Bluebell Part 8

"I only know," said the daughter, with dark emphasis, "I wouldn't drive with him now, if he went on his bended knees to ask me."

"Thank you, Bella," said Bertie, returning. "Nice little game you had cut out for me! What an odious girl!"

Cecil's jealous instinct detected the root of this animosity, more especially guided thereto by his attempt to secure Bluebell as a companion, which had surprised her not too agreeably.

"What is her crime," said she, sarcastically, "beyond a rather transparent design of driving with you Bertie?"

"She is hung with bangles like an Indian squaw, and has a Yankee tw.a.n.g in her voice."

"She pretended to scarcely remember me," said Bluebell, "though we were at school together."

"Jealous, I dare say," laughed Bertie. "Is she an admirer of Jack Vavasour's?"

"Fancy any one admiring a boy like that!" said Bluebell, who did not feel in charity with her allotted charioteer.

Bertie had advanced to take her cup, and as she said this, it seemed to Cecil he touched her hand caressingly under cover of it.

"I dare say," said she sharply, "Alice Kendal has as many admirers as other people, and, perhaps, can dispense with counting Captain Du Meresq among them."

Bluebell looked up, astonished at her manner; but Bertie perceived it with more intelligence, and the thought, "What a bore it will be if she is jealous," afterwards pa.s.sed through his mind,--by which may be inferred he had had in contemplation the acquisition of "Heaven's last best gift."

CHAPTER VII.

THE GARRISON SLEIGH CLUB.

'T were a pity when flowers around us rise, To make light of the rest, if the rose be not there; And the world is so rich in resplendent eyes, 'T were a pity to limit one's love to a pair.

--Moore.

"I never saw a prettier sight in my life," cried Cecil, as she stood with a motley group in the verandah of "The Maples," the rendezvous of the sleighing party. As each sleigh turned in at the gate and deposited its freight, it fell into rank which extended all round the lawn, till scarcely a s.p.a.ce was left on the drive that encircled it, and the air rang with the bells on the nodding horses' heads.

"What the--blazes!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bertie, as Mr. Vavasour rounded the corner at a trot in a red-wheeled tandem, scarlet plumes on the horses, and the robes a combination of black bear-skins and scarlet tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. The leader, a recent importation from England, better acquainted with the hunting-field than the traces, reared straight on end; but a judicious flick on her ear sent her with a bound almost into the next sleigh, and the tandem drew up at the hall door to an inch.

"Post? mail-cart? nonsense!" said Jack, shaking hands all round 'mid an avalanche of chaff. "Nice cheerful colour for a cold day; that's all."

"Quite scorching," said Major Fane. "Well, Miss Rolleston, if they leave us behind at the turnpikes, we shall never lose sight of them with Jack's flames for a beacon."

"How do you like your tandem, Bluebell?" asked Cecil, "and how far do you expect to get before Mr. Vavasour upsets you?" added she, _sotto voce_.

"I don't care if he chooses a good place," laughed Bluebell.

"Why, I thought Bertie wasn't going," said, Mrs. Rolleston, as that individual drove up in a modest cutter with a gentleman companion.

"I think he changed his mind when he heard Miss Kendal was going with papa," said Cecil.

"I believe we are all here," said Colonel Rolleston, who was to lead the procession, coming out with the great lady of the party, an eccentric dowager peeress, who having "tired her wing" with flying through the States, was now perching awhile before re-crossing the Herring-pond. Miss Kendal and a subaltern, pressed into the service, placed themselves in the back seat, well smothered in wolf-skins, and the first sleigh moved off to the admiration of the school-room party at the window, who, with the partiality of childhood, thought their papa's the most beautiful turn-out in the city.

"Mr. Vavasour's horse is up the bank," screamed Fleda. "How much better papa drives; he went off so quickly and quietly. I wouldn't be Bluebell!

Mr. Vavasour can hardly get out at the gate."

"If papa had to drive one horse before another, perhaps he couldn't either," said Lola, who had been watching with great interest the erratic course of Jack's leader.

Twenty sleighs were off in a string, the crowd cheering them to the echo as they dashed through Queen's Park; but on gaining Carleton Street they were obliged carefully to keep the track, as the sides of the road were deep and treacherous.

