The lady of the ice : a novel

Front matter

•

THE

LADY OF THE ICE

Contents

CHAPTER ]

XIV. A Concert.— A Singular Character.—" God save the Queen."— A Fenian.— A General Row.— Macrorie to the Rescue 1— Macrorie's Maiden Speech, and its Singular Effectiveness.— O'Halloran.— A Strange Companion.— Invited to partake of Hospitality ...........

XV. The O'Halloran Ladies.— Their Appearance.— Their Ages.— Their Dress.— Their Demeanor.— Their Culture, Polish, Education, Rank, Style, Attainments, and all about them ..........

Chapter I. Consisting Merely Op Introductory Mat- Ter

This is a story of Quebec. Quebec is a wonderful city.

I am given to understand that the ridge on which the city is built is Laurentian ; and the river that flows past it is the same. On this (not the river, you know) are strata of schist, shale, old red sand-stone, trap, granite, clay, and mud. The upper stratum is ligneous, and is found to be very convenient for pavements.

It must not be supposed from this introduction that I am a geologist. I am not. I am a lieutenant in her Majesty's 129th Bobtails. "We Bobtails are a gay and gallant'set, and I have reason to know that we are well remembered in every place we have been quartered.

Into the vortex of Quebeccian society I threw myself with all the generous ardor of youth, and was keenly alive to those charms which the Canadian ladies possess and use so fatally. It is a singular fact, for which I will not attempt to account, that in Quebeccian society one comes in contact with ladies only. "Where the male element is I never could imagine. I never saw a civilian. There are no young men in Quebec; if there are any, we officers are not aware of it. I've often been anxious to see one, but never could make it out. Now, of these Canadian ladies I cannot trust myself to speak with cahnness. An allusion to them will of itself be eloquent to every brother officer. I will simply remark that, at a time when the tendencies of the Canadians generally are a subject of interest both in England and America, and when it is a matter of doubt whether they lean to annexation or British connection, their fair young daughters show an unmistakable tendency not to one, but to both, and make two apparently incompatible principles really inseparable.

You must understand that this is my roundabout way of hinting that the unmarried British officer who goes to Canada generally finds his destiny tenderly folding itself around a Canadian bride. It is the common lot. Some of these take their wives with them around the world, but many more retire from the service, buy farms, and practise love in a cottage. Thus* the fair and loyal Canadiennes are responsible for the loss of many and many a gallant officer to her Majesty's service. Throughout these colonial stations there has been, and there will be, a fearful deple-

THE LADY OF THE ICE.

tion among the numbers of tliese brave but too impressible men. I make this statement solemnly, as a mournful fact. I have nothing to say against it ; and it is not for one who has had an experience like mine to hint at a remedy. But to my story :

Every one who was in Quebec during the winter of 18 — , if he went into society at all, must have been struck by the appearance of a young Bobtail officer, who was a joyous and a welcome guest at every house where it was desirable to be. Tall, straight as an arrow, and singularly well-proportioned, the picturesque costume of the 129th Bobtails could add but little to the effect already produced by so martial a figure. His face was whiskerless ; his eyes gray ; his cheek-bones a little higher than the average ; his hair auburn ; his nose not Grecian— or Koman — but still impressive: his air one of quiet dignity, mingled with youthful joyance and mirthfulness. Try — 0 reader ! — to bring before you such a figure. 'Well — that's me.

Such was my exterior; what was my character? A few words will suffice to explain : — bold, yet cautious ; brave, yet tender ; constant, yet highly impressible ; tenacious of affection, yet quick to kindle into admiration at every new form of beauty ; many times smitten, yet surviving the wound ; vanquished, yet rescued by that very impressibility of temper — such was the man over whose singular adventures yoii will shortly be called to smile or to wcrp.

Here is my card :

129th Bobtails.

