Читать книгу A Slave of the Ring - J. Monk Foster - Страница 11

Table of Contents

WHEN Paul Massilon permitted his volatile friend, Mr. Philip Lawrence, to persuade him to attend the infirmary charity ball, he had not the faintest idea that the night that event was celebrated was destined to be one of the reddest of all the red-letter days, or rather, evenings, of his life.

Phil had insisted that it was Paul's imperative duty to be present at that prominent local function; that everybody who was anybody in Ashlynton would be there; that the member for the borough was one of the patrons; that the whole thing was specially got up for the purpose of benefiting a most deserving institution, which every right-minded person ought to support; and, finally, he urged that his cousin, and the party whose acquaintance he had made that night at Milton Lodge, would be in evidence, so that it would be a 'regular jolly do.'

So Massilon went to the ball, and almost one of the first persons of consequence he ran against was his employer, Jonathan Myrelands, Esq, M.P., who greeted the young manager with the warmth and freedom of an old and close friend, linking his august arm in that of his workman, and walking with him the whole length of the ballroom to the refreshment bar, where he insisted on treating Paul and Phil to a bottle of champagne.

That kindly though somewhat ostentatious act on the part of 'our worthy representative' was not without its effect on the mixed assembly. Those present who had not known Massilon previously were almost compelled to know and notice him after he was so markedly singled out.

'Who is that tall, dark, good-looking young gentleman the member for Ashlynton is conversing with so pleasantly?' people asked of one another, and when they were informed that Mr. Myrelands' friend was his manager—the young man who had behaved so splendidly when the White Crow mine exploded the other week, and who had written a book dealing with Lancashire life which everybody was reading—the questioners came to the conclusion that Paul Massilon was a gentleman whose acquaintance was worth cultivating.

Shortly after this Paul and Miss Heywood were sitting in one of the prettily-draped and softly-lighted bays running alongside the ballroom. In front of this little alcove were graceful palms and clumps of evergreen plants, and before their retreat the gay throng was eddying by to the strains of a delightful waltz. They had been dancing, but she had pleaded fatigue, and he had led her there.

'I wasn't aware, Mr. Massilon,' the girl remarked quietly, with the faintest suspicion of a twinkle in her great luminous eyes, 'that you and our member'—with an emphasis on those two words—'were such intimate friends.'

'Nor are we, Miss Heywood,' Paul replied, sharply, and with the flicker of a frown on his strong, dark face. 'The truth is that before this evening I had only spoken to Mr. Myrelands on two occasions.'

'You surprise me. I imagined—as everybody else must have done—that you were old and dear friends.'

'I am happy to say that it is not so, Miss Heywood,' was Massilon's sarcastic reply. 'He is my employer, and a member of Parliament, and I suppose I ought to feel pleased with his public avowal of good feeling.'

'And you are not?' she retorted, with her sweet lips half-framed for laughter.

'Not at all. I am somewhat particular about my friendships, and "our member" is not one of my friends. I suppose all these good folks have votes or influence, and it pleases Mr. Myrelands to take me up just to show them all that he, at all events, recognises merit when he sees it.'

'Why, Mr. Massilon, you are speaking almost bitterly now, and I used to think there wasn't an atom of bitterness in your nature.'

'I hate to be patronised,' he cried, adding quickly, 'by such as he. Perhaps I ought to explain, Miss Heywood, but I think you understand me?'

'I think I do,' she said softly.

'Look at Phil,' he cried, after a momentary silence, 'what a scapegrace he is. I half believe that Myrelands' champagne has affected him already.'

She followed his pointing finger with her eyes, and saw her cousin pinning a label to the coat tails of a very demure and womanly-looking young fop with smooth, round cheeks and fair hair. Another moment and the trick was played, and Phil was chatting affably with his victim, whose black garment bore a white slip with the strange legend, 'On Sale. No Reasonable Offer Refused.'

Miss Heywood giggled, and then her face lighted up suddenly, and her hand was placed upon Paul's sleeve.

'Who is that young lady with Harry Grant?' she cried. 'I declare she is the loveliest woman in the room. Do you know her, Mr. Massilon? Somehow her face seems familiar to me.'

Paul followed her glance and his heart leapt to his throat. It was Mary Stanley, looking gloriously lovely in a sleeveless low-cut dress of fancy muslin, and by her side was a young fellow almost as fair as herself—tall, gracefully moulded, with a handsome, dashing, devil-may-care looking face.

'She is very handsome,' he said quietly; though his blood was at fever heat. 'But who is he?'

'Don't you know Harry Grant?' she asked, and her soft tones had a sneer in them. 'His father owns some cotton mills in the town, and he has a reputation that no woman cares to relate. But the lady! You know her?'

'I know she is a mill girl,' he answered, avoiding her eyes. 'Her father and brother were in that explosion at the White Crow.'

'The two men you saved?'

'Yes.'

For a little space they were silent. Each had something to ask the other, but was restrained from saying it. Then they rose together, her hand upon his sleeve, and at the entrance of the alcove she pulled him back shrinkingly.

'Wait a moment, please,' she pleaded. 'Stand there, and don't move till I tell you.'

'What is it, Miss Heywood?' he whispered, smiling. His back was to the ballroom, and his big figure filled the doorway of their retreat.

'A horrid bore whom I wished to avoid,' she explained, with a shrug of her plump white shoulders. 'He pestered me to death almost to promise him a dance, and he is looking for me now to claim it.'

'Who is this awful bogey?' he asked, smiling gallantly, though his heart was with that vision of muslin-clad loveliness he had feasted his loving eyes upon for a moment only.

