Chapter VII · THE OLD, OLD STORY.

Lady Wedderburn's fond desire that Gwenny should be married to Cyril was still uppermost in her mind, and ever present in her thoughts and day-dreams, though Cyril was far away and thinking now of other things—had, perhaps, almost forgotten his cousin's existence. Thus she viewed with extreme impatience the intimacy that was ripening fast between her wealthy niece and the penniless Horace Ramornie; an intimacy which led her to fear that ere Cyril could return to Willowdean the love of the beautiful heiress, if he cared to win it, might be lost to him for ever.

In a farewell letter from Cyril, dated at Southampton, Lady Wedderburn had heard of the embarkation, and she already trembled at the idea of the many perils to come. The Victoria transport, with the Royal Fusileers, had sailed; and the same newspaper which announced that circumstance contained an account of the destruction of the Europe troop-ship by fire, off Cape Finisterre, with a body of the 6th Dragoons on board, when the Colonel, so many of the men, and all the horses perished.

It has been already mentioned how love for Gwenny was dawning in the heart of Horace Ramornie; how twice he had been upon the point of a declaration, but was restrained by an intuitive perception of his aunt's views. And though a secret passion was swelling up in his heart, fear of the family aims and wishes made him actually long for the expiry of his leave of absence, as a suitable excuse for quitting his uncle's house, where he had ever been welcome and always a favourite.

Gwenny was a sensitive creature; one of those who shrink from the world's rougher touch. By nature she was all gentleness, sympathy, and enthusiasm. The blue waves rolling in light, and breaking in shining ripples on the sandy beach, or thundering in white foam on the bluff coast of the Merse, where the rocks are literally alive with wild seafowl; the songs of the birds, so new a sound to her, as the birds of India are mostly voiceless; the perfume of flowers, a novelty too, as the most gorgeous plants of the land she had left are scentless; the balmy coolness of the spring days, the dark purple tint of the heather on the hills of Lammermuir; the songs of the sturdy peasantry, so different in cadence from the monstrous polyglot rubbish of the dusky Hindoostanees—all served to fill her with joy and vague yearnings, in which Horace, her usual attendant or companion, was associated. For Robert Wedderburn, anticipating, perhaps the day when he should have the field to himself, was usually, to all appearance, immersed in his studies.

Horace was master of all the legendary lore of the Merse. Thus, when with Gwenny, he enlivened many a solitary ride by the tales he told her—weird ones some of them—about the witches of Auchincraw, who became cats or crows, as suited their purpose; the terrible goblin known as the Bogle of Billymire, who devoured children like shrimps; of St. Mary of Coldingham, and the Skeleton Nun who was found built in the convent wall, and the last words in whose ears had been the awful three, Vade in pacem. And often they rode to the deep rocky ravine and the two abrupt hills, which form the famous foreland named St. Abb's Head, from whence they could see the coast of England, stretching in the distance far away.

There an undulation in the velvet turf, and a few gray stones lying one upon another, indicate where the convent church stood in an age that is now remote indeed; a low fence of sods, a few tufts of hemlock and wild nettles tossing in the keen sea-breeze show the old burial-ground, where the dust of the Pict, the Scot, and the Briton, mingle on the bleak verge of the giddy cliff, three hundred feet below which the ocean roars and boils, hurling the huge waves that have come unbroken from the Naze of Norway and the mouth of the Skager Rack.

There he would tell her how the church that had passed away, had been founded in gratitude to God, by the Saxon Princess Ebba (daughter of a Northumbrian prince), when escaping shipwreck there. And how, when the Danish rovers came, in the days of the Flame-bearer, the pious nuns, to save themselves from capture, cut off their own lips and noses; which made her think of some of the barbarous tales she had heard in India.

And often Horace paused in stories such as these, bewildered by the love that filled his heart and loaded his tongue, while he gazed into the soft, inquiring, or wondering eyes of Gwenny, or admired the graceful mode in which she sat her horse.

Horace knew well that it is not every woman who looks well on horseback; but a slender girl like Gwenny, whose spirits were light as ether, whose dark eyes were always sparkling, and whose complexion, if not brilliant, was clear, pale, and pure, looked a very Aurora in a plumed hat and riding-habit.

