Through Russian Snows (14 page)

"You can, of course, show this letter to whom you like, but I don't
expect anyone except you and Aunt to believe it. I have hopes of being
cleared some day, for Markham has promised me to write out a full
confession of his shooting Faulkner, and to swear to it before a French
magistrate. He is going to write it in duplicate, and carry one copy
about with him, directed to Colonel Chambers, or the senior magistrate
at Weymouth, and to send the other copy to someone at home, who will
produce it in case of his death in France, or by drowning at sea. I do
not think that, if I get away, I shall return to England until I hear of
his death. I am awfully sorry for you, old fellow, and for Aunt. But
with this frightful accusation hanging over me, I don't think your
position would be better if I were to come back and be hung for murder;
and I see myself that the case is so strong against me that it would
almost certainly come to that if they laid hands on me. I am specially
sorry that this trouble should come upon you now, just as you were going
to try to get a commission, for of course they could hardly give one to
a fellow whose brother is accused of murder, and if they did, your
position in the army would be intolerable. Now, good-bye, dear old
Frank; give my fond love to Aunt, who has always been too good to me. If
I get an opportunity I will write again, but I hardly fancy that I shall
get a chance to do so, as, even if I were free to write I don't see how
letters can be sent from France except through smugglers. God bless you,
old fellow.

"Your unfortunate brother,

"
Julian
."

Happily, by the time he had finished reading the letter, the servant had
succeeded in restoring Mrs. Troutbeck.

"It is exactly what we thought, Aunt. Julian was seized by smugglers,
and has been taken over to France, and I am afraid it will be some time
before he gets back again, especially as he believes that this charge is
hanging over him. I won't read you the letter now, but to-morrow when
you are strong enough you shall read it yourself. I must take it the
first thing in the morning to Colonel Chambers, who will, I am sure, be
very glad to hear that Julian is safe, for I know that he thinks he was
shot by the man he pursued. He will be interested, too, and so will Mr.
Henderson, at seeing how exactly we were right in the conclusions we
arrived at."

Mrs. Troutbeck was quite satisfied with the explanation, and was at once
taken up to bed by the servant, while Frank, seeing that it was as yet
but eight o'clock, put on his cap and ran to Mr. Henderson's. The latter
was at home, and received with great pleasure the news that Julian was
alive. He read the letter through attentively.

"If we had seen the whole thing happen, we could not have been closer
than we were in our conclusion as to how it all came about. Well, the
news that it is Markham who shot Mr. Faulkner does not surprise me, for,
as you know, I have already a warrant out against him on the charge. I
fear that there is little chance that we shall lay hands on him now, for
he will doubtless learn from some of his associates here of the evidence
given at the coroner's inquest, and that your brother has been proved
altogether innocent of the crime. I can understand that, believing, as
he did, the evidence against Mr. Wyatt to be overwhelming, he had no
great objection to his giving his name; for, as the matter then stood,
your brother's story would only have been regarded as the attempt of a
guilty man to fix the blame of his crime on another. As it has turned
out, the letter is a piece of important evidence that might be produced
against Markham, for all the statements in it tally with the facts we
have discovered for ourselves. Still I congratulate you most heartily. I
certainly thought that your brother had been murdered, though our
efforts to find any traces of the crime have failed altogether. I am
afraid, as he says, it will be a long time before he manages to get
away; still, that is a comparatively unimportant matter, and all that I
can hope is that this fellow Markham will come to a speedy end. Of
course you will show this letter to everyone, for now that nobody
believes for a moment that your brother was Mr. Faulkner's murderer,
everyone will be glad to hear that the mystery is cleared up, and that
he is simply in France instead of being, as all supposed, buried in some
hole where his body would never be discovered.

"All that can possibly be said against him now is that he behaved
rashly in following a desperate man instead of coming back to us for
assistance; but I quite see that, under the circumstance of his
relations with the magistrate, he was doubly anxious to bring the
latter's murderer to justice, and, as we now know, the latter would
certainly have got away unsuspected had your brother not acted as he
did."

