CHAPTER XII
IT was about a month after Mrs. Tarleton’s death that Cecil kicked Lee under the breakfast-table and jerked his eyebrows at his father, who sat opposite. Mr. Maundrell was reading his English mail. His pale face was flushed. His impassive features threatened a change of expression.
That afternoon, as Lee was returning from school, Cecil met her half-way up the hill.
“My uncle Basil and the little chap are dead, and father’s the heir,” he announced.
“Is he a lord?” cried Lee, with bated breath.
“Yes.”
Lee’s eyes danced. Romance revived. Care fled.
“A duke?”
“No, an earl.”
“Earl’s much prettier than duke. I mean a prettier word.”
“He’s got a title of course. He’s Lord Barnstaple.”
“That’s not so pretty.”
“I——” Cecil thrust his hands into his pockets and turned very red. “I don’t mind telling you—I’ve got a title too—what they call a courtesy title. You see my father’s the Earl of Barnstaple and Viscount Maundrell. So I’m Lord Maundrell. Ishouldn’t think of mentioning it to any one else,” he added hastily.
“Cecil!” Lee waved her arms wildly and danced up and down. “I neverheardof anything so lovely. I feel exactly as if we were inside Scott or Shakespeare or something. Shall you wear a crown and an ermine robe?”
“I’m not a king,” said Cecil loftily. “Talk aboutmynot knowing anything about United States history! You Americans are so funny. Fancy you caring so much about such things.” His tone was almost his father’s upon occasion.
“Why not? The idea! I think it’s perfectly romantic and lovely to be lords and ladies. Whole shelves full of books have been written about them—the standard works of fiction, that everybody reads. And plays, and ballads, and poems, and pictures too! I’ve often heard my mother talk about it, and I used to read the descriptions out loud to her in the winter—she said it would form my taste for elegant literature. I could just see the whole thing—the kings and dukes, and the beautiful processions, and the castles and tournaments, and princesses and falcons. Oh my! Of course I care. I’d be a silly little ninny if I didn’t care. I just wish I’d been born like all that. I’m sure there’s nothing very romantic about San Francisco—particularly Market Street.”
“Well,” said Cecil, bringing down his eyebrows and consenting to establish himself at Lee’s view-point. “You’re going to be ‘like that.’ You’re going to marry me.”
Lee stopped short, her mouth open. “So I am,” she gasped. “So I am. Could we be married right off, do you think?”
Cecil dropped his head and shook it gloomily. “I had a talk with father to-day;” he shivered as he recalled that conversation; “and he says he won’t take you back with us; that he likes you well enough, but one American in the family is as much as he can stand—and, oh, a lot of rot. We’ll have to wait till I grow up, and then I’ll come back for you, or perhaps some one will bring you over.”
They entered the side door of the boarding-house. Cecil pulled Lee down beside him on the stair.
“Oh, Lee,” he said in a high falsetto, “we’re going to-morrow. And I hate to go away and leave you. I do! I do!”
“Going to-morrow!” gasped Lee, “and without me!” She burst into a storm of tears, and Cecil forgot his manly pride and wept too.
“I wish I were grown,” sobbed Cecil. “And I won’t be for years. I’ve got to finish at Eton, and then I’ve got to go to Oxford. I’m only fifteen and one month. I won’t be my own master for six years, and I won’t be through Oxford when I am. It takes so beastly long to educate a fellow. It may be eight years before I see you again.”
“Eight years! I shalldie. Why won’t he take me? I can pay for myself. Mrs. Hayne says I have eighty dollars a month. Don’t you think he’ll change his mind?”
“He won’t! he won’t!”
When Lee had wept herself dry, she adjusted herselfto fate. “Well,” she said, with a heavy sigh, “we’ll write every week, won’t we?”
It was Cecil’s turn to be appalled. This was a phase of the tragedy that had not occurred to him.
“Oh, Lee,” he faltered, “I hate to write letters!”
