MRS. GARTH ACTS A FRIENDLY PART.
Nor was the opportunity she wished for long in coming, in the many
chances afforded by propinquity, and a residence in the same house;
though, in one full of guests, it was difficult to get the object of
her solicitude alone.
That afternoon, in the drawing-room, Cecil Falconer and Mary were at
the piano; the general preparing for a visit to his stables, as it
was rainy, and none could go far abroad; Annabelle Erroll and a few
other visitors were idling over books of prints, albums, and other
trifles; and Mrs. Garth, observant of the two first-named, with
something of sadness and impatience in her heart, was in her usual
seat near the fireplace, sheltered from the heat by a plate-glass
screen, and knitting busily, for she was always knitting as if her
livelihood depended upon it--but her industry was all devoted to the
comforts of the poor, for she had a kind heart, having known much
suffering 'in her time,' as she was wont to say, and thus was ever
ready, so far as her slender means went, to aid those who were
necessitous, or troubled in any way.
She was tall and thin in figure, and not without dignity in her
bearing, with a look of calm and patient waiting in her soft and
gentle eyes, which were clear and bright as those of a young girl,
albeit her face was wrinkled and her silky hair was grey. Sometimes
their expression seemed cold and sad, when her thoughts travelled
backward into the past; yet no eyes could laugh in expression more
merrily than hers, at times.
Like Sir Piers, and most old people, she lived more in the past than
the present, and he, just then, with his feet planted on the
hearthrug, while listening with a pleasant smile to an Italian duet,
of which he did not understand one word, was busy with that most
tantalising of all mental exercises, groping amid vanished years for
some fugitive reminiscence that the face and voice of Cecil Falconer
had summoned up.
Was it his old comrade Garth he resembled, or who? But Sir Piers had
seen and known so many men in his time, that day-dreams of them were
no cause for marvel.
'How the time passes!' said he, looking smilingly down on the old
lady; 'yet I can remember you a charming girl, when you joined the
Cameronians, Mrs. Garth; and that was not yesterday!'
'Well, general,' replied the widow, with a gratified smile on her old
face, 'there were worse-looking girls, I dare say, and I had more
than one offer before I was twenty; but I preferred poor John Garth
to all the world.'
'And right you were--right you were!' said Sir Piers, emphatically.
'Poor John Garth! I shall never forget his fine conduct on the
morning we stormed the hill-fort of the Nabob All Nazir-jung (or the
victorious in war), as he boasted himself, in the Doab between the
Jhelum and the Chenab. It was a strange affair,' he continued,
relating an anecdote as well known to Mrs. Garth as to himself, yet
to which she listened with a kindling eye, 'we sunk our half-sap by
degrees and pushed it close to the outworks, covering our men by
gabions, sand-bags, and mantelets, and the assault was to take place
an hour before gunfire, or daybreak. I remember how lovely the night
was! A breeze stole up the hillside and stirred the golden bells of
the scented baubul-trees; the moon in her silver glory, like a round
shield, was mirrored in the bosom of the Jhelum, and the stormers
were beginning to creep into the advanced trench, where we could see
their bayonets glittering and their white puggarees behind the shade
of the gabions. Just as Jack Garth and I were having a farewell
cheroot and drain of brandy-pawnee, Drake, of the Bengal Infantry,
who had been detailed to lead the assault, came into our tent looking
pale as a sheeted ghost.
'Now Drake was no coward, he had been under fire many times in open
ground; but somehow he felt that to lead a forlorn hope was a very
different thing; in short, almost certain death; and having led a
wild, terrible, irregular, and most irreligious life, his whole soul
had suddenly become filled with an uncontrollable dread and dismay of
the impending future.
'He told us of the strange emotion that possessed him--he seemed
somehow not to care of making a secret of it, to us at least--and
Garth instantly and cheerfully offered to take his place, and Drake
was to join the covering force. The brigadier commanding permitted
the exchange; the place was carried by storm at a wild and headlong
rush; Jack Garth, leading the escalade like a hero, reached the heart
of the fort untouched, while poor Drake, after the affair was deemed
entirely over, and the firing had ceased, was killed by a random shot
that came no one knew precisely from where.'
By the time the general had ended his anecdote, and betaken him to
the stables to inspect the hock sinews of Mary's favourite pad, of
which Pastern, the groom, had made some evil report, the duet was
over.
Mrs. Garth had detected the mutual tenderness in tone and expression
of eye as it ended, and when the singers left the piano, she resolved
to lose no time in seeking to avert, if she could, the trouble which
she feared was impending. Not that she loved Hew Montgomerie, but
she thought alone of Mary's interests and the wishes of Sir Piers,
her oldest, kindest, and best of friends.
But now, when Cecil Falconer approached her, she thought, as Sir
Piers had done more than once:
'What is there in this young fellow's face that touches, that
interests me? Where have I seen that look before? In India, I doubt
not.'
'I heard the general's anecdote of your husband, Mrs. Garth, even
while we were singing,' said he, bending over the old lady's chair;
'he must have been a fine old officer, and I can assure you that his
memory is still fresh in the regiment.'
