Читать книгу Bluebell - Mrs. G. C. Huddleston - Страница 4

Table of Contents

I see her now—the vision fair,

Of candour, innocence, and truth,

Stand tiptoe on the verge of air,

'Twixt childhood and unstable youth.

It was the "fall" in Canada, and the leaves were dying royally in purple, crimson and gold. On the edge of a common, skirting a well-known city of Ontario, stood a small, rough-cast cottage, behind which the sun was setting with a red promise of frost, his flaming tints repeated in the fervid hue of the Virginian creeper that clothed it.

This modest tenement was the retreat of three unprotected females, two of whom were seated in silent occupation close to a black stove, which imparted heat, but denied cheerfulness. The elder was grey and tintless as her life—harsh wisdom wrung from sad experience ever on lips thin and tight, as though from habitually repressing every desire. The younger, a widow, was scarcely passed middle age, small of stature, but wizened beyond her years by privation and sorrow.

A smell of coal-oil, that most unbearable of odours, pervaded the interior of the cottage, revealing that the general servant below in lighting the lamp had, as usual, upset some, and was retaining the aroma by smearing it off with her apron.

Presently a quick, light step tripped over the wooden side-walk, a shadow darkened the window, and a vision of youth and freshness burst into the dingy little parlour.

A rather tall, full-formed young Hebe was Theodora Leigh, of that pure pink and white complexion that goes farther to make a beauty than even regularity of feature; her long, sleepy eyes were just the shade of the wild hyacinth; indeed, her English father always called her "Bluebell," after a flower that does not grow on Transatlantic soil.

But they were Irish-eyes, "put in with a dirty finger," and varying with every mood. Gooseberry eyes may disguise more soul, but they get no credit for it. Humour seemed to dance in that soft, blue fire; poetry dreamed in their clear depths; love—but that we have not come to yet; they were more eloquent than her tongue, for she was neither witty nor wise, only rich in the exuberant life of seventeen, and as expectant of good will and innocent of knowledge of the world as a retriever puppy.

Apparently, Miss Bluebell was not in the suavest of humours, for she flung her hat on to one crazy chair, and herself on another, with a vehemence that caused a sensible concussion.

"My dear, how brusque you are," said Mrs. Leigh, plaintively.

"So provoking," muttered Bluebell.

"What's gone wrong with the child now?" said Miss Opie, the elder proprietress of the domicile.

"Why," said Bluebell, "I met the Rollestons, and they asked: me to their picnic at the Humber on Friday; but how can I go? Look here!" and she pointed to a pair of boots evidently requiring patching. "Oh, mother! could you manage another pair now? Miss Scrag has sent home my new 'waist,' and I can do up my hat, but these buckets are only fit for the dusthole."

Mrs. Leigh sighed—"A new pair, with side-springs, would cost three dollars. No, Bluebell, I can't indeed."

"I might as well be a nun, then, at once," said the girl, with tears in her voice; and a sympathetic dew rose in Mrs. Leigh's weary eyes at the disappointment she could not avert from her spoiled darling.

"Bluebell," said Miss Opie, "if you read more and scampered about less, your mind would be better fortified to bear these little reverses."

"Shut up!" muttered Bluebell, in the artless vernacular of a school-girl, half turning her shoulder with an impatient gesture.

The entrance of the tea-things created a diversion, but the discontented girl sat apart, while the hideousness of her surroundings came upon her as a new revelation. Certainly, in Canada, in a poverty-stricken abode, taste seems more completely starved than in any other country.

Bluebell, in her critical mood, noted the ugly delf tea-things, so badly arranged; the black stove, four feet into the room, with its pipe running through a hole in the wall; the ricketty horsehair chairs and wire blind for the window, "gave" on the street, where gasping geese were diving in the gutters for the nearest approach to water they could find.

Scarcely less repugnant were the many-coloured crotchet-mats and anti-macassars with which Miss Opie loved to decorate the apartment; nor was a paper frill adorning a paltry green flower-vase wanting to complete the tasteless tout ensemble.

The evening wore on; Mrs. Leigh proceeded with the turning of an old merino dress; Miss Opie adjusted her spectacles, and read Good Words. Bluebell sat down to the piano and executed a selection from Rossini's 'Messe Solennelle' with force and fervour.

"You play very well, child," said Miss Opie.

"That is fortunate," said Bluebell, "for I mean to be a governess."

"You mean you want a governess," retorted the other. "Why, what in the world do you know?"

"More than most children of ten years old. I might get a hundred dollars a year. Mamma, I could buy myself new boots then."

"You are nothing but a self-willed child yourself, unable to bear the slightest disappointment," said Miss Opie.

