CHAPTER LXVII.
THE LAST CHANCE LOST
And now there was but one day left; Monday was come, and on the morrow, Alice was to be Mrs. Stephen Chapman.
“You call yourself an unlucky fellow,” said Colonel Clumps to Hilary, who was leaning back in his easy-chair; “but I call you the luckiest dog in the world. What other man in the British army could have lost fifty thousand guineas, escaped court-martial, and had a good furlough, made it all snug with his sweetheart (after gallivanting to his heart’s content), and then got the chance to get back again under Old Beaky, and march into Paris? I tell you they will march into Paris, sir. What is there to stop them?”
“But, Colonel, you forget that I can scarcely march across the room as yet. And even if I could, there is much to be done before I get back again. Our fellows may go into winter quarters, and then the General’s promise drops; or even without that, he may fail with the Duke of York, who loves him not.”
“Stuff and rubbish, my dear boy! You pay the money – that’s all you’ve got to do. No fear of their refusing it. Of course it will all be kept very quiet; and we shall find in the very next ‘Gazette’ some such paragraph as this: ‘Captain Lorraine, of the Headquarter Staff, who has long been absent on sick leave, is now on his way to rejoin, and will resume his duties upon the Staff.’”
“Come now, Colonel, you are too bad,” cried Hilary, blushing with pleasure, “they never could put me on the Staff again. It is impossible that they could have the impudence.”
“Don’t tell me. Why, they had the impudence never to put me on it! They have the impudence enough for anything. You set to and get strong, that is all. Are you going to your sister’s wedding to-morrow?”
“I will tell you a secret. I mean to go, though I am under strict orders not to go. What do I care for the weather? Tush, I have settled it all very cleverly. You will see me there, when you least expect it. Lallie has behaved very badly to me; so has everybody else about it. Am I never to be told anything? She seems to be in a great hurry about it. Desperately in love, no doubt, though from what I remember of Stephen Chapman I am a little surprised at her taste – but of course – ”
“Of course, of course, one must never say a word about young ladies’ fancies. There was a young lady in Spain – to be sure there are a great many young ladies in Spain – ”
The Colonel dropped the subject in the clumsiest manner possible. He was under medical orders not to say a word that might stir up Hilary; and yet from the time he came into the room he had done nothing else but stir him up. Colonel Clumps was about the last man in the world that ought to stump in at any sick man’s door. “Dash it, there I am again!” he used to say, as he began to let out something, and stopped short, and jammed his lips up, and set his wooden apparatus down. Therefore he had not been allowed to pay many visits to Hilary, otherwise the latter must soon have discovered the nature of the arrangement pending to retrieve his fortunes. At present he thought that the money was to be raised by a simple mortgage, of which he vowed, in his sanguine manner, that he would soon relieve the estates, by getting an appointment in India, as soon as he had captured Paris. Mabel of course would go with him, and be a great lady, and make his curries. He was never tired of this idea, and was talking of it to Colonel Clumps, who had seen some Indian service, when a gentle knock at the door was heard, and a soft voice said, “May I come in?” As Alice entered, the battered warrior arose and made a most ingenious bow, quite of his own invention. Necessity is the mother of that useful being; and the Colonel having no leg to stand upon, and only one arm to balance with, was in a position of extreme necessity. Of late he had almost begun to repent of serving under Lady Valeria; the beauty and calm resignation of Alice had made their way into his brave old heart; and the more he saw of Captain Chapman, the more he looked down on that feather-bed soldier.
“Good-bye, my lad. Keep your pecker up,” he said, beginning with his thick bamboo to beat a retreat; for Hilary was not allowed two visitors; “we’ll march into Paris yet, brave boys; with Colonel Clumps at the head of the column. Don’t be misled by appearances, Alice; the Colonel has good work in him yet. His sword is only gone to be sharpened, ma’am; and then he’ll throw away this d – d bamboo.”
In his spirited flourish, the Colonel slipped, and not yet being master of his wooden leg, and down he must have come, without the young lady’s arm, as well as the aid of the slighted staff. Alice, in spite of all her misery, could not help a little laugh, as the Colonel, recovering his balance, strutted carefully down the passage.
“What a merry girl you are!” cried Hilary, who was a little vexed at having his martial counsel routed. “You seem to me to be always laughing when there is nothing to laugh at.”
“That shows a low sense of humour,” she answered, “or else an excess of high spirits. Perhaps in my case, the two combine. But I am sorry if I disturbed you.”
“I am not quite so easily disturbed. I am as well as I ever was. It is enough to make one ill, to be coddled up in this kind of way.”
“My dear brother, you are to be released as soon as the weather changes. At present nobody ventures out who is not going to be married.”
