm in her foreign fervour, joined to the childlike softness of her voice and manners.
“The Molyneux are going to Paris,” said Montressor to his wife, the morning before Alma left them.
“Indeed! Why and when?”
“Well, in the first place, Miss Molyneux must have change of air somewhere. I suggested Italy, but she would not hear of it! her mother, Paris, to which her ladyship has certain religious, social, and fashionable leanings, all drawing her at once; and to that she assented. Pour cause, it is nearer the Crimea!”
“Is that Violet Molyneux?” asked Alma, eagerly. They had fancied her asleep upon the sofa. “Is she not married to Colonel Sabretasche?”
“No!” answered Montressor. “A fortnight before their wedding-day, his first wife, whom he believed dead, came forward and asser
ted her rights. I never heard all the details. Now he has gone to the Crimea — but do you know her?”
“Yes! Another wife! — how she must hate that woman!” And Alma shuddered as she thought how she would have hated the Trefusis if that lie, that fable, had been true!
“And the wife, eh, what pity for her, Miss Tressillian!” smiled Montressor.
Alma shook her head. “None! If she had left her husband all those years, long enough to make him think her dead, she could care nothing for him.”
“Perhaps he left her. More probable!”
“Is Colonel Sabretasche gone to the Crimea?” asked Alma, disregarding his suggestion. It touched her strangely, this story of that radiant belle whom she had once envied.
“Yes, and he could hardly have refused the campaign, even had it taken him from his bridal days.”
“No; but she would have gone with him! — and they are going to Paris, you say!”
“Yes; I recommended it; so did Dr. Watson, when he sounded Miss Molyneux’s lungs, and agreed with me that there was no mischief yet, though there may be before long. After her parting with the Colonel, she lay in a dead swoon, from which they could not wake her. They sent for the physicians and for me; and since then she has never truly recovered; she will smile, she will talk to her mother, to her friends; but her health suffers. Lady Molyneux would like to have a companion for her in Paris; the Viscountess will have a thousand religious excitements and social amusements, in which her daughter will not participate. I did not know — I thought would you—” And Montressor hesitated; for though he knew how unprovided for Alma was, he had too much delicacy to touch upon it.
“Would they take me?” said Alma, lifting her head. The sentence “Paris is nearer the Crimea” rang in her ear.
“Would you go?”
“Yes, yes — if I am free to leave them when I will. Miss Molyneux was very kind to me; I think she would take me if she knew.”
“I will mention it to the Viscountess when I go to town to-morrow,” said Montressor. “Since you know them, I have no doubt she will be very happy to give you the preference, and change of air will do you good as well as her daughter.”
Montressor was as good as his word. Some years before, Violet’s brother, then a graceless Etonian, now a young attaché to the British Legation at Paris, who had been nearly drowned in the Thames, and had been pulled out at last to go through a severe attack of bronchitis, which all but cost him his life, would probably have done so quite but for Montressor, to whom Jockey Jack was so grateful for saving his heir’s life, that he gave the doctor the most beautiful mare in his stables, and had him called in whenever there was any illness in the family, though Montressor, at the onset, had mortally offended Madame by assuring her she would have very good health if she would only leave off sal-volatile, and get up before one o’clock in the day. On that Lady Molyneux had had nothing more to say to him till her -pet physician, who had kept her good graces by magnifying her migraines and flattering her nerves, had once very nearly killed her by doctoring her for phthisis when her disease was but the more unpoetic ailment of the liver. Since that time he had always had a certain influence over the Viscountess, possibly because he was the only man who had seen her without her rouge, and told her the truth courteously but uncompromisingly, and when he mentioned Alma as a companion for Violet, her ladyship graciously acquiesced. “Miss Tressillian! She did not recollect the name. Very likely she had seen her, but she really could not remember. Artist, was she? Oh, she thought she had some recollection of a girl Violet patronised, but she couldn’t remember. If Mr. Montressor recommended her, that was everything; as long as she was ladylike, and of unimpeachable character, that was all she required. She only wanted her to be with them in case Violet were unwell or declined society. She must be free to leave them any day she chose? What a very singular stipulation! However, rather than have any more trouble about it, would he have the goodness to tell her she would give her fifty guineas and her travelling expenses; and they should leave London that day week.”
“Fifty guineas! Less than her maid makes by her place!” thought Montressor, as he threw himself into a hansom to drive back to the Waterloo station. He was a generous man himself; he had no cant of benevolence about him; he considered that to people delicately nurtured, the struggles, the mortification, the narrowed lines of poverty are far harder than to the poor, born amidst squalor, nurtured in deprivation, whose most resplendent memories and dreams are of fat bacon and fried potatoes. He was generous, but discriminately so: and though he compelled his just dues from the man who had lamb and peas at their earliest, while by a woebegone face and dexterous text he was making the rector believe him an object of profoundest pity, Montressor would not take a farthing from the young girl, on whose delicate organisation and quick susceptibilities he knew the poverty, from which her own talents had alone protected her, and from which in illness they could not guard her, must prey heavily.
