"A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay."
--WORDSWORTH.
When seven long uneventful days have passed away, every one at Chetwoode
is ready to acknowledge that the coming of Lilian Chesney is an
occurrence for which they ought to be devoutly thankful. She is a boon,
a blessing, a merry sunbeam, darting hither and thither about the old
place, lighting up the shadows, dancing through the dark rooms, casting
a little of her own inborn joyousness upon all that comes within her
reach.
To Lady Chetwoode, who is fond of young life, she is especially
grateful, and creeps into her kind heart in an incredibly short time,
finding no impediment to check her progress.
Once a day, armed with huge gloves and a gigantic scissors, Lady
Chetwoode makes a tour of her gardens, snipping, and plucking, and
giving superfluous orders to the attentive gardeners all the time. After
her trots Lilian, supplied with a basket and a restless tongue that
seldom wearies, but is always ready to suggest, or help the thought that
sometimes comes slowly to her hostess.
"As you were saying last night, my dear Lilian----" says Lady Chetwoode,
vaguely, coming to a full stop before the head gardener, and gazing at
Lilian for further inspiration; she had evidently remembered only the
smallest outline of what she wants to say.
"About the ivy on the north wall? You wanted it thinned. You thought it
a degree too straggling."
"Yes,--yes; of course. You hear, Michael, I want it clipped and thinned,
and---- There was something else about the ivy, my child, wasn't there?"
"You wished it mixed with the variegated kind, did you not?"
"Ah, of course. I wonder how I ever got on without Lilian," says the old
lady, gently pinching the girl's soft peach-like cheek. "Florence,
without doubt, is a comfort,--but--she is not fond of gardening. Shall
we come and take a peep at the grapes, dear?" And so on.
Occasionally, too,--being fond of living out of doors in the summer, and
being a capital farmeress,--Lady Chetwoode takes a quiet walk down to
the home farm, to inspect all the latest arrivals. And here, too, Miss
Lilian must needs follow.
There are twelve merry, showy little calves in one field, that run all
together in their ungainly, jolting fashion up to the high gate that
guards their domain, the moment Lady Chetwoode and her visitor arrive,
under the mistaken impression that she and Lilian are a pair of
dairy-maids coming to solace them with unlimited pans of milk.
Lilian cries "Shoo!" at the top of her gay young voice, and instantly
all the handsome, foolish things scamper away as though destruction were
at their heels, leaving Miss Chesney delighted at the success of her own
performance.
Then in the paddock there are four mad little colts to be admired, whose
chief joy in life seems to consist in kicking their hind legs wildly
into space, while their more sedate mothers stand apart and compare
notes upon their darlings' merit.
This paddock is Lilian's special delight, and all the way there, and
all the way back she chatters unceasingly, making the old lady's heart
grow young again, as she listens to, and laughs at, all the merry
stories Miss Chesney tells her of her former life.
To-day--although the morning has been threatening--is now quite fine.
Tired of sulking, it cleared up half an hour ago, and is now throwing
out a double portion of heat, as though to make up for its early
deficiencies.
The
"King of the East, ... girt
With song and flame and fragrance, slowly lifts
His golden feet on those empurpled stairs
That climb into the windy halls of heaven,"
and, casting his million beams abroad, enlivens the whole earth.
It is a day when one might saunter but not walk, when one might dream
though wide awake, when one is perforce amiable because argument or
contradiction would be too great an exertion.
Sir Guy--who has been making a secret though exhaustive search through
the house for Miss Chesney--now turns his steps toward the orchard,
where already instinct has taught him she is usually to be found.
He is not looking quite so _insouciant_, or carelessly happy, as when
first we saw him, now two weeks ago; there is a little gnawing,
dissatisfied feeling at his heart, for which he dare not account even to
himself.
He thinks a good deal of his ward, and his ward thinks a good deal of
him; but unfortunately their thoughts do not amalgamate harmoniously.
