Part 10

"Offend me! Nothing in the world. Though I heard her lament with Miss Screechington in the music-room, that I was 'so fast,' and 'such slang style;' I consider that rather a compliment, for I never knew any lady pull to pieces my bonnet, or my bouquet, or my hat, unless it was a prettier one than their own. That sounds a vain speech, but I don't mean it so."

The Colonel looked down into her velvet eyes; she was most dangerous to him in this mood. "No," he said, briefly, "no one would accuse you of vanity, though they might, pardon me, of love of admiration."

Cecil laughed merrily. "Yes, perhaps so; it is pleasant, you know. Yet sometimes I am tired of it all, and I want----"

"A more difficult conquest? To find a diamond, merely, like Cleopatra, to show your estimate of its value by throwing it away."

A flush of vexation came into her cheeks. "Do you think me utterly heartless?" she said impetuously. "No. I mean that I often tire of the fulsome compliments, the flattery, the attention, the whirl of society! I do like admiration. I tell you candidly what every other woman acknowledges to herself but denies to the world; but often it is nothing to me--mere Dead Sea fruit. I care nothing for the voices that whisper it; the eyes that express it wake no response in mine, and I would give it all for one word of true interest, one glance of real----"

Vivian looked down on her steadily with his searching eagle eyes, out of which, when he chose, nothing could be read. "If I dare believe you----" he said, half aloud.

Gentle as his tone was, the mere doubt stung Cecil to the quick. Something of the wild, desperate feeling of the day previous rose in her heart. The same feeling that makes men brave heaven and hell to win their desires worked up in her. If she had been one of us, just at that moment, she would have flinched at nothing; being a young lady, her hands were tied. She could only go to Cos's stalls with him (Cos knows as much about horseflesh as I do about the profound female mystery they call "shopping"), and flirt with him to desperation, while Horace got the steam up faster than he, with his very languid motor powers, often did, being accustomed to be spared the trouble and have all the love made to him--an indolence in which the St. Aubyn, who knows how to keep a man well up to hand, never indulged him.

"Do have some pity on me," I heard Cos murmuring, as she stroked a great brute of his, with a head like a fiddle-case, and no action at all. "I assure you, Miss St. Aubyn, you make me wretched. I'd die for you to-morrow if I only saw how, and yet you take no more notice of me sometimes than if I were that colt."

Cecil glanced at him with a smile that would have driven Cos distracted if he'd been in for it as deep as he pretended.

"I don't see that you are much out of condition, Sir Horace, but if you have any particular fancy to suicide, the horse-pond will accommodate you at a moment's notice; only don't do it till after our play, because I have set my heart on that suit of Milan armor. Pray don't look so plaintive. If it will make you any happier, I am going for a walk, and you may come too. Blanche, dear, which way is it to the plantations?"

Now poor Horace hated a walk on a frosty morning as cordially as anything, being altogether averse to any natural exercise: but he was sworn to the St. Aubyn, and Blanche and I, dropping behind them, he had a good hour of her fascinations to himself. I do not know whether he improved the occasion, but Cecil at luncheon looked tired and teased. I should think, after Syd's graphic epigrammatic talk, the baronet's lisped nonsense must have been rather trying, especially as Cecil has a strong leaning to intellect.

Vivian didn't appear at luncheon; he was gone rabbit-shooting with the other fellows, and I should have been with them if I had not thought lounging in the drawing-room, reading "Clytemnestra" to Blanche, with many pauses, the greater fun of the two. I am keen about sport, too; but ever since, at the age of ten, I conceived a romantic passion for my mother's lady's-maid--a tall and stately young lady, who eventually married a retail tea-dealer--I have thought the beaux yeux the best of all games.

"Mrs. Vivian, Blanche and Helena and I want to be very useful, if you will let us," said Cecil, one morning. She was always soft and playful with that gentlest of all women, Syd's mother. "What do you smile in that incredulous way for? We _can_ be extraordinarily industrious: the steam sewing-machine is nothing to us when we choose! What do you think we are going to do? We are going to decorate the church for Christmas. To leave it to that poor little old clerk, who would only stick two holly twigs in the pulpit candlesticks, and fancy he had done a work of high art, would be madness. And, besides, it will be such fun."