And now, my fiic.'nd, luiving introduced you to myself, having shown you my jjIiotograph, having explained my .character, and handed you my card, allow me to lead you to

Chapter II

MY QUARTERS, WHERE YOU WILL BECOME AC- QUAINTED WITH OLD JACK RANDOLPH, MY MOST INTIMATE FRIEND, AND ONE WHO DI- VIDES WITH ME THE HONOR OF BEING THE HERO OP MY STORY.

I'll never forget the time. It was a day in April.

But an April day in Canada is a very different thing from an April day in England. In England all Nature is robed in vivid green, the air is balmy ; and all those beauties abound which usually set poets rhapsodizing, and young men sentimentalizing, and young girls tantalizing. Now, in Canada there is nothing of the kind. No Canadian poet, for instance, would ever affirm that in the spring a livelier iris blooms upon the burnished dove; in the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. No. For that sort of thing — the thoughts of love I mean — winter is the time of day in Canada. The fact is, the Canadians haven't any spring. The months which Englishmen include under that pleasant name are here partly taken up with prolonging the winter, ' and partly with the formation of a new and nondescript season. In that period Nature, instead of being darkly, deeply, beautifully green, lias rather the shade of a dingy, dirty, melancholy gray. Snow covers the ground — not by any means the glistening white robe of Winter — but a rngg(!(l substitute, damp, and discolored. It is snow, but snow far gone into decay and decrc^pitude — snow that seems ashamed of itself for lingering so long after Avcaring

MY QUAETERS.

out its welcome, and presenting itself in so revolting a dress — snow, in fact, wliich is like a man sinking into irremediable ruin, and changing its former glorious state for that condition which is expressed by the unpleasant word " slush." There is not an object, not a circumstance, in visible Nature which does not heighten the contrast. In England there is the luxuriant foliage, the fragrant blossom, the gay flower ; in Canada, black twigs — bare, scraggy, and altogether wretched — thrust their repulsive forms forth into the bleak air — there, the soft rain-shower falls ; here, the fierce snow-squall, or maddening sleet! — there, the field is traversed by the cheerful plough ; here, it is covered with ice-heaps or thawing snow; there, the rivers run babbling onward under the green trees; here, they groan and chafe under heaps of dingy and slovrly-disintegrating ice-hummocks ; there, one's only weapon against the rigor of the season is the peaceful umbrella; here, one must defend one's self with caps and coats of fur and india-rubber, with clumsy leggings, ponderous boots, steel-creepers, gauntlets of skin, iron-pointed alpenstocks, and forty or fifty other articles which the exigencies of space and time will not permit me to mention. On one of the darkest and most dismal of these April days, I was trying to kill time in my quarters, when Jack Eandolph burst in upon my meditations. Jack Randolph was one of Ours — an intimate friend of mine, and of everybody else who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. Jack was in every respect a remarkable man — physically, intellectually, and morally. Present company excepted, he was certainly by all odds the finest-looking fellow in a regiment notoriously filled with handsome men; and to this rare advantage he added all the accomplishments of life, and the most genial nature in the world. It was difficult to say whether he Avas a greater favorite with men or with women. lie was noisy, rattling, reckless, good-hearted, generous, rnirthful, witty, jovial, daring, open-handed, irrepressible, enthusiastic, and confoundedly clever. He was good at every thing, from tracking a moose or caribou, on through all the gamut of riaking, skating, ice-boating, and tobogganing, up to the lightest accomplishments of the drawing-room. He was one of those lucky dogs who are able to break horses or hearts with equal buoyancy of soul. And it was this twofold capacity which made him equally dear to either sex.

A lucky dog ? Yea, verily, that is what he was. He was welcomed at every mess, and he had the entree of every house in Quebec. He could drink harder than any man in the regiment, and dance down a whole regiment of drawing-room knights. He could sing better than any amateur I ever heard ; and was the best judge of a meerschaum-pipe I ever saw. Lucky ? Yes, he was — and especially so, and more than all else — on account of the joyousness of his soul. There was a contagious and a godlike hilarity in his broad, open brow, his frank, laughing eyes, and his mobile lips. He seemed to carry about with him a bracing moral atmosphere. The sight of him had the same effect on the dull man of ordinary life that the Himalayan air has on an Indian invalid; and yet Jack was head-over-heels in debt. Not a tradesman would trust him. Shoals of little bills were sent him every day. Duns without number plagued him from morning to night. The Quebec attorneys were sharpening theii bills, and preparing, like birds of prey, to swoop down upon him. In fact, taking it altogether, Jack had full before

THE LADY OF THE ICE.

him the sure and certain prospect of some dismal explosion.

