Bluebell Part 22

"You have only got to look at Bluebell Leigh. Well, slope back to them, Jack. You shan't have the boat, because I should never get it again. But if you like to plough through that long gra.s.s to their bivouac, I daresay the mosquitoes will receive you warmly if the young ladies don't."

In the meantime, Bluebell, tempted by a shady creek, abandoned her canoe, and, flinging herself down on a bed of wild flowers, remained a prey to the consideration of this new view of Lilla's, which would account, in the most unwelcome manner, for the inconsistency of Du Meresq's conduct with his professions.

Cecil a rival! Much as she wished to disbelieve it, corroborative evidence, unheeded at the time, now recurred with such startling distinctness that she marvelled at her own previous blindness. Still, Bluebell was not cured. That he cared most for herself she continued to believe, though Cecil's fortune might have tempted him away. Plan after plan for obtaining an explanation was discarded as unfeasible; and, at last, Bluebell, in despair, hid her face in her hands, and burst into the unrestrained grief of the young.

She was disturbed by a slight rustling in the bushes, and, looking up, beheld Jack Vavasour in an att.i.tude of confusion and consternation, apparently meditating flight.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Leigh; I was going away before you saw me. I'll go at once. My darling Bluebell, what _is_ the matter?"

"I don't know," said she, relieved to see it was "only Jack." "I am very hot and--miserable."

Vavasour sat down, and tried in his honest and unsophisticated way to console her. "Was there any one he could pitch into for her? He would do anything she wished, etc., if she would only say what was vexing her."

Bluebell could hardly help laughing, but was so unaccustomed of late to sympathy, that she felt half tempted to take him into council, and confide her misplaced attachment and perplexities.

It was rather heartless, knowing his sentiments; but callousness to the pangs of a lightly won and unvalued heart is not uncommon in Love's annals.

However, he was too precipitate for her.

"Bluebell," he began, blushing rather, and looking, as she thought, almost handsome in his eagerness, "do you remember what I said to you the other night when we were looking at the Northern Lights?"

"I remember some absurd chaff."

"It wasn't," said Jack, with emphasis suited to the solemnity of the declaration. "I meant every word of it; and now I say, like the Beast in the fairy tale--'Beauty, will you marry me?'"

"And she always said,--'No, Beast,'" said Bluebell, laughing; "and then he went away, 'very sorrowful.'"

"Yes, but that's the difference. I shan't go away, or let you, till you say 'Yes.'"

"I couldn't, really," said she, treating it as a joke. "So we shall be starved to death, and covered up by birds, like the babes in the wood."

"No; we will live happy ever afterwards," pa.s.sing an arm round her waist with an air of proprietorship. "Shall I tell Colonel Rolleston to-night?"

"Oh, this is too serious," cried Bluebell, energetically freeing herself.

"If you really want an answer to such stuff, most decidedly 'No.'"

Jack, in furious mortification, for he saw she was now thoroughly in earnest, poured forth reproaches, accusing her of coquetry and purposely deceiving him, caring not if his words were just or unjust; and Bluebell's conscience was not altogether guiltless. Perhaps her own disappointment made her better understand his; for she waited patiently till the torrent of words had a little subsided, and then, laying her hand persuasively on his arm, said with gentle archness,--

"Don't be angry, Jack. What should we live on? _I_ haven't a penny, _you_ can't always pay your mess bill, and I am afraid an officer's wife couldn't go on the strength of the regiment, and take in washing."

"I didn't think you were so mercenary," said he, looking into her liquid eyes, that were fast quenching the angry light in his.

"I suppose I must be," said Bluebell, _naively_; "for I hate poverty so.

You know my father married--just as you want to do--a pretty girl without a dollar to her name."

"You are pretty, my darling, and you know it," said Jack, bitterly.

"I don't know why people care for me if I am not, for I'm afraid there isn't much in me; and at the age of seventeen one may at least lay claim to _la beaute du diable_. Well, as I was going to say, my father married just as imprudently, and got disinherited for his pains."

