Читать книгу One Night's Mystery - May Agnes Fleming - Страница 12

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rs. Colonel Delamere, a fat, fair, and forty matron with the usual comfortable, placid, stall-fed look, came forward in pearl-gray silk to receive her youthful guests. Miss Sydney Owenson, her especial pet, she kissed with effusion.

"You darling child! how good of you to come so early!" she whispered. "And so we are really going to lose you for good!"

"Who told you?" Sydney demanded, opening wide her gray eyes.

"Mademoiselle Chateauroy—I called yesterday. Told me you were to be married—a little girl of seventeen! My pet, it's a shame!"

"Is it?" laughed Sydney; "but a little bird has whispered through the town that Mrs. Colonel Delamere ran away and was married at sixteen!"

"So she did, my dear, and a precious simpleton she was for her pains," Mrs. Delamere answered, shrugging her ample shoulders. "Sydney, why did you fetch that shrewish Miss Jones? I have a treat in store for you, girls, but it's against orders—three contraband admirers who are dying to meet my pretty pensionnaires. Miss Jones will be sure to spoil all."

"Poor Miss Jones! she seems to make enemies on every hand. It is war to the knife between her and Cyrilla. Are you really going to introduce the new arrivals? I heard the regiment had come. How nice of you!"

"They will drop in after dinner—the colonel dines with them at the mess, and will bring them over afterward. You are to have parlor croquet, and a carpet dance, and go home by moonlight. If only that Miss Jones would not tell!"

"How plaintively you speak of that Miss Jones," Sydney laughed. "Let the most fascinating of your military heroes make love to her, Mrs. Delamere, give her his arm home, and so seal the dragon's mouth."

Mrs. Delamere looked doubtfully across at Miss Jones.

"Do you think so, pet? But then she is so plain, poor thing, and not so young as she was ten years ago, and though they're all plucky fellows enough, yet I'm afraid they're not equal to it. However, we will eat, drink, and be merry to-night, if we are to die for it to-morrow."

All things went on in a most exemplary way for the next two hours, until the six o'clock dinner ended. Not a red coat, not even a black coat, made its appearance. Games of all kinds, books of all sorts, had been provided by Mrs. Delamere, the jolliest of hostesses, for her young friends. They dined together, waited upon by a solemn, elderly butler, and even Miss Jones was amused and propitiated by Mrs. Delamere's condescending kindness.

"I really want the poor things to enjoy themselves this evening, my dear Miss Jones," she said, confidentially. "You must permit them a little extra liberty, and at least one hour more than usual."

Miss Jones fixed her dull, glimmering eyes upon the colonel's lady, scenting danger afar off.

"My orders are not to allow my pupils out of my sight, madame," she answered, stiffly; "and to bring them home positively at nine. It is as much as my position is worth to disobey."

"Oh, nonsense! my dear Miss Jones. I will make it all right with Mademoiselle Chateauroy. Do recollect how little amusement the poor things have, and remember we were once young ourselves."

It was the most unfortunate appeal the good lady could have made. Miss Jones was verging upon the thirties, a period when any unmarried lady may be pardoned for becoming sensitive. Her leaden eyes absolutely flashed.

"Mrs. Delamere is very kind, but my orders were positive, and it is my duty to obey."

She set her thin lips, and looked across at Cyrilla Hendrick.

"The military are coming, and I shall spoil your sport, my lady, if I can," she thought, vindictively.

Miss Hendrick at the moment was the centre of a circle of laughing, eager faces. They had adjourned to the ample grounds in front of the house, and seated under a great scarlet maple, armed with a pack of cards, Cyrilla was gravely lifting the mystic veil of futurity.

"I see here, my pretty lady," she was drawling in true gypsy tone to Miss Owenson, "a sudden journey, and a change in your whole life. Here is a fair man, who is destined to cause you a great deal of trouble. Here are tears, a disappointment, a sick-bed, and—yes—a death."

"Cyrilla!" Sydney cried, her gray eyes flashing indignantly.

