CHAPTER XV.
THE MISTRESS OF FLORE HALL.
Lady Quaintree had taken a fancy into her head that she should like to see the old Hall which now owned Miss Lois Turquand as proprietress. Therefore, she carried off the young girl, her maid, and a couple of male servants, on a hasty expedition.
“We will not send word we are coming, my dear,” she half-suggested, half-commanded. “It will be most advisable to seize the people who have the care of the place by surprise.”
Her ladyship knew nothing of the fact that Mrs. Turquand had once lived at Flore Hall in service. Lois had never heard her mother refer to her girl days, and was equally ignorant with Lady Quaintree that the almost elegant, proud woman she remembered as her mother had originally occupied so obscure and humble a position as lady’s-maid to a country squire’s wife.
“We must engage a maid for you, my love,” said Lady Quaintree. “It will be impossible for you to manage without one.”
Lois laughed with some gaiety, but did not answer.
The journey was easily performed, without adventure. The way was as pleasant as sunny skies, beautiful, constantly changing scenery, and easy transit could render it.
On arriving at Holston, in the evening, Lady Quaintree found a carriage waiting at the station, for she had sent intelligence of her advent to some friends in the vicinity, and piqued their curiosity by hints of the beauty and romantic history of a charming young friend she was bringing with her.
Not only a carriage, but a very pretty girl waited the arrival of the expected guests. This girl was the daughter of the old friends to whom Lady Quaintree was going to pay what she had called “a flying visit.” She was in the waiting-room, a bare, wooden-benched nook, whereher presence seemed like the veriest sunshine in a shady place.
She was watching from the window, and ran out on the platform when she saw her old friend alight.
A tall, symmetrically formed figure, attired in a coquettish style, a fair, laughing face, enframed in a golden shower of tangled curls, with blue, or, rather, violet eyes, carnation lips, the most dazzlingly white little pearly teeth, small hands, and dainty, arched feet, shod in high-heeled shoes with gleaming buckles—such would be very crude notes for a description of Blanche Dormer.
The train swept onward, and in a moment the platform was again silent and deserted, leaving Miss Dormer free to indulge in her evidently impulsive nature, by kissing and embracing Lady Quaintree in a very ardent manner. Lady Quaintree could have pardoned her for a little less show of affection, her ladyship being somewhat averse to being made so free with.
“Dearest Lady Quaintree,” cried this young lady, her voice ringing like musical bells, “I am so glad to see you! Mama would have come to meet you, but she is not very well. Papa had to go to dine with Sir Charles Devereux, or he would have come. I have not seen you since those delightful days three years ago, when we had such a delicious ‘time,’ as the Americans say, at that old Germanbade.”
“My dear, I have brought you a friend—Miss Lois Turquand,” said Lady Quaintree, with gentle dignity. “I hope you two girls will like one another.”
The girls looked into one another’s eyes, and then simultaneously obeyed some mysterious impulse by clasping hands.
“You two were little girls when I last saw you, Miss Blanche,” Lady Quaintree said, as they descended the stairs to enter the carriage.
“I was sixteen, your ladyship,” protested Blanche. “I am nineteen now.”
“Ah! well. Fifteen or sixteen, I suppose, is very young and childish to an old lady like me,” smiled her ladyship.
On their way to The Cedars, the carriage passed the barracks.
Blanche eagerly directed the attention of her companions to the place, and informed them that the present occupants were to leave on the morrow, and a fresh regiment was to be installed on Wednesday morning.
Lady Quaintree politely suppressed a yawn, and thought with mild wonderment of how easily interested in small objects country people were. Lois listened with equal indifference, studying the captivating lights and shadows on her new friend’s face.
Neither knew that it was the regiment to which Paul Desfrayne belonged that was expected.
Mrs. Dormer was a delightful, somewhat old-fashioned type of the country lady. Her manners were as free and as heartily cordial as those of her daughter, but yet, like Blanche, she was as exquisitely refined as if all her life had been passed at court.
Having established her guests to her entire satisfaction, she began to make a bargain with Lady Quaintree for a more extended stay than that contemplated. She protested against their running away after a few hours, for Lady Quaintree had settled that by the afternoon of the next day she and Lois should drive to Flore Hall, and, if it were at all inhabitable, stay there perhaps a day, or a couple of days.
