Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  ‘She has such lovely dark blue eyes — and how dark and long the lashes have grown — and such a dear little dot of a nose.’

  ‘A snub,’ said Blanche, laughing.

  ‘No, dear, a retroussé nose — tip-tilted like — —’

  ‘Please don’t,’ cried Blanche, almost with a scream, ‘for pity’s sake spare me that quotation. I have met with it in every novel I have read since the poem was published. I’m very glad you think Antoinette improving. She was a plain child, but those plain children sometimes turn out well’

  ‘She has such quaint, old-fashioned ways.’

  ‘Yes, she is a winning little thing — not clever, but very sweet.’

  CHAPTER III. ‘BEING SO VERY WILFUL YOU MUST GO.’

  WHAT Blanche had said about him was perfectly true. Mr. Tremayne contrived somehow, without asserting himself in the least degree, to make everybody respect and admire him. Perhaps it was chiefly because he did not assert himself that people thought so much of him. He had no remarkable gifts — he was not an admirable Crichton; but the few things he pretended to do he did thoroughly well. He rode splendidly; was a first-rate shot, and a good billiard player; carried himself as well as a trained athlete. He was fond of music; but he neither played nor sang. He was not a great linguist; and he had distinguished himself in the technical and strictly professional part of his education rather than in humane letters. Nobody could call him a brilliant young man; but there was a solidity about him and a thorough earnestness which won everybody’s respect.

  He and Tiny became sworn friends. The child’s tender heart had been touched by that pathetic look which came into his face when he spoke of his dead sister. She was always trying to console him, in her quiet, unobtrusive way. “Whenever she could get away from lessons and Miss Ball she was pretty sure to be found in the hall, or the gardens, or the billiard-room, with Mr. Tremayne. Very often, of course, Blanche and Louie were there too; for Mr. Tremayne being the only young man in the house, the two elder girls were not absolutely averse from his society.

  Blanche felt sometimes that she was being dangerously kind to him. The poor young man was laying up misery for himself in the future by this pleasant easy-going companionship in the present.

  ‘He had no right to come here,’ she told herself when conscience reproached her on this count. ‘It is all his own fault.’

  ‘Of course you mean to accept him?’ said Louie, sticking to her text. ‘You are only trifling with yourself and with him. You mean to begin your honeymoon in a P. and O. steamer, and finish it in the Bolan Pass.’

  Blanche protested that she meant nothing of the kind; but she went on riding and driving and walking, and gipsy tea drinking, and billiard and tennis playing with Mr. Tremayne all the same. He was there, and she was there, and they fell into each other’s company as naturally as waters mingle where rivers meet. If any harm came of it the fault was his.

  Harm did come to him evidently, for on the last day of his visit, late in sear and yellow October, when the leaves were strewn in the woodland, and the little river brawled fiercely as it rushed over its rocky bed, and the autumn winds swept across the hills, and tore savagely at the topmost branches of the oaks, Claude Tremayne contrived to be alone with Blanche in Loxley Park, down by the river: it was the same stream that meandered as a rivulet through the wood, but here it was wide and shallow and placid.

  His regiment was under orders for India. The steamer was to leave on the 15th of November.

  ‘Blanche, do you remember what I told you that day at Hurlingham?’ he asked, with grave tenderness.

  ‘I am not likely to forget; but please don’t talk about it. It is a pity. It can do no good.’

  ‘Blanche, you don’t mean to say that you are going to reject me again — that I am not something more to you than I was that day? I felt afterwards that I had been too eager. I had no right to hope that you could care for me after so short an acquaintance. It was presumption on my part — fatuity. But now that we know so much more of each other — that we have lived under the same roof — Blanche, for pity’s sake,’ he pleaded passionately, clasping her hand as she turned away from him, ‘don’t tell me that I am no dearer to you now than I was on that miserable day.’

  In spite of all her sophistry, Blanche felt terribly ashamed of herself just at this particular crisis of her life.

  ‘My dear one, if you did not mean to make me happy you never would have been so sweet to me as you have been while I have lived under your roof. You would have let me see at once that there was no hope.’

