A Sweet Disorder

Front matter

BY NORMA LORIMER. LONDON: A. D. INNES & CO., BEDFORD STREET. 1896. '' A woman God did make me." Ben Jossos CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. The Collisters ... ... ... l II. An Old Maid's Paradise ... 33 III. "The End of an Auld Sang" ... 53 IV. In London, where all Eoads meet 76 V. Blind-man's Buff ... ... ... 100 VI. Lux in Tenebris ... ... 129 VII. Head over Heels ... ... ... 154 VIII. A Peri at the Gate ... ... 174 IX. The Way to Arcady ... ... 186 X. Propinquity ... ... ... 211 XI. Journeys end in Lovers' Meetings ... 224 XII. In the Day of Battle ... ... 248 XIII. " There is a Tide in the Affairs of Men " 280 XIV. Tried in the Fire ... ... 310 XV. " A Woman God did make me " ... A SWEET DISOBDEK.

Chapter I. The Collisters

The squire, half Manx, half Irish by birth, and a pleasant prodigal by nature, had lived " not wisely but too well." With youth and money exhausted, he took to himself a girl wife (as such men think wise to do) and her fortune ! She died after the birth of her second child. Perhaps it was her trustful nature which had made her short married life a happy one. She had been the indulged child of extravagant parents, and as a wife she was the petted play thing of an extravagant husband. The value, of money was an unknown quantity to her B and to her husband her chief attraction lay in that very ignorance. Beautiful, and ac customed to admiration, as is beauty's due, why should she care to hide her light under a bushel in the big house in the little Manx fishing village of Colby ? So they spent the years in wandering, now to London in the season, now to Homburg or the Riviera, or other places in the train of pleasure-loving people.

No doubt she was too extravagant and loved luxury, but she was honourable and high principled. It was her ignorance, not her fault, that they were living far beyond their income. Death saved her much. She had a sweet belief in her husband's honour, and his fitness to look after her two children. She knew nothing of the life that was in store for them, nor did sbe know that there were but few crumbs left of her wasted fortune. Blanche was just nineteen ; she had in herited few of her parents' characteristics. As the Martha of the household, she was careful over little things. A gentle, affec tionate woman, with a high standard of right and wrong, she had never known girlhood. When she was scarcely more than a child she had undertaken the cares of a household and the charge of a younger sister, her very antipodes in nature.

Molly was as headstrong and capricious as Blanche was conventional and even-tempered. Blanche had always been a sweet, amenable child, who had never given an hour's anxiety to any one. The squire, in his indolent, careless way, was proud of his handsome children. He had allowed them to grow up just as they pleased, grudgingly providing them with a poorly-paid governess, when Blanche's con science occasionally pricked her on the subject of education. They never stayed long, how ever. Molly made their life a weariness and a burden to the flesh, and there were few comforts in the rambling old house to compen sate for the child's headstrong disobedience. Blanche took care of the house ; but, from the time she could toddle downstairs, Molly ruled it with a rod of iron. Like most children who interest and fascinate, she was a terror to her nurses and governesses.

" Where maidens are fair many lovers will come." Blanche Collister was a beauty. Sbe had inherited her mother's graceful figure and wonderfully pure expression, but in features she resembled her father. It was one of the island's softest spring mornings, and Blanche for once was indulg ing in day-dreams. It was not often that her practical nature allowed her a lengthy visit to cloudland. Molly declared that Blanche's tickets to the land of heart's desire were " Cooks' coupons." Her castles in the air were pulled down over her head like a tent in the desert almost before she entered. This castle, or more rightly speaking, cottage of love, was rudely razed to the ground by the importunate Molly's strolling into the conservatory. " I want to talk, Bee ; but shut the door first. How delightfully warm it is in here.

It's the only place where I ever forget our progressive poverty and expand into un ambitious content. I do believe that plenty of sunshine and tropical heat could make any one feel that riches were a contemptible vulgarity." She stretched herself at full length, resting her elbows on the hot, red tiles, and began following the journeyings of the little green backed beetles that came up out of the cracks. She picked the black stem of a maiden-hair fern, and began to tickle their wings. For a few minutes her whole at tention was apparently absorbed in their antics. " Molly dear, do get up off the floor ; when will you learn to take care of your clothes ? And pin up your hair, it looks perfectly wild this morning." " That's right, dear Duchess ; bring me back to the decline and fall of the Collister family.

