That such walks often lead into straying;
And the voices of cousins are sometimes so low,
Heaven only knows what you'll be saying.
And long ere the walk is half over those strings
Of your heart are all put into play
By the voice of those fair demi-sisterly things,
In not quite the most brotherly way.
More snow fell that night, and Lord Bromley's gardeners were sweeping the walks from an early hour next morning. Robins lingered about with bright eyes, soliciting crumbs, and shaking off showers of snow as they flew from yew-hedge to holly-bush. Breakfast was over at "The Towers," except for a few late individuals; and Harry Dutton, in a pair of long boots, and, I am afraid, a pipe in his mouth, was taking a quarter-deck walk in front of the ball-room windows. He was thinking pretty hard, and the subject was evidently not pleasing, as it was with a sensation of relief he observed a deft figure crossing the ball-room, in a fur-trimmed cloth costume, remarkably well kilted up over a resolute-looking pair of small boots. She signed to him to open the windows and let her out. Harry made a feint of emptying his pipe, but received gracious permission to "puff away."
"That killing get-up can't be for me," thought he. "I'll give her the tip she wants."
"A certain good-looking Colonel of Hussars has gone to play a match at billiards till luncheon."
"Why that blunt and abrupt observation, à propos to nothing?"
"You must excuse my sea manners. I should have used more circumlocution, but they don't put much polish on us on board."
"No, they don't, and you boast of it, hence that phrase. You never hear a soldier apologizing for his 'army manners'!"
"Speaks well for their modesty! Well, Kate, where are you bound for? You are not rigged up in that way merely to coast about here."
"I meant to walk round the spring woods."
"And as Dashwood has sloped perhaps I may sail in consort. The walks won't be swept, of course, and that dainty scarlet petticoat will look like an old hunting-coat."
But a gardener asserting that the men had been at work since daylight, the cousins departed on their ramble.
A gravel walk a mile round encircled the inner ring of a wood left wild, except where rides were cut, showing vistas into the park beyond. Here and there it was cleared into a rosary, with a summer-house, a Dutch garden with a fountain, a glade with a fish-pond, etc. The trees were magnificent, and many a foreign specimen was represented, while the shimmering tints of grey-green, from their great variety, were of shades innumerable. Sometimes the bordering turf became wider, and flowering shrubs grew each side of the walk,—an intoxicating spot in spring, when the wild flowers carpeted the woods, and the bird artistes, returning from starring in other lands, recommenced their "popular concerts."
Even now, in winter dress, its attractions were but changed. The lichen-covered kings of the forest revealed their bold limbs undisguised by foliage, the feathery birch showed its delicate tracery against the clear winter sky, and Dutton sighed as he gazed on that fair demesne, and thought how hard it would be to give it up.
Kate's thoughts had apparently wandered in the same direction, for she said abruptly,—"What a happy fellow you are, Harry, to be heir to all this!" But she was thinking more of the first-rate style in which it was kept up, and the magnificent, comfortable house, than of its picturesque features.
"There's many a slip," said Harry, moodily, between the whiffs of his pipe. "We all know Uncle Bromley, Kate."
"Do you know," said she, mysteriously, "I hear he actually keeps his eyes, so to speak, on that grand-daughter in Canada. The agent who pays the annuity reports to him."
"The deuce!—you make me quite hot, Kate. Are you inventing just out of chaff?"
"No, honour bright. Mamma was talking about it; and seems he heard rather an unpleasant rumour the other day."
"Come, that's better. What has the young woman been a-doing of?"
"Run away, or something. I overheard mamma telling old Lady Calvert; but they nodded and winked and interjected I couldn't clearly make it out. I was writing a letter at the davenport, and in the glass opposite observed them. I don't generally burden my mind much with the conversation of my elders, but something in the alertness of their attitudes and flutter of their caps made me contemplatively bite my pen and—attend. A breach of confidence on the maternal side, I should surmise, for she declined satisfying my laudable curiosity when I pumped her afterwards, and seemed alarmed at my having heard anything."
"I had no idea," exclaimed Harry, "that he took the slightest interest in that girl; and, hang it all, Kate, she is the rightful heir. Perhaps he looks on her as a second string in case I don't carry out all his arbitrary wishes."
"Yes, I shouldn't recommend your running counter to him gratuitously. To tell you the truth, I thought you rather a lunatic keeping away so long after coming on shore,"—and Kate gazed searchingly into Harry's face, who blushed, and then frowned under the scrutiny.
"Ah!" murmured the fair inquisitor, "then there was something—a woman in the case, of course: there always is."
"I tell you what," cried Dutton, recovering himself, "if you begin supposing improbabilities about me, I'll turn detective on you and Dashwood."
"Sea manners again! and when I was so kind—putting you on your guard. But, never mind, Harry, though I think what I please, I shan't peach if you don't."
"Let us seal the treaty," passing one arm round her waist. "Give me a kiss, Kate—you haven't yet."
"Anything in reason, which sealing treaties in a vista opposite Uncle Bromley's study windows is not."
A few paces rectified that objection; but Dutton relapsed into a brown study, and Kate fell to thinking of Colonel Dashwood; and so they wandered on till the girl spoke again.
"What port have you left your heart in, Harry?"
