Читать книгу Bluebell - Mrs. G. C. Huddleston - Страница 6

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In the greenest growth of the Maytime

We rode where the roads were wet;

Between the dawn and the daytime

The spring was glad that we met.

Swinburne.

Two or three months passed, the bluebirds and robins had all disappeared, and the snow-birds, hardy scions of the feathered tribe capable of withstanding the rigours of a Canadian winter, were alone to be seen. The Rinks had been flooded, and skating was going on with vigour; the snow was not quite in a satisfactory state as yet; but a few sleighs jingled merrily about with their bright bits of colour, the edging of fur robes and ribbon on the sleigh bells. A general impulse of joyful anticipation ran through all the young people as winter unlocked her stores of amusement, and the keen sabre-like air, so bracing and exhilarating, stirred the life in young veins, and set their spirits dancing with exuberant vitality.

The Rollestons, who had only come out in the spring, were attracted with everything. Not a sleigh passed but there was a rush from the children to the window, and Colonel Rolleston, who was building one, received fresh suggestions about it most days from his excited family.

Every morning Cecil, under Bluebell's tuition, practised skating at the Rink, and had devised an original and becoming costume to be assumed as soon as she had attained sufficient command of her limbs not to object to a share of public attention. In the afternoon the Rink was generally crowded, and many of the Colonel's regiment evinced an eagerness to help Cecil along, and pretend to receive instruction from the skilful and blooming Bluebell; so poor Mrs. Rolleston was then invariably detailed by the Colonel for chaperone duty, and sat shivering on the platform while Cecil was being initiated in the mysteries of "Dutch rolls" and "outside edge." On one of these occasions she was roused by a well-known voice calling her by name, and turned round in joyful surprise to greet a young man just come in.

"My dear Bertie, were have you sprung from? Have you been to our house?"

"Just left it and my traps. Lascelles suddenly gave up his leave, which I applied for, and have got a week certain, and most likely all of it, for there are plenty of Captains down there; so I thought I would look you up to begin with."

"To begin with! You must stay here all the time—make it head quarters, at any rate. You have been travelling all the summer, and there's nothing to do now."

"Moose," murmured Bertie. "Ah! there's Cecil."

Cecil, skating hand-in-hand to the tune of "Paddle your own canoe," was not sufficiently disengaged to remark her mother's companion. His eyes followed her with a keen, comprehensive glance, which Mrs. Rolleston observed complacently.

"Don't you think her much improved?—much prettier?" asked she.

"Skating always suits a well-made girl. That black and scarlet get-up, too, is very becoming, but pretty—hardly."

"She is, however, very much admired," said Mrs. Rolleston, warmly, for a step-mother.

"Ah!" cried Bertie, with a slight accent of bitterness, "reasons enough for that. How well some of these girls skate! Who is that shooting-star?"

The planet in question gyrated towards them, dropped on one knee on the platform for the relief of strained ankles, and, as she addressed Mrs. Rolleston, caught a look of decided admiration on Bertie's face.

A Canadian girl is nothing if not self-possessed; she sustained the gaze with the most perfect calmness.

"Bluebell, this is my brother, Captain Du Meresq. Cecil ought to rest; will you go and tell her to come here?"

"Who is that young beauty whom you addressed in the language of flowers?" asked he.

"Nonsense, Bertie! she is Freddy's governess. You must not begin to talk absurdity to her; you will annoy Edward."

"He don't object to fair faces on his own account."

"Well, this particular one is more bother than pleasure to him. You know his horror of 'danglers'; he is afraid of aimless flirtations with Bluebell, who, being also Cecil's companion, is constantly in the drawing-room."

"Ah, my beloved niece," said Captain Du Meresq, as he gave Cecil considerable support from the ice to the platform.

"What has given us this unexpected treat?" said she, with a warmer hue than usual in her clear, pale cheek.

"My anxiety to see your new companion."

"Whose existence, I suppose, you have just heard of."

"It has been my loss," retorted he. "Fascinating young creature! The name Bluebell just describes those wild hyacinth eyes."

"Oh! Bertie," said his sister and Cecil together, "how absurd you are about girls."