'Mr. Wedmore, of Wedmore House.'

'Byron Wedmore, the lunatic?' Paul queried.

'Not exactly that, but still too strange and importunate in his ways to be altogether a desirable acquaintance at all times, Mr. Massilon.'

'You should shake him off.'

'What if he refuses to be so treated?' she asked, looking up into his face. 'He is a neighbour, you know; and is harmless enough too, if he wouldn't insist upon pestering me with his attentions.'

'If that is his only offence I can forgive him, Miss Heywood,' he cried airily. 'Surely it is not a sign of lunacy to lay his services at the feet of one so fair and fascinating us yourself.'

'Don't descend to compliments, please,' she said in a voice of displeasure. 'See, there he goes!' she broke out more brightly; 'the last and the most pathetic figure of his weak, half-mad race.'

Paul followed the tall, attenuated figure with his gaze; marked the man's eagle-beak of a nose, his restless, ferret-like eyes, chin that retreated to vanishing point, the sloping, hairless forehead, and wondered no more at his companion's aversion.

'So that is Mr. Byron Wedmore,' he remarked, as the erratic one disappeared in a throng at the farther end of the room. 'I have heard often of his vagaries, but never saw him before. All the family were very strange, I have heard, Miss Hey wood?'

'They were lunatics!' she said, with marked emphasis. 'His father and brother died in the lunatic asylum, and I sometimes think that he ought to be there.'

'He has annoyed you very much I can see, Miss Heywood,' he remarked kindly.

'He has; but one cannot quarrel with a monomaniac. I feel certain that if I am alone with him for a single moment to-night he will lay his heart, which is small, and his fortune, which is considerable, at my feet for the twentieth time.'

'Is this a comedy or a tragedy?' he asked, with eyes wherein laughter and seriousness struggled.

'It is both, Mr, Massilon,' she said, gravely, and a pained look came into her fine eyes. 'It is a comedy to those who only watch the little play, but to those who play it there is sometimes tragedy enough.'

'Pardon me,' he said humbly, as he saw her lips quiver.

'There is Phil!' she cried gaily. 'Take me to him.'

He rose, placed her hand upon his arm, and they walked across the ballroom to where the irrepressible Lawrence was standing, talking suavely and laughing heartily in the centre of a small knot of friends.

And as they glided over the shining floor Paul's eyes roamed hither and thither in quest of the woman who had ensnared his fancy; and the woman on his arm noticed the eager, vagrant glances of her cavalier, divining with her quick intuition their desire, and when the miner's gaze met Mary's and a glad light suffused his handsome face Margaret Heywood sighed softly, and her white even teeth stung her lower lip.

As soon as he could do so gracefully Massilon detached himself from his friends and hurried away. But he did not rush to Mary Stanley's side, greatly as he desired to speak to her; instead, he dropped upon the first empty chair behind the lace draperies which divided the narrow promenade from the ballroom, and there he watched and waited for the coming of the one he loved.

From where he was sitting he had a full view of the wide space set apart for the dancers; he commanded a goodly portion of the refreshment bar also, where he had seen Mary standing with the handsome man whose reputation Miss Heywood had so quickly damned.

Mary Stanley had seen him make his way thither; that she would follow him he felt certain as soon as she was free, and so thinking, he waited, his heart hungering for her presence.

He had not long to wait. Presently he saw Mary glide swiftly from the bar towards him; then she glanced around, saw him, and tripped up to him with outstretched hands and smiling countenance.

'Mary!'

'Paul!'

'I never dreamt of meeting you here, Mary.'

'I never thought of coming, but a friend sent me a ticket and I came with her. But I never thought of seeing you, Paul.'

'Sit here.'

She took the seat beside him, and her white, perfectly-moulded arms, and generous half-veiled bust, her glowing flower-like face, little red mouth and bunched-up hair of glistening gold made his pulse leap and his nerves tingle.

'Who was that very pretty woman I saw you with a minute ago? Do you know, Paul, that I felt quite jealous of her? Wasn't it Miss Heywood?'

'Jealous!' he murmured, and emitted a low glad laugh. 'Why, Miss Heywood paid you the highest compliment. When she saw you with that Grant she declared that you were the loveliest woman in the room.'

'Really, Paul?'

'Yes; and she only put into words my thought. But what are you doing with that man?'

'I know him—I used to work at his father's mill—and when he asked me to dance, what was I to do, Paul? But what's wrong with Mr. Grant? He seems very nice, and he was very civil.'

'He seems to have a bad name, and you are so beautiful, Mary. But I am forgetting that I have no right to advise you yet. I am waiting until you know your own heart as I know mine.'

'Paul!'

She uttered that single word in a tone he had never heard her use before, and the eyes she raised to him were burning softly with the glow of a woman's soul in their depths.

'Mary! What is it to be?' he whispered hotly.

'Need you ask yet, Paul?' her fluttering lips demanded as her eyes fell before his ardent look.

'You will be my wife then, darling?'

'Yes, Paul, yes!'

'You love me, Mary? Love me only?'

'If I had not loved you, dear, should I have kissed you the other night?'

His arm stole round her waist, he drew her gently to him, and his lips touched her satiny check. Had they been elsewhere but in that crowded room he would have crushed her in his arms and covered her radiant face with passionate kisses.

'God bless you, Mary!' he murmured huskily in her pretty pink ear. 'You have made me, my own darling, the happiest man in all the world!'

She did not speak, but he saw that her white bosom was rising and falling upon the tide of her emotion, and from beneath her white heavy-lidded, and half-closed eyes two dew-like drops were stealing.