Читать книгу Bluebell - Mrs. G. C. Huddleston - Страница 18

'T were a pity when flowers around us rise,

To make light of the rest, if the rose be not there;

And the world is so rich in resplendent eyes,

'T were a pity to limit one's love to a pair.

Moore.

"I never saw a prettier sight in my life," cried Cecil, as she stood with a motley group in the verandah of "The Maples," the rendezvous of the sleighing party. As each sleigh turned in at the gate and deposited its freight, it fell into rank which extended all round the lawn, till scarcely a space was left on the drive that encircled it, and the air rang with the bells on the nodding horses' heads.

"What the—blazes!" ejaculated Bertie, as Mr. Vavasour rounded the corner at a trot in a red-wheeled tandem, scarlet plumes on the horses, and the robes a combination of black bear-skins and scarlet trimming. The leader, a recent importation from England, better acquainted with the hunting-field than the traces, reared straight on end; but a judicious flick on her ear sent her with a bound almost into the next sleigh, and the tandem drew up at the hall door to an inch.

"Post? mail-cart? nonsense!" said Jack, shaking hands all round 'mid an avalanche of chaff. "Nice cheerful colour for a cold day; that's all."

"Quite scorching," said Major Fane. "Well, Miss Rolleston, if they leave us behind at the turnpikes, we shall never lose sight of them with Jack's flames for a beacon."

"How do you like your tandem, Bluebell?" asked Cecil, "and how far do you expect to get before Mr. Vavasour upsets you?" added she, sotto voce.

"I don't care if he chooses a good place," laughed Bluebell.

"Why, I thought Bertie wasn't going," said, Mrs. Rolleston, as that individual drove up in a modest cutter with a gentleman companion.

"I think he changed his mind when he heard Miss Kendal was going with papa," said Cecil.

"I believe we are all here," said Colonel Rolleston, who was to lead the procession, coming out with the great lady of the party, an eccentric dowager peeress, who having "tired her wing" with flying through the States, was now perching awhile before re-crossing the Herring-pond. Miss Kendal and a subaltern, pressed into the service, placed themselves in the back seat, well smothered in wolf-skins, and the first sleigh moved off to the admiration of the school-room party at the window, who, with the partiality of childhood, thought their papa's the most beautiful turn-out in the city.

"Mr. Vavasour's horse is up the bank," screamed Fleda. "How much better papa drives; he went off so quickly and quietly. I wouldn't be Bluebell! Mr. Vavasour can hardly get out at the gate."

"If papa had to drive one horse before another, perhaps he couldn't either," said Lola, who had been watching with great interest the erratic course of Jack's leader.

Twenty sleighs were off in a string, the crowd cheering them to the echo as they dashed through Queen's Park; but on gaining Carleton Street they were obliged carefully to keep the track, as the sides of the road were deep and treacherous.

"The Colonel is making the pace very slow," remarked Mr. Vavasour; "like to drive, Miss Leigh? they are going very smoothly."

Bluebell, whose knowledge of horses was about equal to her opportunities of instruction, unhesitatingly assented. Jack's gratification thereat was somewhat tempered, when he saw the bewilderment apparent in his flighty pair at the very original manner in which she handled her "lines."

"I suppose," said that young lady, with the composure of ignorance, "we are all right as long as this bald-face horse keeps its nose pointing at Captain Delamere's back."

"Quite so," said Jack, cheerily; "don't take the whip, you are only winding it round your own neck. I'll give Dahlia a lick in the face if she turns out of the rank."

They were winding down a hill, and took a road at the bottom at right angles to it. Colonel Rolleston, in the first sleigh, was blandly pointing out to Lady Hampshire the coup d'oeil of the whole procession as they described two sides of a triangle.

"Do you like my plumes?" asked Jack, relaxing his surveillance on Dahlia, as her left ear, which had been laid back in a suggestive manner, resumed its accustomed position.

"Like them," echoed Bluebell; "it's just like a hearse, bar the colour, which is frightful. I wouldn't have come if I had known I was to be driven in such a fire-engine."

"There now," rather crest-fallen. "I chose them because you said you were fond of scarlet, otherwise I should have preferred blue, except that I might have been taken for one of the 10th, who mount their regimental colours on everything."

"I like the 10th," said Bluebell, perversely; "they are all good-looking except the Adjutant, who got his nose sliced off by a Sikh, and the … goodness what's that?" as a fearful shout, followed by a sudden checking of horses, brought the whole line to a stand-still.

"What's the matter?" was passed from one sleigh to another up to the front: the return message, shouted and taken up as each one interpreted it, became soon about as intelligible as it does in the game of Russian scandal, and for the next few minutes everybody was conjecturing at once.

"Here's Du Meresq," cried Jack, as Bertie came ploughing through the snow.

