Part 3 (1/2)

It was a large chateau of the genuine old ghostly kind, with round towers, and extinguishers, and a high leaden roof, and more windows than Aladdin's Palace. The lattice blinds were all thrown open after the heat of the day, and there were glimpses of rambling walls and corridors within. Then there were immense out-buildings fallen into partial decay, ma.s.ses of dark trees, terrace-gardens, bal.u.s.trades; tanks of water, too weak to play and too dirty to work; statues, weeds, and thickets of iron railing that seemed to have overgrown themselves like the shrubberies, and to have branched out in all manner of wild shapes. The entrance doors stood open, as doors often do in that country when the heat of the day is past; and the Captain saw no bell or knocker, and walked in.

He walked into a lofty stone hall, refres.h.i.+ngly cool and gloomy after the glare of a Southern day's travel. Extending along the four sides of this hall was a gallery, leading to suites of rooms; and it was lighted from the top. Still no bell was to be seen.

”Faith,” said the Captain halting, ashamed of the clanking of his boots, ”this is a ghostly beginning!”

He started back, and felt his face turn white. In the gallery, looking down at him, stood the French officer--the officer whose picture he had carried in his mind so long and so far. Compared with the original, at last--in every lineament how like it was!

He moved, and disappeared, and Captain Richard Doubled.i.c.k heard his steps coming quickly down own into the hall. He entered through an archway.

There was a bright, sudden look upon his face, much such a look as it had worn in that fatal moment.

Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubled.i.c.k? Enchanted to receive him! A thousand apologies! The servants were all out in the air. There was a little fete among them in the garden. In effect, it was the fete day of my daughter, the little cherished and protected of Madame Taunton.

He was so gracious and so frank that Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubled.i.c.k could not withhold his hand. ”It is the hand of a brave Englishman,” said the French officer, retaining it while he spoke. ”I could respect a brave Englishman, even as my foe, how much more as my friend! I also am a soldier.”

”He has not remembered me, as I have remembered him; he did not take such note of my face, that day, as I took of his,” thought Captain Richard Doubled.i.c.k. ”How shall I tell him?”

The French officer conducted his guest into a garden and presented him to his wife, an engaging and beautiful woman, sitting with Mrs. Taunton in a whimsical old-fas.h.i.+oned pavilion. His daughter, her fair young face beaming with joy, came running to embrace him; and there was a boy-baby to tumble down among the orange trees on the broad steps, in making for his father's legs. A mult.i.tude of children visitors were dancing to sprightly music; and all the servants and peasants about the chateau were dancing too. It was a scene of innocent happiness that might have been invented for the climax of the scenes of peace which had soothed the Captain's journey.

He looked on, greatly troubled in his mind, until a resounding bell rang, and the French officer begged to show him his rooms. They went upstairs into the gallery from which the officer had looked down; and Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubled.i.c.k was cordially welcomed to a grand outer chamber, and a smaller one within, all clocks and draperies, and hearths, and brazen dogs, and tiles, and cool devices, and elegance, and vastness.

”You were at Waterloo,” said the French officer.

”I was,” said Captain Richard Doubled.i.c.k. ”And at Badajos.”

Left alone with the sound of his own stern voice in his ears, he sat down to consider, What shall I do, and how shall I tell him? At that time, unhappily, many deplorable duels had been fought between English and French officers, arising out of the recent war; and these duels, and how to avoid this officer's hospitality, were the uppermost thought in Captain Richard Doubled.i.c.k's mind.

He was thinking, and letting the time run out in which he should have dressed for dinner, when Mrs. Taunton spoke to him outside the door, asking if he could give her the letter he had brought from Mary. ”His mother, above all,” the Captain thought. ”How shall I tell _her_?”

”You will form a friends.h.i.+p with your host, I hope,” said Mrs. Taunton, whom he hurriedly admitted, ”that will last for life. He is so true-hearted and so generous, Richard, that you can hardly fail to esteem one another. If He had been spared,” she kissed (not without tears) the locket in which she wore his hair, ”he would have appreciated him with his own magnanimity, and would have been truly happy that the evil days were past which made such a man his enemy.”

She left the room; and the Captain walked, first to one window, whence he could see the dancing in the garden, then to another window, whence he could see the smiling prospect and the peaceful vineyards.