The Project Gutenberg eBook ofA haunted lifeThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: A haunted lifeAuthor: James GrantRelease date: August 19, 2022 [eBook #68790]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United Kingdom: George Routledge and Sons, 1883Credits: Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HAUNTED LIFE ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: A haunted lifeAuthor: James GrantRelease date: August 19, 2022 [eBook #68790]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United Kingdom: George Routledge and Sons, 1883Credits: Al Haines
Title: A haunted life
Author: James Grant
Author: James Grant
Release date: August 19, 2022 [eBook #68790]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: George Routledge and Sons, 1883
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HAUNTED LIFE ***
BY
JAMES GRANT
AUTHOR OF 'THE ROMANCE OF WAR'
LONDONGEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONSBROADWAY, LUDGATE HILLNEW YORK: 9, LAFAYETTE PLACE
1883
JAMES GRANT'S NOVELS,
Price 2s. each, Fancy Boards.
The Romance of WarThe Aide-de-CampThe Scottish CavalierBothwellJane Seton: or, the Queen's AdvocatePhilip RolloThe Black WatchMary of LorraineOliver Ellis: or, the FusileersLucy Arden: or, Hollywood HallFrank Hilton: or, the Queen's OwnThe Yellow FrigateHarry Ogilvie: or, the Black DragoonsArthur BlaneLaura Everingham: or, the Highlanders of GlenoraThe Captain of the GuardLetty Hyde's LoversCavaliers of FortuneSecond to NoneThe Constable of FranceThe Phantom RegimentThe King's Own BorderersThe White CockadeFirst Love and Last LoveDick RooneyThe Girl he MarriedLady Wedderburn's WishJack ManlyOnly an EnsignAdventures of Rob RoyUnder the Red DragonThe Queen's CadetShall I Win Her?Fairer than a FairyOne of the Six HundredMorley AshtonDid She Love Him?The Ross-shire BuffsSix Years AgoVere of OursThe Lord HermitageThe Royal RegimentDuke of Albany's Own HighlandersThe CameroniansThe Scots BrigadeViolet JermynJack Chaloner
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I.THE MEET OF THE COACHING CLUBII.TREVOR CHUTE'S REVERIEIII.HIS VISIT TO CLAREIV.IDAV.HOW WILL IT END?VI.SIR CARNABY COLLINGWOODVII.A PROPOSALVIII.'THE DESIRE OF THE MOTH FOR THE STARS'IX.DOUBTS DISPELLEDX.FOR WHOM THE JEWELS WERE INTENDEDXI.A ROMANCE OF THE DRAWING-ROOMXII.IN THE KONGENS NYTORVXIII.BY THE EXPRESS FOR LUBECKXIV.AN IMBROGLIOXV.'LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH'XVI.'JEALOUSY CRUEL AS THE GRAVE'XVII.A QUARRELXVIII.THE EMEUTE AT LUBECKXIX.SIR CARNABY'S GRATITUDEXX.CARNABY COURTXXI.CHRISTMAS EVE
A HAUNTED LIFE.
'Be patient, Trevor Chute; they are sure to be here to-day, old fellow, for Ida told me so.'
'Ida?'
'Yes, Mrs. Beverley; does that surprise you?' asked the other, with a singular smile—one that was rather sardonic.
'No, Jerry, I have long ceased to be surprised at anything. As I have told you, my special mission in town is a visit to her; but—so you and she are good friends still?'
'Yes, though she has been six months a widow, we are on the same strange terms in which you left us last—friends pure and simple.'
'And nothing more?'
'As yet,' replied Jerry Vane, lowering his voice, with something of despondency perceptible in his tone, and to a close observer it might have been apparent that he, though by nature frank, jovial, and good-humoured, had, by force of habit, or by circumstances, a somewhat cynical mode of expression and gravity of manner.
The time was the noon of a bright and lovely day in May, when the newly-opened London season is at its height; and it was the first meet of the Coaching Club in Hyde Park, where the expectant crowd, filling all the seats under the pleasant trees, or in occupation of handsome carriages, snug barouches, dashing phaetons and victorias—in everything save hackney cabs—covered all the wide plateau which stretches from the Marble Arch to the somewhat prosaic powder magazine beside the Serpentine, and waited with the characteristic patience and good-humour of Londoners for the assembling of the coaches, though some were seeking to while away the time with a morning paper or the last periodical.
The speakers, though young men, were old friends, who had known each other since boyhood in the playing-fields of Rugby.
Jervoise, or, as he was familiarly called, Jerry Vane, was a curly-pated, good-looking young fellow of the genuine Saxon type, with expressive, but rather thoughtful eyes of bluish grey, long fair whiskers, and somewhat the bearing of a 'man about town;' while the other, perhaps in aspect the manlier of the two, Trevor Chute, in figure compact and well set-up, was dark-haired, hazel-eyed, and had a smart moustache, imparting much decision of expression to a handsome and regular face, which had been scorched and embrowned by a tropical sun; and where the white flap of the puggaree had failed to protect his neck and ears, they had deepened to a blister hue.
He had but the day before come to town, on leave from his regiment (which had just returned from India), on a special errand, to be detailed in its place.
In front was the great bend of the blue Serpentine rippling and sparkling in the sunshine, with its tiny fleet of toy-ships; beyond it was the leafy background of trees, and the far stretch of emerald lawn, chequered with clumps of rhododendron in full flower, and almost covered with sight-seers, some of whom gave an occasional cheer as a stately drag passed to the meeting-place, especially if its driver was recognized as a personage of note or a public favourite.
'I don't know what you may have seen in India, Trevor,' said Jerry Vane, 'but I am assured that the gayest meetings on the continent of Europe can present nothing like this. I have been in the Prater at Vienna on the brightest mornings of summer, and on gala days at the Bois de Boulogne, and seen there all theéliteof Paris wending its way in equipages, on horse or on foot, but no scene in either place equals this of to-day by the Serpentine!'
To this his friend, who had so recently returned from military exile, in the East, warmly assented, adding:
'The day is as hot as my last Christmas was in the Punjaub.'
'Christmas in the Paunjaub, by Jove!' exclaimed Jerry Vane, with a laugh. 'Eating ices and fanning oneself under a punkah, with the thermometer at 90 in the shade, eh?'
Captain Chute laughed in turn at this idea; but as he stood at that time by the inner railings in Hyde Park, waiting anxiously to see the fair occupants of a certain drag, he could foresee, as little as his friend, where they were to spend their coming Christmas, or on its eve to hear, through the stillness thereof, the sweet evensong coming over a waste of snow from an old chapel, amid a group of crystal-shrouded trees, where many soft voices, withhersamong them, told again of the angels' message, given more than eighteen hundred years ago to the shepherds of Chaldea, as they watched their fleecy flock by night.
