Dagmar

Chapter I. Before The Story Began

" I wait for my fortune, the birds cannot sing it, Not one as he sits on a tree ; The bells cannot ring it — but long years, O bring it \ Such as I wish it to be." Jean Ingelow. At the first glance there is little difference between an evening in September and an evening in Midsummer, save in one respect. There is plenty of foliage, still green and luxuriant though somewhat dark in tint, and there are still flowers, gay and plentiful, though not the "flowers of middle-summer." As for the birds, they are more numerous and light-hearted than ever, though for the most part they chirp instead of singing. But there is one sign of autumn's presence which cannot be mistaken. It is but six o'clock, and yet the sun is low, just peeping over the low green hills, sending down the valley long shafts of mellow, misty light that reveal the season most unmistakeably.

The long bright evenings, the nights that never were wholly dark, are over, and the summer is done. B DAGMAR. 2 It was a typical September evening, mellow and mild and still ; and in the open park-like fields that lay round Winstead village and Winstead Hall it was still broad daylight. But in the deep plantations of oak and birch that bordered them on one side, it was already dusk — warm, pleasant twilight— the air full of the delicious walnut-like fragrance of decaying oak-leaves. A broad grass drive wound through the plantations, over-arched by spreading boughs, and soft and mossy to the tread, leading from the Hall gardens out into the high road that wound along the valley. The gravelled carriage drive went down through the fields at some distance, and left this grassy avenue lonely and still, except for an occasional pedestrian.

It was not quite deserted now, for in the shadow of the oak-trees a young girl was walking, slowly and alone. She looked very much at home there, and had good right to be at home, for she was the only daughter of the owner of the Hall, Geoffrey Tyndal, known in the village of Winstead as the Squire. It was the fashion in the neighbourhood to wonder over the odd name which Squire Tyndal had chosen to give to his only child. The fact was, she had been born upon the day of a certain Royal marriage, and the Squire had been determined that something in her name should mark the date. And looking through the list of names borne by the family of the Lady who is some day to be our queen, he selected Dagmar as most un common and most in accordance with his taste. So Dagmar she was christened, despite the remonstrances of all her female relatives, and was never heard, as she grew up, to regret the name, unusual though it was.

Some one, when she was a child, took to calling her Day, and the name was so fitting and appropriate that it was soon generally adopted. A further attempt was naturally made to soften it to Daisy ; but this would not carry itself out. Day she was, and Day she seemed likely to remain. She was a tall, well-grown girl, but she looked strangely young for her nineteen years. Her figure, though good, was youthful and undeveloped, with a graceful awkwardness common to young things that take much exercise and grow fast and freely. Her face had in it the same promise of beauty to come, a fair, yet rich complexion, ripe flexible lips, large eyes of clear blue-gray, and nose not worth mentioning as yet. Her hair was dark-brown, wavy, and long, and she wore it plaited in a childish fashion that accorded with the extreme simplicity of her dress.

She was charming to look upon, and yet the common opinion of her looks was not " How beautiful she is ! " but, " What a magnificent creature she will be." Only those who loved her would have been well content if she could have remained as she was, more child than woman, for ever. She was sauntering slowly along in the gathering dusk, with eyes sometimes bent upon the ground sometimes raised to the reddening sky that showed between the thick oak-branches. Her hands were sometimes hanging beside her, sometimes clasped behind her head, and her mobile face was grave and full of dreams — more childish-looking so perhaps than when it was awake and full of life. Every now and then she lifted her head and broke forth into soft, half-uttered song, most often only a couplet or a single line, thrown out with all the careless ease of one who had a bird-soul.

B DAGMAR. 4 and found song as easy and as natural as speech. Hers was one of those voices which do not require much cultivation, neither greatly repay it. It was of moderate compass, and no notes in it would ever have brought down an admiring house ; but it was very reasonably powerful, and every note in it was full, pure, and musical, fit for the expression of any emotion. And she sang as the birds do, wild wood-notes that leapt into being with the feeling of the moment and died with it .—music that seemed to be born of the quaint words she sang, and to have no existence apart from them. She sang indeed fully as much as she spoke, and often expressed feelings in that way which she could never have put into spoken words. What was she thinking of as she moved along with careless freedom beneath the cool tree shadows, solacing her solitude with snatches of song ?

