Beatrice and Benedick : a romance of the Crimea

Front matter

BY HAWLEY SMART

ROWLANDS' ARTICLES

For the Hair, Complexion, and Teeth, are the PUREST & BEST.

Contents

I. — The Walking Match II. — War Muttering s III. — " Blue Beard's Chamber "

IV. — Constable Tarbant .

V. — Miss Smerdon Grows Sarcastic VI. — The Taking of the Quarries VII. — Miss Smerdon's Pride Breaks Down VIII. — News from the Crimea IX. — Constable Tarrant is Puzzled

Chapter I. The Walking Match

A BRIGHT sun and a nor'-easter, such as usually characterizes the merry month of May. A white, straight, dusty road, along which a man with his loins girt up and stripped to his shirt and trousers, is walking rapidly and doggedly. He is followed by a little knot of people apparently interested in his proceedings, one of whom, walking by his side, continually consults his watch ; indeed, the whole party seem extremely anxious as regards the time. The man, stripped of his coat, looks worn, travelstained, and bears signs of weariness. If he is walking fast, there can also be little doubt from the set defiant expression in his face that he is walking "in difficulties." From time to time he throws a mute glance at his companion, who usually responds with much the same formula :

" Never fear, old boy — you'll do it all right ; all you have got to do is to keep on walking and think of nothing else. I'm doing the thinking for

i you. You have got a mile to do every fourteen minutes, and you will just win clever ! "

When Hugh Fleming three evenings ago backed himself to walk fifty miles in twelve hours, without training, the whole mess-table laughed. The brother officer who had laid two to one against his doing it, good-naturedly offered to scratch the bet any time during the evening. It seemed perfectly absurd that Fleming should perform any such feat as this. A man who had shown so far not the slightest taste for athletics — who rarely played cricket, never played racquets, and, with the exception of an occasional country walk, for the most part took his exercise round a billiard-table. He had never been known to walk a match, and when this one was made, said that he had never done such a thing before. His comrades all laughed at him, and, with that candour which close intimacy confers, bade him, " Not make a fool of himself, but cry off his bet before it was too late."

There was one exception to the popular feeling — there invariaby is — and this was Tom Byng, Fleming's most intimate friend. Byng maintained a rigid silence as to what he thought of the affair, and even when appealed to declined to express any opinion thereon. He was a man who was rather an authority amongst his fellows on all matters of sport, whether with rod or with gun, whether on the race-course or on the cinder-track, and his brother officers were not a little anxious to ascertain what he might think of this foolish wager. But no, neither at the dinner-table nor in the ante-room afterwards could he be induced to express his views. Until Fleming had retired for the night he smoked silently, and in answed to all inquiries as to what he thought of the match, merely shrugged his shoulders and replied, " I don't know ; I never saw him walk in earnest." But no sooner had Fleming retired than, throwing the end of his cigar into the fire, he turned round to the layer of odds and said :

"If you would like to have a little more money against Fleming, Brydon, you can lay me £100 to £50."

" You may put it down," replied the other, " if you will tell me what you are going on."

" Willingly, Unless he is very vain, it is always very dangerous to bet against a man who backs himself, besides, when we were quartered at Portsmouth I once saw Fleming, for a joke, do a thing which, though I believe no great feat, would puzzle any man in this room to perform."

" You recollect at one end of the cricket ground there was a skittle alley, and after play, or when their side was in, men would sometimes have a turn at that fine old English game. Precious duffers at it too they were for the most part. Fleming was in there one day, chaffing a couple of men who were playing. When they had finished, he put up the pins again and said, ' Now if you fellows can play let's see you take those down, one pin at a time, that is the nine pins in nine shots. You mustn't upset two at a time remember, or you will not have done what I mean.'

" ' Bah,' said one of the men, ' do it, of course I can't, nor you either, I will lay you ten to one you can't do it.'

" ' I think I can,' replied Fleming quietly, ' although it isn't easy. You shall lay me ten to one in shillings,' and to our astonishment Fleming proceeded to accomplish the feat.

" I didn't know he could play skittles, and most certainly don't know that he can walk, but he might, I'm backing him on the off."

Such were the events which had led up to the match now taking place. Fleming had started at seven in the morning, accompanied only by two brother officers, one of whom was acting as umpire.

