Silence! A peaceful smile rested on the lips of his fallen comrade, but no sound came from them,—no sound would ever come from them again. Shot straight through the heart, death had been instantaneous, and Ferrers, dropping on his knees by the slain man, broke out sobbing, and was not ashamed of his tears. He cared nothing if the same Boer marksman who had “picked out” one of the King’s bravest officers with such deadly aim should make for him as well. Almost he hoped for the same fate, and once or twice looked longingly towards the ridge from whence the fatal bullet had sped. But there was not a creature in sight,—whoever it was that had hit his mark so well had retired, apparently satisfied,—and the unkind sun blazed fierce and furnace-like through clear and smokeless ether. With the salt drops of sorrow blistering his cheeks, poor “Dandy” reverently composed the limbs of the dead, and, crossing the yet warm hands upon the breast, unsheathed the sword that had so often flashed aloft in fight, as a signal of courage and of victory, and laid it, hilt heart-wards, between the stiffening fingers. Then planting his own rifle upright in the ground to mark and guard the spot till he could return with help to bear the body into camp, he paused.
“Good-bye, Jack!” he said hoarsely—and with a simple boyish tenderness he kissed the dead man’s forehead—“Good-bye! You said you didn’t care much—and—considering everything—I don’t suppose you did. But you got your V.C.! And God knows you deserved it!”
The same evening that saw the Colonel’s body wrapped in a soldier’s blanket and committed to a South African grave, “the beautiful Mrs. Arteroyd,” as she was now admittedly and eagerly entitled, owing to the proud fact of having been seen seated next to His Highness of Dummer-Esel, scored a great “social” success. Her verses, “Tommy’s Gal,” were received with hysterical enthusiasm, and the collection made in Mrs. Long-Adder’s hat after the recitation amounted to two or three hundred pounds. An enterprising newspaper proprietor offered to buy the manuscript and “run it up to auction” for one of the Tommy-Funds, which offer Mrs. Arteroyd condescendingly accepted. And then, a classic wreath of laurels, tied with the English colours, was presented to her by Prince Dummer-Esel himself with his own hands, accompanied by the gracious words—
“You must keep your laurels for your husband, Mrs. Arteroyd! Add them to his V.C.!—ha—ha—! Add them to his V.C.!”
It was a proud moment! Expanding with her inward sense of elation, she received the garland with a studied affectation of graceful humility, and curtsied beneath the sunshine of the princely smile. Then, swinging the wreath picturesquely on one arm, she raised her head, flashed her eyes, and glanced round with an air of amused indifference on all the unsuccessful and discomfited women present, and in honey-sweet tones accepted an invitation to a private little supper-party at which His Highness of Dummer-Esel—with Mrs. Long-Adder—would be present, on a certain evening in the coming week. But—
Unfortunately there is always a “but.” And it most often comes in when it is least wanted. Solomon’s lament on the vanity of human wishes is the universal daily moan. And the disappointments which sometimes (though not half often enough) fall to the lot of society-schemers and notoriety-hunters, almost call for a new Solomon to bewail them. Only two days after her triumph, when “the beautiful Mrs. Arteroyd” was just pleasantly engaged in reading a glowing description of herself and her gown in a favourite pictorial “weekly,” a telegram, not of the appearance of every-day telegrams, was handed to her. Its envelope was red. Her heart gave a sudden leap of fear as she tore it open. Its contents were brief, and were dated from the War Office.
“Deeply regret—Colonel John Arteroyd, V.C. Killed. Ladysmith.”
And Colonel John Arteroyd’s widow stood rigid and tearless. Her “society” laurels were withered. She would have to “look her worst in black” after all!
