Leonore Stubbs Part 23

And of course Leonore was. There is no need to indicate the precise moment at which the figure of her humble village admirer faded clean out of sight after having hovered reproachfully over a few brief penitential musings, but certain it is that it vanished, to return no more.

London in the season was a revelation to our heroine. Hitherto her sole experience of it was confined to pa.s.sing through, and that mainly at other periods of the year,--since it was an article of faith with her husband that one big town was as good as another, and he had all he wanted of town life at home.

So that all was new, strange, wonderful, glorious--and at first she was utterly dazzled. True, a modern girl would have laughed in her sleeve could she have heard Leo's idea of the gay world. She would have said this unsophisticated creature went nowhere and knew nothing. She would have marvelled--perhaps as much as Leo would have marvelled at her.

Leo did more than marvel, she was secretly shocked and disgusted on several occasions, but with the fidelity of the young to the young she said nothing to Sue. Sue thought the houses she took her young sister to all that was prudent and respectable. Some of them were rather great houses--the Bolderos, when they did seek society, moved on a high plane, and the very fact that they seldom sought it, told in their favour.

The sisters were not overwhelmed with invitations, but they had enough to gratify the elder and delight the younger. Leo did not dance; indeed, she did not know how, so the one ball to which she was bidden was declined, but the two went to a fair amount of dinner-parties, not of the most lively order, but pictorial and majestic. They were invited to opera boxes--generally on the grand tier. Leo was on the box seat of a coach occasionally. As for teas, they overran every afternoon, and concerts, bazaars, charity entertainments, Hurlingham and Ranelagh filled up the interstices.

It was in short a giddy round, and perhaps as good a cure for the sort of complaint from which our poor little girl was suffering as could have been devised.

It swept her off her feet--and in another sense swept her on to her feet.

She learned in curious ways a good deal.

Her sh.e.l.l was broken, and albeit the outer air was none of the purest, it served its purpose of blowing away the cobwebs that had so long encircled her outlook.

July, however, was pa.s.sing, and soon, all too soon, fairy-land would vanish in a myriad of shattered sparklets, and then?

"I suppose we could not go to Cowes, Sue?" A very tempting invitation for the Cowes week had come, and there had been hints of further house-parties, and shooting-parties,--but of these latter Leo knew at once that she must not think. For Cowes, however, she would make a push.

"It is so near, and we could go home as easily from there as from here,"--she murmured, wistfully. "And the Beverleys are very nice people, Sue."

"Oh, very; but--I don't know. I am afraid it would hardly do to suggest it. You see father has already been asked twice to let us stay on, and, dear Leo, he has been _very_ good about it. Even Aunt Charlotte was surprised."

"It was Aunt Charlotte who did the trick though;" Leo wagged her head wisely. "Her sending him a card for her reception was a masterpiece. I almost wonder he didn't come up for it. Well, what about Cowes?"

"We will think it over, dear."

"I could go by myself, you know."

"No," said Sue, decidedly.

Her orders were that Leo was to go nowhere by herself, and she had more than once eaten humble pie in consequence--for her sister's sake hanging on to her skirts, a neglected and undesired appendage by the rest of the party.

Leo alone would be mindful of her, pleasant towards her. Leo was certainly growing more affectionate and considerate than of old--but Leo must not go to Cowes alone.

"I will try what I can do," said Sue, after a pause, during which she absently broke open another envelope in her hand. "I will read what Maud says of how they are getting on at home. I see she has returned from her visit to the Fosters, so perhaps----" An exclamation, quite a violent exclamation for the prim Miss Boldero, followed. Then she looked up, her face, we should like to say scarlet, or crimson, but truth compels the statement that Sue's flushes were of a deeper tint, not quite purple, but that way. Even her brow was now suffused by this tint. "Oh, Leo!"

But Leo was absorbed in a letter of her own.

"This is really--Leo--listen, Leo!"

"Well?" said Leo, absently. "Here's another idea for Cowes. However, your news first."

"Yes, indeed. You will say so when you hear it. Maud----"

"She's not coming here, is she?"--quickly.

"Maud writes to announce that she is engaged to be married."

