HAS SHE DISCOVERED ANYTHING?
Finella Melfort knew by the medium of telegrams and despatches in the
public prints--all read in nervous haste, with her heart sorely
agitated--that Hammersley had escaped the Isandhlwana slaughter, and
was one of the few who had reached a place of safety. So did Shafto,
but with no emotion of satisfaction, it may be believed.
When the latter returned to Craigengowan, Lady Fettercairn had not
the least suspicion of the bitter animosity with which Finella viewed
him, and of course nothing of the episode in the shrubbery, and thus
was surprised when her granddaughter announced a sudden intention of
visiting Lady Drumshoddy, as if to avoid Shafto, but delayed doing so.
At his approach she recoiled from him, not even touching his
proffered hand. All the girlish friendship she once had for this
newly discovered cousin had passed away now, crushed out by a
contempt for his recent conduct, so that it was impossible for her to
meet him or greet him upon their former terms. She feared that her
loathing and hostility might be revealed in every tone and gesture,
and did not wish that Lord or Lady Fettercairn should discover this.
To avoid his now odious society--odious because of the unexplainable
quarrel he had achieved between herself and the now absent
Vivian--she would probably have quitted Craigengowan permanently, and
taken up her residence with her maternal relation at Drumshoddy
Lodge; but she preferred the more refined society of Lady
Fettercairn, and did not affect that of the widow of the ex-Advocate
and Indian Civilian, who was vulgarly bent on urging the interests of
Shafto, and would have derided those of Hammersley in terms
undeniably coarse had she discovered them. And Lady Drumshoddy,
though hard by nature as gun-metal, was a wonderful woman in one way.
She could back her arguments by the production of tears at any time.
She knew not herself where they came from, but she could 'pump' them
up whenever she had occasion to taunt her granddaughter with what she
termed contumacy and perverseness of spirit.
On the day Shafto returned Finella was in the drawing-room alone.
She was posed in a listless attitude. Her slender hands lay idly in
her lap; her face had grown thin and grave in expression, to the
anxiety and surprise of her relatives. Her chair was drawn close to
the window, and she was gazing, with unseeing eyes apparently, on the
wintry landscape, where the lawn and the leafless trees were powdered
with snow, and a red-breasted robin, with heart full of hope, was
trilling his song on a naked branch.
It was a cheerless prospect to a cheerless heart. She had drawn from
her portemonnaie (wherein she always kept it) the bitter little
farewell note of Hammersley, and, after perusing it once more,
returned it slowly to its place of concealment.
Where was he then? How employed--marching or fighting, in peril or
in safety? Did he think of her often, and with anger? Would he ever
come back to her, and afford a chance of explanation and
reconciliation? Ah no! it was more than probable their paths in
life would never cross each other again.
Tears welled in her eyes as she went over in memory some episodes of
the past. She saw again his eager eyes and handsome face so near her
own, heard his tender and pleading voice in her ear, and recalled the
touch of his lips and the clasp of his firm white hand.
Another hand touched her shoulder, and she recoiled with a shudder on
seeing Shafto.
'What is this I hear,' said he; 'that you think of leaving
Craigengowan?'
'Yes,' she replied, curtly.
'Because I have returned, I presume?'
'Yes.'
His countenance darkened as he asked:
'But--why so?'
'Because I loathe that the same roof should be over you and me.
Think of what your infamous cunning has caused!'
'A separation,' said he, laughing malevolently, 'a quarrel between
that fellow and you?'
'Yes,' she replied with flashing eyes.
'Can nothing soften this hostility towards me?' he asked after a
pause.
'Nothing. I never wish to see your face or hear your voice again.'
'Well, if you leave Craigengowan simply to avoid me I shall certainly
tell your grandmother the reason; and how will you like that?'
'You will?'
'By heaven, I will! That he and you alike resented my regard for
you?'
To say that Shafto loved Finella, with all her beauty, would be what
a writer calls a 'blasphemy on the master-passion;' but he admired
her immensely, longed for her, and more particularly for her money,
as a protection--a barrier against future and unseen contingencies.
At his threat Finella grew pale with anticipated annoyance and
mortification; but in pure dread of Shafto's malevolence, and for the
other reasons given, she did not hasten her preparations for
departure, and ere long the arrival of a new guest at Craigengowan
decided her on remaining, for this guest was one for whom she
conceived a sudden and lasting affection, and with whom she found
ties and sympathies in common.
After being out most part of a day riding, Shafto returned in the
evening, and, throwing his horse's bridle to a groom, was ascending
the staircase to his own room, when, framed as it were in the archway
of a corridor, he saw, to his utter bewilderment, the face and figure
of Dulcie Carlyon!
His voice failed him, and with parted lips and dilated eyes she gazed
at him in equal amazement, too, but she was the first to speak.
'Shafto,' she exclaimed, 'you here--_you_?'
'Yes,' he snapped; 'what is there strange in that? This is my
grandfather's house.'
'Your grandfather's house?' she repeated, and then the details of the
situation came partly before her. She lifted up her eyes, wet with
tears like dewy violets, for his voice, if hard and harsh, was
associated with her home and Revelstoke, but she shrank from him, and
her lips grew white on finding herself so suddenly face to face with
one whom she felt intuitively was a kind of evil genius in her life!
Dulcie just then seemed a delightful object to the eye. That pure
waxen skin, which always accompanies red-golden hair, was set off to
the utmost advantage by the dead black of her deep mourning, and her
plump white arms and slender hands were coquettishly set off by long
black lace gloves, for Dulcie was dressed for dinner, and her soft
white neck shone like satin in contrast to a single row of jet beads,
her only other ornament being Florian's locket, on which the startled
eyes of Shafto instantly fell.
