The Cross of Honour

Front matter

THE CROSS OF HONOUR By ANNIE THOMAS AUTHOR OF "LADY LOBME," "THE HOUSE IN PICCADILLY," " PHILIP MOETON," ETC. ETC. LONDON JOHN MAXWELL AND COMPANY 122, FLEET STREET MDCCCLXIII {All rights reserved. _] LONDON: SAVTLL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, COVENT GARDEN, TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER LIEUT. GEORGE THOMAS, R.N. ®(iis tyobxmt is gcbicateb AS A SLIGHT TRIBUTE OF AFFECTION. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGB i. a son of the emerald isle is greeted with a vert proper enthusiasm, and responds accordingly 1 ii. introduces some more members of broome society ; amongst others, herbert challoner 12 iii. " you love me, and i love you too, and that's the reason why." . . 22 iv. what they all thought of each other when the evening was over ... 35 v. captain tierney makes an offer to miss constable; — of his advice . . 47 vi. beatrice places herself in a position OF PERIL 61 VII.

MR. CHAILONER'S CHATEAU D'ESPAGNE IS DEMOLISHED 74 VIII. MASTER ALICK's VIEWS OF PARADISE . . 85 IX. A VETERAN RECEIVES PROMOTION. ... 96 X. HOW THE ARROWROOT BISCUIT GOT BROKEN 108 XI. ROBIN HOOD GOES INTO NEW HANDS . .119 X II. MRS. TIERNEY " COULD HAVE WISHED THINGS HAD BEEN DIFFERENT" . . .132 XIII. " BUY A DAWG, MARM" CONTENTS. II CHAP. PASE XIV. THE CROSS OF GOLD 153 XV. MRS. ARDEN SEES CAPTAIN SKETCHLEY IN THE ODOUR OF DOMESTICITY, AND FINDS IT RATHER AN OVERPOWERING ONE . .165 XVI. "PAPA USED TO SAY — JAY's" 179 XVII. MRS. ARDEN ON THE PIANO, AND CAPTAIN SKETCHLEY ON THE BONES OF HIS ANCESTORS . . 194 XVIII. A FRIEND IN NEED 208 XIX. THEY BOTH SEEK DISTRACTION . . . .222 XX. " A GENTLEMAN FOR MISS CONSTABLE, MA'AM" 229 XXI. ACTIVE SERVICE 13 RENDERED BY TWO REJECTED ONES 240 XXII. THE SHADOW OF A CHANGE 251 XXIII.

A DEATH VACANCY WHICH WALTER MAY BE EXPECTED TO FILL 264 XXIV. " THE BEST MISTAKE THOSE RASCALLY RUSSIANS EVER MADE, SIR BUT A MIS- TAKE JUST THE SAME" 279 XXV. "A LETTER AND FOR ME %" SHE ASKED . 287 XXVI. THE CROSS OF HONOUR GAINED AND RE- MOVED

Chapter I

A SON OF THE EMERALD ISLE IS GREETED WITH A VERY PROPER ENTHUSIASM, AND RESPONDS ACCORDINGLY. There was hut small variation, scarcely the shadow of turning indeed, in the routine Captain Constable had observed every morning since — eighteen years and a half ago now — he had first come to reside at Broome. He was in the habit of ringing for hot water at eight ; of emerging from his bedroom at half-past, and of pacing up and down the hall in wet weather, the garden in dry; taking bis quarter-deck walks, witb a pipe between " his gills" as he called it, for the space of twenty minutes exactly. At the expiration of those twenty minutes, his daughter would come bounding down the stairs with the sort of haste a daughter is apt to exhibit before a punc tual papa, and apprize him that breakfast would be ready in a minute.

