Bluebell Part 43

Harry could not help watching her at dinner. He saw the amused face of her neighbour, Colonel Dashwood, and sometimes caught her lively repartees.

Lady Geraldine was rather tame, and not even pretty; it was up hill work talking to her, and he was just in the humour for a chaffing match with cousin Kate. After dinner it was just the same: she was surrounded by men, and Lady Geraldine, the only other girl, sat apart, with rather a plaintive, neglected look.

"Why can't she talk to some of those old women?" thought Harry. But he felt bound to try and amuse her, and, after a little desultory conversation, ingeniously evaded the necessity of boring himself further by asking her to sing. She complied very amiably, and, as he stationed himself near to turn over, saw it was one of Bluebell's songs. Lady Geraldine had been well taught, and sang accurately; but, oh! the contrast of the thin, piping voice and expressionless delivery to the rich tones and almost dramatic fervour with which Bluebell poured forth her "native wood-notes wild"! Then Kate came to the front, followed by a devoted cavalier, who took her gloves and fan, and was forthwith despatched in search of a very particular ma.n.u.script book somewhere in the half.

_En attendant_ she rattled off a sparkling French _chansonnette_ with such _elan_ that every man in the room, musical or otherwise, was soon round the piano. Her voice was harsh and wiry; but there was an oddity and originality in her style, while she p.r.o.nounced the words with a vehement clearness, that drove their meaning home to the dullest ear. Mr.

Hornby returned with the ma.n.u.script book, fastened by a patent lock, and ornamented with an elaborate monogram.

"I never keep any songs that other people have, so I am obliged to guard my _specialites_ under lock and key,"--and she held out her arm to Colonel Dashwood to unclasp a bracelet, the medallion of which opened on touching a spring, and disclosed a gold key.

Colonel Dashwood retained the wrist while pretending to examine this miracle, and Kate shot one of her dangerous glances out of half-closed eyes.

A personal a.s.sault upon Dashwood would have been consonant to Harry's feelings at the moment. He was not yet quite proof against twinges of jealousy about cousin Kate, who was now turning over the leaves of her book with an unconscious air.

"This song Mr. Forsyth brought me from Mexico. Such crabbed copying, only an expert could read it; so I merely scribbled down the words, and made him sing the air till I had caught it. That Charley Dacre got from a boatman at Venice; and this little Troubadour thing" (sentimentally) "was composed by a friend of mine, who has promised never to let any one possess it but myself."

"I hope you bought up the whole edition," put in Harry.

"And here--even you, you dear, unmusical boy, are represented. Do you remember it, Harry?" (playing a few bars.) "The air you were always whistling, and said the sailors sang at watch."

"Yes, that was it," said he, with brightening eyes. "How could you recollect?"

"Well, when you went to sea I got somewhat plaintive and dull; used to hum it about the house, and set down the notes."

"But these are not the right words."

"Oh, no," said Kate, casting down her eyes with modest candour; "they are my own."

Now Harry at the same moment felt almost certain he had seen the lines somewhere before; and, being rather apt to stick to a point, turned it over in his mind, while his cousin poured forth a flood of song like a skylark soaring. Ere she desisted, Dutton had left the room, and discovered the words in an old Annual on a top shelf in the library.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

THE SPRING WOODS.

But, Tom, you'll soon find, for I happen to know, That such walks often lead into straying; And the voices of cousins are sometimes so low, Heaven only knows what you'll be saying.

And long ere the walk is half over those strings Of your heart are all put into play By the voice of those fair demi-sisterly things, In not quite the most brotherly way.

--Hon. Mrs. Norton.

More snow fell that night, and Lord Bromley's gardeners were sweeping the walks from an early hour next morning. Robins lingered about with bright eyes, soliciting crumbs, and shaking off showers of snow as they flew from yew-hedge to holly-bush. Breakfast was over at "The Towers," except for a few late individuals; and Harry Dutton, in a pair of long boots, and, I am afraid, a pipe in his mouth, was taking a quarter-deck walk in front of the ball-room windows. He was thinking pretty hard, and the subject was evidently not pleasing, as it was with a sensation of relief he observed a deft figure crossing the ball-room, in a fur-trimmed cloth costume, remarkably well kilted up over a resolute-looking pair of small boots. She signed to him to open the windows and let her out. Harry made a feint of emptying his pipe, but received gracious permission to "puff away."

