HARRY DUTTON.
But hapless one! I cannot ride--there's something in a horse
That I could always honour, but never could indorse.
To speak still more commercially, in riding I am quite
Averse to running long, and apt to be paid off at sight.
In legal phrase, for every class to understand me still,
I never was in stirrups yet a tenant but at will;
Or, if you please, in artist's terms, I never went a-straddle
On any horse without "a want of keeping" in the saddle.
--Hood.
The next morning was rougher than ever. The stewardess brought Mrs.
Oliphant's breakfast; but Bluebell, eager for more congenial
companionship, dressed, and went down to the saloon, where she received
a cheery welcome from the captain, who said he had hardly hoped to have
his breakfast-table graced by the presence of any ladies on so wild a
morning.
The widow was also stout-hearted, and, evidently considering it right
to take the only young lady under her chaperonage, advised her after
breakfast to remain below and work with her. Bluebell was of a grateful
disposition, and acquiesced, but secretly thought it rather dismal, so,
when Mr. Dutton came down and begged her to go on deck, as they were
passing through some magnificent icebergs, she willingly pocketed her
tatting and went up. The young lieutenant got a couple of rugs and
arranged her comfortably. Certainly the roll of the ship was much more
bearable on deck.
Mr. Dutton remained to amuse her, and, both being young, they speedily
became confidentially communicative. She learnt from him that he had just
been promoted out of his ship, and was going home till he got another.
"At least," he amended, "it is more my home than any other. I am going to
stay with my uncle, who would like me to give up the service, and remain
with him altogether."
"Is he so very fond of you?"
"Why, yes, in a sort of way. You see he has got no one else. He never
wished me to go to sea, but when I was at school a brother of one of the
fellows came, who had just passed as naval cadet, and he had such a lot
of tuck, and tin, and presents, that we were all wild to go too. My
governor had some interest, and I never ceased tormenting him, till at
last he got me appointed to the 'Sorceress.' After I had been a month
at sea I had had quite enough of it; but we were on a five years' cruise,
and by the end of that time I liked the life as well as any other."
"Then why should your uncle want you to give up your profession?"
"Because," blushing slightly, "he always says I shall be his heir, and he
wishes me to take an interest in the estate, and learn to be a country
gentleman. But after I have been on shore a month or so the monotony of
it is awful, and I feel as if I must do something desperate if I stop
quiet longer."
"I thought English country gentlemen found plenty of excitement in
hunting and shooting."
"Not all the year round," with a smile; "and, besides, I can't ride! Now,
Miss Leigh, if you were an English girl, you would never speak to me
again! I don't fear the obstacle, and would ride anything anybody likes
to trust me with; but I know, and the _horse_ knows, he could get rid of
me at any minute. I hunt sometimes, and go straight if the quad. I am
on is fond of jumping; but I cut a voluntary as often as not, and then
some fool is sure to come up and say,--'You had no business to have
parted at that fence, Dutton; the horse took it well enough!' Then I have
no 'hands,' I am told. Certainly, whenever I take up the rudder-lines to
put his head for any particular course the brute takes it as a personal
affront, and begins to fret, go sideways, and bore and all but tell me
what a duffer he thinks me. There's my cousin Kate, who will spoon with
me by the hour in a greenhouse, and dance as often as I like to ask her,
but at the cover-side she is so ashamed of me she shuns me like the
plague; and then, of course, next ball it is, 'Dear Harry, _do_ introduce
me to Major Rattletrap,' or some such soldier officer, 'I like the look
of him _so_ much.'--'I just offered to,' says I, 'but he didn't seem to
rise; said his card was full. Seems sweet on that girl in pink, with
black eyes.' That's a school friend of Kate's, whom she is mortal jealous
of."
"As if she believed a word of it!"
"Oh, didn't she, though! She bit her lip, and looked shut up. I have
great moral influence over Kate that way."
"There's a grand iceberg!" cried Bluebell, after an amused pause, in
which she had been trying to picture Cousin Kate: "What a strange shape;
it must be hundreds of feet high. How cold it makes the air, though."
"And you are shivering; I'll run and fetch another rug. It is warmer by
the funnel, only there are a lot of fellows smoking there."
"But, Mr. Dutton," said she, hesitatingly, "why don't you join them? You
have given me all your warm things, and must be cold yourself."
"I'll go if you tell me to," said the lieutenant, looking full into
Bluebell's eyes. She was silent, and the long eye-lashes came into play
while she considered. She had promised Mrs. Rolleston not to flirt, but
there had been no question of that hitherto. Why should she throw away a
little pleasant companionship when she was so lonely? "I only spoke on
your account." But she had flirting eyes, which said, only too plainly,
"Go, if you can."
"I don't think any one could feel cold near you," he whispered,--and
then they both blushed. A minute after he ran off for the rug, and
Bluebell was left--to repent. "Oh, dear!" thought she, with very hot
cheeks, "we must _not_ begin this sort of thing already, or there will be
an end to all comfort--and as if I could ever forget!"
She received the rug with matter-of-course indifference, and looked up
at him with the serenity of a nun; the young lieutenant was quick to
perceive the change. He thought it wiser to follow suit, and they were
at ease again, though each remembered the other's blush.
"I came upon a very touching tableau in the saloon," said he; "the bride
was reluctantly pecking at some chicken, and that ass, Butler, feeding
her with a fork."
"Ah! those are your nationalities," laughed Bluebell; "we don't do such
silly things in Canada."
"No, you are very stiff and stand-offish there, I know; that is why you
don't require chaperones."
"What are the duties of a chaperone in England, beyond sitting up against
a wall all night, like an old barn-door hen?"