It would be hard to say. The scents of spring flowers are not more fugitive and indefinable than the thoughts of one so young in soul as she, one for whom *' The Story " is not yet begun. Thoughts of yesterday's small dainty enjoyments, which to-day were like dead rose-leaves ; butterfly hopes for the future, which reached forward to all pleasant things, and in spirit possessed them already ; and beneath and beyond all, a dim, undefined long ing for The Story to begin. The Story of Life, of that vague, unknown future for which we wait — knowing not whether it shall be of joy or sorrow — equally anxious for it to come, whether we hope for the one or fear the other. It could not be said of Dagmar Tyndal that she either hoped or feared. She knew, by a prophetic instinct, that she should drink deep of joy, and she was by no means unwilling to taste of sorrow as well.

She might even have been a little disappointed could some fortune-teller have assured her that she should go from the cradle to the grave without one sip of sorrow's strong rough wine. What life is complete without what that magic draught alone can teach? — and her courageous young spirit was anxious above all things to live, not so much to enjoy life, as to know the depths of all its mysteries. Vagrant and dreamy as her thoughts must have been, they seemed to make her forget the flight of time. The heavy autumn dew was falling, the shadows deepening under the gnarled oak-branches ; it was past six o'clock, and seven was the dinnerhour at the Hall, and still she did not turn. She was by far too young to value her dinner as many people do, though she had a very healthy, unromantic appetite.

Perhaps she would have liked best to have had a large piece of bread (or cake, since she had by no means outgrown her childish tastes), and to have stayed out there in the woodlands till the bats and owls were all abroad and stirring, and the great round harvest moon rose slowly above the tree-tops. But there are some rules of the household which even the petted and spoiled child of the house is not allowed to break ; and when presently the great dressing-bell clanged out behind her, Dagmar started and turned as at an imperative summons. Noiselessly and swiftly, like a pale-blue ghost, she flitted up the long avenue, unlatched the gate at the upper end, and came out into the large, old fashioned garden, where the air was heavy with the scent of late mignonette, and the lingering roses and scarlet geraniums were mere blotches of milky white and intense blackness.

DAGMAR. 6 The Hall was a large, rather imposing-looking place, with fine stone-mullioned windows, rooms fairly sized, though rather low, and a beautiful deep stone porch leading into a large stone-paved hall. It had quite a festive appearance to-night, since every door and window was left open to admit the pleasant evening air, and the lamp-light streamed forth into the twilight, and seemed suddenly to deepen it into night. A boy was standing on the door-step, a slip of a fellow of about twelve or thirteen, with a slender, graceful figure, tall for his years, with regular features, and fair tumbled hair. As the light from the open door fell upon Dagmar's approaching form, he darted out to meet her. " Day, Day, you'll be late for dinner ! " he cried exultingly. "And didn't you know ? Raymond's come !

" " Raymond ? Oh ! — Raymond ! " she said, with a queer mingling in her tone of scorn, amusement, and a flavour of pleasant excitement. " Raymond's come, is he ? " — and she suddenly caught the boy by his two hands, and whirled him off to the smooth shaven grass-plot in front of the house, upon which the two young creatures performed a most pecu liar and ghostly kind of dance — very graceful to look upon, if the amazed spectator could divest himself of the idea that they were both a little mad. In a few minutes they came back to the house, pant ing slightly, the boy's arm round the girl's waist, their two faces full of the same light of merriment and mischief. In the hall Day caught sight of the clock, and started. "Dick, you're dressed, I do believe, and it's high time I was. Let me go, there's a good lad," and she slipped from his arm, sprang up stairs, and fled swiftly along a wide passage with a polished floor.

She reached her own door however less quickly than her rate of progress promised, for un der the swinging lamp in the midst of the passage she met some one whom she paused to look at, in complete oblivion both of her haste, and the need of it. Dagmar was an only child, but she had the advantage of being on very intimate terms with many of her relations. The boy Dick, whom she had left below stairs, was her cousin, brought up with her, and more to her than many brothers are to their sisters, and here was another cousin who stood to her in the relation of an elder sister, though she did not spend all her time at the Hall. Agnes Morrison was no longer in her first youth; she was eightand-twenty, and she looked more. Some people were inclined to credit her with a former love trouble, to account at once for her being still unmarried, and for the slightly worn look of her face.

Her hair was no longer so thick as it used to be, her cheeks were a little hollow, and there were permanent shadows beneath her fine brown eyes. But if a love trouble was in truth the cause of this, many people would cheerfully undergo the same ; if so they might be sure of the same result in all respects. Agnes Morrison was more popular nowadays than ever she had been before, especially with the other sex — more popular, and even more admired. She had a beautiful figure, and she understood the art of dressing perfectly. She understood the art of conversation likewise, and could talk upon any subject to any person with an easy, indifferent grace that left it to be supposed that she did not care greatly for anything on her own account, DAGMAR. but was prepared to take an intelligent interest in it on account of others.

