Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  ‘Nonsense, child! You have such absurd ideas.’

  ‘He asked if ever the ladies went out to join the gentlemen at a picnic luncheon. He said he was sure it was going to be a lovely day, and just the right kind of weather for lunching out of doors, neither too hot nor too cold. And then I told him we did sometimes take out the luncheon for the shooters, and that I have a lovely little pony cart, my very own, what papa gave me last birthday.’

  ‘Tiny, what English!’

  ‘Never mind my English. Mr. Tremayne did not laugh at my English. It was good enough for him. And I told him that, if he liked, I would drive you and Louie over in my cart with the luncheon basket, and that we four could have our lunch together in Tottenham Wood; and he said that would be lovely, and that he should consider it an appointment, and whatever way the shooting party went he would be in the wood — by the little wooden bridge near the water-mill — at half-past one to the minute.’

  Blanche looked the picture of indifference, yet in her inmost heart she felt that a picnic luncheon with even a rejected lover would be a vast improvement upon the formal dining-room meal in the company of three matrons, the staple of whose conversation was the iniquity of modern servants, and the vexed question of shops versus co-operative stores.

  ‘I can get it for sevenpence halfpenny a pound, and of the very best quality, in Okehampton,’ says Mrs. Dalraine, who, as a rural parson’s wife, is bound to support local trade.

  ‘My dear, at the Army and Navy I get it for sixpence three farthings,’ retorts the admiral’s lady, ‘and think what a saving that is in a large establishment.’

  ‘Their fancy soaps are admirable,’ says Mrs. Ferrier.

  ‘My pampered manservant refused to eat their American cheese,’ replies Mrs. Beaumont; and this kind of thing goes on with variations all through luncheon.

  To escape this Blanche felt that she would gladly eat her midday meal in the wood, albeit adder or slow worm might lurk under the lovely hart’s-tongue ferns, or deep down amidst the broad coarse leaves of the foxgloves.

  ‘Very well, Tiny, to please you we’ll go in your washing basket,’ she said condescendingly.

  ‘It will be no end of jolly,’ said poor Louie, who, unable to get to London, thought the next best thing was to talk as much metropolitan slang as she could conveniently acquire. She was sadly behind the metropolis even in this, but happily did not know it.

  It was a lovely spot for a pic-nic, or for a poet’s reverie, or for a painter — the old mill, the miller’s cottage, the rock-work, the water, the grand old oaks, the rich growth of fern and underwood offering an inexhaustible variety of subjects for brush or pencil. Blanche found it lovelier than ever to-day after her sojourn in a formal and towny world.

  Tiny’s little wickerwork cart and Exmoor pony would have jolted the two girls to a jelly if they had sat long in it — but they didn’t, preferring to jump out and walk whenever the road was uphill or downhill. They were both in a merry humour as they tripped along the lovely flowery lanes, chattering gaily; while Tiny sat in the driver’s seat, as solemn as a judge, giving the Exmoor’s mouth a sharp little jerk every now and then, which was her idea of driving.

  ‘I wonder what I shall think of your hero?’ ejaculated Louie.

  ‘Don’t call him my hero — he is no hero of mine,’ answered Blanche. ‘ I believe he is a good soldier. He was in the Ashantee war, don’t you know, with Sir Garnet — and I am told Sir Garnet has a high opinion of him. But there is really nothing of the hero about him. He is a plain, steady-going young man, dreadfully straightforward and unromantic’

  ‘Just what Wellington was in his youth, I dare say,’ said Louie, whose admiration for the unknown Claude Tremayne had been growing steadily during the last twenty-four hours.

  They arrived at the fairy dell, as Tiny had christened her favourite bit of the wood, a little before the half-hour, and Tiny began at once to make her preparations for the banquet. There was the stump of an ancient oak, which had been sawn clean off three feet above the ground, and this made an admirable table.

  ‘Lemonade for us,’ said Tiny, unpacking her basket, ‘ bottled beer for him. Just step down to the water’s edge with the bottles, Louie dear, and put them in a very cool place among the stones. Roast fowl, tongue in slices, cheese cakes, cream cheese, plums, pears, apples, &c. I packed the basket my own self. I wouldn’t let any one help me.’

