ourselves in the express, and whisked through the snow-covered
embankments, whitened fields, and holly hedges on the line down to
Deerhurst. If the frost broke up we should have magnificent runs, and we
looked at the country with a longing eye. Ever since he was six years
old, he told me, he had gone out with the Harkaway Hack on
Christmas-eve. When the drag met us, with the four bays steaming in the
night air, and the groom warming into a smile at the sight of the
Colonel, the sleet was coming down heavily, and the wind blew as keen as
a sabre's edge. The bays dashed along at a furious gallop under Vivian's
hand, the frosty road cracked under the wheel, the leaders' breath was
white in the misty night; we soon flew through the park gate--though he
didn't forget to throw down a sovereign on the snow for the old
porteress--and up the leafless avenue, and bright and cheery the old
manor-house, with its score of windows, like so many bright eyes, looked
out upon the winter's night.
"By George! we did that four miles quick enough," said Vivian, jumping
down, and shaking the snow off his hair and mustaches. "The old place
looks cheery, doesn't it? Ah! there are the girls; they're sure to
pounce on me."
The two girls in question having warm hearts, not spoilt by the
fashionable world they live in, darted across the hall, and, regardless
of the snow, welcomed him ardently. They were proud of him, for he is a
handsome dog, with haughty, aristocratic features, and a grand air as
stately as a noble about Versailles in the polished "Age dore."
He shook himself free, and went forward to meet his mother, whom he is
very fond of; while the governor, a fine-looking, genial old fellow,
bade me welcome to Deerhurst. In the library door I caught sight of a
figure in white that I recognised as our belle of the sledge drives; she
was looking at Vivian as he bent down to his mother. As soon as she saw
me though, she disappeared, and he and I went up to our rooms to thaw,
and dress for dinner.
By the fire, talking to Blanche Vivian, stood Cecil, when we went down
to the drawing-room. She always makes me think of a Sevres or Dresden
figure, her coloring is so delicate, and yet brilliant; and if you were
to see her Canadian eyes, her waving chestnut hair, and her
instantaneous, radiant, coquettish smiles, you would not wonder at the
Toronto men losing their heads about her.
"Why, Cecil, you never told me you knew Sydney!" cried Blanche, as
Vivian shook hands with the St. Aubyn. "Where did you meet him? how long
have you been acquainted? why did you never tell me?"
"How could I tell Colonel Vivian was your brother?" said Cecil, playing
with a little silver Cupid driving a barrowful of matches on the
mantelpiece till she tumbled all his matches into the fender.
"You might have asked. Never mind the wax-lights," said Blanche, who,
not having been long out, had a habit of saying anything that came into
her head. "When did you see him? Tell me, Sydney, if she won't."
"Oh, in Canada, dear!" interrupted Cecil, quickly. "But it was for so
short a time I should have thought Colonel Vivian would have forgotten
my face, and name, and existence."
"Nay, Miss St. Aubyn," said Vivian, smiling. "Pardon me, but I think
you must know your own power too well to think that any man who has seen
you once could hope for his own peace to forget you."
The words of course were flattering, but his quizzical smile made them
doubtful. Cecil evidently took them as satire. "At least, you've
forgotten anything we talked about at Toronto," she said, rather
impatiently, "for I remember telling you I detested compliments."
"I shouldn't have guessed it," murmured Vivian, stroking his mustaches.
"And you," Cecil went on, regardless of the interruption, "told me you
never complimented any woman you respected; so that speech just now
doesn't say much for your opinion of me."
"How dare I begin to like you?" laughed Vivian.
"Don't you know Levinge and Castlereagh were great friends of mine? Poor
fellows! the sole object of their desires now is six feet of Crimean
sod, if we're lucky enough to get out there." Cecil colored. Levinge's
and Castlereagh's hard drinking and gloomy aspect at mess were popularly
attributed to the witchery of the St. Aubyn. Canada, while she was in
it, was as fatal to the Service as the Cape or the cholera.
"If I talked so romantically, Colonel Vivian, with what superb mockery
you would curl your mustaches. Surely the Iron Hand (wasn't that your
sobriquet in Caffreland?) does not believe in broken hearts?"
"Perhaps not; but I _do_ believe in some people's liking to try and
break them."
"So do I. It is a favorite pastime with your sex," said Cecil, beating
the hearth-rug impatiently with her little satin shoe.
"I don't think we often attack," laughed Vivian. "We sometimes yield out
of amiability, and we sometimes take out the foils in self-defence,
though we are no match for those delicate hands that use their Damascus
blades so skilfully. We soon learn to cry quarter!"
