So did the latter who met him smilingly.
'Welcome home to Dundargue,' he exclaimed; 'you have come back as unexpectedly as you went; but whither?'
'Only as far as Edinburgh.'
'Ah.' The reply seemed rather to relieve Holcroft. Nothing was known about him there, he thought.
'A lady was on the terrace with you just now?'
'Yes—Miss Raymond.'
'So I thought—sorry she did not stay.'
'Why—particularly?'
'I have some news that may interest her.'
'About whom?'
'Herself.'
'Hope they are pleasant?'
'That will depend upon how she may view them,' said Allan, with a nod, as he entered the house.
'Now, what the deuce has he been up to—this fellow, with his hair cut to the military pattern—Newgate crop, I should call it—he looks queer this morning,' muttered Holcroft, as he selected a cigar from his case, bit the end off with his sharp white teeth, and proceeded to smoke it with brief, angry, and unenjoyable puffs that indicated a mind full of bitterness and ill at ease. Olive's communication had been a sudden revelation to him.
If Allan's sudden departure and unexplained absence excited some curiosity in the minds of his family, his return excited it afresh when he declined to make any explanation until he had held an interview with his cousin, Olive Raymond, who, for a time, secluded herself in her own room on the usual feminine plea of having a headache.
Eveline, who had so longed for his return, now with tears told him of her father's frequently expressed wish—nay, command, and Sir Paget's forthcoming proposal; but, full of his own miseries, he could only caress her and say,
'God bless you, little one. I wish you well over all this.'
Sir Paget had left Dundargue pending the final arrangements, as he thought; thus the cloud and the dread were hanging over her still.
'Has Olive received back her gold bangle—my gift—from Mr. Holcroft?' asked Allan, with knitted brows.
'I—I think not. How did you learn he had it?'
'Plainly enough—I saw it on his wrist!'
'Where he put it, in play—not she.'
'I should hope not, by Jove!'
'I know she has asked him for it repeatedly.'
'Can't make the beggar out.'
'I can—he thinks Olive an heiress.
Allan's dark brow became more deeply knitted.
'She thinks that if she married you, Allan dear,' said his sister, after a pause, 'she would be sacrificing her own pride and liberty, and that you might marry her though not caring for her——'
'But for that wretched money?' said Allan, with a kind of snort. 'Poor Olive—she views the situation in this light! I certainly shall not ask her to make any sacrifices for me, and, so far as I am concerned, she shall be free as a bird in the air.'
His sister regarded him now with some perplexity, not understanding what he meant, but said,
'You have just come in time for a little carpet-dance we have arranged as a farewell treat to Ruby Logan, Mr. Holcroft, and—and Evan Cameron, who are about to leave Dundargue.'
Allan noted the inflection of her voice as she uttered the name of his young brother officer, and then hurried away, as their mother entered the room, and with rather a cloudy expression in her face, though he hastened to kiss her.
'You have been to Edinburgh, I have heard,' she said.
'Yes.'
'About what, Allan?'
'That you will learn in time, mother. I must speak with Olive first.'
Lady Aberfeldie was full of irrepressible curiosity, but Allan declined to gratify it just then.
'Have your recent movements any reference to Olive?'
'You will learn in time, mother.'
Lady Aberfeldie's face shaded with annoyance, for, only the day before, she and the petulant young lady in question had indulged in a tift between them.
Perceiving a wistful look and fitful manner about Olive, and that she was more than usually restless and irritable, Lady Aberfeldie had unwisely spoken to her on the subject of Allan's regard for her.
Olive had sat for a moment or two, with her delicate hands tightly interlaced in her lap, and then, turning defiantly to her aunt, she said,
'I will never marry Allan!'
'You must marry Allan, my dear girl,' replied Lady Aberfeldie, calmly and firmly.
'Why?'
'You know your father's wish.'
'Oh, the will, of course! So I am to be treated like a child? Well, if so, I may prove a wilful and dangerous one!'
Her aunt's report of this conversation made Lord Aberfeldie more than ever anxious for the return of his son.
'You are very mysterious, Allan. You and Olive seem a pair of enigmas,' said Lady Aberfeldie. 'But your father waits you in the library, and perhaps you will condescend to confide in him, if not in me. I must own it will be a fatal thing for your future happiness if Olive thinks you seek her for gain; but for what does Mr. Holcroft so evidently seek her?'
Allan smiled disdainfully.
'I have tried to think, mother dear, that she is not affected by this person Holcroft, but begin to own to myself that "the faith that worketh miracles" is not in me.'
