Only a Flirt. A novel

Front matter

A NO VEL By MRS. ROBERT JOCELYN Author of • Juanita Carrington,' 'A Regular Fraud,' ' The Criton Hunt Mystery,' 'Drawn Blank.'' ' Only a Horse Dealer,' Et,;, Etc IN ONE VOLUME LONDON F. V. WHITE & CO 14 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C PBINTSD BY KELLY AKB CO, LIMITED, 18?, 183 AND 184, HIGH H0LE0BX, W.C, AND KUCOSTOK-ON-THAMEE. CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE I. — The Beginning of it . . . . i II. — A French Exercise ... 12 III. — A Song and a Walk . . . .17 IV. — Aunt Edith's Friend ... 28 V. — More Child than Woman . . 34 VI.— A Rainy Day 38 VII.— A New Dress 48 VIII. — The Result of a Want of Tact . 57 IX. — A Tiresome Woman .... 66 X. — In the Apple Orchard. . . 72 XI. — Most Discreet . . . ; .81 XII. — A Broken Leg .... 87 XIII. — Sir George Crossley ... 97 XIV.— The Wrong Man . . . . 105 XV. — A Bit of Ribbon . . . .112 XVI. — On Guard . . , . . 122 XVII. — Disappointed 126 XVIII. — Riding to the Meet . . . 134 XIX. — Second Fiddle CONTENTS. vi CHAPTER PAGE XX. — "Most Unfortunate" . . . i49 XXI. — Sorrow and Song . . . 158 XXII.— A Poor Man 167 XXIII.— A New Neighbour . . . i74 XXIV— At War 182 XXV. — The Castle Selvington Ball . 189 XXVI.— Two Lovers 197 XXVII. — A Word of Advice . . . 204 XXVIII.— An Old Friend . . . .213 XXIX.— "A Good Offer" . . . 221 XXX.— "Do Not Play the Fool, Sibyl" . 229 XXXI. — Three Love Affairs . . . 237 XXXII. — Unsympathetic .... 245 XXXIII.— A Skating Party ... 253 XXXIV.— Old Letters 262 ■ XXXV. — " No One Admires You so Much as I Do " 270 XXXVI.— "You Need Not Be Afraid," said Sibyl " She kept her eyes from off my face, She dared not trust herself to look; But stately in her native grace, Though once I thought she shook, With calm, defiant courtesy, bending low, She left me answering only, ' Be it so.' " — Whyte Melville " The heart ay's the part ay, That makes us right or wrong." — Burns.

Chapter I. The Beginning Of It

Captain Desmond's little daughter Sibyl might have been an exceedingly happy child if that gentleman had possessed a less kind heart. It is a thing we all admire, but sometimes kindness of heart amounts to being almost a fault ; and it was so in Captain Desmond's case. When his sister Edith's husband died, he offered to take that lady permanently into his own home. And it was a mistake. A mistake from every point of view; and a very great one so far as Sibyl was concerned. She had been so happy until then. She was absolutely devoted to her father, and almost equally so to her Aunt Jane, who had been all that a mother could have been to her brother's motherless little girl. Aunt Jane had lived with them ever since Sibyl could remember. She had arrived at Wimpton Court one dark, sorrowful day, twelve years ago, when all the blinds were down, the servants stole about the passages on tip-toe in a fri'-'htened, nervous kind of way, and the master of the house had locked himstlf into his own room, to face alone a grief so terrible that to have obtruded upon it BOrild haye been impossible. i His wife was dead ; and his child was dying.

They had told him there was no hope for the child when they bore the news to him that the wife he idolised was dead. If the child had been conscious of its surroundings, or he could have done it any good by being with it, Charles Desmond would have borne up for its sake ; because he was devoted to it, and it was hers. But it was in a state of coma, out of which they told him it would never wake ; and on hearing that, he had broken altogether down, ar. d had locked himself into his own room alone. And then Jane had arrived, and had quietly taken up command in the fever-stricken house. But it was not until an unexpected change had taken place in the state of the child, and the doctors hinted at a possible recovery, that she made her way up to tbe room in which her brother was. It was the following day, and by then Charles Desmond had been four-and-twenty hours without seeing anyone or eating any food.

His order had been imperative : no one was to come near him. And no one had dared to disobey that order, given by a haggard-faced, distraught man, until Jane stole upstairs and knocked resolutely at the door. But there was no answer to that knock of hers, nor to the louder one which followed it. And Jane presently became alarmed, and summoned some of the men. The door was broken in, and none too soon. The man who had been stricken with an overwhelming grief on the previous day was by then stricken with the fever which had carried off his wife, and was threatening to carry off his child. He was dangerously ill. But his life was spared, and so was little Sibyl's, and Sibyl's life, at any rate, was greatly due to Jane's un tiring devotion. She never left them after that. She had become a necessity to them both.

