LOVERS.
The early days of the spring subsequent to the events we have
narrated, found the Aberfeldie family located at Maviswood, a
handsome modern villa to the west of Edinburgh, whither they had
removed from Dundargue, that Allan, on whom a kind of protracted
illness had fallen, might avail himself of the great medical skill
which is always to be found in the Scottish Metropolis.
By what means Allan was discovered and got out of the vault into
which he had been flung, and, as Hawke Holcroft hoped, was entombed
for ever, the latter never knew, from the plan adopted by the family,
but the public prints had informed him more than once, that 'the
Master of Aberfeldie had met with an accident--a fall--from the
effects of which he was slowly recovering; wounds received when on
service with the Black Watch retarding his progress to health.'
Evan Cameron, Carslogie, and others of the regiment, then in the
Castle of Edinburgh, heard of Allan's affair or illness in a vague
way, as Lord Aberfeldie shrunk from all gossip, publicity and
surmise; and the first-named learned that Eveline's marriage had been
delayed in consequence of that illness, chiefly through a letter
written to him by Olive, at Allan's request.
So the early days of spring were passing on, and no particular change
had taken place in the relative positions of our characters since we
last saw them at Dundargue.
Eveline was alone one afternoon in a room at Maviswood--a room of
vast proportions. The ceiling was divided into deep panels of oak
colour; a dado of dead gold tint was carried round the walls to
within eight feet of the cornice, and the chairs and ottomans were
upholstered in blue maroquin leather, studded with elaborate gilt
nails. The hangings were blue, with yellow borders, lining and
tassels; great china bowls, full of conservatory flowers, stood on
ornate tables and pedestals, within the recess of a great triple bay
window, beyond which spread away southward the lovely landscape that
is bounded by the Pentlands.
Spring is a lovely and joyous season everywhere, but nowhere is it
lovelier than in the fertile Lothians; and nowhere may the eye rest
upon a more varied and beautiful landscape than that which spreads
from the southern slope of Corstorphine's wooded crags to the base of
the green and undulating Pentlands, the highest summits of which
range from sixteen hundred to nearly nineteen hundred feet.
There are corn-fields teeming with fertility, rows of stately trees,
pretty cottages, stately white manor houses, and cosy farms embosomed
among old woods and orchards; the picturesque rocks of wooded
Craiglockhart, wherein the kites and kestrels build their nests; the
rich alluvial land, where for ages a great loch once spread its
waters; the quaint old village church, on the spire of which the red
sunset loves to linger; and westward the Queen of the North, in all
the glory of castled rock, and hill and crag, spire, tower, and
countless terraces; and on all of these the wistful eyes of Eveline
Grahame were wandering dreamily.
A golden glory was cast along the eastern slopes, the fleecy clouds
were every moment assuming new forms and lovelier colours; the woods
were budding forth; the Leith and its tiny tributaries were brawling
along as if their waters had no time to toy with the brown pebbles.
Seated, at times, sideways on their horses, the happy ploughboys were
already going home from their labours. The early-yeaned lambs were
frisking about the ewes, and cloud and sunshine seemed to chase each
other over the tender grass, where the wild white gowan was opening
its petals, and old folks were remembering that 'a peck o' March dust
was worth the ransom o' a king.'
Of late, Eveline's bursts of girlish merriment had been few and far
between. She was fretful--unusually so for a girl who by nature was
so sweet and gentle, and at the mere mention of the name of Sir
Paget--to whom she felt herself doomed, as it were, or allotted--she
became more fretful, silent, and abstracted.
She shrank from smiling people, turned her back upon inquisitive
ones, and often was found to answer briefly and beside the point.
In short, the pretty Eveline's heart or mind was quite unhinged.
The tenth day of her residence at Maviswood was creeping slowly on,
and she was pondering, full of thought, alone in that stately room,
when a servant startled her by announcing and ushering in 'Mr. Evan
Cameron,' and, though her mind was full of him--of the evening of the
carpet-dance at Dundargue, and the hour of joy in the half-lit
corridor, a kind of gasp escaped her as she rose from her seat to
receive him.
But why should he not call, reason suggested to her.
The Grahams had been for ten days, we have said, at Maviswood; and
Cameron, who had been counting every hour of those ten days, and
watching the villa with his field-glass from his quarters in the
distant castle, had now ventured to make an afternoon walk, and
found, beyond his hopes, that Eveline was alone.
Allan and Olive were out together in a pony-phaeton; Lord and Lady
Aberfeldie were he cared not where; anyway, they were absent too.
Olive, feeling that she was in some way responsible, by her past
thoughtlessness, petulance, and flirting with the daring and unworthy
Holcroft, for much that had befallen Allan, now 'waited on him hand
and foot,' as the old nurse Nannie phrased it. She was with him from
hour to hour, and, though their marriage was delayed, how happy they
seemed to be!
Fearing interruption as before, Cameron, too tender and true not to
be a timid lover, found a difficulty just then in taking up the
thread of the old story, and they stood in the bay-window talking
commonplaces, while heart was speaking to heart and eye to eye. But
'what is speaking or hearing when heart wells into heart?'
Cameron heard all she chose then to tell him about Allan's
'accident,' the bewilderment and alarm of the family, and so forth.
Many friends were spoken of, but Sir Paget was of course referred to
by neither.
Eveline, though so young, had the frank and perfect air of repose in
her manner that came of gentle breeding, and made her seem older than
she was, but gave an assurance that whatever she said, or whatever
she did, was said and done in the right way. Without coquetry, her
manner was full of simple fascination; but it was undeniably nervous
now, for she read by Cameron's softened voice, and in his brightening
eye, the clear necessity for something else than common-place talk,
when he discovered by a casual remark that Lord and Lady Aberfeldie
were not in the house.
