ALONE IN THE WORLD.
'And you were bred to the law, you say, Mr. Melfort?' remarked the
old Writer to the Signet after a pause.
'Yes, in Lawyer Carlyon's office.'
'Very good--very good indeed; that is well! We generally think in
Scotland that a little knowledge of the law is useful, as it teaches
the laird to haud his ain; but I forgot that you are southland bred,
and born too--the more is the pity--and can't understand me.'
Shafto did not understand him, but thought that his time spent in
Lawyer Carlyon's office had not been thrown away now; experience
there had 'put him up to a trick or two.'
'I shall write to Craigengowan by the first post,' said Mr. Kippilaw
after another of those thoughtful pauses during which he attentively
eyed his visitor. 'Lord and Lady Fettercairn--like myself now
creeping up the vale of years--(Hope they may soon see the end of it!
thought Shafto) will, I have no doubt, be perfectly satisfied by the
sequence and tenor of the documents you have brought me that you are
their grandson--the son of the expatriated Lennard--and when I hear
from them I shall let you know the result without delay. You are
putting up at--what hotel?'
'At the Duke of Rothesay, in Princes Street.'
'Ah! very well.'
'Thanks; I shall be very impatient to hear.'
'And your cousin--he will, of course, go with you to Craigengowan?'
Shafto hesitated, and actually coloured, as Florian could detect.
'What are your intentions or views?' Mr. Kippilaw asked the latter.
'He failed to pass for the army,' said Shafto bluntly and glibly, 'so
I don't know what he means to do _now_. I believe that he scarcely
knows himself.'
'Have you no friends on your mother's side, Mr. Florian?'
'None!' said Florian, with a sad inflection of voice.
'Indeed! and what do you mean to do?'
'Follow the drum, most probably,' replied Florian bitterly and a
little defiantly, as Shafto's coldness, amid his own great and good
fortune, roused his pride and galled his heart, which sank as he
thought of Dulcie Carlyon, sweet, golden-haired English Dulcie, so
far away.
Mr. Kippilaw shook his bald head at the young man's answer.
'I have some little influence in many ways, and if I can assist your
future views you may command me, Mr. Florian,' said he with fatherly
kindness, for he had reared--yea and lost--more than one fine lad of
his own.
It has been said that one must know mankind very well before having
the courage to be solely and simply oneself; thus, as Shafto's
knowledge of mankind was somewhat limited, he felt his eye quail more
than once under the steady gaze of Mr. Kippilaw.
'It is a very strange thing,' said the latter, 'that after the death
of Mr. Cosmo in Glentilt, when Lord and Lady Fettercairn were so
anxious to discover and recall his younger brother as the next and
only heir to the title and estates, we totally failed to trace him.
We applied to the War Office for the whereabouts of Major Lennard
Melfort, but the authorities there, acting upon a certain principle,
declined to afford any information. Advertisements, some plainly
distinct, others somewhat enigmatical, were often inserted in the
_Scotsman_ and _Times_, but without the least avail.
'As for the _Scotsman_,' said Shafto, 'the Major----'
'Your father, you mean?'
'Yes,' said he, reddening, 'was no more likely to see such a
provincial print in Devonshire than the Roman _Diritto_ or the
Prussian _Kreuz Zeitung_; and the _Times_, if he saw it--which I
doubt--he must have ignored. Till the time of his death drew near,
his feelings were bitter, his hostility to his family great.'
'I can well understand that, poor fellow!' said Mr. Kippilaw,
glancing at his watch, as he added--'You must excuse me till
to-morrow: I am already overdue at the Parliament House.'
He bowed his visitors out into the sun-lit square.
'You seem to have lost your tongue, Florian, and to have a
disappointed look,' said Shafto snappishly, as they walked slowly
towards the hotel together.
