CHAPTER XVI.
A CLOUD DISPELLED.
September was creeping on, and in London then the weather is often steady and pleasant, though in the mornings and evenings the first chills of the coming winter begin to be felt. The summer-parched and dust-laden foliage of the trees droops in Park and square, and the great gorse-bushes are all in golden bloom at Wimbledon, at Barnes Common, and other fern and heath-covered wastes.
The Row and other favourite promenades were now empty; Parliament was not sitting; and shooting and cub-hunting were in full force in the country.
Sooner or later one runs up against every one in this whirligig world of ours; thus Hammersley, still lingering aimlessly in London, coming one day from the Horse Guards, in crossing the east end of the Mall, found himself suddenly face to face with her of whom his thoughts were full—Finella Melfort!
Finella, in a smart sealskin jacket, with her muff slung by a silken cord round her slender neck, a most becoming hat, the veil of which was tied tightly and piquantly across her short upper lip.
'Finella!'
'Oh, Vivian!'
Their exclamations and joyful surprise were mutual, but 'the horns and hoofs of the green-eyed monster' were still obtruding amid the thoughts of Hammersley, though she frankly gave him both her plump little tightly gloved hands, which after a caressing pressure he speedily dropped, rather to the surprise of the charming proprietor thereof.
'Did you know I was in London?' she asked.
'Yes—too well.'
'And yet made no effort to see—to write to me!'
'I knew not where to find you.'
'You might have inquired—that is, if you cared to know.'
'Cared—oh, Finella!'
'And your wound—your cruel wound! Have you recovered from it?'
'Nearly so—thus I have just been at the Horse Guards about going on foreign service again.
'Foreign service—again?'
'Yes; there are wounds deeper and more lasting than any an enemy can inflict.'
She evidently did not understand his mood.
'Are you not rash, Vivian, to be out in a day so chill as this?' she said.
'A little chill, fog, or rain, more or less, are trifles to one whose thoughts are all of sad and bitter things.'
'Vivian?—your wound, was it a severe one?'
'Very. I received a shot that was meant for the assassination of another.'
'Who?'
'Florian; your friend Miss Carlyon's lover, who, poor fellow, I hear sailed from Durban in a bad way.'
'Why do you look and speak so coldly, Vivian—Vivian?' she asked, with her slender fingers interlaced, while he certainly eyed her wistfully, curiously, and even angrily.
'Why?'
'Yes,' said she, impetuously. 'Why are you so cruel—so hard to me?' she added, with a sob in her voice, as she placed a hand on his arm and looked earnestly up in his face. 'Surely it is not for me to plead thus?'
'Why are you so touched?'
'Can you ask, while treating me thus?'
'Like a thorough Scotch girl, you answer one question by asking another.'
'Well, in constancy men certainly do not bear the palm,' said she, drawing back a pace, and inserting her hands in her muff.
'I think you should be the last to taunt me, at all events, as appearances go.'
There was a moment's silence, for both were too honest and true to have acquired what has been termed 'the useful and social art of talking platitudes' when their hearts were full.
'And this is our long-looked-forward-to meeting?' she said, reproachfully.
'Yes—alas!'
'Why do you regard me—not with the furious rage that possessed you on quitting Craigengowan—but with coldness, doubt, indifference?'
'Indifference! Oh, no, Finella.'
'Doubt—suspicion, then?'
'It may be,' he replied with a doggedness that certainly was not natural to him.
'What have I done?' asked the girl, sorely piqued now.
'Nothing, perhaps,' he replied shrinking from putting his thoughts into words.
'Can it be that you are changeable and inconstant? When you saw me, and knew that I was in London, why did you not come to me at once?'
'Because I knew not where or with whom you were residing.'
'Did you go to Fettercairn House?'
'No.'
'Why?' she asked curtly, for her suspicions were being kindled now.
'I knew the family were not in town.'
'Then you might have asked for Lady Drumshoddy, and, if not, somehow have heard——'
'By tipping the butler or Mr. James Plush?'
'If I wanted to do anything I would grasp at the first chance of achieving it,' said Finella, her dark eyes sparkling now.
'Men are seldom creatures of impulse. I reasoned over the matter, and put two and two together.'
'Reason generally urges men to do what they wish. But what do you mean by putting two and two together?'
'Well, frankly, I referred to you and Major Garallan.'
