CHAPTER XII.
VIVIAN HAMMERSLEY.
The persistent attentions of Shafto were alternately a source of amusement and worry to Finella Melfort; and when she found them become the latter, she had more than once retreated to the residence of her maternal grandmother, Lady Drumshoddy, though she infinitely preferred being at Craigengowan, where the general circle was more refined and of a much better style; for Lady Drumshoddy—natheless her title—was not quite one of the 'upper ten,' being only the widow of an advocate, who, having done without scruple the usual amount of work to please his party and the Lord Advocate, had been rewarded therefor by an appointment (and knighthood) in Bengal, where he had gone, at a lucky time, with the old advice and idea—
'They bade me from the Rupee Tree
Pluck India's endless riches,
And then I swore that time should see
Huge pockets in my breeches.'
Thus Sir Duncan Drumshoddy's pockets were so well filled that when he came home to die, his daughter was heiress enough to be deemed a 'great catch' by the Fettercairn family, though her grandfather had been—no one knew precisely what.
And now Finella, by education, careful training, and by her own habit of thought, was naturally so refined that, with all her waggery and disposition to laughter and merriment, Shafto's clumsy love-speeches occasionally irritated her.
'I have somewhere read,' said he, 'that a man may get the love of the girl he wants, even if she cares little for him, if he only asks her at the right time; but, so far as you are concerned, Finella, the right moment has not come for me, I suppose.'
'Nor ever will come, I fear, cousin Shafto,' she replied, fanning herself, and eyeing him with mingled fun and defiance sparkling in her dark eyes.
Ere Shafto could resume on this occasion Lord Fettercairn came hurriedly to him, saying,
'Oh, by-the-bye, young Hammersley, from London, will arrive here to-morrow for a few weeks' grouse-shooting before he leaves for his regiment in Africa. You will do your best to be attentive to him, Shafto.'
'Of course,' said the latter, rather sulkily, however, all the more so that he was quick enough to detect that, at the mention of the visitor's name, a flush like a wave of colour crossed the cheek of Finella.
Something in his tone attracted the attention of Lord Fettercairn, who said,
'After the 12th I hope you will find a legitimate use for your gun—you know what I mean.'
Shafto coloured deeply with annoyance, as his grandfather referred to a mischievous act of his, which was deemed a kind of outrage in the neighbourhood.
In the ruins of Finella's Castle at Fettercairn a pair of majestic osprey had built their nest, guarded by the morass around them, and there they bred and reared a pair of beautiful eaglets. No one had been allowed to approach them, so that nothing should occur to break the confidence of safety which the pair of osprey acquired in their lonely summer haunt, till soon after Shafto came to Craigengowan, and by four rounds from his breech-loader he contrived to shoot them all, to the indignation of the neighbourhood and even of my Lord Fettercairn.
Not that the latter cared a straw about these eagles as objects of natural history; but the fact of their existence formed the subject of newspaper paragraphs, and his vanity was wounded on finding that one of his family had acted thus.
So on the morrow, at luncheon, the family circle at Craigengowan had two or three accessions to its number—friends invited for the 12th of August—among others Mr. Kippilaw the younger, a spruce and dapper Edinburgh Writer to the Signet, 'who,' Shafto said, 'thought no small beer of himself;' and Vivian Hammersley, a captain of the Warwickshire regiment, a very attractive and, to one who was present, most decided addition to their society.
His regular features were well tanned by the sun in Natal; his dark hair was shorn short; his moustaches were pointed well out; and his dark eyes had a bright and merry yet firm and steady expression, as those of a man born to command men, who had more than once faced danger, and was ready to face it again.
He was in his twenty-seventh year, and was every way a courteous and finished English gentleman, though Shafto, in his secret heart, and more than once in the stables, pronounced him to be 'a conceited beast.'
Hammersley had fished in Norway, shot big game in Southern Africa, hunted in the English shires, taking his fences—even double ones—like a bird; he had lost and won with a good grace at Ascot and the Clubs, flirted 'all round,' and, though far from rich, was a good specimen of a handsome, open-handed, and open-hearted young officer, a favourite with all women, and particularly with his regiment.
