IN THE PRINCES STREET GARDENS.
Among those invited to the house of Sir Piers Montgomerie was Leslie
Fotheringhame, of course; but he knew, from Falconer, that Annabelle
Erroll was still a guest of the family, as she and Mary were a pair
of inseparables; and compunction for his past treatment of her, and
doubt of how she remembered him now, with a great fear of being
contemptuously ignored by her, led him to decline, on every occasion,
the invitation accorded, on various pretences.
Annabelle Erroll knew of this, and was piqued accordingly, so the old
breach between these two grew wider, if possible. Cecil and Mary, as
'a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind,' had a great desire to make
peace between them; the former had told her of the love-making and
quarrel by the river, and her sympathy was readily enlisted in the
matter.
'You do love him still!' said Mary, as the two were exchanging
confidences in the seclusion of their mutual dressing-room at night;
'at least I know, by your changing colour whenever his name is
mentioned, that you have not forgotten how to do so.'
'One cannot forget having loved--or having loved him, at least,'
replied Annabelle, in a soft voice.
'Would you marry him if he asked you now?'
'Decidedly not!' exclaimed Annabelle, whose golden hair was floating
over her snowy neck, while, unaided, she was plaiting it up with deft
fingers and throwing it this way and that, in masses, turning her
graceful head sideways to see how they fell, and perhaps to admire
the charming curve of her own white shoulders.
'You do not believe me?' she said, as Mary laughed at her reply.
'No--because, as I said, at the very mention of his name, even by me,
your cheek flushes and your voice trembles.'
'If they do, it is with just anger,' said Annabelle, 'and you are
mistaken, dear Mary; and I have read, that when an estrangement
begins between two who have loved each other, it is like a tiny
stream of water, which goes on widening and deepening day by day,
until it becomes a river no bridge can span.'
'Will I ever be estranged from Cecil?' thought Mary. 'Oh no--no--no!'
Various pretty and amiable little schemes formed by Mary to bring
them together, with Cecil's aid, failed, and yet their meeting
ultimately came to pass in the most commonplace way imaginable.
With the opening season come the weekly promenades in the beautiful
Princes Street Gardens, where the regimental bands play in the
afternoons, for the delectation of the fashionables and idlers of the
West End.
Bordered on one side by the most magnificent terrace and promenade in
Europe, and on the other by the emerald-green bank of the Castle
Hill, with all its waving trees, and by the mighty mass of the
beetling rock on which stands the hoary fortress of a thousand
memories, and more than a thousand years, these gardens are
altogether unique; and already they were in almost their summer
glory, for the air of the valley in which they lie was fragrant with
the perfume of mignonette, of clove-carnations, roses, and heliotrope.
The carefully kept shrubberies were gay with borders of brilliant
flowers, and amid this varied foliage the laburnum stood up in all
the glory of green and gold. In swarms the happy children were
gambolling and playing about on the velvet sward or chasing in zigzag
fashion the bees and butterflies.
The fair promenaders were in all the bright gaiety of their spring
costumes, and the grand echoes of the castle rock were responding to
the music of the band under our friend Herr von Humstrumm, when
Falconer and Leslie Fotheringhame came sauntering through the throng
arm-in-arm, the former watchful for the figure of Mary, and the
latter languidly indifferent of all on whom he cast his critical
eyes, in one of which a glass was fixed.
Suddenly Fotheringhame, who was rather a nonchalant personage,
started, and the glass dropped from his eye, for, sooth to say,
perhaps he could see better without it.
A young lady passed near him, with other two--an elder and a
younger--unseen by Falconer, who was looking in an opposite
direction; and there can be no doubt Fotheringhame looked after her
with a yearning in his gaze, so sudden, passionate, and tender, as
must have touched her heart had she seen it; but Annabelle Erroll,
for it was she, was all unconscious of his presence. Her companions,
we need scarcely say, were Mary Montgomerie and Mrs. Garth, an old
lady who still dearly 'doted on the military.'
Fotheringhame's first inclination was to quit the promenade and
effect an escape; his second thought was to stay, and see her
once--only once again. And in sudden silence he continued to walk
slowly to and fro with Falconer, till the abrupt turn of a narrow
shrubberied avenue brought them both face to face with the three
ladies, and there was no retreating; for as Hew disliked society of
this kind, and was never present, Mary felt perfect confidence, and
welcomed Cecil with one of her brightest smiles, while he--reading
her wish at a glance--hastened to utilise the occasion by presenting
'his friend, Fotheringhame of Ours,' to Mrs. Garth and 'Miss Erroll.'
'In for it, by Jove!' muttered Fotheringhame under his heavy black
moustache, as he lifted his hat, and saw before him, in her rare
blonde beauty and magnificence of style, now fully developed by a few
short years, the girl whose artless heart he had won only to cast it
at her feet--unclaimed--unprized!
