A LOCK OF HAIR.
For which they be that hold apart
The promise of the golden hours;
First love, first friendship, equal powers,
That many with the virgin heart.
--In Memoriam.
Another year had gone by since the _denouement_ at Bromley Towers. The
war was over, peace proclaimed, and what remained of our armies had
returned from the East.
General Rolleston then retired from the service, and bought a very nice
property near Leamington. He still saw a good deal of his old officers;
Fane especially, who now commanded the regiment, spent much of his leave
at Pyott's Hill. He retained all his old admiration for Cecil, receiving
as little encouragement as ever. Possibly that may have been the secret
of his constancy, for certainly, as a Crimean hero, with seven thousand a
year to gild the romance of it, he did not find young ladies in general
very hard-hearted.
But Fane was ever ungrateful, and, after being petted and feted, sang at,
ridden at, and generally made much of, only returned with fresh zest to
Cecil's unaffected and pleasant companionship. Yet, after each visit, in
spite of manifold opportunities, being alone with her for hours, her
constant companion in rides and rambles, and given to her by every one in
the neighbourhood, he always found he had never really advanced an inch,
and that nothing Cecil expected less than a proposal from him.
So he always went away in despair, to return again at the faintest hint
of an invitation from her father.
General Rolleston was by no means displeased to observe this eagerness to
avail himself of his hospitality, being quite as alive as heretofore to
the advantages of the match--he only wondered why Fane and his daughter
were so tardy in coming to an understanding.
Cecil was very much liked in the neighbourhood. Everybody said she was
the most unaffected girl in the world. But with all her admirers, she had
no flirtations--bright and cold was the verdict pronounced. Some said she
was strong-minded, for she was known to read a great deal, and had even
had a picture admitted into the Female Artists' Exhibition. She was
further convicted of preferring long, solitary rides to joining the
numerous equestrian parties got up in the summer; but as public opinion
had unanimously agreed that she must be engaged to Fane, the unsocial
trait was excused on that hypothesis.
About this period, he having just discovered her whereabouts, Cecil
received a long letter from Harry Dutton, relating what he knew would
interest her--the strange events and transformations at "The Towers." A
similar one came to Mrs. Rolleston from Bluebell, who, now that she was
at liberty to speak, wrote something like a volume of narrative and
explanation to her friend. The latter, agitated and excited, flew to
Cecil with the wonderful news, unaware that she had heard it already from
Dutton, or, indeed, of her acquaintance with him: for, considering that
all he had told her was in the strictest confidence. Cecil, as the
simplest way of keeping it secret, had never mentioned anything at all
about him. She must now, however, confess, for her step-mother was in an
effusive mood, and bent upon instantly inviting the Duttons to pay them a
visit.
Mrs. Rolleston received the information with some coldness and little
curiosity, being naturally hurt at her step-daughter's concealment of a
fact of so much interest to her; and though she probably told the
General, he never afterwards alluded to the episode. Indeed, Cecil's
labours at Scutari were rather a tabooed subject, as Harry speedily
discovered when one day he attempted to blunder out his gratitude to her
father.
The Duttons were invited for a week; also Colonel Fane and Captain
Vavasour. Cecil became restless and excited as the day approached. The
sight of Bluebell would cruelly re-open old wounds, and she had never met
Vavasour (who had brought back the slain body of her lover) since the
Crimea. And he would talk to her about it, she was sure, for Jack had
long ago fathomed their ill fated attachment. Altogether, it was a relief
that other guests were coming to dinner, for they were all too intimate
in one way and too far apart in another--a connecting thread seeming to
run through all their lives. Jack, an old love of Bluebell's, Dutton,
whom she had nursed through deadly peril, and Fane, only prevented being
a declared suitor by systematic absence of reciprocity on her side. Well
it was a mercy they all came in owl-light, scarcely dusk enough for
candles, but pleasantly veiling countenances not too much under command.
Bluebell and Cecil had determined beforehand that they must embrace, and
mutually dreaded it. It was not, however, such _a blanc-mange_ affair as
osculation among ladies often is, for they were both agitated by too
vivid memories. Bluebell's feelings were pleasantly diverted by
recognising Jack--blushing with delight like the boy he still was.