'Disappointed I am in one sense, perhaps, but I have no reason to
repine or complain save at our change of relative positions, but
certainly not at your unexpected good fortune, Shafto. It is only
right and just that your father's only son should inherit all that is
legally and justly his.'
Even at these words Shafto never winced or wavered in plans or
purpose.
It was apparent, however, to Florian, that he had for some time past
looked restless and uneasy, that he started and grew pale at any
unusual sound, while a shadow rested on his not usually very open
countenance.
Betimes next morning a note came to him at the Duke of Rothesay Hotel
from Mr. Kippilaw, requesting a visit as early as possible, and on
this errand he departed alone.
He found the old lawyer radiant, with a letter in his hand from Lord
Fettercairn (in answer to his own) expressive of astonishment and joy
at the sudden appearance of this hitherto unknown grandson, whom he
was full of ardour and anxiety to see.
'You will lose no time in starting for Craigengowan,' said Mr.
Kippilaw. 'You take the train at the Waverley Station and go _viâ_
Burntisland, Arbroath, and Marykirk--or stay, I think we shall
proceed together, taking your papers with us.'
'Thanks,' said Shafto, feeling somehow that the presence of Mr.
Kippilaw at the coming interview would take some of the
responsibility off his own shoulders.
'Craigengowan, your grandfather says, will put on its brightest smile
to welcome you.'
'Very kind of Craigengowan,' said Shafto, who felt but ill at ease in
his new role of adventurer, and unwisely adopted a free-and-easy
audacity of manner.
'A cheque on the Bank of Scotland for present emergencies,' said Mr.
Kippilaw, opening his cheque-book, 'and in two hours we shall meet at
the station.'
'Thanks again. How kind you are, my dear sir.'
'I would do much for your father's son, Mr. Shafto,' said the lawyer,
emphatically.
'And what about Florian?'
'The letter ignores him--a curious omission. In their joy, perhaps
Lord and Lady Fettercairn forgot. But, by the way, here is a letter
for him that came by the London mail.'
'A letter for him!' said Shafto, faintly, while his heart grew sick
with apprehension, he knew not of what.
'Mr. Florian's face is strangely familiar to me,' said Mr. Kippilaw
aloud; but to himself, 'Dear me, dear me, where can I have seen
features like his before? He reminds me curiously of Lennard
Melfort.'
Shafto gave a nervous start.
The letter was a bulky one, and bore the Wembury and other
post-marks, and to Shafto's infinite relief was addressed in the
familiar handwriting of Dulcie Carlyon.
He chuckled, and a great thought worthy of himself occurred to him.
In the solitude of his own room at the hotel, he moistened and opened
the gummed envelope, and drew forth four closely written sheets of
paper full of the outpourings of the girl's passionate heart, of her
wrath at the theft of her locket by Shafto, and mentioning that she
had incidentally got the address of Mr. Kippilaw from her father, and
desiring him to write to her, and she would watch for and intercept
the postman by the sea-shore.
'Bosh,' muttered Shafto, as he tore up and cast into the fire
Dulcie's letter, all save a postscript, written on a separate scrap
of paper, and which ran thus:--
'You have all the love of my heart, Florian; but, as I feel and fear
we may never meet again, I send you this, which I have worn next my
heart, to keep.'
_This_ was a tiny tuft of forget-me-nots.
'Three stamps on all this raggabash!' exclaimed Shafto, whom the
girl's terms of endearment to Florian filled with a tempest of
jealous rage. He rolled the locket he had wrenched from Dulcie's
neck in soft paper, and placed it with the postscript in the
envelope, which he carefully closed and re-gummed, placed near the
fire, and the moment it was perfectly dry he gave it to Florian.
If the latter was surprised to see a letter to himself, addressed in
Dulcie's large, clear, and pretty handwriting, to the care of 'Lawyer
Kippilaw,' as she called him, he was also struck dumb when he found
in the envelope the locket, the likeness, and the apparently curt
farewell contained in one brief sentence!