When questioned by his father, Allan made the same reticent reply, that he must see Olive before making any explanations.
'The time has come now, Allan,' said Lord Aberfeldie, 'when you are bound in honour to make your cousin an offer, for in this peculiar entanglement—for such, I grant you, it is—you and she do not stand in the position of most engaged persons.'
'But suppose I have no wish to marry——'
'Absurd—outrageous!'
'Or may not marry at all?'
'By the refusal of Olive?'
'Yes.'
'Then her fortune, or most of it, becomes yours, in terms of the will—'
'Which has been a curse to us both. In her mind, and in the eyes of all who may come to hear of it, we must lie under the degrading imputation of a mercenary motive.'
'Not if you act with tact and delicacy, and surely your boy-and-girl attachment must remain unchanged,' said Lord Aberfeldie, in a voice that was soft, rather than indignant, as his memory went back to the day when Olive first came a little orphan child to Dundargue—a tiny and graceful creature, with tender, wondering, and beseeching eyes—a child that climbed upon his knee, clung to him with sympathetic love, and played with his watch-chain or the tassels of his sash, if he was in uniform. 'And so,' he added, after a pause, 'you must propose to the dear girl as a mere matter of form.'
'I have already done so,' said Allan, recalling, what he was not likely to forget, all that had occurred during the homeward ride from Dunsinane.
'Well, sir?' asked his father.
'I was laughed at—mocked, I may say.'
'Impossible! The girl must have been jesting with you.'
'I do not think so,' said Allan, both sadly and bitterly as he thought of the bangle and many other circumstances, the inevitable 'trifles light as air.'
'Well, you are bound to renew your proposal.'
'I do not think so, nor shall I again, unless some change comes over her.'
'If I exert my authority as guardian and trustee——'
'She may run away. Olive is a proud and restless girl with a defiant spirit, though she has a very affectionate heart.'
'But you cannot expect that she is to propose toyou.'
'I do love her, father—love her dearly; but fear that she views me too much as a brother to love me otherwise.'
'This is rank nonsense. Think of your separations, and of your last—one well nigh seven years—with the Black Watch.'
'But might it not be the case that she may have apenchantfor some one else?'
'For whom?' asked Lord Aberfeldie, angrily.
'Well, say for your friend Mr. Holcroft.'
'Penniless Hawke Holcroft! absurd—the man has seen but little of her.'
'Quite enough in London and here to learn to admire, if not to love her. I would, however, rather see her laid in her grave than married to Holcroft,' said Allan, in a stern but broken voice, adding under his breath, as he left his father's presence and cut short an unpleasant interview, 'but, so far as I am concerned, she shall be free to choose for herself—free as the wind.'
'What the deuce can all this mean?' exclaimed Lord Aberfeldie, in great perplexity; 'was ever an unfortunate man more troubled with two intractable girls, than I am with Eveline and Olive!'
It has been said that, 'if exceedingly few men and women understand each other when they are in their sober senses, how must it fare when they are under the blinding influence of love?'
But Allan's course of action was decided now.
'You are pleased to see me again, Olive?'
'Of course, Allan—why do you ask me?' she exclaimed, putting both her hands into his in welcome.
He retained them with a tender pressure for half a minute, looking the while wistfully into her violet eyes, and then he let them drop from his clasp.
'You wish particularly to speak with me, I understand?' said Olive, nervously thinking it must refer to thetête-à-têtehe had overseen on the terrace.
'Yes—particularly, dear Olive.'
When he saw her tender beauty, her grace, and her witchery, and felt all the subtle charm of her presence, his heart was wrung by the thought that, by the very act he had the power to do, and the suggestions he was about to make to her, he might place her at the entire disposal of Hawke Holcroft, of whose real character he now knew more than formerly.
How variable had been the emotions she had, ever since his return from India, exhibited towards him! By turns she had been changeable and indifferent apparently; playful, petulant, and imperious; yet always bewitching and sweet.
Seeing the cloudy and sad expression of his eye, Olive said,
'You have not come to scold me for anything, Allan. We are at least friends.'
'Would we were more,' said Allan, remembering what his father had urged but a few minutes before.
'Surely to be cousins is a near enough relationship.'
'Olive,' said he, reproachfully, 'unless you have formed a distinct attachment for some one else, I must say I do not understand you.'
'I don't want you to understand me,' she replied, with half-averted face.
'Why are you so hard with me?' he exclaimed, with a wistful, longing, and miserable expression in his eyes.
She made no reply, so he spoke again.
'I have had a long consultation with our family agent in Edinburgh.'