“Of that I can judge from the window, Lallie: and even from my water-jugs. But how is your very grand wedding to be? I have seen a score of men shovelling. You seem to be in such a hurry, dear.”
“Perhaps not. Let us talk of something else. Do you really think, without any nonsense, that all your good repute and welfare depend on the payment of the money which you lost?”
“How can you ask me such a stupid question? I never could lift up my head again – but it is not myself, not at all myself – it is what will be said of the family, Alice. And I do not see how the raising of the money can interfere at all with you.”
“No, no, of course not,” she said, and then she turned away and looked out of the window, reflecting that Hilary was right enough. Neither loss nor gain of money could long interfere at all with her.
“Good-bye, darling,” she said at last, forgiving his sick petulance, and putting back his curly hair, and kissing his white forehead – “Good-bye, darling I must not stay; I always seem to excite you so. You will not think me unkind, I am sure; but you may not see me again for ever – oh, ever so long; I have so much to do before I am ready for – my wedding.”
Hilary allowed himself to be kissed with brotherly resignation; and then he called merrily after her – “Now, Lallie, mind, you must look your best. You are going to make a grand match, you know. Don’t be astonished if you see me there. Why don’t you answer?”
She would not look round, because of the expression of her face, which she could not conceal in a moment – “I am not at all sure,” said the brother wisely, as the sister shut the door and fled, “that the man who marries Alice won’t almost have caught a Tartar. She is very sweet-tempered; but the good Lord knows that she is determined also. Now Mabel is quite another sort of girl,” &c., &c. – reflections which he may be left to reflect.
Alice Lorraine, having none to advise with, and being in her firm heart set to do the right thing without flinching, through dark days and through weary nights had been striving to make sure what was the one right thing to do. It was plain that the honour of her race must be saved at her expense. By reason of things she had no hand in, it had come to pass that her poor self stood in everybody’s way. Her poor self was full of life, and natural fun, and mind perhaps a little above the average. No other self in the world could find it harder to go out of the world; to be a self no more peradventure, but a wandering something. To lose the sight, and touch, and feeling of the light, and life, and love; not to have the influence even of the weather on them; to lie in a hollow place, forgotten, cast aside, and dreaded; never more to have, or wish for, power to say yes or no.
This was all that lay before her, if she acted truly. As to marrying a man she scorned – she must scorn herself ere she thought of it. She knew that she was nothing very great; and her little importance was much pulled down by the want of any one to love her; but her purity was her own inborn right; and nobody should sell or buy it.
“I will go to my father once more,” she thought; “he cannot refuse to see me. I will not threaten. That would be low. But if he cares at all to look, he will know from my face what I mean to do. He used, if I had the smallest pain, he used to know it in a moment. But now he cares not for a pain that seems to gnaw my life away. Perhaps it is my own fault. Perhaps I have been too proud to put it so. I have put it defiantly, and not begged. I will beg, I will beg; on my knees I will beg! I will cry, as I never cried before, oh, father, father, father!”
Perhaps if she had won this chance, she might even yet have vanquished. For her last reflection was true enough. She had been too defiant, and positive in her strength of will towards her father. She had never tried the power of tears and prayers, and a pet child’s eloquence. And her father no doubt, had felt this change in her attitude towards him, and had therefore believed more readily his mother’s repeated assertions, that nothing stood in the way of a most desirable arrangement, except the coyness of a spirited girl, whose fancy was not taken.
But the luckless girl lost all the chances of a last appeal, through a simple and rather prosaic affair. Her father was not to be found in his book-room; and hurrying on in search of him, she heard the most melancholy drone, almost worse than the sad east wind. Her prophetic soul told her what it was, and that she had a right to be present. So she knocked at the door of a stern, cold room, and being told to enter, entered. There she saw seven people sitting, and looking very miserable: for the bitter cold had not been routed by the new-made fire. One was reading a tremendous document, five were pretending to listen, and one was listening very keenly. The reader was a lawyer’s clerk; three of the mock-listeners were his principal and the men of the other side; the other two were Sir Roland Lorraine and Captain Stephen Chapman. The real listener was Sir Remnant, who pricked up his ears at every sentence. Upon the table lay another great deed, or rather a double one, lease and release, – the mortgage of all the Lorraine estates, invalid without her signature, which she was too young to give.
Alice Lorraine knew what all this meant. It was the charter of her slavery, or rather the warrant of her death. She bowed to them all, and left the room; with “And the said, and the said – doth hereby, doth hereby” – buzzing in her helpless brain.