'It seems but yesterday that I last stood here, Jerry,' said Trevor Chute, thoughtfully, almost sadly; 'and how much has come and gone to us both since then!'
'Yes; and here, as of old, Trevor, are the last new beauties who have come out, and the overblown belles of seasons that are past, and, of course, all those great folks whom everybody knows, and others of whom no one knows anything, save that they have swell equipages, and are "like magnificent red and purple orchids, which grow out of nothing, yet do so much credit to their origin."'
'You grow cynical, Jerry.'
'Perhaps; but there was a time when I was not wont to be so. And you, Trevor, are not without good reason for being so too. Why, man alive! when in the Guards, how popular you were with all the mammas of unmarried daughters; a seat in the carriage, a box at the opera, a balcony at the boat-race, whenever you felt disposed. By Jove! there was no man in town I envied more than you in those days.'
'And what has it all come to now, Jerry? I feel quite like a fogey,' exclaimed Trevor Chute.
'Yet this was but four years ago.'
'Only four years, old fellow, andsheis not married yet! But here come the party, and on Desmond's drag; he has the "lead," it seems.'
It was now the hour of one; the procession had started, and the eyes of all the onlookers were eagerly engaged in critically examining the various drags, so magnificently horsed and brilliantly appointed, as they passed in succession, with all their silver harness shining in the sun.
About thirty drove from the well-known rendezvous of the Coaching Club along the pretty drive which skirts the Serpentine and ends with the bridge that divides the Park from Kensington Gardens; and though some of the drivers adhered to the Club uniform—blue, with gilt buttons—many appeared in the perfection of morning costume; and as team after team went by, chestnut, white, or grey, with satin-like skins, murmurs of applause, rising at times to a cheer, greeted the proprietors.
The costumes of the ladies who occupied the lofty seats were as perfect as, in many instances, was their beauty; and no other capital in Europe could have presented such a spectacle as Trevor Chute saw then, when the summer sun was at its height in the heavens, gilding the trees with brilliant light, and showing Hyde Park in all its glory.
The leading drag was the one which fascinated him, and all the other twenty-nine went clattering past like same phantasmagoria, or a spectacle one might seem to behold in a dream.
Several ladies were on the drag, including the owner's somewhatpassésister, the Hon. Evelyn Desmond; but Chute saw only two—Clare and Violet Collingwood—or one, rather, the elder, who riveted all his attention.
Both girls were remarkable for their beauty even then, when every second female face seemed fair to look upon; but the contrast was strong in the opposite styles of their loveliness, for Clare was a brilliant brunette, while Violet was even more brilliant as a blonde; and as the drag swept past, Trevor Chute had only time to remark the perfect taste of Clare's costume or habit, that her back hair was a marvel of curious plaiting, and that she was laughingly and hastily thrusting into her silver-mounted Marguerite pouch a note that Desmond had handed to her, almost surreptitiously it seemed; and then, amid the crowd and haze, she passed away from his sight, as completely as she had done four years before, when, by the force of circumstances—a fate over which he had no control—they had been rent asunder, when their engagement was declared null, and they were informed that thenceforward their paths in life must be far apart.
'Clare Collingwood is the same girl as ever, Trevor,' said Jerry Vane, breaking a silence of some minutes. 'You saw with what imperial indifference she was receiving the admiration of all who passed, and the attention of those who were about her.'
'Is she much changed, Jerry, since—since I left England?' Trevor asked.
'Oh, no,' replied the other, cynically; 'she and her sisters—Violet, at least—have gone, and are still going, over the difficult ways of life pleasantly, gracefully, and easily, as all in their "set" usually do. In her fresh widow's weeds Ida Beverley could not be here to-day, of course.'
'I have an express and most melancholy mission to her on the morrow,' said Captain Chute. 'But why is Collingwoodpèrenot with his daughters on this occasion?'
'Though girls that any man might be proud of escorting in any capacity, the old beau, with his dyed hair and curled whispers, is never seen with them, nor has been since their mother's death. Though sixty, if he is a day, he prefers to act therôleof a young fellow on his preferment, and doesn't like to have these young women—one of them a widow, too—calling him "papa." He knows instinctively—nay, he has overheard—that he is called "old Collingwood," and he doesn't like the title a bit,' added Vane, laughing genuinely, for the first time that forenoon, as they made their way towards the nearest gate of the Park, which the glittering drags were all leaving by the Marble Arch, and setting forth,viâPortman Square, for luncheon at Muswell Hill or elsewhere.
'And has Clare had no offers since my time?' asked Trevor Chute, almost timidly.
'Two; good ones, also.'
'And she refused them?'
'So Ida told me.'
'Ida again; you and Mrs. Beverley seem very good friends.'
'Yes, though she used me shockingly in throwing me over for Beverley.'
'And why did—Clare refuse?'
'Can't say, for the life of me; women are such enigmas; unless a certain Trevor Chute, then broiling in the Punjaub, wherever that may be, had something to do with it.'
'I can pardon much in you, Jerry Vane,' said Chute, gravely; 'for we have been staunch friends ever since I was a species of big brother to you at Rugby; but please not to make a jest of Clare and me. And what of pretty Violet?'
'Oh, Violet is all right,' replied Vane, speaking very fast, and reddening a little at his friend's reproach. 'She has those graceful, taking, and pretty ways with her and about her that will be sure to do well for her in the end; thus, sooner or later, Violet's fortune is certain to be made in a matrimonial point of view.'
'I have heard of this fellow, Harvey Desmond, before,' said Chute, musingly. 'I remember his name when I was in the Household Brigade. He was lately, I think, gazetted a C.B.'
'Of course.'
'For what?'
'In consideration of his great services at Wormwood Scrubs and on Wimbledon Common.'
To see Clare onhisdrag, even with his sister, the Hon. Evelyn, to play propriety, stung Trevor Chute, and, as if divining his very thoughts, Jerry Vane said, let us hope unintentionally:
'All the clubs have linked their names together for some time past.'
'Well,' replied Trevor, with something like a malediction, as he proceeded in a vicious manner to manipulate a cigar, and bite off the end of it. 'What the deuce does that matter to me?'
His expression of face, however, belied the indifference he affected for the moment, and feeling that he had caused pain by his remark, Jerry Vane said, as they walked arm and arm along Piccadilly, by the side of the Green Park:
'Neither of us have been very successful in our love affairs with the Collingwoods; and with me even more than you, Trevor, it was a case of "love's labours lost." Yet, when I think of all that Ida Collingwood was in the past time to me, I cannot help feeling maudlin over it. We had, time to me, I cannot help feeling maudlin over it. We had, as you know well, been engaged a year when, unluckily, Beverley, of your corps, became a friend of the family. I know not by what magic he swayed her mind, her heart, and all her thoughts, but, from the first day she knew him, I felt that I was thrown over and that she was lost to me for ever! And on that day when she became Beverley's wife——'
In the bitterness of his heart Vane paused, for his voice became tremulous.
