G. A. Henty - The Queen\'s Cup

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THE QUEEN'S CUP

by

G. A. Henty.

Chapter 1.

A large party were assembled in the drawing room of Greendale, Sir
John Greendale's picturesque old mansion house. It was early in
September. The men had returned from shooting, and the guests were
gathered in the drawing room; in the pleasant half hour of dusk
when the lamps have not yet been lighted, though it is already too
dark to read. The conversation was general, and from the latest
news from India had drifted into the subject of the Italian belief
in the Mal Occhio.

"Do you believe in it, Captain Mallett?" asked Bertha, Sir John's
only child, a girl of sixteen; who was nestled in an easy chair
next to that in which the man she addressed was sitting.

"I don't know, Bertha."

He had known her from childhood, and she had not yet reached an age
when the formal "Miss Greendale" was incumbent upon her
acquaintances.

"I do not believe in the Italian superstition to anything like the
extent they carry it. I don't think I should believe it at all if
it were not that one man has always been unlucky to me."

"How unlucky, Captain Mallett?"

"Well, I don't know that unlucky is the proper word, but he has
always stood between me and success; at least, he always did, for
it is some years since our paths have crossed."

"Tell me about it."

"Well, I have no objection, but there is not a great deal to tell.

"I was at school with--I won't mention his name. We were about the
same age. He was a bully. I interfered with him, we had a fight,
and I scored my first and only success over him. It was a very
tough fight--by far the toughest I ever had. I was stronger than
he, but he was the more active. I fancied that it would not be very
difficult to thrash him, but found that I had made a great mistake.
It was a long fight, and it was only because I was in better
condition that I won at last.

"Well, you know when boys fight at school, in most cases they
become better friends afterwards; but it was not so here. He
refused to shake hands with me, and muttered something about its
being his turn next time. Till then he had not been considered a
first-rate hand at anything; he was one of those fellows who
saunter through school, get up just enough lessons to rub along
comfortably, never take any prominent part in games, but have a
little set of their own, and hold themselves aloof from school in
general.

"Once or twice when we had played cricket he had done so
excellently that it was a grievance that he would not play
regularly, and there was a sort of general idea that if he chose he
could do most things well. After that fight he changed altogether.
He took to cricket in downright earnest, and was soon acknowledged
to be the best bat and best bowler in the school. Before that it
had been regarded as certain that when the captain left I should be
elected, but when the time came he got a majority of votes. I
should not have minded that, for I recognised that he was a better
player than I, but I fancied that he had not done it fairly, for
many fellows whom I regarded as certain to support me turned round
at the last moment.

"We were in the same form at school. He had been always near the
bottom; I stood fairly up in it, and was generally second or third.
He took to reading, and in six weeks after the fight won his way to
the top of the class and remained there; and not only so, but he
soon showed himself so far superior to the rest of us that he got
his remove to the form above.

"Then there was a competition in Latin verses open to both forms.
Latin verse was the one thing in which I was strong. There is a
sort of knack, you know, in stringing them together. A fellow may
be a duffer generally and yet turn out Latin verse better than
fellows who are vastly superior to him on other points. It was
regarded as certain that I should gain that. No one had intended to
go in against me, but at the last moment he put his name down, and,
to the astonishment of everyone, won in a canter.

"We left about the same time, and went up to Oxford together, but
to different Colleges. I rowed in my College Eight, he in his. We
were above them on the river, but they made a bump every night
until they got behind us, and then bumped us. He was stroke of his
boat, and everyone said that success was due to his rowing, and I
believe it was. I did not so much mind that, for my line was
chiefly sculling. I had won in my own College, and entered for
Henley, where it was generally thought that I had a fair chance of
winning the Diamonds. However, I heard a fortnight before the
entries closed that he was out on the river every morning sculling.
I knew what it was going to be, and was not surprised when his name
appeared next to mine in the entries.

"We were drawn together, and he romped in six lengths ahead of me,
though curiously enough he was badly beaten in the final heat. He
stroked the University afterwards. Though I was tried I did not
even get a seat in the eight, contrary to general expectation, but
I know that it was his influence that kept me out of it.

