Bluebell Part 26

The few plat.i.tudes he attempted might have been the most sparkling wit from the animation with which they were received. Surprised to find himself so agreeable, he lingered by her side. Crickey, expecting him every minute to fall back, remained by Bluebell, so poor Coey trudged behind, and began to experience what jealousy was.

After a while, the others tried to bring her into the conversation by appeals to her opinion, but Coey was not to be so easily propitiated, and returned austere answers.

Then Bernard, thinking he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, became all the more engrossed with his captivator, and it was in at one of strong discontent that he exclaimed, as they were returning,--"Why, there's Alec and Janet Cameron coming down to the house!"

Their unexpected arrival was rather a relief to the Palmer girls, Bluebell only saw more mischief before her, but Bernard's impatience at the sight of Alec whose motive for coming he easily guessed, was quite undisguised.

The latter accounted for himself by saying "that Janet wished to make Miss Rolleston's acquaintance, and, therefore, he had accompanied her."

"Oh, I am not Miss Rolleston," said Bluebell, "I am the governess."

"I have had the advantage of seeing the governess," said Alec, demurely, "and she is old enough to be your mother."

"But I am the musical one and Freddy is my pupil entirely."

"Are you really?" said he, brightening "Then you _like_ music?"

"I am sure that is not a necessary consequence," said Bluebell, rather mystified by the meaning tone of his voice, but Alec, believing she had heard his nocturnal serenade and a.s.suming a secret understanding on the strength of it, lingered by her side talking in an undertone--really about nothing in particular, for, like most spoony boys, he trusted more to his eyes than his tongue. Still it had all the effect of a flirtation, and when the girls went upstairs to prepare for tea, Bluebell found herself quite out of court without the support of the other s.e.x. Coey was already turned into a very belligerent little ring-dove, and Janet watched her askance, for she had never before known Alec so keen about partaking of tea at Palmer's Landing. Crickey, whose feelings were not so powerfully engaged, supplied her with toilette requisites, and such conversation as hospitality demanded.

Bluebell was rather flattered by the apprehension she excited, and, with mischievous ostentation, produced from her pocket a weapon of war in the shape of a blue ribbon, and began weaving it into her chestnut fuzz, too naturally wavy and long to require frizettes. Coey, who was rather pretty in the white kitten style, had spa.r.s.e pale hair, never properly combed over her "water fall," as she called it, which obtruded itself like a crow's nest. This attractive peculiarity was more apparent than ever to-day, the frizette having been caught by a bough in the woods.

Bluebell observed that her decorative preparations were restricted to a dab of violet-powder on her nose, and a slight application of lip-salve.

"I can't let her go down such a figure," thought she, "though she is dreadfully angry with me," and, seizing a comb, began silently to effect a reformation in Coey's _chevelure_.

"Oh, thank you," said the other distantly. "Isn't it right? Never mind.

Dressing is such a waste of time."

"Hugger-muggering with Bernard is not, I suppose?" thought Bluebell, resolutely continuing her task.

But it was Janet's turn to be angry, when, at tea that evening, utterly oblivious of the vacant chair next herself, her faithless swain manoeuvred into one next Bluebell.

"Are you fond of music by moonlight?" he took the first opportunity of whispering.

"I like it anywhere," replied she, innocently. "I can't say I ever heard it by moonlight."

Much discomfited, Alec gazed incredulously, and then burst out laughing.

Bluebell naturally inquired what she had said to amuse him; but he evaded the question, as Janet was evidently listening. Later on, when the former was at the piano, and he pretending to turn over, he whispered,--"I wonder under whose window I was making such a lovely noise the other night?"

"How should I know? And why did you do it?"

"I wanted to give you a welcome to the Lake; but perhaps I serenaded that vinegar-faced governess instead."

Bluebell was playing rather a pathetic sonata; but the time got decidedly erratic, as she stared bewildered at Alec, and then went off into a fit of laughing. "How could you be such a goose? If Colonel Rolleston had been at home, he would have fired his ten-shooter at you."

"Tell me which is your window," he whispered, "and I'll give you plenty of music by moonlight. I hope it is the one with the balcony."

"Why?"

"Because," said Alec, audaciously, "you would look so beautiful stepping out on it, like Julia in 'Guy Mannering.' And we could talk, you know."

"Very well," said Bluebell, who opined it was about time to shut him up.

"Suppose we refer it to Miss Cameron. I understand your heart and accomplishments are all made over to her. Perhaps she would a.s.sist at the balcony scene!"