For the last eighteen and a half years, Captain Constable had done these things with unbroken regularity, to the best of the belief of the in habitants of Broome. Even when delicate Mrs. Constable existed— for that period that was com posed of equal portions of blanket and hed, bear skin and sofa, could not be called a life — even while she existed, Captain Constable had smoked his matutinal pipe of strong tobacco, and "so, no doubt," they kindly added, " had hastened her end, poor lamb." He had come to live at Broome when that stag nant time in the navy commenced, when the war was over, and the peace was setting in with severity, for those who were attempting to solve that face tious and unsolvable problem the Admiralty set them, of whether a man could live on his half-pay or not. Broome had three attractions for him ; it had a fine bracing sea-air, and this he deemed good for always-ailing, consumptive, rheumatic Mrs. Con stable, whose life was one continual apology to healthier humanity — it was so deprecating in its sickness and suffering.

It was sufficiently out of the way for him not to have large doses of that naval society in the which he would have talked up his grievances as to prize-monejr, pro motions, and so forth, until they assumed the gigantic proportions of wrongs — and he was wise enough to desire to avoid this latter thing. And thirdly and lastly, rent was low enough in those regions for him to take a house such as it behoved a gentleman of such ancient lineage to dwell in, without his whole income going, as he said, in the roof that covered him. So, here, in this quiet out-of-the-world little village, he had lived for the last eighteen years ; alone with his daughter for the last ten — Mrs. Constable's existence having endedjust so long ago. He was a fine specimen of the old school of naval officers ; by which I must not be understood to mean the roughs of the service at all, but of that school of which Captain Marryat was so glorious a type.

Captain Constable — they always gave him the courtesy title, though he was only a commander — was a tall, stalwart man, with fine brown hair, in which not a thread of silver could yet be detected. Hehad a firm, upright figure, which gave you neither the idea of stoutness or slightness, so fairly was it proportioned. He had a rapid habit of gesture and utterance ; a frank, cordial bearing to all alike, peer or peasant, that at the slightest approach to aught like undue familiarity, could become crushingly cold and haughty, and still seem to suit him best. He had a true sailor's love of mingling with what. 1—2 ever mio-ht be going on that promised amusement ; and last, and very far from least, he had a most exquisitely pretty daughter. Beatrice Constable had a rare grace and charm about her, truly ; for it not only bewitched you into the mistake of thinking her lovely. at first sight, but it kept you on the same track ever after — kept you on in your mistake, though at the same time you could not be blind to the fact of her com plexion being shades darker than it is befitting the complexion of a daughter of Albion to be.

Though you could not be oblivious to the retrousse nose which is only allowable in a blonde, still you could not do anything but admire that sympathetic little nose. Her forehead too ! what was it about the girl's forehead that made you look at it again and again ? it was not wide ; it was not in the least like marble; on the contrary, it was im mensely mobile, and — but perhaps in this last lay its charm. There was a line across it when she would be thinking, that was not a frown ; it would cross ber brow whenever she was anxious, or sorry, or sad, or indeed, acutely interested. It was a line to mar the beauty of a more perfect forehead than hers ; but, for ah that, if perchance you valued intellect higher than loveliness, you would have admired it. This morning, when Beatrice cleared the last three or four steps with a spring that brought her face to face with her father, she would have been sur prised — if he had allowed her time to be anything — hy the unusual spectacle of his mouth unadorned by a pipe.

" Good morning, papa," she began, hurriedly ; " am I later than usual ? — I am so sorry ; or has anything else put your pipe out ?" Captain Constable kissed his daughter in a hazily meditative manner that was a new thing to him. " How many years is it — you've heard me say often — since I heard from my sister last, Beatrice ?" " Oh ! ages before I was born ; seven-and-twenty, I think ; why, papa 1" " Well, my dear, you asked me if anything had put my pipe out; this has rather, — this letter that comes from the sister I parted with coldly twenty seven years ago. She has written to me, to ask if I will give her son a welcome to my house ; in fact, Beatrice, my dear, your cousin is coming to-night, and I feel happier than I have done for many a long day." " She doesn't give you time, then, papa, to say whether you'll give him the ' welcome ' she asks for or not.

