UNCLE RAYMOND'S WILL.
'Marriage, indeed!' exclaimed Olive Raymond, 'it will be time enough
to speak of that when this "laggard in love," your brother, turns up
here at Dundargue. Besides, all women don't marry, so why should I?'
'Most pretty ones do, and marry you must!' replied, with a merry
little laugh, Eveline Graham, the sole daughter of the house of
Aberfeldie, to her English cousin, as she usually called her.
'Such stuff all this is! Does not the author of "The Red Rag" say
that "if there is a circumstance calculated to breed mutual
detestation in the minds of two young people, it is the knowledge
that their respective parents have destined them for each other!"'
'How readily you quote,' said Eveline.
'Because I have the subject at heart.'
They were posed like a couple of Du Maurier's fashionable girls, and
were leisurely sipping afternoon tea at a pretty Chippendale table
from an exquisite Wedgwood service, and, for freedom to gossip, had
dispensed with all attendance.
Both the cousins were handsome girls, whose bearded, belted, and
corsletted ancestors--portraits of whom hung on the walls, and who
had often
'Carved at the meal with gloves of steel,'
in that same Castle of Dundargue--would have regarded such a repast
and such a beverage as 'afternoon tea' with no small wonder, and,
perhaps, disgust.
Eveline Graham was very softly featured and slender in figure; but
Olive Raymond, who was the taller of the two, was more fully
developed, yet looked slim as a Greek goddess in a dress of deep blue
that became her pure complexion and rich brown hair, with only a tiny
bouquet of white flowers in the brooch at her bosom, and a multitude
of silver bangles--emblems of conquest, perhaps--like silver fetters,
on her slender and snowy wrists. She was fair and colourless, with
dark grey violet eyes that looked black under their jetty fringes at
night.
Eveline was more dazzlingly fair, but more _petite_, with soft, hazel
eyes, and bright, brown hair that was shot with gold. She had
exquisite hands and feet, and though _petite_, as we say, and
slender, she had a peculiar grace and dignity of manner that only
required a brocade-dress, ruff, and long stomacher to make her like
one of her stately 'forbears,' whose portraits by Jameson were in the
room in which she sat--a modern portion of the grim old Castle of
Dundargue, the aspect and construction of which edifice were very
different from those of the additions that had been made to it in
later times.
And as the girls sit there, in the tempered light of the afternoon
sun streaming through the French windows that open to a stately
balustraded terrace, and sip their tea leisurely, their conversation
will throw some light upon the past, and perhaps the future, of
certain of our _dramatis personæ_.
'When Allan returns--'began Eveline.
'Oh, don't talk to me again of Allan!' interrupted Olive Raymond,
with a petulant toss of her pretty head, 'or I will begin to tease
you about Stratherroch.'
'How?' asked Eveline, colouring perceptibly.
'He loves you--and you know he does.'
'Yes,' said Eveline, as a soft smile stole over her mignonne face; 'I
cannot doubt it, though no word from which I could infer it has ever
escaped his lips; but poor Cameron has little more than his pay. His
paternal acres are mortgaged to the full--even the shootings and
fishings, believe, don't come to him. I heard papa express to mamma
his surprise that Cameron could "pull through," as he phrased it;
that he would have no ineligibles in future dangling about me, and
that--as I have nothing--I must marry _money_! That was the
word--oh, how selfish it sounds, and how hateful!' added the girl,
while her rosy little nether lip quivered. 'Poor Evan!' she
murmured, dreamily; and as she uttered his name her voice, which was
soft even as Cordelia's, became like that of Annie Laurie, 'low and
sweet.'
'Ineligibles!' said her cousin; 'and yet he invited here Mr.
Holcroft, who is well-nigh penniless, and against whose attentions
Aunt Aberfeldie specially warned me.'
'In the interests of Allan, of course.'
'Allan--absurd!' exclaimed Olive, shrugging her handsome shoulders.
'You all seem to forget that he can only remember me as a little
girl.'
'Still you are his _fiancée_.'
'In a manner of way.'
'Distinctly so, if the tenor of your papa's will is to be observed.'
'Then I think he might have had some curiosity about me, instead of
spending days at that stupid deer-forest. For all he knows, I might
have been a veritable fright!' added Olive, with growing pique, as
she glanced at the reflection of her own beautiful self in an
adjacent console-mirror. 'If he thinks that, as Master of
Aberfeldie, he has only to come and see, and conquer, I shall teach
him that he is very much mistaken.'
'Olive--how can you talk thus?' expostulated soft little Eveline;
'his delay is probably all papa's fault.'
'I am sure that I shall hate him then!'
'Query?' said Eveline, with a saucy smile on her lovely lips.
