Читать книгу One Night's Mystery - May Agnes Fleming - Страница 10

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"

ell," the sweet girlish voice of Sydney Owenson cried, "have you fallen asleep over Bertie's picture, Cyrilla? What do you think of it?—handsome, isn't he?"

Cyrilla looked up. She had been critically examining the well-looking photographed face of Mr. Bertie Vaughan through her eye-glass, in silence, for the last three minutes. The dark eyes, brilliant as stars, were a trifle short-sighted, black as it is possible for human eyes to be, and consequently the least attractive feature in the very attractive face. She dropped her glass now, and returned the portrait to its owner.

"Very handsome, Syd; but—you won't be offended, will you?"

"Oh, dear, no! Why should I? Go on."

"But rather weak and womanish, rather fickle and unstable, I should say. Not the sort of man to pin your faith to too securely. Men with that sort of mouth and these pretty, girlish dimples in the chin are always weak-minded. You don't mind my saying this, do you?"

"Not a bit. Poor, dear old Bertie! I think I like weak-minded men, Cy. If he were stern and dignified, and all that, he might think me silly and frivolous, as I am, I daresay, and try to improve me, and not let me have my own way. I should hate being improved, and I always mean to have my own way. Yes, Cy, I prefer weak-minded men."

"No, you don't, Sydney. You may think so now, but you don't. You want a husband you can lean upon, trust, and look up to. And there are such men, for I've met them—glorious fellows, worth a woman's giving her life for. That's the sort of husband for you, chérie, while I——"

"Yes, Cy."

"While I want one who will look up to me—not a Bertie Vaughan exactly—I wouldn't like a fickle man—but a husband whom I can rule, who will let me henpeck him, in short! I couldn't love a man I had to look up to—it's dreadfully tiresome, looking up. And I wouldn't live with a man I couldn't love. It would bore me to have a supreme being for my lord and master. And I never mean to bore myself. Those are my principles."

Sydney laughed.

"Mon Dieu! only hear her! One would think she had all mankind by heart. Have you ever met your small, gentle, henpecked ideal, Cy?"

Cyrilla Hendrick did not answer at once, but over her face a smile broke, a smile so soft, so tender, so womanly, that for a moment it transformed her.

"Yes, Syd," she said, softly; "I have met my ideal, poor, dear little fellow, and loved him well, before I ever saw you. Ah! those were the best days of my life I begin to think; and, like all best things, they are gone forever."

"You can't tell that. To a girl as handsome as you are infinite capabilities lie open, as Carlyle would say. I predict that you will make a brilliant match, Cyrilla."

"I mean to, Sydney. That is why I am here. Every accomplishment, every one of my good looks, are so many steps toward that end. I mean to marry well—that is, a rich man. He may be old as the everlasting hills, he may be ugly as Caliban, he may be vulgar, he may be absolutely idiotic—I will twine roses, like Titania, around his ass's head, and bow myself down, and do homage before him, so that he but possess the bags of ducats. Yes, Syd, my aunt may design me for a life of drudgery in her bleak old house—I mean to marry one of the wealthiest men on this continent before another year ends."

"And henpeck him afterwards?"

"By no means. That is my ideal. I won't henpeck my wealthy husband. I shall simply do in all things as I please. But if the fortune of war should go against me, Sydney, and I fail and come to grief, as Aunt Phil says I shall, I wonder if, under all circumstances, I can count upon a friend in you?"

"Under all circumstances, Cyrilla, through good report and evil report, for better or for worse, I will be your true friend always."

"You vow this, Sydney?" She came closer, the black eyes eager, dark, intense earnestness in her face. "It is no school-girl promise, made and forgotten in a moment. You mean this?"

"With all my heart!" Sydney exclaimed, carried away by the moment's excitement, her fair "flower face" flushing. "Your faithful and firm friend to the end."

"Shake hands on that!" Cyrilla said, holding out her own; and the white, diamond-starred hand, and the brown, ringless one met and clasped for a moment firmly and strongly as the clasp of two men.

"It is a compact between us," Cyrilla Hendrick said. "I have a presentiment that one day you will be called upon to fulfil that promise. There goes the study bell at last."

"And you haven't promised to be my bridesmaid. Will you, Cy?"

