THE GARDEN-PARTY AT CRAIGMHOR.
It was the afternoon of a hot day early in August, when the sunlight
bathed in glory all the scenery--green mountain and rocky glen, wood
and water--about Craigmhor, giving alternately strong light and deep
shadow, with a warmth of colouring over all, turning into a sheet
like molten gold an artificial lochlet, where the ducks and coots
swam together among the great white water-lilies.
On the balustraded terrace before the house, the rustic baskets of
carved stone were ablaze with beautiful flowers; the hum of bees and
the twitter of birds were all about, but were unheard amid the buzz
of many voices and the music of a rifle volunteer band that played on
the smoothly-mown lawn that stretched away before the house till it
ended in the woodland greenery of the park, or 'policy,' as it is
called in Scotland--greenery that now showed blotches of yellow and
russet upon the ferns, that whilom had seemed great green fans of
emerald hue, amid which the dun deer rested when dewy evening fell.
But now the deer had all gone to the hill-sides, for promenading on
the lawn and in the beautiful gardens, or seated near the tall,
French windows that opened on the terrace, and the lace curtains of
which were wafted gently on the breeze, were the many guests of Lady
Dunkeld, whose garden-party was now, as Sir Redmond Sleath slangily
said, 'in full blast.'
Mellowed by distance among the trees came the murmur of the unseen
May over its rocky bed.
There were lawn-tennis courts, and the all but obsolete croquet, for
those who were so minded; and in a gaudy-striped marquee ices,
creams, jellies, champagne-cup, et cetera, distributed by solemn
valets in showy liveries with powdered heads.
There were winding paths between beautifully-trimmed shrubberies,
bordered by flowers of gorgeous hues; there were leafy, tunnel-like
vistas, and long and stately conservatories with tesselated floors,
wherein to flirt when the heat of the day proved too great; and there
were bright-coloured rugs and soft cushions spread upon the grass,
whereon the lazy might lounge or loll; and, as the guests were
pouring in from carriage, phaeton, and dogcart, Lady Dunkeld, in the
richest of London toilettes, received them with the same insipid and
stereotyped smile for each and all--her words of welcome or offer of
her hand varying only according to the social position of those who
approached her.
'The second of the Wellwood girls who are coming here to-day is
something of an artist, I hear,' observed Lord Dunkeld.
'I believe so,' replied his lady; 'and I hope she will not make her
appearance a limp figure, æsthetically-dressed in a large-patterned
gown of Anglo-Saxon fashion, with a lily in her hand. Oh, here they
are! Dressed in the best taste, too!'
Weak, yet aristocratic though his profile, Lord Dunkeld looked every
inch a peer in style and bearing. He was undoubtedly a
striking-looking, elderly man, with hair now white as the
thistledown, his person erect and unbroken as when he led his
battalion against the Russian trenches at Sebastopol, and he received
the two sisters, Mary and Ellinor Wellwood, with a warmth and
courtesy that nearly made them forget the limp hand and wan smile of
Lady Dunkeld, and the ill-concealed coldness, annoyance, and secret
pique of Blanche Galloway, though she veiled them under a well-bred
smile of welcome, while resolved it should be their last, as it was
their first, entertainment at Craigmhor, and such it eventually
proved to be.
Nor were her emotions lessened by seeing how Colville hurriedly
quitted a group to welcome them, and how smilingly Sir Redmond
approached Ellinor from a conservatory, adjusting as he came a
button-hole bouquet which he had recently received from the hand of
her--Blanche Galloway, who was quite inclined to attract both
gentlemen if she could.
Whatever views Lady Dunkeld and her daughter, the fair Blanche, may
have had in the matter of the now wealthy Captain Colville and Sir
Redmond Sleath, two little episodes in which these gentlemen were
concerned developed themselves during the garden-party, which were
rather beyond the calculations of the two ladies, and proceeded to
some extent unknown to them--but to some extent only, as Mademoiselle
Rosette was abroad in the grounds, and had her shrewd French eyes
remarkably wide open.
And Blanche Galloway became disagreeably surprised when she learned
on what 'friendly terms' the sisters were with those two gentlemen,
who as visitors at Craigmhor she had rather been disposed to consider
as her own peculiar property.
Robert Wodrow was there too, not to enjoy himself, but to watch Sir
Redmond and Ellinor, as the latter could read only too distinctly in
his lowering and upbraiding yet tender eyes, though he affected to
converse gaily with Colville and others.
