Chapter XXV · THE TELEGRAM.

So infirm was he of purpose, notwithstanding his severity with Mary, that he had barely quitted her presence and ridden off, ere he began to relent towards her; and then the mocking story of Everard Home, and the cruel and stinging passage of Chesters' letter, came back to memory, tearing the wound afresh to exasperate him: and now events succeeded each other with considerable rapidity.

The whole of the afternoon subsequent, to his interview with Mary, Cyril secluded himself in his own room; there he wrote three letters to her, full of sorrow for what he termed her error, with the earnest advice and hope that, if ever she required a friend—oh, how cold seemed the word!—she should remember him; but each production in turn dissatisfied him. He knew not how the tenor of them might sound when read, so each in succession was concluded only to be torn up and committed to the flames; and in this state of indecision he remained until the first gong for dinner resounded in the lofty vestibule below.

Under his very window, as he wrote, he could hear his father's groom openly relating to one of the gardeners Mr. Bill Trayner's very coarse and freely-garnished account of the visit paid by "old Lennox's daughter to the Captain on the night of the storm."

It was evident to all how moody Cyril had become; and on this day he felt relieved rather than bored, as he usually was, by the presence of the Reverend Mr. M'Guffog, a prosy old man; the nervous, but good-natured Dr. Squills, and the Baron Bailie, whom Sir John had brought home with him, as he wished their conjunct advice about some local matter.

Cyril knew that the eyes of his mother, Horace, and Robert, were on him; and although the two last-named suspected that he had some little interest at Lonewoodlee, the former knew to a certainty the cause of that gloom and depression which, to do him justice, he endeavoured to conceal. He strove to interest himself in the minister's chief topics, an augmentation of his stipend and repairs of the manse; with the Doctor on the important subjects of compulsory vaccination, and his quarrels with the parochial board; and even with the Baron Bailie, who was a grocer in the Vennel of Willowdean, on the probable war-prices of butter and cheese; but he was glad, when he had done his duty thus, to turn to Gwenny, and rest his head thoughtfully on his hand, through the fingers of which his hair stole in dark and glossy brown locks, close, thick, and crisp; and Lady Wedderburn, as she saw their faces bent near each other, looked at them admiringly, and thought how handsome they were, and how admirably suited to each other.

But the world is full of cross-purposes, and while Cyril poured some good-natured nothings into Gwenny's ear, her eyes, from time to time, sought those of Horace Ramornie.

An unusually important ring at the hall-door bell reached the ears even of those at the dinner table, and made all exchange glances, just as Lady Wedderburn and Gwenny rose to retire; but the entrance of Gervase Asloane, with a suspicious looking yellow document on a silver salver, made them pause.

"A telegram for Mr. Cyril—for the Captain, I mean," said the old man, in a subdued voice, and, as Cyril tore it open, his mother grew pale as a lily.

"From whom is it, dearest?" she asked, drawing near.

"The Colonel."

A low exclamation escaped her.

"He telegraphs, 'We are to embark for the East on the 5th proximo, so you have not a moment to lose in rejoining. Provide yourself with a good six-chambered revolver. All ours have done so. Tell Ramornie he is detailed for the Depot, so his leave remains intact.'"

A bright flush spread over Cyril's face as he read. There in action, far away from Willowdean and Lonewoodlee, and from all his present bitter associations and mortifications, was a relief opened suddenly up; yet his eyes turned to the sad, the earnest and anxious look of his poor mother, who, instead of retiring to the drawing-room, reseated herself at the table for a little time, with her eyes full of tears.

Heartfelt and well-bred hopes were expressed by the Minister, the Doctor, and the Baron Bailie, that he and all his comrades might have a pleasant and prosperous voyage to the land of the Turk and the Heathen, "whither," added the Minister, "no Christian soldiery had gone since the Twelfth Crusade, so ours was an epoch in the world's history;" but there might be no actual war after all, for was not this an age of subtle diplomacy and peace-making at any price; and to these last expressions of hope, his mother clung desperately, with a sob in her throat and a prayer in her heart; but Sir John, who was a bitter enemy of Lord Aberdeen's Government, and was suspicious of his Russian sympathies, pretty broadly "d—d the notion of peace at any price, and hoped the day would never come when Britannia, if smitten on one cheek, would quietly turn the other!"

"You'll not be long behind me, Horace, I fear," said Cyril, gaily, as he took off his wine; "the service companies are barely the full strength, and we shall soon have gaps to fill. Gervase," he added, turning to the old butler, who lingered nervously behind his chair, with an expression in his face that indicated a desire to "whimper," and to pat Cyril on the head or back, as he had often done in boyhood, "you'll have all my traps packed and brought downstairs. Have the carriage brought round in time for the night train for England."

