Mount Royal: A Novel. Volume 1 of 3

"Seven-and-twenty," interrupted Jessie; "it is a long way up the hill of girlhood. I shall soon be going down on the other side."

"At any rate, you are more than twenty years my junior. I was a fool to forget that."

"Dear Major Bree," said Jessie, very earnestly, "believe me, it is not for that reason, I say No. If you were as young – as young as Mr. Hamleigh – the answer would be just the same. I shall never marry. There is no one, prince or peasant, whom I care to marry. You are much too good a man to be married for the sake of a happy home, for status in the world, kindly companionship – all of which you could give me. If I loved you as you ought to be loved I would answer proudly, Yes; but I honour you too much to give you half love."

"Perhaps you do not know with how little I could be satisfied," urged the Major, opposing what he imagined to be a romantic scruple with the shrewd common-sense of his fifty years' experience. "I want a friend, a companion, a helpmate, and I am sure you could be all those to me. If I could only make you happy!"

"You could not!" interrupted Jessie, with cruel decisiveness. "Pray, never speak of this again, dear Major Bree. Your friendship has been very pleasant to me; it has been one of the many charms of my life at Mount Royal. I would not lose it for the world. And we can always be friends, if you will only remember that I have made up my mind – irrevocably – never to marry."

"I must needs obey you," said the Major, deeply disappointed, but too unselfish to be angry. "I will not be importunate. Yet one word I must say. Your future – if you do not marry – what is that to be? Of course, so long as Mrs. Tregonell lives, your home will be at Mount Royal – but I fear that does not settle the question for long. My dear friend does not appear to me a long-lived woman. I have seen traces of premature decay. When Christabel is married, and Mrs. Tregonell is dead, where is your home to be?"

"Providence will find me one," answered Jessie, cheerfully. "Providence is wonderfully kind to plain little spinsters with a knack of making themselves useful. I have been doing my best to educate myself ever since I have been at Mount Royal. It is so easy to improve one's mind when there are no daily worries about the tax-gatherer and the milkman – and when I am called upon to seek a new home, I can go out as a governess – and drink the cup of life as it is mixed for governesses – as Charlotte Brontë says. Perhaps I shall write a novel, as she did, although I have not her genius."

"I would not be sure of that," said the Major. "I believe there is some kind of internal fire burning you up, although you are outwardly so quiet. I think it would have been your salvation to accept the jog-trot life and peaceful home I have offered you."

"Very likely," replied Jessie, with a shrug and a sigh. "But how many people reject salvation. They would rather be miserable in their own way than happy in anybody else's way."

The Major answered never a word. For him all the glory of the day had faded. He walked slowly on by Jessie's side, meditating upon her words – wondering why she had so resolutely refused him. There had been not the least wavering – she had not even seemed to be taken by surprise – her mind had been made up long ago – not him, nor any other man, would she wed.

"Some early disappointment, perhaps," mused the Major – "a curate at Shepherd's Bush – those young men have a great deal to answer for."

They came to the hyacinth dell – an earthly paradise to the two happy lovers, who were sitting on a mossy bank, in a sheet of azure bloom, which, seen from the distance, athwart young trees, looked like blue, bright water.

To the Major the hazel copse and the bluebells – the young oak plantation – and all the lovely details of mosses and flowering grasses, and starry anemones – were odious. He felt in a hurry to get back to his club, and steep himself in London pleasures. All the benevolence seemed to have been crushed out of him.

Christabel saw that her old friend was out of spirits, and contrived to be by his side on their way back to the boat, trying to cheer him with sweetest words and loveliest smiles.

"Have we tired you?" she asked. "The afternoon is very warm."

"Tired me! You forget how I ramble over the hills at home. No; I am just a trifle put out – but it is nothing. I had news of a death this morning – a death that makes me richer by four hundred a year. If it were not for respect for my dead cousin who so kindly made me his heir, I think I should go to-night to the most rowdy theatre in London, just to put myself in spirits."

"Which are the rowdy theatres, Uncle Oliver?"

"Well, perhaps I ought not to use such a word. The theatres are all good in their way – but there are theatres and theatres. I should choose one of those to which the young men go night after night to see the same piece – a burlesque, or an opera bouffe – plenty of smart jokes and pretty girls."

"Why have you not taken me to those theatres?"

"We have not come to them yet. You have seen Shakespeare and modern comedy – which is rather a weak material as compared with Sheridan – or even with Colman and Morton, whose plays were our staple entertainment when I was a boy. You have heard all the opera singers?"

"Yes, you have been very good. But I want to see 'Cupid and Psyche' – two of my partners last night talked to me of 'Cupid and Psyche,' and were astounded that I had not seen it. I felt quite ashamed of my ignorance. I asked one of my partners, who was particularly enthusiastic, to tell me all about the play – and he did – to the best of his ability, which was not great – and he said that a Miss Mayne – Stella Mayne – who plays Psyche, is simply adorable. She is the loveliest woman in London, he says – and was greatly surprised that she had not been pointed out to me in the Park. Now really, Uncle Oliver, this is very remiss in you – you who are so clever in showing me famous people when we are driving in the Park."