"If you think it so, pray do it, dear," laughed Mrs. Vivian. "I can't say I should, but your tastes and mine are probably rather different. The servants will do as you direct them."

"Oh no," said Cecil; "we mean to do it all ourselves. The gentlemen may help us if they like--those, at least, who prefer our society to that of smaller animals, with lop-ears and little bushy tails, who have a fascination superior sometimes to any of our attractions." She flashed a glance at the Colonel, who was watching her over the top of _Punch_, as, when I was a boy, I have watched the sun, though it pained my eyes to do it. "You're the grand seigneur of Deerhurst," said Cecil, turning to him; "will you be good, and order cart-loads of holly and evergreens (and plenty of the Portugal laurel, please, because it's so pretty) down to the church; and will you come and do all the hard work for me? The rabbits would _so_ enjoy a little peace to-day, poor things!"

He smiled in spite of himself, and did her bidding, with a flush of pleasure on his face. I believe at that moment, to please her, he would have cut down the best timber on the estates--even the old oaks, in whose shadow in the midsummer of centuries before Guy Vivian and Muriel had plighted their troth.

The way to the church was through a winding walk, between high walls of yew, and the sanctuary itself was a find old Norman place, whose _tout ensemble_ I admired, though I could not pick it to pieces architecturally.

To the church we all went, of course, with more readiness than we probably ever did in our lives, regardless of the rose chains with which we were very likely to become entangled, while white hands weaved the holly wreaths.

Vivian had ordered evergreens enough to decorate fifty churches, and had sent over to the neighboring town for no end of ribbon emblazonments and illuminated scrolls, on which Cecil looked with delight. She seemed to know by instinct it was done for _her_, and not for his sisters.

"How kind that is of you," she said, softly. "That is like what you were in Toronto. Why are you not always the same?"

For a moment she saw passion enough in his eye to satisfy her, but he soon mastered it, and answered her courteously:

"I am very glad they please you. Shall we go to work at once, for fear it grow dusk before we get through with it?"

"Can I do anything to help you?" murmured Cos in her ear.

She did not want him, and laughed mischievously. "You can cut some holly if you like. Begin on those large boughs."

"Better not, Cos," said the Colonel. "You will certainly soil your hands, and you might chance to scratch them."

"And if you did you would never forgive me, so I will let you off duty. You may go back to the dormeuse and the 'Lys de la Vallee' if you wish," laughed Cecil.

Horace looked sulky, and curled his blond whiskers in dudgeon, while Cecil, with half a dozen satellites about her, proceeded to work with vigorous energy, keeping Syd, however, as her head workman; and the Colonel twisted pillars, nailed up crosses, hung wreaths, and put up illuminated texts, as if he had been a carpenter all his life, and his future subsistence entirely depended on his adorning Deerhurst church in good taste. It was amusing to me to see him, whom the highest London society, the gayest Paris life bored--who pronounced the most dashing opera supper and the most vigorous debates alike slow--taking the deepest interest in decorating a little village church! I question if Eros did not lurk under the shiny leaves and the scarlet berries of those holly boughs quite as dangerously as ever he did under the rose petals consecrated to him.

I had my own affairs to attend to, sitting on the pulpit stairs at Blanche's feet, twisting the refractory evergreens at her direction; but I kept an occasional look-out at the Colonel and his dangerous Canadian for all that. They found time (as we did) for plenty of conversation over the Christmas decorations, and Cecil talked softly and earnestly for once without any "mischief." She talked of her father's embarrassments, her mother's trials, of Mrs. Coverdale, with honest detestation of that widow's arts and artifices, and of her own tastes, and ideas, and feelings, showing the Colonel (what she did not show generally to her numerous worshippers) her heart as well as her mind. As she knelt on the altar steps, twisting green leaves round the communion rails, Syd standing beside her, his pale bronze cheek flushed, and his eyes never left their study of her face as she bent over her work, looking up every minute to ask him for another branch, or another strip of blue ribbon.