"To a dozen different conquerors in as many months, then!" cried Cecil,
with a defiant toss of her head.
Vivian looked down on her as a Newfoundland might look down on a small
and impetuous-minded King Charles, who is hoping to irritate him. Just
then three other people staying there came in. A fat old dowager and a
thin daughter, who had turquoise eyes, and from whom, being a great
pianist, we all fled in mortal terror of a hailstorm of Thalberg and
Hertz, and a cousin of Syd's, Cossetting, a young chap, a blondin, with
fair curls parted down the centre, whose brains were small, hands like a
girl's, and thoughts centred on dew _bouquets_ and his own beauty, but
who, having a baronetcy, with much tin, was strongly set upon by the
turquoise eyes, but appeared himself to lean more towards the Canadian,
as a greater contrast to himself, I suppose.
"How do you do, Cos?" said Vivian, carelessly. The Iron Hand very
naturally scorned this effeminate _patte de velours_.
"You here!" lisped the baronet. "Delighted to see you! thought you'd
killed yourself over a fence, or something, before this----"
"Why, Horace," burst in energetic little Blanche, "I have told you for
the last month that he was coming down for Christmas."
"Did you, my dear child?" said Cos. "'Pon my life I forgot it. Miss St.
Aubyn, my man Cleante (he's the handiest dog--he once belonged to the
Duc d'Aumale) has just discovered something quite new--there's no
perfume like it; he calls it 'Fleurs des Tilleuls,' and the best of it
is, nobody can have it. If you'll allow me----"
"Everybody seems to make it their duty to forget Sydney," muttered
Blanche, as the Baronet murmured the rest of his speech inaudibly.
"Never mind, petite; I can bear it," laughed Vivian, leaning against the
mantelpiece with that look of quiet strength characteristic of both his
mind and body.
Cecil overheard the whisper, and flushed a quick look at him; then
turning to Cossetting, talked over the "Fleurs des Tilleuls" as if her
whole mind was absorbed in _bouquet_.
When dinner was announced, Vivian troubled himself, however, to give his
arm to Cecil, and, tossing his head back in the direction of the
turquoise eyes, said to the discomfited Horace, "You sing, don't you,
Cosset? Miss Screechington will bore you less than she would me."
"Is it, then, because I 'bore you less' that you do me the honor?" asked
Cecil, quickly.
"Yes," said Syd, calmly; "or, rather, to put it more courteously, you
amuse me more."
"Monseigneur! je vous remercie," said Cecil, her long almond eyes
sparkling dangerously. "You promote me to the same rank with an opera, a
hookah, a rat-hunt, and a French novel?"
"And," Vivian went on tranquilly, "I dare say I shall amuse _you_ better
than that poor little fool with his lisp and his talk of the toilet, and
his hands that never pulled in a thorough-bred or aided a rowing match."
"Oh, we're not in the Iliad and Odyssey days to deify physical
strength," said Cecil, who secretly adored it, as all women do; "nor yet
among the Pawnees to reverence a man according to his scalps. Though Sir
Horace may not have followed your example and jeopardised his life on
every possible occasion, he is very handsome, and can be very
agreeable."
"Is it possible you can endure that fop?" said Vivian, quickly.
"Certainly. Why not?"
The Colonel stroked his moustache contemptuously. "I should have fancied
you more difficile, that is all; but Cos is, as you say, good-looking,
and very well off. I wish----"
"What? That you were 'less bored?'"
"That I always wish; but I was thinking of Cos, there--milk-posset, as
little Eardley in the troop says they called him at Eton--I was wishing
he could see Levinge and Castlereagh, just as _epouvantails_, to make
him turn and flee as the French noblesse did when they saw their cousins
and brothers strung up a la lanterne."
"Wasn't it very strange," Blanche was saying to me at the same time,
"that Cecil never mentioned Sydney? I've so often spoken of him, told
her his troop, and all about him. (He has always been so kind to me,
though he is eighteen years older--just twice my age.) Besides, I found
her one day looking at his picture in the gallery, so she must have
known it was the same Colonel Vivian, mustn't she Captain Thornton?"
"I should say so. Have you known her long?"
"No. We met her at Brighton this August with that silly woman, Mrs.
Coverdale. All her artifices and falsehoods annoy Cecil so; Cecil
doesn't mind saying she's not rich, she knows it's no crime."
"C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute," said I.