'There is no query in this case,' persisted Olive, as she set down
her cup with a jerk; for in her spirit of freedom there was at times
a curious but unexpressed antagonism in her heart to the family of
Aberfeldie, as if she felt herself somewhat in their power, and even
to her own disadvantage, and this spirit, which Holcroft was not slow
to discover, had rather encouraged his hopes.
'He will be sure to love you, at all events, Olive dear, if he has
any sense or power of observation at all--you are so pretty--nay, so
charming.'
'Any fool may love a pretty face, and generally does so.'
'But you possess much more than a pretty face, Olive.'
'Yes--the fortune which I am to share with him ere my twenty-fifth
year.'
'Or, if you refuse----'
'One half of it goes to him, and the other, or nearly so, to
charitable institutions,' exclaimed Olive, her sweet face paling with
absolute anger.
'He will love you for yourself alone, I am assured,' persisted
Eveline, in defence of her brother. 'You are beautiful, Cousin
Olive; you ride, row, dance, play lawn-tennis, and flirt to
perfection. Are not all these qualities calculated to excite
admiration in a young officer; and then, more than all, you have such
dear, funny ways with you.' And the warm-hearted girl concluded by
laughing and kissing her cousin on both cheeks effusively.
The tenor of this remarkable will, which has been referred to more
than once, was, to say the least of it, peculiar.
Some years before this period, Olive Raymond arrived at Dundargue an
orphan, left in charge of Lord Aberfeldie--the child of his only
sister, Muriel Graham, who had married a Mr. Raymond, a poor man,
whom means furnished by the Aberfeldie family enabled to become one
of the wealthiest planters in Jamaica. Both her parents had died
early, and after her location at Dundargue she became a species of
sister to Eveline and Allan Graham.
Happy, indeed, was Olive alike in her Scottish home in the lovely
Carse of Gowrie, and when the family took up their abode, according
to the season or the sitting of Parliament, at their West-end
residence in London.
By will, Mr. Oliver Raymond left his entire fortune, which was very
considerable, to his daughter; but, in gratitude to the family of his
wife, on the strange condition that she was to marry his nephew,
Allan Graham, whose death alone was to free her from that
contingency. If she unreasonably refused, then, in that case, after
her twenty-fifth year, she was to forfeit all that would accrue to
her, save a very slender allowance--the share so forfeited to become
the inheritance of her cousin Allan; and if _he_ declined to wed his
cousin Olive, then, in _that_ case, the money so forfeited was to go
to such Scottish charitable institutions as Lord Aberfeldie and the
other trustees might select.
This will was, undoubtedly, a strange one; but then Mr. Raymond had
been a strange and eccentric man, animated by an intense regard and
esteem for the family of his deceased wife, the Grahams of
Aberfeldie, to whom he felt all his good fortune had been due.
As children, the tenor of this tyrannical will in no way affected the
relations of Olive and Allan with each other; and the latter--a manly
and sturdy lad, when at home from the College of Glenalmond, where he
pursued his studies and cultivated cricket, boxing, and
football--petted and made much of the violet-eyed and brown-haired
little cousin, who had dropped among them as if from the clouds; but
after he had joined the Black Watch as a subaltern, and years passed
on, and they began to be talked of and deemed in the family circle as
an engaged couple, betrothed, affianced, and all the rest of it, the
young beauty and heiress began to resent the terms of the will
bitterly, perhaps not unreasonably; she became, as we have said,
antagonistic, and was perplexed to think that her father could not
have foreseen some difficulties on the part of his two legatees.
Thus, as they both grew older, she seldom replied to the letters
which Allan wrote to her, by his parents' desire, perhaps, rather
than his own, till he ceased to write to her at all, on which she
became severely piqued; and once when she was a little way on in her
'teens,' and when Allan was at home for a very brief period before
departing to India, she treated him with an indifference--almost
animosity--that made him deem the girl wayward, cold-hearted, even
purse-proud, and everything unpleasant; and with this fatal
impression he rejoined the Black Watch, and amid many a flirtation
might soon have forgotten the heiress that was growing up for him at
Dundargue, but for the letters he received from thence, and in which
ample references to her and her beauty and accomplishments were never
omitted; while she, on the other hand, when she became of a
marriageable age, seldom ceased to stigmatise the will as outrageous,
indelicate, grotesque, and unjust. And now that her cousin Allan was
coming home--nay, _had_ come home--for a protracted period on leave
of absence, she felt that a crisis was at hand in her fate--a crisis
in which she, like a hunted creature, knew not how to escape.
'Yes, Allan will soon learn to love you for your own sake,' returned
the gentle Eveline, after a pause.
'How can I ever be certain of that? Oh, I owe little indeed to papa,
who by such a will as his seeks to degrade both your brother and
myself,' replied Olive.
