THE GOLDEN BANGLE.
A writer says 'there is the beauty of youth, and surely there is the
beauty of love, too,' and the latter certainly shone in the soft eyes
of Eveline Graham as she caracoled her horse in the homeward ride by
the side of young Cameron, and her eyes, which were ever the mystery
of that face, had now their sweetest smiles for him. She saw how his
face was lighted up, and was aware how his voice softened when he
addressed her as it softened to no other woman; and yet, withal,
though no word of love had passed between these two, right well did
they know the secret of each other's hearts; but poverty fettered his
tongue, and her parents' ambition and known wishes nearly repressed
all hope in the heart of Eveline.
With all her regard for her father she had a fear of him, and still
more so of her mother. All their prejudices were in favour of
wealth; but Evan Cameron appeared to her altogether so dear and
irresistible that she, poor girl, could not imagine anyone being
proof against him, and with this conviction, and the knowledge that
Allan loved him, she permitted herself occasionally to live in a kind
of fool's paradise, wherein Sir Paget Puddicombe had no part.
When her mother was not present, she played to Evan Cameron, and sang
his favourite songs; she showed him her drawings for hints and
suggestions, discussed her favourite books, and let him hang over her
chair; and at such times, though nothing of love was said, there was
a subtle tenderness in Cameron's eye and voice that made her
impulsive heart quicken, as no man's eye or voice had ever done
before, and young though she was, Eveline had heard more than one
declaration of love.
And now for a time he had the joy of having her all to himself, as
they contrived to distance the rest of their party.
But what availed it? Evan knew that, if once he passed beyond what
appeared to be the merest friendship, his visit to Dundargue might
come to a speedy end, and its hospitality could never be extended to
him again.
To Evan, Eveline Graham proved, if we may say so, a kind of
revelation after the rough life he had led of late years in
India--something from another world, as it were--and thus much of
adoration mingled with his love for her. If dying could have served
Eveline, there and then would Evan Cameron have died for her!
Whether such enthusiastic passion might last it was impossible to
say, but time may show.
We have referred to the quiet confidence of Sir Paget Puddicombe--a
confidence borne of his consciousness of wealth and assured position.
However, he was sharp enough to see to some extent how Cameron was
attracted by Eveline, and to feel how the latter preferred the young
subaltern's society to his own; but in a very short time he knew that
the 'detrimental,' as Lady Aberfeldie called him, would be again with
his regiment, the Black Watch, perhaps under orders for foreign
service; then he would have the course all to himself, and doubted
not, as Holcroft would have said, 'to win in a canter.'
Cameron thought the proverb right about there being no fool like an
old one; but then, every old fool had not Sir Paget's bank-book, and
the preference and influence of parents to back up his folly. But
with a handsome figure, and his V.C., how much more was Cameron like
the object of a young girl's eye than Sir Paget could ever be!
'It was in the Kurram Pass, in Afghanistan, that you gained the
Victoria Cross, Mr. Cameron?' said Eveline, breaking a pause in the
conversation, and shortening her reins, while he checked the pace of
his horse, and replied, with a pleased smile,
'Yes; but how do you know that, Miss Graham--from your brother, the
Master?'
'No.'
'I have never spoken of it.'
'I read it in the Army List,' replied Eveline, candidly, and to hear
her say so made the bronze cross of more value to him than the Garter
would have been.
She had read it, and committed the episode to heart too--how 'the
Queen had been graciously pleased to signify her intention of
conferring the decoration of the Victoria Cross' on Lieutenant Evan
Cameron, of the --th Foot, and now of the Black Watch, for a daring
act of bravery on a date given, when the retreating forces were
attacked by Afghans in great strength, the latter having pushed
forward upon the position at daybreak, and Lieutenant Cameron,
accompanied by only five soldiers, captured a nine-pounder gun,
shooting down or bayonetting all the gunners, and thus preventing the
destructive use of the piece, which he brought off with the loss of
one man, but in the conflict received three severe tulwar wounds.
Cameron was an enthusiast in his profession, and with outwardly the
air of a well-bred man of the world, and thoroughly so that of a
young Line officer, he had in his nature a deep sentiment of
nationality, of clanship, and Highland romance, with an intense pride
in his regiment. He had entertained Eveline often with sketches,
anecdotes, and traditions of the Black Watch, but of himself and his
V.C., of course, he never spoke.
'What a proud moment it must have been for you, when you knew that
you had won the cross!' said the girl, with a flush on her soft cheek.
Stirred in his soul by the interest she took in him, the great secret
of his heart was trembling on his lips, but he repressed it, and a
shadow came into his face and a wistfulness into his eyes.
'Prouder would I have been, Miss Graham,' said he, 'if--if--I----
'What?'
'I had then been known even by name to _you_?' he replied, in a low
voice, and with a manner there was no mistaking.