'The friend equally of you and of poor Jack Beverley, whom I laid in his grave, far, far away, I felt all the awkwardness of my position when that bitter rivalry arose between him and you about Ida Collingwood,' said Trevor Chute, and the usually lively Jerry, who seemed lost in thoughts which the voice and presence of his friend had summoned from the past, walked slowly forward in moody silence.
He was recalling, as he had too often done, the agony of the time when he first began to learn—first became grimly conscious—that the tender eyes of Ida sought to win glances from other eyes than his, and ask smile for smile from other lips too! And when desperately against hope he had hoped the game would change, and oblivion would follow forgiveness—but the time never came.
Jerry could recall, too, the sickly attempts he had made to arouse her pique and jealousy by flirting with Evelyn Desmond and other girls, but all in vain, as the sequel proved.
She had become so absorbed in Beverley as to be oblivious of every action of the discarded one, and almost careless of what he thought or felt.
But now, though Beverley was dead and had found his grave on a distant and a deadly shore, it was scarcely in human flesh and blood for Vane—even jolly Jerry Vane—to forgive, and still less to regret him as Trevor Chute did, though he affected to do so, on which the soldier shook his hand, saying:
'You are indeed a good-hearted fellow!'
But Vane felt that the praise was perhaps undeserved, and to change the subject, said—
'She has been to a certain extent getting over Beverley's death.'
'Getting over it?'
'Of course.'
'How?'
'By becoming more composed and settled; no grief lasts for ever, you know,' replied Vane, a little tartly; 'but now your return, your special visit to her, and the mementoes you bear, will bring the whole thing to the surface again, and—and—even after six months of widowhood—may——'
'Will make matters more difficult for you?' interrupted Trevor Chute, smiling.
'Precisely. I am a great ass, I know; but I cannot help loving Ida still.'
'You will accompany me to the Collingwoods' to-morrow, Jerry?' urged the soldier, after a pause.
'No, old fellow, decidedly not. Ida's grief would only worry me and make me feelde trop. What the deuce do you think I am made of, Trevor, to attempt to console the woman I love when she is weeping foranother?'
'Dine with me at the club this evening, then—sharp eight—and we'll talk it over.'
'Thanks; and then we shall have a long "jaw" together about all that is and all thatmighthave been; so, till then, old man, good-bye.'
Protracted by various culinary devices, the late dinner had encroached on the night, just as the final cigar in the smoking-room had done on the early hours of morning; and after a long conversation, full of many stirring and tender reminiscences and many mutual confidences, Jerry Vane had driven away to his rooms, and Trevor Chute was left alone to ponder over them all again, and consider the task—if task it really was—that lay before him on the following morn.
And now to tell the reader more precisely the relation in which some of thedramatis personæstand to each other.
Four years before the time when our story opens, Trevor Chute, then in the Foot Guards, had been engaged to Clare Collingwood. She was in her second season, though not yet in the zenith of her beauty, which was undeniably great, even in London; and his friend, Jervoise Vane, was at the same time the accepted of her second sister Ida, who had just 'come out' under the best auspices; yet the loves of all were fated to end unhappily.
Monetary misfortune overtook the family of Trevor Chute; expected settlements ended in smoke, and he had to begin what he called 'the sliding scale,' by exchanging from the Guards into a Line regiment then serving in India; and then the father of Clare—Sir Carnaby Collingwood—issued the stern fiat which broke off their engagement for ever.
'Of course,' thought he, as he looked dreamily upward to the concentric rings and wreaths of smoke, the produce of his mild havannah, 'we shall meet as mere friends, old acquaintances, and that sort of thing. Doubtless she has forgotten me, and all that I was to her once. Here, amid the gaieties of three successive seasons sincethose days, she must have found many greater attractions than poor Trevor Chute—this fellow Desmond among them—while the poor devil in the Line was broiling up country, with no solace save the memory—if solace it was—of the days that were no more!'
Sir Carnaby Collingwood was by nature proud, cold, and selfish. He had married for money, as his father had done before him; and though he seemed to have a pleasure in revenging himself, as some one has phrased it, by quenching the love and sunshine in the life of others, because of the lack of both in his own, Trevor Chute felt that he could scarcely with justice be upbraided for breaking off the marriage of a girl having such expectations as Clare with an almost penniless subaltern officer.
Ida's engagement terminated as related in the preceding chapter. With a cruelty that was somewhat deliberate, she fairly jilted Vane and married Jack Beverley, undeniably a handsomer and more showy man, whose settlements were unexceptionable, and came quite up to all that Sir Carnaby could wish.
Yet Beverley did not gain much by the transaction. Ida fell into a chronic state of health so delicate that decline was threatened; the family physicians interposed, and nearly three years passed away without her being able to join her husband in India, where he was then serving with Trevor Chute's regiment, and where he met his death by a terrible accident.
Jerry Vane felt deeply and bitterly the loss of the girl he had loved so well; and he would rather that she had gone to India and passed out of his circle, as he was constantly fated to hear of her, and not unfrequently to meet her; for Jerry's heart did not break, and sooth to say, between balls and dinners, croquet and Badminton parties, cricket matches, whist and chess tournaments, rinking, and so forth, his time was pretty well parcelled out, when in town or anywhere else.
Trevor Chute and Beverley had been warm friends when with the regiment. Loving Clare still, and treasuring all the tender past, he felt that her brother-in-law was a species of link between them, through whom he could always hear of her welfare, while he half hoped that she might wish to hear of his, and yet be led to take an interest in him.
With all this mutual regard, Chute's dearest friend of the two was not the dead man, but Jerry Vane; yet there had been a great community of sentiment between them. This was born of the affection they fostered for the two sisters, and sooth to say, Beverley, while in India, loved his absent wife with a passion that bordered on something beyond either enthusiasm or romance. It became eventually spiritualised and refined, this love for the distant and the ailing, beyond what he could describe or altogether conceive, though times there were when in moments of confidence, over their cheroots and brandy pawnee, he would gravely observe to Trevor Chute that so strong, and yet so tender, was the tie between him and Ida, that, though so many thousand miles apart, they wereen rapportwith each other, and thus that each thought, or talked, and dreamt of the absent at the same moment.
Be all this as it may, a time was to come when Trevor was to recall these strange confidences and apparently wild assertions with something more than terror and anxiety, though now he only thought of the death-bed of his friend in India, the details of all that befell him, and the messages and mementoes which Jack Beverley had charged him to deliver to Ida on his return to England.
They had been stationed together, on detachment, at the cantonment of Landour, which is situated on one of the outer ridges of the Himalaya range, immediately above the Valley of the Deyrah Dhoon, where they shared the same bungalow.
