Castle Heather. A novel

Chapter I

At the Euston Square railway station — time, 8.40 p.m. A tide of human beings rushing in pell-mell, 'midst din and turmoil, to get places, and bestow themselves and their worldly goods in the Scotch mail express. What various sorts of male and female faces and figures, if anybody had time or inclination to study them ; what bustling and strug gling for seats, the stronger pushing their way, and the weaker going to the wall — as is usual in mundane affairs, except when the courtesy of an obliging porter, aided possibly — for such is also human nature — by the shining of silver in a timid palm, enabled some unprotected female, of the non-aggressive type, to ensconce herself in a snug B corner, not to emerge therefrom till she .should arrive at that haven of sleepless and hungry tra vellers — Perth.

Some of the unprotected, however, might have been put down in a catalogue as " able-bodied and well fitted to look after themselves." " I say, Bill," called one porter to another, as a lady of that description — wearing a very short petticoat, tremendous boots, spectacles, and appal ling head-gear — stalked down the platform ; " look at that 'ere ! Blowed if she ain't been a-slanging of my mate for not having her boxes labelled before they was well on to the truck. I see the cabby a-laughing, and no wonder. She might be the Queen of the Kickaboos, she might." But the " Queen of the Kickaboos " might have been a deaf adder for any effect which these remarks produced upon her. She marched on, plunged into the crowd, pushed and jostled ; and being well endowed with bone and muscle, elbowed her way into a comfortable corner with her back to the engine, where she regaled herself occa sionally with sips of brandy-and-water and very uncompromising looking biscuits. 8.30.

Time's up. The last hand-shakes are given, passengers and their luggage alike are stowed away, and with a final shriek the great iron horse starts, dragging behind it its load of human beings, and steams out like some black demon into the night. " I tell you what, Ivory," said one first-class pas senger to another, " it was very lucky we thought of engaging this carriage beforehand ; if not, I don't know what we should have done, with all that mob at the station." " I don't know, either," answered a voice with rather a peculiar softness and drawl in it ; " it would have been simply intolerable to have had anybody but ourselves for companions all these hours, especially such roughs as I saw on the plat form." "Well, I don't suppose they were exactly roughs, altogether, only it's such a bore to have people one doesn't know ; and then the eating arrangements are so uncomfortable with lookers-on.

And that reminds me," she added, " that I feel as if some thing in the shape of food would be advisable ; I wonder what we've got ? Oh ! here is something you like, Ivory, — a pati de foie gras sandwich ; eat it, and be thankful." " Yes, my dear," said the other, apparently rous ing herself from a sort of dream, and holding out her hand, " I don't mind that for a beginning, and then I'll trouble you for an inventory of the con tents of the luncheon basket ; and, do you know, Joan, it just occurs to me that that nickname of mine sounds absurd before strangers, and that you had better learn to call me by my baptismal and legal one." " M. or N., as they say in the Catechism," laughed Joan. " Nonsense, Ivory ; that name suits you a great deal better than your real one — everybody can see in a minute why you are called so, with your pale, smooth skin, and never any colour hardly ; but still, if you like it, I will call you Rose, only you are not the least like a rose.

It's quite ridiculous, I think, people giving their children names of flowers, when they can't tell, of course, what they will be like when they grow up." " There are tea-roses," said Ivory ; " perhaps I am like one of those, or a white one even." " White rose ? Yes, perhaps you are, in more ways than one. What is it I heard somewhere about an occult attraction belonging to the white rose? Don't enter the lists with poor little me, or, what with your name and yourself, I shall be certain to go to the wall." Ivory smiled, not ill-pleased at this tribute to her perfections, and turning to an elderly woman, who was at once the girl's lady's-maid and chaperone for the moment, she said, — " WThat do you think, Freeman ; has this silly child any need to be afraid of my carrying the day always ? " " Well, miss, I'm sure I can't say ; tastes is so different, you see ; and a very good thing too, or else whatever would become of the ugly ones?

