CHAPTER V.
THE REGIMENTAL BALL.
There is so close a family likeness among regimental balls in their general details, that we need scarcely describe that of the Cameronians, the chief importance of it to our story being the events that came of it.
All Edinburgh said it would be 'the ball of balls,' and beat those given a month before by the Dragoon Guards and Royal Archers. The officers were, of course, all dancing men, and there were few or no married ones to throw 'cold water' on the extravagances of the rest. It was held in the Music-hall and Assembly-room, two magnificent saloons connected by a stately vestibule, a place generally well patronised as a promenade between the dances. Each of these halls are about a hundred feet in length, and the first-named, on these occasions, is usually set apart for waltzes alone; here was the band of the regiment, in the lofty orchestra, under the guidance of Herr von Humstrumm, while a fashionable quadrille band was in the gallery of the Assembly-room, which has one of the finest floors in Europe.
A guard of honour, a hundred strong, under Captain Acharn, occupied the entrance to receive duly the commander-in-chief, Sir Piers, and other general officers; trophies of arms, shields, and claymores, the grouped banners of extinct Scottish regiments from the castle armoury, a double avenue of azaleas and myrtles, foliage and Chinese lanterns, with jets of perfumed water, spouting and sparkling in marble and alabaster basins, all testified to the good taste of Cecil Falconer and the ball-committee, who were there in 'full puff,' to receive the guests, who were now arriving as fast as the carriages could set them down at the east and west portes-cochère.
Yellow banners, with the trophies of the regiment, drooped over the staircases: 'Egypt' with the sphinx, 'Corunna,' 'China' with the fiery dragon, and lastly, 'Abyssinia'; and ever and anon the grand and inspiriting crashes of military music swept through the double halls. Kilted officers from the Highland depôt battalions, in various tartans; gentlemen in Highland dresses, Hussars and Lancers, made gay the scene. And the costumes of the ladies, the result of many an anxious consultation with mammas and modistes as to what would be prettiest and most effective, completed a scene in which a great amount of feminine loveliness and grace was not wanting.
In the vestibule, the young second lieutenants were flying hither and thither, supplying the ladies with enamelled programmes; the rooms were crowded by a glittering throng, and already the dancing had begun, when the voice of Acharn, calling the guard to attention, and the clatter of their rifles as they came to the 'present,' announced the arrival of Sir Piers and his party, and Falconer felt his heart give a responsive leap.
Roused and inspired by the music, the regimental trophies and familiar badges, and by all his congenial surroundings, the old general looked so bright and happy and he seemed to grow so young again that Hew, in his impatience to succeed him, might have thought that the Parcæ—if he ever heard of them, which is doubtful—were forgetting to shorten his span.
Smiling blandly on all, with all his medals and orders glittering on his gallant old breast, in full uniform, with sash and belt of gold, he moved through the brilliant throng, with Mary—Mary seeking for one face only—leaning on his arm; and he accorded even a pleasant bow to Cecil, as the latter hurried to his place in the dance with a tall and handsome girl, having arranged that Dick Freeport and Mary should be their vis-à-vis.
Once or twice as the night wore on, Mrs. Garth, from her place among the chaperons, detected a shadow cross the general's face, and knew that the sight of the familiar 'number,' the trophies and the uniforms, brought back to memory many a long-vanished face, and among them, doubtless, that of his only son.
Circumstanced as they were, Cecil felt all the mortifying absurdity of not putting his name even once on Mary's card, and permitting others to fill it—a rapid process; but there was a nameless sweetness in the conviction of the secret understanding that existed between them, and that she had specially implored him not to ask her. The general's alternate fits of kindness and severity, and his quick and impetuous temper, worried her. In his household he was absolute, or had all the desire to be so; and thus with all her love and respect for him, a steady emotion of utter rebellion was gathering in Mary's heart; and when she saw Cecil at the ball, she resolved that it would go hard with her if, by some little manœuvring, they did not achieve one dance, together.
