THE DUNKELD FAMILY.
'Ah, London is the true place for life! One exists only in the
country, but in London we live!' exclaimed Lady Dunkeld.
'You are right, my Lady Dunkeld!' exclaimed Sir Redmond Sleath; but
life in London had for him some elements to his listener unknown--or,
if so, not cared for--flirtations with pretty actresses, dinners to
fast fair ones at the 'Star and Garter,' cards, billiards, pool, and
pyramid, all very nice things in their way, but ruinous if carried to
excess, even by a bachelor of Sir Redmond's means.
'I agree with you also, mamma,' said her daughter; 'but what is it to
be--a ball, or dinner-party, or a garden-party we must give, if not
all the three?'
'A garden-party by all means, Blanche.'
And Blanche shrugged her shoulders with the quaint foreign gesture
which she inherited with her French blood, and took a sheet of paper
from her desk to make out a list of names, to which her father, the
old peer, listened with perfect indifference, if he listened at all.
Though descended from Patrick Galloway, who was minister of the
Gospel at Edinburgh in the reign of James VI., the Dunkeld family, as
the Scottish Peerage tells us, were first ennobled in the person of
Sir James Galloway of Carnbee, in Fifeshire, who was Master of the
Requests to James VI. and Charles I., Secretary of State and Clerk to
the Bills, and was 'created Lord Dunkeld by patent on the 15th of
May, 1645.' After intermarriages with the families of Duddingston
and Dudhope, we come to 'James, third Lord Dunkeld, who was bred to
the army, and was accounted a very good officer,' says Douglas; 'he
joined Lord Dundee when he raised forces for King James VII., and was
with him at the battle of Killiecrankie.'
There he was one of the foremost in that heroic charge, before which
'Horse and man went down like drift-wood
When the floods are black at Yule,
And their carcases were whirling
In the Garry's deepest pool.'
Outlawed, he became a colonel in the French service, and fell in
battle but long after; his name appears as 'my Lord Dunkell' in the
_Liste des Officiers Genereaux_ for May 10, 1748.
James, the fourth lord, was also a general in the French army, and
was a Grand Cross of St. Louis.
His grandson, the present lord, proved--untrue to the old traditions
of his race--a very different, useless, and mediocre Scottish peer,
of the type too well known in our day. He had no property in
Scotland, and no more interest in her people, morally, practically,
or politically, than a Zulu chief. He was proud of his descent and
title, nothing more, and, not being very wealthy, thought, like his
wife, that Leslie Colville would be a very eligible son-in-law; while
at his death his title would inevitably pass to a second cousin,
Colonel Charles Edward Galloway, _chef d'escadron_ of a cavalry
regiment, then quartered at Chalons-sur-Marne.
Lord Dunkeld had one pet vanity--a real or fancied resemblance in his
profile to those of the Grand Monarque and the later Louis of France;
a facial angle indicative of weakness certainly, if not of worse;
but, if the idea pleased him, it did no one any harm.
Though thoroughly English bred, and English in all her ideas, as
taken from her mother, the Hon. Blanche Gabrielle--so called from her
grandmother, Gabrielle de Fontaine-Martel (daughter of the marquis of
that name)--had considerable French espièglerie in her manner, and
many pretty foreign tricks of it, with her eyebrows and hands, but
she was naturally cold, ambitious, selfish, and vain.
It was the luncheon-time at Craigmhor, which Lord Dunkeld only
rented. The shooting had not yet begun; the circle therefore had
some difficulty in getting through the days, and the necessity for
some amusement being devised, 'something being done,' was on the
tapis.
Blanche wore a dress of plain blue serge, with a simple linen collar
and lace collarette encircling her slender neck. Her hair, of a
light golden tint, was dressed in the most perfect taste by the deft
fingers of Mademoiselle Rosette, her French maid. In contrast to her
hair, her eyes were dark--large eyes, full of observation and
expressive of sensitiveness; she had delicately cut lips, which
always seemed to droop when she did not smile.