  ‘I thought I explained that once and for all that day on the lawn,’ she faltered. ‘I thought the question was at an end for ever between us.’

  ‘Blanche, could you think that? Could you think that I could be here, seeing you every day — almost every hour in the day, living in your sweet society, and that I should not love you better and better day by day, and that I should not hope to win you?’

  ‘I am very sorry,’ she said, really meaning it, ‘but I do not think you had any right to hope after what I told you at Hurlingham. It has been very pleasant to have you here — we all like you, very, very much — mother and Tiny — all of us. I am more sorry than I can say that you — that you cannot accept my friendship as freely as I give it.’

  ‘If his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? ‘ said Claude bitterly. ‘No, Miss Tremayne, friendship will not do. It is a very precious thing in its way; but it is not the jewel I ask from you. I have been fooled — that is all. I won’t be so ruffianly as to say you have fooled me. I suppose I have fooled myself. Good-bye.’

  He gave her his hand — a hand that was cold as ice.

  ‘You are not going till to-morrow?’

  ‘I am going at once — right away, as the Yankees call it. Good-bye, Blanche, and God bless you. May you be happier than I hope to be.’

  ‘Please don’t say that. You will easily forget me. I am not worth your lasting regret.’ She did not think so, but she felt it her duty to be comforting. ‘You will meet some nice girl in India, and forget that you ever cared for me.’

  ‘Good-bye,’ he said, ‘I have barely time to finish my packing.’

  He wrung her hand, and left her standing on the bridge, looking at the melancholy river. It was a suicidal autumn day, sunless and dreary, and all the trees were shedding their leaves, flip, flap, with a monotonous sound on the damp grass. It was a creepy day, and Blanche felt as if twenty sealskins one atop of the other could not have kept out the cold.

  An hour later, Antoinette, returning from a severe duty walk, under convoy of Miss Ball, met Claude Tremayne hurrying across the Dark to the station, gun-case in hand. The rest of his goods were being wheeled down in the stableman’s truck.

  ‘Good gracious!’ cried Tiny, rosy in her brown fur-bordered pelisse, so bright-looking that she seemed to have absorbed into herself all the sunshine that ought to have lighted the autum day. ‘What does this mean? I thought you were not going till to-morrow.’

  ‘I have a heap of business to get through in London, so I decided on taking Time by the forelock, and going today.’

  ‘I wish Time had no forelock. I wish the nasty old thing was altogether bald,’ cried Tiny. ‘There’ll be no one to draw horses and dogs for me to-night, or to play billiards with me, or to tell stories. I am awfully sorry. And how white and ill you look! I do believe you are going away without having had your tea.’

  ‘That is a melancholy fact, Tiny. There was no time for tea.’

  ‘Be sure you have some at Plymouth, then.’

  ‘I believe I shall stop at Plymouth, sleep at the Duke of Cornwall, and go on by the first express in the morning.’

  ‘In that case you might just as well stop here, and leave here by the first train.’

  ‘I think not, Tiny. Loxley is at the very end of the world. I must gain something by getting on to Plymouth to-night.’

  ‘And I shall lose a great deal,’ said Tiny, pouting. ‘You a
re very selfish.’

  ‘Tiny, I think it is you who are selfish,’ remarked Miss Ball, who felt she ought to be earning her salary.

  ‘Good-bye, little one, and may every year that parts us bring you new joys and new graces,’ said Claude tenderly.

  ‘You may kiss me if you like, this once, as you are going away,’ said Tiny, standing on tiptoe.

  Miss Ball screamed, but before she could interfere the farewell kiss — a mutual one — was given, and Claude Tremayne was gone.

  CHAPTER IV. ‘O LOVE, TO THINK THAT LOVE CAN PASS AWAY!’