"We had only one more tussle, and again I was worsted. I went in
for the Newdigate--that is the English poetry prize, you know. I
had always been fond of stringing verses together, and the friends
to whom I showed my poem before sending it in all thought that I
had a very good chance. I felt hopeful myself, for I had not heard
that he was thinking of competing, and, indeed, did not remember
that he had ever written a line of verse when at school. However,
when the winner was declared, there was his name again.

"I believe that it was the disgust I felt at his superiority to me
in everything that led me to ask my father to get me a commission
at once, for it seemed to me that I should never succeed in
anything if he were my rival. Since then our lives have been
altogether apart, although I have met him occasionally. Of course
we speak, for there has never been any quarrel between us since
that fight, but I know that he has never forgiven me, and I have a
sort of uneasy conviction that some day or other we shall come into
contact again.

"I am sure that if we meet again he will do me a bad turn if
possible. I regard him as being in some sort of way my evil genius.
I own that it is foolish and absurd, but I cannot get over the
feeling."

"Oh, it is absurd, Captain Mallett," the girl said. "He may have
beaten you in little things, but you won the Victoria Cross in the
Crimea, and everyone knows that you are one of the best shots in
the country, and that before you went away you were always in the
first flight with the hounds."

"Ah, you are an enthusiast, Bertha. I don't say that I cannot hold
my own with most men at a good many things where not brains, but
brute strength and a quick eye are the only requisites, but I am
quite convinced that if that fellow had been in the Redan that day,
he would have got the Victoria Cross, and I should not. There is no
doubt about his pluck, and if it had only been to put me in the
shade he would have performed some brilliant action or other that
would have got it for him. He is a better rider than I am, at any
rate a more reckless one, and he is a better shot, too. He is
incomparably more clever."

"I cannot believe it, Captain Mallett."

"It is quite true, Bertha, and to add to it all, he is a remarkably
handsome fellow, a first-rate talker, and when he pleases can make
himself wonderfully popular."

"He must be a perfect Crichton, Captain Mallett."

"The worst of it is, Bertha, although I am ashamed of myself for
thinking so, I have never been able to divest myself of the idea
that he did not play fair. There were two or three queer things
that happened at school in which he was always suspected of having
had a hand, though it was never proved. I was always convinced that
he used cribs, and partly owed his place to them. I was jealous
enough to believe that the Latin verses he sent in were written for
him by Rigby, who was one of the monitors, and a great dab at
verses. Rigby was a great chum of his, for he was a mean fellow,
and my rival was always well supplied with money, and to do him
justice, liberal with it.

"Then, just before we left school, he carried off the prize in
swimming. He was a good swimmer, but I was a better. I thought
myself for once certain to beat him, but an hour before the race I
got frightful cramps, a thing that I never had before or since, and
I could hardly make a fight at all. I thought at the time, and I
have thought since, that I must have taken something at breakfast
that disagreed with me horribly, and that he somehow put it in my
tea.

"Then again in that matter of the Sculls at Henley. I never felt my
boat row so heavily as it did then. When it was taken out of the
water it was found that a piece of curved iron hoop was fixed to
the bottom by a nail that had been pushed through the thin skin. It
certainly was not there when it was on the rack, but it was there
when I rowed back to the boathouse, and it could only have got
there by being put on as the boat was being lowered into the water.
There were three or four men helping to lower her down--two of them
friends of mine, two of them fellows employed at the boathouse.
While it lay in the water, before I got in and took my place,
anyone stooping over it might unobserved have passed his hand under
it and have pushed the nail through.

"I never said anything about it. I had been beaten; there was no
use making a row and a scandal over it, especially as I had not a
shadow of proof against anyone; but I was certain that he was not
so fast as I was, for during practice my time had been as nearly as
possible the same as that of the man who beat him with the greatest
ease, and I am convinced that for once I should have got the better
of him had it not been for foul play."

"That was shameful, Captain Mallett," Bertha said, indignantly. "I
wonder you did not take some steps to expose him."

