Chapter X: The Golden Bangle

A writer says 'there is the beauty of youth, and surely there is the beauty of love, too,' and the latter certainly shone in the soft eyes of Eveline Graham as she caracoled her horse in the homeward ride by the side of young Cameron, and her eyes, which were ever the mystery of that face, had now their sweetest smiles for him. She saw how his face was lighted up, and was aware how his voice softened when he addressed her as it softened to no other woman; and yet, withal, though no word of love had passed between these two, right well did they know the secret of each other's hearts; but poverty fettered his tongue, and her parents' ambition and known wishes nearly repressed all hope in the heart of Eveline.

With all her regard for her father she had a fear of him, and still more so of her mother. All their prejudices were in favour of wealth; but Evan Cameron appeared to her altogether so dear and irresistible that she, poor girl, could not imagine anyone being proof against him, and with this conviction, and the knowledge that Allan loved him, she permitted herself occasionally to live in a kind of fool's paradise, wherein Sir Paget Puddicombe had no part.

When her mother was not present, she played to Evan Cameron, and sang his favourite songs; she showed him her drawings for hints and suggestions, discussed her favourite books, and let him hang over her chair; and at such times, though nothing of love was said, there was a subtle tenderness in Cameron's eye and voice that made her impulsive heart quicken, as no man's eye or voice had ever done before, and young though she was, Eveline had heard more than one declaration of love.

And now for a time he had the joy of having her all to himself, as they contrived to distance the rest of their party.

But what availed it? Evan knew that, if once he passed beyond what appeared to be the merest friendship, his visit to Dundargue might come to a speedy end, and its hospitality could never be extended to him again.

To Evan, Eveline Graham proved, if we may say so, a kind of revelation after the rough life he had led of late years in India--something from another world, as it were--and thus much of adoration mingled with his love for her. If dying could have served Eveline, there and then would Evan Cameron have died for her!

Whether such enthusiastic passion might last it was impossible to say, but time may show.

We have referred to the quiet confidence of Sir Paget Puddicombe--a confidence borne of his consciousness of wealth and assured position. However, he was sharp enough to see to some extent how Cameron was attracted by Eveline, and to feel how the latter preferred the young subaltern's society to his own; but in a very short time he knew that the 'detrimental,' as Lady Aberfeldie called him, would be again with his regiment, the Black Watch, perhaps under orders for foreign service; then he would have the course all to himself, and doubted not, as Holcroft would have said, 'to win in a canter.'

Cameron thought the proverb right about there being no fool like an old one; but then, every old fool had not Sir Paget's bank-book, and the preference and influence of parents to back up his folly. But with a handsome figure, and his V.C., how much more was Cameron like the object of a young girl's eye than Sir Paget could ever be!

'It was in the Kurram Pass, in Afghanistan, that you gained the Victoria Cross, Mr. Cameron?' said Eveline, breaking a pause in the conversation, and shortening her reins, while he checked the pace of his horse, and replied, with a pleased smile,

'Yes; but how do you know that, Miss Graham--from your brother, the Master?'

'No.'

'I have never spoken of it.'

'I read it in the Army List,' replied Eveline, candidly, and to hear her say so made the bronze cross of more value to him than the Garter would have been.

She had read it, and committed the episode to heart too--how 'the Queen had been graciously pleased to signify her intention of conferring the decoration of the Victoria Cross' on Lieutenant Evan Cameron, of the --th Foot, and now of the Black Watch, for a daring act of bravery on a date given, when the retreating forces were attacked by Afghans in great strength, the latter having pushed forward upon the position at daybreak, and Lieutenant Cameron, accompanied by only five soldiers, captured a nine-pounder gun, shooting down or bayonetting all the gunners, and thus preventing the destructive use of the piece, which he brought off with the loss of one man, but in the conflict received three severe tulwar wounds.

Cameron was an enthusiast in his profession, and with outwardly the air of a well-bred man of the world, and thoroughly so that of a young Line officer, he had in his nature a deep sentiment of nationality, of clanship, and Highland romance, with an intense pride in his regiment. He had entertained Eveline often with sketches, anecdotes, and traditions of the Black Watch, but of himself and his V.C., of course, he never spoke.

'What a proud moment it must have been for you, when you knew that you had won the cross!' said the girl, with a flush on her soft cheek.

Stirred in his soul by the interest she took in him, the great secret of his heart was trembling on his lips, but he repressed it, and a shadow came into his face and a wistfulness into his eyes.

'Prouder would I have been, Miss Graham,' said he, 'if--if--I----

'What?'

'I had then been known even by name to _you_?' he replied, in a low voice, and with a manner there was no mistaking.