Alec bit his lip, and looked rather ashamed. Such a rebuff would not have embarra.s.sed Bertie, nor awakened in him a slumbering conscience, as it did in this young lumberer, who was ridiculous enough to be in earnest in his infidelity.

But Bluebell, knowing she had no quarter to expect from the girls if she returned to them now, was far from wishing to bring him to a sense of his duty before the evening was over, so smiled as engagingly as ever, and continued to accept his attentions, till Janet, fizzing in high dudgeon, announced her intention of going home, which, of course, involved the escort of her recreant young man.

"Wait here a quarter of an hour," whispered Alec to Bluebell, "and I will run back and row you home."

"Gracious, no!" said she, with rather the sensation of a child who has been sent out to spend the afternoon and has misbehaved. "Here is Mrs.

Rolleston's servant come for me. Go back with Miss Janet and make it up, for I am never going to speak to you again,"--and she turned away to make her adieux to Mrs. Palmer, a motherly-looking old lady, who had been nodding half asleep on the sofa all the time.

"Such a charming musical evening--such a treat!" said she, brisking up, and quite unaware of what had been pa.s.sing round her the last two hours.

"Miss Leigh was quite untireable," sneered Janet. "One could not have _asked_ her to exert herself so much."

"Must you really go?" interposed Crickey, fearing now the music was over the harmony might cease also.

Bluebell pleaded a promise to return early.

"I am sorry to be the means of taking away any attraction that might have induced you to stay," put in Janet, determined to give her "one" before she went.

"Thank you," said Bluebell, sweetly, declining to understand; "but I could scarcely expect you to stay to amuse me."

"That, I feel sure, would be quite out of my power!" said the other, bent on provocation; and Crickey nervously dragged Bluebell away to get her hat.

Alec lingered till she was fairly off, fearing that Bernard would try and escort her home. He, however, was thoroughly sulky at the way Gough had monopolized her the whole evening, and was quite as ready as Coey to p.r.o.nounce her an arrant flirt; which so mollified the latter, that when, a few days later, she and her sister were asked to return Bluebell's visit at Lyndon's Landing, she accepted without the slightest hesitation, in a perfectly charitable frame of mind.

Alec and Janet, of course, quarrelled going home; but it being not the first time by a good many, it blew over without a rupture, the gentleman, for the future, cautiously avoiding Bluebell's name, though he tried all he knew to meet her alone, in which respect Fortune did not favour him; and there being no more efficient chaperons than children, with their sharp observation and fatal habit of repet.i.tion, they might meet every day on the blue water without his obtaining more than a saucy glance or a few commonplace words, which he would try and put as much meaning into as he could.

CHAPTER XX.

THE PRINCE PHILANDER.

A division of souls may take place without a word being exchanged. One reminded of those mists that rise into a cool stratum of air soon to redescend in flakes of snow....

--Human Sadness.

The day that the Misses Palmer were to spend at Lyndon's Landing turned to rain in the afternoon. The children had a half-holiday, and so the weather was a double misfortune; and after "What shall we do?" had been asked in every minor key of querulous despondency, they eventually grouped themselves, some sitting, some lying on buffalo robes scattered on the floor, and demanded stories from the elder girls. From the darkness of the sky, twilight had come earlier, and Freddy had closed the curtains, to give greater mystery to the fairy lore they were invoking.

Previous to this they had had a grand dressing up and a fancy ball.

Crickey retained the turban and Indian table-cloth which had been her "make-up" as an "Eastern Princess." Freddy was a wild beast; and Lola, by dint of a long pair of military boots, seal-skin gloves, and "pretending very much," was "Puss in Boots." The old nurse's cap and spectacles were, with a peaked hat, the salient points of a "Mother Hubbard." But they were tired of it now, and no sound was heard except the sullen moan of the storm on the lake, and the voice of Bluebell, half-inventing and half-relating from memory.

"And so the Princess remained in the strong tower of the Giant Jealousy; for though the doors were all open, and you would suppose she had nothing to do but walk out and be free, yet if she did get a little way some invisible power always drew her back again, after which the Giant seemed more tormenting than ever. For no one could really release her but the Prince Philander, whom she loved, and he only by remaining true to her alone (which, perhaps, was not always the case, and that was how she had strayed into Castle Jealousy), and coming himself and overthrowing the Giant, who would then be instantly dissolved into smoke, and--"