"Don't talk in that way," laughed Blanche. "That's bitter and sarcastic,
like Sydney in his grand moods, when I'm half afraid of him. I am sure
Cecil couldn't be nicer, if she were ever such an heiress. Mamma asked
her for Christmas because she once knew Mr. St. Aubyn well, and Cecil is
not happy with Mrs. Coverdale. False and true don't suit each other. I
hope Sydney will like her--do you think he does?"
That was a question I could not answer. He admired her, of course,
because he could not well have helped it, and had done so in Canada; and
he was talking to her now, I dare say, to force her to acknowledge that
he _was_ more amusing than Horace Cos. But he seemed to me to weigh her
in a criticising balance, as if he expected to find her wanting--as if
it pleased him to provoke and correct her, as one pricks and curbs a
beautiful two-year old, just to see its graceful impatience at the check
and the glance of its wild eye.
II.
THE CANADIAN'S COLD BATH WARMS UP THE COLONEL.
Deerhurst was a capital house to spend a Christmas in. It was the house
of an English gentleman, with even the dens called bachelors' rooms
comfortable and luxurious to the last extent: a first-rate stud, a
capital billiard table, a good sporting country, pretty girls to amuse
one with when tired of the pink, the best Chablis and Chateau Margaux to
be had anywhere, and a host who would have liked a hundred people at his
dinner-table the whole year round. The snow, confound it! prevented our
taking the hounds out for the first few days; but we were not bored as
one might have expected, and our misery was the girls' delight, who were
fervently hoping that the ice might come thick enough for them to skate.
Cecil was invaluable in a country-house; her resources were as unlimited
as Houdin's inexhaustible bottle. She played in French vaudevilles and
Sheridan Knowles's comedies, acted charades, planned tableaux vivants,
sang gay wild chansons peculiar to herself, that made the Screechington
bravuras and themes more insupportable than ever; and, what was more,
managed to infuse into everybody else some of her own energy and spirit.
She made every one do as she liked; but she tyrannised over us so
charmingly that we never chafed at the bit; and to the other girls she
was so good-natured in giving them the roles they liked, in praising,
and in aiding them, that it was difficult for feminine malice, though
its limits are boundless, to find fault with her. Vivian, though he did
not relax his criticism of her, was agreeable to her, as he had been in
Canada, and as he is always to women when he is not too lazy. He
consented to stand for Rienzi in a tableau, though he hates doing all
those things, and played in the Proverbs with such a flashing fire of
wit in answer to Cecil that we told him he beat Mathews.
"I'm inspired," he said, with a laughing bend of his head to Cecil, when
somebody complimented him.
She gave an impatient movement--she was accustomed to have such things
whispered in earnest, not in jest. She laughed, however. "Are you
inspired, then, to take _Huon's_ part? All the characters are cast but
that."
"I'm afraid I can't play well enough."
"Nonsense. You cannot think that. Say you would rather not at once."
Vivian stroked his mustaches thoughtfully. "Well, you see, it bores me
rather; and I'm not Christian enough to suffer ennui cheerfully to
please other people."
"Very well, then, I will give the part to Sir Horace," said Cecil,
looking through the window at the church spire, covered with the
confounded snow.
Vivian stroked away at his mustaches rather fiercely this time. "Cos!
he'll ruin the play. Dress him up as a lord in waiting, he'll be a
dainty lay figure, but for anything more he's not as fit as this setter!
Fancy that essenced, fair-haired young idiot taking _Huon_--his lisp
would be so effective!"
She looked up in his face with one of her mischievous, dangerous smiles,
and put up her hands in an attitude of petition. "He must have the part
if you won't. Be good, and don't spoil the play. I have set my mind on
its being perfect, and--I will have _such_ a dress as the _Countess_ if
you will only do as I tell you."
Cecil, in her soft, childlike moods, could finish any man. Of course
Vivian rehearsed "Love" with her that afternoon, a play that was to come
off on the 23rd. Cos sulked slightly at being commanded by her to dress
himself beautifully and play the _Prince of Milan_.
"To be refused by you," lisped Horace. "Oh, I dare say! No! 'pon my
life----"
"My dear Cos, you'll have plenty of fellow-sufferers," whispered Syd,
mischievously.
"Do you dare to disobey me, Sir Horace?" cried Cecil. "For shame! I
should have thought you more of a preux chevalier. If you don't order
over from Boxwood that suit of Milan armor you say one of your ancestors
wore at Flodden, and wear it on Tuesday, you shall never waltz with me
again. Now what do you say?"
"Nobody can rethitht you," murmured Cos. "You do anything with a fellow
that you chooth."