"My dear, I have none. I left it in your charge when I went to sea, and have never asked for it back again."
"I expect I shall have to return it now, as I think my uncle has some views as to its disposal, and may inquire for it."
"He always has chimeras of that sort. I say, Kate, how perilously plain Geraldine has grown up."
"You discern the finger of Fate there. She has, indeed. I wonder she is not ashamed of herself."
"Speak not thus harshly of a misfortune."
"It's just as much a fault. Do you think I'd submit to be plain? Never. Give me only one good feature, I'd pose up to it, and make it beautify the rest. Large goggle eyes like hers might be thrown up with a heavenly expression—so—(but I am afraid mine are rather earthly). A bad figure even could be rectified. She need not indulge much in the poetry of motion. I am not pretty, but I dare say you never found it out. No, you haven't, so you needn't assume that look of regretful dissent; and I repeat, that any girl so spiritless as to give in to being ugly deserves to be left out in the cold."
"That, my dear, you can never be. You carry brimstone enough to set every one in flames about you. But to return to our—sheep. Don't say, Kate, I am expected to range alongside such a figure-head as that!"
"She will have a very valuable consignment of—timber, however, when she comes into Forest Hill."
"Which adjoins 'The Towers!' The Avuncular will be death on it! What an unfortunate idea to take up!"
"Can't you do it?" asked the girl, looking askance.
"I don't want to offend his Lordship. I'd ride for a fall. Any chance of a refusal, Kate?"
"That wouldn't satisfy him. He thinks a man ought never to be beat; and that
As the gallant's way of wooing.'
But I do hope, Harry, you won't have to marry Geraldine. Fancy her mistress of 'The Towers!'—no go!—no fun! and she would collect the stupidest people in the county."
"What a brilliant little chatelaine some one else would make!" quoth wicked Harry.
A glance—one of Kate's own—which few men could stand and feel perfectly cool. With all her flirtations,—and at present she was most in love with Colonel Dashwood,—she never forgot that if bereaved of their uncle by an opportune fit of the gout, few better matches could fall in her way than cousin Harry; so that a little quiet love-making with him was a useful investment in view of such a contingency; though, of course, she could not wait, if this dear uncle, as, indeed, was sadly probable, lived on indefinitely with Harry's future still unassured.
Dutton blushed a little under Kate's gaze, which affixed a serious meaning to his insincere words; but his eyes returned the challenge in hers, though the girl saw in an instant that the expression was not spontaneous, and Harry felt equally sure that the passion latent in his cousin's was more for "The Towers" than himself; and then he laughed inwardly as he thought how different it would be if she knew he was married.
Several days passed, and the object of Harry's visit was still unfulfilled. Indeed, a good opportunity for the disclosure seemed more remote than ever. Kate monopolized all the men in the house, and, being at home, Dutton, in common decency, could not suffer Lady Geraldine to be neglected. There were only those two girls staying at "The Towers." Others sometimes came to dinner with their parents, and an impromptu dance was often got up. Geraldine had begun to listen for Harry's step, seat herself near a vacant chair, and thrill with delight when he took it. No man dislikes such unconscious flattery, and Dutton, ill at ease in mind, felt himself soothed by her kindness.
On these occasions, Lord Bromley appeared bland and agreeable, Lady Calvert voluble and unobserving, and there was a sense of bien-être over every one, Kate, perhaps, excepted.
Dutton had received one letter from his wife. He had had a five mile-walk to get it from the post town he had bidden her address to, and opened it with a strange mixture of curiosity and yearning. It was a very bright letter, made no complaints of loneliness, and was rather divertingly written, considering the limited topics at her command; and yet Harry crunched it up in his hand with a sensation of half anger and whole disappointment. It was their first separation,—they had not been married seven weeks,—and there was scarcely an expression of affection in it!
He felt like a schoolboy who has coveted and caught some pretty wild animal for a pet, yet cannot succeed in making it fond of him.
He laughed rather bitterly as he retraced his steps. It was scarcely worth the cold, companionless walk, or the pains he had taken to evade the rest.
Why should he risk offending his uncle to please her? If that, indeed, were all, he did not know that he should. But new considerations came in. We were on the eve of drifting into the Crimean War; the papers were getting more and more threatening; and, in the event of hostilities being declared, he had applied for a ship on active service.
Could he, then, when he might never return, leave Bluebell with their marriage unacknowledged? "Though," thought he, in his moody reverie, "if that were all right, I don't believe she would care a pin if I were knocked over by a round shot."
Some curiosity and a good deal of chaff greeted Dutton on his return; but Kate did not fail to remark how little he entered into, and how quickly turned it off. That cousin Harry had some mystery of his own, the astute damsel was pretty well convinced, though to the rest he appeared light-hearted and hilarious, and enjoying to the full his enviable position.
"What a lucky young fellow that is?" had been remarked at different times by nearly every guest in the house. And the days slipped by, Harry very much "made of" by Lady Calvert, while Lady Geraldine's preference was of an unobtrusive and reticent nature—impalpable, yet grateful to the senses as the fragrance of an invisible, leaf-hidden violet.
And Bluebell, all alone in her retreat, and each day passing without tidings, began to think she had over-estimated Harry's once troublesome adoration, and almost to doubt if he would ever return.
