Chapter 8
He is very tall, very handsome, thoughtful in expression. His hair is light brown,--what there is of it,--his barber having left him little to boast of except on the upper lip, where a heavy, drooping moustache of the same color grows unrebuked. He is a little grave, a little indolent, a good deal pa.s.sionate. The severe lines around his well-cut mouth are softened and counterbalanced by the extreme friendliness of his kind, dark eyes, that are so dark as to make one doubt whether their blue is not indeed black.
Lilian, standing on her airy perch, is still singing, and imparting to the surrounding scenery the sad story of "Barb'ra Allen's" vile treatment of her adoring swain, and consequent punishment, when the crackling of leaves beneath a human foot causing her to turn, she finds herself face to face with a stranger not a hundred yards away.
The song dies upon her lips, an intense desire to be elsewhere gains upon her. The young man in gray, putting his meerschaum in his pocket as a concession to this unexpected warbler, advances leisurely; and Lilian, feeling vaguely conscious that the top of a wall, though exalted, is not the most dignified situation in the world, trusting to her activity, springs to the ground, and regains with mother earth her self-respect.
"How could you be so foolish? I do hope you are not hurt," says the gray young man, coming forward anxiously.
"Not in the least, thank you," smiling so adorably that he forgets to speak for a moment or two. Then he says with some hesitation, as though in doubt:
"Am I addressing my--ward?"
"How can I be sure," replies she, also in doubt, "until I know whether indeed you are my--guardian?"
"I am Guy Chetwoode," says he, laughing, and raising his hat.
"And I am Lilian Chesney," replies she, smiling in return, and making a pretty old-fas.h.i.+oned reverence.
"Then now I suppose we may shake hands without any breach of etiquette, and swear eternal friends.h.i.+p," extending his hand.
"I shall reserve my oath until later on," says Miss Chesney, demurely, but she gives him her hand nevertheless, with unmistakable _bonhommie_.
"You are going home?" glancing up at him from under her broad-brimmed hat. "If so, I shall go with you, as I am a little tired."
"But this wall," says Guy, looking with considerable doubt upon the uncompromising barrier on the summit of which he had first seen her.
"Had we not better go round?"
"A thousand times no. What!"--gayly--"to be defeated by such a simple obstacle as that? I have surmounted greater difficulties than that wall many a time. If you will get up and give me your hands, I dare say I shall be able to manage it."
Thus adjured, Guy climbs, and, gaining the top, stoops to give
"Now to get down," he says, laughing. "Wait." He jumps lightly into the next field, and, turning, holds out his arms to her. "You must not risk your neck the second time," he says. "When I saw you give that tremendous leap a minute ago, my blood froze in my veins. Such terrible exertion was never meant for--a fairy!"
"Am I so very small?" says Lilian. "Well, take me down, then."
She leans toward him, and gently, reverentially he takes her in his arms and places her on the ground beside him. With such a slight burden to lift he feels himself almost a Hercules. The whole act does not occupy half a minute, and already he wishes vaguely it did not take so _very_ short a time to bring a pretty woman from a wall to the earth beneath.
In some vague manner he understands that for him the situation had its charm.
Miss Chesney is thoroughly unembarra.s.sed.
"There is something in having a young guardian, after all," she says, casting upon him a glance half shy half merry, wholly sweet. She lays a faint emphasis upon the "young."
"You have had doubts on the subject, then?"
"Serious doubts. But I see there is truth in the old saying that 'there are few things so bad but that they might have been worse.'"
"Do you mean to tell me that I am 'something bad'?"
"No"--laughing; "how I wish I could! It is your superiority frightens me. I hear I must look on you as something superlatively good."
"How shocking! And in what way am I supposed to excel my brethren?"
"In every way," with a good deal of malice: "I have been bred in the belief that you are a _rara avis_, a model, a----"
"Your teachers have done me a great injury. I shudder when I contemplate the bitter awakening you must have when you come to know me better."
"I hope so. I dare say"--naively--"I could learn to like you very well, if you proved on acquaintance a little less immaculate than I have been led to believe you."
"I shall instantly throw over my p.r.o.nounced taste for the Christian virtues, and take steadily to vice," says Guy, with decision: "will that satisfy your ladys.h.i.+p?"
"Perhaps you put it a little too strongly," says Lilian, demurely. "By the bye"--irrelevantly,--"what business took you from home yesterday?"
"I have to beg your pardon for that,--my absence, I mean; but I could not help it. And it was scarcely business kept me absent," confesses Chetwoode, who, if he is anything, is strictly honest, "rather a promise to dine and sleep at some friends of ours, the Bellairs, who live a few miles from us."
"Then it wasn't really that bugbear, business? I begin to revive," says Miss Chesney.
"No; nothing half so healthy. I wish I had some more legitimate excuse to offer for my seeming want of courtesy than the fact of my having to attend a prosy dinner; but I haven't. I feel I deserve a censure, yet I hope you won't administer one when I tell you I found a very severe punishment in the dinner itself."
"I forgive you," says Lilian, with deep pity.
"It was a long-standing engagement, and, though I knew what lay before me, I found I could not elude it any longer. I hate long engagements; don't you?"
"Cordially. But I should never dream of entering on one."
"I did, unfortunately."
"Then don't do it again."
"I won't. Never. I finally make up my mind. At least, most certainly not for the days you may be expected."
"I fear I'm a fixture,"--ruefully: "you won't have to expect me again."
"Don't say you fear it: I hope you will be happy here."
"I hope so, too, and I think it. I like your brother Cyril very much, and your mother is a darling."
"And what am I?"
"Ask me that question a month hence."
"Shall I tell you what I think of you?"
"If you wish," says Lilian, indifferently, though in truth she is dying of curiosity.
"Well, then, from the very first moment my eyes fell upon you, I thought to myself: She is without exception the most---- After all, though, I think I too shall reserve my opinion for a month or so."
"You are right,"--suppressing valiantly all outward symptoms of disappointment: "your ideas then will be more formed. Are you fond of riding, Sir Guy?"
"Very. Are you?"