In a few minutes more the affectionate effusiveness of the welcome home accorded him by his mother and his tender sister consoled him, but it contrasted in his mind powerfully and painfully with that of his cousin; yet he could scarcely expect that she would have flung her soft arms round his neck and kissed him again and again with hungry affection on both cheeks as they did.
'The pater, dear old fellow, will be home in the course of a day or two,' said he. 'Mr. Holcroft is coming with him, and Stratherroch, of Ours, too,' he added.
He noticed that Eveline's pale cheek coloured for a moment at the name of the latter.
'Ah, you know him, it seems?' said he.
'Yes, very well,' replied Eveline, frankly.
'He has been at home with the dépôt lately. A right good sort is Evan Cameron, but desperately hard up, poor lad. I often think he will have to exchange for India or something of that kind, though it would break his heart to leave the Black Watch.'
Eveline's long lashes drooped as her brother said this, all unconscious that his casual remarks were secretly wounding her.
The expression he could plainly detect in the sweet and expressive face of his sister at the mention of Evan Cameron gave Allan some occasion for thought.
He loved and esteemed his friend and brother-officer, but felt it would be a serious misfortune indeed if any affection took root between him and Eveline; for Evan was poor, as we have hinted, his estate valueless to him, and 'at nurse;' and there was, moreover, a necessity for Eveline making a wealthy marriage—indeed, her father, Lord Aberfeldie, had already a suitor in view for her.
'I am so sorry that our dear Olive is out,' said Allan's mother, breaking a little pause; 'but we knew not at what hour to expect you.'
'I met her in the avenue——'
'And you knew each other—how strange!' exclaimed Lady Aberfeldie, with a brightening face.
'Yes, after a minute or two. She seems as charming a girl as one—to use a soldier's phrase—might see in the longest day's march.'
'And such she is. She did not turn back with you?'
'No, mother,' he replied, with hesitation.
'But she was, of course, glad to see you?'
'I can't say that she was particularly, mater dear; and she got into a regular pet because I dared to kiss her, even in a cousinly way.'
'Dared, my darling boy!' exclaimed his mother, indignantly.
'Fact, mater,' said the Master, smiling and twirling up the ends of his long dark moustaches.
Lady Aberfeldie and her daughter exchanged a swift and mutual glance; but the latter knew more of the views of the young lady in question than the former did.
'I am glad you are pleased with Olive,' said she; 'and when your acquaintance is fully resumed you will find the dear girl all you could wish.'
'She has wonderful blue-grey eyes; they seem violet-blue when she smiles, and black when she is angry.'
'Angry?' said Lady Aberfeldie, inquiringly.
'Well, she rather looked so when I ventured to kiss her in the avenue,' said Allan, laughing, and referring to a kiss that, though snatched, he was never to forget, perhaps, in the long years that were to come.
'She has grown the very image of her mother, your poor Aunt Muriel, who was one of my bridesmaids.'
By visits to the minister's manse and elsewhere Olive had wilfully and petulantly contrived to protract her absence from home to the last moment; the dressing-bell had rung, and before dinner she was hastily giving a few touches to her costume—not that she cared to attract her cousin (quite the reverse)—but she dismissed her foreign maid, Clairette Patchouli, on a sign that Eveline wished to talk with her alone.
'Now, Olive,' began the latter, 'that you have seen Allan——'
'I saw him years ago,' interrupted Olive, pettishly.
'He was a boy then; but now that he is a man, and not the boy you remember, what do you think of him?'
Olive made no reply, but continued to slip her bangles on the whitest, roundest, and most taper pair of arms that ever bewildered the senses of man.
'Isn't he very handsome?' persisted Eveline.
'To partial eyes, perhaps, but there are plenty of men in the world quite as handsome—even more so, I doubt not. I like him already, but don't let him think so; besides, I also like our English visitor, Mr. Holcroft.'
'I donot!' said Eveline, decisively.
'Why?'
'He is horsey in bearing, and his face, though handsome, I grant you, often wears a sinister, sharp, and supercilious expression.'
'How tanned Allan is by the Indian sun!'
'I think his face and head both grand and handsome!' exclaimed his sister, with affectionate enthusiasm; 'he quite reminds me of the old Greeks.'
'I was not aware you knew any of them,' laughed Olive.
'Their sculptures, I mean,' replied Eveline, as they swept down the great staircase to the dining-room.
A few days had now passed since Allan Graham's return to Dundargue, but he seemed—though greatly attracted by his cousin Olive, and in a manner compelled to think of her as something more than a mere cousin—to make no progress in her favour at all. Sometimes he smoked beside her in utter silence, while she swung in a hammock between two trees on the lawn, deep—or affecting to be so—in the last three-volume novel that had come in the box from Edinburgh; and, when they stole furtive glances at each other, his were curious and hers, under the shadow of her gorgeous Japanese umbrella, were hostile, defiant at least, and thus not without a certain drollery; but few remarks were interchanged of a more exciting nature than that 'the weather was lovely,' or 'the leaves were falling.'
In these days, and for long after, Olive was terribly uncertain in her moods, and to Allan Graham it seemed at times as if she almost disliked him.
When they were alone together, which was seldom, she scarcely spoke to him, and thus his enforced silence disposed her to be more silent still. To Olive the whole situation was one of miserable unrest; she felt that there was something grotesque in it, and she longed intensely to be anywhere else than at Dundargue.
While Allan, admiring her rare beauty and pretty, petulant ways, was already learning to love her, he found his tongue loaded, as it were, tied up, and his tenderness cramped by the strange tenor of her father's will, which made him feel that, love her as he might, that love would never seem pure, or without the taint of selfishness.
He had procured for her at Malta a complete suite of gold and pearl-mounted Maltese jewellery, the best that could be found in the Strada San Paoli, costing him more than even he could well afford; but now so cold and repellant was her demeanour that he had not the courage as yet to present the elaborate trinkets—so rich in fretwork and fine as a gossamer web—so they were left to repose in their purple velvet cases.
Yet his thoughts about her were becoming persistent now. Times there were when he conceived that he would treat her judiciously, but tenderly, and in such a fashion that her feelings must slide into a species of sisterly, or at least cousinly, interest in him; but then—at these times—a flash of her dark grey-blue eyes cast these intentions to the winds, though Allan began to feel nothing but passionate love for her.
To him, as to her, the situation imparted an awkwardness now, that of course he had never been conscious of when a boy. He did not want the money of his cousin or of anyone else, as he muttered to himself while tugging and twisting his thick, dark moustache; and thus, with all the tenderness that was growing in his heart for Olive, he often unconsciously adopted towards her a studied courtesy and almost indifferent bearing that somewhat galled her ready pride, and made her think 'this indifference to me, and the beauty all men aver I possess, can only spring from a love he bears some one else; and, with that love in his heart, he seems actually ready to conform to the outrageous wishes of papa!'
And more convinced of this suspicion did she become when she found that he evinced no more desire to seek her society than that of his mother or sister; but this was the result of her own bearing.