'Let me get you some iced champagne cup,' said Sir Redmond, in a low
voice, as he offered Ellinor his arm and led her away, adding, with
one of his unpleasant laughs, 'Here is old Dr. Wodrow, with his
Sabbath-day smile, and his wife, in her awful toilette--our sulking
friend the son too. They have been among the first to come, and will
be the last to go away--like all stupid people. How like fish out of
the water they look!'
Ellinor, to do her justice, felt a swelling in her throat at these
remarks on those she had been so long accustomed to view as her
dearest friends, and fanned herself almost angrily.
'And how is Jack, that surliest of curs, who always snaps and snarls
at me as if I were a tramp or a beggar?' asked Sir Redmond.
Ellinor laughed now, and soon found herself chatting away with the
glib Sir Redmond as if she had known him not only a few days, but a
few years. How different he was in his fluency of speech, his
perfect tone of manner and softness of voice, from Robert Wodrow.
Poor Robert Wodrow!
'What smooth tongues these southron fellows have,' he was thinking,
savagely, as his eyes followed the pair; 'and how she seems to listen
to him, drinking in every word, like a moonstruck fool!'
And already he felt all the tortures of jealousy, 'the injured
lover's hell.'
A suspicion that he was watched or suspected by Colville, after the
latter's very distinct and open warning, inspired Sir Redmond Sleath
with a secret emotion of revenge against him--a curiously mingled
hatred and desire to triumph in his love affair with Ellinor; and
since that warning had been given a coolness had ensued between the
baronet and the guardsman--a coolness that outlasted their visit to
Lord Dunkeld.
To Sir Redmond it seemed, as he thought over and over again, that a
couple of fatherless and motherless girls living as they curiously
did together, and alone 'with no one to look after them but an
infernal old pump of a Presbyterian parson,' were fair game to be run
after in his own fashion, and Ellinor, as the one possessing less
firmness of purpose, was certain to be the most easily netted.
As Sir Redmond led Ellinor away, Colville's brow grew dark as that of
Robert Wodrow, and the baronet was not slow to detect this emotion
and defy it.
'Was this jealousy and love of Ellinor? Did he admire her and Mary
too?' thought the baronet. 'By Jove, it seems so.'
They were long absent from the main body of the guests, none of whom
missed them perhaps, save Robert Wodrow and Miss Galloway. How long
Colville did not precisely know, as he contrived to be elsewhere
engaged himself.
While Mary was talking to old Mrs. Wodrow, who was indulging the
while in a few peculiar and not very well-bred, if knowing, nods and
smiles in the direction of Miss Galloway, over whose chair on the
terrace Captain Colville was stooping, she overheard him say, while
the former was prettily making up for him a button-hole of
stephenotis, with a white rosebud and maiden-hair fern--and say--with
_empressement_ but laughingly,
'If lusty love should go in search of beauty,
Where should he find it fairer than in Blanche?
If zealous love should go in quest of virtue,
Where should he find it purer than in Blanche?
If love, ambitious, sought a match of birth,
Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanche?'
He was only quoting Shakespeare, and did so laughingly, and not at
all with the tenderness of love, Mary thought; but Blanche Galloway
was evidently delighted, tapped him with her fan in mock anger, and
then adjusted her bouquet in his lapelle.
On _what_ terms were they, these two?
Mrs. Wodrow had evidently no doubt about it, as she whispered to Mary,
'How sweet it is to watch young lovers! I was right, you see.'
Mary felt something closely akin to pique and pain, and resolved to
be upon her guard, while Mrs. Wodrow was, woman-like, appraising the
cost of Lady Dunkeld's dress--'The best Lyons purple--must have cost
a guinea a yard.'
'Captain Colville has been in love, or fancied himself so, a great
many times, I hear,' resumed gossipy Mrs. Wodrow, 'but never got the
length of being engaged until lately, I believe.'
'Then he _is_ her _fiancé_,' thought Mary; 'but what matters it?'
Sooth to say, it was for her behoof, perhaps, that Mrs. Wodrow
pressed these hints upon her.
'Come with me, Miss Wellwood,' said Captain Colville, suddenly
approaching her; 'permit me to show you some of the Grounds--the
rosaries are indeed beautiful--after we have visited the refreshment
marquee.'
He lightly touched her hand, and--followed the while by a somewhat
cloudy and inquiring glance from Blanche Galloway--she permitted
herself to be led away from the terrace, and though resolved to be,
as we have said, on her guard, and studiously indifferent, she could
not help the increased beating of her heart, for the voice and eyes
of Colville were very winning.