The dulness of the remote station at which the two friends found themselves became varied by the sudden advent of a tiger in an adjacent jungle: a regular man-eater, a brute of unexampled strength and ferocity, which had carried off more than one unfortunate native from the pettah or village adjoining the cantonment; thus, as a point of honour, it behoved Trevor Chute and Beverley, as European officers and English sportsmen, to undertake its destruction. Indeed, it was to them, and to their skill, prowess, and hardihood, the poor natives looked entirely for security and revenge.
'I have sworn to kill that tiger, and send its skin as a trophy to Ida,' said Beverley, when the subject was first mooted at tiffin one day. 'She shall have it for the carriage in the Park, and to show to her friends!'
About two in the morning, the comrades, accompanied by four native servants, took their guns, and set forth on this perilous errand, and leaving the secluded cantonment, proceeded some three or four miles in the direction of the jungle in which the tiger was generally seen.
As he sat in reverie now, how well Trevor Chute could remember every petty detail of that eventful day; for an eventful one it proved, in more ways than one.
The aspect of Jack Beverley, his dark and handsome face, set off by his white linen puggaree, his lips clearly cut, firm and proud, his eyes keen as those of a falcon, filled with the fire of youth and courage, and his splendid figure, with every muscle developed by the alternate use of the saddle, the oar, and the bat, his chest broad, and his head nobly set on his shoulders, and looking what he was, the model of an Englishman.
'Now, Chute, old fellow, you will let me have the first shot, for Ida's sake, when this brute breaks cover,' said he, laughing, as he handed him a case worked by her hands, adding, 'Have a cheroot—they are only chinsurrahs, but I'll send a big box to your crib; they will be too dry for me ere I get through them all, and we may find them serviceable this evening.'
Poor Beverley could little foresee the evening that was beforehim!
Though late in the season, the day and the scenery were beautiful. Leaving behind a noble thicket, where the fragrant and golden bells of the baubul trees mingled with the branches of other enormous shrubs, from the stems and branches of which the baboon ropes and other verdant trailers hung in fantastic festoons, the friends began to step short, look anxiously around them while advancing, a few paces apart, with their rifles at half-cock; for now they were close upon that spot called the jungle, and the morning sun shone brightly.
After six hours' examination of the jungle the friends saw nothing, and the increasing heat of the morning made them descend thankfully into a rugged nullah that intersected the thicket, to procure some of the cool water that trickled and filtered under the broad leaves and gnarled roots far down below.
Just as Chute was stooping to drink, Beverley said, in a low but excited voice:
'Look out, Trevor; by Jingo, there's the tiger!'
Chute did so, and his heart gave a kind of leap within him when, sure enough, he saw the dreaded tiger, one of vast strength and bulk, passing quietly along the bottom of the nullah, but with something stealthy in its action, with tail and head depressed.
In silence Beverley put his rifle to his shoulder, just as the dreadful animal began to climb the bank towards him, and at that moment a ray of sunlight glittering on the barrel caused the tiger to pause and look up, when about twenty yards off.
It saw him: the fierce round face seemed to become convulsed with rage; the little ears fell back close; the carbuncular eyes filled with a dreadful glare; from its red mouth a kind of steam was emitted, while its teeth and whiskers seemed to bristle as it drew crouchingly back on its haunches prior to making a tremendous spring.
Ready to take it in flank, Chute here cocked his rifle, when Beverley, not without some misgivings, sighted it near the shoulder, and fired both barrels in quick succession.
Then a triumphant shout escaped him, for on the smoke clearing away he saw the tiger lying motionless on its side, with its back towards him.
'You should have reserved the fire of one barrel,' said Chute, 'for the animal may not be dead, and it may charge us yet.'
'I have knocked the brute fairly over,' replied Beverley; 'don't fire, Chute, please, as, for Ida's sake, I wish to have all the glory of the day.'
And without even reloading his rifle the heedless fellow rushed towards the fallen animal, which was certainly lying quietly enough among the jungle-grass that clothed the rough sides of the water-course.
The tiger suddenly rose with a frightful roar, that made the jungle re-echo; and springing upon Beverley with teeth and claws, they rolled together to the bottom of the nullah!
Two of the native attendants fled, and two clambered up a tree. Left thus alone, with a heart full of horror, anxiety, and trepidation, Trevor Chute went plunging down the hollow into which his friend had vanished, and from whence some indescribable, but yet terrible sounds, seemed to ascend.
He could see nothing of Beverley; but suddenly the crashing of branches, and the swaying of the tall feathery grass, announced the whereabouts of the tiger, which became visible a few yards off, apparently furious with rage and pain, and tearing everything within its reach to pieces.
On Trevor firing, his ball had the effect of making it spring into the air with a tremendous bound; but the contents of his second barrel took the savage right in the heart, after which it rolled dead to the bottom of the nullah.
On being assured that the tiger was surely killed, the cowardly natives came slowly to the aid of Chute, who found his friend Beverley in a shocking condition, with his face fearfully lacerated, and his breast so torn and mutilated by the dreadful claws, that the very action of the heart was visible.
He was breathing heavily, but quite speechless and insensible.
Though many minutiæ of that day's dreadful occurrence came vividly back to Chute's memory, he could scarcely remember how he got his friend conveyed back to the cantonment of Landour, and laid on a native charpoy in their great and comfortless-looking bungalow, where the doctor, after a brief examination, could afford not the slightest hope of his recovery.
'It's only an affair of time now,' said he; 'muscles, nerves, and vessels are all so torn and injured that no human system could survive the shock.'
So, with kind-hearted Trevor Chute, the subsequent time was passed in a species of nightmare, amid which some catastrophe seemed to have happened, but the truth of which his mind failed to grasp or realize; and mourning for his friend as he would for a brother, they got through the hot and dreary hours of the Indian night, he scarcely knew how.
About gunfire, and just when dawn was empurpling the snowy summits of the vast hills that overshadow the Deyrah Dhoon, the doctor came and said to him, with professional coolness:
'Poor Jack Beverley is going fast; I wish you would do your best to amuse him.'
'Amuse him?' repeated Chute, indignantly.
'Yes; but no doubt you will find it difficult to do so, when you know the poor fellow is dying.'
In the grey dawn his appearance was dreadful, yet he was quite cool and collected, though weaker than a little child—he who but yesterday had been in all the strength and glory of manhood when in its prime!
'The regiment is under orders for home,' said he, speaking painfully, feebly, and at long intervals. 'Dear old friend, you will see her—Ida—and give my darling all the mementoes of me that you deem proper to take: my V.C. and all that sort of thing; among others,this gipsy ring; it was her first gift to me; and see, the tiger's cruel teeth have broken it quite in two! I have had a little sleep, and I dreamt ofher(God bless her for ever!)—dreamt of her plainly and distinctly as I see you now, old fellow, for I know that we areen rapport—and we shall soon meet, moreover.'