Those who love truly and tenderly, seem to have had no past, for love seems always a part of the present; thus Horace felt as if he had known Gwenny all his life, or rather to have begun a new existence by knowing her.

One day as they rode home together slowly, after having lingered at Wolf's Crag, and talked of Lucy Ashton and Edgar of Ravenswood, as if they had been real characters, rather than the shadows of a romance—

"Thank God!" exclaimed Horace, suddenly, after a pause, "that this is my last week at Willowdean!"

"Why that exclamation?" she asked, with surprise.

"Because, Gwenny, I shall soon see the last day here of a love that is without—hope."

She made no further inquiry, but cast down her long lashes, for right well did Gwenny know that her young companion loved her. By one electric glance which once had passed between them, like a flash of light, she had learned it instinctively.

"Oh, Horace," said she, tremulously, though she seemed to have more courage in the matter than he. "How lonely will all these places seem to me when you are gone!"

"And how will it be with me, Gwenny, when a memory shall be all I have of you?"

The girl cast her dark eyes down again, and blushed and smiled.

"There is a poet, who says," continued Horace—

"How many meet who never yet have met, To part too soon, but never to forget!"

So it is with you and me, Gwenny—with me, at least. Times there are when I almost wish we had never met; for never, never can I forget you, or the hours of delight we have spent together. Oh, Gwenny Wedderburn," he added, while checking her horse's bridle, and taking her hand in his own, "I love you—love you dearly; but—but, you are rich, and I so poor—and then our aunt——" He paused, and then resumed, while the girl trembled in her saddle, and was covered with confusion. "Gwenny, dare I hope that the distinction I trust to attain on service—such, at least, as may fall to the lot of a mere subaltern—may be a pledge to me—of—of—that if I live to return, I may claim your love as my reward—my recompense?"

"You have my love already, dear Horace—all that my heart can bestow," was the almost breathless response of Gwenny.

Their horses were side by side; so passing an arm round her, he drew her close to his breast, and kissed her brow and cheek. There was something wonderfully soft and loving, tender and respectful—mutely eloquent, in fact—in the manner in which Horace gathered the girl in his embrace, when words failed him, and Gwenny seemed to feel it as such. "No two declarations of love are alike, any more than two leaves on the same tree," says a writer who has had some experience in such pleasant matters. But it was thus that the great secret, which had trembled so long on the lips and in the heart of Horace Ramornie, was shared now by her whom it most concerned.

Long did they linger on their homeward ride, these two young lovers, reiterating the old, old story that has been said or sung by others so often, and will be so, till the end of time—how much they loved, and how unutterably dear they were to each other now!

"But what will Aunt Wedderburn say when she hears of our engagement?" said Gwenny, after a long pause, as they entered the shady avenue which led to the house of Willowdean.

"She will learn to hate me, I fear. And yet I am her sister's only son," said Horace, sadly.

"Hate you—why?"

"As yet we shall say nothing about it, Gwenny, love," replied Horace. "Ah, it is a pity you are so rich," he added. "People could not then talk as many do; our Aunt Wedderburn would not then deem me a fortune-hunter, and I could marry you at once, and take you away with me."

"To live on your lieutenant's pay, with a share of a barrack-room, a bungalow, or a tent! Oh, cousin Horace—Horace, darling, it is very romantic, but not to be thought of," said Gwenny, laughing.

"I have thought of it often in my day-dreams."

"Yes; but even the proverbial love in a cottage were better," she continued, looking down with a beautiful smile, and toying with her horse's mane.

"Aunt Wedderburn wishes you to marry Cyril."

"But Cyril never asked me, nor seemed to care for me, but as one to talk to and laugh with," said Gwenny, looking surprised.

"I feel that such is her wish, however; even Robert has hinted as much."

"But let us speak of ourselves," she exclaimed, as her eyes suddenly filled with tears; "oh, how long may this horrible war last?"

"It is scarcely begun, so far as we are concerned, but when once shots are exchanged, Heaven alone can tell the issue. However, I may not be away from you for more than a year—perhaps," he added, with a quivering lip, for he strove to speak hopefully, though his heart misgave him.

