CHAPTER VII.
'IS SHE NOT PASSING FAIR?'
When she took her seat at table to partake of a meal which was something between a late dinner and an early supper, Roland saw how exquisitely fair Annot Drummond was, as with a pretty air of childishness she clung to Hester—an air that became her petite figure and mignonne face, but not her years, as she was some months older than her cousin, who with her dark hair and eyes he thought looked almost brown beside this flaxen fairy, that seemed to realize the comment of old Cambden, who says—'The women of the family of Drummond, for charming beauty and complexion, are beyond all others, and in so much that they have been most delighted in by kings.'
She had, however, greenish hazel eyes—greenish they were decidedly, yet lovely and sparkling, shaded by brown lashes and eyebrows, with golden hair, wonderful in quantity and tint, that rippled and shone. Her complexion was pure and pale, while her pouting lips seemed absolute scarlet, rather than coral; and her eyes spoke as freely as her tongue, lighting and brightening with her subject, whatever it was.
Annot's was indeed a tiny face; at times a laughing, a loving and petulant face, and puzzling in so far that one knew not when it was prettiest, or what expression became it most; yet Hester—a very close observer—thought there was something cunning and watchful in it at times now.
Seeing that Roland was closely observing the new arrival, she said:
'Would you ever imagine, cousin Roland, that Annot and I are just about an age? she looks like fifteen, and I was eighteen my last birthday.'
'Eighteen,' thought Roland Lindsay, toying with a few grapes; 'can it be?—that golden-haired dolly—old enough to be the heroine of a novel or a tragedy—old enough to be a wife and the mistress of a household? By Jove, it seems incredible.'
And as she prattled away of London, the Park and the Row, what plays were 'on' at the different theatres, of new dresses, sights and scenes, and so forth; of her journey down, a long and weary one of some hundred miles, and the attention she received from various gentlemen passengers, the bright chatterer, all smiles, animation, and full of little tricks of manner, seemed indeed a contrast to the taller, graver, dark-haired, and dark-eyed Hester, whose violet-blue eye looked quite black by gaslight.
Though a niece of Sir Harry's, Annot Drummond was no cousin to Roland Lindsay, yet she seemed quite inclined, erelong, to adopt the rôle of being one; for he was quite handsome enough and interesting enough in aspect and bearing to attract a girl like her, who instinctively filled up her time with every chance-medley man she met, and knew fully how to appreciate one whose prospects and positions were so undoubtedly good; thus she repeatedly turned with her irresistible smiles and espièglerie to him, as if he were her sole, or certainly her chief, audience.
Meanwhile old Sir Henry sat silently smoking his inevitable hookah, eyeing her with loving looks, and tracing—or rather trying to trace—a likeness between her and his favourite sister; and Hester, who had of course seen her cousin often before, sat somewhat silent, for then each girl was, perhaps unconsciously, trying to know, to learn, and to grasp the nature of the other.
'Hester,' said Annot in a well-managed aside, 'I saw your friend Skene of Dunnimarle in London, and he talked of you to me, and of no one but you, which I thought scarcely fair.'
'Why?'
'One girl doesn't care to hear another's praises only for an hour without end, I suppose.'
Hester looked annoyed, but Roland seemed to hear the remark as if he heard it not, which was not the case, as Hester's name had been more than once mentioned in conjunction with that of the young fellow in question.
'I remember when Skene of ours at Sealkote——' Sir Harry was beginning, when Hester contrived to cut the Indian reminiscence short.
Next morning Annot was in the garden betimes, natheless the fatigue of her long railway journey; she seemed bright as a summer butterfly, inhaling the fresh odour of the flowers, under the shady trees, amid the rhododendrons of every brilliant tint, the roses and sub-tropical plants that opened their rich petals to the August sunshine, and more than all did she seem to enjoy the fresh, soft breeze that came up the steep winding glen or ravine through which the Esk ran gurgling; and ever and anon she glanced at her companion Roland, indulging in that playful gaîté de coeur, which so often ends in disaster, for she was a finished flirt to the tips of her dainty fingers; and he was thinking, between the whiffs of his permitted cigar: What caused his present emotion—this sudden attraction towards a girl whom he had never seen before, and whose existence had been barely known to him? And now she was culling a dainty 'button-hole' for him, and making him select a bouquet for the breast of her morning dress, a most becoming robe of light blue cashmere with ribbons and lace of white.
