Airy Fairy Lilian

CHAPTER IX

"So young, and so untender." —King Lear.

"I wonder why on earth it is some people cannot choose proper hours in which to travel," says Cyril, testily. "The idea of electing – (not any more, thank you) – to arrive at ten o'clock at night at any respectable house is barely decent."

"Yes, I wish she had named any other hour," says Lady Chetwoode. "It is rather a nuisance Guy having to go to the station so late."

"Dear Florence is so romantic," remarks Cyril: "let us hope for her sake there will be a moon."

It is half-past eight o'clock, and dinner is nearly over. There has been some haste this evening on account of Miss Beauchamp's expected arrival; the very men who are handing round the jellies and sweetmeats seem as inclined to hurry as their pomposity will allow: hence Cyril's mild ill-humor. No man but feels aggrieved when compelled to hasten at his meals.

Miss Chesney has arrayed herself with great care for the new-comer's delectation, and has been preparing herself all day to dislike her cordially. Sir Guy is rather silent; Cyril is not; Lady Chetwoode's usual good spirits seem to have forsaken her.

"Are you really going to Truston after dinner?" asks Lilian, in a tone of surprise, addressing Sir Guy.

"Yes, really; I do not mind it in the least," answering his mother's remark even more than hers. "It can scarcely be called a hardship, taking a short drive on such a lovely night."

"Of course not, with the prospect before him of so soon meeting this delightful cousin," thinks Lilian. "How glad he seems to welcome her home! No fear he would let Cyril meet her at the station!"

"Yes, it certainly is a lovely evening," she says, aloud. Then, "Was there no other train for her to come by?"

"Plenty," answers Cyril; "any number of them. But she thought she would like Guy to 'meet her by moonlight alone.'"

It is an old and favorite joke of Cyril's, Miss Beauchamp's admiration for Guy. He has no idea he is encouraging in any one's mind the impression that Guy has an admiration for Miss Beauchamp.

"I wonder you never tire of that subject," Guy says, turning upon his brother with sudden and most unusual temper. "I don't fancy Florence would care to hear you forever making free with her name as you do."

"I beg your pardon a thousand times. I had no idea it was a touchy subject with you."

"Nor is it," shortly.

"She will have her wish," says Lilian, alluding to Cyril's unfortunate quotation, and ignoring the remark that followed. "I am sure it will be moonlight by ten," – making a critical examination of the sky through the window, near which she is sitting. "How charming moonlight is! If I had a lover," – laughing, – "I should never go for a drive or walk with him except beneath its cool white rays. I think Miss Beauchamp very wise in choosing the hour she has chosen for her return home."

This is intolerable. The inference is quite distinct. Guy flushes crimson and opens his mouth to give way to some of the thoughts that are oppressing him, but his mother's voice breaking in checks him.

"Don't have any lovers for a long time, child," she says: "you are too young for such unsatisfactory toys. The longer you are without them, the happier you will be. They are more trouble than gratification."

"I don't mean to have one," says Lilian, with a wise shake of her blonde head, "for years and years. I was merely admiring Miss Beauchamp's taste."

"Wise child!" says Cyril, admiringly. "Why didn't you arrive by moonlight, Lilian? I'm never in luck."

"It didn't occur to me: in future I shall be more considerate. Are you fretting because you can't go to-night to meet your cousin? You see how insignificant you are: you would not be trusted on so important a mission. It is only bad little wards you are sent to welcome."

She laughs gayly as she says this; but Guy, who is listening, feels it is meant as a reproach to him.

"There are worse things than bad little wards," says Cyril, "if you are a specimen."

"Do you think so? It's a pity every one doesn't agree with you. No, Martin," to the elderly servitor behind her chair, who she knows has a decided weakness for her: "don't take away the ice pudding yet: I am very fond of it."

"So is Florence. You and she, I foresee, will have a stand-up fight for it at least once a week. Poor cook! I suppose she will have to make two ice puddings instead of one for the future."