Mary's bright little face was dimpling and rippling all over with
pleasure, triumph and exultation--all the more so, when she saw that
Leslie Fotheringhame was a man of whom any woman might be proud, more
than ordinarily handsome, with an unmistakable tone, air, and
bearing, that doubtless came of his early Lancer training; and now
they were all conversing together with apparent ease; for although
Mrs. Garth knew what the wishes and orders of Sir Piers were
regarding Mary and Cecil Falconer, she did not conceive that they
extended to the precluding of recognition in a public place.
But had even the suspicious Hew been there, not even he, on seeing
the quiet and respectful way in which Cecil raised his hat and
lightly took the gloved hand of Mary, could have detected that there
was between them the soft and sweet and inexpressible charm and link
of a secret understanding. And indeed none who saw the apparently
cool composure with which she greeted him, and talked of the beauty
of the weather, the serenity of the sky, of the music then being
discoursed by his regimental band, could have suspected that but an
hour or so before, in a shady and sequestered place elsewhere, he had
showered kisses on her lips, and hair, and eyes, and pressed her to
his breast, '_á la_ Huguenot,' again and again.
If deceit were practised in all this, it was not their fault, but was
born of the pressure that was put upon them.
As the pair now began to promenade together, Cecil of course absorbed
Mary, whom Mrs. Garth could not leave; it thus became a matter of
course that Annabelle fell to the lot of Fotheringhame, more than
perhaps her proud heart assented to. His manner was careful,
studied, and deeply courteous. She could not, as yet, detect the
slightest sadness in his glance or tone, or aught of tenderness or
reproach either, so well did he veil his manner, and yet his heart
was full of her; and thus these two, who had been so much to each
other--all the world once--were meeting and acting just as those do
who have known each other for half an hour, or less.
So they walked slowly on and on, all unaware apparently that they
were instinctively seeking the quiet and lonely avenues of the
garden, yet talking the merest commonplace all the while, though
drinking in each other's voices and tones, till the groups of
promenaders were all left far behind, and the music of the band
sounded so faint and distant that the hum of the honey-bees could be
heard among the flowers.
Then a silence--a long and awkward pause occurred; they felt that
platitudes were failing them, and that they had a lack of words--a
lack that is said to prove the deepest love, for where 'there is
adoration there is paradise,' and Fotheringhame began to feel much of
the old adoration in his heart for Annabelle.
'I have been on a long visit to Mary Montgomerie, at Eaglescraig,'
said the latter, after a pause, during which she became very pale.
'She would insist upon me coming to Edinburgh with her; but the
season here is nearly over, and I go back to mamma.'
'In Perthshire?'
'In Perthshire,' she repeated mechanically.
'Near where the silver birches overhang the Tay?' he asked with a
caressing smile.
'Yes--and very soon,' said she, turning as if to retire.
'But not before our ball,' said he eagerly. 'You accepted our
invitation?'
'Mary pressed me to do so,' she replied, colouring; 'and now we must
hasten back to her and Mrs. Garth, for we are quite losing all that
lovely music of Gounod's.'
'Stay one moment--do bear with me,' said he in an agitated voice.
'I do not understand,' she began falteringly, and then paused, yet
looking him fully, firmly, and sadly in the eyes; 'have you aught to
say to me?'
'So we meet again face to face, after all these changeful years,
Annabelle!'
'I am simply Miss Erroll to you, Captain Fotheringhame.'
'I am only Lieutenant Fotheringhame now. If you remember the
past----'
'Could I forget it?' she asked with sparkling eyes, while nervously
twirling her parasol upon her shoulder, by its handle.
'Then pardon it, I pray you,' he urged in a voice which more than one
woman had found it difficult to resist.
'Who is it that says, "Flowers and love have but a season"?' she
asked with a little bitterness in her usually sweet tone.
'Annabelle!'
'I repeat to you, sir, that you must know me as Miss Erroll. I have
been thoughtless in coming so far from my friends.'
'I am wrong in forcing my society upon you,' said he sadly; 'but that
is a matter easily amended. In wronging you, as I did, dearest
Annabelle, I wronged myself, and have suffered deeply accordingly.'
'Our meeting to-day has been--on both sides, unavoidable, Captain
Fotheringhame. Let us return--if it is the best way to spare you
further pain.'
She spoke very calmly and deliberately, yet it cost her a terrible
and painful effort. She knew that she loved him still; she felt even
the eloquence of his silence, if such a term can be used, and now
dared not lift her eyes to meet his gaze.
'Annabelle,' said he again, and took her hand in his; then a quiver
passed over her delicate form, but the proud girl accorded no other
sign as yet of the power he still possessed over her. 'Do you
despise me--do you hate me?'
