Bluebell Part 46

Immured in shameful privity?

--Unknown.

Bluebell, a lonely little recluse at the cottage, seemed to have pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sion 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 p.r.i.c.ked 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 sh.e.l.l, 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, a.s.suring 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 sc.r.a.p to her mother, on which, in the strictest confidence, she acknowledged her wedded name. This circ.u.mstance, 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 x.x.xV.

A DISCOVERY.

There woman's voice flows forth in song, Or childhood's tale is told; Or lips move tunefully along Some glorious page of old.

--Hemans.

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 pa.s.sages 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."