'Do you make four of us? Vivian, you are absurd,' said Finella, after a little pause, during which she coloured and stamped a little foot impatiently on the ground.
'Perhaps,' said he sadly and wearily; 'but I heard so much at the Clubs and elsewhere that I knew not what to think.'
'About us you mean—Cousin Ronald and me?'
'Yes.'
'You heard—what?'
'That you were about to be married—that is the long and the short of it.'
His face crimsoned with annoyance as he spoke; but hers grew pale.
'And you, Vivian—you believed this?' she asked mournfully and reproachfully.
'Much that I saw seemed to confirm it. You and he were so much together.'
'How unfortunate I am to have been suspected by you twice! Ronald is only my cousin.'
'So was that precious Shafto!'
'Why hark back upon that episode?' she asked, piteously. 'Have I offended you? Misunderstanding between us seems to have become our normal state.'
'Your cousin may—nay, I doubt not, loves you, Finella; but why do you permit him to do so?'
'Can I help it? Ronald was a kind of brother to me—nothing more,' she continued, ignoring—perhaps at that moment forgetting—his recent proposal; 'but my heart has never for a moment wandered from you. See!' she added, while quickly and nervously stripping the kid glove from her right hand, 'your engagement ring has never, for a second even, been off my finger since first you placed it there.'
'My darling—my darling!' he exclaimed, as all his heart went forth towards her. 'Oh, Finella! what I suffered when I thought I had again lost you! Yet I would almost undergo it all again—for this!' he added, as he passionately kissed her, after a swift glance round to see that no one was nigh.
So the reconciliation was complete; all doubts were dissipated, and they lingered long together, talking of themselves and a thousand kindred topics, in which foreign service was not included; and more complete it was, when, after escorting her home (Lady Drumshoddy being absent at Exeter Hall), in the solitude of the drawing-room, they had a sweeter lingering still, Finella's head resting on his shoulder, the touch of her cheek thrilling through him, and like some tender and tuneful melody her soft cooing voice seemed to vibrate in his head and heart together.
So they were united again after all!
At last they had to separate, and looking forward to a visit on the morrow, Hammersley, seeming to tread on air, in a state of radiance, both in face and mind, hurried across the square to the Club, where he came suddenly upon Villiers, whom he had not seen for some days, and who seemed rather curiously to resent his evident state of high spirits.
'Well, Villiers,' said he, 'you do look glum, by Jove! What is the matter now—the Wolseley ring, and all that—the service going to the dogs!'
'You know deuced well that it has gone—went with the regimental system. No; it is a cursed affair of my own. I have been robbed.'
'Robbed—how—and of what?'
'My pocket-book, containing some valuable papers and more than £500 in Bank of England notes.'
'Good heavens! I hope you have the numbers?'
'No—never noted such a thing in my life. Who but a careful screw would do so?'
'How came it about?'
'Well, you see,' said Villiers slowly, while manipulating a cigar, 'I took a run over to Ostend, and there, as the devil would have it, at the Casino, and afterwards in the mail boat to Dover, I fell in with a charming Belgienne, an awfully pretty and seductive creature, who was on her way to London and quite alone. We had rather a pronounced flirtation, and exchanged photos—an act of greater folly on her part than on mine, as the event proved; for, after taking mine from my pocket-book (which she could see was full of notes), I never saw the latter again. I dropped asleep, but awoke when the tickets were collected—awoke to find that she had slipped out at some intermediate station, and the pocket-book, which I had placed in my breast-pocket, was gone too! There had been no one else in the carriage with me—indeed I had quietly tipped the guard to arrange it so. Thus, as no trace of it could be found, after the most careful search, she must have deftly abstracted it. Here is her photo—a deuced dear work of art to me!'
'She is pretty, indeed!' exclaimed Hammersley; 'such a quantity of beautiful fair hair!'
'It was dark golden.'
'Surely it was rash of her to give you this?'
'It was vanity, perhaps, when the idea of theft had not occurred to her.'
'Throw it in the fire.'
'Not at all.'
'What do you mean to do with it—preserve the likeness of a mere adventuress?'
'I shall give it to the police as a clue. It may lead to the recovery of my money, and, what is of more consequence to me, my correspondence.'
So the photo of the pretty Belgienne was handed over to the authorities; but neither Villiers nor Hammersley could quite foresee what it was to lead to.