  FOUR London seasons had come and gone since Claude Tremayne walked to the little station at Loxley, and turned his back upon Devonian woods and Cornish hills, with a dull, aching sense of desolation which he fancied meant a broken heart. Four seasons, and Blanche was still Blanche Ferrier, and still held her place among the beauties. Of course she was getting terribly old, rising twenty-four. She assured her dear rustic Louie — who still languished at Okehampton — that she felt quite an old woman. But happily for her peace of mind her glass told her that she did not look a day the worse for those four years — nay, rather that time had only ripened and expanded her beauty. Her eyes were brighter, her complexion was more peach-like, her smile more fascinating; there was less of girlish innocence, and more of mind and spirit in her face. And just now girlish simplicity is at a discount. Miss Ferrier had a reputation for saying sharp things. She put people down. Duchesses had been known to quail before her. The Countess of Valois and Plantagenet shivered when Blanche drew her bow at a venture. There was no knowing where her arrows would hit or whom.

  Her dearest friends said she was bitter — a natural result of disappointment. ‘She expected to make a great match don’t you know,’ said one young lady to her partner at a state-ball, ‘and somehow she’ ——

  ‘Has missed her tip,’ interjected Krutch, of the War Office, with whom the speaker was dancing. ‘Don’t you believe a word of it. She could have married Colonel Devereux if she had liked — the richest officer in the Blues — no end of coin, splendid place in the Midlands, — but she turned him up after carryin’ on shameful with him. I call it disgustin’. And there was Sir Moses Chumley, fellow in the City — a million of money, and not an h to his name. She might have had him.’

  ‘As if any decently brought-up young woman would marry an uneducated man!’ exclaimed. Krutch’s partner, with a toss of her head; and yet she would have been very glad to have had the refusal of Sir Moses.

  It may be that she felt the disappointment, and that this made her bitter: or it may be that finding herself admired for her sharpness, she took pride and pleasure in the keen edge of her wit, and cultivated the art of saying disagreeable things.

  Her father and mother were not unhappy at her hanging on hand. They were not of the impecunious or scheming class, and were in no hurry to get rid of their daughter. Mrs. Ferrier was glad when once in a way some more fashionable matron relieved her of the duty of playing chaperon at a concert or a ball. She enjoyed a game at bézique with the squire in the snug little Mayfair drawing-room, and to go early to bed, and to hear all about Blanche’s triumphs at breakfast next morning. But when Blanche wanted her mother, the matron was ready to go. She put on her velvet gown and the family diamonds, and. sallied forth, like a Roman parent, equal to any sacrifice.

  ‘You are a dear old mother,’ said Blanche when this fourth season was over, and they were going westward in the express; ‘but you are looking awfully fagged and worn.’

  ‘London life is very tiring, dear; but I am always pleased to see you enjoying yourself.’

  ‘Enjoying myself,’ echoed Blanche drearily. ‘Not much of that now, mother. I shouldn’t care a jot if this were my last London season that has just come to an end.’

  ‘What, Blanche, you who are so much admired! Surely you are not tired of the world?’

  ‘I am — sick to death.’

  ‘You are so difficult to please. How proud I should have been if you had accepted Colonel Devereux! You might have been married in Westminster Abbey.’

  ‘That would make no difference, mother, if I didn’t care about my husband. I have a good mind to say this shall be my last season. Next year you will have Tiny to bring out, and she will make her mark ever so much better if she appears alone than if she has to follow in the wake of an elder sister.’

  ‘Blanche!

  ‘I think next year I shall stay at Loxley all the summer, and work hard at the vicar’s new school. He is so anxious to keep that tyrannical Board at bay.’

  This was an entirely new departure in the accomplished Blanche, who seemed to have been growing more worldly ever since her first season.

  Mr. Ferrier was reading his Times in the further corner of the broad, luxurious carriage while this conversation between mother and daughter went on in confidential tones.

  ‘Another victory for our troops in Afghanistan,’ he exclaimed. What a pity Tremayne is out of it.’

  ‘How out of it?’ asked Blanche, looking up eagerly. ‘What do you mean, squire?’

  ‘Simply that Tremayne can’t be in two places at once. If he is to be with us on the 1st, he couldn’t be north of Cabul on the 24th of August.’

  ‘Who says he is coming to us?