'En rapportagain!' thought Chute; 'what can he—what does he mean?'
'Promise me that you will do what I ask of you, and break to my darling, as gently as possible, the mode in which I died.'
Trevor Chute promised all that his friend required of him, especially that he should see Ida personally.
This was insisted on, and after that the victim sank rapidly.
As he lay dying, he seemed in fancy, as his feeble mutterings indicated, to float through the air as his thoughts and aspirations fled homeward—homeward by Aden, the Red Sea, and Cairo—homeward by Malta and the white cliffs to the home of the Collingwoods; and he saw Ida standing on the threshold to welcome him; and then, when her fancied kiss fell on his lips, the soul of the poor fellow passed away.
The name of Ida was the last sound he uttered.
All was silent then, till as Trevor Chute closed his eyes he heard the merry drums beating the reveille through the echoing cantonments.
Though not yet thirty years of age, Trevor Chute was no longer a young man with a wild and unguessed idea of existence before him. Thought and experience of life had tamed him down, and made him in many respects more a man of the world than when last he stood upon the threshold of Sir Carnaby Collingwood's stately mansion in Piccadilly, and left it, as he thought, for ever behind him.
Yet even now a thrill came over him as he rang the visitors' bell.
It would have been wiser, perhaps, and, circumstanced as he was with the family, the most proper mode, to have simply written to Sir Carnaby or to Ada Beverley instead of calling; but he had promised his friend, when dying at Landour, to see her personally; and it is not improbable that in the kindness of his heart Jack Beverley, even in that awful hour, was not without a hope that the visit might eventually lead to something conducive to the future happiness of his friend, to whom the chance of such a hope had certainly never occurred.
Trevor Chute had urged Jerry Vane to accompany him, hoping, by the aid of his presence and companionship, to escape some of the awkwardness pertaining to his visit; but the latter, though on terms of passable intimacy with the family still, and more especially since the widowhood of Ida, considering the peculiar mission of Chute to her, begged to be excused on this occasion.
And now, while a clamorous longing to see Clare once again—to hear her voice, to feel the touch of her hand, though all for the last time in life—rose in his heart, and while conning over the terms in which he was to address her, and how, in their now altered relations, he was to comport himself with her from whom he had been so cruelly separated by no fault of either, he actually hoped that, if not from home, she might at least be engaged with visitors.
Full of such conflicting thoughts, he rang the bell a second time. The lofty door of the huge house was slowly unfolded by a tall powdered lackey of six feet and some odd inches, the inevitable 'Jeames,' of the plush and cauliflower head, who glanced suspiciously at a glazed sword-case and small travelling-bag which Chute had taken from his cab.
'Is Sir Carnaby at home?'
'No, sir—gone to his club,' was the reply, languidly given.
'Mrs. Beverley, then?'
'She does not see anyone—to-day, at least.'
'Miss Collingwood?'
Shewas at home, and on receiving the card of Chute, the valet, who knew that his name was not on the visitors' list, again looked suspiciously at the bag and sword-case, and while marvelling 'what line the "Captain" was in—barometers, French jewellery, or fancy soaps,' passed the card to a 'gentleman' in plain clothes, and after some delay and formality our friend was ushered upstairs.
Again he found himself in that familiar drawing-room—but alone.
It seemed as if not a day had elapsed since he had last stood there, and that all the intervening time was a dream, and that he and Clare were as they might have been.
From the windows the view was all unchanged; he could see the trees of the Green Park, and the arch surmounted by the hideous statue of the 'Iron Duke,' and even the drowsy hum of the streets was the same as of old.
Chute had seen vast and airy halls in the City of Palaces by the Hooghly; but, of late, much of his time had been spent under canvas, or in shabby straw-roofed bungalows; and now the double drawing-room of this splendid London house, though familiar enough to him, as we have said, appealed to his sense of costliness, with its rich furniture, its lofty mirrors, lace curtains, gilded cornices, statues, and jardinières, loading the atmosphere with the perfume of heliotrope and tea-roses, and brought home to him, by its details, the gulf that wealth on one hand, and unmerited misfortune on the other, had opened between him and Clare Collingwood.
A rustle of silk was heard, and suddenly she stood before him.
She was very, very pale, and while striving to conceal her emotion under the cool exterior enforced by good breeding, it was evident that the hand in which she held his card was trembling.
But she presented the other frankly to Trevor Chute, and hastily begging him to be seated, bade him welcome to England, and skilfully threw herself into a sofa with her back to the light.
'We saw in the papers that your regiment was coming home, and then that it had landed at Portsmouth,' she remarked, after a brief pause, and Chute's heart beat all the more lightly that she seemed still to have some interest in his movements. 'Poor Ida,' she resumed, 'is confined to her room; Violet is at home,—you remember Violet? but I am so sorry that papa is out.'
'My visit was to him, or rather to Mrs. Beverley,' said Chute, with the slightest tinge of bitterness in his tone; 'and believe me that I should not have intruded at all on Sir Carnaby Collingwood but for the dying wish of my poor friend your brother-in-law.'
'Intruded! Oh, how can you speak thus, Captain Chute—and tome?' she asked in almost breathless voice, while her respiration became quicker, and a little flush crossed her pale face for a second.
Then Chute began to feel more than ever the miserable awkwardness of the situation, and of the task which had been set him; for when a man and woman have ever been more to each other than mere friends, they can never meet in the world simply as acquaintances again.
For a minute he looked earnestly at Clare, and thought that never before, even in the buried past that seemed so distant now—yet only four years ago—had she seemed more lovely than now.
The blood of a long line of fair and highly bred ancestresses had given to her features that, though perfectly regular and beautifully cut, were full of expression and vivacity, though times there were when a certain fixity or statue-like repose that pervaded them seemed to enhance their beauty.
Her eyes and hair were wonderfully dark when contrasted with the pale purity of her complexion, and the colour and form of her lips, though full and pouting, were expressive of softness, of sweetness, and even of passionate tenderness, but without giving the slightest suggestion of aught that was sensuous; for if the heart of Clare Collingwood was passionate and affectionate, its outlet was rather in her eyes than in the form of her mouth.
And now, while gazing upon her and striving hard to utter the merest commonplaces with an unfaltering tongue, Trevor Chute could but ponder how often he had kissed those lips, those thick dark tresses, and her charming hands, on which his eyes had to turn as on a picture now.
His eyes, however, were speaking eyes; they were full of tenderness and truth, and showed, though proper pride and the delicacy of their mutual position forbade the subject, how his tongue longed to take up the dear old story he had told her in the past years, ere cold worldliness parted them so roughly, and, as it seemed, for ever.
