'THE INITIALS.'
In the last chapter we have somewhat anticipated the progress of
time, for in the first few weeks after the disappearance of Cecil
Falconer, certain disagreeables in the love of Fotheringhame and
Annabelle Erroll, fortunately for Mary, served to attract her
attention and draw her from her own great sorrow.
Fotheringhame was always a welcome guest at the house of the general.
To Mary he seemed a link with the lost one, and through him alone
could she hope to hear tidings that might come to any member of the
mess. To the general, whom he viewed, so far as his friend Cecil
Falconer was concerned, as a stupid, obstinate, proud, and avaricious
old man, he was specially welcome, as the patient listener to his
prosy reminiscences of India, of battles and marches, of
pig-sticking, shooting expeditions, and potting man-eaters, all of
which Fotheringhame heard with respect and feigned interest, that he
might the more freely enjoy the society of Annabelle, and of Mary,
whom he really loved for the affection she bore his lost friend.
His engagement with Annabelle was no secret now; but if it was a
source of joy to him, to her it was not without painful doubts and
fears, for he seemed to have some secret which she, as yet, failed to
probe.
That he and the lady she had twice seen, had some hidden and intimate
knowledge of each other, the words overheard by Annabelle on the
night of the ball seemed fully to prove. Then there was his
undisguised emotion on seeing her pass into the fortress on the night
of the visit to Falconer, an emotion that inflamed anew the
suspicion, jealousy, and natural indignation of a proud and sensitive
girl like Annabelle.
What was this stranger doing there, she thought, passing the
sentinels unchallenged, as if it was her use and wont? whither was
she going, if not to visit Fotheringhame in his quarters? Who, and
what was she, and in what manner related to him? Whence this vulgar
mystery which had suddenly come into the lives of her and her
intended, after their reconciliation and complete reunion had given
her so much of the purest joy?
It filled her with a nameless dread, and as women, in joy as in
sorrow, generally seek the sympathy of each other, now in her
jealousy, pain, and mortification, it was natural of Annabelle Erroll
to confide in her friend and gossip Mary, while, in gusts of pride
and anger, she sometimes failed to appear when Fotheringhame came to
visit her, or received him with a coldness that certainly seemed to
excite in him pain, surprise, and pique.
Hew, who had some intuitive perception of all this, and who dearly
loved mischief for its own sake, brought home exaggerated, and even
false, statements of how and where he had met Fotheringhame with
ladies generally, and especially with one lady in particular.
'Who she is no one knows, but she is always attired in the richest
and most becoming of outdoor costumes.
'And seems a lady?'
'Undoubtedly, so far as air and bearing go.'
'Most strange, Hew!'
'Not strange at all, Mary, as the world goes,' said he, with a laugh.
'If you are sure of all this, Hew,' said Mary, 'it is a wrong, a
great wrong, to Annabelle.'
'Stuff!' said he. 'Why, Ulysses loved Penelope very well, but that
did not prevent him from being very jolly with Calypso. But people
are generally known by the company they frequent, and we all know who
was his particular friend. What the devil can that fellow have done
with himself? He is too poor for the wine trade, and must have
turned digger at Ballarat, or a donkey-merchant in Texas.'
Mary gave him a glance of ineffable disdain, and turned away. She
felt keenly for the anguish and wounded self-esteem of her friend!
and she felt deeply mortified that the chosen friend of Cecil should
be playing the present double part of Fotheringhame, for the general
had seen him with this lady, and he could not be mistaken.
'And Cecil, where was he?' she would whisper to herself for the
thousandth time, as she drew forth a locket with some of his hair.
'It is so little to have of him, and yet so much that it reminds me
of him all!' she would say, kissing it tenderly, and retying the tiny
ribbon that bound it; 'my darling Cecil--my own darling!'
Anon she would drop it softly into her bosom, and let it nestle there.
But soon some brief and important events brought about a kind of
crisis in the affair of Annabelle and Fotheringhame.
After leaving the general's house one afternoon, it was found that he
had dropped a note on the carpet, a note which he had apparently
drawn forth with his handkerchief, and Annabelle picked it up. The
envelope was addressed to him in a pretty and free feminine hand, and
the top of the page began, 'My dear Leslie.' Neither of the girls
read more, but instantly replaced it in the cover. Annabelle, as she
grew ghastly pale, gazed with sparkling yet doubting eyes upon the
note.
