CHAPTER IX.
MRS. GARTH ACTS A FRIENDLY PART.
Nor was the opportunity she wished for long in coming, in the many chances afforded by propinquity, and a residence in the same house; though, in one full of guests, it was difficult to get the object of her solicitude alone.
That afternoon, in the drawing-room, Cecil Falconer and Mary were at the piano; the general preparing for a visit to his stables, as it was rainy, and none could go far abroad; Annabelle Erroll and a few other visitors were idling over books of prints, albums, and other trifles; and Mrs. Garth, observant of the two first-named, with something of sadness and impatience in her heart, was in her usual seat near the fireplace, sheltered from the heat by a plate-glass screen, and knitting busily, for she was always knitting as if her livelihood depended upon it—but her industry was all devoted to the comforts of the poor, for she had a kind heart, having known much suffering 'in her time,' as she was wont to say, and thus was ever ready, so far as her slender means went, to aid those who were necessitous, or troubled in any way.
She was tall and thin in figure, and not without dignity in her bearing, with a look of calm and patient waiting in her soft and gentle eyes, which were clear and bright as those of a young girl, albeit her face was wrinkled and her silky hair was grey. Sometimes their expression seemed cold and sad, when her thoughts travelled backward into the past; yet no eyes could laugh in expression more merrily than hers, at times.
Like Sir Piers, and most old people, she lived more in the past than the present, and he, just then, with his feet planted on the hearthrug, while listening with a pleasant smile to an Italian duet, of which he did not understand one word, was busy with that most tantalising of all mental exercises, groping amid vanished years for some fugitive reminiscence that the face and voice of Cecil Falconer had summoned up.
Was it his old comrade Garth he resembled, or who? But Sir Piers had seen and known so many men in his time, that day-dreams of them were no cause for marvel.
'How the time passes!' said he, looking smilingly down on the old lady; 'yet I can remember you a charming girl, when you joined the Cameronians, Mrs. Garth; and that was not yesterday!'
'Well, general,' replied the widow, with a gratified smile on her old face, 'there were worse-looking girls, I dare say, and I had more than one offer before I was twenty; but I preferred poor John Garth to all the world.'
'And right you were—right you were!' said Sir Piers, emphatically. 'Poor John Garth! I shall never forget his fine conduct on the morning we stormed the hill-fort of the Nabob All Nazir-jung (or the victorious in war), as he boasted himself, in the Doab between the Jhelum and the Chenab. It was a strange affair,' he continued, relating an anecdote as well known to Mrs. Garth as to himself, yet to which she listened with a kindling eye, 'we sunk our half-sap by degrees and pushed it close to the outworks, covering our men by gabions, sand-bags, and mantelets, and the assault was to take place an hour before gunfire, or daybreak. I remember how lovely the night was! A breeze stole up the hillside and stirred the golden bells of the scented baubul-trees; the moon in her silver glory, like a round shield, was mirrored in the bosom of the Jhelum, and the stormers were beginning to creep into the advanced trench, where we could see their bayonets glittering and their white puggarees behind the shade of the gabions. Just as Jack Garth and I were having a farewell cheroot and drain of brandy-pawnee, Drake, of the Bengal Infantry, who had been detailed to lead the assault, came into our tent looking pale as a sheeted ghost.
'Now Drake was no coward, he had been under fire many times in open ground; but somehow he felt that to lead a forlorn hope was a very different thing; in short, almost certain death; and having led a wild, terrible, irregular, and most irreligious life, his whole soul had suddenly become filled with an uncontrollable dread and dismay of the impending future.
'He told us of the strange emotion that possessed him—he seemed somehow not to care of making a secret of it, to us at least—and Garth instantly and cheerfully offered to take his place, and Drake was to join the covering force. The brigadier commanding permitted the exchange; the place was carried by storm at a wild and headlong rush; Jack Garth, leading the escalade like a hero, reached the heart of the fort untouched, while poor Drake, after the affair was deemed entirely over, and the firing had ceased, was killed by a random shot that came no one knew precisely from where.'
By the time the general had ended his anecdote, and betaken him to the stables to inspect the hock sinews of Mary's favourite pad, of which Pastern, the groom, had made some evil report, the duet was over.
Mrs. Garth had detected the mutual tenderness in tone and expression of eye as it ended, and when the singers left the piano, she resolved to lose no time in seeking to avert, if she could, the trouble which she feared was impending. Not that she loved Hew Montgomerie, but she thought alone of Mary's interests and the wishes of Sir Piers, her oldest, kindest, and best of friends.
But now, when Cecil Falconer approached her, she thought, as Sir Piers had done more than once:
'What is there in this young fellow's face that touches, that interests me? Where have I seen that look before? In India, I doubt not.'
'I heard the general's anecdote of your husband, Mrs. Garth, even while we were singing,' said he, bending over the old lady's chair; 'he must have been a fine old officer, and I can assure you that his memory is still fresh in the regiment.'
