CHAPTER XVI.
ANNABELLE ERROLL.
Now Leslie Fotheringhame, though disposed at first to be somewhat reticent on the subject of his previous intimacy with Annabelle Erroll, after a time confided their mutual story to Cecil Falconer.
Thrown together as he and the latter were, in that lonely and isolated fort, the whole garrison of which, besides their own detachment, consisted only of a master gunner and a few old pensioners, it was natural that they should have their mutual confidences over their after-dinner cigars, and thus Falconer heard all about it from Fotheringhame.
'You see, old fellow, it came to pass in this way.
'My troop of Lancers was quartered in Perth Barracks, while the head-quarters were stationed at Piershill. I soon tired of all the little gaieties afforded by the Fair City; but the season was summer, and the Tay afforded me endless amusement for fly-fishing and boating; and, as one of my subs was on leave and the other on the sick-list, I was somewhat thrown on my own resources.
'I had a swift light shallop, in which I used to pull daily, when the tide or stream served, from the bridge upward past the wooded slopes of Kinnoull, and away for miles amid the loveliest and most luxuriant sylvan scenery in the world.
'One day the heat was very great, and, ceasing to row, I lay back in the stern-sheets of my boat, with a cigar between my lips, and let her float, lazily, on the current of the stream, which flowed between its wooded banks deeply, silently, and majestically. On every hand around me were a long series of varied hills covered with picturesque foliage of every shade of green, the vista everywhere terminated by the more remote mountains, the rich tints of which were softened in the blue haze and by the distance.
'At a bend of the river my boat partially grounded, but I felt too lazy to shove off, and lay there under the shadows cast upon the bright stream by the overreaching elms, oaks, and silver birches, among the blended foliage of which the blue doves were cooing, and where the wild violets and jasmine grew close to the water's-edge. On all the river I thought there could be no lovelier spot than this. Save the stillness of its flow, and the hum of the mountain honey-bee among the wild flowers of the wood, in and out of the gueldre-roses and foxglove-bells, there was no sound in the air, as I lay there in a kind of daydream, with my arms resting idly on my sculls, till the voice of a girl, singing close by, roused me at once to attention.
'Sweetly she sung, and seemed to give her whole soul and pathos to the song. She thought no ear save her own was within hearing; but for a time the singer remained unseen by me.
'"'Love me always—love me ever,'
Said a voice low, sad, and sweet;
'Love me always—love me ever,'
Memory will the words repeat."
'And in truth, Falconer, I give them by an effort of memory now, it is so long since I heard and read them:
'"While in fancy still beside me,
Is her fair and graceful form;
And I hear the murmured love-words,
Gushing from her heart so warm."
'"From her heart, subdued by sorrow,
In its fond and trusting youth,
Till she trembles lest the morrow
Rob some idol of its—truth?"
'A slight impetus which I gave my boat with one of the sculls, brought me quite suddenly to the very feet of the singer, as she stood on the edge of the stream, embowered among foliage, and shaded by the light aspen-like sprays of the silver birches, regarding me with some surprise, for my boating costume, I dare say, was novel in that quarter, and seeming irresolute as to whether she should retire—any way, advance she could not.
'I saw at a glance that the girl was just at that age which is between childhood and maidenhood, that she was perfectly lady-like, delicate in form and figure, and possessed of rare beauty of the fairest, or blonde type; her hair of the lightest brown, and shot with gold that made it brilliant in the flakes of sunlight that flashed between the trees; her eyes, of dark-grey blue, had brows and lashes so dark as to impart great character to her otherwise soft and mignonne face; but you know well who I am describing.
'She had a bunch of wild-flowers in one hand; the other grasped the ribbons of her tiny hat, which she was swinging to and fro, as she had come through the wood bareheaded, and was evidently not far from her home.
'"Pardon me," said I, lifting my cap, "but I am afraid that I am rather a trespasser here."
'"Not at all, sir; the river is free to everyone."
'"But I have been almost ashore, and is not that presuming too far?" I asked again, only for the pleasure of conversing with her.