But so far as my opinion goes, I should say there were gentlemen enough in the world to fall in love with one and the other of you, without there being any words between you about them. You see, miss," continued Freeman, warming with her sub ject, for she was devoted to Joan, " some likes daisies and violets, and some likes tiger-lilies and sunflowers, and those as chooses the one sort is not so likely to take up with the other." " Hurrah ! Freeman ; you speak like a book," said Joan. " And now, as we've had supper, I mean to go to sleep, and dream of whoever they are who prefer violets and daisies." And suiting the action to the word, she threw off her hat, and nestling comfortably among the cushions, resolutely shut her eyes. Ivory soon followed her example ; but Freeman, whose arrangements for the night were of a more complicated description, involving the rolling and pinning up of her bonnet strings, and picking out of some hidden depths a woollen hood and various sorts of mufflers, watched the two girls as she went through the details of her toilet, and mur mured to herself, " Well, they is as handsome as you'd find in a day's walk, both of 'em ; but for my part I do think Miss Joan's sweet face, with the beautiful dark-blue eyes and curly hair, with a dash of gold in it, is almost more taking like than Miss Ivory's pale face and dark hair, though her eyes is splendid, and she do look like a queen cut out of marble with that straight nose of hers."

It was true, Ivory did look like a queen, and moreover felt like one — that is, if any desire and aptitude to rule are part and parcel of those whose destiny it is to rule. But till very lately her kingdom had existed in imagination chiefly, her subjects con sisting only of an old Indian ayah, who adored her, and consequently was her slave ; and a widow, very poor, but marvellously beautiful, who had the distin guished honour of being the splendid Ivory's mother. Of her father she had the faintest recollection. He was killed, fighting gallantly, in India many years before ; and she had a misty remembrance of her mother falling down insensible on the receipt of a letter, and wearing black ever after. But other change there was none. They went on living in the cottage in a small Welsh village, so entirely out of the world that there was literally no one to speak to but the doctor, whose visits were few and far between, and the thin, hard-worked minister, who had to preach in Gaelic every Sunday in two different hamlets, miles apart, and also conduct a service in English in a third village, for the benefit of the English-speaking population.

How Ivory ever learnt anything — except to sketch from nature, an accomplishment that the magnificent scenery amidst which she was brought up seemed almost to force upon her — was a puzzle ; and, in fact, she knew so very little that when, upon her mother's death, her father's sister, Lady Bou verie, took compassion on the orphan and offered her a home, a whole battery of masters and gover nesses was found necessary. This happened about six months before, and life to Ivory had been like a sort of dream ever since. The comfort and luxury of the London house, where everything was soft, and rich, and delicious, contrasted with the little Welsh cottage, where everything was hard, and poor, and uncomfortable, was a perpetual source of delight to the partially Eastern nature of the girl, — they said that a tinge of Oriental blood was in her mother's veins, — and being, in spite of a good deal of latent passion, unencum bered with anything much in the shape of heart, she never knew what it was to look back with that feeling of regret to the past and gone, which is like a ghost to some people all their lives.

She " got on " very well with Joan, who was by nature so unselfish that she gave way in almost everything to her cousin, and so very seldom came into collision with the hardness which lay at the root of the other's character ; but Sir Guy and Lady Bouverie did at times — pity for her forlorn condition, notwithstanding — feel a twinge of disappointment and vexation when they saw how she always seemed to expect to be first, and how utterly free she was from the smallest particle of gratitude. At this moment the two girls were on their way to spend a month with Joan's aunt, who had married a Scotch peer, Lord Heatherbloom, and lived at Castle Heather, Deeside. She was very fond of Joan, and had tried over and over again to get the Bouveries to spare her on a visit, or bring her themselves to Scotland ; but something had always prevented it until this summer, when, Sir Guy being ordered to some German place for incipient gout, his sister declared that it would " do the girls a great deal more good to come up and breathe pure air than to go to a foreign hotel ; they could do that another year, when they were more perfect in their German," etc.

And so it was settled that Lady Bouverie went with her husband to Wilbad, and Joan and Ivory started on their journey to the north, full of bright anticipations, and with never a care or presenti ment as to what that Scotch visit might bring. Had they known, how different things might have been ! But no spirit warned them ; they did not know. Fortunately or unfortunately, as the case may be, we none of us do ; and so we can but go blindly forth to meet the unforeseen.

Chapter II

" So glad to see you, my dear child, and looking so well too, in spite of the long journey ; and you too, Ivory. Very glad to welcome you both to the ' land o' cakes ' ; but now, come at once and have some tea, and then you shall go to your rooms and rest before dinner." And Lady Heatherbloom pulled two chairs up to a little table — laid out with all sorts of things, besides the regular five o'clock tea paraphernalia — in the cosiest and most delightful of tower-rooms, and insisted on their doing justice to the various delicacies spread before them. " We don't dine till eight, you know," she said, " and you will have plenty of time to get up an appetite between this and then ; and besides, I must be imother to you now, so you will have to obey me, even to eating when I tell you ! Have some straw berries ?

