HEW'S TRIUMPH.
Prior to this startling event, the reels, usually a great figure in
such balls at Edinburgh, had been attracting the attention of Mary,
who did not join in them; and the long line of more than a hundred
dancers facing each other, presented a gay spectacle, from the number
of uniforms, clan tartans, and occasionally the green uniform and
great gold epaulettes of the Scottish body-guard, worn by some of the
male performers.
The 'Cameronian Rant' was struck up by the orchestra in the
Assembly-room, and old Mrs. Garth, who deemed herself quite as much a
part of the Cameronians as the adjutant or the big-drum, and who had
been vibrating, bubbling, and brimming over with pleasure all night,
now felt her satisfaction culminate when the aged Sir Piers, with the
courtly gallantry of the old school, led her forth as his partner,
and looked round in vain for Hew and Mary, as a _vis-à-vis_, whose
place was speedily supplied by Dick Freeport and a young lady whose
interest he was exciting on the subject of his ring with the blue
stone.
The reel over, the general had retreated breathlessly to his place,
where he proceeded to button-hole the commander-in-chief--another old
fogie like himself; and they were deep in reminiscences of the land
of palms and punkahs, tigers and precious stones, when Cecil,
discovering Mary with Annabelle and Fotheringhame in one of those
flirtation nooks which are to be found in the corners of the
Music-hall at such times, approached, and whispering that Hew had
disappeared, and the general was busy, suggested that they might have
one waltz together, as the double rooms always make a total confusion
in the mutual engagements.
She murmured something, mechanically, about the heat of the room, the
crowd, and so forth; his arm went round her; thrillingly her little
hand returned the pressure of his own, having to the full as much
effect upon him as any words she might have uttered; and in a moment
they were lost amid the whirling crowd of hundreds of waltzers. Her
great self-control nearly gave way in the delight of dancing with
Cecil, 'under the temptation' which, as Wilkie Collins has it, 'no
woman can resist--the temptation of touching the man she loves.'
Thus the soft pressure of the hand, which silently said so much, was
mutually returned again and again, as Cecil guided her unerringly
amid the mazy circles, till she paused, palpitating, blushing, and
half-reclining, breathlessly on his shoulder.
'I have not had such a waltz to-night, Cecil,' she whispered; 'so
delightful, I mean.'
'Nor I, darling--one turn more!' And away they went again, but at a
slower pace, which enabled them to converse at intervals.
They were not unseen, however, now, for Hew, who had been
fraternising with one of the pretty waitresses who superintended the
luxurious supper-tables in the wings of the hall, was watching them
with a heart full of growing hatred of Falconer; he longed to do him
a mischief of some kind--vaguely, savagely, and Mary too, for
violating thus the express orders of her guardian. And how radiantly
(disgustingly, he thought) happy they looked!
'I'll mar his wooing, and more!' muttered Hew, who possessed in an
eminent degree that quality which is to be largely found in the least
intellectual natures--low cunning.
As if she had some intuition of the _mal occhio_ under which they
were, she whispered:
'Hew has some deep scheme of mischief _in petto_ against us--I am
assured by quiet smiles I have read in his face to-night.'
'He is gone, I think.'
'I hope so; he is so cruel, coarse, and unscrupulous--one, in short,
to beware of.'
'Don't bother about Hew, darling; I fear more Sir Piers--and his
never consenting.'
'I don't care for what Sir Piers says,' whispered the dear voice; 'I
can never, never care for anyone but you, Cecil; I'll wait for you
till I'm a hundred.'
At this cheerful prospect he pressed her little gloved hand again.
'I'm sure you'll wait as long as I--but oh, Cecil, I'm so wretched at
times!'
But the bright _mignonne_ face that smiled back to his didn't look
wretched a bit, and in the glittering crowd at times, through which
they were sweeping to the intoxicating crashes of the regimental
band, while with each other thus, they felt as much alone as if the
world contained no other couple than themselves.
'Is not love a thing worth living for, Mary, even for its own sake?'
'It is indeed, Cecil!' whispered Mary, with her brightest smile.
'A dream that comes, I am sure, truly and purely, but once in a
lifetime.'
'And love, it is said, works miracles.'
'I wish it would work one with that dear old fogie, the general!
When last he spoke to me it was somewhat like the stern parent in
Allan-a-Dale, for he literally
'"Lifted the latch, and bade me begone."
His arm was still encircling her; his left hand pressed her right;
her cheek half sunk on his shoulder, their breath mingling as they
swept on, intoxicated alike by the measure of the dance and the music
of Strauss; in their souls unmindful of all ways and means--of
marriage and the general; of houses; of equipages; of society and the
world--unmindful of all, save that they loved each other, and were
together alone--alone even in that brilliant throng, till Mary could
spin no more; and he led her well-nigh breathless to the most
sequestered seat he could find, between two great vases of flowers
near the curtained gallery, under which some of the supper-tables
were, and his own servant, Tommy Atkins, who was in attendance there,
promptly brought them some iced champagne.