Before this, Cyril had been, perhaps, the most silent member of the company; now it was he who talked most and was the gayest; but his mother was voiceless, and even Gwenny felt crushed (and would have been more so had Horace been going), for all knew they were looking on a face they might never see again, and listening to a voice that never more might fall upon their ear.

The fatal telegram!

It lay on the polished table, like an executioner's warrant, to Lady Wedderburn's eyes—the ukase that was to tear her son from her—and she forgot all about her matrimonial schemes and fears of Horace; she only looked at her handsome and curly-haired Cyril, and thought of all that was before him; that terrible perspective; the long voyage in a comfortless hired transport, by the stormy Bay of Biscay, the Mediterranean and the Levant, the Bosphorus and the Black Sea; of the varied climates; and more than all—oh, more than all!—the chances of an unequal and disastrous war against the hordes of Russia. Then her maternal heart died within her: she could only lay her face on his breast and weep.

Many a wife and mother over all the British Isles felt the same emotion at that fatal time, when, after forty years of peace, and Waterloo had become as a tale that is told, the clouds of war began to gather in the North and East; and long, long in London, the mighty heart of the Empire, was remembered that early morning when the drum beat that summoned the Guards, the flower of our army, to the field; on that same morning when sixty thousand citizens of Edinburgh accompanied the departing steps of the King's Own to the ship that bore them away, for all the land was full of sympathy.

Now Cyril hated "a scene."

"What's the row, mamma?" asked he, indignantly. "How often have you seen me leave home to join the Fusileers, and always come back jollier than ever?"

"But you never left Willowdean at such a time of war and peril as this—going from me perhaps never to return, my boy!"

"Kate, my love, do be calm, be sensible," urged Sir John; and becoming less excited, she left the room, leaning on Gwenny's arm, and urging Cyril soon to join her.

All her future plans and minor considerations, even the dread of Mary Lennox, were merged now in one thought; and when she regarded his fine face and stalwart figure, her memory went back over the sunny days of his boyhood, and to the tenderer time beyond, when, "like the callow cygnet in its nest," he clung to her bosom, when merry bonfires were blazing redly on the Twinlaw and Earlston Hill, on Beimerside, and over all the Lammermuirs, from the beautiful vale of the Gala to the terrible rocks of St. Abb, for the birth of an heir to the beloved house of Willowdean.

And now, now, what might it all come to—the care, affection, education, and pride of past years?

A bullet shot from the musket of an unlettered Russian slave, and a tomb without a coffin or a stone!

So might the life of one so loved—the life she had hoped was to stretch out so far beyond that of his parents as God should will—pass away. Cyril, whom she had prayed and trusted might live to see his children's children, long after she had been laid in the family vault at Willowdean church. And as she skilfully tormented herself by dark anticipations like these, she turned to Gwenny (who, sooth to say, was somewhat scared by the suddenness of the summons, and her excessive and unwonted burst of grief), and said—

"Oh, Gwenny, why did I ever permit him to be a soldier—why? But regrets are useless now; yet I am very ill used, I think. Horace has neither father nor mother to regret him, and yet he remains with the Depot, as that provoking Colonel says, while Cyril goes abroad with the regiment!"

She glanced at the magnificent French clock, a miracle of sculpture and gilding, that stood on a white marble console table.

In two hours she knew he must be gone.

"Two hours only, Gwenny!" she said.

The gentlemen soon joined them, and then she was compelled to preserve an appearance of calmness. Cyril did not immediately come in with them, and her heart misgave her that perhaps he had started to Lonewoodlee, but he had only visited his own room for a moment to give it a farewell glance, and issue to Gervase some final instructions. His mother now, however, grudged every moment he was absent from her side. Sir John drew near and took her hands caressingly in his own, for their sympathies of course were one, though her emotions were the keener of the two.

The long-looked-for and dreaded day, yea, the very hour, had come when there was to be a final parting; when Cyril's place and chair would be vacant once more, and Willowdean a broken home! His sword-case and portmanteau were already strapped in the entrance-hall; and now the little family circle that had lived together in such close and pleasant companionship was to be severed.

The grief of Miss M'Caw was so noisy and uncontrollable that she had to retire to her own room; and Lady Wedderburn looked almost hostilely, certainly with envy, at her unconscious nephew, who "was detailed for the Depot," and whose home leave extended for nearly a month beyond that of Cyril, as the spring drills had not yet commenced.

"I would to Heaven that Horace's leave had been up too," said Lady Wedderburn through her tears, in a whisper to Sir John.

"Why, surely there is time enough for him to go, poor boy!"

"Because we should then have had but one leave-taking, and—and this rioting and romping about with Gwenny is scarcely proper."

"Oh, the old idea! A month will see it all over; a memory of the past, and Horace will have other and sterner work on hand than flying over the Merse with a pretty young girl."

"Yes; but the memory thereof may last with the lives of both."

