The Cameronians: A Novel - Volume 1 by James Grant - HTML preview

CHAPTER XX.
 THE OLD STORY AGAIN.

It may easily be supposed that Cecil Falconer did not lose much time in paying what was to pass ostensibly as a ceremonious visit to Sir Piers Montgomerie's family. Evening parade was over, when he quitted the fortress in a carefully assorted suit of mufti, and betook him to the north-western quarter of the New Town, in one of the most fashionable streets of which stood the stately house of the general, in a situation of wonderfully picturesque beauty, overlooking the deep ravine through which the Leith flows under a noble bridge of three arches, each of which is ninety-six feet in span.

On one side stands an ancient tolbooth, with crow-stepped gables; on the other, a steep green bank crowned by a beautiful church and stately crescent. Between these yawns the rocky ravine, wherein lie an old bridge of other days, and a cluster of quaint mills and dwellings, and the river roaring in snow-white foam over a broad and lofty weir; the whole place having in all its features a marvellous resemblance to the Spanish village of Banos in Leon.

And now, when Falconer stood upon the threshold of the mansion, there flashed upon his mind the recollection that on this very day it was that his father and mother had both died—the latter on the anniversary of the former's demise, eighteen years before; thus he doubted whether he had chosen a fortunate time, for it has truly been said, that there are certain moods of the human mind in which we cannot help ascribing 'an ominous importance to any remarkable coincidence wherein things of moment are concerned;' and he was in this mood then.

In obedience to the sonorous bell, the double-door was thrown open, revealing one of those spacious entrance-halls peculiar to Scottish houses, with tiger-skins—some of Sir Piers' Indian spoils—and Persian rugs covering the length of its tesselated floor, and marble pedestals with tall Chinese and Japanese vases standing on either side.

The general had gone to his club, in Queen Street; Mrs. Garth and Miss Erroll were out in the carriage, but were expected back soon; Miss Montgomerie was at home. So said the valet, who remembered Falconer, and smiled a welcome to him, but said nothing of the whereabouts of Hew, who was a favourite with none.

Mary was then at home, and perhaps alone, so Cecil's heart beat lightly and happily as he was ushered into the stately double drawing-room, which had hangings of rose-coloured silk laced with white, and was stately with crystal chandeliers, Venetian mirrors, cabinets of rare china, statuettes, and gems of art in the way of pictures and jars, amid which the eyes of Falconer saw only Mary Montgomerie—Mary seated near an antique tripod table, whereon was set out the dainty Wedgewood china for five o'clock tea, and varying her time between knitting soft woollen socks for some old cotter of Eaglescraig, and gazing from the window on the buds of spring that were bursting in the warm sunshine, and the sweet flowers that made the parterres gay; but she started from her chair when the servant announced,

'Captain Falconer.'

She repeated the name mechanically, and grew very pale as she presented her hand.

'Do not call me "captain,"' urged Cecil, retaining it, while the thoughts of both went naturally back to their last meeting in the grotto, and the avowal made then; and Mary grew shy in manner, for she had been haunted by a dread lest her wave of the handkerchief to Cecil on his departure from Eaglescraig had been unladylike, though Annabelle assured her that, after all that had passed, any young girl would have done precisely the same.

'But you are a captain now,' she said, smiling; 'and I congratulate you upon the circumstance. It has given me real pleasure, you may be well assured.'

'I thank you, from my heart,' replied Cecil, and she withdrew her hand, while he was longing to take up the links of the old story, gathering even courage from the omen that Snarley, in a new blue and silver collar, with his mistress's monogram and a bell, barked, whimpered, and frisked about him with delight.

Snarley had an undoubted propensity for worrying rats in the stable court, under the auspices of Hew Montgomerie and Pate Pastern, the head-groom; also proclivities for the kitchen and low life generally: but here he was in the drawing-room to welcome the visitor.

'You knew I would call?' said Falconer, after a pause.

'I—hoped you would,' said Mary, timidly.

'You did!' he exclaimed in a low voice, as he started to her side. 'Oh, my darling!'

'Yes—of course,' replied Mary faintly, and blushing deeply now, as he took both her hands in his and gazed into her eyes with passionate tenderness; and somehow it came speedily to pass that as they stood so near, they were posed like the Black Brunswicker and his love, or the Huguenot and his guardian angel, in the well-known pictures; but if the pose was delicious, the speeches that accompanied it were a little fatuous and incoherent.

After a time, Falconer, still holding her in his embrace and gazing tenderly into her upturned eyes, made the somewhat prosaic request:

'You will keep some round dances for me at the ball, of course, darling?'

'Gladly would I do so, dearest Cecil—but——'

'But what, Mary love?'

'I am under such supervision—Hew, for instance—

'It is intolerable!' said Falconer, as a gesture of impatience escaped him. 'To love you, and say that I love you, dearest Mary, means views of marriage, and the hope that you will be mine—mine for ever, sweetest pet,' he continued, with infinite tenderness of tone and manner, taking her little face between his hands, after the mode of the pictured Huguenot; but Mary partially and nervously withdrew from him. 'You are free, Mary, are you not?' he asked, with great and sudden anxiety.

There was no answer, and she seemed intently studying the pattern of the carpet.

'You are not, you cannot be, engaged?' he exclaimed in a low and earnest voice, and dreading some change since they parted.

'No, certainly—not of my own free will,' was her curious reply, while tears trembled on her dark lashes.

'How then?'

'Mrs. Garth told you all, did she not?'

'Do you know your own mind, Mary?' he asked, taking her caressingly in his arms.

'Yes,' said she, with a sob in her throat.

'How is it to be, then?'

There was no answer.

'Mary!'

She could scarcely have made any reply just then, as Cecil closed her sweet lips most effectually.

