DULCIE'S VISITOR.
On an afternoon subsequent to this episode Dulcie was lost in a
day-dream, born of her own sad thoughts, her soft blue eyes fixed
vacantly on the hideous and dingy brick edifices of the thoroughfare
in which she dwelt; and when roused therefrom by the little maid of
all work, she gazed at her with a somewhat dazed expression.
'What is it, Ellen?' she asked.
'A gentleman, miss, wishes to see you.'
Alarm--dread, she knew not of what, was her first idea now.
'Who is he?' she asked.
'I don't know, miss.'
'Is he old or young?'
'Young.'
'Then he can't be the vicar?'
'Oh, lawk, no, miss, he ain't a bit like a clergyman,' replied the
housemaid, laughing.
'Ask his business, Ellen.'
She was almost relapsing into her dream again, when she was startled
by seeing a man appear beside her.
'Dulcie?' said a voice, that made her heart thrill.
She sprang up to find herself confronted by a gentleman, whose face,
though thin and worn, seemed deeply tanned by the sun, so that his
scorched neck was absolutely red; his dark moustache was thick and
heavy, his shoulders broad and square.
'Dearest Dulcie, don't you know me?' said he, holding out his hands
and arms.
'Florian--is this you--really you?'
'I thought you would not quite forget me.'
'Forget you!' said Dulcie, in a low and piercing voice, as she fell
upon his breast, and his loving arms went closely round her.
'Oh, Florian, I did not know you were in England!'
'We were landed at Plymouth three days ago. I got your address from
good old Paul Pentreath, procured leave of absence, and came on here
without a moment's delay, my own darling.'
For some minutes neither could find words to speak, so supreme was
the mutual happiness of the sudden reunion.
'How brown you are! but how thin, and how much older you look!' said
Dulcie, surveying him with bright but tearful eyes. 'I can scarcely
believe you to be the same Florian that left me only a year ago or
so.'
'Ay, Dulcie, pet; but soldiering, especially soldiering in the ranks,
takes a lot out of a fellow. But I am the same Florian that left you
then, with a heavy and hopeless heart indeed.'
'And now----'
'Now I shall leave you no more.'
'What dreadful places you must have been in, Florian; what dangers
you have faced; what sufferings undergone, my love!'
'The thought of you lightened and brightened them all to me, Dulcie,'
said he, while into her bright little English face came that
wonderful and adoring smile only possible on the lips and in the eyes
of a woman who is in love, and for the object of her love.
She told him of her simple plans and humble prospects, of her hope in
the vicar, why she had left Craigengowan, and how she came to be in
that poor and cheap lodging-room near Oxford Street.
'We must not lose sight of each other now, my darling,' said he, as
she nestled her face on his breast. 'Let us get married at once,
love, and then it must be service in India for me. Are you ready to
face heat, it may be fever, and Heaven knows what more, Dulcie?'
'Every peril, if with you!'
'My brave little soldier's wife! But suppose we grow tired of each
other?'
'You wicked wag!--why think of such a thing?'
'Married folks do sometimes,' said he, laughing.
'Then we should part--I would run away.'
'As a preliminary to that we must be united, Dulcie; so when will you
be ready to marry me?'
'Oh, Florian!'
'You must say--we have little time to lose.'
'I have no trousseau to get--and no money for it--we are so poor,
Florian.'
'But rich in love--well then--when?'
'I don't know,' was the shy, coy answer.
'This day three weeks--I can afford even a special license, Dulcie.'
'So be it, dear Florian.'
'Then I shall write to good old Paul Pentreath about it, and then we
must resolutely think of turning our steps to India. We could not
afford to live at home.'
Their little plans--little, though of vast importance to them--were
all arranged, and discussed so sweetly, so lovingly, again and again,
and at last he left her for his hotel, which was not far off, in
Oxford Street, with a promise to call for her again betimes on the
morrow; and to Dulcie it seemed as if the sun had come with a
glorious burst of radiance at last into the cloudy atmosphere of her
life; that joy had come with it; and that, sorrow and tears--save
those of happiness--had gone for ever.
So, in three weeks the life of Dulcie Carlyon would be over; and the
life of Dulcie MacIan would begin.
Dulcie MacIan--how odd it seemed to sound!
And so, at the appointed time, Mr. Paul Pentreath, summoned to London
for the special occasion, tied the 'fatal knot' of the matrimonial
noose for these two young people; and Dulcie, as in a dream, heard
him ask:
'Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband, to live together
after God's ordinance, in the holy estate of matrimony?'
And in a clear and confident tone little Dulcie said, 'I will,' as
she loved, frankly--loved 'as a fair honest English maiden may with
her heart on her lips, and all her soul shining out of her truthful
eyes.'
So the marriage passed quietly; there were no lawyers, dressmakers,
outfitters, and all those other folks who never keep time; no
attendants, save Dulcie's landlady, the clerk, and honest Tom
Tyrrell, whose 'time being out,' contrived to turn up about this
crisis to wish, with all the ardour of his gallant heart, his whilom
comrade and officer, with his fair young bride, 'God speed;' and
after a quiet little honeymoon at Richmond--no further off--Florian
set forth to the Horse Guards for the purpose of effecting an
exchange to a regiment in India; but a letter that came to him
altered all his views and plans.
