Airy Fairy Lilian Part 60

"I don't imagine it. How could I? One can scarcely feel sorrow or pity for a person whom one openly professes to 'hate' and 'despise,'"

markedly, while searching her face anxiously with his eyes.

Miss Chesney pauses. A short but sharp battle takes place within her breast. Then she raises her face and meets his eyes, while a faint sweet smile grows within her own: impelled half by a feeling of coquetry, half by a desire to atone, she lets the fingers he has still imprisoned close with the daintiest pressure upon his.

"Perhaps," she whispers, leaning a little toward him, and raising her lips very close to his cheek as though afraid of being heard by the intrusive wind, "perhaps I did not quite mean that either."

Then, seeing how his whole expression changes and brightens, she half regrets her tender speech, and says instantly, in her most unsentimental fas.h.i.+on:

"Pray, Sir Guy, are you going to make your horse walk all the way home?

Can you not pity the sorrows of a poor little ward? I am absolutely frozen: do stir him up, lazy fellow, or I shall get out and run. Surely it is too late in the year for nocturnal rambles."

"If my life depended upon it, I don't believe I could make him go a bit faster," returns he, telling his lie unblus.h.i.+ngly.

"I forgot you were disabled," says Miss Chesney, demurely, letting her long lashes droop until they partially (but only partially) conceal her eyes from her guardian. "How remiss I am! When one has only got the use of one hand, one can do so little; perhaps"--preparing to withdraw her fingers slowly, lingeringly from his--"if I were to restore you both yours, you might be able to persuade that horse to take us home before morning."

"I beg you will give yourself no trouble on my account," says Guy, hastily: "I don't want anything restored. And if you are really anxious to get 'home'"--with a pleased and grateful smile, "I feel sure I shall be able to manage this slow brute single-handed."

So saying, he touches up the good animal in question rather smartly, which so astonishes the willing creature that he takes to his heels, and never draws breath until he pulls up before the hall door at Chetwoode.

"Parkins, get us some supper in the library," says Sir Guy, addressing the ancient butler as he enters: "the drive has given Miss Chesney and me an appet.i.te."

"Yes, Sir Guy, directly," says Parkins, and, going down-stairs to the other servants, gives it as his opinion that "Sir Guy and Miss Chesney are going to make a match of it. For when two couples," says Mr.

Parkins, who is at all times rather dim about the exact meaning of his sentences, "when two couples takes to eating _teet-a-teet_, it is all up with 'em."

Whereupon cook says, "Lor!" which is her usual expletive, and means anything and everything; and Jane, the upper housemaid, who has a weakness for old Parkins's sayings, tells him with a flattering smile that he is "dreadful knowin'."

Meantime, Sir Guy having ascertained that Miss Beauchamp has gone to her room, and that his mother is better, and asleep, he and Lilian repair to the library, where a cozy supper is awaiting them, and a cheerful fire burning.

Now that they are again in-doors, out of the friendly darkness, with the full light of several lamps upon them, a second edition of their early restraint--milder, perhaps, but still oppressive--most unaccountably falls between them.

Silently, and very gently, but somewhat distantly, he unfolds the plaid from round her slight figure, and, drawing a chair for her to the table, seats himself at a decided distance. Then he asks her with exemplary politeness what she will have, and she answers him; then he helps her, and then he helps himself; and then they both wonder secretly what the other is going to say next.

But Lilian, who is fighting with a wild desire for laughter, and who is in her airiest mood, through having been compelled, by pride, to suppress all day her usual good spirits, decides on making a final effort at breaking down the barrier between them.

Raising the gla.s.s of wine beside her, she touches it lightly with her lips, and says, gayly:

"Come, fill, and pledge me, Sir Guy. But stay; first let me give you a little quotation that I hope will fall as a drop of nectar into your cup and chase that nasty little frown from your brow. Have I your leave to speak?" with a suspicion of coquetry in her manner.

Chetwoode's handsome lips part in a pleased smile: he turns his face gladly, willingly, to hers.

"Why do you ask permission of your slave, O Queen of Hearts?" he answers, softly, catching the infection of her gayety. He gazes at her with unchecked and growing admiration, his whole heart in his eyes; telling himself, as he has told himself a thousand times before, that to-night she is looking her fairest.

Her cheeks are flushed from her late drive; one or two glittering golden lovelocks have been driven by the rough wind from their natural resting-place, and now lie in gracious disorder on her white forehead; her l.u.s.trous sapphire eyes are gleaming upon him, full of unsubdued laughter; her lips are parted, showing all the small even teeth within.

She stoops toward him, and clinking her gla.s.s against his with the prettiest show of _bonne camaraderie_, whispers, softly:

"Come, let us be happy together."