And without a murmur her own little home in the South of England had been given up, and Jane Desmond had settled down at Wimpton Court, until such time as she was no longer wanted there. That time had not yet come. Charles Desmond had not married again, as people who did not know the man had expected he would do ; Sybil loved her aunt almost as dearly as she loved her father ; and neither of them would have had her leave them for any consideration in the world. And so things went on at Wimpton for twelve long years. The child grew and flourished ; Captain Desmond took up life where he had left it off, and under a smiling face and genial manner, carried about with him a remembrance which had not yet become less shadowy as the years slipped by ; and Jane Desmond, from being a young woman in the prime of life, became a middle aged one, who looked considerably older than her years.

She was devoted to her brother, his child, and every thing that was his. She interested herself in the house and in the garden. She was exceedingly kind in the parish, and popular with all the ladies in the county. Nobody ever had a word to say which was not in praise of Captain Desmond's sister. She was one of the most kind-hearted, straightforward women imaginable, always ready to set her own likes and dislikes aside, and to interest herself in the joys and griefs of other people. A sensible woman, too, and a well-read one. It would have been difficult to find a fault in Jane. I* And yet people who did not know her said that she was no doubt a most excellent woman, but that she was dull. And her sister Edith was one of those people. She and Jane had not an idea in common, and Edith, who was fifteen years younger than Jane, and ten years younger than Captain Desmond, very seldom went to Wimpton before the death of her husband.

She had a long-standing invitation to go there when she liked, and would always have found a welcome ; but family affection was not one of Edith Hartland's strong points ; she was one of those people who live on the little shadowy details of life, and overlook the bigger things it can offer ; and she made a practice of never going anywhere where she was bored. It bored her to be at Wimpton ; and in her younger days, if she did not actually say so in so many words, she did not hesitate to let her brother and sister know it by her conduct. She had married when she was twenty. The man she married, Edmund Hartland, had not been a rich man, but on the other hand, he had not been a poor one ; and he had been able to keep his wife in a certain degree of luxury for the greater part of their married life.

And during those years Edith had not seen very much of any of the members of her own family. Her mother had died a year after her marriage, and Jane had left Wimpton and had gone to live in the South of England, where she had many friends. Captain Desmond had been abroad with his regiment, and Wimpton had been let for several years. Then the owner of it married and left the army, and lived at Wimpton Court. But Edith, after paying one visit there under the new regime, decided it was dull ; and troubled it no more until long after Mrs. Desmond's death and the reign of Jane began. Then for a few days she came again, and enjoyed that second visit no better than the first. Indeed, she enjoyed it less. Jane bored her in many ways, and always had done so, but had never bored her so greatly as she did then.

Jane was full of Charles's child, and Edith disliked children, and saw nothing especially charming about Sibyl. So, on this point, as they had done on many a one before, the two sisters did not agree. That visit of Edith's to Wimpton had been a failure in many ways. Perhaps it was all her own fault, perhaps it was partly Jane's ; but the mere fact that Jane brought Sibyl forward, and made her a first consideration, set Edith upon her mettle. She, on her part, snubbed the child, and by so doing annoyed her brother, infuriated Jane, and made Sibyl hail her departure with delight. That had been when Sibyl was seven years old. During the five years which followed, Edith Hartland only came twice more to Wimpton ; but on each occa sion she succeeded in making her little niece more certain than she had been before that she disliked her.

And then Mr. Hartland had died, and left his widow anything but well-off, and Edith suddenly remembered that her own people were her own people, and that it was their duty to do something for her. Captain Des mond hurried to her at once, as soon as he heard of her trouble ; and if it was a little shock to him to find that she was more worried because her husband had not left her a large fortune than grieved because she had lost him, he said nothing about it, even to his sister Jane. And he at once agreed with Edith that it was out of the question for her to live on six hundred a year. To him, under the circumstances, there seemed to be but one thing to be done. If family ties had little influence upon Edith, he did not resemble her in that respect. They meant much to him. He could not live at Wimp ton Court with the comfortable income of seven thousand a year, and permit his sister to struggle for existence on six hundred, and he could not offer to make her six hundred into a thousand, because that would not have been fair on Sibyl, or on Jane, who, like Edith, had only six hundred a year of her own.

