Airy Fairy Lilian

"Perhaps, then, it was when he was making love to you," with a slight smile.

This is a sore point.

"I don't remember that time," says Miss Beauchamp with perfect calmness but a suspicious indrawing of her rather meagre lips. "If some one must go out to-night, Guy, why not send Thomas?"

"Because I prefer going myself," replies he, quietly.

Passing through the hall on his way to the door, he catches up a heavy plaid that happens to be lying there, on a side-couch, and, springing into the open trap outside, drives away quickly under the pale cold rays of the moon.

He has refused to take any of the servants with him, and so, alone with his thoughts, follows the road that leads to Steynemore.

They are not pleasant thoughts. Being only a man, he has accepted Miss Beauchamp's pretended doubts about Lilian's safety as real, and almost persuades himself his present journey will bear him only bitter disappointment. As to what he is going to do if Lilian has not been seen at Steynemore, that is a matter on which he refuses to speculate. Drawing near the house, his suspense and fear grow almost beyond bounds. Dismounting at the hall-door, which stands partly open, he flings the reins to Jericho, and going into the hall, turns in the direction of the drawing-room.

While he stands without, trying to summon courage to enter boldly, and literally trembling with suppressed anxiety, a low soft laugh breaks upon his ear. As he hears it, the blood rushes to his face; involuntarily he raises his hand to his throat, and then (and only then) quite realizes how awful has been the terror that for four long hours has been consuming him.

The next instant, cold and collected, he turns the handle of the door, and goes in.

Upon a low seat opposite Mabel Steyne sits Lilian, evidently in the gayest spirits. No shadow of depression, no thought of all the mental agony he has been enduring, mars the brightness of her mignonne face. She is laughing. Her lustrous azure eyes are turned upward to her friend, who is laughing also in apparent appreciation of her guest's jest; her parted lips make merry dimples in her cheeks; her whole face is full of soft lines of amusement.

As Guy comes in, Mabel rises with a little exclamation, and goes toward him with outstretched hands.

"Why, Guy!" she says, "good boy! Have you come for Lilian? I was just going to order the carriage to send her home. Did you walk or drive?"

"I drove." He has studiously since his entrance kept his eyes from Lilian. The smile has faded from her lips, the happy light from her eyes; she has turned a pale, proud little face to the fire, away from her guardian.

"I made Lilian stay to dinner," says Mabel, who is too clever not to have remarked the painful constraint existing between her guest and Sir Guy. "Tom has been out all day shooting and dining at the Bellairs, so I entreated her to stay and bear me company. Won't you sit down for a while? It is early yet; there cannot be any hurry."

"No, thank you. My mother has a bad headache, and, as she does not know where Lilian is, I think it better to get home."

"Oh, if auntie has a headache, of course – "

"I shall go and put on my hat," says Lilian, speaking for the first time, and rising with slow reluctance from her seat. "Don't stir, Mab: I shan't be a minute: my things are all in the next room."

"Lilian is not very well, I fear," Mrs. Steyne says, when the door has closed upon her, "or else something has annoyed her. I am not sure which," with a quick glance at him. "She would eat no dinner, and her spirits are very fitful. But she did not tell me what was the matter, and I did not like to ask her. She is certainly vexed about something, and it is a shame she should be made unhappy, poor pretty child!" with another quick glance.

"I thought she seemed in radiant spirits just now," remarks Guy, coldly.

"Yes; but half an hour ago she was so depressed I was quite uneasy about her: that is why I used the word 'fitful.' Get her to eat something before she goes to bed," says kindly Mabel, in an undertone, as Lilian returns equipped for her journey. "Good-night, dear," kissing her. "Have you wraps, Guy?"

"Yes, plenty. Good-night." And Mabel, standing on the door-steps, watches them until they have vanished beneath the starlight.

It is a dark but very lovely night. Far above them in the dim serene blue a fair young crescent moon rides bravely. As yet but a few stars are visible, and they gleam and shiver and twinkle in the eternal dome, restless as the hearts of the two beings now gazing silently upon their beauty.

"Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,Blossomed the lonely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels."

A creeping shadow lies among the trees; a certain sense of loneliness dwells in the long avenue of Steynemore as they pass beneath the branches of the overhanging foliage. A quick wind rustles by them, sad as a sigh from Nature's suffering breast, chill as the sense of injury that hangs upon their own bosoms.