CHAPTER X.
One of those whom England has forgotten.
THE chill Crimean winds blew from the North of Sebastopol, and the dust whirled and skerried before our eyes, as we kept the line in front of Cathcart’s-hill on the morning of the 8th September, while the Guards stood ready in Woronzoff-road, and the Second and Light Divisions moved down to the trenches, and the Staff stationed themselves in the second parallel of the Green Hill Battery, and the amateurs, who had come out to see what was doing in the Crimea, as they went other years to Norwegian fishing or Baden roulette, were scattered about in yachting costume, and stirred to a little excitement as the Russian shells began to burst among us, and the bombs to fall with thuds loud enough to startle the strongest nerves.
What would young ladies at home, full of visions of conquering heroes and myrtle and bay leaves, and all the pomp and circumstances of war, have said if, in that cold, dusty, raw Crimean morning, they had seen General Simpson, with only nose and eyes exposed, coddled up in a great-coat; and General Jones, a hero in spite of costume, in his red bonnet de nuit, a more natural accompaniment to a Caudle lecture than to a siege; and Sir Richard, with his pocket-handkerchief tied over his ears after the manner of old ladies afflicted with catarrh? Ah me! it was not much like Davy Baird leading the forlorn hope under the hot sun of Seringapatam, or Wellington, “pale but ever collected,” giving his prompt orders from the high ground behind San Christoval! Yet, God knows, there was daring and gallantry enough that day to have made of the Redan a second Ciudad Rodrigo; that it was not so, was no fault of the troops; the men whom Unett and Windham tossed up to lead, would, had they been allowed, have given England Success as they gave her Pluck; and the dead bodies piled high on the slopes of the Great Redan were offered up as cheerfully as though the fancied paradise of the Mahometan soldier awaited them, instead of the ordinary rewards of the British one — abuse and oblivion.
We could see little beyond the great dull parapets of the Redan, and the troops that were pouring into and over it, and, though they were forced back again under the dense smoke of the Russian musketry, twice capturing the position, and twice pushed back down the slopes, slippery with human blood and piled with human bodies. It was afterwards, from the wounded that were brought down the Woronzoff-road, and from the remnant that came back unscathed from the reeking salient, that we heard the detail of the struggle.
We heard how three times Windham sent for the support, without which nothing decisive could be done in that fatal scene of carnage, where the British, unbacked, had nothing but broken ranks to oppose to the steady fire of the enemy, and to the fresh troops who were swarming from the town and the evacuated Malakoff. We heard how, when at last he had leave “to take the Royals,” the permission came too late. We heard how hand-to-hand our fellows stood their ground against the granite mass, that, swelling every moment from the rear, pressed down upon them, till those who had held the salient (unsupported for an hour and three-quarters, under a fire that thinned their ranks as a scythe mows down meadow
grass, grappling to the last with the Russians in the embrace of death) were forced from the loose earth and breaking gabions which made their ground, pelted with great stones, and driven down by the iron tramp that crushed alike friend and foe, till slipping, panting, bleeding, exhausted, pêle-mêle they fell on to the mass of bayonets, muskets, and quivering life mingled together in the ditch below; the men rolling over each other like loose stones down a crevasse; the living crushed by the dead, the dying struggling under the weight of the wounded; the scarps giving way and burying the living, while those who could struggle from the horrible heap of human life, where the men lay four deep, ran for life and death to reach the English trench, We heard that, and more too. Sad stories passed from one to another. We were all down in the mouth that night; for though the officers had been game as men could be, flinging down their lives as of no account, their men had not imitated them; and it was hardly the tale that we, after the long winter of’54-’55, and the weary, dreary, hopeless months of inaction, had hoped to be rewarded with, by sending home to England. Wellington was wont to say that the saddest thing, after a defeat, was a victory. I think his iron heart would have broken over the loss of human life, on the parapets of the Redan.
We knew that Curly was to lead the — th with the Light Division that day, and we thought of him anxiously enough when we saw from Cathcart’s-hill the smoke pouring out from the rugged parapets, and the troops fighting their way over, only to be sent forth again decimated and exhausted.
I saw him early on the morning of the 8th, when we were all looking forward to the attack, as he was chatting with some other fellows, dressed in that careless nondescript costume which dandies of the Queen’s had adopted, his old gay smile on his lips, a cap much the worse for wind and weather on those silky yellow locks that we had teazed his life out about in the old schooldays; and a pipe of good Turkish tobacco peering out from beneath his long blond moustaches. As we paced past him in the raw grey morning, I laughingly wished him good luck; he laughed, too, as he told us he was going in for the honours now. De Vigne, as we passed, pulled up his horse for a second, bent from his saddle, and gave him his hand, with a sudden impulse; for the first moment Curly’s eyes flashed with angry fire; then the better spirit in him conquered, his hand closed firm and warm on De Vigne’s, and they looked at one another as they had used to do in days gone by, before the love of woman had parted them.