AT PIERSHILL
For the first time in his very prosaic life, Gideon Gainswood began
to indulge in some very brilliant day-dreams, out of which he wove a
future, even as Alnaschar did out of his basket of glass.
He felt certain that Dove's beauty had made a favourable impression
on the young lord, whose monetary necessities he knew, and any
monetary advances he made from thenceforward were simply as the means
to an end--to get the young heir of Viscount Kilsythe in his power.
The name and title of the latter were Scottish, of course; but so far
as nationality went, he was no more a Scot than Gainswood himself,
and he was about as much one in sentiment as a Fiji Islander.
Apart from the reversion of the estates in both countries, Campsie's
belongings were not much. His wardrobe was unexceptionable, and so
was his jewellery.
He had four horses at Piershill, besides his charger; a dressing-case
that might suit a duchess, and was believed to be the gift of one,
and he had a betting-book, bound in gold and morocco, that cost him
more thought, certainly, than ever Euclid did.
"No--Campsie doesn't gamble," said Mr. Gainswood musingly, "but he
makes his racing pay."
"How?" asked Gillian, who was near.
"Why he won £20,000 on a horse last year."
As it was Gillian who spoke, Mr. Gainswood knit his brows and turned
away.
We have referred to the adulation of rank that exists in the Scottish
metropolis--a feature almost unknown in London, where the vast
community, linked together from the most exalted in station to the
most humble, in a graduated scale, gives unto every man his place;
but in Edinburgh it is totally different, and there the legal
profession, who are generally sprung from the humbler classes,
actually assume to themselves the place of the old Scottish
aristocracy.
"When royalty went to London," wrote one who knew the subject well,
and is now in his grave, "nobility followed; and in Edinburgh the
field is left now, and has been so left for a long time back, to Law,
Physic, and Divinity. The professions predominate: than these, there
is _nothing higher_! In Edinburgh, a Lord of Session is as a Prince
of the Blood; a Professor, a Cabinet minister; an Advocate, an heir
to a peerage. The University and the Courts of Justice are to
Edinburgh what the Court and Houses of Lords and Commons are to
London."
_Proh pudor!_ Yet, elsewhere he admits, that in no other city will
we find so general an appreciation of books, music, and art. "It is
peculiarly free from the taint of the ledger and counting-house; it
is a Wiemar without a Goethe--a Boston without its nasal twang."
Gideon Gainswood was second to none there in his profound admiration
of the peerage, though in politics a most uncompromising
whig-radical; and now--now, the slender chance, the fond hope, the
dazzling prospect of securing by any means such a son-in-law as Lord
Campsie, the future Viscount Kilsythe, made him totally oblivious of
Dove's own wishes in the matter and his mode of dealing with his
nephew. The peerage, attainted in 1715, after the battle of
Dunblane, had been restored by George IV., before his famous visit to
Scotland in 1822.
He took down the Peerage, and read with a fervour exceeding any he
had ever felt when reading the Scriptures perhaps, the pedigree of
the Livingstones of Campsie and Kilsythe, from Sir William who fought
under James II. at Roxburgh, William, fourth of his title, killed at
Flodden, William, sixth, knighted with the Duke of Albany in 1565,
and so on to others who fought for the Stuarts in all their
struggles, loyally, gallantly, and truly (the popish and bloody house
of Stuart, as Gainswood was wont to call it), till in fancy he saw it
coming down to "the present peer, A. E. Viscount Kilsythe, Captain in
the Prince's Hussars (and seventeenth of his line from Sir John
Livingstone of Callender) who married Dove, only daughter and heiress
of Gideon Gainswood, W. S., Edinburgh."
This would be indeed a fish-torpedo to explode among the gossips of
"the village in the North," as Thackeray named it.
In his over-vaulting ambition, he already foresaw that which poor
little Dove, all unconscious of the net that was weaving, certainly
did not--his grandson--the Master of Kilsythe--seated on his
knee--the picture of himself, as such pictures are alleged to be
reproduced in the third generation; and, as for the old Viscount, he
already counted as nothing in the lawyer's fervid day-dreams.
But the Colonel--the Colonel was coming home! More than all, my Lord
Campsie had not yet proposed; and if he did, Dove might not have him.
Dare she refuse?
But the Colonel! He glanced from his desk to the green charter box;
his hands clenched till the fingernails were buried in the palms, and
then, more than ever, did the dark, terrible, and hunted expression,
before mentioned, cloud all his sordid visage.
Mr. Gideon Gainswood declined the invitation to dine with the Hussar
mess at Piershill. He had dined there once with the son of a client,
a lieutenant of Lancers, and drank so much wine of various kinds that
he remembered nothing of leaving the table, and was oblivious of
everything till next morning, when he was found by the Rough Rider
and his squad in the Riding School, tucked up to the nose in tan and
painted pea-green.
