CHAPTER XIV.
NEWS FROM THE SEAT OF WAR.
It was a soft and breezy April morning. The young leaves had scarcely burst their husk-like sheaths in the alternate showers and sunshine; the lambs were bleating in the meadows, the birds sang on bush and tree, the white clouds were floating in the azure sky, and the ivy rustled on the old walls of turreted Craigengowan, when there came some tidings that found a sharp echo in the hearts of Dulcie and Finella.
Arm-in-arm, as girls will often do, they were idling and talking of themselves and their own affairs in all the luxury of being together alone, near a stately old gateway of massive iron bars, hung on solid pillars, surmounted by time-worn wyverns, and all around it, without and within, grew tall nettles, mighty hemlock, and other weeds; while the avenue to which it once opened had disappeared, and years upon years ago been blended with the lawn, for none had trod it for 146 years, since the last loyal Laird of Craigengowan had ridden forth to fight for King James VIII., saying that it was not to be unclosed again till his return; and he returned no more, so it remains closed unto this day.
And it has been more than once averred by the peasantry that on the 13th of November, the anniversary of the battle in which he fell, when the night wind is making an uproar in the wintry woods of Craigengowan, the low branches crashing against each other, a weird moon shines between rifts in the black flying clouds, and the funeral-wreaths of the departed harvest flutter on the leafless hedges, a spectred horseman, in the costume of Queen Anne's time, his triangular hat bound with feathers, a square-skirted coat and gilded gambadoes—a pale, shimmering figure, through which the stars sparkle—can be seen outside the old iron gate, gazing with wistful and hollow eyes through the rusty bars, as if seeking for the vanished avenue down which he had ridden with his cuirassed troop to fight for King James VIII.; for sooth to say, old Craigengowan is as full of ghostly legends as haunted Glamis itself.
Finella had just told this tale to Dulcie when a valet rode past the gate and entered the lawn by another with the post-bag for the house. From this Finella took out a newspaper—one of the many it contained—and with eager eyes the two girls scanned its columns for the last news from Zululand, and simultaneously a shrill exclamation, which made the man turn in his saddle as he rode on, escaped them both.
The paper contained a brief telegraphic notice of the conflict at the laager of Ginghilovo, and with it the following paragraph:
'Captain Vivian Hammersley, of the unfortunate 24th Regiment, led a squadron of Barrow's Mountain Infantry; and having, with the most brilliant gallantry, pressed the flying foe much too far, had his horse shot under him, and was in danger of being instantly assegaied by several infuriated savages, who were driven off and shot down in quick succession by Sergeant Florian MacIan, who mounted the wounded officer on his own horse and brought him safely into the lines, for which noble act of humanity and valour he is, we believe, recommended for promotion by Captain Barrow, of the 19th Hussars, commanding the Mounted Infantry, and by Lord Chelmsford. The fatal day of Isandhlwana has made many commissions vacant in the unfortunate 24th Foot; and we have no doubt that one of them will be conferred upon this gallant young sergeant.'
'Oh, Dulcie, let me kiss you—I can't kiss your Florian just now!' exclaimed the impulsive Finella, embracing her companion, whose eyes, like her own, were brimming with tears of joy and sympathy.
Hammersley had received a wound of which no details were given; and that circumstance, by its vaguity, filled the heart of Finella with the keenest anxiety. Oh, if he should die believing what he did of her, when she had been and was still so true and loyal to him!
The intelligence rather stunned her; and for some minutes she remained paralyzed with dismay. She was powerless, with all her wealth, to succour in any way her suffering lover, and no resolution could shape itself in her mind. He might be dying, or already dead, for the fight had taken place some days ago—dying amid suffering and misery, while she remained idly, lazily, and in comfort amid the luxuries of Craigengowan. Even Dulcie failed to console her; and declining to appear at the breakfast-table, she took refuge in her own room, with the usual feminine plea of a headache.
'Florian, poor dear Florian! so good, so brave, so fearless!' said Dulcie to herself aloud; 'how glad I am he has achieved this, for her sake!'