Toward Sir Guy Miss Chesney's actions have not been altogether just.
Cyril she treats with affection, and the utmost _bonhommie_, but toward
his brother--in spite of her civility on that first day of meeting--she
maintains a strict and irritating reserve.
He is her guardian (detestable, thankless office), and she takes good
care that neither he or she shall ever forget that fact. Secretly she
resents it, and openly gratifies that resentment by denying his
authority in all things, and being specially willful and wayward when
occasion offers; as though to prove to him that she, for one, does not
acknowledge his power over her.
Not that this ill-treated young man has the faintest desire to assert
any authority whatever. On the contrary, he is most desirous of being
all there is of the most submissive when in her presence; but Miss
Chesney declines to see his humility, and chooses instead to imagine him
capable of oppressing her with all sorts of tyrannical commands at a
moment's notice.
There is a little cloud on his brow as he reaches the garden and walks
moodily along its principal path. This cloud, however, lightens and
disappears, as upon the southern border he hears voices that tell him
his search is at an end.
Miss Chesney's clear notes, rather raised and evidently excited, blend
with those of old Michael Ronaldson, whose quavering bass is also
uplifted, suggesting unwonted agitation on the part of this easy-going
though ancient gentleman.
Lilian is standing on tip-toe, opposite a plum-tree, with the long tail
of her black gown caught firmly in one hand, while with the other she
points frantically in a direction high above her head.
"Don't you see him?" she says, reproachfully,--"there--in that corner."
"No, that I don't," says Michael, blankly, sheltering his forehead with
both hands from the sun's rays, while straining his gaze anxiously
toward the spot named.
"Not see him! Why, he is a big one, a _monster_! Michael," says Lilian,
reproachfully, "you are growing either stupid or short-sighted, and I
didn't expect it from you. Now follow the tip of my finger; look right
along it now--now"--with growing excitement, "don't you see it?"
"I do, I do," says the old man, enthusiastically; "wait till I get
'en--won't I pay him off!"
"Is it a plum you want?" asks Guy, who has come up behind her, and is
lost in wonder at what he considers is her excitement about the fruit.
"Shall I get it for you?"
"A plum! no, it is a snail I want," says Lilian eagerly, "but I can't
get at it. Oh, that I had been born five inches taller! Ronaldson, you
are not tall enough; Sir Guy will catch him."
Sir Guy, having brought a huge snail to the ground, presents him gravely
to Lilian.
"That is the twenty-third we have caught to-day," says she, "and
twenty-nine yesterday,--in all forty-eight. Isn't it, Michael?"
"I think it makes fifty-two," suggests Sir Guy, deferentially.
"Does it? Well, it makes no difference," says Miss Chesney, with a fine
disregard of arithmetic; "at all events, either way, it is a tremendous
number. I'm sure I don't know where they come from,"--despairingly,--
"unless they all walk back again during the night."
"And I wouldn't wonder too," says Michael, _sotto voce_.
"Walk back again!" repeats Guy, amazed. "Don't you kill them?"
"Miss Chesney won't hear of 'en being killed, Sir Guy," says old
Ronaldson, sheepishly; "she says as 'ow the cracklin' of 'en do make her
feel sick all over."
"Oh, yes," says Lilian, making a little wry face, "I hate to think of
it. He used to crunch them under his heel, so," with a shudder, and a
small stamp upon the ground, "and it used to make me absolutely faint.
So we gave it up, and now we just throw them over the wall,
so,"--suiting the action to the word, and flinging the slimy creature
she holds with dainty disgust, between her first finger and thumb, over
the garden boundary.
Guy laughs, and, thus encouraged, so does old Michael.
"Well, at all events, it must take them a long time to get back," says
Lilian, apologetically.
