James Grant

“ Thus it was not for many months after that night of dread and dismay—that most mournful Christmas Eve—that the merry chimes were heard to ring in the old square tower of the Saxon church for the marriage of Clare and Trevor Chute, who passed, with chastened looks and much of tender sorrow, amid their long-deferred happiness, the now flower-covered garden of the gentle sister who had been indirectly the good angel who brought that happiness to pass. ”

“ Clare loved well the woods of the old Court—the lovely, leafy woods—with trees round and vast as the pillars of a Saxon cathedral—loved them in their vernal greenery, their summer foliage, and their varied autumnal tints of russet, brown, and gold, for there had Trevor told her again and again the old, old story, the story of both their hearts, hand locked in hand; and there she had first learned how sweet and good our earthly life may be, how full of hope, of sunshine, and glory to the loving and the loved ”

“ 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. ”

“ Major Desmond had no particular interest in Ida, though piqued, as much as it was in his lazy nature to be, at Clare, for refusing the lounging offer he had made her.
For the other he had neither liking nor disliking; but, in all he told Vane, he seemed inspired only by that love of gossipy chit-chat in which even men of the best position will indulge by the hour at their club or elsewhere, together, perhaps, with the desire, so invariable, to quiz the grief of a widow, especially if she is young and handsome. ”

“ BY THE EXPRESS FOR LUBECK.
Though Trevor Chute's old habits of decision and activity remained, a new kind of life had come upon him of late; thus he who had found the greatest pleasure in his military duties and attending to the wants of his men, in the saddle hunting, enjoying the day-dawn gallop, or with his rifle and hog-spear, watching under the fierce sun-glare for the red-eyed tiger or the bristly boar, as they came to drink in some secluded nullah, had now changed into one of the veriest day-dreamers that ever let the slow hours steal past him uselessly in succession. ”

“ Many a picture—many a soft Gainsborough or softer Greuze—may suggest a face as delicate and beautiful as that which was turned up to his; but no picture ever painted by human hand had such a power of expression as that possessed by the face of Ida Beverley, as she sat there, slightly flushed by the heat of the crowded room, and feeling with pleasure the breeze from the great square without blowing on her cheek, and laden with perfumes of fresh flowers as it passed through the long conservatory. ”

“ Amid these stirring scenes and episodes he had striven to forget everything—more than all, those days of his Guards' life in England; and now—now a lovely face—'only the face of a woman—only a woman's face, nothing more,' as the song has it, and a woman's voice, with all its subtle music, had summoned again all the half-buried memories of the past!
From day-dreams, tormenting thoughts, and weary speculative fancies, which were in some respects alien to his natural temperament, Chute was roused by his valet, Tom Travers, presenting him with a note on the inevitable silver salver. ”

“ HIS VISIT TO CLARE.
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. ”

“ He had not, that day, gone to shoot; the men were all abroad; nearly all the ladies were out driving or riding, save Ida, whom he found in the curtained oriel of the inner drawing-room, where she was standing alone and gazing out on the far-stretching landscape, that was steeped in the evening sunshine; the square spire of the village church, the tossing arms of an old windmill, the yellow-thatched roofs of white-walled cottages stood out strongly against the dark green of the woodlands at the end of a long vista of the chase, and made a charming picture. ”

“ Soft Clare in his arms again! Clare's tender lips touching his! Oh, which was a dream and which was the truth? The three years of excitement, sorrow, and disappointment in burning India; the marches under the fierce glaring sun; long days of drought and thirst, when facing death among the fierce hill tribes; nights, chill and bitter, among the Himalayan snows; the hard existence in barrack, tent, and bungalow, all so different from what his Guards life had been in London—the present or the past! ”

“ The jealous shame that he had a rival—another who might have won her when he had failed—the lurker whom Desmond and himself had seen—was all forgotten now; and though her bloom was gone, her complexion had become waxen, her beautiful hands almost transparent, her eyes unnaturally large and bright, he seemed to see in her only the same Ida whom he had loved in the first flush of her beauty ere it budded, and whom he had wooed and won in happier and unclouded times, in the same old English home where they were all gathered together. ”