"It is on the cards—look for yourself, and very near, too. Here is a dark man, this king of spades, who follows you everywhere, and a dark woman, who is your enemy, and comes between you and the fair man, and——"

She stopped suddenly, as suddenly as if she had been shot. For a voice broke upon them as she uttered the words.

"I never go in for high stakes, myself," said the pleasant, lazy voice; "say ponies, or monkeys. My exchequer never stands anything higher. My dear colonel, what a charming scene! a veritable group from Watteau, and sitting on straw, like Marjory Daw! These are the young ladies Mrs. Delamere spoke of, no doubt."

The speaker raised his eye-glass complacently, and stood surveying the "group from Watteau," as though it had been got up for his especial delectation. He had spoken in an undertone, but in the clear, crisp, still air, every word had reached the ears of the fortune-teller. She did not start, she did not look up, a sudden stillness came over her from head to foot. Then she lifted her handsome, high-bred face, and went coolly on.

"The dark lady is in love with the fair gentleman, and will do her best to part him from you. Whether she succeeds or not is not on the cards, but I see here no end of trouble, disappointment, sickness and tears."

"A very dreary prediction for lips so gentle to pronounce. Fairest fortune-teller, will you not speer my future as well?"

The gentleman whose bets never exceeded "ponies or monkeys" had advanced, bowing gracefully, smiling sweetly upon the fluttering group. The seeress lifted her eyes from the pack, and glanced up at him with the careless indifference of a practised coquette. But Sydney Owenson saw, and Miss Jones saw, that the faint rich carnation her olive cheeks ever wore had deepened to vivid crimson.

"Certainly," she answered, with perfect sang froid; "cross the sibyl's palm with silver, my pretty gentleman, and tell me which shall it be—past, present, or future?"

She held out her hand, all present looking on in a flutter of expectation, a startled expression upon Miss Jones' vinegar visage, a bland smile upon Colonel Delamere's.

"The future, by all means," the gentleman answered, making search gravely for the silver coin. He found a sixpence, and dropped it with a second Chesterfieldian bow into the extended palm. She shuffled the cards. "Cut," she said, authoritatively.

The stranger obeyed, a military stranger all saw, though in mufti. Miss Hendrick took up the first "cut," and began to read.

"This is the knave of hearts—you are the knave, monsieur! This means water—you have recently made a long voyage. There is the queen of spades—a dark lady whom you are to meet soon, very soon. Let me warn monsieur against this young dark lady; she will cause him endless trouble and mischief if he does not cut her acquaintance at once. Here is a blonde lady, the queen of diamonds, immensely wealthy. Look at all these cards that follow her. She will fall in love with the knave if he sets about it properly, and may even ultimately marry him. She will not be young and certainly not pretty, but, as you see, she has a fortune that is immense, and that is much better for the knave of hearts, and much more to his taste than youth or pretty looks. The dark lady is poor, and really will make monsieur no end of worry whenever she appears. This card certainly means a wedding. Here it all is—monsieur turns his back upon the evil-minded dark lady, marries the queen of diamonds and her money-bags, and lives happy ever after."

She sprang to her feet, bowed low to the gentleman, and turned as if to depart.

"Ha, ha, ha!" boomed out the big bass laugh of the colonel. "By Jupiter, that's good—eh, Carew? If she had known you all your life, by Jove, she couldn't have hit home better—hey, my boy? Let me introduce you—Miss Cyrilla Hendrick, Mr. Carew of the —th Fusiliers."

"Carew!" The gray eyes of Sydney Owenson opened in swift, sudden surprise. She glanced at Cyrilla, strangely startled, but that young lady was bowing as to one she had never seen before—the gentleman with equal gravity.

Sydney drew a long breath. After all Carew was not such a very uncommon name. There might certainly be two men in the world who bore it. If she could only hear his other.

"Freddy, my boy," cried the colonel's cheerful stentor tones, "here is another. Miss Sydney Owenson, Lieutenant Carew."

