"Aileen----" and there he stopped, and the sentence was never destined to be finished, for a shadow darkened the moonlight, and a figure flitted in like a spirit and stood before them--a fairy figure, in a cloud of rosy drapery, with shimmering golden curls and dancing eyes of turquoise blue.
Aileen Jocyln started back and away from her companion, with a faint, thrilling cry. Sir Rupert, wondering and annoyed, stood staring; and still the fairy figure in the rosy gauze stood, like a nymph in a stage tableau, smiling up in their faces and never speaking. There was a blank pause, a moment"s; then Miss Jocyln made one step forward, doubt, recognition, delight, all in her face at once.
"It is--it is!" she cried, "May Everard!"
"May Everard!" Sir Rupert echoed--"little May!"
"At your service, _monsieur_! To think you should have forgotten me so completely in a decade of years. For shame, Sir Rupert Thetford!"
And then she was in Aileen Jocyln"s arms, and there was an hiatus filled up with kisses.
"Oh! what a surprise!" Miss Jocyln cried breathlessly. "Have you dropped from the skies? I thought you were in France."
May Everard laughed, the calm, bright laugh of thirteen years ago, as she held up her dimpled cheeks, first one and then the other, to Sir Rupert.
"Did you? So I was, but I ran away."
"Ran away! From school?"
"Something very like it. Oh! how stupid it was, and I couldn"t endure it any longer; and I am so crammed with knowledge now that if I held any more I should burst; and so I told them I had to come home; but I was sent for, which was true, you know, for I felt an inward call; and as they were glad to be rid of me, they didn"t make much opposition or ask unnecessary questions. And so," folding the fairy hands and nodding her little ringleted head, "here I am."
"But, good heavens!" cried Sir Rupert, aghast, "you never mean to say, May, you have come alone?"
"All alone," said May, with another nod. "I"m used to it, you know; did it last vacation. Came across and spent it with Mrs. Weymore. I don"t mind it the least; don"t know what sea-sickness is; and oh! didn"t some of the poor wretches suffer this time! Isn"t it fortunate I"m here for the ball? And, Rupert, good gracious! how you"ve grown!"
"Thanks. I can"t see that you have changed much, Miss Everard. You are the same curly-headed, saucy fairy I knew thirteen years ago. What does my lady say to this escapade?"
"Nothing. Eloquent silence best expresses her feelings; and then she hadn"t time to make a scene. Are you going to ask me to dance, Rupert?
because if you are," said Miss Everard, adjusting her bracelet, "you had better do it at once, as I am going back to the ball-room, and after I once appear there you will stand no chance amongst the crowd of compet.i.tors. But then, perhaps you belong to Miss Jocyln?"
"Not at all," Miss Jocyln interposed, hastily, and reddening a little; "I am engaged, and it is time I was back, or my unlucky cavalier will be at his wit"s end to find me."
She swept away with a quicker movement than her wont, and Sir Rupert laughingly gave his piquant little partner his arm. His notions of propriety were a good deal shocked; but then it was only May Everard, and May Everard was one of those exceptionable people who can do pretty much as they please, and not surprise any one. They went back to the ball-room, the fairy in pink on the arm of the young baronet, chattering like a magpie. Miss Jocyln"s partner found her and led her off; but Miss Jocyln was very silent and _distrait_ all the rest of the night, and watched furtively, but incessantly, the fluttering pink fairy. She had reigned belle hitherto, but sparkling little May, like an embodied sunbeam, electrified the rooms, and took the crown and the sceptre by royal right. Sir Rupert had that one dance, and no more--Miss Everard"s own prophecy was true--the demand for her was such that even the son of the house stood not the shadow of a chance.
Miss Jocyln held herself aloof from the young baronet for the remaining hours of the ball. She had known as well as he the words that were on his lips when May Everard interposed, and her eyes flashed and her dark cheek flushed dusky red to see how easily he had been deterred from his purpose. For him, he sought her once or twice in a desultory sort of way, never noticing that he was purposely avoided, wandering contentedly back to devote himself to some one else, and in the pauses to watch May Everard floating--a sunbeam in a rosy cloud--here and there and everywhere.
CHAPTER IX.
GUY LEGARD.
"He meant to have spoken that night; he would have spoken but for May Everard. And yet that is two weeks ago, and we have been together since, and----"
Aileen Jocyln broke off abruptly, and looked out over the far-spreading, gray sea.
The morning was dull, the leaden sky threatening rain, the wind sighing fitfully, and the slow, gray sea creeping up the gray sands. Aileen Jocyln sat as she had sat since breakfast, aimless and dreary, by her dressing-room window, gazing blankly over the pale landscape, her hair falling loose and damp over her shoulders, and a novel lying listlessly in her lap. The book had no interest; her thoughts would stray, in spite of her, to Thetford Towers.
"She is very pretty," Miss Jocyln thought, "with that pink and white wax-doll sort of prettiness some people admire. I never thought _he_ could, with his artistic nature; but I suppose I was mistaken. They call her fascinating; I believe that rather hoidenish manner of hers, and all those dashing airs, and that "loud" style of dress and doings, take some men by storm. I presume I was mistaken in Sir Rupert, I dare say pretty, penniless May will be Lady Thetford before long."