"Of course. If your father will write to Aunt Phil and ask her. I know she will be delighted to say yes. In common with all virtuous people she has the intensest respect for rich and respectable associations. Apropos of the rich and respectable, we're asked to a small dinner at Mrs. Colonel Delamere's on Friday evening—Hallowe'en, you know. Will you go?"

"Only too glad. Who knows—we may see some of the new officers. You've heard that another regiment was quartered at the barracks last week. The colonel may fetch some of them along."

"Ah! pigs may fly, but they're unlikely birds!" is Miss Hendrick's more expressive than elegant answer. "No such luck, Syd. Mademoiselle Stephanie, or Mademoiselle Jeanne will be along as usual, to play sheep-dog to us lambs—or, worse still, Miss Jones—and turn to stone any military interloper under fifty with one glance of her Gorgon eye."

The folding doors of the school-room flew open and Miss Jones came in, the four and thirty boarders at her heels. Cyrilla sauntered away to her desk, singing as she went:

"Oh, for Friday night,

Friday at the gloaming;

Oh, for Friday night—

Friday's long a-coming."

"No singing in study hours. Miss Hendrick!" cried Miss Jones, sharply, with a flash of her pale eyes.

Cyrilla smiled—the smile that always galled Miss Jones more than words, and went humming on her way unheeding.

"Oh, for Friday night,

Then my true love's coming."

"I shall report you to Mademoiselle Chateauroy, Miss Hendrick!" Miss Jones angrily cried.

"What! again? Poor Mademoiselle Chateauroy, to be compelled to listen," Cyrilla answered, mockingly, taking her seat and her books.

Silence fell. Five and thirty girls bent five and thirty heads over five and thirty books for the space of half an hour—then the loud ringing of a bell, then a simultaneous jump of five and thirty girls on their feet, a hustling of books into desks, doors flung wide, and a marshalling, two deep, Miss Jones at their head, and in strictest silence, down stairs to the refectory.

The meal was eaten, still in silence,—Miss Jones read aloud some drearily instructive book, then back to the school-room—more study—another half-hour's recreation, and then to their rooms for the night. It was one among Miss Jones's manifold duties, to go the round of the rooms and remove the lights. The chamber of Cyrilla Hendrick and her companion was the very last of the row, but to that room Miss Jones spitefully went first. Miss Hendrick was busily writing out to-morrow's German exercise.

"What! so soon?" she cried out. "Antoinette, look at your watch. Miss Jones must have made a mistake. It's a good ten minutes yet to nine, and I haven't my exercise done."

"It's nine o'clock, Miss Hendrick," Miss Jones retorted grimly, seizing the lamp. "If you are behind with your exercise it is your misfortune, not my fault."

She paused a moment, lamp in hand, and gazed at Cyrilla's indignant face with ill-concealed exultation.

"You made a mistake this afternoon, Miss Hendrick. I am going on Friday night, in charge of you and the others, to Mrs. Delamere's."

Miss Hendrick might be discomfited, never defeated. At a moment's notice she was ever ready to do battle with her foe.

"Are you, Miss Jones? Poor Mrs. Delamere! But she must expect to pay some penalty if she will ask school-girls. For myself, I don't mind, but one can't help compassionating Mrs. Delamere—with her natural dislike of canaille, too."

It was a coarser shaft than even Cyrilla was wont to wing. A furious look was her answer. Then, armed with the lamp, Miss Jones had left the room.

"Mon Dieu! Cyrilla, how impertinent you are!" the French girl exclaimed. "Are you not afraid she will report you to mademoiselle?"

"Not a bit afraid, Toinette; the principal amusement of Miss Jones' life is reporting me to mademoiselle. I don't know what will become of her when I leave school at Christmas, and that healthful stimulus is taken from her sluggish blood. Now, then, Toinette—to bed, to bed!"

As a rule, the Demoiselles Chateauroy did not allow their pupils to dissipate their minds by accepting invitations from their friends in Petite St. Jacques.

There were a few exceptions made, however, in the graduating class by the express desire of parents and guardians. The girls were to quit the pensionnat so soon and "come out," that to accept a few invitations to innoxious tea-parties and dinners could do no great harm. But even on these occasions one of the Demoiselles Chateauroy or one of the under teachers invariably went along to keep a watchful eye on their charges, and see that the masculine element was not too dangerous. It was an understood thing, particularly when an invitation came from Mrs. Colonel Delamere, that no officer under half a century was to put in an appearance.

