Bluebell / A Novel

SATURDAY AT HOME.

Cecil woke the next morning with the feeling that something pleasant had happened; and then she remembered that Bertie Du Meresq was actually in the house, and the old folly as likely as ever to begin again; but, not possessing the self-examining powers of Anthony Trolloppe's heroines, she made no attempt to argue herself out of her unreasonable happiness, and, indeed, dwelt far more than necessary on the warm, sudden hand-clasp so inopportunely witnessed by full private Bowers. She came down radiant, and looking positively handsome; but when did a too sunny dawn escape a cloud ere noon? Bertie seemed different somehow,—was not certain he could get more leave,—was even doubtful about asking for it; and Cecil's mental Mercury, which had been "set fair," went down to "change." In reality, Du Meresq not being so etherealized by love, felt out of sorts, and not up to the mark that morning, and, therefore, probably opined with Moore—

At any rate, he actually went to the barracks with the Colonel, "as if he couldn't get enough of that," thought Cecil, "when he is not on leave."

But after severe reflections on herself for caring a straw about it, Cecil had forgiven him, and a deceitful sunbeam peeped through in the prospect of meeting at luncheon, only to be again overcast, as the Colonel returned without the recreant Bertie.

This second reverse overthrew her afternoon arrangements, for she had reckoned on Du Meresq's escort to the Rink. This being Saturday, Bluebell always went home till the following day, and Mrs. Rolleston would not be available even for a drive, for she hated sleighing, and was looking forward to writing her English letters in the cozy drawing-room, and sociably imbibing afternoon tea with any visitors hardy enough to face the bitter northwester, happily so rare a visitant in that sufficiently inclement climate.

But Cecil preferred facing any weather to her own thoughts, and, encountering three Astrakhan-jacketed and fur-capped sisters under convoy of Miss Prosody, was carried off by them to enliven their dismal constitutional.

In the meantime, Captain Du Meresq, having lunched at the barracks, drove with Mr. Vavasour to the Rink, expecting to find both girls there: but speculating rather the most on the chance of having a more unrestrained conversation with Bluebell than he cared for under the eyes of her responsible guardians. His projects also were to prove futile, for that young person was speeding over the frozen tract on the common at the time. The snow was as dry and hard as powdered sugar, and her cloud was stiff with her frozen breath; her ears felt as though she had thrust them into a holly-bush, and the razor-like wind in that unsheltered spot must have arrested the circulation of any less healthy and youthful pedestrian. The morning had dawned prosperously for her, as Mrs. Rolleston had accorded permission to join the sleigh-party, the summum bonum of her hopes; and the gratification was rendered more complete by a charming present from Cecil of an ermine cap, muff lined with scarlet, and ermine neck-tie, fastened by its cunning little head and tail.

Bluebell was picturing their effect on the velveteen jacket hitherto so coldly furnished forth, and thinking that Cecil must have ordered them from Montreal with a view to this party, as they had arrived so opportunely. She remembered now that Lola had, apparently, been struggling with a secret for some days; and yet, when she, Bluebell, had been so ecstatic, Cecil had seemed more thoughtful than sympathetic and merely acknowledging her thanks by a quiet kiss, had escaped from the room.

Two expectant faces were peering over the blind at the cottage, watching the gay footsteps battling across the common. Even Aunt Jane looked forward to seeing this weekly messenger from the outer world, which, needless to say, kept well aloof from these poor and insignificant ladies.

Bluebell always brought every piece of gossip she could collect to feed Miss Opie's inquisitive mind who was in no way exempt from the sin supposed to most easily beset spinsterhood and her girlish spirits brightened the quiet cottage and left their echo behind through the dull week. She was by no means an unmixed good when she lived there. Her vivacity, having nothing to expend itself on, often turned to desperate fits of discontent and ennui, but now, coming home was a holiday and change.

All the inhabitants, old ladies, and new girl (for each successive one went away to better herself after a few weeks residence), assembled simultaneously at the hall door, and drew their visitor from the bitter blast into the stove lit parlour. One yet more humble welcomer was there of the vagabond tribe—petty larceny in every curve of his ungainly form, and his spirit so broken by adversity that he only ventured to wag his shabby tail in recognition of his benefactress.