How well she knew you ! Coming to night, is he ? Good gracious ! I wonder what he's *ike. Let me look at Aunt Tierney's letter, papa." So as they sat down to breakfast the father gave his daughter that letter to peruse which he had just received from a sister he had parted with angrily many years before, because she had sided, with what appeared almost like unsisterly warmth, with her husband, in a quarrel that had arisen between the wild, madly-reckless Jack Tierney and her hot-headed brother. Anger had long, long since died out ; but the breach it made while it lasted had never been bridged over, and this was the only communication that had been attempted since they both were young. " Dear Maurice," she wrote, "You will not recognise the band-writing thathas altered from free, flowing youth to crabbed age since last you saw it, so at once I will tell you that it is your sister addressing you once again.

Let bygones be bygones; we were too warm about many things in the old time, but the warmth never burnt out the love I have always had in my heart for you. I have with some little difficulty got your address from the Admiralty, and I write to tell you now that my boy, Frank, wishes to make your acquaintance. Being the only child I have, I hoped, when his poor father died, that he would' have given up the army and come to reside here, like one of the old stock should, at Castle Tierney. But he would hear of nothing of the kind. His regiment has been stationed at Malta for the last four years, now he is quartered at Woolwich ; will you give him a welcome ? for a letter I have had from him to-day says he is going to run down to your address, which I sent him on Thursday. Let me hear from you whether you have a wife and family or not, and what you think of Frank.

He came home and stayed for a week or two, and turned the head of every girl in the county. " I shall look anxiously for a letter from you now that the ice is once broken, and beg to subscribe myself, with all affection, " Yours very faithfully, " Mary Tierney. "Tierney Castle, Tuesday the 14th." Beatrice read the letter through, and then ex claimed — " A soldier, evidently, papa ; where's the list? and we'U see what he is. I wonder if he's a captain. How stupid of Aunt Tierney not to say what regiment. Oh ! but there's the alphabetical list, and I don't suppose there's another ' Frank Tierney ' in the service. What a pretty name ! What was his father like ?" Captain Constable had forgotten ; he really could not say. Then he took up the letter, and looked with pensive sarcasm at it. " Mary talks tall about ' the Castle ' still, I find," he half muttered, "and believes in the 'old stock' just as she did when Jack was hiding his head from the bailiffs in one of the castle cellars.

Well, well ! we all have our httle weaknesses." " I shall be glad to see Mary's boy," he said aloud, " and I should like her to see you." " It will all come round, papa, no doubt now. We shall all be as delightfully friendly as possible. Here he is; he's acaptain in the 41st Foot — 'Francis Ballantyne Tierney.' Which room shall I have got ready for him ? — the north one ? No, that's too bleak; he shall have the south Blue Room. I suppose he will come by the eight down-train : who will meet him ?" Now, reader, do not go off into fits of disgust at the evident excitability Beatrice was displaying over the anticipated advent of her cousin. To understand it perfectly, to sympathize with it at all, to forgive its want of polished iciness, you must have experienced some at least of those sensations which made the little hand tremble, and the dark cheek glow, and the sweet, ringing voice falter almost with a new-born happiness ; you must have passed a long period of blessed calm in the soul-deadening atmosphere of a secluded country village.

If Frank Tierney was all, or even half of what her imagina tion pictured him, what importance he would give her in the rather confined set in which she moved ! Young, a soldier, an Irishman ; oh ! joy. Beatrice drank her tea in scalding gulps, in her haste to rush off and superintend the ordering of the room which was to witness the slumbers of this new cousin. She gave a more graceful bend to the curtains with her own fair little hands; she talking "through" her own evolutions — told the housemaid, with such verbosity, all that was to be done for the perfect ordering of everything when he arrived, in order that there might be nothing out of place to greet the eye of this unknown guest, and make him doubt the efficiency of her arrangements, that she cast that domestic adrift on a wild sea of doubt and confusion — where she remained during the whole of Captain Tierney's visit.