When we're hard up for conversation there is always our poverty. It's an unending topic. It's like a straight line ; there's no use trying, for you'll never make the two ends meet. I was having beetle races, but they're such beggars to start — however, now that you've disturbed me, I'll tell you what I came for. Father had letters last night that worried him. I got it all out of him this morning ; he's got into the way of coining to me with his worries. He's afraid of bringing care-lines to your pretty face, I suppose ; and dad's too unselfish to keep a trouble all to himself. Well, he's sold the last of his life insurance policies to pay off the debt on the bank ! " " I thought that must happen soon, Molly. We've been living on the edge of a precipice for some time past. It's all right so long as we don't move and excite father's creditors ; but the road is blocked behind us.

I don't know what we are to do." "Well, stand still, and trust to the development of wings to help you over. Of course," Molly continued, " your future is all right in a way — ' your face is your fortune, my pretty maid.' But look at me ; Providence ought to be more considerate, when He's so exacting over our conduct. Yours will never trouble your sponsors, dear. You were cut out for a cabbage ex istence after your local love affairs have shaken themselves down into British matrimony. I'm built of different material, and more difficult to deal with. At present I look like a cheap chicken, made in Germany — all legs and arms, and no breast. What does father think will become of me, I wonder ? " " Well, Molly, aren't you sorry now that you didn't try to learn more from your governesses. They weren't all stupid ; it was you who were impossible to teach."

" Well, I suppose I was. You were always awfully good, anyhow, learnt every thing that was set before you, and never asked any questions. I know I had just the same chances, and here I am, as ignorant as a kipper, if you'll excuse the expression. And the bother of it is that I've just got enough brains to know when other people have none, and to be horribly bored by fools. Now it is queer that you don't bore me a bit, Bee. Don't you think it is rather strange that sisters and brothers don't get terribly sick of one another ? Providence fixes it up, I suppose, and one accepts it blindfold, like the Fifth Com mandment. If Moses had lived in these revolting times he'd have brought out a new edition of his works, and made several alterations for the proper bringing up of parents. We live an absolutely aimless ex istence here, Blanche, and yet each day is a hateful struggle to provide for the next.

If father hadn't enough money to bring us up in the state of life into which • it hath pleased God to call us,' why didn't he apprentice us to some trade, and make honest working women of us ? " " Oh, Molly, there's plenty of work to do at home, if you'd only look for it. You spend the best part of the day in empty moralizing." " There you're wrong, Bee. To do justice to my future development, the best part of my day is spent in eating. I never try to do two things at once, and eating is an accomplishment. I look upon it as an investment for building up a constitu tion." " Well, I think you might try and help a little more. You leave everything in the house for me to do." Molly sprang off the floor, and rushed after her sister with the watering-can. " There, dear Duchess ; don't scold. I can't pretend to be busy over nothing, as you do.

I'm often in love myself with the pretty air of duty you assume when you envelop yourself in that blue pinafore, bought to match your eyes. Yes, Blanche, you are careful over little things ; but how you can spend at least two hours every day over stunted geraniums, barren rose trees, and fuchsias that look as if they'd got rheumatism, I don't know. The wild fuchsia hedge down the glen is glorious, and yet you don't look at it once a week. No, dear Duchess, when a thing's worth doing, I mean to do it well, even to picking up my dress, though that depends on the ankle. But as I don't look the least pretty watering the flowers, and Harry wouldn't think the can too heavy for me if he did come along, I prefer watching you. You know it's just the same if the drawing room isn't dusted. No one ever calls, and we can't afford two fires.

Besides, dear, you're father's ' dutiful daughter,' and I wouldn't for the world spoil your rule; there isn't material for both." It was the very characteristics that Molly did not possess that she admired and envied the most in Blanche, though her responsive temperament was often strained to concert pitch by her sister's equable nature ; and, if the well-bred, gentle Blanche had only known it, they were Molly's greatest faults, above all else to her, that made her dear. How dull the old place would have been but for the unexpected turns Molly's mind found in the straight path of life, which so well contented her sister ! Blanche often wondered what sort of a woman Molly would be ; but they were generally such simple wonderings — would Molly be at all pretty when she was grown up ? Would she ever become more gentle and less moody ?