She stood now beneath the hanging lamp, in her faultless evening dress, with every adjunct perfect of its kind, and looked at Dagmar with a loving, amused smile. " How nice ! Oh, how nice you look ! " said Dagmar, looking her over from head to foot, and walking round her with elaborate caution. " I never saw that dress before. I took a flower to your room ; have you got it ? " Agnes pointed to her hair, and her cousin nod ded approvingly, slipped a hand into her arm, and sauntered with her down the passage. " My dear Day," said the elder cousin, " you will most certainly be late for dinner." But Dagmar, with head turned over her shoulder, was studying the sweep of the other's long black lace train, and turned a deaf ear. Suddenly, on the broader landing at the head of the stairs, they came upon a young man, coming full dressed for dinner out of his room.

His back was towards them, and the elder lady made no sign ; but Dagmar cried out in her clear voice, " Raymond, what a hurry you are in ! How do you do ? " The young man started and turned round, showing a face less youthful than his figure had seemed — a face that could hardly belong to a man of less than five-and-thirty — rather handsome, but thin and lined, as if with a restless, active life. His dark moustache was thick and heavy, but his dark hair was wearing rather thin, and his eyes had lines round them that were perilously like crow's-feet. " Ah ! Day, I beg your pardon," he cried ; " and Agnes, too ! How are you both ? " They stood still together, greeting him smilingly ; and he, beneath his gay, careless greeting, was studying them both, struck perhaps by the contrast between them.

They were of nearly the same height, but in other respects the contrast was sharp enough. Agnes's beauty was set off by every advantage of dress — a pleasure to the well-trained eye from the topmost glossy thread of her hair to the toe of her dainty shoe. Dagmar looked as childish as even she could look, her hair hanging limp and damp with dew, and her simple cotton frock in the same predicament. The freshness of the night was on her cheeks and lips — something of the wonder and mystery of the night in the depths of her clear gray eyes. There was nothing about her to please the well-trained eye — only a strange, elvish charm that made Raymond Dayrell, who studied German, and had some poetical fancies, think somehow of the Erl-king's youngest daughter. He turned to Agnes with an air of quiet satisfac tion, as if they had been old friends, as indeed they were.

" It is very long since I saw you," he said ; " and my uncle did not tell me that you were here. This is an unexpected pleasure." She flushed slightly, and laughed a little clear laugh that had not one false note in it, and yet was not natural. " My uncle told me that he had asked you to come and see me ! I taxed him with having told a white fib, and he could not deny it — upon which I deputed Dick and Day to punish him. Shall we go down stairs ? " The young man bowed, and they went down together, talking and smiling with an air that seemed to be saying to the spectators who were not there, " See how friendly we are ! " DAGMAR. 10 And Dagmar darted back down her passage, singing as she went, so clearly and saucily that they paused to listen. What did the foolish child mean ? " I have a house upon yon moor (Lass, gin ye love me, tell me noo), Three sparrows may dance upon the floor (And I canna come ilka day to woo) !

" She banged her bedroom door upon the last word, and her two unseen auditors went on down stairs without looking at each other any more. In the drawing-room the rest of the family were assembled : the ingenuous Dick, and the master and mistress of the household. Geoffrey Tyndal was not tall enough for the typi cal English Squire, but he was stout and comfortable looking, gray-haired, and brisk and lively ; with brains enough to carry him comfortably through all the business of every-day life, and an amusing faculty for making blunders, and doing one thing while thinking of another. His wife was a silent, somewhat grave woman, in looking at whom one might see from whence Dagmar got her promise of beauty ; whose mission in life seemed to be to smile quietly over her husband's mistakes, and set them right, and to do kind actions for everybody.

She should have been a member of a working Sisterhood, instead of a rich man's wife, and possibly in that case she might have been an even happier woman, though such an idea would never have entered her brain. Dick and his uncle were talking together with an eagerness and interest which showed that the elderly man had still the light, warm heart of a boy. Miss Morrison went to Mrs. Tyndal's side, and so did Raymond, who had not seen her since his arrival He made his devoirs with the pleasant grace of one well known and sure of his welcome, calling her aunt, as he did Mr. Tyndal uncle, though in point of fact that gentleman was only his father's first cousin. Perhaps he was rather glad to talk to her, rather than to Agnes, little as he would once have foreseen such a state of things. Once upon a time, now nearly nine years ago, Agnes Morrison and Raymond Dayrell had been so much to one another that they had dreamed of being more still.

