CHAPTER XVII.
HOPES AND FEARS.
'That was the way our affair of the heart came about, and was ended by my pride, vacillation, and suspicion,' said Fotheringhame; 'and now I have little doubt that she is quite aware that I—the Lancer lover—was her cousin, though I never told her so.'
'How odd of you to act so!' exclaimed Cecil.
'Odd—I was mad, I think!'
'From her manner and words, I thought that you and she possessed in common some mysterious antecedents.'
'An unpleasant way of putting it,' said Fotheringhame, with a shade of annoyance in his face; 'all that time was one of gloom to me. When I had to leave the Lancers I shall never forget the shock it gave me—though of course expected—to see the 'Army List' without my name in it; nor was I ever satisfied till I saw it there again, as a Cameronian. So you see, Falconer, that with all my general heedlessness of bearing, my life has not been without "its little romance, as most lives have, between the age of teetotum and tobacco," as George Eliot has it.'
'I may yet be the means of relighting this old flame again,' said Falconer; 'though it is said that there is nothing so difficult to revive as an old flirtation.'
'It was no flirtation——'
'Save in so far as you were concerned.'
'Until I lost Annabelle, I never knew how much I loved her, and how dear she was to me.'
'If Annabelle Erroll ever loved you she loves you still.'
'Why do you think so?'
'Because true love never dies,' said Falconer enthusiastically, for his mind was full of Mary's image; 'and I can now recall much that was strange in her mode and manner, if I mentioned you incidentally—of which I thought nothing then, but to which you have now given me a clue.'
'For all that you can tell, Falconer, she may only remember me with hatred, therefore it were better to forget the past and all about it. After confiding the matter to my two other friends—a quiet weed and M. de Cognac—I'll turn in, and so good-night.'
Most uneventfully passed the early days of spring, to Falconer, in the solitary castle of Dumbarton, which shoots up abruptly from a flat level, and stands completely isolated, the most prominent and picturesque object amid the beautiful scenery of the blue and majestic Clyde, into the channel of which it projects—a channel through the clear waters of which on a calm day, one may see whole forests of luxuriant seaweed, waving fathoms deep below.
Perched in the hollow or rift between the two great volcanic peaks into which this singular, mitre-shaped rock is cleft—the highest being five hundred and sixty feet in height—the old-fashioned barracks contain accommodation for only about a company of soldiers, and an ancient armoury (among the stores of which is the blade of Wallace's sword, fitted with a new hilt of a later period), and which is still identified as having been the prison of the Scottish Patriot, after his betrayal by the infamous Menteith. The circumstance of his sword having a hilt more modern than the blade, has led to its identity being doubted by those who are ignorant of the fact, that in the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer in 1505, we find mention made of the 'binding of Wallas's sword (in the castle of Dumbarton) with cords of silk and a new hilt and plomet (pommel), new skabbard and new belt to the said sword, xxvj sh.'
The entrance to the castle is by a barrier-gate at the foot of the rock and fronting the south east. It is defended by ramparts and guns, and immediately within it are the officers' quarters. A steep flight of stone steps gives access to the barracks, the well, and other batteries; from whence, and especially from Wallace's Seat—the highest peak of this stupendous rock—and the circular Roman tower, or fragment, perchance, of the days when Balclutha was the abode of Roderick Hael 'the Generous,' there is a glorious panorama of scenery: the far expanse of the Clyde, the sylvan vale of the Leven, the vast blue mass of Ben Lomond and the mountains of Arrochar, their peaks sometimes veiled in silvery mist.
On the giddy summit Falconer lingered for many an hour, and fancied he could see, more than twenty miles distant, as the crow flies, the hills that looked down upon Eaglescraig. There, when Fotheringhame was absent on some duty or pleasure, he smoked many a solitary havanna in solitude, in the evening and the gloaming, conversing in imagination with Mary Montgomerie, with a fond enthusiasm and a passion inflamed by obstacles and opposition, long after the shadows had deepened in the vale of the Leven, and all around beneath the rocks; after the drum had beaten tattoo, and the lights of the last ocean-bound steamers had faded out beyond the point of Ardmore.
Then he would skilfully torment himself by recalling all that Mrs. Garth, with the best intentions in the world, had said concerning what Sir Piers would be certain to insist upon and carry out—the union of Mary Montgomerie, the heiress, with his own heir of entail; and well Falconer knew how Sir Piers would view his own slender means and want of family rank. And though he hoped much, he could not know how, in the secrecy of her own room, and in the long hours of 'the stilly night,' Mary treasured the memory of the few precious moments spent in the grotto, and thought of him and him only—of the influence he had exerted over her when present, and the memory he had left of himself when gone.