"On your head be it if we have no vegetables or fruit this year," says
Chetwoode, who understands as much about gardening as the man in the
moon, but thinks it right to say something. "Come for a walk, Lilian,
will you? It is a pity to lose this charming day." He speaks with marked
diffidence (his lady's moods being uncertain), which so far gains upon
Miss Chesney that in return she deigns to be gracious.
"I don't mind if I do," she replies, with much civility. "Good-morning,
Michael;" and with a pretty little nod, and a still prettier smile in
answer to the old man's low salutation, she walks away beside her
guardian.
Far into the woods they roam, the teeming woods all green and bronze and
copper-colored, content and happy in that no actual grief disturbs them.
"The branches cross above their eyes,
The skies are in a net;"
the fond gay birds are warbling their tenderest strains. "Along the
grass sweet airs are blown," and all the myriad flowers, the "little
wildings" of the forest, "earth's cultureless buds," are expanding and
glowing, and exhaling the perfumed life that their mother, Nature, has
given them.
Chetwoode is looking its best and brightest, and Sir Guy might well be
proud of his possessions; but no thought of them enters his mind just
now, which is filled to overflowing with the image of this petulant,
pretty, saucy, lovable ward, that fate has thrown into his path.
"Yes, it is a lovely place!" says Lilian, after a pause spent in
admiration. She has been looking around her, and has fallen into honest
though silent raptures over all the undulating parks and uplands that
stretch before her, far as the eye can see. "Lovely!--So," with a sigh,
"was my old home."
"Yes. I think quite as lovely as this."
"What!" turning to him with a start, while the rich, warm, eager flush
of youth springs to her cheeks and mantles there, "you have been there?
You have seen the Park?"
"Yes, very often, though not for years past. I spent many a day there
when I was younger. I thought you knew it."
"No, indeed. It makes me glad to think some one here can remember its
beauties with me. But you cannot know it all as I do: you never saw my
own particular bit of wood?"--with earnest questioning, as though
seeking to deny the hope that strongly exists. "It lies behind the
orchard, and one can get to it by passing through a little gate in the
wall, that leads into the very centre of it. There at first, in the
heart of the trees one sees a tangled mass with giant branches
overhanging it, and straggling blackberry bushes protecting it with
their angry arms, and just inside, the coolest, greenest, freshest bit
of grass in all the world,--my fairy nook I used to call it. But you--of
course you never saw it."
"It has a huge horse-chestnut at its head, and a silver fir at its
feet."
"Yes,--yes!"
"I know it well," says Chetwoode, smiling at her eagerness. "It was your
mother's favorite spot. You know she and my mother were fast friends,
and she was very fond of me. When first she was married, before you
were born, I was constantly at the Park, and afterward too. She used to
read in the spot you name, and I--I was a delicate little fellow at that
time, obliged to lie a good deal, and I used to read there beside her
with my head in her lap, by the hour together."
"Why, you know more about my mother than I do," says Lilian, with some
faint envy in her tones.
"Yes,"--hastily, having already learned how little a thing can cause an
outbreak, when one party is bent on war,--"but you must not blame me for
that. I could not help it."
"No,"--regretfully,--"I suppose not. Before I was born, you say. How old
that seems to make you!"
"Why?"--laughing. "Because I was able to read eighteen years ago? I was
only nine, or perhaps ten, then."
"I never could do my sums," says Lilian: "I only know it sounds as
though you were the Ancient Mariner or Methuselah, or anybody in the
last stage of decay."
"And yet I am not so very old, Lilian. I am not yet thirty."
"Well, that's old enough. When I am thirty I shall take to caps with
borders, and spectacles, and long black mittens, like nurse. Ha, ha!"
laughs Lilian, delighted at the portrait of herself she has drawn,
"shan't I look nice then?"
"I dare say you will," says Guy, quite seriously. "But I would advise
you to put off the wearing of them for a while longer. I don't think
thirty old. I am not quite that."
