Archie's Sweetheart and other stories

Front matter

rai^s ratftpf, And other Stories. BY ELLEN MULLEY. fUmiion: REMINGTON AND CO., 5, ARUNDEL STREET, STRAND, W.C. 1877. Tl) MY FATHER AND MOTHER THIS VOLUME IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. CONTENTS. —<=*=— PAGE. Archie's Sweetheart ... ... ... ... i "Check" to a Ghost ; or, Jack Layford's Friend 49 Lieut. Chitty's Consignment ... ... ... 135 Three 163 Avenged ... ... ... ... ... 193 Rue — with a Difference ... ... ... 217 Down by the Sea ... ... ... ... ... 217 Waiting ... ... ... ... •■■ 220 Given Back ... ... ... ... ... ... 222 When the Day is Dune ... ... ... 223 A Legend of Olympus ... ... 224 Christmas ... 229 Christmas Eve ... ... ... ... ... 230 L'Envoi ... 231 *-*6MP- AECHIE'S SWEETHEAET. March may have come in like a lion, but its exit was scarcely being made after the fashion of a lamb, unless, indeed, it was a lamb of a more than ordinary frisky and playful dis position, which, after all, may have been the case.

On the platform of the little station at Silvermouth, that overlooks the sea, where a few stray figures — feminine chiefly — are await ing the arrival ofthe down express, the prover bial animal is frisky and playful to an extent. that is positively exasperating. Hats, feathers, and hair — to say nothing of ankles, so ex posed is the situation — make but bad weather of it ; while their fair owners, rosy cheek'd and laughing, dive and clutch wildly at the refractory garments, vainly striving ta B make one pair of hands serve where a good half-dozen would be scarcely equal to the emergency. But the train is in at last, and the hands, for the most part, have other work before them, and the March wind, for the next five minutes or so, works its own sweet will, unchecked and unheeded. One of the fair ones just mentioned has made a dash at a carriage door, and is already assisting a rather stout and decidedly fussy old lady to alight.

" Now, Aunty, you're sure this is all ?" she asks, as the stout lady, safely landed at last, stands surrounded by a confusion of packages, evidencing to the eyes of the initiated a shopping expedition to the neigh bouring town of Silverton. " Yes, my dear, I think so— that is— let me see— one, two, three," counts the old lady— attempting a bewildered inventory of her disgorged cargo—" and the two you have, six — no, five. Kate how many parcels have you got ? Katherine, I say !" But Katherine's attention, just at that moment, was elsewhere. A middle-aged, comfortable-looking woman, with her charge — a small boy in a grey knickerbocker suit — had been the old lady's travelling companions, and Kate, Samaritan like, had extended her help in their direction. And what with the apparently exhaustless stock of wraps and baskets to be disinterred from under the cushioned seats, the small hand that was not to be parted with, and the ferocious attacks of the wind on every garment the woman wore, there was a need of someone to the rescue.

Chapter I

" I'm afraid you'll have but a dull time of it, old fellow ; it isn't too late to write and say we find we can't manage it, even now ; not but that the poor old guv would be awfully cut up, and the girls too for that matter." " I wouldn't disappoint them for the world," broke in the individual addressed ; " so that's settled. As for being slow, or anything of that sort, it's never slow with plenty of girls in the house." E " 0, there's plenty of 'em, if that's all," rejoined the first speaker; and his tone, to one who did not know him as his friend did, might perhaps have sounded just a trifle un appreciative of the blessing; "but when it's a fellow's sisters, you know — " " Yes, but then, you see, my dear Jack, in my case its another fellow's sisters. So come pack up your traps ; and then hurrah for the governor and the girls !"

Jack thus adjured, said no more. The hint that even now, at the eleventh hour, there was yet time to reconsider their plans, had been thrown out, truth to tell, and, as his friend knew, in no anxiety of Jack's for himself. Indeed, it is to be more than doubted if the disappointment of either the governor or the girls would have greatly exceeded Jack's own, had his suggestion of giving up the home visit been differently re ceived. So, as Jack's friend had said, that was settled. An hour or so later, and the December fog was stealing down on the dingy London streets, and over its murky river; but the two, ulstered and rug-wrapped, were leaving river, streets, and fog fast behind them, as tearing, puffing, snorting, they sped cheerily on their iron-road eastward. " Only a couple of years," Jack is saying, from his snug corner of the dimly -lighted , first-class, Great Eastern railway carriage, that they have contrived to secure by means unlawful to themselves ; " only a couple of years.