Of this insult he took no notice--wisely, it was said, as an ugly
story concerning how he had figured in some heavy bill transaction
was whispered about at the time; so Gillian, who was fond of military
society, proceeded to the barracks alone.
They are, or were until lately, considered the best accommodation for
cavalry in Britain, and stand in the plain immediately below the
northern base of Arthur's Seat, within a mile of the Forth, and in a
locality rich in such scenic attractions as comport well with the
vicinity of a city so picturesque and magnificent. The actual name
of the place is Jock's Lodge--as it was so called in the time of
Charles II.--but the barracks are named Piershill, in honour of a
Colonel Piers, whose residence stood there, and who commanded a corps
of dragoons in the days of George II. On one side towers the great
mountain that overlooks the city. On the other opens the firth, with
its islets and steamers, and the wavy outline of Fife beyond.
Though Gillian was the only stranger, the band was playing at
intervals in the barrack square, and all the trophied plate of the
mess--the towering and costly vases and epergnes, the accumulations
and presentations of past years, added to the magnificence of a
luxurious and well-ordered dinner table, to which Gillian was
welcomed by Lord Campsie, Sir Hayward Carrington, and others, and
treated with every hospitality; and yet, as the evening wore on, he
had much reason to regret that he had accepted the invitation at all.
He heard some things that he would rather not have heard.
The troops of the left wing had just come in, and the officers, who
had never been in these quarters before, were inquiring what sort of
a place Edinburgh was--if there was any "society" and so forth; but,
headed by Lord Campsie, the first arrivals were unanimous in voting
that Piershill was an awful and melancholy change after Hounslow,
where they had been within a few miles of the Row, the Parks, Regent
Street, Lillie Bridge, the Opera, and a thousand other things unknown
to the modern Athenians; and the first Lord Campsie, who so stoutly
defended his castle of Kilsythe against Oliver Cromwell, had he been
within hearing, would have been sorely troubled and perplexed by the
style, ideas, and conversation of his noble descendant, especially
his somewhat contemptuous opinion of the "grey metropolis of the
North," and of the "upper ten dozen," whom he affirmed to be the
society inquired for. Having been quartered at Piershill before, and
moreover, being the son of a Scottish peer, he was naturally looked
upon as an authority.
"The women want that finish and delicacy which those in London have,
and their fashions are always months behind their time," said his
lordship.
"But they have weekly assemblies here--daunces?" lisped Lieutenant
Lavender.
"Yes--of course, in what they call the season, and patronised by some
sixth-rate lady of the aristocracy, who maybe here _en passant_; but
they are bad form, very; all legal and shop-people; their wives in
cotton velvet, imitation lace, and French jewelry; and, like the men,
all displaying the most dreadful air of self-assertion in the world.
But it is great fun."
"Come, come, Campsie, that is too bad!" said Sir Hayward; "I have
heard that these entertainments--the weekly assemblies--are a very
good style of thing, and that Red Coats there are always at a
premium."
"Yes," replied Campsie; "there you are right, as the girls are pretty
sure that the wearers of them are gentlemen, which the Young-reekies
may not be."
"Then, I suppose, the General Assembly must be a very gay one," said
Lavender, "given, I suppose, by the Commander-in-chief?"
Campsie laughed outright at this, and then said,
"Congratulate yourself that you have escaped it, my boy, with its
swarms of Black-coats, and think of the Scotch paper-lords in the
train of the High Commissioner, in cabs, or carriages, with coats
armorial that outshine their father's signboards. It's very funny;
but it is a yearly nuisance here, of which I shall move for the
abolition, if ever I am a representative peer. I have been quartered
in this hole before, don't you know, for my sins."
"You are very unpatriotic!" said Sir Hayward.
"I have my own ideas on these matters, don't you know," drawled
Campsie. "Mixed though his race is, that becomes true nationality in
an Englishman which is mere querulous provincialism in the Scot or
Irishman."
Gillian was decidedly annoyed by the derogatory remarks of the young
lord; but was loth to quarrel with him, loth to risk a scene, and
especially with one of his uncle's principal clients; and, oddly
enough, he was the more annoyed because he knew that some of
Campsie's remarks were but too true.
The music of the band partially drowned conversation for a time; the
evening being calm and serene, all the mess-room windows were open,
though twilight had fallen and the gasaliers were lit. By this time
the cloth was removed, and the wine had been circulated pretty
freely, so much so, that Campsie's utterance had begun to get a
little "feathery," as he phrased it.
