THE MAJOR PROPOSES.
Meanwhile Hammersley's suspicion and jealousy grew apace, and it has
been said that when the latter emotion begins to reason, we legally
'always hold a brief for the prosecution in such cases, and admit no
evidence save that which tends to a conviction.'
In his rage he thought of quitting London and going--but where? He
knew not then precisely.
'Oh, to be well and strong again!' he would mutter; 'out of this
place and back to the regiment and the old life. There is a shindy
brewing fast in the Transvaal, and that will be the place for me.'
At other times he would think--'I wish that recruit of Cardwell's had
put his bullet through my brain. I would rather he had done so than
feel it throb as it does now.'
Some loves may dwindle into indifference or turn to hatred, but
seldom or never to mere friendship. Yet it is not easy 'to hate
those we have once loved because we happen to discover a weak point
in their armour, any more than it is easy to love unlovable people
because of their resplendent virtues.'
No response had ever come to the letters he had written Finella under
cover to Dulce; thus he ceased to send them, all unaware that these
letters addressed to 'Miss Carlyon' had been returned to the Post
Office, endorsed, by order of Lady Fettercairn, 'not known at
Craigengowan;' and now the heavy thoughts of Hammersley affected his
manner and gait, and thus he often walked slowly, as if he were
weary; and so he was weary and sick of heart, for the sense of hope
being dead within the breast will give a droop to the head and a
lagging air to the step.
Lady Drumshoddy rented a grand old-fashioned house in that very
gloomy quadrangle called St. James's Square, the chief mansion in
which is that of his Grace of Norfolk, and round the still somewhat
scurvy enclosure of which Dr. Johnson and Savage, when friendless and
penniless, spent many a summer night with empty stomachs and hearts
heated with antagonism to the then Government. About a hundred years
before that, Macaulay tells us that St. James's Square 'was a
receptacle for all the offal and cinders, and all the dead cats and
dogs, of Westminster. At one time a cudgel-player kept his ring
there. At another an impudent squatter settled himself there, and
built a shed for rubbish under the windows of the gilded _salons_ in
which the first magnates of the realm--Norfolk, Ormond, Kent, and
Pembroke--gave banquets and balls. It was not till these nuisances
had lasted through a whole generation, and till much had been written
about them, that the inhabitants applied to Parliament for permission
to put up rails and plant trees.'
Here, then, in this now fashionable locality, had my Lady Drumshoddy
pitched her tent, and hence it was that Vivian Hammersley, being
almost daily at 'The Rag,' close by, saw Finella and her cousin so
frequently; yet it never occurred to him to think of the old
Scoto-Indian Judge's widow, of whom he knew little or nothing.
The circumstance that Finella was undoubtedly still wearing his
engagement ring made Hammersley, amid all his misery and anger, long
for some more certain information than mere Club gossip and banter
afforded, and for that which was due from her--an explicit
explanation. He thought, as a casuist has it, 'that to know her
false would not be so bitter as to doubt. To mistrust the woman we
love is torture. To have a knowledge of her guilt is the first step
towards burying our love. Our pride is then thoroughly aroused, and
that contempt for treachery, inherent in our nature, flames out.'
On her part, Finella had some cause for pique--grave cause, she
thought. She had twice, at intervals, seen Vivian Hammersley riding
in the Row, when it was impossible for her to address him or afford
him the least sign; and now, knowing that he was home, and in London,
she naturally thought why did he not make some effort to communicate
with her, in spite of any barrier Lady Fettercairn might raise
between them, if he supposed she still resided at Craigengowan. Thus
she too was beginning to look regretfully back to his love as a dream
that had fled.
'A pretty kettle of fish they have made of it at Craigengowan, my
dear!' snorted Lady Drumshoddy, when she heard of the late events
that had transpired there. 'They have been imposed upon
fearfully--quite another "Claimant" affair; but I always had my
suspicions, my dear--I always had my suspicions, I am glad to say,'
she coolly added, oblivious of the fact that she always aided and
abetted Shafto in all his plans and hopes to secure Finella and her
fortune.
It was convenient to ignore or forget all that now.
'My Ronald is all right,' snorted the hard-featured old dame to
herself; 'he is the right man in the right place; but, as for
Finella, she is like most girls, I suppose--will not fall in love
where and when it is most clearly her duty to do so--provoking minx!'
It was a prominent feature in the character of my Lady Drumshoddy,
contradiction, though she would not for a second tolerate it in
anyone else; and as Major Garallan was temporarily a resident at her
house in St. James's Square, she, like Lady Fettercairn on the other
occasion, put great faith in cousinship and propinquity.
What a different kind and style of cousin Ronald Garallan was from
Shafto, Finella naturally thought; not that as yet she loved him a
bit, as he evidently loved her, but he was such a delightful
companion to escort her everywhere.