Jane had lived happily upon her six hundred, but Edith and Jane were very different women, and Edith would not have lived happily on more than double that sum, and her brother knew it. So he offered to take her into his own home. If family affection was not a strong point with Edith, it was certainly one of her brother's ; and urged on by a feeling of duty and the kindness of his heart, he took his younger sister back to Wimpton with him, to the intense alarm of Sibyl and the consternation of Jane. They neither of them said a word to him about it. He was very dear to both of them, and they knew that his motive had been good. But from that day the whole course of their lives altered, and their peaceful happiness was at an end. Before many months were over Sibyl found herself pushed into the background, and Jane found that the reins of management were being com pletely taken out of her hands.

And the thing that grieved each of them most was the discomfiture of the other. They had but one hope, that Edith would marry again. And that great hope of theirs was the one thing which they shared with Edith. She hoped it too. But it seemed that all their hopes were in vain. No one appeared to be anxious to marry Mrs. Hartland. It was hardly surprising. She was a plain woman, and she had none of those attributes which make many plain women attractive. She had a bad figure, and a bad manner, and she made her plainness ten times more apparent than it might otherwise have been by over dressing and posing as a beauty. There is nothing so fatal for a plain woman as her not accepting the fact that she is plain. That fact accepted, and also the fact that a smartness which has nothing to do with silks and satins is sometimes even preferable to a pretty face, and the plain woman turns out a success.

She must be chic, and either brilliant or exceedingly good company, and then she will eclipse many a better-looking woman than herself. But the plain woman who simpers and tries to look fascinating ! Can anything be a more hopeless failure than that ? The good-looking woman who spoils herself by doing it is bad enough, but for the plain one it is indeed the final straw of all. And so it was with Edith Hartland. She was five-and thirty and plain ; and she wished people to believe that she was five-and-twenty and pretty. She was not in the least smart, and she was certainly not brilliant, yet she imagined she was extremely fascinating. It was alto gether very unfortunate for Jane and Sibyl ; and as the years rolled on and brought no man with them who was sufficiently venturesome to propose to Edith Hartland, her sister and her niece began to lose hope and to realise that life at Wimpton was never going to be the same dear old life again.

No one knew whether Jane or Sibyl felt the change the most. It altered the whole course of both their lives ; but Sibyl, being younger, chafed the more openly against the new r'egime ; and Jane fretted silently, chiefly on account of Sibyl. Edith interfered with everything. Before she had been two years at Wimpton she had the place overrun ning with her own particular friends; and friends of Jane's and Captain Desmond's, whom Mrs. Hartland did not find congenial, had begun to come to the Court less and less, until they were seldom seen there. Then Sibyl's governess was sent away. Mrs. Hart land assured Jane and her brother that it was imperative that Sibyl's education did not come to a standstill, and that Miss Masters had taught her all that she herself knew. It was not the case. Miss Finniken, who suc ceeded her, knew less than Miss Masters, but she was disposed to toady Mrs. Hartland, who had engaged her, and she could play the pianoforte in the evening when Mrs. Hartland wanted to have an after-dinner dance.

Sibyl had been devoted to Miss Masters, who was a thoroughly good, broad-minded, practical woman, and who entered into all Sibyl's pursuits with as great an interest as she entered into her studies. She had been in every way a suitable companion for the girl, as Aunt Jane had known, and been happy to know ; but she had been devoted to Miss Desmond and to Sibyl, and she had not sufficiently bowed down before the new-comer. That had been her only fault, and her final undoing. So in the place of Miss Masters, who could thoroughly enjoy doing the things that Sibyl liked doing and it was good for her to do, and who was at heart as young as the child was herself, though in point of years she was nearly forty, Miss Finniken appeared upon the scene and took possession of Sibyl. She was a lady who stood upon her dignity.

She not only could not adapt herself to the requirements of her young companion, but she was surprised that Miss Mas ters had been able to do so, and gave it as her opinion that Miss Masters must have been very odd. And Sibyl was taken for walks, and told that she was too old to swing, and jump over haycocks, and ride her old pony barebacked. And Sibyl, it need hardly be said, fumed and raged, and hated it. Fortunately she had one of those natures which never become too old to do anything until they become decrepid, and although Miss Finniken had it in her power to make her miserable and indignant, it was beyond her to spoil her. They were not a well-assorted couple. It is doubtful whether Miss Finniken disliked Sibyl or Sibyl disliked Miss Finniken the most ; but it is certain Miss Finniken had the best of it, in so far as she had it in her power to revenge herself upon Sibyl.

