IN THE CONSERVATORY.
In an atmosphere of drooping acacias, little palms, curious ferns,
cacti, and other exotics in tubs and pots, where the light was
subdued by the greenery overhead and around, and where the plashing
of a beautiful bronze fountain alone broke the stillness, for in the
nook of that great conservatory to which Sir Redmond Sleath had
successfully drawn Ellinor alone, the music of the band and the merry
voices of the garden party were scarcely heard, they were seated
together on a blue velvet lounge; and he, having possessed himself of
her fan, was slowly fanning her, while he hung admiringly over her--a
process to which she submitted with a soft, dreamy smile in her
speaking hazel eyes; while with every motion of the fan the ripples
of her fine dark hair were blown slightly to and fro.
Certainly a short intimacy had put these two on terms of familiarity,
for he said, as he ceased to fan her, and settled down on the lounge
by her side, with one arm, casually, as it were, thrown along the
back thereof,
'I am not a stranger to you now.'
His voice was pleasantly modulated as he stooped over her, and looked
down on her drooping eyelashes.
'Oh, no--not now,' replied Ellinor.
'I am so happy to hear you admit this.'
'Why?'
Ellinor felt her question to be foolish, as it was a leading one.
'Can you ask me?' said Sir Redmond, in a still lower voice, and
venturing; to touch--just to pat--her hand; 'there are many persons
whom we may know for years, and yet find them somehow strangers, but
it is not so with you and I.'
He now took her hand in his, and saw that it was delicately
white--for she had drawn a glove off--and felt soft as velvet; he
saw, too, that her white-veined eyelids with their long lashes
drooped under his earnest gaze, and that her red lips quivered. Was
he actually influencing her already? He could scarcely believe it,
even with all his unparalleled assurance.
She glanced nervously round her.
'Do not be alarmed, dear girl--darling Ellinor, let me say,'
whispered Sleath, in his most honeyed accents, for who was to call
him to account for his impertinence, if impertinence it really was?
'I shall be content to wait--to wait and win your love, if you will
but let me hope. Some day--say one day you will listen to me, and I
shall tell you more freely, more boldly how I love you--how I shall
make you my own!'
Ellinor trembled as she listened to these stilted phrases that came
so glibly from his tongue--how often he had said them to others she
little knew; and--even Robert Wodrow apart--she had never played with
a man's heart as Sleath was now playing with hers.
He said much more, running on in the same inflated style, feeling
quite a zest in the, to him, well-nigh worn-out game of love-making;
and Ellinor listened. She was far from being a fool, yet she failed
to realise that his tones were very second-hand indeed, and that the
real expression of his blue eyes, if triumphant, was also false.
Her voice trembled so that she made no response, and the flowers in
the breast of her dress rose and fell with the quickened beating of
her fluttered and, we are sorry to say, happy heart.
A conviction troubled her, nevertheless, and would not be put
aside--that he would master her and compel her to love him blindly by
the mere force of his--practised--will, and she strove to resist it.
'You are over-confident, though flattering me, Sir Redmond,' said
she, a little defiantly at last.
'And what does that prove?'
'That you are not, perhaps, what you really profess to be--in love.'
'With you?'
'Yes,' she replied, in a breathless voice.
'Have you ere this learned what love is?'
'I know what it should be like--timid and diffident,' she replied,
uneasily, as her thoughts flashed sorrowfully to poor studious Robert
Wodrow.
'You fear I do not love you?' he asked, reproachfully.
'I do not fear it.'
'Look into my eyes.'
She did look, and her own lowered, for she saw that which so often
passes for love with the unthinking or unwary--deep and burning
passion; and again she glanced nervously around her, but felt
impelled to remain where she was. Sir Redmond detected the motion,
and, misconstruing it, said, with a contemptuous smile that was too
subtle for her to perceive,
'You and that--a--Mr. Robert Wodrow were sweethearts, as it is
called, when you were children, I have heard.'
'Indeed!'
'Well?'
'The very reason, if true, that we should wish to be no more to each
other,' replied Ellinor, with some annoyance, remembering certain
angry and bitter speeches of Robert's when last they met and parted,
and some of his dark looks within the last hour.
Sir Redmond was radiant at this response. She drew on her gloves,
and was about to rise, when he detained her, and, drawing her
suddenly towards him, boldly kissed her, not once, but twice!
She grew very pale, and drew back, and felt as if about to weep.
'Why do you shrink from me, Ellinor?' he asked, with tenderness,
while detaining her hands.
'I do not shrink; but--but all this has been so sudden.'
'Listen to me, dearest--dearest Ellinor. With all your artistic
tastes, you must of course appreciate pretty things?'
'I do,' she replied, tremblingly, not knowing what was coming next.
'Do you admire this?' he asked, drawing from a pocket and unclasping
a scarlet morocco case, on the blue satin lining of which there
reposed a necklace of virgin gold, with a locket attached, studded
with coral and diamonds, both miracles of the jeweller's art.
'It is lovely!' exclaimed the girl.