They had been engaged to be married, and even had any one objected, there was no one who was in a position to prevent their doing as they pleased. So engaged they were, with much mutual satisfac tion, for more than two years. Raymond discharged the duties of an engaged man to perfection. He waited upon his cousin — who was in London with her maiden aunt whenever she was not at Winstead Hall with the Tyndals— in the most exemplary fashion, brought her dainty little offerings, and paid her every attention that the most exigeante fiancee could desire. And she for her part was all that he could wish — not " spooney," — not coquettish ; a future bride such as a man might show to his fast bachelor friend, or his rich and evangelical maiden aunt, with equal pride and satisfaction. There was once an old farmer at a rent dinner who was seen to sit long after the dinner was over, imbibing light French wines with much apparent satisfaction.

Some one, thinking perhaps that the old gentleman must be undergoing a new sensation, asked him how he liked the wine. " Oh, it's well enough," was the answer, " but we don't seem to get no forrarder I " That was the flaw in the matri- DAGMAR. 12 monial engagement between Agnes and Raymond. They " got no forrarder ! " Raymond had many expensive tastes, but barely enough money wherewith to satisfy them. He had been called to the Bar ; but though he had plenty of brains he was perhaps deficient in energy, for he certainly made nothing by his profession, and an old friend from whom he had expected valuable help, died (without having done anything for him) in the second year of his engagement. Agnes had a little money of her own, but very little, not enough to have provided her dresses without the presents which she received from her aunt and her other near relations.

And how they were to marry, Raymond could not see. On the same income a man will be rich as a single man, and very poor as a married one. And poverty to a man like Raymond means de gradation. He loved Agnes well, but not well enough to face poverty for her sake. What he would have liked best, would have been to go on as they were, to have a right to her friendship and interest, to dance attendance on her, and to be often near her, and to ask for nothing further. But he had right feeling enough to see that this ought not to be, that unless he could see a prospect of marrying her within a reasonable space of time, he ought to let her go. Time was passing on, and every year seemed to show him more plainly the hopelessness of his position, while the only friend who might have been able to give him a helping hand, was dead.

So he let her go — very reluctantly, and with the same graceful considerateness that had marked all his conduct towards her — but still let her go. What she thought upon the point it was hard to say. Perhaps she did not agree with him ; perhaps she would have come down to the poorest way of living in the smallest house rather than have given up her hopes. But what could she do ? A woman cannot press a man to marry her when he laments his inability to do so ; she cannot prove to him that he has enough to keep her on, if he does not think so. So they took a friendly and regretful farewell of one another, and parted, and there was an end. Time passed on, and Agnes lost her girlish bloom, and whatever pretensions to actual beauty she had once possessed, and ripened into a very charming and fascinating woman of the world.

And Raymond kept his terms at the Temple, and went on Circuit, and danced and dined and visited at the best houses, and was as poor as ever, and shuddered at times to think in what a deeper abyss of poverty he would have been by this time if he had married. And certainly, unless marriage had materially changed his tastes and habits, and aroused his dormant energies, he would have been poor indeed. Meanwhile the ex-lovers, who could not avoid meeting occasionally, were supposed to have at tained to a feeling of very comfortable friendliness. Their brief engagement was now so old a story that but few people remembered it, and, as far as could be judged by their manner, they had forgotten it themselves. If Raymond's pulse still underwent a thrill at meeting this woman who was at once so little and so much to him, it was no one's business but his own, for he concealed it very effectually.

And whether she felt more, or less, or nothing at all, there was no prospect of discovering. She was not of the stamp of woman that needs a confidante, and it was many a year since any one had read any emotion in her face but those she chose should appear there. DAGMAR. 14 The dinner-bell rang before Raymond had finished his conversation with Mrs. Tyndal, and it had sounded full three minutes before Dagmar entered, a little out of breath with the speed with which she had come down stairs. She went and stood beside her cousin, putting her arm caressingly round her waist, and now that she was dressed in a more grown-up and ambitious fashion, it was evident that they were really more than a little alike after all. Their eyes were different, but their hair was of the same colour, and had the same becoming waves upon the temples, and their features were more alike than those of sisters often are.

