Airy Fairy Lilian Part 6

Silently and with careful fingers she first removes her hat, then her jacket, then she induces her to stand up, and, taking off her dress, throws round her a white wrapper taken from a trunk, and prepares to brush the silky yellow hair that for eighteen years has been her own to dress and tend and admire.

"Eh, Miss Lilian, child, but it's a lovely place!" she says, presently, this speech being intended as a part of the cheering process.

"It seems a fine place," says the "child," indifferently.

"Fine it is indeed. Grander even than the Park, I'm thinking."

"'Grander than the Park'!" says Miss Chesney, rousing to unexpected fervor. "How can you say that? Have you grown fickle, nurse? There is no place to be compared to the Park, not one in all the world. You can think as you please, of course,"--with reproachful scorn,--"but it is _not_ grander than the Park."

"I meant larger, ninny," soothingly.

"It is not larger."

"But, darling, how can you say so when you haven't been round it?"

"How can _you_ say so when _you_ haven't been round it?"

This is a poser. Nurse meditates a minute and then says:

"Thomas--that's the groom that drove me--says it is."

"Thomas!"--with a look that, had the wretched Thomas been on the spot, would infallibly have reduced him to ashes; "and what does Thomas know about it? It is _not_ larger."

Silence.

"Indeed, my bairn, I think you might well be happy here," says nurse, tenderly returning to the charge.

"I don't want you to think about me at all," says Miss Chesney, in trembling tones. "You agreed with Aunt Priscilla that I ought to leave my dear, dear home, and I shall never forgive you for it. I am not happy here. I shall never be happy here. I shall die of fretting for the Park, and when I am _dead_ you will perhaps be satisfied."

"Miss Lilian!"

"You shan't brush my hair any more," says Miss Lilian, dexterously evading the descent of the brush. "I can do it for myself very well. You are a traitor."

"I am sorry, Miss Chesney, if I have displeased you," says nurse, with much dignity tempered with distress: only when deeply grieved and offended does she give her mistress her full t.i.tle.

"How dare you call me Miss Chesney!" cries the young lady, springing to her feet. "It is very unkind of you, and just now too, when I am all alone in a strange house. Oh, nurse!" throwing her arms round the neck of that devoted and long-suffering woman, and forgetful of her resentment, which indeed was born only of her regret, "I am so unhappy, and lonely, and sorry! What shall I do?"

"How can I tell you, my lamb?"--caressing with infinite affection the golden head that lies upon her bosom. "All that I say only vexes you."

"No, it doesn't: I am wicked when I make you think that. After all,"--raising her face--"I am not quite forsaken; I have you still, and you will never leave me."

"Not unless I die, my dear," says nurse, earnestly. "And, Miss Lilian, how can you look at her ladys.h.i.+p without knowing her to be a real friend. And Mr. Chetwoode too; and perhaps Sir Guy will be as nice, when you see him."

"Perhaps he won't," ruefully.

"That's nonsense, my dear. Let us look at the bright side of things always. And by and by Master Taffy will come here on a visit, and then it will be like old times. Come, now, be reasonable, child of my heart,"

says nurse, "and tell me, won't you look forward to having Master Taffy here?"

"I wish he was here now," says Lilian, visibly brightening. "Yes; perhaps they will ask him. But, nurse, do you remember when last I saw Taffy it was at----"

Here she shows such unmistakable symptoms of relapsing into the tearful mood again, that nurse sees the necessity of changing the subject.

"Come, my bairn, let me dress you for dinner," she says, briskly, and presently, after a little more coaxing, she succeeds so well that she sends her little mistress down to the drawing-room, looking her loveliest and her best.

CHAPTER V.

"Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self, Recluse amid the close-embowering woods."

--THOMSON.

Next morning, having enjoyed the long and dreamless sleep that belongs to the heart-whole, Lilian runs down to the breakfast-room, with the warm sweet flush of health and youth upon her cheeks. Finding Lady Chetwoode and Cyril already before her, she summons all her grace to her aid and tries to look ashamed of herself.

"Am I late?" she asks, going up to Lady Chetwoode and giving her a little caress as a good-morning. Her very touch is so gentle and childish and loving that it sinks straight into the deepest recesses of one's heart.

"No. Don't be alarmed. I have only just come down myself. You will soon find us out to be some of the laziest people alive."

"I am glad of it: I like lazy people," says Lilian; "all the rest seem to turn their lives into one great worry."

"Will you not give me a good-morning, Miss Chesney?" says Cyril, who is standing behind her.

"Good-morning," putting her hand into his.

"But that is not the way you gave it to my mother," in an aggrieved tone.

"No?--Oh!"--as she comprehends,--"but you should remember how much more deserving your mother is."

"With sorrow I acknowledge the truth of your remark," says Cyril, as he hands her her tea.

"Cyril is our naughty boy," Lady Chetwoode says; "we all spend our lives making allowances for Cyril. You must not mind what he says. I hope you slept well, Lilian; there is nothing does one so much good as a sound sleep, and you looked quite pale with fatigue last night. You see"--smiling--"how well I know your name. It is very familiar to me, having been your dear mother's."

"It seems strangely familiar to me also, though I never know your mother," says Cyril. "I don't believe I shall ever be able to call you Miss Chesney. Would it make you very angry if I called you Lilian?"

"Indeed, no; I shall be very much obliged to you. I should hardly know myself by the more formal t.i.tle. You shall call me Lilian, and I shall call you Cyril,--if you don't mind."

"I don't think I do,--much," says Cyril; so the compact is signed.

"Guy will be here surely by luncheon," says Lady Chetwoode, with a view of giving her guest pleasure.

"Oh! will he really?" says Lilian, in a quick tone, suggestive of dismay.

"I am sure of it," says Guy's mother fondly: "he never breaks his word."

"Of course not," thinks Lilian to herself. "Fancy a paragon going wrong!

How I hate a man who never breaks his word! Why, the Medes and Persians would be weak-minded compared with him."

"I suppose not," she says aloud, rather vaguely.