DULCIE.
All trace of Lennard Melfort had been obliterated at Craigengowan, we
have said. He was never mentioned there, and though his family tried
to think of him as dead, they did not quite succeed; but the
disappearance of his name from the Army List first excited a little
speculation, but no inquiry, until a terrible event occurred.
The eldest son, the Hon. Cosmo, married the daughter of Lady
Drumshoddy, thus securing her thousands, and did his best to console
Lord and Lady Fettercairn for 'the disgrace' brought upon them by
Lennard, and they regarded him quite as a model son.
He shone as Chairman at all kinds of county meetings; became M.P. for
a cluster of northern burghs, and was a typical Scottish member,
mightily interested when such grand Imperial matters as the
gravelling of Park Lane, the ducks on the Serpentine, and the
improvements at Hyde Park Corner were before the House, but was
oblivious of all Scottish interests, or that such a place as Scotland
existed. When she wanted--like other parts of the empire--but never
got them--grants for necessary purposes, the Hon. Cosmo was mute as a
fish, or if he spoke it was to record his vote against them.
Lennard saw in a chance newspaper, and with natural grief and dismay,
that Cosmo had come to an untimely end when deer-stalking near
Glentilt. He had wounded a large stag, the captain of its herd, and
approached rashly or incautiously when the infuriated animal was at
bay. It broke its bay, attacked him in turn, and ere the great
shaggy hounds could tear it down, Cosmo was trampled under foot and
gored to death by its horns.
As Lennard read, his sad mind went to the scene where that death must
have happened, under mighty Ben-y-gloe, where the kestrel builds his
nest and the great mountain eagle has his eyry, and the Tilt comes
thundering down over its precipices of grey rock. Never again would
his eyes rest on such glorious scenes as these.
Cosmo had left a little daughter, Finella, who took up her abode with
her grandparents at Craigengowan, but no son, and Lennard knew that
by this tragedy he was now the heir to the peerage, but he only gave
a bitter sigh as he thought of Flora in her grave and made no sign.
'Poor Cosmo,' he muttered, and forgetting for a time much that had
occurred, and how completely Cosmo had leagued with father and mother
against him, his memory went back to the pleasant days of their happy
boyhood, when they rode, fished, and shot together, shared the same
bedroom in Craigengowan, and conned their tasks from the same books.
'Well, well,' he added, 'all that is over and done with long, long
ago.'
He made no sign, we say, but let time pass by, not foreseeing the
complications that were eventually to arise by his doing so.
Florian, born two years after the adoption of Shafto Gyle in his
infancy, always regarded and looked up to the latter as a species of
elder brother and undoubted senior.
In his twentieth year Florian was really a handsome fellow, and if,
without absurdity, the term 'beautiful' could be applied to a young
man, he was so, in his perfect manliness. Tall in figure, hard and
well developed in muscle, regular in features, he had clear, dark,
honest eyes, with lashes like a girl's, and a dark, silky moustache.
Shafto's face was in some respects handsome too, but an evil one to
look at, in one way. His fair eyebrows were heavy, and had a way of
meeting in a dark frown when he was thinking. His pale grey eyes
were shifty, and were given him, like his tongue, to conceal rather
than express his thoughts, for they were sharp and cunning. His
nostrils were delicate, and, like his thin lips, suggestive of
cruelty, while his massive jaw and thick neck were equally so--we
must say almost to brutality.
They were rather a contrast, these two young men--a contrast no less
great in their dispositions and minds than in their outward
appearance. They were so dissimilar--one being dark and the other
fair--that no one would have taken them for brothers, as they were
generally supposed to be, so affectionate was the Major to both, and
both bearing his name in the locality.
As a schoolboy Shafto had won an unpleasant reputation for jockeying
his companions, 'doing' them out of toys, sweetmeats, marbles, and
money, and for skilfully shifting punishments on the wrong shoulders
when opportunity offered, and not unfrequently on those of the
unsuspecting Florian.