"Yes, I agree with you," he was saying to Stafford Martingale; "she
is a jolly little girl, and with lots of tin!"
"And utterly without the patois of Edinburgh."
"You are right, Staff, my boy; but, by Jove, the old pater--what's
his name--Gainswood possesses it in perfection. A girl with such an
instep should be a good waltzer."
"You have been noting her points pretty closely," said Martingale.
"Are you speaking of Miss Gainswood?" asked Gillian, somewhat sharply.
"Hope you are not sweet upon her, Lamond?" said Campsie.
"Why?"
"Because I have half a mind to be so myself."
"Sir---she is my cousin."
On this the banter instantly ceased; the burst of laughter in which
the young lord indulged at his own conceit passed away, and there was
an adjournment made to the smoking-room, where, amid the smoke and
odour of manilla cheroots, bland weeds said to be slightly opiated
and hence more than usually soothing, and full-flavoured regalias,
much "horsey" talk was engaged in, as every officer present rode,
hunted, and betted freely on all the coming events, and Campsie,
perhaps to remove the unpleasant impression his careless remark might
have made upon Gillian, plunged at once into matters of which he knew
nothing; the Derby and Oaks, which were just at hand; how it was a
wonder he had not killed himself at the last Liverpool steeplechases;
but he was a fellow, don't you know, who took a vast deal of killing,
and ever and anon referred to his favourite mare on which he had won
so much last year, adding,
"I have entered her at Punchestown for the Great United Service
Handicap, and at Goodwood too. If she wins both I am a made man."
"If not?"
"Don't think of it, old fellow, for then I shall be in a precious
hole!"
After a time the name of Gainswood fell again on Gillian's ear. This
time the speakers were Sir Hayward Carrington and Lavender, who were
smoking outside one of the open windows. Their voices came
distinctly to his ear, hence it was impossible for him not to listen.
"And you actually dined there--by Jove!" said Lavender.
"Campsie took us. You are right--Gainswood--that is the name; he is
deuced bad form--a most disreputable old rascal. I know now that it
was he who played here at Piershill, such a trick to O'Connor of the
Irish Lancers."
"How?"
"O'Connor and he did a bill for five thou. (he had a loss on the
Epsom) at inordinate percentage, you may be sure, though he had many
religious scruples about advancing money for a racing debt; but the
security was unexceptionable. It fell, of course, inexorably due.
O's long-suffering parent stumped up like an old Irish brick as he
was, but omitted to have the beastly bit of blue paper returned."
"Well?" asked Lavender, tipping the ashes off his long regalia.
"And what does old Gainswood do?"
"Put it in the fire, I suppose."
"Not at all; he had it noted, protested, and paid away, and on its
being presented a second time, O'Connor had to pound his commission
at Greenwood's, and quit the Lancers for ever."
"Sharp practice, that!"
"Dodson and Fogg couldn't beat it."
"And what became of O'Connor--took to the wine-trade or a
secretaryship, I suppose."
"Poor fellow--he took her Majesty's shilling in the 11th Hussars, and
was shot through the heart, a private soldier, in the Balaclava
charge!" said Sir Hayward with emphatic bitterness. "It nearly broke
the heart of the poor old man in Galway. He never meant to drive Pat
to that resource. But what did it matter to the Scotch Shylock who
had received, twice over, his pound of flesh?"
"I shall not dine here again," thought Gillian, as he took his way
homeward soon after hearing these terrible remarks, which made his
heart sick, more than all, when he thought of Dove.
He walked slowly onward, cigar in mouth, and lost in thought. The
genuine snobbery of the young lord's remarks at mess he had utterly
forgotten in the bitterness of the revelation made by Sir Hayward
Carrington. Before him rose the green outline of the Calton Hill,
with the great open columns of the intended Parthenon darkly defined
against the broad bright disc of the summer moon; on his right lay
the pretty village of Restalrig, with its quaint cottages and ancient
church of the thirteenth century, covered with ivy and embosomed
among orchards; and Gillian looked around him dreamily as he walked
leisurely homeward.
All that he had overheard concerning Mr. Gainswood--her
father--galled and stung him. Could such things have been? Dark,
vague, and terrible suspicions and anticipations, born of this and of
his uncle's peculiar bearing for some time past, began to haunt and
appal him in spite of himself. For the first time in his life he was
most unhappy, in having overheard that which he sorrowed to have
heard at all.
Perhaps it was all a mistake. Anyway, he resolved to be silent on
the subject. He strove to thrust distrust of his uncle's honour
(Honour!) from him; but the story would come up again and again, for
was he not the father of Dove!
But events, unforeseen, were to happen thick and fast now.