Chapter 41

A LOCK OF HAIR.

For which they be that hold apart The promise of the golden hours; First love, first friendship, equal powers, That many with the virgin heart. --In Memoriam.

Another year had gone by since the _denouement_ at Bromley Towers. The war was over, peace proclaimed, and what remained of our armies had returned from the East.

General Rolleston then retired from the service, and bought a very nice property near Leamington. He still saw a good deal of his old officers; Fane especially, who now commanded the regiment, spent much of his leave at Pyott's Hill. He retained all his old admiration for Cecil, receiving as little encouragement as ever. Possibly that may have been the secret of his constancy, for certainly, as a Crimean hero, with seven thousand a year to gild the romance of it, he did not find young ladies in general very hard-hearted.

But Fane was ever ungrateful, and, after being petted and feted, sang at, ridden at, and generally made much of, only returned with fresh zest to Cecil's unaffected and pleasant companionship. Yet, after each visit, in spite of manifold opportunities, being alone with her for hours, her constant companion in rides and rambles, and given to her by every one in the neighbourhood, he always found he had never really advanced an inch, and that nothing Cecil expected less than a proposal from him.

So he always went away in despair, to return again at the faintest hint of an invitation from her father.

General Rolleston was by no means displeased to observe this eagerness to avail himself of his hospitality, being quite as alive as heretofore to the advantages of the match--he only wondered why Fane and his daughter were so tardy in coming to an understanding.

Cecil was very much liked in the neighbourhood. Everybody said she was the most unaffected girl in the world. But with all her admirers, she had no flirtations--bright and cold was the verdict pronounced. Some said she was strong-minded, for she was known to read a great deal, and had even had a picture admitted into the Female Artists' Exhibition. She was further convicted of preferring long, solitary rides to joining the numerous equestrian parties got up in the summer; but as public opinion had unanimously agreed that she must be engaged to Fane, the unsocial trait was excused on that hypothesis.

About this period, he having just discovered her whereabouts, Cecil received a long letter from Harry Dutton, relating what he knew would interest her--the strange events and transformations at "The Towers." A similar one came to Mrs. Rolleston from Bluebell, who, now that she was at liberty to speak, wrote something like a volume of narrative and explanation to her friend. The latter, agitated and excited, flew to Cecil with the wonderful news, unaware that she had heard it already from Dutton, or, indeed, of her acquaintance with him: for, considering that all he had told her was in the strictest confidence. Cecil, as the simplest way of keeping it secret, had never mentioned anything at all about him. She must now, however, confess, for her step-mother was in an effusive mood, and bent upon instantly inviting the Duttons to pay them a visit.

Mrs. Rolleston received the information with some coldness and little curiosity, being naturally hurt at her step-daughter's concealment of a fact of so much interest to her; and though she probably told the General, he never afterwards alluded to the episode. Indeed, Cecil's labours at Scutari were rather a tabooed subject, as Harry speedily discovered when one day he attempted to blunder out his gratitude to her father.

The Duttons were invited for a week; also Colonel Fane and Captain Vavasour. Cecil became restless and excited as the day approached. The sight of Bluebell would cruelly re-open old wounds, and she had never met Vavasour (who had brought back the slain body of her lover) since the Crimea. And he would talk to her about it, she was sure, for Jack had long ago fathomed their ill fated attachment. Altogether, it was a relief that other guests were coming to dinner, for they were all too intimate in one way and too far apart in another--a connecting thread seeming to run through all their lives. Jack, an old love of Bluebell's, Dutton, whom she had nursed through deadly peril, and Fane, only prevented being a declared suitor by systematic absence of reciprocity on her side. Well it was a mercy they all came in owl-light, scarcely dusk enough for candles, but pleasantly veiling countenances not too much under command.

