CHAPTER XIV.
AN ABRUPT PROPOSAL.
"Wherefore dwell so sad and lonely,
By the desolate sea-shore;
With the melancholy surges
Beating at your cottage door?
You shall dwell beside the castle,
Shadowed by our ancient trees!
And your life shall pass on gently,
Cared for and in rest and ease."
For two days after his arrival the Master strove to engross as much of Flora's time as she would yield, or as he could spare from the study of his betting-book, the pages of the "Sporting Magazine," playing billiards right hand against the left, quizzing the dominie, who paid him a ceremonious visit, and in relating to the quartermaster certain military "crammers" about the alterations and improvements in the service since his time, some of which were astounding enough to make the old fellow's pigtail stand on end, with wonder and dismay, lest the said service was going to the deuce, or further.
Quentin he seldom favoured with more notice than a cool and insolent survey through his eyeglass.
There were times when the Honourable Cosmo was moody, ennuyéed, and irritable, and none knew why or wherefore; but he had frequent recourse to Mr. Spillsby, the butler, for brandy and rare dry old sherry; and he smoked a great many cigars, which were a source of marvel to all who saw them, tobacco, in that form, being almost unknown in England, till the close of the Peninsular War.
It was not ambition, or a desire to see active service that made the haughty and somewhat blasé Master propose to leave the household troops and begin the sliding scale from the Guards to the line; nor was it any desire to settle in life that made him enter at once and so readily into his mother's old and favourite scheme of a marriage between him and their ward, the heiress of Ardgour.
While he could not be insensible to the fresh budding beauty of Flora Warrender, the conviction that he had impaired his finances, anticipated his heritage, and had calculated to a nicety the value of all the oak, pine, and larch woods upon the estate—that each and all were numbered and known to certain hook-nosed, long-bearded, and dirty children of Judah in London—all, even to the venerable lines of sycamores in the long avenue, the pride of his father's heart—trees that for centuries had cast their shadows on his ancestors in youth, in prime, and age. While this conviction, we say, filled him with as much shame, sorrow, and repentance as he could feel, with it came the knowledge that Flora's fortune, which had accumulated during her minority, and, indeed, ever since her father's fall in Egypt, would afford him a most seasonable escape from shipwreck on several rocks which he saw ahead.
"Hah!" said Cosmo, as he tossed away the end of his cigar, "some one says truly—don't know who the devil he is—that if we could look into each other's breasts, there would be no such thing as envy in the world. Egad! I'll enter for the country heiress."
He roused himself and resolved to make the effort, all the more willingly, that to a half, or wholly blasé guardsman like himself, long used to the glittering banquets, the late orgies, and startling scenes of Carlton House and the Pavilion at Brighton, the bloom, beauty, and country freshness of Flora Warrender, were indeed charming.
Flora, instinctively, and in a feminine spirit of pride and opposition to Lady Rohallion's plots and plans, kept somewhat studiously out of the Master's way—a somewhat difficult task, even in a mansion so spacious and rambling as the old castle; but on the evening of the second day after his arrival, from the stone balustraded terrace of the antique Scoto-French garden where he was smoking, Cosmo saw her light muslin dress fluttering among the narrow green alleys of the old and carefully clipped yew labyrinth, and then he hastened to join her, to the infinite mortification and chagrin of Quentin Kennedy, who had not seen her for the entire day; and who, just as he was approaching the garden, found himself anticipated, so he at once retired, leaving the field in possession of the enemy.
An older or more experienced lover would have joined them, and thus, perhaps, might have marred the plans of the Master, who, to do justice to his coolness and courage, lost no time in opening the trenches.
Midsummer was past now; the foliage of the tall sycamores, of the oakwood shaw, and other copses of Rohallion, though leafy and green, were crisped and dry; in the haughs or low-lying meadows, the mower had already relinquished his scythe; the green corn rigs were yellowing on the upland slopes "that beaked foment the sun;" next month they would be golden, brown and ready for the sickle; on bush and spray the blackbird sang cheerily, and the plover's note came shrilly out of the green and waving fern.