Yet her card was filled fast, as she had passed through the vestibule—the whole garrison fighting gallantly to get their names inscribed upon it—and she was overwhelmed with petitions for dances more than she could accord. All the subs had come to the ball prepared to fall in love with her; and, as Dick Freeport said, they were in duty bound to do so.
The dark dress of Mary—perhaps a curious one for a ball—black tulle, gracefully trimmed with ears of silver wheat, made the pure delicacy of her complexion, her white shoulders, round, polished and snowy arms, bare from above the dimpled elbow, all more startlingly fair. She had a complete suite of diamond and pearl ornaments. Even to her lover's eyes, she looked more than usually lovely; there was a tender flush on her soft cheeks, and purest pleasure sparkled in her soft face, as she swept round in the waltz with Fotheringhame, who was whispering to her of Cecil; and her lithe form seemed full of firm, yet delicate, strength and vigour.
'Beg pardon,' said Hew, who was no waltzer, but had ventured on one round dance with Annabelle Erroll, presuming on her good nature, and after cannoning against several exasperated lancers and others, finally did so against Falconer; 'a gay scene,' he added breathlessly.
'Hope you will enjoy yourself,' was Cecil's commonplace reply to Hew, in whose eyes, even at that moment, he could read deep and defiant hostility, but partially veiled by a well-bred smile.
Remembering their gambling experiences, Acharn, a grim, dark officer, who had now dismissed the guard and taken his place among the dancers, would have opposed the invitation of Hew to the ball; but Falconer, loth to put a slight upon the general, and supposing that he had nothing personally to fear in his presence, enclosed a card to his would-be rival, and hence his appearance on the night in question.
He was disposed to be silent and sulky—silent in consequence of a total absence of ideas; and sulky, because of Mary's too apparent happy preoccupation, and her succession of brilliant partners. Most—if not all—of the Cameronians were as good performers on a well-waxed floor as at anything else that is manly, and, as we have already hinted, the floor of the Edinburgh Assembly-room is simply the perfection of what that for a ball should be.
'What a cub that fellow Hew is!' said Fotheringhame to Cecil in passing, with Annabelle on his arm, her pale blue costume becoming her light blonde beauty well. 'Can it be possible,' he whispered to her, 'that such a girl as your friend can be capable of marrying one man while loving another—marrying this Hew Caddish Montgomerie while loving Cecil Falconer?'
'I should hope not.'
'But women are such strange creatures!'
'Men are stranger still,' she retorted, with a bright smile; 'but here comes our odious Hew—and I promised him this waltz.'
'He imposes on your good-nature; bother the fellow!'
'Our dance, I think,' said Hew, lounging up.
'Number seven,' said Annabelle, affecting to consult her card, while Fotheringhame gave him an impatient stare, for his dislike of Hew was great.
'How handsome your cousin Miss Montgomerie is,' said he.
'She is full of goodness of heart and common sense too,' added Annabelle.
'I hope she will prove a girl of very uncommon sense,' said Fotheringhame.
'In what way?' asked Hew.
'By preferring a Cameronian to any other man,' replied Fotheringhame with perfect coolness; and Annabelle laughed to see the gleam that shot athwart the eyes of Hew, as he swept away with her into the dance, to begin a series of 'cannons' again, and elicit remarks of wrath under many a moustache.
'I don't know what your plans are, old fellow,' said Fotheringhame to Cecil, as their eyes mutually followed Mary, admiringly, through the maze of waltzers, 'but, if I were in your place, I would write to Sir Piers, and give him fair warning that I meant to use every means to win his ward.'
'Nay, Leslie; I have already won her,' interrupted Falconer, a little triumphantly.
'Well—all the better; and if the girl loved me as she loves you, and as Annabelle tells me, I would have her in spite of all the guardians in Scotland!'
But there was no answering smile in the face of Cecil, who remembered how his last visit to the house of Sir Piers ended, and the summary manner in which the old man rang the bell to have him shown out!