On the other hand, Clare Collingwood—perfectly high-bred, past girlhood, a woman of the world, and fully accustomed to society, if she received him now without any too apparent emotion, by the delicate flush that flitted across her beautiful face, and the almost imperceptible constraint in her graceful yet—shall we say it?—startled manner, imparted the flattering conviction to her visitor that he was far from indifferent to her still, and her eyes filled alternately with keen interest, with alarm, affection, and sorrow, as she heard, for the first time, all the details of Beverley's death in that distant hill cantonment, a place of which she had not the slightest conception.
'Will Mrs. Beverley see me?' he concluded.
'Though much of an invalid now, poor Ida undoubtedly will; but you must not tell her all that you have told to me,' said Clare, in her earnestness almost unconsciously laying her hand on his arm, which thrilled beneath her touch. 'Dearest mamma is, of course you know, no more. We lost her since—since you left England.'
'Yes, I heard of the sorrowful event when we were up country on the march to Benares, and it seemed to—to bring my heart back to its starting-place.'
'Since then I have been quite a matron to Violet, and even to Ida, though married; thus I feel myself, when in society, equal to half a dozen of chaperones.'
A little laugh followed this remark, and to Chute's ear it had, he thought, a hollow sound, and Vane's report of 'what the clubs said' concerning Desmond and the 'linked names,' and the recollection of the note placed so hastily in the Marguerite pouch which she wore at that very time, rankled in Chute's mind, and began to steel him somewhat against her, in spite of himself, but only for a time, for the charm of her presence was fast bewildering him.
Her heart, like his own, perhaps, was full to bursting—beating with love and yearning, yet stifled under the exterior that good breeding and the conventionality of 'society' inculcated.
'I hope you find the climate of England pleasant after—after India,' she remarked, when there was a pause in the conversation.
'Oh, yes—of course—Miss Collingwood—my native air.'
'Our climate is so very variable.'
CaptainChute agreed with her cordially that it was so.
Though subjects not to be approached by either, each was doubtful how the heart of the other stood in the matters of love and affection.
Trevor Chute had, all things considered, though their engagement had been brought to a calamitous end, good reason, he thought, to be jealous of Harvey Desmond; while Clare had equal reason to doubt whether, in the years that were gone, and in his wanderings in that land of the sun from whence he had just returned so bronzed and scorched, he might have loved, and become, even now, engaged to another.
She was only certain of one fact: that he was yet unmarried.
These very ideas and mutual suspicions made their conversation disjointed; hollow, and unprofitable; but now, luckily, an awkward pause was interrupted by the entrance of a fair and handsome, dashing yet delicate-looking girl, attired for a ride in the Row, with her whip and gloves in one hand, her gathered skirt in the other.
Though neither bashful nor shy, her bright blue eyes glanced inquiringly at their military-looking visitor, to whom she merely bowed, and was, perhaps, about to withdraw, when Clare said:
'Don't you remember who this is, Captain Chute?'
Turning more fully towards the young girl, whose beauty and charming grace in her riding-habit were undeniable, he said:
'I think I do; you are——'
'Violet; you can't have forgotten Violet, Trevor? Oh, how well I remember you, though you are as brown as a berry now!' exclaimed Violet Collingwood, as she threw aside her gloves and whip, and took each of his hands in hers. 'I was thirteen when you saw me last; I am seventeen, quite a woman, now.'
Kindly he pressed the fairy fingers of Violet, whose merry blue eyes gazed with loving kindness into his, for the girl had suddenly struck a chord of great tenderness in his heart by so frankly calling him 'Trevor,' while another, who was wont to do so once, was now styling him ceremoniously 'Captain Chute.'
Clare seemed sensible of the situation in which her somewhat girlish sister placed them; for a moment her face looked haughty and aristocratic, but the next its normal sweet expression of character, all that is womanly, beautiful, and tender, stole into it, and she fairly laughed when Violet twitched off her hat and veil, and, seating herself beside Trevor Chute, declared that the Row should not be honoured with her presence that day.
Though naturally playful, frank, and almost hoydenish—if such an expression could be applied to a girl of Violet's appearance, and one so highly bred, too—she gazed with something of wonder, curiosity, and undeniable interest on the handsome face, the tender eyes, and well-knit figure of this once lover of her elder sister, whose story, with all the romance of a young girl's nature, she so genuinely pitied, whom she remembered so well as being her particular friend when she was permitted to come home for the holidays, who had petted and toyed with her so often, as with a little sister, and of whom she had only heard a little from time to time as being absent with Beverley in a distant, and to her unknown, land; and now, girl-like, she began to blunder, to the confusion and annoyance of her more stately sister.
'Trevor Chute hereafter all!' she exclaimed, with a merry burst of laughter. 'Why! it seems all like a story in one of Mudie's novels!'
'What does?' asked Clare, with a little asperity of tone.
'Can you ask?' persisted Violet.
'His visit is a very melancholy one; and if Captain Chute will excuse me, I shall go and prepare poor Ida for it,' said Clare, rising.
'What does it all mean?' asked Violet, again capturing the willing hands of their visitor, as Clare hastily, and not without some confusion, swept away through the outer drawing-room. 'Why doesn't she call you Trevor, as I do?CaptainChute sounds so formal! I am sure I have often heard her talk to Ida of you as "Trevor" when they thought I was asleep, yet was very much awake indeed. So you are Clare's first love, are you?'
'I am glad to find that I am not quite forgotten,' replied Chute, smiling in earnest now; 'you were quite a child when I—I——'
'Left this for India.'
'Yes.'
'Whydid you go?'
'To join my regiment.'
'Leaving Clare behind you? I must have a long, long talk with you about this, and you shall be my escort in the Park the next time I ride with Evelyn Desmond, for her brother is perpetually dangling after Clare, eyeing her with his stupid china-blue eyes, and doing his dreary best to be pleasing, like a great booby as he is.'
Preceded by Clare, and accompanied by Violet, Trevor Chute entered the apartment of Ida Beverley, a species of little drawing-room, appropriated to her own use, and where, when not driving in the Park, she spent most of the day, apart from everyone.
Ere they entered, Clare again touched his arm lightly, and whispered,
'Be careful in all you say.'
'Be assured that I shall.'
'Thanks, for poor Ida looks as though she would never smile again.'
Though warned by these words to expect some marked change in the beautiful coquette who had been the sun of Beverley's life, and who had taken nearly all the life out of the less luckless Jerry Vane, the visitor was greatly shocked by the appearance of Ida, who rose from her easy-chair to receive him with the saddest of smiles on one of the sweetest of faces—Ida, who had the richest and brightest auburn hair in London, and the 'most divine complexion in the same big village by the Thames,' as Beverley used to boast many a time and oft, when he and Trevor were far, far away from home and her.
Her beauty had become strangely ethereal; her complexion purer, even, and more waxen than ever; her eyes seemed larger, but clearer, more lustrous, and filled at times with a far-seeing expression, and they were long-lashed and heavily lidded.