“But you will?” she cried shrilly. “You will?”
“Oh, I’ll try! I’ll try! But only one a month.”
“One a week or I won’t write at all. And it’s nice to get letters.”
“One a fortnight then.”
To this Lee finally consented, and then went upstairs and helped him to pack. Their faces were so funereal at dinner that they were the subject of much good-natured chaff. Many disapproving glances were directed at Mr. Maundrell,—with whose ascent they had not been made acquainted,—for the children had furnished the house with much amusement, and they commanded no little sympathy.
After dinner Cecil and Lee sat in one of the bay windows in the front parlour and talked of the future. Cecil good-naturedly promised that life should be exactly like one of Scott’s novels, any one that Lee preferred. After some excogitation she concluded that she liked the poems best, particularly “Marmion,” and Cecil agreed to qualify for the part. Lee in return vowed to go fishing and shooting with him, never to scream at the wrong time, even if a blackbeetle got on her, and never to get into rages and call him names. They also exchanged tokens. Lee gave him a little gold heart with her picture—cut from a tin-type—and a strand of her lank hair in it, and he gave her a ring cutwith the arms of his house, and begged her to keep it in her pocket when his father was round.
The next morning Lee was graciously permitted to accompany the travellers across the bay. She and Cecil paced up and down the deck of the boat, too excited for melancholy; both under that spell which cauterises so many wounds. Lee was to be left behind, but she was in the midst of an event. Moreover, she was shortly to see what a Pullman car was like. She wrung one more solemn promise from Cecil to write.
Lord Barnstaple had taken a drawing-room for himself and his son, and Lee examined the ornate interior and thought it very vulgar.
“You’ll be sure not to put your head out of the window, won’t you, Cecil?” she asked anxiously. “And you’ll hold on tight at night and not be pitched out of these things.”
Cecil grunted. She had hung a camphor bag on him, and presented him with a large package of cough drops.
Lord Barnstaple took out his watch. “We start in eight minutes,” he said. “You had better let me put you in the hack; I have told the man to take you home.” He paused and smiled slightly. He was at peace with the world, and inclined to be gracious to everybody; moreover, there was just a chance, a bare chance, that this boy-and-girl affair might come to something. His son had a tenacious will, and these Americans were the devil and all for getting their own way. If Lee should turn out a great heiress—he had a vague idea thatall American girls became heiresses as soon as they grew up—and should fulfil her promise of even temper and sturdy character, Cecil might, of course, do worse. Far be it from him to encourage the invasion of the British aristocracy by the undisciplined American female, but if another in the family was to be his unhappy fate, as well drop into the plastic mind a few seeds from the gardens of civilisation.
“We may see you in England, some day,” he said; “you Americans are always travelling. Try to make yourself like English girls. Study hard and improve your mind. A smattering is such a trial; it rhymes with chattering. Don’t talk too much, and above all never have hysterics. I am sure they are only a habit and can be controlled if you begin early. And—ah—your manners are somewhat abrupt, and you have a way of sprawling. Your mother, I am told, was a very elegant woman. Try to grow like her. Mrs. Hayne says it is likely that some of your mother’s friends will offer you a home. Accept, by all means; it would be quite dreadful to be brought up in a boarding-house. I believe that is all. Now say good-bye.”
Cecil gave Lee a mighty hug and winked rapidly. Lord Barnstaple allowed them one minute, then took Lee firmly by the hand and marched her to the hack.
“Good-bye,” he said kindly. “You are a jolly little thing—you don’t make any fuss. Mind you never have hysterics.”
But Lee cried audibly all the way home, secure in the pawing of the horses about her on the boat, andin the noise of the hack on the cobble-stones thereafter. Cecil was gone, and there was no mother awaiting her in the boarding-house. She could not even go into the old room and cry on her mother’s bed, for strangers were there. She was very forlorn, and life was as black as pitch.