LAST NIGHTS.
"Good-night, Macleod!"--"Good-night!"--"Good-night!" The various voices
came from the top of a drag. They were addressed to one of two young men
who stood on the steps of the Star and Garter--black fingers in the
blaze of light. And now the people on the drag had finally ensconced
themselves, and the ladies had drawn their ample cloaks more completely
around their gay costumes, and the two grooms were ready to set free the
heads of the leaders. "Good-night, Macleod!" Lord Beauregard called
again; and then, with a little preliminary prancing of the leaders, away
swung the big vehicle through the clear darkness of the sweet-scented
summer night.
"It was awfully good-natured of Beauregard to bring six of your people
down and take them back again," observed Lieutenant Ogilvie to his
companion. "He wouldn't do it for most folks. He wouldn't do it for me.
But then you have the grand air, Macleod. You seem to be conferring a
favor when you get one."
"The people have been very kind to me," said Macleod, simply. "I do not
know why. I wish I could take them all up to Castle Dare and entertain
them as a prince could entertain people--"
"I want to talk to you about that, Macleod," said his companion. "Shall
we go upstairs again? I have left my hat and coat there."
They went upstairs, and entered a long chamber which had been formed by
the throwing of two rooms into one. The one apartment had been used as a
sort of withdrawing room; in the other stood the long banquet-table,
still covered with bright-colored flowers, and dishes of fruit, and
decanters and glasses. Ogilvie sat down, lit a cigar, and poured himself
out some claret.
"Macleod," said he, "I am going to talk to you like a father. I hear you
have been going on in a mad way. Surely you know that a batchelor coming
up to London for a season, and being asked about by people who are
precious glad to get unmarried men to their houses, is not expected to
give these swell dinner parties? And then, it seems, you have been
bringing down all your people in drags. What do those flowers cost you?
I dare say this is Lafitte, now?"
"And if it is, why not drink it and say no more about it? I think they
enjoyed themselves pretty well this evening--don't you, Ogilvie?"
"Yes, yes; but then, my dear fellow, the cost! You will say it is none
of my business; but what would your decent, respectable mother say to
all this extravagance?"
"Ah?" said Macleod, "that is just the thing; I should have more pleasure
in my little dinner parties if only the mother and Janet were here to
see. I think the table would look a good deal better if my mother was at
the head of it. And the cost?--oh, I am only following out her
instructions. She would not have people think that I was insensible to
the kindness that has been shown me; and then we cannot ask all those
good friends up to Castle Dare; it is an out-of-the-way place, and there
are no flowers on the dining-table there."
He laughed as he looked at the beautiful things before him; they would
look strange in the gaunt hall of Castle Dare.
"Why," said he, "I will tell you a secret, Ogilvie. You know my cousin
Janet--she is the kindest-hearted of all the women I know--and when I
was coming away she gave me £2000, just in case I should need it."
"£2000!" exclaimed Ogilvie. "Did she think you were going to buy
Westminster Abbey during the course of your holidays?" And then he
looked at the table before him, and a new idea seemed to strike him.
"You don't mean to say, Macleod, that it is your cousin's money--"
Macleod's face flushed angrily. Had any other man made the suggestion,
he would have received a tolerably sharp answer. But he only said to his
old friend Ogilvie,--
"No, no, Ogilvie; we are not very rich folks; but we have not come to
that yet. 'I'd sell my kilts, I'd sell my shoon,' as the song says,
before I touched a farthing of Janet's money. But I had to take it from
her so as not to offend her. It is wonderful, the anxiety and affection
of women who live away out of the world like that. There was my mother,
quite sure that something awful was going to happen to me, merely
because I was going away for two or three months, And Janet--I suppose
she knew that our family never was very good at saving money--she would
have me take this little fortune of hers, just as if the old days were
come back, and the son of the house was supposed to go to Paris to
gamble away every penny."
"By the way, Macleod," said Ogilvie, "you have never gone to Paris, as
you intended."
"No," said he, trying to balance three nectarines one on the top of the
other, "I have not gone to Paris. I have made enough friends in London.
I have had plenty to occupy the time. And now, Ogilvie," he added,
brightly, "I am going in for my last frolic, before everybody has left
London, and you must come to it, even if you have to go down by your
cold-meat train again. You know Miss Rawlinson; you have seen her at
Mrs. Ross's, no doubt. Very well; I met her first when we went down to
the Thames yacht race, and afterwards we became great friends; and the
dear little old lady already looks on me as if I were her son. And do
you know what her proposal is? That she is to give me up her house and
garden for a garden party, and I am to ask my friends; and it is to be a
dance as well, for we shall ask the people to have supper at eight
o'clock or so; and then we shall have a marquee--and the garden all
lighted up--do you see? It is one of the largest gardens on Campden
Hill; and the colored lamps hung on the trees will make it look very
fine; and we shall have a band to play music for the dancers--"
"It will cost you £200 or £300 at least," said Ogilvie, sharply.
