Through Russian Snows (44 page)

"I will carry out the commission that you have given me to the best of
my abilities, Count; and will endeavour to act as if my brother was an
entire stranger."

"Thank you greatly, Mr. Wyatt. I agree with you that if you dismiss
altogether from your mind the fact that your brother is interested in
the matter, and that you regard yourself as simply carrying out a
business transaction as our agent, it will simplify matters greatly. I
don't wish you to have the trouble of the actual details. I shall write
myself to our ambassador, who is a personal friend of mine, and request
him, as soon as he hears from you, to instruct an English lawyer to
carry out all the business part of the arrangement."

The journey across Finland was a very pleasant one. Both were in high
spirits. The cloud that had hung over Julian had been dispelled, and
Frank's constant anxiety about him had been laid to rest. They had gone
safely through the most wonderful campaign of modern times, and were now
on their way home. Julian's supply of money was untouched save for the
purchase of a variety of presents for his aunt. They travelled only by
day. The carriage was constructed with all conveniences for sleeping in,
and when, on their arrival at the end of their day's journey, they
returned from a stroll down the town to an excellent dinner prepared by
their servant, they had but to turn in for a comfortable night's rest in
the vehicle. At Abo they found their baggage awaiting them.

"By Jove! Julian," Frank said laughing, as he looked at the great pile
of trunks in the post-house, "one would think that you were carrying the
whole contents of a household. Those modest tin cases comprise my share
of that pile."

"It is tremendous!" Julian said almost ruefully. "I feel quite ashamed
to turn up with such an amount of baggage. The first thing we must do,
as soon as we get back, is to effect a division. I am afraid that my
outside clothes will be of no use to you—they would require entire
remaking; but all the other things will fit you as well as me. I do
believe that there are enough to last me my life-time; and it will be
downright charity to relieve me of some of them. You may imagine my
stupefaction when I came back one day to the count's and found my room
literally filled with clothes."

"I will help you a bit," Frank laughed. "The campaign has pretty well
destroyed all my kit, and I shan't be too proud to fill up from your
abundance."

They found that the servant who had preceded them with the baggage had
already made all the arrangements for their crossing the gulf. The
extreme cold had everywhere so completely frozen the sea that there was
no difficulty in crossing, which, they learned, was not often the case.
Three sledges had been engaged for their transport. The distance was
about 120 miles; but it was broken by the islands of the Aland
Archipelago, and upon one or other of these they could take refuge in
the event of any sudden change of weather. They were to start at
midnight, and would reach Bomarsund, on the main island of Aland, on the
following evening, wait there for twenty-four hours to rest the animals,
and would reach the mainland the next day.

The frost continued unbroken, and they crossed the gulf without
difficulty, travelled rapidly across Sweden, and reached England without
adventure of any kind. They waited for a day in London. Frank carried
despatches from Sir Robert Wilson, and was occupied at the War Office
all day, having a very long interview with the minister, to whom he gave
a much more detailed account of the campaign than had been given in the
general's reports. The minister expressed much satisfaction at the
information he afforded, and said at the conclusion of the interview:

"Sir Robert has spoken several times as to your services, and I am happy
to inform you that your name will appear in the next gazette as promoted
to the rank of captain. I consider that the manner in which you devoted
yourself to the acquisition of the Russian language was most highly
meritorious, and I wish that many young officers would similarly acquire
foreign or oriental languages. I trust that you will thoroughly recover
your health, so as to be able to rejoin Sir Robert Wilson by the time
that the troops take the field again. The campaign is likely to be a
most important, and—we have great grounds for hoping—a final one."

Before leaving the building Frank found out where Strelinski was at
work. He was engaged in translating a mass of Russian documents. He rose
from his seat with an exclamation of delight when he saw Frank, who,
after a short chat, asked him to come that evening to his hotel. He
there learned that the Pole was getting on very well. His knowledge of
German as well as of Russian had been very valuable to him; his salary
had already been raised, and he was now at the head of a small
department, having two of his countrymen and three Germans under him,
and his future in the office was quite assured.

