CHAPTER III.
IN THE HOWE OF THE MEARNS AGAIN.
Dulcie was light of foot, young, bright, and active, yet with all her lightness and activity, times there were now when she failed to fly fast enough for Madame's smelling-bottle, her fan, her Shetland shawl, her footstool, or down-pillow, especially when the latter had her headache, or that migraine which could only be cured in the atmosphere of Belgravia, and made her at times also most irritable with Finella.
Dulcie could play well and sing well too, not being one of those who think that, so long as the music of a song is heard, the words are quite unnecessary; but Lady Fettercairn 'snubbed' her attempts at either, and openly hinted that it was as much out of place for a 'companion,' however highly accomplished or trained, to seat herself at a piano in the drawing-room as to ride about the country lanes with a daughter of the house; but Dulcie, who was neither highly accomplished nor trained, but self-taught merely, so far as her music went, could scarcely believe that Lady Fettercairn meant steadily to mortify and humble her, till one day, when she thought she was alone, and was idling over the keys of the piano, singing softly to herself a verse of a little old song, that was a favourite of Florian's, and seemed applicable to herself:
'I saw her not as others did,
Her spirits free and wild;
I knew her heart was often sad
When carelessly she smiled;
'Although amid a happy throng
Her laugh was often loud;
I knew her heart, her secret soul,
By secret grief was bowed,'—
she stopped suddenly on finding the cold and inquiring blue eyes of Lady Fettercairn focusing her with her eyeglass. Indeed, in a somewhat undignified manner, Madame seemed constantly on the watch for her now, and was always appearing at unexpected times and in unexpected places.
'Please to cease this English ballad, Miss Carlyon; it sounds as if more suited to the atmosphere of the servants' hall than my drawing-room, I think.'
'I thought I was alone,' replied Dulcie, colouring deeply at this sharp and wanton rebuke; and with tremulous hands she softly closed the piano and stole away, with difficulty restraining her tears, and hastened to her first morning work—the washing and combing of Snap, the fat little ill-natured pug, with an apoplectic-like neck, who was furnished with a beautiful collar of silver and blue enamel, and usually took his repose in a mother-of-pearl basket, lined with blue satin, in the boudoir; and Snap had a pedigree longer than that of the Melforts of Fettercairn, and, unlike theirs, was not tarnished by political roguery.
Impulsive Dulcie had, as we have shown, unintentionally wound herself round the heart of the equally impulsive Finella, for she had an honest English truthfulness about her which, united to her naturally happy and loving nature, made her generally irresistible; and now the girls had a powerful secret tie of their own between them, and to Finella Dulcie carried her complaints of her treatment.
'No woman of heart—no lady would be intentionally unkind to you, Dulcie,' urged Finella.
'Not positively so; but she might by a glance or a word remind me of utter dependence for food and clothing in a way that would be felt more keenly than an open insult; and, truth to tell, Lady Fettercairn speaks out plainly now. And then,' added Dulcie with perfect simplicity, 'a governess or companion, if pretty, is so liable to be snubbed.'
But the petty tyranny was continued from time to time.
Dulcie feared the dog Snap, yet, as she had been accustomed to have pets at home in Revelstoke, she succeeded in teaching it a few tricks, and rewarding the educational efforts by biscuits and lumps of sugar. Snap ere long would sit erect on his hind legs with a morsel balanced on the point of his remarkably short black nose; and when she said, 'Ready—present—fire,' and clapped her little hands, he shot it upward and caught it skilfully with a snap in descending.
With girlish glee she was showing this feat to Finella, when Lady Fettercairn appeared and said with a hard, metallic voice:
'Please not to teach my poor dog these vulgar tricks, Miss Carlyon; these words of command—did you learn them from your friend the corporal, or sergeant, or what is he?'
'Grandmamma!' exclaimed Finella, in a voice of astonishment and reproach, while Dulcie's heart swelled and her eyes filled with tears, and as usual she withdrew. 'How can you speak thus to her?' asked Finella.
