Leona

Chapter I

" LITTLE MAY." Young Lady Florance leant back in her chair — it was a rocking-chair — and the slight impetus made it move gently. "Well?" said her companion, her sister, Geraldine Caryll, who was standing beside her, with a letter in her hand. Lady Florance's chair oscillated again gently, but though she looked very serious and thoughtful, her large grey eyes gazing before her, she did not speak, and the rocking went on, though very slowlj'. " Cis," said Miss Caryll, " Cecilia, dear, I wish— — " and then she stopped. There was a slight touch of irritation in her voice, which she herself was aware of; and Geraldine did not approve of yielding to irritation. "Well, dear?" said Lady Florance in her turn, looking up at her sister now. " What do you wish ?" "Oh, it is ridiculous!" said Miss Caryll, smiling a little, in spite of the slight shade of anxiety in her LEONA face ; " I was only going to say — I wish you were not quite so fond of rocking yourself.

When one is a good deal in earnest, considering over something seriously, you know — it — it is rather irritating." " I'm very sorry," Cecilia replied, gently. " I quite understand ; but I was considering, too — earnestly, I assure you. Don't think I wasn't giving my attention. I'm sorry for Aunt Hilda — but — let me see the letter again." Lady Florance, young as she was, younger though she looked, had been a widow for nearly four j'ears. She was now twenty-seven, and Geraldine was two years her junior. Cecilia's married life had lasted but three years, but its memories were a part of herself. She was not the sort of woman who would ever marry again, and cheerful and self-forgetful as she was in society, this fact seemed to be divined instinctively by all who knew her. She read the letter for the second time.

" Yes," she remarked, when she had done so, " I am sorry for Aunt Hilda. There is a good deal in what she says, and it is true that she has difficulties to contend with. Everybody has, for that matter, but I suppose it's clearly our duty to help each other when we can, especially when ' each other' means relations— the most difficult to help, very often. But " " I thought you would see it that way," said Miss Caryll, with a certain eager satisfaction in her voice. " I wanted you to see it that way— to be sure that a thing is right is a comfort. Then you feel you can't get out of it, and you begin trying to make the best of it. Of course " then she, too, stopped. " Now, what does your ' of course ' mean ?" asked her sister, with a smile. " I believe it means the same as my ' but.' " "Go on about your 'but,' and I will tell you," said Geraldine.

" It was only that, after all, it is a little — just a little — hard on us. Our last summer together, and — we wanted to be rather quiet, and we have so many other things to think of. It will be hard on you, Geraldine, I'm afraid." "Yes," Miss Caryll replied, simply. "It will be rather. My ' of course ' went a little further still, Cecilia ; I was going to say, of course, the natural filace for her to go to is the Stuarts. So much going on, a companion of her own age, and quite as near relations as we are. But you might just as well expect the skies to fall as for such an idea to occur to them." " They have not been asked, we must remember," said Lady Florance, quietly. "They should not have needed asking," replied Geraldine, quickly ; " they should have thought of it themselves." Cecilia smiled.

There was nothing contemptuous in her smile, still it expressed a good deal. "That," she said, "was certainly not to be ex pected. When people habitually think of themselves and their own likes and dislikes, if not only, at least first, how can you imagine they would suddenly burst out into an act of distinct, unsuggested unselfishness ? B LEONA But, after all, I scarcely think May would have been happy there, and very probably it would have done her more harm than good in many ways." " I think I can almost promise to make her happy here— for a short time. Poor Aunt Hilda only speaks of a fortnight— does she not ?" asked Miss Caryll. She took up the letter, and glanced through it again. " Yes," she said, meditatively; " it is a very modest request : ' If you could invite poor little May for a fortnight, or even less, without allowing her or your uncle to suspect that I suggested it, I cannot tell you how grateful I should feel.

It would be an advantage to her for the rest of her life to have paid such a visit and seen something of the world outside our own little circle, and, from what I have said, you will be able to enter into all I feel about it.' No, Cecilia," Miss Caryll went on, after she had read this aloud, " we cannot refuse, especially after poor Aunt Hilda's taking us into her confidence as she does about her home worries." " What a tease old uncle Charlton must be," said Lady Florance, " and all those boys." " I am sure mother would have wished us to do it," Geraldine went on, without noticing her sister's observation, " and father, of course, won't mind. It need not give him any trouble. Poor little May ! I daresay we can get Jock to be kind to her : you may be able to have her here sometimes when I am gone, Cissy ?