Freddy! She flashed a glance of amaze and delight across at her friend, but the face of Cyrilla Hendrick was beyond her reading. She had turned partly away, with only the usual, half-indifferent, half-disdainful expression on the handsome brunette face.

"Mr. Carew, Miss Jones," says genial Colonel Delamere, and Miss Jones makes a prim, stiffish, little bow. "Mademoiselle Marie Antoinette Desereux, Madamoiselle Angele Garneau."

Twice more does Mr. Carew bestow his graceful court-chamberlain bow and smile on the bread-and-butter school-girls, and then he is free.

"Two more coming, Rosebud," whispers the elderly colonel to Sydney; "two more—good men and true. Fred Carew and I toddled on ahead. How does Carew compare with le beau Bertie—eh, little pearl?"

"Mr. Carew is very good-looking indeed, sir; not very tall, but that's a matter of taste," answers, demurely, Miss Owenson.

"And a bit of a dandy—eh, my dear? Regardez vous, as they say here, the lavender kids, the shiny boots, the swell hat, the moss-rose in the button-hole. That coat is one of Poole's masterpieces; but I suppose you are not capable of appreciating Poole's chef-d'œuvres. But, with all his Dundrearyism, he's one of the best and most honorable little fellows that ever breathed, is my young friend, Fred Carew."

"Indeed, sir."

"Yes, that he is. I've known him since he was the size of this cigar. May I light it? Thank you, my dear. Miss Hendrick hit him off to the life—ha! ha! 'Rich wife—not pretty—not young—lots of money'—ha! ha! ha! Clever girl, very, that handsome, black-eyed Miss Hendrick. Couldn't have struck home more neatly if she had been his mother. Hasn't a stiver but his pay—Carew hasn't—best connections going, but no expectations. Terrible flirt, but no marrying man. However, that's nothing to you, my dear. You're booked. Lucky fellow, that young Vaughan. I've heard of him. Ah! you needn't blush—if I were only twenty years younger and a single man. Well! you may laugh if you like, but Vaughan wouldn't have it all his own way. Yes, as I say—as Miss Hendrick said rather—a wife with fifty thousand down is about Freddy's figure. The widow, or the orphan, my dear, doesn't matter which, and the money not selfishly tied up on herself either."

Thus guilelessly prattled on the colonel, while Sydney laughed and watched her friend with intense curiosity. At least Colonel Delamere did not dream that Mr. Carew and Miss Hendrick had ever met before—no one did except herself. Yes—one other! Miss Jones' leaden eyes might be dull, but they were sharp, and where Cyrilla Hendrick was concerned hatred had sharpened them to needle-points. She had noticed the first start, the first flush of tell-tale color; she had seen for one moment an expression on her foe's face she had never seen there before. The fortune-telling, too, had been peculiar. Did she mean herself by the "dark lady," Miss Jones wondered? Had they ever met before? Had they met before—in England, for example—and was there some reason for keeping that meeting secret? She would watch, and wait, and see.

Mr. Carew had joined Miss Hendrick, and walked away by her side. For a moment neither spoke—the young lady looking serenely before her straight into space, the young gentleman watching her with a curious smile. He was the first to speak.

"Well, Beauty?"

"Well, Freddy?" Cyrilla Hendrick's black eyes turned from the horizon to his face at last. "It is you, Fred Carew, then, after all. How in the name of all that is astonishing do you come to be here?"

"What!" Mr. Carew said, lifting his blonde eyebrows, "do you mean to tell me, Beauty, you did not know I was here?"

"Know you were here! Good Heaven! Fred, what a preposterous question. Freddy Carew away from Regent Street and Rotten Row! Fred Carew out of sight of White's Club House and a Bond Street tailor! No—the human mind refuses to take in such an antithesis! I would as soon expect to meet the Czar of Russia in the wilds of Canada as you, Mr. Carew."