How sweet and soft grew her voice as she uttered the name of the lost, the absent one, while an hysterical lump was rising in her throat, and Shafto, who had seen the paper and knew the source of this emotion, looked grimly in her face, with twitching lips and knitted brows.
'I have no chance,' thought he, 'with these two girls—either Dulcie the poor or Finella the rich. Yet why should I not contrive to bend both to my purpose?' was his evil afterthought. 'Well,' said he aloud; 'you have seen the news, of course?'
'Yes, Shafto,' replied Dulcie in a low voice, while her tears fell fast.
'So—he is not killed yet!'
She regarded him with bitter reproach.
'Don't cry, Dulcie!' said Shafto, with a little emotion of shame, 'or you will make me feel like a brute now.'
'I always thought you must have felt like one long ago,' retorted the girl, as she swept disdainfully past him.
As Lord and Lady Fettercairn had no desire to bring the name of Captain Hammersley on the tapis, no reference whatever to the affair of Ginghilovo, or even to the Zulu War, was made in the presence of Finella.
Even if the latter had not been engaged, as she still could not help deeming herself, to Hammersley, and had she not a decided, repugnance to Shafto, her pride and her whole soul must have revolted against a mariage de convenance. She had formed, girl-like, her own conceptions of an ideal man, and beyond all whom she met, in London or elsewhere, Vivian Hammersley was her 'Prince Charming;' and in a day or two her mind was partially set at rest when she read a description of his wound, a flesh one, inflicted by an assegai, and which was then healing fast, but, as she knew, only to enable him to face fresh perils.
To be bartered away to anyone after being grotesquely wooed did not suit her independent views, and ere long her grandparents began to think with annoyance that they had better let her alone; but Lady Fettercairn was impatient and irrepressible.
Not so Shafto.
He had a low opinion of the sex, picked up perhaps in the bar-parlour of the inn at Revelstoke, if not inherent in his own nature. He had read somewhere that 'women love a judicious mixture of hardihood and flattery—the whole secret lies in that;' also, that if their hearts are soft their heads are softer in proportion.
Lady Fettercairn was somewhat perplexed when watching the young folks at Craigengowan.
She shrewdly suspected, of course, that Finella's coldness to Shafto was due to the influence of their late guest Hammersley, though she never could have guessed at the existence of the wedding-ring and diamond keeper he had entrusted to her care; but she failed to understand the terms on which her 'grandson' was with her companion, Miss Carlyon, and, though there was nothing tangible or reprehensible, there was an undefined something in their bearing she did not like.
Sometimes when talking of Devonshire, of Revelstoke, of the old town of Newton Ferrars, the dell that led to Noss, of the Yealm, the Erme, and the sea-beat Mewstone as safe and neutral topics, the girl seemed affable enough to him, for memories of her English home softened her heart; but when other topics were broached she was constrained to him and icy cold.
Was this acting?
To further the interests of Shafto by keeping him and Finella isolated and as much together as possible, Lady Fettercairn did not go to London and thus seek society. Fashionable folks—unless Parliamentary—do not return to town till Easter; but Lord Fettercairn, though a Representative Peer, cared very little about English and still less about Scottish affairs, or indeed any interests but his own; so, instead of leaving Craigengowan, they had invited a few guests there—men who had come for rod-fishing in the Bervie, the Carron and the Finella, with some ladies to entertain them, thus affording the girl means of avoiding Shafto whenever she chose.
The stately terrace before the house often looked gay from the number of guests promenading in the afternoon, or sitting in snug corners in wicker chairs covered with soft rugs—the ladies drinking tea, the bright colours of their dresses coming out well against the grey walls of the picturesque old mansion.
Among other visitors were the vinegar-visaged Lady Drumshoddy, and Messrs. Kippilaw, senior and junior, the latter a dapper little tomtit of a Writer to the Signet, intensely delighted and flattered to be among such 'swell' company, believing it was the result of his natural brilliance and attractions, and not of respect for his worthy old father, Kenneth Kippilaw.
