CHAPTER XXXIII.
A TANGLED SKEIN.
Natheless the fair promises of the faculty, Roland Lindsay seemed to hover between life and death for days. They were a time of watching, hoping, and fearing, and hoping again, till every heart that loved him grew sick with apprehension and anxiety.
At first he looked like one all but dead; the great charm of his face lay in the earnest and thoughtful expression of his eyes, and in their rich brown colour; both were gone now, and the clearly cut and refined lips, that denoted a brave, gentle, and kindly nature, were blue and drawn; and a slight sword cut upon the cheek, won at Kashgate, looked rather livid just then.
He was exhausted, languid, and passive, but, at times, seemed to awaken into quickened intelligence; then anon his mind would wander a little, and the names of Hester and Annot were oddly mingled on his feverish tongue.
But there was great joy when he became sensible of the perfume of flowers—the sweetest from the conservatory—culled and arranged by the loving hands of the former, in the vases that ornamented his room, and when he fully recognised the latter in attendance upon him.
'My little wife—my child-wife that is to be,' he whispered, 'you love me still, though I am all shattered in this fashion?'
Then Annot caressed his hand, and placed her cheek upon it.
Guests had all departed, the key was turned in the gun-room door; the dogs were idle in their kennels, and only Elliot, Hester, and Annot remained as visitors at Earlshaugh. The great house seemed very silent now; but Roland, as strength and thought returned, was thankful that the guests he had invited were gone. The difficulty of their presence had been tided over without any unpleasantness (save the affair of Elliot and Sharpe), and now he felt only a loathing of his paternal home, with an intense longing to be gone—to get well and strong—to keep well, and then go, he cared not where at first, so that Annot was with him, and then back to the regiment as soon as possible, even before his leave was ended.
Annot was now—unlike the Annot who cowered over the boudoir fire on the morning when Roland was rescued—most effusive in her expressions of regard and compassion, though she was perhaps the most useless assistant a nurse could have in a sick room, the air of which 'so oppressed her poor little head;' and thus she was secretly not ill-pleased when her services there were firmly, but politely, dispensed with by old Mrs. Drugget, the portly housekeeper, who had nursed Roland and his dead brother many a time in their earlier years, and now made herself, as of old, mistress of the situation.
Annot's bearing on the eventful morning referred to rankled in the memory of Maude and Hester. They strove to dissemble and veil their growing dislike to, and mistrust of, her under their old bearing and cordiality of habit; but almost in vain, despite her winning, clinging, and child-like ways and pretty tricks of manner. These seemed to fall flatly now on ear and eye, and soon events were to transpire with regard to that young lady which gave them cause for much speculation, suspicion, and positive anger.
She was soon sharp enough to discover that there was a growing cloud between them, and took the precaution of giving a hint thereof to Roland. She was somewhat of a flirt, he knew very well; but there was no one in the house to flirt with, now that Malcolm Skene and all the others were gone; and he had consoled himself with the reflection that she was devoted to him, and that her little flirtations had been of a harmless nature, and the outcome of a spirit of fun and espièglerie.
And if Hester and Maude were somewhat disposed to be severe on Annot and reprehend this, he knew by experience that ladies who adopt the rôle of pleasing the opposite sex are rarely appreciated by their fair sisters.
Mrs. Lindsay when she visited Roland from time to time, as he thought to watch his progress towards health and departure, felt thankful, though of course she gave no hint thereof, that her brother had at least no active hand in the misfortune that had befallen him.
'The guests I somewhat intrusively invited here are all gone, Mrs. Lindsay,' said he on one occasion, 'and I shall soon relieve you, I hope, of the trouble my own presence gives you.'
'Captain Lindsay—Roland—do not talk so,' she replied, either feeling some compunction then for the false position of them both, or veiling her old constitutional dislike of him, which, Roland cared not now. Calm, cold, self-contained, and self-possessed, Mrs. Lindsay, as usual, was beautifully and tastefully dressed in rich black material, with fine lace lappets over her thick, fair hair, and setting off her colourless and lineless face. Her expression, we have said elsewhere, was not ill-tempered but generally hard and unsympathetic, and now it was softer than Roland had ever seen it, and something of a smile like watery sunshine hovered about her thin and firm lips, and to his surprise she even stroked his hair with something of maternal kindness as she left him, pleased simply because he had uttered some passing compliment to the effect that he was glad to see her looking so well and in such good health. But she and Maude were not, never were, and never could be, friends.