I can scarcely believe it. And to think that we two should never have been sitting here together to-night, might never have known each other's names even, Phil, if it hadn't been for that jolly old umbrella of mine. What a shame ever to have worn it out, eh ! It ought to have baea canonized, or made a knight of — or whatever it is — like they do the Lord Mayors, eh ! Phil ?" Phil from his corner gave an acquiescent grunt and smile, for Jack spoke truth. But for the said umbrella, the two friends would, in all human probability, have never been so much even as acquaintances. East and west, just so far apart had their courses lain. East, Jack Layford ; west, Philip Carlyon. So far west, indeed, the latter, that he could not well have made it farther ; unless, that is, he had quited terra firma altogether, and taken to the sea.

East and west, through school-days and college-days. No mutual birch had bound them in the first ; no break ing together of Alma-mater's laws, with awful to-morrow morning's to follow, in the latter. Then had come the world (which was London) and Jack Layford's umbrella (on Phil Carlyon' s toes), and east and west had met at last — to be east and west no longer. Jack, some two years Phil's junior, and more than half a school-boy yet, despite his three-and-twenty years and whiskers — loved to go over the story of that first meeting ; how, seated side by side in the pit of the Haymarket, one raw November evening, strangers both in the great city, they had cast chance, stray, and suspicious glances at one another, it might be, as befitted true and well-bred young Britons, but nothing more ; " until the row at the end, when I brought that umbrella of mine down on your ' patents,' Phil, and you swore ; and then there was supper together at Evan's, and that's how it all came about, eh ! old fellow."

But, as Jack says, two years ago all this. Friends now — Damon and Pythias, David and Jonathan, with various other small and harmless jokes at the two's expense. But Damon and Pythias knowing very little of one another's personal history and belongings, as is not unfrequently the case when the surnames of those gentlemen happen to be Bull. Layford, for instance, knew, in a kind of general way, that his friend Cailyon was an only child, with an adoring mother down at some outlandish-sounding place in Cornwall, to which he vanished, now and then, for a week or so, as the fit took him ; knew, also, that he had an income of some sort, and con cluded it to be a good one (though Phil did not, perhaps, always settle his "little accounts" with quite the regularity that their presenters might have desired) ; rides in the row, balls, fetes, etc. ; in the season, with the moors, or Norway for the vacation months— being a state of things scarcely attainable by the present means of so many dinners a week during term-time, with a remote contingency of briefs in the future.

Again, with Carlyon, he, for his part, had a kind of vague know ledge of his friend Jack being one of a large family, the rest of which were girls ; knew, furthermore, that there was no mother, and JACK LAYFOED'S FRIEND. 55 that " the guv," as Jack was irreverently given to term him, was the best of old fellows, and farmed some hundreds of acres down in Suffolk, as other Layfords had done before him, time out of mind ; and, lastly, though not least, that he made the said Jack a very fair allowance, though he had been ever so little disappointed when that young gentle man announced his intention of renouncing the church, including a fairly good family living — a living that had been the stay and prop of many a younger dead and gone Layford — for the law. " Not that I shall ever do much at it, beyond bread and cheese ; not if I cheated ever so," Jack calmly confessed ; " but then I may manage to pick up enough about it to save my making quite such an ass of myself, as some of my name have done before me, I suspect, if ever I come to the * bench ;' and that will be something ; eh ! guv ?'* But the warm railway carriage has been exchanged for the keen air of a winter's night ; and, perched behind a fast trotting mare, away the travellers spin- — doing all but their fourteen miles in the hour — that sees them safely landed, hungry and half-frozen, before the old red-brick, rambling pile, Jack Layford calls home.

And how home-like the old house gleamed through the December night. A little foggy, even down here. Home-like even to Philip Carlyon's eyes, to whom it brought no memories, no associations ; home-like, indeed, to honest Jack's, to whom it brought both these things. Jack scarcely waited for the dog-cart to stop ; down went the reins, and Philip saw his big friend standing in a flood of light — the centre of a grand complication of female arms and heads, in the old-fashioned hall, before he himself had time to make his more leisurely descent. The young Cornishman stood for a moment JACK LAYFORD' S FRIEND. 57 irresolute, and with a feeling of something very like shyness, in the open doorway. But it was only for a moment. The old Squire had spied him out. "Come in, sir; come in!" cried Jack's governor, dragging his visitor by the hand, shaking it warmly at the same time.