'About what?'
'Your affairs and mine, Olive.'
'Myaffairs?'
'Yes, and I have obtained the opinion of ruby Logan's father, and of counsel of much higher—yes, of the highest—repute on the vexed subject of your father's will—vexed at least between you and I, Olive.'
She gazed at him with something of vacant surprise blended with inquiry in her face.
'What I am about to suggest may be dangerous, as I do not know the terms on which you permit yourself to be with this—Mr. Holcroft—but I have had excellent legal advice, and——'
'Legal advice—oh, indeed!' she interrupted, with a toss of her pretty head; 'that is well, for the laws as made by you men rank us women with children and lunatics. And what says this advice?'
'That you can be freed from the trammels of your father's will—free, and the inheritrix of your own great wealth.'
She regarded him for a minute with blank astonishment; then as bright joy like sunshine spread over her sweet face and sparkled in the depth of her eyes, she exclaimed, in a low voice,
'Free, do you say, free in my own actions, and free to bestow papa's money how and on whom I please?'
'Onwhomyou please,' replied Allan, thinking with intense mortification on Holcroft, and Holcroft only; for personally he was far above thinking of the fortune that might otherwise be his own, as the stars are above the earth. 'Let me but see all this matter fully arranged and then I shall be content,' said he, after a pause, during which they had been regarding each other; he, her with sadness, and she him with bewilderment. 'There are rumours in the air of a turn-up with the Turks, and of a war in Egypt, and right glad I am of that!'
'Why, Allan?'
'Because I'll get attached to the first army corps that sails, even if the Black Watch is not going; but that it is sure to be, as, thank God! the dear old corps is always in everything.'
'And why this joy?'
'To get as far away from you as possible,' he replied, bluntly, in a hollow tone.
'Must you do so, Allan?'
'Yes, unless I mean to drive myself mad.'
'Do you really love me so much—and—and,' she paused, for she seemed touched, her sweet lips were quivering now.
'What more?'
'For myself alone,' she asked, softly.
'Love you—oh, Olive.'
'There now, don't!' she exclaimed, turning away her face, and Allan shrank back.
'Playing with me, after all—after all!' he muttered. 'Will you please to look at the opinion of counsel,' he added, drawing from his pocket a folio document, stitched with a red thread, and with a broad margin.
'What a long story!' she exclaimed, as she glanced at and read,
'Chambers, Edinburgh.
'Copy of Counsel's opinion referred to in letter of 20th October, 1882, on the will of the late Oliver Raymond, Esq, of Jamaica, with note of fees thereon.'
'What a fearful long story!' exclaimed Olive again. 'Tell me all about it, Allan? but pray don't read it.'
'The will of your father is herein denounced as eccentric—one that no court of law would enforce, nor could uphold, as in more than one instance it is not conceived in strictly legal terms, and, to all intents and purposes, can be put aside if you choose. Thus, Olive, you are free—free from all the bonds—if such ever existed—that seemed to bind you to me; and I thank God that it is so, and I shall go to Egypt, perhaps, with a lighter heart. All that now remains to be done is to take the means, if such are necessary, to have the document set aside as so much waste paper, and you duly made mistress of your inheritance, as you are now of age, in England, at least, where it is invested. Thus, you see, Olive, this opinion of counsel is most valuable to you.'
Her soft eyes were brimming over with tears now, as she mechanically took the document in her tremulous fingers.
'And thus you relinquish me?' she said.
'I relinquish, gladly, your fortune, and all control over your actions, if—you choose.'
'But I don't choose! Oh, Allan, how generous all this is of you. But I shall not be less so, nor will I act upon this opinion of counsel.'
'How?'
'See, thus!'
And, tearing it into pieces, she cast them into the fire-grate.
'Illegal as it may be, papa's will must be now a law to me more than ever.'
'And you, Olive?'
'Love you, dear Allan, and love you dearly,' cried the wilful and impulsive girl, as all her heart went forth to him, and he pressed her to his breast at last.
Doubt, pride, defiance, and petulance had all passed away, and Olive was all softness, love, and joy now; and to the pair time seemed for a term to stand still, and save their caressing words softly murmured, and the twitter of birds among the ivy without, silence appeared to reign in this room; and nothing seemed to disturb them, till Olive suddenly started from Allan's arms.
'What is it, love?' he asked.
'A face at the window!'
'Whose face?'
'I know not,' she replied, with some agitation. 'It has just vanished.'
She thought, nay, she was sure, it had the features of Hawke Holcroft, but she did notsayso. If it were he, how much had he overheard, how much overseen!
