CHAPTER XIX.
HESTER RECEIVES A PROPOSAL.
Annot was certainly curious to know what was passing between the two whom she had seen wandering into the cooler atmosphere of the conservatory; but she could not at the same time relinquish the society of Roland, and to suggest that they should adjourn thither might only mar the end she wished—without any real affection for Hester—to come to pass, as she had not been without her own suspicions retrospectively. But, sore though it was, we fear that the heart of Hester Maule was not to be caught on the rebound.
And in dread and dislike of Annot's observation, her jests and comments, she had—so far as she could—lately avoided being, if possible, for a moment alone with Malcolm Skene, or giving him an opportunity of addressing her, and he had felt this keenly.
In the long drawing-room the dancing was still gaily in progress, and the soft strains of Strauss went floating along the leafy and gorgeous aisles of the conservatory, where Skene and Hester had—so far as she was concerned—unconsciously wandered. She seated herself, wearily and flushed with dancing, while he hung over her, with his elbow resting on a shelf of flowers, while looking pensively and tenderly down on her—on the heaving of her rounded bosom, her long dark lashes, and the clear white parting of the rich brown hair on her shapely head, longing with all his soul to place his arms round her, and draw that beloved head caressingly on his breast; and yet the words he said at first were somewhat commonplace after all. But Hester, while slowly fanning herself to hide the tremulousness of her hands, knew and felt intuitively that a scene between them was on the tapis; and, deeming it inevitable at some time or other, she thought the sooner it was over the better; and in the then weariness of her heart, she felt a little reckless; but his introductory remarks surprised her by their bluntness.
'My life now seems but one manoeuvre, Miss Maule—to be alone with you for a moment or two.'
Hester made some inaudible reply; so he resumed:
'I have heard it said by some—by whom matters not—that you are engaged, Miss Maule?'
'Then they know more than I do—but to whom have my good friends assigned me?'
'To your cousin.'
'Roland!'
'Yes.'
'I am not engaged to Roland certainly,' replied Hester, her lips and eyelashes quivering as she spoke.
'I thought not,' said Malcolm Skene, gathering courage; 'Miss Drummond seems to me his chief attraction. If he is as happy as I wish him, he will be the happiest of deserving men.'
'The phrase of a novel writer, Mr. Skene,' said Hester, a little bitterly, as she thought over some episodes at Merlwood; 'but do not talk so inflatedly of what men deserve. The best of them are often unwise, unkind, unjust.'
'Do not blame all men for the faults perhaps of one,' said Skene at haphazard, and a little unluckily, as the speech went home to Hester's heart. She grew pale, as if he had divined her secret.
'I do not understand you,' she faltered a little haughtily, while flashing one upward glance at him.
'Considering the way you view men now, and the way you avoid or rebuff me, I wonder that I have got a word with you, as I do to-night.'
'Do I rebuff you?'
'Yes—to my sorrow, I have felt it.'
'Sorrow—of what do you really accuse me?'
'Treating me with coldness, distance——'
'I am not aware—that—that——' she paused, not knowing what to say.
'Hester—dearest Hester,' said he in a low and earnest voice, while stealing nearer her and assuring himself by one swift glance that they were alone in the conservatory; 'let me call you so, were it only for to-night—you know how long I have loved you, and surely you will love me a little in time. I know how true, how tender of heart you are; I know, too, that I have no rival in the present—with the past I have nothing to do; but tell me, even silently, by one touch of your hand, that you love me in turn, or will try to love me in time, Hester—dear, dear Hester!'
She opened her lips, but no sound came from them, and her interlaced hands trembled in her lap, for the 'scene' had gone somewhat beyond her idea in depth and earnestness; and she felt that Malcolm Skene's deduction as regarded there being no rival in the present was a mistake in one sense.
Encouraged by her silence, and construing it in his own favour, little conceiving that her head was then full of a false idol, he resumed:
'Hester, ever since I first saw and knew you, it has been the great hope of my existence to make you my wife.'
Still the girl was voiceless, and felt chained to her seat.
She could feel—yea, could hear her heart beating painfully, as she had a pure regard and most perfect esteem for the young fellow by her side; and thought that to the end of her days the perfume of the lily of the valley, of stephanotis, and other plants close by would come back to memory with Malcolm's voice, the strains of Strauss, the strange atmosphere of the conservatory, and the dull sense of unreality that was over her then.
'Oh, Hester, will you not tell me that you will try to love me—to love me a little? Have you not a single word to give me?'
Passionately earnest were his handsome eyes—anxious and eager was his lowered voice and the expression of his clearly cut face. He said nothing to her, as other men might have done, of his fortune, of his estate, of his lands of Dunnimarle that overlooked the Forth, of his prospects or his future; all such items were forgotten in the present. Neither did he urge that he was going far—far away from her soon—much sooner than he had then the least idea of—to enhance his value in her eyes, or win her interest in his favour; for even that, too, he forgot.
She looked up at him with her soft, velvety, dark-blue eyes suffused, gravely and kindly; the charming little tint gone from her rounded cheeks; her whole face looking very sweet and fair, but not wearing the expression of one who listened with happiness to a welcome tale of love.
'Oh, why do you say all this to me, Mr. Skene—Malcolm I shall call you for old acquaintance' sake—why ask me to marry you?'
'Why? a strange question, Hester,' said he, a little baffled by her apparent self-possession, while tremulous with joy to hear for the first time his Christian name upon her lips.
'Yes—why?' she asked, wearily and sadly.
'Because I love you as much as it is in the nature of an honest man to love a woman.'
'But—but I do not return the sentiment—I cannot love you as you would wish.'
'Not even in the end, Hester?'
'What end?'
'Any time I may give you and hopefully wait for?'
She shook her head and cast down her white eyelids.
'And yet no one else seeks your love?' said he a little reproachfully.
'No one else.'
'Can I never make you care for me?' he urged in a kind of dull desperation.
'Pardon me—but I do not think so; my regard, my friendship and gratitude will ever be yours; but please—please,' she added almost piteously, 'do not let us recur to this matter again.'
'You feel the impossibility——'
'Of receiving your words as you wish.'
'You are at least candid with me, Hester; and I shall, indeed, trouble you no more.'
He spoke with more grief than bitterness, as he dropped the little and softly gloved hand which he had captured for a moment.
She then passed it over his arm and rose, as if to show that all was over and that they were to return to the drawing-room—which she now deeply regretted having quitted—and with them the dancing, the joy, and the brilliance of Maude's little fête had departed for the night.
Skene felt that nothing was left for him now but to quit Earlshaugh at once, and the time and the hour came sooner than he expected, and all the more welcome now.
But the adventures of the night—adventures in which Mr. Hawkey Sharpe bore a somewhat prominent part—were not yet over.