OLIVE AND ALLAN.
A few days had now passed since Allan Graham's return to Dundargue,
but he seemed--though greatly attracted by his cousin Olive, and in a
manner compelled to think of her as something more than a mere
cousin--to make no progress in her favour at all. Sometimes he
smoked beside her in utter silence, while she swung in a hammock
between two trees on the lawn, deep--or affecting to be so--in the
last three-volume novel that had come in the box from Edinburgh; and,
when they stole furtive glances at each other, his were curious and
hers, under the shadow of her gorgeous Japanese umbrella, were
hostile, defiant at least, and thus not without a certain drollery;
but few remarks were interchanged of a more exciting nature than that
'the weather was lovely,' or 'the leaves were falling.'
In these days, and for long after, Olive was terribly uncertain in
her moods, and to Allan Graham it seemed at times as if she almost
disliked him.
When they were alone together, which was seldom, she scarcely spoke
to him, and thus his enforced silence disposed her to be more silent
still. To Olive the whole situation was one of miserable unrest; she
felt that there was something grotesque in it, and she longed
intensely to be anywhere else than at Dundargue.
While Allan, admiring her rare beauty and pretty, petulant ways, was
already learning to love her, he found his tongue loaded, as it were,
tied up, and his tenderness cramped by the strange tenor of her
father's will, which made him feel that, love her as he might, that
love would never seem pure, or without the taint of selfishness.
He had procured for her at Malta a complete suite of gold and
pearl-mounted Maltese jewellery, the best that could be found in the
Strada San Paoli, costing him more than even he could well afford;
but now so cold and repellant was her demeanour that he had not the
courage as yet to present the elaborate trinkets--so rich in fretwork
and fine as a gossamer web--so they were left to repose in their
purple velvet cases.
Yet his thoughts about her were becoming persistent now. Times there
were when he conceived that he would treat her judiciously, but
tenderly, and in such a fashion that her feelings must slide into a
species of sisterly, or at least cousinly, interest in him; but
then--at these times--a flash of her dark grey-blue eyes cast these
intentions to the winds, though Allan began to feel nothing but
passionate love for her.
To him, as to her, the situation imparted an awkwardness now, that of
course he had never been conscious of when a boy. He did not want
the money of his cousin or of anyone else, as he muttered to himself
while tugging and twisting his thick, dark moustache; and thus, with
all the tenderness that was growing in his heart for Olive, he often
unconsciously adopted towards her a studied courtesy and almost
indifferent bearing that somewhat galled her ready pride, and made
her think 'this indifference to me, and the beauty all men aver I
possess, can only spring from a love he bears some one else; and,
with that love in his heart, he seems actually ready to conform to
the outrageous wishes of papa!'
And more convinced of this suspicion did she become when she found
that he evinced no more desire to seek her society than that of his
mother or sister; but this was the result of her own bearing.
Allan was ere long in sore perplexity. The slightest attempt at
tenderness she repelled or seemed to shrink from, as a sensitive
plant shrinks from the touch; and, on the other hand, the lack of it
seemed to increase her coldness and rouse her sense of pride.
'What the deuce is the meaning of this?' muttered Allan, as he
chanced upon a volume one day. It was a very handsome and expensive
edition of some of Byron's poems, which had been given by Hawke
Holcroft to Olive as a birthday gift, and on turning over the leaves
of which he found innumerable paragraphs and lines pencilled on pages
that seemed to fall naturally open, where these marks, all of which
referred to love and passion, were most plentiful.
All of these seemed to have been selected with an ulterior view for
her perusal and study. Allan knit his brows and tossed the volume to
the other side of the table.
'So, so,' thought he, 'Cousin Olive has had a guide for her reading,
and the guide is that fellow Holcroft. He has made good use of his
time, hang him!'
Olive, who had been watching him under the deep fringes of her eyes,
smiled when she saw the action, and, instantly divining the reason of
it, resolved not to leave her Byron lying about in future; and now a
new mood seized her.
'Tell me, Allan,' she said, suddenly looking up from a piece of music
she was studying, 'did you ever think of me at all when you were all
these years far away in India?'
'Have you forgotten what I told you on the evening we met on the
lawn?' said he, reproachfully, yet surprised by her taking the
initiative in a conversation, especially of this kind. 'Often,
indeed, did I think of you!'
'How--in what fashion?'
'As my merry little playmate when I was a mere youth--the droll girl
to whom I was somehow tied up under Uncle Raymond's will.'
'You phrase it rightly,' said she, biting her coral nether lip.
'Tied up; yes, but I won't be so. Yet you did think of me as a droll
little playmate?'
'Yes; how else could I think of you? Not as the lovely girl I find
you now, Olive.'
'You may know by this time that I hate all flattery,' said she,
blushing hotly at what she had brought upon herself by a blunt
reference to a hitherto ignored subject--their mutual relation to
each other.
