Lady Merton, Colonist | Page 3

trilliums shone on the grassy banks in the shadow of the woods; while the pleasant Ontario farms flitted by, so mellowed and homelike already, midway between the old life of Quebec, and this new, raw West to which they were going. They had passed, also--but at night and under the moon--through the lake country which is the playground of Toronto, as well known, and as plentifully be-named as Westmoreland; and then at North Bay with the sunrise they had plunged into the wilderness,--into the thousand miles of forest and lake that lie between Old Ontario and Winnipeg.
And here it was that Elizabeth's enthusiasm had become in her brother's eyes a folly; that something wild had stirred in her blood, and sitting there in her shady hat at the rear of the train, her eyes pursuing the great track which her father had helped to bring into being, she shook Europe from her, and felt through her pulses the tremor of one who watches at a birth, and looks forward to a life to be--
"Dinner is ready, my lady."
"Thank Heaven!" cried Philip Gaddesden, springing up. "Get some champagne, please, Yerkes."
"Philip!" said his sister reprovingly, "it is not good for you to have champagne every night."
Philip threw back his curly head, and grinned.
"I'll see if I can do without it to-morrow. Come along, Elizabeth."
They passed through the outer saloon, with its chintz-covered sofas and chairs, past the two little bedrooms of the car, and the tiny kitchen to the dining-room at the further end. Here stood a man in steward's livery ready to serve, while from the door of the kitchen another older man, thin and tanned, in a cook's white cap and apron, looked benevolently out.
"Smells good, Yerkes!" said Gaddesden as he passed.
The cook nodded.
"If only her ladyship'll find something she likes," he said, not without a slight tone of reproach.
"You hear that, Elizabeth?" said her brother as they sat down to the well-spread board.
Elizabeth looked plaintive. It was one of her chief weaknesses to wish to be liked--adored, perhaps, is the better word--by her servants and she generally accomplished it. But the price of Yerkes's affections was too high.
"It seems to me that we have only just finished luncheon, not to speak of tea," she said, looking in dismay at the menu before her. "Phil, do you wish to see me return home like Mrs. Melhuish?"
Phil surveyed his sister. Mrs. Melhuish was the wife of their local clergyman in Hampshire; a poor lady plagued by abnormal weight, and a heart disease.
"You might borrow pounds from Mrs. Melhuish, and nobody would ever know. You really are too thin, Lisa--a perfect scarecrow. Of course Yerkes sees that he could do a lot for you. All the same, that's a pretty gown you've got on--an awfully pretty gown," he repeated with emphasis, adding immediately afterwards in another tone--"Lisa!--I say!--you're not going to wear black any more?"
"No"--said Lady Merton, "no--I am not going to wear black any more." The words came lingeringly out, and as the servant removed her plate, Elizabeth turned to look out of the window at the endless woods, a shadow on her beautiful eyes.
She was slenderly made, with a small face and head round which the abundant hair was very smoothly and closely wound. The hair was of a delicate brown, the complexion clear, but rather colourless. Among other young and handsome women, Elizabeth Merton made little effect; like a fine pencil drawing, she required an attentive eye. The modelling of the features, of the brow, the cheeks, the throat, was singularly refined, though without a touch of severity; her hands, with their very long and slender fingers, conveyed the same impression. Her dress, though dainty, was simple and inconspicuous, and her movements, light, graceful, self-controlled, seemed to show a person of equable temperament, without any strong emotions. In her light cheerfulness, her perpetual interest in the things about her, she might have reminded a spectator of some of the smaller sea-birds that flit endlessly from wave to wave, for whom the business of life appears to be summed up in flitting and poising.
The comparison would have been an inadequate one. But Elizabeth Merton's secrets were not easily known. She could rave of Canada; she rarely talked of herself. She had married, at the age of nineteen, a young Cavalry officer, Sir Francis Merton, who had died of fever within a year of their wedding, on a small West African expedition for which he had eagerly offered himself. Out of the ten months of their marriage, they had spent four together. Elizabeth was now twenty-seven, and her married life had become to her an insubstantial memory. She had been happy, but in the depths of the mind she knew that she might not have been happy very long. Her husband's