Chapter XIII: Allan Proves Mysterious

If Allan's sudden departure and unexplained absence excited some curiosity in the minds of his family, his return excited it afresh when he declined to make any explanation until he had held an interview with his cousin, Olive Raymond, who, for a time, secluded herself in her own room on the usual feminine plea of having a headache.

Eveline, who had so longed for his return, now with tears told him of her father's frequently expressed wish--nay, command, and Sir Paget's forthcoming proposal; but, full of his own miseries, he could only caress her and say,

'God bless you, little one. I wish you well over all this.'

Sir Paget had left Dundargue pending the final arrangements, as he thought; thus the cloud and the dread were hanging over her still.

'Has Olive received back her gold bangle--my gift--from Mr. Holcroft?' asked Allan, with knitted brows.

'I--I think not. How did you learn he had it?'

'Plainly enough--I saw it on his wrist!'

'Where he put it, in play--not she.'

'I should hope not, by Jove!'

'I know she has asked him for it repeatedly.'

'Can't make the beggar out.'

'I can--he thinks Olive an heiress.

Allan's dark brow became more deeply knitted.

'She thinks that if she married you, Allan dear,' said his sister, after a pause, 'she would be sacrificing her own pride and liberty, and that you might marry her though not caring for her----'

'But for that wretched money?' said Allan, with a kind of snort. 'Poor Olive--she views the situation in this light! I certainly shall not ask her to make any sacrifices for me, and, so far as I am concerned, she shall be free as a bird in the air.'

His sister regarded him now with some perplexity, not understanding what he meant, but said,

'You have just come in time for a little carpet-dance we have arranged as a farewell treat to Ruby Logan, Mr. Holcroft, and--and Evan Cameron, who are about to leave Dundargue.'

Allan noted the inflection of her voice as she uttered the name of his young brother officer, and then hurried away, as their mother entered the room, and with rather a cloudy expression in her face, though he hastened to kiss her.

'You have been to Edinburgh, I have heard,' she said.

'Yes.'

'About what, Allan?'

'That you will learn in time, mother. I must speak with Olive first.'

Lady Aberfeldie was full of irrepressible curiosity, but Allan declined to gratify it just then.

'Have your recent movements any reference to Olive?'

'You will learn in time, mother.'

Lady Aberfeldie's face shaded with annoyance, for, only the day before, she and the petulant young lady in question had indulged in a tift between them.

Perceiving a wistful look and fitful manner about Olive, and that she was more than usually restless and irritable, Lady Aberfeldie had unwisely spoken to her on the subject of Allan's regard for her.

Olive had sat for a moment or two, with her delicate hands tightly interlaced in her lap, and then, turning defiantly to her aunt, she said,

'I will never marry Allan!'

'You must marry Allan, my dear girl,' replied Lady Aberfeldie, calmly and firmly.

'Why?'

'You know your father's wish.'

'Oh, the will, of course! So I am to be treated like a child? Well, if so, I may prove a wilful and dangerous one!'

Her aunt's report of this conversation made Lord Aberfeldie more than ever anxious for the return of his son.

'You are very mysterious, Allan. You and Olive seem a pair of enigmas,' said Lady Aberfeldie. 'But your father waits you in the library, and perhaps you will condescend to confide in him, if not in me. I must own it will be a fatal thing for your future happiness if Olive thinks you seek her for gain; but for what does Mr. Holcroft so evidently seek her?'

Allan smiled disdainfully.

'I have tried to think, mother dear, that she is not affected by this person Holcroft, but begin to own to myself that "the faith that worketh miracles" is not in me.'

When questioned by his father, Allan made the same reticent reply, that he must see Olive before making any explanations.

'The time has come now, Allan,' said Lord Aberfeldie, 'when you are bound in honour to make your cousin an offer, for in this peculiar entanglement--for such, I grant you, it is--you and she do not stand in the position of most engaged persons.'

'But suppose I have no wish to marry----'

'Absurd--outrageous!'

'Or may not marry at all?'

'By the refusal of Olive?'

'Yes.'

'Then her fortune, or most of it, becomes yours, in terms of the will--'

'Which has been a curse to us both. In her mind, and in the eyes of all who may come to hear of it, we must lie under the degrading imputation of a mercenary motive.'

'Not if you act with tact and delicacy, and surely your boy-and-girl attachment must remain unchanged,' said Lord Aberfeldie, in a voice that was soft, rather than indignant, as his memory went back to the day when Olive first came a little orphan child to Dundargue--a tiny and graceful creature, with tender, wondering, and beseeching eyes--a child that climbed upon his knee, clung to him with sympathetic love, and played with his watch-chain or the tassels of his sash, if he was in uniform. 'And so,' he added, after a pause, 'you must propose to the dear girl as a mere matter of form.'

'I have already done so,' said Allan, recalling, what he was not likely to forget, all that had occurred during the homeward ride from Dunsinane.

'Well, sir?' asked his father.

'I was laughed at--mocked, I may say.'

'Impossible! The girl must have been jesting with you.'

'I do not think so,' said Allan, both sadly and bitterly as he thought of the bangle and many other circumstances, the inevitable 'trifles light as air.'

'Well, you are bound to renew your proposal.'

'I do not think so, nor shall I again, unless some change comes over her.'

'If I exert my authority as guardian and trustee----'

'She may run away. Olive is a proud and restless girl with a defiant spirit, though she has a very affectionate heart.'

'But you cannot expect that she is to propose to _you_.'

'I do love her, father--love her dearly; but fear that she views me too much as a brother to love me otherwise.'

'This is rank nonsense. Think of your separations, and of your last--one well nigh seven years--with the Black Watch.'

'But might it not be the case that she may have a _penchant_ for some one else?'

'For whom?' asked Lord Aberfeldie, angrily.

'Well, say for your friend Mr. Holcroft.'

'Penniless Hawke Holcroft! absurd--the man has seen but little of her.'

'Quite enough in London and here to learn to admire, if not to love her. I would, however, rather see her laid in her grave than married to Holcroft,' said Allan, in a stern but broken voice, adding under his breath, as he left his father's presence and cut short an unpleasant interview, 'but, so far as I am concerned, she shall be free to choose for herself--free as the wind.'

'What the deuce can all this mean?' exclaimed Lord Aberfeldie, in great perplexity; 'was ever an unfortunate man more troubled with two intractable girls, than I am with Eveline and Olive!'

It has been said that, 'if exceedingly few men and women understand each other when they are in their sober senses, how must it fare when they are under the blinding influence of love?'

But Allan's course of action was decided now.