Blanche had always before her such a clear-cut pattern of the right and wrong of life, it had never for one moment dawned upon her that for others the pattern might be too complicated to put together. There was nothing complex in life to the one sister, whilst the other, a mere child, was often in a state of nervous ex citement, the outcome of a lonely hour spent by the seashore. There life's questions would swarm in on her soul like the waves at high tide, lapping over each other in their furious haste, stealing the shore from her feet inch by inch. " Bee, dear, what I really wanted to talk about was the question of matrimony. We've often discussed our different views on the subject, and they don't agree, I know." " Then what's the use of talking about it again, Molly, as neither of us is likely to be married for years to come ; and, besides, you are far too young to have any views on the subject ?

" " That's so like you, Bee, dear, to suppose that one can regulate one's mind according to one's birthdays. In my opinion I'm far too young to know anything about poverty, but Providence doesn't seem to think so. I want to try and persuade you to marry Arthur Morrison ; he's coming this after noon, and I mean to give the fellow a chance, and make myself scarce. Say, ' yes,' please, dear Duchess. I can't offer to do it for you, and I wouldn't if I could, for my views on matrimony are so different to yours. I have a fixed opinion, which I shall never alter, that a woman should never marry a man, however well off, without a penny in the world of her own. Yes, I mean to work for my living, and to work in such a way that if ever I should fall in love with a man, and he should want to marry me, that man will not be keeping me body and soul.

I should turn to hate him if he did. You have the old-fashioned views on the subject, that the woman does her share of the duties of married life by bearing children and looking after the house, so why cannot you, at least, burden yourself on a rich man in place of a poor one ? " Blanche never uttered a word, but went on quietly watering the boxes of sweet smelling musk. " You know, Bee, you don't contemplate a life of hard work, as I do, that's why I'm so lazy now. I suppose you have no objection to marrying a man and living indebted to him for house and food and clothing; but surely it would be better to be under such obligations to a rich man, who would not feel the expense, than to a poor one, whose small salary for long hours of hard work was spent in keeping you. Arthur Morrison never worked for his."

Then she rambled on, " I don't believe father has a hundred sheep now, all told, at the rate we're eating them." The squire had a mountain and a low farm, which once were well stocked with sheep. " Did it ever enter your royal highness's head that we have feasted on perpetual sheep for the last four months, and sheep mean capital ? I know that father contents himself with the reflection that sufficient for the day is the sheep thereof. But you can't go on all your life watering flowers, raking the diminishing gravel, and making yourself presentable in a turned blue serge. I've got horribly mixed as to which was the original side of mine, and the soles of my best boots have turned over a new leaf four times. If the worst comes to the worst, and I can't go to school, I can take a place as an honest housemaid, and I'll promise not to recognize you if you should come to call.

And, Blanche, you could have father to live with you ; what a jolly time he would have. He's awfully fond of Arthur, and you'd soon get accustomed to him. Eels even get accustomed to being skinned, they say." Blanche looked Molly coldly in the face, her long violet eyes as unflinching as Molly's grey ones, and said in her softest voice — "You've arranged things splendidly. Father would have a beautiful time. What am I to give my husband in return ? I don't know where you've picked up your ideas ; but marriage is, in my mind, something holy, not an exchange and mart. You dispose of me exactly as father does." " In fact, you're the dregs of his capital, and he's going to be cautious in his old age." Blanche put down the watering-can and left the conservatory. Molly sat on in a brown study, her head resting on her knee, eating her heart out with remorse.

Blanche must have been awfully hurt to speak like that, and she had meant it all for the best. She was still in the same position when, quarter of an hour later, the door opened and Harry Leyburn came in. Finding only Molly there, he gave his riding-boots a flick with his whip, and prepared to depart. Molly sprang up and screamed out, " Come back, I want to speak to you ! " She caught hold of him by the top of his waistcoat, and flashed her grey eyes in his face. " Harry, I've been a beast to Blanche, said all sorts of things to her — and she's an angel. You know what horrid things I say some times ; but you don't know what a wretch I can be. Fly after her — she's down in the glen — and be ever so nice to her. Tell her I said I was wicked and selfish. She won't tell you what it all was. Take her a ride this afternoon, and don't come back till late.

Tell her she's the loveliest and best woman in the world, and that I'm a female frog, or any other low down thing you can think of." Molly dashed out of the door, and left him pulling his moustache and trying to make his brain follow her wild tirade of words. He strolled slowly down the moss-grown gravel path into the winding glen. In the distance he caught sight of Blanche's blue pinafore ; a slender figure, with bright, copper-coloured hair, leaning against the wooden gate of a hay-field. He gave a low coo-ee, and bounded down the glen. Blanche's two arms were full of tall yellow buttercups and ox-eye daisies, and a large cow-boy hat almost hid her face. " Good morning, little one. Let me carry the flowers for you. But first hold up your head and let me see if you are fond of butter ? " Blanche tilted up her little dimpled chin, c and it shone bright gold with the reflection from the buttercups ; but Harry was not looking at her chin, he was examining the long blue eyes and the bushy black lashes, with tears on their curled tips.

