THE REGIMENTAL BALL.
There is so close a family likeness among regimental balls in their
general details, that we need scarcely describe that of the
Cameronians, the chief importance of it to our story being the events
that came of it.
All Edinburgh said it would be 'the ball of balls,' and beat those
given a month before by the Dragoon Guards and Royal Archers. The
officers were, of course, all dancing men, and there were few or no
married ones to throw 'cold water' on the extravagances of the rest.
It was held in the Music-hall and Assembly-room, two magnificent
saloons connected by a stately vestibule, a place generally well
patronised as a promenade between the dances. Each of these halls
are about a hundred feet in length, and the first-named, on these
occasions, is usually set apart for waltzes alone; here was the band
of the regiment, in the lofty orchestra, under the guidance of Herr
von Humstrumm, while a fashionable quadrille band was in the gallery
of the Assembly-room, which has one of the finest floors in Europe.
A guard of honour, a hundred strong, under Captain Acharn, occupied
the entrance to receive duly the commander-in-chief, Sir Piers, and
other general officers; trophies of arms, shields, and claymores, the
grouped banners of extinct Scottish regiments from the castle
armoury, a double avenue of azaleas and myrtles, foliage and Chinese
lanterns, with jets of perfumed water, spouting and sparkling in
marble and alabaster basins, all testified to the good taste of Cecil
Falconer and the ball-committee, who were there in 'full puff,' to
receive the guests, who were now arriving as fast as the carriages
could set them down at the east and west _portes-cochère_.
Yellow banners, with the trophies of the regiment, drooped over the
staircases: 'Egypt' with the sphinx, 'Corunna,' 'China' with the
fiery dragon, and lastly, 'Abyssinia'; and ever and anon the grand
and inspiriting crashes of military music swept through the double
halls. Kilted officers from the Highland depôt battalions, in
various tartans; gentlemen in Highland dresses, Hussars and Lancers,
made gay the scene. And the costumes of the ladies, the result of
many an anxious consultation with mammas and _modistes_ as to what
would be prettiest and most effective, completed a scene in which a
great amount of feminine loveliness and grace was not wanting.
In the vestibule, the young second lieutenants were flying hither and
thither, supplying the ladies with enamelled programmes; the rooms
were crowded by a glittering throng, and already the dancing had
begun, when the voice of Acharn, calling the guard to attention, and
the clatter of their rifles as they came to the 'present,' announced
the arrival of Sir Piers and his party, and Falconer felt his heart
give a responsive leap.
Roused and inspired by the music, the regimental trophies and
familiar badges, and by all his congenial surroundings, the old
general looked so bright and happy and he seemed to grow so young
again that Hew, in his impatience to succeed him, might have thought
that the Parcæ--if he ever heard of them, which is doubtful--were
forgetting to shorten his span.
Smiling blandly on all, with all his medals and orders glittering on
his gallant old breast, in full uniform, with sash and belt of gold,
he moved through the brilliant throng, with Mary--Mary seeking for
one face only--leaning on his arm; and he accorded even a pleasant
bow to Cecil, as the latter hurried to his place in the dance with a
tall and handsome girl, having arranged that Dick Freeport and Mary
should be their _vis-à-vis_.
Once or twice as the night wore on, Mrs. Garth, from her place among
the chaperons, detected a shadow cross the general's face, and knew
that the sight of the familiar 'number,' the trophies and the
uniforms, brought back to memory many a long-vanished face, and among
them, doubtless, that of his only son.
Circumstanced as they were, Cecil felt all the mortifying absurdity
of not putting his name even once on Mary's card, and permitting
others to fill it--a rapid process; but there was a nameless
sweetness in the conviction of the secret understanding that existed
between them, and that she had specially implored him not to ask her.
The general's alternate fits of kindness and severity, and his quick
and impetuous temper, worried her. In his household he was absolute,
or had all the desire to be so; and thus with all her love and
respect for him, a steady emotion of utter rebellion was gathering in
Mary's heart; and when she saw Cecil at the ball, she resolved that
it would go hard with her if, by some little manœuvring, they did
not achieve one dance, together.