'Hew actually takes his position with me for granted,' said she, after a little pause, with her head reclined on Cecil's shoulder. 'He is absurd, and insolent as a wooer, yet seems to think there is no need for exerting himself to win a bride that is bestowed upon him. He treats me as if I were his property—a gift from Sir Piers in fact,' she continued with an angry little laugh.

'And you, with all your beauty and wealth too, Mary, are to become the sacrifice of an old man's ambition to endow his house, and a young man's avarice! Oh, my darling, it is monstrous! and in this age of the world, ridiculous too! But perhaps the good old general may come round in time, and see the folly of his scheme.'

She shook her head, and said brokenly:

'You speak of wealth—I would I were penniless, for your sake; it is as a millstone about my neck; I think papa's will was most iniquitous!'

Until Mary Montgomerie met and knew Cecil Falconer, she had lived like the lady of Shalott, in a world of dreams—a young girl's dreams of a lover; for even the advent of Hew as an admirer—an intended—had certainly not embodied the idea to her.

She had read in Byron that a woman's love was a woman's whole existence, and such she would have made it now to herself; and doubtless had Cecil chosen to exert the power he had over her heart, and lured her, as one less scrupulous might have done, into risking the esclandre, he would have persuaded her to defy Sir Piers and fly with him; but he never for a moment entertained the idea of a measure that would have been such injustice to herself, as it would have involved the loss of her fortune, and perhaps its eventual transference to Hew!

Snarley now suddenly showed his teeth, as if to announce the approach of the latter through the outer drawing-room, where it would almost seem that he had been again an unseen listener, as at Eaglescraig.

'Petit chien!' exclaimed Mary, as the Huguenot pose was suddenly relinquished, and she snatched up her dog to kiss it; 'petit chien—dear wee doggie, don't be jealous of—oh, it's you, Hew—how tiresome!' she added under her breath, as that personage lounged upon the scene, and drily gave his cold, fishy hand to Falconer.

'Hew again!' thought Mary with a shiver of repugnance; and again, as in the instance of the grotto, she marvelled, with intense annoyance, how much he had overseen and overheard, and how long he had been en perdue!

Nearly ignoring the presence of Falconer, who assumed his hat and gloves, he bowed coldly and said curtly:

'I am about to have a canter down Granton way: will you join me, Mary?'

'I would rather be excused.'

'Why?'

'It is anything but a pretty road—all stone walls and no trees.'

Hew scowled. The answer showed plainly that his company would not compensate for the dulness of the road—'and before that fellow Falconer, too!'

'Annabelle will go, perhaps.'

'She is out with the old soldier, Mrs. Garth.'

'Hew?' she exclaimed, while with curiously-mingled emotions of delight and annoyance, Falconer, deeming that the time had come to depart, bowed himself out as Hew rang the bell.

'Ha!' thought the latter, 'she will not ride with me, and she has not driven out with them, so she expected this fellow! They have some secret understanding unknown to Sir Piers, most certainly. But they have not yet come to the third volume of their little romance!'

Mary read his thoughts and suspicions in his face, and her heart swelled with anger.

'We must stop this nonsense, Hew—or you must, I mean,' said she abruptly, and with flashing eyes.

'Stop it?'

'Yes, as I mean to be the mistress of my own actions; and the sooner your interference with me ends, the better for us both.'

'What do you mean?'

'What I say, sir!' replied Mary desperately, and with tears in her eyes as she swept from the room; for though she deferred to the years and affection of Sir Piers, she was resolved now to have neither mercy nor toleration for Hew, who eyed her malevolently as she withdrew.

Sweet indeed had been the love-passage between these two—Cecil and Mary—knitting their hearts closer together. Affection had been ensured to the full and been accepted to the full; but no promise had been given, and the future was vague as ever.

Cecil had a species of rival in Hew, certainly; but one that, strange to say, provoked no jealousy, anger, or sense of suspicion, though there were the influence and authority of Sir Piers to dread, together with what might be their ultimate result upon the gentle nature of Mary, who might be bent to accept the fate intended for her, as being but a portion of the inevitable. Besides, if the regiment were ordered suddenly abroad, the chances of their ever meeting again would be faint and few indeed.

Though Hew, as we have already indicated, had no genuine love for Mary, he fully appreciated the wonderful beauty of her person, and endorsed to the full the general's desire that he should marry her, and a creditable wife indeed she would be to the future baronet of Eaglescraig; thus his piqued self-esteem and his avarice rendered him secretly savage that he made worse than no progress with her in his wooing. He felt as if placed in rather a ridiculous position with his patron; and thus the whole tide of his venom flowed towards the innocent Falconer, though the appearance of the latter on the scene had not changed in the least degree Mary's views of him—Hew Montgomerie.

There was no open quarrel between the latter and Falconer, but each had a very decided repugnance to the other, and the soldier knew and felt him to be his secret enemy; and in their chance intercourse in public places and at the U.S. club, whither he came under the general's wing, the veiled hatred of Hew grew deeper as he felt instinctively that he was every way, in tone, in bearing, and in mind, the inferior of Falconer.

He became more than usually boorish, for about this time he had a curious run of ill-luck in his turf speculations; 'straight tips' had turned out the reverse of straight; 'good things' on coming events had turned out badly too; he had been jockied and wanted money sorely, having lost in a few hours all that he had won from Acharn, while the latter, instead of proposing to have his revenge, mentioned incidentally 'his friend Falconer,' and declined all play; the next time Acharn cut him dead, and he began to find all players avoiding him.

Though Mrs. Garth was invaluable as a chaperon, such a guardian is not so necessary in the streets of 'the Queen of the North' as in those of the sister metropolis; consequently Mary could go abroad alone whenever she chose, while curiously enough she seemed to have lost all taste for the use of the carriage now.

END OF VOL. I.