'I am glad you like it, for it is yours.'
'Mine!' said the girl, in a breathless voice, as she felt herself
grow pale, and recognised the costliness of the jewel, but scarcely
knowing what she did or what she said, while a curious mixture of
dumb joy in her new lover and remorse for the former one seized her.
She heard hurried and passionate words poured into her ear; she felt
the firm, warm clasp of Sir Redmond's hands on hers as he begged
permission to clasp the necklet round her slender throat, while
yieldingly she turned towards him, and deftly--he was not unused to
episodes such as this--as he touched her soft, white skin, he clasped
it on, his eyes glowing with fire and animation as he bent over her
sweet little face.
The latter was pale rather than flushed, and her mobile lips were
quivering as he pressed his to them, pursuing his advantage with all
the courage, skill, and tact his past rascally experience had given
him; while the force of his sudden love, if it scared, also delighted
Ellinor, though the upbraiding and set visage of Robert Wodrow seemed
to rise between them.
'One day I shall see the family diamonds of the house of Sleath
sparkling on your brow and bosom, love,' said he, kissing her eyes,
as gravely as if the said house of Sleath had come in with the
European rabble of the Conqueror. 'And you promise to be mine,
Ellinor?' he added, pressing her close to him.
'Yes,' she replied, in a scarcely audible whisper.
'There are some men who can love several women in succession--or
imagine they do so. I am not one of these, believe me, darling! I
have never--could never have done that. You, Ellinor, are the first
love of my heart--my first and only one!'
How he talked, this man who knew well what passion was, but never
loved, and the girl was too truthful generally herself to doubt; so
her heart throbbed as his honeyed words fell on her willing ear.
'And so, love, we shall soon be made one now,' he whispered, with
another caress.
After a time she said, timidly and blushingly,
'You will tell--you will talk with Dr. Wodrow about all this,
Redmond?'
'How delicious to hear my name on your lips! But--Dr.
Wodrow--why--is he a relation?'
'Why then--what then?'
'He is a kind of guardian; papa, on his deathbed, bequeathed Mary and
me to his care.'
'Consult him--impossible!' said Sir Redmond, whose face darkened.
'Why should we condescend to consult that old pump with the
Sabbath-day face, when our own hearts agree? Besides, if my uncle,
from whom I have great expectations, knew that I had married a Scotch
girl--he has such curious prejudices----'
'Your uncle?' queried Ellinor, timidly.
'I have, unfortunately, an old and strangely-tempered relation in
that degree. He is dying under an incurable disease, and probably
cannot live out this winter--certainly not next spring. I am the
heir to all his estates, and it is his fancy that I should marry into
a family of title--'
'Otherwise?'
'I shall lose every shilling--every one!'
'Poor man! If the end is so near, surely we can wait, Redmond--nay,
of course, we must wait,' she added, coyly and fondly.
'I cannot wait, my love for you will not permit me, yet I am, though
well enough off, not so rich that I can afford to lose a great
inheritance. Could we--can we--but keep our marriage from his
knowledge? But we will talk of all this another time, darling. I am
too hasty, too impetuous, with you. People are coming this way.
Take my arm; let us go!'
And he led her out into the sunlighted lawn in such a state of
bewilderment that but for the chain and locket, of which, to avoid
explanations, she divested herself, she would have deemed the whole
episode a dream.
So 'the song was sung, the tale was told, and the heart was given
away.'
Ellinor, on rejoining her friends, looked about her, and felt
somewhat of a relief that she could nowhere see Robert Wodrow, who,
as we have said, had abruptly taken his departure, and even amid the
splendour of Sir Redmond's proposal--for a splendid one it seemed to
poor Ellinor--an emotion of reproach for unloyalty to Robert Wodrow,
the first and early lover of her girlish life, rose up in her mind.
While her soul was yet loaded with the memory of that, to her, most
naturally great episode in the conservatory, on which all her future
life was to turn, we may wonder what she would have thought had she
overheard a few bantering words that passed between Sir Redmond
Sleath and the Honourable Blanche Galloway as they were looking
towards her and evidently talking about her, while Mrs. Wodrow, who
was near, strained her ears to listen.
'A wife, you say? No, my dear Miss Galloway; I can't afford such a
luxury in these times, and consequently cannot be a marrying man,
unless----'
'Unless what?'
'I found one facile enough to have me, and with the necessary amount
of acreage, coalpits, money in the Funds, or elsewhere.'
'If so, why are you so attentive in that absurd quarter, where there
is no money certainly?' asked the lady, pointing to Ellinor with her
fan.
'Why, indeed!' thought Mrs. Wodrow, exasperated about her son Robert.
Sir Redmond paused.
'Why?' asked the young lady again, categorically.
'_Pour passer le temps_,' replied Sir Redmond, with one of his
insolent smiles, as he twirled out the ends of his tawny moustachios.
Mrs. Wodrow did not hear his answer, though she saw the expression of
his face; and at this reply Miss Galloway smiled triumphantly and
disdainfully while slowly fanning herself.