'I should like to know precisely the secret of this prison house,' thought the observant Annot, as she saw this unusual action.
If a 'prison house,' it suited her tastes admirably; but she was fated to learn some of the secrets thereof sooner perhaps than she wished.
A month and more had passed now; Roland was becoming convalescent; he could even enjoy a cigar or pipe with Jack Elliot, and had been promoted from his bed to a couch in a cosy corner of his room; and he felt that now the time had come when he ought to break to Annot the true story of how monetary matters stood with him at Earlshaugh.
A heavy feeling gathered in his heart as this conviction forced itself upon him—a sensation as of lead; yet he scorned to think that he would have to cast himself upon her generosity, or ask for her pity.
Compared with what might and ought to have been, his prospects now were, in many respects, gloomy to look forward to; but he had fully taken breathing time before breaking to her news which, he greatly feared, might be testing and grievously disappointing.
But it would be unmanly to trifle longer with Annot, or dally with their mutual fate. Yet how was he to preface the most unwelcome intelligence that he was no longer—indeed, never was—laird of that stately mansion and splendid estate, with all its fields, wood, and waters?
How he dreaded the humiliating revelation—yet why so, if she loved him?
Taking an opportunity when they were alone, and the two other girls, escorted by Elliot, had gone for a 'spin' on horseback, he drew her tenderly towards him, with one arm round her slender waist and one hand clasping hers, which still had his engagement ring on a baby-like finger, while gazing earnestly down into her sunny eyes, which were uplifted to his with something of inquiry in them, he said:
'I have news, darling—terrible news to reveal to you at last.'
'News?' she repeated in a whisper.
'Of a nature, perhaps, beyond your imagining,' said he in a voice that became low and husky despite its tenderness.
'What do you mean, Roland? You frighten me, dearest!'
He pressed her closer to him, and she felt that his hands were trembling violently.
'Annot, I have a hundred times and more heard you say that you loved me for myself, and would continue to love me were I poor—poor as Job himself.'
'Of course I have often said so, and I do love you; but why do you ask this question now? What has happened? Why are you so strange?' she asked, changing colour and looking decidedly restless in eye and manner. 'Are you not well? How cold your poor hands are, and how they tremble!'
She drooped her fairy-like head, with all its wealth of shining golden hair, upon his shoulder, and looked upward keenly, if tenderly, into his downcast eyes.
'Has any new calamity occurred to distress you?'
'Nothing that is new—to me.'
'Why, then—
'It is this. I am not Lindsay of Earlshaugh—not the owner of the estate I mean. I am poor, poor, Annot, yet not penniless; I have my old allowance and my pay—but this beautiful estate is not mine.'
'Not yours?'
'No—not a foot of it—not a tree—not a stone!'
Her lips were firmly set, and the rose-leaf tint in her delicate cheeks died away.
'Whose, then, is it?'
'My father—weakly—my father——'
'To whom did he leave the property?' she asked, lifting her head from his shoulder and speaking with a sharpness he did not then notice; 'is it as I have heard whispered?'
'To my stepmother—yes. You knew of that—you suspected it, my darling?' he added, with a sudden access of hope and joy—hope in her unselfishness and purity of love.
She made no immediate reply.
'Is this unjust will tenable?' she asked, after a time.
'It is without flaw, Annot. My father left her all he possessed, with the power of bequeathing it to whom she pleases, without hindrance or restriction.'
'Cruel and infamous! And who, my poor Roland, is her heir?'
'That reptile, Hawkey Sharpe, I presume.'
Something between a gasping sigh and a nervous laugh escaped Annot, who said, after a little pause, during which he regarded her fair face with intense and yearning anxiety:
'I thought you as prosperous a gentleman as the Thane of Cawdor himself; but this is terrible—terrible!'
And as she spoke there was something in her tone that jarred painfully on his then sensitive and overstrung nerves.
Annot assured him of her unalterable love, whatever lay before them—whatever happened or came to pass—was he not her own—her very own! She wound her arms about his neck; she caressed him in her sweet, and to all appearance, infantile way, striving to reassure him; to soothe, console, and implant fresh confidence in his torn and humbled heart; but with all this, there was a new and curious ring in her voice—a want of something in its tone, and erelong in her eye and manner, that stung him keenly and alarmed him.