What did it all mean? What was to be done?
It bore a monogram in blue and gold, 'F.F.,' and there was a sweet
yet subtle perfume about the note that, like the florid monogram,
spoke surely of a female in the matter, and of a feminine taste too.
'What _shall_ we do?' asked Mary, in great perplexity.
'Enclose it, dear, in an envelope of yours, and post it to him,' said
Annabelle. 'I do not wish to seem as if I knew aught of it.'
Bursting with natural curiosity, poor Annabelle no doubt was; yet she
was too honourable and ladylike to pry into the matter, though, sooth
to say, it so very nearly concerned herself.
'Perhaps it is only a note of invitation,' suggested Mary.
'Scarcely,' replied Annabelle, with difficulty restraining her tears;
'but I shall end this, Mary, by bringing my most protracted visit to
a close, and go home to mamma, who has been urging me to do so.'
So the note was enclosed and despatched, and another came from Leslie
Fotheringhame, thanking Mary for returning the former, adding that
'it was scarcely worth while doing so;' and when next they all met,
the subject was ignored; but there was a cloud over Annabelle's face,
for the memory of the note, in connection with other matters, haunted
and tormented her. But he, in manner, was calm, affectionate, and
unchanged--the same as usual.
'It cannot be from Blanche Gordon,' she thought, though she certainly
was at the ball. This woman--F.F.--can it be possible that she is
some former flame of Leslie's, with whom he has renewed his intimacy?'
Her jealous fancies ran riot, and not unnaturally.
Next day, Mary, when attended by a groom, riding in a sequestered
lane, between trees and hedgerows, came suddenly upon Fotheringhame
and the unknown, walking slowly together hand in hand, in a calm,
apparently accustomed, and affectionate manner, that filled her with
so much grief and astonishment, that, wheeling her horse in another
direction, and escaping them, as she hoped, unseen, she dashed home
at a gallop, and at once sought her friend.
Without removing her habit or hat, she threw her arms round the neck
of Annabelle, who, though used to her impulsiveness, was certainly
startled.
'Dearie--my dearie,' she exclaimed, 'can you bear evil tidings?'
'That may depend upon what they are,' replied Annabelle, growing very
pale in anticipation.
'Well,' said Mary, in a broken voice, while drawing her friend close
in an embrace, 'you must teach yourself to--to forget Leslie
Fotheringhame.'
'Not a difficult task, perhaps, as matters have been going,' was the
bitter response; 'but why?'
'I have had ocular proof that he is trifling with you and your love,
and that he has, I fear, a wife already--this "F.F." no doubt.'
'Married!' said Annabelle, in a breathless whisper, while the four
walls of the room seemed to fly round her and the eyes of Mary, who
was impetuously grasping at a conclusion, wore a strange expression
in which high indignation was blended with the tenderest pity as she
related what she had just seen, and added:
'Oh, my darling, be calm! I am so sorry to tell you this--but,
but--what can we think?'
'Ah! why does he deceive me so cruelly--why labour thus to break the
heart of one who loves him as I do?'
'You must learn to think and speak in the past tense now,' continued
Mary, whose tears fell fast, and she clasped her friend to her own
bosom caressingly.
'Married,' thought Annabelle, 'that cannot be; but he is perhaps
about to cast me off--play me false for another again!'
Anger and scorn struggled with love and sorrow in her heart; but her
blue eyes were dry and tearless.
'Had papa been alive, Leslie dared not have treated me thus!' she
exclaimed; 'but he knows I have no protector now, save a widowed
mother. I wish that I had not met him again, Mary, or that I were
dead--dead!' she exclaimed through her clenched teeth.
Mary, alarmed to see the storm she had raised, now attempted to
soothe Annabelle.
'We may judge too rashly, after all, dearie,' she urged; 'it may be
only one of those meaningless flirtations to which most young
men--officers especially--are, it seems, addicted.'
'What right has he to engage in such, even if it be so?'