"A month or two don't signify,"--provokingly; "and as you have had
apparently a very good life I don't think it manly of you to fret
because you are drawing to the close of it. Some people would call it
mean. There, never mind your age: tell me something more about my
mother. Did you love her?"
"One could not help loving her, she was so gentle, so thoroughly
kind-hearted."
"Ah! what a pity it is I don't resemble her!" says Lilian, with a
suspiciously deep sigh, accepting the reproach, and shaking her head
mournfully. "Was she like that picture at home in the drawing-room? I
hope not. It is very lovely, but it lacks expression, and has no
tenderness about it."
"Then the artist must have done her great injustice. She was all
tenderness both in face and disposition as I remember her, and children
are very correct in their impressions. She was extremely beautiful. You
are very like her."
"Am I, Sir Guy? Oh, thank you. I didn't hope for so much praise. Then in
one thing at least I do resemble my mother. Am I more beautiful or less
so?"
"That is quite a matter of opinion."
"And what is yours?" saucily.
"What can it matter to you?" he says, quickly, almost angrily. "Besides,
I dare say you know it."
"I don't, indeed. Never mind, I shall find out for myself. I am so
glad"--amiably--"you knew my mother, and the dear Park! It sounds
horrible, does it not, but the Park is even more dear to me than--than
her memory."
"You can scarcely call it a 'memory'; she died when you were so
young,--hardly old enough to have an idea. I recollect you so well, a
little toddling thing of two."
"The plot thickens. You knew _me_ also? And pray, Sir Guardian, what was
I like?"
"You had blue eyes, and a fair skin, a very imperious will, and the
yellowest hair I ever saw."
"A graphic description! It would be madness on the part of any one to
steal me, as I should infallibly be discovered by it. Well, I have not
altered much. I have still my eyes and my hair, and my will, only
perhaps rather more of the latter. Go on: you are very unusually
interesting to-day: I had no idea you possessed such a fund of
information. Were you very fond of me?"
"Very," says Chetwoode, laughing in spite of himself. "I was your slave,
as long as I was with you. Your lightest wish was my law. I used
even----"
A pause.
"Yes, do go on: I am all attention. 'I used even----'"
"I was going to say I used to carry you about in my arms, and kiss you
into good humor when you were angry, which was pretty often," replies
Guy, with a rather forced laugh, and a decided accession of color; "but
I feared such a very grown-up young lady as you might be offended."
"Not in the least,"--with a gay, perfectly unembarrassed enjoyment at
his confusion. "I never heard anything so amusing. Fancy you being my
nurse once on a time. I feel immensely flattered when I think such an
austere individual actually condescended to hold me in his arms and kiss
me into good humor. It is more than I have any right to expect. I am
positively overwhelmed. By the bye, had your remedy the desired effect?
Did I subdue my naughty passion under your treatment?"
"As far as I can recollect, yes," rather stiffly. Nobody likes being
laughed at.
"How odd!" says Miss Chesney.
"Not very," retorts he: "at that time _you_ were very fond of _me_."
"That is even odder," says Miss Chesney, who takes an insane delight in
teasing him. "What a pity it is you cannot invent some plan for reducing
me to order now!"
"There are some tasks too great for a mere mortal to undertake," replies
Sir Guy, calmly.
Miss Chesney, not being just then prepared with a crushing retort,
wisely refrains from speech altogether, although it is by a superhuman
effort she does so. Presently, however, lest he should think her
overpowered by the irony of his remark, she says, quite pleasantly:
"Did Cyril ever see me before I came here?"
"No." Then abruptly, "Do you like Cyril?"
"Oh, immensely! He suits me wonderfully, he is so utterly devoid of
dignity, and all that. One need not mind what one says to Cyril; in his
worst mood he could not terrify. Whereas his brother----" with a little
malicious gleam from under her long, heavy lashes.
"Well, what of his brother?"
"Nay, Sir Guy, the month we agreed on has not yet expired," says Lilian.
