BUT who can tell what is to happen within twenty-four hours? When I left my dressing-room next morning, I found Derwent lingering in the corridor outside, waiting for me. He carried in his hand one of those ominous covers which thrill the hearts of private people with fears of evil tidings. He had been half afraid to bring it into me, but he did not hide either the startling hieroglyphics which proclaimed the nature of the dispatch, nor his own distressed and sorrowful face.
“What is the matter?” I cried, in breathless alarm, when I saw him; “something has happened!”
“I fear so,” said Derwent; “but softly—softly, Clare; in the first place it is not absolutely his name and there are such perpetual mistakes by this confounded telegraph. Softly, softly, Clare.”
I had seized the dispatch while he was speaking—I read it without saying a word—did I not know how it would be?—ah, that concise, dreadful, murderous word—killed! I knew it the moment I saw Derwent’s face.
“But, my love, it is not his name—look! it absolutely may be somebody else and not Bertie,” cried my husband.
Ah, Bertie! the sound of his dear, pleasant, homely name overcame me. There was no longer any Bertie in the world! I had borne the dreadful excitement of reading the dispatch, but I lost my self-command entirely when all the world of love and hope that had lived in him came before me in his name—it went to my heart.
Long after, Derwent returned to point out the possibilities, which I had no heart to find out. I heard him languidly—I had made up my mind at once to the worst. One hopes least when one’s heart is most deeply concerned; but still my mind roused to catch at the straw, such as it was. The telegraph reported that it was Captain N. Hugent who was killed. It was a very slight travesty to rest any confidence upon; but then Bertie was Lieutenant-Colonel, lately breveted. I refused to listen for a long time; but at last the hope caught hold of me. Derwent recalled to my recollection so many other errors—even in this very dispatch the name of one place was quite unrecognizable. When I did receive the idea into my head, I started up, crying for an Army List. Why did they not have one in Waterflag? It was afternoon then, and the day had gone past like a ghost, without a thought of our return home, or of anything but this dismal piece of news. Now I put my bonnet on hurriedly, and begged Derwent to get the carriage. We had a list at home. We could see if there was anybody else whose name might be mistaken for our dear boy’s.
A pale afternoon—a ghostly half twilight of clouds and autumn obscurity. I went into Clara’s favorite sitting-room, where she was by herself, to bid her good-bye, unable to bear the sight of the whole family, especially of Mrs. Harley, and the sympathy, sincere though it was, which she would give me. That miserable morsel of hope, which I did not believe in, yet trusted to, in spite of myself, raised to a fever my grief and distress. The deepest calamity, which is certain, and not to be doubted, is so far better than suspense, that it has not the burning agitation of anxiety to augment its pangs. I went into Clara’s room with the noiseless step of a ghost, impelled by I cannot tell what impulse of swiftness and silence. Clara was crying abundantly for her old playfellow. Alice, as I did not observe at the time, but remembered afterwards, was not to be seen that day, and never came to whisper a word of consolation to me, nor even to bid me good-bye. I put my veil aside for a moment to kiss Clara. “Oh, Mrs. Crofton! it will turn out to be somebody else!” cried Clara, with her unreasoning impulse of consolation. I wrung the little hand she put into mine and hurried away. Ah! God help us! if it was not Bertie it must be somebody else—if we were exempted, other hearts must break. Oh, heavy life! oh, death inexorable! some one must bear this blow, whether another household or our own.
We hurried back to Hilfont, all very silent, little Derwie leaning back in his corner of the carriage, his eyes ablaze, and not a tear in them; the child was in the highest excitement, but not for Bertie’s life—panting to know, not that the cousin whom he had never seen was saved, but that something noble and great had been done by this hero of his childish imagination. As for my husband, I knew it was only in consideration of my weakness that he had remained all day inactive. I saw him look at his watch, and lean out to speak to the coachman. I knew that he would continue his journey to town as fast as steam could carry him. I felt certain Derwent could not rest without certain news.