From the refreshment marquee they wandered through the rosaries,
round the shrubbery, and past the artificial pond, till they reached
the skirts of the lawn, and the hum of the voices there, and even the
music of the band, became faint, and conversing with her, she
scarcely knew on what, he led her to a seat--a rustic sofa--under the
trees that formed the boundary of the pleasure-grounds.
'Do you know that in the sunshine your hair is quite like gold, Miss
Wellwood?' said he, gazing upon her with unmistakable admiration.
'I would it were real gold,' replied Mary, laughing.
'I would rather possess it as it is, and so would any man,' said
Colville, while Mary cast a restless glance at the distant groups of
gaily-dressed promenaders, as aught approaching tenderness just then
alarmed and annoyed her.
After a pause he said,
'Those scarlet berries do not become your complexion. They are
suited to a dark beauty, not a fair one.'
'Ellinor pinned them in my collarette,' replied Mary, colouring now.
'Give me the berries, and I shall substitute _this_,' he urged,
taking the little bouquet of stephenotis buds and ferns from his
lapelle. 'Do exchange with me,' he added, softly and tenderly.
'But Miss Galloway--her gift to you--what will she think?' urged
Mary, timidly.
'She will never notice the change; and if she does, what then?'
Mary thought this strange and ungallant, but ere she could prevent
him, his deft hands had quickly achieved the exchange, and her
scarlet berries were in his button-hole.
'I cannot have you wear these, even if I wear your rosebuds. Give
them back to me, please, Captain Colville.'
And she stretched out her hand imploringly, but he shook his head and
smiled with a curious satisfied smile; and again Mary insisted on a
re-exchange of the flowers.
'Please, do not urge me,' said he, also adopting an imploring tone.
'I wish to keep them--to keep them for ever, if you will permit me;
whatever has touched your cheek--your hand, must be sacred to me,' he
added, with perfect earnestness of manner.
'Do not talk to me thus--for your own amusement, Captain Colville,'
said Mary, her eyes suffused with tears.
'Amusement!' he repeated, with a low tone of pain. 'Can you think so
meanly of me? If you knew the genuine emotion of my heart towards
you, Mary Wellwood, and the true regard with which you have inspired
me----'
'I cannot, must not, listen to this,' said poor Mary, attempting to
rise in alarm, and most loth to precipitate a scene, but a touch of
his hand restrained her.
'Not listen to me! And why not?' asked Colville; and then he
remembered Blanche Galloway's insinuation about young Wodrow, and
paused.
'It is unbecoming your position and mine, I feel that you are but
amusing yourself with me,' continued Mary, repressing a sob in her
slender white throat with difficulty. 'You are a rich man of
fashion--a man about town, I believe the term is; I am but the orphan
daughter of a very poor one----'
'Of a gallant old officer,' said Colville, softly.
'True.'
'And you actually think me a snob? It is very hard. Ere long I
shall get another to plead for me,' he added, laughing.
'What can he mean?' thought Mary.
'You pardon me just now,' said he, looking down upon her with great
tenderness.
'Yes,' said Mary, sweetly and simply; 'but do not offend me again.'
And bright though the sunny landscape around her, it seemed for a
moment to grow brighter to her eyes, and her pulses quickened, for
she felt a thrill at the tone of his voice and the expression of his
eyes. She felt too, somehow, as if the world would never seem quite
the same to her afterwards; and with this was blended an emotion of
pain that these feelings were excited in her breast aimlessly and
uselessly by the affianced of another!
It was almost a relief to her when he laughed, and, breaking the
silence of a full minute or so, said,
'Now, I am about to rival your sister, Miss Ellinor, in the
achievement of something artistic,' and, opening a pocket-knife, he
proceeded to carve on the fine smooth bark of a tree that
overshadowed the rustic sofa the letters 'M.W.'
'My initials,' said Mary, watching his work.
'Yes.'
'I don't think Lord Dunkeld will thank you for injuring his timber
thus.'
'I don't care about Dunkeld's timber. I've a good mind to be like
that fellow in Shakespeare--what's his name?--Orlando, and
"Carve on every tree
The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she."
Queer phrase that--means inexpressible, I suppose. See!' he added,
as he quickly cut three other initials beside Mary's--L.W.C.--and the
date.
'Please, don't--please, don't,' urged Mary, almost with tears in her
tremulous tones.