Her face brightened with genuine pleasure as he said this, and her
eyes filled with tears.
'You see the relic I wear of him,' said the widow, placing her hand
affectionately upon a brooch she wore on her heart, a silver sphinx,
which had whilom been a regimental ornament, but which she would not
have exchanged for the regal brooch of Lorne; 'and now, if you will
come with me, I shall show you his portrait.'
'Thanks,' replied Cecil, and a parting glance was exchanged between
him and Mary as he left the room and followed Mrs. Garth across a
corridor, hung, like many other parts of the house, with Indian
trophies of war and the chase.
Falconer thought he was only to hear about her past and pet memories
of the corps; but he did not foresee that he must hear much more that
he would rather not have heard at all. Nor could he suspect that her
primary object was to get him alone for her own well-meant purpose,
or, as she deemed it, his future peace of mind and the welfare of
Mary Montgomerie.
'This is my peculiar sanctum, Mr. Falconer,' said she, when ushering
him into a cosily and handsomely-furnished parlour, 'and here I keep
all my relics of the dead and of other times, and have done so since
I found a happy and contented home in Eaglescraig,' she added,
glancing at an old iron-bound baggage-trunk that had been at Bengal,
China, Bermuda, and all round the world with the Cameronians, and at
two regimental swords crossed upon the wall: one the weapon of her
husband, the other that of her son, a joyous boyish ensign, who had
fallen in a vile skirmish with a hill-tribe; shot under the colours,
on a day when match-lock balls were flying thick, and 'human lives
were lavished everywhere.'
And there now hung the sword that had failed him in the hot hour of
trial.
Over the old but handsome face of Mrs. Garth, there spread an
expression of sweetness and sadness mingled, as she showed Falconer
the miniatures of her husband and their dead soldier-son; the latter
as an infant, with a lock of his golden hair, which she had worn at
her heart for twenty years and more, treasured, like all his
school-boy letters, in the sad but loving superstition of the heart,
in memory of him and of that day when the troops fell in and he went
with the Cameronians 'to the front,' to be brought back to her across
six muskets, mortally wounded, to die, while calling on her name,
thanking her for her love, and dying with his head upon her breast,
as calmly as he had fallen asleep there when an infant. And so he
died thus, as his father had died but a few weeks before him.
'The will of God be done!' said Mrs. Garth, in a sorely broken voice;
'for it was His will that I was to lose them, and that they were to
precede me. But Heaven is just, and teaches us that there is a
brighter and a better world than this!'
Borne away by her own private or personal sympathies, she almost
forgot the purpose for which she had invited Falconer to visit her
little sanctum, till he unwillingly recalled it to her memory; as,
with all his commiseration for her loneliness, he began to tire of
the great many stories she told him of the excellencies of her only
daughter--a girl so amiable and so handsome--who had married a curate
in the West Indies, a good young fellow, who was so and so, and so
and so; of the noble qualities of her son, the poor ensign, and those
of the defunct Captain John Garth, who, 'poor dear soul, had been
dead and gone--dead and gone--deary me, however so many years ago.'
Thus Cecil--though there was certainly a cheerful gossipy quality in
Mrs. Garth, that rendered her a very attractive old lady--ventured to
say:
'And now, Mrs. Garth, you must excuse me. Miss Montgomerie is
expecting me to attempt that duet over once more with her, ere we
duly perform it for some guests that come this evening. How sweetly
she sings, and with exquisite taste! But, indeed, how perfect she is
in all things!'
'A dear child! I think you admire her?' began the widow, now
remembering her task, and suddenly making a leading remark.
'Admire! ah, who could fail to admire her?' exclaimed Falconer
warmly, and with kindling eye.
'She is a charming girl--ever was a sweet child--and I am so happy
about her future, Mr. Falconer,' said Mrs. Garth, resuming her
knitting, without however raising her eyes to him she addressed.
'Her future?'
'With Hew--I mean--you understand me, of course?'
'Hew?'
'Yes,' she continued softly and gently, reluctantly, too, for she was
loth to give him pain, 'Hew Montgomerie. In her circumstances, and
with her wealth and its consequent and contingent responsibilities,
it has been with us all an anxious matter, that she should choose
well and wisely in the world of marriage; and thus, with Sir Piers'
heir of entail, she will be the tenth Lady Montgomerie, without
changing her name! Curious that, is it not? It cannot fail to be a
most fortunate alliance; but I shall not intrude upon you, whom we
have only had the pleasure of knowing so recently, these private
family matters.'
Cecil's heart grew cold as a stone, while he listened and heard Hew's
remarks thus corroborated, by what, Mrs. Garth felt with regret, must
pain him, but deemed it for his future good to hear.
