CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER II.

Meanwhile the Braithwaite carriage had reached the Grange, and, Miss Lane’s timid remonstrances having been overcome, it had been arranged that she was to stay to dine there, and a boy was sent to the Vicarage with a message to that effect. Harry, who had gone to Beckham on horseback, and had sent his horse home and returned in the carriage to be near the pretty governess, was suffering from a certain sense of disappointment. Miss Lane proved even prettier on closer inspection than she had given promise at a distance of being. As he sat beside her in the carriage, he thought to himself that there was a beauty in the rich yet delicate tints of a brunette complexion which no lily fairness could vie with, and that the sweep of long, dark eyelashes over a girl’s cheeks was the loveliest thing in the world. But he saw too much of those eyelashes and not enough of the eyes they shaded—only a swift, shy look as she answered any question of his, and then they fell again or turned to his sister, who chattered on fast about the ceremony they had just passed through, and the people who had been in the church.

Harry himself was less talkative than usual; he could not think of anything to say worthy the attention of this beautiful, brave girl with the soft voice and steady, brown eyes. He became impatient at last, snubbed his sister for being a magpie, and told her gruffly to “shut up,” when she made an angry reply. He was glad when they reached the Grange and the ladies went up-stairs; then he strolled into the stable-yard and met his eldest brother George.

“Who was that in the carriage?”

“Only little Miss Lane, the Mainwarings’ governess.”

“Eh? Oh, that was why you came home with the family-party! What is she like?”

“Like? Oh, like—a governess! Stiff, prim—won’t talk, or can’t talk. Awful mistake for her to have such a pretty face; it’s thrown away on a girl like that.”

“Perhaps she’ll talk by and by. I think life at the Vicarage doesn’t encourage liveliness much. Where is she now?”

“Up-stairs with mamma and Lil. I say, she’s my discovery; I brought her here, and I won’t have you monopolizing her. I’ve seen you staring at her in church, and wrinkling up your ugly face with annoyance because she wouldn’t look at you; but——”

“My dear boy, you shall have undisturbed possession of your prize, as far as I am concerned. I don’t look for my goddesses in the Sunday-school. I admire your wisdom, though, all the same. She can do you no possible harm, and will give you some excellent advice as a reward for your attentions.”

“Hope she’ll give you a snub as a reward for yours!” said Harry, with a heartiness which went beyond brotherly pleasantry.

Both faces were darkening into frowns when the dinner-bell rang. When they entered the dining-room, as they did together a few minutes later, they found little Miss Lane completely engrossed by their youngest brother, a great overgrown lad of fifteen or sixteen, whose usual shyness with women had been overcome in a quarter of an hour’stête-à-têtewith the governess in the drawing-room. He had placed her in the seat between his own and his father’s; but, before he had had time to sit down, George dropped quietly into the chair he was holding.

“That’s my place,” said he roughly.

“Mine for to-night, dear William,” answered his elder brother coolly, bending his handsome face close to that of the girl by his side. “This is a pleasure I have long wished for, Miss Lane,” he said, in the tender tones of the experienced flirt.

She looked at him shyly, laughed and blushed.

“It is very unkind of you to laugh. Don’t you believe me?”

“Not quite, I think.”

“Somebody has been poisoning your mind against me already, I see,” he said, with mock fierceness. “You would not pay any attention to what the juvenile William might say. It must have been Harry. It was Harry, was it not?”

“Which is ‘Harry’?”

“Harry is the grumpy-looking one over there—the one who came back in the carriage with you. He would give the world at this moment to pitch me out of the window.”

“Why?”

“Never mind why. It is his nasty temper.”

“He wouldn’t find it so easy, I should think.”

“No. We should be always pitching each other out of the window if we were not so well matched; as it is, when any of us are excited beyond endurance, we pitch the child out.”

“The child?”

“Yes—that great gawky boy who thought he was going to have all your conversation to himself by putting you between himself and my father. He hasn’t come to his full strength yet. We can still do great execution upon him if we take him unawares.”