'Cecil's friend could never be so base!' urged Mary again. 'Oh, let
us cling to the hope that it is something that may yet be explained
away.'
'It--what?' asked Annabelle impetuously.
'This apparent mystery.'
But less gentle than Mary, who was apt to take refuge in tears,
Annabelle said with outward calmness, though she felt only despair
and exasperation:
'I fear that he is totally without principle--false as the fell
serpent that beguiled Eve!'
And when night came she was thankful to lay her weary head on the
pillow, though she did so, not to sleep, but to long that she was
again at home beside her mother, and to agonise herself with doubts
and fears as to the issue of this affair, to which she was resolved
there should be a climax, either verbally or by letter, on the
morrow, when Fotheringhame was expected to luncheon.
But on the morrow matters took a new and more startling turn, ere
time for luncheon came.
Mary, who had been idling over the morning papers, suddenly drew
Annabelle aside, and said:
'Look at this advertisement. Can it be that the creature takes the
initial of his second name--if not his name altogether?'
Annabelle read what the speaker's slender fingers indicated, and it
ran thus:
'Will L.F. meet F.F. to-day in the N.G. at twelve o'clock?'
'This is evidently an appointment between these two--and in the
National Gallery!' said Annabelle. 'Oh, it is intolerable!'
'I must confess that so far as the initials go, it looks as if such
an event was on the _tapis_,' said Mary.
'But this mode of correspondence is surely beneath Fotheringhame?'
'Though not beneath her--it is her request.'
'If married, she would not resort to this. I shall go to the
Gallery, humiliating though the act may be.'
'And I too,' exclaimed Mary; 'let the carriage be countermanded--we
were to have driven this morning, but we shall set out quietly on
foot.'
Attired in dresses and hats of different style and colour from those
they usually wore, and Shetland veils tied over their faces--than
which there can be no more perfect masque--they set forth on this
expedition, which was one of great pain to both, but more
particularly to Annabelle.
It was a bright April forenoon, raindrops still rested on the fresh
green leaves, and sparkled in the sunshine, early flowers bloomed
abundantly in the gardens, perfuming the air, and the young birds
were twittering in the trees. Pure and bright, it was a morning
calculated to make anyone feel happy without knowing why; but the
hearts of both girls were sad, and Mary sighed as she looked at the
great masses of the fortress, steeped in the radiant sunshine, and
thought of him who was away, she knew not where.
The National Gallery, with its Ionic porticoes, was soon reached by
the way of Princes Street, and they entered the western range of
saloons, which contain a very valuable collection of paintings by old
masters and modern artists. At that early hour they were nearly
empty.
Dreamily Annabelle looked at the various objects of art around
her--the gigantic Ettys, the sweet proud bride of the victor of
Barrosa--the long-hidden Gainsborough--the girl-wife of Grahame of
Lynedoch; and then her eye saw the figure of one she recognised
again--the woman who had so evidently come between her and
Fotheringhame--seated in a corner, apart from all, with her veil
half-down, and her eyes fixed eagerly and expectantly on the
entrance-door.
The two friends could see that she was perfectly ladylike in style
and bearing, in pose and action, and that her costume, though plain
and quiet in colour, was rich in material. Wrath and pride flamed up
together in the heart of Annabelle, and while shrinking behind a
group of sculpture, that she might observe without being seen, she
said:
'It seems to me most unladylike, this mode of espionage, and truth to
tell it is humiliating in the extreme; but I have neither father nor
brother to protect me, Mary, and so I must protect myself.'
'Take courage, Annabelle--perhaps we may deceive ourselves,
and--and--oh, good heavens! here he comes!' said Mary, with a kind of
gasp in her voice, as Fotheringhame, in 'mufti'--a very accurate
morning costume--came with his swinging military step through the
long gallery, and raised his hat with a somewhat sad and certainly
fond smile on his face, as the unknown threw up her veil and advanced
to meet him. But leading her back to her seat, he bent over her, and
a low and earnest conversation ensued between them, yet not so low
but that some of it reached the overstrained ears of Annabelle.
'It was rash of you to put in that advertisement,' said he; 'and I
saw it by the merest chance, as I never examine the business columns
of any paper.'