'I mean what I say,' was the cold response; 'moreover, as you seem in her confidence, perhaps you will be good enough to tell her that if I permit her in the drawing-room, occasionally to make herself useful when a little music or a hand at cards is wanted, she must not wear low bodies or short sleeves on any occasion,' added Lady Fettercairn, who had detected the eyes of more than one male guest wander appreciatively to the beautiful arms of Dulcie, that shone like polished alabaster, especially when contrasted with her black mourning costume.
And when Lady Fettercairn took the trouble to be ill, which was pretty frequently now, as she was worried by being kept away so long from London and London gaieties, for no purpose or end, apparently, so far as Finella and Shafto were concerned, she established a headache as a domestic institution, during the prevalence of which no one was to address her on any subject whatever—more than all, no one was to cross her. But Shafto's extravagance and growing evil habits were becoming a source of perpetual thought to the Craigengowan household now.
If Dulcie had her troubles, so had also Finella, for the family scheme 'anent' Shafto was always cropping up from time to time. Thus, when that young gentleman, who had a very indifferent seat in his saddle, got a terrible 'spill' one day, in leaping a hedge, and was brought home in a very prostrate condition, which his addiction to wine considerably enhanced, the episode gave the cold, selfish, and unpatriotic peer, who had no great love for his newly found heir, some cause for thought and consideration.
Failing heirs male, the Peerage of Fettercairn, being a Scottish one, made before the Union, would go to Finella in the female line (as so many similar peerages do, to the endless confusion of family names and interests), and to the heirs male of her body.
It was a kind of consolation, but a sad one. Whom might she marry? 'That fellow Vincent Hammersley perhaps!'
'Finella,' said Lord Fettercairn, in his hard, dry voice, and with the nearest attempt at a caress that ever escaped him, 'if aught was to happen to Shafto—which God forbid!—you will be the heiress to the title and estates.'
'Oh, don't talk thus, grandpapa!' she exclaimed.
'You care for the old name, child!'
'I do indeed, grandpapa.'
'And would make a sacrifice for it, if necessary?'
'Believe me, I would!'
'To please me?'
'Yes.'
'You are a good girl, Finella. I wish then for you, apart from Shafto, who seems going to the dogs,' he muttered bitterly, 'to marry some worthy and suitable man, such as I shall select for you,' he added sententiously, and thinking, but not speaking, of the home-coming Major Ronald Garallan.
'Indeed, grandpapa, I will do no such thing,' said the wilful little beauty, firing up; 'I would rather select a husband for myself.'
'A day will come, girl,' said he, with an air of undisguised annoyance, 'when you will thank your grandmother and me, when thinking of all this matter, so necessary for consideration, when so much wealth and rank are involved. You are a good and a bright little pet, Finella, and I would not urge these matters on your consideration but for your own good.'
Yet Finella only sighed wearily, and thought of getting away from Craigengowan, and viciously twisted up her laced handkerchief with her nervous little hands.
But if Lord Fettercairn was beginning to be hopeless of the affair of Shafto and Finella, it was not so with the Lady of that Ilk; she was still bent upon her matrimonial plans, and as a part thereof she remonstrated in a somewhat unfeeling way with the innocent and unoffending Dulcie, who became desperate in consequence.
Until now, when she became the object of unworthy suspicions, she had been contentedly enjoying the present, made all the more pleasant to her by the friendship of Finella, not troubling herself too much about the future, nor indeed would the question of that, if it meant ways and means, have been very reassuring to her. She could only indulge in the visions of 'love's young dream,' and no more, as yet.
'Your future is a serious consideration,' said Shafto one day, with reference to the subject, as he was airing his figure, with the aid of a stick, on the terrace.
'What does it matter to you—what do you care about it?' asked Dulcie impatiently.
'A man must always feel interested in the future of a girl he loves, or has loved, even though she has deliberately thrown him over, and flouted him, as you have always done me.'
