CHAPTER XVII.
AT CRAIGENGOWAN.
With the new understanding—the tacit engagement that existed between herself and Vivian Hammersley—Finella writhed with annoyance when privately and pointedly spoken to on the subject of her 'cousin' Shafto's attentions and hopes.
'Grandmamma,' said she to Lady Fettercairn, 'I don't see why I may not marry whom I please. I am not like a poor girl who has nothing in the world. Indeed, in that case I am pretty sure that neither you nor cousin Shafto would want me.'
'She must settle soon,' said Lady Fettercairn, when reporting this plain reply to Lady Drumshoddy. 'I certainly shall not take her to London again, yet awhile.'
'You are right,' replied that somewhat grim matron; 'and when once this Captain Hammersley, who, to my idea, is somewhat too èpris with her, is gone, you can easily find some pretext for remaining at Craigengowan; or shall I have her with me?'
'As you please,' replied Lady Fettercairn, who knew that the Drumshoddy mènage did not always suit the taste of Finella; 'but I think she is better here—propinquity and all that sort of thing may be productive of good. I know that poor Shafto's mind is quite made up, and, as I said before, she must settle soon. We can't have twenty thousand a year slipping out of the family.'
Finella thought little of their wishes or those of Shafto. She thought only of that passionate hour in the lonely drawing-room, where she was alone with Vivian, and his lips were pressed to hers; of the close throb of heart to heart, and that the great secret of her young girl's life was his now and hers no longer, but aware of the opposition and antagonism he would be sure to encounter just then, she urged upon him a caution and a secrecy of the engagement which his proud spirit somewhat resented.
He thought it scarcely honourable to take advantage of Lord Fettercairn's hospitality, and gain the love of Finella without his permission; but as both knew that would never be accorded—that to ask for it would cut short his visit, and as he was so soon going on distant service, with Finella he agreed that their engagement should be kept a secret till his return.
And to blind the eyes of the watchful or suspicious he actually found himself flirting with one of the Miss Kippilaws, three young ladies who thought they spoke the purest English, though it was with that accent which Basil Hall calls 'the hideous patois of Edinburgh;' and, perceiving this, Lady Fettercairn became somewhat contented, and Finella was excessively amused.
Not so the astute Shafto.
'It is all a d——d game!' muttered that young gentleman; 'a red herring drawn across the scent.'
'Why do you look so unhappy, dearest?' asked Finella one evening, when she and her lover found themselves alone for a few minutes, during which she had been contemplating his dark face in silence.
'My leave of absence is running out so fast—by Jove, faster than ever apparently now!'
'Is that the sole reason?' asked the girl softly and after a pause, her dark eyes darkening and seeming to become more intense.
'No,' he replied, with hesitation.
'Tell me, then—what is the other?'
'You know how I love you——'
'And I—you.'
'But in one sense my love is so liable to misconstruction—so hopeless of proof.'
'Hopeless, Vivian—after all I have admitted?' she asked reproachfully.
'I mean because I am almost penniless as compared to you.'
'What does that matter? Surely I have enough for two,' said she, laughing.
'And I fear the bitter opposition of your family.'
'So do I; but don't mind it,' said the independent little beauty.
'I have heard a rumour that one of the Melforts who made a pure love-marriage was cut off root and branch.'
'That was poor Uncle Lennard, before I was born. Well—they can't cut me off.'
'They will never consent; and when I am far away, as I soon shall be, if their evil influence——'
'Should prevail with me? Oh, Vivian!' exclaimed the girl, her dark eyes sparkling through their unshed tears. 'Think not of their influencing me, for a moment.'
'Thank you a thousand times for the assurance, my love. It was vile of me to think of such things. I have a sure conviction that your cousin Shafto dislikes me most certainly,' said Hammersley, after a pause.
'I don't doubt it,' said she.
'They mean you for him.'
'They—who?'
'Your grandparents.'
'I know they do—but don't tease me by speaking of a subject so distasteful,' exclaimed Finella, making a pretty moue expression of disdain.
He pressed a kiss on her brow, another on her hair, and his lips quickly found their way to hers, after they had been pressed on her snow-white eyelids.
'I love you with my whole heart, Finella,' he exclaimed passionately.
'And I you,' said the artless girl again, in that style of iteration of which lovers never grow weary, with an adoring upward glance, which it was a pity the gathering gloom prevented him from seeing.
As they walked slowly towards the house, she quickly withdrew her hands, which were clasped clingingly to his arm, as Shafto approached them suddenly. He saw the abrupt act, and drew his own conclusions therefrom, and, somewhat to Finella's annoyance, turned abruptly away.
'So that is the amiable youth for whom they design you,' said he in a whisper.
'Did I not say you were not to speak of him? To tell you the truth, I am at times somewhat afraid of him.'