When he had accomplished his first twelve miles in two hours and a half and then stopped to breakfast these gentlemen thought that he would win his wager easily. But the pace was too good to last, and when Byng arrived just as Fleming was finishing his thirtieth mile, the match had begun to look very black for the pedestrian. He was untrained, he had no experience of walking matches, and he had nobody to coach him. Whatever the man's capabilities might be he did not know how to make the most of them. As he had not understood the husbanding of his own powers in the early part of his undertaking, so now he did not know how to use what was left of them. He was losing time on every mile ; there were twenty more weary miles to tramp, and each of them took him longer to accomplish than those that had gone before. All the fiery dash of the morning was gone and the afternoon saw the sorely distressed man still struggling gamely with the task which it was rapidly becoming an obvious impossibility that he should perform. Had Byng not arrived at this critical juncture it had been little use his arriving at all : but the minute he understood the state of things he made a rapid calculation in his head, examined Fleming critically as he walked alongside of him, and then said :

" I tell you what, old boy ; if you're game and will do as I tell you, you will just pull through ; but there won't be much to spare."

"I'm about cooked," replied Fleming, " but I'm quite good to go on till you say it's hopeless."

" It's a good way off hopeless at present," replied the other, for the first time giving the advice which he is reiterating at the beginning of this chapter.

As they turned at the milestone (for under Byng's guidance, the mile being tolerably level, the match was to be completed over that mile walking it backwards and forwards) there was a slight commotion among some of Fleming's partisans, who had now assembled to watch the conclusion of his task. What it was, was hardly discernible at the distance they then were from it, but as they came nearer it was evident that in their zeal for his success some of Fleming's partisans had stopped a smart carriage full of ladies, for fear it should prove a hindrance to their champion. The fair tenants had willingly acquiesced upon understanding what they had to pull up for. Two young ladies stood up as Fleming went by and scanned him narrowly.

" Who did you say it was, Pritchard ? " enquired a tall showy girl, of the coachman.

" It's one of the officers, miss," replied the man touching his hat ; " but I didn't catch his name. He's backed himself to walk a lot of miles in a certain time."

" They are a new lot, Nell," said the speaker ; " they only came in about six or seven weeks ago. Papa has but just called, and I haven't met any of them yet. Besides, you know, in common decency for those who have gone ; the — th were a very nice lot of fellows, and very popular ; we really must, so to speak, wear mourning for them a little."

" More than they will do for you, my dear " replied her companion, laughing. " Soldiers and sailors are marvellous hands at quick transfer of the affections."

" Ah, well, I don't suppose there's much harm dope on cither side. Singed wings here and there no doubt, but for most of us only many a pleasant dancing party to look back upon, and genuine regret that our pet partners will meet us no more. This looks promising for the new comers. As long as a regiment has some go in them, there's always hope for us. A very pretty taste in balls and picnics I have noticed often accompanies sporting tendencies, but when we get a regiment that does nothing, as now and again we do — Ugh ! " and Miss Smerdon shrugged her pretty shoulders, as much as to say no words could express her feelings for the British soldier who socially failed to do his duty. A tall, good-looking girl, with a profusion of wavy brown hair, Miss Smerdon was considered a beauty in her own part of the country. She was the only daughter of a wealthy iron-master, and in spite of her having two brothers, she was likely, if not an heiress, yet to bring her husband a very substantial dowry. She was a popular girl, and no one could say that Frances Smerdon was deficient in " go." Elderly ladies sometimes shook their heads over her doings, and whispered " bold and fast " behind their fans ; but for all that there was no real harm in her. She rejoiced in high spirits, and was perhaps a little too given to defy conventionalities, but her escapades when looked into were of a very venial nature, and more prompted by her love of fun than anything else. She enjoyed life keenly as well she might with both youth and wealth at her call, and threw herself into whatever she was doing with all her heart. How she and Nellie Lynden had become such intimate friends was rather a puzzle to their acquaintance. The latter lived in Manchester, but was in the habit of paying long visits to Monmouthshire, where, some half-dozen miles from Newport, Mr. Smerdon had a handsome country seat.

" No ! don't let him drive on, Frances, we are in no hurry, and I want to see that officer come back again. I don't know what he's trying to do, but I am interested in it. I feel sure he will do it whatever it is."

" Stay where you are, Pritchard," replied the other, laughing. " We wish to see a little more of this match."

"Well," she continued, turning to her friend, " Love at first sight we've heard of, but faith at first sight such as yours I have never yet met with. Why such belief in this unknown pedestrian ? "

" It's a striking face," rejoined Nell Lynden, " I don't mean a particularly handsome one, but a more resolute bull-dog one I never saw. He was in distress when he passed us, but that man will do the task he has set himself, or drop by the wayside."

