Bluebell Part 51

"Where does this _rara avis_ hail from? I never clapped eyes on such a beauty--Miss Seraphin is not a patch on her!"

"Don't be so noisy, dear--Miss Leigh? Yes I heard she was nice-looking."

"Nice-looking!" echoed Kate, contemptuously. "Just wait till you see her.

She will be focused by every eye-gla.s.s in Brighton when she takes the children out for their const.i.tutional."

"Dear me! I hope she is a proper kind of person."

"She looks rather in the Lady Audley style--and such a complexion! I could have sworn it was painted if it had not varied so. Now I think of it," said Kate, with _malice prepense_, "she is not at all unlike the photographs, of--,"--naming some one of whose existence she had no business to have been aware.

"It really is too bad of Mrs. Markham not having mentioned this," cried Mrs. Barrington, as if Bluebell had been convicted of a crime. "It is most unpleasant having so _voyante_ a person about the children!"

"Oh, what does it matter," said Kate, heedlessly; "you have no grown up sons. And she seems awfully nice. She has a face with a history in it, though. I shall try and make her out to-morrow. No one is ever so innocent as she looks."

Kate's admiration was still further excited next day as she listened to Bluebell's singing.

"You never heard anything like it, mamma--she could fill Covent Garden; and she composes too. I wonder if she has ever been on the stage?"

Less appreciative was the judgment of the erudite Mabel, who reported Miss Leigh unable to continue her arithmetic beyond the decimal fractions she had attained to with Miss Steele. "In fact," said the child, with deep contempt, "I don't believe she has ever-gone beyond the rule of three herself."

Indeed, the exact sciences were not Bluebell's _specialite_, who now employed many a perplexed hour trying with Sievier's Arithmetic to work herself up a little ahead of this precocious pupil. Fortunately she was tolerably strong in history, having gone through a regular course with the little Markhams; but it was evident, notwithstanding, that Mabel and Adela pretty accurately gauged her acquirements, and held them proportionably cheap.

Kate, too, had become somewhat of a tease. I don't know what led her to suspect that the governess had something to conceal, but she was perpetually putting questions most difficult for her to answer; the incitement being the pleasure of watching, from an artistic point of view, the beauty of Bluebell's ever-ready blushes while essaying to parry her tormentor's inquisitorial efforts.

This cat-and-mouse game would go on till the victim, turning to bay, was on the point of desperately asking, "What she wished to find out?" Then Kate would veil her eyes, and look all innocent indifference. Observing the avidity with which she pounced on newspapers, Miss Barrington one day secreted them, much entertained by watching the governess circling round the room, glancing on every table or couch they were likely to have been thrown on.

"Try behind the sofa cushion, Miss Leigh."

Bluebell started, vexed at being observed, and also at this proof of _espionnage_ on her actions, but a little later she fell into more serious self betrayal. They were trying over songs in a locked ma.n.u.script book.

"Dear me, what is this air? I know it so well," she cried, incautiously humming it.

"A sea song of my cousin, Harry Dutton's. I had no idea any one else possessed a copy."

There was no answer. She looked up, the blood had rushed over Bluebell's cheek and brow, her lips were apart, and eyes wide open and bright with wonder. Before she could drop a mask over the too eloquent face, Kate's keen eyes were reading her off.

"You know him, I see," with emphasis.

Bluebell, recovering presence of mind, with a desperate effort, replied calmly,--"There was a Mr. Dutton, who came home in the same steamer.

Probably I may have heard him whistling the air."--then sat down, and plunged into an instrumental piece, feeling quite unequal to endure further questioning.

But the notes all the time seemed incessantly repeating, "So this is the Cousin Kate he was always talking about."'

Miss Barrington's mind was equally busy.

"I bet Harry flirted with her all the way across, and he never told me a word of it--never so much as mentioned that there was a pretty girl in the ship, and yet she admitted knowing his favourite air 'so well.'"

Then Kate remembered the many unaccounted for weeks between his landing in England and arrival at "The Towers," and her former suspicion that some love affair had intervened.

At first she had only been provoked to curiosity by Bluebell's reserve, but now there really was food for imagination to work on, and perhaps the clue to much that was perplexing in Harry. How curiously it had come out!

The artless Kate smiled re-a.s.suringly at her victim. She was on the track now, and the rabbit might have as much chance of ultimately evading the weasel hunting him by scent.

"What perverse fate has brought me here?" sighed Bluebell, laying her tormented head on the pillow that night. "Miss Barrington will be sure to find out everything. She was so friendly at first; but Harry always said he never trusted her. Then those children! I am sure they are more capable of teaching me. Whenever shall I be extricated from this false position?"