Could it be that mysterious influence of which he had heard often, and yet of which he knew so little—a current of affinity so subtle and penetrating, that none under its spell could resist it? He was not casuist enough to determine; but looked about for his cousin Hester and muttered:
'Don't play the fool, Roland, my boy!'
Usually very diffident and reticent in talking about himself and his affairs, even the gentle and winning Hester had failed, as she said, to 'draw him out;' but now, Annot—the irrepressible Annot—led him on to do so by manifesting, or affecting to manifest, a keen interest in them, and thus lured him into flattering confidences to her alone about his garrison life in England and the Mediterranean, or as much as he cared to tell of it; his campaigns in Egypt; his escape from the slaughter of Kashgate; his risks and wounds; his medals and clasps; his regiment, comrades, and so forth, in all of which she seemed suddenly to develop the deepest interest, though perhaps an evil-minded person might have hinted that she had a deeper and truer interest in Earlshaugh and its surroundings, of which he had no conception as yet.
Hester quickly saw through these little manoeuvres, and at first she laughed at them, thinking they were all the girl's way; that Roland was the only young man at Merlwood; and so, by habit and nature, she must talk to him, laugh with him, make [oe]illades and dress for him; and in dressing she was an adept, choosing always soft and clinging materials of colours suited to her pure complexion and fair beauty, and well she knew by experience already that 'love feeds on suggestions—almost illusions,' as a French writer says; 'for the greatest charm about a woman's dress is less what it displays than what it only hints at;' and Annot had all that skill or taste in costume which is a great speciality of London girls.
During the whole day after this arrival, and even the following one, Hester was unpleasantly conscious that because Annot Drummond absorbed Roland so entirely, he had scarcely an opportunity of addressing herself alone, and still less of referring—beyond a glance and a hand pressure or so forth—to that evening, on the last minutes of which so much had seemed to hinge.
A little music usually closed each evening, and Annot performed, from Chopin and others, various 'fireworks' on the piano, as Roland was wont to term them; while at Hester's little songs, such as that one to the air of the 'Briar Bush,' she openly laughed, declaring they were quite 'too, too!'
Her voice was not so trained as Annot's, and was not remarkable for strength or compass, but it was clear and sweet, fresh and true, and she sang with unaffected expression, being well desirous of pleasing her cousin Roland—her lover as she perhaps deemed him now.
Annot's song, after Hester had given a little chanson from Beranger—'Du, du liegst mir im Herzen,' accompanied—though sung indifferently—with several [oe]illades at Roland, gave her an opportunity to make, what Hester termed, some of her 'wild speeches.'
'A sweet love song, Annot,' said the latter.
'A love song it is—but twaddle, you know,' replied Annot, turning quickly the leaves of her music.
'Twaddle—how?'
'About marrying for love only and not money, Hester. That is an old-fashioned prejudice which is fast dying out, mamma tells me. Thank Heaven I am poor!' she added, with a pretty shrug of her shoulders.
'Why?' asked Hester.
'Because, when poor, one knows one is loved for self alone.'
The reply was made in a soft voice to Hester, yet her upward glance was shot at Roland Lindsay, and she began a piece of music that was certainly somewhat confused, while he—sorely puzzled—was kept on duty turning over the leaves.
'Annot, I thought you were a finished performer!' said Hester with some surprise and pique.
'I was taught like other girls at Madame Raffineur's finishing school in Belgium; and I can get through a piece, as it is called, without many stoppages, though I often forget upon what key I am playing, and use the pedals too at haphazard, yet they are beyond my skill; but I find that whatever I play——'
'Even a noise?' suggested Hester.
