'FOOL'S PARADISE.'
The earliest of the guests so roughly referred to by Mr. Hawkey
Sharpe, as stated in the preceding chapter, duly arrived in the noon
of the following day, and were closely reconnoitred by that personage
through a field-glass from an angle of the bartizan, and he was
enabled to perceive that there were only two young ladies--a tall,
dark-haired one, and another less in stature, very _petite_ indeed,
with a small, flower-like face and golden hair; for they were simply
the somewhat reluctant Hester Maule and the irrepressible Annot
Drummond, for whose accommodation Mrs. Drugget, the housekeeper, had
made all the necessary preparations.
'Welcome to Earlshaugh--you are no stranger here, Hester!' said
Roland, as he kissed the latter when he assisted her to alight from
the carriage at the _porte-cochère_--the lightest and fleetest thing
possible in the way of a salute--one without warmth or lingering
force; but then Annot--whom he did not kiss at all 'before folk'--had
her hazel-green eyes upon them.
For Annot he had the most choice little bouquet that old Willie
Wardlaw, the gardener, could prepare; but there was none for Hester,
an omission which the latter scarcely noticed.
'And this is your home!' exclaimed Annot, burying her little nose
among the many lilies of the valley, pink rosebuds, and fragrant
stephanotis.
'It is the home of my forefathers,' replied Roland almost evasively,
as he gave her his arm.
'What a romantic reply--savours quite of a three-volume novel!'
exclaimed Annot, unaware of what the answer too literally implied,
and what was actually passing in Roland's mind; but Hester felt for
him, and saw the painful blush that crossed his nut-brown cheek.
The family legal agent had not yet returned to Edinburgh, so Roland
had not been able to see or take counsel with him as to what
transpired when he was lurking in the desert after Kashgate.
But Annot was come, and for the time he was content to live at
Earlshaugh in that species of Fool's Paradise--'to few unknown,' as
Milton has it. As yet nothing more had been heard of the meadowing
of the park or cutting down the King's Wood; and save that Mr. Hawkey
Sharpe from time to time crossed his path, and even--to Maude's
intense annoyance, and that of Roland from other causes--joined his
sister at the family meals, Roland had no other specific grievance;
but he felt as if upon a volcano.
As Annot left the carriage, she was greeted warmly and kindly by
Maude, who was glad to return attentions received in London, and who
as yet knew nothing of how the young lady was situated with regard to
Roland, who now looked round for Mrs. Lindsay as the lady of the
house.
But the latter, under the _régime_ of her predecessor, his mother,
'was too accurately acquainted with the weights and measures of
society for such a movement as that;' and thus received her two
guests--or Maude's rather--in the Red Drawing-room, accurately
attired in rich black moire, with lace lappets and jet ornaments; and
was, of course, 'delighted' to see both, while according to each, not
her hand, but a finger thereof; and Hester, who knew her well of old,
read again in her pale face that mixture of hardness and cunning with
which the slight smile on her thin lips--a smile that never reached
her sharp gray eyes--well accorded.
Her eyes were handsome, and had been pleasing in their expression
once; but now her somewhat false position in Earlshaugh and her
secret ailment had imparted to them a defiant, restless, and peculiar
one.
The coldness of her manner struck Hester as unpleasant; Roland's
politeness was not warmth that made up for it, and the girl already
began to think--'I was a fool--a weak fool to come! But how to get
away, now that I am here?'
'It is a beautiful place!' thought the artful and ambitious little
Annot, when left for a few minutes in the solitude of her own room,
and, forgetting even to glance at her soft face and _petite_ figure
in the tall cheval glass or toilette mirror, gazed dreamily from the
windows, arched and deep in the massive wall, over the far extent of
pastoral country, tufted here and there with dark green woods, with a
glimpse of the German Sea in the distance; and she felt, for a time,
all the anticipative joy of being the mistress--the joint owner--of
such a stately old pile as Earlshaugh with all its surroundings, the
historic interest of which was to her, however, a sealed book; but
there is much in the glory of a sense of ownership, says a
writer--'of the ownership of land and houses, of beeves and woolly
flocks, of wide fields and thick growing woods, even when that
ownership is of late date, when it conveys to the owner nothing but
the realization of a property on the soil; but there is much more in
it when it contains the memories of old years; when the glory is the
glory of a race as well as the glory of power and property.'
And though to a little town-bred bird like Annot such historic
flights were empty things, the old walls of Earlshaugh had seen
ancestors of Roland ride forth heading their followers with morion,
jack, and spear, to the fields of Flodden, Pinkey, and Dunbar; to the
muster place of the Fife lairds, in the year of Sherriffmuir, and to
many a stirring broil in the days when the Scotsman's sword was
always in his hand and never in its scabbard; but from such daydreams
as did occur to her, Annot was now roused by the welcome sound of the
luncheon gong echoing from the entrance-hall, and, dispensing with
the assistance of a maid, she hurried at once downstairs.