'"Oh no," she replied, with a charming smile.
'"But I have disturbed you, I fear."
'"How?"
'"I heard you singing—need I say, how sweetly!"
'"An old song, quoted from some old book, but the melody far surpasses the words."
'"Yes, as sung by your voice," said I, gallantly.
'"What a pretty boat yours is! Have you rowed far?"
'"All the way from the bridge."
'"You must be weary, otherwise I would ask you——"
'She blushed and paused.
'"I am not at all weary, and am every way at your service."
'"Oh, thanks; will you row to the other side, and bring me some of the lovely—"
'She mentioned some peculiar kind of fern.
'"Permit me to row you across, and you can select them for yourself."
'Her eyes sparkled with pleasure, but she hesitated.
'"You mistrust a stranger," said I; "and perhaps your papa might be displeased—"
'"Poor papa is dead; but mamma would, I know, be angry. She is full of strict and strange notions; thus I can never venture far alone."
'"But the distance is so short—"
'"And she is always busy at this hour."
'"Come, then."
'She confidingly put her little hand in mine, sprang with charming grace lightly into the cushioned seat astern, and exclaimed with girlish delight:
'"What a lovely boat! How delicious this is! Though we live only a mile from the Tay, I have never had a row on it."
'"Permit me to give you a little one now," said I, assuming my sculls, and shot the boat out into mid-stream. I regarded her beauty with growing admiration and pleasure; but my Lancer experiences caused the thought to occur, could she be so innocent, so utterly guileless as she seemed?
'Some ferns were speedily selected, and uprooted by my knife, also some magnificent water-lilies from a pool under the trees; and, as she seemed thoroughly to enjoy herself upon the sunlit river, I pulled her to and fro, near the silver birches where I first met her, and she chatted away to me as if she had known me for months. That she was a lady in birth and breeding was indisputable; her accent was highly cultivated and her manners refined, and everything about the girl betokened gentle blood; but there was an artlessness combined with girlish abandon about her, that made me curiously and uncharitably suspicious, while deeply and suddenly interested in her. Thus I said, after a pause, while letting the boat drift with the current, and keeping the blades of my sculls just out of the water:
'"You do me great honour, and must have singular confidence in me, a stranger, that you trust yourself with me thus."
'"How we glide!" exclaimed the girl, with childish glee. "Oh, I could sail here for ever!"
'"What would mamma think, if she knew it?"
'"Being with you?"
'"Yes."
'"I scarcely know what she would think; but I know what she would do," was the reply.
'"Admonish you?"
'"Yes; and lock me up for days to come. But I can see, of course, that you are a gentleman."
'"Thanks for the compliment."
'"But it is difficult to say what else; your costume is so unlike anyone we see hereabout."
'I wore simply a rowing suit of white flannel, trimmed and faced with blue, with a skull-cap to match.
'"I am a Lancer," said I.
'"A Lancer!" she repeated, while her blue eyes dilated.
'"Yes; I command the troop in Perth Barracks."
'I could see that the information pleased her, for her colour rose and she looked aside; and again I pondered as to whether she was the hoyden by nature I suspected.
'"I must return home now," she said suddenly, as if she read my thoughts in my face.
'"So soon?" I urged, pleadingly.
'"Yes; and thanks, so much, for your row—it has been delightful."
'"I shall be so glad to row you further next time."
'"You talk as if you expected to see me again—as if it were quite a matter of course."
'"I can only hope to do so," said I, handing her ashore and retaining her little, ungloved hand, lingeringly in mine; "but I row past here every day, at the same hour."
'"Good-bye," said she, about to turn away.
'"May I ask your name?" said I, cap in hand.
'"Annabelle Erroll."
'"Why do you start so?" she asked laughingly, and, tripping up the bank, vanished among the white stems of the silver birches, leaving her ferns in the boat behind her.
