Airy Fairy Lilian

"You are right," says Cyril, laughing; "she is young. She is never to grow old, because her 'boys,' as she calls us, object to old women. You may have heard of 'perennial spring;' well, that is another name for my mother. But you must not tell her so, because she is horribly conceited, and would lead us an awful life if we didn't keep her down."

"Cyril, my dear!" says Lady Chetwoode, laughing, which is about the heaviest reproof she ever delivers.

All this time, her breakfast being finished, Lilian has been carefully and industriously breaking up all the bread left upon her plate, until now quite a small pyramid stands in the centre of it.

Cyril, having secretly crumbled some of his, now, stooping forward, places it upon the top of her hillock.

"I haven't the faintest idea what you intend doing with it," he says, "but, as I am convinced you have some grand project in view, I feel a mean desire to be associated with it in some way by having a finger in the pie. Is it for a pie? I am dying of vulgar curiosity."

"I!" – with a little shocked start; "it doesn't matter, I – I quite forgot. I – "

She presses her hand nervously down upon the top of her goodly pile, and suppresses the gay little erection until it lies prostrate on her plate, where even then it makes a very fair show.

"You meant it for something, my dear, did you not?" asks Lady Chetwoode, kindly.

"Yes, for the birds," says the girl, turning upon her two great earnest eyes that shine like stars through regretful tears. "At home I used to collect all the broken bread for them every morning. And they grew so fond of me, the very robins used to come and perch upon my shoulders and eat little bits from my lips. There was no one to frighten them. There was only me, and I loved them. When I knew I must leave the Park," – a sorrowful quiver making her voice sad, – "I determined to break my going gently to them, and at first I only fed them every second day, – in person, – and then only every third day, and at last only once a week, until" – in a low tone – "they forgot me altogether."

"Ungrateful birds," says Cyril, with honest disgust, something like moisture in his own eyes, so real is her grief.

"Yes, that was the worst of all, to be so soon forgotten, and I had fed them without missing a day for five years. But they were not ungrateful; why should they remember me, when they thought I had tired of them? Yet I always broke the bread for them every morning, though I would not give it myself, and to-day" – she sighs – "I forgot I was not at home."

"My dear," says Lady Chetwoode, laying her own white, plump, jeweled hand upon Lilian's slender, snowy one, as it lies beside her on the table, "you flatter me very much when you say that even for a moment you felt this house home. I hope you will let the feeling grow in you, and will try to remember that here you have a true welcome forever, until you wish to leave us. And as for the birds, I too love them, – dear, pretty creatures, – and I shall take it as a great kindness, my dear Lilian, if every morning you will gather up the crumbs and give them to your little feathered friends."

"How good you are!" says Lilian, gratefully, turning her small palm upward so as to give Lady Chetwoode's hand a good squeeze. "I know I shall be happy here. And I am so glad you like the birds; perhaps here they may learn to love me, too. Do you know, before leaving the Park, I wrote a note to my cousin, asking him not to forget to give them bread every day? – but young men are so careless," – in a disparaging tone, – "I dare say he won't take the trouble to see about it."

"I am a young man," remarks Mr. Chetwoode, suggestively.

"Yes, I know it," returns Miss Chesney, coolly.

"I dare say your cousin will think of it," says Lady Chetwoode, who has a weakness for young men, and always believes the best of them. "Archibald is very kind-hearted."

"You know him?" – surprised.

"Very well, indeed. He comes here almost every autumn to shoot with the boys. You know, his own home is not ten miles from Chetwoode."

"I did not know. I never thought of him at all until I knew he was to inherit the Park. Do you think he will come here this autumn?"

"I hope so. Last year he was abroad, and we saw nothing of him; but now he has come home I am sure he will renew his visits. He is a great favorite of mine; I think you, too, will like him."

"Don't be too sanguine," says Lilian; "just now I regard him as a usurper; I feel as though he had stolen my Park."

"Marry him," says Cyril, "and get it back again. Some more tea, Miss – Lilian?"

"If you please – Cyril," – with a light laugh. "You see, it comes easier to me than to you, after all."

"Place aux dames! I felt some embarrassment about commencing. In the future I shall put my mauvaise honte in my pocket, and regard you as something I have always longed for, – that is, a sister."