"And then," persisted he, "that charming tawny hair and milk white skin."

"One might think you were describing an Alderney cow. It's a pity she is not called 'Daisy' or 'Cowslip.'"

"Girls are all alike," said Captain Du Meresq, sententiously. "Even you, my beloved Cecil, who are a woman of mind, can't stand my wild admiration of—Cowslip."

Cecil raised her eyebrows, and a scornful beam shot from the dark eyes that were her chief attraction.

"Nor could the 'dairy flower' herself, I should think. It's no use rhapsodizing before me, Bertie; I shall not tell her in any confidential communication, whatever you may think."

"Ah, well," said Captain Du Meresq, with a sigh, "let us hope the ingenious child may understand the universal language of the eyes, for I hear papa would not approve of my speaking to her."

Mrs. Rolleston was becoming fidgetty. To some women, as they advance in years, an inability of separating chaff from earnest becomes more pronounced, and the uppermost wish of her mind at present was to see a real attachment between Bertie and Cecil. Albert Du Meresq was only her half-brother; but he had become her charge in infancy under terrible circumstances, which we will briefly relate.

When Mr. Du Meresq married his mother, a wilful Irish beauty, Mrs. Rolleston was a shy, reserved girl of thirteen, and became very jealous of her father's exclusive devotion to his bride and neglect of herself.

Lady Inez looked upon her as rather a nuisance, and was coldly critical upon her appearance and manner. She was an unsparing mimic, and frequently exercised the faculty on her step-daughter, whose nervousness became awkwardness in the constant expectation of being turned into ridicule. Consequently, she cordially disliked not only Lady Inez, but the little step-brother, who was made of so much importance, till one ghastly day changed the aspect of events.

Like a fearful dream it had seemed—a strange carriage rolling to the door, from which emerged her father and another gentleman carrying a terrible burden, looking supernaturally long in a riding-habit. White scared faces flitted about; but life was extinct, and there was no frantic riding for doctors.

There had been a hunt-breakfast that morning, and she well remembered the envy she had felt at seeing Lady Inez ride gaily forth with the rest on a favourite horse.

"She has everything," thought Bella, "'Reindeer' was promised to me when he was a foal, and I have never been on his back."

But Lady Inez was lying there, with the mark of "Reindeer's" iron hoof on her temple. They had come down together at a blind fence; the horse, entangled in her habit, struck out once, as thorough-breds will, but it was a death-blow.

The voice of the child, crying alone and neglected in the nursery, aroused Bella from a horror stricken stupor. Her father's despair made him unapproachable, but she might comfort Bertie, forgotten by his attendants.

From this time she became almost a mother to him, for Mr. Du Meresq went abroad, and they were left alone in the deserted house for some years.

Bertie had left Eton, and just obtained a commission in the—— Hussars, when his father died, leaving him a moderate fortune, which steadily decreased as years went by. It had approached attenuation by this time, and Mrs. Rolleston felt as distracted and perplexed as a duckling's hen foster-mother, at the vagaries of the happy-go-lucky, reckless Irish blood in Bertie, which did not flow in her own veins.

She looked forward to marrying him to Cecil, as the best chance of relieving his pecuniary difficulties and reforming his unsteadiness.

Captain Du Meresq had stayed with them for six weeks some time ago, when he and Cecil became inseparable companions, and it was then that the idea had dawned upon her. She would not openly discuss it with her brother—that would have too much the appearance of a plot: but her lively satisfaction at the prospect was apparent enough, and Bertie knew her co-operation would not be wanting.

He had thought of it more than once. What chance had he not calculated to get him through his sea of difficulties; but a thousand a year alone seemed scarcely sufficient temptation to matrimony, to which he did not seriously incline. Indeed, his warm impressionable nature was not the temperament of a fortune-hunter.

He was attracted with Cecil, and got rather fond of her in the six weeks he had been trying to make her in love with him, not with any mercenary view, but because such was his usual custom with girls.

But he was afflicted with a keen eye for beauty, and Cecil was plain to most eyes, and too colourless for his taste, though she possessed a lovely figure, thorough-bred little head, and a pale, intelligent, expressive face.