Now followed a thing which for ever settled and sealed her determination. Steenie, on the eve of his wedding-day, really felt that he ought to do something towards conciliating his bride. He really loved (so far as his nature was capable of honest love) this proud and most lovable maiden, who was to belong to him to-morrow. And his father had said to him, as they came over to go through the legal ceremony, “Nurse my vittels, now, Steenie; for God’s sake, try to be a man a bit. The mistake you make with the girl is the way you keep your distance from her. Why, they draw up their figures, and screw up their mouths, on purpose to make you run after them. I have seen such a lot of it. And so have you. All girls are alike; as you ought to know now. Why can’t you treat her properly?”
The unfortunate Steenie took his advice, and he took (which was worse) a great draught of brandy. And so, when the lawyer’s drone had driven him thoroughly out of his patience, at the sight of Alice he slipped out and followed her down the passage.
She despised him too much to run away, as he had hoped that she would do. She heard his weak step, and weaker breath, and stopped, and faced him quietly.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
THE DEATH-BOURNE
Standing in a dark grey corner of the old stone passage, below a faded and exiled portrait of some ancestor of hers, Alice looked so calm and noble, that Steenie (although he “had his grog on board,” with his daily bill of lading) found it harder than he expected to follow his father’s counsel. In twenty-four hours he would have this lovely creature at his mercy; and then he would tame her, and make her love him, and perhaps even try to keep to her. For he really did love this poor girl, in a way that quite surprised him; and he could not help thinking that if she knew it, by Jove she must be grateful!
“Alice, dear Alice, sweet Alice!” he said, as at every approach she shrank further away; “lovely Alice, what have I done, that you will not yield me one beautiful smile? You know how very well I have behaved. I have not even pleaded for one kiss. And considering all that is between us – ”
“Considering the distance there is between us, you have shown your judgment.”
“You do not understand me at all. What I meant was entirely different. There should be no difference between us. Why should there be? Why should there be? In a few hours more we shall both be alike; flesh of one flesh, and bone of one bone. I am not quite sure that I have got it right. But I am not far out at any rate.”
“Your diffidence is your one good point. You are very far out when you overcome it. Have the kindness to keep at a proper distance and hear what I have to say. I believe that you mean well, Stephen Chapman; so far as you have any meaning left. I believe that you mean well by me; and, in your weak manner, like me. But if you had gone all around the world, you could not have found one to suit you less. I used to think that I was humble; as of course I ought to be; but when I search into myself, I find the proudest of the proud. Nothing but great misery could have led me to this knowledge. I speak to you now for the last time, Stephen; and I never meant to speak as I do. But I believe that, in your little way, you like me; and I cannot bear to be thought too hard.”
Here Alice could not check a sigh and a tear, at the thought of the name she might leave behind.
“What shall I do? What can I do?” cried Stephen, not being such a very hard fellow, any more than the rest of us; but feeling himself unworthy even to touch her pocket-handkerchief.
“You have nothing to do, I should hope, indeed,” answered Alice, recovering dignity; “I am very glad that, whatever happens, you may blame other people. Please to remember that I said that. And good-bye, Captain Chapman.”
“Good-bye, till dinner-time, my darling – well, then, good-bye, Miss Lorraine.”
“At any rate I am glad,” she thought, as she hastened to her room, “that, even to him, I have said my last, as kindly as I could manage it.”
When she entered her room, it was three o’clock, and the day already waning; though the snow from hill and valley, and the rime of quiet frost, spread the flat pervading whiteness of the cold and hazy light. Alice looked out, and thought a little; and the scene was by no means cheering. The eastern side of the steep straight coombe (up which clomb the main road to the house) lay thirty or forty feet deep in snow, being filled by the drift that swept over its crest, for nearly the breadth of the coombe itself. But under the western rampart still a dark-brown path was open, where the wind, leaping over the eastern scarp, had whirled the snow up the western. And here, through her own pet garden, fell a direct path down to the Woeburn.
She had long been ready to believe that here her young and lively life must end. Down this steep and narrow way she had gazed, or glanced, or peeped (according to the measure of her courage), ever since the Woeburn rose, and she was sure what it meant for her. Now looking at it, with her mind made up, and her courage steadfast, she could not help perceiving that she had a great deal to be thankful for. Her life had been very bright and happy, and it had been long enough. She had learned to love all pleasant creatures, and to make them love her. She had found that nature has tenfold more of kindness than of cruelty; and that of her kindness, all the best and dearest ends in death. Painless death, the honest and peaceful end of earthly things; noble death, that settles all things, scarcely leaving other life (its brief exception) time to mourn.
All this lay clear and bright before her, now that the golden mist of hope was scattered by stern certainty. Many times she had been confused by weak desires to escape her duty, and foolish hankerings after things that were but childish trifles. About her bridal dress, for instance, she had been much inclined to think. Of course, she never meant to wear it; still, she knew that the London people meant to charge to a long extreme; and she thought that she ought to try it on once more, ere ever it was rashly paid for. She truly cared no more than can be helped by any woman, whether it set her off or not; but she knew that it must be paid for, and she wanted to know if the Frenchwoman had caught any idea of her figure.