Colonel Chambers was equally pleased when Frank called upon him the next
morning, and begged him, after showing the letter to his friends, to
hand it over to him for safe keeping, as, in the event of Markham ever
being arrested, it would be valuable, if not as evidence, as affording
assistance to the prosecution.

"Do you think, Colonel Chambers, that they will be able to keep Julian
away for a long time?"

"If his supposition is a correct one, and they intend to hand him over
to the French authorities as a prisoner of war, it may be a long time
before you hear of him. There are many towns all over France where
English prisoners are confined, and it would be practically impossible
to find out where he is, or to obtain his release if you did find out,
while the two nations are at war. There are very few exchanges made, and
the chances of his being among them would be very small. However, lad,
things might have been a great deal worse. This tremendous war cannot go
on for ever. Your brother is strong and healthy; he seems to be, from
all I hear, just the sort of fellow who would take things easily, and
although the lot of prisoners of war, whether in England or France,
cannot be called a pleasant one, he has a fairer chance than most, of
going through it unharmed.

"The experience may be of benefit to him. Of course, when this matter
first began, I made close enquiries in several quarters as to his
character and habits. I need not say that I heard nothing whatever
against him; but there was a sort of consensus of opinion that it was a
pity that he had not some pursuit or occupation. As you know, he mixed
himself up to some extent with smugglers, he spent his evenings
frequently in billiard-rooms, and altogether, though there was nothing
absolutely against him, it was clear that he was doing himself no good."

"He had given up the billiard-table," Frank said. "He promised me that
he would not go there any more, and I am sure he wouldn't."

"I am glad to hear it, lad; still I think that this experience will do
him good rather than harm. He was a kindly, good-tempered, easy-going
young fellow, a little deficient, perhaps, in strength of will, but very
generally liked, and with the making of a fine man about him; and yet he
was likely, from sheer easiness of temper and disinclination to settle
down to anything, to drift with the stream till he ruined his life. That
is how I read his character from what I have heard of him, and that
being so, I think this complete break in his life may ultimately be of
considerable benefit to him."

"Perhaps it will, sir. A better brother never lived, but he may have
been too ready to fall in with other people's views. I think that it was
a very great pity that he did not apply for a commission in the army."

"A great pity," Colonel Chambers agreed. "A young fellow who will start
in pursuit of a desperate man who is armed with a gun, would be the sort
of fellow to lead a forlorn hope. And what are you going to do, Frank?"

"I am going to try and get a commission, sir, now that Julian is
completely cleared. I shall set about it at once. I am sixteen now.
Colonel Wilson, with whom my father served in Spain, wrote at his death,
and said that if either of us wished for a commission, he would, when
the time came, use his influence to get him one, and that after father's
services he was sure there would be no difficulty about it."

"None whatever. Colonel Wyatt's sons have almost a right to a
commission. If you will write to Sir Robert Wilson at once, and let me
know when you get his reply, I will write to a friend at the
Horse-guards and get him to back up the request as soon as it is sent
in."

Three weeks later Frank received an official document, informing him
that he had been gazetted to the 15th Light Dragoons, and was to join
the depot of his regiment at Canterbury immediately. Mrs. Troutbeck had
been consulted by Frank before he wrote to Colonel Sir R. Wilson. As it
had, since Julian decided not to enter the army, been a settled thing
that Frank should apply for a commission, she had offered no objection.

"It is only right, my dear," she said, with tears in her eyes and a
little break in her voice, "that one of my dear brother's sons should
follow in his footsteps. I know that he always wished you both to join
the army, and as Julian had no fancy for it, I am glad that you should
go. Of course it will be a trial, a great trial to me; but a young man
must go on his own path, and it would be wrong indeed for an old woman
like me to stand in his way."

"I don't know, Aunt, that it is so. That is my only doubt about applying
for the commission. I can't help thinking that it is my duty to stay
with you until Julian comes back."