Coming out upon the unshaded road, a greater light falls upon them. The darkness seems less drear, the feeling of separation more remote, though still Pride sits with triumphant mien between them, with his great wings outspread to conceal effectually any penitent glance or thought. The tender pensive beauty of the growing night is almost lost upon them.

"All round was still and calm; the noon of nightWas fast approaching; up th' unclouded skyThe glorious moon pursued her path of light,And shed a silv'ry splendor far and nigh;No sound, save of the night-wind's gentlest sigh,Could reach the ear."

A dead silence reigns between them: they both gaze with admirable perseverance at the horse's ears. Never before has that good animal been troubled by two such steady stares. Then Lilian stirs slightly, and a little chattering sound escapes her, that rouses Guy to speech.

"You are tired?" he says, in freezing tones.

"Very."

"Cold?"

"Very."

"Then put this round you," disagreeably, but with evident anxiety, producing the cozy plaid.

"No, thank you."

"Why?" surprised.

"Because it is yours," replies she, with such open and childish spite as at any other time would have brought a smile to his lips. Now it brings only a dull pain to his heart.

"I am sorry I only brought what you will not wear," he answers: "it did not occur to me you might carry your dislike to me even to my clothes. In future I shall be wiser."

Silence.

"Do put it on!" anxiously: "you were coughing all last week."

"I wouldn't be hypocritical, if I were you," with withering scorn. "I feel sure it would be a matter for rejoicing, where you are concerned, if I coughed all next week, and the week after. No: keep your plaid."

"You are the most willful girl I ever met," wrathfully.

"No doubt. I dare say you have met only angels. I am not one, I rejoice to say. Florence is, you know; and one piece of perfection should be enough in any household."

Silence again. Not a sound upon the night-air but the clatter of the horse's feet as he covers bravely the crisp dry road, and the rushing of the wind. It is a cold wind, sharp and wintry. It whistles past them, now they have gained the side of the bare moor, with cruel keenness, cutting uncivilly the tops of their ears, and making them sink their necks lower in their coverings.

Miss Chesney's small hands lie naked upon the rug. Even in the indistinct light he knows that they are shivering and almost blue.

"Where are your gloves?" he asks, when he can bear the enforced stillness no longer.

"I forgot them at Mabel's."

Impulsively he lays his own bare hand upon hers, and finds it chilled, nearly freezing.

"Keep your hands inside the rug," he says, angrily, though there is a strong current of pain underlying the anger, "and put this shawl on you directly."

"I will not," says Lilian, though in truth she is dying for it.

"You shall," returns Chetwoode, quietly, in a tone he seldom uses, but which, when used, is seldom disobeyed. Lilian submits to the muffling in silence, and, though outwardly ungrateful, is inwardly honestly rejoiced at it. As he fastens it beneath her chin, he stoops his head, until his eyes are on a level with hers.

"Was it kind of you, or proper, do you think, to make me so – so uneasy as I have been all this afternoon and evening?" he asks, compelling her to return his gaze.

"Were you uneasy?" says Miss Chesney, viciously and utterly unrepenting: "I am glad of it."

"Was it part of your plan to make my mother wretched also?" This is a slight exaggeration, as Lady Chetwoode has not even been bordering on the "wretched," and is, in fact, up to the present moment totally ignorant of Lilian's absence.

"I certainly did not mean to make dear auntie unhappy," in a faintly-troubled tone. "But I shall tell her all the truth, and ask her pardon, when I get home, —back, I mean," with studied correction of the sweet word.

"What is the truth?"

"First, that I broke her lovely cup. And then I shall tell her why I stayed so long at Steynemore."

"And what will that be?"

"You know very well. I shall just say to her, 'Auntie, your son, Sir Guy, behaved so rudely to me this afternoon, I was obliged to leave Chetwoode for a while.' Then she will forgive me."

Sir Guy laughs in spite of himself; and Lilian, could he only have peeped into the deep recesses of the plaid, might also be plainly seen with her pretty lips apart and all her naughty bewitching face dimpling with laughter.

These frivolous symptoms are, however, rapidly and sternly suppressed on both sides.

