Читать книгу Branded, or, The Daughters of a Convict - Gerald Biss - Страница 6

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All three were very silent in the carriage driving home. Doris felt that if she had been seated by her aunt in the dark she might have whispered something to her, if only a hint; but somehow the back seat, like many other things in life, always fell to the lot of, or was quietly appropriated by, Phyllis. And she did not appear to be in the best of tempers; so Doris decided to put things off till they got home, and sat quite quiet nursing her happiness.

When they found themselves in Mrs. Chichele's bedroom, where they always said good-night, Phyllis broke the ice.

"Lionel Erskine proposed to me to-night," she said abruptly.

Mrs. Chichele started, and an anxious look came into her eyes.

"Did you accept him?" asked Doris, instantaneously sympathetic.

"No-o," said her sister slowly. "I told him I'd think it over."

"Why?" asked Doris, rather puzzled. "Don't you love him?"

"Well, it's not a question of that," went on Phyllis composedly. "He isn't a bad sort of boy! but earlier in the evening Lord Shelford all but proposed, and he is a far better match."

"I hate Lord Shelford," said Doris scornfully. "He's an elderly roue, old enough to be your father. I'm surprised at your thinking of such a thing."

Phyllis smiled complacently.

"What a silly child you are, Doris! I think my metier in life was to reform a marquis, whatever you and aunty may say. And," she added, acidly mischievous, "love in an overgrown cottage with an overgrown boy like Ralph Shopwyke isn't everybody's ambition."

"What do you mean?" asked Doris, blushing hotly.

"It doesn't take a very smart person," laughed the other, "to see what happened to-night. Your cheeks give you away."

"Is it true?" asked Mrs. Chichele in a strange voice, speaking for the first time.

"Yes, aunty dear, I'm glad to say it is," answered Doris, slipping her arm round Mrs. Chichele. "Surely you of all people are pleased, too?"

"No, dear, I'm not," answered the older woman slowly, in a low, strained voice. Then she kissed the puzzled girl passionately. "I forgot it would come to this."

Doris drew back, pained and puzzled; but Phyllis proceeded blandly with the question of her own affairs, scarcely noticing Mrs. Chichele's strange words.

"Lionel is such a boy, and he comes of a very new family, without being wealthy enough to atone for it. Besides, he's a fool, and has no brains."

"Hush, Phyllis," interrupted Mrs. Chichele abruptly. "I hate to hear you speak in such an abominably callous strain. You don't know what you are talking about."

"Indeed I do, aunty," the girl answered flippantly. "I assure you that I have been into the question very closely. Having no father or elder brother to do it for me, and a guardian who is absurdly unworldly, I've felt it incumbent to do it for myself."

Meanwhile, Doris had made as though to speak two or three times, but had repressed herself with a strong effort. Internally she was seething with angry surprise and passionate rebellion.

"Have you—have you," she began at last, speaking in an unnaturally restrained voice, "anything against Ralph?"

"Why, of course," broke in Phyllis contemptuously, "he's an absolute nobody, without enough money to——"

Doris' pent-up anger burst out.

"I will not have you speak like that about him. I hate and loathe your worldly calculations and matrimonial schemings. Please remember I—I love Ralph"—her lip quivered and her cheeks flushed, partly with passion and partly at the bold avowal—"and I was speaking to aunty, not you."

Phyllis shrugged her shoulders with a characteristic gesture, smiling slightly with an obvious sneer.

"What a silly, quick-tempered child you are, Doris," was all she said.

"No, darling," answered Mrs. Chichele, taking up her question and stroking her hand tenderly. "I have nothing against Ralph Shopwyke at all. He's a fine, manly young fellow, and I admire him immensely. It's something far deeper than that, I fear; and I don't know how to make you understand. Can't you trust me, child?"

"Of course I can, dearest aunty," answered the girl slowly, returning her caress; "but—but I'm puzzled. And it means so much to me," she added softly.

"I know, dear, I know," said the older woman sadly. "I wouldn't have had it happen for worlds, and I am most distressed."

"But surely it can't be anything serious?" pursued Doris eagerly, gaining confidence. "If it's nothing against Ralph, what can it be?"

Mrs. Chichele did not answer for a moment, and there was a puzzled pause, Phyllis impatiently kicking at a hassock with her white shoe.

At last she spoke, obviously deeply moved.

"You'll have to trust me till to-morrow," she said wearily, passing her hand across her brow. "Believe me, my dearest children, I have only our happiness at heart, and it is nothing but the strictest sense of duty which forces me to say a word at such a time. But I am not mistress of my own actions in the matter, and must act as I think right to all concerned. I must have time to think it over. Now say good-night to me, children, and leave me to myself; and, Doris, darling," she added, as she kissed the girl warmly time after time, "you know—surely you know how wretched it makes me to make you unhappy?"

Doris kissed her back in silence, nodding her head, afraid to speak in case she broke down altogether. It was such a contrast to what she had expected; and Ralph's first kisses of love were still sweet upon her lips, pledges of greater joys in the future, which had so suddenly been dashed aside by the aunt she loved and trusted.

She left the room without a word; and Phyllis followed, smiling a little scornfully at the scene. She did not intend that anything should interfere with her plans. Her future was in her own hands, and she had made up her mind to mould it as suited her best. Her self-confidence discounted any fear of the future which Mrs. Chichele's strange attitude might otherwise have engendered.

Left alone, the older woman buried her white, haggard face in her hands.

"Oh, God," she murmured passionately to herself, "I forgot it would come to this—I forgot it would come to this. All those years I have striven to bring those children up to happiness in ignorance of the terrible past; and now, as a reward, fate forces me to dash them down from the heights at the crowning moment. How cruel life is—how cruel! And have I been cruel to them, meaning mistakenly to be kind? Poor, poor little Doris!"

Her whole big, motherly heart went out to the girl in her distress, bitter at the impotence of her position, her inability to help, her necessity to wound.

And then, growing calmer, she began to review the situation. What would be the outcome of it all? What was she to do? Must the girls be told the whole story, which would necessarily cast a cloud over their whole lives? Yet she could see no honorable way out of it; and, knowing Doris as she did, she knew that nothing less would satisfy her, now that things had gone so far. It was hard that the responsibility should fall upon her of all people, after the voluntary responsibilities she had already taken upon herself, but she could see nothing else for it.

She sat brooding for some time, trying to argue some other way out of the deadlock; but her reason and sense of justice always brought her back to the same point. The girls must be told, and she must tell them herself, and, moreover, without delay.

Then, womanlike, she began to crave for counsel, for someone to share the momentous task of decision with her. Seldom during her fifteen years of widowhood had she felt so strongly the need of a man's advice—someone to lean on. It did not seem fair that she should have to face and fight the battle of life not only for herself, but for others, single-handed. But to whom could she turn at such a crisis?

Name after name suggested itself to her swiftly working mind, only to be dismissed as unsuitable. Suddenly the picture of a great, strong man, keen of intellect and sound in judgment, rose up before her.

"The very man," she exclaimed to herself. "Why didn't I think of him before? I will go down and see him at his chambers in the morning."

And with the daylight Mrs. Chichele went to bed.