"Never mind," said Mrs. Leigh, coaxingly; "I'll see if I cannot get you the boots. They will give me credit at the store."

"No, no; I know you can't afford it; they were new last April. Mamma is oil to your vinegar, Aunt Jane."

"And you the green young mustard in the domestic salad—hot enough, and, like all ill weeds, growing apace."

"Then it is field mustard, and not used for salad," said Bluebell, anxious for the last word. And, escaping from the room, went to place some bones in the shed, for a casual in the shape of a starving cur, who called occasionally for food and a night's lodging.

About twenty years ago, when this melancholy Mrs. Leigh was a lovely young Canadian of rather humble origin, Theodore Leigh, a graceless subaltern in the Artillery, had just returned from leave, and, going one day to the Rink, was "regularly flumocksed," as he expressed it, by the vision of Miss Lesbia Jones skimming over the ice like a swallow on the wing. And when she proceeded to cut a figure of 8 backwards, and execute another intricate movement called "the rose," his admiration became vehement, and, seizing on a brother-officer he had observed speaking to her, demanded an introduction.

"To the 'Tee-to-tum'? Oh, certainly."

Miss Lesbia was very small, and wore the shortest of petticoats, which probably suggested the appellation.

Fatigued with her evolutions, she had sunk with a pretty little air of abandon on the platform, and her destiny, in a beaver coat and cap, was presented by Mr. Wingfield.

After this, a common object at the Rink was a tall young man, in all the agonies of a début on skates, and a bewitching little attendant sprite shooting before and around him, occasionally righting him with a fairy touch when he evinced too wild a desire to dash his brains against the wall.

At all the sleighing parties, also, Miss Lesbia's form was invariably observed in Mr. Leigh's cutter, with a violet and white "cloud" matching the robe borders and ribbons on the bells; and he and the "Tee-to-tum" spun round together in half the valses of every ball during the winter.

Perhaps, after all, the attachment might have lived and died without exceeding the "muffin" phase, had not the "beauty," Captain of the battery cut in, and made rather strong running, too, partly because he considered her "fetching," and partly, he said, "from regard to Leigh, who was making an ass of himself."

Jealousy turned philandering into earnest. Theodore went straight to the maiden aunt, with whom Miss Jones resided, and, after most vehement badgering, got her consent to a private marriage within three days. The poor spinster, though much flustered, knowing his attentions to Lesbia had been a good deal talked about, felt almost relieved to have it settled respectably, though so abruptly.

On the appointed day, having obtained a week's leave, Theodore, with his best man, the last joined subaltern, dashed up to the church-door in a cutter, just in time to receive Lesbia and her bewildered chaperone.

After the ceremony, they started off for their week's honeymoon to the Falls; and the best man, absolved from secrecy, spread the news through the regiment.

Theodore had scribbled off the intelligence in reckless desperation to his father, of whom he was the only child, and Sir Timothy Leigh, a proud and ambitious man, never forgave the irrevocable piece of folly so cavalierly announced to him.

Theodore received a letter from the family lawyer, couched in the terms of sorrowful reprehension such functionaries usually assume on similar occasions.

"It was Mr. Vellum's painful duty to inform him that Sir Timothy would decline to receive him on his return to England; that two hundred a year would be placed annually to his credit at Cox's; but the estates not being entailed, that was the utmost farthing he need ever expect from him."

Such was the gist of the communication, and Theodore, hardened by his father's severity, and unable to bear the privations of a narrow income, absented himself more and more from their wretched lodgings, and tried to drown his cares by drinking himself into a state of semi-idiocy.

There is little more to relate of this ill-starred marriage, of which Bluebell was the fruit; for soon after her birth young Leigh was killed by being upset out of a dog-cart.

Driving home with unsteady hands from mess one night, he collided with a street car, which inevitably turned over the two-wheeled vehicle. Theodore was pitched out, his head striking on the iron rails, and never breathed again.

Whatever grief Sir Timothy may have felt at his son being snatched from him, unreconciled and unforgiven, did not show itself in mercy to the widow.

Mr. Vellum was again in requisition, and proposed, on behalf of Sir Timothy, to make Mrs. Leigh a suitable allowance on condition that she remained in Canada, and delivered over the child to her grandfather, to be brought up and educated as his heiress. In case these terms were refused, she would continue to receive annually two hundred a-year; but no farther assistance would be granted.

Lesbia, in her loneliness and bereavement, was heart-broken at this unfeeling proposition, and Bluebell being too young for a choice, she consulted the voice of Nature alone, and refused to part with her child.

The maiden aunt, Miss Opie, willingly received them. She had a mere pittance, and lived in a boarding house; but, by joining their slender purses, they took the cottage in which we find them.

