Chapter XV: The Fancy Ball

From such a scene as that in the Lughman Valley we gladly turn to one of a very different kind.

It was an evening of the early days of April, when the elms begin to show their half-developed foliage, the buds of the oak are red, and the sprays of the beech gleam like emeralds against the blue sky, and the laburnum is clothed in green and gold, that Mary and Ellinor Wellwood sat in a beautiful flower garden while idling over some 'crewel work,' and watching a glorious sunset as it shone on the broad waters of the Elbe.

We have said that for change of air and of scene Mrs. Deroubigne, who acted to them as a second mother, had taken them with her to the Continent, and, after wandering through France and Holland, they now found themselves installed in a pretty villa near Altona, about two miles from the gay, busy, and hospitable city of Hamburg, whose merchants are so famous for the excellence of their dinners, and the splendour of their entertainments.

It was a lovely spring evening; the Elbe, studded with shipping under sail or steam, was rolling in light, its blue blending into crimson; and beyond it lay the low, green hills of Hanover, now no longer a petty kingdom, but an integral portion of the great German empire.

The sun was setting, and such a sunset!

Separated from Hamburg only by a space called the Field of the Holy Ghost, where daily the spike-helmeted Prussian troops could be seen at drill, the wharves and warehouses of Altona join those of the city, as they stretch along the waterside with stately rows of pale green poplars behind them.

Beyond the last of these, in a little wooded creek, and on the summit of a green bank overlooking the river, stood the charming little villa occupied temporarily by Mrs. Deroubigne, from the windows of which the great panorama of the Hansetown was visible, with the lofty red-brick tower of St. Michael's Kirk (a hundred feet higher than the dome of St. Paul's at London), bathed in ruddy gold, and casting its mighty shadow half-way to Altona; and, as the evening sky grew redder, the spires of St. Katharine and St. Nicholai grew redder too; and now, impressed by the beauty of the evening and of the scene, the influence of the season and the soft purity of the ambient air, the two girls, in the new happiness of their hearts, sang together a duet from 'Il Flauto Magico,' of Mozart, all unaware that a young Prussian officer--a smart uhlan, in bright green uniform--was lingering admiringly near them.

We need scarcely mention, though Hamburg is famous for the beauty of its women, the officers of the garrison, the uhlans, and the Hanoverian infantry in the Dammthor Barracks always welcomed the appearance of the two 'charming English meeses' and their handsome chaperone at the consul's balls, the opera, the _fêtes_ in the Botanischer Garten, or when the bands played in the fashionable Jungfernstieg (or Maiden's Walk), the beautiful tree-shaded promenade by the side of the Alster, which is always covered with gaily-painted pleasure-boats.

These amusements, with fancy work, music, and novels--Tauchnitz editions, of course--made the sweet spring days pass quickly with Mary and Ellinor in that gay city, where, it is said, that in summer the inhabitants appear to work all day and amuse themselves all night.

Before their departure to the Continent, great had been the astonishment of Lady Dunkeld and the fair Blanche Galloway when they heard of the near relationship of Colville to the sisters, of his engagement to Mary, and that they were to be chaperoned by Mrs. Deroubigne till the marriage came to pass.

'The marriage!' How Blanche elevated her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders. It was bitter to lose thus the future Lord Colville of Ochiltree.

Both those aristocratic ladies would fain have extended their patronage and countenance to the sisters now; but, aware of their past malevolence, Mary and Ellinor, though far from revengeful, steadily declined all intercourse with them. Nor did Mrs. Deroubigne attempt to control their actions or wishes in the matter. Thus a coldness amounting almost to a 'cut' ensued between her and the Dunkeld family.

Leslie Colville's last letter to Mary from Jellalabad had narrated the episode of his meeting with Robert Wodrow, and the mutual good services they had done each other; and Mary, who had read of the personal conflict in the war correspondent's news, felt her heart sink within her at the contemplation of the many and incessant perils her lover--her affianced husband--had to encounter.

And how often did Mary recall their parting, when he had held her face tenderly and caressingly between his hands while he gazed down into her tear-blinded eyes, so sweetly and so passionately, posed as they both were like the pair in 'the Huguenot' of Millais's picture; while she looked up to him as sweetly and as passionately too.

His departure had seemed to Mary but the beginning of the end. Yet who could foresee amid the terrible contingencies of war and climate what that end might be?

