Chapter IV: Laura Trelawney

The invited guests all responded, and accepted almost by return of post, and a sigh of relief escaped Sir Ranald when he found no missives came with them, as he was generally well pleased when he saw the village postman pass the avenue gate.

'Captain Goring, I see, uses sealing wax--good custom--good old style,' said he, returning that officer's note to Alison, who prized it rather more than he knew; 'uses a shield too--the chevron and annulets of the Gorings of Sussex--not a crest; every trumpery fellow sticks one on his notepaper now--the crest that never shone on a helmet.'

So, from this circumstance, Bevil Goring rose in the estimation of the baronet, who knew all Burke's Armory by rote.

The luncheon lay heavy on poor Alison's heart; she thought of their _cuisine_, as it too often was--refined and dainty though her father's tastes were--meat roasted dubiously, then made up into stews and lumpy minces, with rice puddings, and she shivered with dismay, and had long and deep consultations with old Mrs. Rebecca Prune and her daughter Daisy; but when the day came her fears were ended, and she began 'to see her way,' as she said, and contemplated the table with some complacency.

In her blue morning robe, trimmed with white, which suited so well her complexion and the character of her beauty, she was cutting and placing in crystal vases the monthly roses and few meagre flowers with fern leaves from her tiny conservatory at the sunny end of the house to decorate the table.

'Don't they look pretty, papa?' she exclaimed, almost gleefully.

'Yes, but you, pet Alison, are the sweetest flower of them all,' said Sir Ranald, kissing the close white division of her rich brown hair.

'"Dawted dochters mak' daidling wives," they say,' muttered old Archie, who was busy polishing a salver; 'but our dear doo, Miss Alison, will never be ane o' them, Sir Ranald.'

For the honour of the house, Archie had been most anxious to furnish his quota to the feast, and said--

'Miss Alison, I am sure I would catch ye some troots in the burn owre by, though the weeds ha'e grown sae in the water, if you would like them.'

'Thanks, Archie, you old dear,' replied Alison, laughing, 'but we won't require them.'

The cold salmon and fowls, the salads, some game, the grapes, and other etceteras of a well-appointed repast, to which delicate cutlets were to be added, with some of Sir Ranald's irreproachable wines--almost the last remnants of a once well-stocked cellar--made the table complete, and Alison content; nor must we forget the dainty china and crested silver dishes, heirlooms for generations back, which were brought from their repositories, and were the pride of old Auchindoir's heart and of his master's too.

The chief of these was a relic of considerable antiquity, being nothing less than a maizer, or goblet of silver, bequeathed by Elizabeth, Queen Consort of Scotland, to her master of the household, the Laird of Essilmont, who, with Douglas, pursued Edward of England from Bannockburn to the gates of Dunbar, and which had emblazoned (in faded colours) and graven on it the Cheyne arms, chequy or and azure, a fess gules, fretty of the first, and crested with a buck's head, erased.

Mrs. Trelawney and her little daughter were the first to arrive. She swept up to Alison, kissed her on both cheeks, with more genuine affection than effusiveness, and apologised for the presence of her little companion.

'I knew you would pardon me bringing the poor child. She has no one to love but me, and mopes so much when left alone.'

'Netty, I hope, loves me too,' exclaimed Alison, taking the girl--a bright little thing of some eight years or so, with a shower of clustering curls--in her arms and kissing her fondly. 'I don't think papa would consider his little entertainment complete without Netty to prattle to him.'

Mrs. Trelawney, a brilliant blonde of seven and twenty, though a widow, looked almost girlish for her years; her figure was tall and eminently handsome; her white-lidded and long-lashed hazel eyes were full of brilliant expression; her manner was vivacious, and every action of her hands and head graceful in the extreme. She formed an attractive and leading feature in every circle, and usually was the centre of a group of gentlemen everywhere, and yet, singular to say, she rather avoided than courted both notice and society.

When she talked she seemed the art of pleasing personified; her words, her gestures, her bright eyes, and beautiful lips were all prepossessing.

She would invest petty trifles with interest; her accents were those of grace, and she could polish the point of an epigram, or say even a bold thing, better certainly than any other woman Alison had ever met. Her vivacity was said to approach folly; but even in her moments of folly, she was always interesting.

On the other hand she had times of depression almost amounting to gloom, most singular even to those who knew her best, and it was averred that, though not very rich, she had refused many eligible offers, and preferred the perfect freedom of widowhood.

'And now, dear,' she said, as she took an accustomed seat in the drawing-room, 'tell me all who are coming.'

'Well, there is Lord Cadbury.'

'Of course.'

'And Captain Goring.'

'Of course,' said the pretty widow, fanning herself, though a crystal screen was between her and the fire.

