Tempest-Torn

Front matter

TEMPEST-TORN Tempest- Torn BY Lt:-Colonel ANDREW HAGGARD, D.S.O. AUTHOR OF "DODO AND I," "ADA TRISCOTT," "LESLIE'S FATE," ETC. XonDon 1894 HUTCHINSON & CO. 34 PATERNOSTER ROW TO THAT GALLANT SOLDIER JAMES BERESFORD ot THE 3rd SIKHS THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY HIS FRIEND AND COMRADE THE AUTHOR Naval and Military Club Sept. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. LADY GLADYS I II. SUNNY SEAS 7 HI. MALTA • . . . 19 IV. THE QUEEN OF DIAMONDS 32 V. A FEMALE DON QUIXOTE 42 VI. LIFE'S FITFUL FEVER 47 VII. JUDSON'.S LITTLE PLAN 56 VIII. CLAUDE CONTINUES HIS HISTORY 69 IX. SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI 84 X. MADALENA MAKES A PROPOSAL 95 XI. A BIG BRIBE 1 08 XII. CAN THE DEAD RISE? 121 XIII. TURMOIL 133 XIV. THE GORGEOUS EAST 1 39 XV. AN INDIAN STATION IN WINTER 1 52 XVI. THE LAMB BECOMES A WOLF 166 XVII. TROUBLE 1 74 XVIII.

MASTER AND MAN 1 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XIX. A FISHY TAIL 19^ XX. BITTERS 208 XXI. SWEETS 2l6 XXII. SOME SUMMER SHIFTINGS 227 XXIII. TURMOIL AMONG THE MOUNTAINS 242 XXIV. A DEADLY STRUGGLE 258 XXV. GLADYS GOES IN FOR EXPIATION 273 XXVI. PLEASANT ANTICIPATIONS 28 1 XXVII. STERN REALITIES 294 XXVIII. HOW A WOMAN WON THE V.C 307 XXIX. I WILL GIVE MY HEART'S BLOOD FOR HIM . . . . 317 XXX. DEATH OR LIFE 33O XXXI. KISMET 34-1 XXXII. TOO LATE i TEMPEST-TORN.

Chapter I. Lady Gladys

" And so, Gladys, you really have made up your mind to adhere to this ridiculous resolution? Well, you are your own mistress of course, and if you choose to go I cannot prevent you, nor indeed would I try to do so, if your reason is really what you say, and you think the change is likely to be beneficial to you. But it seems to me that you might have had just as good a chance of getting completely rid of those little complications in your throat by passing the winter in the Riviera, as by leaving us all for a year, and dashing away to the other side of the world. 'In search of health' you say; but come, be honest, is it not just a little bit in search of excitement too ? " "Well, mother," answered composedly a tall and stately girl, advancing slowly into the firelight and facing her parent, " I will be honest with you.

My wish to go out to India is not entirely on account of my health; you are right there, but I think, knowing myself as I do, that I can scarcely say it is caused by a wish for excitement either. Excitement is not exactly in my line, I am too easily bored by everything ever to get up a real excite- TEMPEST-TORN. ment about anything. And the Riviera bores me, as you know. I had enough of it last year. And so, taking everything into consideration I think that the simplest way of giving you my reasons for accepting the Leslies' invitation is by saying that I wish for a change for a time from the monotony of this old world life of ours. What with its London in the summer, Germany or Swit zerland in the Autumn, and then Scotland in the winter, or as you suggest, the Riviera for a change, year after year, I am getting more bored with it all than a woman of my age has any right to be.

And," she added, as a somewhat softer expression overspread her handsome aristocratic face and shone through her large and beautiful grey eyes, " there is another reason too : since our dear father died and Henry went off to his regiment, I have been most unutterably lonely. Neither Clara nor Blanche have ever replaced Henry as a companion. How could they ? They are too young ; and as for my father, you know what we were to each other and what a void his loss has made in my life. I seem to miss him every where, yes, everywhere and always," she added vehemently. "So there are my reasons." She stood for a minute gazing sadly at the fire, with a far-away look which seemed to be deep in the vistas of the past, and then she turned suddenly, once more confronting her mother, who was now furtively dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief, an occupation which she instantly ceased as soon as her stately daughter faced her.

For Lady Ardgye knew that Gladys could not bear to see her in tears; and although mother and daughter loved each other dearly, the former was just a little afraid LADY GLADYS 3 of the latter and never willingly did anything to dis please her. Gladys moved over to where the handsome, but some what lymphatic-looking old lady was leaning back in her cosy armchair. Kissing her tenderly she then said cheer fully: "And so, mother, I suppose that now we may as well consider the matter finally settled ? Don't you think so?" "Certainly, my dear, if you wish it so," replied the Countess submissively; and just then the footman entered bearing the tea-tray, and after him Lady Ardgye's two younger daughters, putting an end to the conversation. And thus it was settled once and for all that Gladys was to have her own way, and go out to India at the beginning of the next month, which would be November.

