Читать книгу Her Mother's Secret - Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth - Страница 8

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But, unhappily, in the height of midsummer, Abel Force, believing that he acted from the purest motives of affection, but—no doubt—as the event proved, deceived and misled by the enemy of mankind, proposed to take all his family for a tour which should include the White Mountains, the Lakes, the St. Lawrence River, the Thousand Islands and Niagara Falls.

Mrs. Force, who had long lost her morbid dread of public resorts, willingly agreed to the proposed journey.

About the middle of July the party set out. They traveled very leisurely, enjoying every foot of land and every ripple of water they passed over.

It was late in August when at length they reached Niagara. They took rooms at the Cataract House, and spent a week in making excursions through the magnificent scenery around the Falls.

It was in the first days of September that something of very grave import to the future of the happy family occurred at their hotel.

The whole party, together with many of the guests of the house, were out on one of the grand piazzas overlooking the rapids. They remained out enjoying the sublime and almost terrific scene until the sun set and the moon arose.

Then Mrs. Force, dreading the dampness of the September evening over the water for her children, led the way into the house, followed by all her party.

They went into the brilliantly lighted public parlor.

As she was crossing the room, leaning on her husband’s arm and followed by her children and their governess, she suddenly started and turned pale.

Mr. Force, who felt her start, but did not see the sudden blanching of her cheek, looked up and saw a stranger approaching them from the opposite side of the parlor.

He was a short, stout, fair-haired, rosy-faced, blue-eyed man of middle age and pleasant aspect, in a fashionable evening dress.

He came up with a frank smile, holding out his hand, and exclaiming:

“Lady Elfrida Glennon! This is really a delightful surprise!”

The haughty beauty shuddered, but almost immediately commanded herself and received her accoster’s effusive address with cold politeness, and then said:

“Let me present you to my husband and daughters. Mr. Force—Col. Anglesea, of the Honorable East India Company’s Service. Col. Anglesea—my husband, Mr. Abel Force, of Mondreer, Maryland. Our daughters, Miss Force, Miss Wynnette, Miss Elva, Miss Meeke.”

While bows were being exchanged the lady quite recovered her self-possession. The party took seats near together, the colonel dropping into a lounging-chair immediately opposite the sofa on which Mrs. Force sat with her daughters—and saying something poetic and complimentary about a perfect rose surrounded by fresh buds, as he gazed upon the beautiful mother and children.

Mr. Force, who occupied another armchair near them, seemed the best pleased of all the group.

“I am really very happy to make your acquaintance, colonel. This is the first time in our rather long married life—look at those great girls!—that I have had the pleasure of meeting any of my wife’s English friends. I hope we shall see a great deal of you. I hope to persuade you to visit us at Mondreer for a few weeks before you return to your native land,” he said, with all his honest, friendly soul in every look and tone.

“Thanks, very much. I shall be but too well pleased. Yes! it is nearly twenty years since we saw each other last, yet the moment I entered this room I recognized Lady Elfrida,” he said.

“Pardon me,” coldly objected the lady. “When I married a citizen of this republic, to live in it, I took my husband’s style with his name, and am called Mrs. Force.”

“Ah! true! precisely! perfectly so! A thousand apologies! I will try to remember.”

And the colonel sank back in his chair.

He remained for about half an hour conversing with the family party, or rather, to report exactly, with Mr. Force, for neither Mrs. Force nor any other one of them contributed much to the conversation.

At length he arose, bowed and left them.

“A very agreeable man, indeed! A very entertaining companion! Well read and well traveled! Knows the world! Understands human nature! An old friend of yours, my dear?” said Abel Force, turning to his beautiful wife.

“An old acquaintance of my brother, rather. They were in the same regiment in India,” coldly replied the lady.

“Ah! but that is a strong bond of union between men. Your brother’s comrade in the Indian campaign! He is traveling now on a long furlough, he says. We must see more of him, good fellow! We must have him down for a few weeks at Mondreer.”

“No!” impulsively sprang from the lady’s heart; but the word did not pass her whitening lips. She suppressed the exclamation, sent back the strong objection to hide in her bosom among other heavy secrets there, and—kept silence.

The honest and honorable man, who had no mysteries of his own and never suspected them in another, did not observe his wife’s agitation. He was not looking toward her, in fact, he was looking down on his own clasped fingers and idly twirling thumbs, and thinking of the good time he was going to have with his wife’s old friend and his own new acquaintance.

“Yes,” he went dreaming on and murmuring half to himself, “we must certainly have him down to Mondreer for the autumn, and show him what Maryland country life is like! I reckon he will find it more like old England than anything he has seen in America. He is the first countryman of yours, my dear, who has ever fallen in our way since we left England, and we must make the most of him! Especially as he is not only a countryman, but an old friend.”

So saying, Abel Force arose and sauntered off to see if the evening mail had come in.

Mrs. Force had sent off her children to bed, in charge of their eldest sister and the governess, while she herself remained in the empty parlor, walking up and down its whole length, and trying to think what would be her best course in the present crisis.

She had, for the time being, the room all to herself. The other guests of the house were either in their own apartments, or on the piazzas, overlooking the rapids, or at tea, or abroad. At any rate, the lady was alone, until she was joined by the colonel, who came confidently, not to say impudently, up to her side.

“Angus Anglesea! how did you dare to recognize and accost me?” she demanded, her blue eyes blazing with indignation.