"The work is somewhat hard," he said, "for when a ship comes in from
Germany or Russia we are often at work all night, sometimes
eight-and-forty hours at a stretch, but we are all paid overtime. The
work is pleasant and interesting, and your officials are good enough to
say that we get through a wonderful amount in the time, and the minister
has twice expressed his approbation to me. Ah, Mr. Wyatt, how much do I
owe to you and the good general?"

"I owe fully as much to you as you owe to me, Strelinski," Frank said.
"Putting aside the interest there has been in witnessing such mighty
events, it has been a splendid thing for me in my profession. I shall be
gazetted captain this week, while I am pretty sure of a brevet majority
at the end of the next campaign, and of further employment in the same
line afterwards."

Julian was not present at the interview. He had never been in London
before, and after spending the day in strolling through the streets and
visiting the principal sights, had gone to a theatre, leaving Frank to
talk with the Pole. The latter had not left when Julian returned. He and
Frank had found such an abundance of subjects to talk about that they
were scarcely aware how the time had passed. The latter proposed that
they should go to one of the fashionable taverns to supper. Julian would
have excused himself, but Frank insisted on his accompanying him. As
they were sitting there, two gentlemen passed by their table. One of
them stared hard at Frank, and then with an angry exclamation turned
away. Then Strelinski said:

"That is your old antagonist, unless I am mistaken, Mr. Wyatt. You
pointed him out to me once when I was in barracks with you, and I
thought I remembered his face; that empty sleeve assures me that it is
him."

Frank nodded.

"What is that?" Julian asked.

"Oh, it is nothing," his brother said hastily.

"No, no, Mr. Wyatt, it was a grand thing. Has not your brother told you
of it, Mr. Julian?"

"No, he has told me nothing about an antagonist."

"You do not know, then, that Mr. Frank may claim to be the finest pistol
shot in the British army."

Julian looked at his brother in astonishment. "I did not know that you
had ever fired a pistol in your life, Frank."

"I practised pretty hard while I was at Canterbury," Frank answered. "I
suppose that I had a good eye for it, and certainly came to be what you
would call a good shot, though I dare say there are others just as good.
I got involved in a quarrel with the man who has just passed me, who was
a captain in the Lancers, and a notorious bully and duellist. We went
out. I hit him in the hand, and he lost his arm above the elbow, and
there was the end of it."

"Perhaps you will be kind enough to tell me a little more about it, Mr.
Strelinski," Julian said, turning to the Pole, and in spite of a growl
from Frank that there was nothing to tell, the Pole related the whole
circumstances of the quarrel, the feeling that had been excited by it,
Frank's expressed determination not to inflict serious injury upon the
man but to carry away his trigger-finger only, and so put an end to his
duels in the future, and the manner in which his intention was carried
out.

"Well, I congratulate you, Frank, very heartily," Julian said, when
Strelinski had finished. "Why on earth did you not tell me about this
before?"

"Really, Julian, there was nothing to tell about. It was a disagreeable
incident altogether, and I considered then, as I have considered since,
that it was hardly fair of me to go out with him when I was so certain
of my shooting, and it was a hundred to one in my favour. I should never
have done it if he had not forced the quarrel upon young Wilmington; for
the young fellow must either have gone out, which would have been
throwing away his life, or left the service."

"Unfair, my dear Frank! why the man himself had always relied upon his
superior skill, and you were able to beat him at his own game. Well, I
wish I could shoot as well. However, as I am not going to do any more
soldiering, I don't know that it would be of much use to me; still I
should like to be able to do it."