"If there is anything on earth I love, it is an ice pudding."

"Not better than me, I trust."

"Far, far better."

"Take it away instantly, Martin; Miss Chesney mustn't have any more: it don't agree with her."

At this Martin smiles demurely and deferentially, and presents the coveted pudding to Miss Chesney; whereat Miss Chesney makes a little triumphant grimace at Cyril and helps herself as she loves herself.

Dinner is over. The servants, – oh, joy! – have withdrawn: everybody has eaten as much fruit as they feel is good for them. Lady Chetwoode looks at Lilian and half rises from her seat.

"It is hardly worth while your leaving us this evening, mother," Guy says, hastily: "I must so soon be running away if I wish to catch the train coming in."

"Very well," – re-seating herself: "we shall break through rules, and stay with you for this one night. You won't have your coffee until your return?"

"No, thank you." He is a little distrait, and is following Lilian's movements with his eyes, who has risen, thrown up the window, and is now standing upon the balcony outside, gazing upon the slumbering flowers, and upon the rippling, singing brooks in the distance, the only things in all creation that never seem to sleep.

After a while, tiring of inanimate nature, she turns her face inward and leans against the window-frame, and being in an idle mood, begins to pluck to pieces the flower that has rested during dinner upon her bosom.

Standing thus in the half light, she looks particularly fair, and slight, and childish, —

 
"A lovely being, scarcely formed or moulded,
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded."
 

Some thought crossing Lady Chetwoode's mind, born of the long and loving glance she has been bestowing upon Lilian, she says:

"How I detest fat people. They make me feel positively ill. Mrs. Boileau, when she called to-day, raised within me the keenest pity."

"She is a very distressing woman," says Guy, absently. "One feels thankful she has no daughter."

"Yes, indeed; the same thought occurred to me. Though perhaps not fat now, she would undoubtedly show fatal symptoms of a tendency toward it later on. Now you, my dear Lilian, have happily escaped such a fate: you will never be fat."

"I'm sure I hope not, if you dislike the idea so much," says Lilian, amused, letting the ghastly remains of her ill-treated flower fall to the ground.

"If you only knew the misery I felt on hearing you were coming to us," goes on Lady Chetwoode, "dreading lest you might be inclined that way; not of course but that I was very pleased to have you, my dear child, but I fancied you large and healthy-looking, with a country air, red cheeks, black hair, and unbounded gaucherie. Imagine my delight, therefore, when I beheld you slim and self-possessed, and with your pretty yellow hair!"

"You make me blush, you cover me with confusion," says Miss Chesney, hiding her face in her hands.

"Yes, yellow hair is my admiration," goes on Lady Chetwoode, modestly: "I had golden hair myself in my youth."

"My dearest mother, we all know you were, and are, the loveliest lady in creation," says Guy, whose tenderness toward his mother is at times a thing to be admired.

"My dear Guy, how you flatter!" says she, blushing a faint, sweet old blush that shows how mightily pleased she is.

"Do you know," says Lilian, "in spite of being thought horrid, I like comfortable-looking people? I wish I had more flesh upon my poor bones. I think," going deliberately up to a glass and surveying herself with a distasteful shrug, – "I think thin people have a meagre, gawky, hard look about them, eminently unbecoming. I rather admire Mrs. Mount-George, for instance."

"Hateful woman!" says Lady Chetwoode, who cherishes for her an old spite.

"I rather admire her, too," says Sir Guy, unwisely, – though he only gives way to this opinion through a wild desire to help out Lilian's judgment.

"Do you?" says that young lady, with exaggerated emphasis. "I shouldn't have thought she was a man's beauty. She is a little too – too – demonstrative, too prononcée."

"Oh, Guy adores fat women," says Cyril, the incorrigible; "wait till you see Florence: there is nothing of the 'meagre, gawky, hard' sort about her. She has a decided leaning toward embonpoint."

"And I imagined her quite slight," says Lilian.

