Bluebell / A Novel

by Mrs. G. C. Huddleston

"Then it is all right," retorted Bluebell, "as it seems I do neither."

"Not work!" cried Mrs. Leigh. "Why she has earned already more than I ever did in my life, and brought me ten dollars to get a dress with, only I shan't, for I shall keep it for her. I must say, Aunt Jane, you are always blaming the child; and, if her mother is satisfied, I think you may be."

Aunt Jane was silenced, but she wondered what Bluebell could do that her shortsighted mother would not be satisfied with. Meantime the object of the discussion had escaped from the room. She had no wish to spend the afternoon in the dim parlour, stuffy with stove heat and the lingering aroma of baked mutton; and a fancy had occurred to her to wander through the wood she had last traversed with the sole occupant of her ill-regulated mind.

Trove, now a well-to-do and unabashed dog, rolled and kicked on his back in puppy-like ecstacy as he watched her dress, and officiously brought her her muff, which, however, he objected to resigning. Trove was Bluebell's confidant and the repository of her woes, and perhaps as safe a one as young ladies generally choose.

Not a sign of the Rollestons had she seen since her arrival at the cottage ten days ago. Bluebell thought she could not have been more cut off from them if she had crossed the Atlantic instead of the Common. Going to the Rink would have too much the appearance of seeking Du Meresq, so she rigorously avoided that; but even in King Street, where Cecil's cutter flashed most days, she never caught sight of "Wings'" owl-decorated head.

There was a great deal of her father's disposition in Bluebell, and she chafed at the monotony of days so grey and eventless, and longed for she knew not what; so that it was life, movement, pain even, to exhaust those new springs of thought and feeling that the awakening touch of a first love had called forth, and would not now be laid.

Bluebell, like most Canadians, had had plenty of early admiration from hobbledehoys, who made honest, though ungainly, love to her; but her heart would as soon have been touched by an amorous Orson as by these youthful tyros in the art. Du Meresq had that deceptive countenance apparently created for the shipwreck of female hearts. Sometimes men called him an ugly fellow, but no woman ever thought so. There was expression enough in those luminous eyes to have set up three beauty men. They could look both demoniacal and seraphic,—tender often, but scarcely ever true; add to this a magnificent physique, a soft manner, a winning voice, and, what gave him an almost superstitious interest to women, that fey look attributed to the Stewarts. He had read and studied hard by fits and starts, for whatever possessed his mind he always pursued with ardour, and to Cecil was fond of inveighing against his useless, unsatisfying life. In spite of her infatuation, though, she judged him more truly than most people, and perceived that his fitful remorse was chiefly occasioned by pressure of money matters, and seldom lasted over pecuniary relief.

In the most secret flights of her imagination, she pictured herself in some new country with Bertie. An adventurous, reckless nature such as his, she thought, turned every gift to evil in the commonplace life where his idiosyncrasy had no play; but detached from his idle mess-room habits, and launched into a new career, when to live at all involved exertion of mind and body, would metamorphosize her hero into all she could wish.

Such was the ideal, in her conventual bringing up, of the rich and well placed Cecil; while Bluebell, to whom luxury was unknown, longed for wealth to take her into a sphere where taste was not starved by economy, nor all her horizon bounded by weekly bills. But in both cases their air castles were to be occupied with Du Meresq.

The girl and the dog sped along on their desolate walk—it was too cold to linger. Bluebell carefully followed the route she had taken with Bertie, that memory might be added by association.