“ Above the heads of the grimy rabble seven or eight torches were shaking like tufts of flame, and by their uncertain glare added much to the terror of the scene, for a madly infuriated mob has terrors that are peculiarly its own, and the simple circumstance that Sir Carnaby and Lady Evelyn were the occupants of a hired vehicle was sufficient to make all these half-starved and tipsified boors—tipsy with beer and fiery corn-brandy—turn their vengeance on them. ”

“ The broken ring, the gipsy ring of the dream, rent in two by the cruel tiger's fangs, was now on the marriage finger beside the wedding hoop, as Jerry could see when she drew off her glove, but he was glad to observe that her mourning was becoming lessened by trimmings of grey silk; yet the dark costume, by its contrast to the pallor and purity of her complexion, made Ida seem lovelier than ever, and his heart ached to think that those trappings of woe were worn for a rival. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There was in this an eloquence greater than more florid phrases could express, as he spoke, for it seemed as if Jerry's very soul was spent in what he said. After a pause, he said, with an arm still round her:
'I will not press you to answer me now, dearest Ida; you are pale and seem so weary. I will go, but ere I do so, give me one kiss in memory of the past, if not to encourage hope for the future.'
She lifted her sweet face to his, and there was infinite tenderness, but no passion in the kiss she accorded him so frankly; and Vane was but too sensible of that ”

“ Again he was sunk in thoughts of her, as when far away amid the awful and undisturbed solitude of the Himalayan forests, where the pines that rose to the height of two hundred feet were tipped with sunshine, while all was night below; and where the torrents, with their ceaseless roar, that wearied the ear, when, swollen by the winter rains, they tore past the lonely cantonment of Landour, where the last home of Beverley and many more lie, rolling on and on to the plains and tea-gardens of Assam. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was Christmas-tide, when, from all parts of the British Isles, the trains are pouring London-ward, laden with turkeys, game, and geese, and all manner of good things; when the post-bags are filled with dainty Christmas cards that express good and kind thoughts; when the warmest wishes of the jocund season are exchanged by all who meet, even to those whose hands they do not clasp, though eye looks kindly to eye; when the sparrows, finches, and robins flock about the farmyards, and the poor little blue tomtits feel cold and hungry in the leafless woods and orchards ”

“ Never! If, even were you a stranger, I should stand by you, how much more am I bound to do so when you are the father of Clare Collingwood! And if I cannot by main strength save, I shall die with you—game, an Englishman to the last!'
They were in a court which had no outlet. From it an open stair led to a species of ancient gallery overlooking the street; it was a species of balcony, with pillars and arches carved of stone, like those in front of the wonderfully quaint Rathhaus, which was not far from it, and was built in the middle of the fifteenth century. ”

“ None can sorrow for ever; though that of the inmates of Carnaby Court did not pass away with the snows of winter—nay, nor with the sweet buds of spring or the roses of summer, when they climbed round the oriels and gables of the grand old mansion. ”

“ She chatted away with Desmond and joined in the general conversation with more gaiety than usual, but not without showing a little abstraction at times, as if her thoughts wandered. She accorded little more than an occasional glance to Vane, with a soft smile on her sweet face, though there was the old languor in all her actions and manner, while she gave a programme of the forthcoming Christmas festivities at Carnaby Court, to which he, and some of the others present, were invited. ”

“ It was, he thought, altogether one of those things 'no fellow can understand,' and drove off in his mail phaeton to visit Crusader in his loose box.
Clare remained full of thought after he had gone, and the note had been despatched to Trevor Chute; she felt none of the excitement a proposal might cause in another. She was, in fact, more annoyed than fluttered or flattered by it. Yet Clare felt a need for loving some one and being beloved in turn. It is a necessity in every female, perhaps every true human heart. ”

“ He pondered that if she loved him—if she still loved him—why leave it unknown? why should he trifle with himself and her? Why tamper with fate? Why not marry her in spite of her father and Desmond, too? In mere revenge he might make Clare his own, after all!
Then second, and perhaps better, thoughts came anon; for Trevor Chute, though to his friends apparently but an ordinary good fellow in most respects, a mere captain of the line, and so forth, was in spirit as genuine a soldier and a knight as chivalrous as any that ever rode at Hastings with the bastard Conqueror, or at Bannockburn ”