On this eventful Friday afternoon, then, destined to make an epoch in more than one of their lives, the young ladies, five in number, with Miss Jones in the rôle of guardian angel, set out at four o'clock down the Rue St. Dominique to Nôtre Dame Street, where resided Mrs. Colonel Delamere, Miss Hendrick and Miss Owenson, as usual, walking arm-in-arm, as usual, also, making a very pretty contrast—a fact which the elder of the two at least very well knew. Cyrilla wore her one best dress—Aunt Phil's Christmas gift, a garnet merino—its rich tints setting off well her richer beauty, a ruffle of thread lace at throat and wrists: for ornaments, brooch and ear-rings of rubies and fine gold. Miss Hendrick had brought these jewels with her from England, and, apart from their intrinsic worth and extreme becomingness to her brunette face, valued them as parting gifts from "Freddy."

"He gave them to me with tears in his eyes, and nearly ruined himself, poor little dear"—Miss Hendrick always spoke of this gentleman as though he were seven years old—"to buy them. As Mademoiselle Stephanie would say, 'Fred is as poor as mouses of the church.'"

Miss Owenson, in turquoise blue silk, her drooping, sun-bright ringlets, tied back into a knot of blue ribbon, falling loosely over her shoulders, looked by contrast white and pure and fair as a lily. She wore no adornings, except her shining engagement ring and her chain and locket.

"I can't quite realize, Syd," Miss Hendrick observed thoughtfully, "that this time next month you will be, as people phrase it, 'a respectable married woman.' And only seventeen years old!"

"It does seem absurd, doesn't it?" Sydney laughed; "it is absurd. I wish poor papa's crotchet had taken any other form; but since it has taken this, there is nothing for it but obedience. I would do much more unpleasant things than marry Bertie to please poor, sick, hypochondriacal papa."

Cyrilla looked at her curiously.

"You are an oddity, Sydney—half child, half woman; I don't quite understand you. Do you love this Bertie Vaughan?"

Sydney laughed again, and blushed—that bright, flitting blush that made her pearl-clear face so lovely.

"Love?—love, Cyrilla?" The girl of seventeen pronounced the incisive word shyly, as most girls of seventeen do. "Oh, well, that's another thing, you see—something, I fancy, one thinks more of at seven-and-twenty than at seventeen. Of love, such as I have read in novels and poetry, I know nothing. I am not sure I ever want to know. As far as I can make out, love and misery are synonymous. No, I'm not in love with Bertie—I'm tolerably sure of that."

"Nor he with you?"

"Nor he with me. How could we—only boy and girl? Since I was ten years old, and Bertie fifteen, papa gave us to understand we were to marry some day, and we never made any objections. I like Bertie better than any one I ever knew—that is enough."

"Enough? Oh, you poor child! You like Bertie—yes, and some day, when you are ten years older, the right man (they say there is a right man for all of us, if we only wait long enough) will appear on the scene, and then—and then, Syd, you will wake up and know what love and marriage mean."

Once more Sydney laughed aloud—her sweet, clear, heart-whole laugh.

"Cyrilla Hendrick turned sentimental! What shall I hear next? Have you been reading French novels lately, Cy?—that sounds like an extract. Oh, no, Cyrilla!"—the girl's face grew suddenly grave—"I am not a bit like one of the heroines of your pet romances. When I am Bertie's wife I will love him—yes, love him with my whole heart; and no man in all this world will be to me what he will. Of love, as you mean it, I know nothing; but that I will be Bertie's true and loyal wife I know as well as that I am walking here."

Cyrilla smiled—the cynical and most worldly smile that often marred the beauty of her Titian-like face.

"We will see!" she said, prophetically. "Meantime, what a romantic old gentleman your papa must be! I thought that sort of thing, affiancing people in their cradles, went out of fashion two or three centuries ago."