When it had grown dusk, and the church was finished, looking certainly very pretty, with the dark leaves against its white pillars, and the scarlet berries kissing the stained windows, Cecil went noiselessly up into the organ-loft, and played the Christmas anthem. Vivian followed her, and, leaning against the organ, watched her, shading his eyes with his hand. She went on playing--first a Miserere, then Mozart's Symphony in E, and then improvisations of her own--the sort of music that, when one stands calmly to listen to it, makes one feel it whether one likes or not. As she played, tears rose to her lashes, and she looked up at Vivian's face, bending over her in the gloaming. Love was in her eyes, and Syd knew it, but feared to trust to it. His pulses beat fast, he leaned towards her, till his mustaches touched her soft perfumy hair. Words hung on his lips. But the door of the organ-loft opened.

"'Pon my life, Miss St. Aubyn, that's divine, delicious!" cried Cos. "We always thought that you were divine, but we never knew till now that you brought the angels' harmony with you to earth. For Heaven's sake, play that last thing again!"

"I never play what I compose twice," said Cecil, hurriedly, stooping down for her hat.

Vivian cursed him inwardly for his untimely interruption, but cooler thought made him doubt if he were not well saved some words, dictates of hasty passion, that he might have lived to repent. For Guy Vivian's fate warned him, and he mistrusted the love of a flirt, if flirt, as he feared--from her sudden caprices to him, her alternate impatience with, and encouragement of, his cousin--Cecil St. Aubyn would prove. He gave her his arm down the yew-tree walk. Neither of them spoke all the way, but he sent a servant on for another shawl, and wrapped it round her very tenderly when it came; and when he stood in the lighted hall, I saw by the stern, worn look of his face--the look I have seen him wear after a hard fight--that the fiery passions in him had been having a fierce battle.

That evening the St. Aubyn was off her fun, said she was tired, and, disregarding the misery she caused to Cos and four other men, who, figuratively speaking, _not_ literally, for they went into the "dry" and comestibles fast enough, had lived on her smiles for the last month, excused herself to Mrs. Vivian, and departed to her dormitory. Syd gave her her candle, and held her little hand two seconds in his as he bid her softly good night at the foot of the staircase.

I did not get much out of him in the balcony that night, and long after I had turned in, I scented his Cavendish as he smoked, Heaven knows how many pipes, in the chill December air. The next day, the 23rd, was the night of our theatricals, which went off as dashingly as if Mr. Kean, with his eternal "R-r-r-richard," had been there to superintend them.

All the country came; dowagers and beauties, with the odor of Belgravia still strong about them: people not quite so high, who were not the rose, but living near it, toadied that flower with much amusing and undue worship; a detachment of Dragoons from the next town, whom the girls wanted to draw, and the mammas to warn off--Dragoons being ordinarily better waltzers than speculations; all the magnates, custos rotulorum, sheriff, members, and magistrates--the two latter portions of the constitution being chiefly remarkable for keenness about hunting and turnips, and an unchristian and deadly enmity against all poachers and vagrants; rectors, who tossed down the still Ai with Falstaff's keen relish; other rectors, who came against their principles, but preferred fashion to salvation, having daughters to marry and sons to start; hunting men; girls who could waltz in a nutshell; dandies of St. James's, and veterans of Pall-Mall, down for the Christmas; belles renewing their London acquaintance, and recalling that "pleasant day at Richmond." But, by Jove! if I describe all the different species presented to view in that ball-room, I might use as many words as an old whip giving you the genealogy of a killing pack in a flying county.

Suffice it, there they all were to criticise us, and pretty sharply I dare say they did it, when they were out of our hearing, in their respective clarences, broughams, dog-carts, drags, tilburies, and hansoms. Before our faces, of course, they only clapped their snowy kid gloves, and murmured "Bravissimo!" with an occasional "Go it, Jack!" and "Get up the steam, old fellow!" from the young bloods in the background; and a shower of bouquets at Cecil and Blanche from their especial worshippers.