“Because I was so surprised and delighted to see you, Friday!” he replied, with gay defiance.

“I should think the sight of me would blast your eyes!”

“Don’t swear, Friday! At least, don’t swear in that way. ‘Blast your eyes’ is a low, seafaring phrase. I know it is provoking to have me come, when you had got away so far and felt so secure! Well, it was as great a shock to me! By Jove! we looked at each other for a moment like a pair of ghosts! Didn’t we? But talking of ‘blasts,’ I don’t mind confessing that the sight of you did nearly strike me blind, but it was through your dazzling beauty! By Jove, Friday, you are ten thousand times handsomer now than you were when you turned the head of His Royal——”

“Be silent! If you dare to name that devil to me again——”

“Quite so! I am dumb! I am mute. But don’t use strong language, Friday! It is bad form. You must have picked up the habit in America.”

“Look you here, Angus Anglesea! Mr. Force intends to invite you to visit us at our country house, down in Maryland.”

“He has invited me. Deuced kind of him! And I have accepted the invitation,” put in the colonel, twirling his light mustache.

“You will not go. You will have the decency to avoid the roof of an honorable man.”

The colonel’s face flushed crimson. His brow darkened with anger. For a moment he lost even the superficial semblance of a gentleman, and showed himself a ruffian in tone and manner.

“Look you, my Lady Elfrida! You take a dangerous tone toward me who holds your fate in the grip of his hand!” he exclaimed, stretching out his arm, and working his fingers. “Yes, and who would not hesitate, under provocation, to tighten that grip to your destruction. But there! We should serve, not ruin, each other. Now listen to me, Friday. If you will behave yourself, I will hold my tongue. Otherwise——But I need say no more. You understand me.”

“I understand you to be an unmitigated villain!” muttered the lady, fiercely, between her clenched teeth—“an incarnate fiend!”

“You flatter me; you do, really. You elevate my self-respect. How I shall enjoy your conversation at—at——What is the name of your principality or grand duchy down in Maryland? I am told that your great plantations down in the South are quite equal in wealth, population and extent of territory to our lesser European sovereignties. What is the name of the place to which I am invited, and where I intend to go?”

“Why do you wish to know the name of our happy home? Why do you wish to enter our Eden, like another serpent, to destroy it?” exclaimed the lady, beside herself with fear and wrath.

“There you go again, Friday! You will not drop that bad habit of flattering a modest man to his face. I declare you will make me vain.”

“Why do you wish to trouble me? Why do you wish to come to Mondreer?” she inquired, wringing her hands.

“Oh, ho! You have come down from your tragics. Mondreer, is it? And why do I go? Well, to be frank with you, I go to browse upon

“ ‘Fresh fields and pastures green.’ ”

“I understand. You think the simple, honest, country gentlemen will be easier prey for your gamester’s snares than are the men you meet at public resorts. And you mean to swindle and fleece them,” scornfully replied the lady.

Again the man’s face flushed with anger, but he controlled his temper, and laughed, saying:

“What a genius you have for compliment, Friday! You should have been a courtier, where your talents might have been turned to the best advantage; or a king’s favorite. Ah! but there we tread on delicate ground, do we not?”

“I warn you, Col. Anglesea, not to drive me too far! For sooner than submit to your insults, I will throw myself upon my husband’s mercy, and claim his protection against you.”

“Oh! You will go to him, and tell him that ‘tale of old times’ of which you were the heroine? And in his love he will forgive you. And so far so well. But, then, suppose I also should tell that little story to all and sundry? How would it be then?” sneered the man.

“Oh! fiend! fiend!” breathed the woman through her white lips and closed teeth.

“Quite so. You only do me justice. I shall enjoy your conversation at Mondreer.”

“And you go there to rob my husband and our unsuspicious neighbors at the card table. But you will be disappointed. Mr. Force does not know one card from another, and his friends seldom or never play.”

“What barbarians must be the people of your principality, Friday! I must really go there as a missionary to teach them the arts of civilized life. Ah! in good time. Here comes his serene highness. Let us smooth our ruffled plumage, else he may be asking inconvenient questions,” whispered the colonel, as Abel Force smilingly approached them.

“Ah! You here, colonel? That is right. We’ll all go down to tea together. I feel really so delighted to have met with an old friend of my wife that I cannot bear to lose sight of him. We must leave here on Monday. Now, my dear colonel, could you not arrange your affairs so as to accompany us? If your plan of travel would admit of your giving us the pleasure of your company on our return journey, we should be really delighted, you know. The hunting season will soon be on, and I could show you some fine sport,” said Mr. Force.

And then seeing his eldest daughter enter the room, he drew her arm within his own and smilingly waved his hand to the colonel to take Mrs. Force and lead the way to the tea room.

But the lady refused to see the signal, took the arm of her governess, Miss Meeke, and went on, the colonel walking persistently beside her.

“What do you hunt in your grand duchy, sir? Buffalo? Bears? Wolves?” inquired the colonel, when they were all seated at the table.

“No,” laughed Mr. Force, good-humoredly. “You would have to go a thousand miles to the west for that game, colonel. We hunt just what you do in England—with a difference—we hunt foxes and hares, and sometimes deer. Oh, we will show you! You will think yourself back in old England. Come. Shall we consider the matter settled?” cordially demanded Mr. Force.

“Thanks very much. I shall be too happy to make one of your traveling party. I will go.”