"I had nothing to go upon, Bertha. It was a case of suspicion only,
and you have no idea what a horrible row there would have been if I
had said anything about it. Committees would have sat upon it, and
the thing would have got into the papers. Fellows would have taken
sides, and I should have been blackguarded by one party for hinting
that a well-known University man had been guilty of foul practices.

"Altogether it would have been a horrible nuisance; it was much
better to keep quiet and say nothing about it."

"I am sure I could not have done that, Captain."

"No, but then you see women are much more impetuous than men. I am
certain that after you had once set the ball rolling, you would
have been sorry that you had not bided your time and waited for
another contest in which you might have turned the tables fairly
and squarely."

"He must be hateful," the girl said.

"He is not considered hateful, I can assure you. He conceived a
grudge against me, and has taken immense pains to pay me out, and I
only trust that our paths will never cross again. If so, I have no
doubt that I shall again get the worst of it. At any rate, you see
I was not without justification when I said that though I did not
believe in the Mal Occhio, I had reason for having some little
superstition about it."

"I prophesy, Captain Mallett, that if ever you meet him in the
future you will turn the tables on him. Such a man as that can
never win in the long run."

"Well, I hope that your prophecy will come true. At any rate I
shall try, and I hope that your good wishes will counterbalance his
power, and that you will be a sort of Mascotte."

"How tiresome!" the girl broke off, as there was a movement among
the ladies. "It is time for us to go up to dress for dinner, and
though I shan't take half the time that some of them will do, I
suppose I must go."

Captain Mallett had six months previously succeeded, at the death
of his father, to an estate five miles from that of Sir John
Greendale. His elder brother had been killed in the hunting field a
few months before, and Frank Mallett, who was fond of his
profession, and had never looked for anything beyond it save a
younger son's portion, had thus come in for a very fine estate.

Two months after his father's death he most reluctantly sent in his
papers, considering it his duty to settle down on the estate; but
ten days later came the news of the outbreak of the Sepoys of
Barrackpoor, and he at once telegraphed to the War Office, asking
to be allowed to cancel his application for leave to sell out.

So far the cloud was a very small one, but rumours of trouble had
been current for some little time, and the affair at least gave him
an excuse for delaying his retirement.

Very rapidly the little cloud spread until it overshadowed India
from Calcutta to the Afghan frontier. His regiment stood some
distance down on the rota for Indian service, but as the news grew
worse regiment after regiment was hurried off, and it now stood
very near the head of the list. All leave had not yet been stopped,
but officers away were ordered to leave addresses, so that they
could be summoned to join at an hour's notice.

When he had left home that morning for a day's shooting with Sir John,
he had ordered a horse to be kept saddled, so that if a telegram came
it could be brought to him without a moment's delay. He was burning to
be off. There had at first been keen disappointment in the regiment
that they were not likely to take part in the fierce struggle; but the
feeling had changed into one of eager expectation, when, as the contest
widened and it was evident that it would be necessary to make the
greatest efforts to save India, the prospect of their employment in the
work grew.

For the last fortnight expectation had been at its height. Orders
had been received for the regiment to hold itself in readiness for
embarkation, men had been called back from furlough, the heavy
baggage had been packed; and all was ready for a start at
twenty-four hours' notice. Many of the officers obtained a few
days' leave to say goodbye to their friends or settle business
matters, and Frank Mallett was among them.

"So I suppose you may go at any moment, Mallett?" said the host at
the dinner table that evening.

"Yes, Sir John, my shooting today has been execrable; for I have
known that at any moment my fellow might ride up with the order for
me to return at once, and we are all in such a fever of impatience,
that I am surprised I brought down a bird at all."

"You can hardly hope to be in time either for the siege of Delhi or
for the relief of Lucknow, Mallett."

"One would think not, but there is no saying. You see, our news is
a month old; Havelock had been obliged to fall back on Cawnpore,
and a perfect army of rebels were in Delhi. Of course, the
reinforcements will soon be arriving, and I don't think it likely
that we shall get up there in time to share in those affairs; but
even if we are late both for Lucknow and Delhi, there will be
plenty for us to do. What with the Sepoy army and with the native
chiefs that have joined them, and the fighting men of Oude and one
thing and another, there cannot be less than 200,000 men in arms
against us; and even if we do take Delhi and relieve Lucknow, that
is only the beginning of the work. The scoundrels are fighting with
halters round their necks, and I have no fear of our missing our
share of the work of winning back India and punishing these
bloodthirsty scoundrels."