"Halloa, guard! what's wrong on the line?"

"Run into a goods' train," said he, keeping on his course to the Vice-President's sleigh.

"Du Meresq never tells one anything," said Jack; "I hate a mysterious fellow; somebody's capsized, I suppose, and he's gone for some brandy."

"Perhaps for a shovel," suggested Bluebell. "Colonel Rolleston may have come to a drift."

"Don't see how we are to reverse our engine," replied Jack, looking each side of the road, where the snow was piled four or five feet.

Bertie, however, had not gone for a shovel, which would have been perfectly useless, but to explain the situation and assist in turning round the sleighs. In front of Colonel Rolleston was a huge rampart of snow, extending for some distance. The wind setting dead in that direction, had drifted it across, and buried the track several feet. This road had been clear the day before, for Bertie and Cecil had driven it to ascertain, but the wind had changed and snow fallen during the night.

Major Fane's sleigh was successfully turned, after a great deal of assistance to the horses, who floundered up to their shoulders; and to this haven of refuge Du Meresq was conducting several young ladies, for each sleigh having to turn on the spot where their progress was arrested, a certain number of upsets was inevitable.

"Come, Miss Leigh," said a voice beneath her, "you mustn't stick to the ship any longer. Why, this is the worst bit of all. You can't jump; trust to me." And to Jack's indignation, Bertie lifted her from the wheel and carried her through some deep snow to a dry place. There was a certain amount of excuse for it, as he couldn't have deposited her in the drift, and turning the tandem took up its owner's whole attention, and the services of three or four volunteers; but he fancied Du Meresq had squeezed the little hand before he relinquished it, and ere the tell-tale blush had passed from Bluebell's face, Jack had turned, jumped out and replaced her in the tandem with quiet decision.

Bluebell, confused by the powerless way she had been handed about between her two admirers, could not rally directly, and sat meditating an early snubbing for Jack, but a ridiculous incident soon distracted her attention.

"Get out? No, thank you, Captain Du Meresq," cried Lilla Tremaine, a tall, handsome girl in the sleigh behind; "you'd find me a precious weight to carry, and I am very comfortable where I am. Turn away, Captain Delamere, we'll sink or swim together."

Thus urged, the individual called on made his effort; the sleigh turned, indeed, but on its side, and the adventurous Miss Tremaine, summarily ejected, sank to her waist in the deep snow, her crinoline rising as she descended, spread out under her arms, looking like an inverted umbrella. Jack and Bluebell were suffocating with the laughter they vainly tried to hide, and Bertie, who was on foot, took in the situation at once, and rushed to the rescue.

"Put your arms round my neck, Miss Tremaine," cried he, peremptorily.

The poor girl, half crying with shame and cold, did so, and Du Meresq, grasping her firmly round the waist, endeavoured to drag her forth.

"It's even betting she pulls him in," cried Jack, in a most unfeeling ecstasy, for Miss Tremaine was no pocket Venus—rather answered the Irishman's description of "an armful of joy."

"Oh, dear!" said poor Lilla, trembling with cold, as she found herself on terra firma, "I never can go on; the snow has made me quite wet through."

"Of course you can't," said Bertie, decidedly; "you'd catch your death of cold. Delamere, you drive on with the other Miss Tremaine," for they had both been in his sleigh, "and I'll take Miss Lilla home in my cutter, where she can get dry clothes. You must all pass their house on your way back, when we can fall in again; so that's all settled. Oh, Meredith, I forgot you. Hitch on to some other sleigh, there's a good fellow. I am on ambulance duty; somebody tell Colonel Rolleston—presently."

Then Bertie, who had his own reasons for hurrying, placed Miss Tremaine, still shivering from her snow bath, in the cutter, and drove rapidly off.

"Well, I am d——d," muttered Captain Delamere to Vavasour; "she has never seen the fellow before!"

"Hush, pray," said Jack, affectedly; "he is an officious young man. But be thankful for small mercies, old boy; you have got one left."

"That's the wrong one," growled Delamere.

After a brief consultation about the route, a unanimous vote for luncheon was passed, so they drove on till they came to an open space, the contrary side of the wood in which Du Meresq and Bluebell had walked on Sunday. Here all the sleighs formed up together, and Major Fane's larder was ransacked.

Curaçoa, mulled claret, hot coffee, etc., kept warm in a blanket, were passed round, with mutton pies, croquettes, cakes and other edibles; and circulation being restored, all was mirth and hilarity.

Colonel Rolleston alone remained dark and moody. He had just discovered the defection of Du Meresq and Lilla, and, having his own opinion of his brother-in-law, disapproved of it entirely. Miss Tremaine also was much too flighty for his taste, and he was very hard on Captain Delamere for not applying to him to get her decorously out of her delicate dilemma.

He made up his mind to curtail the drive, and call at Mr. Tremaine's at his earliest convenience.

