Bluebell Part 49

"'My eyes were blinded;' he cared no more for her than the rest. Had I believed him, we might have been happy five months, for we should have married the day I came of age."

"It will happen yet!" cried Mrs. Rolleston. "Shake off this fearful dream, my dearest child. I know that Bertie cares only for you."

"We have met to-night, we never shall again."

"She will have a brain-fever," thought Mrs. Rolleston, distractedly, "if tears do not come to her relief." They did eventually, convulsively and exhaustingly, till she dropped into a death-like sleep far into the next morning.

The sun had been s.h.i.+ning for hours. Mrs. Rolleston did not disturb her, but the superst.i.tious terror she had battled against the night before returned daring that long day, in an agony of impatience for news.

But no submarine telegraph then existing, nothing was heard for a time.

Mrs. Rolleston might have shaken off the gruesome impression, but for the immovable conviction of Bertie's death that actuated Cecil. She a.s.sumed the deepest mourning, and pa.s.sed whole hours alone with her grief, perfectly indifferent to the opinion of any one. Indeed, since his spiritual presence had, as she believed, appeared to her, he seemed nearer than before, when they were parted and unreconciled.

One day, late in the afternoon, Mrs. Rolleston was agitated by that weird sound to anxious ears, the shouting voices of men and boys hawking evening papers, and proclaiming startling news. She saw from the balcony her servant dart down the street for the gratification of his curiosity.

He bought a paper, and perused it as he slowly returned. He got "quite a turn," as he afterwards described it, when his mistress, pale as a sheet, met him at the door, and, without a word, s.n.a.t.c.hed the evening journal from his astonished hands.

No occasion to seek far. The sensational paragraph was in capital letters, and contained the intelligence of the battle of Balaklava, and famous charge of the six hundred, with its fearful losses. The cavalry regiments engaged were named. Among them was Bertie Du Meresq's, and mentioned as one that had suffered heavily. The returns of killed and wounded did not appear.

Mrs. Rolleston had a friend at the Horse Guards, and instantly despatched the servant there, with a letter requesting further particulars as early as possible. Ill news does not lag. A letter from General--soon arrived, with its warning black seal. Captain Du Meresq was among the casualties.

He had been shot through the heart during the charge.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

AN UNEXPECTED RENCONTRE.

Into a ward of the white-washed walls, Where the dead and the dying lay, Wounded by bayonets, sh.e.l.ls, and b.a.l.l.s, Somebody's darling was borne one day.

--Song.

Mrs. Rolleston completely sank under this dreadful blow. Bertie had been her darling and pride from his infancy, and her own misery was redoubled, in antic.i.p.ation of the even greater anguish of Cecil.

Strange to say, though, _she_ experienced no new shock. That Du Meresq was dead, she had never doubted, or that his spirit, in the moment of departure, had hovered for an instant near the one who loved him best. It seemed to connect her with that other world whither he had gone. It did not appear so far away, now Bertie was there, and her thoughts were ever in communion with her spirit love.

The hour in which he had, as she believed, appeared to her, she regularly pa.s.sed alone in the same room, and even prayed for another sign of his presence.

But if such prayers were answered, what mourners would remain unvisited by their dead?

This room became her "temple and her shrine," in which Bertie, all his sins forgotten, was canonized. How incessantly she regretted having parted with those letters, so impulsively affectionate and so entirely confidential! To be sure, they were chiefly about himself; but what subject could be so interesting to Cecil? His normal condition of picturesque insolvency was only a proof of generosity of disposition and absence of meanness. Now she had nothing but a letter not her own, and that one last message, "Give my dearest love to Cecil."

Whether or no the vision was really but a dream, we leave to the decision of our readers. It was not unnatural that the dominant idea should impress that unreasoning moment between sleeping and waking; but Cecil's fervent faith knew no doubts, and thus it was that Du Meresq dead influenced her as much as when living.

They soon heard from Colonel Rolleston. Part of his regiment had been sent to seek and bring in the wounded; his brother-in-law's body had been found and brought back by Vavasour, and he sent his wife Bertie's watch.

