I believe that Edgar, in the innocence of his heart, thought that
Fabian's headlong flirtation and flaunting success with the girl I
loved in such meek and forlorn fashion formed a salutary experience
for me.
For while the young actor invariably sloped from fishing excursions,
and disappeared from picnics, and had a flower which I absolutely
recognised in his buttonhole every day, Edgar contented himself with
preaching to me a philosophical calm, and ignored my pathetic
insinuations that he might do some unspecified good by 'speaking to'
Fabian. Indeed, that would have been a delicate business; especially
as I had announced myself to be the girl's guardian, and she was thus
undeniably well provided with protectors. All the consolation I had
was the reflection that this flirtation could only last a fortnight;
but as it was my guests themselves who fixed not only the date but the
duration of their stay, even this comfort was destroyed by their
agreeing among themselves to extend their visit by another ten days.
When I learned that this was upon the proposal of Fabian I took a
stern resolution. I invited Mrs. Ellmer and her daughter to join us in
all our expeditions, so as to establish an effective check upon the
freedom of their intercourse. The result of this was that Mrs. Ellmer
abandoned herself to a rattling flirtation with Mr. Fussell, while
Fabian walked off with Babiole to gather flowers, or to climb hills,
or to race Ta-ta, in the most open manner, and Edgar laughed at my
annoyance, and talked about hens and ducklings to me in an
exasperating undertone.
I think he began to believe that I was entering prematurely into the
doddering and senile stage--this straight, wholesome, handsome fellow,
who disdained the least pang of jealousy of the girl who was fortunate
enough to have secured his magnanimous approval. If he had been
branded with a disfiguring scar, he would have renounced the joys of
love with such staunch, heroic, 'broad-shouldered' fortitude, that
there would have been quite a rush for the honour of consoling him; it
was not in him to find anything deeper than lip-compassion for
feverish and morbid emotions. I admired his grand and healthy
obtuseness, and wished that he could bind my eyes too. But I saw
plainly enough the radiance of unnatural exaltation of feeling which
lighted up the young girl's face after a walk with Fabian, and I knew
that the hectic enthusiasm of his artist temperament was kindling
fires in the sensitive nature, which it would be danger to feed and
ruin to extinguish. With a morbid sensibility of which I was ashamed,
I could look into the girl's glowing blue eyes as I shook her hand and
bade her good-night, and feel in my own soul every emotion that had
stirred her heart as she roamed over the hills with Fabian that day.
It was near the end of the third week of my visitors' stay, that I
waited one night for Fabian's return from the cottage, to which he and
Mr. Fussell had escorted the two ladies, who had dined with us. Mr.
Fussell had returned, and gone into the house to play cards. Fabian
came back sixteen minutes later. There had been a proposal to extend
my visitors' stay still further, and upon that hint I had determined
to speak. I was leaning against the portico, as we called the porch
of the house, to distinguish it from that of the cottage. I had smoked
through two cigars while I was waiting, but at the sound of his
footsteps I threw the third away. Fabian walked with a long swinging
step: off the stage the man was too earnest to saunter; crossing a
room, eating his breakfast, always seemed a matter of life or death to
him; and if he had to call a second time for his shaving-water, it was
in the tones of a Huguenot while the Saint Bartholomew was at its
height. I had always looked upon him as a very good fellow, impetuous
but honourable, doing intentional harm to no one. But I knew the
elasticity of my sex's morality where nothing stronger than the
sentiments is concerned, and I knew that his impetuosity was kept in
some sort of check by his ambition. His restless erratic life, and his
avowed principles, were antagonistic to happy marriage, and I knew
that he was in the habit of satisfying the _besoin d'aimer_ by open
and chivalrous attachments to now one and now another distinguished
lady; and this knightly devotion to Queens of Love and Beauty, though
it makes very pretty reading in the chronicles of the Middle Ages, is
not, in the interest of nineteenth century domestic peace, a thing to
be revived. So, although I had miserable doubts that the steed was
already stolen, I was determined to lock the stable door.
'Lovely night,' said he. 'I like your Scotch hills at night; and, for
the matter of that, I like them in the daytime too.'