What did this mean? Did she resent his supposed duplicity as to his means and position? But he consoled himself that he would soon have her away from Earlshaugh, with all its influences, associations, and the false hopes and impressions it had given her, and then she would be his own—his own indeed.
'How loving, how true, gentle, and good she is! Do I indeed deserve such disinterested affection?' were his constant thoughts.
He disliked, however, to find that Annot had begun to cultivate the friendship of Mrs. Lindsay—"Deb Sharpe" as she was uncompromisingly called by Maude, who was always on most distant terms with that personage; and to find that she was ever in or about her rooms, doing little acts of daughter-like attention such as Maude, with all her sweetness of disposition, had never accorded; even to fondling, feeding, and washing her snarling pug Fifine; and Mrs. Lindsay, of whom other ladies had always been rather shy, and towards whom they had always comported themselves somewhat coldly and with that cutting hauteur which even the best bred women can best assume, felt correspondingly grateful to the little London beauty for her friendship and recognition.
The splendour of the house, the richness of the ancient furniture and appurtenances, the delicacies of the table, the attendance, the comfortable profusion of everything, had been duly noted and duly appreciated by Annot, and she felt that it was with sincere regret she would quit the fleshpots of Earlshaugh.
More than once, when promenading about the corridors with the aid of a stick, Roland had surprised her in tears.
'Tears—my darling—why—what!' he began.
'It is nothing,' she replied, with a little flush. 'I am oppressed, I suppose, by the emptiness and size of this great house. I am such an impressionable little thing you know, Roland.'
'We can't amend the size of the house,' said he, smiling, 'but a cosier and a smaller one awaits us elsewhere, when you are my dear little wife, and we quit this place, once so dear to me, as I never thought to quit it in disgust—for ever!'
Seeing the varying moods of Annot, and the occasional petulance, even coldness, with which she sometimes ventured to treat Roland now, Hester, remembering that young lady's confidences with reference to Mr. Bob Hoyle and other 'detrimentals,' her avowed passion for money, and how a moneyed match was a necessity of her life, and knowing Roland's changed position and fortunes—Hester, we say, was not slow in putting 'two and two together,' to use a common adage, to the detriment of Annot in her estimation.
'I would that I were a strong-minded woman,' said the latter reproachfully, as she and Roland lingered one evening in a corridor that was a veritable picture gallery (for there hung the Lindsays of other days, as depicted by the brushes of the Jamesons, the Scougals, De Medinas, Raeburns, and Watsons in the striking costumes of their times), and Roland had been taking her a little to task for some of her petulant remarks.
'A strong-minded woman,' he repeated. 'Nonsense! But why?'
'Then I should cease to annoy you, and join an Anglican Sisterhood, to nurse the poor and all that sort of thing.'
She pouted prettily as she spoke—sweetly, with all her softest dimples coming into play.
'Are you not perfectly happy, Annot?'
'Oh, yes—yes!' she exclaimed, and interlaced her fingers on his arm; yet he eyed her moodily, and lovingly, ignorant of the secret source of her discontent or disquietude.
'How can I take her to task,' thought he; 'already too! so fair, so bright, with her hair like spun gold!'
He tried to catch and retain her loving glance, but the corners of her pretty mouth were drooping, and her eyes of pale hazel looked dreamily and vacantly out on the far extent of sunlit park and the white fleecy clouds that floated above it; but he thought he read that in her face which made him long for health and strength to take her away from Earlshaugh to the new home he had now begun to picture, and seldom a day passed now without something occuring to increase this wish.
'Roland,' said Maude on one occasion, as she drove him out through the pleasant lanes in her pretty pony phaeton, 'that odious creature Hawkey Sharpe is still, I understand, hovering about here.'
'Bent on mischief, you think?'
'Too probably.'
'Well, I am powerless to prevent him. He is, you know, his sister's factotum and now all but Laird of Earlshaugh.’
Though possessing no brilliant beauty, the face of the sunny-haired Maude was one usually full of merriment, and capable of expressing intense tenderness—one winning beyond all words; but it grew cloudy and stern at the thought of 'these interlopers,' as she always called them—Deborah Sharpe and her obnoxious brother.