'I have here a gift I brought you from India,' observed Allan,
timidly, as he unlocked his desk and thought of the Maltese
ornaments, but did not dare refer to them as yet.
'A gift?' said she, coldly, with face half averted.
'A little silver idol of Siva, beautifully carved and chased--will
you accept of it?'
'Thanks--with pleasure,' said she, trembling lest it had been a ring.
'How curious, and yet how grotesquely hideous it is!' she added,
turning it round, and then balancing it in the white palm of a slim
and delicate hand.
'And rather a curious story attends it--if you care to hear.'
'Please to tell me,' said she, her curiosity roused. 'Why, the funny
thing has ever so many heads, and a dozen of arms at least!'
'We were in cantonments at Hurdwur, in Delhi,' said Allan, glad to
secure her attention even for a few minutes, 'when a subadar-major of
the 10th Native Infantry, a disciple of Siva, wishing to sacrifice to
his little idol, placed it by the bank of the river there, which is
one of the greatest places for Hindoo purification, and the resort of
thousands of pilgrims from every part of Hindostan. While he turned
aside to get the ghee with which to anoint it, some person adroitly
carried it off. After searching for it in vain, with consternation
in his soul, the unfortunate subadar-major went to the priest of the
nearest temple, and, with tears in his eyes, related his loss.
'"Dog!" exclaimed the priest, "you have lost your god, and must
prepare to die, for death alone can soothe the wrath of Siva."
'"If die I must," replied the wretched subadar-major, with clasped
hands and trembling knees, though a brave man, as the medals on his
breast proved, "it shall be by drowning in the holy river; so come
with me to the edge thereof, and give me your blessing."
'The priest consented, and followed him to the Ganges, into which he
went deliberately.
'"Be courageous, my son--die with joy, and perfect happiness awaits
you," exclaimed the priest.
'"My dear master," said the subadar, "before I perish, lend me _your_
god that I may adore it--the water is already up to my neck."
'The priest consented, and handed his idol to the subadar-major, who,
as if by accident, let it drop in the deep water.
'"Ah! master," he exclaimed, as if in horror and dismay, "what a new
misfortune! Your god is also lost, and so we must die together--for
you must drown, too, and go with me to the throne of Siva!"
'And, approaching the priest, he strove to grasp the hand of the
latter, who stood pale and trembling on the lowest step of the ghaut
or landing-place.
'"What trash do you speak?" the priest suddenly exclaimed, in great
wrath; "can there be any harm in losing a little image of baked clay,
not worth an anna! I have dozens of such in my temple close by; let
us each choose one, and keep silence on the subject!"
'The subadar did so then, but chose this fine silver one, which he
bestowed on me for kindness shown to him when dying of a wound
received in a skirmish, and I brought it home as a bauble for you,
Cousin Olive.'
She placed the idol on the table, and remained silent, while Allan
eyed her wistfully.
'Why is my presence so distasteful to you?' he asked, after a
minute's pause.
'Distasteful! Oh! Allan, don't say so,' said she, impressed by the
pathos of his tone, but for a moment only; 'it is you who think, or
seem to think so.'
'Olive!' he exclaimed, a little impatiently and reproachfully as he
drew near her.
'There--there--that will do,' said she, starting up, 'don't bring
down the ceiling on me--auntie more than all!'
And she swept from the room, leaving the idol behind her.
Allan sighed with annoyance, and addressed her no more during the
whole of that day. She was conscious of this, for she remarked to
Lady Aberfeldie in the evening,
'How odd--how strange Cousin Allan is to me!'
'Strange?'
'Yes, aunt.'
'I know not what you mean, Olive,' she replied, a little gravely and
severely; 'but to me it seems that you are always strange, and not my
son, the Master.'
Lady Aberfeldie had a soft, but set face of the classic type, with a
mouth that, though beautiful and aristocratic, could become very
fixed in expression at times, and it seemed so now to Olive, thus
that young lady withdrew.
'Our Allan is young and handsome, noble and most unselfishly in love
with her, as I am beginning to hope, Eveline, so what more would
Olive Raymond wish for?' said Lady Aberfeldie to her daughter.
'She would have that, which she has not, mamma, perfect freedom to
accept or refuse whom she chose. Unselfish in love I know Allan must
be; but that is precisely the point which Olive is left to doubt.'
'Wherefore?'
'Through that unlucky will, which makes a kind of bondswoman of her.'
'I would to heaven the silly document had never been framed! I have
often feared that it might lead to all our attention, care, and
affection being misconstrued by her; but Allan might have been
sickly, weakly, even deformed, and, with the terms of this will
hanging over her, what would she have thought then?'
'Then, as I have heard her say, the will might be reduced by a court
of law.'