If she is as nice as I expect — and she was a dear little girl, you know — she might be a pleasant companion for you. The worst of our home being out of England will be that many little kindnesses that Fergus and I would love to do will not be in our power." Geraldine's eyes looked quite regretful. She was impressionable, and apt to work herself up into enthusiasm on rather small provocation sometimes. Cecilia glanced at her with a smile of affection and pride, but of some deprecation, too. " No, dear," she said. " I don't think you and Fergus should think of anyone but each other for a while. After all these years of waiting ; and when the waiting has been from your too great unselfishness " " Don't say that : it was simply right," said Miss Caryll, quickly " Well, at least, when it is over, do be selfish for a little.

I don't want any companion when you are gone. I shall be quite content with my father and Jock for half the year and Ellinor the other half, and I shall comfortably miss you for both halves. But I would a hundred times rather, if need were, have May Charlton with me than have you and Fergus burdened with that sort of thing. Only, with me she would have very little amusement." " She will not have too much as it is," Geraldine remarked. " I must tell them that plainly. You see, I wTent to no dances last year, and I had not thought of going to any this year." " You might get her chaperoned to a few ; and, after all, it would do you no harm to go to one or two LEONA. yourself. You are always sure of Jock, and my father might be persuaded to put in an appearance once in a way. Then there are plenty of other things— day things— that you would have no difficulty about, even if you couldn't always get Jock."

" Ye — es," Miss Caryll agreed, though with a sigh ; " I daresay it will be right enough, but how it will separate us, you and me, Cecilia ! And one thing," she went on, " I am determined about : May, and we for May, shall be indebted for nothing to the Stuarts. Just to think how good-natured Aunt Hilda was last year, having the two little boys down at Briary Dene for ever so long after the whooping-cough or whatever it was." " I remember," said her sister ; " but that was all." Then there fell a silence. Lady Florance's face looked as if her thoughts were far away, as, indeed, they were, though her eyes were conscious, nevertheless, of the pleasant prospect before them — the park, with the freshness of its early green and the tender vividness of its first spring flowers ; while inside, the room in Avhich the sisters were sitting was pleasant, even pretty and graceful, though not elaborate.

It was one endeared to them by many associations. It had been their schoolroom — a bright and cheerier one than falls to the share of most London children ; it was now Geraldine's "own room," though always open to Cecilia. It was neither smart nor æsthetic ; innocent of " draperies " Eastern and mediæval, of " over mantels " or corner brackets marvellous to behold. Yet it had its treasures, too : a few pieces of delightful old china in normal positions ; books well cared for, though looking as if they were read ; some healthy ferns and some fresh-cut flowers ; last, but not least, a tiny terrier asleep before the fire, for it was still early enough in the year for the mornings to be chilly ; and pervading all a pleasant sense of space, and air, and perfect cleanness. You could come in and out with out knocking over a set of rickety Japanese tea-tables, or brushing against a dusty clump of giant grasses, without catching your foot in half-a-dozen loose mats, or feeling bewildered by the unexpected appearance of a purposeless screen in front of you.

" We are old-fashioned people, you see," Miss Caryll used to say sometimes when her friends and con temporaries were expatiating on some new kind of decoration or " art" arrangement. And she would say it with a little air, quite peculiar to herself, of good-humoured superiority to " fads " and " crazes," on which, to tell the truth, she prided herself some what groundlessly ; for she had her own manias and hobbies in plenty, though they did not happen to run in the groove of modern revivals of taste in upholstery. The rest of the house — a large and really old fashioned one, which had been the Caryll town residence, indeed, their principal home, for they were a cadet branch of their family, and had only a pretty but unimportant little country place for three generations, at least — was somewhat of a piece with the ci-devant schoolroom.

The hall, and staircase, and passages were spacious, imparting at once a LEONA. sense of dignity to the whole ; the dining-room and so-called library were somewhat grim, the large drawing-rooms essentially " reception " rooms ; the smaller one, ladylike and beautifully innocent of dust or stuffiness, though without much to mark it. But the general stateliness, the lofty ceilings, the thick though faded carpets, the whole quiet tone of the house made it a not unbecoming background to the men and women who lived in it, to the guests who passed across it, though to many of the latter there was a feeling of something more or less awe-inspiring about the Carylls' house which was a little, just a trifle, depressing. This consciousness was, I think, the first and most distinct impression of May Charlton — " Little May " — when, two or three weeks later than the spring morning on which her mother's letter reached its destination, she found herself following her cousin Geraldine, who had met her at the station, up the wide, shallow-stepped staircase to the drawing-room where tea and another cousin were, she was told, awaiting her.