Nothing more was said then; yet they both felt, while eye met eye, that their first words of love had been spoken.

More might, perhaps, have passed, as the subject could easily have been enlarged on; but just then they were abruptly joined by Allan, who came up at a trot and reined in his horse sharply by their side, with a dark expression on his face, which Eveline thought augured ill for his success with Olive, whom he had suddenly left in the care of Mr. Hawke Holcroft.

After quitting the ruins, as Allan rode on by his cousin's side, his memory had gone back to the days when she was a girl of some twelve years or so--a bright-eyed hoyden, who could fish, even take a shot from his gun, climb trees, eat apples right off the branch, play marbles with him, grasp a trout darting in the burn under the long yellow broom or purple brambles, and was his companion in many a ramble and out-door frolic; and now inspired by that memory, the scenery and beauty of the evening, he felt himself disposed to treat with considerable tenderness the lovely girl he hoped to make yet his own.

On the other hand, Olive cared little to please him, and for a time she almost repelled, and yet by doing so she greatly lured and attracted him.

The friendship of Allan and Olive was a source of some perplexity, if not amusement, to Eveline Graham, but of irritation to her mother, to whom they never seemed to act as lovers at all, unless in 'the Scots fashion' of pouting and quarrelling.

To the eyes of all interested in the matter, it did not seem that she cared for him in the least. She never altered a plan or hastened her pace to meet him, or go where he might chance to be--in the library, on the terrace smoking, or in any of the quaint corridors that traversed the old house. She never adopted a dress, a ribbon, or ornament to please his eye, though she sometimes did, coquettishly, he thought, to flatter Hawke Holcroft; and even now, as they were slowly traversing the dark, woody dell of the legend--the _Coire-nan-Uriskin_--she was humming, half in warning, half in waggery, Tennyson's song:

'She can both false and friendly be,
Beware! beware!
Trust her not, she is fooling thee!'

And yet, as she glanced at her soldierly cousin from time to time under her long, dark lashes, she thought that, though he looked stately in the kilt, he seldom looked better than now when in riding costume, with the smartest of light grey cover coats.

The girl's mind vibrated curiously between her over-sensitive pride, her wishes, her doubts, and half convictions.

If pique at her position in the family with Allan had made her accept, with a certain degree of equanimity, the attentions of Holcroft, she now began to feel a pleasure that she had not more fully encouraged them.

At such moments as the present Allan felt that this fair girl, who had ever been his friend--cherished as a sister--this sweet cousin with the violet eyes and rich brown hair--was dear to him with a tenderness to which he could scarcely give a name, unless it were purest love; and she might have read it in his eyes, intense and strong, but for that spirit of wilfulness which led her to temporise--was it to tyrannise?--or play with it and him.

But may a girl really love a man till she is certain of being loved in return? For Allan, baffled by her manner, had said nothing very pointed as yet, as if he based all their future on her father's will; and times there were when in pique he dropped his way of treating her half playfully, half deferentially, and became absolutely cold.

In fact, the thoughts of Olive, apart from her jealous pride, were somewhat difficult to analyse; but, as yet, she deemed that she could only regard him with a kind of sisterly attention; while he, when not irritated by the presence of Holcroft, would say to Eveline,

'When we are alone, and can slip back into our old memories, I shall soon teach her to love me.'

'But meantime,' replied his sister, 'you are the most tiresome couple in the world.'

'I wish Mr. Holcroft or some one else would join us,' said Olive, looking round in her saddle.

'Why, it is always Mr. Holcroft!' exclaimed Allan.

'You are so provokingly silent. For more than a mile you have not once spoken to me. It is stupid to be so _triste_! Surely there is some one else whose society you prefer, or with whom you would be more lively?'

'Olive!' said he, on hearing this blunt and pointed remark--both curiously so for her. 'You are surely not jealous of anyone?' he added.

'Jealous!' echoed the girl, with a strange but affected kind of lazy scorn; 'why should I be so, and of _whom_?'

'Well may you ask, of whom could you be so?' replied Allan, pointedly--so much so that she coloured; 'though I, of course, matter little to you.'

'Allan, you are very wrong to say so,' said the girl, softly.

'Then I am not quite indifferent to you?' urged Allan, impulsively now; 'you do care for me a little?'

'Certainly--a good deal, if it is any satisfaction to you; but there--don't touch my bridle hand, or you will make my horse shy. How can you be so tiresome!'

Allan sighed, and yet he regarded her, in her loveliness and insouciance, with an expression just then of mingled amusement, annoyance, and regard in his dark hazel eyes.

With all the love that had been growing in his heart for Olive, he had been in no hurry to urge his suit, for, though impetuous by nature, he could be reserved and cautious enough at times; but now his heart flew to his head, and he said, bluntly,

'Dearest Olive, will you promise to love me--to marry me?'