She had a general air of great softness and sweetness, which was most
deceptive, as Blanche Galloway was secretly strong, with all the
strength of one who in love, hate, or ambition could be fearless, and
wily as fearless. Lastly, she had that which so often comes with
foreign blood in a girl's veins, the faintest indication of a
moustache, or down, at the corners of her red and mobile lips.
Luncheon, we say, was in progress. Colville, Sir Redmond, and some
other guests (who have no part in our story) were busy thereat; and
the old family butler--in some respects an old family tyrant, who
resented any alteration in the daily domestic arrangements as
something bordering on a personal affront--was carving at the
sideboard.
It was high summer now. The chestnuts were in full leaf, and their
shadows were lightened by the silver birches. The garden around
Craigmhor was red with roses; the stone vases on the paved terrace
were teeming with fragrant blossoms, and the stately peacocks, their
tails studded with the fabled eyes of Argus, iridescent and flashing
in the sunshine, strutted to and fro.
Craigmhor (or the Great Rock) was neither a Highland stronghold of
the middle ages nor a Scoto-French chateau of the latter James's, but
a very handsome modern villa, with all the appurtenances and
appliances that wealth and luxury can supply in the present day,
otherwise my Lady Dunkeld could not have endured it.
Once a belle in Mayfair, she had many remains of beauty still, as she
was not over her fortieth year. Sooth to say--and we are sorry to
record it--she did not like Scotsmen very much, but she rather
approved of Leslie Colville. He was now very rich--the probable
inheritor of a title nearly as old as that borne by her husband; and
having been educated at Rugby, and being now in the Guards, he was a
kind of Englishman by naturalization, a view which perhaps Colville
would have resented.
For many reasons Lady Dunkeld did not care about a ball in the
country; it was so difficult where to draw the line with regard to
the invitations.
In London her balls were always a success--no one knew precisely how
or why--yet they were so, though organised just like those of other
people. Her cards of invitation were always in keen request, and,
though she had the reputation of yearly launching into society, and
getting excellent matches for a bevy of lovely girls, her daughter
Blanche, now in her twenty-fourth year, was still upon her hands.
So the idea of a garden-party was carried _nem. con._, as suitable to
'all sorts.'
They might have in the garden and lawn those with whom they could not
be intimate in the house. It was easy to entertain with ices, wine,
and fruit, music, and chit-chat those whom they cared not to have at
their mahogany, or to meet in the tolerably perfect equality of a
ball-room. Oh, yes, a garden-party was just the sort of thing to
have for the people about Craigmhor, who were not county people.
So, while some of the gentlemen withdrew to smoke and idle in the
gun-room or stables, Blanche seated herself at her davenport, and,
with a dainty gold pencil, proceeded to make out the list for her
mamma.
Certain names were put down as a matter of course; those of adjacent
landholders or the renters of shootings--many of whom were English
idlers of good position; also 'a paper lord,' who lived in the
vicinity, for, in absence of the real article, as Sir Redmond said,
with a laugh, 'the factitious rank that accrues to the Scottish bench
was always acceptable in Scotland.' But though Sir Redmond was a
baronet, he came of a family which, like that of Mrs. Grizzle Pickle,
'was not to be traced two generations back by all the powers of
heraldry or tradition.'
A country doctor and a clergyman or two, with their families, come
next, including the Rev. Dr. Wodrow, of course.
'The Misses Wellwood, mamma?' said Blanche, inquiringly, as she
looked up from her list. 'I saw them at church on Sunday.'
'Are these girls living alone--still?' asked Lady Dunkeld, 'without
even an old maid to play propriety.'
'It is clearly against the rules of society, mamma.'
'As laid down by Mrs. Grundy. Have them, by all means,' said Lord
Dunkeld; 'but for their extreme goodness, charity, and spotless
lives, uncharitable people might say uncharitable things. We must
have them, Blanche; their father was a brave old officer.'