  ‘And as a natural consequence you have not brought a morsel of bread or a grain of salt,’ said Blanche.

  ‘Bread! oh, never mind. We can eat the cheese cakes with our chicken, can’t we P Do you eat salt, Louie? I never do, unless people worry me into it.’

  ‘I think we shall have to get bread and salt somehow,’ said Louie. ‘ The lunch would hardly seem complete without.’

  ‘You must run to the miller’s cottage with this shilling, and ask them for a loaf and the loan of a salt cellar,’ said Blanche; and Antoinette, who was on friendly terms with the whole neighbourhood, went dancing off upon this errand, while Louie and Blanche settled themselves comfortably upon a low ferny bank at the foot of a noble oak. In the hollow below them the little river ran brawling over its rocky bed; the steep wooded hill rose darkly on the opposite shore; the clear blue September sky was warm with sunshine that came filtering down through the dull green oak branches.

  ‘Suppose he shouldn’t come after all P’ said Louie, rather despondently. ‘ Goodness knows how far the shooting party may have rambled.’

  ‘No fear of his not coming. He never breaks his word.’

  ‘But an appointment with a child like Tiny, that would hardly count, would it?’

  ‘I think it would with Claude Tremayne. I believe he would take a great deal of trouble rather than disappoint a child.’

  ‘Especially when that child is my sister, and when he has the hope of seeing me,’ thought Blanche by way of epilogue. She took up the fat little antique watch hanging at her chatelaine. There was just one minute wanted to the half-hour. Hardly had the minute ended when there was a sound of crackling brambles on the other side of the stream, a rush, a cheery laugh, and a young man in velveteen jacket and brown heather knickerbockers, with coarse ribbed stockings to match, and a Scotch bonnet stuck jauntily on his head, came bounding through the underwood. He carried his gun as easily as if it had been a fopling’s crutch stick, and came lightly across the bridge, a mere plank. He took off his cap and wiped his forehead as he advanced to greet the two young ladies.

  He was very good-looking — tall, broad-shouldered, well built. He had dark brown eyes, bright, and frank, and true as Cordovan steel; fairly regular features, splendid teeth, black hair closely cut, a dark sunburnt complexion. Louie, who knew the few young men of her acquaintance by heart, and was sick to loathing of them — more especially as not one among them could bring his courage to the sticking-place of an absolute proposal — thought this military stranger perfection.

  ‘And to think that Blanche could refuse such a man!’ she said to herself; while Mr. Tremayne, after graciously acknowledging Blanche’s presentation of him to her most particular friend Miss Fosbrook, was asking Miss Ferrier all those questions which friends ask after an interval of severance.

  ‘And where is my little friend and hostess?’ he asked presently. ‘ It was Tiny who asked me to luncheon. Oh, here she comes, like Eve, on hospitable thoughts intent, I can see,’ as Antoinette approached, carrying a big crusty loaf on a homely delf platter. ‘Do you know, little one, that I have come four miles and a half since half-past twelve, and that I left the sport just when it was hottest, in order to keep faith with you?’

  Blanche looked at Louie as much as to say,’ Didn’t I tell you so?’

  ‘It was very good of you,’ said Tiny, ‘ and I should have been awfully disappointed if you hadn’t come. But I was sure you would, somehow. You don’t look as if you told stories.’

  Tiny was a pretty child, and she looked her very prettiest at this moment; her blue eyes d
ancing with innocent glee, her cheeks flushed, her breath coming quickly through half-parted rosy lips. She bustled about, making a great display of black spun-silk stockings and Polish boots, for Tiny’s boots and stockings were her strong point. Her frocks in schoolroom and play-hours were anything you like — workhouse sheeting, brown holland, kitchen dusters, anything clean and comfortable. She did the honours of the feast, waiting upon the grown-ups, bringing them their lemonade or their beer cool from a shadowy pool among the rocks.

  Claude Tremayne was hungry and thirsty, and he declared that the beer was nectar, and that he had never tasted such a fowl, or such home-made bread, nor had he known till to-day that the ambrosia of the gods must have been cheese cakes. Parnassus could not compass anything more delicious.

