But one cold, stormy day, While helpless she lay, No longer could sorrow refrain; She gave a deep moan, And with many an "Ohone! Alas for the days when a Stuart filled the throne-- OH! WERE I A THISTLE AGAIN!"
Sir Nigel clapped his hands in applause, and said to the M.P.--
"Lickspittal, my boy, I consider that an anti-centralization song--but, of course, your sympathies and mine are widely apart."
"It is decidedly behind the age, at all events," said the member, laughing.
"You have a delightful voice, Cora--soft and sweet as ever," said I in her ear.
"Thanks, Cora," added Sir Nigel, patting her white shoulder with his strong embrowned hand. "Newton seems quite enchanted; but you must not seek to captivate our lancer."
"Why may I not, papa?"
"Because, as Thackeray says, 'A lady who sets her heart on a lad in uniform, must prepare to change lovers pretty quickly, or her life will be but a sad one.'"
"You are always quoting Thackeray," said Cora, with a little perceptible shrug of her plump shoulders.
"Is such really the case, Mr. Norcliff?" asked Lady Louisa, who had approached us; "are you gentlemen of the sword so heartless?"
"Nay, I trust that, in this instance, the author of 'Esmond' rather quizzes than libels the service," said I. "How beautiful the conservatory looks when lighted up," I added, drawing back the crimson velvet hangings that concealed the door, which stood invitingly open.
"Yes; there are some magnificent exotics here," said the tall, pale beauty, as she swept through, accompanied by Cora and myself.
I had hoped to have a single moment for a tete-a-tete with her; but in vain, for the pertinacious Berkeley, with his slow, invariable saunter, lounged in after us, and, with all the air of a privileged man, followed us from flower to flower as we passed critically along, displaying much vapid interest, and some ignorance alike of botany and floriculture. Without the conservatory, the clear, starry sky of a Scottish winter night arched its blue dome above the summits of the Lomonds; and within, thanks to skill and hot-water pipes, were the yellow flowering cactus, the golden Jobelia, the scarlet querena, the slender tendrils and blue flowers of the liana, the oranges and grapes of the sunny tropics.
"What is that dangling from the vine branch overhead?" asked Lady Louisa.
"Just above us?" said Cora, laughing, as she looked up with a charming smile on her bright girlish face.
"Haw--mistletoe, by Jove!" exclaimed Berkeley, looking up too, with his glass in his eye, and his hands in his pockets.
I am not usually a very timid fellow in matters appertaining to that peculiar parasite; yet I must own that when I saw Lady Loftus, in all the glory of her aristocratic loveliness, so pale and yet so dark, with cousin Cora standing coquettishly by her side, under the gifted branch, that my heart failed me, and its pulses fairly stood still.
"My privilege, cousin," said I, and kissed Cora, as I might have done a sister, ere she could draw back; and the usually laughing girl trembled, and grew so deadly pale, that I surveyed her with surprise.
Lady Louisa hastily drew aside, as I bent over her hand, and barely ventured to touch it with my lips; but judge of my rage and her hauteur when my cool and sarcastic brother officer, Mr. Berkeley, came languidly forward, and claiming what he termed "the privilege of the season," ere she could avoid it, somewhat brusquely pressed his well-moustached lip to her cheek.
Though affecting to smile, she drew haughtily back, with her nether lip quivering, and her black eyes sparkling dangerously.
"The season, as you term it, for these absurdities is over, Berkeley," said I, gravely. "Moreover, this house is not a casino, and that trophy should have been removed by the gardener long since."
I twitched down the branch, and tossed it into a corner. Berkeley only uttered one of his quiet, almost noiseless, laughs, and, without being in the least put out of countenance, made a species of pirouette on the brass heels of his glazed boots, which brought him face to face with the Countess, who at that moment came into the conservatory after her daughter, whom she rarely permitted to go far beyond the range of her eyeglass.
"Lady Chillingham," said he, resolved at once to launch into conversation, "have you heard the rumour that our friend, Lord Lucan, is to command a brigade in the Army of the East?"