They are rather late, but of course there's always, at least, a month's difference between the two places, — England and Scotland, I mean, — and this year I think it's worse than usual. I don't know about the salmon fishing, I'm sure, but you won't care for that ; and we are only a small party in the house just now — three men besides your uncle," turning to Joan, " and two women besides ourselves ; that makes five — nine people altogether. But I dare say you can manage to amuse your selves, and the lawn-tennis ground is capital, they tell me." " Oh yes, aunt," said Joan, as Lady Heatherbloom paused for breath. " I am certain we shall enjoy ourselves tremendously. I am longing already to go out and explore ; it all looks so lovely." " Quite too utterly too," whispered Ivory, with rather a sneer, not at the view, but at her cousin's outspoken admiration of it.

Nevertheless, she added aloud, " It is really beautiful ; the Dee looks so blue, and the hills so purple. Since I left Llangwdr, I never saw anything to compare with it." And she turned to Lady Heatherbloom with what Joan called one of her " special smiles " — things reserved for special occasions only, when she wished to make a particularly good impression. "Yes, my dear, it's charming, isn't it? And I'm a little of an artist myself, and so are you, from what I hear ; but somehow I never seem to have time now to draw much, or paint either, though when I was your age I did a good deal in that way. And now I will show you where your rooms are, and you can do the exploring to-morrow." " How your aunt does chatter!" said Ivory, sinking into an arm-chair in her bedroom ; " she really never stops to take breath.

I wonder what the men are like who she says are staying here ; and the women too for that matter. They are not so interesting, but they may be a bore. Most likely, I should think, regular Scotch lasses, with high colours and cheek-bones, and clothes that came out of the Ark, in which case you and I may prove an agree able diversion." " Perhaps so," came a voice through the open door of communication, " but I haven't a notion who any of them are ; all I hope is that I shall not be called upon to play whist, which I can't do decently, nor have to dance with anybody who doesn't know how to valse ! " " I should think Scotch reels and jigs would be more in the line here," said Ivory, with a yawn. " What frock are you going to put on, Joan ? I wish I could wear something to astonish the natives, but with this odious black I've no chance."

" How can you, Ivory ! and your mother was so fond of you ! " " Well, I know, and I dare say it does sound very shocking ; but in reality it has nothing to do with it. I could be just as sorry in colours ; and it's all very well for you, but I've no gold in my hair, and the whole thing's black together." A few hours later, and the two girls, after making more than one mistake as to the right way among the endless passages and odd-shaped corners in the old Castle, at last hit by chance upon the grand staircase ; and going down cautiously, for the oak was polished like a looking-glass, they arrived at the inner hall, and stood contemplating a row of doors, hoping to discover by some inspiration which one led to the drawing-room. " It's no use waiting, Joan. We must open them all in turn till we come to the right one, if that's all," said Ivory.

And she turned the handle of the nearest, and looked in. " Billiard room. That's no good ; let's try the next. Oh ! what's that ? People laughing, I believe, and somewhere over there. That must be the drawing-room. Come along quick." I 17 " I feel a perfect fool," said Joan ; " so shy. I do so hate going into a room full of people ; don't you ? " " I ? " said Ivory ; " not a bit. I suppose I don't know what shyness means." " There goes the second bell," cried Joan ; " so now, shy or not, in we must go." They were only just in time : the butler crossed the hall at the same instant to announce dinner, and held the door open for them to pass in. " Never mind being late, my dears ; I dare say you lost your way in this queer old place." And the cheery voice of Lady Heatherbloom stopped a flow of nervous apologies from the two delinquents, and went on to perform the necessary introductions.

Mrs. Middleton, my nieces. Sir Edmund Vyse, Captain Wilder, Mr. Middleton. Let me see : Sir Edmund, you take me ; Mr. Middleton, you can't take your own daughter, so you must give your arm to Miss Bouverie ; Captain Wilder, Miss C Middleton ; and you, Ivory, I'm sorry to say, must do without an escort." Ivory answered nothing, but walked in, looking as though she ought to have headed, not followed, the procession, her tall figure drawn to its utmost height, and her black hair worn like a sort of coronet, while underneath the low brow flashed a pair of eyes not easily to be matched anywhere. Joan found herself at dinner between Mr. Middleton, a portly, middle-aged man, far too much occupied with the dishes and wines to bestow more than a few words now and then upon his neigh bour, and the thin, fair-haired, washed-out-looking individual who had been introduced to her as Sir Edmund Vyse.