The sun was setting, and the screech of the white owl would ere long be heard, as he blinked and looked forth for the moon from the ivied windows of Kilhenzie. The white smokes of the hamlet on the shore of the little bay, passing up among the trees, curled into the clear air and melted over the ocean. The flowers that whilome had endured the scorch of the noonday sun, were drooping now, as if pining for the coming dew; and the stately peacocks sat listlessly, with their broad tails, argus-eyed, upon the balustrades of the garden terrace.
Inspired by the beauty of the evening, lulled by the summer hum of insect life among the flowers, and all unaware that her lover, with his gun on his shoulder and wrath in his young heart, was plunging pitilessly through some one's corn, Flora was musing or dreaming, as only a young girl dreams or muses, on what fate had in store for her now, with this new inmate of her present home. Mr. Walter Scott's new poem "Marmion" had fallen from her hand, which was ungloved, and so, pure in whiteness and delicacy, was half hidden among her dark and wavy hair, as she reclined with her elbow upon the arm of a moss-grown seat, which yet bears the date, 1590, with the Rohallion arms and coronet, upon a hanging shield. The fingers of her left hand were playing unconsciously with the strings of her gipsy hat, which lay upon the gravel at her feet; and as the Master approached her, the young lady seemed the perfection of bloom and beauty, as she sat enshrined in the glory of the sunset that streamed along the alley of the labyrinth.
His costume was very accurate, for the gentleman and the tradesman did not then, as now, dress exactly alike, and wear exactly the same stuffs; and certainly Cosmo was looking his best, as he seated himself by her side and very deliberately took possession of her left hand, saying in a voice which he meant to be, and which had often enough proved elsewhere to be, very seductive.—
"I fear, my dear Miss Warrender, that this gloomy old barrack is not a place for you to vegetate in."
"How so, sir?" she asked, while regarding him with a quiet smile.
"It too evidently influences your naturally joyous temperament; and pardon me, you look triste."
"Oh, no—your mother is quite one to me, and I love Rohallion very much."
"Then as for Ardgour, I think it gloomier still."
"Some parts of Ardgour—the vaults, I believe—are said to be coeval with the Bruce's castle of Turnberry; at least so the dominie told me. Mamma so loved it; and for her sake, I love it too."
"Very proper, and very pretty; but the world of fashion—a brilliant world, of which you know nothing—should be your sphere, my dear Miss Warrender. London, Brighton, the Prince's balls at Carlton House, the parks, the theatre, the opera! You must come forth from your shell, my dear Flora, like—like—like (he thought of Venus rising from the sea, but the simile was not apt)—for you know it is absurd, positively absurd, that you should be buried alive in this horrid old-fashioned Scotch place, among rocks and rooks, ivy and ghost stories. Egad! were the house mine, I'd blow it up, and build one more suitable to the present time and its requirements."
"What! would you really uproot this fine old place of so many historic memories?"
"To the last stone! What the devil—pardon me—do old memories matter now, my dear girl? En avant! we should look forward—never back."
"I am sorry that your sentiments are so prosaic," said Flora, coldly.
"I trust that my mother has not filled your dear little head with her usual nonsense about Scotch patriotism, the defunct Pretender, the unlucky Union, and so forth—eh? I always said that the verses addressed to her by her rhyming friend Burns, the democratic gauger, turned her head; and this new man, Scott, with his Marmions and Minstrels, bids fair to make the disease chronic. You have no idea, Miss Warrender, how we laugh at all such stuff in London. Patriotism indeed! It doesn't pay, so Scotchmen don't adopt it, and they are wise. All patriotism not English is purely provincialism, and any man holding other opinions in Parliament would be as much out of place as a crusader or a cavalier. But to return to what I was saying. I should like to show you the great world that lies beyond the Craigs of Kyle and the rocky hills of Carrick—to take you back again to London."
