Bluebell. Mrs. G. C. Huddleston
supernaturally long in a riding-habit. White scared faces flitted about; but life was extinct, and there was no frantic riding for doctors.
There had been a hunt-breakfast that morning, and she well remembered the envy she had felt at seeing Lady Inez ride gaily forth with the rest on a favourite horse.
"She has everything," thought Bella, "'Reindeer' was promised to me when he was a foal, and I have never been on his back."
But Lady Inez was lying there, with the mark of "Reindeer's" iron hoof on her temple. They had come down together at a blind fence; the horse, entangled in her habit, struck out once, as thorough-breds will, but it was a death-blow.
The voice of the child, crying alone and neglected in the nursery, aroused Bella from a horror stricken stupor. Her father's despair made him unapproachable, but she might comfort Bertie, forgotten by his attendants.
From this time she became almost a mother to him, for Mr. Du Meresq went abroad, and they were left alone in the deserted house for some years.
Bertie had left Eton, and just obtained a commission in the—— Hussars, when his father died, leaving him a moderate fortune, which steadily decreased as years went by. It had approached attenuation by this time, and Mrs. Rolleston felt as distracted and perplexed as a duckling's hen foster-mother, at the vagaries of the happy-go-lucky, reckless Irish blood in Bertie, which did not flow in her own veins.
She looked forward to marrying him to Cecil, as the best chance of relieving his pecuniary difficulties and reforming his unsteadiness.
Captain Du Meresq had stayed with them for six weeks some time ago, when he and Cecil became inseparable companions, and it was then that the idea had dawned upon her. She would not openly discuss it with her brother—that would have too much the appearance of a plot: but her lively satisfaction at the prospect was apparent enough, and Bertie knew her co-operation would not be wanting.
He had thought of it more than once. What chance had he not calculated to get him through his sea of difficulties; but a thousand a year alone seemed scarcely sufficient temptation to matrimony, to which he did not seriously incline. Indeed, his warm impressionable nature was not the temperament of a fortune-hunter.
He was attracted with Cecil, and got rather fond of her in the six weeks he had been trying to make her in love with him, not with any mercenary view, but because such was his usual custom with girls.
But he was afflicted with a keen eye for beauty, and Cecil was plain to most eyes, and too colourless for his taste, though she possessed a lovely figure, thorough-bred little head, and a pale, intelligent, expressive face.
Bluebell's lilies and roses and Hebe-like contour caught his eye in a moment, of which Cecil felt an instinctive conviction; but though, with a woman's keenness, underrating no point of attraction in her friend, she considered her wanting in style, which deficiency she dwelt on now with secret satisfaction. For though not in the least anxious to monopolize general admiration, that of Bertie Du Meresq was unfortunately a sensitive point with Cecil, for that six weeks had been the intensest period of her life—the dawning of "love's young dream."
She had never met him since childhood till then, when they were thrown together with the intimacy of near connexions. There was not, of course, the slightest real relationship, but Bertie jestingly called her his niece, perhaps, to establish a right of chaperonage.
He used to make her come down to breakfast en Amazone, and took her the most enchanting rides in that Seductive April weather. Her equestrian experience previously had been limited to steady macadamizing on the roads. Bertie took her as the crow flies, never pulled a fence, but merely gave her a lead, and Cecil, who had plenty of nerve, exulted in the new excitement. The farmers might not have thought it a very orthodox month for this amusement; but hunting was scarcely over, though the copses were filled with primroses, and violets scented the hedgerows; the birds sang as they only do when the great business of their year is commencing. And then she had such a mount, a perfect hunter of her quasi-uncle's. It never refused, and took its fences with such ease a child might have sat it.
Or they would ride dreamily on in woody glades, both alike susceptible to the shafts of sunlight, quivering on the leaves, the sudden gush of fragrance after a shower, and all the myriad appeals of spring to those who have that touch of poetry in their clay which is the key of fairy-land, their horses meantime snatching at the young green boughs as they sauntered lazily on; and Du Meresq, who had travelled in all sorts of strange out-of-the way places, described weirder scenes in other lands, and pictured a fuller, more vivid life than she in her routine existence had dreamed of.
Bertie was always all in all to the woman he was with, provided no other was present; and Cecil, young, and full of sympathy and intelligence, was a delightful companion. His appreciation, felt and expressed, of her quickness of comprehension was most agreeable flattery; the more so as he confided in her so fully, even consulting her about his own private affairs, for he was very hard pressed at this time, and she, who had never known the want of money, took the deepest interest in it all.
He seemed never able to bear her out of his sight. If she played, he was hanging over the piano; if he had letters to write, Cecil must do it from his dictation; and yet he would avow sometimes before her such extravagant adoration for some pretty girl, that Cecil, chilled and surprised, would feel more than ever doubtful of her own influence; and the honeyed words she had treasured up, faded away as void of significance. And then one day—suddenly—on her return from a croquet-party, she heard he had received a telegram, and gone, leaving a careless message of adieu.
Poor Cecil! with the instinct of the wounded animal to its lair, she rushed to her own room, locked the door, and walked about in a tearless abandonment of grief, disappointment, and surprise. How could he leave her without one word? She felt half stunned, and her brain seemed capable of only the dull reiteration that "Bertie was gone." Tears welled up to her eyes then, when the sound of the first dinner-bell drove them back. She felt she must battle alone with this strange affliction; and trying to efface from her features all evidence of the shock she had sustained, descended to dinner, looking rather more stately than usual.
It annoyed her to observe that her step-mother glanced deprecatingly at her, and was inclined to be extra affectionate. This would never do. Like most young girls, she was generally rather silent when not interested in the discussions of her elders. But now she never let conversation drop. The incidents of the croquet-party furnished a safe topic. Colonel Rolleston thought the gentle dissipation had made his daughter quite lively. Afterwards she took refuge at the piano, which was imprudent, for music only too surely touches the chord of feeling, and every piece was associated with Bertie. Cecil shut the instrument, and effected a strategical retreat to her bed-room, where, in the luxury of solitude, she might worry and torment herself to her heart's content. His absence was trial enough, but the sting lay in the way it was done, which was such a proof of indifference, that shame urged her to crush out all thoughts of him, and suffer anything rather than let him see the impression his careless affection had made on her.
And so Cecil passed through her first "baptism of fire" alone and unsuspected; but time had softened much of her resentment ere they met again.
CHAPTER III.
GENTLE ANNIE.
The time I've lost in wooing,
In watching and pursuing
The light that lies
In woman's eyes,
Has been my heart's undoing.
Moore.
"Bluebell," said little Lola, bursting into the nursery, where Freddy, rather a tyrant in his affections, had insisted