In reply to some half-muttered inquiry (he could not fashion it as a
congratulation) she, by way of explanation and intended advice, said
distinctly much more than even Hew had done. She told him, in
detail, of Mary's large fortune; and how entirely Mary and it
were--by the tenor of her father's will--at the behest of Sir Piers
Montgomerie, whose great and sole object was to consolidate the
wealth of the family in the person of Hew Caddish Montgomerie, his
heir of entail, who, even with ancient Eaglescraig alone, would not
be rich, and who would be the tenth baronet in succession from Sir
Hew, who had been made one for his loyalty and valour in the battles
of Montrose, particularly at Tippermuir, in 1644; and thus, that even
a duke might lay, in vain, his coronet at the feet of Mary
Montgomerie!
Pride of birth, and in his own family, of the old line of
Eaglescraig, almost a collateral one with the House of Eglinton, had
been, from youth, a passion with Sir Piers--a passion that had caused
the ruin of his only son--and so on, with an earnest tone, a sad, yet
gentle smile, she continued, for his own good as she supposed, to
plant (warningly) certain daggers in the heart of her hearer.
'They do not seem much suited to each other, Miss Montgomerie and her
intended,' suggested Falconer in a low voice, after a pause.
'Ah, so you think--so you think; but when "Love's young dream" and
the honeymoon are over, they will settle down, I have no doubt, into
a very happy, loving, and jog-trot couple.'
'It is well that you have told me all this in time,' said Falconer,
preserving his calmness of voice and feature by an incredible effort,
for if he had mistrusted Hew he could not mistrust Mrs. Garth, who
could have no selfish or sinister object in view; 'and I am--most
grateful to you.'
'To me--for what?' asked Mrs. Garth, as if she knew not his meaning,
though she never looked up, but continued to knit nervously and fast,
with tremulous fingers.
'I was, in fact, beginning to admire the general's ward perhaps too
much,' he replied, with a sickly attempt at a laugh; 'but now I must
think of her only as the intended bride of another.'
'And learn to laugh over the country-house flirtation.'
'Does she love Mr. Hew Montgomerie?'
'I cannot doubt it; though her ways of showing it are certainly shy
and peculiar; but then I see, and have seen, more of him and her than
you have done, Mr. Falconer.'
'You are sure she will consent to this marriage?' said Cecil,
scarcely knowing what he said.
'Yes, most assuredly; if not now, at a later period, for there is no
precise reason for haste, unless it be Hew's Indian appointment.'
A silence ensued for a minute or so, during which Cecil heard only
the click of the knitting-needles and the beating of his heart.
'Of what are you thinking?' asked Mrs. Garth, looking up with a
smile, and then lowering her eyes again, as the pain she read in his
face distressed her.
'I am thinking how to collect my ideas,' said he, in a broken voice;
'to reflect on my position, and the information you have given me,
with the useful warning contained in it. In two or three days more
my leave will be up, and I shall have, inexorably, to depart from a
house in which the happiest moments of my life have been spent; yet,
which I would to Heaven I had never entered!'
Then, as he left her, Mrs. Garth felt that all her suspicions had
been justified; yet, with him, she approached the subject no more.
'I have done the deed! as Macbeth says,' thought she, looking after
him; 'poor fellow--poor dear fellow! He seems sorely cut up; but it
is all for the best--all for the best! How sad his handsome face
looked: and of _whom_ does that face remind me? My own dear boy's
surely!'
Cecil Falconer was full of jealous anger and deep mortification. He
could not, in his present mood of mind, rejoin Mary Montgomerie, and
so he took himself to the loneliest part of the garden to smoke and
think--to have that universal panacea to all men in trouble, doubt,
or difficulties--a mild 'weed.' Moreover, there is a solitude we are
prone to seek at times, even amid our fondest affections.
A tender love for Mary had grown in his heart; but--apart from a
meagre exchequer--his lack of family rank was painfully thrust upon
him now by every word Mrs. Garth had, he thought, unconsciously
uttered.
In his lonely hours, like most young men of imagination and of those
given to day-dreaming, he had been wont--though well-nigh
nameless--to identify himself with the 'Ivanhoes' of romance and
history--the disinherited and disguised princes of boyish tales, and
so forth, weaving out a brilliant future for himself! But now!
Now, like Alnaschar in the Arabian tale, his basket of crystal was
smashed; and yet he could have no future in which Mary Montgomerie
was not to bear an imaginary part.
He was aware that his family pretensions, when judged by the lofty
heraldic and genealogical standards of Sir Piers Montgomerie, were as
meagre as his monetary could be, and the double consciousness
thereof, though failing to influence his heart, had almost utterly
fettered his tongue.
These were the reasons why Cecil Falconer did not declare himself as
yet, or try conclusions with Hew Montgomerie, but now he had
others--more solid and more cruel. It was, however, the old story of
the moth and the candle. Mrs. Garth had done much to crush and damp
all hope in the heart of Cecil, but could not prevent him from
indulging in the perilous charm of Mary's society to the last hours
of his now-expiring leave of absence--leave granted 'between
returns,' as the technical phrase is.
So that night the duet was not sung, greatly to Mrs. Garth's
satisfaction, and somewhat to the surprise and disappointment of Mary
Montgomerie, to whom Cecil urged that he was afflicted by a sudden
cold, a hoarseness and so forth; so to his seductive tenor she was
unable to make the usually tender soprano replies.