Chapter 7. Two Years Before

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_ CHAPTER SEVEN. TWO YEARS BEFORE

Blue sky, the bluest of blue water, margined with green and gold; gloriously rugged, steeply sloping pasture alps, dotted with picturesquely carved chalets, weatherworn by sun and rain to a rich, warm brown; higher up, the sehn hutte--the summer farmsteads of the peasants, round and about which graze gentle, soft-faced cows, each bearing its sweet-toned, musical bell. Again, higher still, grey crag and lightning-blasted granite, bare, repellant, and strange; upward still, and in nook and cranny patches of a dingy white, like the sweepings up of a great hailstorm; another thousand feet up, and the aching eyes dazzled by peak, fold, cushion, and plain of white--the eternal ice; and, above all, the glorious sun beaming down, melting from the snows a million tiny rivers, which whisper and sing as they carve channels for their courses and meet and coalesce to flow amicably down, or quarrel and rage and rush together, till, with a mighty, echoing roar, they plunge headlong down the rift in some mighty glacier, flow on for miles, and reappear at the foot turbid, milky, and laden with stone, to hurry headlong to their purification in the lovely lake below.

Two hundred feet above that lake, on a broad shelf, stood the Hotel des Cerfs, a magnified chalet, and in the wooden balcony, leaning upon the carved rail, and gazing at the wondrous view across lake and meadow, up and away to the snow-covered mountains till they blended with the fleecy clouds, stood Myra Jerrold and Edie Perrin--cousins by birth, sisters by habit--revelling in their first visit to the land of ice peak, valley, and lake.

"I could stand here, I think, forever, and never tire of drinking in the beauties of such a scene, Edie. It makes me so happy; and yet there are moments when the tears come into my eyes, and I feel sad."

"Yes, I know, dear," replied Edie. "That's when you want your lunch or dinner. One feels faint."

"How can you be so absurd?" cried Myra half reproachfully.

"Then it's indigestion, from eating old goat."

"Edie!"

"It is, dear," said the merry, fair-haired girl, swinging her straw hat by one string over the balcony. "I'm sure they save up the goats when they're too old to give any milk, to cook up for the visitors, and then they call it chamois. I wish Aunt Jerrold had been here to have some of that dish last night. I say, she wants to know when we are coming back to Bourne Square."

"I don't know," said Myra thoughtfully. "I am in no hurry. It is very beautiful here."

"Hum, yes. You like it--as well as Saint Malo, the boating, and that quaint Breton woman where we lodged?"

"Of course. The flowers and the pine woods--it is one glorious garden. Papa liked the yachting, though."

"Yes; but after three months out here I shall be glad to see smoky old London again."

"Yes," said Myra meaningly, "I suppose so."

Edie glanced at her sidewise in a quick, sharp way, but was silent for a few minutes. When her cousin spoke:

"Let's go and coax papa out for a good ramble till dinner--I mean supper--time."

"No good; he would not come. Piquet, coffee, and cigars. Do you like this Mr Barron, Myra?"

"_Oh, yes, well enough_. He is very clever and well informed. He can talk pleasantly about anything, especially about yachting and the sea, and of course papa likes that."

"Talks too much, I think. I'd rather sit and listen to quiet, thoughtful Mr Stratton."

"I suppose so," said Myra rather dryly; and then hastened to add, "and Mr Guest."

"Yes, and to Mr Guest," said her cousin, again looking at her sharply, and as if the words had stung.

Myra met her glance, and hurriedly changed the conversation.

"Look, what a change there is on the lake, dear," she said. "How glowing the water is."

"Yes, and yet some people prefer playing cards to studying nature."

"Papa is no longer young. He has enjoyed scenery all over the world and likes rest now, and a game of cards."

"I was not talking about uncle, dear."

"About Mr Barron, then? Dear me, what a sagacious nod. Edie dear, don't think out romances. Let's enjoy the matter of fact and real. Ready for a walk?"