Nothing more was said then; yet they both felt, while eye met eye,
that their first words of love had been spoken.
More might, perhaps, have passed, as the subject could easily have
been enlarged on; but just then they were abruptly joined by Allan,
who came up at a trot and reined in his horse sharply by their side,
with a dark expression on his face, which Eveline thought augured ill
for his success with Olive, whom he had suddenly left in the care of
Mr. Hawke Holcroft.
After quitting the ruins, as Allan rode on by his cousin's side, his
memory had gone back to the days when she was a girl of some twelve
years or so--a bright-eyed hoyden, who could fish, even take a shot
from his gun, climb trees, eat apples right off the branch, play
marbles with him, grasp a trout darting in the burn under the long
yellow broom or purple brambles, and was his companion in many a
ramble and out-door frolic; and now inspired by that memory, the
scenery and beauty of the evening, he felt himself disposed to treat
with considerable tenderness the lovely girl he hoped to make yet his
own.
On the other hand, Olive cared little to please him, and for a time
she almost repelled, and yet by doing so she greatly lured and
attracted him.
The friendship of Allan and Olive was a source of some perplexity, if
not amusement, to Eveline Graham, but of irritation to her mother, to
whom they never seemed to act as lovers at all, unless in 'the Scots
fashion' of pouting and quarrelling.
To the eyes of all interested in the matter, it did not seem that she
cared for him in the least. She never altered a plan or hastened her
pace to meet him, or go where he might chance to be--in the library,
on the terrace smoking, or in any of the quaint corridors that
traversed the old house. She never adopted a dress, a ribbon, or
ornament to please his eye, though she sometimes did, coquettishly,
he thought, to flatter Hawke Holcroft; and even now, as they were
slowly traversing the dark, woody dell of the legend--the
_Coire-nan-Uriskin_--she was humming, half in warning, half in
waggery, Tennyson's song:
'She can both false and friendly be,
Beware! beware!
Trust her not, she is fooling thee!'
And yet, as she glanced at her soldierly cousin from time to time
under her long, dark lashes, she thought that, though he looked
stately in the kilt, he seldom looked better than now when in riding
costume, with the smartest of light grey cover coats.
The girl's mind vibrated curiously between her over-sensitive pride,
her wishes, her doubts, and half convictions.
If pique at her position in the family with Allan had made her
accept, with a certain degree of equanimity, the attentions of
Holcroft, she now began to feel a pleasure that she had not more
fully encouraged them.
At such moments as the present Allan felt that this fair girl, who
had ever been his friend--cherished as a sister--this sweet cousin
with the violet eyes and rich brown hair--was dear to him with a
tenderness to which he could scarcely give a name, unless it were
purest love; and she might have read it in his eyes, intense and
strong, but for that spirit of wilfulness which led her to
temporise--was it to tyrannise?--or play with it and him.
But may a girl really love a man till she is certain of being loved
in return? For Allan, baffled by her manner, had said nothing very
pointed as yet, as if he based all their future on her father's will;
and times there were when in pique he dropped his way of treating her
half playfully, half deferentially, and became absolutely cold.
In fact, the thoughts of Olive, apart from her jealous pride, were
somewhat difficult to analyse; but, as yet, she deemed that she could
only regard him with a kind of sisterly attention; while he, when not
irritated by the presence of Holcroft, would say to Eveline,
'When we are alone, and can slip back into our old memories, I shall
soon teach her to love me.'
'But meantime,' replied his sister, 'you are the most tiresome couple
in the world.'
'I wish Mr. Holcroft or some one else would join us,' said Olive,
looking round in her saddle.
'Why, it is always Mr. Holcroft!' exclaimed Allan.
'You are so provokingly silent. For more than a mile you have not
once spoken to me. It is stupid to be so _triste_! Surely there is
some one else whose society you prefer, or with whom you would be
more lively?'
'Olive!' said he, on hearing this blunt and pointed remark--both
curiously so for her. 'You are surely not jealous of anyone?' he
added.
'Jealous!' echoed the girl, with a strange but affected kind of lazy
scorn; 'why should I be so, and of _whom_?'
'Well may you ask, of whom could you be so?' replied Allan,
pointedly--so much so that she coloured; 'though I, of course, matter
little to you.'
'Allan, you are very wrong to say so,' said the girl, softly.
'Then I am not quite indifferent to you?' urged Allan, impulsively
now; 'you do care for me a little?'
'Certainly--a good deal, if it is any satisfaction to you; but
there--don't touch my bridle hand, or you will make my horse shy.
How can you be so tiresome!'
Allan sighed, and yet he regarded her, in her loveliness and
insouciance, with an expression just then of mingled amusement,
annoyance, and regard in his dark hazel eyes.
With all the love that had been growing in his heart for Olive, he
had been in no hurry to urge his suit, for, though impetuous by
nature, he could be reserved and cautious enough at times; but now
his heart flew to his head, and he said, bluntly,
'Dearest Olive, will you promise to love me--to marry me?'