Blanche made the dearest little _Catherine_ that ever dressed herself up in blue and silver, and when she drew her toy-rapier in the green-room, asked me if I could not get her a cornetcy in ours. As for Cecil, she played _a ravir_ as Cos, in his Milan armor, whispered with some difficulty, as the steel gorget pressed his throat uncomfortably. Vestris herself never made a more brilliant or impassioned _Countess_. She and Syd really acquitted themselves in a style to qualify them for London boards, and as she threw herself at his feet--

Huon--my husband--lord--canst thou forgive The scornful maid? for the devoted wife Had cleaved to thee, though ne'er she owned thee lord,

I thought the St. Aubyn must be as great an actress as Rachel, if some of that fervor was not real.

Cecil played in the afterpiece, "The wonderful Woman;" the Colonel didn't; and Cos being _De Frontignac_, Syd leaned against one of the scenes, and looked on the whole thing with calm indifference externally, but much disquietude and annoyance within him. He was not jealous of the puppy; he would as soon have thought of putting himself on a par with Blanche's little white terrier, but he'd come to set a price on Cecil's winning smiles, and to see them given pretty equally to him, and to a young fool, her inferior in everything save position, whom he knew in her inmost soul she must ridicule and despise, galled his pride, and steeled his heart against her. His experience in women made him know that it was highly probable that Cecil was playing both at once, and that though, as he guessed, she loved him, she would, if Cos offered first, accept the title, and wealth, and position his cousin, equally with himself, could give her; and such love as that was far from the Colonel's ideal.

"By George! Vivian, that Canadian of yours is a perfect angel," said a man in the Dragoons, who had played _Ulric_. "She's such a deuced lot ove pluck, such eyes, such hair, such a voice! 'Pon my life, I quite envy you. I suppose you mean to act out the play in reality, don't you?"

Vivian lying back in an arm-chair in the green-room crushed up one of the satin playbills in his hand, and answered simply, "You do me too much honor, Calvert. Miss St. Aubyn and I have no thought of each other."

If any man had given Vivian the lie, he would have had him out and shot him instanter; nevertheless, he told this one with the most unhesitating defiance of truth. He did not see Cecil, who had just come off the stage, standing behind him. But she heard his words, went as white as Muriel's phantom, and brushed past us into her dressing room, whence she emerged, when her name was called, her cheeks bright with their first rouge, and her eyes unnaturally brilliant. _How_ she flirted with Horace that night, when the theatricals were over! Young ladies who wanted to hook the pet baronet, whispered over their bouquets, "How bold!" and dowagers, seeing one of their best matrimonial speculations endangered by the brilliant Canadian, murmured behind their fans to each other their wonder that Mrs. Vivian should allow any one so fast and so unblushing a coquette to associate with her young daughters.

Vivian watched her with intense earnestness. He had given her a bouquet that day, and she had thanked him for it with her soft, fond eyes, and told him she should use it. Now, as she came into the ball-room, he looked at the one in her hand; it was not his, but his cousin's.

He set his teeth hard; and swore a bitter oath to himself. As _Huon_, he was obliged to dance the first dance with the _Countess_, but he spoke little to her, and indeed, Cecil did not give him much opportunity, for she talked fast, and at random, on all sorts of indifferent subjects, with more than even her usual vivacity, and quite unlike the ordinary soft and winning way she had used of late when with him. He danced no more with her, but, daring the waltzes with which he was obliged to favor certain county beauties, and all the time he was doing the honors of Deerhurst, with his calm, stately, Bayard-like courtesy, his eyes would fasten on the St. Aubyn, driving the Dragoons to desperation, waltzing while Horace whispered tender speeches in her ear, or sitting jesting and laughing, half the men in the room gathered round her--with a look of passion and hopelessness, tenderness and determination, strangely combined.

IV.

THE COLONEL KILLS HIS FOX, BUT LOSES HIS HEAD AFTER OTHER GAME.