Edie held up her hat by one string, and put it on ready to descend with her cousin to a lower balcony, on another frontage of the house, where, seated at a table, with coffee, cigars, and a pack of cards, was the admiral, and, facing him, a rather heavily built man, with some pretensions to being handsome. He was plainly and well dressed, of the easy manners of one accustomed to all kinds of society, and apparently rather proud of his white, carefully tended hands.

As he turned a little more to the light in bending to remove the ash from his cigar, streaks of grey showed in his closely cut beard and crisp, dark hair. In addition there was a suggestion of wrinkling about the corners and beneath his eyes, the work more of an arduous life than age.

As he rose to replace the cigar between his lips he smiled carelessly.

"Luck's with you to-day, admiral," he said; and he was in the act of shuffling his cards when he caught sight of his companion's daughter and niece.

In an instant the cards were thrown down, and the cigar jerked out of the window.

"What's the matter?" said the admiral. "Ah, girls!"

"We're come to ask you to go for a walk with us, papa, but if--"

Myra's eyes rested for a moment on the admiral's companion, and then dropped to the cards.

"Our game?" said the younger man quickly. "Oh, that's nothing; we can play any time, Miss Jerrold, and the weather is lovely now. Why not accompany the ladies, sir?"

"No, thanks; I get more walking than I care for. Don't go far, girls; the mountains are full of goblins and dragons, which devour pretty maidens. Be back soon, and I'll go and sit down with you by the lake. Now, Barron, your deal."

The gentleman addressed looked at the ladies, and shrugged his shoulders slightly as much as to say. "You see I have no alternative."

"Then you will not come, papa?" said Myra as she rested her hands on his shoulders.

"No, my dear; too tired. Don't spoil my luck by stopping; run along."

"Uncle talks to us as if we were two little tots of things, Myry," said Edie as they crossed the hotel garden.

"Well, why should we not always be to him like the girls he loves and pets?"

James Barron thought the same as Edie as he dealt the cards, and he added to himself: "She resents it; I could see her brow wrinkle. That settles it; I'll chance the throw."

"Ha! Now we can be at peace again," cried the admiral as he settled himself to his hand, which he played out, and ended by winning the game.

James Barron took up the pack again nervously, threw it down, thrust his hand into his pocket, and then passed a couple of louis across the table.

"Cut," said the admiral.

His _vis-a-vis_ shook his head, took out a case, and carefully selected a cigar, which he proceeded to cut and light.

"Oh, nonsense, man! The luck will change; my turn to-day, your's to-morrow."

"Pooh! It isn't that, Sir Mark," said Barron, throwing himself back in his chair. "I can afford to lose a few louis. I'm a bit hipped--out of sorts."

"Hotel living."

"No, sir; brain. There, I'll speak plainly, even at the risk of your laughing at me, for we have been friends now at several places during the last three months--since I met you at Saint Malo."

"Pleasant acquaintances, sir," said the admiral, metaphorically drawing himself beneath the shell of his English reserve. "Mutual tastes-- yachting. Acquaintances, sir."

"I beg your pardon; acquaintances, then."

There was a pause, during which the admiral also lit a fresh cigar, and his brows twitched a little.

"Sir Mark, I'm a plain man, and I think by this time you pretty well know my history. I ought to be over in Trinidad superintending the cocoa estate my poor father left me, but I detest the West Indies, and I love European life. It is my misfortune to be too well off. Not rich, but I have a comfortable, modest income. Naturally idle, I suppose."

"Nonsense, sir!" said the admiral gruffly. "One of the most active men I ever met."

"Thank you. Well, idle, according to the accepted ideas of some of the Americans we meet abroad. Dollars--making dollars--their whole conversation chinks of the confounded coin, and their ladies' dresses rustle with greenbacks. I hate money-making, but I like money for my slave, which bears me into good society and among the beauties of nature. Yes, I am an idler--full, perhaps, of dilettantism."

"Rather a long preface, Mr Barron," said Sir Mark gruffly. "Make headway, please. What is it you wish to say?"

"I think you know, sir," said the other warmly. "I lived to thirty-seven, hardly giving a thought to the other sex, save as agreeable companions. I met you and your niece and daughter over yonder at Macugnaga, and the whole world was changed."

"Humph!"

