"Who should it be? Where shouldst thou look for kindness?When we are sick, where can we look for succour?When we are wretched, where can we complain?And when the world looks cold and surly on us,Where can we go to meet a warmer eyeWith such sure confidence as to a mother?"JOANNA BAILLIE.
A month after the occurrence of the stirring events we have just narrated, Quentin Kennedy found himself an inmate of the same house with his young French friend at Corunna—the pretty villa that faced the bay of Orsan, the same mansion in which the Master of Rohallion spent that remarkable night before the battle.
General de Ribeaupierre had been appointed by Marshal Soult military governor of the town and citadel of Corunna, in which there was a strong French garrison; but instead of occupying the gloomy quarters assigned to the governor, Madame de Ribeaupierre, who had joined him, preferred the little Villa de Orsan near the coast, and had prevailed upon him to place Eugene on his staff as an aide-de-camp, and thus the whole of her household now seemed, for the time, to be peacefully located in that remote corner of Gallicia.
Both madame and her husband the general were considerably past the prime of life. He was a fine courtly gentleman of the old French school, and in his secret heart was a sincere monarchist, but not so rashly as to oppose in act or spirit the tide of events which had replaced the line of St. Louis by Napoleon, with whom he had served early in life, as we have before stated, in the Regiment of La Fere.
Madame might still be called handsome, though long past forty. Perfectly regular, finely cut, and having all the impress of good birth and high culture, her features were remarkably beautiful. Her manner was singularly sweet, gentle, and pleasing; yet she had an eye and a lip indicative of a proud and lofty spirit, that had enabled her to confront the blackest horrors of the Revolution in France.
Powdered white as snow, she wore her hair dressed back over a little cushion, with a few stray ringlets falling behind in the coquettish manner of the old Bourbon days (when patches and pomatum were in all their glory), while her full bust, plump white arms, her short sleeves with long elbow-gloves, her peaked stomacher and her amplitude of brocade skirt, with many a deep flounce and frill of old Maltese lace, all made her a pleasing picture at a time when, in imitation of the prevailing French taste, the English woman of fashion wore a huge muslin cap, her waist under her armpits, and her skirts so tight that she resembled nothing in this world but a long bolster set on end.
Knowing how much the young prisoner of war and Eugene owed to each other, and how much the former had suffered recently under the sabre of the latter, she rivalled her husband in kindness, and was unremitting in her hospitality, her nursing, and her motherly attention.
Quentin had the care of the best surgeons on the French staff—a class of medical men who far excelled the rabble of apothecary boys then commissioned for the British army; the cool season of the year was favourable for his recovering from such an ugly slash on the caput as Eugene's steel had bestowed; so, our hero, having youth and health on his side, grew rapidly well, and by the 16th of February—one month after the battle—he had become quite convalescent; but politeness even could scarcely make him repress his impatience to begone; yet he knew that, though the guest of General Ribeaupierre, he was still a prisoner of war, and could not leave any French territory until duly exchanged.
During his illness he had many a strange and fantastic dream of Flora and of home. But now there came to him dim memories of an infancybeyondthat spent at Rohallion; there was the quaint foreign town, with its winding river, its antique bridge, its boats and windmills. Like a dream, or some vision of mystic memory, he remembered this place in all its details and features, and with them came the old and confused recollection of a lady, it might be, nay, itmusthave been, his own mother, in rich velvet with powdered hair. Then came his father's face, pale and despairing, and the night of the wreck at the Partan Craig, all jumbled oddly together.
Was it a sense of pre-existence—that sense felt by so many at different times—that haunted him?
Was it a sense of theunrealityof the present f conflicting with the certainty of the past?
We cannot say; but there came upon his mind a strange consciousness that this scene, this river, with its town and woods and hills, this lady in velvet and powder, were not creations of the fancy, and were not new to him.
Was it a phase of that which is termed by Dr. Wigan the "duality of the human mind," which comes upon us at times—
"As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood,And ebb into a former life?"
We pretend not to say; but poor Quentin was sorely puzzled, and that sabre cut in no way made his reasoning faculties clearer.
His room, a large one facing the bay of Orsan, was decorated for him daily by a quantity of beautiful flowers, which madame procured from the conservatory of the captain-general—flowers so charming at that season—scarlet and white camellias, rare geraniums, and glorious roses of every hue; while in the trellis-work verandah without were magnolias and creeping plants whose tendrils were covered with odoriferous flowers, through which the sea-breeze came, blending and mingling pleasantly with the fragrant and earthy odour of the tiled floor, which was daily sprinkled with spring water.
And there in a softly-cushioned easy-chair he sat for hours gazing dreamily out upon the sunlit bay, where the brown Spanish fisher-boats, with lateen sails striped red and white, manned by dark and picturesque-looking fellows in shirts and caps of scarlet and blue, were always preparing for sea, or tacking out of the bay with the white foam curling under the bows—a life of movement and bustle that contrasted sadly with his own inertia and made him feverish with impatience.
Even Eugene's aspect, as he came clattering and rattling to and fro, between the citadel and the villa, in uniform and accoutred with spurs and sabre, showed that the game of life was still played briskly by others, and fretted Quentin's soul.
"A prisoner," he repeated to himself, "and for heaven knows how long! Is this the fruit of my ambition? Is this the prize I have striven, struggled, and starved—fought and bled for during all the horrors of that campaign? Unlucky indeed was the hour when Hope sent me beyond the city on a bootless errand, and when Eugene cut me down on that accursed beach! Captivity even thus, though surrounded by every kindness and luxury, is more than I can either bear or endure! Besides," he added, bitterly, aloud, "I may be reported dead or missing, and Flora—may—might—and my commission too—may be cancelled."