She had received plenty of admiration and adulation during her short
season in London before, and to suppose that she was blind to the
young Major's attentions would be to deem her foolish; no woman or
girl is ever blind to that sort of thing. She, like the rest of her
charming sex, knew by instinct when she had won a success; but she
also knew that she had one powerful attraction--money--and knew, too,
that her heart was engaged otherwise; and this knowledge made her
tolerably indifferent to the admiration of her cousin, while the
indifference laid her open to the appearance of receiving his close
attentions. Meanwhile the latter was enjoying his Capua.
'How delicious all this is!' he often thought, as he lounged by
Finella's side in the drawing-room, or rode with her in the Row,
'after sweltering so long in that hottest and most hateful of
up-country stations, Jehanabad, on the shining rocks of which the
Indian sun pours all its rays for months, till the granite at night
gives out the caloric it has absorbed by day, and so the roasting
process never ceases, and sleep even on a charpoy becomes impossible,
all the more so that hyenas, jackals, and wild cats make night
hideous with their yells. This is indeed an exchange,' he once added
aloud, 'and all the more delicious that I have it with _you_, Cousin
Finella.'
And Lady Drumshoddy, if she was near, would watch the pair
complacently through her great spectacles, while pretending to be
intent on her only paper (after the _Morning Post_), the _Queen_,
which she read as regularly--more so, we fear--than she read her
night prayers.
And while Garallan's attentions were gradually warming and leading up
to a declaration, Finella was thinking angrily of Hammersley.
'Perhaps he has forgotten his love for me--nay, he would never forget
_that!_ but absence, time, change of scene, or a regard for some one
else may have come between us. It is the way with men, I have been
told.'
So, in the fulness of time, there came one fine forenoon, when Lady
Drumshoddy had judiciously left the cousins quite alone, and when
Finella, in one of her most bewitching costumes, was idling over a
book of prints, with Ronald Garallan by her side, admiring the
contour of her head, the curve of her neck, her pure profile, the
lovely little ear that was next him, and everything else, to the
little bouquet in her bosom that rose and fell with every
respiration, let his passion completely overmaster him, and taking
caressingly within his own her left hand, which she did not withdraw,
he said:
'I have something to ask you, Finella--you know what it is?'
'Indeed, I do not.'
'Then, of course, I must tell you?'
'I think you must,' said she, looking him calmly in the face for a
second.
'For weeks you must have known it.'
'Known--what?'
'That I love you!' he said in a low voice, and bending till his
moustache touched her cheek; 'and now I ask you to give me yourself.'
The hand was withdrawn now; she coloured, but not deeply, and her
eyelashes drooped.
'Give me yourself, darling,' he resumed, 'and trust to me for taking
care of you all the days of your life.'
Though she must have expected some such ending as this to their late
hourly intimacy, she was nevertheless astonished, and said, with a
little nervous laugh at the abruptness and matter-of-fact form of the
proposal:
'Cousin Ronald, I can surely take care of myself. But--but do you
want to marry me?'
'Of course!' replied Cousin Ronald, with very open eyes, while
tugging the ends of his moustache.
'Well--it can't be.'
'Can't be?'
'No. I thank you very much, and like you very much--there are both
my hands on that; but marriage is impossible. Yet don't let us
quarrel, for that would be absurd, but be the best of good friends as
ever.'
'And this is my answer?' said he, with a very crushed air.
'Yes,' she replied, colouring deeply now; 'once and for all.'
'I won't take it,' said he, with mingled sorrow and anger. 'I will
not, darling!--I shall come to it again, when, perhaps, you may think
better of it and of me. Till then good-bye, and God bless you,
dearest Finella!'
Kissing both her hands, he abruptly withdrew, and soon after leaving
the house took his departure for Brighton; and now the luckless
Finella had to explain the reason thereof, and to undergo the
ever-recurring admonitions, reprehensions, parables, and absolute
scoldings of 'grandmamma Drumshoddy,' who was neither quite so well
bred nor so calm in spirit and outward bearing as Lady Fettercairn,
then 'eating humble pie' at Craigengowan.
If Florian, the new heir, was indeed dying, as reported, when he was
embarked with other sick and wounded officers and men at Durban, a
prospective peerage, with all the estates, enhanced the value and
position of Finella in the eyes of Lady Drumshoddy, so far as a
marriage with her nephew, the Major, was concerned, and most wrathful
she was indeed to find that her schemes were going 'agee.'
Lord Fettercairn fully shared her ideas, and knew that whoever
married the only daughter of the House of Melfort, though he might
assume the old name, it and the title too went virtually out of the
family.
Finella had remarked to herself that for some time past Lady
Fettercairn in her letters never mentioned the name of Shafto, or
hinted of the old wish about marrying _him_.
Why was this?
She knew not the reason that his existence was ignored, till Lady
Drumshoddy bluntly referred to 'the pretty kettle of fish' made
lately by the folks at Craigengowan, and then, in the gentleness of
her heart, Finella almost felt pitiful for the now homeless and
worthless one.