Bluebell Part 56

Dutton gently tried to combat this a.s.sertion. He had heard all about Bertie, but of course thought it was useless grieving over spilt milk; that time enough had pa.s.sed since then; and that she had far better marry and forget.

Cecil smiled with a sort of sad amus.e.m.e.nt at all this and his slight a.s.sumption of marital experience. Harry and Bluebell seemed years younger than herself,--a giddy, happy young couple, the very sunshine of whose lives dazzled them too much to see into the depths of hers.

One afternoon she had started for a lonely walk. The rest of the party were pretty well disposed of--Bluebell driving with Mrs. Rolleston, and the others, she thought were with the General; but it did not much matter. It was a bl.u.s.tering February afternoon--Cecil long remembered it; the north wind had strewn the ground with dead branches, and cawing rooks, on the eve of wedlock, were drifting about incoherently on the breeze. She was following the course of a brook where the grounds widened into a wild, brambly park, and looking over her shoulder she perceived Jack Vavasour some distance off, coming along with rapid strides as if bent on overtaking her.

Cecil sauntered slowly on, not ill pleased at the opportunity of an unreserved conversation with Jack. She noticed, with furtive amus.e.m.e.nt, that he slackened his pace considerably as he neared her, probably to give an accidental aspect to the encounter. She turned round with a contented smile of expectation, and they wandered on together, Cecil instinctively choosing the most unfrequented and far-off boundary of the park. It was impossible to keep up long a commonplace conversation, and they became more and more _distrait_ and nervous, each wishing to approach one subject, and neither liking to begin. In such a case, it is always the woman who breaks the ice. An allusion to the war was sufficient in this instance, and Jack responded so eagerly, she was confirmed in her impression that he had something to tell her. Without waiting for further questioning, he plunged into Crimean reminiscences of Bertie Du Meresq, whom he had seen nearly every day till his death, to all of which poor Cecil listened with breathless interest, and yet she _knew_ there was something more to come.

"You know," continued Vavasour, "his watch and things were sent back to England; but when we cut open his tunic, to see if he was breathing, something dropped out that he had worn through the action. I kept _that_, for I thought I would restore it only to the rightful owner."

What intuitive feeling was it that made her wish he would say no more!

Jack was opening his pocket-book, and drew out a piece of folded paper.

"I knew it in a moment," he cried, as a long coil of soft, dark hair appeared, so closely resembling Cecil's own as fully to justify his conviction that it was so.

He had expected to see her greatly moved; but the sudden pallor of her face puzzled him, which sensation was still more intensified when her large eyes flashed a moment upon him with an expression he never forgot, and, turning abruptly away, she walked towards the house.

Of all the trouble Cecil had gone through of late, I think for concentrated bitterness this moment was the worst. Though the colour was identical, by feel and texture she knew the tress was not her own, added to which, no such token had ever pa.s.sed between herself and Bertie.

Well, there was no temptation to linger over the dead past now, which had received its _coup de grace_ that wintry afternoon; almost every one felt that some subtle change had pa.s.sed over Cecil. Perhaps the one who least felt its uncannyness was, Fane, who hovered near her with a brighter air.

No doubt some of the party were surprised when, just before it broke up, the engagement of Cecil and Fane was announced; but no one guessed the truth except Jack Vavasour, who, anxious and remorseful, only cursed himself for a blundering idiot.

They were married on her twenty-fourth birthday, much to the relief of her bridesmaid-sisters, who had begun to fear Cecil would be an old maid.

Fane sold out, and took his wife abroad, while the old Elizabethan manor-house, which, since his succession to, he had never lived in, was painted and luxuriously refurnished for the reception of the bride.

'Twas a pity Cecil married a rich man. Her best chance would have been having to think, work, deny herself for another, who might thus have become dear from the very sacrifices entailed by him. It was hard on Fane, who had been constant so long, and found he had grasped nothing but fairy gold. The old manor house was generally full, for somehow both dreaded a _tete-a-tete_, and equally, in early days especially, a betrayal of the feeling.

Cecil left her guests pretty much to their own devices in the morning, and read and painted in her own peculiar den, fitted up half as a library, half as a studio. The winter she devoted to hunting, and scarcely any meet was too distant or country too intricate for her.

Bertie's riding lessons, at any rate, had not been forgotten, and carelessness of life is certainly conducive to steadiness of nerve. Jack Vavasour, who was out one day, was under the impression she wished to break her neck. Mrs. Fane became noted in her county for going with the most unflinching straightness, but so little did she care for the reputation, that sometimes she would stick unambitiously to the roads and never take a fence.

She had a separate stud of hunters, and rode independently of her husband, who followed the amus.e.m.e.nt in a less erratic style than his wife, and in more moderation.

Cecil often thought of her dream, when Du Meresq was transformed into Fane, and how singularly it had been realized. Certainly advent.i.tious circ.u.mstances were averse to that first love of hers, for, however much appearances were against him, the lock of hair which had decided her destiny was no love token of Du Meresq's. It had been consigned to him by a dying friend, who besought him to write the news to his betrothed, and restore to her the lock of hair she had given him.

When Du Meresq had sent this letter off, he found he had omitted enclosing the tress, but they were then just going into action, and he had placed it inside his tunic.

After long years Cecil met this girl, who had been faithful to the memory of her Crimean hero. Once she spoke of him to Mrs. Fane, mentioning the circ.u.mstance of the omission of the lock when Du Meresq's letter had conveyed to her the fatal news. Little did she think how her companion had guarded and hated this _souvenir_. Cecil glanced sharply at the other's hair, harsher and more wiry now, and intersected with silvery threads, still it was like enough to satisfy her of the ident.i.ty without the confirmatory cry of surprise with which the poor woman received it from her hands. Had she known this earlier, I think Cecil would have clung to her ideal, and never married, but by this time Fane and herself were--well as happy together as other people. Time's "effacing finger"

had prepared the way, and since the birth of her only son, Cecil's heart was vitalized by a second pa.s.sion, as strong though different to the first. So we may leave her, and see how our other heroine ultimately fares before dropping the curtain.

Dutton went to sea once again, but, as his ship was only cruising in the Mediterranean, Bluebell was able to meet him at the different ports they stopped at, and did not at all dislike the changeful variety of the life.

However, Lord Bromley found he could not do without her, so, after that one cruise, Harry retired from the navy, and they lived chiefly at "The Towers," where a numerous family was born.

At last Lord Bromley died at a great age, and it was found that he had left Bromley Towers to their eldest boy, Theodore. To the Duttons was bequeathed a small estate worth three thousand a year. So after all Harry never inherited "The Towers," nor Bluebell either.

THE END