HEW MAKES MISCHIEF.
Finding, as we have shown, that any appeal to Mary Montgomerie was
vain, Hew determined, as he muttered, to give the general 'an
eye-opener on the subject.'
He knew that 'a jilted suitor is hopelessly and irreparably
ridiculous, and that the jilt is apt to score the honours.' Without
an engagement existing between them, there could be no jilting in the
case of him and Mary, but in his blind, unmeaning hate of Falconer,
his jealousy and avarice, he never thought of that; and only
considered that the wishes of Sir Piers and himself, and the object
for which he had been deliberately brought home from India, were on
the point of being baffled, or set utterly aside, by the intervention
of an unexpected interloper, to blacken and defeat whom was but just
and right, he deemed on his own part, and in his own behalf.
Without a just cause he had been from the first instinctively the foe
of Cecil Falconer; and ill-founded enmities, it is said, are ever the
most obstinate and bitter.
He found Sir Piers in the library, lounging in an easy-chair, smoking
a beautiful hookah which he had brought with him from India, and deep
in the pages of the _Field_.
'Can I have your attention for a little time, Sir Piers?' he asked.
'Yes, my boy; fire away. About what do you wish to speak?'
'A subject very near my heart, as you know,' replied Hew, leaning on
the back of the old baronet's chair: 'Mary Montgomerie.'
'God bless the dear girl!' exclaimed Sir Piers, as his brightening
eyes were raised inquiringly to Hew's face. 'It is time some
arrangement were made by you and her; for Mary deserves the purest
and best love the heart of man can offer her.'
'Such love is mine, dear Sir Piers,' whined Hew.
'I hope so.'
'But I come not to speak of that.'
'Of what, then?'
'Of Mary and your new friend, Falconer.'
'Falconer!' exclaimed Sir Piers, staring blankly at Hew through his
gold eyeglasses.
'Seriously, sir, it seems to me that, thanks to the propinquity your
unwise hospitality has afforded them, Mary is drifting, with that
fellow Falconer, the way that many other young ladies have drifted
before her.'
'What does this mean?' exclaimed Sir Piers, wheeling his chair
sharply round. 'Worry, of course; and, d--n it! I am getting too
old to have any worry--had enough of it in my time, up country! Has
propinquity not helped you? Gad, sir, in my day, I should like to
have seen the biped that could turn my flank with any girl; but why
the devil don't you push the trenches yourself?'
'But don't you think they have become too intimate?' asked Hew, with
growing irritation.
'Why? How?'
'With all this singing, music, and philandering.'
'Pooh! not at all. Let them amuse themselves. I was once their age.
It is no use making a fuss; but why the deuce don't you cut in, and
sing, play, and philander too, as you call it? Besides, Falconer in
a few hours now returns to Dumbarton, or to headquarters, and there
is an end of it all! To me, Hew, it seems natural enough that young
Falconer should be attracted by our Mary; but aware of her position,
of my views and your wishes, and more than all, your prospects and
rank when I am gone,' he added, glancing at a portrait of his dead
son, 'I should very much doubt if she encouraged any particular
attention on his part.'
'There I don't agree with you; and when once a girl's heart becomes
warped, or interested in a fellow, she cares little what his rank or
position may be; and of this Falconer's family or antecedents we know
nothing.'
'True, by Jove!' said Sir Piers, whose pet weakness was now
interested. 'He seemed not to know, himself, which I thought odd. I
wonder what arms he uses? The Halkertoun family carried azure, a
falcon _argent_ crowned with a ducal crown.'
'Arms!' said Hew, with a mocking laugh. 'If all I suspect be true,
his have been quartered and attested by the Blue Bottle Herald and
Pimlico Pursuivant. But apart from his dangling after Mary, I have
my own reasons for feeling glad that Eaglescraig will soon be rid of
him.'
'He is a presentable young fellow--a Cameronian too, and bears her
Majesty's commission,' urged Sir Piers in favour of Falconer, whom he
really liked; 'but what are the personal reasons you refer to?'
'Because in a little time he would have rooked--ruined me!'
'How?'
'At écarté.'
'At écarté?'
'Yes. Before I went to Bickerton--to keep out of his way, in
fact--he inveigled me to play, night after night, when all others had
retired. My play is always mild--but his was _wild_! His constant
phrase was that it was so _ennuyant_ to play for low stakes, so we
always doubled, and even trebled, them--I always losing.'