"Very well, and you must be very good to me," says Lilian, "because never having had one, I have a very exalted idea of what a brother should be."

"How shall you amuse yourself all the morning, child?" asks Lady Chetwoode. "I fear you're beginning by thinking us stupid."

"Don't trouble about me," says Lilian. "If I may, I should like to go out and take a run round the gardens alone. I can always make acquaintance with places quicker if left to find them out for myself."

When breakfast is over, and they have all turned their backs with gross ingratitude upon the morning-room, she dons her hat and sallies forth bent on discovery.

Through the gardens she goes, admiring the flowers, pulling a blossom or two, making love to the robins and sparrows, and gay little chaffinches, that sit aloft in the branches and pour down sonnets on her head. The riotous butterflies, skimming hither and thither in the bright sunshine, hail her coming, and rush with wanton joy across her eyes, as though seeking to steal from them a lovelier blue for their soft wings. The flowers, the birds, the bees, the amorous wind, all woo this creature, so full of joy and sweetness and the unsurpassable beauty of youth.

She makes a rapid rush through all the hothouses, feeling almost stifled in them this day, so rich in sun, and, gaining the orchard, eats a little fruit, and makes a lasting conquest of Michael, the head-gardener, who, when she has gone into generous raptures over his arrangements, becomes her abject slave on the spot, and from that day forward acknowledges no power superior to hers.

Tiring of admiration, she leaves the garrulous old man, and wanders away over the closely-shaven lawn, past the hollies, into the wood beyond, singing as she goes, as is her wont.

In the deep green wood a delicious sense of freedom possesses her; she walks on, happy, unsuspicious of evil to come, free of care (oh, that we all were so!), with nothing to chain her thoughts to earth, or compel her to dream of aught but the sufficing joy of living, the glad earth beneath her, the brilliant foliage around, the blue heavens above her head.

Alas! alas! how short is the time that lies between the child and the woman! the intermediate state when, with awakened eyes and arms outstretched, we inhale the anticipation of life, is as but one day in comparison with all the years of misery and uncertain pleasure to be eventually derived from the reality thereof!

Coming to a rather high wall, Lilian pauses, but not for long. There are few walls either in Chetwoode or elsewhere likely to daunt Miss Chesney, when in the humor for exploring.

Putting one foot into a friendly crevice, and holding on valiantly to the upper stones, she climbs, and, gaining the top, gazes curiously around.

As she turns to survey the land over which she has traveled, a young man emerges from among the low-lying brushwood, and comes quickly forward. He is clad in a light-gray suit of tweed, and has in his mouth a meerschaum pipe of the very latest design.

He is very tall, very handsome, thoughtful in expression. His hair is light brown, – what there is of it, – his barber having left him little to boast of except on the upper lip, where a heavy, drooping moustache of the same color grows unrebuked. He is a little grave, a little indolent, a good deal passionate. The severe lines around his well-cut mouth are softened and counterbalanced by the extreme friendliness of his kind, dark eyes, that are so dark as to make one doubt whether their blue is not indeed black.

Lilian, standing on her airy perch, is still singing, and imparting to the surrounding scenery the sad story of "Barb'ra Allen's" vile treatment of her adoring swain, and consequent punishment, when the crackling of leaves beneath a human foot causing her to turn, she finds herself face to face with a stranger not a hundred yards away.

The song dies upon her lips, an intense desire to be elsewhere gains upon her. The young man in gray, putting his meerschaum in his pocket as a concession to this unexpected warbler, advances leisurely; and Lilian, feeling vaguely conscious that the top of a wall, though exalted, is not the most dignified situation in the world, trusting to her activity, springs to the ground, and regains with mother earth her self-respect.

"How could you be so foolish? I do hope you are not hurt," says the gray young man, coming forward anxiously.

"Not in the least, thank you," smiling so adorably that he forgets to speak for a moment or two. Then he says with some hesitation, as though in doubt:

"Am I addressing my – ward?"

"How can I be sure," replies she, also in doubt, "until I know whether indeed you are my – guardian?"

"I am Guy Chetwoode," says he, laughing, and raising his hat.

"And I am Lilian Chesney," replies she, smiling in return, and making a pretty old-fashioned reverence.

"Then now I suppose we may shake hands without any breach of etiquette, and swear eternal friendship," extending his hand.