"I cannot tell you what I think of you yet. Still, you cannot imagine
how dreadfully afraid I am of you at times."
"If I believed you, it would cause me great regret," says her guardian,
rather hurt. "I am afraid, Lilian, your father acted unwisely when he
chose Chetwoode as a home for you."
"What! are you tired of me already?" asks she hastily, with a little
tremor in her voice, that might be anger, and that might be pain.
"Tired of you? No! But I cannot help seeing that the fact of my being
your guardian makes me abhorrent to you."
"Not quite that," says Miss Chesney, in a little soft, repentant tone.
"What a curious idea to get into your head? dismiss it; there is really
no reason why it should remain."
"You are sure?" with rather more earnestness than the occasion demands.
"Quite sure. And now tell me how it was I never saw you until now, since
I was two years old."
"Well, for one thing, your mother died; then I went to Eton, to
Cambridge, got a commission in the Dragoons, tired of it, sold out, and
am now as you see me."
"What an eventful history!" says Lilian, laughing.
At this moment, who should come toward them, beneath the trees, but
Cyril, walking as though for a wager.
"'Whither awa?'" asks Miss Lilian, gayly stopping him with outstretched
hands.
"You have spoiled my quotation," says Cyril, reproachfully, "and it was
on the very tip of my tongue. I call it disgraceful. I was going to say
with fine effect, 'Where are you going, my pretty maid?' but I fear it
would fall rather flat if I said it now."
"Rather. Nevertheless, I accept the compliment. Are you in training? or
where are you going in such a hurry?"
"A mere constitutional," says Cyril, lightly,--which is a base and ready
lie. "Good-bye, I won't detain you longer. Long ago I learned the useful
lesson that where 'two is company, three is trumpery.' Don't look as
though you would like to devour me, Guy: I meant no harm."
Lilian laughs, so does Guy, and Cyril continues his hurried walk.
"Where does that path lead to?" asks Lilian, looking after him as he
disappeared rapidly in the distance.
"To The Cottage first, and then to the gamekeeper's lodge, and farther
on to another entrance-gate that opens on the road."
"Perhaps he will see your pretty tenant on his way?"
"I hardly think so. It seems she never goes beyond her own garden."
"Poor thing! I feel the greatest curiosity about her, indeed I might say
an interest in her. Perhaps she is unhappy."
"Perhaps so; though her manner is more frozen than melancholy. She is
almost forbidding, she is so cold."
"She may be in ill health."
"She may be," unsympathetically.
"You do not seem very prepossessed in her favor," says Lilian,
impatiently.
"Well, I confess I am not," carelessly. "Experience has taught me that
when a woman withdraws persistently from the society of her own sex, and
eschews the companionship of her fellow-creatures, there is sure to be
something radically wrong with her."
"But you forget there are exceptions to every rule. I confess I would
give anything to see her," says Lilian, warmly.
"I don't believe you would be the gainer by that bargain," replies he,
with conviction, being oddly, unaccountably prejudiced against this
silent, undemonstrative widow.
* * * * *
Meantime, Cyril pursues his way along the path, that every day of late
he has traveled with unexampled perseverance. Seven times he has passed
along it full of hope, and only twice has been rewarded, with a bare
glimpse of the fair unknown, whose face has obstinately haunted him
since his first meeting with it.
On these two momentous occasions, she has appeared to him so pale and
wan that he is fain to believe the color he saw in her cheeks on that
first day arose from vexation and excitement, rather than health,--a
conclusion that fills him with alarm.
Now, as he nears the house between the interstices of the hedge he
catches the gleam of a white gown moving to and fro, that surely covers
his divinity.
Time proves his surmise right. It is the admired incognita, who almost
as he reaches the gate that leads to her bower, comes up to one of the
huge rose-bushes that decorate either side of it, and--unconscious of
criticism--commences to gather from it such flowers as shall add beauty
to the bouquet already growing large within her hands.
