CHAPTER III
THE RETURNED CAPTIVE
In the few minutes consumed by Captain Murpoint in mastering the emotion which the sight of his old friend's daughter had produced, Mrs. Mildmay had recovered from her astonishment, and, with her well-bred composure still a little shaken, came forward, with outstretched hand.
"And is it, indeed, poor John's old friend, Captain Murpoint?" she said, with a little smile.
"It is, indeed," said the captain, taking her hand, and bending over it with graceful empressement. "Alas, that I should return to find his place empty! Yet scarcely empty, for here is a beautiful reflection of my dear friend's face and form."
And he turned his eyes with affectionate admiration upon Violet again.
Mrs. Mildmay sighed, then quickly called his attention to her guests.
"We have got half through dinner, Captain Murpoint, as you see, but I am sure my friends will not mind a little extension of the meal, while fresh courses are prepared. Let me introduce you. Mrs. Dodson, this is an old friend of Violet's father, consequently a dear friend of ours, Captain Murpoint."
The captain's quick, black eyes rested for a moment upon her and Mrs. Dodson's physiognomies while the introduction was being made; as quickly passed over Mr. and Mrs. Giles' and the vicar's, but rested a little longer when Mr. Leicester's turn came, and grew more searching in their expression as they met the calm regard of the young man.
But the keenness of the scrutiny – for it was nothing more nor less – was tempered by a smile. Captain Murpoint possessed the rare art of smiling well.
"I beg that you will not delay the meal, nor change a single course. I am a case-hardened traveler, and too used to short fare to think anything of the loss of soup and fish. Indeed, my dear madam, if you will pardon me for a few moments I will exchange these dusty and really disgraceful garments for something more orthodox and suitable."
Mrs. Mildmay bowed graciously, and turned to a footman.
"I have brought my man with me – a faithful fellow, who has been my companion in fair weather and foul all over the globe," said the captain, moving toward the door. "Pray, let me implore you not to spoil your dinner."
So saying, he passed through the doorway, outside which, eying the elegant room with a satisfied and comprehensive gaze, stood the grim-faced, sharp-eyed "faithful fellow," the captain's servant.
Violet had not spoken a single word save those she had addressed to the captain. A sweet, solemn gravity had settled upon her fair, young face, brought there by the memories of her father, which this stranger's arrival had called up.
She sighed when his soft, pleasing voice had died away, and turned almost with a start to her neighbor, Mr. Leicester.
"How strange – is it not?" she said.
"Very," said Mr. Leicester, looking at her, thoughtfully. "Captain Murpoint came unexpectedly?"
"Quite," said Violet.
Leicester Dodson toyed with his fork.
"Do you remember him?" he asked.
"I have never seen him before," replied Violet, quietly. "But he is such an old personal friend. My father never wrote me a letter without mentioning him."
Leicester, with all the interest he felt showing plainly in his face, nodded.
"They met in India, of course. Captain Murpoint must be a younger man than Mr. Mildmay would have been."
"Yes," said Violet, "much younger. Papa told me how much once, but I have forgotten."
Then her aunt spoke to her, and Leicester fell into a muse. Captain Murpoint's advent seemed to have struck all his eloquence dumb.
The rest of the guests were chattering with quite a mild excitement, but he sat turning the fork over and following the pattern of the tablecloth with that grim silence which did not sit ill upon him, though it would have made some men look sullen.
Suddenly the hum died out, and Leicester, looking up, saw that Captain Murpoint's re-entrance was the cause.
If Captain Murpoint had looked gentlemanly in his traveling suit he certainly looked distinguished in the orthodox army dress.
Leicester Dodson's eyes, as they watched him take his place between Violet and her aunt, took in every detail of the well-proportioned figure from its breadth of shoulders to the long stretch of arm with its strength-denoting muscular development.
But when he came to regard the face he was startled.
He had, on the captain's first entrance thought him rather handsome, but now, seeing him sideface, he was surprised to find that there was a sinister look about some feature that had an unpleasant effect.
Suddenly the captain turned full face to address Violet, and the displeasing expression had gone.
Then he turned again, and Leicester understood it.
One side of Mr. Murpoint's face was better looking than the other.