Allan was ere long in sore perplexity. The slightest attempt at tenderness she repelled or seemed to shrink from, as a sensitive plant shrinks from the touch; and, on the other hand, the lack of it seemed to increase her coldness and rouse her sense of pride.
'What the deuce is the meaning of this?' muttered Allan, as he chanced upon a volume one day. It was a very handsome and expensive edition of some of Byron's poems, which had been given by Hawke Holcroft to Olive as a birthday gift, and on turning over the leaves of which he found innumerable paragraphs and lines pencilled on pages that seemed to fall naturally open, where these marks, all of which referred to love and passion, were most plentiful.
All of these seemed to have been selected with an ulterior view for her perusal and study. Allan knit his brows and tossed the volume to the other side of the table.
'So, so,' thought he, 'Cousin Olive has had a guide for her reading, and the guide is that fellow Holcroft. He has made good use of his time, hang him!'
Olive, who had been watching him under the deep fringes of her eyes, smiled when she saw the action, and, instantly divining the reason of it, resolved not to leave her Byron lying about in future; and now a new mood seized her.
'Tell me, Allan,' she said, suddenly looking up from a piece of music she was studying, 'did you ever think of me at all when you were all these years far away in India?'
'Have you forgotten what I told you on the evening we met on the lawn?' said he, reproachfully, yet surprised by her taking the initiative in a conversation, especially of this kind. 'Often, indeed, did I think of you!'
'How—in what fashion?'
'As my merry little playmate when I was a mere youth—the droll girl to whom I was somehow tied up under Uncle Raymond's will.'
'You phrase it rightly,' said she, biting her coral nether lip. 'Tied up; yes, but I won't be so. Yet you did think of me as a droll little playmate?'
'Yes; how else could I think of you? Not as the lovely girl I find you now, Olive.'
'You may know by this time that I hate all flattery,' said she, blushing hotly at what she had brought upon herself by a blunt reference to a hitherto ignored subject—their mutual relation to each other.
'I have here a gift I brought you from India,' observed Allan, timidly, as he unlocked his desk and thought of the Maltese ornaments, but did not dare refer to them as yet.
'A gift?' said she, coldly, with face half averted.
'A little silver idol of Siva, beautifully carved and chased—will you accept of it?'
'Thanks—with pleasure,' said she, trembling lest it had been a ring. 'How curious, and yet how grotesquely hideous it is!' she added, turning it round, and then balancing it in the white palm of a slim and delicate hand.
'And rather a curious story attends it—if you care to hear.'
'Please to tell me,' said she, her curiosity roused. 'Why, the funny thing has ever so many heads, and a dozen of arms at least!'
'We were in cantonments at Hurdwur, in Delhi,' said Allan, glad to secure her attention even for a few minutes, 'when a subadar-major of the 10th Native Infantry, a disciple of Siva, wishing to sacrifice to his little idol, placed it by the bank of the river there, which is one of the greatest places for Hindoo purification, and the resort of thousands of pilgrims from every part of Hindostan. While he turned aside to get the ghee with which to anoint it, some person adroitly carried it off. After searching for it in vain, with consternation in his soul, the unfortunate subadar-major went to the priest of the nearest temple, and, with tears in his eyes, related his loss.
'"Dog!" exclaimed the priest, "you have lost your god, and must prepare to die, for death alone can soothe the wrath of Siva."
'"If die I must," replied the wretched subadar-major, with clasped hands and trembling knees, though a brave man, as the medals on his breast proved, "it shall be by drowning in the holy river; so come with me to the edge thereof, and give me your blessing."
'The priest consented, and followed him to the Ganges, into which he went deliberately.
'"Be courageous, my son—die with joy, and perfect happiness awaits you," exclaimed the priest.
'"My dear master," said the subadar, "before I perish, lend meyourgod that I may adore it—the water is already up to my neck."
'The priest consented, and handed his idol to the subadar-major, who, as if by accident, let it drop in the deep water.
'"Ah! master," he exclaimed, as if in horror and dismay, "what a new misfortune! Your god is also lost, and so we must die together—for you must drown, too, and go with me to the throne of Siva!"
'And, approaching the priest, he strove to grasp the hand of the latter, who stood pale and trembling on the lowest step of the ghaut or landing-place.
'"What trash do you speak?" the priest suddenly exclaimed, in great wrath; "can there be any harm in losing a little image of baked clay, not worth an anna! I have dozens of such in my temple close by; let us each choose one, and keep silence on the subject!"
'The subadar did so then, but chose this fine silver one, which he bestowed on me for kindness shown to him when dying of a wound received in a skirmish, and I brought it home as a bauble for you, Cousin Olive.'
She placed the idol on the table, and remained silent, while Allan eyed her wistfully.
'Why is my presence so distasteful to you?' he asked, after a minute's pause.
'Distasteful! Oh! Allan, don't say so,' said she, impressed by the pathos of his tone, but for a moment only; 'it is you who think, or seem to think so.'
'Olive!' he exclaimed, a little impatiently and reproachfully as he drew near her.
'There—there—that will do,' said she, starting up, 'don't bring down the ceiling on me—auntie more than all!'
And she swept from the room, leaving the idol behind her.
Allan sighed with annoyance, and addressed her no more during the whole of that day. She was conscious of this, for she remarked to Lady Aberfeldie in the evening,
'How odd—how strange Cousin Allan is to me!'
'Strange?'
'Yes, aunt.'
'I know not what you mean, Olive,' she replied, a little gravely and severely; 'but to me it seems that you are always strange, and not my son, the Master.'
Lady Aberfeldie had a soft, but set face of the classic type, with a mouth that, though beautiful and aristocratic, could become very fixed in expression at times, and it seemed so now to Olive, thus that young lady withdrew.
'Our Allan is young and handsome, noble and most unselfishly in love with her, as I am beginning to hope, Eveline, so what more would Olive Raymond wish for?' said Lady Aberfeldie to her daughter.
'She would have that, which she has not, mamma, perfect freedom to accept or refuse whom she chose. Unselfish in love I know Allan must be; but that is precisely the point which Olive is left to doubt.'
'Wherefore?'
'Through that unlucky will, which makes a kind of bondswoman of her.'
'I would to heaven the silly document had never been framed! I have often feared that it might lead to all our attention, care, and affection being misconstrued by her; but Allan might have been sickly, weakly, even deformed, and, with the terms of this will hanging over her, what would she have thought then?'
'Then, as I have heard her say, the will might be reduced by a court of law.'
At this reply a clouded expression came into the fair, colourless face of Lady Aberfeldie, but just then a servant in the Graham livery, yellow and black, approached with a note on a salver.
'From papa!' she said, while cutting it open with a mother-of-pearl knife. 'Just a line or two to say he will be home in a couple of days, and is certainly bringing with him Mr. Hawke Holcroft, "the son of his old friend," and that other young detrimental, Stratherroch. He is well-nigh penniless, but, with your papa, to be in the Black Watch is quite equal to a patent of nobility.'