"I really cannot see what awful crime I have committed to make you so taciturn," she says, presently, with a view to discussing the subject. "I merely went for a drive with my cousin, as he should pass Steynemore on his way to the station."

"Perhaps that was just what made my misery," softly.

"What! my going for a short drive with Archie? Really, Sir Guy, you will soon be taken as a model of propriety. Poor old Archie! I am afraid I shan't be able to make you miserable in that way again for a very long time. How I wish those tiresome lawyers would let him alone!"

"Ask them to surrender him," says Guy, irritably.

"I would," – cheerfully, – "if I thought it would do the least good. But I know they are all made of adamant."

"Lilian," – suddenly, unexpectedly, – "is there anything between you and your cousin?"

"Who?" – with wide, innocent, suspiciously innocent eyes, – "Taffy?"

"No," impatiently: "of course I mean Chesney," looking at her with devouring interest.

"Yes," – disconsolately, with a desire for revenge, – "more miles than I care to count."

"I feel" – steadily – "it is a gross rudeness my asking, and I know you need not answer me unless you like; but" – with a quick breath – "try to answer my question. Has anything passed between you and Chesney?"

"Not much," mildly: "one thrilling love-letter, and that ring."

"He never asked you to marry him?" with renewed hope.

"Oh, by the bye, I quite forgot that," indifferently. "Yes, he did ask me so much."

"And you refused him?" asks Guy, eagerly, intensely, growing white and cold beneath the moon's pitiless rays, that seem to take a heartless pleasure in lighting up his agitated face at this moment. But Lilian's eyes are turned away from his: so this degradation is spared him.

"No – n – o, not exactly," replies she.

"You accepted him?" with dry lips and growing despair.

"N – o, not exactly," again returns Miss Chesney, with affected hesitation.

"Then what did you do?" passionately, his impatient fear getting the better of his temper.

"I don't feel myself at liberty to tell you," retorts Lilian, with a provoking assumption of dignity.

Sir Guy looks as though he would like to give her a good shake, though indeed it is quite a question whether he has even the spirits for so much. He relapses into sulky silence, and makes no further attempt at conversation.

"However," says Lilian, to whom silence is always irksome, "I don't mind telling you what I shall do if he asks me again."

"What?" almost indifferently.

"I shall accept him."

"You will do very wisely," in a clear though constrained voice that doesn't altogether impose upon Lilian, but nevertheless disagrees with her. "He is very rich, very handsome, and a very good fellow all round."

"I don't much care about good fellows," perversely: "they are generally deadly slow; I am almost sure I prefer the other sort. I am afraid mine is not a well-regulated mind, as I confess I always feel more kindly disposed toward a man when I hear something bad of him."

"Perhaps if I told you something bad about myself it might make you feel more kindly disposed toward me," with a slight smile.

"Perhaps it might. But I believe you are incapable of a bad action. Besides, if I felt myself going to like you, I should stop myself instantly."

A pained hurt expression falls into his eyes.

"I think," he says, very gently, "you must make a point of reserving all your cruel speeches for me alone. Do you guess how they hurt, child? No, I am sure you do not: your face is far too sweet to belong to one who would willingly inflict pain. Am I to be always despised and hated? Why will you never be friends with me?"

"Because" – in a very low whisper – "you are so seldom good to me."

"Am I? You will never know how hard I try to be. But" – taking her hand in his – "my efforts are always vain." He glances sorrowfully at the little hand he holds, and then at the pretty face beneath the velvet hat so near him. Lilian does not return his glance: her eyes are lowered, her other hand is straying nervously over the tiger-skin that covers her knees; they have forgotten all about the cold, the dreary night, everything; for a full half mile they drive on thus silently, her hand resting unresistingly in his; after which he again breaks the quiet that exists between them.

"Did you mean what you said a little time ago about Chetwoode not being your home?"

"I suppose so," in a rather changed and far softer tone. "Yes. What claim have I on Chetwoode?"

"But your tone implied that if even you had a claim it would be distasteful to you."

"Did it?"

"Don't you know it did?"

"Well, perhaps I didn't mean quite that. Did you mean all you said this morning?"

"Not all, I suppose."

"How much of it, then?"