Thus in extreme poverty was Bluebell reared until her seventeenth year, though by personal privation Mrs. Leigh sent her to the school par excellence; attended by most of the girls in the city, whether their parents were "in" or "out" of society. Bluebell having the prestige of an English father, own son of a baronet, and military into the bargain, was considered in the former class, and included at an early age in the gaieties of the winter.

A new friend, who had been particularly kind to her, was Mrs. Rolleston, wife of the Colonel of a regiment quartered there, and to her Bluebell repaired to make sorrowful excuses for the projected picnic, and also to confide the scheme that possessed her mind of earning money as a musical teacher or nursery governess.

Mrs. Rolleston felt half inclined to laugh at the unformed impulsive child, who was such a pet in their household, but seemed far too babyish and unmethodical to be recommended for any situation; yet remembering her mother's straitened circumstances, and that the girl probably wanted some pocket-money, she listened sympathetically, and promised to turn it over in her mind.

Music she knew Bluebell thoroughly understood and excelled in. She had for years received instruction gratis from the organist at the Cathedral, who, originally attracted by her lovely voice singing in the choir, took her up with enthusiasm, and taught her harmony and thorough bass. Thus, instead of only practising a desultory accomplishment, she was able to compose and arrange her tuneful ideas correctly.

A dark striking-looking girl interrupted them. This was Cecil Rolleston, the eldest daughter of the house, or rather she stood in that relation to the Colonel, being the offspring of his first wife.

"Come out and play croquet, Bluebell," said she; "the children are having a game; they only let me go on condition of bringing you,"—and she led the way through the window into a charming garden, with large shady maple-trees just beginning to drop their deep-dyed, variegated leaves on the turf; the bluebirds were already gone, but the red and ashen-hued robin, nearly the size of a jay, still rustled through the boughs.

A little white dog, with a ribbon on, was holding a ball within its feathery toes, and playing with it as a cat does a mouse; a gardener was refreshing the thirsty flowers, which had outgrown their strength; and Fleda, Estelle, and Lola, twelve, eleven, and nine, were playing croquet with the zest of recent emancipation from lessons.

The governess, a dark, sallow expositor of the arts and sciences, also wielded a mallet, and Cecil and Bluebell completed the six.

The sides were pretty equally cast, and the combatants were in a most interesting crisis of the game, when Colonel Rolleston entered the garden.

He was a very handsome man, and as is often the case with the only male in a family of women, so studied and given in to by all his female entourage, that he would not have been pleased, whatever their occupations, if he were not immediately rallied round by a little court of flatterers.

"Estelle," said the governess, "offer your papa your mallet, and ask him to be so kind as to play with us." The child's face lengthened; she had not much hope of his refusing it, but advanced with her request.

"Must I?" said the Colonel.

"Oh, yes!" said the chorus of voices; "be my partner—be mine."

"Don't tear me to pieces among you," said he, with a deprecating gesture.

"Take Bluebell on your side, papa," cried Cecil; "she is very good, and we'll keep Miss Prosody, who is equally so."

And thus they proceeded, the Colonel radiant with every successful stroke, and blaming mallet, ball, and ground when otherwise, reiterating, "I can't make a stroke to-day."

Bluebell was very fond of the Colonel, who liked pretty faces about him, and had been kind to her; but she could not resist a slight feeling of repulsion at what she considered an abject maneuver of Miss Prosody's. His ball, by an unskilful miss, was left in her power; her duty to her side required her to crack it to the other end of the ground, but a glance at the irritable gloom of his countenance induced her to discover it to be more to her advantage to attack one rather beyond, and, judiciously missing it left her own blue one an easy stroke for him.

The shadows dispersed, and, all playfulness, the Colonel apostrophized his prize, which he succeeded in hitting. "Here is my little friend in blue; shall I hurt it? no, I will not harm it." By-play of relief and gratitude on the governess's part, as he requited her amiability by merely taking two off, leaving his interesting friend in blue unmoved.

This naturally did not enhance the interest of the children who felt it was not the game of croquet that was being played. Cecil, replying with a laughing glance to the indignant eye-telegraphy of Fleda, began to play at random; and Bluebell and Lola, not finding much antagonism from the other side, soon pulled the Colonel through his hoops and won the game. After which, Bluebell retraced her steps across the common, accompanied part of the way by Miss Rolleston, to whom she also confided her governess's projects.

Cecil was very fond of her; she had few companions, and her sisters were mere children. All the time the younger girl was talking, she was silently revolving a plan. It so happened this Cecil was in rather independent circumstances for a young lady, maternal relative having left her a legacy at twelve years old which, by the time she was twenty-one, would bring in a thousand a year.