To settle this question, she locked the door, and then very carefully changed her dress. Being the tidiest of the tidy, and as neat as an old maid in her habits, she left not a pin, nor a hair on the cloth, nor even a brush set crooked. Then being in bridal perfection, and as lovely a bride as was ever seen, without one atom of conceit, she knew that she was purely beautiful. She stood before the glass, and sadly gazed at all her beauty. There she saw the large sweet forehead (calm and clear as ever), the deep desire of loving eyes for some one to believe in, the bright lips even now relaxing into a sadly playful smile, the oval symmetry of chastened face, in soft relief against the complex curves and waves of rebellious hair. To any man who could have her love, what a pet, what a treasure she might have been, what a pearl beyond all price – or, as she simply said to herself, what a dear good wife! It was worse than useless to think of that; but, being of a practical turn of mind, she did not see why she should put on her lovely white satin, and let no one see it.
Therefore, she rang for her maid, who stared, and cried, “Oh, laws, Miss! what a booty you do look!” and then, of course, wanted to put in a pin, and to trim a bow here, and to stroke a plait there; “It is waste of time,” said Alice. Then she told her to send Mrs. Pipkins up; and the good housekeeper came and kissed her beautiful pet, as she always called her (maintaining the rights of the nursery days), and then began some of the very poor jokes supposed to suit such occasions.
“Pippy,” said Alice, that the old endearment might cure the pain of the sudden check, “you must not talk so; I cannot bear it. Now just tell papa, not yet, but when dinner is going in, give him this message – say, with my love, that I beg him to excuse me from coming in to dinner, because I have other things to see to. And mind, Pippy, one thing: I have many arrangements to make before I go away; and if my door should be locked to-night, nobody is to disturb me. I can trust you to see to that, I know. And now say ‘good-bye’ to me, Pippy dear; I may not see you again, you know. Let me kiss you as I used to do when I was a dear good little child, and used to coax for sugar-plums.”
As soon as her kind old friend was gone, Alice made fast her door again, and took off her bridal dress, and put on a plain white frock of small value; and then she knelt down at the side of her bed, and said her usual evening prayers. Although she made no pretence to any vehement power of piety, in the depth of heart and mind she nourished love of God, and faith in Him. She believed that He gives us earthly life, to be rendered innocently back to Him, not in cowardly escape from trouble, but when honour and love demand it. In the ignorance common to us all, she prayed.
Being now in a calmer state of mind, she took from her desk a tress of long hair, the most valued of all her treasures. Her long-lost mother; oh, if only she had a mother to advise her now! She kissed it, and laid it in her breast, and then she glided forth to steal one last sad look at Hilary. He lay with his back to her, fast asleep, and she kissed him lightly, and ran away.
Then, when all the house was quiet, except for the sound of plates and dishes (greasily going into deep baskets, one on the head of another), Alice Lorraine, having gathered her long hair into a Laconian knot, put her favourite garden hat on, and made the tie firm under her firm chin. She looked round her favourite room once more, and nodded farewell to everything, and went to seek death with a firmer step than a bride’s towards a bridegroom.
Attired in pure white she walked through a scene of bridal beauty. Every tree was overcast with crystal lace and jewellery; common briars and ignominious weeds stood up like sceptres; weeping branches shone like plumes of ostrich turned to diamond. And on the ground wave after wave of snow-drift, like a stormy tide driven by tempestuous wind, and bound in its cresting wrath by frost.
Although there was now no breath of wind, Alice knew from the glittering whiteness that it must be very cold. She saw her pretty bower like a pillow under bed-clothes; and on the clear brown walk she scattered crumbs for the poor old robin as soon as he should get up in the morning. And there she saw her favourite rose, a cluster-rose of the softest blush, overcome with trouble now, and the hardness of the freezing world. When the spring should come again, who would there be to unroll its grubs, or watch for the invasion of green-fly?
At this thought, for fear of giving way, she gathered up her dress and ran. She had no overwhelming sense of fate, necessity, or Até – the powers that drove fair maids of Greece to offer themselves for others. She simply desired to do her duty, to save the honour of her race, and her pure self from defilement.
The Woeburn was running as well as ever, quite untouched by any frost, and stretched at its length, like a great black leech who puts out its head for suction. Gliding through great piles of snow, it looked sable as Cocytus, with long curls of white vapour hovering, where the cold air lay on it. The stars were beginning to sparkle now; and a young moon, gazing over Chancton Ring, avouched the calm depth of heaven.
Then Alice came forward, commending her soul to God in good Christian manner, and without a fear, or tear, or sigh, committed her body to the Death-bourne.