"Ah!" Freddy sighs, plaintively. "You can't feel sorrier for me, Beauty, than I feel for myself. But the fortune of war, my dear child, however cruel, must be accepted by a soldier. Still, since it has brought me to you, I can't say I regret it."

"You knew I was here?—from papa, I suppose."

"Your papa is improving the shining hours in Boulogne, my dear Cyrilla, and has been for the past year. No; I knew you were in Canada somewhere, and that knowledge alone made the thought of my exile endurable. I had no idea we were to meet, until this very day, at mess."

"And then——"

"And then our garrulous friend, the colonel—'our old lady,' the fellows call him—let out the blissful secret. 'Capital place, Petit St. Jacques, Freddy, my boy,' says Delamere to me. 'Yes, mon colonel,' I answer. 'Capital place for a man to go melancholy mad or cut his throat, I should say.' 'Not at all,' retorts my superior officer; 'lots of fun—famous for maple sugar and pretty girls. There's a whole seraglio of beauties down there in the Rue St. Dominique, and you're to meet two of the prettiest at my house this evening—azure-eyed, golden-haired Sydney—black-eyed, raven-tressed Cyrilla. Take either, my boy, with my blessing—you pays your money, and you takes your choice.' Need I tell you, Beauty, I woke up at that—at the sound of your name? 'Both beauties, both heiresses, my boy,' pursued the doddering old colonel; 'and an heiress is just about what you want most, I should say, Freddy.' 'Precisely, sir,' I answer; 'to which do you advise me to lay siege—belle blonde or brunette?' 'Well, my little Sydney, Miss Owenson, is bespoken, I'm sorry to say,' Delamere answers, 'so it must be Miss Hendrick. Eyes like sloes, lips like cherries, cheeks like roses, and the air of a duchess. Yes, by Jove!' cries the vagabond old colonel, smacking his lips, 'the air of an empress. Benedicite, my son, and go in and win.' So I came, Beauty—I needn't tell you how I felt, and you met me as though you had never seen me before. I made sure you knew all about my being here, and were on guard."

"Not I," Cyrilla answered; "when your voice reached me, as I sat there telling fortunes, I was struck dumb. But oh, dear old fellow! how glad I am to see you—how good it seems to meet a familiar face in this desert of Canada."

"Miss Hendrick!" peals forth a sharp-accented voice; and Miss Hendrick wakes up almost as from a dream at the too familiar sound. "Miss Hendrick, you are wanted in the drawing-room, to sing."

Mr. Carew's glass goes to his eye; Miss Hendrick turns half round upon her foe, with her usual air of serene impertinence.

"Couldn't you take my place this once, my dear Miss Jones?" (Miss Jones has about as much voice as a consumptive raven.) "You see I am well amused as it is."

"I must insist upon your returning to the house, instantly," cries Miss Jones, in a rising key. "My orders are, as you know, not to let you out of my sight."

She advances upon them. Mr. Carew, his glass still in his eye, regards her as he might some newly-discovered and wonderful specimen of the British megatherium.

"But, my dear Miss Jones," he begins, in most persuasive accents, with his most winning smile, "there is really no need of all this trouble. Your natural and affectionate anxiety about Miss Hendrick does equal honor to your head and heart, but, I assure you, no harm shall come to her while she is in my care. I am ready to shield her, if necessary, with my life."

"Mademoiselle Chateauroy's orders were not to let any of my pupils out of my sight; more particularly Miss Cyrilla Hendrick—most particularly with gentlemen. I shall obey mademoiselle's orders," is Miss Jones's grim and crushing reply.

"It's of no use, Freddy," Cyrilla says, in an undertone; "we must go back and part. I don't care for her," motioning contemptuously toward Miss Jones, "nor for Mademoiselle Chateauroy either; but I do care for Aunt Phil. To offend her means ruin to me; and the deadliest offence I can give her is to have anything to say to you. Let us go back, and for pity's sake don't speak to me again until you say good-night."