Somehow, he was the only one of the party she felt entirely at ease with,
and found herself, as of old, chattering and laughing at as much as with
him, just as if three sorrow-laden years had never intervened.
Dutton contrived to get by Cecil at dinner, though he had not taken her
down, and their conversation was sufficiently interesting to make them
forget their appointed partners.
"And you _are_ quite restored to favour?" Cecil was saying, "and the
uncle not half so implacable as you expected?"
"I don't know about that," cried Harry. "He has altered to _me_, I think.
Bluebell is all the rage now, she actually is admitted into his sanctum
every morning, to read him the papers. I shouldn't wonder if she turned
out Queen Regnante and I were only Prince Consort!"
Cecil, I think, liked Dutton much better than his wife, with whom it was
hard to resume old relations. Besides, she seemed now quite the favourite
of Fortune, with every difficulty and hardship smoothed away, and to
those who have suffered, it is harder to rejoice with those who do
rejoice than to weep with those who weep.
So Bluebell was happier alone with Mrs. Rolleston when the men were
hunting or out of the way. Dutton once ventured to question Cecil about
Fane, whose hopeless passion was evident to every one in the house. She
looked vexed, disconsolate, and gave her usual answer, that there was
nothing in it, and never would be.
Dutton gently tried to combat this assertion. He had heard all about
Bertie, but of course thought it was useless grieving over spilt milk;
that time enough had passed since then; and that she had far better marry
and forget.
Cecil smiled with a sort of sad amusement at all this and his slight
assumption of marital experience. Harry and Bluebell seemed years younger
than herself,--a giddy, happy young couple, the very sunshine of whose
lives dazzled them too much to see into the depths of hers.
One afternoon she had started for a lonely walk. The rest of the party
were pretty well disposed of--Bluebell driving with Mrs. Rolleston, and
the others, she thought were with the General; but it did not much
matter. It was a blustering February afternoon--Cecil long remembered it;
the north wind had strewn the ground with dead branches, and cawing
rooks, on the eve of wedlock, were drifting about incoherently on the
breeze. She was following the course of a brook where the grounds
widened into a wild, brambly park, and looking over her shoulder she
perceived Jack Vavasour some distance off, coming along with rapid
strides as if bent on overtaking her.
Cecil sauntered slowly on, not ill pleased at the opportunity of an
unreserved conversation with Jack. She noticed, with furtive amusement,
that he slackened his pace considerably as he neared her, probably to
give an accidental aspect to the encounter. She turned round with a
contented smile of expectation, and they wandered on together, Cecil
instinctively choosing the most unfrequented and far-off boundary of the
park. It was impossible to keep up long a commonplace conversation, and
they became more and more _distrait_ and nervous, each wishing to
approach one subject, and neither liking to begin. In such a case, it is
always the woman who breaks the ice. An allusion to the war was
sufficient in this instance, and Jack responded so eagerly, she was
confirmed in her impression that he had something to tell her. Without
waiting for further questioning, he plunged into Crimean reminiscences of
Bertie Du Meresq, whom he had seen nearly every day till his death, to
all of which poor Cecil listened with breathless interest, and yet she
_knew_ there was something more to come.
"You know," continued Vavasour, "his watch and things were sent back to
England; but when we cut open his tunic, to see if he was breathing,
something dropped out that he had worn through the action. I kept _that_,
for I thought I would restore it only to the rightful owner."
What intuitive feeling was it that made her wish he would say no more!
Jack was opening his pocket-book, and drew out a piece of folded paper.
"I knew it in a moment," he cried, as a long coil of soft, dark hair
appeared, so closely resembling Cecil's own as fully to justify his
conviction that it was so.
He had expected to see her greatly moved; but the sudden pallor of her
face puzzled him, which sensation was still more intensified when her
large eyes flashed a moment upon him with an expression he never forgot,
and, turning abruptly away, she walked towards the house.