He wore an eyeglass, and had a high-pitched voice, which somehow reminded her of a bleating lamb. His figure was good, and his face ought to have been handsome, with the well-cut features which a long line of ancestors had trans mitted to him, but it lacked colour. The moustache and eyebrows were of the faintest shade possible ; the eyes an undecided grey, with pale eyelashes. Altogether it was rather like the face of an old picture with the tints all faded, and moreover without either the vivacity or determination in expression which would have saved it from mon otony. " Have you ever been in this part of the country before, Miss Bouverie ? " said the high voice suddenly. " No," answered Joan ; " this is my first visit. I have never been out of England before ; always in London or Buckinghamshire, or perhaps some sea side place."

" Ah, Buckinghamshire ; yes, of course ; at Oak wood, I presume ? I believe my father used to knc\y Sir Guy, and stayed there in old days, but I never had the pleasure. How is it," he continued, after a pause, " that I have not met you in London ? But I suppose you are not out yet." " Well no, not exactly," said Joan, " though I ought to be in reality ; but mother was ill all last season, and I didn't care particularly about it, and so it was put off, and I am to make my grand appearance in society next spring." " Society will be the gainer," thought Sir Edmund, though he did not say so ; he looked across at Ivory for a second, and then back at Joan. " Your sister? No, she cannot be ; I see she is in mourning. But Lady Heatherbloom called you both her nieces ? " " That is my Cousin Ivory," said Joan ; " Ivory Trevor.

Her father was my own uncle, but she is not Aunt Mary's niece really, though I always forget it. She has lived with us since her mother died ; and I have no sister, so she seems like one to me." " Is Ivory her real name ? " asked Sir Edmund. " No," laughed Joan, thinking of the conversation in the train ; " she was christened Rose, but the other name suits her so much the best that I never can call her anything else. Very handsome, isn't she ? " "Yes," said Sir Edmund carelessly, "very; rather like a Roman empress. I have been in Italy a good deal, and seen many women there, — not empresses, but princesses, and others, — and she re minds me of some of them. Captain Wilder seems to be getting on very well with her ; not much chance for his neighbour on the other side." " No ; it must be rather the reverse of lively for that girl," said Joan, sotto voce, as she looked through a vista of flowers, glass, and silver, and saw Ivory's large eyes turned, with no end of expression in them, on a masculine face bent slightly towards her, — a face undeniably handsome, with chestnut hair, golden-brown moustache, and dark-blue eyes, — the face of a man accustomed to have his own way and follow out his own will, without much regard to obstacles, let them be what they would.

It was in fact in a great measure this determined " fixedness of purpose," and freedom from any sort of scruple about carrying it out, which gave Scrope Wilder a certain power even among men, and had made his name somewhat more notorious than praiseworthy with respect to women. Husbands who had known him well enough in their bachelor days were rather apt to think twice afterwards about inviting him to their houses. Perhaps they thought their Cares and Penates — the real house hold gods, or goddesses — stood in danger. At all events it was pretty generally, " Scrope Wilder ? Oh yes, good chap enough, capital fellow ; but I don't know ; there are so many people we must ask, you see." And so he was not asked always when he might have expected to be. However, it did not trouble him much. He carried his physical beauty and his hard, strong nature wherever he was invited, — that is, if it suited him, and he liked to go, for he would not have gone a yard in any direction which he did not like ; and a man who, one way or another, was acquainted with half London was very seldom really at a loss for an invitation if he wanted one.

Lord Heatherbloom had known him from a boy, and being himself high-minded and honourable to a degree, and also full of that charity which " be lieveth all things " to the good, and never to the harm of anybody, he turned a deaf ear to the rumours which now and then reached him apropos of his friend, and only said that " young men would be young men," and no doubt there were plenty of lies told, and that some day Scrope would settle down, and be as happy as he was himself Consequently Castle Heather was one of the places ever open to Scrope, and he considered it a sort of harbour of refuge, to which he was wont to flee when he felt bored, or wanted to hunt, shoot, or fish, according to the season. Just now he was there with a view to salmon fishing chiefly ; but the prospect that way being at present vague, owing to the extreme lowness of the water in the Dee, he and the other men roamed about most days, potting the rabbits, which lived and throve in ab normal numbers, and were the terror of the sur rounding farmers, and also having an occasional shot at the grouse, which did not, however, abound to any great extent.