From some of his proclivities, the Major thought Shafto would make a
good attorney, and so had him duly installed in the office of
Lewellen Carlyon, the nearest village lawyer, while for his own boy,
Florian, he had higher hopes and aspirations, to make him, like
himself, a soldier; but though far from idle, or lacking application,
Florian failed, under the insane high-pressure system of 'cramming,'
to pass, and not a few--Shafto particularly--laid it to the account
of a certain damsel, Dulcie by name, who was supposed, with some
truth, to occupy too much of his thoughts.
Disgusted by the result of his last 'exam.,' Florian would at once
have enlisted, like so many others, who rush as privates for
commissions nowadays; but his father's fast-failing health, his love
for Dulcie Carlyon, and the desperate but 'Micawber'-like hope that
'something would turn up,' kept him hanging on day by day aimlessly
at Revelstoke, without even the apparent future that had opened to
Shafto when elevated to a high stool in Lawyer Carlyon's office.
As time went on, Lennard Melfort (or MacIan as he called himself),
though he had a high appreciation of Shafto's sense, turn for
business to all appearance, cleverness, and strength of character,
turned with greater pleasure to his own son Florian, whose clear open
brow and honest manly eyes bore nature's unmistakable impress of a
truer nobility than ever appertained to the truculent and
anti-national lords of Fettercairn.
Though to all appearance the best of friends before the world, the
cousins were rivals; but as Florian was the successful lover, Shafto
had a good basis for bitterness, if not secret hate.
In common with the few neighbours who were in that sequestered
quarter, the lawyer liked the Major--he was so gentle, suave,
retiring in manner, and courteously polite. He liked Florian too,
but deemed him idle, and there his liking ended.
He took Shafto into his office at the Major's urgent request, as a
species of apprentice, but he--after the aphorism of 'Dr. Fell'--did
not much affect the young man, though he found him sharp enough--too
sharp at times; and, like most of the neighbours, he never cared to
inquire into the precise relationship of the Major and the two lads,
both of whom from boyhood had called the latter 'Papa.'
Dulcie Carlyon was the belle of the limited circle in which she
moved, and a very limited circle it was; but she was pretty enough to
have been the belle of a much larger orbit; for she was the very
ideal of a sweet, bright English girl, now nearly in her eighteenth
year, and the boy and girl romance in the lives of her and Florian
had lasted since they were children and playmates together, and they
seemed now to regard each other with 'the love that is given once in
a lifetime.'
'Could I but separate these two!' muttered Shafto, as with eyes full
of envy and evil he watched one of their meetings, amid the bushes
that fringed an old quarry not far from Revelstoke Church.
From the summit where he lurked there was a magnificent view of the
sea and the surrounding country. On one hand lay the lonely old
church and all the solitary hills that overlook its wave-beaten
promontory; on the other were the white-crested waves of the British
Channel, rolling in sunshine; but Shafto saw only the face and figure
of Dulcie Carlyon, who was clad just as he was fond of picturing her,
in a jacket of navy blue, fastened with gilt buttons, and a skirt
with clinging folds of the same--a costume which invests an English
girl with an air equally nautical and coquettish. Dulcie's dresses
always fitted her exquisitely, and her small head, with smart hat and
feather, set gracefully on her shapely shoulders, had just a
_soupçon_ of pride in its contour and bearing.
Slender in figure, with that lovely flower-like complexion which is
so peculiarly English, Dulcie had regular and delicate features, with
eyes deeply and beautifully blue, reddish-golden hair, a laughing
mouth that some thought too large for perfect beauty, but it was
fully redeemed by its vivid colour and faultless teeth.
'Could I but separate them!' muttered Shafto, through his clenched
teeth, while their murmured words and mutual caresses maddened him.
Dulcie was laughingly kissing a likeness in an open locket which
Florian had just given her--a likeness, no doubt, of himself--and she
did so repeatedly, and ever and anon held it admiringly at arm's
length. Then she closed it, and Florian clasped the flat silver
necklet to which it was attached round her slender white throat; and
with a bright fond smile she concealed it among the lace frilling of
her collarette, and let the locket, for security, drop into the cleft
of her bosom, little foreseeing the part it was yet to play in her
life.