"But they mustn't roost," said Mr. Dutton; "they have to guard their
charges from the insidious approaches of ineligible youths, and assist
them to entwine in their meshes the sons of Mammon."
"But it must be rather difficult at a ball to distinguish who are
eligible as you call them."
"Oh, an astute and practised chaperone knows pretty well who everybody
is. They have books of reference, too,--the 'Peerage' and 'Landed
Gentry.' I believe now, though, a good deal of matrimonial business
is done in the city."
"And men have no objection to heiresses either," said Bluebell, darkly,
as a memory came over her. "There's the dinner bell." He collected her
rugs, and helped her down to the saloon, where they were betting how many
knots the steamer had made that day, and raffling for the successful
number. Mrs. Oliphant was present, almost as brisk as usual, for the wind
had moderated, and the steamer laboured far less. After dinner some of
the ladies joined in a game of shovel-board on deck. The bride, now quite
bright again, insisted upon being instructed by Mr. Dutton, and became,
with a view to his fascination, more helpless and infantine than ever,
for she was one of those women who cannot bear any one to be an object
of attention but themselves.
However, as she was not successful in detaching him entirely from
Bluebell, she conceived a dislike to her, in which Mrs. Oliphant
cordially participated, and they afterwards whiled away many an hour in
the dear delight of detraction. Bluebell was pronounced an unprincipled
adventuress, determined to use every art to entrap this unsophisticated
young man, and each act and look on her part was treasured up by the two
censors for private analysis and discussion.
Mrs. Butler, it is true, had less provocation to be spiteful than the
elder lady; for being young and silly, she _was_ a certain object of
attraction to some of the officers; but the very indifference of Mr.
Dutton gave a value to his admiration, and made her more eager to obtain
it than that of the rest. Besides, the vacuity of mind and employment
at sea, a brisk flirtation is sure to attract lookers-on, and become a
fruitful incentive to malice and envy. Bluebell could not account for the
unfriendly interest she excited, as her Canadian education had taught her
to regard fraternizing _pro tem_. with any sympathetic masculinity a very
unimportant matter, and about as much a precursor to matrimony as if her
companion were of the same sex; and she had been far too hard hit to bear
any down-right love-making from another man so soon after. Mr. Dutton
was, perhaps, as inflammable as most sailors, but he could not make
Bluebell out. She evidently liked his society, and became pleasant and
animated when they were together, which they were pretty constantly; yet
if ever he ventured on anything tender she had a way of putting it by in
the most unembarrassed manner possible, which piqued while it perplexed
him.
On one occasion, when she had let some warmer speech than usual glance
off, he chose to take it as a snub, and, pretending to be offended,
betook himself to masculine society and smoking. Bluebell was alone all
day, a prey to the ill-natured watchfulness of her two enemies, whose
quickened observation and exultant faces proved they had noticed the
cessation of his attentions. Once or twice he passed her without a word
or look, regardless of the innocent surprise in her eyes. "Perhaps he is
trying to gain 'moral influence over me,' as well as his cousin Kate,"
thought she, with a little laugh. At dinner he dropped into a seat next
Mrs. Butler instead of his usual one by herself, and, from the bride's
incessant giggle, was apparently devoting himself to her entertainment.
Bluebell had no one to speak to except the kind old captain, with whom
she was rather a favourite, and who chatted away willingly enough, till
she ceased to hear that disagreeable and affected laughter.
"Miss Leigh," said a penitent voice in her ear, "will you come on deck?
There's a little land bird in the rigging."
"No, no," said the captain. "I won't have this young lady disturbed; it
is very cold on deck, and she is better here."
"I thought you would like to see it," said the lieutenant, gloomily. "It
is very tired--blown off shore, I should think."
"Indeed, I'd like to give it some crumbs," said she, hesitatingly. "Will
you take it some, Mr. Dutton?"
"Certainly not," seeing his advantage, "unless you come too--in fact,
I thought of shooting it. It would be pretty in your hat--or Mrs.
Butler's."
"That would be, indeed, a feather in your cap," said Mrs. Oliphant with
an unpleasant sneer.
"Quite right, my dear," said the captain, as Mr. Dutton walked away, "not
to do everything a young man asks you;" and he assured Bluebell, who was
still solicitous about the bird, that it would not venture down for
crumbs.
Our heroine was vexed at Mr. Dutton's disagreeable manner, and began
moralizing on the inevitable way in which she succeeded in estranging her
female companions, and offending those of the other sex.
The old captain was just going off to his bridge, when by some
afterthought, he stepped back, and asked Miss Leigh if she would like
to sit awhile in his cabin. "You'll find no one there but the cat and
the parrot," he said; and, on her gratefully assenting, led the way to
a small oasis of comfort.
The cat, a great brindled Tom, arched his back a yard high, and made a
sort of back jump up to his Master's hand, where he rubbed his head with
a sociable miaw. Bluebell soon had him on her lap in a cozy arm-chair.
"I think Master Dutton will be rather puzzled where to find you,"
observed the old skipper, with a twinkle, as he was leaving the cabin.
"Dear me," said Bluebell, with a conscious blush, "I hope you don't
think--that there's anything--of that sort--"
"I think you have been letting that young man keep you all to himself up
in a corner quite long enough," retorted he, "and you may as well show
him you can do without him;" with which he left her to her meditations.
"How disagreeable good advice is!" thought the girl. "Dear old thing! But
it is so dull at sea--one must do something. I do wish though Mr. Dutton
wouldn't try to spoon--he was awfully nice before he thought of it."
Of course these two drew together again next day, and, though Bluebell
still evaded with Madonna eyes all approach to love-making, the
lieutenant accepted the situation, and contented himself with flirting
_sous le nom d'amitié_.