Bluebell and Cecil had determined beforehand that they must embrace, and mutually dreaded it. It was not, however, such _a blanc-mange_ affair as osculation among ladies often is, for they were both agitated by too vivid memories. Bluebell's feelings were pleasantly diverted by recognising Jack--blushing with delight like the boy he still was. Somehow, he was the only one of the party she felt entirely at ease with, and found herself, as of old, chattering and laughing at as much as with him, just as if three sorrow-laden years had never intervened.

Dutton contrived to get by Cecil at dinner, though he had not taken her down, and their conversation was sufficiently interesting to make them forget their appointed partners.

"And you _are_ quite restored to favour?" Cecil was saying, "and the uncle not half so implacable as you expected?"

"I don't know about that," cried Harry. "He has altered to _me_, I think. Bluebell is all the rage now, she actually is admitted into his sanctum every morning, to read him the papers. I shouldn't wonder if she turned out Queen Regnante and I were only Prince Consort!"

Cecil, I think, liked Dutton much better than his wife, with whom it was hard to resume old relations. Besides, she seemed now quite the favourite of Fortune, with every difficulty and hardship smoothed away, and to those who have suffered, it is harder to rejoice with those who do rejoice than to weep with those who weep.

So Bluebell was happier alone with Mrs. Rolleston when the men were hunting or out of the way. Dutton once ventured to question Cecil about Fane, whose hopeless passion was evident to every one in the house. She looked vexed, disconsolate, and gave her usual answer, that there was nothing in it, and never would be.

Dutton gently tried to combat this assertion. He had heard all about Bertie, but of course thought it was useless grieving over spilt milk; that time enough had passed since then; and that she had far better marry and forget.

Cecil smiled with a sort of sad amusement at all this and his slight assumption of marital experience. Harry and Bluebell seemed years younger than herself,--a giddy, happy young couple, the very sunshine of whose lives dazzled them too much to see into the depths of hers.

One afternoon she had started for a lonely walk. The rest of the party were pretty well disposed of--Bluebell driving with Mrs. Rolleston, and the others, she thought were with the General; but it did not much matter. It was a blustering February afternoon--Cecil long remembered it; the north wind had strewn the ground with dead branches, and cawing rooks, on the eve of wedlock, were drifting about incoherently on the breeze. She was following the course of a brook where the grounds widened into a wild, brambly park, and looking over her shoulder she perceived Jack Vavasour some distance off, coming along with rapid strides as if bent on overtaking her.

Cecil sauntered slowly on, not ill pleased at the opportunity of an unreserved conversation with Jack. She noticed, with furtive amusement, that he slackened his pace considerably as he neared her, probably to give an accidental aspect to the encounter. She turned round with a contented smile of expectation, and they wandered on together, Cecil instinctively choosing the most unfrequented and far-off boundary of the park. It was impossible to keep up long a commonplace conversation, and they became more and more _distrait_ and nervous, each wishing to approach one subject, and neither liking to begin. In such a case, it is always the woman who breaks the ice. An allusion to the war was sufficient in this instance, and Jack responded so eagerly, she was confirmed in her impression that he had something to tell her. Without waiting for further questioning, he plunged into Crimean reminiscences of Bertie Du Meresq, whom he had seen nearly every day till his death, to all of which poor Cecil listened with breathless interest, and yet she _knew_ there was something more to come.

"You know," continued Vavasour, "his watch and things were sent back to England; but when we cut open his tunic, to see if he was breathing, something dropped out that he had worn through the action. I kept _that_, for I thought I would restore it only to the rightful owner."

What intuitive feeling was it that made her wish he would say no more! Jack was opening his pocket-book, and drew out a piece of folded paper.

"I knew it in a moment," he cried, as a long coil of soft, dark hair appeared, so closely resembling Cecil's own as fully to justify his conviction that it was so.

He had expected to see her greatly moved; but the sudden pallor of her face puzzled him, which sensation was still more intensified when her large eyes flashed a moment upon him with an expression he never forgot, and, turning abruptly away, she walked towards the house.