This was Bluebell's casual—one of a too common race in Canada of homeless, starved animals there being no Refuge or dog tax to compel them to live under protection or not at all.

This reclaimed cur after overcoming his strong suspicion of poison, had supported himself for sometime on the food Bluebell placed for him in the shed and when emboldened by hunger and the handsome treatment he had received he ventured into the house, he was authorized to remain as watch dog and protector.

In the summer, too, horses were added to her pensioners and invited in to graze on the patch of enclosed grass at the back of the cottage, till it fell short from being burned up or eaten, for the common was haunted with gaunt, famished quadrupeds, who, in the drought of summer, were still left to look for the mockery of subsistence on the bare, parched ground.

It was a cheerful party gathered round the tea-table, quite lavishly set forth in honour of the guest. Scones and tea cakes were plenteously saturated with butter, regardless of its winter price (the old ladies would breakfast on bread and scrape the rest of the week with uncomplaining self-denial), and a heavy plum cake formed the piêce de resistance.

Trove, for olfactory reasons, was accommodated with his share on a rug in the passage. Bluebell was the chief talker, with her week's arrears of news. Captain du Meresq's arrival created a little buzz of interest.

"Is he handsome?" asked Mrs. Leigh, sentimentally, whose thoughts had flown back to earlier days.

Bluebell looked up with an odd, perplexed glance. "Upon my word, I don't know."

"Ah! there were more good-looking people in my day," said her mother. "There was Captain Fletcher, in your poor father's regiment, the handsomest man that was ever seen,—fresh-coloured, with golden whiskers, and long, drooping moustache. All we girls were wild about him. Is Captain Du Meresq at all like that?"

"Not in the least. I can't describe him—fine-shaped head, such strange eyes. Oh! I dare say you would think him hideous," with a conscious laugh.

Miss Opie coughed suspiciously. "It is unfortunate," said she, "when you are in such a pleasant situation, that any disturbing element should enter. I hope, Bluebell, you will be very circumspect in your demeanour towards this gentleman."

"What," said Bluebell, in demure imitation of her manner, "would you consider an appropriate attitude for me to assume towards him?"

"These fine Captains are too fond of turning young girls' heads," said Miss Opie, shaking her own; "'leading captive silly women,' as we read. If he attempt any foolish, trifling conversation, you should check it with cold civility."

Bluebell burst into an irreverent fit of laughter, and even Mrs. Leigh said,—"Oh, those are your English ideas, Aunt Jane; we are not so stiff in Canada."

Mrs. Opie having been a governess for ten years in the mother country, was looked upon as a naturalized Briton.

"I think the old country must be very dull," said Bluebell. "Miss Prosody is always pursing up her mouth and bridling if I laugh and talk with any of the officers; and one day I distinctly overheard her whisper to the Colonel,—'very forward,' and nod towards me."

"It is, however, well to profit by such remarks," returned Miss Opie; "there is doubtless some truth in them, however unpalatable."

"But," urged the girl, "Colonel Rolleston can't bear one to be silent or dull; he always asks if one isn't well; and I shouldn't think you could call Captain Du Meresq a flirt. Why, he has hardly spoken ten words to me yet,"—but a sudden glow came to her cheeks as she remembered how many he had looked.

"Well, well, I was only warning you. Fetch the backgammon board; your mother has won seven games and I nine since you went."

Bluebell complied, and, settling the ladies on either side of a papier-maché table, opened the piano, and began dreamily playing through the music of the night before. Trove, finding the door ajar, had pushed in, and lay near the instrument, listening in that strange way some dogs do if the tones come from the heart, and not merely the fingers.

Having got through the last evening's répertoire, she sat musing on the music-stool, and then crooned rather low an old song of her mother's, beginning,—

"Oh! that is too old-fashioned," said Mrs. Leigh, and Miss Opie coughed dryly. But why need Bluebell have blushed so consciously, as she dashed into Lightning galops and Tom Tiddler quadrilles, till Trove, like a dog of taste, took his offended ears and outraged nerves off to his lair in the lobby?

