That Girl in Black; and, Bronzie

Nevertheless, Despard did not leave England without knowing how completely Lady Margaret had retracted her cruel words, and how bitterly she regretted them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Time passes quickly, we are told, when we are hard at work. And doubtless this is true while the time in question is the present. But to look back upon time of which every day and every hour have been fully occupied, gives somewhat the feeling of a closely-printed volume when one has finished reading it. It seems even longer than in anticipation. To Despard Norreys, when at the end of two busy years he found himself again in England, it appeared as if he had been absent five or six times as long as was really the case.

He had been a week in England, and was still detained in town by details connected with the work he had successfully accomplished. He was under promise to his sister to run down to Markerslea the first day it should be possible, and time meanwhile hung somewhat heavily on his hands. The waters had already closed over his former place in society, and he did not regret it. Still there were friends whom he was glad to meet again, and so he not unwillingly accepted some of the invitations that began to find him out.

One evening, after dining at the house of the friend whose influence had obtained for him the appointment which had just expired, he accompanied the ladies of the family to an evening party in the neighbourhood. He had never been in the house before; the faces about him were unfamiliar. Feeling a little "out of it," he strolled into a small room where a select quartette was absorbed at whist, and seated himself in a corner somewhat out of the glare of light, which, since his illness, rather painfully affected his eyes.

Suddenly the thought of Maisie Fforde as he had last seen her seemed to rise before him as in a vision.

"I wonder if she is married," he said to himself. "Sure to be so, I should think. Yet I should probably have heard of it."

And even as the words formed themselves in his mind, a still familiar voice caught his ear.

"Thank you. Yes, this will do nicely. I will wait here till Mabel is ready to go."

And a lady--a girl, he soon saw--came forward into the room towards the corner where he was sitting. He rose at once; she approached him quickly, then with a sudden, incoherent exclamation, made as if she would have drawn back. But it was too late; she could not, if she wished, have pretended she did not see him.

"Mr Norreys," she began; "I had no idea--"

"That I was in England," he said. "No, I have only just returned. Pardon me for having startled you, Miss Fforde--Lady Margaret, I mean. I on my side had no idea of meeting you here or--"

"Or you would not have come," she in her turn interrupted him with. "Thank you; you are frank at all events," she added haughtily.

He turned away. There was perhaps some involuntary suggestion of reproach in his manner, for hers changed.

"No," she said. "I am very wrong. Please stay for two minutes, and listen to me. I have hoped and prayed that I might never meet you again, but at the same time I made a vow--a real vow," she went on girlishly, "that _if_ I did so I would swallow my pride, and--and ask you to forgive me. There now--I have said it. That is all. Will you, Mr Norreys?"

He glanced round; the whist party was all unconscious of the rest of the world still--

"Will you not sit down for a moment, Lady Margaret?" he said, and as she did so he too drew a chair nearer to hers. "It is disagreeable to be overheard," he went on in a tone of half apology. "You ask me what I cannot now do," he added.

The girl reared her head, and the softness of her manner hardened at once.

"Then," she said, "we are quits. It does just as well. My conscience is clear now."

"So is mine, as to _that_ particular of--of what you call forgiving you," he said, and his voice was a degree less calm. "I cannot do so now, for--I forgave you long, long ago."

"You have seen Mrs Englewood? She has told you at last that all was explained to me--your sister's letter and all," she went on confusedly, "that I saw how horrid, how low and mean and suspicious and everything I had been?"

"I knew all you refer to before I left England," he said simply. "But I asked Mrs Englewood to leave it as it was, unless she was absolutely forced to tell you. I knew you must hate the sound of my name, and she promised to drop the subject."

"And I have scarcely seen her for a long time," said Maisie. "I saw she did avoid it, and I suppose she thought it no use talking about it."

"I did not need her explanation," Despard went on gently. "I had--if you will have the word--I had forgiven you long before. Indeed, I think I did so almost at once. It was all natural on your part. What had I done, what was I that you should have thought any good of me? When you remembered the way I behaved to you at first," and here his voice grew very low. "I have never been able to--I shall never be able to forgive myself--"

"Mr Norreys!" said Maisie in a very contrite tone. But Despard kept silence.