In expectation of the gentlemen who were coming after the birds on
the First, a day or two passed off delightfully enough, amid the
novelty of Earlshaugh, and the evenings were devoted to music; and
despite the unwelcome presence of the cold, haughty, and somewhat
repellant Mrs. Lindsay, Annot, as at Merlwood, talked to Roland,
played for, sang to Roland, and put forth--more effusively than
ever--all her little arts in the way of attraction for him, and him
alone; which his sister Maude, to whom this style of thing was rather
new, looked on with amused surprise at first, and then somewhat
reprehensively and gloomily.
To Hester, Roland, acting as host, was elaborate in his brotherly
kindness and attention; perhaps--nay doubtless--a lingering sentiment
of remorse had made him so; and she received it all, but with secret
pain and intense mortification, and Maude's soft blue eyes were not
slow to detect this.
'Hester,' said Maude, with arms affectionately twined round her, 'I
used to think that you and Roland were very fond of each other!'
'So we were,' said Hester in a low voice.
'Were?'
'Are, I mean--very fond of each other. Why should we be otherwise?'
stammered poor Hester, turning away for a moment.
'I mean--I thought (uncle Harry used to quiz you both so much!) he
cared for you, and you for him more--more----'
'Than cousins usually do?'
'Yes.'
'Oh, no--no--you mistake, dear Maude.'
'Well--it seems Annot now; and yet I hope--ah, no--it cannot be.'
One fact soon became too apparent to Roland Lindsay: that his sister
Maude did not like Annot Drummond now, if she ever did.
'I never saw a girl so changed since we were at school together at
Madame Raffineur's in Belgium--even since I saw her last in London!'
said Maude; 'why, Roland, she has become quite an artful little woman
of the world!'
'Artful--oh, Maude!' he expostulated.
'Girls in their confidential moods say and admit many things their
best friends know nothing of; but don't let me vex you, dear Roland.
However, I don't like to hear Annot boast of enjoying cigarettes and
being a good shot.'
'All talk, Maude; she takes a waggish delight in startling you
country folks. I'd stake a round sum on it, she never tried either,'
he replied, with undisguised irritation.
Maude was silent for a moment; but she would have been more than
blind had she not seen how Annot and her brother were affected to
each other, and she disliked it.
'You love Annot then?' she asked.
'I do.'
'And mean to--to marry her?'
'I hope so.'
'With Annot you have not a sentiment in common; and marriage between
two persons whose tastes are diverse is a great error.'
'If our tastes are so; but surely we know our own minds, little one,
quite as much as you and Jack Elliot of ours do.'
'There now--you are angry with me!' said Maude, with a pout on her
lip.
'Angry--not at all, Maude; who could be angry with you? But I am
disappointed a little.'
'And so am I--not a little, but very much.'
'How?'
'I always thought you were attached to our sweet and earnest-eyed
Hester.'
'And so I am,' replied Roland, selecting a cigar with great apparent
care; 'but, as a cousin, you know.'
'And now it seems to be Annot!' said Maude, with her white hands
folded on her knee and looking up at him with an air of annoyance.
'Beyond my admissions just made, what led you to think so?'
'A thousand things! I am not blind, nor is anyone else. According
to what you have said, then you must be engaged!'
'Well--yes.'
'And you keep it a secret?'
'Yes.'
'But why?'
'Surely, Maude, that should be obvious to you. Till I can see old
Mr. MacWadsett and have certain matters cleared up.'
'You are wise. But Annot, does she, too, wish the engagement kept
secret?'
'Decidedly, from the world at least,'
'A comprehensive word; but why?'
'I have a little tour in Egypt before me yet.'
'My poor Roland! But to me it seems that when a couple are engaged
there is no reason why all the world need not know of it, unless
there are impediments.'
'Which certainly exist so far in our case. I am the heir of
Earlshaugh, yet is Earlshaugh mine? At the present moment,' he
added, with his teeth almost set in anger, 'congratulations might be
embarrassing.'
Maude sighed for her brother's future, but not for her own. That
seemed assured. She thought that if the fashion of congratulations
prevented promises of marriage being lightly given, they served a
purpose that was good. She had read that a girl might say yes 'when
asked to marry, with the mental reservation that if anything better
came along she will continue not to keep her word and think twice
about it if she has to go through such a form' (and such a girl she
shrewdly suspected Annot to be). Maude also thought that marriage
engagements are frequently too lightly entered into and too lightly
set aside, and that the contract should be as sacred as marriage
itself.
'You surely know Annot well?' said Roland, breaking a silence that
embarrassed him.
'Oh yes,' replied Maude, without looking up.
'I think you will learn to like, nay, must like her!' he urged.
'I shall try, Roland,' was the dubious response, with which he was
obliged to content himself as with other things in his then Fool's
Paradise.