'Yes, even a noise, while it lasts, puts down all conversation, and when it is over everyone graciously says, "Thanks—so much!" "Do I sing?" is next asked, but I mean to practise so sedulously when I return to London.'
'A bright little twaddler!' thought Hester, with a slight curl of her handsome upper lip.
'You talked of the Row—you ride, I suppose?' said Roland to change the subject.
'I have no horse,' replied Annot.
'No horse! At Earlshaugh I shall get you an excellent mount.'
'Oh, thanks so much, cousin Roland!' replied Annot, and while running her slender fingers rapidly to and fro upon the keys she gave him one of her glances which were never given without 'point.'
'You seem pleased with her, Roland?' said Hester as they drew a little way apart.
'Well, I think she is wonderfully fair.'
'Nothing more?'
'Well, fair enough, and all such little golden-haired women since the days of Lucrezia Borgia, I suppose, make no end of mischief.'
'Roland!' said Hester, her eyes dilating.
Her cousin laughed, but knew not, perhaps, how truly and prophetically he spoke.
'Did you like my song?' asked Hester, after a little pause.
'What song?'
'Can you ask me? The little chanson of Béranger, that you admire so much.'
'Oh, yes—pardon me.'
'You were thinking of her when you should have been listening to me,' said Hester with an unmistakable flash in her dark eyes, and he felt the rebuke.
'Well—I was thinking, perhaps—but not as you suppose, or say, Hester,' replied Roland, with a little laugh; but a time came when Annot Drummond and her presence proved to be no laughing matter.
Days passed on now; whether it was that Annot was perpetually in the way, or that no proper opportunity occurred—which in the circle of a country house seemed barely probable—Roland did not seek for the 'lost chord,' or seem prepared to resume the thread of the sweet old story that had been dropped so abruptly, and poor Hester felt in her secret heart perplexed and piqued on a most tender point, and would have been more than human had she been otherwise.
On an afternoon the quartette were seated under a spreading beech, the girls idling over their tea, Roland and his uncle smoking, when Annot suddenly proposed a walk to the ruins of Roslin Castle, through the woods. Roland at once rose and offered himself as escort; but Hester, who had already begun to feel herself a little de trop—a bitter and mortifying conviction—professed to have something to attend to, and quietly declined the stroll, on which, with something of an aching heart, she saw the two set forth together.
Archæology was not much in the way of Miss Annot Drummond, she knew; but she also knew that if any ice remained between these two (which was very improbable) it would be surely thawed before that stroll ended, while in assisting her over stiles and through hedges Roland's hand touched that of Annot, or when her skirt brushed him, as they wandered through freshly mown meadows and under shady trees, by the steep, narrow, and rocky paths that lead to the shattered stronghold of the Sinclairs—the glances and touches and hand-clasps, enforced by the surmounting of slippery banks and apparently perilous ditches, where the beautiful ferns grow thick and green; and then the rambling among the ruins that crown the lofty rock and overlook such lovely and seductive scenery.
Of what might have passed Hester could only, yet readily, guess; her heart was full of aching thoughts—full well-nigh to bursting at times—when the pair returned, silent apparently, very happy too, and inclined to converse more with their eyes than their lips; and singular to say, that of the sylvan scenery of that wonderful glen, and of the ruined abode of the whilom Dukes of Oldenburg and Princes of Orkney, Annot Drummond seemed to have seen or noted—nothing; and a sense of this, with what it implied, added to the secret mortification of Hester.
Thus, despite herself, that evening at dinner the latter failed to act a part, and scarcely spoke, but seemed to play with her knife and fork rather than eat; and fortunately no one observed her, save perhaps her father. She was painfully listless, yet nervously observant.
Had Roland Lindsay's thoughts not been elsewhere he must have seen how already the change in her looks was intensified by the brilliance, the sparkling eyes, and the soft, gay laughter of Annot, and how, when she did speak, she nervously twisted her rings round and round her slender fingers, seeming restless and distraite.