"What then? You give your friends a pleasant evening, and you show them
that you are not ungrateful," said Macleod.
Ogilvie began to ponder over this matter. The stories he had heard of
Macleod's extravagant entertainments were true, then. Suddenly he looked
up and said,--
"Is Miss White to be one of your guests?"
"I hope so," said he. "The theatre will be closed at the end of this
week."
"I suppose you have been a good many times to the theatre."
"To the Piccadilly Theatre?"
"Yes."
"I have been only once to the Piccadilly Theatre--when you and I went
together," said Macleod, coldly; and they spoke no more of that matter.
By and by they thought they might as well smoke outside, and so they
went down and out upon the high and walled terrace overlooking the broad
valley of the Thames. And now the moon had arisen in the south, and the
winding river showed a pale gray among the black woods, and there was a
silvery light on the stone parapet on which they leaned their arms. The
night was mild and soft and clear, there was an intense silence around,
but they heard the faint sound of oars far away--some boating party
getting home through the dark shadows of the river-side trees.
"It is a beautiful life you have here in the south," Macleod said, after
a time, "though I can imagine that the women enjoy it more than the
men. It is natural for women to enjoy pretty colors, and flowers, and
bright lights, and music; and I suppose it is the mild air that lets
their eyes grow so big and clear. But the men--I should think they must
get tired of doing nothing. They are rather melancholy, and their hands
are white. I wonder they don't begin to hate Hyde Park, and kid gloves,
and tight boots. Ogilvie," said he, suddenly, straightening himself up,
"what do you say to the 12th? A few breathers over Ben-an-Sloich would
put new lungs into you. I don't think you look quite so limp as most of
the London men; but still you are not up to the mark. And then an
occasional run out to Coll or Tiree in that old tub of ours, with a
brisk sou'-wester blowing across--that would put some mettle into you.
Mind you, you won't have any grand banquets at Castle Dare. I think it
is hard on the poor old mother that she should have all the pinching,
and none of the squandering; but women seem to have rather a liking for
these sacrifices, and both she and Janet are very proud of the family
name; I believe they would live on sea-weed for a year if only their
representative in London could take Buckingham Palace for the season.
And Hamish--don't you remember Hamish?--he will give you a hearty
welcome to Dare, and he will tell you the truth about any salmon or stag
you may kill, though he was never known to come within five pounds of
the real weight of any big salmon I ever caught. Now then, what do you
say?"
"Ah, it is all very well," said Lieutenant Ogilvie. "If we could all get
what we want, there would scarcely be an officer in Aldershot Camp on
the 12th of August. But I must say there are some capitally good fellows
in our mess--and it isn't every one gets the chance you offer me--and
there's none of the dog-in-the-manger feeling about them: in short. I do
believe, Macleod, that I could get off for a week or so about the 20th."
"The 20th? So be it. Then you will have the blackcock added in."
"When do you leave?"
"On the 1st of August--the morning after my garden party. You must come
to it, Ogilvie. Lady Beauregard has persuaded her husband to put off
their going to Ireland for three days in order to come. And I have got
old Admiral Maitland coming--with his stories of the press-gang, and of
Nelson, and of the raids on the merchant-ships for officers for the
navy. Did you know that Miss Rawlinson was an old sweetheart of his? He
knew her when she lived in Jamaica with her father--several centuries
ago you would think, judging by their stories. Her father got £28,000
from the government when his slaves were emancipated. I wish I could get
the old admiral up to Dare--he and the mother would have some stories to
tell, I think. But you don't like long journeys at ninety-two."
He was in a pleasant and talkative humor, this bright-faced and stalwart
young fellow, with his proud, fine features and his careless air. One
could easily see how these old folks had made a sort of a pet of him.
But while he went on with this desultory chatting about the various
people whom he had met, and the friendly invitations he had received,
and the hopes he had formed of renewing his acquantainceship with this
person and the next person, should chance bring him again to London
soon, he never once mentioned the name of Miss Gertrude White, or
referred to her family, or even to her public appearances, about which
there was plenty of talk at this time. Yet Lieutenant Ogilvie, on his
rare visits to London, had more than once heard Sir Keith Macleod's name
mentioned in conjunction with that of the young actress whom society was
pleased to regard with a special and unusual favor just then; and once
or twice he, as Macleod's friend, had been archly questioned on the
subject by some inquisitive lady, whose eyes asked more than her words.
But Lieutenant Ogilvie was gravely discreet. He neither treated the
matter with ridicule, nor, on the other hand, did he pretend to know
more than he actually knew--which was literally nothing at all. For
Macleod, who was, in ordinary circumstances, anything but a reserved or
austere person, was on this subject strictly silent, evading questions
with a proud and simple dignity that forbade the repetition of them.