Fabian always sank the fact that he was a Scotchman, though I burned
just now with the conviction that he was tainted with the national
hypocrisy.
'I suppose you will be glad to get back to the hum and roar again by
this time, though,' I said as carelessly as I could.
Fabian had none of Edgar's serene obtuseness. He looked at me to find
out what I meant.
'Well, you know, we were thinking of imposing ourselves upon you for
another week, if you have no objection.'
This show of civility was the first shadow on our unceremonious
intercourse. In spite of myself I was this evening grave and stiff,
and not to be approached with the customary affectionate familiarity.
There was silence while one might have counted twenty. Then I said--
'That was _your_ proposal, was it not?'
I spoke so gravely, so humbly, that my question, rude as it was in
itself, could not offend.
'Why--yes,' said he in a tone as low and as serious as my own. 'What's
the matter, Harry?'
'Will you tell me, honestly, why you want to stay?'
His big burning eyes looked intently into my face, and then he put one
long thin hand through his hair and laughed.
'Well, after all that you've done to make our stay agreeable, that's a
queer question to ask.'
I put my hand on his shoulder and forced him to keep still.
'Look here, Faby, I don't want to insult you, you know; but are you
staying because of that little girl?'
He drew himself up and answered me with a very fine and knightly
fire--
'Do you take me for a scoundrel?'
'No; if I did you would never have touched the child's hand.'
'Then what do you mean?'
'Simply this, that I know Babiole better than you do, and I can see
that every word you say to her strikes down deeper than you think. She
is an imaginative little--fool if you like; she believes that the
romance of her life is come, and she is beginning to live upon it and
upon nothing else.'
Fabian considered, looking down upon the grass, in which he was
digging a deep symmetrical hole with his right heel. At last he looked
up.
'I think you're wrong; I do indeed,' he said earnestly. 'You know as
well as I do that my trotting about with her has always been as open
as the day; that it was taken for granted there was no question of
serious love-making with a mere child like that. I'm sure her mother
never thought of such a thing for a moment.'
Now I knew that Mrs. Ellmer, on principle, scoffed so keenly at love
in her daughter's presence, by way of wholesome repression of the
emotions, that she would be sure to think that she had scoffed away
all danger of its inopportune appearance.
'My dear boy, I acquit you of all blame in the matter. The mother we
can leave out of account; she is not a person of the most delicate
discrimination. But I tell you I have watched the girl----'
'That is enough,' interrupted Fabian abruptly, and with off-hand
haughtiness. 'Of course, if I had understood that you were personally
interested in the little girl----'
I interrupted in my turn. 'I am interested only in getting her well,
that is--happily--married.'
Fabian bowed. 'You are anticipating your troubles with your ward, or
pupil, or whatever you call her,' said he lightly, though he was angry
enough for his words to have a bitter tone. 'However, of course I
respect your solicitude, and Babiole and I must, for the next few
days, hunt butterflies on separate hills.'
And shaking me by the shoulder, and laughing at me for an old woman,
he went into the house.
But he was obstinate, or more interested than he pretended to be. I
know that it was he who next morning at breakfast put up Fussell and
Maurice Browne to great eagerness for the extension of their stay.
When I regretted that I had made arrangements for going to Edinburgh
on business on the date already settled for their departure, Fabian
glanced up at my face with a vindictive expression which startled me.
This was the last day but one of my visitors' stay. We all went on the
coach to Braemar, having taken our places the night before. As we all
walked in the early morning to Ballater station, from which the coach
starts, I overheard Fabian say to Babiole--
'We shan't be able to see much of each other to-day, little one. Your
maiden aunt disapproves of my picking flowers for you. But I'll get
as near as I can to you on the coach, and this evening you must get
mamma to invite me to tea.'
'Maiden aunt!' she repeated, evidently not understanding him.
They were behind me, so that I could not see their faces; but by a
glance, a gesture, or a whisper Fabian must have indicated me; for she
burst out--
'Oh, you must not laugh at him; it is not right; I won't hear anything
against Mr. Maude.'
'Sh! Against him! Oh dear, no!' And the sneer died away in words I
could not hear.