Eveline felt her colour fade, while a sad expression stole over her soft face, and her mother, after glancing at her narrowly, added,
'He also brings our wealthy friend, Sir Paget Puddicombe, the M.P. for Slough-cum-Sloggit, in Yorkshire. You remember him in London last season, and how much he admired you, dear?'
Evelinedidremember him, and how the rich but elderly baronet's attentions, encouraged by her parents, were the ridicule of her girl friends and the bane of her existence; yet she only sighed and remained silent, and, passing through a French window, quitted the drawing-room to join her brother, who was smoking a cigar on the terrace, and teasing the peacocks as they sat on the stately balustrade.
He was in rather a similar mood. He felt the demeanour of Olive after the little episode of the idol keenly, and, remembering the pencilled Byron, was, of course, inclined to connect Hawke Holcroft with that demeanour; so he had certainly become, for a time, cold and constrained in manner to his cousin.
'When was that photo of Olive done?' he asked, rather abruptly.
'The one in the ball dress?'
'Yes.'
'When we were last in Edinburgh; but I do not remember where the studio was.'
'She gave one to that Mr. Holcroft.'
'I was quite unaware that she did so,' said Eveline, with some annoyance of manner.
'Look here, Eve, if, when in London,' grumbled Allan, 'she shies her photos about in this fashion they will soon be in every fellow's possession, and we may, ere long, expect to find them, like those of professional beauties, on glove and match-boxes.'
'What a funny and horrid idea!' said his sister, passing her arm through his and nestling her head on his shoulder, while he, stooping, kissed hermignonneface with a smiling caress.
'There is nothing funny about it,' he replied, though, like her, he could little foresee the trouble that unlucky photograph was to cost in the future. 'And, to say the least of it, Olive treats me with almost hostility at times.'
'She does not conceal from me a resentment at her lack of free will.'
'As for Uncle Raymond's arrangements, I would to goodness that he had left all he had to his old housekeeper and her infernal screeching cockatoo with the yellow tuft.'
'Certainly Olive does not seem to be the kind of girl to be disposed of against her wish, Allan; you may read that in the firm tread of her little feet, in the carriage of her head, and the perfect possession of her manner.'
'But surely she may be won—though she will not understand me.'
'I hope she will ere long; but is there not a writer who says, Allan, that while the world lasts the difficulty of women understanding and making allowance for the feelings of men in what pertains to love, "will be probably one of the great sources of darkness and confusion in the social arrangement of things."'
'What a dear little casuist it is,' said he, as she raised herpetitefigure on tip-toe to kiss his well-tanned cheek; 'but,' he added, 'I am in a state of great uncertainty.'
'Uncertainty can always be ended; but then perhaps how bitterly—how very bitterly,' replied Eveline, who was not without some harrowing thoughts of her own; and something in her tone caused Allan to regard her soft hazel eyes, and sweet, shy face, with tenderness and inquiry.
'Of what are you thinking, or of—whom?' he whispered, as his arm went caressing round her, and he stroked her bright, sheeny hair.
'I may trust you, Allan?' she said, in a broken voice.
'To death,petite. You are thinking of—of Evan Cameron?'
Eveline sobbed now.
'Has he spoken of love to you?' asked Allan, in a low voice, and with a troubled expression in his face.
'Never; he knows it would be hopeless,' she replied, huskily.
'Poor Evan! and the governor is bringing him again—a grand mistake! How the deuce is all this to end with us? But don't sob so, my little darling,' he added, as he drew her closer to him.
Yet, despite her brother's sympathy and tenderness, Eveline Graham let her tears flow freely, and he promised to keep her secret that she and Evan Cameron cherished an unspoken and hopeless love for each other; and in a brief space they were to meet again!
Meanwhile, though somewhat relieved by having her brother for a confidant, she was both restless and unhappy. She strolled upon the terrace to feed the peacocks, or wandered listlessly in the garden, going from occupation to occupation, taking up a book—one of Mudie's last—only to toss it aside; seated herself before the piano, rose then and left it. Anon she resorted to her sketching-block, sorted her colours, selected a brush, only to quit any attempt to work with a hopeless sigh.
Lord Aberfeldie duly arrived at Dundargue with his three gentlemen visitors, their approach being heralded by the pipes of Ronald Gair, who was perched on a seat of the game-laden wagonette as it bowled up the avenue.
On the first day of his return the peer was anxious to learn upon what footing the cousins were—if Allan had made a proposal, or 'even opened the trenches,' and if so, with what success. On these points he was enlightened by Lady Aberfeldie, and, though not very much surprised to find matters as they were, he trusted to propinquity and cousinly feeling of intercourse, as trump cards in the game, and was sure that all would come right in the end, and before Allan's leave of absence was out.
There was no selfishness in this desire of Lord Aberfeldie. He had no power to alter the matter as it stood, for if she did not marry Allan if he was willing to marry her, 'then and in that case,' as the will had it, her patrimony would be lost even to herself. Allan's death alone would save it for her.
Great indeed, thought the girl with bitterness, must have been her father's regard for the house of Aberfeldie!
'What friends—such lovers we might be but for the confounded plans of that eccentric old fellow!' was the ever-recurring thought of Allan.
'You are at least fond of her?' said the peer, as he and his son smoked their cigars together on the terrace that overlooked the far-stretching vista of the Carse of Gowrie, then bathed in the ruddy splendour of the setting sun.
'Fond of Olive! Yes, as much as she will permit me to be. She is my cousin, of course,' replied Allan.
'There is something evasive—doubtful—in your answer; but you must at some time or other propose to her. You know precisely the terms of her father's remarkable will.'
'Yes, and that it hangs like a millstone round the necks of us both, rendering what may be the dearest wish of our hearts liable, perhaps, to the grossest misconstruction. She has more than once told Eveline that to gain freedom of action she would face poverty—anything.'
'Tuts! Romantic rant! Much she knows of what poverty is. But why should she even think of facing it?'
'To be free and unfettered, as I have said.'
'Relinquishing to you all that portion of her fortune which does not go to charitable institutions?'
'Yes.'
'Poor girl! A silly and impetuous threat. But she will think better of it, Allan, by-and-by, and we have fully five years to count upon yet.'
But it did not seem as if the fair Olive was likely to change her mind soon, to judge by her bearing that evening, when, after dinner, the guests and family at Dundargue assembled in the drawing-room.
The repast was over, and thereafter, ere the ladies withdrew, Ronald Gair, with all his drones in order, his Crimean, Indian, and Ashanti medals glittering on his breast, had marched thrice round the table, according to his daily wont, in 'full fig,' looking as only a Highland piper or a peacock can look; and, to the amazement of Sir Paget Puddicombe and the disgust of Hawke Holcroft, winding up 'The Birks of Aberfeldie' by several warlike skirls at the back of his master's chair—the dinner, we say, was over, and the gentlemen had joined the ladies in the stately drawing-room, which was lighted by more than one glittering chandelier.
Lord Aberfeldie, his son, and Stratherroch, as they wore the kilt, had, of course, substituted for their rough shooting-jackets others of black cloth, with the irreproachable white vests and ties as evening costume, and had also assumed their silver-mounted dirks; while Holcroft and one or two more werede rigueurin the funereal attire, which a writer calls 'the butler-suit, the most hideous clothing yet hit upon by our species.'