The scene of the above detailed conversation was the drawing-room of Ardgye Castle. Everyone who knows Perthshire, or at any rate the neighbourhood of Perth itself, knows that beautiful edifice, where it stands overlooking the Tay a few miles below the town. Douglas Leith, the late Earl of Ardgye, had been gathered to his fathers about a year before the opening of this tale, and Henry Leith, ninth Earl, who reigned in his stead, was a fine young fellow six foot high, a subaltern in the Black Watch, the gallant old ' Forty-twa.' He was now away with his regiment amusing himself and doing his guards at Gibral tar. Indeed, from all accounts he was probably, as usual, combining amusement with duty, for whenever Henry ■was on guard it was a regular thing for all the liveliest young gentlemen in the Garrison to assist that noble Earl, TEMPEST-TORN. 4 by joining him in baccarat and other cheerful games, to pass the time.

Well did Lady Gladys know how her young brother was going it "at the pace that kills," but although in his father's lifetime many was the time she had either remonstrated with him, or obtained for him the much needed funds from the governor's pocket, she had determined for the present to let her lively brother have his fling without interfering with him in any way. It was not that Gladys loved him any less now than she had done in her father's time, but she argued, and sensibly, that he would be more likely to get tired of throwing away his own money than he had been of wasting his father's substance. In the meantime, to sum it up in her own words, " Really it's too much of a bore to be always writing letters of good advice to Henry, so I shall just let him alone for a bit." And so she did, for when Gladys Leith, once made up her mind to anything being a bore it took a good deal of starting to get her to pay any more attention to it, whatever it might be.

There was, however, a great fund of determination under lying the outward languid manner, of this strange girl, Lady Gladys Leith who always, perhaps unintentionally, con trived to give everyone the impression that everything and everybody bored her. Nobody quite understood her but her brother Henry. He did, and was a little afraid of her because she also understood him too well, and he knew it. Her younger sisters, two pretty girls of about eighteen and nineteen, did not understand her in the least, and were, it must be owned, slightly impatient of the authority she had always held in the household. They were nice girls, but they thought it ridiculous that a woman LADY GLADYS. 5 of five-and-twenty, as handsome, as well-read, and as well dowered as was their elder sister, should pretend to be bored with everything, and should talk as if nothing in life but their brother Henry had any interest at all for her.

It may as well be mentioned here casually that the stately Lady Gladys was alone better endowed with this world's goods than were her brother the Earl and both her sisters combined. For a rich bachelor uncle who had never seen her, had left his all to his brother's first-born child. She had been that child, and the amount that she had inherited had been very large in the first instance, and had gone on increasing in good investments until she had reached her majority some three and a half years previous to the time of which we write. Her sisters could not understand for one thing, why she steadily refused to marry, for though many had been the suitors who had come to woo this capricious and self-possessed young lady, she had sent them all about their business. She had a way of putting a man off, by apparently not taking him in earnest, which was most discomposing, the more so as, until the game wearied her, her manner was distinctly encouraging.

Gladys was very tall, and with the high heels she habitually wore and the masses of jet black hair which graced her comely head, raised up above it in the Spanish fashion, she looked perhaps almost too tall. But she was built in proportion. Her hands and feet, while shapely ■were not too small for her height, and her figure while graceful, was voluptuous in its contours. Though rather dark, she had the purest complexion, with a lovely colour; her forehead was high and broad, her TEMPEST-TORN. mouth tender but determined. As for her eyes, they were by far the best feature she possessed. Those large grey eyes were lovely when her face was in repose, magnificent when it wore a determined look, as it did at times. Even when she put on her most bored expression they were charming in their very languor and softness.

From those eyes alone, a clever observer who might happen to inter cept a glance unknown to her, would have been inclined to argue in spite of her known caprice of character, that Lady Gladys was a woman capable of loving; and of loving deeply, of loving with boundless passion, with a love that would be capable even of self-sacrifice — should she ever love at all. But those who habitually lived with her had never learned to see her in that light. The deep love of her life had during her father's lifetime been solely his. She had been indeed, more as a sister to him than a daughter; while to her brother Henry, whom she loved in a protective kind of way, she had ever been more of a mother than a sister. This then is a slight sketch of the personal appear ance and character of this excessively aristocratic and slightly autocratic young woman.