At this reply a clouded expression came into the fair, colourless
face of Lady Aberfeldie, but just then a servant in the Graham
livery, yellow and black, approached with a note on a salver.
'From papa!' she said, while cutting it open with a mother-of-pearl
knife. 'Just a line or two to say he will be home in a couple of
days, and is certainly bringing with him Mr. Hawke Holcroft, "the son
of his old friend," and that other young detrimental, Stratherroch.
He is well-nigh penniless, but, with your papa, to be in the Black
Watch is quite equal to a patent of nobility.'
Eveline felt her colour fade, while a sad expression stole over her
soft face, and her mother, after glancing at her narrowly, added,
'He also brings our wealthy friend, Sir Paget Puddicombe, the M.P.
for Slough-cum-Sloggit, in Yorkshire. You remember him in London
last season, and how much he admired you, dear?'
Eveline _did_ remember him, and how the rich but elderly baronet's
attentions, encouraged by her parents, were the ridicule of her girl
friends and the bane of her existence; yet she only sighed and
remained silent, and, passing through a French window, quitted the
drawing-room to join her brother, who was smoking a cigar on the
terrace, and teasing the peacocks as they sat on the stately
balustrade.
He was in rather a similar mood. He felt the demeanour of Olive
after the little episode of the idol keenly, and, remembering the
pencilled Byron, was, of course, inclined to connect Hawke Holcroft
with that demeanour; so he had certainly become, for a time, cold and
constrained in manner to his cousin.
'When was that photo of Olive done?' he asked, rather abruptly.
'The one in the ball dress?'
'Yes.'
'When we were last in Edinburgh; but I do not remember where the
studio was.'
'She gave one to that Mr. Holcroft.'
'I was quite unaware that she did so,' said Eveline, with some
annoyance of manner.
'Look here, Eve, if, when in London,' grumbled Allan, 'she shies her
photos about in this fashion they will soon be in every fellow's
possession, and we may, ere long, expect to find them, like those of
professional beauties, on glove and match-boxes.'
'What a funny and horrid idea!' said his sister, passing her arm
through his and nestling her head on his shoulder, while he,
stooping, kissed her _mignonne_ face with a smiling caress.
'There is nothing funny about it,' he replied, though, like her, he
could little foresee the trouble that unlucky photograph was to cost
in the future. 'And, to say the least of it, Olive treats me with
almost hostility at times.'
'She does not conceal from me a resentment at her lack of free will.'
'As for Uncle Raymond's arrangements, I would to goodness that he had
left all he had to his old housekeeper and her infernal screeching
cockatoo with the yellow tuft.'
'Certainly Olive does not seem to be the kind of girl to be disposed
of against her wish, Allan; you may read that in the firm tread of
her little feet, in the carriage of her head, and the perfect
possession of her manner.'
'But surely she may be won--though she will not understand me.'
'I hope she will ere long; but is there not a writer who says, Allan,
that while the world lasts the difficulty of women understanding and
making allowance for the feelings of men in what pertains to love,
"will be probably one of the great sources of darkness and confusion
in the social arrangement of things."'
'What a dear little casuist it is,' said he, as she raised her
_petite_ figure on tip-toe to kiss his well-tanned cheek; 'but,' he
added, 'I am in a state of great uncertainty.'
'Uncertainty can always be ended; but then perhaps how bitterly--how
very bitterly,' replied Eveline, who was not without some harrowing
thoughts of her own; and something in her tone caused Allan to regard
her soft hazel eyes, and sweet, shy face, with tenderness and inquiry.
'Of what are you thinking, or of--_whom_?' he whispered, as his arm
went caressing round her, and he stroked her bright, sheeny hair.
'I may trust you, Allan?' she said, in a broken voice.
'To death, _petite_. You are thinking of--of Evan Cameron?'
Eveline sobbed now.
'Has he spoken of love to you?' asked Allan, in a low voice, and with
a troubled expression in his face.
'Never; he knows it would be hopeless,' she replied, huskily.
'Poor Evan! and the governor is bringing him again--a grand mistake!
How the deuce is all this to end with us? But don't sob so, my
little darling,' he added, as he drew her closer to him.
Yet, despite her brother's sympathy and tenderness, Eveline Graham
let her tears flow freely, and he promised to keep her secret that
she and Evan Cameron cherished an unspoken and hopeless love for each
other; and in a brief space they were to meet again!
Meanwhile, though somewhat relieved by having her brother for a
confidant, she was both restless and unhappy. She strolled upon the
terrace to feed the peacocks, or wandered listlessly in the garden,
going from occupation to occupation, taking up a book--one of Mudie's
last--only to toss it aside; seated herself before the piano, rose
then and left it. Anon she resorted to her sketching-block, sorted
her colours, selected a brush, only to quit any attempt to work with
a hopeless sigh.