And now once more Fleming and his three or four attendants pass close to their carriage. He keeps side by side with his mentor, and there is a set dogged look on his face, which, pale though it is, shows no sign of flinching. He is evidently very nearly done, but there can be little doubt that he will go on to the bitter end, and it is evident to all the lookers-on that Byng has determined he shall. To do the latter justice it is not his own stake on it that he is thinking of, but his blood is up, he has identified himself with his protege and he is resolved he shall win. He has made up his mind to take the last ounce out of his man just as he would out of his horse in riding a punishing finish. He has spared himself not a whit since he came upon the scene, and has walked sixteen miles by his friend's side ; only four more miles to go, and if his protege can but keep at the pace he's going, the match will be won with five or six minutes to spare. The excitement waxes intense as the finish draws near. Win or lose — it is a match, and must be a very close thing. It takes all Byng can do to keep his man up to the requisite pace, and there can be no doubt that, left to himself, Fleming would have imperceptibly slackened in that matter. It is very hard for a beaten man to keep both his eye on the watch and regulate his speed at the same time. The sympathies of the regiment and even of the lookers-on, who had come out of the neighbouring town to see the finish of such a sporting affair, are all with Fleming. The public always wish success to the man who backs himself in anything of this sort. It requires pluck toperform 'iuch an arduous task, and that is a thing which always enlists the sympathies of Englishmen. Even Brydon could not resist the excitement.

" Upon my word," he exclaimed, as the last mile but one was begun, " I think he'll win. It will cost me a couple of hundred if he does, but I can't help hoping he will. We don't know much of each other till a pinch comes that's certain. Who'd have thought that Hugh Fleming had such stuff in him ? "

But this mile Byng had no little trouble to get his protege" along. Now and again Fleming stumbled in his walk. The truth is he was suffering from one of the most severe trials to which a man is exposed in a long walk of this nature. His feet were giving way, which means that before long the walk must be reduced to a hobble, and to crawl a mile within half-an-hour will be about all that he can accomplish. He had lost two minutes in spite of Byng's exertions over the last, and there remained to him but eighteen minutes in which to walk the concluding mile.

The young ladies had lingered to see the finish of the match, and as Fleming passed their carriage for the last time, with still half-a-mik; to get, Xcll Lynden turned to her friend and said :

" Now let's go home, Frances. He'll do it ; but I wish we hadn't stopped to watch him go by this time. Poor fellow, he is suffering terribly. I could see his lips twitch as he passed us."

They well might, for to say nothing of being

WAR MUTTERINGS. H

dead beat, Hugh Fleming was experiencing the sensations of a cat on hot bricks, every time he put his feet to the ground. Pritchard turned his horses round, and in accordance with Miss Smerdon's instructions drove leisurely homewards.

But ere they had gone far the sounds of a ringing cheer fell faintly on their ears, and told them that Hugh Fleming had won his match. It had been a close shave, but the fifty miles had been completed with two good minutes to spare.

" A fine thing, and a pretty match," said Byng, " but I tell you what, Brydon, if he'd only had a week in which to harden his feet, he'd have won with half-an-hour in hand. If you want your revenge, I'll back him to walk "

*- No you don't," cried the hero of the hour, as his partisans picked him up and carried him to the carriage which was in waiting. " This child has had enough walking to last him his natural life. And he's beginning to think that cavalry is the branch of the service which would suit him best."

Chapter II. War Mutterings

NELL LYNDEN'S father and Mr. Smerdon had been friends in their school-boy days, at which period the position of Lynden's family was certainly superior to that of the latter's. But both boys had their way to make in the world ; neither had any prospect of succeeding to any fortune from their parents. Robert Lynden went up to London and was speedily lost in the whirlpool of the great city. What became of him, what he did there, nobody knew. For the first year or two that he was in London, they heard from him regularly at home- He had apprenticed himself to a chemist, and entertained serious thoughts of turning to medicine as a profession later on, and to enable him to attend the schools his father volunteered considerable pecuniary assistance. For a few months young Lynden drew on him steadily for this purpose, then suddenly all communication from him ceased. He not only abstained from writing for money, an exigency apt to ensure punctual correspondence, but he did not write at all. His mother grew very anxious about him, enquiries were set on foot, the chemist to whom he had bound himself was duly communicated with, and replied that Robert Lynden, after voluntarily apprenticing himself, had broken his indentures at the end of a year, and that he had neither seen nor heard anything of him since. His father went up to town and made enquiries in every direction. He even consulted the police on the subject ; but no, nothing could be heard of the missing youth, London seemed to have swallowed him up, and all endeavours to ascertain his fate proved useless. He was advertised for in all directions, for his people were well enough to do to be able to spend some little money in trying to trace