"No, no, my good young friend," said Madame de Ribeaupierre, who had entered unheard; "my husband, the general, saw all that properly arranged, and despatched Eugene in person, with a memorandum of your name and regiment, to the commissaire for British prisoners, to inform him that we had you here, where we mean to keep you as long as we can."
"It was most kind, dear madame," said Quentin, bowing low to hide confusion for his petulance, and leading the lady to a chair close by his own.
"Kind, monsieur, say you? It was but just and proper that your friends should know of your safety," said she, with a bending of the neck, a species of bow that reminded Quentin of old Lady Rohallion; for this Frenchwoman had all that old-fashioned grace which, in Scotland, died with the Jacobites, and in France expired with the monarchy. "Judging by my own fears and emotions, I was most anxious that—that your mother, I presume, should know that you, at least, had not perished on that unhappy 16th of January."
"My mother," repeated Quentin, and with the memory of his recent dreams a thrill of sadness came over his heart, as he looked into the fine dark eyes of this noble French matron, who seemed so inspired by feminine tenderness and commiseration that she placed her white hand caressingly on the half-healed scar which Quentin's short crisp hair but partially concealed.
"A naughty boy was my Eugene to do this, but he has never ceased to deplore it. Yes, your mother; ah, mon Dieu! it was well that she did not see as I saw you, after the mischief Eugene wrought, when the Chasseurs of the 24th carried you into the citadel covered with blood! Yet, if she knew all, she might safely trust you with me; for I have known what it is to lose a child ere this, and others whom I loved dearly—to be left alone, reft of that being whom I hoped was to love and remember me long after I had passed away. Eugene is a good boy, and I love him dearly; but you—your mother, mon ami?"
"Madame, I have no mother."
"Mon Dieu! and you so young!"
"No, nor any relation in the world," said Quentin, in a voice half angry and half broken, "save some brave friends who died at Corunna, and one in Scotland, far away, I never had any who loved me."
"L'Ecosse—l'Ecosse!" repeated Madame de Ribeaupierre with sudden interest. "We old-fashioned French love the memory of the old alliances when our royal houses so often intermarried, and still respect the land where the line of St. Louis finds a home; and so," she added, with kindling eyes, "monsieur is an Ecossais?"
"Yes, madame, I have every reason to believe so?"
"To believe—only to believe, monsieur?"
"Yes, madame."
"How?"
"It is my secret," said Quentin, smiling.
"Pardonnez-moi?" said madame, colouring slightly.
"My name is one of the oldest in Scotland."
"True—true; mon Dieu! I know there are earls of that name who have the tressure floré and counterfloré in their coat-of-arms," said she, while a sad and beautiful smile lit up her fine face, and she smoothed her powdered hair with a tremulous hand. "I had a dear friend who once bore the name—but it was in the old days of the monarchy, and for the sake of that friend I shall love you more than ever;" and patting Quentin on the head, she kissed him on the brow just as her son entered with a servant in livery, who came to announce that the carriage was at the door.
"Tres bien, Louis," said she; "monsieur will accompany us, Eugene, the day is so fine; he shall take his first drive with me, and you may follow on horseback if you choose. I don't like spurs in a carriage."
"I shall be very happy, my dear madame, though our mutual friend, the General de Ribeaupierre, has seen fit to send me no less than four times this morning with absurd messages to the sappers who are repairing the bridge of El Burgo," replied Eugene, whose boots and light-green uniform bore evident traces of mud.
"Come, Eugene, and never mind; as I am only your mamma, and not your intended, you have no need to be so particular with your toilet; and if your horse is weary, order a fresh one."
Quentin enjoyed the drive greatly, as it was his first active step towards final recovery and strength.
It was the evening of a clear and sunny day—one of the earliest of spring—and Quentin surveyed, with equal delight and interest, the long lines of massive bastions, towers, and battlemented walls that enclosed the town and citadel of Corunna—that vast stone frontage, with all its rows of grim cannon that peered through dark port-holes or frowneden barbette, steeped in the warm radiance of a red setting sun that tinged the sea and surf with the hue of blood, sinking every alternate angle of the fortifications in deep and solemn shadow.
The music of a French regimental band came floating pleasantly from time to time on the thin air, as they played the grand march of the Emperor along the ramparts; and now the carriage, by Eugene's desire, was stopped near a part of the citadel where Sir John Moore's grave lay, and where the French sappers were already building the great granite monument which the noble Soult erected to his memory, and which the Marquis of Romana completed.
Quentin descended from the carriage and approached the spot.
He was the last, the only British soldier in Corunna now. He sat down on one of the blocks and looked wistfully at the place where he knew the poor shattered corse lay uncoffined. Then the manly figure, the gentle face, the soldierly presence, and the winning manner of Moore came vividly to memory, and Quentin covered his eyes with his hand, as he could not control his emotion.
He was the last solitary mourner by the grave of him whose memory Charles Wolfe embalmed in verse.
The French sappers, who had been singing and laughing gaily at their work, respected his grief; they became quite silent, and saluted him with great politeness. Then Madame de Ribeaupierre took him by the hand and they drove away.