A charming girl was certainly no novelty to Roland; nor did he now regard one—as in his boyhood—as a strange and mystic being to worship. He knew girls pretty well, he thought, also their ways and pretty tricks, their fascinations and little artifices; yet those of Annot—and she was a mass of them—assuredly did bewilder him and attract his fancy, though he only admitted to Hester that she was as 'fashionably appointed and well-got-up a girl as could be found within a three-mile radius of Park Lane.'
She was indeed full of sweet and winning—if cultivated—ways. The inflexions of her voice were very sympathetic, and the ever-varying expression of her bright hazel eyes—albeit they were 'dashed' with green—added to her fascination and influence; whilst she had a childish and pleading way of putting her lovely white hands together when she asked for anything that—as old Sir Henry said—'would melt the heart of a cannon-ball.'
Then, with regard to Roland, she was always asking his advice about some petty trifle or book (though she was not a reader), and deferred to his opinion so sweetly that she gave him a higher idea of his own intellect than he had ever possessed before; for she had all the subtle finesse of flattery and flirtation, without seeming to possess or exert either; and thus poor Hester was—to use a sporting phrase—'quite out of the running.'
One night the latter had a new insight into her cousin's character, though Annot now never spoke, nor could be got to speak, if possible, of Roland Lindsay.
Prior to retiring to her bed, Annot had let down and was coiling up her wonderful wealth of golden hair, which reached almost to her knees; and she and Hester Maule, with whom she was still on perfectly amicable and apparently loving terms, were exchanging their gossiping confidences, as young girls often do at such a time; and on this occasion Hester thought—for a space—she might be wrong in supposing that Annot had any serious views upon Roland Lindsay, as she saw her drop, and then hastily snatch up, a photograph on which she had been gazing with a smile.
'Who is this, Annot?' asked Hester.
'Only old Bob.'
'Who?'
'Bob Hoyle,' replied Annot, laughing.
'Old; why, he seems quite a boy, In uniform, too.'
'He is not a boy, though I call him "old."'
'His age?'
'Is four-and-twenty; but I have known him so long, you know, Hester.'
'Since when?'
'Since he used to come and see his sister at Madame Raffineur's school in Belgium. He is awfully in love with me.'
'Is?' queried Hester, a little relieved of her suspicions.
'Well—was—when younger.'
'And now?'
'He loves me still, I have no doubt.'
'Do you mean to marry him?'
'He has never asked me.'
'Well, if he did—or does ask you?'
'I don't know about that,' said Annot, as with deft little fingers she finished and pinned her golden coil.
'Why so?'
'Oh, cousin Hester, how inquisitive you are! I like him immensely. He says openly that he can't stand the London girls; that they are all very well to flirt with, dance, drive, and talk with; but he wants a wife who in her own sweet person will combine all the charms of fashionable and domestic life, like me. But then he is so poor; has little more than his pay. I can't fancy being poorer than I am—love in a cottage is all bosh, you know; but I have promised him——'
'What?'
'To think about it; but I won't be bound by promises, Hester. When I marry I want to be rich. I must have a carriage, beautiful horses, diamonds and dresses, for I have no dot of my own. Marry for love, indeed! No, no, Bob, dear. Who in these days does anything so absurd as that? It is as much out of fashion as chivalry, duels, and periwigs.'
'Oh, Annot—so young and so mercenary!' exclaimed Hester.
'Not mercenary, only practical, cousin. Another dear fellow did so love me last winter, Hester!' said the girl, with a dreamy smile.
'And now?'
'We are less than nothing to each other, Hester—after all—after all.'
'How—why?'
'He was a second son—Mamma's bête noire; besides, a married lady took him off my hands.'
'A married lady?' exclaimed Hester.
'Yes—oh, my simple cousin! The mischief done in London nowadays by married flirts would amaze you, Hester; but good-night, I am so sleepy, dear.'
And kissing the latter with great empressement on each cheek, Annot departed to repose with one of her silvery laughs, leaving the impression that if 'she was passing fair' she was also passing heartless.