"Together!" repeats Guy, unsteadily, losing his head, and rising abruptly from his seat as though to go to her. She half rises also, seriously frightened at the unexpected effect of her mad words. What is he going to say to her? What folly urged her on to repeat that ridiculous line? The idea of flight has just time to cross her mind, but not time to be acted upon, when the door is thrown open suddenly, and Cyril--who has at this moment returned from his dinner party--entering noisily, comes to her rescue.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"I have some naked thoughts that roam about And loudly knock to have their pa.s.sage out."--MILTON.

It goes without telling that Lilian gains the day, Guy's one solitary attempt at mastery having failed ignominiously. She persists in her allegiance to her friend, and visits The Cottage regularly as ever; being even more tender than usual in her manner toward Cecilia, as she recollects the narrowness of him who could (as she believes) without cause condemn her. And Sir Guy, though resenting her defiance of his wishes, and smarting under the knowledge of it, accepts defeat humbly, and never again refers to the subject of the widow, which henceforth is a tabooed one between them.

Soon after this, indeed, an event occurs that puts an end to all reason why Lilian should not be as friendly with Mrs. Arlington as she may choose. One afternoon, most unexpectedly, Colonel Trant, coming to Chetwoode, demands a private interview with Sir Guy. Some faint breaths of the scandal that so closely and dishonorably connects his name with Cecilia's have reached his ears, and, knowing of her engagement with Cyril, he has hastened to Chetwoode to clear her in the eyes of its world.

Without apology, he treats Guy to a succinct and studied account of Cecilia's history,--tells of all her sorrows, and gentle forbearance, and innocence so falsely betrayed, nor even conceals from him his own deep love for her, and his two rejections, but makes no mention of Cyril throughout the interview.

Guy, as he listens, grows remorseful, and full of self-reproach,--more, perhaps, for the injustice done to his friend in his thoughts, than for all the harsh words used toward Mrs. Arlington, though he is too clean-bred not to regret that also.

He still shrinks from all idea of Cecilia as a wife for Cyril. The daughter of a man who, though of good birth, was too sharp in his dealings for decent society, and the wife of a man, who, though rich in worldly goods, had no pretensions to be a gentleman at all, could certainly be no mate for a Chetwoode. A woman of no social standing whatsoever, with presumably only a pretty face for a dowry,--Cyril must be mad to dream of her! For him, Guy, want of fortune need not signify; but for Cyril, with his expensive habits, to think of settling down with a wife on nine hundred a year is simply folly.

And then Cyril's brother thinks with regret of a certain Lady f.a.n.n.y Stapleton, who, it is a notorious fact, might be had by Cyril for the asking. Guy himself, it may be remarked, would not have Lady f.a.n.n.y at any price, she being rather wanting in the matter of nose and neck; but younger brothers have no right to cultivate fastidious tastes, and her snubby ladys.h.i.+p has a great admiration for Cyril, and a fabulous fortune.

All the time Trant is singing Cecilia's praises, Guy is secretly sighing over Lady f.a.n.n.y and her comfortable thousands, and is wis.h.i.+ng The Cottage had been knocked into fine dust before Mrs. Arlington had expressed a desire to reside there.

Nevertheless he is very gentle in his manner toward his former colonel all the day, spending with him every minute he stays, and going with him to the railway station when at night he decides on returning to town.

Inwardly he knows he would like to ask his forgiveness for the wrong he has done him in his thoughts, but hardly thinks it wisdom to let him know how guilty toward him he has been. Cyril, he is fully persuaded, will never betray him; and he shrinks from confessing what would probably only cause pain and create an eternal breach between them.

However, his conscience so far smites him that he does still further penance toward the close of the evening.

Meeting Cyril on his way to dress just before dinner, he stops him.

"If you will accept an apology from me so late in the day," he says, "I now offer you one for what I said of Mrs. Arlington some time since.

Trant has told me all the truth. I wronged her grossly, although"--with a faint touch of bitterness--"when I _lied_ about her I did so unconsciously."

"Don't say another word, old man," says Cyril, heartily, and much gratified, laying his hand lightly upon his shoulder. "I knew you would discover your mistake in time. I confess at the moment it vexed me you should lend yourself to the spreading of such an absurd report."

"Yes, I was wrong." Then, with some hesitation, "Still, there was an excuse for me. We knew nothing of her. We know nothing still that we can care to know."

"How you worry yourself!" says Cyril, with a careless shrug, letting his hand, however, drop from his brother's shoulder, as he fully understands the drift of his conversation. "Why can't you let things slide as I do?

It is no end a better plan."

"I am only thinking of a remark you made a long time ago," replies Guy, with a laugh, partially deceived by Cyril's indifferent manner: "shall I remind you of it? 'Samivel, Samivel, my son, never marry a widder.'"

CHAPTER XXV.

"_Hel._--How happy some, o'er other some can be!"