'Degrade!' exclaimed Eveline, her hazel eyes distending.
'Yes--by forcing us into a marriage on one hand, or to accepting
starvation on the other.'
'Starvation!--such strong language, Olive,' said Eveline, in a tone
of rebuke.
Of the alleged tie that bound her to Allan Graham, and of the latter
himself, personally, she had never thought so seriously as she had
done of _late_; and, truth to tell, in the opportunities afforded by
mutual residence in a country house--that great rambling castle
especially--Mr. Hawke Holcroft, by his subtle attentions when no one
else was near, had begun to interest her more than Lord or Lady
Aberfeldie could have relished or conceived; and to her it seemed
that for some time back at Dundargue (continuing a sentiment he had
striven to rouse during a past season in London) his eyes bad been
telling in imploring and passionate glances what his lips had not yet
the audacity to utter; but then the girl was young, enthusiastic,
impressionable, and far from insensible to admiration and flattery.
Though she did not and could not regard Allan Graham as a lover, and
disliked thus to view him in the light of her intended husband,
circumstances now compelled her to _think_ of him; and though she
remembered him chiefly as the playmate of her childhood, she was
piqued that he seemed in no haste to meet and see her, but instead
had openly manifested, as she thought, indifference and lack of
interest or curiosity, by shooting at Aberfeldie Lodge for days.
Thus pique made her not indisposed to encourage the attention of
others, especially of Hawke Holcroft, as we shall show, when he
returned to Dundargue before his departure for London.
Olive Raymond in her pride of heart bitterly resented the tenor of
her father's will. She knew that by the chances of war, climate, and
foreign service generally, she might never have seen her cousin
again; but now the inevitable seemed at hand, and she felt herself in
a measure set apart for him as fairly as if she had personally
betrothed herself; but was she to be bound, while he was absolutely
free? And stories she had heard--some of them artfully and casually
dropped by Holcroft--of more than one flirtation at Chatham and
elsewhere, added to the pique in which she was indulging.
Lady Aberfeldie now came in through one of the open French windows
for her cup of afternoon tea, with a bright scarlet shawl loosely
floating over her handsome head and shapely shoulders, quitting the
terrace, where she had been amusing herself by feeding the peacocks.
She was looking unusually radiant as she announced that Angus, the
young keeper, had just come from the shooting lodge to inform her
that the Master would be home that afternoon, and that his rooms must
be put in order for him without delay.
So, on hearing this, the wilful Olive resolved to pay a protracted
visit elsewhere, and to be absent when he did arrive.
No woman understood the art of dressing better than Lady Aberfeldie,
and well was she aware how truly a dainty maize or a coral colour
with rich black lace trimmings became her brunette tints, her dark
hair and eyes, her pure, yet slightly olive complexion. Her whole
air was graceful and queenly, as befitted one who was always to 'walk
in silk attire.'
Lady Aberfeldie never forgot that she had been the belle of three
seasons in Belgravia, and an heiress to the boot, though the memories
of others might be less retentive; and now, in her fortieth year, she
was a very handsome blooming woman still.
'We must have some dinners and no end of dances and lawn-tennis
parties, mamma, in honour of Allan's return,' said Eveline, as she
assisted her mother to tea.
'Thank God, my dear boy is home--home again--and safe at last--after
all he has faced and undergone,' said Lady Aberfeldie, with a bright
and fond expression in her fine face. 'Why, it seems but yesterday,
Olive, that you and he were little chits playing together on the lawn
or at Nannie's knee--when you had rag dolls, and used to sing
together of the old woman that lived in a shoe, or "High upon
Highlands and low upon Tay," or of
"Alexander, King of Macedon,
Who conquered the world but Scotland alone;
When he came to Scotland his courage grew cold,
To find a little nation courageous and bold,
So stout and so bold--"
You remember the nursery song, Olive?'
'I have forgotten it, aunt.'
'Then I hope you will remember in its place the adage----'
'What adage?' interrupted Olive sharply.
'That a good son makes a good husband,' said Lady Aberfeldie, archly,
and laughing as she tapped her niece's soft cheek with her teaspoon.
'Adages are not to my taste, aunt.'
'Child, what makes you seem so cross to-day?'
'The weather, perhaps,' suggested Eveline.
But Olive, who had rather a mutinous expression in her soft face,
remained silent.
'This is bad form in our day of joy,' said Lady Aberfeldie, who had
been eyeing her closely. 'In society well-bred people always control
their emotions--their feelings.'
'Easy enough for them, aunt.'
'How?'
'Because they have seldom any feelings to control.'
And to prevent more being said with reference to Allan--a subject she
dreaded--Olive Raymond withdrew.