CHAPTER XIV.
LESLIE FOTHERINGHAME.
'Welcome back to Dumbarton, where I have been somewhat rather of a hermit since you left it—welcome back to pipeclay and all the "pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war!" The decanter is beside you, and I think there are some prime havannas left in that box. So, now, let us be jolly,' exclaimed Leslie Fotheringhame, as Falconer seated himself in the quarters of the former, a curious-looking, old-fashioned room—the same that had been occupied by the little Queen Mary in her twelfth year (ere she sailed to France, after the battle of Pinkie)—one of the oldest parts of the castle.
Falconer cast himself with an air of weariness into an easy-chair, though his journey from Eaglescraig had not been a very long one.
'What about our fellows, Fotheringhame?' he asked, manipulating a cigar.
'The detachment?'
'Yes.'
'There is not much to report; two fellows are in "the shop" for absence from parade; one in the cells, for being drunk and disorderly; and little Fuddie, the drummer, has cut his stick—or sticks, should I say? Probably finding, as Sterne has it, that "the honour of beating a drum was likely to be its own reward," he has taken French leave and bolted. If caught, we should duck the fellow in the Clyde, but for the seventh clause of the sixth section on "Discipline," which prevents the adoption of punishments in detachments that are at variance with those in use at headquarters.'
Falconer continued to smoke in silence, so Fotheringhame spoke again.
'England expects every man to do his duty—but as cheaply as possible—for next to nothing, in fact; so, after your late surroundings, the luxury of my quarters will fail to impress you as either being useful or ornamental—as a certain poem has it, here are—
'"Apparatus for washing: a pail and a can,
Part of an Army List, half of a fan,
A fawn-coloured glove, a lock of false hair—
Both highly prized gifts from some lady fair;
A case of blunt razors, a shako and plume;
A fishing-rod, shot-belt, rifle, and broom;
An invite to dinner, the card of a priest,
A sketch of the colonel described as 'a beast.'"'
While Fotheringhame ran on laughingly thus, Falconer was silent and pre-occupied, or replied only by a faint smile.
Leslie Fotheringhame was a handsome man, but of a different type from Cecil Falconer. He was taller and more squarely built, with deep-set and grave dark-blue eyes, the expression of which generally belied his merry manner; he was dark-haired, with a firm mouth, a clear dark skin and ponderous black moustache. His manner was ever honest, frank, and pleasant; and though his turn of mind was somewhat cynical—as if he had met with some disappointment in life—his face at times wore a smile that lit it up like a sunbeam.
Though junior to Cecil Falconer in the regiment, he was his senior by some years; for he had once been a captain of Lancers, but sold his troop, no one knew why, and afterwards obtained a non-purchase commission in the Cameronians. He was also greatly Cecil's senior in experience. He was wont to boast that he had, by a fluke, escaped the perilous meshes of matrimony, though the mess rather opined that he had been disappointed, 'thrown over,' by some girl, though none exactly knew the story.
'What is doing at headquarters?' asked Falconer.
'Birkie of that Ilk has sent in his papers.'
'Birkie—why?'
'Lost a pot of money on a hurdle-race at Streatham—it's a step in the regiment; but everyone is very, sorry for poor Birkie. Acharn has got into a scrape with a widow, whose husband suddenly turned up, so he has gone on leave, to be out of the way, and Freeport too.'
'Freeport—what was Dick up to?'
'He proposed to three sisters in one night—all the daughters of a commandant of one of those confounded brigade depots, and hearing that the adjutant might be sent for his sword, Dick was off like a bird by an early train for London. But we all know that Dick has an engagement-ring with a blue stone, which he gives to some girl everywhere, yet contrives to get back in a lover's quarrel when the route comes.'
To Fotheringhame it was apparent that his friend had come back to Dumbarton in a somewhat taciturn mood—cloudy in face and abstracted in manner.
'What the dickens has happened?' thought he.
'Was our colonel—the old general—kind?' he asked.
'Very,' was the curt reply.
'And the ladies—kinder still, I suppose?' hazarded Fotheringhame, lying back in his chair and shooting concentric rings of tobacco-smoke upward. 'No answer—eh? Now, apropos of the subject of your remarkable letter, I hope that you have left Eaglescraig without committing yourself?'
'I played no more with that fellow Hew.'
'I am not thinking of Hew.'
'Committing myself—how?'
'By a proposal.'
'What had I to offer a girl so rich as Mary Montgomerie—an heiress, in fact?'
'All that a girl wants in a husband, I suppose—a deuced good-looking and presentable fellow of his inches.'