"You must begin then and imagine her all over again. The only flesh there isn't about Florence is fool's flesh. It is hardly worth while, however, your creating a fresh portrait, as the original," glancing at his watch, "will so soon be before you. Guy, my friend, you should hurry."

Lilian returns to the balcony, whither Chetwoode's eyes follow her longingly. He rises reluctantly to his feet, and says to Cyril, with some hesitation:

"You would not care to go to meet Florence?"

"I thank you kindly, – no," says Cyril, with an expressive shrug; "not for Joe! I shall infinitely prefer a cigar at home, and Miss Chesney's society, – if she will graciously accord it to me." This with a smile at Lilian, who has again come in and up to the table, where she is now eating daintily a showy peach, that has been lying neglected on its dish since dinner, crying vainly, "Who'll eat me? who'll eat me?"

She nods and smiles sweetly at Cyril as he speaks.

"I am always glad to be with those who want me," she says, carefully removing the skin from her fruit; "specially you, because you always amuse me. Come out and smoke your cigar, and I will talk to you all the time. Won't that be a treat for you?" with a little low, soft laugh, and a swift glance at him from under her curling lashes that, to say the truth, is rather coquettish.

"There, Guy, don't you envy me, with such a charming time before me?" says Cyril, returning her glance with interest.

"No, indeed," says Lilian, raising her head and gazing full at Chetwoode, who returns her glance steadily, although he is enduring grinding torments all this time, and almost —almost begins to hate his brother. "The last thing Sir Guy would dream of would be to envy you my graceless society. Fancy a guardian finding pleasure in the frivolous conversation of his ward! How could you suspect him of such a weakness?"

Here she lets her small white teeth meet in her fruit with all the airs of a little gourmande, and a most evident enjoyment of its flavor.

There is a pause.

Cyril has left the room in search of his cigar-case. Lady Chetwoode has disappeared to explore the library for her everlasting knitting. Sir Guy and Lilian are alone.

"I cannot remember having ever accused you of being frivolous, either in conversation or manner," says Chetwoode, presently, in a low, rather angry tone.

"No?" says naughty Lilian, with a shrug: "I quite thought you had. But your manner is so expressive at times, it leaves no occasion for mere words. This morning when I made some harmless remark to Cyril, you looked as though I had committed murder, or something worthy of transportation for life at the very least."

"I cannot remember that either. I think you purposely misunderstand me."

"What a rude speech! Oh, if I had said that! But see how late it is," looking at the clock: "you are wasting all these precious minutes here that might be spent so much more – profitably with your cousin."

"You mean you are in a hurry to be rid of me," disdaining to notice her innuendo; "go, – don't let me detain you from Cyril and his cigar."

He turns away abruptly, and gives the bell a rather sharp pull. He is so openly offended that Lilian's heart smites her.

"Who is misunderstanding now?" she says, with a decided change of tone. "Shall you be long away, Sir Guy?"

"Not very," icily. "Truston, as you know, is but a short drive from this."

"True." Then with charmingly innocent concern, "Don't you like going out so late? – you seem a little cross."

"Do I?"

"Yes. But perhaps I mistake; I am always making mistakes," says Miss Lilian, humbly; "I am very unfortunate. And you know what Ouida says, that 'one is so often thought to be sullen when one is only sad.' Are you sad?"

"No," says Guy, goaded past endurance; "I am not. But I should like to know what I have done that you should make a point at all times of treating me with incivility."

"Are you speaking of me?" – with a fine show of surprise, and widely-opened eyes; "what can you mean? Why, I shouldn't dare be uncivil to my guardian. I should be afraid. I should positively die of fright," says Miss Chesney, feeling strongly inclined to laugh, and darting a little wicked gleam at him from her eyes as she speaks.

"Your manner" – bitterly – "fully bears out your words. Still I think – Why doesn't Granger bring round the carriage? Am I to give the same order half a dozen times?" – this to a petrified attendant who has answered the bell, and now vanishes, as though shot, to give it as his opinion down-stairs that Sir Guy is in "a h'orful wax!"