In truth, he was ashamed to write. The longer the confession was deferred, the harder it became; and he had now assigned himself a date. On receiving sailing orders to the Baltic, he would tell all, and make it, perhaps, a last request to his uncle to acknowledge his wife. In the mean time why plague himself about it? Things must take their course.
They were sitting one day in a pretty breakfast-room. Kate rather angry with her Colonel, who lingered on, always apparently at boiling point, yet never so far bubbling over as to commit himself in words. Harry, too, was looking actually interested in Geraldine, whose large, honest eyes were beaming with a sort of tender happiness. Lord Bromley was not in the room. Clearly he must be detached.
"Doesn't this dear old room remind you of childish days?" cried the artless damsel. "It used always to be summer or Christmas then; and we had tea here in such beautiful china, so different from the horrid school-room crockery."
"And sometimes we were so long over it, they couldn't clear away before the company passed through to dinner, and we got under the table to watch them," said Harry.
"And we used to put out the little sofas and jump over them, King Charles's beauties looking down on us from the wall so grand and gracious. And there was always mignonette and nemophila in window-boxes, so sweet in the evening air? And the honey? Oh, Harry, do you remember the honey?"
Her reminiscences succeeded in breaking up the tête-à-tête, and, lo! the wicked little dominant spirit who pulled the wires had indirectly influenced every one in the room. Harry, mesmerized by eye artillery, had dropped into confidential converse with Kate; Geraldine was suffering a serrement de coeur at being so lightly left; and the Colonel, his occupation gone, was reduced to twisting those tried friends in perplexity—his pendulous whiskers and moustache.
"How silly a hairy man looks drinking tea," Kate had whispered; "like a thirsty rat dipping its whiskers and tail in!"
A rather pleased expression pervaded Harry's countenance, which was as smooth as a billiard-ball. His cousin soon had him beautifully in hand, and then extorted a promise to do the thing he hated most, i.e., to escort her out hunting the following Friday. She hadn't the smallest intention of remaining with him after they found. Then she would ride with her Colonel, who acquitted himself more creditably in a hunting-field; but, as she was not allowed to start with him alone, it was necessary to impress Harry into her service.
"That's all settled," cried she, rising. "Remember, honour bright! And now go and talk to dear Geraldine, who looks as if she were going to cry." For Kate had heard Lord Bromley's step in the passage. He came in with Mr. Hobart, who had just returned from London. "Have you heard the news?" said the latter; "war is declared; the army, Guards and all, are ordered to the East, and the fleet is to go to the Baltic."
How these few words went straight to their mark, contrasting with the frivolities that had amused them all day! It had come at last. Chances of distinction, redemption from stagnation, the much-coveted active service. They were all brave men in that house—soldiers or sailors, most of them; but the "bitter sweet first shock" and rush of new ideas kept them, at first, rather pale and silent.
After dinner though, when the wine had circulated and the first strangeness worn off, chaff and jest flew lightly about, for a general excitement pervaded the whole party.
"Shall you order those new clothes now Dashwood, you had so many patterns for this morning?"
"No! they would be out of fashion, perhaps, when we return. I was just going to order a new tunic, too! That sinful extravagance may be cut off."
Harry, who, perhaps, had most cause for anxious thoughts, was foremost in the fun. If his spirits were forced, that was his own affair; and, to avoid Kate's over-keen eyes, he (the last thing he ought to have done) devoted himself the whole evening to the more restful society of Geraldine.
Pre-occupied as he was, he began to be sensible of a change in her manner—she seemed struggling with some indefinable agitation; her voice shook, and sounded strange when she spoke.
And when he laughingly hoped "he should be covered with medals next time they met," uncoquettish Lady Geraldine looked a moment in his face with a glance he could not misunderstand, while a large, unavoidable tear fell on her hand. To capture and press it tenderly was but obeying a remorseful impulse. Geraldine immediately became composed, and her sensitive face brightened. The embarrassment that had left her seemed to have passed into Harry, who felt the greatest relief when a flutter of skirts and general rising betokened that the ladies were about to retire.
But the little incident had forced resolution on Dutton's vacillating mind. "That settles it," he soliloquised. "She is far too nice to be deceived. I know Kate won't let me off to-morrow, but I will have it out with my uncle directly I come back, and go to London by the 8.30."
CHAPTER XXXIII.
LORD BROMLEY INTERVIEWS DUTTON.
Came floating down the wind;
'Twas Mermaid's note, and the huntsman's voice
We knew it was a find.
The dull air woke us from a trance
As sixty hounds joined chorus,
And away we went, with a stout dog fox
Not a furlong's length before us.
Nearly every one was going by a late train the following day, intending to hunt in the morning; for it was a favourite meet in some of the best country of ——shire. Kate was the only fair equestrian, and Harry was to escort her.
There was one old hunter in the stables who loyally carried the young man without taking advantage of his maladroitness. Kate always insisted, when he accompanied her, on his being committed—I may say to the care of this faithful equine, who knew its business far better than its rider, and, if it did not lead him to glory, at least avoided disgrace.
Whatever she might have felt about the approaching departure of Colonel Dashwood certainly did not appear, for Kate was in glorious spirits,—her pretty figure, always well on horseback, set off still more by the elastic action of her beautiful dark chestnut.