"I have heard that he is to command a division, Mr. Berkeley, but Lord George Paget is to have a brigade," replied the Countess, coldly and precisely.
"Ah, Paget--haw--glad to hear it," said he, as he passed loungingly away; "he was an old chum of my father's--haw--doocid glad."
It was a weakness of Berkeley's to talk thus; indeed, it was a common mess-room joke with Wilford, Scriven, Studhome, and others of ours, to bring the peerage on the _tapis_, at a certain hour of the evening, and "trot him out;" but on hearing him speak thus of his father, who--honest man--began life as a drayman, it was too much for me, and I fairly laughed aloud.
The salute he had so daringly given Lady Loftus was to me a keen source of jealous anger and annoyance, which I could neither readily forgive nor forget, and had the old duelling fashion still been extant, the penalty might have proved a dear one. I had the bitter consciousness that she whose hand I had barely ventured to touch with a lip that trembled with suppressed emotion had been brusquely saluted---actually kissed before my face--by one for whom I had rather more, if possible, than a profound contempt.
What she thought of the episode I know not. A horror of what all well-bred people deem a scene no doubt prevailed, for she took her mother's arm, and passed away, while Cora and I followed them.
Jealousy suggested that much must have passed between them prior to my arrival, otherwise Berkeley, with all his assurance, dared not have acted as he did. This supposition was to me a source of real torture and mortification.
"When love steals into the nature," says a writer, "day by day infiltrating its sentiments, as it were, through every crevice of the being, it will enlist every selfish trait into the service, so that he who loves is half enamoured of himself; but where the passion comes with the overwhelming force of a sudden conviction, when the whole heart is captivated at once, self is forgotten, and the image of the loved one is all that presents itself."
Sleepless that night I lay, tormenting myself with the "trifles light as air," that to young men in my condition are "confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ."
At last I slept; but my dreams--those visions that come before the sleeping mind and eye towards the hours of morning--were not of her I loved, but of my pretty and playful cousin, fair-skinned and dark-haired Cora Calderwood.
*CHAPTER VII.*
What though our love was never told, Or breathed in sighs alone; By sighs that would not be controlled Its growing strength was shown. The touch that thrilled us with delight, The glance, by heart untamed, In one short moon, as brief as bright, That tender truth proclaimed. ALARIC WATTS.
Next morning I resolved that, if possible, it should not pass without some attempt being made to discover the state of Lady Louisa's heart--how she was affected towards me, and whether I had any chance, however remote, of reviving or securing the interest I trusted she had in me when last we met in England. But over night the snow had fallen heavily; it was six inches deep on the lawn, as Willie Pitblado told me. The Lomonds were clothed in ghastly white to their summits, and as we seemed fated to be caged up in doors all day, my chances of seeing Louisa alone would be remote indeed.
In the library and drawing-rooms I found all the guests of last night assembled, save the minister, doctor, and lawyer, who had ridden home, and save her I sought.
The snow caused universal regret, for various excursions had been in progress--some for visiting the ruined castle at Piteadie; some for riding as far as Lochleven; and others, farther still, to see the fragments that remain of the old abbey of Balmerino.
The Countess and her daughter, arrayed in a charming morning toilette, appeared just as the roar of the gong summoned us to a Scottish breakfast; and of the splendours of such a repast, what gourmand hath not heard?
There were venison, mutton, cold grouse, and ptarmigan, rizzard haddocks from the Firth of Forth, salmon from the Tay, and honey from the Lomond hills; a _liqueur_-stand, containing whisky and brandy, stood at Sir Nigel's right hand. At one end of the table was tea, presided over by Cora; at the other, where Miss Wilford officiated, was coffee.
Over the snowy landscape a glorious flood of sunshine was pouring through the stone mullions of the oriel windows, casting shadows of the old and leafless trees far across the waste of dazzling white.
I had the pleasure of being seated by the side of Lady Loftus, and we chatted away pleasantly of people whom we had met, and places where we had been. The links of the old chain were being rapidly taken up, and every time I looked into the quiet depths of her dark eyes I felt a strong emotion pass over mine.