" Why, Jack, sir, what are you thinking about, eh ?" " I can't help it, sir," cried poor Jack, deprecatingly, and making an effort at freedom ; "its the girls." But the girls had caught sight of the stranger by this time, and, falling back, a laughing, blushing group, gave Jack his liberty. " I see I needn't introduce you to the governor, Carlyon," said Jack, with a nod, as he endeavoured to restore, to something like order, his ruffled plumes ; " and these are the girls." Having said which, Jack appeared to consider that he had fulfilled the whole duty of man under the circumstances, and pro ceeded forthwith to suggest hot water in the bedrooms, and something to eat in the dining-room as soon as practicable. If Philip Carlyon had found the old house home-like, in that view of it from the outside, he found the great dining-room, with its dark oak-panelled walls, blazing fire, and soft lamp-light,' with tea, of the substantial order, awaiting; them, more home-like still.

But he knew that it was not just these things alone that served to give the home-like look. There was a something there that Philip Carlyon's home, happy as it might have been, had never known. There was the old Squire — the houses' master — firm and stalwart still, with his cheery voice, and bright keen eyes, and hair, too, that was as crisp as ever, if the dark brown was here and there streaked with grey. And there were tho girls. Philip FRIEND. 59 began trying to count them to himself, wondering which was which, for Jack had, in a measure, accustomed him to their names. There was one who Phil knew must be Miss Layford — Margaret. She it was who made the tea, attended to the Squire, and was, moreover, evidently an authority with the rest. Jack sat next her ; and Philip thought that, if the choice had been given him, he might, perhaps, have chosen that seat too.

She was not much like Jack, this eldest sister, excepting that she was rather tall, taller by some inches than any of the other girls — though more than half of them, it is true, had not yet done growing, even among the bigger ones. Then if she was not exactly what could be called dark — nothing like so dark as Philip himself, for instance — she had certainly nothing of Jack's fairness. Philip came to the decision, by the time that tea was over, that Miss Layford's hair must be chestnut, and her eyes — well, chestnut too. Great soft, brown eyes, with a dash of red gold in them — he had a favourite dog at home with just such eyes. But Miss Layford's guest — desirable in his eyes as that occupation might have seemed — could not well sit staring at her all tea time. There was a lady opposite him, at whom — had his taste in the matter been consulted — Philip Carlyon would perhaps rather not have looked at all; and yet he did look, more than once, and was savage with himself in consequence.

Not one of the family, as he easily discovered, for she was addressed as Miss Dormer. Well featured enough, but dark — dusky almost ; she appeared to have the charge of the half dozen or so of girls seated near ; among them two little ones — twins evidently — with round curly heads, fair like Jacks, and very round eyes, blue, also, like Jacks — who stared shyly at the strange guest, reminding him FRTEND. 61 forcibly of two young robins on the look out for crumbs ; and who were, moreover, just about as easy to individualize to Phil's un accustomed eyes — like to a feather, was his verdict. Then who was the raven in charge ? The governess, possibly, but, if so, why the — dickens let us say — was she here in the holidays ? After a time he found himself asking why she was there at all ; and, finally, came to the decision that he would not sit opposite her again, if he could help it.

Her eyes offended him. " Confound her, why can't she keep 'em to herself!" he growled; " they're like gimlets, by Jove !" Even the unfortunate young woman's hair must needs irritate him, and yet it was such hair as all the " Macassar" of Eowland and his tribe could scarcely have induced on half a-dozen heads in the United Kingdom—luxu riant, black — raven-black. " She's a ' nigger,' I believe," was Phil's last arrived-at conclusion ; " only she's managed to get some of the dye out of her hands and face." But the round of observation was not yet complete — " the girls" were by no means exhausted. There was one, for instance, seated at Phil's side, indeed, Flop by name — self-achieved, as he shortly discovered — with whom, after she had all but deposited a cup of tea in his lap, and had dropped her spoon, knife, and various other trifles below the table, which he had been under the necessity of diving for and recovering — he found him self on terms of almost brotherly intimacy.

Then there was Emmy, and Lotty, and Bessie, and Loo-loo ; though which was which, together with a few other unimpor tant details connected with them, was a subject upon which our friend Philip's ideas were at present a trifle misty. In the drawing-room, after tea, Phil found these little matters gradually resolving them selves, as was natural. And, now, if Jack Layford's friend had been disposed to envy him his position at the tea-table, how much more so when Miss Layford, having seated herself at the piano, that lucky young giant was at her side once more, turning over the leaves, and calling her Margaret, while she, smiling and obedient, gave him song after song, as it was called for. And all this while Phil was being literally held by the button by the somewhat prosy old Squire. After a time Miss Dormer went to the piano, but Jack did not turn over the leaves for her; and Philip, free by this time — feeling horribly rude all the while — would not make the offer ; so it fejl to the lot of the good natured, but unfortunate Flop — after, it is to be premised, she had, by way of inauguration, brought down the walnut-wood " what-not" and its load with a horrible crash to the ground.