In the general's well-hung, cosy, and handsome Parisian carriage, he passed more than once over the field of battle. Its sad débris had vanished now; the people of the adjacent villages had gleaned up every bullet and button. The dead were buried in trenches. Here and there might lie a solitary grave, but already the young spring grass was growing over them all. Quentin knew the ground where the Borderers had been posted, and thus he knew which of those fatal mounds was likely to hold the noble and true-hearted Rowland Askerne, Colville, and others whom he knew and mourned for.
Even theétourdiEugene was silent, when, for the last time, they surveyed the field.
"Here the 24th charged a square of one of your Scots regiments," said he; "and here fell poor Jules de Marbœuf. It was his last battle."
"Killed?"
"Yes—dead as Hector, by some of your bare-legged Scotsmen, who took the eagle of the 24th.Sacre Dieu!—think of that!"*
* In February after the battle, two French eagles, each weighing fifteen ounces of silver, were sold to a silversmith in Chichester by a soldier of the 92nd Highlanders, who said that he had bayoneted the Frenchmen, and brought the trophies home in his knapsack.—Annual Registerfor 1809.
"And Donna Isidora?" said Quentin, not caring much about the eagle.
"The sorrowful widow—peste!she is at Lugo with the Light Division."
"She is not coming here, I trust?"
"Can't say, mon camarade; but pardieu, I should hope not."
Though Quentin knew that his commission and promotion in the 7th Fusiliers were now both secured, he writhed under the idea of being a prisoner of war; but there was no help for it. He had given his parole of honour, and by that he was bound to abide.
Not even the keen longing to see Flora, to tell his story and lay his laurels, while they were yet fresh, at her feet, could lure him to break his bonds; but being intensely wearied of Corunna, he hailed with extreme satisfaction a change in the plans of the really delightful family with whom he resided.
Tidings of a new and more powerful expedition, destined to drive the French from Spain, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, had now come to all the Emperor's marshals and garrisons officially; and thus General de Ribeaupierre resolved on sending his lady, in charge of Eugene, to Paris, whither they begged Quentin to accompany them.
Anything was better than lingering in Corunna or setting out for Verdun; and so, bidding adieu to the kind old general, within a few weeks after his convalescence, Quentin found himself kindly adjusting the wraps and mufflings of madame on the deck of theBien Aimé, a privateer brig, mounting six 12-pounders, M. Marin, captain, bound for the mouth of the Loire; and long did he and Eugene pace the deck together that night, building castles, exchanging confidences, and smoking cigars, while the wild waves of the Bay of Biscay tore past in dark ridges to leeward, and the last of the Galician hills, the great Sierra de Mondonedo, sank into the dark world of waters astern.
"He had fought the red English, he said,In many a battle in Spain;He cursed the red English, and prayedTo meet and fight them again!"—THACKERAY.
Le Bien Aiméencountered very rough weather, and beat hard against the westerly winds which always prevail in the stormy Bay of Biscay, where the broad waves of the Atlantic roll in all their full and unbroken weight.
The third night was so dark and gusty, that neither Quentin Kennedy nor Eugene de Ribeaupierre turned in, but remained at the table much later than usual, listening to the somewhat piratical yarns and experiences of M. Jehan Marin, a short, thick-set, and savage-looking fellow, who wore a tricoloured nightcap, a pea-jacket, and a broad black belt, with a square brass buckle of most melodramatic size. He viewed Quentin evidently with intense dislike, as one of those sacré Anglais, whom he hated as so many snakes or other reptiles, and to this sentiment was added a profound contempt for him as a soldier. Quentin was soon sensible of all this, but deemed it neither safe nor worth his while to notice it; besides, the life of a prisoner of war was deemed of very little value by land or sea in those days.
On this night, just as they went on deck to have a last glance at the pitchy blackness amid whichLe Bien Aiméwas careering, a flash broke through it, and a cannon-shot boomed across her forefoot; another flash followed, and the shot went through her foresail, which was bellying out upon the wind.
"Tonnerre de Dieu! what is that?" cried M. Marin, choking and sputtering with passion and alarm, as he jumped upon a carronade and peered to windward, from whence the assault came, but could see nothing, so intense was the darkness.
Boom! another heavy gun came, and now he could make out a strange ship, looming large and black on the larboard bow, and carrying an enormous spread of canvas, considering the nature of the night, and it was the guns of her starboard-quarter that were ticklingLe Bien Aiméin this rough fashion.
"Nombril de Beelzebub!" bellowed Captain Marin, "here we are in action without seeing or knowing who the devil it is with! Beat to quarters—pipe up the hammocks and open the magazine!"
Just as he was speaking and gesticulating furiously, another shot knocked the fiddle-head of theBien Aiméall to splinters; so matters were looking decidedly serious. By this time, and long ere the drum beat, his crew, half dressed, were all at their quarters, and the hammocks were bundled anyhow into the side nettings.
"Clear away those weather-guns—cast loose the lashings, and load!" shouted Marin; "stand by the watch to shorten sail; 'way aloft and hand the topgallant sails; small-arm men, aft, and blaze away!"
Le Bien Aiméwas now hove full in the wind's eye, so that the next shot from this strange ship went no one knew where.
There were terrible confusion, growling, swearing, with lack of discipline, on board, but no lack of pluck among the crew, and fifty of the most finished ragamuffins that ever sailed from the Loire or Brest stood to their guns.
The next cannon that flashed from the strange ship made Quentin, who clung to a belaying pin on the port side, spring backwards involuntarily, the red light of the explosion seemed so close; but it enabled him to see for an instant the large ship with her lee side full of men.
"She is a frigate, at least!" exclaimed Marin, with a frightful oath, as he drew his cutlass; "we cannot fight her; she may be French, and the whole affair a mistake, though: hush, silence fore and aft—they are hailing!"