Where is the thorough-bred without "opinions?"—and when of that excitable colour, you may generally reckon on a handful! "Childe Harold" was vexed at galloping on a different strip of turf to his companions, and delivered himself of seven buck-jumps successively. Kate, quite at her ease, was repressing his efforts to get his head down, with the same smile on her face that some absurdity of Harry's had provoked; but just as she began to tire a bit, and fancy her hat was loosening, "Childe Harold," who might then, perhaps, have had one conquering buck, as suddenly gave it up, in the fatuous way a horse will, when he is nearest success, if he only knew it.
"Two or three of those would have settled me," said Harry, good-humouredly coming to her side. "What an ass a fellow looks who can't ride!"
"Well, I will say for you you don't funk," said Kate consolingly; "and I suppose all sailors ride like monkeys.—There are the hounds going on; we are only just in time."
Coquettish Kate was soon surrounded. If she rode fair and didn't cross men at their fences, still less did she want assistance at any practicable leap. "Childe Harold," too, was indifferent to a lead; so, beholden to none, she rode her own line, and, with her merry smile and gay tongue, with the whole field, from the gallant master to the hard-riding farmer, there were few greater favourites than Harry's cousin Kate.
The universal theme at the cover-side was, of course, the declaration of war; but even that absorbing subject sunk to silence as the first low whimper, taken up more confidently by hound after hound, proclaimed that poor Reynard was being bustled through the underwood.
A relieved smile played over the features of the owner of the cover, and "Always a fox in Beechwood" came approvingly from the master's lips as he crashed out of the spinny. Kate's gauntleted hand was held up warningly, for the "Childe" was apt to let out one hind leg in excitement. Then there was a screech from an urchin in a tree, and they were away with a straight running fox pointing to Redbank Bushes, eight miles off as the crow flies.
Not much of the run was Harry Dutton destined to see that day; his presumed mission was to stick on and follow Kate, who thought no more about him once they were away. He had flopped over the first fence without a mistake; but coming on a bit of road the old horse faltered, a few yards more he was dead lame. Harry jumped off, and found a shoe gone. Dashwood had a spare one he remembered, and there was a blacksmith, not half a mile distant. He looked round—no sign of him of course; he was sailing away with a good start, fields ahead, in that contented ecstasy that stops not for friend or foe. There was nothing for it but to plod on to the forge, trusting to nick in later in the day. As the shoe had to be made, delay was inevitable. Dutton lit a cigar to while away the term of durance, and was disconsolately looking out at the door of the smithy, when he observed one of the Bromley grooms trotting smartly down the road.
He hailed the man, who touched his hat with alacrity. "I was riding to find you, sir; his Lordship has sent your letters."
The train was late, and the post had not arrived before they had been obliged to start that morning. He tore open a large blue official envelope, "On Her Majesty's Service," and read his appointment to H.M.S. "Druid," one of the Baltic fleet.
Harry stood intent a minute, with compressed lips, then signed to the groom to give him his horse.
"I have got letters for Colonel Dashwood and Mr. Hobart, too, sir."
"Well, 'Figaro' will be shod in five minutes. But you won't catch them this side of the Bushes; they were going straight for them half an hour ago."
And he galloped away with his loose sailor seat in the direction of "The Towers." The hour had come. That letter was the self-imposed signal for the acknowledgment of his marriage, and, perhaps, extinction of all hope of inheritance. One watchful figure at the library window perceived his red coat winding through the trees on his way to the stables. Lady Geraldine had caught sight of the blue envelope, and, with the prescience of love, had divined the whole. She had not wandered far from the window that morning, being too restless and miserable for anything else. Now, as she perceived him, her heart stood still. He must be going that very day.
"Well, she would see him once more, at any rate. Adieux must be spoken, and, after last night, surely something more, something to dwell on when they were apart." The carriage was rolling up to the door for the daily drive. Lady Calvert and Kate's mother came down well muffled up. "Geraldine, my dear, are you not ready! Oh, you had much better come, or you will be left alone in the house."
Geraldine, hitherto all transparent candour, shook her head dissentingly. "Oh, no, thank you; much too cold. I am going for a walk presently."
She forbore to inflame the maternal curiosity by mentioning Dutton's return, and the elder ladies drove off on a shopping expedition to the market town.
Harry, in the meanwhile, had entered the dining-room, and, eliciting from a footman that his uncle was in, poured out something from a decanter on the side table, and, without waiting to refresh himself further, went down the passage leading to Lord Bromley's sanctum.
"'The lion in his den, the Douglas in his hall,'" muttered he to himself. "I shall be a man or a mouse when I come out."
We need not go through the whole interview of the uncle and nephew. The latter's appointment was, of course, the first subject of discussion; and never had Harry known Lord Bromley show more cordiality and warmth of manner. He himself was becoming confused and tongue-tied with the importance of the confession at hand.
"I think of going to London this afternoon," said Dutton, still fencing. "There's a few things to arrange, as I am to join on Monday."
Lord Bromley coughed, poked the fire, and then observed,—"That brings me to a subject that I wish to explain to you. I have brought you up in the expectation of succeeding me at 'The Towers,' and, naturally, I expect you to make a suitable marriage,—as well you may with such prospects before you. I have noticed with great pleasure that your inclinations seem to have forestalled my wishes. The young lady, too, does not appear averse. But before you go, if you would like to explain yourself to her—in short, bring it to an engagement, you would have my most cordial approbation—in fact, I think it's the best thing you could do."