"I shall reserve my oath until later on," says Miss Chesney, demurely, but she gives him her hand nevertheless, with unmistakable bonhommie. "You are going home?" glancing up at him from under her broad-brimmed hat. "If so, I shall go with you, as I am a little tired."

"But this wall," says Guy, looking with considerable doubt upon the uncompromising barrier on the summit of which he had first seen her. "Had we not better go round?"

"A thousand times no. What!" – gayly – "to be defeated by such a simple obstacle as that? I have surmounted greater difficulties than that wall many a time. If you will get up and give me your hands, I dare say I shall be able to manage it."

Thus adjured, Guy climbs, and, gaining the top, stoops to give her the help desired; she lays her hand in his, and soon he draws her in triumph to his side.

"Now to get down," he says, laughing. "Wait." He jumps lightly into the next field, and, turning, holds out his arms to her. "You must not risk your neck the second time," he says. "When I saw you give that tremendous leap a minute ago, my blood froze in my veins. Such terrible exertion was never meant for – a fairy!"

"Am I so very small?" says Lilian. "Well, take me down, then."

She leans toward him, and gently, reverentially he takes her in his arms and places her on the ground beside him. With such a slight burden to lift he feels himself almost a Hercules. The whole act does not occupy half a minute, and already he wishes vaguely it did not take so very short a time to bring a pretty woman from a wall to the earth beneath. In some vague manner he understands that for him the situation had its charm.

Miss Chesney is thoroughly unembarrassed.

"There is something in having a young guardian, after all," she says, casting upon him a glance half shy half merry, wholly sweet. She lays a faint emphasis upon the "young."

"You have had doubts on the subject, then?"

"Serious doubts. But I see there is truth in the old saying that 'there are few things so bad but that they might have been worse.'"

"Do you mean to tell me that I am 'something bad'?"

"No" – laughing; "how I wish I could! It is your superiority frightens me. I hear I must look on you as something superlatively good."

"How shocking! And in what way am I supposed to excel my brethren?"

"In every way," with a good deal of malice: "I have been bred in the belief that you are a rara avis, a model, a – "

"Your teachers have done me a great injury. I shudder when I contemplate the bitter awakening you must have when you come to know me better."

"I hope so. I dare say" – naively – "I could learn to like you very well, if you proved on acquaintance a little less immaculate than I have been led to believe you."

"I shall instantly throw over my pronounced taste for the Christian virtues, and take steadily to vice," says Guy, with decision: "will that satisfy your ladyship?"

"Perhaps you put it a little too strongly," says Lilian, demurely. "By the bye" – irrelevantly, – "what business took you from home yesterday?"

"I have to beg your pardon for that, – my absence, I mean; but I could not help it. And it was scarcely business kept me absent," confesses Chetwoode, who, if he is anything, is strictly honest, "rather a promise to dine and sleep at some friends of ours, the Bellairs, who live a few miles from us."

"Then it wasn't really that bugbear, business? I begin to revive," says Miss Chesney.

"No; nothing half so healthy. I wish I had some more legitimate excuse to offer for my seeming want of courtesy than the fact of my having to attend a prosy dinner; but I haven't. I feel I deserve a censure, yet I hope you won't administer one when I tell you I found a very severe punishment in the dinner itself."

"I forgive you," says Lilian, with deep pity.

"It was a long-standing engagement, and, though I knew what lay before me, I found I could not elude it any longer. I hate long engagements; don't you?"

"Cordially. But I should never dream of entering on one."

"I did, unfortunately."

"Then don't do it again."

"I won't. Never. I finally make up my mind. At least, most certainly not for the days you may be expected."

"I fear I'm a fixture," – ruefully: "you won't have to expect me again."

"Don't say you fear it: I hope you will be happy here."

"I hope so, too, and I think it. I like your brother Cyril very much, and your mother is a darling."

"And what am I?"

"Ask me that question a month hence."

"Shall I tell you what I think of you?"

"If you wish," says Lilian, indifferently, though in truth she is dying of curiosity.

"Well, then, from the very first moment my eyes fell upon you, I thought to myself: She is without exception the most – After all, though, I think I too shall reserve my opinion for a month or so."