In that brilliant drawing-room, grouped with well-bred people, were some curious elements of secret doubt and future discord that did not quite meet the eye.
Holcroft hung over the chair of Olive so closely that, at times, the tip of his long and waxed tawny moustache nearly touched her head, while she played with her fan, opening and shutting it listlessly as they conversed in low tones, he adopting a sentimental one, though it was ever his boast that he 'was not one of those fools who hoard by them dried flowers, locks of hair, and all that sort of thing.'
Quietly watched by Lady Aberfeldie, whose lips wore their set expression, Evan Cameron was entirely occupied with her daughter, while Allan seemed quite as intent on a new guest, Miss Logan of Loganlee, a girl possessed of considerable personal attractions; and his father talked politics with Loganlee himself, the parish minister, and Sir Paget Puddicombe, a short, pompous, and squat, but rather pleasant little man, with a prematurely bald head, which he had a way of jerking forward from his neck like a turtle, a rubicund face, two merry eyes, and whose age was rather doubtful, but too old any way for a girl of Eveline Graham's years, though he affected considerable juvenility of manner.
Lord Aberfeldie, who generally about that time, when at Dundargue, was wont to enjoy a quiet little game of chess or bezique with Olive or Eveline, was rather bored by theempressementwith which the clergyman, Sir Paget, and Loganlee discussed politics and the prospects of the ministry.
The latter, a sombre man, whose air of respectability was almost oppressive, was one of a style of men common enough in Scotland. A small landed proprietor, he had contrived to become M.P. in the Liberal interest for a cluster of Scottish burghs (each of which, if in England, would have had two members), and he was chiefly noted—being 'Parliament House bred'—for neglecting Scottish interests and toadying to the Lord-Advocate, and consequently obtained the usual legal reward, a sheriffship, or something of that kind, with a thousand a year or so.
He seldom opened his mouth, save to talk on politics; he was tall and thin, with very square shoulders, grizzled, sandy, mutton-chop whiskers, apple-green eyes, and nothing more about him remarkable, save a curious air of perpetual self-assertion, combined, as we have said, with an oppressive one of respectability.
His host began to change the tenor of the conversation by hoping that Sir Paget found his quarters comfortable last night, adding that he occupied 'the Johnson Room.'
'Why is it so called?' asked Sir Paget, jerking forward his bald head.
'Dr. Johnson slept a night in Dundargue when on his famous tour.'
'Of which Boswell makes no mention?' said Mr. Logan, inquiringly.
'Because my ancestor did not pay him sufficient deference; and, indeed, I fear we should scarcely ever have heard of the literary bear of Bolt Court and Fleet Street but for that Scotch toady of his. Though he alleged that the most valuable piece of timber in Scotland was his walking-stick, he might have seen some fine trees at the Birks of Aberfeldy. We must ride over there, Sir Paget, and I will show you the cradle of the Black Watch, my old regiment of immortal memory.'
'How?'
'It was first mustered there on the 25th of October, 1739.'
'Ah!' said Sir Paget, who was not so much interested in the matter as the speaker.
Sir Paget was a childless widower, and had been left a noble fortune in many ways, including nearly the whole of Slough-cum-Sloggit, of which his father rose by his own merits to be mayor. He had entered the town a tattered lad, with only a sixpence in his pocket, and, in due time, the sixpence became the basis of colossal wealth. He had been made a baronet by the ministry of the day—no one knew precisely for what; but the wealth he left behind him gave his son an interest in the eyes of Lady Aberfeldie he was unlikely to attain in the soft hazel orbs of her daughter.
Sir Paget generally stood with his chest puffed out, reminding one of a pouter-pigeon, his little, fat hands interlaced behind his back, and often as not under the tails of his coat, his round, good-humoured face and twinkling eyes turned up to the faces of those with whom he conversed, as most men, and women, too, had the advantage of him in stature.
With a goldpince-nezbalanced on his very pug nose, he was what young ladies described as 'an absurd little man' whose tender speeches they laughed at—none more than Eveline—till matters took a serious turn, though he failed to feel the truth of the aphorism, 'Let no lover cherish sanguine hopes when the object of his choice has grown to look upon him in the light of the ridiculous.'
Evan Cameron, we have said, sighed for Eveline; hopeless as his undeclared love had been, the presence of the wealthy English baronet, in conjunction with certain rumours he had heard, made it more hopeless than ever; and, unattractive though Sir Paget's years and figure, he felt intuitively that in him he had a dangerous rival.
When he found that this most eligiblepartiwas again on thetapis—one whose name had been associated with that of Eveline in at least one 'society' paper during the last London season, poor Stratherroch's heart sank down to zero. He felt and knew that, with Lady Aberfeldie especially, he was literally 'nowhere' by his want of wealth, though, like a true Highlander, he could trace his lineage back into the misty times of Celtic antiquity; but, aristocratic though she was, the peeress set little store on that.
Eveline Graham seemed as much beyond his reach as the moon. He felt that, for his own peace of mind, he ought to quit Dundargue as soon as possible, yet he clung desperately to the perilous delight of the girl's society.
To all appearance, the pair were simply looking over, almost in silence, a large book of clear-skied and strongly-shadowed photos of Indian scenery brought home by Allan, yet both their hearts had but a single thought, and, when the downward glance of his soft grey eyes met hers, she felt that, in spite of herself, there was something in it like a magnetic spell.
Passionate and pleading eyes they were, generous and loving in expression, telling the tale his lips had not yet uttered, and might never do so; and the girl lowered her white lids as if a weight oppressed them, and the diamond locket on her white bosom sparkled as a sigh escaped her.
A little way off, in something of the same pose, Hawke Holcroft, with a glass in his pale, sinister eye, was hanging, as we have said, over Olive Raymond, doing his utmost insotto voceto fascinate that young lady, while pretending to translate, as suited the occasion and himself, for the edification of his fair listener, the lettering of one of the Chinese or Japanese fans that were strewed about the tables.
Now, Mr. Hawke Holcroft knew nothing about the terms of Mr. Raymond's will, or of the existence of any such document, and might never know. He was only certain that Olive was undoubtedly an heiress; that he himself was very impecunious, and ere long might be well-nigh desperate; and so he did not see why he should not, to use his own horsey phraseology, 'enter stakes as well as another.'
Rumour, certainly, had linked the names of the cousins together; 'but if she is engaged to Graham,' thought the observant Holcroft, 'it is strange that she wears no engagement ring.'
He knew not that, separated as the pair had been almost from childhood, no such little formality as the presentation of a ring could have been gone through; and now, as the Master did not see his way to it as yet, Holcroft was 'scoring,'or thought so.
He was leaving nothing unsaid to enchain her attention. He seemed very clever: at least he could converse fluently on many subjects; seemed to have been everywhere and to have seen everything worth seeing, or pretended to have done so, which was most likely.
