In her joy and impulsiveness, Mary actually embraced Leslie Fotheringhame, and kissed him when she heard from Annabelle of the reconciliation, and explanation of all that seemed so unpleasant and mysterious.
'Had she not loved you—yes, loved you dearly—do you think she would have felt all this so much—so keenly and so bitterly!' said Mary to Fotheringhame.
And hearty were the congratulations of the general, who was pleased that Eaglescraig should be the scene of such an event, though love and lovers' quarrels were somewhat beyond his sympathies now; but he liked Fotheringhame, as a friend of the absent Cecil, and he had a strong regard for Annabelle, the only daughter of an old and valued Indian comrade; so the episode immediately brought to memory one of his inevitable 'up-country' reminiscences.
'Talking of lovers' quarrels,' said he, as they idled over the dessert; 'egad! I remember one which was not without some strange features. When we were in Lucknow, under Inglis—just about the time of the first outbreak of the mutiny—a pair of lovers met, who had quarrelled in some jealous pique at a ball in Chowringhee. Olive Vane was a pretty brunette, daughter of an old Sudder judge, and her Romeo was Bob Acharn—cousin of Acharn of Ours, a lieutenant of the Bengal Native Infantry. There was not a better fellow at pig-sticking, or shooting, in all India than Bob; and I remember that, at Jodpore, he watched and waited for days and nights to pot a man-eater that had made a whole village desolate.
'As people don't lose time in love affairs in India, it was fully arranged that—the quarrel made sweetly up—the lovers should be married on the 31st of May, though many there were who said that the time was not one for marrying or giving in marriage, for the rising of the Pandies at Meerut, some time before, had sent a thrill of terror through every European breast in India, and at Lucknow, as elsewhere, it was uncertain when the secret hate of the natives might burst into a flame.
'The bridal party gathered, and at the very moment the clergyman was asking the bride if she was ready, a musket-shot entered the room, and she fell, mortally wounded. It had entered her chest, and then ensued a scene which I cannot describe.
'A company of Acharn's regiment—the 71st Bengal Native Infantry—had been brought in from the Muchee Bawn for disaffection some days before. They refused all obedience, and in vain were the black silk colours they had borne at Sobraon displayed to them. It was deemed imprudent to coerce them; and the result was that on that eventful evening—the 31st of May, the budmashes, or armed mob of Lucknow, rose, six thousand strong, crossed the Goomtee in wild tumult by a ford—a dark mass amid which there were thousands of glittering steel-points, rushing to join the mutineers. From one of the latter came the shot that struck down Olive Vane. We turned the great guns of the Residency upon them, and, after an hour's heavy firing, the insurrection was suppressed for a time; but a time only.
'During the attack and repulse, poor little Olive Vane lay motionless on a sofa, with young Acharn bending over her, weeping like a boy, and striving to staunch the blood that welled from the terrible wound in her bosom—a wound which the doctors declared she could not survive above an hour. When she recovered consciousness and learned the truth, her courage never quailed, but she said:
'"Bob—dearest, kiss me once again. If I am to die, I shall die worthy of you."
'"And I shall not survive you long, my darling; but there is yet time for us to be united. Come, sir, we are ready," said he to the clergyman, who, like all the rest of us, looked on with strange and haggard eyes.
'The girl's pale cheek flushed, but she was almost too weak to speak, for mental joy seemed to struggle for mastery with physical pain. What a strange sight she presented, lying there, her white bridal dress all stained with her blood, her beautiful dark brown hair all dishevelled, and looking so wan, so helpless, yet so resigned to die!
'Bob Acharn took her hand, and the chaplain proceeded with the ceremony. Thrice the quivering lips of Olive parted ere she could articulate "yes," and when she did so, it was the last word she uttered; and then a little foam came over her lips, for she was in her parting agony. And as he concluded the ceremony the sobs of the chaplain, who hid his face in his surplice, were echoed by those of Acharn, and the old judge her father.'
'A terrible story!' exclaimed Annabelle.
'And Acharn—what became of him?' asked Mary.
'He fought against the mutineers, with what animus you may imagine. Seeking death daily, he seemed to have a charmed life, till the 5th of September, when the enemy made their last serious and desperate assault, and he was blown to pieces when they exploded a mine near Apthorp's post, and strewed the garden around it with corpses.'
Anxious that Fotheringhame should confer with the general about Cecil, Mary had listened to this Indian story, though she heard it for the first time, with some impatience.
'I do believe,' she said, laughingly, to Annabelle, 'that when the dear old man can't get an audience he tells some of his Indian stories to himself!'
'And now, Sir Piers,' said Fotheringhame, influenced by a glance from Mary, the import of which he read aright, 'about the matter which brought me here, and the subject of your many letters to Dick Freeport and myself—what is to be done about my friend Cecil? We can't leave him to risk life and limb in a wretched affair like the Servian war.'