'Start! Well might I do so; for I now discovered that she was my cousin, the daughter of a widowed maternal Aunt Annabelle, with whom my parents had ever been at enmity, about some money quarrel, with her husband, Colonel Erroll—an aunt whom I had never met, and of whose existence I had but a vague idea.
'My cousin she was, and proud, greedy old Uncle Erroll's daughter! I would rather not have heard this; for the girl's rare beauty attracted me powerfully on one hand, while the transmitted stories of the family feud—stories which in boyhood made me regard the colonel and his wife as an ogre and ogress—on the other, had a fatal effect upon me.
'That her mother yet kept up the feud, was evident from the circumstance that she had never mentioned to Annabelle the fact, which she must have known, that I commanded the Lancers at the barrack within a few miles of their own house. Yet to have done so would have served no end; though I thought not of that.
'Would the young girl understand, or accept, my hint?
'When, on the following day, I betook me to the bend of the river in my boat, she was not there. I waited long, and reluctantly pulled away with a certain emotion of pique. But, on the next day again, at the same hour, I saw her light skirt flitting among the silver birches, and at once crept inshore. I had cut some fresh fern roots for her, in place of those she had forgotten.
'"Ah, how thoughtful and kind of you," she exclaimed, as she gave me her hand, and allowed me to lead her on board, quite as a matter of course.
'"You will have a little row to-day?" said I.
'"A very tiny one it must be, then; I am so afraid of mamma," she replied; and in another minute we were skimming over the silvery water.
'"Have you mentioned to your mamma your meeting with me?" I inquired.
'"With you—a stranger? Oh, I dare not, Captain Fotheringhame."
'"You know my name, then!"
'"I saw in a newspaper, by the merest chance, that you were a guest of Lord Rothiemay's."
'For certain cogent reasons of my own, I could not help colouring like a great schoolboy at this peer's name, as I had been involved in something closer than a mere flirtation with a daughter of his; but in the present instance, while feeling already inclined to be rather cousinly, I resolved to remain incog. as long as I could. I knew that she would not mention my name at home, and so resolved to abandon myself to the perilous charm of her society during the absence of the Rothiemays in London. I admit freely that I was wrong, selfish in this, and severely was I punished in the end.
'This second day on the river was succeeded by many others, during which I gave myself completely up to the fascination of my new companion, who was so bright, quaint, and spirituelle, and full of enthusiasm for music, flowers, scenery, and everything, that she was unlike any other girl I had ever met—more than all, most unlike in style of beauty and manner the stately and patrician daughter of Rothiemay.
The boat, in the blaze of the sunshine, was drifting with the current; my sculls in the rowlocks rested on my knees; my cigar, the place and time, disposed me for luxurious reverie; and opposite me sat this beautiful girl, her hat beside her, her golden hair and fair face shaded by her parasol, while she sang in a low voice her song, "Love me always—love me ever," her eyes fixed dreamily on the wooded shore the while.
'"Annabelle," said I, softly.
'"Who gave you leave to call me by that name?" she asked, pouting.
'"Is it not your name?"
'"Yes, Captain Fotheringhame."
'"And a very pretty one; yet not even pretty enough for you. Why may I not call you by it?"
'"It sounds odd on your lips—already."
'"But not unpleasant, I hope?"
'She laughed, but became silent, and glanced at me shyly under her long lashes—shyly, and yet at times I thought half invitingly, half defiantly, too. Was the girl acting or not? I felt inclined to love her one moment, and simply and selfishly to amuse myself with her the next, heedless, perhaps, of whether the poor girl might learn to love me or not.
'I was a young fellow then, Falconer—save in experience, I am not an old fellow yet—but she was younger still, a very girl, on the borders between childhood and womanhood, the "sweet seventeen" of the inevitable love story. I was playing with fire, and so was she; and in teaching her to love me, I forgot all about an entanglement elsewhere, and gave myself up to the romance and intoxication of the time and the episode. So we met and dreamed on day by day, and she was so brilliantly happy that her soft face at times seemed to be singularly brightened by the very gladness of her heart; for it seems so natural for a young girl to mingle something of idolatry with her first love.