"Unless I were to go through the whole of our conversation again, I could not tell you that, and I have no wish to do so: to be pained" – in a low voice – "as I have been, once in a day is surely sufficient."

"Don't imagine I feel the least sorrow for you," says Lilian, making a wild attempt at recovering her ill humor, which has melted and vanished away.

"I don't imagine it. How could I? One can scarcely feel sorrow or pity for a person whom one openly professes to 'hate' and 'despise,'" markedly, while searching her face anxiously with his eyes.

Miss Chesney pauses. A short but sharp battle takes place within her breast. Then she raises her face and meets his eyes, while a faint sweet smile grows within her own: impelled half by a feeling of coquetry, half by a desire to atone, she lets the fingers he has still imprisoned close with the daintiest pressure upon his.

"Perhaps," she whispers, leaning a little toward him, and raising her lips very close to his cheek as though afraid of being heard by the intrusive wind, "perhaps I did not quite mean that either."

Then, seeing how his whole expression changes and brightens, she half regrets her tender speech, and says instantly, in her most unsentimental fashion:

"Pray, Sir Guy, are you going to make your horse walk all the way home? Can you not pity the sorrows of a poor little ward? I am absolutely frozen: do stir him up, lazy fellow, or I shall get out and run. Surely it is too late in the year for nocturnal rambles."

"If my life depended upon it, I don't believe I could make him go a bit faster," returns he, telling his lie unblushingly.

"I forgot you were disabled," says Miss Chesney, demurely, letting her long lashes droop until they partially (but only partially) conceal her eyes from her guardian. "How remiss I am! When one has only got the use of one hand, one can do so little; perhaps" – preparing to withdraw her fingers slowly, lingeringly from his – "if I were to restore you both yours, you might be able to persuade that horse to take us home before morning."

"I beg you will give yourself no trouble on my account," says Guy, hastily: "I don't want anything restored. And if you are really anxious to get 'home'" – with a pleased and grateful smile, "I feel sure I shall be able to manage this slow brute single-handed."

So saying, he touches up the good animal in question rather smartly, which so astonishes the willing creature that he takes to his heels, and never draws breath until he pulls up before the hall door at Chetwoode.

"Parkins, get us some supper in the library," says Sir Guy, addressing the ancient butler as he enters: "the drive has given Miss Chesney and me an appetite."

"Yes, Sir Guy, directly," says Parkins, and, going down-stairs to the other servants, gives it as his opinion that "Sir Guy and Miss Chesney are going to make a match of it. For when two couples," says Mr. Parkins, who is at all times rather dim about the exact meaning of his sentences, "when two couples takes to eating teet-a-teet, it is all up with 'em."

Whereupon cook says, "Lor!" which is her usual expletive, and means anything and everything; and Jane, the upper housemaid, who has a weakness for old Parkins's sayings, tells him with a flattering smile that he is "dreadful knowin'."

Meantime, Sir Guy having ascertained that Miss Beauchamp has gone to her room, and that his mother is better, and asleep, he and Lilian repair to the library, where a cozy supper is awaiting them, and a cheerful fire burning.

Now that they are again in-doors, out of the friendly darkness, with the full light of several lamps upon them, a second edition of their early restraint – milder, perhaps, but still oppressive – most unaccountably falls between them.

Silently, and very gently, but somewhat distantly, he unfolds the plaid from round her slight figure, and, drawing a chair for her to the table, seats himself at a decided distance. Then he asks her with exemplary politeness what she will have, and she answers him; then he helps her, and then he helps himself; and then they both wonder secretly what the other is going to say next.

But Lilian, who is fighting with a wild desire for laughter, and who is in her airiest mood, through having been compelled, by pride, to suppress all day her usual good spirits, decides on making a final effort at breaking down the barrier between them.

Raising the glass of wine beside her, she touches it lightly with her lips, and says, gayly:

"Come, fill, and pledge me, Sir Guy. But stay; first let me give you a little quotation that I hope will fall as a drop of nectar into your cup and chase that nasty little frown from your brow. Have I your leave to speak?" with a suspicion of coquetry in her manner.

Chetwoode's handsome lips part in a pleased smile: he turns his face gladly, willingly, to hers.

"Why do you ask permission of your slave, O Queen of Hearts?" he answers, softly, catching the infection of her gayety. He gazes at her with unchecked and growing admiration, his whole heart in his eyes; telling himself, as he has told himself a thousand times before, that to-night she is looking her fairest.