Vivian glanced down at him with superb scorn, and turned to me. "What a
confounded frost this is. The weathercock sticks at the north, and old
Ben says there's not a chance of a change till the new moon. Qui Vive
might as well have kept at Hounslow. To waste all the season like this
would make a parson swear! If I'd foreseen it I would have gone to
Paris with Lovell, as he wanted me to do."
I suppose the Colonel was piqued to find he was not the only one
persuaded into his role. He bent over Laura Caldecott's chair, a pretty
girl, but with nothing to say for herself, admired her embroidery, and
talked with great empressement about it, till Laura, much flattered at
such unusual attention, after lisping a good deal of nonsense, finally
promised to embroider a note-case for him, "if you'll be good and use
it, and not throw it away, as you naughty men always do the pretty
things we give you," simpered Miss Laura.
"Hearts included," said Syd, smiling. "I assure you if you give me
yours, I will prize it with Turkish jealousy."
The fair brodeuse gave a silly laugh; and Vivian, whose especial
detestation is this sort of love-making nonsense, went on flirting with
her, talking the persiflage that one whispers leaning over the back of a
phaeton after a dinner at the Castle or a day at Ascot, but never
expects to be called to remember the next morning, when one bows to the
object thereof in the Ring, and the flavor of the claret-cup and the
scent of the cigar are both fled with the moonbeams and forgotten.
Cecil gave the Colonel and his flirtation a glance, and let Cossetting
lean over the back of her chair and deliver himself of some
lackadaisical sentiment (taken second-hand out of "Isidora" or the
"Amant de la Lune," and diluted to be suitable for presentation to her),
looking up at him with her large velvet eyes, or flashing on him her
radiant smile, till Horace pulled up his little stiff collar, coaxed his
flaxen whiskers, looked at her with his half-closed light eyes--and
thought himself irresistible--and Miss Screechington broke the string of
the purse she was making, and scattered all the steel beads about the
floor in the futile hope of gaining his attention. Blanche went down on
her knees and spent twenty minutes hunting them all up; but as I helped
her I saw the turquoise eyes looked anything but grateful for our
efforts, though if Blanche had done anything for me with that ready
kindness and those soft little white hands, I should have repaid her
very warmly. But oh, these women! these women! Do they ever love one
another in their hearts? Does not Chloris always swear that Lelia's
gazelle eyes have a squint in them and Delia hint that Daphne, who is
innocent as a dove, is bad style, and horridly bold?
At last Cecil got tired of Cos's drawling platitudes, and walked up to
one of the windows. "How is the ice, will anybody tell me? I am wild to
try it, ain't you, Blanche? If we are kept waiting much longer, we will
have the carpets up and skate on the oak floors."
I told her I thought they might try it safely. "Then let us go after
luncheon, shall we?" said Cecil. "It is quite sunny now. You skate, of
course, Sir Horace?"
"Oh! to be sure--certainly," murmured Cos. "We'd a quadrille on the
Serpentine last February, Talbot, and I, and some other men--lots of
people said they never saw it better done. But it's rather cold--don't
you think so?"
"Do you expect to find ice in warm weather?" said Vivian, curtly, from
the fire, where he was standing watching the commencement of the
note-case.
"No. But I hate cold," said Horace, looking at his snowy fingers. "One
looks such a figure--blue, and wet, and shivering; the house is much the
best place in a frost."
"Poor fellow!" said Vivian, with a contemptuous twist of his mustaches.
"I fear, however fete you may be in every other quarter, the seasons
won't change to accommodate you."
"Oh! you are a dreadful man," drawled Cos. "You don't a bit mind tanning
yourself, nor getting drenched through, nor soiling your hands----"
"Thank Heaven, no!" responded Syd. "I'm neither a school-girl, nor--a
fop."
"Would you believe it, Miss St. Aubyn?" said the baronet, appealingly.
"That man'll get up before daylight and let himself be drenched to the
skin for the chance of playing a pike; and will turn out of a
comfortable arm-chair on a winter's night just to go after poachers and
knock a couple of men over, and think it the primest fun in life. I
don't understand it myself, do you?"
"Yes," said Cecil, fervently. "I delight in a man's love for sport, for
I idolise horses, and there is nothing that can beat a canter on a fine
fresh morning over a grass country; and I believe that a man who has the
strength, and nerve, and energy to go thoroughly into fishing, or
shooting, or whatever it be, will carry the same will and warmth into
the rest of his life; and the hand that is strong in the field and firm
in righteous wrath, will be the truer in friendship and the gentler in
pity."