The talk continued chiefly on his side until the general conversation turned upon racing, and he hastened, with an eager interest which no woman could excite in him, to join in the argument that was going forward. When he again glanced at the girl by his side, she was looking puzzled and rather prim.

“Our talk about horses and betting shocks you, I see,” he laughed. “You think it very wicked.”

“No, indeed, I don’t. But I am not used to it. It is so new to me, at least, since I have been a governess.”

“Since you have been a governess? Well, that can’t be very long. And did you hear talk like ours before?”

“Not—quite like yours; but I have heard gentlemen talk about racing and theaters, and—things like that, at home, before my father died.”

“Is that long ago?”

“No”—rather tremulously.

“Are you happy at the Vicarage?”

“Oh, yes, they are very kind to me!”

“So that now any conversation that is not serious surprises and distresses you?”

“Oh, no; I like it!”

“You like our profane conversation? Then why were you looking so prim just now? When I turned to you, you looked so solemn and severe, that the first words that occurred to me froze on my lips. I hadn’t a word to say.”

“That was because I can’t talk about horses.”

The little governess plucked up spirit enough to fire this shot under cover of the rising of the ladies, and George Braithwaite followed the small retreating figure with his eyes with more interest than he had yet felt in her. In the talk with his father and brothers which now went on unrestrainedly upon their favorite topics, Harry found occasion to disagree with his eldest brother upon every point. George bore this with a good-humor he seldom showed except when he wished to be irritating. The younger was already almost at boiling-point when they left the dining-room, where it had been unanimously decided that Miss Lane was very pretty, but had no spirit, no “go,” and that the Vicarage had crushed all the youth out of everything about her but her face.

George and Harry left the dining-room, the former by the door, the latter by the French window; and they entered the drawing-room at the same moment. Their mother and sister were at the piano looking for a missing song, but the demure little figure in white was not in the room. George merely asked if either of them had seen his cigar-case; but Harry burst out:

“Where’s Miss Lane?”

“Oh, the child has taken her off somewhere to play with him!” said Lilian. “You all seem very much excited about the governess,” she added rather contemptuously.

But Harry left the room. Miss Lane was prim, certainly, and had nothing to say for herself; but she was very pretty, and, moreover, he felt bound to show George that he was not to have it all his own way, as he had seemed at dinner to think he was doing.

He searched the billiard-room, the morning-room, opened the windows, and looked out on to the lawn. At last he thought he heard the sound of laughter up-stairs, and, mounting the staircase in a few bounds, he was led by the excited cries of “the child!”—“Take care!”—“Well done!”—“Caught, by Jove!”—and by girlish laughter and the scuffling of feet toward the picture-gallery. On the inner side of the door by which he entered it hung a heavy curtain; he pulled it aside just far enough to peep through into the long half-lighted gallery.

There stood the grave, sedate, prematurely old governess of half an hour before panting with laughter and exertion in the pause after a game of shuttlecock. There was no mistaking the fact; for she still held the battledoor in one hand while she rallied William on his clumsiness.

“If you try to catch it so, you must miss it, and perhaps lose your balance, besides exhibiting yourself in an extremely ungraceful attitude;” and she threw out her arms in laughing imitation of him in the act of saving himself from a fall. “Now try again. Are you ready?”

“Yes, I should think so! You sha’n’t laugh at me this time!”

The game began again. The shuttlecock was tossed from the one to the other amid cries and more laughter, both combatants being nimble, quick of eye and hand, and as much excited as if their very lives depended on the keeping up of the flimsy thing of leather and feathers. Harry’s own breath came and went as fast as theirs as he watched, not the game, but the graceful, active little player in white, whose movements in theabandonof the game had a fascination such as no famous dancer he had ever seen had exercised upon him; and when, as, once more pausing, the shuttlecock fell to the ground, she stood panting under the soft light of a Chinese lantern, her cheeks flushed, her dark eyes sparkling, her beautiful brown hair shining as her head moved, and her lips parted with smiles, the blood mounted to his face, and he watched her, with all the passionate admiration of his twenty years in his heart and in his eyes. He dared not move; he would not for the world have broken the charm by letting her know that the game had a spectator.