For a time he stood like one petrified. Could it all be real? Alas!
there was no doubting the postal marks and stamps upon this most
fatal cover; and while he was examining it and passing his hand
wildly more than once across his eyes and forehead, Shafto was
smoking quietly at a window, and to all appearance intent on watching
the towering rock and batteries of the Castle, bathed in morning
sunshine--batteries whereon steel morions and Scottish spears had
often gleamed of old.
Though his soul shrank from doing so, Florian could not resist taking
Shafto into his confidence about this unexplainable event; and the
latter acted astonishment to the life!
Was the locket thus returned through the post in obedience to her
father's orders, after he had probably discovered the contents of it?
But Shafto demolished this hope by drawing his attention to the tenor
of the pithy scrap of paper, which precluded the idea that it had
been done under any other influence than her own change of mind.
'Poor Florian!' sneered Shafto, as he prepared to take his departure
for Craigengowan; 'now you had better proceed at once to cultivate
the wear-the-willow state of mind.'
Florian made no reply. His ideas of faith and truth and of true
women were suddenly and cruelly shattered now!
'She has killed all that was good in me, and the mischief of the
future will be at her door!' he exclaimed, in a low and husky voice.
'Oh, Florian, don't say that,' said Shafto, who actually did feel a
little for him; and just then, when they were on the eve of
separation, even his false and artful heart did feel a pang, with the
sting of fear, at the career of falsehood to which he had committed
himself; but his ambition, innate greed, selfishness, and pride urged
him on that career steadily and without an idea of flinching.
After Mr. Kippilaw's remarks concerning how the face of Florian
interested him, and actually that he bore a likeness to the dead
Major--to his own father, in fact--Shafto became more than desirous
to be rid of him in any way. He thought with dread of the discovery
and fate of 'the Claimant,' and of the fierce light thrown by the law
on that gigantic imposture; but genuine compunction he had none!
'Well,' he muttered, as he drove away from the hotel with his
portmanteau, 'I must keep up this game at all hazards now. I have
stolen--not only Florian's name--but his place, so let him paddle his
own canoe!'
'I'll write you from Craigengowan,' were his parting words--a promise
which he never fulfilled. Shafto, who generally held their mutual
purse now, might have offered to supply the well-nigh penniless lad
with money, but he did not. He only longed to be rid of him--to hear
of him no more. He had a dread of his presence, of his society, of
his very existence, and now had but one hope, wish, and desire--that
Florian Melfort should cross his path never again. And now that he
had achieved a separation between him and Dulcie, he conceived that
Florian would never again go near Revelstoke, of which
he--Shafto--had for many reasons a nervous dread!
Full of Dulcie and her apparently cruel desertion of him, which he
considered due to calm consideration of his change of fortune--or
rather total want of it--Florian felt numbly indifferent to the
matter Shafto had in hand and all about himself.
While very nearly moved to girlish tears at parting from one with
whom he had lived since infancy--with whom he had shared the same
sleeping-room, shared in the same sports and studies--with whom he
had read the same books to some extent, and had ever viewed as a
brother--Florian was rather surprised, even shocked, by the
impatience of that kinsman, the only one he had in all the wide
world, to part from him and begone, and to see he was calm and hard
as flint or steel.
'Different natures have different ways of showing grief, I suppose,'
thought the simple Florian; 'or can it be that he still has a grudge
at me because of the false but winsome Dulcie? If affection for me
is hidden in his heart, it is hidden most skilfully.' No letter ever
came from Craigengowan. The pride of Florian was justly roused, and
he resolved that he would not take the initiative, and attempt to
open a correspondence with one who seemed to ignore him, and whose
manner at departing he seemed to see more clearly and vividly now.
The fact soon became grimly apparent. He could not remain idling in
such a fashionable hotel as the Duke of Rothesay, so he settled his
bill there, and took his portmanteau in his hand, and issued into the
streets--into the world, in fact.