"You are right," – suppressing valiantly all outward symptoms of disappointment: "your ideas then will be more formed. Are you fond of riding, Sir Guy?"

"Very. Are you?"

"Oh! am I not? I could ride from morning till night."

"You are enthusiastic."

"Yes," – with a saucy smile, – "that is one of my many virtues. I think one should be thoroughly in earnest about everything one undertakes. Do you like dancing?"

"Rather. It entirely depends upon whom one may be dancing with. There are some people" – with a short but steady glance at her – "that I feel positive I could dance with forever without knowing fatigue, or what is worse, ennui. There are others – " an expressive pause. "I have felt," says Sir Guy, with visible depression, "on certain occasions, as though I could commit an open assault on the band because it would insist on playing its waltz from start to finish, instead of stopping after the first two bars and thereby giving me a chance of escape."

"Poor 'others'! I see you can be unkind when you choose."

"But that is seldom, and only when driven to desperation. Are you fond of dancing? But of course you are: I need scarcely have asked. No doubt you could dance as well as ride from morning until night."

"You wrong me slightly. As a rule, I prefer dancing from night until morning. You skate?"

"Beautifully!" with ecstatic fervor; "I never saw any one who could skate as well."

"No? You shan't be long so. Prepare for a downfall to your pride. I can skate better than any one in the world."

Here they both laugh, and, turning, let their eyes meet. Instinctively they draw closer to each other, and a very kindly feeling springs into being.

"They maligned you," says Lilian, softly raising her lovely face, and gazing at him attentively, with a rather dangerous amount of ingenuousness. "I begin to fancy you are not so very terrific as they said. I dare say we shall be quite good friends after all."

"I wish I was as sure of most things as I am of my own feeling on that point," says Guy, with considerable warmth, holding out his hand.

She slips her cool, slim fingers into his, and smiles frankly. There they lie like little snow-flakes on his broad palm, and as he gazes on them a great and most natural desire to kiss them presents itself to his mind.

"I think we ought to ratify our vow of good-fellowship," says he, artfully, looking at her as though to gain permission for the theft, and seeing no rebuff in her friendly eyes, stoops and steals a little sweetness from the white hand he holds.

They are almost at the house by this time, and presently, gaining the drawing-room, find Lady Chetwoode sitting there awaiting them.

"Ah, Guy, you have returned," cries she, well pleased.

"Yes, I found my guardian straying aimlessly in a great big wood, so I brought him home in triumph," says Lilian's gay voice, who is in high good humor. "Is luncheon ready? Dear Lady Chetwoode, do not say I am late for the second time to-day."

"Not more than five minutes, and you know we do not profess to live by rule. Run away, and take off your hat, child, and come back to me again."

So Lilian does as she is desired, and runs away up the broad stairs in haste, to reduce her rebellious locks to order; yet so pleased is she with her rencontre with her guardian, and the want of ferocity he has displayed, and the general desirableness of his face and figure, that she cannot refrain from pausing midway in her career to apostrophize a dark-browed warrior who glowers down upon her from one of the walls.

"By my halidame, and by my troth, and by all the wonderful oaths of your period, Sir Knight," says she, smiling saucily, and dropping him a wicked curtsey, "you have good reason to be proud of your kinsman. For, by Cupid, he is a monstrous handsome man, and vastly agreeable!"

After this astounding sally she continues her flight, and presently finds herself in her bedroom and almost in nurse's arms.

"Lawks-amussy!" says that good old lady, with a gasp, putting her hand to her side, "what a turn you did give me! Will the child never learn to walk?"

"I have seen him!" says Lilian, without preamble, only pausing to give nurse a naughty little poke in the other side with a view to restoring her lost equilibrium.

"Sir Guy?" anxiously.

"Even so. The veritable and awful Sir Guy! And he isn't a bit awful, in spite of all we heard; isn't that good news? and he is very handsome, and quite nice, and apparently can enjoy the world as well as another, and can do a naughty thing at a pinch; and I know he likes me by the expression of his eyes, and he actually unbended so far as to stoop to kiss my hand! There!" All this without stop or comma.

"Kissed your hand, my lamb! So soon! he did not lose much time. How the world does wag nowadays!" says nurse, holding aloft her hands in pious protest. "Only to know you an hour or so, and to have the face to kiss your hand! Eh, but it's dreadful, it's brazen! I do hope this Sir Guy is not a wolf in sheep's clothing."

