"And what a really well-read and agreeable man he is, all the while!
What a mine of quaint learning, and beautiful old legend!--If he would but bring it into the common stock for every one"s amus.e.m.e.nt, instead of h.o.a.rding it up for himself!" "Why, what else does he do but bring it into the common stock, when he publishes a book which every one can read!" said Valencia, half out of the spirit of contradiction.
"And few understand," said Headley, quietly.
"You are very unjust; he is a very discerning and agreeable person, and I shall go and talk to him." And away went Valencia to Elsley, somewhat cross. Woman-like, she allowed, for the sake of her sister"s honour, no one but herself to depreciate Vavasour, and chose to think it impertinent on Headley"s part.
Headley began quietly talking to Major Campbell about botany, while Valencia, a little ashamed of herself all the while, took her revenge on Elsley by scolding him for his unsocial ways, in the very terms which Headley had been using.
At last Claude, having finished his photographing, departed downward to get some new view from the road below, and Lucia returned to the rest of the party. Valencia joined them at once, bringing up Elsley, who was not in the best of humours after her diatribes; and the whole party wandered about the woodland, and scrambled down beside the torrent beds.
At last they came to a point where they could descend no further; for the stream, falling over a cliff, had worn itself a narrow chasm in the rock, and thundered down it into a deep narrow pool.
Lucia, who was basking in the sunshine and the flowers as simple as a child, would needs peep over the brink, and made Elsley hold her while she looked down. A quiet happiness, as of old recollections, came into her eyes, as she watched the sparkling and foaming water--
"And beauty, born of murmuring sound, Did pa.s.s into her face."
Campbell started. The Lucia of seven years ago seemed to bloom out again in that pale face and wrinkled forehead; and a smile came over his face, too, as he looked.
"Just like the dear old waterfall at Kilanbaggan. You recollect it, Major Campbell?"
Elsley always disliked recollections of Kilanbaggan; recollections of her life before he knew her; recollections of pleasures in which he had not shared: especially recollections of her old acquaintance with the Major.
"I do not, I am ashamed to say," replied the Major.
"Why, you were there a whole summer. Ah! I suppose you thought about nothing but your salmon fishing. If Elsley had been there he would not have forgotten a rock or a pool. Would you, Elsley?"
"Really, in spite of all salmon, I have not forgotten a rock or a pool about the place which I ever saw: but at the waterfall I never was."
"So he has not forgotten? What cause had he to remember so carefully?"
thought Elsley.
"Oh, Elsley, look! What is that exquisite flower, like a ball of gold, hanging just over the water?"
If Elsley had not had the evil spirit haunting about him, he would have joined in Lucia"s admiration of the beautiful creature, as it dropped into the foam from its narrow ledge, with its fan of palmate leaves bright green against the black mosses of the rock, and its golden petals glowing like a tiny sun in the darkness of the chasm: as it was, he answered--
"Only a b.u.t.tercup."
"I am sure it"s not a b.u.t.tercup! It is three times as large, and a so much paler yellow! Is it a b.u.t.tercup, now, Major Campbell?"
Campbell looked down.
"Very nearly one, after all: but its real name is the globe flower. It is common enough here in spring; you may see the leaves in every pasture. But I suppose this plant, hidden from the light, has kept its flowers till the autumn."
"And till I came to see it, darling that it is! I should like to reward it by wearing it home."
"I daresay it would be very proud of the honour; especially if Mr.
Vavasour would embalm it in verse, after it had done service to you."
"It is doing good enough service where it is," said Elsley. "Why pluck out the very eye of that perfect picture?"
"Strange," said Lucia, "that such, a beautiful thing should be born there all alone upon these rocks, with no one to look at it."
"It enjoys itself sufficiently without us, no doubt," said Elsley.
"Yes; but I want to enjoy it. Oh, if you could but get it for me?"
Elsley looked down. There were fifteen feet of somewhat slippery rock; then a ragged ledge a foot broad, in a crack of which the flower grew; then the dark boiling pool. Elsley shrugged his shoulders, and said, smiling, as if it were a fine thing to say--"Really, my dear, all men are not knight errants enough to endanger their necks for a bit of weed; and I cannot say that such rough _tours de force_ are at all to my fancy."
Lucia turned away: but she was vexed. Campbell could see that a strange fancy for the plant had seized her. As she walked from the spot, he could hear her talking about its beauty to Valencia.
Campbell"s blood boiled. To be asked by that woman--by any woman--to get her that flower: and to be afraid! It was bad enough to be ill-tempered; but to be a coward, and to be proud thereof! He yielded to a temptation, which he had much better have left alone, seeing that Lucia had not asked him; swung himself easily enough down the ledge; got the flower, and put it, quietly bowing, into Mrs. Vavasour"s hand.
He was frightened when he had done it; for he saw, to his surprise, that she was frightened. She took the flower, smiling thanks, and expressing a little commonplace horror and astonishment at his having gone down such a dangerous cliff: but she took it to Elsley, drew his arm through hers, and seemed determined to make as much of him as possible for the rest of the afternoon. "The fellow was jealous, then, in addition to his other sins!" And Campbell, who felt that he had put himself unnecessarily forward between husband and wife, grew more and more angry; and somehow, unlike his usual wont, refused to confess himself in the wrong, because he was in the wrong. Certainly it was not pleasant for poor Elsley; and so Lucia felt, and bore with him when he refused to be comforted, and rendered blessing for railing when he said to her more than one angry word; but she had been accustomed to angry words by this time.
All might have pa.s.sed off, but for that careless Valencia, who had not seen the details of what had pa.s.sed; and so advised herself to ask where Lucia got that beautiful plant?
"Major Campbell picked it up for her from the cliff," said Elsley, drily.
"Ah? at the risk of his neck, I don"t doubt. He is the most matchless _cavalier servente_."
"I shall leave Mrs. Vavasour to his care, then--that is, for the present," said Elsley, drawing his arm from Lucia"s.
"I a.s.sure you," answered she, roused in her turn by his determined bad temper, "I am not the least afraid of being left in the charge of so old a friend."
Elsley made no answer, but sprang down through the thickets, calling loudly to Claude Mellot.
It was very naughty of Lucia, no doubt: but even a worm will turn; and there are times when people who have not courage to hold their peace must say something or other; and do not always, in the hurry, get out what they ought, but only what they have time to think of. And she forgot what she had said the next minute, in Major Campbell"s question--
"Am I, then, so old a friend, Mrs. Vavasour?"
"Of course; who older?"
Campbell was silent a moment. If he was inclined to choke, at least Lucia did not see it.
"I trust I have not offended your--Mr. Vavasour?"
"Oh!" she said, with a forced gaiety, "only one of his poetic fancies.
He wanted so much to see Mr. Mellot photograph the waterfall. I hope he will be in time to find him."
"I am a plain soldier, Mrs. Vavasour, and I only ask because I do not understand. What are poetic fancies?"
Lucia looked up in his face puzzled, and saw there an expression so grave, pitying, tender, that her heart leaped up toward him, and then sank back again.
"Why do you ask? Why need you know? You are no poet."
"And for that very cause I ask you."
"Oh, but," said she, guessing at what was in his mind, and trying, woman-like, to play purposely at cross purposes, and to defend her husband at all risks; "he has an extraordinary poetic faculty; all the world agrees to that, Major Campbell."