"Good gracious!" The effect was electrical. Leo bounded from her seat and almost tore the sheet from her sister's hands. "Let me see--let me see," then reading aloud: "Major Foster--Mr. Foster's younger brother--home from India--left the army--father pleased (that's a good thing!)--and coming here next week!--Oh, Sue!----Stop, there's more,"

cried Leo, recovering, for the "Oh, Sue!" had been emitted with dolorous mental reference to the Cowes scheme, now obviously knocked on the head.

"What's this over the page?" and she turned it in Sue's fingers; "only the man's name--Paul. She doesn't say very much, does she? I thought people usually put in something about----"

"What?" said Sue, smiling.

"About being happy, and that. Or at least about the man himself--not merely who he is, and who his people are."

"She will tell us all when we meet. Maud is not much of a writer, and she is the last person to--to speak of her feelings; but I do not doubt she is happy," quoth Sue, radiantly. "Dear Maud! To think that she on her quiet visit--and at the Fosters, the last people one would have expected--and father pleased----"

"Oh, it's fine," cried Leo, kissing her, "it really is fine. If she had only waited till after the Cowes week it would have been perfect.

Anyhow, we'll hie back, you and I, with something to look forward to. We shan't leave all the sweets behind, now that Maud has done the civil by us with her 'Paul'. I did hate the thought of going home before," she was running on, when something stopped her, something that sent a little cold shiver down her back. It was--yes, it was--_the look_. The look on Sue's face.

For quite a long while now she had lost sight of the goal once set before her eyes by this. Imagination had ceased to be fired by its memory. The three impulsive dashes made in its direction had been so utterly futile that she could only recall the first with mirth, the second with contempt, the last with shame. Val Purcell was now happily restored to his former position of friend and playmate; George b.u.t.ts?--she had come across Mr. b.u.t.ts in London and found him in hot pursuit of another lady; and though the thought of poor Tommy Andrews with his weak, imploring mouth and burning eyes could still evoke a twinge, it was but a pa.s.sing twinge.

Tommy had certainly been found out, and Tommy's master was not a person to find out in vain. Dr. Craig had effected what no one else dared attempt, namely, her own escape from thraldom--and she did not see her co-delinquent let off, albeit after another fashion.

No, she had nothing more to fear from that quarter; and in the rush and novelty of the past few weeks, bygone follies, big and little, active and pa.s.sive, dwindled to the vanishing point. If only Sue, dear, good, unconscious Sue, would not recall them!

CHAPTER XII.

THE PHOTOGRAPH AND THE ORIGINAL.

Families in which the daughters marry early and in due succession, can have but little idea of the huge, volcanic shock an engagement means in a house like Boldero Abbey.

True, it had once before gone through a like experience, but the present happy occasion was intensified by a variety of causes.

It was satisfactory, altogether satisfactory. Like good wine it needed not the bush which General Boldero had strewed so plentifully over G.o.dfrey Stubbs's antecedents and surroundings. His future son-in-law was well-born and well-bred, and his having lately succeeded to a considerable fortune was also well known. Accordingly--we are obliged to add "accordingly"--it was in good taste to say nothing about it.

But he could show, and he did show, enough to raise a smile wherever he went. However demure his air when receiving congratulations, he could insert here and there a phrase, adroitly conceived beforehand, the point of which could not be missed--and he was rampant at home.

There he might freely puff and blow, and turn his little world upside down. Nothing, not the veriest trifles of every-day life escaped his touch; and had it not been that the sympathies of all were with him, that there was not an antagonistic member of the family or household, he would have been found unbearable.

But the change, the stir, the commotion, the heavy posts, and constant ringing of the door-bell were delightful to everybody. There was occupation for everybody. They ran against each other with busy, pre-occupied faces. They hurried, when formerly time was of no account.

The writing-tables were bargained for, and Maud, all-important, retained one solely for her own use,--while the two who had fancied they would have so much to tell of their London escapade, found it so completely superseded by the new excitement, that they dismissed it from their own minds.

In short the whole atmosphere quivered with the sensation: "Who would have thought it?--who would have believed it?--" to which there was but one response: "We cannot make enough of it".

The man himself, however, had yet to be seen.

"Yes, it is very unfortunate," observed Miss Boldero, in answer to neighbourly inquiries; "Major Foster has been obliged to put off coming again. He has had another touch of fever--his long residence in hot climates has left him subject to these, and though it is nothing to be anxious about, he has to be careful. We expect him next week."