His fair mistress soon after sought her bower, a scantily furnished retreat, but, like most girls' rooms, taking a certain amount of individuality from its occupier. Everything in the little room was blue, and each article a present. Photographs of school friends were suspended from the wall with ribbons of her name-sake colour. It was in the earlier days of the art, when a stony stare, pursed lips, and general rigidity were considered essential to the production of the portrait.

Blue, also, were the pincushion and glass toilet implements on the dressing-table, and a rocking-chair had its cushion embroidered in bluebells—a tribute of affection from a late schoolfellow.

The bed was curtainless, and neutral except as to its blue valance, and the carpet only cocoa-nut matting, which, however, harmonized fairly with the prevailing cerulean effect.

Bluebell was writing in a book, guarded by a Bramah, some profound reflections on "First Impressions." She never lost the key nor forgot to lock this volume—a saving clause of common-sense protecting a farrago of nonsence.

"Ces beaux jours, quand j'étais si malheureux." Have you ever, reader, taken up an old journal written in early youth, and thought how those intensely black and white days have now mingled into unnoticeable grey, half-thankful that the old ghosts are laid, half-regretful for that keener susceptibility to joy and sorrow gone by? Then, as "the hand that has written it lays it aside," there is, perhaps, a pang at the reflection of how the paths now diverge of those who once walked together as—

But Bluebell knows nothing of that. She is at the scribbling age, and can actually endure to describe, as if they were new and entirely original, the dawning follies of seventeen.

In England a heroine might have wound up such sentimental exercises with gazing out on the moonlit scene; but nine degrees below zero was unfavourable for the wooing of Diana. The "cold light of stars" was no poetical figure, and Bluebell, frozen back to the prosaic, piled up the stove, and crept into bed, where her waking dreams soon merged into sleeping ones.

A WOODLAND WALK.

It was Sunday afternoon. Bluebell was on her way to the Maples, and had not proceeded far when she observed a Robinson Crusoe-looking figure in one of those grotesque fur caps and impossible hooded blankets that the fashionable Briton in Canada so fondly affects. She was speculating idly upon whom it could be.

"Not Mr. Gordon, though the 'Fool's-cap' is like his; and Major Simeon has one of those. Oh, Captain Du Meresq!"

She bowed rather undecidedly, and then moved on abruptly.

But Bertie did not pass by.

"Are you returning?" asked he. "They can't get on without you. Freddy has dropped a cinder into his nurse's tea, and set fire to the straw in the cat's basket."

Bluebell laughed shyly.

"I have been to see mamma. Do not let me bring you out of your way, Captain Du Meresq,"—for he had turned back with her.

"Oh, I was only going for a walk," said Bertie, innocently,—a harmless amusement that, without any other object, he was simply incapable of undertaking. "Hadn't I better see you home; there's a brute of a dog down there who sprang out at me! I broke my stick across his head, and then, of course, I had to apologize, being disarmed."

"I know that fierce dog. He belongs to a cabman; but I always speak to him, and he never attacks me."

"Even a lion itself would flee from a maid in the pride of her purity," laughed Bertie. "But, Miss Leigh, must we positively go shivering across this bleak desert again?—isn't there some sheltered way through the wood?"

"There certainly is; but it is three miles round, and, I dare say, full of drifts."

"Never mind, all the better fun. Up this way?"

"Oh, but isn't it late? I think they will be expecting me before."

"There's nobody at home, if that's all," said Bertie. "They have gone to the Cathedral, and most likely will turn into tea at the Van Calmonts."

The scrambling walk was a temptation, the common hideous and cold.

"We must walk very quick, then."

"Run, if you like. Come along, there's a dear child."

Bluebell coloured furiously.

"Maybe I won't go at all now!"

"That is so like a girl," said Bertie impatiently; "standing coquetting in the cold. Now, you are offended. What did I say? Only called you a child."

"You had no business to speak so," said Bluebell, angry at his familiar manner, but rather at a loss for words. "Why can't you call me Miss Leigh, like everybody else?" and the indignant little beauty paused, with hot cheeks, and feeling desperately awkward.

Du Meresq bit his lip to hide a smile. He was half afraid she would dash off and terminate the interview.

"Dear me!" said he. "When you are a little older you will think youth a very good fault. Will you forgive me this once, Miss Leigh, and I will not call you anything else?—for the present" (sotto voce).