"London is to me full of sad memories."
"Sad—the deuce—how?"
"For there my dear mother died," said Flora, lowering her voice and withdrawing her hand, while her eyes and her heart filled with emotion.
After a pause:
"I love you, dear Flora," said Cosmo, again taking possession of her hand, and placing his lips close to her shrinking ear. "Our marriage is the dearest wish of my mother's heart, as it was of yours—and, may I add, that it is the dearest hope of mine?"
This was coming to the point with a vengeance!
Instead of being mightily flattered or overcome, as he not unnaturally expected, Flora, without withdrawing her hand, as if its retention mattered little, turned half round, and said, with a quiet, cairn smile:
"Remember how little I have known you, sir, save through your parents, my guardians."
"True; the duties of honour at Court, and—ah, ah!—my profession, Flora, called me elsewhere; but you don't refuse me, eh? My dear girl—the deuce!—you surely can't mean that?"
Flora grew pale and hesitated, for with all her love for Lady Rohallion, she had a kind of awe of her, and Cosmo was eyeing her coldly and steadily through his glass.
"Nay, speak, Flora," said he, with, perhaps, more irritation than tenderness in his tone. "I have, perhaps, not much personally to recommend me to a young girl's eye, and this wound, which I got at the Helder, when assisting to compel those Dutch devils to hoist the colours of the Prince of Orange—a sabre-cut across the face—has not improved me; but speak out, Flora Warrender; notwithstanding the ties between us, you refuse me?"
"This proposal possesses all the abruptness of a scene in a drama."
"Well, what is life but an absurd drama? 'All the world's a stage, and the men and women merely players.'"
"Well, I am not inclined to play the part you wish."
"You refuse me?" he reiterated, his eyes the while assuming their wicked and louring expression.
"I do, Cosmo Crawford," she replied, trembling very much, but speaking, nevertheless, firmly; "I do once and for ever refuse you."
Young and inexperienced though the girl was, the abrupt and systematic proposal of the Master rather insulted than flattered her.
"No tie," she added, "save a fancied one made by Lady Rohallion, ever bound us; so there are no pledges to return, no bonds, nor—I can't help laughing—hearts to break."
"And this desire to—to—" he stammered.
"It was your mother's idea alone."
"Say not so, Miss Warrender, it is mine also. Though I know that my good mother, because she jilted some fellow in her youth—my father's younger brother, I believe—thinks she makes atonement to the gods, or whoever rule these little matters of love and marriage, by making as many miserable matches, and marrying right off as many persons as she can."
"Miserable matches! So she conceived one for us. You are very encouraging and complimentary to say so just after your offer to me."
"Pardon me; but consider, my dear Flora," he resumed, while rallying a little, though sorely provoked to find himself confused and baffled by a country girl, of whose rejection he felt actually ashamed to tell his own mother, "are you not labouring under some deuced misconception in giving this very decided, and, I must say, very extraordinary refusal?"
"How?"
"Is it not, that to the affection and rank I proffer, you prefer the absurd love of a silly upstart, who shall go hence as he came hither, no one knows or cares how—a waif cast on the shore like a piece of dead seaweed, or the drowned renegade his father—a creature whose past affords no hope of a brilliant future! Speak, girl," he exclaimed, while almost savagely he grasped her wrist; "is it this that prevails with you, in opposition to the wishes of your dead mother and the whole family of Rohallion?"
"What if it is, sir?" asked Flora, haughtily, for his categorical manner offended her deeply.
"What if it is!" he repeated with louring brow.
"Yes, sir."
"Then the cool admission ill becomes Flora Warrender of Ardgour, whose forefathers bear so high a place in the annals of their country!"
"Oh, but they were mere provincials, and their bravery or patriotism are unworthy the regard of such a citizen of the world as the Master of Rohallion," said Flora.
