GIRLS' CONFIDENCES.
It was a sweet and mild spring morning, and Finella and Dulcie, each
with a shawl over her pretty head, were again promenading on the
terrace before the mansion. Lady Fettercairn was not yet down, and
the breakfast-bell had not yet been rung. The trees were already
making a show of greenery, with half-developed foliage; the oak was
putting out its red buds; the laburnums were clothed in green and
gold, and the voice of the cuckoo could be heard in the woods of
Craigengowan.
'The cuckoo--listen!' said Dulcie, pausing in her walk.
'His note is, I believe, a call to love,' said Finella softly.
'The male only uses it; and see, yonder he sits on a bare bough.'
'You can wish: one can do so when they hear the cuckoo.'
'And wish, as I often do, in vain,' said Dulcie, with a tone of
sadness unconsciously.
'For what?'
'To hear from one who is far--far away from me; the only friend I
have in the world.'
'He of whom you spoke some time ago--a brother.'
'I have no brother, nor a relation on this side of the grave, Miss
Melfort.'
'Call me Finella,' said the latter, again struck by Dulcie's desolate
tone. 'Who is it--a lover?' she added, becoming, of course, deeply
interested.
'A lover--yes,' replied Dulcie, with a fond smile. 'The dearest and
sweetest fellow in the world!'
'Yet he left you because your papa died and you became penniless?'
'Oh!--no, no; do not say that. Do not think so hardly of Florian!'
'Florian!--what a funny, delightful name; just like one in a novel!'
exclaimed Finella. 'So he is called Florian?'
'He, too, was poor. He could not marry me, and probably never can do
so.'
'How sad!' said Finella, with genuine sympathy, though from her own
experience she could not quite understand poverty.
'Florian--my poor Florian!' said Dulcie, quite borne away by this new
sympathy, as she covered her face with her white and tremulous hands,
and tried to force back her tears, while Finella kissed, caressed,
and tried most sweetly to console her.
'See!' said Dulcie, after a pause, opening her silver locket.
'Oh, what a handsome young fellow!' exclaimed Finella. 'Are you
engaged?'
'Hopelessly so.'
'Hopelessly?'
'I have said we are too poor to marry.'
'I don't understand this,' said Finella, greatly perplexed: 'won't he
become rich in time?'
'Never: he is a soldier, fighting in Africa.'
'A soldier!' said Finella, becoming more deeply interested; 'not an
officer?'
'His father or uncle was,' replied Dulcie confusedly. 'Poverty drove
him into the ranks.'
'Of what regiment?'
'The 24th Warwickshire.'
Finella changed colour, and her breath seemed to be taken from her,
when she heard the name of Hammersley's corps; and thus, after a
time, a great gush of confidence took possession of both girls.
'I am rich,' said Finella; 'I will buy him back to you--I will, I
will. Do not weep, dearest Dulcie. The memory of a past that has
been happy is always sweet; is it not?'
'Yes, even if the present be sad.'
'I do believe, Dulcie, that tears agree with you.'
'Why?'
'Because they make those blue eyes of yours positively lovely.'
Dulcie for a moment felt pleasure. Florian had said the same thing
once before, and she only half believed him; but to have it endorsed
by such a girl as Finella made it valuable indeed to her.
'And Florian--I am quite _au fait_ with his name,' said Finella; 'he
is a gentleman?'
'Oh, yes--yes!' exclaimed Dulcie impetuously.
'Poor fellow! Then am I to understand that there is a kind of
undefined engagement between you?'
'Something of that kind,' answered Dulcie, simply. 'We knew we might
have to wait for each other for years, if, indeed, we ever meet
again. We never spoke of marriage quite. How could we, hopeless and
poor as we were?'
'But you spoke of love, surely?' said Finella, softly and archly.
'Of love for each other--oh, yes; many, many times.'
'Well, Dulcie, I shall purchase Florian's discharge, as I have said.
This kind of thing can't go on,' said Finella decidedly, unaware that
neither officer nor soldier can quit the service when face to face
with an enemy or at the actual seat of war.
Finella was in the act of closing Dulcie's silver locket, when a
voice said:
'Please to let me look at this, Miss Carlyon. I have remarked your
invariable ornament.'
The speaker was Lady Fettercairn, who had approached them unnoticed.
Blushing deeply, Dulcie, with tremulous little fingers, re-opened the
locket, expectant, perhaps, of reprehension; but Lady Fettercairn
became strangely agitated.
'Lennard!' she exclaimed. 'This is my son Lennard as he looked when
I saw him last.'
'Oh, no, madam, that cannot be,' said Dulcie.
'Where got you it?'
'At home in Devonshire, where the photograph was taken about a year
ago.'
'Ah--true,' said Lady Fettercairn: 'when Lennard was that age--the
age of this young man--the art was scarcely known. And who is he?'
Dulcie hesitated.