Bluebell was mollified, and rather proud of the good effects of her reproof, notwithstanding the half-inaudible rider. Du Meresq, also, was satisfied, for, without further opposition, they had struck into the wood. Unused to the Britannic hamper of a chaperone, Bluebell saw nothing singular in the proceeding. So they crunched over the snow, keeping, as far as possible, the dazzling track marked by the wheels of the sleigh-waggons, and plentifully powdered by the snow-laden trees; now up to their knees in a drift, from which Bertie had the pleasure of extricating his companion, who forgot her shyness in the difficulties of the path, and, not being given to silence, was laughing and talking away unreservedly.

"What a strange girl she is!" thought Bertie. "Who would think, to hear her chattering now, she could have made that prim little speech? I must not go on too fast; it reminds me of that Irish girl who said, the first time I squeezed her hand, 'Ah, Captain Du Meresq, but you are such a bould flirt!'"

Sheltered from the bleak wind the walk on the crisp track was enjoyable enough; the "strange eyes," being now on a line with and not confronting her, were less embarrassing, and the slight awe she still felt of him only gave a piquancy to the companionship.

"Are you not very glad we came this way?" Bertie was saying.

"If we had only snow-shoes," cried the breathless Bluebell, for the third time slipping into a drift, but struggling out before Du Meresq could do more than catch her hand.

"Poor little fingers! how cold they are," trying to put them in with his own into his large beaver gloves.

"Oh, I wish you would be sensible," stammered Bluebell, much confused.

"What's the use of being sensible," retorted he, "when it is so much pleasanter being otherwise? Time enough for that when anybody's by."

But Bluebell wrenched her hand away, bringing off the glove, which she threw on the snow.

"Is that a challenge, Miss Bluebell? Must take up the gauntlet? Good gracious, my dear child, you are not really annoyed? Well, we will be sensible, as you call it. Only you must begin; I don't know how."

"Evidently," said Bluebell, very tartly, drawing as far away as the exigencies of the track would admit. She could hold her own well enough with the young subalterns she had hitherto flirted with, but this man was older, and had a bewildering effect on her.

"Are you and Cecil great friends?" asked Bertie, presently, with the air of having forgotten the fracas.

"I hope so," coming out of her offended silence at this neutral topic. "I know I like her well enough."

"And do you tell each other everything, after the manner of young ladies?"

"No-o," said Bluebell, reflectively; "not like the girls at school. You see Cecil is older than I, and cleverer, I suppose, and doesn't talk much nonsense."

"Did she ever speak of me?" asked Bertie.

"Hardly ever; the others have mentioned you often."

"Cecil is a very sensible girl," with a re-assured countenance; "and as you never talk nonsense, I suppose you won't mention the trivial fact of our having taken this walk?"

"Why in the world not?" opening her large violet eyes full upon him.

"'Speech is silver, but silence is golden,' you unsophisticated child," returned he, enigmatically.

Bluebell considered. "Why, of course, I shall tell Mrs. Rolleston what made me so late."

"But not if she doesn't ask you?"

"But why not? There is no harm in it," said the girl, persistently.

"No, no; but if you had lived as long as I, you would know that people always try and interfere with anything pleasant. I should so like to take this walk with you every week, Bluebell."

Bluebell looked down; she was vaguely flattered by his caring to repeat the walk which she thought must be so unimportant to him,—it would be something to look forward to, for she had enjoyed it, though she could not tell why.

"But, Captain Du Meresq—" she began.

"Call me Bertie, when we are alone," said he.

They had entered on the street, Bluebell was wavering, but the last sentence, "when we are alone," struck her ear unpleasantly.

"How can I?" said she; "I do not know you well enough."

"Walk with me sometimes," whispered Bertie, "and that reason will disappear, but don't say a word about it to-day, there's a dear girl. I had better make tracks for the club; you will be at home in five minutes,"—and Du Meresq ceremoniously lifted his cap, for many eyes were about, and disappeared down another block.