And then Beatrice ran down into the garden and gathered some leaves of trefoil, that she had never cared much about before ; but he, the man with the pretty name, was coming now, and she would like him to see that the emblem of Ireland, his country, was cherished. She was wildly impatient for him to come. It was all so strange to Beatrice, who had never heard his name before, to hear that Frank Tierney, her cousin, was coming that very night, to be a guest in her father's house. She kept her impatience " under" very well, considering all things ; when the room was arranged to her entire satisfaction, when the shamrock leaves were placed in a glass on a dressing-table, she actually sat down to read. Who has not at some period or other of his or her career idealized the unknown ? It is a natural thing, immediately one hears a name, to attach a similitude to it.

Beatrice Constable read up "The O'Donaghue," and fancied her cousin " would be like Mark perhaps." She had waited till after dinner before she went to impart the news to her particular friends, the Forests ; waited because she had hoped that at dinner-time her father would settle that question she had asked him, of "Who was to meet Frank?" It was important that she should know, because if he didn't think her little pony-gig would do, she would be obliged to ask for the loan of Walter Forest's dog-cart and groom. And Captain Constable had decided that her little pony-gig would not do, so Beatrice had a fair and valid excuse for putting on her hat as soon as the cloth was removed, and rushing over to the Forests'. Now it was not only a daily, but indeed an almost hourly event, this going over to the Forests'; it only did not occur when the Forests came over to her.

They were very intimate; they had grown up together — the younger members of the family and herself; and being the only people of the same class in the village, the result was as might have been expected precisely. Mr. Forest, senior, was a gentleman farmer ; but with him my story has so little to do, that this incidental mention of him is only made in order that their station may be at once determined by the reader. Mrs. Forest was an exceedingly pretty woman, of about forty-nine — yes, exceedingly pretty, in spite of so many years having passed over her head ; moderately educated ; blessed with that compensating tact which, if a dairy-woman possesses, she may pass muster before duchesses ; inordinately proud of her children, a good wife, a careful housekeeper, an excellent manager, and, withal, a truly kind-hearted woman.

The eldest daughter, Anna, had lately married when my story opens ; mention of her, " together with description," as they say in fashion-books, "will be made in another place." The second and third daughters, Elinor and Marian, were remarkable for nothing so much as for the astonishing belief they each had in the good looks of the other. They were both pretty, — Elinor in a fair, delicate, refined way, and Marian in a dark, handsome style ; and they were both " o-reat friends" with Beatrice Constable. They had one brother, a man of about eight-and twenty, and Walter Forest had the reputation of being the handsomest man in the county.

Chapter II. Introduces Some More Members Of Broome Society

; AMONGST OTHERS, HERBERT CHALLONER. Beatrice put on her hat and shawl, and walked out, with a checked impatience, of which she was not altogether unconscious herself, in her gait. She went through the garden, and out into the road, and then she gave a hasty exclamation of annoyance, for towards her came one whom she was at all times rather desirous of avoiding, but never to the degree she was now. It was Mr. Challoner, the young curate. He was one of those unfortunate men who go to College, and study seriously, earnestly, and well ; who attain Hebrew scholarships and a reputa tion for theological learning ; and who then come out into the wicked world with their foreheads unnaturally heightened by severe mental labour, and a total inability to hold their own in society. Poor Herbert Challoner had done these things as completely as any man could ; and then he had put a finishing stroke to his folly by taking the curacy of Broome, at eighty pounds a-year, and falling in love with Beatrice Constable.

His very appearance was against the man in life. He was tall, with low long shoulders, and long arms that he did not know what to do with ; he never could walk straight if he imagined any one to be looking at him ; and as he was short sighted, he was given to taking trees and gate posts for people, and so going at them in nervous curves. He had thin hair of a gingery hue, and a damp, boiled complexion ; and lamentable blue eyes, with white lashes, that bore an unfortunate resem blance to a pig's. Altogether, externally he was not the man to touch the heart of any womau, far less of one like Beatrice. For some months he had looked at her with a liquified love and mise rable mildness in his gaze, that sometimes pro voked, and sometimes made her laugh. Occasion ally she snubbed him, when his awkward attentions to her before others made them laugh at her ; but generally her manner towards him was marked by a sort of goodnatured indifference, that kept bim on hoping that when his prospects had expanded she would allow him to lay himself at her feet.