"Ho—brig ahoy!" sang out a voice in most unmistakeable English.
Jehan Marin ground his yellow teeth—those cursed English! Could he doubt that any but they would first fire and then question?
"Hallo!" he replied.
"What brig is that?" hailed the officer, through a trumpet, and Quentin felt his heart beating wildly with anxiety and anticipation. Next moment he heard Eugene and the French skipper engaged in a brief but very angry expostulation.
"What is the matter?" he asked, as Eugene joined him.
"Don't inquire," said he, "lest I blush that I am a Frenchman."
"Then your conference concerned me?"
"It certainly did, mon ami."
"How?"
"Marin wished to force you to deceive your countrymen, by replying to them in English—replying with his pistol at your head.Sangdieu!you comprehend?"
Before Quentin could reply, the question,
"What brig is that? d—n it, you had better look sharp!" came over the black surging water from the foe.
"Stand by the braces, and be ready to fill the sails to the yard-heads, and bear away right before the wind," said Marin; then, raising his voice, he shouted a deep and bitter curse through his trumpet.
"Hail again," cried the officer; "this is His Britannic Majesty's shipMedusa—send a boat off instantly with your skipper and his papers."
Instead of complying, Marin daringly gave orders to fire his three 12-pounders on the portside, to fill his yards, and bear right away before the western breeze; but on the appearance of the first portfire glittering on his deck, bang came another shot from this pugnacious stranger, which took his foreyard right in the sling; it came crashing down on deck, breaking the arm of one man and the leg of another; and before M. Marin had made up his mind what to do next, theMedusa, a fifty-gun ship, forged a little way ahead of him, as if she meant to sweep his deck or sink him; but neither was her object, for a boat's crew of those "pestilent Englishmen," with pistols in their belts and cutlasses in their teeth, were alongside in a moment, holding on with boat-hooks to the forechains, as the now partly unmanageable brig rose and fell heavily on the black waves of that stormy midnight sea. Another boat-load clung like leeches to the starboard quarter, and in less than five minutes theBien Aiméwas the lawful prize of the British frigate,Medusa.
Her crew were all disarmed and placed under a guard of marines; a strong hawser was run on board and made fast to the capstan or windlass, the yard heads were trimmed, a jury fore-yard rigged in a trice, and the privateer in tow of theMedusastood off towards the coast of "perfidious Albion." The weather was so rough, however, that they were compelled to slack off or let go the towline; but lanterns were hoisted at the foreyard, and thus they kept company till daylight.
"Fortune changes," said Eugene, laughing with all the nonchalance of a Frenchman; "you are now free, and I am a prisoner."
The prize-master, a rough and somewhat elderly man for a middy—one of those hardworking fellows whose boast it used to be that they came into the service through the hawse-holes, questioned the cabin passengers sharply and categorically.
"You, sir," said he, looking at Eugene, cutlass in hand; "what are you?"
"Eugene de Ribeaupierre, sous-lieutenant in the French service, and ready to give my parole."
"Keep it till we are at Spithead; and you, sir," he added, turning furiously to Quentin, "are an Englishman, I see, and in the French service too—eh?"
"No, sir; I happen to be a Scotsman, and in the British service."
"Where are your papers?"
"I have none."
"Oho; d—n me! you have none?" said he, suspiciously.
"No; but my name is recorded in the ship's books as a prisoner of war, a lieutenant in the 7th Fusiliers, proceeding to Paris on parole."
The mid shook Quentin's hand on hearing this, and ordered a jorum of grog, in which Eugene good-naturedly joined him, remarking—
"Ma foi, monsieur, don't be too sure of having us at the Spithead."
"Why not, if the wind holds good?"
"Some of our ships may retake us—aha!"
"No fear of that, mounseer; the sea at present is only open tous," was the composed reply.
Marin, who sat in a corner, imprecated his fate bitterly; he cursed what he considered Eugene's squeamishness, which prevented him from availing himself compulsorily of Quentin's aid to deceive theMedusa; but consoled himself by the hope that "he would yet take it out of the hides of those 'sacré Anglais,' in some fashion or other."
"Take up the slack of your jawing-tackle, Johnny," said the mid; "drink your grog, shut up, and turn in; your ill luck to-night may be mine to-morrow."
Madame de Ribeaupierre was greatly concerned by the turn her affairs had taken; but at a time when the whole sea was covered by the cruisers of the largest fleet in the world, it was strange that she did not anticipate some such catastrophe.
When it was reported to the captain of theMedusathat the wife of General de Ribeaupierre was in theBien Aimé, he politely offered her the use of a cabin on board his ship; but having no wish to be separated from Eugene, she continued in the privateer, with which the frigate kept company for several days, until she saw her close in shore under the white cliffs of Old England, when she brought her starboard tacks on board, and, like a great eagle in search of fresh prey, stood over towards the coast of France. Thus, on the evening of the 16th of March, exactly two months after the battle of Corunna, Quentin found theBien Aimésafely anchored at Spithead, close by the guns of a line-of-battle ship.
There Eugene gave his parole, and Quentin found himself a free man!
The news spread rapidly in Portsmouth and in the Isle of Wight that the wife and son of Bonaparte's favourite cavalry officer, the Governor of Corunna, had been brought in as prisoners; and thus, on the very day they were preparing to go on shore, escorted by Quentin, a staff-officer, in full uniform, came fussily on board in a boat pulled by marines.
