Read Ebook: The Girl's Own Paper Vol. XX No. 1024 August 12 1899 by Various Peters Charles Active Editor

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Editor: Charles Peters

SHEILA'S COUSIN EFFIE.

A STORY FOR GIRLS.

CAMACHA.

Up, up, up, ceaselessly up. Would the paved road never merge into something more like an English mountain track? Sheila wondered, as her brave little horse pushed steadily and boldly onward, eager as it seemed to breast the long, steep ascents, never asking to pause for a breather, although the riders of their own accord would stop from time to time for the sake of their horses, and of the grooms on foot, who seemed as untiring as the steeds themselves.

"Poor fellows, we will give them a drink here," said Ronald, as they reached a little plateau where there was one of the numerous drinking bars of the island. "It must be jolly hot work keeping up with these plucky little horses. Let us rest a moment whilst they refresh themselves."

"And let the others come up," answered Sheila looking backwards and downwards. "We have quite left them behind."

"Oh, they'll come up all in good time," answered Ronald carelessly. "One can't ride in a cavalcade in these narrow roads."

For the peculiarity of Madeira is that for miles and miles the roads run between walls, with houses or cultivated ground behind them. It is only as the heights are reached that these walls are left behind, and more open country reached. Often the road is so narrow that two horses can barely ride abreast.

"I believe it means licensed to sell tobacco," answered Ronald, "and I expect they have to pay pretty high too for the licence. The imposts here are iniquitous. I wish we had the place. We'd make a different country of it. Just look at these barbarous roads cut straight up the sides of the mountains! It's ridiculous. It might be beautiful if they had only zig-zagged them as they do in other places. But let us ride on now. We shall get beyond the region of walls soon; up yonder I believe the country is very pretty. They say it is like a hot spring day in England when you get to Camacha."

"Shall we not wait for the others?" asked Sheila.

"I don't see why. They will come on all right. Our horses are bound to get ahead anyway. One must let them take their own natural pace. We shall all meet at the rendezvous. The horses soon get fidgety standing still. Come along, I believe it gets very pretty a little farther on."

Sheila looked back, but there was no sign of the rest of the party, and she followed Ronald perforce. She had a vaguely uneasy feeling that her aunt was not pleased with her, and she would rather have avoided all cause of offence, and she thought this might possibly be one. Since that New Year's Eve night something had been creeping into Sheila's life which she did not altogether understand--something that made her happy, yet pensive, restless sometimes, and sometimes half afraid of her own thoughts and dreams. She strove to banish the thoughts and feelings which she did not understand, but they would not be altogether banished, though she often managed to forget them or push them out of sight. She had been a child so long that she did not know what it meant--this waking of her womanhood within her.

Yet some instinct had made her keep very close to Lady Dumaresq and little Guy at starting, whilst Ronald had ridden beside Effie's hammock through the town, wherever the streets were wide enough, amusing her with his gay talk, and pointing out things which he thought might interest her as they went along.

But with the ascent through the narrow lanes, and up the very steep places, this order had been broken. The horses took matters into their own hands. The fast animals gradually distanced bullocks, hammock bearers, and the pony which little Guy bestrode, and beside which his mother walked her horse, and Sheila found herself riding with Ronald some considerable distance in advance of the rest.

She did not know why she had a feeling that her aunt would be displeased, and gradually in Ronald's merry talk she forgot her misgiving. It was so delightful leaving behind the region of walls and houses, and getting out into the open country--seeing leafless trees again, just like England--although other things were not much like, for oranges and lemons grew freely, and the scent of orange blossom was heavy sometimes in the air, and arum lilies growing wild evoked rapturous exclamations from the girl.

"Isn't it delicious?" she cried. "I do like to see bare trees again! I don't think it is very pretty when the old leaves hang on through the winter. It gives them such a shabby look. The air up here feels just like England on an April day, doesn't it? Dear old England! We always grumble at its weather, but there's something about it that makes us always want to go back."

"Do you want to go back already?" asked Ronald.

"Oh, no!" she answered quickly. "Not a bit--not now. But you know what I mean--the sort of feeling that it is home."

And then she suddenly stopped, and the shadow swept over her face. Ronald had learnt to know that face so well that he was able to read it like a book. He knew just what she was thinking. He would like to have put out a hand and taken hers, but he was afraid of startling her. Yet he spoke what he knew would be an answer to her unspoken thought.

"Never mind, Sheila, some day you will have a real home of your own again--a home that will be happier even than the one you have lost."

She lifted her eyes to his with a glance half startled and wholly sweet. It thrilled him through and through, and words trembled on his lips that he was yet half afraid to utter. If he spoke too soon he might lose all. He hoped--he believed--that he might win her for his own. But she was such a child still. He must have patience. There was time--plenty of time. Little by little he would teach her to understand what she was to him. Before they went back to England he hoped to have won her promise to be his--and go back to make for her that home which in his fancy he was already building.

"You are always so kind to me," she said softly, "you always understand."

The slight emphasis upon the pronoun made him ask, smiling--

"And who is it that does not understand?"

"Oh, my aunt--and Effie; they think that their house is home, and can't understand what I mean. Of course, I am grateful to them. I have been quite happy there often. But it cannot be the same, and they do not seem to understand."

"You must come and see us when we get back to England," said Ronald cheerfully. "We shall expect you on a long visit. Little Guy will see to that if nobody else does. Would you like that, Sheila? I beg your pardon, I ought not to call you that. It comes through hearing you always spoken of by that soft name."