Geraldine had been as kind as possible, " very kind," as the child wrote to her mother that same evening. Still, she felt shy and frightened, and the noiselessness of her footsteps somehow seemed to make it more alarming. It was all so different from "home," where, though the stairs were even wider and shallower-stepped than here, they were of ancient well-worn oak, with nothing but the thinnest of old crimson felt to subdue the boys' clatter as they came rattling down ; and the antique, time-blackened mirrors — in which, if you saw your eyes, you missed your nose or caught but a corner of your mouth, or, if you did see your whole face, it was more like that of some uncanny gnome than of an ordinary human being — were as much like these great plate-glass panels losing themselves in the heights above us as — as — May felt at a loss for a comparison.

She turned away from her own reflection in the special mirror she was just then passing, with a little shiver. How very insignificant she looked; her neat tweed travelling dress seemed to have shrunk or "run up" in some extraordinary way ; she had had no idea it was so short in front, and her boots did seem so square-toed ! There was her cousin Geraldine in front — how majestically she moved ! — showing her the way : yet May was not really much shorter than Geraldine. There was the other and still more awful cousin behind the door on the landing which Geraldine was just about to open. I wish I hadn't come!" thought poor May. She felt infinitely more afraid of Cecilia Florance than of Geraldine, and Geraldine was bad enough ; but it seemed so strange and terrible, though with a fascination about the idea, too, to think of Cecilia a ividoiv at twenty-three, and so beautiful, as everyone said she was.

" I wonder if she ever smiles ? " thought May. " What will she think of me if I forget and begin to laugh right out before her some day ? Though I am sure just now I don't feel as if I should ever want to laugh again as long as I live ! " LEONA The door was opened. Geraldine glanced round at May, almost unconsciously lagging behind. Then the sound of Geraldine's voice, clear and eager, but with a tone in it that May had not yet heard. "Darling," she said, "has it seemed very long? The train was late, of course ; but here she is, safe and sound, and not at all tired, she says. May, dear, here is your cousin Cecilia, my Cis." And before May had time to realise that she was in the awful presence, she felt herself kissed — warmly yet simply. Then two gentle hands put her back a little. " Let me look at you, dear," said Lady Florance.

" Whom is she like ? Your mother — yes, a little, just a little ; and she has a look of that old picture of our mother, Gerry — the one in the impossible white frock, you know. That is nice ! Now come along to tea — it's been waiting ever so long — the tray, I mean, and all the things, though, of course, I only made the tea when I heard the carriage stopping at the door." May was too astonished to speak. This bright, sweet, apparently light-hearted girl — for such she looked — to be the cousin she had so dreaded, the heroine of the tragic story which had so impressed her youthful imagination ! " Could she not have cared much for her husband after all ? " thought May, regarding Cecilia with puzzled eyes. " She is all in black still, and has a sort of a cap. I suppose if she hadn't minded his death much, she would have been in colours by this time."

Lady Florance saw the perplexity in the girl's face and manner. She put it down partly to shyness— partly, for her instincts were very acute, to something very nearly approaching the real cause. She turned to Geraldine in order to give May time to collect herself. "Jock has just looked in to say he will be at home this evening," she said, " so you will have made acquaintance with all of us — my father, too, by dinner-time, you see, May." " I remember Uncle Harcourt a very little," said May. " He came to Briaiy Dene once for a few days — something about elections, wasn't it ? — when I was a little girl ; but I don't remember Jo , my cousin John." " Call him Jock, dear. He would not know him self by any other name," said Cecilia. " So you have never seen him ? " " I don't remember him, any way," said May.

" Is he going to be in Parliament, too, like Uncle Har court ? " she added, simply. Both sisters laughed a little. " There's no saying what wonders the future may do," Geraldine replied. " At present, the idea of Jock in Parliament is rather comical. He is such a babv." " Doesn't he do anything ? He left school long ago, didn't he ? " asked May. " He is supposed to be reading law," said Cecilia ; "but, tojudgebyhim.it doesn't seem very hard work. However, we won't quarrel with him for not being too busy just at present, for he must do all he can to help Geraldine to amuse you." LEONA. 12 May's eyes brightened prettily. The cup of tea had set her at ease. " I don't think I should need any amusement but just being here," she said, half-shyly. "It is so nice— it's such a change; and just the feeling, you know, of being in London is so different It was so good of you to ask me.