Quentin recognised in him Lloyd Conyers, the aide-de-camp, whom he had frequently seen in Spain.
He had come, he stated, "by direction of the General commanding in the Isle of Wight, to invite Madame de Ribeaupierre, with her friends and attendants, to share the hospitality of his house—to consider it as her home, in fact, until she could make such arrangements as she wished."
"Is the general married, monsieur?" asked madame, smiling; "for I am not so very old."
"Madame, the general is married, and is nearer seventy than sixty," replied Conyers, laughing behind his great staff plume. "A boat is in readiness, and a carriage awaits you on the beach. The general lives at Minden Lodge, St. Helen's—we dine at half-past six."
Madame de Ribeaupierre, who was considerably crushed and crestfallen, accepted the general's offer; and accompanied by her maid, who had many misgivings and vague terrors of the natives, by her son and her aide-de-camp, as she laughingly styled Quentin, landed in the Isle of Wight; and for the first time in her life found herself treading English ground.
"What thing is Love, which not can countervailNaught save itself? even such a thing is Love.And worldly wealth in worth as far doth fail,As lowest earth doth yield to heaven above.Divine is Love, and scorneth worldly pelf,And can be bought with nothing but with self."RALEIGH.
The month was only March; but in that southern portion of England, the white daisy and the golden buttercup already spotted the green sward; the hedge-rows nearly in full leaf, were quite like bird-meadows, so full were they of song; while the coo of the ring-dove and the wild pigeon were already heard in the copse. The gardens teemed with beautiful flowers, and the air was delicious, the heat of the great white chalky cliffs being tempered by the breeze from the deep blue sea.
When the three guests reached his residence at St. Helen's, the general and all his suite were absent, at the inspection of the parochial artillery; for even then, so lately as the days of Corunna, the ancient custom of each parish in the Isle of Wight providing itself with one small piece of cannon, usually a six-pounder, to be kept in the church, or some small house built for the purpose close by, was still in force; and the recent threats of invasion had made the islanders somewhat expert as gunners, in handling their brigade of some thirty field-pieces.
Built on an eminence at the pretty village of St. Helen's, near the mouth of the Bradinghaven, Minden Lodge was a spacious and handsome mansion; and though the three visitors knew not the names of the localities, from the lofty windows of the spacious and elegant drawing-room, they had a fine view of Calshot Castle, of Portsmouth steeped in sunny haze, about seven miles distant, its harbour crowded with shipping; Spithead, with all the men-of-war at anchor, and the littleBien Aimé, with the union-jack waving above her tricolour; while far off in distance rose the taper spire of Chichester Cathedral.
The rolling of carriage wheels upon gravel walks, the opening and shutting of doors, announced the return of the general's party from the inspection; but for a time no one appeared, and already the hands of the ormolu clock indicated a quarter past six.
Madame had made rather an elaborate toilet; her maid had dressed and powdered her fine hair to perfection, and she was in all the amplitude of her flowered brocade and rich black lace, her antique steel and diamond ornaments, a gift from the Grand Monarque to her grandmother the Marquise de Louvre; Eugene had on the full uniform of the 24th Chasseurs à Cheval, minus only his sword; Quentin felt himself obliged to appear in some kind of uniform, too (mufti was vulgar then), and so had carefully brushed up his old and worn-out volunteer coat of the 25th, to which he added a pair of silver epaulettes and a crimson sash, bought from a Jew of Corunna, who had no doubt found them on the field.
They were sorely discoloured and torn; but he had the handsome gold belt and the sabre of General Colbert—the gift of Moore. Embrowned, taller, fuller, manlier, and looking even more handsome than ever, he was not astonished at being totally unrecognised; though he was startled, and beyond description bewildered, when the familiar voice of old Jack Andrews (who was clad in the Crawford livery), as he threw open the drawing-room door, announced "Lord and Lady Rohallion, Miss Warrender,andCaptain Conyers."
Looking not a day older, but rather younger and better than when he had seen them last, Lord Rohallion entered in the full uniform of a general officer, as orthodoxly powdered and pig-tailed as ever; Lady Winifred in all the plenitude of her old-fashioned costume, with her high-dressed hair puffed and white as snow, and looking, though senior in years, somewhat the counterpart of Madame de Ribeaupierre, her necklace and ornaments being equally antique, with opals and diamonds that werereversiblein the course of an entertainment; and there, too, was Flora, looking so charming, so dove-eyed, and blooming, in full dress for dinner, but leaning on the arm of a lisping and most-decidedly-too-attentive puppy of an aide-de-camp.
So confounded was Quentin by the sudden appearance of these four persons, that he stood as if rooted to the carpet, unable to speak or advance, while apologies were profusely made by Lord and Lady Rohallion for their absence at the inspection on Bemerston Downs.
"You will make this house your home, my dear Madame de Ribeaupierre," said Lady Winifred, "until you choose to leave it for Paris——"
"We shall be in no hurry arranging the cartel for that," said Lord Rohallion; "though I have no doubt," he added to Eugene, "you will be impatient to rejoin your regiment—light cavalry, I think?" Eugene bowed very low; "and this gentleman——"
"Monsieur Kennedy—a name once very dear to me," said Madame de Ribeaupierre, presenting Quentin; "and dearer now again for the services he and my Eugene have performed for each other."
Lord Rohallion bowed, and shook the hand of Quentin cordially, but did not remark his features particularly, till the expression of astonishment and joy, half mingled by doubt and fear, which he saw, while surveying alternately the faces of Flora and Lady Winifred, attracted all his attention.