'Why of course?' asked Alison, colouring; 'and there is Jerry Wilmot--your devoted--and Captain Dalton, who will be sure to fall in love with you.'

At Dalton's name Mrs. Trelawney changed colour; indeed she grew so perceptibly pale, while her lips quivered, that Alison remarked it.

'Dearest, what agitates you so? Do you know him?' asked the girl.

'No--not at all!'

'What then----'

'I knew one of the same name who did me--let me rather say--my family--a great wrong.'

'But he cannot be the same person.'

'Oh, no. Besides, this Captain Dalton has just come from India with his regiment. And so you think he will be sure to fall in love with me?' added Mrs. Trelawney, recovering her colour and her smiles; 'and I with him perhaps.'

'That does not follow; but he seems just the kind of man I think a widow might fall in love with--handsome and manly, grave, earnest, and sympathetic.'

'But he may share in the aversion of Mr. Weller, senior, and have his tendency to beware of widows. I feel certain, Alison dear, that your Captain Dalton will never suit me.'

'You have seen him, then?'

'Yes--with the buckhounds the other day.'

'Wilmot, who admires you so much, will one day be very rich, they say.'

'Don't talk thus, Alison, or I shall begin to deem you what I know you are not--mercenary; but Jerry Wilmot has little just now; he has, however, a knowledge of horseflesh and a great capability for spending money, and thinks a pack of hounds in a hunting country is necessary to existence. He is a detrimental of the first water, and the special _bête-noire_ of Belgravian and Tyburnian mammas.'

'It is a pity you should ever seclude yourself as you sometimes do, Laura,' said Alison, looking at her beautiful friend with genuine admiration; 'all men admire you so much, and you have but to hold up your little finger to make them kneel at your feet.'

'How you flatter me! But I never will hold up my little finger, nor would I marry again for the mines of Potosi and Peru. It is as well that little Netty is so busy with that photographic album, or she might marvel at your anxiety to provide her with a papa.'

'It is not wealth you wait for?'

'No.'

'What then, Laura?'

'Nothing.'

'How I shall laugh if the handsome Captain Dalton stirs that now unimpressionable heart of yours.'

'I shall be very glad to meet him,' said Mrs. Trelawney, with a curious hardness in her voice.

'Why?'

'Because I may compel him to love me, Alison,' and as Mrs. Trelawney spoke her eyes flashed with a triumphant glow such as Alison had never seen in them before.

'Compel him?'

'Yes.'

'It would be easy to make him love you; but would you marry him?'

'How your little head runs on love and marriage! No, Alison, I shall never marry--_again_!'

'Poor soul,' thought Alison, admiringly, 'how much she must have loved her first husband!'

And simultaneously with the entrance of Sir Ranald, the three brother officers--Bevil Goring, Jerry Wilmot, and Captain Dalton--were announced, and all these were men of the best style, in accurate morning costume, all more than usually good-looking, set up by drill, easy in bearing, and looking ruddy with their ride from the camp in a chill October day.

'I missed you early in the hunt, Miss Cheyne,' said Jerry, after the introductions were over. 'How you and Goring flew over that first fence!'

'I love to gallop over everything,' replied Alison, 'but I must confess that my sympathies in the field are always with the flying stag, or the poor little panting hare--a miserable, tiny creature, with a horde of men, horses, and dogs after it, and making the welkin ring when in at the death!'

'Yes, though by the way I never know precisely what the said welkin is, unless it be the regions of the air.'

All unaware that his name had been so recently and so curiously on her lovely lips, Captain, or Tony Dalton, as his comrades called him, was saying some commonplaces to Mrs. Trelawney, over whose chair he was stooping.

He was not much her senior perhaps in years, but he had seen much of service in India. Tall and dark, with closely-shorn brown hair, he had an air and face that were commanding; but with a simple grace of bearing that belied any appearance of self-assertion.

After India, where he had been long on a station up country; where all the Europeans were males, and not a lady within three hundred miles; where a wet towel and half a water-melon formed the morning head-dress, and visits of the water-carrier incessant; where books were scarce, serials scarcer, flies and heat plentiful; and where the little tawny women, with their nose-rings and orange-coloured cheeks, were all alike hideous, to see such a woman as Mrs. Trelawny, with her snowy skin, her shell-like ears, and marvellous hands, was something indeed.

She was dressed in rich dark silk--not mourning; she wore no widow's cap, but had her fine hair simply braided in a heavy and beautiful coil at the back of her handsome head, and she looked as fair and lovely as she must have done on her marriage morning.

Bevil Goring had begun to address Alison, whose sweet eyes were shyly upturned to his as she placed in the bosom of her dress a rosebud he had taken from the lapel of his coat, when the deep Doric voice of Archie Auchindoir was heard announcing the _bête-noire_ of both.

'Lord Cawdbury.'