But she soon forgot the episode, and that night at dinner she looked more radiant than ever, in her suite of Maltese jewellery—gold set with orient pearls.
'It is usual for engaged ladies to have a ring,' Allan had whispered, as he slipped a magnificently jewelled hoop upon her mystic finger.
'Fool that I have been!' thought the girl. 'How near was I estranging one of the best and dearest of men in the world, not for the sake of one immeasurably his inferior, even worthless perhaps, but in a spirit of vanity, pique, and suspicion!'
'Allan,' she whispered to him softly, when an opportunity came, 'I see now how foolish I have been and wilful—oh, so wilful! But we all make mistakes in life, and require at times each other's pity and forgiveness.'
How sweetly and shyly she looked and spoke.
Hawke Holcroft felt intuitively, and indeed saw, that there was some sudden change in the bearing of the pair to each other, and that a sudden brightness had come into the faces of all—even that of Eveline, usually now sotristeand pale—and under his sandy moustache he 'wondered what the devil it all meant,' till his watchful eyes detected the new and brilliant ring on the engaged finger of Olive Raymond!
If Mr. Hawke Holcroft imagined he had nothing to dread personally from the Master's sudden visit to Edinburgh he reckoned without his host, as he would have found had he overheard a brief conversation which took place between Allan and his comrade, young Cameron, as they loitered in the gun-room looking over old Joe-Mantons, new rifles, and central-fire breech-loaders, &c.
He was not slow to perceive very soon that Allan, usually so suave and pleasant in manner, treated him now with a kind of stiffness that was almost hauteur; but he dissembled his rage and so did Allan, who had a keen sense of the laws of hospitality, with the genuine British dread of aught that might approach a 'scene,' more than all as the visit of Holcroft was nearly ended.
Poor wretch! he strove well to keep a brave front in society, while letters that often lay beside his plate at breakfast were seen to cloud his brow with perplexity, for they alluded to wrong horses backed, I.O.U.'s, bills, and cheques 'referred to drawer,' and so forth, and he must have left Dundargue before this, but for a friendly slip of paper, which he had received from Lord Aberfeldie, that 'Fool of Quality,' as he thought him.
'Look here, Cameron,' said Allan, as the twain smoked their cigars in a quiet place. 'It is little wonder to me that you, Sir Paget Puddicombe, and one or two others lost at cards with Holcroft as you did. I dined with our fellows at the mess in the Castle when I went to Edinburgh. There his name cropped up by the merest chance, and I was told by Carslogie of Ours that he was present at a shindy in London, where this fellow Holcroft, after having an unprecedented run at cards at a place in St. James Street, was accused of having the ace of trumps up his sleeve, from whence it fell when he was shying a bottle at the accuser's head. He talks to the pater largely of his "place in Essex," or what remains of it. Involved in debt to a ruinous extent, he gave bills right and left, which were dishonoured. £10,000hadbeen raised upon his estate, in which he had only a reversionary interest, and, when the mortgagees called in their money, and the estate was sold, it did not suffice to pay a tithe of the sums he had raised in every conceivable way, and everyone lost their money all round. Sharp that! Yet he scraped through without punishment.'
'By Jove!'
'Worse still. Carslogie told me he was suspected of causing a horse to fail in a race through having the bit poisoned; and how he left a young fellow in the Hussars at Maidstone in the lurch, by refusing at the last moment to ride for him a peculiarly vicious horse, which he had solemnly undertaken to do, and so causing him to lose the race, on which he had most imprudently made a ruinously heavy book.'
'And how did it end?'
'The report of a pistol that night in the cavalry barrack announced that the Hussar had shot himself—that is all! And this is the "young man of the period" whom my father's confiding simplicity has made a welcome guest for some weeks back at Dundargue, and thrown into the society of my sister and Olive! But I shall fully open his eyes the moment our visitor is gone.'
But it was rather a pity for his own sake that Allan did not 'open' Lord Aberfeldie's eyes a little before that event, and such being the character of Mr. Hawke Holcroft the reader may feel less surprised at some of the things we may have to record of him ere long.
Though somewhat of the nature of an impromptu affair, the 'carpet-dance' partook of something of a more important kind. Many guests were invited; the ladies were in semi-toilet and the gentlemen in evening dress: but the great dancing-room at Dundargue was decorated to perfection by the care of Mr. Tappleton, the butler, the housekeeper, and gardener, with the rarest plants, flowers, and ferns the conservatories could produce, disposed in China and Japanese jars on pedestals and marble console tables of the time of Louis XIV., at whose court a Lord Aberfeldie had once been ambassador.