In the mean time, she drew half that sum annually, and, of course, contributed to the domestic expenses. How much pleasanter it would be for Bluebell to live with them than with strangers. She might be her musical teacher; singing duets even brought out her own voice surprisingly; it would be delightful to practise together; the children had no taste for music, neither did Mrs. Rolleston care for it. Besides, she felt a generous pleasure in the prospect of assisting her friend, poor Bluebell, who often had to deny herself a mere bit of ribbon from want of a shilling to pay for it. It might require a little management at home, so she would not hint at it yet, and, with a warm caress and a gay farewell nod, they separated.

Next morning, Mrs. Leigh, still engaged in the resuscitation of the merino dress, was surprised by a visit from Mrs. Rolleston. That lady, for a wonder, considering her errand, had come alone, for it was seldom that any little domestic arrangement was entered on without the personal supervision of the Colonel.

However, there was a counter-attraction at barracks this morning, and having, so to speak, held a board on Cecil's proposition, and opposed, argued, and thoroughly talked it over, Mrs. Rolleston was empowered to suggest to Mrs. Leigh a plan for taking Bluebell into their family as musical companion to Cecil and nursery governess to Freddy, the heir apparent, aetat. four. The poor little lady did not seem much elated at the proposal. "I know my child will wish it," she said. "I can give her no variety, no indulgences, and she is of an age when occupation and society are a necessity to her. I sometimes feel," she murmured, with a sigh, "that I have stood in her light by not agreeing to her grandfather's conditions."

A look of curiosity from Mrs. Rolleston elicited an explanation, and she heard for the first time the whole history of Bluebell's antecedents.

"Why," cried she, much excited, "I remember that Sir Timothy before I married; there are so many Leighs, it never struck me he might be your father-in-law. I recollect hearing he had disinherited his son, but he has adopted a grandnephew, which, I am afraid, looks bad for Bluebell." And she listened with renewed interest to Mrs. Leigh's diffuse reminiscences, while her protégé appeared to her in a new and romantic light, and she pictured half-a-dozen possibilities for her future.

From a miniature of the graceless Theodore which Mrs. Leigh produced, there could be no doubt of the resemblance to his daughter in air and feature; the long sleepy eyes were identical, though the slightly insolent expression of Theodore's was, happily, wanting.

"He was the best of husbands," whimpered the widow, on whose placid mind the shortcomings of the dissipated youth seemed to have left no impression; "but he was hardly treated in this world, and so he was taken to a better."

Before Mrs. Rolleston left, it was arranged that Bluebell was to make her first essay in governessing on Freddy Rolleston, her Sundays to be spent as often as possible with her mother; and ere another week had passed, she and her effects were transferred to the Maples.

A bed was made up for her in a little room of Cecil's and the tuition of Freddy carried on in the nursery; for Mrs. Rolleston having some doubts as how the amateur and professional governess might amalgamate, avoided letting her entrench on Miss Prosody's premises.

That lady, indeed, was disposed to look upon her with suspicion and incipient dislike. She had always been treated with great consideration—quite one of the family, and cared not for "a rival near her throne." Who was Bluebell that she should be made so much of?—a little nursery governess with no attainments, and yet Cecil's inseparable companion! She was a prime favourite with the Colonel, whose "ways" she had made a judicious study of, and treated with considerable tact. He always mentioned her as "that dear invaluable creature, Miss Prosody." She could occasionally put an idea into his mind which he mistook for his own, as, for instance, when he observed to his wife—"What a pity that girl has such a preposterous name, and that you all have the habit of calling her by it. The other evening that idiot, young Halkett must needs say, 'What a lovely pet name!' I can tell you I took him up pretty short. You really must not have her down so much, if these boys think they may talk nonsense to her."

Mrs. Rolleston was rather surprised at the irritation with which this was said; to be sure she had heard Miss Prosody, previous to young Halkett's foolish remark, lamenting that Bluebell "did not show more reserve with gentlemen guests, and that she put herself so much on an equality with Cecil." The Colonel was a domestic man, and liked cheerfulness at his fireside, of which he himself was to be the centre and inspiration; anything approaching bad spirits, silence, or headaches he always resented.

Bluebell was well enough as contributing to the liveliness of the little society—a pretty smiling young girl is seldom de trop; but then she must be satisfied without lovers, whose presence the Colonel considered subversive of all rational comfort.

Good-natured Mrs. Rolleston pursued the even tenor of her way, the Colonel's fidgets had a soporific effect on her nerves and created no corresponding alarms; her idol, Freddy, was satisfied with the new administration, and ceased to wage internecine warfare with his nurse; and certainly the unwonted tranquillity consequent was a decided boon to the rest of the household.