'It did occur to me that our love—hers, at least—was somewhat of the rash and romantic Romeo and Juliet, passionate and unreasoning kind; while she was as young and innocent as I was exacting, and even suspicious that she was perfectly artless. I pondered over the words of Shakespeare: "Love sought is good; but given unsought is better;" and I was cynic, casuist, and egotist enough to doubt this.
'When I kissed her, it seemed each time as if all my soul went out to her with that kiss; and yet—what idiosyncrasy of the heart was it that made me wish to have that kiss recalled!
'"I seem to have no wish or desire in the world ungratified," she whispered to me, as she nestled her head on my shoulder, while the boat drifted with the current under the tremulous shade of the silver birches, and the Tay rippled placidly past them.
'"You are so happy, Annabelle?"
'"I never thought to be so happy as I am now, Leslie; I could even die with your arms round me! But—but are you satisfied to have such an ignorant little girl for your wife?"
'Wife! I had not proposed yet; and the word roused me to a selfish consciousness of the rashness of the whole affair, and so instead of replying I gave her a tender caress, and said:
'"You are too good for me, Annabelle!"
'"I can scarcely believe it—you so handsome, so rich—a captain of Lancers, and all that! Oh, Leslie, God forbid you should ever cease to love me less than you do!"
'This crisis in my river-cruising roused me to think of what I was about; and still more was I roused when at the barracks I found a letter from Lord Rothiemay awaiting me with an invitation to spend a few days at his place. But to leave my troop then was impossible, thus I wrote thanking his lordship, and proposing simply to gallop over on an evening named to dinner, and as I despatched the missive, the face and figure of his daughter Blanche came reproachfully before me.
'I have already referred to an entanglement—it was simply that, though no promise had been given, I deemed myself all but engaged to Blanche Gordon, who, some months before this time had enchanted and spell-bound me. She was, indeed, a beautiful girl, and is a beautiful woman now, tall, slender, and graceful—a finished creature in every way, and wielding every natural and acquired accomplishment with consummate and yet unapparent art.
'She had given me every reason to believe that the passion with which she had inspired me was reciprocated, and we had only parted with the mutual hope, apparently, of meeting again; hence there seemed an absolute necessity for breaking off my philandering on the river. It is said that a man cannot love two women at once; and yet my heart ached for Annabelle and the grief that was before her.
'By some sophistry I nursed myself into the idea that I, rather than she, was the victim of circumstances; and as I went to the trysting-place for the last time I muttered:
'"'Handsome, rich, and a Lancer,'" she said. "Yes—yes, by Jove! she is not so deuced artless, after all; and the very proposal she made to me was in itself unwomanly."
'Unwomanly! I actually had the cruelty to tell her so; and never shall I forget the look of incredulity, grief, dismay, and horror that appeared by turns, and then all blended together, in her beautiful face when I did so; and, already repenting what I had said so capriciously, I would have retracted my words if it were possible to do so.
'The phrase went through her loving heart like a bolt of ice, though she seemed to hear it indistinctly.
'"Oh, Leslie!" she gasped, in an accent of desolation such as human lips can utter but once in a lifetime, while her hands became cold and her face grew livid. She bit her lips till the blood came, and clasped her white hands until a ring I had given her marked her tender fingers; and then remembering it, she tore it off, cast it at my feet, and after giving me one long glance of anguish and reproval, tottered away home; and I, my heart burning with shame, shot my shallop out into the stream, and pulled away from the spot like a madman!
'"She is young, poor girl, and will get over it," thought I; while to nerve myself I conjured up the presence of Blanche Gordon in all her imperial beauty, while, ingrate that I was! she that I had just left possessed and showed all the qualities that win love—and that love had, upon a mere pretence, been coldly and abruptly thrust back upon her heart.
'The black "morrow" of her prophetic song had come indeed, and an idol had been robbed of its truth.
'She was helpless to avenge herself, suffering and so beautiful; so I prayed that God might strengthen her, until some other love consoled her for the loss of mine: and even the thought of that stung me.