The fete had been brought about by the two fair cousins as a farewell treat to the last of their present guests, who were departing—Ruby Logan, Stratherroch, and—Mr. Holcroft!
Greatly to Eveline's relief, Sir Paget was gone, but, as if to worry her further, Sir Paget left for her—with Lady Aberfeldie—a letter referring to his admiration and regard for her since the last season in London, and with it a handsome diamond necklet—the sight of which in its fragrant Russian-leather case she loathed—with the hope that she would accept and wear it, in token that she was holding out brilliant hopes to him when 'they met in town again.'
Eveline flatly declined to accept and wear the jewellery, so, to her intense annoyance, it remained as yet in her mother's hands. She was 'biding her time.'
The wealthy suitor had attained a battered middle-age, while Eveline was still in the glory of her youth. True, but he had both wealth and rank to offer, for though she was an 'Honourable Miss,' he was a baronet, and so far as his love went, if it came late in life, it was, nevertheless, a kind of overmastering passion.
The new emotions of her heart caused Eveline to reflect more than perhaps she had ever done before. It seemed but yesterday since she and Olive conned their tasks and practised their scales together under the eyes of a governess; since they had gathered bouquets of wild flowers from the clefts of the rocks of Dundargue, and made fairy caps of rushes and harebells by the burnside; happy children both; but how miserable she was now that she was on the verge of womanhood, and had learned to love and to hate; for she loved Evan Cameron, and hated—yes, and she blushed as she admitted it to herself—she did hate that smiling and rubicund old interloper, Sir Paget.
'And you will not wear the necklet?' said Lady Aberfeldie, for the last time.
'Do please to excuse me, dearest mamma—I cannot—yet a while.'
Lady Aberfeldie was pleased by the half obedience these words implied.
'What ornaments will you wear then?' she asked. 'You have so many to choose from.'
'Let me wear the lovely diamond necklace that lies in the strong casket in your room, mamma.'
Lady Aberfeldie's calm, patrician face darkened.
'I would rather you wore no diamonds at all, child; and these I never wear myself.'
'But why, mamma?'
'Because that necklace always brings evil to whoever wears it.'
'So I have heard. But it is a silly superstition, and they are such lovely stones! But what is the story of them?'
'The wife of a cavalier who died with Montrose on the scaffold of Edinburgh gave them to an ancestor of ours to save his life. This was the first viscount, who was a zealous Covenanter, and the bosom friend of Lord Warriston. He certainly took the jewels from the poor sorrowing wife——'
'And the cavalier?'
'Was beheaded by the Maiden at the market-cross, and a kind of curse seems to have attended these diamonds ever since.'
'A cruel story.'
'But a true one.'
Eveline laughed at the superstition, kissed her cold, proud mother, and carried her point; thus, at the time when carriage after carriage was depositing guests at the great arched entrance hall, Eveline was surveying her figure and face in the mirror with all a young girl's satisfaction and thinking that her slender white throat never looked as it did then, when encircled by the sparkling diamonds of the luckless widow, and Olive at the same time was looking radiant in the Maltese suite of Allan.
How the two last named enjoy the carpet-dance! Perfect confidence was so sweetly established between them, they had so many little secrets to tell, so many revelations to make, so many comparisons, of mutual hopes and fears, and so forth, while each seemed to exult in the affection of the other, and felt in their hearts the words ascribed to old Catullus:—
'Let those love now who never loved before.Let those who always loved, now love the more!'
'Those two young fools seem to understand each other and each other's interests at last!' whispered Lord to Lady Aberfeldie, with a smile of amusement.
'But there are twootheryoung fools present who are doing their best to mar each other's interests,' was her cold and warning response.
Hawke Holcroft's shifty eyes lowered as he watched the cousins and whirled in a waltz with Ruby Logan or any other girl who came to hand. He was in utter perplexity to find the new footing on which these hitherto strange lovers so suddenly were, and that he himself was, as he felt and thought, 'nowhere!'
What could she mean? There was something of radiance in the faces of all the family—even of the sweetly pensive Eveline—all indicative of a new movement thathewas out of.
'As for Olive,' he muttered, while a sentiment of rage, mingled with avarice and jealousy, grew strong in his heart, 'she is an infernal weather-cock, but a deuced handsome one!'
Ruby Logan was equally puzzled, but found consolation with young Carslogie of the Black Watch, whom Allan had invited to the festivity, and who styled her, with reference to her hair, 'the amber witch.'