Harry grew a shade paler as the opportunity he wanted appeared.
"I am very sorry, sir," said he, shortly, "but I can never marry Lady Geraldine."
"Why, the devil not?"
"Because," faltered he, "I have a prior attachment. Indeed, am bound—"
"Prior attachment! d—d stuff!" cried the angry peer. "Whom have you seen, I should like to know, except some garrison hack at the ports you have stopped at! By ——, it is not Kate, I hope?"
Dutton shook his head. He would have been amused at any other moment.
"No, much worse, no doubt. Listen, Harry. It is bad enough your having made a fool of that very nice girl; but, if ever you wish to be master of this house, the sooner you get rid of all disgraceful entanglements, the better."
Dutton's good angel battled hard with the tempter, but the latter held him silent.
Lord Bromley spoke again, but his voice, though stern, was broken.
"I disinherited my only son for a marriage that displeased me, by which you have benefited. He died unreconciled to me. You may judge what quarter you would get in a similar offence!"
The old peer's face had turned to granite. A variety of expressions shifted across Harry's while his uncle continued,—"Yes, you had better go to town, as you have raised expectations here you seem to have no intention of fulfilling—at present," and he rose from his chair and held out his hand to his nephew. "Good-bye, Harry. You have something else to think of now; and when you return I hope you will have more sense."
It was not manly—it was not heroic—but with the wisdom of the children of this world, Dutton passed from his uncle's presence with his secret still unrevealed.
The watcher at the library window saw another carriage drive round. This time it was a double dog-cart, and two or three leather portmanteaus were being disposed on it at a side door.
Already! Geraldine grew nervous. He might come in at any moment, or perhaps would not know any of the ladies had remained at home.
"Still, he could ask," whispered her heart. She had not long to remain in suspense. Harry came out, jumped into the dog-cart, and gathered up the reins; then he looked up and saw Geraldine's stricken face. He blushed hotly as he took off his hat, and shot one sorrowful glance from his eyes ere he drove off, at headlong speed, to the station.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
HARRY GOES TO THE BALTIC.
That he so oft have swore to me?
To leave me in this lonely grove?
Immured in shameful privity?
Bluebell, a lonely little recluse at the cottage, seemed to have passed a lifetime there, so long were the uneventful days. She was not exactly unhappy, being too young and healthy to be a prey to low spirits. Still, her life could hardly be called satisfactory. In the first days of their marriage she would exclaim in her heart. "Oh, to be sometimes alone;" then, with the suddenness of a transformation-scence, her wish had been but too abundantly accomplished.
It was weeks since she had heard from Dutton, whose first letter had never been repeated, and she begun to believe that the headlong passion that had led him to force her, almost against her will, into marriage with him was as short-lived as it had been quickly kindled.
She remembered Bertie Du Meresq, who had appeared quite as desperate at first, and then had quietly transferred his affections to Cecil. Like the Psalmist, she could have "said in her heart, all men are liars."
Harry near—adoring—exigeant, could be an evil; but Harry away, engaged every thought; and if thinking of a person is the first step to love, he ought to have been satisfied with the way Bluebell was employing herself.
One evening she was sitting in her bed-room with the window open. There was a light breath of spring in the air though the nights were frosty. It was near midnight, and starlight, which has ever attractions for the young; later on, a warm fireside and creature comforts are more congenial. Archie, the dog, with his nose on his paws, bore her company; presently he gave a low growl, and pricked his ears—a moment after, Bluebell fancied she could hear the sound of wheels on the frosty ground. It became clearer and clearer; presently she could distinguish the red lights of a fly, and then she knew that Harry was come.
That his mission had been unsuccessful, she read at once in avoidance of her questioning eyes, yet, strange to say, it seemed of secondary importance. Dutton himself, for the first time, was of all-absorbing interest to Bluebell. His presence seemed to break the lethargic spell that had bound her, while no small detail of appearance and dress escaped her, even that his hair was parted differently. Dutton, who had dreaded the first meeting, was relieved by Bluebell's manner, and saw at once they were more en rapport. He was only too willing to procrastinate bad tidings, so it was not till the next day that she realized the whole fatal truth. Harry was going to the war with their marriage still unacknowledged.
He related, truthfully enough, his conversation with Lord Bromley. Even then, in her deep interest as to its result, Bluebell vaguely noticed the curious coincidence of his uncle also having disinherited a son, but, having a more dominant idea in her mind, that was left in a vacant corner, to crop up at some future time.
Dutton was vexed that she could not see he had no other alternative but silence.
"It would have been simply giving away 'The Towers' to have blurted it all out then."
To Bluebell's unsophisticated mind, honesty seemed more importunate than expediency.
"Then, if you do get 'The Towers' now, it will be on false pretences."
Harry reddened. He had all along been goaded by a vague sense of dishonour. "It's useless crying over spilt milk," exclaimed he, impatiently. "Now would have been the very worst time—just as he wants me to marry some one else. But when I come back—"
"Then he may be dead."