On the right side, in a line with the ear, there was a scar – a small white scar – too small one would have thought to have marred the face, but mar it, it certainly did, for, whether the captain smiled or frowned, looked humorous or sad, that scar remained the same – inflexible, white, repulsive, giving the sinister cast to the right side of the face which had startled Leicester.
Was the captain aware of this blot on his beauty?
Certainly that scarred side of his face was not half so often seen as the other, and Leicester, who was observant as well as quiet, noticed that when he was spoken to, the captain invariably turned his left side with a smile to the speaker, and kept it turned until the speaker's gaze was withdrawn.
But Leicester was not allowed to continue his silent examination of Mr. Murpoint's features long, for that gentleman, having blunted his appetite upon the greater portion of a fowl, with a tact which was remarkable, soon engaged the whole table in conversation.
Then he found that he could not only smile well, but talk well also.
He started a topic, chased and ran it to death in a light, graceful way, then raised another.
The spirits of the party, which had grown somewhat low, rose rapidly.
The captain was humorous, and made Miss Mildmay laugh.
Then, with a graceful ease, he veered round into the pathetic – some little Indian story – and the ladies sighed sympathetically.
As suddenly he managed to engage Mr. Leicester Dodson in a discussion on the catacombs, and proved to that gentleman, who knew the East pretty thoroughly, that Egyptian antiquities were also not quite hidden mysteries to the wonderful captain.
All the time he managed to eat in a noiseless, well-bred way about three times as much as any one else, and contrived to divert to his own plate the nice cuts and choice corners of the poultry and saddle of mutton.
He drank, too, with a quiet enjoyment of the good wine, which met with a hearty sympathy from the butler.
"This wine," he said, lifting his glass and bowing to Miss Mildmay with infinite grace, "this wine, my dear friend brought from India – eh? my dear young lady?" turning to Violet. "Many and many glasses have your father and I drank in the hot sunset. I have a wonderful memory for wine and faces. Do you know," he broke off, suddenly, addressing Leicester, who was regarding him with his quiet, earnest gaze, "I fancy that I have seen you before? Have I?"
"I can't say. 'Tis possible," said Leicester. "Have you any recollection beyond the indistinct surmise?"
"N – o," said the captain, hesitating. "Were you ever in India?"
"No," said Leicester. "I have traveled through the East, and know the Continent and England pretty well."
"There you have the advantage of me," said the captain, setting his wineglass down, and looking round at the attentive faces. "I left my native land when a boy of eighteen, and returned only two days since."
"Ah," said the vicar, in his nervous, jerky style, "then you have much to see, Captain Murpoint. England is small, but precious in beauty. It can compare creditably with any other spot on earth, even in its most unfair and ill features. What is softer and more beautiful than Devonshire? What more grand than the Cornish cliffs? Ay, even in picturesque business it would be difficult to eclipse our little island. We defy you to find in any other part of the globe so weird and grotesque a piece of scenery as the Portland wastes."
The captain, with a smile, had turned his left side to the well-meaning, but rather long-winded cleric, and the butler was filling his glass with the wine which he had so highly praised.
Suddenly, as the vicar's neatly turned sentence came to a close, the captain's face turned and presented the left side, which was as white as the scar itself.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the butler, for the captain, in turning his head, had also moved his hand and spilled some of the wine.
"All right, my good fellow," he said, good-naturedly, and stooped to wipe the wine from his coat. Then, looking up as placid and smiling as before, he added, "Portland! Let me see, that is on the south coast, is it not? A – er – convict station?"
"Yes," said the vicar. "A most interesting place, and well worth a visit. If you think of making an English tour, you should by all means take it en route."
"Thanks," said the captain, with an air of gratitude. "It's a good suggestion." Then he rose to open the door for the ladies, his left side well to the front and the good-tempered, well-bred smile shining placidly upon it.
The vicar, being the oldest friend of Mrs. Mildmay, moved to the head of the table, and did the honors of the good old port and claret with formal exactness, but the gentlemen had evidently taken all the wine they cared for, and, with a nervous, "Er, shall we join the ladies?" the vicar pushed back his chair and led the way into the drawing-room.