For several months she made Sibyl's life hardly worth living ; and then Jane, seeing how it was, could bear the sight no longer. She was naturally a timid woman, and she disliked making complaints and quarrelling with people ; but for Sibyl's sake she faced her sister's wrath and laid a formal complaint before her brother. That settled the question. If Miss Finniken did not make Sibyl happy she was to go, of course. Nothing could be more simple. Why had he not been told before ? How was it Sibyl had not herself com plained ? And they could not tell him that they had only been silent because Edith was so much less endurable than Miss Finniken, and it had merely been a question of whether Edith's wrath and the course of nagging which would follow was not worse to bear than the society of Miss Finniken.

No. The two women who loved Charles Desmond would not tell him that, because they knew that the knowledge of it would worry him and make him wretched. Miss Finniken left. And Mrs, Hartland told her brother that he and Jane could find the next governess themselves, because she would have nothing to do with it. In her opinion Miss Finniken was a most desirable instructress from every point of view. Neither Jane nor Captain Desmond desired her assist ance ; but Jane knew that another governess of her choosing would probably follow Miss Masters' footsteps, and leave because she could not live in the same house with Mrs. Hartland. And she decided that nothing could be so undesirable for Sibyl as a constant change of governesses. There should be no more risks of such a contingency. She would henceforth teach the child her self.

She would like doing it, and Sibyl would like her to do it. And so it was settled. Captain Desmond hoped she would not find it too great a tie, but was really grateful, because he knew it would make Sibyl happy ; and Mrs. Hartland thought the plan an excellent one and highly commended it. She had a reason of her own for doing so. It would dispose of a good nnny hours of Jane's H time every day, and it did not otherwise than please her sister that Jane should sometimes be out of her way. Sibyl was delighted. The arrangement suited her down to the ground. When she had finished her lessons she had her time for her own, to spend in a thousand delightful ways about the gardens and grounds. And as to Jane, since Mrs. Hartland's appearance on the scene, she had had no settled occupation of her own, and she was glad to have something definite to do.

She was very capable of doing it, too. A clever, exceptionally well-educated woman, she knew all, and more, than it was necessary Sibyl should know. But it was a mistake. Home education always is, though it is sometimes difficult to say why. In this especial case the reason was perhaps not a very usual one ; but a stronger one could not well have been. The house was over-run with Mrs. Hartland's guests. There was no place in it for Sibyl, excepting the schoolroom, and when she was in it she was often quite alone. She was an exceptionally pretty girl, and although she was only fifteen, she was not too young to be attrac tive. And one of Mr?. Hartland's particular friends found her much more attractive than Mrs. Hartland. That was perhaps hardly surprising, and would not have mattered had he not invaded Sibyl's schoolroom and told her so. _ He was just the man to take the fancy of a young girL He was a very manly-looking, handsome man.

Polished and courteous in his manner, and a thorough man of the world. He was eight-or-nine-and-twenty, and a soldier. Need it be added that he had a very good idea of how to make himself agreeable, and to get up a flirtation without seeming as if he was at all a flirt ? Before Sibyl was sixteen she was hopelessly in love, and that unfortunate fact was none the less unfortunate, because neither her father nor her aunt Jane had the smallest suspicion of it.

Chapter II

A FRENCH EXERCISE. It was a sunny day towards the end of June when Captain Darrington first found his way into the Wimpton Court schoolroom. The door of the room was ajar, and in passing it a glimpse of a small, fair haired head, bent low over a table near the open window, was visible. The face was flushed and the fair hair a little ruffled, but neither of these facts made Sibyl Desmond a whit the less pretty. And there was no doubt that she was exceedingly pretty, and pretty in a most engaging way. Captain Darrington had quite decided this in his own mind some little time previously. And the opportunity was too good to be lost ; he paused by the schoolroom door. She looked up and their eyes met. His were full of barely veiled admiration. Hers were the eyes of an in nocent, mirth-loving, affectionately-dispositioned child.

She smiled. Her Aunt Edith had been at Wimpton nearly a year, and this was Captain Darrington's second visit there. Sibyl had seldom spoken to him beyond saying good night or good morning, and she was j ust a little disposed to dislike him, because he was a friend of Aunt Edith's. <*- A FRENCH EXERCISE. 13 But, on the other hand, if he had not been Aunt Edith's friend she would have been disposed to like him ; and Aunt Jane, whom she adored, had often told her that she must not permit herself to think unkind thoughts, and be unreasonable about Aunt Edith. So Sibyl smiled. She was bored to death with her lessons, and had been longing to get away from them out into the lovely, enticing sunshine. If she had had her own way she would not have wasted a single moment cooped up within four walls on such a glorious day as this, from the time she got up in the morning until she went to bed at night.