"By Jove! I think he has quite as good a chance of surviving me—not a shade of odds either way. Look here, Bluebell, I will write a letter containing a full confession, enclose our marriage certificate, and seal it with this ring he gave me. If anything happens, send it to him, and I believe he will take care of you, but not while I am alive."
"Send it to him at once, Harry."
"You used not to be so indifferent to poverty, Bluebell. You told me, in the steamer, that you had a longing for luxury and riches."
"Luxury and riches," echoed Bluebell, "seem as improbable as ever. I should like to be able to look my friends in the face."
But it was all in vain. Dutton, though remorseful, was obdurate; there was much to arrange, and he had only twenty-four hours to remain. Lord Bromley had omitted the accustomed parting cheque, which Harry had reckoned on, and money was scarce with the two young people.
"Will you go back to Canada, Bluebell, till the war is over, and I will send you all the money I can?"
"What, as Miss Leigh?"
And he could say no more. The same difficulty prevented her writing to the Rollestons, or any one else. Long and anxiously they talked over their dilemma; Dutton had only money enough to pay his bill at the cottage, and Bluebell was resolute to earn something for herself.
She answered an advertisement in the Times he had brought with him, naming, as reference, the mother of Evelyn Leighton. To her she also wrote, begging that any applicant might have the recommendation she had received of her from Mrs. Rolleston.
Dutton had gone, but expected to be able to return for a day or two before the fleet sailed, and Bluebell was left alone with her thoughts—too full of horrors for solitude to be endurable. Each night she dreamed of Harry, dying, and mangled by shot or shell, only to renew the vision in her waking hours; and, as she pictured such a termination to their brief married life, a vague tenderness took the place of her former apathy. The very weakness he had shown in concealing their marriage made him more a reality to her by giving her an insight into his nature—not an endearing trait, perhaps; yet sometimes the failing that one tries to counteract in the very effort it arouses awakens an interest.
Bluebell felt thankful that her hours at the cottage were numbered, for lately she had begun to fancy people looked askance at her, and the carpenter's wife had developed an inquisitiveness akin to impertinence.
Mrs. Leighton sent a very kind answer, assuring her of the recommendation as she had received it from Mrs. Rolleston. It was addressed to "Miss Leigh," and a crimson flush rose to her temples at the unpleasant smile with which the postmistress handed it across the counter. Harry, when he wrote, having posted it himself, ventured to address his letter to "Mrs. Dutton"; the only other she had received was from her mother, directed, as requested, to B. D. This letter had been rather distressing—filled with vague fears, inspired, she was sure, by Miss Opie, and conjuring her, with promises of inviolable secrecy, to reveal her name.
The lady whose advertisement she had answered, apparently attracted by her musical professions, replied immediately, and, the reference to Mrs. Leighton being satisfactory, she was shortly engaged at a fair salary.
Then Bluebell, writing the account to Canada, could not refrain from slipping in a private scrap to her mother, on which, in the strictest confidence, she acknowledged her wedded name. This circumstance, however, she did not mention to Harry when he returned on two days' leave, knowing he would be sceptical as to Mrs. Leigh's power of secrecy.
Of course he was relieved that she had an asylum provided, and equally, of course, raged inwardly at his wife's having to support herself in her maiden name. He was the more remorseful as Bluebell made no further allusion to it, and seemed more occupied with making the most of his last days.
But he only called himself a confounded rascal, and trusted things would come right in the end.
Bluebell was to remain one more night at the cottage after her husband left. Her wardrobe, though slender, was new, as it consisted of what Harry had bought at Liverpool. None of it was marked, as she remembered with satisfaction; so there was nothing to betray her but her wedding-ring. She removed and suspended it round her neck on a piece of ribbon. The miniature of Theodore Leigh, which had not been forgotten the day she eloped, was also carefully secreted in a trunk.
The bill was paid, the fly at the door. One tender parting only remained; this was with Archie, who had sprung into it after her, for he and Bluebell had become inseparable. They could scarcely drag him away, and she buried her face a minute in his rough coat with almost equal regret.
"Would you like to keep him, ma'am?" said the carpenter's wife.
"I cannot now, but when Mr. Dutton comes back, and we are settled, will you let me have him?"
"Ah, well," said the woman, half disappointed, for she did not care for Archie, "ye'll have forgotten all about it by then."
CHAPTER XXXV.
A DISCOVERY.
Or childhood's tale is told;
Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.
Bluebell was settled in her new abode, about fifteen miles from London: and certainly few governesses have the luck to drop into a more sunshiny home. Only two little girls, pleasantly disposed; no banishment to the school-room. They all mingled sociably together after lessons were over,—walked, drove in an Irish car, or played croquet and gardened as the spring advanced.
Mr. Markham was a barrister in London, and came down to dinner most days—not always, though; and his wife, still a young woman, was glad enough to find a companion in Bluebell. Beauty, too, unless it excites jealousy, is agreeable to look at, and she soon became interested in the young Canadian. But after a while she was puzzled by her. There was a far-off, touching look in her eyes that had come there since marriage, and she was reserved about herself, though the stiffness of first acquaintance had long ago given way to affectionate intimacy. For a girl apparently so frank to be at the same time so guarded suggested something to be concealed. Mrs. Markham, being a woman, could not refrain from speculating about it. She had elicited many lively descriptions of Bluebell's life in Canada, and the children were never weary of sleighing and toboggining stories. But these were general subjects; her narratives were never personal ones.