He was the humblest lover a girl could have, and for that very reason, perhaps, he was about tbe most intolerable. And now, when she was in a hurry to go and tell the laughing, merry Forests, who could see this meeting from the bow window where they usually sat at work— when she was in a hurry to go and increase her importance pleasantly in their eyes, hy telling them that a cousin — a delightful combi nation of Irishman, captain, youth, and good name — of whom she had never before heard, was coming to-night, this wretched curate came ambling up to her. " How do you do, Miss Constable ?" he began. That was another thing that made the man a terrible trial to so much of the world as had to shake hands with him. He would address pre cisely the proper words of salutation to you, and then palpably let the ball of conversation drop.

You felt convinced that when you had made your speech, he would have nothing more to say. So now, when Beatrice answered rather sharply, " Quite well, thank you, — only in a hurry," he passed his umbrella from one Berlin-covered hand to the other, and smiled feebly. " A cousin of mine — a nephew of papa's — is coming to us rather unexpectedly to-night, Mr. Challoner, so you must excuse my not askinoyou in now, for I am going to the Forests to ask if they will send for him." She held out her hand to say good-bye, and she could not help feeling a little touched by the profound dejection which overspread his unhappily plain face as she alluded to " a nephew 'of papa's." " Is he a — a young man ?" he presently faltered. " Yes, quite," she answered, rather maliciously — when was a woman not rather pleased than other wise to arouse the smothering sensations in the mind of the mildest of Othellos ? — " and he's a soldier and wild Irishman into the bargain ; stay, — though I can't ask you in now, Mr. Challoner, perhaps you will come in this evening, about nine : papa will be glad to see you, and so shall I." She said it with a woman's generous frankness, when she finds she has a little wounded one whom she has no desire to wound if he would not insist upon putting himself in the way of getting cuts.

She gave him the invitation to come and sun him self in her smiles, in her presence, that evening, because she knew the yellow hue was overspreading his mind at the picture she had flashed before his eyes of this cousin. And he, poor fellow, was weak enough to think she meant it, as he would have desired her to mean it, when she said, " and so shall I." So he accepted the frankly-given invitation, with an awkward warmth that showed again " he was goinoand making a mistake," and then he let her — his star, the brightest gleam that had ever crossed his path, or been dreamt of by him — go of? on her mission. "Why haven't you been over this morning, Bee ?" was the question she was saluted with as she entered the room, where she found, not only the Misses Forest, but brilliantly-pretty Mrs. Beresford, the married daughter.

" Why ?" she answered, with affected carelessness (she was surging with impatience). " Oh, I don't know ; I've been busy ; papa wanted me." ' ' What could he want you for ? He couldn't have wanted you as much as we have. When Walter came in from the farm, at eleven, he was quite sulky and unpleasant, and I know it was because he didn't find you here." Elinor Forest raised her laughing blue eyes to her friend's face, and found, as she expected, a blush there, as she spoke of her handsome brother's chagrin at her absence. " Where is Walter now ?" Beatrice asked ; " I want him so much." "That's unfortunate," said Elinor, "for both of you. Walter will be very mad when he hears you have been after him, and found him out; he's gone over to George Beresford's to spend the even ing, as Anna came here."

" Oh ! nonsense ; I wanted to borrow his trap." " Tou wanted to borrow his trap !" "Yes," replied Beatrice, laughing. "A cousin has suddenly appeared on the surface of our family; he's coming to-night, and I wanted Walter to send to the station to meet him. Papa wont let my gig go ; he says that the luggage would scratch it." And then, interrupted by many an exclamation and interrogation, Beatrice poured out her story and anticipations of what he would be like. " I am going to have some people on Monday evening, Beatrice," said Mrs. Beresford ; " mind you bring him." " Yes ; don't be a greedy, and keep him all to yourself, please," said Elinor. " Oh ! here's pa ; he'll send for him, though Walter's trap is out," said Marian. " My dear, I'll send you over some cream and fresh butter. Oh ! and I daresay, now, you'd like a tongue for breakfast," said Mrs. Forest, who was, in truth, always sending what she called " trifles," over to the young housekeeper.