'Why require any promise about the matter?' she replied, as all her wilfulness returned; 'has not my father promised for me--bequeathed me to you like a bale of goods, or condemned me to poverty!' she added, with a bitter laugh on her lips that curled with anger. 'I wonder that he did not order that I was to be locked up and fed on bread and water till I gave my consent to marry you, or that I was to be dropped into that oubliette which exists somewhere in Dundargue.'

'Cousin Olive,' said he, reproachfully, 'why this pride and doubt of my purpose? You are as cruel as you are beautiful.'

'This is worse than anything you have ever said to me,' she cried, with angry laughter still.

'Worse?'

'Yes, an attempt at gross straightforward compliment, as if I was a girl at a railway buffet.'

'Don't you like to be complimented?'

'By some people--yes,' was the petulant reply.

'All the girls I have ever known have liked pretty, flattering speeches.'

'But I am different, I hope, from most of the girls you have known.'

'By Jove you are!' replied the Master, twisting his moustache till he made himself wince; 'but will I never be more to you than I am now?'

'Never more than my cousin--what would you desire to be? But here comes Mr. Holcroft, to whom I certainly made no sign,' she added, with some annoyance, as she thought of what had so lately passed between them; and then, so variable was her emotion, that she laughed as she thought--'Two proposals in one day, and both made in the saddle too--how droll!'

Allan misinterpreted her silent laugh as a welcome to Holcroft, and shrank from his own angry fears--they were not convictions yet--lest he should adopt that meanest passion of the whole category--jealousy without a just cause--jealousy of one inferior to him in social position, and certainly in personal attractions.

When reduced to act cavalier to Miss Ruby Logan, who certainly did not want him, Hawke Holcroft had looked darkly after the cousins as they rode off together, and thought that nothing short of death would prevent him from accomplishing the object he had now in view ere he left Dundargue.

From something in the manner of the cousins, he--a close observer--augured that Allan had not made his 'innings' with the heiress, yet he cantered up to Allan's side, and said, smilingly to Olive,

'May I smoke, Miss Raymond? The road is quite lonely, and if not disagreeable to you----'

'Certainly,' said she, curtly.

'And I shall join you,' added Allan. 'Can you oblige me with a light, Holcroft?'

Cigars were selected, and Holcroft handed his silver matchbox to Allan, who, with a leap of his heart, though without changing colour or a muscle of his dark and sunburned face, saw on his rival's wrist his own gift sent from Delhi, the gold bangle, which Olive had, perhaps, for the time forgotten, and on which was her own name in raised Roman letters.

He had seen Holcroft in rather close proximity to her during the most of the day, and if piqued thereat, more than ever was he piqued and startled now, and abruptly wheeling round his horse, he muttered some excuse and joined his sister and his friend Cameron, while the words of the song came ominously back to memory--

'Trust her not, she is fooling thee.'

The bangle! He blushed to think of it, and shrank as yet from speaking of it, even to Eveline, for he was altogether unaware of under what circumstances Holcroft came to possess it, or the effort Olive had made to procure its return without success, but imagination and jealousy now did much to fill his heart with secret fury.

Would the future hold love or hatred for these two cousins? It seemed just then difficult to say.

Like Eveline, he thought the gift of the photo a trifle when compared with this, yet the photo was eventually to prove the most serious and troublesome gift of the two.

Wounded self-esteem, disquiet, and intense mortification reigned supreme in the mind of the somewhat proud young Master of Aberfeldie; but he felt himself necessitated to dissemble. Hawke Holcroft was his father's guest, the son of his father's oldest and most valued friend; and while at Dundargue it would be necessary to treat him with courtesy, though Allan never doubted that he was a 'leg,' and resolved that his courtesy would be blended with watchfulness, if--bitter thought--Olive was now worth watching over!

Unprepared for such a crisis or catastrophe as the discovery of the bangle, and ignorant that Allan had made it, when a carpet-dance took place that evening at Dundargue, though Olive was arrayed in one of her most becoming toilettes for him, and him alone, he never even addressed her or looked near her; and, black though his brow, he entirely occupied himself with Ruby Logan; and, provoked by this, Olive again endured the attention of Holcroft, and thought to play--or affect to play--with them _both_.

In this, however, the little scheme was doomed to be disappointed by the events of the following day.

'I shall quit Dundargue for London, or give up my leave and go back to the regiment, and never look upon her fair, false face again till I have schooled myself into merely regarding her with a brotherly--well, say cousinly--eye!' thought Allan, with great bitterness of spirit.

But how about that absurd will and the settlement of the money?