Bluebell on finding herself alone, went through a disagreeable reaction. It was certainly only a few yards to her destination; but it was annoying to be left so abruptly, and an air of secrecy thrown over her actions too. Did she like him, or hate him? She could not determine; her fancy and her vanity were both touched, doubtless; then, remembering Miss Opie's exhortations, a gleam of fun twinkled in her eyes as she thought of what her horror would have been at Bertie's affectionate ease of manner.

All the same she crept into the house, feeling very underhand and uncomfortable. None of the party had returned, so reprieved for the present she went up to the nursery.

Freddy was roaring on his back, he had just thrown "Peep-of-Day" at the nurse's head, which had been unwisely offered to him as a substitute for his favourite trumpet, when its excruciating blasts become too unbearable.

"Oh, I'm sure I'm glad you have come back, miss, for I don't know how to abide that wearyin' child, as don't know what a whipping is. Here's your governess, sir, as will put you in the corner."

"Hold your tongue, you fool!" cried Freddy with supreme contempt.

The suaviter in modo was, indeed, the only treatment allowed in that nursery. Bluebell retreated with a highly-coloured scrap-book to the window, which she feigned complete absorption in. Freddy glanced at it out of the tail of his eye.

"Show me that, Boobell."

"I don't know, Freddy," said the girl, feeling some slight moral coercion incumbent on her. "Do you think you will call nurse a fool again?"

"She shouldn't bother," said the infant, confidentially, climbing into her lap, but declining to commit himself to any pledges of good behaviour. "Show me the book."

Half-an-hour after, Mrs. Rolleston looking in, saw a pretty little picture—the old nurse was nodding in a rocking-chair. Bluebell's fair young face was bending over Freddy, seated on her lap, with as arm round her neck, his cherubic visage beaming with interest as he listened to the classic tale of "Three Wishes." It was easier to her to continue the recital, while a dread of being questioned prevented her looking up.

"Bluebell is telling Freddy such a beautiful fairy story," said Mrs. Rolleston, to some one who had followed her to the nursery.

"I wish she would tell fairy stories to me," said Bertie.

VISITORS.

Bluebell had no difficulty in preserving silence about the Sunday's escapade. It never occurred to Mrs. Rolleston to enquire what time she had returned, and an evasive answer to Cecil was all that it entailed. But she was very much perplexed by the change in Captain Du Meresq's manner. The cold civility recommended by Miss Opie seemed all on his side. Nothing but good-humoured indifference was apparent in his manner. Their acquaintance did not seem to have progressed further than the first evening; indeed, it had rather retrograded; and she could almost imagine she had dreamt the tender speeches he had lavished on her in the Humber woods.

Cecil and he were out sleighing most afternoons, and Bluebell was thrown on nursery and school-room for companionship—insipid pabulum to the vanity of a young lady in her first glimpse of conquest, and who believed she had stricken down a quarry worthy of her bow. Having nothing to distract her, she considered the problem exhaustively from morning till night, and, if she were not in love with him before, she had got him into her head now, if not into her heart. His being so much with Cecil did not strike her as any clue to the mystery. They were relations, of course, or nearly the same thing; there was no flirting in their matter-of-fact intercourse.

Cecil found her one afternoon reading over the bed-room fire, in a somewhat desponding attitude. Miss Rolleston had just come in from a drive, her slight form shrouded in sealskins, an air of brightness and vivacity replacing her usual rather languid manner.

"You wouldn't think it was snowing from my cloak," cried she. "It is though—quite a heavy fall, if you can call anything so light heavy. We were quite white when we came in, but it shakes off without wetting."

"It won't be very good sleighing, then, to-morrow, and the wind is getting up, too."

"And what have you been doing, Bluebell?"

"I walked with the children and Miss Prosody in the Queen's Park," said the latter, rather dolefully.

"And it was very cold and stupid, I suppose?" said Cecil, kindly. "Come down to the drawing-room and try some duets."

There were two or three visitors below and Bertie, and some tea was coming in. They were looking at a picture of Cecil's just returned from being mounted as a screen. It was a group of brilliant autumn leaves—the gorgeous maple, with its capricious hues, an arrow-shaped leaf, half red, half green, like a parrot's feather, contrasting with another "spotted like the pard," and then one blood-red. The collecting of them had been an interest to the children in their daily walks, and Cecil had arranged them with artistic effect.

