Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood Part 69

"Yes, really," said Babie, recovering; "I see what he means. He would like to do anything rather than sit and think that this is the last time we shall all be together again in this way."

"I'm sure I don't see why we should not," said Sydney. "To say nothing of meetings in England; Duke and Armine have only to cough three times in October, and we should all go off together again, and be as jolly as ever."

"I don't mean to cough," said Armine, gravely, "I've wasted enough of my life already."

"In our company, eh?" said Sydney, "or are you to be taken by contraries?"

"No," said Armine. "One has duties, and lotus-eating is uncommonly nice, but it won't do to go on for ever. I wouldn't have given in to it this winter if Allen hadn't _floored_ us."

"And then when you thought I had got a tutor, and should do some good with him," chimed in Babie, "he must needs go and fall in love and spoil our Miss Ogilvie."

The disgust with which she uttered the words was so comic, that all the others burst out laughing.

And Fordham said--

"The Land of Afternoon was too strong for him. Shall you really pine much for Miss Ogilvie, Infanta?"

"I shall miss her dreadfully," said Babie, "and I think it is very stupid of her to leave mother, whom she has known all her life, and all of us, for a strange man she never saw till four months ago."

"Oh, Babie, you to be the author of a chivalrous romance!" said Fordham.

"I was young and silly then," said the young lady, who was within a month of sixteen.

"And all your romances are to be henceforth without love," said Armine.

"I think they would be much more sensible," said Babie. "Why do you all laugh so? Don't you see how stupid poor Allen always is? And it can even spoil Miss Ogilvie, and make her inattentive."

"Poor Allen," echoed one or two voices, in the same low tone, for as they peeped out beyond the orange-tree, Allen might be seen, extended on a many-coloured rug, in an exceedingly deplorable att.i.tude.

"O yes," said Sydney; "but if one has such a--such a--such an object as that, one must expect to be stupid and miserable sometimes!"

"She must have been worrying him again," said Babie.

"O yes, didn't you see?" said Armine. "No, I remember you didn't go out riding early to-day."

"No, I was finis.h.i.+ng Miss Ogilvie's wedding lace."

"Well, that French captain, that Elfie went on with at the commandant's ball, came riding up in full splendour, and trotted alongside of her, chattering away, she bowing and smiling, and playing off all her airs, and at last letting him give her a great white flower. Didn't you see it in her breast at breakfast? Poor Allen was looking as if he had eaten wormwood all the time when he was forced to fall back upon me, and I suppose he has been having it out with her and has got the worst of it."

"O, it is that, is it?" said Lord Fordham; "I thought she wanted to pique Allen, she was so empressee with me."

"If people will be so foolish as to care for a pretty face," sagely said Sydney.

"You know it is not only that," said Babie; "Allen is bound in honour to marry Elvira, to repair the great injustice. It is a great pity she will not marry him now at once, but I think she is afraid, because then, you know, she would get to have a soul, like Undine, and she doesn't want one yet."

"That's a new view of the case," said Lord Fordham in his peculiar lazy manner, "and taken allegorically it may be the true one."

"But one would like to have a soul," said Sydney.

"I'm not sure," said Babie, with a great look of awe. "One would know it was best, but it would be very tremendous to feel all sorts of thoughts and perceptions swelling up in one."

"If that is the soul," said Armine.

"Which is the soul?" said Babie, "our understanding, or our feelings, or both?"

"Both," said Sydney, undoubtingly.

"I don't know," said Babie. "Poor little Chico has double the heart of his mistress."

"It is quite true," said Fordham. "We may share intellect with demons, but we do share what is called heart with animals."

"I think good animals have a sort of soul," observed Armine.

"And of course, Elvira has a soul," said Sydney, who was getting bewildered.

"Theologically speaking--yes," said Armine, making them all laugh, "and I suppose Undine hadn't. But it was sense and heart that was wanting."

"The heart would bring the sense," said Lord Fordham, "and so we have come round to the Infanta's first a.s.sertion that the young lady shrinks from the awakening."

"I'll tell you what she really does care for," said Babie, "and what I believe would waken up her soul much better than marrying poor Allen."

The announcement was so extraordinary that they all turned their heads to listen.

"Her old black nurse at San Ildefonso," said Babie. "I believe going back there would do her all the good in the world."

"There's something in that notion," said Armine. "She is always better-tempered in a hot country."

"Yes," added Babie, "and you didn't see her when somebody advised our trying the West Indies for the winter. Her eyes gleamed, and she panted, and I didn't know what she was going to do. I told mother at night, but she said she was afraid of going there, because of the yellow fever, and that San Ildefonso had been made a coaling-station by the Americans, so it would only disappoint her. But Elfie looked--I never saw any one look as she did--fit to kill some one when she found it was given up, and she did not get over it for ever so long."

"Take care; here's an apparition," said Armine, as a brilliant figure darted out in a Moorish dress, rich jacket, short full white tunic, full trousers tied at the ankles, coins pendulous on the brow, bracelets, anklets, and rows of pearls. It was a dress on which Elvira had set her heart in readiness for fancy b.a.l.l.s; it had been procured with great difficulty and expense, and had just come home from the French modiste who had adapted it to European wear.

Allen started up in admiration and delight. Even Mr. Morgan was roused to make an admiring inspection of the curious ornaments and devices; and Elvira, with her perfect features, rich complexion, dark blue eyes, t.i.tian coloured hair, fine figure, and Oriental air, formed a splendid study.

Lord Fordham begged her to stand while he sketched her; and Babie, with Sydney, was summoned to try on the bridesmaids' apparel.

The three girls, Elvira, Sydney, and Barbara acted as bridesmaids the next day, when, in the English chapel, Mr. Ogilvie gave his sister to his old friend, to begin her new life as a clergyman's wife.

What could be called Elvira de Menella's character? Those who knew her best, such as Barbara Brownlow, would almost have soon have thought of ascribing a personal character to a cloud as to her. She smiled into glorious loveliness when the sun shone; she was gloomy and thunderous when displeased, and though she had a pa.s.sionate temper, and could be violent, she had no fixed purpose, but drifted with the external impulse of the moment. She had not much mind or power of learning, and was entirely inattentive to anything intellectual, so that education had not been able at the utmost to do more than fit her to pa.s.s in the crowd, and could get no deeper; and what principles she had it was not easy to tell. Not that she did or said objectionable things, since she had outgrown her childish outbreaks; but she seemed to have no substance, and to be kept right by force of circ.u.mstances. She had the selfishness of any little child, and though she had never been known to be untruthful, this might be because there was not the slightest temptation to deceive. She was just as much the spoilt child, to all intents and purposes, as if she had been the heiress; perhaps more so, for Mrs.

Brownlow had always been so remorseful for the usurpation as to be extra indulgent--lenient to her foibles, and lavish in gifts and pleasures, even inconveniencing herself for her fancies; whilst Allen had, from the first, treated her with the devotion of a lover. No stranger had ever supposed that she was not the equal in all respects of the rest of the family, nor had she realised it herself.

CHAPTER XXVI. MOONs.h.i.+NE.

But still the lady shook her head, And swore by yea and nay My whole was all that he had said, And all that he could say.

W. M. Praed.