WAR MUTTERINGS. 13

their boy. But nothing came of enquiry or advertisement, and after a time his mother mourned for him as dead, while his father came sadly to the conclusion that his disappearance was one of those inscrutable mysteries ever characteristic of great cities. Whether he had been foully done to death who could say ? or whether he was the unrecognised victim of some accident. But that their son was dead, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Lynden entertained the slightest doubt, and in due course of years went to their graves undisturbed in that belief.

Nellie Lyndon could have told you very little about her father's antecedents. She could barely remember her mother, who had died when she was very young, and from that time her life had simply been a progress from one school to another. Clever, sensitive, even as a child the thought had oppressed her that she belonged to nobody. She was kindly treated, but it was bitter for her when the holidays came and the other girls went to their homes. There were no holidays for her, for what were holidays without a home ? and she had no home. Boys we know can be very cruel to each other, and I fancy girls are very little better in this respect. Some of her schoolmates, perhaps because they were out of temper, perhaps from that innate desire to torture which exists in the young of both sexes, would twit Nellie when the holidays came round with having nowhere to go to. They would enquire with affected interest, if she did not find it dull being there all those weeks by herself. And she did find it dull — horribly dull, and they knew it.

Her schoolmistresses were kind enough, but what could they do ? Their engagement with her father was that they should always take care of her in the holidays, as he had no home to take her to. He was kind enough to the desolate girl upon his few brief visits, and lavish with regard to money for her dress or anything else she fancied as she grew older. But, except occasionally for a very few days he had never taken her away with him. And then an hotel had been her home. The result of this peculiar training had been to make Nellie Lynden a somewhat reserved girl, not one to give away her friendship lightly, and though popular in every school she had ever been in, she had never formed one of those gushing friendships which girls are so apt to contract in these days.

Some four years before our story commences she had been called upon to come home and take charge of her father's house. For the first time in his life Dr. Lynden admitted of having a house. Nellie further wondered on the receipt of this letter, whether he had also a practice. Questioned once upon this point, he had replied that he had practised chiefly abroad, that he had given it up now, and only prescribed in an amateurish way for a few intimate friends and acquaintances. He had further made some rather severe strictures on the vice of curiosity, and avowed his opinion that there was no

WAK MUTTERINGS. 15

such bore alive as a painfully inquisitive person. This was quite sufficient hint for Nellie. She never ventured to enquire further into the past life of her father. She accepted things as they were, and admitted that she had no cause to complain. The doctor's house in the suburbs of Manchester, though not large, was extremely comfortable. Nellie was perfectly satisfied with the rooms placed apart for her exclusive use, as well as the drawing-room and dining-room. The doctor reserved for himself besides his bed-room, a large room fitted up as a laboratory, which he called his " den." The peculiarity about this room was that it was guarded by elaborate double doors from the rest of the house, and further, had a separate stair communicating with the outside, so that it was possible for the doctor from his laboratory to leave the house without the knowledge of the other inmates. The outer of these doors was kept jealously locked, which the doctor explained by saying that evil smells were emitted from apartments of that description, and that he did not wish the rest of the house poisoned ; moreover that servants could never resist touching things, and that he did not wish a housemaid to blow her head off by fiddling with a retort which did not concern her. He had had a passion for chemistry from his youth up, but it was really only of late that he had found leisure to indulge it.

" I can't say as yet, Nell, that I've made any discovery calculated to benefit mankind. I don't

1G BEATRICE AND BENEDICK.

suppose I ever shall, but it amuses me, and hurts nobody. I've done my best to render my hobby inoffensive, so you must put up with it."

" My dear father," said Miss Lynden, " why shouldn't you do as you like in your own house ? As for the laboratory, the double doors are so effective that I am sure no one could ever detect that there was such a thing in the place."