"Not at all, Frank. It would make me much more unhappy seeing you
wasting your life here, than in knowing you were following the course
you had marked for yourself. I shall do very well. Mary is a very good
and attentive girl, and I shall get another in to do most of her work,
so that she can sit with me and be a sort of companion. Then, you know,
there are very few afternoons that one or other of my friends do not
come in for an hour for a gossip or I go in to them. I take a good deal
of blame to myself for all this trouble that has come to Julian. I think
that if, three years ago, I had pressed it upon him that he ought to go
into the army, he would have done so; but certainly anything that I did
say was rather the other way, and since he has gone I see how wrong I
was, and I certainly won't repeat the mistake with you. Even now Julian
may come back long before you go. I don't mean before you go away from
here, but before you go out to join your regiment, wherever that may be.
You are sure to be a few months at the depôt, and you know we have
agreed to write letters to Julian, telling him that the matter is all
cleared up, and that everyone knows he had nothing to do with the
murder, so of course he will try to escape as soon as he gets one of
them."

"Yes, when he gets one, Aunt. I will give the letters to men who are, I
know, connected with the smugglers, and possibly they may be taken over,
but that is a very different thing from his getting them. We may be sure
that the smugglers who have taken Julian over will not trouble
themselves about detaining him. They would never go to all the bother of
keeping and watching him for years. If they keep him at all it will be
on board their craft, but that would be a constant trouble, and they
would know that sooner or later he would be able to make his escape. If
they have handed him over to the French authorities he may have been
taken to a prison hundreds of miles from Nantes, and the smugglers would
not know where he was and would be unable to send a letter to him. No,
Aunt, I feel confident that Julian will come home, but I am afraid that
it will be a long time first, for as to his escaping from prison, there
is no chance whatever of it. There are numbers of English officers
there; many of them must be able to speak French well, and the naval
officers are able to climb ropes and things of that sort that Julian
could not do. It is very rare indeed that any of them, even with these
advantages, make their escape, and therefore I cannot hope that Julian
will be able to do so."

"Well, then, my dear, I must wait patiently until he does. I only hope
that I may be spared to see him back again."

"I am sure I hope so, Aunt. Why should you always call yourself an old
woman? when you know that you are not old in years. Why, you said last
birthday that you were fifty-nine, and it is only because you are such a
hand at staying indoors, and live such a quiet life, that it makes you
think yourself old. I should think this war won't last very much longer.
If it does all the men in Europe will be used up. Of course, as soon as
peace is made Julian will be sent home again."

The same day that the post brought Frank the news of his commission, it
brought a letter from Colonel Wilson saying that he was at present in
town, and giving him a warm invitation to come up and stay with him for
a week, while he procured his necessary outfit. A fortnight later Frank
arrived in town and drove to Buckingham Street, where Colonel Wilson was
lodging. He received Frank very kindly, and when the lad would have
renewed the thanks he had expressed in the letter he had written on
receiving the news of his having obtained his commission, the Colonel
said:

"It was a duty as well as a pleasure. Your father saved my life at
Aboukir. I had been unhorsed and was guarding myself as well as I could
against four French cuirassiers, who were slashing away at me, when your
father rode into the middle of them, cut one down and wounded a second,
which gave me time to snatch a pistol from the holster of my fallen
horse and to dispose of a third, when the other rode off. Your father
got a severe sabre wound on the arm and a slash across the face. Of
course, you remember the scar. So you see the least I could do, was to
render his son any service in my power. I managed to get you gazetted to
my old regiment, that is to say, my first regiment, for I have served in
several. I thought, in the first place, my introduction would to some
extent put you at home there. In the second, a cavalry man has the
advantage over one in a marching regiment that he learns to ride well,
and is more eligible for staff appointments. As you know, I myself have
done a great deal of what we call detached service, and it is probable
that I may in the future have similar appointments, and, if so, I may
have an opportunity of taking you with me as an aide. Those sort of
appointments are very useful. They not only take one out of the routine
of garrison life and enable one to see the world, but they bring a young
officer's name prominently forward, and give him chances of
distinguishing himself. Therefore I, as an old cavalry man, should much
prefer taking an assistant from the same branch, and indeed would almost
be expected to do so. From what I hear, I think that, apart from my
friendship for your father, you are the kind of young fellow I should
like with me."