Thankful she felt as each day passed, and with it a portion of the time of separation; but who might know what that day had seen or brought forth far, far away among the wild mountains of Afghanistan? And so, with curious and persistent ingenuity, thoughtful and anxious fancy often tormented her.

Yet under different influences and happier auspices, and amid new scenes, both sisters regained the old glow of health and beauty they had possessed each in her own degree in former days at pleasant Birkwoodbrae.

Meanwhile with Ellinor, as the conviction of her own sudden selfishness and folly grew strong in her heart, and the now odious image of Sir Redmond Sleath faded out of it, the memory of Robert Wodrow and of other days took their place there; but what would that avail either of them now?

The sisters ceased their duet suddenly, when Jack the fox-terrier, who had been nestling against Mary's skirts, started up to greet with many a yelp of delight the young officer who fed him so often with biscuits and chocolate creams.

'Pardon my interrupting a song so sweet,' said he, in good English, 'but my purpose must be my excuse,' he added, with a military salute, for the Baron Rolandsburg--a visitor of Mrs. Deroubigne's--belonged to the Uhlans, and, like all Prussian officers, was seldom or never seen out of uniform, the green laced with gold of the dashing Lancers.

He was a fair-haired and handsome man, barely thirty years of age, and in his fifteenth year had the glory of being the first Prussian to enter Paris, for he it was who galloped his horse amid scowling and assembled thousands through the Arc de Triomphe after winning the iron cross at Sedan; and now he had brought 'for Madame Deroubigne' and her two young ladies, tickets for a most exclusive fancy ball, to be given in the Theatre of Hamburg, which is one of the largest in Germany; for, though there are many public ball-rooms in that pleasure-loving city, they are never patronised by the upper classes.

The baron had been the sisters' escort to all 'the lions' of Hamburg--to the churches, the stately and crowded _Börse_, to Rœdings Museum, the tomb of Klopstock, the great garden kept by a Scotsman at Wandsbeck, overlooked by the house of Tycho Brahe, and they had lingered again and again on the summit of the Stintfang, from whence there is such an extensive view of the harbour, the Elbe, and the opposite coast of Hanover, and his hand had often assisted Ellinor in her sketches of the Vierlanders in their picturesque costume and of their boats laden with glowing fruit, flowers, and vegetables.

Mrs. Deroubigne deemed there was no harm in all this. It amused the girls, drew them from their own sad thoughts, and so far as she could see the admiration and attention of the young baron were pretty equally divided between them, or if he had a preference it was for Mary, as it seemed ere long.

But the tickets for the fancy ball--a ball of a kind so peculiarly flattering to female vanity and taste in costume and so forth--seemed to crown all his previous good offices and kindness, and they accepted them with a genuine delight that quite flattered him.

Bouquets (selected by those pretty Vierlander flower girls, whose picturesque caps and embroidered bodices make them quite a feature in Hamburg), gloves, music, even a fan or two, had come from the Baron Rolandsburg, but always at appropriate times, with reference to a stall at the opera or an afternoon dance.

There was no reason why Mary should not accept such gifts; yet she would rather that they did not come, as their acceptance seemed a kind of treason to him who was then so far, far away.

For some days their fancy dresses were an all engrossing source of thought and topic with the girls and their chaperone; but, after many changes of mind, costumes of the reign of Mary Stuart were selected by them, Mary choosing blue, slashed and trimmed with white, as suited to her blonde complexion, and Ellinor rose colour, trimmed and slashed with black, as suited to her dark hair and hazel eyes, and wonderfully handsome and piquante they looked.

On the forenoon of the ball the baron arrived with three magnificent bouquets and two beautiful fans for the sisters--the best that could be obtained in the Neuer Wall.

'How charming--how kind!' exclaimed both, blushing with pleasure.

'For our dance to-night,' said Rolandsburg, in his most insinuating tone, to Mary, 'how many waltzes are you to give me?' he asked, in a lower voice.

'How many do you want?' asked Mary, coquettishly.

'I would like them all of course--save those I may have with Miss Ellinor; but that is too much to expect.'

As all this implied more than words, Mary appeared not to hear, and addressed Mrs. Deroubigne.