"Are you going to stay at home now, or are you going away again?" she asked presently, trying to speak in a matter-of-fact way.

"I hardly know. I am waiting to see what I can get to do. I don't much mind what, but I shall never again be able to be idle," he said, smiling a little for the first time. "It is my own fault entirely--the fault of my own past folly--that I am not now well on in the profession I was intended for. So I must not grumble if I have to take what work I can get in any part of the world. I would rather stay in England for some reasons."

"Why?" she asked.

"I cannot stand heat very well," he said. "My little sunstroke left some weak points--my eyes are not strong."

She did not answer at once.

Then, "How crooked things are," she said at last suddenly; "you want work, and I--oh, I am _so_ busy and worried. Papa impressed upon me that I must look after things myself, and accept the responsibilities, but--I don't think he quite saw how difficult it would be," and her eyes filled with tears.

"But--" said Despard, puzzled by her manner, "he is surely able to help you?"

She turned to him more fully--the tears came more quickly, but she did not mind his seeing them.

"Didn't you know?" she said; "Papa is dead--more than a year ago now. Just before I came of age. I am quite alone. That silly--I shouldn't say that, he is kind and good--Conrad is Lord Southwold now. But I don't want to marry him, though he is almost the only man who, I _know_, cares for me for myself. How strange you did not know about my being all alone! Didn't you notice this?" and she touched her black skirt.

"I have never seen you except in black," said Despard. "No--I had no idea. I am so grieved."

"If--if you stay in England," she began again half timidly, "and you say you have forgiven me,"--he made a little gesture of deprecation of the word--"can't we be friends, Mr Norreys?"

Despard rose to his feet. The whist party had dispersed. The little room was empty.

"No," he said, "I am afraid that could never be, Lady Margaret. The one reason why I wish to leave England again is that I know now, I cannot--I must not risk seeing you."

Maisie looked up, the tears were still glimmering about her eyes and cheeks; was it their soft glistening that made her face look so bright and almost radiant?

"Oh, do say it again--don't think me not nice, oh, _don't_!" she entreated. "But why--oh, why, if you care for me, though I can scarcely believe it, why let my horrible money come between us? _I_ shall never care for anybody else--there now, I have said it!" And she tried to hide her face, but he would not let her.

"Do you really mean it, dear?" he said. "If you do, I--I will swallow _my_ pride, too; shall I?"

She looked up, half laughing now.

"Quits again, you see. Oh, dear, how dreadfully happy I am! And you know, as you are so fond of work now, you will have _lots_ to do. All manner of things for poor people that I want to manage, and don't know how--and all our own--I won't say `my' any more--tenants to look after-- and--and--"

"`That girl in black' herself to take care of, and make as happy as all my love and my strength, and my life's devotion can," said Despard. "Maisie, my darling; God grant that you may never regret your generosity and goodness."

"No, no," she murmured, "yours are far greater, far, far greater."

There was a moment's silence. Then suddenly Despard put his hand into his pocket and held out something to Maisie.

"Look," he said, "do you remember? I should have returned it to you, but I could not make up my mind to it. I have never parted with it night or day, all these years."

It was the little silver vinaigrette.

This all happened several years ago, and, by what I can gather, there are few happier people than Despard Norreys and Lady Margaret, his wife.

CHAPTER FIVE.

BRONZIE.

It was in church I saw her first. She was seated some little way in front of me, somewhat to one side. My eyes had been roving about, I suppose, for I was only a boy, fifteen or thereabouts at most, and she was--let me see--she could not have been more than nine, though by the pose of her head, the dignity of the small figure altogether, the immaculate demeanour--which said all over her, "I am in church, and behaving myself accordingly"--one might well have taken her for at least five years older.