The birds had been singing their hearts out for very joy of their existence ; and poor Sibyl's head ached with envy over their rejoicings. She could have been as happy as they were if only she could have joined them under the shade cf the beech trees or that delicious blue sky. And it had been very uphill work to give her mind to a dull French exercise which presented difficulties of a most surprising and unexpected nature. Captain Darrington's eyes seemed sympathetic. Per haps he was well up in French. Anyway he would be stupid indeed if he did not know more about it than she did herself on that particular morning. She had simply not one single idea in her head. " May I come in ? " said the owner of those sympa thetic eyes, in a persuasive tone of voice. " Or are the studies too deep to be disturbed?"

" Yes ; please come in," replied Sibyl, almost eagerly. " If you do not mind. The study is only a tiresome, stupid, French exercise, which anyone could do correctly in ten minutes if only it was not such a distractingly fine e. ONLY A FLIRT. 14 day. Oh, dear, I do hate French, don't you ? I hate all languages excepting Russian and Greek, because I am hopelessly stupid about them. It is so tiresome of me, but I really cannot help it." Captain Darrington seated himself on the edge of the table, and looked down at her with an amused smile. "I have always understood that Russian is an ex tremely perplexing language to learn," he returned. 'How is it you chose it as one of your exceptions ? " " Because I do not learn it," replied Sibyl. " I learn French and German, and Italian and Latin, but I am spared Russian and Greek."

He laughed. " Well, I am fairly good at French and German," he replied, " and I remember a fair amount of Latin; but I was always bad at Greek, and I do not know a word of Italian." "I learn it because I am supposed to be going to sing," explained Sibyl. " But it really is a waste of time, because at the best I shall never do anything but make the most appalling squeak." He laughed again. " Then you do not like music any better than you like languages ? " he said. " Would it oe inquisitive if I enquired what you do like ? " " Very," replied Sibyl, who found him an easy person to talk to, and by this time felt quite at home in his society. " All the same, I do not mind gratifying your curiosity. I like this," pointing out of the windows, " the sunshine, and the birds, and the trees, and the flowers, and the rivers, and the mountains.

I simply love them all. And that is why I especially hate French or anything that keeps me away from them." His eyes were fixed upon her. She pleased his fancy A FRENCH EXERCISE. 15 immensely. She was more than pretty when she was animated and talking ; and she was bright and natural, and inclined to be friendly. There was admiration in that glance of his. But it was admiration of these things, and not of the depth of soul which shone out of those frank blue eyes of hers, or of the grand, simple nature of this girl who was as yet a child. A child, but a child hovering on the brink where childhood ends and woman hood begins. "That is very natural," he said. "Cannot you leave your lessons and come out into the garden ? Could not we go out together ? It is a shame you should have to do any lessons on such a day as this."

Sibyl was ungrateful enough to be up in arms at once. " Oh, no, it is not a shame at all," she said. " Not really. Of course, I must do lessons. Aunt Jane is quite right to make me do them. I should have a regular governess if it were not for her." " You are too old to have a governess, are you not ? " suggested Captain Darrington, who knew that most girls of her age would like it to be supposed they were grown up. "Oh, no, not a bit," replied Sibyl. " I am not even quite sixteen yet. But I did so hate my last governess, and Aunt Edith sent away Miss Masters, who was a dear. And so Aunt Jane came to the rescue, as she always does ; and she teaches me now entirely." " And you are duly grateful," returned Captain Dar rington. " Only you hate music and languages." " Oh, I do not hate music," said Sibyl, quickly.

" I love it ; I only hate my own voice. It sets one's teeth completely on edge, and is enough to drive one mad." " I heard you singing the other day, and it did not set my teeth upon edge in the least," returned Captain Darrington. " In fact, to tell you the truth, I stopped under the window for some time to listen, and I found it very nice." She slowly raised her eyes and looked up at him. " Did you, really ? " she said, after a short pause. " I wonder what I was singing. Was it scales? It could not have been scales. And exercises I murder most terribly." " I think they were exercises," he replied, gravely. "In fact, I am sure they were. But you sing songs sometimes, do you not ? " " Yes," replied Sibyl. " I have a lot of them. Mr. Campertown, in Muddleton, teaches me music and singing, and he gives me a new song nearly every week."