In due time they were attired, and drove through the brilliantly lighted streets to the Stadt Theatre in the Dammthor Strasse, where the Burgher Guard, in quaint uniforms, were under arms to receive the burgomasters and four Syndics of the city, who wear on state occasions high-crowned hats and black velvet cloaks, with ruffs and swords; and there, about the entrances, were a crowd of blooming Vierlander flower-girls, selling bouquets and button-holes, their quaint hats or gold-embroidered caps, their bodices of crimson or black, covered with gold-broidery, and their short blue skirts, making each a picture.

'I shall dance with no one else but you to-night,' said the uhlan, in his softest tone, to Mary.

'No one else?' said she.

'Save your sister.'

'Our poor uhlan is evidently playing with edged tools, Mary,' said Mrs. Deroubigne, with a smile, while the baron was intently pencilling on their programmes and his own.

The stage and floored pit of the theatre, which had been converted into one vast, brilliantly lighted and gaily decorated hall, was filling fast with guests in every real and fanciful costume that can be conceived, and already the great orchestra in their places were playing a kind of overture; but their music was to be alternated by the great brass band of the uhlans; and, though many handsome, even rarely beautiful girls were present, Mary and Ellinor Wellwood were remarked amid them all.

'Schön! schön!' (beautiful, beautiful) muttered many, as they passed to their appointed place with Mrs. Deroubigne.

'En verité!' exclaimed a gallant little French consul; 'ces dames sont charmantes!'

But the ball itself has less to do with our story than what it preluded.

Many of the dresses were gorgeous in texture and decoration--silk, velvet, gold and silver jewellery, and the richest lace, fairy-like in delicacy of fashion and tint, and when the dancers in hundreds flew round in the waltz it seemed a glimpse of the land of Elphin.

The music was divine, and Mary felt every nerve and fibre of her frame respond to it as she sped round with slippered feet over the well-waxed floor on the arm of Rolandsburg, whose step and time suited hers to perfection.

There were beautiful Jewish matrons from the fashionable mansions on the Alster Damm, with broods of black-eyed and equally beautiful daughters; for the Jewish ladies of Hamburg, in style, beauty, and delicacy of feature, excel all others of their race; but the blonde beauties of Holstein and North Germany far exceeded them in numbers and glow of complexion.

Off the dancing-hall were artificial conservatories and refreshment-rooms for ice-cream, jelly, and flirtation, where servants were in attendance clad like Turks, with turbans and slippers, pistols and yataghans, and where, with a sound like file-firing, the champagne corks flew up to the gilded ceilings.

Amid the dazzling scene, as Mary paused in a waltz, panting, palpitating, and blushing to see her own reflection in a mirror, as she almost clung to the arm of the baron in his green uhlan uniform, and found herself the object of so much attention and admiration, her mind reverted with a kind of dull and painful wonder to the past days of their obscure abode in frowsy Paddington; to her struggles for employment, and her lonely wanderings in unfamiliar streets, where often her beauty subjected her to such observation and insolent annoyance that often she longed to be old and ugly; and when her chief hope had been to fill the place of governess to some one's children--well-bred or ill-bred, yet not without a faint vision of future good fortune, position, and admiration--perhaps even riches; she was too young to be without such fancies and hopes.

Ellinor thought she would never forget the splendours and enjoyments of the fancy dress ball; in all its features and details it was so new to her, and from a subsequent event she was fated to remember it long.

The baron, always attentive and full of _empressement_, was enchanted to be the privileged cavalier to two such English belles.

Mary, in her piquant Mary Stuart cap, with a little ruff round her delicate neck, her sleeves puffed and slashed, her peaked bodice, all blue satin, with seed pearls, quite dazzled him, and matured the passion for her that was growing in his heart; and at last, in the intervals of the dances, though he yielded her with undisguised reluctance to other uhlans, dragoons, and gunners, who crowded about her, programme in hand, he ventured to speak on the subject--not to her, but to Mrs. Deroubigne, and thus spared her some pain and confusion.

'Madame,' said he, while conducting her to a refreshment-room, 'you evidently love these two young ladies as if they were your own daughters!'

'I do indeed--and they might have been,' was the somewhat enigmatical reply of Mrs. Deroubigne, with one of her bright sweet smiles.

'Ah! who would not love them, the blue-eyed one especially.'

'Mary?'

'Yes, madame. I thought generally that love only existed in plays and novels.'

'And when were you undeceived?'

'When first I knew _her_.'

'Baron, you must dismiss such thoughts,' said Mrs. Deroubigne, with some dismay.