The next day was Christmas-eve; and on the 24th of December the hounds, from time immemorial, had been taken out by a Vivian. For the last few days the frost had been gradually breaking up, thank Heaven, and we looked forward to a good day's sport The meet was at Deerhurst, and it proved a strong muster for the Harkaway; though not exactly up to the Northamptonshire Leicestershire mark, are a clever, steady pack. Cecil and Blanche were the only two women with us, for the country is cramped and covered with blind fences, and the fair sex seldom hunt with the Harkaway. But the St. Aubyn is a first-rate seat, and Blanche has, she tells me, ridden anything from the day she first stuck on to her Shetland, when she was three years old. They were both down in time. Indeed, I question if they went to bed at all, or did any more than change their ball dresses for their habits. As I lifted Blanche on to her pet chestnut, I heard Syd telling Cecil that Billiard-ball was saddled.

"Thank you," said the St. Aubyn, hurriedly. "I need not trouble you. Sir Horace has promised to mount me."

Vivian bent his head with a strange smile, and sprang on Qui Vive, while Cecil mounted a showy roan, thorough-bred, the only good horse Cos had in his stud, despite the thousands he had paid into trainers' and breeders' pockets.

"Stole away--forward, forward!" screamed Vivian's fellow-member for Cacklebury; and, holding Qui Vive hard by the head, away went Syd after the couple or two of hounds that were leading the way over some pasture land, with an ox-rail at the bottom of it, all the field after him. Cecil's roan flew over the grass land, and rose at the ox-rail as steadily as Qui Vive. Blanche's chestnut let himself be kicked along at no end of a pace, his mistress sitting down in her stirrups as well as the gallant M. F. H., her father. I never _do_ think of anything but the hounds flying along in front of me, but I could not help turning my head over my shoulder to see if she was all right; and I never admired her so much as when she passed me with a merry laugh: "Five to one I beat you, monsieur!" Away we went over the dark ploughed lands, and the naked thorn hedges, the wide straggling briar fences, and the fields covered with stones and belted with black-looking plantations. Down went Cos with his horse wallowing helplessly in a ditch, after considerately throwing him unhurt on the bank. Syd set his teeth as he lifted Qui Vive over the prostrate baronet, to the imminent danger of that dandy field-sportsman's life. "Take hold of his head, Miss St. Aubyn," shouted the M. F. H.; but before the words had passed his lips, Cecil had landed gallantly a little farther down. Another ten minutes with the hounds streaming over the country--a ten minutes of wild delight, worth all the monotonous hours of every-day life--and Qui Vive was alone with the hounds. We could see him speeding along a quarter of a mile ahead of us, and Cecil's roan was but half a field behind him. She was "riding jealous" of one of the best riders in the Queen's; the M. F. H. just in front of her turned his head once, in admiration of her pluck, to see her lift her horse at a staken-bound fence; but the Colonel never looked round. Away they went--they disappeared over the brow of a hill. Blanche shook her reins and struck her chestnut, and I sawed my hunter's mouth mercilessly with the snaffle. No use--we were too late by three minutes. Confound it! they had just killed their fox after twenty minutes' burst over a stiff country, one of the fastest things I ever saw.

Cecil was pale with over-excitement, and upon my word she looked more ready to cry than anything when the M. F. H. complimented her with his genial smile, and his cordial "Well done, my dear. I never saw anybody ride better. I used to think my little Blanche the best seat in the country, but she must give place to you--eh, Syd?"

"Miss St. Aubyn does everything well that she attempts," answered the Colonel, in his calm, courteous tone, looking, nevertheless, as stern as if he had just slain his deadliest enemy, instead of having seen a fox killed.

Cecil flushed scarlet, and Cos coming up at that moment, a sadly bespattered object for such an Adonis to present, his coat possessing more the appearance of a bricklayer's than any one else's, after its bath of white mud, she turned to him, and began to laugh and talk with rather wild gaiety. It so chanced that the fox was killed on Horace's land, and we, being not more than a mile and a half off his house, the gallant Cos immediately seized upon the idea of having the object of his idolatry up there to luncheon; and his uncle, and Cecil, and Blanche acquiescing in the arrangement, to his house we went, with such of the field as had ridden up after the finish. Cos trotted forward with the St. Aubyn to show us the way by a short cut through the park, and the echoes of Cecil's laughter rang to Vivian in the rear discussing the run with his father.