Mrs. Giles was seated at the piano. Mrs. Tonson, the vicar's wife, was sipping tea with her sweet, little head on one side like a tomtit, listening to Mrs. Mildmay's explanation of the intricacies of some new needlework, and Violet and Mrs. Dodson were engrossed in conversation, which had for its topic Mr. Leicester's various habits and idiosyncrasies, a topic the fond mother could expatiate upon ad infinitum.
The captain's quick glance flashed through the handsome room for a moment, then sank into a quiet gleam of pleasure as he walked to Violet's low chair, and, motioning with his eyes to a small, black-edged portrait of himself that hung in a recess, said:
"No wonder you recognized me so quickly, Miss Mildmay. I had forgotten the portrait."
Violet smiled.
"But for me, who see it so constantly, it seems as impossible for me to forget you, or rather fail to recognize you."
Mrs. Mildmay turned, with a smile and a little nervous flush.
"You notice that it has a black frame, Captain Murpoint?"
The captain nodded, with a shrug of the shoulders.
"Yes, and I can guess the reason. Oh, my dear madam, I must reserve the story of my resuscitation for a more fitting opportunity. I am afraid you will find it tedious. Poor John! would that he could have lived to learn that instead of being among the killed, I was only one of the unfortunate captives."
Here the vicar, who had been vainly endeavoring to engage mild Mr. Dodson in a theological argument, turned, with very awkward interest.
"Ah, Captain Murpoint, that was a most extraordinary mistake. I am curious to hear how it occurred. My old friend mourned for you very deeply – er – er – and caused a tablet to be set upon the left side of the church aisle to your memory."
The captain smiled, then sighed.
"It was a mistake, and an extraordinary one. The facts are very simple, though. My corporal, a worthy man, poor fellow, had, the evening before the skirmish, fallen into a water tank and spoiled his uniform, the only one he had brought with him. He came to my tent at sunset, dripping wet, and I, on the impulse of the moment, lent him one of my spare suits. Poor fellow, he promised to return it before the following morning, but Providence so willed it that the loan should become a gift. Before sunrise the Sepoys were upon us. I was wounded and taken prisoner, the poor corporal was killed and mangled to such an extent as to render his identification by features impossible. The clothes by which they imagined they could ascertain his personality, were, of course, mine, and so Captain Howard Murpoint was returned as dead and buried, and Corporal Mundy was cited as captured."
Violet, who had been listening, with her dark eyes fixed upon the captain's face, drew a long breath.
"And what became of you?" she asked, with that absent, abrupt way peculiar to her.
The captain passed his hand down his thick, dark mustache, and looked at her.
"I will tell you some day," he said, "as I threatened. Suffice it for the present that I was held captive for two years far away beyond the hills – ay, outside the pale of civilization. It was a miserable time; to look back upon it even now, in this comfortable room and with your interested face, my dear young lady, before me, gives me an unpleasant sensation. The Hindoos are the connecting link between the man and the monster!"
And, with this figurative conclusion, the captain rose and walked to the bureau to turn over the leaves of the Battle of Prague, with which the vicar's wife was about to favor the company.
Leicester Dodson dropped into the vacant seat, Violet drawing her skirts out of the way of his long legs.
"And have you not played yet?" he asked.
Violet woke from her absent fit and shook her head.
"Not yet," she said. "I am not fond of my own music. You will play or sing, will you not?"
"I can do neither," he said. "I have a voice that would shame a crow."
Violet laughed her full, sweet, mirthful laugh.
"I am so sorry, because now you will have to play whist. Look, the vicar is shuffling the cards and looking round for the victims already."
"Shall I hide behind you?" said Leicester, in a low whisper.
"Indeed, no; you shall do your duty!" And, catching the vicar's blinking eyes, she beckoned to him.
"Here is Mr. Leicester for one corner. He doesn't sing or play!"
Leicester looked fierce and nodded at his father.
"You will have enough without me, I think," he said, and the vicar, more nervous than ever, but quite as anxious for his rubber, shuffled over to Mr. Dodson, who, with his benevolent, expressionless face well elevated, was beating time with his first finger to the "Battle."
