第54章

LIGHT COME, LIGHT GO.

Lady Muriel's smile of welcome could not quite conceal the look of surprise with which she regarded my new companions.

I presented them in due form."This is Sylvie, Lady Muriel.And this is Bruno.""Any surname?" she enquired, her eyes twinkling with fun.

"No," I said gravely."No surname."

She laughed, evidently thinking I said it in fun; and stooped to kiss the children a salute to which Bruno submitted with reluctance: Sylvie returned it with interest.

While she and Arthur (who had arrived before me) supplied the children with tea and cake, I tried to engage the Earl in conversation: but he was restless and distrait, and we made little progress.At last, by a sudden question, he betrayed the cause of his disquiet.

"Would you let me look at those flowers you have in your hand?""Willingly!" I said, handing him the bouquet.Botany was, I knew, a favourite study of his: and these flowers were to me so entirely new and mysterious, that I was really curious to see what a botanist would say of them.

They did not diminish his disquiet.On the contrary, he became every moment more excited as he turned them over."These are all from Central India!" he said, laying aside part of the bouquet.

"They are rare, even there: and I have never seen them in any other part of the world.These two are Mexican--This one--" (He rose hastily, and carried it to the window, to examine it in a better light, the flush of excitement mounting to his very forehead) "---is.I am nearly sure --but I have a book of Indian Botany here--" He took a volume from the book-shelves, and turned the leaves with trembling fingers."Yes!

Compare it with this picture! It is the exact duplicate! This is the flower of the Upas-tree, which usually grows only in the depths of forests; and the flower fades so quickly after being plucked, that it is scarcely possible to keep its form or colour even so far as the outskirts of the forest! Yet this is in full bloom! Where did you get these flowers?" he added with breathless eagerness.

I glanced at Sylvie, who, gravely and silently, laid her finger on her lips, then beckoned to Bruno to follow her, and ran out into the garden;and I found myself in the position of a defendant whose two most important witnesses have been suddenly taken away."Let me give you the flowers!" I stammered out at last, quite 'at my wit's end' as to how to get out of the difficulty."You know much more about them than I do!""I accept them most gratefully! But you have not yet told me--" the Earl was beginning, when we were interrupted, to my great relief, by the arrival of Eric Lindon.

To Arthur, however, the new-comer was, I saw clearly, anything but welcome.His face clouded over: he drew a little back from the circle, and took no further part in the conversation, which was wholly maintained, for some minutes, by Lady Muriel and her lively cousin, who were discussing some new music that had just arrived from London.

"Do just try this one!" he pleaded."The music looks easy to sing at sight, and the song's quite appropriate to the occasion.""Then I suppose it's 'Five o'clock tea!

Ever to thee Faithful I'll be, Five o'clock tea!"'

laughed Lady Muriel, as she sat down to the piano, and lightly struck a few random chords.

"Not quite: and yet it is a kind of 'ever to thee faithful I'll be!'

It's a pair of hapless lovers: he crosses the briny deep: and she is left lamenting.""That is indeed appropriate!" she replied mockingly, as he placed the song before her.

"And am I to do the lamenting? And who for, if you please?"She played the air once or twice through, first in quick, and finally in slow, time; and then gave us the whole song with as much graceful ease as if she had been familiar with it all her life:--"He stept so lightly to the land, All in his manly pride:

He kissed her cheek, he pressed her hand, Yet still she glanced aside.

'Too gay he seems,' she darkly dreams, 'Too gallant and too gay To think of me--poor simple me---When he is far away!'

'I bring my Love this goodly pearl Across the seas,' he said:

'A gem to deck the dearest girl That ever sailor wed!'

She clasps it tight' her eyes are bright:

Her throbbing heart would say 'He thought of me--he thought of me---When he was far away!'

The ship has sailed into the West:

Her ocean-bird is flown:

A dull dead pain is in her breast, And she is weak and lone:

Yet there's a smile upon her face, A smile that seems to say 'He'll think of me he'll think of me---When he is far away!

'Though waters wide between us glide, Our lives are warm and near:

No distance parts two faithful hearts Two hearts that love so dear:

And I will trust my sailor-lad, For ever and a day, To think of me--to think of me---When he is far away!'"

The look of displeasure, which had begun to come over Arthur's face when the young Captain spoke of Love so lightly, faded away as the song proceeded, and he listened with evident delight.But his face darkened again when Eric demurely remarked "Don't you think 'my soldier-lad'

would have fitted the tune just as well!"

"Why, so it would!" Lady Muriel gaily retorted.

"Soldiers, sailors, tinkers, tailors, what a lot of words would fit in!

I think 'my tinker-lad sounds best.Don't you?"To spare my friend further pain, I rose to go, just as the Earl was beginning to repeat his particularly embarrassing question about the flowers.

"You have not yet--'

"Yes, I've had some tea, thank you!" I hastily interrupted him.

"And now we really must be going.Good evening, Lady Muriel!"And we made our adieux, and escaped, while the Earl was still absorbed in examining the mysterious bouquet.

Lady Muriel accompanied us to the door."You couldn't have given my father a more acceptable present!" she said, warmly."He is so passionately fond of Botany.I'm afraid I know nothing of the theory of it, but I keep his Hortus Siccus in order.I must get some sheets of blotting-paper, and dry these new treasures for him before they fade.

"That won't be no good at all!" said Bruno, who was waiting for us in the garden.