  ‘He does, in a letter I got from Gib the day before yesterday. I thought I told you all about it. He is home on sick leave, and wants us to take him in for the first week in September I telegraphed to say I should be delighted and proud to have him. The young fellow is a hero — Lord Chillianwallah told me all about him when he was in London last June confabulating with the Commander-in-Chief. He said he only wished he had had half a dozen such fellows with him in his last campaign. It warmed my heart to hear my old friend’s son so spoken of. Ah, Blanche, if you had only-’

  ‘Please don’t, father. Here is mother wailing over me because I didn’t marry Colonel Devereux. You had better wash your hands of me and my matrimonial prospects altogether. I am evidently doomed to be an old maid. So long as you don’t grudge me my rooms at Loxley I am content.’

  ‘Blanche, how can you talk so!’ said the mother, gazing in a rapture of admiration at the handsome face, the fine, clearly cut features, brilliant eyes, and rich complexion.

  Such a girl ought to have been at least a countess; and here she was hanging on hand like a winter pear that ripens slowly on a western wall, when all the fruits of the summer have been gathered and garnered.

  The 1st of September came, and of those who had assembled at Loxley Park four years ago, at least half had come back again. There were the rector and his lively wife; there was that clubbable evergreen Captain Colston, with the same stock of anecdotes, somewhat enlarged and modernized, like a shop-front in a rising town, to keep pace with the age. There was Louie — and Louie now meant two people, for she brought her husband with her — a husband who was quite the meekest thing in curates, a boyish creature, with an insignificant countenance and figure, and a Boanerges voice, a voice big enough to fill Exeter Cathedral, as Louie used to tell her friends exultantly, though whether it would ever find its way there was another thing. At present the mild youth was curate to the vicar of Okehampton, and his modest stipend had to be eked out by a contribution from Louie’s father, Mr. Fosbrook, the prosperous, old-established solicitor of that town, in whose hands was the chief management of Mr. Ferrier’s estate. Thus it will be seen that for the present Louie had no prospect of escape from Okehampton.

  She had been lively and good-natured as a girl of twenty-seven; she was still more lively and good-natured as a matron, ordering her little man about, and arranging his life for him in a most agreeable way. She was very solicitous about his health, and was always sending his umbrella and macintosh after him; an attention which he was inclined to resent, as an insult to his manhood. She was also very particular about his eating and drinking, and thought nothing of remonstrating with him across a crowded dinner table when she saw him on the verge of an imprudence.


  Major Tremayne — the subaltern of four years ago was now full major — was not expected until the afternoon of the 1st. The first raid upon the birds would be made without him. He was to arrive at Southampton in the P. and O. steamer on the 31st, and come straight on to Loxley next day by a train that would arrive in time for afternoon tea. All this he duly explained in a letter to Mrs. Ferrier, which she read aloud at the breakfast-table on the morning of the 1st. All the men — except the little curate — were off and away over the turnips and the stubble. The ladies and the priest had the dining-room to themselves.

  Tiny was at her mother’s right hand, helping with the tea and coffee, ‘ sitting in her mother’s pocket,’ said Mrs. Dalraine.

  The girl was such a mother’s pet, such a loving, sensitive creature, always nestling close at the maternal side.

  ‘Oughtn’t I to be glad to get her back again after all this weary time?’ protested Tiny.

  ‘“What a sweet little creature she has grown!’ said Louie to Blanche at the other end of the table, in a stage whisper.

  If the good-natured Mrs. Skimpshaw — the curate’s name was Skimpshaw — had a fault, it was her way of praising people before their face — her asides were always ‘ loud enough for Othello to hear,’ as the stage direction has it.

  She was right about Antoinette’s beauty. She was not so striking as Blanche, not a woman before whom man must bow and photographers adore. Hers was a delicate snowdrop loveliness; complexion pale; features small, insignificant even; eyes darkest violet; eyebrows exquisitely pencilled; expression thoughtful, till she smiled; and then the sweet young face was radiant with beauty and meaning.

  ‘Well, Tiny, I suppose you are very glad Major Tremayne is coming to-day,’ said Mrs. Skimpshaw.

  ‘Yes, I am glad.’

  ‘You are very quiet about it, though. I thought you would be ready to jump over the moon.’

  ‘Perhaps my jumping days are over. Miss Ball told me last week that I ought to give up my skipping-rope,’