'Happy Olive and Allan,' thought Eveline, as she rested for a minute on the arm of Cameron, 'they may have as many round dances as they choose without remark, while mine, withhim, must be few and far between.'
Her dress was white silk, trimmed with little laurel leaves and crowberry—the latter a delicate attention to Evan, as it is the badge of the Camerons.
'Will you wear my colours to-night?' she asked, as they promenaded at that end of the room which was furthest away from 'papa and mamma.' She broke off a spray and made him a button-hole. 'Allow me to fix it for you,' said Eveline, and deftly she put it in his lapel, while Evan's heart thrilled to feel the touch of her beloved hand—even though gloved—so near his heart, as they swept into another waltz.
'Aberfeldie,' said the hostess to her husband, 'I feel certain that Evan Cameron is in love with our Eveline.'
Lord Aberfeldie had no doubt about it whatever now, but he only said,
'He would be a fool to be otherwise.'
'But that is not what we seek!'
'Certainly not; but all young fellows have fancies; and he will be gone from this in a few hours now.'
'Thank Heaven, yes!' responded Lady Aberfeldie, devoutly.
'By the way, why did you permit her to wear those unlucky diamonds?'
'She pled so hard, and then the idea of their bringing evil is so behind the age.'
'Behind the age or not, something untoward or unlucky always accompanies their appearance in public. They should have been sent to Bond Street long ago.'
And Lord Aberfeldie smiled on her affectionately, as at that moment he could not help thinking how handsome and young his wife looked in her costume of rich ruby velvet, trimmed at the square cut neck and arms with the finest white old lace, while jewels that an empress might have worn glittered in her ears and hair.
Replacing sometimes the professional musicians, making themselves useful at the piano, and playing certainly good dance music were two—the 'mermaids,' as Holcroft called them—the minister's daughters, who were usually so fond of warbling that they 'were under the blue sea.'
He knew nothing of what Allan had learned concerning him—of the light Carslogie had thrown on his private life; thus, whatever change had come over the spirit of Olive's dream, he deemed it necessary to ask her for, at least, one round dance as usual; and Allan watched them with a haughty grimace on his features as they danced it in a silent manner that was peculiar and rather oppressive to both. The moment it was over, and he handed her back to a seat, Holcroft took refuge in the refreshment-room, where Mr. Tappleton gave him a foaming glass of sparkling champagne.
Young Cameron was rather grave, Allan thought, but the former was oppressed by one idea then, that on the morrow he would have to report himself at the headquarters of the Black Watch, and he gazed like one in a dream at the dancers whirling round him; so Allan took him to task and strove to rally him.
'Why so sad, old fellow? You're down on your luck, somehow,' said he.
'Because, Graham,' replied Cameron, with a forced smile, 'there are times when I am inclined to ask with Mr. Mallock, "Is life worth living?"'
'Of course it is—but how with you?'
'Well,' replied Cameron, with whom just then one bitter thought was more than usually keen, 'dipped nigh to sinking as my place of Stratherroch is, I don't see so much to live for, and certainly deuced little to live upon.'
'Don't take this gloomy view, old fellow,' said Allan, cheerfully.
'It is very well for you to take a jolly view of the world, Allan—you, the son of a peer, and engaged to——'
'Take heart, man; we've lots of life before us—life in Egypt perhaps. There is Eveline sitting alone; take another turn with her, and then we'll have some of Mumms' extra dry together.'
Eveline had opened an album as Cameron drew near her, but closed it instantly as the first photo that met her eyes was a fine cabinet one of Sir Paget. There was an expression of pensive sweetness in her otherwise radiant face, for she, poor girl, never for a moment forgot that a parting—too probably a final one it might prove—was close at hand now, and, after the two past delightful months, how dreary would the future seem!
'Are you tired?' said a tender voice in her ear; 'it is our dance, I think—but would you rather sit it out?'
'A little promenade rather.'
He bowed, and, rising, she took his proffered arm. They made a circuit of the room once or twice, and then, lured no doubt by the coolness and seclusion of a long corridor, entered it, unnoticed as they thought; but the watchful gaze of Lady Aberfeldie had followed them.
There was much to see in this long, stately, and vaulted corridor, and its deeply embayed windows overlooking the rock on which the oldest part of Dundargue is perched. Its floor was ofparqueterie; its walls of wainscot, with massively framed old pictures; some trophies of arms and family armour hung there, and the windows were furnished with ancient stone seats and modern stained glass, through which the radiance of the setting sun was contending with the dim shaded lamps.