Yet her card was filled fast, as she had passed through the
vestibule--the whole garrison fighting gallantly to get their names
inscribed upon it--and she was overwhelmed with petitions for dances
more than she could accord. All the subs had come to the ball
prepared to fall in love with her; and, as Dick Freeport said, they
were in duty bound to do so.
The dark dress of Mary--perhaps a curious one for a ball--black
tulle, gracefully trimmed with ears of silver wheat, made the pure
delicacy of her complexion, her white shoulders, round, polished and
snowy arms, bare from above the dimpled elbow, all more startlingly
fair. She had a complete suite of diamond and pearl ornaments. Even
to her lover's eyes, she looked more than usually lovely; there was a
tender flush on her soft cheeks, and purest pleasure sparkled in her
soft face, as she swept round in the waltz with Fotheringhame, who
was whispering to her of Cecil; and her lithe form seemed full of
firm, yet delicate, strength and vigour.
'Beg pardon,' said Hew, who was no waltzer, but had ventured on one
round dance with Annabelle Erroll, presuming on her good nature, and
after cannoning against several exasperated lancers and others,
finally did so against Falconer; 'a gay scene,' he added breathlessly.
'Hope you will enjoy yourself,' was Cecil's commonplace reply to Hew,
in whose eyes, even at that moment, he could read deep and defiant
hostility, but partially veiled by a well-bred smile.
Remembering their gambling experiences, Acharn, a grim, dark officer,
who had now dismissed the guard and taken his place among the
dancers, would have opposed the invitation of Hew to the ball; but
Falconer, loth to put a slight upon the general, and supposing that
he had nothing personally to fear in his presence, enclosed a card to
his would-be rival, and hence his appearance on the night in question.
He was disposed to be silent and sulky--silent in consequence of a
total absence of ideas; and sulky, because of Mary's too apparent
happy preoccupation, and her succession of brilliant partners.
Most--if not all--of the Cameronians were as good performers on a
well-waxed floor as at anything else that is manly, and, as we have
already hinted, the floor of the Edinburgh Assembly-room is simply
the perfection of what that for a ball should be.
'What a cub that fellow Hew is!' said Fotheringhame to Cecil in
passing, with Annabelle on his arm, her pale blue costume becoming
her light blonde beauty well. 'Can it be possible,' he whispered to
her, 'that such a girl as your friend can be capable of marrying one
man while loving another--marrying this Hew Caddish Montgomerie while
loving Cecil Falconer?'
'I should hope not.'
'But women are such strange creatures!'
'Men are stranger still,' she retorted, with a bright smile; 'but
here comes our odious Hew--and I promised him this waltz.'
'He imposes on your good-nature; bother the fellow!'
'Our dance, I think,' said Hew, lounging up.
'Number seven,' said Annabelle, affecting to consult her card, while
Fotheringhame gave him an impatient stare, for his dislike of Hew was
great.
'How handsome your cousin Miss Montgomerie is,' said he.
'She is full of goodness of heart and common sense too,' added
Annabelle.
'I hope she will prove a girl of very uncommon sense,' said
Fotheringhame.
'In what way?' asked Hew.
'By preferring a Cameronian to any other man,' replied Fotheringhame
with perfect coolness; and Annabelle laughed to see the gleam that
shot athwart the eyes of Hew, as he swept away with her into the
dance, to begin a series of 'cannons' again, and elicit remarks of
wrath under many a moustache.
'I don't know what your plans are, old fellow,' said Fotheringhame to
Cecil, as their eyes mutually followed Mary, admiringly, through the
maze of waltzers, 'but, if I were in your place, I would write to Sir
Piers, and give him fair warning that I meant to use every means to
win his ward.'
'Nay, Leslie; I have already won her,' interrupted Falconer, a little
triumphantly.
'Well--all the better; and if the girl loved me as she loves you, and
as Annabelle tells me, I would have her in spite of all the guardians
in Scotland!'
But there was no answering smile in the face of Cecil, who remembered
how his last visit to the house of Sir Piers ended, and the summary
manner in which the old man rang the bell to have him shown out!