Chapter II. Sunny Seas

Gladys, with her friends Major and Mrs Leslie, sailed in due course for India; and some week or so later the P. & O. Steamer " Clyde " was steering eastwards through the blue waters of the Mediterranean. She has touched at Gibraltar, where the scapegrace young Earl has been kissed, admonished, and forgiven by his handsome sister for all that she suspects him of having done since they last parted, and now the ship is nearing Malta. Let us take a glance round the deck, look at the people and examine more closely those likely to be interesting to us. First let us see Mrs Leslie, where she sits in the shade of the mizenmast, for the sun is not yet strong enough for an awning. A woman of thirty, neither more nor less, ruddy-cheeked, almost handsome, with a very good figure and clear light blue eyes, eyes that are frankness itself, eyes with the look of the jackdaw about them, in this way, that they appear to notice everything, they are so keen and clear.

But in spite of her frank face which seems to say, ' I know where to put my trust, and I know where to hate well too,' this lady is not quite handsome, for her features are not regular enough for symmetry. TEMPEST-TORN. But what does that matter? It is the face of a woman, you feel as you look, whom you would value as your friend. She is downright in all her ways, as in her appear ance. Her husband, Major Leslie, is lounging near. He is a man who has been very good-looking indeed, but who has now run a little to fat, but he has a jolly, honest, sensible face. As a matter of fact he is a trifle too egotis tical and slightly inclined to domineer, but he is such a good fellow that people don't mind, and besides, when he is a little too bumptious his wife descends upon him like a sledge hammer just when he least expects it, and there is a bit of a row.

But a thoroughly devoted couple they are to each other, and devoted to the few friends with whom they are really familiar. Leslie has been holding a staff appointment at home, and is now on his way to India to rejoin his regiment. A little further aft, leaning on the taffrail, are a couple who seem considerably more taken up with each other's society than with the illimitable expanse of ocean which stretches around. It is easy enough to see that the man is a soldier. His bearing has that unmistakeable cachet which, invariably, go where you will, reveals to you the British Officer. Claude Wentworth is a man of about thirty two, tall and good-looking. A man with, at the present moment at all events, something earnest about his clearly cut features. One gathers the idea while looking him straight in the face that his is a steadfast and determined character.

His blue eyes have a tinge of melancholy in them which lends a charm to the determined face, and when he smiles, and smiles as now, though somewhat sadly, upon a pretty woman, this charm is still further enhanced. A pointed fair moustache overshadows a regular set of teeth and a chin which would have done credit to the Hermes of Praxiteles. Decidedly Captain Wentworth is a very handsome man, in whom you might expect a dangerous rival in any woman's affections, and a man of whom the Lincolnshire Regiment may well be proud. Into that gallant Corps he had exchanged a few years back. The lady leaning over the taffrail beside him, gazing earnestly into his face and displaying the most symmetrical of figures as she rests her head sideways on her clasped hands, is a beauty of the purest type, and the sad expres sion which at this moment overshadows Edith Farquhar's face makes her more beautiful still.

She is neither fair nor dark, and is rather tall. Her violet eyes are just now oh so soft! She has the smallest and most beautiful mouth ; her fingers are tapered and shapely, her feet delicately formed, her whole attitude from head to foot breathes grace and elegance in every line and curve, as she leans there over the taffrail gazing sadly into her companion's handsome face. And so too thinks young Judson of the 3rd Sikhs as he sits a little back and, unobserved by the pair, is vainly trying to depict that grace and elegance in his sketch book. Gladys too, who has been sitting near young Judson, and whose attention has been drawn to the couple by the glimpse she had caught of his sketch, cannot help thinking what a handsome well-matched pair they are, and how beautiful Mrs. Farquhar, her old school-friend, is looking.

But there is a slight look of disapproval in her grey eyes as she silently watches, for Gladys does not quite approve TEMPEST-TORN. 10 of a woman who has been married for over four years looking in that way at a man who is not her husband. Not, however, she thinks rather cynically, that she has ever seen any woman who has been married for over six months look at her husband like that; no, not even Mrs. Leslie. She smiles at the very idea of her downright friend Julia Leslie looking at her certainly very well-beloved spouse in that fashion. But her own face soon becomes grave again as she resumes her occupation of silently observing her friend Edith, into whose violet eyes Claude Wentworth is gazing so earnestly. Suddenly she is interrupted in her reverie by young Judson, as he shuts up his sketch-book impatiently, "A beautiful woman! isn't she, Lady Gladys?"