Cecil spoke with energetic enthusiasm. Horace stared, the Screechington
sneered, Laura gave an affected little laugh. The Colonel swung round
from his study of the fire, his face lighting up. I've seen Syd on
occasion look as soft as a woman. However, he said nothing; he only took
her in to luncheon, and was exceedingly kind to her and oblivious of
Laura Caldecott's existence throughout that meal, which, at Deerhurst,
was of unusual splendor and duration. And afterwards, when she had
arrayed herself in a hat with soft curling feathers, and looped up her
dress in some inexplicable manner that showed her dainty high heels
artistically, he took her little skates in his hand and walked down by
her side to the pond. It was some way to the pond--a good sized piece of
water, that snobs would have called the Lake, by way of dignifying their
possessions, with willows on its banks (where in summer the sentimental
Screechington would have reclined, Tennyson _a la main_), and boats and
punts beside it, among which was a tub, in which Blanche confessed to me
she had paddled herself across to the saturation of a darling blue
muslin, and the agonised feelings of her governess, only twelve months
before.
"A dreadful stiff old thing that governess was," said Blanche, looking
affectionately at the tub. "Do you know, Captain Thornton, when she went
away, and I saw her boxes actually on the carriage-top, I waltzed round
the schoolroom seven times, and burnt 'Noel et Chapsal' in the fire--I
did, indeed!"
The way, as I say, was long to the pond; and as Cecil's dainty high
heels and Syd's swinging cavalry strides kept pace over the snow
together, they had plenty of time for conversation.
"Miss Caldecott is looking for you," said Cecil, with a contemptuous
glance at the fair Laura, who, between two young dandies, was picking
her route over the snow holding her things very high indeed, and casting
back looks at the Colonel.
"Is she? It is very kind of her."
"If you feel the kindness so deeply, you had better repay it by joining
her."
Vivian laughed. "Not just now, thank you. We are close to the
kennels--hark at their bay! Would you like to come and see them?
By-the-by, how is your wolf-dog--Leatherstockings, didn't you call him?"
"Do you remember him?" said Cecil, her eyes beaming and her lips
quivering. "Dear old dog, I loved him so much, and he loved me. He was
bitten by an asp just before I left, and papa would have him shot. Good
gracious! what is the matter?--she is actually frightened at that
setter!"
The "she" of whom Cecil so disdainfully spoke was Miss Caldecott, who,
on seeing a large setter leap upon her with muddy paws and much sudden
affection, began to scream, and rushed to Vivian with a beseeching cry
of "Save me, save me!" Cecil stood and laughed, and called the setter to
her.
"Here, Don--Dash--what is your name? Come here, good dog. That poor
young lady has nerves, and you must not try them, or you will cause her
endless expenses in sal volatile and ether; But I have no such
interesting weaknesses, and you may lavish any demonstrations you please
on me!"
We all laughed as she thus talked confidentially to the setter, holding
his feathered paws against her waist; while Vivian stood by her with
admiration in his glance. Poor Laura looked foolish, and began to caress
a great bull-dog, who snapped at her. She hadn't Cecil's ways either
with dogs or men.
"What a delightful scene," whispered Cecil to the Colonel, as we left
the kennels. "You were not half so touched by it as you were expected to
be!"
Vivian laughed. "Didn't you effectually destroy all romantic effect? You
can be very mischievous to your enemies."
Cecil colored. "She is no enemy of mine; I know nothing of her, but I do
detest that mock sentimentality, that would-be fine ladyism that thinks
it looks interesting when it pleads guilty to sal volatile, and screams
at an honest dog's bark. Did you see how shocked she and Miss
Screechington looked because I let the hounds leap about me?"
"Of course; but though you have not lived very long, you must have
learned that you are too dangerous to the peace of our sex to expect
much mercy from your own."
A flush came into Cecil's cheeks _not_ brought by the wind. Her feathers
gave a little dance as she shook her head with her customary action of
annoyance.
"Ah, never compliment me, I am so tired of it."
"I wish I could believe that," said Syd, in a low tone. "Your feelings
are warm, your impulses frank and true; it were a pity to mar them by an
undue love for the flattering voices of empty-headed fools."
Tears of pleasure started into her eyes, but she would not let him see
it. She had not forgotten the Caldecott flirtation of the morning enough
to resist revenging it. She looked up with a merry laugh.
"Je m'amuse--voila tout. There is no great harm in it."
A shadow of disappointment passed over Syd's haughty face.
"No, if you do not do it once too often. I _have_ known men--and women
too--who all their lives through have been haunted by the memory of a
slight word, a careless look, with which, unwittingly or in obstinacy,
they shut the door of their own happiness. Have you ever heard of the
Deerhurst ghost?"
"No," said Cecil, softly. "Tell it me."