'However they stand, her heart is not in it,' was his ever-recurring thought; 'and if so, why the deuce shouldn't I try my hand? She has a pot of money—indeed, no end of money, I hear; but, then, if her noble aunt and uncle have made up their noble minds to pounce upon her as a daughter-in-law, how is she to resist, unless she elopes, if "Barkis" (meaning Allan) "is willin'"? They can make her life a burden to her until she gives in, or—or I run away with her, and why the devil should I not?'
Holcroft was an artful man, and well acquainted with every phase of dissipated life; he had suave manners when he chose and an unexceptionable appearance. With many debts and secret passions, he was cold and selfish; a man who never made a move in any way without forecast and calculation; and who might commit a crime if driven to it, but never precisely a folly.
He was closely watching Olive while he conversed with her; he admired her beautiful person, but still more her ample purse. She dared to trifle with him at times, he thought; and then, even when looking down upon her satin-like hair, her dazzling white shoulders and innocent violet eyes, with a vengeful feeling he mentally vowed that he wouldcompelher to love him, or accept him, he cared not which, if human will and cunning failed him not!
He had a love—a passion for her—in a strange fashion of his own, yet times there were when he almost hated her for fencing with him: and little could the soft, bright beauty, who raised her fine eyes from time to time to his and conversed so laughingly with him, have conceived the conflicting emotions that were concealed in his breast under a smiling exterior, or the shame and agony he was yet to cost her.
Even when he attempted to look loving, there were a cold expression and lack of colour in his eyes, and there was something very significant of an iron will about his lips and powerful chin.
Olive had no warm feeling for Holcroft, and save for the obnoxious will would infinitely have preferred her cousin Allan in the end; but she affected just then to believe in Platonic friendship (blended with a little judicious flirtation) so firmly that, to pique Allan, she showed a great apparent preference for his would-be rival.
Olive and Holcroft knew that this seeming flirtation was perilous work, and might compromise them both with Lord and Lady Aberfeldie, and with Allan, too, if it attracted attention; but Holcroft had a game to play. Olive's proud little heart was full of resentment and pique, and then anything with a spice of danger in it is always curiously fascinating.
More than all, Olive was beginning to feel conscious that, under the circumstances, it was strangely awkward to be in the same house with Allan Graham—the intended husband to whom her father had bequeathed her. But whither could she go?
In more than one instance, in the drawing-room at Dundargue, that night was illustrated the aphorism that language is given us to conceal our thoughts, and much was exhibited of what the French not inaptly term the chagrin or peevishness of love.
Allan Graham, with all his quiet and growing love for Olive, seeing how she received him, neither petted her as he was wont to do in his boyhood, nor after a time had attempted any tenderness with her; but trusted to the progress of events and the necessity for fulfilling her father's wish rather than to his own influence or power of persuasion, aware that she could only become the bride of another, penniless, or nearly so, a circumstance which militated sadly against himself.
But this assumed coldness and calmness withal, Olive could feel, with a woman's acuteness in such matters, how much the expression of his dark eyes and the tone of his voice changed and softened, unconsciously, when he looked at and addressed her. She was of his own blood, like a sister, whom he might treat with formality or affection, coldly or playfully, according to the occasion or the mood, and whom he might love as much as he liked, or she would permit. Ah! this tender and mysterious tie of cousinship must give him, as he thought, 'a great pull' over Hawke Holcroft, and every other man.
On this evening, how handsome she looked, in all her wilfullness! How Allan longed that he might take her in his embrace, to kiss her starry eyes, her peach-like cheek, and sheeny hair with an ardour he had never felt in his boyhood, when he had done so many times; but now, somehow, he dared scarcely think of such a thing, and there was that fellow Holcroft, with all his easy insouciance, and with the smile of one who never laughed really in his life, hanging just rather too much over her, with a considerable amount of empressement in his eyes and manner, pouring his flowery nothings into her apparently willing ear, and Lady Aberfeldie, who could stand this no longer, became secretly provoked, and opened and shut her fan of heavy mother-of-pearl with such vehemence that the sticks rattled.
And, with the emotions we have described in his heart, Allan, as if the further to play out the game of cross-purposes, in a spirit of pique, doubtless, remained in close attendance on Miss Ruby Logan.
Now the latter was not the heiress of Loganlee, as she had several brothers; but, even had she been so, it would not have enhanced her value in the ambitious estimation of Lady Aberfeldie.
But Ruby was a very handsome girl, with a skin pure, transparent, and delicate as the lining of a shell, while her fine hair was ample in quantity, and of the darkest amber; her eyes large, deep-blue, and fringed by dark lashes. She was large, full in form, and altogether a bright and attractive-looking girl, and Olive felt conscious that she might prove rather a formidable rival if she ever had to view her as such.
Replacing the three daughters of the minister of Dundargue, who had been afflicting the company with much boarding-school Mozart and Chopin, who would have deemed anything national vulgar, to say the least of it, compared with some lachrymose drawing-room ballad, and who in a ditty of great length and mystery, which we quote at second hand, had informed their hearers—
'Mermaids we be,Under the blue sea'—
replacing them, we say, Ruby Logan sang to Allan in a rich mezzo-soprano voice, and with a suppressed emotion, born perhaps of a coquettish desire to dazzle and please him, as a handsome young fellow of good position, all of which proved a fresh annoyance to my Lady Aberfeldie, who deemed music at times 'a convenient noise for drowning conversation, and under whose shelter the old people talk scandal and the young people make love,' and who knew that Miss Logan, like Olive, had that wonderful charm, which is, perhaps, one of the greatest any girl can possess, a lovely and ever-changing expression; and even Allan, as he gazed down into the depths of her dark-blue eyes (while she sangathim), and anon glanced furtively at Olive, thought to himself,
'How the dickenswillour little game of cross-purposes end?'
Lady Aberfeldie was just then indulging in the same surmise, as, full of watchfulness, she occupied an ottoman in the centre of the inner drawing-room, cresting up her white throat and well-shaped head; looking in her stately beauty like the heroine of some grand old Scottish romance of the days of Montrose or Prince Charles, for there was something of a past age in her style and bearing, though attired in the latest fashion by a modiste of Princes Street.
In her matronhood, Lady Aberfeldie had still that subdued charm which was not now the beauty of youth, yet stood very much in place of it; but, with all her softness of manner, she was a proud and determined woman, capable of doing much to accomplish a purpose of her own, and the marriage of Eveline to Sir Paget Puddicombe was certainly her purpose at present.
Thinking that it was high time to make some change in the general grouping, the moment Miss Logan's musical performance was done she summoned Allan to her side by a wave of her fan.
'So glad I am that your father, who so often mistakes, invited dear Sir Paget here,' she said, in low voice.
'He is rather a good sort,' replied Allan, in his off-hand way; 'capital cellar and preserves, I have heard.'
'So rich, and notveryold; he always admired Eveline, and she certainly cares for no one else—thus I have great hopes for her, Allan,' she added, confidently; but Allan sighed; he knew better, and recalled the tears of his gentle sister on the terrace, and her half murmured admissions of deep interest in that winsome young brother-officer, whom he loved so well; and, as he remained silent, his mother spoke again.