Of all the trouble Cecil had gone through of late, I think for concentrated bitterness this moment was the worst. Though the colour was identical, by feel and texture she knew the tress was not her own, added to which, no such token had ever passed between herself and Bertie.

Well, there was no temptation to linger over the dead past now, which had received its _coup de grace_ that wintry afternoon; almost every one felt that some subtle change had passed over Cecil. Perhaps the one who least felt its uncannyness was, Fane, who hovered near her with a brighter air. No doubt some of the party were surprised when, just before it broke up, the engagement of Cecil and Fane was announced; but no one guessed the truth except Jack Vavasour, who, anxious and remorseful, only cursed himself for a blundering idiot.

They were married on her twenty-fourth birthday, much to the relief of her bridesmaid-sisters, who had begun to fear Cecil would be an old maid. Fane sold out, and took his wife abroad, while the old Elizabethan manor-house, which, since his succession to, he had never lived in, was painted and luxuriously refurnished for the reception of the bride.

'Twas a pity Cecil married a rich man. Her best chance would have been having to think, work, deny herself for another, who might thus have become dear from the very sacrifices entailed by him. It was hard on Fane, who had been constant so long, and found he had grasped nothing but fairy gold. The old manor house was generally full, for somehow both dreaded a _tête-à-tête_, and equally, in early days especially, a betrayal of the feeling.

Cecil left her guests pretty much to their own devices in the morning, and read and painted in her own peculiar den, fitted up half as a library, half as a studio. The winter she devoted to hunting, and scarcely any meet was too distant or country too intricate for her. Bertie's riding lessons, at any rate, had not been forgotten, and carelessness of life is certainly conducive to steadiness of nerve. Jack Vavasour, who was out one day, was under the impression she wished to break her neck. Mrs. Fane became noted in her county for going with the most unflinching straightness, but so little did she care for the reputation, that sometimes she would stick unambitiously to the roads and never take a fence.

She had a separate stud of hunters, and rode independently of her husband, who followed the amusement in a less erratic style than his wife, and in more moderation.

Cecil often thought of her dream, when Du Meresq was transformed into Fane, and how singularly it had been realized. Certainly adventitious circumstances were averse to that first love of hers, for, however much appearances were against him, the lock of hair which had decided her destiny was no love token of Du Meresq's. It had been consigned to him by a dying friend, who besought him to write the news to his betrothed, and restore to her the lock of hair she had given him.

When Du Meresq had sent this letter off, he found he had omitted enclosing the tress, but they were then just going into action, and he had placed it inside his tunic.

After long years Cecil met this girl, who had been faithful to the memory of her Crimean hero. Once she spoke of him to Mrs. Fane, mentioning the circumstance of the omission of the lock when Du Meresq's letter had conveyed to her the fatal news. Little did she think how her companion had guarded and hated this _souvenir_. Cecil glanced sharply at the other's hair, harsher and more wiry now, and intersected with silvery threads, still it was like enough to satisfy her of the identity without the confirmatory cry of surprise with which the poor woman received it from her hands. Had she known this earlier, I think Cecil would have clung to her ideal, and never married, but by this time Fane and herself were--well as happy together as other people. Time's "effacing finger" had prepared the way, and since the birth of her only son, Cecil's heart was vitalized by a second passion, as strong though different to the first. So we may leave her, and see how our other heroine ultimately fares before dropping the curtain.

Dutton went to sea once again, but, as his ship was only cruising in the Mediterranean, Bluebell was able to meet him at the different ports they stopped at, and did not at all dislike the changeful variety of the life. However, Lord Bromley found he could not do without her, so, after that one cruise, Harry retired from the navy, and they lived chiefly at "The Towers," where a numerous family was born.

At last Lord Bromley died at a great age, and it was found that he had left Bromley Towers to their eldest boy, Theodore. To the Duttons was bequeathed a small estate worth three thousand a year. So after all Harry never inherited "The Towers," nor Bluebell either.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Bluebell, by Mrs. George Croft Huddleston