Mrs. George Croft Huddleston - Bluebell

M >> Mrs. George Croft Huddleston >> Bluebell

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

CHAPTER VI.

VISITORS.

In aught that from me lures thine eyes
My jealousy has trial;
The lightest cloud across the skies
Has darkness for the dial.
--Lord Lytton.

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."

CHAPTER VII.

THE GARRISON SLEIGH CLUB.

'T were a pity when flowers around us rise,
To make light of the rest, if the rose be not there;
And the world is so rich in resplendent eyes,
'T were a pity to limit one's love to a pair.
--Moore.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER VIII.

FIXING UP A PRANCE.

"'Tis over,
The valse, the quadrille, and the song,
The whispered farewell of the lover;
The heartless adieu of the throng,
The heart that was throbbing with pleasure;
The eyelid that longed for repose,
The beaux that were dreaming of treasure.
The girls that were dreaming of beaux."
--Edward Firzgerald.

Before they got to the Tremaines' house, Bertie drove up with Miss Lilla,
who was "quite dry now, thank you; not worth while bringing all the
sleighs up to the door." More than one curious observer noticed the
panting flanks of the horse, who scarcely looked as if he had been
resting in a stable. To be sure, the delinquents _had_ done that last
mile rather fast, to nick in and meet the party before they should make
inconvenient inquiries at Mr. Tremaine's,--Bertie, who was as good a
mimic as his mother, enhancing the fright of his fair companion by an
improvisation of the scene that would probably take place supposing
they were too late to prevent it, and further convulsing her with a
travesty of his brother-in-law in his most imposing attitude of stately
displeasure.

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