"It is simple enough after all," Sydney answered. "I will tell you how it was, Cy, in return for your confidence the other day. When papa was a very young man, and a middy in the British Navy, he was guilty of some youthful indiscretion—I don't know to this day what—but some act that if brought to the ears of his captain would have disgraced and ruined him for life. Mr. Vaughan, Bertie's father, was second officer of the ship, and Mr. Vaughan came to papa's aid, rescued him from his danger, screened him—saved him, in a word. Papa could do nothing then to prove his gratitude, but in his heart his gratitude was deep and strong. Years and years after, when papa had come into a fortune, and was married, and I was a baby, his turn came. Mr. Vaughan died poor, very poor, leaving Bertie friendless and alone. Papa came forward, sought him out, brought him here, and adopted him as his son. I was one year old, and Bertie six, but I believe even then, Cy, he destined us for each other. He had married mamma in New York—mamma is American, you know—and finally, when his health began to fail, he came and settled there. The climate agrees with him, and mamma prefers it. Bertie was at Rugby at the time, and finally went up to Oxford. I had not seen him for three years before last vacation, when he came over, and, as I told you girls, gave me this ring, and informed me he intended to marry me next year. Of course papa had told him to do it, and I am sure if I must marry, I would rather marry Bertie than any dreadful, strange man. That is the whole story Cyrilla, romantic or not, as you like."

"H'm!" was Cyrilla's comment, her black eyes twinkling; "what a comfort it must be to your papa to possess so dutiful a son and daughter. I am curious to see this docile Mr. Vaughan, and curious, very curious, Syd, to see how this romantic marriage turns out."

"You are welcome," Miss Owenson answered, stoutly. "It will be a modern case of Darby and Joan, I feel sure. When we are married and settled—we are to live at home with papa and mamma, of course—you must come and make me a long visit, and we will look out together for the ugly, old, idiotic, wealthy Bottom the Weaver, you intend to marry."

Miss Hendrick laughed, then sighed impatiently—that look of dark discontent Sydney had learned to know long ago over-spreading her face like a cloud.

She glanced up at her, half-wonderingly, half-compassionately.

"Cyrilla," she said, holding the girl's arm a little closer, "what a troubled face you wear!—what a troubled face you often wear, as though you were almost sick of your life."

"Almost!" Cyrilla Hendrick repeated—"almost, Sydney! Why, there never was a time when I was not sick of my life. I have an infinite capacity for discontent, I think—for discontent, envy, and all uncharitableness. I long for freedom, for riches, for splendor, for the glory of the world, more than words can ever tell. And drudgery, and poverty, and meanness have been mine since I can recollect. But, as you say, Syd, I have a handsome face, and the average of brains behind it, and it will go hard with me, if out in the big, wide world I cannot win for myself a place in the first rank."

Sydney Owenson gazed at her in increased wonder and perplexity. Her own life ran on like some clear, shining river; the turbid, restless spirit of her bolder friend she could by no means understand. In all things her life sufficed for her, and had from the beginning; with her niche in the world she was amply content. This craving, never-satisfied longing for the unattainable was to her a marvel.

"We were talking of love a few minutes ago," she said, trying perplexedly to work out the puzzle. "Are you in love, Cyrilla, with Freddy?"

Cyrilla laughed—the sweetest, airiest laugh was Cyrilla's—the clouds clearing away as if by magic.

"And if I am, Sydney, you don't think, I hope, that has anything to do with it! Oh, no! If I were queen of the universe, and all the best and bravest of mankind knelt before me, I would single out little Fred Carew and marry him from among them all, and care for him as greatly as it is in me to care for any one besides myself, and make him most exquisitely miserable for the rest of his mortal life, I have no doubt. But with my chronic dissatisfaction with my lot, Freddy, at present, has nothing to do."

"And yet you are fond of him?"

"Fond of him? Fond of Fred Carew? Ah! well, Syd, it's one of those things that won't bear talking about. We have said good-by, and said it for all time."

"Who knows? You will one day inherit Miss Dormer's fortune, marry your Fred, and live happy ever after."

"Never, Syd! I opened the mysteries a little the other day. Let me open them still more now. I told you Miss Dormer had agreed to leave her money to me on one condition—that I solemnly swear to obey her in one thing—did I not?"

"Yes—well?"

"Well—that one thing is, that I am never to marry Fred Carew. Before she signs her will, if I am not already married, I am to swear, in the presence of witnesses, that never, while I live, will I marry poor little Freddy. If I refuse to take that oath, or if I break it when taken, I forfeit every dollar. No more questions, Syd, and get rid of that shocked face. Here we are at Mrs. Delamere's."