On this occasion, Jack — for the first time in our acquaintance — seemed to have not a vestige of his ordinary flow of spirits. He entered without a word, took up a pipe, crammed some tobacco into the bowl, flung himself into an easy-chair, and began — with fixed eyes and set lips — to pour forth enormous volumes of smoke.

My own pipe was very well under way, and I sat opposite, watching him in wonder. I studied his face, and marked there what I had never before seen upon it — a preoccupied and troubled expression. Now, Jack's features, by long indulgence in the gayer emotions, had immovably moulded themselves into an expression of joyousness and hilarity. Unnatural was it for the merry twinkle to be extinguished in his eyes ; for the corners of the mouth, which usually curled upward, to settle downward ; for the general shape of feature, out-line of muscle, set of lips, to undertake to become the exponents of feelings to which they were totally unaccustomed. On this occasion, therefore, Jack's face did not appear so much mournful as dismal ; and, where another face might have elicited sympathy. Jack's face had such a grewsomeness, such an utter incongruity between feature and expression, that it seemed only droll.

I bore this inexplicable conduct as long as I could, but at length I could stand it no longer.

" My dear Jack," said I, " would it be too much to ask, in the mildest manner in the world, and with all possible regard for your feelings, what, in the name of tlie Old IJoy, happens to be up just now V "

Jack took the pipe fioin his n)Outli, Hcnt a long cloud of Hinokc forwnrd in a Btraight line, then looked at me, llicn heaved a deep sigh, and then — replaced

the pipe, and began smoking once more.

Under such circumstances I did not know what to do next, so I took up again the study of his face.

"Heard no bad news, I hope," I said at length, making another venture between the pufis of my pipe.

A shake of the head.

Silence again.

" Duns ? "

Another shake,

Silence.

" Writs ? "

Another shake.

Silence.

" Liver ? "

Another shake, together with a contemptuous smile.

" Then I give it up," said I, and betook myself once more to my pipe.

After a time. Jack gave a long sigh, and regarded me fixedly for some minutes, with a very doleful face. Then he slowly ejaculated :

" Macrorie ! "

" Well ? "

" It's a woman ! "

" A woman ? Well. What's that ? Why need that make any particular difference to you, my boy ? "

He sighed again, more dolefully than before.

" I'm in for it, old chap," said he. " How's that ? "

" It's all over."

" What do you mean ? "

" Done up, sir — dead and gone ! " " I'll be hanged if I understand you." " JUcjacet Johannes llandolph." " You're taking to Latin by way of making yourself more intelligible, I suppose." " Maeroi'ie, my boy — "

« MACKORIE— OLD CHAP— I'M— i

GOING— TO— BE— MAERIED ! ! 1 " 9

*' Will you be going anywhere near Anderson's to-day — the stone-cutter, I mean ? " u Why ? "

" If you should, let me ask you to do a particular favor for me. Will you ? "

" Why, of course. What is it ? "

" Well — it's only to order a tombstone for me — plain, neat — four feet by sixteen inches — with nothing on it but my name and date. The sale of my effects will bring enough to pay for it. Don't you fellows go and put up a tablet about me. I tell you plainly, I don't want it, and, what's more, I won't stand it."

" By Jove ! " I cried ; " my dear fellow, one would think you were raving. Are you thinking of shuffling off the mortal coil? Are you going to blow your precious brains out for a woman ? Is it because some fair one is cruel that you are thinking of your latter end ? Will you, wasting with despair, die because a woman's fair ? "

" No, old chap. I'm going to do something worse."