Specimens of unique china and frail goblets of Venetian glass, with other objects of 'bigotry and virtue,' as Holcroft had called them, were there in oaken cabinets and on exquisite brackets. Among other things, on a pedestal, skilfully stuffed, the last golden eagle that had been shot at the Birks of Aberfeldie, by the gun of Dugald Glas, a glorious bird that measured five feet from tip to tip of his shining pinions; yet none of these things caught the attention of the two promenaders.
Her hand was on his arm; involuntarily that arm pressed the soft and tremulous fingers which rested there, and in another moment his hand stole over them without their being withdrawn—nay, it seemed as if their load became more heavy.
Eveline was not unaware that there was something morally wrong in the situation; but, then, 'the situation had its charm.'
'Eveline!'
Cameron had never before ventured to call her by her Christian name, nor, until it passed his lips half unconsciously now, had he an intention of so uttering it; but that utterance seemed scarcely a new revelation to the girl.
Soft and lovely was the shy smile upon her upturned face as they stood within the deep bay of a window. Was it that smile, or what, that dazed Evan Cameron and swept his senses away; but he caught her suddenly in his arms and kissed her lips and eyes, whispering,
'Oh! Eveline, my darling—my darling!'
And then there was a pause, full of sighs of happiness. 'The stone was cast into the water, and the still lake broke up into a stormy sea, where there would be peace and quiet no more!' No more, at least, unless the future held some happiness for these two poor loving hearts.
'Have I done wrong?' said Cameron, in a breathless voice, after a little time; 'God knows I never meant that you should see how dearly, how desperately, and how hopelessly I love you when I let the precious secret escape me as I did; but it is done now.'
She was pale as death and trembling violently, as she thought of her mother; yet she nestled closely and clingingly to him.
'You love me, Eveline?'
'Can you ask?' she whispered. 'Yes—oh, yes—Evan.'
He was intoxicated, and drew her close to him again. Such a moment comes but once in life—once only!
'Let us go now—we shall be missed,' said Eveline.
'Oh, stay one moment longer, darling.'
'Mamma, if we could only get her to be our friend, all might be right and go well.'
'Even with my poverty, Eveline?'
'Don't call it so. Yes, papa always gives in to her in the long run.'
Cameron sighed.
'Are you two practising for amateur theatricals, or admiring the stars through the stained glass?' said the voice of Lord Aberfeldie, suddenly.
We have said that the eyes of his wife had followed the pair, and hence no doubt his lordship's sudden appearance in the dimly-lighted corridor. Both were painfully confused.
How much had Lord Aberfeldie overseen, how much had he overheard, or how little of both? It was impossible for them to guess, but he good-naturedly affected not to see all that his mind took in.
Cameron felt that he had nothing to explain, to urge, or to utter, but bowed, smiled a very hollow smile indeed, and led his partner back to the dancing-room, where neither waltzed more that evening, as the impromptu affair was over, the guests were departing, and Lord Aberfeldie was beginning to think that the diamonds of the legend were already producing their evil results in this the first untoward event in the young life of his daughter.
Allan and Cameron, avoiding Holcroft, sat long that night in the former's room smoking and imbibing brandy-and-soda, but no word escaped the lover of what had passed in the corridor; and, sooth to say, full of Olive and himself, Allan had never missed the pair from the dancing-room.
Cameron was to leave Dundargue betimes next morning, so he bade farewell to his comrade, who charged him with remembrances to 'all our fellows of the Black Watch;' and anon Cameron found himself alone with his own loving, exulting, sad, and anxious thoughts, and with the little bouquet—a dwarf laurel leaf and sprig of crowberry—dearer to him then than even his Victoria Cross!
Again and again did he rehearse that sweet episode in the dimly-lit corridor, and again and again in the time to come would it return with sorrowful reiteration to his heart and memory!
Eveline loved him! Her own lips had acknowledged it, her kisses seemed still to linger on his lips; but to what end—my God! he exclaimed, in bitterness of heart, to what end? Again and again he thought over her plaintive and child-like wish, 'if we could only get mamma to be our friend,' and all that wish suggested. Her mother suspected much, he feared, and that her father knew all. Sir Paget, with his colossal wealth, was looming in the distance like a simoon to the newly dawned love; and poor Evan could but come to the terrible conclusion that, like too many others, his penniless love could only be a hopeless one.
So wore the night away—the last, Cameron was assured, he would ever spend in Dundargue; and morning came.
Unslept, Cameron made rapidly the prosaic preparations for his departure, and a valet had borne off his portmanteaus, rugs, and gun-case to the entrance hall, where the sleepy Mr. Tappleton and a wagonette awaited him.