'Why?'
'Because,' replied Hew, deliberately, while a malevolent gleam shot
from his parti-coloured eyes, 'it is seldom safe to play écarté, or
piquet either, after dinner, and when drinking brandy-and-soda with a
fellow who takes nothing--is too wary to do so.'
'And so you have lost?' said Sir Piers, flushing with indignation.
'Fearfully; and I suspect the scoundrel was in the habit of dropping
his cards.'
'What!' roared Sir Piers, aghast. 'The devil! Do you say so?' He
pinched his gold eyeglasses tighter on his high aristocratic nose,
and absolutely glared through them at Hew, as he turned his keen face
full round to await what he had to say, and with a face expressive of
intense chagrin, disappointment, and dismay.
'I do not say so--I only suspect,' said Hew, afraid that he, in the
extremity of his malice, had roused a storm it might be difficult to
quell, or see the end of.
'And he is one of the Cameronians!' exclaimed Sir Piers, in an
agitated voice. 'Gad! in my time, he would have had his hands tied
behind his back, and been drummed to the barrack-gate. Do you
actually tell me this? Gambling, in camp or quarters, _I_ never
permitted for a moment--they are strictly forbidden by the
thirty-fourth paragraph of the sixth section of the Queen's
Regulations. But the idea of gambling and cheating at Eaglescraig!
D--me, I'll explode! I remember that, when we were cantoned at
Jubbulpore, before we were relieved by the Seventy-Eighth, with bag,
baggage, and twelve bagpipes----'
'But our play is ended now, Sir Piers--once and for ever!'
interrupted Hew, as he shivered at the idea of an Indian anecdote,
which was certain to follow whenever Sir Piers mounted his Oriental
hobby-horse.
'Ended; I should think so! But, as we used to say in India, beware
of a black Brahmin and a white pariah!'
The point of this aphorism was not very apparent; but Hew, satisfied
that he had now completely ruined Cecil Falconer so far as Sir Piers
was concerned, was so well pleased that he listened to a sudden
Bengal narrative of a thirty days' march, amid the horrors of Dacoits
and Thugs, swamps and jungles, tigers and snakes, dismounted guns and
broken bones, dead bullocks and swollen rivers; and then, after a
pause, during which the baronet had been reflecting with knitted
brows, he said:
'But to return to the first subject, Hew. Do you mean to tell me,
and do you seriously think, that this--a--a--person, has made any
undue impression upon her--upon Mary?'
'From my soul I do, sir, and know it to my bitter cost!'
Another angry malediction escaped the general.
'I cannot desire him to leave my house, though right well disposed to
do so,' said he; 'but a little time will see him gone now, thank
Heaven! I am deeply concerned by what you tell me, my dear Hew; all
the more so, that I have been the unwitting means of bringing all
this unforeseen mischief to pass.'
'Only an hour ago I interrupted a little scene in the grotto there
could be no mistaking! He was bending tenderly over her, and
uttering sighs that would have softened the heart of a pawnbroker.'
'Don't use such odious similes, Hew!' exclaimed Sir Piers. 'Whatever
may be the personal merits or demerits of this young man,' he
continued, with an angry laugh, 'apart from my firm intentions, your
wishes, and Mary's own future welfare, it would never do for her to
make a _mésalliance_--to throw herself away upon an ambitious
adventurer, on whose name there too evidently rests the stain of
obscurity, at least. It is well that he is going, Hew! I want no
other catastrophe, no second fiasco, to occur to a Montgomerie of
Eaglescraig!' he added, with deep and sorrowful frown, as he referred
to a family episode we shall have to relate ere long. 'But here
comes Mary, most opportunely. Leave us, Hew, and I shall talk with
her alone.'
As Hew retired, with disappointed passion and gratified revenge
curiously mingled in his face, the thought flashed upon the mind of
Sir Piers that expostulation or advice might only prove futile, and,
by exciting opposition, make the matter worse (as he had bitterly
experienced once before in his life), though he knew not how far the
matter had gone, or how deeply love had taken root in the hearts of
both Mary and Falconer. Moreover, he thought that as separation,
which he deemed a safe cure, was so close at hand, it might be better
to ignore the communications of Hew, and let matters, after
Falconer's departure, fall into their old routine, yet having the
intended marriage of Mary and his heir pressed forward, in spite of
all opposition; but now, the sudden and apparently opportune entrance
of the fair culprit herself overset his calmer calculations.