One of the visitors was a rather pretty girl, whom Bluebell had known formerly. She gave her, however, only a distant bow, while she answered with the greatest animation any observation of Captain Du Meresq's. This young lady was to be one of the sleighing party next day, and, as far as she could admit such a humiliating fact, was trying to convey to him, that she was as yet unappropriated for any particular sleigh.

"Who is to drive you, Miss Rolleston?" asked she, suspecting, from his backwardness in coming forward, that the object of her intentions might be engaged there.

"I am going in the last sleigh, with Major Fane. We take the luncheon and pay the turnpikes. He is Vice-President this time."

"By-the-bye, Du Meresq," said the Colonel, rather exercised to find a lady of the party without a swain, "whom have you asked?"

"Oh, everybody is engaged," said Bertie, mendaciously ignoring Miss Kendal's half-admission of being open to an offer. "I shall not join the drive at all, unless," he added, in a hesitating manner, as if it was a sudden thought, "Miss Leigh will compassionate me, and allow me to take charge of her."

Bluebell, confused by this unexpected proposition, and by feeling so many eyes turned upon her, did not immediately make any answer; then a vexatious remembrance intruded itself, and she replied, with what that individual would have thought most unnecessary concern,—

"I am very sorry—I mean—I believe I am half-engaged to Mr. Vavasour."

"I should think you were," said Mrs. Rolleston. "I don't know what he would say if you threw him over."

"Oh!" said Bertie, plaintively, "if that insinuating youth has been beforehand, of course there's no chance for me. Well, I am out of the hunt,"—and he carelessly whistled a bar of "Not for Joseph" in reply to a suggestive motion of his sister's towards Miss Kendal.

"I should think it so dull," said that young lady, tossing her head, "to be engaged so long before. I do not intend to decide till the day."

"What shall you keep all your admirers in suspense till the last moment?" said Bertie, with a covert sneer, for he was angry at her slighting behaviour to Bluebell. "What a scramble there will be!"

Miss Kendal was not altogether satisfied with the tone of the remark, so she commenced tying on her cloud, observing sharply, "Well, mamma, we shall be benighted if we stay any longer."

Bertie dutifully attended them to the sleigh, and won the elder lady's heart by the skill with which he tucked round her the fur robes and the parting grace of his bow.

She was about to purr out some commendation, when—"What a bear that man is!" burst with startling vehemence from Miss Kendal's coral lips.

"Oh! my dear, what can you mean? I thought he seemed so agreeable."

"I as good as told him," muttered the ruffled fair, too angry to be reticent, "that I had no one to drive me to-morrow; and I think it was real rude asking that Bluebell Leigh before my face,—a mere nursery governess—and not giving me so much as the chance of refusing him."

"But you said," urged Mrs. Kendal, who did not see beyond the proverbial nasal tip, "that you would not decide on your sleigh till the day."

"I only know," said the daughter, with dark emphasis, "I wouldn't drive with him now, if he went on his bended knees to ask me."

"Thank you, Bella," said Bertie, returning. "Nice little game you had cut out for me! What an odious girl!"

Cecil's jealous instinct detected the root of this animosity, more especially guided thereto by his attempt to secure Bluebell as a companion, which had surprised her not too agreeably.

"What is her crime," said she, sarcastically, "beyond a rather transparent design of driving with you Bertie?"

"She is hung with bangles like an Indian squaw, and has a Yankee twang in her voice."

"She pretended to scarcely remember me," said Bluebell, "though we were at school together."

"Jealous, I dare say," laughed Bertie. "Is she an admirer of Jack Vavasour's?"

"Fancy any one admiring a boy like that!" said Bluebell, who did not feel in charity with her allotted charioteer.

Bertie had advanced to take her cup, and as she said this, it seemed to Cecil he touched her hand caressingly under cover of it.

"I dare say," said she sharply, "Alice Kendal has as many admirers as other people, and, perhaps, can dispense with counting Captain Du Meresq among them."

Bluebell looked up, astonished at her manner; but Bertie perceived it with more intelligence, and the thought, "What a bore it will be if she is jealous," afterwards passed through his mind,—by which may be inferred he had had in contemplation the acquisition of "Heaven's last best gift."

THE GARRISON SLEIGH CLUB.