THE DIVIDED PAIR.
Mrs. Garth was dozing dreamily before the fire, and the two girls
were at the piano, when the general and Fotheringhame entered the
drawing-room.
They were idling over the instrument, before which Annabelle was
seated, and over the keys of which Mary was occasionally running her
fingers, as if apparently to conceal a little confidential
conversation that was in progress between them.
'You'll have a turn with the guns to-morrow, Fotheringhame,' said the
general, 'but you must excuse my absence; my day is past for that
sort of thing. The rocketers I once could bring down, pass over my
head contemptuously now; and bullfinches seem much bigger in the
hunting-field than they used to be, so I funk them entirely, and seek
a quiet gate, as I don't like to come a spread eagle into the field;
and, by Jove! the doctor has already hinted about a respirator.
D--n! fancy a fellow at the head of a brigade with a respirator! I
was nearly drowned the other day, and would have been but for Mary,
when landing a twenty-pound pike from Eaglescraig Loch; so it is time
I gave over these little vanities, and left them to my juniors and
successors; though, Heaven knows, that if I was anxious about my
estate in this world just when it is time to be thinking of the
other, it was not for myself, but for those who are to come after
me,' added the general in a softened tone, for now much of the
peppery nature of the old stock-comedy guardian had left him. 'Fond
of music, Fotheringhame?' he asked, after a pause.
'Very.'
'Ah; dare say we shall find you something in that way. Mary is no
bad performer.'
'Pray excuse me--to-night,' urged Mary.
'Then I won't excuse Annabelle,' said the general, patting the
shoulder of the latter, while Fotheringhame drew near; 'do favour us
with the little song I have so often heard you sing with such extreme
sweetness and pathos.'
'Which, Sir Piers?'
'What is it? oh yes--"Love me always, love me ever," or something of
that kind. There must be some tender association connected with it,
I am sure,' continued Sir Piers, in utter ignorance of how his
remarks cut two ways, like a double-edged sword.
'I have not the music--and--and I have quite forgotten the words,'
replied Annabelle, growing painfully pale, and wishing that the floor
would open and swallow her up, conscious that Leslie Fotheringhame
was standing at her back. The latter saw the ill-concealed emotion
that pervaded her whole frame, and he felt keenly for her.
'Is this girl to be, for good or for evil, my destiny after all?' he
thought, as he regarded with his old admiration the beauty of her
refined face and her brilliant complexion--that dazzling and
wonderful fairness which almost invariably accompanies the possession
of golden and auburn hair.
Annabelle did not leave the piano; it afforded her a pretext for
keeping her face turned from those around her, and, impelled by some
new emotion, she sang in succession some of her gayest and most
effective songs, while Fotheringhame hovered near, leaving to Mary
the task of turning the music, and steadily and keenly he regarded
the singer. Was this gaiety real, or was she acting a part? he
thought; and seeing that he came nearer, Mary withdrew.
'You regard me with surprise,' said Annabelle, finding his eyes fixed
on her, and feeling a desperate necessity for saying something.
Indeed, they had scarcely spoken since leaving the railway carriage.
'Certainly, I am surprised,' said he; 'I did not expect to be
standing by your side thus, and hearing your voice again.'
Full fell the light of the chandelier on the lovely upturned eyes
that did not soften in the least, as he hoped they would do, at his
slight allusion to the past.
'Captain Fotheringhame,' said Annabelle, quite calmly, and in an
ordinary tone, 'you look at me as though I were somehow changed.'
'Oh, you are not in the least changed, he replied, in a low voice,
and with a bitter smile; 'you are volatile and--cruel as ever.'
'Cruel!' she repeated, under cover of a musical crash, while the
colour rushed to her cheeks and delicate neck; but she disdained to
say more, and thus, to one or two half-broken utterances of his,
finding that she made no response, Fotheringhame drew back and
rejoined the general.
How long was all this to go on? was Annabelle's bitter thought. In
the old time, by the silver birches on the Tay-side, they had met,
loved, quarrelled, and parted, she thought, for ever; but to meet and
quarrel again with just cause on one side, with the prayer in her
heart that they might never look in each other's faces again, and
here they were now, by an unexpected coincidence, a strange freak of
destiny, under the same roof, and in the same room, compelled to meet
at least as mutual friends!
Thus, when they parted for the night, his voice was as calm and his
smile and bow as coldly polite as her own. Then he and the general
withdrew to the smoking-room, to talk over Cecil's affairs, and
scheme out some plan for his future, and the girls gladly sought
their rooms, which adjoined each other, and plunged at once into
gossip and hair-dressing.