So the vicar seized upon him, Mrs. Dodson and Mr. Giles, and was soon in his play.
"I've escaped, you see," said Leicester, with his grim smile.
"Only out of one danger into another," said Violet, maliciously. "The 'Battle of Prague' will be fought out directly, and then you will have to go over the large scrapbook of Swiss views and tell Miss Tomson which of the places you have seen."
"Thank you," said Leicester. "If that is a necessary part of the programme I am prepared to perform it without a change of audience. If you will allow me, Miss Mildmay, I'll go over the scrapbook with you."
With two long strides, he seized the book and opened it.
"I knew you would be very much bored," said Violet. "I told you so before you came."
"And I assure you that you were wrong, which you are. I was never further from being bored in my life. That's a fine view. I climbed that on the coldest day in winter and had to have my fingers thawed in the shed at the top."
"And you learned cliff climbing in Switzerland, of course?" said Violet, naïvely. "Do you know, you frightened me so this morning? I was afraid you would fall over and be killed?"
Leicester's eyes – they were dark and deep and somewhat stern for so young a man – brightened.
"Should you have been so sorry?" he asked.
"Of course. How stupid a question!" laughed Violet, wickedly. "Cannot you surmise the consequences? I might have been accused of throwing you over, tried and condemned."
"But the motive," said Leicester, entering into the jest. "What motive could they have found?"
"Oh," said Violet, "people are always ready to find motives for other people; they would have said I resented your appearance as an interruption to a train of poetic thoughts; in fact, they would have been sure to find a motive."
"That is a pretty plain hint that I am to avoid that favorite walk of yours for the future, and beware how I interrupt your cliff reveries."
Violet flushed.
"Indeed, no. It is not a favorite walk – at least, not particularly so – and I am sure you are welcome to come. What nonsense. It is as much yours as mine, and I seem to be making you a present of it," and she laughed.
Then the "Battle of Prague" came to an end, and the captain led Mrs. Tonson to a seat with profuse compliments upon her style and touch.
"Are you fond of music, Captain Murpoint?" asked Violet.
"I adore it," said the captain, seating himself by her side, and looking, with a smile, at Leicester, who regarded him with his usual grim reserve. "Music is the language of women and angels. Are you not going to sing?"
Violet shook her head at first.
"Will you not?" said Leicester, earnestly, bending the regard of his dark eyes on her.
Then she changed her mind, and, placing her hand upon the captain's arm, allowed him to take her to the piano.
Leicester remained where he was, and, thrusting his hands into his pockets, stretched out his long legs, and watched her beneath his dark, heavy eyebrows.
He had seen beautiful women of all countries – Circassians with pearly skin and rosebud lips, Spanish señoras with almond eyes and passionate, low-strung voices, Italians with fire-lit laughter and lithe grace – but none whose beauty touched and warmed him as the pure, sweet, loveliness of this willful English rose did.
Beautiful! The word was poor, tame, commonplace for such a face. Call it loveable, bewitching, which is far better than beautiful, and you were still far from a satisfactory adjective, Leicester thought; and as he sat and listened, his gaze alternating between the fair, young face and the dark, sinister one of the man by her side, he felt her heart slipping away from him.
The song finished, there arose a commotion at the whist table.
The vicar, in nervous, jerky sentences, was calling Mr. Dodson over the coals for bad play.
Mr. Dodson, with a bewildered air, was vainly endeavoring to explain, and at last managed to persuade the captain, who had stood smilingly listening to the dispute, to take his place.
The captain sat down, asserting, with a good-natured shrug of his shoulders, that he had not taken a hand at whist for a twelvemonth – which was indeed solemn truth – and the game commenced, the vicar and Mrs. Giles being partners against the captain and Mrs. Dodson.
"What are the stakes?" said the captain.
"Er – er – " stammered the vicar, in his shrill falsetto, "what you please."
"Half-crown points?" said the captain, carelessly, and the rest agreeing, the captain and Mrs. Dodson lost the first game.
Now the vicar was fond of cards, and was still more fond of winning a little money at them. The captain made one or two gross blunders, and clearly proved that he was out of practice. The vicar was but human and suggested that they should raise the stakes.