The newspapers were full of the disastrous but glorious charge of the cavalry, and of their immense loss.

In Du Meresq's regiment all the senior had been cut off. Had he lived, he would have been Colonel of it, a position which Lascelles survived to fill.

There appeared no respite from anxiety for those who had relatives in the East. Within two months the battles of the Alma, Balaklava, and Inkermann had been fought. Colonel Rolleston seemed to bear a charmed life; for, though repeatedly under fire, he had come out unscathed. Many of his officers were killed, Fane slightly wounded, and Jack Vavasour had lost an arm.

In the ensuing spring Cecil roused herself. Though all her hopes were dead, the native energy of her character a.s.serted itself, and rebelled against utter stagnation. Some letters she had received from the nurses in the Crimea rekindled her former enthusiasm, and she determined to execute her original project, and go out to the aid of her suffering countrymen.

Mrs. Rolleston was now more hopeful, and, far from opposing Cecil's wishes, cheerfully forwarded them. She looked upon hers as so cruelly exceptional a lot, that any absorbing occupation capable of distracting her mind was only too welcome. And so when

Spring Came forth, her work of gladness to contrive, With all her reckless birds upon the wing,

Cecil, turning "from all she brought," was far on her way to the East, and wis.h.i.+ng, as she a.s.sumed the black serge hospital dress, that she could as easily transform her internal consciousness as her outward ident.i.ty.

Hers was not a nature to do anything by halves, and every faculty of mind and body became absorbed in these new duties. The patient who fell into Cecil's hands had little to complain of. She struggled for his life when even the shadow of death had fallen on him, and sometimes, by arduous exertions and devoted nursing, saved one in whom the vital flame had wasted almost to the socket. And then a nearly divine content came to her as she imagined she might have spared some distant heart the pangs that had almost broken her own.

But to follow her through the daily routine of duties, often painful, often touching, would be too long for the present history, so we pa.s.s abruptly to one event, a necessary link in it.

Cecil was attending a fever case, and looking anxiously for the doctor, as she fancied her patient was sinking. He was a young man, and had been more or less unconscious ever since he was brought in.

The surgeon came, and shook his head as he felt the feeble pulse.

"Is there no hope?" asked Cecil, sorrowfully.

"Scarcely any. Give him this stimulant whenever you can get him to swallow it; but there seems no reserve of strength." And he pa.s.sed on to others.

She lost no time in attending to his directions, and a large pair of melancholy brown eyes opened on her. They watched her about persistently, and seeing their gaze, though languid, was rational, she asked "if there was anything she could do for him."

His voice was so inaudible she could but just catch the sentence, "So he gives me over!"

"I don't think he would if he could see you now. Indeed, you seem better."

"I don't think I shall die; but, in case of accidents, will you write something for me?"

Cecil nodded, while holding rapid communion with herself. Ought she to let him exhaust his little strength in dictating probably an agitating letter?

"Will you wait till you are a little stronger?" she said doubtfully.

"If I ever am, it will not be necessary to write; if otherwise I cannot do it too soon."

Cecil, judging by her own feelings that opposition to any strong wish would be more injurious than even imprudent indulgence, glided from the room, and soon returned with writing materials.

She sat down by the bed, and casually felt the attenuated wrist as she did so. The sick man gazed gratefully at her, but waited some minutes for breath to commence. His first words made her almost bound from her chair, and, as he continued in low feeble tones, with long pauses between, Cecil was wrought into an agony of suspense and interest.

The communication was to be addressed to an uncle, and began abruptly:--

"I was married to Theodora Leigh at a register office at Liverpool in November, 1853, and I make it a dying request to you to acknowledge my widow, who will otherwise be dest.i.tute both of money and friends.

Forgive, if you can, my deception, and the poor return made for all the benefits lavished on your, notwithstanding, grateful nephew,

"HARRY DUTTON.

"P.S.--My wife is a governess in the family of Mr. Markham, Heatherbrae, Wimbledon."

It was sealed, directed, and the patient had sunk into a heavy stupor; but Cecil felt her heart stirred as she had never expected to do again.