'Why?' he asked, looking down upon her with a bright and winning
smile.
'These initials may be seen.'
'By whom--and what then?'
Mary was silent, but thought only of Miss Galloway, though that young
lady seldom favoured the woods with her society; and now Colville
completed his work with a most orthodox true lovers' knot, Mary
growing more and more appalled as it proceeded.
'You have a middle name?' she asked, timidly.
'Every fellow has now-a-days--snobbish, isn't it? In my case I
cannot help it.'
'And the middle name?'
'Don't ask it--you know me but as Leslie Colville, and that is my
genuine baptismal appelation.'
'This bit of wood engraving may be deuced unfair to _her_ if young
Wodrow sees it,' was the not ungenerous thought of Leslie Colville.
'What if Blanche sees it?' was the timid reflection of Mary; thus,
mentally, these two were at cross-purposes. 'Do restore to me or
cast away that bunch of berries,' she again said to him.
'I cannot think of it; but I shall conceal it, if you will permit
me,' said he, as he kissed her little bouquet, and placed it in his
breast-pocket.
His tenderness seemed very true, but might be--nay, Mary thought,
must be--mere flirtation. He had said, 'Ere long I shall get another
to plead for me.' Who was that _other_; and to plead for _what_?
It was all very mysterious, and for a moment or two Mary felt as one
in a dream. Under the old trees where they lingered were cool and
grateful shadows, and on the soft breeze from the gardens and
shrubberies came the perfume of roses and heliotrope, with the drowsy
hum of modulated voices and the music of the band.
'Listen,' said he, touching her hand lightly, while his features
brightened; 'do you hear the sweet low air?'
'It is "The Birks of Invermay."'
'How it brings the words of the sweet song back to me--
"It wasna till the pale moonshine
Was glancing deep in Mary's e'e;
That with a smile she said 'I'm thine,'
And ever true to thee will be!"
You see how it and the name have impressed me.'
'Don't, please, Captain Colville,' said Mary, withdrawing her hand;
'you should not go on this way. It is not honourable in you, and is
annoying to me.'
'What a puzzle you are!' said he, looking at her with undisguised
admiration, mingled with--to her annoyance--the slightest _soupçon_
of amusement in his handsome eyes, as she proceeded slowly across the
lawn to rejoin the garden-party, from which Mary felt he had
purposely lured her.
Meanwhile, he was closely scrutinising the soft and downcast face of
Mary--downcast because she was too conscious of the fervour of his
regard.
With all her beauty, Mary Wellwood had not yet had a lover. No man
had addressed her in terms of admiration or love, and this fact,
together with the somewhat secluded life she led, made the (perhaps
passing) attentions of Colville of more importance than they would
have seemed to a young lady living in the world like Miss Galloway,
and, if the gallant Guardsman was only amusing himself, it was rather
cruel of him; so Mary's emotions were of a somewhat mixed nature.
Could she but fashion her little tell-tale face for a brief period,
and make it stony as that of a sphinx!
A curious sense of wrong, of deception--even probable sorrow and
affront, possessed her, mingled with that of a new and timid delight.
The touch of his hand seemed to magnetise her, and yet she longed to
get away from the reach of his eyes, his subtle and detaining voice,
for were they not the property of Blanche Galloway!
'Why should he wrong her and love me, as I actually think he does?'
surmised Mary. 'What can I be to him more than a flower perhaps by
his wayside of life, to be passed and forgotten when he goes back to
that gay world which is peculiarly his--the great whirling world of
"Society." Worthy of him; I so poor can never hope to be, and that
proud, imperious girl would soon teach him to forget me!'
So thought and mused the girl--fondly, sadly, and bitterly--and
turning from the music of the band, and the gay groups that laughed
and chatted around her, she gazed down a vista of silver birches that
led towards the house, and saw their stems glittering like silver
columns in the flecks of sunshine.
Blanche Galloway was not long in discovering that the little bouquet
her own hands had assorted for Colville was now in the breast of Mary
Wellwood's dress, and as she turned bluntly away from the latter, Dr.
Wodrow, who knew not the cause thereof, remarked to his better-half
that their young hostess had given Mary 'a dark look--such a look as
Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, might have given.'
Leslie Colville too ere long detected dark looks in the face of
Robert Wodrow, who abruptly took his departure; and the former felt
piqued and annoyed to find himself, as he believed, the rival of a
mere 'bumpkin,' all unaware that Ellinor was the cause of Robert's
wrath; and meanwhile where was that young lady?