On the third finger of her left hand, Mary had a ring that Cecil had
placed there--a diamond cluster, and which she was fond of drawing
off her glove to contemplate, with a self-conscious aspect and tender
smile--a ring unnoticed by all save Annabelle, who now wore a nearly
precisely similar emblem.
She had drawn off her glove now, and as she sat fanning herself,
while Cecil bent over her chair whispering little nothings, dear only
to themselves, Hew Montgomerie, unseen by both, came near.
We have told in our first volume that Hew was a 'good hater'--one
precisely after the heart of the great Lexicographer--and how he had
made a vow to revenge himself on Falconer--a vow all the deeper for
being an unuttered one; and the time to redeem that vow had now come!
Hew's hand passed for a moment lingeringly over Cecil's goblet of
champagne. A close observer might have remarked that Hew's hand
suddenly opened and shut, and that as he did so the wine frothed up
anew and curiously; but no close observer was there, and Hew withdrew
some paces, and laughed his noiseless, joyless laugh, as he watched
Cecil, while replying smilingly and fondly to some laughing remark of
Mary, put his hand to the goblet, lift it from the table, and finish
its contents at a draught, like a heated and thirsty young dancer as
he was.
Hew then withdrew from their vicinity; but all that followed,
followed fast indeed!
Cecil became deadly pale, and an expression of agony came into his
face. The lights in the domed roof above, and the figures of the
whirling dancers below, seemed to multiply _ad infinitum_; the music
sounded as if receding to a vast distance; the four corners of the
hall seemed to be in swift pursuit of each other, as if it revolved
on an axis: he read a strange expression of utter dismay in the face
and dilated eyes of Mary, who had started from her seat; he made a
wild, but futile clutch at the table to support himself, while a
half-stifled cry escaped him, and he fell with a crash on the waxed
floor, when a crowd instantly gathered round him, and voices in alarm
rose on every side.
'Make way there--poor fellow taken ill--the heat--the ventilation
here is horrible!' cried one.
'Stand back--stand back, please--air!' said an officer of Lancers,
authoritatively.
'Lift him up,' cried another; 'he has fainted.'
'Screwed as an owl, you mean,' said a voice there was no mistaking.
'Silence, sir!' exclaimed Captain Acharn, sternly.
But Hew, with his cruel cold smile, and an ill-suppressed gleam in
his parti-coloured eyes, thought,
'If there is any nonsense still in her head about this fellow, surely
it must end for ever now!'
So Cecil, in a state of utter insensibility, was borne away by the
hands of kind comrades, placed in a carriage, and conveyed home to
his quarters by Acharn and Dick Freeport, who were in an intense
state of concern and bewilderment; yet 'all went merry as a marriage
bell' at the regimental ball, and the dancing continued till the
morning sun began to redden the castle towers and Arthur's rocky
cone; for hundreds in the rooms knew nothing of the matter; a few
red-coats were suddenly missed--some engagements broken--and that was
all.
Mary danced no more that night, of course--or for the remainder of
the morning, rather--and all that passed seemed a horrible dream, in
which, however, Hew, singular to say, bore no part as yet in her
mind, notwithstanding the significance of her words of warning during
the dance. No suspicion so utterly monstrous as the reality was
likely to occur to a mind like hers.
The general and his party retired. He was horribly perplexed and
shocked by an event so utterly out of his ken and experience, and he
could recall no parallel case in all the long course of his military
career--an officer taken _thus_ in a ball-room; for of course, such
is human nature, that the worst construction was instantly put upon
it.
'Hah!' muttered Hew, as the carriage bowled through the empty but
magnificent streets to the westward; 'this comes of taking too much
cognac with his soda-water. He'll be drummed out of society, and the
regiment too, I suppose, for this,' he added with a grin to Mrs.
Garth, who sat back in a corner of the carriage and sobbed
sorrowfully.
Finding that no answer was made to his ill-natured remarks, Hew said
again:
'This Falconer, used to laugh at the colonel's jokes and toady to his
betters; but, by Jove, he won't have a chance of laughing at the
colonel's jokes after this!'
'Silence, Hew,' said the general, grimly; 'but I am thinking more of
the honour of the regiment than of him.'
'She will either marry me now quietly, or she will _not_,' thought
Hew, triumphantly and pitilessly; 'if she does not, I suppose her tin
will come to me anyhow, thanks to her father's will and this old
fool, Sir Piers--shame to call the old fellow a fool, though, for
being so deuced friendly to me!' he added mentally, with a hiccough.
It has been said truly, that there are times, which come into the
lives of some of us, in which the agonies of years are compressed
into a few minutes--yea, it may be a second.
And thus it was with Mary!
Annabelle Erroll had her own cause for secret unhappiness--the
strange episode of the closely-veiled woman in the vestibule--but at
present all her sympathies were absorbed in the great catastrophe of
the ball, and the unavailing sorrow of her friend Mary.