'I could never sink to be a dependent on my wife, Leslie. Had Mary been penniless——'
'Oh, come—we have got the length of calling her Mary, have we?'
'Had she been so, I might not have shrunk from asking her to share my poverty—for such it is; but her fortune is an impassable barrier between us—and I would to heaven that I had never set foot in Eaglescraig!'
'This is rather Quixotic,' said Fotheringhame, sipping his brandy and water, and humming—
'"'Tis madness to remember—'twere better to forget."'
'Moreover, if she marries without her guardian's consent, "then in that case," as the will has it, her money passes from her.'
'You seem to have had all the details through hand,' said Fotheringhame, drily.
'Not with her, at all events.'
'And she is attractive?'
'Attractive is not the word—she is downright lovely, and good as she is lovely! But her guardian, the general, has decided on plans for her future.'
'A peerage.'
'Not at all. He resolves that she shall marry the cub called Hew Montgomerie, who is the heir of entail—a kind of distant cousin.'
'Does—Mary affect him?' asked Fotheringhame, with a quizzical smile.
'Not at all! But I cannot tell you how much she has bewitched me.'
'Aware all the while of the plan in store for her.'
'I know what a sceptic you are about women, Leslie; but her face is ever before me, by day and night. I can see it now looking at me, out of that blank barrack wall, as plainly as I see yours. She has indeed bewitched me!'
Fotheringhame looked at the wall indicated, shrugged his shoulders, and said, with a provoking laugh:
'I can't help thinking, old fellow, that the girl has been amusing herself with you, from the details you give me, and that a flirtation was all she wanted.'
'Fotheringhame!'
'Don't get excited. I am sure that, like other dear creatures,
'Her feet are so very little,
Her hands are so very white;
Her jewels are so very heavy,
Her head so very light;
Her colour is made of cosmetics,
Though this she never will own;
Her body's made mostly of cotton,
Her heart is made wholly of stone.'
'This may apply to some goddess of yours,' said Falconer, becoming seriously ruffled; 'but as for me——'
'There will be no more larks or rows,' continued Fotheringhame, laughing; 'no more chance medley flirtations at picnics or lawn tennis, or even in the conservatory; our mind, or what is left of it, must run only on one ideal, and on presents of dainty gloves for lovely little hands, books and bouquets, chains, lockets, and bracelets, pressure of the taper fingers, perhaps even a chaste kiss, as Byron has it——'
'By Jove, Leslie, how you can gabble!' said Falconer, but without a smile, for something peculiarly uncomfortable and damping in the closing details of his visit to Eaglescraig haunted him.
Perceiving this, Fotheringhame's banter ceased, and after a pause he said:
'Pardon me, Cecil, if my jokes annoy you; but if she does not wish to marry this fellow Hew, why should she?'
'Why?'
'Yes; no power can compel her. The day is passed when girls can be married against their will, except in novels. There may be, I am aware, a mild system of domestic pressure, a steady and persevering domestic tyranny, quite as mischievous in the end, sometimes, as the brute force of the terrible old baron or stern parent of the Middle Ages; and I have even known more than one case in which the feeble opposition of a girl has been foiled under the powerful home-current, as it flowed on and bore her away with it.'
'By Jove, Leslie, you are a Job's comforter! And now, by-the-bye, there is another girl at Eaglescraig of whom I have not yet spoken—a lady on a visit.'
'And your mind was divided between them?'
'Not at all, though the beauty and style of Annabelle Erroll are indescribable.'
'Who did you say?' exclaimed Leslie Fotheringhame, as his voice and face changed curiously, he took the cigar from his lips and sat bolt upright in his chair.
'Annabelle Erroll; she knows you, by the way, and I hope the general will, in turn, invite you to Eaglescraig.’
'I hope not,' said Fotheringhame, sadly and fervently; 'by Jove, I hope not!'
'Why?'
'Why? Because I would not go under any circumstances or pressure, from what you tell me.'
'As to what, or whom? Hew Montgomerie?'
'Hew be hanged! No.'
'Who then?'
'Annabelle Erroll,' said Fotheringhame, uttering the name sadly, softly, and with unction.
'So, thereby hangs a tale.'
'Yes, old fellow—a devil of a tale I would rather not unfold.'
'Then you have had your little weakness too?'
'Of course; I've been in love like other—fools; who has not?'
Cecil Falconer, however, was too full of his own affair to ponder long over the mysterious intimacy that existed, or had existed, between Annabelle Erroll and Leslie Fotheringhame.