After luncheon he was seated beside Lady Fettercairn; he was too wise in his generation to have placed himself where he would have wished, beside Finella, whose little hand, on entering, Shafto thought he retained in his rather longer than etiquette required; for if Shafto's eyes were shifty, they were particularly sharp, and he soon found that though Finella, to a certain extent, had filled up her time by flirting in a cousinly way with himself, 'now that this fellow Hammersley had come,' he was 'nowhere' as he thought, with a very bad word indeed.
We have said that Finella had paid a protracted and—to her—most enjoyable visit to Tyburnia. There at balls, garden parties, and in the Row she had met Vivian Hammersley repeatedly; and these meetings had not been without a deep and tender interest to them both; and when they were parted finally by her return to Craigengowan, though no declaration of regard had escaped him, he had been burning to speak to her in that sweet and untutored language by which the inmost secrets of the loving heart can be read; and now that they had met again, they had a thousand London objects to talk about safely in common, which made them seem to be what they were, quite old friends in fact, and erelong Lady Fettercairn began, like Shafto, to listen and look darkly and doubtfully on.
But when they were alone, which was seldom, or merely apart from others, there was between them a new consciousness now—a secret but sweet understanding, born of eye speaking to eye—all the sweeter for its secrecy and being all their own, a conscious emotion that rendered them at times almost afraid to speak or glance lest curious eyes or ears might discover what that secret was.
What was to be the sequel to all this? Hammersley was far from rich according to the standard of wealth formed by Lady Fettercairn, and the latter had destined her granddaughter with all her accumulated wealth to be the bride of Shafto. Hammersley knew nothing of this; he only knew his own shortcoming in the matter of 'pocketability;' but then youth, we are told, 'is sanguine and full of faith and hope in an untried future. It looks out over the pathway of life towards the goal of its ambition, seeing only the end desired, and giving little or no heed to hills and dales, storms and accidents, that may be met with on the way.' So, happy in the good fortune that threw him once more in the sweet society of bright Finella Melfort, Captain Hammersley gave full swing in secret to the most delightful of day-dreams.
In all this, however, we are somewhat anticipating our narrative.
But, like a wise man, while the luncheon lasted he was most attentive to his hostess, from whose old but still handsome face, like that of Tennyson's Maud, 'so faultily faultless, icily regular, and splendidly null,' he ever and anon turned to that of Finella—that mignonne face, which was so full of varying expression, warmth, light, and colour.
'Try that Madeira, Captain Hammersley,' said Lord Fettercairn. 'You will scarcely credit how long I have had it in the cellar. I bought a whole lot of it—when was it, Grapeston?' he asked, turning to the solemn old butler behind him.
'The year Mr. Lennard left home, my Lord.'
'Everything at Craigengowan seems to take date before or after that event,' said Lord Fettercairn, with knitted brow. 'Do you mean for India, Grapeston?'
'Yes, my lord,' replied the butler, who had carried 'Master Lennard' in his arms as a baby.
'Such a rich flavour it has, and just glance at the colour.'
Hammersley affected to do so, but his eyes were bent on the face of Finella.
'I hope you won't find Craigengowan dull, but every place is so after London.'
'True, we live so fast there that we never seem to have time to do anything.'
And now, understanding that Shafto was to be his chief companion at the covies on the morrow, Hammersley talked to him of hammerless guns, of central fire, of the mode of breaking in dogs, training setters, and so forth; and as these subjects had not been included in Shafto's education at Lawyer Carlyon's office, he almost yawned as he listened with irritation to what he could not comprehend.
'If you care for fishing, Hammersley,' said Lord Fettercairn, 'the Bervie yields capital salmon, sea and yellow trout. Finella has filled more than one basket with the latter, but Shafto is somewhat of a duffer with his rod—he breaks many a rod, and has never landed a salmon yet.'
'And the shootings?' said Hammersley inquiringly.
'Well, the best in the county are Drumtochty, Fasque, Hobseat, and my own, as I hope you will find to-morrow.'
'Thanks—indeed, I am sure I shall.'
'I have close on 5,000 acres, and the probable bag of grouse and black game is from 400 to 500 brace.'