"No fear of that with me," said Jack. "I am number seven, and they have all good const.i.tutions. Destiny has decreed that I must live by my wits, without even providing me with any."

"So you see," continued she, "as we have neither money nor brains, it is no use thinking of it!"

"You are wise in your generation," said Jack, darkly. "You are pretty enough to get a rich husband any day; but whoever it is, for Heaven's sake, don't let it be Du Meresq!"

Bluebell's fair brow contracted, and her dark lashes swept her cheek, as she said, in a low, pained voice,--"No fear of that."

"I trust not," said Jack, severely, and quite unconvinced. "You are but a child, Bluebell; and, though you won't take me, I shall watch over you, and see that you do not throw yourself away; though if any good fellow wants you, I suppose I must grin and bear it."

"Thanks, my stern guardian. I hope you won't die of old age in the mean time. And now, do go, dear Jack. I must paddle after the others."

"Say good-bye first. May I, Bluebell? Only this once,"--and, without waiting for consent, he imprinted a kiss, grave as an officiating priest's to a new made bride. Touched by his love and resignation she voluntarily returned it, and, turning away, encountered the two mischievous eyes of Miss Tremaine in the stern of her boat, which had glided up un.o.bserved.

I suppose there is no dereliction from the Eleventh Commandment, in which people would more joyfully welcome an earthquake than being taken at a similar disadvantage. No explanation or extenuating circ.u.mstances can be attempted in that deep confusion.

Lilla raised her eyes to heaven with a most edifying expression of pious horror, and shook her head disapprovingly.

"Jack," muttered Bluebell, in a tone of concentrated anguish, "I shall die of it!"

Vavasour suppressed an expletive more forcible than parliamentary, and strode down to pull the boat in.

"Oh, here you are," cried Cecil, innocent of the foregoing pantomime, for she was rowing, and had her back to them. "Mr. Vavasour, where do you spring from?" She noted, as she spoke, his strange expression and Bluebell's heightened colour with quickening curiosity and pleasure.

"I left Fane further down the river," said he; "and Miss Leigh and I sat listening to the--bull-frogs." Here Jack cast a look half-imploring, half-furious, at Lilla, who had a.s.sumed a most Quakerish expression, and hummed the air, "A frog he would a wooing go."

"Well, get in Bluebell," said Cecil, smiling; "we are going home now.

Come and see us soon, Mr. Vavasour."

Jack liked Cecil very much; but he only bowed gloomily, and placing Bluebell in her canoe, disappeared, as might be inferred, to Fane; though afterwards that gentleman bitterly complained that he had, on returning home,--after waiting, to his great inconvenience, an hour or more, anathematizing Jack,--found that he had walked back to barracks totally oblivious of his companion.

Bluebell's return drive was far from a peaceful one. Lilla, it is true, abstained from remarks before the children; but there was no escaping her provokingly wicked glances, which argued ill for her future discretion.

Cecil, on the contrary, was unusually suave and considerate to Bluebell, and had rather the air of shielding her from Lilla; which would have been less incomprehensible had she known that in the interval of disembarking and entering the waggonette, Cecil had been made a partic.i.p.ator in that malicious damsel's discovery.

At bed-time, Miss Rolleston, contrary to her wont, entered Bluebell's room, hair-brush in hand, as if disposed for a cozy confab. But that employment, so provocative of feminine disclosures, appeared futile this night, and the raven and chestnut coils were brushed to the sheen of a bird's wing ere Cecil had discovered what she had come for.

At last, under cover of lighting her candle, she said, with a disarming smile,--"You are very reserved, Bluebell. May I guess what Lubin said to you in the Humber, to-day?"

"I dare say you can," said the other, simply. "He will forget all about it soon, I trust."

"Do you mean you gave him no hope?" a suspicion of Lilla's veracity mingling with her disappointment.

"Certainly not," with great energy.

"But why?" asked Cecil, with asperity.

Bluebell turned her melancholy eyes full upon her, and the two rivals gazed steadily at each other. Then Cecil's head was impatiently flung back, her level eyebrows went down, and, without further remark, she rose and left the room.