'I never could nor can I care for you, even as a friend; so simply cease this old annoyance, please,' she said angrily.
'Beware, I say again,' said he, with knitted brows.
'Oh, you have been manly enough to threaten me before, but you are not yet the master of Craigengowan, and may never be.'
This had only reference to his rash course of life, and was but one of several random speeches or shots made by Dulcie, which always terrified and maddened Shafto, who suspected that in some mysterious way she knew more than he was aware of. At these times he could have strangled her, and now he grew pale with momentary rage.
'I will no longer submit to your cruelty and cowardice,' said Dulcie, her blue eyes flashing as she felt desperate.
'What will you do—tell Lady Fettercairn?' he sneered.
'No.'
'What then?'
'That is my business,' replied Dulcie, who, truth to say, was beginning to meditate a flight from Craigengowan—whither, she knew not and cared not.
Shafto was again silent and alarmed. With all his brilliant surroundings, he never knew what a day or night might bring forth.
'After long experience of the world,' says Junius, 'I affirm before God that I never knew a rogue who was not unhappy.'
'We always want what we cannot have, I suppose,' said Dulcie, after a pause. 'You are like the fox and the grapes, Mr. Shafto, in more ways than one; only the fox displayed superior sense by retiring when he found the coveted clusters beyond his reach, in persuading himself that they were sour; hence I would advise you to imitate the proceedings of the fox.'
Shafto turned away and withdrew without a word, as he beheld the almost noiseless approach of Lady Fettercairn from a conservatory door, with her cold, steel-blue eyes, more steely than ever, her light-brown hair, and firm aristocratic lips.
Like most fair women, she looked much younger than her years, and, as we have said in an opening chapter her really fine face was without a line, as she had never had a cross or care in the world, save the alleged mésalliance of Lennard with Flora MacIan, and that, in a general way, was all forgotten now.
As she fixed her gaze on Dulcie, the expression of her face was hostile and lowering.
While feeling certain that something unpleasant was impending, Dulcie tried to greet her with a smile, though 'the faculty of looking pleased when one's heart is sick unto death—of fulfilling with equanimity a hundred petty social exactions, which one's wearied soul loathes—is a talent verging on the border-land of genius.'
'Miss Carlyon,' began Lady Fettercairn, most freezingly, 'to my surprise I overheard you giving some advice in a remarkable and apparently very familiar way to my grandson, Mr. Shafto Melfort?'
The remark was a question; but before Dulcie, in her confusion, could form any reply, Lady Fettercairn spoke again.
'I have remarked, and intensely disapprove of these apparently secret meetings, conferences, or confidences, which you will, between persons in the very different relative positions of my grandson, young Mr. Melfort, and yourself, Miss Carlyon. They are, to say the least of them, very unseemly.'
'Lady Fettercairn!——' began Dulcie, almost passionately, and with crimsoned cheeks. But the dame, full of one idea only, moved her head and resumed again, and pretty pointedly too:
'You are no doubt perfectly aware, as you have resided some months among us, that my grandson is destined for his cousin, Miss Melfort; and if her friend—as you say you are—you are somewhat too much in his society.'
'Can I help it?' said Dulcie, in the dependency of her position compelled to temporize. 'I do not thrust mine on him—quite the reverse, Lady Fettercairn.'
'Finella does not seem to affect her cousin, I regret to say.'
'I think so too.'
'Thus, if she has mortified him, his heart may be easily caught on the rebound.'
'By me?' asked Dulcie, in a straight-forward manner.
'Yes,' replied Lady Fettercairn, sharply and icily.
'My position in your house will never permit me to dishonour myself.'
'Hoity-toity—dishonour!'
'A girl who would seek to ensnare a man—as you hint—for wealth or position, certainly does dishonour herself. Death were better than such a life as this!' murmured Dulcie wearily.
'What do you mean by death, Miss Carlyon? I overheard your remark; it is not fashionable or good form to talk of such unpleasant things, so please don't do it in future. Besides, at twenty, no one dies of grief or of mock-sentiment, believe me. A little time will show me whether you are or are not the real friend of Miss Melfort, and whether you have not been, perhaps, too long here.'