"Very beautiful indeed." "She looks very much in love, doesn't she?" went on the young man with a slightly malicious twinkle in his honest brown eyes. "What do you mean?" answered Gladys coldly, although she understood perfectly. "Why, looks awfully spoony on Wentworth, of course; and he doesn't look far behind her, does he?" "But Captain Wentworth is married, isn't he?" And for that matter, she is married herself and has been for years. Do you know, Mr. Judson, I think you're talking rather nonsense, and at any rate the subject is not in the least interesting." And Gladys leaned back in her chair and looked bored, doubtless thinking that she had quite crushed young Judson. But little did she know that boy, for boy he always was in spite of his five-and-twenty years. He was a young fellow with an enormous amount of individuality, yes, a young man with far too much determination in his good-natured disposition to accept squashing easily, and he was not in the least awed by Gladys and her grand airs; thus he returned to the charge.

"Look here, Lady Gladys. " Well ! " "You're trying to squash me, you know, and I can't see the reason, but if it's only because you're feeling sea-sick and don't want to talk I'll shut up like a box, and go on sketching. You are looking a little pale and languid, you know, yes, quite interesting. May I sketch you like that, leaning back? please let me. I'll call the sketch 'Motion and Emotion, or a study in sea effects !' " "Sea-sick! pale, languid, interesting," what cheek! This to Gladys too, who could sail a yacht as well as most men, as young Judson knew well, and who had been the only lady who had turned up regularly to every meal since they had been on board. She quite forgot to be bored at once, and forgot all about crushing young Jud son too. " You just dare to sketch me looking sea-sick, or in any other way, Mr. Judson, that's all," said she, looking quite bright and animated.

"I hear you make horrible caricatures. Mrs. Leslie told me last night that she saw an awful thing that you have done of her husband, making him look like a butcher, so I am determined you shall never have me in that book. That's the reason, you know, that I come and sit so near you that you cannot sketch me." " Ah, but I've got you already, you see, and have had TEMPEST-TORN. you ever since you went to sleep so gracefully one day off Gibraltar and forgot to put a shawl over your feet," triumphantly replied this incorrigible young man, edging his chair a little further away, and putting his sketch book behind him as if he feared his companion would make a grab at it. But Gladys felt too much annoyed to do anything of the sort. The idea of this young scamp having sketched her already, and that probably when showing her feet, as this last remark of his seemed to suggest, was too much for her dignity.

But she had begun to understand the boy, and saw it was of no use treating him to her high and mighty manner, also she was naturally curious to see the sketch of herself. "Will you let me have a look through your book, Mr, Judson?" " Yes, if you won't take it out of my hands. I suppose you want to see yourself first?" " If you please." Judson turned up the page, where was an excellent and most recognizable picture of Lady Gladys lying asleep in a long chair, the feet only just showing. There was nothing to complain of at all, it was a pretty portrait, especially pretty in the curve of the long eyelashes, not a caricature at all. But she observed that he kept his thumb on the lower part of the picture, thus hiding part of the dress. Looking carefully, she noticed the reason he did this, which was that there was a fold in the paper, for it was a telescopic picture.

She had seen that sort of picture, and had made them herself when she was a child at school. She was too well bred to snatch at it as she would have liked to have done, also she thought the best chance of seeing what roguery this young gentle man had been up to, was to ask him fair and square straight out; so putting all dignity on one side that was what she did. "I see, Mr. Judson, that that is a telescopic picture, now will you be fair with me and show me the rest of it, that is, if you dare?" "You won't be angry? Will you promise?" he asked laughingly. "Well, I'll try not to be — well, yes, I'll promise then." "There you are, pull the fold out for yourself," said Judson, handing her the book. And this she did, when she found that he had actually had the impertinence to depict underneath a very prettily turned pair of ankles.

"Oh! you little wretch!" was all poor Gladys could gasp, " but do you mean to say I actually showed my feet like that at all?" and she looked quite distressed. "Well, you did, to tell the truth," said little Judson, " but I give you my word of honour, not a soul noticed it but myself, nor has anyone seen this picture either. Here, I will give it you, so now you may be quite certain that no one ever will." And in a moment he had torn out the page, and first folding it up so that the offending part was again hidden he gave it her, remarking casually, " You can gum it down, you know, if you care to keep the sketch." Gladys expressed her gratitude, glad to have it in her own possession. " Will you let me have a look through the book now ? " TEMPEST-TORN. she asked. The very first picture which she came upon was the sketch of Mrs. Farquhar, upon which Judson had been engaged when this little scene had come about.

