Airy Fairy Lilian Part 40

"Oh, my love's like a melody That's sweetly played in tune,"

reads Archie, and then stops.

"It is pretty," he says, agreeably; "but if you had heard the last word persistently called 'chune,' I think it would have taken the edge off your fancy for it. I had an uncle who adored that little poem, but he _would_ call the word 'chune,' and it rather spoiled the effect. He's dead," says Mr. Chesney, laying down his book, "but I think I see him now."

"In the pride of youth and beauty, With a garland on his brow,"

quotes Lilian, mischievously.

"Well, not quite. Rather in an exceedingly rusty suit of evening clothes at the Opera. I took him there in a weak moment to hear the 'late lamented t.i.tiens' sing her choicest song in 'Il Trovatore,'--you know it?--well, when it was over and the whole house was in a perfect uproar of applause, I turned and asked him what he thought of it, and he instantly said he thought it was 'a very pretty "chune"!' Fancy t.i.tiens singing a 'chune'! I gave him up after that, and carefully avoided his society. Poor old chap, he didn't bear malice, however, as he died a year later and left me all his money."

"More than you deserved," says Lilian.

Here Cyril and Taffy appearing on the scene cause a diversion. They both simultaneously fling themselves upon the gra.s.s at Lilian's feet, and declare themselves completely used up.

"Let us have tea out here," says Lilian, gayly, "and enjoy our summer to the end." Springing to her feet, she turns toward the balcony, careless of the fact that she has destroyed the lovely picture she made sitting on the greensward, surrounded by her attendant swains.

"Florence, come down here, and let us have tea on the gra.s.s," she calls out pleasantly to Miss Beauchamp.

"Do, Florence," says Archibald, entreatingly.

"Miss Beauchamp, you really _must_," from Taffy, decides the point.

Florence, feeling it will look ungracious to refuse, rises with reluctance, and sails down upon the _quartette_ below, followed by Sir Guy.

"What an awful time we shall be having at Mrs. Boileau's this hour to-morrow night," says Cyril, plaintively, after a long silence on his part. "I shudder when I think of it. No one who has never spent an evening at the Grange can imagine the agony of it."

"I vow I would rather be broken on the wheel than undergo it," says Archibald. "It was downright mean of Lady Chetwoode to let us all in for it. And yet no doubt things might have been worse; we ought to feel devoutly thankful old Boileau is well under the sod."

"What was the matter with him?" asks Lilian.

"Don't name him," says Cyril, "he was past all human endurance; my blood runs cold when I remember, I once did know him. I rejoice to say he is no more. His name was Benjamin: and as he was small and thin, and she was large and fat, she (that is, Mrs. Boileau) was always called 'Benjamin's portion.' That's a joke; do you see it?"

"I do: so you don't take any bobs off _my_ wages," retorts Miss Chesney, promptly, with a distinct imitation of Kate Stantley. "And yet I cannot see how all this made the poor man odious."

"No, not exactly that, though I don't think a well-brought-up man should let himself go to skin and bone. He was intolerable in other ways. One memorable Christmas day Guy and I dined with him, and he got beastly drunk on the sauce for the plum-pudding. We were young at the time, and it made a lasting impression upon us. Indeed, he was hardly the person to sit next at a prolonged dinner-party, first because he was unmistakably dirty, and----"

"Oh, Cyril!"

"Well, and why not? It is not impossible. Even Popes, it now appears, can be indifferent to the advantages to be derived from soap and water."

"Really, Cyril, I think you might choose a pleasanter subject upon which to converse," says Florence, with a disgusted curl of her short upper lip.

"I beg pardon all round, I'm sure," returns Cyril, meekly. "But Lilian should be blamed: she _would_ investigate the matter; and I'm nothing, if not strictly truthful. He was a very dirty old man, I a.s.sure you, my dear Florence."

"Mrs. Boileau, however objectionable, seems to have been rather the best of the two: why did she marry him?" asks Lilian.

"Haven't the remotest idea, and, even if I had, I should be afraid to answer any more of your pertinent questions," with an expressive nod in the direction of Florence. "I can only say it was a very feeble proceeding on the part of such a capable person as Mrs. Boileau."

"Just 'another good woman gone wrong,'" suggests Taffy, mildly.

"Quite so," says Archibald, "though she adored him,--she said. Yet he died, some said of fever, others of--Mrs. Boileau; no attention was ever paid to the others. When he _did_ droop and die she planted all sorts of lovely little flowers over his grave, and watered them with her tears for ever so long. Could affection farther go?"