" Something worse than suicide ! What's that ? A clean breast, my boy."

" A species of moral suicide."

"What's that? Your style of expression to-day is a kind of secret cipher. I haven't the key. Please explain."

Jack resumed his pipe, and bent down his head ; then he rubbed his broad brow with his unoccupied hand ; then he raised himself up, and looked at me for a few moments in solemn silence ; then he said, in a low voice, speaking each word separately and with thrilling emphasis :

CHAPTER III. " MACRORIE — OLD CHAP — i'm — GOING TO

BE — MARRIED ! ! ! "

At that astounding piece of intelligence, I Slit dumb and stared fixedly at Jack for the space of . half an hour. He regarded me with a mournful smile. At last my feelings found expression in a long, solemn, thoughtful, anxious, troubled, and perplexed whistle.

I could think of only one thing. It was a circumstance which Jack had confided to me as his bosom-friend. Although he had confided the same thing to at least a hundred other bosom-friends, and I knew it, yet, at the same time, the knowledge of this did not make the secret any the less a confidential one ; and I had accordingly guarded it like my heart's blood, and all that sort of thing, you know. Nor would I even now divulge that secret, were it not for the fact that the cause for secrecy is removed. The circumstance was this : About a year before, we had been stationed at Fredericton, in the Province of New Brunswick. Jack had met there a young lady from St. Andrews, named Miss Phillips, to whom he had devoted himself with his usual ardor. During a sentimental sleighride he had confessed his love, and had engaged himself to her ; and, since his arrival at Quebec, he had corresponded with her very faithfully. He considered himself as destined by Fate to become the husband of Miss Phillips at some time in the dim future, and the only marriage before him that I could think of was this. Still I could not understand why it had come upon him so suddenly, or why, if it did come, he should so collapse under the pressure of his doom.

" Well," said I, after I had rallied somewhat, " I didn't think it was to come off so soon. Some luck has turned up, I suppose."

" Luck ! " repeated Jack, with an indescribable accent.

" I assure you, though I've never had the pleasure of seeing Miss Phillips, yet, from 5'our description, I admire her quite fervently, and congratulate you from the bottom of my heart,"

" Miss Phillips ! " repeated Jack, with a groan.

What's the matter, old chap ? " " It isn't — her ! " faltered Jack. " What ! "

" She'll have to wear the willow."

" You haven't broken with her— have you ? " I asked.

" She'll have to forgive and forget, and aM that sort of thing. If it was Miss Phillips, I wouldn't be so confoundedly cut up about it."

" Why — what is it ? who is it ? and what do you mean ? "

Jack looked at me. Then he looked down, aid frowned. Then he looked at me again ; and then he said, slowly, and with a powerful eflfort :

CHAPTER IT.

" it's — TH£ — THE WIDOV^^ ! IT'S MRS. — FINNI- MORE ! ! I "

ITad a bombshell burst — but I forbear. That comparison is, I believe, somewhat hackneyed. The reader will therefore be good enough to appropriate the point of it, and undei'Stand that the shock of this intelligence was so overpowering, that I was again rendered speechless.

" You see," said Jack, after a long and painful silence, "it all originated out of an infernal mistake. Not that I ought to be Korry for it, though. Mrs. Finnin)ore, of coiirHo, is a deuced fine woman. I've been roimd Ihore ever so long, and seen ever so Jriiicli of her ; and nil that sort of thing, you know. Oh, yes," ho added, diflinnlly ; *' I ought to 1)C glad, and, of course, I'm a, fllcuced lucky fellow, and all that; l)ut — "

OF tHE ICE.

He paused, and an expressive silence followed that " but."

" Well, how about the mistake ? " I asked.