Nor had Philip Miss Layford even for an excuse, she having been called from the room just at the moment at which she rose from the piano ; and, although Phil kept a sharp look-out on the door, she did not return until the innocent Squire had once more captured his unwary guest. On the whole, perhaps, the evening might, so far as our friend was concerned, have been more of a success ; but Phil consoled himself with the determination, before he closed his eyes that night, to manage affairs better for the future. In accordance with which resolution, when Jack Layford descended to the breakfast table the next morning, resplendent in pink and cords, he found another figure — not quite such a massive or brilliant one, it may be, but quite as faultlessly turned out — in the field before him. There, seated at Margaret's side, assisting her with the coffee-pot, buttering her toast, laughing, talking the while, doing everything in short just as if he had been the veritable Jack himself, sat Mr. Philip Carlyon.

Was it Philip's fancy, or did Jack's bright face really cloud over at the sight ? But, for the utter absurdity of the thing, Philip could almost have said it was so. Jack was certainly restless that morning. He wandered from the table to the side-board, fluttered from cold meat to hot, and ended by eating neither. His principal occupation seemed to be watching the two at the head of the table ; while Miss Dormer's attention appeared to be pretty equally divided among the three. " Come, Carlyon," cried Jack at last, " I think before the day is over you will wish you had eaten your breakfast, instead of talking." " I have managed to do both most com fortably, thank you," laughed Philip. " I've F " CHECK " TO A GHOST ; OE, been eating for the last half-hour — haven't I, Miss Layford ?" " Glad to hear it," said Jack, " for you've done nothing but the other thing since I came down — didn't know you were so fond of it."

" Oh, a little talkee-talkee at breakfast time's a very good thing — good for the digestion, isn't it Miss Dormer ?" " Good for what, Mr. Carlyon?" enquired Miss Dormer, apologetically. " Digestion, I said," answered Mr. Carlyon, shortly, wondering what could have possessed him to address her. " Oh, digestion ; I beg your pardon, I thought you said something else." " Flirtation, for instance," muttered Jack, in the door-way. And Miss Dormer's black eyes went enquiringly from one to the other. Mr. Carlyon was looking red, Jack black, and Miss Layford — well, rather red, also. JACK LAYFOED'S FEIEND. 67 At this moment the Squire came innocently to the rescue. " Well, if you won't really take anything more, Mr. Carlyon, I think we may as well be moving — meet's a good ten miles off, you know."

" I am ready, sir," said Phil, rising. Jack had already disappeared in the direc tion of the stables ; and in a few minutes Miss Dormer and " the girls" had the old house to themselves. There was the usual late dinner that day ; and the evening was passed much the same as the previous one had been, with the exception that Philip Carlyon, strong in his resolution of the past night, did somehow contrive to manage affairs more to his own satisfaction. In the first place he secured the much to be desired post at Miss Layford's piano, turned over the leaves and chose the songs, just as that lucky Jack had done the night before. He even "CHECK" TO A GHOST; OR, condescended so far as to smile on his pet aversion, the governess, when her turn came ; and, sitting by Margaret's side in some far off corner, made no sign of impatience through out the entire performance.

And Jack, from the chess-table, over which he sat with the " guv," he cast so many restless glances at the far off corner, made so many extraor dinary moves, and was, finally, so evidently lost as to his own position in the game, or his adversaries either, that the Squire at last good-naturedly sent him off to join his friend. Whereupon free — but contrary, it would seem, as any Mistress Mary — he turned his steps in quite an opposite direction — namely, towards the piano, and Miss Dormer, with Flop again on duty. " Now, then, clear the road !" growled Jack, with a brotherly pinch — causing the said Flop to " clear" with such alacrity that she all but disappeared head-foremost into the box-ottoman, containing Miss Dormer's music close by ; in her efforts to recover herself, from which she retired into the fire, and was only rescued by the Squire — happily at that moment toasting himself in manly fashion on the rug — in time to prevent her making a sort of amateur 5th of November of herself — for that night at least.

After which successes, Flop, smiling, but modest withal, managed a tolerably safe passage across the room to the younger fry, and Mr. Jack Layford was Miss Dormer's very humble slave for the rest of the evening. The governess's dark cheek flushed ever so faintly as Jack came up. '' You find it dull," she said, softly, " and you want poor little nobody to take pity on you ; so even / am of use sometimes, Mr. John ?" She was not looking at him now ; the dark eyes, with a strange light in them, were on " CHECK " TO A GHOST ; OR, the stray couple, blissful and innocent of everything but each other, smiling and whispering together over their " bc'zique" in the distant corner. Jack's eyes followed hers, as it was just possible she had intended they should do. It was only for a moment, then he turned them once more on her, and Miss Dormer knew that there was an angry flash in them, but not for her.

