"Lickspittal, my boy, I consider that an anti-centralization song--but,
of course, your sympathies and mine are widely apart."
"It is decidedly behind the age, at all events," said the member,
laughing.
"You have a delightful voice, Cora--soft and sweet as ever," said I in
her ear.
"Thanks, Cora," added Sir Nigel, patting her white shoulder with his
strong embrowned hand. "Newton seems quite enchanted; but you must not
seek to captivate our lancer."
"Why may I not, papa?"
"Because, as Thackeray says, 'A lady who sets her heart on a lad in
uniform, must prepare to change lovers pretty quickly, or her life will
be but a sad one.'"
"You are always quoting Thackeray," said Cora, with a little perceptible
shrug of her plump shoulders.
"Is such really the case, Mr. Norcliff?" asked Lady Louisa, who had
approached us; "are you gentlemen of the sword so heartless?"
"Nay, I trust that, in this instance, the author of 'Esmond' rather
quizzes than libels the service," said I. "How beautiful the
conservatory looks when lighted up," I added, drawing back the crimson
velvet hangings that concealed the door, which stood invitingly open.
"Yes; there are some magnificent exotics here," said the tall, pale
beauty, as she swept through, accompanied by Cora and myself.
I had hoped to have a single moment for a tete-a-tete with her; but in
vain, for the pertinacious Berkeley, with his slow, invariable saunter,
lounged in after us, and, with all the air of a privileged man, followed
us from flower to flower as we passed critically along, displaying much
vapid interest, and some ignorance alike of botany and floriculture.
Without the conservatory, the clear, starry sky of a Scottish winter
night arched its blue dome above the summits of the Lomonds; and within,
thanks to skill and hot-water pipes, were the yellow flowering cactus,
the golden Jobelia, the scarlet querena, the slender tendrils and blue
flowers of the liana, the oranges and grapes of the sunny tropics.
"What is that dangling from the vine branch overhead?" asked Lady
Louisa.
"Just above us?" said Cora, laughing, as she looked up with a charming
smile on her bright girlish face.
"Haw--mistletoe, by Jove!" exclaimed Berkeley, looking up too, with his
glass in his eye, and his hands in his pockets.
I am not usually a very timid fellow in matters appertaining to that
peculiar parasite; yet I must own that when I saw Lady Loftus, in all
the glory of her aristocratic loveliness, so pale and yet so dark, with
cousin Cora standing coquettishly by her side, under the gifted branch,
that my heart failed me, and its pulses fairly stood still.
"My privilege, cousin," said I, and kissed Cora, as I might have done a
sister, ere she could draw back; and the usually laughing girl trembled,
and grew so deadly pale, that I surveyed her with surprise.
Lady Louisa hastily drew aside, as I bent over her hand, and barely
ventured to touch it with my lips; but judge of my rage and her hauteur
when my cool and sarcastic brother officer, Mr. Berkeley, came languidly
forward, and claiming what he termed "the privilege of the season," ere
she could avoid it, somewhat brusquely pressed his well-moustached lip
to her cheek.
Though affecting to smile, she drew haughtily back, with her nether lip
quivering, and her black eyes sparkling dangerously.
"The season, as you term it, for these absurdities is over, Berkeley,"
said I, gravely. "Moreover, this house is not a casino, and that trophy
should have been removed by the gardener long since."
I twitched down the branch, and tossed it into a corner. Berkeley only
uttered one of his quiet, almost noiseless, laughs, and, without being
in the least put out of countenance, made a species of pirouette on the
brass heels of his glazed boots, which brought him face to face with the
Countess, who at that moment came into the conservatory after her
daughter, whom she rarely permitted to go far beyond the range of her
eyeglass.
"Lady Chillingham," said he, resolved at once to launch into
conversation, "have you heard the rumour that our friend, Lord Lucan, is
to command a brigade in the Army of the East?"
"I have heard that he is to command a division, Mr. Berkeley, but Lord
George Paget is to have a brigade," replied the Countess, coldly and
precisely.
"Ah, Paget--haw--glad to hear it," said he, as he passed loungingly
away; "he was an old chum of my father's--haw--doocid glad."
It was a weakness of Berkeley's to talk thus; indeed, it was a common
mess-room joke with Wilford, Scriven, Studhome, and others of ours, to
bring the peerage on the _tapis_, at a certain hour of the evening, and
"trot him out;" but on hearing him speak thus of his father, who--honest
man--began life as a drayman, it was too much for me, and I fairly
laughed aloud.
The salute he had so daringly given Lady Loftus was to me a keen source
of jealous anger and annoyance, which I could neither readily forgive
nor forget, and had the old duelling fashion still been extant, the
penalty might have proved a dear one. I had the bitter consciousness
that she whose hand I had barely ventured to touch with a lip that
trembled with suppressed emotion had been brusquely saluted---actually
kissed before my face--by one for whom I had rather more, if possible,
than a profound contempt.
What she thought of the episode I know not. A horror of what all
well-bred people deem a scene no doubt prevailed, for she took her
mother's arm, and passed away, while Cora and I followed them.