Her hands seemed very thin and white, yet so pink in the palms.
To Trevor Chute she had the appearance of one in consumption; but strange to say, poor Jerry Vane, who still loved her so well, saw nothing of all this, even when meeting her at intervals.
She received Trevor Chute with outstretched hands, and with anempressementwhich, perhaps, her elder sister envied; she invited him to sit close by her side, and to tell her all he knew, all he could remember, and every detail of Beverley's last hours; but to do this, after the warning he had received from Clare, required all the tact, ingenuity, and delicacy that Chute was master of.
She had become composed and calm during the past months; but now the proffered relics brought so vividly and painfully before her the individuality of the dead, the handsome young husband she had lost, that a heavy outburst of anguish was the result, as all expected.
There were rings, each of which had its own story; a miniature of herself, with a lock of her auburn hair behind it; there were his medals and his Victoria cross, gained by an act of bravery among the hills, his sword and sash: all were kissed with quivering lips, commented on, and wept over again and again, not noisily or obstreperously, but with a quiet, gentle, subdued, and ladylike grief that proved very touching, especially in one so young and so beautiful in her deep crape dress; and Trevor Chute, as he observed all this, began to think that even yet his friend Vane's chances of regaining the widow's heart were of the slightest kind.
'I knew, Trevor Chute,' said she, after a pause, 'that I should never, never see him again!'
'How?' he asked.
'Because in the dawn of that morning when—when he died, I dreamt of him, and he showed me the ring you have brought—the gipsy ring I gave him, broken in two, as it now is.'
'The tiger's teeth did that.'
'It is true,' said Clare. 'She was sleeping with me, and started up in tears and agitation to tell me of her dream and of the ring.'
Trevor Chute's mind went back to that time when the pale face of the dead man looked so sad in the half-darkened bungalow, while the drums beat merrily in the square without; the last words of Beverley came back to him, and could it be, as he had often said, that he and Ida were indeeden rapport, and had a spiritual and unseen link between them?
It began to seem so now.
Then, fearing that his visit was somewhat protracted, he rose, yet lingeringly, to go.
'Dear Captain Chute—Trevor we all called you once,' said Ida, taking his hand in both of hers, while Clare drew a little way back, 'you will call again and see us?'
'It is better that I should not,' replied Chute, in a voice that became agitated in spite of himself; 'you know all the circumstances, Ida, under which we parted,' he added, in a lower voice.
'You will surely come again and seeme?' she urged.
'If the family were out of town,' Chute was beginning.
'Trevor,' said the widow, passionately, 'love me as if—as if I were your sister; for you were more than a friend—yes, a very brother—to my poor Beverley, and I must be as your sister.'
Clare's eyes met those of Chute for an instant, and then were dropped on the carpet; but she did not blush, as another might have done, at all this speech implied or suggested, for her face grew very pale, and then, feeling the dire necessity of saying something, she muttered, falteringly:
'You will surely call and see papa, after—after——'
'What, Miss Collingwood?'
'Your long absence from this country.'
'It has seemed somewhat of an eternity to me.'
She trembled as he added, in a gentle, yet cold manner:
'Excuse me, but it were better to pay my first visit to him at his club.'
Chute, who had been all tenderness to Ida, could not help this manner to Clare, for Violet's remarks about Desmond seemed to corroborate those of Vane.
Unstable of purpose, he held Clare's hand, and she permitted him to do so, with a slow, regretful clasp. Why should he not do so, and why should she withdraw her slender fingers?
As he descended the staircase, he heard the name of the Honourable Harvey Desmond announced with his card, and the rivals passed each other in the marble vestibule, the former with the easy air of a daily, at least a frequent, visitor; the other with that of one whose mission was over.
'On what terms are he and Clare if the clubs link their names together?' thought Trevor, bitterly and sadly, as he came forth.
Did she, after all, love himself still?
He was almost inclined to flatter himself that she did so.
Worldly or monetary matters were unchanged between them, as at that cruel time when he lost her; so perhaps he had only returned to London to stand idly by and see her become the wife of Desmond!
After all that had passed between them, after all that seemed gone for ever, after the bitterness and mortification he had endured, the years of hopeless separation in a distant land, he could scarcely realize, while walking along the sunny and crowded pavement of Piccadilly, the assured fact that he had again seen and spoken with Clare Collingwood; and that the whole interview had not been one of those day-dreams in which, when in Beverley's society, he had been so often wont to indulge when quartered far up country in the burning East.
Then he recalled the cold terms of that letter in which her father—a hard and heartless, frivolous and luxurious man of the world, with much of aristocratic snobbery in his composition—had bluntly informed him that the engagement between him and Clare was ended for ever, andwhy; and he resolved that neither at the baronet's club nor anywhere else would he waste a calling card upon him; and in this pleasant mood of mind he hailed a hansom and drove to the rooms of his friend Jerry Vane.
If Jerry Vane was not very contented in mind, his rooms, the windows of which overlooked a fashionable square, bore evidence that he was surrounded by every luxury, that he was behind the young fellows of his set in nothing; while the velvet and silk cases for cigars or vestas that littered the table and mantelpiece, even the slippers and smoking-cap he wore, all the work of feminine fingers, seemed to hint of the many fair ones who were ready to console him.
Possessed of means ample enough to indulge in every whim and fancy, the mantelpiece and the tables about him were littered by the 'hundred and one' objects with which a young man like Jerry is apt to surround himself.
There were pipes of all kinds, whips, spurs, fencing-foils, revolvers, Derringer pistols, Bohemian glass, and gold-mounted bottles full of essences, statuettes pell-mell with soiled kid gloves, soda-water bottles, pink notes, faded bouquets, and French novels in their yellow covers.
The hangings and furniture were elegant and luxurious, on the walls were some crayons of very fair girls in ratherdécolletédress, while on a marble console lay a gun-case, hunting-flasks, and many other things that were quite out of place in a drawing-room, and a Skye terrier and an enormous St. Bernard mastiff were gambolling together on a couple of great tiger-skins, the spoil of Trevor Chute's gun in some far Indian jungle.
The day was far advanced, yet Jerry had not long breakfasted, and lay, not fully dressed, in a luxurious dressing-robe, tasselled and braided, on the softest of sofas, enjoying the inevitable cigar, when Chute was ushered in, and he sprang up to receive him.
It may easily be supposed that Vane was most impatient to hear all the details of his friend's remarkable visit to the Collingwoods—remarkable, at least, under all circumstances—but he could not fail to listen with emotions of a somewhat mingled cast to the account of Ida's undoubted grief for his supplanter—an account which he certainly, with that love of self-torment peculiar to some men, wrung from Trevor Chute by dint of much industrious cross-questioning.
Could he blame her for it?
'This sadness, of which all are cognizant,' said Chute, 'is not unaccountable, you know, Jerry.'