"It is a terrible time," Sir John said; "and old as I am, I should
like to be out there to lend a hand in avenging this awful business
at Cawnpore, and the cold-blooded massacres at other places."

"I think that there will be no lack of volunteers, Sir John. If
Government were to call for them I believe that 100,000 men could
be raised in a week."

"Ay, in twenty-four hours; there is scarce a man in England but
would give five years of his life to take a share in the punishment
of the faithless monsters. There was no lack of national feeling in
the Crimean War; but it was as nothing to that which has been
excited by these massacres. Had it been a simple mutiny among the
troops we should all be well content to leave the matter in the
hands of our soldiers; but it is a personal matter to everyone;
rich and poor are alike moved by a burning desire to take part in
the work of vengeance. I should doubt if the country has ever been
so stirred from its earliest history."

"Yes, I fancy we are all envying you, Mallett," one of the other
gentlemen said. "Partridge shooting is tame work in comparison with
that which is going on in India. It was lucky for you that that
first mutiny took place when it did, for had it been a week later
you would probably have been gazetted out before the news came."

"Yes, that was a piece of luck, certainly, Ashurst. I don't know
how I should be feeling if I had been out of it and the regiment on
the point of starting for India."

"I suppose you are likely to embark from Plymouth," said Sir John.

"I should think so, but there is no saying. I hardly fancy that we
should go through France, as some of the regiments have done; there
would be no very great gain of time, especially if we start as far
west as Plymouth. Besides, I have not heard of any transports being
sent round to Marseilles lately. Of course, in any case we shall
have to land at Alexandria and cross the desert to Suez. I should
fancy, now that the advantages of that route have been shown, that
troops in future will always be taken that way. You see, it is only
five weeks to India instead of five months. The situation is bad
enough as it is, but it would have been infinitely worse if no
reinforcements could have got out from England in less than five
months."

"Is there anything that I can do for you while you are away,
Mallett?" Sir John Greendale asked, as they lingered for a moment
after the other gentlemen had gone off to join the ladies.

"Nothing that I know of, thank you. Norton will see that everything
goes on as usual. My father never interfered with him in the
general management of the estate, and had the greatest confidence
in him. I have known him since I was a child, and have always liked
him, so I can go away assured that things will go on as usual. If I
go down, the estate goes, as you know, to a distant cousin whom I
have never seen.

"As to other matters, I have but little to arrange. I have made a
will, so that I shall have nothing to trouble me on that score.
Tranton came over with it this morning from Stroud, and I signed
it."

"That is right, lad; we all hope most sincerely that there will be
no occasion for its provisions to be carried out, but it is always
best that a man should get these things off his mind. Are you going
to say goodbye to us tonight?"

"I shall do it as a precautionary measure, Sir John, but I expect
that when I get the summons I shall have time to drive over here.
My horse will do the distance in five and twenty minutes, and
unless a telegram comes within an hour of the night mail passing
through Stroud, I shall be able to manage it. I saw everything
packed up before I left, and my man will see that everything,
except the portmanteau with the things I shall want on the voyage,
goes on with the regimental baggage."

A quarter of an hour later Captain Mallett mounted his dog cart and
drove home. The next morning he received a letter from the
Adjutant, saying that he expected the order some time during the
next day.

"We are to embark at Plymouth, and I had a telegram this morning
saying that the transport had arrived and had taken her coal on
board. Of course they will get the news at the War Office today,
and will probably wire at once. I think we shall most likely leave
here by a train early the next morning. I shall, of course,
telegraph as soon as the order comes, but as I know that you have
everything ready, you will be in plenty of time if you come on by
the night mail."

At eleven o'clock a mounted messenger from Stroud brought on the
telegram:

"We entrain at six tomorrow morning. Join immediately."