'Mr. Holcroft seems to be fairly absorbing Olive; he has been talking to her quite long enough, and this will not do; ask her to play something at my request, and do you lead her to the piano.'
'We are anticipated,' said Allan, as he saw his sister seat herself at the instrument with young Cameron by her side, busy among the leaves of her music; and a shade of annoyance deepened in the face of Lady Aberfeldie as she glanced at her husband, whose eyes were turned also towards the pair, and she knew from personal experience how much may be inferred or deduced from the words of a song, and also how many a tender speech, an accompaniment, however ill or well executed, may conceal.
Lord Aberfeldie, of course, would never consent to Eveline having a suitor with means so limited as those of her young admirer; but, though the idea of such a contingency had not occurred to him. Lady Aberfeldie was much sharper and more suspicious; she saw 'how the tide set,' and was much opposed to Cameron being even a visitor at Dundargue in any way, as an utter 'detrimental,' and declined to see how his being one of 'Ours'—the Black Watch—alteredthatmatter.
And now, after a considerable amount of preluding, much unnecessary whispering, as 'my lady' thought, much glancing and many reciprocal smiles, Evan Cameron began to sing, accompanied by her daughter; and more annoyed became the matron on finding the theme chosen one of love and tenderness that could be, and was, sung with considerablepoint—a now forgotten little Scotch song, which the author adapted to the air of 'Rousseau's Dream,' and with the desire to excel before the girl he loved better than life, young Cameron, gave his whole soul to the lyric.
'See the moon o'er cloudless JuraShining in the loch below;See the distant mountain toweringLike a pyramid of snow.Scenes of grandeur—scenes of childhood—Scenes so dear to love and me!Let us roam by bower and wild wood,All is lovelier when withthee.
'On Jura's hills the winds are sighing,But all is silent in the grove;And the leaves with dewdrops glisteningSparkle like the eye of love.Night so calm, so clear, so cloudless,Blessed night to love and me;Let us roam by bower and fountain,All is lovelier when withthee.'
And it was not unnoticed by Lady Aberfeldie that at the closing word of each verse the eyes of the pair unconsciously met. Ere Eveline could be prevented, she had acceded to Cameron's softly uttered desire that she would sing anything forhim; and she frankly did so, throwing into her voice the thrill and tenderness that are sure to come into a girl's utterances when singing to the man she loves. The heart of Cameron responded to this mysterious influence, and, as the girl regarded him furtively from time to time, she thought, with his crisp wavy hair, his clear grey eyes, general expression and bearing, he looked every inch what he was, the descendant of that Sir Evan Cameron of Lochiel who met Cromwell's men in combat under the shadow of Ben Nevis; yet to other eyes he seemed just a good sample of an infantryman who had across his forehead the genuine sunmark of his craft, made under the line of his forage-cap by a scorching tropical sun.
And now when Lady Aberfeldie, to stop any more musical performances between these two, prevailed upon Olive to replace her cousin, she was quick enough to detect that the former, displeased or piqued by Allan's apparent attention to Ruby Logan, swept past him with the most subtle little touch of disdain in the carriage of her handsome head.
Now Cameron had once more to give place to pudgy little Sir Paget, who—puffing out his chest and jerking forward his bald shining head—began to do his best to make himself pleasing to Eveline, while the latter, under her mother's watchful eye, was compelled to listen and appear to act with compliance and complacency; and poor Eveline, like Olive, often felt with some compunction that her mother's general bearing—which a certain quiet yet lofty dignity seemed never to forsake—was more calculated to inspire respect than love.
And Cameron, while he found himself talking rather absently on regimental matters with Lord Aberfeldie, as he looked at Eveline from time to time, was thinking sadly in his honest heart,
'Oh, what madness it is in me to love her as I do, and how wicked if I lure her into loving me! Can I expect her ambitious mother or her calculating father ever to view with favour one so penniless as I am? Would it be honourable in me to profit by her girlish prepossession in my favour, and so preclude her from reaping those advantages of wealth, position, and rank which she is entitled to expect, and to which her parents looked forward? and alas! as the wife of Sir Paget—if such be her fate—poor Eveline will be lost for ever to me.'
His breast felt torn by such thoughts as these; and, sooth to say, it is as often amid the splendour and luxury of life, as amid its squalor and poverty, that some of its bitterest tragedies are acted out.
But now the party began to break up—the ladies to seek their respective apartments, and the gentlemen to adjourn for a time to the smoking-room.
As the two cousins, each so different in her style of loveliness, crossed the great apartment, the softfrou-frouof their long silken dresses seemed to mingle with their soft laughter and silvery voices. Sir Paget jerked forward his head and remarked to his hostess that 'they made a charming picture.'
Each had a sore place in her heart, but there was no appearance of it then.
Though resenting the position in which she was placed, and much inclined to resist it, Olive Raymond—such is female caprice—also resented Allan's having hovered so much about the amber-haired beauty, and, when she bade him adieu for the night, she could not help singing softly, with some point and waggery, as she glanced back at him, the lines of Tennyson's song:
'I know a maiden fair to see,Take care!She can both false and friendly be,Beware, beware!Trust her not, she is fooling thee.'
But whether she applied the words to herself or Ruby Logan it puzzled him to divine.
Olive and Eveline were of an age, and able to sympathise with each other in every thought or fancy. They had grown up together like sisters, Olive, as an orphan, doubtless being the most petted of the two by the household ever since she came a little child to Dundargue, and both were frank, both were open-hearted, and proud of each other's personal attractions; and now, dismissing their maids, they brushed out each other's shining hair that they might have a quiet gossip together.
'So ends a tiresome night,' said Eveline, shrugging her white shoulders, which shone like ivory in the light of the toilette candles: 'a night when the conversation of everyone seemed of a nature so antagonistic, or as if it was all broken up into wrong duets.'
Like her father, Eveline was anxious to discover how the cousins were affected towards each other now; yet the course of this evening, in which Allan had plainly flirted with Ruby Logan, while Olive seemed to have been engrossed by Mr. Holcroft, did not seem to promise much, and she hinted this pretty plainly.
'I do think Holcroft loves me, or leads me to infer that he does,' said Olive, with a soft smile on her downcast face, as she took off her rings, bangles, and bracelets, and tossed them on the marble toilette-table.'
'And you—what is your feeling for him?' asked Eveline, with some anxiety in her face and tone; 'not love, I hope.'
'I don't know what I feel—perhaps it is only a girl's emotion of gratitude and vanity.'
'I hope it will never be anything more. You scarcely spoke to poor Allan to-night?' said Eveline, interrogatively.
'Rather say he scarcely spoke to me! But we are fated to see quite enough of each other, I suppose,' replied Olive, as with slender fingers she coiled and knotted up the silky masses of her rich brown hair. 'How absurd it is,' she added, petulantly, 'to think, as I have said a hundred times, that I have a lover cut and dry for me—afiancé—ever since he was in jackets and knickerbockers!'
After a pause, during which she was critically and approvingly regarding herself sideways in the swinging cheval-glass, she said,
'When I heard that he was returning to Dundargue, I was quite prepared to dislike him intensely.'
