THE PKINCE'S HUSSARS.
Like everything else she undertook, Dove's little dinner party was a
success, from, the soup and fish to the maraschino or charteuse and
the coffee. With the pairing of the couples we have little to do,
save to mention that, of course, she was led to the dining-room by
Lord Campsie, the guest of the evening, while Stafford Martingale,
one of the fastest men of the regiment--a prime favourite with fast
women, and who always boasted himself a non-marrying man--to his
disgust and bewilderment, had the duty of escorting old Mrs. Elspat
McBriar, while fair Flora Stuart was happy in having Sir Hayward
Carrington, a good-looking baronet, rather "horsey" and _blasé_, a
man about forty years of age, who had learned as much of life in half
those years as another man might in a hundred--but with the
entertainment in all its petty details we have leas to do, than what
it led to.
A little excited by the novelty of the affair, the flush in Dove's
soft cheek made her look more beautiful than ever, as it mantled
under the transparent texture of her fair white skin. She was
dressed in blue, which she knew was most becoming to her complexion
and bright auburn hair with its golden sheen. She wore with it the
richest lace, and her jewels few, as became a young girl, were good
and in excellent taste, and her cable-bracelets of Italian
workmanship set off the whiteness of her beautiful hands, which
Campsie, a true connoisseur in such features, could perceive were as
handsome as her eyes and the contour of her dazzling throat. How
proud of her Gillian felt as he gazed at her from time to time during
the protracted repast.
Not quite at his ease, the lawyer rather overdid his part of host;
but that which was restlessness passed for hospitality; while old
Mrs. McBriar, in honour of the guests, appeared in an amplitude of
black skirt, moire antique, of a fashion unknown in this world now,
twisting nervously her grandmother's square gold eyeglass, but
nodding and smiling graciously to all, and whispering her
disappointment to Martingale that they had not come in uniform as she
fully expected them to do, with busbies and accoutrements, for in
Quarter-master McBriar's time--and so forth--she gave some prosy
anecdote to which the Hussar listened with well-bred indifference.
At first she was rather put about by the presence of a real lord at
the table. The paper-lord, or "Parliament House" article, she was
used to; they were plain, half-bred, toddy-drinking and often
coarse-speaking old Scotsmen, but Campsie and his friends of "the
Prince's," with their general style, bearing, and easy
_insouciance_--for such it was--impressed her deeply.
Among these Hussars, with their man-about-town bearing and soldierly
aspect, their broad views of politics, their references to a
fashionable world which he was as unable to comprehend as he was
their occasional "horsey" talk, poor Gideon Gainswood was like a fish
out of the water. Perhaps, in his heart he hated them for possessing
a tone, rank, and bearing so immeasurably above his own; but he was
proud of his guests--a real lord and baronet--and liked immensely
that his little barrister friends should see them at his table, but
he felt more at ease when it was quitted for the drawing-room.
On the other hand, such is the gratitude of "society," that Campsie,
Carrington, Martingale, and two other Hussars who were there, liked
his wines, his rooms, and the girls they met, better than his own
company, and when the piano was opened he was forthwith ignored; yet
he heeded it not--or, perhaps, felt it not.
The three Stuart girls, old Torduff's daughters, and two or three
more, who, like their countrywomen in general, were accomplished
musicians and sang well, now that the Hussars had been introduced to
them, looked fondly forward to the periodical balls and assemblies of
the coming season, which there begin in the February of each year;
thus they were full of gratitude to Dove, and certainly did their
best to excel; while Gillian, in spite of himself, looked rather
moodily on the progress of the whole affair.
Dove's beauty, and, more than all, her alleged expectations, had
found her many admirers among the men who frequented her father's
house; but these were chiefly sprouts of the provincial Bar--"young
reekies," as Campsie was wont to call them, whose inordinate
self-esteem only provoked the girl's sense of amusement.
Like Gainswood, they were only accustomed to those "Lords" who sprang
from their own society; but now, those who were present, when they
saw the son of a peer and an English baronet reputed to have £70,000
per annum, talking and looking very much like other people, were
perhaps surprised, and thus Campsie and Carrington actually began to
lose caste in their eyes.
As Stafford Martingale did not affect to be a musical man, Mrs.
McBriar fastened upon him for the infliction of her reminiscences of
the Scots Greys, which she interpolated with some choice _morceaux_
from "Elijah the Tishbite," "The Shove Heavenward," and similar
works, all uttered in a sharp West Highland accent.
"By Jove, the rum old girl is off her nut!" sighed Martingale, as he
eyed her through his glass as he might a species of Ourang-outang.
As Martingale had his left arm in a slight sling--little more than a
broad black riband--the ladies thought he must have been wounded
somewhere, and on Mrs. McBriar venturing to inquire where, he,
replied,
"In the hunting field, madam."
"In the field--dear me!" she added, full of interest, taking in only
the last word.
"It was in Leicestershire, when riding to hounds. I had rasped a
bullfinch, but the second fence was an oxer--a ferocious one--a ditch
deep and broad, a thick laid fence, and stiff posts four or five feet
beyond. I never craned a bit, but rushed my horse at it, Mrs.