They had fallen back, I suppose, for I lost even the sound of their
voices; but I heard no more than before of the monologue on the New
Era in literature to which Maurice Browne was treating me. He was the
pioneer of this New Era, so we understood; and there was so much more
about the pioneer than about the era in his talk on this his favourite
subject, that we, who were quite satisfied to know no more of the
inmost workings of his mind than was revealed by the small talk of
daily existence, seldom gave him a chance of unburdening himself fully
except when our minds, like mine on this occasion, were deeply engaged
with other matters.
On the coach Fabian sat next to Babiole, who looked so sweet in a
white muslin hat and a frock made of the stuff with which drawing-room
chairs are covered up when the family are out of town, that Maurice
Browne, in a burst of enthusiasm, compared her to a young brown and
white rabbit. Fabian had brought his umbrella, so I told myself, for
the express purpose of holding it over his companion in such a manner
as to prevent me, on the back seat, from seeing the ardent gaze of
the man, the shy glances of the girl, which I jealously imagined
underneath. Everybody declared that it was a beautiful drive; I had
thought so myself a good many times before. The winding Dee burnt its
way through the valley in a blaze of sunlight on our left, past the
picturesque little tower of Abergeldie, with its rough walls and
corner turret; past stately, romantic Balmoral, whose white pinnacles
and battlements peeped out, with royal and appropriate reserve, from
behind a screen of trees, on the other side of the river, far below
us. Near here we found our fresh team, standing quietly under a tree,
by a ruined and roofless stone building. Oddly frequent they are,
these ruinous farms and cottages, in the royal neighbourhood. As we
drew near Braemar the scenery grew wilder and grander. Between the
peaks of the bare steep hills, where little patches of tall fir-trees
grow on inaccessible ledges on the face of the dark-gray rock, we
caught glimpses of Lochnagar, with its snow-cap dwindled by the summer
sun into thin white lines. We passed close under steep Craig Clunie,
where the story goes that Colonel Farquharson, of Clunie, hid himself
after the battle of Culloden, and heard King George's soldiers making
merry over their victory in his mansion, which, in common with all old
Scotch country-houses, is called a castle. As the castle is
three-quarters of a mile from the Craig, Edgar opined that the Colonel
must have had sharp ears. Then he scoffed a little at the obstinate
ignorance of the Highland gentlemen who would hazard an acre in
defence of such a futile and worthless person as Charles James Stuart.
Edgar had advanced political notions, which, in another man, I should
have called rabid. I said that if it had been merely a matter of
persons, and not of principles, I should have backed up the Colonel,
since I would sooner swear allegiance to a home-born profligate than
to one of foreign growth; but then I own I would have English princes
marry English ladies, and I feel a sneaking regard for Henry the
Eighth for having given his countrywomen a chance, and thereby left to
the world our last great sovereign by right of birth, Queen Elizabeth.
That umbrella in front of me had made me cantankerous, I daresay; at
any rate, I disagreed persistently with Edgar for the rest of the way,
and called Old Mar Castle a mouldy old rat-hole merely because he was
struck with admiration of its many-turreted walls. We had luncheon at
the Fife Arms, where we were all overpowered by Mr. Fussell, who,
having been allowed by the coachman to drive for about half a mile as
we came, became so puffed up by his superiority, and so tiresomely
loud in his boasts about his driving that, Fabian being too much
occupied with Babiole to shut him up, and nobody else having the
requisite dash and disregard of other people's feelings, we all
sneaked away from the table, one by one, as quickly as we could, and
left him to finish by himself the champagne he had ordered. These
three, therefore, spent the hours before our return in the
neighbourhood of Braemar together. While keeping within the letter of
his promise to have no more _tete-a-tete_ walks with Babiole, Fabian
thus easily violated the spirit of it; since Mr. Fussell, being too
stout and too sleepy after luncheon to do much walking, suggested
frequent and long rests under the trees, which he spent with
gently-clasped hands, and a handkerchief over his face to keep the
flies off.