"A year? Good Heavens! a whole year!" exclaimed Gwenny, ponderingly.

"Yes, Gwenny: what is a year, at most?"

"It will be an eternity for us to look forward to, though it is so little to look back upon."

"True, my own Gwenny; and when I think of looking forward to a whole year,—twelve months, fifty-two weeks, three hundred and sixty-five days, with all their weary hours of separation——"

"And a year of such peril to you, it may be—of anxiety and terror and sorrow to me!"

"Oh, my darling—my beautiful darling, it is horrible to be separated so soon when we have just learned to love each other, and to find existence so dear and that is love is so sweet!" said Horace, with a burst of tenderness, as he assisted her to alight, and would certainly have kissed her, but for the appearance of that solemn personage Asloane, the butler, between the pillars of the peristyle.

The future life of Horace Ramornie—the life of ambition and of military glory he had hoped to live—seemed to have passed from his mind and desires. He could imagine no scene and form no scheme for the long years to come, in which Gwenny was not concerned, and in which she did not bear a part. His ambition had evaporated, and with it, for the time, his military ardour, vanity of uniform, and the "pomp and circumstance of war" seemed to have faded sorely. The joys of the mess; the glitter of the military ballroom; the splendour of the parade; the perils of the field and the chance of being even a unit in the great game about to be played by Europe in the East, were all as nothing now, when contrasted with the charm of Gwenny's presence, her voice and her society.

Ideas of the life of splendour and display he might spend with a beautiful girl possessed of such wealth as Gwendoleyne Wedderburn, never occurred even once to single-hearted Horace. He was too young, too impassioned, too genuine in heart and impulse to be mercenary, or to love the orphan-heiress for anything save herself alone.

He felt that he could almost without a pang relinquish his old world of hope, for she had become a new world to him.

But his sword was his sole inheritance, and now duty and honour alike combined to separate them; yet as the few remaining days of his leave of absence flew past, the happy consciousness of mutual love grew stronger between him and Gwenny; though the hour of his imperative departure was viewed with an apprehension that was mixed with sadness—an intense sadness, that was all the more keen that they were compelled to conceal it from the searching eyes of Lady Wedderburn.

"If poor Horace has nothing but his pay as a lieutenant, and I love him so, why should we not be married?" thought Gwenny; "surely I have wealth enough for two—even for a dozen. Horace is a dependant, I have heard Aunt say; but what of that? Who that love as we do, care for riches!"

And as she thought thus, a grand scorn for wealth curled the beautiful lip of the little proprietrix of three hundred thousand pounds in gold mohurs and rupees.

"It would be hard indeed to marry only to please Aunt Wedderburn, when I should much rather do so to please myself and dear Horace."

But that was not the time for marrying or giving in marriage. They had to content themselves by a solemn ratification of their engagement—an exchange of rings, of locks of hair and photographs—a long, long stolen embrace amid the flowers of the conservatory, and then the hour came when they were to part, to all appearance as merely affectionate friends; when they had that task to perform which is so difficult to those who are unused to the world, and are young and love tenderly—to veil their secret emotions, to smile when they would weep; when each had to conceal their great grief at parting with the other, while their passion was so new and keen in their sensitive and impulsive hearts.

But the fatal hour came, and as the carriage rolled away through the avenue with Horace just as it had done with Cyril, Gwenny felt with a sobbing emotion in her throat, and a suffocating sensation at her heart, as if the sun of her existence had set at Willowdean, and she never knew till then how much she loved him.

To her, his departure seemed the breaking of a spell—the mockery of a dreamy fancy, till ultimately his vacant place at table and in the house generally, served to bring the truth home to her, that he was gone, gone perhaps for ever—Horace so loving in manner, so gentle in voice and eye—and then the tide of sorrow welled up in the girl's heart, all the more that she had none with whom to share her secret.

The memories and visions of love remained with her; but they were visions and memories only.

Meanwhile, Horace felt sensibly that, save with Gwenny, there had been far less fuss and empressement about his departure, than that of Cyril Wedderburn; and poor little Miss Flora M'Caw was the only one who gave free vent to her tears, which were always ready for service on a suitable occasion.