Mrs. Dormer listened with lively interest to the romantic story of Miss Turquand’s newly acquired riches, while Blanche coaxed the young girl into the garden for a quiet talk.
In an hour the girls had cemented a friendship that was to last till death should them part.
“I know Flore Hall quite well,” said Blanche, when her enthusiasm had slightly subsided. “A dear, delicious, old-fashioned place, in what my old nurse calls ‘apple-pie order.’ You ought to fall in love with the house, the gardens, the plantations, the shrubberies, the conservatories, and all the rest, at first sight.”
Blanche went on to give a minute description of the various beauties of the Hall and its surroundings, until she made Lois feel more desirous than she had yet been to see her new possession.
The next day, having been introduced to Squire Dormer,and shown the house and grounds by Blanche, who did the honors, Lois, now full of an eager interest, and Lady Quaintree, quite girllike in her gleeful anticipation, went to Flore Hall.
There were many discussions as to how they should go, but it had been finally decided that Miss Dormer should drive them over in her pony-carriage.
The lanes, the meadows, the sloping uplands, speckled and dotted with sheep and kine, an occasional gleam of sunshiny water half-hidden by alders, clumps of willows, and long grasses, the sweet sounds of country life, the passing jingle of the bells on a wagoner’s horses, made the way a veritable Arcadia of summer beauty. A joyous exhilaration filled Lois’ whole being, and she drank in the fresh, free air as if it had been the nectar of the gods.
A tolerably smart drive of about an hour’s duration brought the visitors—for such they considered themselves—to the massive iron gates of the park surrounding Flore Hall.
Miss Dormer drew up her cream-colored ponies, to let the two ladies obtain a general view of the outward walls and plantations, the pretty lodge, and the surrounding landscape.
As Lois gazed upon the scene, she for the first time realized the dazzling change that had taken place in her position. Her varying color betrayed the emotions of her heart; but her companions were too much preoccupied with their inspection to have any attention to spare.
Blanche Dormer knew the place well, but she now regarded with different eyes the familiar spot.
Nothing whatever could be seen of the house from the gates, for the walls were very high, and the trees grew so close together that they formed an apparently impenetrable screen.
A profound, peaceful silence reigned over the place, and but for the thin stream of smoke rising from the lodge chimney, it might have been conceivable that this was like one of those palaces familiar in the old fairy legends, where invisible spirits wait, and a spell lies over all.
The mounted servant who attended the ladies alightedand rang the bell. The clang reverberated, and but a very few minutes elapsed before the summons was answered.
An exceedingly pleasant-looking young rustic girl came trippingly along the neatly kept path from the lodge to the gates, and opening a small postern door at the side, stood, like some pretty rural figure in a quaintly designed frame, gazing in mingled astonishment and admiration at the visitors.
In a moment or two a smile of recognition passed over her face as she saw Miss Dormer, and she curtsied, awaiting some explanation of the pleasure of the ladies.
Lady Quaintree had ascertained the name of the housekeeper, and asked if she were in the house.
“Yes, my lady,” the girl said.
“We wish to see her,” Miss Dormer said.
“Yes, miss,” the girl again said, curtsying with rustic civility at almost every monosyllable.
“Open the gates, and let the ladies drive up to the house,” the groom said. “Is your grandfather at home?”
“Yes,” the girl answered; but she unfastened the great iron gates herself, and let them swing back.
Then she closed them, when the ponies had scampered through, and as the ladies passed up the carriage-drive she ran back to the lodge, to inform her deaf old grandfather that some visitors had arrived.
“Upon my word,” said Lady Quaintree, as they came in sight of the stately old pile, “you are an exceedingly lucky girl, my Lois.”
Lois smiled dreamily. No fear, no foreboding, no distrust disturbed the soft serenity of that moment.
She looked up at the house, and scanned its ivy-grown walls, its noble turrets, and quaint old windows, its carved terraces, the profusion of radiant flowers and stately shrubs and grand old trees, the statues that gleamed here and there from their leafy, embowering shades, the fountain that flung up its glittering waters in the summer sunshine; and while she mentally agreed with her friend and patroness, she felt that this must be some glowing, fantastical dream.