"I am not a boy, sir. I speak to you as a man of the world, and I tell you plainly that I love her as a strong man only can love."

"Edith?"

"Don't trifle with me, sir!" cried Barron, bringing his hand down heavily upon the table, and gazing almost fiercely in the old sailor's eyes.

"Humph! my daughter, then. And you have told her all this?"

"Sir Mark Jerrold! Have I ever given you cause to think I was other than a gentleman?"

"No, no," said the admiral hastily. "I beg your pardon. But this is all very sudden; we are such new acquaintances."

"You might call it friends," said Barron reproachfully.

"No; acquaintances--yet," said the old sailor sturdily.

"Then you do give me some hope?" cried Barron excitedly.

"No, I did not, sir. I'm out of soundings here. No; hang it, I meant to say, sir, in shoal water. Hang it, man, I don't want the child to think about such things for years."

"Sir Mark, your daughter must be twenty."

"Eh? Twenty? Humph! Well, I suppose she is."

"There is no hurry, sir. Let matters go on as they are, only let it be an understood thing that you do, say in a latent may, encourage my suit."

"No, sir; I'll bind myself to nothing; I--Oh, hang it all, man, why did you spoil a pleasant trip like this?"

"Spoil it, Sir Mark? Have some compassion for the natural feelings of a man thrown into the society of so sweet a girl as--"

"That will do, sir; that will do," cried the admiral, frowning. "There; I'm not going to quarrel with you, Mr Barron. I was young once myself. I was a good sailor, I'm told, but this sort of thing is out of my latitude. If my poor wife had lived--Phew! it's growing hot, isn't it? Thunderstorm, I suppose."

"I'm very sorry, Sir Mark."

"So am I, sir," said the admiral. "There's an end to our trip."

"Sir Mark! Don't talk like that. I'll leave the hotel to-morrow. I would not on any consideration--"

"That will do, Mr Barron; that will do. I'm a man of few words, and what I say I mean. This can go no further here."

"You don't mean that you will go away?"

"Back to England, sir, and home as fast as I can."

"But my proposal, sir?"

"I have a sister there, sir, my counsellor in all matters concerning my two girls."

"But you will give me leave to call--in England?"

"Tchah, man! You'll forget it all in a month."

Barron smiled.

"You will give me leave to call at your house?"

"As a gentleman, sir, I can hardly refuse that."

Barron smiled and bowed.

"I see, sir. I have been too hasty, Admiral Jerrold. I ask you as a favour, if you do carry out your hasty decision, to make some inquiries respecting Mr Barron of Trinidad."

"I shall, sir, of course," said the admiral. "You'll excuse me now; I'm going to join my niece and daughter."

He left the veranda gallery, puffing heavily at his cigar, while Barron stood watching him.

"Hit or miss?" he muttered. "Hit, I think, and game worth bringing down. She's cold. Well, naturally, I don't think I managed it so badly, after all."

"Oh, here's uncle," said Edie half an hour later as she saw the big, burly figure of the old sailor approaching. "Oh, you dear, good old uncle. Come and sit down here, and you can see the colour changing on the ice peaks."

"No, no, no. Come back, girls, and pack up. We're off by the first train to-morrow."

"Where to now, papa?"

"Bourne Square, W., my dear, as soon as we can get there. Come along!"

"Myry--Mr Barron passed as we came into the hotel, and only raised his hat."

"Have papa and he had some misunderstanding over the cards?"

"Perhaps: over the hearts."

"Edie!" cried Myra, colouring. "What do you mean?"

"He has been proposing for you, and uncle said no; and now he is going to carry us off home to be safe."

"Proposed for me," said Myra thoughtfully, and in the most unruffled way, as her eyes assumed a dreamy, wondering look.

"Of course, and you love him dearly, don't you?"

"I? Oh, no," said Myra calmly.

"What a strange girl she is!" thought Edith that night as she went to bed.

And Myra said to herself again calmly and thoughtfully: "Proposed for me. Perhaps Edie is right. But how strange!" _

Read next: Chapter 8. Stratton's Decision

Read previous: Chapter 6. Guest Thinks The Worst

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