I remember positively starting when I first caught sight of her--of _it_, I should rather say; for _her_, in the ordinary sense of seeing a person--that is to say, her face--I never once saw during the whole of the first stage of our one-sided acquaintance--the first act of the drama, so to speak. The "it" was her hair. Never--never before or since, I do verily believe, has such hair gladdened mortal eyes. "Golden" was no word for it, or, rather, was but one of the many words it suggested. It was in great floods of waving and wavering shades of reddish--reddish, not _red_, mind you--brown, dark brown. The mass of it was certainly dark, though the little golden lights gleamed out all over as you will see the sparkling threads of the precious metal ever and anon through the texture of some rich antique silk with which they are cunningly interwoven. I worried myself to find an adjective in any sense suitable for this marvellous colour, or colours; but it was no use, and at last, in a sort of despair, I hit upon the very inadequate but not unsuggestive one of "bronze." It seemed to come a degree nearer it than any other, and it struck me, too, as not commonplace. From "bronze" I went a step further; I found I must have a name for her--a same all my own, that no one would understand even if they heard it; and, half without knowing it, I slipped into calling her to myself, into thinking of my little lady-love as "Bronzie." For I had fallen in love with her--looking back now I am sure of it--I had fallen in love with her in the sweet, vague, wholly ridiculous, wholly poetical way that a boy falls in love. And yet I had never seen her face; nay, stranger still, I did not want to see it!

It was not so at first; for two or three Sundays after the fateful one on which the glorious hair dazzled me into fairy-land, my one idea was to catch sight of Bronzie's face. But from where I sat it was all but impossible; she wore a shady hat, too--a hat with a long ostrich feather drooping over the left side, which much increased the difficulty. In time, and with patience, no doubt I should have succeeded; but, as I have said, before long the wish to succeed left me. I was only in London for my Christmas holidays, and, somehow, I fancied that Bronzie, too, was but a visitor there.

"I shall never see her again," I reflected, with a certain sentimental enjoyment of the thought; "but I can always think of her. And if her face were not in accordance with her hair and her figure--that dear little dignified, erect figure--what a disappointment! If she had an ugly mouth, or if she squinted, or even if she were just commonplace and expressionless--no, I don't want to see her."

Accident favoured me; all those Sundays, as I have said, I never did see her face. The church was crowded; we made our exit by different aisles, and, as I was staying with cousins who were never in time for anything, we always came in late--later than Bronzie, any way. The little figure, the radiant hair, were always there in the same corner for my eyes to rest upon from the moment I ensconced myself in my place. And so it was to the end of the holidays--somewhat longer that year than usual, from illness of an infectious nature, having broken out among the brothers and sisters at my home.

I went back to school, to Latin verses and football, to the mingled work and play which make up the intense _present_ of a boy's life; I was, to all appearance, just the same as before, and yet I was changed. I never talked about my Bronzie to any one, I made up no dreams about her, built no castles in the air of ever seeing her again, and yet I never forgot her. No, truly, strange and almost incredible as it may seem, I never did forget her; I feel almost certain there was no day in which the remembrance of her did not flash across my mental vision.

It was three years later. School-days were over--so recently over that I had scarcely realised the fact, not, certainly, to the extent of feeling sad or pathetic about it--such regrets come afterwards, and come to stay; my feeling was rather one of rejoicing in my new liberty, and pride in being considered man enough to escort an elder sister on a somewhat distant journey had effectually put everything else out of my head that Christmas-time--it was always at Christmas-time--when--I saw _her_ again. We were at a railway station, a junction; our through carriage was being shunted and bumped about in the mysterious way peculiar to those privileged vehicles. We had been "sided" into a part of the station different from that where we had arrived; I was leaning out, staring about me, when suddenly, some little way off, there gleamed upon me for a moment the glow of that wonderful hair. The platform was crowded; Bronzie was walking away in an opposite direction, though slowly. She was with two ladies; as usual, it was only the hair and figure I saw--no glimpse of the face was possible; yet I knew it was she. Nor, of course, would the sight of a face I never had seen have helped to identify her.

"By Jove!" I exclaimed aloud, unconscious that my sister was close behind me; "by Jove! how she has grown!"

"Who?" Isabel exclaimed; "whom are you speaking of? Is there some one there we know?" and in another instant she too was craning her neck out of the window. "I don't see any one," she added, withdrawing her head, in disappointment. "Who was it, Vic?"

I think I had turned pale; I felt myself now grow crimson.

"Oh!" I blurted out, saying, of course, in my confusion exactly what I would _not_ have said: "only a--a little girl with such wonderful hair."