'Rash? but, dearest Leslie, it is rasher still, circumstanced as I
am, to visit the castle,' she replied in a sweetly modulated voice.
Her face was a very fine one; her eyes were golden hazel--a perilous
kind of eye--'light hazel, the fickle colour,' says a writer, 'the
most fickle eye that shines--the eye ever changing, ever seeking
something new, ever wearying of what it hath, ever greedy of
enjoyment in the present, ever ungrateful for the past and unmindful
of the future.'
Such were the eyes of the handsome woman on whom the face of
Fotheringhame was bent with tenderness, and what a beautifully
moulded face his was, with its heavy, dark moustache, straight nose
and well-defined eyebrows.
'If my husband,' she began.
'Don't talk of him, Fanny!' he interrupted, angrily.
'Oh, the wretch is married!' whispered Annabelle.
'And her name is Fanny,' added Mary.
'And so the lawyers have got your case in their hands, my poor
Fanny?' said he.
'Yes--and when may I get it out of them again?'
'The devil alone knows--he is the great master in all matters legal.'
(Now what could this case be, thought the listeners; here was a fresh
mystery--perhaps degradation.)
'To serve you, I sold my troop in the Lancers, and with the money----'
'I know, Leslie--I know all, dearest. I have suffered much since
then.'
'Despite all that, how handsome you are still!' said he, tenderly and
admiringly.
'I was handsome a few years ago, as you know well,' she replied with
a sad, but coquettish smile; 'but why seek to flatter me now, dearest
Leslie, you of all men?'
'There is a flatterer beyond us all, Fanny--your own mirror.'
She laughed at this, but there was undoubted sadness in her laugh.
'Intolerable!' muttered Annabelle, and unwilling to hear more of this
mysterious conversation she withdrew in grief and dismay, followed by
Mary, who knew not what to make or to think of the whole situation.
They had barely reached home when Fotheringhame came punctually to
luncheon, wearing the same dress he had worn at the peculiar
assignation, easy and frank in manner, with his usual smile of
tenderness for Annabelle, who strove to hide the coldness of her
manner and the ire of her spirit, but utterly failed to check the
nervous quiver of her sensitive lip.
Mary, who had to act as hostess, and who had no personal interest in
this matter, scarcely knew what to do, or how to comport herself,
full as she was of disappointment and just indignation. The
abstraction of her manner was apparent to Leslie Fotheringhame, who
scored it down to Falconer's affair; and as Sir Piers, Mrs. Garth,
and Hew were all absent, she was thankful for the attendance of
Tunley on the trio; but the luncheon proceeded with indescribable
slowness and oppressive silence--a silence broken only by strained
and disjointed remarks.
At last the cold fowl, patés, etc., were discussed, and a move was
made to the drawing-room, where Mary did not follow the pair of
lovers, over whom she saw a stormy cloud was impending, and thought
the sooner it burst the better for them both--for Annabelle most
certainly--and Mary's tender heart seemed to bleed for the proud
girl's humiliation.
'My dearest Belle,' said Fotheringhame, attempting to take her hands
caressingly in his the moment they were alone, 'what is the matter
to-day--why this gloom and coldness of manner to me? In what have I
erred or offended you?'
He gazed at her appealingly and passionately; but she snatched her
hands away, and drew herself haughtily up to her full height, while
her proud white face only expressed much scorn and much grief too.
'You treated me once shamefully, Leslie,' she began.
'Let the dead past bury its dead,' said he, beseechingly; 'and now,
dearest Annabelle----'
'How dare you speak to me thus again?' she asked, with half-averted
face, and her blue eyes flashing with a kind of steel-like glitter.
'Thus--how?' he asked, in a bewildered and rather indignant tone, as
it seemed to her.
'In terms of love or regard!'
'What _do_ you mean, Annabelle?' he asked, after a pause. 'Surely
you have not permitted me to speak of love to you again--since that
happy day in yonder gardens--or rather lured me into it, but to repel
and cast me off, in revenge, for our quarrel in the foolish past
time; beguiling me by your sweetness, but to fool me in the end?'
'I do not care what you think.'
'Good heaven! can it be that you do not love me, Annabelle--do not
love me after all?'