Shafto's face would not have been pleasant to look upon as he saw
this episode, and his shifty grey eyes grew pea-green in hue as he
watched it.
'Oh, Dulcie!' exclaimed Florian, with a kind of boyish rapture, as he
placed a hand on each of her shoulders and gazed into her eyes, 'I am
most terribly in love with you.'
'Why should there be any terror in it?' asked Dulcie, with a sweet
silvery laugh.
'Well, I feel so full of joy in having your love, and being always
with you, that--that a fear comes over me lest we should be some day
parted.'
'Who can part us but ourselves?' said she with a pretty pout, while
her long lashes drooped.
'Dulcie,' said he, after a little pause, 'have you ever had an
emotion that comes uncalled for--that which people call a
presentiment?'
'Yes; often.'
'Has it ever come true?'
'Sometimes.'
'Well--I have a presentiment this evening which tells me that
something is about to happen to me--to us--and very soon too!'
'What can happen to us--we are so happy?' said Dulcie, her blue eyes
dilating.
Did the vicinity of Shafto, though unknown to Florian, mysteriously
prompt this thought--this boding fear. Shafto heard the words, and a
strange smile spread over his face as he shook his clenched hand at
the absorbed pair, and stole away from his hiding-place, leaving two
foolish hearts full of a foolish dream from which they might be
roughly awakened--leaving the happy Florian, with that sweet and
winsome Dulcie whom he loved, and with whom he had played even as a
child; with whom he had shared many a pot of clotted cream; with whom
he had fished for trout in the Erme and Yealm; explored with fearful
steps and awe-stricken heart the cavern there, where lie thick the
fossil bones of the elephant, hyæna, and wolf; and wandered for hours
by the moors, among mossy rocks and mossy trees, and in woody
labyrinthine lanes, and many a time and oft by the sea shore, where
the cliffs are upheaved and contorted in a manner beyond description,
but so loosely bound together that waves rend them asunder, and shape
them into forms like ruined castles and stranded ships; till, as
years went on, heart had spoken to heart; boy and girl life had been
left behind; and that dream-time came in which they seemed to live
for years.
No one could accuse Dulcie Carlyon of coquetry, her nature was too
truthful and open for that; thus she had never for a moment wavered
in her preference between Florian and Shafto, and spent with the
former those bright and hopeful hours that seldom come again with the
same keen intensity in a lifetime, though often clouded by vague
doubts.
As yet they had led a kind of Paul and Virginia life, without very
defined ideas of their future; in fact, perhaps scarcely considering
what that future might be.
They only knew, like the impassioned boy and girl in the beautiful
story of Bernardin St. Pierre, that they loved each other very
dearly, and for the sweet present that sufficed; while cunning Shafto
Gyle looked darkly, gloomily, and enviously on them.
Perhaps it was his fast failing health that prevented Lennard Melfort
from looking more closely into this matter, or it may be that he
remembered the youthful love of his own heart; for he could never
forget her whom he was so soon to join now, and who, 'after life's
fitful fever,' slept by the grey wall of Revelstoke, within sound of
the restless sea.
Dulcie's father, Lawyer Carlyon, heard rumours of these meetings and
rambles, and probably liked them as little as the Major did; but he
was a busy man absorbed in his work, and had been used to seeing the
pair together since they were toddling children. Lennard, perhaps,
thought it was as well to let them alone, as nothing would come of
it, while the lawyer treated it surlily as a kind of joke.
'Why, Dulcie, my girl,' said he one day, 'what is to be the end of
all this philandering but spoiling your own market, perhaps? Do you
expect a young fellow to marry you who has no money, no prospects, no
position in the world?'
'Position he has,' said poor Dulcie, blushing painfully, for though
an only and motherless child she stood in awe of her father.
'Position--a deuced bad one, I think!'