And now for a time he remained among the crowd of men—the inert or uninterested—who hovered about the doorway, critically watching the dancers, and he heard Mary again and again praised, as she swept past in a succession of waltzes. The genuine praises of some delighted him; but there were occasional off-hand remarks that made him inclined to punch more than one head.
'Not a bad-looking girl at all,' lisped a Lancer; 'wish she wouldn't lay on the powder so freely, though.'
'Powder!' said Bickerton of that Ilk, a well-browned young fellow in the blue-and-gold-laced uniform of the Ayrshire Yeomanry, 'the devil a pinch of powder is there!'
'By Jove! to my mind, her dress is very chic. Regent Street couldn't turn out a better! Who the deuce is she?' asked another lounger.
'Oh! the daughter of Sir Piers Montgomerie,' replied some one whose information was vague; 'an old general officer—no end of money, and has refused no end of eligibles, and non-eligibles, alike.'
'Get me an introduction, won't you?'
'Well, perhaps—but her card has been full no doubt an hour ago.'
'Who is that swivel-eyed fellow that hangs about her?'
'Her intended, people say—don't like the fellow; he once played me a fishy trick about a horse.'
'I have certainly seen a face like that girl's before,' resumed the Lancer, eyeing Mary through his glass.
'Perhaps—but you haven't seen many like it,' said Dick Freeport. 'I am lucky enough to have booked her for two waltzes.'
'Great success, this regimental hop of yours!'
Amid the painful doubts of his own position, his hopes and his fears, Cecil saw with pleasure how radiantly happy his friend Fotheringhame and Annabelle Erroll were enjoying the ball and their own society to the fullest extent; and sooth to say, though Blanche Gordon, the girl who had 'thrown him over,' was present, and looking very queenly in her costume and her loveliness, he seemed to have eyes only for Annabelle; and as his arm encircled her there was a depth of emotion in her tender blue eyes when their gaze met his, that called up many a loving thought, and, though they were silent, led both to remember the scenes of their past, upon the shining river, when the boat glided under the silver birches and the water-lilies floated by her side—scenes to be visited together, as they hoped, again.
But, as, if there could be no perfect brightness without a shadow, no perfect happiness without some alloy, it chanced that when seated together in the vestibule, for coolness, there occurred an event which—though Annabelle thought little, perhaps, of it then—she had bitter cause to remember afterwards.
A lady, closely veiled, passed quickly near them, after descending from the gallery usually occupied by servants and privileged spectators.
She dropped a card-case or purse, and Fotheringhame hastened to restore it to her, on which with a low voice, she thanked him by name, involuntarily as it would seem.
'Why are you here to-night?' he asked severely.
'To see—you.'
'How rash—how foolish—go home!'
She hurried away, and on Fotheringhame rejoining Annabelle, the latter could see that he had suddenly become very pale.
'Do you know that—person?' she asked while slowly fanning herself, and fixing her upturned eyes upon him.
'Why do you ask, dearest Bella?' said he, as if to gain time for thought.
'Because she seemed to know you, and called you Leslie.'
'Surely not; but so many people know me—the world is such a small place. I know her to be very unhappy, and this gay scene is the last place where I would expect to see her, even as a spectator.'
He spoke with perfect deliberation and confidence now, but failed to inspire his listener with the latter, as she read a sudden and settled gloom in his eyes.
The strange woman—a lady evidently—admitted that she had come hither to see him. Why? Then he had desired her to 'go home.' Where was her home? Who was she? And why did this chance meeting make him so distrait?
'Our dance now, darling,' he whispered, drawing her hand through his arm. 'One of Schubert's waltzes; old Humstrumm greatly affects Schubert,' he added with rather a sickly smile. But this little episode so startled Annabelle, that the task of getting her fair face and soft complexion into 'society trim' again cost her an effort; and ere they could get among the waltzers in the Music-hall, a strange commotion there attracted the attention of both, as it did that of everyone; so the cause thereof deserves a chapter to itself, for Fotheringhame was struck with horror and dismay to see his friend Cecil Falconer borne past him to a retiring-room, reeling and almost senseless, in the arms of three officers of different regiments!
What had happened?