"My dear, we have not happened to see her – that is all," replied the Major, without any responsive smile at the bright young face smiling up at him.

"You have seen her, I suppose?"

"Yes, I saw her when I was last in London."

"Not this time?"

"Not this time."

"You most unenthusiastic person. But, I understand your motive. You have been waiting an opportunity to take Jessie and me to see this divine Psyche. Is she absolutely lovely?"

"Loveliness is a matter of opinion. She is generally accepted as a particularly pretty woman."

"When will you take me to see her?"

"I have no idea. You have so many engagements – your aunt is always making new ones. I can do nothing without her permission. Surely you like dancing better than sitting in a theatre?"

"No, I do not. Dancing is delightful enough – but to be in a theatre is to be in fairy-land. It is like going into a new world. I leave myself, and my own life, at the doors – and go to live and love and suffer and be glad with the people in the play. To see a powerful play – really well acted – such acting as we have seen – is to live a new life from end to end in a few hours. It is like getting the essence of a lifetime without any of the actual pain – for when the situation is too terrible, one can pinch oneself and say – it is only a dream – an acted dream."

"If you like powerful plays – plays that make you tremble and cry – you would not care twopence for 'Cupid and Psyche,'" said Major Bree. "It is something between a burlesque and a fairy comedy – a most frivolous kind of entertainment, I believe."

"I don't care how frivolous it is. I have set my heart upon seeing it. I don't want to be out of the fashion. If you won't get me a box at the – where is it?"

"The Kaleidoscope Theatre."

"At the Kaleidoscope! I shall ask Angus."

"Please don't. I – I shall be seriously offended if you do. Let me arrange the business with your aunt. If you really want to see the piece, I suppose you must see it – but not unless your aunt likes."

"Dear, dearest, kindest uncle Oliver!" cried Christabel, squeezing his arm. "From my childhood upwards you have always fostered my self-will by the blindest indulgence. I was afraid that, all at once, you were going to be unkind and thwart me."

Major Bree was thoughtful and silent for the rest of the afternoon, and although Jessie tried to be as sharp-spoken and vivacious as usual, the effort would have been obvious to any two people properly qualified to observe the actions and expressions of others. But Angus and Christabel, being completely absorbed in each other, saw nothing amiss in their companions.

The river and the landscape were divine – a river for gods – a wood for nymphs – altogether too lovely for mortals. Tea, served on a little round table in the hotel garden, was perfect.

"How much nicer than the dinner to-night," exclaimed Christabel. "I wish we were not going. And yet, it will be very pleasant, I daresay – a table decorated with the loveliest flowers – well-dressed women, clever men, all talking as if there was not a care in life – and perhaps we shall be next each other," added the happy girl, looking at Angus.

"What a comfort for me that I am out of it," said Jessie. "How nice to be an insignificant young woman whom nobody ever dreams of asking to dinner. A powdered old dowager did actually hint at my going to her musical evening the other day when she called in Bolton Row. 'Be sure you come early,' she said, gushingly, to Mrs. Tregonell and Christabel; and then, in quite another key, glancing at me, she added, and 'if Miss – er – er would like to hear my singers I should be – er – delighted,' no doubt mentally adding, 'I hope she won't have the impertinence to take me at my word.'"

"Jessie, you are the most evil-thinking person I ever knew," cried Christabel. "I'm sure Lady Millamont meant to be civil."

"Yes, but she did not mean me to go to her party," retorted Jessie.

The happy days – the society evenings – slipped by – dining – music – dancing. And now came the brief bright season of rustic entertainments – more dancing – more music – lawn-tennis – archery – water parties – every device by which the summer hours may chime in tune with pleasure. It was July – Christabel's birthday had come and gone, bringing a necklace of single diamonds and a basket of June roses from Angus, and the most perfect thing in Park hacks from Mrs. Tregonell – but Christabel's wedding-day – more fateful than any birthday except the first – had not yet been fixed – albeit Mr. Hamleigh pressed for a decision upon this vital point.

"It was to have been at Midsummer," he said, one day, when he had been discussing the question tête-à-tête with Mrs. Tregonell.

"Indeed, Angus, I never said that. I told you that Christabel would be twenty at Midsummer, and that I would not consent to the marriage until after then."

"Precisely, but surely that meant soon after? I thought we should be married early in July – in time to start for the Tyrol in golden weather."

"I never had any fixed date in my mind," answered Mrs. Tregonell, with a pained look. Struggle with herself as she might, this engagement of Christabel's was a disappointment and a grief to her. "I thought my son would have returned before now. I should not like the wedding to take place in his absence."

"And I should like him to be at the wedding," said Angus; "but I think it will be rather hard if we have to wait for the caprice of a traveller who, from what Belle tells me of his letters – "

"Has Belle shown you any of his letters?" asked Mrs. Tregonell, with a vexed look.