This was but a formal notification, and he resolved to go on by the
night mail. He spent the day in driving round the estate and saying
goodbye to his tenants. He lunched at the house of one of the
leading farmers, where as a boy he had been always made heartily
welcome. Before mounting his dog cart, he stood for a few minutes
chatting with Martha, his host's pretty daughter.

"You are not looking yourself, Martha," he said. "You must pick up
your roses again before I come back. I shall leave the army then,
and give a big dinner to my tenants, with a dance afterwards, and I
shall open the ball with you, and expect you to look your best.

"Who is this?" he asked, as a young fellow came round the corner of
the house, and on seeing them, turned abruptly, and walked off.

"It is George Lechmere, is it not?"

A flash of colour came into the girl's face.

"Ah, I see," he laughed; "he thought I was flirting with you, and
has gone off jealous. Well, you will have no difficulty in making
your peace with him tomorrow.

"Goodbye, child, I must be going. I have a long round to make."

He jumped into the dog cart and drove away, while the girl went
quietly back into the house.

Her father looked up at the clock.

"Two o'clock," he said; "I must be going. I expected George
Lechmere over here. He was coming to talk with me about his
father's twelve-acre meadow. I want it badly this winter, for I
have had more land under the plough than usual this year. I must
either get some pasture or sell off some of my stock."

"George Lechmere came, father," Martha said, with an angry toss of
her head, "but when he saw me talking to Captain Mallett he turned
and went off; just as if I was not to open my lips to any man but
himself."

The farmer would have spoken, but his wife shook her head at him.
George Lechmere had been at one time engaged to Martha, but his
jealousy had caused so many quarrels that the engagement had been
broken off. He still came often to the house, however, and her
parents hoped that it would be renewed; for the young fellow's
character stood high. He was his father's right hand, and would
naturally succeed him to the farm. His parents, too, had heartily
approved of the match. So far, however, the prospect of the young
people coming together was not encouraging. Martha was somewhat
given to flirtation. George was as jealous as ever, and was unable
to conceal his feelings, which, as he had now no right to criticise
her conduct, so angered the girl that she not unfrequently gave
encouragement to others solely to show her indifference to his
opinions.

George Lechmere had indeed gone away with anger in his heart. He
knew that Captain Mallett was on the point of leaving with his
regiment for India, and yet to see him chatting familiarly with
Martha excited in him a passionate feeling of grievance against
her.

"It matters nought who it is," he muttered to himself. "She is ever
ready to carry on with anyone, while she can hardly give me a civil
word when I call. I know that if we were to marry it would be just
the same thing, and that I am a fool to stop here and let it vex
me. It would be better for me to get right out of it. John is old
enough to take my place on the farm. Some of these days I will take
the Queen's shilling. If I were once away I should not be always
thinking of her. I know I am a fool to let a girl trouble me so,
but I can't help it. If I stay here I know that I shall do mischief
either to her or to someone else. I felt like doing it last month
when she was over at that business at Squire Carthew's--he is just
such another one as Captain Mallett, only he is a bad landlord,
while ours is a good one. What made him think of asking all his own
tenantry, and a good many of us round, and getting up a cricket
match and a dance on the grass is more than I can say. He never did
such a thing before in all the ten years since he became master
there. They all noticed how he carried on with Martha, and how she
seemed to like it. It was the talk of everyone there. If I had not
gone away I should have made a fool of myself, though I have no
right to interfere with her, and her father and mother were there
and seemed in no way put out.

"I will go away and have a look at that lot of young cattle I
bought the other day. I don't know that I ever saw a more likely
lot."

It was dark when George returned. On his way home he took a path
that passed near the house whence he had turned away so angrily a
few hours before. It was not the nearest way, but somehow he always
took it, even at hours when there was no chance of his getting the
most distant sight of Martha.

Presently he stopped suddenly, for from behind the wall that
bounded the kitchen garden of the farm he heard voices. A man was
speaking.

"You must make your choice at once, darling, for as I have told you
I am off tomorrow. We will be married as soon as we get there, and
you know you cannot stop here."

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