Dulcie saw this, and instinctively she placed her hand--a slim and
ringless little white hand--upon it, as if to protect it, and gather
strength from its touch; but her bosom now heaved at the sight of
Shafto, and fear and indignation grew there together, for she was
losing her habitual sense of self-control.
'You--here?' he said again inquiringly.
'Yes,' she replied in a broken voice, 'and I wonder if I am the same
girl I was a year ago, when poor papa was well and living, and I had
dear Florian--to love me!'
'Dulcie _here_--d--nation!' thought Shafto: 'first old Madelon
Galbraith and now Dulcie; by Jove the plot is thickening--the links
may be closing!'
He had an awful fear and presentiment of discovery; thus perspiration
stood like bead-drops on his brow; yet the mystery of her presence
was very simple.
Poor Mrs. Prim could stand no longer the cold treatment and the
'whim-whams,' as she called them, of Lady Fettercairn; she had gone
away, and it was known at Craigengowan that a substitute--a more
pleasing one, in the person of a young English girl--was coming as
companion, through the instrumentality of the Rev. Mr. Pentreath.
Shafto had been absent in Edinburgh when this arrangement was made.
Lady Fettercairn had thought the matter too petty, too trivial, to
mention in any of her letters to her 'grandson;' Dulcie knew not
where Shafto was, and thus the poor girl had come unwittingly to
Craigengowan, and into the very jaws of that artful schemer!
Few at the first glance might have recognised in Dulcie the bright,
brilliant little girl whom Florian loved and Shafto had insulted by
his so-called passion. The character of her face and perhaps of
herself were somewhat changed since her affectionate father's death,
and Florian's departure to Africa in a position so humble and
hopeless. The bright hair which used to ripple in a most becoming
and curly fringe over her pretty white forehead had to be abandoned
for braiding, as Lady Fettercairn did not approve of a 'dependant'
dressing her hair in what she deemed a fast fashion, though
sanctioned by Royalty; and now it was simply shed back over each
shell-like ear without a ripple if possible, but Dulcie's hair always
would ripple somehow.
'Shafto,' said Dulcie, in a tone of deep reproach; 'what have you
done with Florian? But I need not ask.'
'By the locket you wear, you must have seen or heard from him since
he and I parted,' replied Shafto, with the coolest effrontery; 'so
what has he done with himself?'
'I should ask that of you.'
'Of me!'
'Yes--why is he not here?'
'Why the deuce should he be _here_?' was the rough response.
'He is your cousin, is he not?'
'Yes: we are full cousins certainly,' admitted Shafto with charming
frankness.
'Nothing more?'
'What the devil more should we be?' asked Shafto, coarsely, annoyed
by her questions.
'Friends--you were almost brothers once--in the dear old Major's
time.'
'We are not enemies; he chose some way to fortune, I suppose, when
Fate gave me mine.'
'And you know not where he is?'
'No.'
'Nor what he has done with himself?'
'No--no--I tell you no!' exclaimed Shafto, maddened with annoyance by
these persistent questions and her tearful interest in her lover.
'Poor Florian!' said the girl, sadly and sweetly, 'he has become a
soldier, and is now in Zululand.'
Shafto certainly started at this intelligence.
'In Zululand,' he chuckled; '_he_ too there! Well, beggars can't be
choosers, so he chose to take the Queen's shilling.'
'Oh, Shafto, how hard-hearted you are!' exclaimed Dulcie, restraining
her tears with difficulty.
'Am I? So he has left you--gone away--become a soldier; well, I
don't think that a paying kind of business. Why bother about him?'
'Why--Shafto?'
'It will be strange if you do so long.'
'Wherefore?'
'Because, to my mind, a woman is seldom faithful, unless it suits her
purpose to be so; and in this instance it won't suit yours.'
Dulcie's eyes sparkled with anger, though they were eyes that,
fringed by the longest lashes, looked at one usually sweetly,
candidly, with an innocent and fearless expression. Her bosom
heaved, as she said--
'Florian will gain a name for himself, I am sure; and if he dies----'
Her voice broke.
'If not in the field it will be where England's heroes usually die.'
'Where?'
'In the workhouse,' was the mocking response of Shafto; and he
thought, 'If he is killed by a Zulu assegai, or any other way, to
prevent exposure or public gossip, the game will still lie in my
hands.'
In the public prints Dulcie had of course seen details of the episode
of Lieutenants Melville and Coghill, and their attempts to save that
fatal colour, which was afterwards found in the Buffalo, and
decorated with immortelles by the Queen at Osborne; the papers also
added that the colour-sergeant who accompanied them was missing, and
that his body had not been found.
_Missing!_
As no name had yet been given, Dulcie was yet mercifully ignorant of
what that appalling word contained for her!
'Already you appear to be quite at home here in Craigengowan,' said
Shafto, after an awkward pause.
'I am at home,' replied Dulcie simply; 'and hope this may be the
happiest I have had since papa died.'
(But she doubted that, with Shafto as an inmate.)
'I am glad to hear it; but you don't mean to treat me--an old
friend--as you have done?'
'Friend!' she exclaimed, and laughed a little bitter laugh, that
sounded strange from lips so fresh, so young and rosy.
'You have not yet accepted my hand.'
'Nor ever shall, Shafto Gyle,' said she defiantly, and still
withholding hers.
'Melfort!' said he menacingly.
'I knew and shall always know you as Shafto Gyle.'
It was not quite a random speech this, but it stung the hearer. He
crimsoned with fury, and thought--'She is as vindictive as Finella.
Has she discovered _anything about me_?'
'Shafto, do you know that the dressing-bell was rung some time
since?' said Lady Fettercairn with the same asperity, as she appeared
in the corridor.
Both started. How long had she been there, and what had she
overheard? was in the mind of each.