A minute later the shuttlecock was flying again. Opposite to the door where Harry was standing hidden was another door; and, as, with her eyes fixed upon the toy in the air above her head, Miss Lane tripped backward against the curtain, her foot caught in its folds, she stumbled, and might have fallen, had not an arm from behind the curtain caught and saved her. It was George’s. He had taken up his position just as his brother had taken his a few minutes later, at the opposite door.

Quick as thought, Miss Lane had shrunk at the touch of the unexpected hand into the shell of demure propriety she generally wore.

She showed not even surprise, only a little shame and confusion.

“Thank you. I am much obliged to you,” said she, modestly, without raising her eyes, extricating herself gently from the obliging arm. “I—I caught the curtain with my foot.”

“Are you sure you have not twisted your ankle?” asked George, bending down over her with great solicitude.

“Quite, thank you.”

George bowed his handsome head still lower, and murmured mischievously.

“Now I see why I couldn’t amuse you at dinner. It was because I can’t talk about shuttlecocks!”

She colored, but made no answer, except by a mischievous smile as she raised her eyes to his face. Harry came out from behind his curtain.

“Will you come and have a game at billiards, Miss Lane? I’ll teach you.”

“I can play a little; but I musn’t now, thank you. I must go back to the Vicarage.”

“How anxious you are to get away from us!” said George.

“Oh, indeed, it is not that! I haven’t been so happy for, oh, I don’t know how long, as I have been here to-day!”

“Then why are you in such a hurry to get away?”

“I am not in a hurry; it is because I must go,” said she, the almost child-like gayety quite gone out of her voice, which remained sweet, but low and grave; “besides, I—I ought not to have enjoyed myself so much. I had forgotten.”

“Forgotten what?” said George, kindly.

“To-day—my confirmation. It was wrong, very wrong of me! Such an example for my pupil Betty, too!”

George could not help smiling.

“I don’t think your bad example would do much harm to Betty, Miss Lane. I dare say she wishes she had a chance of spending her evening in the same way.”

“I am afraid she does,” said the governess, simply.

Then, hearing the voices of Lady Braithwaite and her daughter outside, she went out to meet them, followed by “the child,” and leaving the two elder brothers face to face.

“Charming little creature! That dash of the prig leaves her a delicious spice of novelty,” said George, lighting a cigar, and seeming not to notice his brother’s frowns.

“I thought ‘you didn’t choose your goddesses out of the Sunday-school’? I thought I ‘was to have undisturbed enjoyment of my discovery, as far as you were concerned’?”

“And so you might have had, if you had had the wit to forestall me. The pleasure of her society was absolutely forced upon me, for I could not leave a defenseless woman to be bored to death all through dinner by William and Sir George.”

“Where are you going?” asked the other, sharply, for George had his hand upon the door.

“To the stables, if you have no objection.”

“You are not going to see Miss Lane home?” shouted Harry.

“By Jove, I never thought of it! But it would be a good action to save the poor little woman from atête-à-têtewith such a cub.”

In his delight at tormenting his fiery-tempered brother, George had gone a little too far. As he lounged against the doorway, a sudden blow had sent him reeling back into the gallery, the door was slammed, and his brother was at the other end of the corridor before he could say a word. Harry met his sister in the corridor.

“Where’s Miss Lane?”

“Why? What do you want with Miss Lane?”

“Never mind. Where is she?”

But his sister was in a teasing mood. She had more than George’s cruelty in her disposition, and, being a girl, she could give it freer rein. She delighted in watching the excited working of Harry’s face as she evaded his questions.

“My dear boy, I am not Miss Lane’s guardian-angel. You should ask ‘the child’ where she is.”

“For Heaven’s sake, don’t torment me so! You met her outside the picture-gallery a few minutes ago, and took her away with you.”

“Oh, so I did! But you see I’ve dropped her somewhere.”

Harry seized her arm and shook it roughly. But the action only roused the girl’s spirit from idle teasing to hot defiance.

“Do you think you can make me tell you? If you were to kill me, I wouldn’t tell you unless I chose!”—and she shook herself free with a violence which sent him staggering a few paces.