"Quentin—Quentin Kennedy!" they exclaimed together. Flora seemed tottering and deadly pale; but Lady Rohallion threw herself into his arms, and sobbed hysterically.
Conyers played with the tassels of his sash, and thought himself decidedly in the way....
Brief and rapid were the questions asked, and explanations given now; other guests came crowding in till the dinner-party was complete, and Jack Andrews made the gong send its thunder from the vestibule: thus they were compelled to compose themselves, nor indulge in that which well-bred English society so eminently abhors—a scene.
"I was thought too old to command a brigade in the field, Quentin," said Lord Rohallion, shaking the hand of his young friend, at least for the sixth time; "so the Duke of York kindly sent me to this quiet place. If the flat-bottomed boats ever leave Boulogne, they will find me, however, at my post; and, egad! I hope to show them there is life in the old dog yet!"
Conyers, the aide, who no doubt usually acted as esquire to la belle Flora, was considerably put out—disgusted, in fact—when he found her completely appropriated by another; while he was compelled to offer his arm to the buxom wife of an adjutant of a Veteran battalion.
"Flora!"
"Quentin!"
They had no other words for each other, even in whispers, as they went mechanically to the dining-room, where all the cold formality of a grand state dinner was to be enacted and endured.
A strange throbbing thrill ran through Quentin's heart, as memory went back to that last meeting in the sycamore avenue, andthe last kissgiven there, as he seemed with the touch of her hand to take up the long-dropped link of a life that had passed away—his boyish life of joy and love at Rohallion—long dropped, but never forgotten!
They were young, but, strange to say, in their instance, separation for a time, instead of cooling, strengthened their mutual regard; and when Flora spoke, the old familiar sound of her soft and beloved voice made the tender link complete.
She drew off her glove and smilingly held up a little white hand. There was but one ring on it—the diamond gift of Madame de Ribeaupierre, sent at a time when Quentin had no other gift to send; and the curious history of it afforded them ample conversation during dinner. As for Eugene, who sat opposite, he seemed immensely consoled, under his unhappy circumstances, by a blue-eyed and fair ringleted daughter of the Commissary General from Newport, that young lady's patriotic animosity to France seeming in no way to extend to a handsome young fellow in the green coat lapelled with white of the 24th Chasseurs à Cheval; so thus the daughter of "la perfide Albion" had it all her own way.
Then the old General and Madame de Ribeaupierre were, as Eugene phrased it in the French camp style, "like a couple offourbisseurs," they sat with their powdered heads so close together; but they were deep in recollections of the old court of the Bourbons, of the Scoto-French alliance, of the days of the monarchy, all of which Eugene was wont to stigmatize as "the rubbish of the world before the flood," for he was one of those young men who wisely, perhaps, don't see much use in looking back at any time.
Lady Rohallion had, of course, innumerable questions to ask concerning Cosmo; but, kept so distantly aloof as he had been by that uncompromising personage, Quentin found great difficulty in satisfying the anxious mother. Then Lord Rohallion asked many a question concerning the old Borderers; but as Quentin's battalion had been the second, and was consequently a new one, he had some difficulty in satisfying all his inquiries.
Fresh from foreign service and the seat of war, whence some rather exaggerated stories of scrapes and perils had preceded him, Quentin experienced all the intense boredom of finding himself "an object of interest." This annoyance was all the greater, that he was absorbing and absorbed by Flora, the heiress, the general's beautiful and wealthy ward, who had already turned the heads of all the hard-up fellows in the adjacent garrison towns.
All things have an end; even the longest and most stately of dinners, so in due time the ladies retired to the drawing-room. As Madame de Ribeaupierre passed Quentin, her cheek was flushed with pleasure and gratified pride by the attention she had received from the courtly old lord—that noble pair d'Ecosse; her eyes were bright, and she still looked indeed beautiful.
"Ah, my child, Quentin, I can see what I can see," she whispered; "it is she whom you love, then?"
"Yes, madame, most dearly," said Quentin, smiling.
"C'est un ange! and I shall always love her, too!" exclaimed the impulsive Frenchwoman, as she kissed Flora's blushing cheek.
"Quentin, follow us soon," said the latter, tapping him with her fan; "I want to hear more about that Spanish lady at the Villa de Maciera."
The gentlemen lingered over their wine; much "shop and pipeclay" were talked, with reserve, however, as Eugene was present; but the merits of the new shako, and the probability of the expected brevet, were as usual fully discussed. The first to join the ladies in the drawing-room was Quentin, who felt very much as if in a dream, from which he might waken to find himself in the cabin of theBien Aimé, in the Villa de Orsan, or, worse still, in some comfortless bivouac in Estremadura; and glad were these united friends when the guests had taken their leave, and they were all left to themselves in the drawing-room.
Much conversation and many explanations ensued; and a very simple remark, by stirring a certain chord of memory, was the happy means of bringing about a very unexpected revelation or dénouement—one, indeed, so remarkable as to deserve a chapter to itself.
"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,Old Time is still a-flying;And this same flower that smiles to-day,To-morrow will be dying.Then be not coy, but use your time,And while you may, go marry;For having lost but once your prime,You may for ever tarry."—HERRICK.
"It has come strangely about, Madame Rohallion, how my son Eugene, and your—your friend, Mr. Kennedy, have met during the contingencies of service in Spain," said Madame de Ribeaupierre; "and it is all the more strange that my name was once Kennedy."
We are sorry to say that the good lady pronounced it Kinnidee.
"Yours, madame?"
"My first husband was so named."