As he was about to descend the great, silent staircase, suddenly Eveline, fully dressed for the day and softly slippered, stood before him, her mignonne face very pale, and her soft hazel eyes inflamed by past weeping.
'Evan!'
'My darling!'
No housemaids were about as yet, and no prying eyes were there, nor had Ronald Gair with his pipes blownreveille.
'I could not let you go without—without one word of farewell,' she sobbed.
Long and mute was their embrace, and the heart of Cameron swelled as if to bursting with mingled love and gratitude. He pressed her to it. It was their parting embrace, and both seemed to feel in it that which a writer has described as 'the vibration of an agony.'
'I feel as if I were bereft of reason!' he whispered.
'My poor Evan—my own dear love!' cooed the girl. One kiss more, and he was gone.
When or where, if ever, would they meet again?
Eveline had nervously and sedulously avoided Sir Paget till the time of his departure; and, when he did leave Dundargue in the dawn, he was only seen off by the old butler; but Evan Cameron had an unexpected farewell caress, the memory of a sad, soft, and clinging kiss that he was to take away with him to what he deemed the land of bondage, and tearful eyes watched his wagonette as it passed down the avenue and out upon the high-road that led to the railway.
Evan looked backwards at the tall and stately pile of Dundargue, on which the rays of the rising sun shone redly, and deep in his heart he envied Carslogie, who was to remain behind for a couple of days' shooting. Yet wherefore should he envy any man while Eveline loved him? was his afterthought.
And she, poor girl, seemed to feel herself left most terribly alone with all her sorrow—alone amid her loving family and splendid surroundings, and with Evan's words of love lingering in her ear she was soon bidden to school herself to think of Sir Paget, and Sir Paget Puddicombe only! 'The human creature,' it has been written, 'who would have suited us to every fibre of our being we have not found, or, having found, have not possessed; but (perhaps) undervalued, and so allowed to pass out of our lives.'
These two suited each other 'to a fibre,' as our author quaintly puts it, and in perfect unanimity of sentiment; and yet for all that they may be compelled to pass out of each other's lives, and live those lives far, far apart.
Under her mother's scrutiny Eveline strove hard to dissemble, and on receiving her morning kiss said,
'Well, mamma, no evil has come of the wearing the diamonds—Dundargue has not taken fire.'
'No, child—indeed, good has come!'
'How, mamma?'
'This morning's mail has brought an enclosure for you—the formal proposal of Sir Paget.'
Eveline was stricken dumb, but thought to herself,
'Unhappy I—evilhascome!'
And ere noon was passed she was taken to task by her father in the library, prompted by her mother, no doubt.
He drew her to him caressingly, and, interlacing his fingers upon her head, drew her soft cheek upon his breast.
'I think, Eveline,' said he, 'you may know by this time how well I love you.'
'I do, indeed, papa,' replied Eveline, in a low voice, but feeling her heart sink under this unusual prelude nevertheless.
'And yet you have been deluding me.'
'Deluding you—I, papa?'
'Yes.'
'Oh, how?'
'By encouraging—pardon me, not that—rather by permitting a visitor to encourage certain hopes. That, you know, it is impossible I should view with favour.'
'You mean—you mean——' stammered Eveline, recalling the episode in the corridor.
'Evan Cameron.'
'He is gone,' said she, with difficulty restraining her tears.
'To darken the door of Dundargue no more! Not that I have any fault to find with poor Cameron—a brave fellow who has won his V.C., and is a Black Watchman to boot; but he is Laird of Stratherroch only in name; his purse does not come up to the requisite standard, and may never do so till both your heads are grey; but he is gone, as you say, and we shall think of him no more. I have other brighter, better, and richer views for you, my dear child, and I hope you will not disappoint us all. Sir Paget loves you, and you will think seriously over all this?'
'How can I do otherwise, papa?' was the dubious response, and the girl stole away to her own room. So wearing the diamonds seemed only to be bringing about a sudden crisis in the affairs of herself and the banished Evan Cameron, for such she deemed him.
And, ere she went to bed that night, Eveline, poor girl, strove to pray that she might have some guide or assistance up the stony and thorny path which she feared was before her now in life; but she no longer now had the deep and unbroken sleep that had ever been her lot the moment her soft cheek touched the pillow. Too nervous to sleep alone, she crept in beside Olive, and, nestling her little face in the white bosom of her cousin, wept long and bitterly.
But events were now to occur that caused even the brilliant proposal of Sir Paget to be forgotten.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
LONDON: PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE.