Valentine Strange. A story of the Primrose Way.

Front matter

Iptu.

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UNITED STATES OP AMERICA.

Chapter II. “the Blind Bow-boy*s Butt-shaft.”

On the western coast of England, there is a narrow bay which is bounded on each side by a headland of igneous rock. The smaller and more northerly headland is locally known as Baffin Head; and the larger headland on the southern side of the bay is called Welbeck Head. For some half mile, Welbeck Head runs gently up from the mainland, its grass growing sparser, and its prehistoric old

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bones declaring themselves more plainly, until you come upon broken rocks with no other covering than lichen, and then go on by paths which increase in difficulty for another half mile. There, suddenly, you reach a bit of seeming fairy-land— Welbeck Hollow. A carpet of green turf, soft and "fine, is belted by trees; and above the topmost branches rise the veritable bones of old earth, lichen-spotted and hoary with rain and sunshine — the rain and sunshine of thousands of years. In the center of the grassy space is one great isolated rock; the tombstone, as the country legends tell, of a beautiful young princess buried there by a cruel magician. The perennial tears of the beautiful princess flow from the southern side of this vast bowlder in a sparkling stream, which brawls inland for a mile, and then returning, ends its brief life in salt water.

Beyond the Hollow, the Head grows precipitate and even terrible. It is tall enough to bathe its hoary forehead now and then in storm, and can push a bare defiant scalp at the very thunders. It rises like a wall on the seaward side, and overhangs a little, as though it threatened to tumble headlong. Nervous tourists keep clear of its edge; and even strong-headed people, tempted to lie prone there and venture one look sheer down to the wrinkled sea, have confessed to something of a thrill of fear.

On its southerly side the Head has neither terrors nor splendors. It slopes quietly to the mainland meadows, and bears on its wide bosom a pleasant park and a quiet country mansion. This quiet country mansion is called “Lumby Hall;” and men, women, and children bearing the name of Lumby have lived there almost from time immemorial. The Lumbys were always a solid household, reverencing the wisdom of our ancestors, and believing blood to be thicker than water. They were a quiet and inoffensive people; but they were known to be hard and implacable in enmity. If you had a Lumby for a friend — all the Lumbys were proud of this, and made it an honorable tradition, to be maintained at all hazards — you had a friend who would stick by you like a brother. But if you had a Lumby for an enemy — the Lumbys were proud of this also, and made an honorable tradition of it — you had to face an enemy not to be appeased or conciliated; a man relentless, unreasoning, who hated you root and branch, you and yours to the ninety-ninth relationship.

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The elder Lumby had inherited this nature, and had transmitted it to his son. They both took a pride in it and were pleased to think that it was English. ‘ That was

the old Lumby s sacred shibboleth. If the ‘‘Standard ”

he was a stanch Conservative— told him that a thing was un- -ftnglisn, lie voted against it in the House of Commons, in whose collective wisdom he furnished a unit. He liked good old English sports and pastimes; and without having a gram of vulgar cruelty in his nature, he would have welcomed the return of cock-sliying, and bull-baiting, simply because those sports were old-fashioned, and had once been popular m this island. He mourned over the gradual evanlshment of the good old English penal laws; he drank unwittingly much good old English port. That, he believed, had a continental origin, and it was one of the few things he did not disdain on that account. He was not in the direct line of the good old county house whose name he bore, but had inherited the estates from a childish uncle.

I lie city Lumbys, of whom he was the head, had always been a little despised by the county Lumbys; but the county umbys had died out, and the city branch ruled in their stead. Mr Lumby had gradually released himself from the tods of labor; and though he would not accept the position of a sleeping partner, he had exercised of late years but little supervision over the doings of the firm, and was not much more than its nominal head, except that he drew the lion s share of its profits.

Gerard Lumby the younger, with whom this history has much to do, was cut by nature on the lines of the paternal pattern; but the world being thirty years older when he came into it than it had been at his father’s birth, his social and political conservatisms were of a milder type He walked homeward with the Yankee’s odd-sounding name ln . Y* s smiled to think of the quaint earnestness

with which the fellow had promised help in any day of need, taking the way by the lane, the youth whistled as he went, out of mere jollity and youth. By and by he was * met by an open carriage, drawn by two handsome chestnuts, driven by a fat coachman of rubicund countenance who wore an exceedingly crisp and curly wig. The lane was so confined, that Gerard had either to retreat, or to . mount a bank on side or another. He chose the readier alternative; and laying his disjointed rod on the grass, lie

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leaped upon the mound, caught a sturdy overhanging aslx branch, and waited for the carriage to go by. From this; height of vantage, he saw that it had one occupant, a lady, who carried a sunshade, and carried it in such a position that her face was hidden.

Now, Gerard knew, or supposed he knew, everybody who kept a carriage within ten miles; but this equipage Avas strange to him. A thing of that sort is a matter of interest in the country, and he wondered who the lady might be. She, while yet a dozen yards away, saw from beneath her sunshade one of Gerard's feet swinging clear of the mound, in readiness to drop when the carriage should have passed; and coming out of the pretty silken shelter to see to whom the foot belonged, herself became visible. The average of beauty in these favored islands is high, and Gerard had seen pretty faces in plenty. People who live in the west of England need not travel far to look for feminine charms; but Gerard had never seen anything to approach this new vision. She was charmingly dressed, but somewhat quaintly, and she wore a profusion of lace. So much Gerard could have told you, and no more, for he was as ignorant of millinery as I am. Her face was beautiful, and not with any merely common type of loveliness, but with that soft yet haughty splendor which belongs alone to some few Englishwomen, and is at once loftier and more charming than any form the Greeks have left us. Millais might have painted it, and made himself twice immortal; but no mere marble could have carried more than half its charm.

The lady at a guess might be twenty. Gerard was five-and-twenty. The unknown beauty shot one shaft at him in passing, and sent it barbed with a smile. A queenly little inclination of the head acknowledged the trouble the passing carriage gave him. Off came Gerard's hat in a moment, leaving his crisp curled hair and frank forehead open to the view. With one foot planted on the grassy bank, and the other swinging loose, the strong brown left hand stretched freely out to grasp the bough — the attitude was as graceful as that of Mercury new lighted. The young lady's eyes regarded him with demure admiration for a second, and then she hid herself with her sunshade, and the sun seemed shaded from Gerard's eyes.

It is very natural for a young man. of five-and-twenty to

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fall in love; and it is in accordance with the decrees of Nature that some of them should do it suddenly, without prescience, premonition, or warning, and indeed in barefaced defiance of all likelihood. The ways of falling in love are as various as the natures of men and women. Some, of the critical, cautious, and unimaginative sort, are inclined to set down love at first sight as a figment of the poet's and the novelist's invention. But there is an actual moment of time — if it could only be caught — at which anything has its beginning; and though I, for one, have not much faith in the raptures of passion which take rise at a single glance, I nevertheless have seen enough of love and lovers to believe that even one glance may slay all chances of bachelorhood and spinsterhood in a pair of youthful lives. Here it was not two but one that fell, and even he did not now begin to guess that he was wounded.

Our youthful Gerard was not much of a hand at the poets and fictionists; and being hit with “ the blind bowboy's butt-shaft," took to wondering what was the matter. Had he been given to verse-making, he might have gone home to write a sonnet about his vision, and so have fanned love's little flame into a premature fire, which should have died for want of fuel. As it was, he took up his rod, and sauntered along the lane with the beautiful face before him, not consciously or intentionally recalling it, yet renewing his passing glimpse of it again and again, almost as if by actual sight. The queenly head just bent a little, the lovely face smiling, the violet eyes turned upward, [still holding him in sight while the head bowed — My poor Gerard, you are a smitten man. And who amongst us, from whose “ topmost head the thickest hazel dies," would not have changed places with you, if it were but for a month or two, an hour or two, a mere five min- ^ utes, to be young again, and once again in love?

So Gerard strode home, and the beautiful face bore him company. The broken-haired terrier hailed him with a voice of joy, and careered about him in wild circles; but meeting with no response to outspoken affection followed disconsolately at a distance with his moist tail between his legs. Through the gates, with their crumbling pillars of gray stone bearing the Lumby arms, along the shady avenue, and across the trim-kept lawn, the beautiful face bore . Gerard company. He sat down, and smoked a pipe in its

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society; but feeling, somehow, a little restless, he arose, and with no definite idea of action, strolled round to the stables.

“ Gerard!” cried a pleasant, girlish voice; and the young man turning, saw a pretty sight — a young lady, namely, of some eighteen years, fresh and bright and happy, with a face in which innocence and piquancy charmingly blended.

“Well, Milly?” said Gerard.

“We have had visitors this afternoon whilst you were away,” she said. “Guess who they were.”

“Who were they?” asked Gerard, languidly, trying to get up a show of interest.

“ Guess,” she said!

Gerard, with his hands in his pockets, his hat drooping over one eye, and his pipe stuck in one corner of his mouth, looked like a protest against intellectual effort. But he responded gallantly to the challenge: “ Val Strange.”

“ Then I give it up,” said lazy Gerard.

“ Guess again.”

“ Milly,” said Gerard, appealingly, “ don't you think it's too hot for guesswork? Who was it?”

“ Our new neighbors,” said Milly, nodding gayly. “ Mr. Jolly and his daughter. And, 0 Gerard, I think she's the most beautiful girl I ever saw! And she wore such lovely lace! — " Gerard flushed a little. “ And Mr. Jolly,” pursued Milly, with great vivacity, “is a little man with a face like a Normandy pippin — brown and shriveled, you know. And they're going to give a big dinner and a ball, and we're all invited!”

“ Great news, eh, Milly?” said Gerard.

“And,” said Milly, in breathless pursuit of her theme, “ they have such a coachman, Gerard, in such a wig, and a wonderful port- wine face, like an old-fashioned vintner; and I'm sorry you missed them, for they have only been gone an hour. ”

Gerard had begun to put things together. Yet what had he to blush for? “I met a young lady in a carriage just now,” he said; “but she. was alone.”

“ Oh,” said Milly, “ Mr. Jolly came on horseback. He is an old friend of the Mortons, and has gone to Baffin Head to see the General. ”

“M— m,” said Gerard, blushing again, through all his assumption of indifference. “ Carriage I met was a landau.

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Pair of chestnuts* very handsome horses. Very fat coachman. Rather a pretty girl inside. ”

Gerard!” cried Milly* “what a shame to call her ‘ rather pretty. ' She's beautiful. I never saw anvbody half so lovely* even in a picture.”

“ Perhaps*” said Gerard* making much pretense of cleaning the stem of his pipe with a stalk of grass — “perhaps I saw some other young woman.”

“ ‘ Young woman * indeed! Why* you know everybody else for miles.” Ladies fire those quaint conversational double-shots at times. “ And Pm sure if I were a man* I should have fallen in love with her at first sight.”

“But* being a young woman*” said Gerard* repeating the obnoxious phrase* “ your notions of manly conduct are not valuable.”

“ Perhaps not*” said Milly. “ But I wish you had been here to meet them. ”

“ 1 sha11 ^e them at the feed*” said Gerard* still very busy with his^ pipe and turning more than half away from Milly. What had he to blush for? It made him almost angry with himself that he should be so foolish.

“ All you Oxford men are vulgar*” said Milly with decision. “ You speak of a dinner as though you were hoi ses. "i ou call a ball a e hop*'?, and you talk of money as ‘ rhino 9 and the ‘stumpy.* I wouldn't talk slang if I were a man. ”

“ But being a young woman*” said Gerard* repeating himself* “ your notions of manly conduct are not valuable. ” “ And* oh* Gerard!” exclaimed the young lady* “it's my first ball; and will you practice the deux temps with me?” “ As much as you like*” said Gerard.

“ Thank you*” said Milly. “ That is kind. The ball isthis day six weeks; and I am to wear—” Then the young lady drove into millinery detail; and Gerard having conquered the imaginary obstacle in his pipe* recovered composure, and listened with a good-humored smile* understanding nothing.

“ And very nice you'll look in it*” he said; “ and I wish you lots of partners. ”

“Aunt is going to return the visit this day week*” said Milly. “ I am going as well.”

“ AH right*” said Gerard. “ I say* Milly! I'm going up to town next week. There are jewelers in town. Who

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knows? I might find a bracelet, or a necklace, or a pair of ear-rings, or something of that kind. Eh?”

“0 Gerard,” cried Milly, “you are kind!”

“Not a word about it now,” said Gerard in grave badinage. “The governor might stop my allowance if he heard of such extravagance. Mum’s the word!”

Milly nodded with a grave face and sparkling eyes; and Gerard, with an answering nod of the head, strolled on to the stables. When he was alone again, the beautiful face came back to him, and he sauntered on solemnly, thinking of the coming dinner and the ball, and wondering with a surprising interest whether the young lady would remember him. He was absent-minded and silent through the quiet family dinner that evening, though Cupid’s butt* shaft did not yet so rankle in him as to spoil his appetite. His mother, a sedate lady of six-and-forty, large and matronly, with honest gray eyes like Gerard’s own, remarked his preoccupied looks; but his appetite appeased her fears. Mr. Lumby senior was nursing his first gout, and was free from the toils of the House of Commons for the remainder of the session. He drank numeral waters at dinner; and though he looked with longing eyes at the decanters and the claret jug, he suppressed himself like a hero. Between Gerardos preoccupation and his sire’s grievance at the mineral waters, the table was very silent.

“Father,” said Gerard, suddenly, “ I think I shall ride over and see Yal Strange to-night.”

“Why?” asked the elder briefly.

“Rupert is getting a little thick about the legs,” said Gerard, referring to his favorite horse. “ And it’s just the night for a quiet ride. I left a portmanteau and dressing- ■ case there, so that there’s no need to take anything with me. ”

“ All right, my lad,” said Lumby senior, heartily. “Come back to-morrow.”

“ Of course,” said Gerard; and having kissed his father and mother, he went his way. The good-night kiss in this old-fashioned household was a habit carried on between father and son from Gerard’s childhood, and was always followed by a solemn shake-hands. Gerard did not kiss his pretty little second-cousin; though, perhaps you and I might have chosen Milly’s lips in preference to those of Lumby senior. But possibly Milly might have resented us.

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The blind boy’s butt-shaft rankled, though ever so little. That curious longing for solitude,, that almost unconscious desire to be alone with fancy, which assails the least imaginative of men under Lovers earliest influences, was upon him. He started briskly enough; but Rupert’s pace would have overtaken the halting Hiram’s steps before the gates of the Manor House were reached; but Gerard had not gone far when he suffered his half-formed dreams to run away with him. The reins dropped loose on the horse’s neck. The swift trot became a leisurely walk. The shadows gathered closer, flowing on from the east in dim pursuit of the descending sun, and Gerard w r as in the narrow lane again, waiting for the carriage to go by, and looking down for one brief second, a thousand times recalled, into a pair of wonderful violet eyes, that smiled and then were hidden.

But at this period of its existence. Love has its impatience, its little bursts of temper, and its sudden longings for swift motion, as well as its liking for dreams. Rupert, not being in his master’s confidence, was astonished at the sudden dig of the spur; but after one angry curvet, he laid himself out for speed, and dashed along the level high-road at a rattling pace. He drew rein at the town, and went through its dimly lighted main street at a sufficiently sober pace; but he made Rupert lay himself out again along the stretch of road between town and Manor House, and had so roused the blood of the thorough-bred by this last spin, that he had as much as he could do to hold him in hand when he reached the darkened avenue.

7 Look yere!” said a voice from the darkness. “Say which side o’ the way you want to liev, an’ I’ll take the other. ”

“Is that you again?” asked Gerard, recognizing the voice.

“ Good-evenin’, Colonel,” said Hiram, recognizing Gerard in turn.

“You have delivered the letter? Or are you going now?”

“ I hev been tliar,” said Hiram, reminiscent of Dr. Watts’s hymns; “but I can not say I still would go.”

“ Why not?” said Gerard. “ What’s the matter?”

“Wal, Colonel,” returned Hiram, “Mr. Strange’s flunky is a deal too overcooked for my taste.”

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“ What is the matter with him?” asked Gerard.

“If you're going than,” returned Hiram, “you ean make inquiries into the natur' of his complaint yourself. An' it's like master like man, up thar. Colonel. I reckon, though, as you're another sort from that kind, an' I wish you good luck, sir, an' piles of it. Good-night. "

“Good-night,” said Gerard, and he rode on.

Hoskins answered the bell in wrath, being persuaded that the tramp had returned. “Well, now, what is it?” he demanded, opening the door and confronting the visitor with an air of lofty scorn. Then beholding Gerard, to whom he was indebted for countless tips, he abased himself inwardly, and made excuses. “ I beg your parding, sir,” said Hoskins, with much humility, “but there have been a very trying party ringing at the bell, sir, on'y this minute, an' I fancied, sir, as 'ow 'e'd come back again. Beg parding, I'm sure. Mr. Strange is in the billiard-room, sir. Shall I 'old the 'oss, sir? Send him round to the stables? Yes, sir.”

Gerard entered the house, and made his way to the billiard-room. “My American friend has been raising a shindy here,” he said to himself as he walked up the hall. Strange was making a stroke as Gerard entered the billiard-room, and there was a look, half of vexation and half of comedy, on his face. Hearing Gerard's step, he turned, and met him with a pleasant smile. “ Things were quiet at home,” said Gerard, “ and I felt inclined for a ride. I met my Yankee in the avenue; I suppose he delivered the note? Queer fish, isn't he?”

“ Bather,” said Strange, looking half vexed again. “ Lumby, the man in the arm-chair is Beginald Jolly. Bags, this is Gerard Lumby. You've heard me speak of him often.”

“ Many a time,” said the little man. “ We're going to be neighbors, I believe. ” I

“ I believe so,” said Gerard; and fell to wondering whether this could be the father or the brother of the young lady he had seen in the lane. Then remembering Milly's description of Jolly pere as a little man with a face like a Normandy pippin — brown and shriveled — he decided that this was not the father. The little man was bald enough to have been a grandfather; but his face was curiously young, and his age was a thing bewilderingly uncertain.

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i ‘‘ Ilike y° ur Yankee, Mr. Lumby,” said the bald-headed little man. apparently unconscious of Gerard’s scrutiny.

“ I don't," said Strange.

“ What has he been doing?” asked Gerard. “ He doesn t seem to have agreed with Hoskins either.” ^^Gh,” said Strange, lightly, pausing on a stroke, “he did a little lngh-comedy pretense of wounded feeling, and threw down a half-crown I gave him.”

“ Pretense!” said the bald-headed man. “Not a bit of it. He was real enough !” Hiram’s defender then told the story, with a ludicrously close imitation both of the American and of Strange. “ Why should he throw half-crowns away? asked the narrator. “ He hasn’t many of ’em I’ll be bound. No, no, Val. The man was hurt, and lie let out with a facer. You know he was hurt. Strange, and you re sorry you said it. Come now: you know you are ”

“ Rubbish,” said Strange. J

But the little man insisted. “Come now. Strange; vou know you are.”

“ Well, then,” said Strange, “ I am. Will you have a game, Lumby ?"

Gerard consented, and as the game went on, they fell to talk of other matters. It came out incidentally that the bald-headed man had been at Oxford during Gerard's last term there. “ He can’t be younger than I am,” said the puzzled Gerard to himself. He began to fish delicately for an answer to his puzzle. “We had a call this afternoon,” he said, “from Mr. Jolly and your — ” He paused for the bald-headed man to fill up the blank.

“ Granddaughter,” said the bald-headed man.

This fairly staggered Gerard. “ I was away from home,” he began rather helplessly, when Strange broke in with a shout of laughter. The little man smiled with cheerful self-approval, and took a drink.

“How old do you think he is?” cried Strange.

“Treat me respectfully, if you please,” said the little man, with an air of dignity. “Iain one-and-twenty. I have arrived at man’s estate. It’s a common fallacy. Mi. Lumby, he continued, rising, and addressing Gerard with much solemnity, “ that I am bald. This is not baldness,” laying his hand on the top of his shining head. “ It is forehead, sir; forehead.” Then he sat down again and smiled in renewed self-approval, “ The lady,” he con-

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tinued, “who called this afternoon at LumbyHall, wasmj sister Constance.”

Gerard went on with the game; and the little man resumed his big cigar. “ Constance,” said Gerard inwardly. “ A pretty name.” He liked it so well that he repeated it to himself. He thought the violet eyes looked faithful. “ Constance — constancy.” What nonsense was this? Why should the face so haunt his memory? Why should the name so cling to him? The three young men sat late together, and Gerard was dull and lively by curious fits and starts. He went to sleep remembering the violet eyes, and lie dreamed of them.

Chapter III. “i Like The Primrose Way,” Said Strange

After breakfast next morning. Strange and his guests were enjoying the day’s. first cigar.

“ I want you two men to come home with me, and let me introduce you to my governor and my sister,” said Reginald J oily.

This invitation jumped with Gerard’s desires, and his oheek colored with pleasure, unmarked by his companions. “ What do you say, Val?”he asked, with as great an assumption of indifference as he could wear.

“I’m very sorry,” said Strange, “but I can’t come. I didn’t tell you of my last bargain, did I, Lumby?”

“No. What is it?”

“ I have bought a yacht, a beautiful thing, that sails I don’t know how many knots an hour; and I’m going to sail round the world in her ‘from China to Peru.’ What do you say to coming along, eh?”

“ Val’s a noble sailor,” said Reginald. “ To my personal knowledge he has crossed the British Channel several times; and I believe, but I’m not quite certain, that he has been to the Isle of Man. ”

“Indeed, you depreciatory ruffian! Rotterdam! Antwerp! Lots of places!”

“ Yes,” said Reginald; “you’re a mighty seaman.”

“ Ah, well,” said Strange; “ I’m a better sailor than you are. ”

“I don’t believe it,” the little man returned. “You

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suffered more than I did when we crossed to Calais together last summer.”

“ Well," said Strange, reclining luxuriously in an arm-chair, and puffing a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling, “I like to face a difficulty. I like to battle with something that gets me down and rolls upon me to begin with. The sea has always beaten me until now, and Fm resolved to become an accomplished seaman.”

“ He’ll provision himself for a year,” said Eeginald, “ and hell start for Pekin or Pernambuco; and before he has been out a day, hell feel unwell, and order himself to be put in at the nearest port. Ill wager half-a-crown that he never gets a hundred miles from British shores. Fd offer more, but I can! afford it.”

“ I am resolved on making a voyage round the world,” said Strange, laughing good-humoredly. “ Will you come, Gerard?”

“ Eh?” said Gerard, waking up, at the sound of his own name, from a dream of the violet eyes.

“ You're dull this morning,” cried Yal, cheerily. “ W ake up, man. Fm going on a voyage round the world. Will you come with me?”

“No; thank you,” said Gerard; “sailing's dull — duller than I am.”

“ Thought you'd jump at the chance,” said Val. “ I know you're a first-rate yachtsman. ”

“ I got tired of it,” said Gerard in reply, and lapsed into his day-dream.

“ You'll get tired of it too,” said Eeginald, turning anew upon Strange.

“Don't be too sure of that,” he replied. “You only know one side of me. There's a good deal of the Spartan, in my constitution. I find hardships pleasant. I like a rough-and-tumble life. I should revel in a campaign. ”

“ You'd pretty soon revel out of it,” said the little man, with some disdain. “ Call yourself a Spartan, you Sybarite? Kough-and-tumble ? Gammon !”

“Pooh!” said Yal, a shade less good-humoredly than before. “ You don't know me, my good fellow.”

'“Don't I?” returned the skeptic. “Who went out of training for the College Eight on the very first day, and was caught by me in the act of smoking whilst brewing cider-cup?”

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“Very good cup it was, too ,” said Val, striving to propitiate his critic.

But the little man arose, and stood over him sternly. “ Who always went headlong for the Newdegate, and wrote twenty lines, and then chucked it? Who came back from his last lounge in Brussels and — ”

“ Never mind more instances/'’ said Strange. “I admit them all. I don’t care to live line and rule. I don’t want to be hampered by restrictions. As for the training, I never believed in the system. I should have pulled as well after a cigar and a glass of cider-cup, as I could have done without them.” He laughed with renewed good-humor. “ But you must needs come prowling round, like the tyrannical dwarf you are, to see what I was doing. It was you who ordered me out of training, not I who went out of it.”