Of all the trouble Cecil had gone through of late, I think for
concentrated bitterness this moment was the worst. Though the colour was
identical, by feel and texture she knew the tress was not her own, added
to which, no such token had ever passed between herself and Bertie.
Well, there was no temptation to linger over the dead past now, which had
received its _coup de grace_ that wintry afternoon; almost every one felt
that some subtle change had passed over Cecil. Perhaps the one who least
felt its uncannyness was, Fane, who hovered near her with a brighter air.
No doubt some of the party were surprised when, just before it broke up,
the engagement of Cecil and Fane was announced; but no one guessed the
truth except Jack Vavasour, who, anxious and remorseful, only cursed
himself for a blundering idiot.
They were married on her twenty-fourth birthday, much to the relief of
her bridesmaid-sisters, who had begun to fear Cecil would be an old maid.
Fane sold out, and took his wife abroad, while the old Elizabethan
manor-house, which, since his succession to, he had never lived in, was
painted and luxuriously refurnished for the reception of the bride.
'Twas a pity Cecil married a rich man. Her best chance would have been
having to think, work, deny herself for another, who might thus have
become dear from the very sacrifices entailed by him. It was hard on
Fane, who had been constant so long, and found he had grasped nothing but
fairy gold. The old manor house was generally full, for somehow both
dreaded a _tête-à-tête_, and equally, in early days especially, a
betrayal of the feeling.
Cecil left her guests pretty much to their own devices in the morning,
and read and painted in her own peculiar den, fitted up half as a
library, half as a studio. The winter she devoted to hunting, and
scarcely any meet was too distant or country too intricate for her.
Bertie's riding lessons, at any rate, had not been forgotten, and
carelessness of life is certainly conducive to steadiness of nerve. Jack
Vavasour, who was out one day, was under the impression she wished to
break her neck. Mrs. Fane became noted in her county for going with the
most unflinching straightness, but so little did she care for the
reputation, that sometimes she would stick unambitiously to the roads and
never take a fence.
She had a separate stud of hunters, and rode independently of her
husband, who followed the amusement in a less erratic style than his
wife, and in more moderation.
Cecil often thought of her dream, when Du Meresq was transformed into
Fane, and how singularly it had been realized. Certainly adventitious
circumstances were averse to that first love of hers, for, however much
appearances were against him, the lock of hair which had decided her
destiny was no love token of Du Meresq's. It had been consigned to him by
a dying friend, who besought him to write the news to his betrothed, and
restore to her the lock of hair she had given him.
When Du Meresq had sent this letter off, he found he had omitted
enclosing the tress, but they were then just going into action, and he
had placed it inside his tunic.
After long years Cecil met this girl, who had been faithful to the memory
of her Crimean hero. Once she spoke of him to Mrs. Fane, mentioning the
circumstance of the omission of the lock when Du Meresq's letter had
conveyed to her the fatal news. Little did she think how her companion
had guarded and hated this _souvenir_. Cecil glanced sharply at the
other's hair, harsher and more wiry now, and intersected with silvery
threads, still it was like enough to satisfy her of the identity without
the confirmatory cry of surprise with which the poor woman received it
from her hands. Had she known this earlier, I think Cecil would have
clung to her ideal, and never married, but by this time Fane and herself
were--well as happy together as other people. Time's "effacing finger"
had prepared the way, and since the birth of her only son, Cecil's heart
was vitalized by a second passion, as strong though different to the
first. So we may leave her, and see how our other heroine ultimately
fares before dropping the curtain.
Dutton went to sea once again, but, as his ship was only cruising in the
Mediterranean, Bluebell was able to meet him at the different ports they
stopped at, and did not at all dislike the changeful variety of the life.
However, Lord Bromley found he could not do without her, so, after that
one cruise, Harry retired from the navy, and they lived chiefly at "The
Towers," where a numerous family was born.
At last Lord Bromley died at a great age, and it was found that he had
left Bromley Towers to their eldest boy, Theodore. To the Duttons was
bequeathed a small estate worth three thousand a year. So after all Harry
never inherited "The Towers," nor Bluebell either.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's Bluebell, by Mrs. George Croft Huddleston