Bluebell Part 55

"Harry!" she cried, "this is my grandfather as well as your uncle! Why, we must be cousins!" Then, after an instant's pause, with downcast eyes and crimson cheeks, she penitently kissed the old man's hand, and whispered,--"He is my husband too; we meant to have told you to-morrow!"

So the dread secret was out at last! Silence, that could be felt, ensued, and seemed endless to the two culprits, who, with drooping eyes, waited anxiously for him to speak.

Now, this announcement was hardly so unexpected as they supposed, and far more welcome than their wildest dreams could have antic.i.p.ated. Lord Bromley's agent, who paid the annuity to Mrs. Leigh, was also in the habit of giving him periodical information of the well-being of his grand-daughter. When, however, she eloped from Captain Davidson's house, he had lost sight of her for a time, but afterwards picked up the clue at Mrs. Markham's. When they also disappeared so suddenly, the agent was again at fault, Bluebell having changed her situation in the interval.

Advancing years had softened Lord Bromley. The tidings of her elopement without any positive proof of a _bona fide_ marriage preceding it, had shocked him into bitter remorse for having left her, an unprotected waif and stray, to the tender mercies of the world, and now she had pa.s.sed out of his ken, and he could not but fear the worst.

In this frame of mind he came accidentally upon Bluebell in the spring woods, and the likeness to her father, which was singularly obvious, seemed the reflection of the thoughts that haunted him. Then, when Mabel mentioned her by name, it flashed upon him that what he had taken for a trick of imagination might be, indeed, a sober reality. Lord Bromley sought Mrs. Barrington, and elicited, in reply to his careless inquiries, the fact that the fair governess was a Canadian, and had come into her family from the Markhams'. This was conclusive, and he took every opportunity of observing Bluebell with an almost hungry interest. The elopement rankled unpleasantly in his mind. He watched her conduct narrowly, and was pleased to see that she seemed prudent and careful; but his suspicions received a new direction by the mutual disappearance of Dutton and herself on the night of his return. It was a coincidence, at any rate, for had not Mabel a.s.serted she had not come upstairs till one, before which hour Harry had not entered the ball-room? He also detected two or three looks of intelligence pa.s.sing between them, then, when Kate remarked that they had returned in the same steamer from Quebec, the mystery began to take a definite shape. He remembered his nephew's confession of an attachment, and his absence for many weeks after landing. At this stage a terrible possibility obtruded itself, and Bluebell's inviting manner, which before had pleased him, seemed all an artful attempt to get into favour.

The accidental sight of Theodore's miniature, which stirred poignantly the stern heart of the father, precipitated the _denouement_, and the artless bewilderment of Bluebell under his reproaches lulled the suspicions which her subsequent avowal of a marriage with Harry nearly set at rest. There only remained those unaccounted for weeks, so that the first sentence he spoke to the peccant pair, whom we left in agitated suspense, surprised them by its calmness.

"When did this happen?" And they could not guess how anxiously he waited for a reply.

Now Dutton had come there expressly to bring Bluebell into Lord Bromley's presence, having resolved to be beforehand with Kate, and make immediate confession. Therefore he was provided with their marriage certificate, which he now produced, and silently presented to his uncle.

The date was satisfactory, and Lord Bromley was relieved from the most harrowing anxiety. Yet his brow did not relax as he turned gravely to his nephew. "What was your motive, Harry, in concealing this marriage?"

Dutton was silent.

"You may well be unwilling to express it. It was because you feared to lose the inheritance I have foolishly brought you up to expect."

Harry looked up frankly, though writhing under his words.

"I cannot wholly deny it, uncle, and if you now change your intentions towards me, it is only what I expect. Bluebell and I were married hastily at Liverpool, she is my best excuse for that. Afterwards, when I came to 'The Towers,' I meant to have told you, but--don't you recollect?--you positively refused to hear what I had to say. Of course I ought to have persisted."

"And did Theodora also see the expediency of concealing her marriage till my death?"

"No, indeed," cried Harry, warmly. "She would have risked everything to have it acknowledged. It puts my conduct in an awfully cold-blooded light, but I hope you don't think me utterly ungrateful."

"As to that, the less said the better," returned Lord Bromley, coolly.