" Pray don't talk like that, Miss Dormer," stammered poor, foolish Jack, " about being nobody — and — and that sort of thing. I'm sure you're as good a friend as a fellow ever had, and while a fellow has a friend like you, by Jove !" cried Jack, almost aloud in his defiance, " I don't see what he need care for any other." " 0, don't ; please, don't !" cried Miss Dormer, softly. But, of course, Jack did — as might possibly have been anticipated. Ah ! Jack, Jack, what more you did or said need not be set down here. There was nothing newer in it, after all, than the old, old story of " The spider and the fly," and everyone knows how old that is — Mr. John Layford about as well as the rest of us, you may be sure. There were spiders, without a doubt, in Paradise itself, and they have gone on spinning their webs pretty successfully ever since.

To return to our own particular " blue-bottle" — for Jack was far too big game in every way to be looked upon in the light of an ordinary " fly" — that young gentleman having made about as promisinga beginning in the " big fly" line as could well be expected of him in the time ; and, indeed, we should say, some thing more — Miss Dormer wisely determined to let well alone ; but if she did not vouchsafe her cavalier any amount of conversation, she took care to keep him at her side. As for her silence, perhaps Miss Dormer was of " CHECK " TO A GHOST ; OR, opinion that the tableau afforded by the unconscious couple in their far off corner was calculated to assist her plans, whatever they might be, more than any mere words of hers could do. And, perhaps, Miss Dormer was right. " The glass is falling," said the Squire, as he bade his guest good night ; " we shall have snow before morning."

Philip Carlyon gave an involuntary shiver. " Does the idea of being snowed-up in a dull country house give you the horrors, Mr. Carlyon?" asked Miss Layford, laughingly, as she gave him her hand. Mr. Carlyon laughed too. " On the contrary, Miss Layford, I should only be too happy could it snow for ever," and Phil certainly looked as if he meant all that he said, and more. The Squire had moved off, but Jack stood near. FEIEND. 73 " Come and have a pipe, Carlyon ; you would stand there paying compliments until to morrow morning-." " Well you needn't stay to hear them, my dear fellow." " 0, come along !" growled Jack. " What a bear you are, Jack. I think we shall have to get him a board with — - you are requested not to irritate the animals' in white paint — eh, Miss Layford?" But Miss Layford only smiled, and gave the " bear" her hand.

Jack's big, sulky paw hardly touched it. " Good-night," he said, and then he marched out of the room. Philip could only follow him. In the hall Jack turned — " I don't think I shall smoke to-night ; you know the way, if you care to; there's tobacco and things about." " No thank you," said Phil, " if you're not that way inclined, I'm off to bed ; though I don't see why you need have been in such a deuce of a hurry, if you didn't mean to smoke after all." "I don't know about a hurry," said Jack, " I only know we've had a pretty hard day of it ; and there's no end to be done to-morrow • — holly, and all that sort of thing. Then there's the ' resident nobility and gentry' in the evening — Christmas-eve, you know; and the girls are best in bed." " I'm sure I didn't want to keep • ' the girls' u]D," retorted Phil, with a wicked look in his dark eyes ; " far from it."

Jack gave a grunt; and Phil, unable to contain himself any longer, burst out laugh iug. Jack joined in. " I'm in a beast of a temper, I know," said poor Jack ; " but I can't help it." " Well, I won't contradict you," replied his friend ; " and as I fancy the best place for you will be bed — like ' the girls,' you know — good-night." Jack was soon beyond the reach of his troubles ; but his friend Carlyon did not find sleep come so easily. Jack puzzled him — many things puzzled him — but there, it was no use bothering himself, he was no nearer any solution of the mystery — if mystery there were. Phil decided that the only thing left for him to do was to look to time and chance, or even — should such a course seem advisable — to Jack himself for an explanation. The morning brought a fulfilment of the Squire's prophecy.

Philip Carlyon looked from his window on a world of white — such a world as the young Cornishman had not often seen. " What," Phil asked himself, as he went through the rather difficult operation of shaving, " what if they really w*ere to be snowed-up ? And what was the longest possible time such a blissful state of things could be expected to last ?" Winter of late, since Philip had been out in -the world, had been such a " make-believe," new fangled affair, that he really knew very little about it. " Would it last for a week — say a month ?" Then he laughed at his own folly. " Never mind, I must make the most of it," quoth he, " whatever it is." And in a few minutes he was making the most of it, accordingly, over the dining-room fire, with Miss Layford, and a small detachment of the girls ; cold, but merry as usual.