'Hate you--despise you?--why use language so strong? Oh no, no,
Leslie, far from either--far from either!' she exclaimed, as if her
heart would burst, and tears welled up in her dark blue eyes.
Then the artificial barrier himself had raised between them seemed to
give way, and he told her in the tenderest and most earnest of words
how fondly he loved her still.
'Let us not cast away the chance of reconciliation that God in His
great kindness has accorded us, Annabelle,' he urged, pathetically;
'as I loved you first, I love you now--nay, a thousandfold more, for
I have learned the value of the heart with which I so cruelly
trifled; and now, I pray you--I beg of you to be my wife, Annabelle,
my wife!'
She shook her head, and withdrew her hand.
'Is it to be thus?' he said sadly, but not reproachfully.
She made no reply, but kept her long lashes down and her soft eyes
fixed on the gravelled path.
'Let us be now, as we were then, in the sweet summer days, when the
silver birches cast their shadows on the Tay; and let us forget my
folly, my wickedness--all that estranged me from your loving heart
and divided us, Annabelle, when that fair and artful woman of the
world, Blanche Gordon, cast her meshes about me.'
'And must I believe that you have loved me all these years, and love
me still?' she asked softly, and with infinite tenderness of tone.
'God alone knows how tenderly, deeply and reproachfully, Annabelle!'
'But who knows how you might act if she came with her beauty and her
meshes again?' asked Annabelle, who was smiling now.
'Do not be pitiless to me; and as for her--that woman--she is
married, so, Annabelle----'
'Hush--we are interrupted!'
'They suddenly found themselves environed by groups of idlers, and
among others came Mrs. Garth, with Mary and Cecil, all of whom Leslie
Fotheringhame would have wished very far away--at least on the cone
of Arthur's Seat--at that precise moment.
Face to face again--at last, after all--after all--with Leslie
Fotheringhame, Annabelle was thinking; his smile, his voice and
presence, were fast bringing back the old and seemingly buried, yet
never forgotten love, to thrill her heart and every pulse as in the
bygone time!
Her memory, her whole soul seemed to go back more vividly to those
hours which neither he nor she had ever forgot, and now, whilst
listening to his voice, she seemed to be out in the bright summer
sunshine on the rippling waters of the glassy Tay, in his handsome
boat with its crimson velvet cushions; she heard the plash of the
sculls, the voices of the birds among the graceful silver birches;
she saw the dragon-flies again whizz past, and the brown trout leap
from the azure stream; and he too was in dreamland, and seemed to
hear her voice; as when he first heard it singing:
'Love me always, love me ever,
Said a voice low, sad and sweet;
Love me always, love me ever,
Memory will the words repeat.'
So they parted happily, these two, with hopes to meet again, at least
once, before the all-important night of the regimental ball, now
close at hand.
That some mysterious change had come over the once nonchalant Leslie
Fotheringhame, was soon apparent to the entire mess.
'What the dickens is up now?' said Dick Freeport to Falconer, on this
subject; 'I am sure there is a woman in the case; and I am sure that
fellow never had a love affair since he joined the regiment, or
sought peril by imploring Maud to come into the garden.'
'All the cause of his being more hardly hit now, Dick,' said
Falconer, laughing.
'If it is the case it will be a horrible pity!' said Freeport, as he
shut his pet, and carefully-coloured meerschaum up in its crimson
velvet case with an angry snap. '"Of all the wonderful things, and
there are many," says Sophocles in one of his choruses; "but none
more wonderful than man."'
'Except woman, Dick, why didn't the old Athenian add,' said Cecil,
laughing; 'so be assured there is a woman at the bottom of this
change in Fotheringhame.'
'Shall we have her at the ball?'
'Most probably, so don't forget your magic ring with the blue stone,
Dick; but you'll be hooked by a penniless girl some day, Dick!'
'A pity that will be, as manna does not fall from heaven now;
but----the fact is,' continued the latter, still pursuing his
surmises on the changed habits and bearing of Fotheringhame, 'that
matrimony spoils a fellow for the service on one hand, and on the
other, one can't think of bringing a tenderly-nurtured and high-bred
lady into the meagre surroundings, and rough and round of barrack
life.'
'Of course not, Dick,' replied Falconer; and yet--young though he
was--he was not without his new day-dreams of a graceful and
dove-like girl--of Mary Montgomerie--with tender smiling eyes and
white hands, sitting opposite to him in that dingy barrack room, with
its plain appurtenances.
But Mary was an heiress, and to wed and bring her there, would
involve open war with her guardian, and too probably the loss of her
inheritance!
'Would I had never seen her!' thought he; 'and yet--yet how vague and
empty now would life be without her!'