If Dr. Lynden went out but little himself he was not forgetful of his daughter. He made arrangements with a lady, with whose husband he was tolerably intimate, to act as Nell's chaperon, and as that young lady herself was by no means unattractive, she was not long before she knew a good many people in Manchester. Her chaperon, Mrs Montague, was one of those vivacious ladies who contemplate passing an evening at home with dismay. This restless lady could not bear the idea of not assisting at everything that was going on in Manchester, and would work with untiring patience and assiduity to obtain tickets. The more difficult they were to come by, I verily believe the more she enjoyed it, and she was perfectly callous to all social rebuff in matters of this nature.

Some two years ago, Nellie, while under the wing of Mrs. Montague, chanced to meet Frances Smerdon at a dinner-party, and the iron-master's daughter at once conceived a strong liking for the quiet, reticent, lady- like girl. Miss Smerdon, who had come on a month's vi; -it to Manchester, con-

WAR MUTTERINGS. 17

trivcd to see a good deal of her new friend in the course of her visit. In the first instance the liking had been entirely on the part of Frances, but gradually Nellie thawed under the advances of her more impressionable friend, and before Miss Smerdon left, it had been arranged that Nellie should pay her a visit in Monmouthshire. Dr. Lynden, as soon as he knew who she was, took the greatest possible interest in Miss Smerdon. He enquired after her father, whom he recollected as the employe of a great iron company in South Wales, and seemed much struck at discovering that he had blossomed into a large iron-master on his own account. Although reticent about his own past as ever, he told Frances that he and her father had been school-fellows, and this seemed an additional link in the friendship of the two girls. It had subsisted now about two years, and Frances was enthusiastic in Miss Lynden's praises.

Knowing her father's strong opinions on the sin of curiosity, Nellie was rather amused to see how extremely interested he was in all particulars concerning the life of his old chum, Matthew Smerdon He never wearied of asking Smerdon's daughter about him on such occasions as Frances was in Manchester, and cross-examined Nellie on her return from Monmouthshire in a manner diametrically opposed to his expressed opinions. Smerdon too, in his turn, had been curious to hear of his old school-boy friend, and the two girls sometimes discussed their respective fathers, but there was this difference, whereas Matthew Smerdon's career was not only well-known to his daughter but to all his neighbours, from the very outset, nobody knew anything about Dr. Lynden's, from his disappearance almost as a boy in the great London wilderness, until his reappearance as a retired medical man in Manchester some four years«ago. That he had practised on the Continent, and made money, was the brief account that Dr. Lynden deigned to give of his past.

At this particular juncture there commenced a bickering between England and the great Autocrat of the North, which, little as anyone dreamed of it at the time, was shortly destined to set all Europe by the ears. Europe had been at peace ever since Waterloo, and that big battles were ever again to be fought amongst the western nations was apparently looked upon by politicians with incredulity. Still that real or mythical will of Peter the Great had always been kept steadily in sight by the rulers of Russia. To come to Constantinople sooner or later ever their fixed resolution, and the Turks still believe just as firmly that they will, and that it is their Kismet. But as to about the when they are to arrive there the Russians have fallen into great mistakes. If the Turk submits resignedly to his Kismet in the end, jet he will fight bitterly to avert it, as he has shown at Plevna

WAE. MUTTERINGS. 19

and elsewhere. Moreover the nations of Europe have ever regarded with jealous eyes the idea of Russia at Constantinople. The Czar, Nicholas, was doubtless aware of all this when he made up his mind that the pear was ripe for the plucking. Europe might not like it, but who was there to interfere with him ? There was no united Germany in those days. France had only recovered from its state of chronic revolution to have a relapse in the shape of a coup-detat, while for England one might as well expect to see a Quaker in the prize ring as Great Britain intervening by arms in any of the quarrels of Europe.

The nations of the West might not like it ; but then in the words of the immortal Wegg, " The nations of the West were at liberty to lump it." Very busy was the English Government with notes, and protests, circulars, etc., finally dabbling with that most dangerous of all documents, an ultimatum. That England would ever fight about such a trifle as Russia annexing the Danubian provinces of Turkey was a thing neither believed in by the Czar nor the British Government. But the temper of the English people had to be reckoned with. The English people may be thick-headed, but they are also extremely obstinate, and close on forty years ago John Bull made up his mind that he would stand no Russian aggression and that it was his bounden duty to protect the Turks. After Waterloo, the Millennium ; forty

2* years, and there comes another big war ; forty years again, and those gallant Turks for whom it was waged are pronounced " unspeakable." And I fancy there are a good many big battles yet to be fought before we come to the final field of Armageddon.