  ‘If you’re enjoying yourself I hope you’ll come again,’ said Antoinette.

  ‘Consider yourself engaged to provide me with luncheon in this spot every day of my visit,’ said Claude graciously.

  ‘Every fine day,’ replied Tiny. ‘You would not care to sit under a tree and eat your luncheon in wet weather.’

  ‘You must not do such a thing anyhow, Tiny; so our engagement must be only for the fine days,’ answered Claude good-naturedly.

  ‘Yes, but if I take so much trouble for you, you must take a little for me,’ said Tiny. ‘You must tell me a story. I dote upon stories.’

  ‘Shall I tell you that you are the ugliest little girl I ever saw in my life? That would be something like a story, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, but I don’t mean that kind of story,’ retorted Tiny, blushing. ‘You must tell me fairy tales, or historical anecdotes. I like history in anecdotes.’

  ‘A homoeopathic form of history — in very small doses. Well Tiny, I’ll do my best. I will unfold my repertoire of fairy tales; and when we come to the end of them I’ll fall back upon Pinnock.’

  ‘If you tell her a story she’ll never let you have any peace,’ said Blanche. ‘She is insatiable.’

  ‘I don’t mind being badgered a little,’ answered Claude, looking at the girlish face with a tender smile. ‘I am very fond of children. I had a dear little sister — one only sister — and when she came to about Tiny’s age — —’

  ‘She died,’ murmured Tiny, who was very impressionable. ‘I can see it in your face. I am so sorry for you.’

  She crept close to him, and laid her hand gently on his coat collar, almost as if she would have put her arms round his neck. He took the little slender sunburnt paw and kissed it.

  ‘So you can understand, Tiny, that you won’t easily tire me. So far as my little stock of stories goes, it is at your service.’

  ‘Blanche can tell beautiful fairy tales,’ said Tiny, looking at her sister, ‘but she always makes them too fashionable. The wicked princess and the good princess are always trying to outdo each other in ball dresses — at least, the good princess doesn’t try, but she has a fairy godmother who must be a dressmaker in disguise, and who sends her home the loveliest frocks to the moment — which real dressmakers never do.’

  Miss Fosbrook thought that Antoinette was absorbing too much of the conversation, so she broke in with various questions about the young soldier’s career. How had he liked the Ashantee country; and how had he liked Sir Garnet Wolseley; and were the blacks really nasty people; and was it quite right they should be annihilated; and was King Coffee called so because he had large plantations; and many other inquiries of an equally interesting character.

  Tiny soon got tired of modern history in this particular form, so she ran off to look after her Exmoor, who was tied up in the miller’s stable. Then Claude and the two young ladies went strolling along by the side of the stream, looking at the rocks, and talking — Claude and Blanche — of the past season. The young man was a little inclined to be sentimental, and to talk of the days that were gone; but Blanche nipped anything of that kind in the bud. She spoke very cheerfully about his professional prospects. There was a. talk of his regiment leaving for India before the end of October.

  ‘That will be very nice for you, won’t it?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I shall like it. There will be a chance of our seeing some active service, if we go up to Cabul. India is a grand country, and I am longing to know what it is really like. One reads so much, and hears so much, but there is nothing like seeing with one’s own eyes.’

  ‘Of course not,’ exclaimed Louie.’ I only wish I were a man and a soldier. If I hadn’t mamma and papa, and a lot of people to think about, I would go out to India as a nursing sister. They must want nursing sisters; and I am a splendid hand at mustard poultices.’

  ‘I don’t think a mustard poultice would be quite the best treatment for a gunshot wound,’ said Mr. Tremayne,’ but it is very noble of you to wish for such a life of self-sacrifice.’

  ‘I would do anything to get out of Okehampton,’ answered Louie.

  They wandered about in a dreamy way for a couple of hours, following the meandering stream, and talking of all sorts of things — youth, childhood, the days that were gone, and which appeared to their minds in all the beauty of things that for ever are lost; and of the dim unknown future, its hopes, and joys, and gains. There was no idea of losses. The future was to be all gain. And when the sun began to look alarmingly afternoonish they started Tiny in the pony cart, and made themselves into a procession of three behind it. She was to drive so as not to get out of their sight,’ for fear of accident,’ Blanche said gravely.