Dutton turned away abashed and deeply wounded, for he really was attached to the relative who had been his best friend and benefactor from infancy to manhood. Lord Bromley slowly left the room, and, sending for his niece, endeavoured to explain to her the astounding facts that Bluebell was the daughter of his disinherited son, and had been married to Dutton for nearly two years.

There was scarcely room in Mrs. Barrington's mind to grasp this new aspect of affairs, it being already taken up with Kate's shocking discovery of the heir, flirting in a secluded summer-house with the treacherous governess. Very earnestly, therefore, she tried to convince her uncle that he must be deceived, and that Bluebell was an impostor and an adventuress.

"There's not a shade of doubt about her ident.i.ty," contested Lord Bromley "I have known for some time whom she was. Indeed, Lydia, you were my first informant when you told me where you had taken her from. Parker had reported that Theodore's daughter was with some people of the name of Markham, and immediately found out accidentally that she was no longer there and here is further proof"--and he placed before her the portrait that he had carried away. It was difficult to [unreadable]. Convinced against her will, and deprived of the power of giving Bluebell immediate warning, Mrs. Barrington [unreadable] fall back upon her own room, pull down the blinds and take refuge in _pet.i.te sante_, till prepared to face her emminent dependent in so new and unwelcome a position.

Certainly this day of elucidation was not a pleasant one. Everybody appeared in a changed point of view, and was feeling its awkwardness.

Harry and Bluebell, hardly knowing if they had a right to remain there, wandering disconsolately about, like a modern Adam and Eve awaiting expulsion from Paradise.

Kate felt baffled and dangerous,--angry at her cousin having slipped so smoothly through her fingers, and jealous of his wife.

Lord Bromley, though deeply incensed with Harry, was longing to keep Bluebell, whose every glance and gesture recalled his secretly lamented son. Lady Calvert was on the point of departure with her daughter; and the facts having percolated through the household, all the maids got sick headaches from sympathetic excitement.

Dutton had had a very stormy interview with his cousin when he rushed after her from the arbour. Kate was determined to betray them, and he vainly tried to induce her to be silent. On one condition only would she promise secrecy--that Bluebell should give immediate warning, and that he should never speak to her again. But Harry only laughed, while Kate urged everything she could think of--ruin to his prospects, his uncle's anger, etc.

"It is no business of yours," reiterated Dutton. "If you say anything about it, you'll soon see you have made a fool of yourself, and the little you do know is by prying and listening."

But Kate broke from him and darted into the house, past Lady Geraldine, who was just coming out, and who noticed with surprise the disturbed appearance of the two cousins. To Dutton she seemed a good angel sent to invalidate the spells of an evil one. As the reader knows, she alone had been entrusted with the secret of his marriage, and he now briefly explained that Kate was bent upon betraying his meetings with Bluebell, and entreated her, if possible, by any stratagem, to detain her for awhile.

Geraldine, fully alive to the importance of the request, exclaimed with a gesture of impatience--

"_How_ provoking! when you were to have told your own story to-morrow! Be quick, Mr. Dutton, don't lose a moment, and I will undertake to keep Kate and Mrs. Barrington quiet till they can do no further mischief."

A very grateful glance from Harry as he sprang away; and how he fared in the dreaded interview is already known to the reader.

CHAPTER XLI.

A LOCK OF HAIR.

For which they be that hold apart The promise of the golden hours; First love, first friendship, equal powers, That many with the virgin heart.

--In Memoriam.

Another year had gone by since the _denouement_ at Bromley Towers. The war was over, peace proclaimed, and what remained of our armies had returned from the East.

General Rolleston then retired from the service, and bought a very nice property near Leamington. He still saw a good deal of his old officers; Fane especially, who now commanded the regiment, spent much of his leave at Pyott's Hill. He retained all his old admiration for Cecil, receiving as little encouragement as ever. Possibly that may have been the secret of his constancy, for certainly, as a Crimean hero, with seven thousand a year to gild the romance of it, he did not find young ladies in general very hard-hearted.

But Fane was ever ungrateful, and, after being petted and feted, sang at, ridden at, and generally made much of, only returned with fresh zest to Cecil's unaffected and pleasant companionship. Yet, after each visit, in spite of manifold opportunities, being alone with her for hours, her constant companion in rides and rambles, and given to her by every one in the neighbourhood, he always found he had never really advanced an inch, and that nothing Cecil expected less than a proposal from him.