For weeks and weeks past Mary's life had been one of dull routine;
she had fed her pet birds, her pigeons, watched her flowers, and
watered her ferns, as usual; it was such a relief to do, or be doing,
anything: but now that Annabelle Erroll had come, she felt almost
happy in her companionship--for both had enough to talk about.
'Have you met as acquaintances merely?' asked Mary, with eagerness.
'Yes; but acquaintances of a peculiar kind, certainly. How could it
be otherwise, after all that has passed between us? I must
studiously ignore the past,' continued Annabelle; 'nor shall his
strange and sharp allusion to it move me, save in the way of
annoyance and surprise.'
To her it seemed very strange and unaccountable that Leslie
Fotheringhame should adopt an indignant tone with her, as if _he_
were the wronged party, and that she had nothing to complain of in
reference to his conduct with the unknown lady.
'Why did he so studiously, so cruelly deceive me?' she exclaimed, on
the verge of tears; 'but that I inherit the spirit of my father, the
old colonel, he would have broken my heart--I loved him so!'
'Poor Annabelle!' said Mary, caressing her; 'twice engaged, and twice
separated--you are a curious pair. Let us hope that the third time
may prove successful and irrevocable!'
'Never!' exclaimed Annabelle. 'Did he not openly tell me that
she--that woman--is happy now? What did he mean by that?--for there
was something of mournful exultation in his tone!'
'It is all very strange,' said Mary, in perplexity; 'can there have
been some simple, yet perhaps inexplicable, mistake at the bottom of
this unhappy business?'
'No, Mary--I tell you no!' replied Annabelle, with angry energy; 'the
woman in the matter was a fact palpable enough. And what can the
unexplained mystery of his interest in her be? and is it not to him
degradation, and to me insult?'
'Unexplained; it might not have been.'
'How?'
'You forget the rejected correspondence--the last unopened letter.'
'Anyway,' replied Annabelle, with a forced laugh, 'unlike the Grande
Duchesse, I shall no longer dote upon the military. I'll look out
for an easy-going parson, or plain country gentleman, and, as Hawley
Smart says, "more weddings take place from pique than the world
wotteth of," and Hawley is right.' Then, dropping this tone, she
twined her white arms round her friend, and, gazing into her soft
face, said, 'Dear Mary, how poorly you are looking!'
'Well, have I not had much cause for anxiety, and tears too, think
you?'
'No man, I believe now, is worth the grief that robs a woman of her
peace and rest.'
'Oh, Annabelle, the thought of Leslie Fotheringhame embitters you;
but I sorrow for Cecil--and there are men and men, remember. How
strange it seems that now I must think and speak of him not as
Falconer (his mother's name), but as Cecil Montgomerie!' she added,
with a soft smile, gazing on vacancy.
'I thought,' said Annabelle, after a pause, 'that I should have died
when dear old Sir Piers so awkwardly asked me to sing that stupid
song to-night--died of shame and mortification! Surely no woman has
ever been more thoroughly humbled than I! How unfortunate all this
is!' she added, almost weeping with vexation; 'mamma knew of our
engagement, and that he is my cousin. She knows how shamefully he
treated me after the night of that most unlucky ball; and all about
that--that person--the woman with the golden-hazel eyes; and how
shall I be able to convince her, proud, resentful, and
justly-suspicious as she is, that our meeting here is a miserable
coincidence--a circumstance beyond my control?'
'It looks like Fate, my dear Belle.'
'Fate? How can you romance so after all that has happened?'
'What happened may be a mistake--a coincidence, too--explainable
perhaps, though I have not much hope of that. If dear Cecil were but
home, he might clear it all up for us. Home! when will that be?
Soon, I hope--oh, so soon!' she added, as she kissed her friend and
sought her pillow.
Annabelle lay far into the night awake, revolving endless schemes and
conversations in her busy little head. She naturally longed to be
gone from Eaglescraig, and nothing but a sure knowledge that
Fotheringhame's leave was for a very brief period, pacified her at
all. That they should be in the same house, and meeting perpetually
at the same table, was intensely awkward under the circumstances of
their changed position.
Annabelle felt this keenly, and thus she sedulously avoided Leslie
Fotheringhame, who felt conscious that she did so, and misconstrued
it either into an aversion for himself, or a regard for some other
man--a regard inspired, perhaps, by pique, or wounded self-esteem.