"Scarcely. Where are now all the girls I flirted with when I was the age of Horace? Gwenny is only eighteen, at a time when love is often a mere illusion, Kate, that passes away or fixes on some other object, often with perilous rapidity; so Cyril may have the best chance after all when in a few months he comes back to us," said Sir John, with an external air of confidence and cheerfulness he was far from feeling, as he rose and crossed the room to bid farewell to their three guests, who, finding themselves rather de trop, after formally partaking of coffee, were bowed out.

Poor Cyril's heart had been sorely divided and torn since the arrival of the telegram. From that moment till the time of his final departure by train, four hours, he knew, would intervene; his horse would in a few minutes have taken him to Mary's presence, and so vacillating and unstable are the resolutions of a jealous lover, that there were times when he felt strongly impelled to visit her once again!

Had he done so, how much suffering might in the future have been spared to both; but the golden moments passed and never returned again.

"To what end or purpose should I go?" he asked of himself, almost fiercely. "Weakness, folly, disgrace! No—no! Once in the train for London, and then all is over!"

Yet his soul was full of compassion and dread for what might yet be the fate, the future, of this delicate girl, whom he had loved so truly and tenderly.

Cyril was sincerely attached to all the household at Willowdean, to his parents and family, and to none more than his mother, who had ever been, to his eyes, the belle ideal of all a lady and a mother ought to be; yet he was glad, as he had to go, that the telegram and the rail would whisk him off, as he said, "double quick," for the solemnity of leave-taking bored and worried him; so he shared not his mother's envy of poor Horace's more protracted visit.

He was now anxious only to have it all over, and be gone!

After the dark turn his love affair had taken, he felt inclined to thank God for the relief he should find amid the turmoil of war and foreign service with the Fusileers; he felt a gloomy joy, or grim satisfaction, in the idea that Mary might weep if she saw his name in the Gazette among the killed; but instantly thrust aside the morbid thought, as he reflected compassionately on his tender mother, his loving father, and all the friends by whom his loss would be lamented; and life certainly was more valuable than the tears of a false woman!

Already the carriage was at the door; his luggage, sword, and rugs were placed in it; he heard the horses' hoofs rasping impatiently among the gravel, as if they resented being harnessed out at such an hour, and the spotted dogs were gambolling about them. Then Cyril's lips quivered, as he drew on his kid gloves with singular but nervous accuracy. His father, brother, and cousin proposed to accompany him to the station; but he was affectionately peremptory, and would have no second leavetaking.

As his mother cut a parting lock from his thick brown hair, she fairly broke down again, and sobbing, fell upon his neck. By this Sir John, who had his emotions more under control, was greatly moved; for to see Cyril joining his regiment now was so different from what his departure had been on any previous occasion, save on his first appointment, when he was under orders for India.

"Mother darling," whispered Cyril, "when going now, I have but one favour to ask of you; be kind to that poor girl at Lonewoodlee, should aught happen. I have loved her well; and for my sake——"

"I shall, Cyril—if I can."

Some hurried salutes, tears, and shaking of hands, a murmured adieu from the assembled servants, and all was over like a dream. He was lying back in the recess of the well-cushioned carriage, and heard the budding branches of the old avenue—budding now as they had done for two hundred springs and more—sweeping its roof as he was driven away.

The old minister, Dr. Squills, with many more, were already at the railway station to see him finally off, with a farewell cheer; and as the departing train plunged with a mad shriek into the dark tunnel and vanished, the former lamented aloud that "once again the Merse had lost the best angler that ever dropped a line in the siller Tweed; the primest curler that ever shot a stone at the rinks; the boldest rider, the best sportsman, and the lightest dancer in a' the country side; but God's blessing and a' our gude wishes follow him!"

Until far on in the coming grey dawn, even till the sun rose on land and sea, his mother lay a-bed, sleepless, with watch in hand, reckoning with anxious heart the hours and pauses in his southern journey. Now she knew he must be at Berwick; now at York; now at Peterborough, and so on, until in fancy she saw the train rushing into the roar and bustle of King's Cross Station.

How long a period might elapse, and how much would he have to undergo, before he traversed that route homeward to her again?

After a little time poor Mary Lennox heard, and a dreadful shock it gave her, of his abrupt departure on the very night of the sorrowful day when last they met; and she knew that he had gone without a farewell word or letter of explanation, and that he still thought hardly and strongly, even bitterly, of her, and the girl's heart waxed sore with its great grief.

They could meet no more at the stile by the triple thorn, or under the old pine-trees; and for her own peace she meant in future to shun those places.

Did she repine, even enviously, a little, when Dr. Squills told her incidentally, that Cyril had telegraphed home (and not to her) "of his safe arrival at headquarters?" We fear she did.

Cyril's new line of conduct seemed so harsh! Had he wished to quarrel with her, and begun to love his cousin? It almost seemed so. Well, she had still her poor old father, who clung to her and her only, even as a helpless and querulous child might have done; but how long should he be spared to her?

God alone knew.