Gladys had quite forgotten her haughtiness. Indeed, Judson had, so to speak taken her down a peg and put her on the same level as himself, which was a good thing to happen to her sometimes. "Yes, she is beautiful," said she, glancing from the sketch to the original. " Is it really true that Captain Wentworth is married ? If so, what a dreadful thing ; for if they are, as you so very lightly remarked just now, really in love with each other, it seems to me very wrong. Besides, what's the use of getting married at all if you are only going to fall in love with some one else after wards ? " " Oh, you'll get quite accustomed to that sort of thing out in India, Lady Gladys. Don't you know, it's quite the fashion for everybody to fall in love with quite the wrong people out there ? But I agree with you all the same, I think it very wrong," added young Judson pa tronizingly ; " or shall we put another construction on it and say it is very unfortunate ?

Perhaps it would be kinder? But with reference to Wentworth I really can not tell you if he is married or not, there is a tradition that he is, that's all." " It is both wrong and unfortunate," said Gladys, de cidedly, " but since we are told to judge not that we be not judged, let us say that it is especially the latter. At any rate if there is as much of that unfortunate kind of thing in India as you all seem to pretend there is, I am beginning to feel very sorry I ever came out." And Gladys, taking another glance at the couple by the bul warks, looked very gravely out of her beautiful grey eyes towards them, and this time she looked chiefly at the man. She then rose and went below without saying any more. Young Judson went on sketching and thinking: "She's too good for India, that girl, altogether.

She's just one of the sort that would like to reform the world, and do it all at once. But I wonder if Wentworth really is married ; nobody seems to know." Meanwhile, what were the two by the bulwarks saying all this time that they were such an object of interest to others. The beautiful young Englishwoman is speaking. Let us listen to her words. " Yes, it is an awful life we have to look forward to Claude; what strange fate is it that has taken us out to India together like this ? It seems wonderful indeed, after all the good resolutions we made at the end of last season, after those vows never to see each other again, that we were only to write to each other half-yearly, that we were never, never to try and follow out each other's lives in any such way as to bring ourselves, al though by apparent accident, once more together, resolu tions we have nobly kept, that we should have met in spite of all.

Yes, here we are side by side, actually touching each other! But tell me, Claude, are you quite sure you are not to blame in any way, that you have done nothing to bring this meeting about? Be honest, and tell me the truth." " No, darling, I have not. I have been as loyal, Edith, in keeping my promises to you as you have in keeping TEMPEST-TORN. yours to me. Why, you remember when last we met on the 13th of July, you told me distinctly you would not leave England until the end of January, and I was to write you my first half-yearly letter just before you sailed. Two months have still to elapse ere then. And neither I nor you have written one word during the four months since we parted, although I believe our hearts have ached day and night for each other. Again, you remember it was, when we parted, definitely settled that I was to take up a post on the staff of my uncle, the Governor of the Fiji Islands.

His resignation and the death by cholera of a brother officer of mine, have been the cause of sending me out once more to India, and of my going, by some miracle, to the very same station as yourself. "Oh God! am I then to see you in the company of your husband ? Am I, to whom the very hem of your dress, the smallest lock of your hair, the slightest glance of your eye, are all things sacred and holy, am I to see you actually the property of another man, his, to caress and to kiss as he pleases, to call by endearing names, God knows perhaps in my very presence ? Is he to welcome me to his house as your friend? — yes, Edith, to your house which is also his house. It is too awful, too terrible! I do not think I can stand it. I shall exchange and go away again." She interrupted him, putting her little hand furtively upon his mouth to stop the flow of words.

" Dear, dear Claude, I know indeed how terrible it will be, but remember, hard as it will be for you, how much harder it will be for me. Remember it is I who have to live for ever with him, not you. You are a free man, or at any rate comparatively a free man, to come and go as you choose. Do not desert me then, now that I have found you again so unexpectedly, so unintentionally. Remain with me to give me courage, as I too will encourage you in your career. Should you not in fairness help me if it be only to do my duty ? How do you know, if you leave me now, tied up as I am to a man who is utterly uncongenial to me in every way, but that I may become entirely reckless, yes, cold woman though I be, perhaps go entirely to the bad, lead a life full of nothing but balls and parties, and silly and empty flirtations ?

Possibly be driven in time to even worse. No, Claude, fate has brought us together again, so let us cling together once more, at any rate for a time, and see what it may have in reserve for us. You owe it to me, I owe it to you. I have always had an idea that something may be in store for us. You only laughed cynically when I said so to you in London, and then we parted. And now, in spite of ourselves, in spite of all our efforts to do right and to keep clear of each other, here we are, condemned — shall I laugh or cry ? laugh I think — yes, condemned to three weeks of each other's society. That in itself is not so very dreadful, is it, dearest Claude? If we cannot have one another for life let us live for each other then for three weeks — yes, three weeks in two lifetimes ! Not much, but we'll make the best of it.