Dagmar, in her present undeveloped state, was hardly so pretty or so finished-looking as Agnes had been at her age ; but in ten years' time she would be far more beautiful than Agnes had ever promised to be. Raymond looked at them both together once more, and his brows drew together thoughtfully. He let his speech drop unfinished, and did not hear what his aunt said to him in reply. " How Day has grown ! " he said abruptly, as they moved to go in to dinner. " Is she really two inches taller since I was here last ? " " Hardly so much," said her mother, smiling. " But she has grown to look more womanly, and perhaps that seems to give her height." She glanced back at her daughter as she spoke, and was inclined to retract the remark as to her womanliness. The rest of the party was crossing the hall in formally, sufficiently at home to be more intent on dinner than ceremony ; but Dick was giving himself all the airs of a bashful but exceedingly proper young lady, and was being, squired across by Day, who had given him her arm, and was pulling an imaginary moustache, and saying — " Quite too splendid weather !

Haw ! Yes, cert'nly ! " Raymond laughed softly. " How pretty she is getting ! " he murmured in his aunt's ear as they passed through the dining-room door, and Mrs. Tyndal looked again at her daughter and more than agreed with him. " Harvest is nearly all gathered in," said the Squire, in a general sort of way, beaming down his well-spread table and carving with great velocity. " Stay, John, don't be in a hurry with that plate. It's for Master Dick, and he's good for two more slices at least." "Are you up to harvest thanksgivings in this part of the world yet ? " asked his nephew in a somewhat absent fashion. " I don't know. Old Smythe wouldn't have been, that's certain ; and Layton hasn't been here a year yet. But I shouldn't wonder if he were to treat us to something of the kind." " And then Day will be up to her eyes in Church decorations.

That's the paradise of a modern young lady, isn't it ? " " I haven't an idea," said Day, with great cool ness. " But Mr. Layton and I are great friends, and if he tells me to do anything, most likely I shall do it." " Oho ! " said her father. " There's an admission to be made by such a self-willed young woman. I didn't know that Layton could come round the young ladies so easily. But the parsons are all good at that sort of thing." " Do you like Mr. Layton, on further acquaintance ? " asked Raymond, who always kept himself informed upon local politics. Mrs. Tyndal looked at the servant who was waiting, but her husband answered, quite oblivious — DAGMAR. " Oh, yes ! well enough — very well indeed I may say. The man's a perfect gentleman ; there's no doubt of that. But he goes rather too far and too fast for my old-fashioned notions."

" In what direction ?" said Raymond lazily, watching Dagmar's quick, graceful movements as she addressed some sotto voce remark to Dick who was by her side. " Too high, too high," said Mr. Tyndal, with a grave shake of the head, that certainly might have indicated a perilous altitude on the part of his parish priest. " But we're not so badly off by a long way as they are over at Lynthorpe. That man there, Pymont, is a rank Papist I believe, only he hasn't the honesty to own it." " Not so bad as that, we'll hope," answered Raymond, with that almost imperceptible smile which Agnes Morrison used to know so well. And then he relapsed into unwonted silence, while the others discussed local news with some animation. Raymond was not often so silent and dull as he was to-night, but the fact was he had been struck by a new idea, just in the moment before dinner, and he was now looking at it from all points of view, and still dazzled by its newness — perhaps by its brilliancy.

He had not lived for yean the life of a popular man about town without having learnt that it is possible for a man who is good-looking and wellborn to achieve matrimony even without money enough of his own to marry upon. Indeed, by many of his peers to marry an heiress was considered the aim and end of their being. But Raymond Dayrell was unfortunately fastidious. The largest fortune could not have tempted him to marry a woman who was old, or ugly, or whose " verbs and nouns did not agree." And even if an heiress in those respects unim peachable had presented herself, the ghost of what he had felt for Agnes Morrison stood between him and a loveless marriage. He had honesty enough in his composition to feel that he had no business to take all that a rich woman could offer him, and not give her in return something of the feeling which had once warmed his heart.

So he had not seriously thought of marriage during all these years since he had broken off his engagement. But to-night, his eyes caught at once by Dagmar's budding beauty and her likeness to the only woman he had ever really loved, an in spiration had come to him. Why not fall in love with and marry Day ? She had the fortune which Agnes had lacked, and in all other respects she might be Agnes's younger and fairer self. Raymond had never supposed himself to be deficient in common-sense, and nothing short of absolute lunacy could excuse a man for failing to return to his first love in so prudent and agreeable a manner. Yes, he would fall in love with Day as quickly as possible ; study her character, and make as good an impression upon her as he could, and something whispered that a man of the world — good-looking, clever, and experienced in women and their feelings and fancies — could not fail to win the heart of an inexperienced girl like his young cousin.