'Why, madame?' he asked, smiling.

'The young lady is engaged.'

'Engaged--is that betrothed?'

'Yes.'

His countenance changed instantly.

'To an officer--a dear friend of mine--now in Afghanistan.'

'In Afghanistan!' he repeated, angrily; 'a _fiancé_ there is next to no _fiancé_ at all, for a bullet may--nay,' said he, pausing, 'this thought is ungenerous of me, and I would not like another to think thus of Rolandsburg. Gott in Himmel, how unlucky I am!'

'I am so sorry to hear all this.'

'So am I--so am I,' exclaimed the baron, pulling his long fair moustaches, for a betrothal in Germany gives a young girl a kind of wife-like sanctity among the homely and domestic Teutonic people; and Mrs. Deroubigne, who dearly loved the romantic, felt for him; the young man's hopes had been cruelly crushed at the very moment when he thought them brightest.

'One cannot have everything they want--it is not given to anyone on earth to be perfectly happy, I suppose,' said he, with a sigh, and there was a sadness, with a ring of sincerity, in his voice that certainly touched Mrs. Deroubigne.

'Have you spoken of love to her?' whispered she, behind her fan; 'but I hope not!'

'No--I have never spoken--but she must have inferred what I felt,' replied the baron, who, like most German officers, spoke English well.

'Inferred it--I scarcely think so, with her mind so occupied with the thoughts of another.'

'But, any way, I think it does a girl good to know that a man loves her; and then, if the proverb be true about one love begetting another, she may incline her heart to him.'

'Not in this instance, baron.'

For Rolandsburg now the charm of the ball was over; the music sounded faint, the lights seemed dim, and he was glad when the great festivity ended, and he, after escorting the ladies to their carriage, took his way slowly through the streets to his barracks near the Dammthor Wall.

For his disappointment--and it was a sudden and sore one--he had no one but himself to blame, he felt, as Mary Wellwood had never given him the least encouragement to fling his heart away as he had done.

And now for the sequel to the night's adventures.

Talking gaily, as girls will talk after a ball, criticising costumes and partners, and comparing notes, Mary, Ellinor, and Mrs. Deroubigne reached home when day was beginning to dawn, and the blue waters of the Elbe were beginning to brighten. Ellinor, teasing and quizzing Mary about the baron, had been singing to her--

'Ilka lassie has her laddie,
But ne'er a one have I;'

and Mary, in hot haste, anxious to see the very latest news, threw open a London paper which had come over night, but, as she eagerly scanned it, a cry of dismay escaped her as she read a brief telegram:

'_Terrible disaster to the 10th Hussars.--A whole squadron drowned in the Cabul River, and two officers, when attempting to save the life of Corporal Wodrow._'

The hearts of the sisters stood still as they read and re-read this startling notice.

The attempt to save Robert Wodrow had evidently been a failure--so he was gone!

Who had made the attempt and perished with him? Mary's agitated mind at once suggested Colville. Both girls felt completely stunned.

The returning and growing love--a love blended with great pity--that had been developing itself in Ellinor's heart for poor Robert Wodrow was now absorbed and swallowed up in a gush of bitterness and intense remorse at being the cause of his sorrowful and untimely fate.

How true it is that 'suffering is our most faithful friend; it is always returning. Often has it changed its dress, and even its face; but we can easily recognise it by its cordial and intimate embrace.'

And how was it, then, at the old ivy-clad manse of Kirktown-Mailler, where the same terrible telegram had gone like the dart of death?

There the blinds were drawn down, as if the hussar who had found his grave in the Cabul River was lying dead in the bed he had slept on in boyhood and manhood, and across which his mother now lay stretched in hopeless grief.

And a sad-eyed and sympathetic congregation watched the venerable minister when, with bent eyes, and slow, unsteady steps, he entered his pulpit next Sunday.

All knew the dire calamity that had befallen him, and one and all their kindly Scottish hearts bled for him, when his voice failed, his sermon escaped him, and stretching out his trembling hands on the pulpit cushion, he bent down his handsome old head upon them--a head now white as the thistledown--and begged his people to excuse him, 'as all night long he had been in the Valley of the Shadow of Death!'

Then his elders led him into the vestry, and those who saw him descending the stair of that pulpit, wherein he had ministered unto them faithfully for more than thirty years, never forgot the painful episode.