"The Colonel is making the pace very slow," remarked Mr. Vavasour; "like to drive, Miss Leigh? they are going very smoothly."

Bluebell, whose knowledge of horses was about equal to her opportunities of instruction, unhesitatingly a.s.sented. Jack's gratification thereat was somewhat tempered, when he saw the bewilderment apparent in his flighty pair at the very original manner in which she handled her "lines."

"I suppose," said that young lady, with the composure of ignorance, "we are all right as long as this bald-face horse keeps its nose pointing at Captain Delamere's back."

"Quite so," said Jack, cheerily; "don't take the whip, you are only winding it round your own neck. I'll give Dahlia a lick in the face if she turns out of the rank."

They were winding down a hill, and took a road at the bottom at right angles to it. Colonel Rolleston, in the first sleigh, was blandly pointing out to Lady Hampshire the _coup d'oeil_ of the whole procession as they described two sides of a triangle.

"Do you like my plumes?" asked Jack, relaxing his surveillance on Dahlia, as her left ear, which had been laid back in a suggestive manner, resumed its accustomed position.

"Like them," echoed Bluebell; "it's just like a hea.r.s.e, bar the colour, which is frightful. I wouldn't have come if I had known I was to be driven in such a fire-engine."

"There now," rather crest-fallen. "I chose them because you said you were _fond_ of scarlet, otherwise I should have preferred blue, except that I might have been taken for one of the 10th, who mount their regimental colours on everything."

"I like the 10th," said Bluebell, perversely; "they are all good-looking except the Adjutant, who got his nose sliced off by a Sikh, and the.... goodness what's that?" as a fearful shout, followed by a sudden checking of horses, brought the whole line to a stand-still.

"What's the matter?" was pa.s.sed from one sleigh to another up to the front: the return message, shouted and taken up as each one interpreted it, became soon about as intelligible as it does in the game of Russian scandal, and for the next few minutes everybody was conjecturing at once.

"Here's Du Meresq," cried Jack, as Bertie came ploughing through the snow.

"Halloa, guard! what's wrong on the line?"

"Run into a goods' train," said he, keeping on his course to the Vice-President's sleigh.

"Du Meresq never tells one anything," said Jack; "I hate a mysterious fellow; somebody's capsized, I suppose, and he's gone for some brandy."

"Perhaps for a shovel," suggested Bluebell. "Colonel Rolleston may have come to a drift."

"Don't see how we are to reverse our engine," replied Jack, looking each side of the road, where the snow was piled four or five feet.

Bertie, however, had not gone for a shovel, which would have been perfectly useless, but to explain the situation and a.s.sist in turning round the sleighs. In front of Colonel Rolleston was a huge rampart of snow, extending for some distance. The wind setting dead in that direction, had drifted it across, and buried the track several feet. This road had been clear the day before, for Bertie and Cecil had driven it to ascertain, but the wind had changed and snow fallen during the night.

Major Fane's sleigh was successfully turned, after a great deal of a.s.sistance to the horses, who floundered up to their shoulders; and to this haven of refuge Du Meresq was conducting several young ladies, for each sleigh having to turn on the spot where their progress was arrested, a certain number of upsets was inevitable.

"Come, Miss Leigh," said a voice beneath her, "you mustn't stick to the ship any longer. Why, this is the worst bit of all. You can't jump; trust to me." And to Jack's indignation, Bertie lifted her from the wheel and carried her through some deep snow to a dry place. There was a certain amount of excuse for it, as he couldn't have deposited her in the drift, and turning the tandem took up its owner's whole attention, and the services of three or four volunteers; but he fancied Du Meresq had squeezed the little hand before he relinquished it, and ere the tell-tale blush had pa.s.sed from Bluebell's face, Jack had turned, jumped out and replaced her in the tandem with quiet decision.

Bluebell, confused by the powerless way she had been handed about between her two admirers, could not rally directly, and sat meditating an early snubbing for Jack, but a ridiculous incident soon distracted her attention.

"Get out? No, thank you, Captain Du Meresq," cried Lilla Tremaine, a tall, handsome girl in the sleigh behind; "you'd find me a precious weight to carry, and I am very comfortable where I am. Turn away, Captain Delamere, we'll sink or swim together."