Two Years Ago Volume Ii Part 38

"Don't, my dearest fellow! I am looking for two English ladies."

"Potz! You shall find two hundred in the hotels, ugly and fair; but the two fairest are gone this two hours."

"When?--which?" cries Stangrave, suspecting at once.

"Sabina Mellot, and a Sultana--I thought her of The Nation, and would have offered my hand on the spot: but Madame Mellot says she is a Gentile."

"Gone? And you have seen them! Where?"

"To Bertrich. They had luncheon with my mother, and then started by private post."

"I must follow."

"_Ach lieber_? But it will be dark in an hour."

"What matter?"

"But you shall find them to-morrow, just as well as to-day. They stay at Bertrich for a fortnight more. They have been there now a month, and only left it last week for a pleasure tour, across to the Ahrthal, and so back by Andernach."

"Why did they leave Coblentz, then, in such hot haste?"

"Ah, the ladies never give reasons. There were letters waiting for them at our house; and no sooner read, but they leaped up, and would forth.

Come home now, and go by the steamer to-morrow morning."

"Impossible! most hospitable of Israelites."

"To go to-night,--for see the clouds!--Not a postilion will dare to leave Coblentz, under that quick-coming _allgemein und ungeheuer henker-hund-und-teufel's-gewitter_."

Stangrave looked up, growling; and gave in. A Rhine-storm was rolling up rapidly.

"They will be caught in it."

"No. They are far beyond its path by now; while you shall endure the whole visitation; and if you try to proceed, pa.s.s the night in a flea-pestered post-house, or in a ditch of water."

So Stangrave went home with Herr Salomon, and heard from him, amid clouds of Latakia, of wars and rumours of wars, distress of nations, and perplexity, seen by the light, not of the Gospel, but of the stock-exchange; while the storm fell without in lightning, hail, rain, of right Rhenish potency.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE THIRTIETH OF SEPTEMBER.

We must go back a week or so, to England, and to the last day of September. The world is shooting partridges, and asking nervously, when it comes home, What news from the Crimea? The flesh who serves it is bathing at Margate. The devil is keeping up his usual correspondence with both. Eaton Square is a desolate wilderness, where dusty sparrows alone disturb the dreams of frowzy charwomen, who, like Anchorites amid the tombs of the Thebaid, fulfil the contemplative life each in her subterranean cell. Beneath St. Peter's spire the cabman sleeps within his cab, the horse without: the waterman, seated on his empty bucket, contemplates the untrodden pavement between his feet, and is at rest.

The blue butcher's boy trots by with empty cart, five miles an hour, instead of full fifteen, and stops to chat with the red postman, who, his occupation gone, smokes with the green gatekeeper, and reviles the Czar. Along the whole north pavement of the square only one figure moves, and that is Major Campbell.

His face is haggard and anxious; he walks with a quick, excited step; earnest enough, whoever else is not. For in front of Lord Scoutbush's house the road is laid with straw. There is sickness there, anxiety, bitter tears. Lucia has not found her husband, but she has lost her child.

Trembling, Campbell raises the m.u.f.fled knocker, and Bowie appears. "What news to-day?" he whispers.

"As well as can be expected, sir, and as quiet as a lamb now, they say.

But it has been a bad time, and a bad man is he that caused it."

"A bad time, and a bad man. How is Miss St. Just?"

"Just gone to lie down, sir. Mrs. Clara is on the stairs, if you'd like to see her."

"No; tell Miss St. Just that I have no news yet." And the Major turns wearily away.

Clara, who has seen him from above, hurries down after him into the street, and coaxes him to come in. "I am sure you have had no breakfast, sir: and you look so ill and worn. And Miss St. Just will be so vexed not to see you. She will get up the moment she hears you are here."

"No, my good Miss Clara," says Campbell, looking down with a weary smile. "I should only make gloom more gloomy. Bowie, tell his lords.h.i.+p that I shall be at the afternoon train to-morrow, let what will happen."

"Ay, ay, sir. We're a' ready to march. The Major looks very ill, Miss Clara. I wish he'd have taken your counsel. And I wish ye'd take mine, and marry me ere I march, just to try what it's like."

"I must mind my mistress, Mr. Bowie," says Clara.

"And how should I interfere with that, as I've said twenty times, when I'm safe in the Crimea? I'll get the licence this day, say what ye will: and then you would not have the heart to let me spend two pounds twelve and sixpence for nothing."

Whether the last most Caledonian argument conquered or not, Mr. Bowie got the licence, was married before breakfast the next morning, and started for the Crimea at four o'clock in the afternoon; most astonished, as he confided in the train to Sergeant MacArthur, "to see a la.s.sie that never gave him a kind word in her life, and had not been married but barely six hours, greet and greet at his going, till she vanished away into hystericals. They're a very unfathomable species, Sergeant, are they women; and if they were taken out o' man, they took the best part o' Adam wi' them, and left us to s.h.i.+ft with the worse."

But to return to Campbell. The last week has altered him frightfully. He is no longer the stern, self-possessed warrior which he was; he no longer even walks upright; his cheek is pale, his eye dull; his whole countenance sunken together. And now that the excitement of anxiety is past, he draws his feet along the pavement slowly, his hands clasped behind him, his eyes fixed on the ground, as if the life was gone from out of him, and existence was a heavy weight.

"She is safe, at least, then! One burden off my mind. And yet had it not been better if that pure spirit had returned to Him who gave it, instead of waking again to fresh misery? I must find that man! Why, I have been saying so to myself for seven days past, and yet no ray of light. Can the coward have given me a wrong address? Yet why give me an address at all if he meant to hide from me? Why, I have been saying that too, to myself every day for the last week? Over and over again the same dreary round of possibilities and suspicions. However, I must be quiet now, if I am a man. I can hear nothing before the detective comes at two. How to pa.s.s the weary, weary time? For I am past thinking--almost past praying --though not quite, thank G.o.d!"

He paces up still noisy Piccadilly, and then up silent Bond Street; pauses to look at some strange fish on Groves's counter--anything to while away the time; then he plods on toward the top of the street, and turns into Mr. Pillischer's shop, and upstairs to the microscopic club-room. There, at least, he can forget himself for an hour.

He looks round the neat pleasant little place, with its cases of curiosities, and its exquisite photographs, and bright bra.s.s instruments; its gla.s.s vases stocked with delicate water-plants and animalcules, with the sunlight gleaming through the green and purple seaweed fronds, while the air is fresh and fragrant with the seaweed scent; a quiet, cool little hermitage of science amid that great noisy, luxurious west-end world. At least, it brings back to him the thought of the summer sea, and Aberalva, and his sh.o.r.e-studies: but he cannot think of that any more. It is past; and may G.o.d forgive him!

At one of the microscopes on the slab opposite him stands a st.u.r.dy bearded man, his back toward the Major; while the wise little German, hopeless of customers, is leaning over him in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves.

"But I never have seen its like; it had just like a painter's easel in its stomach yesterday!"

"Why, it's an Echinus Larva: a sucking sea-urchin! Hang it, if I had known you hadn't seen one, I'd have brought up half-a-dozen of them!"

"May I look, sir?" asked the Major; "I, too, never have seen an Echinus Larva."

The bearded man looks up.

"Major Campbell!"

"Mr. Thurnall! I thought I could not be mistaken in the voice."

"This is too pleasant, sir, to renew our watery loves together here,"

said Tom: but a second look at the Major's face showed him that he was in no jesting mood. "How is the party at Beddgelert? I fancied you with them still."

"They are all in London, at Lord Scoutbush's house, in Eaton Square."