'Too long, indeed, for my own peace,' said Dulcie, in a broken voice.
'I am responsible for the consequences, if he chooses to make a fool of himself with you,' said Lady Fettercairn, mistaking the meaning of Dulcie's speech.
'What do you mean, madam?' asked the latter, as a desperate and hunted feeling came over her.
'I am scarcely bound to explain myself, but might act,' replied Lady Fettercairn, astonished and almost discomfited by this audacity on the part of a dependant, 'especially so far as you are concerned. If I mistake not, I employed you, Miss Carlyon, to be my useful companion, and not to act as a monitress to my grandson, and to turn your gifts of beauty or accomplishments to the use you are doing.'
'Oh, this is indeed torture!' exclaimed Dulcie, as hot tears rushed to her eyes; and as she thought of what her real relations were with Shafto, and how she loathed him, she exclaimed with genuine agony, 'how can you—how dare you be so cruel?'
'Miss Carlyon, this tone to me? You forget yourself.'
'No, Lady Fettercairn,' retorted Dulcie, with kindling cheeks and blue eyes sparkling through their tears; 'too well do I know, and have been made to feel, that I am a dependant in Craigengowan; but I brought into it a spirit as honest and independent as if our places had been reversed—I the rich lady and you my poor dependant.'
'If I wrong you I regret it,' said Lady Fettercairn; 'so here, for a time, let this unpleasant matter end.'
And, with a slight bow, she sailed away into the conservatory.
But Dulcie felt that there the matter could not and should not end, and she began to think seriously of flying from Craigengowan.
With a little stifled cry that broke from her quivering lips, Dulcie rushed down the steps of the terrace and fled through the shrubberies like a hunted animal, looking neither to the right nor left, till she reached the sequestered spot where stood Queen Mary's Thorn, and, flinging herself face downwards in the grass, she uttered again and again her father's name, as if she would summon him to her protection and aid, amid a flood of passionate tears—tears from the depths of her despair and intense humiliation.
Unmindful of the flight of time, or whether she was wanted for attendance on Lady Fettercairn or Snap, she lay there a whole hour, while the shadows of tree and shrub were lengthening round her. She thought her heart was breaking, so keen was her sense of the affronts to which she had been subjected; for, with all her sweet humility, Dulcie was not without innate dignity and pride; and in this mournful condition she was found by Finella, who, suspecting from her grandmother's bearing and aspect that something was wrong, had kindly gone in search of her.
She raised her up, caressed and kissed her, and then heard her story with no small indignation, though she knew not what to do in the situation.
'I shall never, never forget you, Finella,' sobbed Dulcie; 'but when I leave this I know not what will become of me.'
'Leave this—why?'
'Would you have me stay after what I have told you, and to be treated as I am by Lady Fettercairn? But now, to me, it seems that the future of my life will be gloomy, indeed, and full of torture and sorrow.'
'Don't talk thus, Dulcie; if ever a girl was made for happiness and to give it to others it is you, my plump little English pet!' said Finella, taking Dulcie's tear-stained face between her pretty hands, and kissing it on both cheeks.
But Dulcie was determined to leave Craigengowan—to go that same night, indeed.
'For where?' asked Finella.
'Anywhere—anywhere!'
'Impossible!'
And Finella, by gentleness and kindness, soothed her over for a time, but a time only, and during that period she was relieved of the obnoxious presence of Shafto.
That personage found Craigengowan, when there were no guests thereat, especially such as he could lure into a game of écarté, or pool and pyramid, 'deuced slow,' so he took his departure for Edinburgh, where, as when in London, he often assumed the uncommon name of 'Smith' when involved, as he not unfrequently was, in rows and scrapes which he wished kept from the knowledge of Lord Fettercairn, and which sometimes led to his figuring before a presiding Bailie through the medium of the night-police.