CHAPTER XVIII.
'MY LOVE SHE'S BUT A LASSIE YET.'
The First of September came in all that could be wished for the shooting, in which, to Roland's disgust and Elliot's surprise, Hawkey Sharpe took a part, but attired in accurate sporting costume, and duly armed with an excellent breech-loader. The corn was yellow in some places, the stubble bare in others; there were rich 'bits' of colour in every field, and silver clouds floating in the blue expanse overhead. In such light, says a writer with an artistic eye, 'the white horses seem cut out of silver, the chestnuts of ruddy-gold; while the black horses stand out against the sky as if cut in black marble; and what gaps half a dozen reapers soon make in the standing corn!'
Then the trails of the ground convolvulus and cyanus or corn-flower, of every hue, may be seen, while the little gleaners are afield, tolerated by a good-hearted farmer, who, like Boaz of old, may, perhaps, permit the poor to glean 'even amongst the sheaves.' Elsewhere the fern and heather-covered muirlands were beautiful, with their tiny bushes laden with wild fruits, bramble, and sloe.
How the shooting progressed there—how coveys were flushed and surrounded; how the brown birds rose whirring up, and the cheepers tumbled over in quick succession or were caught by the dogs; how the latter found the birds lurking among turnips or potatoes, or where the uncut corn waved (for there they shelter, engender, and breed), till they rose in coveys of twenty and even thirty—may not interest the reader, so now we must hasten on to other points in our story, having more important matters to relate; but, as Mr. Hawkey Sharpe had an unpleasant reputation for shooting sometimes a little wildly, and forgetting the line of fire, all—by the whispered advice of old Fowler, the keeper—gave him a very wide berth in the field, and of this he was angrily conscious.
Yet he brought upon himself the irate animadversions of most of the sportsmen, and more particularly of Jack Elliot, by ill-using one of the best pointers on the ground. Trained by old Gavin Fowler, this animal would not only stand at the scent of a bird or a hare, but, if in company, would instantly back if he saw another dog point. This perfection, the propensity to stand at the scent of game, though a striking example of intelligence and docility, was so misunderstood by Hawkey Sharpe that he dealt poor Ponto a blow with the butt-end of his rifle, eliciting an oath from the white-haired keeper, and anger from all—remarks which made him clench his teeth with rage and mortification.
But, as the hot month of September is not meant for hard fagging, the whole party were back at the house by luncheon-time, and the united spoil of all the bags was duly laid out by braces on the pavement of the court-yard, and a goodly show it made.
After shooting in the morning and forenoon, as there were three sets of lovers among the party at Earlshaugh, much of the time was spent in riding, driving, and rambling about the grounds and their vicinity, while Roland found a congenial task in teaching Annot to ride, as he had procured a most suitable pad for her, by the aid of old Johnnie Buckle, at the Cupar Tuesday Fair; and just then nothing seemed to exist for him but Annot's white soft cheek, her golden hair, and the graceful little figure that made all other women look, to his eyes, angular and peculiar; and then truly he felt that 'there are days on which heaven opens to us all, though to many of us next day it shuts again.' And shut indeed it seemed to Malcolm Skene, who followed Hester like her shadow, and whose eyes often wore a tender and wistful intensity as he gazed upon her soft dark ones without winning one responsive glance; and he would seek to lure her into the subject that was nearest his own heart—his great love for her—while with the rest, but always somewhat apart, they would ramble on by the silvery birches in the Fairy's Den, by the King's Wood, with its great old oaks and heaven-high Scottish firs that towered against the blue sky; in the leafy dingles where the white-tailed rabbits skurried out of their sandy holes, where the birds twittered overhead, the black gleds soared skyward in the welkin, the dun deer started from the rustling bracken and underwood, and so on to where the woods grew more open, and there came distant glimpses of the German Sea or perhaps of the Firth of Tay, rippling in the glory of the evening sun as it set beyond the Sidlaw Hills.
Unlike Maude and Elliot, who took their assured regard with less demonstration, Roland and Annot Drummond—owing doubtless to the impressible and effusive nature of the latter young lady—were so much together, everywhere and every way, as to provoke a smile among their friends and an emotion of amusement, which certainly Hester Maule did not share.
'Why did I come here after all?' she often asked of herself, as her mind harked back to old days and dreams. 'I could have declined that woman, old Deborah's invitation, and Roland's too. Save papa's suspicions, there was no compulsion upon me. Fool that I have been to come—yet,' she would add with a bitter smile, 'I shall not wear my heart on my sleeve.'