And now for a time he remained among the crowd of men--the inert or
uninterested--who hovered about the doorway, critically watching the
dancers, and he heard Mary again and again praised, as she swept past
in a succession of waltzes. The genuine praises of some delighted
him; but there were occasional off-hand remarks that made him
inclined to punch more than one head.
'Not a bad-looking girl at all,' lisped a Lancer; 'wish she wouldn't
lay on the powder so freely, though.'
'Powder!' said Bickerton of that Ilk, a well-browned young fellow in
the blue-and-gold-laced uniform of the Ayrshire Yeomanry, 'the devil
a pinch of powder is there!'
'By Jove! to my mind, her dress is very _chic_. Regent Street
couldn't turn out a better! Who the deuce is she?' asked another
lounger.
'Oh! the daughter of Sir Piers Montgomerie,' replied some one whose
information was vague; 'an old general officer--no end of money, and
has refused no end of eligibles, and non-eligibles, alike.'
'Get me an introduction, won't you?'
'Well, perhaps--but her card has been full no doubt an hour ago.'
'Who is that swivel-eyed fellow that hangs about her?'
'Her intended, people say--don't like the fellow; he once played me a
fishy trick about a horse.'
'I have certainly seen a face like that girl's before,' resumed the
Lancer, eyeing Mary through his glass.
'Perhaps--but you haven't seen many like it,' said Dick Freeport. 'I
am lucky enough to have booked her for two waltzes.'
'Great success, this regimental hop of yours!'
Amid the painful doubts of his own position, his hopes and his fears,
Cecil saw with pleasure how radiantly happy his friend Fotheringhame
and Annabelle Erroll were enjoying the ball and their own society to
the fullest extent; and sooth to say, though Blanche Gordon, the girl
who had 'thrown him over,' was present, and looking very queenly in
her costume and her loveliness, he seemed to have eyes only for
Annabelle; and as his arm encircled her there was a depth of emotion
in her tender blue eyes when their gaze met his, that called up many
a loving thought, and, though they were silent, led both to remember
the scenes of their past, upon the shining river, when the boat
glided under the silver birches and the water-lilies floated by her
side--scenes to be visited together, as they hoped, again.
But, as, if there could be no perfect brightness without a shadow, no
perfect happiness without some alloy, it chanced that when seated
together in the vestibule, for coolness, there occurred an event
which--though Annabelle thought little, perhaps, of it then--she had
bitter cause to remember afterwards.
A lady, closely veiled, passed quickly near them, after descending
from the gallery usually occupied by servants and privileged
spectators.
She dropped a card-case or purse, and Fotheringhame hastened to
restore it to her, on which with a low voice, she thanked him by
name, involuntarily as it would seem.
'Why are you here to-night?' he asked severely.
'To see--you.'
'How rash--how foolish--go home!'
She hurried away, and on Fotheringhame rejoining Annabelle, the
latter could see that he had suddenly become very pale.
'Do you know that--person?' she asked while slowly fanning herself,
and fixing her upturned eyes upon him.
'Why do you ask, dearest Bella?' said he, as if to gain time for
thought.
'Because she seemed to know you, and called you Leslie.'
'Surely not; but so many people know me--the world is such a small
place. I know her to be very unhappy, and this gay scene is the last
place where I would expect to see her, even as a spectator.'
He spoke with perfect deliberation and confidence now, but failed to
inspire his listener with the latter, as she read a sudden and
settled gloom in his eyes.
The strange woman--a lady evidently--admitted that she had come
hither to see him. Why? Then he had desired her to 'go home.'
Where was her home? Who was she? And why did this chance meeting
make him so _distrait_?
'Our dance now, darling,' he whispered, drawing her hand through his
arm. 'One of Schubert's waltzes; old Humstrumm greatly affects
Schubert,' he added with rather a sickly smile. But this little
episode so startled Annabelle, that the task of getting her fair face
and soft complexion into 'society trim' again cost her an effort; and
ere they could get among the waltzers in the Music-hall, a strange
commotion there attracted the attention of both, as it did that of
everyone; so the cause thereof deserves a chapter to itself, for
Fotheringhame was struck with horror and dismay to see his friend
Cecil Falconer borne past him to a retiring-room, reeling and almost
senseless, in the arms of three officers of different regiments!
What had happened?