"Horrible woman!" says Miss Chesney, "it only wanted that to finish my dislike to her. I hope when I am dead no one will plant flowers on _my_ grave: the bare idea would make me turn in it."

"Then we won't do it," says Taffy, consolingly.

"I wish we had a few Indian customs in this country," says Cyril, languidly. "The Suttee was a capital inst.i.tution. Think what a lot of objectionable widows we should have got rid of by this time; Mrs.

Boileau, for instance."

"And Mrs. Arlington," puts in Florence, quietly. An unaccountable silence follows this speech. No one can exactly explain why, but every one knows something awkward has been said. Cyril outwardly is perhaps the least concerned of them all: as he bites languidly a little blade of green gra.s.s, a faint smile flickers at the corners of his lips; Lilian is distinctly angry.

"Poor Mrs. Boileau; all this is rather ill-natured, is it not?" asks Florence, gently, rising as though a dislike to the gossip going on around her compels her to return to the house. In reality it is a dislike to damp gra.s.s that urges her to flight.

"Shall I get you a chair, Florence?" asks Cyril, somewhat irrelevantly as it seems.

"Pray don't leave us, Miss Beauchamp," says Taffy. "If you will stay on, we will swear not to make any more ill-natured remarks about any one."

"Then I expect silence will reign supreme, and that the remainder of the _conversazione_ will be of the deadly-lively order," says Archibald; and, Cyril at this moment arriving with the offered chair, Miss Beauchamp is kindly pleased to remain.

As the evening declines, the midges muster in great force. Cyril and Taffy, being in the humor for smoking,--and having cheroots,--are comparatively speaking happy; the others grow more and more secretly irritated every moment. Florence is making ladylike dabs at her forehead every two seconds with her cambric handkerchief, and is regretting keenly her folly in not retiring in-doors long ago. Midges sting her and raise uninteresting little marks upon her face, thereby doing irremediable damage for the time being. The very thought of such a catastrophe fills her with horror. Her fair, plump hands are getting spoiled by these blood-thirsty little miscreants; this she notices with dismay, but is ignorant of the fact that a far worse misfortune is happening higher up. A tasteless midge has taken a fancy to her nose, and has inflicted on it a serious bite; it is swelling visibly, and a swelled nose is not becoming, especially when it is set as nearly as nature will permit in the centre of a pale, high-bred, but expressionless face.

Ignorant, I say, of this crowning mishap, she goes on dabbing her brow gently, while all the others lie around her dabbing likewise.

At last Lilian loses all patience.

"Oh! _hang_ these midges!" she says, naturally certainly but rather too forcibly for the times we live in. The petulance of the soft tone, the expression used, makes them all laugh, except Miss Beauchamp, who, true to her training, maintains a demeanor of frigid disapproval, which has the pleasing effect of rendering the swelled nose more ludicrous than it was before.

"Have I said anything very _bizarre_?" demands Lilian, opening her eyes wide at their laughter. "Oh!"--recollecting--"did I say 'hang them'? It is all Taffy's fault, he will use schoolboy slang. Taffy, you ought to be ashamed of yourself: don't you see how you have shocked Florence?"

"And no wonder," says Archibald, gravely; "you know we swore to her not to abuse anything for the remainder of this evening, not even these little winged torments," viciously squeezing half a dozen to death as he speaks.

"How are we going to the Grange to-morrow evening?" asks Taffy, presently.

The others have broken up and separated; Cyril and Archibald, at a little distance, are apparently convulsed with laughter over some shady story just being related by the former.

"I suppose," goes on Taffy, "as Lady Chetwoode won't come, we shall take the open traps, and not mind the carriage, the evenings are so fine. Who is to drive who, is the question."

"No; who is to drive poor little I, is the question. Sir Guy, will you?"

asks Lilian, plaintively, prompted by some curious impulse, seeing him silent, handsome, moody in the background. A moment later she could have killed herself for putting the question to him.

"Guy always drives me," says Florence, calmly: "I never go with any one else, except in the carriage with Aunt Anne. I am nervous, and should be miserable with any one I could not quite trust. Careless driving terrifies me. But Guy is never careless," turning upon Chetwoode a face she fondly hopes is full of feeling, but which unfortunately is suggestive of nothing but a midge's bite. The nose is still the princ.i.p.al feature in it.

Placed in this awkward dilemma, Guy can only curse his fate and be silent. How can he tell Florence he does not care for her society, how explain to Lilian his wild desire for hers? He bites his moustache, and, with his eyes fixed gloomily upon the ground, maintains a disgusted silence. Truly luck is dead against him.