"By-the-bye," observed Mrs. Markham, one day, "how strange it was that poor child, Evelyn Leighton, dying just as you were going there! Her mother told me of it when she enclosed Mrs. Rolleston's letter. But you arrived in October, I think. Where were you those few months?"
"I was staying with a friend," replied Bluebell; but her hand shook and she became crimson.
Mrs. Markham did not fail to note this, and suspected that during that friendly visit some love passages might have arisen. "She seems very sensitive about it," thought the kind lady. "I will get her to tell me some day. It is such a shame ignoring that sort of thing with governesses, just as if it were a crime! And if there is really anything, he might come and see her here sometimes."
But Bluebell remained nervous and out of spirits the rest of that day.
One morning they were sitting together in the pleasant drawing-room; the children had a holiday, and were playing with their dogs out of doors; Mrs. Markham was colouring a design for her flower-beds, and lamenting the non-arrival of some seeds the postman was to have brought. "The year is getting on," murmured the aggrieved lady; "they really ought to be sown, and it is such a lovely day for gardening."
"Let me go to Barton and fetch them," cried Bluebell, who was always ready for a walk. "I shall be there and back before luncheon."
"Would you really?" said Mrs. Markham. "But it looks so hot! Are you sure you don't mind?" And declaring it was the thing of all others she should enjoy, Bluebell set off.
It was one of those glorious, sultry days that sometimes occur early in the year, when summer seems actually to have arrived for the season—a delusion invariably dispelled by the biting blasts of the blackthorn winter. Lovely as it appeared it was a very oppressive day for a long walk; the white, glaring road seemed endless, and she half repented her offer.
Bluebell was scarcely so strong as she had been, and, having to hurry a good deal to be back in time for luncheon, was quite pale and exhausted on re-entering the drawing-room, prize in hand.
The second post was on the table, and the girl stopped short in the midst of a message from the seedsman, for a deep black-edged envelope, addressed to herself, caught her eye. Mrs. Markham observed her with furtive anxiety. It is terrible to watch the opening of a letter evidently containing sad tidings, yet she was hardly prepared to see Bluebell, after perusing it drop prone on the ground as though she were shot, her forehead striking against the table in the fall. Ringing the bell, Mrs. Markham flew to her assistance, and, unfastening the collar of her dress, something was disclosed to view which gave that lady a second sensational shock, more thrilling than the first. Hurriedly she closed the dress again, despatching for water a sympathetic servant who had just entered, then swiftly, dexterously, possessed herself of a ribbon encircling the girl's throat, on which hung a wedding-ring.
Bluebell recovered only to fall from one fainting fit into another. Her strength had been exhausted by the walk, and she had none to bear up against the shock that awaited her. The letter was from Miss Opie, announcing Mrs. Leigh's sudden death, after a few hours' illness. Inside, and unopened, was returned Bluebell's private enclosure revealing her married name.
A year ago this child had been innocent of the existence of nerves, but, from the trying scenes she had lately gone through, they were now so shattered that she was unable to rally. The doctor kept her in bed at first, recommended absolute quiet, and exhausted his formula with as beneficial a result as could be expected considering it attacked the secondary cause only, and was impotent to heal the suffering mind reacting upon the body. Bluebell continued in a torpid condition, scarcely giving any signs of life. One day, Mrs. Markham, who nursed her with unremitting zeal, quickened, perhaps, by the interest of her discovery, observed the patient's hand steal to her neck, and then she glanced uneasily about, as if seeking for something.
They were alone, so Mrs. Markham whispered in a low, cautious tone, "I have it quite safe, locked up in my desk. No one knows of it but myself." An apprehensive look dilated the large, sad eyes, succeeded by an expression of contented resignation. She did not perceptibly improve, her mind was incessantly trying to realize what had happened, and was haunted by a morbid conviction that the anxiety induced by her own strange marriage might have precipitated the sad event, for Miss Opie's letter did not soften the fact that Mrs. Leigh had fretted greatly about it. Still she expressly said that she had succumbed to an epidemic that had already gleaned many victims.
It was, after all, many days before Mrs. Markham remembered the seeds she had been so anxious to obtain, but one favourable afternoon, she set diligently to work to lay the foundation for summer flowers. Though the "even tenour" of her life did not afford much scope for its indulgence, this lady was not devoid of a certain spice of romance. She was also of an independent character, and in the habit of judging for herself on most matters, and had decided not to betray Bluebell's secret to her spouse.
"Men are prejudiced and unpracticable on some points," she soliloquized, "and though I am quite satisfied that the poor girl is married, he may choose to doubt it, or think we had better get out of her. Her illness was entirely occasioned by the shock, so there really is no necessity to explain my little accidental discovery."
But the plot was thickening, for that morning there arrived a letter from Mrs. Leighton written in great perturbation, to the effect that she had heard some very uncomfortable reports about Miss Leigh. Her information was derived from the captain's wife at Liverpool, to whom she had written on Bluebell's obtaining a situation, supposing that, as they had shown her so much kindness, they would feel interested in the fact. But she had received in return a most extraordinary letter from Mrs. Davidson, stating that Miss Leigh had eloped from their house, leaving only a letter containing an improbable story about going to be married, without even mentioning to whom. Her husband, to be sure, had his suspicions as to the lover, but the name had escaped her memory, and Captain Davidson was at sea.