'My darling—I must give you an amulet—a charm against his evil influence,' said Hammersley, laughing, as he slipped a ring on her wedding-finger, adding, 'I hope it fits.'
'What is this—oh, Vivian! actually a wedding-ring—but I cannot wear, though I may keep it.'
'Then wear this until you can, when I return, darling,' said he, as he slipped a gemmed ring on the tiny finger, and stooping, kissed it.
'My heart's dearest!' cooed the girl happily. 'Well, Vivian, none other than the hoop you have now given me shall be my wedding-ring!'
Had Lady Fettercairn overheard all this she would have had good reason to fear that Finella's twenty thousand a year was slipping away from the Craigengowan family, all the more so that the scene of this tender interview was a spot below the mansion-house, said to be traditionally fatal to the Melforts of Fettercairn, the Howe of Craigengowan—for there a terrible adventure occurred to the first Lord, he who sold his Union vote, and of whom the men of the Mearns were wont to say he had not only sold his country to her enemies, but that he had also sold his soul to the evil one.
It chanced that in the gloaming of the 28th of April, 1708, the first anniversary of that day on which the Scottish Parliament dissolved to meet no more, he was walking in a place which he had bought with his Union bribe—the Howe of Craigengowan, then a secluded dell, overshadowed by great alders and whin bushes—when he saw at the opposite end the figure of a man approaching pace for pace with himself, and his outline was distinctly seen against the red flush of the western sky.
As they neared each other slowly, a strange emotion of superstitious awe stole into the hard heart of Lord Fettercairn. So strong was this that he paused for a minute, and rested on his cane. The stranger did precisely the same.
The peer—the ex-Commissioner on Forfeited Estates—'pulled himself together,' and put his left hand jauntily into the silver hilt of his sword—a motion imitated exactly, and to all appearance mockingly, by the other, whose gait, bearing, and costume—a square-skirted crimson coat, a long-flapped white vest, black breeches and stockings rolled over the knee, and a Ramillie wig—were all the same in cut and colour as his own!
Lord Fettercairn afterwards used to assert that he would never be able to describe the undefinable, the strange and awful sensation that crept over him when, as they neared each other, pace by pace, he saw in the other's visage the features of himself reproduced, as if he had been looking into a mirror.
A cold horror ran through every vein. He knew and felt that his own features were pallid and convulsed with mortal terror and dismay, while he could see that those of his dreadful counterpart were radiant with spite and triumphant malice.
Himself seemed to look upon himself—the same in face, figure, dress; every detail was the same, save that the other clutched a canvas bag, inscribed '£500' the price of the Union vote (or, as some said, the price of his soul)—on seeing which my Lord Fettercairn shrieked in an agony of terror, and fell prone on his face—a fiendish yell and laugh from the other making all the lonely Howe re-echo as he did so.
How long he lay there he knew not precisely; but when he opened his eyes the pale April moon was shining down the Howe, producing weird and eerie shadows, the alder and whin bushes looked black and gloomy, and the window lights were shining redly in the tall and sombre mass of Craigengowan, the gables, turrets, and vanes of which stood up against the starry sky.
He never quite recovered the shock, but died some years after; and even now on dark nights, when owls hoot, ravens croak, toads crawl, and the clock at Craigengowan strikes twelve, something strange—no one can exactly say what—is to be seen in the Howe, even within sound of the railway engine.
But to resume our own story:
Though a day for parting—for a separation involving distance, time, and no small danger to one—was inexorably approaching, Finella was very happy just then, with a happiness she had never known before, and with a completeness that made life—even to her who had known London for a brilliant season—seem radiant. She had been joyous like a beautiful bird, and content, too, before the renewal and fuller development of her intimacy with Vivian Hammersley; but she was infinitely more joyous and content now. ''Twas but the old, old story' of a girl's love, and in all her sentiments and all her hopes for the future Vivian shared.
The beautiful dreams of a dual life had been partly—if not fully—realised through him, who seemed to her a perfect being, a perfect hero: though he was only a smart linesman, a handsome young fellow like a thousand others, yet he possessed every quality to render a girl happy.
Shafto felt that Hammersley had quite 'cut the ground from under his feet' with Finella, as he phrased it; and hating him in consequence, and being a master in cunning and finesse, wonderfully so for his years, he resolved to get 'the interloper's' visit to Craigengowan cut short at all hazards, and he was not long in putting his scheme in operation.
The lovers thus were not quite unconscious of being watched by eyes that were quickened by avarice, passion, and jealousy; yet, withal, they were very, very happy—in Elysium, in fact.
Finding that Hammersley had suddenly become averse to gambling, after a long day among the grouse, Shafto strove hard to lure him into play one evening in the smoke-room.