"Where?" asked Isabel, again poking her head out--in the wrong direction, of course; she was tired of the long waiting, and jumped at the smallest excitement. "Oh, yes! I see! at the door of the refreshment, room. Yes, it _is_ magnificent hair; but, Vic, you said--"

"Nonsense!" I interrupted, "she's nowhere near the refreshment room; it's not possible it's the same."

Nor was it. Bronzie was by this time out of sight, far off among the throng of travellers at the left extremity of the platform, and the refreshment room was some yards to our right. It was absolutely, practically impossible. "Nonsense!" I repeated peevishly, looking out, nevertheless, in expectation of seeing some childish head of ordinary fair hair at the spot my sister indicated. But I started violently-- yes, it _was_ Bronzie again; the self-same hair, at least. And the girl was standing, with her back to us, at the door of the first-class refreshment room, as Isabel had said. I felt as if I were dreaming; my brain was in a whirl. I sat down in my place for a moment to recover myself.

"I wonder," said my sister, "if her face is as lovely as her hair? She is sure to turn round directly. Wait a minute, Vic, I'll tell you if she oh, how tiresome! I do believe we are off; after waiting so long, they might as well have waited one moment longer."

And off we were--in the opposite direction too. We could see no more of her--Bronzie, or not Bronzie! On the whole I was not sorry that my sister's curiosity was doomed to be unsatisfied. But my own perplexity was great. How _could_ the child have been spirited all the length of the station in that instant of time?

"She is a fairy; that is the only explanation," I said to myself, laughingly. "Perhaps I have dreamt her only--in church, that Christmas too--but no; Isabel saw the hair as well as I."

Time went on, faster and faster. I was a man--very thoroughly a man-- for seven years had passed since that winter day's journey. I was five-and-twenty; I had completed my studies, travelled for a couple of years, and was about settling down to my own home and its responsibilities--for my father was dead, and I was an eldest son--when the curtain rises for the third and last time in this simplest of dramas. I was unmarried, yet no misogamist, nor was there the shadowiest of reasons why I should not marry; rather, considerably even, the other way. My family wished it; I wished it myself in the abstract. I had money enough and to spare. I loved my home, and was ready to love it still more; but I had never cared for any woman as I knew I must care for _the_ woman I could make happy, and be happy with, as my wife. It was strange--strange and disappointing. I had never fallen in love, though I may really say I had _wished_ to do so. Never, that is to say since I was fifteen, and the gleaming locks of my Bronzie--like Aslauga's golden tresses--had irradiated for me the corner of the gloomy old London church where she sat.

That was ten years ago now, yet I had not forgotten my one bit of romance.

It was Christmas again. For the day itself I was due at home, of course; but on the way thither I had promised to spend a night with Greatrex, a friend of some few years' standing, whom I had not seen since his marriage, at which something or other had prevented my being present. He had invited me before, but I had not felt specially keen about it. He was rapturously in love with his wife I could see by his letters, and that sort of thing, under the circumstances, made me feel rather "out in the cold"--not unnaturally. But at last I had given in: I was to stay a night, possibly two, at Moresham, Greatrex's home, where, as he had written, on receiving my acceptance, "You will see her at last," for all the world as if I had been dying to behold Mrs Greatrex, and counting the hours till my longings for this privilege should be gratified.

Greatrex met me at the door. It was afternoon, but clear daylight still, though December, when I drove up.

"So delighted, so uncommonly pleased, old fellow, at last," he ejaculated, shaking me vigorously by the hand; "and so will Bessie be. I don't know much about your taste, but you can't but agree that _I_ have shown some, when you see her. One of her great beauties is her hair; I wonder if you'll like the way she--; what's the matter?" as the footman interrupted him with a "Beg pardon, sir," "Oh yes, I'll tell Barnes myself;" and he turned back to the groom, still at the door. "Excuse me one instant, old fellow. Bessie is in the drawing-room."

"Don't announce me. I will introduce myself," I said hastily to the servant. A queer, a very queer feeling had come over me, at that mention, by her husband, of Mrs Greatrex's _hair_--could it be? And her name was Bessie. I could not imagine Bronzie by that name--my stately little maiden--what if it _were_ though? and my dream to end thus?