CHAPTER V

THE PKINCE'S HUSSARS.

Like everything else she undertook, Dove's little dinner party was a success, from, the soup and fish to the maraschino or charteuse and the coffee. With the pairing of the couples we have little to do, save to mention that, of course, she was led to the dining-room by Lord Campsie, the guest of the evening, while Stafford Martingale, one of the fastest men of the regiment--a prime favourite with fast women, and who always boasted himself a non-marrying man--to his disgust and bewilderment, had the duty of escorting old Mrs. Elspat McBriar, while fair Flora Stuart was happy in having Sir Hayward Carrington, a good-looking baronet, rather "horsey" and _blasé_, a man about forty years of age, who had learned as much of life in half those years as another man might in a hundred--but with the entertainment in all its petty details we have leas to do, than what it led to.

A little excited by the novelty of the affair, the flush in Dove's soft cheek made her look more beautiful than ever, as it mantled under the transparent texture of her fair white skin. She was dressed in blue, which she knew was most becoming to her complexion and bright auburn hair with its golden sheen. She wore with it the richest lace, and her jewels few, as became a young girl, were good and in excellent taste, and her cable-bracelets of Italian workmanship set off the whiteness of her beautiful hands, which Campsie, a true connoisseur in such features, could perceive were as handsome as her eyes and the contour of her dazzling throat. How proud of her Gillian felt as he gazed at her from time to time during the protracted repast.

Not quite at his ease, the lawyer rather overdid his part of host; but that which was restlessness passed for hospitality; while old Mrs. McBriar, in honour of the guests, appeared in an amplitude of black skirt, moire antique, of a fashion unknown in this world now, twisting nervously her grandmother's square gold eyeglass, but nodding and smiling graciously to all, and whispering her disappointment to Martingale that they had not come in uniform as she fully expected them to do, with busbies and accoutrements, for in Quarter-master McBriar's time--and so forth--she gave some prosy anecdote to which the Hussar listened with well-bred indifference.

At first she was rather put about by the presence of a real lord at the table. The paper-lord, or "Parliament House" article, she was used to; they were plain, half-bred, toddy-drinking and often coarse-speaking old Scotsmen, but Campsie and his friends of "the Prince's," with their general style, bearing, and easy _insouciance_--for such it was--impressed her deeply.

Among these Hussars, with their man-about-town bearing and soldierly aspect, their broad views of politics, their references to a fashionable world which he was as unable to comprehend as he was their occasional "horsey" talk, poor Gideon Gainswood was like a fish out of the water. Perhaps, in his heart he hated them for possessing a tone, rank, and bearing so immeasurably above his own; but he was proud of his guests--a real lord and baronet--and liked immensely that his little barrister friends should see them at his table, but he felt more at ease when it was quitted for the drawing-room.

On the other hand, such is the gratitude of "society," that Campsie, Carrington, Martingale, and two other Hussars who were there, liked his wines, his rooms, and the girls they met, better than his own company, and when the piano was opened he was forthwith ignored; yet he heeded it not--or, perhaps, felt it not.

The three Stuart girls, old Torduff's daughters, and two or three more, who, like their countrywomen in general, were accomplished musicians and sang well, now that the Hussars had been introduced to them, looked fondly forward to the periodical balls and assemblies of the coming season, which there begin in the February of each year; thus they were full of gratitude to Dove, and certainly did their best to excel; while Gillian, in spite of himself, looked rather moodily on the progress of the whole affair.

Dove's beauty, and, more than all, her alleged expectations, had found her many admirers among the men who frequented her father's house; but these were chiefly sprouts of the provincial Bar--"young reekies," as Campsie was wont to call them, whose inordinate self-esteem only provoked the girl's sense of amusement.

Like Gainswood, they were only accustomed to those "Lords" who sprang from their own society; but now, those who were present, when they saw the son of a peer and an English baronet reputed to have £70,000 per annum, talking and looking very much like other people, were perhaps surprised, and thus Campsie and Carrington actually began to lose caste in their eyes.

As Stafford Martingale did not affect to be a musical man, Mrs. McBriar fastened upon him for the infliction of her reminiscences of the Scots Greys, which she interpolated with some choice _morceaux_ from "Elijah the Tishbite," "The Shove Heavenward," and similar works, all uttered in a sharp West Highland accent.

"By Jove, the rum old girl is off her nut!" sighed Martingale, as he eyed her through his glass as he might a species of Ourang-outang.

As Martingale had his left arm in a slight sling--little more than a broad black riband--the ladies thought he must have been wounded somewhere, and on Mrs. McBriar venturing to inquire where, he, replied,

"In the hunting field, madam."

"In the field--dear me!" she added, full of interest, taking in only the last word.