Bertie, in the meantime, delighted at getting a tête-à-tête with a handsome girl, instead of driving in a monotonous string with Mr. Meredith, proceeded to improve the occasion with such success that his fair companion forgot her wet stockings, and even omitted to observe that they had passed the turn leading to the paternal abode.

When she did remark it, Bertie easily persuaded her that she must be quite dry now, and that, as they had missed the garrison drive, they had better take one on their own account. Miss Lilla, unrestrained by the detective eyes of her elder sister, was ripe for any frolic, and Bertie certainly did not find so many obstacles in the way of an affectionate flirtation as he had with Bluebell.

But our business is with the trans-Atlantic picnic in the snow, not with the "cutting out" expedition of this reprobate pair. Having distributed the remainder of the luncheon to the servants, a start was again effected. Lilla's adventure had left its impression one way or another on two or three of the party. Jack was delighted that Du Meresq was off on a fresh pursuit, and so not likely to be hanging about Bluebell; and that damsel was trying, by a reckless flirtation with Vavasour, to stifle the vexatious conviction that Bertie had only been making a fool of her on Sunday, and was now probably repeating the same game with Miss Tremaine. Yet at this period her vanity was more wounded than her heart; very different from poor Cecil, whose infatuation was of older date, and not the mere result of a few flattering speeches.

For a girl of her disposition to set her affections on a man like Bertie was certain misery. She had no rivals in those days when she learnt to care so intensely for the sympathetic companion who understood her so much better than any one else. He understood her; therein was the potent charm; her mind awoke and her ideas vivified from contact with his, as two happily-contrasted colours become brighter in hue in juxtaposition. No companion had ever suited her so perfectly, and yet Bertie had scarcely made direct love to her. It seemed a matter of course that they should care most for each other, and Cecil's young and ardent heart had drifted beyond recall ere she had done more than suspect another side to his character.

Now she perceived that Bertie's affection for her by no means made him insensible to the bright eyes of the fair Canadians; yet the more she cared for his philandering interludes with other girls the less she showed it, except that her manner grew colder, though, unfortunately, her heart did not.

Major Fane was disappointed with Cecil's preoccupied mood. He had taken some pains to secure her for this drive, and she hadn't a word to say to him. He certainly admired her, but, perhaps, it was more his horror of Canadian girls that had made her his choice for the day. He always said their only idea of conversation was chaff, and rudeness under cover of it; and as he had been the victim of many such "smart" speeches, he looked upon them with nervous aversion.

The quiet repose of a lady-like English girl gained by the contrast. There was rather too much tranquillity to-day, perhaps; so he exerted some tact to draw Cecil from her reserve, the cause of which he was unable to guess. He agreed with her in reviling the monotony and stupidity of sleighing picnics, having to follow one by one like a string of geese, long after one was perished with cold, though he failed to detect in her weariness that she was wishing for her father to stop at the Tremaines', and annex the truant sleigh to the rest.

Her discontent somewhat relieved by expression, she became ashamed of her unsociability, and Major Fane's next topic was not uncongenial. He was airing his cherished grudge, and pronouncing a severe philippic on the belles of the Dominion. Cecil was incapable of detraction, or envy at another's greater success; but in the face of Bertie's abduction of Lilla before her eyes, she did not feel particularly in charity with any daughter of Canada.

In the meantime Bluebell, in the strangest of spirits, refused to relinquish the reins, even in difficult places, and conducted herself generally with a mixture of recklessness and ignorance that gave Jack enough to do to look out.

He rather took advantage of this mood to make more decided love than he had hitherto done; but while he thought her wild with fun and spirits, she was really goaded on by vexation and bitterness of heart; and perhaps her most immediate wish was for solitude to drop the mask and be miserable in peace.

That was impossible, at present. Jack was tiresome. He was giving her directions how to steer up a hill, formidable from its narrow track and deep drop on either side. Dahlia, it seemed, jibbed sometimes, she must—Bluebell was paying no attention. Good Heavens! what was happening?—the leader backing and sliding! Jack's stinging whip and clutch at the reins could not arrest the catastrophe. Dahlia rears and falls over the edge, pulling sleigh and wheeler after her into a trough of snow.

Bluebell blinded and half suffocated—no wonder, for three bear-skins and two cushions were a-top of her (not to mention Jack, who had caught his leg in the reins, and was unable immediately to rise)—made vain efforts to extricate himself; the horses were struggling on their sides; and altogether, as the Americans say, it was rather "mixed."

Somehow or another, no one ever does get hurt out of a sleigh, even after an impromptu header of a dozen feet. Ten minutes later the party were en route again, Bluebell transferred, en pénitence, to Colonel Rolleston's sleigh, vice the subaltern; and by this time nearly every one was discontented and anxious to return.