He left the flowers in her arms. His were wanted for a better purpose. One was clasped round her waist, and the right hand lifted the garden hat off her head. "You're in trouble, darling; you've been crying. Tell me what it is. Can I help you ? Molly's a young beast ; its " Manlike, he had scarcely thought so a moment before, when her slim young body was panting with self-accusation in front of him, and her grey eyes were flashing their reflection into his. But his tender, proud Blanche was crying, and her cheeks were crimson with anger. He kissed her wet lashes a hundred times, and the buttercups were crushed between their breasts. Blanche made a feeble little resistance. " Please, Harry, don't ; it's not right. I'm sure you shouldn't. Everything's all wrong, and I'm so unhappy." " Why, darling, what's the matter ?

You promised a whole week ago to be my wife, and surely I may kiss my own sweetheart. Things are bound to come right in the end, if only you'll stick to me, dear. Besides, aunt can't be such an old fool as to marry ; something is bound to happen, and you promised to wait three years. I'm making a hundred a year of my own, and she can't live long." Blanche pushed the buttercups into his face. " Oh, Harry, dear, don't talk like that. I hate to hear you. It's so wicked. You don't really want Aunt Caroline to die. I feel so sorry for her. Do you know, Harry, when I think of how much I love you " Blanche was speaking with her head buried in the buttercups. They were standing close together, and Harry was all attention. Fancy Blanche saying of her own free will that she loved him! How often he had bargained with her to say, " I love you," three times looking into his eyes, but she had always failed at the last, and let her head droop, covered with blushes !

" I feel so sorry for Aunt Caroline, and I'd give up all prospect of the money without a sigh if I thought she would be happy. Don't laugh, Harry : it's the first time she's been in love ; and when I think how happy it makes me, I don't want her to give him up." " But that's just it, Bee, darling, she won't be happy ; he's a thorough-going villain. He's her doctor, and knows as well as I do that she's got heart disease and no end of mysterious complaints. She's an old woman for her years. I tell you what, Bee, once he has married her, and got her to alter her will in his favour, he'll give her a succession of shocks that will kill her in a week's time. I'm not grasping, Bee; but after a woman's brought a fellow up as her heir, and grudged him leaving her alone to make his own way in the world, it's jolly rough to see a villain like that step in at the eleventh hour and get the whole thing.

What fools women are, Bee ! " " Thank you, sir. I've often heard Molly call me one, and it's generally on your ac count ; but it's scarcely your part to say so." " Darling, you know what I mean ; you're a woman apart from all others. I don't include you in the common petticoat herd. But there's Aunt Caroline, fifty-eight years old, a shrunken, invalided woman, ready to believe this rogue, who has outlived three heart-broken wives, when he says that she is his first love. It's really funny, if it wasn't so pathetic." " Harry, dear, I know ; and I do think it's so sad. But she's never been young. Her girlhood was spent, first nursing a tyrannical father, and then her peevish mother. I don't believe man, woman, or child ever told her before that they loved her; and loving is good for women, dear.

Only a woman can understand. A man would be perfectly content to die unloved if he'd never met his ideal" — Blanche still believed in ideals — " but a woman is different. Her natural instinct is to long for the love of one being who is entirely her own. She may never meet him ; but she never gives up hope, and her life is incomplete and unsatisfied until she does. And, Harry, isn't it rather waiting for your dead aunt's shoes ? It seems to me so heartless, thinking of what you'll have when she is gone. I know you're the only near relation she's got in the world, and you can't help thinking " " All right, Bee ; if it hurts you to hear me speak, I'll only think. I'll be like the historical parrot. Heaven knows I don't grudge the old lady her last few years, if there was the least chance of their beine happy ones."

Blanche rubbed her face on his sleeve. "Don't be vexed, Harry. I'll go and see her this afternoon. She's always been kind and gentle to me ; and I believe a woman who has the strength of mind to withstand the persuasions of all her friends, and accept this man in the determined way she has done, has too much character to let him do what he likes with her money. Poor Aunt Caroline, who always agreed with everybody ! " " No, my Honey Bee, that's not so. Aunt Caroline has no strength of character, and she's frightened at the man. He has a wonderful mesmeric influence over her. His last wife, poor thing, though he treated her shamefully, was so under his magnetic power, and was so in love with his animal beauty to the day she died, that she'd rather have borne his abuses, and belonged soul and body to him, than have married any other man.