"It was in Leicestershire, when riding to hounds. I had rasped a bullfinch, but the second fence was an oxer--a ferocious one--a ditch deep and broad, a thick laid fence, and stiff posts four or five feet beyond. I never craned a bit, but rushed my horse at it, Mrs. McBriar, holding him thoroughly by the head, gave him a squeeze with the knees, a touch with the spur, and he rose like a bird!" continued Martingale, who could be fluent enough on such a subject as this. "I went crash into the rails and came a terrible cropper--you understand me, Mrs. McBriar; but, though my arm was out, I clambered into my saddle, and was in at the death, for the country after that was as easy as the passage of the Red Sea, don't you know."

Mrs. McBriar was as shocked at the comparison as she was mystified by the anecdote, and still more was she bewildered when she overheard Lord Campsie say to Sir Hayward,

"Yes--of course--the Queen runs at Goodwood--she has more than once done a good thing with Spinning Jenny with even weights--I have put a pot of money on her."

"A pot on the Queen!" thought Mrs. McBriar, breathlessly.

"A pot," repeated the Baronet; "by Jove, I would not have put more than a monkey--it is a sell, I fear."

"My book's made, don't you know, and I am safe to win, old boy," replied Campsie, confidently.

"Gad, I hope so--but I gave the straight tip--the Q. T. for light. If you fail----"

"Don't talk of it--my resource, then, would inexorably be the children of Israel."

"The Red Sea and the Children of Israel?" pondered the old lady; "perhaps they were religious and God-fearing young men," but their language sounded incomprehensible.

Lord Campsie was just the kind of man to feel himself at home anywhere, and as this was his fourth or fifth visit to the house of Gainswood, whom he patronised, and by whom he was treated with servile deference, he felt himself quite _l'ami du maison_, and now he was bending over Dove, as she sat at the piano, stroking his moustache from time to time with all the air of a handsome fellow who is perfectly pleased with himself, with his own "get-up," and with the impression he hoped he was making, while turning over the leaves of the music-book, the pleasant duty heretofore of Gillian Lamond generally.

Sensible of this; when a cluster was about her, after much bad French, indifferent German, and singularly weak English singing--weak as far as composition went--had been performed, when Campsie, with all the _empressement_ of which he was master, whisperingly urged her to favour him with something--so closely that his moustache touched her ear,--Dove coloured with annoyance, and motioning Gillian to her side to turn over the leaves, said,

"You know all my songs, Gillian--what shall I sing?"

"Sing 'Wild Joanna,'" said he, with his eyes full of pleasure, while Campsie fell back a pace.

"I know it is your favourite--place it before me--thanks, dear Gillian," she whispered.

Her taste in music was cultivated and refined, and her selection of songs was remarkable for sweetness and quaintness, and she knew that Gillian was never weary of hearing her sing one, of a ballad kind--the one named--which was mournful in cadence; the tender memory of which was fated often to come back to him, when they were far apart.

The song of some unknown writer, it told of a girl who vowed, in her faith, to visit her lover even after death had parted them, and we may be pardoned giving the opening lines here from memory--

"Thou hast sworn, oh wild Joanna! When death shall come to thee, That if ever soul come back, Thy soul will come to me.

"But think impetuous maiden! Though dear that radiant head, The mortal heart is weak, And hath terror of the dead.

"Oh let there be no change! Come bright and sweet as now; With the same dusk on thy cheek, And dark hair on thy brow.

"But come not, come not maiden! To my bedside in the night When my eyes with sleep are laden, Lest my heart may fail with fright."

The most tender verses were the last; and long, long was the expression of Dove's soft violet eyes, as they looked upward for a moment into Gillian's, doomed to haunt him in connection with the story they told.

He withdrew, and once more Campsie assumed his post, with the slightest _soupçon_ of supercilious annoyance in his face; while Gillian, whom the other's rank alarmed, and his attention annoyed, was not in the least degree jealous, for simply, the honest fellow could not understand that anyone could know Dove Gainswood without admiring and loving her.

But the evening came to an end at last, and Sir Hayward's carriage took the Hussar party home to their barracks at Piershill, leaving pressing invitations with Mr. Gainswood and Gillian to dine with them at mess, on the next "stranger day."

Some of the ladies present--not Torduff's daughters, who were country people--but of the legal circle, had enjoyed themselves immensely, for one particular reason. They could now, when asked if they knew Viscount Kilsythe's son and heir, or Sir Hayward Carrington, or Captain Stafford Martingale--the rich Hussar--say, and say with truth, that they had met him at the Gainswood dinner party, and so forth.

Flora Stuart's comments on Lord Campsie to Dove made the cheeks of the latter colour.

"Isn't he charming, Dove?"

"Very pleasant."

"Pleasant! he is delightful--so handsome--so rich, and such fun, dear!"

"They say he has spent all his money," croaked Mrs. McBriar.

"Not at all--who dares to say so?" asked Mr. Gainswood, with some asperity.

"Never mind--money or no money," said Flora to Dove, as she shawled herself and the carriage was announced, "he'll be a peer one day, and you have made quite a conquest. Don't you think she has, Mr. Lamond?"

"The 'young reekies' were certainly nowhere to-night," replied Gillian, with a smile to conceal some of the real annoyance which the heedless girl's rattle caused him.

But he forgot that his engagement with Dove had been formally denied to her, as to others.