"Madame has then been twice married?"
"Yes; and Eugene is the only son of the general's first wife, for he has been twice married, too," said Madame Ribeaupierre, with one of her merry little laughs.
"But I have always loved you, madame, as my mother," said the young officer.
"Indeed, child, you never knew any other," replied madame, as Eugene kissed her forehead very affectionately.
"Then was your first husband a Scotsman?" asked Lord Rohallion.
"He was, monsieur le general, a captain in the King's service during the monarchy."
"Was he killed in action, madame?"
"No, poor man—he was drowned at sea."
"In what year was this?"
"Alas! it was in 1798."
A keen, bright glance was exchanged by Lord and Lady Rohallion on hearing this; a light seemed to break upon their minds simultaneously.
"Madame, pardon me," said the lady, very hurriedly, "but may I enquire what is your Christian name?"
"Josephine."
"Josephine!"
"Yes, madame. I was named at the font, Josephine St. Marie Duré de Lusart."
"Good heavens, my lord, if it should be so!" exclaimed Lady Rohallion, hurrying to her escritoire and bringing forth an old faded and yellow packet, from which she took a ring—the same that had been found on Quentin's father. It bore, as we have stated elsewhere, the name of Josephine graven on the gold, and a crest, a demi-griffin cut on an amethyst.
"This ring, madame—this ring—where did it come from? It was my mother's gift to my first husband, Captain Kennedy, of the Scottish regiment de Berwick, in the service of France; and this letter," continued Madame de Ribeaupierre, with increasing agitation, "this letter was mine—mine, written to him after he had left me with our child to return to his own country, whither I was to follow him——"
"And this commission, madame?"
"Was his—was his," she exclaimed, becoming deeply excited, as she pressed to her lips the signature of Louis XVI. "How came it here? And this letter, too, of Monsieur le Comte d'Artois, written to him after the campaigns on the Meuse and Rhine?"
"They were found in the pocket-book of Quentin's father, when he was cast drowned on the beach, with him, then a little child, senseless and benumbed by cold," said Lady Rohallion, with one arm placed caressingly round the Frenchwoman's neck, and with her eyes full of tears, as the wild and stormy night on which our story opened came back to memory.
Madame Ribeaupierre became quite hysterical.
"My son—you? oh, mon Dieu! mon Dieu! and this was your secret at the Villa de Orsan," she exclaimed, in a very touching voice, as she pressed to her breast the somewhat bewildered Quentin, who, having been deeply engaged with Flora, had heard not a word of the foregoing conversation.
After a time, however, she related that her husband, who had left Scotland in consequence of some quarrel, she believed, with his own family, had taken his mother's name of Kennedy, and entered the regiment de Berwick, in which he faithfully served the French monarchy, even after it was completely shattered by the Revolution.
That, on a rumour rising that Monsieur, then residing at Holyrood, was about to reconstitute the Hundred Scottish Guards, with consent of the British Government, he departed hurriedly from France, leaving her at Arques, with her mother, Madame Duré de Lusart, who was then on her death-bed. Accompanied by the Abbé Lebrun, an old friend, he set out for Scotland, taking with him their little son. She added, that the vessel in which they sailed was a Scottish brig, under cartel, and bound for the Clyde; but it was, nevertheless, attacked by a French privateer, off the coast of Britain somewhere—where she knew not—but far to the north. The vessel was driven on a rock, and all perished save the Abbé Lebrun, who saw both her husband and child sink into the waves and die together.
More fortunate, M. l'Abbé floated out to sea upon a spar, and was picked up next morning, in a most exhausted condition, by the same privateer which had done all the mischief.
Notwithstanding all the skill of the great Doctor Thiebault, who came from Paris, her mother died, and now she found herself childless and alone in France—the terrible France of the Republic—and where she was hourly in peril of the guillotine as an aristocrat.
The Bastile had been razed to the ground; that was good; but the change that had come over France was not for the better; "the gilded coach, the red-heeled slipper, and the supper of the Regency; the powdered marquise, for a smile of whose dimpled mouth the deadly rapier flashed in the moonlight—the perfumed beauty, for one of whose glances a poet would have ransacked his brain to render it smoothly in verse;" the high-bred old courtier, the gilded salon—had all given place to regiments of sans-culottes, to assassins, and the sovereign people—to the République démocratique et sociale; to planting trees of liberty, and grape-shotting the mob; to sham Roman citizens and tribunes; to women debating the existence of a God, and dancing nude in the fêtes of Venus; to a France of heroes and madmen—a Paris of "monkeys and tigers!"
Her country had become intolerable to her; she was long in despair, she said, and but for the kindness and love of her friend, Marie de Ribeaupierre, a chauoinesse of the Chapter of Salles, in Beaujolais, she must have sunk under the loss of all her friends; but after a time Marie's brother came; he was then a captain in the regiment of La Fere, a handsome man, and in the prime of life, and, happily for himself, stood high in the favour of Citizen Bonaparte. In the end, she added, with a little smile and a very faint blush, she learned to love him. They were married, and then she strove to console herself for the loss of her own child by making a pet of his, the little Eugene.
"Ah, mon Dieu! mon Dieu!" she exclaimed, "what subtle instinct was this? what mysterious voice was that which whispered in my heart to love you, Quentin? I have only learned your name to-night; but how often did I ask of myself, at the Villa de Orsan, what is this stranger—this young Scottish officer—to me, that I should feel so deeply interested in him? Oh, Ribeaupierre, my dear husband, what a strange story I shall have to tell you! That he, for whom I prayed nightly, and thanked God for saving the life ofyourson Eugene, proves to be mine—the child of my own bosom—my long-lost little Quentin! Truly the hand of a kind and blessed Providence has been in all this!"