'I have no right to ask,' said Lady Fettercairn, hauteur blending
with the certainly deep interest with which she regarded the contents
of the still open locket.
'One who loved me,' said Dulcie, with a kind of sob.
'And whom you love?' said the lady, stiffly.
'Yes, madam.'
'It is the image of Lennard!' continued Lady Fettercairn musingly;
'but there sounds the breakfast-bell,' she added, and turned abruptly
away.
What were the precise antecedents of this girl, Miss Carlyon, who had
been recommended to her by her friend, the vicar, in London? thought
Lady Fettercairn, as her cold, passive, and aristocratic frame of
mind resumed its sway. Yet, though she remained silent on the
subject, and disdained to inquire further about it, that miniature
interested her deeply, and frequently at table and elsewhere Dulcie
caught her eyes resting on the locket.
It filled her with a distinct and haunting memory of one seen long
ago, and not in dreams, for Lady Fettercairn was not of an
imaginative turn of mind.
It may seem strange that amid all this Dulcie never thought of
mentioning that Florian was the cousin of Shafto; but she knew how
distasteful to Lady Fettercairn was anyone connected with the family
of Lennard's dead wife, Flora MacIan.
When Shafto heard of all this, as he did somehow, the qualms of alarm
he experienced on seeing first Madelon Galbraith and then Dulcie at
Craigengowan were renewed; and he resolved, if he could, to get
possession of that locket, and deface or destroy the dangerous
likeness it contained.
But Dulcie had an intuitive perception or suspicion of this; and
finding that his evil gaze rested upon it repeatedly, after a time
she ceased to wear it, but locked it away in a secure place, from
whence she could draw it when she chose for her own private
delectation.
When Finella, in mutual confidence, told Dulcie of the manner in
which Shafto had brought about a separation between herself and
Vivian Hammersley, the girl expressed her indignation, but no
surprise. She knew all he was capable of doing, and related the two
ugly episodes of the locket.
'Heavens!' exclaimed Finella; 'if Lord Fettercairn knew of this
business he would surely expel him from Craigengowan.'
'No, no; the person expelled would to a certainty be poor me--an
expulsion that Lady Fettercairn would endorse to the full on learning
that Shafto had sought to make love to me. Then I should again be
more than ever homeless; so let us be silent, dear Finella.'
'Do you ever ride, Dulcie?' asked the latter.
'How can I ride now? In papa's time I had a beautiful little Welsh
cob, on which I used to scamper about the shady lanes and breezy
moors in Devonshire. I can see still in fancy his dear little head,
high withers, and short joints.'
'You shall ride with me,' said Finella, in her pretty, imperative
way. 'I have three pads of my own.'
'But I have no habit.'
'Then you shall wear one of mine. I have several. A blue or green
one will be most becoming to you; and though you are as plump as a
little English partridge, I have one that will be sure to fit you.'
'Thanks. Oh, how kind you are.'
'Now, let us go to the stables. I go there once every day to feed
"Fern," as you shall see.'
Sandy Macrupper, the head-groom, always thought the stables never
looked so bright as during the time of Finella's visit. He had known
her from her childhood, and taught her to ride her first Shetland
pony. He was a hard-featured and sour-visaged old man, with that
peculiarity of grooms, a very small head and puckered face. He was
clad in an orthodox, long-bodied waistcoat, in one of the pockets of
which a currycomb was stuck, and wore short corded breeches. He was
always closely shaven, and wore a scrupulously white neckcloth,
carefully tied. His grey eyes were bright and keen; his short legs
had that peculiar curve that indicates a horsy individual. And when
the ladies appeared, he came forth from the harness-room with smiling
alacrity, a piece of chamois-leather in one hand and a snaffle-bit in
the other.
'Good-morning, miss,' said he, touching his billycock.
'Good-morning, Sandy. I want Fern and Flirt for a spin about the
country to-day after luncheon;' and the sound of Finella's voice was
the signal for many impatient neighs of welcome and much rattling of
stall-collars and wooden balls.
Fern, the favourite pad of Finella--a beautiful roan, with a deal of
Arab blood in it--gave a loud whinny of delight and recognition, and
thrust forward his soft tan-coloured muzzle in search of the carrot
which she daily brought to regale him with; but Flirt preferred
apples and sugar. Then, regardless of what stablemen might be
looking on, she put her arms round Flirt's neck, and rubbed her
peach-like cheek against his velvety nose.
On hearing of the projected ride, at luncheon, Lady Fettercairn's
face grew cloudy, and she took an opportunity of saying:
'Finella, you are putting that girl, Miss Carlyon, quite out of her
place, and I won't stand it.'
'Oh, grandmamma!' exclaimed Finella, deprecatingly, 'this is only a
little kindness to one who has seen better times; and she had a horse
of her own in Devonshire.'
'Ah! no doubt she told you so.'