So he always went away in despair, to return again at the faintest hint of an invitation from her father.

General Rolleston was by no means displeased to observe this eagerness to avail himself of his hospitality, being quite as alive as heretofore to the advantages of the match--he only wondered why Fane and his daughter were so tardy in coming to an understanding.

Cecil was very much liked in the neighbourhood. Everybody said she was the most unaffected girl in the world. But with all her admirers, she had no flirtations--bright and cold was the verdict p.r.o.nounced. Some said she was strong-minded, for she was known to read a great deal, and had even had a picture admitted into the Female Artists' Exhibition. She was further convicted of preferring long, solitary rides to joining the numerous equestrian parties got up in the summer; but as public opinion had unanimously agreed that she must be engaged to Fane, the unsocial trait was excused on that hypothesis.

About this period, he having just discovered her whereabouts, Cecil received a long letter from Harry Dutton, relating what he knew would interest her--the strange events and transformations at "The Towers." A similar one came to Mrs. Rolleston from Bluebell, who, now that she was at liberty to speak, wrote something like a volume of narrative and explanation to her friend. The latter, agitated and excited, flew to Cecil with the wonderful news, unaware that she had heard it already from Dutton, or, indeed, of her acquaintance with him: for, considering that all he had told her was in the strictest confidence. Cecil, as the simplest way of keeping it secret, had never mentioned anything at all about him. She must now, however, confess, for her step-mother was in an effusive mood, and bent upon instantly inviting the Duttons to pay them a visit.

Mrs. Rolleston received the information with some coldness and little curiosity, being naturally hurt at her step-daughter's concealment of a fact of so much interest to her; and though she probably told the General, he never afterwards alluded to the episode. Indeed, Cecil's labours at Scutari were rather a tabooed subject, as Harry speedily discovered when one day he attempted to blunder out his grat.i.tude to her father.

The Duttons were invited for a week; also Colonel Fane and Captain Vavasour. Cecil became restless and excited as the day approached. The sight of Bluebell would cruelly re-open old wounds, and she had never met Vavasour (who had brought back the slain body of her lover) since the Crimea. And he would talk to her about it, she was sure, for Jack had long ago fathomed their ill fated attachment. Altogether, it was a relief that other guests were coming to dinner, for they were all too intimate in one way and too far apart in another--a connecting thread seeming to run through all their lives. Jack, an old love of Bluebell's, Dutton, whom she had nursed through deadly peril, and Fane, only prevented being a declared suitor by systematic absence of reciprocity on her side. Well it was a mercy they all came in owl-light, scarcely dusk enough for candles, but pleasantly veiling countenances not too much under command.

Bluebell and Cecil had determined beforehand that they must embrace, and mutually dreaded it. It was not, however, such _a blanc-mange_ affair as osculation among ladies often is, for they were both agitated by too vivid memories. Bluebell's feelings were pleasantly diverted by recognising Jack--blushing with delight like the boy he still was.

Somehow, he was the only one of the party she felt entirely at ease with, and found herself, as of old, chattering and laughing at as much as with him, just as if three sorrow-laden years had never intervened.

Dutton contrived to get by Cecil at dinner, though he had not taken her down, and their conversation was sufficiently interesting to make them forget their appointed partners.

"And you _are_ quite restored to favour?" Cecil was saying, "and the uncle not half so implacable as you expected?"

"I don't know about that," cried Harry. "He has altered to _me_, I think.

Bluebell is all the rage now, she actually is admitted into his sanctum every morning, to read him the papers. I shouldn't wonder if she turned out Queen Regnante and I were only Prince Consort!"

Cecil, I think, liked Dutton much better than his wife, with whom it was hard to resume old relations. Besides, she seemed now quite the favourite of Fortune, with every difficulty and hardship smoothed away, and to those who have suffered, it is harder to rejoice with those who do rejoice than to weep with those who weep.

So Bluebell was happier alone with Mrs. Rolleston when the men were hunting or out of the way. Dutton once ventured to question Cecil about Fane, whose hopeless pa.s.sion was evident to every one in the house. She looked vexed, disconsolate, and gave her usual answer, that there was nothing in it, and never would be.