Whether it was some French associations and his half-blood that
influenced him, we cannot say; but Lord Dunkeld by no means shared in
the prejudices of his wife and daughter against the two orphan girls
at Birkwoodbrae, more especially, as he admitted, their father had
been, like himself and his fathers before him, a man of the sword.
'Put their names down, Blanche,' said Lady Dunkeld; adding mentally,
'men like Sir Redmond will be sure to get up a flirtation, which
these cottage girls will be sure to misunderstand.'
'But will they come, mamma?' said Blanche. 'You know we have never
called on them.'
'That is a matter easily remedied--deliver your invitations in
person,' said old Lord Dunkeld.
'And if we invite them here, are we also to invite the elder girl's
shadow?' asked Blanche.
'Her shadow!' exclaimed Lady Dunkeld. Who do you mean?'
'That young man--I do not rightly know his name--to whom she is,
Rosette tells me, engaged.'
'Of course not; where would your list end if we went on thus?'
Blanche either meant Ellinor's lover, or made a mistake; but somehow
both Colville and Sir Redmond Sleath noted her words.
After a time it was discovered that 'the young man' referred to was
Dr. Wodrow's only son, so his name was included in the list.
'How many such acquaintances as these people are made in a year and
then dropped,' observed Blanche, unaware that Captain Colville
coloured with something of pain and even annoyance at her remark.
To all this sort of thing Sir Redmond Sleath listened with attention.
We need not conceal the fact or circumstance that this enterprising
baronet had marked out the soft, dreamy, artistic, and gentle Ellinor
for a kind of _affaire du cœur_ peculiarly his own. Mary
Wellwood, from her natural strength of character, he knew to be
beyond the range of his nefarious views or schemes; and eventually,
the warmth of his attentions to Ellinor were only curbed in public or
veiled by a wholesome fear of his new acquaintance, Captain Colville,
who, he thought, was 'idiotically smitten' by a fancy for or interest
in Mary, for a time, of course, he supposed, 'as these things never
lasted;' and he hoped, when the Guardsman went back to town and was
fully under the influence of Blanche and her mother, to return to the
vicinity of Birkwoodbrae on any pretence, and then have the field to
himself.
For a man like Sir Redmond there was a strange fascination in
achieving the conquest of, or in 'running to earth,' as he would have
phrased it, a girl so pure and confiding as Ellinor, and whose beauty
and helplessness inspired him with a kind of love, as he thought it,
but a selfish love peculiarly his own.
It may excite surprise that such worldlings as Lord and Lady Dunkeld
did not prefer a baronet as a _parti_ for their daughter's hand; but
Leslie Colville was by far the richer of the two, and possessed
landed property in various directions; and, however Sir Redmond might
admire Blanche Galloway, he dared not raise his eyes to her, for very
sufficient reasons yet to be explained.
Finding that Colville, as we have said, was curiously disposed to
resent some of his off-hand remarks about Mary and Ellinor Wellwood,
he began to take refuge in professions of the greatest esteem for
them both, and occasionally urged his regard for the youngest.
'In love again--you--and with a little country lass?' said Colville,
laughing. 'You who were over head and ears, as the saying is, with
Lady Sarah, all last season, as repute said.'
'When she loved me--if she was capable of it,' replied Sleath, with a
dark look, 'she was indeed my Queen of Hearts.'
'And now, having married that millionaire fellow, she is Queen of
Diamonds. But what could you expect of a girl who was engaged to two
men at once, and wore the engagement rings of _both_?'
'Of course her heart was no longer her own when the millionaire
solicited. She accepted him, and made a hecatomb of my letters and
those of another fool, who is now broiling with his regiment in South
Africa. 'The world well lost for love' is poetic, certainly, but
devilish stupid practically.'
Though entirely opposite and different in character and disposition,
both these men looked forward with pleasure to the anticipated
garden-party--Colville with real satisfaction to the hope of meeting
Mary Wellwood once more; and Sir Redmond to the chances of furthering
his own particular views.