Hammersley declined, aware that Shafto was remarkably sharp at cards, having become somewhat efficient after years of almost nightly play in the bar-room of the Torrington Arms at Revelstoke.
Shafto's manner on this evening became almost insulting, and he taunted him with 'taking deuced good care of such money as he had.'
''Pon my soul, young fellow, do you know that you are rather—well—ah—rude?' said Hammersley, removing his cigar for a moment and staring at the speaker.
'Sorry, but it's my way,' replied Shafto.
'Perhaps you had better make that your way,' said Hammersley, his brown cheek reddening as he indicated the room-door with his cigar. Then suddenly remembering that he must preserve certain amenities, and as guest—especially one circumstanced as he was secretly—he pushed his cigar-case towards Shafto, saying—'Try one of these—they are Rio Hondos, and are of the best kind.'
'Thanks, I prefer my own,' said Shafto, sulkily.
At last, piqued by the manner of the latter, and having been lured into drinking a little more brandy and soda than was good for him after dinner, the unsuspecting Englishman sat down to play, and though he did so carelessly, his success was wonderful, for, while not caring to win, he won greatly.
Higher and higher rose the stakes, till a very considerable sum had passed into his hands, and, handsome though Shafto's quarterly allowance from his 'grandfather,' paid duly by Mr. Kippilaw, he could not help the lengthening of his visage, and the growing pallor of it, while his shifty eyes rolled about in his anxiety and anger; and Lord Fettercairn and young Kippilaw, who were present, looked on—the former with some annoyance, and the latter with amused interest.
Quite suddenly, Kippilaw exclaimed:
'Hey—what the deuce is this? Captain Hammersley, you have dropped a card.'
And he picked one up from that officer's side, and laid it on the table.
'The ace of spades! By heaven, you have already played that card!' exclaimed Shafto, with fierce triumph.
'It is not mine!' said Hammersley, hotly.
'Whose, then?'
'How the devil should I know?' asked Hammersley, eyeing him firmly.
'Your luck has been marvellous, but not so much so when we know that you play with double aces,' said Shafto, throwing down his cards and starting from the table, as the other did, now pallid with just rage.
'Would you dare to insinuate?' began the officer, in a hoarse tone.
'I insinuate nothing; but the disgraceful fact speaks for itself; and I think you have been quite long enough among us in Craigengowan,' he added, coarsely.
Vivian Hammersley was pale as death, and speechless with rage. He thought first of Finella and then of his own injured honour; and we know not what turn this episode might have taken had not Lord Fettercairn, who, we have said, had been quietly looking on from a corner, said gravely, sharply, and even with pain, as he started forward:
'Shafto! I saw you drop that card, where Mr. Kippilaw picked it up—drop it, whether purposely or not I do not say—but drop it you did.'
'Impossible, sir!'
'It is not impossible,' said the peer, irately; 'and I am not blind or liable to make mistakes; and you too manifestly did so; whence this foul accusation of a guest in my own house—a gentleman to whom you owe a humble and most complete apology.'
Shafto was speechless with rage and baffled spite at the new and sudden turn his scheme had taken, and at being circumvented in his own villainy.
'My Lord Fettercairn, from my soul I thank you!' said Hammersley, drawing himself up proudly, looking greatly relieved in mind, and, turning next to Shafto, evidently waited for the suggested apology.
But in that he was disappointed, as the 'heir' of Fettercairn turned abruptly on his heel and left the room, leaving his lordship to make the amende, which he did in very graceful terms.
As it was impossible now for both to remain longer under the same roof after a fracas of this kind, Hammersley proposed at once to take his departure for the south by a morning train; but Lord Fettercairn, who, with all his selfish shortcomings, had been shocked by the episode, and by several other ugly matters connected with his newly found 'grandson,' would by no means permit of that movement; and in this spirit of hospitality even Lady Fettercairn joined, pressing him to remain and finish his visit, as first intended, while Shafto, in a gust of baffled rage and resentment, greatly to the relief of Finella and of the domestics, betook himself to Edinburgh, thus for a time leaving his rival more than ever in full possession of the field.
'Whether she is influenced by Captain Hammersley I cannot say,' were the parting words of Lady Fettercairn to this young hopeful; 'but you seem by this last untoward affair to have lost even her friendship, and it will be a dreadful pity, Shafto, if all her money should be lost to you too.'
And Shafto fully agreed with his 'dear grandmother' that it would be a pity indeed.
As a gentleman and man with a keen sense of honour, Hammersley disliked exceedingly the secrecy of the engagement he had made with Finella, and felt himself actually colour more than once when Lord Fettercairn addressed him; but his compunctions about it grew less when he thought of the awful escape he had made from a perilous accusation, that might have 'smashed' him in the Service, and of the trickery of which Shafto was capable—a trickery of which he had not yet seen the end.