Bluebell Part 1

Bluebell.

by Mrs. George Croft Huddleston.

CHAPTER I.

SWEET SEVENTEEN.

I see her now--the vision fair, Of candour, innocence, and truth, Stand tiptoe on the verge of air, 'Twixt childhood and unstable youth.

It was the "fall" in Canada, and the leaves were dying royally in purple, crimson and gold. On the edge of a common, skirting a well-known city of Ontario, stood a small, rough-cast cottage, behind which the sun was setting with a red promise of frost, his flaming tints repeated in the fervid hue of the Virginian creeper that clothed it.

This modest tenement was the retreat of three unprotected females, two of whom were seated in silent occupation close to a black stove, which imparted heat, but denied cheerfulness. The elder was grey and tintless as her life,--harsh wisdom wrung from sad experience ever on lips thin and tight, as though from habitually repressing every desire. The younger, a widow, was scarcely pa.s.sed middle age, small of stature, but wizened beyond her years by privation and sorrow.

A smell of coal-oil, that most unbearable of odours, pervaded the interior of the cottage, revealing that the general servant below in lighting the lamp had, as usual, upset some, and was retaining the aroma by smearing it off with her ap.r.o.n.

Presently a quick, light step tripped over the wooden side-walk, a shadow darkened the window, and a vision of youth and freshness burst into the dingy little parlour.

A rather tall, full-formed young Hebe was Theodora Leigh, of that pure pink and white complexion that goes farther to make a beauty than even regularity of feature; her long, sleepy eyes were just the shade of the wild hyacinth; indeed, her English father always called her "Bluebell,"

after a flower that does not grow on Transatlantic soil.

But they were Irish-eyes, "put in with a dirty finger," and varying with every mood. Gooseberry eyes may disguise more soul, but they get no credit for it. Humour seemed to dance in that soft, blue fire; poetry dreamed in their clear depths; love--but that we have not come to yet; they were more eloquent than her tongue, for she was neither witty nor wise, only rich in the exuberant life of seventeen, and as expectant of good will and innocent of knowledge of the world as a retriever puppy.

Apparently, Miss Bluebell was not in the suavest of humours, for she flung her hat on to one crazy chair, and herself on another, with a vehemence that caused a sensible concussion.

"My dear, how brusque you are," said Mrs. Leigh, plaintively.

"So provoking," muttered Bluebell.

"What's gone wrong with the child now?" said Miss Opie, the elder proprietress of the domicile.

"Why," said Bluebell, "I met the Rollestons, and they asked: me to their picnic at the Humber on Friday; but how _can_ I go? Look here!" and she pointed to a pair of boots evidently requiring patching. "Oh, mother!

could you manage another pair now? Miss Scrag has sent home my new 'waist,' and I can do up my hat, but these buckets are only fit for the dusthole."

Mrs. Leigh sighed,--"A new pair, with side-springs, would cost three dollars. No, Bluebell, I can't indeed."

"I might as well be a nun, then, at once," said the girl, with tears in her voice; and a sympathetic dew rose in Mrs. Leigh's weary eyes at the disappointment she could not avert from her spoiled darling.

"Bluebell," said Miss Opie, "if you read more and scampered about less, your mind would be better fortified to bear these little reverses."

"Shut up!" muttered Bluebell, in the artless vernacular of a school-girl, half turning her shoulder with an impatient gesture.

The entrance of the tea-things created a diversion, but the discontented girl sat apart, while the hideousness of her surroundings came upon her as a new revelation. Certainly, in Canada, in a poverty-stricken abode, taste seems more completely starved than in any other country.

Bluebell, in her critical mood, noted the ugly delf tea-things, so badly arranged; the black stove, four feet into the room, with its pipe running through a hole in the wall; the ricketty horsehair chairs and wire blind for the window, "gave" on the street, where gasping geese were diving in the gutters for the nearest approach to water they could find.

Scarcely less repugnant were the many-coloured crotchet-mats and anti-maca.s.sars with which Miss Opie loved to decorate the apartment; nor was a paper frill adorning a paltry green flower-vase wanting to complete the tasteless _tout ensemble_.

The evening wore on; Mrs. Leigh proceeded with the turning of an old merino dress; Miss Opie adjusted her spectacles, and read _Good Words_.