Miss Jocyln"s short upper-lip curled rather scornfully, and she rose up with a little air of petulance and walked across the room to the opposite window. It commanded a view of the lawn and a long wooded drive, and, cantering airily up under the waving trees, she saw the young lady of whom she had been thinking. The pretty, fleet-footed pony and his bright little mistress were by no means rare visitors at Jocyln Hall, and Miss Jocyln was always elaborately civil to Miss Everard. Very pretty little May looked--all her tinseled curls floating in the breeze, like a golden banner; the blue eyes more starily radiant than ever, the dark riding-habit and jaunty hat and plume the most becoming things in the world. She saw Miss Jocyln at the window, kissed her hand and resigned Arab to the groom. A minute more and she was saluting Aileen with effusion.
"You solemn Aileen! to sit and mope here in the house, instead of improving your health and temper by a breezy canter over the downs.
Don"t contradict; I know you were moping. I should be afraid to tell you how many miles Arab and I have got over this morning. And you never came to see me yesterday, either. Why was it?"
"I didn"t feel inclined," Miss Jocyln answered, truthfully.
"No, you never _do_ feel inclined unless I come and drag you out by force; you sit in the house and grow yellow and jaundiced over high-church novels. I declare I never met so many lazy people in all my life as I have done since I came home. One don"t mind mamma, poor thing!
shutting herself up and the sunshine and fresh air of heaven out; but, for you and Rupert! And, speaking of Rupert," ran on Miss Everard in a breathless sort of way, "he wanted to commence his great picture of "Fair Rosamond and Eleanor" yesterday--and how could he when Eleanor never came? Why didn"t you--you promised?"
"I changed my mind, I suppose."
"And broke your word--more shame for you, then! Come now."
"No; thanks. It"s going to rain."
"Nothing of the sort; and Rupert is _so_ anxious. He would have come himself, only my lady is ill to-day with one of her bad headaches, and asked him to read her to sleep; and, like the good boy that he is in the main, though shockingly lazy, he obeyed. Do come, Aileen; there"s a dear! Don"t be selfish."
Miss Jocyln rose rather abruptly.
"I have no desire to be selfish, Miss Everard. If you will wait ten minutes whilst I dress, I will accompany you to Thetford Towers."
She rang the bell and swept from the room, stately and uplifted. May looked after her, fidgeting a little.
"Dear me! I suppose she"s offended now at that word "selfish." I never _did_ get on very well with Aileen Jocyln, and I"m afraid I never shall.
I shouldn"t wonder if she were jealous."
Miss Everard laughed a little silvery laugh all to herself, and slapped her kid riding-boot with her pretty toy whip.
"I hope I didn"t interrupt a tender declaration that night in the conservatory, but it looked like it. If I did, I am sure Rupert has had fifty chances since, and I know he hasn"t availed himself of them, or Aileen would never wear that dissatisfied face. I know she"s in love with _him_, though, to be sure, she would see me impaled with the greatest pleasure if she only thought I suspected it; but I"m not so certain about him. He"s a great deal too indolent in the first place, to get up a grand pa.s.sion for anybody, and I think he"s inclined to look graciously on me--poor little me--in the second. You may spare yourself the trouble, my dear Sir Rupert; for a gentleman whose chief aim in existence is to smoke Turkish pipes and lie on the gra.s.s and write and read poetry is not at all the sort of man I mean to bless for life."
The two girls descended to the court-yard, mounted and rode off. Both rode well, and both looked their best on horseback, and made a wonderfully pretty picture as they galloped through St. Gosport in dashing style, bringing the admiring population in a rush to doors and windows. Perhaps Sir Rupert Thetford thought so, too, as he stood at the great front entrance to receive them, with a kindling light in his artist"s eyes.
"May said she would fetch you, and May always keeps her word," he said, as he walked slowly up the sweeping staircase; "besides, Aileen, I am to have the first sitting for the "Rosamond and Eleanor" to-day, am I not?
May calls me an idle dreamer, a useless drone in the busy human hive; so, to vindicate my character and cleave a niche in the temple of fame, I am going to immortalize myself over this painting."
"You"ll never finish it," said May; "it will be like all the rest.
You"ll begin on a gigantic scale and with super-human efforts, and you"ll cool down and get sick of it before it is half finished, and it will go to swell the pile of daubed canvas in your studio now. Don"t tell me! I know you."
"And have the poorest possible opinion of me, Miss Everard?"
"Yes, I have! I have no patience when I think what you might do, what you might become, and see what you are! If you were not Sir Rupert Thetford, with a princely income, you might be a great man. As it is----"
"As it is!" cried the young baronet, trying to laugh and reddening violently, "I will still be a great man--a modern Murillo. Are you not a little severe, Miss Everard? Aileen, I believe this is your first visit to my studio?"
"Yes," said Miss Jocyln, coldly and briefly. She did not like the conversation, and May Everard"s familiar home-truths stung her. To her he was everything mortal man should be; she was proud, but she was not ambitious; what right had this penniless little free-speaker to come between them and talk like this?