I'll never forget the morning mamma held up your letter after she had read it, and made me guess what would be the very nicest surprise I could think of." "And did you guess right?" asked Geraldine well pleased. " Not quite. I said an ' invitation to go for a visit somewhere ' ; but I never really thought it could be to come here." Then she gave a little sigh of satisfaction, and ventured to say " Yes " to a second cup of tea when it was pressed upon her. Without seeming to do so, the sisters were observing her with critical, though not unkindly, eyes. Pretty she was : as to that there could not be two opinions. Her hair was brown, of a fair, though not an uncommon, shade : her features were good, and so was the contour of her face ; yet the charm lay greatly in the youth and rosy glow about her.

Her eyes, indefinite enough in colour, were rendered really beautiful by the shade of the long lashes, darker than her hair, which gave them depth when she raised them, as she had an innocent trick of doing, with a half-deprecating expression of appeal or questioning. " She is very sweet," thought Cecilia. Then Geraldine took the initiative again. " Shall I show you your room, May ? " she said, and as May rose at once, " you will have to get used to London stairs," she went on, " though, for London, this house is not very high ; there is more on a floor than in the more modern houses." It was pretty high, however, in comparison with the long straggling low house at home ; but all came right to the little country cousin. Her room was delightful ; even the rather heavy mahogany furniture and faded chintz curtains pleased her.

It was all so " different," she repeated, and this evidently was one great source of the charm. " Dunn, my maid, will look after you," said Miss Caryll. " She is by no means overworked, and I knew it would not be convenient for you to bring a maid." " No ; it would have been almost impossible," May replied. " Our old Rebecca is mamma's and Una's maid as well as mine, and she looks after the little boys, too, in a way, for their nurse is quite young." a " You have not brought much luggage, I see," her cousin went on, consideringly. May reddened a little. " Mamma thought," she said, hesitatingly — " perhaps she wrote about it to yrou ? — that, as I would need one or two new dresses, it might be better, if you didn't mind the trouble, for me to get them here." " Yes, I think she did say so. It will be better.

LEONA. We must have a consultation about it," Geraldine replied, encouragingly. " What have you brought ? " May went into some details, ending with an allusion to the dress she had on. " This," she said, complacently, " is quite new, tailor-made. Only I think it is perhaps a little too short in front." Geraldine did not reply, but a moment or two after, with another little kiss of welcome, she left May to herself and her boxes, though with stringent in structions to ring for Dunn. Then she went thought fully downstairs, eager for a few minutes alone with her sister.

Chapter II. First Impressions

Geraldine did not speak for a moment or two after entering the drawing-room, for her sister was reading a letter which had just come ; so Miss Caryll stood by the fire gazing into it in silence, and thinking about May, and, to confess the truth, her clothes. Suddenly Lady Florance looked up : she had replaced the sheet of paper in its envelope. There was a slight contrac tion about her eyebrows as if what she had been reading was not entirely satisfactory. "I beg }Tour pardon, dear," she said. "Are you waiting to speak to me ?" " I want to hear your opinion of May," Miss Caryll replied. " Are you not pleased with her ?" " Yes, indeed, I am. She is very pretty and very sweet — a thoroughly nice little creature, though " " What ? " asked Geraldine, quickly. Her sister's tone had been most hearty and cordial, but it did not satisfy her.

" I was only going to say I should hardly think there was very much in her. I don't suppose she has half the natural ability or strength of character of — Leona." " I knew you were going to say that," said Geral dine, with some annoyance. " I don't agree with you not about the strength of character certainly. That LEONA. may exist quite separately from intellectual poAvers ; and, allowing that Leona is clever and original, the more shame to her that she makes so poor a use of her talents. I am sure little May is a hundred times more unselfish and conscientious." " She is certainly, as far as one can judge by first appearances, perfectly unspoilt," said Cecilia; "but comparisons are odious : it was very silly of me to make one. You know that Leo Stuart is always rather a sore point with me," and she sighed a little.

" She does not deserve you to give yourself any trouble about her," said Geraldine. " I think you are a little hard upon her," said Lady Florance, gently. " However, she is not the question, but May. I do hope we shall be able to make her happy. Jock is sure to be eager to do his part when he sees her." " He will probably fall in love with her," remarked Geraldine ; but her tone was tranquil. " Very likely," Cecilia agreed, though without dis turbance on her side either ; " but that need not trouble us. May has too many big-boy brothers of her own to look upon Jock as anything special. I should be more " But just here Geraldine was guilty of the rudeness of interrupting her sister. " Cecilia," she said, in a voice of almost tragic con cern, " she's very badly dressed ! " Lady Florance looked grave, too.