It was of a piece with his usual luck that, in addition to the sporting attractions of the place, he should find himself in the company of two pretty girls, with one of whom he at once proceeded, after his own fashion, to make running. By the time dinner was over, Ivory had decided two things. First, that Captain Wilder was con siderably taken with her ; and secondly, that he was rather fascinating, but peculiar, and for that very reason worth taking some trouble about. Her ex perience of the world, and of men generally, was almost nil, but flirts, like poets, are born, not made ; and she possessed by nature every capability for that accomplishment ; only in this instance the object of her endeavours was more than a match for her. Scrope read her like a book, and was very much amused by the study.

" So you don't care a great deal about things in general, Miss Trevor," said he that evening, drawing up a big arm-chair close to the window, where she sat looking out on the terrace, and putting himself into it. " Why don't you ? " " Things in general are stupid, I think," said Ivory. " I used to like riding on a Welsh pony once, and next season I suppose I shall have a horse and ride with Joan in the Park. Perhaps I shall like that. And I don't much mind sketching from nature, if I've nothing else to do; but I don't care very much about it." " That's a pity," said Scrope. " At your age you ought to be able to like anything and everything. When you come to my time of life, it's a different story." And for a moment the genial, bright look left his face, and a bitter, fierce expression crossed it.

Ivory's lip curled. " I don't go in for being a bread-and-butter miss," she said, " though I am only seventeen, and have never been anywhere. No doubt I could care about things well enough if they were worth it." And she shot a glance from her magnificent eyes which would have gone straight through the armour of most men, and did stir the pulses of even case-hardened Scrope Wilder for an instant. He looked at her from under his eye lashes, and said, quietly enough, however, " And people." " And people ! " answered Ivory, turning her head away, and pushing back the window curtain, so as better to admire the moonlit landscape. " But not all people ; some are dreadful. That man opposite at dinner, for instance ; and yet, I suppose, his wife likes him." "Mr. Middleton? Yes, I dare say she does," he answered.

" But if when she was a girl she was like what her daughter is now, I should think no body else ever asked her. Fearful woman, the daughter ; I like the mother the better of the two. What do you think of Vyse ? " he went on, " Sir Edmund Vyse, of Vyse Court ? " " The pale man who sat next Joan, you mean ? Thoroughbred, I think, but prim and stiff. Not very agreeable, I should say, and rather ugly." She looked back over her shoulder. " He's talking to her now. No ; Miss Middleton has just joined them with some music in her hand. I think she's going to sing." " Sing ! Who ? " said Scrope. " Miss Middleton ? Great heavens ! let's go then somewhere out of it. I've heard her of old. Italian bravura in a thin soprano out of tune. Come on the terrace ; it's a lovely night, and full moon." The window opened to the ground, and they stepped out and paced up and down the grass}' walk ; and more than one pair of eyes, seeing them as they passed backwards and forwards before the drawing-room, looked with admiration upon the handsome couple, with the mysterious glamour of the moonlight falling over them.

Meanwhile the " thin soprano " quavered away to the supreme satisfaction of the performer herself, — Miss Middleton sharing a delusion, common amongst amateurs, which is that they can, with ordinary voices, and but small practice, challenge competi tion by attempting brilliant arias, associated always with whole generations of great artists, and emerge without severe defeat and loss from the unequal contest. But no one else paid much attention to it except her mother, who sat tapping her fan in time to the music, and giving very short and abstracted answers to a series of questions which Lady Heather bloom was plying her with. As for Lord Heatherbloom and Mr. Middleton, they were nearly in the land of Nod ; and Sir Edmund Vyse, too civil to talk loud while singing was going on, was silently occupied in watching Joan, as she, having no one to speak to, turned over the pages of a photograph book.

Presently the voice ceased; some one said, " Thank you," and there was quiet in the room for a few minutes ; and then Scrope and Ivory, still walking up and down, heard some rich, full tones singing " I saw from the Beach," in a low key. They stopped and looked in. There sat Joan at the piano, the candlelight shining on her bright hair, and face upturned as she sang, her whole soul evidently gone into the music. " I like that song," said Captain Wilder, drawing a deep breath ; " beautiful song, only she's rather too young really to understand it. Sings well though, very. Vyse seems to think so too, judging from his face. No," as Ivory made a move forward ; " I must hear the last verse ; it's charming." " Lovely," said Ivory, who did not particularly care about the gaze which her companion fixed upon Joan ; " I delight in Moore's melodies, though I don't sing myself.