"But, Beauty, this is absurd," says Fred, as they turn to retrace their steps; "don't speak to you again until I say good-night! What ridiculous nonsense! I have ten thousand things to say to you, and I mean to say them in spite of all the Gorgon aunts and grim duennas on earth. When and where will you meet me?"

"I will not meet you at all, Freddy. I tell you it is impossible. I am watched more closely than any other girl in the school, and all are watched closely enough, goodness knows. Miss Jones's basilisk eyes are upon me this moment, and Miss Jones will faithfully report every word and look to the powers that be the moment she returns to the pensionnat."

"Hang Miss Jones!"

"With all my heart," says Cyrilla, laughing; "nothing would give me greater pleasure. At the same time I can't afford to have my misdeeds reported to Aunt Phil; and so, sir, let us shake hands and part."

"Never, Cyrilla, you must meet me, and at once. Appoint some place and time, here in the town, and I will be there, whether it be midnight or mid-day."

"Impossible. I am never permitted to stir outside the gates alone."

"Then, by Jove! we shall meet inside the gates. I will scale the wall this very night, and you steal down and meet me in the grounds. Cyrilla, for Heaven's sake, don't say no, as I see you are going to! It is three years since we met. Have you forgotten all that——"

"I have forgotten nothing, Fred—nothing," the girl answers almost with emotion; "better for me, perhaps, if I had. Yes, I will meet you—at least I will try. I risk more than you dream of, but I will risk it. If you can get over the wall of the pensionnat to-night, I will try to meet you in the grounds."

"My darling"—under Miss Jones' argus eyes, Mr. Carew takes and squeezes Miss Hendrick's hand—"are your windows high? Do you run any risk in coming down?"

"I run risk enough, as I told you, but not of that kind. My room is on the second floor, and there is a tree close to the window, from whose branches I have often swung myself into the playground. Get over the wall about eleven to-night, and, if it be possible at all, I will meet you. But mind—only this once, Freddy; not even you will tempt me to do it again."

"You will write to me, though, Beauty, and allow me to——"

"No letter comes into or goes out of the pensionnat that does not pass under Mademoiselle Chateauroy's scrutiny. No, Fred; there can be no writing and no meeting except this one. Fate is against us, as it has been from the first. We were not one iota farther apart when the Atlantic rolled between us than we will be here together in Canada."

"That remains to be seen," Fred Carew answered. "My own opinion is that fate has not brought us face to face in this queer old world-forgotten town for nothing. We shall meet—you and me, 'Rilla, love—and go on meeting, please Heaven, to the end of the chapter."

They had reached the house. Cyrilla went in at once, while Mr. Carew lingered and allowed Miss Jones to join him. The yellow half-moon was lifting her face over the tree-tops, the air was spicy with aromatic odors from the pine woods. Through the open windows came the gay strains of "La Claire Fontaine," the national air of Lower Canada, played by Miss Sydney Owenson.

"Why should we go in just yet, Miss Jones?" says Mr. Carew, in his slow, sleepy voice, with his slow, sleepy smile. "It is a lovely night, a little coldish, but I perceive you have a shawl across your arm; allow me to put it on—you may take cold—and permit me to offer you my arm for a walk."

He removes the shawl as he speaks, and adjusts it as tenderly and solicitously about Miss Jones's angular shoulders as though it had been Miss Hendrick herself; then, still smiling, he offers her his arm.

The temptation is great. Miss Jones is nine-and-twenty, and not even at nineteen was her head ever turned by the flattering attentions of fickle man; and Miss Jones, albeit the milk of human kindness has been somewhat curdled in her vestal breast by a long course of refractory pupils, is human, very human.

"Do come!" says Mr. Carew, sweetly. "It is really a sin to spend such a night in-doors. The young ladies? Oh, the young ladies are perfectly safe. There is no one there but the colonel and Mrs. Delamere. The other fellows said they would come, but they haven't, as you may perceive. All the better for me, Miss Jones," smiles Mr. Carew, drawing her hand within his arm, "since it allows me the pleasure of a tête-à-tête stroll with you."