The rest of us took a beastly hot walk to the Falls of Corriemulzie,
and I wondered what I could have before seen to admire in them. Coming
back, Mrs. Ellmer chased Maurice Browne for some indiscreet
compliment. A tropical sun would not have taken the vivacity out of
that woman! and Edgar fell through a fence on which he was resting,
was planted in a bramble, and said 'Damn' for the first recorded time
in the presence of a lady. That is all I remember of the expedition.
For the return journey, as Mr. Fussell had retired into the interior
of the coach for a nap, being the laziest of men when he was not the
busiest, I took the box-seat by the coachman, and was thus spared the
sight of another _tete-a-tete_. After dinner that evening Fabian
disappeared as usual in the direction of the cottage, and on the
following day, which was the last of my visitors' stay, he threw his
promise to the winds so openly that I began to think he must have made
up his mind to let his principles go by the board, and make love
seriously. In that case, of course, I could have nothing to say, and
however much I might choose to torment myself with doubts as to the
permanent happiness of the union, I had really no grounds for
believing that his vaunted principles would stand the test of
practical experience better than did the ante-matrimonial prattle of
more commonplace young men.
On the morning of my guests' departure the house was all astir at five
o'clock in the morning. There was really no need for this effort, as
the train did not leave Ballater till 8.25, and my Norfolk cart and a
fly from M'Gregor's would not be at the door before half-past seven.
But it was a convention among us to behave to the end like schoolboys,
and, after all, a summer sunrise among the hills is a thing to be
seen once and remembered for ever.
So there was much running up and down stairs, and sorting of rugs and
collecting of miscellaneous trifles (I declare if they had been
professional pickpockets I could not have dreaded more the ravages
they made among the more modern and spicy of the volumes in my
library), and there was a general disposition to fall foul of Edgar
for the approaching vagary of his marriage, which would break up our
Round Table hopelessly.
'I look upon this as a "long, a last good-bye" to Normanton,' said
Maurice Browne, shaking his head. 'No man passes through the furnace
of matrimony unchanged. When we see him again he may be a _better_
man, refined by trial, ennobled by endurance; but he will not be the
_same_. He will be a phoenix risen from the ashes of the old----'
'Or a wreck broken up by the waves,' added Mr. Fussell.
I looked out of one of the eastern windows at the red sun-glow, in
which I took more pleasure than the Londoners, perhaps because I
considered it as a part of my Highland property. To the left, standing
in the long wet grass, shyly hiding herself among the trees, was
Babiole; I went to another window from which I could see her more
plainly, and discovered that her little face was much paler than
usual, that she was watching the portico with straining eyes; in her
hand, but held behind her, was a red rose, that she drew out from time
to time and even kissed. I think she was crying. It was half-past six
o'clock. I turned away and went back to my friends, who were already
deep in a gigantic breakfast. From time to time I went back, on some
pretext or other, to the window: she was always there, in the same
place. The fourth time I looked out she was shivering; and her hands,
red with the cold of the morning, were tucked up to her throat, red
rose and all. I went up to Fabian, who I am sure must have been at
quite his third chop, and touched him on the shoulder.
'There's some one waiting outside,--waiting for you, I think,' said I,
in a low voice, under cover of the rich full tones of my true friend
Fussell, who was waxing warm in the eloquence of his farewell to
Scotch breakfasts.
Fabian got up at once and went out. I saw the child start forward,
crimson in a moment, and the tears flowing undisguisedly; and with a
choking feeling at my throat I turned away.
'Hallo, why you're not eating, Harry,' cried Maurice presently. 'You
must be in love.'
'Another of 'em!' groaned Fussell.
'No,' said I hastily. 'The fact is I had something to eat before you
came down.'
There was a roar at my voracity, but their own appetites were too
vigorous for them to disbelieve me. I remember clearly only this of
our final departure for the station: that Fabian turned up late,
dashing after us down the drive in fact, and leaping up on to the
Norfolk cart beside me. And that his eyes were dry, but that the front
of his coat, just below the collar, was wet, perhaps with the dew.
Nevertheless, if Edgar had not been behind us, I should have felt much
inclined, when we drove along the road by the Dee, just where the bank
is nice and steep, to give a jerk of the reins to the left, pitch my
artistic friend out into the river's stony bed, and take my risk of
following him.