" Why, I'll tell you. It was that confounded party at Doane's. You know what a favorite of mine little Louie Berton is — the best little thing that ever breathed, the prettiest, the— full of fun, too. Well, we're awfully thick, you know; and she chaffed me all the evening about my engagement with Miss Phillips. She had heard all about it, and is crazy to find out whether it's going on yet or not. We had great fun — she chajQSng and questioning, and I trying to fight her off. Well ; the dancing was going on, and I'd been separated from her for some time, and was trying to find her again, and I saw some one standing in a recess of one of the windows, with a dress that was exactly like Louie's. Her back was turned to me, and the curtains half concealed her. I felt sure that it was Louie. So I sauntered up, and stood for a moment or two behind her. She was looking out of the window ; one hand was on the ledge, and the other was by her side, half behind her. I don't know what got into me ; but I seized her hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"Well, you know, I expected that it would be snatched away at once. I felt immediately an awful horror at my indiscretion, and would have given the world not to have done it. I expected to see Ijouie's flashing eyes hurling indignant fire at me, and all that. But the hand didn't move from mine at all ! " •

Jack uttered this last sentence with the doleful accents of a deeply-injured man — such an accent as one would employ in tolling of a Hhnmcful trick practised upon liirt innocence.

" It lay in mine," he continued. " There

" IT'S— THE-THE WIDOW 1"

it was ; I had seized it ; I had it ; I held it ; I had squeezed it ; and — good Lord ! — Macrorie, what was I to do ? I'll tell you what I did — I squeezed it again. I thought that now it would go ; but it wouldn't Well, I tried it again. No go. Once more — and once again. On my soul, Macrorie, it still lay in mine. I cannot tell you what thoughts I had. It seemed like indelicacy. It was a bitter thing to associate indelicacy with one like little Louie ; but — hang it ! — there was the awful fact. Suddenly, the thought struck me that the hand was larger than Louie's. At that thought, a ghastly sensation came over me ; and, just at that moment, the lady herself turned her face, blushing, arch, with a mischievous smile. To my consternation, and to my— well, yes — to my horror, I saw Mrs. Finnimore ! "

" Good Lord !" I exclaimed.

" A stronger expression would fail to do justice to the occasion," said Jack, helping himself to a glass of beer. "For my part, the thrill of unspeakable horror that was imparted by that shock is still strong within me. There, my boy, you have my story. I leave the rest to your imagination."

" The rest ? Why, do you mean to say that this is all ? "

"All!" cried Jack, with a wild laugh. " All ? My dear boy, it is only the faint beginning ; but it implies all the rest."

" What did she say ? " I asked, meekly,

'* Say — say ? What ! After — well, never mind. Hang it ! Don't drive me into particulars. Don't you see? Why, there I was. I had made an assault, broken through the enemy's lines, thought I was carrying every thing before me, when suddenly I found myself confronted, not by an inferior force, but by an overwhelming superiority of numbers — ^horse, foot, and artillery^ marines, and masked batteries — yes, and baggage-wagons — all assaulting me in front, in flank, and in the rear, Fooh ! "

" Don't talk shop. Jack."

" Shop ? Will you be kind enough to suggest some ordinary figure of speech that will give an idea of my situation ? Plain language is quite useless. At least, I find it so."

" But, at any rate, what did she say ? "

"Why," answered Jack, in a more dismal voice than ever, " she said, ' Ah, Jack ! ' — she called me Jack ! — ' Ah, Jack ! I saw you looking for me. I knew you would come after me.' "

" Good Heavens ! " I cried ; " and what did you say ? "

" Say ? Heavens and earth, man ! what could I say? Wasn't I a gentleman? Wasn't she a lady? Hadn't I forced her to commit herself? Didn't I have to assume the responsibility and pocket the consequences ? Say ! Oh, Macrorie ! what is the use of imagination, if a man will not exercise it ? "

" And so you're in for it ? " said I,, after a pause.

" To the depth of several miles," said Jack, relighting his pipe, which in the energy of his narrative had gone out.

" And you don't think of trying to back out ? "

" I don't see my way. Then, again, you must know that I've been trying to see if it wouldn't be the wisest thing for me to make the best of my situation,"

" Certainly it would, if you cannot possibly get out of it."