'"Yes, yes," thought I, "if so ready to love me, she will with equal facility learn to love another."
'There was no jealousy in the heart of Annabelle, for she knew nothing of any rival; but she was tormented by a sensation of loneliness and utter desolation by day and night, and disappointment was not the least element of that torment. But her time of vengeance was at hand.
'Next day saw me at Rothiemay, and at the feet, if I may say so, of Blanche Gordon, who received me with one of her usual bewitching smiles. My proposal certainly pleased and agitated her, but she told me with considerable confidence and coolness that she was engaged to another, and, indeed, was to be married in three weeks!
'The hollow damsel of fashion had thrown me over for a well-gilded coronet, just as I had thrown over—but coarsely and suspiciously—the girl who only loved me better than I deserved, and whose sweet society I now missed fearfully.
'But I was justly punished, you will say; yet the story does not end here.
'Some weeks after, when family misfortunes came upon me, and I was compelled to sell out—to leave the Lancers—impelled I know not by what emotion or motive, unless it were something like force of habit and a restless craving, I roamed towards the old trysting-place, beneath the silver birches.
'Things of love and joy seldom repeat themselves, but my heart leaped on seeing Annabelle seated on the bank of the stream, half hidden by the wild rose-trees. Thither, no doubt, to torment her own heart, she had perhaps been in the habit of repairing to dream over the love that would never come again. She seemed lost in thought, and neither saw nor heard my approach; and I saw the sunlight flashing on the bright, soft, golden hair, amid which my fingers had so often strayed.
'"Annabelle!" said I softly; and she sprang up with a nervous start. "You see I am here again, to crave your pardon and to thank God that life has yet something worth living for—your love, Annabelle!"
'"And yours?" she said disdainfully; then her fortitude gave way, and for a moment she hid her burning face and her hot tears in her white and wasted hands, which, when I attempted to take them, repelled mine.
'"I will try to atone for the past, Annabelle—forgive me," said I, humbly.
'"I do forgive you," she replied with sudden calmness, grace, and a bearing of dignity I had never before seen in her; "but you can never be to me what you have been. You were the very idol of my heart, and with all my soul I worshipped you, Leslie; but that is ended now and for ever."
'"If a life of devotion, Annabelle——"
'"Say no more—I will not listen."
'"You decline my love, because ruin has come upon me at the hands of others, and I am compelled to leave the Lancers?"
'Her eyes flashed, yet not with anger, and her bosom heaved, as she replied:
'"I grieve for what you say; and God knows it is not so—but for the manner in which you reproached me with unwomanly conduct, that roused my proper pride. I did love you tenderly, purely, passionately, then; but in repelling you, my conduct at least is womanly now! Farewell then, for ever; we leave this place to-morrow."
'"For where?"
'"That can be a matter of no interest to you, Captain Fotheringhame," she replied, turning to retire.
'"Do not let us part thus, Annabelle. It is for your sake as much as my own that I sue thus."
'She crested up her little head haughtily.
'"Believe in my love," I urged.
'"I neither believe in it, nor want it—now at least."
'"How pitiless you are!" I exclaimed.
'"Just as you were; so to part is best for us both. I once dreamt of being only too happy; I am sadly awake now."
'Our eyes met for the last time: the expression of hers was passionless and decided. I had nothing to hope from her; but I sighed deeply, with sorrow, pique, and even jealousy, as I watched her departing steps and saw the last flutter of her skirt between the stems of the silver birches, and then pulled slowly away from the trysting-place, never to seek it again!
'I can remember yet how the woods and lawns along the river's bank looked dreamily indistinct in the evening haze, as I pulled slowly and sadly homeward.
'Never since, till you spoke of her, have I heard aught of Annabelle Erroll, but I have since had reason to believe that she heard, in time, of my affair with Blanche Gordon.'
So all this story of Leslie Fotheringhame's was the secret so skilfully concealed under the calm exterior of the beautiful blonde whom Cecil Falconer had met at Eaglescraig.