He sullenly threw her hand from him; but she did not retire, being loth that his family, especially the old Lord, whom she dearly loved and respected, should know of this scene; and loth, too, that it should end in this unseemly fashion.
"Cursed be my mother's doting folly!" thought he, while his pale eyes alternately shrunk and dilated; "so—so, nothing but an heiress will suit our foundling, our 'Tom Jones,' for a charmer—it's vastly amusing. Confound it, a little more of this presumption will make me wring the brat's head off!"
While his cool insolence piqued Flora, her decided rejection roused all his wrath and pride; he thought of his pecuniary interest, too, so both sat silent for a time.
"Well, begad! this passes my comprehension!" he exclaimed at length, as he buttoned his accurately fitting straw-coloured kid gloves.
"To what do you refer, friend Cosmo?" asked Flora, looking at him almost spitefully.
"To this whole matter. Do you know, my fair friend, that you are perhaps the first young lady of your age that, in all my experience, ever took a fancy to a hobbledehoy lad in preference to a man; so while you reconsider the offer, you will perhaps permit me?" He bowed, and conceiving her consent given, proceeded to light a pipe, by the then very elaborate process of a small flint, steel and matches in a little silver tinder-box, on the lid of which his coat of arms was engraved. "And so you studied together, I presume, under that absurd Dominie Skaill, with the knee-breeches and huge shoe-buckles (like a heavy father at Old Drury), keen grey eyes, and Scotch cheekbones one might hang one's hat on, eh?"
"Yes," replied Flora, tying the ribbons of her gipsy hat under her dimpled chin with an angry jerk.
"And you learned Latin, Coptic, and Sanscrit together, I suppose," he continued in his cool sneering tone; "and to conjugate the verb to love, in all."
"Exactly so, and in Greek, Chaldaic, and Chinese, and ever so many more languages, so that we became very perfect in grammar," replied she, smiling wickedly, while the grim Master's cat-like eyes filled with a very baleful green light; yet he had not the sense to see that his operations were conducted on a wrong plan before such a fortress as the fair lady of Ardgour.
"Come, Miss Warrender, whatever we do, hang it, don't let us quarrel, and so make fools of ourselves."
"I have not the least intention of quarrelling, and trust that you have none."
"Then allow me to kiss you once, and we shall become better friends, I promise you."
"Kiss me!" exclaimed Flora, starting.
"Yes—why not—what does a little kiss signify?"
"So little that you shall never have one from me, were it to save your life," said Flora, with a burst of laughter.
"Perhaps your fair cheek has become sacred since that beggarly little rival of mine saluted it? It is a capital joke, is it not?"
"Perhaps," said Flora, reddening, and rising to withdraw; "and what then?"
"If so, I would say you were as great an idiot as my old grandmother Grizel Kennedy, of Kilhenzie, was."
"Respectful to her and polite to me! And she——"
"After Prince Charles Edward kissed her at the Holyrood ball, she never permitted the lips of mortal man—not even those of my worthy grandfather Cosmo, Lord Rohallion, K.T., and so forth, to salute her, lest the charm of the royal kiss should be broken; and their married life extended over some forty years and more."
At this apocryphal story, which has been told of more old ladies in Scotland than Grizel of Rohallion, Flora laughed heartily, as well she might; and her merriment made the Master excessively provoked.
"We are, I hope, at least friends?" said he, presenting his hand with great but grim suavity.
"Oh yes, Cosmo, the best of friends—do excuse my laughing so; but nothing more, remember, nothing more," she replied, and withdrawing her hand, which he attempted to kiss, she darted through the labyrinth towards the house, leaving "Marmion" forgotten on the gravel behind her.
"By Jove! to be baffled, laughed at, and by a chick like this!" muttered Cosmo with an oath which we care not to record, as he gave the volume a kick, and strode angrily away, full of bitter and dark thoughts, and inspired with rage at a rivalry which, in truth, he was ashamed to acknowledge, even to himself.