When we reached home, I hastened at once, in advance of them all, to the library, where I knew that Army List was. I remember still how I threw the books out of my way till I found it, and how, with a haste which defeated its own object, I ruffled over the leaves with my trembling hands. I found nothing like Bertie’s name—nothing that could be changed into that Captain N. Hugent in all his regiment. I threw the book away from me and sunk upon a chair, faint and giddy. My hopes had grown as I approached to the point of resolving them; now they forsook me in a moment. Why should I quarrel with that inevitable fate? Why should we be exempted, and no other? Long and peaceful had been this interregnum. Years had passed since grief touched us—now it was over, and the age of sorrow had begun again.
“I have only a minute to spare,” said Derwent, looking over the list himself, with a grave and unsatisfied face; “of course I must go to town immediately, Clare, and see if any more information is to be had. But look here! it is not so much the mistake of name as of rank which weighs with me; military people, you know, are rigid in that respect. Had it been Colonel, I should not have questioned the transposing of the initials; but see! he is registered as Major even here.”
“Don’t say anything, Derwent,” said I; “let me make up my mind to it. Why should not we have our share of suffering as well as so many others? Do not try to soothe me with a hope which you don’t feel.”
“My dear, if I were not so anxious, I should be sure of it,” said Derwent. “I am very hopeful even now. And, Clare,” said my husband, stopping sorrowfully to look at me, “grieved as we are, think, at the most, it might have been worse still—it might have been your own son.”
I turned my head away for the moment, with something of an added pang. My boy Bertie!—he was not my son—he did not even look so very, very much younger than I, now-a-days, as he had been used to do; yet he was my boy, kindred in blood and close in heart. Little Derwent stood by, listening up to this moment in silence. Now he spoke.
“Mamma, are you sorry?” cried the child; “our Bertie would not die for nothing, if he did die. Is it for Bertie, because he’s been a brave soldier that you cry? Then how will you do, mamma, when I’m a man?”
How should I do? I clasped my son close in my arms and wept aloud. His father went away from us with a trembling lip, and tears in his eyes. My heart groaned and exulted over the child, who felt himself a knight and champion born. Ah! what should I do when he was a man? What would every one do who loved Derwie, if death and danger came in the way of his duty? But some such men bear charmed lives.
Derwent went away that day to do all that was possible towards ascertaining the truth. We were left alone in the house, Derwie and I. My boy kept by me all day, unfolding to me the stores of his wonderful childish information—what in my pride and admiration I had been used to call Derwie’s gossip. He did not console, nor suggest consolation; but the heart swelled in his child’s bosom to think of some great thing which he had yet to hear of, that Bertie had done. He was entirely possessed with that idea; and by-and-by his enthusiasm breathed itself into his mother also. I began to bear myself proudly in the depths of my grief. “Another for England!” I said in my heart: Ah! more than for England, for humanity, nature, our very race and blood. If Bertie had died to deliver the helpless from yonder torturing demons, could we grudge his life for that cause? So I tried to stifle down my fond hopes for my chosen heir—to put Alice Harley and Estcourt aside out of my mind, that nothing might come between me and our dearest young hero. He was killed. That murderous chariot of war had gone over him, and extinguished those fair and tender prospects out of this world; but not the praise nor the love, which should last for ever.
So I thought, waiting for further tidings, persuading myself that I had no other expectation than to hear that fatal dispatch confirmed—yet cherishing I cannot tell what unspoken, unpermitted secret hopes at the bottom of my heart.
Some days of extreme suspense ensued. Derwent found no satisfaction in London; but remained there in order to get the first news that came. Heavily those blank hours of uncertainty went over us. Lady Greenfield came to Hilfont, and she and I grew friends, as we mingled our tears—friends for the first time. All my other neighbors distressed me with inquiries or condolences. Some wondered I went to church on the next Sunday, and was not in mourning. Nobody would let me alone in my anxiety and grief. I had a visit almost every day from Clara Sedgwick, who came in crying, as if that would console me, and hung upon my neck. I was far too deeply excited to take any comfort out of Clara’s caresses; perhaps, if truth must be told, I was a little bored with demonstrations of affection, to which, uneasy and miserable as I was, I could make so little response.