After dinner that evening Finella was found singing at the piano—singing, as she always did, without requiring pressure and apparently for the mere pleasure of it, as a thrush on a rose bush sings; but now she sang for Vivian Hammersley, Shafto felt instinctively that she did so, and his bitterness was roused when he heard her, in a pause, whisper:
'Please, Captain Hammersley, let Shafto turn the leaves. He likes to do it, though he can do little else in the way of music.'
This kind of confidence seemed to imply foregone conclusions and a mutual understanding, however slight; but, to some extent, Finella had a kind of dread of Shafto.
Hammersley smiled and drew back, after placing a piece of music before her; but not before remarking:
'This song you are about to sing is not a new one.'
'No—it is old as the days when George IV. was king—it is one you gave me some weeks ago in London, you remember?'
'Am I likely to forget?'
'Turn the leaves, Shafto, please,' said Finella, adjusting her dress over the music-stool; 'but don't talk to me.'
'Why?'
'It interrupts one so; but turn the leaves at the proper time.'
'Captain Hammersley will do that better than I,' said Shafto, drawing almost sulkily away, while the former resumed his place by Finella, with an unmistakable smile rippling over his face.
This song, which, it would seem, Hammersley had given her, was an old one, long since forgotten, named the 'Trysting Place,' and jealous anger gathered in Shafto's heart as he listened and heard Hammersley's voice blend with Finella's in the last line of each verse:
'We met not in the sylvan scene
Where lovers wish to meet,
Where skies are bright and woods are green,
And bursting blossoms sweet;
But in the city's busy din,
Where Mammon holds his reign,
Sweet intercourse we sought to win
'Mid fashion, guile, and gain;
Above us was a murky sky,
Around a crowded space,
Yet dear, my love, to thee and me,
Was this, our trysting place.'
'They are who say Love only dwells
'Mid sunshine, light, and flowers;
Alike to him are gloomy cells
Or gay and smiling bowers;
Love works not on insensate things
His sweet and magic art;
No outward shrine arrests his wings,
His home is in the heart;
And dearest hearts like thine and mine,
With rapture must retrace—
How often Love has deigned to shine
On this our trysting place.'
'Miss Melfort, you have sung it more sweetly than ever!' said Hammersley in a low voice as he bent over her.
'Confound him!' muttered Shafto to himself; 'where was this trysting place? I feel inclined to put a charge of shot into him to-morrow. I will, too, if the day is foggy!'
Finella, though pressed, declined to sing more, as the Misses Kippilaw, who were rather irrepressible young ladies, now proposed a carpet-dance, and she drew on her gloves; and while she fumbled away, almost nervously, with the buttoning of one, she knew that Hammersley's eyes were lovingly and admiringly bent on her, till he came to the rescue, and did the buttoning required; and to Shafto it seemed the process was a very protracted one, and was a pretty little connivance, as in reality it was.
Miss Prim, Lady Fettercairn's companion, was summoned, and she—poor creature—had to furnish music for the occasion, till at last Finella good-naturedly relieved her.
So a carpet-dance closed the evening, and then Shafto, though an indifferent waltzer, thought he might excel in a square dance with Finella; but he seldom shone in conversation at any time, and on this occasion his attempts at it proved a great failure, and when he compared this with the animation of Hammersley and Finella in the Lancers, he was greatly puzzled and secretly annoyed. The former did not seem to undergo that agony so often felt by Shafto, of having out-run all the topics of conversation, or to have to rack his brain for anecdotes or jokes, but to be able to keep up an easy flow of well-bred talk on persons, places, and things, which seemed to amuse Finella excessively, as she smiled brightly and laughed merrily while fanning herself, and looking more sparkling and piquante than ever.
'What the deuce can he find to say to her?' thought Shafto; but Hammersley was only finding the links—the threads of a dear old story begun in London months ago.
So passed the first day of Hammersley's arrival at Craigengowan, and Finella laid her head on her pillow full of bright and happy thoughts, in which 'Cousin Shafto' bore no share.
But while these emotions and events were in progress, where, in the meantime, was Florian? Ay, Shafto Gyle, where?