"Poor man, how you have frightened him!" says Lilian, softly. "I am sorry if I have vexed you." Holding out a small hand of amity, – "Shall we make friends before you go?"

"It would be mere waste of time," replies he, ignoring the hand; "and, besides, why should you force yourself to be on friendly terms with me?"

"You forget – " begins Lilian, somewhat haughtily, made very indignant by his refusal of her overture; but, Cyril and Lady Chetwoode entering at this moment simultaneously, the conversation dies.

"Now I am ready," Cyril says, cheerfully. "I took some of your cigars, Guy; they are rather better than mine; but the occasion is so felicitous I thought it demanded it. Do you mind?"

"You can have the box," replies Guy, curtly.

To have a suspected rival in full possession of the field, smoking one's choicest weeds, is not a thing calculated to soothe a ruffled breast.

"Eh, you're not ill, old fellow, are you?" says Cyril, in his laziest, most good-natured tones. "The whole box! Come, my dear Lilian, I pine to begin them."

Miss Chesney finishes her peach in a hurry and prepares to follow him.

"Lilian, you are like a baby with a sweet tooth," says Lady Chetwoode. "Take some of those peaches out on the balcony with you, child: you seem to enjoy them. And come to me to the drawing-room when you tire of Cyril."

So the last thing Guy sees as he leaves the room is Lilian and his brother armed with peaches and cigars on their way to the balcony; the last thing he hears is a clear, sweet, ringing laugh that echoes through the house and falls like molten lead upon his heart.

He bangs the hall-door with much unnecessary violence, steps into the carriage, and goes to meet his cousin in about the worst temper he has given way to for years.

* * * * * * *

Half-past ten has struck. The drawing-room is ablaze with light. Lady Chetwoode, contrary to custom, is wide awake, the gray sock lying almost completed upon her lap. Lilian has been singing, but is now sitting silent with her idle little hands before her, while Cyril reads aloud to them decent extracts from the celebrated divorce case, now drawing to its unpleasant close.

"They ought to be here now," says Lady Chetwoode, suddenly, alluding not so much to the plaintiff, or the defendant, or the co-respondents, as to her eldest son and Miss Beauchamp. "The time is up."

Almost as she says the words the sound of carriage-wheels strikes upon the ear, and a few minutes later the door is thrown wide open and Miss Beauchamp enters.

Lilian stares at her with a good deal of pardonable curiosity. Yes, in spite of all that Cyril said, she is very nearly handsome. She is tall, posée, large and somewhat full, with rather prominent eyes. Her mouth is a little thin, but well shaped; her nose is perfect; her figure faultless. She is quite twenty-six (in spite of artificial aid), a fact that Lilian perceives with secret gratification.

She walks slowly up the room, a small Maltese terrier clasped in her arms, and presents a cool cheek to Lady Chetwoode, as though she had parted from her but a few hours ago. All the worry and fatigue of travel have not told upon her: perhaps her maid and that mysterious closely-locked little morocco bag in the hall could tell upon her; but she looks as undisturbed in appearance and dress as though she had but just descended from her room, ready for a morning's walk.

"My dear Florence, I am glad to welcome you home," says Lady Chetwoode, affectionately, returning her chaste salute.

"Thank you, Aunt Anne," says Miss Beauchamp, in carefully modulated tones. "I, too, am glad to get home. It was quite delightful to find Guy waiting for me at the station!"

She smiles a pretty lady-like smile upon Sir Guy as she speaks, he having followed her into the room. "How d'ye do, Cyril?"

Cyril returns her greeting with due propriety, but expresses no hilarious joy at her return.

"This is Lilian Chesney whom I wrote to you about," Lady Chetwoode says, putting out one hand to Lilian. "Lilian, my dear, this is Florence."

The girls shake hands. Miss Beauchamp treats Lilian to a cold though perfectly polite stare, and then turns back to her aunt.

"It was a long journey, dear," sympathetically says "Aunt Anne."