Thus she seemed to lead the van in every proposed scheme for amusement, and the attentions of her old admirer, Malcolm Skene, if they failed to win, at least pleased and soothed her; and, watching her sometimes, Roland would think—
'Well, after all, I am glad to see her so happy.'
A ball had early been proposed, but through the opposition or mal-influence of Mrs. Lindsay the scheme proved a failure; visions of the large dining-hall gay with floral decorations, the lines on the floor and the ball cloth smooth and tight as a drum-head, passed away, and a simple, half-impromptu carpet-dance was substituted; hired musicians were procured from the nearest town, and all the invited—even Hester—looked forward to a night of enjoyment; and, sooth to say, since her visit she had sedulously done all in her power to avoid meeting Roland alone—no difficult matter, so occupied was he with Annot; and then Earlshaugh was a large and rambling old house, intersected by tortuous passages without end, little landings and flights of steps in unexpected places, rooms opening curiously out of each other, and turret stairs up and down, the result of repairs and additions in past times: thus, while it was a glorious old house for flirtation, for appointments and partings, it was quite possible for two persons to reside therein and yet meet each other seldom, unless they wished it to be otherwise.
It was impossible for the mind of Hester not to dwell on the time when Roland was—as she thought—her lover; of rambles and conversations and silences that were eloquent, and beatings of the heart in the bat-haunted gloaming, when the Esk gurgled over its stony bed and the crescent moon was in the violet-tinted sky.
She thought she had got over it all, but she had not yet—she felt that she had not; but now Malcolm Skene was there, and she might if she chose show Roland the sceptre of power, and that the art of pleasing was still hers as ever.
Roland had actually been more than once on the point of seeking some apologetic explanation with her; in his inner consciousness he felt that he owed it to her; but he shrank from it with a species of moral cowardice—he who had hacked his way out of the carnage of Kashgate, and ridden through the slaughter of other Egyptian fields; and though he had often rehearsed in his mind the amende he owed her, how could he dare to approach it?
'It was a mistake of his at Merlwood thinking that he loved me,' Hester would ponder on the other hand; 'and he did not know then—still less did I—that it was a mistake; but I know it now! The only thing left for me is to school myself, if I can, to love him as a friend or sister, a cousin merely. But it is hard—hard after all; and for such an artificial girl as Annot!'
Maude's carpet-dance—for the idea was hers—proved a great success, and many were present to whom, as they have no place in our story, we need not refer; but the music was excellent, and from an arched and partially curtained recess of the Red Drawing-room it swelled along the lofty ceilings and through the stately apartment, on the floor of which the dancers glided away to their hearts' content.
Mr. Hawkey Sharpe, bold and unabashed, was there attired de rigueur in evening costume; but even he did not venture on asking Maude to favour him with one dance; yet he ground his sharp teeth from time to time as he watched her and Captain Elliot, and overheard some—but only some of his remarks to her, though Hawkey had the ears of a fox.
'Maudie, darling, I am afraid you are tired,' said Jack tenderly, pausing for a moment.
'Already? Not at all, Jack; I would go on for ever,' exclaimed the girl, and they swept away again.
To her how delightful it was, waltzing with him—his hand pressed lightly on her willowy waist, her fingers, gloved and soft and slender, just resting on his shoulder; a faint perfume of her silky hair, a drowsy languor in every movement and in the whole situation.
'After we are married, Maudie,' whispered Jack, 'I am sure I shall disapprove of waltzing.'
'Disapprove—why?'
'Because I shall hate to see you whirling away with another.'
'Don't be a goose, Jack.'
'Won't I have the right to forbid you?'
'A right I shall not recognise. You surely would not be jealous of me?'
'Of you—no; but of others—a humiliating confession, is it not?' he added, smiling tenderly down upon her.
Though it was all a hastily got up and impromptu affair, Maude and Annot were radiantly happy; the latter in securing such a lover as Roland Lindsay, with all his surroundings, which she appreciated highly, as they far exceeded the most brilliant hopes and aspirations of herself and her match-making mother in South Belgravia. Her soft cheeks flushed and paled, and her tiny feet—for tiny they were as those of Cinderella—beat responsive to the music; and in the fulness of her own joy even her original emotions of covetousness, and ambition perhaps, were dimmed or lessened; while the dances which she had with Roland seemed quite unlike those she had enjoyed with other men; even when Hawkey Sharpe, who, being a Scotchman, danced of course, ploughing away with the minister's good-natured daughter, cannoned with some violence against them, and made Roland frown and mutter under his moustache till he drew Annot into the recess of a window, and while fanning her, and in doing so lightly ruffling Her shining hair, talked that soft nonsense so dear to them then.