'Olive!'
'Fact, dear; and since then he must have been sorely puzzled by my various moods towards him.'
'You speak but with truth in this; and yet he seems to have been somewhat the same with you.'
'Poor fellow—but ever so good and kind.'
'And—and you think, Olive dear, that you are beginning to love him as mamma wishes?'
'Nay—nay, I cannot admit that.'
'Even to me?' said Eveline, caressing her.
'Even to you. Did you not see his manner to-night with Ruby Logan?'
'To pique you, if possible, Olive; but when Allan proposes to you, as I am sure he will, and must do——'
'Mustdo!' interrupted Olive. 'Yes—there it is.'
'Well?'
'Then, and in that case, as the will has it, I shall tell him that, however I may esteem and regard him as my cousin, he can never be more, or nearer, or dearer than as such.'
Eveline sighed and smiled; but she told this reply next day to Allan, and hence he became less in a hurry to bring matters to an issue, though love was growing in his heart, nevertheless.
'Oh, why is it that women cannot speak their minds as men do? I wish I dared run away!' exclaimed the petulant beauty, beating the carpet with a little impatient foot. 'To-day I saw two great brown eagles winging their way skyward from the rock of Dundargue; and oh! Eveline, you can't think how long and wistfully I watched them till they dwindled into tiny specks.'
'Why?'
'They seemed such free agents, and, as such, to be envied. They had no wills or last testaments made by others to control their actions—no parents to rule them in the matters of love and marriage.'
'How droll you are, Olive! To whom but you would such speculations occur? I hope you did not express them to—to——'
'Allan?'
'Yes.'
'Not to Allan.'
'To whom then?'
'Mr. Holcroft.'
'Then, you were very wrong to do so,' said Eveline, almost severely; 'he will be certain to draw his own deductions therefrom.'
'In something else I was, I fear, wrong too.'
'How?'
'I permitted him to try one of my gold bangles—one sent me by Allan from Delhi—on his arm, and it would not come off again.'
'And the bangle?'
'Is still there,' said Olive, laughing, but not without a little emotion of alarm.
'Oh, Olive!' exclaimed Eveline, with something of dismay, 'how could you? This is worse than the photo.'
For some time the days passed on as they generally do in a country-house like Dundargue, and there was all the usual flow of life and—with three exceptions, Sir Paget, Holcroft, and Cameron—change of guests and visitors, with the amusements wealth can give.
First came the partridge-shooting, and then the pheasants were to be knocked over, while the ladies drove almost daily to the preserves with the luncheon in the drag or large pony-carriage; there were hunting days, dinners, luncheons, musical evenings, carpet dances, and so forth, and the inevitable lawn-tennis, with the ladies in bewitching costumes; but still Allan, damped perhaps by his sister's communications, 'made no way' with his tantalising cousin, and Hawke Holcroft, on Lord Aberfeldie's invitation, was still lingering at Dundargue.
To Allan, Olive had become a part of his life, and each day seemed only to begin when he met her at breakfast in her charming morning toilette, fresh from her bath and the hands of Mademoiselle Clairette, her hair dressed to perfection, and her face radiant with health and beauty.
'How often do I wish she had not asous!' sighed Allan. 'Then she might learn that I love her for herself alone.'
The curious position in which they were placed relatively made the cousins most strange to each other, involving much constraint.
'They are fencing with their feelings,' was Lord Aberfeldie's conviction.
To Evan Cameron, however, it was evident that Holcroft was 'making all the running he could' during Allan's absences after the game, or apparent occupation with laughing Ruby Logan, while it became evident to Sir Paget and more than one other guest that he got up many a quiet game atecarté—that most rooking of all games—and many a match at billiards after the ladies had retired; and it was soon remarked by the same close observers that he was a singularly successful player, often pocketing large sums, seldom losing, and then very slenderly, as if to keep up appearances.
At Dundargue he felt himself in clover! He knew, or was aware instinctively, that neither Lady Aberfeldie nor the Master cared much about him; but he also knew that his host was inspired by the kindliest feelings towards him as the only son of an early friend and gallant old Crimean comrade who had gone to his long home.
If any rule governed the erratic life of the horsey and gambling Holcroft, it was that of resolutely shutting his eyes against to-morrow, and letting it take care of itself; and, now that there was a prospect of winning a wife with money—and such a chance seldom came his way—could he but play his cards well and surely, his fortune would be made!
He was a mass of absolute selfishness—the result either of his innate nature or of his nomadic habits. A life-long bankrupt, he had been ever readier to borrow than to lend, to smoke any other fellow's cigars than his own, and to take every advantage of the honourable and unsuspecting.
Such was the perilous inmate which a mistaken sense of kindness, gratitude, and hospitality had induced Lord Aberfeldie to make one of the family circle at Dundargue during the shooting season; and to whom the advent of the bangle—which, though it slipped easily upon his wrist, most mysteriously would not come off it—and other adventitious circumstances, the real cause of which he did not know, gave a considerable amount of what he termed to himself 'modest assurance' and confidence of ultimate success.
'I should like to come into a nice little pot of money—a fortune, if you will—but not with a girl tacked to it,' he said, on one occasion, to throw Allan 'off the scent,' as he thought. 'I am neither domestic nor ambitious. A few thousands would do.'
'And make you content?'
'Content! I should feel as happy as more than once I have been at Monaco, when I have seen the croupier's rake pushing a jolly pile of gold across thetrente-et-quarantetable towards me, by Jove.'
It did not occur to him that by little speeches like this and anecdotes about his own acumen in the betting ring, he let a little light in upon the general tenor of his past and present life, and, all unconscious that Sir Paget and others listened with slightly elevated eyebrows, he would produce a sealskin cigar-case of portentous dimensions, draw therefrom a great Rio Hondo cigar, and after carefully manipulating it, begin to smoke it with intense satisfaction.
Hawke Holcroft, like Mr. Micawber, was always waiting for something to 'turn up' in the way of good for himself, and now thought he had found that something in Olive Raymond—an heiress free, he deemed, to choose for herself—free to be wooed and won; and on a day when she proposed a riding-party to visit Macbeth's Castle of Dunsinane he very nearly had the hardihood to learn his fate—in the words of Montrose's song, to put it 'to the touch, to win or lose it all.'
Drives, riding-parties, and rambles to visit artistic bits of scenery and the rural [** Transcriber's note: line missing from source book?] lions the neighbourhood afforded every opportunity to those who wished to cultivate each other's society at Dundargue, and the expedition proposed by Olive to visit the ruins of the usurper's castle, proved the occasion of Mr. Hawke Holcroft's attempt to advance his own interests.
Whatever Lady Aberfeldie's views were, her husband had never been called upon to fulfil the duties of a vigilant guardian or parent, and to study the difference between 'detrimentals' and married parties, so he left the guidance of the whole affair in the hands of Allan, and remained closeted with his solicitor.