"I like you to call me Sheila," said the girl shyly, and with a soft blush. "I have never been called anything else by friends--till quite lately."

"Well, when we are by ourselves I should like to," said Ronald, "and you must do the same by me. I think it is much nicer when people are real friends to drop ceremonious titles."

After that the ride seemed all sunshine to both of them. Ronald thought he had sufficiently advanced his cause, and abstained from any more direct overtures; but he talked in a fashion that was delightful to his companion, and the exhilarating freshness of the air and the beauty of everything about them seemed a fit setting for their happiness, as they rode along together side by side in the clear soft sunshine.

"Here we are!" cried Ronald at length, as they reached the green plateau at the summit of the hill. "There is the clock-tower that the doctor built. Do you know that before they had that, the people here had no means of knowing the time--and that on market days, or when they wanted to get down early in Funchal, they used often to get up in the middle of the night, and sit up watching for the dawn, afraid to go to sleep again lest they should not awake in time."

From the edge of the plateau there were beautiful views of the sea, and away to the left the long jagged line of the reef running out to the east from the most easterly portion of the island. The sea seemed sleeping and dreaming away below them. It looked more like the blue Mediterranean than the storm-tossed Atlantic.

They had dismounted and left the men to take care of the horses. They wandered happily about together from place to place, finding new beauties at every turn. They were recalled to the present by the familiar cry of the "bully-boy." Sheila exclaimed--

"Oh, here come the rest! The carro must be coming! Can you make the noise the boys do? I have tried so often, but I can't quite get it right."

Ronald made attempts more or less successful to imitate the wild peculiar cries by which the boys and men encourage and guide the bullocks, and Sheila stood laughing and praising.

"I think it is so sweet of the bullies not to go unless the boy goes in front. They really won't. I thought it was a make up when I heard it first. But one day after a cricket match our boy was missing for a little while, and nothing would induce the bullies to start, not all the prodding and yelling of the man. But the moment the boy came and walked in front they went like lambs!"

The bullock carro with its four bullocks, and Mr. and Mrs. Cossart as passengers, was the vanguard of the main party. Lady Dumaresq and her little boy were immediately behind, and the hammock bearers came up very shortly with Effie, Miss Adene, and Sir Guy. He, however, had left his hammock and was on foot by this time.

"I begin to feel it ignominious to be carried in that fashion, but the fellows are quite hurt in their minds if you ask to be let out! I couldn't induce them to put me down till we had got to the more level stretches, and then they made quite a favour of it!"

"We've had a jolly ride!" cried Ronald, whose face was full of brightness, and whose spirits were so high that his brother glanced at him more than once with a look of quiet scrutiny, and said in an undertone to his wife as they stood apart--

"Do you think?"--and then he gave an expressive glance that travelled from Ronald to Sheila.

Sheila was engrossed by little Guy who had claimed her instantly. Ronald by this time was beside Effie, whom he had helped from her hammock, and who was a little stiff from the long journey in one posture, and was glad to take a turn up and down leaning on his arm.

"I think not," answered Lady Dumaresq. "I think he understands not to be too precipitate--not to frighten the child. But that it is coming I do not doubt. I am so pleased about it both for his sake and hers. They are rather a pair of babies still. But they will grow out of that, and they seem just made for each other."

The luncheon was spread in a sheltered spot, where a bank gave fairly comfortable sitting accommodation to the elders of the party. Miss Adene seemed to see the cloud resting upon Mrs. Cossart's face, and set herself to dissipate it. Her pleasant talk had a somewhat softening effect; but had anybody chanced to note it, they might have observed how very little that lady spoke, and that the glances she threw from time to time towards the place where Sheila sat between Ronald and little Guy, were of a very hostile description.

She never addressed the girl once the whole day, but Sheila did not notice it. She had given herself over to the enjoyment of the little festivity, and she was too happy to be very observant.

Little Guy wanted to play hide-and-seek amongst the bushes. Of course Ronald was pressed into the service. Effie offered herself, but for some reason or other Guy had taken rather a dislike to her. It might have been her eye-glasses or the occasional sharpness of her voice, but it was noticeable that he only accepted her overtures with great reservation, and to-day he replied firmly though politely--

"No, sank you, you might get tired. Mozzer will come, and Uncle Ronald and Sheila. Sat will be quite enough. You had better rest yourself."

When the afternoon light began to grow mellow, the party got into train again for the descent. It was a two hours' ride up, but the descent was generally rather quicker.

Again they started sociably in a cavalcade, but again by degrees the horses distanced the bullocks and bearers, and once more as they reached the region of the narrow roads Ronald and Sheila found themselves some distance in advance of the rest of the party.

It seemed too natural for her to oppose the arrangement. It did not occur to her that anybody would make any serious to-do because they happened to have faster horses than Lady Dumaresq and her little son. It had been such a perfectly happy day that Sheila was in no mood to think of anything unpleasant, and she had not even noted the cold regards and marked silence of her aunt.

Down and down they rode, the soft sunlight making everything look even more beautiful than its wont. The curtains of flowers hanging over the walls seemed to blaze with a kind of glory, and the rainbows shining over the sea were more than ordinarily beautiful.

"I never saw such a place for rainbows!" cried Sheila. "Miss Adene told me about them, but I never could have believed without seeing. Why, first thing in the morning as I lie in bed I can see them hanging over the hills. Oh, you don't know what the sunrises are like--I mean the reflected light upon the hills, all red and lovely every morning, and to be able to watch it as you lie in bed! I shall never forget it as long as I live! I wonder if I shall ever see Madeira again?"

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