Eveline felt that she had given herself to Evan, and that the tenor
of their interview in the corridor amounted tacitly to an engagement.
An engagement! But to what end? It all seemed but a dream, a
delicious dream, of which there was nothing to remind her, not even a
ring, a lock of hair, or the tiniest note.
Unlike Cameron, Eveline, while loving him dearly, had, singular to
say, no thought of marriage with him in the ordinary sense of the
word; for, hemmed round as she was, and destined as she was, the idea
was a hopeless one, judged from her parents' point of view. She only
felt, poor girl, that she loved, and was full of sad joy--if we may
use the paradox--in the belief that she was truly loved in return.
'How silent you have become,' she said, in a low tone, after a
nervous pause.
'I know not what to say; but love has no need of words, Eveline, nor
needs he many at any time,' he replied, drawing closer to her. Then
he took a conservatory rose from a vase and exclaimed, 'Eveline
darling, you love me well and truly, don't you?'
'Well and truly, you know, dear Evan,' she replied, as his arm went
round her, and her head dropped on his shoulder. 'What need to ask
me?' she whispered, in a breathless voice.
'Because I cannot hear the beloved assurance too often.' He kissed
her tenderly, we cannot say how many times, nor would it matter,
while she lay passive in his arms, and then he said, 'Shall we try
our fate with this rose?'
'How?'
'By plucking it, leaf by leaf, saying each time "Lucky, Unlucky,"
till the last leaf comes.'
'Something _à la Marguerite_.'
'Yes.'
'No, decidedly no, dearest Evan.'
'You are superstitious. Well, so am I.'
'Thus an omen would only torment us, and surely we have
enough--enough----' Tears choked her voice, and she could only add,
'Trust, dearest Evan, trust.'
'In what, my darling?'
'The great goodness of God.'
The spell of a great love was on both. Their lips met in a long and
silent kiss, and the rose fell at their feet between them.
A sound roused them--nay, startled them. They had only time to
separate and affect a sudden interest in the artistic effects
produced by light and shadow on the landscape, when Lord and Lady
Aberfeldie entered the room together, a pretty palpable cloud of
annoyance resting on the brows of both as they politely, but far from
warmly, greeted the visitor.
The peer, who had evidently been out riding, appeared in a black
morning coat and white cords, whip in hand, and the lady, who had
been in the grounds, wore her garden hat and shawl. She had seen a
visitor ride up to the door from a distant part of the lawn, and had
hurried home, her heart foreboding truly who that visitor was.
And now, while their hearts were vibrating with tenderness, and with
their lips yet tremulously sensible of the sweetness of kisses--the
first kisses of a new and early love--they had to talk enforced
commonplace--or, at least, Evan did so, while Eveline remained
silent--of the news of the day, the expected plans of the ministry,
the probable despatch of a fleet to Egyptian waters, of the chances
of an army following it, of Arabi Pasha and the Khedive, the plot
formed by the Circassian officers, and so forth, till it was time for
the lingering Cameron to resume his hat and depart at last.
Cameron tried to ignore that which, under other and more prosperous
circumstances, would have galled and roused his haughty Highland
spirit--Lord Aberfeldie's coldness of manner when he spoke even of
the regiment, and how certainly it would go to the East, 'as the
Black Watch, thank God, was always in everything, and always with
honour,' while Evan's eyes irresistibly wandered to the face of
Eveline, and memory went back to the twilighted corridor at Dundargue.
But so did the memory of my Lord Aberfeldie.
The peer must have undergone a good deal of training or "drilling"
lately at the hands of Lady Aberfeldie before he could have brought
himself to behave so coldly to one he really liked so well as young
Stratherroch, and one of the Black Watch especially; but then,
perhaps, he was just a little soured by the sequel to the hospitality
and kindness accorded to "the son of his old friend," which son had
contrived by skilful lettering and figuring to add the sum of eighty
pounds to his cheque.
As he bade them adieu Stratherroch observed that Lord Aberfeldie did
not ask him to call again at Maviswood, and keenly did he feel the
omission and all it implied, and with it came the conviction that he
must call no more!
Slowly he rode back to his quarters full of alternately exultant and
bitter thoughts--exultant that Eveline loved him and would never
cease to love him, but bitter ones as he asked himself, to what end!
If poor Cameron had vague and lingering hopes to which he clung (and
doubtless he had)--hopes when seeing Eveline, of proposing or hinting
of meeting elsewhere in the future--they were doomed to blight, for
no such bore fruition; and they had now parted, and her father and
mother thought they should part, as mere friends, who might meet
casually in society, but at all events had better _not_ meet again.
And Cameron feared that, so far as monetary matters stood with him,
his friend Allan might endorse the same view of the situation.
'Stratherroch is a gentleman by birth and position, but poor,
miserably poor,' said Lady Aberfeldie, after he had gone; 'so was
that precious Mr. Holcroft, and when a declension takes place in
tone, manner, and habits, as in his instance, we never know where it
may end,' she added pointedly to Eveline.
'How can you speak of the two men in the same sentence!' exclaimed
the peer, with an asperity for which his daughter thanked him in her
aching heart.
At anytime when Eveline looked south-eastward from Maviswood she
could see the Castle of Edinburgh, and the towering mass of the
western barrack, with all its windows shining in the sun, and she
always did so with tenderest interest, as she knew that _he_ was
there; but, natheless, her experience of at least one London season,
there was much of the guileless child and mere girl in Eveline still,
and she was so sweet and soft, so pliable, and so impressed with her
mother's will and her father's authority, that--that how could Evan
Cameron tell what pressure might be brought to bear upon her, to make
her seem to transfer the allegiance of her heart to another--even to
the wealthy old English baronet, Sir Paget Puddicombe?
Alas! there was to be, in time, a pressure that none could then
foresee.