It was from Mr. Kenneth Kippilaw, W.S., who had seen the marriage
announced in a public print, and had written at once to Florian and
to Lord Fettercairn.
When Abou Hassan, the merchant of Bagdad, woke up on that remarkable
morning, and he found himself in the palace of Haroun al Raschid, and
treated as the latter by all the beautiful ladies of the Court, and
the black slaves around his couch, he was scarcely more astonished
than our poor Lieutenant of Infantry, when he found himself to be the
heir of Craigengowan and Fettercairn!
He then knew all about Shafto's villainy, yet in the gentleness of
his spirit he joined with Dulcie in saying:
'Poor creature! God help and forgive him, as freely as I do.'
Sooth to say, Dulcie was perhaps less astonished on finding Florian
was the true heir; she had ever thought there was some mystery in the
new position and new relationship, so suddenly assumed by the wily
Shafto, whose tissue of falsehoods had, as usual in such cases,
broken down by an unthought-of point.
Amid the sudden splendour of his prospects, such was his simplicity
of character, that one of Florian's first thoughts was of a cosy
cottage at Craigengowan for his comrade Tom Tyrrell!
The news spread like wildfire through all the Mearns, Angus, and
everywhere else. It proved a great godsend, and the vicinity of
Inverbervie was besieged by folks connected with the press, all eager
to glean the last authentic information from Craigengowan, and even
Grapeston, the butler, and MacCrupper, the head groom, were
interviewed and treated--the former with wine, and the latter
copiously with whisky and water--on the subject.
To Lady Fettercairn the marriage of Florian proved, of course, a
cause of bitter mortification.
'Another mesalliance--like father, like son!' she exclaimed; 'now
indeed we shall be associated with Freethinkers, franchise folks,
dynamiters, and all kinds of dreadful people!' she wailed out.
The first alleged and hurriedly accepted heir had proved a ruinous
blackleg; the second and true one was Flora MacIan's son beyond all
doubt--a gallant young fellow, who had 'gone through the ranks to a
commission!' but, alas! he had married Dulcie Carlyon--the Devonshire
lawyer's daughter--her 'companion,' whom she had treated with no
small contumely at Craigengowan, where she was now to be welcomed as
a bride and the future Lady Fettercairn!
It was all too much for the aristocratic brain of the present holder
of that rank.
She sat in her boudoir at Craigengowan; it was small, but wonderfully
pretty; the chairs were all of ivory and gilt; the walls hung with
pale blue silk, embroidered with flowers; and she thought ruefully of
the time when--if her Lord predeceased her--she would have to quit
all that, and take up her abode at Finella Lodge, the humble
dower-house--giving place to Dulcie Carlyon. It was all too horrible
to think of!
But the couple were coming, and already she could hear the distant
cheers of the tenantry.
Several young ladies--among them the daughters of Mr. Kippilaw--were
seated about the room in expectation and in lounging attitudes, their
garden bonnets or riding habits showing how they had been recently
occupied.
A distant sound--was it of carriage-wheels--made her lapdog bark.
'Down, Snap--be quiet,' said Lady Fettercairn with more asperity than
was her wont to that plethoric and pampered cur.
The volunteers were under arms on the lawn to salute Florian Melfort
as a hero from Zululand; and a salute to his bride was boomed forth
from an old battery of 6-pounders on the terrace; a banner was
flaunting on the old tower, above all the vanes and turrets; bells
were clashing in the distant kirk spire, and the cheers of the
Craigengowan tenantry rang up amid the ancient trees in welcome to
the heir of Fettercairn and his winsome young wife.
Lord Fettercairn received them at the door with what grace he might;
but the hands of many others were held forth to him, among others
those of old Kenneth Kippilaw, Madelon Galbraith, the aged butler,
and Sandy MacCrupper.
All shadows had fled away, and the bright sunshine of heaven was over
Craigengowan and in the hearts of all there.
Even Lady Fettercairn, when she met Florian and saw how like her
youngest son and his portrait he looked, felt all that she had of a
mother's heart go forth to him as it had never done to the vanished
Shafto; while Florian, modest and gentle Florian, whose heart had
never quailed before the enemy, now felt, as he said to Dulcie,
somewhat 'dashed' on being confronted by this tall and aristocratic
grandmother amid such splendid surroundings.
Dulcie recalled with wonder the humble position she had held at
Craigengowan, and the many fears and mortifications to which she had
been subjected by Lady Fettercairn and Shafto till the eventful
morning of her flight, and how strange it seemed to her to be able to
act as guide and cicerone over his own patrimony to Florian, and to
show him that she was quite at home in that hitherto unknown land to
him--the Howe of the Mearns!
And in a week or two more Finella and Hammersley were coming thither
on their honeymoon trip.
THE END.
BILLING & SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.