It's just the same with Aunt Caroline. It's like a dove and a snake. She's as madly in love as any blushing schoolgirl. Besides, she's gone too far now to go back." " Oh, Harry, you said just now that she surely couldn't be such a fool as to get married at her age ; and now you say she's gone too far to go back. Has she told you anything more ? " " Yes, darling. That's what I came to tell you; but I found you crying, and I couldn't be so brutal. She is to be married on Friday week, and she wants me to give her away. It's pretty rough to ask a chap to give away his only relation in the world and his last chance of an income, isn't it ? You see, I've been all these years farming her land for her, and now I'm thrown on my beam-ends. It's awfully selfish of me to ask you to wait for me, Bee; but I'm not man enough to give you up, and, little one, I love you so dearly.

No one could ever learn to know you as I do. I've loved you ever since the days I tied up your shoe and did your sums for you at school. I was in love with you then, wasn't I ? But I don't want you to feel bound to me, dear heart. If ever you see any one you love, or could love, were your honour not in the question, consider yourself absolutely free. It's only an en gagement on one side. I'm bound to you, Bee, but you're not bound to me." Blanche heard her father's voice, and trembled. " I must go, Harry." " And I must be off too. Say, ' God bless you, Harry ; I love you.' And give me one kiss of your own free will. Do you know, I've been engaged to you seven whole days, and you've never kissed me once ! " " You take so many I never get a chance. Besides, you've just told me I'm not engaged to you, it's you who are engaged to me.

It's only engaged people that kiss, you know." Harry gave a downward whistle. " I say, Bee, that's a pretty good one, even for you." The kiss was given in a way that proved Bee to be an apt pupil. They strayed into the farmyard, and Harry mounted his horse. He stooped down and kissed the bright hair. " Good-bye, bright Honey Bee ; good-bye." Blanche hung over the yard gate, watching him walk down the narrow lane. When he had turned the corner and was out of sight, she heaved a deep sigh, and walked back into the house. On the doorstep she met her father. There was no difficulty in tracing the fountain of Blanche's beauty. The old squire linked his arm in hers, and as they passed together under the ivy-covered porch they made a perfect picture. The gold and silver heads were so exactly alike.

The squire's silver hair was as thick and wavy as Blanche's crisp gold. "Well, Golden Top,"— that was his pet name for Blanche ever since she was old enough to interest him. The squire had never taken the slightest notice of his children during the age of milk and long clothes ; but, like all good-natured men, he was fond of children when they were old enough to be teased and to afford amuse ment. Bee turned her soft rose-leaf face up to his ; the tone of his voice implied that at that moment he was in a good humour with himself and things in general. She leant her head back on his shoulder, and took his silky white beard in her little brown hands. The squire was proud of every point in his child's beauty; he took the slender, soft-skinned hand, and looked at the row of little almond nails.

"Golden Top, why don't you wear gloves ? Look here, how brown your hands are ! " He pushed the wide sleeve of her cotton frock up over the elbow, and laughed. " Well, well ; babies do grow into women before we poor fathers have got accustomed to the responsibility of a nursery." He raised the rounded arm to kiss the blue veins in the elbow in the soft white crevices of skin. " Look at the difference of colour, child ; what would you do if you had to go to a dinner party ? You will spoil the fine texture of your skin. Let Molly do the gardening, dear. She's as brown as a pheasant's egg all over ; it wouldn't show on her." Blanche let her father's hand drop. Her caressing humour had fled. It was always the same ; he checked her affection for him. His pride in her beauty had always wounded her.

Singularly pure and undefiled in her nature, the tone of his admiration and his evident pride in and care of her looks always repulsed her. She meant to take this opportunity to break her engagement with Harry to him, and now the love and tenderness she had felt a moment before for her careless parent was gone ; she felt dried up and ungracious. " Father, there's something I want to say to you." A moment ago she would have called him Daddy, and told him her secret, covered with hot blushes, and clinging to him with coaxing caresses. She knew, without asking, what his answer would be ; but she did not fear it. She meant to tell him at any cost. " I've something to say to you, too, Blanche." The squire's voice had also hardened. He put his two hands in his coat pockets, and looked Blanche straight in the face.