Jealousy suggested that much must have passed between them prior to my
arrival, otherwise Berkeley, with all his assurance, dared not have
acted as he did. This supposition was to me a source of real torture
and mortification.
"When love steals into the nature," says a writer, "day by day
infiltrating its sentiments, as it were, through every crevice of the
being, it will enlist every selfish trait into the service, so that he
who loves is half enamoured of himself; but where the passion comes with
the overwhelming force of a sudden conviction, when the whole heart is
captivated at once, self is forgotten, and the image of the loved one is
all that presents itself."
Sleepless that night I lay, tormenting myself with the "trifles light as
air," that to young men in my condition are "confirmations strong as
proofs of Holy Writ."
At last I slept; but my dreams--those visions that come before the
sleeping mind and eye towards the hours of morning--were not of her I
loved, but of my pretty and playful cousin, fair-skinned and dark-haired
Cora Calderwood.
*CHAPTER VII.*
What though our love was never told,
Or breathed in sighs alone;
By sighs that would not be controlled
Its growing strength was shown.
The touch that thrilled us with delight,
The glance, by heart untamed,
In one short moon, as brief as bright,
That tender truth proclaimed.
ALARIC WATTS.
Next morning I resolved that, if possible, it should not pass without
some attempt being made to discover the state of Lady Louisa's
heart--how she was affected towards me, and whether I had any chance,
however remote, of reviving or securing the interest I trusted she had
in me when last we met in England. But over night the snow had fallen
heavily; it was six inches deep on the lawn, as Willie Pitblado told me.
The Lomonds were clothed in ghastly white to their summits, and as we
seemed fated to be caged up in doors all day, my chances of seeing
Louisa alone would be remote indeed.
In the library and drawing-rooms I found all the guests of last night
assembled, save the minister, doctor, and lawyer, who had ridden home,
and save her I sought.
The snow caused universal regret, for various excursions had been in
progress--some for visiting the ruined castle at Piteadie; some for
riding as far as Lochleven; and others, farther still, to see the
fragments that remain of the old abbey of Balmerino.
The Countess and her daughter, arrayed in a charming morning toilette,
appeared just as the roar of the gong summoned us to a Scottish
breakfast; and of the splendours of such a repast, what gourmand hath
not heard?
There were venison, mutton, cold grouse, and ptarmigan, rizzard haddocks
from the Firth of Forth, salmon from the Tay, and honey from the Lomond
hills; a _liqueur_-stand, containing whisky and brandy, stood at Sir
Nigel's right hand. At one end of the table was tea, presided over by
Cora; at the other, where Miss Wilford officiated, was coffee.
Over the snowy landscape a glorious flood of sunshine was pouring
through the stone mullions of the oriel windows, casting shadows of the
old and leafless trees far across the waste of dazzling white.
I had the pleasure of being seated by the side of Lady Loftus, and we
chatted away pleasantly of people whom we had met, and places where we
had been. The links of the old chain were being rapidly taken up, and
every time I looked into the quiet depths of her dark eyes I felt a
strong emotion pass over mine.
Berkeley sat on her other side, but I could perceive that she was
politely reserved with him; so the art of impudence, an art which he had
studied carefully, had availed him but little after the use to which he
had put it last night.
"And you go to the East with pleasure?" she asked, casually, after a
pause.
"With pleasure, and yet with one great regret," said I, as I lightly
touched her hand.
"And this regret, is it a secret?"
"It cannot be spoken of here; and yet a little explanation--one word, it
may be--shall send me away the happiest fellow in the Crimean
expedition."
"Take courage," she said, in a low voice, that made my heart leap with
hope and anticipation.
"Newton, what are you and Lady Loftus talking about so impressively?
But, perhaps, I should not inquire," said my uncle, as he carved the
cold grouse, and a faint shade of annoyance flitted over the pale face
of my companion.
"Well, Sir Nigel," I replied, "I was simply about to say that ere we see
such a breakfast as this again, we shall have had a rough turn with the
Russians, and talked polyglot-wise with fellows of all nations in the
allied camp; have drunk sherbet, perhaps, with the Sultan, ogled his
ladies at the gilded lattices, and smoked a _chibouque_ with Giafar,
Mesrour, and other friends of the Commander of the Faithful."
The flow of my spirits contrasted somewhat with the ebb of Berkeley's.
He sat silent, and pulled from time to time his long moustaches and
whiskers, which were mingled together--the envy of our apple-cheeked
cornets.
But now Mr. Binns came in with the household letter-bag--a leather case,
which bore Sir Nigel's name and arms on a brass plate, and its contents
(always so welcome at a country breakfast-table) were distributed
amongst us.
There were newspapers and letters for all present but me, luckily. I
say luckily, for I was hourly in fear of having my short leave
cancelled, and receiving a summons from the colonel to head-quarters.
"Lord Slubber de Gullion expresses great surprise that we are staying so
long in Scotland," said the Countess of Chillingham, as she rapidly read
over a letter written in a large, round-text hand.
"An old bore, mamma."
"Don't say so, Louisa."
The name, which is as near the original as I dare give it, sounded
oddly; but there came a time when it was to prove a sad name to me.
"You know Slubber?" said Berkeley, in a low voice, to me.