The latter—a rara avis, scarce as the dodo and his kindred—was intensely national—a lover of his country and of everything Scottish; an enthusiast at Burns' festivals, and singularly patriotic to be what is locally termed a 'Parliament House bred man.' Thus the anti-nationality or utter indifference of Lord Fettercairn was a frequent bone of contention between them; and so bitterly did they sometimes argue about Scotland and her neglected interests, that it is a marvel the Peer did not seek out a more obsequious agent.
'Like his uncle, the late Master of Melfort, Mr. Shafto must go into Parliament,' said old Mr. Kippilaw; 'but I hope he will make a better use of his time.'
'What do you mean?' asked Lord Fettercairn coldly.
'By attending to Scottish affairs, and getting us equal grants with England and Ireland for public purposes.'
'Stuff—the old story, my dear sir. Who cares about Scotland or her interests?'
'Ay, who indeed!' exclaimed old Kippilaw, growing warm.
'She is content to be a mere province now.'
'The more shame for her—a province that contributes all her millions to the Imperial Exchequer and gets nothing in return.'
'A sure sign she doesn't want anything,' replied the peer, with one of his silent laughs. 'I wish you would not worry me with this patriotic "rot," Kippilaw—excuse the vulgarity of the phrase; but so long as I can get my rents out of Craigengowan and Finella, I don't care a jot if all the rest, Scotland with all its rights and wrongs, history, poetry and music, was ten leagues under the sea!'
So thus, for two reasons, political and personal, the 'Fettercairns' just then did not go to 'town.'
On the terrace this very afternoon Lady Fettercairn was watching Finella and Dulcie, linked arm in arm conversing apart from all, and her smooth brow clouded; for she knew well that the fact of Hammersley owing his life to Florian MacIan would make—as it did—a new tie between the two girls.
'You see, Shafto,' said she, 'how more than ever does Finella put that girl out of her place. Though most useful as she is to me, always pleasant and irreproachably lady-like, I think I must get rid of her.'
'Not yet—not yet, grandmother,' said Shafto, who did not just then wish this climax; 'do give her another chance.'
'To please you, I will, my dear boy; but I fear I am rash.'
'I wish Finella were not so beastly rich!' he exclaimed.
'Do not use such shocking terms, Shafto! But why?'
'It makes me look like a fortune-hunter, being after her.'
'"After her"? Another vulgarism—impossible—you—you—the heir of Fettercairn!'
'Well, it gives one no credit for disinterested affection,' said this plausible young gentleman.
We have said that Lady Fettercairn was irrepressible in seeking to control Finella.
'How quiet and abstracted you seem! Why don't you entertain our friends?' said she, as the girl drew near her in an angle of the terrace, where they were alone.
'I am thinking, grandmamma,' said Finella wearily.
'You seem to be for ever thinking, child; and I wonder what it can all be about.'
'I don't believe, grandmamma, it would interest you,' said Finella, a little defiantly.
'There you are wrong, Finella; what interests you, must of necessity interest me,' said Lady Fettercairn, haughtily yet languidly, as she fanned herself.
'Not always.'
'Is it something new, then? I suspect your thoughts,' she continued with some asperity. 'Finella, listen to me again. You and Shafto are the only two left of the Melfort family; we wish the two branches united, for their future good—the good of the name and the title; and if Shafto goes into Parliament, I do not see why he should not perhaps become Viscount or Earl of Fettercairn.'
'The old story! I have no ambition, grandmamma,' shrugging her shoulders, 'and certainly none to be the wife of Shafto, even were he made a duke. So please to let me alone,' she added desperately, 'or I may tell you that of—of—Shafto you may not like to hear.'
And in sooth now, Lady Fettercairn, like her lord, had heard so much evil of Shafto lately that she abruptly dropped the subject for the time.
And now Shafto began once more to persecute poor Dulcie—a persecution which might have a perilous effect upon her future.