McBriar, holding him thoroughly by the head, gave him a squeeze with
the knees, a touch with the spur, and he rose like a bird!" continued
Martingale, who could be fluent enough on such a subject as this. "I
went crash into the rails and came a terrible cropper--you understand
me, Mrs. McBriar; but, though my arm was out, I clambered into my
saddle, and was in at the death, for the country after that was as
easy as the passage of the Red Sea, don't you know."
Mrs. McBriar was as shocked at the comparison as she was mystified by
the anecdote, and still more was she bewildered when she overheard
Lord Campsie say to Sir Hayward,
"Yes--of course--the Queen runs at Goodwood--she has more than once
done a good thing with Spinning Jenny with even weights--I have put a
pot of money on her."
"A pot on the Queen!" thought Mrs. McBriar, breathlessly.
"A pot," repeated the Baronet; "by Jove, I would not have put more
than a monkey--it is a sell, I fear."
"My book's made, don't you know, and I am safe to win, old boy,"
replied Campsie, confidently.
"Gad, I hope so--but I gave the straight tip--the Q. T. for light.
If you fail----"
"Don't talk of it--my resource, then, would inexorably be the
children of Israel."
"The Red Sea and the Children of Israel?" pondered the old lady;
"perhaps they were religious and God-fearing young men," but their
language sounded incomprehensible.
Lord Campsie was just the kind of man to feel himself at home
anywhere, and as this was his fourth or fifth visit to the house of
Gainswood, whom he patronised, and by whom he was treated with
servile deference, he felt himself quite _l'ami du maison_, and now
he was bending over Dove, as she sat at the piano, stroking his
moustache from time to time with all the air of a handsome fellow who
is perfectly pleased with himself, with his own "get-up," and with
the impression he hoped he was making, while turning over the leaves
of the music-book, the pleasant duty heretofore of Gillian Lamond
generally.
Sensible of this; when a cluster was about her, after much bad
French, indifferent German, and singularly weak English singing--weak
as far as composition went--had been performed, when Campsie, with
all the _empressement_ of which he was master, whisperingly urged her
to favour him with something--so closely that his moustache touched
her ear,--Dove coloured with annoyance, and motioning Gillian to her
side to turn over the leaves, said,
"You know all my songs, Gillian--what shall I sing?"
"Sing 'Wild Joanna,'" said he, with his eyes full of pleasure, while
Campsie fell back a pace.
"I know it is your favourite--place it before me--thanks, dear
Gillian," she whispered.
Her taste in music was cultivated and refined, and her selection of
songs was remarkable for sweetness and quaintness, and she knew that
Gillian was never weary of hearing her sing one, of a ballad
kind--the one named--which was mournful in cadence; the tender memory
of which was fated often to come back to him, when they were far
apart.
The song of some unknown writer, it told of a girl who vowed, in her
faith, to visit her lover even after death had parted them, and we
may be pardoned giving the opening lines here from memory--
"Thou hast sworn, oh wild Joanna!
When death shall come to thee,
That if ever soul come back,
Thy soul will come to me.
"But think impetuous maiden!
Though dear that radiant head,
The mortal heart is weak,
And hath terror of the dead.
"Oh let there be no change!
Come bright and sweet as now;
With the same dusk on thy cheek,
And dark hair on thy brow.
"But come not, come not maiden!
To my bedside in the night
When my eyes with sleep are laden,
Lest my heart may fail with fright."
The most tender verses were the last; and long, long was the
expression of Dove's soft violet eyes, as they looked upward for a
moment into Gillian's, doomed to haunt him in connection with the
story they told.
He withdrew, and once more Campsie assumed his post, with the
slightest _soupçon_ of supercilious annoyance in his face; while
Gillian, whom the other's rank alarmed, and his attention annoyed,
was not in the least degree jealous, for simply, the honest fellow
could not understand that anyone could know Dove Gainswood without
admiring and loving her.
But the evening came to an end at last, and Sir Hayward's carriage
took the Hussar party home to their barracks at Piershill, leaving
pressing invitations with Mr. Gainswood and Gillian to dine with them
at mess, on the next "stranger day."
Some of the ladies present--not Torduff's daughters, who were country
people--but of the legal circle, had enjoyed themselves immensely,
for one particular reason. They could now, when asked if they knew
Viscount Kilsythe's son and heir, or Sir Hayward Carrington, or
Captain Stafford Martingale--the rich Hussar--say, and say with
truth, that they had met him at the Gainswood dinner party, and so
forth.
Flora Stuart's comments on Lord Campsie to Dove made the cheeks of
the latter colour.
"Isn't he charming, Dove?"
"Very pleasant."
"Pleasant! he is delightful--so handsome--so rich, and such fun,
dear!"
"They say he has spent all his money," croaked Mrs. McBriar.
"Not at all--who dares to say so?" asked Mr. Gainswood, with some
asperity.
"Never mind--money or no money," said Flora to Dove, as she shawled
herself and the carriage was announced, "he'll be a peer one day, and
you have made quite a conquest. Don't you think she has, Mr. Lamond?"
"The 'young reekies' were certainly nowhere to-night," replied
Gillian, with a smile to conceal some of the real annoyance which the
heedless girl's rattle caused him.
But he forgot that his engagement with Dove had been formally denied
to her, as to others.