'How childlike you are, Annot, in the brightness of your joy and in your genuine love of amusement!' said he admiringly, as he stooped over her.
'I feel as light as a bird when I hear good dance music like that and have such a good partner as you, Roland,' she exclaimed, looking up, her green hazel eyes beaming with pleasure.
'How could it be otherwise,' said he, 'when,
"My love she's but a lassie yet,
A lightsome, lovely lassie yet."
a sweet one that never had even a passing penchant, I am sure, or perhaps a flirtation!'
'Yet having a very decided tendency thereto.' replied Annot, with one of her arch smiles. 'But nothing more, dear Roland, nothing more!' she added, perfectly oblivious of poor Bob Hoyle and many other 'detrimentals,' as Mamma Drummond called them.
'Have you never had even what the French call a caprice?' he asked, with a soft laugh and a fond glance.
'Never—never—till——'
'Till when?'
'I came to Merlwood.'
'My little darling!'
'So Hester and Mr. Skene are dancing together again,' said Annot, anxious to change what she deemed a dangerous subject. 'I saw her dancing with Captain Elliot after you resigned her.'
'Yes—she seems enjoying herself, poor Hester!'
'I am so glad to see her with Mr. Skene.'
'Why?'
'Because I hope they will marry yet, and bring their little comedy to a close.'
'How a young girl's mind always runs on love and marriage!' said Roland. 'But this little comedy you refer to, I never heard of it, save from yourself.'
'Indeed!' replied Annot, who, from cogent reasons of her own, was anxious to make the most of Skene's undoubted admiration for Hester. 'I've noticed them greatly in London.'
'I always knew that Malcolm was her unvarying admirer, who singled her out in the Edinburgh assemblies and balls elsewhere from the first, and had, of course, poured much sweet nonsense into her pretty little ears—treasured flowers she had worn, gloves, handkerchiefs, bits of ribbon, and all that sort of thing——'
'Which you all do?'
'That I don't admit, Annot.'
'Anyway, this absurd appreciation of each other's society was a source of great amusement to us in London,' she continued, not very fairly, so far as concerned Hester; but then Annot, a far-seeing young lady, was full of past preconceived suspicions and of present plans of her own.
'However, Annot, this little affair is nothing to us—to me,' added Roland, and oddly enough, with the slightest soupçon of pique in his glance and tone, as he saw Malcolm Skene, a tall and stately fellow, who might please any woman's eye—and did please the eyes of many—leading his dark-eyed and dark-haired cousin, not into the whirl of dances, nor to the refreshment-room, but—as if almost unconsciously—towards the entrance of the long and dimly-lighted conservatory which opened off the Red Drawing-room.
As Jack Elliot was too well-bred a man to attract attention by dancing too much with Maude, his fiancée, the observant Mr. Hawkey Sharpe saw, with no small satisfaction, that for nearly the remainder of the night he bestowed the most of his attention on strangers, wholly intent that Maude's little entertainment should please all and go off well, and that intention, which Mr. Sharpe misunderstood, was one of the causes that led to a serious misadventure at a future time.
Old Gavin Fowler, as he carried Ponto home in his arms to his own lodge, while the dog, conscious of kindness, whined and licked his weather-beaten hands, had muttered between his teeth to Roland:
'A better dog never entered a field! Eleven years has he followed me, and now he is thirteen years auld, and can yet find game wi' the youngest and the best whelp we hae; and to think that he should get sic a clowre from a clod like that! But dogs bark as they are bred—so does Hawkey Sharpe! He's like the witches o' Auchencraw; he'll get mair for your ill than your gude.'
A proverb that means, favours are often granted an individual through fear of his malevolence.
Roland felt all the words implied, and colouring, said, pale with anger:
'He shall pay up this score and others, I hope, ere long, Gavin.'
And Mrs. Lindsay placed her hand upon her heart, on hearing of the episode, and was secretly thankful that the only one who suffered from Hawkey's jealous vengeance was poor Ponto, the pointer.