'Of course not—of course not, my dear fellow,' replied Sir Piers: 'this self-imposed exile must be ended; he shall be restored to his regiment and to us all. I must see him again—my boy's boy—once again before I die!' he added, with sudden emotion.
'Do not speak thus,' implored Mary, caressing him.
'I have a great reparation to make, Mary—great reparation, to the dead as well as the living. I have been a vain, selfish, hard-hearted man; but I see my errors now, and shall make reparation, I say. Why should not I go to Servia in search of him?' exclaimed the old baronet, as his eye sparkled, and then he added sorrowfully: 'but I am stricken in years, and am almost as much use in the world now as a gun without a lock, or a Scotch M.P. But we can set the wires to work, and write to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.'
'The world is a small place, after all, now; people are always rubbing up against each other,' said Fotheringhame, cheerfully; 'then there are the railways.'
'Not in Servia,' said Mary.
'Well, the international post; and it will go hard with us if we don't trace the wanderer out. Besides, if the colonel gives me leave, I may start for Servia myself.'
'You!' exclaimed Mary and Annabelle simultaneously, but in tones so different that Fotheringhame laughed; for the voice of the first was expressive of joy and gratitude, and of the second, ill-concealed alarm and dismay.
We have elsewhere shown how the sister of Count Palenka was scheming out the journey of Cecil to the frontier; so, pretty much about the same time, another journey with reference to him was schemed out by poor little Mary at Eaglescraig.
Nothing as yet was defined as to the movements of Fotheringhame, if he did adopt the idea of setting out in quest of his friend; for he had his commanding officer to study, and Annabelle, who was of more importance to him now than the F.M. commanding at the Horse Guards.
But Mary, assisted by John Balderstone, chalked out his route, as she conceived it must be, from London to Vienna and Buda-Pesth; from thence to Belgrade by steamer, as she supposed. Oh! it seemed all very plain and easy, seated over the map, which she could span with her tiny hand.
How she longed to go thither herself! So great was her impatience that not even the enchanted carpet of the Arabian tale, which transported its proprietor through the air to wherever he wished to be, in an instant, or the enchanted bridle of the famous Ayrshire 'Deil of Ardrossan,' the possessor of which could make his steed perform such wondrous feats of speed, would have sufficed her.
She was full of schemes now for communicating with Cecil, for discovering his exact whereabouts, and more than all, for bringing him safely and quickly home; while the general thought chiefly of his restoration to his former rank and position in the regiment.
Mary had seen in Robertson's charming little drama of 'Ours,' how the heroine made her way to the Crimea, amid the winter tempests, and found the wretched hut of her lover, Hugh Chalcot. Why should she not go to Servia and bring home the wanderer! Mrs. Garth would go, of course; and might not Fotheringhame and Annabelle, with whom matters were progressing so far now, make their wedding trip, if solicitors and guardians would only look sharp about contracts and settlements!
It would be quite a joyous journey if the general would only consent, for were not she and Cecil as solemnly engaged as a man and woman could be, and with the full consent and sanction of him, her only guardian! And the girl's heart seemed to go out to him, the absent and the suffering, with a futile and passionate longing.
Oh yes—yes; she saw it all, and had thought it and planned it so cleverly, with dear old John Balderstone! So they would go, by London, Vienna, and Belgrade, to—she continued, as he bent over the map—to where Cecil was, for they would never—never come home without him; and in anticipation, she imagined the joy, the wonder, and the whole excitement of their sudden meeting.
But one thing did provoke her a little!
It seemed as if, in the presence of Annabelle and the new phase of their love affair, the primary object of Fotheringhame's visit took somewhat of a secondary place, till the latter, like the whole household, was terribly startled one morning, when the wishes of all were frustrated and their hopes crushed by an appalling and bewildering Reuter's telegram, which Fotheringhame strove, but in vain, to conceal from Mary, and which ran thus:
'The ex-British officer who is now a prisoner in the camp at Deligrad, and under sentence, it is believed, of death for treason to King Milano (as the Prince of Servia names himself) and treachery to General Tchernaieff, is now known to be the same who so lately and so gallantly saved the life of the latter in the battle on the banks of the Morava, when Guebhard's troop of Lancers gave way and fled.'
'Now what on earth does all this mean?' exclaimed Fotheringhame, in blank dismay, as he read this over for the third time to Mrs. Garth, while Annabelle, who thought only of Mary, clung to his arm with her eyes full of tears.
'It is a sad—sad tragedy this of ours,' said the old lady, folding Mary to her breast; 'but, my darling pet—it may be some mistake; let us pray that it is so, and that light may come out of the darkness yet.'
'This is torture upon torture. O my God—is life worth living?' wailed Mary in her heart, asking unconsciously the question of a brilliant essayist.