  ‘Just as if your looking at me would prevent Dick Turpin breaking his knees!’ exclaimed Tiny. ‘You are a funny girl, Blanche.’

  Miss Ferrier drew herself up with a dignified air at this address; feeling that a young lady who had been one of the beauties of the season ought not to be so spoken to by a chit of a younger sister. But Tiny was so thoroughly sweet, and said impertinent things in such a loveable way, that it was difficult to feel angry with her.

  The homeward walk was full of life and fun. Tiny and her pony between them afforded unbounded amusement. He was a most self-willed beast, and did just what he liked with Tiny and her cart, but happily was not given to any dangerous tricks. He took his own pleasure after an eccentric fashion, standing stock-still to admire the prospect, or rattling off at a brisk trot, just as it pleased him, Tiny expostulating with him or lecturing him all the time, as if he had been a Christian.

  Claude and Blanche were on the most easy terms, talking and laughing with each other. He seemed to quite forget that he was a rejected lover, and, indeed, made himself as happy as if he were an accepted one. He was very friendly and pleasant with Miss Fosbrook; but that young lady was sharp enough to know that she was making no impression upon him. She told Blanche as much that night when they were undressing. They occupied adjacent rooms, with a door of communication, and could ramble in and out of each other’s apartments as they pleased.

  ‘It’s no use, Blanche. I’m not in it,’ said Louie, brushing her hair rather viciously.’ He thought no more of me this afternoon than if I had been one of those tree stumps. He’s desperately gone upon you.’

  ‘Well, Louie, I like to be candid,’ replied Blanche gravely,’ I believe he is foolishly fond of me. It’s a great pity.’

  ‘Fiddlesticks!’ said her friend, giving a tug at her hair which snapped three teeth out of her comb,’ you know you mean to accept him — in the end.’

  ‘Indeed I do not.’

  ‘Then he ought not to be here.’

  ‘I know that. It is all the squire’s doing. I suppose he thinks I am one of those wishy-washy girls who don’t know their own minds, and can be got to accept any man who pays them attention. Father ought to remember that I’m his daughter, and that it’s natural for me to have a will of my own.’

  ‘He’s so nice,’ replied Louie, sitting down and pleating the lace on her dressing-gown in a dreamy way.

  ‘My father?’

  ‘Mr. Tremayne. Why, you know of whom we were talking. He is so good-looking — such thoroughly
good form — nothing provincial about him. And you say he has a good income?’

  ‘Fifteen hundred a year from a very nice estate near Bodmin — some of the best land in Cornwall, the squire says.’

  ‘His pay would make that two thousand, I suppose?’

  ‘Not till he is a full colonel. It would be a very bad match for a girl who had nothing of her own, but as there are only Antoinette and I — when I am — as I hope I shall be before then — quite an old woman, and the father and mother are gone, there would be my fortune, and we should be decently off. It isn’t because he is not rich that I refused him, Louie. If I cared for him I shouldn’t mind that.’

  ‘I should hope not,’ said Louisa sententiously.

  ‘But I think, considering the — the — attention I received in society, I ought to make a better match,’ pursued Blanche, musingly.

  ‘That’s what you are hankering after. You are very horrid. You don’t deserve to have such a good, true-hearted fellow in love with you. However, I suppose I ought not to make myself disagreable.’

  ‘I’m not angry, Louie. You are a dear good old thing, but it’s rather hard lines that I should be scolded because I am not in love with Mr. Tremayne. I can’t think what there is in the young man that everybody should make such a fuss about him. Mother thinks him perfection, and the squire is never tired of praising him. And now here is Tiny falling down and worshipping him.’

  ‘How pretty Tiny is growing!’ said Louie; ‘she will be quite a beauty by the time she is eighteen.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ asked Blanche indifferently.

  A girl who has come out, and has been flattered and praised, is rarely awake to the development of a fourteen-year-old sister’s charms. Blanche felt that there was an impassable gulf between her and Tiny. When Tiny’s turn came to be admired, she, Blanche, would be an old woman.