"That killing get-up can't be for me," thought he. "I'll give her the tip she wants."

"A certain good-looking Colonel of Hussars has gone to play a match at billiards till luncheon."

"Why that blunt and abrupt observation, _a propos_ to nothing?"

"You must excuse my sea manners. I should have used more circ.u.mlocution, but they don't put much polish on us on board."

"No, they don't, and you boast of it, hence that phrase. You never hear a soldier apologizing for his 'army manners'!"

"Speaks well for their modesty! Well, Kate, where are you bound for? You are not rigged up in that way merely to coast about here."

"I meant to walk round the spring woods."

"And as Dashwood has sloped perhaps I may sail in consort. The walks won't be swept, of course, and that dainty scarlet petticoat will look like an old hunting-coat."

But a gardener a.s.serting that the men had been at work since daylight, the cousins departed on their ramble.

A gravel walk a mile round encircled the inner ring of a wood left wild, except where rides were cut, showing vistas into the park beyond. Here and there it was cleared into a rosary, with a summer-house, a Dutch garden with a fountain, a glade with a fish-pond, etc. The trees were magnificent, and many a foreign specimen was represented, while the s.h.i.+mmering tints of grey-green, from their great variety, were of shades innumerable. Sometimes the bordering turf became wider, and flowering shrubs grew each side of the walk,--an intoxicating spot in spring, when the wild flowers carpeted the woods, and the bird _artistes_, returning from starring in other lands, recommenced their "popular concerts."

Even now, in winter dress, its attractions were but changed. The lichen-covered kings of the forest revealed their bold limbs undisguised by foliage, the feathery birch showed its delicate tracery against the clear winter sky, and Dutton sighed as he gazed on that fair demesne, and thought how hard it would be to give it up.

Kate's thoughts had apparently wandered in the same direction, for she said abruptly,--"What a happy fellow you are, Harry, to be heir to all this!" But she was thinking more of the first-rate style in which it was kept up, and the magnificent, comfortable house, than of its picturesque features.

"There's many a slip," said Harry, moodily, between the whiffs of his pipe. "We all know Uncle Bromley, Kate."

"Do you know," said she, mysteriously, "I hear he actually keeps his eyes, so to speak, on that grand-daughter in Canada. The agent who pays the annuity reports to him."

"The deuce!--you make me quite hot, Kate. Are you inventing just out of chaff?"

"No, honour bright. Mamma was talking about it; and seems he heard rather an unpleasant rumour the other day."

"Come, that's better. What has the young woman been a-doing of?"

"Run away, or something. I overheard mamma telling old Lady Calvert; but they nodded and winked and interjected I couldn't clearly make it out. I was writing a letter at the davenport, and in the gla.s.s opposite observed them. I don't generally burden my mind much with the conversation of my elders, but something in the alertness of their att.i.tudes and flutter of their caps made me contemplatively bite my pen and--attend. A breach of confidence on the maternal side, I should surmise, for she declined satisfying my laudable curiosity when I pumped her afterwards, and seemed alarmed at my having heard anything."

"I had no idea," exclaimed Harry, "that he took the slightest interest in that girl; and, hang it all, Kate, she _is_ the rightful heir. Perhaps he looks on her as a second string in case I don't carry out all his arbitrary wishes."

"Yes, I shouldn't recommend your running counter to him gratuitously. To tell you the truth, I thought you rather a lunatic keeping away so long after coming on sh.o.r.e,"--and Kate gazed searchingly into Harry's face, who blushed, and then frowned under the scrutiny.

"Ah!" murmured the fair inquisitor, "then there _was_ something--a woman in the case, of course: there always is."

"I tell you what," cried Dutton, recovering himself, "if you begin supposing improbabilities about me, I'll turn detective on you and Dashwood."

"Sea manners again! and when I was so kind--putting you on your guard.

But, never mind, Harry, though I _think_ what I please, I shan't peach _if you don't_."

"Let us seal the treaty," pa.s.sing one arm round her waist. "Give me a kiss, Kate--you haven't yet."

"Anything in reason, which sealing treaties in a vista opposite Uncle Bromley's study windows is _not_."

A few paces rectified that objection; but Dutton relapsed into a brown study, and Kate fell to thinking of Colonel Dashwood; and so they wandered on till the girl spoke again.

"What port have you left your heart in, Harry?"