Bluebell sat down to the piano and executed a selection from Rossini's 'Messe Solennelle' with force and fervour.

"You play very well, child," said Miss Opie.

"That is fortunate," said Bluebell, "for I mean to be a governess."

"You mean you want a governess," retorted the other. "Why, what in the world do you know?"

"More than most children of ten years old. I might get a hundred dollars a year. Mamma, I could buy myself new boots then."

"You are nothing but a self-willed child yourself, unable to bear the slightest disappointment," said Miss Opie.

"Never mind," said Mrs. Leigh, coaxingly; "I'll see if I cannot get you the boots. They will give me credit at the store."

"No, no; I know you can't afford it; they were new last April. Mamma is oil to your vinegar, Aunt Jane."

"And you the green young mustard in the domestic salad--hot enough, and, like all ill weeds, growing apace."

"Then it is field mustard, and not used for salad," said Bluebell, anxious for the last word. And, escaping from the room, went to place some bones in the shed, for a casual in the shape of a starving cur, who called occasionally for food and a night's lodging.

About twenty years ago, when this melancholy Mrs. Leigh was a lovely young Canadian of rather humble origin, Theodore Leigh, a graceless subaltern in the Artillery, had just returned from leave, and, going one day to the Rink, was "regularly flumocksed," as he expressed it, by the vision of Miss Lesbia Jones skimming over the ice like a swallow on the wing. And when she proceeded to cut a figure of 8 backwards, and execute another intricate movement called "the rose," his admiration became vehement, and, seizing on a brother-officer he had observed speaking to her, demanded an introduction.

"To the 'Tee-to-tum'? Oh, certainly."

Miss Lesbia was very small, and wore the shortest of petticoats, which probably suggested the appellation.

Fatigued with her evolutions, she had sunk with a pretty little air of _abandon_ on the platform, and her destiny, in a beaver coat and cap, was presented by Mr. Wingfield.

After this, a common object at the Rink was a tall young man, in all the agonies of a _debut_ on skates, and a bewitching little attendant sprite shooting before and around him, occasionally righting him with a fairy touch when he evinced too wild a desire to dash his brains against the wall.

At all the sleighing parties, also, Miss Lesbia's form was invariably observed in Mr. Leigh's cutter, with a violet and white "cloud" matching the robe borders and ribbons on the bells; and he and the "Tee-to-tum"

spun round together in half the valses of every ball during the winter.

Perhaps, after all, the attachment might have lived and died without exceeding the "m.u.f.fin" phase, had not the "beauty," Captain of the battery cut in, and made rather strong running, too, partly because he considered her "fetching," and partly, he said, "from regard to Leigh, who was making an a.s.s of himself."

Jealousy turned philandering into earnest. Theodore went straight to the maiden aunt, with whom Miss Jones resided, and, after most vehement badgering, got her consent to a private marriage within three days. The poor spinster, though much fl.u.s.tered, knowing his attentions to Lesbia had been a good deal talked about, felt almost relieved to have it settled respectably, though so abruptly.

On the appointed day, having obtained a week's leave, Theodore, with his best man, the last joined subaltern, dashed up to the church-door in a cutter, just in time to receive Lesbia and her bewildered chaperone.

After the ceremony, they started off for their week's honeymoon to the Falls; and the best man, absolved from secrecy, spread the news through the regiment.

Theodore had scribbled off the intelligence in reckless desperation to his father, of whom he was the only child, and Sir Timothy Leigh, a proud and ambitious man, never forgave the irrevocable piece of folly so cavalierly announced to him.

Theodore received a letter from the family lawyer, couched in the terms of sorrowful reprehension such functionaries usually a.s.sume on similar occasions.

"It was Mr. Vellum's painful duty to inform him that Sir Timothy would decline to receive him on his return to England; that two hundred a year would be placed annually to his credit at c.o.x's; but the estates not being entailed, that was the utmost farthing he need ever expect from him."

Such was the gist of the communication, and Theodore, hardened by his father's severity, and unable to bear the privations of a narrow income, absented himself more and more from their wretched lodgings, and tried to drown his cares by drinking himself into a state of semi-idiocy.