Presently the restless feeling that makes us all know when some
unexpected presence is near, compels her to raise her head. Thereupon
her eyes and those of Cyril Chetwoode meet. She pauses in her occupation
as though irresolute; Cyril pauses too; and then gravely, unsmilingly,
she bows in cold recognition. Certainly her reception is not
encouraging; but Cyril is not to be daunted.
"I hope," he says, deferentially, "your little dog has been conducting
himself with due propriety since last I had the pleasure of restoring
him to your arms?"
This Grandisonian speech surely calls for a reply.
"Yes," says Incognita, graciously. "I think it was only the worry caused
by change of scene made him behave so very badly that--last day."
So saying, she turns from him, as though anxious to give him a gentle
_conge_. But Cyril, driven to desperation, makes one last effort at
detaining her.
"I hope your friend is better," he says, leaning his arms upon the top
of the gate, and looking full of anxiety about the absent widow. "My
brother--Sir Guy--called the other day, and said she appeared extremely
delicate."
"My friend?" staring at him in marked surprise, while a faint deep rose
flush illumines her cheek, making one forget how white and fragile she
appeared a moment since.
"Yes. I mean Mrs. Arlington, our tenant. I am Cyril Chetwoode," raising
his hat. "I hope the air here will do her good."
He is talking against time, but she is too much occupied to notice it.
"I hope it will," she replies, calmly, studying her roses attentively,
while the faintest suspicion of a smile grows and trembles at the corner
of her mobile lips.
"You are her sister, perhaps?" asks Cyril, the extreme deference of his
whole manner taking from the rudeness of his questioning.
"No--not her sister."
"Her friend?"
"Yes. Her dearest friend," replies Incognita, slowly, after a pause, and
a closer, more prolonged examination of her roses; while again the
curious half-suppressed smile lights up her face. There are few things
prettier on a pretty face than an irrepressible smile.
"She is fortunate in possessing such a friend," says Cyril, softly; then
with some haste, as though anxious to cover his last remark, "My brother
did not see you when he called?"
"Did he say so?"
"No. He merely mentioned having seen only Mrs. Arlington. I do not think
he is aware of your existence."
"I think he is. I have had the pleasure of speaking with Sir Guy."
"Indeed!" says Cyril, and instantly tells himself he would not have
suspected Guy of so much slyness. "Probably it was some day since--you
met him----"
"No, it was on that one occasion when he called here."
"I dare say I misunderstood," says Cyril, "but I certainly thought he
said he had seen only Mrs. Arlington."
"Well?"
"Well?"
"_I_ am Mrs. Arlington!"
"What!" says Cyril, with exaggerated surprise,--and a moment later is
shocked at the vehemence of his own manner. "I beg your pardon, I am
sure," he says, contritely; "there is no reason why it should not be so,
but you seem so--I had no idea you wore a--that is--I mean I did not
think you were married."
"You had no idea I was a widow," corrects Mrs. Arlington, coldly. "I do
not see why you need apologize. On the contrary, I consider you have
paid me a compliment. I am glad I do not look the character.
Good-morning, sir; I have detained you too long already."
"It is I who have detained you, madam," says Cyril, speaking coldly
also, being a little vexed at the tone she has employed toward him,
feeling it to be undeserved. "I fear I have been unhappy enough to err
twice this morning,--though I trust you will see--unwittingly." He
accompanies this speech with a glance so full of entreaty and a mute
desire for friendship as must go straight to the heart of any true
woman; after which, being a wise young man, he attempts no further
remonstrance, but lifts his hat, and walks away gloomily toward his
home.
Mrs. Arlington, who is not proof against so much reproachful humility,
lifts her head, sees the dejected manner of his departure, and is
greatly struck by it. She makes one step forward; checks herself; opens
her lips as though to speak; checks herself again; and finally, with a
little impatient sigh, turns and walks off gloomily toward her home.