'The other two items will come in time, papa,' said Dulcie, laughing
now.
'When?'
Dulcie was silent, and--for the first time in her life--thought
sadly, 'Yes, when!' But she pressed a pretty white hand upon the
silver locket in her bosom, as if to draw courage therefrom as from
an amulet.
'Why, lass, he can't keep even the roof of a _cob_ cottage over your
head.'
'Well, papa, remember our hopeful Devonshire proverb--a good cob, a
good hat and shoes, and a good heart last for ever.'
'Right, lass, and a good heart have you, my darling,' said Mr.
Carlyon, kissing her peach-like cheek, for he was a kind and
good-hearted man, though somewhat rough in his exterior, and more
like a grazier than a lawyer. 'You are both too young to know what
you are talking about. He'll be going away, however--can't live
always on his father, and _he_, poor fellow, won't last long. The
fancy of you both will wear itself out, like any other summer
flirtation--I had many such in my time,' he added, with a chuckle,
'and got safely over them all. So will you, lass, and marry into
some good family, getting a husband that will give you a comfortable
home--for instance, Job Holbeton, with his pits of Bovey coal.'
Poor little Dulcie shivered, and could scarcely restrain her tears at
the hard, practical suggestions of her father. Hard-featured, stout,
and grizzled Joe Holbeton versus her handsome Florian!
Her father spoke, too, of his probable 'going away.' Was this the
presentiment to which her lover had referred? It almost seemed so.
In the sunset she went forth into the garden to work with her wools,
and even to have a 'good cry' over what her father had said; but in
this she was prevented by suddenly finding Shafto stretched on the
grass at her feet under a pine chestnut-tree--Shafto, whom she could
only tolerate for Florian's sake.
'Why do you stare at me so hard, Shafto,' she asked, with unconcealed
annoyance.
'Staring, was I?'
'Yes, like an owl.'
'I always like to see girls working.'
'Indeed!'
'And the work, what do you call it?'
'Crewel work. And you like to see us busy?'
'Yes, especially when the work is done by hands so pretty and white.'
'As mine, you mean, of course?'
'Yes, Dulcie. How you do bewilder a fellow!'
'Don't begin as usual to pay me clumsy compliments, Shafto, or I
shall quit the garden,' said Dulcie, her blue eyes looking with a
half-frightened, half-defiant expression into the keen, shifty, and
pale grey ones of Shafto, who was somewhat given to persecuting her.
He could see the outline of the locket with every respiration of her
bosom. Could he but possess himself of it, thought he, as he
proceeded to fill his meerschaum pipe.
'I thought gentlemen did not smoke in ladies' society unless with
permission,' said Dulcie.
'Never bother about that, little one, please. But may I smoke?'
'Yes.'
'Thanks; this is jolly,' said he, looking up at her with eyes full of
admiration. 'I feel like Hercules at the feet of Omphale.'
'I don't know who he was, or what you feel, but do you know what you
look like?'
'No.'
'Shall I tell you?' asked Dulcie, her eyes sparkling with mischief.
'Yes.'
'Well, like the Athenian weaver, Bottom, with his ass's head, at the
feet of Titania. "Dost like the picture?"'
Shafto eyed her spitefully, all the more so that Dulcie laughed
merrily, showing all her pearly teeth at her reply.
'Oho, this comes of rambling in quarries,' said he, bluntly and
coarsely; 'doing the Huguenot business, the _pose_ of Millais'
picture. Bosh! What can you and he mean?'
'Millais and I?'
'No; you and Florian!'
'Mean!' exclaimed Dulcie, her sweet face growing very pale in spite
of herself at the bluntness of Shafto, and the unmistakable anger of
his tone and bearing.
'Yes--with your tomfoolery.'
'How?--why?'
'Penniless as you are--he at least.'
'Good evening, Shafto; you are very unpleasant, to say the least of
it,' said Dulcie, as she gathered up her wools and sailed into the
house, while his eyes followed her with a menacing and very ugly
expression indeed.