" But, you see, for a fellow . like me it may be best not to get out of it. You see, after all, I like her very well. She's an awfully fine woman — splendid action. I've been round there ever so much ; we've always been deuced thick; and she's got, a

THE LADY OF THE ICE.

kind of way with her that a fellow like me can't resist. And, then, it's time for me to begin to think of settling down. I'm getting awfully old. I'll be twenty-three next August. And then, you know, I'm so deuced hard up. I've got to the end of my rope, and you are aware that the sheriff is beginning to be familiar with my name. Yes, I think for the credit of the regiment I'd better take the widow. She's got thirty thousand pounds, at least."

" And a very nice face and figure along with it," said I, encouragingly.

" That's a fact, or else I could never have mistaken her for poor little Louie, and this wouldn't have happened. But, if it had only been little Louie — well, well ; I suppose it must be, and perhaps it's the best thing."

"If it had been Louie," said I, with new efforts at encouragement, " it wouldn't have been any better for you."

" No ; that's a fact. You see, I was never so much bothered in my life. I don't mind an ordinary scrape ; but I can't exactly see my way out of this."

" You'll have to break the news to Miss Phillips."

" And that's not the worst," said Jack, with a sigh that was like a groan.

" Not the worst ? What can be worse than that ? "

*' My dear boy, you have not begun to see even the outside of the peculiarly complicated nature of my present situation. There are other circumstances to which all tliesc may be playfully represented as a joke."

" Well, that is certainly a strong way of nutting it."

" Couldn't draw it mild — sucli a situation can only bo painted in strong colors. I'll toll you in general terms wliat it is. T ciin't go into particulars. You know all about my engagement to Miss Phillips. I'm awfully fond of her — give my right hand to win hers, and all that sort of thing, you know. Well, this is going to be hard on her, of course, poor thing ! especially as my last letters have been more tender than common. But, old chap, that's all nothing. There's another lady in the case ! "

" What ! " I cried, more astonished than ever.

Jack looked at me earnestly, and said, slowly and solemnly :

Chapter V

" FACT, MY BOY — IT IS AS I SAY. — ;THERE'S ANOTHER LADY IN THE CASE, AND THIS LAST IS THE WORST SCRAPE OF ALL ! "

" Another lady ? " I faltered.

*' Another lady ! " said Jack.

" Oh ! " said I.

" Yes," said he.

" An engagement, too ! "

" An engagement ? I should think so — and a double-barrelled one, too. An engagement — why, my dear fellow, an engagement's nothing at all compared with this. This is something infinitely worse than the affair with Louie, or Miss Phillips, or even the widow. It's a bad case — yes — ^an infernally bad case — and I don't see but that I'll have to throw up the widow after all."

" It must be a bad case, if it's infinitely worse than an engagement, as you say is. Why, man, it must be notliing less than actual marriage. Is that what you're driving at? It must be. So you're a married man, are you ? "

" No, not just that, not quite — as yet — but the very next thing to it ? "

" Well, Jack, I'm sorry for you, and all

"FACT, MY BOY."

that I can say is, that it is a pity that this isn't Utah. Being Canada, however, and a civilized country, I can't see for the life of me how you'll ever manage to pull through."

Jack sighed dolefully.

" To tell the truth," said he, " it's this last one that gives me my only trouble. I'd marry the widow, settle up some way with Miss Phillips, smother my shame, and pass the remainder of my life in peaceful obscurity, if it ■v^'fere not for Aer."

" You mean by her, the lady whose name you don't mention."

" Whose name I don't mention, nor intend to," said Jack, gravely. " Her case is so peculiar that it cannot be classed with the others. I never breathed a word about it to anybody, though it's been going on for six or eight months."

Jack spoke with such earnestness, that I perceived the subject to be too grave a one in his estimation to be trifled with. A frown came over his face, and he once more eased his mind by sending forth heavy clouds of smoke, as though he would thus throw off the clouds of melancholy that had gathered deep and dark over his soul.