Alas, the next game was scored to the captain's side. So, also, was the next, and Mrs. Dodson, with many blushes and exclamations of comic alarm at the amount, shared ten pounds with her lucky partner.
Then the party broke up.
Leicester Dodson, who had been talking to Violet during the whole of the card playing, bowed over her small white hand with his usual gravity, wrapped his mother in her China crèpe shawl, and took her to the carriage.
The vicarage party and the Giles' followed quickly, and the captain was left alone with his old friend's daughter and her aunt.
"Captain Murpoint, I have given you rooms in the south wing. If they are not to your liking I hope you will let me change them," said Mrs. Mildmay.
"They will seem palatial apartments after Indian mud huts, my dear madam, and only too luxurious," said the captain.
"Good-night," said Violet, giving him her hand. "I hope you will sleep soundly and not dream. There are ghosts near you."
The captain laughed.
"You mean in those old ruins at the side," he said.
"Yes," said Violet. "The park was all ruins when papa bought it, but he pulled down all the old walls, excepting the tower and old chapel that adjoins the south wing, and they are fearfully haunted."
"I am not afraid," said the captain, and with another good-night he ascended the broad staircase to the apartments allotted to him.
Captain Murpoint was evidently an honored guest. The suite of rooms was of the best in the house, and beautifully furnished, the small dressing-room or boudoir exquisitely so.
As the captain opened the door of the dainty little nest a sturdy figure rose from the satin-covered couch and saluted him with a grin.
The captain set the candle down upon the unlaid table and walked to the window, which he threw open, then he turned to the sturdy figure and smiled.
"You don't look so ridiculous in your swallow tails as I should have thought, Jem – no, Starling I meant; but I'm afraid appearance is the least important attribute of a gentleman's servant. Help me off with this coat."
Mr. Starling, with a grave face, tugged at the coat rather clumsily.
"Gently," said the captain, "I don't want you to take my arms with it. That will do," and he sank into the chair before the glass and stared at the reflection of his face absorbed in thought.
Starling watched him in silence for a minute or two, then fidgeted restlessly, and at last spoke out:
"Well, captain, ain't you got a word for your humble pal? How's things going? Does the plant look well?"
"Hush!" said the captain, arousing, with a start. "The window is open, doors and walls have ears. You must drop that slang and talk like the character you assume, even when we are alone, for practice. Tell me what you have seen. Is the house large?"
"Enormous!" replied Starling, sinking his voice to a disagreeable hoarseness. "It is a reg'lar palace. Bigger than the pris – "
The captain sprang to his feet, his eyes blazing, and his face white.
"Idiot! keep that word between your teeth! We're working over a powder mine, and such a word as that means destruction. Forget the past; forget that you were ever anything else than my servant – Captain Murpoint's valet. If you don't, that idiot's tongue of yours will blab and spoil the whole."
He sat down again with something of his old coolness, but his hand, as it toyed with an ivory-backed brush, trembled, and his eyes still flashed evilly.
"All right, captain," pleaded Starling, humbly. "It was a slip," he laughed, "but it shan't occur again. Cuss me for an idiot. But I never can play a close game like this right away at first. It requires genius, and I ain't that, and you are, capt'n; and that's where the difference is – "
"Answer my question," said the captain, interrupting him with a gesture of weariness.
"The place is a regular gold mine," said Starling. "Heaps o' servants and cartloads o' plate. I never see such swag. Great, big plates and basins and ornaments and spoons and forks enough to set us up for life – "
The captain interrupted him with a contemptuous:
"Pshaw! Do you think I am going to steal the plate, idiot?"
"Well, you might do wus," said Starling, scratching his head with a puzzled air. "O' course I don't know what game you're playing, captain; how should I? You're such a deep 'un. But some games want capital, and where are we going to get that?"
"Capital," repeated the captain, more to himself than in answer to the expressed doubt of his companion. "My capital is here," and he knocked his snow-white forehead with his forefinger.
Then, with a short, dry laugh, he pulled the five sovereigns out of his pocket and flung them on the table.
"Capital? You're right, my friend. Five pounds is not much to start a big thing on, but it's enough when Captain Murpoint has the undertaking in hand!"