"Do you think all her clothes are cut like that little tweed ? " she said, anxiously. " I hoped perhaps it was an old dress that they thought would do for travelling. Some people, you know, cannot see that they need look decent on a railway journey." " On the contrary, it is — as far as day dresses go — her piece de resistance, I greatly fear," said Miss Caryll. " She is to get one or two new evening dresses, she says." " And she must get one or two morning ones, too," said Cecilia, decidedly. " Let me take that part of the business upon myseh. We do not want to trouble my father." " You are very good," said Geraldine, whose rather reckless generosity seldom left her private finances in a very flourishing condition, " for I consider her my property, you see. It is my doing that she is here ; and I would do anything rather than have the Stuarts making fun of her as dowdy and countrified."

" Countrified they are pretty sure to call her, and, in a sense, you should not mind it. She is a country girl. There is no need, however, for their calling her ' dowdy.' We can take care of that ; but, Geraldine, I wanted to tell you something — not about May. I have just had a letter from Christopher — since you went upstairs with her. Fancy, he is coming back immediately." Geraldine's face expressed unqualified surprise. " Sir Christopher !" she exclaimed. " Why, in that letter of Fergus's quite lately — the letter describing their unexpected meeting — he spoke of your brother in-law as having no intention of coming home for ever so long ; for, of course, his coming now means his leaving his regiment, doesn't it ?" c LEONA " Of course. He says his visit to Cairo last winter unsettled him, and that he wants to be back for good now.

He is leaving the army altogether. Perhaps it is right; he has things to look after at home, of course, but, on the whole, it seems to me rather a pity." "But, personally, you will like to see him — to see more of him, won't you ?" asked Miss Caryll, some what perplexed by her sister's tone. " I really was not thinking of myself personally," said Cecilia, " but of what is best for him. Of course, my interest in him will always be very strong ; and he has no sister of his very own. I will try to be one to him ; but — it brings it back, you see, Gerry. Will you believe that after all these years my first thought was ' Oh, what a pity ! Miles will be so sorry for him to give up his profession,' " and Cecilia's eyes filled with rare tears. Geraldine stroked her hand, but without speaking. Then she said softly — " Perhaps Miles would have thought it right and necessary if he had foreseen things.

Sir Christopher's position is different now." " That is what I was saying to myself," Lady Florance rephed, more cheerfully. " There are a good many responsibilities connected with the property, though it is not a very large one." " Possibly he is thinking of going into Parliament," suggested Geraldine, but Cecilia shook her head. " I scarcely think so, but, really, I know him so little : I only know how devoted Miles was to him. He may be thinking of marrying. By the bye, Gerry, I wish it hadn't happened just now. Chris will have to be a little of a tame cat about us for a while, and it is a sort of responsibility to have a girl like May with us in such circumstances." Geraldine's eyes sparkled. "Come now, Cecilia," she said, "you are rather absurd. May must take her chance, and I feel sure she has common sense ; and Sir Christopher is in no way objectionable."

Lady Florance could not help laughing. " No, indeed," she said, " very much the reverse. That is just the point." " How do you mean ?" " I mean that he is, coarsely speaking, a good parti, and probably attractive in himself. I don't suppose May would think of, or understand, what the first meant, but she might be " Lady Florance hesitated : " she's so young and inexperienced, and one feels anxious about a girl like that." " My dearest Cis, I think you are really fabricating troubles," said Geraldine. " We cannot keep May shut up in a bandbox. She must run the gauntlet like other people ; and, even supposing — if such a thing did come to pass, where would be the objection to it?" " I don't quite know," Cecilia replied. " I have a sort of instinct that it would not be desirable. I don't think May would be enough for Christopher — and — I should not like the Florance connection to think I had pounced upon him for a relation of my own."

C LEONA 20 " You should be above such ideas," said Geraldine, rather severely. " I know I should be," Cecilia agreed. " And," Miss Caryll proceeded, " having spoken to May for two minutes, and scarcely having seen your brother-in-law for five years, how can you judge as to their suitability or non-suitability for each other ? " " I cannot," Lady Florance again meekly allowed. " Then really " but just at that moment the door opening to admit their cousin, Geraldine had to stop short. A seed had been sown, however, and in fruitful soil. Miss Caryll was much addicted to pet ideas, in which, once she had adopted them, she could see no flaw, and with the carrying out of which she would brook no interference. The hour or two before it was time to dress for dinner passed pleasantly for May. Both her cousins exerted themselves to make her feel at home, and she quickly responded to their touch.