“Mamma,” said Bee, “if you were not such a dear I should think you were very insulting. Another man! Why, where should I find another man in the world that was fit to tie Aubrey’s shoe?”
“Well,” said Mrs. Kingsward, dubiously; but she added, after a moment, “You know, darling, that’s not quite the question. If you did find in the after ages a man that perhaps was – fit to tie Mr. Leigh’s shoe?”
“Why in all this world, petite mère, will you go on calling him Mr. Leigh?”
“Well, well,” said Mrs. Kingsward; “but I don’t feel,” she said again, after a moment’s hesitation, “that I ought to go so far as to call him Aubrey until we have heard from papa.”
“What could papa find to object to?” said Bee. “Why, it was he who introduced him to us! We should not have known Aubrey, and I should never have been the happiest girl in the world, if it had not been for papa. Dear papa! I know what he’ll say: ‘I can’t understand, my dear, why you should hesitate for a moment. Of course, you don’t suppose I should have introduced Mr. Leigh to my family without first ascertaining, &c., &c.’ That, of course, is what papa will say.”
“I dare say you are right, Bee. It is quite what I expect, for, of course, a man with girls knows what it is, though for my part I confess I always thought it would be a soldier – Captain Kreutzner or Otto von – ”
“Mamma!” cried Bee, almost violently, light flashing out of the blue eyes, which were so bright even on ordinary occasions as to dazzle the beholder – you may imagine what fire came out of them now – “as if I should ever have looked twice at one of those big, brainless, clinking and clanking Germans. (N.B. – Mr. Aubrey Leigh was not tall.) No! Though I may like foreigners well enough because it’s amusing to talk their language and to feel that one has such an advantage in knowing German and all that – yet, when it comes to be a question of spending one’s life, an Englishman for me!”
Thus, it will be seen, Bee forestalled the patriotic sentiments of a later generation by resolving, in spite of all temptations, to belong to other nations – to select an Englishman for her partner in life. It is doubtful, however, how far this virtuous resolution had existed in her mind before the advent of Aubrey Leigh.
“I am sure I am very glad, Bee,” said her mother, “for I always had a dread that you would be snatched off somewhere to – Styria or Dalecarlia, or heaven knows where – (these were the first out-of-the-way names that came to Mrs. Kingsward’s mind; but I don’t know that they were altogether without reference or possibilities), where one would have had no chance of seeing you more than once in two or three years. I am very thankful it is to be an Englishman – or at least I shall be,” she added, with a sigh of suspense, “as soon as I have heard from papa – ”
“One would think, Mütterchen, that you were frightened for papa.”
“I shouldn’t like you ever to try and go against him, Bee!”
“Oh, no,” said Bee, lightly, “of course I shouldn’t think of going against him – is the inquisition over? – for I promised,” she said, with a laugh and a blush, “to walk down with Aubrey as far as the river. He likes that so much better than those noisy blazing gardens, with no shade except under those stuffy trees – and so do I.”
“Do you really, Bee? I thought you thought it was so nice sitting under the trees – ”
“With all the gnadige Fraus knitting, and all the wohlgeborne Herrs smoking. No, indeed, I always hated it!” said Bee.
She jumped up from where she had been sitting on a stool by her mother’s sofa, and took her hat, which she had thrown down on the table. It was a broad, flexible, Leghorn hat, bought in Florence, with a broad blue ribbon – the colour of her eyes, as had often been said – floating in two long streamers behind. She had a sash of the same colour round the simple waist of her white frock. That is how girls were dressed in the early days of Victoria. These were the days of simplicity, and people liked it, seeing it was the fashion, as much as they liked crinolines and chignons when such ornamental arrangements “came in.” It does not become one period to boast itself over another, for fashion will still be lord – or lady – of all.
Mrs. Kingsward looked with real pleasure at her pretty daughter, thinking how well she looked. She wore very nearly the same costume herself, and she knew that it also looked very well on her. Bee’s eyes were shining, blazing with brightness and happiness and love and fun and youth. She was not a creature of perfect features, or matchless beauty, as all the heroines were in the novels of her day, and she was conscious of a great many shortcomings from that high standard. She was not tall enough – which, perhaps, however, in view of the defective stature of Mr. Aubrey Leigh was not so great a disadvantage – and she was neither fair enough nor dark enough for a Minna or a Brenda, the definite and distinct blonde and brunette, which were the ideal of the time; and she was not at all aware that her irregularity, and her mingling of styles, and her possession of no style in particular, were her great charms. She was not a great beauty, but she was a very pretty girl with the additional attraction of those blue diamonds of eyes, the sparkle of which, when my young lady was angry or when she was excited in any more pleasurable way, was a sight to see.
“All that’s very well, my dear,” said Mrs. Kingsward, “but you’ve never answered my question: and I hope you’ll make quite, quite sure before it’s all settled that you do like Aubrey Leigh above everybody in the world.”
“A la bonne heure,” said Bee; “you have called him Aubrey at last, without waiting to know what papa will say;” with which words she gave her mother a flying kiss, and was gone in a moment, thinking very little, it must be allowed, of what papa might say.
Mrs. Kingsward lay still for a little, and thought it all over after Bee was gone. She knew a little better than the others what her Colonel was, and that there were occasions on which he was not so easy to deal with as all the young ones supposed. She thought it all over from the moment that young Mr. Leigh had appeared on the scene. What a comfort it was to think that it was the Colonel himself who had introduced him! Of course, as Bee said, before presenting anyone to his wife and family, Colonel Kingsward would have ascertained, &c., &c. It was just how he would write no doubt. Still, a man may introduce another to his wife and family without being ready at once to accept him as a son-in-law. On the other hand, Colonel Kingsward knew well enough what is the possible penalty of such introductions. Young as Bee was, she had already attracted a good deal of attention, though this was the first time it had actually come to an offer. But Edward must surely have thought of that. She was, though it seemed so absurd, and though Bee had laughed at it, a little afraid of her husband. He had never had any occasion to be stern, yet he had it in him to be stern; and he would not hesitate to quench Bee’s young romance if he thought it right. And, on the other hand, Bee, though she was such a little thing, such a child, so full of fun and nonsense, had a spirit which would not yield as her mother’s did. Mrs. Kingsward drew another long fluttering sigh before she got up reluctantly in obedience to her maid, who came in with that other white gown, not unlike Bee’s, over her arm, to dress her mistress. She would have liked to lie still a little longer, to have finished the book she was reading, to have thought over the situation – anything, indeed, to justify her in keeping still upon the couch and being lazy, as she called it. Poor little mother! She had not been lazy, nor had the chance of being lazy much in her life. She had not begun to guess why it was she liked it so much now.
CHAPTER II
I have now to explain how it was that Mr. Aubrey Leigh was so interesting and so melancholy, and thus awoke the friendship and compassion, and secured the ministrations of the Kingsward family. He was in deep mourning, for though he was only eight-and-twenty he was already a widower, and bereaved beside of his only child. Poor young man! He had married with every appearance of happiness and prosperity, but his wife had died at the end of the first year, leaving him with a baby on his inexperienced hands. He was a young man full of feeling, and, contrary to the advice of all his friends, he had shut himself up in his house