Her cheeks are flushed from her late drive; one or two glittering golden lovelocks have been driven by the rough wind from their natural resting-place, and now lie in gracious disorder on her white forehead; her lustrous sapphire eyes are gleaming upon him, full of unsubdued laughter; her lips are parted, showing all the small even teeth within.

She stoops toward him, and clinking her glass against his with the prettiest show of bonne camaraderie, whispers, softly:

"Come, let us be happy together."

"Together!" repeats Guy, unsteadily, losing his head, and rising abruptly from his seat as though to go to her. She half rises also, seriously frightened at the unexpected effect of her mad words. What is he going to say to her? What folly urged her on to repeat that ridiculous line? The idea of flight has just time to cross her mind, but not time to be acted upon, when the door is thrown open suddenly, and Cyril – who has at this moment returned from his dinner party – entering noisily, comes to her rescue.

CHAPTER XXIV

"I have some naked thoughts that roam aboutAnd loudly knock to have their passage out." – Milton.

It goes without telling that Lilian gains the day, Guy's one solitary attempt at mastery having failed ignominiously. She persists in her allegiance to her friend, and visits The Cottage regularly as ever; being even more tender than usual in her manner toward Cecilia, as she recollects the narrowness of him who could (as she believes) without cause condemn her. And Sir Guy, though resenting her defiance of his wishes, and smarting under the knowledge of it, accepts defeat humbly, and never again refers to the subject of the widow, which henceforth is a tabooed one between them.

Soon after this, indeed, an event occurs that puts an end to all reason why Lilian should not be as friendly with Mrs. Arlington as she may choose. One afternoon, most unexpectedly, Colonel Trant, coming to Chetwoode, demands a private interview with Sir Guy. Some faint breaths of the scandal that so closely and dishonorably connects his name with Cecilia's have reached his ears, and, knowing of her engagement with Cyril, he has hastened to Chetwoode to clear her in the eyes of its world.

Without apology, he treats Guy to a succinct and studied account of Cecilia's history, – tells of all her sorrows, and gentle forbearance, and innocence so falsely betrayed, nor even conceals from him his own deep love for her, and his two rejections, but makes no mention of Cyril throughout the interview.

Guy, as he listens, grows remorseful, and full of self-reproach, – more, perhaps, for the injustice done to his friend in his thoughts, than for all the harsh words used toward Mrs. Arlington, though he is too clean-bred not to regret that also.

He still shrinks from all idea of Cecilia as a wife for Cyril. The daughter of a man who, though of good birth, was too sharp in his dealings for decent society, and the wife of a man, who, though rich in worldly goods, had no pretensions to be a gentleman at all, could certainly be no mate for a Chetwoode. A woman of no social standing whatsoever, with presumably only a pretty face for a dowry, – Cyril must be mad to dream of her! For him, Guy, want of fortune need not signify; but for Cyril, with his expensive habits, to think of settling down with a wife on nine hundred a year is simply folly.

And then Cyril's brother thinks with regret of a certain Lady Fanny Stapleton, who, it is a notorious fact, might be had by Cyril for the asking. Guy himself, it may be remarked, would not have Lady Fanny at any price, she being rather wanting in the matter of nose and neck; but younger brothers have no right to cultivate fastidious tastes, and her snubby ladyship has a great admiration for Cyril, and a fabulous fortune.

All the time Trant is singing Cecilia's praises, Guy is secretly sighing over Lady Fanny and her comfortable thousands, and is wishing The Cottage had been knocked into fine dust before Mrs. Arlington had expressed a desire to reside there.

Nevertheless he is very gentle in his manner toward his former colonel all the day, spending with him every minute he stays, and going with him to the railway station when at night he decides on returning to town. Inwardly he knows he would like to ask his forgiveness for the wrong he has done him in his thoughts, but hardly thinks it wisdom to let him know how guilty toward him he has been. Cyril, he is fully persuaded, will never betray him; and he shrinks from confessing what would probably only cause pain and create an eternal breach between them.

However, his conscience so far smites him that he does still further penance toward the close of the evening.

Meeting Cyril on his way to dress just before dinner, he stops him.