The horses were duly brought round in time: Fern with his silky mane
carefully and prettily plaited by the nimble little fingers of
Finella--a process which old Sandy Macrupper always watched with
delight and approval. And Dulcie, mounted on Flirt, a spotted grey,
looked every inch a lady of the best style, in an apple-green habit
of Finella's, with her golden hair beautifully coiled under a smart
top-hat, put well forward over her forehead. She was perfect, to her
little tan-coloured gauntlet gloves, and was--Lady Fettercairn, who
glanced from the window, was compelled to admit silently--'very good
form indeed.'
Escorted by Shafto and a groom, they set forth; and, save for the
unwelcome presence of the former, to Dulcie it was a day of delight,
which she thought she never should forget.
Dulcie, we have said, had been wont to scamper about the Devonshire
lanes, where the clustered apples grew thick overhead, on her Welsh
cob, and now on horseback she felt at home in her own sphere again;
her colour mounted, her blue eyes sparkled, and the girl looked
beautiful indeed.
She almost felt supremely happy; and Finella laughed as she watched
her enjoying the sensations of power and management, and the
independence given by horse-exercise--the life, the stir, the action,
and joyous excitement of a thorough good 'spin' along a breezy
country road.
Shafto, however, was in a sullen temper, and vowed secretly that
never again would he act their cavalier, because the girls either
ignored him by talking to each other, or only replied to any remarks
he ventured to make and these were seldom of an amusing or original
nature. Indeed, he felt painfully and savagely how hateful his
presence was to both.
Despite Lady Fettercairn, other rides followed, for Finella was
difficult to control, and in her impulsive and coaxing ways proved
generally irrepressible. Thus she took Dulcie all over the country:
to the ruined castle of Fettercairn, to Den Finella, and to the great
cascade--a perpendicular rock, more than seventy feet high, over
which the Finella River pours on its way from Garvock, where it
rises, to the sea at Johnshaven.
Returning slowly from one of these rides, with their pads at a
walking pace, with the groom a long way in their rear, Dulcie,
breaking a long silence, during which both seemed to be lost in
thought, said:
'Troubles are doubly hard to bear when we have to keep them to
ourselves; thus I feel happier, at least easier in mind, now that I
have told you all about poor Florian.'
'And I, that I have told you about Captain Hammersley,' replied
Finella; 'though of course I shall never see him again.'
'Never--why so?'
'After what he saw, and what he no doubt thinks, how can I expect to
do so? My greatest affliction is that I must seem so black in his
eyes. Yet it is impossible for me not to feel the deepest and most
tender interest in him--to watch with aching heart the news from the
seat of war, and all the movements of his regiment--the movements in
which he must have a share.'
'Things cannot, nay, must not, go on thus between you. The false
position should be cleared up, explained away. What is to be done?'
'Grin and bear it, as the saying is, Dulcie. Nothing can avail us
now--nothing,' said Finella, with a break in her voice.'
'Finella, let me help you and him.'
'How?'
'I shall write about it to Florian. I mean to write him now, at all
events.'
Despite all she had been told about the antecedents of the latter,
Finella blushed scarlet at the vision of what Hammersley--the proud
and haughty Vivian Hammersley--would think of his love-affairs being
put into the hands of one of his own soldiers; but Dulcie, thinking
only of who Florian was, did not see it in this light, or that it
would seem like a plain attempt to lure an angry lover back again.
'Unless you wish me to die of shame,' said Finella, after a bitter
pause--'shame and utter mortification--you will do no such thing,
Dulcie Carlyon!'
The latter looked at the speaker, and saw that her dark eyes were
flashing dangerously as she added:
'He left me in a gust of rage and suspicion of his own free will; and
of his own free will must he return.'
'Will he ever do so, if the cause for that just rage and suspicion,
born of his very love for you, is not explained away?'
'No, certainly. He is proud, and so am I; but I will never love
anyone else, and mean in time to come to invest in the sleekest of
tom-cats and die an old maid,' she added, with a little sob in her
throat.
'And meanwhile you are in misery?'
'As you see, Dulcie; but I will rather die than fling myself at any
man's head, especially at his, through the medium of a letter of
yours; but I thank you for the kind thought, dear Dulcie.'
So the latter said no more on the subject, yet made up her mind as to
what she would do.
The circumstance that both their lovers, so dissimilar in rank and
private means, were serving in the same regiment, facing the same
dangers, and enduring the same hardships, formed a kind of
sympathetic tie between these two girls, who could share their
confidences with each other alone, though their positions in life, by
present rank and their probable future, were so far apart.
They never thought of how young they were, or that, if both their
lovers were slain or never seen by them again through the
contingencies of life, others would come to them and speak of love,
perhaps successfully. Such ideas never occurred, however. Both were
too romantic to be practical; and both--the rich one and the poor
one--only thought of the desolate and forlorn years that stretched
like a long and gloomy vista before them, with nothing to look
forward to, and no one to care for, unless they became Sisters of
Charity; and Finella, with all her thousands, sometimes spoke
bitterly of doing so.