Her face brightened with genuine pleasure as he said this, and her eyes filled with tears.
'You see the relic I wear of him,' said the widow, placing her hand affectionately upon a brooch she wore on her heart, a silver sphinx, which had whilom been a regimental ornament, but which she would not have exchanged for the regal brooch of Lorne; 'and now, if you will come with me, I shall show you his portrait.'
'Thanks,' replied Cecil, and a parting glance was exchanged between him and Mary as he left the room and followed Mrs. Garth across a corridor, hung, like many other parts of the house, with Indian trophies of war and the chase.
Falconer thought he was only to hear about her past and pet memories of the corps; but he did not foresee that he must hear much more that he would rather not have heard at all. Nor could he suspect that her primary object was to get him alone for her own well-meant purpose, or, as she deemed it, his future peace of mind and the welfare of Mary Montgomerie.
'This is my peculiar sanctum, Mr. Falconer,' said she, when ushering him into a cosily and handsomely-furnished parlour, 'and here I keep all my relics of the dead and of other times, and have done so since I found a happy and contented home in Eaglescraig,' she added, glancing at an old iron-bound baggage-trunk that had been at Bengal, China, Bermuda, and all round the world with the Cameronians, and at two regimental swords crossed upon the wall: one the weapon of her husband, the other that of her son, a joyous boyish ensign, who had fallen in a vile skirmish with a hill-tribe; shot under the colours, on a day when match-lock balls were flying thick, and 'human lives were lavished everywhere.'
And there now hung the sword that had failed him in the hot hour of trial.
Over the old but handsome face of Mrs. Garth, there spread an expression of sweetness and sadness mingled, as she showed Falconer the miniatures of her husband and their dead soldier-son; the latter as an infant, with a lock of his golden hair, which she had worn at her heart for twenty years and more, treasured, like all his school-boy letters, in the sad but loving superstition of the heart, in memory of him and of that day when the troops fell in and he went with the Cameronians 'to the front,' to be brought back to her across six muskets, mortally wounded, to die, while calling on her name, thanking her for her love, and dying with his head upon her breast, as calmly as he had fallen asleep there when an infant. And so he died thus, as his father had died but a few weeks before him.
'The will of God be done!' said Mrs. Garth, in a sorely broken voice; 'for it was His will that I was to lose them, and that they were to precede me. But Heaven is just, and teaches us that there is a brighter and a better world than this!'
Borne away by her own private or personal sympathies, she almost forgot the purpose for which she had invited Falconer to visit her little sanctum, till he unwillingly recalled it to her memory; as, with all his commiseration for her loneliness, he began to tire of the great many stories she told him of the excellencies of her only daughter—a girl so amiable and so handsome—who had married a curate in the West Indies, a good young fellow, who was so and so, and so and so; of the noble qualities of her son, the poor ensign, and those of the defunct Captain John Garth, who, 'poor dear soul, had been dead and gone—dead and gone—deary me, however so many years ago.' Thus Cecil—though there was certainly a cheerful gossipy quality in Mrs. Garth, that rendered her a very attractive old lady—ventured to say:
'And now, Mrs. Garth, you must excuse me. Miss Montgomerie is expecting me to attempt that duet over once more with her, ere we duly perform it for some guests that come this evening. How sweetly she sings, and with exquisite taste! But, indeed, how perfect she is in all things!'
'A dear child! I think you admire her?' began the widow, now remembering her task, and suddenly making a leading remark.
'Admire! ah, who could fail to admire her?' exclaimed Falconer warmly, and with kindling eye.
'She is a charming girl—ever was a sweet child—and I am so happy about her future, Mr. Falconer,' said Mrs. Garth, resuming her knitting, without however raising her eyes to him she addressed.
'Her future?'
'With Hew—I mean—you understand me, of course?'
'Hew?'
'Yes,' she continued softly and gently, reluctantly, too, for she was loth to give him pain, 'Hew Montgomerie. In her circumstances, and with her wealth and its consequent and contingent responsibilities, it has been with us all an anxious matter, that she should choose well and wisely in the world of marriage; and thus, with Sir Piers' heir of entail, she will be the tenth Lady Montgomerie, without changing her name! Curious that, is it not? It cannot fail to be a most fortunate alliance; but I shall not intrude upon you, whom we have only had the pleasure of knowing so recently, these private family matters.'
Cecil's heart grew cold as a stone, while he listened and heard Hew's remarks thus corroborated, by what, Mrs. Garth felt with regret, must pain him, but deemed it for his future good to hear.