A night's rest did not allay Bluebell's perplexities; on the contrary, more and more complications suggested themselves. Harry must know where she was by this time, and would be frantic at her having dropped into such an ants'-nest. They would recognise his handwriting, too, if a letter came. To be sure that would also strike him. Nevertheless she got into the habit of calling for her letters at the post-office,--a proceeding which the children did not fail to mention, with the rider, "That they wondered at Miss Leigh taking the trouble when she never got any."

Kate was rather inclined to patronize Bluebell. She persuaded her mother to give a musical party for the exhibition of her wonderful voice, and was, on that occasion, quite as solicitous about the young artiste's toilette as her own; and, being not averse to having a girl of her own age to chatter to, bestowed a good deal of her society on Bluebell out of school-hours, which might have been more appreciated were it not for the excessive caution it entailed on the latter.

One day she heard that Mrs. and Miss Barrington were going to Bromley Towers for some theatricals and other gaieties. After her discovery of whose house she was in, that was only a matter of course, and she had only to conceal all interest in it.

Kate was to take a part in one of the plays, and pa.s.sed the intervening time in getting it by heart, and rehearsing with Bluebell, while the necessary costume was animatedly discussed between them. The latter fancied she had attained sufficient self-command to listen unconcernedly to any conversation about Lord Bromley or "The Towers," but she could not quench the beaming delight in her eyes when Kate one day observed, carelessly,--

"I believe you will see the play, after all, Miss Leigh, as mamma has decided to take Mabel and Adela, which means you also; for Uncle Bromley has rather a horror of children, and would no more have any of the juveniles of the family without a keeper, than he would admit a pack of hounds into the house. Why, Miss Leigh, you look delightful! Do you really care to go?" Then her suspicions awakening, she set a trap like lightning.

"I wonder" (carelessly) "if poor Harry Dutton will get back in time. He is invalided home from Scutari."

Self-command--everything--vanished.

"How did you hear that?" with crimson cheeks and suspiciously dimmed eyes.

"How?" with marked emphasis. "Would it not be stranger if one had not heard it? Uncle Bromley named it in his letter. He was wounded,"

bringing out the words slowly, "and almost died in the hospital. I hope he will survive the voyage home."

"That girl's a fiend," thought Bluebell, rushing off to her own room in a paroxysm of terror. Then, as she tried to think it out, it became quite evident Harry could not be aware of her change of residence, perhaps had received no letters at the hospital, and would not even know where to find her when he returned. Still, she would be in the right direction, for no doubt he would go to Bromley Towers. But what a place to meet in!

And, being ignorant of his address, she could not even send a line of warning.

Romantic notions of fascinating Lord Bromley, and thus facilitating confession when Harry returned, stole through her brain. Kate's play paled in dramatic interest to the possible "situations" that seemed impending. One drawback to taming the lion was the probability of scarcely being on speaking terms with him. Her mission, indeed, seemed to be to keep the children _out_ of his way. But there were the theatricals; children, servants, governesses even, would be privileged to look on that one night. The coquette nature, dormant from want of practice, awoke again. Lord Bromley was only a man! Why couldn't she make him like her?

Kate observed renewed smiles and animation, and set it down to the hope of seeing Dutton at "The Towers," especially as she also detected her doing what maids call "a little work for myself," and effecting wonders with a few yards of muslin and ruffling.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

THE LOAN OF A LOVER.

Parks with oak and chestnut shady, Parks and ordered gardens great, Ancient homes of lord and lady, Built for pleasure and for state.

--Tennyson.

This was Bluebell's first acquaintance with a really grand English park, and, during the long drive through it, she gazed in wondering delight at the stately trees, heavy with summer foliage, the herds of deer, the calm lake, with kingly swans gliding over it. Perhaps her greatest surprise was that all this fair domain belonged to one individual. Why, the richest "boss" in Canada possessed no more than a few acres of lawn and pleasure ground, with ornamental trees and shrubs,--all looking new,--the production of a self made man, grown rich within a few years. These stately oaks and beeches must have seen generations live and die, lords of the manor, and she began better to understand Harry's reluctance to risk such an inheritance.

"Oh, they are exercising 'Hobbie,'" cried the children "Then we shall have some rides."

Lord Bromley seldom presented himself to his guests till dinner-time.

Polite grooms of the chamber offered tea, etc., the housekeeper showed visitors to their rooms. But on this occasion Mrs. Barrington was virtually lady of the house, and, being too late to receive, was in voluble conversation with a few persons already arrived.