After she became a little more composed, she desired her maid to bring from her dressing-table a casket, which she unlocked, saying that she would show Quentin a miniature of his father—a relic on which she had not looked for many a day; and he gazed on it with eager, earnest, and mournful tenderness.
It was the face of a dark-complexioned and thoughtful-looking young man, with his hair simply tied by a blue ribbon; there was a singular combination of mildness, sadness, and softness in the features and their expression; but when it was handed to Lady Rohallion, a sharp little cry, as if of pain, escaped her.
"Reynold—my lord—look here—you know this face!" she exclaimed.
"My brother Ranulph, for a thousand guineas! Why, madame, this is a miniature of my brother Ranulph Crawford, who was killed, we were told, in the defence of the Tuileries."
"No—no—impossible! impossible! Captain Crawford who fell there was our dear friend—he commanded the grenadiers of the regiment de Berwick. My husband took, I know not why, his mother's name in France; and that miniature he hung round my neck on the day we were married in Arques by the good Abbé Lebrun."
"I can swear that it was painted for me, about three years after Minden, by honest David Allan of Alloa, whose name should be within it."
"True, monsieur, behold!" she added, opening the locket by a spring; "there is the name of Monsieur Allan, and this is Quentin's hair, when it was the colour of gold, woven up with—with his poor father's."
"This is wonder upon wonder!" exclaimed Flora Warrender, as she hung on the neck of Madame de Ribeaupierre, who kept the right hand of Quentin pressed upon her heart, while Eugene, who stood by, was stroking his moustache, and thinking if he had anything to do in the way of kissing, he would certainly prefer Flora.
Lady Rohallion was silent.
So the boy, by whose cradle in infancy she had watched with such motherly solicitude, was the nephew of her husband, the cousin-german of Cosmo; the son of that younger brother who had been the first love of her girlish days—the worshipper of her girlish beauty, in the pleasant times long past in sunny Nithsdale, the courtly gentleman and gallant soldier of fortune, over whose life she had cast a shadow. It was a strange mystery!
Some such idea was passing in the mind of her husband.
"Good heavens, Winny! so that poor father, whose fate is yet a legend among our tenantry—the poor man who struggled so bravely to save his child, when the ship was shattered on the Partan Craig—who died in sight of Rohallion, and whom honest John Girvan buried as became a soldier in the old kirkyard—our own ancestral burying-place—was my dear brother Ranulph!" exclaimed Lord Rohallion, with a sudden gush of affection and emotion; "and 'tis his boy we have so loved and protected, Winny! Poor Ranulph—poor Ranulph! I should like to have looked on your handsome and honest face once again ere it was laid in the grave; but it could not be, for I was absent. Madame, do you know that his drowned corpse was carried forth by his father's people from the gate of the house in which he was born, and every room of which has echoed to his voice in boyhood, and past the very haunts in which we played together, under the old sycamores of the avenue, by the Lollards' Linn and the Kelpie's Pool, on the Girvan Water. Thank God, poor Ranulph, you found a grave at last among your own people, and where your forefathers lie; but we have much to make amends for," added the old Lord, as he placed Flora's hand in that of Quentin; "may you both live long to enjoy all the happiness you deserve; and be assured that my last prayer will be for both of you!"
* * * *
What follows?
Orange wreaths and snow-white satin dresses, kid gloves and wedding favours, compliments and kisses, a marriage settlement and so forth, were all the subjects for mature consideration ere long at Minden Lodge; and within a month QuentinCrawford—he had to change his name, as well as Flora—departed with his bride to spend the honeymoon among the green summer woods and purple heather braes of Rohallion; and joyful indeed was the salute that pealed from the guns on the battery—whilome those of La Bonne Citoyenne under the direction of the old quartermaster, who concluded by a general salvo that scared the rooks from the keep, sent the seabirds screaming in flocks to the Partan Craig, and made the dominie jump a yard high in his square-toed shoes; and red and rousing were the bonfires that blazed on the old castle rock and on the heights of Ardgour in honour of the day.
Cosmo, we have said, was enjoying the seclusion and safety from duns afforded by the fortress of Verdun, where we have no wish to disturb him.
Monkton, long since retired upon full pay as colonel, is still one of the most popular members of the Caledonian U.S. Club; but poor old Middleton died a lieutenant-general some years ago, near his native place, the secluded village of the Stennis, in Lothian. The old watch, which was the providential means of saving his life in action, he never had repaired; but it always hung above his mantelpiece with the bullet in it, for he said that no clock in the land could ever remind him so well of time and eternity.
Donna Isidora accompanied the French troops to Paris, and made a tremendous sensation as a Spanish opera-dancer. In London she became the rage, and, asLa Fille de l'Air, her benefits were ably puffed and conducted by her secretary, whose name always figured in the bills as El Senor Trevino.
Old John Girvan "sleeps the sleep that knows no waking" in the green kirkyard of Rohallion; but he lived to dandle a young Quentin on his knee, and to hear the dominie teach a little Flora to lisp her first letters under the old oak-trees of Ardgour.
Eugene de Ribeaupierre, now one of the generals of the second Empire, has lived to lead his division of cavalry at Inkerman and the Tchernaya, at Solferino and Magenta, as bravely as ever his father did at Corunna, at Austerlitz, or Smolensko, in the wars of Napoleon the First.
THE END.