Bluebell's lilies and roses and Hebe-like contour caught his eye in a moment, of which Cecil felt an instinctive conviction; but though, with a woman's keenness, underrating no point of attraction in her friend, she considered her wanting in style, which deficiency she dwelt on now with secret satisfaction. For though not in the least anxious to monopolize general admiration, that of Bertie Du Meresq was unfortunately a sensitive point with Cecil, for that six weeks had been the intensest period of her life—the dawning of "love's young dream."

She had never met him since childhood till then, when they were thrown together with the intimacy of near connexions. There was not, of course, the slightest real relationship, but Bertie jestingly called her his niece, perhaps, to establish a right of chaperonage.

He used to make her come down to breakfast en Amazone, and took her the most enchanting rides in that Seductive April weather. Her equestrian experience previously had been limited to steady macadamizing on the roads. Bertie took her as the crow flies, never pulled a fence, but merely gave her a lead, and Cecil, who had plenty of nerve, exulted in the new excitement. The farmers might not have thought it a very orthodox month for this amusement; but hunting was scarcely over, though the copses were filled with primroses, and violets scented the hedgerows; the birds sang as they only do when the great business of their year is commencing. And then she had such a mount, a perfect hunter of her quasi-uncle's. It never refused, and took its fences with such ease a child might have sat it.

Or they would ride dreamily on in woody glades, both alike susceptible to the shafts of sunlight, quivering on the leaves, the sudden gush of fragrance after a shower, and all the myriad appeals of spring to those who have that touch of poetry in their clay which is the key of fairy-land, their horses meantime snatching at the young green boughs as they sauntered lazily on; and Du Meresq, who had travelled in all sorts of strange out-of-the way places, described weirder scenes in other lands, and pictured a fuller, more vivid life than she in her routine existence had dreamed of.

Bertie was always all in all to the woman he was with, provided no other was present; and Cecil, young, and full of sympathy and intelligence, was a delightful companion. His appreciation, felt and expressed, of her quickness of comprehension was most agreeable flattery; the more so as he confided in her so fully, even consulting her about his own private affairs, for he was very hard pressed at this time, and she, who had never known the want of money, took the deepest interest in it all.

He seemed never able to bear her out of his sight. If she played, he was hanging over the piano; if he had letters to write, Cecil must do it from his dictation; and yet he would avow sometimes before her such extravagant adoration for some pretty girl, that Cecil, chilled and surprised, would feel more than ever doubtful of her own influence; and the honeyed words she had treasured up, faded away as void of significance. And then one day—suddenly—on her return from a croquet-party, she heard he had received a telegram, and gone, leaving a careless message of adieu.

Poor Cecil! with the instinct of the wounded animal to its lair, she rushed to her own room, locked the door, and walked about in a tearless abandonment of grief, disappointment, and surprise. How could he leave her without one word? She felt half stunned, and her brain seemed capable of only the dull reiteration that "Bertie was gone." Tears welled up to her eyes then, when the sound of the first dinner-bell drove them back. She felt she must battle alone with this strange affliction; and trying to efface from her features all evidence of the shock she had sustained, descended to dinner, looking rather more stately than usual.

It annoyed her to observe that her step-mother glanced deprecatingly at her, and was inclined to be extra affectionate. This would never do. Like most young girls, she was generally rather silent when not interested in the discussions of her elders. But now she never let conversation drop. The incidents of the croquet-party furnished a safe topic. Colonel Rolleston thought the gentle dissipation had made his daughter quite lively. Afterwards she took refuge at the piano, which was imprudent, for music only too surely touches the chord of feeling, and every piece was associated with Bertie. Cecil shut the instrument, and effected a strategical retreat to her bed-room, where, in the luxury of solitude, she might worry and torment herself to her heart's content. His absence was trial enough, but the sting lay in the way it was done, which was such a proof of indifference, that shame urged her to crush out all thoughts of him, and suffer anything rather than let him see the impression his careless affection had made on her.

And so Cecil passed through her first "baptism of fire" alone and unsuspected; but time had softened much of her resentment ere they met again.