"_The thing that concerns you not, meddle not with:_" he observed the
maxim himself, and expected others to do the like.
It was an early dinner they had had, after their stroll in Richmond
Park, and it was a comparatively early train that Macleod and his friend
now drove down to catch, after he had paid his bill. When they reached
Waterloo Station it was not yet eleven o'clock; when he, having bade
good-bye to Ogilvie, got to his rooms in Bary Street, it was but a few
minutes after. He was joyfully welcomed by his faithful friend Oscar.
"You poor dog," said he, "here have we been enjoying ourselves all the
day, and you have been in prison. Come, shall we go for a run?"
Oscar jumped up on him with a whine of delight; he knew what that taking
up of the hat again meant. And then there was a silent stealing
downstairs, and a slight, pardonable bark of joy in the hall, and a wild
dash into the freedom of the narrow street when the door was opened.
Then Oscar moderated his transports, and kept pretty close to his master
as together they began to wander through the desert wilds of London.
Piccadilly?--Oscar had grown as expert in avoiding the rattling
broughams and hansoms as the veriest mongrel that ever led a vagrant
life in London streets. Berekely Square?--here there was comparative
quiet, with the gas lamps shining up on the thick foliage of the maples.
In Grosvenor Square he had a bit of a scamper; but there was no rabbit
to hunt. In Oxford Street his master took him into a public-house and
gave him a biscuit and a drink of water; after that his spirits rose a
bit, and he began to range ahead in Baker Street. But did Oscar know any
more than his master why they had taken this direction?
Still farther north; and now there were a good many trees about; and the
moon, high in the heavens, touched the trembling foliage, and shone
white on the front of the houses. Oscar was a friendly companion; but he
could not be expected to notice that his master glanced somewhat
nervously along South Bank when he had reached the entrance to that
thoroughfare. Apparently the place was quite deserted; there was nothing
visible but the walls, trees, and houses, one side in black shadow, the
other shining cold and pale in the moonlight. After a moment's
hesitation Macleod resumed his walk, though he seemed to tread more
softly.
And now, in the perfect silence, he neared a certain house, though but
little of it was visible over the wall and through the trees. Did he
expect to see a light in one of those upper windows, which the drooping
acacias did not altogether conceal. He walked quickly by, with his head
averted. Oscar had got a good way in front, not doubting that his master
was following him.
But Macleod, perhaps having mustered up further courage, stopped in his
walk, and returned. This time he passed more slowly, and turned his head
to the house, as if listening. There was no light in the windows; there
was no sound at all; there was no motion but that of the trembling
acacia leaves as the cold wind of the night stirred them. And then he
passed over to the south side of the thoroughfare, and stood in the
black shadow of a high wall; and Oscar came and looked up into his face.
A brougham rattled by; then there was utter stillness again; and the
moonlight shone on the front of the small house; which was to all
appearances as lifeless as the grave. Then, far away, twelve o'clock
struck, and the sound seemed distant as the sound of a bell at sea in
this intense quiet.
He was alone with the night, and with the dreams and fancies of the
night. Would he, then, confess to himself that which he would confess to
no other? Or was it merely some passing whim--some slight underchord of
sentiment struck amidst the careless joy of a young man's holiday--that
had led him up into the silent region of trees and moonlight? The scene
around him was romantic enough, but he certainly had not the features of
an anguish-stricken lover.
Again the silence of the night was broken by the rumbling of a cab that
came along the road; and now, whatever may have been the fancy that
brought him hither, he turned to leave, and Oscar joyfully bounded out
into the road. But the cab, instead of continuing its route, stopped at
the gate of the house he had been watching, and two young ladies stepped
out. Fionaghal, the Fair Stranger, had not, then, been wandering in the
enchanted land of dreams, but toiling home in a humble four-wheeler from
the scene of her anxious labors? He would have slunk away rapidly but
for an untoward accident. Oscar, ranging up and down, came upon an old
friend, and instantly made acquaintance with her, on seeing which,
Macleod, with deep vexation at his heart, but with a pleasant and
careless face, had to walk along also.
"What an odd meeting!" said he. "I have been giving Oscar a run. I am
glad to have a chance of bidding you good-night. You are not very tired,
I hope."
"I am rather tired," said she; "but I have only two more nights, and
then my holiday begins."
He shook hands with both sisters, and wished them good-night, and
departed. As Miss Gertrude White went into her father's house she seemed
rather grave.
"Gerty," said the younger sister, as she screwed up the gas, "wouldn't
the name of Lady Macleod look well in a play-bill?"
The elder sister would not answer; but as she turned away there was a
quick flush of color in her face--whether caused by anger or by a sudden
revelation of her own thought it was impossible to say.