'After all--all what, sir?'
'I hope, Annabelle,' said he, in the first faint tone of irritation
she had ever heard from him, 'that after all this smoke, you have
some fire to follow?'
'I do not understand you, Fotheringhame,' she replied, restraining
her tears by a strong effort; 'but I fear that you are involved in
something very dark and very dreadful. Who is Fanny--Fanny with the
hazel eyes?' she demanded, passionately; 'Fanny, who is in the hands
of the lawyers--who is so afraid of her husband, and for whom you
sold your troop?'
Bewilderment first, and then anger, appeared in the proud face of
Fotheringhame, who certainly seemed not to know what to think, and
grew very pale. Then he smiled, sadly and bitterly, with something
of anger making his lip quiver.
'Surely, Annabelle,' said he, slowly, as if to gain time to think,
'you, with your superior grace and beauty, assured position, and the
indefinable charm you possess for all, and more than all for me, need
fear no woman?'
'Jealousy is stronger than fear, and I am humiliated enough to be
jealous. You have secret meetings with a woman to me unknown!' she
exclaimed in a low, bitter and concentrated voice.
He grew still paler.
'You cannot deny it?' she added, imperiously.
'I do not--deny it,' he replied, sadly.
'On your honour, and ere all is over between us for ever, tell me who
she is, though certainly it should matter little to me now.'
He paused, and, with a deep frown, began:
'If you are acting on information given by Mr. Hew Montgomerie----'
'I am not--I act on information gained by myself, and even thrust
upon me; and here ends all between us,' she added, tearing off her
engagement-ring, and thrusting it into his hand.
'Annabelle, I implore you to be patient, and reconsider this.'
'How dare you ask me to be patient, under such insult and wrong? Go,
sir--I hate you--I never loved you--I leave you to this Fanny, whom
we saw in her fitting place, among the domestics, on the night of the
assembly--this matron of the period, whom I saw entering the castle,
doubtless, to visit you--the Fanny with whom you have secret meetings
and a secret correspondence--begone to her, and cross my path no
more!'
And sweeping from the room like a tragedy queen, she left him.
'Did she but know who that woman is, would she speak of her thus?'
said Leslie Fotheringhame, almost aloud, as he quitted the house with
an emotion of deep distress, not unmixed with shame and anger.
He made two or three attempts to alter the decision that Annabelle
Erroll had come to, of casting him off for ever. He called twice at
the house of Sir Piers, but on both occasions was told that she was
from home, and Mr. Tunley added, was preparing to leave town. He
wrote her a tender and most passionate letter which might--nay,
surely would--have explained all; but it was returned to him
unopened; and heaven only knew the bitter ache it cost the heart of
Annabelle to act thus firmly and decidedly, for, sooth to say, the
love of Leslie Fotheringhame had become, as it were, a part of her
own existence, interwoven with her daily life.
She knew that their engagement had become known to many, and the
inevitable _exposé_ and gossip that must follow its sudden ending,
exasperated her justly; and thus pride struggled with grief for
mastery in her heart, as she brought her visit to the Montgomeries to
a close, and departed for her own home.
From casual remarks, Mary could learn that none among the Cameronians
had ever heard aught of Cecil since the night of his disappearance.
The poor fellow had passed out of their ken completely. Mary's grief
was all the deeper because it was secret, and as time passed, the
grass seemed to be growing over the grave of all her hopes.
When Fotheringhame left the regiment on leave, she ceased to have
expectation of ever hearing of Cecil in any way, even through
Freeport or others; and it gave her much of a shock to learn that the
mysterious lady--she of the golden hazel eyes--had left Edinburgh
too--at least, so Hew gleefully informed her.
And now Mary--though she omitted all mention of this circumstance in
her many letters to Annabelle--knew not what to think of Leslie
Fotheringhame, save, perhaps, the worst!
She was sick of Edinburgh and its new associations--the ruin of
Falconer and the too apparent perfidy of his friend; but she regarded
with equal dread and disgust a return to the general seclusion of
Eaglescraig, and the persecution of Sir Piers and of Hew Montgomerie,
and bitterly in her heart did she inveigh against the absurdity of
her father's will.