Then came the day for news—the dread day, when all secret hopes which might be lurking in our hearts were to receive confirmation or destruction, the last being so very much the most probable. I felt assured that if the news was favorable, Derwent would return that day, and waited with a beating heart for the dispatch, which I knew he would not delay a moment in sending me. The news came—alas! such unhappy no-news! The same perplexing, murderous information, simply repeated without a single clue to the mistake, whatever it was. I sank down in my chair, with an overpowering sickness at my heart while I read—sickness of depressed hope, of disappointment of a conviction and certainty which crushed me. The repetition somehow weighed heavily with my imagination. I could no longer either deny or doubt the truth of it. It was all over. There was no more Bertie Nugent of Estcourt now to maintain the name of my fathers; so many hopes and dreams were ended, and such a noble, fresh young life, full of all good and generous impulses, was finished for ever.
“I fear—I fear, Derwie, my darling—I fear it must be true,” said I.
“But what did he do? Bertie did not die for nothing, mamma—is it not in the paper what he did?” cried Derwie.
If it had been, perhaps one could have borne it better. If he had died relieving a distressed garrison, or freeing a band of agonized fugitives, and we had known that he did so, perhaps—perhaps—it might have been easier to bear. I sat down listlessly in the great window of the breakfast-room. Something of the maze of grief came over me. If I had seen him coming through the avenue yonder, crossing the lawn, approaching to me with his pleasant smile, I should not have wondered. Death had separated Bertie from the limits of place and country—he was mysteriously near, though what remained of him might be thousands of miles away.
Thus I sat languidly looking out, and saying over in my heart those verses which everybody must remember who has ever been in great trouble—those verses of In Memoriam, in which the poet sees the ship come home with its solemn, silent passenger, and yet feels that if along with the other travellers he saw the dead man step forth—
“And strike a sudden hand in mine,
And ask a thousand things of home;—
“And I should tell him all my pain,
And how my life had drooped of late,
And he should sorrow o’er my state,
And marvel what possessed my brain;
“And I perceived no touch of change,
No hint of death in all his frame,
But found him all in all the same,
I should not feel it to be strange.”
Wonderful subtle intuition of the poetic soul! Who does not know that strange contrast of death and life? A week ago, and had I seen Bertie from that window, I should have hailed his appearance with the wildest amazement. But I should neither have wondered nor faltered had I seen him this day; on the contrary, would have felt in my heart that it was natural and fit he should be there.
But I did not see Bertie. I saw far off a homely country gig driving up rapidly towards the house, and strained my eyes, wondering if it could be Derwent, though he had sent me no intimation of his return. As it came closer, however, I saw that one of the figures it contained was a woman’s, and at last perceived that my visitors were no other than Alice Harley and her brother Maurice. I started nervously up, and hid away my dispatch, for I trembled to see my dear girl. What had she to do coming here?—she who could not ask after his fate with calmness, and yet to the bottom of her maiden heart felt that she had no right to be concerned.
Alice was very pale—I could see the nervous trembling over her whole frame, which she subdued painfully, and with a nervous force, as she came in. Though her voice would scarcely serve her to say the words, she made an explanation before she asked if I had any news. “My mother sent me,” said Alice, with bare childish simplicity, but with that breathless gasp in her voice which I knew so well—gasp of utter despair at the thought of enduring that suspense, and concealing it for five minutes longer—“to know if you had any further news—if you had heard,” she added, with a convulsive calmness, casting at me a fiery glance, defiant of the compassion she saw in my face. I saw she meant to say his name, to show me how firm she was, but nature was too much for Alice—she concluded hurriedly in the baldest, briefest words—“anything more?”
I shook my head, and she sank into the nearest seat—not fainting—people do not faint at such moments—kept alive and conscious by a burning force of pain.
“Only the same miserable news over again,” said I, “with the same mistake in the name; letters must come, I fear, before we can know—but I am afraid to hope.”