'Why require any promise about the matter?' she replied, as all her
wilfulness returned; 'has not my father promised for me--bequeathed
me to you like a bale of goods, or condemned me to poverty!' she
added, with a bitter laugh on her lips that curled with anger. 'I
wonder that he did not order that I was to be locked up and fed on
bread and water till I gave my consent to marry you, or that I was to
be dropped into that oubliette which exists somewhere in Dundargue.'
'Cousin Olive,' said he, reproachfully, 'why this pride and doubt of
my purpose? You are as cruel as you are beautiful.'
'This is worse than anything you have ever said to me,' she cried,
with angry laughter still.
'Worse?'
'Yes, an attempt at gross straightforward compliment, as if I was a
girl at a railway buffet.'
'Don't you like to be complimented?'
'By some people--yes,' was the petulant reply.
'All the girls I have ever known have liked pretty, flattering
speeches.'
'But I am different, I hope, from most of the girls you have known.'
'By Jove you are!' replied the Master, twisting his moustache till he
made himself wince; 'but will I never be more to you than I am now?'
'Never more than my cousin--what would you desire to be? But here
comes Mr. Holcroft, to whom I certainly made no sign,' she added,
with some annoyance, as she thought of what had so lately passed
between them; and then, so variable was her emotion, that she laughed
as she thought--'Two proposals in one day, and both made in the
saddle too--how droll!'
Allan misinterpreted her silent laugh as a welcome to Holcroft, and
shrank from his own angry fears--they were not convictions yet--lest
he should adopt that meanest passion of the whole category--jealousy
without a just cause--jealousy of one inferior to him in social
position, and certainly in personal attractions.
When reduced to act cavalier to Miss Ruby Logan, who certainly did
not want him, Hawke Holcroft had looked darkly after the cousins as
they rode off together, and thought that nothing short of death would
prevent him from accomplishing the object he had now in view ere he
left Dundargue.
From something in the manner of the cousins, he--a close
observer--augured that Allan had not made his 'innings' with the
heiress, yet he cantered up to Allan's side, and said, smilingly to
Olive,
'May I smoke, Miss Raymond? The road is quite lonely, and if not
disagreeable to you----'
'Certainly,' said she, curtly.
'And I shall join you,' added Allan. 'Can you oblige me with a
light, Holcroft?'
Cigars were selected, and Holcroft handed his silver matchbox to
Allan, who, with a leap of his heart, though without changing colour
or a muscle of his dark and sunburned face, saw on his rival's wrist
his own gift sent from Delhi, the gold bangle, which Olive had,
perhaps, for the time forgotten, and on which was her own name in
raised Roman letters.
He had seen Holcroft in rather close proximity to her during the most
of the day, and if piqued thereat, more than ever was he piqued and
startled now, and abruptly wheeling round his horse, he muttered some
excuse and joined his sister and his friend Cameron, while the words
of the song came ominously back to memory--
'Trust her not, she is fooling thee.'
The bangle! He blushed to think of it, and shrank as yet from
speaking of it, even to Eveline, for he was altogether unaware of
under what circumstances Holcroft came to possess it, or the effort
Olive had made to procure its return without success, but imagination
and jealousy now did much to fill his heart with secret fury.
Would the future hold love or hatred for these two cousins? It
seemed just then difficult to say.
Like Eveline, he thought the gift of the photo a trifle when compared
with this, yet the photo was eventually to prove the most serious and
troublesome gift of the two.
Wounded self-esteem, disquiet, and intense mortification reigned
supreme in the mind of the somewhat proud young Master of Aberfeldie;
but he felt himself necessitated to dissemble. Hawke Holcroft was
his father's guest, the son of his father's oldest and most valued
friend; and while at Dundargue it would be necessary to treat him
with courtesy, though Allan never doubted that he was a 'leg,' and
resolved that his courtesy would be blended with watchfulness,
if--bitter thought--Olive was now worth watching over!
Unprepared for such a crisis or catastrophe as the discovery of the
bangle, and ignorant that Allan had made it, when a carpet-dance took
place that evening at Dundargue, though Olive was arrayed in one of
her most becoming toilettes for him, and him alone, he never even
addressed her or looked near her; and, black though his brow, he
entirely occupied himself with Ruby Logan; and, provoked by this,
Olive again endured the attention of Holcroft, and thought to
play--or affect to play--with them _both_.
In this, however, the little scheme was doomed to be disappointed by
the events of the following day.
'I shall quit Dundargue for London, or give up my leave and go back
to the regiment, and never look upon her fair, false face again till
I have schooled myself into merely regarding her with a
brotherly--well, say cousinly--eye!' thought Allan, with great
bitterness of spirit.
But how about that absurd will and the settlement of the money?