At times there was in his manner a passionate dejection, which quite bewildered and provoked the more matter-of-fact Leslie Fotheringhame.
''Pon my soul, old fellow, you're in a bad way,' the latter sometimes said; 'you can't live on this Mary Montgomerie, and nothing but Mary Montgomerie! You must get up a relish for something else when the drum beats for mess, or we shall soon have you on the doctor's list.'
So the days and weeks went by till the middle of March came. Six weeks had elapsed since he left Eaglescraig—six centuries, apparently, as lovers count their time!
The few words so hastily spoken in the grotto were deeply graven in his memory, and graven, too, was the kiss—the unpremeditated kiss—pressed so passionately on her unresisting lips. It seemed to haunt him with joy, for ever and aye.
'If she loves me, as I know she does,' he often thought, 'I am a fool not to carry her off in defiance of her guardian and all the world. Heaven knows, it is not her fortune I value, but of course that charitable world would think otherwise, though it is entirely in the hands of Sir Piers.'
After the impression made upon him at his departure from Eaglescraig, he felt that he could go back there on no pretence whatever, as no welcome, save from one, would await him, and another invitation would never be accorded. He knew that too well.
Times there were when he threw open his desk, and thought he would write to the general on the subject nearest his heart, at all hazards, and cast himself upon his generosity; and then hope died, and his courage failed, as he remembered his own slender exchequer, his humble rank, apart from his commission, and the general's inordinate pride of birth and value of long descent.
So he dared not write to Eaglescraig, and from thence came no word, no news, or sign.
He remembered how Mary had, with much agitation, interrupted his suggestion that he should tell Sir Piers of his love for her. What did she mean, then, unless it were her dread of the latter's power and influence over her, and his future plans with reference to Hew?
But what would he have thought, what would his emotions have been, and how great his indignation, had he known how, thanks to the malignity and perfidy of that personage, the good old general, a mirror of honour himself, viewed him as a trickster at cards, and a scandal to the uniform he wore! Had Falconer been aware of this circumstance, it would simply have maddened him; but fortunately for himself, and the bones of Mr. Hew Caddish Montgomerie, he knew nothing of it.
He was roused from cogitations such as these by an order which recalled the detachment to headquarters.
'We start for Edinburgh to-morrow, Fotheringhame,' he cried, hurrying into his friend's room.
'Hurrah!' responded the latter, springing up; 'thank heaven we are to quit this dull hole! The scenery, of course, is picturesque, and all that sort of thing, but the picturesque, is not in my line. The weekly assemblies and all the gaieties are on just now in 'Scotia's darling seat,' and the regimental ball will soon be coming off, so, with genuine satisfaction, I hail the order to rejoin at last. Well, it is a jolly change, anyway.'
And as such, Cecil welcomed it too, though it increased the distance between himself and Eaglescraig, and he could little foresee the calamities that awaited him in Edinburgh, and the crisis that would come in his affairs.
The departure of the detachment was not so duly chronicled in the local prints as its arrival had been; thus Mary knew nothing of Falconer's movements.
In her own heart she fully conceived herself to be engaged—tacitly engaged—to him, and loved to think she was so. Long engagements are perilous things, even when the pair can see each other at will, or freely correspond, daily or even weekly; tiffs and petty quarrels, even little bitternesses, may come to pass that weaken regard, unless they be like 'lovers' quarrels, love renewed:' but such a tie as that which existed between Falconer and Mary Montgomerie—never hearing of each other, and debarred all correspondence, having only hope for an anchor, was altogether peculiar in its features.
'She is always sad and weary now, Sir Piers,' said Mrs. Garth one day; 'weary at night, and weary at morning, though she tries to conceal it, or deceive us, by occasional bursts of gaiety.'
'Poor little fool! Her mind is still running on that fellow whom I should never have brought to Eaglescraig. But, with all Hew's faults of temper and so forth, she had better think of him and my wishes, Mrs. Garth; so lead her up to it, for that is our point d'appui,' replied the general.
'By Jove!' said the amiable Hew, with one of his ugly grimaces, 'she has no more brains than a hen pheasant, I think, to sit as she does all day long looking like a sick monkey.'
Meanwhile Hew was having no better success with his wooing, a fact which was the more perplexing and even harassing now, as he had resigned his Indian Civil Service appointment, and had no dependence, save upon the purse of Sir Piers, who, as the former grudgingly thought, seemed likely to live for ever; and who hoped, and indeed never doubted, that when Mary got over her girlish fancy for Cecil Falconer all things would come right in the end; and to change the scene, as the Edinburgh season was then in its flush, Sir Piers removed his entire household from Eaglescraig to his town residence at the west end of the grey metropolis of the north, a few days after Falconer's detachment had quitted the castle of Dumbarton.