A little convulsive sound came from Alice’s breast—she heard it herself, and drew herself up after it to hide the wound still if she could. Maurice, too, was greatly affected, though he could scarcely be said to have known Bertie; he walked about the room in his careless man’s way, doing everything in the world without intending it, to make that composure we two women had wound ourselves up to, impossible—making his lamentations as he paced about from table to table, picking up all the books to look at them as he went and came.
“Poor Nugent!” said Maurice—“poor honest fellow!—he was not very brilliant, but people liked him all the better for that. What a bright frank face he had—what a laugh! I shall never hear anybody laugh so heartily again. And to think of a fellow like that, and hundreds more, sacrificed to these black demons! Good heavens! and we sitting here at home idling away our lives!”
“Ah, my Bertie!” cried I, out of my heart, “and no one left behind him to bear his name—nobody to mourn for him except ourselves—nobody belonging to him! If there is one thing a man has a right to in life and death, it is surely a woman’s tears.”
I did not think what I was saying. The words were scarcely out of my lips when an overpowering burst of tears broke through all the painful reserve and forced calmness of Alice. She covered her face with her hands, hid her head, drew her veil frantically over her passionate weeping. But the flood would have its way, and she could not stop it. I dried my own tears to look on almost with awe at that outburst of controlled and restrained nature. My poor Bertie! the last sad right of a man had fallen to him unawares; he had that mournful possession, all to himself, poured forth upon the grave of his youth with a fulness that knew no reserve—a woman’s tears!
Maurice stood by overwhelmed with surprise; he looked at his sister—he grew crimson up to his hair—he drew back a step as if he felt himself an intruder spying upon this unsuspected grief. Then he retired to the bookcase at the other side of the room, with an appealing glance at me. I followed him softly, Alice being far too entirely absorbed to observe us for the moment.
“What does it mean—was there anything between them?” asked Maurice, in my ear.
“They were playfellows and dear friends,” said I; “you know how Clara feels it too.”
“Not like that,” said Maurice, once more growing red, as he turned to the books in the shelves—he stood there absorbed in these books, taking out some to examine them, showing himself entirely occupied with this investigation till Alice had recovered her composure. She looked up at me with a guilty, pale face when she had wept out her tears; and I was comforted that she saw her brother coldly standing in the background with his back to us and a book in his hand. I had never been so pleased with Maurice before.
“You are not well, my dear child,” said I, “I will bring you some wine, and you must rest a little. Thank you for remembering him, Alice. Now we can give him nothing but tears.”
Alice, all pale, miserable, and abashed, gasped forth something of which I could only distinguish the words “playfellow” and “old friend.”
“I was saying so—you were like his sisters, Clara and you,” said I, out loud to reach Maurice’s ear.
Alice looked up in my face, now that she had betrayed herself. I thought she was almost jealous that I did not understand her—that I really believed these were, like Clara’s, friendly and sisterly tears.
What could I do? I hushed her, drawing her head to my breast. I could say nothing,—he was gone—he could neither learn what love was bestowed upon him nor return it. Words could no longer touch that secret matter which was made holy by Bertie’s grave.
“Look here, Mrs. Crofton,” said Maurice, turning round upon me, when he saw I had left Alice’s side, with the Army List in his hand; “it is not in Nugent’s regiment, certainly, but the 53d is in India, too—look here.”
I looked with little interest, believing it only a kind expedient to break up the trying situation in which we all stood. It was a name which Maurice pointed out, the name entirely unknown to me, of Captain Nicolas Hughes.
“What of it?” said I, almost disposed to think he was making light of our trouble.
“Captain N. Hughes—Captain N. Hugent—the mistake might be quite explainable; at least,” said Maurice, putting up the book, “at least with such a similarity we ought not yet to despair. Alice we’ll go home now. I daresay Mrs. Crofton has too many visitors just at present, and my mother will be anxious to hear. Dear Mrs. Crofton,” said the young man, in whom I could not recognize that Fellow of Exeter, grasping my hand warmly, “don’t despair.”
And Alice, with a painful blush on her cheeks, and her veil over her face, followed him out without a word. I took but faint hope from the suggestion of that name; but if it were possible—if still we might hope that Bertie was spared—never would Alice Harley forgive him for that outburst of tears.