In reply to some half-muttered inquiry (he could not fashion it as a congratulation) she, by way of explanation and intended advice, said distinctly much more than even Hew had done. She told him, in detail, of Mary's large fortune; and how entirely Mary and it were—by the tenor of her father's will—at the behest of Sir Piers Montgomerie, whose great and sole object was to consolidate the wealth of the family in the person of Hew Caddish Montgomerie, his heir of entail, who, even with ancient Eaglescraig alone, would not be rich, and who would be the tenth baronet in succession from Sir Hew, who had been made one for his loyalty and valour in the battles of Montrose, particularly at Tippermuir, in 1644; and thus, that even a duke might lay, in vain, his coronet at the feet of Mary Montgomerie!
Pride of birth, and in his own family, of the old line of Eaglescraig, almost a collateral one with the House of Eglinton, had been, from youth, a passion with Sir Piers—a passion that had caused the ruin of his only son—and so on, with an earnest tone, a sad, yet gentle smile, she continued, for his own good as she supposed, to plant (warningly) certain daggers in the heart of her hearer.
'They do not seem much suited to each other, Miss Montgomerie and her intended,' suggested Falconer in a low voice, after a pause.
'Ah, so you think—so you think; but when "Love's young dream" and the honeymoon are over, they will settle down, I have no doubt, into a very happy, loving, and jog-trot couple.'
'It is well that you have told me all this in time,' said Falconer, preserving his calmness of voice and feature by an incredible effort, for if he had mistrusted Hew he could not mistrust Mrs. Garth, who could have no selfish or sinister object in view; 'and I am—most grateful to you.'
'To me—for what?' asked Mrs. Garth, as if she knew not his meaning, though she never looked up, but continued to knit nervously and fast, with tremulous fingers.
'I was, in fact, beginning to admire the general's ward perhaps too much,' he replied, with a sickly attempt at a laugh; 'but now I must think of her only as the intended bride of another.'
'And learn to laugh over the country-house flirtation.'
'Does she love Mr. Hew Montgomerie?'
'I cannot doubt it; though her ways of showing it are certainly shy and peculiar; but then I see, and have seen, more of him and her than you have done, Mr. Falconer.'
'You are sure she will consent to this marriage?' said Cecil, scarcely knowing what he said.
'Yes, most assuredly; if not now, at a later period, for there is no precise reason for haste, unless it be Hew's Indian appointment.'
A silence ensued for a minute or so, during which Cecil heard only the click of the knitting-needles and the beating of his heart.
'Of what are you thinking?' asked Mrs. Garth, looking up with a smile, and then lowering her eyes again, as the pain she read in his face distressed her.
'I am thinking how to collect my ideas,' said he, in a broken voice; 'to reflect on my position, and the information you have given me, with the useful warning contained in it. In two or three days more my leave will be up, and I shall have, inexorably, to depart from a house in which the happiest moments of my life have been spent; yet, which I would to Heaven I had never entered!'
Then, as he left her, Mrs. Garth felt that all her suspicions had been justified; yet, with him, she approached the subject no more.
'I have done the deed! as Macbeth says,' thought she, looking after him; 'poor fellow—poor dear fellow! He seems sorely cut up; but it is all for the best—all for the best! How sad his handsome face looked: and of whom does that face remind me? My own dear boy's surely!'
Cecil Falconer was full of jealous anger and deep mortification. He could not, in his present mood of mind, rejoin Mary Montgomerie, and so he took himself to the loneliest part of the garden to smoke and think—to have that universal panacea to all men in trouble, doubt, or difficulties—a mild 'weed.' Moreover, there is a solitude we are prone to seek at times, even amid our fondest affections.
A tender love for Mary had grown in his heart; but—apart from a meagre exchequer—his lack of family rank was painfully thrust upon him now by every word Mrs. Garth had, he thought, unconsciously uttered.
In his lonely hours, like most young men of imagination and of those given to day-dreaming, he had been wont—though well-nigh nameless—to identify himself with the 'Ivanhoes' of romance and history—the disinherited and disguised princes of boyish tales, and so forth, weaving out a brilliant future for himself! But now!
Now, like Alnaschar in the Arabian tale, his basket of crystal was smashed; and yet he could have no future in which Mary Montgomerie was not to bear an imaginary part.
He was aware that his family pretensions, when judged by the lofty heraldic and genealogical standards of Sir Piers Montgomerie, were as meagre as his monetary could be, and the double consciousness thereof, though failing to influence his heart, had almost utterly fettered his tongue.
These were the reasons why Cecil Falconer did not declare himself as yet, or try conclusions with Hew Montgomerie, but now he had others—more solid and more cruel. It was, however, the old story of the moth and the candle. Mrs. Garth had done much to crush and damp all hope in the heart of Cecil, but could not prevent him from indulging in the perilous charm of Mary's society to the last hours of his now-expiring leave of absence—leave granted 'between returns,' as the technical phrase is.
So that night the duet was not sung, greatly to Mrs. Garth's satisfaction, and somewhat to the surprise and disappointment of Mary Montgomerie, to whom Cecil urged that he was afflicted by a sudden cold, a hoarseness and so forth; so to his seductive tenor she was unable to make the usually tender soprano replies.