"Very. I felt quite exhausted when I reached Truston, and so did Fanchette; did you not, ma bibiche, my treasure?" – this is to the little white stuffy ball of wool in her arms, which instantly opens two pink-lidded eyes, and puts out a crimson tongue, by way of answer. "If you don't mind, aunt, I think I should like to go to my room."

"Certainly, dear. And what shall I send you up?"

"A cup of tea, please, and – er – anything else there is. Elise will know what I fancy; I dined before I left. Good-night, Miss Chesney. Good-night, Guy; and thank you again very much for meeting me" – this very sweetly.

And then Lady Chetwoode accompanies her up-stairs, and the first wonderful interview is at an end.

"Well?" says Cyril.

"I think her quite handsome," says Lilian, enthusiastically, for Guy's special benefit, who is sitting at a little distance, glowering upon space. "Cyril, you are wanting in taste."

"Not when I admire you," replies Cyril, promptly. "Will you pardon me, Lilian, if I go to see they send a comfortable and substantial supper to my cousin? Her appetite is all that her best friend could wish."

So saying, he quits the room, bent on some business of his own, that has very little to do, I think, with the refreshment of Miss Beauchamp's body.

When he has gone, Lilian takes up Lady Chetwoode's knitting and examines it critically. For the first time in her life she regrets not having given up some of her early years to the mastering of fancy work; then she lays it down again, and sighs heavily. The sigh says quite distinctly how tedious a thing it is being alone in the room with a man who will not speak to one. Better, far better, be with a dummy, from whom nothing could be expected.

Sir Guy, roused to activity by this dolorous sound, crosses the room and stands directly before her, a contrite expression upon his face.

"I have behaved badly," he says. "I confess my fault. Will you not speak to me, Lilian?" His tone is half laughing, half penitent.

"Not" – smiling – "until you assure me you have left all your ill-temper behind you at Truston."

"I have. I swear it."

"You are sure?"

"Positive."

"I do hope you did not bestow it upon poor Miss Beauchamp?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. I hope not," says Guy, lightly; and there is something both in his tone and words that restores Miss Chesney to amiability. She looks at him steadily for a moment, and then she smiles.

"I am forgiven?" asks Guy, eagerly, taking courage from her smile.

"Yes."

"Shake hands with me, then," says he, holding out his own.

"You expect too much," returns Lilian, recoiling. "Only an hour ago, you refused to take my hand: how then can I now accept yours?"

"I was a brute, nothing less!" declares he, emphatically. "Yet do accept it, I implore you."

There is a good deal more meaning in his tone than even he himself is quite aware of. Miss Chesney either does not or will not see it. Raising her head, she laughs out loud, a low but thoroughly amused laugh.

"Any one listening would say you were proposing to me," she says, mischievously; whereupon he laughs too, and seats himself upon the low ottoman beside her.

"I shouldn't mind," he says; "should you?"

"Not much. I suppose one must go through it some time or other."

"Have you ever had a – proposal?"

"Why do you compel me to give you an answer that must be humiliating? No; I have never had a proposal. But I dare say I shall have one or two before I die."

"I dare say. Unless you will now accept mine" – jestingly – "and make me the happiest of men."

"No, thank you. You make me such an admirable guardian that I could not bear to depose you. You are now in a proud position (considering the ward you have); do not rashly seek to better it."

"Your words are golden. But all this time you are keeping me in terrible suspense. You have not yet quite made friends with me."

Then Lilian places her hand in his.

"Though you don't deserve it," she says, severely, "still – "

"Still you do accept me – it, I mean," interrupts Guy, purposely, closing his fingers warmly over hers. "I shall never forget that fact. Dear little hand!" softly caressing it, "did I really scorn it an hour ago? I beg its pardon very humbly."

"It is granted," answers Lilian, gayly. But to herself she says, "I wonder how often has he gone through all this before?"

Nevertheless, in spite of doubts on both sides, the truce is signed for the present.