A flush, an absolute flush, rises to Miss Jones's sallow cheeks. Yes, since none of those dangerous military men had come, there could surely be no harm in a little walk with Mr. Carew. She coughed a little cough of assent, and meandered away with her subtle tempter.

"Oh, Cy, look! do look!" cries Sydney Owenson, springing from the piano. "Here's richness! Miss Jones and Mr. Carew getting up a flirtation in the moonlight! She nipped yours in the bud, and now she leads him off captive herself!"

"Haw, haw, haw! Yes, by Jove!" booms the colonel; "Carew has trotted off Miss Jones! The wolf spares the lambs, and makes off with the sheep-dog! Fred Carew turns his back on four of the prettiest girls in Canada, and begins spooning with the old maid! What a capital joke for the mess-table to-morrow!"

"A most capital joke," says Cyrilla Hendrick; but her black eyes flash as they follow the two retreating figures. She knows as well as that she stands there that he is doing it for her sake, martyrizing himself to propitiate the dragon, but in her heart she loves this elegant, soft-spoken dandy so passionately well, that the bare sight of him flirting with even poor, plain Miss Jones is hateful to her.

The lamps are lit in the drawing-room; song, and music, and games of all kinds go on. An hour passes, and the truants have not returned.

"You don't suppose Carew can have eaten her, Dorothy, my love?" says the old colonel, with a diabolical grin, to his wife. "Begad! if they're not here in ten minutes, I shall consider it my duty to go in search of them."

They enter as he speaks—Mr Carew calm, complacent, listless, but not looking more bored than customary—Miss Jones with a flush, either of pleasure or night air, still glowing frostily on either pippin cheek.

"Mr. Carew asked me to explain the process of converting maple sap into maple sugar," she explains elaborately to Mrs. Delamere; "so we wandered down by the grove of maples, and really I had no idea an hour had passed."

"Pray, don't apologize, my dear Miss Jones," answered Mrs. Delamere, demurely. "I am only too grateful to Mr. Carew if he has helped to make your visit agreeable. What! going so soon? Oh, surely not, Miss Jones!"

But it is past nine, and Miss Jones, conscious of having swerved from the stern path of rectitude, is resolute. So the girls flutter up-stairs after wraps, still giggling in chorus over Miss Jones's unexpected flirtation. Miss Hendrick does not giggle, she smiles scornfully, and transfixes her teacher with her derisive black eyes—a glance Miss Jones, for once, does not care to meet.

"Begad, Freddy," says the colonel, when the ladies have left the room, "I expected it would be a case of love at first sight with you this evening, but I didn't—no, by gad, I didn't think it would have been with the old maid."

"Miss Jones is a most intelligent and well-informed young lady," answers Mr. Carew, imperturbably, and with half-closed eyes. "I am going to see her home."

They flutter back as he says it, and he and the colonel rise. Good-nights are spoken while Mr. Carew draws on his overcoat and gloves, looking very elegant and amiable, and a little vibrating thrill of expectation goes through the group of girls. To whom will he offer his arm? He walks up to Miss Jones as they think it, with the air of its being an understood thing, and once again draws her hand within his coat sleeve.

"En avant, mon colonel," he says; "we will follow."

The colonel gives one arm to his favorite, Sydney, the other to Cyrilla, and leads the way. The two French girls come after. Mr. Carew and Miss Jones bring up the rear, sauntering slowly in the piercing white moonlight. All the way, along the deathly silent streets, the colonel cracks his ponderous and rather stupid jokes. Sydney laughs good-naturedly, but Cyrilla Hendrick's darkly-handsome face looks sombre and silent. They reach the gates—Babette, the portress, is there awaiting them. Universal hand-shaking and adieus follow. For one second Cyrilla's cold fingers lie in Fred Carew's close clasp, for one second the blue eyes meet the black ones meaningly.

"At eleven," he whispers; "don't fail."

Then the great gates clang upon them, and Babette, yawning loudly, goes in before into the gray, gloomy pensionnat.