'I suppose so.'
'It is natural grief for Jack Beverley.'
'Pleasant fact to thrust on me!' said Vane, grimly.
'Pardon me, old fellow, I did not thrust it on you. But take heart; a girl with such capacity for love and tenderness is worth the winning.'
'I won her, man alive!' said Jerry, savagely.
'Well, such a fortune is worth winning again.'
'This is barrack slang, Trevor.'
'Not at all,' said Chute, laughing at his friend's petulance. 'Be assured that she must love something; and your turn will deservedly come in due time.'
'If a cat or a monkey don't take my place.'
'Cynical again.'
'I can't help being so, Trevor, as well as being a simpleton.'
'Nay, don't say so, Jerry,' said the soldier, kindly; 'I think this unchanging love you have for a girl who used you so does honour to your heart, especially in this age of ours, when we are much more addicted to pence than to poetry; and, as some one says, thesauce piquanteof life is its glorious uncertainty.'
'And Clare—what were your thoughts and conclusions abouther?
'My thoughts you know; my conclusions—I have none,' replied Chute, who, since he had again seen and talked with Clare Collingwood, had felt his heart too full of her to confide, even to his friend, as yet, what hope or fear he had.
'And you saw Violet, too?' asked Vane, to fill up a pause.
'Oh, yes,' replied Chute, with animation; 'Violet, whilom the pretty little girl—the child with a wealth of golden hair flowing below her waist, and no end of mischief and fun in her bright blue eyes; she seems the same now as then. She actually spoke of Desmond being an admirer of Clare.'
'Surely that was bad form in the girl, toyouespecially.'
'She did so through pure inadvertence, Jerry; but I must own that, when coupled with your remarks, the circumstance stung me more than a week ago I could have anticipated. But I suppose such trials as those of ours,' he continued, helping himself to a bumper of sherry without waiting to be asked, 'are part and parcel of the ills that manhood has to encounter—"Manhood, with all its chances and changes, its wild revels and its dark regrets—its sparkling champagne-cup and its bitter aconite lying at the dregs."'
'Times there are when I blush at my own want of proper pride of heart in continuing to mourn after a girl who has quietly let me drop into the place of a mere friend.'
'Nay, depend upon it, Jerry, you must be much more than any mere friend can be to Ida Beverley; and now, as far as her grief goes, my visit to-day will prove, I think, the turning point.'
'And so Violet actually blundered out with some remark about Desmond.'
'Yes, and that which galled me more was to see him come lounging into the house to visit Clare just as I took my departure, so theremustbe some truth in what the clubs say.'
Jerry Vane did not reply, and his silence seemed to give a marked assent to the surmise, as he had been in London, for some time past, and must, as Chute thought bitterly, know all theon ditsof the fashionable world, and he sat also silent, watching the ice in the sherry cobbler melt slowly away.
Though Trevor Chute had, with emotions of doubt, regret, and envy, seen Desmond lounging into the house of the Collingwoods on the eventful day of his visit thereto, it did not follow, he thought on reflection, that he visited there daily.
Nor was it so.
It was the height of a crowded and brilliant London season, and the Brigade had to undergo what that branch of the service deem 'hard work.'
There were guards of honour for Royal drawing-rooms; escort duty; heavy morning drills at Wormwood Scrubs; the daily ride in the Lady's Mile; polo at Lillie Bridge; perhaps a match with the Coldstreams at Lord's; a Bacchanalian water party and a nine o'clock dinner at Richmond with some of the pets of the Opera; midnight receptions and later waltzes; at homes, and so forth: thus the time of Desmond was pretty well filled up; and yet at many of these places he had ample opportunities for meeting Clare, and being somewhat of a privileged dangler, without committing himself so far as a special visit might imply.
All was over between Clare Collingwood and Trevor Chute; yet the interest of the latter in her and her future was irrepressible.
Two days passed, and he remained in great doubt what to do: whether to accept Ida's piteous and pressing invitation to call onher, heedless, of course, though not forgetting it, of Violet's proposal that he should escort her in the Park when Clare rode with Desmond.
And now he began to think that to remain in London, where there would be daily chances of seeing Clare, would be but to trifle with his own happiness and that peace of mind which he had been gradually attaining in India, and that he and Jerry Vane should betake themselves to Paris or Brussels, and kill thought as best they could; to this conclusion they came as they sat far into the hours of a sultry summer night over cigars and iced drinks, and resolved that the morrow should see them leave 'the silver streak' behind them.
And at that very time, when they were forming their plans, what was Clare about?
Could Trevor have seen her then, and known her secret thoughts, perhaps he might have been less decided in his views of foreign travel.
Returning wearily and long before the usual time from a brilliant rout, greatly to the surprise of Violet, and not a little to the vexation of that young lady, Clare was seated alone in her own room, lost in thought and unwilling to consult poor sad Ida, who was now fast asleep.
It was long past midnight; the throng of foot passengers was gone, but the rattle of carriages was incessant as if the time were mid-day.
She had unclasped her ornaments as if they oppressed her, and forgetful of her maid, who yawned fitfully and impatiently in an adjoining room, she sat with her rounded chin placed in the palm of a white hand, with her dark eyes fixed on vacancy.
The soft air of the summer night—or morning, rather—came gently through the lace curtains of an open window, bringing with it the delicious perfume of flowers from the jardinière in the balcony; and perhaps the fragrance of these blossoms, and the half-hushed hum of the streets without, 'stole through the portals of the senses,' and lured her into waking dreams of the past and of the future.
At the ball she had quitted so early, her father, who had been making himself appear somewhat absurd by his senile attentions to Desmond's ratherpasséesister, Evelyn, had actuallyspokento her of Trevor Chute, and in unwonted friendly terms; and the flood of thought this episode had called up within her, conflicting with the half-decided addresses of Desmond, partly drew her home, to think and ponder over her future, if a future she had that was worth considering now.
So far as monetary matters were concerned, the same barriers existed still between her and poor Trevor Chute as when Sir Carnaby broke off the engagement as cruelly as he would have 'scratched' a horse; and then the settlements which the great, languid guardsman could make were known to be unexceptional.
These did not weigh much with gentle, yet proud, and unambitious Clare; but she knew that they had vast weight with her worldly-minded father, so why torment herself by thinking of Trevor Chute at all?
But thoughts came thick and fast in spite of reason and cool reflection, and the girl sank into a reverie that was far from being a pleasant one.
But what if Trevor Chute had learned to love another!
She bit her lovely nether lip, which was like a scarlet camellia bud, for an instant; her dark eyes flashed, then drooped, and she smiled softly, confidently, and perhaps triumphantly, as she said, half audibly:
'Ah, no—he loves me still; poor Trevor! I saw it in his eyes—I heard it in the cadence of his voice, and I never was mistaken! He loves me still—but to what purpose,to what end?'