Beatrice quite glowed; they were ail so cordially interested in the expected advent of this Frank Tierney. " ' Castle Tierney,' his mother, my aunt, dates her letter from. I fancy, from what I've heard, that it's very much like the O'Donaghue's old castle — grand and ruined you know." Dear little impostor ! she had heard nothing of the kind, but she had employed herself so assiduously since the receipt of that letter in perusing Irish light literature, that Castle Tierney floated almost tangibly before her. " Come over to-night," she continued, after a little more discursively suppositious conversation had been indulged in ; "come over to-night, about half-past nine ; don't ' dress ;' just drop in, you know. Anna, can you come? Can't you stay? I was obliged to ask that stupid Mr. Challoner to call in to-night, in order to get quit of him when I was coming over here ; you must come to balance him."

" Can I come in my habit ?" asked pretty Mrs. Beresford; she had ridden over on her mare " Venus," and well she knew, as she affected to ask the question dubiously, that no other costume would have set off the exquisite contour of her perfectly rounded little figure better than the dark blue cloth, well-fitting habit did. " Oh, yes ; of course, you can. And now" (Bea trice was tremendously restless) " I shall go back and do a little work, for I have been fussing about the house all the morning, seeing the room got ready, and all that sort of thing. I have been making the most perfect housekeeping arrange ments, Mrs. Forest ; probably it's all anarchy and confusion at ' Castle Tierney.' I fancy there's a sort of rude old royal hospitality practised there, and I want my cousin to be favourably impressed and struck with the vast superiority of English domesticity."

Beatrice omitted to mention that she had been taking Lever as her guide all through the morning. " WiU he come in a ragged hat, I wonder, and with his shoes tied together with string?" Marian Forest said, inquiringly. Her views of Irishmen were gathered from a humbler source (though they were perhaps equally correct) than Beatrice's ; she took the type who came in soiled shoals to do the harvest for the prosperous Sassenach. No one answered her, for Marian's opinions were held at their due worth, and consequently were rarely combated or endorsed by others ; it was " no consequence" what she thought, they opined, for there's always one fool in a famdy, and Marian was allowed by universal consent to hold that honourable post. And then Beatrice Constable said " good-bye for a time" to her friends, and walked away home, feeling at least two inches taller from the interest thrown around her by the expected advent of this (most probably) extremely picturesque cousin.

She went home and searched through every music book she possessed, for she had a dim idea of having 2—2 sometime or other seen some Irish melodies. At last she found two or three songs. Amongst others " The Minstrel Boy," and " The Harp that once through Tara's Halls," and these she practised so vehemently that by tea-time she almost fancied she had an accent, and that her having it would only he a natural and proper thing. How pretty she looked when she took her seat at the table, and prepared to pour out her father's bucket-full of tea. The mobile forehead was fully shown, for the dark wavy chestnut hair was lifted off it and turned back in a natural elastic curve. The dark-grey hazel eyes were brighter than ever with a new excitement, and they — those lovely long grey eyes — had marked with approval that the dress she had selected to do honour to the occasion suited her rarely.

It was a white clear muslin dress, spotted thickly with tiny lumps of blue ; and it was tied round the lithest, slenderest waist in the world, with a rich broad sash of soft Turkish silk — one of the many things her father had brought her mother home long ago, in the days of their court ship. Mrs. Constable had been one of those worthy women who lay everything away in carefully locked drawers. I doubt whether the sash had ever been out of its folds of silver paper since the day he gave it to her, and she admired it, with a judicious reprimand to him for "being extravagant," until Beatrice appropriated it for the setting-off of this blue dress. Very dainty, and pretty, and elegant she looked with the soft lace frilling her throat, and the soft sash floating behind her, as she walked up and down outside the hall-door with her father after tea, with the little hand that was too small for everyday life reposing on his arm.