The next morning they started by coach for Weymouth, leaving Julian's
heavier luggage to follow by carrier waggon. Mrs. Troutbeck's joy, when
her two nephews arrived together, for a time completely overpowered her,
and smelling salts and other restoratives had to be brought into play
before she recovered. The event created quite an excitement in Weymouth.
The appearance of Frank's name so frequently in Sir Robert Wilson's
despatches had been a source of pride to the whole town, and especially
to his old school-fellows, while the clearing up of the mystery that had
so long hung over Julian's fate was no less interesting. The sympathy
with him was so great and general that no one was surprised or shocked
that, under the circumstances, he had been driven to enlist in the
French army, and had taken part in the Russian campaign. Indeed, the
fact that he had been one of Ney's celebrated division, whose bravery
had excited general admiration, was considered a feather in his cap,
especially when it became known that he had been awarded the Cross of
the Legion of Honour by Napoleon himself. Had not the brothers received
the proposal most unfavourably, a public dinner would have been got up
to celebrate their return.

"Well, Julian, you will have to settle what you mean to do with
yourself," Frank said one day. "You can never settle down here without
any occupation whatever, after what you have gone through."

"No, I quite feel that, Frank. I have had enough of soldiering; that one
campaign is enough for a life time. I really can hardly make up my mind
what to do. Aunt was speaking to me yesterday afternoon when you were
out. The dear old soul said that it was nonsense for me to wait for her
death, wasting my life here, and that she was anxious to hand me over at
once half her money. She said that that would be £10,000, and with the
£8,000—my share of father's money—I could then buy an estate."

"It would be the best thing you could do, Julian, but, of course, there
is no hurry about it. What part of the country would you prefer to
settle in?"

"I don't know, Frank, I have never thought much about it. I don't think
I should choose anywhere near Weymouth, and I would rather go to a
flatter country, and a better wooded one. If I bought land, I should
like to have land that I could cultivate myself, so as to give me an
interest in it, and I should like, after a time, to be on the bench,
which would give one a good deal of occupation. I suppose I shall marry
some day, and so would prefer to be within reach of a town. I should
think, from what you say, the country round Canterbury must be pretty.
There is a garrison there, Dover is within reach, and it is a good deal
more handy for getting up to town than it is from here. However, as you
say, there is plenty of time for me to think about that."

Mrs. Troutbeck was, as Julian had predicted, astounded upon the arrival
of his baggage. "I never saw such a thing!" she exclaimed, as trunk
after trunk was carried into the house. "That Russian count of yours,
Julian, must be a little cracked, I should think. Why, my dear boy, if
you were to get stout what in the world would you do with all these
things?"

"That is a contingency I have never thought of, Aunt. You quite frighten
me. I must go in for a course of severe exercise to prevent the chance
of such a thing occurring."

"You might take to shooting," Mrs. Troutbeck said doubtfully; "and I am
sure that at present there is not a gentleman round who would not be
glad to give you a day's shooting."

"I have done enough shooting, Aunt," Julian said gravely. "It was the
means of my getting into a bad scrape here. In Russia it was often part
of my duty to shoot dying horses, to say nothing of shooting men, and I
have no desire ever to take a gun in my hands again. I have looked up my
old friend Bill, and shall take to sailing again, but I will promise you
that I will keep clear of smugglers."

Two days later Frank announced his intention of going up to London for a
few days, as he thought he had better offer to be of any assistance he
could at the War Office. He was away for nearly three weeks, and on his
return mentioned that he had run down to Canterbury, and had seen some
of his old friends at the depôt. A fortnight later he received a bulky
letter from town, and in the course of the day asked his aunt if she
felt equal to taking a journey with him.

"A journey, my dear!" she repeated in surprise. "Where do you want to go
to?"

"Well, Aunt, I want to go to London in the first place; we will travel
by post-chaise, so that everything will be comfortable; afterwards we
may go somewhere else. I can't tell you anything about it now; it is a
little secret. But I do very much want you and Julian to go with me."

"Then, of course we will, my dear," the old lady said. "I should very
much like to visit London again, and see the theatres and shows. What do
you say, Julian?"