By judicious manoeuvring, Holcroft contrived to pair-off with Olive, while Allan thus became the escort of Ruby Logan, and Eveline, of course, fell to Sir Paget, who soon found the truth of the vulgar adage about two being company, &c., on their being joined by Stratherroch.
It was a clear and brilliant day early in October, when the blue sky was flecked by fleecy clouds, and the far-stretching scenery of the fertile Carse, overlooked by the long chain of heights, named the Sidlaw Hills, lay steeped in sunshine.
The parks of Dundargue, with their broad acres of velvet-like turf, their stately oaks and towering beeches, among the gnarled branches of which legions of gleds were cawing to each other, and brown squirrels were gliding to and fro; their hedges of ancient thorn, and others where the hawthorn berries showed red and the wild roses were blooming—the parks, we say, were left behind, with all their groups of deer, and the party, certainly a merry and a well-mounted one, accompanied by the stag-hounds Shiuloch and Bran, careering joyously on either hand, followed by a couple of splendidly-horsed grooms, cantered along the highway, and ere long broke, or fell, into that slow and ambling pace which is suited for conversing with ease. And Holcroft, who was well versed in all horsey details, and had a very appreciative eye, could see that his fair companion'stout ensemble, her riding costume, her hat, veil, and gauntlets were all perfect, from the coils of brown glossy hair to the little foot that rested firmly in its tiny stirrup of burnished steel; and that foot was indeed a model—arched, small, and always full of character in its elasticity of tread; and, more than all, intoxicated by the ambient air, the sunshine, her own high spirits, and the pleasure of being mounted on her own favourite pad, Olive Raymond was looking her brightest and her best.
He had, while engaging all her attention in conversation, contrived, unknown to her, by the pacing of his horse, to leave the trio referred to at some distance behind; while, luckily for him, Allan Graham, lured on by Ruby Logan—who was something between a flirt and a hoyden—had gone ahead with her suddenly at a hand-gallop, and now the pair were out of sight.
There could be no engagement, despite all rumour thereof—not even a passing fancy—between the cousins, was now Holcroft's conviction, and of his own ultimate success with Olive he began to have little doubt, could he but warily mould her to his purpose; and already in fancy he saw her thousands—how many there were he knew not—firmly in his grasp.
Though swallowed up by mortgages, his place in Essex—or the few acres that nominally still remained to him there—caused the retention of his name among the 'landed gentry of England,' and he based much upon that circumstance as aiding his designs on Lord Aberfeldie's ward, to whom he had sometimes dropped glowing hints of possession that were not nor ever had been his.
Something undefined in Olive's manner rather encouraged him on this day. She, to show that she resented the apparent indifference of Allan as being a 'laggard in love,' even while resenting the tenor of that family compact which was meant to bind them together, was disposed to flirt with Holcroft, out of pique rather than precise preference, and to annoy Allan.
With the latter present now, Holcroft became at times a species of difficulty to Olive. During a past season in London there had been sundry, not exactly love-passages, but little coquettings and lingerings in conservatories that nearly amounted to such; and he, in ignorance of the footing in which she was regarded by the family, was quite inclined, penniless as he was, or nearly so, to revive, if not improve, past relations; and this had been his object from the first day he came to Dundargue.
And now 'that muscular idiot the Master,' as he was in the habit of mentally calling Allan, having cantered out of sight, he addressed himself more fully to his companion and the matter in hand.
'I enjoy town to the full—none can do so more—when I am there, but I love—oh, I do love—the country!' replied Olive, in reply to a remark of Holcroft's about their last London season.
'It is always very romantic, of course, and all that sort of thing.'
'And with pleasant people about one, the country becomes so delightful for a time; and then we girls have such perfect freedom here.'
'Even an escort is not necessary at times.'
'Unless in the park—beyond that I always like to have one,' said Olive.
'Are you pleased to havemefor one?' he asked, in a low voice, and pretty pointedly.
'Of course,' she answered, frankly.
'How charming to be at hand in case of danger!'
'What possible danger?' asked Olive, with surprise.
'Oh, the untimely appearance of an infuriated stag or the proverbial mad bull of the three-volume novel.'
'Why not a brigand or a Bengal tiger?' said Olive, laughing; then, suddenly becoming grave, she added—'But, by the way, talking of Bengal, please to give me back my bangle.'
'Why?'
'Simply because I cannot permit you to retain it,' she replied, little foreseeing to what the natural request might lead.
'Do not deprive me of it!' he urged, softly and entreatingly.
'Why?' asked she, in return; 'for what reason. It is impossible—what may people say?'
'What they please, if seen, which it never shall be.'
'What might they not think?'
'Oh, what does it matter?' he urged again, with much would-be sadness and tenderness.
'Little to you, perhaps, but much to me,' retorted Olive; 'but I do not choose that aught should be either thought or said about it. We shall certainly be accused of flirting.'
'No, no, Miss Raymond—oh, no, Olive——'
'Olive!' she repeated, in a startled manner.
'Pardon me—none could ever accuse me of flirting with you—that were an impossibility—for deeper thoughts——'
'My bangle, please, Mr. Holcroft, and at once!' she said, imperatively, in dread of what more he might say.
She held forth her hand, but the trinket either would not come off his wrist, or he pretended that such was the case. Olive tried to remove it, but in vain, and glanced round her, red with vexation. Her hand was gloved, otherwise she would have felt how unpleasantly cold and clammy were the fingers of her would-be lover.
'Allow me to retain it, even for a time—though would that I might wear it in my grave—for a time, in memory of the darling hopes I have dared to cherish,' he whispered, in a manner there could be no mistaking now.
'Spare me this melodramatic sort of thing, Mr. Holcroft,' said Olive, growing rather pale; 'I cannot—must not listen to you.'
'Why—what do you mean?'
'That there are obstacles between us, even were there not the want of liking,' she replied, decidedly, but with an agitated voice.
'Obstacles?' he repeated, inquiringly, sadly, and certainly with an air ofdisappointment; 'am I now to understand that you are engaged to the Master of Aberfeldie, as these absurd Scots people call him?'
Olive bit her ruddy nether lip at this home question; but made no reply.
'What enigma is this? You either are or you are not. If not, why may not I——'
'I dare not listen to this style of conversation,' interrupted Olive, with positive annoyance; 'and you have no right to force it upon me.'
'After all that has passed?' said he, reproachfully, and rather feeling as if his hopes were melting into air.
'I do not understand you,' replied Olive, whose conscience certainly did reproach her.
'If I force this conversation—' he began in a bitter and rather upbraiding tone, then pausing; 'pardon me if I offend,' he resumed, with what seemed growing sadness, while attempting to touch her hand, yet withdrawing his own in apparent timidity. 'But am I wrong in deeming your engagement—or alleged engagement, as rumour says, made when you were a child—one in which your woman's heart and wishes have not been consulted? Tell me—for I may have to leave Dundargue soon now.'
She was in some respects but a weak girl; he a crafty and wily man of the world; and, though he knew it not in the least, he was touching her on a very tender point—yet she replied, firmly enough,
'You have no right to question me; but say, what has Allan done to you that your face should darken at the mention of his name? Is he not your friend?'