Now Mrs. Markham began to feel her innocent complicity becoming a little embarrassing. It was rather awkward keeping a suspected person about the children. Her husband would be in fits if he knew it, but, however imprudent of Bluebell to elope, she still saw no reason to doubt the marriage. Had she not the wedding-ring in proof of it?
So as she worked and planted, unavoidably decimating a worm here and turning up an ants nest there, she conned it all over.
"The child must really tell me her secrets, or I can do nothing. I will get her out for a drive; sitting alone in one room, as that demented old Chivers prescribes, is the worst thing for a nervous complaint."
So the next fine morning she ordered the car, and, going to the governess's room, asked her, in a matter-of-course manner, to put on her hat and come out.
Bluebell had just received a visit from the local practitioner, who had reiterated his assurances that "we wanted tone, and had better adhere to the iron mixture; that we must not exert ourselves, and must be sure to lie down a great deal," etc.; but she assented to Mrs. Markham's proposal with the same indifference with which she had listened to Esculapius.
They drove on for some distance through a straggling village, with its ivied church guarded by sentinel cypresses, children were playing about with hands full of cowslips, and lilac bushes blossomed within cottage palings. A little beyond they turned into Sir Thomas Farquhar's park, where young rooks were cawing, unwitting of their predestined pastried tomb. On entering a long, shady avenue, Mrs. Markham pulled the horse up to a walk, and said quietly,—"When were you married, Miss Leigh?"
Perhaps this question had not been unexpected since the little episode of the ring, for, with equal calmness, Bluebell replied,—"The last week in November, at Liverpool."
Mrs. Markham felt a triumphant thrill. She would now hear the solution of the mystery that had been exercising her imaginative powers for some weeks. She poured forth question after question. Yet, at the end of half-an-hour, not only had she failed to extort Dutton's name, but had even entangled herself in a promise of inviolable silence as to the only admitted fact.
She had insisted, threatened, got angry; Bluebell sorrowfully offered to go, but remained firm.
"Well, keep your secret, then," cried Mrs. Markham, at last, abandoning the contest; "but I shall find it out if I can. And I must take care that Walter doesn't," thought she, with a mischievous chuckle, for that gentleman, many years older than his wife, was a servile worshipper of Mrs. Grundy, and his hair would have stood on end had he known that he was harbouring a young lady with such suspicious antecedents. Besides her personal liking for Bluebell, Mrs. Markham recollected that if dismissed at this juncture she could scarcely recommend her to any other situation, and then what would become of the poor thing? But what puzzled her most was the total disappearance of the husband to whom she had been so very lately married.
A clue to this, however, she believed herself to have obtained on observing that Bluebell never failed to study the daily papers with an avidity unusual at her age.
"He must be in the army and gone to the Crimea," thought she. "Poor thing! how dreadful! Some day she will see him in the list of killed and wounded."
Some little time after, Bluebell, who had in a great measure recovered her strength, came to her room, and said, with frank, open eyes,—"May I go to Barton and post a letter to my husband?"
A very warm assent drew forth the heartfelt exclamation,—"How I wish I could tell you all, my dear Mrs. Markham."
Without that information, it was not so easy to answer Mrs. Leighton's letter, which she did eventually in very guarded terms, stating that she had proof of the marriage having taken place, but could say no more, except that, "being much pleased with Miss Leigh, she intended to keep her, especially as the children were very much under her own eye, and seldom alone with their governess."
Mr. Markham was generally the first down, and was rather addicted to a curious inspection of the post-mark on the family correspondence, neatly placed by each recipient's plate.
His wife one morning found him standing over a large ship letter directed to the governess, with somewhat the expression of distrustful pugnacity with which a dog walks round a hedgehog.
"Is that for Miss Leigh?" said she, carelessly.
"Yes," with much solemnity. "Apparently she has a correspondent in the Navy. It is not a sort of thing I like, and I must say I have often thought Miss Leigh too young and flighty for me."
"Oh, I believe she is engaged, poor girl!" said Mrs. Markham, slipping out a white one. "And she gets the children on beautifully. You thought Emma already so improved in playing."
"Well if you know all about it, that's another thing. I trust she doesn't put nonsense in the children's heads. Emma is getting very forward and inquisitive."
His wife felt secretly excited, for she was sure this letter must be from the errant husband, especially as the governess would not read it in public, but pocketed it with a slight nervousness of manner.
Time passed on, and Mrs. Markham had discovered nothing.
Bluebell, in her diligent revision of the papers, found much of personal interest. Colonel Rolleston's regiment had been ordered home to proceed to the Crimea, and she well knew the anxiety his family must be enduring.
It seemed cold and ungrateful to be unable to write one word of sympathy to Mrs. Rolleston, but any renewal of intercourse must lead to explanations, and it was her cruel fate to be able to give none. One other name, too, she saw in the public print that ought no longer to have had the power to thrill her as it did. Well, it was not so long ago, after all: but, however mentally disquieted we leave our heroine, as she has now drifted, outwardly, into a peaceful haven, we must return to others in the narrative who have more to do.