"It was very good clothing, anyhow. There is consolation in that. I could never like a man whose coat was badly cut. And his hands, – I particularly noticed them, – they are long, and well shaped, and quite brown."

"You seem mightily pleased with him on so short an acquaintance," says nurse, shrewdly. "Brown hand, forsooth, – and a shapely coat! Eh, child, but there's more wanting than that. Maybe it's thinking of being my Lady Guy you'll be, one of these days?"

"Nurse, I never met so brilliant a goose as you! And would you throw away your lovely nursling upon a paltry baronet? Oh! shame! And yet" – teasingly – "one might do worse."

"I'll tell you that, when I see him," says cautious nurse, and having given one last finishing touch to her darling's golden head, dismisses her to her luncheon and the pernicious attentions of the daring wolf.

CHAPTER VI

"Claud: 'In mine eye, she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.'" —Much Ado About Nothing.

It is that most satisfactory hour of all the twenty-four, – dinner-hour. Even yet the busy garish day has not quite vanished, but peeps in upon them curiously through the open windows, – upon Lady Chetwoode mild and gracious, upon the two young men, upon airy Lilian looking her bravest and bonniest in some transparent gown of sombre black, through which her fair young neck and arms gleam delicately.

Her only ornaments are roses, – rich, soft white roses, gathered from the gardens outside: one, sweeter and happier than its fellows, slumbers cozily in her golden hair.

Cyril and she, sitting opposite to each other, smile and jest and converse across the huge bowl of scented flowers that stands in the centre of the table, while Guy, who is a little silent, keeps wondering secretly whether any other woman has skin so dazzlingly fair, or eyes so blue, or hair so richly gilded.

"I have seen the widow," he says at length, rousing himself to a sense of his own taciturnity. "On my way home this morning, before I met you," – turning to Lilian, – "I thought it my duty to look her up, and say I hoped she was comfortable, and all that."

"And you saw her?" asks Cyril, regarding Guy attentively.

"Yes; she is extremely pretty, and extremely coy, – cold I ought to say, as there didn't seem to be even the smallest spice of coquetry about her."

"That's the safest beginning of all," says Cyril confidentially to his mother, "and no doubt the latest. I dare say she looked as though she thought he would never leave."

"She did," says Guy, laughing, "and, what is more unflattering, I am sure she meant it."

"Clever woman!"

"However, if she intended what you think, she rather defeated her object; as I shan't trouble her again in a hurry. Can't bear feeling myself in the way."

"Is she really pretty?" Cyril asks, curiously, though idly.

"Really; almost lovely."

"Evidently a handsome family," thinks Cyril. "I wonder if he saw my friend the sister, or step-sister, or companion."

"She looks sad, too," goes on Guy, "and as though she had a melancholy story attached to her."

"I do hope not, my dear," interrupts his mother, uneasily. "There is nothing so objectionable as a woman with a story. Later on one is sure to hear something wrong about her."

"I agree with you," Cyril says, promptly. "I can't bear mysterious people. When in their society, I invariably find myself putting a check on my conversation, and blushing whenever I get on the topic of forgeries, burglaries, murders, elopements, and so forth. I never can keep myself from studying their faces when such subjects are mentioned, to see which it was had ruffled the peace of their existence. It is absurd, I know, but I can't help it, and it makes me uncomfortable."

"Does this lady live in the wood, where I met you?" asks Lilian, addressing Guy, and apparently deeply interested.

"Yes, about a mile from that particular spot. She is a new tenant we took to oblige a friend, but we know nothing about her."

"How very romantic!" says Lilian; "it is just like a story."

"Yes; the image of the 'Children of the Abbey,' or 'The Castle of Otranto,'" says Cyril. "Has she any one living with her, Guy?" carelessly.

"Yes, two servants, and a small ill-tempered terrier."

"I mean any friends. It must be dull to be by one's self."

"I don't know. I saw no one. She don't seem ambitious about making acquaintances, as, when I said I hoped she would not find it lonely, and that my mother would have much pleasure in calling on her, she blushed painfully, and said she was never lonely, and that she would esteem it a kindness if we would try to forget she was at the cottage."