He changed his tactics.

“Don’t be silly, Lil. You know I didn’t mean to hurt you; and, if we did come to blows, you would be just as likely to hurt me. But do tell me where Miss Lane is.”

“She’s gone.”

“Gone! Alone?”

“No. Stephen has gone with her; and it was I who sent him,” said she, defiantly.

“Oh, to annoy me, I suppose?”

“Partly, perhaps—you and George. I thought there had been quite fuss enough made about the little governess, and I thought that Stephen, being a cripple, and, therefore, not quite so rough as you, would make her a safer escort.”

Without a word in answer, Harry gave her a sharp box on the ear, and swung himself into the hall over the balusters, dashed into the garden, and plunging into a shrubbery to a short cut to the road, came out scratched and breathless a few yards behind Miss Lane and Stephen.

“You had better go in, Stephen, or you’ll make your cold worse. I’ll see Miss Lane safely home,” said he, abruptly.

A hot flush came over the cripple’s face.

“You’ve grown very considerate for me—for once,” he said, bitterly. “Did Lilian send you?”

“No; it would have been better for her if she had.”

“What have you done to her?” cried Stephen, anxiously.

“I’ve only boxed her ears for impertinence,” said Harry, haughtily.

“You brute! How dared you? I wish George had seen you.”

“George was lying on his back in the picture-gallery, where I left him.”

A sharp cry escaped the lips of the little governess.

“What! You have hurt your brother—perhaps killed him!”

“I haven’t hurt him, Miss Lane,” said Harry, with an uncomfortable blush. “I shouldn’t have touched him if he hadn’t wanted to prevent my seeing you home. You will let me now, won’t you?” said he, with sudden gentleness.

“Thank you. Mr. Lawler has offered to take me,” answered she, freezingly.

“But Mr. Lawler has a bad cold, and ought not to be out at night.”

“Then I will go home alone.”

Harry turned white with rage. The handsome lad was not used to snubs from women of any class, when he took the trouble to pay them any attention. Stephen’s eyes gleamed maliciously.

“You won’t send me back? The air won’t hurt me in the least; I am out in it every night,” said he, eagerly.

She could not refuse the cripple, and, bowing very coldly to Harry, she went on with Stephen toward the Vicarage.

It was always a terrible ordeal to the sensitive little Southron to shake four cold hands and smile “good-night” up into four cold faces when, the day’s work over, she could run through the garden to the cottage built in one corner of it, where she lived with an old servant of the family to wait upon her. But to-night it was far more terrible than it had ever been before. One degree more of frost in the manner of papa, mamma, eldest girl, and second girl made her feel that her sin, in letting herself be carried off by those worldlings, and possibly enjoying their godless society, was grievous indeed. But they never guessed the pain they were inflicting. Nay, they meant to be rather kind about it; and Mrs. Mainwaring asked, not without veiled curiosity:

“Well, did you enjoy yourself at the Grange? I suppose they were very kind to you?”

“Oh, yes, very kind.”

“You had a beautiful dinner, didn’t you?” asked Betty, who was rather agourmand.

“Yes, very nice,” answered Miss Lane, who had indeed not been insensible to the difference between the cookery of the Grange and that of the Vicarage.

“Did they all get tipsy?” asked Bertram, aged seven, very shyly.

“Oh, no! What makes you ask that, Bertram?”

“Ben said they did,” whispered he, sheepishly withdrawing—Ben was the coachman, with a dash of gardener.

“Did you think them nice?” asked Joan, inquisitorially.

“They were all very kind; but, oh, they quarrel dreadfully!”

“You wouldn’t like to be governess there, I suppose?”

“Oh, no, Mrs. Mainwaring!” answered Miss Lane, fervently and sincerely.

Yet, when she was once more alone, trying faithfully to banish outward thoughts and prepare herself for her prayers, the admiration, the warm kindliness of the wrong-headed Braithwaites would rush in and contrast itself with the logical conduct of the Mainwarings, who hung about her when she was in high spirits and neglected her when she was unhappy and unwell.

“I do hope he is not hurt!” was her last thought.

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